576 



NATURE 



{Oct. 14, 1S80J 



taken have been submitted to the consideration of a special 

 commission. — M. J. Parrot's paper on the development of the 

 brain in infants, considers the subject chiefly in reference to the 

 modifications of colour which the medullary substance undergoes. 

 — The present number of these BuUetiits gives M. P. Broca's 

 remarks on his "goniometre flexible," of the various parts of 

 which drawings are appended. — M. Harmand makes the inter- 

 esting communication that some Cambodian inscriptions, hitherto 

 undeciphered, have been found by Prof. Kern, of Leyden, to 

 be Sanskrit, written in Kawi and Kalinga characters. — M. 

 Vinson suggested that fixed rules should be drawn up for the 

 transcription of foreign words, and should form part of the 

 official anthropological instructions provided for travellers and 

 explorers in savage countries. His suggestion has been accepted . 

 — In addition to the article already referred to on the flexible 

 goniometer, these Bulletins contain several papers from the pen 

 of the late M. Paul Broca, which will be read with the more 

 interest as being among the last of his communications to the 

 Society ; these are his post-mortem reports of the appearances 

 presented in the thorax of a young Zulu girl, with his remarks 

 on a retrogressive anomaly in the aorta of this girl; a description 

 of the appearances of the cranium of the assassin Prevost, more 

 especially with reference to the assumed importance of the 

 protuberance between the occipital and parietal, to ^^llich 

 Gratiolet applies the term calotte, and which he regards as a 

 simian character. M. Broca considered that in the interets of 

 physical science it would be desirable that greater facilities 

 should be afforded to scientific men for obtaining the heads of 

 those who die in | ublic prisons, asylums, &c. Finally v\e liave 

 the report of M. Broca's remarks on the case of an illiterate Ixiy 

 of eleven, possesred of extraordinary powers of calculation, 

 and evincing surprising facility in extracting cube-roots. The 

 consideration of this case gave additional interest to the discus- 

 sion that had been raised at an earlier meeting, in regard to 

 Gallon's observations on the vision of serial numbers. — M. 

 Mondiere has draw n up a monograph on the women of Cochin- 

 china, in which he has embodied the results of six years' 

 laborious anthropological researches. The three races of Anna- 

 mites, Cambodians, and Chinese, of which the Cochin-china 

 population is composed, were severally studied. — M. Eertillon 

 gives the results of his comparative analysis of the. statistical 

 tables of suicides for France and Sweden. The results show 

 singular accord between the two countries, and the author con- 

 siders himself justified in maintaining that they establish the two 

 following laws : — i. That widowers commit suicide more fre- 

 quently than married men. 2. That the existence and presence 

 in the house of children diminishes the inclination to suicide both 

 in men and women. — M. Rene de Semalle gives a comparative 

 table of the mean length of the generations of mankind, based 

 on the genealogy of the reigning and other princely families in 

 Europe. P'rom these it would seem that the period of tliirty 

 years, which in common parlance is accepted as that of a genera- 

 tion, very closely corresponds with the means obtained from 

 these genealogical data. — I\I. Fonrdrignier gives the result of his 

 exploration of the double tumuli found at Thuizy, near Rheims, 

 among a large number of other graves in which only cue individual 

 had been interred. Where these graves have escaped earlier 

 spoliation, the human remains and the broken fragmeuts of orna- 

 ments found in them would appear to show that the individuals 

 buried together were of different sex. M. Fonrdrignier has made 

 an interesting discovery of the several parts of two conical casques. 

 The fragments of these singular head-coverings were extracted 

 from two of the double graves, and, according to their discoverer, 

 they belong to a Gallic race of the pre-Roman period, and must 

 in form have closely resembled the modern German " Pickel- 

 haube. " 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, October 4. — M. Wurtz in the chair. 

 M. Perrier presented a Compte rendu of the determinations of 

 longitudes, latitudes, and azimuths in Africa under his direction, 

 at Geryville, Laghouat, Biskra, and Carthage in 1877 and 187S, 

 with a description of instruments and methods. In the exchange 

 of signals it was possible to calculate the mean retardation of 

 transmission of a signal along an aerial conductor, from chrono- 

 graph to chronograph, for distances comprised between 414 km. 

