APRIL 29, 1897 | 
NATURE 
623 
March 31.—Anniversary Meeting.—Mr. A. G. Vernon Har- 
court, President in the chair.—The Longstaff medal was pre- 
sented to Prof. W. Ramsay, for the discovery of helium and for 
his share in the investigation of argon. After the reading of the 
President’s address, the ballot for the election of Officers and 
Council for the ensuing year was held. 
April 1.—Prof. Dewar, President, in the chair.—The fol- 
lowing papers were read :—The hydrolysis of perthiocyanic 
acid, by F. D. Chattaway and H. P. Stevens. Perthiocyanic 
acid is readily hydrolysed by water at 200° or by heating with 
strong sulphuric acid, thiourea, carbon oxysu!phide and sulphur 
being produced ; the thiourea found amongst the products of 
the action of strong sulphuric acid on potassium thiocyanate is 
certainly a product of hydrolysis of the perthiocyanic acid 
always produced in the reaction.—The composition of cooked 
fish, by Miss K. I. Williams. Determinations have been made 
of the constituents and heats of combustion of twenty-two 
species of fresh fish and five species of preserved fish and oysters 
after cooking. On the oxidation products of ay-dimethyl- 
a’-chloropyridine, by Miss E. Aston and J. N. Collie. On 
oxidising ay-dimethyl-a’-chloropyridine with permanganate 
a-chloro-y-methyl-a’-pyridinecarboxylic acid and a-chloro-a- 
methyl-a’-pyridinecarboxylic acid are obtained. 
Geological Society, April 7.—Dr. Henry Hicks, F.R.S., 
President, in the chair.—After the election of Fellows, the 
President left the chair, which was taken by Prof. Bonney, 
F.R.S.—The following communications were read :—On the 
Morte slates and associated beds in North Devon and West 
Somerset (Part ii.), by Dr. Henry Hicks, F.R.S.; with 
descriptions of the fossils by the Rev. G. F. Whidborne. In 
the first part of this paper, read by the author before the 
Society in February 1896, he described the Morte slates as they 
occurred in North Devon, and the fossils found in them. In 
this, the second part, he referred mainly to the rocks classified 
as Morte slates in West Somerset. The author contended 
that the Morte slates which extend through the centre of North 
Devon and West Somerset from Morte Point to the north of 
Wiveliscombe, a length of about forty miles, are the oldest 
rocks in the area and formed an axis with newer rocks lying to 
the north and to the south. In the discussion which followed 
the reading of the paper, Mr. Etheridge said he could not agree 
with the author upon the important question at issue, either as 
to the stratigraphical or paleontological evidence afforded by 
the Morte slates justifying the assertion that they were ‘the 
oldest rocks in North Devon’’; and he differed entirely from 
the author in the conclusions drawn, as based upon this 
assertion. Prof. Hughes thought that, taking the difference 
of sediment and other circumstances which tended to modify 
the distribution of life, no sufficient evidence had yet been 
offered to establish the author’s principal contention. Mr. Marr 
remarked that the author had established one of his main con- 
tentions, namely, that the apparent succession in North Devon 
was not the true one. The Rev. H. H. Winwood remarked 
that whatever difference may exist in the two views as to the 
stratigraphy of the North Devon beds, yet one fact was in- 
disputable, that the author had found fossils in the Morte slates 
which previous observers had failed to do. Mr. R. S. Herries 
said that he had been over part of the area with the author. He 
had not examined the south side, but he thought that on the 
north there could be no doubt that on stratigraphical grounds 
the Treborough slates belonged to a series entirely distinct from 
the beds immediately north of them. Dr. J. W. Gregory re- 
ferred only to the paleontological questions, and not to the 
stratigraphical difficulties. He said the case for the Lower 
Devonian age of the fauna appeared, from the evidence quoted 
by the author, to rest on the Cryfheus (as the author preferred 
to call it) /acénéatus. Dr. Hicks described this species as 
characteristically Lower Devonian ; but it was commonest at 
the extreme top of the Lower Devonian, as in the Vichtian beds, 
where it was associated with Middle Devonian forms. Gosselet 
quoted it from the Eifelian (Middle Devonian), and asserted its 
occurrence in the Upper Devonian. Hence the speaker doubted 
whether it proved much. The author replied to the various 
criticisms, but held that they did not affect his conclusions.— 
The President then resumed the chair.—The glacio-marine drift 
of the Vale of Clwyd, by T. Mellard Reade. The local drift 
of the higher parts of the Vale of Clwyd is replaced by marine 
drift towards the mouth ; and it was the object of this paper to 
give the results of a detailed examination of these marine drifts, 
rather than to explain the phenomena. The first part of the 
NO. 1435, VOL. 55 | 
paper gave the results of an examination of the boulder-clay from 
Craig, west of Llandulas, to the Vale of Clwyd, south-east of 
Abergele. Mechanical analyses of the clays were given ; but 
the point of greatest interest was the occurrence of abundance 
of foraminifera, especially in the plastic brown and red boulder- 
clays, which often contain intensely striated erratics. Mr. 
