February i, 1900] 



NATURE 



335 



Chemical Society, January i8.— Prof. Thorpe, President, 

 in the chair. — The following papers were read : — Note on 

 nitrogen halogen compounds, by J. Stieglitz and E. E. Slosson. 

 — On the electrolysis of the nitrogen hydrides and of hydroxyl- 

 amine, by E. C. Szarvasy. The author has made series of 

 experiments on the electrolysis of solutions of ammonia, hydr- 

 azine, azoimide, hydroxylamine, and of their salts ; attempts to 

 prepare polymeric nitrogen by electrolysing solutions of azo- 

 imide and its salts at high current densities are still in progress. — 

 On the relationship between the constitution of some substances 

 and the fluorescence which they exhibit, by J. T. Hewitt. — 

 Action of fuming nitric acid on a dibromocamphor, by A. Lap- 

 worth and E. M. Chapman. The oxidation of o-dibromo- 

 camphor yields camphoronic and homocamphoronic acids, 

 nitrobromocamphor, dibromocampholidid, a substance of the 

 composition CioHi^NoOg and a lactone which yields a crystalline 

 acid, C10H1QO4, on hydrolysis with potash.— Note on Vol- 

 hard's method for the assay of silver bullion, by T. K. Rose. 

 The precautions to be observed in using Volhard's method are 

 described, and the limit of accuracy is put at o'l per looo. — 

 1 -Substituted hydroxytriazoles,.by G. Young and E. Witham. 

 Ihe authors have prepared a number of hydroxytriazoles, using 

 the reactions represented by the foilowing equations : — 

 .N.NH. 



CHR: N.NH.CO.NH., + = CR^ \c.OH + H.,0 



\ N^ 



and 



/NH.N. 



R.CHO + NH„.CO.N:N.CO.NH2 = CR< >COH 



^N / 



-I-NH3 + CO,. 

 — Note on the use of a mixture of dry silver oxide and alkyl 

 halides as an alkylating agent, by G. D. Lander. Alkylic 

 derivatives of menthol, benzoin, benzamide and ethylic aceto- 

 acetate are obtained by the action of dry silver oxide and alkyl 

 iodides. 



Entomological Society, January 17.— Annual meeting.— 

 Mr. G. H. V'errall, President, in the chair. — It was announced 

 that the following had been elected as officers and council for 

 1900-1901 : President, Mr. G. H. Verrall ; treasurer, Mr. R. 

 ^IcLachlan, F.R.S. ; secretary, Mr. C. J. Gahan ; librarian, 

 Mr. G. C. Champion ; and as other members of the council : 

 Mr. C. G. Barrett, Dr. T. A. Chapman, Messrs. W. L. Distant, 

 11. St. J. K. Donisthorpe, F. D. Godman, D.C.L., F.R.S., 

 \. H. Jones, R. W. Lloyd, the Hon. Walter Rothschild, and 

 Messrs. E. Saunders and C. O. Waterhouse. The election to 

 till a vacancy on the council aad one in the office of secretary, 

 caused by the resignation of Mr. J. J. Walker, R.N., was ad- 

 journed to March 7. — The President delivered an address in 

 which he reviewed the advantages and disadvantages under 

 which entomologists and other men of science now labour as 

 compared with the conditions existing at the beginning of the 

 century. He called attention to certain abuses prevalent, 

 instancing, among others, the ,hasty and ill-digested nature of 

 much of the work now published, the result, as he believed, of 

 the facilities that are given for publication. Having referred 

 also to the vast increase in the number and variety of the 

 publications which a student must consult in order to be fully 

 acquainted with the work being done in his special branch of 

 study, Mr. Verrall proceeded to suggest that there should be 

 an international agreement for the purpose not only of restricting 

 the number of the publications to be recognised, but of exer- 

 cising some control over their contents, in order that worthless 

 papers might be excluded. In conclusion, he briefly summarised 

 the reforms which he considered most essential to be effected at 

 the beginning of the new century. 



