November 9, 1899] 



NATURE 



47 



C. Baker ; the indicator to this fine adjustment was movable, so 

 that it could be set to zero when required, thus greatly facilitat- 

 inc; the reading of the divisions on the head of the screw. The 

 instrument was fitted with the English standard substage, and 

 the axis of the trunnions was placed above the stage to ensure 

 a better balance. Two other microscopes by Reichert were 

 also exhibited, one being a student's without fine adjustment, 

 but fitted with a dissecting loupe as a substage condenser. The 

 President next showed a microscope fitted with his new stepped 

 rackwork coarse adjustment by Messrs. Watson and Sons ; 

 there was no " loss of time," though the pinion was pressed but 

 lightly into the rack. The President also exhibited a dissecting 

 stand by Andrew Ross, which was about forty or fifty years old, 

 and was still a thoroughly good working instrument ; and 

 though the lenses were not achromatic, they gave very good 

 images. — Mr. C. Lees Curties exhibited some stereoscopic 

 photo- micrographs taken on the Ives principle by Mr. E. R. 

 Turner, who briefly described the method of taking them.— 

 Dr. Hebb said they had received part vi. of Mr. Millett's 

 " Report on the Foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago," which 

 would be taken as read and published in the Jotirnal. — Mr. F. 

 Enock gave an extremely interesting account of his observations 

 on the life-history and habits of British trap-door spiders, 

 illustrating the subject with most excellent original lantern 

 views. 



Manchester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, October 17. — Prof. 

 Horace Lamb, F.R.S., President, in the chair.— The Secretary 

 read the draft of the address which was recently presented by 

 the Society to Sir G. G. Stokes, Bart., on the occasion of the 

 jubilee of his tenure of the Lucasian Professorship of Mathe- 

 matics at Cambridge University, and also the reply received 

 thereto. — Prof. Dixon stated that the restoration of Dalton's 

 tomb had been effected under the direction of the committee 

 appointed, and that there remained a balance in hand of 

 about 27/. It was hoped to raise this sum to 50/., and to 

 form a vested fund which would provide for any future re- 

 pairs that might be necessary.— The President announced that 

 the Society had had presented to it another relic of Dalton, 

 in the shape of his diploma of honorary membership of the 

 Edinburgh Medical Society, to which he was elected in 1818. — 

 Mr. Thomas Thorp read a paper on diffraction grating films 

 and their application to colour photography, and exhibited an 

 apparatus which showed photographs of objects in their natural 

 colours by the aid of gratings, and without the use of pigments 

 or dyes.— A paper entitled " On the electrical resistance between 

 opposite sides of a quadrilateral, onfi diameter of which bisects 

 the other at right angles," was read by Dr. Charles H. Lees. 



New South Wales. 



Royal Society, July 5.— Mr. W. M. Hamlet, President, in 

 the chair. — Suggestions for depicting diagrammatically the cha- 

 racter of seasons as regards rainfall, and especially that of drought, 

 by H. Deane. The author called attention to the inadequacy 

 of the ordinary methods of judging of the dryness or otherwise 

 of seasons by using the totals of the rainfall and comparing 

 them with the average. He explained that the proper way of 

 exhibiting the character of any period is by showing diagram- 

 matically the progressive dryness that takes place in the soil 

 after rainfall ceases. This is marked by a descending line, and 

 being from time to time more or less compensated for by falls 

 of rain, these are indicated by rises. The only useful rain to 

 the soil itself is what soaks in and tends to saturate it ; all 

 beyond this, although it may be useful for conservation and 

 for keeping up the flow of rivers, is waste so far as the particular 

 ground on which the rain has fallen is concerned. The dia- 

 grams exhibited show the effect of this " loss and compensation " 

 system, and the dryness of the years and parts of years given in 

 the series 1883 to 1898, inclusive, are rendered visible and 

 measurable. — The initiation ceremonies of the aborigines of 

 Port Stephens, New South Wales, by W. J, Enright. 



August 2.— Mr. W. M. Hamlet, President, in the chair.— 

 On the crystalline camphor of eucalyptus oil (eudesmol) and 

 the natural formation of eucalyptol, by Mr. Henry G. Smith. In 

 August 1897, the author, with Mr. R. T. Baker, announced the 

 discovery of a crystalline camphor or stearoptene in eucalyptus 

 oil. This substance was named eudesmol. The present paper 

 deals with the chemistry of this camphor and its relation to 

 eucalyptol. Eudesmol has been found in the oil of many 

 species of eucalyptus, and should be present at certain times of 



NO. 1567, VOL. 61] 



the year in all those eucalyptus oils that are eventually rich in 

 eucalyptol. Eudesmol has a formula C,oHjgO, is isomeric with 

 ordinary camphor, but has the oxygen atom combined in a 

 different manner. It does ^ot appear to be ketonic, and it 

 cannot be reduced by sodium in alcohol or by other methods. 

