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1. The needle is introduced into the interior of the spiral while the current is passing through its coils, and extracted on the opposite side.

2. The needle is introduced, the current established, and the needle withdrawn slowly.

3. The needle is introduced, the current established and then interrupted, and then the needle withdrawn.

4. The needle is introduced slowly, the current passing; the current is interrupted and the needle withdrawn.

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In each of these cases the repetition of the process furnishes an increment of magnetism to the needle, and the results of the experiments are represented with a considerable degree of accuracy B by a hyperbolical formula of the form y Awhere y represents the magnetic moment of the needle after repetitions. A-B is thus the magnetic moment acquired by the first operation, when any one of the above-mentioned processes is employed, and A the limit towards which the magnetic moment tends when the number of operations is increased indefinitely.

When the current of electricity traversing a col is interrupted, a direct extra current is dereloped in the wire; when the current is estabblished, an inverse extra current is developed. M. Bouty has found that the magnetic effects of these extra currents within the coils from which they are derived are insignificant, and in all cases may be neglected. When, however, there are two coils in the same circuit, the extra current proceeding from each is sensible in the other, but the magnetic effect of each is nil in the coil from

which it emanates.

The Electric Conductivity of Metallic Sulphides. -Apropos of a paper which appeared recently in Pegg. Ann. (cliii., p. 115), and was noticed in the ACADEMY (Jan. 30), on the behaviour of iron and steel bars in a galvanic circuit, M. F. Braun, in Pogg. Ann. (cliii., p. 557), gives an account of certain curious phenomena connected with the passage of electric currents through natural and artificial metallic sulphides. The paper is intended to be preliminary, the general conditions and difficulties of the experiments, and some of the results obtained, being only recorded. The galvanic resistance of the metalic sulphides examined, whether in the crystalline form or otherwise, was found to vary with the direction, strength, and duration of the current which passed through them.

BOTANY.

THE tenth part, completing the second volume, of Dr. Reichenbach's Xenia Orchidacea has appeared. It contains ten partially coloured plates, illustrating about twenty new species from various regions. Among the most interesting, though not published here for the first time, is an Apostasia from North-east Australia. The figure of this plant was taken from a specimen in the Kew Herbarium, and the author takes the opportunity of exclaiming against the practice in this country of sticking botanical specimens down to stiff paper with glue, and the superior judgment of continental botanists in this respect. Dr. Reichenbach must know, better, perhaps, than any other continental botanist, that the following sentences are scarcely fair towards his British colleagues:

This [the specimen] is beautifully glued down to stiff paper. The continental botanist, who is greatly interested in so small a matter as the morphological structure of a plant, stands or sits before these magnificent specimens like the embarrassed stork of the fable, invited to dinner by the fox, before the shallow dish."

The feelings of the discriminating continental botanist are probably shared by botanists in this country; but we are not sure that the practice condemned is not the best for a large public collection. Of course, we do not mean that the few flowers of unique specimens should be saturated

with hot glue, and thus rendered useless for examination.

Dr. Reichenbach devotes his preface to a tributary notice of the lamented Dr. Lindley, whose pupil and rival he was in the study of the Orchideae.

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THE last part of the Nederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief contains "The Report of the TwentyAnnual Meeting of the Netherlands Botanical Society," by the Secretary; "Plants by various botanists; "Additions to the Moss Flora observed at Hilversum, Huissen, and Blaricum," of the Netherlands," by Dr. C. M. van der Sande Lacoste; "Additions to the Fungus Flora of the Netherlands," by Dr. C. A. J. A. Oudemans; "On a Case of Spiral Torsion of the Stem of Valeriana officinalis," by Dr. W. F. R. Suringar; "On a case of Synanthy in Orobanche Gallii," by the same; "Researches into the Nature of Lichens," by Dr. M. Treub; "Catalogue of Plants found in the Dunes of the Netherlands," by F. W. van Eeden.

Botanische Zeitung, January 1, 8, and 15.Contributions to the physiology of the plant-cell, by J. Tschistiakoff. The first part, which is continued through the three numbers before us, is devoted to "short notes and preliminary communications on the development of spores and of pollen," with a plate. In the number for January Brandenburg Botanical Society, October 30, 1874. 15 there is a brief report of the meeting of the Professor Hartig spoke of the symptoms of decay exhibited by living forest trees. The "red-rot" (Rothfäule) of pines is caused by the penetration and diffusion of the mycelium of a fungus, Trametes Pini, Fr., in the heart-wood, whose reproductive parts appear on the outer surface of the branches, especially in branch holes. The spores produced fall on the exposed surface of newly broken off branches, and thus it may soon become widely spread. The various species attacking other common forest trees, which colour the wood red, green, brown, &c., were also considered. Mr. Pringsheim read a paper on the yellow colouring matter of bleached plants, of flowers and of autumnal leaves, in which he endeavoured to show that these tints are simply modifications or states of chlorophyll. He affirms that all the colouring matters named show exactly the same lines in the spectrum, if sufficiently thick sections are used. A more detailed paper on the same subject, by Mr. Pringsheim, has since appeared in the Monatsbericht der Berliner Akademie, October, 1874. Mr. Bolle and other members made some communications respecting the occurrence of mistletoe on the common oak, from which it appears that it is exceedingly rare in Germany, if indeed it occurs at all on this tree. It is reported as growing upon Quercus coccinea and Q. palustris, two North American species of oak.

AT the November meeting of the same Society, of the common Beech, Fagus sylvatica microphylla Mr. Wittmack exhibited a new small-leaved form rotundifolia, and also an exceedingly small-leaved showed an example of stick-lac and wood of form of Quercus sessiliflora. The same gentleman Ficus religiosa, which one of the first violinof Cremona, and sent to him for determination. makers of Berlin had found in the house of Amati According to this gentleman's view the superiority of the Cremona violins is in a great measure due to the employment of this lac.

