The peculiar train of symptoms which have been found to follow removal of the thyroid gland in animals, and the connection of myxoedema with changes in the thyroid, have been known for a number of years.

The discovery that the onset of the symptoms may be prevented by the grafting of pieces of thyroid, and that myxœdema may be cured by the internal administration of the gland substance, clearly indicates that the thyroid gland forms something which exercises an important influence on the metabolic changes in the body.

In our last communication (read July 2, 1894) we gave the broad results for three nickel tubes of various bores (see vol. XX. p. 296). In these experiments the screw stopper through which the capillary glass tube passed was made of brass. This brass stopper was used because of the comparative difficulty of working nickel. We were led, in the course of some tentative experiments, to use this brass stopper with one of the steel tubes. Now, in the earlier experiments with the iron and steel tubes, we had used an iron stopper. We were hardly prepared, however, to find that the mere substitution of a brass for an iron stopper should produce such a marked effect, not only on the amount of change of volume in given magnetic fields, but also on the manner in which the volume change varied as the field increased or decreased steadily.

The ideal type of a mammalian tooth is here assumed to be a modified cone, or, as in certain molar teeth, a combination of cones, the vertex or vertices, as the case may be, corresponding either to the apex of the fang, or to the free extremity of the crown, or to both, as in the typical canine tooth, where two cones seem united by their bases.

One of the most important conclusions arrived at by Pavy in his Physiology of the Carbohydrates, is that the intestinal epithelium acts as a barrier to the passage of carbohydrates into the circulation by converting them into fats (p. 248 et seq.).

Although the fact that the amount of sugar in the portal blood varies with the amount of carbohydrates taken would seem to indicate that the intestinal epithelium passes sugar on to the blood for the most part unchanged, the well-known observations on the conversion of carbohydrates to fats in the animal body suggest at least the possibility that such a change as that maintained by Pavy may take place.

When, with head fixed, we allow the eyes to wander over a fixed scene before us, we find that the eyes do not move continuously, but by jerks, so that what we see is really a series of separate pictures, each of which is at rest, the jerk from one position to the next being so rapid that we practically see nothing during the change of picture. That this is so can be shown if we have a bright light—say, an incandescent electric lamp—in the field of vision. After allowing the eyes to wander over the scene before us, we find, on closing the eyes, that we see a series of separate sharp secondary images of the bright light. Even when we make an effort to move the eyes continuously we find, by means of the secondary images, that we have not succeeded in doing so.

There is strong evidence for supposing that the Mollusca are derived from a bilaterally symmetrical animal, having a median digestive tract and lateral excretory organs. This animal was further characterised by the physiological character of its dorsal integument, which had the property of secreting a peculiar substance—conchiolin. This, though in itself capable of affording some protection to the animal, becomes impregnated with carbonate of lime, thus providing the animal with a hard coating sufficient to resist the attacks of all but the most powerful of its enemies, while at the same time it forms a strong external skeleton to which the muscles of the body can be attached. This conchiolin, however, unlike chitin, does not seem to lend itself to the formation of jointed appendages or metameric segmentation, with which we are so familiar in another group, the Arthropoda.

A first note on this subject, viz., the elimination of x, y, z from the equations

was communicated to the Society in April 1892. By reason of my immediate departure for South Africa, the manuscript was not prepared for the press, and the paper was consequently not printed until this year. In the meanwhile, both Professor Tait and Lord M'Laren had written notes on the subject, under the impression, I fear, that the object of my original paper was to obtain in any way an easy solution of the problem.

We examined the action of sodium mercaptide on dibromomalonic ether in the hope that in this way we might obtain the substance C(S—C2H5)2(COOC2H5)2. We found, however, that the reaction takes a different direction, and that what happens is represented by the equation

The comparative security afforded to birds by island-retreats could not fail to have attracted the attention of man from the very dawn of his reasoning faculties, and it is probable that, as soon as he acquired sufficient skill to enable him to cross a creek or a river, he occasionally resorted to such means of protection. From the natural to the artificial island was but a stage of transition which, in the course of time, would be readily bridged over by his progress in mechanical knowledge.

While the occurrence of the condition termed Cyclopia cannot be considered as altogether a rare event, the obscurity in which its pathology is still involved makes it desirable that a full description of every case should be put on record. The specimen in my possession was that of a well-formed female embryo which had apparently reached the seventh month. With the exception of the malformation to be specially considered, there was no abnormality either in its external appearances, or in the structure and disposition of any of its viscera.

Since the time when naturalists were led, by the publication of Charles Darwin's far-famed work on the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, to consider that Man might have been derived through a process of evolution from lower forms of animal life, attention has repeatedly been called to remains, more or less fossilised, which were thought to be transitional forms between the lower animals and Man.

The formation of drops, their variation with density and chemical composition of the liquid forming them, and their variation with temperature and frequency, have been the subject of investigation by several chemists and physicists, yet investigators are by no means at one as to the definition of a drop or the cause of its parting from the flowing liquid.

One of the most striking and interesting of the many traditions and current beliefs regarding venomous serpents is that a power may be acquired of freely handling them without injury, and even of successfully resisting the poisonous effects of their bites.

At the time when my former paper was communicated to the Society, I was engaged in investigating several subjects closely related to those dealt with in that paper, but in regard to which the experimental work had not advanced sufficiently to allow definite statements to be made.

The Glossopharyngeal.—The glossopharyngeal is usually looked upon as the most typical of the cranial nerves. In Amia, according to Allis, it consists of post- and præ-branchial branches, a visceral or pharyngeal branch, and a dorsal branch which takes part in innervating the lateral line system—supplying by a single twig one of the sense organs of the lateral canal, and in addition a row of pit organs.

The direction of the transverse effect in a conductor cannot be given by a knowledge of the magnetic properties of a body, for we find, if we assume the direction to be positive in magnetic bodies, negative in diamagnetic, that nickel, palladium, platinum, manganese, zinc, cadmium, antimony are exceptions. Again, if we look for a relation between the direction of the Thomson effect and that of the transverse effect, we have another long list of exceptions, including antimony, cadmium, zinc, platinum, bismuth. On the other hand, if we arrange the metals in a thermoelectric series, we find that, with the one exception of cobalt, the metals from bismuth to silver have a negative transverse effect; those from zinc to tellurium a positive; and the agreement goes further, for bismuth, which is at one end of the series, has a large transverse negative effect; and as we go up the series, the effect decreases in numerical value; while tellurium, which is at the other end, has a large positive effect, and as we come down the effect again decreases.

Whether the variation of resistance in conductors in a steady magnetic field depends on the field strength, on the magnetisation, or on both, does not seem to be definitely settled. The various experimental methods as yet used are fundamentally similar in principle, and have the disadvantage that the experiments are difficult to perform.

A method where the experimental difficulties are very few is to be found in the comparison of the variation of resistance for any given field-strength with some other phenomenon whose dependence on the field-strength or on the magnetisation is already known, and whose exact determination offers no experimental difficulties.

While tracing the lines of motion and the meridian sections of their orthogonal surfaces for an infinite mass of perfect fluid disturbed by a moving sphere :—the question occurred to me “When are such systems similar?” In the problem alluded to, the equations of the curves are, respectively,

It was at once obvious that any sets of curves such as

are orthogonals. But they form similar systems only when

Hence the only sets of similar orthogonal curves, having equations of the above form, are (a) groups of parallel lines and (b) their electric images (circles touching each other at one point).