579 
NATURE 
[ April 12, 1883 
Chemical Society, March 30.—Anniversary Meeting.—Dr. 
Gilbert, president, in the chair.—The President presented his 
annual report, in which he gives a review of the progress of the 
Society from the commencement of its existence in 1841 up to 
the present time. The Society numbers 1247 Fellows, with an 
income of about 3000/. During the past year 70 papers have 
been read, and a discourse delivered by Prof. Dewar. Grants 
in aid of research have been made of 2207. 1775 copies of the 
Fournal were printed during the past year. 
tains 6800 volumes, and a new catalogue will shortly be issued 
to the Fellows. In his address the President gives a most in- 
teresting 7¢éswmé of the arrangements for chemical education and 
research on the American Continent. After the usual votes of 
thanks the following Officers, &c., were balloted for and declared 
duly elected :—President, W. H. Perkin, Ph.D., F.R.S.  Vice- 
presidents: F. A. Abel, Warren De La Rue, E. Frankland, J. 
H. Gilbert, J. H. Gladstone, A. W. Hofmann, W. Odling, 
Lyon Playfair, H. E. Roscoe, A. W. Williamson, A, Crum 
Brown, P. Griess, G. D, Liveing, J. E. Reynolds, E. Schunck, 
A. Voelcker. Secretaries: H. E. Armstrong, J. Millar Thom- 
son, Foreign Secretary, Hugo Miiller. Treasurer, W. J. 
Russell. Council: E. Atkinson, Capt. Abney, H. T. Brown, 
W.R. E. Hodgkinson, D. Howard, F. R. Japp, H. McLeod, 
G. H. Makins, R. Meldola, E. J. Mills, C. O’Sullivan, C. 
Schorlemmer. 
Meteorological Society, March 21.—Mr, J. K. Laughton, 
F.R.G.S., president, in the chair.—The following gentlemen 
were elected Fellows of the Society: viz. Mr. G. T. Hawley, 
Dr. C. W. Siemens, F.R.S., Mr. C. Walford, F.S.S., and 
Col. H. G. Young. Dr. W. Koppen was elected an Honorary 
Member.—The paper read was notes on a march to the hills of 
Beloochistan, in North-West India, in the months of May to 
August, 1859, with remarks on the simoom and on dust 
storms, by Dr. H. Cook, F.R.G.S., F.M.S. These months 
may be considered as the summer of the hill-country of Beloo- 
chistan, though the natives expect the weather to change soon 
after the fall of rain, which takes place about the end of July 
and beginning of August. Compared with that of the plains, 
the climate is delightful. The actual heat is greater than in 
England, especially the intensity of the sun’s rays, but the weather 
is less variable. Fruits and crops, asa rule, ripen earlier, and 
are not exposed to the vicissitudes of the English climate. The 
atmosphere is clear and pure, the air dry and bracing. Dr. 
Cook describes different kinds of dust-storms, and considers that 
they are due to an excess of atmospheric electricity. With 
regard to the simoom, which occurs usually during the hot 
months of June and July, it is sudden in its attack, and is some- 
times preceded by a cold current of air. It takes place at 
night, as well as by day, its course being straight and defined, 
and it burns up or destroys the vitality of animals and vegetable 
existence. It is attended by a well marked sulphurous 0 ‘our, 
and is described as being like the blast of a furnace, and the 
current of air in which it passes is evidently greatly heated. Dr. 
Cook believes it to be a very concentrated form of ozone, gene- 
rated in the atmosphere by some intensely marked electrical 
condition.—After the reading of this paper the Fellows in- 
spected the exhibition of meteorological instruments for tra- 
vellers, and of such new instruments as had been constructed 
since the last exhibition. In addition to the ordinary instru- 
ments designed for travellers, viz. barometers, thermometers, 
hypsometrical apparatus, compasses, artificial horizons, &c., 
some very interesting historical instruments used by celebrated 
travellers and explorers were exhibited, including those used by 
Dr. Livingstone in his last journey ; by Commander Cameron 
during his journey across Africa; by Sir J. C. Ross in his 
Antarctic Expedition ; by Sir E. Sabine, in his Arctic voyage, 
&e, 
Zoological Society, March 20.—Prof. W. H. Flower, 
F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Mr. Sclater called attention to 
the fact that a living specimen of Macropus erubescens (a species 
originally described froma single specimen living in the Society’s 
Gardens) was in the Gardens of the Zoological and Acclimatisa- 
tion Society of Melbourne.—Mr. Sclater laid before the meeting 
a set of the sheets of a new List of British Birds which had 
been prepared by a Committee of the ‘‘ British Ornithologists’ 
Union,” and would shortly be published, and explained the 
principles upon which it had been constructed.—Prof. Huxley 
read a paper on the oviduct of the Common Smelt (Osmerus 
eperlanus), and took occasion to remark on the relations of the 
Teleostean with the Ganoid fishes. Prof. Huxley came to the 
The library con- | 
conclusion that the proposal to separate the Elasmobranchs, 
Ganoids, and Dipnoans into a group apart from and equivalent 
to the Teleosteans was inconsistent with the plainest anatomical 
_ relations of these fishes.—Mr. G. A. Boulenger read a paper 
| Hibiscus, thus showing distinctly intermediate characters, 
containing the description of a new species of Batrachian of the 
genus 4z/o obtained at Yokohama, Japan, during the expedition 
of H.M.S. Challenger, The author proposed to describe it as 
Bufo formosus.—A communication was read from Mr, W. N. 
