378 
NATURE 
| March 9, 1871 

Dock ; exhibited by Mr. J. C. Hawkshaw, F.G.S., in illustra- 
tion of his paper. Specimens of /%olas-borings from Lyme 
Regis, and of Zithodomius-borings from Malta; exhibited by 
Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S. 
Chemical Society, March 2.—Prof. Williamson, F.R.S., pre- 
sident, in the chair. The following gentlemen were elected 
Fellows :—G. D. Harding, W. H. Hudleston, A. H. Mason, J. 
J. Nicolson. The following papers were read :—‘‘ On the dis- 
=flation and boiling point of glycerin,” by T. Bolas. It is 
known that when glycerin is heated under the ordinary atmo- 
spheric pressure so much 4s to cause ebullition it is more or less 
decomposed, This decomposition may be, however, prevented 
by a reduction of the pressure in the apparatus employed. The 
author has in that way found that pure glycerin boiled under a 
pressure of 12°5™™ at 179°5° C and under a pressure of 
50™ at about 210° C.—‘‘On the action of Heat on Silver 
Nitrite,” by Dr. E. Divers. The products of this action con- 
sist principally of silver nitrate, reguline silver, and oxides of 
nitrogen. But the relative proportions of the quantities of these 
substances to each other, and consequently the composition also 
of the gaseous matter, vary considerably in different experiments. 
When the nitrite is heated in an open vessel over a lamp or in 
an oven at any temperature between 85° and 140° C, the result 
of the operation may be represented by the equation 3 NO, Ag 
= N, O,+ Ag, + NO, Ag. When, instead of an open crucible, 
a closely covered one is used, so that the gaseous and fixed pro- 
ducts of decomposition may be kept for a time in contact, the 
ultimate change effected in this way approaches, though not 
closely, to what is expressed by the equation 2 NO, Ag = 
NO + Ag + NO, Ag. Ina third series of experiments, where the 
nitrite was heated in a vessel only nearly closed, the facts 
observed show that there is a tendency to yield only metallic 
silver and nitrogen peroxide, thus: NO, Ag = Ag + NO.. 
From all his experiments Dr. Divers draws the conclusion that 
like other silver salts the nitrite splits up under the influence of 
heat into metallic silver and the acid radical or its components, 
and that silver nitrate, nitric oxide, and, perhaps, nitrous 
anhydride are formed only by secondary reactions, The fusion 
which occurs in the mass of heated nitrite so soon as it has under- 
gone some oxidation causes the author to throw out the sug- 
gestion that the nitrate formed perhaps combines with the nitrite 
to a nitrite-nitrate or hyponitrate.—A fter the reading of the above 
papers Dr. Gladstone communicated some remarks on the 
“Relations of Chemical Reaction and Time.” He had insti- 
tuted most varied expetiments bearing on this subject, and, in 
briefly mentioning some of them, he wished to call the attention 
of chemists to this wide field of inquiry. Hitherto experimen- 
tators seemed to have limited their observations to only the cir- 
cumstances at, and the products with, which a chemical reaction 
begins and ends, all that happens between was left wholly un- 
noticed. How fruitful attention paid to the intermediate pro- 
ducts of a reaction could be is seen in the beautiful results which 
Prof. Williamson had gained on his researches on Etherification. 
The President, Dr. Odling, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, and others 
concurred in Dr. Gladstone’s view as to the importance of a 
closer study of this subject. 
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, March 6th.—Dr. R. S. Charnock, Vice-president, in the 
chair.—The following new members were elected :—Messrs. C. 
P, L. Naidoo Garroo, Henry Cook, Joseph Sharpe, LL.D., 
Danby P. Fry, Charles Edward Moore, Jesse Tagg ; and W. 
