Proceedings of Learned Societies. 463 



Mr. Hennah, Hon. Secretary, also exhibited a species of Strongy- 

 lus, from, the goose; and Dr. Dawson showed some Eclibwcocci, 

 derived from a cyst in the human orbit. 



ROYAL SOCIETY.— Mv. 30. 



Is his annual address on the anniversary meeting of the Royal 

 Society, the president, Major- General Sabine, called attention to the 

 proposed establishment of a telescope of great optical power at 

 Melbourne, and suggested that another advantageous situation for 

 observing: the southern nebula? would be in the Nelsdris, at elevations 

 of several thousand feet into the clearer strata of the atmosphere. 



After alluding to the measurement of the arc of the meridian at 

 Spitzbergen, which the Swedish government propose to undertake, 

 Gen. Sabine called attention to the circumstance of several glass 

 bottles with closed necks having been found on the shores of the 

 west coast of Nova Zembla. As these were conjectured to have 

 some connection with the missing ships of Sir John Franklin, the 

 Royal Society instituted inquiries into the subject, and eventually 

 traced the bottles to a recent manufacture in Norway, where they 

 are used as floats to the fishing-nets employed on the coast. These 

 floats, accidentally separated from the nets, had been carried by the 

 current which sets along the Norwegian coast round North Cape, 

 and thus proved the continuation of the current to Nova Zembla. 

 The Swedish expedition above alluded to discovered several of these 

 bottles on the northern shore of Spitzbergen, some bearing the 

 names of the Norwegian makers, thus supplying evidence, of great 

 geographical value, of the extension of the Norwegian current to 

 Spitzbergen, either by a circuitous route past the shores of Nova 

 Zembla, or possibly by a more direct course which has not at present 

 been traced. 



In alluding to the laborious investigation of the Austrian com- 

 mission on the relative advantages of gun-cotton and gunpowder 

 for the purposes of warfare, Gen. Sabine summed up the results as 

 follows : — 



The absence of smoke, and the entire freedom from fouling of 

 the gun, are points of great moment in promoting the rapidity of 

 firing in casemates and between decks of ships of war. To these 

 advantages must be added the innocuous character of the products 

 of combustion in comparison with those of gunpowder, and the 

 far inferior heat imparted to the gun by rapidly repeated dis- 

 charges. Again, with equal projectile effects, the weight of the 

 gun-cotton is only one-third that of gunpowder, and the recoil of 

 the gun two-thirds, and the length of the gun admits of a diminu- 

 tion of nearly one-third. 



Other advantages determined by the Austrian artillerists bring 

 tbe power of modifying the explosive energy by varying the 

 mechanical structure of the cartridge and the size of the chamber in 

 which it is fired ; and the fact that being a perfectly definite chemi- 

 cal compound, it may be stowed in damp situations, or even sub- 



