the sections from the top of the Berwyns to Bala. Murchison concluded, after his brief examination, and told Sedgwick, that the Bala group could not be brought within the limits of his system. He says: "I believed it it to plunge under the true Llandeilo flags with Asaphus Buchii, which I had recognized on the east flank of that chain." "Not seeing, on that hurried visit, any of the characteristic Llandeilo Trilobites in the Bala limestone, I did not then identify that rock with the Llandeilo flags, as has since been done by the Government surveyors' (Q. J. G. Soc., viii. 175). In 1835, the terms "Silurian" and "Cambrian" first appear in geological literature. Murchison named his system the "Silurian" in an article in the Philosophical Magazine for July of that year, and at the same time defined the two grand subdivisions of the system: (I.) the Upper Silurian, or the Ludlow and Wenlock beds; and (11.) the Lower Silurian, or the Caradoc and Llandeilo beds (Phil. Mag., vii. 46, July 1835). During the next month, August, the fourth meeting of the British Association was held at Edinburgh, and in the Report of the meeting (Brit. Assoc., v., August 1835), the two terms, "Silurian" and "Cambrian," are united in the title of a communication "by Prof. Sedgwick and R. I. Murchison," the title reading, "On the Silurian and Cambrian Systems, exhibiting the order in which the older sedimentry strata succeed each other in England and Wales." Murchison, after explaining his several subdivisions, said that "in South Wales" he had "traced many distinct passages from the lowest member of the "Silurian system" into the underlying slaty rocks now named by Prof. Sedgwick the Upper Cambrian." Sedgwick spoke of his "Upper Cambrian group" as including the greater part of the chain of the Berwyns, where, he said, "it is connected with the Llandeilo flags of the Silurian and expanded through a considerable part of South Wales"; the "Middle Cambrian group" as "comprising the higher mountains of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire"; the "Lower Cambrian group" as occupying the south-west coast of Caernarvonshire, and consisting of chlorite and mica schists, and some serpentine and granular limestone; and finally, he "explained the mode of connecting Mr. Murchison's researches with his own so as to form one general system." son. Without a report on the fossils, no companson W2! possible at that time with Murchison's Silurian series Yet Sedgwick goes so far as to say that the "Uppe Cambrian," which "commences with the fossilferes beds of Bala, and includes all the higher portions of the Berwyns and all the slate-rocks of South Wales which are below the Silurian System," "appears to pass insensible gradation into the lower division of the Upper System (the Caradoc Sandstone) ;" and that" many of the fossils are identical in species with those of th Silurian System." Respecting the Silurian System be refers to the abstracts of Mr. Murchison's papers und "his forthcoming work." The Protozoic division included the "Highlands of Scotland, the crystalline schists of Anglesea, and the south-west coast of Caernarvonshire." It is added "The series is generally without organic remains; h should organic remains appear unequivocally in any part of this class they may be described as the Protote System." In the later part of the same year, 1838, Murchisons "Silurian System" was published a quarto volume Soo pages, with twenty-seven plates of fossils, and nine folded plates of stratigraphical sections, besides many plates in the text-the outcome of his eight years of work. Five hundred pages are devoted to the Silunar System. The dedication is as follows: "To you, my dear Sedgwick, a large portion of whose life has been devoted to the arduous study of the older British rocks, I dedicate this work. "Having explored with you many a tract, both at home and abroad, I beg you to accept this offering as a memoria. of friendship, and of the high sense I entertain of the valce of your labours." Through Murchison's investigations here recorded, he remarks in his introduction with reasonable satisfi tion, "a complete succession of fossiliferous strata t interpolated between the Old Red Sandstone and the oldest slaty rocks." He observes as follows of Sedg wick:-"In speaking of the labours of my friend, I ma truly say, that he not only shed an entirely new light on the crystalline arrangement or slaty cleavage of the North Welsh mountains, but also overcame what to most me would have proved insurmountable difficulties in