May 7, 1885] 
NATURE 
23 
certain amount of movement (with a resultant amount of 150 
feet of tilting in thirteen miles from south to north) has since 
taken place.—Nutes on the Polyzoa and Foraminifera of the 
Cambridge greensand, by G. It. Vine. Communicated by 
Thomas Jesson, F.G.S. 
Royal Meteorological Society, April 15.—Mr.R.H. Scott, 
F.R.S., President, in the chair.—The foilowing papers were 
read :—Report of Committee on Decrease of Water-Supply. 
This Committee was appointed to take into consideration the 
question of the decrease of water in springs, streams, and rivers, 
and also the simultaneous rise of the flood-level in cultivated 
countries. As far as any inference can be drawn from the 
records collected by the Committee, it appears that the years 
1820, 1821, 1824, 1835, 1838, 1845, 1847, 1850,1854, 1855, 1858, 
1859, 1864, 1865, 1871, 1874, 1875, and 1884 have been periods 
of marked low water. On the other hand, the years 1817, 1825, 
1830, 1836, 1841, 1842, 1853, 1860, 1861, 1866, 1873, 1877, 
1879, 1881, and 1883 have been periods when there has been 
exceptionally high water. In 1852 the water was very low in 
the early part of the year, while at the end of the year it was 
very high. Inthe intervening periods the water has been of 
moderate altitude. It does not appear from existing records 
that there is any diminution in the water-supply of this country, 
and the large quantity of water which has been stored or has | 
flowed off the ground between 1876 and 1884 is confirmatory of 
this view. There appear, however, to be periods when there is 
exceptionally low water, and these are almost immediately fol- 
lowed by periods of exceptionally high water. With reference 
to the increase of floods, it does not appear from the records 
that there is any great increase in the height to which the floods 
rise in this country. Whether or not the height to which floods 
have risen in recent years has been affected by river improve- 
ments and the greater facility with which floods can be got rid 
of, or whether there is a diminution in the quantity of water, 
are questions upon which the Committee {have not at present 
sufficient information to speak positively.— Report of Committee 
on the occurrences of the Helm-Wind of Cross Fell, Cumberland, 
from 1871 to 1884. In response to a letter inserted in the Pen- 
rith newspapers, the Committee has received a number of com- 
munications bearing on the subject of the helm-wind. With the 
view of ascertaining as far as possible the meteorological con- 
ditions which exist when the helm-wind is blowing, all the 
recorded occurrences that have been received have been chrono- 
logically arranged. ‘The first systematic record commences in 
1871, and in this report the Committee deals with all occurrences 
from that date to the end of 1884. Since that time more de- 
tailed records have been commenced at numerous stations in the 
locality at the instigation of the Royal Meteorological Society. 
Ninety-three instances of the helm-wind were recorded from 
1871 to 1884; the months with the greatest frequency being 
February, March, April, and November. On examining the 
Daily Weather Reports it was clearly seen that, whenever the 
helm-wind was blowing there was an easterly wind, not only in 
the locality, but generally over the entire country. As the 
helm-wind seemed to occur so regularly with the easterly wind, 
the Committee further extended the inquiry with regard to the 
east wind. The Daily Weather Charts were consequently ex- 
amined for each day from January 1, 1871, to December 31, 
1884, and every occurrence of east wind tabulated; the 
instances with general easterly conditions over the whole 
country being kept separate from those instances in which the 
easterly wind was only partial, though of sufficient intensity to 
occasion the helm-wind. This examination showed that, although 
the wind over the United Kingdom is generally easterly when 
the helm occurs, yet the helm by no means occurs whenever the 
wind is easterly. Indeed, this step in the inquiry has not at all 
tended to the elucidation of the phenomenon in question, for it 
frequently happens that the conditions are, to all appearances, 
precisely similar when the helm is on, and yet no such occurrence 
has been recorded. This may in part be due to the occasional 
omission to record the helm, although it cannot possibly be, in 
the main, attributable to such an omission ; but it points to 
other conditions being necessary besides absolute agreement of 
wind direction and isobaric lines. Possibly the different hygro- 
metric qualities of the air with the existing easterly winds may 
be an important factor in deciding whether or no the helm will 
be formed, but it is not readily conceived why, even in this case, 
the helm-wind should not blow. It must, however, be borne 
in mind that the surface-winds can only be examined, whilst 
those at a comparatively small elevation may be intimetely con- 
| Eury. 
nected with the phenomenon. From the observations made 
prior te those started at the beginning of 1885, no idea can be 
formed of the behaviour of the upper currents, even at the time 
of the occurrence of the helm-winds, far less with the occurrence 
of each east wind experienced. The Society has, however, 
provided for the extension of the inquiry in this direction in the 
records which are now being collected, the observers supplying 
observati ns of the upper currents by means of the clouds, as 
well as the direction of the winds at the surface of the earth. 