Oesterreichische Botanische Zeitschrift, January. "Gallery of Austrian Botanists," portrait and biographical notice of Alexander Skofitz; "On the Occurrence of Hairs in the Intercellular Spaces of the Mesophyll of Philodendron pertusum (Tornelia fragrans)," by Professor Wiesner; "On the Definite Direction of the Oxalic Acid Crystals in the Mesophyll of the Petiole of Pontederia crassipes," by the same; "Plantas in Itinere Africano ab J. M. Hildebrandt collectas, determinat W. Vatke "-this paper contains the Scrophularineae collected in various districts from Alexandria to

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Abyssinia. One new genus, Urbania, is described. The remainder of this number is occupied with contributions to the floras of various parts of the continent.

Flora, January.-"Address to the Readers." "On two Questions affecting Botanical Nomenclature," by Dr. Celakovsky-this is another addition to the discussion of the difficult question of priority, and refers more particularly to the priority of specific names when the generic name is changed, and the period from which the priority of generic names shall date. As it is still unfinished we shall leave the further consideration of it at

present. "Addenda nova ad Lichenographiam Europeam, exponit W. Nylander "this is a continuation, and contains descriptions of about thirty new species.

Discovery of Phylica arborea in Amsterdam Island. In a recent number of the ACADEMY this interesting discovery is announced; but, through a remarkable inadvertency, undue importance is attached to the fact. Previously, it is true, Phylica arborea was only known from the Tristan d'Acunha group, but as the two places are not separated by the African continent, this is only one of several instances of remote habitats of the same plant. If the African continent actually intervened between the two stations, and the plants in question were absent from the main land, we with, especially as there are upwards of fifty should have a far more inexplicable fact to deal species of the same genus in South Africa. Mr. Moseley's discovery of the Kerguelen's Land cabbage, Pringlea antiscorbutica, in Marion Island, is another interesting addition to our knowledge, especially as since it was first found in Kerguelen's Land, it has been collected in the intermediate group called Crozet Islands. The peculiar distribution of such plants as Myosurus aristatus, Oxalis Magellanica, Nertera depressa, Acaena Sanguisorbae, Tillaea moschata, Crantzia lineata, Pelargonium australe, &c., &c., renders it difficult to account for the present vegetation of New Zealand, and the isolated islands of the South Seas.

THE fine series of specimens of fossil copal, containing various insects, sent to the Kew Museum by Dr. Kirk, created much interest when exhibited at the Linnean Society by Dr. Hooker, as did also the specimen of wood of the Zanzibar copal tree, Trachylobium Hornemannianum, infested with the larvae of a white ant. Several plants of this important tree have recently been raised from seed at Kew. These are, we believe, the first living plants in Europe. We do not know whether the question of providing a supply of copal for future generations is to be considered.

THOSE interested in the natural products of India will find a useful aid in Dr. M. C. Cooke's Report on the Gums, Resins, Oleo-Resins, and Resinous Products in the India Museum. It is a cumstance to be regretted. No system of nomencompilation, and by no means a critical one, a circlature is followed, obsolete names are employed, The substances are classified, and as there is no and extracts seem to have been made at random. index, it would be necessary to start with some knowledge of your product, in which case the value of the book is doubtful. But for references to other works, and native names, it will prove very useful, as the references are brought up to so recent a date as Flückiger and Hanbury's Pharmacographia. Brandis's Forest Flora, a book containing much original information, appears to have been overlooked. Dr. Birdwood's elaborate memoir on the genus Boswellia, which originally appeared in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, is given as an appendix.

PROFESSOR F. W. AUGUST ARGELANDER, the eminent astronomer, died at Bonn on February 17, at the age of seventy-five. Argelander who was born at Memel, after studying at Königsberg became assistant to Bessel in 1820, and received

three years later the chair of astronomy at Abo, in Finland, which he exchanged in 1832 for a similar post at Helsingfors. It was during his residence at the latter place that he devoted himself with special zeal and success to the observation of those fixed stars which can be shown to have a definite motion of their own. In 1837 appeared his great work on the movement of the solar system, and the importance of the observations which it recorded, together with the interest attaching to his determination of 390 fixed stars, which had moved more than fifteen seconds in the direction of the constellation of Hercules between 1755 and 1830, led to his receiving a special call from the University of Bonn to take the direction of an observatory which had been built expressly for him. This building -which, however, was not completed till 1845became the scene of his important observations of the nature of variable stars, and of his famous zone observations of 50,000 stars, completing the survey of the Northern Heavens as far as stars of the ninth magnitude, which Bessel commenced. Argelander's Uranometrie, with its exact definitions of stellar magnitudes, will, like his recently completed Atlas of the Heavens, serve as an imperishable monument of his theoretical and practical mastery of astronomical science.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Monday, February 1). SIR SIDNEY SMITH SAUNDERS, C.M.G., President, in the Chair.

Mr. Clermont Livingstone was elected an ordinary member, and M. Aug. Sallé a foreign member. Mr. Stevens exhibited a variety of Noctua glareosa, and Mr. Champion some specimens of Amara continua, a species recently detected in this country. Mr. Herbert Druce exhibited a fine collection of Rhopalocera recently received from Santarem. The President exhibited a nest of Polistes gallica taken on the Esplanade at Corfu, of which the cells were partly constructed with coloured paper taken from some play-bills posted in the vicinity, as alluded to in his anniversary address delivered at last meeting.

Mr. Smith remarked on Colletes cunicularia having been found a few years ago in the Isle of Wight and in Liverpool. In 1873 he had transported some specimens from the latter locality to Shirley Common, and he had reason to believe that he had succeeded in establishing a colony there, as the insect had been taken near the spot in 1874 by Mr. D'Arcy Power.

A paper was communicated by Mr. A. G. Butler on the Rhopalocera of Australia.

