April 2, 1908J 



NA TURE 



527 



cornis, he stated that althouj;h only one form had been 

 hitherto distinguished from the Himalayas, the available 

 material pointed to the existence of at least four subspecies 

 in that mountain range. 



Geological Society, March i8.— Pro'. W. J. Sollas,F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — The Carboniferous rocks at 

 Loughshinny (county Dublin), with an account of the 

 faunal succession and correlation : Dr. C. \. Matley and 

 Dr. A. Vaughan. After an introduction recalling' the 

 succession at Rush, already described by the authors, a 

 detailed account is furnished of the various sections in the 

 Loughshinny area. About iioo feet of Carboniferous rocks 

 are exposed. They consist mainly of limestone, but also 

 include a thick mass of conglomerate and many inter- 

 calated beds of shale and chert. The rocks have been 

 much folded, and to some extent faulted. The lowest 

 rocks belong to some part of the Dibunophyllum zone, the 

 higher range through Cyathaxonia beds into Posidonomya 

 Limestones and shales of Pendleside age. The Lane Con- 

 glomerate may be on or near the horizon of the Rush 

 Conglomerate. Local decalcification has caused the more 

 or less complete disappearance of some of the Cyathaxonia 

 and Posidonomya Limestones. The region was close to 

 an old shore-line of the Carboniferous Limestone Sea, the 

 actual position of w'hich appears to have been almost 

 parallel to, and a short distance seaward of, the present 

 coast-line between Rush and Skerries. — A note on the 

 petrology and physiography of Western Liberia (West Coast 

 of Africa) : J. Parkinson. The country is low-lying, with 

 a gradual rise northward from shore-level, and rivers 

 mature in character with alluvial flats raised above flood- 

 level. Where the River Tuma falls into the River St. 

 Paul the remnant of a hanging valley can be seen. Flat- 

 topped ridges and isolated hills trending parallel to the 

 foliation of the gneiss are characteristic of the country 

 around Sanoyei and Boporo. There is a striking absence 

 of late deposits of old gravels and sands. In the southern 

 part of the district there are indications of a series of 

 garnetiferous gneisses, tremolite schists, kyanite schists or 

 gneisses, garnet-graphite gneisses, &c., associated with 

 others of granitic type, the latter being apparently free 

 from microcline and containing a pleochroic pyroxene. 

 These rocks are replaced in the north by biotite gneisses 

 and hornblende schists, which have an approximate and 

 singularly constant east-and-west (magnetic) strike in their 

 foliation. Microcline is common. These old crystalline 

 rocks are cut by an extensive series of basalts and ophitic 

 dolerites, resembling so closely the post-Cretaceous dykes 

 of Southern Nigeria that it is difficult to avoid the con- 

 clusion that they are of the same age. 



Linnean Society, March 19. — Mr. H. W. Moncltton, 

 treasurer and vicerpresident, in the chair. — Exhibits (by 

 permission of the director. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). — 

 W. B. Hemsley : A second specimen of Plaianihcra 

 thlorantha with three spurs. The plant exhibited a spike, 

 each flow^er of which had the three petals spurred, a case 

 of true pcloria, whereas the specimen shown on January 

 17, 1907, had the three sepals spurred, a case of false 

 peloria. — T. A. Spragrue : Female flowers and fruits of 

 Sterculia Alexandria Harv., an extremely rare tree from 

 Uitenhage, the only locality known for it. — C. H. Wright : 

 Specimens of (a) Sphaerothylax algijormis, Bisch., a rare 

 South African podostemaceous plant; (b) Archaiigiopteris 

 Hcnryi, Christ and Gilsenh., a Chinese genus of Maratti- 

 acese, of which a better supply of material had been recently 

 obtained. — Papers. — The Podostomata ( = Pycnogonida) of 

 the temperate Atlantic and .\rctic Oceans : Canon A. M. 

 Norman. The classification of Sars had been adopted, 

 and the paper itself contained a complete enumeration of the 

 group within the regions specified. — .Amphipoda Ganimaridea 

 from the Indian Ocean, British East Africa, and the Red 

 Sea : A. O. Walker. The total number of species from the 

 three collections was fifty, in thirty-six genera, seven being 

 new to science, and one being the type of a new genus. — • 

 A revision of the genus Codonopsis : T. F. Chipp. The 

 author included the genus Glosocomia of D. Don, and 

 other species which could not well be assigned to either. 

