400 



NATURE 



[March i8, 1875 



specimens of a Lepisimx, allied to L, sacchayina, which he had 

 not previously observed in this country. They were found in a 

 bakehouse near London, in the brickwork of the oven and other 

 warm parts of the buildings. Mr. M'Lachlan suggested that they 

 might have been introduced with American flour, as Mr. Packard 

 had recently published an account of a sjiecies closely alMed to 

 /. saccharina, which he thought might probably be found iden- 

 tical with the present species. — Mr. Ward also exhibited micro- 

 scopic slides showing the sexes of the Chigoe, and portions of 

 the human skin with the insect attached. — Mr. Champion ex- 

 hibited larvce of Empnsa paiiperata from Corfu. — A note was 

 received from INIr. W. C. Boyd with reference to some fleas 

 exhibited at the last meeting. lie stated that fleas were fre- 

 quently found in the inside (not the outside) of the ears of wild 

 rabbits, especially about this time of year ; and that his brother 

 had seen a rabbit which must have had three hundred fleas in the 

 t«o ears. He believed the rabbits were not much troubled by 

 the presence of the parasites, as he had never noticed any inflam- 

 mation, however many fleas there might have been. — The I'vev. 

 Mr. Gorham communicated a paper containing descriptions of 

 eighteen new species of Endomyiici, from various tropical coun- 

 tries. — Mr. Dunning directed attention to an interesting paper 

 by Dr. Leconte, on entomological nomenclature and generic 

 types, which appealed in the December part of the Canadian 

 Enlomologist. 



Edinburgh 

 Royal Society, March 15. — David Milne Home, LL.D., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — The Council having awarded the 

 Makdougall Brisbane Prize for the Biennial Period 1S72-74 to 

 Prof. Lister, for his paper on the germ theory of putrefaction 

 and other fermentative changes, the medal was presented to 

 him by the chairman, after a discourse by Dr. Crum-Brown upon 

 the n^iture and merits of Prof Lister's investigation. — The 

 Council have awarded the Neill Prize for the Triennial Period 

 1871-74 to Mr. Charles William Peach, for his contributions to 

 Scottish zoology and geology, and for his recent contributions to 

 fossil botany. — The following communications were read : — 

 On the diurnal oscillations of the barometer, by Alex. Buchan, 

 M.A. ; on phenomena connected with the subject of single and 

 double vision, as shown by the stereoscope, by Robert S. 

 Wyld ; on products of oxidation of methyl-thetine, by Prof. 

 Crum-i3rown and Dr. Letts. 



Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society, Feb. 22. — A communication was 

 made Ijy the Rev. O. Fisher, upon the formation of moun- 

 tains on the hypothesis of a liquid substratum. This paper was 

 a sequel to one read in December 1873, in which it had 

 been shown that, upon the supposition that the inequalities of 

 the earth's surface have been formed by contraction of its 

 volume through cooling, they are too great to be so accounted 

 for if the earth has cooled as a solid body. In the present com- 

 munication it was therefore assumed that there is a liijiiid layer 

 beneath the cooled crust ; and an approximate calculation was. 

 made of the form which the corrugations of a flexible crust 

 would take if so supported. It was shown that their lower 

 surface would consist of a series of equal circular arcs arranged 



in a festoon-like manner, and having a radius 2— c, where p, <r 



<j 

 are the densities of the crust and liquid respectively, and c the 

 thickness of the crust. It was argued that tfie consequences of 

 this form of corrugation agree fairly well with some of the phe- 

 nomena of mountain elevation, but that it does not suffice to 

 explain the ocean- basins and the continental plateaux. 



Glasgow 

 Geological Society, Feb. 11. — Annual Meeting.— The pre- 

 sident, Su: William Thomson, LL.D., F.R.S., delivered an 

 address on Underground Temperature. Sir William explained 

 at the outset that the mathematical theory of underground tem- 

 perature involved phenomena which might be divided into two 

 classes — periodic and non-periodic. The periodic phenomena 

 occurred over and over again with perfect regularity in suc- 

 cessively equal intervals of time ; the non-periodic might be 

 approximately periodic, or irregularly periodic, without strictly 

 fulfilling that definition. But, on the other hand, the action 

 which had no periodic character whatever might be irregular, or 

 there might be a gradual secular variation. There might thus 

 be three classes of phenomena— secular variation, irregular varia- 

 tion, and periodic variation. He then described the mathemati- 



cal theory of Fourier, as applied to periodic variations, observing 

 in passing that it was equ.ally convenient for dealing with all the 

 three classes. That theory was one of the most beautiful pieces 

 of application of the mathematical instrument which they had in 

 the whole history of science. It constituted a new branch of 

 mathematics, and was invented by Fourier for the purpose of 

 analysing the phenomena of the conduction of heat through solids. 

