I

/

PROCEEDINGS

OF

THE ROYAL SOCIETY

OF r

EDINBURGH.

VOL. XVII.

NOVEMBER 188§ to JULY 1890.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY.

MDCCCXCI.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Election of Office-Bearers, . . . . . .1

Glissettes of an Ellipse and of a Hyperbola. By Professor Tait.

(With a Plate), . . . . . . .2

Observations upon the Structure of a Genus of Oligochaeta belonging
to the Limicoline Section. By Frank E. Beddard, M.A.,

F.R.S.E., . A 5

On Self-conjugate Permutations. By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., . 7

Oh. a Rapidly Converging Series for thef Extraction of the Square
Root. By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., . . . .14

Note on Cayley’s Demonstration of Pascal’s Theorem. By Thomas
Muir, M.A., LL7D., . . . . . . .18

On the Connections of the Inferior Olivary Body. By Alexander
Bruce, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., F.R.S.E. (With Two Plates), . 23
Enzyme Action in Lower Organisms. Bv G. E. Cartwright Wood,
M.D., B.Sc., . . . . . . . .27

A New Synthesis of Dibasic Carbon Acids. By Professor Crum
Brown, . . . . . . . . 53

The Electrolysis of Potassium-Ethyl Malonate and of Potassium-
Ethyl Succinate. By Professor Crum Brown and Dr James
Walker, . . . . . . . .54^

The Action of Sodium Carbonate and Bromine on Solutions of
Cobalt and Nickel Salts. By Dr John Gibson, . . .56

On Certain Substances found in the Urine, which reduce the
Oxide of Copper upon Boiling in the presence of an Alkali. By
Herbert H. Ashdown, M.D., . . . . .58

The Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan. By Prof. C. Michie Smith.

(With a Plate), . . . . . . .65

On Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature. By Prof. Calderwood, . 71

On Coral Reefs and other Carbonate of Lime Formations in Modern
Seas. By John Murray, LL.D., Ph.D., and Robert Irvine,

F.C.S., 79

Note on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid. By Professor Tait, . .110

The Determination of Surface-Tension by the Measurement of
Ripples. By Prof. C. Michie Smith, . . . .115

IV

Contents.

PAGE

The Absorption Spectra of Certain Vegetable Colouring Matters.

By Prof. C. Michie Smith. (With a Plate), . . .121

On a Mechanism for the Constitution of Ether. By Sir William
Thomson, ........ 127

On the Swimming Bladder and Flying Powers of Dactylopterus
volitans. By W. L. Calderwood. Communicated by Professor
Ewart. (With a Plate), / . . . . .132

Notes on the Solution of certain Equations. By R. E. Allardice,
M.A., ........ 139

Notes on the Zodiacal Light. By Prof. C. Michie Smith, . .142

On the Structure and Contraction of Striped Muscular Fibre of the
Crab and Lobster. By Professor William Rutherford, M.D.,
F.R.S., . . . . . . . .146

Some Multinomial Theorems in Quaternions. By the Rev. M. M.

U. Wilkinson. Communicated by Professor Tait, . . .149

On an Accidental Illustration of the Effective Ohmic Resistance to
a Transient Electric Current through a Steel Bar. By Sir
William Thomson, ....... 157

On the Segmentation of the Nucleus of the Third Cranial Nerve.

By Dr Alex. Bruce. (With Two Plates), . . . .168

On the Nature of a Voluntary Muscular Movement. By John
Berry Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc., ..... 176

Muscular Contraction following Rapid Electrical Stimulation of
Central Nervous System. By John Berry Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc., 178
Synthesis of Sebacic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr James
Walker, ........ 180

On the Relation of Optical Activity to the Character of the Radicals
united to the Asymmetric Carbon Atom. By Prof. Crum Brown, . 181
On the Mean Level of the Surface of the Solid Earth. By Hugh
Robert Mill, D.Sc., . . . . . . 185

A Geometrical Method, dependent on the Principle of Translation.

By David Maver. (With a Plate), . . . . .188

Graphic Records of Impact. By Professor Tait, . . .192

On the Number of Dust Particles in the Atmosphere of certain
Places in Great Britain and on the Continent, with Remarks on
the Relation between the Amount of Dust and Meteorological

Phenomena. By John Aitken, F.R.S. (With Three Plates), . 193
Larix Europcea as a Breeding-Place for Hylesinus piniperda. By
William Somerville, D.CEc., B.Sc., .... 255

Researches on Micro-Organisms, &c. Part III. By Dr A. B.
Griffiths, F.R.S. (Edin.), F.C.S. (Lond. & Paris), Member of the
Physico-Chemical Society of St Petersburg, &c., . . . 257

On the Solution of the Three-Term Numerical Equation of the nth.
Degree. By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren, .... 270

Contents.

v

PAGE

On the Reflexion-Caustics of Symmetrical Curves. By the Hon.

Lord M‘Laren. (With Two Plates), .... 281

Synthesis by means of Electrolysis. — Part III. Synthesis of
; w-Dicarbodecahexanic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr
James Walker, . . . . . . 297

Synthesis by means of Electrolysis. — Part IY. Synthesis of Suberic
and %-Dicarbododecanic Acids. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr
James Walker, . . . . . . . 299

Preliminary Experiment on the Thermal Conductivity of Alu-
minium. By A. Crichton Mitchell, Esq., B.Sc., . . . 300

Note on Electrolytic Conduction. By Robert L. Mond, Esq., B.A., . 302
List of West Australian Birds, showing their Geographical Dis-
tribution throughout Australia, including Tasmania. By A. J.
Campbell, Esq., F.L.S. Communicated by Rev. James MacGregor,

D.D., F.R.S. Edin. (With a Map), . . . . 304

Pharmacology of Morphine and its Derivatives. - By D. B. Dott,

Esq., F.C.S., F.I.C., and Ralph Stockman, M.D., Research Scholar
of the British Medical Association, . . ~ . . .321

A New Method for Determining Phosphorus in Organic Phos-
phorus Compounds, By Prof. E. A. Letts and R. F. Blake, Esq.,
Queen's College, Belfast , ...... 382

List of the Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei of Fife and the Lothians.

By R. H. Traquair, M.D., F.R.S., ..... 385

The Interactions of Circular and Longitudinal Magnetisations. By

Prof. C. G. Knott, D. Sc., .

. 401

Closing Address. By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren,

. 406

Meetings of the Royal Society — Session 1889-90,

. 411

Donations to the Library, ....

. 423

Index, . . . . . .

. 421

Obituary Notices. (See separate Index),

. 432

.

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

ROYAL SOCIETY OE EDINBURGH.

Vol. XVII.

SESSION 1889

CONTENTS.

Election of Office-Bearers, ...

Glissettes of an Ellipse and of a Hyperbola. By Professor Tait. (With a

Plate), . . . . . . . . 2

Observations upon the Structure of a Genus of Oligochseta belonging to the

Limicoline Section. By Frank E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S.E., . . 5

On Self-conjugate Permutations. By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., . . 7

On a Rapidly Converging Series for the Extraction of the Square Root. By

Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., . . . . ■ . . 14

Note on Cayley’s Demonstration of Pascal’s Theorem. By Thomas Muir,

M.A., LL.D., . .18

On the Connections of the Inferior Olivary Body. By Alexander Bruce,

M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., F.R.S.E. (With Two Plates), . • . . 23

Enzyme Action in Lower Organisms. By G. E. Cartwright Wood, M.D., B.Sc., 27

A New Synthesis of Dibasic Carbon Acids. By Professor Crum Brown, . 53

The Electrolysis of Potassium-Ethyl Malonate and of Potassium-Ethyl Suc-
cinate. By Professor Crum Brown and Dr James Walker, . . 54

The Action of Sodium Carbonate and Bromine on Solutions of Cobalt and

Nickel Salts. By Dr John Gibson, . . . . 56 *

On Certain Substances found in the Urine, which reduce the Oxide of Copper
upon Boiling in the presence of an Alkali. By Herbert H. Ashdown,

M.D.,

58

11

j

PAGE

The Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan. v By Prof. C. Michie Smith. (Witli a

Plate), . . . . . . ' . . . . 65

On Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature. By Prof. Calderwood, . . 71

'

On Coral Beefs and other Carbonate of Lime Formations in Modern Seas. By

John Murray, LL.D., Ph.D., and Kobert Irvine, F.C.S., . . 79

Note on Kipples in a Viscous Liquid. By Professor Tait, . . .110

The Determination of Surface-Tension by the Measurement of Bipples. By

Prof. C. Michie Smith, . . . . . . .115

The Absorption Spectra of Certain Vegetable Colouring Matters. By Prof.

C. Michie Smith. (With a Plate), . . . . . .121

On a Mechanism for the Constitution of Ether. By Sir William Thomson, . 127

On the Swimming Bladder and Flying Powers of Dactylopterus volitans. By
W. L. Calderwood. Communicated by Professor Ewart. (With a
Plate), ... . . . . . . . .132

Notes on the Solution of certain Equations. By R. E. Allardice, M.A., . 139

Notes on the Zodiacal Light. By Prof. ]C. Michie Smith, . . . 142

%

On the Structure and Contraction of Striped Muscular Fibre of the Crab and

Lobster. By Professor William Rutherford, M.D., F.R.S., . . 146

Some Multinomial Theorems in Quaternions. By the Rev. M. M. U. Wilkinson.

Communicated by Professor Tait, . . . . . .149

On an Accidental Illustration of the Effective Ohmic Resistance to a Transient

Electric Current through a Steel Bar. By Sir William Thomson, . .157

On the Segmentation of the. Nucleus of the Third Cranial Nerve. By Dr Alex.

Bruce. (With Two Plates), . . . . . . .168

On the Nature of a Voluntary Muscular Movement. By John Berry Hay-

craft, M.D., D.Sc., ........ 176

Muscular Contraction following Rapid Electrical Stimulation of Central Nervous

System. By John Berry Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc., . . . . 178

Synthesis of Sebacic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr James Walker, . 180

On the Relation of Optical Activity to the Character of the Radicals united to

the Asymmetric Carbon Atom. By Prof. Crum Brown, . . . 181

On the Mean Level of the Surface of the Solid Earth. By Hugh Robert

Mill, D.Sc., . . . . . . . 185

A Geometrical Method, dependent on the Principle of Translation. By David

Maver. (With a Plate), . . . . . . 188

Graphic Records of Impact. By Professor Tait, .

192

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH.

vol. xvii. 1889-90. No. 130.

The 107th Session.
GENERAL STATUTORY MEETING.
Monday , 25 th November 1889.
The following Council were elected: —

President.

Sir WILLIAM THOMSON, F.R.S.

Vice-Presidents.

Professor Sir Douglas Maclagan.
The Hon. Lord Maclaren, LL.D.
Rev. Professor Flint, D. D.

Professor Chrystal, LL.D., F.R.A.S.
Thomas Muir, Esq., LL.D.

Sir Arthur Mitchell, K.C.B.

General Secretary — Professor Tait.

Secretaries to Ordinary Meetings.

Professor Sir W. Turner, F.R.S.

Professor Crum Brown, F.R.S.

Treasurer — Adam Gillies Smith, Esq., C.A.

Curator of Library and Museum — Alexander Buchan, Esq., M.A., LL.D.

Ordinary Members of Council.

Dr J. Batty-Tuke, F.R.C.P.E.
Professor Bower, M.A., F.L.S.

Dr G. Sims Woodhead, F.R.C.P.E.
Robert Cox, Esq. of Gorgie, M.A.
Professor Isaac B. Balfour, F.R.S.
Professor Ewing, F.R.S.

Professor Jack, LL. D.

Professor James Geikie, LL.D.,
F.R.S.

W. H. Perkin, Esq., Jun., D.Sc.

A. Beatson Bell, Esq.

The Rt. Hon. Lord Kingsburgh,
C.B., LL. D. , F.R.S.

John Murray, Esq., LL.D.

By a Resolution of the Society (19th January 1880), the following Hon.
Vice-Presidents, having filled the office of President, are also Members of the
Council : —

His Grace the DUKE of ARGYLL, K.G., K.T.

The Right Hon. LORD MONCREIFF of Tulliebole, LL.D.

VOL. XVII. 14/2/90

2

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Glissettes of an Ellipse and of a Hyperbola. By
Professor Tait. (With a Plate.)

(Read December 16, 1889.)

Last summer, while engaged with some quaternion investigations
connected with Dr Plarr’s problem (the locus-houndary of the points
of contact of an ellipsoid with three rectangular planes) I was led
to construct the glissettes of an ellipse. I then showed to the
Society a series of these curious curves, drawn in my laboratory by
Mr Shand, who had constructed for the purpose a very true elliptic
disc of sheet brass. I did not, at the time, think it necessary to
print my paper; but, after the close of the session, I made the
curious remark that precisely the same curves can be drawn each as
a glissette of its own special hyperbola. This double mode of sliding
generation of the same curve seems to possess interest. It is some-
what puzzling at first, since the ellipse turns completely round, while
the hyperbola can only oscillate. But a little consideration shows
the cause of the coincidence.

Let 0 be the origin, C any position of the centre of the ellipse,
CA that of the major axis, and P the corresponding position of the
tracing point. This does not require a figure.

Then it is easy to see that if </> be the inclination of OC to one of
the guides, 6 that of CA to the same, we have

\/a2cos20 + 62sin20 = Ja2 + b2coscj> .

But this gives

J a2cos2cf> - b2sm2cf> = Ja2 - b2cos0 ,

which is the corresponding relation for the hyperbola. In fact the
one equation is changed into the other by changing the sign of b2,
and interchanging the angles 6 and <£.

Let the polar coordinates of the tracing point, referred to the
centre of the ellipse and the major axis, be r , a, we obtain a position
of P by the broken line OC, CP ; their lengths being Ja 2 + 62, r,
and their inclinations to the guide <£, 6 + a, respectively.

If we now turn the guides through an angle a, and use a
hyperbola whose axes are to those of the ellipse respectively as
r: Ja2 - b2 ’} and consider the curve traced by a point Q in its

1889-90.] Professor Tait on Glissettes of an Ellipse.

3

plane, whose central polar coordinates are Ja2 + 62, - a ; the position
of the point Q is given by the broken line OC',C'Q. Of these OC'
is equal and parallel to CP, while C'Q is equal and parallel to OC.
Thus the points Q and P coincide.

In fact the motion of either is the resultant of two circular
motions, one of which is complete (viz., 0 , which has all values from
0 to 2tt), the other reciprocating (viz., <£, which varies "between
sin- \bj ' J a2 + b2) and sin-1(a/ Ja2+b2)). But, in the case of the
ellipse, the centre has the reciprocating motion; while, in the
hyperbola, it describes the complete circular path.

Mr Shand has constructed a hyperbolic disc, comprising a con-
siderable portion of each of the branches of the curve, and it gives
very fair glissettes. It is very curious to watch the proper point of
the hyperbola gliding over the curve already traced by the ellipse.
But this apparatus is not so easily managed as is the elliptic disc, so
that the figures in the plate were drawn by means of the latter, and
reproduced on a diminished scale by photolithography.

To exhibit, by a few forms, as completely as possible the general
nature of these glissettes, I selected a series of tracing points equi-
distant from the centre of the ellipse, and situated within and on
the boundaries of the various regions, to each of which belongs
a special form. For this purpose I traced the curve formed by
successive positions of the instantaneous centre of rotation on the
disc. The disc, with this curve on it, is represented in the upper
central figure. The equation of the curve is

b2x2 - a2y 2 _ Ja 2 + b2 Jx2 + y2

b2x2 -f a2y2 a 2 - b2

It is easily traced as follows. Draw the ellipse whose semiaxes
parallel to x and y respectively are

a2 -b2 j a a2 - b2. ,

Ja? + b2 an b ^a2 + ^2^

diminish every radius vector in proportion to the cosine of double
the angle vector ; and then diminish the ordinates in the ratio b : a,
so that the ellipse itself becomes a circle.

In the disc from which the glissettes were drawn, a (rather more
than a foot in length) was made double of b.

4 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

This equation suggested, as a useful distance of the tracing point
from the centre, the quantity

a2 - b 2

2jh2 + ^;

and accordingly the points 0, A, B, C, D, E, F were taken on the
corresponding circle. The glissettes of B and D, of course, have
cusps : — and it is interesting to study the changes of form from one
to the next of the seven just named. Two groups of figures give the
glissettes of successive points on each of the axes separately, viz.,
G, 0, K, M on the major axis, and J, F, L, N on the minor. Of
these K and L have cusps. The figures G, H, J were drawn to
show how the glissettes of points near the centre approximate to
the (theoretical) four cusps which belong to the path of the centre
itself, the finite circular arc described four times over during a com-
plete rotation of the ellipse. The point P was chosen as close as
possible to the intersection of the ellipse and the centrode.

The locus of the instantaneous axis in the guide-plane is of no
special interest. It is easy to construct it geometrically from its
polar equation, which may be written generally as

r( 2 + r) = 4 a2b2l(a2 + b2) sin220 ,

or in the present special case

r(Jba - r) = 4 ct2/5 sin220 .

It is an ovoid figure, symmetrically situated between the guides,
with its blunter end turned from the origin.

The equation of the glissettes is found by eliminating 0 between
the equations

x = >/a2cos20 + 62sin20 + r cos (0 + a) ,
y = V«2sin20 + &2cos20 + r sin(0 + a) .

This seems to lead to a relation of the 12th degree in x and y ; but
it must contain a spurious factor, as Professor Cayley informs me
the final result ought to be of the 8th degree. And in fact we see
at once that, if the tracing point be at a very great distance from
the centre (in comparison with the major axis of the ellipse) the
glissette will consist practically of four circles, with centres in the
four quadrants between the guide-lines.

Proc. Roy. Soo. Edin.

w

i

1889-90.] Mr F. E. Beddard on Structure of Oligochceta.

5

Observations upon the Structure of a Genus of Oligo-
chseta belonging to the Limicoline Section. By
Frank E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S.E., Prosector and Davis
Lecturer to the Zoological Society of London .

(Read December 16, 1889.)

(Abstract.)

The present paper refers to a number of specimens of Moniligaster ,
some of which belong to the species Moniligaster Barwelli already
briefly described by myself;* others (one other at least) are possibly
referable to a distinct species. I do not, however, give this species
a name, principally for the reason that it will very possibly turn
out to be identical with one or other of the species recently noted
by Professor A. G. Bourne from the Nilgiris and Shevaroys. I am
not at all certain that M. Barwelli is not identical with his M.
minutus. The present paper contains a fuller account of the repro-
ductive organs than I have yet given, but unfortunately it will be
still found to be incomplete in certain particulars; some of these
gaps, e.g ., the clitellum and the egg-sacs, are filled up by Bourne’s
paper, assuming of course that the characters of these organs as
given by Bourne will turn out to be generic , which is likely. The
present paper contains some account of the other organs of the body,
which has not yet been published.

As I have taken pains in common with other naturalists to point
out that the Oligochteta cannot be divided into “ Limicolce ” and
“ Terricoleef it may seem illogical to speak of a “ Limicoline
Section.” As, however, I regard most earthworms as forming a
distinct group marked off from other Oligochmta, it is convenient
to have an expression for Oligochseta which agree in not being
“ Terricolce for this purpose the terms “ Limicolae ” or “ Limicoline
Section” are made use of simply as a matter of convenience.

I consider (in opposition to Dr Rosa) that Moniligaster is not an
earthworm except in habit; its affinities with earthworms are
chiefly shown in the presence of gizzards, in the thickness of body

* I give no references to literature in this Abstract ; they will be found in the
complete paper.

6 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

walls and septa, particularly in the anterior region of the body, and
in the corresponding vascularity of the integumental layers.

It differs from all earthworms in the following points: —

1. The vas deferens is single on each side; it only occupies a
single segment, or at most two.

2. There is only a single pair of testes, which may be in
segment IX.

3. The sperm-sacs are a single pair with a simple cavity, i.e.,
not divided up by trabeculae.

4. The atrium opens on to X/XI; its structure is that of the
atrium of Rhynchelmis.

5. The oviduct opens into segment XI.

6. The clitellum occupies segments X-XIII.

7. The egg-sacs are very large, occupying about three segments.
In these points it approaches various Limicoline genera.

The following are the principal facts in the anatomy of my species
of Moniligaster. Those statements marked with a dagger (f) are
made for the first time in the present paper : —

tl. The prostomium is very small, not extending on to the
peristomial segment.

2. The setae, are strictly paired, and entirely upon the ventral
surface of the body.

f 3. The setae are not peculiar in shape, but like those of earth-
worms; only the anterior pairs are larger than the posterior.

f 4. There are no penial or copulatory setae (?).

f 5. Dorsal pores are present.

f 6. The mesenteries separating segments V/YI, YI/YII,
VII/VIII, VIII/IX are very much thickened.

f 7. The hearts are in segments VI-XIV, and are of large size.

|8. The alimentary tract begins with a buccal cavity leading
into a pharynx; the pharynx is well developed; the oesophagus is
lined with a cuticle, it is very wide; the gizzards are three* in
number, and lie in segments XIV-XYI ; there are no (?) calciferous
glands.

f 9. The nephridia commence in segment Y; each has a saccular
diverticulum.

* In one specimen, not M. Barwelli, the gizzards are situated further back,
but I am not sure how many there are, and where they begin.

1889-90.] Mr F. E. Beddard on Structure, of Oligochceta. 7

f 10. The testes are either (M. Barwelli) in segment IX, attached
to posterior wall, or else in segment X, attached to front wall.

11. The sperm sacs (one pair) are in segments IX or X — in
correspondence with position of testes ; their cavity is undivided.

+12. The vas deferens funnels , in accordance with the varying
position of the testes, open into IXth or Xth segment.

13. The atrium opens between segments X/X I; it has precisely
the structure of the atrium of Rhynchelmis.

+14. The oviducts are in segment XI; in the individual which
probably belongs to a species distinct from M. Barwelli , the oviducal
funnel is spread along the anterior face of the septum separating
segments XI/XII.

15. The spermathecse are a single pair in VIII; each is a small
sac with a very long coiled duct.

These points are in my opinion sufficient to render it necessary to
regard Moniligaster as the type of a distinct family, not, as Rosa
believes, of the Terricolse, but as equal to the Terricolse, Lumbri-
culidse, &c. This family has evident relations on the one hand to
the Terricolae, and on the other to the Lumbriculidse ; its affinities
however, to any one family of the Limicolse are not marked.
These matters are discussed in some detail in the paper, and form
its concluding portion.

On Self-conjugate Permutations. By Thomas Muir,
M.A., LL.D.

(Received Sept. 3. Read December 16, 1889. )

1. The conception of conjugate permutations appears to be due
to Rothe.* The definition may be expressed thus: — Two permuta-
tions of the numbers 1, 2, 3, . . . , n are called conjugate when each
number and the number of the place which it occupies in the one
permutation are interchanged in the case of the other. For example,
tne permutations

3, 8, 5, 10, 9, 4, 6, 1, 7, 2 (A)

8, 10, 1, 6, 3, 7, 9, 2, 5, 4 (B)

* “ Ueber Permutationen, in Beziehnng auf die Stellen ihrer Elemente,”
Sammlung combinatorisch-analytischer Abhandlungen, herausg. v. C. F.
Hindenburg, ii. pp. 263-305.

8 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

are conjugate, because 3 is in the 1st place of (A) and 1 is in the
3rd place of B, and so on in every case. A permutation may be
conjugate with itself. Thus the permutation

6 3 2 4 5 1

which has 6 in the 1st place, has also 1 in the 6tli place, and so
on. A self-conjugate permutation may consequently be defined
independently, as one in which each element is either in its original
position or has taken part in one interchange.

Conjugate permutations are identical with those which Jacobi*
calls reciprocal , his definition being that two permutations are so
called when the performance of the one upon the other gives rise
to the primitive permutation. For example, 3 5 2 1 4 and 4 3 15 2
are reciprocal permutations, because

(35214) (43152) = 12345.

In regard to self-conjugate permutations, there is an interesting
unsettled question which Rothe raised, viz., as to the number of
them corresponding to any particular number of elements. As a
partial solution he gave the difference-equation which it satisfies,
but nothing further. No proof even of the equation was given, and
it is the only result so left in his paper. Our present purpose is to
furnish a full solution of the problem.

2. The number of self-conjugate permutations of the elements

1, 2, 3, ... , nzs

1 4- Cw>2 + J . CMi2Cm_2(2 + i • 3 • CWi2Cw_2i2Cn_4>2 + . . . .

where as usual Cw>r stands for n{n - 1) . . . (n - r + 1)/1 . 2 . 3 . . . . r.

This is best established as it was first obtained, viz., by classify-
ing the instances of self-conjugateness, and then making a census of
the classes. A basis of classification exists in the varying number
of elements retaining their primitive positions in the permutations.
Taking this basis, we see at once that we have to consider in order
the classes

* “De formatione et proprietatibus determinantium,” Crelle’s Journ., xxii.
p. 287.

9

1889-90.] Dr T; Muir on Self-conjugate Permutations .

1. Where no element is changed in position.

2. Where two are changed.

3. Where four ....

4. Where six

In the first class there is manifestly only 1, viz., the primitive per-
mutation. In the second class there are as many as there are
different pairs of elements, viz., CnA for example,

2, 1, 3, 4, 5, .... , n, 3, 2, 1, 4, 5, ... , n.

In the case of the third class we have to find how many pairs of
pairs are possible, each having the four elements involved all
different. For the first of the two pairs we have, as has just beeiq
seen, CM>2 to choose from; for the second there are only C„_2>2 to
choose from, because there are two fewer elements to. make the
pairs of : consequently the number required is |CW>2CW_2)2, the
J being due to the fact that the order in which the two pairs are
taken is immaterial. In the case of the fourth class, we have to
ascertain how many triads of pairs are possible, each having the six
elements involved all different; and the result is similarly found

to be-ij Cni2 Cw_2i2 Cn_4t2. The remaining classes manifestly follow
the same law, consequently the proposition is established.

3. If XJn stand for the number of self-conjugate permutations of the
elements 1, 2, 3, . . . , n, then

U„ = U„_1 + (»-l)U„_2.

If, having examined the case of the elements 1, 2, 3, ...,(«- 1)
we bring our wth element n to join them, it is clear that we have
two possibilities to consider, viz. (1) the element n remaining in its
place, (2) the said element suffering interchange with one of the
others. Now, when it remains in its own proper position, the
number of self-conjugate permutations is unaltered from the previous
case, that is to say, is UM_!; and when it is taken with one of the
n- 1 other elements to form a pair for interchange, there will arise,
by reason of the remaining n- 2 elements, U„_2 self-conjugate
permutations, that is to say, in all (n- 1) Un_2. We have, conse-
quently, as was to be proved,

Un = Uw_1 + (W-l)Un_2.

10

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

As there is evidently 1 self-conjugate permutation when n= 1,
and 2 when n = 2, the first ten values Un are

U,= 1,

u6

= 76,

u2= 2,

= 232,

U3= 4,

u8

= 764,

u4=10,

u9

= 2620,

U5 = 26,

U10

= 9496.

4. The expression first got for the number of self-conjugate
permutations ought, of course, to satisfy this difference-equation.
To show directly that it does, it is best in the first place to simplify
it a little. The typical term
1

cu c

r !

n, 2 v-/n- 2,2 4,2

C„.

\ n(n-\) (n-2)(n-S) (^-4)(w-5) (n - 2r + 2)(n - 2r + 1)

= ri 1.2 * 172 ‘ T72 172

l)(w- 2) . . . (n-2r+l)
r\ 2r ’

w(rc-l)(w-2) . . . (n-2r+l) (2r)\

(2 r)\ Xr\ 2r

= C„,2, (1.3.5. . .2,-1).

