Feb. 23, 1882 | 
NATURE 
403 
in connection with the habits of the birds. —A communication 
was read from Prof, P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., containing 
descriptions of some recent corals coilected by Mr. J. Y. John- 
son at a few fathoms’ depth in the sea off Funchal, Madeira.— 
Mr. Stuart O. Ridley read a paper on the arrangement of the 
Coralliidze, and gave a review of the genera aud species of this 
family, which contains the Red Corals, The description of a 
new species obtained at the Mauritius was given, ay well as of 
an interesting, but probably not new form, said t» come from 
Japan. 
Physical Society, February 11.—Annval General Meeting. 
—Prof. W. Grylls Adams, in the chair.—The president read the 
report of the council for the past year, from which it appeared 
that in this, the tenth year of tse Society, it was in a highly 
satisfactory condition, and numbered 331 members. —Sir Charles 
Wheatstone’s papers had been published ; Dr. Joule’s were soon 
to be so; and delegates from the Socieiy had talen part ia the 
Electrical Congress at Paris, the Lightning Kod Committee, &c. 
—The trea-urer, Dr. Atkinson, read the audited report of the 
financial state of the Society ; and the following officers were 
after a ballot declared elected for the ensuing year :—President : 
Prof. R, B, Clifton, F.R.S. ; Vice-president (past president) : 
Sir W. Thomson; Vice-presidents : Prof. G, C. Foster, Prof. F. 
Fuller, Dr. J. Hopkinson, Lord Rayleigh; Secretarics: Prof. A.W. 
Remold, Prof. W. Chandler Roberts ; Treasurer: Dr. E. Atkinson ; 
Demon-trator : Prof. F. Guthrie ; other members of Council: Prof, 
W. G. Adams, Prof. W. E. Ayrton, Mr. Shellford Bidwell, Mr. 
Walter Bailey, Prof. J. A. Fleming, Mr. R. J. Lecky, Dr. Hugo 
Miiller, Prof. Osborne Reynolds, Prof. A. W. Riicker; Hono- 
rary Mewber: Prof. G. Quincke.—Votes of thanks were then 
passed to the Lords Commissioners of the Comittee of Council 
on Education for the use of the meeting hall, to the past-pre- 
sident, Sir Wm. Thomson, to the Secretaries, the Treasurer 
and Denonstrator, as well as to the Auditors, Mr. Shellford 
Bidwell, and Mr. E. Rigg. Prof. Adams then resolved the 
meeting into an ordinary one, and called Prof. Clifton to the 
chair.—Dr. C. R. Alder Wright, F.R.S., then read a paper on 
the relation between the electromotive force of a Daniell 
element and the chemical affinity involved in its action. The 
author has investigated the causes which lead toa fall of E.M.F. 
in a Daniell cell when in action. He found the amount of fall 
for increasing current densities and plotted it in acurve. The 
fall was slight when pure commercial or amalgamated zinc, or 
zine coated with a film of copper was employed. Amalgamated 
copper plate gave more rapid rates of full than electro-coated 
ones. ~Dilute sulphuric acid round the zine also gave a less rapid 
fall than sulphate of zinc solution roundit In all cases no appre- 
ciable fall was noticed when the current did not exceed eight 
micro-amperes per square centimetre of plate surface. With four 
to six times the density a decrease of EMF fromo’5 to I percent. 
resulted, and with currents exceeding 3000 micro-amperes in den- 
sity per square centimetre of surface, the fall exceeded 10 per cent. 
A series of experiments were made to determine the fall due to 
change in the density of the solution by migration of the ions 
causing a stronger zinc and a weaker copper solution. These 
showed that with nearly saturated zinc sulphate solution (sp. gr. 
1°4) and very dilute copper sulphate solution, the maximum fall 
in E.M.F. is developed, and is less than ‘04 volts; hence the 
total fallin E.M.F. due to migration of the ions when mode- 
rately strong currents pass is only a fraction of the total fall. It 
follows that the energy due to the actions taking place in the 
cell, although wholly manifested in electric action expressible in 
volt-coulombs, when the current is very small, is not wholly so 
manifested when the curr2nt is stronger ; the author expresses 
this idea by calling the energy manifested in electric action 
adjuvant, and the remainder as non-adjuvant. He finds that 
the major part of the latter energy is absorbed in actions having 
their seat at the surface of the copper plate, and the rest in 
actions at the surface of the zinc plate. It is transformed into 
heat according to Joule’s law. Asa subsidiary re-ult, it appears 
that the E.M.F. of a Daniell cell, with zine and copper sulphate 
solutions of equal specific gravity, a pure amalgamated zinc 
plate, and either a freshly de) osited copper or an amalgamated 
copper plate, is a standard subject to less departure from the 
E.M.F. of other Daniell cells than the Clark’s standard ele- 
ments, which appear to vary one from ancther. On the other 
hand, a Clark cell keeps sen ibly constant to its original value 
if properly set up) during a period of months or years, at a con- 
stant temperature, whereas a Daniell standard falls from its 
original value after a few hours or days at most. 
