April 6, 1871] 
NATURE 
457 

tinuous current beyond that region cannot be proved by observa- 
tions, either of temperature or movement. 
IX. That the Gulf-stream and other local currents put in 
motion by the trade-winds or other influences acting on the sz- 
face only, will have as ‘heir complement in a horizontal circulation 
return surface currents ; and that the horizontal circulation of 
which the Atlantic Equatorial Current and the Gulf-stream con- 
stitute the first part is completed—so far as the Northern Hemi- 
sphere is concerned—partly by the direct return of one large 
section of the Gulf-stream into the Equatorial Current, and as 
to the other section, by the swfevficial polar currents which make 
their way southwards, the principal of them even reaching the 
commencement of the Gulf-stream. 
In conclusion it may be added that the doctrine of a general 
vertical oceanic circulation is in remarkable accordance with the 
fact now placed beyond doubt by the concurrent evidence of a 
great number of observations, that whilst the density of oceanic 
water, which is lowest in the Polar area, progressively increases 
as we approach the Tropics, it again shows a decided reduction in 
the intertropical area. It has been thought that an explanation 
of this fact is to be found in the large amount of rainfall and of 
inflow of fresh water from great rivers in the intertropical 
region ; but it is to be remembered that the surface evaporation 
also is there the most excessive, so that some more satisfactory 
account of the fact seems requisite. Such an explanation is 
afforded by the doctrine here advocated ; the Polar water which 
flows towards the Equator along the bottom of the ocean basins, 
being there pumped up and brought to the surface.* And it is 
not a little confirmatory of the views advanced in this Report 
that in a recent elaborate discussion of the facts relating to the 
comparative density of oceanic water on different parts of the 
earth’s surface, the doctrine of a general vertical circulation is 
advocated as affording the only feasible rationale of them. tT. 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Zetschrift fur Ethnologie (1870 Heft III. and 1V 
contains the following notices:—Orton’s ‘‘ Andes and the 
Amazon.” — Waring’s ‘‘ Stone Monuments, Tumuli, &c.,” 
** Manuscrit Troano,” giving an account of the MS. in question, 
which is written in the Maya language; the reviewer calls 
this ‘‘surely the wildest production that ever saw the light 
with the sanction of an Imperial Government,” though he 
admits that still wilder productions are published in his own 
country, now also under ‘‘Imperial government.”—Benfey’s 
“*Gesch. de Sprachwissenschaft” is highly praised.—Burgen’s 
“Temples of Satrunjaya,” with forty-five photographs.— 
Hamy’s ‘‘ Paléontologie Humaine.”’ 
THE last part of the ‘‘ Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, Geo- 
logie,” &c., published 1871, contains the following papers :— 
R. D. M. Verbeek on the Nummulites of the Borneo Rocks, 
with three plates illustrating new species, &c., one species, /V. 
Biaritzensis, is also found in these beds, and extends through all 
the nummulitic formation from the Pyrenees to Borneo. He 
believes that this formation extends to Java and most of the 
islands of the East Indian Archipelago, but hitherto this forma- 
tion has not been recognised.t—Dr. R. Lincke on the 
Buntersandstein in Thiiringen, which is the commencement of 
an elaborate monograph on these beds.—Dr. Allred Stelzner on 
Quartz and Allied Minerals.—Adolph Pichler, Additions to the 
Mineralogy of the Tyrol ; and, by the same author, Additions 
to the Palzeontology of the Tyrol, and the usual mineralogical, 
geological, and palzeontological notices. 
