April 26, 191 7] 



NATURE 



179 



it appears to have only one oscillation in twenty-four 

 hours, as compared with the double oscillation in fine 

 weather. In most cases rain depresses the potential 

 gradient. Mean depressions have been compared with 

 liieir corresponding mean hourly rainfalls. The de- 

 pression- was found to be a function of the rate of 

 fall of rain. At Kew the potential gradient is 

 measured directly in volts per metre by taking the 

 potential in volts at the height of arnetre. This method 

 gives the time value as obtained from the surface 

 densitA' only where the electrical charge in the air is 

 negligible. This is the case in fine weather, but prob- 

 ably not during rain. The possible errors have been 

 calculated for different potential gradients ; in the case 

 of very fine rain the error may be some hundreds of 

 volts per metre. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, April 2.— M. d'Arsonval in the 

 chair. — G. Bigourdan : The position and co-ordinates 

 of the observatory of the Montmartre gate. — Ch. 

 Lallemand : Time on board ship. It is pointed out 

 that with the method at present in use for fixing 

 true time at sea, it is possible that two vessels, coming 

 from opposite directions, and noting at the moment of 

 their meeting the time of the same phenomenon, may 

 differ in their record by as much as 100 minutes, and 

 it is impossible to deduce the true time. It is proposed 

 by tl>e Bureau des Longitudes that as soon as cir- 

 cumstances permit the true time shall be substitutetl, 

 the time of the universal system of hour-zones, alreadv 

 in use on land in most civilised countries. From 

 March 25 this plan has been adopted in the French 

 Nav}' and on mobilised vessels. — M. Emile Picard was 

 elected permanent secretary for the mathematical 

 sciences in the place of the late G. Darboux. — ^J. 

 Renaud : The influence of the Hermelles on the regime 

 of the bay of Mont Saint Michel. An adverse criti- 

 cism of the views recently published bv MM. Galaine 

 and Houlbert relating to the formation of the Her- 

 melles reefs. — L. Tribondean and |. Dubreuil : New 

 microscopic stains derived from methylene-blue. De- 

 tailed descriptions are given for the preparation of 

 nethylene-violet and methylene-azure from methylene- 

 •lue. The preparation of three staining fluids' from 

 hese colouring matters is also given. — Ph. Glangeaud : 

 The jjeat bogs, the lakes, and the ancient glacial 

 '•:' - of the Mont Dore volcanic massif. 



Washingto.v, D.C. 

 Aational Academy of Sciences (Proceedin^fs, No. 2, 

 •I. iii., February).— C. Schuchert :' .Vtlantis and the per- 

 nanency of the North Atlantic Ocean bottom. The 

 \zores are volcanic islands and not the remnants of a 

 continental mass. The tachylites dredged up 'from 

 north of the Azores were probably formed where they 

 low are. No known geologic data prove the existence 

 ;f Plato's Atlantis in historic times.— G. H, Parker : 

 The responses of hydroids to gravitv. The geotropic 

 response in Corv'morpha is the result of activity of 

 the neuromuscular sheath and not of the core cells. — 

 E. P. Allis, jun. : The lips and the nasal apertures in 

 he Gnathostome fishes, and their homologues in the 

 ligher vertebrates. — J. Lipka : Natural and isogonal 

 :amilies of curves on a surface. — G. H. Hardy and 

 J. E. Littlewood : Some problems of Diophantine af>- 

 i>roximation : the series . e(A„) and the distribution of 

 he points (A„o).— H. S. Uhler : Moseley's law for 

 X-ray spectra. The law> that the square' root of the 

 rrequency of the lines is a linear function of the 

 itomic numbers of the radiating elements is found to 

 iepart from the observed facts far more than the 

 xperimental errors, and an additional term is sug- 

 gested which yields a formula agreeing with the 

 lets. The order of magnitude of the high-frequency 



NO. 2478, VOL. 99] 



radiations of elements of small atomic numlxr the 

 spectra of which have not yet been obtained is dis- 

 cussed. — J. R. Miner : A note on the fitting of para- 

 bolas. Pearson's formula for fitting parabolas by the 

 method of moments assumes the origin at the mid- 

 point of the range. Similar formula are developed 

 by the author when the origin is assumed one unit 

 below the first ordinate, as in Itas.t squares. — F. G. 

