May 6, 1897] 



NATURE 



23 



so great as when the pancreatic secretion has been able to share 

 in the work. 



The formation of soap is also carried on as in the normal 

 dc^s. 



In the contents of the large intestine, the normal dogs, and 

 those in which the pancreas had been previously removed, for 

 all practical purposes showed an equal breaking-up of the 

 neutral fat. 



Lmnean Society, April 15.— Dr. A. C'.iinther, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. H. Fisher, the naturalist attached 

 to the Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition, gave some pre- 

 liminary observations on the plants collected by him during his 

 two years' residence in Franz-Josef Land. — On behalf of Mr. 

 A. O. Walker, an abstract was read of a paper on some new 

 Crustacea from the Irish Seas. Of the four species of Edrioph- 

 thalma described as new. two of them, viz. Letuonopsis ensifer 

 and Sienothoc crassicornis, were taken, at a dejDth of 33 and 23 

 fathoms respectively, during the dredging and trawling opera- 

 tions of the Liverpool Marine Biological Committee, in April 

 1896. Of the other two novelties, Apsetides hibernicus was 

 taken by Mr. liamble between tide-marks during a week's col- 

 lecting at Valentia Harbour ; and Parapleustes latipes was 

 found by Mr. Walker, while naming the collection of Amphipoda 

 in the Dublin Museum of Science and Art. Four specimens 

 were taken in 750 fathoms off the south-west coast of Ireland. — 

 The Secretary gave an abstract of a paper by Dr. A. J. Ewart, 

 on the evolution of oxygen from coloured bacteria. The 

 author found that coloured bacteria, under certain appropriate 

 conditions, possess the power of evolving oxygen in greater or 

 less amount. In some the oxygen appeared to be absorbed 

 from the air by the pigment substance excreted by the bacteria. 

 The process, he considered, was not a vital one. The sub- 

 stances contained in an alcoholic extract were found to have the 

 same power, though less marked, of occluding oxygen ; but this 

 property was soon lost. The purple and green bacteria, in 

 which the pigment forms an integral part of the bacterial 

 plasma, when exposed to radiant energy showed a very weak 

 evolution of oxygen, continuing for an indefinite period under 

 favourable conditions. In the former of these the assimilatory 

 "pigment" is " bacterio-purpurin," in the latter "chloro- 

 phyll." The process in this case is a vital one, and the oxygen 

 evolved is apparently derived from the assimilation of carbon 

 dioxide. 



Zoological Society, April 29. — Sixty-eighth Anniversary 

 Meeting. — In the absence of the President, the chair was taken 

 by Dr. Edward Hamilton, \"ice- President. After the auditors' 

 report had been read and a vote of thanks accorded to them, and 

 some other preliminary business had been transacted, the report of 

 the Council on the proceedings of the Society during the past 

 year was read by Dr. P. L. Sclater, F.R.S., the Secretary. 

 The total receipts of the Society for 1896 had amounted to 

 27,081/. loj-. 4//. The ordinary expenditure in 1896 had 

 amounted to 23,788/. \s. id. Besides this, a sum of 2617/. \^s. 

 had been paid and charged to extraordinary expenditure, of 

 which amount 2600/. had tjeen paid on account of the construc- 

 tion of the new house for ostriches and cranes. A further sum 

 i)f 1000/. had also been transferred to the deposit account, 

 leaving a balance of 1066/. 15.?. 4^/. to be carried forward for 

 the benefit of the present year. The number of visitors to the 

 Gardens in 1896 was 665,004. The number of animals in the 

 Society's Gardens on December 31 last was 2473, of which 902 

 were mammals, 1132 birds, and 439 reptiles and batrachians. 

 Amongst the additions made during the past year eighteen were 

 specially commented upon as of remarkable interest, and in 

 most cases new to the Society's collection. Amongst these were 

 a young male manatee, from the Upjier Amazons ; a young male 

 klipspringer, from North-east Africa ; a young female gorilla, 

 from French Congoland ; a pair of lettered aracaris, from Para ; 

 a young Brazza's monkey, from French Congoland ; a Loder's 

 gazelle, from the Western Desert of Egypt ; three ivory gulls, 

 from Spitzbergen ; and three Franklin s gulls, from America. 

 The report having been adopted, the meeting proceeded to elect 

 the new members of Council and the officers for the ensuing 

 year. The usual ballot having been taken, it was announced 

 that William Batcson, F.R.S., Colonel John Biddulph, Dr. 

