346 
NATURE 
(Fan. 27, 1870 
The Institution of Civil Engineers, January 11.—Mr. | 
C. B. Vignoles, F.R.S., president, in the chair. Five candidates 
were balloted for and declared to be duly elected, viz.: Mr. A. 
A. Langley, engineer and manager to the Hereford, Hay, and 
Brecon Railway; Mr. R. White, first-class engineer upon the 
Great Southern of India Railway; and Mr. E. Wragge, chief 
engineer on the Toronto, Grey, and Bruce, and the Toronto and 
Nipissing Railways in Canada, as members; and Mr. W. Raw- 
linson, engineer and manager of the Brazilian Street Railway 
Company, and Mr. C. Willman, Middlesbrough, as associates. — 
A report was brought up from the council, stating that, under the 
provisions of Sect. Iv. of the Bye-laws, the following candidates 
had recently been admitted students of the Institution :—W. F. 
Alphonse Archibald, B.A., A. J. Hess, A. Innes Liddell, W. 
Allingham Magnus, and H. Goulton Sketchley. 
Statistical Society, January 18.—William Newmarch, 
F.R.S., president, in the chair. The following gentlemen were 
elected Fellows :— Messrs. Iltuduo Thomas Prichard, Henry 
Hoare, David Maclagan, and Josiah Samuel Parker. Professor 
Levi read a paper on ‘“‘the statistics of joint-stock companies 
from 1814 to the present time; and of companies with limited 
and unlimited liability formed since the year 1856.” 
DUBLIN 
Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, January 11.—Dr. 
Banks in the chair. Rey. Dr. Haughton read the report for 1869, 
from which it appeared that the number of visitors to the Gardens 
was 9,000 more for 1869 than for 1868, and that the receipts for 
1869 exceeded those of 1868 by 137/. It would appear that 
there are now in the Gardens 143 mammals, 219 birds, and 25 
reptiles—specimens, not species, we presume—and that their 
health and condition are excellent. The fact is mentioned that 
since 1857 twenty lions and 31 lionesses have been bred in the 
Gardens. The Earl of Mayo was elected president for this 
year. 
Royal Geological Society of Ireland, January 12.—Mr. 
W. Andrews in the chair. The secretary read a paper by 
Dr. L. Lindsay on further researches in the gold-fields of Scot- 
land. Rev. Professor Haughton read a paper by Mr. J. D. 
Latouche on a spheroidal structure occurring in some Silurian 
Rocks of Wales. As supplementary to the views put forward in 
Mr. Latouche’s paper, Dr. Haughton stated that this spheroidal 
structure shows ona small scale what cleavage does on a large one, 
and that he believed that the latent structure was brought out by 
the weathering, not caused by it; indeed, the cleavage stream of 
force might be compared to that of a great river—it might flow 
along for miles through a country in an even uninterrupted 
course, then some small obstacles came in its way, and as the 
result a series of eddies were formed. Spheroidal structures were 
representatives of these eddies of force, and the ordinary cleavage 
planes were representatives of the uninterrupted stream—the one 
was the other on an immense scale. Dr. Haughton also showed 
that it followed rigorously from the mathematical laws of 
cleavage, that the parallipipedal blocks formed by cleavage 
must have themselves an internal spheroidal structure, of a 
concentric kind. This was the latent structure brought out by 
weathering in the manner shown in the beautiful drawings of 
Mr. Latouche.—Dr. Macalister exhibited a portion of a skull 
which had been dug up recently, while some repairs were being 
made to the vaults of Trinity College Chapel. This fragment 
was found laid along with other bones, and had evidently been 
dug up when the foundations of the chapel were being laid, and 
then, with the other bones found on that occasion, again buried. 
The skull was of a low type. Rev. Dr. Haughton agreed with 
Dr. Macalister as to the low type of the skull. Mr. J. J. Lalor 
did not agree with Dr. Macalister that this skull was of a low 
type. He had made a series of accurate measurements of skulls 
in conjunction with Dr. Carpenter, of London, and therefore 
could speak on the subject. Absence of forehead was no evidence 
of absence of brain capacity ; lowness of skull was considered a 
mark of beauty by some. He could not venture to say whether 
it was the skull of a man or a woman, but its brain capacity did 
not authorise one in saying that it was a low skull; it might have 
been the skull of a Provost, and certainly was one of more than 
ordinary capacity. Dr. Macalister in reply stated that he saw 
no reason to alter his view on the subject, as it had been based 
on careful measurements and on exact reasoning, neither of which 
he thought admitted of contradiction. 
Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland, January 12.— 
Mr. J. Ball Greene, C.E., in the chair. Mr. B. Stoney read a 
paper by Mr. C. P. Cotton on a novel means of transit for 
minerals in the county of Sligo. An extensive barytes quarry 
was worked on the side of a steep hill, the mineral had to be 
lowered a depth of over 1,000 feet, and this was effected by 
means of boxes swung on ropes, forming a wire rope railway. 
Mr. A McDonnell read a paper on workshop machinery driven 
by rapidly moving ropes. 
Royal Dublin Society, January 18.—Mr. John Adair in the 
chair. Professor Macalister read a paper on ‘‘ The Curves in 
the Spine considered from an zsthetical point of view.” Dr. J. 
Emerson Reynolds read some notes on ‘“‘the determination of 
the flashing point of petroleum. oils, as settled by Act of 
Parliament.” The author described in detail the apparatus 
directed to be employed, and pointed out the difficulties and 
sources of error to be guarded against in using the Government 
test. He suggested the adoption of an uniform mode of esti- 
mating the flashing point of mineral oils, which experience 
proved to be that most suited for affording reliable results; and 
further proposed that in all doubtful cases—a special method— 
which he indicated, should be employed in order to serve as a 
test of the accuracy of the parliamentary process.—A drawing 
of the Nebulz in Argos, and Dr. Monckhoyen’s new light for 
photography were exhibited. 
MANCHESTER 
Literary and Philosophical Society, January 11.—Ordi- 
nary Meeting.—Mr. E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., vice-presi- 
dent, inthe chair. The chairman described the aurora borealis, as 
observed by him at Cheetham Hill on the evening of Monday, 
the 3rd inst., at 7-30 P.M. Dr. Joule, F.R.S., said he had 
noticed some remarkable disturbances of the magnetic dip on the 
3rd inst., which no doubt were connected with the auroral display. 
He had also noticed similar disturbances of the dipping needle 
during the gale on Saturday, the 8th inst.—Letters were read 
from Mr. A. H. Green and Mr. E. Hull, defending the accuracy 
of the Geological Survey map in the matter of the red rock fault 
referred to in Mr. Binney’s paper, read before this society on 
November 16th (see NATURE, No. 7).—The chairman, with all 
respect to Messrs. Green and Hull, again denied the correctness 
of their map and sections so far as the “‘red rock fault” was 
concerned. He stated that he was prepared to maintain his 
position on the ground where the sections were exposed between 
Stockport and Macclesfield.—Dr. Joule exhibited his current 
meter, and with it, in connection with a galvanometer, made an 
experiment to determine the horizontal intensity of the earth’s 
magnetism in absolution measure ; the result gave 3°83 as the 
value of this element in the hall of the society. The current 
employed was produced by a single cell of a Bunsen’s battery. 
Microscopical and Natural Hrstory Section, January 3.—R. D. 
Darbishire, B.A., F.G.S., in the chair.—Mr. J. Sidebotham read 
the following paper :—“ Notes on the pupa and imago of Acher- 
ontia atropos.” The peculiar cry or squeak of the death’s-head 
moth is very well known. It has been by some observers thought 
that this sound is produced by the friction of the joints of the 
prothorax and mesothorax ; this conclusion is, in the opinion of 
the author of the paper, much strengthened by the following cir- 
cumstance. A few weeks ago, when he was replacing some 
damp moss on some pupz, he heard the peculiar cry of the moth, 
but much weaker. On examining the pupz he selected the one 
from which the cry proceeded, and placed it in the palm of his 
hand ; when at rest there was no sound, but the pupa at once 
produced it on being touched or pressed gently; on taking hold 
of it between the finger and thumb, if the head alone were 
confined, there was no sound, but if the tail, the motion of the 
joints was more energetic and the sound louder. In five days 
afterwards a very fine female moth emerged from the pupa, 
apparently none the worse for his experiments. The fact of the 
pupa ever producing this cry, disproves all ideas as to its being 
produced by expelling air through cavities, against a membrane, 
since in the pupa state all the muscles are as it were bound up in 
a horny case, and only those able to move which work the joints 
of the thorax and body, and besides this the amount of air which 
could be taken through the spiracles of the pupa would be 
obviously insufficient to produce such a volume of sound. 
PARIS _ 
Academy of Sciences, January 17.—M. de Verneuil pre- 
sented and made some remarks upon a geological map of the 
Ural, published by M. de Moeller, a Russian officer of Mines. 
He stated that M. de Moeller had referred the sandstones of 
Artinsk—regarded as Permian by MM. Murchison, Keyserling, 
