190 Royal Society of Victoria. 



Mr. Griffiths remarked that this worm did not appear to 

 fulfil the same function as the common worm, of bringing castings 

 to the surface, and it appeared not to have the calciferous glands 

 which Darwin had found to be among the most important organs 

 of earth-worms, and necessary to dispose of the leaves which 

 constituted their principal food. 



Mr. Lucas said that wherever the burrows reached the surface, 

 they were at right angles to it, and perfectly level. There 

 were no castings at the mouth of the burrow. Professor Spencer 

 represented no calciferous glands, and he had remarked on the 

 absence of leaves in the burrows. The differences in the habits 

 of this worm from those of others seems certain. 



The President and Mr. Rosales believed that there was no 

 limestone near the habitat of the Megascolides Australis. 



After a few further remarks on the subject 

 Mr. G. P. B. Steane read a paper on " Rainfall and Flood 

 Discharge." (See Transactions, Art. XIV.) 



The President said the subject was one of the first importance 

 to a civil engineer, and yet there was. scarcely any subject ujoon 

 which there was a greater diversity of opinion and practice. He 

 knew bridges designed by eminent authorities, varying from an 

 eighth of the size he considered correct to sixteen times the 

 necessary size, and those bridges cost thousands of pounds. That 

 was. the extraordinary state of the practice. Most astonishing 

 differences appear in the opinions of leading engineers on this 

 subject. At Cootamundra, there were 2^ square feet of openings 

 for every square mile. Three It^ading New South Wales engineers 

 swore that the openings were abundantly large. At Melbourne, 

 openings of 100 feet to the square mile are found, and in the 

 country where the ground is more absorbent, there were openings 

 of 40 square feet to the square mile. One of our Railway Sur- 

 veyors allowed 40 square feet to the square mile for areas of four 

 or five square miles roughly timbered and unabsorbent. Experience 

 appeared to show that this was about right ; but others allow 

 less, and disasters sometimes occur costing thousands of pounds. 

 He found a difficulty in obtaining information on the subject. 

 Mr. Steane was working in the right direction. The diagram on 

 the blackboard represented the beginning of an investigation 

 which would become useful as information accumulates. Above a 

 horizontal line, dots represenc by their position the area in square 

 feet of openings in certain structures, the history of which is 

 known. Some are of too recent erection to be of value as data ; 

 but time will tell, and the record will be kept. Some which 

 appear to have caused disasters are a long way below the data 

 line. One bridge over the Upper Yarra has an opening of 80,000 

 square feet, while one at Melbourne thirty miles lower down the 



