Jime 2, 1 88 7 J 



NATURE 



117 



liosing ciiprico-calcic acetate which had previously been finely 

 pulverized. The salt was slowly liquefied, and on the pressure 

 l)eing removed the surface of the instrument in contact with the 

 salt was found covered with a coating of copper. Other experi- 

 ments at lower and higher temperatures, but still much under 

 the point of transition, showed that this substance is decomposed 

 under the action of pressure, the process being accelerated 

 according as the pressure and temperature are increased. — On 

 forecasting the weather, by B. G.Jenkins. The author publishes 

 a weather chart for London ranging over 62 years, showing, as 

 he claims, that the moon not merely influences but is the actual 

 cause of the weather, and consequently that it can be forecast 

 l)v studying accurate barometric and thermometric readings re- 

 corded for a sufficiently lengthened period of time. He finds, 

 for instance, that the readings for London for 1887 will be 

 practically the same as those recorded for 1825, those for 1885 

 and 1886 corresponding in the same way with those for 1823 and 

 1824, and so on. He adds that in December last he issued a 

 forecast for January 1887 based on the readings for January 1825, 

 with the subjoined results: — Forecast: mean bar., 29"98 ; mean 

 then, 35°'5 ; rain, i'5. Result : mean bar., 29*99 5 mean then, 

 35° -9; rain, 1-3. 



Notes from the Leyden Museum, vol. ix., No. 2, April 1887, 

 contains, as usual, a large number of papers on entomology, and 

 also a paper on a collection of mammals made at Mossamedes, 

 from the pen of Dr. F. A. Jentink, the Director of the Museum. 

 Mr. P. J. van der Kellen was one of the members of an Expe- 

 dition to the Cunene River, which was commanded by Mr. 

 Veth. On Mr. Veth's death, which took place very shortly on 

 the Expedition reaching Mossamedes, Mr. van der Kellen deter- 

 mined himself to explore the district, and to make a collection 

 of the fauna for the Leyden Museum. The country he is col- 

 lecting in is, from a zoological point of view, unknown, and 

 although none of the twenty-six species of Mammalia enumerated 

 in this paper by Dr. Jentink are new to science, yet they form a 

 most welcome addition to our knowledge of geographical distri- 

 bution, and several of the forms are still very rare. 



Engler s Botanische Jahrbiicher, vol. viii. part 4, contains : — 

 A contribution to the botanical geography of South Africa, by 

 R. Marloth. This is a description of the plants growing in the 

 south-west Kalahari district. — Contributions to the knowledge 

 of the AponogetonacecB, by A. Engler. The chief conclusions 

 arrived at are that the inflorescence oi Aponogeton is not axillary 

 in position, but two leaves and an inflorescence together form 

 a collective whole, the inflorescence not being in the axil of 

 either of them, but opposite the margin of one of the leaves : 

 that in.^. distcuhyus, which is the commonest cultivated species, 

 the large white bract-like organ, which subtends each flower, is 

 not a bract, but the single developed segment of the perianth : 

 and finally that if the Aponogetonaceis be united with the Junca- 

 gincie and Potamogetonacea in the large family of Najadacea, the 

 Alismact-cc should also be included in that family. — Then follows 

 a condensed translation of the memoir on the vegetative organs 

 of Phylloglossiim Dnimmondii, by F. O. Bower, already pub- 

 lished in the Trans. Roy. Soc, London : the chief result of this 

 investigation is that as regards the vegetative organs, Phyllo- 

 glossum appears to be a permanently embryonic form of Lycopod. 

 — A list of plants found in West Greenland, together with re- 

 marks on their distribution, is contributed by Th. Holm, of 

 Copenhagen, who accompanied the Danish vessel Fylia in its 

 expeditions of 1884 and 1886. — The part closes with the con- 

 tinuation of the usual extracts from current literature. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Zoological Society, May 17.— Prof. W. H. Flower, F.R.S., 