The whole expression consequently becomes

1 + 1 . CW(2+ 1 . 3Cn>4 + 1\ 3 . 5C„>6+ 1 .3.5. 7C„>8+ . . .

Taking this for JJn we have

+ (n - 1)Um_2 = 1 + 1 . Cw_1>2 + 1 . 3Cn_lt4+ 1 . 3 . 5COT_li6+ ....

+ (n — 1) { 1 + 1 . Cw_2i2 + 1 . 3Cw_2>4+ 1 . 3. 5Cw_2>6 + . . .)

=i+i.|c„.1,2+(»-i) } +i.3

+ 1.3.5 { C„_,6 + ^ C„-2.4 } +

But the general term on the right here

= 1 . 3 . 5 . . . . (2r- 1) | C„_llSr + Cn.^.t | (

✓

= 1.3.5. . . . (2r — 1) | C„_lt2). + C j"

= 1.3.5. . . . (2r— 1) C„,2r.

1889-90.] Dr T. Muir on Self-conjugate Permutations. 11
It therefore follows that

+ (n- l)Un_2 = 1 + 1 . CW(2 + 1 . 3CMi4 + 1.3. 5Cn>6 + . . . .

= DW.

5. To every problem regarding the permutations of 1,2,3, . . . , n,
there corresponds a problem regarding the terms of a determinant.
What problem on determinants, then, corresponds to the problem
here dealt with ? The answer is most easily perceived if the
elements of a self-conjugate permutation be considered the column-
numbers of the determinant, and as such be suffixed to the row-
numbers 1, 2, 3, . . . , n, taken always in this the natural order.
For example, if we combine the row-numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 with the
self-conjugate permutation 3 6 1 4 5 2 of the column-numbers, we
obtain

13263i445562,

a term of the determinant

I !>

and at once see that it possesses the property of remaining un-
altered when the row and column numbers of every factor of it are
interchanged — that, in fact, such an interchange merely alters the
order of its six factors, 13, 26, 31? . . . . That this is the characteristic
property of such a combination of row-numbers in the natural
order with column-numbers in any order constituting a self-
conjugate permutation is evident on recurring to the definition
with which we started. The same property may be expressed with
regard to the vertical line notation for determinants, by saying that
the elements of the determinant which compose the term are cut
symmetrically by the main diagonal. Our problem is thus trans-
formed into finding the number of terms of a determinant of the
wth order, which are such that the n elements taken to form any one
of them are in the square array distributed symmetrically about
the main diagonal. Terms of this kind may fitly be called self-
conjugate; and, generally, the word conjugate may be used in
regard to the terms of a determinant exactly as in regard to per-
mutations. We may even go further, and apply it to the elements,
calling aTiSi as<r conjugate; in which case, two terms could be
defined as conjugate when the elements of the one were conjugate

12

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

with the elements of the other, and a self-conjugate term is one
into which there might enter self-conjugate elements and pairs of
conjugate elements.

6. Developing any determinant

11

12

13

14

15

21

22

23

24

25

31

32

33

34

35

41

42

43

44

45

51

52

53

54

55

in terms of binary products of the elements of the first row and of
the first column, we have the unique product

11

22

23

24

25

32

33

34

35

42

43

44

45

52

53

54

55

1 products of the type

12.

21

33

34

35

'

43

44

45

53

54

55

and (n- 1) (n- 2) products of the type

12. 31

23

24

25

43

44

45

53

54

55

Now each of the products of the first two types consists of two
factors, one manifestly self-conjugate, and the other a determinant
of a lower order than the original determinant, but otherwise quite
similar to it. On the other hand, in the third typical product, the
first factor 12.31 is not self-conjugate, and the second factor cannot
furnish the conjugate elements 21, 13. These considerations give
us at once the equation

■UM = UM_1 + (rc-l)Un_2.

1889—90.] Dr T. Muir on Self -conjugate Permutations.

13

7. In a zero-axial determinant of the nth order, Un = 0 when n is
odd , and = 1 . 3 . 5 .... (n - 1) when n is even.

Since here 11 = 0, the unique product just referred to vanishes.
Consequently the difference-equation in this case becomes
Un = (rc-l)Un_2,

Further, in such a determinant = 0. Therefore

0=u3=u5=, . . .

Again U2 = 1, therefore

U4 = 3 . 1, TJ6 = 5 . 3 . 1 , ....

8. Returning now to the general determinant, and expanding it
in terms of zero-axial determinants, we obtain

15

35
45
55 (

34 35
. 45

54 .

15
25

11

12

13

14

21

22

23

24

31

32

33

34

41

42

43

44

51

52

53

54

45

ina

22^33

54

•

+

11m'22

43

53

+ 21 a

11

. 23

32 .

42 43
52 53

24

34

54

25

35

45

12

21

31

41

51

13

23

14

24

32 .

42 43
52 53

34 35
. 45

54 .

where under the first 5 is included C5>3 terms, under the second
C5i2, and so on. And since the number of self- conjugate terms on
the one side must be the same as the number on the other, there at
once results with the help of the theorem of the preceding
paragraph,

Un = 1 + Cm>„_2 • 1 + Cw n_3 . 0 + CWi„_4 .3.1+ Cn<n_ . 0
+ CWi„_6.5.3. 1+ . . .

= 1 + 1 . CM(2 + 1 . 3CW(4 +1.3. 5C„>6 + . . .
as before found.

14

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh

On a Rapidly Converging Series for the Extraction of
the Square Root. By Thomas Muir, LL.D.

(Received October 20. Read December 16, 1889.)

It is well known that the square root of any commensurable
number N is expressible in the form

A+i 1 .... 1 1

ax + a2 + + az + 2A + * * * *

* *

and that the (z + l)th convergent to this is

K(A,fli,a2» • • • ♦ ,az) or ^ + K(a2, . . . , az)

K(oq,a2, • • • • >&«) K(<q,&2, • • •

where the continuant notation K( ) is explained by the example

K(ava2,a3)

oq 1

-1 a2 1

• “ 1 «3 •

Subtracting the ( z + l)th convergent from the 2 (z+ l)th we have

K(A ,oq,fl2, . . . , azy2Aya^ya2y . . . yaz) ^ K(A,cq,<%2, . . . ,az)

K (a1}a2, . . . ,azy2A,ava2, ...,az) K (ava2, . . . ,as)

K(A,a1,...,az,2A,a1J...,az)K(aly...,az)-K(av...,az,2Aya1,...yaz)K(A,aly...,az)
. . .yaz , 2A,nq, . . oq)

= (-l)gK (av...,az) }

K(a15 . . ., azy2Ayaly . . . ,az) ) K(av. . ., az)

(-1 )' .

K(ali...Jaz,2AJav...iaz)

Similarly, on subtracting the 2(z + l)th convergent from the 4 (z+ l)th
there is obtained

(-l)2g+1

K(«i, • • • ,«z,2A,a1} . . . j azy2Aya^y . . . yazy2Aya^y . . . , ttz) *

and so on generally, the numerators of the successive differences
being evidently

(-1)*, (-i r+\ (-i)^3, (-i

1889—90.] Dr T. Muir on Extraction of the Square Boot. 15

and any denominator being got by taking 2A for its middle element,
and writing the elements of the previous denominator both in front
of this 2A and after it.

Combining these results, we obtain the rather notable identity

11 1_ 1
+ a + a2 + * * ’ -1- uz + 2A 4-
* J *

_ a [ K(a2...,az) +

(-1)2

K(ofj,ci2) • • • j az) • • • j^z> %A,av . . . ,az)

..., az1 2 A, azf 2A, a^ 2 A, ..., az )

1

K 2 A,..., 2 A,..., 2A,..., 2A,..., 2A,..., 2A,..., 2A,.

The rapidly converging character of the right-hand side is unmis-
takable. There are, however, one or two transformations possible
upon it which considerably enhance its value.

In the first place, each denominator after K(a1, . . . , az) can be
resolved into factors, viz.,

K(a1} . . az, 2 A, ali...,at) = 2 K(a1} . . ., az)K{av . . ., az, A) ,

, 2A,..., 2A,..., 2A,..., az) = 2 K (av..., 2A,..., ag)K(av..., 2A,...,
= 22K(a1} ...,az) K (av ...,az, A) ,

(xK(ffi1,...,2A,...,fl2) A),

^Z5 E) ,

.,2A,...,2A,.

2A,...,2A,...,2A,...,2A,..,2A

= 23K(a1} . . ., a2)K(«x, ...,aziA)

x%,...,2A,...,a2, A)

2A,..., 2A,..., 2 A,..., az,A) ,

So that if we put for shortness’ sake

K0 = K(a1? . . ., a2) ,

Ki = K(otj, . . ., azi A) ,

K2 = • • •} 2 A, . ., c£z, A) ,

K3 = K(a1} . . ., 2A, . . ., 2 A, . . ., 2A, . . az, A) ,

16

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

the identity becomes

A 1 1 1

i

4* • • • + az 4- 2 A + • • •

* *

%-,«,) (- 1)* i i

K0 +2K0K1“22K0K1K2'23K0K1K2K

The fourth term is then seen to be derivable from the third by
merely dividing by 2K2, the fifth from the fourth by dividing by
2K3, and so on.

In the next place, each of the K’s after Kx is easily calculable
from the preceding K. For example,

K2 = K(c&2, . . . ,<x2, 2A,&4, . . . j azi A),

= K(a1, . . az , 2A)K(a1, . . a2i A) + K{av . . .az)K(a2, . . aa A) , |

= { 2K(a1, ...,azi A) - K(alt . . .«*_!> } K(a1} . . .a2, A)

+ K(a1> . . .,az)K(a2, . . . , aa A),

— 2K? — K(<21,...,ctz_1)K(a1, ...,05z,A)

+ K(a1} . . a2)K(a2, . . .,a2, A)

-2Kj+(-iy>

the last step being due to the fact that

are really

K(a1? . . .

■ , a* A)

K(a2, . .

• > azi Ax)

%, • •

. ’

K(ai, . .

• > az- 1)

KK . .

• . «i, A)

K(a2, . .

. , A)

K(a1) .

KK •

, . , a2)

— that is to say, are successive convergents — on account of av . .
being the same when read backwards as when read forwards.*
Similarly

K3= 2K2 + ( - l)2z+1

K4 = 2Kl + (-lf+3

* If this Were not the case we should have —

— K(<x1, . . , a2-i)K(alf . . . , dz, A) + K(als . . . , az)K(a2, • • • » ®z> A)

= az-i)K(av , aZ) A) + K (alt...,az, A)K(a2,..., az) + (- l)s

= K.($i, ... } ciz) A) ^ K($2, . . . , Ug ) — ...j dz ~ 1) I" + ( — 1) .

1889-90.] Dr T. Muir on Extraction of the Square Boot. 17

As an example of the application of the series to the extraction of
the square root, let us find by means of it ^300 or 10 J3.

Since

^300 = 17 +

1 J. 1_ J_

3 + 8 + 3 + 34 +

the series in this case is

17 . K(8>3) _ 1

K(3,8,3) 2K(3,8,3)K(3,8,3,17)

1

22K(3,8,3)K(3,8,3,17)K(3,8,3,34,3,8,3,17)

Now

K(8,3) = 25,

K(3,8,3) = 78,

2K(3,8,3,17) = 2702,

2K(3,8,3,34,3,8,3,17) = (2702)2 - 2
= 7300802

so that the series becomes

25 1 1

17 + 78 78-2702 " 78-2702-7300802 “ '

Dividing 1 by 78, we obtain

•0128205 128205 128205 128205 12...;

Dividing this by 2702, we obtain

•0000047 448233 976731 386057 81 ... ,

and dividing this by 7300802, we obtain

•0000000 000006 499044 074436 12...

All we have now got to do is to multiply the first of these quotients
by add 17, and subtract the sum of the last two quotients.

VOL. XVII.

18/2/90

B

18

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Doing so, we find the series

= 17*320512 820512 820512 820512 82...)

*000004 744824 047577 546049 39 ... i

= 17*320508 075688 772935 274463 4 ... .

This gives us

J3 =1*732050 807568 877293 527446 34...,
which is correct to the last-written figure, that is to say, to the
tiventy-sixth place.

Note on Cayley’s Demonstration of Pascal’s Theorem
By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D.

(Received Aug. 17. Read December 16, 1889.)

The demonstration referred to is given in the Cambridge Mathe-
matical Journal , vol. iv. pp. 18-20. It opens with the enuncia-
tion of a lemma to the effect that the intersection of the planes

aYx + b±y + cxz = 0, a2x + b2y -}- c$ — 0 ,
the intersection of

a3x 4- bzy + c3z = 0, a4x + b$ + c4z = 0 ,
and the intersection of

abx + byy + chz = 0, aQx + b6y + cQz = 0
will he in the same plane if

a2 as

Now, first of all, this condition may be obtained in a different
form as follows. If a point in the first intersection, we

have evidently

£12 : V12 : ^12 : : I V2I : M ' \aA\ i

1889-90.]

and similarly

Dr T. M air on Pascal’s Theorem.

19

£34 : ^34 ’ £34 • • l^3C4i * \C,2,a^ ’ 1^3^41 >
an(^ £56 ’ VbQ ’ £56 1 : l^5C6l * jC5®ei : ‘

Consequently the condition may be written

Multiplying by

l«Ah

l^3C4l

|i!3a4|

l«AI

= 0

l^5ce!

w

K6el

ai h

C1

as bo

C3

*4 h

we obtain

|a3&iC2|

|<x46i<?2|

iai^3C4! ia1^5C§|

KVal

0,

and on removing from this the multiplier just used, we have the
condition in the final form

= 0.

KW l»iW
KVJ KW I

It is shown to agree with Cayley’s by transforming the determinant
of the latter into an aggregate Of products of complementary
minors.*

* Since the order of the three points is immaterial, we see that

I |aAC3l

|a3&5c6| I

Msftl \a5b3c4\ I

I |a3^4Cll la1^5c6l I

1 |a1^2C4l

|a4&6c6| 1 |

\aA4 KMI 1 1

1 htol \aAce\ 1

It will be found that the second of the three determinants is got by using
laAc6l instead of | cq&3c4| for our multiplier and divisor in the foregoing trans-
formation, and the third by using similarly | azbxc^. This is one proof of their
identity. Another consists in pointing out the simple fact, that to establish
the identity of the first two is the same as to prove that

K^sl-KVel - KVJ-KVel + KVsi-hMsI - KW-hteM,

— a well-known identity of Bezout’s, and, curiously enough, Cayley’s second
lemma in this very paper.

20 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Taking now the six points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 whose coordinates are
• • • • ? and calling the origin 0, we have as the
equations of the planes 012, 023, 034, ....

Avih\ + y\hx2 1 + = °>

AvA + yhxs\ + = 0 >

and therefore the condition that the intersection of 012, 045, the
intersection of 023, 056, and the intersection of 034, 061 will lie in
the same plane is

fed

feel

feel

fell

fell

M2!

Mel

•

Mel

|%«4|

te

3*

to

tel

tel

tel

Ids'll

feel

feel

1^2%'

fell

fell

Mel

Mel

•

Mil

Mil

fey

l*4%l

fe^el

fe^sl

tel

tel

The four determinants here, however, are simplifiahle after the
manner of a similar determinant above. They are, in fact, all seen
to he of the type

m w w

IVfcl \Vy\ M.l

KVfs\ Mvl \x0c\ ,

and this multiplied by

x<t Xp xy

y* Vp vy

Za Zp Zy

Kv^yl te2«l
te*.l ■

V-i/tH ■ foml

i.e., . \xpysz,\ ;

produces

21

1889-90.] Dr T. Muir on Pascal’s Theorem.

so that we are thus furnished with the useful identity

| \Va^\ , faxy\ , hVe\ | = Kyp*s\ • \m^\ •

Applying this four times, therefore, to our equation of condition,
we have at once the surprisingly simple result

- l^5%l-l*5^?2l-!*2%24lrlw!il=0 ;

or, as Cayley would write it,

123.245 . 561 .634 - 456 . 5T2 . 234. 36l = 0 ;
or, perhaps better still,

T23 . 156 . 425 . 436
-125.136.423.456 = 0.

Now, if one of the points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, — say 1, — be viewed as
current , this is evidently a cone of the second order, with its vertex
at 0. And since 1 is associated in both of the terms with 2, 3,
5, 6, both terms will vanish, and the equation therefore be satisfied
when for (xtfft) we write (x2y2z2) or (x3y&) or (xyybzb) or (x6y6z6).
Also it will be satisfied when (a?4y4z4) is substituted, because then
the two terms are alike and of opposite signs. The theorem in
question is thus established.

On comparison of this with Cayley’s, investigation, it will at once
be seen that not only is the resulting equation here much simpler
than his, but that it is also greatly superior for the purpose he had
in view.

There still remains the question as to the reconcilement of the
two processes. Cayley’s resulting equation is

145. 256. 423. MI + 245 . 123 . 456 . 36l

- 245. 123. 356. 461 - 245.156.423.^1 = 0.

Can it be simplified ? Observing that the two middle terms have
more than one common factor, we write the aggregate of the two in
the form

245.123 (456. 361- 356. 461).

The bracketed expression is then seen to be equal to

346. 516,

22

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

by reason of tbe old identity (used also by Cayley in this paper),
356. 416 - 346.516 + 316.546 = 0.
Consequently, as a first step, the equation in question is shortened to

145.256 . 423 . MI + 245.123. 346.516 - 245.156.423.361=0.
The process of condensation, however, can be continued, and
that in two different ways. If we combine in the first instance the
last two terms, which are seen to have the common factor 245 . 516,
we read the result

145 . 256 . 423 . 361 + 245. 516.143. 263 = 0 ,

or, say,

145.136.234.256)
+ 143 . 156 . 24 5 . 23Q j

(A)

whereas if we combine the first and last terms, which have the
common factor 423. 361, we obtain

or, say,

423 '361- 125. 456 + 245 • 123 • 346 • 516 = 0 ,
125. 136.423. 456 )

-123* 156.425. 4Mj

(B)

Of these equally simple forms (A) and (B), the latter is the one
previously obtained, so that the requisite reconcilement is effected.

Since, however, the left-hand side of Cayley’s equation has been
shown to be reducible either to the left-hand side of (A) or to the
left-hand side of (B), a new question arises, viz., How it comes that
the two reduced forms are the same, or how it is that

145. 136.234. 256 + 143 . 156 . 245 . 236

- 125. 136.423. 456 + 123 • 156 • 425 . 436

vanishes identically? One answer is, that the aggregate of the first
and third terms being

= 136.234 (145.256 - 125.456)

= 136. 234. 165. 425,

and the aggregate of the second and fourth being
= 156.245 (143. 236-123.436)

= 156.245 . 163.423,

the two aggregates differ only in sign, and consequently their sum
is zero.

1889-90.] Dr A. Bruce on the Inferior Olivary Body.

23

On the Connections of the Inferior Olivary Body. By
Alexander Bruce, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., F.R.S.E.
(With Two Plates.)

(Read January 6, 1890.)

The inferior olivary body or nucleus forms the ovoid projection
which extends almost the whole length of the medulla oblongata,
from the lower margin of the pons Varolii to within a short distance
of the level of the decussation of the anterior pyramids. It is
separated from the latter by a groove through which emerge the
roots of the hypoglossal nerve. On its outer margin it is separated
from the line of the roots of the glossopharyngeal and pneumogastric
nerves by a shallow depression. Transverse vertical and longitu-
dinal sections of the medulla show the olive to be a highly con-
voluted sac of grey matter open, at its hilum, towards the mesial
plane. (It has two accessory nuclei of smaller size, an internal and
a posterior accessory olive, which, as they are really parts of the
larger nucleus, do not call for special consideration here.) The
fibres of the hypoglossal nerve pass through its substance, but do
not become, as was at one time supposed, and as has been recently
again affirmed by Vincenzi, connected with the olive. On its
median aspect lies the interolivary stratum or fillet. Anteriorly
lies the anterior pyramid, posteriorly the formatio reticularis.

According to the experiments of Bechterew, the inferior olive is
concerned in co-ordinating movements necessary for the maintenance
of the equilibrium 'of the body.*^ One would naturally from this

* Bechterew ( Neurologisches Gentralblatt , Dec. 1, 1882) states the results of
section of the inferior olivary bodies to be as follows: — (a) Deep section of the
olives produce forced movements, mostly rolling round the long axis of the
body towards the injured side, and nystagmus with one eye directed upwards
and outwards, and the other downwards and inwards. (6) Slighter lesions pro-
duced movements in a circular or in a forward direction, or caused the animal
to throw itself backwards, (c) Sometimes forced positions, with strong lateral
curvature of the body, were produced, (d) There was generally, also, a tend-
ency to fall towards the injured side, or in lesions of both olives unsteadiness
of gait, or actual inability to stand or walk.

In estimating the results of these experiments, it must be remembered that
it is impossible to divide the olivary bodies without at the same time injuring
some of the following structures, viz., the direct cerebellar tract, the arciform
fibres of Solly (or the anterior external arcuate fibres of Edinger), the ascend-
ing tract of Gowers, or those fibres which pass from the lateral columns of the

24

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

fact (as well as from its large size) expect that it should possess an
extensive system of fibres connecting it with other parts of the
central nervous system, more especially with such parts as have a
similar function ; hut it is a striking illustration of the difficulty
of the histological investigation of this region, that until quite
recently only one of these connecting systems had been definitely
established.

It has long been known that when one half of the cerebellum is
congenitally defective, the restiform body of the same side, and the
inferior olive of the opposite side, are also absent, the development
of the olive being evidently dependent on the opposite hemisphere
of the cerebellum. With regard to the other relations of the olive,
opinions have been very divergent.

The most generally accepted view is that of Deiters, viz., that the
olive is a nodal point or ganglion of interruption, between the pos-
terior columns of the spinal cord (or their nuclei) of one side and the
restiform body of the opposite side. Deiters thought that the in-
ternal arcuate fibres which originate in the nuclei of the posterior
columns ( i.e ., the clavate nucleus, or nucleus of the column of Gall,
and the cuneate nucleus, or nucleus of the column of Burdach)
terminate on the convex surface of the olive of the same side ; while
other fibres, arising from the interior of the same olive, leave it at its
hilum, and after crossing the raphe, and then passing partly anterior,
partly through and partly posterior to the opposite olive, enter the
restiform body. Deiters considered that the fact that the restiform
body gradually increases in volume in proportion as the posterior
columns diminishes is an evidence of the intimate association of these
two structures.

Meynert, while espousing the opinion of Deiters, pointed out that
many of the internal arcuate fibres arising from the cuneate and
clavate nuclei pass behind the olive of the same side, and reach

spinal cord to the superior olive, and the posterior corpus quadiigeminum.
The lesions produced in these various strands may therefore be, at least in
part, responsible for the phenomena attributed to the section of the olivary
bodies. Ferrier concludes ( Functions of the Brain , 2nd edit., p. 207) that the
views of Deiters and Meynert, with regard to the connection of the olive and
the posterior columns, are established by Bechterew’s experiments. In view
of the possible fallacies in these experiments, and the certain results of embry-
ological investigations, that connection can no longer, in my opinion, be
maintained.

1889-90.] Dr A. Bruce on the Inferior Olivary Body. 25

the restiform body of the opposite side without entering either
olive.

Ross ( Diseases of Nervous System) and Ferrier ( Functions of the
Brain, 2nd edition) adopt the views of Deiters and Meynert.

The recent researches of Edinger,* Flechsig, Bechterew (with
which I fully agree, on the ground of my own observations in
my Thesis for the degree of M.D.), show the view of Deiters, with
regard to the termination in the olive of those internal arcuate fibres
which originate in the nuclei of the posterior columns, to be
untenable.

If one examines transverse sections of the medulla oblongata of a
human embryo between the ages of six and eight months which have
been stained with hsematoxylin after, the method of Weigert, one
finds that the fibres from the olive to the restiform body are not
yet invested with myeline, while those internal arcuate fibres which
form the cuneate and clavate nuclei are fully medullated. An
uncomplicated view of their course can thus be obtained ; and it is
beyond any doubt that none of these fibres terminate in the olive of
the same side, that all the fibres of this system which enter the olive
merely pass through its substance, and terminate in the interolivary
stratum or fillet of the opposite side.

Flechsig ( Plan des menschlichen Gehirns) was at one time of
opinion that the larger part, or two-thirds of the interolivary
stratum or fillet, entered the olive; but it would appear that he no
longer maintains this view, and though there seems to be some
pathological evidence in its favour (see the case of Meyer, Arch. f.
Psych., vol. xiii.), the examination of embryonic brains, especially
in longitudinal sections, points to the absence of any such
connection.

There is as yet no evidence that any part of the fibres of the
spinal cord terminate in the olive, though that may well be the
case.

In 1885 Bechterew {Neurol. CentraTbl., 1885, p. 194) discovered
in the brains of infants of the age of one month a tract passing from
the olive in a direction upwards towards the brain, which had been
regarded erroneously by Stilling as a continuation of the posterior

* Edinger, Neurol. Centralblatt, 1885, p. 73. See also Spitzka’s paper,
Medical Record, 1884, vol. xxvi., Nos. 15-18.

26 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

columns of the spinal cord, and by Wernicke as a downward
continuation of the posterior commissure. This strand (Plate I.
fig. 1, Bt.)f which he calls the “centrale Haubenbahn,” appears on
the posterior and external aspect of the olive. It gradually increases
in size from the middle of the olive upwards. At the lower part
of the pons (Plate II. Bt.) it lies between the superior olive and
the fillet and dorsal to the fibres of the corpus trapezoideum. In the
upper part of the pons it lies in the middle of the formatio reticularis.
At the level of the anterior corpora quadrigemina it lies immediately
external to the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. It then passes
behind the red nucleus, and enters the lenticular-nucleus loop, to
terminate, according to Flechsig, in the lenticular nucleus.

About nine months ago, while making oblique sections of the
medulla and cerebellum of a nine months’ embryo, in order to
demonstrate the course of the restiform body (the posterior aspect
of the section being thus at a higher level than the anterior), I found
another tract (Plate I. fig. 2, a.o.t .), apparently previously unde-
scribed. (It is possible that this tract is referred to by Bechterew
in the paper quoted above.) The strand, which is only indistinctly
seen in the ordinary vertical transverse sections, begins, like Bech-
terew’s tract, on the external aspect of the olive. It then bends
gradually inwards, backwards, and in an upward direction, forming
a compact bundle, till it reaches the inner side of the nucleus of the
vii or facial nerve (vii nucl.). Then it turns outwards and slightly
backwards, crossing the roots of the facial nerve (vii rad.). As it
does so the fibres spread out from each other in a fan-shaped
manner, and become less easy to trace. They apparently, however,
bend somewhat downwards and enter the external (Deiters’ nucleus)
of the vestibular root of the auditory nerve.

This connection of the olive with the auditory nerve may serve
to throw some light on the special function assigned to the inferior
olivary body in maintaining the equilibrium of the body.

Explanation of Plates.

Plate I. fig. 1. — a.p., anterior pyramid; i.o., inferior olive; B.t., Bech-
terew’s tract ; V.Asc., ascending root of fifth nerve ; c.r., corpus restiforme.

Plate I. fig. 2. — a.p., anterior pyramid; inf. olive, inferior olivary body;
v.Asc., ascending root of fifth nerve ; vii nucl., nucleus of facial nerve; vii

Proc, Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol. XV IL Plate I.

Fig. 1

Diagram representing Bechterew’s tract in the medulla oblongata.

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol XVII. Plate II.

Diagram representing Bechterew’s tract in the pons Varolii.

1889—90.] Dr A. Bruce on the Inferior Olivary Body. 27

fad., root of facial nerve; a.o.t., acustico-olivary tract; vizi B. nucl., Bech-
ferew’s nucleus of auditory nerve; s.p.c., superior cerebellar peduncle.

