October io, 1912] 



NATURE 



163 



and it was well understood that the protection of 

 Arabis striata was the motive, or a chief motive, of 

 the authorities. Frank H. Perrycoste. 



Higher Shute Cottage, Polperro, Cornwall, 

 September 29. 



Mr. Perrycoste is quite right in suggesting that 

 the special flora of Cheddar might be destroyed in 

 such a way as to bring the offender under the by-law 

 in question, but this does not interfere with my state- 

 ment that the flora might be destroyed without any 

 contravention of the by-law ; it is much more probable 

 that the flora will be gradually extinguished than by 

 a single act of vandalism. Edw. Fry. 



In addition to the existence of a local order for the 

 protection of wild flowers in Cornwall, extending only 

 to the highways, there are other counties, such as 

 Essex, Surrey, Sussex, and Devon, that have already 

 availed themselves of the power to frame a by-law 

 applying to a separate county. 



Though these means of restricting hawking and 

 excessive collecting exist on a limited scale at present, 

 it is the aim of the Plant Protections Section of the 

 Selborne Society to obtain the cooperation of all 

 county councils in the framing of b}'-laws throughout 

 the country. This, indeed, it must be stated, is 

 apparently the only course left, for the experience of 

 county councils in applying singly for this power to 

 the Home Office has been distinctlv discouraging. 

 In fact, the Home Office has refused to increase the 

 number of local orders ; so that the only method to 

 adopt is to get every county council to apply simul- 

 taneously, when the force of public opinion thus ex- 

 pressed will not fail, we hope, to have the desired 

 effect. 



Of course, the securing of a local order for Somer- 

 set, as advocated by Sir Edward Fry, would not be 

 equivalent to the establishment of a flower-sanctuary. 

 I Unless land were purchased bv the National Trust, or 

 I some kindred public-spirited body, or by private enter- 

 prise, the making of a reservation of anv tract with- 

 out the owner's consent is out of the power of the 

 Government. .'Vt least, we have not come to land 

 nationalisation as yet (save the mark!). 



The desirability of the formation of wild-flower 



reservations is undeniable. It is one of the projects 



kept in view by the Plant Protection Section. One of 



1, the methods of securing this end will be the obtain- 



I ing of the support of the scientific societies of the 



I country, and the appointment of a corresponding 



secretary in each district to advise upon what tracts 



! require reservation and what facilities exist locallv 



for their formation. The writer's investigation into 



the voluminous causes of extermination of plants has 



shown that there are numerous localities in every 



county of the British Isles which require reservation 



or protection. It is obvious that no one bodv such as 



the Selborne Society could undertake to carry on 



single-handed the enormous amount of organisation 



required to protect actively plants locallv without 



effective assistance from such bodies, or without some 



organised effort. This question is on the tnpis at the 



j next meeting of the section, which I hope Sir Edward 



; Fry will attend, and it is hoped to prosecute this part 



i of the campaign very actively during the coming 



winter. The assistance of any who can render ser- 



' vice in this matter of enlisting the svmpathies of the 



scientific societies will be very gratefully received. 



The result of an anrieal to the county councils last 



^ year to_ aid in the creating of a public protest against 



'' exterminatinsr wild flowers, especially addressed to the 



' NO. 2241, VOL. 90] 



schools, in which the collecting necessary to the pur- 

 suit of nature-study was involved, was very encourag- 

 ing. 



The whole question resolves itself, in fine, to the 

 obtaining of State protection of wild plants (and 

 animals) in this country, as in Prussia. This is the 

 prime object the section has in view. In the mean- 

 time, it is endeavouring to create a public opinion in 

 favour of the movement, until such time as the occa- 

 sion is ripe for making a concerted appeal for Govern- 

 ment control. A. R. HouwooD, 



Recorder, Plant Protection Section of the 

 Selborne Society. 



Leicester Museum, September 27. 



The Summer of 1912. 



In Nature of September 19, Mr. Harding concludes 

 a very interesting article on the recent summer in the 

 British Islands, by recording the fact that "the tem- 

 perature of the sea-surface in the North Atlantic and 

 in proximity to our own coasts has for some time 

 past been much below the average." This seems to 

 bear out what I have been telling people for weeks 

 past — that the abnormal chilliness of the past summer, 

 and especially of the month of August, was in all 

 probability due to the cooling of the Gulf Stream by 

 the abnormal ice-drift on the other side of the Atlan- 

 tic, to which the disastrous fate of the Titanic forced 

 the tardy attention of even the great shipping com- 

 panies. A reference to such a thorough-going atlas 

 as that of Diercke and Gaebler (p. 21) will show what 

 this must mean, when not only icebergs but extensive 

 icefloes in such numbers were melting away in the 

 latitudes of the Spanish peninsula, and even further 

 south than the latitude of Gibraltar, in the very path 

 of the Gulf Stream Drift, and even of the return North 

 Equatorial current, with the natural result that these 

 islands, within the same latitudes as Labrador, should 

 have a taste of something like a Labrador summer. 



If we make a little scientific use of the imagination, 

 asking ourselves what would be the climatic results 

 to north-western Europe of the obliteration of the 

 Gulf Stream altogether, we may arrive at some in- 

 ferential results as to the importance of such a causal 

 factor among the conditions which existed in the 

 Pleistocene period of glaciation, when — as Prof. J. W. 

 Spencer (Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. vi.) has shown 

 — the elevation of the .-Xntillean Continent was such 

 that we may infer the impossibility of the existence 

 of th • Gulf Stream as such for the greater part of 

 that period. 



That would leave us no more than such a mere 

 ivind-drift of surface ocean-water as is seen jn the 

 " Kuro-Siwo " of the North Pacific at the present time 

 {op. cit., p. 13). See further, Tarr, "Physical Geo- 

 graphy" (pp. 182-iqi) and "The International Geo- 

 graphy " (p. 69), both published by Messrs. Macmillan 

 and Co. A. Irving. 



Hockerill, Bishop's Stortford, September 30. 



Turkish Earthquake of September 13. 



The bulletin from Pulkowa has just reached me, 

 and from this it appears that the azimuth of the 

 epicentre from Pulkowa was 9° 12' west of south. 

 Two estimates of the distance are given, leading re- 

 spectively to 4ri° N., 264 E., and 4o'i'' N., 26'3° E. 

 The epicentre determined here was 40"4° N., 26' 9° E., 

 and the azimuth was 65° 33' east of south. 



From the two azimuths alone I find the epicentre 

 to be 40-7° N., 26-5° E. George W. Walker. 



The Observatory, Eskdalemuir, Langholm, 

 Dumfriesshire, October i. 



