July 9, 1874] 



NATURE 



197 



out valid reason the woman may leave him and appropriate to 

 herself all his possessions, with the exception of a cup and his 

 loin-cloth. These people also celebrate feasts at which meat is 

 partaken of, contrary to the proscriptions of their present form 

 of religion. Amonf; the neighbouring Kukis no such practices 

 prevail, the men drinking and smoking apart in their festive 

 gatherings, and celebrating solemn festivals by visiting the graves 

 of their forefatliers to consult oracles and seek for omens. In the 

 country of the Kasias, where Lieut, liedingfield was murdered 

 two years after its annexation to our Indian empire, monoliths 

 and other stone memorials are common, and for the most part 

 present great similarity to the menhirs and cromlechs of Cornwall 

 and Brittany. The Garos, whose country lies west of Kasia 

 and extends in the south and east as far as the Brahmaputra, are 

 but little known beyond their own frontiers, while the moun- 

 tainous districts of their settlements continue to be almost wholly 

 unexplored. These tribes claim to be a primitive people, while, 

 like the Brits, they pretend to have affinity with the English 

 races. — Dr. J. G. Wetzstein gives an interesting account of 

 the ancient Hebrew threshing board, still in use in Syria, 

 where every village has its communal threshing ground to 

 which the neighbouring landowners-^both great proprietors and 

 the small peasants — bring their grain, mostly on camels, to be 

 prepared on these curious tables or boards. Dr. Wetzstein has 

 laid before the Anthropological .Society of Berlin a sample of 

 the stones in use for this simple mechanical contrivamce, which 

 appears to be almost unchanged in its structure and mode of 

 use from Biblical times to the present day, and may be seen 

 amongst the Berbers, the Cypriots, and in other parts of Asia 

 Minor, besides Syria. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, June iS. — On the Employment of a Plani- 

 meter to obtain Mean Values from the traces of continuous Self- 

 recording Meteorological Instruments, by Robert H. Scott, 

 F.R.S. 



The usual method of dealing with barograms ai.d thtimo- 

 grams is to measure them at certani intervals by appropriate 

 scales, and to treat the numerical values so obtained by arith- 

 metical processes so as to arrive at mean results. 



At the suggestion of Mr. P'rancis Galton, the Sleteorological 

 Committee gave instructions that measurements should be made 

 of the curves by means of Anisler's Planimtter, in order to test 

 the accuracy of unpublished means. 



It is perfectly obvious that the measurement of the area of 

 the curve, if it can be executed with sufficient accuracy, must 

 give a far more satisfactory mode of ascertaining the value of the 

 mean ordinate of the curve, than the calculation of the average 

 of any number of measured individual ordinates, while the 

 economy of time insured by the use of the planimeter forms a 

 most important recommendation for its use. 



The mode of employing the instrument is as follows : — The 

 entire perimeter of the curve, down-to the base line, is mea- 

 sured, and the value noted. Then using the same base line, 

 a rectangle of known height, in units of the scale of the curve, 

 is next measured in the same way, and the value noted again. 



The ratio of these two values is the mean value of the ordinate 

 of the curve, or the mean pressure or temperature for the inter- 

 val embraced by the curve. 



The table subjoined to the paper shows (or a period of eight 

 months the means of temperature for Kew Observatory obtained 

 by the planimeter, as well as those yielded by the old method, 

 both for daily and for five-day means. It will be seen that the 

 difference in 242 determinations of daily means only amounted 

 to o°'5 on six occasions, and to o°-6 in one instance, while out of 

 49 cases of five-day means the greatest difference was orlyo°'4, 

 and this was only once attained. 



At the end of the table a column headed "\Vr. Rep. Plates" 

 gives the values obtained by measurement of the plates published 

 in the " Quarterly Weather Report " for the period embraced 

 by the measurements to which 1 have just alluded. It will be 

 seen from it that the five-day means so obtained hardly differ 

 from those which are yielded by the direct measurement of the 

 photographic curve by means of ihe planimeter. 



The plates in question are obtained by the use of Mr. Francis 

 Galton's Pantagraph, which transfers the seconds at a reduced 

 time-scale to zinc plates, which plates are subsequently further 



reduced and transferred to copper by Wagner's Pantagraph, as 

 explained in the report of the Committee for 1S70. 



