} 
ane F 
Fune 5, 1873) 
paper was then read on “ Land and Sea Breezes,” by Mr. J. K. 
“Laughton, who was of opinion that sufficient attention hed not 
been paid to the subject ; and that more careful examination 
would show that the ordinary recorded theory is not in accord- 
_ance with the facts observed ; that these prove that sea and land 
breezes are seldom strong where the land is of that arid nature 
which gives rise to extreme differences of temperature, and 
that they frequently are strong where, from the verdant 
nature of the country, the differences of temperature are 
trifling; also that the sea breeze begins out at sea, and 
comes slowly in, and that the land-breeze comes, in the 
first instance, distinctly off the land, sometimes as sharp 
squalls. | The necessary conclusion from these observations 
is that the breezes are winds of propulsion, not of aspira- 
tion; and whilst it seems probable that the propelling- 
_ force, in the case of the sea-breeze, is due to the rapid 
formation of vapour over the sea, the land-breeze may be 
the reaction, or return of the column of the air which has 
previously been forced upwards by the sea-breeze. A short 
paper by Rev. F. W. Stow, onthe same subject, was read, 
giving an account of the observations he had made at Hawsker ; 
after which Mr. R. H. Scott gave a description of a double 
"rainbow observed at Kirkwall. 
Institution of Civil Engineers, May 13.—Mr. T. Hawksley, 
president, in the chair.—The paper read, ‘On the Delia of 
the Danube, and the Provisional Works executed at the 
Sulina Mouth,” by Sir Charles Augustus Hartley, was a 
sequel to a previous communication by the author on March 
11, 1862, It described the mutations of the Sulina Bar from 
: 1861 to the present time, and referred to the changes in the Sea 
outline of the Delta during sixteen years. Reference was made 
to the enormous growth of the northern part of the Kilia 
_ Delta in recent years, due to the greatly augmented volume of 
_ water which had lately flowed to the sea by the Ochakoff branch 
and New Stamboul Mouth; while a diminution in the advance 
of the southern extremity of the Kilia Delta was assigned to the 
‘impoverishment of the old Stamboul branch of the river. 
These changes, from natural causes, in the relative volumes of 
water delivered to the sea by the Kilia Mouths, were favourab'e 
circumstances in considering the problem of the number of 
years that would probably elapse before the Sulina Mouth would 
be absorbed in the shallows of the Kilia Delta. Since 1857, 
owing to the shoaling of the Toultcha and the St. George's 
branches, the outflow by the Kilia had increased, so that it now 
delivered two-thirds of the whole volume of the Danube to the 
sea. Fortunately for the navigation by the Sulina Mouth, the 
larger portion of the detritus was transported far to sea, and 
_ comparatively little went to swell the shallows of the Kilia 
Mouths. In the last fifteen years the advance of the 304eet line 
_ of soundings had been strictly confined to the sandbanks facing 
_ the mouths of the Kilia, Sulina and St. George, and it was 
shown that an erosive action had been long at work on the shore 
line and sea bottom to the north and south of the Sulina 
Mouth. 
Society of Biblical Archezology, June 3.—Dr. Birch, 
F.S.A., president, in the chair. ‘lhe folowing papers were 
read :—‘* The Legend of Ishtor descending to Hades.” By 
H. F. Talbot, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c.—In this valuable paper the 
author translates from the tablets the Goddess’s voluntary 
_ descent into the Assyrian //férno. In the cuneiform it is called 
the Land of No Return; and the Lord of Earth gives her a 
green bough of the Zz. . .tree to protect her life (comp. Virgil’s 
#Eneid). Ishtar passes successfully through the seven gates, 
compelled to surrender her jewels, (1) her crown, (2) her ear- 
rings, (3) her head-jewels, (4) her frontlets, (5) her girdle, (6) her 
finger and toe rings, (7) her necklace. ‘the Lord of Hades 
seeing her sends his messenger Namtar to greet her. But as she 
cannot return of her own accord to the upper regions, the 
heavenly triad Sun, Moon, and /ea or Hu (Lord of Mysteries) 
consult, and Zea raises a black phantom who a alee a juggler’s 
trick: before the Lord of Hades ; during which he gives to Ishtar 
acup full of the Waters of Life, whereby she returns to the 
upper world, receiving at each Hades-portal the jewels she had 
been deprived of in her descent. The. phantom is rewarded by 
the most exquisite meats, wines, &c. The Greek Fate Aérofos is 
supposed by the author to mean No Return, and Hades (House 
of Eternity) is compared with the Hebrew Od and Bet-Moed of 
Pag xxx. 23.— On the Egyptian Preposition,” by M. P. Le 
Page Renouf, F.R.S.L,—‘On a Remarkable Babylonian Brick 
described jn the Bible,” by Richard Cull, F.S.A. 
