326 
NATURE 
[Marcu 10, 1923 

forcing both fluids into the mixing chamber of one 
of the observing apparatus described above. It was 
found that the combination was a very rapid one, 
the reaction being complete in one hundredth part 
of a second at 10° C. At body temperature it is 
probable that the velocity would be even higher. 
This gives some idea of the intense rapidity with 
which oxygen entering the blood, as the latter passes 
through the lungs, becomes chemically combined 
with hemoglobin. It seems to us possible that 
similar methods might be useful for determining the 
velocity of other rapid chemical reactions. 
H. HARTRIDGE. 
F. J. W. RouGuron. 
Physiology Laboratory, Cambridge, 
February 7. 

Stages of Golgi Bodies in Protozoa. 
In the Anatomischer Anzeiger (47 Band, 1914) Jan 
. Hirschler, in his paper ‘‘ Ueber Plasmastrukturen in 
den Tunicaten-, Spongien-, und Protozoenzellen,”’ 
gives a description of the trophozoite of Monocystis 
ascidi@, in which he figures Golgi bodies. This has 
never hitherto been confirmed, nor are any other 
stages known. 
For some time we have been carrying out work 
on an Adelea, and after considerable difficulty 
succeeded in getting excellent preparations of the 
Golgi apparatus in many stages of the life cycle. In 
the accompanying illustration (Fig. 1) is the young 

trophozoite showing an excentric and juxta-nuclear 
apparatus (GA); 2, the older trophozoite has a 
scattered apparatus, and in the “ corps en barillet ” 
stage in 3 the apparatus in each cell is again juxta- 
nuclear and excentric. The work is still proceeding 
in several species, and this is merely a preliminary 
announcement. S. D. Kine. 
J. BRontE GATENBY. 
Zoological Department, 
Trinity College, Dublin. 
NO. 2784, VOL. I11] 


Selective Interruption of Molecular Oscillation. 
Mr. FAIRBOURNE (NATURE, February 3, p. 149) 
has reopened a subject which I believed was certainly 
closed; but since the fallacy is practically the same 
as before, though a little less easy to detect, I feel 
that I cannot then have been swfficiently clear for 
him. 
None of Mr. Fairbourne’s arguments has yet dis- 
posed of the validity of the ordinary treatment to be 
found in any text-book on the kinetic theory ; for the 
elementary kinetic treatment of gaseous pressure is 
independent of the diameters of the gas-molecules, 
and would be perfectly valid if they were, as for 
the first approximation they are assumed to be, 
particles of a finite mass but zero radius; in this 
case, however, the mean free path would be infinite 
at every pressure, so that Mr. Fairbourne has intro- 
duced no new factor by confining himself to the case 
of long free paths. 
This being so, it is not to be expected that space 
can be found in these columns for a disproof of 
whatever inadequate alternative to the accepted 
methods of analysis may be brought up; but I 
suggest that in this particular case he has not proved 
that he has satisfied a condition which he admits 
is vital, namely, that the numbers of molecules 
crossing XY and AD in unit time must be shown to 
be not proportional to their lengths. Many of the 
“superfluous”? molecules which ultimately cross XY 
spend first a long time in the cone; there is nothing 
in his treatment which prevents such molecules 
being counted a very large number of times, since 
all points on their long paths may equally be taken 
as centres of small spheres O. Mr. Fairbourne’s 
treatment is inconvenient; but it is obvious, since 
it does not discount the classical method, that, if 
carried out correctly, even it would have given the 
classical result. 
I have always maintained that the length of the 
mean free path is irrelevant ; I observe that he now 
admits this (‘‘ Subsequent intermolecular collision in 
the cone cannot destroy the excessive downward bias,” 
etc.). The inevitable conclusion, as I pointed out last 
July, is that the pressure is without any influence 
except on the magnitude of the effect. It being 
granted that the molecules do not interfere with one 
another in any relevant way, the effect must be 
directly proportional to their number, 2.e. to the 
total pressure. At atmospheric pressure, therefore, 
perpetual motion should be an accepted phenomenon 
even if the effect were measurable only with ambiguity 
at the pressures used by Mr. Fairbourne. 
R. D’E. ATKINSON. 
Hertford College, Oxford, 
February 13. 

A Biochemical Discovery of the Ancient 
: Babylonians. 
At a lecture given recently in Cambridge by Prof. 
Okey my attention was directed to a passage written 
by Galileo in 1623 in which this pioneer of scientific 
method attacks the doctrines of the classical philo- 
sophers with his usual irony and vehemence. I refer 
to a section of his ‘‘ Il Saggiatore,’’ in which Galileo 
replies to his contemporary Sarsi, who had quoted 
Suida to the effect that the Babylonians used to cook 
eggs in an emergency and when no fire was available, 
by rapidly whirling them in slings. (“ Babylonii 
iniecta in fundas ova in orbem circumagentes, 
rudis et venatorii victus non ignari, sed iis rationibus 
quas solitudo postulat exercitati ‘etiam crudum 
