this appeal is wholly ex parte. We understand that the explanation given by the majority of the Council is that the vote of January 7 was a surprise, and as such justified its re-consideration. Now of all our public associations which have for their aim the advancement of scientific truth, the Anthropological can least afford to suffer by internal dissension, and it is earnestly to be hoped that this difference of opinion on the subject of a successor to Sir John Lubbock will be amicably arranged at the forthcoming meeting. The more so as it bears so clearly on the face of it that the interests of science are not in question.

A SCHEME is on foot for the establishment of a County College at Cambridge, and it seems likely to be successful. An address on the subject, with many influential signatures from among the masters, professors, and tutors of the University, has been presented to the Chancellor, the Duke of Devonshire. The County College is intended to combine and assist the efforts that are being made in the various counties of England to extend and raise the standard of middle-class education. The County College students would, as unattached students, be members of the University, but would be generally younger than the present undergraduates, aud more strictly looked after. qualification for admission would be a previous residence of two years in one or more schools accepted by the University, and the having passed the Junior Local Examination. The special branch of the college function would be to prepare teachers for the secondary schools throughout the country. The utmost expense for each student is estimated at Sol. per annum, with forty weeks' residence. The cost of the buildings is estimated at 20,000, which it is proposed to raise by a joint-stock company. Besides other necessary accommodation, the building will contain separate bedrooms for 300 students.

209

THE Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge will lecture on Electrostatics and Electrokinematics during the Lent Term, in the Botanical Lecture-Room New Museum on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at 12 A.M., beginning Feb. I.

for the following:-Prof. Marsh and party returned on December 7 WE are indebted to the Scientific Editor of Harper's Weekly from the Rocky Mountains and Western Kansas, where they had spent the preceding two months in geological researches. They bring back a large number of vertebrate fossils from the cretaceous and tertiary formations of the West, including many new and interesting mammals, birds, and reptiles. Among the treasures secured during the present trip was a nearly entire skeleton of Hesperornis regalis (the gigantic diving bird of the cretaceous), numerous remains of pterodactyls, and a second species of the peculiar genus of cretaceous birds with biconcave vertebræ (Ichthyornis). The remains indicate a bird rather larger than Ichthyornis dispar, Marsh, but of more slender proportions. It may readily be distinguished from that species by the sacrum, which is proportionally more elongated, and has the

This

PROF. HUMPHRY commenced his Lectures on Practical Anatomy, on Tuesday, January 14, at 9 A.M., and will continue them daily at the same hour till the 27th, after which they will be continued on alternate days. The course of Lectures on Anatomy and Physiology will be continued on Tuesday, January 28, at 1 P.M., and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at the same hour.

THE study of Physiological Botany receives so little attention in this country compared with what it does in France and Germany, that we are very glad to see that the editorial staff of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science has been strengthened by the addition of the name of Prof. Thiselton Dyer to those of Mr. J. F. Payne and Mr. E. R. Lankester; an earnest, we trust, that vegetable histology will assume the place it deserves in the programme of the magazine for the future. As a commencement, Prof. McNab of Dublin contributed to the January number an article on Haustein's Researches on the Development of the Embryo in Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons," which will, we hope, stimulate our young botanists to further research in this little worked field.

44

THE work of Dr. Cowes, just published, upon the birds of the United States, includes a synopsis of the fossil forms supplied by Professor O. C. Marsh, who has made this branch of paleontology a special study. He enumerates no less than 29 species, to which number must be added several others discovered by Professor Marsh in his late trip to the Rocky Mountains. A single kind belongs to the woodpecker tribe, while two are raptorial and three gallinaceous, namely, three kinds of turkeys. Twelve are waders and eleven are swimmers.

