January 31, 19 18] 



NATURE 



439 



He made these experiments by feeding tame mice, and 

 found that, whilst the mice throve upon a mixture of 

 oats and lean beef, they did not thrive upon a 

 mixture of oats and somatose, and whilst the one set 

 increased in weight the other fluctuated more or less 

 largely below their original weight, and he came to 

 the conclusion that somatose should be classed more 

 appropriately as a poison than as a food. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, January 7.— .M. Paul Painleve 

 in the chair.— P. Appell : Oblique aerial movements 

 of light spheres possessing weight. — G.' Giraud : Hyper- 

 abelian functions.— .S. Lattfes : The iteration of rational 

 substitutions and the functions of Poincar6. — J. Chok- 

 hate : Some properties of the polynomials of Tche- 

 bichefT.— .\. Denjoy ; A general pro'perty of analytical 

 functions. — A. Uuillet : The experimental determination 

 of a moment of the form, X , and of an apparent 



inertia arising from the viscosity of a fluid.— A. 

 Mailhe : A new method of preparation of the nitriles 

 > catalysis. Ammonia and methyl benzoate vapour 

 • ire passed together over thoria at 45o°-47o° C. ; 

 benzonitrite, CeH,CN, is the main product. The re- 

 action is similar when ethyl benzoate is employed. 

 Ortho- and para-toluonitriles and phenylacetonitrile can 

 be made by the same method. — A. Pictet and J. Sarasin : 

 The distillation of cellulose and starch in a vacuum. 

 Under a pressure of 12 mm. to 15 mm. cellulose gives 

 a little water, and then, between 200° and 300°, a 

 heavy yellow oil, which sets to a semi-crystalline mass. 

 About 10 per cent, of charcoal lemains in the retort. 

 The pasty mass is about 45 per cent, of the cellulose 

 taken, and, after purification, forms white, tabular 

 crystals, identical in all respects with Tanret's laevo- 

 glucosane. .Starch on distillation gives the same pro- 

 'luct with the same yield. — S. Menteath : The defile of 

 Navarre. The tectonic of this defile is a continuation 

 across the Pyrenees of the structure of the layers of 

 I)ax, Bastennes, and Salies-de-13earn ; it cannot be 

 taken as typical of the structure of the Pyrenees chain. 

 L. Gentil and I.. Joleaud : Geology of the region of 

 Tunis. — L. Dunoyer : Diurnal variations of the wind* 

 in altitude. A theory is developed which affords an 

 explanation of the results of observations described 

 in an earlier paper {C.K., 1917, p. 1068). — J. Peyriguey : 

 Two water-spouts observed at Rabat, December 18, 

 1Q17.— R. Souiges : Embryogeny of the Alismace-ae. 

 Differentiation of the radicular extremity in Sagittaria 

 sagittaefolia.—J. Sllhol : The use of kapok for dress- 

 ings. A description of the properties of kapok com- 

 pared with those of cottonwool, especially from the point 

 of view of materials for dressing wounds. Kapok exerts 

 selective absorptive properties, removing micro-organ- 

 isms from pus.^M. Adrian : The use of certain marine 

 algae as food for horses. An account of feeding experi- 

 ments in which a treated seaweed was used in place 

 of oats for feeding horses, with marked success. The 

 seaweed was accepted, digested, and assimilated by 

 the animals. The laminaria utilised are abundant on 

 ihe Breton coast. 



Washington, D.C. 

 National Academy of Sciences, September, 19 17 (Pro- 

 ' cedings, vol. iii.. No. 9). — J. Loeb : Heliotropic 

 nimals as photometers on the basis of the validity of 

 I he Bunsen-Roscoe law for heliotropic reactions. New 

 quantitative experiments proving that the " instinc- 

 tive" motions of animals to light are phenomena of 

 automatic orientation and a function of the light 

 intensity, ths function beinjj the Bunsen-Roscoe law 

 of photochemical action. — H. G. May : 'ibr appear- 



NO. 2518, VOL. 100] 



ance of reverse mutations in the bar-eyed race of 

 Drosophila under experimental control. Such a pheno- 

 menon is not difficult of explanation on the theory that 

 it is produced by a chemical change in the constitution 

 of some substance. — L. R. Cary : The part played by 

 Alcyonaria in the formation of some Pacific coral reefs. 

