418 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. ■&, 



It may be interesting to the Society to give them a few results at 

 their next meeting, so I send them to you at once, and the specific 

 gravities could be with advantage attached to the specimens in your 

 collection. 



I hope we shall be able to procure some specimen of the great mass 

 said to have fallen at Dhurmsala lately. 



In the absence of Mr. Obbard his paper on the translation of waves 

 of water with relation to the great flood of the Indus in 1853, was 

 read by the Secretary. 



Archdeacon Pratt made some valuable remarks which have been 

 printed at length in the Journal. 



Mr. Temple made some interesting observations on the character of 

 the Indus at Attock and the effects of the flood as pointed out to him 

 by Captain Henderson on the spot shortly after the event. 



Some discussion ensued on the wave theory as applicable to the 

 phenomena of the flood, in which Sir Bartle Frere, Mr. W. T. Blan- 

 ford and the Secretary joined. 



On the motion of the Chairman the thanks of the meeting were 

 voted to Mr. Obbard and Archdeacon Pratt for their valuable com- 

 munications. 



Major W. S. Sherwill read an interesting paper upon some re- 

 markable Waterspouts, that had been observed by him lately in and near 

 Calcutta ; he stated that it was his intention merely to put on record 

 the fact of these curious bodies having been seen, together with the 

 dates of their appearance, times of duration, size and direction of their 

 movements, in the hope that the notes might assist any future en- 

 quiries into the nature of the laws regulating these phenomena ; as 

 up to the present moment, as Major Sherwill observed, no satisfactory 

 theory has been advanced, that serves to connect these phenomena 

 with the general law of Physics. 



The immediate cause of the paper read was the appearance upon 

 the 11th of August last, of two, very perfect and large Waterspouts 

 that appeared, the one between Dum-Dum and Calcutta, the other 

 crossing the Hooghly river opposite to Sulkea. The former was per- 

 haps more than a thousand feet in length, of a pale blue colour, 

 depending from a heavy rain cloud ; the upper portion of this im- 