WE are very glad to see from a report in Les Mondes for January 2, and from a letter sent us by the Abbé Moigno, that his most praiseworthy scheme of popular scientific lectures, instead of being likely to come to an end for want of funds, has taken a new lease of life, and that the Salles are now in a fair way to become a permanent Parisian institution. The Abbé and his friends have most disinterestedly spent a large sum to establish the institution, and they deserve the very highest credit and every encouragement in their attempt to provide for the Parisians the means of the best scientific and literary education; for not only are there lectures and conversazioni on science, art, and literature provided every night for grown-up people, but the Abbé has inaugurated a series of classes on a comprehensive plan for the higher education of the young. We sincerely hope this wide scheme will be completely successful, and that by-and-by its good effects will be markedly perceptible.

DR. T. ARCHER HIRST, V.P. R.S., F.R.A.S., President of the London Mathematical Society, and Assistant-Registrar in the University of London, is to be appointed Director of Studies in the Royal Naval College now being instituted at Greenwich. MR. W. SAVILLE KENT has been appointed Curator of the Brighton Aquarium.

THE Octopus in the Brighton Aquarium met with a sad fate on Jan. 7. Finding himself uncomfortable in a tank where he had been newly placed by the curator, he came out, in an unguarded moment, of the house of living oysters he had collected as a shelter round him. In this tank were several large speci. mens of spotted dog-fish. One of these fish, with the true 'cuteness of a sea-dog, immediately pounced upon the unsuspecting octopus, and swallowed him.-Another novelty has been introduced into the Brighton Aquarium, viz, the apparatus for carryIng on salmon and trout hatching. The trout from the Trent are thriving plendidly.

APROPOS of the preceding, MR. J. G. George, of Nassau, Bahamas, describes in the American Naturalist for December 1872, a gigantic Octopus, measuring 10 ft. long, and each arm 5 ft., the weight being estimated at between 200 and 300 pounds. The monster was found dead upon the beach and bore marks of injury. Mr. George adds that this is the first specimen he has seen during 27 years' residence in Bahamas, although they are traditionally of immense size.

M. E. REVERCHON, naturalist, of Briançon, Hautes Alpes, France, offers to supply or to complete collections of the plants of Dauphiny and the south of France.

THE first ordinary meeting of the new Medical Microscopical Society will take place at the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital on the 17th inst., at 8 o'clock, when the President, Mr. Jabez Hogg, will give an introductory address.

THERE has just died at Paris M. Olivier Charles Camille Emmanuel, Vicomte de Rouge, Professor of Archæology in the College de France, and keeper of the Egyptian Museum in the Louvre, aged upwards of 61 years. He was the most eminent of French Egyptologists.

MR. F. J. WILLIAMSON has received a commission to execute a statue of Dr. Priestley, to be erected in Birmingham. It will be 8 ft. high, and in white marble.

A COMPANY has been recently started in Glasgow for the manufacture of asbestos into steam packing, for which purpose it has been found to exceed in durability and general usefulness every other material hitherto employed. The company, we believe, intend to put this hitherto unworkable material to a variety of other uses, it having been found, the Glasgow Herald says, perfectly practicable to manufacture asbestos boats, tubs, boxes, waggon bodies, and even railway carriages.

MR. EDWARD THOMAS, F. R. S., late of the East India Company's Bengal Civil Service, has been elected corresponding member of the French Academy, for his contributions to Oriental numismatic archeology.

DR. G. ISCHERMAK, Director of the Imperial museum of Mineralogy of Vienna, has published a catalogue of the meteorites in the museum up to October 1, 1872. The collection is arranged according to the system of MM. G. Rose and Rammelsberg.

WE learn from the Atheneum that Prof. A. C. Ramsay, of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, has been elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Science, Belgium.

THE Institution of Civil Engineers has now been in existence fifty-five years, having been established on January 2, 1818. It was incorporated by Royal Charter on June 3, 1828, and the numbers of the several classes constituting the corporation on the 1st inst., were 16 Honorary Members, 759 Members, and 1,151 Associates, with a class of Students attached of 267, together 2,193. Ten years ago there were on the books 20 Honorary Members, 413 Members, 574 Associates, and 10 Graduates, together 1,017 of all grades. The class of Graduates was abolished in the year 1867, when the class of Students was instituted.

