46 
(6) The turning point, and therefore presumably the point of 
maximum elongation, occurs with a smaller magnetising force 
when the rod is stretched than when it is unstretched. 
Il, STEEL 
(7) In soft steel magnetisation produces elongation, which, as 
in the case of iron, increases up to a certain value of the mag- 
netising force, and afterwards diminishes. The maximum 
elongation is less than in iron, and the rate of diminution after 
the maximum is passed is also less. 
(8) The critical value of the magnetising force for a steel rod 
diminishes with increasing hardness up to a certain point, cor- 
responding to a yellow temper; after which it increases, and 
with very hard steel becomes very high. ‘There is therefore a 
critical degree of hardness for which the critical magnetising 
force is a minimum ; in steel of a yellow temper the value of the 
critical magnetising force is lower than in steel which is either 
softer or harder. 
(9) In soft steel a strong magnetising force subsequently dimin- 
ished may cause a greater temporary elongation than the 
diminished force is capable of producing if applied in the first 
place. 
(10) A temporary elongation when once produced in soft steel 
may be maintained by a magnetising force which is itself too 
small to originate any perceptible elongation. 
III. NIcKEL 
(11) Nickel continues to retract with magnetising forces far | 
exceeding those which produce the maximum elongation of iron. 
The greatest observed retraction of nickel is more than three 
times the maximum observed elongation of iron, and the limit 
has not yet been reached. 
(12) A nickel wire stretched by a weightundergoes retraction 
when magnetised. 
Anthropological Institute, April 28.—Francis Galton, 
F.R.S., President, in the chair.—Mr. A. L. Lewis read a 
paper on the past and present condition of certain rude stone 
monuments in Westmoreland. The highest point of the railway 
between Lancaster and Carlisle is a little to the south of the 
village and station of Shap, in Westmoreland, where there were 
formerly some very extensive rude stone monuments, now un- 
fortunately almost entirely destroyed. Allusion is made to them 
by Camden and Dr. Stukeley, and a circle is said to have been 
destroyed when the railway was made; some remains of this 
circle may be seen from the train, but only a few stones are left | 
The most interesting monument now remaining in | 
on the spot. 
the vicinity of Shap is situated at a place called Gunnerskeld, 
two or three miles to the north, and consists of two irregular, 
concentric, slightly oval rings, about 50 and 1oo feet in diameter 
respectively, the longest diameters being from north to south.— 
A paper by Admiral F. S. Tremlett on quadrilateral construc- 
tions near Carnac was read. These inclosures were explored by 
the late Mr. James Miln ; in each case the boundary walls are 
formed of coarse, undressed stones, put together without any kind 
offcement, and having built up in them a series of small 
menhirs ; they also contained beehive structures for cremation, 
reddened and become friable from the effects of great heat. It 
would appear that the cremation had been perfect, as not a 
particle of calcined bone was found in either of the inclosures.— 
A paper by M. Jean L’Heureux on the Kekip-Sesoators, or 
ancient sacrificial stone of the North-West Territory of Canada, 
was read. Elevated two hundred feet above the level of the sur- 
rounding plain, Kekip-Sesoators, the Hill of the Blood Sacrifice, 
stands like a huge pyramidal mound commanding an extensive 
view of both Red Deer and Bow River Valleys. A natural 
platform of about one hundred feet crowns its summit; at the 
north end of the platform, resting upon the soil, is the Sesoators, 
a rough boulder of fine-grained quartzose, fifteen inches high 
and about fourteen in diameter ; upon its surface are sculptured 
half an inch deep the crescent figure of the moon with a shining 
star over it. Two small concave basins about two inches in 
diameter are hollowed into the stone, one in the centre of the 
star, the other about seven inches from it in a straight line ; 
around them are traced various hieroglyphic signs, and all over 
the surface are numerous small circlets, which remind one of the 
sacrificial stone of Mexico. Here at a time of private or public 
necessity, when extraordinary blessings are sought, comes a 
solitary warrior, himself the priest and the victim ; from the time 
of sunset he sits in solemn vigil gazing in the far east for the 
coming of the star-god of his ancestors ; and when the first ray of 
the morning star lights the distant horizon, he lays a finger of his 
left hand on the top of the stone and cuts it off, leaving the blood to 
NATURE 
[May 14, 1885 
flow into the basin. He then presents the bleeding finger to the 
morning star, and, leaving it in the basin of the star-like figure, 
retraces his steps towards the lake at the foot of the hill, where 
he dresses his wound, and at sunrise enters his own village, 
where he is received with triumphant honours. Amongst the 
Blackfeet these self-inflicted wounds ranked equal to those 
received in battle, and are always mentioned first in the public 
recital of the warrior’s great deeds in the national feast of Ocan. 
