256 



NA TURE 



[August 18, 1923 



Societies and Academies. 



Sydney. 



Royal Society of New South Wales, June 6. — Mr. 

 K. 11. Cambagc, president, in the chair. — A. L. 

 Kroeber : Relationship of the Australian languages. 

 Native terms for a number of fundamental concepts, 

 chiefly names of body parts, were transcribed mto 

 a standardised orthography, and the data for each 

 concept were entered on maps. Schmidts' funda- 

 mental separation of South and North Australian 

 languages seems unnecessary. The languages are 

 divided into groikps, 8 southern and 7 northern ; of 

 II stems, each appears in a majority both of northern 

 and southern groups, and each of 22 others in at least 

 two southern and two northern groups. Genetic 

 unity of all Australian languages seems probable. — 

 J. Read and G. J. Burrows : Note on the dilution 

 of ethylenebromohydrin with water. When ethylene- 

 bromohydrin is diluted with water a continuous 

 absorption of heat occurs until a dilution of about 

 80 per cent. ; further dilution from about 75 per cent, 

 to 10 per cent, is attended by a continuous evolution 

 of heat. Upon reversing the process an initial positive 

 thermal effect is followed by a negative thermal effect. 

 The volume of the solution is always less than the 

 combined volumes of the two components : at 20° 

 a maximum contraction of 1-07 per cent, occurs at 

 a concentration of 50-041 per cent., corresponding 

 closely with the ratio iCaHjOBr : 7H2O. Density 

 and viscosity measurements afford no indication of 

 hydrate formation. — G. Taylor : The warped littoral 

 around Sydney. Pt. I. The region within one 

 hundred miles of Sydney is dominated by warps to 

 the north, west, and south. Of these the well-known 

 Blue Mountain monocline is the largest. The area 

 is subdivided into 15 geographic regions symmetrically 

 arranged about an east-west axis through Botany Bay. 

 The central portion forms a " stillstand," bounded 

 to the west by three silt-lakes along the Nepean. 

 The coastal features are also symmetrically arranged. 

 Port Hacking is a geographic parallel to Port Jackson, 

 as lllawarra is to the Tuggerah coast. Sydney is 

 unique in that a city of a milUon people is surrounded 

 on almost all sides (at 50 miles distance) by a belt 

 of country with scarcely an inhabitant. This is a 

 result of geographic controls. — A. R. Penfold and 

 R. Grant : The germicidal values of the principal 

 commercial eucalyptus oils and their pure active con- 

 stituents, with observations on the value of con- 

 centrated disinfectants. From commercial eucalyptus 

 oils, and also the waste products obtained therefrom 

 after rectification, cheap disinfectants having a high 

 germicidal value can be manufactured. The crude 

 oils gave coefficients varying from 5 to 12, while the 

 pure constituents varied from 3-5 up to 22 •5. The 

 germicidal activities of the crude oils is due to certain 

 aldehydes, alcohols, and phenols. — M. Henry and 

 W. L. Hindmarsh : Stypandra glauca (a suspected 

 poison plant). Experiments on thirty -two animals 

 of five species, carried out in five different months 

 and over a space of three years, were entirely negative. 

 Sheep fed solely on Stypandra glauca for twenty-five 

 days remained perfectly healthy. 



Cape Town. 



Royal Society of South Africa, June 20. — Dr. A. 

