July 31, 18S4] 



NA TURE 



327 



the bottom water by conduction and convection, must all be taken 

 into account before a true explanation could be arrived at. It is 

 intended to devote special attention to the effect of radiation on 

 the sand, and of the heated or chilled sand on the tidal water 

 which flows over it, it being probable that it is in this way the 

 key to the curious tidal perturbations of temperature may be found. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASCO W 



""THE Proceedings of the eighty-first session have just been 

 published in the form of a volume of 428 pages, and con- 

 sisting of twenty-four papers, three plates, and a map. The 

 papers are : an address on some of the chemical industries of 

 the country, by Mr. R. R. Tatlock, President of the Chemical 

 Section; on technical education, by Mr. Henry Dyer, C.E. ; a 

 discussion of Mr. Dyer's paper, by Mr. E. M. Dixon, B.Sc. ; 

 an introductory address on the definition and scope of geography 

 and ethnology, by Dr. W. G. Blackie, President of the 

 Geographical and Ethnological Section ; on the use of litmus, 

 rosolic acid, methyl-orange, phenacetolen, and phenolphthalein 

 as indicators, parts ii. and iii., by Mr. Robert T. Thomson ; on 

 an easy way of determining specific gravity of solids, by Dr. 

 Dobbie and Mr. John B. Hutcheson ; note on Mr. Joseph 

 Whitley's centrifugal mode of casting steel plates for shipbuild- 

 ing, &c. , by Dr. Henry Muirhead, President ; notes on Cleo- 

 patra's Needle, by the President, on the occasion of presenting 

 a large bronze model of the Needle to the Society ; on a new 

 method of measuring the heat-conducting power of various 

 materials, such as cotton, wool, hair, &c, by Mr. J. J. Cole- 

 man ; on a new thermometer or thermoscope, by Mr. Cole- 

 man ; on the measurement of electric currents and potentials, 

 by Sir William Thomson ; a sketch of the life and work of Dr. 

 Allen Thomson, by Dr. McKendrick ; note on modern forms of 

 the microscope, by Dr. W. Limont ; on the chief features of 

 the physical geography of China, by Rev. A. Williamson, B.A., 

 LL.D., Missionary in China ; on the recent progress of chemis- 

 try at home and abroad, by Prof. J. J. Dobbie ; on the 

 analysis of commercial carbonate of potash, by Robert Thom- 

 son ; on a new process for the separation of nickel and 

 cobalt, by Dr. John Clark ; on an endless solenoid galvanometer 

 and voltmeter, by Prof. James Blyth ; on the chemical compo- 

 sition of the methyl and ethyl alcohols, by Dr. Otto Richter ; 

 on the Island of New Guinea, by Dr. W. G. Blackie, illus- 

 trated by a map published by permission of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society ; on the consumption of smoke, especially in 

 great cities, by Mr. A. Pinkerton ; on rickets in Glasgow and 

 neighbourhood, and the relation of the disease to food and water 

 used by the inhabitants, by Mr. James Thomson, F.G.S. ; and 

 the Graham Lecture by the late Dr. R. Angus Smith, prepared 

 for publication by Mr. J. J. Coleman. 



The last paper is probably the most interesting and important 

 of all, inasmuch as it contains many unpublished letters of 

 Thomas Graham, so full of information as to his work and the 

 circumstances in which his work was done that it cannot fail to 

 attract the notice of all engaged in physico-chemical research. 

 The paper has a mournful interest also as being the last from the 

 late Dr. R. Angus Smith. It will be published separately, in a 

 small volume, for the use of those who desire to have a memorial 

 of Thomas Graham. 



The Society has a membership of 690. Its work is carried on 

 not only by the parent Society, but by five sections — Chemistry, 

 Biology, Architecture, Sanitary Science and Social Economy, 

 and Geography and Ethnology. 



SCIENCE IN RUSSIA 



T 



HE Kazan Society of Naturalists continues its useful work of 

 exploration. The last volume of its Memoirs {Trudy 

 Ooschestva Esteslvoispytateley pri KazanskomUniversitete, vol. xii.) 

 contains two papers by the late M. Shell, on the botanical geo- 

 graphy of the provinces of Ufa and Orenburg, being a list of 

 1054 Spermatophores already known from these two regions 

 which have an intermediate flora between that of South-Eastern 

 Russia and that of the Caspian Steppes. A most useful addition 

 to the knowledge of the flora of these provinces is contained in 

 the second paper by the same author, which gives a list of no 

 less than 511 species of Sporophores (28 Vascular plants, 49 

 Mosses, 2 Chara;, 181 Alga;, 94 Lichens, and 157 Fungi). The 

 importance of this addition may be seen from the fact that, before 



M. Shell's work, only 39 species of Sporophores were known 

 from these two provinces. It is worthy of notice that M. Shell 

 has found among the Alga; the Asterionella formosa, Hassel, 

 which has been discovered in England and was found on the 

 Continent only by Brebisson in France, and by Heiberg in Den- 

 mark. The death of M. Shell in 1S81 at Vilno was a great loss 

 to Russian science. In the same volume M. Bekarevitch pub- 

 lishes his " Materials for the Flora of Kostroma," being a list of 

 514 species of Phanerogams and 18 Cryptogams. M. Flavitzky 

 publishes his researches into the pitchers of different Conifers. 

