Besides the boulders described by the late Mr Charles Maclaren in his “Geology of Fife and the Lothians,” and also by Professor Geikie in the “Edinburgh Memoir of the Geological Survey,” as having been carried from the Highlands, there are others which would indicate a transport from a different direction.

On the highest summits of the Pentland Hills (Scald Law, Carnethy, South Black Hill, North Black Hill, and others which are composed of various varieties of porphyrites) are found numerous boulders of fine conglomerates, grits, and sandstones, intermingled with a few boulders of quartz, greenstone, and other rocks, all partially or entirely covered by a deposit of peat, which in some places on and near the summits of the hills attains a thickness of nearly six feet. The sandstone boulders vary in size from mere fragments up to large masses which I was unable to dig up.

The following phenomena were noted by me during a number of visits I made to the Pentland Hills; but as my chief object then was to examine the older rocks, my observation on the recent deposits are by no means complete.

Mr M'Laren, in his “Geology of Fife and the Lothians,” states:—

“There are few opportunities of observing ‘groovings’ on the Pentland Hills. I noticed them, however, at Westwater of Dunsyre, on the top of a thick bed of hard sandstone, from which 12 or 14 feet of alluvium had been removed. The dressings pointed exactly east and west; and the evidence was the more satisfactory, as the direction of the stream on whose bank the rock was situated, and of the valley in which the stream flowed, was south and north. They were very distinct, the larger groovings being about 1½ inch broad, and ths of an inch deep.

This Report contains information applicable to three districts of country, namely—

1.Pentland Hills.

2.Morayshire.

3.Islands of the West Coast, and part of the Mainland.

The impression hitherto had been, that the boulders on these hills indicated a movement exclusively from the north-west; and there is no doubt that the mica slate boulders on these hills indicate such a direction; but Messrs Somervail & Henderson, in the notes contained in this Report, have discovered a separate movement from the west-south-west, by the occurrence of certain sandstone blocks, which they think can be traced to a particular hill or hills in the Pentland range. This point is so important, that it is hoped further inquiry may be made regarding it.

Minding's Theorem deals with what may be called by analogy the “focal lines,” of the system of single resultants of a set of given forces, applied at given points to a rigid body, when these forces are turned about so as to preserve unchanged their inclinations to one another.

Having obtained an exceedingly simple proof of the theorem by quaternions, I next tried to find the locus of the foot of the perpendicular let fall on each of these resultants from the “centre of the plane of centres.” The resulting equation is very complex:— but if we extend the data so as to include every position of the central axis (whether there is a couple or no), we arrive at a very simple, and at the same time singular, result.

An opportunity for examining the Pituri of Australia was afforded to the author by Dr Bancroft of Brisbane, who, in 1877, gave him for that purpose specimens of dry broken leaves of the plant, in the form in which it is used by the natives, and also a small quantity of watery extract.

After describing its use by the natives of Australia, the author advanced reasons in support of Von Mueller's opinion, that Pituri is obtained from Duboisia Hopwoodii, and that this plant should be placed in the Solanaceæ.

When it is desired to disentail a landed estate, it is necessary for the heir in possession, after obtaining the consent of the first substitute heir, to pay to the second and third heirs the estimated value of their expectancy or interest in the estate. In the calculations that have to be made for the purpose of ascertaining this value, the actuary has often to take into account not only the probabilities of life, but the probabilities of marriage and of leaving issue. The heir in possession may be unmarried, in which case he may marry at some future time, and leave a child who would inherit the estate to the exclusion of the subsequent heirs; or the heir in possession may be married but have no children, and the probabilities then to be estimated are (1) that his present wife will have a child at some future time, and (2) that she will die before her husband, that he will then marry a second time, and have issue by his second marriage.

Sir Alexander Grant said:—

Gentlemen,—We cannot pass to the proceedings of this evening without some reference to the calamity which has befallen the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and under the sorrowful impression of which we now meet—the sudden death of our honoured and well-beloved President.

