January 12, 1905J 



NA TURE 



S65 



of one side were exhibited by Mr. Rheinberg, wlio 

 suggested to Mr. Conrady that the experiment should be 

 made to test the correctness of the theory. — Mr. J. W. 

 Cordon then gave a summary of his paper on the theory 

 of highly magnified images. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, December 5, 1904. — Dr. R. H. Traquair 

 in the chair. — The igneous geology of the Bath- 

 gate and Linlithgow Hills : J. D. Falconer. Five 

 successive zones of igneous rocks were described in detail, 

 and important conclusions drawn as to their geological age 

 and to the relations between the intrusive rocks and dykes 

 so characteristic of the region. The region has been very 

 recently re-survej'ed by the Geological Survey, and Dr. 

 Home, Dr. Peach, and others of the staff were able 10 

 corroborate many of Mr. Falconer's results, the value uf 

 which could not be over-estimated. A further paper was 

 promised dealing with the petrology of the district. — 

 E.xperiments on the simultaneous removal of spleen and 

 thymus : Drs. Noel Paton and Goodall. Already the 

 authors had found that the removal of either had no apparent 

 deleterious effect upon the life of the animal, and now they 

 proved that the removal of both in no way affected the 

 vitality. The experiments were made on guinea-pigs. — 

 Crystallographical notes : Dr. Hugh Marshalli F.R.S. 

 The author suggested (i) that the " axis of compound 

 symmetry of second order " should not be used in crystallo- 

 • graphical work, as it is not a definite direction in the crystal, 

 and that the " centre of symmetry '* should be used instead ; 

 (2) that in order to simplify the classification of crystals 

 for teaching purposes, the rhombohedral and scalenohedral 

 classes should be treated as members of the hexagonal and 

 not of the trigonal system. 



December 19, 1904. — Sir John Murray in the chair. — A 

 supplementary note on the Lower Devonian fishes of 

 Gemunden : Dr. Traquair. The author brought forward 

 further evidence in support of his original description, which 

 had been criticised by Prof. Bashford Dean. — A specimen of 

 salmon caught in the Galway River which appears to be 

 intermediate between the smolt and grilse stages : W. L. 

 Calder^ood. — Networks of the plane in absolute geo- 

 metry : D. M. V. Sommerville. Networks built up of 

 the various regular figures in the Euclidean plane were dis- 

 cussed at considerable length, and the investigation was 

 then extended to non-Euclidean planes. 



• Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, January 2. — M. Troost in the 

 chair. — The cooling power of a current of fluid on an 

 ellipsoid with unequal axes immersed in the current : 

 J. Boussinesq. — Interference fringes produced by a system 

 of two perpendicular mirrors : G. Uippmann. The system 

 of fringes formed, possessing a white central fringe, is 

 parallel to the intersection of the plane of the mirrors. The 

 experimental arrangement for the production of these 

 fringes, which is described in detail, is simpler than that 

 required for the Fresnel fringes. — On the alkaline micro- 

 granites of the Zinder territory : A. Lacroix. The rocks 

 are :egyrine and amphibole microgranites, and are 

 characterised chemically by their extreme poorness in lime 

 and magnesia, and by the quantity of alkali, the potash 

 being slightly in excess of the soda. — On limiting functions 

 and functional operations : Maurice Frechet. — On substitu- 

 tions with three variables and invariant curves by a contact 

 transformation : S. Lattes. — On invariant subgroups of 

 index f- : G. Miller. — On the deviation of freely falling 

 bodies : M. de Sparre. It is shown that the formulae 

 usually given for this deviation are based on incomplete 

 data, and a new expression is deduced. It is, however, 

 impossible to check the calculations by experiment, on 

 account of the smallness of the deviations, which would 

 amount at most to 01 mm. for a fall of 1000 metres. — On 

 a fundamental formula in the kinetic theory of gases : P. 