Plate II. — a.p., anterior pyramid; /., fillet; c.t., corpus trapezoideum; B.t.,
Becbterevv’s tract; sup. olive, superior olive; viz nucl., nucleus of facial nerve;
v.Asc., ascending root of fifth; c.r., corpus restiforme.

Enzyme Action in Lower Organisms. By G. E.
Cartwright Wood, M.D., B.Sc.

(Read December 16, 1889.)

The soluble ferments or enzymes have always aroused the deepest
interest, partly from the mystery which enshrouded their mode of
action, partly from the importance of the processes with which they
are associated. The peculiar power which each possesses of decom-
posing apparently unlimited quantities of a specific medium, without
itself being used up in the process, has occasioned the confusion of
enzyme action with processes truly vital in their nature. Although
this action had only been demonstrated as subserving an alimentary
function, its aid was invoked to explain many of the more obscure
phenomena of biology. The series of decompositions which carbo-
hydrates may undergo, known as the alcoholic, lactic, and butyric
fermentations, were long ascribed to it. Even when Pasteur had
proved that these processes were always correlated with a vital fact
— the growth and multiplication of living cells — Traube,* Hoppe-
Seyler, and Liebig f still contended that these might act only in-
directly by the formation of soluble ferments. The analogy between
fermentation and the infectious processes is so striking that the
latter have long been grouped together under the term zymotic
diseases, and these we are every day coming to recognise more and
more as parasitic diseases conditioned by micro-organisms. Here
again, however, many tend to regard the microbe as not acting directly,
but through the production of soluble ferments. The consideration
of enzyme function in lower organisms has accordingly another
interest than that which attaches to it, as throwing light upon the

* Theorie der FermentwirTcungen, Berlin, 1858.

t Ueber Gahrung, Quelle der Muskelkraft und Ernahrung, Leipsic, 1870.

28

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

processes of digestion in the higher animals. Upon the view which
we take as to its origin and meaning will depend the standpoint from
which we regard many important physiological and pathological
questions.

Although Duclaux and Hueppe, in their investigations on milk,
had suggested the probable existence of soluble ferments, H. Bitter
in 1887 first furnished rigorous proof that bacteria produce enzymes
separable from the organisms which form them. He managed to
kill the organisms by sterilisation at 60° C. without materially
destroying their products, and in this way demonstrated that two
organisms, when grown on gelatine, produced enzymes which were
able, apart from the organism, to liquefy gelatine and peptonise
albumen. Sirotinin, in an investigation carried out in Eliigge’s
laboratory, noted incidentally, that culture fluids which had been
freed from organisms by means of Chamberland’s porcelain filter,
still retained the power of liquefying the gelatine. Brunton and
Macfadyen have, more recently, communicated the same fact for
another organism, and have stated in addition that when grown on
starch a diastatic ferment was there produced. My own experiments
were undertaken, not for the purpose of demonstrating the existence
of such enzymes, but if possible to investigate more minutely their
properties. Bor this purpose the four organisms which form what is
known as the cholera group — Koch’s cholera bacillus, Deneke’s cheese
bacillus, Finkler’s cholera nostras bacillus, and Miller’s bacillus — were
selected. These organisms exhibit in all directions a most striking
similarity, and the point which I wished to investigate was whether
their enzymes could be shown to differ in any way. The reaction
in which they would continue to act offered itself as the most con-
venient test. The method of experimentation pursued was as fol-
lows:— A tube containing 20 c.c. of sterilised milk was taken, and to
it a certain quantity of acetic acid was added. The fluid was shaken,
and then delivered, by means of a sterilised pipette, in equal quan-
tities, into four test tubes. To each of these 1 c.c. of the sterilised
products of one of the organisms was added, and the result noted.
By making a series containing varying quantities of acid the effect
on the enzyme action was ascertained. The cholera enzyme was
found to be most sensitive towards acid reaction, even very small
quantities inhibiting its activity. Deneke came next, while

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action. 29

Einkler and Miller bacilli continued to act in distinctly acid solu-
tions. But the two enzymes which each of these organisms possess
seemed not to be equally affected by the acidity. The precipitation
of the casein occurred in reactions where the peptonisation was
apparently completely inhibited. We must therefore conclude
that the enzymes of these organisms are, in each case, distinct, and
that the enzymes, even in the same organism, are not alike as
regards their capacity of acting under different conditions.

Gelatine and blood serum cultures of the four organisms were
found, in no case, to exert any diastatic action on starch. A medium
containing starch was then inoculated with cholera bacillus, which
after being allowed to grow for some time was sterilised at 60° C.
The amount of sugar present was then estimated in a small quantity.
By means of a pipette, 25 c.c. of the sterilised culture was then intro-
duced into a starch solution, and incubated for six days, when the
amount of sugar was again titrated. The quantity found was not,
however, greater than what had been introduced with the sterilised
culture fluid, so that no evidence of ferment action was exhibited.
Although the experiment was repeated twice, a negative result had,
on both occasions, to be recorded. It is possible that the ferment
may have been destroyed, or that some condition was present which
prevented its action. It appears to me more probable, however,
that the power of converting the starch into sugar may here exist
only in the protoplasm, it not having yet become developed into an
enzyme separable from the organism. It is not necessary to consider
the primary processes of digestion as dependent on soluble ferments.
The enzyme function should, as Hueppe * has insisted, be regarded
as a secondarily derived function of the protoplasm. The process of
digestion, as observed in its simplest form, is an intracellular diges-
tion, and is not, as Krukenbergf has conclusively shown, dependent
on enzymes, but is inherent in the protoplasm itself. The enzymes
are merely further differentiations of this primitive power of the
protoplasm in the same way as muscle and nerve are to be regarded
as represented in the contractility and irritability of a structureless
mass of undifferentiated protoplasm. We are accordingly prepared

* Die Methoden der BaJcterien-Forschung, 1888; “Abschnitte ueber Biologie,”
Die Hygienische Beurtheilung des Trinkivasser, 1887.

t Vergleichend-physiologische Vortrdge, Heidelberg.

30

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

to find very different degrees of development in different organisms,
and even in the same organism, as regards the different substances
to he digested. Thus cholera appears to digest its proteids by
means of enzymes, but the faculty of digesting the carbohydrates
appears still to reside in the protoplasm. How far the process is
carried out in each case by means of enzymes, and how far, directly,
by the protoplasm, must be decided by experiment. Even in the
alimentary canal the process is not carried out by ferments alone.
Starch is there converted into equal quantities of maltose and
dextrine, and the latter is unaffected by the further action of the
enzymes; yet as neither of these bodies is absorbed as such, the
portal vein containing the carbohydrates only in the form of
dextrose, these must undergo their further changes at the hands of
the cells. In a similar way lactose and cane sugar are split up by an
inversive ferment into equal quantities of dextrose and levulose, and
the further transformation of the latter is evidently to be referred
directly to the protoplasm.* The greater part of the albumen is
undoubtedly peptonised before being absorbed, yet, as Yoit and
Bauer f have shown, a part may undergo direct absorption. More
recent experiments, in cases of artificial anus, where the influence
of the ferments from the upper straits of the canal was completely
excluded, have shown that egg albumen undergoes direct absorp-
tion; and since egg albumen is excreted by the kidneys as a foreign
body, the disintegration and rebuilding up which is necessary for
its assimilation must be attributed purely to cellular action. In all
probability the cells lining the alimentary tract perform a much larger
part of the preliminary processes of digestion than is at present
conceded to them.

An enzyme is accordingly to be looked upon as a function which
has undergone a high degree of differentiation, indeed, as a property
which is able to exist and act apart from the protoplasm. As each
organism is adapted to special conditions, we should expect the
enzymes also to act best under these conditions. It has already been
stated that the enzymes of cholera — Deneke, Miller, and Einkler —

* Although the enzyme obtained from yeast can convert only the half of the
cane sugar into dextrose, Payen has shown that the living yeast-cells convert
the levulose also into dextrose,
t Zeit. fiir Biol., Bd. v. 562.

31

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

exhibit a varying susceptibility to acid reaction precisely as the
organisms themselves do. This does not indicate that the organisms
are more susceptible to acidity, according as their enzymes are more
sensitive to its presence, but that the protoplasm as a whole, and
with it the enzymes, is adapted to a certain set of conditions — its
usual environment.

This correspondence between the conditions under which the
organism exists and those under which the enzymes act, is exhibited
even more strikingly by a consideration of their temperature relations.
Every enzyme has an optimum temperature at which it works most
effectively, and a lower and a higher limit at which it ceases to act.
In the case of the cold-blooded animals this optimum temperature
is much lower than in the warm-blooded animals. Fick * and
Murisierf found that the gastric juice of the frog, pike, and trout
dissolved albumen at 0° C. Hoppe-Seyler J has confirmed this
result, and states in addition that at higher temperatures they did
not act so effectively as at moderate temperatures. The gastric juice
of a mammal, on the other hand, peptonises best at the temperature
of the body, 39° C., and becoming less active at lower temperatures,
is finally inoperative at 10° C. Again, while the diastatic ferment of
the pancreas and saliva acts best between 37° and 40° C., that of germ-
inating barley, where the temperature is usually much higher, has its
optimum at from 54° to 63° C. Micro-organisms exhibit even greater
differences as regards the temperature to^ which they are adapted ;
some grow and liquefy the gelatine at 0° C., and as is seen in the case
of the micrococcus, which causes the phosphorescence at sea, can at
this temperature exhibit their characteristic action ; § others do not
grow at a temperature under 50° C., and at70°C. continue to vegetate
actively.|| In accordance with the adaptation of the organism as
regards temperature, the liquefaction of the gelatine, occasioned by
a microbe, may vary greatly, even to the point of cessation, with
the temperature; but how far this is due to lessened production
of the enzyme, and how far to its action being interfered with,

* Arbeiten Physiol. Lab. Wurzburg, ii. p. 181.

t Verhandlung. d. phys. med. Ges. in Wurzburg, Bd. iv. p. 120, 1873.

X Pfliiger's Archiv, Bd. xiv. p. 395, 1877.

§ Forster, Central./. Baht., 1887, vol. ii. No. 12; Fischer, Central, f.
Baht., 1888, vol. iv. No. 3.

!| Globig, Zeit. fiir Hygiene, vol. iii. p. 295.

32 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

has not yet in the case of these organisms been definitely ascer-
tained.

We have just seen that each enzyme has its own most appropriate
temperature, and as the organisms vary as regards their natural food,
we should expect their enzymes to exhibit great variety as regards
their capacity of acting on different media. This is very strikingly
indicated by their action on the different sugars. The yeasts as a
group are able to attack dextrose, giving rise to what is known as
the alcoholic fermentation, and they are also able to act on cane
sugar, which is, however, first converted by an inversive ferment into
dextrose and levulose. Yet of all the yeasts only three are known
which are able to ferment milk sugar, the power of converting it into
dextrose not being possessed by the saccharomyces as a group, al-
though it is a property very widely distributed among bacteria. Of
still greater interest is the varying manner in which the same organ-
ism conducts itself towards different albumenoids. Thus, as a very
general rule, those organisms which liquefy gelatine are able to co-
agulate milk, and then peptonise casein which has been separated, but
some organisms which peptonise gelatine are without action on
milk. Again, we should expect that those organisms which exhibit
no enzyme action on gelatine would be inoperative on milk, and
although this is usually the case there are exceptions to this
rule. It has been already noted that organisms vary greatly as
regards the reaction in which they peptonise the milk, and it would
appear that they even peptonise it in different ways. Although the
vast majority first coagulate the casein and then dissolve it, certain
microbes appear to peptonise the casein directly; this would
indicate that the process in the two cases is not identical.* Very
striking is the way in which the same organism conducts itself to
the different albumenoids, gelatin, fibrin, blood serum, and egg
albumen. One organism is unable to liquefy gelatine, but pep-
tonises fibrin ; another liquefies the gelatine, but cannot peptonise
the egg albumen. They exhibit, in this respect, the utmost diversity,
each having its own special idiosyncrasies. We have thus seen, in
the course of our investigation, that the enzymes vary in every direc-
tion as regards the temperature and reaction in which they act, and
the nature of the medium on which they act. They must, accord-
* Caneva, TJeber die Schweineseuchen.

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

33

ingly, be regarded as specific in their nature, depending on the
specific nature of the protoplasm of which they are merely further
differentiations.

The question now arises, Are the products originating from the
action of different enzymes the same 1 We know, already, that the
sugars and peptones, in certain cases, are different, and more exact
investigation, coupled with more delicate methods, will, without
doubt, in the future, add greatly to the number of these. We
should not, then, regard the peptonisation as merely a breaking down
of the complex proteid molecule into smaller, more diffusible mole-
cules, which are in this way more easily absorbed. It is also a
disintegration into simpler bodies of probably a quite definite com-
position, which the protoplasm can either convert into colloid
catalysable material to be stored up in the organism, or build
up into its own proper substance. The protoplasm of bacteria has
been shown to exhibit the greatest possible difference towards
bodies all but indistinguishable from a chemical point of view. We
possess indeed in these organisms one of the most delicate reagents
at our disposal in differentiating organic bodies of allied constitu-
tion. Thus, to take one example out of many, it has been found
that the natural and artificially prepared inulins are treated as dis-
tinct bodies by a microbe, the first being assimilated, the latter being
left absolutely untouched. It is probable, then, that the process of
peptonisation, in which the proteid molecule is, as it were, taken to
pieces, is not always the same, but varies according to the specific
nature of the protoplasm, in which it may have, afterwards, to
undergo a process of building up to form an integral part.

The enzymes have not yet been isolated as chemically pure bodies ;
indeed, there is good reason to believe that, in most cases, these
would be found to consist of several bodies corresponding to different
stages of their action. This has been indicated most clearly in
the case of the diastatic ferment obtained from malt.* The
starch, after undergoing a first change into a soluble form, is con-
verted into a molecule of maltose and dextrine; the latter then
undergoes successive hydrations, until 52 per cent, of the maltose
which the starch could have yielded, has been formed, at which stage
the action of the ferment ceases. If, however, the ferment had been
* Annales de VInstitut Pasteur , 1887.

VOL. XVII. 18/2/90

C

34 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

previously heated up to 60° C., the starch is converted completely
into dextrine as rapidly as previously, hut only 28’4 per cent, of the
possible maltose producible from the starch is formed, and this
quantity is not increased by the addition of more of the weakened
ferment. It would appear, from these and other experiments, that
the successive stages in the conversion of the starch into maltose
depend on different ferments, which are destroyed, perhaps through
coagulation, at different temperatures. Little is known of the
products which intervene between albumen and peptone, and
nothing of the action which the various secretions exert upon them.
Yet a complete knowledge of these, and of the action upon them of
the various secretions which are poured into the alimentary canal,
is essential to a proper understanding of the process. At present
the action of a ferment is always tested on the unchanged albumen,
usually egg albumen or fibrin, although, as is probably the case with
the intestinal secretion, it may operate only in the later stages in
the splitting up of the albumen. This may perhaps account for the
want of action of this secretion upon the chief articles of food which
so many observers have recorded. The products resulting from the
action of the secretions on the different forms of albumen in raw
and in cooked condition, — the nature and relative amount of the
peptone and bye-products formed in each case, — still require more
exact investigation. By a consideration of the relative amount of
peptone yielded by each we should be able to form a much more
accurate conception of its dietetic value. The nature and amount of
the bye-products, and the effect, in this relation, of prolonged action
of a secretion, as may frequently occur in gastric digestion, might be
expected to throw much light on the effect of diet in such disorders
of assimilation as gout.

The enzyme function is, as we have seen, to be regarded as a
higher development of a primordial function of the protoplasm, and
we have now to consider the question as to whether the degree of
development in each organism is a fixed invariable quantity or one
subject to variation. It follows, from what has been already stated,
that such external conditions as temperature, nature, and reaction of
the medium affect its action ; we have still to mention here that
Fliigge * has observed that organisms when grown without the
* Die Mikro- Organismen, page 470, 1886.

35

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action .

presence of oxygen — under conditions of anaerobiosis — appear then
to lose their enzyme function, inasmuch as they then cease to
liquefy the gelatine. As great inconvenience results in many
investigations from the liquefying colonies destroying the gelatine
plates before the other, more slowly-growing organisms, have had
time to develop, Chantemesse and Widal * have attempted, by
the addition of some substance to the medium, to hold the peptonis-
ing power temporarily in check. To facilitate the discovery of
typhoid fever bacilli in the presence of other organisms, as in
suspected earth and water, they recommended the addition of
carbolic acid to the gelatine. Control experiments carried out by
me at the request of Professor Hueppe,f indicated that the
quantity required to effect this in different species of bacteria varied
from OOl per cent, to 0T per cent, carbolic acid, and that the higher
concentrations necessary for the more refractory, entirely prevented
the development of more sensitive organisms. Other substances were
accordingly investigated for the purpose of selecting one which,
while retarding the liquefaction of the gelatine, would still exert no
injurious action on the microbes. Of those experimented with,
glycerine seemed most suitable for general use, although the influence
which it exerted upon this function varied greatly in different
organisms. This is explained by the fact, that its action appears to
consist not in operating directly upon the enzymes, but rather in
offering the microbe a substance as pabulum, which it selects in
preference to the gelatine. It has been already mentioned that
Brunton and Macfadyen found that an organism produced a pepton-
ising ferment when grown on albumen, but a diastatic ferment on
starch, so that these would appear to be produced according to the
special temporary requirements of the organism. I had previously
observed that all the members of the cholera group, when inoculated
on blood serum, produced sulphuretted hydrogen, and at the same
time liquefied the medium. If, however, glycerine is added to the
blood serum the liquefaction and production of sulphuretted hydro-
gen appear much later, which is, I think, to be attributed to the
organism obtaining the energy which it required, first from the
more easily decomposed carbohydrate, and, only when this had

* Gazette Hebdomadaire, 1887, page 146.

t Die Methoden der Bakterien-Forschung, page 299, 1888.

36 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

become exhausted, resorting to the albumenoids present. The
degree of retardation in the liquefaction of the gelatine will in each
case depend on the protoplasmic idiosyncrasies of the organism as
regards the form of nourishment best adapted to its metabolism.
It is not improbable that an analogous selective action of the
protoplasm may come into play when organisms are grown anaero-
bically on gelatine containing grape sugar, and that the absence of
liquefaction in some of these cases is to be ascribed to this.

It is not, however, such temporary abeyances of function that I
wish to consider now, but more permanent changes in the organisms
themselves as regards this function. The first occasion on which I
observed the complete loss of the power of liquefying the gelatine
was in the case of an old gelatine culture of Koch’s cholera bacillus.
The colonies originating from it presented the usual irregular
margin and granulated-glass appearance, and, under the microscope,
cover-glass preparations gave the characteristic comma form, but it
grew in gelatine without any signs of liquefaction, and in milk no
separation of the casein took place. On potatoes, which are
naturally of acid reaction, the growth was either much impaired or
even completely inhibited, although other samples of cholera grew
luxuriantly on slices of the same potato. This sensitiveness of the
organism to acid reaction, when it has lost its enzytne function, will
be dealt with later. The variety of cholera which had lost its
enzyme faculty, preserved its new properties for many months when
cultivated on agar-agar. When grown under other conditions, it
rapidly regained its power of liquefying the gelatine. Thus, if
frequently re-inoculated on fresh bouillon, and retained at a tem-
perature of 25° C., it recovered its former characters in about three
weeks. Since noting this loss of function in the case of cholera, I
have had occasion repeatedly to observe the same fact in old
cultures of many other organisms. Gelatine plates from such tubes
presented non-liquefying colonies often intermingled with the char-
acteristic liquefying ones, which had alone been expected. At first
sight it would appear that the former must be impurities, a view
which, by preventing further investigation, has no doubt misled
many who must at some time have observed the same appearances.
I was able, in such cases, by cultivation under appropriate conditions,
to cause such aberrant forms to recover their original characters.

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action .

37

The question now arises, What are the factors which come into opera-
tion in old cholera cultures, and cause this loss of function 1 It has
been already stated, that when oxygen is excluded, the organism
exists without the aid of enzymes. Now, if a culture is left, for
long, undisturbed, a membrane forms on the surface which effectually
prevents the entrance of oxygen to organisms which have fallen to
the bottom of the tube, and the habit of taking its food otherwise
than by enzymes may perhaps persist for some time after it is again
grown under ordinary conditions. The most important factor, as
evidenced by the fact that the age of the culture is essential, is
undoubtedly the action of the metabolic products of the microbe,
which accumulate under such circumstances. These products may
act either as general depressants devitalisingly upon the protoplasm ^
as a whole, or specifically upon one or other function. We must in
this case attribute the action to the presence of some special
substance, which acts upon this function, as organisms which were
unaffected by their own products suffered this loss when cultivated
in sterilised cholera cultures. As the phenols had been found to
act powerfully in restraining the action of the soluble ferments,
attention was directed to indol, which Brieger and Salkowski had
shown to be formed by cholera. The great difficulty and expense
involved in the preparation of pure indol prevented the experiment
from being carried out with it, so recourse was had to phenol. The
method of procedure was as follows : — A series of tubes each con-
taining 10 c.c. of sterilised bouillon, received quantities, varying from
1 to 10 drops, of 5 per cent, carbolic acid solution. The organism
was then seeded in these tubes, and the effect of the varying concen-
trations investigated. The microbes which were experimented upon
in this way were Koch’s Cholera bacillus , Micrococcus indicus , Micro-
coccus prodigiosus , and Bacillus pyocyaneus. These varied greatly
as regards the quantity required to effect the loss of their enzyme func-
tion, 1 to 2 drops being sufficient for cholera, while Prodigiosus and
Indicus required the highest concentrations. Bacillus pyocyaneus
being still more intractable, showing itself unaffected, even by 10
drops of carbolic acid, it was finally omitted from the series. The state
of the enzyme function in the other organisms was tested from time
to time by inoculation on milk and gelatine. By this means, in
the space of about six weeks, varieties of cholera, Prodigiosus

38 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

and Indians , were produced which grew on gelatine without any
signs of liquefaction. The condition was not, however, a very
permanent one in cholera, as after a certain time a slow liquefaction
of the gelatine began to show itself.

In the case of all the organisms, the longer they were subjected
to the influence of carbolic acid the more fixed was the new condition.
On the other hand, the strongest solutions in which the organism
could he got to grow were not those best suited for the production
of more permanent species. No doubt, the enzymes were lost more
quickly by the use of the higher concentrations, but on recultivation
on other media they almost immediately returned. It would ap-
pear that the carbolic acid, by acting de vital isingly on the proto-
plasm as a whole, restricted the exercise of that lower function, which
by replacing its enzyme action, prevented the tendency to relapse
reasserting itself, when cultivated again under normal conditions.
At any rate, it was the use of medium concentrations over more
prolonged periods which were found most effective, and indications
were not wanting that a previous growth of the microbe in the more
dilute solutions would have produced evenbetter results. The enzyme
which acted on the gelatine, and that which occasioned the rennet-
like separation of the casein in milk, were not affected alike in these
experiments. In all three organisms the power of coagulating the
milk appeared to be lost before the power of liquefying the gelatine.
If this were so, one might consider the rennet-like ferment as being
a later evolved function, and so more easily lost when subjected to
degrading influences. For, as the precipitation of the casein is only
a splitting, preliminary to the peptonisation which is to follow, such
an enzyme would be of no use to the organism unless the peptonising
power were also present. The absolute proof that it is first lost, is
however wanting, as another factor must here be taken into con-
sideration. These organisms become more sensitive to acid reaction
in proportion to the loss of their enzyme action, as is evidenced by
their less vigorous growth on potato. Now, as they all produce
acid from the sugar in milk, their further enzyme production may be
inhibited by the acid they themselves have formed before such fer-
ment is present in sufficient quantity to cause the precipitation of
the casein.

It may be mentioned here that Prodigiosus and Indicus, which

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

89

had lost the power of liquefying the gelatine had also lost the
faculty of forming their characteristic pigments.* This function
was, however, much more easily lost than the enzyme function, for
perfectly colourless cultures could be obtained, which nevertheless
acted on the gelatine and milk, and it was evident that by properly
graduating the agent brought to bear on the organism, the one
might be lost without the other being appreciably affected.

It has already been stated that Fliigge found that micro-organ-
isms when grown in the absence of oxygen, appeared to obtain their
food without the aid of enzymes, as they then ceased to liquefy the gela-
tine. The most natural supposition is, that oxygen being necessary
for the formation of the enzymes, when it is excluded, the proto-
plasm reverts more or less to the primary form of digestion — that
without enzymes. This may, in some cases, be the explanation, but
there are a number of facts which tend to show that in some cases
under anaerobiosis the products of the organism are different from
those which occur under aerobiosis. This has led Hueppe and
Brieger to suggest that the metabolism of the organism under
aerobiotic and anaerobiotic states may be different, these two
being entirely different adaptations of the protoplasm. On this
view, under anaerobiosis , they do not liquefy the gelatine, because
they then take their food in a different way from what they
do under aerobiosis. If this conception should, at first sight,
appear rather fantastic, I must refer to certain facts which indicate
that such organisms may have an adaptation to even so impal-
pable an agent as light. Prove f found that Streptococcus ochroleukus
produced its yellow pigment only when exposed to diffuse daylight,
while Scholl states that Bacterium mycoides roseum formed its red
pigment in darkness only. There is no escape, here, from the con-
clusion that these two organisms have developed their pigment func-
tion under different conditions, which alone permit of its exercise,
a result in perfect harmony with the beautiful researches of Engel-

* Staphylococcus aureus , when obtained from an abscess, must frequently be
cultivated for some time before the pigment faculty returns ; other organisms
when exposed to the action of the tissues exhibit a temporary loss of the
enzyme function. In both cases this may be attributed, in part to an adapta-
tion to the conditions present in the animal organism, and in part to the
attenuating influence exerted by the cells.

t Cohn’s Beitrage zur Biol. d. Pflanzen , Bd. iv., 1887.

40

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

mann,* on the influence of light on the Purpurin bacteria. We
may, accordingly, regard the protoplasm as having several adapta-
tions, latent memories ready to spring into action on the application
of the appropriate stimulus.

As we have already seen, the enzyme faculty is to be regarded as
a differentiation of a primitive power of the protoplasm, and we
have now to consider the probable cause of its origin. The resolu-
tion of the complex into the simpler, more diffusible molecules, is
accompanied by the setting free of a certain amount of energy which
is lost to the organism when this occurs by means of enzymes
in the external medium. What compensating advantage could its
development entail on the organism ? From experiments on anaero-
biosis, I was led to suggest some time ago, that; under this condition,
where the enzyme action appears cut off, the organism was more
sensitive to acid reaction. Further investigation has indicated so
clearly a relation between the loss of this function and a corre-
sponding increase in sensitiveness of the organism to injurious
agencies, that this view becomes more than a mere hypothesis. The
development of enzymes, by which the complex indiffusible com-
pounds which supply it with nourishment are rendered diffusible
outside the organism, would allow of the protoplasm being invested
by a firmer, resisting, bounding membrane; and as this function
was gradually evolved, each stage of development would be asso-
ciated with a corresponding condition of the cell membrane. In a
similar way each loss of this function would be accompanied by a
change in the membrane, rendering it more sensitive to external
injurious agencies. We must now consider how far this accords
with a series of facts which have lately been observed by Fliigge.

Fliigge f has come to the conclusion that Pasteur’s anthrax and
fowl-cholera vaccines are really degenerated cultures, in which the
protoplasm as a whole has suffered by the devitalising conditions
to which they have been exposed during their production. He
founds this view on a series of very careful experiments, which indi-
cated that the attenuated cultures grew less rapidly than the
virulent, and were also much more sensitive towards antiseptic
agents. In addition, they grew more slowly and were more sensitive

* Archiv f. d. ges. Physiologie, Bd. xlii., 1888.

t Zeitschrift fur Hygiene , Bd. iv., 1888.

