576 



NATURE 



\Oci. 26, 1876 



other atmospheric conditions, the still larger inquiry was 

 suggested, viz., the sifting and separation of the facts so 

 as to make them disclose the nature and limits of this 

 influence in each particular class of meteorological pheno- 

 mena. The theory advanced to account for these pertur- 

 bations was that first suggested by Erman of Berlin, by 

 which they are considered as due to different streams of 

 meteoric matter which are periodically interposed between 

 the earth and the sun — a theory which in view of the 

 facts is open to serious doubt. But the great value of 

 these memoirs lies in their suggestiveness and in the 

 important lines of meteorological inquiry therein pur- 

 sued and indicated. Indeed the author states that a 

 main object he had in view would be gained if he 

 thereby enlisted the younger meteorologists to aid in 

 establishing clearly in meteorology the notion of periodi- 

 city, which in truth is only another name for law 

 and harmony, the evolution of which from facts ap- 

 parently so entangled and so discordant is the problem 

 presented by meteorology. It may be added here that 

 his two daughters materially assisted him in the laborious 

 calculations for this work. He subsequently wrote various 

 papers on the connection between atmospheric pressure 

 and temperature, on the aurora, and on terrestrial mag- 

 netism. 



He was one of the founders of the French Meteorolo- 

 gical Society, and it was during his term of presidency of 

 the Society that the Meteorological Observatory of Mont- 

 souris was estabUshed chiefly through his influence and that 

 of M. Dumas, for the special purpose of investigating 

 terrestrial physics, inclusive of the work usually undertaken 

 by meteorological observatories. This observatory re- 

 mained under his direction from the date of its establish- 

 ment in June, 1869, to June, 1872, when he was appointed 

 Inspector -General of Meteorological Stations in France. 

 Under his management and that of his successor, Marid 

 Davy, the well-known meteorologist, the Montsouris Ob- 

 servatory has gradually come to occupy, as our readers 

 are doubtless aware, a well-marked sphere of action which 

 we hope similar observatories in other countries will not 

 be slow to adopt. This special sphere of action concerns 

 the application of meteorology to the great national 

 questions of agriculture and public health, particularly 

 the health of large towns ; and it consists in a well- 

 devised scheme of chemical and microscopical observa- 

 tions regularly conducted, having for their object the 

 investigation of the composition of the air, more espe- 

 cially as regards the variations of its aqueous vapour, 

 carbonic acid, nitric acid, and ammonia, and its organic 

 and inorganic impurities. 



As Inspector-General of the French meteorological 

 stations, he went to Algiers for the purpose of organising 

 the meteorological stations of that country. Owing to 

 the fatigue incident to this journey and the inclement 

 weather he experienced his health was impaired, and it 

 remained in a weak state up to the last. This illness 

 was the more severely felt by a system already en- 

 feebled by a malady which he had contracted thirty- 

 three years before in the service of science. When 

 in 1843 he had just completed his three years' exploration 

 of the volcanic isles of Africa and the Antilles, and it 

 only remained to him to put into shape the rich materials 

 he had collected, the great earthquake, already alluded to, 

 of Pointe-k-Pitre, Guadaloupe, occurred, by which he not 

 only lost the whole of his valuable collections, but was 

 called to mourn the loss of his uncle and several other 

 members of his family, who perished in that catastrophe. 

 The mental suffering and fatigue consequent on these 

 disasters brought on a rheumatic affection, from which he 

 never recovered, and it was to an aggravated form of this 

 malady that he succumbed on October 10, at Paris. 



Thus died Charles Sainte-Claire Deville in the midst 

 of his work — a man of singular modesty and arni- 

 ability of disposition, as well as an enthusiastic worker in 



science. His funeral was largely attended, but in accord- 

 ance with a desire expressed in his will, no official depu- 

 tation of the Academy was present on the occasion, and no 

 funeral oration was pronounced over his grave. 



