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the barometer than temperature or damp. The fame of the barometer is due to its success in predicting a type of storm very rarely met with in the British Isles. In ordinary gales, and much more so in ordinary weather, Mr. Galton considered that the barometer was useless as a guide, except when consulted with full knowledge of what was occurring at adjacent stations.

The Rev. F. Howlett contributed a good paper on "Solar Spots observed during the last Eleven Years," in which he stated his belief that these spots were attached for the time being to the photosphere, and that they were not clouds floating above it. Mr. Howlett further assumed that the spots were depressions in the solar photosphere filled up by the solar gaseous atmosphere. 1. By the ordinary testimony of the eye. 2. By the stereoscopic effect obtained by Mr. de la Rue's photographs of spots taken at intervals of about two days. 3. By the foreshortening of the penumbra of a nearly circular spot, alternately on the right and left side, as it first comes on, and then passes off the disc-a phenomenon first noticed in the last century by Dr. Wilson.

In Section B., Chemical Science, Mr. W. Gossage read a remarkable paper on "The Soda Manufacture," which was supplemental to a former paper by him read at Manchester in 1861, showing the prodigious quantity of this material now in use in the bleaching and other chemical works of Lancashire. So long ago as 1852, when the Excise duty was finally abolished, the total production of Great Britain amounted to about 1600 tons per week; the present production in Lancashire alone was fully equal to that of the whole kingdom in 1852. Mr. D. Forbes read an able report on "The Utilization of Sewage, with Special Reference to the Phosphate Process," in which it was pointed out that there was no reason why sewage-farms should be a nuisance to the neighbourhood in which they existed; it being quite possible to filter the sewage water in such a way as to retain the solid and valuable particles, thus forming a precipitate of such high value to agriculturists as to pay for its transmission to a great distance.

Professor Williamson read a paper in opposition to the proposed Government scheme of founding a Special Engineering College for India, on the ground that there were already in the United Kingdom Universities which did all the required work, and where ample provision was made for the special knowledge required by engineers. The Committee of this section agreed unanimously to a resolution that this action on the part of Government was inexpedient and uncalled for a view also taken by the Section of Mathematics and General Physics and by that of Mechanics.

Section C., Geology was illustrated by an even larger number than usual of valuable papers. Of these we may mention that, by Mr. G. H. Morton, on "The Glaciated Condition of the Triassic Sandstone round Liverpool," in which the author called attention to a portion of ground on the waste space near North Hill-street, where could readily be seen several hundred square yards of iceplaned sandstone, closely covered with fine lines and grooves, all perfectly straight and parallel with each other, and running in a direction thirty-five degrees W. of N.

Mr. Pengelly brought up the "Sixth Report of the Committee for the Exploration of Kent's Cavern," near Torquay, a cavern consisting of an eastern and western division, each including a considerable series of chambers and galleries, with two entrances about 50 feet apart, and 200 feet above the mean

sea level.

During the past year many of the various branches and ramifications of this wonderful cavern have been explored, and a vast quantity of bones, or fragments of bones, of the hyæna, horse, rhinoceros, bear, sheep, badger, fox, rabbit, elephant, deer, lion, &c., have been met with; twenty-one flint implements have also been found, in association with the horse and rhinoceros, in the cave earth. Similar explorations have also been made, under the superintendence of Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, by Mr. Jackson, in the mountain limestone caves near Settle, in Yorkshire.

A very able paper was contributed by Professor Hull, "On the Extension of the Coal-Fields beneath the Newer Formations in England," in which the author brought forth evidence that the coal measures were originally deposited in two continuous sheets, one to the north and the other to the south of a ridge of old land formed of Silurian rocks, which stretched eastwards from Shropshire to the south of the Dudley coal-field. This region or barrier, he thought, had never been submerged beneath the waters in which the coal-fields had been deposited. Dr. Moffat, in a paper "On Geological System and Endemic Diseases," showed clearly that the soil has an influence on the composition of the cereal plants grown on it, and on the diseases to which the inhabitants are subject. Thus goître is a very common complaint among those who live on the carboniferous system, while it is unknown among those who dwell on the new red sandstone. On analyzing the cereals, Dr. Moffat found that those grown upon the Cheshire sandstone had the largest quantity of ash, more phosphoric acid, and more oxide of iron. Each inhabitant of the Cheshire district who consumes a pound of meat a day takes in nearly five grains per day of the sesquioxide of iron more than does the inhabitant of the carboniferous system. The same applies to the meat procured from sheep and other animals who live, like the men, on the same two systems. Mr. A. R. Wallace exhibited a diagram of the Earth's eccentricity, and read a paper to show that variations in the Earth's eccentricity served in great measure to account for many of the greater geological changes, &c. He proved that during the last three million years the eccentricity has been almost always much greater than it is at present, on an average twice as great, and for long periods more than three times as great. When the eccentricity is greatest, the heat received from the sun at the greatest and least distances was as three to four; hence, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the winters of the northern hemisphere would be rendered intensely cold and much longer for periods of 10,500 years; while during the alternate periods the winters would be mild and short, the summers cool and long, leading to an almost perpetual spring. As such intercalations must have occurred during every glacial period, the fact of intercalated warm periods with the migrations of animals, &c., consequent on them, which have been detected by geologists, may be looked upon as the normal condition of things. During the last 60,000 years the eccentricity has been very small, and hence the alternations of climate and consequent migrations have been proportionately slight.

