554 



NATURE 



[December 22, iq:i 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Aristotelian Society, December 5.— Prof. G. Dawes 

 Hicks in the chair. — J. Jolinstone : The Umitations of 

 the knowledge of Nature. A survey of the specula- 

 tive biology of the late nineteenth and twentieth cen- 

 turies forces one to the recognition of a twofold pas- 

 sage of Nature. According to the fundamental con- 

 cept of physical science, the second law of energetics, 

 viz. the augmentation of entropy, physical change 

 tends continually to diminution. The universe, to 

 use Bergson's term, is defending. To the biologist 

 there is another aspect, for life is the incessant 

 attempt of certain physico-chemical systems to resist 

 the increase of entropy. The diflficulty in accepting 

 generalised relativity in biology is that for speculative 

 physiology space-time cannot be completely isotropic, 

 especially if we regard the quality of duration as the 

 cumulative continuity of life. It is a passage, as well 

 as the persistence, of that which has passed. We 

 must regard Newton's "ocean of truth " as amorphous 

 in structure. The relations that are to be discovered 

 in it are in it only in the sense that they come into 

 existence with the thought that makes the relation. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, November 28.— Prof. A. C. 

 Seward, president, in the chair. — J. Gray : Note on 

 cell-division. The form of a dividing cell is determined 

 by three forces : — (i) The mechanical force exerted 

 by the cell membrane, (2) the surface tension of the 

 protoplasmic surface, and (3) an internal force which 

 elongates the cell along the main axis of the astral 

 figure.— J. M. Wordie : The geology of Jan Mayen. 

 The island is entirely volcanic. The earliest lavas 

 are biotite trachytes, which are post-dated by a con- 

 glomerate with wind-polished pebbles. No plant-bed 

 nor anything to suggest the date of the earlier erup- 

 tions was found. A period of erosion probably took 

 place between the formation of the southern hills 

 and the much later Beerenberg volcano (8350 ft.). 

 Olivine-basalt moderately rich in alkalis is the domi- 

 nant rock type throughout the island. The latest 

 volcanic outbursts were from parasitic cones near 

 Beerenberg and from near Vogt Crater, some of lava, 

 others of ash ; they were recorded in 1732 and 1818. 

 On Egg Bluff there are cracks from which steam still 

 issues. Beerenberg itself has never been active in 

 historic times; its crater, half a mile in diameter, is 

 now ice-filled.— W. S. Bristowe : The insect and 

 arachnid fauna of Jan Maven. Most of |:he insects 

 and arachnids also occur in Britain, Greenland, Novaya 

 Zemlya, and Siberia. They may have reached the 

 island from Britain and Greenland fastened to birds 

 or^ sheltered in their feathers, and from Siberia in 

 driftwood. The distribution of the spiders illustrates 

 the theory of an ancient circumpolar fauna. Two 

 species are found at high altitudes in the Swiss Alps, 

 and all occur above 3000 ft. on Scottish mountains ; 

 in Jan Mayen they are found almost at sea-level and 

 upwards. Spiders' eggs hatch out at the end of the 

 season, thus avoiding loss of time when the thaw 

 comes. ^ The list includes five spiders, six mites, one 

 tick, eight Collembola, twelve flies, two ichneumons, 

 and a few water creatures. — J. L. Chaworth- 

 Musters : The vegetation of Jan Mayen. The vegeta- 

 tion may be roughly divided into three groups : that 

 of the_ sea-shore, of the bird cliffs, and of the 

 mountains. Of true halophytic plants there are onlv 

 two, Martensia maritima and Arenaria peploides. On 

 the bird cliffs grows the most luxuriant vegetation of 

 the island. The most characteristic points are the 

 NO. 2721, VOL. 108] 



presence of luxuriant growths of Taraxacum croceum, 

 Saxifraga cernua, Oxyria, and Poa flexuosa. Koenigia 

 is the only annual of Jan Mayen, and grows in most 

 damp spots amongst cinders. The sandy wind-swept 

 flats, where there is no driftwood, are destitute of 

 vegetation, and there are no water-plants in the lakes. 

 The remoteness of Jan Mayen from neighbouring 

 lands and its volcanic character make the origin of 

 the vegetation a difficult problem. Probably the most 

 likely means for the transport of seeds are the feet of 

 wading birds, which stop at Jan Mayen on their way 

 to and from their breeding-grounds in Greenland. — 

 Miss M. D. Haviland : The bionomics of parasitism 

 in certain Hymenoptera. The hyperparasites of 

 Aphides belong to the super-families of Cynipoidea, 

 Chalcidoidea, and Proctotrypoidea. The first of these 

 are internal, and the second and third external, para- 

 sites. Double infestations are common among the 

 hyperparasites, and special terms are suggested to 

 define these relationships. — M. S. Pease : Note on 

 Prof. T. H. Morgan's theory of hen feathering in 

 cocks. — S. Wigert : A problem concerning the Riemann 

 ^-function. 



Dublin. 

 Royal Irish Academy, December 12. — Prof. Sydney 

 Young, president, in the chair. — J. J. Dowling and 

 C. J. Haughey : The electrification of smoke nuclei 

 from phosphorus. If smouldering phosphorus is ex- 

 posed to an electric field, the smoke particles are 

 found to assume charges which depend on the inten- 

 sity of the field. These charges were investigated by 

 three methods, one a visual method, in which the 

 mobilities of the particles were determined by ob- 

 serving the path of the smoke-stream in a vertical air- 

 current when subjected to a horizontal electric field ; 

 the others involved a measurement of the electric 

 charge carried by the smoke. The nuclei were found 

 to be of uniform size and display a periodic 

 increase in charge as the field is gradually increased, 

 due probably to the successive addition of electrons. 

 Charges of from one to twenty-five electrons have beerr 

 so obtained. — J. J. Nolan : lonisation in moist and 

 dry air. The composite nature of the ionisation in 

 moist air has been demonstrated by two methods. 

 The bulk of the ionisation consists of four groups of 

 ions of mobilities approximately 2, i-8, 15, and 

 I 35 cm. sec. per volt cm. Other groups are present 

 in small quantities, the most notable having a mobility 

 of 12. With extreme drying the faster groups appear 

 in greater quantity, and in the case of negative ions 

 the four ordinary groups disappear. With extreme 

 drying doubly charged positive ions also appear, show- 

 ing that the act of ionisation by a-rays may involve 

 the detachment of two electrons from the molecule. 

 Evidence is found of the existence of free electrons 

 in air at ordinary pressures. — R. A. P. Rogers : The 

 simplest mode of representing a continuous linear 

 orthogonal transformation by means of rotation and 

 translation of a rigid schema in a Euclidean manifold 

 of n dimensions. The transformation in question, 

 witli constants added, corresponds to a displacement 

 of a rigid schema in S^, which may be effected by a 

 unique system of n/2 independent rotations, if n is 

 even, or' if n is odd by (n— 1)/2 such rotations, 

 together with a unique independent translation. A, 

 method of reduction by means of invariants to the 

 canonical form required is given. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, December 5. — M. Georges 



Lemoine in the chair.— F. Roux, H. Vallde, H. Cant, 



and the late M. Nocard : Risumi of experiments^ on 



aphthous fever. A summary of results obtained since 



