March 30, 1882] 
increment of weight had risen from 14 to 24 pounds, and an 
example had been seen weighing 20 pounds. The ccecal ap- 
pendages hitherto held as significant of species were found aug- 
mented from 33 to 50, as exemplified in British fish, to from 43 
to 54 in the New Zealand examples, therefore showing that these 
organs are inconstant ‘as to number. Having alluded to the 
different species, Dr. Day concluded that, as the various species 
of non-migratory trout, accepted by Dr. Giinther, interbreed, 
ard the results classed hybrids are not sterile, such gives increased 
reason for :upposing these various forms are local races, and not 
different species ; that if they are really distinct species division 
has not proceeded sufficiently far, because th2 Gillaroo, or form 
of trout with a thickened middle coat of the stomach, has been 
termed Sa/mo stomachicus, Giiother, whereas the great lake 
trout with a :hickened stomach, and the Charr having a similarly 
transformed organ, have not yet been differentiated into species. 
Dr. Day considers that all our non-migratory freshwater trout 
(including the Loch Leven) are merely local races ; that inter- 
breeding will produce mongrels, in which sterility need not be 
anticipated, while introducing new races (unless in the principle 
of preventing breeding in and in) will not be of much benefit to 
fisheries, unle-s the food is in excess of local requirements, for if 
not the new-comers will revert to the colour, form, and size of 
the original tenants of the water.—Two papers by Mr. Charles 
Darwin—(1) on the action of carbonate of ammonia on the 
roots of certain plants ; and (2) the influence of carbonate of 
ammonia on chlorophy!l bodies were read, abstracts of which ap- 
peared in last week s: NATURE.—The twelfth part of the Rey. A. 
Boog Watson’s contributions to the mollusca of the Challenger 
Expedition was also read. 
Geological Society, March 8.—J. W. Hulke, F.R.S., pre- 
i i ir.— ; bn hes 
eee ne Char eae Clementson) Greenwell) and jo ; sion, the endonucleolus divides first ; then the nucleolus, each 
Baldry Redman were elected Fellows of the Society.—The 
following communications were read :—Additional note on 
certain inclusions in granite, by J. Arthur Phillips, F.R.S. 
The author referred to certain rounded inclusions in granite 
which were rich in mica. These he bad described in his paper 
published in vol. xxxvi. of the Quarterly Fournal, and bad con- 
sidered to be contemporaneous segregativns from the molten 
rock. He had, up to that time, not found a case where one of 
the larger crystals of felspar in a porphyritic granite occurred 
partly in the one, paitly in the other. Of late he had seen 
several, one of which he described minutely, thus proving the 
correctness of his supposition.—The geology of Madeira, by J. 
S. Gardner, F.G.S. Madeira consists almost wholly of sheets 
of basalt lava of variable thickness, interstratified with tuff scoria 
and red bole, cut by innumerable dykes. In the central part of 
the island is a horse-shoe-shaped valley, more than four miles in 
diameter, its bed 2500 feet above the sea, its precipitous walls 
full 3000 feet high, rising here and there to yet greater elevations, 
and forming a central point in the mountain system of the island. 
This the author regards as the basal wreck of a volcanic moun- 
tain, blown into the air by an explcs on of exceptional violence. 
Fragments of the slopes of scor 2, which once composed the 
inner shell, remain on the peaks surrounding this amphitheatre. 
The dykes here are trachyte. The author describes a limestone 
exposed in one place beneath the basalts, and referred to the 
Upper Miocene, and a plant-bearing bed associated with them, 
containing fossils of species still living in the iJJands, some of 
which have been wrongly referred to extinct forms. In conclu- 
sion, the author remarked upon the almost infinite variability of 
the genus Rods, and the difficulty of distinguishing its species. 
—On the crag shells of Aberdeenshire, and the gravel beds 
containing them, by Thomas F, Jamieson, F.G.S.—On the red 
clay of the Aberdeenshire coast, and the direction of ice-move- 
ment in that quarter, by Thomas F. Jamieson, F.G.S. 
Victoria (Philosophical) Institute, March 20.—A paper 
on ‘* Climatic Influences as regards Organic Life” was read by 
Dr. Gordon, C.B., honorary Physician to the Queen. 
