142 



NA TURE 



[Dec. 6, 1888 



some cases, different nuclei may give rise to separate tails ; 

 such would seem a possible explanation of Commander Sampson's 

 observation of the comet of 1882 (Fig. 20). 



J. Norman Lockyer. 



{ To be continued. ) 



The President of the Royal Society responded in a sliort 

 speech, in which he compared the Royal Society to a wave of 

 light moving onward through space, conveying intelligence from 

 one portion of the universe to another far-distant portion. The 

 molecules which it set in motion had but a brief existence, but 

 the wave moved ever onward. 



THE ANNIVERSARY AfEETING OF THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY. 

 ■T^HE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society was held on 

 ■^ Friday last, St. Andrew's Day. The President read the 

 anniversary address — a copy of which has not yet reached us 

 — and presented the medals. Pnf. Huxley received the Copley 

 Medal, and Mr, Crookes the Davy Medal in person. Prof. 

 Osborne Reynolds was also present to receive one of the Royal 

 Medals. The other Royal Medal was received on behalf of 

 Baron von Mueller by Sir (Jraham Berry, Agent-General for 

 Victoria, and the Kumford Medal, which had been awarded to 

 Prof. Tacchini, was received on his behalf by the Chevalier 

 Catalan!, the Charge d' Affaires at the Italian Embassy. The 

 Society next proceeded to elect the officers and Council for the 

 ensuing year. The selected names we have already published. 



