NATURE 
[Fed. 16, 1871 

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNnDON 
Royal Society, February 9.—‘‘ Abstract of Paper on the 
Effect of Exercise upon the Bodily Temperature.” By Dr. T. Clif- 
ford Allbutt. The object of the author in carrying out the expe- 
riments recorded in the present paper was to inquire whether the 
regulating power of the organism held good under great varia- 
tions of muscular exertion. For this purpose he made frequent 
daily examinations of his own temperatures during a short 
walking tour in Switzerland, and found that the effect of conti- 
nuous muscular exertion upon himself was to sharpen the curve 
of daily variation, the culmination being one or two-tenths higher 
than usual, and the evening fall coming on more rapidly and 
somewhat earlier. Charts of the daily temperatures were handed 
in with the paper. The author made reference also to some 
observations of M. Lortet, which differed from his own. These 
observations, which did not come into Dr. Clifford Allbutt’s 
hands until his own experiments were partially completed, were 
adduced by M. Lortet to prove that the human body was very 
defective in regulating power under the demands of the com- 
bustion needed to supply the force expended in muscular exer- 
tion. Dr. Clifford Allbutt’s results were very decidedly opposed 
to those of M. Lortet ; for only on two occasions did he note the 
depressions of temperature which M. Lortet regards as constant. 
It would seem, however, that the body is more or less liable to 
such depressions when engaged in muscular exertion ; but the 
cause of them is very obscure. Of the two low temperatures 
noted by the author, one occurred during a very easy ascent of 
lower slopes, and the second was observed during a descent. 
The author thinks that they may be due to some accidental defi- 
ciency in combustion, and inquires whether the capacity of the 
chest in different individuals may account for the varying influence 
of muscular effort upon them, and perhaps for the earlier or later 
sense of fatigue. ‘The sphygmographic tracings added by M. 
Lortet to his temperature charts seemed to show a great inade- 
quacy of circulation.—‘‘ Observations of the Eclipse at Oxford, 
December 22, 1870.” By John Phillips, F.R.S. 
Geological Society, January 25.—Mr. Joseph Prestwich, 
F.R.S., President, in the chair. Richard Atkinson Peacock, 
of St. Helier’s, Jersey; Arthur W. Waters, Davos Plaz, 
Canton of Grisons ; R. Koma, of University College, London ; 
and Ransom Franklin Humiston, M.A., Professor of Che- 
mistry in Cleveland University, U.S., were elected Fellows of 
the Society. The following communications were read: 1. ‘‘On 
the Physical Relations of the New Red Marl, Rheetic beds, and 
Lower Lias,”’ by Prof. A. C. Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The author commenced by stating that there is a perfect physical 
gradation between the New Red Marl and the Rheetic beds. He 
considered that the New Red Sandstone and Marl were formed in 
inland waters, the latter in a salt lake, and regarded the abun- 
dance of oxide of iron in them as favourable to this view. The 
fossil footprints occurring in them were evidence that there was 
no tide in the water. The author maintained that the New Red 
Marl is more closely related to the Rhzetic, and even to the Lias, 
than to the Bunter ; and in support of this opinion he cited both 
stratigraphical and palzeontological evidence. He described 
what he regarded as the sequence of events during the accumula- 
tion of the later Triassic deposits and the passage through the 
Rhezetic to the Lias, and intimating that the same reasoning would 
apply to other British strata, especially some of those coloured 
red by oxide of iron, including the Permian, the Old Red Sand- 
stone, and a part of the Cambrian. Mr. Etheridge thought the 
question of the nature of the Rhzetic beds was to a great extent 
palzontological. The main point in connection with them was 
as to how the British beds were to be connected with the 
Lombardic and Middle European areas. It certainly seemed 
probable that in this part of the world the conditions of life were 
different, the deposits being much less in thickness, and the 
fauna much diminished ; and where represented at all, the shells 
occurred in a dwarfed and stunted form. ‘The exact horizon and 
nature of the Sutton beds had still to be determined. Mr. 
Godwin-Austen believed that every mass of red sandstone would 
ultimately be referred to either a brackish or freshwater origin. 
