PRIZE QUESTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 441 



taiiid to request that reponses may be made hefore the first of January, 

 1864:* 



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

 the morphological elements of the. blood of vertebrate animals. 



2. The tribes which people the interior of certain larg'e islands of 

 the Indian archipelago, and which have been designated by the name 

 of Alfours or Horaforas, are not yet adequately known. The society 

 invites a critical review of all that travellers have reported on this 

 subject, and an analytical parallel as well between the tribes belong- 

 ing to different localities as between the Alfours and Papuans. The 

 value of this work would, in the view of the society, be greatly en- 

 hanced if accompanied by new researches on the skull and other parts 

 of the bodies of individuals pertaining to the races in question. 



3. The society solicits anatomico-physiological researches on the 

 organs of sight in the echinoderms, with especial reference to recent 

 discoveries on the subject of these organs in the asteria. 



4. Microscopical researches are required on the phenomena which 

 accompany the disappearance of certain organs, such as the gills, the 

 tail, and the crest, during the metamorphosis of batrachia. The so- 

 ciety desires that all these phenomena, especially all the modifications 

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

 and figured with care. 



5. A description of the organs which have been denominated 

 rudimentary organs in animals, and a discussion, as well of the con- 

 sequences to be deduced from those organs in regard to the natural 

 affinities of animals, as of the presumptions to which they lead, re- 

 specting the mode of the development of animal life on the earth. 



6. M. Person believes that he has discovered a law which con- 

 nects the latent heat of fusion of a substance wdth its point of fusion 

 and its calorific capacity in a solid and a liquid state. Tlie society, 

 thinking that this law is not supported by a sufficient number of well- 

 verified facts, desires that it should be submitted anew to a rigorous 

 examination. 



7. The researches of Dale and of Gladstone have particularly 

 fixed the attention of physicists on the changes which the indices of 

 the refraction of liquids undergo from changes of temperature. The 

 society attaches great value to the knowledge of the relation between 

 the index of refraction and the temperature, convinced as it is that 

 this knowledge would clear up other very interesting points of the 

 theory of light. It desires, consequently, a series of very exact re- 

 searches on these changes in pure liquids and in solutions. 



8. Physicists are not agreed with respect to the cause of the 

 movement of the ball in the electrical experiment of M. Gore. It is 

 to be wished that this cause should be placed beyond doubt by new 

 and decisive experiments. 



9. The researches of M. Du Moncel have proved that the electric 

 light developed in certain circumstances by the apparatus of Ruhm- 



* It will be seen that the following questions are given on preceding pages, but it has 

 been thought advisable to let them stand as in the original. 



