NA TURE 



\_Dec. 4, ii 



standard of longitude is about 14,000,000 tons, while that con- 

 trolled by the longitude of Paris amounts to 1,750,000 tons 

 only, the preponderance of convenience in favour of the former 

 is placed beyond all dispute. The use of nautical charts con- 

 structed from the meridian of Greenwich, and also of the 

 Greenwich Nautical Almanac, is by no means confined to the 

 British Navy, for numerous other nations have availed them- 

 selves of the long-extended labours of our hydrographers, and 

 the computations of our astronomers. At the same time there 

 is no one among us who would for a moment venture to dispute 

 the vast services to science which have been rendered by French 

 astronomers and geographers, nor should we contest the right of 

 French savants to regard Paris as the nztr6fi(pa\os earia of all 

 other branches of science ; the question of a common zero of 

 longitude, however, is not only of scientific but of commercial 

 importance, and we may be confident that eventually our friends 

 on the other side of the Channel, whose metric system has been 

 so largely adopted by other countries, will in their turn sacrifice 

 their own meridian, and adopt that which all neighbouring 

 countries have declared to be the most convenient for general 

 use. If some French locality on the meridian of Greenwich, 

 such for instance as Argentan, were nominally the French 

 datum, the results would be the same so far as maps and charts 

 are concerned, and the natural patriotism of the French nation 

 would remain uninjured. 



The adoption of a universal day has also been recommended 

 by the Conference. It is to be a mean solar day to begin for 

 all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial 

 meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and 

 date of that meridian, and is to be counted from zero up to 

 twenty-four hours. 



The great volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, in the Straits of 

 Sunda, which took place in August of last year, was followed 

 by remarkable atmospheric and other disturbances, observations 

 on which have been communicated to this and various other 

 learned Societies, and have led to much interesting discussion. 

 The fact, as pointed out by 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 preser- 

 vation and promote their usefulness, and a sum of 100/. in all 

 has been granted from the Donation Fund to defray the expenses 

 of the Committee. A Committee of the Royal Meteorological 

 S01 iety, which had already been appointed to study the sunset 

 phenomena of 1SS3-S4, 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 observations reduced to Greenwich mean time. 



The literature on the subject, as Mr. Syrnons 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 manuscript 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 intrusted to the officer 

 commanding the Royal Engineers attached to the army of 

 occupation in Egypt. Shortly afterwards a Report from Col. 

 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 S4 feet was 

 attained. In both cases great difficulties had to be surmounted, 



but in neither was the solid rock reached beneath the super- 

 ficial deposits. A second Report from the same officers, 

 dated January 18 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 again without finding the solid rock. Samples of the 

 materials obtained at different depths in these three borings 

 have been forwarded to the Society by the War Department, 

 and Prof. Judd has kindly undertaken their microscopic exami- 

 nation, and will shortly report the results of his labours to the 

 Committee in charge of the subject. 



With regard to the continuance of the borings, which seem to 

 promise information of great value and interest, it is to be feared 

 that the attention of the military authorities will for some time 

 to come be attracted to more urgent business, though the Council 

 of this Society has expressed its willingness to grant from the 

 Donation Fund a further sum of 200/., with the view of obtain- 

 ing better apparatus for boring than that which has hitherto been 

 employed. 



The publication of the results of the Challenger Expedition, 

 with which a Committee of this Society is to some extent 

 concerned, has made considerable progress during the past year. 

 Mr. Murray informs me that 47 Reports, forming 13 large quarto 

 volumes, with 6276 pages of letterpress, 105 1 lithographic 

 plates, many woodcuts, charts, and other illustrations, have now 

 been published. Nine other Reports are now being printed, 

 and the eleventh Zoological volume and the first Botanical volume 

 will be issued during the present financial year. 



The work connected with the remaining thirty-six memoirs is 

 making satisfactory progress, a large instalment of the manuscript 

 being already prepared, and many of the plates either already 

 printed off or drawn on the stone. 



There has been an unavoidable delay in the case of the two 

 volumes containing the narrative of the cruise and a general 

 account of the scientific results of the Expedition, but it is 

 expected that they will be issued within the next three months, 

 and possibly before the end of the current year. 



It was estimated that the investigations connected with the 

 collections and observations made during the Expedition would 

 be completed and published in 18S7, and Mr. Murray has every 

 reason to believe that the work will be finished within the 

 estimated time. 



The tenth Zoological volume which has just been issued, 

 contains important Reports on the Nudibranchiata, Myzostomida, 

 and Cirripedia, by Drs. Rudolph Bergh, L. von Graff, P. P. C. 

 Hoek, as well as on the Cheilostomata, a sub-order of the 

 Polyzoa, by Mr. George Busk. A first instalment of the Anthro- 

 pological Report is also given by Prof. William Turner, in a 

 detailed examination of the human crania, upwards of 60 in 

 number, brought home by the Expedition. The total number of 

 crania, however, described and tabulated in the memoir is 143, 

 the whole from aboriginal and as yet uncivilised people. The 

 previous Zoological volume is devoted to an exhaustive examin- 

 ation of the Foraminifera, by Mr. H. B. Brady. 



The subject of the International Polar Observations, which 

 were carried out during the twelve months ending with August 

 1S83, has been touched on in recent Presidential Addresses, and 

 in that for 1881 the general outline of the whole scheme was 

 indicated. Now, however, the programme then only sketched 

 out has been more than fulfilled, no less than 14 stations for 

 observers, 12 for the Northern and 2 for the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere, having been organised. Of all the expedition-, one only, 

 that from Holland, failed to reach its destination, Dickson 

 Harbour, at the mouth of the Obi River, as it was beset by ice 

 in the Kara Sea, in the month of September 1882. The ship 

 which carried the members of the expedition sank in the month 

 of July 1S83, but they all reached home in safety, having carried 

 out their observations as fully as lay in their power. One of the 

 two expeditions sent out by the Chief Signal Office, Washington, 

 was not so fortunate. The party under Lieutenant Greely, after 

 spending over two years at Lady Franklin Bay, Smith's Sound, 

 was eventually rescued at Cape Sabine, in July last, but not 

 before many of its members had succumbed beneath the fearful 

 hardships of their protracted Arctic sojourn. 



The actual points of observation, going eastwards from 

 Behring Straits, and the States which sent out the expeditions, 

 are tabulated below : — 



Point Barrow The United States. 



Fort Rae Great Britain and Canada. 



