Dec. 19, 187S] 



NATURE 



163 



Capt. Butler, of H.M.'s83rd Regt., on the Mekran Coast.— Dr, 

 Day, F.Z.S., exhibited and made some remarks on some jaws of 

 Indian sharks belonging to the genera Galeocerdo and Carcarias. 

 — The Secretary called attention to an error which had been 

 made in reference to the collection of butterflies from Billiton, 

 reported on by Messrs. Godman, Salvin, and Druce, in the last 

 part of the Society's Proceedings. The collection had been made 

 and forwarded to England by Herr'J. G. F. Riedel, of Koepang. 

 — Mr. Sclater communicated some further particulars respecting 

 the occurrence in Lancashire of the specimen of the black- 

 throated Wheatear (Saxicola stapazhta) exhibited at the last 

 meeting of the Society.— Prof. A. H. Garrod, F.R.S., read a 

 paper on the conformation of the thoracic extremity of the 

 trachea in the birds of the order Gallinse. — A communication 

 was read from Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., containing the descrip- 

 tion of some reptiles from Midian, collected by Major Burton. 

 Amongst these were two new snakes proposed to be called Echis 

 decorata and Zamenis elegantissima. — Mr. H. Seebohm pointed 

 out the character of a new Sylvia from Abyssinia, proposed to 

 be called Sylz-ia blanfordi, after Mr. Blanford, by whom it was 

 obtained during the Abyssinian Expedition. — Mr. H. Seebohm 

 also read notes on the identity of the birds which had been named 

 Horomi fortipes, Neomis assimilis, Horeites robustipes, H. 

 brunneits and H. pallidus, and proposed to reduce them to one 

 species under the name Cettia fortipes. — Mr. Martin Jacoby 

 read descriptions of some new species of Ph3rtophagous Coleop- 

 tera from Central and South America. 



Anthropological Institute, November 26. — Mr. John[Evans, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — The Rev. John Robbins, D.D., 

 was announced as a- Member. — Mr. Worthington G. Smith 

 exhibited a series of flint implements from the valley of the 

 River Lea. — Mr. A. L. Lewis read a paper on the evils arising 

 from the use of historical national names as scientific terms. 

 The propositions which he endeavoured to establish were : i. 

 That there were at the first population of Europe certain primi- 

 tive races, of which three are particularly described. 2. That 

 these races are so mixed that at the present day the representa- 

 tives of them appear not only in most European nations, but in 

 the same families and among children of the same parents. 3. 

 That notwithstanding this mixture and the effects which it must 

 permanently have, racial characters display an astonishing per- 

 manence. 4. That this mixture, being so slow in its effects and 

 yet having become so general, has probably been at work for a 

 very great length of time — so great that the peoples to whom 

 the earliest history introduces us were probably nearly as much 

 mixed as those of the present day. 5. That it is desirable to 

 discontinue the use of political names of those peoples as ethnic 

 names, and to employ others, based on the physical characteristics 

 <rf the individual. 6. That while physical characteristics are the 

 only basis for a true division into races, yet in the practical 

 application of this division the influence upon [individuals of 

 I different races of a community of language, custom, history, or 

 tradition must not be lost sight of, although these things do not 

 prove community of race, but only the contact at some time or 

 other of the races to whom they are now common. — The director 

 i read a paper by Prof. Daniel Wilson, LL.D., on some American 

 ' illustrations of the evolution of new varieties of men. In the 

 I mingling of different races in America, so complex and varied, 

 ' all subjected to the influences of climate and social habits, and 

 all mingling in blood in a greater or less degree with the native 

 red races, hybridity had resulted on a great scale. The process 

 lad already been developed sufficiently long to afford important 

 ications of the evolutions of permanent hybrid varieties. A 

 -cimen is to be seen among the tribes of the half-breeds in 

 . ianitoba, as it were in the process of evolution ; while sheltered 

 V. ithin the remote Arctic regions man can be studied among the 

 ' -quimaux in conditions closely analogous to those which are 

 : ibed to a post-pliocene, if not to a pre-glacial period, 

 the abrupt collision of the ci\-ilised races of Europe 

 \ ith the American aborigines, it hai always been taken 

 for granted that the latter were doomed to ine\-itable ex- 

 tinction, and that the land would be peopled with the purely 

 civilised races of the world. There is no question, however, 

 that from an early date there have been intermarriages between 

 Europeans and the American races. A growing feeling is mani- 

 festing itself in the United States and Canada that the Indian 

 population is not doomed to extinction, and that a much larger 

 amount of healthy intermarrying and consequent absorption has 

 existed than unobserving critics had any conception of, and the 

 -native Indian element is a factor in the population of the New 



World destined to exercise an enduring influence on the ethnical 

 character of the Euro-American races. 



Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society, November 4. — The following com- 

 munications were made to the Society : — The physical constants 

 of hydrogeninm, by Prof. Dewar, Part 2. TTiis paper is a 

 continuation of an investigation into the physical constants of 

 hydrogenium. The first part appeared in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xxvii., and had reference 

 to the specific gravity, specific heat, and coefficient of expansion 

 of the occluded hydrogen. These observations led to the con- 

 clusion that the specific gravity was independent of the amount 

 of condensed gas, and had a mean value of o'62. This result 

 has been confirmed by the subsequent experiments of Troost and 

 Hautefeuille, and what is very remarkable, they deduce an 

 identical value for the density of hydrogen from observations on 

 the hydrides of potassium and sodium. The specific heat, rela- 

 tively to palladium, of the condensed hydrogen, appeared to vary 

 inversely as the charge, but taken relatively to successive charges 

 was nearly constant, and had the value 3*4, which is identical 

 with that of gaseous hydrogen at constant pre-sure. The coeffi- 

 cient of the cubical expansion of the alloy is about twice that of 

 palladium, and that of the hydrogen in its compressed state not 

 more than three times that of mercury. This communication 

 deals with the thermo-electric relations and conductivity of 

 hydrogenium. It is shown that the electro-motive force of a 

 junction of hydrogenium palladium is at ordinary temperatures 

 nearly equal to that of an iron copper junction, and that it in- 

 creases with the temperature according to the general parabolic 

 law, the rate of the increase being, however, greater than iron 

 copper and subject to a regular variation on account of successive 

 heatings. The formation of thermo-electric piles, and of neutral 

 points in a uniform wire of, this substance, along with the 

 continuous formation of thermo-electric currents through the 

 application of a hydrogen flame were explained and shown. 

 Experiments on the electric resistance show that it increases 

 directly as the amount'of condensed gas. — Studies in spectrum 

 analysis, by Professors Liveing and Dewar. The authors 

 describe the reversal of characteristic lines of rubidium 

 and caesium when the chlorides are heated with sodium 

 in glass tubes in an atmosphere of hydrogen or nitrogen, and 

 a bright light is viewed through the vapours. They remark that 

 the violet lines of rubidium, and the most refirangible of the 

 caesium lines are first seen, and broaden out the most when 

 the temperature rises, contrary to what might have been expected 

 from the analogy of other cases. The absorption lines observed 

 coincided with the bright lines of the metals heated in a flame, 

 not with the lines which they give in a dense electric spark ; but 

 the authors obtained spectra similar to the flame spectra by 

 passing sparks from an induction coil without a Leyden jar, 

 between beads of fused chlorides of those metals, although 

 simpler spectra were produced by the more abrupt discharges 

 produced by interposing a Leyden jar. The authors further 

 described absorption spectra produced by magnesium vapour 

 when mixed with hydrogen, potassium, and sodium res- 

 pectively. That produced by magnesium and hydrogen con- 

 sisted of a line a little less refrangible than the b group, and 

 a band rather more refrangible than the b group, fading away 

 towards the blue. The constant appearance of these absorp- 

 tions when the vapour of magnesium m hydrogen was observed 

 in a hot iron tube, led to the endeavour to obtain the corres- 

 ponding luminous spectrum. This they succeeded in doing by 

 taking sparks from an induction coil, without a Leyden jar 

 between magnesium wires in a tube full of hydrogen. It ap- 

 pears that the compound to which this spectrum is due is 

 formed only within a certain range of temperature, and is dis- 

 sociated at higher temperatmres — for the spectrum is scarcely 

 seen at all when a large Leyden jar is used, which may te 

 supposed to have the effect of shortening the time of discharge 

 and increasing the temperature. Further, this compound does 

 not seem to be formed when the pressure of the hydrogen 

 is much reduced. In the case of sodium and magnesium they 

 observed an absorption line in the green not observed in either 

 vapour separately ; and when potassium and magne>ium were 

 used, a characteristic pair of lines in the red always appeared, 

 and sometimes another line in the bine. The authors have not 

 yet seen these as bright lines. In the course of observations 

 on the spectra of sundry rarefied gases the authors have been 

 led to conclude that electric sparks take a selective course in 

 a mixture of gases, and that the differences in the spectra 



