May 17, 1917] 



NATURE 



239 



adjoining vanished land, from rocks similar in the 

 main to those of the metamorphic and Torridonian 

 areas known in that country. The material was trans- 

 mitted by means of a north-western river and its tribu- 

 taries, flowing into the Northern Bunter basin. Dur- 

 ing certain flood-periods this river overflowed across 

 Derbyshire, carrying its load of sediment, much of 

 which was deposited in the pebble-beds of Nottingham- 

 shire. 



A Linaean Society, May 3. — Sir David Prain, president, 



In the chair. — H. W. Pugsley : An enumeration of the 

 species of Fumaria, section Sphaerocapnos. The author 

 alluded to Shakespeare's mention of "rank fumite.r " 

 in "King Lear." The earliest known references date 

 back to Dioscorides in the first century, under the 

 name of (caTrxof, smoke; the elder Pliny spoke of two 



■species, one apparently our Fumaria officinalis. The 

 modern generic name first appears in Bock (Tragus), 

 Fuchs and Mattioli. Gerard, in his "Herball,'' in- 

 cludes the common fumitory as " Fumaria purpurea," 

 but Gerard's description was altered and not improved 

 by his later editor. Dr. Thomas Johnson. The enu- 

 meration in Ray's " Historia " was confined to the 

 three species given by Gerard, but all the specimens 

 in the Sloane Herbarium, and the Dubois herbarium 

 at Oxford, prove to be a rampant form of F. officinalis. 

 The true F. capreolata, an uncommon British plant, 

 was added to our flora in 1859, when Prof. C. C. Bab- 

 ington read his paper on the genus before the Linnean 

 Society. The F. capreolata of " English Botany " and 

 Curtis's "Flora Londinensis " is Jordan's F. Boraei. 

 With Vaillant's species, F. Vaillantii, there were six 

 species distinguished before the time of Linnaeus. In 

 his "Species Plantarum " of 1753 the latter author 

 has but two sp>ecies of Fumaria ; the remainder are 

 now reckoned in Corydalis and other genera. The 



• author then referred to works on the genus by Hand- 

 schuch (1832) and Parlatore (1844), ^"<i especially the 

 masterly monograph by Olof Hammar in 1857, the 

 basis of recent work ; a later monographer, Hauss- 

 knecht, in "Flora," 1873, relied upon leaf-characters 

 rather than the sounder characters afforded by the 

 flower and fruit.— G. M. Ryan: The flowers of the 

 Mahua, Bassia latifolia, Roxb. The tree and its pro- 

 ducts were described.— Dr. W. E. Collinge : (i) Para- 

 cubaris, a new genus and species of terrestrial Isopoda 

 from British Guiana. (2) The oral appendages of 

 certain species of marine Isopoda. — C. C. Lacaita : 

 Two critical plants of the Greek flora. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, March iq.^Dr. John Home, president, 

 in the chair. — Dr. J. Altken : Some nuclei of cloudy 

 condensation. By means of an improved apparatus 

 for producing a series of definite expansions of a given 

 volume of saturated air, the author studied the cloud- 

 producing qualities of dust particles of different sizes 

 obtained in various ways. After the air was clea;-ed 

 of the largest particles by one or more applications of 

 a 2 per cent.- expansion, cloud-producing particles of 

 smaller sizes were removed in succession by expansions 

 4 per cent., 6 per cent., 8 per cent., and so on up to 

 20 per cent, if necessary. The particles were produced 

 by such means as flames, electric sparks, chemical 



» action, and heating of solid substances ; and the 

 general conclusion was tl'.at in no expansion lower 

 than 25 per cent, was there any evidence of electric 

 ions being by themselves efficient nuclei for cloudy 

 condensation. The view that the nuclei of cloudy con- 

 densation produced by heat are ions discharged at high 

 temperatures is not supported, since such nuclei are 

 produced at much lower temperatures than that at 

 which ionic discharge from heated bodies occurs ; and 

 even at this higher temperature spectroscopic examina- 



SO: 2481, VOL. 99] 



tion shows that some chemical or disintegrating action 

 takes place along with the discharge of the ions. — 

 W. L. Calderwood : Note on the salmon of the River 

 Lochy as shown by a collection of scales made in 19 16. 

 The purpose of the paper was to compare the scales 

 and weights of two groups of fish, distingfiished as 

 groups A and B. The members of group A had spent 

 two years in the sea and one in the river, while the 

 members of group B had spent two years in the river 

 and two in the sea. Tne average weight of the former 

 was the greater Thus the actual number of lines of 

 growth as determined by the examination of the 

 scales cannot be taken as a true index of the weight 

 of the salmon. The condition in which the smolt 

 leaves the river after only one year and commences a 

 period of rich feeding in the sea may lead to a greater 

 increment of weight than in the case of fish which 

 are a vear older but have spent the more normal 

 period of two years' early life in the river. 



P.4RIS. 



Academy of Sciences, April 30. — M. A. d'Ar^onval in 



the chair. J. Boussinesq : Fundamental hypotheses of 



the mechanics of pulverent masses. — General Sebert : 

 Can violent cannonades produce rain? Comments on 

 a recent note by M. Deslandres on this subject. There 

 is some evidence that the rainfall produced may not 

 be all local, but that effects may be observed at con- 

 siderable distances from the front. Sudden changes 

 of weather have occurred without previous barometric 

 changes, heavy rainfall suddenly following on fine 

 weather without anv previous indication of the change. 

 _C. Richet, H. Ca'rdot, and P. Le Rolland : Regular 

 and irregular antiseptics. Studies in lactic fermenta- 

 tion in presence of various antiseptics show that 

 when large numbers of trials are made under condi- 

 tions apparently identical, the resulting acidities are 

 not constant, but deviate considerably from the mean. 

 This deviation varies with the nature of the antiseptic 

 present. Thus sodium fluoride is verv- regular in its 

 action, and the average deviation is srnaller than that 

 given by the control tubes. Mercuric chloride, on 

 the other hand, added in equal quantities to each tube, 

 gave surprisingly variable results, the average devia- 

 tion being ten times that of the controls. — Ch. Deperet 

 and L. Joleand : The marine Quaternary deposits of 

 the region of B6ne and of La Calle (Algeria). — C. 

 Gaichard : The O networks of Monge in space of any 



order. M. de Sparre : Hammering in a conduit formed 



of three sections of different diameters, for which the 

 duration of propagation is the same. — R. Ledoux-Lebard 

 and A. Danvillier : Contribution to the study of the 

 L series of elements of high atomic weight. — M. 

 Menard : The treatment of haemorrhoids by high- 

 frequency currents. High-frequency currents ("d '.Arson- 

 valisation) are of high value in the treatment of 

 haemorrhoids, and in many cases have avoided a surgical 

 operation which would otherwise have been necessary. 

 The results of the application of the method in six 

 cases are given in detail ; the cure was compjete and 

 permanent. — M. Marage : The duration of cases of 

 deafness due to shell-shock. 



Calcutta. 



Asiatic Society of Bengal, March 7. — Dr. G. A. 



Bouienger : A revision of th« lizards of the genus 



Tachydromus. Tachydromus is a genus of Lacertidae 



characteristic of the Far East, and the only one of 



[ the family that extends eastward of the Bay of 



' Bengal. Owing to insufficient material, the relations 



I of the various species have hitherto been very im- 



' perfectly understood, and the revision which Dr. 



' Bouienger has now prepared was in consequence badly 



: needed. Eleven species are recognised in the genus 