A paper was read by Mr. W. Arnold Lewis on "Entomological Nomenclature and the Rule of Priority."

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (Monday, February 15). JAMES FERGUSSON, Esq., F.R.S., D.C.L., V.P., in the Chair. A paper was read by the Rev. J. Long on "Eastern Proverbs and their Utilisation for

Oriental Research." After pointing out the political value at the present time of the Government of India being acquainted with the feelings and opinions of the masses in India, the paper referred to Eastern proverbs as the key to much of the social life of the people, and especially of the women shut up in zenanas. They were often like ancient coins, opening out a vista into the inner life and guiding us where history failed. The lecturer then pointed out the importance in the present transition state of the Eastern mind of colfecting, interpreting, and publishing all concerning the proverbs of the East in relation especially to ethnological and sociological questions; and the facilities presented in India for carrying out this plan through the Asiatic Societies, the Directors of Public Instruction, and other agencies. References were made to the progress in Russia regarding proverbs, and an outline of the needs of

proverbial research was given from the Russian work of Snegrief. The archaisms of proverbs might, in Mr. Long's opinion, throw light on the connexion between the Dravidian and Turanian languages, on the affinities of the aborigines of India, or the connexion between the Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. Proverbs were also of great use in giving foreigners a higher opinion of the intelligence and observation of the common people, and in forming a link between the book-taught and the book-ignorant classes. The rising vernacular literatures of India were marked by the freer use made of the illustrations by proverbs, and in teaching and preaching to natives they supplied a store of most valuable illustrations to make Scripture truths more accessible to the masses. Instances were given by quotations from Bengali, Telugu, and Russian proverbs.

Mr. J. F. Dickson, Ceylon C.S., then delivered a lecture on some picture stories from the Buddhist Jatakas, or histories of former births of Gautama Buddha. The lecturer observed that a great deal had been done during the last forty years to make known in Europe the doctrines of Buddhism, but little or nothing was known of its practical working as a religion of daily life of one-third of the human race. It had been his endeavour, during a lengthened residence in Ceylon, to ascertain the character of the religious spirit of the Sinhalese people, and to make himself acquainted with the means of Buddhist religious instruction throughout that country. To show how interesting a field an enquiry of this kind might open up, he had brought with him copies of two series of picture stories illustrating the history of two births of the great prince who finally became Gautama Buddha, before his final birth and attainment to supreme Buddhahood-i.e., during the probationary lives when he had to fulfil all righteousness. The history of each of his recorded births, 550 in number, taught some great moral lesson. It was very common to find representations of these stories on both the outer and the inner walls of village temples, and there might be seen mothers explaining the pictures to their children, and thus the great practical lessons of Buddhism were impressed upon the young by the aid of both eve and ear. The pictures exhibited by Mr. Dickson illustrated two important stories or births. One was known as the Telapana-jâtaka, and was designed to teach the duty of controlling the passions and resisting the temptations of the five senses. The other, the Wesantara-jâtaka, the last birth of Buddha before the final birth in which he attained to Buddhahood, was the history of the prince Wesantara, and enjoined the religious duties of charity and selfdenial. In conclusion, the lecturer pointed out the great value of these picture stories as a means of religious instruction in a country where there were no printed books, and where manuscripts were scarce and expensive; and also the great interest which these representations possessed in Europe on account of the evidence which they afforded of the continuity of Buddhist tradition, at least from the commencement of the Christian cautioning the meeting against taking these era. After some remarks of Sir M. Coomara Swamy, modern pictures to be faithful representations of the details of native life, such as dress, in the times when the Jatakas originated, the chairman pointed out the very great importance of the carved representations of these legends on the Buddhist temples in India, such as the Amravati, the Sanchi and the Barahat tope, recently discovered by General Cunningham, as showing conclusively that these stories were not comparatively modern been inclined to believe, but that they must have inventions, as scholars in general had until lately existed at least two or three centuries before the Christian era in exactly the same form in which they had come to us in the Buddhist books, and in which they were represented on the modern drawings brought home by Mr. Dickson.

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Monday, February 15). SIR SIDNEY SMITH SAUNDERS, C.M.G., President, in the Chair.

Mr. Frederick H. Ward was elected an ordinary member.

Mr. Phipson exhibited a singular variety of Strenia clathrata from Basingstoke, the wings being nearly unicolorous.

Mr. F. Smith exhibited a second collection of Hymenoptera from Mr. Rothney, of Calcutta, containing 1,573 specimens, all in the finest condition. There were probably not more than twenty-five undescribed species, but from twenty to thirty species (which were hitherto represented in the British Museum by a single sex) were represented in this collection by both sexes.

Mr. Verrall exhibited some living fleas taken two days previously from inside the ears of a rabbit near Lewes. They were gregarious in this situation, and in such a position that the animal was unable to dislodge them by scratching. He alluded to a communication made to him by Mr. M'Lachlan regarding a species from Ceylon which was gregariously collected in a very limited space on the neck of a fowl, and which had been exhibited at a recent meeting of the Microscopical Society. They were affixed to the skin of the fowl by the proboscis, so that only the tails were visible outwards. Mr. Cole said he had found fleas in a hedgehog, and Mr. W. Arnold Lewis had observed a species in a marmot in Switzerland.

Mr. Dunning called attention to a recent extract from a French paper, in which it was stated that a paint could be manufactured from cockchafers.

The Rev. R. P. Murray stated that Mr. Edwards, of Virginia, was very desirous of obtaining pupae of Pieris napi.

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON (Tuesday,
February 16).