As soon as a sufficient number of these observations have been 
received, the Committee hopes to present a furtherreport, which 
will tend to explain the phenomenon of the helm-wind.—Results 
of meteorological observations made at Asuncion, Paraguay, by 
R. Strachan, F.R.Met.Soc, 
PARIS 
Academy of Sciences, April 27.—M. Bouley, President, in 
the chair.—Experimental researches regarding (1) Attacks of an 
epileptic character excited by the electrisation of the excito- 
motor regions of the brain properly so-called ; (2) the duration 
after death of the excitability so produced in the brain, by M. 
Vulpian. The main object of these experiments, made chiefly 
on dogs, is to confirm the conclusion already arrived at and 
communicated by the author in a previous paper, that the grey 
cortical substance of the cerebral regions known as motor centres 
does not play the indispensable part hitherto supposed in the 
production of epileptic attacks caused by the faradisation of those 
regions. The inference is also confirmed that amongst the higher 
mammals under normal conditions the cerebral substance proper 
loses its excitability as soon as the circulation has completely 
ceased in the nerve-centres.—Nebula discovered, observed, and 
tabulated at the Observatory of Marseilles, by M. E. Stephan. 
—Results of the boring recently carried out at Ricard, in the 
Grand’-Combe Valley, Gard, in search for coal, by M. Grand’- 
These borings tend to confirm the conclusion, al- 
ready arrived at on other grounds, that no parallelism 
exists between the St. Barbe and Grand’-Combe geological 
systems, and as the former are unquestionably the older, they 
must, in the normal state, necessarily underlie the latter.—Re- 
port on the relation between the phenomena presented by the 
recent earthquakes in Andalusia, and the geological constitution 
of: the region comprised within the area of disturbance, by M. 
| Fouqué.—Remarks on an instrument analogous to the sextant, 
by means of which angles projected on the horizon may be 
directly measured, by M. E. H. Amagat.—Note on the calcula- 
tions made to determine the solar parallax from the daguerrotypes 
taken by the French Commission during the transit of Venus in 
1874, by M. Obrecht. The calculations have been carefully 
checked, and the definite result is represented by 
a = 881 — 0” 004d LZ £ 0'"06, 
where 7 is the solar parallax, and d Z the correction tu be made 
for the longitude of Pekin. —Elements and ephemerides of the 
planet 246, deduced from the observations made on March 9 at 
Marseilles, Vienna, and Diisseldorf, on March 18 at Marseilles 
and Vienna, on March 31 at Berlin, and on April 9 at Mar- 
seilles, by M. Andoyer.—On a general law in the theory of the 
partition of numbers, by MM. Bougaieff.—A short and simple 
demonstration of M. de Sperre’s theorem regarding Poinsot’s 
“herpolhodie ” curve, by M. A. de Saint-Germain.—Note on a 
method of regulating the velocity of electric motors, by M. M. 
Deprez.— Régime of combustion of explosive mixtures formed with 
illuminating gas, by M. A. Witz.—Description of the solar 
corona, the so-called ‘‘ Bishop’s ring,” observed subsequently to 
the Krakatoa eruption in 1883, 1884, and 1885, by M F. A. 
Forel.—Researches on the phosphates : a method of reproducing 
at pleasure a large number of crystallised phosphates and oxides, 
by M. H. Debray.—On the oxidation of iodine during the pro- 
cess of natural nitrification, by M. A. Miintz. The object of 
this paper is to determine the natural conditions under which 
were produced the extensive deposits of nitrates in certain tro- 
pical regions.—On the ammoniacal sulphate of copper, and on a 
basic sulphate of copper, by M. G. André.—On the dimor- 
phism of telluric anhydride and on some of its combinations, by 
MM. D. Klein and J. Morel.—On the chemical constitution of 
cocaine, by MM. G. Calmels and E. Gossin.—Studies on the 
inhalation of bichloruretted formene (chloride of methylene) and 
of tetrachloruretted formene (perchloride of carbon), by MM. 
J. Regnauld and Villejean.—On the effects produced on man 
and animals by the stomachic ingestion and hypodermic injec- 
tion of the microbes associated with the diarrhceic liquid of 
