38o 



NATURE 



[Feb. 20, 1890 



TSfational Electric Service Company were employed, was a 

 thorough success. Exposures were made at intervals of six 

 seconds. 



A few hours before the eclipse came on, the Pensacola went 

 out to sea, and stood in the centre of the eclipse-track at the 

 time of totality. Atmospheric conditions were slightly more 

 favourable there than at the main station of the Expedition, and 

 some interesting results were obtained. During totality, how- 

 ever, the clouds were so thick that it is very doubtful whether 

 the true solar corona was seen at all. 



The Eclipse Station was completely dismantled by December, 

 27, and the Pensacola left Cape Ledo on the afternoon of the 

 ■same day. 



Returning to Loanda, it was found that two of the three 

 detached parties of the Expedition sent into the interior to 

 observe the eclipse were unsuccessful on account of clouds. 

 The third has not yet been heard from. 



David P. Todd. 



U.S.S. Pensacola, December 31, 1889. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Rendiconti del Keale Istituto Lombardo, December. — Results 

 obtained from Dr. L. VVeigert's therapeutic treatment of pul- 

 monary phthisis, by Prof. A. Visconti. Seven patients in various 

 stages of consumption have been subjected to this treatment for 

 the purpose of testing its efficacy. It consists in administering 

 superheated dry air (150° to 180" C), which is inhaled through 

 a specially prepared apparatus, for which Dr. Weigert claims 

 that it acts directly on Koch's bacillus of tuberculosis. In the 

 incipient stages of the disease satisfactory results were obtained 

 in some respects, such as relief of the cough, greater freedom of 

 respiration, less profuse perspiration, and increased appetite. 

 But it was doubtful whether the germ itself was killed, while in 

 the advanced stages the malady continued its normal development 

 without being perceptibly arrested by the treatment. Without 

 actually condemning Weigert's method. Prof. Visconti cannot 

 at present regard it as an efficacious remedy against phthisis. — On 

 the determination of the coefficient of dynamic and electromotor 

 produce, by P. Guzzi. The author here describes a method of 

 determining this coefficient, for which he claims certain advant- 

 ages over that proposed by Dr. J. Hopkinson in the Electrician 

 of December 3, 1886, especially in the case of engines of over 

 100 horse-power. His method of calculating the yield of the 

 dynamo and electric motors is based exclusively on electric 

 measurements made with safer and more handy instruments 

 than Hopkinson's dynamometers. Two dynamos of about the 

 same type and dimensions are connected together in such a 

 way that one moves the other as motor, as in the Hopkinson 

 apparatus. But instead of communicating to the system the 

 .dvna??iic energy required to maintain it in motion with the 

 velocity and intensity of the normal current, Guzzi's instrument 

 communicates the equivalent electric energy derived from any 

 external source whatsoever. 



Rivista Scietitifico-Industriale, December 31, 1889. — Re- 

 searches on the absorption of hydrogen by iron, and on the 

 tenacity of certain metals after absorbing gases, by Prof. M. Bel- 

 lati and S. Lussana. It has already been shown by Hughes 

 .(Nature, vol. xxi., 1880, p. 602) that steel and iron immersed 

 in diluted sulphuric acid become very brittle, and that the same 

 phenomenon is produced when these metals are used as negative 

 electrodes in a voltameter. Prosecuting the same line of re- 

 search, the authors here describe a series of experiments tending 

 to show that the action of electrolytic oxygen on the tenacity of 

 platinum, and of hydrogen on that of copper and zinc, is un- 

 certain ; also, that the absorption of hydrogen produces very 

 probably an increase of tenacity in platinum, as it certainly does 

 in iron, but, on the contrary, a diminution in nickel. Nor can 

 these different results be explained by the simple passage of the 

 current, Mobius having already shown that the elasticity of metals 

 is not perceptibly affected by this cause. — Action of arsenate of 

 hydrogen on potassium permanganate, by D. Tivoli. Some 

 experiments are described, from the results of which the author 

 infers that the solution of potassium permanganate is capable of 

 rapidly and completely absorbing arsenate of hydrogen. — S. 

