426 



NATURE 



\March 6, 1690 



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 1 5 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 tempera- 

 ture reached 50° or above. 



It is interesting to notice the very great difference 

 between the temperature in January this year, in com- 

 parison with that which occurred in January 1881, 

 when the weather was exceptionally cold. At Lough- 

 borough, the mean temperature this year exceeded that 

 in 1 88 1 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 ob- 

 tained from the mean of the maximum and minimum 

 readings was43°"4 ; and with the exception of 43°*5 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°* i in 1877 and 185 1, 

 and 48° "o 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°"i, or I3'"4 colder than this year, and in x88i 

 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 i.° 

 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 tempera- 

 ture 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 ofT the Atlantic being the natural carriers 

 of warm moist air. Scarcely a day passed 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 in- 

 fluenza, 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 

 226 in 1886. Chas. Harding. 



NOTES. 

 The subject of the Bakerian Lecture, which, as we announced 

 ilast 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 follow- 

 ing sums of money : £()0 to Dr. Kohde, of Breslau, for a journey 

 to Naples to continue his observations on the central nervous 

 system of sharks and echinoderms at Prof. Dohrn's zoological 

 station ; ;^8o to Prof. Matthiessen, of Rostock, to further his 

 researches on the eyes of whales at the stations of the North Sea 

 fisheries ; £2'^ to Prof. Dr. Winkler, of Breslau, for a journey 

 to St. Petersburg to make researches on the Turkish, Samoyedi 

 and Tungusian languages ; ;^30 to Dr. Schellong, the New 

 Guinea traveller, to publish the results of his anthropological 

 studies. 



It is proposed that the following address shall be presented 

 to Prof Stuart on the occasion of his resignation of his Professor- 

 ship at Cambridge : — "We, the undersigned resident members 

 of the Senate, having learned from your letter to the Vice- 

 Chancellor 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 courses 

 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 is, 

 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. Brod- 

 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 i, 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, six 

 lectures on flame and explosives, by Prof. Dewar, F.R.S. ; 

 on Saturdays, April 19, 26, May 3, three lectures on colour 

 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 Juncaginese. 



A Congress for Viticulture will be held in Rome from'the 23rd 

 to the 27th of the present month. The principal object of the 

 Congress will be the discussion of remedies for the Peronospora 

 viticola and other diseases of the vine caused by vegetable para- 

 sites. 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. 



Appendix I. of the Kew Bulletin, just issued, contains a list 

 of such hardy herbaceous annual and perennial plants and 

 of such trees and shrubs as matured seeds under cultivation in 

 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 



