Jtme 13, 1889] 



NATURE 



167 



lelford Premium to Robert Riineberg, for his description of 

 steamers for winter navigation and ice-breaking ; a Telford 

 J'lemiuni to IJryan Donkiii, Jun., f^r his account of experiments 

 with gas-flame jackets ; a Telford Premium to Prof. Victor 

 Auguste Ernest Dwelshauvers Dery, for his reduction of experi- 

 ments on the effect of superheating, steam-jacketing, and gas- 

 ' me jackets on cylinder-condensation; a Telford Premium to 

 .hert Henry Smith, for his paper on stress diagrams of solid 

 luctures ; a Telford Premium to Leveson Francis Vernon- 

 Ilaicourt, for his paper on Alpine engineering ; a Telford Pre- 

 Ilium to George Lopes, for his ace lunt of the reparation of 

 tchworth Tunnel, Dorking, on the London, Brighton, and 

 iith Coast Railway ; a Telford Premium to Neil Kennedy, 

 his paper on the tacheomeier and its uses. For papers read 

 the supplemental meetings of students: a Miller Scholarship 

 I'.dward Carstensen de Segundo. for his account of experi- 

 nts on the strain in the outer layers of cast-iron and steel 

 nns; a Miller Prize to Henry Byrom Ransom, for his paper 

 the cyclical velocity-variations of steam and other engines ; 

 Miller Prize to William Wade Fitzherbert Pullen, for his 

 iccount of water-softening and filtering apparatus, for locomo- 

 tive purposes, at the Taff Vale Railway Company's Penarth 

 I 'ock Station, near Cardiff ; a Miller Prize to James Denis 

 Twinberrow, for his paper on flexible wheel-bases for railway 

 Uing-stock ; a Miller Prize to Samuel Joyce, Jun., for his 

 'cron electrical measuring-instruments, their properties and 

 ihration ; a Miller Prize to Richard John Durley, for his 

 ; )er on moulding and casting cylinders for marine engines ; 

 liller Prize to Julian James King-Salter, for his description 

 the 26-knot Spanish torpedo-boat Ariete ; Miller Prizes to 

 arles Henry Gale and Vernon Warburton Delves-Broughton, 

 ; their joint paper on photography for engineers. 



Geological Society, May 22.— Mr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., 



Mdent, in the chair.— The following communications were 



1 :— Note on the hornblende schists and banded crystalline 



:s of the Lizard, by Major-General C. A. McMahon. The 



ling of this paper was followed by a discussion, in which the 



sident, Dr. Geikie, Mr. Teall, Prof. Bonney, Mr. Rutley, 



Dr. Hicks took part.— The Upper Jurassic clays of Lincoln- 



le, by Mr. Thomas Roberts. In Lincolnshire it has generally 



jccn considered that the Oxford and Kimeridge clays come in 



Incct sequence, and that the Corallian group of rocks is not 



resented. The author, however, endeavoured to show that 



I c is between the Oxford and Kimeridge a zone of clay which 



1 Corallian age. Six paloeontological zones were recognized 



he Oxford clay. The clays which come between the Oxford 



Upper Kimeridge the author divided into the following 



•s : (i) black selenitiferous clays; (2) dark clays crowded 



:i Ostrea deltoidea ; (3) clays with Ammonites allernans ; and 



olays in which this fossil is absent. The black selenitiferous 



, ^ (i) are regarded as Corallian, because : (a) they come 



.JtLween the Oxford clay and the basement bed of the Kimer- 



ijidge ; {b) out of the twenty-three species of fossils collected 



from this zone, twenty-two are Corallian ; (c) Ostrea deltoidea 



and Gryphaa dilatata occur together in these clays, and also in 



the Corallian, but in no other formation. The zones (2), (3), 



and (4) are of Lower Kimeridge clay age. The lowest zone, 



(2), is very persistent in character, and is met with in Yorkshire, 



Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, and the south of England. The 



remaining zones, (3) and (4), are local in their development. 



Some remarks on this paper were offered by Prof. Blake and 



Mr. Hudleston. — Origin of movements in the earth's crust, by 



Mr. James R. Kilroe. Communicated by Mr. A. B. Wynne. 



Zoological Society, May 21.— Prof. Flower, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. Sclater exhibited and made remarks 

 on a mummied Falcon from Egypt ; and some photographs of 

 i^roups of Sea-birds and Seals taken on the shores of Antipodes 

 Island, Antarctic Ocean. — Mr. Sclater also called attention to a 

 pecimen of Leaf-insect, living in the Society's Insect House, 

 which had been received from the Seychelles, and presented by 

 Lord W^1lsingham. It was not quite fully developed, but was 

 lielieved to be referable to Phyl/ium gelomis, Gray. — Mr. Martin 

 [acoby read a list of the species of Coleoptera of the families 

 L-'riocerida;, Chrysomelidse, and Galerucidre, of which specimens 

 lad been collected in Venezuela by M. Simon, and gave 

 iescriptions of the new species. — A communication was read 

 rom Mr. A. G. Butler containing the description of a new 

 ixtinct genus of Moths belonging to the Geometrid family 

 Euschemidae, based on a fossil specimen obtained from the 



Eocene Freshwater Limestone of Gurnet Bay, Isle of Wight. 

