284 



NATURE 



IJuly 17, 1879 



lalces and rivers.— Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited a specimen of 

 Papilio hyslaspes, Feld., taken at sea during a calm thirty miles 

 from Singapore and nine miles from the nearest land.— Mr._ W. 

 Cole exhrbited a remarkable variety of Pyrameis cardui, Linn., 

 taken in Essex.— The Secretary exhibited, on the part of Lord 

 Walsingham, some specimens of a remarkable species of Tipu- 

 lidiX: {Bittacomorpha clavipes. Fab.) possessing greatly enlarged 

 tarsal joints, captured at Pitt River, California.— Sir Sydney 

 Saunders communicated some additional explanations received 

 from M. Jules Lichtenstein respecting the rearing of the blister 

 beetle, Cantharis versicatoria. 



Statistical Society, June 30. — Anniversary meeting. — Mr. 

 G. J. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P., in the chair. — The report of the 

 council, the financial statements of the treasurer, and the report 

 of the auditors having been read, the chairman, in moving the 

 adoption of the documents referred to, observ-ed that the Fellows 

 of the Society now numbered 746, and that the increase during 

 the past year over the previous years, and as compared with the 

 average of the last decade (509), indicated the steady progress 

 of the Society. This was confirmed again by the increasing 

 receipts from the sale of the Society's Journal. He congratu- 

 lated the meeting on the satisfactory progress of the Society, 

 financially and otherwise, during the past year. Thomas 

 Brassey, M.P., was elected president. The chairman announced 

 the subject selected for the essays in competition for the Howard 

 Medal of 1880 (with 20/.), to be "The Oriental Plague, in its 

 Social, Economical, Political, and International Relations; 

 Special Reference being made to the Labours of Howard on the 

 Subject." 



Rome 



R. Accademia dei Lincei, June I.— Prof. Blaserna and 

 MM. Casorati and Brioschi read a report on a memoir by M. 

 Ascoli, on the representability of a function of two variants by 

 double trigonometrical series.— Prof. Blaserna and MM. Felici 

 and Betti read a report on a memoir by Prof. Galileo Ferraris 

 on theorems on the distribution of constant electric currents. — 

 Prof. Blaserna presented a memoir by M. Keller on the secular 

 variation of the magnetic declination at Rome. — The following 

 papers were read :— Contributions to etiology, by M. C. Emery. 

 —Locomotion in the air, by M. Cordenous.— The application of 

 photography to topographical operations, by M. Chizzoni. — Pre- 

 sident Sella spoke on a paper by M. Valle, a crystallographic 

 study of some bodies of the aromatic series, prepared by Prof. 

 Korner. — M. Lanciani made some demonstrations on malaria 

 and on the subterranean roads in Rome and the Roman Cam- 

 pagna.— On the nature of the specific agent which produces 

 fevers by malaria, by'. Profs. Tommaso-Crudelis and Klebs. — 

 On the thermic and galvanometric laws of electric sparks pro- 

 duced by complete and incomplete discharges of condensers, by 

 Prof. Villari. 



Paris 



Academy of Sciences, July 7.— M. Daubree in the chair. 



The following papers were read :— Identity of Bacillus amylo- 



bactera.nA the butyric vibrion of M. Pasteur, by M. van Tieghem. 

 The amylobacter, at a certain phase of development, produces a 

 transitory reserve of starch, impregnating its protoplasm. That 

 this occurs in solutions of dextrine or sugar, seems to have 

 escaped the notice of M. Prazmowski and M. Pasteur.— Ori a 

 new polygraph, an inscribing apparatus applicable to physio- 

 logical and clinical researches, by M. Marey. He describes 

 modifications by which his apparatus is rendered more portable, 

 simple, and faithful in its indications. In his tambours, the 

 elastic membrane is caught between two annular plates of metal ; 

 for transmission of sphygmograph movements he uses caoutchouc 

 tubes rendered inextensible, &c. — On the origin of the excito- 

 sudoral nerve-fibres of the face, by MM. Vulpian and Raymond. 

 The cervical cord of the sympathetic probably contains few, if any, 

 excito-sudoral fibres. The fibres in question come either froin sym- 

 pathetic nerve-fibres accompanying the vertebral artery in its as- 

 cending course through the transverse apophyses of the cervical 

 vertebrse and (through these fibres) f romtheupper thoracicganglion, 

 or from the parts of the sympatlietic coming from the rachidian biilb 

 and the protuberance.— On the inundationof the town of Szegedin, 

 in Hungary, by General Morin. A scientific account of the 

 disaster. From data supplied by Prof. Krusper, of Buda-Pesth, 

 it is shown that in less than fifty years, both as the natural effect 

 of alluvia and that of embankment, the level of flood of the 

 Tisza had risen two metres. General Morin points out the ad- 



vantage of transferring the clayey and muddy deposits of the 

 river from the lower to the upper parts of the valley, so turning 

 marshes into cultivable land, and increasing the slope of the 

 valley. With this view the dykes of the left bank might be 

 gradually suppressed and replaced by submersible oblique dykes, 

 furnishing successive basins for interception of material. — On 

 the mean value of coefficients in the development of a skew or 

 symmetrical determinant of an order infinitely great, and en 

 doubly skew determinants, by Prof. Sylvester. — Application of 

 sulphocarbonate of potassium to phylloxerised vines, by M. 

