456 
NATURE 
[JuLY 4, 1912 
under the auspices of the Royal Prussian Academy 
of Sciences, and edited by Prof. F. E. Schulze, of the 
University of Berlin. The ‘‘Nomenclator’’ is ex- 
pected to include 200,000 references gathered by 
specialists of different countries. The extreme limits 
of date are 1758 to 1910. The work is well in hand, 
but the costs are heavy and the editor needs about 
roool. to ensure publication at an early date. Cheques 
and postal orders may be made payable to ‘The 
Linnean Society,’ Burlington House, W. 
Tue Postmaster-General announces that reduced 
rates have been adopted for the transmission of the 
ro a.m. Greenwich Time Signal over private wires to 
premises in the London telephone area. If the address 
to which the signal is to be sent is within half a mile 
in actual distance from a London town  sub-post 
office, and telegraphic arrangements permit of the 
direct signals being sent to that office, the charge will 
be 61. per annum, covering the provision of the neces- 
sary wires to the renter’s address. If the address is 
more than half a mile from the telegraph office, the 
charges of 4l. per mile for wire on the roads, or 5]. 
per mile for over house or underground wires on 
existing routes, will apply to mileage in excess of 
the first half-mile. 
A VIOLENT storm passed over the city of Regina, 
the capital of the province of Saskatchewan, at 5 p.m. 
on Sunday, June 30, causing the loss of thirty lives 
and great destruction to property. A Reuter message 
from Ottawa states that in the history of western 
Canada no such storm has been known. Before it 
entered the city the storm passed directly over the 
new Provincial Parliament buildings, south of Was- 
cana lake, and did much damage there. The path 
of the storm to the north was over the Dominion gaol 
buildings, and it then struck the best residential sec- 
tion, where two hundred buildings were blown down. 
The storm passed over the Canadian Pacific Railway, 
taking down in its course half a dozen grain elevators. 
It then traversed that portion of the city lying north 
of the railway, and the residential district beyond, 
where a number of fine structures were demolished. 
The storm lasted only three minutes, and its path 
of destruction was about three hundred feet wide. 
Tue final shipment of the extensive natural history 
collection made by the Paul J. Rainey expedition in 
British East Africa has just been received at the U.S. 
National Museum. The collection includes some 4000 
specimens, more than 700 of which are those of large 
game. Mr. E. Heller was the guest of Mr. Rainey 
on his African hunting trip, and accompanied the 
expedition for the purpose of preserving the animals 
secured. Mr. Rainey has given the entire collection 
to the Smithsonian Institution and the National 
Museum. The territory traversed by the expedition 
was mostly to the north and east of that covered 
by Colonel Roosevelt on the earlier Smithsonian 
expedition, and included the country lying between 
the northern part of British East Africa and southern 
Abyssinia. 
THE oration delivered in the University of Glasgow 
on Commemoration Day on June 25 by Prof. F. O. 
NO. 2227, VoL. 89] 
Bower, F.R.S., on the life and work of the late 
Sir Joseph Hooker, has been published by Messrs. 
MacLehose and Sons, of Glasgow. Hooker received 
his school and university education in Glasgow, and 
though after he left the city in 1839 he never returned 
to it as a resident, the University is rightly proud of 
her distinguished alumnus. Hooker’s career has been 
dealt with so recently in these columns that it will 
be sufficient to commend Prof. Bower’s eloquent and 
appreciative oration to the reader’s attention as a 
scholarly account of the work of a great botanist by 
a distinguished worker in the same field. The last 
occasion when Hooker visited Glasgow was at the 
Jubilee celebrations of Glasgow University in 1901, 
when, with Kelvin and Lister, he appeared before the 
Chancellor to present an address on behalf of the 
Royal Society. 
Tue health conscience of the nation is awakening. 
We are realising the moral wrong, economic folly, 
and national loss entailed by a wilful or ignorant 
persistence in hygienic: lawlessness. It is something 
to recognise an ill and sympathise with sufferers, but 
it is better to minimise the wrong and alleviate the 
afflicted, and, above all, it is best to prevent the 
errors, sins, and indiscretions which are the sources 
of suffering, delinquency, dependency, and human 
wastage. The recent Biennial Health Conference and 
Exhibition, held in cooperation with the National 
Health Society, under the patronage of H.R.H. Prin- 
cess Christian, at the Royal Horticultural Hall, West- 
minster, and the adjoining L.C.C. Technical Insti- 
tute, on June 24-27, has assisted in making us under- 
stand that an awakened conscience must be co- 
ordinated with an informed intelligence. | Medical 
leaders, health visitors, sanitary administrators, and 
many thoughtful men and women working for the 
betterment of national life cooperated in discussing 
problems relating to the well-being of our people. 
A full and varied programme was provided. Papers 
were given and conferences held on infant consulta- 
tions, tuberculosis and the child, the notification of 
births, the prevention of deafness in children, schools 
for mothers, housing, health-promoting agencies, the 
teaching of domestic economy in schools, the care 
and control of the feeble-minded, and much else of 
national service. Popular lectures were delivered, and 
there was an interesting exhibition. 
Jury has opened with similarly wet weather to that 
which characterised the whole of June, and the aggre- 
gate rain in parts of London, as well as at many 
other places in the country, for the first two days 
of July is greater than the fall for the whole month 
last year. June was very wet this year over the 
entire country, and in most parts of England the 
rainfall for the first fortnight was in excess of the 
average for the whole month. The heaviest rains 
were generally in the western districts, and at Valencia 
the measurement for the month was 7°48 in., which 
is 222 per cent. of the average for June, and rain 
fell on twenty-three out of the thirty days. At Jersey 
the rainfall was 4°89 in., which is 234 per cent. of the 
average for the month. At Nottingham rain fell on 
twenty-six days out of thirty, yielding 3°29 in., which 