 The genus was divided into four sections, dependent upon 

 the attachment and insertion of the corolla and calvx. 



Finally, the distribution of this genus along the mountain 

 ranges of Asia was described and illustrated by a map on 

 the screen. — The Holothurians of the Sudanese Red Sea : 

 E. Hindle. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, March 25. — M. H. Becquerel in 

 the chair. — The theory of flow over a vertical thin edge 

 and without lateral contraction : J. Boussinesq. The 

 results of the theoretical investigation of the author are 

 compared with the empirical formula of Bazin, the latter 

 representing numerous experiments. The agreement is 

 moderately satisfactory. — The theory of electrocapillarity : 

 M. Gouy. — The determination, at the Observatory of Paris, 

 of the systematic errors in the reproductions of the reseaux 

 of the chart of the heavens : Jules Baillaud. — The applica- 

 bility and various modes of representation of surfaces with 

 coinciding lines of curvature : L. Raffy. — The application 

 of an alternative method to the biharmonic problem : S. 

 Zaremba. — Remark concerning a note on the differ- 

 ential equations of an electrified corpuscle in a magnetic 

 field : Carl Stbrmer. — The gases arising from electric 

 sparks : M. de Broglie. It has been shown by de Watt- 

 ville and Hemsalech that if the air supply of a Bunsen 

 burner passes over two metallic terminals between which 

 electric sparks are passed, the flame of the burner gives 

 the spectrum of the metal of the electrodes. The author 

 has examined air thus treated, and finds it to contain ions 

 of feeble mobility (about 10 fi per second in a field of 

 I volt per cm.), neutral centres capable of being trans- 

 formed into ions of feeble mobility by exposure to radium 

 or Rontgen rays, and fine particles visible in a strong 

 beam of light. The last are in part electrified, and prob- 

 ably constitute the chief source of the spectrum obtained. 

 — The absorption spectra of crystals of the rare earths in 

 a magnetic field at the temperatures of the liquefaction 

 and solidification of hydrogen : Jean Becquerel and 

 H. Kamerlingh Onnes. Previous work at temperatures 

 dawn to — 190° C. has shown that the size of the bands 

 varies proportionally to the square root of the tempera- 

 ture. At —259° C. the majority of the bands no longer 

 follow this simple law. Two of the bands from xenotime 

 appear to pass through a minimum, and are wider at 

 — 259° C. than at —253° C. A few of the bands, how- 

 ever, appear to follow the same law as down to — 190° C. 

 Down to the temperature of liquid air, all the bands show 

 an increase of intensity corresponding to an increase of 

 absorption. This does not hold for lower temperatures, 

 and for each band there is a temperature at which the 

 absorption passes through a maximum. — The detection of 

 minute quantities of helium in minerals : F. Bordas. The 

 exhaustion is carried out by means of charcoal cooled to 

 the temperature of liquid air, and a Pliickcr tube is inter- 

 posed between the vessel in which the mineral is heated 

 and the charcoal vessels. The helium being much less 

 readily absorbed by the cooled charcoal, very minute 

 quantities can be detected. Helium has been recognised 

 in this apparatus in 0-02 gram of Japanese na«geite. — 

 The photography of the vibrations of the voice : M. 

 Marage. The vibrations fall on a thin membrane of 

 india-rubber, and are transmitted from this to a small 

 plane mirror. Two reproductions of the photographs 

 obtained accompany the paper. The apparatus, once set, 

 can unroll, expose, develop, and fix 25 metres of paper 

 without any manipulation. Various suggestions are made 

 for practical applications. — Some examples of lines pre- 

 senting a Zeeman phenomenon abnormal in the sense of 

 the magnetic lines of force : A. Dufour. The second 

 spectrum of hydrogen is formed of three types of line, the 

 first being unacted on in the field, the second giving the 

 ordinary Zeeman effect, and the third the abnormal Zeeman 

 effect. — The action of chlorine upon dithymol : H. 

 Cousin. The products of the action arc a dichlorothymol, 

 a dichlorothymoquinonc, and a dichloride of the latter 

 compound. — Some derivatives of phenylisoxazolone : A. 

 Wahl and Andr(5 Meyer. Condensation is readily effected 

 between phenylisoxazolone and aromatic aldehydes, the pro- 

 duct being precipitated in nearly quantitative yield. — The 

 products of the action of aluminium chloride and hydro- 

 chloric acid gas on benzene : G. Gustavson. Methyl- 



NO. 2005, VOL. 77] 



