448 



NATURE 



[June 9, 1910 



classification into grades is undoubtedly to base it on the 

 reduction of the volume or weight of the particles, and for 

 this purpose he reduces the cube of the unit successively 

 by one half its volume, thus obtaining a reduction scale 

 in the " common " ratio of 2, or by eliminating alternate 

 grades preferably in the ratio of 1/4. The scheme does 

 not standardise the screens as such, but establishes an 

 unerring standard for the sizing and classifying of the 

 screen products into grades, and is consequently valid for 

 screens of any description, independent of purely practical 

 and commercial considerations. An examination of the 

 practical application of grading analyses follows, and, as 

 a result of the trials made, the author states that investi- 

 gators are now in a position to determine with a com- 

 paratively high degree of accuracy the relative merits of 

 different crushing appliances or the mechanical efificiency 

 of one and the same machine working under varying con- 

 ditions. — T. A. Rickard : Standardisatioa of English in 

 technical literature. The author protests against the 

 corruption of the English language, and pleads for more 

 exact definition in technical literature. He deals in detail 

 with various aspects of the subject, giving examples of 

 the faults to which he makes objection, as, for instance, 

 " spurious " words adopted from other callings, vulgarisms 

 or slang terms, and the practice of giving variable mean- 

 ings to words, all these tending to destroy the proper 

 significance of language, and so enfeebling it. Objection 

 is taken to the use of the " unnecessary " plural in such 

 words as slimes, sands, concentrates, middlings, tail- 

 ings, &c. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, May 23. — Dr. Fenton. vire-presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Prof. Pope and J. Read : The resolu- 

 tion of externally compensated bases into their optically 

 active components. — Prof. Pope and C. S. Gibson : The 

 resolution of dihydropapaverine. — Dr. Sell : Further study 

 of the products of chlorination of a-picoline. — Dr. Fenton 

 and W. A. R. Wilks : Formation of uric acid derivatives. 

 — C. T. Heycock : Water of crystallisation in calcium 

 phosphate. — S. Ruhemann : (i) The diketopyrrolines and 

 their analogues ; (2) the formation of a- and 7-pyrones from 

 acetylenic acids. — H. O. Jones and J. K. Matthews : 

 The reduction of nitrosyl chloride. — W. A. R. Wilks : 

 Absorption of bromine by lime. — F. Robinson : Note on 

 the absorption of acids by carbohydrates. — Sir George 

 Greenhill : A hollow vortex in a polygon. — R. T. Beatty : 

 A dissymmetry in the emission of kathode particles excited 

 by homogeneous Rontgen radiation. Homogeneous radia- 

 tions were allowed to pass through a thin silver leaf, and 

 the ionisation due to kathode particles emitted from the 

 leaf on the emergent and incident side respectively was 

 measured. On allowing for the absorption of the homo- 

 geneous radiation in the leaf, this ionisation was greater on 

 the emergent side ; and this dissymmetry, while but slight 

 for soft radiation, increased with the hardness. The same 

 values for the dissymmetry were found when a copper leaf 

 was substituted for the silver leaf. The results show that 

 the dissymmetry is unaltered whether much homogeneous 

 radiation be excited in the leaf or not. — ^J. A. Crowvther : 

 Note on the transmission of /3 rays. The author has 

 recently shown that the absorption of a beam of homo- 

 geneous /3 rays by aluminium follows a law approximating 

 to that lately suggested by Sir J. J. Thomson. The absorp- 

 tion of such a beam in platinum, however, follows an 

 exponential law. This result is ascribed to secondary ;8 

 radiation excited in the platinum. It is now further shown 

 that the absorption by aluminium of a pencil of homo- 

 geneous ;3 rays, after transmission through a small thick- 

 ness (o-ooi mm.) of platinum, is also exponential, le- 

 sembling the absorption law obtained for the rays from a 

 single radio-active substance. — A. LI. Hughes : The 

 mobilities of the ions produced in air by ultra-violet light. 

 The experiments show that air is ionised by ultra-violet 

 light of very short wave-length. The mobilities of the 

 ions so produced are found to be identical with the mobili- 

 ties of the ions produced by X-rays. 



Manchbstbr. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, May 3. — Mr. 



