46 



NATURE 



[November 9, 1899 



of public readings or lectures on agricultural questions for the 

 benefit of different classes of the population, instruction of the 

 teachers in public schools in agriculture, horticulture, garden- 

 ing, apiculture, &c., and providing the public schools with 

 small plots of land and means for cultivating the same ; also by 

 the teaching of agriculture in the normal schools, and the intro- 

 duction of supplementary courses in agriculture in the village 

 schools. There are now in Russia three schools for higher 

 agricultural instruction, nine agricultural high schools, eighty- 

 three lower schools, and fifty- nine special courses. Steps have 

 already been taken for the establishment of about fifty additional 

 agricultural schools. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 American fonrnal of Mathematics, vol. xxi. No. 4, October. 

 — Memoir on the substitution-groups whose degree does not 

 exceed eight, by Dr. G. A. Miller (pp. 287-338), is an exhaus- 

 tive piece of work, amply furnished with bibliographical notes. 

 The author's aim is to give enough of the general theory of 

 group construction to find all the possible groups whose degree 

 does not exceed eight without any tentative processes. The 

 earliest work that gives considerable attention to substitution- 

 groups is stated to be that by Ruffini, entitled " Teoria generate 

 delle equazioni, in cui si dimostra impossibile la soluzione alge- 

 braica delle equazioni generali di grado superiore al quarto " 

 (1799). The author has won his spurs in this field, and the 

 present memoir shows a thorough mastery of his subject. There 

 is a good table of contents appended. — On a class of equations 

 of transformation, by J. Westlund. In this paper the writer 

 discusses those equations whose roots are the n -f i values of 

 P 

 ^^=11 -fw^"- cn^- dtf (4/a>//f), 



where a, j8, 7, are any positive or negative integers, and 

 _ 4;UK -\- 41'iK 

 n 

 H and V being integers. For the notation reference is made to 

 Webar, " Elliptische Functionen," §67. — Dr. Wilczynski, in an 

 article entitled " On Linearoid Differential Equations," follows 

 up a previous article in the lournal (April 1899). This he 

 looks upon as being a reconnoissance upon a new field of 

 promise. Linearoid "suggests" the relation of the present 

 equations to linear differential equations. — Prof. W. H. 

 Metzler contributes a short note on the roots of a determinantal 

 equation. The theorem is similar to one discussed by Dr. T. 

 Muir in vol. xix. (pp. 312-318). — Non-quaternion number- 

 systems containing no skew units, by Dr. Starkweather, opens 

 with a brief statement of a few properties of number-systems 

 in general. Then follows a proof of a statement made by 

 Scheffers {Math. Ann. xxxix. 306, 310) as to the possibility, in 

 this special class of number-systems, of a selection of units 

 having certain simple multiplicative properties. He then shows 

 that the units can be chosen so as to give in general a very 

 much simplified form of multiplication table, and a method is 

 given for deriving systems of the type considered in n units 

 from those in («-i) units. Application of the principles he 

 deduces is made to systems, the degree of whose characteristic 

 equation is two less than the number of units. Other points 

 are discussed, and a table of all the possible non-equivalent 

 orms is given. 



Vol. VI. of the Anales del Miiseo Nacional de Buenos Aires 

 contains the following papers : — Contributions to our knowledge 

 of the herpetological fauna of Argentina and the neighbouring 

 countries, by C. Berg ; some cases of vegetable teratology, 

 fasciation, proliferation, and synanthy (three plates), by A. 

 Gallardo ; species of Ampullaria of the Argentine Republic, by 

 H. von Ihering ; diagnostics of new South American Diplo- 

 poda, by F. Silvestri ; new or critical Argentinian fungi (two 

 plates), by C. Spegazzini ; observations on Argentinian and 

 other South American Lepidoptera, by C. Berg ; brief compar- 

 ative description of Lepidocampa and Campodea (two plates), by 

 F. Silvestri ; new South American Tenthredinidse, by F. W. 

 Konow. Of these the fifth only is in Latin, and the last in 

 German ; the remainder are in Spanish, 



The numbers of the Journal of Botany for October and 

 November are chiefly occupied by papers on descriptive and 

 geographical botany. These are varied by an article, by Mr. 



NO. 1567, VOL. 61] 



E. S. Salmon, on certain peculiar structures found on the peri- 

 theces of the parasitic fungus Phyllactinia corylea, which ap- 

 pear to have a function in connection with its dissemination. 

