April 27, 1905] 



NA TURE 



623 



Dublin. ■ 



Royal Dublin Society, March 21. — Sir Howard Grubb, 

 K.K.S., in the chair. — (a) The temperature of healthy dairy 

 cattle, (fc) the temperature of tuberculous cattle, not 

 clinically affected : Prof. G. H. Wooldridge. The author 

 made 520 observations on 03 healthy dairy cattle which 

 were subsequently submitted to the tuberculin test, and 

 failing to react were considered free from the disease. 

 His conclusions are that the temperature may vary between 

 ioo°4 F. and ioo°-8 P"., with an average mean temperature 

 of ioi°-4 F. Feeding caused an average rise of o°-3 F. 

 above the temperature of the same cattle at the same 

 time on other days, but not feeding. In the afternoon, 

 between 4 and 5 o'clock, the average temperature was 

 o°-5 higher than at S a.m. Pregnant cows had an average 

 temperature o°-3 F. higher than the average of the other 

 cattle in the same building. Tuberculous cattle numbering 

 74, apparently perfectly healthy, but subsequently reacting 

 to tuberculin, were the subjects of 505 observations. These 

 animals had a much wider range of variations. The 

 average was toi°.7 F. The lowest observed was ioo°-4 F. 

 and the highest i04°3 F". The widest range of an in- 

 dividual was from ioo°-7 F. to i04°-3 F., with an average 

 of io2°-2 F. (temperature taken 15 times). Out of 137 

 apparently healthy dairy cattle, 74 (54 per cent.) reacted to 

 tuberculin, thus emphasising the advisability of using that 

 agent in attempts to obtain a dairy free from tuberculosis. 

 — On the petrological examination of macadam : Prof. J. 

 Joly, F.R.S. Various specimens of macadam used on 

 Scottish roads have been examined. The general results 

 of the investigation are to elucidate the characteristics of 

 these macadams, as well as apparent abnormalities of 

 behaviour, and to demonstrate the value of petrological 

 methods in such cases. — On the construction of fume- 

 chambers with effective ventilation : Prof. W. N. Hartley, 

 F.R.S. The results of a series of experiments on ventil- 

 ation and of practical experience with fume-chambers have 

 shown the conditions which are necessary for the removal 

 of noxious fumes from a chemical laboratory with the 

 greatest efficiency and the least possible trouble and 

 expense. Measurements were made daily over a period of 

 six months of the gas burnt, the air extracted, the differ- 

 ence between inside and outside temperatures, the baro- 

 metric pressure, the direction of the wind and its strength. 

 The direction and dimensions of the flues, and the relation 

 of the passage of air up the flues to the cubic contents 

 of the chambers, are stated. The average quantity of air 

 exhausted per minute was 354 cubic feet per chamber of 

 51 cubic feet, and on an average the air of each chamber 

 is completely changed every nine seconds. The small 

 height of the flues, being 25 feet, renders such a means 

 of ventilation as that described readily adaptable to small 

 out-buildings, such as school laboratories. Details are 

 given as to the construction of flues with a descending 

 draught as fitted to a lecture table and fume-chamber in 

 a lecture room. — On the structure of water-jets and the 

 effect of sound upon them, part ii. : Philip E. Belas. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, February 20. — Sir John Murray in the 

 chair. — On the graptolite-bearing rocks of the South 

 Orkney Islands: Dr. J. Harvey Pirie. The presence of 

 Silurian sedimentary rocks in these isolated islands in- 

 dicates a former much greater extension of land in the 

 area lying to the south-east of Cape Horn. The fossils 

 Pleurograptus and Discinocaris indicate their age as corre- 

 sponding to the Caradoc or Lower Llandoverv, and the 

 structure of the rocks suggests that they belong to the 

 same series as the Silurian rocks of the Argentine. — 

 Paljeontology of the Upper Old Red Sandstone of the 

 Moray Firth area : Dr. R. H. Traquair. The fossils dis- 

 cussed in this paper, which embodied the research of the 

 past fourteen years, were almost entirely fish remains, 

 other remains, in the shape of badly preserved plants and 

 certain tracks, probably of invertebrate animals, being 

 rare. Twenty-one species of fish were recorded, of which 

 onlv seven were known from the Upper Old Red of this 

 region when the author took up the subject. The 

 character of the fish remains suggested the division of the 

 strata of the Moray Firth Upper Old Red into three 



NO. 1852, VOL. 71] 



zones, these being, in ascending order, the Nairn, Alves, 

 and Rosebrae beds. Reference was made to the affinity of 

 the Rosebrae fish-fauna with that of Dura Den, the yellow 

 sandstones of which locality constitute the highest member 

 of the Upper Old Red of Fifeshire. Dr. Traquair specially 

 desired to acknowledge his great indebtedness to Mr. W. 

