te 
_ April 20, 1871] - 
NATURE 
499 

J. Cramsie, W. E. B. Wyse, T. Atkinson, J. O'Neill, and 
J. Martin, M.D. The following members were admitted as 
Fellows : — Hon. B. E. B. Fitzpatrick, Lieut.-Col. E. Cooper, 
Captain Langton, Messrs. E. Shine, R. R. Brash, J. Watson, 
N. Ennis, J. Digges, F. Coney, J. Hill, J. E. Mayler, and W. 
R. Molloy. An application from Mr. Justin McCarthy Brown, 
~ Hobart Town, Tasmania, ‘‘ that the Journal of the Association 
might be given as a free grant to the Tasmania Library, Hobart 
Town,” was considered and granted. The Secretary, Rey. 
James Graves, reported on the progress made with the restora- 
tion of St. Francis Abbey, Kilkenny, and pointed out the neces- 
sity for further subscriptions to preserve the beautiful old tower. 
A report on the present state of the ruins at Monasterboice, Co. 
Louth, by J. Bell, C.E., was read, and the following subscrip- 
tions, to commence forming a preservation fund, announced :— 
E. Fost, Bart., D. Dunlop, R. M. Bellew, C. Fortescue, M.P., 
and M. O’Reilly-Dease, M.P., 1o/. each; M. Branagan, 5/ ; 
Reys. Harpur and Campbell offered not only to subscribe but 
also to collect subscriptions. The Chairman exhibited and de- 
scribed some more of the ancient record of the Corporation of 
Kilkenny. —Papers read :—‘‘ On the exploration of Cranoges,” by 
G. H. Kinahan, M.R.I.A., ‘*On some iron tools and other 
antiquities found in the Cranoge of Cornagall,” by W. F. Wake- 
man, M.R.I.A. 
CALCUTTA 
Asiatic Society of Bengal, January 4.—The president, 
the Hon. T. B. Phear, exhibited some diagrams, showing the 
diurnal oscillations of the barometer at Dalhousie during part of 
October 1870. He remarked upon these curves, and called 
attention to the part which the pressure of vapour in the 
atmosphere was supposed to have in effecting the barometric 
oscillations. Colonel Strachy stated that the opinion that the 
presence of vapour in the atmosphere had any important 
influence on the oscillations of the barometer was totally un- 
founded, and indicated the results of his own observations at 
various stations.—Mr. T. W. H. Tolbort communicated a paper 
on the history, archzology, and natural productions of the 
district of Dera Ismail Khan, which will be published in the 
Journal of the Society. —Rabu Rajendralila Mitra read a memoir 
on the antiquity of Indian architecture, in which he maintained 
the indigenousness of the art—Mr. Wood Mason exhibited and 
described a very curious instance of polydactylism in a horse 
from Bagdad. This horse had on each fore-foot a supernumerary 
digit, furnished with an asymmetrical hoof, articulated to the 
rudimentary metacarpals of the fourth toes ; these digits con- 
sited of the usual number of phalanges. _ Figures of this curious 
malformation are given. 
PHILADELPHIA 
Academy of Natural Sciences, December 6, 1870.— 
Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair.—Professor Cepe 
made some observations on a number of species of reptiles from 
the Cretaceous beds of Kansas, which he had recently studied. He 
tated that the specimens included parts of Llasmosaurus 
Latyurus Cope, Polycotylus latipinnis Cope, Liodon proriger 
Cope, and two new Liodons, which he named Z. icfericus and 
(pl. mudgei. A third new Mosasauroid of the size of the Z. Aluaget 
was described under the name of Clidastes cineriorium. It was 
stated to be much the largest species of the genus, and to differ 
from the three now known in having the plane of the articular 
extremities at right angles to the long axis of the centra, and not 
oblique to it. He described a third new Liodon, of gigantic 
size, stating it to exceed by very much the Maestricht reptile, and 
even the Wosasaurus brumbzi Gibbes, which was till now the | 
largest known species. He pointed out the characters of the 
vertebrae, which were very much depressed as to the centrum, 
which measured 5% inches in diameter. It was allied to the 4/7, 
brumbsi, but differed in having a strong emargination of the 
articular faces to accommodate the neural canal. He named it 
Liodon dyspelor. Prof. Cope also exhibited the humeri and 
femora of Polycotylus, which were like those of Pistosaurus, 
and measured eighteen inches in length.—Mr. Thomas Meehan | 
exhibited several specimens of the A/aclura aurantiaca, the com- 
mon osage orange, in which the plants were inarched togetherin 
pairs ina remarkable way. He said the osage orange was ex- 
tensively grown as a hedge plant, and in digging up the one-year 
plants these united twins were usually found in the proportion of | 
about one score in ten thousand. Double kernels were common 

occurrences in many seeds. There were double peaches, almonds, | 
| 
and double yolks in eggs. But these all had their separate seed 
coverings or membranes, and the yolks their own albuminous 
envelopes, consequently the separate embryos produced distinct 
plants. But these indicated that there had been two separate 
embryos under one seminal covering, and that the radicular por- 
tions of this double embryo, having no membrane to separate 
them, had inarched themselves together while passing to the 
ground. If this was the true explanation, he thought there 
was no such case recorded. That it was true seemed probable, 
from the fact that all the specimens were united in exactly the 
same manner, showing that time, place, and the circumstances 
of the union were uniformly the same. The scars showed 
that there were four cotyledons and two germs, and that the 
place of union was midway between the pairs of cotyledons. 
