Dec. 26, 1889] 



NA TURE 



189 



J. B. Mackintosh, on sundry yttria and thoria minerals from 

 Llano County, Texas ; and by O. C. Marsh, on the skull of the 

 gigantic Ceratopsidse. 



The American Meteorological Joiti-nal for November contains 

 the first part of an article on "Theories of Storms, based on 

 Redfield's Laws," by M. H. Faye, member of the French 

 Institute. In support of his "whirlpool " theory, he urges that 

 meteorologists have constructed a theory of storms on the basis 

 of a single fact, viz. that storms which burst over a region cause 

 a fall of the barometer there, and he points out that starting with 

 the idea of an ascending column, exercising an aspiration below, 

 a thing is invariably produced which neither turns nor progresses. 

 Mr. A. L. Rotch contributes the first part of an article on 

 "Meteorology at the Paris Exposition," dealing with the 

 instruments exhibited in the French Section. Among the most 

 interesting are (i) the actinometers exhibited by the Montsouris 

 Observatory ; (2) the Richard actinometer, which has bright and 

 black bulbs in vacuo, connected with two thermometers, by 

 which curves are traced giving at each instant the radiation from 

 the sky, both at night and day ; (3) the Richard anemographs, 

 which have, instead of the usual Robinson cups, a fan wheel 

 formed of six blades inclined at 45°, and fastened to a very light 

 axis, one revolution of the wheel corresponding to one metre of 

 wind. Parrigou- Lagrange's anemometer (Nature, vol. xxxvii. p. 

 18), giving the vertical component of the wind, was also exhibited. 

 M. Baudin showed some very fine standard thermometers, and 

 Mr, Rotch describes various other instruments, such as hygro- 

 meters, aneroids, &c. Dr. F. Waldo continues his discussion of 

 the "Distribution of Average Wind- velocities in the United 

 States." The present article deals with the comparison of 

 average wind-velocities with other elements, e.g. with barometric 

 minima. Lieutenant Finley contributes State tornado charts 

 for Arkansas, North Carolina, and Dakota. 



The numbers of the Journal of Botany for November and 

 December are chiefly occupied with articles of special interest to 

 students of British botany. Mr. Thiselton Dyer gives a very 

 interesting biography of the late Mr. John Ball, F.R.S., first 

 President of the Alpine Club, Under-Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies under Lord Palmerston, an ardent explorer in all the 

 four quarters of the globe, and a botanist of wide and varied 

 knowledge. In the December number is a remarkable article 

 on the disappearance of British --plants, mainly through the 

 depredations of collectors. 



Rendiconti del Reale Istituto Lombardo, November i. — Phy- 

 sical researches on the lakes of North Italy, by Prof. F. A. Forel. 

 During a visit to this lacustrine region, last autumn, the author 

 studied the waters of Lakes Maggiore, Como, Piano, and 

 Lugano, with a view to determining their temperature, colour, 

 and transparency, as compared with the analogous properties of 

 Lakes Lucerne and Geneva. The results, which are here tabu- 

 lated, show that the temperature is generally higher, and the 

 colour deeper in the Italian than in the Swiss lakes, while the 

 transparency is about the same, except in the shallow Lake 

 Piano, where the temperature is lower and the transparency less 

 than in any of these basins. — Meteorological observations made 

 at the Brera Observatory during the month of September. 

 These observations include records of temperature, barometric 

 pressure, atmospheric moisture, rainfall, direction of the winds, 

 and cloudiness. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, December 12. — "The Relation of Physio- 

 logical Action to Atomic Weight." By Miss E. J. Johnston, 

 University College, Dundee, and Thos. Carnelley, Professor of 

 Chemistry in the University of Aberdeen. Communicated by 

 Sir Henry Roscoe, F.R.S. 



A. As deduced from the Character of the Elements occurring 

 naturally in Living Organisms. — It is shown {a) that life is 

 associated with a low atomic weight, so that elements with an 

 atomic weight of 40 and under are required by the living 

 organism, whereas those of an atomic weight greater than 40 

 are more or less inimical to life (compare bestini, Gazz. Chim. 

 Ital., vol. 15, p. 107). (b) That the eight elements which enter 

 most largely into the composition of the earth's crust, and which, 

 therefore, are the most easily accessible to the living organism. 



are all included, with the exception of aluminium, in the fourteen 

 elements which are required by the living organism. 