 Albert (Uinther, F.R.S., Osbert Salvin, F.R.S., and Joseph 

 Travers Smith had been elected into the Council in the place of 

 the retiring members, and that Sir William H. Flower, K.C.B., 



NO. 1436, VOL. 56 I 



t.R.S., had been re-elected President, Charles Drummond, 

 Treasurer, and Dr. Philip Lutley Sclater, F.R.S., Secretary to 

 the Society for the ensuing year. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, April 26.— M. A. Chatin in the 

 chair.— On the Inseminere with two integuments, forming the 

 subdivision of the Bitegminea', by M. Ph. van Tieghem. — 

 Researches on the composition of wheat, and on its analyses, by 

 M. Aime Gerard. The chemical analysis should in all cases 

 be preceded by a mechanical separation of the different parts of 

 the grain, approximating to the process of milling, if the analysis 

 is to be of any .service to the baker. For baking purposes it is 

 not sufficient to determine the total gluten only, but this must be 

 supplemented by finding the ratio of glutenine to gliadine.— On 

 the immunity of the fowl against human tuberculosis, by 

 MM. Lannelongue and Achard. The effects produced on fowls 

 and pigeons by inoculation with tubercle bacilli, appear to be the 

 same whether the organisms are alive or dead. But although 

 the bacilli appear to lose their power of spreading, they remain 

 alive and virulent in the local lesion, the blood of the fowl not 

 containing any substance capable of destroying, or even inter- 

 fering with the growth of the bacilli. — Influence of surfusion on the 

 freezing point of solutions of sodium chloride and alcohol, by M. 

 Raoult. The relation between the true lowering of the freezing 

 point, C, the observed lowering, C^, and the surfusion, S, is 

 given by C = C* (i-KS), where K is a constant. It follows 

 that for the same surfusion, with the same instrument and method 

 of working, the ratio C/C is constant, and that the error due to 

 surfusion is without effect upon the meaning of the results. 

 Experiments are given for aqueous solutions of sodium chloride 

 and of alcohol, six concentrations of each. The results are in 

 accordance with the theory of Arrhenius. — Monograph of the 

 quaternary fossils of Algeria, by M. A. Pomel. — Memoir on 

 a method {or the rapid determination of distances, by M. N. 

 Ursalovitch. — On the theory of flying, by M. Chantron. — 

 Remarks by M. Bouquet de la Grye on presenting the results of 

 the triangulation of Corsica. — On the electric properties of the 

 radiations emitted by bodies under the influence of light, by 

 M. Gustave Le Bon. Some experiments are quoted, which show- 

 that the criticism of previous results, based upon the supposed 

 transparency of the ebonite plate used, was unfounded. Sub- 

 stances under the action of light emit rays which cause the 

 discharge of electrified bodies, the rapidity of discharge varying 

 with the nature of the substance. This action has already been 

 shown for uranium by M. Becquerel, which appears to be only 

 a particular case of a general law. — The thermoluminescence 

 caused by the rays of M. Rontgen and M. Becquerel, by M. J. J. 

 Borgman. — On the biphosphide of silver, by M. A. Granger. 

 Reduced silver kept in an atmosphere of phosphorus at 400" is 

 slowly transformed into a definite phosphide, AgP.^, which is 

 decomposed again at 500°, so that silver, like gold, presents the 

 peculiarity of absorbing phosphorus at 400", giving it up 

 again at 500°, and retaining it again at 900°. — On 

 nitrosomethyl - diphenylamine, by M. Ch. Cloez. All 

 attempts to prepare a dinitrosomethyl - diphenylamine 

 were fruitless, the mono-nitroso-derivative being always 

 obtained. The amine being a very feeble base, for a 

 good yield an. excess of concentrated hydrochloric acid is neces- 

 sary, and the mixture must be well cooled. — New Coccidia in 

 the digestive canal of Myriapods, by M. Louis Leger. One of 

 these i.s found in the digestive tube of Lithobius impressiis, 

 where it is so numerous that during six days the excrements 

 were almost entirely composed of hundreds of cysts of this 

 Coccidium. It appears to be allied to the genus Barroussia 

 (A. Schneider), but is clearly distinguished from the B. ornata 

 of Nepe, by the form of the cyst and spores. The second is 

 found in several species oi Lithobius, especially L. cas/aiteus, L. 

 forcipafKS, and I.. Martini, and is identical with the genus 

 Batiavella of M. Labbe. — On a supposed disease of truffles 

 caused by worms, by M. Joannes Chatin. The worms observed in 

 trulHes are simple saprophytes, offering no danger to man. — On the 

 nutritive apparatus of Ciaaochytrium pulfiosum, by M. Paul 

 Vuillemin. The nutritive apparatus of this parasite is a naked 

 granular protoplasmic mass, containing numerous rings and 

 bundles ot striated muscular fibrilhe. It acts upon the cellulose 

 membranes. — The radical cure of hernia by injections of chloride 

 of zinc, by M. Demars. A description of six cases, all of which 

 w;:re cured, apparently permanently, by the above method. — 