 On certain of the Pacific reefs the Alcyonaria are im- 

 portant coral-forming agents ; their relative import- 

 ance can be determined only after borings have been 

 made through some reefs to determine the history of 

 the reefs. — A. G. Mayer : Observations upon the alka- 

 linity of the surface water of the tropical Pacific. — 

 H. H. Plough : The eifect of temperature on linkage 

 in the second chromosome of Drosophila. Both high 

 and low temperatures produce an increase in the per- 

 centage of crossing over. The crossing over appears 

 to take place in the stage when the chromosomes are 

 known to be finely drawn-out threads, not in the early 

 oogonial divisions or in the late thick thread stage. 

 —A. H. Sturtevant :. Genetic factors affecting the 

 strength of linkage in Drosophila. — H. Scares : Further 

 evidence on the concentration of the stars towards the 

 galaxy. — C. Barus : Theoretical relations in the inter- 

 ferometry of small angles. — J. A. Harris : Interperiodic 

 correlation in the egg production of the domestic fowl. 

 The results make possible the selection of groups of 

 birds of high annual egg production from the trap- 

 nest records of individual months.^E. W. Washburn : 

 Two laws governing the ionisation of strong electro- 

 lytes in dilute solutions and a new rule for determining 

 equivalent conductance at infinite dilution derived from 

 conductivity measurements with extremely diluted solu- 

 tions of potassium chlorite. In sufficiently dilute solu- 

 tion all uni-univalent salts of strong acids and' bases 

 obey the mass-action law, and all have the same 

 ionisation constant; the values of the mass-action ex- 

 pression for all such salts are identical, the identity 

 persisting up to higher concentrations the more nearly 

 the salts resemble each other. — E. C". MacDowell and 

 E. M. Vicari : The growth and fecundity of alcoholised 

 rats. Both growth and the fecundity of the alcoholised 

 are subnormal as compared with non-alcoholics. 



October, 1917 (Proceedings, vol. iii.. No. 10). — 

 G. M. Green ; The general theory of curved surfaces 

 and rectilinear congruences. Preliminary announce- 

 ment of the number of theorems in a field which seems 

 to be promising.— J. P. Iddings and E. W. Morley : 

 A contribution to the petrography of southern Celebes. 

 Twelve analyses of lavas from Celebes. — A. G. Mayer : 

 The non-existence of nervous shell-shock in fishes and 

 marine invertebrates. Corroboration of the conclusion 

 that war-shock is predominantly a psychic phenomenon 

 and, being hysteria, can be cured by hypnotic sugges- 

 tion. — A. R. Moore : Chemical differentiation of the 

 central nervous system in invertebrates. In the 

 cephalopod, caffein brings about ' hyper-irritability of 

 the cerebral ganglia, while camphor affects the stellar 

 ganglia in the same sense. Atropin causes spasms in 

 the squid, but inhibits the activity of the chromato- 

 phores. Camphor shows a selective action in th<! 

 shrimp, paralysing the elements, controlling backward 

 swimming, and exciting those controlling forward 

 motion. — W. E. Garrey : Proof of the muscle-tension 

 theory of heliotropism. Experiments show that the 

 motion of animals to' or from a source of light are 

 due to an influence of the light on the tension of 

 muscles of different sides of the body. — W. H. 

 Longley : Changeable coloration in Brachvura. The 

 colours of crabs and their capacity to change them 

 varv from species to species, according to the same 

 general rule that appears to prevail among fishes. — 

 J. F. McCIendon : The equilibrium of Tortugas sea- 

 water with calcite rinfl aragonit(\ The surface water 



