1867.] 155 [White. 



The wiri'ls have not the force on the Pacific that they have in 

 storms on the Atlantic. A hurricane is an unknown occurrence on 

 the northern coast, and the most violent storm that I have recorded 

 did not exceed in force a strong gale, or No. 8 of the Smithsonian 

 Institution indications. 



These facts, together with the mildness of the climate, as compared 

 with the same latitude on the Atlantic coast, make navigation less 

 hazardous, and the danger and hardships of a winter's voyage to the 

 Strait of Fuca and Puget Sound far less than a voyage from 

 Charleston to Boston in the month of March. 



98 Newton St., Boston, March 27, 1867. 



Dr. Pickering remarked that the change in humidity and tempera- 

 ture takes place on passing the barrier which the first range of hills 

 interposes to the oceanic winds. 



Mr. W. T. Brigham stated that in a storm of a week's duration in the 

 Hawaiian Islands, twelve inches of rain had fallen in a single day, and 

 that during the week thirty-six inches, and in some places forty inches 

 had fallen. In Western India, northeast of Bombay, which is con- 

 sidered one of the rainiest quarters of the earth, two hundred and fifty 

 inches of rain are precipitated dm-ing the few months of the rainy 

 season. 



Dr. Andrew Gan-att exhibited a bony mass taken from the 

 heart of a right whale. The whale was captured south of 

 the Azores, was fat and old, and had been previously 

 wounded behind the heart. The heart, when opened, con- 

 tained in different cavities two of these masses almost ex- 

 actly alike, fastened by two knob-like attachments to the un- 

 der side of the valve near its insertion. 



Dr. J. C. White had made an examination of this mass, and 

 found it to consist of an external shell one-eighth of an inch 

 thick, of firm fibrous tissue, with a dense glistening sui-face 

 like parchment. Witliin was found a cavity containing an 

 amorphous mass of a brownish spongy matter, somewhat 

 fatty, with a considerable quantity of inorganic salts, carbo- 

 nate, or phosphate of lime. The mass seemed to be either a 

 coaguhxm of fi brine, or else a pathological gi'owth from the 

 valves of the heart. 



Dr. J. C. "White announced some valuable donations from 

 Mr. Francis Brooks, calUng particular attention to the model 

 of a horse in papier mache, illustrating all the internal organs 



