17 



beyond the time intended, as its author suffered so much in health 

 (which it is gratifying to hear has since much improved), during 

 its going through the press, that he was obliged to adjourn his 

 work from day to.day. In the Phil. Trans, of 1873, has appeared 

 the long promised " Report of the Exploration of Brixham Cave," 

 founded mainly upon the labours of our Honorary Member, Mr. 

 W. Pengelly — giving the description of the Animal Remains by 

 G. Busk, and of the Flint Implements by J. Evans and J. 

 Prestwitch, all being Fellows of the Society under whose auspices 

 the Report appears ; which cannot but contain important matter, 

 though, perhaps, some of the inferences may seem, even to 

 unprejudiced minds, to want further corroboration. As we have 

 had the good fortune to enlist two new secretaries, each of whom, 

 in addition to the one we previously possessed, has acquired 

 reputation in geology or mineralogy, we may expect that our 

 Society will even display increasing activity in this way. 



Our Institution has for long years been so unflagging in its 

 promotion of Meteorology, that I must not conclude without 

 devoting a paragraph to that subject. Much accuracy and patience 

 are indispensable in making the meteorological returns that are 

 entrusted to our curator — and many are the instructive exposi- 

 tions we have had at these meetings of the laws and varieties 

 of our climate, in which these, with concurrent observations of 

 their own have been turned to happy account by two of our 

 members ; one or both of whom will again favour us to-day with 

 what I have no doubt you will find to be novel and interesting 

 information on this subject. In a general glance, I take it for 

 granted, that the Meteorological Congress, held in September last 

 at Vienna, was so well responded to in an international sense that 

 its influence will be great in bringing about an uniformity in the 

 modes of registering observations throughout the world, and thus 

 facilitating the intelligent study of meteorology. The phenomena 

 that have to be discussed are, primd facie, so fleeting and capricious, 

 that each instance in which it has been demonstrated, that they 

 are subservient to laws which are ascertainable, comes almost like 

 a surprise to the mind. Perhaps nothing has been so instrumental 

 in yielding such results as Bessel's paper " On the Determination 

 of the Law of a Periodical Phenomenon " (Astronomische Nachriden, 

 ] 36, for May, 1828). Because its applicability to meteorology has 

 been shown to be so general. 



Our friend Mr. W. W. Rundell, once Secretary of the R.O. 

 Polytechnic Society, and now Secretary of the Liverpool Lloyds, 

 and who seems to have been assiduously working in the manner 

 he mentions, in a letter read at the Meteorological Society in April 

 of last year, made great impression by this remark : — " It must be 



