6l2 



NA rURE 



[October 22, 1903 



cotton under tension, which was illustrated by photographs 

 in natural colours ; the lustre of mercerised cotton is proved 

 to be due to a corkscrew-like structure of the mercerised 

 fibre brought about by a simultaneous swelling, shrinking 

 and untwisting which attends the immersion in caustic 

 soda. 



Sir H. Roscoe, F.R.S., in presenting the report of the 

 committee on duty-free alcohol, explained the conditions 

 under which the Board of Inland Revenue are now prepared 

 to allow the use of duty-free alcohol for the purposes of 

 research work. 



Prof. G. von Georgievics, in a paper on the theory of 

 dyeing, argued strongly in favour of the mechanical as 

 opposed to the chemical theory of dyeing, and claimed that 

 the experimental work upon which the chemical theory is 

 based is erroneous. 



In opening a discussion on the general subject of com- 

 bustion by a paper on the slow combustion of methane and 

 ethane. Dr. W. A. Bone pointed out that his own experi- 

 mental work showed that, in the combustion of methane, 

 a primary oxidation to formaldehyde and steam occurs, 

 followed by rapid oxidation of the formaldehyde to carbon 

 monoxide, carbon dioxide and steam ; in the burning of 

 ethane both acetaldehyde and formaldehyde are formed as 

 intermediate products. 



In a preliminary note on some electric furnace reactions 

 under high gaseous pressures, Messrs. J. E. Petavel and 

 R. S. Hutton gave an account of work carried out in an 

 enclosed electric furnace constructed to work with gaseous 

 pressures up to 200 atmospheres. The reactions at present 

 under investigation include the direct reduction of alumina 

 by carbon, the formation of calcium carbide and of graphite, 

 and the production of nitric acid and of cyanogen com- 

 pounds. 



In a paper on the atomic latent heats of fusion of the 

 metals considered from the kinetic standpoint, Mr. H. 

 Crompton showed that, if in the solidification of a liquid 

 energy is lost solely in bringing moving monatomic mole- 

 cules to rest, a constant can be deduced in a very simple 

 manner from the latent heat of fusion ; approximately the 

 theoretical value is obtained for this constant with many of 

 the metals, but not with gallium and bismuth. 



Dr. E. P. Perman brought forward a number of results 

 which he has obtained concerning the influence of small 

 quantities of water in bringing about chemical reaction 

 between salts ; he investigated more particularly the action 

 of potassium iodide upon salts of lead and mercury. In a 

 paper on the constitution of disaccharides. Prof. Purdie, 

 F.R.S., and Dr. J. C. Irvine described the methylation of 

 cane-sugar and maltose ; from experiments on the hydro- 

 lysis of the products of methylation they deduced evidence 

 substantiating the constitutions attributed by Fischer to 

 these two disaccharides. 



Amongst other papers read in the section may be 

 noted the following : — Stead's recent experiments on the 

 causes and prevention of brittleness in steel, by Prof. T. 

 Turner ; the colour of iodides, by Mr. W. Ackroyd ; on 

 essential oils, by Dr. O. Silberrad ; the cholesterol group, 

 by Dr. R. H. Pickard ; on acridines, by Prof. A. Senier ; 

 sur le spectre de self-induction du silicium et ses com- 

 paraisons astronomiques, by M. le Comte A. de Gramont ; 

 fluorescence as related to the constitution of organic sub- 

 stances, by Dr. J. T. Hewitt ; freezing point curves of 

 binary mixtures, by Dr. J. C. Philip ; mutarotation in re- 

 lation to the lactonic structure of glucose, by Dr. E. F. 

 Armstrong ; the synthesis of glucosides, the preparation of 

 oximido-compounds and the action of oxides of nitrogen on 

 oximido-compounds, by Mr. W. S. Mills ; further investi- 

 gations of the approximate estimation of minute quantities 

 of arsenic in food, by Mr. W. Thomson. 



GEOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 HTHE programme of the geological section of the British 

 Association is usually more or less affected by the 

 geological character of the country around the place of 

 meeting, and this was the case in the present year, though 

 the geology of Southport cannot compare in interest with 

 that of Belfast, Glasgow, or other recent meeting places. 



Mr. J. Lomas (Geology of the country around Southport) 

 explained that the solid rock, Keuper and Bunter, is for 

 the most part below sea-level, and only reaches the surface 

 NO. 1773, VOL. 68] 



ia a few places where it projects through the thick cover- 

 ing of Drift. The Drift is mainly Boulder-clay with an 

 undulating surface, on which are found a number of lake- 

 deposits, left by lakes or meres now partially nor wholly 

 drained. 



