‘For the pursuit of the fishery, the island possesses fourteen small open boats, in which the men will venture out as far as four to six miles cod-fishing; but this is a most hazardous industry, owing both to the sudden manner in which the sea will rise, sometimes even a long time in advance of travelling storms, and to the difficulty of effecting a landing on the harbourless island. ‘Now and then the monotony of the life of the inhabitants is broken by visits from foreigners, mostly Icelandic shark-fishers, or English or French fishermen. ‘Of domestic animals the islanders now possess only a few sheep. Formerly there were five cows in the island; but the hard winter of 1860 necessitated their extermination, and since that time, for twenty-four years, the people have had to do without a cow! Of horses there are only two at present (1884) in the island! Strange to say, the health of the people seems on the whole to bear a fair comparison with more favoured localities. Scurvy, which formerly was very prevalent, has now almost disappeared, as has also a disease peculiar to children, which, in the form of spasm or convulsive fit, used to be very fatal to infant life in former years. ‘Inexpressibly solitary must be the life of these people in winter, shut out from all communication with the outer world, and having in view, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but arctic ice. The existence of generation after generation here seems to be spent in one continuous and unavailing arctic expedition. The only diversion afforded by nature consists in the shifting colours of the flickering aurora borealis, in the twinkling of the stars in the heavens, and the fantastic forms of wandering icebergs. No wonder that such surroundings should serve to produce a quiet, serious, devout, and down-hearted race, in which respect the Grimsey men may perhaps be said to constitute a typical group among their compatriots. However, to dispel the heavy tedium of the long winter days, they seek their amusements in the reading of the Sagas, in chess-playing, and in such mild dissipations at mutual entertainments at Christmas-time as their splendid poverty will allow.’ FORESTRY AND FARMING. At one of the evening lectures in connection with the late Edinburgh Forestry Exhibition, Mr J. Meldrum spoke of the ‘Johore Forests’ which are situated in the Malayan Peninsula between the British settlements of Singapore and Malacca. The greater part of the interior, he said, consisted of a virgin forest, and abounded in timber trees of a large size, no fewer than three hundred and fifty specimens of which were to be seen in the Forestry Exhibition. About three hundred kinds awaited the advent of the papermaker, who would be able to convert them into useful wood-pulp at a very low cost. Railways were required to make this wealth of timber available for commercial purposes.