October 25, 1906] 



NATURE 



651 



iniurcourse beuvuen the students themselves in the day to 

 day common life, the day to day interchange of ideas and 

 friendships, of commentary on men and things, and on all 

 the great problems which an opening world naturally 

 suggests to the young. A university which is deficient in 

 that is but half a university, and no mere scholastic equip- 

 ment can satisfy the void which is thus left. Mr. Haldanc 

 delivered an address before opening the new Union build- 

 ings, and spoke of the value of the corporate life at the 

 University. No university, he remarked, does its work 

 adequately if it does it only by training in the paths of 

 learning. What is wanted is the moulding influence of 

 the spirit of the place — a tinivcrsitas which is a universitas, 

 not of the arts, not of the sciences merely, but one which, 

 like the State, moulds the individualities of those who 

 belong to it. It is the spirit of the university as much as 

 the abstract theories that are discoursed of there that tell 

 in the composition of character; and what a significance 

 the university has for the moulding of character. Leaders, 

 he continued, are wanted in the great struggle of the 

 nations to-day, and there is no school for training in leader- 

 ship so fruitful, so complete, as that training of the 

 university which bases science and art alil<e on the found- 

 .Tlion of the widest culture. It is science and learning 

 that form the true function of the professor; and it is the 

 spirit of the men who are penetrated with the desire to 

 absorb science and learning as things in themselves that 

 communicates itself to those who come in contact and who 

 live with them. That is why it always will be that the 

 spirit of a university, the contact of its fellow-students, 

 the influences which the corporate whole of university life 

 exercises, will be the dominating influence in moulding the 

 character and the quality of the students. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, Ojioher 8. — M. H. P.^incaie in 

 I hi- chair. — The synthesis of amethyst quartz: researches 

 on the natural or artificial colouring of some precious 

 stones under radio-active influences : M. Berthelot. 

 Natural amethyst was decolorised by heating to a tempera- 

 ture of 300° C, and then exposed to the action of radium 

 chloride, the experiment being arranged so that the speci- 

 men was not in actual contact with the radium salt, and 

 was not exposed to its emanations. The violet colour 

 slowly returned. Similar results were obtained with violet 

 fluor-spar, and the effects produced are attributed by the 

 author to the reduction and oxidation of manganese com- 

 pounds. Ordinary fused quartz tubes are also slowly 

 coloured violet by the radium radiations. The bearing of 

 these experiments on the coloration of minerals in nature 

 is discussed. — The work done at the observatory at the 

 summit of Mt. Blanc : M. Janssen. The season of igo6 

 was an exceptionally favourable one, and the work done 

 included biological researches on rabbits and guinea-pigs 

 by MM. Moog and Guillemard, hcliometric researches by 

 MM. Millochau and F^ry, magnetic studies at different 

 altitudes by M. Senonque, and studies of the surfaces of 

 \'enus and Jupiter by MM. Hansky and Stefanik. The 

 results of these various researches will be communicated 

 later to the academy. — The red colour of certain leaves 

 and the colour of autumn leaves : Armand Gautier. The 

 nd colour developed in leaves which have been wounded, 

 or in the autumn foliage, is not one and the same in all 

 plants, as has been too hastily assumed. Anthocyanine 

 has been regarded by botanists as the cause of the 

 .mtumnal red in foliage, and as a uniform product derived 

 from chlorophyll : in the case of the vine this is certainly 

 not the case, since the colouring matter contains neither 

 nitrogen nor phosphorus, two essential constituents of 

 chlorophyll. — The principle of correspondence for an 

 algebraic surface ; H. G. Zeuthen, — Succinic pinacone : 

 Louis Henry. This bi-tertiary alcohol is obtained in good 

 yield by the action of methylbromide of magnesium on 

 ethvl levulate. Both hvdrochloric acid and acetvl chloride 

 give the dichlorhydrin fCH,,),C.Cl— fCH,1,— CCUCH ,),. 



NO 1030, VOL. 74I 



and dilute sulphuric acid, even in the cold, gives the 

 internal anhydride tetramethyl-letramethylene oxide, the 

 physical and chemical properties of which are given. Dry 

 distillation gives an unsaturated tertiary alcohol. — The 

 nature of the virtual sugar of the blood : R. Lupine and 

 M. Boulud. — The perpetual secretary announced the death 

 of M. Etienne Georges Sire, correspondant of the academy 

 for the section of mechanics. — Contribution to the study of 

 the calorific emission of the sun : Ch. Fery and G. 

