April 19, 191 7]. 



NATURE 



159 



noted local customs between 1835 and 1889, has re- 

 corded many curious verdicts given by the ''Council 

 of Good Men," as it was called. Much information 

 about local customs is obtained from ' the ballads, of 

 the land. In the poems of Voyvoda Mirko, the father 

 of the present King of Montenegro, we get much 

 detail about the practice of head-hunting. The Monte- 

 negrins were great head-hunters. He describes the 

 setting of heads on stakes around a village as lately 

 as 1857; also the plundering and stripping of the 

 dead and the sharing of the booty. It was all pooled 

 and distributed by the chieftain. 



Geological Society, March 28.^-Dr. Alfred Harker, 

 president, in the chair. — F. Dixey and Dr. T. F. 

 Sibly : The Carboniferous Limestone Series on the 

 south-eastern margin of the South Wales coalfield. 

 The outcrop dealt with extends from the valley of the 

 Ewenny river near Bridgend (Glamorgan) to that of 

 the Ebbw, river at Risca (Monmouth), a distance of 

 about nineteen miles from west-south-west to east- 

 ncrth-east. It is traversed by the rivers Ely, TafT, 

 and Rhymney. Traced north-eastwards along this out- 

 crop, the Carboniferous Limestone Series suffers much 

 attenuation and becomes mainlv dolomitic, as shown 

 by the officers of H.M. GeologTcal Survey during the 

 recent re-survey of the coalfield. The outcrop now 

 described supplies a key to the remarkably attenuated 

 development of the Carboniferous Limestone Series 

 which is known to prevail on the eastern and north- 

 eastern borders of the coalfield. Overstep and actual 

 thinning are both operating in a north-easterly direc- 

 tion to produce great attenuation. A detailed descrip- 

 tion of the lithological and faunal succession is given. 

 The physical features of the outcrop are described, and 

 attention is directed to the remarkably perfect adjust- 

 ment of minor drainage-lines to geological structure. 

 The paper is illustrated by maps on which the zonal 

 divisions are indicated, by horizontal and vertical sec- 

 tions, and by photographs which depict some of the 

 most interesting features of the scenery. 



Royal Astronomical Society, April 13. — Major P. A. 

 MacMahon, president, in the chair. — Rev. J. G. 

 Hagen : Missing B.D. stars. Some stars, recorded in 

 the Bonn Catalogue, are now not found in the sky. 

 In a few cases it appeared that, through bad focus, 

 faint stars close together had been observed as one 

 star, and in si.x cases the R.A. of one star had been 

 accidentally combined with the declination of another. 

 — Prof. S. D. Tscherny : Observations made during 

 the partial eclipse of the sun of January 22, maae 

 at Rostow-on-Don, Russia. — Dr. L. Silberstein : The 

 motion of the perihelion of Mercury, deduced from 

 the classical theory of relativity. It was well known 

 that the motion of the perihelion of Mercury was 

 greater than could be caused by the perturbations of 

 the other planets, the excess being now found to be 

 nearly 43" per century. Einstein's most recent 

 "generalised theory of relativity" had yielded for this 

 excess its full value. It therefore appeared worth 

 while to investigate if the excess would not also be 

 accounted for by the old theory of relativity, retaining 

 the constancy of the velocity of light, and its inde- 

 pendence of the gravitational field. — Prof. H. H. 

 Turner ; Note on possible attraction between photo- 

 graphic images. Cases occurred in which the image of 

 a bright star appeared to distort a r^seau line near it, 

 and he had found a similar effect produced when 

 reseau lines, twice copied on the same plate, crossed 

 each other at small angles. Mr. Bellamy had ex- 

 amined the measures of double stars in the Oxford 

 Astrographic Catalogue, and found the same order 

 of error for distances less than 7", though nothing 

 sensible beyond this.— Prof. A. Fowler and J. Brooks- 

 bank : The third line spectrum of oxygen. Spectra 



NO. 2477; VOL. 99] 



had been obtained with feeble, nKxierate, and strong 

 discharges, and slides from the photographs were 

 shown. The stellar lines, which can be identified 

 with the third line spectrum of oxygen, are not 

 numerous, but it is of interest to find in oxygen 

 another example of the occurrence in the earliest type 

 of stars of lines which we can only obtain by em- 

 ploying the strongest discharges. This may indicate 

 that in stars of early type we are presented with 

 phenomena resulting either from powerful electric 

 action or from extremely high temperatures. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, March 26. — M. A. d'Arsonval 

 in the chair. — P. AppeU : Short report of the Com- 

 mittee on BaUistics.— E. Bompiani : Deformable hyper- 

 surfaces in a real Euclidean space of n>3 dimensions. 

 — E. Kogbetliantz : The summation of ultraspherical 

 series.— E. Belot : The possible origin of star clusters. 

 The vortex theory in cosmogony, which has already 

 explained the laws of the solar system and the fonna- 

 tion of spiral nebulae, can also define the very special 

 conditions under which a star cluster can arise, and 

 gives an exterior distribution very nearly exponential, 

 — M. Fayet : Observation of Melfish's comet made at 

 the Observatory of Nice.— J. PeUissjer : Some geo- 

 metrical properties of a bundle of X-ray tubes. .Appli- 

 cations to the localisation of foreign bodies in the 

 organism. An application of the principles of an- 

 harmonic ratios and of homography to X-ray problems. 

 —J. Fromentin : A rapid radioscopic method, for the 

 localisation of projectiks.— Em. Bourquelot and A. 

 Aubry : The biochemical synthesis, with the aid of 

 emulsin, of a second galactobiose. On working up 

 the residues from the preparation of the galactobiose 

 described in an earlier paper, with the view of obtam- 

 ing an increased yield, a new sugar, isomeric with the 

 first has been obtained. Its physical and chemical 

 properties are given.— P. Bonnier: Incontinence of 

 urine. An account of the application to sixty-two 

 cases of the method of cauterisation of the branches 

 of the trigeminal ner\e' in the nose previously de- 

 scribed. Thirtv-eight cases were cured and nine im- 

 proved.— A. Paillot : New parasitic micro-organisms of 

 the caterpillars of Lymantria dispar.-^J. Danysz : The 

 treatment of some dermatoses by bacteriotherapy.--- 

 Ed. Delorme : The operative methods applicable to 

 wounds of nerves by projectiles. 



Washington, D.C. 

 National Academy of Sciences (vol. iii., No. i, January). 



£. Thomson : Inferences concerning auroras. Auroras 



consist of vertical streamers which, seen from different 

 points of perspective, give the various optical effects 



observed. H^ F. Osbom : .Application of the laws of 



actk>n, reaction, and interaction in life evolution. In 

 each organism the ph'^nomena of life represent the 

 action, reaction, and interaction of four complexes of 

 physico-chemical energ>-.— P. W. Bridgman : The re- 

 sistance of metals under pressure. Twenty-two metals 

 are examined up to 12,000 kg.— A. Forbes : The rate of 

 discharge of central neurones. The normal frequency 

 of ner\e impulses discharged from the ganglion cells 

 in voluntary contraction must lie between 300 and 5000 

 per second.— Ethel B. Harvey : A physiological study 

 of Noctiluca, with special reference to light production, 

 anaesthesia, and specific gravity. These animals are 

 able to regulate their specific gravity. Anaesthetics 

 seem to attack the mechanism of the utilisation of 

 oxvgen, in the absence of which light is not produced. 



N. ^I. Fenneman : Physiographic subdivision of" the 



United States. The basis of division shown on the 

 map is physiographic or morphologic. There are 

 twenty-four major divisions, some with six to ten sub- 