Such a test as this affords a satisfactory proof of the accuracy 

 of the reproduction of our automatic records which are executed 

 in the Meteorological Office. 



The result of these preliminary experiments is that the plani- 

 meter means are practically identical with those obtained by 

 treatment of the values of the hourly ordinates. 



On the diuretic action of Digitalis, by T. Lauder Brunton, 

 M.D., and Henry Power, M.B. 



The object of this communication is to show that the diuretic 

 effects which follow the exhibition of digitalis depend on the re- 

 actionary relaxation which follows the spasm of the smaller renal 

 arteries consequent on the influence of the digitalis, instead of on 

 the direct increase in the arterial blood-pressure, the direct effect 

 of the drug. 



An account of certain Organisms occurring in the Blood, by 

 W. Osier, M.D. 



In many diseased conditions, and sometimes in health, careful 

 investigation of the blood proves that, in addition to the usual 

 elements, there exist pale granular masses, which on closer in- 

 spection present a corpuscular appearance, varjing in size from 

 a quarter that of a white blood-corpuscle to enormous masses, 

 with an oval or rounded form, sometimes elongate or irregular. 

 The author watches these bodies at a temperature of 37° C. and 

 finds that they undergo remarkable changes. At first uniform 

 and still, Brownian movements soon commence ; fine projections 

 from the mass develop ; its edges become less dense, more 

 loosely arranged ; semi- free minor corpuscles form, which quickly 

 break away, moving independently in the fluid. Other filaments 

 undergo the same change, fresh detachments becoming so nume- 

 rous as to fill the field of the object glass. Granules present 

 themselves in abundance. The original mass has now become 

 perceptibly smaller and more granular. The variety of the forms 

 increases as the development goes on ; and whereas at first sperma- 

 tozoa-like or spindle-shaped forms were almost exclusively to 

 be seen, more irregular forms appear later, possessing two, three, 

 or more tail-like processes. It is to be noted that in blood with- 

 out the addition of saline solution or serum, no change takes 

 place in the corpuscles under consideration, even after prolonged 

 warning. It must still be confessed that we know nothing of 

 the origin or destiny cf these corpuscles ; they evidently cannot 

 arise from the disintegration of white corpuscles, for they form 

 individual elements circulating through the blood. 



On Coniferine and its Conversion into the Aromatic Principle 

 of Vanilla, by Ferd. Tiemann and Wilh. Haarmann. Commu- 

 nicated by A. W. Hoffmann, F.R.S. 



Given the number of figures (not exceeding 100) in the recipro- 

 cal of a prime number, to determine the prime itself, by William 

 Shanks. Communicated by the Rev. G. Salmon, F.R.S. 



Description of the living and extinct races of gigantic Land 

 Tortoises. Part I. and II. Introduction, and the Tortoises of 

 the Galapagos Islands, by Albert Gimther, F.R.S. 



The author having the opportunity of examining remains of tor- 

 toisesfrom the Mascarene Islands concludes that the several extinct 

 gigantic species are different from the more recent ones, and that 

 there is the greatest resemblance between the tortoises of the 

 Mascarene and Galapagos Islands. An historical account is 

 given, which shows that the presence of these tortoises at two so 

 distant stations cannot be accounted for by the .agency of man, 

 at least not in historic times, and therefore that these animals 

 must be regarded as indigenous. The second part contains a 

 description of the Galapagos tortoises. 

 Edinuurgii. 



Scottish Meteorological Society, July 2. — This was 

 the Half-yearly General Meeting of the Society ; the Marquis 

 of Tweeddale, president of the Society, in the chair. The 

 report was read by Mr. Milne Home, chairman of the 

 Council, from which it appeared that the Society's stations 

 number at present 104, of which 92 are in Scotland, and that 

 the .Society consists of 558 ordinary, 15 corresponding, and 8 

 honorary members. Observations are made at fourteen stations 

 in Scotland at 12.43 r-^'i in connection with the Inter^iational 

 scheme of Meteorology. Tlie Hon. B. Primrose, secretary of 

 the Fishery Board, who had entered wilh much zeal into the 

 inquiry into the relations of meteorology lo tlie herrhig fishery, 

 having intimated that if the Society would furnish the necessary 

 instruments he would endeavour that twenty sets of observa- 



