1862.] Pfof. Rolleston on the Brain of Man, Sfc, 407 



Scents of various kinds have been examined. Dry air was passed 

 over bibulous paper moistened by the essential oils, and carried into 

 the experimental tube. Small as the amount of matter here entering 

 the tube is known to be, it was found that the absorption of radiant 

 heat by those odours varies from 30 times to 372 times that of the air 

 which formed the vehicle. The speaker remarked that the absorption 

 of terrestrial rays by the odour of a flower-bed may exceed in amount 

 that of the entire oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere above the 

 bed. 



Ozone has also been subjected to examination. The substance was 

 obtained by the electrolysis of water, and from decomposing cells con- 

 taining electrodes of various sizes. Calling the action of the ordinary 

 oxygen, which entered the experimental tube with the ozone unity, the 

 absorption of the ozone itself was in six different experiments, — 21, 36, 

 47, 65, 85, 136. The augmenting action of the ozone accompanied 

 the diminution of the size of the electrodes used in the decomposing 

 cells. Professor Tyndall points out the perfect correspondence of 

 these last results with those of M. Meidinger by a totally different 

 method of experiment. 



[J. T.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, January 24, 1862. 



Thb Rev. John Barlow, M.A. F.R.S. Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



George RoLiiESTON, M.D. 



LINACRB FBOFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, OXFOSD. 



On the Affinities and Differences between the Brain of Man and the 

 Brains of certain Animals, 



The speaker having commenced by giving a short explanation of his 

 diagrams of human and other brains, proceeded to enumerate the several 

 sets of opinions which men might bring with them to an investigation 

 of his subject. It was possible to combine either view of the origin 

 of species with either of the two creeds of the idealist or of the 

 materialist ; and to the four sets of opinions thus made up, a fifth — 

 that of Positivism — must be added. It was not asserted that these 

 conflicting theories could all be true simultaneously ; but the facts to 

 be detailed were elastic enough to bear compression witliin any one of 

 those formulae. 



