Mar. 13, 1873} 
_ living im the cave at this time or not. The clay immediately 
_ above it is considered, both by Mr. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. 
Tiddeman, to be of glacial origin, and in that case this cave is 
the only one in Great Britain which has offered clear proof that 
this group of animals was living in the country before the glacial 
age. It may be that the remains of man may be discovered 
here, as in the caves of Wookey Hole, Kent’s Hole, and 
Brixham ; but this problem can only be solved by an explora- 
tion on a larger scale, which the committee hope to be able to 
carry on by the aid of further subscriptions, and which the 
British Association has thought sufficiently important to aid by a 
grant of 50/. The problem which they are attempting to solve, 
is not merely of local interest, but, one which is worthy of the 
aid of all who care for the advancement of knowledge. ‘‘ The 
explorations of the Victoria Cave,” writes Mr. Tiddeman, 
“ carry with them more than common interest, from the proba- 
bility of making out in this district the relation of the older cave 
mammals (and perhaps of man) to the Glacial period. The 
complete absence of this fauna from the river gravels and other 
Post-Glacial deposits of this district, taken with the former ex- 
istence of a great development of ice over the northern counties, 
renders it highly probable that the latter was the agent which 
removed their remains from all parts of the country to which it 
had access, leaving them only in sheltered caves. In this cave 
we find, above the beds containing the older fauna, a deposit of 
laminated clay of great thickness, differing so much from the 
cave-earth above and below it as to point to distinct physical 
conditions for its origin. Clay in all respects similar, but con- 
taining scratched stones, has been found intercalated with true 
glacial beds in the neighbourhood, thus rendering the glacial 
origin of that in the cave also highly probable. Moreover, at 
the back of a great thickness of talus at the entrance glaciated 
boulders have been found, resting on the edges of the beds of 
lower cave-earth containing the older mammals, All points 
considered, there is strong cumulative evidence pointing to the 
formation of the lower cave-earth at times at any rate prior to 
the close of the Glacial period and probably earlier. It is to be 
hoped that further investigations may settle these and other 
most important questions,” The objects found in the Victoria 
Caye will not be removed from the county, but will be placed 
in a museum attached to the Grammar School at Giggleswick. 
Dusan 
Royal Irish Academy, Jan. 13.—The Rev. Prof. Jellett, 
president, in the chair. Mr. B. O’Looney read a paper on the 
contents of the Book of Leinster.—Mr. W. H. Bailey, F.G.S., 
read a paper on a new species of Labyrinthodont Amphibian 
from Jarrow Colliery, Co. of Kilkenny. This species the author 
said was, he believed, identical with the species referred to in 
Messrs. Huxley and Perceval Wright’s paper on fossil vertebrata 
from County Kilkenny, as being ‘“‘a iarge amphibian, closely 
allied to, if not identical with, the Av‘hracosaurus of the Scotch 
coalfield,” and of which he had been shown some very fine 
_ specimens in the British Museum. He proposed to call this 
species A. edgit. 
Jan. 27.—Rev. Prof. Jellett, president, in the chair. 
E. Perceval Wright read a report on Hyalonema mirabilis. 
Feb. 24.—Lord Talbot de Malahide, vice-president, in the 
chair. The Rev. Prof. Jellett, president, read a paper on sugar- 
beet grown in Ireland in 1872, in which he stated that, having 
frequently heard it said that Ireland was not a country in which 
the beetroot could be successfully cultivated, he had been led to 
make several experiments on the subject. The results in 1871, 
which was a dry and sunny year, and those he had obtained in 
1872, which was one of the wettest and coldest, presented very 
little difference. He had been furnished last year from the 
Albert Model Farm, Glasnevin, with four specimens of sugar- 
beet, in the growth of one of which the manure used was com- 
mon salt ; in the second case, sulphate of potash ; in the third 
case no manure was used ; and in the fourth instance, sulphate 
of ammonia. He had by optical experiment determined with 
accuracy that in the first case there was a yield of 79°99 per cent. 
of water and 12°72 per cent. of sugar; in the second, 80°27 of 
water and 13°18 of sugar ; in the third, 80°60 water and 12°42 
sugar ; and in the last, 80°52 water and 11°85 sugar. The ave- 
rage of these was 80°34 per cent. of water and 12°54 per cent. of 
sugar. The amount of sugar thus found to be contained in the 
Trish-grown beet was quite equal to that in beet grown in Ger- 
many, Belgium, and France, and proved Ireland to be a country 
in which sugar-beet might be cultivated with advantage, 
Prof. 
