5i6 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Nov. 1 6, 1888. 



duce paraffin. The latter are not so complex in the con- 

 struction of the molecules as organic fats are, being less 

 organised, one might say, and approaching more nearly 

 to carbon compounds of mineral origin. This points to 

 the assumption that the process of dissociation, and the 

 reforming of other compounds, had proceeded until a 

 substance had been formed which refused further 

 chemical changes, and this has resulted in the whole 

 series of paraffins known to chemists. 



Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. — At a meeting of the Council of the Australasian 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, the Presi- 

 dent, Mr. H. C. Russell, being in the chair, the following 

 motions were carried : — 



"That the delegates appointed for the Sydney meeting 

 of the Association be requested to form local com- 

 mittees in their respective colonies, upon the same lines 

 as the local committees of the British Association." 



" That the authors of papers be informed that if the 

 papers contributed by them are not published by the 

 Association in full, they are at liberty either to contribute 

 the papers to local societies, publish them in any journal, 

 or dispose of them in any way they may desire." 



" That a formal application be made to the Govern- 

 ment for a refund on behalf of those members of the 

 Association who paid full fare to travel over the railway 

 lines to Sydney." 



The financial statement, which was submitted, showed 

 a credit balance of ^230. 



Notices were received of the appointment of the fol- 

 lowing gentlemen to the general council : — Mr. F. G. A. 

 Barnard (Field Naturalists' Club, Victoria) ; Professor 

 H. M. Andrew, M.A. (Melbourne University Science 

 Club) ; Mr. A. Purchase, C.E. (Institute of Architects, 

 Victoria) ; Mr. A. O. Sachse, C.E., F.R.G.S. (Victorian 

 branch of the RoyalGeographical Society of Australasia). 



London Mathematical Society. — At the meeting held 

 on November 8th (Sir J. Cockle, F.R.S., President, in 

 the chair), the President, in a few well-chosen and touch- 

 ing sentences informed the members present of the loss 

 the Council and the Society had sustained during the 

 recess by the decease of Mr. Arthur Buchheim. After the 

 election of the Council, the new President (Mr. J. J.Walker, 

 F.R.S.) took the chair, and called upon the retiring Presi- 

 dent to read his address on " The Confluences and Bifur- 

 cations of Certain Theories." The following further com- 

 munications were made: — "On Cyclotomic Functions 

 §1 Groups of Totitives of n ; §2 Periods of «th Roots of 

 Unity," Prof. Lloyd Tanner ; " On a Theory of Rational 

 Symmetric Functions," Capt. P. A. MacMahon, R.A. ; 

 " The Factors and Summation of i r + 2' + . . + n r ," 

 Rev. J. J. Milne; " Raabe's Bernoullians," Mr. J. D. H. 

 Dickson ; " Certain Algebraical Results Deduced from 

 the Geometry of the Quadrangle and Tetrahedron," Dr. 

 Wolstenholme ; " On a Certain Atomic Hypothesis," Prof. 

 K. Pearson ; " On Deep- Water Waves Resulting from a 

 Limited Original Disturbance," Prof. W. Burnside. 



Liverpool Geological Association. — At the monthly 

 meeting of this Association held on November 5th, Mr. 

 Percy F. Kendall, of Owens College, Manchester, de- 

 livered a lecture on " The Geology of Mull," in the course 

 of which he said : To a geologist the history of Mull was 

 the history of a volcano. In no other part of the British 

 Isles were the results of long-continued volcanic action 



so clearly visible as in this outlying region of Western 

 Scotland. There, what had once been a volcano, rival- 

 ling Etna or Teneriffe in magnitude, had been acted upon 

 by denuding forces until it was laid open to its very 

 core. The granitic rocks and representative acid larvas 

 and tuffs of the earlier stages of volcanic activity were 

 seen to be penetrated and overlain by the basic larvas 

 of a later stage; while the fragmental rocks formed 

 during the clearing of the volcanic chimney, and 

 the intricate system of dykes and intrusive sheets inci- 

 dental to the building up of a great volcanic cone, were 

 clearly exposed to view. The work done during each 

 stage of volcanic activity was then ably sketched by Mr. 

 Kendall, who indicated what conclusions might be drawn 

 from the distribution of products, and the arrangements 

 of the dykes. The energy of the underground forces 

 seems to have culminated in the Miocene period, when 

 floods of basaltic lava were poured out of the vent, 

 deluging the country for miles round. It was owing to 

 a happy accident in this period that the inundation of a 

 certain valley by a mass of lava resulted in the preserva- 

 tion of the Mull leatbeds, the mud in which the leaves 

 were imbedded having been preserved to our own day, 

 thanks to its hard capping of igneous rocks. 



St. John's Natural Science Society, Upper Hollo- 

 way. — On November 2nd this rising Society held a very 

 successful conversazione in the gymnasium attached to 

 St. John's Institute. 



Amsterdam Royal Academy of Sciences. — At the 

 ordinary meeting of the Physical Science section on. 

 Saturday, 27th October, M. Behrens read a paper which 

 treated of the manner in which the volcanic lakes in the 

 Eifel mountains originated, and demonstrated that they 

 could not owe their origin to the crumbling down of ex- 

 tinct volcanoes. From experiments made by the author, he 

 rather concluded that the Eifel Lakes must be regarded 

 as incomplete volcanoes, formed by the softening and 

 continuous blasting of the sedimentary rocks, only a 

 little lava being brought to the surface. 



THE FOUNDATION-STONES OF THE 

 EARTH'S CRUST. 



An Evening Discourse delivered by T. G. Bonney,. 

 D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S. , F.G.S., etc., before the: 

 British Association, on September iotk, 188S. 



(Continued from p. 46 4.) 



ON the other side what evidence can be offered ? In the 

 first place, an}' number of vague or rash assertions. 

 So manj' of these have already come to an untimely end, 

 and I have spent so much time and money in attending 

 their executions, that I do not mean to trouble about any 

 more till its advocates express themselves willing to let 

 the question stand or fall on that issue. Next, the state- 

 ment of some of the ablest men among the founders of 

 our science, that foliation is more nearly connected with 

 cleavage than with structures suggestive of stratification. 

 In regard to this I have already admitted, in the case of 

 the more coarsely crystalline rocks, what is practically 

 identical with their claim, for they also assert that when 

 the banding was produced, very free movement of the 

 constituents was possible ; and in regard to the rest I 

 must ask whether they were speaking of cleavage-folia- 

 tion or stratification-foliation, which had not then been 



