COREESPONDING SOCIETIES. 43 



been distributed throughout the country, and a good deal of information 

 had been collected during the year. It was proposed to ask for the 

 reappointment of the Committee with a grant to enable the observations 

 to be tabulated. 



Mr. William Watts stated that he had been conducting temperature 

 observations in two large reservoirs belonging to the Oldham Corporation 

 during the last eighteen months. These results were included in the 

 report of the Committee. Mr. Watts added that there was some pro- 

 bability of the observations having to be discontinued for want of funds, 

 although on his own part he was perfectly willing to carry on the work 

 for another year. 



Mr. Cushing presented a record of weekly temperature observations 

 taken in the River Wandle in Surrey. The temperatures were taken 

 between 3 and 3.30 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, and extended from 

 October 1888 to February 1890. The observations were taken at ten 

 different stations, five of which are on the Carshalton and five on the 

 Croydon branch of the river. The tabulated records were accompanied 

 by a statement of the mean weekly shade temperature and the rainfall for 

 the previous week, both being made up to 9 p.m. on the Saturday. The 

 tables were also accompanied by a sketch of the district traced from the 

 25-inch Ordnance map, showing the positions of all the stations, which 

 were numbered from 1 to 10, and which corresponded with the positions 

 in the temperature tables as read from left to right. The river is very 

 shallow, but the tables showed some rather large mean differences ot 

 temperature. While stations 1, 8, and 9 showed respectively the mean 

 differences of 15-8, 16-2, and 177° F. ; station No. 5, where the water 

 is only 18 inches deep, shows a mean yearly variation of only 0'7° F., 

 while the mean variation of shade temperature during the same period 

 was 38"7° F. These tempei'atures were taken at from 12 to 18 inches 

 below the surface with a thermometer graduated on the stem and verified 

 at Kew. The observations had been taken by Mr. F. C. Bayard, an active 

 Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and Secretary to the Croydon 

 Microscopical and Natural History Club, which Society was represented 

 by Mr. Cushing at the Conference. Mr. Bayard had expressed his 

 willingness to continue the observations. 



The Secretary suggested that the results presented by Mr. Cushing 

 should be handed to Dr. Mill, the Secretary of the Committee. 



The Chairman, having commented on the value of Mr. Bayard's 

 observations, proceeded to state that he had recently been reducing 

 experiments with respect to evaporation, which had been made during 

 several years at Strathfield Turgiss in Hampshire, in which the ordinary 

 small evaporators had been compared with a galvanised iron tank 6 feet 

 square and 2 feet deep. The rough result was that the evaporation from 

 the tank averaged about 15 inches per anniim, while the smaller ones 

 (owing to the high temperature of the water) indicated an evapoi'ation 

 considerably in excess of the truth. 



Meteorological Photography — Mr. Hopkinson alluded to the success 

 which had been achieved by the Committee on Geological Photography, 

 of which Mr. Jeffs was Secretary, and pointed out the growing import- 

 ance of photography as an aid in other branches of scientific research. 

 He suggested that the idea might be extended to meteorological photo- 

 graphy, and that a Committee should be formed for carrying out this 

 object. Photography could be advantageously applied to the investiga- 



