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* judges to be a remnant of the most ancient Aryan stock, speak- 
ing a highly inflexional and perfect, though unwritten language, 
and preserving ancient mythologies and traditions of their 
origin. A singular exception to the Dard dialects is found in 
the Khajuna spoken by the Hunza people—the robbers of 
Kunjut—and Nagyr, which is like no other known language. 
Dr. Leitner has brought a large collection of Thibetan and Dard 
curiosities, and an intelligent Yarkandi, who as soldier and trader 
has traversed nearly all Eastern Turkistan: it is to be hoped that 
he may be given, during his stay in England, opportunities of 
learning something of our manufactures and commerce, so that 
he may carry back to Yarkand a good report of English power, 
and, we will add, of English hospitality and friendship, which 
will assuredly bear good fruit in the future conduct of the Yar- 
kandis, who are already well disposed to receive and trade with 
our countrymen, 
Entomological Society, November 15.—Mr. H. W. Bates, 
President, in the chair. The following gentlemen were elected: 
Messrs. French and Websdale as members; and Messrs. Barnes, 
Brown, E. M. Janson, O. E. Janson, Pearson, and Robinson, 
as subscribers. Exhibitions of insects were made by Messrs. 
F. Smith, Pascoe, Briggs, Davis, and Salvin; and the discus- 
sion which ensued thereon was participated in by the President, 
Messrs. Westwood, Wallace, Miiller, Weir, Janson, McLachlan, 
Eaton, Wormald, Horne, Verrall, and Dunning. The follow- 
ing papers were read :—‘* New Genera and Species of Coleoptera 
from Chontales, Nicaragua,” by the President. ‘‘ Description 
of New Genera and Species of //ispide; with notes on some 
previously-described species,” by Mr. J. S. Baly. ‘‘A Synopsis 
of the Genus Clothilaa,” by Mr. Osbert Salvin. 
Statistical Society, November 16. — A large body of 
Fellows assembled to hear the President, Mr. W. Newmarch, 
F.R.S., deliver his inaugural address, in which he reviewed the 
progress that had been made in statistical science since the foun- 
dation of the Society in 1834. He pointed out that at that time, 
with perhaps two or three partial exceptions, foreign Governments 
and Legislatures had not arrived at even the faintest notion of the 
desirableness of systematic statistical evidence, but that during 
the last twenty-five years this state of things had almost dis- 
appeared, and in several foreign states there were now in full 
activity statistical departments, and a vigour of statistical re- 
search by independent persons, that almost reduced the United 
Kingdom to a second place. Having enumerated the branches 
of inquiry in which this country had made most decisive and 
gratifying progress during the last thirty-five years, he stated that 
the following fields of statistical research seemed to him to require 
early attention:—1. The annual consumption per head among 
different classes, and by the nation as a whole, of the chief 
articles of food—corn, butchers’ meat, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, 
wine, spirits, and beer. 2. The annual production in agriculture, 
minerals, metals, ships, and manufactures. 3. The comparative 
wages, house-rent, and cost of living in different parts of the 
country. 4. The total annual income and earnings and the total 
annual accumulations of different classes, and of the country as 
awhole. 5. The relative taxation of different classes in this country, 
as compared with the same classes in those foreign countries, the 
competition of which England has to understand and meet— 
carefully attending in the inquiry to the comparative merits of 
direct and indirect taxation. 6. The financial and economical 
cost and burdens entailed by extensive warlike armaments. 7. 
Periodical statistics of public hospitals in the metropolis and 
larger towns, with a view to the comparison of the efficiency and 
cost of the relief afforded in each. §. Periodical returns of the 
income and operations of charitable trusts and endowments, for 
relief and education. 9. A statistical ascertainment of the 
numerical strength of the different religious churches and sects. 
10. Statistical evidence of the cost to the community in sickness, 
excessive mortality, and poor-rate expenditure of defective dwell- 
ings, and sanitary regulations. 11. Statistical evidence of the 
gain to the community of instruction in popular schools in the 
rudiments of political economy, in the commoner industrial arts, 
and in military exercises. 12. Statistical evidence of the con- 
sequences in this country of the emigration from it. 13. Inves- 
tigations relative to the advantages and cost to this country of 
the occupation of India. 14. An investigation on grounds of 
fact of the effect of commercial treaties, especially of the French 
Treaty of 1860. 15. A similar investigation of the consequences 
produced in the United States by the rigid system of protective 
tariffs. 