Parker containing some notes on the respiratory organs of Rhea 
macrorhyncha, and comparing these organs with those of the 
| Apteryx and Duck. 
Royal Horticultural Society, March 27.—Sir J. D. 
Hooker, K.C.S.I, in the chair.—JSclerotia of Peronospora 
infestans : Mr. W. G. Smith called attention to the fact that the 
so-called ‘‘sclerotia,” described in a paper by Mr. A. Stephen 
Wilson, read at the last meeting, were observed and figured 
by Von Martius so long ago as in 1842 (‘‘Die Kartoffel 
Epidermie”) as Protomyces and by Berkeley as Tubercinia 
in his paper on the Potato Murrain, in the first volume 
of the Hort. Soc. Fournal, 1846. They were subsequently 
figured by Broome in 1875, and by Prof. Buckman. Mr. G, 
Murray said that from his examination they often seemed to 
consist of the discoloured and disorganised contents of the cells, 
which they completely filled, though in Martius’s drawing two 
or three were in one cell ; Dr. Masters, however, noticed that 
they are often outside the cells and of an angular character, as if 
they had not assumed the form of the interior of a cell. The 
question was raised whether they might not have been expressed 
by the covering glass. Martius figured them with conidiferous 
threads proceeding apparently in abundance from them. Further 
investigation of their true nature was thought desirable.— 
Abutilon and Hibiscus ‘*bigener” : Dr. Masters described a very 
dark-flowered Abutilon which was said to be due to an original 
cross between H. Rosa-sinensis and A. striatum. The original 
plant was a dark-flowered seedling which was fertilised by Mr. 
George of Putney for two or three generations with the pollen 
of the Hibiscus, and though the character of the flower is that of 
an Abutilon, it has the truncated column and foliage of the 
In 
one plant the leaves were marked with a dark crimson spot. 
Hence it appears to be a true bigener, or cross between two dis- 
tinct genera.—/uy-leaved Pelargonium Cross: Mr. George sent 
some foliage of a cross between the ivy-leaved and a rough- 
leaved Pelargonium. Several showed a reversion to the peltate 
type, some assuming a funnel-shape or other irregular form, 
thus betraying its origin from P. peltatum.—Orange-trees attacked 
by Mytilaspis citricola, one of the Coccidz: Mr. Maclachlan 
exhibited leaves and branches of oranges much injured by 
this insect from the Bahamas. He read a communication 
by Messrs. Dunlop and Roker communicated by the Governor 
to the British Government, requesting information. The in- 
sect was therein named Asfzdites Gloverii. He made some 
remarks on the method of attack of the insect, and sugges- 
tions as to remedies to suppress it, such as washes and 
syringing with petroleum and the use of whale-oil soap.— 
Solanum species: Sir J. D. Wiooker read a communication from 
Mr. Lemmon, of Oakland, California, upon the discovery of three 
species or varieties of Solanum bearing tubers, from the border- 
land of Arizona and Mexico :—‘‘ We found them first,” writes 
the author, ‘fon the cool northern slopes of the high peaks [of 
the Huachuca range]; then afterwards, where least expected, 
invading the few rudely cultivated gardens of the lower foot- 
hills. One kind is called S. Famesiz, Tor., in the ‘‘ Survey 
of the Mexican Boundary.” This has white flowers and 
tubers. Another was S. Fendleri, Gr. It has smaller purple 
flowers and flesh-coloured tubers. This Dr. Gray lately con- 
cludes to be but a variety of the old Peruvian potato, and he 
calls it .S. tuberosum, var. boreale. The third form or species 
found at 10,000 feet altitude has mostly single orbicular leaves, 
one or two berries only to the umbel, and small pink tubers on 
long stolons, growing in loose leaf-mould of the cool, northern 
forested slopes. . . . I have great faith in the successful raising 
of one of these species (or varieties) to a useful size, for the fol- 
lowing reasons :—1. While the S.. tuderosum, var. boreale, bears 
long stolons and but a few tubers, the other kind, S. Famesi?, 
makes many short stolons terminated by four to eight large, round 
white tubers. 2. While the first kind has been partially tried and 
then given up, the latter species is known to have become 
enlarged to the size of domestic hens’ eggs during the accidental 
cultivation of three years in the embanking of a rude fish-pond.” 
