678 
these Protozoa do exercise an important influence on 
plant growth in these soils. The authors have been 
able to establish the occurrence of a trophic Protozoan 
fauna in certain field soils that they have examined, 
and to this question they hope to return in a future 
paper.—J. F. Gemmill; The development of the star- 
fish, Asterias rubens, L.—Dr. A. H. Church : The floral 
mechanism of Welwitschia mirabilis, Hook. 
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, January 15.— 
Mr. Bedford McNeill, president, in the chair.—C. W. 
Purington: The Bereozovsk gold deposit, Ural Dis- 
trict, Russia. After a brief historical summary of the 
work done on the Bereozovsk estate, the author de- 
votes considerable attention to the geological features, 
and especially to the occurrence of auriferous granite 
which 
dykes are more or less distinctive of 
this. property. These dykes, of porphyritic rock 
of granitic type, in which is developed a 
considerable amount of  schistosity, extend in 
a generally north and south direction, alter- 
nating with micaceous schist. In the immediate 
vicinity of the village is an area of pure granite; to 
the west are patches of listvenite, probably a meta- 
morphosed dolomitic limestone; and in connection 
with the deposits occur bands of serpentine represent- 
ing metamorphosed basic dykes. The quartz veins, 
worked for gold, penetrate the granite dykes (locally 
known as beresite), almost at right angles, and it is a 
curious fact that though these beresite dykes or lodes, 
to the number of 143, have been worked for gold over 
lengths ranging from 100 to 3000 ft., they only show 
gold values by virtue of the quartz veins which cross 
them. It is, in fact, not likely that the beresite is 
primarily auriferous, but it is so immediately situated 
to the intruding quartz veins as to have become im- 
pregnated by fissuring. Moreover, only within the 
limits of the beresite dykes are the quartz veins wide 
enough and rich enough to produce payable gold. 
The author deals with the geological problems attach- 
ing to this noteworthy occurrence.—J. Mackintosh 
Bell: The outlook for the mineral industry in Canada. 
For the purposes of his review, the author divides 
Canada into four sections, referred to respectively as 
the south-eastern, central prairie, western, and north 
central areas, and deals with these in detail. Of 
these, the first-named has a production almost entirely 
confined to coal. The central area also shows at pre- 
sent little metallic output. The western section, com- 
prising British Columbia and the Yukon district, is of 
. course notably mineral producing, but since 1907 the 
fourth of the author’s arbitrary divisions, the north 
central, comprising Labrador, Ontario, Quebec, Mani- 
toba, Saskatchewan, and part of the North-West Terri- 
tories, has by the discoveries at Cobalt, Sudbury, and 
Porcupine, leapt into first place, though even now 
its latent possibilities are far from being fully realised. 
The author supplies much valuable information with 
regard to the mineral production of the various dis- 
tricts and as to the results to be expected when 
prospecting has been extended with the growth of the 
railroad systems of the Dominion. 
Geological Society, January 21.—Dr. Aubrey Strahan, 
president, in the chair.—W. R. Watt: Geology 
of the country round Huntly (Aberdeenshire). Two 
distinct series of rocks can be distinguished—a foliated 
and a non-foliated. In the former occur rocks origin- 
ally sedimentary and others originally igneous. In 
the non-foliated series, wholly of igneous origin, three 
main intrusions occur :—(1) The earliest and most 
extensive is a norite; into this is intruded (2) the 
heterogeneous mass known as the Central Intrusion; 
and (3) the large intrusion of the Carvichen Granitite. 
Each of these masses produces contact-alteration in 
NO. 2311, VOL. 92] 
NATURE. 
[FEBRUARY 12, 1914. 
the surrounding rocks. Where the Central Intrusion 
or the Carvichen Granitite is intruded into the earlier 
norite, a norite containing cordierite is produced. The 
original norite, by absorptiom of sediment, produces 
also along its margin a cordierite-norite—Dr. A. 
Jowett: The glacial geology of East Lancashire. The 
area comprises the western slopes of the Pennines’ 
and their westerly offshoot, the Rossendale highland, 
Three types of drift have been recognised :—(1) Local 
drift, consisting of materials which can be found in 
situ in the neighbourhood; (2) Ribblesdale drift with 
Carboniferous Limestone; (3) north-western drift 
which also contains igneous rocks from the Lake 
District and S.W. Scotland. The distribution of the 
drift and the evidence of striated rock-surfaces sug- 
gest the invasion of this area by an ice-sheet which 
reached up to the Pennine watershed, and projected 
ice-lobes across it through gaps. In the N.E. portion 
of the area the direction of ice-movement was from 
north to south; in the west from N.N.W. to S.S.E., 
but on the south of the Rossendale highland the direc- 
tion of flow curved round towards the E.N.E., and 
near Rochdale, towards the north. No evidence of 
local glaciation has been found. The limit of the 
N.W. drift rises at the rate of about 4 ft. a mile 
towards the Irish Sea; and the ice-sheet was probably 
more than 2000 ft. above present sea-level in the middle 
of the Irish Sea in this latitude. It is probable that 
the N.W. ice arrived in this area later, and dis- 
appeared earlier, than the Ribblesdale ice. There is 
no evidence for more than one glacial period. 
Dvs.in. Se 
Royal Irish Academy, January 26.—Rev. J. P- 
Mahaffy, president, in the chair.—H. C, Plummer: 
Note on the use of conjugate functions in some 
dynamical problems. Two-dimensional. problems in 
dynamics can be transformed into other problems by. 
means of the equation of energy and conjugate func- 
tions of the coordinates. The general form of the 
transformed equations is found for relative motion 
and the application to some particular cases is indi- 
cated.—J. R. Kilroe and T. Hallissy : Geology in con- 
nection with the Clare Island Survey. The paper 
gives a general account of the rocks entering into the 
structure of the island, and the geographical features 
to which they give rise. The older Paleozoic rocks, 
which form the bulk of the area, have been studied. 
in the light of recent observations on similar rocks 
occurring close by on the mainland. An account of 
the glaciation of the island is also included, and the 
reconstruction of its recent geological history is 
attempted with a view to an explanation of the many 
problems connected with the present distribution of th 
fauna and flora of the district. a 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, February 2—M. P. Appell in 
the chair.—G. Humbert: Some remarkable numerical 
functions.—A. Haller and R. Cornubert : The alkylation 
of the cyclopentanones and breaking the cyclic chain 
of the tetra-alkyl derivatives into a and a’, by means 
of sodium amide. A description of the preparation 
and properties of mono-, di-, tri-, and tetra-methyl- 
cyclopentanones. The last-named compound, heated 
with sodium amide in toluene solution for seven hours, 
gives the open chain amide of 2:2: 5-trimethylcaproic 
acid.—Charles Richet: A new type of anaphylaxis. 
Dogs chloroformed for the first time never show 
leucocytosis, but the same animal, chloroformed a 
second time after an interval of nineteen days, always 
presents strong leucocytosis. The increase in the 
number of leucocytes after the second administration 
of chloroform is gradual, reaching a maximum in six 
or seven days, and there is nothing corresponding to 
F * 
