578 



The Naples correspondent of the Daily News states that a 

 plan has been proposed for an Italian Antarctic expedition, to 

 leave Genoa not later than May, 1S81, touch at Monte Video, 

 Terra del Fuego, Falkland Island--, and the South Shetland 

 Islands, remain in the Antarctic region two winters for the 

 purpose of scientific investigation and exploration, making use 

 of the period during which the ice is firm for sledge excursions, 

 and return, touching at Hobart Town or Capetown, to Naples. 

 It is calculated that the sum required will not exceed 600,000 

 lire. The number of persons on board not to be more than 

 forty, part of them being selected from the Italian Royal Navy, 

 part from the Italian whale-fishers who frequent the Southern 

 Seas. 



It is announced that two French explorers, MM. Wallon and 

 Guillaume, have been assassinated while] ascending the River 

 Tengung, in Northern Sumatra. 



The American Society of Civil Engineers have issued, in 

 pamphlet form, speeches delivered before it in discussing Mr. A. 

 G. Manocal's paper on interoceanic canal projects. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Bulletin de f Academic Royale des Sciences tie Belgiqne, No. 2, 

 1880. — On the discovery by Prof. Scacchi, of Naples, of a new 

 simple sub-tance in the lava of Vesuvius, by M. Stas. — A word 

 on some cetaceans which perished on the coasts of the Mediter- 

 ranean and the west of France during 1878 and 1879, by M. 

 van Beneden. — Researches on the relative intensity of the 

 spectral lines of hydrogen and nitrogen in relation to the consti- 

 tution of nebulae, by M. Fievez. — Note on certain covariants of 

 binary algebraic forms, by M. le Paige. 



Journal tie Physique, March. — Phenomena called hydro- 

 electric and hydromagnetic ; fundamental theorems and their 

 experimental demonstration, by Prof. Bjerknes. — Specific heats 

 and fusion points of various refractory metals, by M. Violle. — 

 Magnetisation of liquids (second part) by M. Ziloff. — Areometer 

 giving the density of solid substances, by M. Buignet. — Applica- 

 tion of the telephone to electric and galvanic measurements, by 

 Herr Wietlisbach. 



Rivista Scientific/] industrial!, No. 3. — Influence of surface- 

 impurity on areometric measurements, by Prof. Marangoni. — 

 On the nature of the electric current ; considerations and experi- 

 ments, by Prof. Magna. 



No. 4. — On two new species of parasite crustaceans, by Prof. 

 Richiardi. — Fossiliferous caverns discovered at Cucigliana, and 

 fossil remains belonging to the genera Hyccna and Felis, by S. 

 Acconci. — Aspirators and compressors, by Prof. Marangoni. — 

 New system of electric illumination, by S. Milani. — Ammonites 

 and belemnites found in the neighbourhood of Narni, by S. 

 Terrenzi. 



Alii Jclla R. Accadcmia dei Lincci, February. — The Fierasfer ; 

 studies on the systematic anatomy and biology of the Mediter- 

 ranean specie- of that genus, by Dr. Emery. — Comparative 

 researches on the structure of the nervous centres of vertebrata, 

 by Dr. Bellonci. — The living mollusca of Piedmont, by S. 

 Lessona. — On the action of cold and heat on the human blood- 

 vessels, by Dr. de Paoli. — On the first phenomena of develop- 

 ment of Salpa, by S. Todaro. — Geological notes on the environs 

 of Civita Vecchu, by S. Meli. — On the vibrations of isotropous 

 elastic bodies (prize memoir), by Prof. Cerruti. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Mathematical Society, April S.—C. W. Merrifield, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — Mr. J. Barnard was elected a Member, 

 and Mr. T. Olver Harding admitted into the Society. — The 

 following papers were read : — A (presumed) new form of the 

 equation- determining the foci and directrices of a conic whose 

 equati ui in Carte-ian co-ordinates is given, by Prof. Wolsten- 

 holme. — The application of elliptic co-ordinates and Lagrange's 

 equations of motion to Enler's problem of two centres of force, 

 by Prof. Greenhill. — Theorems in the calculus of operations, by 

 Mr. J. J. Walker. — On the equilibrium of cords and beams in 

 certain cases, by Mr. W. J. Curran Sharp. — On steady motion 

 and vortex motion in an incompressible viscous fluid, by Mr. T. 



NATURE [April 15, mo 



Craig. — On functions analogous to Laplace's functions, bv Mr. 

 E. J. Routh, F.R.S. 



Zoological Society, April 6.— Prof. W. II. Flower, 

 F.R.S. , president, in the chair. — The Secretary read some 

 extracts from letters which he hi-.d received from Mr. \V. A. 

