May 12, 19 lo] 



NATURE 



329 



amplexoid. All these mutations in neanic life have 

 characters seen in adults of the preceding form. Muta- 

 tional percentages are given for many localities in the 

 Carboniferous Limestone series of the Central Valley, 

 together with an analysis of the data so obtained. — A. 

 Wilmore : The Carboniferous limestone south of the 

 Craven Fault (Grassington-Hellifield district). Some of the 

 beds are massive, coarsely stratified limestones, made up 

 largely of crinoids, or corals, or shells ; others are weU 

 bedded, almost flaggv-, black limestones made up of com- 

 minuted matter, with abundant foraminifera. The strata 

 are much disturbed everywhere. A series of folds strike 

 roughly north-east and south-west, and are somewhat 

 comple.^. The well-known knolls (" reef-knolls ") are dis- 

 cussed. Their beds and those in the neighbourhood are 

 much disturbed. Irregular coarse bedding, folding, and 

 weathering will explain their structural peculiarities. A 

 typical knoll is dissected, and it is seen to consist of 

 folded, faulted, grey, coarsely bedded limestone, with great 

 joints and much internal weathering. It is not easy to 

 work out the exact zonal sequence, because of the dis- 

 turbed character of the strata and the prevalence of glacial 

 and fluvio-glacial drifts. The strata are apparently all 

 Vis^an (and probably there is nothing lower than Middle 

 or Upper S). In some beds, and in some circumstances, 

 fossils are exceedingly plentiful. Some corals receive special 

 notice. 



Man'chester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, ^pril <:. — M'. 

 Francis Jones, president, in the chair. — R. L. Taylor : A 

 preliminary note on the action of carbon dioxide and of 

 air on bleaching powder and similar substances. Contrary 

 to what is generally supposed, carbon dioxide, in presence 

 of moisture, liberates no hypochlorous acid from bleaching 

 powder, either solid or in solution, but only chlorine. 

 Similarly, carbon dioxide liberates nothing but bromine 

 from a mixture of a bromide and a hypobromite. When 

 air, freed from carbon dioxide, is passed through a solu- 

 tion of bleaching powder, it slowly sweeps out hypochlorous 

 acid, which is present in the free state in the solution, 

 being produced by the action of water on the calcium 

 hypochlorite. If, however, moist air containing the usual 

 small amount of carbon dioxide is passed through bleach- 

 ing powder, either solid or in solution, a mixture of 

 chlorine and hypochlorous acid is given ofif, the chlorine 

 usually largely predominating. In the case of the solid 

 substance, after the moist air has been passed through 

 for a considerable time, and the bleaching powder has 

 thus become quite wet, there is no hypochlorous acid pro- 

 duced, but only free chlorine. When bleaching powder is 

 heated with water and boric acid, practically pure hypo- 

 chlorous acid is given off, no matter what proportion of 

 boric acid is used. This forms a convenient method of 

 preparing a solution of hypochlorous acid. Under similar 

 conditions, a mixture of a bromide and a hvpobromite 

 evolves nothing but bromine. 



April 20. — Mr. Francis Jones, president, in the chair. — 

 G. P. Varley : The state of magnetisation of the iron 

 boundary fence on the ridge between Black Sail Pass and 

 the top of the Pillar Fell in the Lake District. The 

 heavier iron uprights, which were firmly fixed in the rock, 

 showed a north polarity below and south polarity above, 

 while the floating uprights used for spacing the wires had, 

 with few exceptions, the south pole below and the north 

 above. The magnetisation of the heavy fixed bars was 

 what one would expect from the action of the earth, but 

 that of the floating uprights was not readily explicable. — 

 Prof. S. J. Hickson : A new octoradiate coral. Some 

 corals observed by Mr. Standen, of the Manchester 

 Museum, in a bottom deposit obtained bv Mr. Townsend 

 at a depth of 156 fathoms in the Gulf of Oman (Persian 

 Gulf) were submitted to the author for examination, and 

 were found to belong to a genus that had not previously 

 been described. It was therefore proposed to name them 

 Pyrophyllia inflata, from the resemblance of the undulating 

 septa to flames issuing from a cauldron. The zoological 

 position of this coral could only be considered fullv when 

 its structure had been more carefullv studied. All that 

 could be said at present was that there were only two 

 recent corals that seemed to approach it at all in the 

 NO. 21 15, VOL. S^] 



