190 



NATURE 



[April 7, 192 1 



ment of a Gorgonid, probably belonging to the genus 

 Septogorgia. There are two other species of the genus 

 Cavernularia in the collection, one C. Chuni, from 

 the coast of Borneo, and the other C. analabarica, 

 from the Bay of Bengal. They are the only sea-pens 

 that have been described by the collectors as "washed 

 ashore," and must therefore have either a floating habit 

 or a very feeble attachment to the bottom. Specimens of 

 the genus Pseudocladochonus from the coast of Japan 

 hav? been hitherto recorded only from the Malay 

 Archipelago. They show a remarkable resemblance 

 to the extinct Carboniferous fossil Cladochonus of the 

 family Auloporidae, but, as pointed out by Versluys, 

 the resemblance is probably due to convergence. A 

 re-examination of some specimens of the genus Vergu. 

 laria from the coast of Victoria, Australia, shows 

 that they cannot satisfactorily be separated from the 

 British and North Atlantic species Vergularia mira- 

 bilis. An Alcyonarian belonging to the genus Sarco- 

 dictyon came from the coast of South Australia, and 

 is difficult to separate from the species S. catenata, 

 which has hitherto been recorded only from the British 

 area. These two species offer examples of geographical 

 discontinuity. — J. Gray : The mechanism of ciliary 

 movement. The movement of the cilia on the gills of 

 Mytilus edulis was described. The effects of acids and 

 of certain metallic ions seem to indicate that the 

 mechanism of ciliary and muscular activity is essen- 

 tially the same. — A. B. Appleton : The influence ot 

 function on the conformation of bones. A summary 

 was presented of the effects produced on the mam- 

 malian femur of those muscular specialisations charac- 

 teristic of cursorial, jumping, and arboreal types 

 respectively. Consideration of the maximum effective 

 leverage attainable by the adductor and femoro- 

 coccygeus muscles in different positions of the thigh 

 was shown to harmonise with some variations in their 

 attachment in various mammalian groups. — J. T. 

 Saunders : A note on the hydrogen-ion concentration 

 of some natural waters. The hydrogen-ion concen- 

 tration of waters occurring naturally in those districts 

 where chalk, gault, or lime is present in the soil or 

 subsoil is remarkably constant. Divergences are 

 caused by the presence of large masses of vegetation, 

 by debris stirred up from the bottoms by currents, or 

 by the presence of sewage or other decaying organic 

 matter. — P. A. Buxton : Animal ecology in deserts. 

 The paper recorded some incomplete observations on 

 desert life, the majority made in Mesopotamia under 

 war conditions. Heat, dryness, terrific winds, low 

 relative humidity, great diurnal range of tempera- 

 ture, the heat of the surfaces on which many of the 

 desert animals crouch, and the brilliant direct sun- 

 shine are characteristic of the region. Protective 

 coloration is a well-known characteristic of desert 

 animals ; it is difficult to see of what advantage it can 

 be to purely nocturnal animals. The coloration of 

 the courser is not eflficient, because the bird's legs are 

 long and it casts a sharp black shadow. The animals 

 which are not protectively coloured are black. These 

 are all probablv protected by characters other than 

 colour. The development of certain insects is in- 

 hibited in summer; probably the inhibitory factor is 

 high temperature or low relative humidity; it is cer- 

 tainly not due to a drying up of the food-plant. — J- 

 Line : The biology of the crown gall fungous of 

 lucerne. The thallus of this fungus. JJroi^hlyctis 

 alfalfae (Lagerh.), P. Magnus, is described. Resting 

 spores are developed as simple terminal proliferations 

 from the swollen hyphal ends, no conjugation process 

 taking place. They produce a large number of zoo- 

 snores on germination, which normally infect only 

 the young adventitious buds of Medicago sativa and 

 possibly M. falcata, causing the formation of galls. 



NO. 2684. VOL. IO7I 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, March 21.— Prof. F. O. Bower in 

 the chair.— Prof. H. Briggs : An experimental analysis 

 of the losses due to evaporation of liquid air contained 

 in vacuum flasks. Liquid air and liquid oxygen are 

 now being- employed not only in the laboratory, but 

 also to serve the airman in high flying, for mine rescue 

 apparatus and blasting in mines and quarries, for 

 evacuation plant, and for medical purposes. If a Euro- 

 pean war were ever to break out again, oxygen would, 

 owing to the probable use of poison gases in enor- 

 mous quantities, become the chief remedial measure, 

 and would be required on a colossal scale. The ex- 

 periments described in the paper gave a quantitative 

 measure of the proportion of heat entering a vacuum 

 flask containing liquid air (a) by conduction through 

 the vacuum, (b) by radiation across the vacuum, and 

 (c) by conduction along the neck ; they further pro- 

 vided data for calculating the pressure in the vacuum 

 space and the emissivity of the. reflected surfaces 

 bounding that space. The purpose of the investiga- 

 tion was to get information to assist in the design of 

 metallic vacuum vessels. — Dr. J. Marshall : A 

 generalisation of Lagrange's equations of motion and 

 their Hamiltonian forms. — Sir T. Muir : Note on a 

 continuant of Cayley's of the year 1874. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, March 14. — M. Georges Lemoine 

 in the chair. — E. Picard : The determination of the 

 axis of rotation and velocity of rotation of a solid 

 body.— H. Douville : A brackish-water fauna at the 

 top of the Lower Cretaceous near Bayonne. — G. Gouy : 

 Imperfect aplanetism.- — L. E. Dickson : The composi- 

 tion of polynomials.- — A. Witz : An aviation motor 

 admitting of a constant mass, with constant com- 

 pression at all altitudes. — Sir George Greenhill was 

 elected a correspondant for the section of mechanics 

 in succession to the late M. Voigt. — G. J. Remoundos : 

 Couples of algebroid functions of one variable cor- 

 responding to the points of an algebraic curve of 

 higher order than unity. — C. E. Traynard : Singular 

 hyperelliptic functions. — N. Abramesco : Develop- 

 ments in series according to the inverse of given 

 polynomials. — T. Varopoulos ; Some points in the 

 theory of functions and the theory of numbers.— A. 

 Denjo'y : A calculation of totalisation. — T. Carleman : 

 A class of integral equations with asymmetrical 

 nucleus. — H. Mellin : Solution of the general alge- 

 braical equation with the aid of the T function. — 

 T. L. Walsli : The position of the roots of the derived 

 ifunctions of a polynomial. — P. Le Rolland : The devia- 

 tions from the law of isochronism produced by the 

 suspension strip of the pendulum. The suspension of 

 a pendulum by an elastic strip of metal partially com- 

 pensates the circular error for large amplitudes, but 

 compensation is not possible at all amplitudes. — A. 

 Veronnet : Hypotheses on the formation of new stars. — 

 J. B. Charcot : The Island of Jan Mayen. This 

 island was supposed to have been first discovered in 

 161 1 by the Dutch sailor whose name it bears. The 

 descriptions in the " L^gende Latine " (ninth cen- 

 tury) of the voyages of the Irish monk, Brennain 

 Mac Finlonga (St. Brandan), include such an exact 

 account of this island that the author agrees with 

 E. Beauvois that the Irish monk must have been the 

 first discoverer. — F. Schrader : The new universal atlas 

 of Vivien de Saint-Martin and Schrader.— M. Pariselle : 

 The hydrates of pyridine. Nine different hydrates of 

 Dvridine have been described. From a critical discus- 

 sion of the data it is concluded that in no case is the 

 evidence sufficient to orove the existence of a definite 

 combination of pyridine and water. — R. Audubert : 

 The elementary quantity of energy concerned in solu- 



