94 



NATURE 



{Nov. 24, 1887 



monuments themselves. In one case only a camp has been 

 partly damaged, and this owing to mining operations involving a 

 question of a large sum of money which made it impossible for 

 the Government to interfere. Other non-scheduled monuments 

 have since been added to the list, and the number is steadily but 

 not rapidly increasing. 



" The Government makes no allowance for an assistant ; not 

 even so much as a man to hold the end of the tape in measuring, 

 without which no proper survey of the monuments can be made, 

 and I have to employ a private assistant, whom I take about with 

 me at my own cost. With his assistance, and by dividing the 

 work with him — I making the necessary notes and measurements 

 while he is drawing — each monument takes on an average about 

 one day ; without an assistant the time would be about doubled. 

 After this the owner has to be visited, and as he generally lives 

 at a distance from the monument, this frequently takes another 

 day or more. A great deal of this time might be saved by the 

 assistance of persons living in the localities and with better 

 chance of success. 



" I issued a circular to a number of local Societies inviting 

 them to co-operate, but few responded. One instance, however, 

 shows what may be done in this way. Sir Herbert Maxwell has 

 not only sent me the addresses of several owners in Wigtonshire 

 and Kirkcudbrightshire, but, by using his influence with these, 

 has been the means of placing several monuments under the 

 Act. I would suggest that the same course might well be 

 followed by others. 



" The recommendation I would make is this : — Local Societies 

 should (i) report to me what monuments in their district they 

 think worthy of being put under the Act ; (2) they should send 

 me the names and addresses of the owners ; (3) they should com- 

 municate with the owners, and, if possible, obtain their consent 

 to have the monuments placed under the Act, subject, of course, 

 to their subsequent acceptance by the Office of Works ; and (4) 

 they should report to me any damage that they find being done 

 or contemplated either to the monuments under the Act, or to 

 others not so protected. With such assistance I think that much 

 more rapid progress may be made." 



Prehistoric Remains Committee. — Mr. J, W. Davis stated that 

 this Committee had been recommended for reappointment by 

 the Committee of Section H. The recommendation is as 

 follows : — 



" That Sir John Lubbock, Dr. John Evans, Prof. Boyd 

 Dawkins, Dr. R. Munro, Mr. Pengelly, Dr. Hicks, Mr. 

 J. W. Davis, Prof. Meldola, and Dr. Muirhead be reappointed 

 a Committee for the purpose of ascertaining and recording the 

 localities in the British Islands in which evidences of the exist- 

 ence of prehistoric inhabitants of the country are found ; and 

 that Mr. J. W. Davis be the Secretary." 



Prof. Lebour suggested that it would be convenient if, in 

 registering prehistoric remains, the Committee would adopt a 

 uniform scheme of signs — if possible, an international one. 



Mr. William Gray stated that the work of registering ancient 

 remains had been carried on for twenty-five or thirty years by 

 members of their Society (Belfast Naturalits' Field Club) and 

 others in Ireland, and they had long felt the want of some central 

 organization such as that of the present Committee. He also 

 alluded to the necessity for a uniform system of signs. 



Mr. William White remarked upon the difficulty which private 

 individuals often experienced in approaching the proprietors of 

 ancient remains, and pointed out that individual efforts would 

 be likely to be more successful if members of local Societies 

 could make overtures backed up by the sanction of a British 

 Association Committee such as the present one. 



Work of the Corresponding Societies Committee. — The Secre- 

 tary stated that during the present meeting of the Association an 

 important resolution had been framed at the insligation of Sir 

 Douglas Galton, with the object of extending the powers of their 

 Committee. According to the present rules the Committee was 

 nominated by the Council and appointed by the General Com- 

 mittee, but they had no power of submitting resolutions or re- 

 commendations to the Committee of Recommendations or to the 

 General Committee. The present resolution, which was calcu- 

 lated to give them the necessary power, and thus to put them on 

 the same footing as the Committees of the Sections, was as 

 follows : — 



" That the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding 

 Societies be empowered to send recommendations to the Com- 

 mittee of Recommendations for their consideration, and for 

 report to the General Committee." 



