666 



NATURE 



[July 22, 1920 



Societies and Academies. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, June 7. — Prof. F. O. Bower, presi- 

 dent, in the chair.— D. Balsillie : The intrusive rocks 

 of the Dundee district. These belong to two types, 

 viz. diabases and felsites. The former are generally 

 line-grained dark masses that contain hypersthene 

 and free quartz, which minerals, along with mono- 

 clinic pyroxene and abundant plagioclase felspar 

 (60 per cent, anorthite), occur in a highly felspathic 

 ground mass. Hornblende, biotite, iron ores, and 

 apatite occur as accessories, the first-mentioned, how- 

 ever, only rarely.' Occasionally free quartz disappears, 

 the place of hypersthene being then taken by olivine. 

 As a type of olivine diabase may be cited the large 

 intrusive mass near Newton, west from Auchterhouse 

 station. The hypersthene diabases are characterised 

 by the presence of acid segregation veins that often 

 show beautiful graphic intergrowth of quartz and 

 felspar. Nearly all these basic rocks are much 

 altered, the phenomenon of albitisation being of 

 frequent occurrence, and typically displayed in the 

 diabases of Castle Huntly, west from Dundee. The 

 pink rocks would probably have been classed by the 

 older writers as mica oligoclase porphyrites, which 

 name still sufficiently describes them. Reference was 

 also made to an outcrop of highly solidified ash 

 occurring at Mill of Mains, north of Dundee, that 

 probably marks the site of an old volcanic vent. In 

 discussing the age of the intrusions, the opinion was 

 put forward that these rocks of the Dundee district 

 should be regarded as belonging to the volcanic cycle 

 of Lower Old Red Sandstone times.— F. L. Hitchcock : 

 An identical relation connecting seven vectors. 



June 21. — Prof. F. O. Bower, president, in the 

 chair. — J. Goold ; The musical scale. The author 

 described a new way of regarding the genesis of the 

 musical scale. Beginning with the four notes, or 

 with the three perfect fifth intervals determined by 

 the four notes F, C, G, and D, the author showed 

 that the group of four notes a major third above 

 these, and the third group of four notes a major third 

 below them, gave, when reduced to the range of one 

 octave, all the notes of the recognised chromatic 

 scale. Another point emphasised was that all the 

 notes of the scale had relative frequencies which 

 depended on powers and products of the numbers 

 3 and 5. — J. Marshall : A law of force giving stability 

 to the Rutherford atom. It was shown that if the 

 law of force between a positive nucleus and a nega- 

 tive electron were of the form 



rA r"-V 



a value of n can be found which will preserve the 

 stability of a group of electrons not exceeding seven 

 in number. Since h is small compared to the radius 

 of an atom, this law is indistinguishable from the 

 inverse square law for distances large in comparison 

 with the radius of the atom. If in the case of an 

 atom built up of a series of rings of electrons the 

 tentative assumption be made that the inner rings 

 act on the individuals of the outer rings as if the 

 inner set were replaced by an equivalent charge at 

 the centre, the investigation may be generalised to 

 include such cases also ; and it is found that for dis- 

 placements perpendicular to the plane of the orbit the 

 configuration is unstable when the number of elec- 

 trons in the outer ring exceeds seven. This would 

 seem to indicate that the atom could be built up of 

 a series of rings of seven electrons, and that we 

 should expect a periodicity in the chemical properties 



NO. 2647, VOL. 105]" 



of the atoms corresponding to Mendel^ff's classifica- 

 tion, which was stated by Newlands in 1864 in the 

 form: "The eighth element starting from a given 

 element is a kind of repetition of the first." — Prof. 

 A. W. C Menzies : The explanation of an outstand- 

 ing anomaly in the results of measurement of dis- 

 sociation pressures. — Prof, J. A, Gunn and Dr. D. G. 

 Marshall : The harmala alkaloids in malaria. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, July 5. — M. Henri Deslandres 

 in the chair. — A. Lacroix : An eruption of the 

 Karthala volcano at Grand Comore in August, 1918. 

 This eruption commenced with a quiet flow of lava ; 

 a fortnight later explosions commenced, with emis- 

 sion of ashes reaching a great height. The explo- 

 sive emission is considered as being probably due to 

 the action of superficial water. — Em. Bourquelot and 

 M. Bridel : The biochemical preparation of cane- 

 sugar, starting with gentianose. Experiments made 

 in 19 10 indicated the probability of cane-sugar being 

 one of the products of emulsin on gentianose, but the 

 sugar could not be isolated. In 1920, using emulsin 

 specially purified from traces of invertin, after separa- 

 tion of tiie glucose as ^-methylglucoside, saccharose 

 was obtained in a pure state. — A. A. Michelson : The 

 application of interference methods to astronomical 

 measurements. A development of a method described 

 in the Philosophical Magazine in 1896. Measure- 

 ments on Capella made with the 250-cm. reflector at 

 Mount Wilson Observatory gave the parallax of this 

 star as slightly under 0-050", with an accuracy of 

 about i/ioooth of a second of arc. Experiments at 

 Mount Wilson on a larger scale are contemplated. — 

 W. Kilian and P. Fallot : The existence of the facies 

 of various Jurassic layers in the province of Tarragon 

 (Catalonia). — A. Righi : Observations concerning a 

 recent note' on Michelson 's experiment. An adverse 

 criticism of some calculations by M. Villey. — W. 

 Sierpinski : The measurable B ensembles.— E. Cartan : 

 The projective applicability of surfaces. — E. Berger : 

 The production of chlorides with a primer.— M. 

 Godchot : The oxidation of coal. The experiments 

 described afford no sup|X)rt to the view recently put 

 forward that the oxidation of coal results from the 

 action of bacteria pre-existing in the coal. — E. E. 

 Blaise : The action of substituted hydrazines upon 

 acyclic i : 4-diketones. A study of the reaction 

 between dipropionylethane and phenylhydrazine. Sub- 

 stituted hydrazines give pyrrol derivatives with 

 I : 4-diketones. — M. Deldpine : Ethylene sulphide, 

 C2H4S. Previous attempts to prepare the sulphur 

 analogue of ethylene oxide have been unsuccessful. 

 It can be obtained by the action of sodium sulphide 

 upon ethylene chlorothiocyanate, CH^Cl'CHo'CNS, 

 and subsequent distillation in a current of steam. 

 Ethylene thiocyanate, CNS-CH,-CH,'CNS, can re- 

 place the chlorothiocyanate in this preparation. — 

 J. Bougault and P. Robin : The iodoamidines. 

 Benzamidine with iodine and dilute soda solution 

 gives the compound C7H8N2I, in which the iodine is 

 attached to a nitrogen atom, since it is quantitatively 

 removed by potassium iodide in acid solution. The 

 reaction appears to be a general one for amidines. — 

 M. Guerbet : A reaction for benzoic acid based on its 

 diazotisation : its application to toxicological detection 

 of atropine, cocaine, and stovaine. The reaction is 

 based on the production of ;8-naphtholazobenzoic acid, 

 and will detect readily o-i milligram of benzoic acid. — 

 P. Idrac : Convection currents in the atmosphere in 

 their relation to hovering flight and certain forms of 

 clouds. — P. Nottin : The absorptive power of earth 

 for manganese. When manganese solutions are 

 treated with soil, manganese is fixed and some lime 