 Taylor, of Lhanbryde, without whose assistance in furnish- 

 ing material the paper could not have been prepared. — The 

 constitution of complex salts, i., derivatives of the sesqui- 

 oxides : .\. T. Cameron, Retger's method of investi- 

 gating isomorphous mixtures was applied to the blue 

 chromoxalates of ammonium and potassium, and showed 

 that they had no definite composition, there being, there- 

 fore, no conclusive reason for doubling the formulas of 

 these and similar compounds. The striking analogy 

 between the so-called double fluorides, chlorides, cyanides, 

 &c., and the complex derivatives of dibasic acids was 

 pointed out. It was shown that to almost all such com- 

 pounds, whether derived from monobasic or dibasic acids, 

 simple constitutions can be assigned by supposing the 

 hydroxyl radicals of the metallic hydroxide to be replaced 

 by complex groups. — Theorems relating to a generalisation 

 of Bessel's function, ii. : Rev. F. H. Jackson. 



March 6. — Lord M'Laren in the chair. — A study of three 

 vegetarian diets : Drs. Noel Paton and J. C. Dunlop. 

 Of the three diets described, one was a totally insufficient 

 diet of bananas, a second was a fairly typical vegetarian 

 diet showing the difficulty of avoiding an excess of sugary 

 food, and the third was the far from economical diet of a 

 vegetarian glutton. These were compared with the diets 

 of the labouring classes in cities as illustrated by the 

 author's own investigations in Edinburgh, and those of 

 Rowntree, Alswater, and Lumsden respectively in York, 

 New York, and Dublin, and as regards rural districts by 

 Wilson Fo.x's report. It was shown that these normal 

 diets more nearly approached the physiological standard 

 than the vegetarian diets studied. — A further contribution 

 to the fresh-water plankton of the Scottish lochs : W. and 

 G. S. West. The thirty-six lochs studied were in the 

 north-west Highlands. There was an abundance of 

 Desmids, a fact attributed to the geological character of 

 the country. The Protococcoideae were not abundant, in 

 marked contrast to what occurs in Continental Europe. 

 Diatoms were very abundant, and did not disappear in 

 May and June. My.xophyceae, again, were relatively few. 

 The Swedish lakes alone approached the Scottish in the 

 richness of the plankton. The Danish plankton was re- 

 latively much poorer in Chlorophyce,-E, especially Conju- 

 gates. This was to be attributed principally to the fact 

 that the geological formations are mostly of Tertiary age. 

 — On the Sarcodina of Loch Ness : Dr. E. Penard. Of 

 a list of nearly fifty species of Rhizopods and Heliozoa 

 obtained at depths of upwards of 250 feet, several were of 

 interest on account of their rarity, some being found for 

 the first time in Europe, others being previously known 

 only from the Lake of Geneva. The majority of the 

 Rhizopoda had probably been derived from the shallow 

 margins of the lake or from the neighbouring peat bogs ; 

 but some half dozen species or varieties were regarded as 

 peculiar to the abyssal portions of large lakes. — The 

 Rhizopods and Heliozoa of Loch Ness: J. Murray. In 

 this paper the list of species given in the previous paper 

 by Penard was supplemented by a number of species 

 observed by the Lake Survey, bringing the list of Loch 

 Ness Sarcodina up to sixty-six species. The difficulty of 

 accounting for the transmission of peculiar abyssal forms 

 from one deep lake to another was met by the suggestion 

 that the abyssal forms originate separately in each lake 

 and are probably not good permanent species, but modified 

 forms due to the direct action of the environment on the 

 growing individual. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, April 17. — M. Troost in the chair. 

 — Second note on the principle of cellular flotation in 

 ships : M. Bertin. — Mixed treatment by arsenious acid 

 and trypan red of infection due to Trypanosoma : A. 

 Laveran. Fresh experiments on monkeys confirm the 

 favourable results previously obtained on rats and dogs. — 

 Observations on the new comet Giacobini (1905, March 26) 

 made at Toulouse Observatory : F. Rossard. — On the 