Zoological Society, January 23 —Dr. Albert GUnther, 

 F.R..S., Vice-President, in the chair. — Mr. Sclater exhibited a 

 photograph of a young example of the Rocky Mountain goat 

 \Haploceros montanus). It was stated that the animal had been 

 captured near Field, British Columbia, in June last, and had 

 lived in captivity ever since. Mr. Sclater also exhibited a col- 

 lection of birds formed by Mr. Alfred Sharpe, C.B., during an 

 excursion to Fort Jameson in Northern Rhodesia. The col- 

 lection consisted of 135 specimens, which had been referred to 

 66 species.— Mr. A. Smith Woodward gave an account of a 

 series of remains of Grypotheritiin and associated mammals 

 from a cavern near List Hope Inlet, Patagonia, exhibited by 

 Dr. F. P. Moreno. The specimens had been collected for the 



La Plata Museum by Dr. R. Hauthal, and had already been 

 described in a memoir by Drs. Hauthal, Santiago Roth, and 

 Lehmann-Nitsche. Mr. Woodwa^rd recorded some additional 

 observations. He confirmed the reference of the so-called 

 Neotnylodon to Grypotheriuin, and agreed with the previous 

 authors that the fragments of bones and skin had been left in 

 their present state by man. The associated mammalian remains 

 were in the same condition of preservation, and were referable 

 to ArctotkeriuiH, a large species of Felis, Onohippidium, and a 

 large rodent, all of the extinct Pampean fauna. Remains of 

 existing mammals were also found in the same cave, but appa- 

 rently in another stratum. — Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., com- 

 municated a report, drawn up by various specialists, on the 

 Insectsand Arachnids collected in 1895 ^"^ 1897 by Mr, C. V. A. 

 Peel in Somaliland. It contained annotated lists of the speci- 

 mens contained in the collection and descriptions of .several new 

 species. — Mr. W. E. de Winton read a paper on an interesting 

 collection of mammals made by Lord Lovat in Southern 

 Abyssinia while accompanying Mr. Weld-Blundell's expedition 

 from Berbera to Khartoum in the beginning of last year. 

 Several -of the antelopes were cf particular interest : the 

 "Beira" {Dorcotragiis megalotis), hitherto only known from a 

 few isolated hills in Somaliland, was found to be very plentiful 

 on the banks of the Blue Nile above Roseires, 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, January 22. — M. Maurice Levy in 

 the chair. — M. Grandidier announced to the Academy the loss 

 it had sustained by the death of M. Alexis de Tillo, corre- 

 spondant for the section of geography and navigation. — Pre- 

 sentation of the first publications of the Observatories of Potsdam 

 and Paris relating to the photographic chart of the .sky, by M. 

 Loewy. Two sets of negatives have been taken, one with a 

 long exposure, sufficient to take in stars of the 14th magnitude ; 

 the other with shorter exposure, so as to exclude stars of a 

 higher magnitude than the nth.— M, Zeuthen was elected a 

 correspondant for the section of geometry in the place of the 

 late M. Sophus Lie ; and M. Peron, a correspondant for the 

 section of mineralogy, ia the place of the late M, Matheron. — 

 Note on the works of Lavoisier, by M. de Vincenzi. A repro- 

 duction of a letter of Lavoisier, not previously published, dated 

 January 6, 179.3. 'o Mr. Robert Kerr, the English translator 

 of his Traiti iUmentaire de Chimie. — Observations on the 

 subject of the preceding note, by M. Berthelot. No 

 trace can be found in the archives of the Academy 

 of the new and enlarged edition of the Trait c dementaire referred 

 to by Lavoisier in the above letter as being in preparation. — 

 On isothermal surfaces, by M. C. Guichard.— On the degree 

 of generality of any differential system whatever, by M. 

 Riquier. — On the measurement of capacity in a heterogeneous 

 medium, by M. A. A. Petrovsky. An analysis of the method 

 suggested by Borgmann and Petrovsky, in which alternating 

 currents are used. It is shown that a complete compensation can 

 only be obtained in the cases where the compensated system is 

 either a conductor or an in.sulator. In general, the magnitude of 

 the capacity as measured will be a function of the number of 

 oscillations of the alternating current. — On the liquefaction of 

 gaseous mixtures, by M. F. Caubet. A pressure-temperature 

 diagram is given showing the results of experiments on ten 

 mixtures of carbon dioxide and methyl chloride. The 

 results complete those already published by Prof. Kuenen. 

 — On a phenomenon arising from the use of triphase 

 currents in radiography, by M. Delezinier. The 

 author shows that by the use of the method suggested 

 by him in a previous paper, using triphase currents, the 

 Crookes' tubes will work equally well when the anode of the 

 tube is connected to either pole of the induction coil. The 

 destructive effects upon the bulbs of a changing over of polarity, 

 which occur with direct currents, are avoided if triphase currents 

 are employed. — Transformation of the photographic image of 

 a negative into a lamellar state, and colour phenomena derived 

 from this, by M. A. Frillat. A -negative is carefully cleaned 

 and dried and then exposed to the vapours of nitric acid, which 

 dissolves the precipitated silver, and causes the disappearance of 

 the image. The plate is now placed in an atmosphere of moist 

 sulphuretted hydrogen, when the silver is reprecipitated in a 

 lamellar condition, and the image which reappears is vividly 

 coloured. There is, however, no relation between the true 

 colours of the objects and the colours so produced, although 

 by varying the time of exposure to the sulphuretted 

 hydrogen some control is obtainable over the colours. — On 



NC. 1579, VOL. 61] 



