June 15, 1911] 



NATURE 



541 



S. are very largely oolitic, conspicuous white oolite pre- 

 vailing at the top of Cj. There is much oolite in the 

 upper part of S,. An important point is the prominent 

 part played by foraminifera, which are the principal lime- 

 stone-builders in Cj, S,, and much of S,. In the upper 

 part of S^, p>eculiar concretionary limestones, showing 

 imperfect " Cotham-Marble " structure, occur. The 

 Burrington section agrees with the other sections in show- 

 ing dolomitisation in the upper C, beds. 



juiuiicitii aucicty, June i. — Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair.- — ^Prof. W. A. Herdman : The 



recent occurrence (April) of the minute dinoflagellate 

 Amphidinium operculatutn, Clap, and Lachm., at Port 

 Erin in the Isle of Man, in such profusion as to discolour 

 the sand between tide-marks in patches extending on 

 some days for many yards. A. operculatum has been re- 

 corded from several places on the coasts of Europe and 

 America, but has apparently not been previously found in 

 Britain. — 'Dr. A. Smith WoodiMarci : The fauna of the 

 Carboniferous period, so far as it has been discovered in 

 the same deposits as the Carboniferous flora. The fauna 

 Agrees with the flora in consisting, for the most part, of 

 highly specialised representatives of the lower groups, but 

 is singularly modern in some respects. Some of the fresh- 

 water and land MoUusca are scarcely distinguishable from 

 genera still existing. All the crustaceans are of primitive 

 groups, and some of the most interesting are related to 

 Anaspides, which still survives in Tasmania. The myria- 

 pods, scorpions, and spiders are similar to those of later 

 date, but a few of the scorpions retain obvious remnants 

 of the characters of their aquatic ancestors. Limuloids 

 also occur. Inserts arc numerous, but all belong to the 

 lower groups in which there is no complete metamor- 

 phosis, and there are many generalised types which can 

 scarcely be referred to existing orders. Cockroaches arc 

 numerous, but have transparent fore-wings. rriinitivi> 

 dragon-flies occur, and some of these are the largest 

 known insects, with a span of wings measuring 2 feet. 

 Among fishes, the spiny acanthodian sharks, which are 

 typically Lower Palaeozoic, are still found in the Carbon- 

 iferous fauna, and are known to have been preyed upon 

 by the higher fishes. The pleuracanth sharks are charac- 

 teristic of the period, and interesting as showing a more 

 generalised vertebrate skeleton than any later fishes, 

 'ihe cochliodont sharks with grinding teeth appear to be 

 closely related to the existing Cestracion, but have many 

 of the teeth fused into extensive plates. Some of the 

 sharp-toothed sharks also seem to have had their teeth 

 fused into rigid masses. The highest fishes are the 

 palaeoniscids and platysomids, which exhibit all the funda- 

 mental characters of the present-day sturgeons, obscured 

 beneath a normal covering of ganoid head-plates and 

 scales. Large dipnoan fishes are numerous, and differ 

 little from CeratoKlus. except in showing traces of the 

 separate points of which their dental plates are composed. 

 Most important are the crossopterygian fishes, of which 

 Rhizodus and Megalichthys are typical genera. These 

 fishes make a closer approach to the earliest lung-breathers 

 than any fishes which have existed before or since. Lung- 

 breathers were certainly in existence just before the 

 beginning of the Carboniferous period, and all seem to 

 belong to a very primitive group of Amphibia, variously 

 termed Stegocephalia or Labyrinthodontia in allusion to 

 the complete roofing of their cheeks by bone and to the 

 complicated structure of their teeth. In their possession 

 of supra-temporal plates and often of post-temporal bones, 

 as also in the marking of their superficial bones by the 

 course of the slime-canals, these amphibians more closely 

 resemble fishes than any later members of the order. 

 Towards the end of the Carboniferous period some of the 

 smaller Stegocephalia, the so-called Microsauria, seem to 

 have passed into true reptiles very similar to the surviving 

 Sphenodon or Hatteria. 



Mathematical Society, June 8. — Dr. II. V. Baker, 

 president, and temporarily Mr. J. E. Campbell, vice-presi- 

 dent, in the chair.— Dr. H. F. Baker: The roots of 

 multiple functions.— G. H. Hardy : The multiplication 

 of Dirirhlet's series.— G. 11. Hardy and J. E. Littla- 

 woo«1 : The range of Borel's method of summ.ntion of 

 series. — Dr. W. H. Younar : The convergence of I'oinir 



NO. 2172, VOL. 86] 



series and of the allied series. — W, M. Paare : Some two- 

 dimensional problems in electrostatics and hydrodynamics. 

