June 19, 1884] 



NA TURE 



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visit to the islands in 1880-S1. Mr. Bates, reasoning from this 

 fresh material, is inclined to modify his previously-stated views 

 as to the predominance of a supposed tropical element in the 

 Longicorn group in question ; the relative number of absolutely 

 new genera now turning the scale in favour of Pal?earctic or 

 Nearctic affinities. — The last zoological communication taken 

 was on three new species of Metacrinus, by P. Herbert Carpen- 

 ter, with note on a new Myzostoma, by Prof, von Graff. Mr. 

 Carpenter describes Metacrinns rotundus from Japan, dredged 

 there by Dr. Doderlein of Strasburg, and M. superbus and M. 

 stewarti, two remarkable forms obtained by the Telegraph 

 Company on picking up a cable near Singapore. The Jilyza- 

 stoma cirripedium was found on the Japan Crinoid. 



Chemical Society, June 5. — Dr. Perkin, F.R.S., president, 

 in the chair. — It was announced that a ballot for the election of 

 Fellows would take place at the next meeting. — The following 

 papers were read : — On 3-napthaquinone, by C. E. Groves. In 

 a preliminary notice read before the Society some time since 

 (Cheni. News, xliii. 267) the author mentioned that he had care- 

 fully repeated some experiments of Liebermann. In the present 

 paper full details are given of the preparation of amido-/3- 

 naphthol hydrochloride from 0-naphthol orange by reduction with 

 stannous chloride and with alkaline sulphides. This reaction is 

 very inferior in simplicity and economy to the process originally 

 proposed by Stenhouse and the author. Several improvements 

 in the original process are suggested, and the author gives an 

 account of some products obtained by the action of reducing 

 agents on the nitroquinone. — On a by-product of the manufac- 

 ture of aurin (part ii. ), by A. Staub and Watson Smith. The 

 authors have prepared a perfectly pure specimen of this product, 

 phenylorthooxalic ether ; they conclude that it plays no part as 

 an intermediate product in the formation of aurin. Analogous 

 compounds with a- and /3-naphthols were prepared, but no 

 compound with resorcinol could be obtained. — On calcium 

 hydrosulphides, by E. Divers and Tetsukichi Shimidzu. When 

 hydrogen sulphide is passed through milk of lime, the lime dis- 

 solves ; by adding more lime, a solution is finally obtained, 

 which, alter decantation and cooling, deposits colourless pris- 

 matic crystals of the hydrosulphide ; by the action of water on 

 this body, calcium hydroxyhydrosulphide is formed. The authors 

 find that hydrogen sulphide decomposes calcium carbonate. 

 They have also studied calcium monosulphide and the formation 

 of the thiosulphate from the hydrosulphide and the pentasulphide. 



Anthropological Institute, May 27. — Prof. Flower, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — The election of F. C. J. Spurrell was 

 announced. — Mr. H. O. Forbes read a paper on the Kubus of 

 Sumatra. The Kubus are a nomadic race inhabiting the central 

 parts of Sumatra. In their wild state they live in the deep 

 forest, making temporary dwellings, consisting of a few simple 

 branches erected over a low platform to keep them from the 

 ground, and thatched with banana or palm leaves. They are 

 extremely timorous and shy, so that it is a very rare thing for 

 any of them to be seen, and if suddenly met in the forest by 

 any one not of their own race, they drop everything and flee 

 away. They cultivate nothing, and live entirely on the pro- 

 ducts of the chase. Their knives and the universal spear with 

 which they are armed are purchased from the Malays, with 

 whom they trade. They are of a rich olive-brown colour, and 

 their jet-black hair, apparently far less straight than that of the 

 village Malays, was always in a dishevelled state and in curls. 

 The average height of the males was about 1 '59 m. and that 

 of the females 1 '49 m. — Dr. Garson read a paper on the osteology 

 of the Kubus. — Mr. Theodore Bent read some notes on pre- 

 historic remains in Antiparos, and exhibited several specimens 

 of pottery, some rudely carved marble figures, and a skull, 

 from cemeteries in that island. 



Institution of Civil Engineers, May 20. — Sir J. W. 

 Bazalgette, C.B., president, in the chair. — The paper read was 

 on the passage of upland water through a tidal estuary, by 

 W. R. Peregrine Birch, M.Inst.C.E. 



Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society, May 12.— Mr. Glaisher, president, 

 in the chair. — The following were elected Honorary Members : — 

 On the Foreign List — A. Baeyer, Professor of Chemistry at 

 Munich ; Anton Dohrn, Director of the Zoological Station at 

 Naples ; Carl Gegenbaur, Professor of Comparative Anatomy in 

 the University of Heidelberg ; G. Mittag Leffler, Professor of 



Mathematics in Stockholm ; E. F. W. Pfliiger, Professor of 

 Physiology in the University of Bonn ; Gustav Quincke, Pro- 

 fessor of Physics in the University of Heidelberg ; H. A. 

