March 



D' 



I917] 



NATURE 



59 



heading, and the feehng are all different, (ii) The 

 stage of "liking," where what is apprehended begins 

 i to be distinguished from the apprehension and the 

 feeling. In neither of these cases is there assertion 

 or assumption of existence, (iii) We have finally the 

 definite judgment forms: "This is beautiful, good, 

 etc." With regard to the objects valued in these in- 

 stances no consideration of existence or of reality is 

 required in the Eesthetic judgment; in judgments of 

 economic value existence is probably indirectly 

 assumed; the moral judgment assumes existence only 

 if acts are to be considered as existing, for it Js solely 

 upon acts as performed that the moral judgment is 

 passed. In every instance of its attribution it is 

 ^•equired that there should be something possessing 

 qualities and entering into relation with a subject. 

 Thus, neither in the rudimentary attribution of value, 

 nor in the developed value judgment, is anything of 

 necessity assumed or asserted with respect to 

 existence. 



Geological Society, February- 7.— Dr. Alfred Harker, 

 president, in the chair. — C. T. Trechmann : The Trias 

 of New Zealand. The fossiliferous Triassic rocks of 

 New Zealand have been at different times attributed 

 by New Zealand geologists to a Devonian, Permian. 

 Permo-Carboniferous, Lower, Middle, or Upper 

 Triassic, or Trias-Jura age. They are distinct from 

 the Matai rocks, which contain a Permo-Carboniferous 

 fauna. Triassic beds appear at inter\-als from Kawhia 

 to Nugget Point — a distance of 620 miles. They are 

 steeply inclined, and where they approach the Alpine 

 chain of the South Island pass into semi-metamorphic 

 greywackes or completely metamorphic phyllites and 

 schists. In the North Island only the Noric and 

 Rhaetic horizons have been recognised. The Trias 

 passes conformably up into Jurassic deposits. The 

 lowest fossiliferous horizon of the Trias occurs near 

 the top of a great thickness of greywackes, called the 

 Kaihiku Series. The Kaihiku fossils are scanty in 

 species, and no cephalopods occur. The Kaihiku 

 fossil horizon is either late Middle or early Upper 

 Trias, and the great unfossiliferous series below it 

 represents the Middle and possibly Lower Trias. The 

 most highly fossiliferous division is the Carnic — the 

 Oreti and Wairoa Series of New Zealand geologists. 

 Several of the Carnic fossils show affinities with 

 European Alpine forms. The Noric horizon, the 

 Otapiri Series in part, is represented by felspathic 

 sandstones. The Rhaetic, the upper part of the 

 Otapiri Series of local geologists, comprises a great 

 thickness of sandy and pebbly beds. Forty-seven 

 genera and species of molluscs and brachiopods are 

 , recorded, of which three genera and forty-one species 

 are regarded as new. The affinities of the New 

 Zealand Trias with that of the Malav -Archipelagfo. 

 and especially of New Caledonia, are discussed. — Dr. 

 F. A. Bather : The Triassic crinoids from New Zealand 

 collected by Mr. C. T. Trechmann. The specimens 

 are all from the Kaihiku Series. Comparison of the 

 three new species based on all these remains with the 

 Triassic crinoids described from Europe, and especially 

 with those from North America, leads to the conclu- 

 sion that they are of Upper Triassic agfe. Thev bear, 

 however, no resemblance to the Upper Triassic 

 crinoids from Timor. — H. C. Sargent : A spilitic facies 

 of Lower Carboniferous lava-flows in Derbyshire. The 

 iq-neous rocks of Derbyshire form a basic series, con- 

 sisting mainly of lavas and sills, hitherto classed as 

 olivine-dolerites and basalts. All occur in Lower 

 Carboniferous strata. The lavas were submarine and 

 contemporaneous. Specimens of the lavas from cer- 

 tain localities exhibit a trachytic structure, and possess 

 affinities with both spilites and mugearites. Field 

 evidence shows that these spilitic rocks, as a rule, 



NO. 2472, VOL. 99] 



j underlie the basalts. The whole series may have been 

 derived from a common magma of normal basaltic 

 type, and by the upward passage of gases through 

 the magma a relative concentration of the alkalies 

 took place in its upper part. It is suggested that the 

 intense decomposition of the spilites is a case of auto- 

 metamorphism, due to retention of volatile consti- 

 tuents resulting from the physical environment of a 

 submarine flow. Since the spilites appear to be differ- 

 entiates from a normal basaltic magma, it is concluded 

 that they do not form a separate suite of igneous rocks 

 distinct from other alkaline rocks. 



Royal Anthropological Institnte, February 27. — Major 

 A. O'Brien : The criminal in the western Punjab. 

 Crime is so excessive in the Punjab that if it were 

 on the same scale here, there would be 1500 murders 

 a year in the Un'ted Kingdom. The object of the 

 paper was to determine how far the Punjab criminal 

 is the outcome of his country's past histor\' of inter- 

 necine wars and how far of the present methcds of 

 administering law and order. A number of instances 

 were quoted to show that at present the law, however 

 majestic, is not ver\- widely respected. The reasons 

 . for this state of affairs may be summarised as follows : 

 The criminal code has not been adjusted with suffi- 

 cient regard to the popular notion of what is criminal 

 and what is not; the judicial system, supposed to have 

 been modified to suit the country, is neither Oriental 

 nor British, and falls between two stools ; the official 

 staff of judges, magistrates, police, and Crown coun- 

 sel is quite inadequate to the work to be done. The 

 Punjabi has adjusted himself to these conditions by 

 taking infinite pains to fake his cases, which leads 

 in return to his cases being viewed with the gravest 

 suspicion. The innocent get convicted in a sufficient 

 number of cases to encourage the policy of faking 

 against enemies. The guilty get off too often scot- 

 free. Thus there is a vicious circle of real crime, 

 false accusations, acquittals, and more crimes in re- 

 venge for those unavenged judicially. 



P.ARIS. 



Academy of Sciences, January 22. — M. A. d'Arson- 

 val in the chair. — The president announced the 

 death of General Bassot, and gave a summary 

 of his work. — G. Bigourdan : The first learned 

 societies of Paris in the seventeenth century. 

 The .'\cademv of Montmor. — B. Gambler : The 

 identity of Bezout. — M. Petrovitch : Value of the 

 action along various trajectories. — M. Mesnager : A 

 formula in simple series of the uniformly charged 

 plate, fixed on a plane rectangular contour. — M. 

 Sanger : The energy possessed bv the earth from the 

 fact of its rotation on itself, when for the density- at 



its interior the law of variation d= 10(1— 076 ^)'s 



assumed. — M. Mazeres : The location of foreign bodies 

 by the X-rays without normal incidence and known 

 height of bulb. — C. K. Reiman : Contribution to the re- 

 vision of the atomic weight of bromine. The density 

 of gaseous hydrogen bromide under reduced pressure. 

 The known action of pure dr>- hydrogen bromide upon 

 mercury excludes the direct measurement of the com- 

 pressibility of the gas. It can, however, be determined 

 indirectly by density measurements under different 

 pressures. In the exocriments described the gas was 

 prepared by two methods : by direct sj-nthesis from its 

 elements, and by the interaction of potassium bromide 

 and phosphoric acid. The final density leads to 79-024 

 as the atomic weight of bromine. — W. J. Murray : Re- 

 marks on the normal density of hvdrobromic acid. 

 Work carried out at Geneva on similar lines to that 

 described in the preceding paper. The gas was pre- 

 pared by the action of a limited quantity of water on 



