498 
NATURE 
Rap 
[Oct. 19, 1871 

Month. Peieek Normals. Hours. Roweals 
May . “ : 36 106 9 109 
103 10 105 
June . 5 ce IOI II 102 
100 12 103 
July . : a Bf IOI 13 106 
103 14 109 
August : a gh 105 15 108 
107 16 104 
September . eas 106 17 98 
103 18 92 
October 4 - 38 100 19 87 
95 20 85 
November . ey, QI 2r 87 
89 22 90 
December . sy 430 87 23 QI 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Sahrbuch der haiserlich-kinighichen geologischen Reichsanstalt. 
Vol. xvi. No. 1. (Vienna.) The first paper in this part of the 
Yahrbuch is one by Prof. Kreuz, “ Das Vihorlat-Gutin-Tra- 
chytgebirge.” This is one of those painstaking lithological 
papers which are less commonly met with in our own scientific 
journals than one could wish. The author has carefully ex- 
amined under the microscope the trachytic rocks of the Vihorlat- 
Gutin mountains of North-eastem Hungary, a range which 
stretches from north-west to south-east in the same direction as 
the Carpathian Sandstones. He groups the rocks under three 
divisions :—(1) Augite-andesite ; (2) Sanidine-oligoclase-trachyte ; 
(3) Breccias and Tuffs; and his descriptions of the two 
former are particularly full and interesting. The breccias and 
tuffs are necessarily less susceptible of clear concise description ; 
they appear to vary as much and in as short a space as similar 
volcanic accumulations elsewhere.—Prof. Koch, of Ofen, con- 
tributes ‘‘ Beitrag zur Kentniss der geognostischen Beschaffenheit 
des Urdniker Gebirges,” an isolated little mountain range, Which 
stretches between the Danube and the Save in East Sclavonia. 
He describes the Tertiary strata he examined in his last visit to 
that district as being grouped round the foot of the hills. The 
beds are of marine, fresh, and brackish-water origin. He 
does not determine their exact geological horizon, but gives 
lists of the fossils he obtained. The paper concludes with an 
account of a mass of sanidine-trachyte, which the author believes 
to be of Tertiary age.—A paper on Awlococeras Fr. V. Hauer, by 
Dr. Edm. von Mosjsisores, is illustrated with four lithographic 
plates. This and the following paper ‘‘ On the Tertiary Forma- 
tion ot the Vienna Basin,” by Theodor Fuchs and Felix Karrer 
we recommend to the attention of our palzontologists. Fuchs’ 
and Karrer’s paper is most elaborate, and contains copious lists 
of fossils which, besides being interesting in themselves, are use- 
ful for purposes of comparison. The Yakrbuchk concludes with 
‘‘Studien aus dem Salinargebiete Siebenbiirgens,” by F. 
Posepny ; this, however, is only the second part of the paper, 
the first part having been published so far back as 1867. These 
saliferous regions are described in considerable detail, and numer- 
ous chemical analyses are given. A map, and sections, &c., 
accompany the paper. We should mention that the Fahrbuch 
includes obituary notices of two former members of the Institute, 
the well-known Wilhelm Haidinger, and Urban Schloenbach, an 
enthusiastic paleontologist and geologist who was cut off at the 
early age of thirty-one. 
THE three numbers of the Quarterly Fournal of Microscopical 
Science of the present year contain a number of valuable original 
contributions to science, besides transactions, chronicles of the 
progress of histology and micro-zoology, and various reviews and 
short notes and memoranda. In the January number Prof. 
Allman describes a new mode of reproduction by fission in a 
new hydroid polyp, which he figures in a plate.—Haeckel’s 
researches on the nature of Coccoliths and Rathybius are 
noticed at length, and the remarkable Radiolarian AZy.xo- 
brachia is figured in a tinted plate.—Mr. Archer, of Dublin, to 
whose researches published in the same journal in 1869 we owe | 
our knowledge of a most beautiful and interesting group of fresh 
water Protista—the Heliozoa—contributes to the April number 
a further account of new fresh water rhizopods, illustrated with 
two coloured plates.—In the same number Mr. Moseley figures 
and describes the nerves of the cornea, and Mr, Lankester gives 



a minute account of the structure and mode of formation of the 
sperm-ropes of the river Annelids.—In the July number an ex- 
ceedingly valuable memoir by Dr. Van Beneden appears ‘‘ On 
the Development of a Species of Gregarina,” which he de-— 
scribed last year (also in the Journal). It appears that the 
Gregarinz exhibit a young stage when they are devoid of nuclens, 
and have great activity and worm-like form ; to this stage Dr. 
