116 
of the earth can be made fertile. There are places incapable of 
being afforested, which would not give the necessary nourish- 
ment to trees. 
< 
ORIGIN OF THE CEREALS 
RECENT numbers of Vaturen contain interesting papers, by 
Prof. Schiibeler, on the original habitat of some of the cereals, 
and the subsequent cultivation in the Scandinavian lands and 
Iceland of barley and rye more especially. It would appear 
that barley was cultivated before other cereals in Scandinavia, 
and that the generic term ‘‘ corn” was applied among Northmen 
to this grain only from the oldest times, and that in the Nor- 
wegian laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wherever 
reference was made to the ‘‘ Kornsk2t’’—or standard by which 
land in the Northern lands was, and still is, rated in accordance 
with the corn it is capable of yielding—the term was understood 
to apply to barley. Proof of the high latitude to which the 
cultivation was carried in early ages is afforded by the Egil’s 
Saga, where mention is made of a barn in Helgeland (65° N. 
lat.) used for the storing of corn, and which was so large that 
tables could be spread within it for the entertainment of 800 
guests. In Iceland barley was cultivated from the time of its 
colonisation, in 870, till the middle of the fourteenth century, 
or, according to Jon Storrason, as lately as 1400. From that 
period down to our own times barley has not been grown in 
Iceland with any systematic attention, the islanders being de- 
pendent on the home country for their supplies of corn. In the 
last century, however, various attempts were made both by the 
Danish Government and private individuals to obtain home- 
grown corn in Iceland, and the success with which these 
endeavours were attended gives additional importance to the 
systematic undertaking, which has been set on foot by Dr. 
Schiibeler and others, within the last three years, for the intro- 
duction into the island of the hardier cereals, vegetables, and 
fruits. As many as 382 samples of seeds of ornamental and 
useful plants, most of which were collected from the neighbour- 
hood of Christiania, are now being cultivated at Reykjavik 
under the special direction of the local government doctor, Herr 
Schierbeck, who succeeded in 1883 in cutting barley ninety-eight 
days after the sowing of the seed, which had come from Alten 
(70° N. lat.). And here it may be observed that this seems the 
polar limit in Norway for anything like good barley crops. The 
seed is generally sown at the end of May, and in favourable 
stalk being often 24 inches in twenty-four hours. North of 60° 
or 61° barley cannot be successfully grown in Norway at more 
than from 1800 to 2000 feet above the sea-level. In Sweden 
the polar limit is about 68° or 66°, but even there, as in Finland, 
night-frosts prove very destructive to the young barley. In 
some of the fjeld valleys of Norway, on the other hand, barley 
may in favourable seasons be cut eight or nine weeks after its 
sowing, and thus two crops may be reaped in one summer. 
According even to a tradition current in Thelemarken, a farm 
there owes its name 777se¢ to the ‘Aree crops reaped in the land } 
in one year! Rye early came into use asa hread-stuff in Scand- 
inavia, and in 1490 the Norwegian Council of State issued an 
ordinance making it obligatory on every peasant to lay down a 
certain proportion of his land in rye. In Norway the polar 
limit of summer rye is about 69°, and that of winter rye about 
61°; but in Sweden it has been carried along the coast as far 
north as 65°. The summer rye crops are generally sown and fit 
for cutting about the same time as barley, although occasionally 
in Southern Norway less than ninety days are required for their 
full maturity. 
INTELLIGENCE 
THE Gilchrist Trustees have instituted a Scholarship of the 
annual value of 50/., for three years, tenable at either Girton or 
Newnham College, Cambridge, to be awarded in connection 
with the Cambridge Higher Local Examination. The first 
award will be made on the results of the examination to be held 
in June. Further information may be obtained from the 
secretaries of the two colleges. 
AT a recent meeting of the Senate of the Royal University of 
Treland, two Fellows in the Department of Natural Science 
were elected. The successful competitors were the Rev. Marshal 
NATURE 
: é | trations), by John Trowbridge and Hammond Vinton Hayes.— 
seasons it may be cut at the end of August ; the growth of the | On the production of alternating currents by means of a direct- 
| topaz discovered in 1882 by Mr. N. H. Perry in the Stoneham 
[Fane 4, 188 
L. Klein, of the Catholic University College, and Mr. Marcus 
M. Hartog, Professor of Natural History, Queen’s College, — 
Cork. The salary attached to each of the Fellowships is 400/. — 
a year. rs 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
The Quarterly Fournal of Microscopical Science, April, con- 
tains :—On the urinary organs of the Amphipoda, by W. B.. 
