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Scientific toys were a source of great delight to him, as has been already seen in his study of the kaleidoscope. Late in life he amused himself much with conversions of plane rectilinear figures of equal areas-cutting out pieces of card so that they could be differently put together to prove the equality, and thereby forming a series of geometrical recreations. He was also fond of exercising his ingenuity in the construction as well as the solution of chess problems, of which he formed a large collection. Some of those figured in the Illustrated London News' were of his invention. To assist persons interested in the same pursuit, he contrived and published (in 1845) a pocket chess-board, in which small men of card, lying flat on the board, were kept in place by the insertion of their bases into folds or pockets in the chequered paper which composed it. In the 'London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine' for April 1840, there is a "Description of a Method," which he invented, " of moving the Knight over every square of the chess-board without going twice over any one; commencing at a given square and ending at any other given square of a different colour." The complete solution of this problem, which had engaged the attention of some of the most eminent mathematicians, including Euler and De Moivre, had never been effected before.

During his latest years, which were passed in complete retirement, he derived great amusement from light epigrammatic literature, still collecting and classifying according to his wont; but his chief resource was in the pages of his ' Thesaurus,' to which he continued to make additions until the last day of his life. His constant spirit of cheerfulness as his end drew nigh, and the kindness and benevolence which endeared him to all around, befitted a life spent in accordance with his belief that the purpose of our existence here on earth is that of doing good to our fellow creatures in furtherance of God's everlasting glory. After spending last summer at Malvern in the enjoyment of his usual health, his strength failed him during the great heat of August, and on the 12th of September he expired, peacefully and without suffering, from the natural decay of that vital power the mysterious working of which he had so laboured to illustrate.

Dr. Roget was also Consulting Physician to Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital; Hon. Member of the College of Physicians in Ireland; Fellow of the Astronomical, Entomological, Geographical, Geological, and Zoological Societies, and the Society of Arts; Member of the Royal Institution; Hon. Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, of the College of Physicians in Ireland, and of the Literary and Philosophical Societies of Liverpool, Bristol, Quebec, New York, Haarlem, Turin, Stockholm, and Athens. He was also a member of a variety of social scientific clubs, among others, an Honorary Member of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers; and he was at the time of his death the "father" of the Royal Society Club, of which he had been a member since 1827.

THE

PROCEEDINGS

OF

ROYAL SOCIETY.

June 17, 1869 (continued).

X. "On a Group of Varieties of the Muscles of the Human Neck, Shoulder, and Chest, with their transitional Forms and Homologies in the Mammalia." By JOHN WOOD, F.R.C.S., Examiner in Anatomy at the University of London. Communicated by Dr. SHARPEY, Sec. R.S. Received June 17, 1869.

(Abstract.)

THE muscular varieties described by the author in his paper comprise the occipito-scapular, the levator clavicule, and the cleido-occipital, among the muscles which elevate the scapulo-clavicular bone-arch; the sterno-scapular, the sterno-clavicular, and the scapulo-clavicular, of those which depress it; and the supracostal, placed upon the upper part of the thorax.

The human occipito-scapular was first observed and described by him in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1867. Since that time various developments of muscular slips connected with the splenii, levator anguli scapula, and serrati have been observed, and are described and figured as a series of varieties transitional from the occipito-scapular behind to the levator clavicula in front of the neck. The homology of the occipitoscapular with the levator scapula minor vel posterior of Douglass, the rhomboideus capitis, rhomboïde antérieur of Meckel, and the rhomboïde de la tête of Cuvier, is traced in the different orders of the Mammalia, from direct observation, in the following animals, viz. the Bonnet-Monkey, the Hedgehog, Mole, Dog, Cat, Badger, Weasel, Rabbit, Guineapig, Norway Rat, and Squirrel, of which drawings from dissections accompanied the paper; and also from various authorities in reference to a considerable number of other animals.

The levator claviculæ he described in reference to its animal homologies

VOL. XVIII.

B

in his paper read before the Royal Society in 1864; he has found it in 6 out of 202 subjects. In the present paper the author gives an abstract of the observations of the older and modern anatomists referring to this muscle in the human subject under various names, and enters at length into its homologies in the Mammalia, as described by writers under its synonyms,—the levator scapulæ major vel anterior (Douglass), omo- ou acromio-trachélien (Cuvier and Meckel), acromio-basilar (Vicq d'Azyr), basio-humeralis (Krause), Kopf-Arm-Muskel (Peyer), claviotrachélien (Church), transverso-scapulaire (Strauss-Dürckheim), omoatlanticus (Haughton), and cervico-humeral (Humphry),-illustrating them by drawings from his own dissections. He enters more fully into the discussion of the apparently anomalous composition of the muscle in the Rabbit, gives reasons and comparative illustrations from the Fallowdeer and Ass for considering the seeming doubling of the muscle to result from a peculiar development of the cleido-mastoid in apparent conjunction with it, and considers that the muscle which has gone under the last name in the Rabbit to be really a development of the cleido-occipital.

The cleido-occipital he described in his paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in June 1866; and he has found it since that time in 37 out of 102 subjects. In the present paper he quotes briefly the various anatomists who have described it as part of the sterno-cleido-mastoid or trapezius, and connects it homologically with the muscles which have been described in the claviculate mammalia as a second cleido-mastoid, and in the semiclaviculate as the trapezius clavicularis (“portion cervicale") of that muscle, giving illustrations of its gradual or transitional forms of development from specimens that have come under his own observation, or which have been gathered from the writings of others, as far as to the formation of the compound cephalo-humeral or levator humeri muscle of the Rodents and Carnivora.

