HARDWJCKKS SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



21 



Fossil Insects Recently Discovered in the Silurian and 

 Carboniferous Rocks. After dealing with the various 

 fossil insects found in these formations, in various 

 parts of the world, he treats upon the fossil scorpions 

 and cockroaches found in the Silurian strata, and 

 also on similar insects found in the Carboniferous 

 rocks. Mr. Goss's paper contains copious biblio- 

 graphical notices of memoirs in various languages 

 treating on the fossil insects of the primary rocks. 



On some Borings in Kent. — This is the simple 

 title of a very important paper just read before the 

 Geological Society by W. Whitaker, B.A., F.G.S., 

 Assoc. Inst. C.E. Seven deep borings in the eastern 

 part of Kent were described, all of them reaching to 

 the Gault. The chief one is at Chatham Dockyard, 

 where," after passing through the whole thickness of 

 the chalk, the Gault was found to be 193 feet thick ; 

 whilst the Lower Greensand was only 41 feet, and 

 was underlain by Oxford Clay, a formation not before 

 known in Kent. These parts involve the thinning of 

 the Lower Greensand from 200 feet at the outcrop 

 a few miles to the south, and the entire loss of the 

 whole of the Wealden Series, which, further south, 

 exists in great force, the Weald Clay being 600 feet 

 thick, or perhaps more, and the Hastings Beds 700 

 feet or more. Still further south, in the central part 

 of the Wealden district, there are outcrops of the 

 Purbeck Beds, whilst the Subwealden boring con- 

 tinues the series downwards. We have thus an addi- 

 tion to the beds wanting at Chatham of some 400 feet 

 of Purbeck and Portlandian, of over 1100 feet of 

 Kimmeridgian, and of nearly 500 feet of Corallian, &c. 

 In a section of 32 miles, therefore (the distance 

 between the Southwealden and the Chatham borings), 

 we have a thinning of beds to the extent of over 

 3400 feet, or at the average rate of about 100 feet in 

 a mile. This northerly thinning agrees with the 

 facts that have been brought before us from other 

 deep borings in and near London ; but the Chatham 

 boring is the first in the London Basin in which a 

 Middle Jurassic formation has been found. The 

 teaching of the deep borings, as a whole, is that 

 north of the Thames older rocks rise up beneath the 

 Cretaceous beds, whilst on the south newer rocks 

 come in between the two. The question of the 

 finding of the Coal-measures beneath parts of the 

 London Basin seems to admit of a hopeful answer, 

 whilst the lesson of the deep borings as regards 

 water-supply is that there is small chance of getting 

 water from the Lower Greensand at great depths 

 underground. 



More Curious Primroses. — Since mentioning 

 some uncommon primroses found growing wild, we 

 have found others, growing like the oxlip ; one 

 having eight flowers, one seven, one five, and the 

 other, three. — M. E. Thomson. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Silkworms. — My relative, Laurence G. J. Epps, 

 lately called attention to having several times noticed 

 two chrysalides in one cocoon. I can now add, that 

 I have since met with three chrysalides in one 

 cocoon, and a most curiously ill-shapen cocoon it 

 was. As might have been expected, the worms 

 have generally interfered with each others' spinning 

 operations, with the result that the threads could not 

 be continuously wound off. Instances have been met 

 with by us, however, in which this has not been the 

 case, when it would appear that the second worm 

 was either more lazy or more acute than usual. A 

 very interesting article on the whole subject of silk 

 appeared in " Harper's New Monthly Magazine " for 

 July last, entitled " A Silk Dress." Reference is 

 there made to double cocoons being common, and 

 the writer hints that laziness is sometimes a weakness 

 of the silkworm's character. Is it possible, how- 

 ever, that the explanation can be that the silkworm 

 is gregarious ? — Hahnemann Epps, Tube Hill. 



More November Meteors. — Retaining a vivid 

 impression of the magnificence of the sight of the 

 celebrated star-shower of the night of the 13 — 14 

 November, 1866, which it was my privilege to see 

 under most favourable circumstances, I have ever 

 since been on the look out for its repetition. Once 

 more the precise date came, and there was nothing 

 unusual noticed in the heavens. I had quite ceased 

 to think of it, when, on the evening of Friday, the 

 27th of November, 1885, my attention was suddenly 

 attracted at 4.40 p.m. — Dublin time — to what at 

 the first glance I took to be sheet lightning, but 

 which a moment's notice showed me was a shower of 

 meteors or shooting stars that far exceeded the great 

 display of 1866. The weather on the 26th was 

 stormy, with heavy showers from the south-east till 

 nightfall, when the wind veered to the west and blew 

 strongly till morning. The 27th was calm and dry 

 overhead, with a good sunset, leading one to expect 

 frost. There was no mooD, and the sky was perfectly 

 cloudless when I first observed the meteors in extra- 

 ordinary numbers flashing across it, some faint and 

 vanishing after a short course ; others far brighter 

 than Venus ever appears to be, and many of these 

 latter leaving a trail of light behind them as if they 

 were blazing. A countryman who was speaking to 

 me next day about them, expressively described it 

 when he said " you could not look at a star but it 

 ran away." I and a member of my family, whom I 

 called to behold the beautiful spectacle, tried to count 

 the meteors, I say tried, for it was impossible to 

 enumerate all, — and we made out their numbers to 

 be more than seventy per minute, which is consider- 

 ably above the total of the star-shower of nineteen 

 years ago. I watched them interruptedly for one 

 hour, during which time there was no diminution in 

 their numbers or brilliancy. At 5.30 o'clock the 

 sky became overcast, but even then, when all the 

 stars were blotted out by the misty clouds, a great 

 many of the meteors were visible as they sped hither 

 and thither on their mysterious paths. They all 

 appeared to proceed or diverge from a point situated 

 a little below Cassiopeia's Chair ; from that spot they 

 radiated in all directions, and as the locality was in 

 the north-east, and not too much overhead, it 

 afforded the finest astronomical sight it has ever been 

 my good fortune to witness. The occurrence opens 

 up another question for our star students, as the 27th 

 November is not one of the dates set down for the 

 recurrence of star-showers. It looks as if the orbit of 