 This insect was named Lithopsyche antiqua. — Mr. W. F. Kirby- 

 read a paper containing desciiptions of new genera and species 

 of Dragonflies in the collection of the British Museum, chiefly 

 from Africa. — Dr. Hans Gadow read a paper on the taxonomic 

 value of the intestinal convolutions in birds. After pointing out 

 the different forms assumed by the intestinal convolutions in this 

 class of animals, and suggesting a nomenclature for them, the. 

 author proceeded to give the outlines of a classification of birds 

 based solely on this part of their structure, and to show the • 

 differences and resemblances of the various groups. 



Edinhurgh. 

 I "Royal Society, June 3.— Sheriff Forbes Irvine, Vice- 

 j President, in the chair. — Some photographs of mirage were 

 exhibited. — Prof. T. R. Frazer communicated the remamder of 

 his paper on the natural history, chemistry, and pharmacology, 

 of Stroplianthus hispidns.—VxoL Tait read a note f n the com- 

 pressibility of mercury.— Dr. E. Sang gave a notice of fundamental* 

 tables in trigonometry and astronomy arranged according to the 

 decimal division of the quadrant.— Prof. Tait communicated a 

 note on the inscription, in a sphere, of a closed polygon, each of 

 whose sides shall pass through a given point, and he also- 

 discussed the problem of the non-oscillating pendulum. — A 

 paper, by Sir W. Thomson, on the Bravais' uniform distributioi>. 

 of points, was submitted. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, June 3. — M. Des Cloizeaux, Presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Heat of combustion of carbon under its- 

 various forms of diamond, graphite, and amorphous carbon, by 

 MM. Berthelot and Petit. By means of the new methods based 

 on the employment of the calorimetric bomb, the authors have 

 determined the molecular heat of combustion of amorphous car- 

 bon at 97 65 calories ; of crystallized graphite at 94 'Si ; of the 

 diamond at 94'3i ; and of bort (uncleavable diamond) 94*34. 

 The old values, hitherto accepted, must consequently be con- 

 siderably increased, and this again involves an i ncrease of the 

 heats of formation for all organic compounds, from their ele- 

 ments upwards, so far as they have yet been calculated. — Note 

 on the spectrum of Uranus, by Mr. J. Norman Lockyer. — On 

 the surface- currents of the North Atlantic, by Prince Albert of 

 Monaco. Of the 1675 floats cast into the sea during the recent 

 explorations of the Hirondelle, as many as 146 have already been • 

 recovered at various points of the seaboard, apparently demon- 

 strating a circular movement of the surface-waters round a point 

 situated somewhere to the south-west of the Azores. The 

 outer edge of this current sets east-north-east to the neigh- 

 bourhood of the English Channel, where it is deflected 

 southwards along the coasts of Europe and Africa to- 

 the Canaries, thence trending south east to the equatorial cur- 

 rent, thus completing the circuit by merging in the Gulf Stream. 

 — On Prof Charles Sumner Tainter's graphophone, by M. 

 Georges R. Ostheimer. The essential feature of this instrument, 

 which solves the problem of the storage of sound, is the employ- 

 ment of wax, or a pasteboard cylinder coated with wax. The 

 process, devised by Prof Tainter after the original phonograph 

 had been discarded by Mr. Edison as of no immediate practical 

 utility, has since been so highly approved of by the American- 

 inventor that he has adopted it lor what he now calls his "im- 

 proved phonograph." — Observations of the new planet discovered' 

 on May 29 at the Observatory of Nice, by M. Charlois. The 

 observations are for the period May 29-31, when the planet ap- 

 peared to be of the twelfth magnitude. — On the stability of the 

 solar system, by M. D. Eginitis. The authors here study the 

 nature of the slight perturbations usually neglected in planetary 

 theories, and endeavour to determine their more important 

 general analytical forms. The results are given for the earth and 

 Saturn, showing that the long axes of their orbits are subject to- 

 extremely slight secular perturbations of the third order. 

 These irregularities are periodical, the periods being exces- 

 sively long, but of such a nature as to imply that 

 both Saturn and the earth are at present approaching the sun. — 

 Apparatus for determining melting-points under ordinary con- 

 ditions and variable piessures, by M. B. C. Eamien. The 

 apparatus here de.'^cribed will be found useful in determining the 

 melting-points of various mixtures of spermaceti and ether, of 

 gum-lac and alcohol, and in general of solidified solutions oP 

 various solids. — The electric conductivity of saline solutions,, 

 applied to the problems of chemical mechanics, by M. P.. 