The Secretary had succeeded that morning in getting this 

 resolution passed by the Committees of Sections B and C, and it 

 had been forwarded by them in due form to the Committee of 

 Recommendations, by whom it had also been accepted. It was 

 subsequently submitted to the General Committee, and accepted 

 by them on the understanding that the recommendations so for- 

 warded should not clash with the recommendations sent up by 

 the Sectional Committees. 



The Secretary remarked that he would take the present 

 opportunity of explaining away a misunderstanding that had 

 arisen on the part of some of the local Societies. Some of these 

 had nominated Delegates to attend the Manchester meeting 

 without having previously submitted any claim for election as 

 Corresponding Societies. Such Delegates could not be officially 

 recognized by the Association, as it was only those Societies 

 which had been admitted as Corresponding Societies, and which 

 were still on the list, that were thus entitled to be officially re- 

 presented. According to the Rules no Society can be admitted 

 without first sending in a formal application, accompanied by a 

 specimen of its publications ; this application would be con- 

 sidered by the Corresponding Societies Committee, and only in 

 the event of the Society being recommended for election by 

 this Committee, and this recommendation confirmed by the 

 General Committee, would it be admitted to the privileges of 

 a Corresponding Society. 



At the termination of the meeting a vote of thanks was passed 

 to Prof. Meldola, on the motion of Prof. Lebour, for the services 

 which he had rendered as Secretary to the Committee and to the 

 Conferences. 



THE METEOROLOGY OF OXFORD.^ 



T 



HE forty-second volume of the Observations of the Radcliffe 

 Observatory has recently been published, and is in nearly 

 all respects a continuation of the previous publications. The 

 Radcliffi; takes precedence of all our British Observatories as 

 regards the length of time over which the published hourly 

 observations of atmospheric pressure and temperature extend ; 

 to which is to be added a commendable fullness, far from 

 common, with which many other observations have been made 

 and given to the public for a long term of years. 



At Oxford, atmospheric pressure attains the maximum, 29760 

 inches, in June, and falls to the minimum, 29 "677 inches, in March, 

 to which the mean of October, 29'68o inches, closely approxi- 

 mates. The annual mean is 29720 inches ; the highest during 

 the previous thirty years being 29785 inches in 1858, and the 

 lowest 29*572 inches in 1872, the year to be long remembered 

 for its excessive rainfall. Temperature rises to the maximum, 

 6i°7, in July, and falls to the minimum, 38°*8, in Januaiy, the 

 annual mean being 49° '2. The warmest year was 1868, with a 

 meanof 5i°'4, and the coldest mean 45°*5 in 1879. Of indi- 

 vidual months, the warmest was July 1859, the mean of which 

 was 66°'5, while the mean for February 1855 was only 29°"5, 

 giving thus a mean monthly range of 37° "O. The rainfall reaches 

 the maximum, 2 "81 inches, in October, and falls to the minimum, 

 I '62 inch, in March, and the mean annual amount is 26 "42 

 inches. The extreme annual amounts were 40 '42 inches in 1852 

 and 17 '56 inches in 1870. The month of heaviest rainfall was 

 October 1875, when 7*53 inches fell, and the lightest fall was 

 o"i8 inch in September 1865, when temperature was unusually 

 high for the season. 



The diurnal curves of pressure approach closer than those of 

 any other British Observatory of which we have records to the 

 seasonal phases of these curves for continental situations. On 

 the mean of the year, the first minimum occurs about 4 a.m., 

 and the maximum at 9 a.m. ; and the second minimum at 

 3.30 p.m. and maximum at 10 p.m., — the former being earlier 

 in summer and later in winter, whereas the afternoon phases are 

 the reverse of this. In June the time between the first and 

 second maximum is 145 hours, but in winter only 12 hours. 



Of quite exceptional interest are some of the other diurnal 

 phenomena at Oxford, notably the diurnal distribution of 

 thunderstorms, sheet lightning, and auroras. W^e have compiled 

 the following table showing the sums of the times of occurrence 



^ " Results of Meteorological Observations made at the Radcliffe Ob- 

 servatory, Oxford, in the Year 1884, under the Superintendence of E. J. 

 Stone, F.R.S." (Oxford, 1887.) 