 The degeneration of these structures produces mucilage, by 

 which the perithece of the fungus is firmly attached to the leaf 

 of the host-plant. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Entomological Society, October 4.— Mr. G. H. Verrall, 

 President, in the chair. — The President announced the death, 

 at the advanced age of eighty-six years, of M. Hippolyte Lucas, 

 an Honorary Fellow of the Society. He also announced the 

 death of Mr. Samuel Stevens, and in reference thereto said the 

 Society had to deplore the loss of one of its oldest and most 

 highly esteemed Fellows. — Mr. J. J. Walker exhibited a speci- 

 men of Galerita bicolor, Drury, a North American beetle of the 

 family Carabidae, said to have been taken many years ago at 

 Doncaster. He also exhibited a remarkable variety of Vanessa 

 urticae, L. {ichnusoides, De Selys), which was captured in the 

 Isle of Sheppey on August 28. — Mr. B. A. Bower showed 

 dark aberrations of Boarmia rhomboidaria, Hb., in which the 

 normal colour of the fore wings is replaced by dark brown, 

 causing the fuscous markings to stand out very prominently. — 

 Mr. C. J. Wainwright exhibited a number of Dipterous insects, 

 including a long series of Anthrax paniscus, Rossi, taken in 

 Cornwall at the end of July and beginning of August ; a series 

 of Eumerus ornatus, Mg. , from Herefordshire, and Euvierus 

 limulatus, Mg. , from Cornwall ; and a specimen of Mallota 

 eristaloides, Loew, taken near Hereford last July. — Mr. H. J. 

 Donisthorpe exhibited specimens of Dytiscus dimidiatus, Berg. , 

 and D. circumcinctus, Ahr., taken last August in Wicken Fen. 

 He also showed eight specimens of Athous rhoinbeus, Oliv. , 

 taken last June in the New Forest. — The Rev. F. D. Morice 

 exhibited three female specimens of Exoneura libanensis, 

 Friese, taken at Brumana on Mount Lebanon, near Beirut. He 

 commented upon the remarkable distribution of the genus 

 Exoneura, Smith, this genus having been hitherto recorded 

 only from Australia.— Mr. G. J. Arrow read a paper on 

 sexual dimorphism in the Rutelid genus Parastasia. — Mr. W. 

 L. Distant contributed descriptions of four new species of 

 Cicadidse, and Mr. Claude Fuller a paper on some species of 

 Western Australian Coccidse. 



Royal Microscopical Society, October 18.— Mr. E. M. 

 Nelson, President, in the chair. — The President called attention 

 to an old microscope by Gary, presented to the Society by Mr. 

 Gleadow. An instrument of the same design was figured in the 

 Jourtialict 1898, p. 474.— Messrs. Watson and Sons exhibited 

 their new school microscope, which was provided with a 

 diagonal rack and pinion coarse adjustment, but no fine adjust- 

 ment, their idea being to produce a strong well-made instru- 

 ment at a low price. Dr. Dallinger had seen this instrument, 

 and thought it would admirably answer the purpose for which it 

 was intended ; the coarse adjustment was so well made that he 

 had no difficulty in focussing a i" objective with it. The 

 President thought the microscope was strongly made and well 

 fitted, and would be found to be a very useful instrument. 

 Messrs. Watson also exhibited a new form of eye-piece, named 

 the " Holoscopic," which was fitted with an adjustment to 

 render it either over- or under-corrected and suitable for use 

 with either achromatic or apochromatic objectives. — Dr. 

 Measures exhibited a microscope for photo-micrography, made 

 by Zeiss, having a new form of fine adjustment which ad- 

 mitted of the arm being made of any length without throwing 

 extra weight upon the fine adjustment screw. Dr. Dallinger 

 considered the way in which the speed of the fine adjustment 

 had been reduced was most ingenious ; the motion was ex- 

 tremely slow, being only -^\^" for every revolution of the screw. 

 A protest had always been made in the Society against the fine 

 adjustment having to carry much weight, and it was therefore 

 satisfactory to find that this one had to lift only one-fifth of the 

 weight usually put upon the fine adjustment. The President 

 said the application of an endless screw was a novel way of 

 slowing down the fine adjustment ; the reduction of weight 

 upon the thread was an important improvement, and the in- 

 creased length of arm was another good feature. — The President 

 then described a new form of fine adjustment by Reichert, which 

 was shown applied to his Austrian model, exhibited by Mr. 