THE Government have agreed to the request of the Daily Telegraph to grant Mr. George Smith leave of absence for the purpose of proceeding to the East in order to make further discoveries among the Assyrian ruins. The sum placed at Mr. Smith's disposal in the meantime by the proprietors of the Telegraph is 1,000 guineas, and they anticipate that within six

months he will be able to accomplish much. Whatever relics may be the result of the excavations, will be presented to the British Museum.

AN unusually large number of Journals connected more or less intimately with science, have been started this new year. One of them is the Irish Hospital Gazette, intended to fill up the place left vacant by the Dublin Hospital Gazette, and to be especially a medium for the investigations of the physicians and surgeons of Ireland. The first number is a good one, and we hope the journal will meet with encouraging support.

ACCORDING to the correspondent of the New York Herald, an ingenious plan has been adopted by Prof. Agassiz's expedition for determining how far the submarine regions are pervious to light. A plate prepared for photographic purposes is enclosed in a case so contrived as to be covered by a revolving lid in the space of forty minutes. The apparatus is sunk to the required depth, and at the expiration of the period stated is drawn up and developed in the ordinary way. It is said that evidence has thus been obtained of the operation of the actinic rays at much greater depths than hitherto supposed possible.

The number for January 4 of the Revue Scientifique contains the translation of a long and remarkably clever paper by E. von Hartmann, the purpose of which is to show that the differences between the animal and vegetable kingdoms are very much fewer than is dreamt of in the most generally accepted philosophy, that these kingdoms ought not to be classed as subordinates, but as co-ordinates, and that there is great likelihood that plants are capable in some degree of sensation and perception.

DR. EUGENE ROBERT, in Les Mondes for January 9, ascribes the disappearance of the fallen leaves of autumn to multitudes of earth-worms, which drag them into their underground galleries by means of the crooked hairy appendages with which their foremost rings are provided.

THE two principal articles in the Revue Scientifique for January 11, are a translation of part of Prof. Tyndall's recent work on "Glaciers and the Transformations of Water," and of Mr. J. Evans' paper on "The Alphabet and its Origin."

THE two principal papers in the Moniteur Scientifique Quesneville are "On the Respiration and the Nutrition of Vegetables," by M. Ch. Blondeau, in continuation of three previous ones, and the eighth and conclusive paper by M. Emile, "On Anthracite and its Derivatives." M. Blondeau concludes from his inquiries that vital force is essentially the same, and manifests itself in similar effects, whether it animates vegetables or animals, and regards as a popular delusion the belief that plants decompose and restore purified to the atmosphere the carbonic acid which results from animal respiration.

THE first annual report of the Society of Telegraph Engineers shows that it is prosperous, and is doing good work.

We have received a second edition of "A Catalogue of the Birds of Kansas," contributed to the Kansas Academy of Science, by Mr. F. H. Snow, Professor of Natural History and Meteor. ology, in the University of Kansas. It contains 282 entries and seems carefully compiled.

THE Memorie della Società degli Spettroscopisti Italiani for September contains Father Secchi's paper on the Variations of the Solar Diameter, illustrated by a carefully drawn diagram. A translation of this paper is the first article in Der Naturforscher for December, most of the other articles being translations from the Comptes Rendus, Poggendorf's Annalen, the American Journal of Science, and the published proceedings of foreign societies.

his famous telegram, Biela touched earth, &c., look for it near @ Centauri !'

"Schmidt, at Athens, watched the shower for 9 hours uninter ruptedly, from 5h. 30m. to 14h. 30m., and gives a complete curve of frequency for the whole time (in numbers for the

reference to the recent meteoric shower. The first is an extract from a letter by Prof. Herschel :

