2038 
1872 and 1885, did not leave the immediate neighbourhood of 
the Biela comet earlier than 1841-45, and may be treated as 
haying at that time orbits osculating that of the comet.—The 
ultra-violet spectrum of cadmium, by Louis Bell. The ultra- 
violet spectrum of cadmium having long served as a standard 
of reference in the measuring of other spectra, an attempt is 
here made to determine its principal wave-lengths more 
accurately than is possible by Cornu’s ingenious process. By 
taking photographs on Stanley instantaneous dry plates, Mr. 
Bell believes the wave-lengths here determined will be found cor- 
rect to probably within 1/50,000 part of their respective values. 
The total number of lines accurately determined in the entire 
spectrum was thirty, of which the wave-lengths are tabulated 
with the corresponding figures obtained by Hartley and Cornu. 
—Communications from the United States Geological Survey, 
Rocky Mountains Division, The present communication (No. 
vii.) deals with the occurrence of topaz and garnet in lithophyses 
of rhyolites, and is contributed by Mr. Whitman Cross, who 
had already described the occurrence of minute crystals of topaz 
in the small drusy cavities of a coarsely crystalline rhyolite from 
Chalk Mountain, by Fremont’s Pass, Colorado. ‘The present spe- 
cimens of topaz and small dark red garnets are from the trachyte on 
the Arkansas River, opposite Nathrop, Chaffee County, Colorado. 
The mode of formation of the topaz and garnet in the lithophysal 
cavities of the rhyolite in this district is not fully determinable, 
but they are evidently not secondary, but primary products, pro- 
duced by sublimation or crystallisation from presumably heated 
solutions contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the final con- 
solidation of the rocks.—On the strain-effect of sudden cooling 
exhibited by glass and by steel, by C. Barus and V. Strouhal. 
The experiments here described confirmed the views already an- 
nounced by the authors, that the annealing of steel, considered 
physically, is at once referable to the category of viscous pheno- 
mena; also that the existence of the characteristic strain in 
glass-hard steel is the cause of electrical effects so enormous, 
that any additional effects caused by any change of carburation 
may be disregarded, and the electrical and magnetic results in- 
terpreted as due to variations in the intensity of the said strain. 
The chief results here arrived at have since been substantiated 
by polariscope evidence and by the investigation of the density 
of the consecutive shells of the ‘Prince Rupert drop.” An 
account of these results will be given in their next paper.— 
Upon the origin of the mica-schists and black mica-slates of the 
Penokee-Gogebic iron-bearing series, by C. R. Van Hise. The 
iron-bearing formation of this region extends for over 80 miles 
from Lake Numakagon in Wisconsin to Lake Gogebic in Michi- 
gan ; and at Penokee Gap, Wisconsin, the series is 13,000 feet 
thick, the upper 11,000 feet being mica-schists and black slates. 
Che Muscovitic and biotitic greywacke, biotite-schists, and other 
formations here described furnish a graded series from the 
slightly altered greywackes to the crystalline mica-schists.—On 
two masses of meteoric iron of unusual interest, by Wm. Earl 
Hidden. One of these specimens, found on July 2, 1885, on a 
height to the east of Batesville, Independence County, Ark- 
ansas, weighs 94 lbs., and belongs to the class holosiderite 
of Brezina. It is specially remarkable for a hole piercing 
it near the edge, and cone-shaped from both sides. Ana- 
lysis yielded: iron, 91°22; phosphorus, 0°16; nickel and 
cobalt, 8°62 by difference. The other, found in 1857 in 
Laurens County, South Carolina, weighs only 4]bs. rf oz., 
but is noted for the perfection of the Widmanstitter lines 
and unusual abundance of nickel and cobalt. Analysis : iron, 
$5°335 nickel, 13°34; cobalt, 0°87; phosphorus, 0°16, with 
trace of sulphur.—Notice of a new genus of Lower Silurian 
Brachiopoda, by S. W. Ford. This nearly perfect specimen of 
the ventral valve of the species described by E. Billings under 
the name of Odole//a desiderata, and now preserved in the col- 
lection of Walter R. Billings, Ottawa, may be taken as the type 
of a new genus, probably including several described Lower 
Silurian species. It differs from Oéo/e/a in the form and 
arrangement of its muscular impressions, in the possession of a 
thinner shell and in other respects. The author, therefore, pro- 
poses for it the new generic name of Billingsia in honour of Mr. 
E. Billings, the late eminent palzontologist of the Canadian 
Geological Survey. 
