374 



NA TURE 



[August 9, 1906 



According to Science, the investigation at Cornell 

 University of problems in fresh-water biology the year 

 through is made possible by a recent provision for a 

 division of limnology in the department of invertebrate 

 zoology in the University. Dr. James G. Needham, of 

 Lake Forest College, has been appointed assistant pro- 

 fessor of limnology to take charge of that work. He will 

 enter upon his duties at Ithaca in February of next year. 

 A site for a biological field station has just been selected 

 on the Renwick Lagoon at the head of Cayuga Lake. 

 The necessary station building and equipment will be pro- 

 vided in the spring. 



The calendar of Tokyo Imperial University for 1905-6, 

 ■a copy of which has just been received, shows that the 

 'total number of students enrolled in September, 1905, was 

 4517 as compared with 3771 in 1903. These students were 

 •divided among the constituent colleges as follows : — 

 XJniversity Hall, 680; College of Law, 1545; College of 

 "Medicine, 641; College of Engineering, 549; College of 

 Literature, 511; College of Science, 122; and College of 

 Agriculture, 469. The number of students at the College 

 of Science is small, probably because all scientific work of 

 an applied kind seems to be apportioned to the colleges 

 of engineering and agriculture, where such subjects as 

 applied chemistry, mining and metallurgy, and agricultural 

 chemistry are studied. The list of original scientific papers 

 published by professors and students of the University is 

 an imposing one, and fills more than forty pages of the 

 calendar. 



A COPY of the prospectus of the agricultural department 

 of Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for the 

 session 1906—7 has been received. Complete courses of 

 work are provided in all departments of agriculture and 

 forestry. The department is subsidised by the Board of 

 Agriculture and by the education committees of the four 

 northern county councils. The Northumberland County 

 Council Experimental Station is worked in connection with 

 the department under the supervision of Prof. D. A. 

 Gilchrist. A special laboratory and the entire use of a 

 byre for ten cows are available, at the Durham County 

 Council Dairy Station, for daily research work. By an 

 arrangement with H.M. Office of Woods, the Chopwell 

 Woods, which extend to about 900 acres, are now placed 

 under the control of the department, and are of great 

 value in connection with the courses in forestry. Intend- 

 ing students will thus see that the college possesses every 

 facility for the practical study of agricultural science. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, June 27. — Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 Sec.R.S., president, in the chair. — Interference-phenomena 

 in the Alps : Dr. Maria M. Ogilvie Gordon. The pre- 

 sent paper, so far as it deals with the general structure 

 of the Alps, was completed in .April, 1905, but the author 

 has since endeavoured to strengthen her line of argument 

 by taking as a type the series of structural changes under- 

 gone in the largely igneous mountain-massive of Bufaure 

 in the dolomites. After describing in detail the geology 

 of the Bufaure Massive, the structural relation of the 

 Western Alps and the Engadine to one another and to the 

 whole mountain-system are discussed. From the arrange- 

 ment of overthrusts, as well as from the distribution of 

 the igneous intrusions in the Western Alps and in the 

 Engadine, it is concluded that these were areas where 

 leading cross-faults intersected the east-and-west Central 

 Alpine band, and shows how fhe coalescence of these cross- 

 faults with E.N.E.-W.S.W. faults on the north side and 

 W.N.W.-E.S.E. faults on the south side defined two 

 leading fault-curves, the one passing through the Enga- 

 dine, the other passing through the Western Alps. The 

 cross-segment comprising the Rhine-Ticino district between 

 the Western Alps and the Engadine is regarded as anti- 

 clinal in character, segments having been down-thrown 

 from it both towards the west and east, and overthrust 

 masses have crept E. and S.E. from the Western Alps 

 and westward from the Engadine. The relation of the 



NO. I919, VOL. 74] 



French Jura Mountains to the Alpine system is then dis- 

 cussed, and it is pointed out that the Swiss-French plain 

 flanking the Western Alps presents the same essential 

 features of structure in relation to the Western Alps on 

 its east side and the French Jura Mountains on its west 

 as those elucidated for the Rhine-Ticino cross-segment. 

