192 



NATURE 



[Dec. 20, 1888 



turned to account in chemical analysis, and the author proposes 

 to deal successively with chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, 

 and nickel. In the present paper he shows the remarkable re- 

 action furnished by chromic acid with oxygenated water, known 

 as the Barreswil reaction. — On a latex oi Bassia latifoUa, Roxb. , 

 by MM. Edouard Jleckel and Fr. Schlagdenhauffen. This 

 plant, the well-known MoJnva of British India, is found to yield 

 by incision a latex capable of supplying a kind of gutta-percha. 

 When evaporated to about one-fourth of its volume, the sap 

 furnishes an adhesive mass in the proportion of 6-67 per cent., 

 which is partly soluble in alcohol and acetone, and which in the 

 insoluble state leaves 27 '027 percent, of a gutta, the composition 

 and industrial properties of which will form the subject of a 

 future memoir. — On some new or little-known Infusoria, by M. 

 J. Kunstler. Several minute intestinal parasites of various 

 animals are described, including a remarkable ciliated Infusorium 

 peculiar to Periplaneta ameiicana. — On the coussinet {cushion 

 ox pad), a new organ attached to the sting of the Hymenoptera, 

 by M. G. Carlet. This organ, here for the first time described, 

 appears to be a sort of pivot round which the sting revolves, 

 preventing this weapon from adhering to the teguments, and 

 facilitating its movements. But the chief function of the " pad " 

 is to retain in the sacs of the trachea the supply of air necessary 

 for their inflation. This it effects by facilitating the action of 

 the operculum, which thus appears to be a veritable safety-valve 

 in the abdominal region. — On the measurement of the large 

 bones in the human system, and on its applications to anthropo- 

 logical and medico-legal questions, by M. Etienne Rollet. The 

 results are given of the measurements, made with Broca's 

 apparatus, of the large bones of fifty men and fifty women lately 

 deceased in the hospitals of Lyons. Much asymmetry was dis- 

 covered between the bones on the right and left sides of the 

 skeleton. An attempt made to determine stature from the size 

 especially of the femur and humerus yielded satisfactory results. 

 Compared with those of negroes and negresses, these measure- 

 ments show generally that in the black race the upper and lower 

 members, especially tibia and radius, are longer than in the 

 South European, the difference being more marked in the 

 female than in the male sex. — On the phosphated deposits of 

 Montay and Forest, Departement du Nord, by M. J. Ladriere. 

 The author describes the origin and composition of these 

 deposits, which in some places are rich enough to be worked 

 with profit. — The dislocations of the primitive formations in the 

 north of the central plateau of France, by M. L. de Launay. 

 The lacustrine and independent origin of the various coal basins 

 in this region is generally admitted by modern geologists. Here 

 the author goes further, and endeavours to determine the causes 

 to which was due the creation of the pre-Carboniferous lakes 

 themselves, as well as their actual position on the plateau. This 

 study is largely based on an entirely new and minute examination 

 of the foldings to which the gneisses and mica-schists of the 

 underlying systems have been subjected. The history of these 

 movements, comprising a considerable number of progressive 

 phases, shows that the successive dislocations invariably took 

 place in the same direction, each great disturbance being merely 

 an intensified repetition of the preceding. The general result in 

 this region was to connect in one vast V-shaped system the 

 Breton and Morvan foldings running respectively in the direc- 

 tions from north-east to south-east and from north-east to 

 south-west. 



Amsterdam. 

 Royal Academy of Sciences, November 24.— M. Hugo 

 de Vries read a paper on the pangenesis of Darwin, express- 

 ing the conviction that Darwin's doctrine presents a great 

 many more data for the explanation of various phenomena in 

 the domain of heredity than the doctrine of Weismann. The 

 author especially tried to demonstrate that the hypothesis of the 

 transport of gemmules may be rejected without endangering the 

 validity of the arguments implicated in that hypothesis, which 

 would connect the separate properties of any organism with some 

 definite species of particles of living matter. He also pointed 

 to the fact that the theory expounded after Darwin's time, ac- 

 cording to which the nucleus of the germ-cell must be the seat 

 of heredity, is in accordance with the import of the last-men- 

 tioned hypothesis. — On tsenodal points, by M. Korteweg. The 

 author treated of their first appearance and disappearance on a 

 gradually deformed surface. There exist four kinds of singular 

 points of the first order of exceptionality, where two or more 

 taenodal points come together, viz. two quite different species of 

 double tsenodal points — oscular points and conical points. When 



a double tcenodal point occurs on the variable surface, a couple 

 of tae nodal points pass from reality to non-reality, or vice ve7-sd. 

