February 2, 191 1] 



NATURE 



46. 



Royal Microscopical Society, January i8.— Prof. J. Arthur 

 Thomson, president, in the chair. — Prof. J. Arthur Thom- 

 son : Presidential address : the determination of sex. 

 The president discussed, historically and critically, five 

 theories or sets of suggestions, (i) It has been suggested 

 that environmental condition, operating on the sexually- 

 undetermined, developing offspring-organism, may, at 

 least, share in determining the sex. The evidence in sup- 

 port of this has in great part crumbled before criticism 

 and before the counter-evidence of cytologists and 

 Mendelians. (2) It has been suggested that the sex is 

 quite unpredestined in the germ-cells before fertilisation, 

 and that it is then settled by the relative condition of the 

 gametes (as affected by age, vigour, &c.), or by a balancing 

 of the inherited tendencies which these gametes bear, 

 neither ovum nor spermatozoon being necessarily decisive. 

 The evidence in support of this is very far from satis- 

 factory. Vet in view of some sets of experiments, of 

 R. Hertwig in particular, it seems rash to foreclose the 

 question. (3) It has been suggested that the sex is pre- 

 destined at a very early stage by the constitution of the 

 germ-cells as such, there being female-producing and male- 

 producing germ-cells, predetermined from the beginning, 

 and arising independently of environmental influence. 

 The evidence in support of this is ver\' strong, both on 

 experimental and on cytological grounds. (4) It has been 

 suggested that maleness and femaleness are Mendelian 

 characters, and one form of this very attractive theory is 

 that femaleness is dominant over maleness, and that 

 females are heterozygous as regards sex and males homo- 

 zygous as regards sex. But there are grave difficulties as 

 well as very striking corroborations. (5) It has been 

 suggested that environmental and functional influences, 

 operating through the parent (or, in short, the parent's 

 acquired peculiarities), may alter the proportion of 

 eff^ective female-producing and male-producing germ-cells, 

 as, for instance, in Russo's experiments on rabbits. This 

 possibilit}- remains tenable. Prof. Thomson argued in 

 support of the thesis that there is no sex-determinant at 

 all in the usual sense, but that what determines the sex 

 of the offspring is a metabolism-rhythm, a relation between 

 anabolism and katabolism, or a relation between the 

 nucleoplasm and the cytoplasm. Many sets of facts con- 

 verge in the inference that each sex-cell or gamete has a 

 complete equipment of both masculine and feminine 

 characters, of which there are doubtless chromosomic 

 determinants. It may be that the liberating stimulus 

 which calls the masculine or the feminine set into ex- 

 pression or development is afforded by the metabolism- 

 rhythm set up in the cytoplasmic field of operations. It 

 may be that this metabolism-relation — between nucleo- 

 plasm and cytoplasm doubtless, and likewise between 

 anabolism and katabolism — leads, first and necessarily, to 

 the establishment of ovaries or of spermaries, and secondly, 

 either directly or through the gonads with their internal 

 secretions, to the expression of the contrasted masculine or 

 feminine characters. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, January 23. — M. Annand Gautier 

 in the chair. — L. E. Bertin : Additional remarks on the 

 general laws of retarded or accelerated motion in ships. 

 — A. Miintz and E. Laine : The nitrates in the atmo- 

 sphere of the Antarctic regions. A series of determinations 

 of the nitrates in snow and rain in southern latitudes have 

 been carried out by R. E. Godfroy, accompanying Dr. 

 Charcot's Antarctic expedition. Expressed in milligrams 

 of nitric anhydride per litre, the amounts found varied 

 between 01 and 0-4, with an average of 023. These 

 results are compared with the data of Boussingault in 

 Alsace. Lawes and Gilbert at Rothampstead, and Muntz 

 and Marcano at Caracas, in the tropics. It was especiallv 

 desired to obtain figures for the proportion of nitrate in 

 rain and snow during the occurrence of the aurora 

 borealis, but owing to the absence of this phenomenon at 

 the stations occupied by the expedition, these data were 

 not obtained. — M. Branly was elected a member in the 

 section of physics in the place of the late M. Gernez.— 

 Ernest Esclangron : A system of fixed or differential 

 synchronisation. An improvement in the svstem of 

 governing recording chronographs. The synchronising 

 wheel, making approximately one revolution per second, 



NO. 2153. VOL. 85] 



