December 18, 1902 ( 



NA TURE 



16; 



tuber, in the midst of which are generally present the minute 

 sclerotia, o'l mm. in diameter, just recognisable, in washed 

 tubers, with the naked eye. In mild attacks, the fungus simply 

 makes the tuber unsightly ; in more severe cases, it strips off 

 layer after layer of the protecting skin of the tuber, and may 

 ultimately penetrate through the skin into the flesh of the tuber, 

 killing the protoplasm, sending the mycelial hyphre between 

 and through the cells, and boring into the starch grains. Both 

 in appearance and action, Phellomyces is readily distinguishable 

 from Rhizoctonia, an extremely common cause of scab and rot 

 in potatoes. Phellomyces can pass from seed tubers to the 

 resulting crop, and is communicable from infected ground to 

 healthy tubers grown in it. The author found soaking the 

 diseased tubers in O'S per cent, solution of formalin for ih 

 hours destroyed the fungus, untreated diseased tubers giving, 

 under otherwise similar conditions, a diseased crop. Three 

 varieties imported from France, planted in Connemara, gave 

 crops showing Sclerotinia sclerotioriim and Phellomyces 

 sclerotiopkorus, both unknown in France on the potato up to 

 the present time. Frank first saw the fungus, in various parts 

 of Germany, in 1894, and again in succeeding years. The 

 author said he had nothing to add to the account given by 

 Frank of its very imperfectly known life-history. — Mr. Leonard 

 Murphy read a paper on a new method of determining the 

 amount of liquid in distant and inaccessible tanks, &c. — Mr. 

 G. H. Carpenter exhibited lantern slides of insects (Collembola) 

 taken in Mitchelstown and Dunmore caves in the south of 

 Ireland, pointing out that while some of the species seemed to 

 be confined to such localities and to represent special modifica- 

 tions for life in caves, others were identical with insects found 

 in the upper world with a discontinuous range, and must be 

 regarded as the survivors of very old races. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, November 3. — The Hon. Lord M'Laren, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — The chairman in his opening 

 remarks made special reference to the publication of the Ben 

 Nevis observations, the first volume of which had just been 

 issued. Half the expense of these publications, which would 

 fill three volume? of the Transactions, was being borne by the 

 Royal Society of London. Another matter of special interest 

 was the systematic bathymetrical survey of the Scottish lakes 

 'which had been organised by Sir John Murray and Mr. Laurence 

 Pullar. During the seven months beginning March last, they 

 had surveyed 153. lochs and taken nearly 24,030 soundings. 

 The greatest depth observed was in Loch Morar, 1009 feet, 

 which exceeds by several hundred feet the depth recorded in 

 any other lake in the British Islands. In addition to the 

 routine work of taking soundings and determining heights, 

 observations of temperature and of "seiches "and collections 

 of plankton and bottom deposits were made by the s'aff. 

 The results were now being prepared for publication in Edin- 

 burgh, and preliminary papers dealing with the work would 

 from time to time be laid before the Society. — Sir William 

 Turner communicated a paper entitled " Contributions to the 

 Craniology of the People of Scotland." The material had been 

 collecting for many years in his hand, and in this first paper he 

 gave the detailed results of the measurement of nearly 20 ) skulls 

 obtained from all parts of Scotland. Of these, 28 percent, were 

 dolichocephalic, 20 per cent, brachycephalic, and 52 per cent, 

 belonged to the intermediate group. As regards their distribu- 

 tion, the brachycephalic type was characteristic of Fife, the 

 Lothians, the eastern counties between the Tay and the Moray 

 Firth, and Shetland ; whilst the dolichocephalic type was most 

 prevalent in Renfrewshire, Wigtonshire, Caithness and the 

 Highlands. A very marked percentage of the brachycephalic 

 skulls had distinct frontal sutures, a very unusual feature in 

 adult skulls. This indicated growth in breadth during adult 

 life. The skulls were capacious and somewhat above the 

 average for western Europe. As regards the facial characters, 

 the orbits were wide and circular and the noses long and 

 narrow. The discussion of the ethnographical bearing of the 

 facts was reserved for a second paper. — In a paper on the 

 electrical conductivities and relative densities of certain samples 

 of sea-water, Mr. J. J. Manley described some novelties of 

 method in the accurate measurement of these quantities. The 

 results were negative, there being no discoverable relation 

 between the conductivities and densities. — Two papers by Dr. 



