376 Transactions. — Chemistry and Physics. 



temperatures. The fact that the most unsaturated bodies 

 come over at the lowest temperatures throws a light upon the 

 chemical difference between the fossil and raw resin. It is 

 probable that there exists iu the raw resin some volatile aro- 

 matic substauce with a much higher bromine-absorption than 

 any constituent of the fossil. Thus the raw resin gives a con- 

 siderably and consistently higher absorption than the fossil 

 resin, which has lost its more aromatic part by years of ex- 

 posure. I am speaking of the yellow and brittle fossil resins, 

 which are probably the oldest. The opaque white resin gave 

 bromine-absorptions practically identical with those of the resin 

 gathered from the trees. This fossil resin (white, opaque) 

 was taken from the inside of a massive piece, and so was 

 unlikely to be altered so much as that found granular or in 

 small lumps. 



Abt. XLVI. — Facts discovered in ins Investigation of the 

 Motions of the Atmosphere in the Southern Hemisphere. 



By Major-General H. Schaw, C.B., B.E. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 16th October, 1900.] 



Plate XV. 



During some past years I have given much attention to the 

 wind and weather. In this I have perhaps only followed the 

 example of the multitude, but I have in some measure gone 

 beyond the general interest which we all feel in the weather 

 by endeavouring to get some explanation of the facts we ob- 

 serve. As probably my last communication to the Wellington 

 Philosophical Society, I will endeavour to put on record the 

 small additions to our former stock of knowledge on the sub- 

 ject which I have been able to gather. 



It will be remembered that in October, 1897, I described a 

 balanced wind-vane which I had devised, and which was 

 erected above the time-ball in Wellington Harbour, where I 

 still observe its indications. Another similar wind-vane was 

 constructed, and, after having observations made with it for 

 limited periods at Lincoln College, Canterbury, and at Gis- 

 borne, it was erected on a pole near the lighthouse at Farewell 

 Spit by the Marine Department, by whose kind offices it has 

 been regularly observed during the last year. All these ob- 

 servations have confirmed my views formerly expressed — that 

 the fluctuations in the atmospheric pressure shown by a baro- 

 meter at the sea-level are caused mainly by upward and 



