March 30, 1899] 



A^A TURE 



527 



1840 ; it was an early examjile of microscopes made after the 

 introrluction of achromatism. — Mr. Rousselet exhibited and 

 described a mounted specimen of a rare rotiferon, Trochosphacra 

 sohtitialis, first found by Staff-Surgeon Gunson Thorpe in 

 China. It had since been found in America, and the specimen 

 now exhibited was probably the first seen in this country. The 

 first species of this genus discovered T. aeqiiatorialis, was found 

 in the Philippine Islands by Prof. Semper, who described it in 

 1S72. — Mr. Lewis Wright then gave an exhibition of microscope 

 slides by means of his improved projection microscope, and 

 demonstrated the progress made since he gave his previous 

 exhibition before the Society fourteen and a half years ago. 

 Several improvements had been made in the interval : in the 

 condensers it had been found better to use four lenses, by which 

 spherical aberration was practically abolished. He had also 

 learned from the President the necessity for adjusting the cone 

 of light to the aperture of the objective. The fine adjustment 

 had been improved, and great advances had been made in 

 objectives. An important improvement had been made in the 

 screen, which was covered with a thin coating of silver, by 

 which the brilliancy of the pictures was greatly increased. It 

 was found that with a plain silvered surface the image could 

 only be seen by persons in front of the screen ; but by having 

 the surface minutely striated vertically, persons seated at the 

 sides could see quite well. — Dr. Hebb said another paper had 

 been received from Mr. Millett, being Part v. of his report on 

 th'e Foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago, which, on account 

 orits technical character, he proposed should be taken as read. 

 — It was announced that at the next meeting a paper would be 

 read by Dr. Lionel S. Beale, on "The bioplasm of man and 

 the higher animals, and its influence in tissue formation, action 

 an<l metabolism — a microscopical study." 



Zoological Society, March 21. — Dr. W. T. Blanford, 

 F.R.S., Vice-President, in the chair.— Mr. E. T. Newton, 

 F.R.S., exhibited and made remarks upon some fossil remains 

 of a Mouse from Ightham, Kent. He pointed out that the 

 name under which he had described the specimens in 1894, viz. 

 Mils abbotti, had been previously employed by Waterhouse for 

 a Mouse from Trebizond, and that he proposed to substitute 

 Mus Icivisi for that name. A communication was read from 

 Dr. (;. Stewardson Brady, containing an account of the 

 Copepoda collected, chiefly by means of the surface-net, by 

 Mr. (1. M. Thomson, of Dunedin, and by Mr. H. Suter, 

 on behalf of the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. It 

 was shown that several species were identical with well-known 

 European forms, and others were closely allied, but many 

 were entirely distinct and presented very interesting peculiar- 

 ities. — Mr, W. P. Pycraft gave an account of the osteology 

 of the Tubinares. He pointed out the Stork- like character 

 of the group, which had not been before emphasised, so far 

 as regards osteological features. — Mr. F. E. Blaauw gave an 

 account of the breeding of the Weka Rail (Ocydroinus auslralis) 

 and Snow-Goose {Chen hyperborcits) in his park at Gooilust, 

 North Holland. The Rails could not, on .several occasions, be 

 induced to complete the periods of incubation, always eating 

 the eggs after sitting for a few days. One young one was 

 eventually hatched by placing an egg under a Bantam-hen. 

 The Snow-Goose (a female) paired with a male Cassin's Snow- 

 Goose {ChetJ caertdescetis)^ and laid and hatched three eggs. 

 The young birds, it was stated, were apparantly assuming the 

 plumage of the male parent. — Mr. W. E. de Winton read a 

 paper on two species of Hares from British East Africa, speci- 

 mens of which had been collected by Mr. Richard Crawshay. 

 One of them, from the plains of the Upper Attie, was referred 

 to Lepiis somaleiists, Heugl. , a species which had not previously 

 been recorded south of Somaliland. The other species from 

 Kitwi, a short-eared form, which somewhat resembled the 

 Nyasaland Hare [L. whytii), but differed in its black-tipped 

 fur and also in its dentition, was named L. crawshayi, sp. nov. 