 Millochau. A thermocouple of the same type as those 

 used in the commercial Firy pyrometers is placed at the 

 focus of a silvered mirror, a total reflection prism and 

 eye-piece being added so that readings can be made as in 

 a Newtonian reflecting telescope. Observations were 

 carried out in two ways : placing the centre of the sun 

 in coincidence with the cross wires of the telescope at 

 different hours of the day, and observations of the effects 

 produced at different points of the solar disc. Measure- 

 ments were carried out at four stations at different alti- 

 tudes, Meudon (150 metres), Chanionix (1030 metres), 

 Grands-Mulets (3050 metres), and the Janssen Observatory 

 at the summit of Mt. Blanc (4810 metres). Details regard- 

 ing the standardisation of the apparatus and discussion 

 of the results will be given in a later communication. — 

 Observations of the sun made at the Lyons Observatory 

 during the first quarter of 1906 : J. Guiliaume. Observ- 

 ations were possible during forty-three days in this quarter, 

 the results of which are summed up in three tables show- 

 ing the number of sun-spots, their distribution in latitude, 

 and the distribution of the facula; in latitude. — Observ- 

 ation of the total eclipse of the moon on August 4, 1906, 

 and remarks on the subject of a squall at Phu-Lien, Indo- 

 China : G. Le Cadet. — The liquefaction of wheat starch 

 and seeds ; A. Boidin. — The detection of adulteration of 

 butter with cocoa-butter and oleo-margarine : Lucien 

 Robin, Details of a method of analysis based on the 

 difference in the solubilities of the fatty acids of butter 

 and cocoa-fat in dilute alcohol. — The complexes of pure 

 albumen : Andr(5 Mayer. — The direct action of light on 

 the transformation of the sugars absorbed by the" voung 

 plants of Finns pinca : W. Lubimenko. — Some new views, 

 morphological and biological, on the stinging Diptera ; E. 

 Roubaud. — A hitherto undescribed organ in the thorax of 

 flying ants : Charles Janet. An account, with a diagram, 

 of a mesonotal diaphragm and metanotal diaphragm in 

 ants after the nuptial flight.— The distribution of the Trias 

 in Greece : Fritz Freeh and Carl Renz. — The earthquake 

 in Chili of August 16, igot) : A. Obrecht. — The amount 

 of carbonic acid in sea air : R. Legendre. The average 

 result from thirteen localities was 335 parts of carbonic 

 acid per 10,000 of air. 



October 15. — M. H. Poincari in the chair. — .\ new and 

 rapid method for the determination of the errors of division 

 of a meridian circle : M. Lcswy. The author gives an 

 outline of a method, fuller details of which will be com- 

 municated later, for increasing the accuracy of calibration 

 of a meridian circle. The method has the great additional 

 advantage of much reducing the time necessary for the 

 work. Fixing a probable error for the position of each 

 graduation at +o"o2, the time required to fix the position 

 of each degree is about 100 hours, for half degrees 170 

 hours, and for quarter degrees 330 hours. — The principle 

 of correspondence for an algebraic surface : H. G. 

 Zeuthen. — The dialysis of the sugar of the blood : 

 R. Lepine and M. Boulud. L'nder the conditions of the 

 experiments described, the sugar in normal blood serum 

 is not dialysable, but in abnormal cases dialysis takes 

 place, notably when the serum contains newly-formed 

 sugar. These facts are in favour of the idea that in the 

 normal state the sugar is not free in the blood. — The 

 transformation of NL Darboux and the fundamental equa- 

 tion of isothermal surfaces : Rudolf Rothe. — The uniform 

 solutions of certain functional equations : M. Fatou. — 

 The mechanism of ionisation bv solution : Gustave D. 

 Hinrichs. — The chemical functions of textiles : L^o 

 Vignon. Quite apart from their fibrous structure and 

 resulting development of surface, textiles behave as specifi- 

 cally active chemical molecules. The animal textiles (silk, 

 wool) possess both basic and acid functions ; the vegetable 