GEORGE BUSK, Esq., F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to the Society's Menagerie during the month of January, 1875. Mr. Sclater exhibited a drawing of a supposed new rhinoceros from the Terai of Bhootan; and exhibited and made remarks on a living specimen of the Peguan tree shrew (Tupaia peguana). Mr. A. H. Garrod read a paper on a point in the mechanism of the bird's wing, which renders it so specially adapted for flight. Mr. Sclater read remarks on the Cassowaries now living in the Society's gardens; Professor Owen, C.B., communicated a note on the discovery of the remains of various species of Dinornis in the province of Otago, New Zea land; Mr. Edward R. Alston read a paper on Anomalurus, its structure and position; Mr. H. E. Dresser read some notes on the nest and eggs of Hypolais caligata and on the egg of Charadrius asiaticus; and Mr. R. Bowdler-Sharpe communicated a paper on the birds of Labuan, in which was given an account of a collection made in that island by Mr. John Low.

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(2) By Mr. Henfrey on "The Naval Medals of Cromwell." Mr. Henfrey traced from state documents the history of the dies from which these were struck, as well as the Dunbar medal and others.

(3) Extracts were also read from a long paper by Mr. Madden, comprising a continuation of his survey of the field of Jewish numismatics, and his criticisms of the more recent investigations of De Sauley, Reichardt, and others, which have appeared since the publication of his work on Jewish Numismatics. The history of the Herod family was the subject of the present paper.

CHEMICAL SOCIETY (Thursday, February 18). PROFESSOR ODLING, M.A., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. Professor J. Clerk Maxwell, M.A., F.R.S., made his long promised communication "On the Dynamical Evidence of the Molecular Constitution of Bodies." The paper, which was of a somewhat abstruse character, was listened to with close attention by a large audience. The following is a brief account of it. In attempting to apply dynamical methods to the study of chemical phenomena, we are obliged to form some idea of the configuration and motion of the exceedingly small parts of which bodies are made up. The mathematicians have given us methods of sufficient generality for the study of the motion of any material system however complex, but the main point is to determine what relations among the motion of the parts correspond to observed phenomena of the medium in mass. It is well known that the motion of the parts of a system has a tendency to make the system spread out, and that repulsion between its parts would have a similar effect, while attraction between the parts would tend to make the system occupy less room. A very elegant method of separating between these two causes, motion and stress, which affect the volume of the system, has been invented by Professor Clausius, of Bonn, who has shown that the effect of stresses, whether attractive or repulsive, between the parts may be expressed as the sum of the Virials of the stresses. The virial of a stress, according to the definition of Clausius, is half the product of the stress into the distance across which the stress is exerted. Clausius reckons it positive when the stress is attractive or tensile, and negative when it is repulsive, or of the nature of pressure. It is represented by where R is the attraction and r the distance between the attracting bodies. The virial of the mass is the sum of all the virials of the stresses between every pair of particles belonging to the mass. The equation which indicates the two causes of external pressure is of the form 2. 2

PV

=

3

ΣΣ

T - 3/3 = = ( Rr), (금),

1

Rr,

where p is the pressure of the fluid, the volume of the containing vessel, T the kinetic energy arising from the motion of all the particles of the medium, and 22 (Rr) the virial.

It was shown that in a rare medium the part of the pressure depending on the mutual action of the particles must vary as the square of the density, while that depending on their motion varies as the density simply. Now, in ordinary gases the pressure varies very nearly as the density simply, so that no considerable part of the pressure can be due to the mutual action of the parts. As the density increases, the pressure begins to deviate from that given by Boyle's law; and it appears from the experiments of Regnault that the deviation from Boyle's law is at first nearly as the square of the density, and that in most gases the pressure is less than that given by

Boyle's law, showing that the mutual action of the particles is, in the main, attractive. When the density is still further increased, the pressure may in some cases reach a maximum and then diminish, but in all cases the pressure becomes ultimately greater than that given by Boyle's law, showing that, when the density is very great, the action between the particles is in the main repulsive.

The condensation of gases into liquids, the phenomena of liquids heated above their boiling point or cooled below their freezing point, and of the critical point at which the distinction between gas and liquid ceases, were illustrated by a model of a surface constructed on a plan described by Professor J. Willard Gibbs, of Yale College, U.S.

The pressure of a gas depends on the agitation of the centres of mass of its molecules. The motion of the constituents of the molecules relative to the centre of mass has been studied by Dr. Ludwig Boltzmann, who finds that

same.

the average kinetic energy of each constituent of every molecule at the same temperature is the The application of this result to the dynamical proof of the law of equivalent volumes of gases was pointed out, and the difficulty of accounting for the observed measurements of the specific heat of gases on the hypothesis that their molecules are complex dynamical systems was stated to be the greatest obstacle which molecular science has yet encountered.

University Museum at Oxford (Professor Rolleston's department). He found the vitelligene glands to be largely developed; and he believed that in place of there being two testes, as had hitherto been conjectured, there was only one large compound gland, whose seminal ducts were remarkably large and conspicuous. The ducts were well seen in the dried specimens exhibited to the Society. The hitherto supposed upper testis turned out to be the ovary, and there was a special and smaller organ in front of the ovary which he regarded as an unusually developed shell-gland. The intestinal tubes are simple and unbranched, but, on the other hand, the uterine organ appeared not to consist of a single continuous tube, but to be partly branched, as obtains in D. lanceolatum and in some other less-known flukes. The remainder of the communication was taken up with remarks on the affinities of the parasite, and with a brief résumé of the hitherto known facts of trematode development, in so far Distoma crassum. as they tended to throw light upon the source of In particular he referred to the labours of Mr. Moseley in connexion with the land planarians of Ceylon, to the contributions of Giard, Claperède, Pagenstecher, and others in respect of Bucephalus, and to the still more recent discoveries of Dr. Ernst Zeller as reFrom a

gards the destiny of Leucochloridium. general review of all the data thus obtained, Dr. Cobbold believed that the Distoma crassum had been obtained by the consumption, on the part of the missionary and his wife, either of Ningpo oysters or of fish insufficiently cooked.