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

41

to external injurious agencies in proportion to the degree of attenu-
ation they had undergone. The incapacity of the vaccines to grow
and cause disease in the bodies of susceptible animals he ascribed
to their lessened reproductive power and greater sensitiveness, which
gave the victory to the animal in the struggle for mastery. He saw
no reason to suppose that the action of these microbes depended in
any degree on the production of specific toxines. As his experiments
were carried out in greatest detail on anthrax, I will limit myself at
present to its consideration. On comparing the action of the virulent
organism and its vaccines on Koch’s gelatine, the vaccines were seen
to liquefy the gelatine much more slowly, and had in fact lost in
great part their enzyme function. This effect was much more
clearly shown in milk. The normal anthrax coagulated the milk
on the second day, while Pasteur’s 1st vaccine only began to show
signs of this after, at earliest, two weeks. My suggestion that the
phenomena were in great part to he accounted for by interference
with enzyme function was confirmed by this result. The method
by which Fliigge compared the resistance of the organisms to acids
was, shortly, as follows : — A series of test tubes, each containing the
same quantity of gelatine, was prepared, and to each set a given
number of drops of the acid to be tested was added. The organisms
were then inoculated by means of a platinum wire in a set of
tubes containing the same quantity of acid, and their growth com-
pared. I was able, however, to register more exactly the effect of
the acidity by the following modification. The acid gelatine was
rendered fluid, and after being inoculated was, as it cooled down,
distributed uniformly on the walls of the tube. By this means the
organism was enveloped on all sides by the medium whose influence
was to be tested. In addition, as the organisms became separated
from one another in the liquefied gelatine, the colonies which ap-
peared later would each originate approximately from one organism,
and thus the disturbing influence arising from the varying quantity
introduced in each case was eliminated. I was, by this method,
able to confirm Pliigge’s statement, that the vaccines were much
more easily inhibited in their growth than the unaffected organism.
A new tube was now added to each set, and inoculated with virulent
anthrax which had been grown for some time anaerobiotically. The
anaerobe organism was found to be more sensitive than the vaccines ,

42 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

so that we must conclude that the loss of virulence and suscepti-
bility to antiseptic agents have no necessary connection. The
susceptibility was in all probability to he referred to the change in
the cell membrane induced by the loss of the enzyme function.
The pigment microbes which had lost their power of liquefying the
gelatine were also compared with the unaffected organisms, and
found to have become much less resistant to acidity.

It has been already stated that if the application of the degrading
agency is properly graduated, Prodigiosus and Indicus can lose their
pigment faculty, although their power of liquefying the gelatine is
not appreciably lessened. It is probable that in a similar way
anthrax can lose its toxine faculty without its other functions being
seriously affected. In support of this it may be mentioned, that
Gamaleia states that his vaccines , prepared by means of bichromate
of potash, did not exhibit the great loss of vitality which Fliigge
observed in Pasteur’s vaccines. Pasteur’s method of attenuation by
the use of high temperatures would appear to be so coarse a method
that not merely the pathogenic function, hut the vitality of the
organism as a whole is affected. But this general loss of function
and lessened vitality, depending as it does on the method employed,
can in no sense he regarded as characteristic of the vaccines.

We have had occasion, frequently, in the course of this paper to
refer changes in the power of resistance of an organism to a probable
change in the condition of the cell membrane, and it may he not
uninteresting here to briefly mention certain morphological variations
in the bacillus, some of which may, perhaps, he regarded from this
point of view. I have repeatedly observed that when virulent
anthrax has been grown for some time in bouillon, anaerobically,
the shape of the organism undergoes a very remarkable change. The
rods and filaments are no longer to be seen, and in their place we
have a series of larger spherical or oval bodies, apparently multiply-
ing by fission to form chains and clusters. This torula-form is best
investigated in its natural state, as it does not stain readily and
appears to shrivel up when dried. When examined in this way the
appearance of these spherical bodies is so different from what one
finds normally in anthrax, that one feels inclined to put down its
presence to the entrance of some chance impurity. Gelatine plates
laid down from such cultures proved however that the cultivations

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action. 43

consisted of pure anthrax, and inoculation of mice indicated that
their pathogenicity was unimpaired. It is but right to state here
that Pasteur * has observed precisely similar phenomena in the
case of certain moulds and mucors. These fungi, when grown with
exclusion of the air, tend to produce, instead of the usual mycelium
and ftyphce, cells much larger than normal and more globular in
form, so much so that Pasteur would refer in part to this, the
erroneous statements so many botanists have made concerning the
transformation of these into yeast. The anaerobe cells of these
fungi suggest by their appearance a tendency more or less pro-
nounced to revert to the amoeboid state. Another appearance which
may be noted in anthrax cultures grown anaerobiotically also indi-
cates a change in the cell membrane. Under normal conditions this
organism never forms on its cultivation fluids anything approaching
to a surface membrane, at most only a narrow ring of growth
appearing round the walls of the tube, which falls to the bottom as
soon as it has attained any size; but when the air is excluded the
superficial growth remains attached until almost the whole surface is
covered. Now a surface membrane or zoogloea results, as does the
matrix of cartilage, from the changes which the cell membranes un-
dergo in swelling up and yet remaining in continuity, and a change
in this respect is what we might expect when grown in this way>
The vaccines under certain conditions exhibit an appearance, probably
of a somewhat similar character, which points in the same direction.
When virulent anthrax is grown aerobically in bouillon, the fluid
remains clear and limpid, the growth collecting at the bottom as a
whitish fluffy mass. The vaccines, if allowed to grow slowly, present
a precisely similar appearance; but if placed at a higher temperature,
where they grow more rapidly, the tubes of bouillon, especially in
the case of the most attenuated, present a uniformly turbid aspect.
The apparent change in the specific gravity of the organism, which
permits it to remain in suspension in the fluid, is evidently to be
ascribed to the condition of the membrane in the vaccine being still
further accentuated by the rapid division of the cells at the higher
temperature. The vaccines are described as morphologically indis-
tinguishable from the virulent organism ; Gamaleia,f however, asserts,

* Etudes sur la Mere, 1876.

t Annales de VInstitut Pasteur, 1888.

44 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

in opposition to other observers, that the bacilli of the vaccines are
smaller, this corresponding to the degree of attenuation they have
undergone. On comparing the bacilli of Pasteur’s vaccines with the
virulent forms when grown on gelatine and bouillon, only a very
slight difference in their size was usually to be detected; when, how-
ever, they originated from a potato culture, the difference became very
marked, the 1st vaccine being only about one-half as broad as the
virulent organism. This appears to be mainly due to the acid re-
action of the medium affecting the vaccines more than the virulent
organism, the size of the bacillus apparently varying with the more or
less favourable conditions to which it is for the moment exposed.
Huber * has observed that anthrax bacilli vary in size as they occur
in the tissues of different species of animals, being much larger in
the more sensitive than in the less susceptible animals. This differ-
ence in size of the organism in different animals, or even in different
tissues of the same animal, should not be regarded as indicating
a more or less favourable medium in a physical sense, but rather as
the vital expression on the part of the microbe of the influences to
w'hich it has been there exposed, resulting from the reactive powers
of the tissues in that special animal or even tissue. This point will
be dealt wdth more fully presently, since it is important as evidencing
an action exerted by the cells on the microbe which lies outside
them.

There is still a relation of the enzyme function to the organism
which has not yet been discussed — the action, or rather want of
action, which the ferments manifest on the living protoplasm. The
organisms are constantly bathed in their own enzymes, and may even
be exposed to those of other microbes without their substance being
attacked by these. The explanation of Pavy,f of why self-
digestion of the stomach does not occur in the living animal, even
if it were sufficient in that special case, would not apply to those
ferments which act in alkaline reaction. The “ living principle ” of
John Hunter, J as inhibiting the action of the enzymes, seems still
the only plausible explanation which applies to all cases. This
question has assumed importance from a bacteriological point of

* Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, 1881.

t Philosoph. Transactions, page 161, 1863.

+ Philosoph. Transactions , June 18, 1772.

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

45

view, since Metschnikoff has ascribed the death of microbes in the
animal body to the mesoderm cells which are able to take np the
organisms as foreign bodies and digest them. Now, as the organisms
appear to be unaffected by enzymes,* by general consent the antiseptic
action of the gastric juice being ascribed entirely to its acidity, even
assuming that they actually undergo their death in the cells, we
have no reason to believe that this is due to a process of digestion,
but rather to some influence exerted by the living protoplasm with
which it must there come into such close relations. It is probable
that the struggle which may occur between two microbes in our
test tube cultivations does not differ essentially in nature
but only in degree from that which takes place in our body
between the tissues and the disease germ. In both cases
the ultimate result of the action and reaction of the cells
upon each other may turn on the sum of the “conditions of
existence” to which they are exposed, happening to favour one
more than the other. Thus when two organisms are sown together
in a culture fluid, which will “ overgrow ” the other may depend on
the relative quantity of the two primarily introduced, the nature and
reaction of the medium, and the temperature at which they are held :
in a precisely analogous fashion, the growth of a disease germ
introduced into a susceptible animal and the disease which follows
is dependent on the quantity introduced (Davaine, Watson-Cheyne),
the tissue inoculated (Koch, Watson-Cheyne), and it may be the
temperature at which the animal is kept (Gibier, Metschnikoff,
Pasteur). It was for long supposed that the products of one
organism might be highly injurious to another, and that thus the
sudden disappearance of an organism introduced into a mixture
might be explained, but more recent experiments tend to ascribe
much less influence to the products as direct poisons. Kitasato has

* Organic matter in nature is, in the process known as putrefaction, resolved
by microbes into its simpler constituents, which in the protoplasm of plants
are again built up into complex organic bodies. But a part of the organic
matter undergoing this process is built up into the substance of the microbes.
These, when dead, appear to undergo a process of disintegration, to be ascribed
in all probability to the action of their own enzymes, the cellulose ferment
which Vignal has found to be secreted by “potato-bacilli” exerting its
action on the cell wall, and the peptonising enzyme upon the albuminoid
constituents. In this way the constant circulation of organic matter between
the animal and vegetable kingdoms may proceed without intermission.

46

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

recently reported that he found that the organisms which, when
together, destroyed cholera, did not exert nearly the same effect
when seeded as pure cultures alone with cholera, a result which he
seemed to regard as very anomalous. This, however, becomes easily
understood if we consider the course of events in putrefaction as it
occurs normally in nature. If we examine from time to time a
fluid undergoing this change, we find that at different periods of the
process different organisms predominate, the others, for the time,
sinking into the hack-ground or even disappearing ; yet, as Hauser
has shown, several of these organisms can, when grown alone as pure
cultures, carry out, although much more slowly, the greater part of the
process. In nature we have, however, a physiological division of
labour, each organism becoming adapted to a special stage of the
process, during which hy its more active growth and the molecular
changes it sets up in the medium, it seems to exert a certain inhibi-
tive action on the other microbes present. This is more clearly
shown hy the remarkable way in which yeast* remains essentially
pure when grown under favourable conditions, although exposed to
every chance impurity. If the wort is held at a suitable tempera-
ture, and sufficient yeast is at the first added, so that it may increase
sufficiently rapidly to get at an early period “ within striking distance”
of any chance intruders, no other organism appears able to obtain a
footing, unless when the process is allowed to proceed so far that the
products of the yeast begin to act depressingly on its own cells.
The inhibitory action which one microbe appears to exert upon
another during the vigorous exercise of its vital functions, is strictly
comparable to that which the tissues may exert upon such organ-
isms. The cells of the human body have undergone great differ-
entiation morphologically and physiologically, fitting them to carry
out the various stages in the dissociations and oxidations necessary
in the combustion of albumen to urea, carbonic acid, and water. A
microbe on entering the tissues finds itself in conflict with cells
specially adapted to the conditions present there, and more or less
vigorously carrying out their stages in the vital processes, so that it
has small chance of invading the organism, or even holding its
ground, unless it exerts a depressing influence by means of its pro-
ducts— unless it is pathogenic. That we are not here ascribing too
* Naegeli, Theorie der Gdhrung, Miinclien, 1879.

47

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

important a role to the toxines is indicated by the varying grades of
virulence of the organism which at present may he said almost
certainly to depend on the production of varying quantities of the
poison, and by the fact that when a tolerance of the specific poison
has been acquired either by a passing attack or by the previous intro-
duction of the toxine, the disease germ loses its power of invading
that animal. The microbe under such circumstances need not
immediately perish, but may, and probably usually does, undergo a
gradual process of attenuation from the increased reactive powers of
the tissues, and then falls a victim to the “ phagocytes ” as does an
ordinary saprophyte, or even a foreign body. This has been shown
by Hueppe and myself* to be the case when animals have been
rendered only partially immune to anthrax, the course of the disease
is then much prolonged, and when death does occur the microbe is
found to have become attenuated.! An Italian observer]: has
rendered it probable that in a precisely similar way anthrax, when
grown with another organism, whose products exerted no injurious
action on it, undergoes a slow attenuation, an effect which we must
ascribe apparently to the direct action of the one cell on the other.
There is accordingly, as already asserted, no reason to assume that
any other forces come into play in the destruction of disease germs
in the animal body than those we see operating in our cultures.

From a review of what has been said on the subject of enzymes,
it is evident that very much less value attaches to the power of
liquefying the gelatine, as indicating a fundamental distinction
between two organisms, than that which is usually accorded to it.
It is a property which is liable to great fluctuations in the degree of
its development, each organism in this respect exhibiting specific
idiosyncrasies ; and although the normal degree of development
usually tends to return under cultivation, yet, as in the case of
the anthrax vaccines, the lower grade may be retained with great

* “Saprophytismus und Parasitismus,” Berliner Tdin. Woch., No. 13, 1889.

t Since then, it has been shown by Woodhead and myself (Comptcs Rendus ,
Dec. 23, 1889) that, if the toxine is antagonised, the tissues are able to come
into action, and we have either complete recovery, or the disease is mitigated
or prolonged in its course ; the microbes on the death of the animal being then
found to have undergone a process of attenuation by the action of the cells.

X “ Sur la concurrence vitale des bacilles la fifevre Typhoide et du bacille
Charbon,” Giorn. Internaz., ix., 1887.

48 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

tenacity. Hneppe, from the mere fact of its being a secondarily
derived function, considers it of little value for classification, as all
characters for this purpose should depend on primary powers of the
protoplasm, which as such, are unchangeable. At the same time,
the extreme convenience and value of the gelatine methods as
a means of diagnosis cannot be overrated, although the result
arrived at in this way should in every case be further tested by the
appearance of the growth on potato and in milk.

The varying power of resistance of the same microbe, which we
have had so frequently to refer to, has a great practical interest in
its relation to the most important application of bacteriology — the
antiseptic system. Koch proposed anthrax as a standard by which
we might compare the relative efficiency of different disinfecting
agents. Great confusion has, however, arisen from this, as not only
anthrax, but other organisms also, exhibit varying powers of resist-
ance. In determining the absolute value of an antiseptic agent,
those conditions which cause the powers of resistance of the organ-
ism to vary must be most carefully considered. This is still more
necessary at present in consequence of the search after specific *
disinfectants. It has been found that each organism exhibits
idiosyncrasies in relation to antiseptic agents, being exceptionally
susceptible to one, and more than usually resistant to another. The
object being to find that substance, or combination of substances,
which acts most vigorously on the disease germ, and yet injures
least of all the tissues, the confusion occasioned by the organism
itself not being constant in its properties, can be readily understood.
In such experiments even a difference in the age of the culture may
cause a serious discrepancy in the results. Thus, if the organisms
experimented with are a brood of very young cholera cells obtained
by incubation for 18 to 24 hours at the temperature of the body,
the action of the antiseptic is much more marked than on an older
culture. This is probably to be ascribed to the organisms in this
stage of development possessing a more permeable membrane.
The nature of the medium appears also to exert a certain influence,
as anthrax which has been grown on potato is slightly less resistant
than that form other strata, as agar-agar. We have here again to
consider the influence which the acidity of the medium exerts on

* Hueppq, Berliner klin. Woch., Nos. 46 and 47, 1889.

49

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

the state of development of the enzyme function, a factor which,
must be constantly borne in mind in all such investigations. In
each organism the range of variability, as regards its enzyme action
and varying susceptibility, is a specific quantity depending on the
nature of the protoplasm, and can only be determined by direct
experiment.

The greater sensitiveness of organisms when grown with exclusion
of the air may be of more general interest, as perhaps throwing light
on a question which has long remained obscure — the manner in
which certain diseases are propagated. In cholera, typhoid, and
yellow fever, the intestinal symptoms predominate, and it is through
the evacuations that the poison is disseminated. Yet although the
organisms are present in large numbers, in the case at least of the
first two diseases, direct infection from the fresh stools is by almost
general consent considered the exception rather than the rule.
Pettenkofer has emphasised and attempted to explain this view,
especially in the case of cholera, by assuming that the organisms do
not leave the intestine in a condition capable of infecting others,
but that they must first undergo a process of “ ripening ” in the
soil. It has been suggested by others that the organisms must first
grow outside the body to form spores, and that these may be the
only means of infection. This is, however, completely negatived
by direct bacteriological investigation. Now, the mode of existence
of organisms in the intestine must be from the first practically an
anaerobiotic one. The small quantities of oxygen which are
swallowed with the food are rapidly absorbed by the walls of the
stomach, or converted into carbonic acid by the organisms always
found there, so that, in the upper straits of the small intestine, at
most, only traces of oxygen can be present. Experiments carried
out by Hueppe and myself, have shown that cholera can under
precisely these conditions produce its poison in great quantity.
But if the organism lives anaerobiotically in the intestine, it will
leave it in a peculiarly sensitive condition, especially as regards
acids. This greater susceptibility to acids would raise a barrier to
its passage through the stomach, through which infection must
occur. But, if allowed to grow in contact with the air, as on soiled
linen, they would acquire their normal power of resistance, and
with it that fearful infectiveness which has been, under such cir-

VOL. xvii. 26/2/90 D

50

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

cumstances., so often remarked. The need for that stage of growth
outside the body and the influence of the “ time ” and “ place ”
disposition as affecting this becomes thus more readily understood.
It is not denied that many other factors, such as personal predis-
position, and all conditions local or seasonal which favour a state of
intestinal irritation, come also into play ; but to discuss these at
present would be obviously out of place. It is sufficient to have
noted that we have here a factor in this question which has not as
yet received consideration.

The whole question of enzyme action is of profound interest,
from a general physiological point of view. Burdon Sanderson
has recently advised us to study function, not in its simplest,
but in its most specialised form. Contractility is not to be investi-
gated in a mass of undifferentiated protoplasm, but in striped muscle.
We have in the case of the enzymes a function of the organism,
separable from the protoplasm, whose mode of action we can investi-
gate at our leisure. It is a catabolic function of the organism, and
by a complete knowledge of its mode of action we should learn how
the process of combustion in the animal body proceeds at so low a
temperature. The action of enzymes is generally recognised as con-
sisting in a splitting up of complex molecules into simpler, accom-
panied by hydration. The same result is attained by the chemical
action of acids and alkalies or even by a much higher temperature
alone. Thus hydrochloric acid can convert fibrin into peptone and
starch into sugar. But this occurs only at 100° C., whereas with
enzymes the change takes place at a very much lower temperature.
The power possessed by a comparatively small quantity of an enzyme
of decomposing relatively very large quantities of a special medium
is spoken of as due to catalytic action — an action bordering on the
chemical and the physical. The dependence of its optimum action
on a definite temperature suggests that it may consist in the trans-
mission of a certain molecular motion, which enables the molecule
to be decomposed at a much lower temperature than if the force
were less accurately adjusted to the work to be performed, — just as
certain chemical substances explode most readily when sound waves
of a certain length and rapidity impinge on them, or as certain rays
of light decompose or cause to combine certain chemical bodies. The
energy which is present in the shape of temperature, instead of acting

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

51

as it usually does for the most part in merely increasing the inter-
molecular spaces by increasing the mean free path of the molecule
by means of the enzyme, is presented in such a form that it is taken
up by the molecule or rather by a part of the molecule until its in-
tegrity is wrecked and dissociation occurs. Now we have already
seen that the enzyme is merely a property separable from the proto-
plasm, hut not differing otherwise from other functions. Each
enzyme has its optimum temperature, and may not the different
catalysing powers of the protoplasm of an organism have different
optimum temperatures ? A series of facts which have been accumu-
lating for some time must, I think, be explained in this way. We
find that the pigment bacilli have each an optimum temperature at
which they produce most readily their pigment, although this does
not necessarily coincide with that at which they grow most rapidly.
Thus Prodigiosus grown at the usual temperature of the room, is of
a striking red colour, hut, when cultivated at the temperature of the
animal body, it is absolutely colourless.* I had recently occasion to

* This need not be entirely attributed to the direct influence of the tempera-
ture on the catalysing processes ; the protoplasm, as we have already seen,
exhibits a selective action as regards the different substances offered it as food,
and it maybe that when one process is partially interfered with, a similar
power may come into play, and this would exaggerate the direct effect of the
temperature. Correlated with these perhaps only quantitative changes which
may be catabolic or anabolic in character, the metabolism as a whole may
become more or less altered, so that the centre of gravity of the organism
becomes as it were shifted. It is to this, probably, that we must refer the fact
noted by Schottelius that, when Prodigiosus is grown for a certain time at the
higher temperature, it loses the faculty of producing its pigment even when
grown at a lower temperature. In a more recent communication he states
that, when grown sufficiently long at the lower temperature, the property
returned, so that we have here an example of that form of “reversion” which
Romanes has recently so ably discussed. Dallinger has found that Infusoria
can be gradually accustomed to withstand very high temperatures, and this
adaptation may be associated with a similar change in the metabolism. The
“tolerance” which Kossiakoff ( Annales de VInstitut Pasteur , No. 10, 1887)
has shown that microbes can acquire towards antiseptic agents when previously
cultivated in more dilute solutions, is to be referred chiefly to the organisms
becoming gradually accustomed to exist without those “ associations” and
“ dissociations ” which the chemical substance tends to inhibit, and to a cor-
responding development of others to take their place. The permanence of this
new habit of the organism, when grown again under the old conditions, will
depend on the more or less stable nature of the new combination or complex
functions which has been evolved. This modification of the organism as a
whole, which may result from a change in one direction, and is dependent on

52 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

investigate the growth of a series of organisms on media coloured
with litmus, and found, to my great perplexity, that a certain number
reddened it, but only at a definite temperature which varied with
the organism and the medium under consideration. Belatively
larger quantities of acid than ammonia ('?) appeared to be formed only
within a certain range of temperature. Warrington * found, with
quite a series of organisms, that when cultivated in milk, at higher
temperatures they produced relatively more ammonia, at lower re-
latively more peptone. It has been recently communicated that
certain yeasts produce at lower temperatures relatively more alcohol,
at higher temperatures relatively more glycerine. The one dis-
sociation appears to be favoured at a higher, the other at a lower
temperature. I conclude that the temperature acts more or less
directly on those catalysing processes inherent in the protoplasm
itself, in a way similar to that in which it acts on the enzymes
which are separable from the protoplasm. It has already been
noted, that in the organisms of the cholera group the rennet-like
ferment appeared able to act in acid reaction in which the pepsin-
like ferment was inhibited. We should not then be surprised to
find that a chemical substance is able to inhibit one catalysing
process in the protoplasm without materially affecting the others.
There are already many facts in Bacteriology which speak for this,
but a systematic examination of the influence which such bodies
exert on the functions of microbes is much to be desired, as throw-
ing light upon the way in 'which a drug affects the reactions of the
living protoplasm, and as furnishing us with a basis on which a
cellular therapeutics may perhaps in the future be founded. Interest-
ing as this subject is, it cannot now be further entered upon in a paper
whose proper theme is the enzyme function in its relation to the
general physiology of the cell.

In conclusion, I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness to
Professor Ferdinand Hueppe, not merely for invaluable assistance in
the experimental work, but also for the general biological outlook,
I have here adopted. My thanks are also due to Dr Woodhead, for

wliat we may term the solidarity of the organism, has never yet received the
attention which it deserves as a factor which may determine the degree of fixity
of a new adaptation.

* Journal of the Chemical Society , 1888.

1889-90.] Dr G. E. C. Wood on Enzyme Action.

58

much kind assistance in the work carried out in the Laboratory of
the Royal College of Physicians.

A New Synthesis of Dibasic Carbon Acids.
By Prof. Crum Brown.

(Read February 17, 1890.)
{Abstract.)

0

The electrolysis of potassium salts of the form K — 0 — C — R in
strong aqueous solution has been shown by Kolbe* to lead to the

0

ii

formation at the anode of R2. K — 0 — C — R decomposing into

0

ii

the ions K and — 0 — C — R; the former giving at the cathode caustic
potash and hydrogen, and the latter giving at the anode carbonic
acid gas and R9. It occurred to me that if in dibasic acids, con-
taining two carboxyls, one carboxyl could be temporarily shut off
from taking part in the electrolysis, an interesting synthesis might
be effected. Guthrie’s observation t that K — 0 — S02 — 0 — Et,
when subjected to electrolysis with an anode of amalgamated zinc,
gives caustic potash and hydrogen at the cathode, and zinc ethyl
sulphate at the anode, gave a hint how such temporary eclipse of
one carboxyl might be effected. I therefore determined to try the

O : 0

electrolysis of such a salt as K

0 — C— R" — C — O — Et, in the

hope that it would give at the cathode caustic potash and hydro-

O

Ii

gen, and at the anode carbonic acid and (R" — C — 0 — Et)2, that is
0 O

II I!

Et — 0 — C — Ii" — R" — C — 0 — Et.

* Annalen , lxix. 257.
t Chem. Soc. Quart. Jour., ix. 131.

54 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

The following paper shows that this expectation has been
•fulfilled.

Dr Walker and I are at present engaged in applying this method
to other dibasic carbon acids, saturated and unsaturated, and hope
shortly to communicate further results.

The Electrolysis of Potassium-Ethyl Malonate and of
Potassium- Ethyl Succinate. By Prof. Crum Brown
and Dr James Walker.

(Read February 17, 1890.)

{Abstract.)

Synthesis of Succinic Acid. — Potassium-ethyl malonate is easily
prepared according to the directions of Freund ( Berichte dev deut.
chem. Gesellschaft , xvii. 780).

The conditions most favourable for the electrolysis were found
to be as follows : — A large platinum crucible formed the cathode,
while a spiral of stout platinum wire was used as the anode. The
source of electricity was a battery of accumulators, and the current
wTas so regulated that while passing through the solution it had an
electromotive force of 12 volts and a strength of not more than 5
amperes. Under these circumstances the heat developed in the
solution could be easily conducted away by a stream of cold water
flowing round the platinum crucible. Heating is to be avoided, on
account of possible saponification of the potassium ethyl salt by the
action of the caustic potash formed at the cathode. With the above
arrangement, however, the hydrogen developed at the cathode
serves to stir up the liquid and bring the potash into contact ‘with
the carbonic acid liberated at the anode, and thereby convert it into
carbonate, which, far from being prejudicial to the action, seems on
the whole advantageous. One point to be attended to is that the
solution should not be too concentrated. When this is the case the
liquid has a high resistance, and the electrolysis proceeds slowly ;
the product, too, is not so satisfactory as when the solution is so far
diluted that a brisk evolution of gas takes place at both poles with-
out any excessive frothing being occasioned by the viscosity of the

1889-90.] Prof. Crum Brown & Dr Walker on Electrolysis. 55

liquid. After the current has passed for some time, a deposit begins
to be formed in the solution. This is mainly potassium carbonate,
with possibly some bicarbonate. When this has increased somewhat
in quantity the current is broken, and the contents of the crucible
transferred to a separating-funnel, where they are shaken up with
ether. A further quantity of carbonate is thereby precipitated.
The aqueous layer is then allowed to ritn out, nearly all the solid
carbonate remaining behind, and the ethereal layer is poured off.
The former is again submitted to electrolysis, and the extraction
with ether repeated. The ethereal liquids are united, dried with
calcium chloride, and the ether distilled off on a water-bath.

