December 13, 1900] 



NATURE 



169 



proportional to its square, and a factor such as e-'^^ is required 

 to keep down very high values. The generalisations by 

 Boltzmann and Maxwell to internal degrees of freedom would 

 lead us too far, the aim here proposed being merely concrete 

 illustration of the very general but purely analytical argument 

 that is fully set forth in the treatises of Watson, Burbury and 

 Boltzmann. 



UNIVERSITY AND ED UCA TIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge.— Mr. H. Herbert Smith has been appointed 

 Gilbey lecturer in agriculture for the next three years. Prof. 

 Macalister and Dr. Habershon have been appointed additional 

 examiners for medical degrees. 



The Walsingham Gold Medal in biology has been awarded to 

 Mr. H. Dale of Trinity College, and the Bronze Medal to Mr. 

 R. C. Punnett of Caius College. 



The University of New Brunswick has been affiliated to the 

 University of Cambridge. 



The researches submitted to the Board for physics by Mr. 

 J. B. B. Burke, Mr. W. C. Henderson and Mr. A. H. Peake, 

 advanced students, have been approved as qualifying for the B, A. 

 degree. 



Dr. Anningson, Dr. Collingridge, Prof. Sims Woodhead and 

 Dr. Tatham have been appointed examiners in sanitary science. 



The proposal for enabling the examiners to award a first class 

 to candidates for the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part II., who show 

 a sufficient knowledge of two subjects, but do not quite attain 

 the first class standard in either, has been rejected by the Senate. 



The Childhood Society offers prizes of two guineas and one 

 guinea for the two best essays on some prescribed subjects re- 

 ferring to the mental and physical characteristics of children. 

 Information can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary of the 

 Society, 72 St. Margaret Street, London, W. 



Glancing through the Calendar of the University College 

 at Nottingham, we notice the announcement that the Board of 

 Education is prepared to pay three-fourths of the laboratory 

 fees at the College of Government teachers engaged in science 

 teaching who wish to become familiar with practical methods. 

 This rule applies to other University Colleges. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 American Journal of Science, November. — Elaboration of the 

 fossil cycads in the Yale Museum, by L. F. Ward. The 

 collection contains twenty-nine different species of cycads from 

 the Black Hills, represented by nearly eight hundred specimens. 

 A number of new species are described, and termed respect- 

 ively Cycadeoidea superba, rhombica, heliochorea, utopiensis, 

 reticulata, minima, and pro'tea. — Chemical composition of tur- 

 quoise, by S. L. Penfield. Turquoise is so uniform in its chemi- 

 cal constitution that it can hardly be considered an accidental 

 mixture of an aluminium phosphate and a copper phosphate. 

 Copper and iron must be regarded as constituents rather than 

 impurities. The author derives it from ortho- phosphoric acid, 

 in accordance with the formula 



[Al(OH)2,Fe(OH)2,Cu(OH),H]3P04. 



— Quartz- muscovite rock from Belmont, Nevada, by J. E. 

 Spurr. The rock described occurs in a large dyke just east of 

 Belmont. It occurs in large masses, changing gradually and 

 irregularly into alaskite or muscovite-biotite granite. It is 

 identical with the " beresite " occurring in the Urals in association 

 with veins of auriferous quartz. — Volumetric estimation of copper 

 as the. oxalate, with separation from cadmium, arsenic, tin and 

 zinc, by C. A. Peters. The precipitation of copper oxalate from 

 solutions containing at least 00128 grammes of the oxide and 

 saturated with oxalic acid is practically complete. Moderate 

 amounts of copper may be determined quantitatively as the 

 oxalate by precipitation with oxalic acid and titration of the 

 precipitate by potassium permanganate. Copper may also be 

 separated from other metals in the presence of nitric acid by the 

 addition of considerable amounts of oxalic acid. — Synopsis of the 

 collections of invertebrate fossils made by the Princeton ex- 

 pedition to Southern Patagonia, by A. E. Ortmann. Thirty- 

 six new species are described, mostly gastropoda. — The kathode 



NO. 1624, VOL. 63] 



stream and X-light, by W. Rollins. The author advances two 

 arguments against the supposition that the kathode stream 

 particles are always of the same size, move with the same speed, 

 and carry the same charge. Mercury particles appear too heavy 

 to generate X-rays, and the loss of material from kathodes of 

 different metals is not the same. 



