542 



NA TURE 



[April 2,, 1884 



Eiiglisl.men. Robeit Hool.e huggcted the use of the freezing 

 point, Hallcy the use of the t oihng point, and the employment 

 of nrerdiry instead of spirit, and Newton was the firtt to men- 

 tion bl( od Iieat. Fahrenheit was a German by birth, lut v as a 

 prcli'gc' oi James I., and died in England. Reaumur's thermo- 

 meter in its final form owes its origin to De Luc, while the 

 centigiade thermometer, ahno.'tuniverfally attributed to Celsius, 

 was really invented by Linnxus. Celsius's instrument liad its 

 scale the revere way, the boiling point beirg 0°, and the freez- 

 ing pcint 100°. Mr. Scott then gave a brief account of some 

 of the ] rincipal forms of self-registering and self-recording ther- 

 mometers. — After the reading of this paper the meeting was 

 adjourned, in order to afford the Fellows and their friends an 

 opportunity of inspecting the exhibition of thermometers and of 

 instruments I'ecently invented. This exhibition was a most inter- 

 esting one, and embraced 136 exhibits. The thermometers 

 were classified as follows: (i) standard, (2) maximum, (3) 

 minimum, (4) combined n aximum and minimum, (5) metallic, 

 (6) self-recordii g, (7) solar radiation, (8) sea, (9) earth and well, 

 (10) thermometers u ed for special purposes, (11) thermometers 

 with various forms of bulbs, scales, &c., and (12) misceJlaneous 

 ihermoneters. In addition to these there were also exhibited 

 various \ atterns of thermometer screens, as well as several new 

 meteorological instruments, together with drawings, photograpli=, 

 ■&c. 



Anthropological Institute, February 26. — Edward B. 

 Tylor, Esq., F.R..S., vice-president, in the chair. — It was 

 announced that Dr. Walter H. C. Coffin, Dr. Emil Riebeck, 

 Miss H. M. Hargreaves, and Miss Helen E. Pearson had been 

 elected Members of the Institute.— The Rev. R. H. Codring- 

 ton read a paper on the Mclanesian languages. In the term 

 Melanesia the author included (i) New Caledonia, with the 

 Loyalty Islands ; (2) the New Hebrides ; (3) the Hanks' and 

 Torres' Islands ; (4) Fiji ; (5) Santa Cruz and the Reef Islands ; 

 (6) the Solomon Islands. The object of the paper was to set 

 forth the view ihat the various tongues of Mtlar.esia belong to one 

 common s tock, and that this stock is the same as that to \\ hich the 

 other Ocean Irnguages belong — Malayan, Polynesian, the lan- 

 guages of the islands th&t connect Melane-ia with the Indian 

 Archipelago, snd Malagasy. — A paper by the Rev. Lorimer 

 Fison, on the "Nanga,"or sacred stone inclosure of Waini- 

 mala, Fiji, was read by Dr. T) lor. The author explained the 

 constitution uf the Nanga, and described the ceremony of 

 initiation and other rites connected vvhh it. 



March 11. — Prof. Flower, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — 

 The election of W. Ayshford Sanford was announced. — Mr. A. 

 L. Lewis read a paper on the Longstone and other prehistoric 

 remains in the Isle of Wight. — Mr. W. J. Knowles read a paper 

 on the antiquity of man in Ireland. The author exhibited a 

 sei ies of flints discovered by him at Larne and other parts of the 

 north-east coast of Ireland, some of which he believed to have 

 been dressed in imitation of certain pear-shaped nodules or 

 hammer-stones found at the same spot, w bile others showed 

 more evident signs of human workmanship. One large chipped 

 implement was found in what appeared to be true, undisturbed 

 boulder-clay, and hence the author contended that the imple- 

 ments he exhibited were not only older than the Neolithic Age 

 in Ireland, but older even than those previously known as 

 Palaeolithic, and that they carry the age of man back into the 

 •Glacial period. — A paper by Admiral F. S. Tremlett on the 

 Cromlec of Er Lanic was read. — A paper by Mr. Henry Prigg 

 on a portion of a human skull of supposed Paleolithic age from 

 near Bury St. Edmunds was read. The author exhibited the 

 fragment, which consisted of lortions of the frontal and right 

 and left parietal bones, and also two flint implements found in 

 the same locality. 



Dublin 



Royal Society, February 18. — Section of Physical and 

 Experimental Science. — G. Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S., in the 

 chair. — On Mr. J. J. Thomson's theory of electricity, by Prof. 