NO. 1729, VOL. 67] 



Thomas Muir on generating functions of certain determinants 

 were also presented. 



November 17. — The Rev. Prof. Duns in the chair. — Dr. 

 W. G. Aitchison Robertson read a paper on the local distribu- 

 tion of cancer in Scotland. In.collecting his material, he had 

 visiied many of the larger institutions and infirmaries throughout 

 Scotland, and from careful inspection of the registers had, as 

 far as possible, allocated the various cases to their proper counties. 

 In this respect, he believed that his statistics were more accurate 

 than those derived directly from the reports of the Registrar- 

 General, for it was quite evident that many of the cases re- 

 corded as having occurred in the larger towns really belonged 

 to neighbouring or even remote country districts. His cor- 

 rections made important changes in the chart of distribution. 

 Thus, when corrected for the presence of strangers, the cancer 

 mortality for the city of Edinburgh fell from 5-15 per cent, 

 (as it appeared to be from the Registrar-General's returns) to 

 413 per cent., which is practically the normal for the whole 

 of Scotland. On the other hand, by the same correction the 

 cancer mortality for the county of Edinburgh increased to nearly 

 5 per cent. On the whole, the mainland rural districts and 

 smaller towns had a higher cancer mortality than the large 

 towns and cities. In the county of Nairn, the mortality was 

 973 per cent. In the outer Hebrides, the mortality was dis- 

 tinctly below the normal for Scotland. The statistics showed 

 many curious features, and it was utterly impossible to connect 

 the distribution with climatic or geologic conditions, or with 

 race or food supply. That the towns were healthier than the 

 rural districts seemed to dispose of several of the ordinary 

 theories as to the undoubted increase of the disease within the 

 last half-century. This could be regarded as only a first effort 

 to get at information regarding local distribution of cancer, 

 and Dr. Robertson urged upon the medical profession in Scot- 

 land the importance of a combined investigation of the causal 

 relations of this dread disease. — Mr. J. Ross communicated 

 a short note on the trisection of an angle, and a paper by Dr. 

 Thomas Muir on pure periodic continued fractions was also read. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, December 8. — M. Bouquet de la 

 Grye in the chair. — The president announced to the Academy 

 ihe death of two members, M. Deherain, member of the section 

 of Rural Economy, and M. Hautefeuille, member of the section 

 of Mineralogy. — On the transformation of the diamond into 

 black carbon during its oxidation, and on the isomeric changes 

 of simple bodies during decompositions and combinations, by 

 M. Berthelot. Some remarks on work recently published by 

 M. Moissan. — On the irreducibility of the equation y" = 6> a + x, 

 by M. Paul Painleve. — On the quantity of free hydrogen in the 

 air and the density of atmospheric nitrogen, by M. Armand 

 Gautier. Four years ago, the author published work proving 

 the existence of free hydrogen and methane in the air, and 

 estimated their quantity. The proportion of hydrogen then 

 found has been questioned by Lord Rayleigh, and M. A. Leduc 

 has recently adduced other evidence in confirmation of Lord 

 Rayleigh's objections. It is shown that the exact concordance 

 between the percentage of oxygen by weight found by M. Leduc 

 and the value calculated from the densities of the gases is acci- 

 dental, and that the results are quite consistent with the presence 

 of the amounts of hydrogen and methane found by the author. 

 — On the development ot the Peripatidae of South Africa, by 

 M. L. Bouvier. — On some H^emogregarians of Ophidians, by 

 M. A. Laveran. — The internal action of copper sulphate in the 

 resistance of the potato to Phytophthora infeslans, by M. 

 Kmile Laurent. The experiments described led to the conclusion 

 that potato tubers should be immunised against this fungus by 

 dipping them for a certain time in a solution of copper sulphate, 

 but on actual trial it was found that potatoes so treated and then 

 purposely infected with the Phytophthora were attacked as 

 vigorously by the parasite as the untreated tubers. — Observations 

 of the new comet Giacobini (d 1902), made at the Ob- 

 servatory of Paris, by MM. G. Bigourdan, G. Fayet 

 and P. Salst. On December 6, the comet was a nebulosity of 

 magnitude I3'2, diffuse, vaguely rounded and of 30" diameter. — 

 Provisional elements of the Giacobini comet, by M. G. Fayet. — 

 On the properties of the plane from the point of view of the 

 Analysis situs, by M. Combebiac. — On a summatory form in 

 the theory of functions of two variables, by M. Martin Krause. — 



