ON CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE IN THE ARCTIC WINTER. 521 
ranean, with a sea-depth varying between 2,000 and 2,800 metres 
[=6561°8 to 9186°5 feet], a considerable number of animals, of 
completely sedentary habits, are actually living. Most of these, 
moreover, belong to species of reputed rarity ; and some have hi- 
therto escaped the observation of zoologists. It is likewise to be 
remarked that several of these forms do not appear to differ from 
certain fossil species, the remains of which are imbedded in the 
Upper Tertiary deposits that occur on opposite sides of the same 
basin. These results, it is thought, are not altogether devoid of 
interest, whether regarded geologically or in a zoological point of 
view ; and they lead us to expect that a more complete exploration 
of the depths of the sea will bring to light the existence of other 
‘Species supposed to be extinct because found hitherto only in the 
fossil state. Physiologists will perhaps, also, think the facet worth 
recording, that animals, as highly organised as gasteropodous mol- 
lusca, are able to live under a pressure of more than two hundred 
atmospheres, and at depths to which no notable quantity of light 
can possibly penetrate. E. J. C. 
ON GREAT FLUCTUATIONS OF TEMPERATURE IN THE 
ARCTIC WINTER. 
BY J. J. MURPHY, ESQ. 
(From the Proceedings of the Royal Society, June 7, 1861.) 
It might be expected that the climate of the Arctic Regions during 
winter, in the absence of the sun, must be almost a dead level of 
intense cold; but so far is this from being the case, that there is no 
other place and time where such great and rapid fluctuations of 
temperature have been observed. 
This phenomenon is thus mentioned in the appendix to Wrangell’s 
account of his expedition to the Siberian coasts of the Polar Sea :— 
««Sometimes in the middle of winter a wind from the S.E. by E. 
causes the temperature to rise suddenly from —24° to +25°, or even 
+32°; previously to this, the barometer sinks as much as four- 
tenths of an inch in the course of eight hours. The 8.S.E. wind 
has no particular influence either on the barometer or thermometer.” 
