May 6, 1915| 
NATURE 
279) 

raja Bahadur of Darbhanga, 3 out of 5 lakhs; and one 
lakh from each of the {tollowing—the Maharao 
of Kotah, Dr. Rash Behari Ghose, Dr. Sundar Lal, 
the Maharaja of Casimbazar, Babu Bijendra K. R. 
Chaudhri of Ghorepur, and Babu Moti Chand. The 
Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior has promised five lakhs 
of rupees and others have promised liberal donations, 
of which, in many cases, part payment has been made. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Royal Society, April 29.—Sir William Crookes, presi- 
dent, in the chair.—H. Hartridge and A. V. Hill: The 
transmission of infra-red rays by the media of the 
and other glasses, and the radiation from various light 
sources. ‘The different eye structures were found by 
the authors to absorb infra-red rays of different length 
to approximately the same extent as would a layer of 
water of the right equivalent thickness. From the 
values of the percentage absorption of water at 
different wave-length they have, therefore, calculated 
the amount of heat absorbed by cornea, iris, and lens. 
The heat absorbed by the lens was found to be too 
slight for cataracterous changes to be due to direct 
action. The condition might still be caused, as Par- 
sons suggested, by impairment in the nutrition of the 
lens brought about by the action of heat rays on the 
ciliary body and iris. Samples of Crookes’s glasses 
were tested and were found to absorb the heat 
waves strongly, and also to some extent the ultra- 
violet.—E. Beard and \W. Cramer: Surface tension and 
ferment action. The action of a ferment on a sub- 
strate is retarded or inhibited by extending the surface 
of the system in which the reaction proceeds. This 
effect has been studied in some detail in the system 
cane-sugar—invertase.—_W. Cramer: Surface tension 
as a factor controlling cell metabolism. The con- 
siderations developed in this paper are based on the 
fact demonstrated experimentally that the action of 
ferments is conditioned by surface tension. The great 
surface development in the cell and the living organism 
must therefore produce conditions which markedly 
affect the action of ferments in vivo when compared 
with their action in vitro. It is shown how the cell 
may, through the factor of surface tension, control 
and regulate its metabolism. It is thus possible to 
form a conception of the chemical organisation of the 
cell without having to assume the existence of hypo- 
thetical membranes in .the cytoplasm which are sup- 
posed to surround the different chemical systems and 
separate them from each other. Lastly, it is pointed 
out that if the conceptions formulated in this paper 
are correct, substances which are strongiy surface 
active, but which do not affect protoplasm chemically, 
should exercise a profound effect on the metabolism 
of the cell. This expectation is realised in the action 
of narcotic and cytolytic substances. 
Challenger Society, April 28.—Capt. Alfred Carpenter | 
in the chair.—Dr. G. H. Fowler: Investigations on 
drift currents in British waters.—Dr. S. F. Harmer : 
Records of Cetacea stranded on the British coasts 
during 1913 and 1914. The paper was based on an 
arrangement which had been made by the Board of 
Trade, which had issued an instruction to coastguard 
officers to report the stranding of Cetacea by telegram 
to the British Museum (Natural History). In this 
way, and aided by written reports, sketches, and 
photographs supplied by persons on the spot, much 
valuable information has been obtained, and a certain 
number of interesting specimens have been secured. 
By procuring a blade of baleen, in the case of the 
whalebone whales, or the lower jaw, in the case of 
NO. 2375, VOL. 95| 

the smaller toothed whales, it has been possible to 
determine the species in a considerable proportion of 
the records. Seventy-six records were obtained during 
1913, and fifty-seven during 1914. The outbreak ot 
war was clearly responsible for the smaller number 
during 1914. ‘the common porpoise proved to be far 
the commonest species, as might have been expected. 
Several records of the occurrence of the common 
dolphin were obtained, principally on the more ex- 
posed parts of the coast-line. Other species which 
were represented by several records were the bottle- 
nosed whale, the pilot-whale, the white-beaked 
dolphin, the bottle-nosed dolphin, Risso’s dolphin, 
the lesser rorqual, the common rorqual, and Rudolphi’s 
rorqual. The most interesting record was a Sowerby’s 
eye, the transmission of radiant energy by Crookes’s | whale, stranded at Rosslare in September, 1914. Con- 
trary to expectation, the district where strandings 
were most numerous was the coast-line of Lincolnshire 
and Norfolk, though a number of specimens were 
found on the shore of the southern counties (see 
Nature, April 15, p. 182). 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, April 26.—M. Ed. Perrier in the 
chair.—Gaston Darboux: The representation on a 
plane of the surface of the fourth order which admits 
a conic as a double curve.—G. Bigourdan : Scintilla- 
tion. Comparison with the undulations of instru- 
mental images of celestial bodies. There seems to 
be no identity between scintillation and undulations, 
as might at first sight appear probable. More quan- 
titative data are required for the undulations.—A. 
Haller and Edouard Bauer : The action of sodium amide 
on the allyldialkylacetophenones. The preparation of 
3: 5-dimethyl-3-ethyl and 3: 3-diethyl-5-methylpyrrol- 
idones.—A. Laveran: The artificial acentrosomic 
varieties of the Trypanosomes. For Tr. Evansi 
and Tr. Brucei the disappearance of the centro- 
some produced by the action of oxazine is 
permanent after three or four hundred passages 
through animals. Morphologically, this might 
be regarded as a new species, but its biological 
characters are unchanged. Animals immunised 
against trypanosomes with centrosomes have acquired 
immunity for the acentrosomic trypanosomes and in- 
versely.—J. Guillaume ; Observations of the sun made 
at the Observatory of Lyons during the fourth quarter 
of 1914. Observations were possible on fifty-eight 
days, the results of which are given in three tables 
showing the number of spots, their distribution in 
latitude, and the distribution of the facule in latitude. 
A, Perot : Variation of the wave-length of the telluric 
lines with the height of the sun. Particulars of 
measurements made with an interference spectroscope 
installed at the Observatory of Meudon. A line of 
the B group of oxygen was chosen; the wave-length 
increased from morning to noon and then decreased.— 
E. Bompiani: Laplace equations with equal invariants. 
LL. Bouchet : Electric pressures acting at the surface 
of a liquid insulating sheet. The displacements are 
very rapid for conducting liquids such as water and 
mercury, but with turpentine, vaseline oil, benzine, 
and petroleum ether there is a slow displacement. 
The instantaneous depression was deduced graphically 
and a relation established between this figure and the 
strength of the field.—Ph.- Flajolet : Perturbations of 
the magnetic declination at Lyons (Saint Genis Laval) 
during the fourth quarter of 1914.—C. Sauvageau: A 
new species of Fucus, F. dichotomus. This is distin- 
guished from F. platycarpus by its ramification and 
by the cylindrical form of its receptacles.—Jules Amar : 
Principles of professional re-education. A discussion 
of the problem of the work possible for wounded 
soldiers discharged as cured; from_the physiological 
point of view.—MM., Viallet and Dauvillier: A new 
