PRIZE QUESTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 439 



old strata which form the true nou-volcanic formation of the ishmd, or 

 whether it is the production of non coherent matters cast out by the 

 volcano and accumulated around a crater. 



10. The society requests the history of the development and life 

 of the morphological elements of the blood of vertebrated animals. 



11. The tribes who people the interior of some of the great islands 

 of the Indian archipelago are not yet sufficiently known; they are 

 called by the name of Alfours or Horaforas. The society . requests 

 a critical review of all that travellers have reported on the subject, 

 and a descriptive parallel alike between those tribes, in different 

 localities, and between the Alfours and the Papuans. The value of 

 the work would be greatl}^ increased in the estimation of the society 

 if it were accompanied by new observations upon the skull and other 

 parts of the bodies of individuals belonging to these tribes. 



12. The society solicits auatomico-pliysiological researches upon 

 the organs of sight in the Echinoderms, with especial reference to the 

 recent discoveries on the subject of these organs in the asteries. 



13. The society requests exact microscopic researches upon the 

 phenomena which accompany the disappearance of some organs, as 

 the gills, the tail, and the crest, during the metamorphosis of 

 the batracians. All the phenomena, especially the modification in 

 the vessels which accompany them, should be observed, described, 

 and carefully figured. 



14. The society requests a description of the organs which have 

 been termed the rudimentary organs in animals, and a discussion alike 

 of the consecpiences deducible therefrom with respect to the natural 

 affinities of the animals, and of what those organs allow us to pre- 

 sume as to the mode of the development of animal life upon the 

 earth. 



15. M. Person believes that he has found a law which connects the 

 latent heat of the fusion of a substance with its point of fusion and 

 with its calorific capacity in both the liquid and solid states. The 

 society, deeming that this law is not supported by a sufficient number 

 of facts thoroughly proved, desires that it be again subjected to a 

 strict examination. 



16. The researches of Dale and Gladstone have particularly fixed 

 the attention of men of science upon the changes that the indices of 

 refraction of liquids undergo by changes of temperature. The society 

 attaches great importance to the knowledge of the relation between 

 the indices of refraction and the temperature, from its conviction 

 that this knowledge may tend to elucidate many other very interest- 

 ing points in the theory of light. The society therefore demands a 

 series of very exact researches upon these changes in pure liquids 

 and solutions. 



IT. Physicists are not agreed upon the cause of the motion of the 

 ball in Mr. Gore's electrical experiment. It is urged that that cause 

 should be put beyond doubt by new and decisive experiments. 



18. The researches of M. Du Moncel show that the electric light de- 

 veloped under certain circumstances by Ruhmkorflf's apj^aratus con- 



