474 



NATURE 



[April II, 1872 I 



Dimetliylphosphinic acid, obtained in a nearly similar manner 

 to tlie above, is a white crystalline solid, melting at 76', and may 

 be distilled without change. Its composition is (CHj).^ H POj ; 

 the silver, lead, and barium salts have been obtained, but do not 

 crystallise so well as the salts of the last-named acid. 



Phosphoretted hydrogen, on treatment with nitric acid, fixes 

 four atoms of oxygen yielding tribasic orthophosplioric acid, 

 whilst trimethylphosphine fixes only one atom of oxygen yielding 

 trimethylphosphine oxide, a body which is no longer capable of 

 forming saline compounds. We have thus a series of three 

 bodies which may be looked on as derived from orthophosplioric 

 acid by the replacement of hydroxyl by methyl : — (H0)3 PO, 

 orthophosphoric acid ; (CH.,) (H0)„ . PO, methylphosphinic 

 acid; (CH;,) H0„ . PO, dimethylphosphinic acid ; (CH.,),, PO, 

 trimethylphosphine oxide. An analogous series of bodies is 

 known in the arsenic group. 



The primary and secondary ethylic derivatives of phosphoretted 

 hydrogen are prepared in a precisely similar manner to the methyl 

 compounds, except that the tubes containing ethyl iodide, phos- 

 phonium iodide, and zinc oxide, must be heated to 140° — 150° for 

 six hours. 



Ethylphosphme (C, H5) H„ . P, is a transparent mobile liquid, 

 powerfully refractive, ligliter than water, and insoluble in it. It 

 boils at 25°, and has an overwhelming odour. Its vapour bleaches 

 lilie chlorine ; caoutchouc placed in it becomes transparent, and 

 loses its elasticity. It is inflamed by chlorine, bromine, and 

 nitric acid. It is isomeric with dimethylphosphine previously 

 described. V/ith acids it forms salts which are crystalline and 

 are decomposed by water. 



Diethylphosphine is a colourless transparent liquid, insoluble 

 in water and lighter than it. Its odour is very penetrating and 

 persistent. It boils at 85°, and forms corresponding salts to 

 dimethylphosphine which are not decomposed by water. 



The primary and secondary ethyl phosphines, on oxidation by 

 nitric acid, yield precisely corresponding products to the methyl- 

 phosphines already described. 



By the action of benzyl chloride, phosphonium iodide, and 

 zinc o.xide at 160°, the author has succeeded in obtaining the 

 benzyl phosphine in a similar manner as before described. 



Benzyl phosphine, (C; H^) H, P, is a liquid boiling at 180°, 

 attractipg oxygen with great avidity ; it forms a beautifully cry- 

 stalline iodhydrate, and also other salts corresponding to those 

 obtained from melhylphosphine. 



Dibenzylphosphine, (C, H-)„ H P, is a crystalline body melt- 

 ing at 205", which does not oxidise in the air, nor does it form 

 salts with acids like the corresponding dimethyl and diethyl- 

 phosphines. 



The author has likewise obtained the phosphorus compounds 

 in the propyl, butyl, and amyl series, the detaUs of which will be 

 shortly communicated. 



Geological Society, March 20—" On the Wealden as a Flu- 

 vio-lacustrine Formation, and on the relation of the so-called 'Pun- 

 field Formation' to the Wealden and Neocomian." By C. J. A. 

 Meyer. In this paper the author questioned the correctness of 

 assigning the Wealden beds of the south-east of England to the 

 delta of a single river ; he considered it more probable that they 

 are a fluvio-lacustrine rather than a fluvio-marine deposit, and 

 attributed their accumulation to the combined action of several 

 rivers flowing into a wide but shallow lake or inland sea. The 

 evidence adduced in favour of these views was mainly as follows : 

 — The quiet deposition of most of the sedimentary strata, the 

 almost total absence of shingle, the prevalence of such species of 

 moUusca as delight in nearly quiet waters, the comparative 

 absence of broken shells such as usually abound in tidal rivers, 

 and the total absence of drift-wood perforated by moUusca in 

 either the Purbeck or Wealden strata. This Wealden lacustrine 

 area the author supposed to have originated in the slow and 

 comparatively local suljsidence of a portion of a land-surface 

 just previously elevated. He considered that during the Purbeck 

 and later portion of the Wealden era the waters of such lacus- 

 trine area had no direct communication with the ocean. The 

 changes from freshwater to purely marine conditions, which are 

 twice apparent in the Purbeck beds, and the final change from 

 Wealden to Necomian conditions at the close of the Wealden, 

 were attributed to the sudden intrusion of oceanic waters into aa 

 area below sea-level. The author then pointed to the traces o 

 terrestrial vegetation in the Lower Greensand as evidence of the 

 continuance of river-action after the close of the Wealden period. 

