214 



NA TURE 



[January 2, 1902 



complete day technological courses in the whole of the United 

 Kingdom. If only day students of technology more than eighteen 

 years of age are considered, there are less in our country than 

 in any large technical institution in Germany or America, as 

 indicated in Fig. 2. With facts like these to consider, the future 

 of our country cannot be contemplated without misgiving. 

 When will our political leaders take up the subject of secondary 

 and technical education seriously, and insist upjn proper pro- 

 vision being made for it by greatly increased funds from national 

 and local sources ? The apathy displayed in regard to technical 

 training by both employers and employed is largely due to the 

 drifting policy of the Government and the sacrifice of future 

 interests to present expediency. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, December 5, 1901.^" Preliminary Account 

 of the Prothallium of Phylloglossum." By A. P. \V. Thomas, 

 M.A., F.L.S., University College, Auckland, N.Z. Communi- 

 cated by Prof. G. B. Howes, F.R.S. 



The sporophyte generation of P. Dnimmondii is a small 

 plant, growing from a tuber, which forms a tuft of a few 

 cylindrical tapering leaves. The tuber is apparently comparable 

 to the protocorm of Lycopoditim cerniium, except that it is 

 repeated annually on the formation of a new protocorm. The 

 prothallia have been obtained amongst the parent plants, and 

 very special conditions, which are not of regular annual occur- 

 rence, are necessary for germination of the spores, the most 

 important being the presence of a fungus with which the 

 prothallium lives symbiotically, like that of the Lycopods. 

 One of the simplest prothallia observed consisted of an oval 

 tuber below, with a simple cylindrical shaft with rounded apex, 

 akin to that of the oldest prothallium of Z. ieriiunin described 

 by Treub. In older prothallia the crown is commonly separated 

 by a slight constriction from the much enlarged body, which 

 bears the embryo on one side. Below this swollen part the 

 body contracts to a cylindrical shaft, which passes downwards 

 and swells out again to terminate in the primary tubercle, from 

 which more especially rhizoids are produced. 



The prothallia are moniecious, and the archegonial necks, 

 which vary from two to twenty in number, are a conspicuous 

 feature of the crown. The oosphere lies at a little depth below 

 the surface layer, and the antheridia are sunk in the crown, 

 with their enclosed cavities elongated at right-angles to the 

 surface. The sex-organs would seem to resemble those of /.. 

 cernuum more closely than those of any other species of Lyco- 

 podium. 



Studied by means of microtomic sections, the development 

 appears to be also much like that of L. cernuum. The embryo 

 grows obliquely downwards and outwards, the part near the 

 archegonial venter is the foot, and at the opposite end are the 

 stem-apex and leaf, (he tip of the leaf being the first part of the 

 embryo to appear outside the prothallium. Immediately on 

 escaping from the prothallium the embryo forms a protocorm, 

 apparently in the same manner that the adult plant forms its 

 annual tuber. The pedicel of the tuber elongates downwards 

 until the latter is placed at a safe depth. In the tneantime the 

 leaf grows up, and although no root-formation has been ob- 

 served during the first year, rhizoids may be developed on the 

 pedicel and protocorm. The leaf becomes green even before 

 it escapes from the prothallium, and as soon as it reaches a 

 little above the soil stomata are formed, and a slender strand of 

 tracheids in the centre. The first protophyll has the structure 

 of a small leaf as produced in later years, and the later develop- 

 ment of the sporophyte appears to be slow, the plant coming up 

 in many cases a second and a third year with only a single leaf. 

 A young prothallium was found quite colourless, except for a 

 yellow tinge at the upper end, while two others still without 

 sex-organs bore but scanty chloroplasts. But never was there 

 a fully developed prothallium which was not green above. The 

 prothallium is distinctly of Lycopod type, on the whole inost 

 nearly resembling that of /-. cernuum, except that it lacks the 

 leaf-like assimilatory lobes of this, and the simplicity of struc- 

 ture favours the view that Phylloglossum is a primitive fonn of 

 Lycopod. It is recognised as a permanently embryonic form, 

 but the simplicity of structure of the mature saprophyte does 

 not necessarily prove it to be a primitive form of the Lyco- 

 podiaceous phylum. 



