398 



NA TURE 



[February 27, 1896 



skeleton that must have suggested itself, ghost-like, to 

 the learned Professor's mind. And it is among my keen 

 personal regrets for the loss the world has sustained 

 through the decease of Prof. Huxley, that I should have 

 been deprived by so short an interval of gladdening my 

 former teacher's eyes with the sight of a living organism 

 which, if only in the direction of superficial analogy, 

 so nearly realised one, among the many, of his most 

 sagacious interpretations of the fossil past. One remain- 

 ing point in the erect running gait of Chlamydosaurus 

 invites brief attention. Such is the conformation of the 

 hind foot and its component digits, that when thus 

 running the three central digits only rest upon the 

 ground. As a consequence of this structural peculiarity, 

 the tract made by this lizard when passing erect over 

 damp sand or other impressible soil, would be tridactyle 

 like that of a bird, and would also correspond with such 

 as are left in Mesozoic strata by various typical Dino- 

 sauria. This tridigitigrade formula of the gradation of 

 Chlamydosaurus^ induced by the great relative shortness 

 of the first and fifth digits, is distinctly indicated in the 

 second of the accompanying figures. 



Whether or not the bipedal locomotive comportment 

 of Chlamydosaurus has been transmitted by heredity 

 from a lizard-like Dinosaurian such as Compsognathus, 

 or has been re-developed independently among its 

 allocated family group of the Agamidae, is a question 

 concerning which, I humbly recognise, it would be un- 

 becoming temerity on my part to pronounce a verdict. 

 The phenomenon, while dominant among the Reptilia of 

 bygone ages, is, with the exceptional instance afforded 

 by Chlamydosaurus^ extinct among living types, and is, 

 on that account alone, of unique interest. 



Without overstepping the bounds of prudence, it may 

 be finally suggested that the occurrence within the 

 Australian region, embracing New Zealand, of such a 

 wealth of archaic types such as the mesozoically related 

 lizard Hatteria and the fresh-water fish Ceratodus, as 

 also a dominant mammalian fauna that pre-existed, but 

 is now extinct, in other continents, would justify the 

 anticipation that a reptile inheriting the phenomenal 

 habits of a Mesozoic race might be sought for with the 

 greatest prospects of success upon Australasian territory. 

 W. Saville-Kent. 



NOTES. 



The list of Presidents for the ten Sections of the British 

 Association, for the Liverpool meeting in September next, has 

 been published. All the Sectional Presidents having accepted 

 the nominations, the list may be regarded as definitive. President 

 of the Association — Sir Joseph Lister, Bart., P.R.S. Section 

 A — Mathematics and Physics, Prof. J. J. Thomson, F. R.S. 

 Section B — Chemistry, Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S. Section C 

 — Geology, Mr. John Edward Marr, F.R.S. Section D — 

 Zoology, Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. Section E — Geography, 

 Major Leonard Darwin. Section F — Economics, Right Hon. 

 Leonard Courtney, M.P. Section G — Mechanical Science, Sir 

 Charles Douglas Fox. Section H — Anthropology, Mr. Arthur 

 Evans (Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). Section I 

 — Physiology and Pathology — Dr. Walter Holbrook Gaskell, 

 F.R.S. Section K— Botany, Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S. Even- 

 ing discourses will be given by Prof. Flinders Petrie and, 

 probably, by Sir Andrew Noble. The lecture to working men 

 will be given by Prof. Fleming, F.R.S. 



The Toronto Local Committee are assiduously engaged in 

 preliminary work for the meeting of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science in 1897. Meetings of the executive 

 committee are held every fortnight. Besides the executive 

 committee, a number of sub-committees are at work, including 

 those on finance, conveyances, publication and printing, rooms 



NO. 1374, VOL. 53] 



for offices, meetings of the association and committees, hotel and 

 lodgings, presSj hospitality, reception, and for securing co- 

 operation of other institutes, associations, and corporations, 

 postal, telegraph and telephone facilities. The attention of the 

 committee on conveyance has already been called to the 

 desirability of securing from the Canadian Pacific Railroad 

 transportation for such members of the Association as may 

 desire to extend their travels to the Pacific coast, with special 

 reference to the suggestion that a meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science may follow the ' 

 Toronto meeting, if adequate facilities for transportation are 

 assured. This suggestion is based upon the fact that the 

 American Association have already once voted in favour of such 

 a meeting if satisfactory rates could be obtained ; and the hope 

 is still entertained that delegates from both British and 

 Australasian Associations might find San Francisco a convenient 

 point at which to meet the American Association. Mr. Griffith, 

 the general secretary of the British Association, ,is expected 

 to be in Toronto about May 22, to make arrangements for the 

 meeting, and set out the proper lines of work. 



From McGill University, Montreal, comes the information 

 that Rontgen's experiments were not only repeated there with 

 considerable success immediately on the announcement of his 

 results in America, but have been applied to two important 

 medical cases within the first week of their demonstration. 

 Before any full description of Rontgen's method had crossed 

 the ocean, Prof. Cox was enabled by a lucky guess, and with the 

 aid of the fine McDonald apparatus, to reach success at the first 

 attempt. Four days later a photograph was obtained, clearly 

 showing the bones of the leg from the knee downwards, with 

 the image of a bullet (which had been there for seven weeks and 

 was causing trouble) clearly defined between the two bones, and 

 resting against the inner angle of the tibia. The same photo- 

 graph showed a copper wire which had been bound round the 

 leg as a fiducial mark from which to measure. The bullet was six 

 centimetres below the wire. On the following day the bullet was 

 reached at a depth of two inches, and was extracted successfully. 

 The exposure required for this photograph was forty minutes. 

 The Puliij tube (Geissler Catalogue 3080) has been found by 

 Prof. Cox to be superior to any others tried. Its fluorescing screen 

 seems to protect the glass, and is far brighter than that of the 

 other tubes. It gave continuous exposures of 65 minutes with- 

 out injury, and has since been used to detect a fracture of the 

 ulna, and to produce a photograph of the hand, with perfect 

 definition. 



Our U.S. correspondent writes under date February 14: — 

 ' ' The new photography cdntinues to be the absorbing topic in 

 scientific circles, and innuriierable experiments and results are 

 reported. Dr. Henry W. Cattell, of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, has taken pictures of anatomical preparations with such 

 success, that he infers it will be easy to obtain pictures ot 

 acromegaly, osteitis deformans, rheumatoid arthritis, &c. Prof. 

 W. F. Magie, of Princeton, has invented a new instrument for 

 use in diagnosis. A sheet of black paper, coated on one side 

 with barium platino-cyanide, is placed with the coated side 

 inward across the end of a tube or box, into which the observer 

 looks, and which is so fitted to the face, or so shielded by cloths, 

 that the phosphorescent substance and the eyes are protected 

 from all extraneous light. If the tube be then directed towards 

 the excited Crookes' tube giving the Rontgen rays, the phospho- 

 rescent paper in the tube glows, and the shadows of objects in- 

 terposed between it and the Crookes' tube appear upon it. The 

 first successful experiments in Brooklyn are by Prof William C. 

 Peckham, at the Adelphi Institute, using more direct methods 

 than have heretofore been used, with ^ current of 3^ amperes and 

 an electrical pressure of six volts. Dr. A. Mau succeeded in 



