1 66 



NATURE 



{Dec. 19, 1889 



;^50 per set, we must expect a number of sets represented by 

 301 figures. 



Lastly, what is the value of B's expectations if A's operations 

 are continued indefinitely. With great deference to contrary 

 opinions, I believe this to be the correct meaning of the problem 

 in its original form. The theoretical result is in this ca'«e 

 easily realized by the aid of the following illustration. Suppose 

 the person A replaced by an automatic machine similar to that 

 used for weighing sovereigns, which tosses continuously ten 

 times per minute. On the average of a large number of tosses, 

 B cannot receive less than one shilling a toss, £\ every two 

 minutes, or £^2.0 a day for ever. If the current rate of interest 

 be 3 per cent., he may safely pay for this perpetual annuity 

 ;^8, 760,000. Suppose, instead of this comparatively slow rate, 

 the machine increased the rapidity of its operations indefinitely, 

 ■the sum to be paid for the result would also increase indefinitely, 

 or the expectation would become infinite. 



Sydney Lupton. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Newall Telescope Syndicate has drawn 

 -up a scheme for building a dome for the telescope on a site 

 adjoining the present Observatory, with an observer's house ; 

 and they recommend that an observer be appointed, at a stipend 

 of ^250 per annum, with a house, to devote himself to research 

 in stellar physics, under the general direction of the Director of 

 the Observatory. 



The results of this year's commercial examination, held by the 

 School's Examinations Board, are satisfactory. Geography was 

 still very im'perfect. Elementary mechanics has now been added 

 to the list of compulsory subjects. 



An influential syndicate has been appointed to consider the 

 question of the mechanical workshops, their management and 

 utility. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, December 12. — " An Experimental Investi- 

 gation into the Arrangement of the Excitable Fibres of the 

 Internal Capsule, of the Bonnet Monkey {Macacus sinicus)." 

 By Charles E. Beevor, M.D., F.R.C. P., and Victor Horsley, 

 B.S., F. R. S. (from the Laboratory of the Brown Institution). 



After an historical introduction, the authors proceed to describe 

 the method of investigation, which was conducted as follows. 

 The animal being narcotized with ether, the internal capsule 

 was exposed by a horizontal section through the hemisphere. 

 By means of compasses the outline of the basal ganglia and 

 capsule were accurately transferred to paper ruled with squares of 

 one millimetre side, so that a projection of the capsule was thus 

 obtained, divided into bundles of one millimetre square area. 

 Each of these squares of fibres was then excited by a minimal 

 stimulus, the same being an induced or secondary interrupted 

 current. The movements were recorded and the capsule 

 jphotographed. 



In all forty-five experiments were performed, and they are 

 •arranged in eight groups, representing eight successive levels 

 (i.e. from the centrum ovale to the crus) at which the capsule 

 was investigated. 



Before the results are described in detail a full account is given 

 of previous investigations, experimental, clinical, and anatomical, 

 on the arrangement of the internal capsule. 



The anatomy of the part and the relation of the fibres to the 

 basal ganglia are then discussed, and a full description given of 

 each of the groups examined. 



The general results are next given at length, of which the 

 following is a resume. 



Firstly, the rare occurrence of bilateral movement is discussed, 

 and the meaning of the phenomenon defined. Secondly, the 

 lateral arrangement and juxtaposition of the fibres are considered. 

 Thirdly, the antero-posterior order in which the fibres for the 

 movements of the different segments are placed is described, and 



that order found to be practically identical with that observed on 

 the cortex, viz. from before back : — 



Movements of eyes. 



,, head. 



„ tongue. 



„ mouth. 



„ upper limb (shoulder preceding thumb). 



,, trunk. 



,, lower limb (hip preceding toes). 



The character or nature of these movements is set out in a 

 table giving the average localization of each segment. Speaking 

 generally, it may be said that the movements are arranged in 

 the same way as has already been shown by the authors to exist 

 in the cortex (vide previous papers in Phil. Trans., 1887, 1888), 

 viz. that the representation of extension is situated in front of 

 flexion for the segments of the upper limb, while for the toes 

 flexion is obtained, as in the cortex, in front of extension. 



Numerous tables and diagrams are appended, showing the 

 extent of appropriation of fibres for each movement. 



Physical Society, November 15.— Prof. Reinold, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. Enright resumed the reading of 

 his paper on the electrification due to contact of gases with 

 liquids. Repeating his experiments with zinc and hydrochloric 

 acid, the author, by passing the gas into an insulated metallic 

 vessel connected with the electrometer, proved that it was always 

 charged with electricity of the opposite kind to that of the solu- 

 tion. The electrical phenomena of many other reactions have 

 been investigated, with the result that the gas, whether H, COo, 

 SO3, SH2, or CI, is always electrified positively when escaping 

 from acids, and negatively when leaving a solution of the salt. 

 In some cases distinct reversal is not obtainable, but all these 

 seem explicable by considering the solubility and power of 

 diffusion of the resulting salts. Various other results given in 

 the paper tend to confirm this hypothesis. Seeking for an 

 explanation of the observed phenomena, the author could arrive 

 at no satisfactory one excepting "contact" between gases and 

 liquids, and if this be the true explanation he hoped to prove it 

 directly by passing hydrogen through acid. In this, however, he 

 was unsuccessful, owing, he believes, to the impossibility of 

 bringing the gas into actual contact with the liquid. True 

 contact only seems possible when the gas is in the nascent state. 

 Some difficulty was experienced in obtaining non-electrified gas, 

 for the charge is retained several hours after its production, even 

 if the gas be kept in metallic vessels connected to earth. Such 

 vessels, when recently filled, form condensers in which the 

 electricity pervades an inclosed space, and whose charge is avail- 

 able on allowing the gas to escape. Soap bubbles blown with 

 newly generated hydrogen were also found to act as condensers, 

 the liquid of which, when broken, exhibited a negative charge. 

 This fact, the author suggested, may explain the so-called " fire- 

 balls," sometimes seen during thunderstorms'; for if, by any 

 abnormal distribution of heat, a quantity of electrified air 

 becomes inclosed by a film of moisture, its movements and 

 behaviour would closely resemble those of fire-balls. A similar 

 explanation was proposed for the phenomenon mentioned in a 

 recent number of Nature, where part of a thundercloud was 

 seen to separate from the mass, descend to the earth, and rise 

 again. The latter part of the paper describes methods of 

 measuring the contact potential differences between gases and 

 liquids, the most satisfactory of which is a "water dropper," 

 and by its means the P.D. between hydrogen and hydro- 

 chloric acid was estimated to be about 42 volts. Prof Riicker 

 asked if the experiment with zinc and hydrochloric acid could be 

 started in the second stage by having the acid partly saturated 

 with salt. Dr. C. V. Burton thought it probable that contact 

 could be made between a gas and a liquid by shaking them up 

 together in a bottle. In reply, Mr. Enright said the experiment 

 could be started at any stage, and reversal effected as often as 

 desired by adding either acid or a solution of salt to the generat- 

 ing vessel. — Mr. Herbert Tomlinson, F.R.S., read a paper on 

 the effect of repeated heating and cooling on the electrical resist- 

 ance and temperature coefficient of annealed iron. In a paper 

 recently presented to the Roval Society, the author has brought 

 forward an instance of an iron wire, which when subjected to 

 magnetic cycles of minute lange alternately at 17° and 100° C, 

 had its molecular friction and magnetic permeability reduced 

 respectively to about one-quarter and one-half their original values. 

 The present experiments were undertaken to see whether by 