NATURE 
PHILADELPHIA 
Academy of Natural Sciences, February 11.—Dr. Rus- 
chenberger, the president, in the chair. Mr. Thomas Meehan 
presented an apple, which was borne by a tree at Kittaning, 
in Pennsylvania, and which tree never produced any flowers 
in the popular acceptation of the term ; but always yielded an 
abundance of fruit. The specimen furnished a practical illus- 
tration of some morphological truths which could not often be 
demonstrated in the way this afforded the opportunity of doing. 
It was admitted that a fruit was a branch with its accessory 
leaves transformed. The apple fruit was made up of a series of 
whorls of leaves comprising five each, Cutting an apple through 
we found a series of five formed the carmels containing the 
seeds. Several series of whorls, very much retarded in develop- 
ment, probably formed the stamens, but this could not be well 
seen in the apple fruit, as they seemed to be almost absorbed in 
the corolla series. This was the next in order that appeared in 
the divided apple—the green curved fibrous line which we find 
in all apples midway between the ‘‘core” and the ‘‘rind”’ is 
the dividing line between the series which forms the corolla, 
and the outer series which forms the calyx. In this tree there 
are no pistils, the series which usually goes to make up this part 
of the fruit structure being either very rudimentary or entirely 
wanting. Hence there was no core to the fruit. The result 
of this want of development was that the usual calyx basin of 
the apple was in this case occupied by a cavity three-quarters of 
an inch across. There were no petals; but in place five gland 
or rather bud-scalelike processes, at regular distances, on the 
edge of the green fibrous outline before referred to. The outer 
whorl, which usually forms the calyx, was almost asepalous, as 
a mere scarious membrane marked the place where the calyx 
segments or sepals should have appeared. It was so easy in this 
specimen to trace the dividing line between the outer or calycive 
whorl and the inner or corolline whorl, which, uniting and be- 
coming succulent, formed the popular apple fruit, that it was 
worthy of note in this connection, But the most interesting 
feature in this specimen was what were probably, from their 
similarity in appearance, cork cells, formed abundantly on. the 
outside of the apple. It would seem that, with the lack of 
development in the inner series of whorls necessary to the 
perfect fruit, those which remained were liable to take on somc- 
what the character of bark structure. 
February 18.—Dr. Ruschenberger, the president, in the 
chair.—The following paper was presented for publication :— 
‘‘Description of Mexican Ichneumonide, Part II,” by E. T. 
Cresson.—Mr. Thomas Meehan presented specimens of leaves 
of a Begonia on which minute folioles appeared as densely as 
hair all over the upper surface, while the leaf was on the grow- 
ing plant. The little growths first appeared as succulent hairs, 
and these hair-like processes subsequently divided or produced 
the leafy blades from their apices. Mr. M. remarked*that hairs 
were at any rate structurally but graded thorns, of which bristles 
were an intermediate stage. Spines often bore leaves, but it was 
unusual for thorns to do so. It might not be that these leaf- 
bearing processes were really hairs though they had that ap- 
pearance.—Mr. Thomas G. Gentry called the attention of the 
Academy to what he considered to be an interesting case of a 
change of habits which had recently occurred in the life of an 
ordinary chickaree, the Scinus hudsonius of Pallas. During the 
early part of last autumn, his attention was called to the fact that 
the birds in a certain designated locality of Mount Airy, during 
the hours of the night, were undergo‘ng a system of wholesale 
destruction, the work of small animals which were supposed to 
belong to some species of Carnivora. Labouring under this 
impression, and being desirous of securing a specimen or two, he 
started for the scene of slaughter, bent upon discovering the 
name and character of the animal ; when within a few rods of 
the place, the almost deafening noise that greeted his ears, from 
the tall trees, led him to suspect that all was not right. After 
reaching the spot, a few moments of anxious waiting sufficed to 
reveal to him the cause of the noise and the origin of the sacri- 
fice above alluded to; for, sitting upon a twig just above his 
head, he observed a chickaree, holding in ils paws a bird which it 
had captured, and from which it wis very contentedly sucking 
the life current. It is a well-established fact, he further remarked, 
as far as he bad been able to verify it, that the numerous species 
of Rodents, with but two exceptions at the most, subsist princi- 
pally or entirely upon vegetable matter, especially the hard parts 
of plants, such as nuts, bark, and roots. This habit of imita'ing 
the propensities of the A/ustelide, he thought might have arisen 
