July 24, 1879] 



NATURE 



303 



imder the auspices of Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 

 (in advance of vol. ix. of the Transactions of the Albany 

 Institute, pp. 1-72, plates l-ii). The locality was on the 

 eastern shores of Virginia (Northampton); between the 

 mainland and the islands a large area of dark mud is 

 exposed at low water. It is described as abounding in 

 animal life, and yet the number of species of Annelids 

 described is not large, there being only fifty-nine, rele- 

 gated to forty-nine genera ; of these, four of the genera 

 are new, and twenty-seven of the species. The absence 

 of I^Iediterranean species seems noteworthy, scarcely any 

 of Ehler's species from the Adriatic or Claparede's, from 

 the Bay of Naples, being quoted. 



Acid Reaction of Flowers. — It was stated, as 

 the result of observation, by MM. Fremy and Cloez, 

 that the juices of all red and rose-red flowers showed 

 an acid reaction, whereas the juices of blue flowers 

 were always neutral, or even weakly alkaline. The 

 subject has been studied afresh by Herr Vogel, who 

 examined 100 species, viz., 39 blue, 44 red, 6 violet, 8 

 yellow, and 3 white flowers. The experiments (described 

 to the Munich Academy) confirm the view that it is not 

 warrantable to attribute the red colouring of flowers to 

 action of acids or acid salts on blue colouring matter, or 

 to attribute the latter to the influence of alkahes on red 

 colouring matter, though doubtless there is a certain re- 

 lationship between certain red and blue plant colours. It 

 further appears that the opinion that plant juices generally, 

 and even the majority of flower-juices, have an acid reac- 

 tion, is pretty correct ; among 100 flowers there were only 

 twelve which did not react acidly. On the other hand, 

 the rule above referred to is not found to apply uni- 

 versally, for among thirty-eight blue flowers twenty-eight 

 showed a decidedly acid reaction, though the degree of 

 the acidity was less than in red flowers. 



Function of some Contractile Vacuoles in In- 

 fusoria. — .An observation recently published by Herr 

 Engelmann, of Utrecht, throws light on the function of 

 the contractile vacuole in some infusoria. Some time 

 ago he found a new infusory animal, closely allied to 

 Chilodon cuculliilus, and which he calls Chilodo7i pro- 

 pellcns ; it is marked by its slender form, and by 

 the round shape of its hinder extremity, where is the 

 contractile vesicle. This animal swims with pretty con- 

 stant, but very slow, velocity in circling paths. Each 

 time the vacuole contracts (which occurs in pretty regu- 

 lar intervals of about half a minute, and very quickly) 

 there is an impulsive acceleration of the forward motion. 

 If the animal be at rest, it makes, at the moment of 

 systole, an impulsive forward movement about a quarter 

 of its length. No simultaneous acceleration of the very 

 sluggish ciliary movement was observed. The for- 

 ward motion, then, can only be attributed to the back- 

 ward thrust of liquid expelled from the contractile 

 vacuole. Herewith agrees the fact that the hinder portion 

 of the body shrinks together, in systole, as though to a 

 thin empty sack folded in longitudinal direction, without 

 the least perceptible increase in volume of the forepart 

 of the body ; so that the greater part, if not the whole of 

 the hquid contents of the vacuole, must have been ejected 

 behind. The re-expansion of the vacuole takes place 

 very slowly, and it could not be determined whether 

 liquid was directly drawn in from without. Coloured 

 liquids were never observed to enter the vacuole. 



Physiological Action of Copper. — For some 

 years past the majority of medical men have no longer 

 considered salts of copper as true poisons, their in- 

 nocuousness being partly due to the fact that when they 

 are taken in any considerable quantity, they cannot be 

 kept in the stomach, but produce vomiting. It remained 

 to ascertain whether, in animals incapable of vomiting, 

 salts of copper would act as poison. At a recent meeting of 

 ihe Socidtd de Biologic, M. Gallipe described some experi- 



ments on the subject. He had given several rabbits copper 

 with their food. One of these animals received daily, for 

 six months, two grammes of acetate of copper. At the end 

 of this period, the rabbit showed considerable fattening. 

 Its liver weighed 70 grammes, and contained 13 centi- 

 grammes of copper. Further, this rabbit was eaten by 

 the experimenters, who were no way incommoded there- 

 by. This is one fact more (says La Nature) in favour of 

 the so-called rehabilitation of copper. 



Localisation of Arsenic in the Brain. — Expe- 

 riments have recently been made on guinea pigs by 

 M. De Poncy and Livon (Comptes Rendus), with refer- 

 ence to the localisation of arsenic in the brain, when 

 arsenious acid was given in small doses daily with the 

 food. They found that phosphoric acid increased con- 

 siderably in the urine, and it can only have come (the 

 authors point out) from an elimination by substitution, not 

 from a pathological state of the animal, for in cerebral 

 affections, rather a diminution than an increase of phos- 

 phoric acid in the urine has been observed. The arsenic, 

 then, seems to replace the phosphorus of phosphoglyceric 

 acid in lecithine, producing arsenioglyceric acid. The 

 authors are seeking to isolate this new base. 



NOTES 



Prof. Chrystal of St. Andrews (formerly of Peterhouse, 

 Cambridge) has been appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in 

 Edinburgh University. He was Second Wrangler and Second 

 Smith's Prizeman in 1875, and is already known to science by 

 his experimental researches on Ohm's Law (made in the 

 Cavendish Laboratory) and by the very excellent article 

 "Electricity" in the new edition of the Encydopadia 

 Britannica. Among the eleven candidates for the chair there 

 were four Senior Wranglers. Thus the Chair of Mathematics 

 in St. Andrews is now vacant ; and it has just been announced 

 that Prof. Blackburn has requested the University Court of 

 Glasgow to sanction his retirement from the Chair of Mathe- 

 matics there. As Prof. Fuller of Aberdeen resigned last year 

 only, the whole of the Mathematical Chairs in Scotland have 

 been vacant within one year. 



At the half-yearly general meeting of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society, held on Monday, July 21, papers were read on 

 " The Cold Weather since November, compared with Periods of 

 Protracted Cold in Scotland from 1764," by Alexander Buchan ; 

 on "The Great Plague of London in Relation to Weather," by Dr. 

 Arthur Mitchell ; and on " Ground Swells ob-erved in Scotland 

 since 1868," by Alexander Buchan. With reference to the pro- 

 posal of General Myer to publish maps exhibiting the simul- 

 taneous monthly means in meteorology of the whole of the 

 northern hemisphere, intimated in Nature, vol. xx. p. 275, 

 the Scottish Meteorologists state, in their Report to the meeting, 

 their conviction "that this truly cosmopolitan work, which the 

 United States alone are in a position to undertake, thanks to the 

 enterprise and liberality of their Government, will bring before 

 lis, month by month, the general circulation of the earth's atmo- 

 sphere, and raise at least, if not satisfy, many inquiries lying at 

 the very root of meteorology, and intimately affecting those 

 atmospheric changes which meteorologists hitherto have been 

 recording." 



We have already referred to the valuable " Bibliographical 

 Contributions " issued by the library of Harvard University 

 and edited by Mr. Justin Winsor, the librarian. One of the 

 most scientifically important of these is a list of apparatus avail- 

 able for scientific researches involving accurate measurements, 

 prepared by means of answers to a circular sent out l)y Profes- 

 sors Wolcott Gibbs, E. C. Pickering, an.l Trowbridge, of Har- 

 vard. This circular speaks of the cost of the apparatus required 

 I for exact quantitative determinations in the various branches of 



