62 



NA TURE 



[July 8, 1922 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 



Royal Society, June 22. — Sir Charles Sherrington, 

 president, in the chair. — G. I. Taylor : The motion 

 of a sphere in a rotating liquid. There are an 

 infinite number of solutions to the equations of 

 motion of a rotating fluid, when a sphere is moved 

 uniformly along the axis of rotation, which satisfy 

 the boundary conditions and the conditions at 

 infinity. They are characterised by spherical rota- 

 tional waves which accompany the sphere. The 

 radius of the sphere may be reduced to zero without 

 reducing the disturbance in the fluid to zero. The 

 equations then represent a motion which is finite and 

 continuous at the centre, and consists of a central 

 core of fluid 'which rotates more slowly than the 

 surrounding fluid and travels along'the axis with a 

 constant speed. — T. R. Merton and D. N. Harrison : 

 On errors arising in the measurement of unsymmet- 

 rical spectrum lines. The instrumental displace- 

 ments occurring while spectra are being photo- 

 graphed can be rendered innocuous, for wave-length 

 determinations, only when the spectrum lines are 

 symmetrical. With uniform displacement of a 

 line during exposure, the maximum on the photo- 

 graphic plate occurs where the intensity distri- 

 bution curves at the beginning and end of the 

 exposure intersect. When thej}ratio of the widths 

 on either side of the maximum of the curve remains 

 constant for all values of the intensity, the displace- 

 ment of the maximum is simply related to the 

 " index of asymmetry " of the line. — E. F. Arm- 

 strong and T. P. Hilditch : A studv of catalytic 

 actions at solid surfaces. Pt. VIII. The action 

 of sodium carbonate in promoting the'hydrogenation 

 of phenol. Small amounts of mild alkali, especially 

 anhydrous sodium carbonate, stimulate the hydro- 

 genation of liquid phenol in presence of nickel. 

 The amount of sodium carbonate has a specific 

 influence, the optimum being about 25 per cent, of 

 theVeight of metallic nickel present. The hydrogen- 

 absorption time curves for phenol in presence of 

 nickel and in absence of sodium carbonate are of 

 logarithmic type ; with the optimum concentration 

 of carbonate they are approximately linear. The 

 sodium carbonate suppresses a retarding or poison- 

 ing influence, leaving the nickel free to exercise 

 its normal function. The toxic agent appears to 

 be some stable association between the nickel and 

 phenol, or a product from the latter, possibly nickel 

 phenate. Pt. IX. The action of copper "in pro- 

 moting the activity of nickel catalyst. Copper- 

 nickel catalysts prepared at 180° C. are not so 

 active as the plain nickel catalyst, distributed to 

 give the maximum surface area, reduced at a higher 

 temperature. For maximum activity, the pro- 

 portions of the mixed carbonates must be such that 

 nickel a-cupri-carbonate is present in the precipitate. 

 The preparations yielding active catalysts respond 

 to 'Pickering's tests for complex cupri-carbonates. 

 The production of a little reduced nickel at this low 

 temperature is conditioned, perhaps, by the heat 

 liberated in the reduction of the copper.— E. A. 

 Milne : Radiative equilibrium : the relation between 

 the spectral energy curve of a star and the law of 

 darkening of the disc towards the limb, with special 

 reference to the effects of scattering and the solar 

 spectrum. For stars in radiative equilibrium the 

 darkening of the disc towards the limb in wave- 

 length X depends only on the product XT, T being 

 the effective temperature. The ratio of the intensity 



NO. 2749, VOL. I io] 



at the limb to that at the centre increases as XT 

 increases, but never exceeds o-8 ; it approaches 

 zero for small values of XT. For stars not in radia- 

 tive equilibrium the coefficient of darkening in the 

 integrated radiation must lie between % and \, and 

 the temperature distribution near the surface can 

 be deduced. Selective absorption in the continuous 

 spectrum alters the law of darkening. A scattering 

 atmosphere round a star should make the co- 

 efficients of darkening in all wave-lengths tend to the 

 same value, about f. The observed darkening of 

 the continuous solar spectrum differs very little from 

 the theoretical darkening for radiative equilibrium ; 

 it is not possible to correlate the spectrum with the 

 darkening, either on the hypothesis of selective 

 absorption or on that of a scattering atmosphere. 

 Probably there is no scattering atmosphere of 

 appreciable optical thickness round the sun, and 

 the bulk of the emergent radiation is not scattered 

 light. — C. N. Hinshelwood : On the structure and 

 chemical activity of copper films and the colour 

 changes accompanying their oxidation. The gradual 

 activation of a copper surface in a series of oxida- 

 tions and reductions has been studied at pressures 

 of a few millimetres. A limiting state appears to be 

 reached in which the copper film has an open struc- 

 ture consisting of granules of radius a small fraction 

 of i,u. During oxidation, brilliant diffraction colours 

 are observed, depending upon the composition of the 

 separate granules. The mechanism by which the 

 film becomes granular is discussed. — R. C. Ray : Heat 

 of crystallisation of quartz. The difference between 

 the heats of solution of quartz and silica glass in 

 aqueous hydrofluoric acid, and the specific heats of 

 aqueous hydrofluoric acid represents the heat of 

 crystallisation of quartz at the ordinary temperature, 

 and is 6-95 kilogram calories. Grinding converts the 

 crystalline material partly into the vitreous state. 

 Near the melting-point the heat of crystallisation 

 is probably nearly equal to that at air temperature. 

 — C. G. Schoneboom : Diffusion and intertraction. 

 With fluid-mixing, in addition to diffusion, another 

 specific operating factor called " Intertraction " has 

 been found experimentally. Clerk Maxwell, in dis- 

 cussing interfacial tension, concluded that an inter- 

 penetrating movement of this kind was a priori to be 

 expected. The phenomenon has been described by 

 Sir Almroth Wright in the special case of the ad- 

 mixture of serum and salt solutions, but it can be 

 obtained with practically any substance in any 

 solvent. 



Geological Society, June 14. — Dr. G. T. Prior, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — P. G. H. Boswell : 

 The petrography of the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 outliers of the west of England. The outliers of 

 Upper Greensand on the Haldon Hills, the Eocene (?) 

 of Marazion, Buckland Brewer, and the Haldon Hills, 

 and the Oligocene of Bovey Tracey and Petrockstow 

 are discussed. Andalusite, topaz, and tourmaline are 

 the typical minerals. Minerals foreign to the West 

 Country, such as kyanite and staurolite, are also 

 abundant in the Cretaceous and Pliocene. The 

 mineralogical constitution yields evidence of a 

 progressive restriction of drainage-area, commencing 

 with the marine and glauconitic Greensand and 

 continuing through the fluviatile (?) Eocene to the 

 lacustrine Bovey deposits, and of a reversion to 

 marine conditons with a polygenetic mineral assem- 

 blage in the Pliocene. — W. N. Benson and S. Smith : 

 On some rugose corals from the Burindi Series (Lower 

 Carboniferous) of New South Wales. The corals were 

 obtained from the western foothills of the New 

 England Plateau, in the north-eastern portion of the 



