December 23, 1909] 



NATURE 



239 



This is the theory. In practice the chief has the power 

 practically of nominating his successor, as he can dis- 

 inherit any likely claimant. In religion the Bu-Shongo 

 believe in an all-powerful creator, but they pay no worship 

 to him. Magic is largely practised. The spiritual nature 

 of man is considered to consist of three elements, soul, 

 double, and shadow. The soul only leaves the body at 

 death, the double at both death and sleep, and the shadow 

 only at death, the belief that a corpse cannot cast a 

 shadow being current among the people. The nearest 

 approach to true totemism as yet discovered in Africa was 

 found among the western Bu-Shongo, where each person 

 inherits from his father an Ikina, a plant or animal which 

 he may not eat. This Ikina has no connection with tribal 

 names, and the division into Ikina cuts across the division 

 into tribes and villages. Persons possessing the same Ikina 

 may not marry. 



Royal Meteorological Society, Df-cemV'Pr iq. — Mr. H. 

 Mellish, president, in the chair. — Dr. W. N. Shaw, 

 F.R.S. : The variations of currents of air indicated by 

 simultaneous records of the direction and velocity of the 

 wind. In order to form a mental picture of the changes 

 which are taking place in the amount of air flowing past 

 an anemometer, we need to take into account the changes 

 of direction as well as the changes in velocity. The author 

 had endeavoured to combine these in what he called a 

 " vector diagram," and he pointed out some interesting 

 results which he had obtained from such diagrams. — W. G. 

 Reed, jun. : A critical examination of South American 

 rainfall types. The object was to make a simple yet 

 accurate map showing the seasonal distribution of rain- 

 fall in South America. — W. G. Reed, jun. : The study of 

 phenomenal climatology. The suggestion has several times 

 been made that treatment of weather elements by days and 

 months is arbitrary and unnatural for places not within the 

 tropics. The author points out that in latitudes subject to 

 cyclones the distribution of weather elements depends 

 largely upon the relation of cyclones and anticyclones, and 

 he therefore suggests that the cyclone is a more rational 

 unit than the day or the month. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, December 6. — Prof. Cossir Ewart, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Dr. D. C. L. Fitx- 

 williams : The short muscles of the hand of the agile 

 gibbon (Hylohates agilis), with comments on the morpho- 

 logical position and function of the short muscles of the 

 hand of man. The material was supplied by the late Prof. 

 Cunningham. The extraordinary length of the upper limb 

 of the agile gibbon, and the manner in which it uses the 

 hook-like hand as it swings itself from tree to tree, have 

 an influence upon the anatomy which can be clearly recog- 

 nised, especially in regard to the muscles. Thus in the 

 gibbon the muscles of the hand tend to wander down the 

 phalanges. This is evidently a mechanical gain, and is a 

 response to the demands of function. The paper contained 

 an elaborate comparison of the layers of muscles in the 

 hand of the gibbon with the arrangements in the human 

 hand, the discussion being based upon the distribution of 

 the three primitive layers which, according to Cunningham, 

 characterise the typical mammalian manus. — G. Green : 

 Waves in a dispersive medium resulting from a limited 

 initial disturbance. Following up a former paper on group 

 velocity, the author investigates the effect of the same 

 initial disturbance in all media in which the velocity of 

 an infinite train of regular waves is proportional to the 

 wave-length. The results obtained are similar to those 

 given by Prof. Burnside for water waves in his paper on 

 deep-water waves resulting from a limited original disturb- 

 ance, of which the paper is an extension. It is shown 

 that in all the media considered the greatest disturbance 

 at cacli point is inversely as the square root of the distance 

 of thn point from the place of the original disturbance, 

 and the wave-length of the disturbance when greatest is 

 the same for every point, being determined entirely by the 

 form of the initial disturbance. — Dr. W. A. Caspar! : 

 The composition and character of oceanic Red Clay. The 

 chemistry of this deposit, though it has received attention 



NO. 2095, VOL. 82] 



from several investigators, still presents uncertainties. At 

 Sir John Murray's suggestion a re-investigation of the 

 whole subject from the chemical standpoint was under- 

 taken. Moreover, Sir John Murray's unique collection of 

 deep-sea deposits afforded the opportunity of choosing a 

 highly representative series of red clays from all parts of 

 the world. The methods and the results of analysis are 

 given in detail. Regarding the general question of the 

 molecular constitution of submarine clays, the author con- 

 cludes that these hydrous silicates are not so much definite 

 chemical compounds or mixtures of such as agglutinates 

 of colloidal silica, alumina, &c., in inconstant proportions. 

