March to, 1870 | 
NATURE 
491 
valid species were twenty-three in the Old World and seyen- 
teen in the New World. 
Chemical Society, March 3.—Prof. Williamson, F.R.S, 
president, in the chair. Mr, Ch. P. Sandberg, of Stock- 
holm, was elected a fellow of the society. The first paper was 
by Dr. Gladstone on “ Refraction Equivalents,” to which we shall 
return. The next paper was by Dr. Thudichum, on ‘‘ Kryptophanic 
Acid,” a normal ingredient of human urine. The substance is 
obtained from the primary material by first forming its lime 
salt, transforming this by neutral lead-acetate into lead-krypto- 
phanate, and decomposing the latter by sulphuretted hydrogen. 
Kryptophanic acid is an amorphous, gummy mass, transparent 
and nearly colourless. It forms salts with the alkalis, the 
alkaline earths, and other metals. Mercuric nitrate produces 
in the aqueous solutions of its earthy salts a white precipitate ; 
the ordinary analysis for urea is thus shown to be liable to 
error., The acid is dibasic, and has the formula C;H,NO,, 
but in some instances it may be viewed as tetrabasic and in that 
case its formula must be written C,)H,,N,0}9- 
Linnean Society, March 3.—Mr. J. E. Howard read a 
paper by Mr. Broughton, chemist to the cinchona plantations in 
the Madras Presidency, ‘‘On hybridisation among cinchonas.” 
He believes that the sub-varieties of Czchona officinalis are 
permanent, but that hybrids can be artificially obtained, although 
they do not occurin nature. The cinchona has long been known 
to belong to the class of dimorphic plants. In the discussion 
which followed, Dr. Anderson, superintendent of the Botanic 
Gardens at Calcutta, gave some interesting particulars of the cul- 
tivation of cinchona at the Darjeeling plantations. —Dr. Hooker 
read a very interesting and important communication from Sir 
Henry Barkly, Governor of Mauritius, on the ‘‘ Fauna and 
Flora of Round Island,” a very little-known dependency of that 
colony. Although only about twenty-five miles from Port St. 
Louis, and the intervening sea not more than 400 feet deep, both 
plants and animals differ not only in species, but also in genera, 
from those of the Mauritius. The exploring party were only in 
the island one day, but during that time they captured four species 
of snakes and several lizards, no species of either family being 
found in the Mauritius. The insects and shells obtained were 
also peculiar, one of the latter being a Cyclostoma. Of flowering 
plants only twenty-four species were collected, but of these more 
than half were not natives of the Mauritius, including three spe- 
cies of palm, a Pavulanus, or screw-pine, and two species of 
ebony. One of the palms is between thirty and forty feet high ; 
another is similar to the Mauritian Aveca alba, but different ; and 
a third has a most remarkable bottle-shaped stem. Round Island 
is only about three miles in circumference and one and a quarter 
across. It consists of a mound of tufa about 1,000 feet in height, 
very little vegetation being found in the lower part. Sir II. 
Barkly believes the area to be one of elevation rather than 
subsidence. 
Royal Archzological Institute, March 4.—The following 
papers were read :—‘‘ Remarks on a piece of Roman sculpture, 
found at Sens, and representing fresco painting.” By Mr. J. G. 
Waller.—‘‘ On the Emerald Vernicle of the Vatican, with notices 
of other ancient portraitures of Our Saviour.” By Mr. C. W. 
King, M.A.—‘‘On an ancient Alms-box, found at Browne’s 
Hospital, Stamford.” By the Rev. C. Nevinson, warden of the 
hospital. Among the objects exhibited were a drawing of a 
leaden vessel containing Roman coins, found in Cornwall, by the 
Hon. W. O. Stanley, M.P.—Fragment of Anglo-Saxon M.S., 
found at Stamford Court, Worcester, by Sir T. E. Winnington, 
Bart.—Silver plate engraved with historical and allegorical 
subject, three portraits in Dresden porcelain, by Mr. Octavius 
Morgan, M. P.—Stone and bronze implements, found in Lincoln- 
shire, by the Rev. E. Jarvis. 
Anthropological Society, March 1.—Dr. Beigel, V.P., in 
the chair. Mr. Robert Wright and Dr. Hilliard, were elected 
Fellows. ‘‘On the Circassian slaves and the Sultan’s harem.” 
