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A high correlation exists between monthly population-weighted heating degree days (below 18C) and the use of natural gas per household for residential heating in Alberta for the period 1962–80. The use of natural gas for residential heating per household declines since 1973 following a sharp increase in gas prices.

in English history."1 She could also be called the first English geographer, for she wrote the first textbook in physical geography in the English language. Her "Physical Geography"2 was published in 1848, three years after the first volume of von Humboldt's "Cosmos"3 appeared and before geography was recognized as a university discipline in Great Britain.4 Her remarkable life spanned almost a century, from 1780 to 1872. It was an exciting century for physical science, for great strides were made in astronomy, in geology, in meteorology, and in geography. Many of the great pioneers in these fields John Herschel, Charles Lyell, Roderick Murchison, and Alexander von Humboldt were her friends, and they accepted her as a fellow scientist and acknowledged her contributions to science. Yet it was also an age when women were not given a formal education. Mrs. Somerville was completely self-taught, which makes her four books in various fields of science all the more remarkable. Her

A CORDING to popular concept, the northern regions ot North America and Eurasia are differentiated areally into a series of latitudinal belts of climate, vegetation, and soils. Long before adequate observations were available, vegetation and climate were mapped by extrapolation from northern Europe eastward across Siberia and westward across North America. Bordering the Arctic Sea is the tundra; to the south of this are two concentric coniferous-forest belts, the northern and southern subArctic forest. Soil maps came later; but since observations of the soils were largely lacking, recourse was had to the familiar maps of climate and vegetation, and belts of muskeg and podsol were fitted in. However, there is growing evidence, at least in northern Canada, that the actual distribution of climate, vegetation, and soil is quite different from that concept. Recent observation and experiment in the Northwest Territories and the northern parts of the Prairie Provinces indicate that the climate is not humid, the vegetation is not forest, and the soil is not podsol.