July 7, 1898J 



NATURE 



239 



Geological Society, June 22.— W. Whitaker, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Post-glacial beds exposed in the 

 cutting of the new Bruges canal, by T. Mellard Reade. The 

 following beds, enumerated in descending order, were found in 

 this cutting : (5) Argile des polders superieure ; (4) Cardium 

 (tf</«/f)-sand ; (3) Argile des polders inferieure ; (2) Scrobicularia 

 ip/ana)- clay ; (i) Peat with the remains of trees. — High-level 

 marine drift at Colwyn Bay, by T. Mellard Reade. This paper 

 describes a mound of sand capped by boulder clay, which occurs 

 I mile south by west of Colwyn Bay Station. It measures 

 about 90 yards on the longer axis, which runs north-east, 

 50 yards on the shorter axis, and is situated 560 feet above O. D. 

 Among the pebbles and boulders in the drift, and scattered 

 about in the sandpit, were granites from Eskdale and the south 

 of Scotland, small flints, and local and Welsh rocks identified 

 by Mr. Ruddy as derived largely from the head of the Conway 

 valley. The base of the sand is not exposed, but the author 

 has no doubt that it is geologically above the grey till with 

 Welsh boulders. — Observations on the geology of Franz Josef 

 Land, by Dr. Reginald Koettlitz. This paper opens with a 

 detailed description of the geography and geology of various 

 portions of the archipelago. The basaltic rocks occur in tiers 

 from 10 to 70 feet high, and range to a height of 1300 feet 

 above sea-level. The associated and interbedded rocks consist 

 of shale, sandstone, and basaltic tuff. The stratified rocks are 

 not appreciably altered by the heat of the basalt, which is often 

 vesicular both at the base and summit of the tiers. From this 

 and other evidt nee the author concludes that many of the sheets 

 are contemporaneous flows, and that as the fossil plants and 

 ammonites are of Jurassic age, some of the lavas date back to 

 Jurassic time. Dykes, sills, and necks are al.so described. The 

 Jurassic rocks con.sist of shales and sandstones; they have 

 yielded ammonites and belemnites, a portion of a specimen of 

 A. Lam der/t having been found embedded in "basaltic tuff." 

 Pebbles of radiiijarian chert have also been found embedded in 

 these rocks, and a granite-block, mentioned by Payer as having 

 Ijecn seen embedded in an iceberg, is believed to have come from 

 the same source The raised beaches are very numerous, and 

 occur at various heights, from just above sea-level to 287, 310, 

 340, and even 410 feet, drift-wood and bones of seals, walrus, 

 and whales having been found on them. On Cape Mary 

 Harmsworth twelve beaches are seen in a series one above 

 another The entire skeleton of a seal was found on the 

 summit-plateau of Cape Neale, together with waterworn stones, 

 at a height of 700 feet above sea-level. The highest waterworn 

 }x;bbles noted were found at 1 1 1 1 feet on Cape Flora. In some 

 cases floe-ice at sea-level becomes covered over and preserved 

 by gravel heaped upon it by the sea ; and some of the raised 

 beaches .seem to consist of a similar mixture of ice and gravel, 

 as is proved by the formation of pitfalls in them where the ice 

 melts. Ice-masses are also .sometimes preserved under taluses, 

 avalanches, and slips. The " ice-cap " is probably not so thick 

 a.s is generally supposed, and it has little downward movement. 

 It forms domes on the summits and plateaux, but it seems to be 

 a mere mantle on the terraced slopes, as it is rigid and dimpled, 

 and during warm seasons raised beaches and terraces are 

 thawed-out under the ridges. Comparatively few evidences of 

 glaciation were met with. Roches moutonnees and rounded 

 hills are absent, and only in the two valleys separating Cape 

 Flora from Cape Gertrude were the rocks planed, scratched, 

 and polished. Some of the landscape-features, including the 

 separation of the group into individual islands, are attributed to 

 marine action following lines of fault. The pai:>er concludes 

 with observations on soundings, the temperature of glaciers, the 

 size of icebergs, and the finding of reindeer-antlers by Mr. 

 Leigh Smith and the members of the Jackson- Harmsworth 

 Kxpedition. — Notes on rocks and fossils from Franz Josef Land 

 brought home by Dr. Koettlitz, of the Jackson- Harmsworth 

 Kxpedition, in 1897, by E. T, Newton, F.R.S., and J. J. H. 

 Teall, F.R.S. In this communication an analysis of the basalt is 

 given, which compxires closely with those of basalts from Iceland. 

 The silicification of the rocks, presumably by geyser action, the 

 presence of a black analcime, pebbles of radiolarian chert, and 

 crystals of selenite, probably formed m situ in shale, are also 

 described. Notes are given on some of the fossil plants, on the 

 drift-wood, and on apparently new species of Inoceramits and 

 Belemnites. —On the Corallian rocks of Upware, by C. B. Wedd. 

