10 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Mr. 
Moseley, the naturalist, on board that ship. In the early 
part of the past year that gentleman published a very interesting 
paper on the colouring matter of various animals, especially of. 
deep sea forms, in which are mentioned some interesting facts — 
referring to light in ocean depths. At a depth of 60 fathoms 
it has been proved that light has no effect on sensitized paper, 
and it is considered probable that at a depth of from 1,000 to 
2,000 fathoms solar light has no effect. At adepth of 450 and 490 
fathoms respectively, two blind decapod crustaceans were dredged 
up in the “ Challenger” expedition; and other forms without 
the eyes possessed by their shallow water congeners were found at 
various depths. Other animals, however, living in very deep water, 
were found to have very large eyes ; hence it seems to Mr. Moseley 
fair to infer that some kind of light must exist. He mentions 
that all the deep-sea aleyonarians dredged up were highly 
phosphorescent, and suggests that there are probably large areas 
peopled by these; so that there may probably be illuminated 
patches in the ocean with dark tracts between. He further 
threw out this interesting idea,—that it is quite conceivable that 
animals may exist to which obscure heat rays may be visible, and 
to such even men and animals generally would appear constantly 
luminous. 
‘The periodicity of Indian famines has been another sub- 
ject of importance which has engaged the attention of the 
learned in investigations of this nature. The question between 
these and the sun spot period has been discussed, but the theory __ 
has yet to be worked out toa practical conclusion. The theory 
is that the rainfall rises and falls as the sun spots increase of 
decrease, and that the minimum of the solar spots is the period 
of the maximum sun heat, which prevents the atmospheric water 
supply condensing into rain clouds. A trained observer has 
been sent out to India to arrange for the taking of daily photo- 
graphs of the sun, and we may know more by and by as to the 
merits of this problem. This is a question so full of interest to — 
——— able and indefatigable | 
