PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15715, 7 September 1911, Page 8

PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE.

The Canterbury Philosophical Institute met last evening, Mr A. M. Wright presiding. There was a large attendance.

Mr R. Speight delivered an address on 1 Bogs and their Bearing on Climate. ’ He said that he wished to lay stress more on the geological aspect than on the botanical. There were proofs, lie said, that the climate of the South Pole had been a good deal naimer than it was now. It had been suggested that the coal seams might have been formed by drift-wood, but it seemed that they were due to plants growing in the Antarctic. Unfortunately , accurate meteorological records had been kept for only a few years altkough records had been kept in Paris in 1691, and there were general records from monasteries dating hack to the middle ages. Records clearly showed the existence of definite cycles of deficiency and excess of rainfall in Europe and Asia and in other parts of the world. In Canterbury the average rainfall was 26in pe r annum, but in the eleven years before 1868 there was an excess, the rainfall being SOin and later a deficiency. Mr Speight dealt at length with the construction of bogs and their properties. With the aid of magic lantern views, lie showed the constituents of bogs in the Orkney Islands, the south of Scotland and Sweden, and by the strata traced the variations in climate. He urged in conclusion, that investigations'should be made into the New Zealand bogs promptly, before they were disturbed, and he expressed his pleasure at the manner in which Mr 11. G. Ell, M.P., had taken up the matter. A motion of thanks, proposed bv Dr Cockayne nnd seconded by Dr Chilton, was carried. Mr E. R. Waite delivered a pape r on “ The Modification of Deep Sea Fishes to suit their environment.” He showed a number of views of fishes, and explained various characteristics. Dr Chilton’s “ Notes on Crustaceans ” wore taken as read, but he remarked that ho had obtained proof of the fact that wood-lice would bore into stone. He .exhibited a stone that had been attacked hv wood-lica.