deterlike-mining the order and relations of these very ancient strata amid scenes of vast dislocation. He further mice several traverses across the region in which I was e ployed; and, sanctioning the arrangement I had adopte he not only gave me confidence in its accuracy, b: enhanced the value of my work by enabling me to ur tr it with his own; and thus have our joint exertions led to a general view of the sequence of the older fossiiferou deposits." In accordance with these statements many qu the descriptions and the very numerous sections represent the Cambrian rocks lying beneath the Silurian-though necessarily with incorrect details, since neither Murch son nor Sedgwick had then any appreciation of the actual connection between the so-called Cambrian an Silurian. Thus, in four years Murchison had developed the true system in the rocks he was studying; and Sedgwick wise had reached what appeared to be a natural grouping of the rocks of his complicated area. Further, in a united paper, or papers presented together, they had announced the names Silurian and Cambrian, and expressed their mutual satisfaction with the defined limits. Neither was yet aware of the unfortunate mischief-involving fact that the two were overlapping series. It is well here to note that the term “Cambrian” antedates "Taconic" of Emmons by seven years; and also that Emmons did not know-any more than Sedgwick with regard to the Cambrian-that his system of rocks was in part Lower Silurian, and of Llandeilo and Caradoc age. In May of 1838, nearly three years later, Sedgwick presented his first detailed memoir on North Wales and the Cambrian rocks to the Geological Society. Without referring to the characteristic fossils, he divides the rocks below the Old Red Sandstone, beginning below, into (I.) the Primary Stratified Groups, including gneiss, micaschist, and the Skiddaw slates, giving the provisional name of "Protozoic" for the series should it prove to be fossiliferous, and (II.) the Paleozoic Series; the latter including (1) the Lower Cambrian (answering to Middle Cambrian of the paper of 1835), (2) the Upper Cambrian, and (3) the "Silurian," or the series so called by Murchi 1 An abstract appeared in the Proc. Geol. Soc., ii. 675, 1838. A continua. tion of the paper appeared in 1841, ibid., iii. 541. See also Q. J. Geol. Soc., viii., 1852. The Silurian System, as here set forth, is essentially that of Murchison's earlier paper of 1835; and throug the work, as each region is taken up, the rocks of the Upper and Lower divisions, and their several subdivision: are described in order, with a mention of the characteristic fossils. As to the relations of the two grand div sions, he says that, "although two or three species shells of the Upper Silurian rocks may be detected in the Lower Silurian, the mass of organic remains in each Group is very distinct." Later he makes the number of identical species larger; but even the newest results do not increase it so far as to set aside Murchison's general statement of 1838. Sedgwick, with all the light which the fossils of the -Silurian System" were calculated to throw on his Upper Cambrian series, found in the work no encroachments on his field or on his views. They were still side try side in their labours among the hitherto unfathomed linitish Paleozoic rocks. In 1840 and 1841, Murchison was in Russia with M. de Verneuil and Count Keyserling, and also in Scandinavia and Bohemia, seeking to extend his knowledge of the older fossiliferous rocks and verify his conclusions; and in 1845 the great work on the "Geology of Russia and the Urals" came out, with a further display of Upper and Lower Silurian life. In his Presidential addresses of 842 and 1843, reviewing the facts in the light of his new bservations, he went so far as to say that the Lower Silurian rocks were the oldest of fossiliferous rocks, and that the fossiliferous series of North Wales seemed to exhibit no vestiges of animal life different from those of the Lower Silurian group. Sull Sedgwick made no protest. He states definitely on this point in his paper of 1852 (Q. J. Geol. Soc., viii. 153, 1852), that from 1834, the time of the excursion with Murchison, until 1842, he had accepted Murchison's conclusions, including the reference of the Meifod beds to The Caradoc or Silurian, without questioning; but that from that time, 1842, he began to lose his confidence in 'ne stability of the base-line of the "Silurian System." He adds that in 1842, Mr. Salter, the palæontologist, informed him that the Meifod beds were on the same