The experiments to be detailed in this paper, which chiefly go to establish properties of heat wholly unlooked for, or only suspected to exist, having been made entirely by means of an instrument of great delicacy—the thermo-multiplier of MM. Nobili and Melloni, I shall premise some account of its application to the investigation of some more familiar modes of action.

I. The Parallel Roads of Lochaber have presented to geologists a problem, which is still unsolved. Dr Macculloch, about sixty years ago, when President of the Geological Society of London, first called attention to these peculiar markings on the Lochaber Hills, by an elaborate Memoir afterwards published in that Society's Transactions. He was followed by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, who in the year 1824, read a paper in our own Society, illustrated by excellent sketches. His paper is in our Transactions. The next author who attempted a solution was the present Mr Charles Darwin. He maintained that these Roads were sea-beaches, formed, when this part of Europe was rising from beneath the Ocean. He was followed by Professor Agassiz, Dr Buckland, Charles Babbage, Sir John Lubbock, Robert Chambers, Professor Rogers, Sir George M'Kenzie, Mr Jamieson of Ellon, Professor Nicol, Mr Bryce of Glasgow, Mr Watson, and Mr Jolly of Inverness. Sir Charles Lyell, though he wrote no special memoir, treated the subject pretty fully in his works, giving an opinion in support of the views of Agassiz.

Notwithstanding the rapid progress of zoology in other departments, the Heteropoda still remain imperfectly known, if one may form a judgment from the scantiness of definite information respecting them to be found in systematic works. Nearly all the available space is usually occupied with an exposition of the errors and doubts of the great men who gave us the first outlines of the order, while comparatively little is done to improve the subject, or make it intelligible to the student.

Hitherto there has been described only a single species—Dicoryne conferta (Alder)—amongst the Hydrozoa in which the reproductive body is a sporosac which becomes ciliated and free-swimming. We have found that another species which, as we shall show (pp. 269–271), must be named Dicoryne conybearei gives rise to reproductive bodies of this type, which, however, differ from those of Dicoryne conferta in several important respects. The free-swimming type of sporosac has not been the subject of close observation since 1872; we have therefore made as complete a study of the structure and development of the sporosacs, especially of D. conybearei, as material gathered from several sources would permit.

Although we have many writers on geological subjects, whose works are distinguished by ingenuity of doctrine, and novelty of opinion, and, among them, some who have made advances towards arrangement; it was reserved to the celebrated Werner, to introduce means, by which rocks might be described with some degree of precision. Many ingenious theories were invented, to account for their formation; but little or no attention was paid, to the acquirement of an accurate knowledge, either of their composition, or their relative position in nature; although these certainly appear to be the bases, on which such speculative opinions ought to be founded.

Last summer I began an investigation of the Müllerian duct of Amphibians at the suggestion of Professor Wiedersheim, to whom I am indebted for most kind advice during the progress of my work, as well as for all the material that I have made use of in the course of it.

I have been able to examine stages in the development of the duct in Rana esculenta, Triton alpestris, Salamandra atra and S. maculosa, Siredon pisciformis (Axolotl), and Desmognathus; but I have paid special attention to Salamandra atra and Axolotl, which have not yet been studied in this connection. The Urodeles are easier to work with than the Anura, owing to the comparatively early formation of the Anlage of the Müllerian duct; and I have found Axolotl to be particularly instructive, as the pronephros and segmental duct persist during the early stages of the formation of the Müllerian duct.

I propose in this paper to describe what I have observed in various stages of the development of these two forms, and to compare the results thus arrived at with the appearances described in the published works on the subject.

During the last few years, great progress has been made in the study of the organic alkalies, and the discovery of methods by which these substances can be artificially produced, and the long train of investigations by which it has been followed, has greatly extended our previous information, and afforded us some definite ideas regarding their constitution. The advance made has, however, related entirely to the volatile bases produced by artificial processes, and our knowledge of the natural fixed alkaloids stands very much where it did some years since, and is still very imperfect, and in regard to many entirely fragmentary; so much so, indeed, that of all the alkaloids of this class described in chemical works, there are not perhaps a dozen of which the constitution can be considered as definitely fixed, and not half that number of which we know the products of decomposition. The fact is, that the interest attaching to the artificial bases has altogether diverted the attention of chemists from the natural alkalies, which have not hitherto proved a very productive field of inquiry; at least the researches to which many of them were subjected ten or fifteen years since, proved comparatively unfruitful in their results.

