May 14, 1908] 



NATURE 



47 



<rrors respecting George the Fourth's giraffe : H. 

 Scherreti. The author adduced evidence to show that 

 the time the animal lived at Windsor had been much 

 understated, and added details as to its life in confinement, 

 the presentation of the skin and skeleton to the museum 

 of the society, and the notes made by R. B. Davis while 

 jiainting a picture of the animal at Windsor. — Observations 

 on the breeding-habits of a cichlid fish (Tilapia nilotica) 

 jnade in the course of a visit last year to Lakr Ourun in 

 the Fayum province of Egypt : C. L. Boulenger. — A 

 revision of the Oriental [H-lobatid batrachians (genus 

 Megalophrys) : G. A. Boulenger. 



Challenger Society, April 29. — Sir John Murray in the 

 chair. — A series of hydrographical sections, illustrating the 

 work of Dr. R. N. Wolfenden's yacht Silver Belle in 1905 

 off south-west Ireland and down to Gibraltar : Dr. H. N. 

 Oickson, The observations allowed the e.xtension into the 

 Atlantic of the Gibraltar under-current of high tempera- 

 ture and salinity to be carefully re-studied ; its effects were 

 observed to reach to 700 or 800 fathoms, where it spreads 

 out as a flat sheet, the high salinity of which gives it a 

 specific gravity equal to that of the colder, fresher Atlantic 

 water. The northward range of this water varies from 

 j'ear to year, and must be taken into account by the Inter- 

 national Commission for the Study of the North Sea as 

 a third factor in tracing the sources of Channel and North 

 Sea water. — Practical methods for the collection and inves- 

 tigation of water samples and temperatures: O. J. 

 Matthews. 



Dublin. 



Royal Dublin Society, March 24. — Prof. Sydney Voung, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — Reports upon the Irish peat indus- 

 tries (part ii.) : Prof. Hugh Ryan. The author begins 

 with a description of the methods employed in Ireland for 

 the preparation of peat fuel, and then reviews the attempts 

 which have been made at various times to convert peat 

 into a fuel of greater density than that ordinarily obtained 

 by the Irish farmer. A recommendation is made for the 

 establishing of suitable industries, such as that of glass- 

 manufacture, at carefully selected points of the peat dis- 

 tricts having machine-formed turf and peat-moss litter 

 factories in connection with them. The economic import- 

 ance of " generator gas " and of " mi.xed power gas " 

 from peat is also considered in the paper, which concludes 

 with a description of the " Woltereck process," employed 

 at Carnlough, co. Antrim, for the preparation of ammonia 

 from peat. 



April 14. — Prof. Sydney Young in the chair. — The erup- 

 tion of Vesuvius, 1906 : Dr. H. J. Johnston Lavis. The 

 author describes, from information collated and from per- 

 sonal observations a few days. after the great outburst, the 

 succession of events at Vesuvius in April, 1906. He points 

 out that these events, and the manifestations since 1872, 

 Tiiay be referred to the usual local alteration of " Strom- 

 bolian " and paroxysmic " Vesuvian " stages of activity. 

 He attributes the great outbursts of volcanic dust, accom- 

 oanying the crater-forming stage, to the falling in of 

 loose material from the crumbling cone when the lava- 

 column has been drained down to a low level, and to its 

 second ejection by the iipljursting steam. In the cone- 

 building stage, on the other hand, the lava-cake on the 

 top of the magma-column, now high up in the vent, is 

 exploded in the form of *' essential " scoria?. The courses 

 of the lava-flows of 1906 are traced out, and their petro- 

 graphy and mineralogy are described. The paper was 

 illustrated by a number of original photographs, including 

 panoramic views showing the ash-deposits and the trunca- 

 tion of the cone. — The radium contents of the rocks of the 

 St. Gothard Tunnel (preliminary note) : Prof. J. Joly. 

 Estimates of the radium in some typical rocks through 

 which the tunnel was carried show a distribution of r.adium 

 in accordance with the elevation of temperature which 

 Stapff observed at the northern end of the tunnel and the 

 [ lesser gradients met with at the south end. So far as the 

 t investigation has gone, the average radium content of the 

 I ..^ rocks of the central and .southern sections of the tunnel is 

 ' ' considerably below that observed by the author in the case 

 (if thf Simplon rocks. 



XO. 20II, VOL. 78] 



Royal Irish Academy, April 13. — Dr. F. A. TarUt^p, 



president, in the chair. — Malignant tumours in birds, with 

 observations on certain changes in the blood : Prof. A. E. 