One of these, Martin Mere, was visited by most of the 

 geologists present, and was the subject of a paper by Mr. 

 Harold Brodrick. Upon the Boulder-clay there is a bed 

 of grey clay, which may be of either lacustrine or estuarine 

 origin^ and on it grew a forest of oak and Scotch fir. 

 Numbers of trunks of the trees still remain, and Mr. Brod- 

 rick remarked that they have usually fallen in a north-east 

 direction. These tree trunks are buried in a bed of peat, 

 which is in places as much as 19 feet thick, and many dug- 

 out canoes have been found in this peat. 



The " submerged forest " at Leasowe, in Cheshire, is 

 the remains of a similar mere which has been cut through 

 by the sea, and the peat and tree trunks are now found on 

 the coast below the level of high water. The question 

 whether this points to a depression of the surface of the 

 land was discussed, but the speakers hesitated to give any 

 definite opinion. 



Mr. Whitaker read the report of a committee appointed 

 by the council of the Association to record observations on 

 changes in the sea coast of the United Kingdom, and 

 though there was no reference to Southport in the report, 

 its reading was followed by considerable discussion. At 

 Southport itself the land is gaining on the sea, and Mr. 

 Lomas considers this to be due to the large amount of 

 material brought down by the River Ribble. The sand 

 dunes on the coast are, he believes, also due to material 

 brought down by the river, which, drying at low water, 

 is blown inland by the prevailing south-west wind. He 

 remarked that sand dunes are usually found at and near 

 the mouth of a fairly large river. 



The question of coast changes was also discussed in a 

 paper on a raised beach in County Cork by Messrs. Muff 

 and Wright, of the Geological Survey. The beach deposits 

 rest upon a platform of solid rock which is some 7 to 12 

 feet above the corresponding part of the present shore, and 

 the beach deposits are covered by a thick bed of Boulder- 

 clay, showing that they are of early Glacial, if not of pre- 

 Glacial, age. This is almost an exact counterpart of the 

 raised beach in Gower, South Wales, which was described 

 by Mr. R. H. Tiddeman in a paper read before Section C 

 of the British Association at Bradford in 1900. 



Mr. Lamplugh (Land shells in the infra-Glacial chalk- 

 rubble at Sewerby, near Bridlington) directed attention to 

 the similarity of these raised beaches to that at Sewerby in 

 Yorkshire. There we find (i) a beach deposit, a few feet 

 above the present high-water mark, banked against an old 

 chalk cliff ; (2) a bed of land wash ; (3) a bed of blown 

 sand ; and upon it (4) a bed of chalk-rubble, in which Mr. 

 Lamplugh has found many specimens of Pupa muscorum, a 

 land shell. Consequently the bed is a land wash correspond- 

 ing to the " Head " of Cork and Gower. The author found 

 this bed on the foreshore at Sewerby, showing that when it 

 was formed the sea stood at a lower level than at the time 

 of the beach deposits. This land wash is underneath all 

 the Glacial Drifts of the Yorkshire coast. 



In the discussion which followed the reading of these 

 papers, it was suggested that the raised beaches may be 

 due to an alteration in the level of the sea rather than to 

 earth-movement. Mr. Clement Reid, however, remarked 

 that, though the old sea beaches in Cork, Gower, and 

 Yorkshire are about the same height above the present sea- 

 level, there is at Penzance a well-marked notch in the rock 

 at 65 feet above the sea, and in Sussex there is evidence 

 of a sea-surface not only a few feet above the sea at Selsea, 

 but also as much as 135 feet above the sea in Goodwood 

 Park. 



The relations of an estuarine deposit at Kirmington, in 

 Lincolnshire, to the Glacial Drift was the subject of the 

 report of a committee appointed at Belfast last year. The 

 Kirmington Drift deposits are known to rest upon chalk, 

 though the chalk has not yet been reached. A silty sand 

 and chalk-rubble (i) is the lowest bed at present examined ; 

 upon it rests (2) a purple clay, no doubt a Boulder-clay, 

 12 feet thick ; and above that (3) sand and chalky gravel 

 12 feet. Upon this (4) a thin fresh-water bed has now been 

 found, and (5) a clay with estuarine shells, the whole being 

 under (6) a second bed of Boulder-clay. The estuarine bed 



