March 15, 1883] 
travel abroad with a view to his improvement in that study. A 
Fellow forfeits his Fellowship by spending more than eighteen 
months within the United Kingdom. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Fournal of the Frankiin Institute, February.—An account of 
certain tests of the transverse strength and stiffness of large 
spruce beams, by G. Lanza.—The abstraction of heat by mecha- 
nical energy, by J. Rowbotham.—On the application of the 
principle of virtual velocities to the determination of the deflec- 
tion and stresses of frames, by G. F. Swain.—Cone pulleys, by 
H. W. Spangler.—Dust explosions in breweries, by C. J. 
Hexamer.—A summary of progress in science and industry, 
1882. 
THE January number of the Revue ad’ Anthropologie (Premier 
Fasc., 1883), contains the first part of a valuable memoir—un- 
fortunately left incomplete by Paul Broca at the time of his 
death—on the cerebral couvolutions of the human brain, as 
shown by casts.. Broca, having found from long experience that 
it is almost impossible to obtain specimens of a normal cerebrum 
in which both hemispheres are symmetrical, devoted his atten- 
tion to the preparation, for the special use of students, of exact 
models of the convolutions divested of the secondary folds, 
whose extreme variability makes it difficult to determine their 
true character. The memoir now first printed supplies an 
exhaustive description of the brain at every stage from fcetal 
to senile life, with explanations of the significance of the 
different colours used in the preparation of the models, which 
have been completed under the superintendence of M. 5. Pozzi.— 
‘* Buffon Anthropologiste ” is the title of a paper by M. P. Topi- 
nard, in which he has reprinted the, main part of a lecture pre- 
viously addressed to his class in the Ecole d’Anthropologie. The 
object of the address is to show that Buffon was the precursor 
of Darwin and Lamark, both as to the theory of development 
from one, or at most a few original types, and in his belief in the 
survival of the fittest. His undoubted contradictions M. 
Topinard ascribes to the necessity of the times, which 
compelled him to respect the opinions of the clergy so 
far as to address to the Faculty of Theology a written retrac- 
tation of fourteen propositions contained in his ‘‘ Histoire 
Naturelle,” which that body had condemned. This curious 
document is here given zz extenso.—M. C. Sabatier, a former 
juge de patx in Kabylia, in an article on ‘‘La femme ka- 
byle,” explains the nature of the enactments by which the 
French Government is endeavouring to ameliorate the condition 
of women among the Kabyles, who till the present time have 
virtually been slaves, being treated alike by their fathers and 
husbands as the least valued of chattels. As the result of long 
discussions with the heads of the tribes, two new ‘‘ kanouns,” 
or laws, have been agreed to and put into force, which 
M. Sabatier believes to be decisive steps towards the social 
regeneration of the men as much as of the women, one 
of these enactments restricting the rights of the father to 
give his daughter in marriage before she has reached a 
fixed age, and the other freeing a wife from the control of her 
husband under certain conditions of desertion and neglect. —MM. 
Corre and Roussel’s report of their observations of 200 crania of 
criminals preserved in the Anatomical Museum of Brest is sup- 
plied with various tables exemplifying their precise cranial cha- 
racteristics, the nature of the crimes committed, the birth-place 
of the criminals, &c. The general conclusions are in complete 
accord with those of Bordier, Broca, &c. 
Archives des Sciences Physigues et Naturelles, January 15.— 
On a refractometer for measuring the indices of refraction and 
the dispersion of solid bodies, by M. Soret.—Theoretical and 
experimental study of a rapid vessel, by M. Pictet.—On the 
apparent forces arising from the terrestrial motion, by M. 
Cellérier. 
Bulletin de P? Académie Royale des Sciences de Belgique, No. 
12, 1882.—Considerations on the stratigraphic relations of the 
psammites of Condroz and the schists of the Famenne properly 
so-called ; also on the classification of these Devonian deposits, 
by M. Mourlon.—Second note on the dynamo-electric machine 
with solenoid inductor, by M. Pliicker.—Determination of the 
general law ruling the dilatability of any liquid chemically de- 
fined, by M. de Heen.—On the aurora borealis of November 
17, 1882, by M. Terby.—Reports on prize competitions, &c.— 
The great discoveries made in physics since the end of last 
NATURE 
473 
century (lecture at public séavce), by M. Montigny.—Dwarfs and 
giants (lecture), by M. Delbceuf. 
The Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 
vol. vii. Part 2 (April-June, 1882); Part 3 (July-September, 
1852). The chief contents are, Botanical: Botanical notes on 
Queensland. No. 2, the tropics; No. 3, the Mulgrave River ; 
No. 4, Myrtacee.—On a coal-plant from Queensland, by Rey. 
J. E. Tenison-Woods.—Half-century of plants new to South 
Queensland, by the Rev. B. Scortechini.—Forage-plants indi- 
genous to New South Wales, by Dr. Woolls.—On JZyoporum 
platycarpum, a resin-producing tree of the interior of New South 
Wales, by K. H. Bennett.—Botanical notes in the neighbour- 
hood of Sydney, by E. Haviland.—Zoological: On a new 
Gobiesox from Tasmania; on two new birds from the Solo- 
mons; on a new Coris from Lord Howe’s Island, by E. P, 
Kamsay.—Australian Micro-lepidoptera, No. 7, by E. Meyrick. 
—On a reported poisonous fly from New Caledonia; new 
species of fish from New Guinea and Port Jackson; on an insect 
injurious to the vine, by Wm. Macleay.—On a new species of 
Allopora, by Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods.—On Australian fresh- 
water sponges; on the brain of Galeocerdo rayneri; mono- 
graph of Australian Aphroditea (Plates 6 to 11); notes on 
anatomy of pigeons, by W. A. Haswell.—Some new Queens- 
land fishes ; on a new species of squill from Moreton Bay, by 
W. de Vis, B.A.—Habitat of Cyfrea citrina, of Gray, by J. 
Brazier,— New variety of Ovalum depressum, found at Lifou, by 
R. C. Rossiter.—On a breeding place of Platalea flavipes and 
Ardea pacifica, by K. H. Bennett.— Geological: Physical struc- 
ture and geology of Australia, by Rev. J. E. Tenison- Woods. 
Fournal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. li. Part 2, Nos. 
2and 3, 1882 (December 30, 1882) contains :—Some new or rare 
species of Rhopalocerous Lepidoptera from the Indian region, 
by Major G. F. L. Marshall, R.E. (Pl. 4).—On an abnormality 
in the horns of the Hog-deer (Axzs forcinus), with an amplifica- 
tion of the theory of the evolution of the antlers in ruminants, 
by John Cockburn.—On the habits of a little-known lizard 
(Brachysaura ornata), by John Cockburn.—Second list of butter- 
flies taken in Sikkim in October, 1882, by L. de Nicéville. 
Morphologisches Fahrbuch, eine Zeitschrift fiir Anatomie und 
Entwickelungsgeschichte, Ba. 8, Heft 3, contains :—The nasal 
cavities and lachrymo-nasal canals in amniotic vertebrata, by 
Dr, E. Legal.—The structure of the hydroid polyps, by Dr. 
Carl F. Jickeli (Plates 16-18).—The tarsus in the birds and 
Dinosaurs, by G. Baur (Plates 19 and 20).—Contribution to a 
knowledge of the development of the vertebral column in Tele- 
ostians, by Dr. B, Grassii—On an hypothesis concerning the 
phylogenitic derivativion of the blood system of a portion of the 
Metazoa, by Dr. O. Biitschli. 
Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere Rendicontt, vol. 
xv. fasc. xx.—Reports on prize-awards; announcements of 
prize-subjects, &c. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Royal Society, February 15.—‘‘ Description of an Appara- 
tus employed at the Kew Observatory, Richmond, for the 
Examination of the Dark Glasses and Mirrors of Sextants.” 
By G. M. Whipple, B.Sc., Superintendent. 
In the Proc. Roy. Soc. for 1867, Prof. Balfour Stewart de- 
scribed an apparatus designed and constructed by Mr. T. Cooke 
for the determination of the errors of graduation of sextants. 
This instrument has from that date been constantly in use at 
the Kew Observatory, and since the introduction of certain 
unimportant improvements has been found to work very well. 
No provision was made, however, for its employment in the 
determination of the errors of the dark shades used to screen 
the observer’s eyes when the sextant is directed to the sun or 
moon, and it has been found that errors may exist in the shape 
of want of parallelism in these glasses, sufficiently large to 
seriously affect an observation accurate in other respects. 
It has also been found that sextant makers are desirous of 
having the shades examined before proceeding to fit them into 
their metal mountings, and also to have the surfaces of the 
mirrors tested for distortion before making the instruments up. 
With a view to the accomplishment of these ends, for some time 
past the Kew Committee have undertaken to examine both dark 
glasses and mirrors, and to mark them with a hall-mark when 