 The opinion usually held that the " Coralline Oolite " of the 

 northern quarry at Upware is of older date than the " Coral 

 Rag" of the southern quarry, gains support from the work 



NO. 1497, VOL. 58] 



detailed in this paper, although the results of recent excavatiori 

 show that a rock of different lithological character from that of 

 the northern quarry probably underlies the rocks of the southern 

 quarry. A list of the fossils found in the lowest beds of the 

 southern quarry includes eleven species not yet found in the 

 " Oolite" of the northern quarry ; a second list comprises the 

 fo.ssils found just below the " Rag" in the " Oolite" of the southeri» 

 quarry. Both these faunas are intermediate between those o 

 the " Rag" of the southern and the "Oolite" of the northern 

 quarry. From the results of excavation and other evidence, 

 the author considers that the " Oolite" can hardly be less than 

 40 feet thick, and that this rock is geologically below the 

 " Rag " of the southern quarry. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, June 20.— Sir William Turner in the 

 chair.— In a paper on steam and brines, Mr. J. Y. Buchanan 

 discussed the relation of the concentration and the rise of 

 boiling point of various solutions of salts, and instituted a com- 

 parison between the effect of pressure and the effect of concen- 

 tration in producmg this rise. — Dr. W. Peddie read a paper on 

 torsional oscillations of wires, experimental and theoretical. In 

 previous papers a relation of the form >-" (.r ■\- a) = b, where 

 ;/, a, b are constants in any one experiment, was found to 

 connect y the range of oscillation with x the number of oscilla- 

 tions. In the present paper five experimental results were 

 given, {a) When the wire is subjected to great fatigue, n and b 

 are independent of the magnitude of the initial range of oscilla- 

 tion ; also n becomes unity when the fatigue is great, {b) Both 

 log nb and log b may be regarded as linear functions of n in 

 each of the series of experiments made, though both cannot be 

 strictly so simultaneously, (f) In all of the series the linear 

 function is such that, when « is unity, b has an ab.solutely 

 constant value. This indicates a quantity which depends only 

 on the nature of the material of the wire, {d) The period of 

 oscillation has no observable effect on the results. (<?) The 

 time of inward o.scillation over a given range exceeds that of 

 outward oscillation. In the theoretical part of the paper a 

 simple molecular theory of the action was investigated and was 

 found to be in accord with observed facts, such as— the result 

 {e) given above : the deviation from Hooke's law ; the 

 lessening of this deviation (as observed by Wiedemann) when 

 an oscillation is stopped just short of zero, and again increased 

 positively ; and the relation between torsion and set.— Drs. 

 Milroy and Malcolm read a paper on the metabolism of the 

 nucleins under physiological and pathological conditions. It 

 was found that the effect of nucleins and nucleic acid was to 

 increase the number of the leucocytes in the blood, and also the 

 amount of phosphorus excreted in the urine. Part of this 

 phosphorus must have been derived from the tissues. On the 

 other hand, metaphosphoric acid had no effect either on the 

 leucocytes or on the phosphorus-holding tissue. An examina- 

 tion of pathological conditions in which leucocytosis was present 

 showed that in leucocyth;emia (spleno-meduUary) the phos- 

 phorus excretion was diminished both absolutely and relatively 

 to the nitrogen, while in plumbism the conditions varied only 

 slightly from the normal. Emphasis was laid on the great 

 caution required to be observed in drawing conclusions from the 

 amount of alloxuric bodies secreted in cases where increased 

 breaking down of the white blood corpuscles is suspected. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, June 27. — M. Wolf in the chair. — 

 General formuKe giving the values of D for which the equation 

 /*-D«"^— - 1 is resolvable into entire numbers, by M. de Jon- 

 quieres. - On the new Giacobini comet, by M. Perrotin. —Report 

 on a memoir u{ M. Lecornu, entitled " On the equilibrium of 

 an ellipsoidal envelope submitted to a uniform internal pressure.'* 

 — Observations on the Coddington comet made at the Observ- 

 atory of Algiers with the 188 mm. equatorial, by MM. Ch. 

 Trepied and J. Renaux. — Elements of the Giacobini comet, by 

 M. I. Lagarde.— Determination of a surface by its two funda- 

 mental quadratic forms, by M. L. Raffy. — On the principle of 

 correspondence, by M. H. Burkhardt. — On the mixing 

 of gases, by M. Van der Waals. Remarks on a note by 

 M. Daniel Berthelot.— Reply to the preceding, by M. 

 Daniel Berthelot, The justification for the assumption 

 criticised by M. Van der Waals is to be found in the close 

 agreement between the results theoretically deduced by its aid 

 and those of experimcBt.— ^On gaseous mixtures, by M. A. 

 Leduc. Remarks on a note by M. D. Berthelot, — On the 



