NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
113 
statistics will be of interest to my meteorological friends, and prove 
by the rise at the lower depths the abnormal force of the heat-waves 
recently experienced on the Adelaide Plains. The earth temperatures 
are taken, as soon as practicable, after the ordinary 9 a.m. obser¬ 
vations :— 
February 1st, 1885. 
February 1st, 1886. 
At 1 foot. 
_ 80*4 _ 
. 76*0 
At 2 feet. 
_ 79*3 _ 
. 78*1 
At 4 feet. 
_ 75*5 _ 
. 76*2 
At 6 feet. 
_ 71-5 _ 
. 73*5 
At 8 feet. 
_ 69*0 _ 
. 71*9 
At 10 feet. 
_ 68*1 _ 
. 71-2 
At 12 feet., 
_ 66*5 _ 
. 68*2 
During January, 1885, the 
air maxima ran 
over 95°, but 100*0 was 
not reached. During January, 1886, maxima of 1006, 105*2, and 111*6 
were registered in my enlarged Stevenson’s screen ; the latter value 
occurring on the 4tli. At 3 p.m. on that day the dry bulb read 109*7, 
wet 75*9, giving the enormous difference of 33*8; and a relative 
humidity or fraction of saturation of only 15 by Guyot’s formula. 
At 3 a.m. on the 3rd inst. my electric hygrometer read—dry bulb 49*6, 
wet 48*6, giving 93 as a percentage of humidity. Can we have a better 
instance of the extraordinary vicissitudes of the South Australian 
climate? Nothing like it have I experienced during all my recent 
wanderings in Queensland. 
Adelaide, February 8th, 1886. 
New Aquatic Moss. —Prof. J. B. Schnetzler describes a Moss 
attached to pieces of limestone found by fishermen in their nets, when 
fishing at a depth of 200m., at a particular spot in the Lake of Geneva. 
No fructification has yet been found on it, but the author considers 
it as probably allied to Hypnuvi (Thamnium) alopecurum, which it 
resembles in its mode of branching, and in the form of its cells. It 
is multiplied by green shoots, and the leaves contain abundance of 
chlorophyll and starch. Assimilation and the formation of chloro¬ 
phyll therefore take place at a depth which marks the extreme limit of 
the sun’s rays.— Jour, of Mic. &oc., Feb., 1886, from Bot. Centralbl. 
Meteors. —A meteor shower, radiating from the constellation 
Andromeda , may always be observed more or less during the last week 
of November. The Leonids appear about the 13tli of November, and 
the Andromedes from a week to a fortnight afterwards. These latter are 
supposed to be connected with Biela’s comet. They are often seen in 
small numbers for several nights in succession, but on the night of the 
27th of November this year they came out with most unusual 
splendour. From about six to eight p.m. there was a perfect rain of 
meteors all round the heavens, the radiating point being almost exactly 
in the zenith. Between eight and nine the sky became cloudy, but I 
am told that it cleared up after midnight, and that the shower was 
still proceeding. It was not equal in grandeur to the display of the 
Leonids in 1866, but was, nevertheless, a very striking and beautiful 
phenomenon.—F. T. Mott, Birstal Hill, Leicester, November 28th. 
