!:.s 



NA TURE 



[January 9, 1902 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Chemical Society, December 19, igoi.— Prof. Emerson 

 ReynoKIs, president, in the chair. — II was announced that the 

 remaining meetings of the present session would be held alter- 

 nately on Thursdays at 8 p.m. and Wednesdays at 5.30 p.m., 

 commencing with an evening meeting on Thursday, January 16. 

 The text of the address of congratulation to \1. I3erthelot was 

 then read, and the secretary recorded the presentation of a 

 plaster cast of the bronze portrait of Bun.sen from the tomb at 

 Heidelberg by Sir Henry Roscoe, and of a photograph of a bas- 

 relief of Prof. Julius Thom.sen by Mr. H. Faber.— The following 

 papers were read :— (I) The constitution of corydaline, (2) the 

 relations of corydaline to berberine, by Dr. J. J. Dobbie and 

 Mr. A. Lauder. The authors have studied exhaustively the 

 action of various oxidising agents, such as potassium perman- 

 ganate and dilute nitric acid, upon corjdaline, an alkaloid derived 

 from the Tyrolean plant Corydalis cava, and by the identification 

 of the ultimate oxidation products have established the fact that 

 it is closely related to the yellow alkaloid berberme, and have 

 therefore assigned to it a constitutional formula of the type 

 suggested by Perkin for the latter alkaloid. The interrelations 

 of the two alkaloids are shown in the following scheme : — 



Corydaline dehydrocorydaline 



(colourless) by oxitialion gives (yellow) 



CkH.vjNO, C2.jII.v,NOj. 



Berberine tetrahydroberberine 



(yellow) by reduction gives (colourless) 



CjoHi,NOj C.,„H2,NO,. 



The constant difference CoH,., observed in the corresponding 

 alkaloids of the scheme is accounted for by the presence of a 

 methyl group in the a position of the pyridine ring and the 

 occurrence of two contiguous methoxyls in place of the 

 piperonyl group of the berberine formula of Perkin. — ^The 

 magnetic rotation of some polyhydric alcohols, hexoses and 

 disaccharoses, by Dr. W. H. Perkin, sen. The phenomena of 

 varying specific rotation shown by solutions of sugars have been 

 explained by the assumptions that these substances in the solid 

 form possessed a structure which became modified gradually in 

 their aqueous solutions, or that the solid was made up of com- 

 plex molecules which underwent simplification in the presence 

 of a solvent, or that soliftion was accompanied by gradual 

 hydration. The magnetic rotations of solutions of the various 

 sugars show that the first of these hypotheses is probably the 

 correct one, and incidentally it was found that the observed 

 values for dextrose agreed best with those calculated forToUens' 

 formula, which represents that .substance as similarly con- 

 stituted to ethylene oxide. — Stereoisomeric halogen deriva- 

 tives of obenzoylcamphor, by Dr. M. O. Forster and Miss 

 F. M. G. Micklethwait. a'-Benzoyl-o-bromocamphor and 

 a-benzoyl-o'-bromocamphor were prepared and characterised ; 

 the former has the specific rotation - 10° in benzene, the latter 

 under the same conditions - 53'. The corresponding chloro- 

 derivatives have respectively the rotations - 27^ and 4- 26' 

 in chV)roform. — Brasilin and hicmatoxylin, by Prof. W. U. 

 Perkin, jun. These closely related substances are the char- 

 acteristic colouring matters respectively of Brazil wood and 

 logwood. .\s the result of a long-continued investigation in 

 conjunction with his pupils, the author had suggested two 

 formukc which might equally well represent the constitution of 

 ha;matoxylin, and the present paper gives conclusive evidence 

 in favour of the following formula for brasilin : — 



CHOII— CH,-C-0 CH C— CH— CHOH 



I I III 



CH'— CH — C— CH.OH— CH-CH„-C— CH— CHOH 



hematoxylin being hydroxybrasilin with the — OH in the 

 position I. — Is argon an elementary substance? by Mr. G. 

 Martin. The view is put forward that since argon furnishes 

 no characteristic series of compounds it may be regarded as a 

 mixture of elementary gases. — The action of phosphorus tri- 

 thiocyanate on alcohol, by Dr. A. K. Dixon. In this reaction 

 thiocyanic acid is formed together with isopersulphocyanic acid, 

 but no substance of the formula ('..HisNjSjO, as found by 

 Lossner, could be obtained.- — The influence of salts and other 

 substances on the vapour pressure of aqueous ammonia solu- 

 tions, by Dr. E. P. Perman. Alkali salts produce an in- 

 crease of pressure, while the formation of complex substances 



with copper salts reduces it. — The action of sodium hypo- 

 chlorite on benzenesulphoanilide, by Dr. J. B. Cohen and Mr. 

