March 8, 1906] 



NA TURE 



455 



members of Raphicerus by its possession of supplementary 

 hoofs. — Habits of the Australian lung-fish (Ceratodus 

 forsteri) as observed in the society's menagerie : Prof. B. 

 Dean. 



Royal Meteorological Society, February 21.— Mr. 

 Richard Bentley, president, in the chair. — Report on the 

 phenological observations for 1905 : E. Mawley. As 

 affecting vegetation, the weather of the phenological year 

 ending November, 1905, was chiefly remarkable for the 

 dryness and mildness of the winter months, the drought 

 and frosts in May, the long spell of hot and dry weather 

 in July, and an exceptionally cold period in October. — 

 Brief discussion of the general features of the pressure 

 and wind conditions over the trades-monsoon area: W. L. 

 Dallas. — The dispersal or prevention of fogs : Dr. W. B. 

 Newton. 



Cambridge. 



Philosophical Society, January 29.— Prof. Thomson, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — The expansion of a gas into 

 a vacuum and the determination of the specific heat 

 at constant pressure for gases : G. F. C. Searle. If 

 gas, which is initially stored in a receiver at a high 

 pressure, be allowed to expand into an exhausted vessel, 

 and if the temperature of the whole mass of gas be allowed 

 again to become uniform, without any gain or loss of 

 heat, the final temperature (*') will differ from the initial 

 temperature (() unless U, the energy of a gram of gas, is 

 independent of the volume. For a gas obeying Van der 

 Waals's equation (p+a/'v") (v— 6) = Rt, it is shown that, 

 when the volume of one gram increases from 7/ to v' , the 

 change of temperature is given by t — t' =a/C„(i/v— i/v'). 

 Regnault's method of determining the specific heat of gases 

 at constant pressure is shown to be an extreme case of 

 the Thomson-Joule porous plug experiment. — The action of 

 radium and other salts on gelatin : W. A. D. Rudge, 

 The author has shown that barium salts produce the same 

 effect upon gelatin as is the case with radium salt, and 

 concludes from his experiments that radium has no specific 

 action upon gelatin, any result obtained being due to the 

 action of the barium in the radium salt upon the sulphur 

 compounds present in the gelatin. — A novel instrument for 

 illustrating the magnetic properties of iron : A. H. Peake. 

 In this instrument a strong magnetic field is produced by 

 sixteen bar magnets ; this field, which is normally hori- 

 zontal, may be slightly inclined at will by rotating a turn- 

 table, to which the permanent magnets are attached, 

 through a few degrees. The specimen of iron under test 

 is very thin in proportion to its length ; it is supported in 

 a freely pivoted cradle to which a control weight and a 

 long pointer are attached ; the axis of the cradle is in the 

 same straight line with that of the turn-table. — The 

 susceptibility of iron in colloidal solution : E. F. Burton 

 and P. Phillips. The paper is an account of experiments 

 made to determine the susceptibility of a colloidal solution 

 of iron in methyl alcohol. The susceptibility found in- 

 dicates that iron in colloidal solution has much stronger 

 magnetic properties than it would have if it existed merely 

 as a ferric (or ferrous) salt in the solution ; on the other 

 hand, the magnetic properties are weaker than those of 

 pure iron. The results seem to point to the conclusion 

 that each particle in the colloidal solution consists of a core 

 of pure iron surrounded by a layer of some compound of 

 iron, e.g. the hydroxide. 



Manchester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, January 16. — 

 Sir William H. Bailey, president, in the chair. — Behaviour 

 of liquid films formed from a solution of saponin in water : 

 H. Stansfield. Although saponin films have very little 

 mobility, they are capable of becoming extremely thin. The 

 limiting thickness of a black saponin film is comparable 

 with that of the thinnest soap film. In the process of 

 thinning, the saponin films exhibit a grey stage; and 

 there are two characteristic abrupt changes in thickness, 

 the first from the white of the first order to the grey, and 

 the second from the grey to the black. — Battack printing 

 in Java : J. Allan. The process of battacking is more 

 akin to dyeing than to printing. The white cotton is first 

 freed from the starchy and saline matter of the " finish " 

 by frequent washings and exposure in the wet condition 



NO. 1897, VOL. 73] 



to the sun. When thoroughly dried and cut into sarong 

 lengths it is ready to be printed. The whole fabric is 

 immersed in a dye bath, the parts not intended to be 

 coloured being protected by previously overlaying them with 

 a coating of wax, placed on in such a way as to form a 

 design. In the coarsest cloths the design is drawn in with 

 a thick brush by the women ; in those of finer quality it 

 is stamped with a metal die by the men. — Remarks on the 

 germinal layers of vertebrates and on the significance of 

 germinal layers in general : J. W. Jenkinson. 



