(2) CHCI, to the inner surface leaves the current unaffected.

(3) CHCI, to a combination of (outer-inner) surfaces, connected with another spot on the outer surface, diminishes the current.

(4) The electrical resistance of the skin is diminished by about 24 per cent. of its value by CHCI,.

Certain conclusions can be deduced from these observations :

(a) The apparatus furnishing the current is located at the outer surface.

(b) A diagram of an electrical apparatus which would give similar results to those observed on the skin shows that the latter must consist of structures resembling galvanic cells, the positive elements of which lie towards the outer surface, and are insulated from each other, the negative elements towards the inner surface, and connected together. If it is assumed that the current in the skin is due to the movement of ions, it appears from the present experiments (and also from those in part i.) that there must be some semi-permeable apparatus in both skin and nerve, and that choloroform renders this apparatus completely permeable, so making the whole tissue iso-electric. The diminution of resistance can be accounted for by this action, which is equivalent to a diminution of viscosity.

If this interpretation of the results is correct, it furnishes an actual demonstration of the existence of some form of semi-permeable apparatus in the tissues, and suggests that a similar mechanism may play a larger part in vital phenomena than had previously been supposed.

PARIS.

Academy of Sciences, August 13.-M. Bouquet de la Grye in the chair.-Irrigation and the permeability of soils: A. Müntz and L. Faure. The authors discuss the value of the application of irrigation to parts of France, and argue that irrigation works must prove unremunerative in private hands, and should be undertaken by the State. Proper attention does not appear to have been paid in the past to the different requirements of different classes of soil for water. The nature of the soil is not a sufficient guide in this matter, apparently similar soils having been found to require very different amounts of water. A description is given of a simple instrument for making this determination.-The two specific heats of a slightly deformed elastic medium; the fundamental formulæ : P. Duhem. The preparation of pure barium starting from its suboxide: M. Guntz. Equivalent portions of magnesium and baryta, heated in a vacuous porcelain tube containing a water-cooled steel tube, gave a deposit on the cold tube of one-half the magnesium employed, together with traces of barium. The residue in the boat possessed properties corresponding to an oxide Ba,O. If the magnesium is replaced in this reaction by aluminium, crystallised barium deposits on the cold tube. This was found to contain 98.8 per cent. of barium, and on a second distillation in a vacuum gave pure barium. Strontium can be obtained in the same way. The aromatic azocyanamides P. Pierron.-A property of diastase: J. Duclaux. The application of recent studies on colloids to diastase. The author holds that the quantity of active material in diastase, by reason of which it exerts its diastatic functions, need, in a set of experiments, bear no constant and necessary relation to the quantity of crude diastase taken, and that different experiments, even simply made different dilutions, are not comparable among themselves. -The copper-steel alloys: Pierre Breuil. Copper increases the tenacity and reduces the ductility of steels, but the results obtained with a given alloy depend very largely upon the treatment the metal has received. The cultivation of micro-organisms in chemically defined media: J. Galimard, I.. Lacomme, and A. Morel.

at

August 20.-M. Bouquet de la Grye in the chair.-The progress of a fruit-attacking insect, Ceratitis capitata, in the neighbourhood of Paris: Alfred Giard. Six years ago the author pointed out the presence of this destructive exotic in the neighbourhood of Paris. At that time there were only a few apricot trees attacked, and it should have been easy to prevent its acclimatisation. The author's suggestions made at that time were, however, disregarded, and at the present time damage is being done to peach

trees in various localities round Paris, damage which may, given a few dry seasons, become as disastrous as at the Cape of Good Hope, unless prompt measures are taken, -The Valparaiso earthquake (August 16, 1906), registered at Paris: G. Bigourdan.-Observations of the Finlay comet made with the large equatorial of the Bordeaux Observatory: E. Esclangon.-Definitive orbit of the comet 1905a: M. Giacobini.-The boiling points of some secondary and tertiary alcohols: G. D. Hinrichs. Referring to a recent note by M. Louis Henry on this subject, the author points out that the relationships between the boiling points of the secondary and tertiary alcohols need not be regarded as unusual, since they can be deduced, at least qualitatively, from a consideration of the moments of inertia of the molecules.--Researches on the relations between functional groupings in distant positions. Decamethylene-imine: E. E. Blaise and L. Houillon. The influence of some mineral compounds on the liquefaction of starch: J. Wolff and A. Fernbach.-Cultures of Protozoa and variations of living material: J. Kunstler and Ch. Gineste.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

