January 14, 1897 | 
NATURE 
263 
proportion, however, is undoubtedly raised by loan. At the 
same time it is pointed out in the report that in two or three 
localities the entire fund was raised by donations and subscrip- 
tions, and in one instance, that of St. Helens, a site and 
20,0007. was presented by Colonel Gamble, C.B., to the cor- 
poration for the establishment of a technical school and free 
library. Of the large number of technical schools mentioned 
above, 57 are already at work, 32 new schools having been 
opened since last year’s report. There remain, therefore, 58 
schools which, according to the latest information, are still in- 
complete. Dairy institutes or agricultural schools or colleges 
have been established by nine English County Councils. In 
addition to these, the establishment of a central agricultural 
school is under consideration in Cornwall, and the County 
Councils of the East, North, and West Ridings of Yorkshire are 
taking joint action with a view to forming a rural agricultural 
centre. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonpDon. 
Royal Society, November 19, 1896.—‘‘ Preliminary Report 
on the Results obtained with the Prismatic Camera during the 
Eclipse of 1896.” By J. Norman Lockyer, C.B., F.R.S. 
The author first states the circumstances under which Sir 
George Baden-Powell, K.C.M.G., M.P., with great public 
spirit, conveyed an eclipse party to Novaya Zemlya. in his yacht 
Otarta, to which party was attached Mr. Shackleton, one of the 
computers employed by the Solar Physics Committee. 
The prismatic camera employed, loaned from the Solar Physics 
Observatory, was carefully adjusted before leaving England, 
and a programme of exposures was drawn up based upon the 
experience of 1893. As the station occupied Iay at some dis- 
tance from the central line, this programme was reduced by Mr. 
Shackleton. “ 
Two of the photographs obtained are reproduced for the 
information of other workers, as some time must elapse before 
the discussion of all the results can be completed. This dis- 
cussion and Mr. Shackleton’s report on the local arrangements 
and details of work, are promised in a subsequent communica- 
tion. 
The.lines photographed in the ‘‘ flash” at the commencement 
of totality—happily caught by Mr. Shackleton—the wave-lengths 
of which lines have been measured by Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer, 
show interesting variations from those photographed by Mr. 
Fowler in the cusp during the eclipse of 1893. 
With the exception of the lines visible in the spectra of 
hydrogen and helium, and the longest lines of many of the 
metallic elements, considerable differences of intensity from the 
lines of Fraunhofer are noticeable. 
The coronal rings have been again photographed, and the 
results of 1893 have been confirmed. 
EDINBURGH. 
Royal Society, January 4.—Prof. Chrystal in the chair.— 
Mr. T. S. Muir read the report of the intermediate station on 
Ben Nevis. He was stationed there from September 1 to 
September 23, and during that time he took 186 observations, 
or eight readings per day. Out of twenty-two times that the 
barometer at the intermediate station (reduced to 32° and sea- 
level) read higher than that at Fort William, fourteen occurred 
close together during the first four days of the month, and were 
followed by a period of fine weather. On the average the 
intermediate barometer read one-hundredth of an inch lower 
than the Fort William barometer, and the weather of the month 
generally was bad. The mean day-difference of temperature 
between the intermediate, summit, and Fort William stations 
was as nearly as possible half of that between the summit and 
the base. But it is probable that during the night the inter- 
mediate temperature comes closer to that of the summit, and 
that the average for the twenty-four ‘hours is closer to that of 
the summit than Fort William. When the station was en- 
veloped in fog, or between two fog-systems, or close to the fog, 
the temperature approximated to that of the summit, and when 
there was no fog visible, or, if it were, at a great height, it 
approximated to that of the base. Also, when the sky was 
overcast, or nearly so, the middle temperature was closer to that 
of the summit ; when the sky was clear, to that at Fort William, 
During the period, the rainfall at the summit was 6} inches, 
NO. 1420, VOL. 55 | 
at the intermediate station 6 inches, and at Fort William 4} inches. 
