1 36 Royal Society. 



deposition of snow which takes place in winter in proportion to the 

 lowness of the temperature. The returning warmth of spring ra- 

 pidly dissolves this thin layer of snow from level places, in conse- 

 quence, it appears, of the undiminished power of the solar rays in 

 passing through so rare and transparent a medium ; a fact tending 

 to confirm Mr. Daniel's views respecting the superior energy of the 

 solar rays in the higher regions of the air; and as this seems al- 

 ready to have been done with respect to his opinions of their great 

 power in polar regions, the fact is interesting as giving an addi- 

 tional cause for the analogy between alpine and polar vegetation. 

 When the snow is once melted, these elevated tracts, surrounded 

 and confined by towering mountains, absorb heat as readily during 

 the presence of the sun, as they radiate it freely while he is absent ; 

 and becoming, like the surface of the earth at ordinary levels, the 

 source whence the heat received from the sun is diffused to sur- 

 rounding objects, they cause the line of perpetual congelation to 

 recede higher and higher in proportion to their own elevation. 

 Peaks and pinnacles, on the contrary, projected into the air like 

 promontories into the ocean, partake rather of the equability of 

 temperature of the media into which they intrude, than impress on 

 them, like plains and table lands, their own extremes of heat and 

 cold." (p. 3y.) 



Mr. Royle's work is illustrated by numerous well-executed plates, 

 more especially of plants, and by geological sections which are to 

 be described in the forthcoming numbers. Altogether, we highly 

 recommend this publication to our readers, containing as it does, 

 not only an ample store of information respecting the natural pro- 

 ductions of the Himalayas, but also the best general view of the 

 physical features of those magnificent mountains with which we 

 are acquainted. 



XVII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from vol. vi. p. 375.] 



April 2.— A PAPER was read, entitled, "On the Results of Tide 

 ±\- Observations, made in June 1834, at the Coast- 

 Guard Stations in Great Britain and Ireland." By the Rev. W. 

 Whewell, F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



On a representation made by the author of the advantages which 

 would result from a series of simultaneous observations of the tides, 

 continued for a fortnight, along a great extent of coast, orders were 

 given for carrying this measure into effect at all the stations of the 

 Preventive service on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 

 from the 7th to the 22nd of June inclusive. From an examination of 

 the registers of these observati6ns, which were transmitted to the Ad- 

 miralty, but part of which only have as yet been reduced, the author 

 has been enabled to deduce many important inferences. He finds, 

 in the first place, that the tides in question are not affected by any 

 general irregularity, having its origin in a distant source, but only by 