Strahan drew the attention of the author to Prof. Hughes's 
exhaustive papers on the drifts of the Vale of Clwyd. The 
occurrence of foraminifera was to be expected in clay so similar 
to that of Cheshire, in which they had long since been recorded 
by Mr. Shone. Prof. Hughes said that he had laid pretty fully 
before the Society his views as to the origin and classification of 
the drifts of the Vale of Clwyd (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 
vol. xliii., 1887, p. 73) ; and he gathered from the exposition cf 
Mr. Mellard Reade’s recent observations in that area, that the 
foraminifera which he had obtained all occurred in the newer or 
St. Asaph drift. This had all the characteristics of the shore- 
deposits on that coast at the present day. 
Royal Meteorological Society, April 21.—Mr. E. 
Mawley, President, in the chair.—Mr. W. H. Dines read a 
paper on the relation between cold periods and anticyclonic 
conditions of weather in England during the winter. There 
seems to be a generally accepted belief that anticyclonic con- 
ditions during the winter are likely to be accompanied by excep- 
tional cold ; but, in so far as England is concerned, the author’s 
observation has led him to the opposite conclusion, and he 
always expects a frost to break up as soon as the barometer gets 
much above 30’00 inches. To test the truth of this theory he 
tabulated the height of the barometer for all the cold periods 
during the three winter months of the fifty years 1841-90. Out 
of 74 frosts, he found that 16 only hada pressure exceeding 30°20 
inches, and the majority of these were of very short duration. 
Thirty-three, or less than half, had a pressure exceeding 30°00 
inches. Twenty-one had a pressure below 29°80 inches, and 
these included almost every frost in the period remarkable for 
its length or severity. —A paper by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, of 
the Blue Hill Observatory, Mass., was read, describing the use of 
kites at that observatory to obtain meteorological records in the 
upper air. Three kinds of kites have been used, viz. (1) the 
Malay kite, which presents a convex surface to the wind; (2) 
the Hargrave cellular kite ; and (3) a flat kite with a fin or keel 
on the front, devised by Mr. Clayton. . These kites are attached 
to a wire carrying self-recording meteorological instruments, and 
a steam winch automatically distributes the wire on the drum 
and records its pull. The instruments have been elevated more 
than one hundred times, and valuable meteorological data as to 
the changes of temperature, humidity, and wind up to an 
extreme altitude of $740 feet above Blue Hill have been 
obtained. —A paper by Mr. A. B. MacDowall, on suggestions of 
sunspot influence on the weather of Western Europe, was also 
read. The author believes that there is a tendency to greater 
heat in the summer half-year, and to greater cold in the winter 
half-year near the phases of minimum sunspots than near the 
phases of maximum; the contrast between the cold and 
heat of the year thus tending to be intensified about the time of 
minimum sunspots. 
PARIS. 
Academy of Sciences, April 20.—M. A. Chatin in the 
chair.—On the classification of the Insemineze; the sub- 
division of the Unitegeminez or Icacininee, by M. Ph. van 
Tieghem. A continuation of previous papers on classification. 
—Determination of the surface, stoutness, and chemical compo- 
sition of the human body, by M. Ch. Bouchard. A series of 
formule is developed giving empirically the relations between 
the surface, weight, height, and girth. The factor varies with 
the sex, and also with the corpulency of the individual, the latter 
being defined by the ratio of the weight to the height. —Details 
of the methods employed in exact cryoscopical researches, by 
M. F. M. Raoult. The results of some experiments on the 
constancy obtainable for the convergent temperature are given, 
and the conclusion is drawn that it is comparatively easy to 
arrange matters so that the disturbing effect of the temperature 
of the refrigerant may be completely neutralised, the accuracy 
of the measurements taken with the precautions indicated being 
0’ 0005.—On the physiological action of the X-rays, by M. W. 
Crookes. The effects produced by the X-rays vary greatly with 
the idiosyncrasy of the experimenter, no evil effects having fol- 
lowed even prolonged exposure to the rays in the case of the 
author.—Comparison between the absorption by crystallised 
media of luminous rays and the Rontgen rays, by M. V- 
