iu-S 



NA TURE 



[June i, 1905 



Linnean Society, May 4.— Pf"f- W. A. Herdman 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair.— The botany of Gough 

 Island part i., phanerogams and ferns: R. N. Rudmose- 

 Brown. Gough Island, or Diego Alvarez, lies in the 

 mid South Atlantic, lat. 40° 20' S., long. 9° 56' 30 W., 

 and may be regarded as the most outlymg member of the 

 Tristan da Cunha group, a small island between seven and 

 eight miles long, and half as wide, rising to a height of 

 4000 feet. It has been occasionally visited, but never 

 permanently inhabited The chief features of the vegeta- 

 tion are the tree Phvlica nitida and the tree-fern Lomana 

 Boryana. Four of the seventeen species of phanerogams 

 are almost certainly introduced, while two are new to 

 science, a species of Cotula and an Asplenium. The 

 Scottish Antarctic Expedition lay off the island for three 

 days in April, 1904, but owing to high sea landing was 

 onlv practicable on one day, when the materials for the 

 present paper were collected.— The study of vegetation : its 

 present condition and probable development : Prof. A. G. 

 Tansley. The word cecology, introduced by Prof. 

 Haeckel, means the study of the vital relations of 

 organisms to their environment, and by Prof. E. Ray 

 Lankester was termed bionomics. Restricting his remarks 

 to a special branch of the subject, the author proceeded 

 to consider the plant-association as the unit, the great fact 

 being the association of plants under definite conditions 

 of environment. Instances w'ere given of sets of plants 

 found in meadows, woods, cultivated fields, moors, and 

 dunes. — Schizopoda captured in the Bav of Biscay during 

 a cruise of H.M.S. Research : E. W. L. Holt and W. M. 

 Tattersall, with an appendix dealing with the distribution 

 statistically by Dr. G. H. Fowler. The paper forms 

 part v. of the series on Biscayan plankton. Ten genera 

 and eleven species were described ; of these one species is 

 new to science, and one, previously known from a single 

 example, is represented by eight specimens. All the 

 commoner forms are epiplanktonic, but of these some are 

 represented by scattered specimens from greater depths. 

 Euphausia pellucida, essentially epiplanktonic, with a 

 centre of distribution about 50-75 fathoms, seems to show 

 a marked vertical oscillation, rising by night and sinking 

 by day ; it was plentiful in bright moonlight ; by day 

 scattered specimens occurred between 250 and 100 fathoms. 

 Meganyctiphanes norvcgica, caught in small numbers and 

 on few occasions, was only captured by night, never by 

 day at any depth whatsoever. Messrs. Holt and Tattersall 

 suggest that this species is sufficiently sharp-sighted to see 

 and avoid a net by daylight, even at a depth of 100 

 fathoms. Nematoscelis mcgalops, with the same distribu- 

 tion as Euphausia pellucida, showed a less clearly marked 

 oscillation. 



Anthropilogical Institute, May 9 — Dr. A. C. Haddon, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Some tribes of the 

 Uganda Protectorate : Lieut. -Colonel C. Delme-Radclitfe. 

 The author described the customs and habits of the natives 

 with whom he came in contact, including the Kavirondo 

 and other tribes on the Victoria Nyanza, and the Acholi 

 in the Nile Province. The paper was illustrated by 

 numerous lantern slides, illustrating the peoples, animals, 

 and scenery, and by a large and interesting collection of 

 ethnographical specimens from the Protectorate. 



Challenger Society, May 10. — Prof. d'A. W. Thompson, 

 C.B.. in the chair. — A new species of Tuscarusa from the 

 North Atlantic : Dr. Wolfenden. — Observations on the 

 temperature and salinity of the water of the North 

 Atlantic, made during two cruises of Dr. Wolfenden 's 

 yacht Silver Belle during the summers of 1903 and 1904 : 

 Dr. H. N. Dickson. In 1900-2 much valuable work had 

 been done by Dr. Wolfenden in the Faeroe Channel, but 

 as this area lay within the field of the International 

 Council for the Study of the Sea, he worked in 1903 

 farther out in the Atlantic, to the west of Ireland, and at 

 the entrance to the Faeroe Channel south of the Wyville- 

 Thomson Ridge, the observations connecting directly with 

 those of the International Council in the Channel itself 

 and in the Norwegian Sea during the August cruises. The 

 work in 1904 was more directly concerned with the general 

 oceanic movements of Atlantic waters ; a line of soundings 

 was run from the south-west of Ireland to the Azores, 

 thence into the Mediterranean through the Straits of 

 NO. 1875, VOL. 7-1 



Gibraltar, and thence to the English Channel. Dr. Dick- 

 son illustrated the observations by diagrams of temperature 

 and salinity along the sections, and discussed the con- 

 siderable light thrown on the behaviour of the easterly 

 drift on reaching the shores of Europe, the exchange of 

 waters between the ."Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the 

 volume of. current in the straits, and the extension in the 

 Atlantic of Mediterranean water of high temperature and 

 salinity. 



