March ii, i886j 



NA TURE 



447 



ledge. One of his distinguishing characteristics was his 

 readiness to tell everything he knew to any naturalist en- 

 gaged in the investigation of the departments of zoology 

 in which he himself had worked. He was a keen observer 

 rather than a trained naturalist. He published little him- 

 self, but he contributed rich materials to those who knew 

 how to make the best use of them. He was consequently a 

 valued correspondent of many of the leading naturalists 

 of his day, who gladly acknowledged their indebtedness 

 to his generous aid. Nor were his observations confined 

 to the living things of the existing creation ; he searched 

 the rocks around him for traces of former plants or animals, 

 and found them in places where no one had ever seen 

 or suspected them before. His keen eye detected the first 

 relics of fossil fishes in the Devonian rocks of Devonshire, 

 and when, after his transference to the north of Scotland 

 in 1849, iie had an opportunity of looking at the lime- 

 stones of Durness, he soon brought to light a series of 

 fossils which, in the hands of Murchison and Salter, 

 proved of the utmost value in fi.xing the geological age 

 of the rocks of the North-West Highlands. After his 

 retirement from the public service he went to reside in 

 Edinburgh, and devoted himself with all his old enthu- 

 siasm to the exploration of the fossil flora of the Car- 

 boniferous rocks of that neighbourhood. Nothing seemed 

 ever to escape his notice, and hence even from the 

 quarries and sections where many a practised eye had 

 preceded his own he was able to glean materials which 

 no one but himself had noticed. In recognition of his 

 important services to the cause of natural history, the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1S75 awarded to him the 

 Neill Gold Medal. His health has for some time past 

 been faihng, and he has now gone to his rest with the 

 affectionate regrets of all to whom the progress of natural 

 science in this country is dear. His son, Mr. B. N. 

 Peach, of the Geological Survey, with all his father's 

 enthusiasm and more than his father's range of acquire- 

 ment, will, we hope, for many a long year, preserve 

 among the naturalists of this country a family name that 

 is familiar as a household word. 



PROFESSOR EDWARD MORREN 



CHARLES JAMES EDWARD MORREN, whose 

 death on the 2Sth ult. we announced in our last 

 issue, was the son of Charles Morren, a Professor in the 

 University of Ghent, and was born in that city in 1S33. 

 Shortly afterwards the father removed to Lidge as Pro- 

 fessor of Botany. The son, Edward, as he was usually 

 called, was educated for the law, but evincing a strong 

 tendency towards the natural sciences and chemistry, 

 took his degree in the Science Faculty with much dis- 

 tinction. Owing to the ill-health of the father, Edward 

 Morren was early called on to undertake the professorial 

 duties, but the continuation of his licence to teach was 

 made conditional on his undergoing a " special " exam- 

 ination for the Doctorate. This was the occasion of the 

 publication of his dissertation on green and coloured 

 leaves, by which he first became known to the botanists 

 of Europe. After the death of Charles Morren, in 185S, 

 the son was appointed in the father's stead, and from that 

 day to this, the aim of the son seemed to be to walk in 

 the steps of his father, and to complete and extend his 

 work. Both devoted themselves not only to botany but 

 to chemistry, and in particular to horticulture and agro- 

 nomy. Both were imbued, as so many of the Belgian 

 savants are, with an ardent patriotism which led them to 

 devote their science to the practical good of the nation, 

 and to hold up to honour and respect the work of their 

 celebrated predecessors. Hence, from father or son, or 

 both, we have memoirs of Dodoens, of de I'Obel, of de 

 I'EscIuse, of Fuchs, and other worthies of Flemish 

 nationality. 



Both were impressed with the necessity of extending 



and adapting to the necessities of the times the system 

 and the means of botanical education. The Botani- 

 cal Institute of Liege, which Edward Morren lived 

 to found and to see completed, was but the modified 

 outcome and extension of the plans and schemes origin- 

 ally proposed by the father. The result is that Liege is 

 now equipped with a compact and well-ordered laboratory 

 for botanical tuition and research, such as some of our 

 own Universities might envy. In order to perfect this 

 institution Morren availed himself of his frequent travels 

 to study the method of instruction followed in the Uni- 

 versities of Germany, and the organisation of the scientific 

 establishmentsof Holland, Paris, London, and othercentres. 

 With his professorial work, his ceaseless duties in con- 

 nection with official horticulture and the publication of 

 the Bcli^ique Horticole, Edward Morren necessarily found 

 little time for the preparation of any separate work, but his 

 memoirs and academic dissertations are numerous. The 

 most important of them, as may be gleaned from what has 

 been said, referred to questions of chemistry and vege- 

 table physiology. A paper published in this country in 

 the Report of the London Botanical Congress, 1866, 

 comprises a most elaborate investigation into the action 

 of sulphurous acid and other vapours on plants. 



His academical discourses and popular lectures were re- 

 markable both for their method and their matter. With the 

 fluency and elegance of style of a practised orator, Morren 

 combined the fulness of knowledge and accuracy of exposi- 

 tion of a man of science. Botanists, however, were looking 

 forward with expectancy to a monograph of the Brome- 

 liaceas from his pen. It was known that the Professor 

 had been accumulating for many years material for this 

 purpose. His collection of living examples is, we believe, 

 the largest and best selected in existence, and the mate- 

 rials in his herbarium and very extensive library (the 

 most complete of its kind in Belgium) are in their way 

 equally remarkable. Beyond detached fragments, how- 

 ever, .Morren published little on this curious family. 



Death has overtaken him, as it did his father, when 

 little or not at all beyond the prime of life, and it has 

 caused a void which only those who knew the warm- 

 hearted, genial, liberal-minded Professor can fully ap- 

 preciate. 



THE WEATHER 



OVER the greater part of the British Islands last 

 month was one of the coldest Februarys on record, 

 the mean temperature at Greenwich being only 33""8, or 

 6^8 below the average of the month. Throughout Great 

 Britain generally, from the Grampians to the Channel, 

 temperature was' from about 5''o to f'o below the means 

 of the stations. But in the northern and western divi- 

 sions of these islands temperature was only from about 

 2°'o to 3°'5 below the monthly averages. This differ- 

 ence was mainly occasioned by the distribution of tem- 

 perature during the second week of the month, owing to 

 the higher temperature in the north and west accompany- 

 ing the storms which prevailed in the far north during 

 the time. Thus during the week ending February 13, 

 the mean temperature of Parsonstown was 43°'5, whilst 

 at Oxford it was so low as 33°-8, or nearly 10° lower. 



From the middle of February, however, to the memor- 

 able snowstorm in the beginning of March, the weather- 

 maps of Europe presented several remarkably persistent 

 noteworthy features. The commencement of the period 

 was marked at the Ben Nevis Observatory by forty-eight 

 hours of singularly dry clear weather, such as occurs in 

 connection with anticyclones and the settled weather 

 attendant on them. Eastern and Northern Europe was 

 now even more pronouncedly than it had been in the 

 earlier part of the month the theatre of a widely- extended 

 anticyclone, which slowly shifted its position from day to 

 day, and sent out from its central regions winds in all 



