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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



'■ Natural Science" for August contains an 

 interesting article by Dr. J. W. Gregory on the 

 " Evolution of the Thames." 



It will be gratifying to English Geologists to 

 learn that Professor Prestwich, the " Nestor of 

 British Geology " (as he has been happily termed), 

 has been elected a foreign member of the R. 

 Accademia dei Lyncei, of Rome. 



Geologists spending their holidays on the 

 south-east coast may perhaps find it worth their 

 while to pay a visit to the mouth of the Cuckmere 

 river, between Seaford and Eastbourne. We 

 stumbled across it in a recent ramble, and learned 

 a very instructive lesson in physical geology. The 

 river breaks through the chalk cliffs in a very 

 abrupt manner, and must at one time have entered 

 the sea as a considerable volume of water. It is 

 now a tiny stream, the whote width of its valley at 

 the mouth being occupied by a vast heap of shingle 

 forming quite a small delta. The valley is very clearly 

 marked, and not without beauty, and we think that 

 a young geologist will learn more in a thoughtful 

 ramble along it than in the reading of many books. 



The Geologist does not need to cross the world 

 in search of illustrations of the great natural 

 process of earth sculpture. He need not go to the 

 Alps for examples of mountain formation, nor yet 

 to the Nile to see a delta. Britain, the favoured of 

 nature, in this as in many other things, is a 

 veritable encyclopedia of geological facts. Here, 

 within a couple of hundred miles, the geologist may 

 view almost the whole series of geological forma- 

 tions, for a sight of which his fellow-workers in 

 other countries must travel as many thousands of 

 miles, and there can be little doubt that it is this 

 fact which has made geology so essentially an 

 English science. This, let me add, is not insular 

 prejudice, of all things we abhor chauvinism, 

 which is nowhere so detestable as in science. 

 English workers have done most for Physical 

 Geology, but the Germans have had Mineralogy 

 almost to themselves. So much is this the case 

 that Mr. Fletcher, in his address to the Geological 

 Section of the British Association last month, half 

 apologised for choosing mineralogy as the subject 

 of his discourse. He pointed out that mineralogy 

 seemed to have been lost sight of by Section C, 

 practically nothing having been done in that branch 

 of geological science since the publication of Dr. 

 . Whewell's report on the state of mineralogical 

 knowledge in 1831. In Germany there are many 

 University Professors of Mineralogy devoting their 

 best energies to the science. In Great Britain and 

 Ireland the only University Professorships are two 

 — one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge. The 

 former is paid the extremely modest sum of £100 

 a year. Cambridge, with an extravagance which 

 Oxford must consider almost criminal folly, pays 

 her Mineralogical Professor the yet not princely 

 sum of ^300. After mentioning the difficulty of 

 making his subject intelligible to an audience, 

 Mr. Fletcher proceeded to pass in review recent 

 progress made in mineralogy. 



Royal Meteorological Society. — At the 

 closing meeting of this Society for the session, 

 Mr. R. Inwards, F.R.A.S., President, in the 

 chair, Mr. R. H. Scott, F.R.S., read a paper on 

 " Fogs reported with strong winds during the 

 fifteen years 1876-90 in the British Isles." Out of 

 a total of 135 fogs, 108 were associated with 

 cyclonic, and twenty-seven with anti-cyclonic con- 

 ditions. The majority of the fogs occurred with 

 south-westerly winds, and with temperatures very 

 close to the maximum for the day. Mr. R. H. 

 Curtis read a paper on " Some characteristic 

 features of gales and strong winds." After 

 calling attention to the unsatisfactory state of 

 anemometry, and after describing the "bridled" 

 anemometer at Holyhead, Mr. Curtis stated that 

 the greatest force of an individual gust which he 

 had met with was registered in December, 1891, and 

 amounted to a rate of 111 miles per hour, which 

 with the old factor would be equivalent to a rate 

 of about 160 miles per hour. Gusts at a rate of from 

 ninety to one hundred miles per hour have many 

 times been recorded, but the usual limit for gusts may 

 be taken to equal about eighty miles per hour, which 

 on the old scale would be equivalent to about 120 

 miles per hour. Gales and strong winds differ in 

 character very much ; and, as the result of a pro- 

 longed study of their general features as recorded 

 by the bridled anemometer, the author has been 

 able to group them into three general classes. He 

 then described those gales which are essentially 

 squally in character, in which the gusts constitute 

 the main feature of the gale. In an average gale 

 the ordinary gusts follow each other at intervals of 

 about ten to twenty seconds, while the extreme 

 gusts occur at the rate of about one per minute. 

 Another class of gales are those in which the 

 velocity of the wind is tolerably steady. In the 

 third class are gales which appear to be made up 

 of two series of rapidly succeeding squalls — the one 

 series at a comparatively low rate of velocity, the 

 other at a much higher one, the wind-force shifting 

 rapidly and very frequently from one series to 

 the other. Mr. Curtis also stated that on looking 

 carefully over the anemometer records he had not 

 unfrequently • found, very distinctly marked, a 

 prolonged pulsation in the wind-force, which 

 recurs again and again with more or less regularity 

 of, perhaps, twenty minutes or half-an-hour in 

 some cases, and in others at longer intervals, of 

 about an hour, more or less. 



Accrington Naturalists' and Antiquarian 

 Society. — The thirty-ninth annual meeting of the 

 above Society was held on Saturday, July 7th, at 

 its rooms at Oak Hill, and the officers were elected. 

 After the official business Mr. YVigglesworth 

 gave a description of some shells he had received 

 from Iceland. These were identified by Mr. 

 Standen, of Manchester Museum, who says : " The 

 Helix arbustorum is a species very common in all 

 parts of Scandinavia, as well as on the highest 

 mountains up in the far north, where the shells are 

 very thin, as they are also in the south, where the 