S. W. Vaux, F.R.S., an honorary member.—Colonel Lane Fox 
exhibited a flint implement from Honduras.—Mr. Edward Blyth 
exhibited some cloth from West Africa.—Mr. Josiah D. Harris 
read a letter from his son on some remains found in the Macabi 
Islands, Peru—Mr. J. W. Jackson read a paper ‘‘ On the Racial 
Aspects of the Franco-Prussian War.” After some remarks on 
the Aryan and Semitic divisions of the so-called Caucasian race, 
the former being defined as the flower of a Turanian, and the 
latter of a Negroid root, the author said that in the present im- 
perfect state of our knowledge, it was impossible to decide 
whether Europe or Asia should be regarded as the primal and 
appropriate habitat of the Aryan, although he inclined to the 
former hypothesis. Neither could we yet assign the date when, 
and the place where, the various sub-divisions of this great race 
originated, and so must be contented with the fact of finding 
Slavons, Iberians, Teutons, and Celts on their existing areas of 
occupation, when, like the flora and fauna that accompany 
them, they must be regarded as Telluric organs. From a rapid 

sutvey of the earlier periods of Huropean history, it was shown 
that the Celtic area of Gaul and Britain must have been ethni- 
cally effected at the time of the Roman conquest, which civilised 
but did not physically regenerate the Provincials. This was 
effete at the Gothic conquest of the Empire, when the Gauls 
received a slight and imperfect, and the Britons an effectual, bap- 
tism of Teutonic bone and muscle. ‘The result of this diversity 
of fortune is seen in the fact that France, which retained more 
of the refinement, and with this more of the corruptions, of 
classic culture than Britain, preceded the latter in the attainment 
of civilisation, and now, after some centuries of quasi-imperial 
leadership in literature, science, manners and taste, is once again 
sinking into national weakness as an inevitable result of racial 
exhaustion. Hence it is that she no longer produces master- 
minds in any department, not even in war. Where are the suc- 
cessors of Cuvier and La Place, of Corneille, Racine, and Vol- 
taire? This ethnic collapse of France, however, does not 
necessarily imply a subsidence of the entire Celtic area of Wes- 
tern Europe, as Britain is still at her maximum of racial vigour, 
and, like Rome after the decadence of Greece, will probably in- 
herit that portion of the mission of imperial leadership for- 
feited by her effete sister and former rival. The Germans can- 
not do this, having so recently attained to unification, and being 
consequently devoid of any great capital like London, which 
may serve as the future metropolis of cultivation. Their mental 
constitution is, moreover, not adequately synthetic for the mission 
of Imperial centrality, which must accordingly devolve on Eng- 
land, the geographical terminus of the great north-western march 
of empire from the Euprates to the Thames. Discussion having 
ensued, on the motion of Mr. Joseph Kaines, seconded by Capt. 
Pim, it was adjourned till the 2oth instant. 
Linnean Society, March 2.—Mr. G. Bentham, president, 
in the chair. The following papers were read :—On the Tamil 
Mames of Plants, by Rev. S. Mateer ; Contributions towards a 
Knowledge of the Curculionidae, by Mr. H. P. Pascoe, 
Royal Institution of Great Britain, March 6.—Sir Henry 
Holland, Bart., M.D., F.RS., president, inthechair. Messrs. 
W. Blenkin, J. Browning, E. Maynard Denny, F. A. Eck, Sir 
Frederick Elliot. K.C.M.G., Col. A. Lane Fox, Mr. P. Graham, 
Col. J. A. Grant, C.B., Mr. E. W. Grubbe, Dr. G, Harcourt, 
Capt. F. Helbert, Mr. G. W. Henderson, Mr. G, Middleton 
Keill, Dr. J. Kennedy, Mr. J. Macauley, Mr. K. R. Murchison, 
Mrs. Sheffield Neave, Mr. G. W. Royston Pigott, Mr. Eustra- 
trios Ralli, Mr. F. S. Reilly, Mr. W. C. Roberts, Mr. W. 
Dehague Routh, Mrs. W. C. Smith, Mr. T. Sowerby, were 
elected members. 
MANCHESTER 
Literary and Philosophical Society, February 7.—Mr. E. 
W. Binney, F.R.S., president, in the chair. ‘‘ On the Organisa- 
tion of an Undescribed Verticillate Strobilus from the Lower 
Coal Measures of Lancashire,” by Professor W. C. Williamson, 
F.R.S., &c.—‘‘ The Tails of Comets, the Solar Corona, and the 
Aurora, considered as Electric Phenomena, part ii.,” by Prof. 
Osborne Reynolds, M.A.—‘‘ Further Experiments on the Effects 
of Cold upon Cast Iron,” by Peter Spence, F.C.S., &c. 
February 21.—Mr. E. W. Binney, F.R.S., president, in the 
chair. “The Overthrow of the Science of Electro-Dynamics,” 
by John Hopkinson, D.Sc. In science no theory should be con- 
sidered unquestionable and no man’s work held sacred from 
attack, and our scientific periodicals should afford the freest 
scope to discussions no matter how hostile to established notions. 
Still, it is evident that the journals ought not to publish every- 
thing that may come to hand ; they should at least take care that 
a hostile critic understands the meaning of what he criticises. 
Two papers appeared last month in the Quarterly Fournal of 
Science and the Chemical News respectively, in which the author 
(the Rev. Mr. Highton) somewhat summarily disposes of the 
science of Thermodynamics, fancying he has disproved the equi- 
valence of heat and work. I will only trouble you with one or 
two quotations with a view to support my opinion that the papers 
in question ought never to have been permitted to appear in any 
journa! pretending to scientific position. In the Chemical News, 
p- 42, we find, speaking of Joule and Scoresby’s experiments on 
electro-dynamic engines—‘‘ They say that ‘the quantities of zine 
consumed’ (that is, respectively, when the engine is at rest and 
doing work) ‘being as a to 6, (a—6) represents the quantity of 
heat converted by the engine into useful mechanical effect.’ 
Therefore, since on the suppcsition of a mechanical equivalent of 

