At the meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, in August 1892, the President of the Biological Section, Professor W. Rutherford, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., gave an able opening address on “The Colour-Sense,” in which he took occasion to speak at some length on that remarkable defect of vision called Colour-Blindness. After alluding to the large share of public attention it had lately attracted, both on scientific and popular grounds, he pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of certain statements lately put forward, and gave good reasons why the views still largely held on it in this country required revision.

1. The science of Meteorology must be ranked, at the present moment, among the most rising branches of natural knowledge. The transition from the hasty generalization which always marks the embryo state of science, to the application of sober inductive analysis, is one so important, and so truly interesting, as to repay amply the philosophical abstinence which it imposes. No more important lesson, indeed, can be learned, than from the very examples of crude speculation, which, for centuries, the progress of this subject has afforded among the multitudes whose scientific acquirements are limited to the art of consulting a weather-glass, or registering a thermometer, little imagining that the very science they affect to cultivate, ranks among its phenomena the interwoven effects of remote and recondite causes,—a science which, to use the words of Mr Herschel, is “one of the most complicated and difficult, but, at the same time, interesting subjects of physical research: one, however, which has of late begun to be studied with a diligence which promises the speedy disclosure of relations and laws, of which, at present, we can form but a very imperfect notion.”

In Part I of a Memoir “On the Craniology of the People of Scotland,” published in the Transactions of the Society twelve years ago (vol. xl), I described the anatomical characters of 176 skulls, the majority of which had been obtained in the counties south of the Clyde and the Tay. The dimensions, form and proportions of the cranial box and of the face were examined, the cranial and facial indices were computed, several of the skulls were figured from the vertex, lateral aspect and face, and mesial sagittal sections of the skulls with radial and other measurements were reproduced. The Memoir gave the fullest account of the characters of the skulls of the modern Scottish people which had been produced up to that time. In the concluding paragraph I stated that I had formed a collection of skulls of the prehistoric in-habitants of Scotland, which I proposed to describe to the Society in Part II of the Memoir, and to discuss the general ethnographical relations of the Scottish people. From various causes the presentation to the Society of this Part has been too long delayed.

The index flood/regional growth curve method is the most commonly used procedure for estimating a design flood at an ungauged site in the United Kingdom when only the instantaneous peak discharge is required. This paper summarises recent work in Scotland in which the authors have refined the equations for estimating the index flood from the physical characteristics of the drainage basin and have proposed new methods for classifying basins to increase the hydrological homogeneity of the regions on which the growth curves are based. A new algorithm for estimating regional growth curves is reported which allows for correlation between flood magnitude at different sites. Simulation experiments are described which highlight the consequences of the data failing to meet the assumptions of the models used.

It is not my intention to enter into any detailed description of the external characters of the several interesting organic remains which are found imbedded in the limestone of Burdiehouse, that being a task which belongs to their distinguished discoverer Dr Hibbert.

As little do I mean to describe the geological relations of the limestone bed, that being equally the province of Dr Hibbert. It will be sufficient to state generally, that it forms one of the lowest members of the carboniferous group, being inferior in position even to the Encrinal mountain limestone of its immediate vicinity; and that besides its numerous animal remains, some of which will be mentioned in the sequel, it contains throughout its entire mass numerous impressions of land and fresh-water tropical plants.

The type material of Orthocera gigantea J. Sowerby 1819 is refigured and redescribed. Specimens referred to this species by J. Phillips, J. Fleming, F. McCoy and F. S. Wallis have similarly been reinvestigated. The counterpart of the type of Actinoceras simmsii C. Stokes 1840 is also illustrated. Numerous other specimens from England, Scotland and Ireland have been studied. The material is found to be referable to the genus Rayonnoceras Croneis and to embrace a number of species. The calcification of the siphuncular structures is found to be variable in this genus.

On the 3d of November last, Sir James Hall and Dr Rutherford asked me to repeat with them some experiments on what has been called Animal Electricity, which were first performed by Dr Galvani, Professor of Anatomy at Bologna, and of which an account had been communicated by Mr Seguin of Paris to Dr Black, in a letter dated Paris, 3d August.

We are happy to receive constructive comments of our paper by Moczydlowska and thank her for adding new relevant data. We will attempt to reply to each of her points.