horizon nearly with the Bala beds; and he accepted this conclusion to its full extent, using the words, "if the Meifod beds were Caradoc, the Bala beds must also be Caradoc or very nearly on its parallel." Thus the inference of Murchison was adopted, and discrepancy between them deferred. And on the following page he acknowedges that all his papers of which there is any notice in the Proceedings or Journal of the Geological Society between 1843 and 1846 admit this view as to the Bala beds and certain consequences of it-"mistakes," as he pronounced them six years later, in 1852 (Q.J. Geol. Soc., vin 154, 1852). In 1843, Sedgwick read before the Geological Society in June, a paper entitled "An Outline of the Geological Structure of North Wales," which was published in abstract in the Proceedings (iv. 251); and in November of the same year, one "On the Older Palæozoic (Protozoic Rocks of North Wales" (from observations by himself in company with Mr. Salter), which appeared, with a rap, in the Journal of the Geological Society (i. 1). The abstract in the Proceedings was prepared by Mr. Warburton, the President of the Geological Society, and the paper of the following November makes no allusion to this fact, or any objection to the abstract. A remarkable feature of the November paper is that it nowhere contains the term "Upper Cambrian" or even Cambrian," although the rocks are Sedgwick's Upper Cambrian, together with Murchison's Upper Silurian. A second fact of historical interest is the use of the term "Protozoic," not in the sense in which it was introduced by him in 1838, but in that in which introduced in 1838 by Murchison, on p. 11 of his "Silurian System," where he says: "But the Silurian, though ancient, are not, as before stated, the most ancient fossiliferous strata. They are, in truth, but the upper portion of a succession of early deposits which it may hereafter be found necessary to describe under one comprehensive name. For this purpose I venture to suggest the term 'Protozoic Rocks thereby to imply the first or lowest formations in which animals or vegetables appear." These facts are in accordance with Sedgwick's acknowledgment, already mentioned. The map accompanying the paper as originally prepared, had colours corresponding to five sets of areas, those of the "Carboniferous Limestone," Upper Silurian," "Protozoic Rocks," "Mica and Chlorite Slate," "Porphyritic Rocks"; and here again Cambrian, Upper or Lower, does not appear, the term Protozoic being substituted. The map, as it stands in the Journal of the Geological Society, has, in place of simply " Protozoic," the words "Lower Silurian (Protozoic)." Sedgwick complains, in his paper of 1852, pp. 154, 155, of this change from his manuscript, and attributes it to Mr. Warburton, saying that "the map with its explanations of the colours plainly shows that Mr. Warburton did not comprehend the very drift and object of my paper." "I gave one colour to this whole Protozoic series only because I did not know how to draw a clear continuous line on the map between the Upper Protozoic (or Lower Silurian) rocks and the Lower Protozoic (or Lower Cambrian) rocks." "Nor did I ever dream of an incorporation of all the Lower Cambrian rocks in the system of Siluria." Sedgwick also says on the same point: "I used the word 'Protozoic' to prevent wrangling about the words Cambrian and Silurian." But this is language he had no disposition to use in 1843, as the paper of 1843 shows. Page 155 has a footnote. In it the aspect of the facts is greatly changed. He takes back his charges, saying, "I suspect that, in the explanation of the blank portion of the rough map exhibited in illustration of my paper I had written Lower Silurian and Protozoic,' and that Mr. Warburton, erroneously conceiving the two terms identical, changed the words into Lower Silurian (Protozoic)." "I do not by any means accuse Mr. Warburton of any intentional injustice-quite the contrary; for I know that he gave his best efforts to the abstract. But he had undertaken a task for which he was not prepared, inasmuch as he had never well studied any series of rocks like those described in my papers." Sedgwick here uses Protozoic in the Sedgwick sense, not, as above, in the Murchison sense. Sedgwick again, in 1854, speaks of "the tampering with the names of my reduced map." But these explanations of his should take the harshness out of the sentence, as it was in 1843 to 1846 out of all his words. The paper has further interest in its long lists of fossils in two tables: (I.) "Fossils of the Older Palæozoic (Protozoic) Rocks in North Wales, by J. W. Salter and J. de C. Sowerby," showing their distribution; and (2) "Fossils of the Denbigh Flagstone and Sandstone Series." 