1884.J Treasurer s Address. 437 



General Strachey and Mr. Scott, that at some barometrical stations 

 the atmospheric wave caused by the eruption was still to be traced 

 until about 122 hours after its origin, and that it must have travelled 

 more than three times round the entire circuit of the earth, shows 

 how vast must have been the initial disturbance causing the wave. 

 The possibility of the remarkable atmospheric appearances which so 

 constantly accompanied the rising and setting of the sun for some 

 months subsequent to the eruption, being due to volcanic dust in sus- 

 pension in the air, offered a farther incentive to investigate the whole 

 history of the eruption. In consequence the Council in January last 

 nominated a Committee to collect the various accounts of the volcanic 

 eruption at Krakatoa and attendant phenomena, in such form as shall 

 best provide for their preservation and promote their usefulness, and 

 a sum of 1001. in all has been granted from the Donation Fund to 

 defray the expenses of the Committee. A Committee of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society, which had already been appointed to study 

 the sunset phenomena of 1883-84, joined forces with our Committee, 

 and their united labours, with Mr. A. Ramsay as secretary, have 

 resulted in the accumulation of a voluminous mass of material. The 

 accounts given in the chief British and foreign scientific serials have 

 been extracted and classified, and the times of the various observa- 

 tions reduced to Greenwich mean time. 



The literature on the subject, as Mr. Symons informs me, seems 

 almost inexhaustible, and the Committee, feeling that some limit must 

 be adopted, have now stopped the collection of further data, and are 

 engaged in the discussion of what have already been obtained. The 

 MS. is classified according to subjects, and, each of these is being 

 studied by the members of the Committee most familiar with it. It is 

 to be hoped that in the ensuing session we shall be favoured with 

 some of the results of their labours. 



In the Presidential Address of last year mention was made of a 

 series of borings which it was proposed to make across the delta of the 

 Nile in Egypt, and which, with the sanction of the Secretary of State 

 for War, had been entrusted to the officer commanding the Royal 

 Engineers attached to the army of occupation in Egypt. Shortly after- 

 wards a Report from Colonel Heriot Maitland, R.E., and Major R. H. 

 Williams, R.E., was received, giving an account of a boring at Kasr- 

 el-Nil, near Cairo, which had been carried to a depth of 45 feet, and of 

 a second boring at Kafr Zaiyat, where a depth of 84 feet was attained. 

 In both cases great difficulties had to be surmounted, but in neither 

 was the solid rock reached beneath the superficial deposits. A second 

 Report from the same officers, dated January 18th last, states that a third 

 boring had been executed at Tantah, this time by the sappers of the 

 Royal Engineers, and not by Arab workmen, though still with but 

 imperfect tools. In this instance a depth of 73 feet was reached, but 



