on respiration, by introducing some volatile substances into the air passages under the larynx. When chloroform is inhaled through a tracheal canula (the mucous membrane of the nose being guarded against its action), there is acceleration and shallowing (Verflachung) of the respiratory movements, with low position of the diaphragm, and, sometimes, entire stoppage in the position of inspiration. Ether, benzine, and oil of mustard have a similar, though less, effect. Section of the vagi at the neck shows that these changes depend on reflex action of the vagi. The vapour of a strong solution of ammonia produces great change in the respiration, often lasting several minutes, and varying between a retarding and deepening effect, with long stoppage in position of expiration, and retardation and shallowing in position of inspiration. This also is due to reflex action through the vagi. Inhalation of pure carbonic acid through the tracheal canula produces, both when the vagi are cut and uncut, first, a moderate acceleration, then a considerable retardation of the respiratory movements. No phenomenon occurs which can be explained by a direct stimulation of the vagi by the Co,.-Dr. Fitzinger communicated a paper on the species of the family of deers (Cervi) according to their natural relations. He enumerates twenty different species, four of which he has himself introduced, viz., Strongyloceros, Elaphoceros, Doryceros, and Nandlaphus. To Wagner's species Macrotis and Furcifer, he gives the names Otelaphus and Creagrocerus, the two former names having had a previous application in zoology. Dr. Schenck presented a note on the eggs of Raja quadrimaculata within the oviduct; de cribing the structure of the shell, and the development of the embryo. Drs. Nowak and Kratschmer made a communication on pho-phoric acid as a re-agent with alkaloids. They and that it gives, with several alkaloids, peculiar colour-reactions, in soine of which characteristic reactions of smell are developed. In both respects it presents some advantages over the similarlyacting sulphuric acid. It is specially preferable to this in determination of atropia, for reasons which the authors give.

PHILADELPHIA

Academy of Natural Sciences, Oct. 7, 1873.-Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair" Law of Seed Germilation in Swamp Plants.' Mr. Thomas Meehan said that it was an error to suppose that Nature paced trees in places the best suited to their growth. Almost all of our swamp trees grew much better when they could get into dryer places, if in ordinary good land. He referred among others to Magnolia lauca, Acer rubrum, Celiis occidentalis, Ilex opaca, Cupressus chamacyparis, Cephalanthus occidentalis, Salix babylonica, especially as, within his own repeated observations, growing better but of swamps than in them. Why it was that they grew in swamps was no enigma to those in the habit of raising forest trees from seed. It was found that seeds of these trees would only germinate in damp places, and, of course, in a state of nature the tree had to remain in the place where the seed germinated. He thought the principle taught that plants required water to grow well was true only in so far as a humid condition of the soil was concerned. Plants as a general thing, though they were of the class known especially as water plants, preferred to grow out of the water, except in those which grew almost entirely beneath the surface. As was well known, the Taxodium distichum in the southern swamps sent up "knees " from various points as the roots extended, often as large as oldfashioned bee-hives, and several feet above the surface.

Oct. 21.-Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair."Stibiaferrite, a new Mineral from Santa Clara County, California," by E. Goldsmith.

Oct. 28.-Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair.-The following paper was presented for publication :-" 'Descriptions of Mexican Ichneumonidae," by C. T. Cresson.

a dark silex, and evidently derived from the drift material brought down from the Uinta Mountains, which is found on the snmmits of the bad-land mesas. Five or six miles from this place was found a flint factory with numerous implements and cores. Two other circles were observed, in Colorado, about a hundred miles east of Long's Peak, and about five miles from a spring in a well-grassed country. The locality is unsuitable for a camp, in consequence of the remoteness of wood and water. The country is not inhabited by Indians, the nearest, a temporary camp, for travelling Cheyennes, Sioux, &c., being forty miles distant.

Nov. 25.-Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair.—The following paper was presented for publication:-"Description of Seven New Species of Unionide of the United States," by Isaac Lea. The committees to which were referred the following papers :-" On the Homologies and Origin of the Types of Molar Teeth in Mammalia_Educabilia," by Edward D. Cope; and "Contributions to the Ichthyology of Alaska," by Edward D. Cope," reported in favour of their publication in the Journal. Disposition of the Flexor perforans, Flexor longus hallucis, and Flexor accessorius in Faradoxurus musanga Gray, by Dr. H. C. Chopman.