In the evening about 175 Fellows and guests dined together at 

 Willis's Rooms. Among the guests were eminent .representatives 

 of the English Government, of foreign nations, and of art and 

 literature. Sir Frederick Leighton, in proposing "The Royal 

 Society, " said :— 



"A great honour is done to me in intrusting .to my hands the 

 toast which I have risen to propose, for it is the toast round 

 which the chief sympathies of those who sit at this table are 

 ■centred, be they hosts or be they guests— namely, prosperity to 

 ■that ancient and honoured body, the Royal Society. It is, 

 indeed, a toast favoured in this — that no inadequacy of present- 

 ment could rob it of your warm reception, but it is one, also, 

 which, in one sense, the individual now before you is so little 

 ■fitted to propose tha't I could almost suspect you. Sir, of a little 

 prompting of humour in your selection. I do not mean because 

 the bodies with which you and I have respectively the honour to 

 be connected are now, in Piccadilly, as they were in former days 

 an Somerset House, next-door neighbours, and because it is not 

 habitually to one's next-door neighbour that one looks in life for 

 a kind word, but on this other and more cogent groftnd^that 

 the subject on which you bid me speak is one in regard to which 

 I am entirely ig.iorant, and that my attitude is therefore not free 

 from ludicrous aspects in the face of a bady to which grasp and 

 accuracy of knowledge is the one thing needful, and precision of 

 statement the first duty of man ; and this. Sir, certainly not least 

 ill the day of your headship. And yet, on closer view, it is not 

 knowledge, perhaps, that you require of the proposer of this 

 toast so much as respectful sympathy ; and tbat yoii find in me to 

 the full. No, gentlemen, you do not.demand in me knowledge 

 beyond that of the average ignoramus who watches you in wonder 

 as you sound with divining eyes the realms of the heavens above 

 .and of the earth berleath and of the water under the earth, and 

 lay bare before us the very beat of the life-pulse of Nature. You 

 demand in me, I say, rather, some sympathetic sense of your 

 magnificent missions, some adhesion to the faith that you pro- 

 fes.s, and for these you do not look to me in vain. It happens to 

 ime, Mr. President, from time to time to have to acknowledge 

 words of recognition of the services of the great institution to 

 which I am bound in a like capacity with your own ; and, know- 

 ing how earnestly that body is bent on the worthy discharge of 

 an arduous task, such words are deeply grateful to me, but in every 

 such case I see in my inner mind, behind and above the institu- 

 tion which I serve, the sweet and serene countenance of our 

 ■divine mistress — of Art herself; and so, also, in offering this 

 toast to the acclamation of your guests and to the acceptance of 

 your flock, I am thinking less of the noble services of your re- 

 nowned Society, less of the many names which are its high 

 advirnment at this time and our country's pride, than of your 

 .mistress beneficent and supreme, the scatterer of darkness- 

 Science. All of us walk in the daylight of her illumination, the 

 humblest layman can beat witness to her, and the most ignorant 

 ■concerning the paths she treads may yet not unbecomingly de- 

 clare his gratitude to her ministers, and express, as I now express, 

 the hope that they and their successors may in the bond of this 

 •constituted brotherhood long continue to tend the flame and 

 feed the increasing splendour of her sacred inextinguishable 

 lamp." 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



The Journal of Botany is still largely occupied with the dis 

 cussion of points connected with botanical nomenclature, in 

 which English, American, and Genevan botanists take part. The 

 October number contains also a description of a new genus of 

 Berberidacea; by the Japanese botanist Tokutaro Ito. — In the 

 November number are papers on the genus Carex, by Mr. L. H 

 Bailey ; on Ferns from West Borneo, by Mr. J. G. Baker ; on 

 South Derbyshire plants, by Rev. W. R, Linton ; and on the 

 Desmidsof Maine, by Mr. W.West. Mr. W. H. Beeby records 

 the interesting fact that of the two very nearly allied s ecies of 

 valerian, Valeriana Mikanii and sambucifolia, one is very 

 attractive to cats, while to the other they are quite indifferent. 



In the Botanical Gazette for September, Mr. C. Robertson 

 completes his essay on zygomorphy and its causes, summing up 

 the results of his observations. The remainder of the number 

 is largely occupied by abstracts of botanical papers read at the 

 Cleveland meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. — In the October number are two important 

 anatomical papers, by Miss Emily L. Gregory on the develop- ; 

 ment of cork-wings on certain trees, and an illustrated one by 

 Mr. W. H. Evans on the stem of Ephedra. Mr. G. Vasey 

 contributes an interesting article on the characteristic vegetation 

 of the North American desert. 



The number of the Nnovo Giornale Botanico Ilaliano for 

 October 1888 is entirely occupied by reports of the papers read 

 before the annua^l meeting-of the Botanical Soci"ety of Italy held 

 at Florence in September, many of which are of considerable 

 intere-t. — Sig. C. Massolongo describes .the germination of the' 

 spores of three, new species of Sphasropsidea;— /-"/n'/Av/iV/rz 

 Bizzozcriana, P. Aristolochtce and Phoma Orohanches. He 

 maintains that the only difference between pycnidia and spermo- 

 gonia is that the sporules (stylospores) contained in the former 

 are capable of germinating directly, while those formed in the 

 latter (spermatia) have no such power. — Sig. A. N. Berlese 

 adds to the very numerous fungus-parasites of the vine two new 

 ones, Greener iafuliginea, S. et V., and As£Ochyta rufo-mactdans, ■ 

 Berk. — Sig. G. Gasperini has investigated the nature of the 

 organism.; which bring ^bout the fermentation of the palm- wine 

 known to the Arabs under the name of " leg'tbi." He finds it 

 to be due to Saccharoniyces cerevisia;, which is always accom- 

 panied by Bacilhis siibtiUs. On the surface is also commonly 

 found a pellicle of Saccharomyces A fy code rnia.—V rot A. Borzi 

 describes a new species and genus of Ascomycetes — Eremo- 

 ihecium Cymbalaria, found on half-ripe capsules of Linaria 

 Cynibalaria. — The little-known germination of the seeds of the 

 ■water-lily, Euryaleferox, is described by Sig. G. Arcangeli, the 

 chief peculiarity being the almost entire suppression of the 

 elongation of the radicle.— Prof, L. Macchiati claims to have 

 discovered an entirely new substance, which he calls xantho- 

 phyllidrln, as a constituent of the green colouring-matter of plants. 

 It is crystallizable, and altogether distinct from xanthophyll and 

 from the pigment of yellow petals.— Prof, A. Borzi describes the 

 mode in which xerotropism displays itself in some ferns — 

 Ceterach officinarum, Notochlcena Maranta, Aspleniiim Tricho- 

 manes, and several species of Cheilanthes ; understanding by this 

 term the mechanical contrivances by which an organ protects 

 itself against excessive desiccation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, November 22.— " The Waves on a 

 rotating Liquid Spheroid of finite Eilipticity." By G. H. Bryan, 

 B.A. Communicated by Prof. G, H. Darwin. 



The hydrodynamical problem of finding the waves or oscilla- 

 tions on a gravitating mass of liquid which when undisturbed is 

 rotating as if rigid with finite angular velocity in the form of 

 an ellipsoid or spheroid, was first successfully attacked by M. 

 Poincare in 1885. 



