February i6, 1905] 



NA TURE 



381 



forests of ash only occurred on extremely ricfi soil in some 

 districts in Russia. With regard to botanical collecting, 

 three stages had occurred. At an early period plants were 

 collected to be merelv named and classified ; in fact, they 

 were treated like postage stamps. The second period 

 began with Sir Joseph Hooker, wlio inaugurated the study 

 of the geographical distribution of plants. The third 

 period, that of the present day, was a step forward, in 

 that attention should be paid to the plants themselves as 

 social organisms, living in harmony and yet in competition 

 together ; and Ilr. Henry urged that the time had come 

 when the hunt for new species should cease to be the 

 sole aim of the collector, and the study of the known 

 species be taken in hand in their living conditions. He 

 advocated map-making of small areas, census-taking, 

 measurements, records of natural seedlings, soil, shade, 

 &c., and to illustrate this plan showed a series of slides 

 taken in France, the idea of which was to explain how the 

 commoner species of trees behaved at different altitudes 

 and on different soils. — Cranial osteology of the fishes 

 of the families Osteoglossidre, Pantodontid^, and 

 Phractolsemidaj : Dr. W. G. Ridewood. This paper is 

 a fourth instalment of the results of an extensive investi- 

 gation upon the skull of the lower teleostean fishes begun 

 in 1896. I!)escriptions are given of the skulls of Osteo- 

 glossum, Hetcrotis, Arapaima, Pantodon, and Phracto- 

 Ijemus ; and in a summary Dr. Ridewood points out that 

 the evidence of the sl<ull goes to show that the three 

 genera Osteoglossum, Heterotis, and Arapaima, first 

 brought together into the family Osteoglossida; by Dr. 

 Giinther, constitute a perfectly natural group ; that the 

 Pantodontida; are more closely related to the Osteoglossida" 

 than to any other family of fishes, as has been suspected 

 since the first discovery of the genus Pantodon in 1876 ; 

 and that the Phractol;emid<-E do not in their cranial oste- 

 ology offer anv evidence of close alliance with either of 

 these families. 



February 2. — Prof. W. A. Herdman, F.R.S., president, 

 in the chair. — Descriptions of some new species and notes 

 on other Chinese plants : W. J. Tutcher. The species 

 in question had been found on the island of Hong Kong, 

 with one from Kowloon and one from Wei-hai-wei. 

 Bentham's " Flora Hongkongensis " in 1861 enumerated 

 1053 species from the island, 159 of which had not at that 

 time been found elsewhere, but at the present time only 

 about 50 of these remain peculiar to the island. The flora 

 as now known amounts to about 1400 species, of which 

 100 are regarded as endemic, though probably many will 

 be found natives of the mainland Ferns amount to 100 ; 

 grasses about as many ; LeguminossE nearly as many ; 

 between 70 and So Cyperaceae ; Compositae more than 60, and 

 orchids 60. Ouercus Eyrei, first found by Capt. Champion, was 

 not collected by any recent collector until the author re-found 

 it in quantity ; even Hance had declared that Champion 

 must have been mistaken in his locality. The luxuriance 

 usually associated with tropical vegetation is here wanting, 

 due to the poverty of the soil, which is almost exclusively 

 disintegrated granite. The new territory leased to Great 

 Britain in 1898 has an area of about 300 square miles, 

 that is, ten times the area of Hong Kong. Lantao is an 

 island resembling Hong Kong, but its highest peak is 

 3050 feet, with many well-wooded ravines, and when ex- 

 plored will doubtless prove rich in plants. — Revision of the 

 European marine forms of the Cirolanina;, a subfamily of 

 Crustacea Isopoda : Dr. H. J. Hansen. Three new species 

 are described — Cirolana gallica, C. Schmidtii, and Eurydtce 

 afjinis. Comparative tables of the genera and species are 

 supplied, distinguishing eight European species of Cirolana, 

 one of Conilera, and six of Eurydice. 



