Letter to Frederick Orpen Bower from William Gibson Farlow

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Letter to Frederick Orpen Bower from William Gibson Farlow in which he tells Bower of the terrible cold they are experiencing. He states that it has been below 0 degrees for a week and that one day it was -13 degrees. To make matters worse, there was a shortage of coal due to transport problems and passenger traffic had had to be stopped so that coal trains could get through. He tells Bower that the cold has also affected their preparations for war, troops cannot be drilled and shipbuilding and munitions work has had to be stopped. Harvard is housing 3,500 radiograph troops and Farlow updates Bower on how his nephews are faring. He encloses a fern specimen which he thinks is from Madagascar and asks Bower to identify it for him. He mentions that Edward C Jeffrey's treatise on histology had been published but that no botanist from Harvard had seen it. Also includes an envelope containing the sample of fern mentioned in the letter.

• Coal
• Ferns
• Histology
• Meteorological Observations
• World War, 1914-1918

• Bower | Frederick Orpen | 1855-1948 | regius professor of botany, University of Glasgow
• Farlow | William Gibson | 1844-1919 | American botanist
• Jeffrey | Edward C | 1866-1952 | plant morphologist, Harvard University

• Harvard University | 1636-: | educational establishment | Cambridge (Massachusetts, United States)

• Madagascar