43° 



NA TURE 



[March i, 1906 



came before him in which [he patents had been taken out 

 in Germany and brought over here to be developed and 

 worked at a profit. Why was this? While Germany has 

 founded numerous places for chemical experiment and re- 

 search, nothing of the kind is provided here, except at 

 such colleges and schools as those belonging to the City 

 and Guilds of London Institute. It is a matter of national 

 concern that whatever is possible should be done to give 

 a stimulus to the >. ientific and industrial activity of the 

 country. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Society of Chemical Industry (London Section), 

 February 5. — Mr. R. J. Friswell in the chair. — 

 Carburetted water gas in the Bunsen burner : M. 

 Chikashige. Carburetted water gas is now prepared in 

 the Kyoto University by injecting heavy petroleum oil with 

 steam into a water-gas generator filled with ignited coke. 

 The gas produced is passed through a superheater loosely- 

 packed with fire-bricks, and then through a scrubber, after 

 which treatment it enters the gas holders. The mean 

 composition of the gas differs little from that of coal gas, 

 and the products of combustion closely resemble those of 

 coal gas. The carburetted gas has no effect on the 

 ordinary laboratorj vessels, and the products of combustion, 

 unlike 'those of plain water gas, are not more injurious 

 in insufficiently ventilated laboratories than those of coal 

 gas. — The loss' of nitre in the chamber process, part ii. : 

 J. K. H. Inglis. The loss of nitre, which usually amounts 

 to about 3 per cent, of the sulphur burnt, can best be 

 traced by complete analyses of the Hue gases. The 

 analysis 'cannot be carried out by means of aqueous 

 absorbents owing to the formation of complicated bodies by 

 the interaction of nitrous acid and sulphur dioxide. But 

 the analysis may be conveniently made by the fractional 

 distillation of the gases, first at the temperature of liquid 

 air and subsequently at higher temperatures. The results 

 showed that only about 4 per cent, of the lost nitre was 

 lost as nitrous oxide and 43 per cent, as nitrogen peroxide. 

 In the first experiments the temperature of liquid air was 

 insufficient to effect the separation of nitric oxide from the 

 flue gases owing to the vapour pressure of nitric oxide. 

 Some further experiments were therefore made at a lower 

 temperature obtained by making liquid air boil under 

 diminished pressure. The amount of nitrogen oxides found 

 was no greater than in the earlier experiments, and this 

 might therefore mean that nitric oxide is not present in 

 the flue gases. — The removal of nitrous acid from concen- 

 trated nitric and sulphuric acid : O. Silberrad and B. J. 

 Smart. The experiments were made to determine to what 

 extent the reaction between nitrous acid and amines or 

 amides occurs in concentrated acids. Nitric acid containing 

 a small percentage of nitrous acid was taken either alone 

 or in admixture with sulphuric acid. The addition of 

 hvdrazine occasions an explosion, and with this exception 

 substances such as urea, lead peroxide, oxamide, methyl- 

 amine nitrate, and amido guanidine are very inert towards 

 nitrous acid in presence of concentrated nitric acid, although 

 they react readily in dilute solution. The observation of 

 Franchimont that urea nitrate decomposes with evolution 

 of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide was confirmed. 



Zoological Society, February 6. — Mr. G A. Boulenger, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Mounted cubs of the 

