Fan. 12, 1882] 
tion of a new species of Land-rail obtained at Ribé, East Africa, 
by Mr. R. C. Ramshaw, which was proposed to be named Crex 
suahilensis—Mr. W. A. Forbes read a paper on the existence 
of a gall-bladder in, and on other points in the anatomy of, the 
Barbets and Toucans (Cafitonide). The peculiar form of the 
gall-bladder in these birds, as well as other features in their 
myology now described for the first time, were stated to make 
the relationship of this group to the Woodpeckers (Piczd@e) still 
more certain than it had previously been from the observations 
of Nitzsch, Kessler, Garrod, and others. 
Meteorological Society, December 21, 1881.—Mr. G. J- 
Symons, F.R.S., President, in the chair.—The following were 
elected Fellows of the Society :—H. P. Bell, F. B. Edmonds, T. 
C. Evans, S. L. Fox, J. J. Gilbert, M. Henry, J. B. McCallum, 
J. Parry, and B. C. Wainwright.—The papers read were—The 
rainfall of Cherrapunji, by Prof. J. Eliot, M.A., F.M.S. 
Cherrapunji is notorious for its excessive rainfall, larger in 
amount it is believed, that any at other place, so far as is 
known, Cherrapunji is a small Indian station situated in the 
south-west of Assam, ona small plateau forming the summit of 
one of the spurs of the Khasia Hills. These hills rise on the 
south with exceeding abruptness, and have the Bengal plains and 
lowlands at their base, Cherrapunji stands on the summit of 
one of these hills, at an elevation of about 4100 feet. The hill 
on which it is situated rises precipitously from the lowlands of 
Cachar and Sylhet, which are barely 100 feet above sea-level. 
During the south-west monsoon the lower atmospheric current 
advancing across the coast of Bengal has a direction varying 
between south-south-west and south east in Lower and Central 
Bengal. In thus advancing almost directly towards the hills of 
Western Assam, the mountain ranges cause a very considerable 
deflection of the current ; one portion is forced upwards as an 
ascending current with a velocity directly dependent upon the 
strength of the current in the rear, and upon other condi- 
tions which need not be enumerated. The rapid diminution of 
temperature which accompanies expansion due to ascensional 
movement of air is usually followed by rapid condensation in 
the case of a moist current, such as the south-west monsoon 
current. Thenormal annual rainfall in Cachar and in the plains 
of Northern Bengal is about 100 inches, The average annual 
rainfall of Cherrapunji is 493 inches, that is, 393 inches in 
excess of that at the foot of the hills on whichitis situated. The 
rainfall of Cherrapunji is not due to any abnormal local condi- 
tions of atmospheric pressure, air movement, &c., but simply 
and solely owing to the presence of a vast mechanical obstruc- 
tion which converts horizontal air motion into vertical air 
motion.—On the meteorology of Cannes, France, by Dr. W. 
Marcet, F.R.S., F.M.S.. This is a discussion of the observa- 
tions made at this celebrated health-resort during the six winter 
seasons ending 1880.—Report on the phenological observations, 
1881, by the Rev. T. A, Pre:ton, M.A., F.M.S. 
Royal Microscopical Sociey, December 14, 1881.—Prof. 
P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Eight new 
Fellows were elected and nominated.—Mr. J. Deby exhibited 
his method of turning the correction-collar of objectives by a 
worm-wheel, acted upon by a tangent screw with a long arm, 
and Mr. Crisp exhibited Parkes’ drawing-room microscope and 
two new homogeneous immersion fluids from Dr. van Heurck of 
Antwerp.—Mr. T. Charters White described a new growing 
slide devised by him, and Mr. Stephenson exhibited scales of 
Machilis maritimus and Tomocerus plumbeus, mounted in phos- 
phorus under the binocular, with 1-25 inch objective, showing 
that the scales were plane on the under side and corrugated on 
the upper, a view which Mr. J. Beck controverted.—A note was 
read by Dr. Anthony on the statoblast of Lophopus crystallinus 
as a test for high powers. —Mr. Guimaraens exhibited the Echino- 
rhynchus of Lofa vulgaris, suggested to be a male specimen 
containing ova described as ‘‘dedans par hasard.”—Mr. A. D. 