"Some light on the real extent and form of the radiant region will, I feel sure, be thrown as time brings fresh additions to the already great stock of information about its apparent place and features from so many observers, and from such widely distant quarters; and the knowledge so gained would be of inestimable value in clearing up the difficulties that surround the general question of the unsettled radiation of many meteor showers; from knowing the origin of this stream we might learn how far sporadic shooting stars may be derived from special showers of well-determined radiant points and of regularly foreseen returns. I have just received from Professors Newton and Heis in America and Germany long printed reports on their observations, which contain, I have no doubt, interesting details and speculations; but I have not yet perused them sufficiently to gather any particular idea of their contents. Capt. Tupman also wrote to me to-day, pointing out what had struck me, that the comet found by Mr. Pogson does not agree well with the contemporaneous place of the meteor-cloud through which the earth is supposed to have passed, unless its considerable distance from that place is really a proof of the extraordinary deflection of its path by the earth in its passage near it, which will make it most interest. ing to inquire what will become of the new comet in future. Two observations, which seem to be all that Mr. Pogson could obtain, are unfortunately not enough to determine its new orbit, and its 'periodic time' will therefore give us no hint as to its probable return. Capt. Tupman even suggests (to account for its unconformable motion' between the first and second observation), that perhaps comet I. of the pair was seen by Mr. Pogson in his first, and comet II. of the belated Biela's couple in his second night's observations. The comet, if it is really Biela's, was, in that case at least, two months behind its time, or as Capt. Tupman says, twelve weeks, and it must have been loiter. ing' somewhere on its path. Prof. Grant, who wrote to me to-day, says that he will send me in a few days the list of tracks of the meteors which he mapped during the shower at Glasgow, and I have no doubt that this contribution will be a very valuable addition to my working charts' of these strange legions.

"I see that I have made a mistake in my list of 'radiantpoints,' (No. 30 reading thus 'A.D.P., Newcastle-onTyne,' &c. 'close to if not coincident with Mirach (y Andromeda). This is a mistake, as Mirach is not y, but 8 An dromeda, and this radiant-point is therefore altogether misplaced in the list. I should like A.D. P.'s observations to be left out altogether and the observation of Mr. Van de Stadt substituted for it, thus

"The numbers in M. Denza's observations (immediately preceding it) should be changed to R. A. 29°, Decl. 41°; the R. A. and declination of the star y Andromeda, which I have only just now ascertained exactly.

"Prof. Heis publishes (in the Münster Wochenschrift für Astronomie, &c., of December 11, 18, and 25) twelve descriptions of the shower by observers at Göttingen, Dantzig, Lichtenberg, Cornorn (Hungary), Athens, &c. Those at Göttingen by Mr. Heidorn and Prof. Klinkerfues and at Athens by Dr. Schmidt are the most interesting. Prof. Klinkerfues relates that after determining the place of the radiant-point with the greatest precision at R.A. 26°, N. Decl. 37° from the projected courses of 80 meteors carefully mapped, and calculating from them the parabolic elements of the meteor-stream (which he gives with the radiant-point), in the usual way, he then only accidentally recognised its resemblance to, and evident identity with Biela while telegraphing a short note and transmitting a full account of the Gottingen observations to Dr. Heis. No wonder that at such an unexpected discovery he should have been immediately prompted to send to some observer of the southern hemisphere

the counting) reduced to hourly numbers for a position of the radiant-point in the zenith at intervals of successive hours. On this figure I have merely altered the scale so as to exhibit his

result in numbers per minute, instead of numbers per hour during the whole time. His more complete account of the shower was sent to the Astronomische Nachrichten, and he fixed the place of the radiant-point at R. A. 22° 5, N. Decl. 42°5." The following has been forwarded to us by Prof. H. A. Newton :

"Dr. Weiss, of Vienna, who first pointed out in 1868* the probable connection between Biela's comet and the meteors seen December 6, 1798, by Brandes, and December 6, 1838, by Mr. Herrick, gives the radiant for meteors following the path of that comet as R.A. 234°, N. Decl. 430°. I assigned a point 3° from y Andromeda as the centre of the radiant of the meteors, or about R.A. 25.3°, N. Decl. 43'3°. The longitude of the node of Biela's comet was in 1852, according to Hubbard, 245° 51', and the comet would pass about a million of miles from the earth's orbit, between it and the sun. We passed that place of the node early Wednesday evening, November 27. There can hardly be a doubt, therefore, that these meteors were once fragments, or companions, of that comet.

