Proceedings. 167 



Ordinary Meeting, March 19th, 1895. 

 Henry Wilde, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of 

 the books upon the table. 



Mr. A. Brothers, F.R.A.S., gave a description of a 

 supposed display of Aurora borealis as seen at Higher 

 Poynton, near the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire 

 Railway, on Wednesday, March 13th. The display was of 

 an unusual kind. As there was an irregularly shaped 

 cloudy mass of light with auroral streamers flickering past 

 and finally collecting in narrow bands of light. The long 

 irregular cloud then moved towards the west and formed in 

 a bright column of light, faint at first, but it became in- 

 tensely white. The upper part then spread out in the form 

 of a fan, having very much the appearance of Donati's comet 

 when at its brightest. The column of light formed and 

 disappeared almost due west. 



Professor OSBORNE REYNOLDS, F.R.S., exhibited some 

 experiments illustrating the behaviour of the surface of 

 separation of two liquids of different densities, and read the 

 following note on the subject : — 



" The paradox first noticed by Benjamin Franklin 

 which was brought before the Society by Dr. Schuster at 

 the last meeting, namely, that when a glass vessel contain- 

 ing water and oil, so that the oil floats on the top of the 

 water, forming two surfaces, one the upper surface of 

 the water and lower surface of the oil, the other the surface 

 between the oil and the air, is moved with a periodic 

 motion, the surface separating the two fluids is much more 

 sensitive and much more disturbed than the upper surface, 

 is very striking, even when the motion of the vessel is some- 

 what casual— such as may be imparted by the hand. And 