With respect to the optical properties of gases, it was stated that by means of a theorem due to containing molecules could be calculated; and it Lord Rayleigh, the absorptive power of a medium was found to be quite as small as we have any GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Anniversary Meeting, Friday, reason to believe that of air to be. The electrical properties of gases have not as yet been accounted for. tion of rare gases is good, but easily overcome, Dense gases are excellent insulators; the insulaall insulators. whereas an absolute vacuum is one of the best of

Finally it was shown that the luminiferous

aether, if it consisted of molecules, would be of which would be the same as that of any other neither more nor less than a gas, the specific heat gas for equal volumes. We cannot, therefore, admit that the aether is molecular, for in that case its presence would produce results which could not fail to be detected in experiments such as those of Regnault on the specific heat of gases.

LINNEAN SOCIETY (Thursday, February 18). DR. COBBOLD read a paper on the supposed rarity, nomenclature, structure, affinities and probable source of the large human fluke (Distoma crassum, Busk). The author commenced by recording all the facts he could gather respecting the original discovery of the parasite by Professor Busk, dwelling especially on the circumstance that an interval of thirty years had elapsed since the first examples were made known to science. He next referred to other singular instances of the supposed rarity of certain human helminths, adducing the cases of Taenia nana and Distoma heterophyes, and he also remarked upon the long lapse of time occurring between the periods of discovery and verification of particular species of Entozoa, instancing the cases of Stephanurus dentatus and Distoma conjunctum. He was indebted to Dr. George Johnson, F.R.S., for having brought the new hosts or bearers of Distoma crassum under his

observation. The patients, a missionary and his wife, had been four years resident in China, most of their time being spent at Ningpo, where they had partaken freely of fish, oysters, and salads. The author of the paper had secured seven parasites, two from the lady and five from her husband. Only two of the seven specimens supplied him with such new facts as he had been able to make out in respect to the parasite's organisation. The one example which gave the best results Dr. Cobbold had since deposited in the

February 19).

PROFESSOR DE KONINCK, of Liége, received the logical researches, especially with reference to the Wollaston medal in recognition of his palaeontoCarboniferous Limestone of Belgium. The Murchison medal was awarded to Mr. W. Jory Henwood, of Penzance, for his contributions to mining

geology. The purse containing the balance of the Wollaston fund passed into the hands of Mr. L. C. Miall, of Leeds, who has worked steadily and successfully on the structure of the Labyrinthodonts; while the balance of the Murchison fund was handed to Professor H. G. Seeley as a stimulus to his labours on the osteology of fossil saurians. In delivering the Anniversary Address, the President (Mr. John Evans, F.R.S.)_referred to the removal of the Society from Somerset House, and dwelt on the advantage of having their present rooms in proximity to the Museum of Practical Geology and the headquarters of the Geological Survey. Going back to the origin of the Society, he traced its history and development, and dilated upon its present flourishing position. After referring to the SubWealden Exploration, and some other topics of general interest, the President addressed himself to the special subject of his discourse. This was the history of our knowledge of the antiquity of man, especially as revealed by his remains in cavedeposits and in river-gravels. The President expressed his doubts as to the accuracy of those observations on which it had been asserted that the remains of man had been found in Miocene beds in France, and suggested that there might also be some error in determining the pre-glacial age of the human fibula from the Victoria Cave. He pointed to explorations in tropical countries as being most likely to yield the earliest traces of man, and hinted that some researches were in progress in Borneo.

The result of the ballot for officers and council was as follows:-President, Mr. J. Evans; VicePresidents, Professor Duncan, Mr. Etheridge, Sir C. Lyell, Professor Ramsay; Secretaries, Mr. D. Forbes, Rev. T. Wiltshire; Foreign Secretary, Mr. W. W. Smyth: Treasurer, Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys; other members of Council, Mr. Bauerman, Mr. F. Drew, Sir P. Egerton, Mr. Godwin

Austen, Dr. H. Hicks, Professor T. M'K. Hughes, Dr. Hulke, Mr. Meyer, Mr. Carrick Moore, Mr. S. Sharp, Mr. H. C. Sorby, Professor Tennant, Mr. Whitaker, and Mr. H. Woodward.

and of the rising men nearly all are painters of pure landscape or landscape with figures. And, indeed, it is in pure landscape and landscape with figures, that the Scottish School-the School still here in Edinburgh-is strongest. One was told that one would find the Scotch art-work of the day roughly divided into two sorts: some of it taking Mr. Faed for its leader, and the rest Mr. MacWhirter or Mr. Peter Graham. But one does not find this to be exactly the case. Little work, either of any present quality, or promise for the future, takes after Mr. Faed.

Mr. John Smart's pictures are conspicuous among the landscapes. He paints almost always wild or barren scenery, but with much variety of effect. A mountain-line; the head of a loch; some wild wet pasturage with rough brown herds of cattle; the reeds and marsh by the lake side; the rain-cloud charged with rain for to-morrowhe knows these things and paints them, in compositions generally well-considered, and true and good in colour and tone. Of his larger works, exhibited this year, one does not know whether to prefer No. 327, Head of Glen Ogle-which is the more immediately impressive-or No. 275, The Hill Fank-Clipping Day. The loneliness of the landscape is relieved by herds of cattle in the first; by figures in the second. But the figures do not count for much. The cottage on the hill-side, and the cart on its beam ends, its shafts uplifted in the air-tell more in the composition. The cattle in the other picture are introduced with the greatest skill and effect. The near group and the far group both tell decisively. And though Mr. Smart's drawing of animal form is not always of the strongest-nay, in one small picture otherwise admirable, is positively weak-his sense of a herd's movement is very true; each beast goes his own way, yet all go together. And in the indication of this movement there is spirit and force.

PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Friday, February 19). REV. DR. R. MORRIS, President, in the Chair. The papers read were:-1. A Memoir of Observations made between the years 1863 and 1873 on the attack make by the Individual on Spoken Language, and a Proposal to apply the Method of direct Experiment in Philological Science, by Mr. James M. Menzies-giving the alterations made by five young children in our standard words. 2. On the Dialectal Characteristics of the Rushworth Gloss, by Dr. James A. H. Murray. (a) The Rushworth used p for the Lindisfarne ; and k often for c. (3) h was used for c; i fer ge (as iara for geara); his used arbitrarily, his for is; and is often dropped, is for his, laferd for hlaford, wa for hwa; the umlaut of o is kept, and not turned into the West Saxon e, as soece for sece; also the umlaut of a, as wael for wel; mae, maere for ma, mare, &c. A. Sax. ea becomes Rushworth a, eal, al; a becomes o, as hond, hand; y is never used for short i; y is written with o, hym, heom, them; eo becomes iu, seo, siu, she; i is turned into io, as nime, niome. Verbal on is un, as we magun. Case-signs are often left out, as, heafod loccas; the dative is in ae and a instead of e. Prepositions govern improper cases, nouns have irregular plurals. The weak declension of nouns is much broken down; for the plural an appear u, a; and man is declined according to this declension. Adjectives are often undeclined; sometimes the termination u runs through all the cases. In comparison, full forms like lessest occur. Pronouns: wae for we; dat. eow, acc. eowic; hie for hi, they; poss. user is in use for "our." Def. Art.: acc. pane is used for pone. The relative is sepe. Verb: ge of past participle is often omitted, though used in the West-Saxon in the time of Stephen. Contracted terminations are not used, as sended for sent. 1st pers. sing. ends usually in a vowel; the ig is retained in the plural; the p in the third singular, none in s occur. The past tense ends in ade sing., adun pl. Imperative, West-Saxon cume ye, Rushworth keeps the p etep we, sellap ye, &c., &c. There is a tendency to use auxiliaries. Ie beom occurs (though eam is more common); and beopan "are," for is sometimes used for beforan. The dialect is probably NorthMidland; it has on the one hand older character-sonal istics than the West-Saxon, and on the other much later ones. It was the dialect of (perhaps) about Derbyshire. Dr. Morris said he had come independently to the conclusion that the dialect of the Rushworth Gloss was North-west Midland.

FINE ART.

THE ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY'S EXHIBITION. Edinburgh Feb. 16.

Over all the mountain landscapes by indifferent hands, there is no need to pause; nor need anything be said here of work important as Mr. Peter Graham's Northern Walls, which has already been seen and criticised in London. Sir George Harvey, the President of the Scottish Academy, sends a picture which one feels to be purely a composition, and its name implies as much. Scenery in the Highlands it is called. And as composition no doubt it is good; true and observant too in many a detail; but in no sense the record of vivid perimpression, and with no dominant sentiment. Mr. Waller Paton sends a very large landscape, full of subject well enough managed, without apparent crowding; but wanting in concentration, and as a whole unpleasing and untrue in colour. I am speaking of No. 276, On the Cree, at Newton Stewart. Of simpler landscape-subjects-well found, rather than composed-one must name especially Carting Sea-weed, by Mr. A. D. Reid: a large picture, saved only by skilful treatment from being too large for its theme. For its theme is of the simplest. One or two figures, not in themselves striking; a cart, a horse-and all these together in the centre of a great canvas, and all dark, against a flat grey sky. The beach is wide and unbroken, and the sea wide-neither rough enough to be very interesting to quite common eyes, nor calm enough to be to these very beautiful-and there is nothing in the picture but this group doing their simple work, under the light of every day. The thing is well donesimplicity of subject: simplicity of means.

MOST of the important names appearing in the catalogue of the Scottish Academy's Exhibition-grouped an exhibition opened to the public for the first time on Saturday last-are names with which the May and June visitors to Burlington House are necessarily familiar. Of these, most are Scotch names -Mr. MacWhirter, Mr. Peter Graham, among landscape painters; Mr. Pettie, Mr. Orchardson, among figure painters; and Mr. Archer among painters of portraits. One or two others are of European repute-Mr. Alma Tadema's, for instance, whose works are hung alike in Paris, London, Edinburgh. These are the best known But there are also names of the greatest local and some general fame-Sir George Harvey's and Sir Noel Paton's chief of these. Again, among conspicuous exhibitors are certain Scotch Academicians, who, like certain of their antiquated brethren in London, claim their place upon the line not exactly by virtue of merit. And again, there are the rising men-some of them

names.

simple sentiment of the subject was felt better than it has been expressed. In any case, the work is to be commended in so far that it does not seek its interest either from the easy sublimity of mountains or from any pettiness or childishness of incident-domestic sentimentality, so sure of successful appeal.

Kelp Burners, in Gigha, by Mr. J. Oswald Stewart (No. 121), is an unequal but very noteworthy work: wanting indeed in atmosphere and distance; but with figures excellently grouped and excellently lighted; with individual character in one at least of the girls, and with admirable drawing and colour in the deep sea, its surface blown pleasantly by the fresh light breeze. A manly piece of work is No. 546, Singling Turnips, by Mr. James May. It is a group of figures, large in the field, and recalls ever so little the work of Jules Breton, and his best pupil, Billet. But its figure-drawing, naturally enough, has not the strength of the master, nor have its lines the rhythm of the pupil's best work-Grass Cutters, shown a year or so ago at the French Gallery.

A work of Jules Breton's, in last year's Salon -a strapping Breton girl lying face downwards, on a rock, by the sea-is recalled a little by another man's work which is here: the work of Mr. John Reid, who paints large children's figures in open air light, and paints them frankly for the figures' sake and the light's sake. Resting: a Scene in Surrey is a good example of Mr. John Reid's style. A healthy girl, some twelve years old, has been grubbing in the garden for potatoes, and now stands, with long potato fork in hand, against the wooden palings, and her face is shadowed partly by a broad hat, and a straw-grey working apron is tied over her blue-grey gown. In a second picture, the same girl stands with a big jug, in a bit of paddock, bright green with the morning.

