TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 45 
flocked to Capt. Aston, to ask for his opinion of this phenomenon; for 
not only did the heavens raining grain upon them excite terror, but 
the omen was aggravated by the fact that the seed was not one of the 
cultivated grains of the country, but was entirely unknown to them. 
The genus and species was not immediately recognizable by some 
botanists, to whom it was shown, but it was thought to be either a 
spartium or a vicia. A similar force to that which elevates fish into 
the air, no doubt operated on this occasion; and this new fact corrobo- 
rates the phenomena, the effects of which had been previously wit- 
nessed. 
New Experimental Researches on Rain. By Joun Puiu.irs, F.R.S. 
The author proposed, by a new train of researches on the quantities 
of rain received on horizontal surfaces at different heights above the 
ground, by a contemporaneous series of experiments on the direction 
and angle of inclination of the descending lines of rain drops, and by 
contemporaneous registration of wind, temperature and moisture, to 
furnish additional data of importance in the theory of rain. Referring 
to the results obtained in his former discussion of three years’ observa- 
tions on the quantities of rain on York Minster (212 ft. above ground), 
the Yorkshire Museum (42 ft.), and on the ground, made by Professor 
Phillips and Mr. William Gray, the author noticed the statements of 
Prof. Bache, Dr. Daubeny, and others, as to the inequality of the re- 
ceipt of rain about the angles of a building and at small heights above 
it, in consequence of local aerial deflexions; and though in these re- 
spects the experimental results obtained in the three years’ York series 
appeared liable to small objection, many reasons of importance decided 
that in this new course of experiments, destined to last many years and 
to include a variety of contemporaneous records, the rain gauges should 
be placed in an open ground. It was further determined to place them 
at heights above the ground, corresponding to the depths below the 
surface to which the thermometers of Arago, Quetelet and Forbes, are 
sunk; i. e. to 0, 3, 6, 12, and 24 French feet. At present there are 
placed in the author's garden-ground four gauges at heights of 0, 3, 6, 
12 French feet. The method of observation is of a peculiarly easy de- 
scription, so that in the midst of rain the momentary rapidity of the fall 
of rain can be perfectly ascertained in all the gauges. For example, in 
a very heavy shower, the maximum rapidity of rain accumulation, was 
0:010 inch in two minutes of time = 0°300 inch in an hour. The gauges 
are, in common language, of the same size; but the author, not trusting 
to this supposed equality, makes the four gauges pass through a circle 
of positions, so that at the end of a year about 12 changes of position 
will have occurred, and the error of size in any one or more of the gauges 
be equally distributed over the various positions, and the registration be 
finally correct, without any applied calculation. The results, from June 
1 to September 3 inclusive, in which period the changes of the gauges 
have not been sufficient to equalize their errors, are— 