In our first experiment, made with 15 grams of the double
malonate, there remained in the distilling-flask over 3 grams of a
nearly colourless liquid of ethereal odour. This liquid was sub-
jected to fractionation; it passed over almost entirely at 213°
(uncorr.) : the boiling-point of succinic ether is 216°. A portion
of the distillate was analysed, with the following results : —

•2619 gr. substance gave ’5287 gr. C02
and T930 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for Succinic Ether.

C 55-06% 55-17%

H 8-19 8-05

There was thus little doubt that the substance so obtained was
succinic ether. In confirmation, however, a portion of the ether
was saponified, and the white silver salt precipitated. This salt was
then carefully ignited, and the residue of silver weighed.

T878 gr. substance gave *1215 gr. silver.

Found. Calculated.

Ag. 64-7 65-0

Synthesis of Adipic Acid. — Heintz ( Poggendorff’s Annalen , 108,
82 [1859]) obtained potassium-ethyl succinate by treating succinic
anhydride with absolute alcohol, neutralising with potassium car-
bonate, and precipitating the double salt from its alcoholic solution
with ether.

The conditions to be observed in the electrolysis are quite the
same as in the case of potassium ethyl malonate, and the mode of

56 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

extraction is identical. The residue left on distilling off the ether
on the water-bath is a liquid of pale straw-colour, with a pleasing
but faint odour of melons. It boils with decomposition at about
240°. An analysis of the substance thus obtained, after drying in
an exhausted desiccator, gave the following numbers

T735 gr. substance gave *3770 gr. C02
and *1423 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for Adipic Ether.

C 59*26 59-41

H 9-11 8-91

The product thus appears to he practically pure adipic ether. From
70 grams potassium ethyl succinate 15 grams of adipic ether were
obtained.

A portion of the ether was saponified with alcoholic potash, and
from part of the potassium salt thus produced the silver salt was
precipitated, while another part was converted into the acid, which
was purified by shaking its ethereal solution repeatedly with small
quantities of water. The acid melted at 147° : the melting-point
of adipic acid is 148°. The white silver salt was analysed for silver
with the following results : —

*2388 gr. silver salt gave -1428 gr. silver.

Found. Calculated for Silver Adipate.

Ag. 59-8 60-0

The Action of Sodium Carbonate and Bromine on
Solutions of Cobalt and Nickel Salts. By Dr John
Gibson.

(Read February 17, 1890.)

(Abstract.)

In 1862 Field gave a brief account of a peculiar green solution,
prepared by adding nitrate of cobalt to a solution of bicarbonate of
soda containing a small quantity of the hypochlorite of that alkali.
The author observed the formation of a similar green solution when
making qualitative separations of chromium from other members of

1889-90.] Dr J. Gibson on Action of Sodium Carbonates. 57

the iron group by means of sodium carbonate and bromine, and was
thereby led to investigate the action of these two reagents on solu-
tions of nickel and cobalt salts.

Green Cobalt Solution. — If sodium carbonate is added in large
excess to a solution of a cobalfcous salt, on shaking the mixture
with a sufficient quantity of bromine, the whole of the precipitated
cobaltous carbonate dissolves, giving rise to a beautiful dark green
solution. This solution is stable when preserved in closed vessels
at ordinary temperatures. It decomposes on boiling with precipita-
tion of cobaltic oxide. Caustic alkali produces rapid decomposition,
cobaltic oxide being precipitated. The green colour is destroyed
on acidifying with hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, but reappears on
neutralising the acidified solutions with sodium carbonate. Acetic
acid does not decolorise the green solution.

Red Cobalt Solution. — If the green solution, prepared as above,
is acidified with sulphurous acid, and the decolorised solution then
rendered alkaline with sodium carbonate, a fine red-coloured solu-
tion is produced. On shaking this in presence of air, it absorbs
oxygen and becomes green. On standing, the colour goes back to
red, but, on again shaking with air, becomes green. These changes
of colour may be produced a number of times. After some time,
or on adding alcohol, the red solution ceases to become green on
shaking with air.

The reaction of solutions of nickel salts with sodium carbonate
and bromine are very complex. They vary in a remarkable
manner, according to the temperature and concentration of the
solutions employed and the relative proportion and order in which
the reagents are added.

If excess of sodium carbonate is added to a solution of nickel,
the resulting mixture behaves differently on addition of bromine,
according to the proportion of bromine added. If a large excess of
bromine is added, part of the nickel goes into solution, part remains
undissolved as pale green carbonate. On the other hand, if a smaller
proportion of bromine is added, so as to leave excess of normal
sodium carbonate, the nickel is rapidly and completely converted
into peroxide.

If bromine is added to a strong solution of sodium carbonate, and
a small quantity of a dilute solution of a nickel salt is poured into

58

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

the resulting mixture, the whole of the- nickel goes into solution.
Such solutions are, however, very unstable, and rapidly darken,
owing to the formation of peroxide of nickel. Much more stable
solutions of nickel can be obtained by using supersaturated solutions
of sodium carbonate, prepared by subjecting decahydrated sodium
carbonate to aqueous fusion.

The author points out in this connection that bromine, does not
liberate carbonic acid from such a supersaturated solution of sodium
carbonate even when it is added in excess. Carbonic acid is, how-
ever, given off freely on subsequent dilution with water.

The author is at present investigating the action of bromine on
sodium carbonate under varying conditions— (a) upon each other,
( b ) upon mixed solutions of cobalt and nickel salts.

His experiments, so far as they have gone, point to the possibility
of effecting the separation of nickel from cobalt in a rapid and easy
manner.

On certain Substances found in the Urine, which reduce
the Oxide of Copper upon Boiling in the presence of
an Alkali.* By Herbert H. Ashdown, M.D.

(From the Physiological Laboratory of University College, London, and the
Laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.)

(Read December 16, 1889.)

(Abstract.)

As the immediate. result of the ingestion of certain chemical com-
pounds— chloral, camphor, benzol, phenol, &c. — substances make their
appearance in the urine which have long been known to possess the
power of reducing the oxides of some of the metals when in solution
in the presence of an alkali, if that mixture be raised to the boiling
point, but considerable confusion has resulted from the difficulty of
finding a short process whereby many of these substances may be
readily recognised as not belonging to that comprehensive group of
conditions generally styled as glycosuria.

The importance of this group has been greatly increased of late

* A grant was given by the British Medical Association towards the
expenses of this research.

1889-90.] Dr H. H. Ashdown on Substances in Urine . 59

years, however, by the attempts made to define and differentiate
the individual members of which it consists, and to ascribe to each
their relative significance, and these efforts have been crowned in
some measure by a considerable degree of success.

Schmiedeberg and Mayer were the first to isolate and analyse the
substance thus produced, and found it to be glycuronic acid, and that
its chemical constitution was represented by the formula C6H10O7.

This substance appears in the urine in combination with urea,
from which it may be obtained by precipitation, by means of barium
hydrate, and extraction with alcohol, and decomposition of the com-
pound thus obtained by sulphuric acid.

It holds the oxide of copper in solution in the presence of an
alkali and reduces it, throwing down the suboxide, upon boiling
ether in Trommer’s or Fehling’s tests; and a similar reaction occurs
with the oxides of bismuth, mercury, and silver.

For the definite recognition, however, of glycuronic acid , the only
reliable means possessed at present is to thus obtain it pure, but, as
already remarked, the process is long and tedious.

The polariscope, unless used with pure solutions of this acid, or
with solutions of known combination, is very apt to mislead, since
some of its combinations rotate the ray of light to the left, and others
to the right; and if glucose be also present very erroneous conclu-
sions may be arrived at.

When pure, it rotates the ray of polarised light to the right, —
35°, — or to half the extent of the deflection produced by glucose.

There is no doubt, however, that with comparatively small quan-
tities of urine the differentiation of this substance from the glucose,
which possesses similar chemical reactions, may be readily arrived
at by applying the test of fermentation by yeast — a test of great
delicacy if conducted properly and with due care over mercury, and
one capable of demonstrating the presence of smaller quantities of
glucose than either Fehling’s solution or Trommer’s test can detect.

Experiments.

I have now investigated a large number of specimens of urines
obtained under different conditions, in order to trace as far as
possible the presence of glycuronic acid , and to differentiate it from
glucose. The fermentation testwras always employed, and, whenever

60

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

the quantities of urine obtained were large enough, the chemical
process was undertaken in its entirety for obtaining the acid pure.

I now chronicle my results : —

Morphia. — The urine secreted after the exhibition of this drug,
either by the mouth or subcutaneously, contained a substance, which,
from its power to reduce Fehling’s solution, has been generally
regarded as a transient condition of glycosuria, but after a close
investigation I find it to he due, not to the presence of glucose, but
of glycuronic acid.

Chloroform. — I have also satisfied myself that the reducing power
of the urine, after the administration of this anaesthetic, is dependent
entirely upon this acid, and is not due to glucose. In this manner
I have been able to confirm independently the observations of
Mayer upon morphia and chloroform.

With chloroform I have, however, found some exceptional
instances, in which no reducing substance appeared in the urine,
but these exceptions over a large number of observations were
undoubtedly rare.

Curara. — The glycosuria, so called, of curara poisoning has long
been known, having been first observed by Claude Bernard, but I
have not succeeded, after an extended series of observations, in
obtaining any fermentation by yeast of these urines, which appear
otherwise to be so markedly glycosuric.

In these instances, however, it was most difficult to obtain large
enough quantities of urine to complete the whole chemical process,
since the curara itself interferes so decidedly with the secretion of
the kidney ; and consequently I have not been able to separate out
the acid in this group of observations.

Ether. — As the result of the administration of ether I have never
found the appearance of this acid or of any reducing substance in
the urine, and it is therefore a useful anaesthetic for observations
upon the urinary system.

Analysis of Urine secreted by the Right and Left Kidney.

Renal Nerves Intact. — With the view of further investigating the
significance of this glycuronic acid, I placed cannulse in the ureters,
in order to collect for analysis the urine so secreted by the two
kidneys separately. I found that under ordinary conditions the

1889-90.] Dr H. H. Ashdown on Substances in Urine. 61

chemical constituents of the different secretions differed only to
such an extent as could he readily accounted for by the difference
in the size of the two organs.

I found, as the result of these experiments, that if the reducing
substance was present in the urine of one side, it was invariably
found also in that of the opposite side.

Section of the Renal Nerves. — Again, in another series of experi-
ments, I collected and analysed the right and left urinary secretions
separately after division of the renal nerves upon the left side.
These observations then differed from those of the preceding group,
only by the fact that one organ had been completely cut off from
all nervous influences from any source without the organ itself.

The results which were thus gained are most interesting, and an
illustrative series of these experiments are tabulated below.

Table I. — To show the Appearance of the Reducing Substances
in the Right and Left Urinary Secretions.

No. of Ob-
servation.

Duration
of Obser-
vation.

Anaesthetic.

Urine.

Remarks.

Eight.

Left.

I. 1.

60'

Ether.

o

o

The renal nerves

2.

75'

9 9

Ether and Chloral.

o

o

were divided

II. 1.

160'

+

+

upon the left

III. 1.

360'

Ether and Morphia.

+

+

side in each

IV. 1.

120'

Ether and Morphia.

+

+

observation.

2.

120'

9 9 9 9

+

+

+ indicates the

3.

120'

9 9 9 9

+

+

appearance of

HV. 1.

120'

Chloroform.

+

+

reducing sub-

VI. 1.

60'

Ether and Chloroform.

lost

o

stance.

2.

90'

9 9 9 9

o

+

3.

120'

99 99

Ether and Chloroform.

O

o

VII. 1.

30'

O

+

Trace.

2.

120'

9 9 9 9

O

+

Markedly.

3.

180'

9 9 99

O

+

Slight.

Ether. — Where this was the only anesthetic employed, I never
succeeded in demonstrating the presence of this reducing substance
in the urine (Expt. I.). But when used in conjunction with
chloral hydrate (Expt. II.) or morphia (Expt. III., IV.), it was
present in such abundance as to be very readily recognised.

This result was produced upon both sides, and although I am not
able to state that I could recognise any very marked increase in the

62 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

amount excreted upon the left side, no quantitative analysis having
been made, it certainly was present in larger quantity than upon *
the right. These results may be explained as corresponding to the
results gained previously and already noted.

Chloroform. — As was to be expected when this anaesthetic was
exhibited (Expt. Y.), the reducing substance manifested itself in
abundance upon both the injured and also the uninjured sides.

Ether and Chlofoform. — In the instance in which these two
anaesthetics were combined, a very interesting result was gained
(Expt. YI. and VII.).

If the chloroform was given to any pronounced extent both sides
showed the reducing substance, but in those instances wdiere the
chloroform was only given at the earliest stages, and its administra-
tion stopped before the commencement of the collection of the urine
for analysis, a different condition appeared to be induced.

Under these circumstances no reducing substance was present in
the urine secreted by the normal and uninjured kidney, but in the
urine which flowed from the other kidney, the nerves of which had
been previously divided, this reducing substance was readily demon-
strated.

In the case of Experiment VI. it was found on the left side only,
but there only in small quantity, and limited apparently to only a
short period of time (YI., L. 2), for none could be detected, not even
a trace, in the first or last stage of the observation. No traces
could at any time be obtained on the right side at any stage.

In Experiment VII., however, a further point is illustrated. This
substance appeared distinctly throughout the whole period of observ-
ation in the left secretion, i.e ., the side upon which section had been
performed — but much more markedly during the second period
(VII. L. 2), during which it seemed to reach its maximum and to be
present in quantity, and then again to fall off. There was no trace
detected on the right side.

In these instances, therefore, it was found that this reducing sub-
stance appeared upon the left side only, — upon the side where
complete division of the renal nerves had been effected,— and also that
the greatest output, in the former instance (YI.) the only output,
was found to correspond with the period of the greatest activity of
the renal epithelium, if the eliminative activity may be judged of

1889-90.] Dr H. H. Ashdown on Substances in Urine. 63

by the respective quantities of the normal urinary constituents
eliminated.

I have shown elsewhere that the renal secretion, after section of
the renal nerves, is a true paralytic secretion, and I find that the
greatest abundance, never very large though distinctly marked, of
this substance occurs at the maximal display of energy which is
reached just prior to the outset of the stage of exhaustion.

After a very careful and exhaustive chemical analysis of these
different specimens, I have convinced myself that this substance
which is present is not glucose, and that this condition is not there-
fore a form of glycosuria properly so-called, and I have little
hesitation in affirming that it is due to the presence of glycuronic
acid.

It is, however, no easy task to seek out the cause or significance of
these results. The animals were fed with a liberal meat diet on the
evening prior to the observation, and as the urine showed no
tendency to reduce solutions of copper before the experiment, it is
necessary to conclude that this reducing substance is occasioned by
the disturbance of the economy resulting from the experiment itself.

Again, since the administration of chloroform is now recognised as
able to establish such a condition in healthy animals by mere inhala-
tion, and as I have never succeeded in producing these conditions
without having employed this anaesthetic, I am disposed to attribute
the appearance of this reducing substance to the effect of the
chloroform inhaled, although it does not at present seem possible to
appreciate in what particular manner or by what altered process of
metabolism it is brought about.

The explanation, further, of these appearances in these results
upon one side only, does not seem to be very simple, but two
theories may be offered as capable of accounting for these results —
firstly, this reducing substance may be circulating in the blood
as the result of the conditions under which the animal experi-
mented upon has been placed, and that it may be eliminated by
the one kidney alone, since the action of the cells of that organ
are completely cut off from the central nerve influences, which
hold the other organ in check ; or, secondly, this substance may be
formed in the cells of the one organ alone, owing to the fact that
there is a greater activity produced in them by section of the nerves,

64

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

and tKis is accompanied by a much greater supply of blood to tbe
organ, which is synonymous with an increased supply of material
from which the substance is formed.

It has already clearly been shown that a condition may be
established in the which both kidneys will produce a similar
result, and it is therefore difficult to imagine that this material is
already in the blood, and is being eliminated upon one side only;
but it is not unreasonable to consider that, if only a small supply
of material be forthcoming, the organ which has the greater supply
sent to it, accompanied by an increased activity in the cells them-
selves, will produce the results described.

1 lean to the latter view, since the quantity in which this reduc-
ing substance appears in the left secretion is sufficiently abundant
to lead one to expect its appearance in the right secretion, if the
substance were circulating in that form in the blood itself.

I therefore advance the view based upon these observations,
that there is a distinct chemical process presided over by the renal
epithelium which has as its result the formation of glycuronic
acid , but the precise nature of that process and upon the presence
of what chemical compounds it is dependent I am at present unable
to appreciate.

If this acid may be regarded, as is probably the case, as a deriva-
tive of an oxidation process of the sugars within the animal
economy, these results may prove of considerable importance as
offering an explanation of how the sugars are oxidised within the
system.

These observations were made in connection with the lower
animals, and I was thus encouraged to further pursue my observa-
tions in regard to man.

After a prolonged search over several hundred cases of man,
both in disease and health, I have succeeded in finding one instance
• — this is the first and only recorded instance, I believe — in which
this reducing substance has been shown to be excreted in large
quantity.

This individual is a man about twenty-four years of age, who
apparently enjoys perfect health and a complete sense of well-being,
and does not suffer from any of those symptoms which but too
readily indicate the presence of glycosuria in youth.

1889-90.] Dr H. H. Ashdown on Substances in Urine. 65

He is, however, passing daily very large quantities of glycuronie
acid in a urine which is not increased in quantity or density.

It must not, however, he concluded from these results that the
presence of this substance is so extremely rare, for my observations
were made upon individuals who were believed to he free from
diabetes mellitus, and since it causes no apparently inconvenient
symptoms its presence may be more frequent than one might be
led to suppose.

Further, my having shunned all cases of acknowledged diabetes,
I may have unconsciously rejected instances due to the presence
of glycuronie acid in the urine which have been supposed to be
glucose. It is not unlikely also that some cases of true glycosuria
may have been present also in the urine glycuronie acid , in which
case they will very effectually mask each other.

The difficulties to be met with and overcome in order to demon-
strate the presence of both substances in the same urine are ex-
tremely great, and I may here state that the usual solutions of
lead or baryta, which are recommended to be added to urine for
the purposes of clarification before using the polariscope to estimate
the quantity of sugar present, are not sufficient to eliminate all
chances of fallacy in the event of glycuronie acid being present as
well as glucose.

The Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan. By
C. Michie Smith. (With a Plate.)

(Read January 20, 1890.)

The principal phenomena connected with the great volcanic
eruption at Bandaisan, in Japan, have been described by Professor
S. Sekiya and Mr Y. Kikuchi in their official report,* but certain
features, especially with reference to the effects of erosion on the
ejected materials, seem worthy of more detailed description.

To make the account intelligible, it will be necessary to describe
briefly the chief features of the eruption. The name Bandaisan is
given to a group of peaks lying in lat. 37° 6' N. and long. 140° 6'

* Trans. Seismological Society of Japan, 1889, and Journal of the College of
Science, Imperial University, Japan, vol. iii. part ii.

VOL. XVII. 1/4/90

E

66 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

E. Before the eruption there were four peaks — Obandai, Kobandai,
Kushiga-mine, and Akahani-yama. They are of volcanic origin and,
according to tradition, formed at one time a single mass which was
split into four by a great eruption early in the ninth century, at
the time when Lake Inawashiro was formed. Bandaisan rises to a
height of 6037 feet above sea-level, and Kobandai is believed to
have reached almost exactly the same altitude. For about ten
centuries the mountain had shown no signs of activity, except by
the existence on it of a number of hot springs and solfataras. It
was, however, included by Professor Milne in his list of the active
volcanoes of Japan.

The recent eruption took place on the 15th July 1888. There was
no premonitory warning of the catastrophe except some rumblings
heard at 7 a.m. of that day, which were followed by an earthquake
of no great intensity. At 7.45 a great explosion took place, by
which an immense cloud of steam and debris was shot up to a great
height above the top of Obandai, and this explosion was quickly
followed by fifteen or twenty minor explosions. The result of these
explosions was that practically the whole mass of Kobandai was
shattered, and the materials forming it were spread over an area of
27-31 square miles. As calculated by Professor Sekiya, the volume
of material moved by the explosion was 1587 x 106 cubic yards, or
say a cone with a diameter of 1000 yards at the base and a height
of 760 feet.

The shattered fragments of the mountain travelled in two direc-
tions. The main stream went northwards, spreading out as it
advanced, overwhelming a number of villages and hamlets, and
entirely damming up the Nagasegawa, the chief feeder of Lake Ina-
washiro. The other stream took a south-south-easterly direction over
the flank of Kushiga-mine and down the valley of the Biwasawa
towards the village of Mine, part of which was swept away. This
may be called the Mine stream. The eruption was due simply to
an explosion of steam, no lava or pumice being ejected, and the
so-called “mud” which spread over the country was simply the
matter which had formed the mountain, more or less moistened by
condensed steam and by water which had existed in the mountain,
but most of it was certainly not wet enough to deserve the name of
mud. The scattered materials may be described as being for the

1889-90.] Mr C. Michle Smith on Volcanic Eruption. 67

most part earthy, mixed with stones of all sizes ; hut at certain
places, mostly near the crater, there were great piles of large blocks
of stone almost free from earth. This was specially the case at the
K.E. corner of the crater, where the crater- wall showed a magnifi-
cent section of beds of lava intercalated with layers of scoriaceous
material, lying unconformably on each other.

The manner in which the fragments of Kobandai travelled out-
wards resembled closely the rush of water from a reservoir on a hill
when the embankment has burst. The stream followed, as a whole,
the line of least resistance, but after descending a considerable way,
and having acquired a very high speed, part of it flowed up hill
again, and where, in descending the valley, any mountain spur met
it at a sharp angle, it rushed up the hill side in some cases to a
height of as much as 120 or 150 feet above the general level. In
one place the torrent passed over a col about 200 feet high. The
average velocity is given by Sekiya as 48 miles an hour. In one
respect this earth-torrent behaved differently from a torrent of
water, viz., in the way in which, owing to internal friction, it came
suddenly to rest as if it had all at once been solidified. This is very
marked in the case of the Mine stream, which ended in a bank with
a nearly vertical face just above the village.

In addition to the damage done by the earth-torrents, the forests
all round, except where sheltered by hills, were almost entirely
destroyed by the eruption. Most of the trees were uprooted or
broken off, and the few that remained had not only every leaf and
twig removed, but even the whole of the bark was stripped off from
them on the side facing Kobandai. This destruction of the forests
was ascribed to a gust of wind caused by the eruptiop. That the
sudden liberation of a great volume of steam must have given rise to
a strong air blast is undoubted, but that all the observed effects could
have been produced by such a blast seems highly improbable. This
was one of the points which I took up when I visited Bandaisan,
in May last, in company with Dr C. G. Knott. We examined a
number of the stumps left standing, and found that in every case the
trunk on the side facing Kobandai was pitted with holes of all
sizes, evidently caused by the impact of stones. In some cases
stones of considerable size were found imbedded in the wood. This
indicated pretty clearly that the damage to the trees had been

68 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

caused largely by what may be described as a nearly horizontal hail-
storm of small stones. Some idea of the density of this storm was
obtained by counting the number of marks on a measured area.
This was found to be from 250 to 300 per square foot, and it must
be remembered that most of these were probably made after the
bark had been removed by the first part of the storm. At a distance
of 3 miles from the crater the bark had been stripped from only
very young trees, but the marks of blows could easily be seen on the
bark of all the trees.

In following the earth-torrent from Mine up the bed' of the
Biwasawa, I was immediately struck by the extraordinary effects
produced by erosion in the short space of ten months which had
elapsed since the eruption. The Biwasawa is only a small stream,
and yet in these ten months it had carved out a valley which at
one place was, by actual measurement, 80 feet deep and 80 feet
wide at the top, and at other places, where measurement was
impracticable, was by estimation little short of 150 feet deep. It
must be remembered, too, that this one cutting does not represent
nearly the whole of the work done by the stream, which had not
flowed along the same channel all the time. Had the stream flowed
quietly along its channel for the whole of the ten months, it is
probable that it could not have made nearly so deep a cutting, but it
was evident that much of the work had been done by a succession of
floods. In one place, for instance, a lake had been formed which,
after reaching a large size, had burst through the embankment which
held it back, and the water descended the valley with an impetuous
rush, carrying even stones of a considerable size along with it.
In other cases landslips had blocked the channel at various
points for some time, and during the winter snow-slides had
also aided in forming temporary dams. Even at the end of May
the stream was spanned at several places by snow bridges. The
material through which this cutting was made was, of course, very
soft, and in many places it had been reduced almost to the consistency
of mud, for all the small tributary streams had been blocked by the
earth-torrent, and the water was taken up as by a sponge by the
mixture of loose earth and stones. The photograph reproduced in
the Plate shows some of the main features of the .erosion but,
unfortunately, the heavy mists which hung about the hills, lifting

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Volcanic Eruption. 69

only for a few minutes at long intervals, made it impossible to get
really good views. The great Y-shaped cutting is, however, clearly
seen, and it should be noted that, judging from photographs taken
soon after the eruption, and from the descriptions given by visitors,
this cutting is entirely due to erosion.

The minor details of the water action were no less interesting.
The loose debris was, as has been mentioned, mixed with large
blocks of stone. One of these, distant some 2J miles from the
crater, measured about 18 feet by 13 feet by 13 feet, and still larger
blocks were met with higher up. Now when the water had cut
down to such a block it behaved in one of several ways. In some
places, where the eroded channel was wider than the block, passages
for the water were cut round one or both ends, and the block itself
gradually sank down as the material on which it was supported
was cut away. In some cases, where the block was long enough
to bridge the channel, a tunnel had been made under it through
which all the water passed. In other cases waterfalls of considerable
height had been formed by such blocks. In these cases the large
block was protected on its upper side by a number of smaller stones,
which prevented erosion from taking place behind it. The conse-
quence of this was that the bed of the stream for some distance
back became nearly horizontal, and the carrying power of the water
was greatly decreased, thus tending to make the falls permanent.
It is not to be supposed that they will be really permanent, as the
blocks will gradually be undermined by the water falling over them,
but their existence at present illustrates the way in which differences
in slope in the bed of a torrent may have been brought about by
obstacles which have long since been removed. As seen from above,
there were three main lines of erosion, but that along the old
bed of the Biwasawa was by far the most prominent. In addi-
tion to these principal channels there were numberless tributary
channels, reproducing in miniature all the details of mountain
sculpture.

In a few years the materials forming the earth-stream will
consolidate into what will probably be classed as a volcanic breccia,
and erosion will go on much less rapidly. The consolidation has
indeed already begun, and it was interesting to notice how a sort of
laterite was forming out of the more ferruginous materials, which

70

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

fsESS.

were in parts plentiful. Vegetation, too, will before long help to
protect the surface, but at the time of my visit the only traces of
this that could be found were a small fern and a small plant of
lichen on the warm ground close to a nearly extinct fumarole in
the crater itself.