Geological Society, Mav to. — Mr. R. S Herries, vice- 

 president, in the chair.— The geology of Dunedin (New 

 Zealand) : Dr. P. Marshall. A detailed account of the 

 petrography of the district was given. The age of the 

 oldest rocks seen, mica-schists, is not definitely known. 

 They are followed by Tertiary sandstones and limestones. 

 Fine, plant-bearing shales succeed unconformably, and 

 upon these, again, rests a light scoria-bed. The igneous 

 rocks next described cover them. These rocks include an 

 ill-exposed, gold-bearing syenite, a diorite, lavas, rhomb- 

 porphyry, tinguaite, hypabyssal trachydolerite, a teschenite- 

 dyke.'and trachyte. Trachytoid phonolites occur as inter- 

 bedded sheets. The andesites are characterised by horn- 

 blende and augite. Dolerites of two principal types occur 

 in dykes, one type being the commonest of all the rocks 

 in the area. A considerable series of chemical analyses 

 follows, showing that the silica-percentage varies from 66 

 in the Portobello trachyte to 44-84 in one of the dolerites. 

 The relative ages of the volcanic rocks are worked out so 

 far as possible. — The Carboniferous limestone of the 

 Weston-super-Mare district : T. F. Sibly. The Carbon- 

 iferous limestone of the Weston-Worle ridge includes part 

 of the Syringothyris-zone (C), extending from the 

 " laminosa-dolomites " upwards, and part of the Semlnula- 

 zone (S). While the dip of the rocks of the ridge is 

 towards the south, a reversed fault throws the Syringo- 

 thyris-beds on the south against the Seminnla-beds to the 

 north, and the latter rocks are over-folded on the north 

 side of the fault. The lower part resembles the equivalent 

 part of the Clevedon sequence, and indicates shallow-water 

 conditions ; the upper part of C resembles the correspond- 

 ing part of the Burrington section, and indicates the pre- 

 dominance of a Mendip-facies. The Woodspring ridge 

 shows a sequence exactly similar to that of Clevedon. 

 There were two periods of volcanic activity, one of which 

 occurred at the close of Zaphrentis-time and the other 

 early in Syringothyris-time. 



Physical Society, May 12. — Dr. C. Chree, F.R.S., vice- 

 president, in the chair. — A simple method of determining 

 the radiation constant, suitable for a laboratory experi- 

 ment : Dr. A. D. Denning:. The apparatus consists of a 

 hemispherical copper cap to the outside of which is affixed 

 a jacket through which steam or water can be passed. 

 The receiving surface consists of a silver plate, and the 

 rate of rise of temperature of the plate is measured by 

 means of a silver-constantan thermo-junction. When per- 

 forming the experiment, a non-conducting pad is placed 

 between the hemisphere and the silver disc until the 

 temperature of the jacket is uniform. Then the pad is 

 slid out, and the deflections of the galvanometer in the 

 thermo-junction circuit are rioted every few seconds. Bv 

 plotting these deflections on a curve the initial slope of 

 the curve, i.e. the initial rate of rise of temperature of 

 the silver disc, is obtained ; and from this, knowing the 

 constants of the disc, &c., the radiation constant can be 

 calculated. — A bolometer for the absolute measurement of 

 radiation : Prof. H. L. Callendar. It is now generally 

 agreed that the electric compensation method, in which 

 the heat received by radiation on a metallic strip is deter- 

 mined by measuring the electric current required to pro- 

 duce the same rise of temperature in the strip, is the most 

 satisfactory and accurate method for absolute measure- 

 ment. In the practical application of the bolometric 

 method for the absolute measurements of solar radiation, 

 the author has introduced certain modifications suggested 

 by experience in platinum thermometry, with the object of 

 securing (i) temperature compensation, so that the zero 

 remains constant in spite of changes in the surrounding 

 temperature ; (2) conduction compensation, so that loss of 

 heat by conduction at the ends of the strips may not affect 

 i the readings ; (3) accurate measurement of the area of 

 radiation absorbed. Comparisons have been made between 