system of Zoantharia. These were Guynia annulata, 

 Duncan, from the .Adventure Bank in 92 fathoms of water, 

 and Haplophyllia paradoxa, Pourtales, from off the coast 

 of Florida in 324 fathoms of water. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, March 21.— Dr. R. H. Traquair. F.R.S,. 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Dr. J. R. Milne : A photo- 

 metric "paddle-wheel." This apparatus has some re- 

 semblance to the well-known rotating sector, but possesses 

 the advantage that the brightness of the light can be 

 altered and the intensity recorded without the wheel being^ 

 stopped. In its simplest form it consists of a disc fixed 

 to the axle of a small electromagnet, and furnished with 

 a number of vanes projecting beyond the edge of the disc, 

 and set paddle-like with their planes parallel to the axis. 

 When the axis of the disc is set parallel to the beam of 

 light the vanes move in succession across the field edge on, 

 and intercept verj- little light. If, while the wheel is 

 rotating, the axis is inclined to the direction of the beam, 

 the vanes will intercept a certain amount of light, depend- 

 ing upon the inclination of the axis to the beam. The 

 paper contained graphical tables, from which the per- 

 centage of light transmitted can be found for various 

 forms of vane and different angles of inclination of the 

 axis. The position of the wheel can be recorded by a 

 simple device, which in no way interferes with the rotation. 

 The observer adjusts the rotating wheel until the intensity 

 of the beam is brought to the right value, marks the posi- 

 tion by means of a needle prick upon a strip of paper, and 

 then proceeds to the next comparison without removing 

 his eye from the eye-piece of tha telescope. — Dr. J. R. 

 Milne : A photometer on the flicker principle. The chief 

 novelty of the instrument lies in a part consisting of a 

 small telescope, in front of which two semi-circular glass 

 wedges are rotated b\' an electric motor in such a way 

 that there is made to fall alternately on the observer's eye 

 first the light that has passed through the absorbing solu- 

 tion and then the light that has passed above it. The 

 brightness of the latter beam is cut down by means of the 

 photometric paddle-wheel described above until it is equal 

 to the brightness of the former, this equality being shown 

 by the absence of flicker. — D. P. Macdonald : A chemical 

 investigation into the nature of the clay substance in the 

 Glenboig fire-clay. The results obtained show that the 

 clay substance contains 1-5 per cent, of water in excess of 

 that required to satisfy the formula for kaolinite, and that 

 the mineral is almost entirely decomposed by boiling in 

 concentrated hydrochloric acid for thirteen hours. — ^W. A. 

 Caspar! : Contributions to the chemistry of submarine 

 glauconite. Glauconite grains, when subjected to the 

 action of acid, followed by that of alkali, disintegrate with 

 formation of colloidal suspension of glauconite, whence pure 

 amorphous glauconite may be coagulated. The pure 

 glauconite prepared from grains found off Panama and 

 the Cape of Good Mope answered to the formula 

 KFeSi^O.-H^O, where K,0 is largely replaced by MgO and 

 FeO. Glauconite grains contain a small percentage of 

 organic matter closely resembling alkali-soluble humus. 

 This and other facts indicate that humus may well play 

 a part in the formation of glauconite. Experiments on the 

 absorption of water by glauconite show that it belongs in 

 this respect to the same class as zeolites or colloidal 

 silicates. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences. May 2. — M. Emile Picard in the 

 chair. — J. Violle : The fight against hail in the Beau- 

 jolais. The conclusion drawn by M. Andr^ in a recent 

 note was to the effect that hail cannon serve no useful 

 purpose. The author criticises the statistical methods of 

 M. Andr^. and states that during the six years 1901-6 

 the annual losses in the districts provided with hail cannon 

 were only 024 of the average annual loss for the preceding 

 twenty years. In the whole department the losses were 

 0-76 of the previous annual average. — C. Guichard : A 

 mode of generation of triple orthogonal systems with 

 spherical lines of curvature in a single system. — ^The per- 

 I)etual secretary- announced the death of Edouard van. 

 Beneden, correspondant for the section of anatomy and 