16, And by the protracted suspension of specie pay- 
ments. 17. Statistical inquiries relative to the effects produced 
in Europe on commerce, accumulation, invention, prices, and the 
rate of interest, by the gold discoveries in California and Aus- 
tralia. 18. Investigations of the mathematics and logic of 
statistical evidence; that is to say, the true construction and use 
of averages, the deduction of probabilities, the exclusion of 
superfluous integers, and the discovery of the laws of such social 
phenomena as can only be exhibited by a numerical notation. 
DUBLIN 
Royal Dublin Society, November 15.—The first meeting of 
the 139th session. Mr. W. Andrews read a paper on Deep- 
Sea Soundings. The author stated that he did not mean to 
refer to the deep-sea dredgings of the Ziehtning and Porcupine, 
but to some soundings of his own, extending to the moderate 
depths of eighty fathoms off the Blasquet Islands, on the west 
coast of Ireland, which were chiefly undertaken in connection 
with the subject of Irish fisheries. There was a rock near 
Dingle harbour known as the Barrack Rock to the fishermen, 
the position and bearings of which had never been determined, 
no notice of it appearing in the corrected charts of 1860, In 
July of the present year he had succeeded in taking its bearings 
and soundings ; at low water and at extreme springs there are 
barely three fathoms covering the rock, and yet in the charts the 
soundings over it were marked at from 38 to 40 fathoms. The 
author then proceeded to notice some of the more interesting 
animals taken by him off the west coast of Ireland during this 
and other soundings; such as, Paracyathus taxilianus and 
P. thulensis, the animals of which he had examined [these two 
species were first described by Gosse, from single Scotch 
specimens, and the animals belonging to them were up to the 
present unknown] ; Zschara foliacea, which he inclines to think is 
very different from the true Afi/lepora cervicornis, which latter 
coral he took living in 39 fathoms off the little Skellig Island. 
[Z. feliacea is not uncommon off the west coast of Ireland ; but 
we suspect some strange mistake here, as Zscharva is a well- 
known genus of the Polyzoa, whereas JZi//epora is almost without 
doubt a Aydrozodn, and; has never yet been met with, we 
believe, north of a mean winter temperature of the sea of 
66° F.] 
Mr. W. F. Kirby read an account of a natural history excursion 
made to the continent of Europe in the spring of the present 
year, detailing his captures at Hilden, Basle, the Righi, St. 
Gothard, and the Val da Foin.—Mr. A. G. More read an 
account of an excursion, zoological and botanical, to Connemara, 
county Galway.—Mr. H. Grubb gave an account of a re- 
markable meteor seen in the heavens over Dublin between 6 and 
7 o'clock, P.M., on the 6th inst. 
Royal Irish Academy, November 8.—The first meeting ot 
the present session. The council announced that Lord Talbot 
de Malahide had, owing to his intended sojourn abroad for 
the winter and spring months, sent in his resignation of the 
office of President; this resignation was, with regret, accepted. 
Of the names of those mentioned as likely to succeed to the post, 
that of the Earl of Dunraven would appear to be the most popular. 
A paper was read by Mr. G, H. Kinahan on the ruins of Ardil- 
laun, county Galway. 
The following numbers of the Transactions have been published 
since the session closed in July.—Mr. W. Andrews on Ziphizus 
Sowerbyi. [Trans. vol. xxiv. Science, part x.]—Prof. W. King 
on the Histology of the Test of the class Palliobranchiata. [Trans. 
vol. xxiv. Science, part x1.]—John Casey, A.B., on Bicircular 
Quartics. [Trans. vol. xxiv. Science, part x11.]—Professor E. 
Perceval Wright, contributions toward a knowledge of the Flora 
of the Seychelles, with four plates, [Trans, vol. xxiv. Science, 
part XIII. ] 
MANCHESTER 
Literary and Philosophical Society, November 2.—J. P. 
Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., &c., President, in the chair. William 
Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., and Thomas Edward Thorpe, 
Ph.D., were elected ordinary members of the Society. Professor 
H. E. Roscoe, Ph.D., F.R.S., presented a paper on a new 
Chromium Oxychloride, by T. E. Thorpe, Ph.D., assistant in 
the laboratory of Owen’s College. When chromyl dichloride, 
CrO,Cl,, prepared by heating a mixture of potassium dichromate, 
sodium chloride, and sulphuric acid, is maintained at a tempera- 
ture of 180°—190° C. in a sealed tube for three or four hours, it 
is almost completely converted into a black solid substance, and 
on opening the tube when -cold a considerable quantity of free 
chlorine escapes. By exhausting the tubes containing the liquid 