Michael read a paper, further notes on British Ovibatide, which 
Prof. Huxley and others state to be wholly viviparous. He 
finds, however, that they are chiefly oviparous, as stated by 
Nicolet and others, and that the young are brought to maturity 
in at least four different modes ; (1) the egg is deposited in a 
slightly advanced stage, as in insects{ (2) deposited with the 
larva almost fully formed ; (3) the female is occasionally vivi- 
parous (in these modes only one egg is usually ripe at a time) ; 
(4) several ezgs are matured at once, but not deposited The 
mother dies, the contents of her body, except the eggs, dry up, 
and her chitinous exterior skeleton forms a protection throughout 
the winter to the eggs. The occurrence of a deutovium stage in 
NATURE 
29 
the egg is recorded, #.e. the egg has a hard shell, which splits into 
two halves as the contents increase in volume, the lining mem- 
brane showing between, and gradually becoming the true exterior 
envelope of the egg.—Several new and interesting species were 
described and figured, and exhibited under microscopes, Mr. W. 
H. Symons also read a paper on a hot or cold stage for the 
microscope. 
Geological Society, December 21, 1881.—Mr. R. Ethe- 
ridge, F.R.S. president, in the chair.—Messrs. Charles Duffin 
Barstow and Joseph Lundy were elected Fellows, and Prof, E. 
D. Cope, of Philadelphia, a Foreign Correspondent of the 
Society.—The following communications were read :—The 
Torridon Sandstone in relation to the Ordovician rocks of the 
Northern Highlands, by Mr. C. Caliaway, M.A., D.Sc., F.G.S. 
—The Precambian (Archean) rocks of Shropshire, part 2, by 
Mr. C, Callaway, D.Sc., F.G.S.—The red sands of the Arabian 
Desert, by Mr. J. A. Phillips, F.R.S., F.G.S. The author 
described the general characters of the Nefiid, of great red desert of 
Northern Arabia, which consists of a series of parallel ridges of 
considerable elevation, no doubt at some period piled up by the 
action of strong winds, but now no longer undergoing much 
change of position, as is evidenced by the fact that sticks 
and stones remain for many days uncovered on the surface, and 
that the landmarks made use of in crossing the desert appear to 
be permanent. A specimen of the sand of this desert received 
by the author from Lady Anne Blunt, ‘is composed of well- 
rounded red grains from 1-50th to 1-30th of an inch in their 
longest diameter, which are rendered colourless by treatment 
with hydrochloric acid, the material thus removed amounting to 
*21 per cent., or a little more than 1-5o0oth of the total weight 
operated upon, and consisting of ferric oxide with a small 
quantity of alumina. The sand dried after the action of hydro- 
chloric acid gave on analysis :— 
Silica Ss ees 98°53 
Protoxide of iron 028 
Alumina seg Bee ab0 088 
Lime, magnesia, and alkalies trace 
99°69 
The external coating of ferric oxide must therefore have been 
deposited subsequently to the rounding of the grains ; it could 
not have been derived from an external decomposition of the 
grains themselves ; and it becomes difficult to imagine in what » 
manner the superficial red coating can have been produced, The 
author compared these grains with those of the millet-seed sand- 
stones of Triassic age, with which they closely agree in character, 
but remarked that the conditions of their occurrence were appa- 
rently quite different.—Analyses of five rocks from the Charn- 
wood Forest district, by Mr. E. E. Berry, communicated, with 
notes, by Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.G.S., Sec. G.S. 
EDINBURGH 
Royal Society, December 19, 1881.—Mr. D. Milne Home, 
vice-president, in the chair.—The Makdougall Brisbane prize 
fur the period 1878-80 was presented to Prof. Piazzi Smyth, 
Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, for his extremely valuable 
paper on ‘‘The Solar Spectrum in 1877-78.’—Sir Robert 
Christison communicated a short paper on the application of the 
rocks of the great precipice of Ben Nevis to ornamental work, 
in which he drew attention to the little-known but most magni- 
ficent view of the great precipice from below, characterising it 
as the grandest in the whole island. From the various kinds of 
granitic and porphyritic rocks there found, all of which are 
susceptible of a high polish, he had got constructed a very 
graceful obelisk, which was shown to the Society.—Dr. D. J. 
Hamilton exhibited and described certain physical experiments 
bearing on the circulation of the blood-corpuscles, from which 
he explained many points hitherto unexplained. ‘Ihus the rapid 
gliding central motion of the coloured corpuscles, and the slower 
rotational peripheral motion of the colourless corpuscles were to 
be explained by the fact that the latter were specifically lighter 
than the blood plasma, while the former were of the same specific 
gravity as the fluid in which they were borne along. Such a 
physical difference was sufficient to explain the phenomenon ; 
and that such a difference existed could easily be demonstrated 
by observation as to the parts of a blood-vessel in which the 
colourless corpuscles abound. The second part of the paper 
dealt with more purely pathological questions, referring, for 
example, the migration of the blood corpuscles from the blood- 