OF the Transactions of the Natural History Society of Rhenish 
Prussia and Westphalia, including also the reports of the Society 
of Natural History and Medicine of the Lower Rhine, we have 
received the twenty-sixth volume, containing an account of the 
doings of the respective societies in the year 1869. The papers 
published by the first-mentioned society are well known to 
naturalists, and often of very great value. In the present volume 
we find the following :—“‘ Contributions to the Rhenish Flora,” 
* That water of a Zowey shou'd thus underlie water of a Azgher degree of 
salinity in travelling from the Pole to the Equator, is not difficult to account 
for, when the relative temperatures of the two strata are borne in mind 
+ Densité, Salitre, et Courants de l'Océan Atlanuque, par Lieut, B. Savy, 
Annales Hydrographiques, 1868, p. 620. : : 
T It is not out of place to mention here that Baron Reichtofen has quite 
recently found this nummulitic formation in China; it is described in 
Stlliman’s Fournal for February 1871. It has been found also in Japan, 


by Dr. P. Wirtzen, including a discussion of the species of dog- 
roses, with the description of a so-called new species, Rosa exilis, 
a notice of Asplenium Heufleri, the description of a new plantain 
from Saarbruck, Plantago Winteri, a notice of the various forms 
of Rubus tomentosus, and of anomalies in other species of Rudus, 
and notices on the geographical distribution of certain plants ; 
also, by the same author, a supplement to his manual of ‘‘ The 
Flora of Rhenish Prussia; a paper ‘‘On the Height of the Water 
of the Rhine at Cologne from 1811-1867,” by M. H. von Dechen ; 
the continuation of Kaltenbach’s valuable memoir on the German 
Phytophagous insects, in which the species feeding upon each 
species of plant are noticed, the plants being arranged in the 
alphabetical order of their botanical names, now reaching to the 
end of the letter S. ; a contribution to the knowledge of the 
cryptogamous flora of the Saar district, by M. F. Winter, con- 
taining notices of Equisetacez, Lycopodiaceze, and Ferns ; and 
a paper, illustrated with three plates, “On the Fossil Echino- 
dermata of North Germany,” by Dr. C. Schliiter. In the last- 
mentioned paper, the author notices the described species of 
Jurassic and Cretaceous Echinoderms found in North Germany, 
and describes several new forms. The repcrts of the second 
society mentioned, which holds its meetings in Bonn, include an 
immense number of short notices of communications on almost 
a'l branches of science, but especially on Natural History and 
Chemistry ; many of them are of considerable interest. 
In the March number of the Fournal of Anthropology there is 
a careful anatomical description of the body of a negro by Dr. 
Kopermeéki. Detailed measurements are added, together with 
the weights of the principal organs, and the diameter of more 
than twenty of the nerves. A remarkable feature in the case was 
the state of atrophy in’ which the supra-renal bodies were 
found ; and if, in the absence of other fatal lesions, this may be 
assumed as the cause of death, there is here recorded a case of 
Addison’s disease occurring ina negro. In the same journal is a 
translation of a review by Riitimeyer of Prof. Bischoffs work on 
the skulls of the anthropoid apes, in which both the text and the 
atlas of plates which accompanies it are severely criticised. Both 
the original pamphlet and the review have, however, lost much 
of the interest they possessed at the times of the publication, 
1864 and 1868 respectively. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Royal Society, March 30.—‘‘ Contributions to the History 
of Orcin.—No, 1. Nitro-substitution Compounds of the Orcins.” 
By John Stenhouse, LL.D., F.R.S. The action of nitric acid 
upon orcin has been studied by several chemists, but with com- 
paratively negative results. Schunck in this manner obtained a 
red resinous substance, which, by further treatment with the acid, 
was oxidised with oxalic acid; and in 1864 De Luynes found 
that orcin dissolved in cooled fuming nitric acid without evolu- 
tion of nitrous fumes, and that the addition of water precipitated 
a red colouring matter ; the long-continued action of the vapour 
of fuming nitric acid on powdered orcin likewise produced a red 
dye apparently identical with the above. These, however, are 
resinous uncrystallisable substances. Although under ordinary 
circumstances only resinous products are obtained by treating 
orcin with nitric acid, yet, when colourless orcin in fine powder 
is gradually added to strong nitric acid, cooled by a freezing 
mixture, it dissolves with a pale brown coloration, but without 
the slightest evolution of nitrous fumes. If this solution be now 
slowly dropped into concentrated sulphuric acid, cooled to 
—10° C., the mixture becomes yellow and pasty, from the 
formation of nitro-orcin, whichis but slightly soluble in sulphuric 
acid. When this is poured into a considerable quantity of 
cold water, the nitro-body separates as a bright yellow crys- 
talline powder, quite free from any admixture of resin. 
The crude nitro-orcin was collected, washed with a little cold 
water, and purified by one or two crystallisations from boiling 
water (40 parts). It was thus obtained in large yellow needles, 
which are readily soluble in hot water and but slightly in the 
cold ; the addition of a strong acid precipitates almost the whole 
of the nitro-orcin from its cold aqueous solution. It is soluble 
in alcohol, very soluble in hot benzol, and crystallises out in 
great part on cooling ; it is less soluble in ether, and but mode- 
rately so in bisulphide of carbon. It dyes the skin yellow, like 
picric acid, but is tasteless. It volatilises slightly at 100° C., 
melts at 162” C,, and decomposes with slight explosion imme- 
