NOVEMBER 5, 1903] 
NATURE 
es) 
Dr. C. H. Lees wishes to make the following corrections 
in his account of the British Association discussion on the 
nature of the emanations from radio-active substances 
which appeared in Nature of October 22, In the last line 
but two of the third paragraph on p. 611, “‘ not yet found 
to be non-radio-active ’’ should read ‘‘ not yet found to be 
radio-active,’’ and in the fifth line from the bottom of the 
column, ‘‘ high velocities of the emanations ’’ should read 
‘high velocities of the radiations.”’ 
A sECOND edition, revised to June 30, 1903, of the 
“Student’s Handbook of the University and Colleges of 
Cambridge ’’ has been published by the Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press. In addition to a few minor alterations the 
following important additions have been made to the book, 
viz. a complete list of university professors, readers, and 
lecturers, a list of lectures on honours subjects given in the 
university, and a statement of the set subjects for special 
examinations. The new regulations for the mathematical 
papers in the previous examination are also given. 
Tue first volume of administrative reports and the 
official reports of the meetings of the International Council 
for the Study of the Sea deals with the work of the year 
ending July, 1903, and has now been published by MM. 
A. F. H@gst et Fils, of Copenhagen. The character of the 
work of this international council was described in our 
issue for September 3. The volume now published contains 
the main results of the work arranged by the council for 
the year dealt with, printed in both English and German. 
} TuE second part of the ‘‘ Botany of the Fzrées,’’ which 
is based upon Danish investigations, has now been pub- 
lished in Copenhagen by Det nordiske Forlag (London: 
John Wheldon and Co.). It was expected that this part, 
together with that published in 1901, would complete the 
work, but it has been found that a third volume will be 
necessary. Part iii. will contain papers on the vegetation 
of land and sea, and will, Prof. Eug. Warming says in a 
prefatory note, most likely be ready in a year or two. 
At the beginning of next year the firm of Gebriider 
Borntraeger, Berlin, will commence the publication of a 
comprehensive review of progress in physical chemistry 
under the title ‘‘ The Physico-Chemical Review: a com- 
plete international review of the sciences of physical 
chemistry and the allied branches of chemistry and physics.” 
The magazine will be edited by Dr. Max Rudolphi, Darm- 
stadt, with the cooperation of distinguished chemists and 
physicists in many parts of the world. The new journal 
is not intended to be a medium for the publication of 
original work, but a review of such work described in 
abstracts furnished, so far as possible, by the authors of 
papers. It is proposed to include English and French as 
well as German abstracts. The whole domain of general 
and physical chemistry, as well as the allied sciences on 
both sides, so far as they bear on physical chemistry, will 
come under review. Such an international review will 
prove of importance and value to practical men as well 
as to those engaged in the pursuit of purely scientific re- 
search. The review will be issued twice a month. Speci- 
men numbers will be sent post free upon application to the 
publishers, Gebriider Borntraeger, Berlin SW 11, Dessauer 
Strasse 29. 
TuE volume of Transactions and Proceedings of the New 
Zealand Institute for 1902 has been received. This is the 
thirty-fifth volume published by the board of governors of 
the Institute, and it is edited by the director, Sir James 
NO. 1775, VOL. 69] 
this country 
Hector, F.R.S. Copies can be obtained in 
from Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co. It 
is impossible to refer to the contents of the sixty papers 
These 
forming the Transactions part of this bulky volume. 
original articles are divided into five sections, viz. papers 
dealing with zoology, botany, geology, chemistry and 
physics, and miscellaneous subjects. The thirty-fourth 
annual report of the New Zealand Institute precedes the 
next main division of the volume, which includes the pro- 
ceedings of the various incorporated societies, viz. the 
Wellington Philosophical Society, the Auckland Institute, 
the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, the Otago Insti- 
tute, the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute, the South- 
land Institute, and the Nelson Institute. An appendix 
contains a tabulated report of the earthquakes in New 
Zealand during 1902, and seismograph records from 
different observatories throughout the country for the same 
The volume concludes with fifty-four well executed 
year. 
ating various papers included in earlier pages- 
plates illustr 
e Berichte contains two papers 
on fluorescence. In the first these Richard Meyer 
criticises Dr. Hewitt’s theory that fluorescence is dependent 
on oscillatory isomeric change, and urges that a ‘‘ fluoro- 
phore ”’ group must also be present in the molecule. The 
paper by H. von Tappeiner on the action of fluorescing 
substances on ferments and toxins is a continuation of 
a research in which it was shown that fluorescent sub- 
stances, which have little action on micro-organisms in 
the dark, become very poisonous in sunlight; thus a culture 
of Paramecium exposed to sunlight was destroyed in six 
to ten minutes by a trace of acridine hydrochloride which 
produced no effect in 100 hours in the dark; of the 
fluorescent substances examined only esculin was without 
action both in the dark and in sunlight. The hydrolysis 
of starch by diastase is not affected by exposure to sun- 
light or by the addition of eosin, but if the solution to 
which the eosin has been added be exposed to sunlight, the 
yield of maltose is reduced from 76 to 21 per cent. ; this 
retardation, which is only produced by a limited number of 
fluorescent substances, can be detected when the proportion 
of eosin is only one part in 400,000, but disappears entirely 
if the incident light is filtered through a layer of the 
fluorescent substance. The action of invertin on cane-sugar 
is also checked by the addition of eosin when the solution 
is exposed to sunlight, and the effect of one part of eosin 
in a million can be easily detected. Papayotin appears to 
be even more sensitive than diastase or invertin. The only 
toxin investigated was ricin; unlike the enzymes, this 
was destroyed by all the fluorescent substances examined 
with the exception of zsculin, but was not injured by non- 
fluorescent dye-stuffs or by fluorescent substances if kept 
Tue vacation number of th 
of 
in the dark. 
A paper by Knoevenagel on the nature of the double- 
bond appears in the vacation number of the Berichte. In 
order to account for the conversion of butadiene, 
CH,:CH.CH: CH,, into dibromobutylene, 
CH,Br.CH : CH.CH,Br, 
he suggests that in compounds of this kind the carbon 
atoms are in a state of oscillatory motion, so that the 
molecule has, alternately with the formula given above, 
the structure represented by the formula 
—CH,.CH : CH.CH,—. 
Applying this theory to the benzene molecule, it is no longer 
necessary to assume a pendulum-like motion, as the carbon 
atoms may be regarded as revolving continuously, alternate 
atoms rotating to the left and to the right; the result of 
