July i8, 1901] 



NA TURE 



295 



The authors' krypton rays agree tolerably closely with Runge's 

 list, but outnumber his very considerably, as might be expected 

 when prisms were used instead of a grating. The authors think 

 that the krypton used by Runge must have contained some xenon, 

 and that the rays for which he gives the wave-lengths 5419-38, 

 5292'37 and 4844'58 were really due to xenon, as they are three 

 of the strongest rays emitted by their xenon tubes, and are weak 

 in, and in some cases absent from, the spectra of their krypton 

 lubes. 



Appended to the paper are tables showing wave-lengths of 

 xenon and krypton lines to four figures. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



The University of St. Andrews has received information that 

 a legacy of 4000/. has been left to it by the late Miss 

 Malcolm for the establishment of medical bursaries and 

 scholarships. 



Acting on the suggestion made by Mr. Chamberlain, the 

 general purposes committee of the Birmingham City Council 

 has resolved to recommend the Council to make a grant to 

 the Birmingham University of the proceeds of a halfpenny rate. 

 This will provide an annual sum of 5000/. 



The Agent General for New South Wales intimates that 

 applications are invited from gentlemen qualified to fill the chair 

 of pathology in the University of Sydney. Particulars may be 

 obtained from the Agent General for New South Wales, 9, 

 Victoria Street, London, S.W. 



The Technical Education Board of the London County 

 Council has directed the higher education subcommittee to 

 inquire and report (a) as to the need and present provision for 

 special training of an advanced kind in connection with the 

 application of science (especially chemistry and electricity) to 

 industry ; (b) as to what, if any, developments are needed to 

 secure efficient training in these subjects for senior county 

 scholars and other advanced students who desire to qualify 

 themselves to take leading positions in scientific industries. 

 The Board has arranged to make a grant of 10,000/. a year to 

 the University of London, and is thus directly interested in the 

 development of advanced scientific instruction in London. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIAL. 



American Journal of Mathematics^ vol. xxiii. No. 3. — 

 Geometry on the cubic scroll of the second kind, by F. C. Ferry, 

 is the conclusion (34 pp.) of a paper commenced in the last 

 number. — Congruent reductions of bilinear forms, by T. J. I'A. 

 Bromwich, contains an account and a slight extension of a 

 method due to Kronecker {Gesamm. IVerke, Bd. i. p. 349). 

 This method was employed in the first place for the reduction 

 of two quadratic forms. In the present paper it is applied to 

 four cases of reductions, viz. (i) two symmetric forms (the same 

 as Kronecker's case) ; (2) a symmetric and an alternate form ; 

 (3) two alternate forms ; and (4) two Hermite's forms. In cases 

 (i)~(3) the substitutions are congruent, while in (4) they are 

 conjugate imaginaries. Mr. Bromwich gives a list of the prin- 

 cipal papers which deal with the problems he has considered in his 

 article. On the imprimitive substitution groups of degree fifteen 

 and the primitive substitution groups of degree eighteen, by 

 E. Norton Martin, was presented, in abstract anii in a slightly 

 different form, at the summer meeting of the American Mathe- 

 matical Society in 1S99. Herein he has added two new groups 

 to his original list, viz. the groups with five systems of imprimi- 

 tivity simply isomorphic to the alternating and symmetric groups 

 of degree five, and he mentions that Dr. Kuhn reported at the 

 February (1900) meeting of the Society that he had carried the 

 investigation further by adding twenty-eight to the seventy groups 

 found by Mr. Martin. The list even now does not claim to be 

 absolutely complete, since omissions are always possible. A 

 somewhat long list of recent papers on the subject is appended 

 to the article. — Removal of any two terms from a binary quantic 

 by linear transformations, by Bessie G. Morrison, discusses 

 these linear transformations and gives applications to the non- 

 singular cubic, quartic, quintic and sextic. 



NO. 1655, VOL. 64] 



London. 