In and near the crater weathering showed itself in other forms.
Immediately after the eruption the walls of the crater were nearly
vertical, rising in some parts to a height of over 1600 feet above
the crater floor. In the more rocky parts this has not been greatly
changed, but elsewhere, through the action of rain and frost,
constant landslips have been taking place, and the precipices are
now no longer vertical, but are for the most part covered with a
talus lying at the angle of repose. Again, the rugged “conical
mounds,” of which hundreds were spread over the crater and the
main earth-stream, forming a most conspicuous feature in the
early photographs, are now smoothed and rounded to an extent
almost inconceivable in so short a time. Another striking feature
is the rapidity with which many of the rocks lying about the crater
are crumbling down. These have been subjected to the action of
steam and acid vapours in the heart of the mountain, by which
almost all the constituents except silica have been removed.*
When exposed to the air these blocks quickly fall to pieces,
spherical flakes which soon fall into sand peeling off them with
great ease.

It is worth considering to what extent the gradual decomposition
of the rock brought about the final catastrophe. The mountain
was, as it were, bound together by a number of sheets of lava,
which made it strong enough to resist the steam pressure beneath.
During the past ten centuries these lava beds have been gradually
decomposed along certain lines, and at length a time came when
they were no longer able to resist the steam pressure, and the
mountain was blown to pieces. May not this, rather than the
sudden development of a large quantity of steam, as usually
supposed, be the true history of the eruption ?

The eruption of Bandaisan is certainly not the first of the kind
that has occurred in Japan. Professor Sekiya has pointed out some

* Analyses made by Mr Shimizu give the proportion of Si02 in this rock as
91 '66 per cent., while in the natural rock it was only about 59 ‘6 per cent.

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin,

Vol. XVII

EROSION ON THE MINE EARTH-STREAM.

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Volcanic Eruption.

71

others which appear to resemble it closely, and in travelling through
Japan I came upon another very striking example of this kind of
action. This was near Ikao — famous for its hot springs — where there
is an old crater of large size, one wall of which has been completely
blown away and scattered over a considerable tract of country.
Standing on the top of the remaining crater-wall, one can still trace
the path of the torrent of debris, and the section made by a stream
which passes through it shows no signs of lava, but only materials
similar to those found at Bandaisan. The surface is now covered
with vegetation, but there are few trees on it, and such as there are
are low and stunted, while it is surrounded by healthy-looking
woods.

On Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature.

By Professor Calderwood.

(Read January 27, 1890.)

My aim in this paper will be to present as concisely as possible
the problems involved in Man’s Place in Nature, and to consider
briefly how far an evolution theory contributes towards the solu-
tion of these problems.

Needful preliminaries can be disposed of briefly. We are agreed
that evolution is “a change from an indefinite, incoherent homo-
geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous
differentiations and integrations.” We are agreed that this process
is to be taken as applicable in the history of matter and motion,
and afterwards in the history of organised existence, raising the
whole problem of biology. We do not require here to linger over
the transition from the one to the other, as all requirements are met
by accepting life and its laws as facts, and acquiescing in Darwin’s
hypothesis of one or more primordial germs. Next, we take
Darwin’s laws as applicable in the history of organism. These are
briefly — (1) struggle for existence, with survival of the fittest; (2)
adaptation to environment ; (3) hereditary transmission of acquired
adaptations. We do not need to raise the debate between Darwin’s
view and Weismann’s as to hereditary transmission, with its two-
fold bearing, as it concerns mode of transmission and the time

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needful for securing results. Granting, as a hypothesis, biological
evolution under the conditions stated, with reservation of all the
open problems concerned with the history of evolution, the way is
clear for considering how this theory of evolution stands related to
man’s place in nature.

While discussing the question from the standpoint of evolution,
we must accept Herbert Spencer’s view as correct, which takes
evolution of existence as a whole as indicating the true range of the
problem raised. “ Evolution becomes not one in principle only, hut
one in fact,” implying “ one evolution going on everywhere after the
same manner.” Further, we take it as beyond question that man
belongs to Nature, and in respect of his whole being comes within
the scope of science. An evolution theory must include man, or
acknowledge that it is not a theory of existence as a whole. The
position of the theory and of all scientific observers devoted to it
is clear. Every piece of scientific work, whether concerned with
structure of organism, with functional activity, with visible adapta-
tions of organism, or with manifestations of animal intelligence, is
an essential contribution towards solution of our problem. On the
other hand, everything which tends to clear up the specialties of
human life, whether concerned with the structure and functions of
human organism, or with the activities of human intelligence as
these are concerned .with the attainment of scientific knowledge
and the government of conduct, is a definite contribution towards
the scientific conclusion we seek to reach. The outstanding problem
is this, — What is man’s place in nature ?

Scientific inquiry advances towards this problem along the path-
way of biological research, always making account of the common
characteristics of life. The common condition of organic existence,
from the lowest form to the highest, is the sensori-motor nerve-
system. The main question is therefore definitely shaped, — What is
a sensori-motor system equal to-? How much can be scientifically
made out as lying within range of such a system when highly
differentiated and co-ordinated in an elaborate nerve-centre, or

series of nerve-centres, liable to modification in the history of its

*

activity ? According to the answer to this inquiry is the advance
made towards including man within a science of nature.

The laws of a sensori-motor system, as it provides for the activity

1889-90.] Professor Calderwood on Evolution. 73

of life, are well defined. In accordance with these every organised
being is placed in vital relation with its environment; it is sensitive
to contact, it is capable of receiving sensory impression, and of
responding to it in action. This may be represented in simplest
form thus : —

Centre of Vital Energy.

Starting with this simple provision, research is continued along
the line of increasing complexity in structure, until we find Special
Senses, with special terminal organs providing for definite modifica-
tions of the sense of touch, while the elaborate system of nerve-
fibres is correlated in a nerve-centre of proportionate complexity.

We come within the region of difficulty and debate when we
reach the higher orders of animal life, classifying these together
as we may do in accordance with homologies in structure and
function. Within this group we may include with man, our higher
domesticated animals, the cat, dog, and horse, and besides, the
monkey and ape.

We are thus brought directly upon the question of animal intelli-
gence, with all the difficulties of observation connected with it.
Here at least we have definite evidence of intelligence, for which it
is needful to account. And this problem is far from easy, in view
of the forms of life only a little lower. A tendency has appeared
to seek abatement of this puzzle by the hypothesis that mind is
present from the first movements of life. There is extreme difficulty
in interpreting such a suggestion, as we recognise in representing
mind-manifestation in a gnat, in a worm, or in a mollusc. Besides,
the hypothesis virtually abandons the scientific conception of
evolution, giving up the attempt to demonstrate that the appearance
of intelligence is scientifically explained through elaboration and
differentiation in the nerve-centres. If it is held that “ psychic ”

74 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

action is the constant attendant of vital action, and is the true
explanation of it, we transform the theory of existence so as to
represent it as a single life history, unfolding itself more fully as the
ages roll on, — moving through matter, and next through spirit, hack
to the Idea, as Hegel represents. But the scientific conception
makes intelligence a later type of being, evolved in the history of
organic advance. In this light we read the theory of evolution.

We are therefore required to concentrate attention on the classifi-
cation of the higher animals already given, so as to trace the appear-
ance of intelligence in our world’s history. As we contemplate
these higher animals, first in their relation to lower orders of life,
and next in their relation to man, it seems plain that we have to
deal with three sets of facts, — sensori-motor activity in the simpler
organic forms; a simpler or lower order of intelligence, as in the
dog; and a higher intelligence, in possession of man. It would
seem that no scheme of natural history can meet requirements, if it
fail to make account of these three stages of life, or three distinct
sets of facts.

The recognition of this sufficiently clears the path, carrying us
forward to the highest form of the problem, concerning man’s place
in nature, without our being entangled and delayed with the question
concerning animal intelligence. Our own intelligence, as the better
known to us and the more easily studied, can supply the essential
phases of this problem, and can be discussed without prejudice to
the intervening and lower type of intelligence. The problem is
clear and definite, — How can sensori-motor action evolve a rational
activity ? Or, taking the problem, in the first instance, on the side
of intelligence alone, — How can nerve sensibility provide for evolu-
tion of intelligence ? That this has been matter of actual history is
fast becoming the traditional belief of thorough-going evolutionists.
Scientific tests, therefore, need to be applied with exactness here,
seeking for facts and their interpretation.

Given a highly-developed organism, with large adaptation to
environment, and modified under loDg application of the law of here-
dity, to account for the rise of intelligence as exercised by man. The
problem is certainly not an easy one, though the popular scientific
faith shows no sign of misgiving. Accepting all the conditions as
laid down by the evolutionist, there still seems a set of difficulties

1889-90.]

Professor Calderwood on Evolution.

75

of a seriously perplexing order. These I shall attempt shortly to
describe, for they do not seem to he at all lessened by the most
recent investigations and discussions.

There is practical unanimity — at least ample agreement to sustain
our scientific conclusion, — concerning the structure and functions of
the sensory apparatus. We may experience some difficulty in repre-
senting to ourselves what feeling is, as it appears in the life of a
snail or of a fish ; but we are at least clear that there is in both
forms of life sensibility to contact, and such sensibility as proves
adequate to direct motion. We can similarly interpret sensibility
along divergent lines, as in the action of the optic, auditory, and
olfactory nerves in higher life-forms. An animal swerves as readily
under the influence of light, sound, or odour, as under the whip ;
there seems no manifestation of intelligence in this, as there would
be none in the case of a man. But intelligence is something very
different from sensory impression, whether it is concerned with
the size of an object, direction of a sound, or the meaning of sign.
How can we explain the appearance of intelligent action ?

The functions of the best developed sensory system, seem quite
inadequate to supply a scientific conclusion here. Even if we add all
the advantages connected with an exact knowledge of intelligent ex-
perience, as in our own consciousness, our difficulties are not abated,
but seem to come out in more perplexing form. Take a series of
sensory impressions, even according to the possibilities of the highest
organism, and it seems impossible to find, either in their nature or
in their relation, anything helpful towards an explanation of the
rise of intelligence. The sensory apparatus can do no more than
supply impressions; successive impressions cannot even become a
series without the action of intelligence in comparing the impres-
sions. In whatever direction we turn, with the best apparatus in
most efficient order, we find that intelligent comparison is a necessity
— a presupposition — in order that any such experience as ours may
be possible. Impression must indeed follow contact. By the same
necessity, but with no provision for permanency of the first, or for
comparison of the two, a new impression must result from renewed
contact. The history of this is continual rise and fall of feeling, —
continual flux, — but no meaning. Sensations are continually
arriving and continually passing away. Even to say as much as

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this implies intelligent discrimination, for “ arrival 55 and “ disappear-
ance ” are conceptions belonging to a self-conscious being. A series
is orderly succession, known and contemplated as such. This know-
ledge organism cannot supply. In the history of three successive
impressions, No. 1 is displaced to make room for No. 2, and this in
turn disappears that No. 3 may appear. Impression occurs, and the
occurrence ends.

1. (Sensation). 2.(Sensation). 3. Sensation.

Environment.

If now’ we include motor activity with sensibility, so making
account of both sides of the sensori-motor system, a similar chasm
seems to separate functional action from rational activity. The
movement of the foot and the utterance of a word are actions
widely apart. To express thought you must have thought to
express ; whereas, to move a muscle, no more is required than a
sensori-motor system, stimulated by contact. The problem is how
to account scientifically, first , for action provided for by nerve
stimuli ; and, second , for action provided for by intelligence as its
necessary condition. We seem hardly ready even yet for grappling
effectively with this problem. A moderate selection of passages
from scientific wTorks of the day would demonstrate that we have
not reached a recognised technical definition of “ voluntary action.”
Perhaps this can be accounted for in a satisfactory way by the
present position of science; but as long as this want of exact definition
continues, the leading problem of our age must be obscure and ill
understood. What we need is, to define wdth scientific precision
the difference between rational conduct and motor activity, — the
contrast which the popular mind sees between movement and
conduct, as when w7e speak of a man’s gait as peculiar, but say of
his “conduct” that it is wrong. An immense distance separates
these two. Within this space lies some of the most serious per-
plexities the hypothesis of evolution has to encounter. What is yet
to be explained is that which Aristotle signalised as “deliberate pre-

1889-90.]

Professor Calderwood on Evolution.

77

ference,” a preference which is the outcome of reflection, forecasting
possible consequences.

A reference to the simple diagram already used will illustrate our
difficulties, when nerve-action and intellectual action are viewed as
distinct.

3. Purpose. 4. Action.

The functions of the sensori-motor system are so well known as
to help discrimination here. The interaction of sensory and motor
nerves, under external stimulus alone, gives reflex action. To this
must be added the phenomena of inhibition, — the restraints which
a sensory system is capable of placing on its own activity. Next, we
reckon the action of sense in stimulating appetite, which brooks no
hindrance, marking one type of “the struggle for existence,” of
which Darwin has discoursed with fulness.

What we need to account for is the immense advance occurring
in life when intelligence interposes to check impulse, and, after
carrying through a course of reflection, orginates a higher motive, or
changes the passion into actual motive. We need not here include
the still greater complexity of action when moral considerations
are introduced. We restrict the reference to self-interest.

The intervention of intelligence in the determination of action
is an- occurrence so different from all that can be traced, even by
faintest anticipation, in lowest orders of life, that it involves a
reversal of the law on which the hypothesis of evolution depends.
Keeping in view here the difference between the lower unintelligent
animals and the higher intelligent animals, it holds true for all of
them, that the law of pleasure and pain rules their life. It is
dominant in the lower as in the higher ; but in the higher, passion

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is fiercest, just as the muscular power is greatest, and the struggle
for gratification is most violent.

When intelligence is in the ascendant in life, the whole position
is changed, even to the extent of changing the law of activity.
We have to adapt our theory to this transformation, and in conse-
quence the conception of evolution is placed in the midst of a host
of perplexities. The main question is this, — How can evolution of
organism account for life capable of rational self-direction? Inhi-
bition may supply suggestions here, but these avail only on the
side of restraint ; we need here to account for a power which places
the whole life under a new order of government. When we include
social relations, there are rival interests, consequent competitions,
and new place and form for progress. All these are available for
analogies. But the main puzzle is untouched, — out of organism to
evolve the intelligence which first directs its own activity, and then
directs organic activity.

This order — first intelligent action, second organic action — is
essential to the case. No theory meets the requirements which does
not undertake to explain this priority. Here, in contrast with what
is observed in lower types of life, both unintelligent and intelligent,
reflection shapes the purpose which the agent afterwards makes an
effort to fulfil. This is something entirely new in the activity of life ;
this presents the hardest problem in natural history.

What is meant by Intelligence as concerned with action may be
best indicated by pointing out what it does, for thus we command
the facts and their history. Passion rises in man just as in the
animals. There is not anything distinctive here. But in human
life, the passion is restrained, reflection begins, and is prosecuted,
while restraint over passion is maintained. There is comparison of
consequences, contrast of the good and the better, formation of a
conception, and next of a definite purpose, and only then is the
sensori-motor system brought into action in relation to its environ-
ment. Whether the passion is then gratified, or is not gratified,
does not affect our problem. In either case, the whole course
of reflective procedure is carried through. The evolution of the
power to accomplish this constitutes the great perplexity. How can
we, through continuous action of the senses, reach the power we
name Intellect, and that power over intellectual action which we see

1889-90.] Professor Calderwood on Evolution. 79

to be implied in the ordinary conditions of its exercise. It does not
seem to help us to suggest, as Professor Bain does, that feeling
has an intellectual side and a volitional, for feeling neither thinks
nor wills. What Cyples has well described as “congruent con-
secutive activity of associated sense-apparatus ” does not lead us
up to the facts to be explained. When we set receptivity and
activity in contrast, we can agree with Mr Eomanes in naming the
contrasts recepts and concepts ; but the laws of the recepts, as
these are on the way to the concepts, imply something more than
the “ congruent consecutive activity of associated sense-apparatus.”
It does not appear that sense-apparatus is able to evolve the power
which takes control of human activity in its ordinary but distinctive
phases.

There is still greater complexity of procedure behind all this,
when we include a representation of the higher government which
we name moral life. I have not introduced this ; there is not room
for doing so in this paper, and there is already ample material
before the Society for discussion.

Having regard to the conciseness of statement requisite in such a
paper as this, I have endeavoured to supply illustrations sufficiently
varied to admit of test in course of subsequent debate.

I close by stating the general position maintained. So far as
human organism is concerned, there seem no overwhelming obstacles
to be encountered by an evolution theory ; but it seems impossible
under such a theory to account for the appearance of homo sapiens,
— the thinking, self-regulating life, distinctively human.

On Coral Reefs and other Carbonate of Lime Formations
in Modern Seas. By John Murray, LL.D., Ph.D., and
Robert Irvine, F.C.S.

(Read December 2, 1889.)

The vast organic accumulations known as coral reefs are, un-
doubtedly, among the most striking phenomena of tropical oceanic
waters. The picturesque beauty of coral atolls and barrier reefs,
with their shallow placid lagoons, and their wonderful submarine
zoological and botanical gardens, fixed at once the attention of the

80 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

early voyagers into tlie seas of equatorial regions of the ocean.
Questions connected with the peculiar form, the structure, the
origin, and the distribution of these great natural productions have,
from the very outset, puzzled and interested all those who delight
in the study of natural things. In this communication w re propose
to point out and discuss some of the more general phenomena of
oceanic deposits, with special reference to the functions of corals and
other lime-secreting organisms, and the accumulation of their dead
shells and skeletons on the floor of the great oceans.

Coral reefs are developed in greatest perfection in those ocean
waters where the temperature is highest and the annual range is
least. It may he said that reefs are never met with where the
temperature of the surface water, at any time of the year, sinks
below 70° Fahr., and where the annual range of temperature is
greater than 12° Fahr. Bermuda, which is the coral island the
farthest removed from the equator,* and one or two other outlying
reefs, may he, in a sense, exceptions to this statement, for in these
exceptional cases the temperature of the ocean water appears occasion-
ally to fall to 66° or 64° Fahr., and there is a wider annual range
than 12° Fahr. This condition of high temperature with small
range in the temperature of the water is only to he met with in the
middle and western portions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and
the central parts of the Indian Ocean ; consequently, coral reefs
flourish along the eastern shores of the continents where the coasts
are bathed by currents of pure oceanic water coming directly from the
open sea, while, on the other hand, they are absent along the western
shores of the continents where the water is colder and the annual
range is very much greater — for instance, off the western coasts of
America and Africa. The “ Challenger ” observations have also
shown that the layers of warm surface waters are much thicker
towards the western parts of the great oceans ; consequently, reef-
forming organisms flourish at a greater depth along the eastern
shores of the continents than in positions further to the eastward
in the open ocean, where the warm layer of water — over 70° Fahr.
— is much thinner. Throughout the temperate and polar regions
there are no coral reefs. This is all the more remarkable, seeing
that organisms belonging to the same orders, families, and even

Lat. 32° N.

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 81

genera as those which build up coral reefs flourish throughout
colder, and even in polar, seas. In these colder seas the re-
presentatives of the reef-builders either do not secrete carbonate
of lime in their body-walls, or if they do so, the shells or skeletons
are much less massive than in tropical waters. An attentive ex-
amination of the animals procured by the dredge and trawd from
all depths shows that in descending into deeper water in equatorial
regions the amount of carbonate of lime secreted by the animals
living on the sea bottom becomes less with increasing depth, and
all the calcareous structures of the organisms become less massive
with the descent into the deeper and colder water of the abysmal
regions. This remark does not, of course, apply to the shells and
skeletons of surface organisms which have fallen to the bottom
from the surface waters.

Still another illustration of the same fact is furnished by the
study of the pelagic organisms collected in the surface and sub-
surface waters by means of the tow-nets. In the warmest tropical
waters there are numerous species of Pteropoda, Heteropoda,
Gasteropoda,, Foraminifera, and Coccospheres and Rhabdospheres
(calcareous Algse), which lead a purely pelagic existence, and secrete
carbonate of lime shells. Mr Murray estimates from his tow-net
experiments that at least 16 tons of carbonate of lime exists in this
form at any moment of time in a mass of tropical oceanic water
one square mile in extent by 100 fathoms in depth.* The number of
species and individuals of these lime-secreting organisms decreases,
and the shells become less massive, with a wider removal from
the equator and an approach to the colder water of the poles,
till we find in the surface waters of the polar regions only one or
two thin-shelled Pteropods, and one, or at most two/ dwarfed species
of pelagic Foraminifera. It would appear then that organisms, as a
whole or individually, are able to, and actually do, secrete more
lime in regions where there is a uniformly high temperature of the
ocean water than in those regions where there are great seasonal
fluctuations of temperature, or where there is a uniformly low
temperature of the water, as in the polar regions and in the deep sea.
In temperate seas more carbonate of lime is secreted in the warm

* Murray, “ Structure and Origin of Coral Reefs,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. ,
vol. x. p. 508, 1880,

VOL. XVII. 1/4/90

r

82 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

summer months than during winter months. Indeed, a high tempera-
ture of the sea water is more favourable to abundant secretion of
carbonate of lime than high salinity.

An examination of the deep-sea deposits collected by the
“Challenger” and other expeditions in all oceans shows that, after the
death of the pelagic organisms above referred to, their calcareous
shells are rained down on the ocean’s bed, and there make up the
larger part of the deposits known as Pteropod and Globigerina
oozes, as well as a very considerable part of nearly all other marine
deposits. If we take the samples of deep-sea deposits collected by
the “Challenger” as a guide, the average percentage of carbonate of
lime in the whole of the deposits covering the floor of the ocean is
36 ‘83, and of this carbonate of lime, it is estimated that folly 90 per
cent, is derived from the remains of pelagic organisms that have fallen
from the surface waters, the remainder of the carbonate of lime
having been secreted by organisms that live on or attached to the
bottom. If coral muds and sands, together with Pteropod and
Globigerina oozes, be considered, it is estimated that these contain
an average percentage of 7 6 *44 of carbonate of lime, and cover
about 51,859,400 square miles of the sea bottom. We have
little knowledge as to the thickness of these deposits, still such as
we have goes to show that in these organic calcareous oozes and
muds, we have a vast formation greatly exceeding in bulk and
extent the coral reefs of tropical seas ; they are most widely distri-

Table showing the Estimated Area , Mean Depth, and Mean Per-
centage of CaC03, of the different Deposits.

Deposit.

Area, square
miles.

Mean Depth Mean per
in | cent, of

fathoms. | CaC03.

f Red clay,

■ r\ Radiolarian ooze,

Oceanic Oozes J Diatom 00z6;

an a-v’ | Globigerina ooze,

l Pteropod ooze,

f Coral sands and

Terrigenous De- j otdT terrigenous
P«s,ts' | deposits, blue

l muds, &c.,

50.289.600
2,790,400

10.420.600
47,752,500

887,100

3,219,800

27,899,300

2727

2894

1477

1996

1118

710

1016

6*70

4-01

22-96

64*53

79-26

86-41

19-20

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Beefs. 83

Luted in equatorial regions, but some patches of Globigerina ooze
are to be found even within the Arctic circle in the course of the
Gulf Stream. The table on preceding page shows the estimated
area of the various kinds of deposits, with the average depth, and
average percentage of carbonate of lime in each.

One of the most remarkable facts discovered by the “ Challenger ”
expedition is that, although the dead shells of these pelagic
organisms are rained down on the sea bottom, and in shallower
depths accumulate so as to form calcareous deposits of im-
mense extent, still, in other contiguous but deeper areas, these
shells do not accumulate on the bottom, being wholly removed
either while falling through the water or shortly after reaching the
ocean’s floor. The pelagic organisms are as abundant in the surface
waters over the one area as over the other, the only apparent differ-
ence in the conditions being one of depth. In the shallowest
deposits of the open sea, shells representative of nearly all the
lime-secreting surface organisms are to be found in the deposits.
With increasing depth the more delicate ones disappear from
the bottom till, in 1800 or 2000 fathoms, it is rare to find more
than traces of Heteropod, Pteropod, or the more delicate pelagic
Foraminifera, shells in the deposits, while these same delicate
shells occasionally make up fully one-half of the carbonate of lime
that is present in depths of 700 or 1000 fathoms. Again, in the still
greater depths of 3000 and 4000 fathoms and deeper, the For-
aminifera, Coccoliths, and Rhabdoliths are either wholly removed, or
are represented only by the broken fragments of the thickest and
most compact shells, like Pulmnulina menardii , Sphceroidina
dehiscens, or Globigerina conglobata. This gradual decrease in the
quantity of carbonate of lime iff the deposits with increasing depth
is well illustrated in the following table, showing the percentage
of lime in the samples of deep-sea deposits collected by the
“ Challenger” towards the central parts of the ocean basins, away,
from the immediate influence of the debris from continental land
or volcanic islands.

The organic oozes, including the red clays and the coral deposits,
make up a total of 231 samples, and are arranged as follows, show-
ing the percentage of carbonate of lime in relation to depth : —

84 2T Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

14

cases

under 500

fathoms, m. p.e. 86 '04.

7

>»

from

500 to

1000

„ „ 66-86.

24

a

1000 to

1500

„ „ 70-87.

42

}>

»

1500 to

2000

„ „ 69-55.

68

)}

)}

2000 to

2500

„ „ 46-73

65

>}

)}

2500 to

3000

„ „ 17-36

8

»

3000 to

3500

„ „ 0-88.

2

>5

}i

3500 to

4000

„ „ o-oo.

1

over

4000

„ „ trace.

The fourteen samples under 500 fathoms are chiefly coral muds
and sands, and the seven samples from 500 to 1000 fathoms contain
a considerable quantity of mineral particles from continents or
volcanic islands. In all the depths greater than 1000 fathoms the
carbonate of lime is mostly derived from the shells of pelagic
organisms that have fallen from the surface waters, and it will be
noticed that these wholly disappear from the greater depths.
These figures are derived from a study of the “ Challenger ”
deposits alone, but they are confirmed, as to the general result,
by an examination of the deposits collected by the U.S.SS.
“ Tuscarora” and “Blake,” by H.M.SS. “ Egeria” and “Investigator,”
the ships of the Telegraph Construction and Silvertown Companies,
and other ships. One other peculiarity as to the distribution of
carbonate of lime organisms on the ocean’s floor may be noted.
"Where these calcareous shells are most abundant on the surface, as
in the tropics, the remains of the dead shells are as a rule found at
greater depths on the bottom than in temperate or polar regions,
where they are relatively much less abundant in the surface waters.

In his paper on the Origin of Coral Reefs, published many years
ago, Mr Murray pointed out that sea water, rushing in and out of
the lagoon twice in the twenty-four hours, would take up and carry
away large quantities of the carbonate of lime which, in the form of
coral sand and mud, covers the bottom of these shallow basins.
Just as the surface shells are dissolved by falling through the layers
of ocean water, so in this case the dead coral fragments are dissolved
by the sea water that continually passes over them; in this way
chiefly he accounted for the formation of lagoons in atolls and barrier
reefs.

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 85

During the past few years a large number of experiments have
been carried on at the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research,
with the view of throwing some additional light on the oceanic
phenomena referred to in the preceding paragraphs, in so far as these
relate to the secretion and solution of carbonate of lime under vary-
ing conditions. Those dealing with the secretion of carbonate of
lime by organisms will be considered in the first place, and after-
wards those treating of the solution of the dead carbonate of lime
shells and skeletons will be discussed.

A detailed account of some of the experiments will show the
nature of the investigations, and indicate the results that have been
obtained in so far as they bear on the subject with which we are
here dealing.

Experiment I. A number of hens that were laying eggs regularly
were placed in a wooden building where they could not pick up
substances containing lime salts, except such as were supplied with
their food. At first they were not given any lime with their food,
and their drink was distilled water ; in a few days they laid eggs
with only a. membranous covering. Sulphate of lime was then
given with the food, and in the course of a few days they commenced
to lay eggs with the usual carbonate of lime shells. When the
sulphate of lime was stopped, the eggs again became membranous
and shelless. In this way it was shown that hens were able to pro-
vide their eggs with the usual carbonate of lime shells from the
silicate, sulphate, nitrate, phosphate, and carbonate of lime that was
administered with their food. Further, it was found that they could
not make use of the magnesium and strontium salts for the purpose
of forming shells for their eggs.* It is believed that in the case of
the various lime salts the lime passes through the blood in the form
of phosphate to the point of secretion, where it is deposited as car-
bonate of lime.