Van Beneden applies the name fseudo-filarian.—In the same 
number Mr. Sorby gives an elaborate paper on the colouring 
matters of leaves, which has an appropriate place in a journal 
devoted to microscopy, since it is only by the micro-spectroscope 
that many of those colouring matters can be studied on account 
of their small quantity, and, further, since the application of such — 
methods of analysis to histology as the micro-spectroscope affords 
is of the very highest importance.—Various points relating to the 
instrument itself are discussed in these three parts by Dr. Royston 
Pigott, who figures his aplanatic searcher and its results on the 
Podura scale ; by Messrs. Dudgeon, Newton, aud others, who 
describe new apparatus.—Mr. Moseley gives accounts of how to 
use gold chloride and silver nitrate in histological research, and 
how best to prepare and cut sections of the frog’s egg for embryo- 
logical study.—The original paper by Dr. Nitzsche, of Leipzig 
(illustrated), on the reproduction of the Bryozoa, and the reply 
to Mr. Hincks, are important, and on a very curious point. It 
is, however, to the chronicles and notes which we would espe- 
cially call attention as of service to biological students. Long 
abstracts of all the important papers published in the German 
periodicals are to be found—in some cases illustrated by wood- 
cuts ; thus we have Neuman on the origin of the red blood cor- 
pucles, Kranse on connective tissue, Flemming on fatty tissue, 
Schobl on the bat’s wing and mouse’s ear, Pfliiger on the method 
of demonstrating nerve-endings in the liver and other glands, 
Exner on the Schneiderian membrane, Cienkowski on the sporo- 
gonia of .Voctiluca, and many other such. 
In the Yournal of Botany for October, Dr. Braithwaite con- 
tinues his Recent Additions to our Moss Flora. Mr. R. Tucker 
gives some Notes on the now well-defined Flora of the Isle of 
Wight ; and Dr. Moore Notes on some Irish Plants. Mr. F. 
Stratton contributes an article on Monotropa hypopitys, confirming 
the statement of other recent observers that this plant is not truly 
parasitic. The remainder of the number is occupied by short 
notes, reviews, reports, and reprints. 
THE Scottish Naturalist for October opens with a timely re- 
print of an extract from Mr. Patrick Matthew’s work on Naval 
Timber, published in 1831, and referred to in Darwin’s ‘‘ Origin 
of Species,” in which he distinctly enunciates the theory that 
‘*circumstance and species have grown up together,” or that 
new species have arisen from old species adapting themselves to 
altered circumstances. The most important original articles in 
the number are: The Baleens, or Whalebone Whales of the 
North-east of Scotland, by Mr. R. Walker; Notes on the 
Tetraonide of Perthshire, by Mr. R. Paton; On the Altitudes 
attained by Certain Plants (varying from those already recorded), 
by Dr. F. Buchanan White ; and On Scottish Galls, by Mr. J. 
W. Hz. Traill. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
Paris 
Academy of Sciences, October 2.—M. C. Jorden read a 
mathematical paper ‘‘ On the Classification of Primary Groups.” 
Two papers on subjects connected with physics were read, one by 
M. A. Cornu, ‘‘On the Determination of the Velocity of Light,” 
in which he suggests an improvement in the method proposed by 
Fizeau for this purpose, and anote by M. G. Salet on the Spectra 
of Tin and its components, which he describes as the most 
singular he has ever seen. —On astronomical subjects several com- 
munications were made.—M. Chasles replied to a statement made 
by M. Bertrand at a previous meeting with regard to Aboul 
Wefa’s method of calculating the position of the moon. M. 
Yvon Villareau communicated a long paper, full of mathemati- 
cal formule, ‘‘On the Determination of the true Figure of the 
Earth, without the necessity of actual levellings.”—M. Delaunay 
read a note on the two recently discovered planets, Nos. 116 and 
117, in which he indicated that the planet discovered at Ver- 
sailles by M. Borelly, and named Lomia, must be numbered 117, 
as the planet discovered by M. Luther two days afterwards had 
been previously detected in America by Mr. C. H. F. Peters.— 
