March 17, 1887] 



NA TURE 



477 



UNIVERSITY AXD EDUCA TIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Cambrtdge.— Mr. S. H. Vines, M.A., D.Sc. Lond., K.R.S., 

 and Prof. J. H. Poynting, M.A., have been approved for the 

 degree of Doctor in Science. 



Fortim:itely for research in jiathology, the opposition to the 

 acceptance of the John Lucas Walker Studentship proved 

 abortive, and it w as accepted by a majority of nearly five to one 

 last Thursday. 



Dr. Michael Foster, Sec. R.S., has been appointed the Uni- 

 versity representative on the Council of the Marine Biological 

 Association till the next annual meeting of the Association. 



The following Entrance Scholarships and Exhibitions in 

 Natural Science will be open for competition in the coming 

 sunnier : — Downing College : Natural Science, June I, 50/. per 

 annum ; Peterhouse : Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics, 40/. 

 to 63/. per annum ; date to be announced in June ; non-Col- 

 legiate students : Physical Science, July, in connection with 

 Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Hoard, 50 guineas 

 [ler annum for three years, tenable at Oxford or Cambridge, 

 open to non-Collegiate students of not more than one term 

 standing, or to persons not yet in residence. Apply to the Rev. 

 F. G. Howard, Cambridge. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Anierkan jfournal of Mathematics, vol. ix. No. 2, January. 

 — The number opens with a continuation of Mr. Greenhill's 

 memoir, wave-motion in hydrodynamics, in which is discussed 

 wave-motion in the following cases : § 21, across a channel 

 with sides sloping at any angle ; § 22, against a uniformly- 

 sloping shore ; § 24, in a cone ; § 25, in a cylinder ; and § 23 

 contains an algebraical solution of waves against a shore. — Prof. 

 Sylvester's lectures on the theory of reciprocants give notes of 

 lectures xvii. to xxiv., with an extract from a letter of M. 

 Halphen in which the existence of invariants in general is esta- 

 blished a priori ; this is given as introductory to the theory of 

 differential invariants. — A memoir in the theory of numbers, by 

 A. S. Hathaway, contains an historical introduction of interest. 

 The second part considers fundamental principles and defini- 

 tions, then a problem and the consequences of its solution, and 

 then turns the question of ideal solution of the problem into the 

 question of the establishment of a given theory of ideals; the 

 demonstrations are left for the reader to supply. The third 

 part is occupied with a rigorous establishment of the theory of 

 ideals indicated in the second part. — The next paper, on a 

 theorem respecting the singularities of curves of multiple curva- 

 ture, by H. B. Fine, is a generalisation of a portion of a previous 

 paper (vol. viii. No. 2) by the same writer. — The number closes 

 with two short notes — one on pencils of conies, by H. D. 

 Thompson (let the eight points in which a conic intersects a 

 'juartic be divided into two groups of four, and a conic be 

 passed through each group : the two residual — four-point — 

 groups lie on a conic ; an exceptional case in Cayley's theorem, 

 which had been overlooked by the author, is mentioned and 

 references given to where it is discussed) ; the other consists of 

 observatims on the generating functions of the theory of 

 invariants, by Capt. P. A. Macmahon. 



Notfs from the Leyden Museum, edited by Dr. F. A. 

 Jentink, vol. ix. No. i, January 1887, contains, among other 

 memoirs, the following : — J. Buttikofer, on a collection of birds 

 made in the highlands of P,adang, in West Sumatra, by Dr. C. 

 Klaesi. This paper gives details of 189 birds in this collection, 

 and is prefaced by a short history of the various published 

 accounts of the birds of Sumatra from the first memoir by .Sir 

 .Stamford Raffles in 1822. The only new species described is a 

 swifl (Flirundinapus klaesii). — Dr. R. Horst, descriptions of 

 earthworms. Describes as new a gigantic earthworm from a 

 cofTee-plantation in Sumatra, Mjniligaster houtcnii ; and also 

 from the same country, Rhinodrilus tenkatei, n.sp. — Dr. Th. 

 W. van Lidth Jeude, on a collection of reptiles and fishes from 

 the West Indies. Describes three new lizards and a new fish 

 taken during the Dutch Expedition to the West Indies. — There 

 .are also ten papers on new or little-known insects. 