January 30. — Mr. Francis Nicholson in the chair. — The 

 origin of the salt in the sea : R. L. Taylor. The paper 

 was a contribution to the controversy which began more 

 than thirty years ago between Dr. Sterry Hunt and David 

 Forbes. Hunt (whose views Mr. Taylor endorsed) con- 

 tended that on the original cooling of the globe, and before 

 the condensation of the water, the alkali metals, sodium 

 and potassium, existed in the crust of the earth entirely 

 as silicates, the primitive atmosphere containing the 

 chlorine as hydrochloric acid, and also probably sulphuric 

 acid. When the water condensed these acids dissolved in 

 it, and the primitive ocean was thus really dilute acid. 

 This acid, however, soon became neutralised as it vigor- 

 ously attacked the silicates of which the crust of the earth 

 was composed. The calcium and magnesium, dissolved out 

 of the primitive rock at the same time as the alkalies, 

 have been gradually replaced by sodium carried down as 

 carbonate by rivers. 



February 13. — Sir William H. Bailey, president, in the 

 chair. — Report on the recent Foraminifera from the coast 

 of the island of Delos, part iii., Lagenina^ : H. Side- 

 bottom. The writer directed attention to the points of 

 difference that occur in the same species, and stated that 

 some of the species found have not previously been reported 

 from the Mediterranean. Drawings of the most interesting 

 forms obtained were exhibited and described. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, February 26. — M. H. Poincare in 

 the chair. — Researches on some metals and minerals found 

 in the excavations at Susa, in Persia : M. Berthelot and 

 G. Andre. The objects examined come from the earliest 

 Elamite period, earlier than 750 B.C., and analyses are 

 given of articles of silver, copper, bronze, lead, and lead 

 silicate. — The propagation of a movement round a centre 

 in an elastic homogeneous and isotropic medium : study 

 of the wave correlative to the variations in density : J. 

 Boussinesq. — Some difficulties presented by the estim- 

 ation of carbon monoxide in gaseous mixtures : Armand 

 Gautier and M. Clausmann. Synthetical mixtures of 

 carbon monoxide with hydrogen and air were analysed by 

 absorption with cuprous chloride and explosion with oxygen. 

 It was found that the absorption by cuprous chloride, even 

 in two successive treatments, was never complete, and that 

 measurable amounts of carbon monoxide escaped oxidation 

 by explosion. — An important inequality in the study of 

 quasi-waves of shock : P. Duhcm. — The addition of hydro- 

 chloric acid to isobutylene oxide, (CH,),.C — CH„ : Louis 



O 



Henry. Isobutylene oxide reacts with concentrated hydro- 

 chloric acid, a new chlorhydrin, (CH,) 2 .CCl.CH 2 (.OH), 

 being formed. The starting point for the preparation of 

 the isobutylene oxide was the isomeric chlorhydrin, 

 (CH 3 ),.C(OH).CH„Cl, prepared from monochloracetone by 

 Grignard's reaction. The phvsical and chemical properties 

 of these closely related isomers are compared. — M. Heim 

 was elected a correspondant for the section of mineralogy 

 in the place of M. de Richthofen. — The perpetual secre- 

 tary announced the death of M. A. F. A. Bienayme\ 

 correspondant for the section of geography and navigation. 

 — Observations of the Brooks comet (19060) made with 

 the large equatorial of the University of Bordeaux : E. 

 Esclanson. — The indeterminateness of a function of a 

 variable in the neighbourhood of a transcendental singu- 

 larity : Pierre Boutroux. — Fourier's series : Leopold 

 Fejer. — The integrals of a differential equation in the 

 neighbourhood of a di-critical point : H. Dulac. — The 

 application of the analysis of Dirichlet to quadratic forms 

 with coefficients : P. Fatou. — The theory of spectra : Ivar 

 Fredholm. — The vibrations of an elastic body the surface 



