
: 
4 
Now. 10, 1870] 
NATURE 
39 

cession of the placental mammals, said the first thing that the 
record suggested was the rapidity with which the most divergent 
groups made their appearance. Of course, there was no real 
basis for an assumption of a coeval creation, so to speak. It 
might be fairly held, on zoological grounds, that we ought not 
_ toseparate man and monkeys, but retain them as one of the 
twelve groups underthe ordinarytitle of primates. He adopted the 
division of the placental into twelve groups, not from any rigid 
belief as to their separate equivalences, but because they were 
not only sufficiently distinctive for all practical purposes, and 
also formed on the whole perhaps the finest expression of group- 
ing which science could at present afford. After dwelling at 
_ great length upon the succession of the various groups, he stated 
_ that as regarded the highest of all, the placental series, he would 
only say that, as he understood the doctrine, the strictest de- 
mand of the development theory did not require, as was too 
commonly supposed, a lineal descent as between bimana and 
~ quadrumana ; but it was certainly held that either of these 
groups, as we now knew them, might have been separately 
evolved from more generalised primatal types, the intermediary 
terms being possibly connected by a long antecedent and far 
more generalised common progenitor. In that connection the 
_ most advanced evolutionist must candidly own that the assumedly 
missing tertiary primatals constituted a great and very natural bar 
to the complete and popular acceptance of the theory of descent 
_ by naturalselection, On the other hand, the scientific naturalist, 
whilst admitting these serious deficiencies, threw into the oppo- 
site scale a multitude of considerations, the collective value of 
_ which seemed to him to outweigh all the data thrown into the 
_ anti-continuity side of the balance. For himself, in conclusion, 
he said that his necessarily limited application of those data was 
amply sufficient to enforce upon him the provisional acceptance 
of any theory of continuity. To his mind, its clear application 
irresistibly implied that nature, to use an old phrase, was but a 
‘series of harmonies—wheel within wheel, there being probably 
but one wheel differing only from all the wheels of whose limits 
it was not possible for them to conceive. However, in the 
“contemplation of the phenomena presented to them within that 
wheel—or that realm of ‘‘ orderly mystery,” as the president 
had called it—there was ample room and verge for the display 
of the highest physiological attributes with which man was 
endowed, 
=. 3) Yo 
_ 
































Department of Ethnology and Anthropology 
The report Ox the Heat Generated in the Blood in the Process of 
Arterialisation, by Dr. Arthur Gamgee, was taken as read. 
New Physiological Researches on the Effects of Carbonic Acid.— 
Dr. B. W. Richardson. The author explained that the obser- 
_yations he had made were new in that they related to the direct 
action of carbonic acid on animal and vegetable fluids, and they 
_ were interesting, equally to the zoologist and botanist as to the 
anatomist, The author first demonstrated the result of sub- 
_ jecting a vegetable alkaline infusion to the action of carbonic 
acid under pressure. The result was a thick fluid substance 
- which resembled the fluid which exudes as gums from some trees. 
When the fluid was gently dried it became a semi-solid sub- 
_ stance, which yielded elastic fibres. This observation had led 
the author to study the effect of carbonic acid on albumen, 
serum of blood, blood itself, bronchial secretion, and other or- 
_ ganic fluids, When the serum of blood was thus treated with 
carbonic acid under pressure and general warmth, 96° F., the 
collodial part was separated ; but when the blood, with the fibre 
removed from it, was treated, there was no direct separation, the 
blood corpuscles seeming for a time to engage the gas by conden- 
‘sation of it. But blood containing fibrine, and held fluid by 
_ tribasic phosphate of soda, was at once coagulated by the acid. 
_ The bronchial secretion is thickened by carbonic acid, and a 
tenacious fluid is obtained, resembling the secretion which occurs 
in asthma and bronchitis, while secretions on serous surfaces 
are thickened and rendered adhesive. After details of many 
_ other facts, Dr. Richardson concluded by showing what bearing 
‘this subject had of a practical kind. In the first place, the 
_ research had relation to the question of elasticity of organic sub- 
stances; and, secondly, on the direct action of carbonic acid in 
the production of vegetable juices. But the greatest interest 
concentrated on the relation of the research to some of the dis- 
eases of the animal body. Thus in instances where the tempera- 
ture of the body is raised and the production of carbonic acid is 
excessive, the blood on the right side of the heart has its fibrine 
often precipitated, and in many other cases fibrinous or albu- 


