262 



NA TV RE 



[July 14. i8q2 



will entitle to a printed report of the proceedings. Any intend- 

 ing members who have not yet paid the fee are requested to 

 send it to Prof. Sully. 



During the Congress letters may be addressed to Members at 

 the Council Room, University College, Gower Street, London, 

 W.C., where each Member is requested to inscribe his name, 

 on his first attendance at the Congress. 



F. W. H. Myers, 

 Leckhampton House, Cambridge. 



James Sully, 

 East Heath Road, Hampstead, London, N.W. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



The current number of the Royal Agricultural Society's 

 yournal is, perhaps, of more than usual interest. The first 

 article is on Vermin of the Farm, by J. E. Harting, and is 

 followed by an editorial note on the same subject. The plague 

 of "mice " on the hill pastures of Scotland this spring gives a 

 special interest to these articles. It appears that the Scotch 

 plague is caused not by mice, but by fieldvoles {Arvicola agrestis), 

 and the destruction they have wrought in the hill pastures of 

 Scotland arises from the fondness of these voles for the delicate 

 white stems of the hillside herbage. Judging from the reports 

 of similar plagues in previous years it would appear that the 

 natural enemies of the vole — the short-eared owl and the kestrel 

 hawk — are far more efficacious remedies than any artificial 

 means yet devised for the destruction of the voles ; hence a paper 

 on Wild Birds in relation to Agriculture, by Earl Cathcart, is 

 very opportune, protesting as it does against the careless de- 

 struction of such birds as the owl, the hawk, and the rook. The 

 Journal also contains a second paper by Mr. Dan Pidgeon on 

 the Evolution of Agricultural Implements. A suggestive paper 

 by Mr. William E. Bear on Desirable Agricultural Experiments 

 advocates extensive experiments to test the economy of nitro- 

 genous manuring by means of leguminous crops. Other papers 

 in this number are Contagious Footrot in Sheep, by Prof. G. 

 T. Brown ; Variations of the Four-course System, by Gilbert 

 Murray ; and the Trial of Ploughs at Warwick, by F. S. 

 Courtenay. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Oxford University Junior Scientific Club, May 27. — 

 The biennial conversazione of the Club was held in the Univer- 

 sity Museum, when an address inaugural to the recently founded 

 "Robert Boyle lectures of the O.UJ.S.C." was delivered by 

 Prof. Sir Henry W. Acland, Bart., K.C.B., F.R.S., on 

 Robert Boyle, his life, work, and influence on science. A very 

 interesting series of exhibits was shown by the various depart- [ 

 ments of the Museum and by the University Observatory, illus- | 

 trating recent progress in their particular branches of science, j 

 Of special interest were the exhibits by the Rev. F. J. Smith on 

 shadow and objective spark photography, illustrated by pictures 

 of objects in rapid motion ; by Mr. Cecil Carus-Wilson, of \ 

 natural and artificial musical sands ; by the University Observers, } 

 of a series of splendid photographs illustrating recent improve- i 

 ments in astronomical and spectral photography ; by the I 

 National Telephone Company, of telephonic apparatus ; by Dr. 

 Hunt, of preparations and cultivations illustrating the methods 

 of isolation and identification of bacteria ; by Mr. B. V. Dar- 

 bishire, of a series of lantern views in the Caucasus and in the 

 British East Africa Company's territory, the slides for which 

 were kindly lent by the Royal Geographical Society. The Club 

 is much indebted to the Royal Society, the Pharmaceutical 

 Society, the Right Hon. the Earl of Cork and Orrery, Prof 

 Wyndham R. Dunstan, Prof. Odling, and other gentlemen for 

 the loan of oil paintings, engravings, and relics of Robert Boyle 

 arid his contemporary men of science in Oxford. 



•June 3.— The President, Mr. W. Ramsden, in the chair.— 

 The following papers were read : — The sub-salts of the alkali 

 metals, by Mr. W. Pullinger.— The action ofsilicon-tetrachloride 

 on benzene, by Mr. C. H. H. Walker.— Marriages of can- 

 saiiguinity, by Mr, H. Anglin Whitelocke.— A new and improved 



NO. I 185, VOL. 4.6] 



form of rotatory hypsometer, by Mr, S, A, Sworn (Balliol). 

