When compared with sea water, most marine invertebrates are isosmotic but show varying degrees of ionic regulation, from accumulation of potassium and calcium to reductions of magnesium and sulphate. A reduction of sulphate in pelagic animals such as jellyfish and salps, and an accumulation of ammonium ions in arrow-worms (Sagitta) contribute to their near-neutral buoyancy. Marked reductions in salinity exclude mahy marine invertebrates. In the Baltic, polychaetes, bivalve molluscs and decapod crustaceans are reduced from 193, ninety-two and sixty-four species in the Belt Sea (salinity S 10-30‰) to three, four and two in the Gulf of Finland (salinity S 5-9‰). The chelicerate Limulus can stand a wide range in salinity, a few insect larvae can tolerate concentrations of 200% sea water, while the branchiopod shrimp Artemia can stand crystallising brine (36-37% NaCl). Very few species can tolerate temperatures of 40°C. One such species is the polychaete Alvinella pompejana, a hydrothermal vent animal at East Pacific Ridge (to the W of S America). The harpacticid copepod Tigriopus living in evaporating rockpools has a lethal temperature of 42°C at a salinity of S 90‰, but at S 8‰ that temperature is 34°C. Lack of oxygen and presence of hydrogen sulphide limit the distribution of animals in certain areas. Most active animals have respiratory pigments in their principal body fluid. Burrowing invertebrates such as Arenicola and Lingula have respectively haemoglobin in the blood and haemerythrin in the coelomic fluid, with mean oxygen capacities of 6 ml O2 per 100 ml in each case, compared to 0·6 and 0·5 ml in sea water at 10° and 20°C.

The distinguished person who is the subject of this memoir, was born at Boghall, in the parish of Baldernock, near Glasgow, in the year 1739. His father, John Robison, had been early engaged in commerce in Glasgow, where, with a character of great probity and worth, he had acquired considerable wealth, and, before the birth of his son, had retired to the country, and lived at his estate of Boghall.

The Kidston Collection of fossil plant slides includes sections of two very interesting specimens of Sigillaria elegans Brongniart, which were not in Kidston's possession when he wrote his two papers on Sigillarian anatomy (1905, 1907). The first of these specimens was found by W. Hemingway in 1908 at Laneshaw Bridge, Colne, Lancashire, in the Halifax Hard Bed (Lanarkian Series), and is represented in the Kidston Collection by two transverse sections (Nos. 1533, 1534). No notes of Kidston's relevant to the identification of this specimen have been found. Mr Hemingway, however, has been good enough to tell me that before he cut the specimen he recognised the leaf-scars, which were exposed on one side, as those of Sigillaria elegans; he submitted the specimen in this condition to Kidston, who confirmed the identification before sections were taken. The second specimen is from the Halifax Hard Bed of Fieldhouse Colliery, Deighton, Yorkshire, and was collected by G. H. Knott. A brief note saying that the specimen was identified from the exposed leaf-cushions as Sigillaria elegans has been found amongst manuscript notes of Kidston's relevant to the slides in his collection. This specimen is represented by sixteen sections (Nos. 1845-1860), cut by Hemingway, two of which are transverse and the remainder longitudinal. Both these specimens show certain structural features not observed in the anatomical type specimen of Sigillaria elegans described by Kidston (1905), and the present note may be regarded as supplementary to his original description.

Karyograms prepared from ovarian and blastoderm cells of the parthenogenetic Australian Brown Vegetable Weevil demonstrate a consistent triploid condition with 30 chromosomes which can be grouped into 10 sets of homologues. Meiosis is replaced by a single mitotic-like division in which 30 univalent chromosomes, each composed of two chromatids, divide equationally between an ootid nucleus and a single polar nucleus. Prior to the differentiation of the oocytes a peculiar bouquet stage occurs in the cells of the end chamber of each ovariole, but the significance of this phase is not known. Arrested development in eggs from individuals of low fertility is investigated and the relationship of body size and chromosome number is discussed.

A two-parameter Margules method has been developed for modelling the thermodynamic mixing properties and hypersolidus phase relations of albite-water (ab-w) melts. The method is based largely on phase-equilibrium and calorimetric data that are either currently available or readily obtainable; P-V-T data are not required.

