July 2, 1903] 



NA TURE 



21 



are, e.g. H,0 17 i (instead of 18), CO^ 429 (44), S 36 and 

 377 (32), so that the sulphur would appear to be mon- 

 atomic at that high temperature. 



E. Wedekind (Tubingen) produces colloid zirconium by 

 reducing the oxide with magnesium and extracting with 

 hydrochloric acid ; O. Burns (Boston) colloids of paper, 

 oxides, sulphides, &c., by shaking them for many hours. 

 Monti (Turin) spoke on the concentration of solutions, 

 perfumes, wines, and ordinary salts by freezing ; the acids 

 and salts collect in the microscopical interstices between 

 the small ice crystals, and when frozen blocks are left to 

 themselves, the substances diffuse downward ; concentration 

 by cold is more economical than by heat. Bredig (Heidel- 

 berg) and Count Schwerin (Hochst) spoke on electric 

 osmosisp, E. .Solvay (Brussels) on a gravitation 

 formula applicable to diffusion phenomena, Zengelis 

 (Athens) on the production of very high tempera- 

 tures by burning aluminium in oxygon and other gases. 

 The kinetics of the catalytic sulphuric acid process were 

 discussed by Knietsch (who has worked the process cut in 

 Ludwigshafen) in section ii., and by Bodenstein and Bod- 

 lander in X. Similar papers were read by Schenck (Mar- 

 burg) on the splitting of CO, by H. Goldschmidt (Christi- 

 ania) on the kinetics of reductions, by Bodlander on 

 technical catalysis. H. Goldschmidt (Essen) reported on the 

 manufacture of steel in the electric furnaces of Stassano, 

 Gin-Leleux, H^roult, Keller, Kjellin, and others ; Bancroft 

 and A. A. Noyes on electrochemical research in the United 

 States ; Fr. Foerster (Dresden) and Brandeis (Aussig) on 

 electrolytic preparation of inorganic compounds ; M. Le 

 Blanc (Karlsruhe) spoke on electrolysis with alternating 

 currents and the possibility of determining the velocity o' 

 ionic reactions ; Coehn (Gottingen) on electrode influence 

 in electrolytic oxidations and reductions, H. Moissan on 

 metallic carbides, H^roult on the efficiency of electrolytic 

 soda processes, Danneel and Nissenson on the electrolytic 

 deposition of metals, Kiister (Clausthal) on dissociation 

 pressure of soda solutions, W. Marckwald on his radio- 

 active tellurium, and Precht (Hanover) on the spectrum 

 and atomic weight of radium (in ix.). W. von Bolton 

 demonstrated what he briefly calls luminosity of the ions. 

 When a carbon rod is lowered as anode into sulphuric acid, 

 containing a copper spiral as kathode, the rough surface 

 of the carbon becomes at once bright under the influence 

 of currents of no volts. When rods of metals (or of 

 carbon) are dipped into solutions of their salts, the rod 

 being the kathode, a platinum spiral the anode, the rod 

 begins to glow in brilliant colours, and beautiful band 

 spectra of the ions (?) are obtained, diff'ering from the 

 spark spectra which result when the anode is glowing. 

 The discussions were very good. H. Borns. 



SOUTH-EASTERN UNION OF SCIENTIFIC 



SOCIETIES. 



'T'HE eighth annual congress of the South-Eastern Union 



-*- of Scientific Societies was held at Dover on June 11-13. 

 A lively address by the president. Sir Henry Howorth, 

 F.R.S., put pin pricks into all the infallibilities, begging 

 the student to accept no predominant hypothesis without 

 demur, to resist the fascination of great names, to challenge 

 the exactness even of the exact sciences. Fallacies might 

 often lurk in phrases, as when " the survival of the fittest " 

 was glibly used to mean nothing more than the survival of 

 the survivors. The address impressed its hearers with the 

 advantage which every branch of science might derive from 

 the touch of a keen and active critical faculty, working out- 

 side the ranks of the specialists. 



The papers contributed to the congress fall into three 

 classes, the purely local, the general, and those of divided 

 interest. In the last of these Mr. A. T. Walmisley's essay 

 discussed the methods by which a traveller between Kent 

 and the Pas de Calais might cross the intervening strip of 

 shallow water, on, in, under, or over it, without the in- 

 cidents which now so often befall him when the " silver 

 streak " is converted into a tumultuous concourse of atoms. 

 The new turbine steamer was indicated as the best chance 

 for humanity — at least until something better is invented. 

 Mr W. Whitaker, F.R.S., observed that clearly nature had 

 expressly designed the Straits of Dover for a submarine 

 tunnel, though politicians might think otherwise. Mr. 

