Sept. 14, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



293 



was from the first the author's conviction, but until the confusion which 

 a belief in the miracles of metamorphism, metasomatism, and vul- 

 canism had introduced into geology had been dispelled the discovery 

 of such a law was impossible. " To this may be added that "the great 

 successive groups of stratiform crystalline rocks mark necessary 

 stages in the mineralogical evolution of the planet," and that the 

 principles which have elsewhere been laid down will help us " to 

 recognise the existence and the necessity of an orderly lithological 

 development in time." 



The Chairman and Professor J. F. Blake asked questions on 

 the subject, and the points they referred to were fuiiher elucidated 

 by Dr. Hunt. 



The report was prepared at considerable length, but Professor 

 Blake only read the conclusions he had arrived at, the bulk of the 

 paper being taken up with detailed description of the rocks referred 

 to, 252 in all. The series described, he said, were so various in 

 their composition and structure that the results of their study could 

 not be fully stated in a single proposition, but there were many con- 

 clusions of which they either afforded demonstfation or rendered 

 the probability considerably strorger. These were thirty-two in 

 number, the chief of which were referred to and explained on the 

 black-board. 



Professor J. F. Blake presented a report upon the Micro copic 

 Structure of the Older Rocks of Anglesey. 



BIOLOGICAL SECTION. 



{Continued from p. 265.) 

 Monday, September ioth. 



Mr. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, F.R.S., presiding. 



The Report of the Committee on the Marine Biological Station at 

 Granion, in Scotland, was read by Mr. W. E. IIoyle. 



The President, in commenting upon the report, said the sea 

 afforded problems of extreme interest, and he trusted that the 

 Association, having supported the work that was done at the vaiious 

 stations for some years past, would continue to give that aid, though 

 it might not possibly be done in precisely the same manner : s had 

 hitherto been adopted. He could not believe that there would ever 

 be wanting workers to take advantage of the appliances and con- 

 veniences which those stations afforded, and at subsequent meetings 

 of the Association a very important feature of the proceedings would 

 be accounts of investigations which bad been m;de at those places. 



Mr. Harmer, M.A., B.Sc, presented the report of the Com- 

 mittee on the Development of the Oviduct in Teleo'tci. 



Mr. F. W. Oliver, B.A., D.Sc , etc., gave an address on Certain 

 Adaptations jor the Nutrition of Embryos. He pointed out that in 

 the new Chinese aquatic plant Tapeiha very remarkable accessory 

 feeding organs were revealed at either end of the embryo-sac, which 

 indubitably absorb food material which is handed on ultimately to the 

 developing embryo. The organs which functioned in this way were 

 respectively the Synergidce and the terminal cell of the series of 

 cap cells. This extraordinary state of things was co-ordinated with 

 the atrophy in this plant of the raphe— the noimal channel of food- 

 material to the embryo. An absolute parallel occurred in the 

 LoasaciT, where the vascular bundle of the raphe was also wanting ; 

 and here a series of curious suckers were also found, these being 

 special outgrowths of .the embryo-sac. The author, in conclusion, 

 gave a detailed review of feeders identical in function, though widely 

 differing morphologically, in such plants as Lathraa, Tropaeolum, 

 Thesium, and many orchids. 



A brief discussion followed the delivery of the address, in which the 

 President, Professor Marshali.Ward, Mr. Walter Gardiner, 

 and Professor Bower took part, the opinion generally expressed 

 being that the investigations of Mr. Oliver were of great interest 

 and importance. 



Mr. C. A. Barber read papers on The Development of the Bulb 

 of Laminaria bulbosa ar.d Pachytheca, a Silurian Alga of Doubtful 

 Affinities. 



The former paper was discussed by Dr. Francis Darwin, 

 Mr. W. Gardiner, Professor Bower, ar.d Mr. J. R. Vaizev. 



Other papers were by Professor Hartog, A Preliminary Note 

 on the Functions and Homologies of the Contractile Vacuole in 

 Plants and Animals ; and by Mr. W. Gardiner, on The Con- 

 trivances for the Seed Protection and Distribution in Bhimcnbachia 

 Hycronomi {Urban). 