The new modelling method has been applied to calculate: (1) thermodynamic mixing properties for ab-w melts at 2-5 kbar, 815°C; and (2) hypersolidus phase relations for the ab-w system at 2·5 kbar. Results are uniformly positive—activity-composition relations are similar to those predicted by equations based on P-V-T data, excess enthalpies are in good agreement with data obtained from calorimetry, and calculated phase relations are fully compatible with phase-equilibrium data for ab-w melts acquired at 2·5 kbar.

It is concluded that the Margules method for thermodynamic modelling of ab-w melts is a practical alternative to the P-V-T modelling method.

In September 1903 I received a bottle containing twelve specimens of a large parasite presented to me by Mr Chr. Castberg, the manager of a Norwegian whaling company which has established a fishing station at Ronasvoe in the north of Shetland. In his letters Mr Castberg stated that the parasites were attached to a Finner whale, which, from its size, the mottled character of the whalebone and the pointed head, was obviously a Razorback—Balænoptera musculus. The parasites were numerous, and were fixed to the back of the whale, and the attached end penetrated through the skin into the blubber. Although Mr Castberg had seen many hundred whales, this is the first occasion on which he had met with this form of parasite.

The material to be described here was taken from individuals of a school of Pseudorca crassidens, forty-one of which were stranded at Buddon Ness in the estuary of the Tay in November 1935. There is very little published work on this species beyond reports on the occurrence of stranded individuals. Beebe (1924) refers to six skeletons found on the shores of the Galapagos Archipelago, and West (1935) gave a preliminary account of a male fœtus taken from a female stranded in Wales. More recently, Peacock, Comrie, and Greenshields (1936) gave an account of the Tay specimens, while Fraser (1936) published a review of various strandings around our British coasts, and Gill (1935) has dealt with those stranded in South Africa (see abstract in Nature, September 1936). With regard to the reproductive system valuable assistance has been obtained from recent researches on other species by MacIntosh and Wheeler (1929), Wheeler (1930), Ommanney (1932), and Laurie (1937), published in Discovery Reports, while earlier papers, also on other species, by Schulte (1916) and Meek (1918) have also been consulted.

In a former memoir published in these Transactions (20) the developmental study of floral characters has been reopened. It has there been shown that by this study, which for long has received little attention, the investigator, aided by modern technical methods, may gain a fuller understanding of the value of the characters by which his judgment in systematic matters is guided. The subject then dealt with was the initiation of staminal zygomorphy in certain dicotyledonous plants. It was there shown that in the history of a stamen from its initiation as a primordium until its anther is dehisced and its pollen shed there are three more or less distinct consecutive phases. In the first, or phase of initiation, the stamen-primordium is defined. From this primordium an undifferentiated multicellular body arises by rapid cell-division. In the second phase this body undergoes differentiation into the component parts of a stamen ; an anther and frequently a filament and connective are defined, and their cellular construction is completed. In the third and final phase the stamen is extended and functionates forthwith as a disseminator of pollen-grains. In this phase the extensible and elastic walls of the cells of the filament are distended by internal hydraulic pressure, and the anther-walls are dried and finally rupture by inequalities in their rate of shrinkage and by the agency of fibrous devices. These steps form the prelude to the actual functionating of the stamen, and since the final enlargement of the stamen-filament is due to water-pressure, this phase is known as the phase of extension.

In the determination of the effects of stress upon different materials, the investigator has several methods of attack open to him, each of which has its own particular advantages. In the great majority of cases the material under investigation obeys the generalised Hooke's law, and the effects of a stress are therefore most easily followed and measured by observations of the strains produced. The strains being usually exceedingly minute, it is necessary to magnify them sufficiently to allow of accurate measurement. To this end many instruments have been devised for measuring the strains obtained by the action of different stresses, and in fact the great majority of our experimental knowledge has been obtained in this way. The application of polarised light to the determination of stress was first suggested by Brewster, and he applied it to many problems, particularly the determination of the neutral axis of a glass beam. Neumann, with a full knowledge of the work of Brewster, developed a theory of the analysis of strain by polarised light, and Maxwell also independently developed a theory. A third method, which has assumed great prominence in recent years, is the microscopic examination of metals under stress, as developed by Ewing, and Rosenhain, and others.