 J. T. Thompson. Benzenesulphonyl-p-chloranilide is the prin- 

 cipal product of this reaction, and has been obtained in a pure 

 state and characterised. — The relationship between the sub- 

 stitution and constitution of benzeneazo-a-naphthol, by Dr. 

 J. T. Hewitt and Mr. S. J. M. Auld. This substance is 

 regarded as an oxyazo-compound, since on acetylation and com- 

 plete decomposition it furnishes aniline, but not acetanilide, 

 and by reduction gives rise to a hydrazo- derivative. The 

 monobrombcnzeneazo-o-naphthol behaves similarly, the sub- 

 stitution occurring in the naphthol nucleus. 



Geological Soci«-ty, December 18, 1901.— Mr. J. J. H. 

 Teall, V.P.R.S. , president, in the chair. — Prof. H. G. Seeley 

 drew attention to a skull of Equus fossilis from Keswick, 

 exhibited by Mr. J. Postlelhwaite, and said that it belonged to a 

 species of horse, but the skull appeared to be broader and 

 flatter in front of the orbits than in the Kijuus caballus ; and it 

 gave evidence on the upper surface of being an aged specimen, 

 an inference which was supported by the palatal conditions. 

 Mr. Postlethwaite .said that the skull was found beneath the 

 floor of one of the rooms of a farm-house about six miles east 

 of Keswick. The house, which is of considerable age, was 

 being altered and repaired, and it was in taking up one of the 

 floors, for the purpose of relaying, that the skull was found. 

 The surface-deposit on the farm is Glacial Drift. — Prof. W. W. 

 Watts called attention to the exhibited set of twenty-two photo- 

 graphs, the first of three sets to be published as typical examples 

 of geological Tphotographs by the committee of the British 

 Association on geological photographs. — Coal and petroleum- 

 deposits in European Turkey, by Lieut. -Colonel Thomas 

 English. In this paper an account is given of the formations 

 which include some recently discovered coal-seams and naphtha- 

 bearing sands of Tertiary age in the little visited stretch of 

 country lying to the north of the (Uilf of \eros in the 

 Mediterranean, and of the western portion of the Sea of Marmora. 

 — On the geological and physical development of Dominica ; 

 with notes on Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the 

 Grenadines," by Prof. J. W. W. Spencer. These islands form 

 a continuation of the volcanic chain extending from Gaudeloupe, 

 though separated one from the other by embayments in the 

 submarine plateau, reaching to depths of more than 6000 feet, 

 within the line connecting the .sfiores of the islands. These 

 submarine valleys head in cirques, like the amphitheatres which 

 occur on the slopes descending from high plateaux. From the 

 ends of the cirques, valley-like channels can be traced landward 

 on the submerged plateaux, or can be found to cross them in 

 order to join like features on the other side. The cols between 

 the opposite valleys vary in depth from about 2000 to 3600 feet, 

 except that between the Grenadines and the Trinidad banks, 

 where the divide may not be more thin 750 feet below the 

 surface of the sea, and one south of .St. Vincent (less than 1300 

 feet). Some of the submarine channels have remarkable 

 tributaries. The drowned valleys, like those about the islands 

 to the north, assume two very different forms — those with broad 

 undulating outlines, such as characterise the features produced 

 during the long Miocene- Pliocene period of erosion, when the 

 surfaces of the land were at or near the base-level of erosion, 

 and other types where very deep valleys and gorges incise the 

 more rounded features of the drowned plateau, which in the 

 early Pleistocene epoch thus appears to have stood for a limited 

 time at an altitude of 6000 or 7000 feet, as shown within the 

 limits of the Antillean mass (and still higher from evidence 

 beyond). There are no coastal plains, strictly speaking; only 

 to a very limited extent are the islands surrounded by shelves sub- 

 merged to a depth of less than 200 feet. But the Grenadine banks 

 are extensive. One or two outlying remnants of the Antillean 

 plateau occur south-east of Dominica, and another about sixty 

 miles east of Martinique, all of which may be fragments of the 

 old coastal plains. All the islands are underlaid by old Tertiary 

 or pre-Tertiary igneous rocks — On the geological and 

 physical development of Bardados, with notes on Trinidad, by 

 Prof. J. W. W. Spencer. Barbados, more than 100 miles ea.st of 

 the main chain of islands, is a remnant of the dismembered and 

 sunken Antillean plateau, with the embayment in it, west of the 

 island, reaching to a depth of more than 7000 feet. But the 

 drowned Barbados ridge extends far, both to the south and to 

 the north of the island, and is connected by another ridge with 

 the Martinique m.ass. Trinidad is part of the South American 

 continent, being on the subcoastal .shelf which extends much 



NO. 1680, VOL. 65] 