Francis Jones, president, in the chair. — H. Sidebottom : 



Report on the recent Foraminifera from the Bay of 



Palermo, Sicily. A special account was given of the genus 



NO. 2 1 19, VOL. 83] 



Lagena, which comprises many very elegant flask and 

 decanter-shaped chambers. Some of the members of this 

 genus adhere together at their bases in clusters of three or 

 more, and others show the peculiarity of having two or 

 three slender necks instead of the normal one. Examples 

 of these clusters were shown under the microscope, and 

 many beautiful drawings were exhibited. — C. Bailey : 

 A third list of the adventitious vegetation of the sandhills of 

 St. Annes-on-the-Sea, North Lancashire, Vice County 60. — 

 H. Bateman : The physical aspect of time. The point of 

 view adopted was that our ideas of space and time were 

 part of our interpretation of the processes of electro- 

 magnetism, and were purely relative inasmuch as any 

 measurement of them involved some properties peculiar to 

 the mode of measurement. The transition from one inter- 

 pietation to another must depend upon a transformation 

 which leaves the fundamental equations of electromagnetism 

 unaltered in form. A brief discussion of the nature of these 

 transformations may be based upon a consideration of the 

 conditions which must be satisfied in order that at a given 

 time an observer may be in a position to witness an event 

 which occurred at some other point at a given previous 

 time. A transformation may be compared to a translation 

 of a poem from one language to another ; the words may 

 be different in the two cases, but the ideas are the same. 

 It is somewhat similar in the case of two different interpre- ; 

 talions of the same electromagnetic process. 



Dublin. 

 Royal Dublin Society, May 24. — Pro'. Sydney Young, ; 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — R. J. Moss: An improved method of 

 milk analysis. The milk is dried on tinfoil, which is then , 

 rolled up, and the fat is extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus, j 

 The non-fatty solids are dried at 100° C. in a vacuum ; 

 with the aid of sulphuric acid. These solids are obtained ' 

 in a form suitable for further examination. The process , 

 occupies from three to four hours. — Prof. W. Brown : ; 

 Magnetism and torsion in iron, in which some results | 

 were given for iron wire of different degrees of hardness, ! 

 and when under different longitudinal loads. — Prof. J. ■ 

 Wilson : The separate inheritance of quantity and quality 

 in cows' milk. The author made use of the recently pub- ■ 

 lished report of the milk-testing scheme carried out among 

 Ayrshire cattle in 1908. There were more than 8000 cows j 

 tested ; but, in order to have a fair comparison, all under 

 four years old, and all that had milked for less than 

 thirty or more than forty weeks, were elirninated. That | 

 left about 3000 cows. When these were divided into four 

 gioups, viz. those giving less than 500 gallons of milk, those 

 giving from 500 to 600 gallons, those giving from 600 to 

 700 gallons, and those giving more than 700 gallons, it 

 was found that the qualities of the milk given by all the 

 cows* in all groups was the same; that is tosay, of ihf 

 numbers of cows giving all the various qualities of milk. 

 from that containing about 27 per cent, of fat up to thai 

 containing about 5-5 per cent., the resulting curve starts 

 at zero near 2-7, rises to a maximum of about 3-6, and 

 declines again to zero near 5-5 per cent., and exactly 

 similar curves were given by the cows in the other three 

 groups. The author infers that the proportion of fat in a 

 cow's milk is unconnected with the yield. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, May 30 — M. Emile Picard in ihc 

 chair. — The president announced the losses sustained by ih 

 academv by the deaths of Robert Koch and Sir William 

 Huggins.—' E. Bouty : The dielectric cohesion of neon and 

 its mixtures. The dielectric cohesion of neon is very low 

 in comparison with that of other gases, and upon this fact 

 is based a delicate quantitative method for measuring the 

 amounts of impurities in neon. Mixtures of neon wit'.- 

 carbon dioxide and air were studied, the increase of th 

 cohesion due to the addition of either of the latter 

 being somewhat greater than that calculated froir 

 ordinary mixture law. — Armand Gautier : Some rern^.i.^- 

 from the geological and chemical point of view, relatm, 

 to the action of heat upon carbon monoxide. Experiment 

 are described which lead the author to the conclusion thr. 

 at a temperature of 1300° C, and at the ordinary pressur^^^ 

 carbon monoxide in porcelain tubes, and in the absence c 

 organic matter and of metal, undergoes no sensible di- 

 sociation, and no carbon is set free. — A. Lacroix : ^ .--• 