Geologists’ Association, May 1.—William Topley, F.G.S., 
President, in the chair.—A paper was read on wingless birds— 
recent and fossil—and on birds as a class, by Dr. Henry 
Woodward, F.R.S._ The author prefaced his remarks on wing- 
less birds by giving first a brief account of the characters of birds 
as aclass. He described the peculiarities of the skull and the 
fore- and hind-limb, the cervical, thoracic, sacral, and caudal 
vertebrae, with the shoulder-girdle and pelvis. He compared 
the highly-specialised fore-limbs in existing birds with that of 
Archaeopteryx, the former, with three rudimentary digits, having 
the metacarpal bones anchylosed together ; the latter, with three 
free digits in each manus, armed with claws. He compared the 
bones of the hind-limb of an adult Zezazodon with those of a 
young Dinornis, and showed how closely the characters observ- 
able in the former are repeated in the latter. Many interesting 
analogies were also pointed out in the form of the ilium, ischium, 
and pubis in Struthio and Iguanodon. The Archeopteryx, 
although possessing so many points of divergence from the Avian 
type, was shown to be the earliest known ancestor of the great 
division of Carina¢e (birds with a keel to the sternum) to which - 
nearly all modern (flying) birds belong. For the Ratite (or 
boat-breasted birds), to which division the Ostrich, Rhea, Emu, 
Cassowary, Apteryx, Dinornis, Zpyornis, &c., belong, an’earlier 
ancestor must be sought. The author contended that, on the 
evidence before us we have a right to claim a higher antiquity 
for the Xatite than for the Carinafe, not only from the present 
wide distribution of this division of the class, but also from the 
fossil evidence which embraces for the Struthious order even a 
still larger geographical area than that shown from existing 
species. And if we are at liberty to add to this the evidence of ° 
the footprints of bipedal animals in the Trias (which agree with 
the tracks of birds in the number of digits in the foot), then these 
footprints may be taken as further evidence of their priority in 
geological time. For the primitive forms of this class we must 
evidently look to the palzeozoic rocks. 
Zoological Society, May 5.—Prof. Alfred Newton, F.R.S., 
Vice-President, in the chair.—A communication was read from 
Mr. Jean Stolzmann, containing observations on the theory of 
sexual dimorphism.—Mr. J. Bland Sutton, F.Z.S., read a paper 
on hypertrophy and its value in evolution, in which he attempted 
to show that material changes in structure might be the result of 
what was originally a pathological condition.—Mr. E. T. 
Newton, F.Z.S., read a paper on the remains of a gigantic 
species of bird (Gastornis klasseni), which had been obtained by »~ 
Mr. H. M. Klaassen from the ‘‘ Woolwich and Reading Beds” | 
of the lower Eocene series. The author observed that these 
fossils proved that in early Eocene times England was inhabited 
by a race of birds which equalled in their proportions some of 
the more massive forms of the New Zealand moas.—A com- 
munication was read from Mr. R. B. Sharpe, F.Z.S., contain- 
ing the description of a new species of Hornbill from the Island 
of Palawan, which he proposed toname dnthracoceros lemprieri. 
—Prof. E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S., read some notes on the 
right cardiac valve of the specimens of Afteryx dissected Ly Sir 
Richard Owen in 1841.—A communication was read from 
Lieut.-Col. C. Swinhoe, F.Z.S., being the third of his series of 
papers on the Lepidoptera of Bombay and the Deccan. The 
present paper treated of the second portion of the Heterocera.— 
A communication was read from Dr. St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 
containing a correction of a statement concerning the structure 
of Viverricula, contained in a former paper. 
MANCHESTER 
Literary and Philosophical Society, Feb. 16.—1nomas 
Alcock, M.D., in the chair.—A proposed revision of the species 
and varieties of the sub-genus Cylinder (Montfort) of Conus (L.), 
by Mr. J. Cosmo Melvill, M.A., F.L.S. 
March 10.—Prof. W. C. Williamson, LL.D., F.R.S., Presi- 
dent, in the chair.—On making sea-water potable, by Thomas 
Kay, President of the Stockport Natural History Society. 
Communicated by F. J. Faraday, F.L.S. 
March 16.—Thomas Alcock, M.D., in the chair.—On the 
breeding of the Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) in 