Aristotle has a saying, which he has frequently repeated and which is often quoted, to the effect that the same degree of precision is not attainable in all branches of inquiry, and that it would be just as absurd to exact demonstration from a politician or an orator, as to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician. It is a saying full of truth and acuteness. To the cultivators of ethical and political philosophy, for whom it was intended, it is invaluable both as an encouragement and a warning; and yet, in behalf of the latter more especially, I often wish that it had never been said. Proceeding from such a master, I am persuaded that it has often tempted them to rest satisfied with a degree of success far short of the limits which the nature of their subjects really imposed; whilst, on the other hand, it has afforded an apology for excluding social and political philosophy from the meditations of learned bodies like this. I do not mean that they have been formally excluded. I know that the constitution of this, and of most similar societies, has always embraced the social as well as the physical sciences. But so rarely have those of us who were occupied with the former availed ourselves of the privileges of Fellowship, that it has come to be regarded almost as a matter of admission on our part, that our subjects defy scientific treatment: that when we talk of tracing out laws of social wellbeing or progress, we use words which either have no meaning at all, or which indicate a very faint analogy between the methods which we affect to follow and those really employed in the physical sciences: and that pretty nearly all that can be done is to hand us and our subjects over to the companionship of party politicians and popular declaimers.

The systematic study of the cluster of orders lying at the base of the Dicotyledon phylum has of late years become of fundamental importance in view of the various theories advanced by different authorities as to the origin of the so-called Monocotyledons. The anatomical structure of many of these groups has been but little investigated from this aspect, and the present paper is the first of a series which it is hoped to publish with the object of discovering to what extent anatomy supports or contradicts one or other of views held on the phylogeny of flowering plants. One such research is already far advanced, viz. on the anatomy of the Magnoliaceæ, and another, the present contribution, deals with the stem structure of the Papaveraceæ. Although both researches have been retarded owing to one of the authors being engaged on war service, there would seem no reason for delaying the publication of such observations as have been made.

In the optical and mineralogical classification of crystals which I published in the article Optics in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, I have arranged Glauberite among those in which I discovered two axes of double refraction. The specimen which I used, however, was so small and imperfect, that I could not measure the inclination of the lines of no polarisation, or ascertain with any accuracy the laws of its action upon light. Mr William Nicol, whose ingenuity is already well known to this Society, put into my hands two specimens of Glauberite, which he had skilfully prepared for showing its system of polarised rings; and, by the use of these, I have been enabled to detect a very remarkable property in this mineral.

1. Dr Matthews Duncan having requested me to point out to him some simple method of comparing the fertility of different races, I endeavoured, as a preliminary step, to represent by formulæ some of the chief results which he has obtained in his very lucid and elaborate papers recently read to this Society, and printed in their Transactions for 1863–4 and for the present session. Some of the formulæ which I have obtained are so simple, and accord so well with the tables, that I have thought them worth bringing before the Society.

Very little is known of the petrography of the Portuguese West African colony of Angola, and of its three provinces that of Benguella is probably least well known in this respect. Granites, gneisses, schists, limestones, and red sandstones have been recognised by the earlier observers of the geology of the region, and detailed descriptions of rocks from Angola, and especially of its northern province, Loanda, have been given by Berg and Holmes. From Benguella itself J. P. Gomes has described the collection of R. P. Leconte, wich contained granites, amphibolite, adinole with epidote veins, various schists, quartzites, diabase-porphyrite, and basic eruptives. Senhor J. P. De Nasciamento in 1912 recorded granite, diorite, basalt, and quartzite on the Benguella plateau.

Up to the present time no systematic account of the cranial characters of the people of Scotland has been published. Incidental references to, and measurements of, a limited number of Scottish skulls may indeed be found in the writings of various authors, as in Sir Daniel Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, in Drs Davis and Thurnam's Crania Britannica, and in Professor Cleland's Memoir on Variations in the Human Skull. Measurements of five Scottish crania are recorded by Sir W. H. Flower in the Osteological Catalogue (Man) of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, four of which were found amongst the ruins of an ancient Culdee Monastery at St Andrews, and the fifth is said to be that of a Highlander. Dr Barnard Davis, in his Thesaurus Craniorum, gives the measurements of a somewhat larger number, six of which were from Caithness, and one is stated to be a Scottish Highlander. The same skulls have been remeasured and described by Dr J. G. Garson.

