Oct. 9, 1884] 



NA TURE 



559 



added a very complete index in two parts. The first part 

 gives a list of the stations at which observations have 

 been made, arranged alphabetically under the names of 

 the countries of Europe in which they are situated ; the 

 total number of such stations is 1926. The second part 

 consists of the names of these 1926 stations arranged 

 alphabetically, with the years in which observations have 

 been taken, and references to the works in which these 

 observations are recorded. Some very curious facts may 

 be obtained from this index. Whilst there are 315 

 stations in Great Britain, there are no less than 918 in 

 Germany and Austria, and consequently 693 for the rest 

 of Europe. But a more critical examination of the list 

 reveals the fact that, of these 1926 stations, only 334 were 

 taking observations in 1882, the date of the compilation 

 of the work, and at only 97 of these 334 stations had 

 observations been continued for ten years or more. Even 

 this small number requires modification, for out of the 97 

 only 60 had observations for ten consecutive years, thus 

 showing how spasmodically the subject had been treated 

 till quite a recent date. Of the 1592 stations at which 

 observations have ceased, there are only 210 with records 

 of ten years and over. Considering the nature of the 

 subject, ten years' work must be considered as the very 

 least from which anything reliable may be deduced ; 

 whence, small as the number is compared with the large 

 number of stations at which phenological work has been 

 done, it is yet satisfactory to find that there is some good 

 material to be obtained. Of late years the subject has 

 been much more attended to, especially in England, since 

 the Royal Meteorological Society took the matter in hand, 

 and of the 334 stations at which observations are now taken, 

 no less than 94 are in Great Britain and 1 12 in Germany. 



Dr. Ihne regrets that the observations as taken for the 

 Royal Meteorological Society refer to herbaceous rather 

 than woody plants, and are exclusively confined to wild 

 flowers and not to cultivated ones. His own list, which 

 has been very generally distributed throughout Europe, has 

 been drawn up on a different principle, and without enter- 

 ing into definite reasons, he condemns the Meteorologi- 

 cal Society's list. Certainly in England, in the only case 

 besides that of the Meteorological Society where a com- 

 parison of flowering throughout England has been tried, 

 cultivated plants have been entirely excluded, being found 

 by actual experience to yield no reliable results. 



The second part of the work is taken up with an enume- 

 ration of the notices on the plants in the list issued by the 

 Professors taken during the years 1879 to 1882. It would 

 have been perhaps more convenient if they had been ex- 

 hibited in a tabular form : at present it would be a work 

 of some labour to extract the notices for the purposes of 

 comparison. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

 [ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 

 [ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and novel facts.] 

 The Younger School of Botanists 

 A communication from the Rev. George Henslow to last 

 week's Nature (p. 537) concludes with the following passage : — 



" There are not wanting signs elsewhere of the evil effects of 

 the younger school of botanists not recognising the importance 

 of first training students in a thorough course of practical and 

 systematic botany before proceeding to laboratory work. In an 

 examination lately held for a post at Kew, I am informed that 

 two gentlemen who had been trained at Cambridge competed 

 with a gardener for the post. The gardener secured it. Verb, 

 sap." 



The last sentence is no doubt intended as a sort of argumentum 

 ad hominem, which it may be admitted is not without a certain 

 apparent force. Assuming for the moment the statement to be 

 true, it must be pointed out that the only scientific posts at Kew 

 which are open to public competition are those of assistants in 

 the herbarium. These posts demand qualifications of a some- 

 what technical character, for which a general training in botany 

 would by no means necessarily fit the candidates. I can imagine 

 that a senior wrangler might fail in a competition for a post of 

 computer in an observatory where arithmetical dexterity was 

 the main thing required ; a senior classic might cut an equally- 

 poor figure in seeking an appointment of library assistant if he 

 were tested in the art of writing catalogue slips. I apprehend 

 that in neither case would failure prove anything as regards 

 either mathematical or classical education. 



The examination to which Mr. Henslow alludes can only be 

 one which was held by the Civil Service Commission during the 

 past summer. There were, I believe, some dozen candidates ; 

 whether any Cambridge men were amongst them I am unable to 

 say. But the successful candidate was not a gardener, but the 

 laboratory assistant of the late Professor of Botany at Oxford— a 

 gentlemen whose services the present Professor is in despair at 

 losing. 



On a former occasion it is true that one of our garden staff did 

 obtain one of these appointments in an open competition. It is 

 not very remarkable that it should be so. Men of ability on the 

 spot have, of course, great facilities for seeing the nature of the 

 duties required and for qualifying themselves accordingly ; 

 furthermore they have the advantage of the lectures of my col- 

 league Mr. Baker, which are especially directed to the branch 

 of botany which principally occupies us at Kew. 



As to the larger question raised by Mr. Henslow, I am afraid 

 I am not wholly free from some responsibility for the proceed- 

 ings of " the younger school of botanists," the effects of which 

 he regards as evil. In the face of the successful revival in this 

 country of many branches of botanical study which the younger 

 school has effected, I am emphatically of the opinion that these 

 effects are the reverse of evil. I believe I was one of the first 

 to organise a course of so-called laboratory work in botany on 

 lines which it is only right to say were borrowed and extended 

 from the teaching and example of Prof. Huxley. In what I 

 attempted I had the generous aid of many now distinguished 

 members of the younger school. I do not doubt that they have 

 immensely improved on the beginning that was in the first 

 instance somewhat tentatively made. But the principle, I be- 

 lieve, has always remained the same, namely, to give the 

 students a thorough and practical insight into the organisation and 

 structure of the leading types of the vegetable kingdom. 'When, 

 therefore, Mr. Henslow, himself a teacher, asserts that such 

 laboratory teaching as this should be preceded by a thorough 

 course of practical and systematic botany, it appears to me that 

 he is bound to explain what he precisely means by this very dark 

 saying. For, if botanical laboratory work in this country is not 

 thorough, is not practical, and, in dealing with types drawn 

 from every important group, is not sy-tematic, it is important to 

 know in what respects it falls short of these requirements. 



W. T. Thiselton Dyer 

 Royal Gardens, Kew, October 4 



The Solar (Dust?) Halo 

 The reddish halo to which Mr. Baclhouse draws attention in 

 his letter of September 20 in Nature (p. 511) has of late been 

 noticed by several observers, and this I think is becaiue, while 

 the sunrise and sunset glows have exhibited a marked decline in 

 their duration and brilliancy since last winter, the halo has 

 shown no similar diminution of intensity, and thus attracts more 

 attention relatively than it did at first, when it remained for some 

 time almost entirely unnoticed in this country. In reply to Mr. 

 Backhouse's question as to whether this halo has been seen in 

 England previous to last November, I have a very strong im- 

 pression that it made its first appearance here coincidently with 



