August 30, iJiQ-l-] 



NATURE 



443 



in Fig. 3, which shows that the volume of the annealed ring is 

 rather suddenly diminished by a small mignetisini; force, passes 

 a minimum under a force of abju'- 50 unin, and then slowly 

 increases, until, with a force of 500 units, it is about 30 ten- 

 millionths less than at starting. Th; uninnealed ring also at 



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Fig. 



first suffers diminution, but its orif;inal volume is recovered wilh 

 a force of about 90 and with higher values is increased. 



The behaviour of this latter rini; may be regarded a-; probably 

 similar to that of the great majority of rods and rings, the 

 annealed ring used in these experiments being the only specimen 

 of iron that has yet been found to contract along the lin^s of 

 magnetisation wilh the smallest forces that produced any effect 

 at all. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, May 28.— Prof. James Geikie, Vice-Presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Dr. Ramsey Traquair described some 

 fossils from Forfarshire. — Dr. James Buchanan Young read a 

 paper on the chemical and bacteriological examination of soil, 

 with special reference to the soil of graveyards. He discussed 

 the results of a series of experiments which he had made on 

 samples of virgin soils, pure agricultural soils, and soils which 

 had been, and were being, used for purposes of inhumation. 

 Krom these results as judged by the amount of organic carbon 

 and nitrogen present in the various samples, it would appear 

 that soil which has been used for burial, does not materially 

 differ as regards the amount of organic matter ii contains from 

 pure good agricultural soil. This fact goes far to support the 

 idea that inhumation properly conducted in suitable and well- 

 drained soils can cause no risk to the public health. The 

 results of the bacteriological examination of the various soils 

 goes to corroborate the results arrived at by chemical means. 

 No pathogenic organisms were fouhd in graveyard soils ; and, 

 although the number of bacteria present was greater than at 

 similar depths in virgin soil, the number found was by no 

 means so great as one might have expected. There was, more- 

 over, a very marked and sudden fall in the number of micro- 

 organisms in the soil below the layer containing the coffins. 

 So that, as Reiuiers has pointed out, the "ground-water 

 region " is practically free from bacteria. The broad results 

 of the chemical examination of the samples is well seen in the 

 annexed table. The results are stated in parts per hundred. 



Virgin soils 



Pure agricultural soils 



Soils used for inhumation 



Carbon. Nitrogen. 



0265 00257 



0842 ... 00936 



o'Sjo ... o'io73 



— A paper, by Dr. J. G. Gilchrist, on the pallial complex of 

 Oolabella, was read. — Dr. James Walker communicated an 

 account of hydrolysis in some aqueous solutions. 



June 4. — The lion. Lord M'Laren, Vice-President, in the 

 chair. — Prof. Tait re.ad a note on the application of Van der 



Waal's equation to the compression of ordinary liquids. — Prof. 

 Geikie read a note, by Messrs. G. Sharman and E. T. Newton, 

 on fossils from Seymour Island, collected by a recent Dundee 

 expedition to the Antarctic Seas. Nine specimens had been 

 found in a district farther south than districts previously ex- 

 plored. All represented existing genera of wide 

 distribution, but the fossils indicated more genial 

 climatic conditions than those now existing. — Prof. 

 D'.\rcy Thompson read a paper on certain difficulties 

 in the study of classical zoology. 



June 18. — Sir W. Turner, Vice-President, in the 

 chair. — Prof. Copeland read a paper on the path of 

 the meteor of May 18, 1894. This was a large 

 meteor seen in daylight, and first observed some- 

 where between the island of Mull and the north end 

 of Jura. It was last seen in the north-west district 

 of Yorkshire, Observers judged it to be moving 

 slowly, but calculation showed that it moved over 

 190 miles in about fifteen seconds. — Prof. Tait read 

 a paper on the elastic equations of the ether in 

 a;olotropic dielectrics. He has not yet discussed 

 the question of the stability of the condition of the 

 elher indicated by his equations. — Dr. John Murray 

 gave a comparison of the extra-tropical marine fauna 

 of the northern and southern hemispheres. The 

 similarity of the Arctic and .Intarctic marine fauna, 

 and the difference of both from the fauna of inter- 

 mediate waters, indicate, according to Dr. Murray, 

 a not very remote geological time at which a universal 

 fauna — implying uniformity of temperature — existed. 

 He believes that in Mesozoic times forms of life 

 were driven from the poles towards the tropics, 

 while the fauna which was able to remain under the 

 altered polar conditions gave rise to the present polar 

 iauna. — Prof. Tait gave some illustrations of the 

 range of application of Van der Waal's equation, contrasting 

 the results got Irom the equation with observed results 

 regarding the CDiupression of liquids. — Dr. C. G. Knott and 

 Mr, A. Shand read a paper on magnetic induction in nickel 

 tubes. Three nickel tubes were compared, as regards their 

 magnetic properties, with a nickel bar. All were cut from 

 the same rod, were of the same length (4; cm.), and the same 

 external diameter (4"2 cm.), but differed in diameter of bore. 

 As with the iron and steel tubes formerly described (Proc. 

 R. S. E., 1S93), a tendency was shown, in low fields, for the 

 magnetic movements to approximate to the same value. But 

 the tendency was not so well marked. The explanation seems 

 to be that, because of the comparatively low susceptibility of 

 nickel in low fields, the " diamagnetising factor" (so called 

 by Dr. Du Bois) is not of the same paramount importance as 

 in the case of iron or steel. A simple calculation showed 

 that this factor was approximately proportional to the area of 

 section of the metal wall of the tube. 



July 2.^The Hon. Lord M'Laren, Vice-President, in the 

 chair. — .\ paper, by Prof. Cayley, on co-ordinates versus 

 quaternions, was communicated. — Prof. Tait read a paper on 

 the intrinsic nature of the quaternion method. — Dr. C. G. 

 Knott and Mr. A. Shand communicated a preliminary note on 

 volume changes which accompany magnetism in nickel tubes. 

 The three tubes, referred to the authors in their previous paper 

 on magnetic induction in nickel, were employed. In high fields 

 the internal volumes were markedly diminished in all three. 

 The greatest measured change in volume was 2*4 cubic milli- 

 metres ; this was in the tube of thinnest wall in field 600. The 

 greatest cubical dilatation was — 2-3(io)"'', which was got in 

 the tube of narrowest bore in field 600. The cubical dilatation, 

 though negative in high fields, was positive in moderate fields, 

 the change of sign occurring in a field which was lower as the 

 wall of the tube was thinner. With the tubes of widest and 

 interitiediate bore, the culiical dilatation was negative in very 

 low fields, each having critical fields for which the dilatation 

 was zero. The tube of narrowest bore did not show this double 

 change of sign. As was perhaps to be expected, the volume 

 changes in the nickel tubes were distinctly greater than the like 

 changes in the iron or steel tubes formerly investigated. — Dr. 

 Gustave Mann communicated a paper on histological changes 

 produced in nerve cells by their functional activity. Experi- 

 ments on rabbits and dogs have shown that the nuclei and cells 

 were larger in stimulated, than in non-stimulated ganglia. In 

 the stimulated ganglia the lymph spaces practically disappear, 

 while they are quite evident in the non-stimulated ganglia. 



NO. 1296, VOL. 50] 



