THE LAST DECADE. 
433 
as an important source, not only of local but national revenue, by 
succeeding monarchs, and it speedily became used all over the country. 
An interesting and instructive paper, on the microscopical struc- 
ture of rocks, was contributed by the Rev! J. Magens Mello. 
Mr. Kichard Reynolds recorded some abnormal barometrical 
disturbances, which had been noted by himself and Mr. Bransome, 
at Leeds, in 1883-4. On the 27tli of August of the former year, 
the violent volcanic outburst in the Straits of Sunda, by which, in 
the course of a few hours the greater part of the Island of Krakatoa 
was literally blown to pieces occurred. The atmospheric perturbations 
caused by this eruption were so violent as to be felt over the whole 
surface of the globe where observations were taken, and the self- 
registering aneroid at Leeds registered remarkable oscillations, oc- 
curring during the next two or three days. In the following year a 
remarkable earthquake occurred in the Eastern Counties, doing con- 
siderable damage, especially in the County of Essex. As earthquake 
disturbances spread outwards from their origin the vibrations become 
longer in wave-length and period, and decrease in ampKtude, so that 
the short and rapid movements wliicli cause damage at the focus 
become slow, wave-like pulsations of the ground at gTeater distances. 
Mr. Reynolds' recording barometer traced a diagram which indicated 
the slow, wave-like motion extending between the hours of 9-30 and 
1-30 on the same day the earthquake happened, April •22nd, the 
distances from the focus being 171 miles, showing that the disturb- 
ances originating in Essex were sufficiently intense to cause the ground 
170 miles away to be tilted slowly to and fi'o, for a period of four 
hours after the event. 
The Rev. J. Stanley Tute contributed a paper on tlie Cayton 
Gill beds, north-west of Ripley, with especial reference to a highly 
fossiliferous bed worked for roadstone. Mr. Tute enumerates the 
fossils obtained from this bed, and the localities from which they 
have been obtained. 
The relative age of the remains of man which have been found 
in Yorlishire was the subject of an interesting and comprehensive 
summary of the facts which had hitherto been discovered referring 
to pre-historic man in this county, by James W, Davis. The 
KK 