In April 1846, I communicated to the Royal Society a paper on a new organic base, to which I gave the name of Picoline, and which occurs in coal-tar, associated with the Pyrrol, Kyanol, and Leukol of Runge. In that paper I pointed out that the properties of picoline resembled, in many respects, those of a base which Unverdorben had previously extracted from Dippel's animal oil, and described under the name of Odorine; and more especially mentioned their solubility in water, and property of forming crystallisable salts with chloride of gold, as characters in which these substances approximated very closely to one another. And further, I detailed a few experiments on the odorine of Unverdorben extracted from Dippel's oil, with the view of ascertaining whether or not they were actually identical, but on too small a scale to admit of a definite solution of the question.

Hitherto in matters craniological the student has been confronted with the primary difficulty that the series upon which he intends to work has been unearthed many years after burial. In consequence the question of age, sex, and nationality has remained a matter of doubt. In the present series of Hokien and Tamil skulls this difficulty has been entirely eliminated. As the skulls were collected immediately after death, the age, sex, and nationality of each is known. On removal from the body each skull had a metal tally attached to it, so that no error could arise in the process of preparation. In craniological and craniometrical work one frequently meets with the term “Chinese,” and the author is uncertain of the probable locality from which the skulls were obtained. China covers a vast expanse much larger than most people realise, and its inhabitants include a large variety of branches which vary widely in craniological features. Even in language and religion they differ, and it frequently happens that individuals living 100 miles from one another cannot understand each other's spoken language, although the written characters are identical. In fact the Hokiens call the Northern Chinese “foreigners.” The dissimilarity between the Cantonese Chinese and the Hylam Chinese skull is, I believe, as great as that between the Scottish and the German skull.

In a recent paper published in these Transactions I gave an account of certain experiments upon the change of electric resistance of nickel due to magnetization at different temperature up to 100·C.

In a recent paper Johnston et al. (1994) have provided an innovative interpretation of the tectonostratigraphic relationships between distinct terranes juxtaposed along the Intra–Sudetic Fault in the Sudetes Mountainsof the Polish Variscides. They identified this fault as a major crustal fracture between Gondwana and Baltica, rramed the Tornquist Suture, resulting from the closure of the Tornquist Sea during the Caledonian orogeny. This interpretation is based on new U/Pb ages on zircon and titanite from igneous and metamorphic rocks (Oliver et al. 1993), field observations and reassessment of pre–existing data. Previously, the Sudetes were generally thought to haveformed during the Hercynian orogeny, although Caledonian age deformation was also inferred (Oberc 1977, 1986; Don 1984, 1986, 1990).

Little is known about the tooth wear of South American theropod dinosaurs. This paper describes wear facets in Abelisauridae, Carcharodontosauridae and some indeterminate theropods teeth, from the Marília Formation. Four types of wear facets are proposed: vertically-oriented attritional striations; perpendicular attritional surfaces; oval wear facets; and apical grooves. All these worn surfaces were produced by dental occlusion, except the apical grooves, which are produced by the contact between predator teeth and the prey bone during predator–prey interaction. More detailed biomechanical and hardness testing of teeth and bone may further elucidate the pattern of tooth wear in theropods.

Dinosaur body fossil material is rare in Scotland, previously known almost exclusively from the Great Estuarine Group on the Isle of Skye. We report the first unequivocal dinosaur fossil from the Isle of Eigg, belonging to a Bathonian (Middle Jurassic) taxon of uncertain affinity. The limb bone NMS G.2020.10.1 is incomplete, but through a combination of anatomical comparison and osteohistology, we determine it most likely represents a stegosaur fibula. The overall proportions and cross-sectional geometry are similar to the fibulae of thyreophorans. Examination of the bone microstructure reveals a high degree of remodelling and randomly distributed longitudinal canals in the remaining primary cortical bone. This contrasts with the histological signal expected of theropod or sauropod limb bones, but is consistent with previous studies of thyreophorans, specifically stegosaurs. Previous dinosaur material from Skye and broadly contemporaneous sites in England belongs to this group, including Loricatosaurus and Sarcolestes and a number of indeterminate stegosaur specimens. Theropods such as Megalosaurus and sauropods such as Cetiosaurus are also known from these localities. Although we find strong evidence for a stegosaur affinity, diagnostic features are not observed on NMS G.2020.10.1, preventing us from referring it to any known genera. The presence of this large-bodied stegosaur on Eigg adds a significant new datapoint for dinosaur distribution in the Middle Jurassic of Scotland.