66

Any theory that shall explain the formation of the present grouping of meteoroids must account for the magnitude and shape of the radiant areas. If the members of a group have nearly the same orbit, the radiant should be a point. But the area of the radiant, November 24-27, was at least 8° long. This implies that the orbits differ considerably, either-(a) in their inclinations to the ecliptic; (b) in their major axes; (c) in the longicombined. tude of perihelion; or, in two or three of these elements

"The shower ended abruptly on Wednesday evening, and in the clear evenings that followed nothing special was to be seen. Similarly marked limits are not uncommon in other showers. The orbits must then either be approximately in a plane or there must be a common node in the ecliptic, where the earth meets them. Such a node would point unequivocally to the earth as the body that originally scattered the comet.

"If, as seems more probable, the orbits, however, lie nearly in one plane, either the major axes, or the longitudes of the perihelia, must differ widely. Neither of these conditions could be

* Sitzungsberichte, vol. lvii.

satisfied, so far as I can see, by a group formed from the disper sion of a comet by Jupiter, or other large planet. If the frag ments of the comet leave the neighbourhood of Jupiter, they should after each revolution return nearly to the same point in space. But a radiant area 8° or 10° long. on the night of November 27, implies a distribution of the aphelia over 10° or 12° of longitude, or a similarly large difference of major axes. Such orbits can hardly have a common point at a great distance from the sun. Moreover, a scattering accomplished in a short time upon a body moving in an orbit inclined several degrees to the ecliptic should, it would seem, be incompatible with a grouping at the earth's node.

Again, suppose that a disrupted body or agglomeration has been once changed into a stream by the differential action of gravitation in the manner shown so beautifully by Schiaparelli. If the perturbing forces exerted by any planet or planets, whether temporary or long continued, should produce such differences of major axes, or longitudes of perihelia, by differential action, the total action would, undoubtedly, entirely scatter the group at the earth's nodes.

"In fact, instead of regarding the meteors as a stream, we ought rather to look upon the group as coming together near the perihelion-or near the node-and then scattering widely, to reassemble, perhaps, after a complete revolution in the orbit. "A resisting medium cannot account for the observed effect, for this does not change the longitude of the perihelion of the orbit.

"It seems to me, therefore, that the periodic meteors cannot have been brought into the solar system as a stream, but that the forces which have scattered the comets are those acting near the perihelia of their orbits. As a probable corollary, we may infer that whatever force divided Biela's comet into its two principal parts was one acting near the perihelion.

"If we consider the orbits of the meteors of November 14, the preceding discussion is simplified. That shower is sharply limited, being in its greatest intensity only one or two hours long. Its recurrence at regular intervals of one third of a century, for nearly a thousand years, precludes great differences of the major axes of the individual orbits, and the secular procession of the node of the group, as a group, equally forbids great differences of inclinations of the orbits.

"The size of the radiant is therefore due almost exclusively to the difference of the longitude of the perihelia. This difference for that group cannot be less than 15°.

"In conclusion I would say that we have no evidence, as yet, that any radiant of meteors is so small as is apparently required by the supposition of the distinguished Italian astronomer, that the meteors were drawn as a stream into the solar system from the stellar spaces. With Prof. Weiss and others, I am inclined to consider them all to have been once connected with periodic comets. The scattering took place apparently at or near the perihelion."

THE NATIONAL HERBARIA

THE following memorial has been transmitted to the First
Lord of the Treasury on the above subject :-
"To the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, First Lord of the
Treasury.

"SIR,-The undersigned persons engaged in the pursuit of botany, or in instruction therein, desire to call your serious attention to a subject that deeply concerns the progress of Natural Science, and that of those branches of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and manufactures that largely depend on botanical research.

"The First Commissioner of Works, in a Memorandum presented to Parliament before the close of last session, clearly raised the question whether it is desirable to transfer to the branch of the British Museum about to be constructed at South Kensington the Scientific Collections and Library now existing at Kew, and further stated that, pending the decision on that subject, he considers it his duty to take care that no new expense shall be incurred at Kew which will embarrass the Ministers of the Crown or the House of Commons in arriving at a decision.

