March 27, 19 19] 



NATURE 



79 



distribution of Tertiary rocks on the northern side of 

 the range suggests that here also a westward-flowing 

 river was formed, which either discharged round the 

 end of the range into the same sea as the Indobrahm, 

 or flowed westwards into the region of Turkestan 

 and the Caspian Sea. The later history of the 

 drainage system consists of the capture of the upper 

 waters of this river by a tributary of the Indobrahm, 

 a cutting-back along the valley to form the eastward- 

 flowing Tsangpo, now the upper waters of the 

 Brahmaputra, and the capture of the lower reaches 

 in part by the Sutlej and in part by the Attock tribu- 

 tary of the Indolyahm, to form the Himalayan portion 

 of the Indus valley. Meanwhile, on the southern side 

 of the range, some of the tributaries on the eastern 

 side of the Lower Indobrahm had cut back from the 

 Sind region and cut off the original bend near Attock, 

 to form the present plains of the Punjab ; and farther 

 <=>ast a river cutting back along the present line of the 

 Gangetic delta and lower course of the Ganges and 

 Brahmaputra had captured the upper waters of the 

 Indobrahm to form the present Brahmaputra. The 

 same system of capture had worked westwards, until 

 the tributaries of the Indobrahm had been successively 

 diverted from a westerly to an easterly drainage up to 

 and including the Jumna River.— Dr. A. Smith 

 Woodward : Fish-remains from the Upper Devonian 

 (Pickwell-Down Sandstones) of Woolacombe Bay 

 (North Devon). Thft remains were discovered by Mr. 

 Inkerman Rogers, and noticed by him in the 

 Geological Magazine for March, 1919. 



Royal Meteorological Society, March ig.— Sir Napier 

 Shaw, president, in the chair. — Prof. L. Hill: Atmo- 

 spheric conditions which affect health. Numerous 

 observers make records of barometric pressure, tem- 

 perature, rainfall, wind, etc., but the question arises 

 as to whether there are not other data of greater 

 importance and interest which affect personal health 

 and comfort, and might be recorded. In the past 

 much has been made of the chemical alteration of the 

 air in crowded places, and unsound views have 

 become popular. The victims of the Black Hole of 

 Calcutta died from heat-stroke, not from a poisonous 

 vitiation of the air by the exhalations of the crowd. 

 It is the cooling and evaporative power of the atmo- 

 sphere and the radiant heat of the sun, or other 

 source of radiant energy, which affect our comfort and 

 well-being, and it is these factors which require to 

 be measured by the student of hygiene. The dry- 

 bulb temperature does not suffice to indicate the cool- 

 ing effect, because it is a static instrument averaging 

 the influence of the environment, while the body is 

 a dynamic instrument keeping itself at a nearly con- 

 stant body-temperature by the internal combustion of 

 food and by heat loss from the skin and respiratory 

 membrane, the heat gain and loss both being physio- 

 logically controlled. It is cooling power acting on the 

 b(Sy-surface, not temperature, which we require to 

 study; and as the surface of the respiratory mem- 

 brane is always wet, and the skin may be made rela- 

 tively dry or very wet by physiological control, evapora- 

 tive cooling is of no less importance than cooling by 

 convection and radiation. To estimate cooling power 

 the author has introduced the kata-thermometer. 

 Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, March 3. — M. L^on Guignard 

 in the chair. — M. Hamy : The studv of the perturba- 

 tions of the optical axis of a meridian telescope. An 

 arrangement of two doubly reflecting prisms is 

 described, which permits the total value of the errors 

 due to the imperfections of the telescope to be deter- 

 mined. — A Rateau : The successive states of a gas at 

 high pressure in a receptacle which is emptied by a 

 jet. — A. Blondel : The free oscillations of alternators on 



NO. 2578, VOL. 103] 



a network at constant pressure.— E. Arii» : The ap- 

 plication to eight different substances of the formula 

 which expresses the heat of evaporation of a liquid. 

 The substances chosen are carbon dioxide, ammonia, 

 stannic chloride, methyl formate, and pentane and its 

 three next higher homologues. A table is given show- 

 ing the agreement between the calculated and pub- 

 lished experimental values. — Louis Fabry was elected 

 a correspondant for the section of astronomy in suc- 

 cession to the late M. Baclclund.— R. Garnier : The 

 irregular singularities of linear differential equations. — 

 J. tiuillaume : Observations of the sun made at the 

 Lyons Observatory during the fourth quarter of 19 18. 

 The observations made on sixty-seven days during this 

 quarter are grouped in three tables showing . the 

 number of spots, their distribution in latitude, and 

 the distribution of the faculae in latitude. — L. 

 Dunoyer and G. Reboul : The prediction of barometric 

 variations. — G. Gnilbert : The anomalies of the 

 meteorological station of Skudesness (Norway). The 

 station of Skudesness is the only meteorological 

 station in Europe where the known laws governing 

 the direction and force of surface winds are frequently 

 found to fail. The author suggests that the abnormal 

 winds at this station reveal the existence of very 

 distant cyclonic disturbances, situated west of jhe 

 British Isles and showing no indication here. On 

 certain days the data from the Skudesness station 

 alone can be used to predict the arrival of a storm.— 

 D. Faucher : Contribution to the determination of the 

 lacustral levels of the lower valley of the Vardar. — S. 

 St^fanescu : The transversal sections of the plates of 

 molars. — Mme. Dolores Cebrian de Besteiro and M. 

 MicheUDnrand : The influence of light on the absorp- 

 tion of organic 'material of the soil by plants. It has 

 been previously shown that the pea cannot adapt its 

 chlorophyll assimilation to feeble illumination. It is 

 now found to be equally incapable of increasing the 

 absorptive power of its roots in such a manner as to 

 extract from the soil a larger quantity of organic 

 carbon. — J. Eriksson : Biological and systematic 

 studies on the Swedish Gymnosoorangium. — F. 

 Maignon : Study of the mechanism of the action of 

 fats in the utilisation and assimilation of albuminoids. 

 It has been shown in preceding communications that 

 fats exert a double influence on the albuminoids of 

 food : thev diminish their toxicity and increase their 

 nutritive power. The view is put forward that the 

 fattv acids arising from the fats can combine with 

 the'amino-acid nucleus of a protein, thus leading to 

 the formation of specific albumens. The author does 

 not regard the view put forward by Crevat, J. Kuhn, 

 and others that fats favour the digestion of albu- 

 minoids bv stimulating th<^ secretion of digesti\*^ 

 juices as sufficient.— A. Paillot : Parasitic coccobacilli 

 of the caterpillars of Pieris hrassicae. During the 

 great invasion in 1917 by P. hrassicae opportunity 

 was taken to isolate a certain number of parasitic 

 micro-organisms. Details of five new species are 

 given. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Manual of Vegetable-garden Insects. By C. R. 

 Crosbv and M. D. Leonard. Pp. XV + 3QI. (New 

 York : The Macmillan Co. ; London : Macmillan and 



. Co., Ltd., 1918.) 125. 6d. net. 



I Fermat's Last Theorem : Three Proofs by Elemen- 



i tary Algebra. By M. Cashmore. Revised edition. 



I Pp. 55. (London : G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.) 2i. 6rf. 



.Armv Gardens in France. Belgium, and Occupied 



German Territorv. Their Making and Management. 



with Plans and Directions Suited ta the Garden Ser- 



I vice of the British and American Expeditionary Force/?. 