66 Thus, until 1846, no serious divergence of views had been noted by Sedgwick. This is manifested in his paper on the "Slate-rocks of Cumberland," read before the Geological Society on January 7 and 21, 1846 (Q. J. Geol. Soc., ii. 106, 122, 1846), which says, on the last page but one: Taking the whole view of the case, therefore, as I know it, I would divide the older Palæozoic rocks of our island into three great groups-(3) the upper group, exclusively Upper Silurian; (2) the middle group, or Lower Silurian, including Llandeilo, Caradoc, and perhaps Wenlock; (1) the first group, or Cambrian;" differing in this arrangement from Murchison only in the suggestion about the Wenlock. The italics are his own. He adds: "This arrangement does no violence to the Silurian system of Sir R. Murchison, but takes it up in its true place; and I think it enables us to classify the old rocks in such a way as to satisfy the conditions both of the fossil and physical as well as mineralogical development.” But before the year 1846 closed, not only the overlapping of their work was recognized, but also the consequences ahead, and divergence of opinion began. In December a paper was presented by Sedgwick to the Geological Society, on "The Fossiliferous Slates of North Wales, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire" (Q. J. Geol. Soc., iii. 133, December 1846), which contains a protest against the downward extension of the Silurian so as to include the Cambrian. It is excellent in spirit and fair in argument. Many new facts are given respecting sections of the rocks in South Wales and North Wales, in some of which occur the Lingula flags, and characteristic fossils are mentioned. In describing some South Wales sections, Sedgwick uses the term "CambroSilurian" to include, beginning below: (1) "conglomerates and slates, (2) Lower Llandeilo flags, (3) slates and grits (Caradoc sandstone of Noeth Grug, &c.), (4) Upper Llandeilo flag, passing by insensible gradations into Wenlock shale." The Cambrian series is made to include: (1) the Festiniog or Tremadoc group; (2) roofing-slates, &c., the "Snowdonian group," fossiliferous in Snowdon, &c.; (3) the Bala group; and then (4) "the Cambro-Silurian group," comprising "the lower fossiliferous rocks east of the Berwyns between the Dee and the Severn-the Caradoc sandstone of the typical country of Siluria—and the Llandeilo flags of South Wales, along with certain associated slates, flags, and grits." The extension of the term Silurian down to the Lingula flags, or beyond, is opposed, because the beds below the Llandeilo are not part of the Silurian system; the term Silurian [derived from the Silures of South-East Wales and the adjoining part of England] is not geographically applicable to the Cambrian rocks; and because the only beds in North Wales closely comparable " with the Llandeilo flags are at the top of the whole Cambrian series." This last reason later lost its value when it was proved, as Sedgwick recognized years afterward, that Murchison's Llandeilo flags were really older than Sedgwick's Bala rocks. Sedgwick's paper was followed, on January 6, with one by Murchison (Q. J. Geol. Soc., iii. 165, January 1847) objecting to this absorption of the Lower Silurian, and reiterating his remark of 1843 that the fossiliferous Cambrian beds were Lower Silurian in their fossils, and arguing, thence, for the absorption of the Cambrian, to this extent, by the Silurian. Having, eight years before, in his great work on the "Silurian System," described the Lower Silurian groups with so much detail, and with limits well defined by sections and by long lists of fossils, over a hundred species in all, many of them figured as well as described, and having thus added a long systematized range of rocks to the lower part of the Palæozoic series, he was naturally unwilling to give up the name of Lower Silurian for that of Upper Cambrian or Cambro-Silurian. Moreover, the term "Silurian," with the two subdivisions of the system, the Upper and Lower, had gone the world over, having been accepted by geologists of all lands as soon as proposed, become affixed to the rocks to which they belonged, and put into use in memoirs, maps, and geological treatises. In 1852, the controversy, begun by encroachments not intended on either part, reached its height. Sedgwick's earnest presentation of the case (Q. J. Geol. Soc., viii. 152), and appeal before the Geological Society in February of that year-making the latter part of a memoir by him on the "Classification and Nomenclature of the Lower Palæozoic Rocks of England and Wales"-argues, like that of 1846, for the extension of the Cambrian from below upward to include the Bala beds, and thereby also the Llandeilo flags and Caradoc sandstone, although he says, "my friend has published a magnificent series of fossils from the Llandeilo flagstone." Sedgwick also expresses dissatisfaction with Mr. Warburton's abstract of his paper of June 1843, and with the change made in his map of November 1843, but, as shown above, he has no blame for Murchison and little for Mr. Warburton. He also points out some errors in the stratigraphical sections of the "Silurian System "-since the publication of which fourteen years had passed. He closes with the word (p. 168): "I affirm that the name Silurian, given to the great Cambrian series below the Caradoc group, is histoncils unjust. I claim this great series as my own by the n doubted right of conquest; and I continue to give it the name 'Cambrian' on the right of priority, and, moreover as the only name yet given to the series that does no involve a geographical contradiction. The name 'Siluri.r not merely involves a principle of nomenclature that is war with the rational logic through which every other Palæozoic group of England has gained a permanent name, but it also confers the presumed honour of a conquest over the older rocks of Wales on the part of nue who barely touched their outskirts, and mistook his way as soon as he had passed within them. "I claim the right of naming the Cambrian rocks be cause I flinched not from their difficulties, made out ries general structure, collected their fossils, and first con prehended their respective relations to the groups abe them and below them, in the great and complete. Palæozoic sections of North Wales. Nor is this all! – ' claim the name Cambrian, in the sense in which I have used it, as a means of establishing a congruous nomendature between the Welsh and the Cumbrian mountains, and bringing their respective groups into a rigid geological comparison; for the system on which I have for mars years been labouring is not partial and one-sided, t general and for all England." Sedgwick does not seem to have recognized the fact that Murchison had the same right to extend the Siluriat system to the base of the Llandeilo beds, whatever ithorizon, that he had to continue the Cambrian to the top of the Bala beds.1 Murchison's reply was made at the meeting of the Geological Society in June (Q. J. Geol. Soc., viii. 171852). He remarked, with regard to Sedgwick's allusio to the excursion of 1834, that, "if I lost my way in gorg downward into the region of my friend, it was under hiown guidance; I am answerable only for Silurian and Cambrian rocks described and drawn as such within own region." In his closing remarks Murchison says: "I am now well pleased to find that, with the exception of my old friend, all my geological contemporaries in my own country adhere to the unity of the Silurian System and thus sustain its general adoption. "No one more regrets than myself that Cambri should not have proved, what it was formerly supposed to be, more ancient than the Silurian region, and thus Lave afforded distinct fossils and a separate system; but as things which are synonymous cannot have separate Tes there is no doubt that, according to the laws of scientin literature, the term 'Silurian' must be sustained 15 applied to all the fossiliferous rocks of North Wales 'Lastly, let me say to those who do not understand the nature of the social union of the members of the Geological Society, that the controversy which has prevailed between the eloquent Woodwardian Professor and myself has not for a moment interrupted our strong personal friendship. I am indeed confident we shall slide down the hill of life with the same mutual regard which animated us formerly when climbing together many a mountai both at home and abroad." Murchison was right in saying that all British geologists were then with him, even in the extension of the name Silurian to the lower fossiliferous Cambrian rocks; and this was a chief source of irritation to Sedgwick. It was also, with scarcely an exception, true of geologists che One important fact is pointed out in this paper in a letter from MC. on p. 143-that the May Hill group, which Murchison had referred tele point was the subject of a paper by Sedgwick in the next