: 
“ 
7 
Fan. 5, 1871] 
NATURE 
193 

THE frost which has now lasted fora fortnight is the most 
severe that has been known in England since the memorable one 
of Christmas, 1860, that is, for exactly ten years. The lowest 
temperature at Blackheath was 15°3° F. on the night of the 24th 
December ; but in the eastern counties the cold was more intense, 
being 8° at Hull, and nealy as low at Norwich, Nottingham, and 
Leicester. The highest minimum recorded by Mr. Glaisher in 
the Gardener's Chronicle, at any English station is 19'0°, at Leeds. 
In Scotland the minimum varied between 5'o° at Perth, and 19°2° 
at Aberdeen. The average was slightly higher in Scotland than 
in England. For the first fourteen days of the frost, the tempe- 
rature scarcely rose above the freezing-point night or day, a very 
unusual circumstance in this country. 
A socteTy has just been instituted under the designation of 
Tie Society of British Archeology. It originated in a meeting 
held on Dec. 9th in the rooms of the Royal Society of Literature, 
the proposed objects being ‘‘the investigation of the Arts, 
Archeology, History, and Chronology of Ancient and Modern 
Assyria, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and other Biblical Lands, 
the promotion of the study of the antiquities of those countries, 
and the preservation of a continuous record of discoveries now 
or hereafter to be in progress.” Dr. Birch, of the British 
Museum, who occupied the chair on that occasion, explained 
that the proposed society would clash with none of the philo- 
logical or exploration associations now in existence, but would 
have a distinct purpose—to concentrate and utilise the scattered 
materials connected with the geography, arts, and antiquities of 
the lands of the Bible, and to systematise the progress of 
Archzeological research in England, America, and the Continent. 
The Society has already received the promise of the support 
of the most eminent living Biblical investigators, and another 
meeting will shortly be summoned for its complete establishment. 
UNDER the title of ‘‘Science Education Abroad,” Principal 
Dawson of M‘Gill University, Montreal, republishes his Annual 
University Lecture, of the session 1870-71. After reviewing the 
state of scientific education in foreign countries from a Canadian 
point of view, as exhibited by the present condition of the various 
institutions for the spread of Science in Great Britain, the 
United States, Germany, and Switzerland, he contrasts with this 
the want of Science teaching in Canada. With the exception of 
two or three small and poorly supported agricultural schools, he 
states that the Dominion does not possess a school of practical 
Science, notwithstanding its mining resources, second to those of 
no country in the world. In the M‘Gill University itself some 
part of Natural or Physical Science is studied in each year of the 
College course ; but this falls far short of providing the full 
measure of the higher Science education required for the develop- 
ment of the resources of the country. 
Proressor M‘Nap has been pursuing his investigations on 
the Transpiration of Watery Fluid by Leaves, to which reference 
was made a short time since in our columns.* The plant used 
in all the experiments was the common laurel (Prunus lauro- 
cerasus), and the fluid to test the rapidity of the ascent lithium 
citrate. The following are some of the more important results 
arrived at :—The total quantity of water in the leaves was found 
to be 63°4 per cent. ; but of this, the proportion which could be 
received by calcium chloride, sulphuric acid, or by the action of 
the sun, was only from 5 to 6 per cent.; hence Dr. M‘Nab 
calculates the amount of transpirable fluid in the stem and leaves 
to be between 6 and 7, the amount o: fluid in relation to cell- 
sap to be between 56 and 57 percent. The rapidity of transpira- 
tion he found to be in sunlight 3°03 percent. in an hour ; while 
in diffused daylight it was only ‘59, and in darkness *45 per cent. 
in the same time. These experiments were made when the plant 
* See Nature, vol. ii, p. 515. 

had access to water by means of its stem. When the leaves 
were exposed without any means of supplying themselves again, 
the following results were obtained :—In a saturated atmosphere 
in the sun, 25°96 per cent. was transpired in an hour, in a dry 
atmosphere in the sun 20°52 per cent. In the shade, the numbers 
were reversed—viz., in a saturated atmosphere nothing, in a dry 
atmosphere 1°69 per cent. When immersed in water, the leaves 
absorbed 4°57 per cent. of their weight in seventeen hours, in a 
saturated atmosphere nothing whatever in eighteen hours. The 
under surface of the leaf transpired nearly ten times as much as 
the upper surface. 
WE are very glad to see that the second series of penny 
science-lectures delivered in November in the Hulme Town Hall 
have been reprinted. They embrace :—Coral and Coral-reefs, 
by Prof. Huxley; Spectrum Analysis, by Prof. Roscoe ; 
Spectrum Analysis in its relation to the Heavenly Bodies, by 
Dr. Huggins ; and On Coal, by Mr. Boyd Dawkins. The reports 
have all been revised by the respective lecturers; and being 
published at one penny each, ought to have a very large sale, 
We cannot conceive a greater aid to scientific teaching than the 
circulation of these lectures ; both for the information they con- 
tain, and as models to lecturers of what scientific lectures to 
working men should be. 
THE last number of the Budletin de la Société Royale de Botanique 
Gelgique contains an interesting paper by M. Devos on the plants 
naturalised in, or introduced to, Belgium. Of the 1,566 phane- 
rogams recorded for that country, no less than 512 are supposed to 
haye been introduced. Of these 91 are from southern Europe, 137 
from the east, 14 from central, and 5 from north Europe ; 
‘alpine regions” have furnished 16, 34 are from America, and 
5 from Africa ; while the native countries of the remaining 210 
are unknown. The distribution of each species is traced out with 
reference to its occurrence in otber countries under similar cir- 
cumstances ; and the paper is a valuable contribution to phyto- 
geographical science. 
AMONG the curiosities of scientific literature a little work, 
published a few years since, must find a place. It is entitled 
“Principles and Rudiments of Botany, delivered according 
toan Iulian system of arrangement and Julian method of classi- 
fication ; by C. R. W. Watkins, Gent., late Captainin the Bombay 
Armny.” These ‘‘ principles and rudiments ” are here, according to 
the preface, delivered in language “better adapted for the intel- 
lectual amusement and instruction of young persons of both sexes” 
than that employed in previous works; and ‘‘ Botanical science” 
is ‘*rendered more agreeable to students in modern times.” The 
following extract will give a faint idea of the mode in which these 
promises are fulfilled, and also of the contents of the volume :— 
“The pink (Déazthus) has four or five idola ; ten to twenty ikona. 
and twenty to forty petala. The flowers are few, and di, tri, 
quinque ligate, and they terminate separately and irregularly, 
The Sweet William (Déy¢hme) has two idola, ten ikona, and five 
petala. The flowers are numerous and chorovinkulate, and the 
mode of gemmation comprises several synterminal and equi- 
marginal chorrythma, or conturrythma. They cannot, therefore, 
be of the same genus ; because the numerical indices, and typical 
characters of each gemmos, or hermaphral gemm bud of the two 
kinds of plants, are not symbolical ; but differ, as well as the 
mode of gemmation, more widely than the specific, and physical 
circumstances of their constitutional, or peculiar veget-organical 
structure.” 
THE laws which formerly existed in Scotland, and are still 
enforced in Denmark, to compel the extirpation of the Corn 
Marigold (Chrysanthemum segetum), have their parallel in New 
Zealand, in some parts of which it is a punishable offence to 
allow the growth of thistles. In the colony of Lyttelton pro- 
ceedings were taken, during the present year, against a gentleman 
