66 Royal Society. 



nescence of their elementary fibres. The disorganization begins at 

 the extremities of the fibres, and gradually extends upwards in the 

 branches and trunk of the nerve. The other tissues of the tongue 

 remain unaltered. When the cut ends of the nerve are allowed to 

 reunite, the process of disorganization is arrested, and the nervous 

 fibres are restored to their natural condition. The author ascribes 

 the disorganization and final absorption of the nerve-fibres to an 

 arrestment of their nutrition caused by interruption of the nervous 

 current, and considers his experiments as affording most unequivocal 

 evidence of the dependence of the nutrition on the nervous power. 



Feb. 28. — " Sequel to a Paper on the reduction of the Thermo- 

 metrical Observations made at the Apartments of the Royal Society 3 

 with an Appendix." By James Glaisher, Esq., F.R.S. 



The principal object of this paper is the connexion of the results 

 deduced in a former paper from the observations at the Royal So- 

 ciety's Apartments, with the observations at the Royal Observatory 

 at Greenwich, in order to determine mean numerical values, and to 

 establish the laws of periodic variation from this long series of obser- 

 vations; the two series of observations are here reduced to one and 

 the same series. 



The observations at the Royal Society having been discontinued 

 between the years 1781 and 1786, it was necessary to supply this 

 link in the series, more particularly as these years were distinguished 

 by very severe weather, and their omission would have a sensible 

 effect on the results. The deficient observations have been supplied 

 by a comparison of the observations which were made at Somerset 

 House, with the observations during the corresponding years made 

 by Mr. Barker at Lyndon in Rutlandshire, from 1771 to 1799, cor- 

 rections being thus obtained for reducing the Lyndon observations 

 to those at Somerset House. 



By a comparison of the temperature of the air at Somerset House 

 and at the Royal Observatory for every month during the years 

 1833 to 184*3, corrections necessary to be applied for reducing the 

 mean values at the one place to those at the other, are deduced. 



Thus the results of the observations at Somerset House are re- 

 duced to those at the Royal Observatory, and a table is given showing 

 the mean temperature at the latter place of each month in every year 

 from 1771 to 1849 inclusive. By taking the means of the several 

 columns in this table, the mean temperature of each month is deduced 

 from all the observations. From these mean monthly temperatures 

 a table is constructed showing the excess of the mean monthly tem- 

 perature at Greenwich for each year, above the temperature of the 

 month deduced from all the years. 



Tables are next given showing the mean temperature in quarterly 

 periods for the year, and for successive groups of years at the Royal 

 Observatory at Greenwich, from the year 1771 to 1849 ; and the 

 excess of the quarterly and yearly mean temperatures in every year, 

 and for groups of years, above the means from all the years. The 

 author remarks that the numbers in these tables do not at all confirm 

 the idea that a hot summer is either preceded or followed by a cold 



