66 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[July 20, 1888. 



of 3|apn% Hecture*, etc* 



MINERALOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

 A general meeting of this Society was held on June 

 28th, at the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh. 

 Professor Geikie occupied the chair. " The Distribution 

 and Origin of the Mineral Albertite in Ross-shire " formed 

 the subject of the paper by Mr. Hugh Miller, F.R.S.E., 

 H.M. Geological Survey. The conclusions he arrived at 

 were that the primary source of the albertite in 

 the Strathpeffer district was the bituminous shales of 

 the old red sandstone; that the mineral, although it 

 occurred in gneiss, in sandstone, in conglomerate, and in 

 the bituminous shales themselves, was found mainly in 

 the vicinity of faults, where the strata had been sub- 

 jected to great pressure ; that the veins are, in some 

 cases at least, injection veins, having some of the charac- 

 ters when studied in detail of intrusive dykes ; that the 

 veins, having very seldom the same direction as the lines 

 of fault or the fault-joints parallel with these, probably 

 were injected into lines along which there was relaxation 

 of pressure ; and that the mineral, in those instances 

 which can best be studied, entered the veins in a fluid 

 and penetrating form, probably in the form of some kind 

 of petroleum. A paper, accompanied by a series of 

 tables, was next submitted by Messrs. Alexander John- 

 stone, F.G.S., and A. B. Griffiths, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., on 

 " The Rock-forming Feldspars and their Determination." 

 Papers were also submitted by Professor Albert H. 

 Chester, Hamilton College, U.S.A. ; the Rev. W. W. 

 Peyton, William Morrison, M.A., Dingwall ; and Pro- 

 fessor M. F. Heddle. A series of hydro-carbons were 

 exhibited by Professor W. Ivison Macadam, and an 

 analysis given of the albertite beds ; some fine crystals 

 were shown by Mr. S. Peyton and Dr. T. A. G. Balfour ; 

 a series of minerals from Iona and Tiree were sent for 

 exhibition by the Duke of Argyll. 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

 At the meeting of the Scientific Committee, on June 26th, 

 Professor Church contributed a summary of his highly 

 interesting and important researches upon the presence 

 of aluminium in the ashes of plants. This substance, 

 instead of being peculiar to the species of Lycopodium, 

 as once supposed, is found in minute traces in the ashes 

 of very many others, a circumstance not to be wondered 

 at, considering the abundant distribution of the element 

 in many soils. It occurs in all the species of Lyco- 

 podium examined, except those which are of epiphytic 

 habit, and which, consequently, do not directly derive 

 their food from the soil. It does not occur in the allied 

 genus Selaginella. It occurs in the ashes of some tree 

 ferns in large proportions, sometimes forming as much 

 as 20 per cent, of the ash, as in Ahoplrila australis, 

 Cyathea medullciris ; while from others it is all but 

 absent. In the British species of ferns little or no 

 alumina has been found. 



Mr. McLachlan showed specimens sent from Trinidad 

 of beetles injurious to tobacco and egg plants in that 

 island, and which he found to be a species of Epitrix, 

 allied to that which feeds on Atropa belladonna in this 

 country. 



Mr. McLachlan called attention to the notion that cold 

 winters are injurious to insects — a notion he stated to be 



erroneous, although, no doubt, severe alternations of 

 cold, heat, drought, or moisture, were prejudicial to 

 insect life. During the present season it was noticed 

 generally that great destruction of foliage occurred from 

 caterpillars, which destroyed the succulent portions of 

 the leaf and tied the frame- work and fragments together 

 by a web of fine threads comparable with spiders' webs. 

 These caterpillars were different in different cases. In 

 the oak they were species of Tortrix ; in the apple the 

 winter moth was destructive ; while in other cases the 

 larva of the Ermine moth was exceedingly hurtful to 

 leaves. 



Mr. Plowright, in a note, stated that the jEcidium on 

 pea and on the bean was produced on both plants by 

 infecting them with the same infecting material, viz., 

 Uromyces fabce. The jEcidium on the pea differs in 

 appearance from that on the bean, the pseudoperidia in 

 the former being few, and scattered over pale yellowish 

 spots, while on the bean they are crowded in thickened 

 white spots. 



THE SANITARY INSTITUTE. 



At the twelfth annual meeting of the members of this 

 Institute, held on July 12th, in the Lecture Hall of 

 the Royal Institution, Mr. E. Chadwick, C.B., in the 

 chair, Mr. B. W. Richardson, M.D., read a paper on 

 " Storage of Life as a Sanitary Study." After referring 

 to instances of long life in lower animals and in man, he 

 said these animals and these persons by some peculiar 

 process as yet but little investigated held life as a long 

 possession, and to this faculty he applied the term 

 " storage of life." The conditions which favoured such 

 storage he held to be (1) hereditary qualification, (2) 

 the virtue of continency, (3) maintenance of balance of 

 bodily functions, (4) perfect temperance, (5) purity from 

 implanted or acquired diseases. Speaking first on the 

 influence of heredity, he remarked that if the ages at 

 death from natural causes were obtainable of the parents 

 of a man or woman through three generations, the sum 

 total of them divided by six might be accepted as the 

 commercial value of the last life. Bilious and sanguine 

 temperaments were the best for a long life, and the ner- 

 vous and the lymphatic the worst. Treating on the vir- 

 tue of continency, he maintained that under a proper 

 sanitary and healthy regime there would be no danger 

 of, nor trouble from, over-population. In the third 

 division of his discourse he held that a body compara- 

 tively weak, but with all the organic structures of good 

 balance, was calculated to live longer than a finer body 

 with one of its organs enfeebled or diseased. Coming 

 next to temperance, he maintained that all luxuries are 

 bad for long life, that stimulants of every kind are detri- 

 mental, and alcoholic stimulants the most so. The pre- 

 vention of disease was the last topic dealt with, and 

 here it was, he said, that the art of sanitation came into 

 most effective play. 



LIVERPOOL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 



The annual meeting was held at Liverpool on Monday 

 July 9th, when the report of the Council was read. The 

 Society appears to have made very satisfactory progress 

 during the year. The number of members has been 

 increased by more than 200, and the balance-sheet shows 

 that, in a pecuniary sense, the Society occupies a favour- 

 able position. Considerable additions have been made 

 to the library during the past year, and the work of the 