Rendieonti del R. htitttto Lombardo. — -Results of the observa- 

 tions made by Dr. M. Kajna at the Brera Observatory on the 

 diurnal oscillations of magnetic declination during the year 

 1886, commun'cated by E. G. V. Schiaparelli. These obser- 

 vations were taken as in previous years at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., 



the diurnal variation being obtained by determining the difter- 

 ence in time between the two periods. The monthly averages 

 thus determined and tabulated show for the whole year a mean 

 of 6'72. 



Bulletin de VAcademie Royale de Belgique, January. — On 

 some curious effects of molecular forces in contact with a solid 

 and a liquid, by G. Van der Mensbrugghe. Some experiments 

 are described tending to illustrate the expansive force possessed 

 by the contact layer between a solid and a liquid, and the exist- 

 ence of which the author claims to have been the first to demon- 

 strate. — On Fermat's last theorem, by P. Mansion. It is shown 

 that, if there exist integers x, y, 2, verifying Fermat's relation 

 X" -\- y" = z", where x <}/ < z, then not only the middle term, y, 

 as shown by de Jonquieres, but also the largest, z, and the smallest, 

 X, are compound numbers. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 

 Royal Society, March 3. — "Preliminary Note on a 

 B.^lanoglossus Larva from the Bahamas." By W. F. R. 

 Weldon. 



A preliminary account was given of the degradation of a Balano- 

 glossus larva, found during the latter half of last year in the 

 deep waters round the Bahama-. Up to the period of the 

 development of a pair of gill-slits, this larva resembled, except 

 in its pelagic habit, the larva found in Carolina by Bateson. 

 After this stage, degradation set in, resulting in the atrophy of 

 the two posterior pairs of body cavities, and the reduction of that 

 in the prsoral lobe : the gills and notochord, together with the 

 greater part of the nervous system, disappeared, and the trunk 

 diminished in size. The result was a bell-shaped creature, with 

 a large prajoral lobe, on the sides of which was developed a 

 curious arrangement of tentaculiferous grooves. The alimentary 

 canal remained functional, but the creature gradually shrivelled 

 up, and (probably) died. 



" Studies of some New Micro-Organisms obtained from Air." 

 By G. C. Frankland and Dr. Percy F. Frankland. 



In previous communications to the Royal Society by one of 

 the authors,' details have been given of a number of experi- 

 ments on the presence of micro-organisms in the atmosphere. 

 In these investigations a solid culture medium was employed, 

 which not only greatly faciliiated their enumeration, but also 

 presented them in an isolated condition. In this manner the 

 authors have met with a number of different varieties of aerial 

 micro-organisms, which have hitherto remained either unknown 

 or undescribed. They have therefore undertaken the character- 

 isation of a number of these organisms by growing them in 

 various cultivating media and observing the different appearances 

 which they subsequently exhibit, by studying them microscopic- 

 ally in stained and unstained preparations, and by cultivating 

 them on gelatine-plates, and describing the colonies to which 

 they give rise. They have likewise made a number of drawings 

 to illustrate the appearances which they present under the various 

 examinations to which they have submitted them. To farther 

 facilitate their identification the authors have provisionally given 

 them names, by which they have endeavoured to represent some 

 of their most striking individualities. 



The authors venture to hope that by thus characterising some 

 of the organisms most prevalent in the atmosphere, they may 

 prove of assistance in those investigations which have for their 

 object the study of the particular physiological changes which 

 are brought about by specific micro-organisms. 



The following is a list of the micro-organisms described : — 

 Micrococcus carnicolor B.acillus plicatus 



,, albus ,, chlorinus 



>, g'g^s " polymorphus 



,, chryseus ,, profusus 



,, candicans ,, pestifer vermicularis 



Streptococcus Hquefaciens ,, subtilis minor 



Sarcina Hquefaciens ,, subtilis cereus 



Bacillus aurescens siccus Saccharomyces rosaceus 



,, aureus ,, Hquefaciens 



,, citreus Mycelium fuscum. 



' (i) " The Distribution of Micro-Organisms in Air." Roy. Soc. Proc. 

 vol. xl.p. S09; (2) " A New Method for the Quantitative Estimation of the 

 Micro-Organisms present in the Atmosphere," Hid. vol. xli. p. 443 ; (3) 

 " Further Experiments on thej Distribution of Micro-Organisms in Air by 

 Hesse's method," iltiii. p. 446. 



