Fune 16, 1870 | 
NATURE 
131 
very similar to those found in the Swiss lakes; a vast quantity 
of bones of oxen (of several varieties, including Bos longifrons), 
sheep, goats, deer, swine, dogs, &c. ; of shells a great abundance, 
especially those of the Patella and Liottrina ; a very rude querne, 
&c. They are considered to belong to an age as remote as the 
Roman period, or perhaps extending even beyond it. Mr. J. Croll 
concludes his account of ‘‘The Boulder-clay of Caithness, a 
product of land-ice,” and Mr. C. Lapworth his valuable paper 
**On the Silurian rocks of Galashiels.” Mr. Croll considers that 
nearly the whole of the North Sea, between Scandinavia and 
Scotland, was filled with glacier ice at the time of the formation 
of the boulder-clay of Caithness ; and he indicates facts in the 
glaciation of the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands which 
certainly go a long way in support of his views. It is also to 
this enormous extension of ice that he ascribes that of the Locss, 
by the daming up of the waters of the Rhine and Elbe. Mr. 
Croll’s paper is illustrated with a map. 
Annales de Chimie ed de Fhysique, April, 1870.—This 
number contains a long and valuable paper by M. Berthelot 
on the Varieties of Carbon. He commences by pointing out the 
specific heats of five different kinds of carbon, and comparing 
them with the specific heat cf the element as deduced from that 
of its gaseous compounds, and shows that the relations between 
specific heat and atomic weight are not the same as those ob- 
served in the case of other elements. He then explains his 
process for distinguishing and separating the varieties of car- 
bon by treatment with nitric acid and potassic chlorate, and 
describes the products obtained from carbons of different origin, 
enumerating no less than thirteen different varieties of the 
element. The next two sections describe the effects of various 
agents on carbon, and the carbon cbtained from different com- 
pounds ; concluding with the observation that the kinds of carbon 
differ so widely in their properties, re-actions, and specific heats 
as almost to warrant their being considered as different elements. 
The four foliowing papers are also by M. Berthelot. The first 
is on the oxidation of hydrocarbons by a strong solution of 
chromic acid, under which circumstances ethylene produces 
aldehyde, propylene gives acetone, amylene forms complex 
bodies, probably derived from an acetone, acetylene produces 
carbonic, formic, and acetic acids, whilst from camphene cam- 
phor is obtained. The second describes a new synthesis of 
phenol, by treating acetylene with fuming sulphuric acid, thus pre- 
paring acetyleno-sulphuric acid and decomposing the potassium 
salt with fusing potassic hydrate. It appears that at the mo- 
ment of the liberation of the acetylene from the sulpho-salt three 
molecules condense and oxidise at the same time. ‘The third 
paper is on the action of potassic hydrate on the sulphuric de- 
rivatives of the hydrocarbons, in which the author describes the 
products obtained from several of the sulpho-acids. He en- 
deavoured to prepare methylene from sodic formeno-sulphate, 
but without success, and in consequence of the numerous ex- 
periments which he has made he thinks that chemists must give 
up hopes of its existence. The last paper is on a new synthesis 
of acetic acid by means of acetylene. The author has discovered 
several processes which effect this transformation. The last 
method is by digesting acetylenic dichloride with alcoholic or 
aqueous solution of potassic hydrate, when potassic acetate and 
chloride are formed. Acetylenic tetrachloride with alcoholic 
potash at 100° gives glycolic acid, and with aqueous potash at 
230° oxalic acid. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNDON 
Royal Society, May 19.—‘‘ Spectroscopic Observations of 
the Sun.” No. vi. ByJ. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. 
The weather has !ately been fine enough and the sun high enough, 
during my available observation-time, to enable me to resume 
work. The crop of new facts is not very large, not so large as it 
would have been had I been working with a strip of the sun, say 
fifty miles or a hundred miles wide, instead of one considerably 
over I,000—indeed, nearer 2,000 in width ; but in addition to 
the new facts obtained, I have very largely strengthened my 
former observations, so that the many hours I have spent in 
watching phenomena, now perfectly familiar to me, have not 
been absolutely lost. 
