June 26, 1884] 



NA TURE 



ship between water and certain ■.alts, such as sulpho-ethylate. 

 &c. Curves of results were given and interpreted. 



Royal Meteorological Society, June 18. — Mr. R. H. 

 Scott, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Dr. Benjamin A. 

 Gould, Director of the Cordova Observatory, Argentine Re- 

 public, was elected an Honorary Member. — The following 

 papers were read : — The equinoctial gales — do they occur in the 

 British Isles?, by Mr. R. H. Scott. F.R.S. The period investi- 

 gated was the fourteen years 1S70-S4, and only those storms 

 were selected which had attained force 9 of the Beaufort scale 

 at more than two stations. The results show that the storms are 

 all but exclusively confined to the winter half-year ; and also 

 how, for a certain interval, the stream of storm depressions sets 

 over the British Isles, and then for a time takes another path, 

 leaving this country at rest. In some years there are as many 

 as four or five storms in a fortnight, and in others there are 

 none, or only one. It is further shown that there is no strongly 

 marked maximum at either equinox. — On the physical signifi- 

 cance of concave and convex barographic or thermographic traces, 

 by the Hon. R. Abercromby, F.R.Met.Soc. The author shows 

 that a falling barogram is convex when the rate of the fall is 

 increasing, concave when decreasing ; and conversely, that a 

 rising barogram is convex when the rate is decreasing, concave 

 when increasing. As the rate of barometric change is propor- 

 tional to the steepness of the gradients which are passing, and 

 the wind also depends on the gradients, the author suggests the 

 following rules for judging the coming force of a gale from the 

 inspection of a barogram : — A convex barogram is always bad 

 with a falling barometer, and good with a rising one ; and a 

 concave trace is sometimes a good sign with a falling barometer, 

 and not always a bad indication with a rising one. The con- 

 vexity or concavity of a thermogram is likewise shown to depend 

 on the rate of thermal change. A method is given by which the 

 distribution of diurnal isothermals over the globe can be deduced 

 from the diurnal thermograms in different latitudes, and it is 

 shown that the shape of diurnal isotherms on a Mercator chart 

 for a limited number of degrees of latitude is similar to the 

 shape of the curve of diurnal temperature range, if we turn 

 time into longitude, and temperature into latitude, on a suitable 

 scale. — Maritime losses and casualties for 1S83 considered in 

 connection with the weather, by Mr. C. Harding, F.R.Met.Soc. 

 —The helm wind, by the Rev. J. Brunskill, F. R. Met. Soc. This 

 is an account of a wind peculiar to the Crossfell Range ; and its 

 presence is indicated by a belt of clouds, denominated the " helm 

 barr," which settles like a helmet over the top of the mountain. — 

 Climate of the Delta of Egypt in 1798 to 1802 during the 

 French and British campaigns, by Surgeon-Major W. T. Black, 

 F.R.Met.Soc. The author has collected and discussed the 

 meteorological observations made in Egypt during the French 

 and British campaigns at the beginning of the present century. 



Geological Society, May 28.— Prof. T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, 

 F.R.S. , president, in the chair. — Jo.hn George Goodchild, 

 Alexander Johnstone, and John Taylor were elected Fellows, and 

 Prof. G. Meneghini, of Pisa, a Foreign Member of the Society. 

 — The following communications were read : — The Archaean 

 and Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Anglesey, by Dr. C. Callaway, 

 F.G. S., with an appendix on some rock-specimens, by Prof. 

 T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. The object of the author was to furnish 

 additional proof of the Archaean age of the altered rocks of the 

 island. He held that the Pebidian mass on the north was fringed 

 by Palaeozoic conglomerates containing, amongst other materials, 

 large rounded masses of limestone, derived from the calcareous 

 series on the north coast, these conglomerates being probably 

 a repetition by reflexed folding of those which lie at the base of 

 the Palaeozoic series. In like manner conglomerate^ which 

 margined the western (Holyhead) schistose area contained 

 angular pieces of altered slate undistinguishable from some of 

 the Pebidian rocks of the north-west. These conglomerates 

 dipped to the east, forming the western side of a syncline. Near 

 I.lanfihangel were sections which showed not only the Archaean 

 age of the gneissic and slaty (Pebidian) groups, but also the 

 higher antiquity of the former. These conclusions were derived 

 from the occurrence of granitoid pebbles in the slaty series, and 

 from the presence of masses of the slate, as well as gneissic 

 fragments, in the basement Palaeozoic conglomerates. The 

 author was at present unable to accept the Cambrian age of the 

 Lower Palaeozoic rocks, and considered that the fossils he 

 exhibited tended to confirm the views of the Survey on the cor- 

 relation of those strata. The paper concluded with a sketch of 

 the physical geography as it probably existed in Ordovician 



times. An appendix furnished by Prof. Bonney tended, by micro- 

 scopic evidence, to confirm the proof furnished by the paper. — 

 On the new railway-cutting at Guildford, by Lieut. -Col. H. H. 

 Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., and W. Whitaker, F.G.S. In this 

 paper the authors described a section exposed in a new railway- 

 cutting just north of Guildford station. The beds exposed are 

 chalk and Eocene strata at the base, with overlying Pleistocene 

 or drift-beds. The Eocene beds appear at each end of the cut- 

 ting, the London Clay resting upon Woolwich and Reading 

 beds as described in 1850 by Prof. Prestwich ; and the interest 

 of the section is due in part to this exposure of the Woolwich 

 and Reading beds, which are rarely seen in this neighbourhood, 

 and in part to the thick mass of Pleistocene clays and gravels 

 overlying the lower Tertiary deposits. The authors pointed out 

 that the most interesting questions connected with these high- 

 level gravels and sands of the ancient Wey are as follows : — 1. 

 What was their relation to the topography of the country in the 

 past ? 2. What relation do they bear to the outlines of the 

 country at the present day ? 3. What is their age ? They 

 showed that when the gravels and sands were deposited the 

 main drainage of the country was the same as it now is, though 

 the river was sixty feet above its present level. The sands with 

 mammalian bones were probably an accumulation in a re-enter- 

 ing bend of the river, similar to one now existing a little further 

 north. The river appears at first to have been more rapid, when 

 the lower ironstone gravels were deposited ; then slower, when 

 the sands accumulated. Some change of levels ensued, and a 

 considerable portion of the deposits was removed before the 

 upper strata of loam and flints were formed. It is probable that 

 the gorge of the Wey was no longer an outlet to the north whilst 

 these beds were being deposited. In general the loam and flint 

 beds are horizontal, whilst in some localities they are displaced 

 in a manner remarkably like what is seen in the Glacial deposits 

 of Alpine valleys. They contain land shells in places. The 

 land surface indicated by the lower gravels and sands at Guild- 

 ford is of older date than that described by Mr. R. A. C. 

 Godwin- Austen in the country to the southward, and especially 

 in the valley of the Tillingbourne. The deposits near Guildford 

 belonging to the two epochs were noticed in some detail. Both 

 are pre-Glacial, and have been formed when the climate was 

 temperate. The overlying Glacial deposits formed of chalk- 

 detritus, flints, and loam are attributed to the action of land ice, 

 and the probable effects of a low temperature are described and 

 illustrated by those observed on the plateaus around Chang 

 Cheumo in Tibet. — On the fructification of Zeilkria (Spheno- 

 pteris) delicatula, Sternb., sp., with remarks on Ursatopteris 

 (Splunopteris) ttnclla, Brongn., sp., and Hymenophyllites (Spheno- 

 plens) quadridactylites, Gutb., sp., by R. Kidston, F.G.S. — On 

 the recent encroachment of the sea at Westward Ho !, North 

 Devon, by Herbert Green Spearing. Comm nicated by Prof. 

 Prestwich, F.R.S. — On further discoveries of footprints of Ver- 

 tebrate animals in the Lower New Red of Penrith, by George 

 Varty Smith, F.G.S. 



Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, June 16. — M. Rolland, president, in 

 the chair. — Obituary notices of M. Bouisson, by M. Larrey ; of 

 M. Girardin, by M. Peligot ; and of Mr. MacCormick, by M. 

 Peligot. — Note accompanying the presentation of the second 

 edition of his " Elementary Treatise of the Celestial Mechanism," 

 by M. H. Resal. — Note on a communication from Dr. Tholozan 

 regarding a meteorite reported to have fallen in February 1880, 

 at Veramin, in the district of Zerind, sixty miles west of 

 Teheran, Persia, by M. Daubree. An analysis of the fragments 

 submitted to the author revealed the presence of bronzite, 

 peshamite, peridote, nickel, and granulated iron, thus showing 

 the same constitution as that of the remarkable meteorites of 

 Logrono (1842), Estherville (1879), Flainholtz (1856), and 

 Newton County, Arkansas (i860). — Graphic methods applied to 

 the art of engineering : historic aspect of the question and claim cf 

 priority of invention of certain appliances for transporting large and 

 bulky masses, by M. L. Lalanne. — Identification of the recently- 

 explored Wed Margelil and Lake Kelbiah, Tunis, with the ancient 

 River Triton and Triton Gulf, by M. Rouire. Lake Kelbiah, 

 which still communicates intermittently with the sea between 

 Carthage and Hammamet (Hadrumetum), appears to be the 

 largest in North Africa, with a circumference of nearly thirty 

 miles at low water and a length of twelve miles. It is flooded 

 throughout the year, and was evidently a marine inlet within 

 comparatively recent times. — Description of a new apparatus for 

 evaporating and distilling, specially suitable for the pneumatic 



