AprU 2g, 1875] 



NATURE 



517 



ninety-one papers, it would obviously exceed our limits if we 

 were to notice them all. 



The first general meeting took place on Wednesday, March 

 31, at noon, under the presidency of M. Leverrier, who, after 

 congratulating the members on the very full attendance, an- 

 nounced the nominations of the various sectional officers which 

 had been made by the Minister of Public Instruction, viz. :^ 



1. Section for History and Philology. — President, M. Leopold 

 Dehsle ; Vice-president, M. Lascoux ; Secretary, M. Hippeau. 



2. Section for Archaeology. — President, M. le Marquis de la 

 Grange ; Vice-president, M. Leon Renier ; Secretary, M. Cha- 

 bouillet 



3. Section for Science. — President, M. Leverrier ; Vice- 

 president, M. Milne-Edwards ; Secretary, M. Emile Blanchard. 



After the transaction of some formal business, the meeting was 

 closed. At 2 P.M. the members assembled in the various section- 

 rooms, and the reading of papers commenced. 



There were several interesting papers in ihe Sections of History 

 and Philology and Arc/urology, and we regret that want of 

 space prevents us referring to them in detail. We can only 

 mention M. Le Hericher's paper on the " Application to Philo- 

 logy of the Darwinian Theory of ' the Struggle for Life ; ' " M. 

 Vimout's " Notice of the Archreological Excavations made under 

 the superintendence of the Academy of Clermont-Ferrand on 

 the summit of the Puy-de-D6me ; " and M. Leon de Vesly's, 

 " On Symbolism in Egyptian and Asiatic Decorations." 



Science. 

 This section was divided into three sub-sections, as follows : — 

 Mathematics : President, M. Dieu; Vice-president, M. AUegret ; 

 Secretary, M. Saint-Loup. 



Physics and Chemistry.— President, M. Isidore Pierre ; Vice- 

 president, M. Lissajous ; Secretary, M. F. Michel 



Natural Sciences.— President, M. de Rouville ; Vice-president, 

 Prof. Raulin. 



Some of the communications were read only before the sub- 

 sections, others both before the sub-section and the full stclion 

 at its afternoon meetings ; we however shall not distinguish 

 between them, but, as with the other sections, give brief notes 

 of ihe most important papers. 



M. Leon Vidal. — " Photographs in Colours." M. Vidal sub- 

 mitted several albums of specimens of the results ol his method, 

 which he stated to be extremely inexpensive. As far as we were 

 able to understand the method adopted, it appealed to be that 

 of repeated colour-printing ; if so, it is not easy to imagine 

 how perfect specimens can be produced at the price stated, 

 namely, 3 cents per copy. 



M. Doumet-Adanson. — " Remarks en the foimation of the 

 Salt Lakes of Tunis." The author holds that the saline matter 

 has been derived from the decomposition of the surrounding 

 mountains, and rejects altogether the hypothesis of a great dis- 

 turbance having simultaneously produced the Mediterranean and 

 the Sahara. 



Dr. de Pietra-Santa. — "Consumption in Algeria. ' The 

 author stated that the evidence collected by the ofhcial inquiries 

 of the Chmatological Society ot Algiers showed that while in 

 the early stages of phthisis the climate of Algiers was beneficial, 

 it was, on the other band, fatal if it had reached an advanced 

 stage. 



Prof. Pouiset. —"Application of the method of least Squares 

 to the Radiants of Meteor-showers." This was Ulustraied by 

 the discussion of nearly 500 observations lor the determination 

 of the radiant for August 1874. 



Mr. Marsham Adams exhibited and described his Ccelometer 

 and his Mensuraior. 



M. Tarrissan. — " Meteorological Observations on the Pic-du- 

 Midide Bigorre." The roost salient facts in this communication 

 were{l) that the rate of decrease of temperature with elevation 

 is, in the Alps, 1° F. for 338 feet, and in the Pyrenees, i" for 

 333 feet : (2) at equal altitudes the mean temperature is 5' 

 higher in the Pyrenees than in the Alps, and the height of the 

 snow line in the two districts is found conformable thereto, it 

 being about 10,000 feet 111 the former, and 9,000 feet in the 

 latter. 



At the request of M . Lex errier. General de Nansouty ascended 

 the tribune, and related his hazardous descent from the summit 

 last December. 



The General had resolved upon passing the winter at the 

 observatory with an assistant and a mountaineer, but on 

 December 11 the window of their house was smashed by a 

 block of ice detached from a neighbouring peak by the wind. 



