November 5, 1914] 



NATURE 



27, 



proposed; to help those members of professions which 

 have no benevolent funds ; to provide assistance for 

 the families of professional men who have given up 

 all to enlist for the service of their countn,-. All those 

 who have this need at heart are inviied to send dona- 

 tions to the treasuier, Professional Classes War Relief 

 Council, 13 and 14, Prince's Gate, S.W. Cheques to 

 be crossed Messrs. Coutts and Co. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Zoological Society, October 27.— Prof. E. A. Minchin, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — E. Heron-AUen and A. 

 Earland : Foraminifera of the Kerimba Archipelago, 

 obtained by Dr. J. J. Simpson in the years 1907-8. 

 The area is new so far as the Foraminifera are con- 

 cerned, the only records in any way approximating to 

 it being the species described by d'Orbigny in 1826, 

 by Brady in 1876 and 1884, by Mobius in 1880, and 

 by Egger in 1893, from material which was collected 

 from adjacent areas to the east of Madagascar, and off 

 Mauritius and the Seychelles. The material consisted 

 of fine siftings from dredgings, and having but few 

 molluscan fragments and stones the larger adherent 

 forms are poorly represented, but 470 species and 

 varieties have been identj/ied, including two new 

 genera, and twenty-eight new species and varieties. 

 The general facies is strikingly similar to that charac- 

 teristic of Australian, Torres Straits, and Malay 

 gatherings. The problem of distribution thus raised 

 is obscure, the intervening ocean being abyssal, while 

 the species now recorded are all shallow-water t^pes. 

 Many of the specialised forms common to these widely 

 separated areas do not apparently occur in similar 

 dredgings from inter\-ening coasts, such as the Red 

 and Arabian Seas. No doubt the equatorial current, 

 which traverses the Indian Ocean from E. to W. and 

 impinges on the .\frican coast in our area, is primarily 

 responsible for this phenomenon. — T. H. Withers : A 

 new Cirripede. The description was based on a num- 

 ber of disconnected valves from the Chalk of Surrey 

 and a complete specimen from the Chalk of Hertford- 

 shire. Except for three valves referred to a new 

 species of Scalpellum {sensti lato), the whole of the 

 material belongs to a remarkable new asymmetrical 

 Cirripede which differs from Verruca in the more 

 primitive structure of the valves, in the presence of 

 two lower lateral valves on the rostro-carinal side, and 

 in the absence of interlocking ribs. This species re- 

 presents the ancestral type from which has arisen the 

 recent group of asymmetrical sessile Cirripedes form- 

 ing the fahiily Verrucidae, and in its structure clearly 

 shows its origin from the symmetrical pedunculate 

 Cirripedes of the family Pollicipedidae. It presents 

 further evidence that the sessile condition was arrived 

 at independently on several different lines of descent 

 during the evolution of the Cirripedia. — \\'. L. Distant : 

 Report on the Rhynchota collected by the WoUaston 

 Expedition in Dutch New Guinea. 



Challenger Society, October 28. — Dr. S. F. Harmer 

 in the chair. — Dr. E. J. Allen : The artificial culture 

 of marine plankton diatoms. Exf>eriments were de- 

 scribed in which it was attempted to grow cultures 

 of the diatom Thalassiosira gravida in a medium 

 containing only pure chemical salts dissolved in doubly 

 distilled water, the medium having a composition as 

 nearly as possible that of natural sea-water, with the 

 addition of Miquel's nutrient solutions. In such 

 purely artificial solutions little growth took place, but 

 if a small percentage, even less than i per cent., of 

 natural sea-water were added, large and vigorous 

 cultures were obtained. There are reasons for sup- 



NG. 2349, VOL. -94] 



posing that this is due to the presence in the natural 

 sea-water of minute traces of an organic substance 

 which acts as a growth-stimulant. Provided that the 

 small percentage of natural sea-water be present, the 

 amounts of the various salts constituting the artificial 

 sea-water, as well as the total salinity of the mixture, 

 can be varied within wide limits without much detri- 

 ment to the cultures. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, October 6. — Mr. 

 Francis Nicholson, president, in the chair. — R. L. 

 Taylor and Prof. Haldane Gee : Some original f>en-and- 

 ink diagrams used by Dalton, The uncertainty in 

 Dalton's mind as to the number of atoms present in 

 water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and other com- 

 pounds is faithfulh' reflected in some of the diagrams, 

 and his attempts to depict the constitution of these 

 and more complex bodies are full of interest. 



October 20. — Mr. Francis Nicholson, president, in 

 the chair. — Prof. S. J. Hickson : Sea-pens from the 

 Malay Archipelago. — Dr. J. Stuart Thomson : Sea-pens 

 from the Cape of Grood Hope. These Pennatulaceae 

 were dredged off the coast of South Africa by the 

 Cape Government trawler Pieter Faure during the 

 ten years 1898-1907. Numerous species of scientific 

 interest were collected, amongst which was Cephalo- 

 discus gilchristi, an invertebrate having affinities with 

 vertebrates. The collection of South African sea-pens 

 is interesting, not so much because of the discovery 

 of new species as on account of the fact that varia- 

 tions in certain species have been found which link 

 genera together. One fine phosphorescent form, 

 Anthoptilum grandiflorum, grows four or five feet in 

 height, and is of a brick-red colour. It occurs in 

 abundance at certain localities, probably forming dense 

 miniature forests on the sea floor. The marine fauna 

 of South Africa may be described as cosmopolitan in 

 character. 



P.\RIS. 



Academy of Sciences. October 19. — M. P. Appell in the 

 chair. — Gaston Darboux : A proposition relating to 

 linear differential equations of the second order with 

 two independent variables. — Pierre Dnhem : The hydro- 

 dvnamical paradox of Dalembert. — Edouard Heckel : 

 Male castration of the giant maize of Serbia. — Comas 

 Sola : Photographic obser\-ation of a comet. The comet 

 was found by its record on a photographic plate ex- 

 posed October 17. It is probably identical with the 

 comet discovered by Lunt at the Cape of Good Hope 

 on September 18. — Ernest Lebon : A new table of 

 divisors. — Alfred Angot : The earthquake of October 3, 

 1914. From the seismograph installed at the Pare 

 Saint-Maur Observatory the epicentre was calculated 

 to be 2600 kilometres distant, in Asia Minor. The 

 epicentre proved to be only 150 kilometres from the 

 calculated spot. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Baillie- 

 Friend 



Horses in Warfare. By E. Bell and H 

 Weaver. Pp. 14. (London : .\nimals' 

 ; Society.) 



j Annual Amount and Distribution of Rainfall in the 

 j Philippines. By Rev. M. S. Maso. Pp. 42. (Manila : 

 i Bureau of Printing.) 



! Index to United States Documents relating to 

 I Foreign Affairs, 1828-61. Part i., A-H. Pp. 793. 

 : (Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution.) 



North .\merican Anura : Life-Histories of the 

 ! Anura of Ithaca, New York. By A. H. Wright. Pp. 

 ! 98 + plates xxi. (Washington, D.C: Carnegie Insti- 

 I tution.) 