 The author has studied the deviations of their planes of polarisa- 

 tion, and has found that the value of the angle of deviation is 

 quite characteristic for different pitchers; it varies from -42° - 2 

 (Pinus abies) to - I3°'i, - 10 '9, and - 9°'6 for the Pinits 

 sylvestris, P. cembra, and Abies sibirica, and from + 9°T to 

 + 27°*2 for the Abies bahamea and. Larix turoptva. We must 

 notice also the elaborate researches, by A. Dogel, into the 

 structure of the retina of the Ganoid fishes. These researches 

 fill a gap which was pointed out many times ; they are accom- 

 panied by excellent plates engraved at Leipzig. 



The minutes of proceedings {Prt tokoly) of the same Society are 

 especially interesting for mathematicians, as they contain a 

 number of notes by MM. Maximowitch, Klark, and others. 

 They are followed by papers on the motion of liquids in elastic 

 tubes, by Prof. Gromeka ; on the ichthyology of Kazan, by N. 

 Varpakhovsky ; and on the dangerous insects of Samara, by E. 

 Peltzam. 



The new volume of the Memoirs of the Kharkoff Society 

 of Naturalists ( Trudy Obschestva Ispytatcley Prirody pri Khar- 

 kovskom Universiiete, vol. xvii. ) contains a paper by N. 

 Koultchitzky, on the structure of the " Grandry corpuscles," 

 being a description of that special form of corpuscle by which 

 the nerve is terminated in the tongue of the duck, which M, 

 Grandry distinguished in 1869 from the corpuscles of Herbst 

 (or Pacini's with other animals). The paper is accompanied by 

 three lithographed plates. M. Byeletzky's posthumous paper, 

 on the physiology of the aerial or natatory bladder of fishes is 

 a very elaborate memoir on this subject. The author, who has 

 taken notice of nearly all the researches made in the same direc- 

 tion during more than a century, gives a detailed anatomical 

 sketch of the bladder, and a summary of all known as to its 

 contents. His own researches have been made on fifty-four 

 individuals belonging to the following six species : — Cyprinus 

 carpio, Carassius vulgaris, Tinea vulgaris, Abramis brama, 

 Idus melanotus, and Perca jluviatilis. The gases contained 

 in the bladder are : nitrogen, from 81 to 96 per cent, 

 of the whole (sometimes even 98) ; oxygen, mostly less than 

 10 per cent., and very seldom from 15 to 20 per cent. ; 

 and carbonic acid from 2 to 5 per cent., falling to o"6, 

 and very seldom reaching more than 7 per cent. The con- 

 tents of carbonic acid depends very much upon the conditions 

 which the fish has been kept in before the experiments ; but it 

 stands in no correlation at all with the contents of oxygen. The 

 amount of both may be simultaneously small, or greatly above 

 the average. As to the origin of the gases in the bladder, the 

 author indorses the views of Configliachi (Schweigger's Journal 

 fur Chemie iiinl Physik, Band i. iSn), and concludes that they 

 are not indebted for their origin either to digestion or to the 

 supposed "swallowing" of air on the surface of the water; 

 individuals kept for months under water, without having the 

 possibility of reaching its surface, having been found to have the 

 same composition of gases in the bladder as free individuals. It 

 would rather seem that, with the raising of the fish on the sur- 

 face, which is accompanied by a diminution of atmospheric 

 pressure, a part of the gas is expelled from the bladder. The 

 most probable origin of the gases in the bladder seems to be 

 — Configliachi said — that the air contained in the water and 

 entering into the mouth of the fish is in some way (perhaps in 

 that pointed out by Erman) eliminated from it ; it is dissolved 

 in the blood of the gills, and the oxygen is slowly assimilated 

 by the blood ; while the remainder, that is, nitrogen and some 

 oxygen which has remained dissolved, are secreted from the 

 blood into the bladder. This is also the opinion of M. Bye- 

 letzky, who considers that blood, as also the lymph, is the 

 source whence the gases of the bladder originate. Contrary to 

 Configliachi's opinion, they are not secreted, however, by the 

 "red corpuscles," but rather by the capillary vessels of the 

 mucous membrane of the bladder ; such was also the opinion 

 of Rathke and Johann Muller ; however, the argument by 

 which they tried to establish this view cannot be longer held. In 



