l62 



NATURE 



\yune 15, 1876 



absolute moisture is less on the ground than a few feet above it. 

 The chief results obtained by Dr. Rubenson during the summer 

 of 187 1, by a method of observation differing from that of Dr. 

 Hamberg, may be summed up as follows : — Before the fall 

 of dew the absolute moisture continues to increase and is 

 greatest on the ground, diminishing with height. As soon as 

 dew begins to fall, moisture decreases on the surface of the 

 ground, and this decrease keeps pace with the decrease of tem- 

 perature. The decrease of moisture extends upwards rather 

 rapidly, and can be detected at four feet just after the first depo- 

 sition of dew. On the ground the decrease per hour amounts to 

 a maximum of about o 73 mm,, while half a foot above it the 

 decrease only reaches 0"65 mm., which is less than one corre- 

 sponding to the lowering of temperature. The higher the in- 

 s' lament the later does the decrease of moisture show itself, and 

 the less the change per hour. It appears that owing to a fall of 

 temperature on the ground, the air imnediately above it becomes 

 saturated, dew falls, and temperature and moisture diminish. 

 At a certain point, owing either to diffusion or a descending 

 current, fresh vapour supplies the place of that condensed as 

 dew, and part of the loss of each stratum is successively made 

 up by the moister stratum above it, but not the whole, for the 

 diminution continues in all the strata. Time being required for 

 the propagation of the decrease upwards, the lowest stratum 

 loses more of its moisture than any of the strata above it. 



Zeitschrift fiir Wissenschafcliche Zooloqie, 1875. 2nd Supple^ 

 ment. — This part contains a memoir by Oscar Schmidt, on the 

 embryology of calcareous sponges, in which Haeckel's observa- 

 tions and conclusions are attacked, and his Gastraea theory is 

 destroyed, as far as calcareous sponges are concerned. Unfor- 

 tunately, at a critical point Oscar Schmidt failed to follow his 

 embryos, and the real purport of his observations remained un- 

 certain until the publication of ScJmlze's researches hereafter 

 mentioned. — Dr. William Marshall contributes a long memoir 

 on the hexactinellid sponges, figuring and describing new spe- 

 cies, with their characteristic spicula. His most interesting new 

 form is one in which the central cavities of the spicula coalescing 

 to form the meshes of the skeleton become perfectly continuous 

 by their protoplasmic contents. 



The 3rd Supplement (1875) commences with F. E. Schulze's 

 memoir above referred to, on the structure and development of 

 Sycandra raphanus. His beautiful figures give the various stages 

 of segmentation, and the arrangement of the segmentation 

 spheres into groups of different sizes, one set of these giving 

 rise to the invagination by which the Gastrula form is consti- 

 tuted. This sponge is now accepted by Haeckel as exemplifying 

 his Amphiblastic type, while other calcareous sponges form 

 archiblastic embryos, in which the segmentation spheres remain 

 similar to one another until after the Gastrula is formed. — 

 August Weissmann contributes a philosophical paper on the 

 transformation of the Axolotl into Amblystomas. He believes 

 that this transformation is to be regarded as a retrogression, and 

 that the present Axolotl represents a former Amblystoma whose 

 structure has been modified by changed conditions of life. — 

 Prof. Nitsche continues his valuable memoirs on the Bryozoa, 

 the present instalment being devoted to the process of gemnia« 

 tion. He shows that all the structures in the new zooid are 

 produced from the ectoderm of the parent, and insists on the 

 important morphological consequences of this fact, while depre- 

 cating the precise schemes of embryogeny and phylogeny now 

 so much ni voeue. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, May 11. — On Simultaneous Barometric 

 Variations in India, by J. A. Broun, F.R.S. — After Pascal 

 showed that the mercury in the barometer tube stands lower at 

 the top than at the foot of a mountain because the mass of air 

 above the barometer is less in the former than in the latter case, 

 it was a natural conclusion that the variations in the height of 

 the mercury observed with a stationary barometer are due to 

 the same cause. Various hypotheses have been proposed to 

 explain how the aerial mass is increased or diminished, none of 

 which, however, can satisfy the facts now known, being either 

 insufficient or untrue. The author, after referring to the latest 

 of these hypotheses, gives results which he has deduced from 

 observations made at three stations in India ; namely, at Simla, 

 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, on a spur of the Hima- 



layas, at Madras, and at Singapore, near the sea-level, the last 

 being 2,700 miles from the first, and 1,800 miles from the second 

 station. 



