January 3, 19 18] 



NATURE 



359 



ing, business and agriculture ; and the Senate is pre- 

 pared to establish classes, in any subject whatever, 

 for which there is sufficient demand. Students from 

 the Canadian universities serving in the Army will 

 have their Khaki College work " credited " on the 

 return. When demobilisation sets in, some time must 

 elapse before the Canadian soldiers then in England 

 can be repatriated; Khaki College, while equipping 

 men for their return to civil life, will prevent them 

 from degenerating into vicious habits of idleness apt 

 to ensue from a prolonged life in the base camps. It 

 is this aspect of the movement which first appealed 

 to the High Canadian Command, and it is to anticipate 

 the problems of the period of demobilisation that the 

 High Command has encouraged the establishment at 

 the front of the University of Vimy Ridge. That 

 institution is, indeed, established on a basis quite as 

 elaborate as the institution at Witley. Some idea of 

 the scope of its work is afforded by the long list of 

 lectures on history and economics, applied science, 

 languages and literature, agriculture, and business. At 

 Witley there are 200 studying scientific agriculture, 

 and 200 taking the business course. There are 150 

 students of history, 125 of English, 7.:; of the classics, 

 100 of French, 50 of mathematics, and smaller num- 

 bers in other courses. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Microscopical Society, December 12, 1917. — Mr. 

 E. fleron-AUen, president, in the chair. — vV. uateson : 

 Cytology and genetics. Attempts to hnd regularity in 

 ttie distribution of chromosome numbers hau generally 

 been unsuccessful, but attention was directeu to the 

 recent work of VVinge, who, by preparing a graph ot 

 these numbers in plants, had shown that simple 

 multiples of 2 and 3 occur with special frequency, while 

 prime numbers are rare and exceptional. A survey 

 was given of the phenomena of Hnkage between genetic 

 factors as demonstrated in breeding experiments, with 

 a discussion of Morgan's suggestion that this linkage is 

 due to a linear arrangement of the linked factors 

 in the same chromosome. Whether the proposition in 

 its entirety was established or not might be doubtful, 

 but the factors certainly behaved as if arranged in 

 lines, and, as represented by the theory, a great diversity 

 of genetic and cytological observations relating to the 

 heredity of sex and other characters assumed an orderly 

 form. — G. S. West : A new species of Gongrosira. A 

 lime-encrusted alga, forming somewhat nodular masses 

 4-9 mm. thick, of a vivid green colour, was found at 

 Westen Mouth, Devon, growing in such a position that 

 it received the full force of a stream of water falling 

 about 2 ft. It proved to be new, and is described 

 as G. scourfieldii. 



Aristotelian Society, December 17, 1917.— Dr. H. Wil- 

 don Carr, president, in the chair. — Dr. G. E. Moore : 

 The conception of reality. Bradley asserts both (i) 

 "Time is not real," and (ii) "Time exists, is a fact, 

 and is " ; and he evidently thinks that these two asser- 

 tions are compatible. In truth, however, (i) ought to 

 include, as part of its meaning, "There are no tem- 

 poral facts," while (ii) ought to include, as part of its 

 meaning, "There are some temporal facts"; so that 

 the two assertions are not compatible. It is suggested 

 that the reason why Bradley supposes them to be com- 

 patible is because he sees (a), what is true, that "Tenv 

 poral facts are unreal " is compatible with " We think 

 of temporal facts," and supposes also (h), what is 

 false, that "There are* no temporal facts" is com- 

 patible with "We think of temporal facts." If (a) and 

 (b) are both true, it would follow that "Temporal facts 

 NO. 2514, VOL. 100] 



are unreal " could not include as part of its meaning 

 " There are no temporal facts"; and that hence (i) must 

 be compatible with " There are some temporal facts." 

 In truth, however, there is no difficulty in supposing 

 that {b) is false. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, December 3, 19 17. — Dr. Home, presi- 

 dent, in the chair.— Principal A. P. Laurie and A. King : 

 Note on the hydrolysis of acid sodium sulphate. These 

 experiments were carried out with the view of throw- 

 ing light on a practical problem arising in the manu- 

 facture of explosives, and are an investigation of the 

 effects of cooling solutions of acid sodium sulphate of 

 various strengths, showing the laws governing the 

 separation of the normal salt. — Dr. W. Wright Wilson : 

 The absence of a nucleus in crystals of uric acid. It 

 was suggested that the lack of a nucleus might be 

 hereditarily connected with abnormal conditions. — 

 A. M. Williams : The thermodynamics of adsorption. 

 This thermodynamic investigation into heat effects- 

 accompanying adsorption led to expressions for three 

 isothermal heats of adsorption of a gas and for the 

 heat of immersion of a powder in a liquid. The effect 

 of the variation of the surface of an adsorbent when 

 adsorbing was examined, and it was shown from 

 Titoff's observations that the divergence between cal- 

 culated and observed values of the heat of adsorption 

 could be explained on the assumption of a change of 

 surface area. The fractional change of surface per c.c. 

 adsorbed could be calculated, and also the surface 

 energy per gram adsorbent in vacuo. — R. K. S. Lim : 

 Experiments on the respiratory organs of the shore- 

 crab (Carcinus maenas). The following facts were 

 established. The direction of the respiratory current 

 in the shore-crab is from behind forwards, whether the 

 animal is lying above sand or buried in it. Occasion- 

 ally this direction is reversed. Sea-water is sucked in 

 beneath the carapace through four separate spaces 

 which communicate with corresponding spaces between 

 the gill origins. The direction of these inlets is such 

 that the current in the gill chambers tends to travel 

 forwards and inwirds. The gills being radially 

 arranged, and being placed across the path of the cur- 

 rent, forces it to pass through the individual gill 

 lamellae, thus thoroughly bathing their surfaces. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, December 3, 1917. — M. Paul 

 Painlev^ in the chair. — E. Picard : A functional equa- 

 tion occurring in the theory of the distribution of elec- 

 tricity according to Neumann's law. — M. Vito Volterra 

 was elected foreign associate in the place of the late 

 M. Hittorf.— W. de Tannenberg : A question of indeter- 

 minate analysis. — J. Rosier; Meteorites and terrestrial 

 eccentricity. — C. Matignon and F. Meyer : Monovariant 

 equilibria in the ternary system, water, sodium 

 sulphate, ammonium sulphate. An account of experi- 

 ments undertaken to supply a rational solution of the 

 problem of the preparation of ammonium sulphate from 

 sodium bisulohate. — E. Hlldt : New fractionating 

 apparatus for petrol and other volatile products. The 

 vapours are passed through a series of six Vigreux 

 columns heated externally by the vapour of a petrol 

 boiling between two well-defined temperatures. The 

 vapour uncondensed by the first column passes on to 

 a second column similarly vapour-jacketed with a lower 

 boiling liquid. The apparatus figured shows six such 

 columns in use, giving fractions >I50°, i30°-i5o°, 

 iio°-i30°, 90°-iio°, 7o°-9o°, 5o°-7o°, <5o° C. Among 

 the advantages claimed is the elimination of errors 

 due to currents of air and to changes in the barometric 

 pressure. — J. Laborde : A new method for the separa- 

 tion and estimation of lactic, succinic, and malic acids 

 in wine. The method is based on the differences in 



