April 6, 1899] 



NA TURE 



551 



The deductions which I think may fairly be made from ihese 

 observations and experiments are as follows : 



(i) That there are certain cancers, which occur very rarely, 

 in which there are in enormous numbers, intracellular bodies of 

 the kind described by Ruft'er, myself, and others, as parasitic 

 Protozoa. (From the rarity of these cases and their compara- 

 tively acute course, one is tempted to think that they are not 

 due to the same cause as ordinary cancers ; but there is really no 

 more difference between them and ordinary cancers than between 

 acute ind chronic tubercle. ) 



(2) That these intracellular bodies can be isolated and culti- 

 vated out.'^'de the body. 



(3) Thai these cultures, when introduced into certain animals, 

 can cau^e death, with the production of tumours ; so far, with 

 the exception of the corneal growths, of endothelial origin ; and 

 that pure cultures can be made from these growths, which, when 

 inoculated into suitable animals, will produce similar tumours. 



Linnean Society, March i6.— Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Dr. John Lowe communicated some 

 observ.itions on the fertilisation of Armijia albcns, G. Don, a 

 Brazilian climber, which in the south of England grows in the 

 open air. Last summer it was blooming freely in Lord 

 Ilchester's garden at Abbotsbury, where the flowers were visited 

 by numbers of butterflies, diurnal moths, humble-bees, wasps, 

 and large flies, many of which were captured and imprisoned 

 for a time in the pinching-bodies (A'/i'»im-/;brper of Muller). 

 All these insects, with the exception of some humble-bees, in 

 their visits to the nectar left their proboscis behind, and some- 

 times a leg, being not strong enough to detach the pinching- 

 body. Dr. Lowe described the structure of the pinching-bodies, 

 which are flat horny plates situated, above the nectar-cups, at 

 each angle of a five-sided hollow cone in the centre of the flower, 

 in which is placed the stigma. There is only a small opening 

 at the apex .and a narrow slit at the base of each facet of the 

 cone. To the upper point of the pinching-body the pollinia are 

 attached. When an insect has its proboscis caught in the slit, 

 which narrows always to its point, it can only escape by tearing 

 away the body with its pollen-masses or by leaving its proboscis 

 in the slit. In the former case it carries tire pollinia to the next 

 flower it visits, and thus effects cross-fertilisation by leaving the 

 pollen-mass between the anther-wings, whence it rapidly passes 

 into the cone. He had received a number of flowers of Araujia 

 from Mr. Benbow, the gardener at Abbotsbury, in some of 

 which he found the proboscis of a butterfly or moth in each of 

 the five angles of the cone, showing the great destruction of 

 insect-life caused by the plant. Mr. N. E. Brown, who has 

 made a special study of the .\sclepiadacea;, gave an interesting 

 account of the manner in which the pollinia reach the stigma ; 

 and some further remarks were made by Mr. A. W. Bennett. — 

 Mr. P. Chalmers Mitchell read a paper on so-called " quinto- 

 cubitalism " in the wing of birds. He showed that the terms 

 " aquintocubital " and " quintocubital," applied to birds because 

 of certain conditions in the wings, were misleading, and 

 proposed the new terms " diastataxy " and "eutaxy." From 

 general considerations based on the anatomy and osteology of 

 Coltoitbac, he concluded that the eutaxic forms were clearly more 

 highly specialised forms, and that they had been derived from 

 diastataxic forms. Comparative anatomy making it exceedingly 

 probable that " diastataxy '' is the primitive condition among 

 birds, Mr. Mitchell proceeded to show that the primitive 

 existence of a gap was not difficult to explain. — Mr. W. P. 

 Pycraft read a paper entitled "Some facts concerning the so- 

 called ■ aquintocubitalism ' in the bird's wing." He showed, 

 by means of a series of lantern slides, that ' ' aquintocubitalism " 

 was due to a shifting, backwards and outwards, of the secondary 

 remiges 1-4 and of the horizontal rows of coverts 1-5. The 

 terms — suggested by Prof. E. Ray Lankester — " stichoptilous " 

 and " apoptilous " were proposed as substitutes for the older and 

 less convenient terms quinto- and aquinto-cubitalism. All 

 wings, it was shown, are, in the embryo, stichoptilic, and later 

 may become apoptilic. Hence the author felt inclined to 

 regard the former as the more primitive arrangement. Prof E. 

 Ray Lankester, F. R. .S. , in some remarks upon the two pre- 

 ceding papers, gave reasons for preferring the terms "stichop- 

 tilous" and "apoptilous" in substitution for those which had 

 been adopted by the authors. Both authors were agreed on 

 the main issue, at which they had arrived independently, one 

 through the study of development, the other through that of 

 adult anatomy. 