When the daily mean height of the barometer is taken, a large 

 movement is found occupying nearly twenty-six days, a move- 

 ment attributed by the author to the sun's rotation on his axis ; 

 but it is the smaller oscillations of the daily mean atmospheric 

 pressure, the secondary maxima and minima, which are espe- 

 cially examined. The present discussion has been limited to 

 three months, during which there were eighteen of these maxima 

 and minima. The author finds that the mean interval between 

 the times of maximum pressure at any two stations is less than 

 seventeen hours, and between the times of minimum pressure 

 less than ten hours. In four out of eight cases of minima the 

 lowest pressure was attained at all the three stations within six 

 hours. The results of these comparisons is shown to extend 

 even to St. Helena. 



It was pointed out that though in general maxima and 

 minima happened at the three stations near the same hour, there 

 were one or two marked exceptions to the rule ; one of these, 

 a fa]l in the height of the mercury of three-tenths of an inch 

 within thirty-six hours, at Simla, was not perceived at any of the 

 other stations. This, the greatest of all the disturbances of atmo- 

 spheric equilibrium during the period examined, was shown to be 

 connected with a great thunderstorm at Simla (not felt at the 

 other places), ana was thus due to a local cause, while the other 

 variations, some of about one-thirtieth the amount of that just 

 mentioned, happened nearly simultaneously over an area of 

 at least a million square miles. 



The au'hor suggests that another cause is required to explain 

 these facts than variations of mass through thermic or other 

 actions, the whole climatic conditions being different at the 

 various stations ; in other words, that the attraction 0/ gravitation 

 is not the only attractive force concerned hi the variations of 

 atmospheric pressure. 



Linnean Society, May 24. — Annual General Meeting. — 

 Prof. Alhnan, F. R.S., president, in the chair. — There were pre- 

 sented by Mrs. J. J. Bennett, and a vote of thanks accorded, 

 thiee medal«, memorials of Linnaeus — one of silver, struck in 

 1746, given by Linnajus to Haller in exchange for his portrait; 

 one of gold, dated 1747, struck at the expense of Count Tessin ; 

 and a large silver one, deiigned by Lynberger, struck by com- 

 mand of the King of Sweden in commemoration of the death of 

 Linnaeus, Jan. 10, 1778. — Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, treasurer, read 

 his statement of the accounts, &c., of the Society for the year 

 1875. These showed its financial position to be very favour- 

 able, and, indeed, prosperous. The increase in the number of 

 Fellows was very marked, and everything augured the So- 

 ciety's retaining their well-earned reputation and usefulness as a 

 scientific body. — The President then delivered his anniversary 

 address, choosing as a topic the department of biology, treating 

 of those remarkable forms, the border-land between vegetable 

 and animal life. He began by allusion to De Bary's researches 

 on Myxomyceles and its curious transformations ; then referred 

 in detail to Cienkowski's remarkable observations on Vampy- 

 rella and the marine sarcodous organisms, Labyrinthuloe. 

 Dr. Archer's Chlamydomyxa, Haeckel's Myxastrum, and Ma- 

 gosphaerica, were each passed in review, and a comparison of 

 all these forms entered into, with their peculiar phases and rela- 

 tions to each other. He observed that in them protoplasm was 

 reduced to its simplest nature, evincing what might be con- 

 sidered vegetative or animal life, according to stage, &c. He 

 summed up by regarding life as a property of protoplasm, but 

 very different from conscience and will, or indeed any of the psy- 

 chological phenomena. The following Fellows were elected into 

 the Council : — ^J. G. Baker, Dr. W. P. Carpenter, Henry Lee, 

 Prof. W. K. Parker, and S.J. A. Salter, M.B., in the room of 

 the subjoined, who retired : W. T. T. Dyer, J. E. Harting, W. 

 P. Hiern, M.B., Dr. J. D. Hooker, C.B., and J. J. Weir. 



Chemical Society, May 18. — Prof. Abel, F.R.S., president, 

 in the chair. — A paper on hemine hematine and a phosphorised 

 substance contained in blood corpuscles, by Dr. J. L. Thudichum 

 and Mr. C. T. Kingzett, was read by the latter. — Prof. W. N. 

 Hartley then made a communication on the natural carbon 

 dioxide from various sources, being a continuation and extension 

 of his former paper on the presence of liquid carbonic anhydride 

 in the cavities of quartz and other minerals. — Mr Kingzett sub- 

 sequently read a note on some trials of Frankland and Arm- 

 strong's combustion process in vacuo, by Dr. Thudichum and 

 himself. — Mr. T. Fairley gave a short account of three papers en 