"The Lords of the Treasury, in their Minute of the 24th July, decline to refer to that portion of the above-mentioned Memorandum, and no statement on that subject has since been made by any Minister of the Crown which shows whether it has received the attention of the Government.

"Being strongly of opinion that the proposed measure would be highly detrimental to the progress of science, and injurious to all those interests that depend upon it, we beg to urge upon you that the subject is not one merely of departmental interest, and that it would not be unfitting your position, as First Minister of the Crown, to give your consideration to the following reasons which we beg to urge in opposition to the proposed

measure:

"1. That it appears to us that it is absolutely necessary that a great Botanical Garden like that at Kew, which is confessedly far the most important in the world, should be in close connection with as perfect an Herbarium and Botanical Library as possible, and that these conditions are now fulfilled as far as circumstances and the present state of science will admit.

"2. That such a combination of living and dead specimens is requisite for the complete study of plants, as regards their technical, physiological, and economic characters; and that the removal of the Herbarium would be a retrograde step in a scientific point of view.

"3. That the records of the Colonial and India Offices will show of what immense importance the establishment at Kew has been to the welfare of the entire British Empire, and that weighty questions are constantly submitted to the Director which require immediate attention, and which could not, in many cases, be satisfactorily answered without reference to the Library or Herbarium.

"4. That every facility for the investigation of the intimate structure and general habits of plants, and the study of them in every point of view which can reasonably be considered within the scope of pure Botany, is afforded by the Herbarium and Museum of Botany in connection with the Garden, and that it would be easy to point out important labours in that direction which have been instituted at Kew, while the systematic treatment has always regarded the more minute characters as well as those which are superficial.

"5. It has been remarked, indeed, that important works, such as the 'Hortus Kewensis,' have been prepared without the aid of an Herbarium at Kew. We would, however, remark that the statement is not correct, as there was an Herbarium, which was dispersed before Sir W. Hooker became Director; and the conditions of Natural Science are at the present time so completely altered that it is impossible to institute any fair comparison, the number of known species being enormously increased since the date of the publication in question.

"6. That the Museums of Structural and Economic Botany, which owe their existence and importance to the late Sir W. Hooker, are often found of great value in the decision of critical points in the study of species, and that the severance of them from the Herbarium and Library would be a serious loss.

"7. That in the principal Botanic Gardens on the Continent, where effective work is done, there is in every case a large herbarium connected with them.

"S. That, in the interest of Botanical Science, we think it highly desirable that, besides the collections now existing at Kew, an Herbarium, or collection of dried plants, as complete as possible, should be maintained in connection with the Natural History Museum which it is proposed to place at South Kensington, and that the two Herbaria should be in intimate relation with each other.

"9. That from the delicate and perishable nature of its contents, and the necessity of referring to numerous specimens, an Herbarium cannot be made use of by many persons at the same time; and while it is desirable that students should have ready means of access at the National Museum in London to collections which may enable them to identify the plants of any particular country, it is still more essential that the au hors of important works in Botanical Science should be enabled, as at present, to pursue their labours at Kew without interruption from casual visitors.

10. That an Herbarium is the least costly of all collections of Natural History, and that which requires the least amount of space for its proper maintenance, in proportion to the number of objects which it contains.

"II. That the arrangements of the Herbarium at Kew are so perfect, and the facilities for study so great, that it is resorted to from all parts of the world; and it would therefore be unwise to make a change which in the result is almost certain to be detrimental, and which, we are assured, would be especially distas eful to the leading foreign botanists.