They were unable to repair it ; the temperature inside soon fell 

 below zero Fahrenheit, and the observatory became uninhabitable. 

 They battled with the storm for three days, but finally resolved 

 on attempting to descend ; in d.ii they were successful, but it 

 occupied sixteen hours instead of three, which are usually 

 sufficient. 



M. Mayet. — "Note on the Medical Statistics of the Hospitals 

 of Lyons." This paper was rather a description of the method 

 adopted than of the results obtained ; M. Mayet, after classifying 

 his data, plots them upon curve paper, and compares them with 

 the principal meteorological elements. 



M. Truchot. — " On the disintegration of the rocks of Au- 

 vergne considered in connection with the formation of arable 

 land." The title of this paper sufficiently explains its nature, 

 except that the author called special attention to the importance 

 of phosphoric acid for agricultural purposes. 



M. Abria gave a demonstration of the law of "Double total 

 reflection in uniaxal crystals." 



Prof, de Rouville. — " Geological maps of I'Herault." The 

 author briefly explained the maps which he exhibited and the 

 geological features of the department, and incidentally pointed 

 out the undesirability for many purposes of scientific maps ter- 

 minating with political or legal rather than physical boundaries. 



M. Sirodot. — "' Complete dental system of the Mammoths." 

 The author of this paper had certainly ample data whereupon 

 to base his researches, for the collection which he exhibited com- 

 pletely covered the tables, and must have numbered at least 100, 

 and ranged in size from iwo little milk teeth less than an inch 

 long to full-sized specimens weighing many pounds. 



M. Barthelemy gave a brief account of his researches on the 

 respiration of plants, showing how it was continued even in a 

 single leaf detached from the plant on which it had grown. 



Prof Raulin. — "Distribution of rain in the Alps." — The learned 

 author gave a brief extempore summary of the reasonal dbtri- 

 bution of rain in the Alps, based upon the records of about 200 

 stations, of which ninety-three were in the Alps and sixty-nine 

 in Switzerland. He stated that the summer rains of Northern 

 Geimany extend to the very summits of the Alps, that the sys- 

 tem of autum.nal rains prevails on their southern slope, while 

 the system of vernal and autumnal rains extends from the foot 

 of the mountains to the banks of the Po. It is only thence, in 

 the p'ains of Venetian Lombardy, that the system of summer 

 droughts which prevails over Italy is fully established. — M. 

 Renou asked what length of registers had been used, because he 

 doubled if the periods were Icng enough to determine accu- 

 rately the seasonal variation ; be doubted if ten years was suffi- 

 cient. Prof. Raulin said that usually the periods were much 

 longer, and he added that, if the seasonal features were pro- 

 nounced, three or four years would reveal to which class the 

 station belonged, otherwise ten or even twenty years might be 

 necessary. 



Dr. Monoyer. — " New formula for determining the proper 

 focal length of spectacles, and other questions in physiological 

 optics." Perhaps the most impoitant feature of this paper was 

 the reference to, and exhibition of, a standard decimal typo- 

 graphical scale, printed in type of the same character through- 

 out, but so graduated in size as to give a perfectly decimal 

 measure of the power of the eyes. We shovdd strongly urge 

 oculists to obtain copies of this scale and introduce them into 

 this country. 



Prof Rochard gave a most spirited and inleresting description 

 of his new " Musical Alphabet," of which, if it proves as suc- 

 cessful in other places as it has at Nantes, we shall certainly 

 hear more. The professor claims that it is to music what the 

 nomenclature is to chemistry, and what numerals are to calcu- 

 lation ; he showed how it almost annihilated the difficulty of 

 time, lessened that of intonation, and facilitated the reading and 

 writing of music. Speaking of the question of transposition 

 and change of key, he added that he had almost ready a piano 

 of which the pitch could be instantly altered to any extent, even 

 in the middle of the most rapid playmg. Prof. Rochard con- 

 cluded by stating that his pupils at the Association Poly tech- 

 nique had victoriously solved every difficulty put before them ; 

 nay, more, they had attacked problems impossible to be resolved 

 by any other system than the musical alphabet. 



Prof Delage presented a memoir "On the Devonian system 

 of the north of the department of lUe-et-Villaine and on its 

 relation to the Silurian and Carboniferous systems." He showed, 

 by a series of sections taken in the south ot the department, that 

 the order of superposition of the various SUurian beds is that 

 adopted in the geological map of the department. 