Field associations (voluminous ash flow deposits, rhyolitic stocks and dykes, ring complexes), evidence of repeated influxes of mafic magma, and thermal constraints indicate that many high-level silicic plutons (magma chambers) acted as open systems for considerable parts of their history. The long thermal lifetime, as well as other evidence from the volcanic record, suggests that some such systems reached a quasi-steady state in which magma input was balanced by magma output for times longer than those required for crystallisation. Reconstruction of the evolution of large, long-lived caldera-forming systems, such as that of the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, indicates that many chambers have lost a highly fractionated silicic cap, in some cases cyclically. Crystallised plutons may contain no obvious record of this evolutionary phase.

Geochemical data from silicic ash flow deposits can be used to reconstruct the volcanic stage of pluton development. Many silicic systems, especially of alkaline affinity, apparently pass from a stage in which melt evolution is dominated by crystal-liquid processes to one in which other processes may also contribute to differentiation. Apparently, the transition is most readily achieved in volatile-rich, alkaline silicic systems emplaced in complex, ancient sialic crust of the cratons. Once established, the preservation of highly fractionated caps on magma chambers requires a balance between thermal input and cooling-induced crystallisation. If heat enters the system too quickly, the cap may get stirred into the dominant magma volume by convection. If heat input is too slow, the magma body will crystallise inward from the margins, and the plutonic-consolidation stage will begin.

The worms which form the subject of the present communication were forwarded to me, in a living condition, from Kew Gardens.

I have received lately a considerable number of living Oligochæta from those Gardens, through the kindness of Mr Dyer, who permitted me to have the earth arriving from different parts of the world in the Wardian cases, in which plants are packed for travelling, thoroughly sifted, with a view to preserving the worms which had been accidentally included. By these means I have succeeded in obtaining some very interesting new forms, as well as a number of others which are still imperfectly known. The species which I describe in the present paper appears to be a new species of Eisen's genus Ocnerodrilus. The genus Ocnerodrilus was formed by Eisen in 1878 [1] for a small worm found in Fresno County, California. The specimens were all met with in “an irrigation box,” where they were found crawling among the algæ which covered the boards. It is evidently, therefore, aquatic in its habits, but Eisen contrasts its slow movements with the rapid swimming of Lumbriculus and Rhynchelmis, comparing it in general appearance with a small species of Lumbricus.

Recent investigations have profoundly modified our conception of the value of the histological elements of the nervous system. Conflicting opinions are still held on many points of primary importance, perhaps the chief of which is the relation of the nerve fibre to the nerve cell. The origin of the nerve fibre is a problem of vital interest not only to the embryologist, but also to the physiologist and the pathologist. It has long been the subject of controversy, and, in spite of numerous valuable researches, we are still far from knowing the relation of the nerve fibre to the central neuroblast, a relation of essential importance in the understanding of all neuro-pathological questions.

Sir Joseph Banks, to whose indefatigable ardour for the advancement of natural history, the philosophical world is so much indebted, made a voyage to Iceland in the year 1772, to enquire into the productions of that remote part of the world, and particularly into those of its famous volcano. When he returned, he brought from thence, among many other natural productions, some petrified vegetables, and incrustations, formed by the waters of the boiling springs; and he was so good as to present a part of them to his friends here, who were surprised to find them composed of siliceous earth. As this was the first example observed, of water containing this earth in such quantity as to form siliceous petrifactions, it raised a strong desire to have an opportunity of examining the water, and of learning by what means this siliceous matter was dissolved in it; and this opportunity was at last given us by John Thomas Stanley, Esq; who, excited by motives similar to those of Sir Joseph Banks, equipped likewise a vessel, and made a voyage to Iceland, during the summer 1789.

In this communication some account is given of the various instruments used in the survey of the seiches of Loch Earn, of the methods of observing, and of the reduction of the results of observation.

In Part II., which immediately follows, Mr James Murray gives an account of the preliminary survey, of which he had charge. Later, a summary will be submitted to the Society of the results as regards the periods and nodes of the lake; and finally, an account will be rendered of the observations made in order to connect the occurrence of seiches with other atmospheric phenomena.

