36 Proceedings. 



Ordinary Meeting, December i6th, 1890. 



Edward Schunck, Ph.D., P\R.S., F.C.S., President, in the 



Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors 

 of the books upon the table. 



Professor OSBORNE REYNOLDS, LL.D., F.R.S., intro- 

 duced the subject of the low temperatures lately registered, 

 and warned observers who use spirit thermometers that 

 they frequently show too low a temperature through the 

 spirit being present at the top of the thermometer. 



Mr. H. H. HOWORTH, M.P., F S.A., attempted to deduce, 

 from a path of migratory birds, the result that the mammoth 

 and animals living with it may have reached Italy from 

 Dalmatia by an ancient coastline. 



Professor H. B. DixON, F.R.S., discussed the authorship 

 of the law of equal dilation of gases known on the Continent 

 as that of Gay Lussac, and in England and America as that 

 of Charles. Nothing seems to have been published by 

 Charles, but his work is referred to in the paper by Gay 

 Lussac, read February ist, 1802, and published in the 

 Annates de Chimie, August, 1802. Dr. Dal ton read before 

 the Society a long paper, entitled " Experimental essays on 

 the constitution of mixed gases," on October 2, 1 801, which 

 was published in Vol. V., Part IL, of its Memoirs in 1802, in 

 which paper experiments with air and other gases are 

 described, from which the author concludes that " all elastic 

 fluids under the same pressure expand equally by heat" 

 Professor DixON remarked that the method and apparatus 

 described in text books as that of Gay Lussac bear no 

 resemblance to those given in his papers, and expressed a 

 desire to learn the origin of the method usually described. 



Dr. James Bottomley, B.A., F.C.S., read a paper on 



