Notes and Memoranda. 67 



NOTES AND MEMOKANDA. 



Me. Glaisheb's Ascents. — The eleventh took place from Wolverton on June 

 26th at 1.3 p.m. The chief results are given in the following paragraph, -written 

 hy himself. He says : — " This ascent must rank amongst the most extraordinary 

 ever made. The results were most unexpected. We met with at least three dis- 

 tinct layers of cloud, on ascending, of different thicknesses, reaching up to four 

 miles high, when here the atmosphere, instead of being light and clear as it has 

 always been in preceding ascents, was thick and misty ; but perhaps the most ex- 

 traordinary and unexpected result in the month of June was meeting with snow 

 and crystals of ice in the atmosphere at the height of three miles, and of nearly 

 one mile in thickness." 



The twelfth ascent took place on the 11th July. The balloon passed oyer 

 Sussex and the currents of air were remarkable, the stratum moving from the 

 N". being in contact with that from E. Mr. Giashier finds the velocity of air 

 currents measured from balloon heights to be very much greater than what is 

 shown by terrestrial instruments. He says, " The difference between the two is- 

 so large that it seems scarcely to be accounted for by the undulatory nature of 

 the surface of the earth, and implies that our hitherto estimated velocities of 

 wind are erroneous." Clouds were found four miles high, " when the tempera- 

 ture of the dew point must be some degrees below zero." This, with similar facts 

 in a previous ascent, implies the presence of very little water ; " yet," we are 

 told, " there was enough in both cases not only to be very visible, but to 

 exclude everything beyond them. This fact is important, and indicates that our 

 theory of vapour must be reconsidered." 



The thirteenth ascent was from the. Crystal Palace on the 21st July, and 

 afforded reason for believing that when rain falls from an overcast sky there is a 

 second cloud stratum above. 



Amoeba, prineeps and mllosa. — Mr. H. J. Carter states in Annals of Natural 

 History that he has often found villous appendages to the A. princess, which con- 

 firms Dr. Wallich's opinion that villosa is not a distinct species, although it may 

 be convenient to give it a separate name. 



Instinct in Ineusoeia. — Mr. Carter mentions in the paper from which the 

 preceding remark is taken that he watched an Actinophorus Ithizopod extracting 

 starch grains from a ruptured cell looking like a spore ; the creature then retired 

 some distance off, and then returned, and although no more starch grains were 

 protruding, he contrived to extract some from the interior. " This," he says, 

 "was repeated several times, showing that the Actiuophys instinctively knew 

 that these were nutritious grains, and that they were contained in this cell, and 

 that although each time, after incepting a grain, it went away to some distance, 

 it knew how to find its way back." He likewise mentions the cunning of an 

 Amoeba, which crawled up the stem of an acineta, and placed itself round the 

 ovarian aperture, so as to receive an infant as soon as it was born. He observes 

 that "these facts evince an amount of instinct and determination of purpose which 

 could hardly have been anticipated in a being so low in the scale of organic 

 development." 



Absence op Sun Spots.— On the 5th July, the Photoheliograph at the Kew 

 Observatory — which, it may be interesting to know, is worked by a very intelligent 

 young woman, the daughter of an artizan — afforded a sun picture without a single 

 spot. As we are now in the descending curve of the periodical variation in the 

 quantity of these spots, and approaching the minimum, it will be important to 

 learn how often they are totally absent. The Kew observations may be expected 

 to throw much light upon the connection between these spots, and disturbances in 

 terrestrial magnetism. 



The Gassiot Spectroscope. — This splendid instrument, constructed by Mr. 

 Browning, is now at the British Association Observatory, at Kew, in order to 



