PEIZE QUESTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 435 



"According to most geologists, one of the latest geological periods 

 was characterized by enormous masses of ice covering vast breadths 

 of different countries, and forming enormous glaciers. The society 

 inquires: 'What was the influence of these glaciers, if they really 

 existed, upon the flora and fauna of these countries, and upon the 

 temperature of the atmosphere?' ". 



The society unanimously awarded the gold medal to the author of 

 this memoir, Professor W. Sartonus de Waltershausen, of Gottingen. 



The society thinks fit to repeat the following questions, and to re- 

 quest replies to them j^i'evious to the first of January. 1863: 



1. Throughout Europe the diluvial formation contains bones of the 

 mammifers; the society asks a comparative examination of the de- 

 posits of those bones in different places leading, if not with cer- 

 tainty, at least with a high degree of probability, to a knowledge of 

 the causes of their interment, and the manner in which it happened. 



2. In some districts of the island of Java there are very remarka- 

 ble polythalama; the society desires a description, accompanied by 

 figures, of some species of this genus hitherto undescribed. 



3. It is very probable that the chain of mountains which borders 

 Dutch Guiana contains auriferous veins, and that the detritus at the 

 foot of that chain contains gold. The societ}^ requires a geological 

 description of that chain of mountains, with the result of a minera- 

 logical examination of its detritus. 



4. The society requires as complete a list as can be made of the 

 reptiles that exist in the countries near the Dutch possession of St. 

 George del Mina, on the coast of Guinea, with the description of new 

 species. 



5. The society requires an anatomical description of the sea-calf, 

 (Trichecus manatus, L.^J which is found in the Dutch colonies in 

 America, with an account of the habits of the animal, based on the 

 author' s observations. 



6. A chemical examination is required of the phosphorescent ma- 

 terial of Lampyris noctiluca and of Lampyris splendldula, L. 



7. The celebrated astronomer G. B. Airy has expressed (vol. xix, 

 No. 5, of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society) some 

 doubts regarding the manner in which it has hitherto been attempted 

 to deduce from the apparent movements of the fixed stars the move- 

 ment of the sun with the planetary system through space. Airy 

 proposes an entirely new method of attaining the same end, a method 

 which he has applied to only a very few stars. In view of these facts, 

 the society requests new and exact researches upon the movement of 

 the sun with the planetary system; these researches to be founded 

 upon all the fixed stars whose own motion has been settled with 

 sufficient exactness for that end. 



8. Bodies in motion, when lighted by the electric spark, appear as 

 though they Avere perfectly at rest; new^ researches are requested to 

 be made by means of the application of this principle. 



9. The society requests new researches upon the arrangement 

 assumed by particles of iron floating upon or suspended in a liquid 