 What the aftinity is which binds the constituents together 

 we do not know, but it is certainly not exclusively 

 chemical. In the Red Clay areas we have a temperature 

 of 1° C. to 3° C, pressures of 400 to 600 atmospheres, 

 and a uniform medium (sea-water), conditions which give 

 to deep-sea weathering features which sharply contrast 

 with subaerial weathering. The degradation product has 

 much the same composition all over the globe, and it is 

 a more acid silicate than the corresponding continental 

 material. Clearly silica can escape into the hydrosphere 

 just as well as alkalies and alkaline earths. On the whole, 

 there seems to be something approximating to a genuine 

 equilibrium between Red Clay and sea-water. When the 

 colloidal nature of Red Clay is realised, the invariable 

 presence of calcium, magnesium, and alkalies causes no 

 surprise. This retention of highly soluble matter may be 

 ascribed to capillary action at the enormous surfaces pre- 

 sented bv the fine grains of clay and their internal frame- 

 work, but the possibility that chemical affinities are also 

 exerted is not to be disregarded. Potassium, calcium, 

 magnesium, and sodium are withdrawn, in approximately 

 constant proportions, out of the sea-water. The order 

 given is the order of their adsorbability, and is just the 

 reverse of their abundance in sea-water. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, December 13.— M. Bouchard in 

 the chair. — H. Deslandres : Arrangement of the large 

 telescope at Meudon for the photography of comets. 

 Application to the Halley comet. Details are given of the 

 addition of a finder to the large telescope and its mode of 

 use for keeping the image of the comet on a fixed point of 

 the photographic plate. — H. Deslandres and A. Bernard : 

 Preliminary note on the spectrum of the Halley comet. 

 At the Lick Observatory W. Wright found this comet to 

 give an absolutely continuous spectrum ; the results obtained 

 by the authors, on the contrary, show clear discontinuities 

 in the spectrum. There is a possibility that two condensa- 

 tions noted in the ultra-violet are near the bands A. 3S8 and 

 X 391-45 found in the Morehouse comet. Further measure- 

 ments are required, but it seems proved that the comet 

 shines by its own light, part of which is due to incan- 

 descent gases. — H. Poincare : A generalisation of the 

 method of Jacobi. — M. Coggr'ia : Observations of comets 

 made at the Observatory of Marseilles with the Eichens 

 26-cm. equatorial. Data are given for Daniel's comet 

 on December 9 and 10, and Halley 's comet on December 

 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10. — Eugfene BJoch : The Hertz photo- 

 electric effect. The classification of metals in the order of 

 their photoelectric effect is modified by the wave-length of 

 the light employed. — G. A. Hemsalech and C. de Watte- 

 ville : The line spectrum of calcium given by the o.xy- 

 acetylene blow-pipe. The spectrum approaches that of tfie 

 arc in the number and intensity of the lines. The relation 

 between the number of lines and the nature of the flame 

 is discussed. — A. Lafay : An arrangement for the deter- 

 mination of very small differences of pressure. A silvered 

 collodion film is displaced by the pressure to be measured 

 and brought back to its original position electrostatically, 

 an interference method being used to measure the displace- 

 ment. — E. Caudrelier : The discharge of inductors. The 

 influence of the primary condenser on the length of the 

 spark. — Louis Dunoyer ; The variation in the conductivity 

 of glass with temperature. — P. A. Guye and N. 

 Zachariades : The reduction of weighings to a vacuum 

 applied to the determination of atomic weights. A revision 

 of the figures given in an earlier paper, in which the 

 errors caused by the presence of occluded air in the salts 



