232 



NATURE 



[Julyy, 1 88 1 



Pryer in the district of Sandakan, in North-Eastern Borneo. 

 Two new species were described as Laniiis Schalmvi and Didrian 

 Pryeri. — Lieut.-Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen read tlie second 

 portion of liis paper on tlie land sliells collected by Prof. J. 

 Bayley Balfour during his recent expedition to the Island of 

 Socotra. It referred to the family Helicacea:. — Mr. G. E. 

 Dobson communicated some notes on certain points in the mus- 

 cular anatomy of the Green Monkey Cercopithecus callithri.x. — Dr. 

 A. Gitnther exhibited and read a description of a specimen of 

 Schedophdus iiiediisophagns, a Mediterranean fish new to the 

 British fauna, lately captured off the coast of Ireland. 



Anthropological Institute, June 14. — Major-General A. 

 Pitt-Rivers, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — General Pitt- 

 Rivers read a paper on the discovery of flint implements in the 

 gravel of the Nile ^'alley, near Thebes. The worked flints 

 were found embedded two or three metres deep in stratified 

 gravel. Much interest has always been attached by anthropo- 

 logists to this subject on account of its bearing on the antiquity 

 of man. While in Europe we know that the use of stone for 

 implements preceded the employment of metals, and was coeval 

 with many animals that are now extinct, we have hitherto had 

 no certain evidence that this period in northern regions, remote 

 as it undoubtedly was, may not have been contemporaneous with 

 the very earliest phase of Egyptian civilisation, traced backward 

 as it is by the now accepted chronology of Manetho to an anti- 

 quity of 7000 years from the present time. Now, however, the 

 evidence of human workmanship has been found in gravel 

 deposits which had become so indurated that the ancient 

 Egyptians were able to cut flat-topped tombs in it, supported 

 by square pillars of gravel, which have retained then- form 

 uninjured to the present day, proving an enormously greater age 

 for the flints embedded in the gravel, some of which were 

 chiselled out of the sides of the tombs. — Mr. Alfred Tylor read 

 a paper on the human fossil at Nice discovered by M. Ischa in 

 December, 1880. — Mr. F. E. im Thurn read a paper on some 

 stone implements from British Guiana. — Mr J. Park Harrison 

 exhibited a collection of Danish and French photographs. — The 

 following papers ^^"ere taken as read ; — Mr. Gerard A. Kinahan, 

 on sepulchral remains at Rathdown, co. Wicklow. — Mr. J. H. 

 Madge, notes on some excavations made in Tumuli, near 

 Copiapo, Chili, in June, 18S0. — A number of specimens col- 

 lected by Mr. Madge were exhibited, among which were two 

 skulls, a quantity of pottery, and a cervical vertebra, in which 

 was embedded a stone arrow-head. 

 Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, June 27. — M. Wurtz in the chair. — 

 The following papers were read : — Observations of Comet b 

 1 881 (comet of 1S07) at the Paris Observatory, by MM. Bigour- 

 dan, Wolf, and ThoUon ; note by M. Mouchez {see p. 223). — 

 On the prolegomena of a new treatise on meteorology, published 

 in Italy by M. Diamilla-Miiller, by M. Faye. The first part is 

 entitled " The Laws of Tempests (according to Faye's theory)," 

 and M. Faye expresses satisfaction that his views seem to be 

 gaining ground. In a letter to the author he suggests that in 

 thunder-storms the source of electricity is not merely charged 

 air (and icy particles) whirling downwards from upper regions, 

 but electricity is developed in the act of gyration (reminding us 

 of a Holtz machine working up a weak charge). — M. Janssen 

 presented a photograph of the comet. — On Fuchsian functions, 

 by M. Poincare. — On the injuries to vegetation produced in 

 treatment of phylloxerised vines, by M. Catta. — Influence of 

 variations of atmospheric pressure on the duration of oscillations 

 of the pendulum, by M. Saint-Loup. He found an advance of 

 0'077s. to occur in tlie day for a lowering of mercuiy pressure 

 10 mm. The experiment was of a preliminary nature. — Observa- 

 tions on the comet, and principally on the physical aspect of the 

 nucleus and the tail, by M. Flammarion. He inclines to the 

 view that comets' tails are not material — perhaps an excitation, 

 electric or other, of ether. Their transparence favours this view. 

