440 



NA TURE 



{March 30, 1876 



Anthropological Institute, March 14. — Col. A. Lane'Fox, 



president, in the chair. — Mr. Stanbridge, of Daylesford, Victoria, 

 exhibited and presented a collection of stone implements from 

 Australia. It consisted of some axe heads, a mounted stone 

 spear head, some wallongs, or grinding stones, and a Yowiwi, or 

 large flat stone, on which the Nardoo seed is ground. A large 

 stone implement, supposed to be for digging, was also lent. 

 The president considered this last was an unfinished tool which 

 would have been reduced in size if finished ; but it had been used 

 apparently in its present state, one of the ends being much 

 rubbed. — Capt. Melford Campbell, President of Nevis, exhi- 

 bited some stone implements. One of these, a knife or dagger, 

 from Honduras, is \o\ inches long, and made of a thick flake of 

 buff coloured chert of a fine amber hue ; similar but smaller 

 specimens from the same place are already in the Christy col- 

 lection. Three polished Celts, from Turk's and Cairo Islands 

 were shown by Capt. Campbell. — Mr. H. H. Howorth read a 

 paper on the Samatse, which was followed by a discussion. — Mr, 

 H. Dillon, the Director, read a translation by Capt. R. F. 

 Burton, of two letters from H. B. M.'s Vice-Consul at Lissa, 

 H. Topich, on some human remains recently found in the Island 

 of Pelagosa. 



Meteorological Society, March 15.— Mr. H. S. Eaton, 

 M. A., president, in the chair. — R. Trout Hawley Bartley, M.D., 

 John Wuford Budd, Lieutenant- Colonel George E. Bulger, W. 

 Brown Clegram, M.Inst. C.E., J. SanfordDyason, JohnEunson, 

 Assoc. Inst. C.E., Thomas W. Grindle, Assoc. Inst. C.E., Major 

 F. Bonnycastle Gritton, Junius Hardwicke, F.R.C.S., Alfred 

 O. Walker, and the Rev. E. William Watts, M.A., were duly 

 elected Fellows of the Society. — The following papers were then 

 read : — On the Rhe-electrometre of Marianoni, by Robert James 

 Mann, F.R.A.S. — On the variation of errors in hydrometers, 

 by R. Strachan. — On the deduction of mean results from meteo- 

 rological observations, by L. F. Kantz (translated from the 

 Repertorium Jiir Meteorologie, by J. S. Harding). — Summary of 

 observations made at Stanley, Falkland Islands, during 1875, 

 by F. E. Cobb. — Contributions to the Meteorology of West 

 Australia, by R. H. Scott, F.R.S. 



Victoria (Philosophical) Institute, March 20. — A paper 

 was read upon the flint implements found in Brixham Cavern, in 

 wliich the author, Mr. Whitley, alluded to the statements of 

 Mr. Pengelly, whose active superintendence of the exploration 

 of the cavern under the auspices of the Royal and Geological 

 Societies was deserving of the warmest thanks of all geologists. 

 Mr. Whitley complained that the Report of the Royal Society 

 and the specimens had been allowed to lie by for fifteen years 

 before being published and rendered accessible to the public. 

 The consequence was, that for a long time theories having no 

 foundation in fact had been promulgated as to these specimens, 

 and several statements in regard to Brixham Cavern and its con- 

 tents had been made in well-known geological works, which did 

 not accord either with the recent Report of the Royal Society or 

 Mr. Pengelly's subsequent one. 



Institution of Civil Engineers, March 21. — Mr. Geo, 

 Robert Stephenson, president, in the chair. — The paper read was 

 descriptive of the hydraulic canal lift at Anderton, on the River 

 Weaver, by Mr. Sidengham Duer, B.Sc, Assoc. Inst. C.E, 



Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, March 20, — Vice- Admiral Paris in 

 the chair. — The following papers were read : — On the first 

 method of Jacobi for integration of equations with partial deriva- 

 tives of the first order, by M. Bertrand. — On the inferior limit 

 which should be set to admission of steam into a steam-engine, 

 by M. Resal. — On the storms called y^^,^« in Switzerland, by M. 

 Faye. These occur in certain parts, when a cyclone from the 

 south-west meets the Alps ; instead of showers and fall of tem- 

 perature, the wind blows hotly and dryly ; there is also a marked 

 barometric depression. Around the special region the tempest 

 produces its ordinary effects. The facts are explained by the 

 gyratory descent of a mass of air, deprived by the mountains of 

 the cirrhus which whirlwinds formed in the upper regions usually 

 carry downwards. Now it is objected against M. Faye's theory 

 of storms that a descending current should give a barometric 

 maximum ; but here, with manifest descent, there is a minimum. 