 A O. Walker, dealing with the effects of climate on dis- 



NO. 1757, VOL. 68] 



tribution, compared his long experience of the fauna and 

 flora of Cheshire and North Wales with his later obser\'- 

 ations while residing near Maidstone. 



Of local papers the most important was that by Mr. 

 Sydney Webb and Captain McDakin on the disappearing 

 fauna' and flora of the district. There were many lament- 

 able and in part unavoidable losses. The dwindling of 

 the colony of seals at Beachy Head was deplored, but no 

 tears were seen to fall at the news that vipers were becoming 

 scarce and polecats scarcer. The congress museum was 

 instructively adorned by Mr. Webb's fine collection of Lepi- 

 doptera with their caterpillars, and by the display of plants 

 with their seedlings from the Catford Society. 



Prof. Boulger opened a discussion on the best means of 

 checking the extermination of British plants and animals. 

 Dr. Rowe, in a paper on the importance of zonal distribu- 

 tion, alluded to the doctrine that the souls of good geologists 

 go hereafter to their favourite " sections," and hoped he 

 might be allowed to stake out his claim to a particular slice 

 of Dover Chalk, from which he had already abstracted 

 about 5000 fossils. 



The non-local discourses included an interesting account 

 by the Rev. R. A. Biillen of " a late Celtic cemetery at 

 Harlyn Bay," and a valuable investigation by Miss Ethel 

 Sargent, who unfolded the story of Geophilous plants, ex- 

 plaining how these "lovers of the soil," to suit seasons 

 and climates, for periods of varying duration, keep them- 

 selves close within the protecting bosom of their mother 

 earth, the seeds and bulbs in the meantime, with a kind of 

 vegetable instinct, ever using their foodstore to the best 

 advantage. The concluding address was by Dr. Jonathan 

 Hutchinson, F.R.S., the retiring president, who at two 

 successive congresses has delighted his audience by a finely- 

 argued discussion of a subject not at the first blush very 

 attractive. His theme was leprosy. His theory is now 

 well known, that this disease is caused by the consumption 

 of badly cured fish, or occasionally by the eating of food 

 which has been handled by lepers. During the last two 

 years he has visited Africa and India, everywhere seeking 

 oat lepers and leprous communities, especially in places where 

 h-^ had been told that a fish diet was out of the question. 

 Everywhere he found that in that particular his informants 

 had been misinformed. A quotation from Erasmus sent 

 to Dr. Hutchinson by a classical friend represented the 

 Pope himself as proposing to proscribe the use of salt fish 

 on account of its supposed tendency to spread leprosy, though 

 it is not salt fish in itself that lies under any evil 

 imputation. Erasmus often makes ironical statements, but 

 on the foul efl'ects produced in his day by the consumption 

 of putrid fish his dialogue " Ichthyophagia " speaks with 

 no ambiguity. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The following is the text of the speeches de- 

 livered by Prof. Love in presenting M. Poincar^ and Prof. 

 Stcry-Maskelyne for the honorary degree of D.Sc. at the 

 Enca;nia on June 24 : — 



Nescio an maximus inter mathematicos qui nunc vivunt 

 sit Henricus Poincar^ : vir iure mirandus non solum quod 

 novis viis qua;rendi usus novos fructus adeptus est, sed 

 quod tot et tam diversa doctrinse genera unus complecti 

 potuit, cum commentariis innumerabilibus fere omnes 

 geometrices et analyseos partes illustraret. Cum in haec 

 recondita doctrinas arcana altius penetrasset, rite eum 

 Regalis Societas ornavit numismate aureo in memoriam 

 Professoris nostri Sylvester instituto quod ei primo datum 

 est. Non solum subtilissimis illis quaestionibus quae de 

 mathematicae veritatis natura inter philosophos oriuntur 

 hunc auctorem plerique sequuntur, sed ingenii maximi 

 viribus nisus de luce, de vi electrica, de difficillimo quoque 

 doctrinae genere prECclarissime disseruit. In Astronomia 

 certe ea de motu et de figura planetarum est commentatus 

 ut omnibus de hac re quaerentibus nova quadam et meliore 

 via insistendum sit. Hunc talem virum in omni genere 

 doctrina^ insignissimum, rerum naturam animo per- 

 agrantem, geometren, physicum, astronomum praestan- 

 tissimum, Academia nostra inter suos doctores llbentissime 

 adscribit. 



Septeni et quadraginta abhinc annos Willelmo Buckland 

 successit Mervin Herbertus Nevil Storv-Maskelvne, Minera- 



