486 Cambridge Philosophical Society. 



at Swaffham Bulbeck, was only 36°'2, being the same as that of Ja- 

 nuary, and more than six degrees lower than the average mean for 

 March. The maximum was only 49°, and the minimum 11°; this 

 last, which was a lower temperature than any experienced since the 

 hard winter of 1829-30, having occurred on the morning of the 

 24.th. 



Professor Willis exhibited and explained a machine which he 

 terms a Tabuloscriptive Engine. The object of this machine is to 

 transfer to paper any numerical series of magnitudes, so as to ex- 

 hibit the curve which would be obtained by making those magni- 

 tudes a series of ordinates ; a process of very frequent and impor- 

 tant use in comparing the results of observations of various kinds, 

 as, for instance, meteorological, tidal, and statistical observations. 

 The machine takes three places of figures, is capable of being worked 

 with very slight attention, and with great rapidity, and produces a 

 sheet very readily legible and intelligible. 



May 1. — A meeting of the Philosophical Society was held on 

 Monday evening, Dr. Thackeray, V.P., in the chair. A paper by 

 A. Moore, Esq., of Trinity College, was read, on the solution of a 

 difficulty of analysis noticed by Sir W. R. Hamilton. — Mr. Whewell 

 gave an account of the performance of a new Anemometer, invented 

 by him, which has been erected at the top of the house of the So- 

 ciety, and also on the top of the Observatory, and of which the in- 

 dications for the last four months have been recorded. — Mr. Kelland 

 also read a paper on the effect of the elasticity of the aether in cry- 

 stals as bearing on the undulatory theory. 



May 15. — A meeting of the Philosophical Society was held on 

 Monday evening. Dr. Clark, the President, being in the chair. A 

 communication by Mr. G. Green was read, containing the solution 

 of a problem respecting the motion of a heavy fluid in a canal. — Mr. 

 Hopkins gave an account of his mathematical researches on the re- 

 frigeration and the internal fluidity of the earth. — A paper of Mr. 

 Moseley was read, on the theory of the equilibrium of bodies in 

 contact.— Mr. W. W.Fisher presented another communication on 

 the subject of spina bifida. The author has observed, in two cases 

 oi spina bifida, irregularities which he described; i. e. the union of 

 two or more of the sacral ganglia ; the passage of their respective 

 nerves through the sheath in one fasciculus, and the adhesion of 

 the extremity of the spinal marrow to the walls of the sac. By ap- 

 plying to the consideration of these anomalies the knowledge which 

 we now possess of the formation of the different portions of the ner- 

 vous system in the embryon, and of the anatomy of that system in 

 the lower order of animals, he is led, with regard to the two ex- 

 amples he has seen, to adopt the following views. 



1. That the union of the sacral ganglia constituted the primary 

 irregularity to which the anomalous distribution of their correspond- 

 ing nerves between the ganglia and the spinal cord might be re- 

 ferred. 



2. That, unacquainted with any circumstance connected with the 

 formation of the spinal cord and its sheath, which can account for 



