Dec. 6, 1877] 



NATURE 



1 1 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 

 Geological Society, November 7.— Prof, P. Martin 

 Duncan, F.R.S., president, in the chair.— Stephenson Clarke, 

 William Hunter, and the Rtv. W. Roberts, were elected Fellows 

 of the Society. The following communications were read : A 

 letter dated September 14 was read, from Lord Derby, sfatin|T 

 that his lordship had received a despatch from her Majesty's 

 Minister ot Tehran, reporting that a mining engineer had arrived 

 there from Berlin, who, at the request of the Persian government, 

 had been selected by Messrs. Siemens to ascertain what founda- 

 tion there was for the reported existence of a rich vein of gold in 

 the vicinity of Zengan ; that he had visited the locality and 

 reported that auriferous quartz does exist, but that he had not yet 

 succeeded in finding any vein or deposit of the metal. — Notes on 

 fossil plants discovered in Grinnell Land by Capt. H. W. 

 Feilden, Naturalist to the English North Polar Expedition, by 

 Prof. Oswald Heer, F.M.G.S. Near Discovery Harbour, where 

 H.M.S. Discovery wintered in 1875-6, in about 81° 45' N. lat, 

 and 64° 45' W. long., a bed of lignite, from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet thick, was found, resting unconformably upon the azoic 

 schists of which Grinnell Land chiefly consists. The lignite was 

 overlain by black shales and sandstones, the former containing 

 many remains of plants ; and above these there were, here and 

 there, beds of fine mud and glacial drift, containing shells of 

 marine mollusca of species now living in the adjacent sea. This 

 glacial marine deposit occurs up to levels of 1,000 feet, indicating 

 a depression and subsequent elevation of the region to at least 

 this extent. Remains of twenty-five species of plants were col- 

 lected by Capt. Feilden, and eighteen of these are known from 

 miocene deposits of the Arctic zone. The deposit is therefore 

 no doubt miocene. It has seventeen species in common with 

 Spitzbergen (78^^ 79' N. lat.), and eight species in common with 

 Greenland (70° 71' N. lat.). With the miocene flora of Europe 

 it has six species in common ; with that of America (Alaska and 

 Canada) four ; with that of Asia (Sachalin) four also. The 

 species found include two species of Equisetuvi, ten Coniferse, 

 Phragmites tvttingt'nsis, Carex noursoakensis, and eight dicoty- 

 ledons, namely, Popiilus arclica, Betula prisca, and Brongniarti, 

 Coryins macquarrii and insignis, Ulmtts borealis. Viburnum 

 nordinskibldi, zxA Nymphcca arctica. Of the Conifers, Torellia 

 rigida, previously known only by a few fragments from Spitz- 

 bergen, is very abundant, and its remains show it to have 

 been allied to the Jurassic genera Phcenicopsis and B cetera, 

 the former in its turn related to the carboniferous Cordaites, 

 and among recent conifers, to Podocarpus. Other conifers 

 are, Thuites ehrensiudrdii^'), Taxodium distichuin viiocenum (with 

 male flowers), Pinus feildetnana (a new species allied to P. 

 strolbus),Pinuspolaris, P^abies[,\.\\\g% covered with leaves), aspecies 

 of Tsuga Pinus dicksoniana, Heer. ), and a white spruce of the 

 group of Pinus grandis and cariocarpa. Pinus abies, which 

 occurs here and in Spitzbergen, did not exist in Europe 

 in miocene times, but had its original home in the extreme 

 north, and thence extended southwards ; it is met with 

 in the Norfolk forest-bed, and in the interglacial lignites 

 of Switzerland. Its present northern limit is 69^° N., and 

 it spreads over 25° of latitude. Taxodium distichuin, on 

 the contrary, spread in miocene times from Central Italy to 

 82° N. latitude, whilst at present it is confined to a small 

 area. Betula brongniarti, Ett., is the only European species 

 from Grinnell Land not previously known from the arctic zone. 

 The thick lignice bed of Grinnell Land indicates a large peat- 

 moss, probably containing a lake in which the water-lilies grew ; 

 on its muddy shores stood the large reeds and sedges, the birche?, 

 poplars, Taxodia, and Torellue. The drier spots and neighbour- 

 ing chains of hills were probably occupied by the pines and fir?, 

 associated with elms and hazel bushes. A single elytron of a 

 beetle ( Carabttes feiidenianus) is at present the sole evidence of 

 the existence of animals in this forest region. The nature of the 

 flora revealed by Capt. Feilden's discoveries seems to confirm 

 and extend earlier results. It approaches much more closely to 

 that of Spitzbergen than to that of Greenland, as might be ex- 

 pected from the relative positions of the localities ; and the dif- 

 ference is the same in kind as that already indicated by |Prof. 