NO. 1679, VOL. 65] 



Branching occurs in two ways. The spike or strobilus occa- 

 sionally branches, and the branching always takes place above 

 the lowest sporophyll, sometimes at the base of the spike or 

 even near the apex of the strobilus. Even when the strobilus 

 forks there is no transition of form between sporophyll and 

 protophyll, and such leaves as have been observed on the 

 peduncle some distance below the rest of the strobilus have 

 always been of sporophyll type. Twenty was the largest 

 number of protophylls found on a plant, but there is never a 

 transition between protophylls and sporophylls. The view is 

 entertained that the former may have arisen from the difieren- 

 tiation of the lower region of a sporogonium or its homologue, 

 in which this region had acquired sterilised tissues, and that the 

 sporophylls arose from the upper fertile region of the sporo- 

 gonium. There appears to be no connection between the 

 number of protophylls and reproduction by spores. The forma- 

 tion of two new tubers is common, and these may be found on 

 opposite sides of the plant in a manner favourable to dispersion. 



Phylloglossum is not semi-aquatic. It may grow upon a hill- 

 top and as well upon a slope, and it was never found in actual 

 swamp. There is little evidence that it owes its simplicity to 

 reduction, and it is regarded as possibly the most primitive of 

 existing Pteridophytes, while the simple character of the 

 gametophyte and comparison of the mature sporophyte with 

 the embryo of Lycopodiuin cernuum favour the view that it is 

 the most primitive of existing Lycopodina;. 



The author has finished and despatched to London an 

 elaborate and fully illustrated memoir upon this most important 

 organism. 



December 12, igoi. — "Contributions to the Chemistry of 

 Chlorophyll. No \'III. Changes undergone by Chlorophyll in 

 passing through the Bodies of Animals." By Edward .Schunck, 

 F.R.S. 



The conclusions to which the experiments described lead are 

 summarised as follows : — 



{:) The faeces of animals supplied with green vegetable food 

 only — such at least as have so far been examined — contain no 

 chlorophyll, but in its place substances which must be supposed 

 to lie derivatives of chlorophyll, formed partly by the action of 

 acids on the chlorophyll of the food, partly by some agency to 

 which the latter is subjected in its passage through the body. 



(2) Of these substances, one seems to be identical with phyll- 

 oxanthin, a well-known product of decomposition of chloro- 

 phyll. Another is a substance of well-marked properties, nearly 

 resembling, but not identical with, phyllocyanin. It has not, 

 so far as the author's experience goes, been hitherto observed as 

 a result of any process of decomposition to which chlorophyll 

 has been subjected outside the animal body. He considers it 

 as a body sui generis, characterised by its fine purplish-blue 

 colour and its brilliant metallic lustre. The existence of other 

 products in addition to these two is possible. On one occasion, 

 indeed, a definite crystalline substance was obtained, which 

 seemed to be peculiar, but that it was in any way connected 

 with chlorophyll could not with certainty be maintained. 



Royal Astronomical Society, December 13, 1901. — Dr- 

 J. W. L. Glaisher, president, in the chair. — The secretary read 

 a paper, by Prof. S. C. Chandler, en Sir G. .\iry's reflex zenith 

 tube. The history of this instrument had passed through various 

 phases— in the beginning of great hopes, later of grievous per- 

 plexity, and finally of severe disappointment. .\11 attempts to 

 obtain parallax or the constant of aberration produced quite 

 discordant results, and the observations had at last been practi- 

 cally abandoned. But Dr. Chandler now showed that these 

 anomalous results were due to the relative motions of the earth's 

 axes of rotation and figure discovered by him some ten years 

 ago, and that the zenith-tube observations, so far from being 

 useless, had provided us with an invaluable record cf these 

 phenomena. An analytical proof of these statements was given 

 in the paper.— Prof. R. A. Sampson gave an account of the 

 original MSS. of the late J. C. Adams on the perturbations of 

 Uranus between the dates 1S41 and 1846. It was shown that 

 Adams made no less than six different solutions of the problem 

 in this period, and that the first, completed in 1S43, was much 

 more complete than bad been supposed. — Prof. Turner read a 

 paper on a simple method of accurate surveying with an ordinary 

 camera, in which he .showed that results of great accuracy could 

 be rapidly obtained by the photographic method.— Mr. Hinks 

 gave a paper on the accuracy of measures on photographs,, 