Challenger Society. January 25. — Sir J hn Murray in 

 the chair. — Mr. E. W. L. Holt exhibited and made remarks 

 on some rare and interesting deep-water fish and Crustacea 

 from West Ireland. — Dr. R. N. Wolfenden exhibited and 

 made remarks upon some Copepoda from the Gauss (Ger- 

 man .Antarctic) expedition ; their large size, up to lomm., 

 was remarkable, as also the fact that, of the 42 species 

 from the Gauss and Bclgica, five were common to the 

 subpolar seas and continuous by way of the mesoplankton. — 



NO. 1842, VOL 71] 



.Sir John Murray spoke on the relation of oceanography 

 to other sciences. He pointed out that recent expeditions 

 had made only inconsiderable alterations in the contour 

 lines of the sea-bottom published in the Challenger reports, 

 and was of the opinion that no great changes were likely 

 to be made by the soundings of future expeditions. He 

 expressed his belief that the great ocean basins had been 

 practically unaltered through geological time, but that the 

 continents, including a zone of not more than 200 miles 

 seaward of their present outline, had frequently altered, their 

 levels, supporting this belief by the fact that all known 

 sedimentary rocks are of " terrigenous " character, to the 

 exclusion of deep-sea materials. The meteorology of mid- 

 ocean, where the diurnal temperature range of the water 

 is about 2° F., was contrasted with the meteorology over 

 land-masses, where absorption and radiation are high, and 

 the diurnal atmospheric range may amount to 80° F. .-Xs 

 an example of the far-reaching effects of temperature. Sir 

 John Murray cited the range of annual variation where 

 hot and cold currents are at war, amounting in some cases 

 to 40° F. ; in such regions the animal death-rate is very 

 high, and the dead organisms decomposing on the bottom 

 start the formation of glauconite, a well-known constituent 

 of sedimentary rocks. .'\s another result of temperature, it 

 has been estimated that a tropical Copepod lives twenty- 

 four times as fast as an Arctic Copepod in the same period 

 of time ; this may explain the predominance of specimens 

 and paucity of species in the Arctic as compared with the 

 Tropical fauna. In connection with chemistry, he pointed 

 out the gradual transference of lime from the poles to the 

 tropics bv organic agency ; and, in connection with 

 physiology, the possible relation between the serous and 

 similar fluids of existing organisms, and the constitution 

 of the primteval sea in which life first began on our earth. 



Faraday Society, January 30. — Prof. A. K. Huntington 

 in the chair. — Mass analysis of Muntz's metal by elec- 

 trolysis, and some notes on the electrolytic properties of 

 this alloy : J. G. A. Rhodin. The first portion of the paper 

 describes an apparatus which was specially designed by 

 the author for the purpose of the accurate and rapid 

 determination of the copper content (which should lie 

 between 605 and 615 per cent.) of Muntz's metal. The 

 author also discusses the electrochemical properties of 

 Muntz's metal. The metal is largely used as a sheathing 

 to protect ships' bottoms from certain mollusca and alga-, 

 and to be successful it should dissolve in sea-water iust to 

 a sufficient extent as to render the surface poisonous, the 

 best conditions being the equal dissolution of the topper 

 and zinc. The author shows how these may be calculated 

 .approximately by supposing that the electrolytic dissolution 

 rate is proportional to the heat of formation of the 

 ultimate compounds (zinc and cuprous chlorides), and to 

 the conductivities of the metals which dissolve. — The 

 equilibrium between sodium sulphate and magnesium 

 sulphate : R. B. Denison. Experiments conducted from the 

 standpoint of the phase rule are described, the object of 

 which was to determine whether the double salt of sodium 

 and magnesium sulphates, 2MgSO,.Na,SO,,, which has 

 been described as a naturally occurring mineral, is capable 

 of existence in contact witfi solution, that is, whether it 

 has been formed in nature by the evaporation of saline 

 waters. The corresponding potassium compound is known 

 to occur in Stassfurt as langbeinit, and it was thought 

 that a detailed investigation might result in the isolation 

 of the sodium langbeinit from solution. Dilatometer and 

 tensimeter experiments pointed fairly conclusively to the 

 assumption that the compound sodium-langbeinit cannot 

 exist in contact with solution, at least below 100° C, and 

 hence this substance, if found as a mineral, must be a 

 |)roduct of a higher temperature — Refractory materials for 

 furnace linings : E. K. Scott. 



Mineralogical Society, January 31. — Prof. H. A. Miers, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Danalite from Wheal 

 .Maudlin, Cornwall ; crystallographic characters of barium- 

 radium bromide : Prof. H. .-\. Miers. — Epidote from Inver- 

 ness-shire : H. H. Thomas. The crystallographic and 

 optical characters were described. .A chemical analysis made 

 by Dr. Pollard showed that the mineral contained a very low 