 An oscular point is not accompanied by any change in the num- 

 ber of real tzenodal points. In a conical node, as many couples 

 as there are real double lines (six at mo5t) at the conical node of 

 the cubic surface obtained by neglecting all terms of the fourth 

 order and higher, become real or imaginary according to the 

 direction of the deformation. The other couples (six at least) 

 cannot emerge from non-reality. As an immediate result of his 

 general theory, the author deduces the theorem : The difference 

 between the number of real tpenodal points and real lines is the 

 same for every cubic surface, and equal to three.- — M. Martin 

 showed that the lower jaw, found in the year 1823 when digging 

 the canal called " Luid-Willemsvaart," in the Kaberg, near 

 Maestricht, and hitherto regarded as the remains of a so-called 

 fossil or diluvial human being, was not found in the geological 

 formation which harbours such remains, but in another of more 

 recent date, so that the importance of this jaw — found by the 

 author after a long and troublesome search in the anatomical 

 cabinet of the Leyden University — can no longer be maintained. 

 — M. Martin stated that he had discovered recently, in a paixel of 

 petrifactions collected by the mining engineer, J. A. Hooze, in 

 Martapoera, some characteristic fossils from the chalk-formation ; 

 so that it is positively ascertained that in the south-eastern 

 part of Borneo there exists a chalk-formation, as was formerly 

 supposed by Geinitz. 



BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, and SERIALS RECEIVED. 



Seas and Skies in many Latitudes : Hon. Ralph Abercromby (Stanford). 

 — The Region of the Eternal Fire, Popular Edition : C. Marvin (Allen). — 

 The Floral King ; a Life of Linnaeus : A. Alberg (Allen).— The British 

 Journal Photographic Almanac, 18B9 (Greenwood).— Nature's Fairy-Land, 

 2nd edition : H. W. S. Worsley-Benison (E. Stock).— Hand-book to the 

 Optical Lantern : Welford and Sturmey (Iliflfe).— The Blowpipe in Chem- 

 istry. Mineralogy, and Geology, 2nd edition : Lieut-Colonel W. A. Ross 

 (Lockwood). — Round about New Zealand: E. W. Payton (Chapman and 

 Hall). — Through the Heart of Asia, 2 vols. : G. Bonvalot (Chapman and 

 Hall). — Natural History Collections made in Alaska between the Years 

 1877 and 1881 : E. W. Nelson (Washington).— Our Rarer Birds : C. Dixon 

 (Bentley).— The Alps : Prof. F. Umlauft, translated by L. Brough (K. Paul). 



CONTENTS. I 



The " Encyclopaedia Britannica" 



Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources 



The Origin of Floral Structures . . . • 



The Coral Reefs of the Peninsula of Sinai 



Our Book Shelf :— 



Hepworth : " The Book of the Lantern " 



Grabfield and Burns : " Chemical Problems " ... 

 Letters' to the Editor:— 



The Recent Eruption at Vulcano. — Dr. H. J. John- 

 ston-Lavis 



Natural Selection and the Origin of Species.— Prof. 

 George J. Romanes, F.R.S 



Engineers versus " Professors and College Men." — 

 P:rof. A, G. Greenhill 



Mr. Dodgson on Parallels. — R. Tucker 



The Porcupine Echinoidea. — Prof. P. Martin Dun- 

 can, F.R.S 



Angry Birds.— L. Blomefield ; W. G. Smith . . . 



Presentation of a Portrait of Professor A, W. 



Williamson, F.R.S., to University College . . . 



The Morphology of Birds. II. By Dr. H. Gadow . 



Musings on a Meadow 



Alpine Haze. By Rev. W. Clement Ley 



Notes 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



The United States Naval Observatory 



The Total Solar Eclipse of January I, 1889 . . . . 



Comets Faye and Barnard, October 30 



Astronomical Phenomena for the Week 1888 



December 23-29 



The British Association and Local Scientific Socie- 



University and Educational Intelligence 



Scientific Serials 



Societies and Academies 



Books, Pamphlets, and Serials Received 



AGE 

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 170 

 172 

 172 



172 

 173 



173 



173 



175 

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175 



i'75 



175 

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186 

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186 



187 

 1 89 

 189 

 li 

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