652 
wooded area of 65,766 acres, consist partly of the 
ancient hereditary estates of the Crown (New Forest, 
Dean Forest, Bere Woods, etc.), and partly of estates 
that have been recently acquired, as Inverliever 
Estate in Argyllshire, and Hafod Fawr Estate in 
Merionethshire. Instruction in forestry is provided 
at the Chopwell Woods, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
which was managed by the Lecturer in Forestry of 
the Armstrong College, and at the School for Work- 
ing Foresters in the Forest of Dean, which was 
established in 1903, and passed out sixty-four 
certificated woodmen in the subsequent nine years. 
The most important chapter in the report is devoted 
to the timber trade of the United Kingdom. The 
annual home supply of timber is less than 20,000,000 
cubic feet, and cannot be appreciably increased, unless 
extensive afforestation is carried out immediately, of 
the actual inception of which there is no sign in the 
report, no money being available as yet from De- 
velopment Funds for such a purpose in England or 
Scotland. The annual import of unmanufactured 
timber now stands at 400,000,000 cubic feet, valued 
t 28,360,000]., to which must be added manufactured 
timber, 3,400,000l., and wood pulp, 4,400,000l., or a 
total of 36,160,o00l. annually spent on foreign timber 
and wood pulp. Our consumption of timber, as 
shown in the decennial tables of the report, has 
steadily grown with the progress of our industries; 
and during the last decade the price of timber has 
considerably increased. The day is not far off when 
coal-mining, the extension of railway and telegraph 
communications, building, etc., will be checked by the 
high price of foreign timber, the only supply 
available. 
DISCOVERIES connecting the pre-Cambrian fossil 
algal florea with the blue-green alge of to-day are 
announced in a preliminary report by Dr. Charles D. 
Walcott, published by the Smithsonian Institution. 
The fossil remains of these ancient marine plants 
which form part of the Palzontological collections of 
the U.S. National Museum were collected in the 
Algonkian formations ot the Cordilleran area of 
Western America, chiefly in the Big Belt Mountains 
of Montana. Eight genera and twelve species, new 
to science, are described by the author, who includes 
illustrations of both the ancient and modern forms 
for comparison. Dr. Walcott proposes to visit during 
the present field season the localities where these old 
forms of life in fossil form are found, for the purpose 
of continuing his investigations and to gather data for 
a further and more detailed report. 
WE have received a copy of No. 1 of a new journal 
dealing with biochemistry, the Bulletin de la Société 
de Chimie Biologique, which, as its name implies, is 
the organ of the newly formed French Biochemical 
Society. One of the most striking facts of the past 
few years is the very great development of biochemistry 
as a special science; this branch of chemistry has now 
its own journals in England, Germany, France, and 
the United States, all of which are regularly publish- 
ing numerous and important papers. Considering the 
activity of French chemists in this particular field, the 
existence of a special journal in which their researches 
NO.: 2338, VOL.)O3] 
NATURE 
[AUGUST 20, I914 
may become readily available to other workers is a 
welcome fact. Foreign biochemists will undoubtedly 
wish the newly formed society every success in its 
efforts. 
A USEFUL paper on the climate of Lorenzo Marques 
(Delagoa Bay), with frequent references to the 
meteorological elements of South Africa, by Sr. A. de 
Almeida Teixeira, is published in the South African 
Journal of Science for July. The mean annual tem- 
perature, from fourteen years’ observations, is 72-:0°; 
January, 786°; July, 64°49. 
quoted are 111-9° (November) and 460° (July), but 
readings above 104° and less. than 48° are excep- 
tional. Extremes of heat are due to hot winds from 
N.N.W., which precede atmospheric depressions; 
these are immediately followed by fresh south winds 
with a fall at times of nearly 29° within an hour and 
a half. The mean annual rainfall is 26-7 in., on 
77 days; the wettest month is January, with 5 in.; 
the driest, August, with o'5 in. The average annual 
percentage of hours of sunshine is 61°3, but the in- 
strument used is Jordan’s photographic recorder, which 
is not directly comparable with the Campbell-Stokes 
burning instrument. The usual four seasons are not 
well marked, a better division being the warm and 
rainy season—October to March—and the cool and 
practically dry season—April to September. The 
author points out that the climate is more pleasant 
than could be expected from its geographical position, 
owing, among other things, to the sea breezes and the 
scarcity of calms, and he quotes Commander de 
Lacerda’s view that ‘tin winter during the period of 
fine weather, and with the south winds prevailing, the 
climate may be placed on a level with the best in the 
world.”’ 
Tue recently published Transactions of the Cardiff 
Naturalists’ Society for 1913 contains monthly and 
yearly rainfall values and other details for fifty-one 
stations in the Society’s district. The tables are 
arranged according to the height above sea-level; at 
the highest station, Tyle Brith, Brecknockshire 
(2350 ft.), the annual fall was 89 in.; at Cardiff, 
Penylan station (204 ft.), 42°1 in.; at Cadoxton, Barry 
(20 ft.), 32°2 in. A comparison with the averages 
shows that the year was abnormally wet. Climatology 
is indebted to Dr. E. Walford, medical officer of 
health, for the preparation of this useful report froyn 
data supplied by voluntary observers. 
Part 3 of Publication No. 149 of the Carnegie In- 
stitution consists of a report by Prof. Carl Barus, of 
Brown University, on the application of interference 
methods of measurement in a number of branches of 
physics. The first is to the measurement of the index 
of refraction of a double refracting crystal for the 
extraordinary ray in terms of that for the ordinary ray, 
by inserting a plate of the crystal in the path of one 
of the interferometer beams and observing the two 
sets of elliptic interference fringes produced. A 
second is to the accurate comparison of screws, and a 
third to the detection and study of the motion of a 
resonator, or of the disc of a telephone. Attempts to 
detect a change in the index of refraction of rarefied 
The absolute extremes _ 
Or ae ele ek ee 