 Mr. C. J. Romanes was elected an honorary member ol 

 the Club. 



June 14. — The President, Mr. W. Ramsden, in the chair, — 

 The following papers were read : — The action of iodine on a 

 mixture of sulphites and thiosulphates, by Mr, H. A. Colefax. 

 — On marine nests, by Mr. W. B. Benham. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, June 20. — Dr. Traquair exhibited some re- 

 mains of animals occurring in volcanic tuff at Teneriflfe. — Dr. 

 Hunter Stewart read a paper on the variations in the amount of 

 carbonic acid gas in the ground air. — Dr. Buchan discussed the 

 diurnal variations of barometric readings in the polar regions 

 during summer. From observations made in the summer of 

 1876 and the two succeeding summers, in the central part of the 

 North Atlantic, between 62° and 80° north latitude, he showed 

 that only one maximum and one minimum occur during the 

 day. Observations made by the Challenger staff" in high 

 antarctic latitudes during summer give the same result. A single 

 maximum and a single minimum are also found in the interior 

 parts of the polar continents, but these occur at diff'erent times of 

 the day from the ocean maximum and minimum. Superposi- 

 tion of the two sets of variations gives a variation like that 

 ordinarily observed. 



July 4. — The Hon. Lord Maclaren, Vice-President, in the, 

 chair. — Dr. A. W. Hughes read a paper on the rotatory move- 

 ments of the human vertebral column. Among other results he 

 points out that while the lumbar vertebrre cannot rotate much 

 about a vertical axis, the dorsal vertebrEe are capable of con- 

 siderable rotation — the total rotation of this part of the vertebral 

 column being 45° or more — and the cervical vertebras are still 

 more free — the total amount being at least 90°. — Mr. R. 

 Kidston discussed the genus Lepidophloios, Sternb. — Prof. C. 

 G. Knott and Mr. A. Shand communicated some further notes 

 on the volume effects of magnetization. Five iron tubes, with 

 bores varying from i6'o to 3'5 mm. diameter, but otherwise 

 identical in form and substance, were subjected to a series of 

 magnetizing forces. In low fields the thinner-walled tubes ex- 

 perienced the greater dilatations of internal volume ; but in 

 high fields the narrower bored tubes showed much the greater 

 dilatations. For example, in field 1400 the dilatations of the 

 tubes in order, beginning with the one of widest bore and 

 thinnest wall, were +4, -3, -20, -53, and - 129— each 

 being multiplied by lO"''. With the two tubes of widest bore, 

 the change of volume h^d reached its limit at this high field, the 

 substance being practically saturated ; but with the tubes of 

 narrowest bore there was no evidence of a limit being reached, the 

 innermost layers of iron being evidently far from practical saturation. 

 Some interesting illustrations of magnetic after-effect were also 

 described. — Dr. A. B. Griffiths submitted a paper on the blood 

 of the invertebrata. — Prof Tait communicated the second part 

 of a paper on the laws of motion. If we assume the principles 

 of inertia of matter and conservation of energy (the energy of a 

 self-contained system consisting of the kinetic energy of all its 

 parts supposed to be moving with the speed of its centre of 

 inertia, the kinetic energy of relative motion of its parts, and the 

 potential energy of its parts), the fact that we cannot attach any 

 definite meaning to the principle of conservation, except when 

 the motion of the system is Galilei-wise, leads at once to the 

 first and third laws of motion, since the centre of inertia moves 

 uniformly in a straight line ; and the second law becomes merely 

 a definition of the word "force " as used in the first law, and as 

 used instead of "action" and "reaction" in one interpretation 

 of the third. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 4.— M. d'Abbadie in the chair.— 

 On local disturbances produced underneath a heavy load uni- 

 formly distributed along a straight line normal to the two edges 

 on the upper surface of a rectangular beam : experimental verifi- 

 cations, by M. J. Boussinesq. — Resemblances in the march of 

 evolution on the old continent and the new, by M, Albert 

 Gaudry.— Experimental researches on falling bodies and the 

 resistance of air to their motion : experiments performed at the 

 Eiffel Tower, by MM. L. Cailletet and E. Colardeau. Metallic 

 spheres were let fall from the second platform of the Eiff"el 