In Section D., Biology, much time was spent in the reading papers more or less evoked by what are now called the "Darwinian" theories; those by Dr. G. W. Child "On Protoplasm and the Germ Theories," and by Mr. J. Samuelson "On the Controversy on Spontaneous Generation," proving to demonstration that the clearest heads and the most practised and careful experimentalists have not yet succeeded in attaining to a definite view on this subject. Such researches and

such speculations are not, however, without their use in that they so greatly stimulate microscopical inquiry.

In Section E., Geography, Sir Henry Rawlinson read two excellent papers, one entitled "Notes on the Site of the Terrestrial Paradise;" the other, "On Early Traditions regarding the River Oxus." In his first paper he pointed out that, in the early traditions of nations, we invariably find the Heaven-land, or abode of the gods, to lie in that portion of the earth from which the recording race took its intellectual origin. Thus we have the Olympus of the Greeks and the Meru of the Aryans. We might, therefore, expect to find the paradise of the Hebrews in the region which was the cradle of that race, near "Ur of the Chaldees," a spot now certainly determined by the Cuneiform Inscriptions to have been at Mugheir, on the lower Euphrates. The name Hebrew is derivable from the same locality, Ibri being the specific title among the Arabian geographers for the belt of alluvial land in that neighbourhood. It is further likely that Gan-Eden, which we translate "Garden of Eden," is nothing more than the Hebrew rendering of one of the vernacular names of Babylonia, such as Gan-duni, Gana meaning enclosure, and Aduni being the name of one of the earliest worshipped gods.

The "Garden of Eden" is said to have been watered by four rivers; so, too, was the land of Babylonia in the Inscriptions. Of these, two are called Tigris and Euphrates; the other two Surrapi and Ukni; the first, probably, answering to the Biblical Gihon, the second to the Pison. Ukni, on other grounds, may be shown to mean Onyx, or (as Sir H. Rawlinson suggested) with more probability, Alabaster. Bdellium, most likely, is bedolat, or pearls. The Gihon in the Bible is said to "encompass the whole land of Cush," which our translators, by a bold guess, have rendered Ethiopia. Now " Cush," or Kish," was one of the primitive capitals of Babylonia, and apparently gave its name to the whole country along the river. Two great outlets from the Euphrates, one towards the S.E., and one due E. to the Tigris, have been known throughout all ages, and these are doubtless to be identified with the Pison and Gihon respectively.

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In his second paper Sir Henry Rawlinson stated that Pamir (perhaps as Burnouf fancied, Upa-Meru, the "country above Meru") was unquestionably the district to which the geographical indications of the Puranas point as the site of the primeval Aryan paradise. The Sanscrit writings were supplemented by the Buddhist travellers, the details furnished by whom are often singularly accurate. The four rivers of the Aryan paradise are named by the Brahmans: 1, the Sita; 2, the Alakananda; 3, the Vakhshu; 4, the Bhadra. By the Buddhists: 1, the Ganges; 2, the Indus; 3, the Oxus; 4, the Sita. It is probable that the many-rivered wealth of Pamir had so impressed the Aryan colonists that, in their subsequent migrations to the south, they transferred the physical features of their fatherland to the abode of Brahma and the gods, precisely in the same way that the Semitic Jews, after being transplanted to the coast of Syria, preserved in their delineation of the Terrestrial Paradise the memory traditionally handed down of their old habitat in Babylonia between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Another Aryan legend confirmed this presumed connexion between the head streams of the Oxus and the several rivers of Asia which were fabled to fall from Heaven upon Mount Meru, and thence to flow into the surrounding world. One version of the Puranic legend described these rivers as seven in number, and the region of the Upper Oxus was certainly

known to the Iranian division of the Aryan race as the country of the Seven Rivers.

With this notice of the above papers we are compelled by want of space to close what we had to say about the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association, and we will only add here a brief memorial of two or three scientific works published during the last year, to which more than usual attention has been called:

"Other Worlds than Ours," by R. A. Proctor. The invention of the spectro scope, and the wonderful advances the Science of Astronomy has made during the last few years, fully warrant Mr. Proctor in the reconsideration of the curious questions involved in the discussion between the late Professor Whewell and Sir David Brewster, in their well-known volumes, the " Plurality of Worlds" and "More Worlds than One." Mr. Proctor commences his work by an examination of the actual distribution of the inhabitants of the Earth over its surface, and points out the significant fact that there is still life, whether under the extreme colds of the Arctic zone or under the heats of the Torrid: he then discusses the possible cases of Mercury and Venus, whose orbits are within those of the Earth, and which have unquestionably atmospheres; our own Moon has not. Doubtless, the heat on the surface of Mercury would at first seem to be a fatal objection to the existence of any form of animal life; but we do not know what modifications of this heat may be produced by its atmosphere. Venus, again, has remarkable resemblances to the earth in size, density, seasons, and rotation, but it has no Moon, or rather none hitherto detected. Its atmosphere is much more extensive than ours, but of the composition of it we know nothing. "Yet," says Mr. Proctor, on the whole, the evidence we have points very strongly to Venus as the abode of living creatures, not unlike the inhabitants of the Earth."