From the base of the cotyledons extending the whole length of 
the radicle, the union existed. The length of this united part 
was from half an inch to one inch, according to the vigour of the 
plant. Another lesson he thought was afforded by these speci- 
mens. Dr. Asa Gray had recently remarked, in Sid/iman’s 
Journal, that European botanists still believed what American 
botanists had learned to doubt, that the radicle was a true root, 
rather than a morphologised joint of stem. Here was, he be- 
lieved, an illustration of the American view. These radicles, 
which had evidently united together under the seed coat, had 
elongated after protrusion, just as a young shoot with all its parts 
formed in the bud elongates after the bursting of the bud scales. 
They comprised the half inch, or inch united portions before re- 
ferred to. If these radicular portions of the seed were of the 
nature of root rather than of stem, we might expect to see lateral 
fibres push from them, as we do see from the true roots, 
which start out below the union. But these parts are as free 
from rootlets as any portion of the true stems above the coty- 
ledon points, indicating, as had been suggested, that their pro- 
perties were rather of stem than of root. 
December 20.—Mr. Vaux, vice-president, in the chair.—Prof. 
Leidy directed attention to a preparation of the trunk of an 
adult male subject, from the dissecting room of the University, 
in which all the viscera were reversed in tle order of their usual 
position. The heart is reversed in position with its apex directed 
to the right. The aorta descends on the right side; and the 
cave are placed on the left of the vertebral column. The liver is 
placed in the left, the spleen in the right side. The stomach is 
reversed, and the large intestine commencing in the left iliac 
region terminates in the rectum from the right side. 
December 27.—Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair.— 
Prof. Leidy called attention to an interesting geological pheno- 
menon in the vicinity of Wayne station on the Germantown Rail- 
road, about three miles from Philadelphia. At the point where 
Wayne Street cuts through a fold in the micaceous schists of this 
district, there occur huge imbedded boulders of very hard compact 
hornblende rock. The matrix of mica schist has the appearance 
of an altered argillaceous slate, and rapidly decays on exposure. 
The hornblende rocks are thus left protruding above the soil, and 
would be difficult to account for if attention had not previously 
been called to them in place. As occurring in the schist, they 
are rounded upon their corners and edges, and smooth upon the 
sides. It does not appear an improbable conjecture to suppose 
that they constituted a part of a primitive surface formation—per- 
haps the original earth crust—which was broken up before the de- 
position of the metamorphic rocks which make up the azoic 
rocks of undetermined geological age, overlying the south-eastern 
angle of Pennsylvania ; and that by steam and current actions, 
perhaps in part by glacial, they were brought into the shape of 
boulders at a time anterior to the deposition of the sedimentary 
mica schists. And it is a fact of interest in this connection that 
the highly garnetiferous mica schists of this district, are charged 
with dodecahedral garnets, which have probably belonged to pre- 
existent rocks, inasmuch as their angles and edges are rounded 
off, and the crystals reduced to an almost globular form. This 
is true of the garnets while still firmly imbedded in the mica 
schists, and applies to the garnetiferous mica schists extending 
over a wide area. 
American Philosophical Society, February 17.—Dr. 
Emerson read a paper on the Lunar Influence in its supposed 
relation to meteorological phenomena, combating views fayour- 
able to the existence of such influence. 
March 3.—Prof. Cope read a paper ‘On the occurrence of 
fossil Cobitidze in Idaho.”- -A paper by Thomas Bland was read 