 He exhibited a diagram showing the results obtained by Forbes 

 from thermometers placed at depths of three, six, twelve, and 

 twenty-lour feet below the surface in Craigleith Quarry, the 

 Experimental Gardens, and the Calton Hill, Edinburgh. The 

 results of these observations which Forbes commenced, and Sir 

 William continued for seventeen years, showed that the variations 

 were greater nearer the surface, that a higher temperature was 

 generally indicated at a later period at the greater depth, and 

 seemed to show also that the sandstone of the Craigleith quarries 

 had a greater conductivity than the trap-rock. Sir William con- 

 cluded by referring to the temperature of the earth as indicating 

 its former condition, and promised at some future time to treat 

 this subject at greater length before the Society. 



Dublin 

 Royal Geological Society, Feb. 11.— Prof. Hull, F.R.S., 

 president, occupied the chair, and delivered the anniversary 

 address, in the course of which he pointed out some subjects 

 where investigation on the part of members of the society 

 seemed desirable. One of these was cave explorations in 

 Ireland, an investigation which had been pursued with very 

 great success in England and France, and along the shores 

 and islands of the Mediterranean. Prof. Hull mentioned 

 a number of interesting discoveries of animal and other remains 

 th.at had been made in the caves of Ireland, which he said fur- 

 nished proofs of the wide field of research that was open to 

 them. Another subject which he recommended to the con- 

 sideration of the members was the microscopic examination of 

 rocks, and he hoped that the many curious rock-formations to 

 be found throughout Ireland would be studied and reported 

 upon by those who felt an interest in the matter. — Sir Robert 

 Kane, F.R.S., was elected president for the year. 



BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED 



British.— Consumption andTuberculosis ; tlieir Pro.vimate Cause and Spe- 

 cific Trealment by tfie Hypopiiosphites ; John Francis Cfiurcllill, M.D., Paris 

 (Longmans). — Problems of Life and Mind. Vol. ii. : George Heni-y Lewes 

 (Trubner).— Tile Marine Invertebrates and Fishes of St. Andrews : W. C. 

 M'Intosh, M.D., F.R.S.E, C.M.Z.S.. &c. (A. and C. Black, and Taylor 

 and Francis).— A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay. 2nd edit, : Capt. A. H. 

 Markham (Sampson Low and Co.)— Facts about Breadstuffs (Portcous), — 

 Astronomy ; by J. Rambosson. Translated by C. B. Pitman (Chapman 

 and Mall). — Ornithology and Conchology of the County of Dorset : J. C. 

 M.P.— Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 1873-74. — Instruc- 

 tions for the Ubservation ol Phenological Phenomena. Prepared by request 

 of the Council of the Meteorological Society (Williams and Strahan). — Cata- 

 logue of the Library of the Manchester Geological Society. Edited by John 

 Plant, F.G.S. 



Amekican.— Principles of Chemistry, and Dr. HinricVs Molecular Me- 

 chanics (Davenport, Iowa, U.S.) — Annual Report upon the Survey of 

 Northern and North-Western Lakes in charge of C. B. Comstock (Waihing- 



1) — Bulletin of the United Stales Geological and Geographical Survey of 



I 



the T 



, No. I (Washington). 



•CONTENTS Pack 



Scientific Surveys .381 



The Countess OF Chinchon 3S3 



GeRLAND's " ANTHKOPOLOGirAL CONTKIDUTIONS" i 3S4 



UuP Hook Shhlp :— 



Hartwig's " Aerial World " 385 



A Gyrostat Problem (/F/V/z IllHstration\~~T>. M'Farlane . . . 3S5 



Origin of the Chesil Bank. — Col. George Greenwood .... 386 



Natural Phenomena in South America. — Thomas R. R. Stebbixg 386 



Volcanic Action in the Sandwich Islands —Isabella L. Bird . . ^86 



The Height of Waves.— Capt. Wm. W. Kiddle 3S6 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Variable Stars . . 387 



Mars and 3 Sagittarii, 1875, June 29 387 



Encke's Comet 387 



The Transit OF Vekus 38; 



The Progress OF THE Telegraph, I. (W^;V/i ///?«/^a//fl«i) ... 390 



THE Action of Hydrogen and Acids. Dv W. H. Johnson, G.Sc. 393 



The Southi'Ort AjUARiUM. By Chaulej E. Da Rance .... 393 



Notes 394 



Scientific Report of the Austro-Hungarian North Polar E.v- 



peditiun of 1872-74, ii 396 



Prizes offered ky the Belgian Academy 398 



Societies and Academies 39S 



Books and Pamphlets Received 40c 