Bollettino della Societa Sismolo^ca Italiana, vol. vi., 1900- 

 1901, No. 4. — The great earthquake of June 12, 1897, by 

 R. D. Oldham. A summary of the author's report on the 

 great Indian earthquake, and of his memoir on the propagation 

 of earthquake motion to great distances {Phil. Trans., 1900A, 

 pp. 135-174). — A new protographic seismic pendulum, by 

 G. Costanzi. A description of an apparatus for recording 

 only the first part of the earthquake-motion, the surface on 

 which the record is made being withdrawn from the moving 

 pendulum. — Principal eruptive phenomena in Sicily and the 

 adjacent islands during the year 1899, by S. Arcidiacono. — 

 Notices of earthquakes recorded in Italy (June 5 to August 4, 

 1899), by A. Cancani, the most important being the Tuscan 

 earthquake of June 27, the Latian earthquake of July 19, and 

 distant earthquakes on June 5, 14, 17, July 7, 11, 12 and 14. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Linnean Society, November 15. — Mr. C. B. Clarke^ 

 Vice-President, in the chair. — Mr. W. B. Hemsley, F.R.S.,. 

 F.L.S., exhibited a number of specimens and drawings of 

 Fitchia (Hook. f. in Land. Journ. Bot. iv. p. 640, pis. 23, 24), 

 including a new species from the island of Raratonga in the 

 Cook Archipelago, discovered by Mr. T. F. Cheeseman. The 

 genus was described from specimens thought to have been pro- 

 cured on Elizabeth Island, a remote coral island in the Eastern. 

 Pacific ; but Mr, Hemsley gave reasons for believing that the 

 locality of the plant described by Sir Joseph Hooker was Tubnar 

 Island in the same latitude, but 20° further to the west : an 

 island of volcanic origin and mountainous, and, therefore, more 

 likely than a coral island to be the habitat of such a plant, 

 especially as it was originally discovered by Banks and Solander 

 in Tahiti. Only three or four species are known : they are 

 small resiniferous shrubs of tree-like habit, with rather thick 

 branches, opposite simple leaves borne on slender stalks, and 

 terminal, usually solitary flower-heads. Mr. Hemsley next 

 exhibited an abnormal cluster of fruits of the edible chestnut 

 found by Mr. Charles Read of Sway in the New Forest, and 

 forwarded to Kew by the Rev. J. E. Kelsall. Usually there 

 are two or three, rarely four in a cluster ; but in the specimen 

 exhibited there were at least fifteen, the largest nuts measuring 

 about an inch in their greatest diameter. He also exhibited a 

 curious flask-shaped bird's nest, which had been sent to Kew by 

 Mr. J. H. Hart, Director of the Botanic Garden, Trinidad, but 

 without any information concerning the bird which built it. It 

 was constructed almost entirely of the soft plumose seeds of a 

 species of Tillandsia (Bromeliaceae). It measured a foot in 

 length and between four and five inches in its greatest diameter^ 

 and had the entrance at the base, the receptacle for the eggs 

 being near the top of the inside. Mr. J. E. Harting, in reply 

 . to a question from the chairman, said that without seeing a 

 specimen of the bird which had built the nest in question, it was 

 not easy to name the species with certainty ; but that it was 

 doubtless the nest of an Icterus, and probably of Icterus leucop- 

 teryx, commonly known in the West Indies as the Banana-bird» 

 — Mr. James Groves, on behalf of Mr. Cecil R. P. Andrews, 

 exhibited specimens of a Sea Lavender new to the Channel 

 Islands, Statice lychnidifolia, Girard, discovered by Mr. 

 Andrews in August of the present year growing sparingly on 

 low rocks by the sea in Alderney in company with S. occiden- 

 ialis, the most nearly allied British species. Mr. Groves pointed 

 out that the interest of the record consisted, not so much in the 

 fact of the plant occurring in Alderney (being a native of the 

 adjacent French coast, and the Channel Islands being geo- 

 graphically more French than British), as in the fact that a 

 species should be added to the flora of one of our possessions so 

 near home. — Mr. W. C. Worsdell read a paper entitled "Fur- 

 ther Observations on the Cycadacese," intended to throw 

 additional light on the problem as to the phylogenetic origin 

 and relationships of this group of plants. — On behalf of Miss 

 Alice L. Embleton a paper was read by Prof. G. B. Howes on 



