LOWEST TEMPERATURE OF JANUARY, 1838. 241 



contracted, and 6§ inches when extended ; and that of a Cormorant, in the 

 former case 9£ inches, and in the latter 151 inches. But as, in these cases, the 

 bones of the upper larynx and lower larynx, which do not slip over each other, 

 are included, a better idea of the extensibility of the trachea is obtained from a 

 fragment of it taken from the middle. Thus, a portion of the trachea of a Rook, 

 1 inch long when contracted as much as it can be, measures 2| inches when 

 extended to the utmost ; and a portion of that of a Wood Pigeon 1 inch long 

 when contracted, may be extended to 2f inches. But the greatest range known 

 to me is exhibited by the dilated portion of the trachea of the Golden-eyed 

 Duck, which may be contracted to a quarter of an inch, and extended to two 

 inches and a quarter. This, however, is effected by a mechanism different from 

 that usually exhibited ; for although the rings cross each other in front, in the 

 ordinary manner, they are narrower behind, and gradually fall within each 

 other upwards. 



Edinburgh, March 12, 1838. 



THE LOWEST TEMPERATURE OF JANUARY, 1838. 



By Hewett Cottrell Watson, Esq., F.L.S. 

 Editor of the Phrenological Journal. 



According to the Meteorological Journal of the Royal Society, regularly 

 published in The Athenceum, the minimum of the thermometer in January last 

 was on the ICth, when the mercury fell very slightly below 11|- degrees, the 

 point to which it sunk on the 20th. Upon the faith of the Royal Society's 

 Journal, the Monthly Chronicle, for March, has called in question the accuracy 

 of the register at the Horticultural Gardens, Turnham Green, where the thermo- 

 meter is said to have fallen 4> degrees below zero on the night following the 

 19th. Struck by the rapid sinking of the temperature, in the early part of that 

 evening, I paid particular attention to my thermometers, and can bear testimony 

 to the accuracy of the observations at the Horticultural Gardens, so far as a still 

 lower temperature at a few miles distance can do this. At six o'clock on the 

 evening of the 19th, a thermometer (made by Dollond), in a glass cylinder, 

 fifteen feet above the ground, stood at 12 degrees. By eight o'clock the mercury 

 had disappeared from the tube, which is graduated down to three degrees above 

 zero. A short space intervening between the lowest line marked and the bulb, 

 the mercury must have been at least down to zero at this time. I immediately 

 suspended a common ivory thermometer (made by Adie) on a nail in the out- 