Roval Society, July 4.-Prof. T. P. Anderson Stuart, president, in the chair.-The testing of building materials on abrasion by the sand-blast apparatus: H. Burchartz. The paper described a method of testing building materiai by means of a sand-blast apparatus. The sand-blast apparatus is used on cubes of the material, exposing an area of 4.34 square inches for two minutes, and the loss of weight, and the appearance of the area eroded by the sand, give accurate data in regard to the durability of the material. The author compared the results of testing a great variety of materials by means of the sand blast with those subjected to the grinding process proposed by Bauschwiges, and showed the superiority of the sand blast over all other tests for abrasion.

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physical anthropology, and the papers led up to a discussion on the physical characters of the races of Britain.

Dr. F. C. Shrubsall gave a demonstration of the methods of determining racial characters, in which he explained the meaning of the various terms used in craniology, and showed the distribution of the various races in Europe.

Dr. G. A. Auden exhibited a collection of crania, all from the neighbourhood of York, and to a great extent from the collection of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. The exhibit included specimens of Celtic, pre-Roman, and Roman skulls, while one series showed the great change in head form which took place in York after the Norman conquest. Some of the Roman skulls had a sentimental interest, as they were from coffins unearthed in York and the names and ages of the persons were known.

A paper by Messrs. H. Brodrick and C. A. Hill on a recently discovered skeleton in Sooska cave was then read. The bones, which all belong to one individual, were found under a layer of stalagmite. The skeleton is that of a female Celt, and the skull is brachycephalic. Above the right mastoid process is an irregularly shaped hole, evidently the cause of death. The height appears to have been about 5 feet 3 inches.

Mr. J. R. Mortimer communicated a paper on the relative stature of the men with long heads, short heads, and those with intermediate heads in the museum at Driffield. Some doubt was thrown on the correctness of the figures, but if correct the paper was most important, as it entirely reversed the accepted theories as to the height of the Neolithic peoples of Britain, showing that the long-headed Neolithic man was taller than the broad-headed Neolithic and Bronze age man.

Mr. J. Gray read a paper on England before the English, in which, after stating the present condition of our knowledge of the subject, he argued that Neolithic man corresponds with the present Mediterranean race, and that the Anglo-Saxons and other fair races of northern Europe are a variety of Neolithic man with somewhat broader heads. The Bronze age race, which subsequently settled in Britain, was brachycephalic and tall, and came by sea from the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor.

At the conclusion of the papers Dr. W. Wright opened the discussion on the physical characters of the races of Britain. After quoting Cæsar to show that the coastal

area

was occupied by the Belgic Gauls and the interior by another race, he argued that all the evidence pointed to the fact that a mixed race came to Britain in Neolithic times, and that the population was not a pure broad- or a pure long-headed one.

Dr. Shrubsall urged the necessity of knowing exactly where skulls were found, considering that as careful evidence was required as in geology. He thought it a mistake to deal only with the length and breadth of the skull, and felt that the proportions of the face were just as important. Also all work required revision on biometric lines. As to coloration, which was very important, he pointed out that the Anglo-Saxons never called the Welsh dark, and felt that it was by no means certain that the Britons were a dark people. He also considered it quite possible that there was a Teutonic element in the population before Roman times.

Prof. Ridgeway insisted that all classical references speak of the Celts as a fair or rufous and tall race, and considered that there was no evidence of a pre-Celtic language in Britain.

Mr. J. L. Myres urged Prof. Rhys's view as to there being a non-Aryan structure in Welsh and Irish, and also protested against the practice of arbitrarily drawing conclusions from skull measurements.

