464 Notes and Memoranda. 



toxicating in the evening. The author affirmed that the daily life 

 of the whole population was a repetition of the various stages of 

 intoxication, corresponding to the process of fermentation of this 

 their only beverage, and that every evening ended in a drunken 

 hrawl. The fact of the absence of fresh water in these islands was 

 disputed by Mr. Crawfurd and Mr. Wallace, the latter of whom had 

 visited many similar coral-formed islets in the Malay Archipelago, 

 in which, although no fresh water was apparent on the surface, a 

 plentiful supply could always be obtained by digging through the 

 rich vegetable soil into the coral rock below the level of the sea. 



Dr. Hector described the discovery of a practicable route over 

 the mountains from the West to the Bast Coast of Otago, New 

 Zealand. The author, in the course of his explorations of the west 

 coast, discovered abroad river entering St. Martin's Bay. Its mouth 

 is concealed by a long sand-spit and a deceptive appearance of 

 breakers ; so that it is invisible two miles out at sea, but the river 

 is a quarter of a mile in width. There is ten feet of water on the 

 shallowest part of the bar. Bour miles inland the stream flows out 

 of a large lake, having a considerable breadth of rich alluvial land 

 on its shores. This river (named Kaduku by the Maories) is capable 

 of forming a good harbour and position for a settlement, and tihe 

 valley at its head forms a practicable route across the ISTew Zealand 

 Alps to the Eastern side. 



NOTES AND MEMOBANDA. 



Carbonate of Magnesia and Ikon in the Meteorite oe Oegtjeil. — 

 M. Des Cloizeau informs the French. Academy that he has discovered a carbonate 

 of magnes'a and iron in the Orgueil meteorite. He states that it is the first time 

 this substance has been found in any previous meteorite, and he only obtained 

 four minute crystals in 20 or 25 grammes of the Orgueil specimen. He observes 

 that the presence of a carbonate in the condition of unaltered crystals, shows 

 that the meteorite was not exposed to a high temperature. 



The Flow of Solids tjndee Pressure. — M. H. Tresca has communicated 

 a paper on this subject to the French Academy, in which he details experiments 

 to show that " solid bodies can, without change of condition, flow (s'ecouler) after 

 the manner of liquids, if sufficient pressure is exerted upon them." His method 

 consists in operating upon solids composed of separate pieces, the joints of which 

 are known before the experiment begins, and so that their position after the trial 

 indicates the amount and kind of displacement that has been produced. When 

 a block composed of discs (rondclles) was placed in a cylinder and exposed to 

 pressure on one of its bases, in some cases amounting to 100,000 kilogrammes, 

 and allowed to flow through a round hole, concentric with the cylinder, it was 

 found that the plane surfaces of the discs were modified so as to form surfaces of 

 revolution in the jet, which were almost cylindrical, descending into it to greater 

 or less distance, and ending in a cap (calotte), turning its convexity towards the 

 extremity of the jet. The tubes thus formed were perfectly continuous, and fitted 

 one to each other, so that each line of junction was represented in slices cut at 

 right angles to the axis of the jet. "These lines," says the writer, "show that 

 all the molecules composing the primitive block camo individually to take their 