Bulletin de V Académie Royale de Belgique, April 3.—Deter- 
mination af the remainder in Gauss’s quadrature formula, by 
M. Mansion. By a definite integral the author completes this 
formula, which thus becomes applicable to non-parabolic curves. 
—On some remains of cetaceans from the foot of the Caucasus, 
IVA T ORE. 
| Fuly 1, 1886 
by M. P. J. Van Beneden. 
of a skull with some vertebra from the district east of Vladi- 
kavkas, and an almost perfect vertebral column, with ribs, 
radius, and humerus from the bed of the Kuban River, all be- 
These remains, comprising portion 
long to the same species, the Cetotherium rathkei, Brandt. By 
their means the author is enabled to determine the true charac- 
teristics of the Cetotherium, which shows some affinity to the 
Pachyacanthe of the basin of the Danube, but was quite distinct 
from the extinct species of the Antwerp basin.—On some rocks 
dredged off the Ostend coast, by M. A. F. Renard. These 
include granites, porphyries, diorites, &c., such as occur along 
the French seaboard and in the Channel Islands ; also Jurassic 
and Chalk formations identical with those of Boulogne and the 
cliffs of Dover. here is nothing to show that any of these 
rocks have been transported either from the south or from the 
Scandinavian regions during the Glacial epoch. 
Bulletin de la Société des Naturalistes de Moscou, 1885, No. 1. 
—Revision of the numerical values of the repulsive force, by 
Prof. Th. Bredichin. In his preceding researches the author 
had determined it approximately by means of the rough formula 
of Bessel. Now, he corrects these results, either by direct 
evaluations by means of more exact formulz, or indirectly by 
means of the isodynames constructed upon his rigorous formule. 
Taking 40 different comets (since 1472) M. Bredichin classifies 
them under three different types, and, on the former method, 
receives for the first type, R = 14, while the initial speed (due 
to the ejective force) varies between g = o'r and g = 0°34, the 
average being 0°22; for the second type, R = 1°1, and g = 005 
(varies between 0°03 and 0°07); and for the third type, & = 0-2, 
and g = o'r to 0'2.—On the oscillation of the emissive of 
comets, by the same (with a plate). From a careful study of 
the comet 1862 III. the learned professor concludes that the 
oscillations of its emission ought to be considered beyond doubt, 
as they result not only from measurements, but also from all the 
ensemble of phenomena afforded by the head and tail of the 
comet.—Third report upon my herbarium, by Ed. Lindemann 
(in German).—Plantaz Raddeanze Monopetale (continuation of 
Labiate), by Ferd. Herder.—Letters from Dr. A. Regel dated 
from Bokhara, Merv, &c., between May 1884 and April 1885. 
—Notice of a journey to Akhal-Tekke, by A. Becker, with a 
list of plants found at Kyzyl arvat.—On northern Aucelle, by H. 
Trautschold. 
No. 2.—Enumeration of the vascular plants of the Caucasus, 
by M. Smirnoff, continued from the preceding issue, and 
forming an introduction to the flora of the Caucasus.—Birds of 
the Transcaspian region, by M. Zaroudnoi.—Thirty-five years of 
observations on the earliest and latest times of blooming of wild 
and cultivated plants in the neighbourhood of Kishineff, by A. 
Deengingk, followed by remarks on vegetable parasites and 
noxious insects. Four hundred plants are on the lists of the 
author.—Revision of the copulatric armatures of the males from 
the Phileremide tribe, by Gen. Radoszkowski (with two plates). 
—The appendix contains the third part of the systematic cata- 
logue of the herbarium of Moscow University, published by 
Prof. Goroshankin. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Royal Society, May 13.—‘‘On the Structure of Mucous 
Salivary Glands.” By J. N. Langley, M.A., F.R.S., Fellow 
and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
The cells of mucous salivary glands I have previously de- 
scribed as consisting of a framework or network, containing in 
its spaces hyaline substance and granules. The granules of 
the mucous salivary glands are rendered very distinct by irri- 
gating a mounted specimen of a fresh gland with moderately dilute 
solutions of neutral or alkaline salts. In these fluids the granules 
can scarcely be distinguished from small fat globules ; those of the 
submaxillary gland of the dog have a diameter of 1 to2mu. In 
the resting gland the granules are fairly closely packed through- 
out the cell, in a line stretching from basement membrane to 
lumen ; there are 8 to 12 granules. Both hyaline substance and 
granules give rise to mucin. 
During secretion both the hyaline substance and the granules 
are turned out of the cells ; after prolonged secretion the cells 
consist of an outer zone, chiefly of freshly-formed substance, and 
of an inner zone of network, hyaline substance, and granules, as 
in the resting state. When the saliva has a high percentage of 
