148 



NA TURE 



[December 2, 1909 



faunal succession of the Upper Bcrnician. The Bernician 

 series forms the upper division of the Lower Carboniferous 

 sequence of Northumberland. Below the Bernician lie the 

 Tuedian bods. The Northumberland succession, together 

 with the Lower Carboniferous rocks north of the Tweed, 

 occupies the northern extremity of the Pennine province 

 of the Carboniferous Limestone series. The Carboniferous 

 strata in Northumberland encircle the Cheviots on the 

 south, east, and north, and dip from the volcanic inlier. 

 The Bernician is mainly built up of sandstones and shales, 

 but intercalated are beds of limestone and numerous seams 

 of coal. In the Upper Bernician the limestones are fairly 

 thick, constant, and truly marine. The calcareous beds 

 of Lower Bernician age are thin, impure, and frequently 

 contain .'^tigmaria. There are a few good marine lime- 

 stones of local occurrence. The Upper Bernician answers 

 to Tate's calcareous group, while the Lower Bernician is 

 equivalent to Tate's carbonaceous group. It is with the 

 Upper Bernician only that the present paper is concerned. 

 The whole of the Upper Bernician Limestones belong to the 

 Dibunophyllum zone, but they are capable of palaDonto- 

 logical subdivision, as is given in the paper. — M. K. 

 Heslop and Dr. J. .'\. Smythe : Notes on the dyke at 

 Crookdene (Northumberland), and its relations to the Collv- 

 well, Morpeth, and Tvnrmouth dykes. The dyke at Crook- 

 dene is exposed in the bed and banks of the Wansbeck 

 above Morpeth. It is intruded along a fault-fissure in beds 

 of Bernician age. The basalt contains narrow lath-shaped 

 felspars and curved augitcs. Large inclusions of a felspar, 

 closely allied to anorthite, occur. The exterior of the 

 Inclusions in contact with the ground-mass is zoned ; the 

 individual crystals are intergrown, cracked, faulted, and 

 in places shattered. These phenomena point to a plutonic 

 origin of the felspathic inclusions, and connect them with 

 the porphyrilic felspars of the Tynemouth Dyke, for which 

 a similar origin has been suggested by Dr. Tcall. The 

 dvke, which comes to a head in the coast-section .at Colly- 

 well, shows the same peculiarities. The two basalts are 

 practically identical. It appears probable that thev belong 

 to the same intrusion. The work of Dr. Teall has been 

 amplified bv further observations. The resemblances 

 anions; the four dykes are so strong as to render it prob- 

 able that they are derived from a common source. 



Royal Microscopical See ety ovember 17. — Mr. F. J. 

 Cheshire, vice-president, in the chair. — E. Heron-Allen 

 and A. Earland : The recent and fossil Foraminifera of 

 the shore-sands of Selsey Bill, Sussex, part iv. This paper 

 covered the genera Cycloloculina to Nummulites inclusive, 

 and included many rare and interesting forms, but no new 

 species. Of the genus Cycloloculina, first described bv 

 the authors in 1908 from this locality, a few additional 

 details were mentioned, but the original source of the 

 specimens still remains doubtful, although its distribution 

 has now been worked out over an extensive area of the 

 peninsula. The evidence, however, points to the Eocene 

 beds_ of Bracklesham Bay as the source from which the 

 specimens were derived, although none have been found 

 in situ. The paper was illustrated by a series of lantern- 

 slides, photographed from specimens specially mounted for 

 the purpo.se. 



Linnean Society, Noveinber iS.— Dr. D. H. Scn't. F.R S.. 

 in the chair.— W. Wesch6 : A new Tipulid subfamily. The 

 flies which form this well-marked subfamily were brought 

 to the author's notice by Lieut. -Colonel Winne Sampson, 

 who collected them in S. Nigeria. The striking proboscis, 

 more like the mouth-parts of the Culicidse than of the 

 Tipulida>, marks them off from all other genera of the 

 latter family, except Geranomyia ; but though Geranomyia 

 has greatly developed mouth-parts, they are" quite different 

 in type, the paragloss.-B being cleft, and the palpi, though 

 single-iointed, being situated at the base of the labium 

 instead of at the tip, as is the case in the CeratochiliniE. 

