May 30, 1878] 



NATURE 



135 



1 1 . The council of the ceiiti-al bureau will meet once every 

 quarter on a fixed day. It may hold extraordinary meetings at 

 the instance of the minister. The council gives its advice in 

 the budget proposed by the director, on the construction of 

 buildings or instruments intended for regional meteorological 

 observations, on the collective investigations carried on in the 

 various establishments, on the nominations and promotions of 

 the officials, &c. 



12. The president, vice-president, and the secretary of the 

 council are appointed annually by the minister on the proposal 

 of the council. 



13. The council holds a general meeting yearly at which may 

 be present the heads of the central bureau and of the regional 

 observatories, the delegates of the regional and departmental 

 commissions, and three delegates of the French Meteorological 

 Society. 



A regulation deliberated in council and approved by the 

 minister will determine the mode and number of the dele- 

 gations. 



This meeting will hear the report of the president and 

 council on the work of the year, and, if there are any, the 

 reports and memoirs of the heads of the observatories that receive 

 subventions, and those of the delegates of the regional or de- 

 partmental commissions. It will discuss the views submitted to 

 it, and transmit them to the minister. The report of the 

 president will be printed. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



A TOWN meeting was held at Liverpool on Friday, the 

 Mayor presiding, with the view of establishing a college for 

 higher education, so as to qualify for degrees in art, science, 

 and other subjects at any of the universities. 



Leyden. — The university shows an attendance at present of 

 823 students, divided among the faculties as follows : — Law, 

 487 ; theology, 41 ; medicine, 184 ; philology, 58 ; science, 53. 

 The corps of professors numbers 47. 



Agram. — This young university is attended at present by 

 348 students, of whom but four are from countries outside 

 Austria. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, May 16. — "Experimental Researches on 

 the Electric Discharge with the Chloride of Silver Battery. 

 Part II. The Discharge in Exhausted Tubes." By Warren 

 De La Rue, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., and Hugo W. Miiller, 

 Ph.D., F.R.S. 



"Note on Legendre's Coefficients." By I. Todhunter, 

 F.R.S. 



May 23. — "Observations on Arctic Sea-water and Ice." 

 By Dr. Mpss. — The paper consists of physical and chemical 

 observations made during the Expedition of 1875-76 on 

 polar ice and sea-water, and is accompanied by a tabulated 

 statement of chlorine and specific gravity estimations ; the latter 

 made by the method devised by Mr. Buchanan of the Challenger. 

 ITie author remarks that the low specific gravity of the Polar 

 Sea (i '02467) indicates that even the deepest samples obtained 

 had already received the dilution characteristic of outflowing 

 polar currents. This low specific gravity was maintained 

 through the winter. The highest temperature observed in the 

 deep stratum of dense warm water in Smith's Sound was below 

 32°, but since its specific gravity was above that of Atlantic 

 water, the northward flowing current may have a slightly higher 

 temperature at a greater depth. The disturbed proportion of 

 sulphates to chlorides in polar waters is attributed to the litto- 

 ral source of their dilution and to the difference in the behaviour 

 of the sulphuric and chloric cryohydrates (rather than to absence 

 of fucoidal plants .or volcanic influence, as suggested by Forch- 

 hammer). A detailed description is given of a «A'/-like strati- 

 fication in the polar ice, proving, in the author's opinion, that 

 the stupendous floes met with by the recent, and many other 

 expeditions, are due , not to progressive freezings of sea-water, 

 or to the sliding up of thinner ice-fields, but to a perennial 

 flccumulation of polar precipitation. The stratification includes 



and overlies air-carried debris of crystalline rocks, chiefly quartz, 

 augite, and magnetite. 



The strata are often built upon a conglomerate formation 

 (including salt-water Diatomaceae) affording evidence of a la- 

 teral extension of the floating glacier (by the freezing together 

 of fragments in fissures). The "blue- domed" floes belong to 

 the outer zones of the polar ice-cap, where waste exceeds pre- 

 cipitation. Their undulating surfaces intersecting the horizontal 

 stratification and pitted with the ice-dust left from the layers 

 above, are the surface signs of the decay which finally restores 

 polar precipitation to the ocean in the shape of the increased 

 dilution of outflowing polar currents. 