EDINBURGH 
Royal Society, March 6.—Prof. Fleeming Jenkin, vice-pre- 
sident, in the chair.—Dr. Macfarlane communicated the results 
which he and Mr. D. Rintoul had obtained from experiments on 
the effect of flame on the electric discharge. A circular disk 
was supported near a Bunsen burner on an insulating rod, the 
centre of the disk, which lay ina vertical plane, being on the 
same level with the top of the burner. The disk could be 
charged positively or negatively (as desired) from a Holtz 
machine, and was in electrical ccnnection with a quadrant 
NATURE 
523 
electrometer, so that the differences of potential necessary for a 
discharge to take place between the disk and burner could be 
measured for each of the various experiments made. The effect 
of varying the distance between the disk and Lurner was care- 
fully noted amongst other effects; but the mcst curious results 
seemed to be the marked difference in the behaviours of the 
flame under influence of the charged body according as the 
flame was luminous or non-luminous, or according as the charge 
Was positive or negative. For example, though the non-luminous 
flame was (broadly speaking) affected similarly by the negative 
and positive charge, the luminous flame gave very different re: ults 
in these cases, being drawn fowards the negatively charged disk 
as if dominated by a strong blow-pire blast, but being forced 
down upon the top of the burner when the disk was positively 
charged. The electrometer readings al:o showed interesting 
variations, Leing in general greater when the disk was charged 
negatively than when it was charged positively—Mr. J. Macfar- 
lane, B.Sc., read a paper entitled observations on vegetable and 
animal cells, their structure, division, and history (Part 1). The 
paper dealt with the cells of Chara, a nucleus, nucleolus, and 
endonucleolus being shown to be present in all the active cells 
of the apical bud. After division of the sub-apical cell into 
node and internode, the former continued to divide, while the 
latter was completely arrested, though the earlier steps in divi- 
sion were taken, so that by virtue of the steady proliferation 
of the endonucleous and nucleolus the nuclei in such inter- 
nodal cells as the third removed from the apex were multinu- 
cleolar. TLese nuclei then divided in the manner figured by 
Johow, so that the sixth internodal cell might be multinuclear, 
with multinucleolar nuclei. This same phenomenon was shown 
to cccur in all the cells of the plant. Comparing his results 
with other observer-, the author concluded that during divi- 
of the daughter nucleoli forming an important centre of influ- 
ence round which the nucleoplasm gathers; and finally, the 
nucleus, depositing in so doing a septum, and forming a nuclear 
spindle or barrel, which is most evident where the cell is most 
vacuolated. In reference to this continued activity cf the cell- 
contents after cessation of cell division, which seemed to be 
universal among plants, relative nutrition was considered an 
important factor—cells with only a moderate supply of pabulum 
remaining multinucleolar, and the more highly nourished becom- 
ing multinuclear, a state of plant-cells which the author regarded 
as being commoner than had, even recently, been suppo:ed.— 
Mr. Patrick Geddes communicated a peper by Mr. F. E. Bed- 
dard, B.A., Oxon, on some points in the anatomy of the nervous 
system of the pond-snails, Planorbis and Lymnzus.—Mr. E. 
Sang, in a paper entitled ‘‘A Critical Examination of Two 
Cases of Unusual Atmospheric Refraction described by Prof. 
Vince,” argued that, as the drawings represented in their de-ign 
and per-pective notbing that could ever be seen, and as the dia- 
grams and verbal descriptions were not consistent with each 
other, the well-known phenomena described by Vince were not 
cases of mirage at all.—Prof. Crum Brown read a description by 
the patient himself of a case of dyspeptic vertigo, and added in 
a few sentences the physiological explanation of the curious sensa- 
tions experienced. 
Boston, U.S.A. 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, February 9. 
—President Lovering in the chair.—Prof. A. E. Dolbear ex- 
hibited his new telephone. The peculiarity of this instrument 
consists in the receiver. This is formed of two parallel metallic 
plates separated from each other by a thin layer of air. One 
plate is fixed, and is connected with one terminal of a small 
Ruhmkorf coil; the other plate can vibrate, and is connected 
with the other termi: al of the coil. When a transmitter is 
placed in the primary circuit of the Ruhmkorf coil, the attrac- 
tions between the two metallic plates reproduce the sound-waves 
sent into the transmitter. Conversation has been carried on over 
250 miles of land lines and 350 miles of submerged cable with 
the aid of this instrument.-—Prof. F. W. Putman, curator of the 
Peabody Museum of Archeology at Cambridge, exhibited a 
number of specimens of pottery of the mound-builders of North 
America, which illustrated conventionalisms in ancient American 
art.—An interference prism for producing interference striae was 
exhibited by Mr. C. E. Kelley. This consisted of two pieces of 
glass, separated at one end by one thickness of tinfoil, and at 
the other by two thicknes:es of foil. By sliding the prism in 
front of the slit of a spectroscope, any suitable number of striz 
could be produced —Mr. N. D. C. Hodges reduced Maxwell’s 
