November 3c, 1905] 



.V. / 77 T RE 



1 19 



— Contributions to the knowledge of the tetrazoline group : 

 S. Ruhemann and R. W. Merriman. The authors have 

 .1 rttinued the study of tetrazoline (see Trans. Chem. Soc., 

 1902, lxxxi., 261) especially with the view of determining 

 he constitution of the two compounds (previously de- 

 ied) which are formed by the action of methyl iodide 

 on tetrazoline. They show that the one substance, 

 1 ll-\,I , is the additive compound of the other, C 3 H ; N,I, 

 and point out the resemblance between the former com- 

 pound and the additive product of diazobenzene chloride with 

 iodine. — The action of radium and other salts on gelatin : 

 YV. A. D. Rudge. The author has made experiments with 

 various metallic salts, and finds that those of barium, lead, 

 and strontium produce effects upon sterilised gelatin exactly 

 similar to that caused by radium preparations, and comes 

 to the conclusion that the " growth " observed is not of 

 vital origin, and that the effect obtained by the radium 

 salt is probably due to the large proportion of barium which 

 it usually contains. — A suggestion as to the nature oi the 

 "•walnut" comb in fowls: W. Bateson and R. C. 

 Punnett. — The absence of isomerism in substituted 

 ammonium compounds : H. O. Jones. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, November 6. — Prof. Crum Brown, vice- 

 president, in the chair. — The conductivity of concentrated 

 aqueous solutions of electrolytes, part i. : Prof. J. Gibson. 

 When the ratio of the specific conductivity to the concen- 

 tration measured in grams equivalent per cubic centimetre 

 was plotted against the concentration, curves were obtained 

 concave upwards. When, however, the concentration was 

 measured in grams equivalent per gram, the correspond- 

 ing graphs became in manv cases accurate straight lines, 

 and in most others straight lines over a considerable range 

 of concentration. The point of maximum conductivity, 

 when determinable, lay within this straight line portion. 

 There were a few exceptions to the rules just stated. For 

 example, the graph for zinc chloride was nowhere straight, 

 but was concave upward. — The Tarpan and its relation- 

 ship with wild and domestic horses : Prof. Ewart. The 

 paper was a contribution to the important and difficult 

 question of the ancestry of our domestic breeds of horses. 



The Tarpan, first described by Gmelin about 1740, had 

 usually been considered as the wild ancestor of the horses 

 of Europe ; Dr. Xehring regarded it as the last survivor 

 of the prehistoric European horse, modified by infusion of 

 domestic blood, while Pallas and others thought it might 

 very well be the offspring of escaped domestic horses. 

 After a comparison of the characteristics as to hair, tail, 

 mane, and skeleton of Tarpan and other breeds. Prof. 

 Ewart proceeded to describe the result of his recent ex- 

 periments on cross-breeding. Bearing in mind the fact 

 established by previous experiments, that the crossing of 

 carefully selected forms sometimes reproduced remote tvpes 

 in all their original purity, he selected a Shetland pony 

 mare which seemed to be a blend of at least three varie- 

 ties, resembling the wild horse of the Gobi Desert in the 

 head, the forest variety in the mane, tail, and trunk, and 

 the Celtic pony in the limbs and hoofs. This mare was 

 crossed with a black Welsh pony. The first foal failed to 

 throw any light on the question, but the second foal had 

 developed into an animal, now three years old, which was 

 as typical a Tarpan as ever roamed the Russian steppes. 

 The general conclusion was that the Tarpan, once so 

 common in the east of Europe, could not be considered 

 as a true wild species, but was very probably derived from 

 at least three sources : — (1) from a variety of Celtic ponv ; 

 (2) from a variety resembling the forest horse (Equus 

 caballus typicus); (3) from a variety identical with, or 

 closely related to, the wild horse of Central Asia (E. caballus 



prjevajskii). — The horse in Norway : Dr. 1". H. A. 

 Marshall. The horses in Norway belonged to two dis- 

 tinct types, represented by the pure fjord horse and the 

 Gudbrandsdal horse. The former was probablv by origin 

 identical with Prof. Ewart's "Celtic pony," while the 

 latter belonged to the forest or cart-horse type. The fjord 

 horse was now, as formerly, typically light dun in colour. 