 and 1,236 km. The mean velocity of propagation was found 

 about 40,000 km. At this rate an electric signal would go 

 round the earth in a second. — Military and geographical explo- 



ration of the region comprised between the Upper Senegal and 

 the Niger, by M. Perrier. A Government expedition under 

 Commandant Desbordes was to start on the 5th, Commandant 

 Derrien having charge of the topographical department. They 

 go to St. Louis, and make their way to Bafoulabe, at the con- 

 fluence of the Bafing and the Bakhoy. Here they construct 

 their first fort, and organise escorts and convoy, with a view to 

 a general triangulation of the region between Bafoulabe on the 

 Senegal, and Dina and Bamakou on the Niger. The railway 

 contemplated would run from Medina, by Bafoulabe and 

 Fangalla, to the Niger. — Order of appear.ance of the first vessels 

 in the spike of Lepturus snliulalus, by M. Trecul. — M. de Lesseps 

 pre-sented the " Bimensual bulletin of the Inter-oceanic Canal" 

 for September. — On utilisation of the crystals of lead-chambers, 

 by MAf. Girard and Pabst. The crystals offer an abundant and 

 economical source of nitrous acid, and the authors have been 

 able to prepare .on a large scale, the dinitric bodies, amidoazo- 

 benzol and nitroalizarine, by making the nitroso-sulphuric acid 

 act on the corresponding amidised derivatives, or aniline 

 and alizarine. But the crystals can only be employed in 

 presence of a quantity of sulphuric or nitric acid (preferably 

 the former) sufficient to prevent their decomposition by water. — 

 Observations of Faye's comet made at the Observatory of 

 Florence - Arcetri, by M. Tempel. — On some Ihermometric 

 questions, by M. Crafts. It is very probable tliat the least 

 change of volume of a thermometer is accompanied by a change 

 of the coefficient of dilatation. — On the decomposition of salts 

 by liquids, by M. Ditte. The laws of dissociation by heat 

 which apply to decomposition of salts by pure water and by 

 saline or acid solutions, apply also to decomposition by alcohols, 

 and probably in general to decompositions of salts by the wet 

 way, whatever the solvent. — On the physiological action of 

 Coniuni macutatum, by M. Eochefontaine. Conine diminishes 

 or abolishes the physiological properties of the nervous centres 

 before acting like curare on the " nervo-muscular junctive sub- 

 stance " (Vulpian). In the dog and frog it at length abolishes 

 the nei-vous excito-motricity if given in sufficient quantity, and it 

 is fatal for batrachians as well as for mammalia. Hemlock then 

 may act like curare, but it has additional physiological effects. — 

 Floral dimorphism and staminal petalody observed in Convolvulus 

 arvc'nsis, L. ; artificial production of this latter monstrosity, by 

 M. Heckel. Petalody is the effect of direct fertilisation long 

 continued. The autogamic process in plants as in animals (but 

 in a longer period with the former) has the result of altering the 

 organs of reproduction and leadmg to absolute infertility. 



CONTENTS Pace 



The Indian Famine Commission 55.; 



Gamgee's '* Physiological Chemistry." By Dr. M. Foster, 



F.R.S S5S 



Peat-Mosses 556 



Our Book Shelf: — 



Lunn's "Vox Populi " 556 



Angel's " Practical Plane Geometry .-md Projeclion for Science 



Classes, Schools, and Colleges " 557 



Betti's " Teorica delle Forze Newtoniane e sui Applicazioni all' 



Elettrostattica e al Magnetismo " 557 



Schubert's " Kalkiil der Abiahlenden Geometrie" 557 



Letters to the Editor: — 



The Spectrum of Hartwig's Comet.— W. H. M. Christie . . . 557 



WireTorsion.— Major J. Herschel, F.R.S 557 



The Magnetic Storm.— G. M. Whipple 558 



Coral Reefs and Islands. — Prof. Joseph LsConte 55S 



Geological Climates.— Dr. P. Martin D17NCAN, F.R.S S59 



The Yang-tse, the Yellow River, and the Pei-ho.— T. Mell.\rd 



Reade .. 559 



Miller's Elements of Chemistry— Part III. Organic Chemistry. — 



Prof. Henry E. Armstrong. F.R.S 559 



Swiss Chalets. — H. N. Moseley 559 



Spectra of the Brocken at Home. — J. Innes Rogers 559 



Ice under Pressure.— C. A. M 559 



Mr. Haddon's Marine-Zoology Class.— Alfred C. Haddon . . 560 



Landslips.— Thos. Ward 560 



Liquefaction of Ozone 560 



The University of New Zealand 5^0 



Doctored Wines 5<3J 



Multiple Spectra, III. By J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. (fT/M 



lUnstratioJJs) '562 



William Lassbll, LL.D., F.R.S. By Dr. William Huggins, 



F.R.S 5«5 



Notes 5^7 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Hartwig's Comet 569 



Geographical Notes 569 



Prof. Asaph Hall on the Progress of Astronomy ,s7o 



Science in Norway S74 



Spectroscopic Investigations. By G. Ciamician 575 



University and Educational In 

 Scientific Serials ... 

 Societies and Academies 



