March 26, 1896J 



NATURE 



499 



difficulties, were also noticed. The author particularly con- 

 sidered the structure of the palate, and only such points in the 

 structure of the rest of the skull as added to or were at variance 

 with previous descriptions were considered. — On certain Gran- 

 ophyres, modified by the incorporation of Gabbro fragments, 

 in Strath (Skye), by Alfred Harker. The rocks described 

 formed a group of irregular intrusions, the largest less than a 

 mile in length, situated in the tract of volcanic agglomerate 

 north and west of Loch Kilchrist. They differed from the 

 normal Granophyres, abundantly developed in the neighbour- 

 hood, in being darker, denser, and manifestly richer in the iron- 

 bearing minerals, while in places were seen numerous small 

 rock-fragments evidently of extraneous origin. In the discussion 

 that followed. Sir Archibald Geikie pointed out that the paper 

 had a double value. In the first place, it was important in 

 regard to the local geology of the Western Isles, for it demon- 

 strated by new evidence the posteriority of the Granophyres to the 

 (iabbros ; and in the second place, it had a suggestive bearing 

 upon questions of theoretical interest regarding the possible 

 modification of eruptive rocks by the incorporation of foreign 

 material into their substance. — Observations on the geology of 

 the Nile Valley, and on the evidence of the greater volume 

 of that river at a former period, by Prof. E. Hull, F. R. S. The 

 author drew attention to the two great periods of erosion of the 

 Nile \'alley, the first during the Miocene period, after the elevation 

 of the Libyan region at the close of Eocene times, and the 

 second during a " pluvial" period extending from late Pliocene 

 times into and including the Pleistocene. In the second part 

 of the paper the terraces of the Nile Valley were described, and 

 full details given of the characters of a second terrace, at a 

 height var)ing from 50 to 100 feet above the lower one, which 

 is flooded at the present day. This second terrace was traceable 

 at intervals for a distance of between 600 and 700 miles above 

 Cairo. Two old river channels were also described, one at 

 Koru Ombo, and the other at Assuan itself. The author 

 discussed the mode of origin of the second terrace and the old 

 river valleys, and believed them to be due to the former greater 

 volume of the river, and not to subsequent erosion of the valley. 

 He gave further evidence of the existence of meteorological 

 conditions sufficient to give rise to a "pluvial" period, and 

 pointed out that other authors had also considered that the 

 volume of the Nile was greater in former times. — The fauna of 

 the Keisley limestone, part i., by F. R. Cowper Reed. The 

 author had examined a very full series of fossils from the 

 Keisley limestone of Westmoreland, and proposed to describe 

 the fauna of the limestone. In this (first) part of the paper a 

 description of the Trilobites was given. 



Zoological Society, March 3.— Sir W. H. Flower, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., President, in the chair.— Mr. G. E. H. Barrett- 

 Hamilton exhibited two skeletons and other bones of the 

 Norway lemming {Myodes leinmus), obtained by Dr. H. Gadow 

 from caves in South Portugal. This discovery had increased 

 our knowledge of the distribution of the Norway lemming in 

 past times. In present times the Norway lemming was, roughly 

 speaking, only to be found in Norway and Lapland, its southern 

 range extending to about 58^° N. lat. ; but its remains had been 

 met with in England, and in Quedlinburg in Saxony. Dr. H. 

 Gadow, F.R.S., gave an account of the caves in Southern 

 Portugal in which he had procured these lemmings' bones along 

 with those of other animals.— Mr. Sclater opened a discussion 

 on the rules of zoological nomenclature by reading a paper on 

 the divergences between the rules for naming animals of the 

 German Zoological Society and the Stricklandian code usually 

 followed by British naturalists (see Nature, March 5, 

 p. 427) — A communication was read, from Graf Hans 

 von Berlepsch and M. J. Stolzmann, on the ornithological 

 researches of M. J. Kalinowsky in Central Peru. The collections 

 made in the years 1890-93 had been transmitted to the Branicky 

 Museum of Warsaw, and contained examples of 295 species and 

 sub-species, of which an account was given in the present paper. 

 Five species and twenty-two sub-species were described as new. 

 —Dr. David Sharp, F.R.S., on behalf of the Committee for 

 investigating the flora and fauna of the West India Islands, 

 communicated a paper on West Indian terrestrial Isopod 

 Crustaceans prepared by M. Adrien Dollfus. The paper 

 contained an account of the Armadilloidian Isojxjds, of which 

 specimens had been obtained by Mr. H. H. Smith in the islands 

 of Grenada and St. Vincent and the adjacent islets. These were 

 referred to thirteen species, all but one of which were described 

 as new to science. 