We knew, alas! gentlemen, that his health had been failing of late, and that when, only six months ago, he first took his seat as President of this Society, his vigour was impaired, at all events for the time.

Meteorological phenomena are in all cases to be regarded as being both a cause and an effect; owing to this, and also to the imperfect state of our knowledge on this subject, it may be safely asserted that exception proves or tests the rule. Taking up the subject in this point of view, much assistance is in this way to be acquired when attempts are made to explain the phenomena which are under consideration, and hence these negative conclusions can to a large extent be taken advantage of. As an illustration of this, can it be assumed that a barometer placed on the surface of the earth, and which always correctly indicates the amount of pressure on its cistern, will also always correctly indicate the weight of the mass of air aloft, both when it is at rest and when it is in rapid motion, accompanied by the important element of friction.

1. De Morgan read a paper on the ‘Logic of Relations’ before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the paper is printed in their Transactions. He attempts to deal not only with the idea of relationship, but with the idea of relation in general. As he does not deal with exact ideas, he cannot give any exact results.

2. Among the writings of Leslie Ellis there are printed some notes on Boole's ‘Laws of Thought,’ and there he refers to the idea of relation. He makes the important remark:— ‘It seems to me that the mind passes from idea to idea in accordance with various principles of suggestion, and that, in correspondence with the different. classes of such principles of suggestion, we ought to recognise different branches of the general theory of inference.’

In my former paper, read before the Society in June 1878, I gave an account of observations which I had made on the fungus disease affecting salmon, and described the character of the fungus, which I referred to Saprolegnia ferax.

In the present communication I propose to relate additional observations, and to discuss the theories which have been advanced by different writers in explanation of the cause of the disease. Four theories have been advocated, namely—pollution of rivers, overcrowding, absence of frost, diseased kelts and addled ova.

The author in the first instance described the characters of the teeth of Mesoplodon Layardii from two specimens which had been collected during the expedition of H.M.S. “Challenger,” under the scientific superintendence of Sir C. Wyville Thomson. The one specimen, a young animal, under 14 feet in length, was obtained at Port Sussex, East Falkland Islands, by Mr H. N. Moseley, F.R.S.; the other, an adult skull, was procured at the Cape of Good Hope.

The teeth of the younger animal, two in number, were imbedded in their alveoli in the lower jaw. Each tooth consisted of a small triangular denticle or crown projecting outwards, and slightly upwards from the middle of the upper border of the fang.

It seemed to the authors to be desirable to ascertain the mode in which the salts of diethylmethyl-sulphine and ethylmethylethylsulphine respectively decompose when heated.

They prepared the iodides by the method described by Krüger, whose observations on the iodides and chloroplatinates they substantially confirm.

The benzoates were prepared from the iodides by action of benzoate of silver. They are exceedingly soluble substances, and were only obtained as thick syrups. Heated to between 110° and 120° C. they decompose in exactly the same way, yielding benzoate of methyl without any benzoate of ethyl.

I.The carbonate of trimethylsulphine is obtained by the action of carbonate of silver on the iodide of trimethylsulphine. The solution of the salt may be evaporated to a syrup in the waterbath. On standing for some weeks over sulphuric acid in vacuo it crystallises out in exceedingly hygroscopic prismatic crystals, containing water of crystallisation, and having a strong alkaline reaction.

Heated in the air to 100° the salt gives off water, sulphide of methyl, and carbonic acid. Heated in a sealed tube to 100° C. for about eight hours it was almost entirely decomposed, gave off a gas consisting entirely of carbonic acid, and yielded two layers of liquid—the upper, sulphide of methyl; the lower, water and methylic alcohol.

It is well known that if an ordinary fowling-piece, charged with shot or ball, have touched the ground or snow, so as to close the muzzle of the gun, or if the muzzle of the gun be in any way artificially closed with grease or other substances, the fowling-piece is certain to burst at the muzzle when it is discharged. This would not be the case if, instead of firing a shot, a piston were driven up the tube by hand.