 In the concluding portion of his paper the author referred to the 

 relation of the Punfield beds of Mr. Judd to the Neocomian and 



Wealden strata of the south-east of England. From the se- 

 quence of the strata, no less than on palajontological evidence, 

 he considered the whole of the so-called " Punfield formation" 

 of the Isle of Purbeck to be referable to the Lower Greensand 

 of the Atherfield section. Mr. Godwin-Austen did not agree 

 with Mr. Judd in caUing the bed at Punfield the Punfield 

 "formation ;" it was merely a bed intercalated between beds of .\ 

 a different character below and above. Prof. Ramsay thought j 

 that the Purbeck strata were connected with lagoons in con- j 

 tiguity with a large river rather than with inland lakes. These, \ 

 from time to time, owing to the oscillations of level, were ,1 

 covered with marine deposits. He did not think that the : 

 absence of gravelly deposits offered any serious difficulty in re- 

 garding the Wealden strata as marine. It seemed to him more i 

 probable, however, that the sands and clays of the Wealden 

 were due to some ancient rivers on a large scale, and deposited 

 at their mouths, though in some spots the beds were subject to ■ 

 the action of fresh and salt water alternately. He regarded the 

 Neocomian as, to some extent, a marine representative of the 

 Wealden, though of later date. Mr. Etheridge recalled the fact 

 that Mr. Judd had correlated the Punfield fossils with those of 

 the north of Spain, twenty-two species found in each being 

 absolutely identical. He argued from this that the extent of the 

 beds may have been far larger than might be supposed. Prof. 

 T. Rupert Jones remarked that the Purbeck-Wealden lake theory 

 had not only been intimated by several previous writers, but had 

 been illustrated by maps by Messrs. Godwin- Austen and Searles 

 Wood, Jun. The Chainnan, alluding to the pseudomorphs of .:, 

 salt mentioned by the author, stated that they had been some- 

 what compressed, and thus modified in form. They had also ' 

 been found in other beds in the Wealden, He commented on 

 the extension of the Wealden strata even to the south of JIoscow. :' 

 In the Oxford and Buckinghamshire area there was evidence of 

 great denudation of the Purbeck and Wealden beds prior to the 

 deposit of the Neocomian, so that great changes would seem to 1 

 have taken place, giving rise to a great amount of denudation 

 towards the close of the Wealden period. Mr. Meyer agreed 

 with Mr. Godwin-.\usten and other speakers as to there having 

 been a certain amount of denudation of the Upper Wealden beds 

 prior to the deposit of others upon them, but this he regarded as 

 merely local. It was the absence of shingle rather than of gravel 

 to which he had alluded in his paper. He thought that there 

 was a distinction to be traced between the Neocomian of the 

 north of England and that of the south, and that the middle 

 beds of one were equivalent to the lower beds of the other. 



Zoological Society, March 19.— John Gould, F.R.S., vice- 

 president, in the chair. The secretary read a report on the ad- 

 ditions that had been made to the Society's collection during the 

 month of February 1872, amongst which were specimens of the 

 Sumatran rhinoceros, two-wattled cassowary, and other rare 

 animals. — Mr. R. B. Sharpe exhibited some specimens of blue 

 rock thrushes from Europe and Eastern Asia. After tracing the 

 different plumages through which rdroiossvp/ius cyaniis passed, 

 he came to the conclusion that the Eastern blue rock thnish, P. 

 Siilitar'ms, eventually becomes entirely blue like the European 

 species, and that the birds usually called P. vianillcnsis and P. 

 affi}iis are merely stages of plumage of P. solitariiis. — Major 

 Godwin-Austen exhibited a skin of Ceiiornis blylhii, which had 

 been obtained by Mr. Roberts, of the Indiaii Topographical 

 Survey, in the Naga Hills.— Mr. Sclater exhibited and made re- 

 marks upon a specimen of the American yellow-billed cuckoo 

 {Coccyztis ni!u-r:cni!iis) which had been obtained near Buenos 

 Ayres. — A communication was read from Prof. A. Macalister, of 

 the University of Dublin, containing notes on a specimen of the 

 broad-he.ided wombat [Phaziolomys latifrons). — A communica- 

 tion was read from Mr. VV. E. Brooks, of Etawah, India, 

 containing remarks on the Imperial eagles of India, Aquila 

 crassipcs and A. hif,isciata.~K paper by Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., 

 was read, containing observations on the genus CJulyinys, and 

 its allies, from Australia. — Sir Victor Brooke, Bart., read a paper 

 on Ilydivpotcs iiiennis and its cranial characters, as compared 

 with those of Mosilins moschifcnis and other Cervine forms. — 

 Major Godwin-Austen read descriptions of new land and fresh- 

 water shells which he had recently met with in the Khasi, North 

 Cachar and Niiga Hills of N.E. Bengal. — Mr. Howard Saunders 

 read some notes on the introduction of Anscr albatiis of Cassin 

 into the ICuropean avifauna, and exhibited two examples of that 

 species lately shot near Wexford in Ireland. 



Chemical Society, March 21.— Dr. Odling, F.R.S., vice- 

 president, in the chair. — The chairman announced that the 



