•i6 



NATURE 



[February 27, 1913 



and indicates the need of better prospects for tlie 

 educational services and of liaving expert guidance at 

 every turn. The paper recommends also that primary 

 and secondary education should be more practical, and 

 that provision should be made in India for higher 

 education and research. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, February 20.— Sir .A.rchibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair. — Prof. H. E. Arm- 

 strong, M. S. Benjamin, and E. Horton : Studies on 

 enzyme action. XIX., Urease : a selective enzyme. 

 II., Observations on accelerative and inhibitive agents. 

 —Prof. C. S. Sherrington : Nervous rhythm arising 

 from rivalry betv.een antagonistic reflexes ; refle.x 

 stepping as outcome of double reciprocal innervation. 

 The paper is in continuation of work on the reciprocal 

 innervation of symmetrical muscles — work recently 

 communicated to tlie society. The observations have 

 been almost wholly upon the decerebrate preparation. 

 The symmetrical muscles used in the present experi- 

 ments have been the extensors of the right and left 

 knee. It is sliown that taking an afferent nerve which 

 pioduces steady reflex excitation of the muscle, and 

 another which produces steady reflex inhibition of the 

 muscle, it is possible by stimulating both nerves con- 

 currently to obtain regularly rhythmic contractions 

 and rela.xations of the two muscles, the rhythm being 

 about 2 per second. — Dr. H. E. Roaf : The liberation 

 of ions and the oxygen tension of tissues during 

 activity (preliminary communication). The com- 

 bination x'Vg I AgCl I Muscle I Ringer-Solution | HgCI | Hg 

 shows an increased negative charge on the silver 

 when the muscle contracts. The combination 

 Pt I MnO„ I Muscle | Ringer Solution [ HgCl | Hg shows 

 an increased positive charge on the platinum when 

 the muscle contracts. This result must be due to an 

 increase in hydrogen ions. The combination Pt ] 

 Muscle I Ringer Solution | HgCl | Hg can be used as 

 an indicator of the oxygen tension in contracting 

 muscle. — W. Cramer and J. Lochhead : Contributions 

 to the biochemistry of growth. The glycogen content 

 of the liver of rats bearing malignant new growths. 

 Glycogen disappears more rapidly from the liver of 

 tumour-bearinc rats than from the liver of a normal 

 rat.— Prof. T. G. Brodie and J. J. Mackenzie: Changes 

 in the glomeruli and tubules of the kidney accompany- 

 ing activity. 



Geological Society, February 5.— Dr. Aubrey Str.ihan, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Dr. A. M. Davies 

 and I. Pringle : Two deep borings at Calvert Station 

 (North Buckinghamshire), and the Palaeozoic floor 

 north of the Thames. The two borings are about 

 370 yards apart in a due east-and-west direction. The 

 eastern boring gives the following section : — 

 Altitude of Surface = about 290 O.D. 



Thickness 

 Soil 4 O 



Oxford Clay — Ornatum Zone 



Non-sec]uencc. 

 Forest Marble 



Non-sequence. 

 Great Oolite 



Non-sequence. 

 Chipping Norton Limestones 



Non-sequence. 

 Lias — Domerian, Algovianum Zone 

 (o Cha-'mouthian, Jameson! Zone 



Lnconformity. 

 Lower Tremadoc — Sliincton Shal"S 



38 



NO. 2261, VOL. 90] 



I -,98 



— R. W. Hooley : The skeleton of Ornithodestnus 

 latideiis, an Ornithosaur from the Wealden Shales of 

 Atherfield (Isle of Wight). The bones were obtained 

 j from blocks recovered from the sea after being washed 

 from a huge fall of the Wealden Shales. Portions of 

 the skeleton missing in the Atherfield specimens are 

 supplemented by bones in the British Museum (Natural 

 History), No. R/176, upon which the late Prof. H. G. 

 Seeley founded the genus. There are remarkable 

 peculiarities in the skull which isolate it from all 

 known families. The wonderfiU preservation of the 

 bones enables the mechanism of the skull, joints, and 

 movements of the limbs to be described. The paper 

 deals with .the morphology, and institutes comparisons 

 with other types. The evidence proves that it is 

 necessary to form a new family, and that Ornitho- 

 desmus has descended front a suborder which should 

 include Scaphognathus and Dimorphodon. 



Physical Society, February 14. — Prof. A. Schuster, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Prof. G. H. Bryan: 

 The dynamics of pianoforte touch. The autho:' dis- 

 cussed HelnMioltz's and Kaufmann's theories of the 

 vibrations of a pianoforte wire excited by impact, with 

 special refer.'nce to the effects obtainable with the 

 modern pneuniatical piano-players and player-pianos, 

 and the common widespread belief that these ca.i 

 never reproduce the touch of the human fingers. 



Royal Meteorological Society, February 19. — iNIr. 

 C. J. P. Cave, president, in the chair. — W. H. 

 Robinson : Periodical variations of tlte velocity of the 

 wind at Oxford. The author dealt with the annua! and 

 diurnal changes in the velocity of the wind as recorded 

 at the Radcliffe Observatory during the last fifty 

 years. The average monthly values show that there 

 is a rapid fall in the velocity of the wind between 

 March and June, and an equally rapid rise between 

 September and December. The minimum is in Sep- 

 tember. ■ There is a range in the annual variation of 

 three or four miles per hour. On comparing the wind 

 velocity with the mean monthly temperatures of the 

 air the author finds that an increase (or decrease) of 

 one mile per hour in tlie velocity of the wind corre- 

 sponds to a fall (or rise) in the temperature of about 

 8° F. As regards the diurnal oscillations, the wind 

 increases its velocity with an accession cf warmth, 

 and decreases with a lowering temperature, this oeing 

 the inverse of that found in the discussion of the 

 annual \-ariation. — J. S. Dines : Rate of ascent of pilot 

 balloons. The author described some experiments which 

 he had made in the large airship shed at the Royal 

 .-Aircraft Factory, Farnborough, with the view of deter- 

 mining' the rate of ascent of small pilot balloons of 

 the type which he has used for the past two years 

 in his work for the Advisory Committee for Aero- 

 nautics. — W. L. Balls : Meteorolosrical conditions in a 

 field crop. The author described the methods which 

 he had adopted for ascertaining the temperature, 

 the humidity, and the force of the wind on the surface 

 of the soil in a field of cotton at Giza. The growth 

 of the cotton plant in Egypt is usually completely 

 arrested by sunshine during the greater part of the 

 day, through the severe water loss necessitated by 

 thermo-regulation of the internal temperature, and 

 growth, during most of the season, is thus confined 

 to the hours of darkness. The usual limiting factor 

 of this ."rowth durins? the night is the temperature 

 of the tissues — roughly, the air temperature, with 

 slight modification by clouds; thus any cause making 

 for a rise in temperature at night involves a higher 

 growth-rate in consequence; this in its turn, in the 

 earlv part of the season at least, implies more rapid 

 development of the flowering branches, bringing 

 about earlier appearance and more rapid accumulation 

 of the flowers, and hence of the crop. 