 — A communication was read from Dr. A. G. Butler, containing 

 an account of the Butterflies collected by Mr. Crawshay in 

 British East Africa in 1S9S. Specimens of 62 species (which 

 were enumerated in the paper) were contained in the collections, 

 three of which were made the types of new species, viz. Acraea 

 astrigera, Scotitaniides crazvshayi, and Pyrgiis machacosa. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, March 6. — Mr. J. Larmor, Presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Notes on the Binney collection of Carbon- 



NO. 1535, VOL. 59] 



iferous plants. I. Lepidophloios, by A. C. Seward. In 1S72 

 Binney described some unusually perfect sections, prepared from 

 stems found in the clay-iron-stone of the Coal-Measures near 

 Dudley, which he referred to two species, Lcpidodeiuiron Har- 

 iouftii Witham and Hahnia regtilaris Lind. and Hutt. The 

 specimens now form part of the Binney collection in the Wood- 

 wardian Museum. All the sections (four in number) must 

 undoubtedly be referred to the same species, and most probably 

 to Lepidophloios fulginostis Will— A note on the way in which 

 bones break, by Dr. Joseph Griffiths. After describing the con- 

 struction of the shaft of a long bone and pointing out that bone 

 in the adult is hard and tough but not brittle. Dr. Griffiths 

 showed that the long bones are adapted to resist pressure when 

 applied from end to end, that is, in their length. He then 

 demonstrated by means of specimens of bones he had experi- 

 mentally fractured, the way in which they break on the application 

 of a bending force, of a direct blow and of a blow on the free 

 extremity when a portion of the other end was fixed. — On the 

 origin of magneto-optic rotation, by J- Larmor. The object of 

 this note is to point out that it is possible to deduce the Faraday 

 eft'ect from the Zeeman effect by general reasoning as regards 

 any medium in which the optical dispersion is mainly controlled 

 by a series of absorption bands for which the Zeeman effect 

 obeys the above law, without its being necessary to introduce 

 any special dynamical hypothesis. For this law ensures that the 

 effect of the magnetic field on the periods of the corresponding 

 free vibrations of the molecules is the same as that of a bodily 

 rotation, say with angular velocity w, round its axis : while the 

 complete circular polarisations of the Zeeman doublets, viewed 

 in the direction of the axis, show that their states of vibration 

 are symmetrical with respect to that a.xis. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, March 6. — Prof. McKendrick in the chair. 

 — Prof. A. Crichton Mitchell read a paper on the convection 

 of heat (Part i.), in which Newton's law of cooling was dis- 

 cussed. In most of the references to Newton's law, the circum- 

 stances under which Newton declared the law to hold are either 

 disregarded altogether or mentioned in the vaguest way. By 

 his own experiments on the cooling of a copper ball in a steady 

 current of air. Prof. Mitchell found that Newton's law of cool- 

 ing was accurate up to temperature differences of 100' C. in 

 steady currents of air of as much as ten miles per hour. The 

 stronger the current the quicker the cooling ; but the discussion 

 of the precise law connecting the two was reserved for a future 

 communication. The results suggested the possibility of a form 

 of anemometer, in which the speed of the wind might be 

 measured by its cooling effect on, for example, a wire Seated 

 by a steady electric current. — Dr. Buchan presented a detailed 

 account of the meteorology of Ben Nevis (Part ii.). Such 

 important questions as the differences of temperature and 

 pressure at the base and the summit of Ben Nevis were dis- 

 cussed, and were shown to be intimately connected with the 

 cyclonic or anti-cyclonic conditions existing or approaching. 

 The observed relation between pressure and height had led to 

 an important correction to Laplace's well-known formula. When 

 applied to the reduction to sea-level of observations in Scan- 

 dinavia and other localities, the Ben Nevis empirical formula 

 brought consistency where, with the use of Laplace's formula, 

 there had been obvious discrepancy. In the discussion of the 

 diurnal barometric variation, it had been found necessary to 

 separate the cloudy and clear days ; and this had suggested 

 applying the same method to analyses of the meteorological 

 statistics of other places. It thus appeared that the influence 

 of cloud was to produce an evening maximum, and completely 

 change the form of the daily barometric curve.— Dr. Hugh 

 Marshall, in a note on polarisation phenomena observed in 

 quantitative electrolytic determinations, mentioned that, in the 

 case of certain solutions, the completion of the electrolysis of 

 the metal was shown by a sudden rise in the potential difterence 

 of the electrodes. The addition of a small quantity of the 

 metal to the solution produced an immediate fall of this poten- 

 tial difference to its normal value.— Dr. Noel Baton gave 

 an account of a detailed examination of a study by Drs. 

 Dunlop, Macadam, and himself on the influences of diphtheria 

 toxin on the metabolism. The metabolism in simple fastitig 

 was compared with the metabolism in fasting with fever in 

 dogs ; and among the more important results obtained were 

 these : (i) the increase in fever of the proportion of nitrogen 

 not as urea ; (2) the non-increase of the proportion of nitrogeo 