Sos, ee Se 
i ee 
NATURE 
375 
EpINBURGH 
Scottish Meteorological Society, Jan. 30, half-yearly 
meeting.—Mr. Milne Holme in the chair.—Mr. Buchan 
made a statement with reference to the remarkable weather 
which has prevailed in this country during the past year. 
The specialty of that year’s weather was, he said, its rain- 
The mean rainfall for sixteen years of the whole of Scot- 
land, as indicated by the average of 55 stations, was 39, I-5th in. 
The year 1857 was a dry year, its rainfall being 8 in. less than 
the mean ; 1858 fell below the mean by 5 in, ; 1861 was 6 in. 
above the mean; but the rainfall of last year ran up to 15 in. 
above the mean, the average rainfall of the whole of Scotland 
during that year being 54 in. This rainfall was 38 per cent. 
above the mean, and there was nothing approaching it in any 
of the previous sixteen years. This enormous rainfall was very 
unequally distributed over the country. He had constructed a 
map of Scotland based upon the returns from 200 stations, In 
this map a blue line passing round the north of the Shetland 
Islands, cutting off the north-west fringe of Caithness and Suther- 
land, and then bending down southward, but returning north- 
ward again so as to pass round the north of the Hebrides, cut 
off a part of Scotland within which there was last year less rain 
than usual. Between this and another line which stretched from 
Shetland, took in part of Orkney, curved down round Islay, and 
took off a part of the Hebrides, was included a portion of the 
country where the rainfall did not amount to 25 per cent. above 
the average. Then suppose a line beginning about Peterhead, 
curving round so as to include Elgin, and following very closely 
the east watershed of Scotland, all places to the east of that line 
were found to have had at least half more rain than usual. Fur- 
ther, the country about Aberdeen and a good part of East 
Lothian and Berwickshire had an excess above the average to the 
extent of 75 percent. Not only so, but taking some of the in- 
dividual stations, it appeared that Culross, the highest the society 
had, stood 93 per cent. above the average ; Thurston, near Dun- 
bar, 88 per cent. above the average of thirty-two years ; Jed- 
burgh, 84 per cent. above the average ; and other places fully 80 
percent. above the average. These figures showed a very remark- 
able distribution of the rainfall for the last year ; he thought the 
records of meteorology had nothing like it. In Castle Gordon, 
Banffshire, the rainfall of last year was 53 in. above any rainfall 
in the previous ninety years. At Edinburgh there were sixty 
years’ observations to go back upon, and last year’s rai ex- 
ceeded to the extent of over 4 in. any recorded within that 
period. With reference to the distribution of rain over the year, 
the fall in January was greatly in excess of the average, and it 
only fell below the average in April, every other month showing 
an excess. On the east side of Scotland, taken as a whole, every 
month of last year was above the average—an unprecedented 
fact, he thought, in Scottish meteorology. In the west of Scot- 
land, one month was decidedly under the average, and another 
month stood at the average, every other month being above the 
average. June was a very wet month in the west. August was 
a drier month. September appeared rather wet, but that was 
due to the greater rainfall in the south, for to the north of Islay 
the rainfall of that month was very much under the average. As 
to temperature, for the first four months it was above the ave- 
rage ; in May and September very much under the average ; June 
about the average ; July above the average, and so on; so that 
in this respect the year was not on the whole a very bad one. 
With regard to barometric pressure, he had worked out the mean 
of 55 stations, and it appeared that for every month, except July 
and August, the pressure of Scotland was under the average. 
Northerly, north-easterly, easterly, south-easterly, and south- 
erly winds were above the average ; and the distribution of rain 
was the representative of that fact, a great proportion of the 
rain that feli having been brought by easterly winds. The 
_atmospheric pressure in Iceland was above the average in 
every month except January, and during the whole year 
the pressure in that island was much higher than with us. In 
the north of Norway the pressure was still higher than in Ice- 
land, and showed a more irregular curve. Following out this 
point in other parts of Europe, it appeared that in England the 
pressure was under the average; in Guernsey it was under the 
average each month, and a similar state of matters prevailedtin 
Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. On he 
other hand, in Iceland, the northern part of Norway and Sweden, 
in Russia, at Constantinople, at Athens, at Moscow, in the north 
of Africa, and in Spain, pressure was above the average, and the 
rainfall for the year less than the average. So far as the facts 
