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out any one set of influences exclusively. We must take 
into account the habits of the people and their peculiar 
occupations ; the ages at which the greater number of the 
deaths occur, and the probable exciting causes; such as 
insufficient clothing, sudden changes of temperature, from 
the heated atmosphere of the mill to the cold external air ; 
adulterated, badly-selected food; intemperance; small ill- 
ventilated dwellings; inefficient nursing of the sick, and 
inattention, if not positive neglect, of the young and the 
delicate ; all these agents contribute their portion, in varying 
degree, to the aggregate result. It would help greatly to 
direct attention to the importance of some of these, as 
elements in the enquiry, if, in the public returns of the 
death-rate, or the number of deaths in a given time, the 
deaths at each period of life were separately stated ; and, it 
would not be inappropriate for general readers if the classifi- 
cation took in the “seven ages of man,” in septennial ranges’ 
each having its own peculiar risks and dangers. In this 
way, more intelligible and suggestive lessons would be 
taught by such returns, than the mere crude records now 
given of the proportion to each thousand or ten thousand 
of the population, irrespective of all attending circumstances 
and possible causes. 
“On the Suspension of a Ball by a Jet of Water,” by 
Osborne Reynolds, M.A., Professor of Engineering, Owens 
College. 
Some years ago I was led to consider this somewhat 
common though striking phenomenon, and at the time I 
arrived at what seemed to be a perfectly satisfactory ex- 
planation of it. I did not then suppose this explanation 
was new, but as I cannot find that anything like it has been 
published, I have presumed to take this opportunity of 
bringing it before the Society. 
Although everyone will have watched with interest the 
performance of the ball as it is acted on by the jet, and be 