 G. F. Fitzgerald, F.R.S. After explaining Mr. Thomson's 

 theory. Prof. Fitzgerald pointed out that it seems very unlikely 

 that elec'rified bodies in vaaio would not attract or repel one 

 another, inasmuch as experiments seemed to show that the 

 only effect of matter between electrified bodies was to alter the 

 specific inductive capacity of the space, and so Mr. Thomson's 

 theory was more probable as an explanation of how gases had 

 ■a specific inductive capacity different from unity. In a com- 

 munication on the mechanical theory of Crookes' force made 



to the Society in 1S7S he had shown that a polarisation of the 

 motions of the molecules in a gas of a particular kind would 

 produce the same stresses as are required to explain electro- 

 static actions. He explained how a suitable polarisation of 

 the motions or positions of the superficial molecules of a con- 

 ductor, due to their being on the surface of separation of a con- 

 stant and variable' electric potential, was probably the cause of 

 electrostatic attractions. He pointed out that the ordinaiy 

 hypothesis that molecules act on one another by means of the 

 ether, and so transmit mechanical stress across intermolecular 

 layers of ether w as an assumption of precisely the same kind 

 at intermolecular distances as Maxwell's theory of electricity 

 was at molar distances, and expected that a suilatile strain of the 

 superficial molecules of a body would transmit a stress through 

 the ether. Prof. Fitzgerald explained a particular hypothesis 

 as to the nature of this polarisation of the superficial molecules 

 en the vortex theory of atoms, which, however, seemed subject 

 to the very sericus objection that it appeared at first sight as if 

 two oppositely electrified planes would tend to move bodily 

 in one direction. The hypothesis was founded on the fact 

 that when two vertex rings are going in the same diiec- 

 tion, and ore follow ing the other, they attract ; but if going in 

 opposite directions they repel one another. The polarisation sup- 

 posed was that an electrified surface had the superficial mole- 

 cules all turned in one way, preferably negatively electrified 

 bodies with the faces of the vortex atoms outwards, and posi- 

 tively electrified bodies with their I tacks outwards. He de- 

 scribed how contact-electricity, thermo-electricity, and electro- 

 chemical actions might be explained on this hypothesis. This 

 hypothesis was put forward more as an illustration of how a 

 polarisation of the superficial molecules of a body might pro- 

 duce attractions and repulsions than as an hypothesis that really 

 explained electrostatic actions. — On Prof. Osborne Reynolds's 

 mechanical illustrations of heat engines, by Prof. G. F. Fi<z- 

 gerald, F.R..S. After explaining - Prof. Osborne Reynnld^'s 

 beautiful illustiations, he described three arrangements, one by 

 setting a chain rotating in loops and nodes, one by a balanced 

 centrifugal pendulum, and the third by a pair of masses running 

 on a revolving radius, by means of which all the operations in 

 Carnot's cycle miyht be illustrated, and explained how to arra-ge 

 that temperature should be represented by the angular velocity of 

 the rotating masses, and how by means of a chain passing over 

 a pulley in the second case, and by a chain drawn olT a table 

 in the third case, it was easy to arrange that the masses should 

 expand when given energy at a constant velocity. He explained 

 how an arrangement in which the masses when not rotating 

 would rest in any position represented an ideal gas in which no 

 internal work is spent in expansion. Prof. Fitzgerald described 

 how by means of a dynamo driven from a battery, a self-acting 

 engine of this kind could be arranged which would show when 

 it w as absorbing and when giving out energy. He explained that it 

 was easier to work these models when promiscuous agitation was re- 

 presented by rotatory motion than when it was really promiscuous, 

 and that it was for this reason rotatory motion was adopted. 

 Mr. Stoney, in some remarks he made on this communication, 

 explained how necessary it was that the energy be really pro- 

 miscuous, in order that it be subject to the second law of thermo- 

 dynamics, showing how it would be possible to get a region in 

 w hich all the radiant energy w as plane polari-ed to radiate into 

 a hotter similarly prilarised region without allowing the latter to 

 lose any heat by radiating any of its original energy. He pro- 

 posed to do this by means of a plate of quartz that rotated 

 through go° the jilane of polarisation of the radiant enirgy 

 that passed through it, and by a doubly refracting prism, thus 

 admitting heat energy into the second region that was polarised 

 at right angles to that originally there, while the polarised radiant 

 energy that escaped back again was returned into the region it 

 came from, being bent out of the path of the entering energy 

 by the doubly refracting prism. — Prof. Fitzgerald exhil.iited a 

 lecture balance. In this arrangement a beam of light fell parallel 

 to the axis of the balance on a mirror attached at 45° to this 

 axis, so that the reflected ray turns through the same atigle as 

 the balance. The balance w^as provided with an arrangement 

 by which its sl.ibility could be altered very much, so as to be 

 suitable for either rough or delicate weighing. As the difference 

 of weights in the pans of a bal.ance is proportional to the tangent 

 of the angle of defiiction, a vertical scale uniformly divided 

 showed by the position of the spot of light the difference of the 

 w eights in the pans in a manner that could be easily read by a 

 large class. 



