2IO 



NATURE 



[June 26, 1890 



town library of Breslau. Two others — a map of Europe 

 (finished in 1554) and one of England (of 1564) — are unique. 

 Another is the large map of the world, of which there are 

 only two copies in existence, the second one being at the Paris 

 National Library. The Society has agreed to publish the de- 

 tails of Dr. Konrad Kretschmar's journey to Rome, undertaken 

 dn the Middle Ages for purposes of research. 



THE LADIES' CONVERSAZIONE OF THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY. 

 'T'HE Ladies' Conversazione of the Royal Society was held on 

 -*■ June 18, and was, as usual, a great success. Many of the 

 exhibits were the same as those shown at the conversazione on 

 May 14. Among those which had not been previously shown 

 were the following : — 



Exhibited by the Director-General of Ordnance Factories : — 

 Magazine rifle, Mark I. The new magazine rifle now being 

 ■made for the British Army. It has a calibre of o"'303, is 

 on the bolt principle, and is provided with a detachable magazine 

 imderneath, to hold eight cartridges ; a cut-off on the right 

 side enables it to be used as a single loader. It has two 

 sets of sights, the ordinary ones are graduated up to 1900 

 yards, the long-range sights on the left side up to 3500 

 yards. The sword-bayonet, which is attached underneath the 

 barrel, has a double-edged blade 12" long. 



Exhibited by the Director- General of the Geological Survey : — 

 Diagrams illustrating some of the most ancient topography of 

 the British Isles, (a) Corry on Ben More, Assynt. The rough 

 bossy ground in the middle is the Archsan gneiss, the most 

 ancient rock in this country. Above it to the left comes the 

 Torridon sandstone, forming a range of cliffs, and lying un- 

 conformably on the gneiss. At the summit of the Corry, on the 

 crest of the ridge, lies the early Palaeozoic quartzite, which 

 steals across the sandstone until it rests directly on the gneiss. 

 {b) bleagach, Loch Maree. The pinkish bossy rock is the old 

 gneiss, which rises into a group of hills that have been buried 

 under the Torridon sandstone. By prolonged and enormous 

 denudation of the overlying sandstone, the gneiss hills have been 

 uncovered, and now reveal a portion of the oldest known topo- 

 graphy of Britain. The gneiss hill to the right rises to a height 

 of 2500 feet, and in ascending it one can walk along the ancient 

 -shore-line and traverse beach after beach that was piled up over 

 the sinking land, (c) View from the south shoulder of Sleagach 

 looking east. The bossy hills of gneiss rise towards the left 

 hand to a height of 3000 feet above the sea. The overlying 

 ■cover of Torridon sandstone, though enormously denuded, still 

 forms a range of lofty hills, beneath which knobs of gneiss at 

 different elevations may be seen protruding. The quartzite 

 ■(coloured yellow) caps the mountains to the right until a mass 

 of the old gneiss overlies it. This cake of the most ancient rock 

 of the region has been torn, up and thrust over the younger for- 

 mation. The line of junction or "thrust-plane" between them 

 descends into the plain, and runs for miles to the westward, {d) 

 Meall a Ghubhais, Loch Maree. The upper part of the moun- 

 tain is a cake of Torridon sandstone, which has been driven 

 westward by the same gigantic terrestrial movements just referred 

 to, and has been placed upon the quartzite group of rocks which 

 ought really to lie above it. In the lower part of the diagram 

 the sandstone is seen in its normal position below the quartzite. 

 {e) Section of Meall a Ghubhais, to show the detailed geological 

 structure of the mountain. It will be observed that the upper 

 shifted mass of Torridon sandstone is traversed by several thrust- 

 planes, and that portions of the old gneiss have likewise been 

 driven westward underneath it. 



Exhibited by Mrs. F. W. H. Myers :— (i) Platinotype 

 photographs. (2) Photographs on fabrics. 



Exhibited by Sir William Bowman, Bart., F.R.S. :— (i) 

 Jubilee portrait of the late Prof. Donders, For. Mem. R.S., 

 painted by Mrs. Donders (Hubrecht). Gold Medal awarded 

 at the Exposition Internationa], Munich, 1888. Ultimately 

 destined for the National Museum, Amsterdam. (2) Un- 

 completed portrait of the same, 1S73, hy G. F. Watts, R.A. 



Exhibited by Prof. W. C. Roberts-Austen, C.B., F.R.S. : — 

 Measurement of high temperatures. Experimental determina- 

 tion of the melting-point of gold (1045" C.) and of silver 

 (945° C.), by means of Le Chatelier's pyrometer. This con- 

 sists of a thermo-couple, composed of wires of platinum and 

 platinum alloyed with 10 per cent, of rhodium, connected with 



a dead-beat galvanometer. The pyrometer scale has been 

 calibrated by heating the thermo-couple to certain known 

 temperatures determined by the air thermometer. 



