s 
ie JANUARY 13, 1923] 
NATURE 
67 

y Societies and Academies. 
+ Lonpon. 
; Linnean Society, December 14.—Dr. A. Smith 
| Woodward, president, in the chair.—W. O. Howarth : 
On the occurrence of Festuca rubra in Britain. 
_ Representatives of three subspecies, three varieties, 
_ six subvarieties, and the forms of Hackel’s F. rubra, 
occur in Britain.—H. W. Pugsley: British species of 
Calamintha and a species new to this country. The 
three recognised British species are said to be 
Calamintha ascendens, Jord., C. Nepeta, Savi, and 
C. sylvatica, Bromfield. The new form, first found 
near Swanage, in Dorset, in 1900, and again in 1912, 
was identified with C. betica, Boiss. and Reut., 
although showing differences in minor features, 
. which were attributed to climatic influence.—Lily 
_ Batten: The genus Polysiphonia ; a critical revision 
_ of the British species, based upon anatomy. British 
ies of Polysiphonia show great diversity of 
J 
habitat. Four main are distinguishable: (r) 
Ecorticate plant attached when young by rhizoids 
developed by longitudinal proliferation of basal 
eon. Later, siphons of procumbent branches 
develop rhizoids, which may have discs at their 
_ distal ends, or may ramify among filamentous alge, 
or may be swollen to form haustoria. (2) Species 
having a number of siphons or the beginning of 
cortication at the base, show elementary aggrega- 
tion of the rhizoids to form one large disc. (3) 
Stunted procumbent branches develop at the base 
_ of the plant, which produce attachment rhizoids. 
_ (4) Corticate species having an upright habit develop 
. a large disc-like expansion by the longitudinal 
ee of basal siphons and corticating cells. 
e genus is divided into thirteen ecorticate and 
_ eleven corticate species, and P. spiralis is described 
_ for the first time. 
Aristotelian Society, December 18.—Prof. H. 
Wildon Carr in the chair.—Roy Wood Sellars: 
The double-knowledge approach to the mind-body 
problem. The motives which have worked for the 
_ exclusion of mind and consciousness from the brain 
appear upon examination to have been based upon 
hasty assumptions. We may call these the epistemo- 
logical, the categorical, the methodological, and the 
theological methods. We must determine the reach 
_ and character of the knowledge gained by the science 
_ of external observation. This beginning is im- 
_ perative. It seems that this knowledge consists of 
e critical deciphering by means of “scientific 
data ”’ of the structure, order, composition, quantity, 
and behaviour of things and their parts. This is 
_ the kind of knowledge we have of bodies, but it is 
necessarily external. It cannot penetrate to the 
_ “filling ’’ or content of being. But in our own case, 
our consciousness is just sucha participation. A care- 
ful examination of the situation shows that changes in 
consciousness are indexes of operations which must 
also be attributed to the brain. Thus we know the 
brain in two ways. We should speak of it as the 
_brain-mind. We must conceive the mind more 
substantialistically than we have done hitherto and 
‘make it mean a Class of operations, and that which 
expresses itself in these operations. But we must 
also re-define consciousness. Leaving aside tem- 
porarily the structure of an adult consciousness let 
us define any element which we call the -psychical. 
The psychical is not a stuff; that was the mistake 
of association psychology. It is merely a quale. 
_ Now a quale is not self-sufficient. It is a dimension 
of the content of being which can be given onl by 
Participation, not by external knowledge. It is 
NO. 2776, VOL. 111] 
or" 
indissolubly one with the responding brain-mind 
state. Its function is to guide the discharge of this 
state. Here we are partially on the inside of a 
high level of causality. 
Royal Anthropological Institute, December 19.— 
Prof. J. L. Myres, vice-president, in the chair.— 
Cyril Fox: The distribution of population in the 
Cambridge region in early times, with special reference 
to the Bronze Age. The distribution in Britain of 
constructions attributable to the Neolithic and Early 
Bronze Ages suggests that the population was then 
limited to those areas, mainly upland, which must 
have been, under natural conditions, largely free 
from forest. A topographical analysis of finds and 
remains of all culture periods from the Neolithic to 
the Saxon in a limited area—the Cambridge region— 
was undertaken to determine whether this limitation 
was complete or partial, and when the clearing and 
occupation of forest areas commenced. The Cam- 
bridge region is very suitable for the inquiry, since 
it possesses a wide range of soils and has yielded 
numerous finds of all periods. The maps exhibited 
suggest (1) that the chalk belt and the eastern shore- 
line of the Fens were occupied from Neolithic times 
onwards; (2) that there was a gradual shift of 
population from N.E. to S.W., i.e. from the West 
Suffolk heathland to the fertile lands of the upper 
Cam and Ouse valleys, as agriculture developed ; 
and (3) that the forest uplands were almost entirely 
unoccupied until the Roman period. The distribution _ 
of population in the Bronze Age is, generally speaking, 
of a character intermediate between that of the Age 
which preceded it and that which followed, but it 
presents features of special interest. 
DUBLIN. 
Royal Dublin Society, December 19,—Prof. Vc Bs 
Scott in the chair.—Six papers on the action of the 
oxides and the oxyacids of nitrogen on aromatic 
urethanes and ureas at low concentrations of the 
reacting substances.—(1) H. Ryan and Anna Donnel- 
lan: Diphenylurethane reacted with nitric acid much 
more slowly than diphenylnitrosamine. At the 
ordinary temperature it was slowly converted first 
into 4-nitrodiphenylurethane and afterwards into a 
mixture of 4:10-dinitro- and 2-10-dinitro-diphenyl- 
urethane. Concentrated nitric acid reacted with the 
urethane forming 2:4-8'10-tetranitrodiphenylurethane 
and finally sym. hexanitrodiphenylamine.—(2) H. 
Ryan and N. Cullinane: o-Tolyl-ethylurethane was 
oxidised by the oxides and the oxyacids of nitrogen 
yielding o-tolylurethane. The latter substance then 
underwent nitration, forming successively 4-nitro-2- 
methyl-phenylurethane and 4°6-dinitro-2-methyl- 
phenylurethane.—(3) H. Ryan and Anna Connolly : 
Ethylphenylurethane nitrated at the ordinary tem- 
perature gives 4-nitro- and 2-4-dinitrophenylurethane. 
In hot solutions, on the other hand, the urethane, 
like o-tolyl-ethylurethane, underwent oxidation in 
addition to nitration. In the latter case the products 
isolated were 2-4-dinitro- and 2-4-6-trinitro-phenyl- 
urethane.—(4) H. Ryan and J. O’Donovan : Phenyl- 
benzylurethane was converted by nitrogen peroxide 
into 4-nitrophenylbenzylurethane and a_ trinitro- 
phenylbenzylurethane melting at 110° C. Similar 
results were obtained by the action of nitric acid at 
low temperatures on the urethane. At more or less 
high temperatures and concentrations of the sub- 
stances a tetranitrophenylbenzylurethane melting at 
126° C., a pentanitro derivative melting at 274 Cc. 
together with 4-nitrobenzoic acid, 2-4-dinitro-p henyl- 
urethane and pentanitrophenylbenzylamine.—(5) H. 
Ryan and P. O’Toole;: Phenylurea and as-diphenyl- 