carries two poles of soft iron, and these pass at each 

 revolution in front of two electromagnets, the latter being 

 actuated by the controlling clock. If the wheel carrying 

 the electromagnets is slowly rotated, a differential move- 

 ment is obtained. If driven so as to make one revolution 

 in twenty-four hours, for which purpose an tM-dinary clock 

 movement is sufficiently accurate, the synchronising wheel 

 can be controlled to give one revolution per sidereal 

 second. The system can also be applied with advantage 

 to the control of an equatorial. — P. Idrac : First observa- 

 tions on the new star in Lacerta. The spectrum of this 

 star, discovered December 30, 1910, has been studied and 

 photc^raphed at the Observatory of Meudon with the 

 arrangement already used for the stud}' of the Halley and 

 Innes comets. Five hydrogen lines are brilliant, and also 

 a strong band about X = 464. As regards the classification 

 of this star, it might be either a variable star of long 

 period or a new star ; the great brilliance of the hydrogen 

 lines appears to rather favour the second hypothesis. — 

 C. Russyan : The system of generalised canonical 

 ordinary differential equations and the generalised problem 

 of S. Lie. — Paul Levy : Differentials of functions of plane 

 lines. — U. Cisotti : The dynamical reaction of a liquid 

 jet. The dynamical reaction of the liquid jet does not 

 depend on the form of the vessel in the neighbourhood 

 of the orifice. In the particular case where the jet is a 

 continuation of the axis of the vessel, the reaction of the 

 liquid jet is entirely supported by the bottom of the vessel. 

 — ^Jean Becquerel : The magnetic modifications of the 

 absorption and phosphorescence bands of rubies, and on a 

 fundamental question of magneto-optics. The nine 

 different principal cases described by H. du Bois and Elias 

 are shown to be reducible to five ; the anomalies are 

 shown to depend on a faulty orientation of the crystal 

 with respect to the optic axes. — A. Senouque : Experi- 

 ments in wireless telegraphy from an aeroplane. There 

 is no difficult}" in sending wireless messages from an 

 aeroplane provided that the sending instruments are 

 sufficiently strongly built to resist the disturbing influence 

 of the vibrations of the motor, and are sufficiently light 

 in proportion to the supporting power of the aeroplane. — 

 Pierre Weiss : The rationality of the ratios of the mag- 

 netic moments of the atoms, and a new universal con- 

 stituent of matter. By the assumption of the existence of 

 a substance magneton, possessing a definite magnetic 

 moment, the experimental results of Kamerlingh Onnes 

 and Weiss, Weiss and Foex, P. Pascal and other workers, 

 are readily explained. Magneton is regarded as a universal 

 constituent of matter. — C. E. Guillaume : The anomaly 

 of the expansions of nickel-steels. The effect of chromium 

 and manganese in altering the expansion of nickel-steels 

 is discussed, and the results given in graphical form. — 

 Eugene Bloch : The discharge potential in the magnetic 

 field. The modern theory of disruptive discharge, in the 

 few cases to which the calculation can be definitely applied, 

 appears to be in complete accord with the obser\ed facts. 

 The rule of interkathodic action given by M. Gouy appears 

 to fail in certain cases. — Jean Meunier : A new property 

 of copper, and on the active flameless combustion of gases 

 or convergent combustion. — J. Boug^ault : The trans- 

 formation of phenyl-a)8-pentenic acid into its yS-isomer. 

 The action of solution of caustic soda on the a3-acid did 

 not give the expected /37-isomer, but the 75-isomer. The 

 identity of the latter acid was established by its iodo- 

 lactone and by the conversion of the lactone into the corre- 

 sponding phenyl-7S^entenic acid. This is the first ex- 

 ample of such a transformation. — Georges Dupont : 

 Acetylene pinacone. This substance was prepared by the 

 action of acetone on the magnesium comfxtund of dibromo- 

 acetylene, and a description is given of its behaviour 

 towards dehydrating agents and towards the halogen acids. 

 — Pierre Breteau : A method for the complete destruc- 

 tion of organic matter in the detection and estimation of 

 mineral poisons. The material is heated with strong 

 sulphuric acid, as in a nitrogen determination, in a current 

 of nitrous fumes. The oxides of nitr<^en are obtained by 

 the action of sulphur dioxide upon nitric acid. If the 

 sulphur dioxide is taken from a cylinder of the liquid 

 gas, the production of the oxides of nitrogen is under 

 perfect control ; 300 grams of organic matter can be ccwn- 

 pletely destroyed in four hours by this method. — O. 

 Lignler and A. Tison : Are the Gnetales apetalous 