 Langevin. The formulfe given by Maxwell and Boltz- 

 mann for the diffusion of gases is re-investigated, and the 

 results applied to the diffusion of ionised gases. The author 

 arrives at the conclusion that the conductivity of flames is, 

 for the most part, due to the presence of free kathodic 

 particles arising from spontaneous corpuscular dissociation 

 NO. 1837, VOL. 71] 



in the flame, under the action of the high temperature.—' 

 The measurement of the conductivity of dielectrics by means 

 of ionised gases : Charles Nordmann. One of the faces 

 of the dielectric, the other of which is connected with earth, 

 is supplied with known quantities of electricity per unit 

 of time, and the variation of the potential of this face is 

 observed with an electrometer. The constant charge is pro- 

 duced by means of a radio-active substance placed between 

 the plates of an air condenser, and the stationary potential 

 is measured. Details of the measurements will be com- 

 municated in a later paper. — The influence of steam on the 

 reduction of the oxides of iron by carbon monoxide and 

 dioxide : O. Boudouard. With the view of throwing some 

 light on the results of employing dried air in the blast 

 furnace, the author has made experiments on the influence 

 of moisture on the reducing action of carbon monoxide, 

 either pure or mixed with the dio.xide, upon ferric oxide. 

 It has been found that the dry gases e.xert a more energetic 

 reducing action than the moist gases, but that this differ- 

 ence, which is considerable at low temperatures, becomes 

 negligible at high temperatures. — On the existence of a 

 normal- green chromic sulphate : Albert Coison. — The 

 separation of the three dimethylanthracenes obtained by the 

 action of methylene chloride upon toluene in the presence 

 of aluminium chloride : James Lavaux. Modifications of 

 the Friedel and Crafts method are described, by means of 

 which larger and more constant yields are obtained. These 

 modifications appear to be not only advantageous in this 

 particular case, but are applicable to any reaction carried 

 out in the presence of aluminium chloride. — Observations 

 of the Giacobini comet (d 1904) made at the Observatory of 

 Algiers with the 31-8 cm. equatorial : MM. Rambaud and 

 Sy. — On the crystalline rocks collected by the Sahara ex- 

 pedition : F. Foureau and L. Gentil. — The resistance of 

 water to the motion of vessels. Hulls of least resistance : 

 Vice-Admiral Fournier. — Hydrogen peroxide in the nascent 

 state and its bactericidal activity on organisms in water : 

 Ed. Bonjean. It is shown that whilst 0-291 gram of 

 hydrogen peroxide per litre was required to sterilise a litre 

 of Seine water in six hours when commercial hydrogen 

 peroxide was employed, under the same conditions, 0060 

 gram was sufficient to produce sterilisation in four hours 

 when the hydrogen peroxide was in the nascent state 

 from calcium peroxide. — Hyphoids and bacteroids : Paul 

 Vuillemin. Hyphoids and bacteroids are not purely para- 

 sitic formations, but are symbiotic products. — Research on 

 plant radio-activity : Paul Becquerel. No trace of radio- 

 activity of plant products could be observed if precautions 

 were taken to prevent the moisture transpired by the plant 

 from reaching the electrometer. The author therefore re- 

 gards the positive results announced by M. Tommasina as 

 being due to a neglect of this precaution. — On the accentu- 

 ation of the alpine characters of leaves in juniper galls : C. 

 Houard. — On the increase of weight of organic and mineral 

 substances in oats as a function of the age : Mile. 

 M. Stefanowska. — Respiratory measurements on marine 

 fishes : J. P. Bounhiol. By means of a specially devised 

 tank the author has been enabled to determine the carbon 

 dioxide per gram-hour, the oxygen per gram-hour, and the 

 ratio C0,/0, for several fishes. The effect of captivity in 

 diminishing the respiratory exchanges was well marked. 

 New South Wales. 

 Linnean Society, November 30, 1904. — Dr. T. Storie 

 Dixson, president, in the chair. — Contributions to the study 

 of Australian Foraminifera, part i. ; H. I. Jensen. This 

 paper, for the most part, is a compilation of the species 

 which have been identified in samples of sand or other 

 materials obtained from various sources. — Revision of 

 Australian Lepidoptera, part ii. : Dr. A. Jefferis Turner. 

 Some supplementary remarks on the family Notodontid^ 

 (revised in a previous paper) are offered, and the family 

 Syntomidse, comprising four genera with forty-four species 

 (of which eight are described as new), is reviewed. — A 

 yellow race of Bacillus psendarahinus from the quince : Dr. 

 R. Greig Smith. The organism is identical in its morpho- 

 logical and cultural characters with the white race previously 

 isolated from the sugar-cane. The gum obtained from the 

 slime was also identical in giving the reactions of arabin 

 and in yielding only galactose upon hydrolysis. While the 

 cultivations of the sugar-cane race were always white, those 



