elviii Proceedings. 
Sun spots, as was well known, varied in frequency in cycles of 
about eleven years, and their maximum was associated with 
terrestrial phenomena, such as magnetic storms and aurora 
borealis. He had been led to think that while the rainfall of 
the year as a whole bore little relation to the number of sun 
spots, a relation was observable in the rainfall of particular 
months, especially August, the rainfall in August being highest 
in years at or about a minimum sun spot period, and lowest in 
years at or about a maximum sun spot period (see Trans.). 
On March 15th Dr. Parsons exhibited a collection of fossils 
from the gault, lower greensand, and Wealden beds; Mr. A. J. 
Hogg exhibited fossils and a mass of gypsum from the gault ; and 
Mr. Murton Holmes showed echinoderms, sponges, &c., from the 
upper chalk. 
The event of the evening was a written lecture by Mr. H. E. 
Turner, B.Sc., of Folkestone, lent through the South-eastern 
Union of Scientific Societies, and read by Dr. Franklin Parsons. 
Mr. Baldock operated with the Club lantern, exhibiting some 
sixty-nine slides to illustrate the lecture. The subject of the 
lecture was ‘‘ The Lower Greensand, Gault, and Upper Green- 
sand.” These beds, taken from below upwards, are the oldest of 
the cretaceous series, so named from the predominance of the 
chalk, and belonging to the middle ages of geological time. The 
cretaceous series are found only in the Hast and South of 
England. They are overlaid by the London and Hampshire 
basins of the tertiary beds, and by recent alluvium on the sea 
coast. The general trend of the cretaceous beds having been 
more exactly indicated, the lecture went on to deal with the 
special arrangements of beds found in the part known as the 
Wealden area, comprising parts of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, 
and Kent. The bifurcation of the chalk of Salisbury Plain forms 
respectively the North Downs, terminating eastwards in Dover 
cliffs, and the South Downs, ending in Beachy Head ; while their 
counterparts are seen across the Straits of Dover, in the chalk 
cliffs about Boulogne, a few miles to the east of which they again 
reunite. We have thus the interesting geological phenomenon 
of a closed oval, cut through indeed by the comparatively recent 
Straits of Dover, but presenting in concentrically arranged out- 
crops a vast thickness of beds, within an area one hundred and 
fifty miles from east to west, and forty from north to south. The 
chalk, which is the most recent, bounds the area as. with a lofty 
wall. The oldest Hastings sands occupy the centre. This con- 
dition of things has been brought about by the upheaval of the 
beds en masse into the form of a dome, which has been cut down 
by denudation or the gradual carrying away of the materials by 
water, just as the coats of an onion might be cut across. The 
