Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 1.djvu/72

Rh trary, punctures, dimples, and a poor appearance of the luminous clouds, the absence of ridges, nodules, large openings, and flats, de- note a spare emission of heat, and may induce us to expect severe seasons.

Pursuing this last idea, Dr. Herschel subjoins, at the end of his paper, a comparative view of the best accounts that are to be met with of the appearances of the sun at particular periods as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, with the state of the sea- sons during the same periods. Of the latter, the best information could only be gathered from the state of vegetation, particularly of corn, of the price of which registers have been kept many years back: and though this price be by no means an accurate criterion of the quantity of corn produced, yet it is recurred to as the least objec- tionable that could be obtained. The result of this review actually leads to the conclusion, that the price of wheat has constantly risen during the time the sun has been without spots; and that it has always fallen when those spots began to re-appear.

The Doctor seems aware of some fallacy in this mode of argumen- tation; but he adds some hints by which several of the objections might, he thinks, be obviated.

The author on a former occasion laid before the Society an account of certain peculiarities in the growth of the grinding teeth of the Sus æthiopicus, and pointed out the similarity of their structure to that of the elephant. Having since discovered that a like resemblance extends also to the dentition of the wild boar, though in a less degree, and at a later period of life, he is pleased to communicate to the Society, in his present paper, some further remarks on this cu- rious subject.

We here learn, that in the species of the Sus, the first or tempo- rary grinders are sixteen in number; viz. four in each side of the upper, and as many in the under jaw; that these are shed in the usual manner; and that their places are supplied by larger teeth, rising from the substance of the jaw, immediately under the old ones; that before these first teeth are shed, one of the more permanent grinders is formed in the posterior part of each jaw, which, although it be in its place with the first set, is yet to be considered as belong- ing to the second; that besides these five teeth, the rudiments of a sixth are formed in each jaw, which afterwards grows larger than the preceding ones, the jaw increasing in size, so as to make room for this as the posterior grinder; that this tooth, when perfect, is double the size of the other grinders, its masticating surface having eight fangs, so that it very much resembles two large grinding teeth in- corporated into one; that, in time, the rudiments of a seventh tooth