642 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
of a strong draught of air to check the effects of radiation has been 
noticed in a previous part of this investigation. With the screens 
replaced in the tube in front of the thermometer and fan draught 
the error was 0 o, 3. 
As the introduction of screens between the source of the radiation 
and the thermometer bulb produced very little improvement even 
with a strong draught, probably because the entering air got as much 
heat on the warmed screens as the bulb did by direct radiation, an 
arrangement was devised in which all air that had touched the 
screens, or sides of the case, was drawn through side passages, 
and only the central core of the entering air allowed to pass to the 
thermometer. When this arrangement of apparatus was tried, the 
error with gas draught was reduced to 0°T5, and with fan draught 
to only about 0 o, 05. 
PKIVATE BUSINESS. 
Mr Hugh Miller, Mr John Eichard Brittle, the Eight Hon. the 
Lord Provost, Professor Armstrong, Professor Wallace, Dr Arthur 
Anderson, C.B., Mr Alexander Gibson, Advocate, Colonel E. 
Murdoch Smith, E.E., and the Eight Hon. the Earl of Haddington 
were balloted for, and declared duly elected Fellows of the Society. 
Monday, 15th March 1886. 
Sheriff EOEBES IEVINE, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read 
1. The Volumetric Estimation of Inorganic Nitrites. By 
G. Armstrong Atkinson, M.B., C.M., Assistant to the 
Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Edin- 
burgh. 
The ever-increasing importance of nitrites in medicine, owing to 
their power as therapeutical agents, and to the scientific work which 
has been and is being done to elucidate their pharmacology, renders 
a knowledge as to the precise amount of nitrite a commercial speci- 
