500 



NA TURE 



[March 21, 1895 



Sir John Lvebock has been elected President of the 

 London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, in 

 succession to Mr. Goschen, M.P., resigned. 



Mr. Gilbert R. Redor.we has been appointed Chief 

 Senior Inspector of Schools and Classes under the Science and 

 Art Departmen:, and Mr. T. B. Shaw, Inspector of the North- 

 western District, has been promoted to a Senior Inspector- 

 ship. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



We have received two recently issued parts of the Journal of 



the Asiatic Society of Bmgal iyoi. Ixiii. part ii. Nos. I and 3) 

 containing, inter alia, an important paper by Mr. Lionel dc 

 Niccville (the author of the admirabk- book on the butterflies 

 of India, Ceylon, and Burma, now approaching completion), 

 on new and littlc-known butterflies from the Indo-Malayan 

 region, illustrated by five excellent coloured plitei, representing 

 species belonging to most of the principal families represented 

 in the district. Among the species figured is a handsome new 

 species of Stichophthalma (5. sparta) from Manipur, allied to 

 the well-known Chinese 5'. howqua, of Westwood, belonging 

 to a genus allied to the great blue Morphos of South America, 

 and not inferior to some of them in sire ; a gynandomorphou.s 

 specimen of the common, but very remarkable, Indian 

 Fritillary, Argynnis niphe, L., the female of which mimics the 

 abundant, highly-protected, and much-imitated Danatis 

 ihrysipp%ti, L. ; several species of Laxita, Butler, a beautiful 

 genus allied to our Duke of Burgundy Fritillary, but much 

 larger, and with rounded brown wings, generally suffused with 

 crimson on the fore wings, and marked with metallic blue spots 

 beneath ; three species of Papilio, two of which mimic species 

 of the widely-removed sub-family Euplocina ; and many other 

 interesting species. Several genera, as well ns a large number 

 of species, are described as new, and much fresh information 

 is given relative to species already known. Several very useful 

 lists and tables are also included in the paper, relative to the 

 species of Daphla, allied to D. teuta, Doubleday and Ilewit- 

 son, and those of the genera Gcrydus, Boisduval, Lcgania, 

 Distant, &c. When we look at the number of important books 

 and papers that are now constantly issuing from the press on 

 the butterflies of various parts of the British East Indies, it 

 seems strange to remember that thirty years ago almost nothing 

 had been published specially on the subject, except Ilorsfield 

 and Moore's Catalogue of the Lepidoptera in the East India 

 Company's Museum, and Westwood's "Cabinet of Oriental 

 Entomology." 



Mtinoirs {Trudy) of the St. Petersburg; Society of Naturalists, 

 vol. xxiv. part I, Zoology and Physiology. — Notes on birds 

 found in the Mediobor Mountains of Podolia, by I. D. 

 Mikhalovslcy. Seventy-two species are mentioned. — On the 

 structures and reactions of the cells of the digestive tube 

 of the pupa: of il/aiffl CrjanV zomiloriir, by N. Kholin, with 

 one plate. — The Natural History Museum of Great Britain, 

 and other zoological institutions of West Europe, by A. 

 Y.-ischenko. — Report on the cruise of the Nayczdnil: in 

 the .Arctic Ocean in 1S93, ^y ^'- Knipovitch. Leaving 

 Rcval, the cruiser visited the Murman coast, the Dvina and 

 Onega l>ays of the White Sea, and the west coast of Novaya 

 Zeailya, entering the Matochkin Strait and the Yugorskiy Shar. 

 No less than eighty successful dredgings, down to depths of 190 

 fathoms, as well as measurements of temperature, were made. 

 The author's remarks on the diflerences of colour and density of 

 the iilue Gulf Stream water, which is easily traced along the 

 Murman coast, and the more so along the coast of Nov.iya Zcmlya, 

 are especially interesting. The colour and the density better 

 delineate the south-cast limits of the Gulf Stream current than the 

 HitTcrenccs of temperature which are affected in both the Gulf 

 ST' im and the cold current by various local causes. In the 

 *■ ,ys of the While Sea, M. Knipovitch found in the bottom 

 mud, which has temperatures of one or two degrees below zero, 

 the YolJia arcti,a, characteristic, as is known, of the Glacial 

 period deposits and the Arctic Seas ; while the same has never 

 t>ecn found in the Arctic Ocean off the .Murman coast, nor in 

 ■'ic citern parts of the IJarents's .Sea. — Report on the zoological 

 . utions of West Europe, by Piof. K. Sainte Hilaire. — In the 

 J'iv:eedings we notice a very interesting report, by A. .\. 