The sterno-scapular muscle was first described as a variety in the human subject by the author in his paper published in the 'Proceedings' in 1865; it had been previously described by various anatomists and by himself as a double subclavius, with an insertion into the scapula. In the present paper he briefly quotes these authorities, and shows the various developments of the muscle in animals. In connexion with it he describes a scapuloclavicular variety (first observed by him as a human variety in 1865), and compares it with the human abnormalities described by authors as varieties of the omo-hyoid. It is described by Cuvier as the "scapulo-clavien" in the Rat-mole of the Cape and in the Didelphis marsupialis, and has been found by the author in the Rabbit, Guineapig, Squirrel, and Norway Rat.

He also describes the specimens he has found of the sterno-clavicular muscle, mentions the observers who have before seen it and recognized its homologies, and gives illustrations of its formation in the Rabbit, Guineapig, and other animals.

The supra-costal muscle was first discovered and described and figured

by the author in his paper published in the 'Proceedings' in 1865, and was again noted and recorded by him in 1867; it has also been observed in the human subject by Professor Turner and others, and is considered by the former to be the representative of the rectus thoracicus of animals The author, however, is of opinion that the muscle figured by Cuvier as the sterno-costal in animals is a better fitting homology, and gives in this paper illustrations from his own dissections in animals in support of this view.

XI. "Results of the first year's performance of the Photographically Self-recording Meteorological Instruments at the Central Observatory of the British System of Meteorological Observations." By Lieut.-General EDWARD SABINE, R.A., President. Received June 17, 1869.

Before the Fellows of the Society disperse for the long vacation, I am desirous to bring under their notice the results of the first year's performance (January 1 to December 31, 1868) of the photographically selfrecording meteorological instruments established at Kew, the Central Observatory of the British Meteorological System instituted by the Board of Trade and superintended by a Committee of Fellows of the Royal Society.

The photograms, with tabulations carefully prepared from them, are transmitted monthly by Mr. Stewart, the Superintendent of the Kew Observatory, to Mr. Scott, the Director of the Meteorological Office in London, where the results are computed and embodied in Tables, of the nature of those which are now presented.

The first of these Tables shows the Diurnal Variation, or the values of the phenomena at each of the 24 hours, on the mean of the year. It exhibits 1st. The Temperature.

2nd. The Elasticity of the Aqueous Vapour.

3rd. The Barometric Pressure.

4th. The Pressure of the Dry Air.

5th. The Humidity.

In meteorology and climatology much instruction may often be derived from tracing the modifying influences of diversities of situation; and I have thought that these Tables might be made more acceptable and interesting to the Society, and the subject be advantageously illustrated, by the addition of corresponding results for two other stations, which are very nearly in the same geographical latitude as Kew, but are very differently situated in other respects, being in the interior of the European and Asiatic continent-thoroughly continental therefore, and as such contrasted with our insular British stations. Nertchinsk and Barnaoul, both in Siberia, are two of the stations of the great Russian system of observatories, established by our

late Foreign Member, Mr. A. T. Kupffer, and ably superintended by him for several years until his decease. I had been assured by M. Kupffer that I might thoroughly rely on the observations made at these two stations; and I have since acquired experimentally the fullest confirmation of this assurance in the case of Nertchinsk (as regards the magnetical, and inferentially therefore also as regards the meteorological observations), by the very delicate and sufficient test adverted to in page 238 of Art. VI. in the Phil. Trans. for 1864. Barnaoul is in lat. 53° 20', corresponding with the rough average of the latitudes of our British stations generally, and is 400 feet above the sea. Nertchinsk differs only 10' from the latitude of Kew, but has otherwise a marked feature of diversity in being at an elevation of 2230 feet, whilst Kew is only 34 feet above the sea-level. At Kew we have only as yet available the records of a single year, necessarily influenced by the natural irregularities which cause one year to differ from another. These irregularities are lessened, in the case of the Siberian stations, by combining in the present paper the results of two years of obser

vation.

I may now proceed to the Table of the Diurnal Variations, and to a brief notice of the most salient features presented by the comparative view of the phenomena of the three stations as shown in that Table.

In discussing the diurnal variations of the meteorological elements, it is customary to commence with the temperature, regarding it as in a great degree the governing agent in regulating the phenomena of those other elements which are the subjects of the photographical registration. In the middle latitudes, with which alone we have at present to deal, the diurnal variation of the temperature is recognized as a single progression, having one ascending and one descending branch, the turning-points being a maximum at an early hour in the afternoon, and a minimum at a little before sunrise. We find this to be the order of the phenomena at the three stations under review, viz. a maximum between 2 and 3 hours, and a minimum between 16 and 17 hours (4 and 5 A.M.), the range between the extremes presenting, however, very marked differences, being 10°.7 (Fahr.) at Kew, 14°0 at Barnaoul, and 17°.0 at Nertchinsk.

It has been the practice for the last thirty years, at the principal European observatories, to regard the elastic force of the aqueous vapour as an important meteorological element, and to employ it in the separation of the barometric pressure into its two constituents, viz. the pressure of the dry air, and the elasticity of the aqueous vapour mingled therein*. In conformity with this practice, we may take the vapour tension next in the order of succession. It was remarked by Bessel, in the Astron. Nach. for 1838 (No. 356), that "since the invention of Daniell's hygrometer and August's psychrometer, we possess the means of ascertaining at all times with ease and sufficient exactness the quantity of aqueous vapour contained in the

* In the publications of the British Colonial Observatories (1840-1847) this method was adopted in the meteorological reductions, being one of its earliest applications.

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