October 17, 1912] 



NATURE 



plied with three central tables and side benches round 

 the walls, balance slabs, and large sinks. Behind the 

 entrance lobby is a lecture-room with raised tiers to 

 accommodate fifty boys, with a demonstration bench, 

 fume cupboard, and lantern screen. The architects 

 are Messrs. Steward Smith and Hutt, of Reading, the 

 builders Messrs. Hughes, of Wokingham, and the 

 furniture has been supplied by Messrs. Baird and 

 Tatlock. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, October 7. — M. Lippmann in 

 the chair. — Maurice Hamy : An arrangement of the 

 arc with iron electrodes working with alternating 

 currents. The spark spectrum of iron, used as a 

 comparison spectrum, presents difficulties owing to 

 the variations caused bv slight changes in the experi- 

 mental conditions. The arrangement of the arc be- 

 tween iron electrodes described in the present paper 

 was designed to replace the spark as a source of the 

 iron spectrum. — Gustave Sannia : The simple char- 

 acteristics of partial differential equations with two 

 variables. — N. Saltykow : The theorv of partial 

 equations. — U. Cisotli : The movement of a solid in 

 viscous liquid. — E. Merigeatilt : The influence of the 

 velocitv of combustion on the efficiency of a gas motor. 

 — V. Auger : A new volumetric method for the estima- 

 tion of uranium. The solution is reduced with 

 metallic zinc and titrated with a standard solution of 

 a ferric salt, usine ammonium thiocyanate as indi- 

 cator. — Paul Gaubert : The nolychroism of crystals of 

 potassium sulphate artificially coloured. — Marcel 

 Mirande : The presence of hydrocyanic acid in Trifoliuni 

 repens. The presence of hydrocyanic acid, or of a 

 substance giving rise to it under the action of an 

 enzvme, was proved in the stems and leaves of this 

 plant. None was found in the roots. — C. Dhere and 

 W. de Rogowski : The absorption of the ultra-violet 

 rays by a. and 3-chlorophvlI and by crystallised chloro- 

 phyll. Pure chlorophylls are remarkably transparent 

 for the ultra-violet ravs. — Leopold Le Moult : The 

 destruction of certain Flemiptera by vegetable para- 

 sites. — M. and Mme. Pierre Delanoe : The, relations 

 between the cysts of Carini of the lung of the rat and 

 Trypanosoma le'cvisi. The authors conclude that the 

 pneumocvsts of Carini represent a new parasite of the 

 rat ; thev are not connected with Trvhanosoma lewisi. 

 — E. Foex : The " Fibrinkorper " of Zopf, and their 

 relations with the metachromatic corpuscles. 

 New South Wales. 



Linnean Society, August 28.— Mr. W. W. Froggatt, 

 president, in the chair. — G. I. Playfair: The plankton 

 of the Sydney water-supply. The Sydnev water-supply 

 is the water of the Nepean and Cataract Rivers, which 

 is impounded in the Cataract Reservoir, and thence 

 brought down, bv many miles of canal, through the 

 Prospect Reservoir to Guildford and Pott's Hill, where 

 it is filtered by being passed through a double series 

 of wire screens. These screens being periodically 

 raised and washed with a hose, the effluent from this 

 operation has been the principal source of the material 

 studied. — Allan R. McCuIloch : Descriptions and figures 

 of three young specimens of sunfish (Molacanthus) 

 from the Central Pacific Ocean. The specimens de- 

 scribed were received by the trustees of the Australian 

 Museum from Dr. Thomas D. Liddle, R.N. They 

 are onlv 9-5-13 mm. long, and were taken from the 

 stomach of a kingfish caught swimming near the 

 surface during the passage of H.M.S. Torch between 

 the EUice and Union Islands, Central Pacific, in 

 tqii. — H. J. Carter: Notes on Stigmodera, with 

 descriptions of new species and of other Buprestidje. 



NO. 2242, VOL. 90] 



Eleven species of Stigmodera are proposed as new. 

 comprising fiv'e from West Australia, four from 

 Queensland, one from New South Wales, and one 

 from Victoria. Two species of Neocuris and one of 

 Curis, all from Queensland, are also described. 



Calcutta. 

 Asiatic Society ol Bengal, September 4. — L. L. Fermor : 



Preliminary note on the origin of meteorites. As the 

 result of investigations into the conditions of formation 

 of garnets, especially with respect to pressure, the 

 author has been led to postulate the existence, below 

 the plutonic rocks of the earth's crust, of a zone of 

 rocks characterised by the abundant presence of 

 garnet!:, the garnets being the result of the high pres- 

 sures (and temperatures) existing in this zone. For 

 this zone the author proposes the term infraplutonic. 

 Armed with the conclusions thus obtained with refer- 

 ence to terrestrial rocks, the author proceeds to the 

 consideration of meteorites, in particular of the stony 

 forms known as aerolites ; he is able to offer an 

 explanation of the round bodies known as 

 choridrules, so characteristic of many stony meteorites ; 

 he shows that each chondrule was once a garnet, and 

 that the rock now represented by the chondritic 

 meteorite must have been a garnetiferous eclogite 

 situated at a considerable depth below the surface of 

 some primeval stellar body. The disruption of this 

 body was accompanied by a sudden reduction in pres- 

 sure, which caused the garnets to liquefy with increase 

 of volume. The rapidly decreasing temperature after 

 this disruption caused the rapid crystallisation of these 

 liquid drops with formation of the radiate and other 

 crystalline aggregates of enstatite and olivine (some- 

 times with glass) so characteristic of chondrules. 

 Starting from this interpretation of the chondritic 

 meteorites the author is able to refer each of the great 

 groups of meteorites to their respective positions in the 

 primitive stellar body before disruption. — Anukul 

 Chandra Sircar : A possible chemical method of distin- 

 guishing between seasoned and unseasoned teak wood. 

 The work of R. Romanis on " Certain Products from 

 Teak " has been extended with a view to determine 

 whether the composition of the resinous extracts might 

 be used as a criterion for the extent of seasoning of 

 teak wood. The results obtained by this method were 

 not encouraging, but another is indicated wherein the 

 percentage of a white, crystalline body obtained from 

 the wood by steam distillation is used as an index of 

 the amount of seasoning. 



GOTTINGEN. 



Royal Society of Sciences — The Nachrichten (physico- 

 mathematical section), parts 5 and 6 for 1912, contain 

 the following memoirs communicated to the society :■ — 



October 28, 1911. — F. Klein and M. Brendel : Mate- 

 rials for a scientific biography of Gauss, ii.. Frag- 

 ments on the theory of the arithmetico-geometric mean 

 from the years 1797-99, explained by L. Schles,inger. 



December 23, igii. — Th. von Karman : The mechan- 

 ism of the resistance experienced by a body moving 

 in a fluid. 



January 13, 1912. — L. E. J. Brouwer : The topo- 

 logical difficulties in proving the continuity of the 

 existence-theorem for one-valued reversible poly- 

 morphous functions on Riemann's surfaces. 



February 18. — L. Geiger and B. Gutenberg : Seismic 

 waves, vi.. Constitution of the interior of the earth, 

 derived from the intensity of longitudinal and trans- 

 versal seismic waves, with some observations on pro- 

 dromals. 



March 2. — G. Tammann : The dependence of crystal- 

 line form upon temperature, and on re-crystallisation 

 in conglomerates. — L. Bieberbach : Au = e" and the 

 automorphous functions. 