A comparison of the ancient and present area of the Caspian Sea 
would tend to remove any doubt that might remain on the mind 
of geologists as to the possibility of the existence of such vast 
internal seas as those which had to be called in to account for 
these formations. He regretted that former observers had not 
attached more importance to the duration and extent of those 

freshwater conditions which were found so commonly to have 
prevailed between the periods of deposit of the great marine 
formations. There was another fact to be borne in mind, that 
even in existing lakes the water at the one end was sometimes 
completely fresh, and at the other end salt, each, of course, with 
a different fauna. Prof Rupert Jones said that, although there 
were good grounds for the lake-theory, something might be said 
for shallow seas. He remarked that sulphate of lime was de- 
posited from sea-water before salt, that oxide of iron might 
originate from chloride of iron diffused in water whether of lakes 
or seas, and that the hzmatites of Permian age were probably 
deposited inthe sea. He considered that Foraminifera required 
great caution when used as criteria, as the varietal forms giving 
the facies were of more importance than the genera and species. 
The Z£stheri@ were never marine, although often occurring in 
plenty in temporary freshwater pools on the sea-shore. In 
his monograph of £stheria he had said much to substantiate 
the notion that freshwater conditions often prevailed during 
the formation of the Keuper. Both in the Old Red Sandstone of 
the Baltic provinces and in the Lettenkohle and Keuper of Ger- 
many, when Lstheria comes in, Lingzéa dies out. The repeated 
set of formations in the Permian and the Trias precludes their 
contemporaneity, as supposed by Messrs. Godwin-Austen and 
Marcou. Mr. Bauerman marked that the Hallstatt beds which 
had been cited as marine contained large deposits of rock-salt. 
M. Marcou thought that the difficulties in regarding these beds as 
of freshwater origin were greater than the author supposed. The 
absence of fossils in gypsum, though almost universal, was not 
total. He had himself seen three specimens of Z?igonia in 
gypsum from Stuttgart. Mr. Tate mentioned the discovery by 
Mr. Burton of marine fossils in the Red Marl, in one instance in 
combination with vegetable remains. He commented on the 
sharp demarcation observable in Ireland between the Rheetic 
beds and the marl below, whereas it was almost impossible to 
separate them from the Lias above. Ile doubted, however, 
whether the true relations of the Rheetic beds were to be worked 
out in this country. As to the fossils of the Sutton Stone, they 
were all purely Liassic. Mr. Burton stated that the fossils from 
the Red Marl came from a spot about five miles from Retford, 
in the direction of Gainsborough, but he had not seen them 
in situ. There are, however, no Rheetic beds within some miles. 
Rev. Mr. Winwood, in the absence of Mr. C. Moore, from ill 
health, inquired whether the author regarded the White Lias as 
Rheetic or Liassic. Prof. Ramsay, in reply, was quite willing to 
accept marine fossils as coming from the Red Marl. The fact 
of Zstheria, a brackish or freshwater form, occurring {in certain 
bands, was in favour of his views, as he considered that at in- 
tervals the freshness of the water in such a lake as he had sug- 
gested must have varied. He could not accept the probability 
of oxide of iron having been deposited in a large sea area to 
such an extentas to colour the sands, All rocks that could be 
proved to be of marine origin, even when they contained iron, 
were not stained red unless by infiltration from above. He 
pointed out that the old area of the Caspian was far larger than 
the lake in which he had suggested that the New Red Marl 
had been deposited. If, as was more than probable, there had 
been during all geological time continental areas somewhat in the 
same positions as those of the present day, there must have been 
large areas of inland drainage in which some such deposits as 
those in question must of necessity have been formed.—z. ‘‘ Note 
on a large Reptilian Skull from Brooke, Isle of Wight, probably 
Dinosaurian, and referable to the genus Jgvanodon.” By J. W. 
Hulke, F.R.S., F.G.S. The author stated that the skull 
described by him was obtained from a Wealden deposit at 
Brooke, in the Isle of Wight, from which many remains ot 
Dinosauria have been obtained. He described its characters in 
detail, and remarked that its most striking peculiarities were :— 
the completeness of the bony brain-case ; the obliteration of the 
sutures, especially those of the basicranial axis ; the massiveness 
of the skull; and the great downward extension of the basis- 
phenoid, with the attendant upward slant of the lower border 
of the basipresphenoidal rod. The first of these characters 
occurs elsewhere among reptiles only in Dicynodon ; and the 
first and second characters combined were regarded by the author 
as approximating the skull to the ornithic type. The reference 
of this skull to Zgwanodon was founded: chiefly on the place 
from which it was obtained, which has furnished abundant re- 
mains of that genus, and on the obliteration of the sutures, 
which the author stated to be a character of the mandibles of 
Zguanodon. Prof. Huxley congratulated the society on the pro- 
gress being made in our knowledge of this interesting group 
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