Jan. 15, 1874J 



NA TURE 



215 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, Jan. 8. — "On the Brom-Iodides," by Dr. 

 Maxwell .Simpson, F.R.S., rrofessor of Chemistry, Queen's 

 College, Cork. 



" Contributions to the History of the Orcins. — No. IV. On 

 the lodo-derivatives of the Orcins," by Dr. John Stenhouse, 

 F.R.S. 



"A Memoir on the Transformation of Elliptic Functions," by 

 Prof. Cayley, F.R.S. 



"On Electro-torsion," by Geoige Gore, F.R.S. 



This communication contains an account cf a new phenome- 

 non, of rods and wires of iron becoming twisted whilst under 

 the influence of electric currents ; and a full description of the 

 conditions under which it occurs, the necessary apparatus, and 

 the methods of using it. 



The phenomenon of torsion thus produced is not a microscopic 

 one, but may be made to e,\cced in some cases a twist of a quar- 

 ter of a circle, the end of a suitable index moving through a 

 space of So centimetres {= 31 in.). It is always attended by 

 emission of sound. 



The torsions are produced by the combined influence of heli- 

 acal and axial electric currents, one current passing through a 

 long copper-wire coil surrounding the bar or wire, and the other, 

 in an axial direction, through the iron itself The cause of them 

 is the combined influence of magnetism in the ordinary longitu- 

 dinal direction induced in the bar by the coil-current, and trans- 

 verse magnetism induced in it by the axial one. 



The torsions are remarkably symmetrical, and are as definitely 

 related in direction to electric currents as magnetism itself. The 

 chief law of them is — A cHri\nl flowing from a iiort/i to a south 

 pole frodiiios leit-Iiavdcd torsion, and a rtverse one rig/it-hanJrd 

 lo?sion, i.e. in the direction of an ordinaiy screw. Although 

 each current alone will produce its own magnetic effect, sound, 

 and internal molecular movement, neither alone will twist the 

 bar, unless the bar has been previously magnetised by the other. 

 Successive coil-currents alone in opposite directions will not 

 produce torsion, neither will successive and opposite axial ones. 



Signs of electro-torsion were obtained with a bar of nickel, 

 but rot with wires of platinum, silver, copper, lead, tin, cad- 

 mium, zinc, magnesium, aluminium, brass, or German-silver, 

 nor with a thick rod of zinc, Or a cord of gutta-percha. 



Zoological Society, Jan. 6.— Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Dr. A. Leith Adams exhibited and 

 made remarks on the horns of a feral race of Capra Idrcns, from 

 the Old Head of Kinsale. The horns were very remarkable for 

 their large size and very close resemblance to those of Capra 

 legagrns. — Mr. P. L. Sclater, F.R.S., read a synopsis on the 

 species of the genus Synalla.xis, of the family Deiidrocolaptidu. 

 The specimens of this difficult group in nearly all the principal 

 collections of Europe and America had been examined, and the 

 existence of 58 species ascertained, beside three of which the 

 types were not accessible, and which were considered to be 

 doubtful. — Mr. George Busk, F.R.S., read a paper on a new 

 British Pulyzoon, proposed to be called Hippuiia egertsni, after 

 Sir Phili]) I'-gerton, who had discovered it growing upon the 

 carapace of a specitnen of Conopiax angnlatns, dredged up at 

 Berehaven in the course of last summer. — Mr. Alfred Sanders 

 read a series of notes on the myology of Phryiiosoma coroiatmn. 

 — A communication was read from Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., 

 containing a description of the Steppe-cat of Bokhara, which he 

 proposed to designate C/iaiis caudatus. — Sir Victor Brooke, 

 Bart., re.ida paper on Sclater's Muntjac and other species of the 

 genus Cer- nliis. In pointing out the distinctions which characterise 

 the three existing species, Cen^nlus muntjac, C. sclatcri, and C. 

 rerrcsii, the author showed C. sdatcri, the species of most 

 northern range, to be intermediate in specific characters and 

 size between the two others. Sir Victor pointed out an advance 

 in the specialisation of the tarsus of Cervulus not hitherto ob- 

 served. In this genus the navicular, cuboid and second and 

 third cuneiform bones were anchylosed together and formed one 

 single bone, the first cuneiform being represented by a very small 

 and separate bone. — A second paper by Sir Victor Brooke con- 

 tained the description of a new species of deer from Persia, a 

 pair of horns of which he had received from Major Jones, 

 H.B.M. Consul at Tabreez in Persia, and which he proposed to 

 call CcivHs mesopolamicus. — Major H. H. Godwin Austin read a 



paper on some birds obtained by him in 1872-73 along the main 

 water-shed ol the Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy Rivers. Of these 

 ten were considered as new to Science, viz. : — Sitta Nagensis, 

 Garrula\- galbanus, G. albosupereiliatis, Trochalopteron cinera,- 

 ceum, T. virgatiim, Aclinodtira waldeni, Layardia robiginosa, 

 Prinia rufula, Cisticola niunipiireytsis. Mania subundulata. — 

 Mr. Garrod made some remarks upon the morbid symptoms pre- 

 sented by the Indian rhinoceros that had lately died in the 

 Society's Gardens, and upon certain points in its anatomy. — Mr. 