I If Gudbrandsdal was formerly of almost the same colour, 

 but it was now generally dark brown or black, owing to 

 an infusion of Danish and other foreign blood. The two 

 types of Icelandic horses were derived respectively from 



NO. 1883, VOL. 73] 



the ancestors of the fjord horse and of the Gudbrandsdal 

 horse. — Elimination in the case of .quality of fractions 

 whose numerators and denominators are linear functions 

 of the variables : Dr. Thomas Muir. The investigation 

 led with great ease to an interesting identity between 

 a determinant of the (n+i)th order the constituents of 

 which were determinants of the nth order and one of the 

 nth order the constituents of which were of the (n+i)th 

 order, an identity which would be difficult to establish 

 directly. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, November 20. — M. Troost in il e 

 c hair. — Researches on the insoluble alkaline compounds 

 contained in living plant tissues: M. Berthelot. — On the 

 I halassinidae collected by the Blake in the Gulf of Mexico : 

 E. L. Bouvier, This group id' crustaceans occupies an 

 important place in the deep-sea collections made by thi 

 Blake expedition. Several new species are described. — On 

 the attitudes of some Tertiary animals of Patagonia : 

 Albert Gaudry. — The evolution of terrestrial relief : A. 

 do Lapparent. — On the impossibility of negative ivju- 

 of shock in gases : P. Duhem. Remarks on a paper 

 on the same subject by M. G. Zemplen.— On the grains el 

 Sphenopteris : M. Grand'Eury. — On the observation ol the 

 total eclipse of the sun of August 30, 1905, at Alcosebre, 

 Spain: 1.. Millochau. A risumi of results obtained 

 with the telespectrograph. — Interpolation formula.' for 

 continuous periodic functions : Maurice Frechet. 

 On the development in continued fractions of the 

 function ( F(h, 1, h ' . a I, and the generalisation of the 

 theory of spherical functions: H. Pade. — On a theoren 

 M. Poincare relating to the motion of a heavy solid : 

 Edouard Husson. A new demonstration of this theorem 

 is given. — On the application of the partial liquefaction < f 

 aii with a view to the complete separation of the air into 

 pure oxygen and nitrogen: Georges Claude. Details are 

 niuii oi" a system of fractional distillation of liquid air. 

 From 100 parts of air, about 14 parts of pure oxygen are 

 obtained by the process originally described by the author. 

 The improvements in the apparatus now described permil 

 of a practically complete separation of the two gases. — 

 The density of nitric oxide ; the atomic weight of nitrogen : 

 P. A. Guye and Ch. Davila. The nitric oxide used in 

 these experiments was prepared by three methods, the action 

 of mercury upon sulphuric acid containing nitrous fumes, 

 the reduction of nitric acid by ferrous sulphate, and the 

 decomposition of sodium nitrite by sulphuric acid in dilute 

 solution. The gas was dried by sulphuric acid and phos- 

 phoric anhydride, solidified in liquid air, and purified by 

 fractional distillation. The mean density found was 13402 

 grams per litre, practically identical with the value recently 

 found bv Gray — 1-3402. This leads to a value for the 

 atomic weight' of nitrogen between the limits 14006 and 

 14-010, a confirmation of the number 14009 found in 

 previous researches. — The action of chloride of silicon on 

 iron : Em. Vigouroux. Silicon chloride is decomposed by 

 iron a little below a red heat. No lower chloride of silicon 

 appears to be formed, the silicon set free forming an alloy 

 with the iron containing about 20 per cent, of Si, corre- 

 sponding to the formation of the well known compound 

 Fe Si. — On the preparation of racemic amyl alcohol: P. 

 Freundler and I-:. Damond. The alcohol is prepared by 

 the interaction of triow methylene with the magnesium 

 compound of secondary butyl bromide, details being given 

 of the precautions necessary to obtain a good yield. — The 

 diffusion of barium and strontium in the sedimentary 

 strata : t.. Collot. — On the increase in the dry weight of 

 grei n plants developed in the light, in the absence of 

 carbon dioxide, in a soil to which amides have been 

 added: Jules Lefevre. It has been shown experimentally 

 that the growth of green plants in a soil containing amides, 

 and in the absence of carbon dioxide, is accompanied by 

 a rapid increase in the dry weight. The growth under 

 these conditions is therefore real, and not merely a pheno- 

 menon of hydration. — On the structure and evolution .it 

 Rhacodium cellare : V. Gueguen. — On juglone : M. 

 Br-issemoret and R. Combes. Contrary to the usually 

 accepted view, it is shown that juglone exists already 

 formed in all the green organs of the walnut (leaves, stem, 

 nut I. The method used for the extraction is given in 

 detail. — Rheotropism in some hydroids and Bugula : Paul 