Geological Society, May 18.— VV. Whitaker, F. R.S., Pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — Relations of the chalk and drift in Moen 

 and Rligen, by Prof T. G. Bonney, F. R.S. , and the Rev. 

 Edwin Hill. These two islands are separated in a north- 

 westerly to south-easterly direction by about thirty- five miles of 

 sea. They both exhibit at many spots the chalk and drift, in 

 relations which are peculiar and abnormal. Some geologists 

 maintain that the glacial beds have been included in the chalk 

 by a series of acute folds ; others that they have been dropped 

 down by a series of faults ; others, again, explain the relation- 

 ship as the result of ice-action. Simple faulting appears to be 

 insuflicient, while it is a circumstance not easily explained by 

 earth-movement or ice-action that the axes of the folds in the 

 chalk strike roughly east-north-east to west-south-west in Moen, 

 and north and south in Riigen. The authors then describe a 

 series of sections in Moen, which lead them to the following 

 conclusions : {a) The chalk dominates greatly over the clay, 

 the latter being often merely a local phenomenon, [b) The 

 chalk is stained brown, and the clay streaked with chalk for a 

 few inches from the junction, (i ) The clay is often a mere 

 facing to the chalk, or occupies semi-cylindrical or wedge-shaped 

 cavities, which sometimes seem to terminate above sea-level. 

 [d] The clay seems often associated with superficial ravines, 

 which are probably never much prolonged below the sea-level. 

 The chalk is strongly folded, but rarely, if ever, faulted, and 

 there is no evidence to connect the intercalations of drift with 

 faults. Numerous sections in Riigen are then described, svhich 

 (though there are differences in .detail) present a general re- 

 semblance to those in Moen, and, as a rule, have no resemblance 

 to those near Cromer. — A critical junction in the County of 

 Tyrone, by Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole. The investigations of 

 the author have led him to the conclusion that the granite of 

 Eastern Tyrone is identical with that of Slieve Gallion. 



P.\R1S. 

 Academy of Sciences, March 27. — M. van Tieghem in the 

 chair. Obituary notice of M. Charles Naudin, by M Ed. 

 Bornet. — M. Gaudry announced the death of Prof. O. C. Marsh, 

 Correspondant in the Section of Mineralogy. — The Perpetual 

 Secretary announced the death of Prof. G. H. Wiedemann, 

 Correspondant in the Physical Section. — Obituary notice of Prof. 

 Wiedemann, by M. Mascart. — The deformation of surfaces of 

 the second degree, by M. G. Darboux. — The effect produced 

 upon the motion of inclination of a bicycle by the lateral dis- 

 placements given by the rider, by M. J. Boussinesq. — Note on 

 some properties of the radiation of uranium and radio-active sub- 

 stances, by M. Henri Becquerel. The intensity of the uranium 

 radiations, as measured by their photographic action, ap- 

 pears to undergo no diminution with time, since some 

 uranium compounds enclosed in a leaden box since May 

 1896, and hence absolutely shut off from all known 

 sources of radiation, still have the same action upon 

 a photographic plate as when first set up. The rays do 

 not appear to be capable of polarisation, all attempts to repeat 

 two early experiments giving positive results in this direction 

 having failed. Bodies, such as glass, receiving these rays, give 

 off a secondary radiation very similar in nature to that observed 

 by M. Sagnac for the X-rays. — On the explosive aptitude of 

 acetylene when mixed with inert gases, by MM. Berthelot and 

 Vieille. Two sets of mixtures were examined, acetylene and 

 hydrogen, and acetylene and coal gas. The.se were gradually 

 compressed, and the pressure zone determined within which the 

 propagation of the explosive wave was possible. — Preparation 

 and properties of crystallised calcium phosphide, by M. Henri 

 Moissan. By carefully heating an intimate mixture of carbon 

 and calcium phosphate in the electric furnace, it is possible to 

 obtain a crystallised calcium phosphide containing only 

 traces of calcium carbide and unreduced phosphate. The 

 phosphide obtained in this way forms reddish-brown 

 crystals, which fuse only at a very high temper- 

 ature. Chlorine is without action in the cold, but a 

 violent reaction sets in at 100° C. Analyses show that the 

 composition of the phosphide is CajPj. — On the properties and 

 applications of aluminium, by M. A. Ditte. Copper-aluminium 

 alloys containing from three to six per cent, of copper are more 

 readily attacked by aqueous solutions than aluminium itself; 

 the copper remaining untouched forms innumerable couples 

 tending to accelerate the solution of the more easily oxidisable 

 metal. — Observations of Swift's comet (1S99 a), made with the 



NO. 1536, VOL. 59] 



