190 
NATURE 
[| DeceMBER 24, 1896 
Prof. Sylvester had put his ‘‘ Outline of Lectures on the Parti- 
tions of Numbers,” which he read at King’s College, London, 
in 1859, and which had never been published, at the disposal of 
the Council, and that that body had arranged to print them as 
a companion to the ex-President’s valedictory address, —Mr. 
Burbury, F.R.S., communicated a paper on the stationary 
motion of a system of equal elastic spheres of finite diameter.— 
Mr. Hough read a paper on the influence of viscosity on waves 
and currents. —Mr. Macfarlane Gray gave a description of his 
multiplying apparatus. Messrs. C. V. Boys, F.R.S., and T. I. 
Dewar, Prof. Greenhill, F.R.S., and other gentlemen, joined 
in adiscussion of points connected with the subject.—Lieut.- 
Colonel Cunningham, R.E., gave an account of results arrived 
at in his paper on the connection of quadratic forms.—The fol- 
lowing papers were communicated by their titles, viz. : Concern- 
ing the abstract groups of order K! and 4K ! holoedically iso- 
morphic with the symmetric and the alternating substitution 
groups on K letters, by Prof. E. H. Moore.—On a series of co- 
trinodal quartics, by Messrs. H. M. Taylor and W. H. Blythe. 
—On finite variations, by Mr. E. P. Culverwell. 
Zoological Society, December 15.—Lieut.-Colonel H. H. 
Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., Vice-President, in the chair.—The 
Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to 
the Society’s menagerie during the month of November 1896. 
—Mr. Sclater exhibited two bound volumes of original draw- 
ings by Joseph Wolf and Waterhouse Hawkins, belonging to 
the Knowsley library, which had been kindly lent to him for 
examination by the Earl of Derby. They represented various 
animals that had been living in the Knowsley menagerie, 
1844-48.—Mr. W. Bateson exhibited and made remarks on 
some pigeons with very well-marked webs between the toes.— 
—Prof. Newton sent for exhibition the type-specimen of 
Heterorhynchus olivaceus of Lafresnaye, kindly entrusted to 
him by Prof. Hyatt, Curator of the Museum of the Boston 
Natural History Society. This extinct species, now referred to 
Hemignathus lucidus of Lichtenstein, was peculiar to Oahu, 
one of the Sandwich Islands, and the present appeared to be 
the only full-plumaged male specimen ever seen in this country. 
—Dr. G. Herbert Fowler read a paper entitled ‘‘ Contributions 
to our Knowledge of the Plankton of the Fzeroe Channel,” 
which contained an account of the first results arrived at from 
his examination of the marine fauna of this channel during a 
voyage in it, in July and August last, in H.M.S. Research 
(Captain Moore).—The Secretary read a paper by Mr. Oldfield 
Thomas, entitled ‘‘ On the Genera of Rodents, being an attempt 
to bring up to date the current arrangement of the Order,” 
Taking as a basis Alston’s paper on the Rodents, published in 
1876, the main object of the present communication was to 
place in their proper positions the many genera described since 
that author’s times. In regard to the larger groups, Alston 
arrangement had been followed as far as possible ; but among 
other things it had been thought better to elevate the subfamily 
Bathyergine into a family, to make two families of the Hys- 
tricidee, one for the Old-World and one for the New-World 
porcupines, and to give to the subfamilies Geomyinz and 
Heterominz full family rank. All the recent genera of the 
order were enumerated, to the number of 158, as compared 
with 100 in Alston’s list. —Dr. J. W. Gregory gave a description 
of Lysechinus, a new genus of Plesiocidarids from the Tyrolese 
Trias.—A second paper by Dr. J. W. Gregory related to the 
classification of the Palzeozoic Ophiurids.—A communication 
was read from the Rev. O. Pickard Cambridge, F.R.S., con- 
taining descriptions of four new or little known spiders (Aran- 
eidea) from Ceylon, Borneo, and South America.—A com- 
munication from Dr, Robert O. Cunningham related to the 
occurrence of a pair of supernumerary bones in the skull of a 
Lemur, and to a peculiarity which he had noted in the skull of 
a young Orang.—A communication was read from Dr. Alph. 
Dubois, in which he gave the description of a new African 
Trogan from Lake Tanganyika, proposed to be named Hapa- 
loderma rufiventris. 
EDINBURGH. 
