Nov. 30, 1882 | 
giving a list of the Foraminifera and other organisms found in 
the various beds of boulder-clay in the Atlantic Docks, Liver- 
pool.—On the evidences of glacial action in South Brecknock- 
shire and East Glamorganshire, by Mr. T. W. Edgeworth 
Davy. Communicated by Prof. J. Prestwich, F.R.S. The 
area which is included in this paper is about 200 square miles, 
extending north and south from the Brecknockshire Beacons toa 
line between Cowbridge and the mouth of the Rhymney, of 
which the Cly valley has been more particularly studied. Most 
of the rocks in this district, and particularly the Millstone Grit, 
retain traces of glacial markings, The whole area has a mou- 
tonnée aspect. 
Anthropological Institute, November 14.—Mr. Hyde 
Clarke, vice-president, in the chair.—Mr. R. W. Felkin ex- 
hibited a Darfur boy who was rescued from slavery and brought 
to England by him in 1879.—Mr. Francis Galton exhibited a 
box about the size of a backgammon board, containing a geo- 
metric series of test weights for comparing the sensitivity of 
different persons. The test lay in ascertaining the smallest 
difference that could be perceived when handling them. The 
lowest weight was 1000 grains, which gives no uncertain sense of 
heaviness, and the highest weight was far short of what would 
fatigue the hand. Consequently, by Weber’s law, the difference in 
the sense of heaviness produced by handling any two of the weights 
is the same, or nearly so, whenever those weights are separated 
by the same number of terms. For example, a person who could 
just and only just distinguish between the 4th and the 8th weight 
would do the same as regards the 2nd and the 6th, and the 6th 
and the toth, the number of terms interval being 4 in each case. 
Again, as the only interpretation possible to the phrase that ‘‘ the 
sensitivity of A is7 times as great as that of B,” is that A can 
perceive 7 grades of difference when B can only perceive one, it 
follows that the relative sensitivity of two persons is inversely 
proportionate to the number of terms between any pair of 
weights that they can respectively just discriminate. The 
unit of ratio was 2 per cent., but in the earlier terms 
there was a sequence of half units. The weights were 
made exactly alike in outward appearance; they were com- 
mon gun-cartridges, stuffed equably with shot and wads and 
closed in the usual way. The term in the series to which 
each weight belonged was written on the wad that closed it. It 
was shown that the best economy of time was to present the 
weights in threes, to be sorted in their proper order. By making 
a proper selection, a wide range of testing power could be 
obtained by 30 cartridges ranged in 10 trays. The same prin- 
ciple admits of being extended to testing the delicacy of other 
senses, as taste and smell. Some provisional results were men- 
tioned : (1) that intellectually able men had, on the whole, high 
powers of discrimination ; (2) that men had more discriminating 
power than women ; (3) that highly sensitive women did not 
seem able to discriminate more grades than others, though both 
sensation and pain were induced in them by lower stimuli; (4) 
that the blind, as a whole, were not peculiarly sensitive to this 
test, but rather the reverse. A discussion followed, in which 
Prof. Croom Robertson, Dr. Camps, Mr. Sully, 1. Mortimer 
Granville, Dr. Mahomed, Mr. C. Roberts, Prof. Thane, and 
others took part. 
Royal Horticultural Society, November 14.—Dr. M. T. 
Masters in the chair.—Proliferous Flowers: The Rev. G. Hens- 
low exhibited a Rhododendron balsamiflorum aureum, with 
flowers arising from the centre of the pistil. The latter organ 
had dehisced longitudinally, and a cluster of malformed orange- 
coloured petals protruded from the orifice. He observed that 
every flower on one bush in his garden, of a common pink kind, 
had, during the last season, formed a blossom within the pistil, 
though in the latter case the flowers so formed had perfect as 
well as petaloid stamens. In every case the flower sprang from 
the axis at the base of the ovary. Carnation: a blossom with 
a secondary flower arising from within the calyx. Blue-bell : 
Each flower was borne on a pedicel of about two inches in 
length, and produced a secondary flower from the axil of a 
perianth leaf. In the place of one flower a complete raceme 
had grown,.—Solomon’s Seal ; Leafy racemes occupied the posi- 
tions of normal flowers.—Monstrous Flowers: He also showed 
the following :—/is/z/lody of calyx in Violets, in which the 
organs were in part or entirely virescent and malformed, having 
the sepals abortively ovuliferous, and the petals often laciniated, 
The sepals bore papiliform structures on the margins and mid- 
NATURE 
119 
ribs, resembling rudimentary ovules. The only recorded instance 
of ovuliferous sepals was that of the garden pea, figured and 
described in the Gard. Chron. 1866, p. 897. istillody of sta- 
mens: He showed drawings illustrating various stages of ovu- 
liferous stamens of the Alpine poppy. Syzgenes sm in Diplotaxis 
tenyifolia: The anthers of every flower cohcred laterally, so 
that the pollen could not escape ; the consequence being that in 
no case did a flower set seed. Placental protrusion in Begonia : 
Portions of the placentas covered with ovules had protruded ex- 
ternally from the summit of the ovary, apparently being due to 
hypertrophy.—Czrysaxthemum : Dr. Masters showed a blossom, 
half the florets being white, the other half yellow, a diameter 
separating the two kinds. 
