Jan. 1 1, 1872] 



NA TURE 



21 • 



lucent enough to admit of the accurate measurement of the details 

 of minute alg;e and fungi to the i-^Xisi, of an inch. The goniome- 

 ter is also described. Both are said to posses advantages not 

 secured before by any instrument. Tlie remaining papers are — 

 Note on Dr. Barnard's Remarks on the Examination of Nohert's 

 Nineteenth Band, by J. J. Woodward, Assist. Surg. U.S. Army ; 

 a New Erecting Arrangement, especially designed for use with 

 binocular microscopes, by R. H. Ward, M.D., ; and On the 

 Action of Hydrofluoric Acid on Glass, viewed Microscopically, 

 by H. F. Smith. 



Of the Mcmoircs d^ la Socii^U tie Physique €t d^J-fistoin' N'atU' 

 relic de Geiihe the first part of the twenty-first volume has re- 

 cently been published. It is chiefly occupied by an admirable 

 memoir on the Orthopterous family Mantidcf by M. Henri de 

 Saussure, forming the third fascicule of his "Melange; Orthop- 

 terologiques. " In this paper the author not only describes a 

 great number of new species, but also discusses the internal classi- 

 fication of the family, and gives tables of the subordinate groups 

 and genera, and the synonymy of nearly all the species, so tliat his 

 work (including its supplement) is very nearly a monograpli of 

 the curious and interesting group of insects which constitutes its 

 subject. A great number of the species described by the author 

 are figured on four beautifully executed plates which accompany 

 the memoir, and these will astonish the non-entomological reader 

 by the variety of curious forms produced by modifications of 

 the same plan of structure. — The other papers in this part con- 

 sist of descriptions of new or little-known exotic Cryptogamia 

 (Mosses), by M. J. E. Duby, illustrated with four plates ; a 

 paper on gelatiniform matter by M. Morin, and a report on the 

 labours of the society by its President, JI. Henri de Saussure. 



Part II. of the BulLlin of the Royal Su'aiish Academy 0/ 

 Sciences (Ofversigt af Kongl. X^etenskaps Akademiens Forhand- 

 lingar) for the present year commences with a paper (in Latin), 

 by Dr. E. Fries, containing a description of Quclelia^ a new genus 

 of Lycoperdaceous Fungi, and of a new species of the genus 

 Gyromitia. The characters of tire former are illustrated in a plate. 

 — Another botanical paper is a notice of some Alga: from the 

 inland ice of Greenland, by M. S. Berggren. The author 

 describes and figures a peculiar form, wtiich he regards as 

 most approaching the Zygnemacece, but as having an unmis- 

 takable resemblance to some Desmidiace.T?. — Passing by a 

 rather wide step from Greenland to South Africa, we hive 

 Latin descriptions of 226 Caffrarian Curculionidce, collected by 

 Wahlberg, from the pen of M. O. J. Fahreus. These all 

 belong to Lacordaire's second division of the family. — M. B. 

 Lundgren publishes a notice of the occurrence of amber at 

 Fyllinge, in Halland. — The remaining papers are upon chemical 

 subjects, and include a paper by M. P. T. Cleve on some re- 

 markable isomerisms in organic chemistry ; a paper by the same 

 author on the nitrites of some platinum-bases ; and one by AL 

 L. F. Wilson on the sulphides of arsenic. 



Journal of the Chemical Society, September 1871. Bolas 

 and Groves have continued their researches on carbon tetra- 

 bromide, and have obtained some interesting results. In their 

 former paper they mentioned that antimony terbromide could be 

 substituted for iodine in the preparation of the tetrabromide. 

 They now find that bromine will act on carbonic disulphide in 

 the presence of the bromides of the following metals : — bismuth, 

 arsenic, gold, platinum, cadmium, zinc, and nickel; the bromides 

 of iron, tin, phosphorus, and sulphur, however gave very 

 unsatisfactory results. The authors still think the mixture 

 of bromine and iodine the most convenient reagent for the 

 preparation of the tetrabromide. The authors recommend 

 for the recovery of bromine from residues the action of dipo- 

 tassic dichromate and sulphuric acid. — R. C. Woodcock has 

 examined the action of amnionic chloride on normal and acid 

 salts ; he has experimented on the following bodies : — potassic 

 chromate, microsmic salt, trisodic phosphate, dipotassic tartrate, 

 succinate, &c. By the action of ammonic chloride on sodic 

 metaborate the whole of the ammonia is evolved, sodic chloride 

 and metaboric being formed. Borax also yields the whole of the 

 ammonia, sodic chloride and tetrametaborate remaining behind. 