 Colonel Winne Sampson's specimens were all mounted as 

 preparations for the microscope, but the author found five 

 pinned, unnamed insects in the British Museum which had 

 been collected by Dr. Graham in .'Vshanti, and which 

 agreed with the Nigerian species as regards tlie trophi and 

 peculiar antennse, but presented generic differences in the 

 wing venation. This genus he has called Neoceratochilvs, 

 as the venation is less archaic in type than that of the other 

 NO. 2092, VOL. 82] 



genus, which the author names Ceratochilus, or horned 

 or palped lip. — J. M. Brown : Fresh-water rhizopods 

 from the Lake District. The author stated that between 

 forty and fifty species had been obtained from Sphagnum 

 and sediment from tarns and lakes, amongst them some 

 which had not been previously recorded as occurring in 

 Britain, with one species new to science. After enumera- 

 ting the forms found at certain localities, the author gives 

 some critical remarks on some of the species obtained. 



Zoological Society, November 23. — Dr. A. Smith Wood- 

 ward, F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — G. C. Short- 

 ridge : An account of the geographical distribution of the 

 Marsupials and Monotremes of South-west Australia, 

 having special reference to the specimens collected during 

 the Balston Expedition of 1904-7. — Mrs. E. W. Sexton : 

 Notes on some Amphipoda from the north side of the Bay 

 of Biscay. The paper contained notes on the development 

 of the females of certain Amphipoda, showing that struc- 

 tural modification continues even after sexual maturity is 

 reached, and this may give rise to differences of so striking 

 a character that earlier and later stages might easily be 

 mistaken for distinct species. This was illustrated by 

 examples from the families Pleustid.c and Eusiridse. — 

 Lieut. -Colonel J. M. Fawcett : .Aberrations in Nymph- 

 alina:; from the Andaman Islands, .and of Papilio clytia 

 from Burma. — R. Lydekker : Note on the cetacean 

 Sntalia horncciixis. A correction of the author's descrip- 

 tion of this species published in the society's Proceedings 

 for 1901 (p. 88, pi. viii.). 



Dublin. 



Royal Dublin Society, November 23. — Prof. H. II. Dixon, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — J. Adams and Prof. T. Johnson : 

 Bacterial rot in the turnip and other brassicas. Three 

 different bcicterial diseases are referred to : — (i) brown rot 

 of turnips caused by Psettdomonas canifcstris. Smith; 

 (2) white rot of turnips caused by Pseudomonas destructans, 

 Potter ; (3) black rot of cabbages caused by Bacillus 

 oleraceae, Harrison. The characters of each are described, 

 and an outline of their distribution in Ireland is given. A 

 comparison of the characters of the organisms responsible 

 for numbers (2) and (3) is given in parallel columns, and 

 the inference is drawn that they are the same species. 

 Further confirmation of this conclusion is afforded by 

 infection experiments. — Prof. Henry H. Dixon and 

 W. R. G. Atkins : Osmotic pressure in plants and on a 

 thermo-electric method of determining freezing points. In 

 this paper the authors describe a thermo-electric method 

 of crvoscopy, and arrangements by which the freezing 

 point of small quantities of liquids (about 2-5 c.c.) may 

 be determined with considerable accuracy to 0-01° C. The 

 method was devised for determining the freezing points 

 of the cell-sap of plants, and by that means to obtain the 

 value of the osmotic pressure in the tissues. More than a 

 hundred determinations were made, and these showed 

 pressures in the leaves of plants ranging from 3'7 to 27 

 atmospheres. So far as the observations have gone, 

 assimilation appears to be the most important external 

 factor controlling the osmotic pressure of the leaves, which 

 may vary widely in the same plant. Exposure to condi- 

 tions favouring the fixation of carbon may cause the upper 

 leaves to have a higher osmotic pressure than the lower, 

 or vice versa. The determinations of the osmotic pressure 

 are in most cases accompanied with determinations of the 

 mean molecular weight of the substances giving rise to the 

 pressure, so that some idea of the nature of these sub- 

 stances may be formed. The roots examined showed a 

 lower osmotic pressure than the leaves. — Dr. J. R. 

 Sutton : Some observations of dew at Kimberley (South 

 .Africa). This paper gives the results of some routine 

 observations of dew. The author concludes that, contrary 

 to the usual statements of the text-books, a clear sky is 

 bv no means essential to the formation of dew. A clear 

 sky will, as a rule, hasten the beginning of the condensa- 

 tion of moisture from the air, but in the long run as 

 much dew may be deposited when there are clouds as when 

 there are none. When the air is very near the saturation 

 point, the radiation of heat from the earth's surface is not 

 much more intense under a clear sky than it is under 

 clouds. Dew-making is not so much a function of the 

 clearness of the sky as of the dampness of the air and the 

 length of the night] 