A consideration of the exceptions (viz. Li, Be, B, Al, and Fe) 

 to the first rule and of all the known facts bearing on the 

 question leads to the conclusion that, " The degree of necessity 

 of ati element to the living organism is a fu7tction of, first, its 

 at077iic weight, and, second, its accessibility to the organism." 

 An element may be inaccessible to living organisms either because 

 it is rare {e.g. Li and Be) ; or because, though moderately 

 common, it has a very limited distribution {e.g. B) ; or because, 

 though plentiful and widely distributed, it does not occur in 

 nature in a form in which it can be assimilated (1?.^. Al, on 

 account of the insolubility of its native compounds). 



That elements which are necessary to life must be readily 

 accessible is self-evident, but that living organisms should require 

 elements with low atomic weights, while elements with high 

 atomic weights are inimical to life, is not so evident. This, 

 however, may be due, in part at least, to the fact that the 

 elements with low atomic weights are on the whole the most 

 common elements (as shown by Gladstone, Phil. Mag. [5], vol. 

 4> P- 379 ; compare also MendeljefiT, Zeit. f. Chem. vol. 5, 1869, 

 p. 405), and therefore the most accessible, so that fro??i the first' 

 the elements ■iililized in vital processes have been those zuhich have 

 been the most accessible, and therefore those with the lozvest ato?nic 

 weights. 



B. As deduced from the Toxic Action of Compounds adminis- 

 tered artificially. — In view of the somewhat discordant results 

 obtained by previous observers as to the relation between atomic 

 weight and physiological action, the authors have reinvestigated 

 the subject as carefully as possible. Their experiments have 

 been made partly with fish (sticklebacks) and partly with aerial 

 micro-organisms, the salt being administered by solution in the 

 medium (water or Koch's jelly) in which the organism lived, 

 the following conclusions are drawn from the results of about 

 800 experiments which the authors have made during the two 

 years they have worked on this subject : — 



1. With corresponding compotmds of elements belonging to the 

 same sub-group, the toxic action^ alters regularly {\.q. increases 

 or diminishes') with the ato?nic weight. 



2. In ahnost all cases this alteration takes place in such a way 

 that the toxic power increases zuith the atomic iveight. (This is 

 analogous to increase in toxic action in homologous series of 

 carbon compounds.) 



3. Elements belonging to odd series (Mendeljeff 's classification) 

 are much more toxic than the corresponding elements of even 

 series. 



4. Other things being the same, the greater the ease of reduci- 

 bility of an element from a state of combination to the free state 

 the greater its toxic action. (Applicable to compounds of odd as 

 compared with those of elements of even series, and also to com- 

 pounds of the elements of odd series belonging to the same group 

 when compared with one another.) 



5. Other things being the same and the compounds comparable ^ 

 the greater the heat of formation of a compound from its elements 

 the smaller is its toxic power ; or, in other words, the greater the 

 stability of a compound the smaller its toxic power. (Applicable 

 to elements belonging to odd series ; data for those belonging to 

 even series are wanting or are too incomplete.) 



There is a close connection between rules 3, 4, and 5. 



6. Lithium forms a very marked exception to all the above 

 rules, for notwithstanding its very low atomic weight, its difficult 

 reducibility to the free state, the fact that it belongs to an even 

 series, and the great stability of its compounds, as indicated by 

 their relatively great heat of formation, its toxic power is, never- 

 theless comparatively very great. This exceptional character of 

 lithium, however, is not limited to its physiological action only, 

 but applies likewise to many of its purely chemical and physical 

 properties. So much so, indeed, is this the case that its 

 exceptional physiological character might have been foreseen. 



7. The. toxic action of a series of comparable salts runs parallel 

 zvith the solubility in such a way that as the solubility increases 

 the toxic action either increases likeivise or else diminishes. 



8. When the quantity of salt present in Koch's felly is less 

 than the 7ninimum dose required to prevent the developjnent of 

 micro-organisms, the number of colonies zuhich develops increases 

 as the amount of salt diminishes, btit as a rule much more 

 rapidly. 



' As represented in terms of either the mhiimum to.\ic weight of metal or 

 cf the minimum molecular toxic dose. The minimum molecular toxic dose = 

 minimum toxic weight of salt -^ moleculav weiu'ht of the salt. 