The quality and richness of Perthshire's natural environment were formative influences on a young James Croll (1821–1890), which left him with a life-long appreciation of nature, landscape and natural meditation. Although Croll himself declares to have had little interest in geology in his earlier years, it became a central theme of his scientific understanding, which implies the clear influence of both his local environment and of his father David, a stonemason. His family and friends also shaped him in other ways, not least his love of reading, his unconstrained thinking and intellectual acuity. He inherited his father's moral character, amiability and an excitement about intellectual inquiry, which drew friends to him who made great efforts to assist him in his work, both personally and professionally, and played a role in his being offered a position by James Geikie with the Geological Survey of Scotland. Croll's financial position was often precarious; he spent a good deal of his life in relative poverty. Whilst this affected his opportunities for formal learning, it may well have led to his ability to think creatively and to seek answers more broadly than he might have if he had been able to engage in a more formal education. Ill health, which affected him throughout his life, could be seen to both hamper his work – but also through circumstance lead him to pursue a more academic path, as other routes of work were shut off to him. Ultimately Whitefield, Wolfhill and the wider Perthshire countryside in which he grew up can clearly be seen to have influenced his life in many ways, even, perhaps, to the extent of his chosen surname.

In drawing up this abstract, I have somewhat enlarged the plan followed in those formerly communicated to the Society. In order to represent more accurately the progress of the seasons, every month is here divided into three parts, and the state of the barometer and thermometer is given for each of these divisions.

[Since this second instalment of my paper was read to the Society my attention has been called to a remarkable investigation by Hertz; in which the circumstances of collision of two elastic spheres are fully worked out, under the special limitations that both are smooth, and that their deformations are exceedingly small. This forms a mere episode in the paper, which is devoted mainly to the statical form of the problem of deformation; as, for instance, the case of the ordinary apparatus for the production of Newton's rings. But it contains a definite numerical result; giving for the duration of impact between two iron spheres of 50mm diameter, which encounter one another directly with a relative speed of 10mm per second, the value 0s·00038. This seems to be the earliest reckoning of the time of collision. The experimental verification of Hertz' formulæ was undertaken with success by Schneebeli, who obtained results in close accordance with them. His mode of measuring the duration of impact was defective, though ingenious.

In the following Paper, it is proposed to illustrate more fully the hint explanatory of certain atmospheric colours, given in a notice of the remarkable red hue of condensing steam, communicated on the 21st January. Since that time, I have examined with care the principal authors who have adverted to the subject of the colour of the sky generally, and of the redness of sunset in particular; and since, in the course of that research, I have found much to confirm, and little to modify, the view which I have already taken of the subject, I hope that the present Paper may be considered as a fit appendix to my former experimental notice. It will be recollected that in it I stated the singular fact, that steam does not pass at once from the state of invisible pellucid vapour to that of a misty white cloud, such as issues from the spout of a tea-kettle; but that an intermediate stage occurs, in which it is coloured, even very highly, giving to transmitted light a hue varying from tawny yellow up to intense smoke-red. I then observed, that, since this phenomenon does not require steam of high tension for its production, it is very probable that the tints of sunset and of artificial lights seen through certain fogs, may be owing to the absorptive action of watery vapour in this critical condition.

That the stelar problem considered in this paper may be more clearly visualised, it will be well to divest of purely theoretical considerations the facts of stelar structure already known for Platyzoma, and to summarise such structural features as bear on the subject in hand.

In the first account of Platyzoma given by Robert Brown in 1810 (l), the habit of the stem and heterophyllic leaves, and the general form and position of the sporangia, were alone described. But in 1832 (2) a rough analysis of the structure of the stem was added, and the tubular nature of its stele was recognised. No material contribution to the knowledge of the stelar structure was made until 1893 (3), when Dr Poirault described the histology of the stele as shown by a small fragment of stem. In this material there was a sclerotic pith completely surrounded by an endodermis, outside which lay a zone of parenchyma surrounded by a broad ring of parenchymatous xylem. At the periphery of the xylem there was a narrow zone of phloëm surrounded by a large-celled pericycle and an outer endodermis. Neither leaf-gaps nor perforations were found in the stele, and accordingly the complete isolation of the pith from the cortex was recognised.