Sept. 30, 1880] 



NATURE 



517 



ruled to westward from the North Cape to the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, strong northerly winds swept over the whole of 

 Western Europe, and the temperature everywhere fell 

 below the average of the season, the defect being 4°'3 in 

 the north of Norway, 4°'o in Faro, 4°'4 in Islay, 2''-S in 

 Jersey, and 5''5 in Portugal. This area of low tempera- 

 ture stretched eastward into Europe as far as Vienna, 

 Trieste, and Mentone. 



To the east of the line of lowest pressure within the 

 great barometric depression which covered all Europe 

 except its extreme outskirts, temperatures wore above the 

 average, and greatly so as far east as the head waters of 

 Yenisei, and thence round by Taschkend, Syria, and the 

 north of Africa. Over the greater portion of this broad 

 region the excess was not less than 5°'o, and in the north 

 of the Black Sea it reached as high as 9°'4 above the 

 normal. In Eastern Siberia, Mantchooria, and Northern 

 China very low temperatures prevailed, a deficiency of S^'i 

 being recorded on the Upper Amoor. 



The chief features of the meteorology of the northern 

 hemisphere for November, 187S, and they are very 

 striking, were these : — (i) The almost unprccedently high 

 temperature, amounting to from (y''o to I3'7 above the 

 average over a large part of the United States, from 6'"8 

 to 9°'5 above the average over \\'est Greenland ; an 

 excess of from 5°'o to 9°'5 over nearly the whole of 

 European Russia and Western Siberia ; (2) large and 

 extensive barometric depressions formed in conjunction 

 with these most anomalous temperatures ; and (3) the 

 formation of an area of high pressure — inclosed within 

 remarkably steep gradients of mean monthly pressure — 

 over mid-Atlantic, extending thence in a north-easterly 

 direction over Iceland toward Spitzbergen. To this it 

 may be added that, whilst the high temperature anomaly 

 of the surrounding low pressure regions rose to i3°7 in 

 the United States, 9°'5 in Greenland, and 9°'4 in Europe, 

 the low temperature anomaly of the inchided region of 

 high pressure fell only to 5°'6 below the normal at 

 Coimbra, but over no great extent did it fall lower than 

 4°'o below the normal. 



The U.S. Weather Maps for December, 1878, and sub- 

 sequent months, when low temperature anomalies were 

 their out-standing features, will be looked forward to with 

 the greatest interest as likely to throw light on the deve- 

 lopment of the meteorological conditions which impressed 

 so arctic a character on our British weather during 

 187S-79. In connection with this large problem it is 

 impossible to overestimate the vital importance of a 

 serious and searching inquiry into the causes which 

 brought about the high temperature anomalies of the 

 United States, Greenland, and Russia. It is to these 

 anomalies in all likelihood we must look for an explana- 

 tion of the origin of the high pressure in the included 

 region of the North Atlantic, which was undoubtedly 

 the immediate cause of the strong northerly winds and 

 low temperatures which then prevailed over Western 

 Europe. 



NOTES 

 Prof. W. Chandler Roberts, F.R.S., will deliver the 

 introductory lecture to his course of Metallurgy, on Monday 

 next, October 4, at tliree o'cloclc, at the Science Schools, 

 South Kensington Museum. 



Mr. a. C. Haddon, Demonstrator of Comparative Anatomy 

 in the University of Cambridge, with the sanction of the authori- 

 ties, instead of conducting his cla's as usual during the Long 

 Vacation at Cambridge, made the novel experiment last summer 

 of taking it to the sliores of Torbay, where he established a 

 temporary zoological station on the principle of that at Naples, 

 whither he himself had formerly been sent by the University to 



study. The attempt was very successful, and will doubtless be 

 repeated another year. It was found that in addition to the 

 ordinary class-fee of one guinea, a fee of four guineas covered 

 the expenses of the extemporised laboratory, which was suffi- 

 ciently provided with the instruments and appliances requisite in 

 the present state of zoological study, as well as those of boat-hire 

 for the dredging and surface-skimming excursions that formed 

 the chief outdoor-work of the class, throughout the seven weeks 

 of its stay ; while embryological and histological dissections, 

 together with the preparation and preservation of marine speci- 

 mens for the University Museum, afforded constant occupation 

 at home. The books, mostly monographs, needed for the deter- 

 mination and proper examination of the animals captured, were 

 supplied by the superintendent of the museum, Mr. J. W. Clark, 

 and the class received much valuable assistance from Mr. A. R. 

 Hunt, whose intimate knowledge of the fauna of Torbay was 

 freely placed at its disposal. 



Mr. McGibbon, the Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens, 

 Cape Town, South Africa, a josition which he has filled for 

 thirty years, retires on a pension of 150/. a year. A movement 

 is on foot to remove the Gardens from their present contracted 

 site in Cape Town itself, and to create in the neighbourhood of 

 the city a botanical estabHshment more worthy of the seat of 

 South African Government. As a first step the appointment of 

 Director has been offered to the well-kno-mr Cape botanist 

 Prof. MacOwan, of Gill College, Somerset East. It is, how- 

 ever, doubtful whether the state of his health will allow of his 

 undertaking it. 



On the 2ist inst. there died at his residence in Camherwell, 

 at the advanced age of 89, Charles Johnson, who for more than 

 forty-four years held the post of Professor of Botany at Guy's 

 Hospital. He was editor of Sowerby's "English Botany," 

 author of "Grasses of Great Britain," "British Poisonous 

 Plants," " Ferns of Great Britain," and other valuable contribu- 

 tions to natural history. In early life he took up the study of 

 natural science, being one of the first members of the City Philo- 

 sophical Society, of which Dr. Faraday and other eminent men 

 were fellow-members. He was a high authority on agriculture 

 and all subjects connected with economic botany. 



The death is announced of Prof. Samuel Stehman Plaldeman, 

 Professor of Comparative Philology in the Pennsylvania Uni- 

 versity, at the age of sixty-eight years. In 1S36 he was employed 

 in the geological survey of New Jersey, and in the following 

 year in that of his native State, Pennsylvania. Dr. Haldeinan 

 filled the chair of Natural History in the University of Phila- 

 delphia and in a Delaware college, and was Professor of Geology 

 and Chemistry to the State Agricultural Society of Pennsylvania 

 prior to accepting the post whicli he held at his death. Other 

 deaths announced are, on August 27, Dr. Hanstein, Professor of 

 Botany and director of the Botanic Garden at Bonn ; and on 

 August 21, Prof. E. B. Andrews, of the Geological Survey of 

 Ohio, the author of several important contributions to the geology 

 of that State. 



Mr. Darwin has forwarded to us an article contributed to an 

 American medical journal by Dr. B. G. Wilder, Professor of 

 rhvsiology in Cornell University, on "The Two Kinds of 

 Vivisection— Sentisection and Callisection ; " as he thinks the 

 suggestion therein contained deserves consideration in tliis 

 country. "All well informed persons," Dr. Wilder writes, 

 "are aware that the vast m.ajority of vivisections, in this 

 country at least, are performed under the influence of anes- 

 thetics ; but the enthusiastic zoolaters, who desire to abolish 

 the objective method of teaching physiology, practically ignore 

 this fact, and dwell chiefly upon tlie comparatively infrequent 

 operations which are attended with pain. ILaving read the 



