July 6, 1882] 



NA TURE 



239 



Wombats by several subordinate characters, and the animal to 

 which it belonged would seem to have been intermediate between 

 Phascolomys and Macropus. From the size and characters of 

 the bone, the author referred it to Notctherium Milchelli ; its 

 breadth across the condyles is 5} inches.— On Hdicopora latispi- 

 ralis, a new spiral Fenestellid from the Upper Silurian beds of 

 Ohio, U.S., by Mr. E. W. Claypole, B.A., B.Sc. (Lond.), 

 F.G. S. 



Chemical Society, June 15.— Dr. Gilbert, president, in the 

 chair.— The following papers were read :— Note on $ naphtba- 

 qumone, by C. E. Groves. The author has repeated the ex- 

 periments of Liebermann (Ber. xiv. 13 10) as to the preparation 

 of the above substance from /3 napthol-orange, and fully corro- 

 borates the results of that chemist, but disagrees with him as to 

 the economical value of the process. He has somewhat im- 

 proved Liebermann's method by using less stannous chloride, 

 but finds that even then it is more troublesome and tedious tban 

 the conversion of j8 napthol into the amidonapthol through the 

 nitroso-compound, &c. The cost of Liebermann's process is 

 four times as great as the one originally proposed by Stenhouse 

 and Groves. In preparing either o or $ naphthaquinone from 

 the corresponding amidocompounds, the author prefers to use 

 ferric chloride as the oxidising agent.— On some new compounds 

 of Brazilein and Hamiatein, by J. F. Hummel and A. G. 

 l'erkin. Extract of logwood is dissolved in hot water and when 

 cool, ammonia is added in slight excess. This solution, by 

 exposure to the air, deposits a dark purplish precipitate of 

 hamiatein, which, on purification, gave numbers indicating the 

 formula C 10 H ]2 O 6 ; by the action of cold sulphuric acid, an 

 orange crystalline substance, C„ ! H 1 „O IJ S03 was obtained. By 

 the action of hydrochloric acid in sealed tubes, h\droxyl is 

 replaced by CI : C 16 H U 5 C1), a similar body is produced by 

 hydrobromic acid. Brazilein was prepared in a similar way 

 from Brazil extract. It forms compounds which resemble those 

 of hiematein.— On the determination of nitric acid as nitric 

 oxide by means of its reaction with ferrous salts, Part II., by R 

 Warington. The method is founded on that proposed by 

 Schlcesing, but the nitric oxide is collected and determined by 

 gas analysis, the gas being absorbed by caustic potash after suc- 

 cessive treatments with oxygen and pyrogallol ; great care was 

 also taken to exclude all oxygen from the carbonic acid used — 

 On a new process of bleaching, by J. J. Dobbie and J. Hutche- 

 son. The authors have investigated various methods of liberat- 

 ing chlorine by decomposing hydrochloric acid and chlorides 

 with a weak electric current. The best results were obtained 

 by moistening the goods with sea-water and passing them 

 between two slowly-revolving carbon rollers, which were con- 

 nected with opposite poles of a battery ; sodium hypochlorite 

 was formed in the fabric, and on immersion in acid the 

 bleaching was effected. Results were also obtained with dilute 

 hydrochloric acid. Pure hydrofluoric acid also bleaches when 

 thus decomposed. 



Physical Society June 17—The Physical Society met in 

 ?,, 0T \ : », y lnvltatlon of tQe president, and after luncheon in the 

 hall of Merton College, by kind permission of the Warden and 

 fellows, the health of the Society was proposed by the president 

 and responded to by Lord Rayleigh. The usual meeting was then 

 held in the Clarendon Laboratory, Prof. Clifton, president in 

 the chair.— Dr. W. H. Stone exhibited and described an 

 electro-dynamometer specially designed for measuring the cur- 

 rents used in the medical applications of electricity Txature 

 vol. xxvi. p. 201). Mr. Varley, Prof. Perry, and others' 

 offered some remarks.— Mr. Bosanquet then described his ap- 

 plication of the Faure accumulator charged by a dynamo-electric 

 generator to the working of laboratory apparatus instead of the 

 usual Grove, or other battery. The net re>ult of his experiments 

 is that the accumulators charged for two hours have sufficient 

 energy to keep the apparatus employed running for a week and 

 hence it is unnecessary for him, as heretofore, to put up thirty 

 Grove ce Is each day. Prof. Perry observed that a well-made 

 Faure cell, having the minium laid on in a uniform coat does 

 not lose its charge nor develop local action, as is done by those 

 accumulators in which the minium is put into holes in the 

 plates.-Prof W G. Adams then took the chair while Prof 

 Clitton described some ingenious devices adopted by him in 

 lecture experiments on electrostatics. These consisted of in- 

 sulating glass stems with glass cups to hold sulphuric acid formed 

 on the stems ; also a form of key which, by rapidly succeeding 

 contacts, brings the spot of light on the electrometer scale to rest 



without tedious swinging. He also described a form of lecture- 

 galyanometer, sine or tangent, which could be readily shown in 

 all its working to a large class, and exhibited a simple and in- 

 expensive apparatus for measuring the focal length of a lens in 

 six different ways, according to what is known about the lens 

 Ihe results showed that the apparatus was very accurate in its 

 indications. 