Spencer, B.A. (plate 13).—The skin and nervous system of 
Priapulus and Halicryptus, by R. Scharff, Ph.D. (plate 14).— 
The eye and optic tract of insects, by S. J. Hickson, B.A. 
(plates 15-17).—A peculiar sense organ in Scutigera coleoptrata, 
one of the Myriopoda, by F. G. Heathcote, B.A. (plate 18).— 
The structure and development of Loxosoma, by S. F. Harmer, 
B.Sc. (plates 19-21).—A new hypothesis as to the relationship 
of the lung-book of Scorpio to the gill-book of Limulus, by E. 
R. Lankester, M.A.—A supplement number is announced to be 
published during May. 
The Fournal of the Royal Microscopical Society for April con- 
tains :—The Rey. W. H. Dallinger’s address as President (plates 
4-6).—The Lantern Microscope, by L. Wright.—On some un- 
usual forms of lactic ferment ; Bacterium lactis, by R. L. Mad- 
dox, M.D.—On a cata-dioptric immersion illuminator, by J. W. 
Stephenson.—With the usual summary of current researches in 
zoology and botany. 
American Fournal of Science, May.—Experiments undertaken 
to determine the modulus of elasticity of ice and the velocity 
of sound in ice, by John Trowbridge and Austin L. McRae. 
The average of all the observations was found to be 72 X 10° as 
compared with Bevan’s absolute modulus 54 X 10°, The velocity 
was determined at 2900 m. per second, or about nine times the 
velocity of sound in air.—Contributions from the Agricultural j 
Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin : digestion ex- _ 
periments, by H. P. Armsby. These experiments, made on sheep 
fed with hay, clover, malt-sprouts, and cotton seed-meal, yielded 
so many uncertain results that no satisfactory averages could be de- 
termined. Such averages may be made the basis of the calculation | 
of rations in practice ; but neither they nor the single results 
upon any given fodder can properly enter into any scientific 
calculation of the nutritive effect of a ration. —Chemical analysis 
of massive safflorite, by Le Roy W. McCay.—Application of 
photography to the study of electrical measurements (two illus- 
current dynamo-electric machine, by John Trowbridge and 
Hammond Vinton Hayes.—Chemical analysis of a variety of 
district, State of Maine (two illustrations), by F. W. Clarke 
and J. S. Diller.—A notice of the relation observed by Dr. 
Weber between the residual elasticity and the chemical constitu- 
tion of glass, by O. T. Sherman.—On the meridional deflection 
of ice-streams, as shown in the sorains of the extinct glaciers — 
in the Mono Lake Valley, Eastern California (two illustrations), 
by W. J. McGee.—The pre-Glacial’ channel of Eagle River, 
Keweenaw Point, Lake Superior (one illustration), by Charles 
Whittlesey.—Note on the age of the slaty and arenaceous rocks 
in the vicinity of Schenectady, Schenectady County, New York, 
by S. W. Ford. These formations, usually referred to the epoch 
of the Lorraine shales, are regarded by the author as belonging 
to the Utica age. From them were obtained various fossils, 
including a species of Lingula which he considers to be the 
Utica species, Z. curta. 
Se 
The American Naturalist, March, contains :—Indian corn 
and the Indians, by E. L. Sturtevant.—The evolution of the 
Vertebrata, progressive and retrogressive, by E. D. Cope.—On 
the larval forms of Spzrorbis borealis, by J. W. Fewkes.—Penn- 
sylvania, before and after the elevation of the Appalachian Moun- 
tains ; a study in dynamical geology, by E. W. Claypole.—Life — 
and nature in Southern Labrador, by A. S. Packard. 
April.—Why certain kinds of timber prevail in certain locali- 
ties, by J. T. Campbell.—The evolution of the Vertebrata, by 
E. D. Cope.—Progress of North American Invertebrate palzeon- 
tology for 1884, by J. B. Marcou.— The clam-worm, by S. 
Lockwood.—Life and nature in Southern Labrador, by A. S. 
Packard. 
May.—Some new Infusoria (with illustrations), by A. C. 
Stokes. —Kitchen-garden esculents of American origin (I.), by 
E. L. Sturtevant. —The Lemuroidea and the Insectivora of the 
Se 