 Both soluble and insoluble chromates yield ammonia when dis- 

 tilled with ammonia salts, an acid chromate being formed ; the 

 whole of the ammonia, however, is not evolved, the acid chro- 

 mate formed at a certain point stopping the evolution of am* 

 monia ; if the acid salt be removed by crystallisation, a copious 

 evolution of ammonia again takes place on boiling. — W. Mattieu 

 Williams communicates a short abstract of a paper " On Burnt 

 Iron and Steel." Iron which has been damaged byre-heating 



is designated " burnt iron ;" it is brittle, its fracture being short, 

 displaying the so-called crystalline structure. In all the samples 

 which the author has examined, he has found particles of black 

 oxide of iron diffused in the m.as?. The oxidation must of course 

 take place after that of the carbon present in the iron. It is found 

 that iron attains its maximum toughness when the carbon is re- 

 duced to the lowest possible proportion without the oxidation of 

 the iron commencing. When steel is raised to a yellow or white 

 heat, and is suddenly cooled, it turns brittle. Burnt steel has a 

 coarse, granular fracture, and contains small cavities, technically 

 called " to.ids' eyes." These are probably due to the sudden 

 cooling of the iron imprisoning the carbonic oxide, which is 

 evolved by the oxidation of the carbon ; this oxidatiin not only 

 takes place at the surface of the mass, but also in the interior, 

 from the fact that certain gases can pass readily through heated 

 iron. This explanation is strengthened by "burnt steel " being 

 cured by welding up these cavities. The remainder of the 

 number is occupied with the abstracts of chemical papers, which 

 extend over "seventy-five pages, and are quite up to the usual 

 standard, both in scientific interest and as regards literary merit. 

 Journal of the Chemical Society, November 1S71. -This num- 

 ber does not contain any papers originally communicated to the 

 Society. It is not certainly to the credit of English chemists that 

 this should be the case for two months in succession ; the number 

 of English chemists who devote their time to original research 

 seems every year to become smaller ; on the Continent, however, 

 the reverse is the case, as is shown by the very large number of 

 abstracts, which are published monthly by the Society. This 

 month about 130 papers are abstracted, which fill 127 p.ages. 

 Amongst them we notice a remarkable communication by Ang- 

 strom "On the Spectra of Simple Gases." Angstrom took a 

 tube filled with atmospheric air and gradually exhausted it by a 

 mercurial pump, the spectra being obtained by the use of an 

 induction coil. He states that he observed successively the 

 following spectra : 1st, that of atmospheric air ; 2nd, the band 

 spectrum of nitrogen ; 3rd, that of carbonic oxide ; and 4th, 

 when the rarefaction had reached its limit, the lines of sodium 

 and chlo'ine. He has also experimented on hydrogen, and con- 

 cludes that it possesses only one spectrum, that of four lines, which 

 is observed in the spectra of the sun and stars. He believes that 

 the various spectra of hydrogen obtained by Phicker, Frankland 

 and Lockyer, Wollner, and others, are entirely due to impurities, 

 such as acetylene and sulphur. — An abstract of a paper by 

 Andrews contains a curious fact. A fine tube is half filled with 

 bromine and hermetically sealed ; on healing, the bromine be- 

 comes opaque, so that the tube appears to be filled with a dark 

 red resin. — Lieben and Rossi continue their researches on the 

 normal alcohols and acids of the methyl series ; a review of their 

 results has already appeared in these pages — Ladenburg contri- 

 butes another most interesting paper, ' On the reduction pro- 

 ducts of silica, ether, and some of their derivatives ; " these 

 researches are very important, and have opened out quite a new 

 branch of chemical inquiry. He has obtained such bodies as 

 sihcium, diethylketonic ether (SiC„H5._,OC„H5„), silicoheptyl 

 ether (SiCnHj^OCoHj), and so on. — .'Another paper of some 

 interest is by Heinrich, " On the Influence of Heat and Light 

 on the Evolution of Oxygen by Water Plants." He experi- 

 mented on the leaves of the Ifottonia palustris, which were placed 

 in common water. At a temperature of 27° C. in full sunlight no 

 evolution of gas took place, but at 5 '6° a regular evolution com- 

 menced. The most active formation was at 31°, and at 50" to 56° 

 gas ceased to be formed, but the leaf resumed its acivity in cooler 

 water. If the leaves were exposed to a temperature of 60° for 

 ten minutes, their power of decomposing carbonic acid was 

 destroyed. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Geological Society, December 20, 1S71. — Mr. Joseph Prest- 

 wich, F. R.S., president, in the chair. Mr. Frederick H. Bowman, 

 F.R.A.S., F.C.S., of Halifax, Yorkshire, and Mr. Thomas 

 Charles Sorb)', B.A., F. R. S., of 27, Brunswick Square, W. C, 

 were elected Fellows of the .Society. The following communica- 

 tions were read : — i. A Letter from Mr. G. Milner Stephen, 

 F. G.S. , to the late Sir Roderick Murchison, dated Sydney, 

 Sth October, 1871, announcing the discovery of a rich auriferous 

 deposit on the banks of the River Bonde, on the N.E. coast of 



