554 



NATURE 



[December 23, 1920 



Davis Strait, to the north-east coast of Labrador, 

 southward through Belle Isle Strait to the valley of 

 the St. Lawrence and the tract of country on its right 

 bank, where vines were found growing, unsown corn, 

 and a tree called "Masur," these being regarded as 

 ^ lUs labrtusca, L., Zizania aquatica, L., and an Acer. 

 The reasons why these voyages were not continued 

 were explained as due to the weak colonies at that 

 time in Greenland, the actual starting-point, and the 

 opposition of the natives, termed " SUrsellings," who 

 prevented any attempts at settlements in "Vinland" — 

 the Wineland of the sagas of Erik the Red and of 

 Thorfinn Karlsefni — the northern part of New Bruns- 

 wick. 



Royal Meteorological Society, December 15.— Mr. 

 R. 11. Hooker, president, in the chair. — C. K. M. 

 Douglas : Temperature variations in the lowest 4 km. 

 The chief object of this paper is to emphasise the im- 

 portance of the source of the air-supply in causing varia- 

 tions of the upper-air temperature, and to discuss the 

 relationship of these variations to the weather changes, 

 with special reference to the theories of Prof. V. 

 Bjcrknes, which the observations strongly support. 

 The view put forward is certainly not disproved bv 

 statistical results, though the evidence for it is derived 

 chiefly from the study of a large number of observa- 

 tions of temperature and humidity in the upper air, in 

 conjunction with synoptic charts. .'Xmong the asso- 

 ciated points mentioned in the paper the following 

 may be emphasised : (i) Both troughs of low pressure 

 and wedges of high pressure normally lie farther west 

 in the upper air than at the surface. (2) The pressure 

 in the upper air may be regarded as being partly a 

 consequence, and not purely a cause, of the tempera- 

 ture of the underlying column. (3) Very powerful 

 wind-currents are observed at great heights between 

 the polar and the equatorial air at those levels. — A. P. 

 Wainwright ; A sunshine recorder (mechanical type). 

 The new type of sunshine recorder is in the form of 

 two mercury thermometers similar to one another 

 and of fairly large capacity. The bulb of one thermo- 

 meter, which is contained in a vacuum, is exposed to 

 the direct rays of the sun, while the other is contained 

 in the shade of a Stevenson screen. The difference in 

 expansion of the mercury in each bulb is recorded 

 mechanically by means of a pointer on a clockwork 

 drum, and denotes the varying intensity of the sun's 

 radiant heat at any hour of the dav. The object of 

 this instrument is to obtain a more detailed record of 

 sunshine, and in particular to show the total intensity 

 of the sun's rays for the day as apart from the 

 number of hours during which the sun has actually 

 put in an appearance.— Lt.-Col. J. E. E. C raster : Ah 

 investigation of river-flow, rainfall, and evaporation 

 records. Measurements of the flow of the Shannon 

 show a fluctuation due to variations in the amount 

 of rainfall and evaporation in the Shannon basin. 

 Rainfall records for the Shannon basin are few, and 

 there are no evaporation records, so that it is not 

 possible at present to determine the amount of rain- 

 fall and evaporation by direct methods. But the 

 monthly variations of the rainfall and evaporation, 

 expressed as fractions of the total annual rainfall and 

 evaporation, are constant over'large areas. Records 

 of evaporation from the soil have been kept at 

 Rotharnsted for many years, and in the absence of 

 any Irish records it has been necessary to employ 

 these. By using the monthly variations of rainfall 

 and evaporation as described above it is possible to 

 determine the minimum annual rainfall and evapora- 

 tion in the Shannon basin, which will account for the 

 fluctuations in the river flow. The minimum annual 

 rainfall has been found to be 4571 in., and the mini- 

 mum annual evaporation from the soil i6-88 in. 



NO. 2669, VOL. 106] 



M \NCHI!STEK. 



Literary and Pliilosophical Society, November 16. — Sir 

 Henry A. Miers, president, in the chair. — A. E. Heath : 

 'I he disinterested character of science in view of 

 certain of its working rnaxims. The object of this 

 paper was to show that Mach's "principle of 

 economy" and Occam's "principle of parsimony " are 

 not — as would appear on the surface — contradictor). 

 It was contended that the sciences are synthetic, ami 

 consist in the setting up of conceptual constructions 

 for the complete description of the fields of primary 

 fact in each science. When alternative conceptual 

 constructions are possible Mach's principle is used 

 to decide between the alternatives. But the constant 

 reference back to the field of primary fact removes 

 from its use any menace to the disinterested character 

 of science. Occam's principle, however, is a maxim 

 applicable only to. a process opposite in direction to 

 the synthetic advance of the sciences, namely, the 

 analysis of the field of primary fact itself. It is, 

 therefore, not contradictory, but complementary, to 

 the principle of economy. 



Literary and Philosophical Society (Chemical Section), 

 October 29. — Mr. J. H. Lester (chairman) in the 

 chair.— J. H. Lester: Address on "The Textile 

 Chemist." The value of a thorough training in 

 physics was emphasised, and the importance of a 

 post-graduate training in a technical college con- 

 sidered. The chemist in a dye-making works is only 

 a textile chemist when he deals with the textile 

 process of dyeing. 



November 29. — Mr. J. H. Lester (chairman) in the 

 chair. — H. E. Potts : How can the results of chemical 

 research be best protected by patents? If the patent 

 agent studied the subject sufficiently to criticise freely 

 and intelligently the research programme, the require- 

 ments of the law could be met and the research at 

 one and the same time assisted. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, December 6. — Prof. F. O. Bower, 

 president, in the chair.^ — Miss A. Mann ; Observations 

 on the behaviour of the endodermis in the secondarily 

 thickened root of Dracaena frtiticosa, Koch. The 

 paper demonstrated the effect of cambial activity in 

 disintegrating the endodermis and establishing 

 channels for direct ventilation between the cortex 

 and the pith, which are otherwise isolated by the con- 

 tinuous endodermal sheath. Frequently where such 

 a disintegration takes place the endodermis is not so 

 easily recognised. Here it is a strongly indurated 

 layer of cells, so that the detail of the disintegration 

 can be accurately followed. The physiological result 

 is that the large roots where secondary thickening 

 occurs have a common ventilating system ; but small 

 roots, where the point is less vital, have the. cortex 

 strictly delimited by the endodermis from the central 

 pith.- — L. F. Spath : Cretaceous Amnionoidea from 

 Angola collected by Prof. J. W. Gregory (with notes 

 by the late G. C. Crick). These .\mmonites formed 

 part of a collection that included the Brachiopoda and 

 Mollusca dealt with by R. B. Newton in a paper 

 already published (Trans. R.S.E., vol. li.). Ihe 

 fauna was there described as belonging to the 

 Vraconnian stage of the Cretaceous series, which in- 

 cludes the zone of Schloenhachia inflata. Since there 

 is great confusion about this more or less universal 

 "zone" and about the Ammonites found in it, an 

 attempt had to be made to trace the interrelations of 

 the numerous keeled Ammonites of the Gault and 

 their ranges in time. Some new genera are proposed 

 in addition to a classification of the Hoplitids in 

 general, and a subdivision of the various horizons of 