CAMBRIDGE 
Philosophical Society, November 13.—On the structure of 
the spleen, by Mr. J. N. Langley.—On the continuity of the 
protoplasm in the motile organs of leaves.—Dr. W. H. Gaskell 
exhibited two pieces of muscular tissue from the ventricle of a 
tortoise, one of which had been taught to execute rhythmical 
contractions, 
PARIS 
Academy of Sciences, November 20.—M. Jamin in the 
chair.—A letter was read from the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, giving an arvéé which fixes the conditions of the next Volta 
prize, to be awarded in 1887 (see p. $9).—Results of experi- 
ments made at the Exhibition of Electricity on incandescent 
lamps, ty MM, Allard and others. In general and for the 
spherical mean intensity of 1°20 Carcel, only about 12 to 13 
Carcels per h.p. of arc, or 10 Carcels per h.p. of mechanical 
work, can be counted on, from incandescent lamps. Electric 
candles give 40 Carcels per h.p. of are, regulators nearly 100, 
so that, generally, the economic values of the three systems are 
nearly as I, 3, and 7.—Researches on the iodide of lead, by M. 
Berthelot.—On the decomposition of cyanogen, by the same.— 
Researches relative to the vision of colour, by M. Chevreul. 
—On the relation of lunar to solar action in the pheno- 
mena of the tides, by M. Hall.—Chemical studies on Sile- 
sian beet (continued), by M. Leplay.—Electro-chemical de- 
posits of various colours, produced on precious metals, for 
jewellery, by M. Weil. He presented pieces of gold and silver 
jewellery, polychromised industrially with oxides of copper, by 
his processes. The colours resist friction, dry or moist air, air 
vitiated by sulphuretted hydrogen or coal gas, and light. M. 
Edm. Becquerel recalled the colorations obtained by his father 
with oxides of lead and iron.—Ona sulphocarbometer for deter- 
mining the quantities of sulphide of carbon contained in alkaline 
sulphocarbonates, by MM. Gélis. A glass flask filled with a 
solution of bisulphite of soda or potash, has on its neck a 
metallic sleeve with internal screw-thread ; into this is screwed a 
corresponding metallic tube with stopcock under the terminal 
bulb of a graduated and closed glass tube holding the sulpho- 
carbonate to be examined. On opening the cock, the liquids 
mix. The reaction is completed when the sulphocarbonat= be- 
comes quite colourless ; then the height of the column of sulphide 
of carbon is noted, and the weight of the sulphide of carbon th: t 
was in the sulphocarbonate may be deduced.—Results of treat- 
ment adopted in Switzerland with a view to destruction of Phy!- 
loxera, by M. Mayet (see p. 89).—On two standards of the 
aune and the pied de Rot recently found by M. Wolf. He found 
them in the maritime arsenal of Cherbourg. They are at present 
the scle representatives of an attempt at ‘unification of French 
measures long before the birth of the metric system, and 
the only models of ancient measures preserved in their 
integrity.—Observations of the planet (216) Cleopatra, and 
of the great comet of 1882, at Paris Observatory (equa- 
torial of the western tower), by M. Bigourdan.—Observa- 
tions of the same comet at Algiers Observatory, by M. Trepied. 
—On the same, by M.-Jaubert. He notes (from the Popular 
Observatory) that the central part, or true tail, had a paler enve- 
lope, which nearly ceased to be visible as the comet rose above 
the horizon and the tail shortened—except a part nearest a 
Hydre, which seemed brighter than at first.—On the solar 
energy, by M. Rey de Morande. The great uniformity of ter- 
restrial vegetation till the Cenomanian epoch, and gradual differ- 
entiation since, according to latitude, the gradual invasion of 
southern regions by trees with caducous leaves, and disappear- 
ance of all vegetation in Polar regions, are phenomena explicable 
by gradual contraction of the sun, but inexplicable by gradual 
cooling of the earth.—On the works of Frederic Houtman, by 
