454 



NATURE 



[December 19, 1912 



W. H Voung : (i) Derivatives and their primitive 

 functions. (2) Functions and their associated sets of 

 points. 



Royal Astronomical Society, December 13. — Dr. F. W. 

 Dyson, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Prof. H. H. 

 Turner : Note on a new similarity between the varia- 

 tions of S Persei and of sun-spots. Prof. Schuster had 

 shown that besides the well-known eleven-year period 

 of sun-spots there are several other periods, viz. 4'77, 

 8' 17, and perhaps one of i3'4S years; these seemed 

 to be submultiples of a master period of 33I years. 

 Prof. Turner had previously found a similar asso- 

 ciation of periodicities in the light curve of S Persei, 

 which showed three independent periods, corresponding 

 to sun-spot periods of 8'i7, iri3, and 33'38 years. The 

 subject had now been more fully investigated, and 

 satisfactory accordances obtained. In the discussion 

 Prof. Schuster spoke of the sun-spot periods as 4'8, 

 i3'5, II, 8'3, and 48 years. Mr. Maunder and Father 

 Cortie both doubted if these periods (with the excep- 

 tion of the I i-year) were more than mere arithmetical 

 periods, having no real existence. — C. R. d'Esterre : 

 Note on some observations of the region around the 

 star clusters H v 33, 34 Persei. K series of photographs 

 were taken with a 15-in. reflector with a view to 

 answer the question, "What happens from night to 

 night amongst the minute stars which form the 

 general background of the Milky Way? " This led to 

 the special selection of the well-known clusters in 

 Perseus. The photographs were shown on the screen, 

 and the results, in the discovery of new and variable 

 stars, were described. — F. J. M. Stratton : Preliminary 

 note on the later spectrum of Nova Gemi- 

 norum. No. 2. Photographs shown on the 

 screen gave the spectrum of the star — then of 

 the eighth magnitude — and comparison spectrum 

 on the same plate. — Prof. A. Fowler : Observations of 

 the principal and other series of lines in tiie spectrum 

 of hydrogen. The principal and sharp series of lines 

 of hvdrogen were observed by passing a strong dis- 

 charge through a mixture of hydrogen and helium. 

 Four members of the principal and three of the sharp 

 series were identified, and their wave-lengths deter- 

 mined. They were found in satisfactory agreement 

 with the corresponding lines in nebulae and bright-line 

 stars, &c. A second principal series was discovered, 

 the first line of which was at wave-length 3203'30, the 

 lines converging to the same limit as the first principal 

 series. 



Dublin. 

 Royal Dublin Society, November 26. — Mr. R. Lloyd 

 Praeger in the chair. — Prof. J. Wilson : Unsound 

 Mcndelian developments, especially as regards the 

 presence and absence theory. The purpose of the 

 paper was. to show that the presence and absence 

 theory is unsound, that it leads to erroneous results, 

 and that ordinarv Mendelian formulae sufifice to deal 

 with phenomena to which that theory has been applied. 

 The theory originated in a misapprehension of experi- 

 mental data. It was taken that when rose and single 

 combs, and pea and single were mated, and the second 

 crosses were rose and single, on one hand, and pea 

 and single on the other in the ratio 3 : i, the rose and 

 pea combs were each the result of only one factor for 

 each. It is shown in the paper that at least two 

 factors are concerned in the production of roseness, on 

 one hand, and peaness on the other, and that each of 

 these two kinds of comb carries the results of at least 

 four factors. The theory, as usually stated, is open 

 to two interpretations. The usual interpretation is 

 that a dominant factor is the cause of the 

 dominant character, while the absence of the 

 dominant factor is the cause of the recessive character. 

 A cause which is absent is thus stated to have effect. 

 NO. 2251, VOL. 90] 



But the absence of the dominant factor is really the 

 cause of the absence of the dominant character, not 

 the cause of the presence of the recessive. — A. L. 

 Fletcher : A refined method of obtaining sublimates. 

 The paper was a preliminary communication on an 

 improved method of dry analysis. A support of elec- 

 tric arc carbon is enclosed in a sublimation chamber 

 with removable silica or porcelain cover-plates, and 

 is heated electrically. The advantages are the high 

 temperature range possible and the facility with which 

 high temperature work may be carried on in atmo- 

 spheres other than air with the production of dis- 

 tinctive sublimates. The sublimation of certain sub- 

 stances on to existing deposits of iodine produces dis- 

 tinctive iodides on contact. A table was appended 

 containing descriptions of sublimates obtained upon 

 glass in air in sulphuretted hydrogen and on the 

 iodine plate. It is possible to obtain, amongst others, 

 deposits from vanadium, chromium, manganese, and 

 iron. — A. L. Fletcher : The melting points of minerals. 

 .\ short discussion of the principle of the meldometer 

 was followed by a description of the methods followed 

 in calibration. The facilities presented by the meldo- 

 meter in the examination of very small quantities of 

 substances were pointed out. Such are colour change, 

 chemical change, reactions, fluxes. A table of the 

 approximate melting points and behaviour at high 

 temperatures of sixty of the rarer minerals was ex- 

 hibited, together with a comparison of fusion tem- 

 peratures arrived at on the meldometer and by non- 

 subjective methods. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, December 2. — Sir William Turner, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair. — Sir William Turner : 

 The right whale of the North Atlantic, Balaena bis- 

 cayensis. its skeleton described and compared with 

 that of the Greenland right whale, Balaena mysliccfus. 

 The description was based upon a specimen which 

 had been presented to the Royal Scottish Museum 

 by the manager of the sealing station on the west 

 coast of Harris. This species of whale had been 

 captured bv Basque fishermen as early as the 

 thirteenth century. It was believed to have become 

 extinct during the eighteenth century, but in 1854 a 

 specimen was caught off San Sebastian in Spain. 

 Anatomical features showed that it was identical with 

 Balaena australis, the whale of the Antarctic seas. 

 As it is quite unknown in intermediate regions, it 

 formed a good example of what has been called 

 bipolaritv. — Prof. A. H. Gibson : The loss of energy 

 at oblique impact of two confined streams of water. 

 The loss was shown to be expressible in the form 

 aV + hv-, where V and v are the speeds of water in 

 the main pipe and the inlet pipe respectively. The 

 coefficients a and b, which are constant for any one 

 pair of pipes, depend on the areas of section and on 

 the angle at which the one pipe meets the other. It 

 was found that the loss was least for a particular 

 combination of area and angle. — Dr. J. Ritchie : The 

 hvdroid zoophvtcs collected bv the British Antarctic 

 exnedition of Sir E. Shackleton, 1908.— Prof. D. Hep- 

 burn : Observations on the anatomy of the Weddell 

 seal (Scottish National Antarctic expedition). Part IV. 

 The brain. Among other results it was found that 

 the adult brain has preserved and presents an early 

 embrvonic stage in which the lateral limbs of the 

 fissure of Svlvius are held wide open by the failure 

 of the opercula to conceal the insula. — Dr. H. A. 

 Haig : Thp central nervous system of the Weddell seal 

 (Scottish National .^ntarctic expedition). The general 

 conclusion come to was that, both in its anatomy 

 and in its histology, the Weddell seal showed some 

 features which were retrogressive, and others which 

 placed it at a much higher stage from the point of 

 view of evolution. 



