SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Jan. 6, 1? 



occurred ; that the cave-deposits were like drift because 

 derived from it, but that no continuity existed between 

 the drift and the cave-deposits ; that there was a much 

 greater thickness of rain-wash and resorted marine-drift 

 looped down over the upper opening into the cave than 

 over the adjoining surface. He maintained that we had 

 now the clearest evidence as to the exact manner in 

 which it was all brought about, namely, that the marine 

 drift was deposited before the occupation of the cave by 

 the animals whose remains have been found in it ; that 

 at the time of the occupation of the cave the upper 

 opening now seen did not exist, but the animals got in by 

 the other entrance ; that against the wall of the cave 

 where it approached most nearly to the face of the cliff, 

 the drift lay thick as we now see it ; that by swallow- 

 hole action the cave was first partially filled, and then 

 the thinnest portion of its wall gave way gradually, 

 burying the bone-earth below it, and letting down some 

 of the drift above it, so that some of it now looks as if it 

 might have been laid down by the sea upon pre-existing 



cave-deposits. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 At the meeting on November isth, the Secretary said that 

 amongst the recent additions to the Society's menagerie 

 are a Red-and-White Flying Squirrel {Plewmys albo- 

 ritfus), from the province of Szechuen, in the interior of 

 China, presented by Mr. Percy Montgomery, of Ichang, 

 China ; an Urva Ichneumon (Herpestes urvd) and a 

 young male Gorilla {Anthropopithecus gorilla). 



At a recent meeting, Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.Z.S., read 

 an account of the Reptiles and Batrachians collected by 

 Mr. H. H. Johnston on the Rio del Rey, West Africa. 

 Amongst these were examples of two species of Batra- 

 chians new to science. 



Mr. Edgar A. Smith read some notes on three species 

 of shells obtained by Mr. H. H. Johnston, at the Rio del 

 Rey, Cameroons. 



Mr. A, G. Butler, F.L.S., read a paper containing an 

 account of two small collections of African Lepidoptera, 

 obtained by Mr. H. H. Johnston at the Cameroons and 

 the Rio del Rey. 



A communication was read from Mr. G. E. Dobson, 

 F.R.S., on the genus Myosorex. The paper contained 

 the description of a new species from the Rio del Rey 

 (Cameroons) district, which he proposed to call Myosorex 

 johnstom, after Mr. H. H. Johnston, who had sent home 

 the specimens. 



Mr. G. A. Boulenger gave the description of a new 

 species of Hyla from Port Hamilton, Corea, living in the 

 Society's gardens, which he proposed to name Hyla 

 stephaii, after its discoverer. 



PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 

 At the meeting held on December lo, 1887, Prol. W. 

 E. Ayrton, Vice-President, in the chair, amongst the 

 papers read was one by W. H. Tomlinson, on the 

 Recalescence of Iron. He states that if an iron bar 

 which has suffered permanent strain be heated to a white 

 heat and allowed to cool, the brightness at first diminishes 

 and then reglows (recalesces) for a short interval. Under 

 favourable circumstances as many as seven reglows 

 have been observed during one cooling. Generally two 

 decided ones are observed, one between 500" and 1000° 

 C, and the other below 500° C. The author believes 

 these effects are due to " retentiveness " of the material, 

 somewhat similar to the causes of residual magnetism 

 and residual charge in a Lej'den jar. A table of experi- 



mental results, giving the torsional elasticity and internal 

 friction at different temperatures, for iron wire, showed, 

 sudden increases in internal friction at temperatures of 

 about 550° and 1000° C. 



NOTTINGHAM MECHANICS' INSTITUTE. 

 Time and Tide. — Sir Robert Ball, the Astronomer 

 Royal for Ireland, gave, in a lecture on "Time and Tide," 

 the romance of modern science. He remarked that he called 

 his subject a romance because it would require efforts of 

 imagination on the part of his audience to aid them in 

 looking back into the very remotest recesses of antiquity. 

 When he spoke of antiquity he did not mean 

 the paltry centuries with which historians had to 

 deal, nor did he allude to the thousands of years 

 which had elapsed since Babylon and Nineveh were great 

 and populous cities. Even the pyramids of Egypt, which 

 loomed up to them from the midst of the past, seemed as 

 but yesterday when compared with the eras of years 

 beyond. A thousand years exhausted all historic time ; 

 ten thousand years certainly did. Geology told them 

 that ten thousand years was but a moment in the span of 

 man's historj'. They spoke of nothing anterior to the 

 time when the earth assumed the dignity of eternity and 

 brought forth its first and only child. The earth at the 

 time of this birth was a huge inorganic mass, too hot for 

 life, perhaps hot enough to be soft and viscid, if not exactly 

 molten. It was a rude inorganic mass, and time had 

 wrought wondrous changes both in parent and child. 

 Many went in the summer to the seaside and were well 

 acquainted with the daily ebb and flow of the water, 

 which they called the tide. In the ebb and flow of that 

 tide they had an engine of mighty power. The sun 

 contributed in some degree to the making of the tides, but 

 the moon in a much larger degree. At present the tides 

 were not a source of power which could be worked 

 economically, but a time might come when that source of 

 natural energy might have to be utilised — a time when 

 the price of coals rendered the use of the steam engine 

 exorbitantly expensive. From a scientific point of view, 

 the work done by the tide was of incalculable importance. 

 Where did they get their power from ? The source of 

 energy on which the tides drew was not found in the 

 moon, but in our earth itself. He asked them to liken 

 the globe to an immense fly-wheel, 8,000 males across, 

 rotating once in a day with a rapid motion round its axis, 

 and containing a vast store of power which the tides drew 

 upon when they wanted to do work. As this power in 

 the earth was called upon to do the work of the tides the 

 consequence was inevitable. The power was decreasing, 

 and the earth therefore must be losing some of the speed 

 with which it was turning round, and consequently the 

 tides were slowly increasing the length of the day — an 

 increase which might amount in a thousand j'ears to a 

 small fraction of a minute. The earth was constantly 

 being troubled by the incessant ebbing and flowing of the 

 tides. The earth reacted on the moon and tended to push 

 it away, so that the moon was gradually going away from 

 the earth. As thousands of years rolled on the length of 

 the day lengthened second by second, and the distance of 

 the moon increased mile by mile. There was a time when 

 the moon was in contact with the earth, which was then 

 spinning round in a period of four or five hours. They 

 could calculate that a time would come when the earth 

 would require 1,400 hours to go round, and that would 

 be at the same time when the moon had got such a 

 distance from the earth that it would take a month of 57 



