December 2, 1909J 



NA TURE 



149 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, November 22.— Sir William Turner, 

 K.C.lJ., president, in the chair. — Prof. Alex. Smith and 

 Prof. \. W. C. Menzies : .'\ new hydrate of orthophos- 

 phoric acid. The new hydrate has the composition 

 loHjPOj.H.O. It was obtained in quantity by concen- 

 trating ortliophosphoric acid to 96 per cent., and keeping 

 it at 24-38°. Mechanical stirring for a few hours brought 

 about crystallisation, the crystals being large transparent 

 prisms similar to those of Joly's hydrate. — -Dr. J. A. 

 Gunn : The pharmacological action of harmaline. Harma- 

 line is one of two alkaloids found in the seeds of fe^axmm 

 harmala. These seeds have been used medicinally, especi- 

 ally in India, for a variety of purposes, but the nature 

 of their pharmacological action has not been thoroughly 

 investigated. The present investigation shows that harma- 

 line belongs to the group of general protoplasmic poisons, 

 and resembles quinine in its pharmacological actions. — 

 Dr. D. Berry Hart : Mendelism and zygotic segregation 

 in the production of anomalous se.\, i., the Free-Martin. 

 John Hunter first described the anomalous sterile twin, 

 known as the Free-Martin, found chiefly in black cattle. 

 The Free-Martin is a sterile animal like a heifer, the 

 co-twin of which is a potent bull. John Hunter described 

 three specimens, and, on naked-eye examination, stated 

 that the sexual gland was an ovary in one, a testis in 

 a second, and that in tlie third both ovary and testis were 

 present. Spiegelberg, of Breslau, examined a Free-Martin 

 calf the co-twin of which was a bull, and described the 

 organs in detail, concluding that the Free-Martin was a 

 sterile bull with very rudimentary Miillerian relics. 

 Numan, of Utrecht, published a memoir on sterile cattle, 

 and figured several specimens comparable with John 

 Hunter's. Although in error in some of his conclusions, 

 he established a most important fact, which Dr. Berry 

 Hart had anticipated theoretically, viz. that there may be 

 a Free-Martin with rudimentary external male genitals 

 the co-twin of which is a potent female. This Free-Martin 

 (Stier-Kween of the Dutch) is thus a sterile female. The 

 conclusion arrived at in the paper was that the Free-Martin 

 and its twin were derived from a single zygote, the potent 

 organs being segregated in the potent twin, the non- 

 potent in the sterile animal. Thus a male zygote gave 

 rise to a potent bull and a sterile bull, the ordinary Free- 

 Martin, while a female zygote gave a potent female and 

 a sterile female. The potent and non-potent elements in 

 each sex behave usually as a complete unit, but in black 

 cattle they segregate in twinning. This explains the 

 puzzling anomaly. The potent and sterile twins may thus 

 be described as an extracted dominant and an extracted 

 recessive respectively, and placed in F" of the ordinary 

 Mendelian scheme. — Dr. Thomas Muir, F.R.S. : The 

 theory of orthogonants in the historical order of devclop- 

 n.ent up to i860. 



P.ARIS. 



Academy of Sciences, Nnvemb-r 22. — M. Bouchard in 

 the chair. — G. Darboux : Congruences of curves. — Yves 

 Delag^e : The true causes of the supposed electrical 

 parthenogenesis. A repetition, under more stringent con- 

 ditions, of the experiments described in an earlier paper 

 has shown that the conclusions given were not well founded. 

 Electric charges, as such, do not produce parthenogenesis. 

 Electrolysis produces a slight effect, solely on account of 

 the formation of acid and alkali at the electrodes. — .'\. 

 Lacroix : The existence of rhodizite in Madagascar 

 pegmatites. This mineral is a boroaluminate of beryllium, 

 lithium, sodium, and potassium, of the composition 



6B,03.4AI,0,.4BeO,4(Li,K,Na,H),0. 

 ■ — Lecoq de Boisbaudran : The band spectra of barium 

 and aluminium. — M. Simon was elected corrcspondant for 

 the section of anatomy and zoology, in the place of the 

 Hate M. Bergh. — M. Borrelly : Observations of Halley's 

 comet made at the Observatory of Marseilles with the 

 comet finder. The positions of the comet and comparison 

 stars are given for November 19 and 20. — J. Haag : 

 Certain groups of families of Lam^. — S. Carrus : The 

 integration of partial differential equations. — Marcel 

 Riesz : Dirichlet's series and integral series. — B. Szilard : 

