JARY I, 1914] 
= »dimethyl-diethyl, and methyl-triethylammonium 
-les produce actions, speaking broadly, inter- 
5 te to those of tetra-methyl- and _ tetra-ethyl- 
7 .«jonium chlorides.. None of these compounds 
dm date the vagus endings.—Miss Dorothy Court : 
__anzymatic peptolysis in germinating seeds. Parts i. 
and ii.—Prof. A. H. Gibson: The kinetic energy of 
viscous flow through a circular tube. In the experi- 
ments, which were arranged to test the theory, the 
upper end of the tube projected into the reservoir, and 
head loss at entrance to the tube was represented 
che expression cv*/2g, where the factor ¢ is unity 
for very thin-walled tubes, and o-5 for thick-walled 
tubes. The experiments gave, for three cases, values 
of c varying from 0-54 to o-71, and these could be 
represented with fair accuracy by the formula 
- 
e=1/(2—n4), 
where n is the ratio of the inner to the outer 
diameter.—L. N. G. Ramsay : Polycheta of the family 
Nereidz collected by the Scottish National Antarctic 
Expedition. These worms are poorly represented in 
Antarctic and  sub-Antarctic regions. One new 
species was found near the Falkland Islands. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, December 22, 1913.—M. P. 
Appell in the chair.—Remarks by the Presi- 
dent on the _ proceedings of the fifth general 
meeting of Weights and Measures, held at 
Paris and at Sévres, October g-17.—G. Humbert : 
Indefinite binary quadratic forms.—Ch. Lallemand : 
Remarks on the second conference concerning the 
international map of the world on the scale of 
I: 1,000,000, held at Paris, December 10-17.—Arnaud 
de Gramont: The band spectrum of aluminium and 
its presence in the flame spectrum of certain minerals. 
The mineral was heated in an oxy-acetylene flame, 
giving a temperature well above the melting point of 
iridium. Metallic aluminium or its haloid salts give 
a mixed line and band spectrum, details being given. 
The spectrum is not given by the oxygen compounds 
of aluminium in the oxy-acetylene flame; but this 
generalisation does not seem to hold with all minerals, 
some giving the spectrum and others not.—M. 
Edmond Perrier was elected vice-president for the year 
1914.—Ernest Esclangon: Observation of the Delavan 
comet made with the large equatorial of Bordeaux 
‘Observatory. Positions given for December 19, on 
which date the comet was of the 11th magnitude.— 
J. Guillaume: Observations of the Delavan comet 
{1913f) made with the coudé equatorial at the Ob- 
servatory of Lyons. Position for December 19. Comet 
as a whole 11th magnitude, stellar nucleus 13th mag- 
nitude.—M., Giacobini ; Observations of the same comet 
made at the Paris Observatory. _ Three positions 
determined, December 19 and 20.—P. Chofardet: On 
the same. Observations at Besancon on December 19 
and 20.—Emile Belot: The extension of a theorem 
‘of Faye with application to the mode of formation of 
the planetary system.—St. Chevalier: The effect of 
atmospheric dispersion on the diameter of photo- 
graphed stars.—Georges Darmois: Algebraic curves of 
constant torsion.—M. Tzitzéica: Networks with equal 
invariants.—B. Hostinsky : Closed curves of constant 
torsion.—A, Chatelet : Complex multiplication.—Ernest 
Esclangon: Mean quasi-periodic functions, deduced 
from a quasi-periodic function.—Kampé de Fériet : 
The development of a function in a series of ultra- 
spherical polynomials.—Kyrille Popoff: Fredholm’s 
equations of the first species.—G. Bouligand : Correc- 
tion to a note on the problem of Dirichlet presented 
to the meeting of December 8.—Jean Chazy: The 
singular points of the general integral of the problem 
NO. 2305, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
521 
on » bodies.—Th. de Donder: The movement of heat 
in a body opaque to heat.—J. M. Crafts : General com- 
parison of vapour pressures. If T and T’ are the 
boiling points of any substance under pressures P and 
P’, T’ and T” are the boiling points under the same 
pressures of a standard substance (naphthalene), and 
C is a constant, it is shown that the relation 
T—T'=(T"—T")C holds for numerous substances of 
very varied nature.—Pierre Weiss : The molecular field 
and a law of action inversely as the sixth power of 
the distance.—Paul Sélényi: The existence and ob- 
servation of non-homogeneous spherical light waves. 
—G,. Sagnac: The proof of the reality of the luminous 
zether by the experiment of the rotating interferograph. 
—M. de Broglie: The continuous photographic regis- 
tration of the spectra of Rontgen rays. The spectrum 
of tungsten. The influence of thermal agitation.—F. 
Bourriéres: The observation of the Brownian move- 
ment with linear magnification above 20,000. In this 
work the ordinary eyepiece of a microscope was 
replaced by another complete microscope. Under 
these conditions the Brownian movement proved to 
consist of a double motion; the first with an amplitude 
of the order of a micron, the other about 1/50 of this. 
—\. Schafiers: The law of currents producing glow 
discharge in cylindrical fields —R. Marcelin: The ex- 
pression of velocities of transformation of physico- 
chemical systems as a function of the affinity.—M. 
Gompel and Victor Henri: The absorption of ultra- 
violet light by alkaloids of the morphine group and 
by phenanthrene.—Maurice Nicloux; The laws of 
absorption of carbon monoxide by the blood. The 
hemoglobin of the blood corpuscles, put in contact 
with mixtures of carbon monoxide and oxygen, com- 
bines with both gases in proportions defined by their 
partial pressures in the mixture and in accordance 
with the law of mass action.—F. Bodroux: Catalytic 
esterification in the wet way. The production of 
esters in presence of dilute mineral acids. The 
ordinary theories of esterification by mineral acids 
fail to explain the catalytic action of these acids in 
very dilute solutions at 100° C, The author suggests 
the possible formation of an addition compound of 
the organic and mineral acids as an explanation of 
the action.—Charles Staehling : A supposed separation 
of radium D from lead in active lead by means of 
Grignard’s reaction. The author has repeated the 
work of Hofmann and Wolff, and has been unable to 
obtain the positive separation indicated by these 
authors. The results are absolutely negative, and it 
is concluded that it is impossible to separate radium D 
from lead in active lead by the tetraphenyl-lead 
method.—J. Riban ; Concerning the action of carbonyl 
chloride upon phosphates and oxides. Remarks on a 
recent paper by Barlot and Chauvenet.—Gabriel 
Bertrand and H. Agulhon: A method for estimating 
extremely small quantities of boron in organic mate- 
rials.—Amé Pictet and Maurice Bouvier: Vacuum tar. 
A chemical study of the tar obtained by the distillation 
of coal at 450° C. under reduced pressure (15 mm. 
to 18 mm.). After separating alcohols and unsaturated 
hydrocarbons, two naphthenes, C,,H., and C,,H.», 
were isolated, identical with two hydrocarbons ob- 
tained by Mabery from Canadian petroleum.—M. 
Lespieau: True acetylene derivatives obtained from 
dipropargyl compounds.—E. E. Blaise: Syntheses by 
means of the organometallic zinc compounds. The 
preparation of. the aketonic acids.—Marcel Sommelet : 
A method of synthesis of benzyl chloride and its homo- 
logues. A new general method is described based on 
the following reaction, 
RH-+CICH,.O.R’=R.CH,.OR'+ HCl, 
which takes place at —10° C. in carbon bisulphide or 
carbon tetrachloride solution in presence of SnCl,.— 