"M. J. Berkeley, F.L.S., Botanical Director to the Royal

Horticultural Society; Charles C. Babington, F.R.S., Professor of Botany, Cambridge; M. A. Lawson, F.L.S., Professor of Botany, Oxford; J. H. Balfour, M.D., F. R.S., Professor of Botany, Edinburgh; Alexander Dixon, M.D., Professor of Botany, Glasgow; G. Dickie, M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany, Aberdeen; E. Perceval Wright, M.D., F.L. S., Professor of Botany, Dublin; Robert Bentley, F.L.S., Professor of Botany, King's College and Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain; W. T. Thiselton Dyer, B.Sc., F.L.S., Professor of Botany, Royal Horticultural Society, London; R. O. Cunningham, M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany and Zoology, Bellast; W. R. McNab, M.D., Professor of Botany, Royal College of Science, Dublin; George Henslow, F.L.S., Lecturer at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester; John Ball, F.R.S.; Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.R.S.; James Bateman, F.R.S.; R. Trevor Clarke, F.R.H.S.; W. Wilson Saunders, F.R.S.; Geo. F. Wilson, F.R.S.; Robert Hogg, LL.D., F.L.S., Pomological Director to the Royal Horticultural Society; W. Sowerby, F.L.S.; D. Moore, Ph.D., F.L.S.; Andrew Murray, F.L.S.; William Munro, Major-General, C.B., F.L.S.; M. Pakenham Edgeworth, F.L.S.; John Miers, F.R.S., V.P.L.S.; Frederick Currey, F.R.S., Sec. L.S.; Daniel Hanbury, F.R.S., F.L.S.; C. E. Broome, F.L.S.; Leonard Bomefield, F.L.S.; J. T. Boswell Syme, LL.D., F.L.S.; Hugh Cleghorn, M.D., F.L.S.; Clements Markham, C.B., F.L.S.; R. C. A. Prior, M.D., F.L.S.; Edward J. Waring, M.D., F.L.S.; George C. M. Birdwood, M.D.; Walter Elliot, K.C.S.I., F.L.S.; J. Forbes Watson, M.D., F.L.S.; Richard Strachey, Major-General, C.S.I., F.R.S.; E. W. Cooke, R.A. F.R.S.; Robert Braithwaite, M.D.; William Mitten, A.L.S.; W. Allport Leighton, F.L.S.; William Phillips; John Goucher, F.L.S.; J. Leicester Warren ; Worthington G. Smith, F.L.S.; M. C. Cooke; James M. Crombie, F.L.S.; Alfred W. Bennett, F.L.S.; V. G. More, F.L.S.; Thomas Moore, F.L.S., Floricultural Director to the Royal Horticultural Society; Thomas Thomson, M.D., F.R.S., late Superintendent Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta ; Charles Darwin, F.R.S.; George Bentham, F.R.S.

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS

THE Journal of Botany for November, 1872, commences with a paper by Prof. Thiselton Dyer, on an intricate point of vegetable histology, "Tyloses," or the cellular filling-up of vessels, with a plate. Critical botany is represented by two articles, on Dasylirion and Beaucarnea, by Mr. J. G. Baker, and notes on some Scandinavian pants, by Dr. Trimen; and geographical botany also by two-"The Influence of Insect Agency on the Distribution of Plants," by Mr. A. W. Bennett, and notes respecting some Birmingham plants, by Mr. Jas. Bagnall. Among the extracts is a very interesting one on some southern plants observed in the environs of Paris in 1871, being an account of the species added to the flora of the neighbourhood of Paris by the German invasion, amounting to 190. In the December number Dr. Trimer records and draws a recent addition to the British flora, Psamma baltica; and the whole of the remaining original articles relate to cryptogamic bo'any-the Rev. Jas. Crombie discourses on lichens, the Rev. P. O'Meara on Diatoms, Mr. J G. Baker, on a new Asplenium from Cape Colony, and H. Boswell, on the mosses of Oxfordshire. A large portion of the number for January, 1873, is occupied by a lengthy and interesting biography, accompanied by a portrait of the African traveller, F. Welwitsch. The remaining original articles include a contribution to the subject of the "Influence of Insect Agency on the Distribution of Plants," by Dr. Buchanan White, a valuable and suggestive paper by Prof. M'Nab, and a description by Mr. J. G. Baker of some new ferns from Lord Howe's Island. The short "Notes and Queries " are not the least interesting part

of these three numbers.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES

LONDON

Royal Society, Jan. 9.-" Further Remarks on the Sense of Sight in Birus," by Robert James Lee, M. A., M. D. He thinks it would be premature to enter upon general deductions until the data we possess are more numerous, and the anatomical details are generally allowed to be correct. Since his last communica