PARIS

Academy of Sciences, Feb. 23.-M. Bertrand in the chair. The following communications were made :- -On the undulatory movement of a train of wagons due to a shock, by M. H. Res 1.--On the acid waters which rise in the Cordilleras, by M. Boussingault.-Determination of vapour densities, by H. SainteClaire Deville. The author criticised the apparatus for the determination of vapour densities, recently devised by M. Croullebois.-M. Dumas communicated a note on a process invented by Dulong for taking vapour densities.-Observations concerning the last communication by M. Clausius, on the equation = o, by M. A. Ledieu.-M. Milne-Edwards gave news of l'Abbé A. David, now travelling in Western China, and presented, on the part of this naturalist, a note containing descriptions of several new birds. -Memoir on the swim-bladder from the point of view of station (station) and locomotion, by M. A. Moreau. The author described some experiments made upon a perch (Perca fluvialis). — Organogenesis compared with Androgenesis in its relations to natural affinities (Class Enotherine), by M. A. Chatin.-On a new mode of ramification observed in plants of the family of the Umbelliferæ, by M. D. Clos.- Observations relative to a recent memoir by M. Helmholtz upon "Aerial Navigation," ," by M. W. de Fonvielle. On the lines which are doubly tangential, to the "surface lieu" of the centres of curvatures of a surface of the second order, by M. Laguerre.-On the permanent magnetism of steel, by M. E. Bouty.-Note on the distribution and determination of thallium, by Mr. T. L. Phipson.-On the presence of metallic silver in gallena, by the same author.-Anatomical researches on rickets of the vertebral column," by M. Ch. Robin.-Geological sketch of the Isle of Tros, by M. H. Gorceix.-On a new apparatus for registering the direction of clouds, by M. H. de Parville.-On three new human skeletons discovered in the caves of Menton, and on the disappearance of chipped flints and their replacement by sandstone and limestone instruments, by M. E. Rivière.—On pine-culture in Central France, by M. de Béhague.

CONTENTS

PROF. HUXLEY AT ABERDEEN
POST-TERTIARY GEOLOGY, II. By A. H. GReen.
SCHWEINFORTH'S "HEART OF AFRICA "
OUR BOOK SHELF

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

On a Proposed Statistical Scale.-F. GALTON. Simultaneous Meteorological Observations.-A. BUCHAN The Limits of the Gulf-stream.-WM. W. KIDDLE

The Treasury of Botany "-T. MOORE. The Moons of Uranus

MEN OF SCIENCE, THEIR NATURE AND THEIR NURTURE. BY FRANCIS
GALTON, F R.S.
INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL CHANGES ON THE EARTH'S ROTATION
By Prof. Sir WM THOMSON, F.R.S.

344

344

345

A Lecture Experiment.-C. J. WOODWARD.

OBSERVATIONS OF MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM SEA-TEMPERATURES BY
CONTINUOUS IMMERSION. By T. STEVENSON (With Illustrations). 346
OZONE I. By Dr. ANDREWS, F.R.S. (With Illustrations)
NOTES
SCIENTIFIC Serials

.

347 349

352

352

Ο

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1874

THE LINNEAN SOCIETY

N Thursday last the Fellows of the Linnean Society met together in a general meeting, which had been specially convened to consider the disputes which have almost paralysed its work for the past two months. One painful episode which arose out of these disputes has already been alluded to in these columns. This alone gave importance to matters which otherwise it would have been difficult to discuss with patience. But so serious a crisis as the resignation of a president so distinguished as Mr. Bentham brought together a larger meeting of the Fellows than had probably ever assembled together before in the history of the Society, and produced the very decided feeling that at least the prospect of a settlement must be reached before the meeting dispersed.

The result was, on the whole, a satisfactory one. After a debate which lasted for about two hours, and in which a considerable number of Fellows took part, a motion proposed by Major-General Strachey was finally carried with only three dissentients, to the effect that the Council possessed the confidence of the Fellows, and that the question of the disputed bye-laws should be referred to some authoritative legal adjudicator, whose decision should be regarded as final.

