TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION A. 



3. Cold nor' westers. 



4. The behaviour of the barometer in a nor'wester. 



5. The north-west arch (of clouds). 



6. The south-west wind and subsequent gyration. 



7. North-west rains east of the Southern Alps. 



8. Other fuhn winds than the New Zealand nor'westers. 



9. Their generally beneficial character. 



6. On Constructive Cosmical Inqmct. 

 By Professor A. W. Bickerton. 



1. Stars, being suns in indiscriminate motion, are liable to 

 collision. 



2. This tendency to collision is increased by the mutual 

 attraction of the bodies. In two bodies such as the sun this 

 tendency would be increased above four thousand times by 

 mutual attraction. 



3. Almost all considerable impacts would be of a grazing 

 character, and all impacts produced by attraction would 

 certainly not be direct. 



4. A tangential or grazing impact would not necessarily 

 result in complete coalescence. Often only the parts actually 

 coming into collision would coalesce, the remainder passing on 

 into space. It is obvious this would be the case with a mere 

 graze. 



5. The part grazed off would exercise a retarding action on 

 the escaping part, that would often prevent its entire escape. 

 Two bodies similar to our sun would be prevented escaping 

 even if a much less part be grazed off than one-hundredth. 

 Here, as already suggested by Stoney Johnson and Sir William 

 Thomson on other grounds, is a probable origin of doable stars. 

 If the stars had no initial proper motion, the grazing-off of a 

 third of each would exercise such a retarding influence that the 

 resulting bodies would not pass out of contact. 



6. The part coming into collision would be intensel}^ heated 

 by the impact. The temperature developed will be indepen- 

 dent of the amount of grazing ; with similar substances it will 

 depend only on the velocity destroyed, so that the coalesced 

 body produced by the merest graze will be as hot as though 

 the whole sun collided. 



7. The molecular velocity of such a high temperature may 

 be sufficient to carry away every particle entirely into space, 



