January 20, 1910] 



NATURE 



359 



fossil wild ass or zebra Owen gave the name of Asinus 

 fossilis. In addition to the last two upper molars there 

 is preserved in the British Museum a first upper molar 

 from Oreston which probably belonged to an animal 

 betvi^een ten and eleven hands at the withers. In this 

 small first molar the grinding surface of the " internal 

 pillar " — a fold of enamel on the inner surface of the 

 tooth — is only one-third the length of the grinding 

 surface of the crown. In having a small internal pillar or 

 protocone in this first upper molar, the Oreston type 

 differs profoundly from the wild horse of Mongolia, but 

 resembles (i) the small horses which at the beginning of 

 the Pliocene period lived in Nebraska, i.e. horses of the 

 Pliohippus group ; (2) a small race which towards the 

 close of the Pliocene frequented the valley of the Arno — 

 a race hitherto included in the E. stenosis group ; (3) a 

 small variety which in Pliocene times lived in Auvergne 

 and other parts of France, sometimes known as E. ligeris ; 

 and (4) a small equine wliich in Pleistocene times occurred 

 in .'\lgiers, to which M. Thomas gave the name E. asinus 

 atlanticus. M. Boule regarded the last two as closely 

 related, and as probably the direct ancestors of the zebras 

 now living in South Africa. The Italian, French, and 

 English deposits have also yielded cannon bones — meta- 

 carpals and metatarsals — as slender as those of the fine- 

 boned desert Arabs, but not so slender as the cannon 

 bones of the Onager and other wild asses of Asia. From 

 inquiries extending over some years, Prof. Ewart had ascer- 

 tained that there were small horses in the Roman Fort 

 at Newstead, near Melrose, with molars of the same type 

 as those from Oreston, and with cannon bones as slender 

 as the fossil ones from the Valley of the Arno, Auvergne, 

 and Kent's Cave, Torquay. Further, in a six-year-old 

 Shetland pony of the Celtic type he had recently noticed 

 that the first upper molars, in size as well as in the 

 enamel foldings, were practically identical with the small 

 first Oreston molar in the British Museum. He was of the 

 opinion that the teeth said by Owen to belong to a fossil 

 ass or zebra really belonged to a small race of horse, from 

 which have in part descended the modern Exmoor, Welsh, 

 Shetland, and other ponies of the Celtic type. To this 

 small, true horse, which in Pleistocene times probably 

 ranged from Algiers to the south of England, he had given 

 the name Equus agilis — the more appropriate name gracilis 

 not being available. Bearing in mind that several of the 

 zebra hybrids which he had bred some vears ago seemed, 

 at least in their markings, to reproduce ancestral types, 

 he decided to try to restore the small race which lived in 

 the south of England along with the mammoth. By 

 blending all the available Occidental and Oriental breeds. 

 Prof. Ewart had now obtained several ponies which prob- 

 ably in make, disposition, and colour, as well as in limbs 

 and teeth, fairly accurately reproduced the small, slender- 

 limbed species hunted and sketched or sculptured by our 

 Palaeolithic ancestors. The pony which probably restores 

 most accurately the small, fine-boned prehistoric race has 

 a fine head, slender limbs and small hoofs, a mane which 

 instead of clinging to the neck arches to one side, a well 

 set-on tail, and only two of the eight callosities usually 

 found in horses, i.e. the four ergots and the hind chest- 

 nuts are absent. This pony, like the other forty crosses 

 bred, cannot be described as " more or less striped " — 

 there is only a narrow dorsal band and a faint shoulder 

 stripe — and hence lends no support to the view that in 

 prehistoric times all the wild horses were at least as richlv 

 decorated as the recently extinguished quagga, or to M. 

 Boule's view that the small horse which in Pleistocene 

 times inhabited the south of France and North Africa is 

 the direct ancestor of the zebras now living in South 

 Africa. Though this hybrid pony is, like the wild horse 

 of Mongolia, of a yellow dun colour, and is a mixture of 

 seven more or less well-marked breeds, namely, Conne- 

 mara, Welsh, Hackney, Iceland, Hebridean, Shetland, and 

 Arab, it excels in make, action, and intelligence all the 

 other ponies of a like age — an indication perhaps that, not- 

 withstanding its mixed origin, it possesses the traits of an 

 ancient wild race. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, January to — M. fimile PicarH 



in the chair. — H. Deslandres : The magnetic storm of 



September 25, igog, and the connected solar phenomena. 