 <jiuseppe Terrenzi gives a somewhat complete list of the land 

 and fresh-water mollusks occurring in the Narni district, Um- 

 bria. This fauna presents nothing remarkable, all the species 

 being common to other parts of Umbria. and generally to Central 



Italy. All are described or mentioned by the Marchese Paolucci 

 in his " Etude de la Faune Malacologique terrestre et fluviale 

 de ritalie et de ses iles " (Paris, 1878). 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, January 30. — "On the Germination of the 

 Seed of the Castor-oil Plant {Ricinus communis)." By J. R. 

 Green, M.A., B.Sc, F. L.S., Professor of Botany to the 

 Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Communicated by 

 Prof. M. Foster, Sec. R.S. 



The work embodied in this paper deals {a) with the agencies 

 which, during germination, render the reserve materials available 

 for the use of the embryo, {b) with the forms in which these are 

 absorbed by it and the mode of their absorption, and {c) with 

 the parts played in the process by the endosperm and the 

 embryo respectively. 



A ferment is found to exist as a zymogen in the resting seed, 

 which is readily developed by warmth and weak acids into an 

 active condition. The results of its activity are the splitting up 

 of the fat with formation of glycerine and (chiefly) ricinoleic 

 acid. Further changes, brought about by the protoplasm of the 

 endosperm cells, form from the latter a lower carbon acid which, 

 unlike ricinoleic acid, is soluble in water and is crystalline. 

 These changes do not take place in the absence of free oxygen. 

 A quantity of sugar also is formed, which appears to have the 

 glycerine as its antecedent. 



The proteids of the seed, which consist of globulin and 

 albumose, are split up by another ferment, with formation of 

 peptone and asparagin. 



The only products which enter the embryo are a crystalline 

 acid, sugar, possibly some peptone, and asparagin. Consider- 

 ation of the structure of the cotyledons, which are the absorbing 

 organs, shows that the mode of absorption is always dialysis. 



"Investigations into the Effects of Training Walls in an 

 Estuary like the Mersey." By L. F. Vernon Harcourt, M.A., 

 M.Inst.C.E. Communicated by A. G. Vernon Harcouit, 

 F.R.S. 



The present investigations were carried out with a working 

 model of the Mersey estuary, from near Warrington to the open 

 sea beyond the bar. The experiments were directed to the 

 solution of two problems — namely, (i) the influence of training 

 walls in the wide upper estuary on the channel below Liverpool, 

 and across the bar ; and (2) the effects of training walls in the 

 lower estuary on the channel across the bar. 



The experiments indicate that, whereas training walls in the 

 upper estuary would be injurious, owing to the resulting accre- 

 tion, training walls in the lower estuary would improve the 

 depth of the outlet channel ; and that such training walls, 

 combined with dredging, offer the best prospect of forming a 

 direct, stable, and deepened channel across the bar. 



February 6. — " Memoir on the Symmetrical Functions of the 

 Roots of Systems of Equations." By Major P. A. MacMahon, 

 Royal Artillery. Communicated by Prof. Greenhill, F.R.S. 



The object of the present memoir is the extension to systems 

 of algebraical quantities of the new theory of symmetric functions 

 which has been developed by the author in regard to a single 

 system in vol. xi. and succeeding volumes of the American 

 journal of Mathematics. In the theory of the single system 

 the conceptions and symbolism are to a large extent arithmetical, 

 and are based upon the properties of single integral numbers 

 and their partitions into single integral parts. In this sense the 

 former theory may be regarded as being unipartite. 



In the present generalization to the case of m systems of 

 quantities the fundamental ideas proceed, not from a single 

 number, but from a collection of m single numbers. In regard 

 to number, weight, degree, part, and suffix, the collection of vi 

 numbers invariably replaces the single number of the theory of 

 the single system. In this view the theory of the m systems is 

 ;«-partiie. 



The quantities, to which the symmetric functions relate may 

 be regarded as the solutions common to m non-homogeneous 

 equations each in m variables. Schliifli, in the Vienna Transac- 

 tions {Denkschriften) for 1852, added another linear non-homo- 

 geneous equation in ;« variables, and then forming the eliminant 