tion he has received much assistance and valuable information from Mr. Hulke, who has directed considerable attention to the structure of the ciliary muscle in birds. In order to show the different degrees of development of the ciliary muscle, he drew up a short table containing those specimens which have been examined with most attention. For the present he considers the ciliary muscle as a simple structure for the production of one effect, whatever minute differences may exist in the internal arrangement of its fibres. According to the table the axis of vision in the Eagle Owl is 37; Vulture, 3'1; Buzzard, 4; Rhea americana, 3; Flamingo, 9; Penguin, 6; Andean Goose, 4; Vieillot's Pheasant, 6; Wood Francolin, 46; Canada Goose, 5; Hawk-headed Parrot, 4; Spotted Dove, 7; Grouse, 4; Partridge, 4. A second table is a continuation of that commenced in his last communication, and is intended to furnish certain data which are necessary for the determination of the visual powers in various species of birds.

"On the Union of Ammonia Nitrate with Ammonia." By Edward Divers, M.D.

Ammonia nitrate deliquesces in ammonia gas at ordinary temperatures and pressures, forming a solution of the salt in liquefied ammonia. To prepare the product, it is only requisite to pass dry ammonia gas into a flask containing the dry nitrate; but the condensation proceeds more rapidly if the flask is surrounded with ice. The liquid obtained varies in composition according to the temperature and pressure. The liquid boils when heated, and, when nearly saturated with nitrate, deposits crystals of it when cooled-just like an aqueous solution. It can also, like an aqueous solution, be heated above its boiling-point without boiling, and become supersaturated with the salt without crystallising. When poured out into an open vessel, it becomes almost instantly gelatinous in appearance-may, indeed, become so as it falls in a stream from the flask containing it. This effect is due to evaporation of am-. monia and solidification of nitrate at the surface of the liquid; on breaking the crust of nitrate, the compound flows out as liquid as ever. It is not caustic to the dry skin. During its decomposition cold is manifested, and during its formation heat is evolved, but not to a great extent, because the heat given out by the liquefaction of the ammonia is nearly all used up in the liquefaction of the nitrate. Its specific gravity can be calculated from its composition, by taking for the purpose 1524 5 as the specific gravity of the nitrate, and 671 as that of the ammonia. In its rate of expan sion by heat, the liquid resembles others that exist as such at ordinary temperatures, rather than those that, like ammonia itself, are only retained as such by great pressure. Its expansivity increases with the quantity of ammonia present. Its action upon a great number of substances, principally inorganic, has been tried, and found to be for the most part like that of ammonia (in the absence of water) and ammonia nitrate conjoined. The nitrate appears to undergo double decomposition with most salts, and the ammonia to unite with nearly all of them, including those of magnesium, aluminium, iron, and manganese. It is a good electrolyte, ammonia and hydrogen appearing at the negative electrode, and nitrogen and ammonia nitrate at the positive electrode.

Anthropological Institute, Jan. 7.-Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., in the chair. A paper by the late J. W. Jackson The chief aim of the author was to controvert the largely accepted was read on the Atlantean Race of Western Europe. opinion that the dark Atlantean race was of Turanian origin.— The true Kojahs or Eunuchs are chiefly seen about the houses of A paper by Dr. John Shortt on the Kojahs of Southern India. wealthy Mussulman nobles, by whom they are placed at the head of their harems. Sometimes they hold important charges with a considerable amount of control. The ladies of the

harem look upon them as their confidential advisers in all matters relating to their personal concerns. The second class of Eunuchs are called Higras or natural Eunuchs, who dress like and ape the manners of women, and are for the most part utterly worthless characters. The paper entered into minute details respecting the physical characters and habits of that strange class of men.-A joint paper by M. H. Gerber and Capt Butler on the Primordial Inhabitants of Brazil, was also read. It contained valuable and full statistical information as to the populations of the provinces; the occupations of the inhabitants, their industry and productions; the mineral wealth of the country, agriculture, manufactures, and colonisation.