502 



NA TURE 



\^MarcJi 25, i< 



along it. I found that that fog was fed by what I at once called 

 fog-spouts. You know what water-spouts are, and you have all 

 seen drawings of them, and the drawings of water-spouts that I 

 have seen represent the reality very well. If you imagine a bank 

 of fog about 50 or 60 feet high filled with little fog-spouts, you 

 get exactly svhat I then ^aw, and you get exactly what one often 

 sees in these quiet prominences on the sun, and I reilly b;lieve 

 that what I and others have likened to the trunks of trees may 

 be really somewhat akin to these fog-spouts, with the enormous 

 difference, however, that we are dealing with water and aqueous 

 vapour in one case, and with the photosphere of the sun and 

 incandescent hydrogen gas in the other. 



These quiet prominences, when we come to examine them 

 with the spectroscope, seem to be built up entirely of hydrogen. 

 When I say quiet you must understand that the word is a 

 relative one. I have seen a quiet prominence as big as a dozen 

 earths born and die in an hour. That is not at all an uncommon 

 thing. And there are several facts which indicate that when 

 such a prominence disappears, it does not mean that the stufT 



Fig. 14. — Tree-like prominences. 



disappears ; it means that it changes its state, that is to say, it 

 chiefly changes its temperature. We can understand that these 

 prominences, if they are excessively hot, will be very much more 

 brilliant than if they are cool. If, therefore, they cool more or 

 less suddenly, we may lose sight of th;m, but it may 

 be that the hydrogen is there just the same, although it is no 

 longer in a condition to radiate so much heat, and therefore 

 light, to us. There is also evidence that these prominences are 

 really, the quietest of them, due to up-rushes of gas from below. 

 When we watch the growth of a prominence it expands fmrn 

 below, close to the photo<;phere. First the prominence is of 

 small height, then it gets higher and generally broader, and after 

 a certain time we may see a kind of cloud formed at the top 

 of it, but we never see the prominence coming down, as we 

 have imagined the cooler materials of the sun must come down, 

 to form a spot. 



It happens very r.arely indeed that any very large horizontal 

 motion is indicated in such prominences as these. Drawings of 

 prominences indicate very clearly the extraordinarily curious 

 forms which these masses, which consist chiefly or entirely of 

 hydrogen gas in the sun's atmosphere, put on. 



J. Norman Lockyer 

 (To he continued.') 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 

 Geological Society, February 19. — Annual General Meet- 

 ing. — Prof. T. G. Bonney, F. R.S., President, in the chair. — 

 The Secretary read the Reports of the Council and of the 

 Library and Museum Committee for the year 1885. In the 

 former the Council stated that they had the ple.asure of congratu ■ 

 lating the Society upon an improvement in the state of its 

 affairs, both from a financial point of view and on account of an 

 increase in the number of Fellows. The number of Fellows 

 elected during the year was 54, and the total accession amounted 

 to 51 ; while the losses by death, resignation, &c. , amounted to 

 46, making an increase of 5 in the number of Fellows. The 

 number of contributing Fellows was increased by 15. The 

 balance-sheet showed an excess of income over expenditure 

 during the year of 347/. i8,t. 2.i. The Council's Report further 

 announced the awards of the various medals and of the proceeds 

 of the donation funds in the gift of the Society. In handing the 

 Wollaston Gold Medal to Mr. Warington W. Smyth, F.R.S., 

 for transmission to Prof. A. L. O. Des Cloizeaux, the President 



addressed him as follows : — Mr. Warington Smyth, — In the 

 absence, which we much regret, of Prof Des Cloizeaux, I must 

 request you to transmit to him this medal. Geology is the child 

 of two parents — mineralogy and biology. If we look to the 

 latter to bid the dry bones and buried relics of organisms once 

 more live, we appeal to the former to disclose the nature and 

 constitution of the earth's framework whereon they flourished. 

 It is therefore only jvist that our Society should seek oppor- 

 tunities of acknowledging the aid which we receive from mine- 

 r.alogists ; and it would be difficult to find one on whom this 

 Wollaston Medal could be more fitly conferred than on Prof. 

