534 
NATURE 
[AuGUST 6, I9I4 
LETTERS .TO THE: EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications. | 
The Hzmoproteus of the Indian Pigeon. 
In the course of a letter, which was brought by the 
last Indian mail, my friend, Colonel J. R. Adie, im- 
parts the very interesting information that Mrs. Adie, 
working at Kasauli, has recently obtained very strong 
presumptive evidence that the przter-vertebrate life- 
history of the Hzmoproteus of the Indian pigeon 
agrees with that discovered by Ross for the Proteo- 
soma of the Indian sparrow and for the malaria 
parasite, the intermediary in the case of the Hzmo- 
proteus being a species of Hippoboscid fly of the 
genus Lynchia. 
Mrs. Adie obtained from Amballa some pigeons 
which were heavily infected with the blood-parasite 
and abundantly infested with the fly. In sixteen or 
seventeen individuals of the fly (Lynchia), out of 
twenty-six examined, she found either zygotes, or 
cysts, or sporozoites—the last swarming’ in _ the 
salivary-glands, and in some cases coursing down the 
salivary-ducts. In one case a cyst in the wall of the 
gut was observed to burst and liberate hundreds of 
sporozoites. 
Mrs. Adie’s observations will be published as soon 
as the exact experiments which were in progress at 
the time Colonel Adie wrote are concluded; but her 
observations are in several ways so interesting that I 
think they ought to be made known at once. 
A. ALCOcK. 
Belvedere, Kent, July 28. 
Radio-activity and Atomic Numbers. 
MR. VAN DEN BRoEk’s letter in NaTurE of July y 
shows the importance of the charge upon the nucleus 
in radio-active phenomena. The cause of this may 
possibly be sought in considerations similar to the 
following. 
If one assumes that an atom breaks up when all 
the nuclear charges are in a given relative position 
and that they are in rotation with an average fre- 
quency v=E/h, where E is their energy and h the 
element of action of the quantum theory, then each 
particle will pass through the critical position v times 
per second. The probability that M particles should 
be in the unstable region simultaneously is (kv)M, or 
if only relative position is involved (kv)M-1, where k 
of course defines the size of the critical region. 
One would therefore expect a relation between the 
average life of an atom and the energy of its particles 
of the form 
A= (by)M-1—= (SE, 
h 
where A is the radio-active constant. According to 
Geiger the range in air is given by the formula 
wv rae 
a SO) (oe) 
1,24°1077 4505 
Introducing this value one finds 
x = (2,77'1018%) KM -1) RM -1) 
or 
log A=3(M —1) (log £+18,44)+3(M_ 1) log R. 
Putting M=8s, which would be the average value 
for radio-active substance, one finds the approximate 
formula logA=56(log k+18, 44)+56 log R. Geiger 
NO. 2336, VOL. 93] 
found empirically log A= —36,7+53,3 log R. Accord- 
ing to this k would be about 10-', i.e. of about the 
order 1/v. In any case the close agreement between 
the theoretical and observed values of the coefficients 
of log R would seem to show that the original hypo- 
thesis is correct in its main outlines, i.e. that integra- 
tion occurs upon the fortuitous coincidence of n events. 
the probability of which is proportional to E=hv, and 
that n is of the order of the atomic number M. One 
cannot say as yet though whether the n particles, the 
relative positions of which determine the stability are 
the positive particles or the electrons. 
Mr. van den Broek’s formula 
(Arn)? M-—8e 
See ASD 
ARarA : 
would reduce to 
yg M-=82 2 M-82 
ES ene or PLL Joa 
Era : JING VRa-VAc 
The simplest interpretation of this would be that the 
atoms of corresponding elements of the different series 
are geometrically similar and differ only in their linear 
dimensions. A change of the attractive force with the 
nuclear charge is obviously probable, and Mr. van den 
Broek’s formula will certainly be of the first import- 
ance when we attempt to determine the function 
representing the nuclear forces in terms of the charge 
and perhaps also of the distance. 
F. A. LINDEMANN. 
Berlin, July 26. 
Circulatory Movements in Liquids. 
From a manuscript by Christiaan Huygens, con- 
taining the description of his microscopical observa- 
tions in the year 1678, I quote the following pas- 
sages :— 
‘“s Sept. Et ayant mis de petites goutes rondes de 
cette urine sur le talc’? (we read at another place: 
‘““ayant pris de cette eau et mis dans le microscope 
entre le verre et le talc”’), ““Je remarquay avee le 
microscope que ces ceufs, et sans doute la liqueur 
mesme avec eux, 
avoient un mouve- be 
ment continuel par e* ave. ee 
lequel ils montoient Re 
dans le milieu AB ral mea 
de la goute et puis ool cote ican ene 
D cee Gar, J aan. ~ 
descendoient par les . ; pau 
deux costes CD, et Cale alee my ' 
montoient ensuite ! 
encore par AB, et 
ainsi toujours, car [: me 9” ns seh 
eLsulvois ces a aa es : 
Bidres, et vis que er . = y A Pct D 
c’estoient les mes- a ‘ 
mes qui montoient 
et descendoient. 
“Cette  continua- 
tion de mouvement est estrange et ressemble a celle 
de la matiere qui passe a travers l’aimant’’ (accord- 
ing to Huygens’s theory of magnetism, which will 
be published in one of the volumes of his ‘t £uvres 
Completes”’). ‘‘ Je mis par 3 fois des gouttes nouvelles 
et vis toujours la mesme chose. Les jours suivants ce 
mouvement n’estoit pas si manifeste. 
‘“‘g Sept. Dans du jus de resins blancs, et noirs, mis 
en expérience le jour d’auparavant, rien de vivant, 
mais bien de parties grasses et heterogenes, par les- 
quelles je remarquay le mouvement dans ce jus que 
j’avois vu dans l’urine le 5 Sept. 
‘to Sept. Jus de resins rien de vivant. Le mesme 
| mouvement y estoit. 
i 
