February 1 1, 1892] 



NA TURE 



357 



Demonstrator to Prof. Dewar. The grace for establishing the 

 office was opposed, but carried by 76 votes to 70. 



Prof. Macalister lias been appointed Chairman of the Ex- 

 aminers for the Natural Sciences Tripos in the present year. 



The Fitzwilliam Museum Syndicate report that the catalogue 

 of the Egyptian Collection, prepared by Dr. Budge, is now 

 ready for printing, and will forthwith be published. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



The American Meteorological Journal for December last 

 contains six memorial articles upon the work of the late Prof. 

 W. Ferrel, read at a meeting of the New England Meteoro- 

 logical Society in October last. Prof. W. M. Davis states 

 that Ferrel's view of the general circulation of the atmosphere 

 is now accepted in its essential features by most meteorologists ; 

 and were it not for the silence regarding it on the part of some 

 of the British school, it would be regarded as universally 

 acceptable. But in Great Britain it finds little recognition ; 

 unfortunately, Prof. Davis thinks, for the advance of the 

 science in this country. The essential part of Ferrel's theory, 

 first stated in 1859, is that an equatorial-polar convectional 

 circulation on a rotating earth must consist chiefly of oblique 

 winds from a western quarter, with high velocities nearly at 

 right angles to the gradients; and that the initial high pressure 

 about the poles, due to low temperature, will be reversed to low 

 pressure by the excessive centrifugal force of the whirling winds, 

 thus leaving a belt of high pressure near the tropics. He draws 

 a sharp contrast between the general circulation and the cyclonic 

 circulation. Both are cyclonic, inasmuch as they whirl, but one 

 has a cold centre, and the other a warm one. — H. Helm 

 Clayton contributes an article on the verification of weather 

 forecasts. Among the elements to be considered he includes ( i ) 

 the kind of phenomenon, e.g. cloud, rain, &c. ; (2) the time 

 of occurrence ; (3) the duration of the phenomenon ; (4) the 

 intensity; (5) the length of time in advance that the phenomenon 

 is predicted. He also describes the methods of verification 

 adopted in some countries. — Cold waves, by Dr. A. Woeikof. 

 The object of the paper is to disprove Prof. Russell's theory 

 that cold waves are not due chiefly to radiation from the ground, 

 but to extreme cooling of the upper air. Dr. Woeikof shows 

 from observations from various sources that the cold waves are 

 certainly due to radiation, not necessarily at the place where the 

 cold is felt, but at a distance — in the United States to the north- 

 west, in Europe to the north-east. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, January 21. — " On the Mechanism of the 

 Closure of the Larynx : a Preliminary Communication." By 

 T. P. Anderson Stuart, M.D., Professor of Physiology, Univer- 

 sity of Sydney, Australia. 



The epiglottis having been displaced from its time-honoured 

 function of closing the larynx as a lid, the paper proceeds to show 

 how after all the larynx is closed. Briefly, the closure is effected 

 by, on the one hand, a folding up of the margins of the entrance 

 and an obliteration of the channel of the vestibule from the 

 entrance downwards to the level of the glottis, and, on the other 

 hand, by the well-known movement upwards and forwards of 

 the entire larynx against the base of the tongue — the lower part 

 of the epiglottis intervening, but taking no active part in the 

 process.. The observations, &c., Mere made as follows: (i) on 

 a man who has a large hole in the side of the neck, a result of 

 an operation for epithelioma, through which deglutition, simple 

 closure of the larynx, &c., can be observed proceeding in a mani- 

 festly perfectly normal manner ; (2) on healthy persons ex- 

 amined by the laryngoscope by the author and by two professed 

 laryngoscopists ; (3) experiments on the different classes of 

 animals ; (4) the anatomy and comparative anatomy of the 

 parts ; (5) the clinical and post-mortem records of morbid 

 conditions. 