 Professor Marshall Ward.F.R.S. (for Mr. Percy E. Newberry) 

 read an extremely interesting paper on The Plant Remains uiscovercd 

 by Mr, W. M. Flinders Petrie in the Cemetery of Hawara, Lower 

 Egypt. The author pointed out the importance of this discovery to 

 botanical science. He briefly reviewed the species of plants deter- 



mined by him among the ancient remains, and called attention to 

 the fact that only a very small number were undoubtedly indigenous 

 to Egypt. He had examined all the plant remains and found that 

 they possessed the minute and, in some cases, apparently accidental 

 peculiarities of their existing representatives. He did not wish to 

 point out the bearing of these facts on any theoretical views enter- 

 tained at the present day. He merely wished to place them before 

 the members of the section as data which must be taken into 

 account in constructing such theories, and as confirming the long- 

 established axiom that by them, at least, as workers, species must 

 be dealt with as fixed quantities. The author exhibited a series of 

 the plant remains to illustrate his paper. 



Dr. Francis Darwin and the President made some laudatory 

 observations concerning the paper. 



Mr. E. J. Lowe read an interesting paper, the joint production 

 of Col. Jones and himself, on the subject of Abnormal Ferns, 

 Hybrids, and their Parents. A number of specimens were pro- 

 duced and handed round among the members, some of them being 

 ferns of great beauty. 



Zoological Department. 



Mr. P. S. Sclater, M.A., Ph.D., etc., presiding. 



Mr. S. Brown read an interesting paper on Locusts in Cyprus. 

 He gave a brief description of the habits of the common Cyprus 

 locusts, and of the system which has been successfully employed for 

 their destruction in Cyprus. These insects, he said, had from time 

 immemorial been the scourge of the island, and as under the 

 Turkish rule little was done to keep them down, their ravages formed 

 probably the chief agency in reducing what was once a fertile and 

 flourishing island to a condition of comparative desolation. Success- 

 ful efforts were, however, made by the Turkish Government from 

 1S62 to 1870 for the destruction of the locusts, aod in the latter year 

 the island was so far rid of them that for some time no injury was 

 sustained by the crops. But the Government relaxed its exertions, 

 and the locusts again bred and multiplied, until by the time of the 

 British occupation of 1878 they had so increased as to cause anxiety 

 for the future. Acting under local advice, the Government attempted 

 to keep them down by collecting and destroying their eggs. This 

 operation was continued for three years on a vast scale, involving a 

 heavy outlay, but without success ; for although this melhod was 

 adopted on a scale almost without precedent, the locusts continued 

 to increase with alarming rapidity, until, in •18S2, they swarmed 

 throughout the plains, and in spite of various attempts to destroy 

 them, the damage sustained by crops was very great, and probably 

 did not fall short of ^80,000, or from 15 to 20 per cent, of the value 

 of the crops on the infested area. In 1883 and 1884 operations 

 against the locusts were limited exclusively to attacking them in the 

 crawling stage by the apparatus known as the Cyprus system of 

 screens. These were formed of canvas, and were stretched across 

 the line of march, so that the onward progress of the locusts was 

 arrested, and they were then diverted into pits, carefully trapped, 

 from which there was no escape. By the operations of these for two 

 years the power of the locusts was so effectually destroyed that no 

 damage whatever has been sustained by the crops during the past 

 five years ; and although it was still necessary to watch the locusts 

 and prevent their increase, this was now done at a comparatively 

 small annual outlay, and their numbers had so steadily decreased 

 year by year as to warrant the hope of their final extermination. In 

 submitting the paper to the Association the author was influenced 

 by the hope that some of its members might be able to throw light 

 on problems which, although they had received from him consider- 

 able attention, he had been unable hitherto to solve in a definite and 

 satisfactory manner. 



The President having offered a few observations concerning the 

 subject treated of in the paper — 



The Rev. Canon Tristram detailed his experiences in Cyprus 

 and of the locust pest in that country. He expressed an opinion 

 that it was almost hopeless to expect to exterminate the locusts of 

 Cyprus. 



Mr, E. B. Poulton, M. A., made several iuggestions with the 

 view to obtaining more complete observations in regard to the 

 breeding of locusts. 



Mr. W. E. Hoyle gave a description of Dredging and Trawling 

 Operations which he had been prosecuting in the Firth of Clyde, 

 which contained some six or seven deep water basins, separated by 

 more or less shallow ridges. The object of investigation was t o 

 compare accurately the inhabitants of these various basins. The 

 occurrence of numerous interesting forms of life was recorded 

 several of which had hitherto been regarded as peculiar to Nor- 

 wegian and Arctic regions. 



Mr. W. E. Hoyle, in explaining A New Deep-sea Tow Net, said 

 its object was to enable the sea geologist to determine with cer- 

 tainty the exact depth at which free swimming organisms wer 