 Mettam. The tumours were round cell sarcomata, seen 

 in the domestic fowl (three cases), and a true carcinoma 

 found replacing the left lung in a thrush (T. mtisicus). 

 Interesting changes were observed in the red blood cor- 

 puscles of the thrush. Numerous corpuscles showed pro- 

 found nuclear degeneration ; the nuclei were swollen, 

 approaching the circular in outline, the chromatin network 

 being more distinct. The proto ^'asn"' of the corpuscles 

 showed polychromatophilia, ana .eiicually entered into 

 solution. The nuclear substance, u .V having lost its struc- 

 ture, remains as an irregular lump, staining especially with 

 the acid dyes. — Spirocha?tes in infective sarcomata of dogs : 

 Prof. A. E. Mettam. The author describes certain spiro- 

 chaetes, fusiform and bacillary bodies in smears obtained 

 from the infective sarcomata developed on and in the genital 

 organs of dogs. The number of undulations in the spiro- 

 chcEte is generally five, the length of the organism about 

 17 fi. The bacillary bodies arc long or short, stiff, or, 

 when long and attenuated, slightly undulating. They show 

 metachromatic granules, and may have some relation to 

 the spirochiEte which they invariably accompany. — The 

 mouth-parts of some Blattida>, including a detailed account 

 of the mandibles and maxillte of Periplancia anstralasiae, 

 compared with those of other species of the family : 

 J. Mangan. The author shows the presence of a distinct 

 lacinia mobilis in the mandible, and gives a full descrip- 

 tion of the iTiusculature, both of mandibles and maxilla;. 

 He discusses the various views that have been proposed 

 as to the homologies of the parts of a maxilla, and con- 

 troverts Verhoeff's recent suggestion that the hexapodan 

 maxill.'e are primitively posterior to the labium. 



.•\pril 27. — Dr. F. A. Tarleton, president, in the chair. — 

 \ new Devonian isopod from Kiltorcan, co. Kilkenny : 

 Prof. G. H. Carpenter and I. Swain. The fossil, named 

 Oxyuropodii lioioide.i, bears a general resemblance to an 

 oniscoid. The first thoracic segment is closely united with 

 the head, and appears to carry chelate limbs ; the uropods 

 are lateral, elongate, acuminate, and unjointed. This 

 forms an interesting addition to the few Pala?ozoic isopods 

 hitherto known. 



Paris. 



Academy of Scieni^es, May 4. — M. H. Becquerel in the 

 chair. — Formula; relating to the minima of classes of 

 binary, positive quadratic forms : G. Humbert. — The dis- 

 covery of the law of falling bodies : Pierre Duhem. The 

 fact that the velocity of a freely falling body increased in 

 velocity proportionally to the time of fall was well known 

 to Leonardo da Vinci, but it is not stated in his manu- 

 scripts whether this was his own discovery, or whether 

 he had derived it from earlier sources. A clear definition 

 of uniformly varying motion was given by .Mbert de Saxe 

 in 135 1, but his view as to the law of a falling body 

 appears to have been erroneous, and it would seem prob- 

 able that the real law was discovered by da Vincii — 

 Canonical hyperelliptic functions of the second species : 

 Z. KryKowski. — The application of the laws of similitude 

 to the propagation of deflagrations : M. Jouguet. — The 

 comparison of contiimous current series and shunt dynamos 

 from the point of view of rapidity of starting : Paul 

 Girault. Series winding gives the more rapid starting. — 

 .\ new radiographic method capable of deciding whether 

 a supposed still-born child has really lived or not : Charles 

 Vaillant. With infants which have not lived no organ is 

 visible on the radiograph. With infants which have taken 

 a few breaths the stomach alone is visible. When the 

 stomach is more transparent and the intestine becomes 

 visible, the child has lived from one to fourteen hours. 

 In the case of infants who have lived some days without 

 food, the abdominal organs, the lungs, and the liver show 

 on the radiograph. With infants fed during several davs 

 all the organs are clearer, and the mass of gas in the 

 intestine allows of a much clearer image of the intestinal 

 mass. — The ultr.i-violet spark spectrum of dvsnrosium. and 

 on some remarkable magnetic properties of this element: 

 G. Urbain. A catalogue of the spectrum lines of this 

 element for wave-lengths between 2872 and 4221 is given. 

 The coefficient of magnetisation of dysprosium oxide was 