 President, ^n the chain— The President read some extracts from 

 a letter which he had received from Dr. Emin Pasha, dated 

 Wadelai, November 3, relating to some skulls of the Chimpanzee 

 from Monbottu, to some portions of the skeleton of individuals 

 of the Akka tribe, and to some other objects of natural history 

 which he had forwarded {vi^ Uganda) to the British Museum of 

 Natural History. — Mn A. Thomson exhibited some specimens 

 of a rare Papilio {Papilio porthaon) from Delagoa Bay, reared in 

 the Society's Gardens.— Prof. Howes exhibited a drawing of a 

 head of Paliniinis penicillatus, received from M. A. Milne- 



Edwards, and remarked on the assumption of antenniform 

 characters by the left ophthalmite shown in this specimen. — 

 A paper was read by Mn W. F. Kirby, Assistant in the 

 Zoological Department, British Museum, entitled "A Revision 

 of the Sub-family LibellulincE, with descriptions of new Genera 

 and Species." The last compendium of this group was pub- 

 lished by Dr. Brauer in 1868, in which forty genera were ad- 

 mitted. Mn Kirby now raised the number to eighty-eight, all 

 fully tabulated and described in his paper, which likewise 

 included descriptions of fifty-two new species. Mr. Kirby gave 

 a short sketch of the characters of the LibellulincE, and more 

 especially of the neuration, which he considered to be of primary 

 importance. — Mn R. Bowdler Sharpe read the third part of his 

 series of notes on the Hume Collection of Birds, which related 

 to Syrnium maingayi, Hume, and to the various specimens of 

 this Owl in the British Museum. — A communication was read 

 from Mr. A. Smith Woodward, on the presence of a canal- 

 system, evidently sensory, in the shields of Pteraspidian fishes. 

 Mr. Woodward described a specimen which seemed to prove 

 that the series of small pits or depressions upon the shields of 

 these ancient fishes, observed by Prof. Ray Lankester, are really 

 the openings of an extensive canal-system traversing the middle 

 layer of the shield. — A second communication from Mn A. Smith 

 Woodward contained some notes on the "lateral line" of 

 Squaloraja, in which it was shown that the " lateral line " of 

 this extinct Liassic Selachian was an open groove supported, as 

 in the Chimaeroids, by a series of minute ring-like calcifications. 



Anthropological Institute, May 10.— Mn Francis Galton, 

 F. R.S., President, in the chain — Prof. Flower read a letter 

 received by him from Emin Pasha, dated Wadelai, November 8, 

 1886. — Prof. Victor Horsley read a paper on the operation of 

 trephining during the Neolithic period in Europe ; and on the 

 probable method and object of its performance. The paper was 

 copiously illustrated by photographs of trephined skulls and of 

 implements that may have been used in the operation. The 

 fact that most of the holes are found in that part of the skull 

 that covers the fissure of Rolando heightens the probability that 

 the operation was performed as a remedy in cases of epilepsy, 

 since the curve of brain-matter around that fissure is specially 

 connected with what is known as cortical or Jacksonian epilepsy. 

 It seems probable that the operation was, in the first instance, 

 performed for depressed fractures of the skull, or for the trau- 

 matic form of epilepsy, and afterwards in other cases in which 

 similar symptoms were observed. 



Mathematical Society, May 12.— Sir J. Cockle, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chain — Prof. Anderson, Queen's College, Gal- 

 way, was elected a memben — The following papers were read : — 

 General theory of Dupin's extension of the focal properties of 

 conic sections, by Dr. J. I,armor. — Sur une propriete de la 

 sphere et son extension aux surfaces quelconques, by M. 

 D'Oca;»ne.— On the motion of two spheres in a liquid, and 

 allied problems, by Mn A. B. Basset. — Second note on elliptic 

 transformation annihilators, by Mr. J. Griffiths. 



Chemical Society, May5.— Mn William Crookes, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chain — The following papers were read : — A 

 contribution to the study of well water, by Mn R. Warington, 

 F.R.S. — Crystals in basic-converter slag, by Mr. J. E. Stead 

 and Mn C. H. Ridsdale. — Note on the influence of temperature 

 on the heat of dissolution of salts in water, by Dr. William A. 

 Tilden, F.R.S. — The distribution of lead in the brains of two 

 factory operatives dying suddenly, by Mr. A. Wynter Blyth. 

 At a certain lead factory in the east of London five cases of more 

 or less sudden death at different dates have been attributed to 

 the effects of lead. In two of the cases the author had an 

 opportunity of making a toxicological investigation. There has 

 hitherto been no reasonable hypothesis to explain the pro- 

 found nervous effects of the assimilation of minute quantities of 

 lead, but if it is allowed that lead forms definite compounds 

 with essential portions of the nervous system, it may then be 

 assumed that in effect it withdraws such portions from the body ; 

 in other words, the symptoms are produced not by poisoning in 

 the ordinary sense of the term, but rather by destruction — a 

 des' ruction, it may be, of important nerve-centres. — Researches 

 on silicon compounds and their derivatives : a new chloro- 

 bromide of silicon, by Dr. J. Emerson Reynolds, F.R.S. In 

 purifying a large quantity of silicon tet'-abromide prepared by 

 means of crude bromine, the author has separated a portion 

 boiling at I40°-I4i°, of the relative density 2*432, which analysis 

 shows to be the chlorobromide of the formula SiBr,Cl. 