By Major Millingen. The author showed by what means the 
Turks insured to themselves in former days a supply of white 
slaves, so as to recruit their armies and their harems. The facts 
stated by the author with regard to the slave-trade seemed to 
prove that, from the highest to the lowest, all the ladies of Con- 
stantinople, those at least who have capital to invest, are regular 
slave-dealers. The author subsequently showed that the use of 
white slaves is a necessity for Mussulman nations on religious, 
social, and state-policy reasons, as slavery serves to keep women 
under subjection and in a state of seclusion ; while politically it 
is indispensable for the maintenance of the reigning dynasty, 
whose inatrimonial alliance with any other but slaves is against 
the statutes of the empire. A description of the seraglio then 
followed, its organisation being accurately exposed, while ample 
details were given concerning the wives and odalisks of the 
Sultan. In the seraglio the lot of the Circassian slaves was said 
to be better than that which befalls the generality of slaves ; 
there they are provided with everything, and can attain high 
honours and power. The system was condemned by the author 
on account of its being a source of ruin and depravity for both 
slave and master. The author maintained that it is impossible 
that the Turks should seriously think of doing away with slavery 
for the reason that it is so much a part of the social and political 
edifice, that an attempt to alter the existing state of things would 
inevitably hasten its downfall. In conclusion, he said that if 
the Turks, instead of importing women and good-for-nothing 
slaves, had given their minds to peopling their half-deserted 
country with an emigration of hardy and industrious men, Turkey 
might be now at the head of the civilised countries of the earth.— 
Mr. E. Charlesworth exhibited some remarkable flint implements 
from Honduras. 
Royal Geographical Society, February 14.—Sir R. 
Murchison, president, in the chair, ‘‘On the Runn of Cutch 
and neighbouring regions.” By Sir Bartle Frere. The author 
defined the region as a broad belt of country between the 
Indus on the west and the Avivalli Mountains on the 
east, extending from the Himalaya to the Peninsula of 
Cutch on the Indian Ocean ; the length was about 600 miles, 
and its breadth varied from 100 to 150 miles. ‘The southern 
portion, called the'Runn of Cutch, forms a level plain 150 miles 
in length, distinguished by the total absence of vegetation. It 
forms, during the greater part of the year, a plain of firm sand, 
saturated with salt, on which the hoofs of horses and camels in 
passing make scarcely any impression. It is so level that a 
heavy rainfall remains like a vast slop on the surface, and is 
blown about by the wind until it evaporates. During the south- 
west monsoon, however, the high tides flow into it and cover it 
with water to the depth of one or two feet. Travellers and 
caravans pass over it, but are sometimes lost, for there are abso- 
lutely no landmarks; the danger is somewhat lessened on the 
side of the hills of Cutch by a beacon-fire which is regularly 
lighted by a Mahommedan family there settled, to whom has 
descended the religious duty of thus guiding the wandering tra- 
veller over this desolate waste. The surface remains damp even 
in the driest season, and the soil never pulverises. Mirage and 
other surprising atmospheric phenomena are common in this 
singular district. North of the Runn the desert waterless tract 
is called the Thurr. The whole region slopes very gradually 
from the sub-Himalayan ranges, between the Jumna and the 
Sutlej, towards the south-west. The rivers descending from 
these lower ranges disappear as they advance into the desert, and 
none of them reach the Indus. The Thurr is covered with a 
constant succession of sandy ridges, rising as high as 200 feet 
above the valleys, and the aspect of the country is that of a bil- 
lowy ocean converted into sand. In districts where rain falls 
and where the inhabitants have dug wells, some of which are 
300 feet deep, there are cultivation and settlements ; but the soil 
is throughout sandy, and over the whole region not a stone can 
be found that is not imported. That part where there is a hard 
level plain with abrupt sandhills, is called the “Put.” Sir Bartle 
believed that the native terms of ‘‘Runn,” “Thurr,” and “Put,” 
might be adopted in physical geography as denoting varieties of 
plain which are totally unlike savannah, prairie, steppe, pampa, 
or any other known description of land-surface. Travellers 
in attempting to cross the Thurr are subject to sudden death, 
not, as might be supposed, from the effects of sunstroke, but 
from some peculiar condition of the atmosphere connected 
with the intense heat and the nature of the soil, most of 
the fatal attacks occurring after sunset. The Runn of Cutch 
and the region north of it are much subject to volcanic 
disturbance. The great earthquake of 1819 is still remembered 
by the inhabitants ; it was described by Lieutenant Burns, in an 
admirable paper on the Indus, read before the Royal Geographi- 
cal Society in 1833. Sir Bartle was inclined to attribute the 
singular levelness of the salt-plain of Cutch to the great fre- 
quency of slight shocks or tremors. During earthquakes, mounds 
are thrown up some ten or twelve miles in length, and of con- 
siderable height, formed, Sir Bartle believed, by a crack or fissure 
of the surface at right angles to the direction of the earthquake 
wave, one lip of the fissure being tilted up and overlapping the 
