November 7, 1901] 



NA TURE 



Edward Meyrick, descriptions of new Lepidoptera from New 

 Zealand. — Mr. E. Saunders then read a paper upon Hymen- 

 optera aculeala collected in Algeria by the Rev. E. A. Eaton 

 and the Rev. F. D. Morice, part i., Heterogynse and Fossores to 

 the end of Pompilida;. 



Royal Microscopical Society, October i6. — Mr. Wm. 

 Carruthers,F.R.S., president, inthechair. — Messrs. C. Bakerex- 

 hibittd a portable microscope on the model of the " Diagnostic," 

 originally designed for Major Ronald Ross's investigations of 

 malaria. It is made of niagnalium, an alloy of manganese and 

 aluminium, and weighs but fourteen ounces. This firm also 

 exhibited a microscope intended for the examination of fractures 

 and etched surfaces of metals. The instrument is provided with 

 vertical illuminator, and rack and pinion focussing adjustment 

 and levelling screws to the mechanical stage, now usual in this 

 class of instrument. — Messrs. R. and J. Beck exhibited a port- 

 able model of their "London" microscope, which, by the in- 

 troduction of several ingenious devices, could be packed with 

 the apparatus into a leather case 2j inches x i,\ inches x g.v 

 inches. Messrs. Beck also exhibited a centrifuge, made to run 

 at a high speed by an electric current. — The president 

 showed some specimens of the mycetozoaand gave a brief account 

 of the life-history of this group of organisms. The specimens 

 belonged to a recently described species and had been named 

 Badhamia foliicola. He directed attention to the exhibits by 

 Mr. C. L. Curties consisting of a number of mounted specimens 

 of marine zoological objects, accompanied by very full and in- 

 teresting descriptions. — The president gave a i-humi of a paper, 

 by Miss A. Lorrain Smith, on fungi found on germinating 

 farm seeds. Miss Smith had been assisting him in his work 

 for the Royal Agricultural Society in examining farm seeds in 

 respect to their germinating power. In the course of their 

 observations Miss Smith had found numerous species of fungi 

 on the germinating seeds, fourteen species in all, of which five 

 v^•ere new and one belonged to a new genus. — The secretary 

 announced the receipt of part xiv. of Mr. Millett's report on. 

 the foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago, which was taken as 

 read. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, October 15. — Mr. 

 Charles Bailey, president, in the chair. — Mr. R. L. Taylor 

 remarked that he had noticed that the Manchester water ap- 

 peared to contain an unu.sual amount of dissolved chlorides at the 

 present time, and, on roughly estimating the amount of dissolved 

 solids, found that the total had, curiously enough, gone up from a 

 normal amount of about 44 grains to about 9 J grains per gallon, due, 

 no doubt, to the recent scarcity of water and to the concentration 

 by evaporation on the gathering grounds and in the reservoirs. — 

 Mr. R. D. Darbishire exhibited a large collection of the Eolithic 

 implements of the Kentish plateau, and illustrated with map 

 and section the outline of the denudation of the valley of the 

 Weald, leaving a drift deposit on the remaining chalk of the 

 north and south encarpments. In the process many levels of 

 river gravels had been fixed, and partly occupied by stone imple- 

 ments of successive ages, mostly much mixed up in the redis- 

 position of the gravels by succeeding movements. He described 

 the general facies of the so-called Pakeolithic implements from 

 river deposits in France and England and their peculiar modes 

 of manufacture by "chipping" or flaking, and shapes; and 

 confessed inability to determine the uses of such tools or any 

 characteristics of the men who made them. They were fossil 

 indications of man with mind, skill, and purpose, and that was 

 all. 



October 29 — Mr. Charles Bailey, president, in the chair. — Dr. 

 C. H. Lees was elected to the office of honorary secretary in suc- 

 cession to Prof. A. W. Flux. — Mr. C. E. Stromeyer reada paper 

 on explosions of steam-pipes due to water-hammers, dealing with 

 the subject both from a theoretical and practical point of view. 

 He referred to the reports of the Commissioners of the Board of 

 Trade, according to which about fifty steam-pipe explosions have 

 occurred from the above causes during the last seventeen years, 

 and said that the majority were brought about by the opening of 

 drain-cocks of steam-pipes in which water had accumulated, 

 while a few were clearly due to a plug of water having been 

 shot from the boiler ends of the pipes to the engine-ends. Mr. 

