NA TURE 



[NoVEMIiER 7, I90I 



medical and physical science, was approved al an inlluenlial 

 meeting of members and friends of the University held in the 

 ("■lasgow City Chambers last week. .-Addressing the meeting, 

 I'rincipal Story said that in the beginning of the present year an 

 executive committee was formed to provide funds for carrying 

 out the measures of extension and reform considered of primary 

 importance, and already they had received a sum of more than 

 62,000/., including 10,000/. given for a special lectureship. It 

 was proposed to make good the defects by the erection of ad- 

 ditional premises for the class rooms, departmental museums, 

 and laboratories of physiology, materia medica and forensic 

 medicine, and public health. The needs of the chemical de- 

 partment, which could be regarded as belonging both to the 

 faculty of science and to that of medicine, might be met, but 

 only partially and temporarily, by the transference of premises 

 available when physiology was provided for. A set of thoroughly 

 furnished chemical laboratories is one of the most immediate 

 wants, and additional accommodation is needed by the depart- 

 ment of physical science. The full realisation of these designs 

 must necessarily be a work of time, and will cost in all probably 

 not far short of 100,000/. But it is encouraging to know that 

 within the last few months more than the half ol this sum has been 

 subscribed. For the other half the University must depend 

 upon the generosity of its many friends. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 American Journal of Silence, October. — On galvanometers of 

 high sensibility, by C' E. Mendenhall and C. W. Waidner. A 

 description of the design and manufacture of a delicate galvano- 

 meter of the four-coil Thomson type. There is a detailed 

 discussion of the methods for obtaining the highest sensibility 

 and also of the causes of the changes of zero. — On a method of 

 locating nodes and loops of sound in the open air, with applica- 

 tions, by Bergen Davis. A small mill-like arrangement, 

 constructed by placing four hollow cylinders of gelatine at the 

 end of cardboard arras in such a manner that the closed ends 

 pointed in the same angular direction, was mounted in the 

 mouth of a resonator with the plane of the system perpendicular 

 to the mouth. . The resonator was in unison with an organ pipe, 

 and when the pipe was blown the mill was found to rotate with 

 a high velocity, the position of the nodes and loops being readily 

 determined with considerable accuracy. In the open air the 

 eflect could be observed up to about sixty feet from the |)ipe. — 

 The anatomy of the fruit of Cocos Niicijera, by A. L. Winton. 

 — Studies of Eocene mammalia in the Marsh collection, Peabody 

 Museum, by J. L. Wortman. — A new crinoid (roni the 

 Hamilton of Charlestown, Indiana, by E. Wood. — On the 

 estimation of ca;sium and rubidium as the acid sulphates, and of 

 potassium and sodium as the pyrosulphates, by P. E. Browning. 

 — Time values of provincial carboniferous terranes, by C E. 

 Keyes. — The spectra of hydrogen and some of its compounds, 

 by John Trowbridge. The v.acuuiTi tubes used in the experi- 

 ments described were illuminated by a current derived from a 

 large battery of storage cells and not from a Ruhmkorf coil. 

 The conclusions drawn from these investigations, which are at 

 variance with the views generally received, are that hydrogen is 

 an insulator, the passage of electricity through hydrogen, 

 oxygen, nitrogen and their gaseous compounds being con- 

 ditioned by the water vapour present. Certain carbon bands 

 are always present in glass tubes filled with hydrogen, nitrogen, 

 oxygen and ammonia g.as, notwithstanding the greatest care 

 taken during filling. The X-rays excited by the application of 

 a steady current are due to the radiations set up by the dissocia- 

 tion of highly rarefied water vapour. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, October. 

 — Prof. F. N. Cole gives an account of the proceedings at 

 the eighth summer meeting of the Society, held at Cornell 

 ■ University, Ithaca, New York, August 19-24. It was a 

 largely attended meeting, and various circumstances made an 

 adequate provision of time for the reading and discussion of the 

 thirty-two papers presented practically impossible. The titles 

 and abstracts occupy more than twenty pages. The third 

 colloquium of the same Society was also held on the same date. 

 •Dr. Kasner gives an abstract of the proceedings at the two 

 .previous coUoquia, as well as of this one. During the four 

 , days, two courses of four lectures each were delivered by Prof. 

