A brief account of the weather of this period as regards temperature was read before the Royal Society last year. It was drawn up at the request of Professor Balfour, to accompany his paper “On the Remarkable State of Vegetation in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden in December 1863.”

From the 26th of October to the end of December the weather was in every way remarkable. Though frost occurred in the end of October and beginning of November it was not severe, and the temperature continued on the whole seasonable till the 12th of November. From this date till the end of the month it ranged unprecedently high, being 9° above the average temperature of the season. It then fell for the next ten days, but on no occasion below the average; and again rose considerably above the average during the week ending with the 18th of December. Under this genial weather vegetation in the open air advanced rapidly to a state of forwardness not usually seen till the month of March. In December 245 plants were in flower in the Gardens in the open air, and of these 35 were spring flowers. The frost which had occurred was insufficient to damage, to any material extent, 210 autumn-flowering plants; and the high temperature of November, which was as high as what ordinarily occurs in the beginning of May, brought the spring flowers prematurely into bloom, so that there was to be seen the rare spectacle of sweet peas and hepaticas flowering together.