minous exuded fluids are solidified, as is the case in croup. 
The author, in the course of his paper, explained how rapidly 
blood charged with carbonic acid absorbed oxygen when exposed 
to that gas, and he held that carbonic acid in the venous blood 
was as essential to the process of respiration as was the 
oxygen in the pulmonary organs. 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Fournal of the Chemical Society, October, 1870.—The first 
paper in this number is by Dr. Divers, ‘‘ On the Precipitation of 
Solutions of Ammonium Carbonate, Sodium Carbonate, and 
Ammonium Carbamate by Calcium Chloride.” These results 
obtained by Dr. Divers are the following :—Calcice carbamate 
is soluble, and the presence of ammonis retards its transforma- 
tion into carbonate.- When carbonic anhydride is passed into 
an ammoniacal solution of calcic chloride, the carbamate is first 
formed, and is gradua_ly precipitated as carbamate. ‘his paper 
is followed by nearly two pages of Addenda et Corrigenda to 
theauthor’s previous memoir.—**On the Manipulation of Gold 
and Silver Bullion,” by Charles Tookey, Assayer in the Japanese 
Imperial Mint, formerly in the Royal Mint, Hong Kong. In 
this paper the author gives descriptions of two of the processes 
that he has adopted. Instead of boiling the cornets in separate 
parting flasks, he uses a series of perlorated platinum tubes, sup- 
ported in a porcelain plate. A number of cornets are, by this 
means, simultaneously submitted to the action of the nitric acid. 
Secondly, in order to clean the buttons, they are placed with 
the lower side uppermost on a platinum plate with depressed 
perforated cavities, which is plunged into hot dilute hydro- 
chloric acid, afterwards into hot water acidulated with hydro- 
chloric acid, and lastly into pure water. ‘The plate is then drained 
by placing it on porous paper and dried over a g.s flame—‘ On 
some new Bromine Derivatives of Coumarin,” by W. H. Perkin, 
F.R.S. On adding coumarin to bromine in the presence of car- 
bonic disulphide, allowing the solution to evaporate, and crystal- 
lising the residue from alcohol, dibromide of coumarin CyH,O, Bry 
is obtained. When coumarin and bromine in carbonic disul- 
phide are digested at 140°, bromo-coumarine CyH;BrO, 
and dibromo-coumarin CyH,BrO, are produced, and are sepa- 
rated by crystallisation trom alcohol, in which the latter is 
the less soluble. Dibromo-coumarin fuses at 174°, and distils 
nearly unchanged. —_It crystallises from alcohol in small needles. 
Bromo-coumarin fuses at 110°, and crystallises from alcohol in 
transparent prisms, often beautifully curved. When heated with 
solution of potassic hydrate both the bromo-compounds dissolve, 
producing crystalline salts, probably containing the bromo-cou- 
maric acids. —‘‘On Organic Matter in Water,” by Mr. C. Heisch. 
The author has observed that certain waters which are known to 
be contaminated with sewage matters, give rise to the formation of 
a microscopical fungus when a small quantity of sugar has been 
added, and the mixture exposed to light for a few days at the tem- 
perature of 60°-70° F. Six drops of sewage from which the schd 
matter had settled, were mixed with 10,000 grains of 
West Middlesex and New River water; to 60z. of the 
mixture 10 grains of pure sugar were added, and 10 grains 
were also added to 60z. of the water without sewage ; 
these solutions, and some of the mixture of water and sewage, 
were placed at a window. The water containing the sewage and 
sugar became turbid in 24 hours, the other liquids remaining clear. 
On examining the turbid water with an } inch object glass, it 
was found to be filled with small spherical cells, with, in most 
cases, a very bright nucleus, which group themselves in bunches 
like grapes ; they then spread into strings, with walls surrounding 
and connecting the cells ; the original cell walls afterwards break, 
leaving tubular threads branched together. -After several days, 
an odour of butyric acid is perceived. One drop of fresh urine in 
10,000 grains of water produced similar effects ; though without 
the addition of the sugar, the water might be kept for weeks 
without becoming turbid. Filtration through Swedish paper, or 
boiling for half an hour, does not prevent the growth of the fungus. 
The water no longer exhibits this property, however, after pas- 
sage through a good bed of animal charcoal, that is, if the char- 
coal is frequently exposed to the air. If the filtration is con- 
tinuous, the filtrate soon becomes as bad as the original! water, 
—*‘‘Onthe Methods for the Determination of Carbon in Steel,” by 
Mr. W. D. Herman. The author has obtained very concordantre- 
sults by burning the iron or steel in a current of oxygen, the iron 1s 
converted into jerric oxide and the carbonic anhydride collected in 
