200 VINE : YORKSHIRE CARBONIFEROUS AND PERMIAN POLYZOA. 
6. Streblotrypa nicklisi, Ulrich, (from typical example in my own 
cabinet, Kaskaskia, U. S. Am.) 6, natural size ; 6rt, por- 
tion of branch magnified with mid-ribs ; Qb, drawn from 
the younger or growing portions of stem, no ribs. 
7. Streblotrypa nicklisi (MS., Ul.). Yorkshire form (example lost). 
7c, natural size 7a, from branch without mid-ribs. 
8. Streblotrypa minuta. Vine, Lancashire. Example with " ovicell." 
Figs. 1 to 5 drawn in outline with Camera lucida, and low power 
(If inch object glass;, details put in after. 
NOTES ON UNDERGROUND WATER-SUPPLY AND RIVER FLOODS. 
BY CHAS. E. DE RANCE, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., A.T.C.E., 
Secretary of the Underground Water Committee of the British 
Association. 
Rainfall: — The first systematic observation of rainfall was 
much more than two centuries ago, on the Yorkshire border, by a 
Lancashire Squire, one of the Townleys of Townley, near Burnley. A 
century later, in 1766, Dr. Heberden, F.R.S., placed a rain guage on 
the top of the square tower of Westminster Abbey, and two others in 
the neighbourhood, but it was not until 1859 that any one was found 
bold enough to grapple with the subject as a whole. Mr. G. J. 
Symons, F.R.S,, in that year commenced to collect copies of records 
of the fall of rain over the United Kingdom, and early in 1861 wrote 
to all observers known to him, asking them to send him records for 
the year 1860. Of these 168 replied, and their pubHcation gave such 
a stimulus to observers that in 1863 we find him writing to the 
Times that he had nearly 700 stations, and the year after we find 
him stating that hitherto the tables had been the product of his 
leisure hours, but that they are so no longer ; that the development 
of the enquiry had been so rapid, and its bearing on manufacturing, 
engineering, agricultural and sanitary questions so important, that he 
had resigned all other engagements, sacrificing pecuniary prospects 
rather " than abandon an investigation the ramification and import- 
