Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 483 



eration. Since these reproductive bodies may be homologized in all 

 groups of plants and animals they are evidently of phylo genetic 

 significance. In many of the groups of plants these merisms are 

 associated with a complex alternation of generations. In these 

 later papers it is shown how the orthobionte is related to the 

 individual of the various generations and how sexuality, par- 

 thenogenetic reproduction and somatic death have become estab- 

 lished in the different groups of organisms. w. r. c. 



3. Filnf Reden von Ewald Hering; published by H. E. Her- 

 ing. Pp. 140, with portrait of Ewald Hering. Leipzig, 1921 

 (Wilhelm Englemann). — These lectures, although delivered 

 many years ago by the distinguished physiologist Hering, were 

 so much in advance of the time in their general conceptions that 

 they prove of real interest at the present day. They treat of 

 memory as a general function of organic matter, specific energies 

 of the nervous system, and theories of the vital processes, includ- 

 ing nervous activity. w. r. c. 



4. Board of Scientific Advice for India. Annual Report for 

 the Year 1919-20. Pp. Ill, Calcutta.— The thirty-eighth meet- 

 ing of the Board was held at Simla on May 17, 1920 ; the thirty- 

 ninth at Delhi in December 20, 1920. The president of the 

 Board is the Hon. J. Hullah, Secretary to the Government of 

 India ; associated with him are eleven gentlemen in the different 

 departments. Numerous brief statements of matters, of import- 

 ance, in any case locally, are given in this publication. Worthy 

 of note are the researches in solar physics carried on at Kodaika- 

 nal under the direction of J. Evershed. Measurements of the 

 displacement of cyanogen bands and also of iron lines were found 

 to be of the same sign and magnitude as that predicted by the 

 Einstein hypothesis. This displacement differs for different sub- 

 stances and is not proportional to the wave-length, suggesting 

 the existence of some modifying influence outside of that due to 

 the gravitational field. Displacements in the Venus spectrum 

 were unfavorable to the Einstein hypothesis. 



Obituary. 



Professor Philippe A. Guye, the eminent Swiss organic 

 chemist, died on March 27, in his sixtieth year. 



Dr. Henry Newton Dickson, the Scotch geographer whose 

 special work was in meteorology and oceanography, died 

 recently, at the age of fifty-six years. 



Dr. George Ballard Mathews, professor of mathematics in 

 the University of North Wales at Bangor, died on March 19, at 

 the age of sixty-one years. 