 Mouillefert. He gives in a table particulars of the treatments 

 effected by the General Society in the spring of this year. The 

 sulphocarbonate is almost universally applicable for French 

 vineyards, and can be used in any weather or any season without 

 danger to the vine. — On the hypergeometric series and the poly- 

 nomes of Jacobi, by M. Appell.— On the recent eruption of 

 Etna, by M. Fouque. The new eruption has produced, on the 

 south-south-west, a fissure having only a few small crateriform 

 apertures, and mouths of emission of lava slightly developed ; 

 but on the north-north-east side there are ten distinct crater.-, two 

 of which are enormous (200 m. diameter, and Som. depth).— On 

 the same subject, by M. de Saussure. He describes the pheno- 

 mena in detail.' — Evaporation of water under the influence of 

 solar radiation through coloured glasses, by M. Baudrimont. 

 Green and red, in general, favour the evaporation least, while 

 yellow and red favour it most. M. Baudrimont considers there 

 is probably a simple relation between the number and extent of 

 the luminous waves and the number and extent of those which 

 produce heat, in virtue of which they can be simultaneousy 

 propagated through a coloured glass and concur in the effect 

 produced. — Thermo-chemical study of alkaline sulphides, by M. 

 Sabatier.— On a new metal discovered by M. Tellef Dahll, ly 

 M. Hiortdahl. He has found it in a mineral composed oi 

 arseniuret of nickel (kiiffirnickel) and nickel glance at Oterij, 

 a small island near the town of Krages. He calls it Nor- 

 vegium. It is white, somewhat malleable, and hard like copper 

 (Ng = I4S"95).— On commercial trimethylamine, by MM_. Du- 

 villter and Buisine. It is not a simple product, as M. Vincent 

 asserts ; of trimethylamine there is only 5 to 10 per cent, in it. 

 Dimethylamine dominates, being about 50 per cent. There are 

 also monomethylamine, monopropylamine, and monoisobntyla- 

 mine, in nearly equal quantities. — The charbon of ordinary 

 onion {Allium cepa), a new disease, originating in America, and 

 caused by an Ustilaginea {Urocystis cepuhv, Farlow), by M. 

 Cornu.— Contribution to the physiology of local sweats ; local 

 action and antagonism of hypodermic injections of pilocarpine 

 and atropine, by M. Straus. 



CONTENTS Pa<;e 



Recent P»bucations on Galileo's Tkial eefoke the Inquisi- 

 tion. By Sedley Taylor - ' 



The Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid and Alkali. By Prof. 

 H. E. RoscoE, F.R S 



Our Book Shelf:— 



Beckett's " On the Origin of the Laws of Nature." Prof. Tait, 



F.R.S.E 



Lock's "Homeof the Eddas" 2'^S 



Letters TO THE Editor:— 



Swift's Comet.-Major G. L. Tupman . ="5 



Hissarlik.— Sir John LuDBOCK, Bart., F.R. S 20S 



On the Origin of Certain Granitoid Rocks.— C. Callaway ... 266 



The Telephone.— Rev. Percival Jenns 206 



Inherited Memoryin Birds— J. Sinclair HOLDEN 2O6 



Butterfly Swarmj.— Sydney B. J. Skeetchly ao6 



Distribution of the Black Rat.-CHAS. Coppock 2<)6 



Pine Pollen and Sulphur.— Dr. Andrew Wilson 2*6 



Plague of Rats.— Frederick Lewis ^7 



Glow-worms. — J. S ; A ' ' ' nr ^^ 



Headless Butterfly laying Eggs.— A. Stephen- Wilson .... 267 



The Comparative Anatomy of Man, III. By Prof. Flower, 



F.R.S =°7 



Obr Astronomical Column:— 



The Dunsink Observatory, Dublin 2«9 



The Solar Eclipse of July 19 =7° 



Periodical Comets in 1880 '7° 



Meteorological Notes -'° 



Geographical Notes • • • / / /. •. " ' ^'' 



Prof. MoEBius ON THBE0Z30N Question (Jf^i^A/Z/OT/ra/Mw) . . 272 



Note '' 



Hollway's New Application of Rapid Oxidation by which 



Sulphides are Utilised as Fuel 7o 



University AND Educational Intelligence 280 



Scientific Serials _^^ ^ 



Societies and Academies 



Jl 