 Binilia, on the part played by the phagocytes in the sexual 



NO. 1325, VOL. 51] 



processes with the GaleoJes, and A. K. Trotsin's report on his 

 zoological journey to the Transcaspian region and Russian 

 Turkestan 



The Meteorolo^sche Zeitsihrift for January contains a care- 

 ful discussion of the rainfall of the Sandwich Islands, by Dr. 

 J. Hann, based chiefly on observations supplied by the Director 

 of the Weather Serviceat Honolulu. The amount of th; rainfall 

 is subject to great fluctuations. At Ililea, Kau (on the south 

 side of Hawaii), 44'5 inches fell in 1SS6, and of this amount 

 51 per cent, fell in November. In 18S9 the annual fall was 

 only I3'9 inches, or about half as much as in November 1SS6. 

 \K Honolulu the avera:;e annual fall is 40 inches. The heaviest 

 falls occur on the windward side of the largeU of the islands, 

 that is, on the north-east of Hawaii, and the smallest falls 

 occur on the southern part of Oahu, and the south- west of Miui. 

 The wettest period in almost all the islands is from November 

 to March. The principal exception to this is on the leeward 

 side of the mountains of Hawaii, where more rain falls in 

 summer than in winter. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London 



Physical Society, March S.— Mr. Walter Baily, Vice- 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. Naber exhibited, and shortly 

 described, a new form of gas voltameter. The chief advantages 

 claimed for this instrument are th it either the oxygen or the 

 hydrogen can be collected separately, and that the level of the 

 liquid inside and outside the burette can be made the same; 

 thus no correction has to be applied to the volume of the gas 

 on this account. Variations in the temperature and barometric 

 pressure are allowed for by reading an air thermometer which 

 is fixed alongside the burette. The inventor considers that this 

 instrument will compare favourably in accuracy with the copper 

 and silver voltameters now in general use. Prof. S. P. Thomp- 

 son considered that now so much care h.ad been bestowed on 

 the design of a gas voltameter, this instrument might come into 

 more general use than heretofore. — Dr. Johnstone Stoney, 

 F.K.S., exhibited (i) the local heliost.it, (2) .an improvement 

 in siderostats. By a local heliostat the author means one which 

 can only be used in places the latitudes of which differ slightly 

 from that of the place for which the instrument was specially 

 constructed. The limits within whicli the instrument works 

 with suflicient accuracy for ordinary spectroscopic work, are such 

 that one instrument can be used in any place in the British Isles. 

 The heliostat exhibited was a modification of one previously 

 described by the author, which is now in very general use, and 

 it is capaUTe of sending a reflected ray in any direction in, or 

 nearly iif, a horizontal plane. In the new instrument the pen- 

 dulum clock previously used to supply the motive power, is re- 

 placed by a balance-wheel clock ; this ch.ange decreases the 

 cost of the instrument, while it adds to its portability. A tangent 

 screw, worked by a long rod, supplies a slow motion for adjust- 

 ing the position of the reflected beam, and is of use when 

 examining the spectra of the solar prominences, &c. The 

 instrument is adjusted in the meridian by means of a gnomon 

 and horizontal divided circle which form a sun-dial. This 

 divided circle is so arranged that it is always horizontal when 

 the polar axis is in adjustment, and can therefore be used what- 

 ever the latitude of the station at which the observations are 

 being made. In connection with the use of a heliostat in con- 

 junction with a spectroscope, the author recommends, when 

 using a grating, the introduction of a large glass prism between 

 the heliostat and the slit of the spectrometer. An impure 

 spectrum is thus formed on the slit, and by moving the slit to 

 the part of this spectrum corresponding to light of the wave- 

 length under observation, the difficulties due to the overlapping 

 of the spectra may in a great measure be overcome. After men- 

 tioning that the great diflicully in designing a siderostat 

 which should work with "astronomical accuracy," is to 

 get a form of sliding motion quite free from back-lash, 

 and which will move perfectly regularly. Dr. Stoney ex- 

 hibited a model of a form of mechanism for obtaining such 1 

 motion which he had devised. The principle on which the 

 instrument depends is that, if you have a point fixed to a circle 

 which rolls on the inside of another circle of double the 

 diameter, this point will describe a straight line. The smaller 

 disc does not, in the model exhibited, roll directly on the larger 