 Pease and H. Shapley : Axes of symmetry in globular 

 clusters. The axis of symmetry of Messier 13 appears 

 to be independent of magnitude, length of exposure, 

 and distance from the centre. An elliptic distribution 

 of stars is not confined to the Hercules cluster. — 

 E. G. Conklin : The share of egg and sperm in here- 

 dity. The author discusses assumed equivalence of 

 inheritance of both f>ersons, agg differentiations which 

 persist in embryo and adult, Mendelianism of in- 

 heritance through the egg cytoplasm. — J. P. Iddings 

 and E. \V. Morley : A contribution to the petrography 

 of the island of Bawean, Netherlands Indies. Six 

 detailed analyses are given. — W. M. Wheeler : The 

 phylogenetic development of subapterous and apterous 

 castes in the Formicidae. An array of facts bearing 

 on the question of continuous variation x't'rsns mutation, 

 with the conclusion in favour of the former. — C. 

 Bams : Refractivity determined, irrespective of form, 

 by displacement interferometn*'. — J. P. Banmberger : 

 The food of Drosophila melanogaster, Meigen. The 

 food of the larvae is yeast ; the insect depends upon 

 these cells for its proteins. Adult flies do not need 

 proteins, but survive much longer on sugar agar than 

 upon yeast agar. — E. Huntington : Temperature optima 

 for human energf\-. The optimum temperature ap- 

 pears to be very nearly 63° F., and largely indepen- 

 dent of race or locality. — A. van Maanen : The parallax 

 of the planetan,' nebula N.G.C. 7662. The value 

 0023* is obtained, placing the nebula at a distance 

 of 140 light-years with a linear diameter of nineteen 

 times that of Neptune's orbit (see N.vture, April 19, 

 p. 153). — C. T. Bmes : .Vdult hymenopterous parasites 

 attached to the body of their host. 



Victoria. 



Royal Society, December 14, 1916. — Mr. J. A. Shep- 

 hard in the chair. — F. Chapman : New or little-known 

 Victorian fossils in the National Museum, part xx. 

 Some Tertiary fish-teeth. The occurrence of the genus 

 Carcharoides (C. totuserrattis. Amegh.. and C. tenui- 

 dens, Chapm.) affords an additional link in the evi- 

 dence for the contemporaneitv" of the South American 

 (Patagonian) and the Victorian (Janjukian) series. 

 Odontaspis elegans, Ag. sp., Myliobatis moorabhinen- 

 sis, Ch. and Pr., and Sargtts laticonus, DaWs, are 

 now recorded from undoubted Janjukian (Miocene) 

 beds, the latter being hitherto known only from the 

 Oamaru beds of New Zealand. Rostral teeth of 

 Pristis allied to the Mediterranean species, P. anti- 

 quorum, occur for the first time in the southern 

 hemisphere, in the basal Kalimnan at Beaumaris. 

 Pristiophorus (the side-gilled shark of Hobson's Bay), 

 hitherto known only from the molasse of Wiirtemberg 

 and the Upper Cretaceous of Mount Lebanon, is repre- 

 sented by a rostral tooth from the same beds, and 

 the author shows Davis's Lamna lanceolata from the 

 Oamaru series of New Zealand to belong to that 

 genus, and conspecific with the Victorian form. — 

 A. J. Ewart : Contributions to the flora of Australia, 

 No. 25. The author notes the sudden appearance of 

 aliens belonging to the genera Brach\-podium and 

 Orthocarpus. Other plants recorded as being estab- 

 lished in Victoria are Ceratogyne, Digitalis purpurea. 

 Erica arborea, and two species of plantain. — Elinor 

 Archer : A disease or malformation of lucerne. The 

 proliferation discovered in this plant was investigated 