Royal Society, December 7.—The first ordinary meeting of 
the Society was held, at which Prof. M‘Kendrick gave the open- 
ing address. He remarked that the number of ordinary Fellows 
of the Society was now 513, twenty-five having been elected 
during the past year. Referring to the jubilee of Lord Kelvin, 
he said the celebrations were unique in their kind, and marked 
the climax, though not the end of a great career. It was now 
NO. 1417, VOL. 55] 
fifty years since Lord Kelvin became a member of this Society, 
and during that time he had contributed seventy-two papers, 
including his famous memoirs on thermodynamics, on the dissi- 
pation of energy, and on vortex motion. Prof. M‘Kendrick 
then read short obituary notices of Fellows who had died during 
the recess. By request of the Council, he then gave an account 
of recent investigations of his own, He began with some 
remarks on the structural and physiological nervous unit. He 
showed that these units in brain structure—neurons, as they were 
called—were not, as was at one time believed, linked together. 
There was contiguity of their fine terminations, but not continuity 
of structure. He next described how it was possible by an 
arrangement consisting of a variable resistance transmitter, and 
an induction coil, to stimulate the sensory nerves of the skin 
electrically, so that some of the elements in music—rhythm and 
intensity—might be perceived, and even enjoyed by those who 
had become deaf. Lastly he exhibited his improved phono- 
graphic recorder, by which the curves on the cylinder could be 
amplified so that the form of each might be studied, and made 
some remarks on the character of these curves.—Papers by Mr. 
G. R. M. Murray on the reproduction of some marine diatoms, 
and by Dr. Thomas Muir on the eliminant of a set of quaternary 
quadrics, on the resolution of circulants into rational factors, and 
on the eliminant of /(«) = 0, f(1/*) = 0, were held as read. 
DUBLIN. 
Royal Dublin Society, November 18.—Prof. A. C. Had- 
don in the chair.—The following papers were presented :—Note 
on Irish annelids in the Museum of Science and Art, Dublin, by 
Prof. W. C. M‘Intosh; new species of dragon-flies in the 
Dublin Science and Art Museum, by Mr. George H. Carpenter ; 
on Fresnel’s wave-surface, and the surfaces relative thereto, by 
William Booth, Principal of Hoogly College, Bengal (communi- 
cated by Mr. Thomas Preston).—Prof. W. J. Sollas, F.R.S., 
gave an account of a journey in the interior of Fiji, illustrated 
by numerous photographs, 
NEw York. 
National Academy of Sciences, November 17 and 18.— 
Prof. Ogden N. Rood read a paper on flicker photometers. He 
called attention toa paper published by him in the Amerzcaz 
Journal of Science for September 1893, on a photometric method 
which is independent of colour, illustrating its use by determina- 
tions of the luminosity of discs of variously coloured paper. In 
his communication to the Academy, he described five forms of 
photometer based on the flicker principle. The idea underlying 
the action of these instruments is identical with that which 
obtained in his experiments with coloured discs, viz. the rapid 
distribution of two illuminated surfaces alternately for each other, 
the flicker disappearing when the two surfaces had equal bright- 
ness. The photometric measurements made with this new style 
of photometer are quite accurate and independent of colour.— 
Prof. Edward D. Cope read a paper on the geographical dis- 
tribution of batrachia and reptilia in the Medicolumbian region. 
—Prof. A. E. Verrill read a paper on the evolution and 
phylogeny of, the gasteropod molluscs, illustrated by beautiful 
diagrams. He advances the view that the Ophisthobranch 
molluscs were evolved from Pteropods, and are a type of higher 
order than the Prosobranchs, notwithstanding that they are 
hermaphrodites, Their sexual organs are much more compli- 
cated, and the loss or thinness of the shell gives greater scope 
for the development and arrangement of internal organs than 
can be attained by the Prosobranchs with their hard shells. 
The Ophisthobranchs furnish the most conspicuous examples 
in the animal kingdom of protection by mimicry, having lost 
their hard shell as a means of protection, though they still retain 
it in the early stages of life. The adults, however, either mimic 
seaweeds, on which they live, or sponges, hydroids, or corals. 
known to be poisonous to fishes, the chief enemies of the 
molluscs. Some beautiful examples were shown of molluscs, 
living in the Sargasso Sea, which imitate the seaweed, and even 
the parasitic life upon it. In the discussion, Prof. Cope main- 
tained the correctness of the old theory that the Prosobranchs 
were the more advanced and higher.—Prof. Othniel C. Marsh 
read a paper on the Jurassic formation on the Atlantic coast. 
This formation has long been supposed to be lacking in 
America ; but Prof. Marsh found it in 1868, near Lake Como 
in Wyoming, and has now traced it also on the Atlantic coast. 
—Prof. Alfred M. Mayer read a paper on the equation of 
the forces acting in the flotation of discs and rings of metal 
