534 



NA rURE 



[April 22, 1922 



to any different variables, then the correlation 

 between every two parallel arrays amounts to plus 

 or minus unity. The converse is also true. The 

 correlational coefficients considered are derived from 

 product moments and the proofs do not assume any 

 " normal " frequency distributions. — W. L. Balls : 

 Apparatus for determining the standard deviation 

 mechanically. The apparatus is related to the 

 " Harp " Harmonic Analyser, similarly utilising 

 separately loaded strings to deflect a yoke upon 

 which they all converge. The design of the yoke 

 has been modified to make the readings quantitative, 

 and each string is loaded in proportion to the square 

 of its deviation from the zero position. A template 

 representing the frequency curve under exainination 

 is inserted behind the loaded strings, and the move- 

 ment of an optical lever gives the " sum of the squares 

 of the deviations." The reading is then transferred 

 to a monograph to complete the calculation. The 

 values obtained are correct to within 5 per cent. 



Association of Economic Biologists, March 31. — 

 Prof. E. B. Poulton, president, in the chair. — 

 W. Lawrence Balls : The advantages and dis- 

 advantages of team work in economic biology. An 

 attempt to enunciate certain principles governing 

 the increasing development of team work between 

 different scientific workers and sciences, particularly 

 on the industrial and economic side. Minor prin- 

 ciples : (i) the team leader must administrate 

 research, and not merely administrate ; (2) the 

 " scientific management " of scientific research must 

 be considered ; (3) every new problem needs a new 

 method. Of major principles, apart from the self- 

 evident essential of sincerity, two are enunciated : 

 (i) The specialist in an applied science must be a 

 " 3 ack-of- all- trades " ; (2) the scientific worker's code 

 of " individualism in effort and credit ; communism 

 in results " must not be contravened. — F. Kidd : 

 Problems of fruit storage. The uses of fruit storage 

 ill commerce .were described and an outline given 

 of the amounts of fruit imported into this country 

 as compared with what is grown ourselves. Apples, 

 more particularly, were dealt with as one of the 

 most important crops and our backward position in 

 relation to other countries with regard to apple 

 storage pointed out. An account was given of 

 experiments carried out to test the efficacy of gas 

 storage, a cheaper method than cold storage, the, 

 possibility of which was first suggested by purely 

 scientific work carried out by the author on the effect 

 of carbon dioxide and oxygen upon germination and 

 growth. Finally, the author dealt with a series of recent 

 experiments upon the respiration of apples during 

 their 'storage life after gathering. At each of three 

 temperatures tested, 2-5° C, 10° C, and 22-5° C, 

 the rate of respiration changes with age in similar 

 manner, first rising, then falling. The age changes 

 in the respiration curves are, however, not related to 

 the amount of respiration. Apparently, while the 

 respiration rate has a temperature relation of i : 2-5 : 8, 

 the age factor has a temperature relation of the 

 order of i : 4 : 30, and consequently at analogous 

 points on the age respiration curves more carbon 

 dioxide has been produced at 2-5° C. than at 10° C. 

 or 22-5° C. 



Zoological Society, April 4. — Prof. E. W. MacBride, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — R. H. Burne : The 

 recessus orbitaUs in flat fishes. — L. T. Hogben : The 

 influence of pituitary gland in inducing meta- 

 morphosis of the Axolotl. — J. T. Cunningham : 

 MendeUan experiments on fowls. IH. Production 

 of dominant pile colour. — M. Khalil : A revision of 

 the nematode parasites of elephants, with a descrip- 

 tion of four new species. 



NO. 2738, VOL. 109] 



Linnean Society, April 6. — Mr. H. W. Monckton, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — A. B. Rendle : A 

 seedling of the red horse-chestnut {Msculus rubi- 

 cunda) in which a new terminal bud had been 

 developed to replace the original shoot springing 

 from the seed. The original main shoot, broken 

 some distance below the plumule, was covered after 

 a few days by a new growth which developed into 

 a new terminal bud. The new bud resembled a 

 normal terminal bud the outer leaves of which are 

 imperfect. — L. A. Borradaile : The mouth-parts of 

 the shore crab, Carcinus mcenas. Each of the paired 

 appendages plays a distinct part in manipulating 

 the food. ■ The circulation of the water in the gill- 

 chamber follows a definite course dictated by the 

 arrangement of the organs. The maxillipeds of the 

 third pair of appendages function in feeding, as an 

 operculum, and as cleaning organs. — C. Turner : The 

 life-history of Staurastrum Dickiei, var. parallelum 

 (Nordst.). The contents of the spores of this desmid 

 were, at first, of an oily character. During later 

 stages four nuclei were visible ; this apparently 

 indicates that conjugation resulted in a diploid 

 nucleus, and that a reduction division occurred inside 

 the spore before the discharge of its contents. 

 Germination results in the formation of four, three, 

 two, or one desmid only, usually accompanied by an 

 atrophied nucleus in the surrounding protoplasm 

 when the smaller numbers are formed. Conjugation 

 is usually of the normal type, and the zygospores- 

 are produced between the two desmids ; a conjuga- 

 tion tube was seen in one instance only. The 

 conjugating desmids were asymmetrically placed and 

 the protoplasmic contents indicate a slight differentia- 

 tion of the sexes. The conjugation of a four-rayed 

 with a three-rayed form is not infrequent, and a 

 four-rayed form may occasionally be seen associated 

 with the three-rayed embryonic desmids in the 

 protoplasm discharged from the same spore, when 

 germination takes place. The vegetative division 

 often occurs by the development of a single circular 

 bulging cell between the two semicells. The contents 

 may divide, or an hour-glass constriction may cause 

 the ultirtiate formation of two desmids. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, March 13. — M. Emile Bertin 

 in the chair. — M. Hamy : A property of photographic 

 emulsions and the registration of stars during total 

 eclipses of the Sun in view of the verification of the 

 Einstein effect. It has been found that a short 

 exposure of a photographic plate to light of very 

 feeble intensity, short of producing fogging, increases 

 the sensibility of the plate, so that a plate which 

 just shows a fifth magnitude star before this treat- 

 ment shows a seventh magnitude star after the 

 preliminary exposure, the time being the same in 

 both cases. The bearing of this on the photography 

 of stars round the Sun during a total eclipse is dis- 

 cussed. — C. Guichard : Networks which are harmonic 

 to one C.L. congruence and conjugate to another 

 C.L. congruence. — J. Andrade : The mechanical 

 problems of regulating springs in chronometers. — 

 C. NicoUe and E. Consei] : Preventive vaccination 

 by the digestive tract in man. Experiments on 

 voluntary subjects (Europeans) showed that the 

 dead cultures of organisms secured immunisation in 

 man against Mediterranean fever and dysentery. 

 In the latter, owing to the danger of subcutaneous 

 inoculation, the use of a digestive vaccine offers 

 great advantages.— M. Lecat : Abnormal caylians 

 and bicaylians. — K. Popoff : The general equation 

 of the elliptic type. — E. Cartan : Generalised space 

 and the theory of relativity.— E. Bompiani : The 

 geometry of curved spaces and the energy tensor of 



