Arsenic in River Water 185 



Mr. Paget mentioned that a patient, whose tongue he had 

 recently excised, was nevertheless able to speak articulately 

 within twenty-four hours after the operation. 



Dec. i6th, 2o6th meeting. Mr. Grove called attention to 

 some recent changes in the planet Jupiter, the south pole, 

 usually dark, having become brilliantly light. This was 

 succeeded by a dark belt variegated with light ; afterwards 

 by an extremely bright belt where it was usually dark. 



Dr. W. A. Miller read a letter from Dr. Robinson l giving 

 an account of the progress made with the new telescope 

 which Mr. Grubb (now Sir Howard), of Dublin, was con- 

 structing for the Royal Society. 



1870. Jan. 27th, 2oyth meeting. Mr. Evans exhibited 

 a stone implement discovered in gravel on Southampton 

 Common 180 feet above the level of the river Itchen. 2 



Mr. Grove referred to a paper recently published in Nature 3 

 by Mr. Barrett, and made some remarks on the correspon- 

 dence between the spectrum of light and the gamut of sound. 



Sir R. Murchison spoke of Mr. Hayward's recent travels 

 in Kaschgar and Yarkand, saying that he was now preparing 

 to explore the table-land of Pamir, which had not been 

 visited since the days of Marco Polo. 



Sir B. Brodie called attention to a recently invented 

 mechanical process for separating the starch and gluten of 

 rice and other flour. 



Feb. 24th, 2o8th meeting. Professor Frankland said that 

 river water contained an appreciable quantity of arsenic. 

 In Lancashire he attributed it to the iron pyrites used in 

 the alkali works, and had estimated that thus 1500 or 1600 

 tons of arsenic were introduced yearly into Great Britain, 

 He had found the metal in the London sewage at Barking 

 to the amount of 0-004 in 100,000 parts, and accounted for 



1 Dr. Thomas Romney Robinson (1797-1882), Fellow of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, in charge of the Armagh Observatory, F.R.S., and distinguished 

 for his physical and astronomical writings. 



2 Implements from this locality, perhaps including the one mentioned 

 above, are described in J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain 

 (ed. ii.), pages 613-5. 



3 W. F. Barrett, Nature, vol. i. page 286. 