May 25. — " On the Equations of Circles." (Second Memoir.) 

 By John Casey, LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.A., Professor_of Mathe- 

 matics in the Catholic University of Ireland. 



' ' Contributions to the Anatomy of the Central Nervous 

 System in Vertebrate Animals. Part I. Ichthyopsida. Section 

 I. Pisces. Subsection i. Teleostei." By Alfred Sanders, 

 M.R.C.S. Communicated by Prof. Huxley, Sec.R.S. 



Zoological Society, May 7.— F. D. Godman, F.Z.S., in the 

 chair. — Mr. T. J. Parker read some notes on the stridulating 

 organ of Palinurus vulgaris which had first been described by 

 Dr. K. Mobius, but on whose observations Mr. Parker offered 

 several criticisms. — A communication was read from Dr. F. 

 Buchanan White, entitled "Contributions to a Knowledge of 

 the Hemipterous Fauna of St. Helena, and Speculations on its 

 Origin." In the first part of his paper the author, after briefly 

 noticing what was known with regard to the fauna and flora of 

 that remote and interesting oceanic island, and mentioning the 

 various theories that had been brought forward to account for 

 their origin, discussed the difficulties of the animals, and argued 

 that they had evidently been derived at a remote period from 

 the Palsearctic region by way of Madeira, the Canaries, and the 

 Cape de Verde Archipelago. In the second part of his com- 

 munication Dr. F. B. White described the Hemiptera collected 

 in St. Helena by the late Mr. T. V. WoUaston, during the recent 

 visit of that lamented natmralist to the island. The collection 

 included thirty species, of which five were probably introduced ; 

 one appeared to be indigenous, but seemed identical with a 

 European species, and the remaining twenty-four were regarded 

 by the author as new and peculiar to the island. Seven new 

 genera and one new sub-genus were created for the reception of 

 ten of the species, the rest, with one exception, being referred 

 to European genera. Specimens and drawings of details were 

 exhibited in illustration of the paper. — Mr. P. L. Sclater, 

 F.R.S., read some fiurther remarks on Fuligula nationi, a species 

 of duck from Western Peru, of which he had lately received a 

 nearly adult male from Prof. Nation, the discoverer of the 

 species. — Mr. A. G. Butler, F.Z.S., read the descriptions of a 

 small collection of lepidoptera made at Kingston, Jamaica, by 

 Mr. James J. Bowry. — Mr. Edgar A. Smith, F.Z.S., read a 

 paper containing the description of three new land shells from 

 Jamaica and Borneo. — A communication was read from Mr. D. 

 G. Elliot, F.Z.S., containing a memoir on the fruit pigeons of 

 the genus Ptilopus. Mr. Elliot recognised seventy-one species 

 of this genus. 



Meteorological Society, May 17. — Mr.C. Greaves, F.G.S., 

 president, in the chair. — A. H. J. Crespi, B.A., M.R.C.S., 

 Rev. David Lamplugh, William Morris, M. Inst. C.E., 

 James Muir, M. Inst. C.E., and Miss E. A. Dymond, vere 

 elected Fellows of the Society. — The following papers were 

 read : — On the daily inequality of the barometer, by W. Rundell, 

 F.M.S. — Meteorology of Mozufferpore, Tirhoot, for the year 

 1877, by C. N. Pearson, F.M.S. — Note on the great rainfall of 

 April lo-ii, as recorded at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 

 by William Ellis, F.R.A.S. — Observations of Sea Temperature 

 at slight depths, by Capt. W. F. Caborne, F.M.S. 



Anthropological Institute, April 30th. — Major-General A. 

 Lane Fox, F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Mr. Francis 

 Galton, F.R.S., read a paper on composite portraits, made by 

 combining those of various persons into a single resultant fiu'ure 

 (Nature, p. 97). — The Director read a paper by Mr. C. Staniland 

 Wake on the origin of the classificatory system of relationships 

 used among primitive people. After criticising Mr. Morgan's 

 explanation of the classificatory system as having originated in 

 the practice of marriage among consanguinei, Mr. Wal;e pro- 

 ceeded to show that the social condition of the Polynesian 

 peoples, who possessed the simplest form of that system was 

 inconsistent with the origin assigned to it by Mr. Morgan. The 



