It is my intention in this, the second part of my memoir on the Craniology of the Races of India, to give the results of my examination of skulls obtained from the districts occupied by the aboriginal tribes in Chúta Nágpúr, the Central Provinces, the people in the province of Orissa, and to compare them with the skulls of some other aboriginal people.

The majority of the specimens described belong to the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and through the courtesy of the Trustees I was permitted to have them on loan for purposes of study. Many of these crania had been those of persons who had died in jail. The names, tribes, and castes, and not unfrequently the age, stature, and other physical characters, had been recorded in the prison books, and were embodied in the lists which were sent to me along with the skulls by the authorities of the museum. Several of these skulls were especially interesting, as having been presented to the museum by Colonel Dalton, the author of the valuable treatise on the Ethnology of Bengal, Other specimens in the museum had been obtained from the Medical College, Calcutta, and several were presented by Professor D. B. Smith; in all probability they were from bodies which had been used for anatomical purposes. Mr W. H. P. Driver also had presented a series of crania from Ranchi.

A few years ago, a memoir on high-water marks on the banks of the Rivers Earn and Teith, in Perthshire, by the Rev. Thomas Brown, was read in our Society, and published in our Transactions.

The only other Scotch geologist, so far as I know, who has alluded to the existence of river terraces, much above the level of existing floods, is the late Dr Robert Chambers. In his work, entitled “Ancient Sea Margins,” Dr Chambers specifies many Scotch rivers, in the valleys occupied by which, he had seen terraces, at considerable heights above the rivers and above the sea.

In March 1869 I communicated to the Society a paper entitled “Motion of a Palladium Plate during the Formation of Graham's Hydrogenium,” which appears in the Proceedings for Session 1868-69. When engaged with this subject many points of interest regarding the behaviour of palladium containing occluded hydrogen, suggested themselves for investigation, and in concluding the paper I remarked “ that careful determinations must be made of the electromotive force, latent heat, &c., of hydrogenium ” before we could arrive at any conclusion regarding the condition of the absorbed hydrogen. Subsequently Professor Tait made a series of determinations on the “ Electrolytic Polarisation of Palladium Electrodes,” devising a new and ingenious method for the purpose. Although at different times subsequent to my first communication, the problem of determining the physical constants of hydrogenium recurred, as my attention was in the meantime directed to the specific heat of carbon at high temperatures, no progress was made with the investigation until September 1872, when the results of my preliminary experiments were communicated to the “ Philosophical Magazine,” under the title, “ Note on the Specific Heat of Hydrogenium.” In that note it is stated that by means of a specially constructed calorimeter the specific heat of hydrogen in palladium is found to be 3.1 per atomic weight, nearly identical with that of gaseous hydrogen. The present paper deals with some of the physical constants of hydrogenium, more especially with the specific gravity, specific heat, and co-efficient of expansion.

The following experiments, in continuation of our research on the discharge of electricity, were made in Professor Tait's Laboratory during the College Session 1878–79, and papers briefly describing the results were read before the Society on 6th January 1879 and 19th July 1880.

Authorities on the action of medicinal substances agree in including convulsions among the effects on man of belladonna, and of its active principle, atropia. Similar effects are described as occurring when large doses of these substances are administered to dogs, rabbits, and other mammals, and to various birds. The recent remarkable progress of our knowledge of the exact and ultimate physiological action of many medicinal substances is greatly due to investigations that have been made on animals of a lower type of organisation; and, accordingly, numerous observers have instituted experiments with atropia on such animals, and especially on frogs. Hitherto, however, convulsions and tetanus have not been described among the effects of atropia-poisoning in cold-blooded animals.

Partial melting of metapelitic rocks beneath the mafic–ultramafic Rustenburg Layered Suite of the Bushveld Complex in the vicinity of the periclinal Schwerin Fold resulted in a structurally controlled distribution of granitic leucosomes in the upper metamorphic aureole. In the core of the pericline, subvertical structures facilitated the rise of buoyant leucosome through the aureole towards the contact with the Bushveld Complex, with leucosomes accumulating in en-echelon tension gashes. In a subhorizontal syn-metamorphic shear zone to the southeast of the pericline, leucosomes accumulated in subhorizontal dilational structural sites. The kinematics of this shear zone are consistent with slumping of material off the southeastern limb of the rising Schwerin pericline. The syndeformational timing of leucosome emplacement supports a syn-intrusive, density-driven origin for the Schwerin Fold. Modelling of the cooling of the Rustenburg Layered Suite and heating of the floor rocks using a multiple intrusion model indicates that temperatures above the solidus were maintained for >600,000 years up to 300 m from the contact, in agreement with rheological modelling of floor-rock diapirs that indicate growth rates on the order of 8 mm/year for the Schwerin Fold.

