OcTOBER 23, 1913] 
NATURE 
241 
corroborated by Dr. Tréndle, who, however, does not 
admit the presence of an acceleration. 
We pass over the remaining lectures, interesting 
as they were, remarking only on those of Profs. 
Keller and Dutoit. Prof. Keller dwelt on the points 
of resemblance between life in the Caucasus and that 
of the lake-dwellers in Switzerland in prehistoric 
times. Prof. Dutoit gave a brilliant exposition of the 
assimilation which is going on of the methods of 
analytical chemistry to those of physical chemistry 
and biology. The new processes employed—which 
are, in point of fact, due in great measure to Prof. 
Dutoit himself, and have already rendered consider- 
able services both to manufactures and science—are 
indirect, and have the advantage of great precision 
and extreme rapidity. 
Turning to the separate sections, we commence 
with botany. Prof. Chodat, whose unique collection 
of cultures of alga now numbers more than half a 
hundred, spoke of the bearing of his experiments on 
the systematic classification of these plants. Dr. 
Baumann, who has been studying the vegetation of 
the Lake of Constance, described how the small 
shells of gasteropods in these regions become coated 
with tufa, deposited by the algz. In this interesting 
way immense sandbanks of coarse sand, called after 
the little snails whose débris form it, ‘* Schnecker- 
lisand,”’ are deposited in the lake. Prof. Ernst dis- 
cussed parthenogenesis and apogamy among the 
Angiosperma, and showed that, contrary to Treub 
and Lotsy, the embryo of the Balanophoracez is 
formed normally. The asexual reproduction of garlic 
from the point of view of heredity and natural selec- 
tion was treated by Dr. Vogler. Prof. Edouard 
Fischer, who has been engaged in experiments on 
corn-rust, showed the connection between the ap- 
pearance of this plague and the position of the leaf 
attacked with respect to the horizontal. Mr. Jaccard 
discussed the influence of a mechanical force on the 
production and constitution of wood and woody 
plants. 
The section of geology occupied itself with the 
fossils, the stratification, and the relief of Switzer- 
land. Prof. Albrecht Heine communicated his latest 
observations of glacial deposits as corroborating his 
somewhat controverted explanation of the formation 
of alpine lakes by a subsidence of the earth’s crust in 
these regions during the diluvial epoch. Dr. F. 
Miihlberg showed by an interesting collection of 
lantern-slides the fallacious nature of the interpreta- 
tion of the formation of part of the Jura given by 
the Bonn school. Prof. H. Schardt spoke on a sub- 
ject which belongs properly to the borderland of 
geology, the typical phenomena of injection. He 
pointed out how, during the gradual cooling of a 
mass of magma, sudden pressures of a tectonic nature 
must sometimes occur, squeezing the molten material 
into the interstices of the neighbouring rocks and 
causing the phenomena in question. 
In the chemical section the school of Geneva was 
strongly represented. Dr. Reverdin’s determination 
of the constitution of certain anisidines, in particular 
of the two still doubtful trinitro-p-anisidines, is of a 
more advancedly technical character than Prof. A. 
Pictet’s interesting discovery by the process of dis- 
tillation in vacuo of a new kind of tar smelling of 
petroleum, and Messrs. Briner and Kiihne’s re- 
investigation of the still obscure mechanism of the 
chamber process for the production of sulphuric acid. 
The opinion arrived at by these latter investigators 
is that SO,H, is obtained by direct oxydisation of 
SO, into SO,, the nitrous anhydride serving only as 
a catalytic. Of quite a different nature were Dr. 
Piccard of Munich’s account of his experiments on 
NO. 2295, VOL. 92] 
certain dyes, and Dr. W. Baragiola’s report on the 
physical, chemical, and physico-chemical experiments 
which have been made on wine and grape-juice. 
In the physical section there were several com- 
munications deserving of mention; we content our- 
selves with signalising that of Prof. Perrier and 
H. Kamerlingh Onnes on the magnetisation of mix- 
tures of liquid oxygen and nitrogen. These mixtures 
are found simpler to deal with than pure oxygen, 
the specific magnetisation coefficient of which had 
been already shown to differ materially from what 
would be expected by the law of Curie-Langevin. 
Experiments made at a temperature between —195° 
and —210° show that the deviation from the law in 
question depends on the mutual approach of the mole- 
cules caused by the fall of temperature. 
In the mathematical section Prof. Fueter gave some 
instructive examples of algebraic equations possessing ~ 
a prescribed group; Prof. Crelier read a paper, con- 
ceived in the order of ideas of Sturm, on correspond- 
ences in synthetic geometry, with special reference to 
the curve of the third order and third class; while Dr. 
Speiser and Prof. Bieberbach dealt with factorisation 
of algebraic forms and conformal representation 
respectively. Dr. Mirimanoff communicated a new 
and elegant proof of the theorem of Cantor-Bendixon, 
which, as he pointed out, falls into the same category 
as the first proof of that theorem without Cantor’s 
transfinite numbers, that given by W. H. Young in 
“Sets of Intervals on the Straight Line’ (Proc. 
L.M.S., I, XXxXv., pp. 245-268). Prof. W. H. Young 
gave a paper on “The Integral of Stieltjes and its 
Generalisation,”” showing how the theory of the in- 
tegration of any function with respect to a function 
of bounded variation could be built up by the method 
of monotone sequences alone, and giving examples of 
new theorems, into the enunciation of which the 
new concept does not enter, and which he had ob- 
tained by means of its use. 
Communications were also made to the sections 
for zoology, and for geophysics, cosmical physics, and 
meteorology, among them one by Dr. P. Mercanton, 
who added some details to Dr. de Quervain’s account 
of the Swiss expedition across Greenland last year 
and the meteorology of that country. The rate of 
motion of the Greenland glaciers, which are mostly 
riddled with crevasses, was found, he said, to vary 
from one to two metres a day. At the base the grains 
of dust were not very large, the mean size not ex- 
ceeding that of those in the alpine glaciers. Ob- 
servations on some of the ancient glacial terraces 
showed that part of the dust was of cosmic origin. 
PLANKTON DISTRIBUTION.! 
N the University of California Publications in 
Zoology (vol. ix., No. 6), Mr. C. O. Esterly 
discusses the vertical distribution of certain Copepoda 
as shown by a large number of hauls made in the 
region of San Diego, between the years 1905 and 1o11- 
Dividing the twenty-four hours into a “day” period 
from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and a “night” period of the 
remainder, the author finds in the results obtained a 
distinct night migration towards the surface, with a 
corresponding downward movement during the day. 
For nine out of ten species specially considered the 
time of this maximum occurrence at the surface is 
found to vary between 6-8 p.m. and 10-12 p.m., 
Calanus finmarchicus attaining its maximum in the 
latter period. The depth shown for the day plurimum 
is more obscure, ranging between 50 and 200 fathoms. 
1 *€ The Occurrence and Vertical Distributi»n of the Copepoda of the San 
Diego Region, with particular Reference to Nineteen Species.” By Calvin 
O. Esterly. (Berkeley: University of California Press.) 