volume (sol Caradoc series, really bel nged by its fossils to the Upper Silurian. T the Journal of the Geological Society, March 6, 1890] NATURE where. This state of opinion was partly a consequence of Murchison's early and wonderfully full description of the Silurian rocks and their fossils, which made his work a key to the Lower Palæozoic of all lands. Sedgwick's Cambrian researches and the palaeontology of the region were not published in full before the years 1852-55, when appeared his "Synopsis of the Classification of the British Paleozoic Rocks," along with M'Coy's "Descriptions of British Paleozoic Fossils." But this general acceptance was further due to the fact that the discovered fossils of the Cambrian, from the Lingula flags downward, or the "Primordial," were few, and differed not more from Silurian forms than the Silurian differed among themselves; and also, because the beds were continuous with the Silurian, without a break. Geologists under the weight of the evidence, American as well as European, naturally gravitated in the Murchisonian direction, while applauding the work of Sedgwick. In 1853, Mr. Salter showed, by a study of the fossils J. Geol. Soc., x. 62), that the Bala beds from Bala in Merioneth, the original Bala, were included within the Sedgwick subsequently (in the period of the Caradoc. preface to the Catalogue of the Woodwardian Museum by J. W. Salter) divided his Upper Cambrian into (1) the Lower Bala, to include the Llandeilo flags (Upper Llandeilo of the Geological Survey, the Arenig being the Lower); (2) the Middle Bala, corresponding to the Caradoc sandstone, the Bala rocks, and the Coniston mestone (Geological Survey); and the Upper Bala or the Caradoc shales, Hirnant limestone, and the Lower Llandovery (cited from Etheridge, in Phillips's "Geology," ii. 77, 1885). In 1854, the Cambrian system not having secured the place claimed for it, Sedgwick brought the subject again before the Geological Society. Besides urging his former arguments, he condemned Murchison's work so far as to imply that none of his sections "give a true notion of the geological place of the groups of Caer Caradoc and Llandeilo"; and to speak of the Llandeilo beds, in a note, as "a remarkable fossiliferous group (about the age of the Bala limestone) of which the geological place was entirely mistaken in the published sections of the Silurian System." There were errors in the sections, and that with regard to the May Hill group was a prominent one; but this was sweeping depreciation without new argument; and, in consequence of it, part of the paper was refused publication by the Geological Society. The paper appeared in the Philosophical Magazine for 1854 (fourth series, vol. viii. pp. 301, 359, 481). It contains no bitter word, or personal remark against Murchison. Sedgwick was profoundly disappointed on finding, when closing up his long labours, that the Cambrian system had no place in the geology of the day. He did not see this to be the logical consequence of the facts so far as then understood. It was to him the disparagement and rejection of his faithful work; and this deeply moved him, even to estrangement from the author of the successful Silurian system. Conclusion. The ground about which there was reasonably a disputed claim was that of the Bala of Sedgwick's region and the Llandeilo and Caradoc of Murchison's. Respecting this common field, long priority in the describing and defining of the Llandeilo and Caradoc beds, both geologically and paleontologically, leaves no question as to Murchison's title. Below this level lie the rocks studied chiefly by Sedgwick; and if a dividing horizon of sufficient geological value had been found to exist, it should have been made the limit between a Cambrian and a Silurian system. The claim of a worker to affix a name to a series of rocks first studied and defined by him cannot be disputed. But science may accept, or not, according as the name is, 425 or is not, needed. In the progress of geology, the time finally was reached, when the name Cambrian was believed to be a necessity, and "Cambrian" and "Silurian" derived thence a right to follow one another in the geological record. "To follow one another;" that is, directly, without a suppression of "Silurian" from the name of the lower other term. For this is virtually appropriating what is subdivision by intruding the term "Ordovician," or any one of the greatest of British geologists. claimed (though not so intended), and does marked injustice to Moreover, such an intruded term commemorates, with