61 
Ordinary Meeting, March 6th, 1883. 
J. P. Joule, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., Ac., Vice-President, 
in the Chair. 
Mr. Robert E. Cunliffe and Mr. James Cosmo Melvill 
were appointed Auditors of the Treasurer’s Accounts. 
Mr. Wm. Brockbank, F.G.S,, referred to the paragraph 
in the Daily News of the 5th, which stated that the waters 
of the Rhine were so low that the freight boats had ceased 
running for want of sufficient depth of water, and he 
pointed out that serious difficulties might be looked for on 
all the rivers which have their sources in the Alps during 
the present summer. 
The disastrous floods which have prevailed in these rivers 
were caused by the unseasonable warm winds which blew 
upon the Alps in the early part of the year, and by which 
most of the snow below the permanent snow line was 
melted, causing the rivers and lakes to overflow their banks 
to an unprecedented extent. These snows were the reser- 
voirs which stored up the summer supplies of water for the 
Rhine and Danube; their exhaustion has already pro- 
duced the difficulties alluded to, and which are likely to be 
more serious in summer time. It is these snows also which 
feed the alpine glaciers, and a shrinkage of the ice fields will 
probably follow 7 as summer advances. 
“ On the Levenshulme Limestones — -a Section from Slade 
Lane eastwards,” by W. Brockbank, F.G.S. 
In making a deep sewer from Withington to Levens- 
hulme, the strata had been brought to light for about two 
Proceedings Lit. & Phil. Soc. — Vol. XXII. — No. 6.*— Session 1882-3. 