 Stromeyer first investigated the pressure which is set up when 

 an elastic body suddenly comes to rest, the solution of which 

 problem was correctly guessed at by Dr. \. Ritter in 1S89, but 



NO. 167 I, VOL. 65 J 



he was unable to give a proof of the possibility of discontinuity of 

 motion, which is part of the phenomena of an elastic blow. This 

 point was illustrated by means of an unloaded helical spring. 

 Having established this theory, it follows that when an elastic 

 prismatic body is moving axially its front surface comes to rest 

 instantaneously on contact with an unmovable obstacle, while the 

 more distant parts of the bar come to rest also instantaneously 

 when the wave of pressure or of change of velocity reaches 

 them. This wave travels with the velocity of sound, and as the 

 tail end of the bar has maintained its velocity, the axial 

 pressure in the bar is the product of the elasticity of the 

 material into the ratio of the velocity of the object to 

 the velocity of sound. With the help of this theory it is 

 easy to calculate the pressure which a plug of water of a 

 given length travelling a given distance under the influence of 

 a given pressure will exert if brought to a full stop. — A 

 paper entitled "A Preliminary Note on the Preparation of 

 Barium " was read by Mr. Edgar Stansfield. Results were 

 given of a critical study of hitherto proposed methods of pre- 

 paring metallic barium. The most promising results were 

 obtained by the Goldschmidt process, by which alloys of barium 

 and aluminium containing up to 60 per cent, of barium were 

 produced, when the experiment was carried out in vacuo to 

 avoid the formation of oxides and nitrides. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 28. — M. Bouquet de la 

 Grye in the chair. — Experiments on some chemical reactions 

 determined by radium, by M. Berthelot. A comparison of the 

 action of light and of the radium rays in promoting certain 

 chemical reactions. The reactions used were the decomposition 

 of iodic acid, of anhydrous nitric acid, the oxidation of oxalic 

 acid, and the polymerisation of acetylene. In the first two 

 cases the action of the radium rays was exactly similar to that 

 of light, except that the action was much feebler ; in the two 

 latter experiments no action was observed. It is suggested as 

 possible that the glass vessels, in which the radium salts were 

 necessarily enclosed, may have cut off that portion of the r.ays 

 which is capable of the most energetic effects. — On the heat 

 disengaged in the reaction between free oxygen and potassium 

 pyrogallate, by M. Berthelot. — On a prehistoric lamp found in 

 the cave of La Mouthe, by M. Berthelot. An examination of 

 the carbonaceous substance scraped off a prehistoric lamp found 

 by M. Em. Riviere showed that these residues are similar to 

 those which would be left after combustion of a fatty material of 

 animal origin, badly separated from its membranous envelopes. 

 — The junction of a closed network of trigonometrical 

 triangles, by M. P. Hatt. An application of the method of 

 least squares to the method previously developed. — On the 

 flagella of the undulating membrane of fishes ( Trypanosoma), 

 by MM. A. Laveran and F. Mesnil. The existence of organisms 

 with undulating membrane and with two flagella would appear 

 to be doubtful, and the authors regard the creation of a new 

 genus for these organisms as necessary, and propose the name 

 Tryfanoplasma. — On Foucault's top, by M. A. S. Chessin. — 

 j On the stability of commutators, by M. Maurice Leblanc. A 

 discussion of the cause of irregularity in the motion of a com- 

 mutator in connection with a number of accumulators, and of 

 the methods of overcoming this. — The minimum value of the 

 total heat of combination, by M. de Forcrand. By an ex- 

 pansion of a formula given in a previous paper the minimum 

 value of the total heat of combination can be calculated. This 

 has been done for a considerable number of substances, and 

 these compared with experimental data as far as available. — A 

 contribution to the study of the copper-aluminium alloys, by M. 

 Leon Guillet. The alloys were obtained by heating aluminium 

 with pure oxide of copper. By the application of this method, 

 which had previously given successful results with molybdic 

 and tungstic acids, three compounds could be isolated, CujAI, 

 CuAl and Al.,Cu. These had been already prepared by a dif- 

 ferent method by M. Chatelier. — On the separation of iron, by 

 M. Paul Nicolardot. Ferric chloride, after being heated to 

 125" C. for some hours, forms an insoluble sulphate on adding 

 ammonium sulphate to its aqueous solution. No other metals 

 likely to be present in iron or steel are precipitated. The 

 analysis of certain special alloys is rendered very simple by this 

 method. — The qualitative and quantitative determination of 

 traces of antimony in the presence of large proportions of 

 arsenic, by M. G. Deniges. Two methods are suggested, the 

 first depending upon the separation of the antimony by metallic 