 Ogg, president, in the chair. — Sir Thomas Muir : Note 

 on the successive differentiation of a product of linear 

 functions. — J. Steph. v. d. Lingen : The differential 

 bactericidal effect of the visible spectrum. The author 



NO. 2807, VOL. 112] 



discussed the results of Bic, Marshall Ward, Downing, 

 and Russ, and also those obtained by Bayne- Jones and 

 himself. In the work of these investigators the tech- 

 nique was to expose a culture for a given time and then 

 to incubate it for 24 hours or more. On the results of 

 the incubation conclusions were drawn with regard to 

 the bactericidal effect of the various regions of the 

 spectrum. The author described a new method for 

 studying the bactericidal effect. Filters were placed 

 in front of a series of small boxes (chalk boxes) each of 

 which contained four nutrient agar slopes. After in- 

 oculating the slopes with bacteria they were placed in 

 the boxes, which fitted into an incubator. In front of 

 the incubator rows of tungsten lamps were placed so 

 that the distribution of light was uniform on the cul- 

 tures. By adjusting the intensity of the light to a 

 suitable value, the inhibitory and' bactericidal effects 

 of the various regions of the spectrum could be studied, 

 as well as the effects of total illumination and total 

 darkness. — J. P. Dalton : On the attraction-coefficient 

 for substances of low critical temperature. Some years 

 ago the author found the dependence of van der Waal's 

 a upon temperature for isopentane using Young's 

 saturation data, but at the time sufficient saturation 

 data were not available for testing the law of depend- 

 ence for other substances. Since then the brilliant 

 researches of Kamerlingh Onnes and his collaborators 

 at Leyden have made available accurate saturation 

 data for other substances of low critical temperature, 

 and their results have been used to determine the con- 

 stants of the above relation for argon, oxygen, nitrogen, 

 and hydrogen. For these four substances a can well 

 be represented as an exponential function of the tem- 

 perature, and the agreement between the values of a 

 calculated from the experimental data and those 

 yielded by an equation of the type log a = a - /3T is ver>' 

 good. — C. W. Mally : X-rays as a means of detecting 

 imperfections in fruit. An effort to find an infallible 

 means of detecting internal defects in export fruit 

 led to a trial with X-rays. Radiographs reveal the 

 internal structure in detail. The ensemble of sound 

 fruit is harmonious, whereas defects cause conflicting 

 shadows to appear in the radiograph. The presence 

 of fungal or bacterial organisms which produce decay 

 is indicated in the radiographs by structural details 

 being more or less obscure. This makes it possible in 

 pathological research to determine with a great deal 

 of certainty whether or not any given fruit that is 

 to serve as a culture medium is sound and also to 

 record the progress of the organisms by means of 

 radiographs at regular intervals. The practical 

 application to fruit inspection depends on satis- 

 factory visibility on the fluoroscopic screen being 

 attainable. 



Official Publications Received. 



Leeds University : Department of Pathology and Bacteriology. 

 Annual Report by Prof. Matthew J. Stewart and Prof. J. W. McLeod. 

 Pp. 11. (Leeds.) 



Board of Scientific Advice for India. Annual Report for the Tear 

 1921-22. Pp. vi+79. (Calcutta : Government Printing Office.) 1 rupee. 



Department of the Interior : Bureau of Education. BnlletiD, 1923, 

 No. 7 : Educational Work of the Young Men's Christian Association. 

 By William F. Hirsch. Pp. 25. 5 cents. Bulletin, 1923, No. 9 : Super- 

 vision of One-Teacher Schools. By Maud C. .Vewbury. Pp. iii4-55. 

 10 cents. Bulletin, 1923, No. 23 : The Social Studies in Civic Education. 

 By Edgar Dawson. Pp. 16. 5 cents. (Washington : Government 

 Printing Office.) 



1-szy Zjazd Chemik6w Polskich w Warszawie, 3-6 kwietnin roku 

 1923. Pp. xxiv+64. (Warszawa.) 



Roczniki Chenyi : organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Chemicznego. Poc 

 redakcja Prof. Jana Zawidzkiego. Rocznik 1921. Tom 1, Zeszyt 1-3. 

 Pp. 177. Tom 1, Zeszyt 4-6. Pp. 178-337. Tom 1, Zeszyt 7-9. Pp. 

 338-4S7. Rocznik 1922. Tom 2, Zeszyt 1-3. Pp. 106. Tom 2, Zeszyt 

 4-6. Pp. 107-336. (Warszawa.) 