 The strike-curve round the west formed by the Jura Moun- 

 tains and the ranges of Dauphin^ is interpreted as the 

 peripheral plicational system in the Alps, showing that the 

 region between the Hungarian basin and the mountain- 

 groups of Central France has been under the influence of 

 the westward thrust. The general principle of structure 

 is the sagging of crust-blocks by means of normal faults 

 towards bands or localities of crust-weakness or sub- 

 sidence, and the reverse or overthrust-movements which 

 may take place from within these bands or localities. 

 The paper affords evidence of differential rates of move- 

 ment in different parts of a thrust-mass or fault-block 

 undergoing horizontal displacement, both in respect of the 

 laterally-adjacent parts of a thrust-mass and also of the 

 subjacent layers. The maps and sections show that the 

 actual deformations which characterise a thrust-mass have 

 a diffeient direction of strike on either side of an axial 

 band of maximum horizontal displacement. Several ex- 

 amples in the dolomites are described where there has 

 apparently been a local reversal of the regional westward 

 movement. While each individual case demands special 

 examination, an explanation that satisfies certain cases is 

 provided. At localities where the base of the thrust-mass 

 is open to inflows of igneous rock, the igneous material 

 may ascend and be carried onward with the gliding mass. 

 After consolidation of such igneous inflows, they present 

 resisting bodies within the thrust-mass, which, in the 

 same way as any massive developments of sedimentary 

 material, impede the advance of rock-material in the same 

 direction as before. The tendency is for the material of 

 the thrust-mass to be plicated and faulted as it is driven 

 against a resisting body, widening out in a direction 

 parallel with the resisting mass, and piling up the material 

 to such an extent that local reversal of the direction of 

 overlapping is produced. — The influence of pressure and 

 porosity on the motion of subsurface water : W. R. 

 Baldwin-Wiseman. The author commences the paper 

 with a brief historical summary of the researches which 

 have been conducted since 1830 on the motion and behaviour 

 of underground water. In discussing the influence of the 

 porosity of a rock on the rate of flow of water through it, 

 he describes the variations in porosity which may occur in 

 restricted areas of the same rock, due to superincumbent 

 pressure, faulting, and the intrusion of dykes. He de- 

 scribes experiments on the rate of desiccation and soakage 

 of rocks. A lengthy series of laboratory experiments, con- 

 ducted with specially devised apparatus to afford a constant 

 pressure and to eliminate all errors due to lateral flow, are 

 explained, and it is demonstrated that there is not a 

 uniform relation between flow and pressure in rocks over 

 a considerable range of pressure. Various attempts at 

 determining the range of the cone of depletion in strata 

 are passed in review, and a method based upon an experi- 

 mental determination of the variation of internal pressure 

 in a rock-mass when charged with water and subjected 

 to a considerable difference of pressure on the two faces 

 is outlined. In the concluding portion of the paper data 

 collected during various hydrological surveys are discussed, 

 and the influence of surface-configuration and strati- 

 graphical sequence on the subsurface water-contours are 

 pointed out. 



Dublin. 

 Roval Irish Academy. June 25. — Dr. F. A. Tarleton, 

 president, in the chair. — Note on the action of emulsine 

 on 0-gIycosides : Prof. Hugh Ryan and G. Ebriii. This 

 paper shows that emulsine hydrolyses the galactoside of 

 o-naphthol in aqueous solution, but is inactive towards the 

 arabinosldes of cresol, ^-naphthol, and carvacrol, as well 

 as the tetracetyl derivatives of the glucosides of /3-naphthol 

 and cresol. — The composition of a nitrogen mineral water 

 at St. Edmundsbury, Lucan, co. Dublin : Dr. W. E. 

 Adeney. The mineral water which forms the .subject of 

 this paper flows from a spring which is situated in the 



