February io, 1916] 



NATURE 



669 



lormula of S. von Kostanecki and V. Lampe, although 

 the latter formula accords better with the chemical 

 behaviour of catechin. 



Royal Irish Academy, January 24.— Rev, J. P. 

 Mahaffy, president, in the' chair.— Prof. J. A 

 McClelland and Rev. R. FitzGerald : The photo-electric 

 properties of leaves. The paper deals with the photo- 

 electric power of leaves and gives numbers for leaves 

 of various types. It also deals with the extraction of 

 chlorophyll from leaves and the activity of the solu- 

 tions thus obtained. It is also shown that distilled 

 water in which leaves have been immersed has con- 

 siderable photo-electric activity. The concluding por- 

 tion of the paper deals with the increase of photo- 

 electric power produced by the action of oxidising 

 agents on the water extracts and on certain organic 

 substances. 



P.\RIS. 



Academy of Sciences, January 17.— M. Camille Jordan 

 in the chair.— Gaston Darboux ; An extension of Ponce- 

 let's theorems relating to polygons inscribed or circum- 

 scribed about conies. — Armand Gautier and Paul 

 Clausmann : Fluorine in the vegetable kingdom. A 

 table is given of the quantities of fluorine and phos- 

 phorus in various parts of the plant. In the choice of 

 material special attention has been paid to substances 

 utilised as food for men and animals. In plants the 

 leaves are the organs richest in fluorine, the smallest 

 quantities being present in stem, wood, and bark. 

 The ratio of phosphorus to fluorine in the different 

 organs of the plant follows no simple relation, but, as 

 in animals, the two elements increase and decrease 

 together.— Henri Douvill6 : The Cosmoceratidese ; the 

 history of a family of Ammonites, from a posthumous 

 memoir of Robert Douvill^. — Ch. Platrier : The solu- 

 tions of certain linear integral equations of the third 

 species considered as limits of equations of the second 

 species.— M. Angelesco : A class of polynomials with a 

 single variable.— J. Priwalofl : The convergence of con- 

 jugate trigonometrical series. — kmi Pictet and Tsan 

 Quo Chou : The forftiation of pyridine and isoquino- 

 line bases starting from casein. Casein was hydrolysed by 

 hydrochloric acid in presence of formaldehyde (added 

 gradually as methylal), the product dried and distilled 

 with lime. The mixture of bases obtained, amount- 

 ing to 9 per cent, of the original casein, was freed 

 from primary and secondary bases by treatment with 

 sodium nitrite. From the residual tertiary bases pyr- 

 idine, tioquinoline, and homologues of these were 

 isolated. None of these bases were obtained if form- 

 aldehyde is not present during the hydrolysis of the 

 casein. — S. Reich : The nitration of phenylpropiolic 

 acid. Under suitable conditions ^ara- and or//io-nitro- 

 l)henyIpropiolic acids can be obtained by direct nitra- 

 tion. No meta acid could be isolated, — G. Friedel : The 

 observations of Hoga and Jaeger relating to certain 

 lack of syrnnietry of crystal radiograms. A discussion 

 of the possibility of these results being due to a slight 

 imperfection in the orientation of the crystal plate. 

 An error of 1° or 2° would suffice to produce all the 

 phenomena described. — G. Andrd : The displacement of 

 potash and phosphoric acid contained in certain rocks 

 by some substances employed as manures. Finely 

 powdered minerals containing potash yield appre- 

 ciable amounts of potash to water alone, and this 

 amount is markedly increased if certain substances 

 present in manures are added. Chalk, salt, and cal- 

 cium sulphate produce about the same effect ; sodium 

 nitrate, and especially ammonium sulphate, cause 

 larger amounts of potash to go into solution. The 

 results of similar experiments on the extraction of 

 soluble phosphate from apatite are also given. — H. 

 Bouygves : The culture of the sugar-beet in the south- 

 west of France. The yield per hectare has been found 

 NO. 2415, VOL. 96] 



to be somewhat larger in the south (Lot, Lot-et- 

 Garonne, Gironde, and Dordogne) than in the north, 

 and the yield of sugar is not inferior.— M. Bassuet : The 

 treatment of old wounds arising from the war. A 

 contribution to the discussion of the hypothesis of 

 micro-organisms remaining latent in old, and appar- 

 ently healed, wounds. On treating open wounds of 

 long standing by a polyvalent serum, either by injec- 

 tion or by simple local dressings, many cases have 

 been observed of the formation of an abscess rich in 

 pus at a distance from the point of injection or treated 

 wound; but always forming under the scar of an old 

 healed wound. Frequently (thirty-one cases out of 

 forty-nine) fragments of clothes, splinters of bone, 

 pieces of projectile, and, in one case, a drainage tube 

 7 cm. long, have been eliminated by the abscess. The 

 local cure takes place rapidly, and coincides with a 

 marked improvement in the general state of the 

 patient. Out of 421 cases, after treatment without 

 being cured during periods of eight to fourteeen 

 months in various hospitals, 282 have been discharged 

 cured. — L. G. Seurat : The morphology and phylogeny 

 of the Acuaridae. 



Calcutta. 

 Asiatic Society ol Bengal, January 5.— W, H. Phelps : 



Some Calcutta spiders. Among the points dealt with 

 were: — Cyrtophora citricola : Their individuality, 

 variety of characteristics, individual markings, indus- 

 try and skill, elaborate snares, adaptability to artificial 

 light, notwithstanding their home is in the garden 

 or the jungle, nesting and snare building, aviating, 

 skin casting, etc. Spariolenus tigris : A detailed 

 description was given of nest building, the. laying of 

 eggs, the development of the egg into the young 

 spider, with a time-table. — M. S. Ramaswami : A new 

 species of Tephrosia from Sind. In this paper a 

 hitherto unknown species of Tephrosia (family Papilion- 

 aceae) with curious falcate or circinnate pods is de- 

 scribed in Latin and in English. The distribution of 

 this new plant is Sind and Rajputana. A plate with 

 figures of parts of the plant, mcluding floral dissec- 

 tions, is appended. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Manuals of Chemical Technology, v.. Sulphuric 

 Acid and Sulphur Products. By Dr. G. Martin and 

 Major J. L. Foucar. Pp. viii + 77. (London: Crosby 

 Lockwood and Son.) 75. 6d. net. 



A Text-Book of Geology. By Profs. L. V. Pirsson 

 and C. Schuchert. Part ii., Historical Geology. B} 

 Prof. C. Schuchert. Pp. vi + 405-1026. (New York : 

 J. Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman and 

 Hall, Ltd.) I2S. net. 



A Meteorological Treatise on the Circulation and 

 Radiation in the Atmospheres of the Earth and of the 

 Sun. By Prof. F. H. Bigelow. Pp. xi + 431. (New 

 York: J. Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman 

 and Hall, Ltd.) 21s. net. 



Graphics and Structural Design. By Prof. H. I). 

 Hess. Second edition. Pp. viii + 435. (New York: 

 J. Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman and Hall, 

 Ltd.) 12s. 6d. net. 



Third Appendix to the Sixth Edition of Dana'- 

 System of Mineralogy (completing the Work to 191 s)- 

 By Prof. W. E. Ford. Pp. xiii + 87. (New York: 

 J. Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman and Hail, 

 Ltd.) 6s. 6d. net. 



The London Matriculation Directory. January. 

 (London : University Tutorial Press, Ltd.) is. net. 



Annals of the Solar Physics Observatory, Cambridge. 

 Vol. iii., part i, August. The Solar Rotation in June, 

 191 1, from Spectrographic Observations made with 