Sydney, N.S.W. 

 Royal Society.fMay 3.-Annual Meeting.— The number of 

 new members elected during the year is 46, making the total 

 number of ordinary members upon the roll to date 475 —At the 

 Council Meeting held on March 22 it was unanimously resolved 

 to award the Clarke Memorial medal for the year 18S2 to Prof 

 James Dwight Dana, LL.D., of Vale College, Newhaven' 

 Conn., 111 recognition of his eminent work as a naturalist, and 

 especially in reference to his geological and other labours in 

 Australia, when with the United States Exploring Expedition 

 round the world in 1836 to 1842.— During the year the Society 

 has held eight meetings, at which thirteen papers were read, and 

 three of the sections held regular monthly meetings.— At a meet- 

 ing held by the Council on October 26, it was resolved that the 

 Society should offer prizes of 25/. each for the best communica- 

 tion containing the results of original research or observation 

 upon certain subjects to be set forth frcm time to time.— The 

 Bill for incorporating the Society was approved by the Parlia- 

 ment of New South Wales on December 16, 1881. 



Berlin 

 Physiological Society, June 16.— Prof. Du Bois-Reymond 

 in the chair.— Prof. Zunjz read a paper upon the value of amid 

 bodies as animal nutriment, based on experiments which he 

 made upon a number of rabbits. In each experiment he divided 

 the animals that he was experimenting on, into two croups 

 One of these groups was fed with food-stuffs containing no 

 nitrogen (starch and oil) and with various nutritive sall=, while 

 the other rabbits received, in addition to this food, a supply 01 

 amid bodies. The object of the experiments was to determine 

 which, if any, of the amid bodies could replace the albumen of 

 the food. Herr Zuntz managed to overcome the distaste of the 

 animals for the monotonous, unstimulating diet (a difficulty 

 which has often to be combated in a disagreeable manner in ex- 

 periments of this kird), by also giving them small quantities of an 

 alcoholic infusion of hay, and by giving the food that had been 

 refused by the animal as pap or powder, in a firm friable form. 

 The results of the experiments may be shortly summed up thus : 

 Extract of meat, w hen added to the non-nitrogeneous food-stuffs, 

 produced no effect upon the nutrition ; the animals died in ex- 

 actly the same time as without the extract. Asparagine likewise 

 could not take the place of the albumen of the food, but the 

 loss of albumen was about 20 per cent, less in the animals that 

 were fed with the asparagine, in addition to their other food, 

 than in those who were fed on non-nitrogenous food alone. An 

 addition of a mixture of asparagine and some other amid bodies, 

 i.e. leucine, tyrosine, and others, of which one might have pre- 

 sumed that they would together form an albumin-material during 

 the process „of digestion, had, as a fact, the exactly c W u- 

 site effect of producing a remarkably larger loss of albumen than 

 the non-nitrogenous diet of the other group of animals that were 

 kept for purposes of comparison. In the same way the addi- 

 tion of ;.the crystallising decomposition-products of albumen 

 which were got by the action of pepsin, had a prejudicial influ- 

 ence, producing a greater loss of albumen. Probably an ammo- 

 niate was the active principle in both cases, as it is kn.iwn to 

 work destructively in the body upon albumen ; but it is possible 

 that the amid bodies themselves behaved like ammoniate. '1 hese 

 experiments are to be pursued with other amid bodies and wiih 

 decomposition-products of albumen. — Frof. du Bois-Reymond 

 made some remarks upon Prof. Fritsch's late investigations as to 

 the homology of the torpedo-electrical organ with muscles and 

 mucous-cells, and on the development of the Torpedinea, ihe 

 relative weights and the nerve-ei;dings in the electric plate-, 

 and made some observations upon the question of the immunity 

 of the electric fish against their own shocks. He especially 

 drew attention to the fact that there are to be found in the in- 

 testines of electric fish, certain entozoa, which must either have an 

 immunity against the shocks of their hosts, or, a question th;it 

 has not yet been investigated, be altogether insensible to 

 electricity. 



Physical Society, June 23.— Prof, du Bois-Reymond in the 

 chair. — Prof. Neesen showed a new mercury air-pump, mad. on 