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When we come to the planet Mars, we see much to remind us of our own globe; indeed, Mars has been called, with some show of reason, the Earth in miniature. The Equator of Mars is inclined at nearly the same angle as our own, hence its seasons differ little from ours. Through a telescope, we discern, on his surface, greenish and ruddy tracts, and its poles are white, as must appear those of the Earth when viewed from a sufficient distance. The greens are not impossibly oceans and seas, the ruddy spots islands and continents. We have no reason to doubt that these oceans produce the clouds which often veil the surface of this planet, and that the leading features of our own scenery may be reproduced on the surface of Mars. Mr. Proctor seems justified in thinking we ought not to assume "in the face of so many probable arguments to the contrary, that Mars is a barren waste either wholly untenanted by living creatures, or only inhabited by beings belonging to the lowest orders of animated existence." With regard to Jupiter and Saturn, the evidence of life at all, like any of which we have cognizance here, is doubtless small; but we need not accept Davy's theory that the bodies of the "Jovials" are composed of " numerous convolutions of tubes more analogous to the trunk of the elephant than any thing else," or Whewell's idea that they must be "pulpy gelatinous creatures, living in a dismal world of water and ice with a cindery nucleus." Anyhow, Mr. Proctor's work may be safely studied as that of a man who has investigated for himself, and as one who has shown fair reasons for "the faith that is in him."

Another work of some interest, which may be fairly placed alongside that of

Mr. Proctor, is "The Interior of the Earth," by H. P. Malet; though we confess we are not converts to his views, and fear that grave men of science will deem him too much of a rash enthusiast. Still we must have enthusiasm, if we are to have progress; and there can be no question Mr. Malet has given in this volume good proofs of his ability to compose hereafter a far more satisfactory book. The subject is one of great difficulty, as the top of the highest mountain and the depth of the deepest sea barely give us a knowledge of one three-thousandth part of the thickness of the globe, and even the recent deep sea-dredging afforded scarcely any opportunities of more penetrating observations. Astronomy enables us to determine that the density of the globe's external crust is about two and a half times that of water, and the density of the whole mass appears to be about five and a half times that of water; but when we have stated so much, we have said nearly all which rests on solid and sure foundation.

Leroy's "Intelligence and Perfectibility of Animals" is a curious and somewhat fanciful book, recently translated, and translated exceedingly well. Leroy was himself ranger of the parks at Versailles and Marly, a contributor to the famous Encyclopédie, and the personal friend of Helvetius, D'Alembert, and Diderot. From this last circumstance, his views on many subjects may be easily guessed. His volume consists of letters addressed to Madame D'Augiviller, and treat of two different subjects; the larger number (eleven) of the intelligence of animals, the smaller (five) of the nature of man. The speculations on man are poor and shallow, as are, we think, many writings by followers of Locke, of whom, in France, Condillac was the most eminent. Assuredly, we do not require to be told, as Condillac has argued, that all thought is mere sensation, or, as Hobbes reasoned, that all human nature is reducible to selfishness; even laughter being, as that philosopher averred, but the result of a sense of superiority, while gratitude is only a lively expectation of future kindness.

Leroy believed in the existence in man of a principle of benevolence now innate, but possibly acquired in the lapse of many generations; and, as Condillac ascribed all human progress to the use of language, Helvetius to the superior organization of the human frame, and especially of the hand, so Leroy attributed it chiefly to the art of writing. On the other hand, Leroy's account of animals is exceedingly interesting. Himself, evidently, a keen sportsman, he seems to us, in other respects, to represent, remarkably for a Frenchman, some of the best characteristics of our own White of Selborne. With the ways of birds, of deer, of hares, of the wild boar, the wolf, and the fox, he exhibits an intimate knowledge, and he fights for his wild friends against the speculative theories of Des Cartes and Buffon, with all the enthusiastic pleading of an advocate who knows he has truth on his side. What too, is of great importance is this, that, though many years have elapsed since these letters were first penned, the later and more profound researches of Owen and Huxley have failed to detect any important errors in the views he has put forward, most, if not all of which, indeed, were based on his own personal experience. Thus he points out with singular force, that the intelligence and disposition of animals vary greatly; and also, that among specimens of the same genus great differences may be detected. Thus dog differs from dog, fox from fox, and wolf from wolf. From the fact, that the old fox and old hare baffle the hounds, while the old wolf is the chief terror of the peasant, Leroy argues

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