Entomological Society, February 1.—-Mr. H. T. Stainton, 
F.R.S., president, in the chair.—The President appointed 
Messrs. Pascoe and Godman and Lord Walsingham as vice- 
pre idents. One new Member was elected.—Mr. E. A, Fitch 
exhibited a variety of Strenia clathrata from Fordingbridge ; 
two larvae of Azthroceriu@ from Galway ; and a new Myrmeco- 
philous Coleopteron from India,—Mr. C, O. Waterhouse exhi- 
bited specimens of AZacromela Balyi, Crotch, and of two species 
of Lentatomide fron India.—Sir S. S. Saunders exhibited 
specimens of /Yalticella osmicida, and read some notes on 
Luchalcia vetusta, Duf.—Papers read: Mr. A. G. Butler, on a 
small collection of Lepidoptera from the Hawaiian Islands ; 
Prof. Westwood, descriptions of insects infesting Ficus sycomort 
and F. cavice ; and Dr. D. Sharp, on the classification of the 
Adephaga, or carnivorous series of Coleop’era. 
Geologists’ Association, February 4.—Annual Meeting.— 
The foll »wwing were elected Officers and General Committee for 
the ensuinz year:—President, W. HI. Hudleston, F.G.S., 
F.C.S.; Vice-Pre-idents: Prof. T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., 
Henry Woodward, F.R.S., Jas. Parker, F.G.S., ]. Hopkinson, 
F.G.S.; Treasurer, J. Logan Lobley, F.G.S.; Secretary, J. 
Foulerton, M.D., F.G.S.; Editor, Rev. J. F. Blake, F.G.S.; 
Librarian, Ed. Litchfield ; Wm. Carruthers, F.R.S., E. Swain, 
F,G.S., R. W. Cheadle, F.G.S., J. Bradford, W. J. Spratling, 
F.G.S., J. Drew, F.G.S., W.-Faweett, B.Sc., F. W. Rudler, 
F.G.S., H. Hicks, F.G:S., H.. M. Klaassen, F.G.S., Prof. 
John Morris, F.G.S., B. B. Woodward, F.G.S. 
Victoria (Philosophical) Institute, February 20.—A 
paper on evolution as held by Haeckel and his followers was 
read by Mr. Hassell. The author considered that one of the 
great defects of Hackel’s theory was, that it required one to 
believe in great effects resulting from causes which all that we 
knew of natural history showed must be in:ufficient. 
Institution of Civil Engineers, February 14.—Sir Frederick 
Bramwell, F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair.—the paper read 
was on air-refrigerating machinery and its applications, by Mr. 
J. J. Coleman. 
EDINBURGH 
Royal Society, January 30,—Emeritus Professor Balfour, 
vice-president, in the chair.—At the request of the Council, the 
Rev. Dr. Cazenove gave an address on the historical (docu- 
mentary) evidence for the destruction of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii by the eruption of Vesuvius, A.D. 79. ‘The references 
to the catastrophe by contemporaneous authors, such as Martial, 
Plutarch, Statius, Josephus, he younger Pliny, &c., are so 
vague and general that they might very reasonably have been 
discredited if the buried cities had not been actually discovered ; 
and it is first from a work of Dion Casius, published 140 years 
after the event, that we learn the names of the overwhelmed 
cities or get any detailed information at all, The inquiry indeed 
dealt a serious blow to the view held by a certain school, that 
historical evidence should he based only on contempvrary-written 
records ; for in this case it was the non-contemporary writer that 
gave the precise information. —Prof. Turner de-cribed and exhi- 
bited certain bones of a Sowerby’s whale (Mesophodon Sowerby2) 
which had been captured in Shetland in May, 1881. From a 
comparison with the specimen of this very rare species belonging 
to the Industrial Museum, he concluded that the recently- 
captured animal was the older, being especially characterised by 
the=presence of a bone running down the centre of the peculiarly 
elongated snout, and thus filling up what, in the Museum speci- 
men, is a well-marked groove. Probably the ossification had 
not proceeded far enough in the less mature animal to insure its 
persistence in the skeleton. The Shetland specimen (a male) 
also possessed two large teeth on the lower jaw, which, though 
present in the other, were not large enough to come above the 
gum. This seemed to indicate a sexual difference. —Prof. 
Dickson read a paper by Dr. Joseph Bancroft, on respiration in 
the roots of certain shore plants, His observations referred 
chiefly to the remarkable rootlets of Avicennia. These rootlets 
grow vertically upwards from the larger roots which extend them 
selves horizontally in the mud of salt-water creeks. The mud 
bank around the stem is covered by a brush of such rootlets to a 
distance of from four to six yards from the bole of the tree. 
This brush, by entangling dé77s, protects the bank from destruc- 
tion by stream or tide. .The rootlets are studded with pits or 
pores emitting powdery matter which consi.ts of cells, and 
which may be observed floating on the surface of the brackish 
water of the creek. These pores he regards as corresponding to 