NO. 2099, VOL. 82] 



A verification of some theories proposed. A discussion of 

 the various theories of the influence of the sun on the 

 earth. The author regards the theory of kathode radiation 

 put forward by himself and by Birkeland as offering a 

 sufiicient explanation of the observed facts. It explains 

 the delay of forty-five hours of the magnetic storm with 

 respect to the passage of the active spot across the central 

 meridian, and is connected with the author's theory of 

 nebul3e. — J. Carpentier : Remarks on a frequency meter 

 constructed from the designs of Commandant Ferris, and 

 also on a small precision balance constructed by M. CoUot. 

 The weights, from 50 grams to a decigram, are introduced 

 on the pans by pressing buttons external to the balance 

 case ; the smaller weights are read by a microscope as 

 deviations of the pointer. The balance works at constant 

 load — 100 grams — and by substitution, and is very rapid in 

 its indications. — C. Guichard : The surfaces of total 

 constant curvature which correspond to singular systems 

 of any order. — C. Russyan : The theorem of W. Stekloff 

 (the generalised theorem of Jacobi) and generalised formulae 

 of contact transformation. — Henri Lebesgue : The 

 integral of Stieltjes and linear functional operations. — 

 J. Le Roux : Definite quadratic forms with an infinity of 

 variables. — E. Jouguet : The impossibility of certain 

 waves of shock and combustion. — E. Estanave : Images 

 changing from two or three points of view on the_ auto- 

 stereoscopic plate. — Edm. van Aubel : The production of 

 ozone under the influence of ultra-violet light. The pro- 

 duction of ozone by the action of ultra-violet light, first 

 observed by Lenard, has been confirmed by other observers. 

 On the other hand, H. Bordier and T. Nogier have recently 

 described experiments leading to the contrary conclusion. 

 The experiments detailed in the present paper confirm 

 Lenard's experiments. — F. Ducelliez : The study of some 

 alloys of cobalt from the point of view of their electro- 

 motive forces. Curves are given for the experimental 

 measurements with alloys of cobalt with tin, antimony, 

 bismuth, lead, and copper. — .'\. Besson and L. Fournier : 

 A new chloride of phosphorus. No chloride of phosphorus 

 corresponding to the hydride P,H,, and the iodide PJ,, has 

 hitherto been described. This chloride, PXI„ is produced 

 by the action of the silent electric discharge on a mixture 

 of hydrogen with the vapour of phosphorus trichloride. 

 The new chloride forms a colourless, oily liquid, solidify- 

 ing at —28° C, and distilling with slight decomposition 

 at g5° C. under a pressure of 20 mm. It absorbs oxygen 

 rapidly from the air, and sometimes catches fire spon- 

 taneously. Attempts to isolate the corresponding bromide 

 were unsuccessful. — Marcel Delepine : The solution of 

 platinum in sulphuric acid, and on the products of this 

 reaction. The presence of oxygen is not necessary to the 

 reaction between platinum and sulphuric acid, as has been 

 assumed by M. Quennessen, since solution takes place in 

 a stream of carbon dioxide, air, oxygen, or carbon dioxide 

 mi.xed with sulphur dioxide. — Pierre Jolibois : Two new 

 phosphides of nickel. These compounds were obtained by 

 heating a nickel-tin alloy in sealed tubes with phosphorus. 

 The composition of the phosphides agreed with the 

 formula; NiP, and NiPj.— E. Cornec : The forniula of 

 hypophosphoric acid. .\ cryoscopic study of aqueous solu- 

 tions of the acid and the potassium salt. The double 

 formula H,P.O, agrees best with the facts observed.— 

 J. B. Send'erens ; The catalytic preparation .of the 

 aromatic ketones. The catalytic action of thoria at 460° C. 

 upon a mixture of benzoic and a fatty acid gives a mixture 

 of the symmetrical fatty ketone and the mixed fatty 

 aromatic ' ketone, no benzophenone, apparently, ^ bemg 

 formed. The method has been successfully applied to 

 the preparation of ketones of the general formula 

 C^H,— CO— R, in which R was methyl, ethyl, normal and 

 isopropvl, and isobutvl.— M. Lespieau : Methylacetenyl- 

 carbinol.— Em. Bourquelot and M. Bridel : The presence 

 of gentiopicrin in Chlom pcrfoliata. Details are given of 

 the methods emploved for isolating this glucoside in the 

 pure state.— H. Bierry : Researches on the digestion of 

 inulin. It is found that various animals are capable of 

 digesting inulin, but thev employ for this digestion different 

 physiological agents. In the higher animals, the trans- 

 formation of the inulin takes place in the stomach, and 

 is due to the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice ; in 

 molluscs a ferment is secreted which is capable of hydro- 