Les Mousses rapportées par l'Expédition nationale antarctique écossaise ne sont pas très nombreuses, mais elles présentent cependant de l'intérêt, parce que la plupart proviennent de localités qui étaient restées jusque là totalement inexplorées. Le plus grand nombre des espèces a été récolté à lîle Gough ou Diego Alvarez, dont la florule bryologique était tout à fait inconnue; les récoltes de M. le Dr R. N. Rudmose Brown nous ont fourni 21 espèces pour cette petite île. Dix espèces ont été recueillies à l'île Laurie, l'une des Orcades méridionales, dans la région antarctique proprement dite; enfin, 6 espèces proviennent de l'Ascension.

We owe to Leibnitz the first suggestion of Differentiation, with fractional and negative indices, but no definite notion of the theory was attained until Euler expounded it in the Petersburgh Commentaries for 1731. Still Euler wrote only a few pages on the subject, so that the theory could scarcely be said to have come into existence, until Laplace, in his Théorie des Probabilités, and Fourier, in his Théorie de la Propagation de la Chaleur, shewed how general differential coefficients might be deduced by means of definite integrals, provided we assume or prove, by means of some elementary definition, that the differential coefficient of a circular or of an exponential function has a certain form. The formula given by M. Fourier is a very simple one; and our astonishment is great, when we reflect on the time which elapsed from its announcement to the first application that was made of it. This took place in 1832, in a memoir by M. Liouville, entitled Questions of Geometry and Mechanics resolved by a new analysis, which memóir is followed by two others on the more immediate theory of the analysis itself. Although M. Liouville regards his analysis as a new invention, we have no doubt that the idea is due to Fourier; but still to M. Liouville belongs the honour of moulding it into a shape capable of being made use of in the solution of problems.

The Cape Granites are a granitic suite intruded into Neoproterozoic greywackes and slates, and unconformably overlain by early Palaeozoic Table Mountain Group orthoquartzites. They were first recognised at Paarl in 1776 by Francis Masson, and by William Anderson and William Hamilton in 1778. Studies of the Cape Granites were central to some of the early debates between the Wernerian Neptunists (Robert Jameson and his former pupils) and the Huttonian Plutonists (John Playfair, Basil Hall, Charles Darwin), in the first decades of the 19th Century, since it is at the foot of Table Mountain that the first intrusive granites outside of Scotland were described by Hall in 1812. The Neptunists believed that all rocks, including granite and basalt, were precipitated from the primordial oceans, whereas the Plutonists believed in the intrusive origin of some igneous rocks, such as granite. In this paper, some of the early descriptions and debates concerning the Cape Granites are reviewed, and the history of the development of ideas on granites (as well as on contact metamorphism and sea level changes) at the Cape in the late 18th Century and early to mid 19th Century, during the emerging years of the discipline of geology, is presented for the first time.

Ten silicified brachiopod taxa have been recovered from the Ben Suardal Limestone Formation (Durness Group) on the Isle of Skye, western Scotland. This Arenig fauna contains a new camerellid genus, Boreadocamara, and new species of each of the orthacean genera Archaeorthis, Fasciculina, and Oligorthis. Representatives of Billingsella, Finkelnburgia, Syntrophia, Syntrophopsis, and an indeterminate orthacean have also been recovered from etched residues of the Ben Suardal Limestone. The Skye fossils show strong affinities with the Scoto-Appalachian or American faunal province, in keeping with the inferred plate tectonic position of the Durness Group along the northwestern margin of the early Palaeozoic ‘Iapetus’ Ocean.

A preliminary account of an earlier investigation of this nature has been given in a previous paper (Redington and Priestley, 1925), and it is intended to record here the results of further work, with particular reference to questions of growth and development. The new data that are presented are the result of two series of experiments, which will be called Series B and C, whilst the earlier work will be referred to as Series A. A critical review of the relevant literature has recently been published (Redington, 1929), so reference will only be made to such work when it has a direct, positive, or negative bearing on the results recorded here.

A diverse millipede (diplopod) fauna has been recovered from the earliest Carboniferous (Tournaisian) Ballagan Formation of the Scottish Borders, discovered by the late Stan Wood. The material is generally fragmentary; however, six different taxa are present based on seven specimens. Only one displays enough characters for formal description and is named Woodesmus sheari Ross, Edgecombe & Clark gen. & sp. nov. The absence of paranota justifies the erection of Woodesmidae fam. nov. within the Archipolypoda. The diverse fauna supports the theory that an apparent lack of terrestrial animal fossils from ‘Romer's Gap' was due to a lack of collecting and suitable deposits, rather than to low oxygen levels as previously suggested.