 Edwin C. Reed communicated a paper on the Chilian species of 

 the Coleopterous families Cioindelida and Carabidie. 



Royal Microscopical Society, Jan. 7. — Chas. Brooke, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — Mr. Chas. Stewart gave an interesting 

 resume of a paper contributed by Dr. H. D. Schmidt of New 

 Orleans on the origin and development of red blood-corpuscles 

 in the human embryo, and illustrated his remarks by black-board 

 diagrams enlarged from a number of most beautifully executed 

 drawings which accompanied the paper. — A discussion followed, 

 in which Dr. Lawson, Dr. Matthews, Mr. Stewart, and the 

 president took part. — A paper was also read by Mr. Alfred 

 Sanders on the Zoosperms of crastacea and other invertebrata.- — 

 The secretary read a paper by the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, giving 

 a description of his method of preparing drawings of microsco- 

 pical objects for cl.ass illustration, &c. — Mr. Richards exhibited 

 a new arrangement for a tank microscope for the examination of 

 objects under w'ater to a deptli of eight inches ; and some beauti- 

 ful slides of diatoms w-ere shown under the society's instruments 

 sent up t<y Capt. John Perry of Liverpool, containing the follow- 

 ing species, viz. : — Aulaeodiscns fortnosiis, Anlacodisciis margari- 

 taeetts, and Anliseus raccjnosus, all recent. 



Society of Biblical Archaeology, Jan. 6. — Dr. Birch,F.S. A., 

 president, in the chair. The following papers were read : — 

 "The .Sallier Papyrus containing the Wars of Rameses Meria- 

 mun with the Khita, " translated with Annoiations by Prof. 

 Lushington. — This well-known text was supplemented by a 

 fragment from the Raifet Collection ; it contains perhaps the 

 most vivid picture of a pre-Homeric battle extant : the king 

 himself, the chief actor, frequently speaking in the first person. 

 The two finest passages, the prayer of Rameses to his father 

 Annul, and the defeat ot the Hittites, possessing peculiar beauty, 

 in addition to the interest attaching itself to a people who, 

 about 1,200 B.C. were formidable enemies to the Egyptians 

 themselves. — "On sjme illustrations of the Book of Daniel 

 from the Assyrian Inscriptions," by H. Fox Talbot, F.R.S. 



Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, Dec. 16,1873. — "On 

 the Destruction of Sound by Fog and the Inertness of a Hetero- 

 geneous Fluid," by Prof Osborne Reynolds, M. A. The paper 

 commences— That sound does not readily penetrate a fog is a 

 matter of common observation. The bells and horns of ships 

 are not heard so far during a fog as when the air is clear. In a 

 London fog the noise of the wheels is much diminished, so that 

 they seem to be at a distance when they are really close by. On 

 one occasion during the launch of the Great Eastern the fog was 

 reported so dense that the workmen could neither see nor hear. 

 It has also been observed that mist in air or steam renders them 

 very dull as regards motion. This is observed particularly m the 

 pipes and passages in a steam engine. Mr. D. K. Clark found 

 in his experiments that it required from 3 to 5 times as much 

 back pressure to expel misty steam from a cylinder as when the 

 steam was dry. The author then proceeds to explain these phe- 

 nomena and to show that the particles of water do not, as it has 

 sometimes been supposed, break up the waves of sound by small 

 reflections in the same way as they scatter the waves of light, but 

 that the destruction of sound is due, like the dulness of motion, 

 to the fact that when foggy air is accelerated or retarded the 

 drops of water move through the air and expend energy iir fluid 

 friction. He points out, as a well-known fact, that when foggy 

 air is at rest under the aciion of gravity the drops of water are 

 not at rest, but descend through the air with a velocity propor- 

 tional to the square root of their diameters, and that consequently 

 the energy destroyed in a given time is proportional to the square 

 root of the diameters of the drops. He then shows that exactly 

 the same is the case when the fog is subjected to a uniform ac- 

 celeration and a somewhat similar eflect when the acceleration is 

 irregular or alternating. He says. This then fully explains the 

 dulness with which foggy air acquires motion. In the passages 

 of a steam engine the steam is subjected to continual accelerations 

 and retardations each of which requires more force in the manner 



