196 



Resumes des Observations Meteorologiques faites dans I'entendue de 



rEmpiredeRussio. Par A. T. Kupffer. ler Cahier. 4to.— 



By M. Kupffer. 

 An Introduction to the Birds of Australia. By John Gould, F.R.S. 



8vo. — By Professor Forbes. 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Edited by the Secretaries. 



No. 161. May 1848. 8vo.— By the Society. 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Edited by the Secretaries. 



No. 193. July 1848. 8vo.—By the Society. 

 Journal of the Statistical Society of London. Vol. XI., Part 4. 



8vo. — By the Society. 



Monday, December 18, 1848. 

 The Very Rev. Principal LEE, D.D., in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 

 1. Description of a Mud-slide at Malta. By A. Milward, 

 Esq. Communicated by the Secretary. 



A large quantity of mud, dredged up from the harbour of Valetta, 

 having been deposited on a piece of slightly-inclined ground, and 

 having been subsequently moistened to an excessive extent by rain, 

 and by the overflow of a neighbouring tank, the upper parts began 

 to flow down over the lower and the original boundary, in six distinct 

 streams ; this separation being apparently caused by the difference 

 of lesistance and level of the under stratum. 



These streams exhibited, to a remarkable degree, all the pheno- 

 mena of glaciers, and thus tended greatly to confirm the theory 

 which looks upon them not as a solid, or a collection of solid masses, 

 but as a viscous fluid. Curved bands of dark and light mud were seen 

 crossing the streams similarly with Professor Forbes's "dirt-bands" 

 on the glaciers; and the crevasses had their counterparts in the 

 cracks in the mud. 



2. An Attempt to explain the "Dirt-Bands of Glaciers." By 



A. Milward, Esq. 



A second mud-slide having occurred at Malta, with more marked 

 featuies than the fii-st, Mr Milward was enabled to ascertain that the 

 curved bands of dark and light mud arc not only accompanied by a 



