Februakv 14, 1895] 



NATURE 



383 



Seventy-one out of the 126 Councils had enpenied on, or 

 appropriated to, Technical or Intermediate Education the 

 whole of the moneys they had received from the residue of th; 

 Beer and Spirit Duties. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Physical Society, February 8. — Annual General Meeting. 

 —The chair was laken by the retiring President, Prof. Kiicker. 

 — The Treasurer, Dr. Atkinson, presented his report for the 

 year 1894. The balance-sheet showed a somewhat larger 

 expenditure than in previous years, the incrta;e being partly 

 due to the new system of publishing abstracts, partly to the rent 

 of rooms and the expenses of tea. The balance in ihe bank 

 had increased by ahou ^^33 during the year ; but the Treasurer 

 said that, strictly speaking, the S >ciety had trenched on its 

 capital to the ex'ent of about i[,}p, and that this would pro- 

 bably be the last report for some time to come which would 

 show a balance in favour of the S iciety. The assets of ih; 

 .Society exceeded its lialiiliiies by /,'2642 os. 51". Prof. C«rey 

 Foster asked whether it would not be possible, in estimating 

 the assets of the Society, to make some allowance for the 

 stock in hand. Dr. Akin^on replied that that had not hitherto 

 been done, and the diflTiculiy would be to assign a money value 

 to the slock. The stock of the works of Joule, and of other 

 memoirs, was of course decreasing, while the sale of the Pro- 

 ceedings was becoming somewhat greater. As rega.ded the 

 securities of the .Sicicty, their actual value would be about 

 j^2O0 or j£^3O0 more than appeared on ihe balance-dieet. Prof. 

 Riicker said that the Siciety had deliberately enletel upon a 

 policy of expansion, an t that they must be prepared to find 

 the expenditure increasing. On the other hind, it was hoped 

 that by making the S ic e'y more attractive, a greiter number 

 of persons would be induce 1 lo j<jin. In view of the great 

 advantages no* enjoyed by members, there had been some sug- 

 gestion of raising the subicription ; but, in any ca«e, hi thought 

 that thsy might I )ok forward to the future with confidence. 

 The report was then moved an! ad'>pted. — The next business 

 was the election of Offiiers and Council for the year 1895-6, 

 and Messrs. Rhodes and \'u!e, being asked to act as scrutaiors, 

 collectel the ba'loling li^ts. — Prof. Carey Foster propj^ed a 

 vole of thanks to the Lords of the Committee of the Council on 

 Education, for having allowed the Society to meet at the 

 Royal College of Science. At the commencement of the 

 life of the Society, its founder and firs' President, 

 Guthrie, had obtained permission for the meetings to take 

 place at South Kensington, and the Society had con- 

 tinued to meet there until their lejen; migration to 

 the rooms of the Chemical Society. The vote of thanks was 

 duly seconded and was carried unanimously. Major-General 

 Festing then proposed, and Mr. Croft seconded, a vote of 

 thanks to the auditors, Messrs. Inwards and Trotier. This also 

 was orried. Mr. Trotter then proposed a vote of thanks to the 

 letiring Council ; they had shown an energy which was rare in 

 such societies, and had inaugurated an active and original 

 policy, which must prove of the greatest benefit to the Physical 

 Society and to physical science generally. Carried unani- 

 mously. — Mr. Elder gave notice of a proposed alteration of the 

 lules, the object being to allow the Council under certain con- 

 ditions to admit persons into the Society without requiring from 

 them the usual num'ier of recommendations from members. It 

 was pointed out that sometimes eligible peison"-", especially tho^e 

 resident abroad, were unable to enter the Society because they 

 were unknown to any of the existing members. The motion to 

 sanction the proposed alteration was put from the chair and 

 carried, but this decision will need to be confirmed at a subse- 

 quent meeting, of which due notice will be given. — Mr. Rhodes 

 then read the following list of the Officers and Council elected 

 for the year 1S95 0: President, Capt. Abney. Vice-Presidents 

 who have filled the office of President : Dr. Gladstone, Profs. 

 Carey Foster and Adams, Lord Kelvin, Profs. Clifton, 

 Reinold, Ayrton, Fitzgerald, Riicker. Vice-Presidents: Mr. 

 W. Baily, Major General Festing, Prof. Perry, Dr. Stoney. 

 Secretaries : Messrs. Blakesley and Elder. Treasurer : Dr. 

 Atkinson. Demonstrator : Prof. Boys. O.her members of 

 Council: Mr. Shelford Bidwell, Mr. W. Crookes, Messrs. 

 Fletcher, Glazebrook, G. Griffith, Pro's. Henrici, Minchin, 

 Mr. Swinburne, Profs. S. P. Thompson an i S. Young.— Prof. 