Exhibited by Prof. A. M. Worthington : — An apparatus for 

 stretching a liquid and measuring simultaneously the stress and 

 strain. 

 i Exhibited by Mr. P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. :— Portrait of Dr. 

 Emin Pasha, C.M.Z.S., and original letter from him, addressed 

 to Mr. Sclater, dated Wadelai, April 15th, 1887. 

 I Exhibited by the Postmaster- General : — Hughes's type- 

 printing telegraphs, working to the Continent. This apparatus 

 is mainly mechanical, the electrical action being confined to 

 the sending a single short pulsation of current at the instant the 

 type-wheel is in the proper position, and only one wave of 

 current is needed to produce a letter. The sending and re- 

 ceiving instruments are combined. The key-board consists of 

 as many keys as there are letters and signs to be printed. Con- 

 necting with the keys and corresponding with them, and also 

 with the type-wheel, is a set of pins arranged radially in a 

 j circular horizontal plate. An arm revolves over these pins 

 without touching them until a key is depressed, when a current 

 I is sent into the line. The instruments are caused to run ap- 

 I proximately isochronously by means of suitable adjustments, 

 and they are afterwards maintained in synchronism automatically 

 by the actual working. The instrument is eminently suitable 

 for Continental message traffic, for which purpose it is largely 

 used. The three working instruments shown were connected 

 with Paris, Berlin, and Rome. In the course of the evening 

 the President held communication with Profs. Helmholtz and 

 Du Bois-Reymond in Berlin, Prof. Mascart in Paris, and Prof. 

 Cannizzaro in Rome. 



Exhibited by Mr. Walter Gardiner, F.R.S. ; — (i) Specimens 

 of aquatic fen plants and alga; occurring in the neighbourhood 

 of Cambridge. (2) Specimens illustrating the exhibitor's paper 

 on a new method of printing photographic negatives, employing 

 living leaves in place of sensitive paper. 



Exhibited by Dr. Pole, F.R.S. :— Diagrams in illustration of 

 colour-blindness. 



Exhibited by Dr. Karl Grossmann : — Tests for colour- 

 blindness. 



Exhibited by Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S. :— Specimens of a re- 

 markable nickel-iron alloy (awaruite), of terrestrial origin, from 

 New Zealand, and of the minerals and rocks with which it is 

 associated. Sent by Prof. G. H. F. Ulrich, of the Dunedin 

 University, N.Z. This curious mineral, consisting of 2Ni + Fe, 

 was analyzed and named by Mr. W. Skey, in 1885, having been 

 detected by him in specimens of sands obtained from streams in 

 the south-western part of the South Island of New Zealand. 

 Prof. Ulrich has since been able to show that the grains of this 

 alloy are found over a considerable area, disseminated in peri- 

 dotite and serpentine rocks ; which rocks are intrusive in the 

 metamorphic schists of the district, and form the Red Hill and 

 Olivine Ranges. The substance which awaruite most closely 

 resembles is the Oktibbehite meteorite, consisting of Ni-fFe: 

 and the occurrence of this remarkable alloy in terrestrial rocks 

 is comparable to the presence of nickel-iron alloys in the basalts 

 of Ovifak and other localities in Greenland. 



Exhibited by Prof. A. H. Church, F.R.S. :— A selection of 

 Japanese sword guards, or tsttba, made of malleable iron, and 

 variously decorated with chased, hammered, and pierced work, 

 or with incrustations in gold, silver, shakudo, shibuichi, and 

 bronze. The majority of the examples shown represent plant 

 forms, and were executed between 1650 and 1850. 



Exhibited by Prof. W. C. Roberts- Austen, C.B., F.R.S. :— 

 Japanese art metal-work. The specimen is interesting as a 

 modern example of flat inlaying in metals. The plate is of 

 bronze, and the bird is of shakudo, or copper alloyed with a 

 small quantity, about 2 or 3 percent., of gold. The isolated 

 feathers are of a darker variety of this alloy. 



Exhibited by Dr. W. J. Russell, F.R.S. :— Ancient Egyptian 

 colours discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie in the Fayourn, and 

 modern imitations of them ; and colours from Hawara in the 

 Fayoum. 



Exhibited by Mr. A. P. Laurie :— Colours used by the 

 fifteenth century painters. 



Exhibited by Mr. W. F. R. Weldon, F.R.S. (on behalf of 

 the Marine Biological Association) : — Larvae of certain food- 

 fishes, together with other animals of interest inhabiting Ply- 

 mouth Sound. 



Exhibited <■ by Prof. A. C. Haddon, on behalf of Mr. 



NO. 1078, VOL. 42' 



