JuLy 4, 1912] 
is Vor in. more than the normal. The rainfall varied 
considerably over the London area, although it was 
everywhere in excess of the average; at Greenwich 
the measurement was 2°34 in., which is an excess of 
o'4o in., at Kew the amount was 312 in., which is 
o'87 in. in excess of the average, whilst at Camden 
Square the measurement was 3°22 in., and at Hamp- 
stead 3°59 in. The mean temperature for June at 
Greenwich was 59°8°, which is 0'5° above the average 
of the last sixty years, and is only 1° below the mean 
for June last year, whilst the rainfall this year was 
only 0°23 in. greater, and the duration of sunshine, 
219 hours, is 37 hours more than the normal, and 
only 5 hours fewer than in June last year. 
THe summary of the weather for the first six 
months of the present year, issued by the Meteoro- 
logical Office, shows that the rainfall for the period 
is in excess of the average in all districts of the 
United Kingdom, with the exception of the north of 
Scotland. In the north-east of England the rainfall 
so far this year is 139 per cent. of the average, in 
the Midland counties 136 per cent., and in the south- 
west of England 130 per cent. of the average. In the 
south-east of England, which district embraces 
London, the rainfall for the six months is 123 per 
cent. of the average. The duration of bright sun- 
shine for the first half of the year is in defect of the 
average, except in the south-east of England, where 
there is a slight excess. 
Ix The Museums’ Journal for June, Dr. F. A. 
Bather describes an open-air folk museum recently 
established by the local schoolmaster of Bunge, a 
thinly inhabited parish in the north of the Baltic 
island of Gotland. Part of the meadow occupied by 
the museum contains a seventeenth-century farm- 
house, which forms the nucleus of the collection. In 
the farmyard various primitive agricultural imple- 
ments are exhibited, and in the adjacent smaller 
buildings representations of local industries now pass- 
ing away are shown. One peculiar feature of the 
museum is a patch of ground containing models of 
various forms of burial practised in the neighbour- 
hood from the first century B.c. to the fourth or fifth 
A.D., including a model of a stone monument in the 
shape of a Viking ship. Close by is a judgment circle 
of eight large stones, and in another part of the 
grounds is a thingstead, a circle of small stones with 
a mound for the speaker. The conception. through- 
out is admirably practical, and the plan, might well 
be adopted in some of our schools, the local character 
of the exhibition being carefully maintained. 
Tue first number (April 30) of a new serial pub- 
lished at Buenos Aires, under the title of Boletin dela 
Sociedad Physis, contains a biography, illustrated by 
a portrait, of the late Dr. Florentino Ameghino, by 
Mr. M. Doello-Jurado, 
In the report of the Museums Committee of the 
University of Glasgow for the past year, Prof. Graham 
Kerr states that the expenditure of a special grant 
during the last few years has resulted in a great im- 
provement in the condition of the zoological collec- 
tions, which are now beginning to meet the require- 
NO. 2227, voL. 89| 
NATURE 
457 
ments of the teaching staff. There is, however, still 
urgent need of additional funds for this purpose. 
In vol: ix., pt. 2, of ‘‘Annals of the S. African 
Museum,” Prof. H. H. W. Pearson records the 
botanical and meteorological observations made by 
the Perey Sladen Memorial expedition to the Orange 
River in rgto-1r. August to October is the great 
flowering season in the districts traversed, and it is 
probable that many of these (southern) spring-flower- 
ing species are still unknown. Accidents to the in- 
struments interfered with the meteorological observa- 
tions. In a second article Prof. Pearson and Miss 
E. L. Stephens deal with the plants collected during 
the expeditions of 1908-9 and 1910-11. 
Tue first number of a new periodical, the Zeitschrift 
fiir Garungsphysiologie, contains papers by S. Lwow, 
on the action of diastase and emulsin on alcoholic 
fermentation and the respiration of plants, C. Gorini, 
on certain bacteria bringing about proteolytic changes 
in cheese, and a long and useful summary by Dr. 
Lohnis of work done during 1910 and i911 on the 
bacteriological changes in food materials, milk, &c. 
Altogether the new periodical promises to be very 
useful to all investigators of fermentation problems. 
A WELL-ILLUSTRATED account of the New England 
trees in winter has recently been issued as Bull. No. 69 
of the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station, Con- 
necticut, by Messrs. A. F. Blakeslee and C. D. Jarvis. 
As the authors truly observe, the study of trees in 
winter is one of the most interesting subjects of a 
nature-study course, and in order to facilitate it they 
have prepared descriptions with photographs of the 
tree, twig, fruit, and, in the case of evergreens, the 
leaf, of all the common trees of New England. 
Tue climatic limits of wheat cultivation in Canada 
have recently been determined by Dr. J. F. Unstead 
so far as is possible on the available information, and 
the results are issued in The Geographical Journal 
(vol. xxxix., No. 4). Two well-defined regions exist, 
the larger being in the west. The line bounding the 
regions skirts the Rocky Mountains to a point north 
of Fort Simpson, and within 4oo miles of the Arctic 
circle, and then falls in a south-easterly direction to 
Lake Superior. From here it strikes northwards and 
then abruptly eastwards, skirting James Bay and 
coming out on the gulf of the St. Lawrence. In the 
eastern region the limiting factor is not entirely 
climatic, for the glaciation of the region around Hud- 
son Bay has left a large proportion of the surface in 
such a condition that wheat cultivation is either 
difficult or impossible. The limits, so far as they are 
imposed by climate, are always liable to be set back 
somewhat as new varieties of wheat are bred suitable 
for cold regions, and a good deal of this work is 
going on in Canada. 
MEASUREMENTS of the temperature of flowing lava 
are so rare that some made by Prof. G. Platania 
during the eruption of Etna last September possess 
considerable interest (Rend. della R. Accad. dei Lincei, 
vol. xxi., 1912, pp. 499-502). His observations were 
made with a Féry’s radio-pyrometer on a stream of 
lava flowing from the lowest of a string of craters 