Experiment II. An artificial sea water was prepared, from which
carbonate of lime was rigidly excluded, and in this some living
crabs were placed. They lived for many months, and after ecdysis
produced the usual exo-skeleton of carbonate of lime from the lime
salts, other than carbonate, present in the water, f

* See Appendix, Table III.

t See Irvine and Woodhead, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xv. p. 308, 1888.

86 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Experiment III. An artificial sea water similar to the above
(II.), absolutely free from carbonate of lime, was neutral at first,
but after the introduction of living crabs became at first slightly
acid, and then, after a time, distinctly alkaline in character. This
was found to be due to uric acid, urea, and other effete products
thrown into the water by the crabs, and to their subsequent decom-
position, with the formation of carbonate of ammonia, and ultimately
of carbonate of lime. In one of the tanks the alkalinity was equal
to the production of about 45 36 grammes of carbonate of lime —
this representing the amount of that body formed in twelve months
through the agency of four small crabs, weighing in all about
90 -7 2 grammes, and whose exo-skeletons contained only about
5T84 grammes of carbonate of lime.

Experiment IY. The following experiments were conducted with
the view of throwing some light on the above changes. Three litres
of sea water and 750 c.c. of urine were mixed and kept exposed to
the air at a temperature ranging from 60° to 80° Fahr. What was
lost by evaporation was made up by the addition of pure water.
This solution was at first acid ; after a few days it became neutral,
and later, as decomposition of the urine advanced, it became strongly
alkaline. On heating a portion of the solution, ammonia was given
off, so that the alkalinity was evidently due to the formation of
ammonia. After seven days a bulky flocculent precipitate was
thrown down, which on analysis consisted of organic matter, double
phosphate of magnesia and ammonia, together with a small quantity
of carbonate of lime, as shown by the following analysis : —

Precipitate after Seven Days.

Water and organic matter containing ammonia, 1

31-81

7*38 grains, . . . . . . J

Carbonate of lime, ......

4-85

Phosphate of magnesia and ammonia,

51-10

Phosphate of lime, ......

12-24

100-00

After other ten days, during which time the liquid, filtered from
the above precipitate, was exposed under the same conditions, a
further precipitate was thrown down, differing from the first in that

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 87

it consisted principally of carbonate of lime, as shown by the follow-
ing analysis : —

Precipitate Ten Days after the first one above noted.

Water and organic matter, . . . . 20 ’2 5

Carbonate of lime, . . . . . 75*35

Carbonate of magnesia, ..... 1*02

Phosphate of magnesia, . . . . . 3*38

Ammonia, ....... (none)

100*00

Examined with the microscope, the precipitate was seen to consist
of the characteristic crystalline forms of carbonate of lime. It
effervesced freely with acids. The first precipitate (seven days)
weighed 2’37 grammes; the second (seventeen days), 2-75 grammes
— that is, 5*12 grammes in all. Thus after adding the carbonate of
lime in solution, present in the filtrate, there is practically enough
lime in these precipitates to account for all the sulphate and car-
bonate of lime present in the sea water used. In other words, this
reaction had removed all the soluble calcium salts from the sea
water, principally as more or less insoluble crystalline carbonate.

Experiment V. An experiment was made with a solution of sulphate
of lime of the same strength as present in sea water. 500 c.c. of
this solution was mixed with 100 c.c. of urine under the same condi-
tions as in the previous experiment (IV.) ; after eleven days the
precipitate was collected, and was found to contain 51 per cent, of
carbonate of lime. This, after adding the carbonate of lime in
solution in the filtrate, accounted for all the lime present in the
original solution of sulphate of lime made use of.

Experiment VI. In this experiment an attempt was made to imitate
the conditions occurring in nature as nearly as possible. Nine small
crabs, weighing in all 1 1 ounces, were placed in a shallow glass vessel
containing 2 litres of ordinary sea water, and were fed on mussel
flesh. The water was never renewed nor aerated, the effete matters
passing into it. At the end of fourteen days all the crabs had died,
and were removed. The w’ater being then in a putrid condition, it
was set aside for about three weeks at a temperature ranging from
70° to 80° Falir. All the conditions of the last two experiments

88

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh., [sess.

(IY. and Y.) were observed, and it was found that crystals of car-
bonate of lime had been thrown down in amount practically equiva-
lent to all the calcium present in the sea water employed.

Experiment YII. We obtained the liquor from a number of
living oysters, and examined it before decomposition had begun.

It appeared to be a mixture of lymph with unchanged sea water ;
the specific gravity at 60° F. was 1*023, the amount of chlorine
per litre was 17*56 grammes, indicating a considerable admixture of
fresh or river water.

The total lime in a litre of this liquor was
whilst the total lime in ordinary sea water
of the same sp, gr. only amounts to

giving an excess of total lime,

The alkalinity of the oyster liquor amounted to
of carbonate of lime per litre,
whilst the alkalinity of sea water of the same
sp. gr. amounts to .

0*7205 grammes,

0*5316

0*1889

0*3675

0*1094

showing an increase of alkalinity

equivalent to . . . .0*2581

per litre.

We have thus an accumulation of lime (in excess over that present
in sea water) amounting to 0*1889 grammes per litre, the greater
part of which is in the form of carbonate in solution, presumably
in the amorphous or hydrated condition.

Any doubts as to how this excess of carbonate of lime comes to be
present is set at rest by the fact that the fresh and absolutely unde-
composed liquor containing this excess of lime contains also (saline)
ammoniacal salts equal to 18 parts per million, or about sixty times
that present in any sea waters we have examined.

Experiment YIII. A similar experiment was made with the
liquor taken from living mussels (from the mussel beds at Granton),
the results coinciding with those obtained in Ex. YII.*

* Theoretically, urea plus two molecules of water give carbonate of
ammonia. If, therefore, carbonate of ammonia be a stage in the formation of
urea, it is not unnatural to suppose that, in shell-forming aiiimals, the shell
formation may be the stage without any formation of urea. For special method
for the determination of saline ammonia in sea water, see page 101, Appendix.

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R Irvine on Coral Reefs. 89

Experiment IX. Albumen taken from a freshly-laid egg was
diluted with water and pure potash added, and the clear solution was
Nesslerised. This showed no trace of ammoniacal salts.

These experiments show the alteration that is produced in the
constitution of sea salts, and especially in the constitution of the lime
salts, by the effete matters thrown into the sea by animals ; in the
case of Experiment III., the effete matter from four small crabs
was sufficient to produce, in twelve months, a quantity of carbonate
of lime equal to nearly five times the weight of their own calcareous
structures. Wherever effete animal matters are being thrown into
the sea, or wherever animal structures are undergoing decay in the
ocean, decomposition products, many of them of a complex con-
stitution, pass into solution. These, in the presence of the
sea water salts, give rise to many reactions, and, among others, the
formation of ammoniacal salts always takes place to a greater or less
extent. Sea water collected among the coral atolls of the Louisiade
Archipelago * contained in one million parts —

Saline ammonia, , . . . . . 048

Albuminoid ammonia, . . . . . 0T8

0*66

Water 'collected by the “Challenger” in the North Atlantic,
lat. 30° 20' N,, long. 36° 6' W., contained of —

Saline ammonia, . . . . . . 0'26

Albuminoid ammonia, . . . . 0T6

0*42

Water from the German Ocean near land contained of —

Saline ammonia, . . . . . . 0T3

Albuminoid ammonia, . . . . . 0T3

0-26

So that water from the coral reef regions contained nearly twice as
much of these ammoniacal salts as water from the North Atlantic,
and nearly three times as much as water from the German Ocean.
This shows, it appears to us, that the carbonate of ammonia,

* These samples were received through Captain Wharton, F.R.S., Hydro-
grapher to the Admiralty.

90

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

arising from the decomposition of animal products, in presence of
the sulphate of lime of sea water, becomes carbonate of lime and
sulphate of ammonia.* Thus the whole of the lime salts in sea
water may, in these circumstances, be changed by this reaction into
carbonate, and may in this way be presented to the coral and shell
builders in a form suitable for their requirements. The temperature
of the water is of great importance in this reaction. In cold water,
of which the great bulk of the ocean consists, the decomposition of
nitrogenous organic matter is greatly retarded, whereas, in tropical
surface waters, it proceeds with great rapidity. Here, then, we
have probably the explanation of the great development of the
massive structures formed by lime-secreting organisms in the coral
reef regions, which, as has been pointed out, are also the regions of
highest and most uniform temperature in the ocean. In the same
way we may account for the great extension of lime-secreting pelagic
organisms in the tropical surface currents that flow north and south
from the equator. Thus coral reef-builders and pelagic organisms
may not only benefit by the decomposition products arising from
their own effete matters, but also from the undecomposed nitrogenous
matter carried to equatorial regions from the cold water of the deep
sea or from polar regions

The quantity of carbonate of lime normally in sea water is ex-
ceedingly small, and the opinion hitherto held seems to have been
that lime-secreting organisms had to pump enormous quantities of
sea water through their bodies in order to be able to separate out a
sufficient quantity to form their shells and skeletons, f It seems

* The sulphate of ammonia is in turn absorbed by the marine flora which
forms the food of the marine fauna, and is in part resolved into nitrates and
free nitrogen.

f Bischof, Ghem. and Tiny s. Geol ., vol. i. p. 180, says: — “In order to form
a conception of what testacea are capable of effecting by organic agency, I
determined the weight of ten oysters and their shells. After they had been
opened the enclosed sea water was, as far as possible, removed. The weight of
the shells varied from 278 to 7 '57 that of the oysters

“No one can doubt that it was the carbonate of lime dissolved in the sea
water which alone furnished the material for the formation of these shells.

“If now we assume that the sea water contains of carbonate of lime,

and that the oysters are capable of deriving all their calcareous substance from
the water by organic agency, it follows that the above number of oysters re-
quired for the formation of their shells 345 to 587 lbs., or 5 '2 to 8 '9 cubic feet
of sea water.

“This quantity is from 27,760 to 75,714 times the weight of their shells.

.1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Beefs. 91

much more probable that the reactions indicated by the above
experiments render the whole of the lime salts in the sea water, and
especially the sulphate, available for the coral polyps to construct their
massive structures. In higher animals, like hens, the carbonate of
lime is secreted from the blood ; but in coral polyps, in which there
is no true circulatory system, and where the animal is immersed in
the sea water, it is most probable that the reaction above referred
to — the formation of carbonate of ammonia — is in every way advan-
tageous to these lime-secreting organisms, and facilitates the deposi-
tion of carbonate of lime by the protoplasm. In the case of all the
lower classes of lime-secreting organisms this change in the con-
stitution of the lime salts may take place within the tissues of the
animals. In the case of the oysters (Exp. VII.) the excess of car-
bonate of lime observed in the liquor or diluted lymph was clearly
due to the decomposition of the sulphate of lime in the sea water by
carbonate of ammonia secreted as such by the protoplasm of the
animal.

The quantity of salts in a given volume of sea water varies with
the position from which the sample is collected, and according as
the salinity is high or low ; but it has been shown, by hundreds
of analyses from all parts of the ocean, that the actual ratio of
acids and bases — that is, the ratio of the constituents of sea salts
— is constant in waters from all regions and depths of the ocean,
wTith one very significant exception, namely, that of lime, which
is present in slightly greater proportion in water from the greater
depths. In the ordinary analyses, however, the rarer elements
are never determined, although it is known that there are traces
of nearly every element in sea water. Theoretically, every base
may be combined with every acid, and the whole solution must
be in a continual state of flux as to its internal constitution. An

“According to these results, an oyster would appear to be a pumping-
machine of extraordinary activity

“ It is also known that in the testacea there is a continual current of water
from behind forwards within the mantle

‘ ‘ This current of water in the oysters appears to be astonishing when we
compare it with the quantity of fluid which passes through the human body.

“ When a man weighing 150 lbs. consumes even 5 lbs. of liquid daily during
a period of seventy-five years, still a quantity of liquid, only 912*5 times the
weight of his body, would pass through his organism, or only about uV to ws
of the sea water which has passed through the oysters.”

92 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

indication as to the nature of these internal changes is given in
the above experiments, dealing chiefly with the reactions brought
about in sea water by the decomposition of the effete products
thrown into it by animals and by the decay of organic tissues.
Through the action of the carbonate of ammonia on the sulphate of
lime in the sea water, it is evident that there is a production of a
large quantity of carbonate of lime in a form easily available for
lime-secreting organisms. In the laboratory, when carbonate of
ammonia is added to sea water nine-tenths of the calcium in solution
is thrown out as carbonate of lime, while the magnesian salts remain
in solution ; so that if the reaction above indicated be that which
takes place in the ocean, then to this circumstance may be due the
fact that carbonate of magnesia is almost wholly absent from recent
coral reefs and deep-sea calcareous formations. The above experi-
ments appear clearly to show that the alkalinity of sea water is due
to the presence of carbonate of lime in solution ; for, in addition to
the fact that this body is thrown down from the decomposing
solutions after these become alkaline, we find that when carbonate
of lime is added to a neutral artificially-prepared sea water, absolutely
free from carbonate of lime, it at once gives the alkaline reaction
common to normal sea water.

That the amount of the nitrogenous organic matter in a state of
suspension and solution in the ocean must be enormous, will appear
evident when it is remembered that the floor of the ocean through-
out its whole extent is covered with living animals, that the surface
and sub-surface waters and shallow depths off all coasts are crowded
with plants and animals down to a depth of several hundred fathoms,
and that the “ Challenger ” experiments have shown that some
species of animals flourish in all intermediate depths in ocean water
from the surface down to the very bottom. The waste products
arising from the functional activity of these organisms, and the
nitrogenous organic products arising from the decomposition of their
dead bodies, must work continual changes on the internal constitu-
tion of sea-water salts, varying according to their amount, the
temperature, sunlight, and other conditions. It has been shown
that ammoniacal salts are to be found everywhere in the ocean, but
much more abundantly in the warm tropical waters than in the
polar seas — a result due to the rapid decomposition of nitrogenous

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 93

organic matters at a high temperature, and its retardation in colder
waters. The ammonia of the air and all the substances carried into
the sea by the drainage from the land also effect changes in the
internal constitution of the sea water ; indeed, the peculiar pelagic
fauna and flora, which are met with in all regions of the ocean where
the ocean is affected by river and coast waters, are as much in rela-
tion with the internal constitution of the sea-water salts as with the
lower salinity which prevails in these circumstances. It is well
known that organic substances in the presence of alkaline and
earthy sulphates become oxidised at the expense of the oxygen of
these salts, with the production of carbonic acid and sulphuretted
hydrogen,* which on oxidation produces sulphuric acid. The whole
of the organic carbon, which it has been pointed out is of enormous
amount, must apparently he oxidised into an equivalent amount of
carbonic acid, and further of sulphuric acid. The effects of this
reaction are likely to be more marked in the deeper parts of the
ocean, where all motions of the sea water must be extremely slow,
and where consequently the effete products tend to accumulate.
In this way the larger amount of lime and carbonic acid and the
less amount of oxygen in deeper waters are to be accounted for.
Hot only so, but the very existence of such a relatively large
quantity of sulphate of lime in sea water goes far to prove that
this reaction is continually taking place, seeing that sulphuric
acid cannot exist in a free state in the presence of carbonate of
lime. Thus it is probable that the quantity of sulphate of lime in
solution in the ocean is limited only by the amount of organic
decomposition that takes place in ocean waters. On the other
hand, if marine organisms procure the whole of their carbonate of
lime from the sulphate of lime by the reaction of the ammoniacal
salts, then the amount of lime that may be secreted from ocean
waters is likewise limited by the amount of organic matter under-
going this oxidation process in the ocean, f

* MS04 + 2C = 2COa + MS
MS + C02 + H20 = MC03 + H2S
H2S + 202 = H2S04 .

t Gmelin, Chemistry , vol. ii. p. 191, states : — “ In liot climates, as on the
west coast of Africa, where the water of the* rivers highly charged with
organic matter, mixes with the sea water which contains salts of sulphuric
acid [sulphates], the same decomposition takes place, extending sometimes to a

94

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

From the foregoing discussion it appears evident that in the various
reactions taking place continually in ocean waters there are special
conditions which are favourable to the secretion of carbonate of lime
by organisms, chief among these being a high and uniform tempera-
ture of the water at all seasons of the year.

If now we turn our attention to the solution of the dead carbonate
of lime shells and skeletons by the action of sea water it will, in like
manner, be found that the rate of this solution varies greatly accord-
ing to the conditions in which these dead remains are exposed to the
solvent power of the water.

The tables at the end of this paper give some of the results of a
large number of experiments that have been conducted on the solu-
bility of carbonate of lime in different states and in different samples
of sea water. It may be pointed out that the normal amount of
carbonate of lime dissolved in sea water is very small, especially
when compared with the large amount of this substance that is
continually being secreted from the sea by organisms. The amount
in ordinary sea water (sp. gr. 1*026) is 0*12 grrns. per litre. Sea
water may, however, take up 0*649 grms. per litre of carbonate of
lime in the amorphous or hydrated condition. This solution is then
supersaturated, and on being allowed to stand, the carbonate of lime
is thrown out of solution in the crystalline form, and after a time
the solution may contain less than is normally present in sea water.
It has been found that sea water can hold in solution (at 80° F.)
for at least a week 0*16 grms. per litre more than is normally pre-
sent in it, and artificially prepared sea water can also hold in solu-
tion 0*28 grms. per litre for at least a week, and 0*12 grms. (the
normal amount in ordinary sea water) for six weeks.

It thus seems that although sea water under certain conditions
may take up a considerable quantity of carbonate of lime in solution,
yet it is unable permanently to retain in solution more than is
usually found to be present in sea water, and it is owing to this that

distance of 27 miles from the months of the rivers, the water containing
hydrosulphuric acid, sometimes as much as six cubic inches to a gallon.”

This is confirmed from samples of water, which we have examined, taken
from the roadstead at Monte Video by the telegraph ship “ Seine.” It consists
of a mixture of fresh and salt water, with a considerable amount of organic
matter which has decomposed the sulphate, giving rise to a large amount of
hydrosulphuric acid.

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 95

the amount of carbonate of lime is so constantly low. The reaction
between organic matter and the sulphates present in sea water, to
which we have referred, tends also to keep the amount of carbonate
of lime in solution at about one-half (0T2 grms.) of what it might
contain (0*28 grms. per litre). This peculiarity of sea water, in
taking up a large amount of amorphous carbonate of lime and
throwing it out in the crystalline form accounts for the filling up of
the interstices of massive corals with crystalline carbonate in coral
islands and other calcareous formations, so that all traces may ulti-
mately be lost of the original organic structure.

Our experiments show that there is very great diversity as to the
amount of carbonate of lime that will pass into solution in sea-
water from various calcareous structures in a given time. As a rule,
the more definitely crystalline the substance the less is it soluble.
Crystalline calcspar is less soluble than massive varieties of coral,
and these again less so than the more porous varieties. To a cer-
tain extent, this variation may be accounted for by the amount of
surface exposed to the solvent action of the water, which is much
greater in porous coral than in calcspar ; but it is found that finely-
powdered calcspar is less soluble than finely-powdered coral, and we
have already noted that the amorphous or hydrated carbonate of
lime is much more soluble than any other form of the substance.
In shells and corals those layers which have been recently deposited
by the animals are more rapidly removed in solution than those of
older date, which have, in consequence, assumed a more crystalline
structure. The rate of solution is also much greater when the water
is constantly renewed than when the same water remains in contact
with the coral, and the solution approaches to saturation. It appears,
then, that those portions of a coral or shell that have been recently
in direct life-connection with the organism are more soluble than
those portions which are older, and have consequently largely passed
into the crystalline condition.

In conducting these various experiments with carbonate of lime,
we were early led to suspect that different samples of sea water
possessed very different solvent powers, and this was confirmed by
special observations. For instance, water taken last summer (1889)
from the German Ocean, 30 miles outside the Island, of May, had a
very distinct solvent power on the corals exposed to its action, while

96

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

water taken in January 1890 from the same spot, and having a
slightly lower specific gravity, exerted little or no solvent action on
the same corals. These remarks also apply to waters taken from near
shore at North Berwick and Granton in the summer of 1889 and
January 1890. The lower specific gravity of the winter waters may
be regarded as, to some extent, reducing the solvent power ; but
this is more probably to be attributed to the absence of free car-
bonic acid, that is, carbonic acid in excess of what is required to satu-
rate the free base in the sea water as normal carbonate (CaC03). To
test this point, carbonic acid was added to one of these winter
waters, but in quantity not sufficient to destroy its alkaline character.
Powdered carbonate of lime was then added to this water, as well
as to another portion of the water to which carbonic acid had not
been added, and both samples were allowed to remain under exactly
the same conditions for fourteen hours. It was found at the end
of this time that the water to which no carbonic acid had been
added had not taken up any of the carbonate of lime, while the
water to which carbonic acid had been added, under the conditions
above stated, had dissolved an appreciable amount.

These results appear to indicate that there is more carbonic acid
in summer than in the winter waters in our latitude, due probably
to the increased activity of animal life, and although it may be
insufficient to form bicarbonate with the free base present, such
waters have a distinctly more powerful action on carbonate of lime
structures, the greater the quantity of carbonic acid they contain,
and especially so when the quantity is more than would form a
sesqui-carbonate.

ij 1

!

I

case our experiments have shown that alkaline sea water will dis-
solve up carbonate of lime in addition to what it already contains,
and that the rapidity with which this is effected depends on the
* See Dittmar, Phys. Chem. Chall. Exp. , Part I.

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Beefs. 97

excess of carbonic acid in the sea water over that necessary to form
a normal carbonate, but especially over that required to form a
sesqui-carbonate with the surplus base. It also appears that this
is a much more effective agent in the removal of carbonate of lime
shells than the solvent power of sea water itself, although, as we have
already shown, sea water from which carbonic acid is absent can
dissolve carbonate of lime in addition to what it normally contains,
still the quantity that can be thus taken up is relatively small.
Mr Buchanan’s observations have also shown that carbonic acid is,
as a rule, more abundant in bottom and intermediate waters than
in surface waters, although in some places surface waters contain a
very large quantity, as, for instance, among the coral islands of the
Fijis. A series of experiments have recently been conducted which
show that carbonated waters under high pressure will take up more
carbonate of lime than when at the normal of atmospheric pressure.*

These results may now be applied to the explanation of the
removal of carbonate of lime shells and structures from the deep
sea deposits, and from the lagoons of coral islands. The fact that
carbonic acid is more abundant in the deeper waters of the ocean is
evidently connected with the respiration and decay of the organisms
that live on the sea bottom, and with the decay of those that fall
down to the bottom from the surface of the sea. The water that
fills the deeper hollows has also in its passage to the equator passed
over thousands of square miles of the sea floor covered with living
animals. As this deep water has a very slow motion and is but
slowly renewed, we would expect an accumulation of carbonic
acid, and a deficiency of oxygen in these abysmal depths.

When, therefore, a carbonate of lime-secreting organism dies in
the surface waters and the dead body commences to fall towards
the bottom, its shell is at once exposed to solution from the action
of the sea water and the carbonic acid, produced, it may be, by
the decomposition of its own body. If the shell be an exceedingly
thin one, as in the case of Heteropods and some Pteropods, it may
be wholly removed before reaching the bottom, at the depth of a
few hundred fathoms. The great majority of shells, however, are
only partially removed during the first few hundred fathoms, and
on reaching the bottom at these lesser depths they accumulate

* Reid, Proc. Roy. Soe. Edin vol. xv. pp. 151-157, 1888; Appendix, p. 108.

VOL. XVII. 1/4/90 G

98

Proceedings of P,oyal Society of Edinburgh.

there. After reaching the bottom more of the shell may he dis-
solved, but in these positions there are circumstances which retard
solution. Where shells reach the bottom in depths of a few
hundred fathoms, they are soon covered up by other shells, and are
surrounded by sea water which is completely or nearly saturated
with carbonate of lime, from its being but slowly renewed, and
from having been for a long time in contact with a wide extent
of calcareous deposits at the bottom of the sea. It is probable that,
say, at a depth of 500 fathoms, fully 80 per cent, of the carbonate
of lime shells that fall from the surface reach the bottom and
accumulate there.

At depths, however, of 1500 or 2000 fathoms not more than 50
per cent, of these shells reach the bottom in a partially dissolved
condition ; moreover, the accumulation is here slower, from a greater
number of shells being dissolved in their fall through the water,
and after reaching the bottom the shell will be for a longer time
exposed to the action of water before being covered up and pro-
tected by the fall of other shells, as is the case in shallower depths.
In the greatest depths of the ocean all the surface shells appear to
be removed before they reach the bottom, except probably some of
the heavier and more compact ones, which lie there uncovered by
other shells till wholly removed by solution. The water in these
red-clay areas would, besides, take up the lime more readily, as
there it is not in contact with great carbonate of lime deposits,
like the water overlying a Globigerina or Pteropod ooze. These
deeper layers of water are more active in the removal of carbonate
of lime than the surface waters, not only because of the larger
amount of carbonic acid they contain, and to the deoxidation of
alkaline sulphates by organic matter giving rise to hydrosulphuric
acid, but also because of the greater pressure, and the fact that,
the substance of the shells being less compressible than water, they
would fall more slowly, and hence would be longer exposed to the
action of the deeper layers of water than to the action of those
nearer the surface.

In this way we appear to have a perfectly rational explanation of
the partial disappearance of carbonate of lime shells from the
shallower depths, and their total disappearance from all the greater
depths of the ocean. It is to be observed that all those shells in

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Beefs. 99

which a considerable quantity of organic tissue is associated with
the carbonate of lime, disappear in solution more rapidly than the
shells of the Foraminifera, which contain little organic matter.
During the whole of the “ Challenger” cruise only two bones of fishes,
other than the otoliths and the teeth, were dredged from the
deposits, and all traces of the cetacean bones were removed, except
the dense earbones and dense Ziphioid beaks. The remains of
crustacean animals were almost wholly absent from deep-sea de-
posits, with the exception of Ostracode shells and the hard tips of
some claws of crabs.

Turning now to the lagoons and lagoon channels of coral islands,
it is believed that large quantities of carbonate of lime are in the
same way being dissolved from these shallow basins as well as from
the deposits of the deep sea, but under somewhat different circum-
stances. In the case of a shell falling to the bottom of the sea, it
is continually brought in contact with new layers of water, which
has the same effect as if a continuous stream of water were passing
over the shell. In the case of the lagoons this last is what takes
place. The water which flows in and out of the lagoons twice in
twenty-four hours passes over great beds of growing coral, and from
all the observations we have is largely charged with carbonic acid,
owing probably to the large number of living animals on the outer
reef over which the water passes on its way to the lagoon. This
water passes continually over the dead coral and sand of the lagoon,
and takes up and removes large quantities of carbonate of lime in
solution (as well as suspension) for in these lagoons the spaces
covered by dead coral debris always greatly exceed the patches of
growing coral. Owing to the fact that the water of the lagoon is
continually in motion, and constantly renewed, the layer in contact
with the bottom of coral sand can never become saturated or unable
to take up more lime, as is apparently the case in the layers of
water in contact with the Globigerina ooze and other calcareous
deep-water deposits.

From the foregoing discussion and observations it is evident that
a very large quantity of carbonate of lime is in a continual state of
flux in the ocean, now existing in the form of shells and corals,
but after the death of the animals passing slowly into solution, to
go again through the same cycle.

