504 



NA TURE 



[March 24, 1887 



author regarding the presence of foreign substances in didymium, 

 as revealed by its absorption-spectra. Some of these bodies 

 may possibly be diverse combinations of the same with another 

 substance or with itself, such combinations being so stable that 

 it has hitherto been impossible to transform one into the other. 

 — On the specific heat of a salt-solution, by M. P. Duhem. The 

 method employed by the author to find the expression of the 

 heat of solution is here shown to lead also to the expression of 

 the specific heat of a salt-solution. — On a standard pile, by M. 

 Gouy. The author describes a convenient standard of electro- 

 motor force, formed with zinc, sulphate of zinc, mercury, and 

 dioxide of mercury. — Researches on the application of rotatory 

 force to the study of certain compounds produced in the solu- 

 tions of tartaric acid, by M. D. Gernez. — On a general method 

 of forming the manganites from the permanganates, by M. G. 

 Rousseau. The metallic permanganates are transformed to 

 manganates at a temperature ranging from loo' to 150° C., and 

 as the law of decomposition here formulated is applicable to the 

 compounds of the whole series, it is proposed as a general 

 method for obtaining most of the metallic manganates. — On the 

 reticulated structure of the protoplasm of the Infusoria, by M. 

 Fabre-Domergue. 



Berlin 

 Physiological Society, February 25. — Prof. Munk in the 

 chair. — The President communicated two treatises sent, for 

 publication in the Proceedings of the Society, by Prof. 

 Kronecker, of Berne. In the first, Prof. Kronecker had, in con- 

 junction with Fraulein Popoff, examined the formation of serous 

 albumen in the intestinal canal. As reagents they made use of 

 the hearts of frogs and tortoises, void of blood, which were 

 stimulated to contraction only when blood or a solution of serous 

 albumen was poured through them, but under every other albu- 

 minous or saline solution remained inactive. .Stomachic peptone 

 was incapable of nourishing the heart. When, however, the 

 peptone was kept for some time in the stomach or in an intestinal 

 coil connected with the mesentery, then it acted on the heart in 

 the same way as did serous albumen. Pancreatic peptone was 

 incapable, either of itself or after remaining in the stomach or 

 the intestine, of stimulating the heart to contraction ; by ex- 

 posure for a considerable time to the air, the peptone likewise 

 became nutritious to the heart. — In the second treatise, containing 

 an investigation by Prof. Kronecker and Fraulein Rink, it was 

 demonstrated that in peptone solution two kinds of Bacteria are 

 developed in the presence of air : BarAUiis rcstiiticns, which trans- 

 formed the peptone into serous albumen, exactly in the same way 

 as did the living mucous membrane of the stomach ; and Bacillus 

 -jirescens, which liquefied the alimentary gelatine and imparted 

 a deep blue colouring to all sterilised substrata when exposed to 

 the air. This latter Bacillus operated poisonously on the heart. 

 — Dr. Benda spoke of the function of the cross-striped muscle 

 substance. By anatomical investigation of the muscles of the 

 river crayfish he had arrived at the conviction that it was only 

 the cross striped substance which generated the contraction, 

 while it was in the highest deg .ee probable that the protoplasm 

 discharged the ofhce of mediation between the ends of the 

 motory nerves and the contractile substance. — Prof, Ewald 

 described some comparative experiments performed on three 

 patients to ascertain the amount of nourishment with different 

 commercial peptones, with eggs, and with eggs to which were 

 added pepsine and hydrate of chlorine. The nutritive fluids 

 were supplied per enema, and the individually very changeable 

 nitrogenous transpositions were determined by careful analyses 

 of the ingesta and egesta. 



Meteorological Society, March I. — Prof, von Bezold in 

 the chair. — Dr. Kremser communicated the results of an in- 

 vestigation into the variability of atmospheric temperature in 

 Germany. Variability he understood, in accordance with 

 Hann's definition, to be the difference between the mean tem- 

 perature on two consecutive days. Such variability v/as found 

 by Dr. Kremser to attain its greatest magnitude in the moun- 

 tains and in the eastern provinces, and its least range along the 

 coasts of the Baltic and North sea, and on the islands. The 

 maximum was in the Riesengebirge, 4°'3 F., the minimum on 

 the islands of the North Sea, 2°'3. If the monthly means were 

 arranged in chronological sequence for the year, there was pre- 

 sented an annual march of temperature with a chief maximum in 

 December and a secondary in June. The variability of tem- 

 perature at each of the different hours, 6 a.m., 2 p.m., and 



— OnO 

 (Baill 



10 p.m., yielded values differing from those of the variability of 

 the daily means of temperature. Yet the yearly march of varia- 

 bility of each of the different hours already specified was similar 

 to the yearly march of variability of the daily means. The 

 gre.itest change of temperature affecting an individual period of 

 twenty-four hours was observed in Clausen, amounting to 

 68° F. In Berlin, the greatest change to which the same 

 period was liable was 24° 7 ; in Munich it was 3o'''6. A 

 variability of i8''o affecting a period of twenty-four hours 

 might be expected in the course of a year in the east and south, 

 but along the North Sea coast only in a period of three years. As 

 the basis for the above conclusions, Dr. Kremser had made use of 

 the observations of ten years. 



BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, and SERIALS RECEIVED 



Gairloch : J. H. Dixon (Edinburgh).— Cat.iIogue of Siw.-ilik Vertebrata 

 contained in the Geological Department of the Indian Museum, Calcutta ; 

 part I, Mammaha ; part 2, Aves, Reptilia, and Pisces : R. Lydekker (Calcutta). 

 — Catalogue of Pleistocene and Prehistoric Vertebrata contained in the Geo- 

 logical Department of the Indian Museum, Calcutta : R. Lydekker (Cal- 

 cutta). — Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. Palsontologia Indica. 

 ser. xiii. Salt Range Fossils : W. Waagen ; ser. xii. The Fussil Flora of the 

 Uondwana System, vol. iv. part 2, The Fossil Flora of some of the Coal- 

 Fields in Western Bengal : O. Feistmantel {Tx\ihr\ts\—Challettgtr Reports, 

 vol. xviii., 3 parts.— Science of Thought: F. Max Miiller (Longmans).— Le 

 ■ ni Telluriche il Terremoto del 23 Febbraio, 1887 (Roux, Torino), 

 -work and Premature Mental Decay, 4th edition : C H. F. Routh 

 , Tindall, and Cox). — Geobgical History of Lake Lahontan: J. C. 

 Russell (Washington) — Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. 

 Louis, vjl. iv. No. 4 (St. Louis) —Proceedings of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, vol. x.xiii. No. 124 (Philadelphia).— Essentials of Histology. 

 2nd edition: E. A. Scbafer (Longmans). — Natural History Transactions of 

 Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, vol. viii. part 2 

 (Williams and Norgate). — Verhandlungen des deutschen Wissenschaft- 

 lichen vereins zu Santiago, 3 Hefc (Valparaiso).— A Plea for a Mid- 

 land University : H. W Crosskey (Cornish, Birmingham). - Proceedings of 

 the .Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, part 3, October to Decem- 

 ber 1886 (Philadelphia).— American Naturalist, January (Lippincott). — 

 Annalen der Physik und Chem,e, No. 4, 1S57 ; BeiblStter der Physik und 

 Chemie, No. 2. 1887 (Barth, Leipzig). 



CONTENTS PAGE 



The Necessity for a Minister of Education . . . 481 

 Rosenbusch's "Petrography." By Dr. Frederick 



H. Hatch, Geological Survey of Great Britain . . . 482 



Loch Creran 484 



Our Book Shelf :— 



" The Encyclopaidic Dictionary " 485 



Ratte : " Descriptive Catalogue of the General Collec- 

 tion of Minerals in the Australian Museum "... 485 

 Letters to the Editor : — 



West Indian Meteorological Confederation. — Max- 

 well Hall, Jamaica Government Meteorologist 485 

 Units of VVeight, Mass, and Force. — Prof. A. G. 



GreenhiU 486 



Mr. Herbert Spencer's Definition of Life. — F. 



Howard Collins 487 



An Equatorial Zone of almost Perpetual Electrical 



Discharge. — Hon. Ralph Abercromby .... 487 



Scorpion Vims.— Sir J. Fayrer. K.C.S.I., F.R.S. 488 

 The Relation of Tabasheer to Mineral Substances. 



By Prof. John W. Judd, F.R.S. (Illiistrcitcl) . , 488 



Exhibition of Marine Meteorological Instruments 491 



Geography at the Universities 492 



Professor Huxley on the Organisation of Industrial 



Education 493 



August Wilhelm Eichler 493 



Notes 494 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Researches on the Diameter of the Sun 496 



Comet 1887 b (Brooks, January 22) 496 



Minor Planet No. 262 497 



Harvard College Observatory 497 



Astronomical Phenomena for the Week 1887 



March 27 — April 2 497 



Geographical Notes 497 



Sunlight Colours. By Capt. W. de W. Abney, R.E., 



F.R.S. {Illustrated) 49^ 



University and Educational Intelligence 501 



Societies and Academies 5°' 



Books, Pamphlets, and Serials Received 504 



