82 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



have also instituted a series of experiments on the behaviour of various 

 safety lamps in mixtures of natural fire-damp and air. These experi- 

 ments they are about to renew during the winter. They also contem- 

 plate carrying out experiments in blasting rock and coal by methods 

 which will check the production of flame, and which are thereby cal- 

 culated to obviate the danger of igniting fire-damp. 



The report of the voyage of H.M.S. " Challenger," to which 

 the scientific world has been looking forward with so much interest, 

 is now so far advanced that one volume of the " Zoological Memoirs " 

 will appear immediately. In addition to this a second volume may b e 

 expected within a year. The first volume of the whole work, " contain- 

 ing a short narrative of the voyage, with all necessary hydrographical 

 details, an account of the appliances and methods of observation, a 

 running outline of the results of the different observations ; and a 

 chapter epitomising the general results of the voyage," together with 

 the second volume containing the meteorological, magnetic, and hydro- 

 graphic observations, will probably be published within the same 

 period. " The general report on the zoology of the expedition will 

 consist of about fifty distinct memoirs, which will occupy from ten to 

 twelve volumes." It has been arranged " to print the Zoological 

 Reports as they are prepared, and to publish them as soon as a 

 sufficient bulk of memoirs is ready to form a volume. Copies of each 

 memoir may also be had separately, in order that working naturalists 

 may have them in their hands at the earliest possible date." Two 

 more volumes on the geology and petrology, and one on the general 

 chemical and physical results, will probably complete the series. Into 

 zoological details 1 am not competent to enter, but one among 

 them is of great interest, namely, the fact that notwithstanding the 

 pressure and absence of light, there is no depth- limit to animal life. 



As the Council of the Meteorological Office is nominated by the 

 Council of the Royal Society, and as the Annual Report of the 

 Office is submitted to the Royal Society, I think it right to mention a 

 few points connected with the work of that Department during the 

 past year. 



1. A method of recording the duration of bright sunshine by the 

 charring of an object placed in the focus of a glass sphere, freely 

 exposed to the rays of the sun, was devised by Mr. J. F. Campbell, 

 of Islay, in 1856 ; and instruments, being modified forms of that 

 originally proposed, have been employed for some time at Greenwich, 

 at Kew, and at a few private observatories. Certain difficulties in 

 adjusting the paper about to be charred to the path of the burning 

 spot, which had hitherto prevented the adoption of Mr. Campbell's 

 invention as a part of the ordinary equipment of a meteorological 

 observing station, have been at last successfully overcome by an 

 arrangement designed by Professor Stokes ; and thirty stations in the 