 — Prof. W. Burnside : The determination of all groups of 

 rational linear substitutions of finite order which contain 

 the symmetric group in the variables. — Dr. \V. H. 

 Young : The nature of the successions formed by the 

 coefficients of a Fourier series. — Lieut. -Colonel A. 

 Cunningrham : Note on Mersenne's numbers. — Prof. 

 A. E. H. Love and Dr. T. J. I'A. Bromwwich : The 

 conditions that a homogeneous strain may be reducible 

 to a plane strain and an extension at right angles to the 

 plane. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, jviay 22. — Sir George Darwin, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S., president, in the chair.— Prof. Pope 

 and J. Read : Attempts to resolve asymmetric nitrogen 

 compounds of low molecular weight. — Dr. Fenton and 

 W. A. R. Wilks : " Aldehydo-glyceric " acid. All of the 

 eleven possible direct oxidation products of glycerol are 

 now known with the exception of tartronic dialdehyde, 

 hydroxypyruvic aldehyde, and one other. The latter is 

 either hydroxypyruvic acid or tartronic semi-aldehyde 

 (aldehydo-glyceric acid). One of these is Wills's acid, 

 which is obtained from nitro-cellulose by the action of 

 alkalis, but, owing to the contradictory evidence of 

 difi^erent observers, its constitution still remains uncertain. 

 An acid having the same composition, but different proper- 

 ties, is formed by the oxidation of glyceric acid in presence 

 of iron, and probably by the initial decomposition of 

 dihydroxymaleic acid. The present authors have now 

 succeeded in isolating this acid, and are making experi- 

 ments with the view of establishing its constitution. — 

 S. Ruhemann : Triketohydrindene hydrate. — ^J. E. 

 Purvis, McHattle, and Fisher : The non-nitrification of 

 sewage in sea water. Systematic chemical and bacterial 

 investigations on the decomposition of sewage in sea 

 water have been described in researches previously pub- 

 lished. The results proved that sewage undergoes slow 

 decomposition jn sea water, and the primary cause appears 

 to be the rapid destruction of the nitrifying organisms. 

 To meet the criticism that the method of incubation 

 partially eliminated the oxygen necessary for the growth 

 of the nitrifying organisms, the authors have passed dry 

 air, and containing no COj, through various mixtures of 

 sewage and sea water for more than seven weeks. The 

 mixtures were examined from time to time for the two 

 ammonias and for nitrites and nitrates. Neither nitrites 

 nor nitrates were found at any time, and the total ammonia 

 was only slightlv decreased. The results confirm the 

 earlier researches,' and that even when abundant oxygen 

 is there no nitrification occurs in sewage when mixed with 

 sea water. — H. O. Jonee and C. S. Robinson : Complex 

 thio-oxalates. Salts of nickel, cobalt, iron, and palladium 

 form complexes with salts of dithio-oxalic acid, which 

 show intense colours even in dilute solution. Several salts 

 of nickelo-dithio-oxalic acid, Ni(CSO),H,, with metals and 

 organic bases, have been isolated, and also several salts 

 of the corresponding palladio acid, Pd(CSO),H,. The 

 salts of the cobalt acid with metals and with organic bases 

 correspond to the formula Co(CSO), I ' -^.ilti-dithio- 



oxalic acid.— J. A. Crowther : (i) Fn riments on 



scattered Rontgen radiation ; (2) tho enr^rgy of the 

 scattered Rontgen radiation from different radiators. 

 Experiments have been made to determine the relative 

 amounts of Rontgen radiation scattered by equal masses 

 of different substances. It has been found that the amount 

 so scattered is not independent of the nature of the 

 radiator, but increases with the atomic weight.— R. 

 Whiddinston : The production of characteristic Rontgen 

 radiations.- A. LI. Hurhes : The velocities of the 

 electrons produced by ultra-violet light.— F. Morton ; 

 (i) The origin of spectra ; (2) the positive ionisation pro- 

 duced bv phosphates when heated. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, June 6.— M. Armand Gautier in 

 the chair.— H. Deelandres : Complementary remarks on 

 the weak magnetic fields of the solar atmosphere.— Emile 

 Picard : A general theorem on integral equations of the 

 third species.— A. Laveran : The unhealthiness of Corsica 



and the possibilities of imp-" "'" '"^'' a"»hor 



,,ni.!i..<ises the necessity of th. ^truction of 



