NATURE 
245 
cupboards, they are little more assorted than the plants 
which constitute a haystack. A considerable part, if not 
the whole, of the 7,000 specimens of plants from the expe- 
ditions of Hooker and Thomson, which cannot have been 
received less than fifteen years ago, were, quite lately, 
still unmounted and unincorporated. Again, merely to 
quote instances which have come unsought within my 
own observation, the plants collected in Nepaul half a 
century since by Wallich, and as I learn from a dis- 
tinguished Indian botanist, in a district which has 
never since been botanically explored, were recently, and 
perhaps are still, amongst the unarranged collections. 
These altogether, I should judge, roughly form in bulk 
about one-sixth of the whole herbarium, The arranged 
portion is estimated to possess 77,400 species of flowering 
lants, contained in 306 cabinets with 8 shelves ; the Kew 
lerbarium, on the other hand, possesses 105,000 to 
“110,000 species in 450 cabinets, on an average of 16 
shelves. As I have ascertained that the shelves are in 
each case about the same width apart, and about equally 
filled, these figures give roughly three times as many 
shelves to the Kew Herbarium, and somewhat less than 
half as many more species. 
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Bri- 
tish Museum Herbarium might be materially deve- 
loped, especially when it is remembered that Mr. Ben- 
tham’s herbarium, when presented to Kew, contained 
between 60,009 and 70,000 species, and that this was 
formed in less than forty years by a single indi- 
vidual. The examination of the unarranged collections 
in the British Museum would, no doubt, yield a large 
number of duplicates, and these should be exchanged 
with foreign herbaria. If this were done—and there is 
no reason why the appliances of Kew should not be uti- 
lised for the purpose—it would be easy, without interfering 
with the independent action of either establishment, to 
bring about for the future a mutual interchange of speci- 
mens. Nor is there any reason why, when needful, the 
type specimens of the older botanists should not be lent 
to Kew from the other Herbarium, considering that both 
are Government property. 
The development of the botanical collections in the 
rooms open to the public at the British Museum into 
something more useful, educationally, would probably be 
achieved by the officers, if they possessed more space. In 
this case it would be very desirable to transfer to them the 
collections belonging to vegetable paleontology in the 
Geological department. At present the nucleus of a col- 
lection of fossil plants bequeathed to the Botanical de- 
partment by Robert Brown is being gradually developed, 
so that there are now actually two distinct collections, 
both having the same object, and existing independently 
of one another, and in charge of different officers, in the 
same building. W. T. THISELTON DYER 
THE RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURE OF 
NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE 
aes Scottish Meteorological Society have just received 
letters from their observers in Iceland and Faroe, to- 
gether with the regular observations made by them for the 
Society to the end of November last, which are of interest 
in connection with the unprecedentedly wet and change- 
able season we have had in Scotland and elsewhere. 
The rainfall in Iceland this year to the end of October 
has been 4'é4 inches under the average of the ten months, 
the deficiency occurring chiefly in January, February, 
July, September, and October. In Faroe the deficiency 
has, to the end of November, amounted to I1’oo inches, 
the dry months being February, 4°50 inches under the 
average; July, 1'og inch; August, 2°97 inches, and 
November, 4°17 inches. In Scotland, February was every- 
where a wet month, except in the northern and western 
islands and in Clydesdale ; and September, October, 
and November were very wet months,—all these months 
being characterised by a small rainfall in the north. 
The mean temperature at Stykkisholm, in the north- 
west of Iceland, was 33°°7 in January, or 6°8 above the 
average, being the highest mean temperature recorded in 
January since 1846, except that of 1862, which was 1°0 
higher ; 52°°7 in July, and 51°°6 in August, being respec- 
tively 3°6 and 3°4 above the average of these months, 
and the highest that has occurred since July 1847 and 
August 1846. And as June was 06 and September 1°0 
above the average, the past summer has been one of the 
finest experienced in Iceland for many years. The tem- 
perature in April was 3°°5, in May 14, and in October 
1°o under the average. On the other hand, the tempera- 
ture of Faroe closely agreed with that of Scotland during 
the year, viz., above the average in January, February, 
March, April, June, July, and November, and under the 
average during the other months, especially September. 
At Melstadt, on the north coast of Iceland, the summer 
was very fine, but in the beginning of October the weather 
broke, and on the 13th the temperature fell to 30 or 29”0 
below freezing. At Reykjavik, the summer was also fine, 
but the autumn was remarkable for north and north-east 
gales, frequent auroras, low sea temperature, and large 
amount of ozone. Along with the unusual manifestation 
of these phenomena, inflammatory diseases were preva- 
lent, especially bronchitis, catarrh, croup, and diphtheria. 
The temperature of the sea presented certain very 
interesting anomalies during the year. In the earlier 
months it was, equally with the temperature of the air, 
above the average of former years in Iceland, Faroe, and 
Scotland. But at Stykkisholm it was 2°7 in May, and 
4°°2 in June below the average, it being at the same time 
from half a degree toa degree above the average in Faroe 
and Scotland. On the other hand, the sea was, at Styk- 
kisholm, 2°°8 in August, and 2°°6 in September above the 
average, whereas at Sandwick, Orkney, it was 1°'2 and 
1*r below it in the same months. In Faroe the tem- 
perature of the sea was above the average every month 
of the year (except October, when it was 0°3 below it), 
ouegsune during the eleven months to an average excess 
Ofte Ts 
The following are the differences from the averages of 
the sea temperatures at Stykkisholm from March to 
October, 1872 :— 
March mi ae at July + 13 
April — oOo! August + 28 
May — 27 September + 2°6 
June — 472 October +04 
In May the mean temperature of the sea was 36°°7, and 
in August 53°11. So great an increase as 17°°6 has not 
been previously observed in these months. 
It is also a noteworthy circumstance that the means of 
the nine months’ barometric pressure, from February to 
October, at Stykkisholm, have been in every case above 
the average, amounting to an average monthly excess of 
o'118 inch. In Norway also, from February to August, to 
which the observations have reached us, the means were 
every month above the average, amounting at Vardoe 
(lat. 70° 20’) to a mean monthly excess of 0*260 inch ; 
Christiansund, 0129 inch; Christiania, o'151 inch ; and 
Maudal, near the Naze, 0'084 inch, On the other hand, 
barometric pressure was every month from February to 
October, below the average; at Paris, and in Guernsey, 
the mean monthly deficiency being respectively 0'074 and 
o’ogo inch. At Greenwich, the mean deficiency for the 
last nine months was 0'083 inch ; Glasgow, o’og1 inch ; 
Edinburgh, o’088 inch ; Aberdeen, 0'072 inch ; Culloden, 
near Inverness, 0°34 inch ; and at Stornoway, the station 
nearest to Iceland, only o’006 inch. This high barometer 
in Iceland and Norway has had an important bearing on 
the unprecedently wet weather, and the accompanying 
low barometer we have had south of that region. 
ALEXANDER BUCHAN 