 The barometric depression (both in the foshn and the ordinary 

 storm) is a simple consequence of the gyratory movement, not 

 the index of a strong suction excited from above on the inferior 

 layers. — Note on an apparatus for determining the intensity 

 and the law of development of pressures in the bore of guns 



with reference to the time, by M, Morin. The gaseous pressure 

 is caused to press out a metallic jet of tin, the length of which 

 increases with the pressure with sufficient regularity (each milli- 

 metre corresponds to about 237 kilogrammes of pressure per 

 square centimetre). A piston is in contact with the tin cylinder, 

 and a pencil at the end of its rod gives a tracing on a chrono- 

 metric apparatus. — Determinations of nitrates and of ammonia 

 in the water of the Seine, made on i8ih March, 1876, above the 

 bridge of Austerlitz, by M. Boussingault. — On the volume of the 

 Seine, and the flood of 17th March, 1876, by M. Belgrand. 

 This flood is the third highest in this century (the highest was in 

 1802). The Seine, in its greatest flood, gives fifty-two times 

 more water than at low water . — On the spectrum of calcium, by 

 Mr. Lockyer. — Actmometric measurements on the summit of 

 Mont Blanc, by M. Violle (he will shortly give his results).- — On 

 the next hatching of winter eggs of Phylloxera ; note by M. Bal- 

 biani. — Physiological action of Amanita muscaria, general phe- 

 nomena of the poisoning ; effects on organs of circulation and 

 respiration, and disorders of calorification, by M. Alison, inter alia, 

 the lowering of temperature by this substance, and the restora- 

 tion to normal temperature with atropine are important. — On the 

 means employed for education and instruction of deaf mutes, by 

 the method of articulation, by M. Magnat. — Impossibility of the 

 equation jr^ + ^^ + s^ = o, by M. Pepin. — On the behaviour of 

 chronometers, by M, Rouyaux. — Geometrical solution of the 

 problem of determining the most probable place of a ship by 

 means of any number of straight lines of altitude greater than 2, 

 by M. Bertot, — Influence of temperature on magnetisation, by 

 M. Gaugain, The new facts given are briefly these : — When a 

 steel bar in contact with a magnetic pole is gradually heated to 

 a blue tint, the magnetism first increases, reaches a maximum, 

 then decreases. The bar being allowed to cool while in contact, 

 the total magnetism increases all the time, so that, when the bar 

 has cooled to the surrounding temperature, it has much greater 

 magnetism than before heating. The total magnetism of the 

 bar, brought back to ordinary temperature, is greater the more 

 the bar has been heated (at least under the temperature giving a 

 blue tint). After breaking contact of the cooled bar for a few 

 seconds it loses a part, but not all, of the increase of magnetism 

 that resulted from heating. — On a rock intercalated in the gneiss 

 of the Mantiqueira, Brazil, by M, Gorceix. — Reply to two 

 critiques by M. Faye, by M. Hildebrandsson. He calls atten- 

 tion to three facts. It is rare that the form of isobars is circular. 

 Synoptic charts show that the air moves spirally towards the 

 centre of a minimum. The anterior and the posterior parts of a 

 squall are quite different, so that after passing the centre you 

 have a sudden change in the weather ; and this is explained if 

 the motioi of the air have an upward component, for then other 

 air unceasingly flows in from different regions. The facts cited 

 are in opposition to M. Faye's theory. 



CONTENTS PAr.R 



Blasius on Storms 



Anderson's ■' Mandalav TO Momien" (JfzVA ///«j/ra/w«j) ... 

 Our Book Shelf :— 



Youmans' " Class Book of Chemistry " 4 ; 



Cook's " Injurious Insects of Michigan" 4' 



Lbttkrs to thb Editor : — 



Water Supply of the Metropolis — John Evans, F.R.S -; 



Evidences of Ancient Glaciers in Central France. — Rev. W. S. 

 SVMONDS : 



Metachromism. — W. M. Flinders Pktrie 



Socotra.— P. L. Sclater, F.R. S 



Coloured Solar Halos. — T. W. Backhouse 



"Euclid Simplified."— R. Tucker 



Bullfinches and Primroses. — C. A. M. . . _ 



Seasonal Order of Colour in Flowers. — J. C. Costerus . . . .. 



Plant Fertilisation. — M. S. Evans 



The Visibility of Mercury.— Rev. Samuel J. Johnson ....-■ 



How Typhoid Fever is Spread.— J. Mitchell Wilson 



The Ash Seed Screw. — A. Stephen Wilson 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



The Companion of Sirius •. 



D'Arrest's Comet ~. 



Prof. Huxlei-'s Lectures on the Evidence as to the Origin of 



Existing Vertebrate Animals, III 



Phvs-ical Science in Schools. By R. Gerstl ! 



On Determining the Depth of the Sea Without the Use of 

 the Sounding Line. By Dr. Siemens, F.R.S. {With Illustra- 

 tions) o ' ' ' ' " 



Photo<sraphy of the Red and Ultra-Red End of the Spectrum. 



By Capt. W. DE W. Abnev, R.E 4_ 



Raoul Pictet's Sulphurous Acid Ice-Machine 4J 



Apparatus for Demonstrating Transformation of Force . . 43 



Notes • • • '' 



Experimental Researches on the Effects of Electrical Induc- 

 tion, for the Purpose of Rectifying the Theory Com.monly 



Adopted. By Prof. Volpicelli {With Illustrations) a 



Societies and Academibs . ■ 