The determination by experiment of the thermo-electric relations of any one substance belonging to the electromotive series to all other such substances is sufficient to fix all mutual thermo-electric relations among these. The first endeavour of the experimenter is then to obtain as convenient a substance for this purpose as possible. In investigating charcoal and certain alloys, we have in almost all cases employed one or other of two alloys of platinum and iridium, which have been already used by Professor Tait for a like purpose. The wires we used were the same which he discusses in his “First Approximation to a Thermo-Electric Diagram,” under the names of M and N. Their complete freedom from oxidation, their elasticity, and the high temperatures of their fusing points, rendered them peculiarly suitable for thermo-electric investigations through long ranges of temperature.

Generally both the M and N wires were firmly bound, each by its one extremity to the end or ends of the wire or wires respectively which were under investigation, in a multiple junction. This triple or, as it was in some cases, quadruple junction constituted the “hot junction.” The free extremities of the wires thus united were each bound to a moderately thin copper wire by very thin wire of the same metal, and the copper wires were led from these “cold junctions” to a commutator, which was in connection with a galvanometer. The commutator consisted of an arrangement of small mercury pools, into which the galvanometer and circuit wires, carefully amalgamated to ensure contact, dipped. All the junctions were formed in the manner indicated above, namely, by tightly binding the extremities of the wires together by thin copper wire.

It is not a little remarkable, that in an age which assumes to itself the character of devotion to science, in anatomy, a science which embraces the best interests of humanity, this question should remain unanswered; What is the meaning of the nerves of the spinal marrow being in regular order and perfectly symmetrical: whilst the ten nerves arising from the brain present no similarity one to another, and agree neither in origin, size, nor distribution?

It is plain that we must be in the dark, not only with respect to the knowledge of the nervous system, but of the animal frame generally, whilst such a question is open and courts inquiry, and yet remains without an effort being made towards its solution. We must, I fear, attribute this neglect in part only to the difficulty of the inquiry, and much to the indifference to all that does not tend directly to profit; on which account it has the better demand on the attention of a learned and philosophical Society.

Having heard at Port-of-Spain of an appearance that went by the name of the Mud Volcanoes, we took the opportunity when surveying the southern quarter of Trinidad, to examine them. They are situated near Point Icaque, the southern extremity of the island, on an alluvial tongue of land, that has been appended to the primitive rocks, where no doubt the land originally terminated. This appendage is several miles in length, and points directly into one of the mouths of the Oronoko, on the mainland, about twelve or fifteen miles off.

We landed nearly opposite to where we were told we should find the mud volcanoes, and after making our way about five miles through the woods, across the sandy isthmus, we came upon two plantations very pleasantly situated, amidst a group of remarkable round little hills, each from eighty to a hundred feet in height.

Of all known examples in physical science, of simplifying, and at the same time “precisionising” some of its fundamental data, which might otherwise fall to be entangled in high numbers, none has been happier than Fraunhofer's application of the letters of the alphabet to certain chief lines in the solar spectrum. Happy both in its conception by the inventor, and its universal acceptance since then by the world. Whence it comes to pass now, that in every country, whoever observes the solar spectrum at all, with whatever instrument, large or small, diffracting or refracting, and whether he holds to the undulatory, or any other theory of light, and catalogues spectral lines either in Wave-lengths or Wave-numbers, or merely in terms of the brass scale screwed to his instrument by a maker,—yet whenever he speaks of the line A, or B, or C, or any other so named by Fraunhofer, he singles out thereby from among thousands, exactly the same identical line which any and every other spectroscopist alludes to under the same simple letter.

The Jurassic to Cretaceous strata exposed in the Rollrock Section, Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada, represent one of the northernmost continuous outcrops spanning this poorly understood transition. The Oxfordian–Valanginian mudstones of the Rollrock Section were deposited in a shallow marine environment and, as such, provide the ideal lithology to investigate the response of high latitude dinoflagellate cyst populations to the frequent environmental perturbations of this time. Using a multivariate statistical approach, distinct palaeoecologically significant groups are identified and directly linked to time and palaeoenvironments, allowing for the reconstruction of underlying long term palaeoenvironmental trends. These palaeoenvironmental trends are identified to be driven by sequence stratigraphic cycles. For the first time, fourth order sequences are recorded from this pivotal period in the Sverdrup Basin and reveal an additional level of short term climatic events that complicate the identification of long term trends. The relationship existing between marine phytoplankton and climate is utilised to decipher the interplay of long-term and short-term climate fluctuations, distinguishing them from evolutionary trends. Two groups of dinoflagellate cysts, identified by process morphology, are recorded to act as environmental proxies. High percentages of proximochorate dinoflagellate cysts, such as Trichodinium erinaceoides, indicate more proximal, high energy, nutrient rich conditions and are dominant in fourth order transgressive systems tracts. High percentages of chorate dinoflagellate cysts, such as Oligosphaeridium complex, signify distal, low energy, nutrient depleted conditions and are dominant in fourth order highstand systems tracts.