The negative results which Dr. Frankland and myself have 
obtained in our laboratory-work in the matter of the yellow 
bright line, near D, in the spectrum of the chromosphere being 
a hydrogen line, led me to make a special series of observations 
on that line, with a view of differentiating it, if possible, from 
the line C. 
It had been remarked, some time ago, by Prof. Zollner, that 
the yellow line was often less high in a prominence than the C 
line ; this, however, is no evidence (beaving in mind our results 
with regard to magnesium). The proofs IT have now to lay 
before the Royal Society are of a different order, and are, I take 
it, conclusive :— 
1. With a tangential slit I have seen the yellow line bright 
below the chromosphere, while the C line has been dark ; the 
two lines being in tlre same field of view. 
2. In the case of a bright prominence over a spot on the disc, 
the C and F lines have been seen bright, while the yellow line 
has been invisible. 
3. In a high-pressure injection of hydrogen, the motion 
indicated by change of wave-length has been less in the case of 
the yellow line than in the case of C and F, 
4. Ina similar quiescent injection the pressure indicated has 
been less. 
5. In one case the C line was seen long and unbroken, while 
the yellow line was equally long, but broken. 
The circumstance that this line is so rarely seen dark upon the 
sun makes me suspect a connection between it and the line at 
5015 Angstrom, which is also a bright line, and often is seen 
bright in the chromosphere, and then higher than the sodium and 
magnesium lines, when they are visible at the same time ; and 
the question arises, must we not attribute these lines to a sub- 
stance which exists at a higher temperature than those mixed 
with it, and to one of very great levity ? for its absorption line 
remains invisible, as a rule, in spot-spectra. 
I have been able to make a series of observations on the fine 
spot which was visible when I commenced them on April roth, 
not far from the centre of its path over the disc. At this 
time, the spot, as I judged by the almost entire absence of 
indications of general absorption in the penumbral regions, was 
shallow, and this has happened to many of the spots seen lately. 
A few hours’ observation showed that it was getting deeper 
apparently, and that the umbree were enlarging and increasing 
in number, as if a general down-sinking were taking place; but 
clouds came over, and the observations were interrupted. 
By the next day (April 11) the spot had certainly developed, 
and now there was a magnificently bright prominence, completely 
over the darkest mass of umbra, the prominence being fed from 
the penumbra or very close to it, a fact indicated by greater 
brilliancy than in the bright C and F lines. 
April 12. The prominence was persistent. 
April 15. Spot nearing the limb, prominence still persistent over 
spot. At eleven I saw no prominence of importance on the 
limb, but about an hour afterwards I was absolutely startled by 
a prominence not, I think, depending upon the spot I have re- 
ferred to, but certainly near it, more than 2’ high, showing a 
tremendous motion towards the eye. There were light clouds, 
which reflected to me the solar spectrum, and I therefore saw 
the black C line at the same time. The prominence C line (on 
which changes of wave-length are not so well visible as in the 
F line) was only coincident with the absorption-line for a few 
seconds of arc ! 
Ten minutes afterwards the thickness of the line towards the 
right was all the indication of motion I got. In another ten 
minutes the bright and dark lines were coincident. 
And shortly afterwards what motion there was was towards 
the red ! 
I pointed out to the Royal Society, now more than a year ago,* 
that the largest prominences, as seen at any one time, are not 
necessarily those in which either the intensest action or the most 
rapid change is going on. From the observations made on this 
and the following day, I think that we may divide prominences 
into two classes :— 
1. Those in which great action is going on, lower vapours 
being injected ; in the majority of cases these are not high, they 
last only a short time—are throbs, and are often renewed, and are 
not seen so frequently near the sun’s poles as near the equator. 
They often accompany spots, but are not limited to them. 
These are the intensely bright prominences of the American 
photographs. 
2. Those which are perfectly tranquil, so far as wave-length 
evidence goes. They are often high, are persistent, and not 
very bright. These do not, as a rule, accompany spots. These 
* Proc. Roy. Soc, 1869, p. 354, Mar. 17. 
