' 
48 
in potash to the Intellectual Observer, giving him credit for the simple 
plan of readily obtaining the palates, and was surprised some five 
years after to see it quoted from an American journal as a plan sug- 
gested in America as novel. It was now recommended in all the 
manuals. He mentioned this, for whatever credit was due for the sug- 
gestion belonged to Mr. Hennah. 
The meeting then became a Conversazione, when Messrs. Hennah, 
Glaisyer, and Wonfor exhibited numerous palates, including those of 
the whelk, limpet, periwinkle, snail, black slug (a vegetable feeder), 
testacella (a carnivorous slug), trochus, haliotis, cuttle fish, aplysia, 
doris, balea fragilis, cyclostoma elegans, &c. 
During the course of the evening Mr. Hennah gave practical in- 
struction, by dissecting out the palates of whelks, snails, and peri- 
winkles. 
Marcu 14rx, 
ORDINARY MEETING.— MR. F. E. SAWYER ON 
RAIN, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE 
RAINFALL OF SUSSEX, AND HOW IT IS 
INFLUENCED BY THE SOUTH DOWNS. 
Mr. Sawyer commenced by describing the causes of rain, as sud- 
den changes of temperature, electrical agency, &c., the chief cause 
being a decrease in temperature, He next noticed falls of black and 
yellow rain and showers of insects and honey, and read a curious letter 
by the 3rd Earl of Pembroke respecting the burning of fern as a 
cause of rain, The supposed lunar influence on rainfall was then de- 
scribed, the second quarter of the moon being considered as having 
the greatest rainfall. Rainfall decreased by elevation, but the cause 
of this had never been satisfactorily explained. Trees affected the 
rainfall by greatly increasing the amount, In July, 1869, he com- 
menced to record the duration of rain, and from these records several 
interesting facts had been deduced. Firstly, the relative hourly fre- 