Mr. Hay's large picture, With the Spae Wife, is perhaps the most noticeable work of domestic or familiar incident or anecdote. It tells its story very thoroughly. A much smaller work of Mr. Hay's-with "Somebody Coming," for its commonplace title, shows more point and is conspicuous for a bit of figure-drawing, sharp, expres sive, and decisive. Of Mr. Pettie's State Secrets, seen at the Academy, I need speak no more than of Mr. Orchardson's Monsieur and Madame.

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Now, indeed, we are among more formidable work, and in this higher class of work of which examples are conspicuously few, Mr. Alma Tadema's Cleopatra stands in a good place. Here too. as very rarely in Mr. Tadema's pictures, antiquarianism is in the background, and human interest is to the front. Cleopatra is a good realisation of character-such as Mr. Tadema has conceived it and a perfect realisation of mood. Theroughly has Mr. Tadema known here what he wanted to do: thoroughly also has he done it. But an Art Note in the ACADEMY has already, as I recollect, described this picture, to which other wise a much larger place would have been due in any notice. Mr. Tadema's Cleopatra is not the intellectually-dowered Cleopatra of Shakspere, nor is she quite the common woman of Alexandra some of her northern critics have pronounced her

to be.

There are many bad portraits, though none worse than one may see in London. There are also several good ones, though none of the first excellence. Still, there is very little of the best of contemporary work, which can surpass in truthfulness No. 380: a portrait (by Mr. Wm. Mac Taggart, R.S.A.) of an old woman with a certain humour in her pinched face and observant eyes No. 457, Mr. George Reid's portrait of Mr. James The Crombie, is also undoubtedly strong: perhaps more decisive, and showing a readier mastery, than that of Mr. MacTaggart. Mr. Archer has one two single portraits, with his customary artistic feeling, and good, one may suppose, as likenesses,

Another of the landscapes of common life and every day is Mr. Lawton Wingate's No. 1. It is called Potato Harvest-Gleaning-in Ayrshire; and is just the subject which Millet would have treated with consummate power. Mr. Wingate's intention is better than his attainment. landscape itself is somewhat wanting in character; some of the grouping not very telling. Much however in attitude of girl and child-I mean the child putting her gleaned potato safely into her sister's rough field-apron-is to be

Associates: some of them without that dignity praised; and one is willing to think that the

but not otherwise strong. For he is only at his

to begin

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like those (better preserved and superior in style) on the walls of a large chamber, the least ruinous portion of the suburban villa of the Empress Livia, at Prima Porta, about eight miles distant from Rome. On one wall-surface we see a picture that strongly reminds us of the "Canidia," the witch of the Esquiline, in Horace (Epode xvii.)—and it is on the same hill that the ruins recently brought to light are situated:-an old crone, squatting on the ground, while either admonishing or threatening, as the action of an upraised arm implies, a personage whose less complete figure enters into this painted group. It is supposed by Roman antiquarians that we see, in this quasi-subterranean hall on the high of the Esquiline, a state apartment in the luxurious villa of Maecenas, appropriated as an auditorium, or theatre for recitations; and who can say what immortal verse might have been for the first time made known, through declaiming by its author, within these walls? Here might Horace have enchanted by the music of his Odes, or Virgil won rapturous applause by the grandeur of his epic numbers.

A few minutes' walk from these ruins brings us to another excavated area, descending into which we find the most superb specimen of antique pavement yet brought to light among Roman buildings, and covering a considerable space at the level of some 20 feet (or more) below the surrounding region. In geometrical pattern are here laid the smooth slabs of coloured marbles, green serpentine and purple-veined Phrygian, together with diamond-shaped pieces of oriental and rosetinted alabaster, most beautiful and rare of its kind. Here we perceive also several marble bases for columns, perhaps (in some instances) for statuary -the remnants of the shafts being concrete material-and the character of the remains leads to the inference that this edifice, recently unearthed, was either an unusually large aedicula or a small temple. It was in an adjacent excavated space on the Esquiline, that those sculptures were found, the discovery of which, speedily made known to all Europe through the teleI have seen graph, excited so much interest. them, and received the impression that most of them all, indeed, with one exception-justify such interest, and fully come up to all the praises circulated with regard to them.

The transformations now passing before our eyes in many picturesque localities of Rome are such that it is well to record them before old things have entirely vanished, with their comfort-ground less and quaint peculiarities, disappearing (as they must ere long) in the pathway of modern improvement. The change is now strikingly apparent in the extensive region within this city's ancient walls, between S. Maria Maggiore at the northern limit and the S. Croce and Lateran basilicas at the south-east and south-west-a wide district, comprising the plateau-summits of the Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal hills, hitherto for the most part occupied by quiet convents, grey old villas amidst neglected yet pleasant-looking gardens, in part also by irregular streets, inhabited by a scanty population of the poorer classes. Along much of that high level ground, where the metamorphosis is in progress, we see certain landmarks of decided improvement, the growth, in fact, of a new and well-built civic quarter; but elsewhere the work is rather of demolition than construction, and we find yet but little indicative of projected novelties except the breaking up, or recent levelling, of the soil, the overthrow of ancient barriers and private enclosures, with long intersecting lines of ditches for drains, and foundation-walls, yet scarcely raised above the surface, for new streets. A long embankment, which extends through this region, and appears at a distance like a natural formation, is recognisable, when we approach, as the Agger of Servius Tullius; and we feel ourselves in presence of venerable antiquity when able also to distinguish the massive stonework, in square-hewn blocks, of the walls of that fortification commonly named after the same king, piled up, and in some places rising to considerable height, against the steep shelving bank of ancient earthworks. One may notice (without admitting as more than conjectural) the conclusion that one of the most conspicuous amid these remnants of the Servian structure may be the foundation-walls used in the villa of Maecenas for a lofty tower, whence the view of Rome must indeed have been grandly panoramic, and from which it has been imagined that Nero looked down on the sublimely terrible spectacle of the conflagration. More distinct and intelligible are other remains found near the same spot, and suddenly beheld as we approach the brink of a wide excavated area, descending into which by a steep path, we perceive the surrounding ruins, in part well preserved, of a stately and spacious hall, now quite roofless, marked by features and enriched by adornments which are both singular and interesting. At the extremity, opposite the entrance, rises a semicircle of seats in six gradines, like those of an antique theatre, the lowest being between two and three feet above the level of the floor. At the centre of that lowest range is a platform, where a declaimer, or reader might have stood in view of spectators assembled in front and at each side of him. The lateral walls, right and left of this theatric construction, are opened on each side into six high quadrangular niches, which may have served for statuary in the days of patrician pomp; and at the rear of the gradines of seats there are five similar recesses-once, no doubt, similarly adorned. The inner walls of those high niches, and likewise the intervals between, still retain painting on a stucco surface, in some parts fresh and brilliant, representing gardenscenes, flowering shrubs, plants, and a few figures,

