[June io, 1922] 



NA TURE 



763 



)ciety of Glass Technology, May 17. — Prof. 

 E. S. Turner, president, in the chair. — J. Currie : 

 imnar structure in sandstone blocks. A glass 

 ik furnace sprang a leak in the bottom and 

 the metal drained through rapidly. A full heat 

 of 1300° C. was maintained to facilitate the re- 

 moval of the metal, but finally part of the crown 

 of the furnace collapsed and the gas was cut off. 

 After the tank was dismantled it was • observed 

 that the sandstones readily disintegrated into long 

 prismatic columns, many of which were straight, 

 but most of them showing a decided curvature. 

 They were roughly pentagonal in section, and varied 

 in thickness from 0-5-1 -5 inches; some were trigonal, 

 others tetragonal in form. The columns were 

 intersected at more or less regular intervals by 

 cross joints, so that the sandstone tended to break 

 up into short columns five or six inches long, some 

 of which were regularly prismatic, others tapering 

 off to a point. The effect is probably due to the 

 rapid expansion caused by the sudden increase of 

 temperature from 800° C. to 1300° C. resulting 

 from the break in the furnace, followed by sudden 

 cooling when the gas was turned off. The formation 

 probably started at the point of contact with the 

 glass, and as has already been claimed for similar 

 formations in Nature, columnar jointing is related 

 to the planes of cooling. — F. W. Adams : Some 

 practical notes on the manufacture of white glass 

 in a tank furnace. It is necessary to have complete 

 analyses of all batch materials used, especially the 

 selenium decoloriser. The total iron content in 

 the finished glass must be kept constant, and careful 

 weighing and efficient mixing of the batch ingredients 

 is essential. Melting temperatures should be kept 

 constant by the use of pyrometers. Lehr tempera- 

 tures should be correct for a given type of glass 

 and kept constant. Two pyrometer stations in the 

 lehr are advisable, and articles differing greatly in 

 weight should not be put together in the same lehr. 

 Selenium offers many advantages over other de- 

 colorising media, and will undoubtedly be as generally 

 used in this country for making colourless glass 

 as in the United States when the conditions for its 

 application are more fully understood by manu- 

 facturers. 



Royal Meteorological Society, May 17. — Dr. C. 

 Chree, president, in the chair. — A. E. M. Geddes : 

 Weather and the crop-yield in the north-east counties 

 of Scotland. The methods of correlation have been 

 applied to find the relation between the yield of the 

 crops in the three north-east counties of Scotland and 

 the " weather," including in this term temperature and 

 rainfall. There is not sufficient uniformity in all the 

 conditions over the area from Nairn to Fife to permit 

 of useful deductions being drawn. The final investi- 

 gation was confined to the counties of Aberdeen, 

 Banff, and Kincardine for the period 1885 to 1919. 

 The conclusions are as follows : cereals do better in a 

 comparatively warm summer with rainfall somewhat 

 in excess ; root crops show less connection with the 

 weather than cereals, but are better with rainfall 

 below the normal ; hay is influenced almost as much 

 by the weather of the year previous as by that of the 

 actual year of harvest. Comparing the latest values 

 for eastern England for the same period, it appears 

 that the most important sections of the year, so far as 

 weather is concerned, vary from district to district. 

 It is important not to make the district too wide in 

 such investigations. — H. P. Waran : A new form of 

 direct - reading barometer. The instrument is a 

 modified syphon barometer that compensates auto- 

 matically for the change of level. This is accomplished 

 by reading axially through the inclined upper reservoir, 



NO. 2745, VOL. 109] 



the reflection on the mercury surface of the divisions 

 of a short length of vertically suspended scale, which 

 has once been set to read the actual pressure, on the 

 cross- wire. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, May 15. — M. Albin Haller 

 in the chair. — L. Maquenne and R. Cerighelli : The 

 influence of lime on the yield of seeds during the 

 germinative period. Traces of lime in the culture 

 fluid (10 parts of calcium sulphate per million) 

 favour the growth of the organs, and this is shown 

 not only by increased length, as compared with 

 control seeds grown in distilled water, but also by 

 increase in weight. — Georges Charpy and Louis 

 Grenet : Study of the penetration of tempering in 

 steel. A method is described permitting the study 

 of the variation in hardness (Brinell) along a bar, 

 after tempering at different temperatures, with or 

 without reheating, and not necessitating test pieces 

 being cut out of the specimen. — Gustave Guillaumin : 

 The equations of the limit of equilibrium of adherent 

 bodies. — Jean Chazy : The movement of a planet 

 in a resisting medium. — F. Michaud : The rigidity 

 of jellies. A new method of measuring the rigidity 

 of a jelly is described, based on the use of a hori- 

 zontal tube filled with the jelly and carrying some 

 sohd particles in suspension, the movement of 

 which, when the ends of the rod of jelly are submitted 

 to different pressures, can be measured in a micro- 

 scope. The apparatus has been applied to the 

 measurement of the rigidity of 15 solutions of gelose 

 of concentrations varying from 0-4 to 6 per 1000. 

 The experimental figures can be expressed by the 

 empirical formula m = 6-32 (c-o-39)*-', where m is 

 the modulus of rigidity in C.G.S. units, and c is 

 the number of grams of gelose per 1000 grams of 

 the mixture. — Henri Abraham and Ren6 Planiol : 

 A new method of emission doubhng the capacity 

 of wireless telegraphy stations. — A. Grebel : A 

 comburimeter and a controller for gas, Grebel- 

 Velter system. In the " comburimetre," the coal 

 gas is burnt in air, the ratio of gas to air being capable 

 of variation and measurement. A mirror surface 

 of fused lead serves as the indicator for oxygen in 

 excess, and the exact quantity of air required for 

 the complete combustion of a given volume of gas 

 is thus continuously indicated. — Mme. Ramart and 

 M. G. Albesco : Study of the two aa . ^/3-substituted 

 propiophenones and their reaction with sodium 

 amide. — Marcel Delepine : The auto-oxidation of 

 organic sulphur compounds. A detailed account of 

 some phenomena observed when air and certain 

 sulphur compounds (such as SClOCHs) (S . CH3) ; 

 CH3 . CS . (OCH3)) interact. The observations cannot 

 be fully explained. — Henri Pi6ron : The law of the 

 velocity of establishment of the fundamental chro- 

 matic processes as a function of the intensity of the 

 luminous stimulation. — Alphonse Labbe : The activa- 

 tion of the spermatozoid in , heterogeneous fecunda- 

 tions. — Armand Dehorne : The formation of myolytic 

 spindles and their phagocytosis in the coelom of 

 Lipobranchus intermedins. These organisms are 

 extracted from old oyster shells by placing the latter 

 in a cr^'stallising basin filled with sea-water. The 

 Lipobranchus can be seen swimming or attached to 

 the sides of the basin. They are fixed living, and 

 on microscopical analysis show marked phenomena 

 of histolysis. It is remarkable that it is the muscles 

 which show pecuhar sensibility to this degeneration. 

 The changes in the muscle fibres are described in 

 detail. — C. Gessard : Varieties of pyocyanoid bacilli. 

 The term " pyocyanoid " is appUed to degenerate 

 pyocyanic bacilli, which although retaining most of 



