1 68 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



some old moraines, cut through by mountain torrents, " great 

 quantities of moa bones." 



Oct. 27th, i5Qth meeting. Dr. Hooker exhibited a copy 

 of an inscription from a large bell, found by a missionary in 

 crossing the North Island of New Zealand, the characters of 

 which, as some thought, resembled Malayan. 



Mr. Busk gave an account of his recent visit, with Dr. 

 Falconer, to the Rock of Gibraltar in order to examine the 

 cave and fissures on Windmill Hill, from which Captain 

 Brome, Governor of the Military Prison, had obtained and 

 forwarded to England during the last year a number of 

 human and other bones. The fissure appears to commence 

 about 400 feet above sea-level, where the highest part of 

 the rock joins Windmill Flat, and the dip of the strata 

 changes from a steep western one to a low eastern one. The 

 Flat is an old sea bottom, its surface being formed of water- 

 worn rock, and the fissures, as they contain no marine 

 remains, must be later in date than the elevation of it. 

 Captain Brome traced it to a vertical depth of more than 

 200 feet, but the animal remains are mostly restricted to the 

 first 80 or 90 feet, the fallen blocks and subsequent stalagmite 

 having apparently blocked it. Among the animal remains 

 were a bear, hyena brunnea, two species of ibex (neither of 

 which had been identified), and cervus elaphus ; the last 

 two genera being very abundant. 



Professor Tyndall mentioned his experiments on obscure 

 thermal rays, to the existence of which in the solar 

 spectrum Sir W. Herschel had first called attention. By 

 using rock-salt lenses he had compared the visible spectrum 

 of the gas flame with the invisible one of hydrogen, and 

 had ascertained that the obscure thermal rays in both lay 

 beyond the red rays of the spectrum. He had also proved * 

 iodine to be remarkably transparent to these ultra-red 

 undulations, and that a solution of this in carbon sulphide, 

 though wholly opaque to the luminous rays of a spectrum, 

 however brilliant, nevertheless permitted all the obscure 

 thermal rays to pass. As pure carbon bisulphide is very 



1 Phil. Trans, vol. cliv. pages 201, 327. 