 timber-wolf (Canis occidentalis), obtained in the province 

 of Keewatin, Canada : F. Gillett. — Restored models of 

 the skulls and mandibles of Mceritherium and Palaeo- 

 mastodon : Dr. C. W. Andrews. The models were pre- 

 pared by Mr. F. O. Barlow from the original specimens 

 collected from the Upper and Middle Eocene beds of the 

 Fayfim, Egypt, and now preserved in the British Museum 

 and the Geological Museum, ( airo. — Lantern-slides of 

 sections of skin from the palmar and plantar surfaces of 

 twenty-four species of mammals, and the plantar surfaces 

 of seven species of birds : Dr. W. Kidd. The functions 

 of the papillary ridges and the papillary layer of the 

 eoriurh in connection with the sense of touch were alluded 

 to. — Histology and physiology of the placenta in the 

 Un'gulata : Dr. J. YV. Jenkinson. A recent examination 



NO. 1896, VOL. 73I 



of the histological structure of the placenta in the sheep 

 and cow has shown (1) that in the formation of the 

 accessory cotyledons of the cow the epithelium lining the 

 cotyledonary crypts arises by simple modification of the 

 uterine epithelium ; (2) that in the fully formed principal 

 cotyledons of both cow and sheep there is complete con- 

 tinuity of the intra- with the extra-cotyledonary uterine 

 epithelium ; (3) that the greenish-brown pigment so 

 abundantly present in the trophoblast-cells is a derivative 

 of the haemoglobin of the maternal corpuscles which those 

 cells have ingested. The pigment — which contains no iron 

 — is of two kinds, one of which has a definite absorption 

 spectrum resembling closely that of oxyhemoglobin. In 

 acid solution the spectrum approaches that of acid haemato- 

 porphyrin. — A living specimen of a dwarf species of cavy, 

 probably the salt-marsh cavy {Dolichotis salinicola) : Sir 

 Edmund Loder, Bart. Owing to Burmeister (the original 

 describer of the animal) being under the erroneous im- 

 pression that he had founded the species on young speci- 

 mens and the fact that two distinct species occurred in 

 the same district, some considerable confusion had been 

 caused as to the status of the different forms of Dolichotis. 

 The author pointed out that the common Patagonian cavy 

 (/>. patagonicus) differed from the dwarf D. salinicola and 

 the larger D. magellanicus centricola (the two species 

 found together) in having a broad dark band above the 

 white rump-patch. — A description of Trichorhiza, a new 

 hydroid genus : E. S. Russell. — Description of the new 

 genus Melissomorpha, formed for the reception of a horse- 

 fly of the Pangoninae division of the family Tabanidae, 

 discovered by Colonel C. T. Bingham in Sikkim : 

 Gertrude Ricardo. The insect closely mimicked the 

 Indian bee Apis dorsata, L., having the flattened wide 

 tibiae characteristic of the hive-bee, the general resemblance 

 between the bee and the fly being very striking. — Mammals 

 collected at Kuruman and Molopo in Bechuanaland by 

 Messrs. R. B. Woosnam and R. E. Dent : H. Schwann. 

 The specimens, numbering about 120, and belonging to 

 26 species, were of great interest as being topotypes of 

 seveinl species described by Sir Andrew Smith in his ex- 

 pedition to Kuruman and the interior of South Africa. — 

 Description of a new species of ratel (Mellivora) from 

 Central Africa, also notice of the occurrence of a new 

 subspecies of chevrotain (Dorcatherium) in that district : 

 R. Lydekker. The author proposed to divide the genus 

 into three geographical races, viz. the typical form from 

 the Gambia, Bates's chevrotain from the Cameroons, anil 

 the present — Cotton's chevrotain — from the Ituri Forest. — 

 The articulation of the vertebrate jaw : H. G. F. Spurred. 

 The object of this paper is to direct attention to the 

 existence of two types of mouth in vertebrates. In one 

 type the articulation is in the plane in which the teeth 

 meet ; in the other type it is not in the plane in which 

 the teeth meet, but in mammals above, in reptiles below 

 that level. This alteration in level is attained in mammals 

 by an ascending ramus of the jaw, in reptiles by a long 

 quadrate bone. 



Entomological Society, February 7.— Mr. F. Merrifield, 

 president, in the chair. — Exhibitions. — Specimen of Lath- 

 robiuin laevipenne, Heer, a beetle new to the British list, 

 taken in a sandpit near Oxted, Surrey, in August, 1905 : 

 W. E. Sharp. — Specimens of South African butterflies 

 belonging to the Nymphalinae, Acraeinae, Danainae, and 

 Papilioninae : Dr. F. A. Dixey. Attention was directed 

 to the significance of the fact that scents of an agreeable 

 nature (as in Pierinae generally, Mycalesis safitza, &c.) 

 were as a rule confined to the male sex, while those of a 

 disagreeable or disgusting character (as in Acraeinae and 

 many Papilios) were often common to both sexes. — Four 

 species of Acraea taken in South Africa during the visit 

 ■ >l the British Association : Dr. G. B. Longstafr. The 

 species were (1) 1. anemosa, Hew., from the Victoria 

 F'alls, and Mochudi, in Bechuanaland; (2) A. alboradiata, 

 Auriv., previously known to Mr. Roland Trimen by two 

 females only, and considered by him as a variety of 

 anemosa ; (3) A. atolmis, Westw., to which Westwood gave 

 the names ol atolmis and acontias. although there seems 

 no doubt they are one species; (4) .4. atergatis, Westw., 

 the two types of which are in the Hope collection at 

 Oxford. — 1 wo Diptera, which had been observed follow- 



