FEBRUARY 26, 1914] 
thermometer not ranging above zero for a period of 
thirty hours extending through the entire day, Dr. Bell, 
upon entering a large train shed, some 75 ft. high and of 
te very extensive area, found that snow was steadily 
falling, produced by the congelation of the steam 
from the numerous locomotives. The interesting 
point was that the snow had aggregated into flakes 
of fair size, not distinctly crystalline, but still flakes, 
in spite of the short distance of the possible fall. The 
thermometer was then about 5° F. below zero, and 
in the evening at a similar temperature the whole 
interior of the train shed was still white with this 
deposit of snow. The general phenomenon, of course, 
has been many times recorded, but is very rarely seen, 
particularly on so large a scale and for so long a time. 
THE exceptionally mild character of the present 
winter is being maintained until its close, and for a 
persistent continuance of warm days in January and 
February it surpasses all previous records. At Green- 
wich the thermometer in the screen was above 50° for 
eighteen consecutive days from January 29 to February 
15. Previous records since 1841 have no longer period 
than eleven days, in the months of January and 
February combined, with the thermometer continu- 
ously above 50°, and there are only four such periods— 
1846, January 21-31; 1849, January 16-26; 1856, 
February 6-16; and 1873, January 4-14. Besides 
these there are only three years, 1850, 1869, and 1877 
with a consecutive period of ten days in January and 
February with the temperature above 50°. The per- 
sistent continuance of the absence of frost is also very 
nearly a record. To February 24 there have been 
thirty consecutive days at Greenwich without frost in 
the screen, and the only years with a longer con- 
tinuous period in January and February are 1867, with 
thirty-seven days, 1872, with forty-three days, and 
1884, with thirty-two days. The maximum tempera- 
tures in the two months have seldom been surpassed. 
In many respects there is a resemblance between the 
weather this winter and that in 1899, when in February 
blizzards and snowstorms were severe on the other 
side of the Atlantic, with tremendous windstorms in 
the open ocean, whilst on this side of the Atlantic 
the weather was exceptionally mild. It is to be hoped 
that this year we shall be spared the somewhat sharp 
frosts experienced in the spring of 1899. 
Tue annual Home Office report and statistics of the 
output of mines and quarries in Great Britain for the 
year 1912 has been published. It is greatly to be 
regretted that the report should take nearly a twelve- 
month before the definite figures of the year’s mineral 
production can be published, as by this time these 
figures present but little interest. It is true that the 
approximate figures issued at an earlier date give a 
great deal of the information, and that the early figures 
rarely require much alteration. As a matter of fact, 
however, the Department of Mineral Statistics, like so 
many departments of the Government that do useful 
but not showy work, is neglected in favour of others 
that make a more direct appeal to the gallery. Our 
Department of Mineral Statistics is understaffed, and 
the collection and definition of mineral statistics are 
not, as they should be, controlled by precise and ! 
NO. 2313, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
721 
definite legal enactments. Thus it is impossible to 
know from the report whether the item coal means 
““drawings,’’ inclusive of ‘‘walings,’’ or whether it 
refers to clean coal only; or, again, whether the 
quantity of coal is inclusive or exclusive of colliery 
consumption. What is really needed in this country 
is a brief Mineral Statistics Act, regulating the precise 
manner in which the various statistics should be col- 
lected and tabulated, and giving legal force to the 
definitions now so loosely employed, and if such an 
Act could be drawn up as the result of an international 
conference, so that the statistics of the great mineral- 
producing countries of the world could be correctly 
compared with each other, a great advance would be 
made towards the scientific study of this important 
branch of knowledge. 
In the February issue of Man, Sir C. H. Read 
describes a remarkable Bactrian bronze ceremonial 
axe which has been recently added to the British 
Museum collections. It is composed of the figures of 
three animals—a boar, a tiger, and an ibex. The 
cutting edge is formed of the back of the first, which 
is attacking the tiger, who is turning round and 
gripping the flanks of a crouching ibex. Our present 
scanty knowledge of the archzology of Afghanistan in 
the centuries preceding the Sassanian dynasty does not 
admit of any distinct statement of the uses to which 
an object of this kind might be put, nor are we able 
to interpret the symbolism of the conjunction of these 
three animals. The nearest analogy is an axe pre- 
sented to the British Museum by Major P. M. Sykes, 
from Kerman in Persia. In this the animal forms are 
degraded and almost lost; but a second axe of the 
same find has the beasts standing free and well- 
defined, though the execution is not so artistic as in 
the present example, which, by comparison with the 
Oxus treasure in the museum, is probably a specimen 
of the art of Bactria about the time of Alexander the 
Great. 
ACCORDING to the reports published in the December 
issue of the Proceedings for 1913, the Philadelphia 
Academy of Sciences appears to have had a prosperous 
year, having received during that period two consider- 
able money bequests, while a number of cases in the 
museum have been rearranged. The accessions to the 
library were nearly 1000 in excess of those in the 
preceding year. 
Parts viii. and ix. of Dr. Koningsberger’s “ Java” 
contain a brief account of the fishes of the island— 
both fresh-water and marine—which are stated to be 
still very imperfectly known. Another section is 
devoted to the reptiles, in which it is stated that 
Schlegel’s gharial (Tomistoma schlegeli), of Sumatra, 
Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula, may not improbably 
occur in Java, although definite evidence is not yet 
forthcoming. 
THE question whether a certain number of fertilised 
female house-flies (Musca domestica) pass the winter 
in a dormant condition, to revive and produce progeny 
in the spring, according to a note by Mr. E. A. Austen, 
of the British Museum, in the February number of 
‘The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, still awaits 