 Couklin, of New York, rtlating to the birth of an elephant 

 which had lately taken place in a travelling menagerie at Phila- 

 delphia.— Prof. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S., read a paper on the 

 distinctive characters of the species of the genus Cants, as shown 

 in certain points of the structure of their skulls and in the pro- 

 portions of their teeth. — Dr. Francis Day read a paper on the 

 fishes of Afghanistan, based principally upon a collection which 

 had been made for him in the highlands of Kelat and Quettah, 

 by Dr. Duke. — A communication was read from Prof. Julius 

 von Haast, F.R.S., containing a description of a specimen of a 

 rare Ziphioid Whale (Epiodon nova:-zealanl : ,e), which had been 

 cast ashore at New Brighton, New Zealand, in July, 187S. 



Geological Society, March 24.— Robert Etheridge, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair.— II. T. Burl-;, Paramaribo, Dutch 

 Guiana ; John Allen McDonald, and Rev. Thomas Edward 

 Woodhouse, B.A., were elected Fellows of the Society. — The 

 following communication was read : — The newer Pliocene 

 Period in England — Part I. Compri-ing the Red and Fluvio- 

 marine Crag and Glacial Formations, by Searles V. Wood, jun., 

 F.G.S. The author divided this part of his subject into five 

 stages, commencing with — Stage I. The Red Crag and its par- 

 tially fluvio-marine equivalent. The Red Crag he regards as 

 having been a formation of banks and foreshores mostly accumu- 

 lated between tide-marks, as shown by the character of its bed- 

 ding. The southern or Walton extremity of this formation, 

 which contains a molluscan fauna more nearly allied to that of 

 the Coralline Crag than does the rest of it, became (as did also the 

 rest of the Red Crag south of Chillesford and Butley) converted 

 into land during the progress of the formation ; while at its 

 northern or Butley extremity the sea encroached, and an estuary 

 extending into East Norfolk was also formed, during which geo- 

 graphical changes a change took place in the molluscan fauna, 

 so that the late.-t part of the Red Crag proper and the earliest 

 part of the fluvio-marine (both containing the northern species of 

 mollusca and those peculiar forms only which occur in older 

 glacial beds) alike pass up without break into the Chillesford 

 sand and laminated clay which form the uppermost member of 

 the formation. He also regards the principal river of this 

 estuary as flowing into it from North Britain, through the shal- 

 low preglacial valley of chalk, in which stands the town of 

 Cromer, and in which the earlier beds of Stage II. accumulated 

 in greatest thickness. The forest and freshwater beds, which in 

 this valley underlie the beds of Stage II., he regards as terres- 

 trial equivalents of the Red Crag ; and having observed rolled 

 chalk interstratified with the base of the Chillesford clay in 

 Easton-Bavent cliff, he considers this to show that so early as 

 the commencement of this clay some tributary of the Crag river 

 was entered by a glacier in the Chalk country, from which river- 

 ice could raft away this material into the estuary. He also 

 regards the copious mica w hich this clay contains as evidence of 

 ice-degradation in Scotland having contributed to the mud of 

 this river. In Stage II. he traced the conversion of some of 

 this laminated clay, occupying sheet 49 and the north-east of 

 sheet 50 of the Ordnance map, into land, the .iccumulation 

 against the shore of this land of thick shingle-beaches at Hales- 

 worth and Henham, and the outspread of this in the form of 

 seams and beds of shingle in a sand originally (from its yielding 

 shells in that region) called by him the Bure-valley bed, and 

 which Prof. Pre-twich recognised under the term " Westleton 

 Shingle." As the valley of the Crag river subsided northwards 

 as the conversion of this part of the Chillesford clay into land 

 occurred, there was let in from the direction of the Baltic the 

 shell Tellina balthica, which is not present in the beds of Stage I. 

 The formation thus beginning he traced southwards nearly to the 

 limit in that direction of the Chillesford clay about Chillesford 

 and Aldboro'. The Cromer Till he regards as the modification 

 of this formation by the advance of the Crag glaciers into the 

 sea or estuary where it was accumulated, such advance having 

 been due partly to this northerly subsidence, but mainly to the 

 increase of cold. Then, after de-cribing a persistent uncon- 

 form.ty between this Till and the Contorted Drift, from the 

 eastern extremity of the Cromer cliff (but which does not appear 

 iu the western) to its furthest southern limit, he showed how the 

 great submergence set in with this drift, increasing much south- 

 wards, but still more westward towards Wales. The effect of 



