Jasu 



ARY 1, 1893.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



17 



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Science Notes. 



At the meeting of the Eoyal Society on November 30th 

 1894, the amiiversary address was dehvered by the Presi- 

 dent, Lord Kelvin. He dwelt more especiallj' on the labours 

 of Helmholtz, of the whole of whose great and splendid 

 work in physiology, physics, and mathematics, he doubted 

 whether any one man was qualified to speak with the 

 power which knowledge and understanding can give. All, 

 however, could appreciate to some degree the vast services 

 which Helmholtz had rendered to biology, by the application 

 of his mathematical genius and highly-trained capacity 

 for experimental research to physiological investigation. 

 In his researches on fermentation and putrefaction, 

 Helmholtz showed that they were not purely chemical 

 processes of slow combustion produced by oxygen, as was 

 hitherto supposed, but that they were almost certainly 

 due to the actual presence of a living creature — bacterium 

 as it is now called. This early work constituted a very 

 long step towards the great generalization of Pasteur, 

 adverse to spontaneous generation, and decisive in attri- 

 buting to living creatures, born from previous living 

 creatures, not only fermentation and putrefaction, but 

 a vast array of the virulent diseases and blights which 

 had been most destructive to men and the lower animals, 

 ■ and crops and fruits, .\fter welcoming the establishment 

 of the Faraday-Davy Piesearch Laboratory, Lord Kelvin 

 went on to mention what was, to his mind, imdoubtedly 

 the greatest scientific event of the past year, the discovery 

 of a new constituent of our atmosphere. Lord Eayleigh, 

 in the course of a long research commenced in l.S8'2, in 

 order to obtain a redetermination of the densities of 

 the principal gases, attacked nitrogen resolutely, and 

 stimulated by most disturbing and unexpected difficulties 

 in the way of obtaining concordant results for the density 

 of this gas, as obtained from difierent sources, discovered 

 that the gas obtained by taking vapom- of water, 

 carbonic acid, and oxygen from common air was denser 

 by .^lo than nitrogen obtained by chemical processes from 

 nitric oxide, or from nitrous oxide, or from ammonium 

 nitrite, thereby rendering it probable that the nitrogen in 

 atmospheric air is a mixture of nitrogen and a small 

 proportion of some unknown and heavier gas. Eayleigh, 



working with Eamsay, has since succeeded in isolating the 

 new gas, both by removing nitrogen from common air by 

 Cavendish's old process of passing electric sparks through 

 it, and taking away the nitrous compoimds thus produced 

 by alkaline liquor, and by absorption by metallic magnesium. 

 Thus there is given a fresh and most interesting verification 

 of a statement made by Lord Kelvin in his presidential 

 address to the British Association in 1871 : — " Accurate 

 and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific 

 imagination a less lofty and dignified work than looking 

 for something new ; but nearly all the grandest discoveries 

 of science have been but the rewards of accurate measure- 

 ment and patient, long-continued labour in the minute 

 sifting of numerical results." Investigation of the new 

 gas has led to the wonderful conclusion that it does not 

 combine with any other chemical substance hitherto 

 presented to it ; and it is hoped that much more will be 

 known, before the next anniversary meeting of the Royal 

 Society, as to the properties of the hitherto unknown and 

 stiU anonymous fifth constituent of ovu- atmosphere. 



The 1893 report of the Scotch Fishery Board (Part 3, 

 Scientific Investigation) . is before us. It reveals a wide 

 field still undeveloped for profitable scientific research, at 

 the head of which should have been placed a man of 

 recognized experience and ability. We cordially agree 

 that " the choice of the kind of individual should not be 

 left to Government." 



THE IVY: ITS STRUCTURE AND GROWTH. 



By the Eev. Alex. S. Wilson, M.A., B.Sc. 



ALTHOUGH the associations connected with the 

 ivy in most persons' minds are poetical or his- 

 torical rather than scientific, this familiar plant is 

 singularly interesting because of the number of 

 noteworthy botanical characters it presents. Among 

 other peculiarities, the ivy blooms in winter. Its flowers 

 are produced in November and December, and some of our 

 readers may not have had many opportunities of seeing 

 them. They are formed in little clusters or umbels of ten 

 or twenty with the fiower-stalks radiating from the top of 

 the shoot, as indicated in the accompanying sketch. This 

 type of inflorescence is characteristic of and gives its name 



Fuj. I.-— Flower of Ivy (Sedera helix). 



1, L'mbcl ; 2 and 3, separate lloHcrs ; 4, vertical section, showiiLg 

 epigvuous insertion ; 5, transverse section of ovary; 6, aiiati-opal 

 ovule ; 7 and 8, stamen ; 9, bud, showing minute sepals ; 10, pollen 

 m'ains higiily magnified. 



to the rmbelliferm or hemlock order, to which the ivy 

 family, Araliacex, is closely related. The umbel of the 

 i\'y is simple ; those of the hemlock family are mostly 



