1863.J 437 



maining three drawings, general resemblances and special differences 

 appear on comparison with the sketches of Prof. Phillips and Mr. 

 Lockyer. The diiferences affect principally the grey southern parts, 

 and are remarkable enough to justify serious doubts whether any of 

 our drawings of those parts are much to be trusted as representing 

 permanent physical boundaries. Nor should this be thought sur- 

 prising ; owing to the high inclination of the axis of Mars to the plane 

 of his orbit, the regions round each pole are presented alternately to 

 the sun through periods somewhat less than our whole year. The 

 effect is seen in the vast outspread of snows round the cold pole, and 

 the contraction of those white sheets to a small glittering ellipse 

 round the warm pole. The enormous transfer of moisture from one 

 hemisphere to the other while the snows are melting round one pole 

 and growing round the other must generate over a great part of the 

 planet heavy storms and great breadths of fluctuating clouds, which 

 would not, as on the quickly rotating mass of Jupiter, gather into 

 equatorial bands, but be more under the influence of prominent land 

 and irregular tracts of ocean. 



February 19, 1863. 



Dr. WILLIAM ALLEN MILLER, Treasurer and Vice- 

 President, in the Chair. 



Pursuant to notice given at the last Meeting of the Society, The 

 Right Honourable Edward Pleydell Bouverie, and His Grace the 

 Archbishop of York, were proposed for election and immediate 

 Ballot. 



The Ballot having been taken, Mr. Bouverie and the Archbishop 

 of York were declared duly elected Fellows of the Society. 



The following communication was read : 



