liv PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
the surest means of recruiting our ranks for the future, and is bound 
to result only in good to those who are taught thus early to use their 
powers of observation, and to take up their attention with whatsoever 
things are pure and beautiful. I think that our Council might well 
take into consideration how they might best encourage the teachers 
in this laudable endeavour, so as to still further increase the interest 
of the children. For my own part, I should be very pleased to offer 
prizes to those who wrote the best essays on what they had seen in 
the Museum. 
It has been my custom in former addresses to refer to any recent 
meteorological phenomenon of an exceptional nature which might 
have an effect on the animal or plant life or the rocks of the district. 
This I have done partly for the purpose of having some record of 
these in our Proceedings. This end, however, could be much more 
efficiently attained if those members of the Society who are interested 
in the subject would form themselves into a Meteorological Section 
for the purpose of keeping exact and systematic records of the 
temperature, rainfall, &c., of the district. 
With regard to the recent severe frost, one matter which is of 
scientific interest, and which has led to some discussion, is the depth 
to which the frost penetrated into the ground. On this point, there¬ 
fore, I have collected one or two statistics for comparison. At Moulin, 
where the lowest reading of the thermometer was minus 4 deg. F. on 
10th February, the ground was frozen to a depth of 33 inches in the 
roadway. At Ballinluig, the lowest reading was minus 4^9 deg. F. on 
10th February, and at Logierait Poorhouse, about half-a-mile distant, 
and on the same level, the frost penetrated 30 inches in a gravelly soil. 
At Dunkeld Gardens, the lowest readings were minus 4 deg. F. on 
8th February, and again on 10th February, and the depths to which 
the frost penetrated were as follows :—in wrought arable ground, 20 
to 24 inches; in grass parks, 26 to 28 inches; and in roads and 
walks, 30 inches. Coming now to Perth, the record at Pitcullen 
House is as follows :—the lowest readings were minus 3 deg. F, on 
Friday, 8th February, and the same on Sunday, 10th February; while 
the frost penetrated 36 inches under a gravel walk, but only 24 inches 
under a grass park. These facts, I think, bear out the conclusion 
which Mr. R. P. Omond, of the Ben Nevis Observatory, recently 
came to, namely, that a loose and porous soil is a much better 
protection from cold than one which is compact and heavy.* 
As in the working of Nature’s laws, loss and compensation, 
destruction and reconstruction, decay and renewal, are constantly 
at work, side by side, so also is it in the affairs of human life. The 
history of our Society during the past year is no exception to the 
rule, for it has been made memorable by two events—one the cause 
of deep sorrow, the other full of promise for the future. On the one 
hand we have lost him to whom we always looked for guidance in 
* For these statistics I have to express my indebtedness to the following 
gentlemen :—Mr. Charles Gibson, C.C., Graig Dhu, Pitlochry, Mr. John S. 
Grant, Ballinluig, Mr. F. W. Fairgreive, Dunkeld Gardens, and Mr. John Leslie, 
Pitcullen Lodge. 