 He also calculates that the tail of the comet of 1S43, at the distance 

 of the earth from the sun, must have swept space with a velocity 

 of 64,000,000 of metres pier second. Any molecule of matter 

 flying at such a rate would not remain a single instant dependent 

 on solar attraction, and would not go in a closed orbit. — On the 

 surface with sixteen singular points, by M. Darbuux. — On the 

 surfaces for which the co-ordinates of any point are ex|>ressed 

 by Abelian functions of two parameters, by M. Picard.— On a 

 general means of determining the relationsjbetween the constants 

 contained in a particular solution and those contained by the 

 rational co-efficients of the corresponding differential equation, 



by M. Dillner. — On the vibratory forms of circular liquid sur- 

 faces, by M. Decharme. The internodal distances are inversely 

 proportional to the corresponding numbers of vibrations ; and 

 tliis result is independent of the nature of the liquid. There is 

 the greatest similarity between the vibratory forms in question 

 and those of soapy pellicles of the same diameter. — On the 

 employment of liquid prisms in the direct vision-spectroscope, 

 by M. Zenger. On the anterior plane of a liquid prism he fixes 

 a quartz prism of the same refringent angle, but placed in an 

 opposite direction ; the posterior face has, as usual, a plane 

 parallel plate. The loss of light by reflection at the anterior and 

 posterior surfaces is thus reduced to a minimum ; the spectra 

 are very intense, and the lines are well defined. — Photography 

 of colours, by coloration of layers of coagulated albumen, by 

 MM. Crosand Carpentier. M. Edm. Becquerel pointed out that it 

 was not an immediate photographic reproduction of images with 

 the natural colours of bodies, but a polychrome working by way of 

 photographic impression, in which the tints of images are varied 

 at will with the shades of the colouring matters used, .and are not 

 connected in any necessary manner with the colours of the active 

 rays. — Pneumatic apparatus ; pneole, spu-elle, by M. de Romilly. 

 In the pneole a jet_of water sent upwards (say) by a turbine 

 immediately enters an orifice (larger than that it comes from) of 

 a vertical conical pipe, in which some of the water accumulates ; 

 and through this water numerous bubbles of air ascend, but 

 cannot return. The water returns to the turbine by a lateral 

 pipe. The spirelle (also for producing an air current) is entirely 

 immersed in the circulating liquid (say in a turbine). It consists 

 in one case simply of a slit of special position and nature in a 

 tube which rises from the liquid, one edge of the slit is higher 

 than the other. — On silicium, by MM. Schutzenberger and 

 Colson. — On a cyanic ether of borneol, by M. Ilaller. — On the 

 role of phosphoric acid in volcanic soils, by M. Ricciardi. This 

 is a reply to M. de Gasparin. — On the volcanic soil of Catania, 

 by M. Tedeschi di Ercole. — Unilateral phenomena, inhibitory 

 and dynamogenic, due to an irritation of the cutaneous nerves 

 by chloroform, by M. Brown-Sequard. — New mode of electric 

 excitation of nerves and muscles, by M. d'Arsonval. In the 

 apparatus described he aims at giving the induction current a 

 mathematically definite value, easy to reproduce, rendering the 

 electric excitation purely mechanical (not chemical), and at having 

 an induced current of neutral direction (no positive or negative 

 pole). — On the etiology and pathogeny of variola in the pigeon, 

 and development of infectious microbes in lymph, by M. Jolyet. 

 — Influence of nature of food on the development of the frog, by 

 M. Yung, The substances tried stand in the following decreas- 

 ingly favourable order : — Beef, fish, coagulated albumen of hens' 

 eggs, albuminoid substance of frog's egg, vegetable substances 

 (algs). The two latter do not suffice to transform the tadpole 

 into a frog. A purely albuminous substance suffices. — Meta- 

 morphosis of the Pedicellata, by M. Barrois. — On the formation 

 of the cyst in muscular trichinosis, by M. Chatin. 



CONTENTS Page 



Bukmeisthr's " Mammals of the Argentine Republic" . . • 209 



The Arabian Desert. By Prof. W. Robertson Smith .... 209 

 Our Book Shhli':— 



" Easy Lessons in Botany " 210 



"Plant-Life" 2" 



" Tlie London Catalogue of British Mosses and Hepatics " ... 211 

 Letteks to the Editor : — 



Dr W. B. Carpenter and Mr. W. I. Bishop.— George J. Romanes, 



F.R.S 211 



A'f W. L Bishop.— Thomson Whvte 211 



Mind-Reading z'^>-n« Muscle-Reading.— Prof. W. F. Barrett . 212 

 A Case of Slow, Sub-Tropical Discharge of Earth-Electricity, and 



the Sun Recognisant thereof.— Prof. PlAZZl Smyth 312 



Carbonic Acid Gas not Free in Sea Water.— Prof. P. Martin 



Duncan, F.R.S 213 



Symbolical Logic— Hugh McColl „• ^'3 



How to Prevent Drowning,— Prof. W.T. ThISElton Dyer, F.R.S. 214 



Resonance of the Mouth-Cavity. — George J. Romanes, F.R.S. . 214 



Storage of Energy.- R. A. S 214 



Explanation of the Female Dimorphism o£ Paltostoma torrentium, 



—Prof. Hermann Muller 214 



Pl.Cli.OS% hTR\c;^ (IVith Illustrations) 2i5 



Etibnke Henry Sainte-Claike Deville 2»9 



CoNVEhSAZIONE AT KiNG's COLLEGE r,' ' ^^* 



The Comet By Charles E. Burton ; E. J, Stone, F,R,S, ; Rev- 

 S.J. Perry, F.R.S ; A. Percy Smith ; A. Ainslie Common ((('i//i 

 Illustrations) ^^^ 



Notes ^''' 



Geogka 

 Civilisation 

 Indigo and 1 