That supposed to be a Venus, a statue in Parian marble, of exquisite finish (height 1 mètre 50 centimètres), seems to me (and others agree with this conclusion) rather like a nymph, or an imaginary female figure, rising from the bath, and binding her hair with a fillet-such being the action of the arms, both wanting and just restored in clay, as may be inferred from the position of the sole hand, the right, partly preserved in the original, and placed on the head; the hair being simply braided and gathered into a knot behind. I have just seen this newly-celebrated, but, I think, over-rated, statue in the workshop, where, on the Capitoline Hill, an artist is engaged on its restoration-namely, in the clay model. I should describe this antique as interesting, marked by delicate grace and expressive sweetness, but not divine in character. The lovely countenance is that of an innocent girl of seventeen or eighteen years-not that of a majestic or self-conscious goddess; the forms of the figure being, however, full, rounded and mature. Beside the right leg is placed a vase, on which a small fish, of serpentlike shape, is seen in low relief; and on the lid of this vase lies a mass of drapery.

The other sculptures (now placed provisionally in a hall of the ancient Tabularium on the Capitoline Hill) are as follows:-Bacchus, heroic size, the limbs wanting, but the right hand preserved, and resting on the ivy-wreathed brow; the head remarkably fine, with a character of poetic melancholy-the nobler and most refined aspect of the Greek ideal, the true Dionysos of antique mythology.

It is evident that this statue has not been frac

tured at the part where the lower limbs seem cut off, but not violently, from what is finis hed and extant; hence the conjecture that the legs were covered with drapery, probably of bronze, moveable, and of course separate from the marblewrought figure.

Two Tritons, half statues rather than busts, having the heads preserved, in both instances beautiful, with massive curling hair, on which are slight vestiges of gilding; the broad chest of one of these figures being clothed with fishy scales; the other without that attribute, though both are alike distinguished by muscular vigour and a certain wild grandeur of aspect.

Commodus as Hercules, a half-length statue, heroic size, of most elaborate execution, and in all details minutely wrought up, the hair and curled beard especially marked by such carefulness. Both the arms are introduced; the right hand holding the club, the left the apples of the Hesperides; the head being covered, or hooded over, with the lion's hide, which hangs in massive folds over the fully developed chest and shoulders. The countenance is recognisable by its resemblance to many extant busts, but is more frank and pleasing than many portraits of the same Emperor. This valuable work of art stood on a highly ornate marble base found in numerous fragments, amid which is distinguishable a draped and graceful statuette, probably meant for a Victoria. Two draped female statues, life-size, wanting the arms, but otherwise entire, are perhaps Muses (those of song and dance, or Erato and Terpsichore, as one might conjecture), which characters would accord with the sweet and serious expression of both the heads. No attributes are preserved for our guidance as to these figures. A female head with hair gathered in a diadem-like knot, the distinction of the Venus of later art, is perhaps meant for Aphrodite herself, and, as it struck me, more worthy of such a subject than is the artistic conception in the statue above noticed. Another female head (discovered January 16, in the same scavi on the Esquiline), is of a still more interesting and beautiful type, the expression serious even to sadness, yet perfectly serene, the hair in wavy braids, the apparent age being beyond girlhood. This might be an Ariadne, after her desertion by Theseus; or an Andromeda chained to the rock, yet relieved from the terror of her impending fate by the approach of Perseus,

the Deliverer.

Beside these, we see the limbs, more or less entire, of other finely-executed statues. Of life-size, or little more, are four legs, two being those of a seated figure with sandaled feet; the sandals having vestiges of the red paint which used to be applied before, and as preparatory to, the gilding of details in sculpture. All these limbs exemplify a style and an elaboration indeed admirable, though not distinguished by that breadth and grandeur proper to the highest, the ne plus ultra, of antique art.

It is inferred from the relative positions in which these precious sculptures were found, that the Bacchus, the Tritons, and the Commodus as Hercules belonged to some magnificent group superbly adorning a long-buried palace, or fane, on the Esquiline. C. I. HEMANS.

February 14, 1875.

P.S. The last remarkable ruins brought to light on the Esquiline Hill, about ten days ago, consist of the roofless chambers of a mansion with paintings on its stuccoed walls, and the lower part of a staircase between two rooms, one of which is semicircular; also, at a lower level than these, a considerable extent of pavement in black and white marble, a species of mosaic, the most pleasing detail in which represents a cluster of vine-leaves within a square black border. The newest treasuretrove from this same region includes a statuette of silver, which has been already removed to some private room in the Capitoline buildings. proves, however, to be but a half-figure (mutilated), representing a household god. With it were

It

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