Those who have had no opportunity of taking any part in the proceedings will naturally wonder what can have been the nature of the portentous questions which have so violently disturbed so grave and staid a body as the Linnean Society. So far as we can arrive at a clear comprehension of the facts, they may be stated as follows:

At the commencement of the present year the charter and bye-laws were out of print, and the Council having determined to reprint them, before doing so made and submitted to the Fellows a number of amendments in them which appeared to be advisable. It is necessary to explain that, by the constitution of the Society the Council alone has the power to legislate, and the general body of Fellows is only able to reject or ratify what the Council has done. At the meeting on January 15, when the amendments in due course came before the Fellows, the President was requested to put them to the vote seriatim, and not en masse. This was prima facie a reasonable request, and might, perhaps, have been acceded to without any great inconvenience. The President, however, ruled against it, and his ruling may be defended on two grounds. In the first place the custom of the Society on other occasions appears to have been in accordance with it, and as a general principle it seems obvious that it would be inconvenient for the Fellows to modify in detail a scheme which the Council had presented to them as a whole. In the second place, although the charter is a most difficult instrument for a layman to interpret, it is held by those who ought to be able to construe it, to require that the Council's propositions should be accepted or rejected in their entirety and without modification. The amendments were accordingly put to the meeting en masse, and were carried by the necessary majority of two-thirds. The minority VOL. IX.-No. 228

declared themselves much aggrieved by the course that had been taken. It is not easy, however, to appreciate their objection; for it is clear that to put all the amendments en masse cannot facilitate their acceptance, but that, on the contrary, it brings to bear collectively upon the whole scheme all the objections which might be raised separately to different parts of it.

At the meeting in which the amendments were carried, only one of them was actually objected to. The effect of this amendment was to enable the Council to pay a Fellow to assist in editing the publications. The sum proposed was not large, and it seems very desirable that the work should be paid for, and not voluntary. It is quite obvious that in the former case the secretaries would have no scruple in criticising, if necessary, what was done, which might easily seem an ungracious proceeding in the case of unpaid labour.

Subsequently, however, to the meeting, the minority discovered that another amendment, removing the appointment of the Librarian from the general suffrages of the Fellows to the Council, was repugnant to the provisions of the charter. A competent legal authority has declared that this is not the case; nevertheless, certain of the Fellows hold a contrary opinion, and regard the change as a derogation from their privileges.

We have already referred to what took place on February 5. Mr. Carruthers, who took the lead in the opposition, proposed to discuss the legality of the amendments, and attempted to raise this question upon the confirmation of the minutes of the meeting at which they had been carried. He and his supporters being in a majority in a very thinly-attended meeting refused to acquiesce in the ruling of the President against the regularity of this proceeding; the meeting broke up in confusion, and Mr. Bentham resigned the chair which he has occupied so long to the great advantage of the Society. The difficulties of the Society began like a slight and neglected illness which terminates fatally before the general body of Fellows had time to even realise the nature of the dispute it had culminated in an event which it will never be possible to look back upon except with the strongest regret. It was, however, a matter for satisfaction that the Fellows assembled last Thursday were anxious to efface this from Mr. Bentham's recollection; and Mr. Carruthers, whose action was the immediate cause which led to the President's resignation, spoke with befitting dignity of the regard he felt for Mr. Bentham's services to the Society and to Science generally, and of his own extreme regret that the course he had considered himself compelled to take had led to such an untoward result.

:

As to the points apparently in dispute it is difficult to estimate seriously the position of the dissidents from the Council's action. It is objected that the person employed as sub-editor ought not to be a Fellow, or ought on accepting the position ipso facto to cease to be one. But where, it may be asked, can the Society expect to find, except in its own ranks, anyone competent for the work? and why should there be any more scruple about employing a Fellow for such a purpose than there is in employing Fellows as printers and engravers ?

As to the election of a Librarian, what arrangement could be more objectionable than for the Society at large to elect to an office of this kind? How could testimonials

out.

It is quite evident, from what has been said, that the less a learned Society indulges in legislation the better. What must be called the "opposition" were anxious, at the meeting on Thursday last, for a further revision of the whole laws of the Society; fortunately, however, the common sense of the Fellows was against them. Sir John Lubbock pointed out, at the conclusion of the debate, that none of the speakers had made out even a prima facie case for further change. It may be hoped, therefore, that when the technical question of the legality of the amendments has been disposed of, the Society will enjoy undisturbed peace and quietness.