NO. 1378, VOL. 53] 



Entomological Society, March 4.— Mr. Walter F. H, 

 Blandford, \ice-President, in the chair. — Mr. Percy H, Grim- 

 shaw exhibited specimens of Cephenoinyia rujibarhis, Meigen, a 

 new British bot-fly parasitic on the red deer. The specimens 

 were collected in Ross-shire, in June and July 1894, and in the 

 Cairngorm Mountains in 1895.— Mr. C. G. Barrett exhibited, 

 for Mr. Porritt, a black variety of Polia JIaviciiicta, taken at 

 sugar in his garden at Huddersfield. — Mr. A. H, Jones exhibited 

 specimens of the butterflies captured at Coomassie by Major 

 Henry P. Northcott during the recent expedition. — Sir John 

 T. D. Llewelyn, Bart., M.P., exhibited specimens of a small 

 species of Diptera which he believed to be parasitic on 

 Trochilium spliegiforme, as he had bred a number from that 

 species. He remarked that 7'. j///<^yi7rw^, although one of the 

 most local moths in this country, had occurred last year on the 

 estate of Sir J. Ilills-Johnes, K.C.B., in Carmarthenshire, in 

 such numbers in the larval sta^e as almost to destroy the whole 

 of the alders growing there. Mr. G. H. Verrall said that the 

 insects belong to a species of Phora, possibly Phora riifipes, 

 which fed on almost everything. — Mr. Hampson exhibited an 

 exotic species of Locustidre which Lord Walsingham, F.R.S., 

 had found in his conservatory at Merton Hall, Norfolk. — Dr. 

 Sharp, F. R.S., exhibited specimens of the pupte ol Alicropteryx 

 (probably semipiirpiirella) and drawings to illustrate their struc- 

 ture. The pupre were sent to him by Dr. Chapman, who had 

 described their peculiarities in the Transactions of the Society 

 in 1893. Dr. Sharp considered the pupa to be that of a 

 Trichopterous insect ; most of its structures were those of 

 Trichoptera, and the account given by Dr. Chapman of its 

 emergence showed that this was essentially the same as that of 

 Trichoptera. Mr. McLachlan said that so long ago as 1865 he 

 had suggested the close affinity of Micropteryx to the Trichop- 

 tera. Mr. Hampson, Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Blandford also took 

 part in the discussion which ensued. — Mr. McLachlan exhibited 

 a singular instance of monstrosity in a dragon-fly. The insect 

 was a male of Heticrina occisa, Hag., from Venezuela. — Mr. 

 E. E. Green exhibited a larva of an Homopterous insect — one 

 of the Cicadimc — from Ceylon, having what appeared to be a 

 head at its caudal extremity. — M. Louis Peringuey contri- 

 buted a paper, entitled " Descriptions of New Species of South 

 African Coleoptera, chiefly from Zambesia.'' — Dr. Sharp read a 

 paper, by Prof. Williston, entitled "On the Diptera of St. 

 Vincent, West Indies. Part I." 



Chemical Society, March 5.— Mr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt,- 

 President, in the chair. — The following papers were read : — The 

 explosion of cyanogen, by H. B. Dixon, E. H. Strange, and E. 

 Graham. When cyanogen, mixed with an equal volume of 

 oxygen, is fired in a long tube, it burns directly to carbonic 

 oxide, and by the use of a photographic method of recording the 

 explosion wave, it is seen that the wave-front is followed by only 

 a very short luminous tail ; when a mixture of one volume of 

 cyanogen and two of oxygen is fired, the sharply defined wave- 

 front in which combustion to carbonic oxide occurs, is followed 

 by a long highly luminous tail in which combustion to carbon 

 dioxide occurs. — On the mode of formation of carbon dioxide in. 

 the burning of carbon compounds, by H. B. Dixon. The 

 author discusses the various current views respecting the function, 

 of water vapour in making a mixture of carbonic oxide and. 

 oxygen inflammable ; in connection with the dissociation theory 

 of the action, it is shown that the Rontgen rays do not cause the 

 dry mixture to become inflammable. — On the explosion of 

 chlorine peroxide, by H. B. Dixon and J. A. Harker. When 

 cyanogen, acetylene, or carbon disulphide vapour is detonated 

 at one end of a long tube in which it is contained, the 

 explosion wave is not propagated far along the tube ; mixtures 

 of chlorine peroxide and oxygen when similarly treated, 

 however, decompose regularly, a true explosion wave being 

 propagated through the gas at about lioo metres per 

 second.— Note on the use of certain phosphorescent sub- 

 stances in making X-rays visible, by H. Jackson. The most 

 suitable form of vacuum tube for examining the Rontgen 

 rays is one containing a concave aluminium kathode and an 

 inclined platinum anode; the latter spreads the rays from 

 the kathode in all directions, apparently by scattered reflec- 

 tion. A high vacuum is necessary for good results. The most 

 brilliantly phosphorescent substance out of three hundred 

 examined by the author is potassium platinicyanide ; it crystal- 

 lises with 3H./), and since it is most active in its fully hydrated 

 state, should be painted on to black cardboard or vulcanite for 

 use as a screen, in such a way that it can be kept moist. The other 



