ance of these plants in their native countries for food and drink, 

 for fibre, and, he might have added, building material. Mr. Riley 

 called attention to another use less generally known, to w^hich the 

 stalk is being put. No valuable or permanent entomological 

 collection can be formed except in close-fitting boxes lined with 

 some material in which the finest pins may be securely stuck. 

 Boiler-felt, bog-peat, the pith of various plants, as elder, broom 

 and Indian corn, etc., have been used for this purpose ; but 

 nothing hitherto had surpassed sheet-cork. He exhibited slices of 

 the stalk of Agave Americana^ 12X4X J inches, which answer 

 this purpose admirably, the wood being remarkably light and 

 porous, and pins being pushed into it with great ease, and yet 

 being held firmly. It is much cheaper than cork. The cele- 

 brated traveler Mr. A. R. Wallace preserved all his valuable 

 entomological collectings in the East Indies, in boxes made of 

 pieces of this substance pinned together with thorns, and it is 

 now coming into very general use. 



THE METEOROLOGY OF 1 875. 



The following paper by Dr. George Engelmann, absent, was 

 read by his son. Dr. G. J. Engelmann : 



It is always interesting to review the meteorological history of a year 

 just past, but it is doubly so when the year has been of such an uncommon 

 character as the last was. 



The general characteristic of the year 1875 was the continued low tem- 

 perature, and a greater degree of rainfall in the summer, than we have had 

 for a number of years. Not that the temperature of summer was so low 

 as to interfere with a proper development of the agricultural products of 

 our region, or the humidity to any excessive extent injurious to them; but, 

 compared with other seasons, the temperature was low, and the rainfall at 

 a certain (to the agricultural interests, important) season, considerable, if 

 not excessive. 



Not only was the mean temperature of the year the lowest one of the 

 forty years during which I have made such observations here in St. Louis, 

 but the temperature of every single month in the year was lower than the 

 average for the month. 



Not that every single month of the past year was colder than the same 

 month ever was before ; that was the case only in August. No month of 

 August in forty years was as cool as that of the past year. February was 

 colder only once, in 1838; January twice, and, singularly enough, in two 

 successive years, 1856 and 1857; April three times; March and September 

 five times, and so forth. 