One practical suggestion seems to educe itself from what has been said. The only way to settle matters of dispute of this kind is to have an authoritative arbitrator. If we ever get a minister to take charge of our scientific institutions, a legal assessor might be conveniently attached to his staff to act in lieu of a Visitor to the learned Societies which now possess a quasi-official status from being housed at the public expense. If the points which the dissentients raised in the present case could have been authoritatively and impartially settled off-hand, there would have been no need for an important scientific Society to have wasted a considerable portion of its session over matters in themselves of the slenderest possible consequence, and absolutely without importance in a scientific sense.

THE MOON

The Moon Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite. By James Nasmyth, C.E., and James Carpenter, F.R.A.S. With 24 illustrative plates of lunar objects, phenomena, and scenery, and numerous woodcuts. (London: Murray, 1874.)

THE

HE illustrations to this book are so admirable, so far beyond those one generally gets of any celestial phenomenon, that one is tempted to refer to them first of all. No more truthful or striking representations of natural objects than those here presented have ever been laid before his readers by any student of Science; and I may add that, rarely if ever, have equal pains been taken to insure such truthfulness. Mr. Nasmyth, not content with the drawings he has been accumulating for many years, has first translated them into models, which, when placed with a strong light shining obliquely upon them, should reproduce the ever-changing lunar effects of light and shadow. Having obtained models which bore this test, he has photographed them with the light falling, now on one side, and now on the other, to represent the sunrise and sunset appearances on our satellite, as observed in the telescope. The result is perfect; far more perfect than any enlargement of photographs could possibly have been, because, by every such enlargement, a softness is brought about, whereas, the more powerful the telescope employed and the more perfect the atmospheric conditions, the more does the

But, though I have given the first place to a general reference to the illustrations, I by no means intend thereby to imply that the text is of secondary importance. In fact, the more carefully the text is read, the more obvious does it become that Mr. Nasmyth has used his drawings as a means to an end, and that he and Mr. Carpenter between them have produced a work which is not only a very beautiful and a very readable one, but one of some importance. From this point of view it is to be regretted that the book had not been published a month or two later, as then the authors might further have illustrated their subject by a reference to Mr. Mallet's most important paper on volcanic energy, which has just appeared in the "Philosophical Transactions" -a paper which supports the authors' views in many important particulars, and though it clashes with others, if we are not mistaken, a discussion of the question from the two points of view presented will ultimately enable us to carry our conclusions further than they have gone hitherto.

Again, it is not a little curious that another communication presented to the Royal Society not long ago, and

not yet published in this country, may also throw new light upon one at least of the interesting points presented to the student of lunar physics. I refer to the working hypothesis on which I have attempted to explain the absence of metalloids from the sun's reversing layer in its bearing upon the moon's atmosphere.

Before, however, more detailed reference to these points, it is as well to state briefly, for those less conversant with lunar matters, the principal points in which Selenology differs from Geology, or rather the principal effects which have been produced on the moon in past time which differ from the effects which have been produced on our planet in past time.

First among these is undoubtedly the evidence of volcanic action on a scale far surpassing anything that we have an idea of here. Witness craters 74 miles in diameter, and if the walled plains are accepted as craters, then diameters of craters reaching 300 miles, the volcanic energy not being scattered here and there, but making up the entire surface over large areas.

Next, after the tremendous evidence of vulcanicity afforded by the craters and walled plains, come the bright streaks which have ever been a puzzle to observers. These are seen under various illuminations to radiate

from several craters for hundreds of miles. Here I will quote from the book, p. 133:

"There are several prominent examples of these bright streak systems upon the visible hemisphere of the moon; the focal craters of the most conspicuous are Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler, Aristarchus, Menelaus, and Proclus. Generally, these focal craters have ramparts and interiors

distinguished by the same peculiar bright or highly reflective material which shows itself with such remarkable brilliance, especially at full moon; under other conAt or nearly full moon, the streaks are seen to traverse ditions of illumination they are not so strikingly visible. over plains, mountains, craters, and all asperities; holding their way totally disregardful of every object that happens to lie in their course. The most remarkable bright streak system is that diverging from the great crater Tycho. The streaks that can be easily individualised in this group number more than one hundred, while the courses of some of them may be

"How can a volcanic theory of the lunar phenomena be upheld consistently with the condition that it possesses no atmosphere to support Fire?"