The Trekantnunatakker rise from the inland ice NW of the head of Kangerlussuaq fjord on the Blosseville Coast of central East Greenland. In these nunataks the main sequence of Tertiary flood basalts is overlain by picritic and ankaramitic lavas. These mildly alkaline lavas have lower 143Nd/144Nd and higher 87Sr/86Sr than the tholeiitic flood basalts. Their isotopic and incompatible element characteristics are similar to those of moderately enriched ocean island basalts, and comparable to the alkaline lavas of the nearby Prinsen af Wales Bjerge. The Trekantnunatakker lavas were the result of small-volume deep melting and it is concluded that an enriched OIB-type source was present as a component of the East Greenland plume.

The public attention, animated by scientific controversy, has of late years been much directed to Geological subjects; and the certainty of many important facts, has in consequence been ascertained beyond dispute, which were formerly unknown, or at least involved in such obscurity, that no person could have ventured to assert them, without being charged with extravagance. But though, no doubt, many branches of this science still remain to be investigated, such inquiries may now be said to have acquired a considerable degree of consistency and interest, from the substantial basis upon which they have been found to rest.

The specimens described in this paper were collected by Dr J. H. Harvey Pirie, B.Sc, M.B., geologist to the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, during a short visit paid to Gough Island on the homeward voyage of the Scotia from the Antarctic seas in 1904. The island is not often visited, and the only previous account of the rocks is by Professor L. V. Pirsson, who described a series of beach pebbles collected by the captain of a whaling vessel. Among those Professor Pirsson noted two varieties of basalt, trachytic tuffs, and a trachytic obsidian carrying olivine, and shown by chemical analysis to be of phonolitoid type.

With the exception of a small fragment of limestone, the rocks in the Scotia collection are all igneous. They were obtained in the neighbourhood of the usual landing-place, the mouth of a small glen on the eastward side of the island. They include soda trachytes, trachydolerites, basalts, an essexite, and tuffs.

The study of a normal process in an organ so especially prone to disease as is the human uterus, is beset with many difficulties; so many foreign conditions are apt to be present, giving a false impression as to what this process really is. That this is the case to no small degree, when the character of the changes which occur in the normal involution of the uterus after child-birth is the subject of observation, is shown by the variety of opinions held and stated by doubtlessly competent observers; for while one holds that the muscle undergoes a fatty degeneration, another holds that no such fatty change occurs; while one asserts that only a certain number of the fibres degenerate and disappear, another states that so complete is the destruction, that not one single fibre present in the uterus before birth survives the process; while another goes to the extent of saying, that the puerperal uterus can in no way be distinguished from a uterus that has undergone an inflammatory process.

In 1889 the Scottish Meteorological Society decided on making observations on the dust in the atmosphere at their Observatory on Ben Nevis. Having prepared the plans for the apparatus to be used for counting the dust particles, I visited the Observatory on the 1st of August of that year, and, after consulting with Mr Omond, decided that the tower of the Observatory was the best place for fitting up the instrument. The apparatus was afterwards made by White of Glasgow, and fitted up in the Observatory on 5th June 1890.

Dear Sir,

As the following paper refers in a great measure to the general theorems published by your father, I now commit it to your care, and that of my friend Mr Playfair, Professor of Natural Philosophy. I wish it to be communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and, if approved of, to be inserted in their Transactions as soon as possible. Indeed, I trust, that even simple as it is, it will not be altogether unacceptable to that learned body.

I am,

Dear Sir,

Most sincerely your, &c.

Jas Glenie.

For many years the Fossil Flora of the Yorkshire Coal Field has been engaging my attention, and among the species occurring in that district are many of considerable interest. This Coal Field supplied Artis with the specimens which he figured and described in his Antediluvian Phytology.

In 1888, at the Annual Meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, held at Malton, a committee was formed for the investigation of the Fossil Flora of Yorkshire, and since that date four Reports have been prepared and published based upon specimens submitted to me for examination by private collectors, and from collections contained in public museums. These Reports only contain lists of the species found, and the localities and horizons from which the specimens were derived, with any occasional short notes that might have been thought necessary. All detailed descriptions or critical remarks were deferred, and the present paper is the first of what I hope may be several, dealing more in detail with the Fossil Flora of the Yorkshire Coal Field.