A brief account of the weather of this period as regards temperature was read before the Royal Society last year. It was drawn up at the request of Professor Balfour, to accompany his paper “On the Remarkable State of Vegetation in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden in December 1863.”

From the 26th of October to the end of December the weather was in every way remarkable. Though frost occurred in the end of October and beginning of November it was not severe, and the temperature continued on the whole seasonable till the 12th of November. From this date till the end of the month it ranged unprecedently high, being 9° above the average temperature of the season. It then fell for the next ten days, but on no occasion below the average; and again rose considerably above the average during the week ending with the 18th of December. Under this genial weather vegetation in the open air advanced rapidly to a state of forwardness not usually seen till the month of March. In December 245 plants were in flower in the Gardens in the open air, and of these 35 were spring flowers. The frost which had occurred was insufficient to damage, to any material extent, 210 autumn-flowering plants; and the high temperature of November, which was as high as what ordinarily occurs in the beginning of May, brought the spring flowers prematurely into bloom, so that there was to be seen the rare spectacle of sweet peas and hepaticas flowering together.

This paper draws on epistemology, theory, published data, hypothesis testing and synthesis to explore the predictive and explanatory power of a far-from-equilibrium interpretation of the history of human settlement on Rapa Nui. Our interpretation of the last 1500 years of human settlement on Rapa Nui provides an important competing hypothesis by which to test the explanatory power of earlier equilibrium interpretations of this history. Our evaluation of this competing hypothesis suggests that it provides, overall, a more satisfactory theory that has interesting implications for the goal of sustaining human civilisation.

At the suggestion of Prof. Tait, an attempt has been made in this paper to apply the method used by him in § 21 of his paper on “The Foundations of the Kinetic Theory of Gases” to a case of the question of the distribution of energy in a system of non-homogeneous impinging spheres.

The problem may be stated as follows:—Given a very great number of smooth elastic spheres, equal and like in all respects, whose centres of figure and centres of inertia do not coincide, and the sum of whose volumes is but a small fraction of the space in which they move, it is required to find the ultimate distribution of energy among the various degrees of freedom when by collisions the system has attained a “special state.”

The following experiments and observations have been undertaken with a view to discovering the means by which Tarsonemus is transmitted from one bee to another. It is obvious that a stage of the parasite exists outside the bee, and that there are also several possibilities (which may occur). One is the passage from bee to bee within the hive either directly or through the medium of frames or combs. Another, also within the hive, where the mites may in wandering upon the frames enter the cells and invade the body of the developing larvæ or pupæ, and in this way be present in the bee when it hatches. A third possibility is that whereby foraging infected bees may leave the mite upon flowers, vegetation generally, drinking grounds, or other situations, to be picked up later by other bees chancing to visit these. Crawling or dead bees may in a similar manner prove to be a source of infection through the contamination of the ground about the hive or of the actual hive itself.

The general proposition in the theory of commensurables is to determine the conditions under which lines, surfaces, or solidities, connected with prescribed figures or forms, may have their ratios expressible by integer numbers.

The attention of geometers must have been drawn to this subject by the contemplation of incommensurable lines: the altitude of an equilateral trigon is incommensurable with the base; the diagonal of a square incommensurable with the side, and so on. And, when the two sides of a right angle are expressed by two numbers, the hypotenuse is, in the great multitude of cases, incommensurable with the sides: thus, if the sides be 5 and 7 inches respectively, the length of the subtense cannot be accurately expressed either in integers or fractions. However, when the sides are 3 and 4 units, the hypotenuse is exactly 5 of the same units.

My first precise views of the structure of the Tunicata were formed by the perusal of Mr Huxley's masterly papers dealing with the anatomy of Salpa, Pyrosoma, Doliolum, and Appendicularia, in the Phil. Trans. for 1851, Part II.; and I have since had abundant opportunity of verifying all the important facts, made known by that original observer, in the papers to which I have alluded.

Having thus acknowledged my guide in this field of research, I can scarcely claim much originality as relates to pure anatomy; but I hope that the method here adopted, in opening up this interesting subject, will be found in keeping with nature, as it is the result of much study and practical investigation.