324 
evidence only superficially smoothed down—not brought to a 
definite issue—by the Tribunal. The most serious of these 
discrepancies relates to an inhibition which the Court asserted 
had been formally delivered to Galileo by the Commissary of the 
Holy Office in 1616. From a detailed comparison of Galileo’s 
letters and published works with the contemporary records of 
the Inquisition, Mr Taylor argued that the documentary evidence 
on which the judges relied as establishing this point was a 
fabrication designed to insure the conviction of the accused, 
He pointed out in conclusion that, if this view be admitted, 
Galileo must be held entitled, even on the severest view of his 
legal obligations towards the ecclesiastical authorities, to an 
absolute acquittal on all the charges, 
After a few remarks from Mr GoTOBED, the discussion 
closed. 
Professor SELWYN exhibited a combination of two hoops, 
united by a straight rod, on which the inner hoop moved, the 
rod carrying a ball in the centre: the whole being designed to 
represent the Sun, the orbits of the Earth and Venus, and 
the conditions under which a transit of Venus between the 
Earth and the Sun becomes possible, 
December 1, 1873. 
The PRESIDENT (PROFESSOR BABINGTON) in the Chair, 
On the Inequalities of the Earth’s Surface viewed in 
connection with the secular cooling. By Mr O. 
FisHer. 
This paper assumes that the elevations and depressions out 
of which the inequalities of the earth’s surface have arisen, are 