NO. 1320, VOL. 51] 



Riicker then vacated the chair in favour of Captain .\bnev, and 

 the meeting being resolved into an ordinary meeting, Mr. W. 

 B. Croft gave " an exhibition of simple apparatus." .\n optical 

 bench was shown which consisted of a wooden lath of rect- 

 angular section, furnished with a millimetre scale, and clamped 

 on to the table, together with three flat woolen blocks, whose 

 contacts with the table and the lath lefi them only freedom to 

 slide in a direction parallel to the scale. Another apparatus was 

 designed for observing anomalous disper-ion. .V cork supported 

 two rectangular pieces of microscope coverg'ass, which were in- 

 clined at a snail angle to one another; and a drop or two 

 of a strong alcoholic solution of fuchsine being introduced be- 

 tween them was maintained in position by capillary action. 

 Photographs were shown of Chladni's sand-figure", some of the 

 forms being of an unusual character. Mr. Croft also exhibited 

 a polariscope in which the polariser was a thin piece of glass 

 stuck on to cork by mfans of black sealing-wax, aid the ana- 

 lyser a plate of touru'aline ; as well as a miniature model of 

 Grove's gas battery. Photographs of some curious optical phe- 

 nomena were projected on the screen, including 12-rayed 

 stars seen on looking at a bright source of light through certain 

 specimens of mica, and pairs of intersecting or nm-intersecting 

 circles of ligh', obtained under similar circumstances with 

 (doubly refractinu) fibrous calci'e. These last, it was suggested : 

 were similar in origin to the curves obtained by reflection at, 

 or transmission through, a dilTraction-graling held obliquely. 

 Clock-springs broken by frost were also exhiriited, each spring 

 having given way in a very great number of places simultane- 

 oudy. Dr. Johnstone Stoney said that many years ago he had 

 published in the Tiansactiom of the Royal Irish .\cademy an 

 iuvest'g ition of the circles seen in fibrous calclle, and had shown 

 geometrically that they had nothing to di with the regularity of 

 the fibrous structure, but were due 10 reflection and refraction 

 within the crystalline plate. The distribution of the planes of 

 polarisation round the circumferences of the circles was also 

 accounted fir by his investigations. Mr. Price said he had 

 found that when a clock-spring during the process of hardening 

 was kept in shape by wires, subsequent fracture was most apt 

 to occur at those places where the wires had been in contact 

 with the spring. — Mr. Rhodes asked if Mr. Croft had ever tried 

 Newton's experiment of admitting sunlight between two sharp 

 edges inclined at a small angle to one another. He had not 

 been able to obtain the hyperbolic bands described by Newton. 

 Mr. Croft said he had not tried the experiment exactly in that 

 form. Captain .\bney said that this experiment had succeeded 

 very well in his hands. — Mr. S. Skmner read a paper on the 

 tin chromic chloride cell. He said that his attention had been 

 attracted to the cell by an account published by Mr. Case, of 

 New York. The cell had been stated to give no E.M.F. at 

 ordinary room-temperatures, while it gave a considerable 

 E.M.F. at 100' C. The author had founi that when the cell 

 was directly connected up to a galvanometer, there wis no cur- 

 rent at ordinary temperatures, and some current at I0D° C. ; but 

 when he ha i measured the E.M.F. by Poggendorff's method, 

 he had found '41 volt at 15" C. and 40 volt at 97' C. The 

 cell as o: iginally described consists of a tin plate and a platinum 

 plate immersed side by side in a solution of chromic chloride ; 

 when the temperature of the cell is near to 100° C, and the 

 poles are connected, the following reaction occurs :^ 



Cr.,Clc -I- Sn = 2CrClj -^ SnCL ; 



and when the poles are disconnected and the cell cooled, the 

 reverse change takes place. The author prefers to use as elec- 

 tropositive metal an amalgam of tin an 1 mercury instead of a 

 tin plate, so that when the tin precipitated d.iring cooling falls 

 to the bottom of the solution, it is redissolved in the mercury, 

 and the cell has regained its original slate. Wnen silver ni:rate 

 solution is added 10 chromic chloride, only two thirds of the 

 chlorine cjmes down as silver chloride, and this has led the 

 .author to suppose that the pro,)er formula for chromic chloride 

 is CrCl . Clj. Hence he works out the electrolytic action by 

 means of a Grolthus chain. Prof. Riicker asked whether a 

 change t f polarisation would explain the behaviour of a cell at 

 different temperatures. Piof. Carey Foster a;ked whether the 

 leversed chemical action on cooling from a high temperature 

 were accompanied by a reversed E.M.F. Mr. .Skinner said no. 

 The tin was precipitated throug'iout ihesolutio.i, and not at the 

 surface of the tin plate, ;o that no E.M.F. of the kind was to 

 beexjccted. Mr. Applejard thought that Prof. Minchin had 

 used tin chloride cells with two' tin plates for electrodes, the 