harsh emphasis, misjudgments and their consequences, which are better forgotten. Rather let the two names, standing together as in 1835, recall the fifteen years of friendly labours in Cambria and Siluria and the other earlier years of united research. JAMES D. DANA. THE WEATHER IN JANUARY. THE of the month. The stations used by the Meteorological Office in the sent sufficiently the weather at inland stations, but yet compilation of the Daily Weather Report scarcely reprethey will give an approximate idea of the prevailing conditions. These reports show that the warmest weather was experienced in the south-western parts of the Kingdom, the stations in the north-east of Scotland being about 5° colder than in the south-west of England. On the east coast the mean temperatures of Wick, Aberdeen, Spurn Head, and Yarmouth were each about 41° 0. The following table gives the mean temperature results for a number of stations in all parts of the British Islands: Difference from average 15 years, 1871-1885. Number of days with 50° and above. Number of nights with 32° and below. 13 ·40'5 +2.8452 +30357 +2.7 416 +43471 +5'2361 +34 411 +32456 +3236.5 +3 2 42°2 +30482 +3.6362 +25 15 423 +34478 +47 368 +21 418 +36479 +47 356 +2.5 15 42°2 +40484 +49 360 +31 17 43'6 +32473 +29 398 +34 426 +22477 +33375 +1.2 15 447 +2248·7 +2.8 40.7 +17 18 432 +34 48.5 +4.6378 +22 16 422 +19488 +28355 +0.9 16 456+0451'1+1'3400 -0.5 21 45'7 +1950°2 +2*341*2+15 23 460 +31 49′2 +3'442·8 +29 17 483 +21515 +24450 +17 25 ·466 +42505 +45 426 +39 24 45'4 +4 2498 +4°5 40°9 +39 23 437 +4149'5 +47 378 +34 20 ..425+34481 +43368 +24 15 419 +36489 +5934'9 +23 19 40·8 +2.6456 +3·7360 +1'5 From this it is seen that the excess of temperature was least at the extreme western stations, the mean at Valencia only exceeding the average for 15 years by o°4, whilst the night temperature was even below the average. In nearly every case it is seen that the excess of the day temperatures over the average was larger than that of the night temperatures. A feature of especial interest in the table is the large number of days on which the temperature reached 50° or above. It is interesting to notice the very great difference between the temperature in January this year, in comparison with that which occurred in January 1881, when the weather was exceptionally cold. At Loughborough, the mean temperature this year exceeded that in 1881 by 17°, which is 4° in excess of the difference between the average temperature for January and May; there were also several stations in nearly all parts of the Kingdom with an excess of 12° and 13°. At Greenwich Observatory the mean temperature obtained from the mean of the maximum and minimum readings was 43'4; and with the exception of 435 in 1884 and 43°6 in 1846, this has not been exceeded in January during the last half-century. The mean of the highest day temperatures was 48°5, which is higher than any January during the last fifty years, and the only other instances of 48°, or above, were 48°1 in 1877 and 1851, and 480 in 1846. There were six years with the mean maximum between 47° and 48°, but only eighteen in all above 45°, whilst in January 1879 the mean of the maxima was only 35°1, or 13°4 colder than this year, and in 1881 it was only 36°2. There have been three Januaries during the last half-century with a higher mean night temperature, but in no year was the excess more than 1. In January this year the mean minimum was 38°2, and in 1884 it was 39°2. The Greenwich observations also show that there were in January 17 days with a temperature of 50° or above, whereas in the corresponding period during the last 50 years there has been no similarly high number of days with this temperature. It was reached 14 times in 1877, 1853, and 1846; 13 times in 1873 and 1849; 12 times in 1884; 11 times in 1874, 1869, 1852, and 1851 ; and in 28 Januaries 50° or above was only attained 5 times or less. The warm weather was very intimately connected with the heavy wind storms which occurred throughout the month, the storm systems which so frequently arrived on our coasts from off the Atlantic being the natural carriers of warm moist air. Scarcely a day pa sed during the month without the arrival of some fresh disturbance from the westward, but with one or two exceptions the central areas of the storm systems skirted the western and northern coasts and did not pass directly over our islands. The disturbances, however, passed sufficiently near to us to cause winds of gale force, and there was scarcely a day throughout the month that a gale was not blowing in some part of the United Kingdom. In the North Atlantic the month was exceptionally stormy, and vessels trading between Europe and America experienced unusually heavy weather. The month was also marked by the prevalence of influenza, and, in addition to this, a general unhealthiness pervaded all classes of the community. The death-rate, from all causes, in London, for the four weeks ending January 25, corresponded to an annual rate of 297 per 1000 of the total population, which is excessively high. The rates for the corresponding period in the last four years were 217 in 1889, 23.2 in 1888, 227 in 1887, and CHAS. HARDING. 