 Oskar Bolza, on the simplest type of problems in the calculus of 

 variations, and by Prof. E. W. Brown, on modern methods of 



NO. 167 I, VOL. 65] 



treating dynamical problems, and in particular the problem of 

 three bodies. Grateful acknowledgments were made of the 

 hospitality of the University and for the numerous privileges 

 which were afforded to the members present. Short notices 

 are given of two of the papers : upon the non-isomorphism of 

 two simple groups of order 8 !/2, by Miss Schottenfels, and con- 

 cerning surfaces whose first and second fundamental forms are 

 the second and first fundamental forms respectively of another 

 surface, by Prof. .\. Pell. Extensive notes of the mathematical 

 courses for the session 1901-1902 at several Universities follow, 

 with other matters of personal interest. Several pages are also 

 devoted to new publications. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Entomological Society, October 2. — The Rev. Canon 

 W. W. Fowler, president, in the chair. — Mr. G. C. Champion 

 exhibited a long series of Buprestis sanguinea, Fabr. , from 

 Albarracin, Spain, showing the remarkable dimorphism of this 

 species. — Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe exhibited on behalf of the 

 Rev. H. S. Gorham, of Shirley Warren, a specimen of the 

 scarce beetle, Hister margiuatus. He also exhibited a number 

 of rare Coleoptera from the New Forest, including Velleius 

 dilalatus, F., from hornets' nests, Antha.xia nitidula, L., 

 Agrilus sinuatus, Ol. — not taken for many years — Agrilis 

 viridis, L. , Platydeiiia violaceum, F. , a species also not recorded 

 recently, and Coltydiuiii clongatum, F. , one specimen taken in 

 the burrows of Mclasis buprestoides and another in the burrows 

 of Scolytus intricatus. ^ir. Champion said that Mr. (George 

 Lewis associated Velleius with Ci'yj«J' and not with hornets. — 

 Mr. C. P. Pickett exhibited varieties and aberrations of lycaena 

 corydon taken during August at Dover, and a series of 

 Aiigcrona prtinaria (bred June and July), the results of four 

 years' interbreeding, showing a wide range of coloration. — Prof. 

 T. Hudson Beare exhibited a specimen of Medon castaneus, 

 Grav., taken at the edge of a pond in Richmond Park. — Mr. 

 A. Harrison exhibited a series of Amphidasys iietularia bred 

 from parents taken in the New Forest in 1900, including six 

 gynandromorphous specimens. — Mr. C. J. Gahan exhibited a 

 male specimen of Thamnotrizon cinereus, L., one of the long- 

 horned grasshoppers taken by Mr. F. W. Terry at Morden, near 

 Wimbledon, and called attention to a very interesting ab- 

 normality displayed by the specimen in possessing two pairs o( 

 auditory organs instead of a single pair, the second pair being 

 situated on the tibi.-e of the middle legs in a position correspond- 

 ing with that of the normal pair on the fore-legs. — Mr. F. 

 Merrifield exhibited a series of O. antiqua much darker than 

 the type, bred from pupa; placed in a refrigerator five weeks and 

 then exposed to a mean temperature of 48" F. — Mr. R. South 

 communicated a paper by the late Mr. J. II. Leech, en- 

 titled " Lepidoptera-heterocera from China, Japan and Corea 

 (Pyralida?)"; Mr. G. C. Champion contributed notes and ob- 

 servations upon the sexual dimorphism of Buprestis sanguinea. 



October 16. — Mr. E. Saunders, vice-president, in the 

 chair. — Mr. C. Morley exhibited for the Rev. E. N. Bloom- 

 field leaves of hornbeam from Battle, and a photograph of 

 leaves of sweet chestnut from Haslemcre, rolled by Atelalius 

 circulionoides. — Mr. R. Adkin exhibited a specimen of 

 Pieris daplidicc taken by him at Eastbourne on August 19 

 last. He said that the insect was flying strongly, and in that 

 respect and indeed in general appearance resembled on the wing 

 a pale female of Colias hyale. — .Mr. C. P. Pickett exhibited 

 series of Melitaea cinxia bred in June last from larva; taken in 

 the Isle of Wight, including light and dark varieties, and a series 

 of Chocrocampa elpenor bred in June last from larva; taken at 

 Broxbourne in July 1900, including a variety of the male with 

 purplish lower wings and another with purple markings on the 

 upper wings. — The Rev. F. D. Morice exhibited specimens of 

 Hedychrum rutilans, Dhl., and Salius propin.juus, Lep., taken 

 at Lyndhurst by Miss Ethel Chawner, and both new to the 

 British list. He also exhibited two monstrosities, viz. Allanius 

 arcuatus ; (sawfly) with two perfect wings, and two other 

 imperfectly developed wings on the left side, and Gorytes 

 quinquecinctus (fossor) with the abdominal segments extraordin- 

 arily twisted out of their proper shape and places. — Mr. .Arthur M. 

 Lea communicated a list of the Australian and Tasmanian 

 Mordellidx, with descriptions of new species ; and Mr. 