 Geological Society, June 19.— Mr. J. J. H. Teall, V.P.R.S., 

 president, in the chair.— On the use of a geological datum, by 

 Mr. Beeby Thompson. A proper interpretation of geological 

 phenomena frequently requires that allowance shall be made for 

 differential earth-movements that have taken place since the 

 period under consideration. Present differences of level in rocks 

 of the same age may be due to actual differences in depth of the 

 sea-floor on which they were deposited : but they may also be 

 the result of subsequent differential earth-movements. The 

 rock selected as a datum should combine as far as possible the 

 following characteristics -.—It should be thin, of considerable 

 horizontal extension,- having similarity in physical characters 

 and palceontological contents over a large area, and situated as 

 near as possible, in vertical sequence, to the reference-deposit. 

 In Northamptonshire three formations meet these requirements 

 —the Rhretic Beds, the Marlstone Rock-bed and the Corn- 

 brash. The author applies the Marlstone Rock-bed as a datum 

 to the study of the five chief deep explorations in Northampton- 

 shire, with the following results :— While the old land-surface 

 (below the Trias) now varies in height by more than 250 feet, 

 the variation in thickness of the rocks between it and the Middle 

 Lias only reaches 56^ feet ; and although the old land-surface 

 is actually lowest where the Rh:Etic rocks have not been detected, 

 when compared with the position of the Marlstone it is found 

 to be the highest. The further application of the same method 

 enables the author to recognise Rhretic rocks at Northampton, 

 to correct the record of the Kingsthorpe shaft, and to explain 

 the presence of Triassic saline water in the Marlstone. A re- 

 vised section of the Kingsthorpe shaft is given. Another point 

 proved is that a general levelling-up process was going on just 

 before the beginning of the Lower Liassic Period, and another 

 at the close of the Middle Liassic Period.— On intrusive, tuflflike, 

 igneous rocks and breccias in Ireland, by Messrs. James R. Kilroe 

 and Alexander McHenry. — Many fragmental igneous rocks, 

 although resembling tuffs, cannot be regarded as ejectamenta _ 

 on account of their character and mode of occurrence in the 

 field. A series of sections is exhibited to illustrate how tuff-like 

 masses invade black slate of Llandeilo age in the South-east 

 of Ireland, generally adhering to the direction of bedding, but 

 frequently cutting across it and detaching numerous pieces 

 from the slate, which are more abundant near the margins of the 

 intrusion than elsewhere. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 8. — M. Fouaue in the 

 chair. — On new derivatives of benzylcamphor and benzylidene- 

 camphor, by MM. A. Haller and J. Minguin. In continuation 

 of previous researches it is now shown that the unsaturated acid, 

 C6H5-CH = CHCsH„-C02H, obtained by the action of hydro- 

 biomic acid on benzylidenecamphor, or by treating bromobenzyl- 

 camphor with alcoholic potash or ammonia, combines with a 

 molecule of hydrogen bromide to form phenylbromohomocam- 

 pholic acid, which, when warmed with hydrobromic acid in 

 acetic acid solution, loses bromine and yields the corresponding 

 hydroxy-acid. The action of bromine on dextrobenzylcamphor 

 results in the formation of two stereoisomeric bromobenzyl- 

 camphors which yield benzylidenecamphor on treatment with 

 alcoholic potash. Further bromination of benzylcamphor gives, 

 rise to unstable dibromo-derivatives which are converted by the 

 action of potash into ortho- and para-bromobenzylidenecamphors ; 

 the para-compound forms bromophenylhydroxyhomocampholic 

 acid on treatment with hydrobromic acid at loo'. — Osmotic 

 pressure and its role as a protection from cold in the living cell, 

 by M. D'Arsonval. At the low temperature of liquid air 

 animal and vegetable tissues in general become extremely 

 hard and friable, whereas the vitality of yeast and various 

 pathogenic micro-organisms is not impaired even by several 

 weeks' exposure to cold. In explanation of this fact it is 

 suggested that the solidification of such minute cells is pre- 

 vented by the enormous osmotic pressure exerted therein, and it 

 is shown that in the case of yeast the osmotic pressure may be 

 reduced by the action of hypertonic solutions of certain salts to 

 such an extent as to destroy the power of resisting the influence 

 of cold.— New nebulce discovered at the Paris Observatory, by 

 M. G. Bigourdan. — Observations of Hall's comet 1901(a) at the 

 Rio de Janeiro Observatory, by M. H. Morize. — Solar observa- 

 tions at the Lyon Observatory during the first quarter of 1901, 

 by M. J. Guillaume. — On the conjugate nets of orthogonal and 