 It is optically inactive. It forms a dinitro-compound and a 

 dibromide, but does not form a nitrosochloride. It melts at 

 79-80° when perfectly pure, but has a tendency to form products 

 having a lower melting point. On oxidation with dilute nitric 

 acid, camphoronic acid is formed, but no camphoric acid. A 

 large amount of evidence is brought forward to show eudesmol 

 to be intermediate in the formation of eucalyptol, and that 

 eucalyptol is derived directly from the fraction containing 

 eudesmol if the oil be kept in the crude condition for some 

 time under ascertained conditions. Oxygen is necessary to this 

 alteration. It is shown that the oxygen atom enters the 

 eucalyptol molecule during the formation of eudesmol, and that 

 by the natural alteration of the high boiling fraction of oils 

 containing eudesmol (^. viacrorhyncha, for instance) eucalyptol 

 is formed. The synthesis by Perkin and Thorpe (Journ. Chem. 

 Soc, 1897, 1 169) shows camphoronic acid to be trimethyl 

 tricarballylic acid, as was first suggested by Bredt, and as 

 eucalyptol is derived from eudesmol, and eudesmol forms 

 camphoronic acid, the question is raised whether Briihl's 

 formula for eucalyptol is correct. It is suggested that the oxygen 

 atom in eudesmol is quadrivalent, and that the peculiarity of 

 eucalyptol may be thus accounted for. From the formula 

 suggested for eudesmol camphoronic acid, as trimethyl tri- 

 carballylic acid, can be constructed. — Observations on the de- 

 termination of the intensity of drought, by Mr. G. H. Knibbs. 

 The paper was really a continuation of the subject of Mr. H. 

 Deane's paper, read at a previous meeting. It was shown 

 that if the degree of saturation of ground was taken as the 

 reciprocal of the measure of drought intensity, as suggested by 

 Mr. Deane, then, theoretically, it was determinable. The essen- 

 tial features of Mr. Deane's solution and of the nature of the 

 problem were discussed. — Divisions of some aboriginal tribes, 

 Queensland, by Mr. R. H. Matthews. A short paper dealing 

 with the social organisation of some native tribes of Queensland. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 30. — M. van Tieghem in 

 the chair. — Remarks on the volume, " Connaissance des Temps 

 pour I'annee 1902," by M. Poincare. This work contains an 

 important improvement as the result of a conference of directors 

 of observatories in England, Germany, America and France. 

 This year the work contains the mean positions of all the stars 

 in Prof. Newcomb's catalogue, the apparent positions of which 

 do not already appear in one of the four official publications. — 

 On the intervention of plants in the formation of calcareous 

 tufa, by M. de Lapparent. The author points out that the 

 results published by M. Stanislas Meunier in the last number of 

 the Comptes reiidtis, concerning the function of mosses and 

 microscopic algfe in the formation of calcareous tufa, were dis- 

 covered as far back as 1862 by M. Cohn. — On the Giacobini 

 comet, by M. Perrotin. The elements of the comet have been 

 calculated by M. Giacobini, from the observations made in 

 various observatories. The form of the orbit is at present 

 sensibly parabolic. At the time of its discovery the nebula 

 surrounding the nucleus amounted to i "5 minutes of arc ; at 

 the present time this is reduced to fo minute. The 

 nucleus appears to have increased in lustre, being now of 

 about the eleventh magnitude. — Remarks by M. Fouqu6 

 on the alterations introduced by M. de Lapparent in the 

 new edition of his "Treatise on Geology. "—On the hyperabeiian 

 functions, by M. Georges Humbert.— On congruences of 

 normals, by M. E. Goursat.— On the propagation of electric 

 oscillations in dielectric media, by M. Albert Turpain. 

 The author quotes the expressions of Maxwell and of Helmholtz 

 and Duhem for the relations existing between the velocity of 

 light, the velocities of propagation of the Hertzian waves in 

 different media, and the dielectric constants of those media, and 

 shows that the experiments of Arons and Rubens, Cohn and 

 Zeeman, and of Blondlot do not clearly distinguish between the 

 Maxwell and Helmholtz-Duhem hypotheses. The author 

 describes an experiment which he believes to be free from 

 ambiguity, the results of which are in accord with the views 

 of Helmholtz and Duhem.— Transmission of Hertzian waves 

 through liquids, by M. :^douard Branly. The receiver was 

 placed in the centre of a large glass vessel containing the liquid 