Dr. Munro read a paper on intermediary links between man 
and the lower animals. He maintained that by the attainment of 
the erect posture and the consequent conversion of the limbs 
into hands and feet man became Homo sapéens, and inaugurated 
a new phase of existence, by means of which the manipulative 
organs became correlated with the progressive development of 
the brain. In the evolutionary career of man two stages were 
therefore to be recognised. First, that during which his physical 
transformation had been effected, so as to adapt him to bipedal 
locomotion ; second, that during which his mental organisation 
had become a new governing force in the universe. The one, 
being readily effected according to the laws of morphological 
adaptation, had a short duration. The other, an extremely slow 
process, consisted of small increments to his knowledge, 
acquired by repeated experiences, and reasoning from causes to 
effects, and from means to ends. The one was merely an 
adjustment of physical contrivances to physical ends, comparable 
to that by which the bird, the bat, or the whale had converted 
its limbs to their special purposes. The other had to be relegated 
to the mystic laboratory where thought was converted into its 
material equivalent in the form of increased brain substance. 
The transition from the semi-erect to the erect posture could not, 
in point of duration, be at all paralleled with the ages during 
which this erect being had lived on the globe. It was also 
probable that this transformation took place in a limited area ; 
so that the chances of finding the intermediary links of this 
stage were very small. On the other hand, the probability of 
finding erect beings with skulls in all grades of development, 
from a slightly changed Simian type up to that of civilised man, 
was enormously greater. He regarded the erect posture as the 
most conspicuous line of demarcation between man and, the 
lower animals. From this standpoint, the Java skeleton would 
come under the category of human; but if this line of distinc- 
tion was to be dependent in any degree on mental phenomena, 
Dr. Dubois was perfectly justified in regarding it as a transi- 
tional form, because it was a long time after the attainment of 
the erect posture, before his religious, moral, and intellectual 
faculties became human characteristics. Dr. Munro believed 
that many fossil remains of man were intermediary links which 
marked different stages in the history of mankind, and the 
further back such investigations carried them, the more Simian- 
like did the brain-case become. If the geological horizon of the 
Java man was correctly defined as the borderland between the 
Pliocene and Quaternary pericds, they could form some idea 
how far back they had to travel to reach the common stock from 
which men and anthropoid animals had sprung. The lower 
races of to-day were also survivals of intermediary links which 
had been thrown into the side eddies of the great stream of 
evolution. 
PARIS. 
Academy of Sciences, January 4.—M. A. Cornu in the 
chair.—Researches on the physiology of muscular action, by 
MM. A. Chauveau and J. Tissot. When the weight sustained 
by a muscle and the amount by which it shortens increase 
together, it is shown experimentally that the respiratory ex- 
changes which represent the energy spent, that is, the oxygen 
absorbed and the carbon dioxide exhaled, increase as the pro- 
duct of the shortening by the weight.—On a generating and 
distributing apparatus for acetylene, by M. H. L. Lechappe.— 
Observations on the new Perrine comet (December 8, 1896) 
made at the Observatory of Algiers, by MM. Rambaud and BR 
Sy.—On the consumption of water in locomotives, by M. E. 
Vicaire. On the basis of some experiments carried out on the 
Orleans system of railways, a general expression is deduced for 
the consumption of water on any given section.—Variation of 
the accidental double refraction of quartz with the direction of 
the compression, by M. R. Dongier. It is found that the same 
pressure, applied in two independent directions normal to the 
ternary axis, affects the wave-surface differently. The experi- 
ments will be continued with a view of determining the exact 
relation between the direction of pressure and the double 
refraction produced. —The action exercised upon solutions of 
the haloid salts of the alkalis, by the bases that they contain, 
by M. A. Ditte. An experimental study of the decrease of 
solubility of KBr by the addition of a solution of caustic potash, 
and of NaBr, by caustic soda.—Action of ammonia upon tel- 
lurium:chloride. Tellurium nitride, by M. René Metzner. At 
200°—250° C., TeCly is slowly but completely reduced to metallic 
tellurium, ammonium chloride and nitrogen being formed, At 