RECENT CAVERN RESEARCHES IN NEW 

 ZEALAND 



T^HE following is the substance of a paper on Cave-Hunting, 

 •*■ by Dr. Haast, read at the Philosophical Institute of Canter- 

 bury, New Zealand, some time since, and which |^has been 

 recently forwarded to us. 



In the spring of the year 1872, Mr. E. Jollie having suggested 

 to Dr. J. Haast, president of the Institute of Canterbury, that 

 an inspection of the Moa-bone Point Cave, and of the ground 

 near its entrance, would probably help to fix the period of the 

 extinction of the Moas, a subscription list was at once opened, 

 and the results enabled Dr. Haast to commence the work and to 

 carry it on for seven weeks. 



Moa-bone Point Cave is situate on the eastern side of the 

 Middle Island, in Banks Peninsula, an extinct volcanic system 

 of large dimensions, which is believed to have been an island in 

 Post-pliocene times, and to have been subsequently raised about 

 20 feet. The cavern seems to have been a pre-existing hollow 

 in a doleritic lava stream, enlarged by the waves during the 

 insular period. It was well known to Europeans at the very 

 beginning of the Canterbury Settlement, was even inhabited by 

 some of the earliest settlers, of whom ample traces were left 

 behind. Immediately east of the cavern is a small plain, occu- 

 pied with dunes of drift sand, and bounded seaward by a line 

 of boulders, detached from a small doleritic headland on the 

 western side of the cave when the peninsula was an island. 



The entrance to the cavern is from 13 to 14 feet above high 

 water, 30 feet broad and 8 feet high, but is partially occupied 

 by a mass of rock 12 feet long, 6 feet broad, and 10 feet high. 

 This opens into the " First Chamber," which measures, from 

 north to south, 102 feet long, 72 feet broad towards the middle, 

 and about 24 feet high. From its inner or southern end a small 

 passage leads into a " Second Chamber," 18 feet long in a direc- 

 tion N. by W. to S. by E., 14 feet wide, and 11 feet high. At 

 the inner end of this is a passage, 3 feet high, and 2-5 feet broad, 

 leading into a "Third Chamber," measuring 22 feet from N. to 

 S., about 20 feet high, and averaging 16 feet in width. 



The floor of the first chamber consisted generally of remains 

 betokening European occupation, but everywhere below them 

 were portions of shells of edible molluscs. These beds gradually 

 thinned out southwards, till at the entrance of the second 

 chimber there was a continuous floor of marine sand. 



The explorations appear to have been almost exclusively con- 

 fined to the first chamber, and to have been commenced by 

 digging two trenches, crossing each other at right angles, near 

 the centre of the chamber. Several other excavations were 

 made, and in one of them, towards the western side of the 

 chamber, the following was the succession of beds, in descend- 

 ing order :— 



^ ft. in. 



1. European deposits o 6 



2. Shell bed o 9 



3. Tussock and ash beds ... ... ... ... ... o 4 



4. Shell beds » 4 



5. Ash beds o 2 



6. Ash beds, mixed greatly with shells 010 



7. Ash and dirt beds o 2 



8. Agglomeratic bed ... ... ... ••• •■• o 6 



9. As.h bed • ••• o 3 



10. Marine sands (excavated to a depth of 7 ft., and found 



by boring to extend 5 ft. deeper before reaching the 



rock at the bottom of the cavern) 12 o 



Whilst the beds, as might have been anticipated from their 

 characters, were neither equally numerous nor equally thick in 

 different sections, the following important features presented 

 themselves everywhere : — 



The basal bed was uniformly [the " marine sand " (No. 10) ; the 

 ash and shell bed (No. 6), the ash and dirt bed (No. 7), and the 

 agglomeratic bed (No. 8), were also well-defined horizons ; the 

 shells found in the sixth bed and those above it belonged to 

 species still occupying the adjacent estuary, and the same forms 

 were found in all the beds alike ; there were no shells in the 