Prof. Petrie considered that a prima facie case had been made out for an invasion of Britain, even in pre-Brythonic times, by a mixed race, but felt that much more material was needed before any definite conclusions could be drawn.

Dr. C. S. Myers threw doubt on the "Crania Britannica" records as perhaps affected by the collection of type skulls, and Mr. H. Fleure gave some account of the anthropometric work at present in progress in Wales.

The general conclusion to be drawn from the discussion was that it is of paramount importance that the existing material should be revised by improved methods, and that a better comparison with Continental data is essential.

In the afternoon Prof. Petrie gave an illustrated lecture on the Hyksos and other work of the British School of Archæology in Egypt. The most important work was the excavation of a great camp of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. The camp consists of an earth bank faced on its outer slope with white stucco, and with a slope, more than 200 feet long, serving as an entrance. This slope does not pierce the wall, but goes over it. Flanking walls were added to command this entrance, and the whole scheme of defence proves that archery was the only arm employed. Some sixty years later a wall of limestone was built outside the bank. There seems little doubt that the place is Avaris, and the account in Manetho's chronicle agrees with the arrangement of this site. The people appear to have been Semites from Syria and Mesopotamia. Other work resulted in the discovery of the city of Raamses. built by the Israelites, and of the town and temple of Onias, under whom the Jews founded a settlement in the second century B.C.

The work of the section concluded on Wednesday morning, August 8. Mr. J. L. Myres read a paper on early traces of human types in the Egean. The population of the Ægean area as far back as the beginning of the Bronze age, before which there is no evidence, was not a purely Mediterranean type of dolichocephalic man, as brachycephalic_individuals occur sporadically over the whole district. Egean culture, therefore, cannot be the exclusive production of "Mediterranean man. This evidence for brachycephalic types in the Egean, when compared with the evidence as to the existence of a very pure brachycephalic race in the Balkan and Anatolian highlands, makes it probable that these latter people were established in these highlands at least as early as the beginning of the Egean Bronze age, and were in competition with dolichocephalic "Mediterranean " man. Intruders from the north cannot have been brachycephalic, as the steppe of southern Russia was inhabited from Neolithic to Classical times by a dolichocephalic population. It seems improbable that the brunet dolichocephalic type of the southern Ægean could have arrived by a land route, owing to the presence of a brachycephalic type in the Balkan and Anatolian highlands, while its brunetness precludes affiliation to the dolichocephalic peoples of the north. This type, therefore, must be considered an immigration by sea from North Africa, and its littoral habits are a strong argument in favour of this view.

Dr. T. Ashby, jun., and Mr. D. Mackenzie commun cated a paper on the ethnology of Sardinia.

Two papers were then read by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. The first, entitled "A Survival of Two-fold Origin," dealt with the relation between a man and his maternal uncle This connection, although in most races a survival from mother-right, in India originates, in many cases, in the regulation that the children of a brother and sister should marry one another. This involves that a man's maternal uncle is also his actual or potential father-in-law. The practice is now chiefly confined to the southern parts of India.

Dr. Rivers's other paper dealt with the astronomy of the islanders of the Torres Straits, who group together man stars in constellations, which often represent mythical persons. In Murray Island private property was found in stars, two stars being the property of two men who had inherited them from their ancestors.

Two physical papers were communicated by Dr. W. L. H. Duckworth. The first directed attention to a rare anomaly in human crania from Kwaiawata Island, New Guinea, the anomaly consisting in the presence of small but sharp spicular projections of bone springing from the margin of the nose due to a bony deposit formed in fibrous bands, which in all cases exist in a corresponding situation. Dr. Duckworth's other paper was a chronicle of observations made on a "eunuchoid" subj in the Anatomy School, Cambridge.

The last paper presented was a demonstration of photographs of racial types by Mr. T. E. Smurthwaite. Mr. Smurthwaite has evolved a new classification of the races of man from observations of the contours of the head and face, and he resolves all the races into six common types.

Three important reports were taken as read, namely that of the committee to conduct anthropometric Invest