 An apparatus for radio-active measurements. An instru- 

 ment based on the principle of the electroscope, but in 



NO. 2092, VOL. 82] 



which the gold leaf is replaced by a rigid index, a mag- 

 netised steel needle. — Georges Claude : The desiccation of 

 air before liquefaction. A small quantity of alcohol, nearly 

 equal to the weight of water vapour in the air, is added 

 to the air on its way to the compressor ; this does not 

 solidify, and can be readily separated in liquid form in 

 the course of the cooling process. — A. Dufour : Asymmetry 

 of certain emission bands of vapours in the Zeeman pheno- 

 menon. — E. Caudrelier : The function of the capacity of 

 the electrodes in the discharge of inductors. — MM. 

 de Broglie and Brizard : Chemical reactions and ionisa- 

 tion of gases. .V criticism of work of M. Reboul on the 

 same subject. — Jean Meunier : The conditions necessary 

 for platinum to remain in a st;ite of incandescence in a 

 Bunsen burner. Experiments are detailed tending to show 

 that the property of remaining incandescent in an air-gas 

 mixture is not due to the platinum alone, but to minute 

 traces of saline substances of the order of 0001 milligram 

 carried by the wire. — H. Dautriche : The working of 

 safety explosives containing ammonium nitrate in presence 

 of coal, paper, and paraffin. Coal-dust surrounding the 

 cartridge is burnt to carbon monoxide during the explosion. 

 — .'\. Guyot and .'\. Cry : Some new syntheses of vanillin. 

 Mesoxalic ether and an o0-diketonic ester are condensed by 

 chloride of zinc in glacial acetic acid, and the product 

 converted into a vanilloyl-carboxylic acid by heating with 

 an aqueous solution of copper acetate. — Marcel Guerbet : 

 Some condensation products of camphor. — Henri Lecomte : 

 Floral pedicels. — M. Maragre : Studies of laryngeal vibra- 

 tions. — J. Comandon : The kinematography of living 

 micro-organisms and mobilo particles with the aid of the 

 ultra-microscope. — M. Baudran : A tuberculous endotoxine 

 Oi' albumose nature. The separation of the albumose from 

 the bacilli is described in detail; it proved to exert toxic 

 effects on guinea-pigs. — I,. Bull : Researches on the flight 

 of insects. — C. Gerber : The ferment of the Basidio- 

 mycetes. — A. Goris and M. Mascrd : The existence in 

 Primula officinalis of two new glucosides hydrolysable by 

 a ferment. The glucosides are named primeverine and 

 primulaverine ; both are unacted upon by emulsin, but are 

 hydrolysed by boiling dilute sulphuric acid. — E. L. 

 Trouessart : .\ new insectivorous type (Nentetracus 

 sinensis) from wcrtern China. — ^Jean Boussac : The 

 Nummulitic of the eastern Alps. 



New South Wales. 



Royal Society, .August 4 —Mr. H. Deane, vice-president, 

 in the chair.— J. II. Maiden and R. H. Cambage : 

 Botanical, topographical, and geological notes on some 

 routes of Allan Cunningham. 



September i. — Dr. Walter Spencer, vice-president, in the 

 chair. — T. H. Johnston : A new genus of bird-cestodes. — 

 S. G. Walton : A complete analysis of Sydney water. — 

 J. H. Maiden: A plea for the study of phenological 

 phenomena in Australia. 



Cape Town. 



Royal Society of South Africa, October 20 — Mr. S. S. 

 Hough, F.R.S. , president, in the chair.— Dr. M. Wilson : 

 Nutmeg poisoning. The symptoms were described and 

 attention directed to the small number of cases recorded. 

 .•\s the condiment was used practically throughout the 

 whole world, the explanation must be that a few nutmegs had 

 gone into circulation after germination had begun and then 

 been arrested. In support of this the author directed atten- 

 tion to the fir seed (dana pitje), which was greatly relished 

 and largely eaten by children near Cape Town without any 

 bad results ; but when one seed which had started to 

 germinate was eaten, the results were very serious and 

 dangerous. — Dr. R. Broom : Observations on some speci- 

 mens of South African fossil reptiles preserved in the 

 British Museum. The following are some of the_ con- 

 clusions come to by the author : — All the later specimens 

 which have been referred to Galesaurus are held to belong 

 to a different genus and species, and must take Owen's 

 name Nythosaurus larvatus. Gorgonops is held to^ be 

 closely allied to Titanosuchus, and to be really a dino- 

 cephalian. Theriognathus is believed to be very distinct 

 from Endothiodon, and to be really a therocephalian. 

 Anthodon is held to include at present two entirely distinct 

 forms. The type is a small pareiasaurian from the 

 Permian beds of Stvl-Krantz. The teeth from the 