 Rowland, Professor of Physics in the Johns Hopkins University, 

 Baltimore, U.S.A. ; Julius Sachs, Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Wurzburg ; H. G. Zeuthen, Professor of Mathe- 

 matics in Copenhagen. On the Home List — R. Stawell Ball, 

 Astronomer-Royal ior Ireland ; W. T. Thiselton Dyer, Assistant 

 Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew ; J. Whitaker Hulke, ex- 

 President of the Geological Society. 



May 26. — Mr. Glaisher, president, in the chair. — Prof. E. Ray 

 Lankester was elected an Honorary Member. Mr. S. L. Hart, 

 St. John's College, was elected a Fellow. — The following com- 

 munications were made : — On some irregularities in the values 

 of the mean density of the earth as determined by Baily, by Mr. 

 W. M. Hicks. The author showed that the numbers obtained 

 by Baily for the mean density of the earth depended on the 

 temperature of the air at which the different observations were 

 made ; and he exhibited a table showing that as the temperature 

 increased from 40 F. to 60° F. the deduced mean densities fell 

 continuously from 5 '734 to 5 '582. He considered several pos- 

 sible causes of error, but showed that they were either inadequate 

 to explain the irregularities, or tended in the opposite direction. 

 The only further suggestion that occurred to him was that Baily's 

 personal equation was a function of the temperature, leading 

 him, as his temperature rose, to estimate distances more liberally. 

 — On some physiological experiments, by Dr. Gaskell. — On a 

 method of comparing the concentrations of two solutions of the 

 same substance but of different strength, by Mr. A. S. Lea. — 

 On the many-layered epidermis of Cliia nobilis, by Mr. W. 

 Gardiner. — On the possible systems of jointed wickerwork and 

 their degrees of internal freedom, by Mr. J. Larmor. 



Dublin 

 University Experimental Science Association, June 3. 

 — Dr. Tarleton, F.T.C.D., in the chair. — G. F. Fitzgerald, 

 F.T.C.D., F.R.S., on Prof. Osborne Reynolds' mechanical 

 illustrations of heat-engines. — J. Joly, B.E., on the eruption of 

 Krakatoa. — The Cambridge Instrument Company's reflecting 

 galvanometer was exhibited by Prof. Fitzgerald, and a portable 

 calorimeter designed for approximately determining the specific 

 heats of minerals, by J. Joly. — An apparatus for determining 

 the latent heat of vaporisation was exhibited by F. Trouton. 

 The chief gain in the use of the apparatus is, that to effect a 

 determination by its means it is not requisite to know either the 

 boiling-point of the liquid or the specific heat of the body in 

 either the liquid or gaseous condition. Both of these are very 

 irregular and extremely difficult to determine at temperatures 

 approaching the boiling-point. The use of calorimeters is also 

 avoided, often a source of serious error. In the vessel in which 

 the liquid is placed there is a spiral of platinum or other sub- 

 stance unattacked by the liquid. On passing a current of elec- 

 tricity (the difference in potential being insufficient to decompose 

 the body if a compound) through the spiral, heat is generated, 

 and the liquid vaporised if at the boiling-point. According as the 

 body is vaporised it is conducted away to a condenser, collected, 

 and weighed. All sensible loss of heat is prevented by sur- 

 rounding the vessel by a larger one full of vapour obtained by 

 boiling some of the liquid itself in the bottom of the outside 

 vessel under the same pressure as in the inner one ; so that, if 

 in any experiment the weight is determined of the liquid vapor- 

 ised while a known quantity of electricity passes, the heat 

 required to vaporise unit weight of the body can be deduced, 

 the resistance of the spiral being also known. As the electrical 

 measurements are difficult to make sufficiently accurate, it is 

 simpler to compare the latent heat of the body with that of a 

 liquid of which the latent heat is known. This may be easily 

 effected by employing a second apparatus similar to the first, in 

 which the liquid taken as the standard (say water) is put. The 

 same current is passed through both spirals, so that the ratio of 

 the latent heats may be deduced on weighing the quantities 

 vaporised, if the ratio of the resistances of the spirals is known. 

 This, if both liquids boil at nearly the same temperature, 

 may be obtained by a previous experiment where one of the 

 bodies is put into both apparatuses, the ratio of the resistances 

 being that of the weights of the substance to be vaporised. 



Edinburgh 

 Mathematical Society, June 13. —Mr. A. J. G. Barclay, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Mr.'William Peddie read a paper, 