In the chapter on the cooling of the crust (Chap. III.), special attention is directed to observations tending to show that cast-iron and even slag and Vesuvian lava expand on cooling. This will be new to physicists :

"The broad general principle of the phenomenon here referred to is this: That fusible substances are (with few exceptions) specifically heavier while in their molten condition than in the solidified state, or in other words, that molten matter occupies less space, weight for weight, than the same matter after it has passed from the melted to the solid condition. It follows as an obvious corollary that such substances contract in bulk in fusing or melting, and expand in becoming solid. It is this expansion upon solidification that now concerns us.

"Water, as is well known, increases in density as it cools, till it reaches the temperature of 39° F., after which, upon a further decrease of temperature, its density begins to decrease, or in other words, its bulk expands, and hence the well-known fact of ice floating in water, and the inconvenient fact of water-pipes bursting in a frost. This action in water is of the utmost importance in the grand economy of nature, and it has been accepted as a marvellous exception to the general law of substances increasing in density (or shrinking) as they decrease in temperature. Water is, however, by no means the exceptional sub

stance that it has been so generally considered. It is a fact perfectly familiar to iron-founders, that when a mass of solid cast-iron is dropped into a pot of molten iron of identical quality, the solid is found to float persistently upon the molten metals-so persistently that when it is intentionally thrust to the bottom of the pot, it rises again the moment the submerging agency is withdrawn" (p. 20). There will be many for whom this part of the work will possess great interest, but I take it few will accept the startling conclusions drawn from the asserted expansion.

"This expansion of volume which accompanies the solidification of molten matter furnishes a key to the solution of the enigma of volcanic action; and that such theories as depend upon the agency of gases, vapours, or water are at all events untenable with regard to the moon, where no gases, vapour, or water appear to exist" (p. 27). I will return to this point presently, but meantime let us follow the contracting globe. Messrs. Nasmyth and Carpenter quite accept tangential pressure as being the only true cause of elevation, and its effect is very well put :

"When the molten sub-stratum had burst its confines, ejected its superfluous matter, and produced the resulting volcanic features, it would, after final solidification, resume the normal process of contraction upon cooling, and so retreat or shrink away from the external shell. Let us now consider what would be the result of this. Evidently the external shell or crust would become relatively too large

to remain at all points in close contact with the subjacent matter. The consequence of too large a solid shell having to accommodate itself to a shrunken body underneath, is that the skin, so to term the outer stratum of solid matter, becomes shrivelled up into alternate ridges and depressions or wrinkles" (p. 28).

The preceding extracts will give an idea of the authors' view of the general phenomena which accompanied the cooling of the crust. We have no atmosphere, the crust as it cools expands and cracks, and through these cracks the interior liquid is ejected, and finally tangential pressure does the rest.

Now leaving the question of the atmosphere for a time, let us compare this with Mr. Mallet's reasoning. As a planet cools, the crust thickens, and the nucleus contracts; the crust must follow the nucleus, hence tangential pressure and its concomitants, elevation where possible, where not possible then tremendous interior motions, which motions are converted into heat, which heat + water produces volcanic activity. Further, the smaller a globe is, the more rapidly will it cool, and the more marked will the phenomena which accompany cooling be. Hence Mr. Mallet's hypothesis is competent to explain all the extreme development of volcanic activity on the moon by exactly similar causes which we know to have gone on here.

Now as I have said, Mr. Mallet wants water for his volcanoes, both here and on the moon, but Messrs. Nasmyth and Carpenter will not even allow that an atmosphere, still less water, has ever existed there. Now here I unhesitatingly range myself on the side of Mr. Mallet. I believe in an absolute uniformity throughout all Nature in such matters. I do not mean uniformity of matter, so far as chemical materials go, but of manner.

Now what is an atmosphere? or to put the question more specifically, what is our atmosphere? Is it not a residue? We have free oxygen in the atmosphere at the present time; had we not very much more before the various metals which now exist in combination with that metalloid existed in their pure state? Now how has combination been brought about? By exposing the metals to the atmosphere and its contained oxygen. Now suppose the machinery, the function of which in past time has been to bring these metals to the surface, had been a thousand times more powerful, would there be as much oxygen in the air now as there is? A child can answer this question, and it is one of several which might be asked all tending to show that it is as unnecessary as it is unphilosophical to suppose that there never was a lunar atmosphere, because there is only a tenuous one at the best now. I shall not