 Des Cloizeuix. To enumerate the papers which he has written 

 would be a formidable task ; they numbered 141 so long as 

 fourteen years ago ; what, then, must he the present tot.al ? I 

 may, however, point in passing to his admirable "Manuel de 

 Mineralogie," and allude, as more directly bearing on the work 

 of this Society, to his papers on the classification of hyperites 

 and euphotides, on the geysers of Iceland, on the action of heat 

 upon the position of the optic axes in a mineral, and the 

 numerotis memoirs on the distinction of minerals by their optical 

 properties, especially those relating to microcline, and to other 

 species of feldspar, of the importance of which students of micro- 

 scopic petrology are daily more sensible. I esteem it a great 

 honour to be the means of carrying into effect the award of the 

 Council by placing in your hands, to be transmitted to Prof. 

 Des Cloizeaux, the Wollaston Medal, founded "to promote 

 researches concerning the mineral structure of the earth." — The 

 Preddent then presented the balance of the proceeds of the 

 Wollaston Don.ation Fund to Mr. J. St.arkie Gardner, F.G. S., 

 and addressed him as follows : — Mr. Starkie Gardner, — The 

 small number of students and the paucity of memoirs seems to 

 indicate that fossil botany is one of those subjects of which the 

 difficulties repel rather than fascinate the neophyte. If these 

 are in some respects less formidable in the plant-remains of the 

 earlier Tertiary period, if, in studying them, recent research throws 

 some light on fossil botany, yet the practical difficulties of obtain- 

 ing, developing, and preserving specimens are so great that no 

 little ardour and patience ai-e demanded from one who devotes 

 himself to the subject. For years this has been your special work : 

 after thoroughly exploring the flora of the Focene Tertiaries on the 

 coast of Hampshire and in the Isle of Wight, you are now, and 

 have for some time been, engaged in communicating to us the 

 fruits of your labours through the medium of the Palaeonto- 

 graphical Society, thereby earning the thanks of students, 

 Your researches also of late years have been extended to Antrim, 

 Mull, and even Iceland, and their results caimot fail to be of 

 the highest interest in rega-d to the age of these floras, and 

 their relation to those which occur in the Hampshire district. 

 In recognition of past, and in aid of future, work the Council 

 has awarded to you the balance of the Wollaston Fund, which 

 I have much pleasure in handing to you. — The President next 

 presented the Minxhison Medal to Mr. William Whitaker, B.A., 

 F.G. S., and addressed him as follows : — Mr. William Whitaker, 

 — To many members of the Geological .Survey of Great Britain 

 since the date of its constitution we are indebted for work freely 

 done — beyond the sphere of their more strictly professional 

 duties. Its chiefs, from the days of Sir H. de la Beche to the 

 present distinguished Director-General, Dr. A. Geikie, have 

 Iieen among the most valued contributors to our Journal, and 

 have enriched geological literature by their longer writings ; 

 while among its other members, few have done more than your- 

 self in following the example of its leader;. On the present occa- 

 sion I will only allude to the various memoirs of the Geological 

 Survey, especially that on the London Basin, in which you have 

 taken so large and important a share, and will dwell rather on 

 your contributions to our own Journal and to other publica- 

 tions. Your papers on the western end of the London Basin 

 and on the Lower London Tertiaries of Kent deserve to be 

 ranked with the classic memoirs of Prestwich as elucidating the 

 geology of what I may call the Home District ; and your last 

 contribution to its deep-seated geology is still too fresh in our 

 memories to need more than a mention. We do not forget your 

 varied and valuable contributions to the Geological Magazine, 

 especially those on the Red Chalk of Norfolk, on the water- 

 supply from the Chalk, on the formation of the Chesil Bank 

 (written jointly with Mr. Bristow), a paper, as it seems to me, 

 of remarkable suggestiveness ; and last, but by no means least, 

 on sub-aerial denudation, in which, as remarked by the late 

 Mr. C. Darwin, you had " the good fortune to bring conviction 

 to the minds" of your fellow-workers by means of " a single 

 memoir." We are also greatly indebted to you for your labours 