 Heer between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and would indicate 

 the same kind of climatic difference. Nevertheless, the presence 

 of Taxodium dtstichum excludes arctic conditions, and that of 

 the water-lily indicates the existence of fresh-water, which must 

 have remained open a great part of the year. Representatives 

 of plants no\^ living exclobively in the arctic zone are wanting in 



the Grinnell Land deposits ; but, on the other hand, most of the 

 genera still extend into that zone, altliough they range in Grin- 

 nell Land from 12° to 15° further north than at present.— On 

 our present knowledge of the invertebrate fauna of the lower 

 carboniferous or calciferous sandstone series of the Edinburgh 

 neighbourhood, especially of that division known as the Wardie 

 Shales, and on the first appearance of certain species in the 

 beds, by Mr. R. Etheridge, jun., F.G.S. 



Zoological Society, November 20. — Prof. Flower, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Mr. Howard Saunders exhibited a 

 specimen of the rare Aleutian Tern {Sterna aleutica) from 

 Alaska, and made remarks upon its intermediate position 

 between typical Sterna and the group of the Sooty Terns {Ony- 

 choprion). — A communication was read from the Marquis of 

 Tweeddale, F. R.S., containing an account of a collection of 

 birds made by Mr. A. H. Everett in the Island of Zebu, Philip- 

 pines. Six new species were found in this collection, and were 

 named Oriolus assimilis, Phyllornis flavipennis, Zost crops everetti, 

 PrionocJiilus quadricolor, Turnix nigrescens, and Megapodius 

 pusitlus. — Three communications were read from Dr. O. Finsch, 

 C.M.Z.S. The first contained a report on a collection of birds 

 made at Eua, Friendly Islands, by Mr. F. Hiibner, which had 

 increased our knowledge of the avifauna of Eua from four to 

 twenty-four species. The second contained a description of a 

 collection of birds made on the Island of Ponape, Eastern Caro- 

 linas, by Mr. J. Kubary. The total number of species known 

 at present from Ponape was stated to be twenty-nine, of which 

 seven were peculiar to the island. The third contained a list of 

 the birds obtained at Ninafou Island in the Pacific, by Mr. F. 

 Hiibner. This collection raised the number of the known birds 

 of this island from one to twenty. — Prof. Garrod, F.R.S., read 

 notes on the Taenia of the rhinoceros of the Sunderbunds Plagio' 

 taenia giganted), on the anatomy of the Chinese water-deer 

 {Hydropates inermis), on the possible cause of death in a young 

 seal, and on the occurrence of a gall-bladder in certain species of 

 parrots. — Mr. Howard Saunders, F.Z.S., read a paper on the 

 Laridce collected during the voyage of H.M.S. ChaUinger, 

 which comprised nine species of Sternce, five of Larince, and three 

 of Stercorarincc, altogether seventeen speciej represented by forty- 

 given specimens; sevejalof these were very rare in museums, 

 although none of them were absolutely new to science. — A com- 

 munication was read from Dr. A. B. Meyer, containing some 

 additional proofs of the fact that the Red Eclecti are the females 

 of the green species of that gentis. — A paper was read by Mr. 

 G. French Angas, C.M.Z.S., containing notes on Hdix sepul- 

 charalis of Ferrusac, and its allies, with descriptions of two 

 new species. 



Physical Society, November 17, — Dr. Stone, vice-president, 

 in the chair. — The president, Prof. G. C. Foster, described and 

 exhibited a very simple form of absolute electrometer, which 

 acts on the same principle as Sir W. Thomson's trapdoor form 

 of apparatus, but can be constructed at a very moderate cost. 

 To one arm of a balance is suspended by silk fibres a zinc disc, 

 which hangs horizontally in the plane of a sheet of the same 

 metal forming a guard-plate ; and at a diitance of about one 

 inch below is a flat sheet of zinc, also horizontal. An electrical 

 connection is formed between the guard-plate and suspended disc 

 by a bridge of very fine wire. The method of using the appa- 

 ratus to determine the potential required for a spark to pass from 

 a Holtz machine through varying thicknesses of air was ex- 

 plained. When the balance has been accurately counterpoised, 

 an excess weight, say one gramme, is introduced into the scale 

 pan, and the guard-plate and the lower attracting-plate, as well 

 as the two knobs of a spark- measurer, are connected with the 

 conductors of the machine. If this be now set in action, and 

 the knobs of the spark-measurer be gradually separated, a point 

 w.U be reached at which the attraction upon the suspended di^c 

 just overcomes the excess weight in the balance pan. The length 

 of spark for which this occurs can now be read off. The dif- 

 ference of potential causing the spark is given by the formula 



^ VS/; where a is the radius of the attracted disc, ^ its dis- 

 a ' 



tance from the attracting-plate, and F the force of attraction in 

 dynes. In the apparatus exhibited, a had the value 5-195 cm., 

 and e the value 24 cm., whence, if w be the excess weight in 

 grammes— so that /^ = 981 w— the difference of potential be- 

 co.nes 39 VaT The proper action of the apparatus depends 

 essentially upon the attracted disc being accurately in the same 

 plane with the guard-plate. To facilitate this adjustment, each 

 of th« silk fibres by which the di?c is suspended is attached to a 