When simple closure is to be effected in man, the arytenoid 

 cartilages, inclosed in the mucous membrane, (l) are rotated, 

 so that the vocal processes (eventually) come into apposition ; 

 (2) glide forwards on the cricoid articular surface, so that the 

 posterior broad part of their articular surface comes to rest on 



NO. I 163, VOL. 45] 



the cricoid ; (3) approach each other, so that their inner faces 

 are, in part at least, in contact ; (4) fold forwards at the crico- 

 arytenoid joint, so that their tips come into contact with the 

 lower part of the epiglottis. At the same time the aryepiglotlic 

 folds become tense, pulling inwards the lateral margins of the 

 epiglottis, and so deepening its groove to receive the tips of the 

 arytenoids and the Santorinian cartilages. Thus the entrance 

 assumes the form of a squat T-shaped fissure, its transverse 

 limb bounded in front by the epiglottis, behind by the ary- 

 epiglotlic folds, and its vertical or antero- posterior or mesial — 

 the more primitive — limb by the arytenoid cartilages. The head 

 of the T is curved concave backwards and its stem is short. A 

 slight movement of the entire larynx upwards and forwards takes 

 place — not nearly so much as in deglutition. The epiglottis 

 does not actively move, and in deglutition, for instance, the 

 bolus is seen to glide over its laryngeal surface, its lingual 

 surface being closely pressed against the dorsum of the tongue. 

 But all animals are not alike, and too little account has been 

 taken of differences in the anatomy of the parts, these carrying 

 with them, as they do, differences in their physiology. The 

 foregoing account applies only where, as in man, the arytenoids 

 are long and narrow : where they are high and broad they 

 move more bodily forwards, and where they are low and narrow, 

 i.e. small, neither folding nor movement forwards would 

 suffice to close the orifice, and there the lower part of the 

 epiglottis is permanently bent backwards, so that the contact of 

 the arytenoids with the front wall of the laryngeal cavity is 

 effected with a minimum of movement of the arytenoids and the 

 true vocal eords are, as it were, under cover of a sort of hood 

 formed by the epiglottis. The exact behaviour of the distal 

 portion of the epiglottis varies ; so does the value of the move- 

 ment upwards and forwards of the entire larynx, even in indi- 

 viduals of the same species. The arytenoids in their mucuous 

 membrane thus form a valve which, when it stands backwards, 

 closes the food-channel and drafts the air forwards into the 

 larynx, and when it lies forwards in deglutition closes the air 

 channel and opens the food-channel. The external thyro- 

 arytenoid muscles with the transverse arytenoid muscle, are the 

 agents by which the before-mentioned four movements of the 

 arytenoid cartilages are brought about. The aryepiglottic 

 muscles tense the edge of the aryepiglottic fold, and cross to the 

 base of the opposite arytenoid cartilage to avert the tendency 

 they would otherwise have to pull asunder the arytenoids' tips. 

 As worked out in the paper, it is seen that a very large number 

 of details in the anatomy of the larynx receive an adequate 

 explanation by this account of the closure of the larynx, e.g. the 

 detailed anatomy of the muscles just mentioned, the sacculus, 

 the structure of the false cord, the crico-arytenoid joint, its 

 surfaces and ligaments, the anatomy of the larynx and its cavity 

 in the different classes of animals, the ephithelial lining the 

 cavity, &c. 



"Birds are extremely instructive in this connection. Here 

 the vocal function is entirely removed from the larynx, so that 

 the larynx has for its sole office the guarding of the entrance of 

 the trachea. Inspection and experiment show the entrance to 

 be closed by the arytenoid cartilages, or bones, and the thyro- 

 arytenoid muscles. Since this is their function in Birds (and 

 the same applies to Tortoises, Lizards, Reptiles, Frogs, &c.) is 

 it not all the more likely to be at least a function in Mammals? " 

 The plane of the larynx at the level of the glottis corresponds 

 to the larynx in its more primitive forms — linear when closed, 

 lozenge-shaped when open, bounded exclusively by cartilage and 

 muscle. In man the vocal function has been superadded : all 

 that lies above the level of the glottis has been built on that 

 level, and the vibrating property has been got at a physio- 

 logically cheaper rate through fibrous than through mus- 

 cular tissue. For details we must refer to the paper in the 

 Proceedings. 



January 28. — " Note on some Specimens of Rock which have 

 been exposed to High Temperatures." By Prof. T. G. Bonney, 

 D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S. 



The first described vrere two specimens of the microgranite 

 of Threlkeld (Keswick) : the effect of heating (probably to about 

 2oco° Y.) had been to melt down the felspathic and the 

 micaceous constituents, cracking, but not materially affecting, 

 the quartz. Next, in overburnt brick (composed mainly of dis- 

 integrated granite) from Les Talbots (Guernsey) similar effects : 

 partial melting of larger fragments of felspar : in one case twin 

 planes could be traced within the melted part. Thirdly, five 

 specimens of melted basalt from Rowley Regis. Four of these 