22.6 in 1886. NOTES. THE subject of the Bakerian Lecture, which, as we announced dast week, is to be delivered by Prof. Schuster on March 20, will be "The Discharge of Electricity through Gases." THE Academy of Sciences of Berlin has presented the following sums of money: £90 to Dr. Rohde, of Breslau, for a journe to Naples to continue his observations on the central nervous system of sharks and echinoderms at Prof. Dohrn's zoologica' station; £80 to Prof. Matthiessen, of Rostock, to further h researches on the eyes of whales at the stations of the North Se fisheries; £25 to Prof. Dr. Winkler, of Breslau, for a joursry to St. Petersburg to make researches on the Turkish, Samoyed. and Tungusian languages; £30 to Dr. Schellong, the Nes Guinea traveller, to publish the results of his anthropologuz studies. It is proposed that the following address shall be presented to Prof. Stuart on the occasion of his resignation of his Professorship at Cambridge :-" We, the undersigned resident member of the Senate, having learned from your letter to the ViceChancellor your intention of resigning your Professorship in the University, desire to express our sense of the great public service which you have rendered in connection with the University Ex tension movement. By yourself first delivering specimen cours of lectures, and afterwards strenuously advocating and ably organizing their wide-spread establishment, you did for the country at large, and for our own and other Universities, work which we regard with sincere respect and admiration. The degree in which Cambridge has, during the last twenty years, come into useful relations with sections of the community which were previously regarded as beyond the sphere of its influence n we hold, largely attributable to your inspiring initiative, and to the wise principles of administration which, mainly under your guidance, the University laid down." AMONG the lectures to be delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain after Easter we note the following:-On Tues days, April 15, 22, 29, three lectures on the place of Oxford University in English history, by the Hon. George C. Brou rick; on Tuesdays, May 27, June 3, 10, three lectures on the natural history of society, by Mr. Andrew Lang; on Thurs days, April 17, 24, May 1, three lectures on the heat of the moon and stars (the Tyndall Lectures), by Mr. C. V. Boys, F.R.S.; on Thursdays, May 8, 15, 22, 29, June 5, 12. lectures on flame and explosives, by Prof. Dewar, F.RS. on Saturdays, April 19, 26, May 3, three lectures on colo and its chemical action, by Captain W.-de W. Abney, F.R.S THE De Candolle Prize has been awarded to Prof. F Buchenau, of Bremen, for his monograph of the Juncagineæ. A CONGRESS for Viticulture will be held in Rome from the 25 to the 27th of the present month. The principal object of the Congress will be the discussion of remedies for the Ferons viticola and other diseases of the vine caused by vegetable parasites. There will be an International Exhibition of apparatus for the cure of these diseases, and numerous prizes will be awarded THE annual general meeting of the members of the German Botanical Society is to be held this year in Bremen late in September. of such hardy herbaceous annual and perennial plants and APPENDIX I. of the Kew Bulletin, just issued, contains a list of such trees and shrubs as matured seeds under cultivation a the Royal Gardens, Kew, during the year 1889. It is explained that these seeds are available for exchange with Colonial, Indian, and Foreign Botanic Gardens, as well as with regular corre spondents of Kew. The seeds are for the most part only available in moderate quantity, and are not sold to the general public. THE Nachtigal Gesellschaft of Berlin, for German research in Africa, has just completed its second year of business. It was announced at the last general meeting that the list of members |