100

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

On the whole, however, the quantity of carbonate of lime that
is secreted by animals must exceed what is re-dissolved by the
action of sea water, and at the present time there is a vast accumu-
lation of carbonate of lime going on in the ocean. It has been the
same in the past, for with a few insignificant, exceptions all the
carbonate of lime in the geological series of rocks has been secreted
from sea water, and owes its origin to organisms in the same way as
the carbon of the carboniferous formations ; the extent of these
deposits appears to have increased from the earliest down to the
present geological period.

At the present time most of the carbonate of lime carried to the
ocean by rivers has been directly derived from calcareous stratified
rocks formed by organic agency in the sea in earlier geological ages,
but the calcium in these formations was in the first instance derived
from the decomposition of the lime-bearing silicates of the earth’s
original crust, and this decomposition, which is still going on in the
sea and on the land surfaces, is a continuous source of carbonate of
lime.

In considering the analyses showing the average composition of
sea salts, one is struck with the relatively small quantity of those
very substances which are extracted so largely from sea water by
plants and animals, viz., carbonate of lime and silica. Siliceous
deposits are of vast extent, yet silica occurs merely in traces in sea
water ; carbonate of lime deposits are of vastly greater magnitude,
yet carbonate of lime makes up only y-^th part of the saline consti-
tuents of sea water, and only •g-g^th part of the whole bulk of sea
water. Sulphate of lime is ten times more abundant than the
carbonate in sea water ; on the other hand, the river water that is
poured into the ocean contains about ten times as much carbonate
as it does of sulphate of lime.*

The total amount of calcium in a cubic mile of sea water is esti-
mated from analyses to be 1,941,000 tons, and the total amount of
calcium in the whole ocean is calculated at 628,340,000,000,000
tons. The total amount of calcium in a cubic mile of river water is
estimated at 141,917 tons, and the total amount of this element
carried into the ocean from all the rivers of the globe annually is

* Murray, “ Total Annual Rainfall of the Globe,” Scottish Geog. Magazine ,
vol. iii. p. 65, 1887. ‘

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 101

estimated at 925,866,500 tons. At this rate it would take 680,000
years for the river drainage from the land to carry down an amount
of calcium equal to that at present existing in solution in the whole
ocean. Again, taking the “ Challenger ” deposits as a guide, the
amount of calcium in these deposits, if they he 22 feet thick,
is equal to the total amount of calcium in solution in the whole
ocean at the present time. It follows from this that if the salinity
of the ocean has remained the same as at present during the whole
of this period, then it has taken about 680,000 years for the deposits
of the above thickness, or containing calcium in amount equal to
that at present in solution in the ocean, to have accumulated on the
floor of the ocean. From the data here furnished a' number of other
interesting speculations might he indulged in, relating to the amount
of carbonic acid that has been abstracted from the atmosphere and
fixed in carbonate of lime deposits ; the total amount of disintegra-
tion of lime-hearing siliceous rocks measured in terms of the calcium
at present existing in solution in water and fixed in calcareous
deposits ; the relative proportions of substances secreted from the
ocean, as compared with other materials derived from the direct
disintegration of the land, forming deep-sea deposits ; and the
apparent accumulation of carbonate of lime formations towards the
equatorial regions of the globe. These various matters will, how-
ever, be discussed in another place.

During the course of these investigations at the Scottish Marine
Station, the following gentlemen have assisted us in carrying on
the experiments referred to in this communication : — Dr G. S.
Woodhead, Messrs G. Brook, W. S. Anderson, J. G. Ross, B.Sc.,
G. Young, A. Drysdale, and W. G. Reid.

APPENDIX.

Modification of the Method for the Determination of Ammonium Salts

in Sea Water.

The method usually followed in water analyses, by which saline
ammoniacal salts are distinguished from albuminoid nitrogenous
matter, in so far as the process of distilling the sea water under
examination, first with pure magnesia to eliminate the ammonia
actually present, and in the subsequent treatment of the residual
water with solutions of potash and permanganate of potash, being

102 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

very tedious and doubtful as to results, we devised and adopted tbe
following process, which was found to answer exceedingly well.
Pure potash was added to a measured and carefully filtered portion
of the sea water, and the precipitate formed removed by filtration
through filter-paper, from which any traces of ammonia (generally
present in filter-paper) had been removed by washing with pure
potash water, the clear filtrate was then Xesslerised in the usual
manner. We found that by adopting this plan we had a speedy
and accurate means of determining between the actual ammoniacal
salts and the nitrogenous matter, both of which are as a rule present
i n sea water according to the proportion it carries of living or dead
organisms.

Exp. IX. (p. 89) seems to prove in a conclusive manner that the
addition of pure potash to a fluid containing albuminoids alone does
not at once give rise to the production of saline ammonia.

Table I. Showing the Average Composition of Sea Water Salts

Chloride of sodium,

(Dittmar).

. 77758

77-758

Chloride of magnesium, . 10*878')

|

Sulphate of ,,

. 4-737

V 15-832

Bromide of ,,

•217 v

1

Sulphate of potash,

. 2-465

2-465

Carbonate of lime,

•345 1

|- 3-945

Sulphate of ,,

. 3-600 J

100-000

100-000

Table II. Showing the Composition of Sea Water (Dittmar).
Analyses of Sea Water in 10,270 parts, or 1 litre, density 4S15.56.

Water, 9897 ‘073

Chloride of sodium, . . . 289 -980

Chloride of magnesium, . . 40 '568

Sulphate of magnesia, . . 17 '665

Bromide of magnesium, . . 0"809

Sulphate of lime, . . . 13‘425

Sulphate of potash, . . . 9 '193

Carbonate of lime, ... 1 '287

10,270*000

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 103

Table III. Egg Shell (Hen's), showing the Effect of various Salts
added to Food of Hens (Young).

Dried at 212° Fahr. Membrane removed.

Salts added to Food.

No. 1.
Sulphate
of Lime.

No. 2.
Phosphate
of Lime.

No. 3.
Silicate of
Lime.

No. 4.
Nitrate
of Lime.

No. 5.
Carbonate
of

Magnesia.

No. 6.
Carbonate
of

Strontia.

Hens laid Eggs.

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Shelless.

Shelless.

Analysis of Shell.
Organic matter, .

Carbonate of lime,
Phosphate of lime,
Sulphate of lime,
Silica,

Magnesia, .

Iron, .

6-86

92-03

111

trace

7 7
>>

5*77

93*07

116

trace

77
* 7
7 7

About
same
as in
1 and 2.

Same
as in
1 and 2.

Table IY. Showing the Composition of Artificial Sea Waters com-
pared with ordinary Sea Water (Young).

Artificial Sea Waters.

Ordinary

Sea

Water.

No. 1.

No. 2.

No. 3.

No. 4.

Chloride of sodium, .

2-7205

2*4804

2*4804

2*6996

2*7254

Chloride of magnesium,

0-3794

0-3320

0*3320

0*3696

0*3813

Sulphate of magnesium, .

0-1551

0*1357

0*1357

0*1491

0*1660

Bromide of magnesium,

0*0079

0*0076

Sulphate of lime,

01276

01116

0*1116

0-1262

Sulphate of potash, .

0-1026

0-0898

0*0898

0*1125

0-0863

Chloride of calcium, .

0*0903

0*0903

0*0964

Carbonate of lime,

0-0120

3-4852

3*2398

3*2477

3*4272

3*5040

Water, ....

96-5148

96*7620

96*7523

96*5728

96*4960

104

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Table V. Showing Composition of Ecdysed Crab compared with
ordinary Shore Crab (Anderson).

Analysis of “ Ecdysed ” Crab which had lived ten days after casting in No.
2 Water, and of an ordinary Crab to compare with it. Size across the cara-
pace, 1^ inches.

-

Ecdysed Crab.

Shore Crab.

Chitinous matter in exo-skeleton,

3*77

10*76 grains.

Carbonate of lime in exo-skeleton,

Carbonate of lime of interior, including
stomachical teeth, &c., ....

5*50*

39-78 „

0'25

1-53 „

Teeth (mandibles), ......

0-041

0-59 „

Phosphate of lime in exo-skeleton,

2-396

4-48 „

Phosphate of lime of flesh, lymph, and total
interior structure, .....

0-18

0-39 „

Water, flesh, &c.,

350-00

350-00 ,,

* On a newly ecdysed crab there was no trace of lime-salt deposition, but
in this example carbonate of lime had been deposited to some extent before
the death of the animal.

Table YI. Showing Comparative Amount of Calcareous and Organic
Matter in Edible Crab (Anderson).

Percentage

Composition.

Water, blood, salts, &c., 66-46

Flesh (gave 14"56 of ash, containing 4'94-3CaO,POg) . . . 2‘95

Outer calcareous structure, 29 '56

Inner calcareous structure, ....... 1 *03

100*00

Table VII. (p. 86). Showing Composition of Precipitate thrown out
of Mixture of Sea Water and Urine after standing Seven Days
at 70° F. (Anderson).

Water and organic matter containing ammonia (7 *38 per cent.), . 31 *81

Carbonate of lime, 4-85

Phosphate of magnesia and ammonia, 51 '10

Phosphate of lime, 12'24

100-00

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 105

Table VIII. (p. 87). Shoiving Composition of Precipitate thrown
out of Mixture of Sea Water and Urine (after filtration from
Precipitate which was thrown out in Seven Days), standing other

Ten Days at 70° F. (Anderson).

Water and organic matter, 20 *25

Carbonate of lime, . . . . . . . . . .75*35

Carbonate of magnesia, 1 *02

Phosphate of magnesia, . ... . . . . . . 3*38

100*00

Table IX. Shoiving Saline and Albuminoid Ammonia (or Nitrogen)
in 1,000,000 parts of Sea Water (Anderson).

Water taken from immediate vicinity of coral islands (Louisiade Group)

contains —

Saline ammonia, 0*48

Albuminoid nitrogen, taken as ammonia, . . . . . 0*18

0*66

Water from North Atlantic (lat. 30° 20' N., long. 36° 6' W.) —

Saline ammonia, ......... 0*26

Albuminoid nitrogen, . . . . . . . . 0*16

0*42

Water from German Ocean, near land —

Saline ammonia, 0*13

Albuminoid nitrogen, . . . . . . . . 0*13

0*26

Table X. Showing Solubilities of Various Forms of Coral , Sfc., in

Sea Water.

Analysts— Young and Anderson.

Temperature 0 C.

Exposure, in hours.

Amount

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

Soluble.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

Coral sand,

27

12

0*0320

32,000

Harbour mud, Bermuda, ....

27

12

0*0410

25,000

Isophyllia dipscicea (Dana), Bermuda, .

27

12

0*0410

25,000

Millepora ramosa (Pallas), Bermuda,

27

12

0*0360

28,500

Madrepora aspera (Dana), Mactan Isld., Zebu,

27

12

0*0730

14,000

Montipora foliosa (Pallas), Amboina,

27

12

0*0430

23,800

Goniastrcea multilobata (Quelch), Amboina, .

10

12

0*0730

14,000

Porites clavaria (Lamk.), Bermuda,

11

12

0*0930

11,000

Melobesia, Kilbrennan Sound,

10

12

0*0890

11,500

Oculina coronalis (powdered finely),

10

96

0*0237

42,600

(These were in summer water from German Ocean.)

106 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Table XI. Showing Solubilities of various Molluscs and Crustacea.

Analysts— Young and Anderson.

Temperature ° C.

Exposure, in hours.

Amount Soluble.

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

Mussels allowed to rot in water for 7 days, .

17

168

0*3840

2,617

Lobsters „ „ 3 weeks, .

10

504

1-0620

966

Shrimps ,, ,, 3 ,,

10

504

1-0470

980

Schizopoda ,, ,, 3 ,,

10

504

0*7820

1,309

Table XII. Showing Action of Winter Waters on Carbonate
of Lime.

d

CG

ss

o

,G

Amount Soluble.

Analyst— Anderson.

<D

1

Fh

<X>

Ph

S

<D

H

.5

<o

s

03

o

Pi

X

H

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

A winter water from the Baltic Sea, with
density only 1005 "65, dissolved of powdered

Oculina coronalis, .....

10

18

o-ono

93,300

A winter water from North Berwick shore did
not dissolve any of the crystalline or coral
forms of carbonate of lime. Another winter
water from the North Sea did not dissolve
any, nor did the water taken at Granton
shore. But when a quantity of carbonic
acid water was added to the North Berwick
water (insufficient to destroy its alkaline
character), it dissolved increasing quantities
of coral, &c. , as —

Powdered Oculina coronalis , ....

10

18

0*0670

15,300

Globigerina ooze (whole), ....

10

18

0-0075

136,800

30,200

,, (powdered), ....

10

192

0-0340

1889—90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 107

Table XIII. Showing the Solubilities of Crystalline Forms of
Carbonate of Lime in Sea : Water.

Analysts— Anderson and Drysdale.

Temperature 0 C.

Exposure, in hours.

Amount Soluble.

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

Calcspar, massive, .....

10

47

0-0075

136,800

5) )) .....

10

120

0-0046

223,000

)> .....
,, finely powdered, ....

10

396

o-oooo

10

47

0-0082

125,000

1 1 91 11 • • •

10

120

0-0052

197,000

111111 ....

10

396

o-oooo

Table XIY. Showing Solubility in Pure Distilled Water.

I

d

m

U

P

O

Amount Soluble.

Analyst— Anderson.

Temperature °

a

i

o

&

X

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

Calcspar, massive, .....

,, impalpable powder,

Oculina coronalis (powdered),

10

120

0-0146

68,500

39,800

10

46

0-0251

10

96

0-0285

35,000

Amorphous CaC03 (greater part crystallised
out again immediately), ....

10

0-2480

4,032

Table XV. Showing Solubility in Pure Carbonic Acid Water
at Atmospheric Pressure.

Analyst — Drysdale.

Temperature 0 C.

Exposure, in hours.

Amount Soluble.

In

grammes
CaC03
per litre.

In

parts of
SeaWater.
One
part in

Calcspar, massive, .....

10

24

0-0815

12,270

,, granular,

10

24

0-1285

7,780

,, fine-grained, .....

10

24

0-2036

4,910

,, impalpable powder,

10

I

24

0-4720

2,120

Table XVI, Showing Influence of Pressure on the Solubility of Carbonate of Lime in Sea Water containing

Carbonic Acid (W. G. Reid).

108

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

•ua:^ (i) ^

sOO uu§ iad s?

paAiossxci soo,bo

.TH©OON»NOOia©©H®M»OHOqTf(CiOONTHOON<N»Q©
KOHC©OTH(NlOCOCO<OHOiH(N(NiOtoH03tDmONT)iMT)(0
flffiTfHOiCOCaNOKMtNCOOi^^^HWO^cOHHOOOOM ,

g9HHH9999999H9999M9H999999999

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

.. -.TfiTrr .«0«5HOC0(M0JHNffiO00H0500NOH005DH(N(M(MOTX00N

J8+^AV ®9S _ »0000>00©t^05«0ai WN05H(NHO(N050SHKC0OlX)V0m-tt(N

lad 113 ATOSqTrT © POJTtlHOWlOOlNONlMmO^^^CTCOOlQKIr-iHOOOOM

Jg PdAL°«Kl ^ p9HHrt9999O9OHH999H9H999999990

b00B0 — W 1 QOo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

XBUiSijo snuiui
\m) buy -saxr

CM

cp^^vpo(^ovpg5^cpip-^<^-^a5t^(9qcpt^cpcpvptpeq»p,-H(>q
Oiin^lNW®''l<fO«6HHTHC»QONWI>(»(N50>O^M(Ni- 1 <N ^
CO©iC5tH(N(N'!|IKI^HH©^HHHOH'^(NH I-I

J9d itylUipjiHy s'

Sutixusa'a s"'

ip99H®cp©HW05^H9^9^M(»9m9^HHN9 9N
05j^HOo5i^t^oi°ooiOOr-iasr^t^coooo5i>*ookOio»okO‘Oco

Tempera-

ture.

(0

99 99M9m©(»9N(»(»©ipNi7i9n9moo(NNHN9
o(N <N050(NOc»COOO^McbooAiOCq65if^(»AH<»650C<IC<lcb-^lCN

i- ii— 1 rlrl i— t H i — 1 i— 1 i— 1 i — 1 r— In- 1 i— 1 r— t i— Irl

Pressure.

Time at
Maximum.

<*)

02

C©

-SoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

•g o

g CO

Amount.

O)

4 tons.

4 „

4 „

4 „

Atmospheric.

Do.

2 tons.

4 „

4 „

Atmospheric.

Do.

4 tons.

4 „

Atmospheric.

Do.

Do.

4 tons.

Atmospheric.
4 tons.

Atmospheric.
4 tons.

4 „

Atmospheric.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Carbon Dioxide.

Per Litre Sea
Water.

Weight.

(t)

.HTticoKHN'^NOOOHa^iOtNffiOOOOOiNNlOOOMOCI©

*N05(MOO^NN©OM©HO©©05mi>inO©^HH^WW

?0^lO(NHNN(N©00©HrHO©iONNinmoCQ0^10i'WifJ

299999999999999999999990,99999

&0,H ^H^rlirLjrliAli-IrLlAlrLtAi^AlrLiOrLijlH^-i^HAiOOFLlAiTLlrHAl

Vol.

(A)

UffiO(N©HC0lQC5a>lQNC5H©0500©(N>OMH0500©H00(NCl

COCOCOHH^TjiHMOOMr-iCqOMCO^TdCO^OlCStNKKNnM

OOiOiOOlOiOKSiQiOiCnOvOiOiO'^OO'OlQO'^-^iOOiCiQO

Taken.

"Sb ^

•s 3

tg:

.THmNOONM©©Ti(©0©®(MmiO©HN^H(NOCOlO©OOQO

03NCOCOOON©©aiO©OOlON(NNMT|f©©THHlOiQ’MCO(NCOi»

bCO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

1 s

COC5©THO'^©D5(MC:lNON(NaiO^HOO©N(N(NlClO'^(M(N

JWM090t»©^^05©^«(»(N'^90001>9!(NHOOip99tp

d'^C'l<N»0'^CO'^Hur;COOo65COxHTLi4f1l^COOo4tiCqTLMCoAH(f<I(N(N(N

VQOOVOvOOOvoOvQkOtOVOCOVOvaOOOOCOvOvOOOOOO

Quantity
of Sea
Water
taken.

(«)

iOCOCOiQ'O'HCOiOtHOO^iOOOO^HMtHINIMOiOOOCOCSIOO

.tpvpvacpovpipcpvpcpvpvpovpovpipvpipipipcpo-jtlipxiiipkp

%NN©iNN©N(bNNiN©SNNNNN©(bNNNNN

Carbonate of Lime used.

Quantity.

(d)

.cn t^r^o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 vo 0 0 i>- r^Oii-ivooo

mO©GO'M(N(MWH(MOOO(Nl»(NOOC10iO<M OOl^- t>- vC5 CO

coooocooooooo«oioocoocQ»ooooo • • •commcoo

g lO vp vp VO vp 0 VO »0 vp to vp Vp vp vp vp VO VO VO 05 O • • .HnHH9

tvOr— t HHi — 1 1 — 1 t — It— 1 r— 1— I1H1 — It— Ii — 1 ? — 1 1— It— It— 1 H O CO CO CO CO CO (N

Kin d.
(<0

Glob. I.
Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Glob. 11.
Do.

Do. •
Do.

Coral sand I.
Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Coral sand II.
Do.

Pteropods.

Crystal.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do.

Do. ground.

>» •

S CO

o a .

^ o a e

& P

,vpip'^vpvp^I^vp-^ip'^^»prHiprH^-iT-|T-|rH»HrHT-HrHrHrHTHTH
^VOVO-rtlvriVO^Hr- IVO'^IVO-T^I— IVOl— liO— ir- It— It— It— It— It— It— It— 1 A-l i— It— It— 1
O CD CO OO SO O OO 05 CO CO CO CO 05 O 05 O 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05

6 S

1889-90.] Dr J. Murray & Mr R. Irvine on Coral Reefs. 109

Table XYII. Showing the Effect of Simple Immersion in Sea
Water on Certain Corals.

The following series of experiments as to the solubility of Coral
simply suspended in mass in sea water and allowed to remain under,
as nearly as possible, the same conditions, for certain periods of
time, was made by Mr J. Galbraith Ross, B.Sc. •

The corals were dried at 100°-110° C., until the weight remained
constant.

The temperature of the water ranged from a little over freezing-
point to 40° F.

No.

Species.

Locality.

Weight

in

grammes.

Surface in
square inches.

Time of
Immersion
in days.

Loss.

1.

Oculina varicosa,

St Thomas, W. I.

16-3164

,8

20

0-0748

2.

Madrepora scabrosa,

Levuka, Fiji.

21-8540

16

30

0*1497

3.

Montipora foliosa,

Amboyna.

15-3334

15

46

0*1223

4.

Goniastrcea multilobata,

9 9

Bermuda.

26*4069

12

60

0-0895

5.

Millepora ramosa,

14*2373

5

60

0-1513

6.

Millepora murrayi ,

Samboangan.

13*0605

8

60

0-0725

7.

Fungia discus,

44-3132

acciden

tally de

stroyed.

8.

Mceandrina strigosa ,

Bermuda.

22-9932

10

45

0-1447

9.

Madrepora aspera,

Maetan, Zebu.

25*3694

10

45

0-0734

10.

Madrepora palmata,

St Thomas, W. I.

31-7357

10

45

0*1707

Reducing these results to unit surface and time, the relation
between them will be better observed : —

No. 1.

9 9
99

9 9

9 9

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

9.

10.

Loss by solution from 1 square inch per annum, 0*1706.
„ „ „ 0*1138.

„ „ ,, 0-0647.

,, „ ,, 0-0453.

,, ,, „ 0-1860.

„ „ „ 0*0552.

„ „ „ 0*1173.

„ „ „ 0*0584.

„ „ „ 0*1384.

The above series proves that under the same conditions different
species of coral are acted upon in different degrees by the solvent
action of sea water. Further, it would appear that the more
areolar or amorphous the coral is the greater the action as compared
with the harder crystalline varieties.

110

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Note on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid. By Prof. Tait.

(Read March 3, 1890.)

The following investigation was made in consequence of certain
peculiarities in the earlier results of some recent measurements of
ripples by Prof. Michie Smith, in my Laboratory, which will, I hope,
soon be communicated to the Society. These seemed to suggest
that viscosity might have some influence on the results, as might
also the film of oxide, &c., which soon gathers on a free surface of
mercury. I therefore took account of the density, as well as of
possible rigidity, of this surface layer, in addition to the surface
tension which was the object of Prof. Smith’s work. The later
part of the paper, where Cartesian coordinates are employed, runs
somewhat on the lines of an analogous investigation in Basset’s
Hydrodynamics. My original object, however, was different from
his, as I sought the effects of viscosity on waves steadily maintained
by means of a tuning-fork used as a current interruptor ; not on
waves once started and then left to themselves. Besides obtaining
his boundary conditions in a singular manner, I think that in his
§ 521 Mr Basset has made an erroneous investigation of the effects
of very great viscosity.

The stress-function in a viscous liquid may be obtained {Phil.
Mag ., Jan. 1890) from that in an elastic solid, by substituting
velocity for displacement ; in the form

cf)0) = — + VStotf-) — (c — |/*)(oSVcr~ • • (1)

where, in order to include the part of the pressure which is not due
to motion, we must write p instead of the quantity

Here er is the vector velocity of an element at p, and p. is the co-
efficient of viscosity.

Hence, supposing the volume of the element to be unity, we have
for the equation of motion

is-gj- = - V(eP) + ff<\Mvds

= - v(» + eP) - mv§- + jvs v-).

Ill

i 889-90.] Prof. Tait on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid.

where e is the density of the liquid, and P the potential energy of
unit mass at p ; and the double integral is taken over the surface
of the element. This is a perfectly general equation, so we must
proceed to the necessary limitations.

First. Let the displacements be so small that their squares may
be neglected. Then we may write d for 8.

Second. Let the liquid be incompressible ; then

SV^ = 0 (2).

With these, the equation of motion becomes

eW= -V(p + eP)-y.Vl- (3).

Third. Let the motion be parallel to one plane, and we have

S&cr = 0 (4).

From (2) and (4) we have at once

cr = \/w.k (5)

where w is a scalar function of Vkp.

Operate on (3) by V. V? and. substitute from (5), and we have

(e^ + f*V2)v2«’ = ° (6).

Fourth. Limit w to disturbances which diminish rapidly with
depth. Here the problem has so far lost its generality that it is
advisable to employ Cartesian coordinates, the axis of x ( i ) being in
the direction of wave motion, and that of y (j) vertically upwards.
Then it is clear that a particular integral of (6) is

w = (Ktry + BsS2/) s(rx+nt)l (7)

where i denotes J -l. The only conditions imposed on r , s , and
n, are that the real parts of r and s, in so far as they multiply y,
must be positive ; and by (6)

p,(s2 -r2) = em (8).

The speed of vertical displacement of the surface is found from

V= -(S;V)0 = (S^)o= -n(A + B)6^)‘, . . (9).

112

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

From this, — and which will he required below, are

dx2 dx^

d*r,

found by using the factors - r2 and r4.

The stress on the free surface (where y = i 7, a quantity of the
order A) is, by (1),

(#)<>= -W-KSiv.^ + vsy^)o . . (io)

where, in p0 , we must include the effects of the tension T, and of the
flexural-rigidity E, of the surface-film.

But, by (3) and (5), we have

d

\/(p + e P)= -(e— + pV2)Vw.k;

so that as
we have

P=gy

dp + egdy = enfridy - rdx)A&ry+(rx+nt)l .

From this, by integrating, and introducing the surface conditions,

H - p0 - egr, - Tg + E g + enAi *,

If we now substitute this in (10) and, for the boundary con-
dition,* make

d

o - o >

dt

(omitting terms of the second degree in A and B), we have by
means of (9) the two equations

R(A + B) - en2A + 2prm(rA + sB) = 0 ,
r2( A + B) + r2 A + s2B — 0 ,

where, for shortness,

R = egr + Tr3 + Er5 (11).

Thus, finally,

a2

^ ~\ A . (12).

R - en2 + i[xnr2L + 4^-r3(r - s) = 0

This must be treated differently according as p is small or great.

I. Let p be small ; and let n be given, and real. This is the case
of the sustained waves in Prof. Smith’s experiments.

The equation obtained by neglecting p, viz.

R - en2 = 0

* W. Thomson, Camb. and Dublin Math. Journal , iii. 89 (1848).

1889-90.] Prof. Tait on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid.

113

gives one, and only one, positive value of r, whose value is
diminished (i.e., the wave-length is increased) alike by surface
tension and by surface-flexural- rigidity. Call it r0, and let

r = r0 + pp,

then by (12), keeping only terms of the first order in /*,

(ge + 3TVo + 5Er<j)/o 4- inrli = 0 ..... (13).

Thus p is a pure imaginary, and therefore the viscosity does not
affect the length of the waves. It makes their amplitude diminish
as they leave the source. (For the real part of w belongs in this
case, if we take n as positive, to waves travelling in the negative
direction along x, and vice versa.) The factor for diminution of
amplitude per unit distance travelled by the wave is

This expression gives very curious information as to the relative
effects of viscosity on the amplitudes of long and short waves,
when we suppose gravity, surface-tension, or surface-flexural-rigidity,
alone , to be the cause of the propagation.

If the waves be started once for all, and allowed to die out, r is
given and n is to be found. This is the first case treated by Mr
Basset. If then n = n0 be found from

we may put

eri2 = E ,
n = n0 + p.v .

By (12) we have, keeping only the first power of p .,

ev = 2r2i ,

which coincides with the result given in § 520 of Basset’s Treatise.

II. Let p, be large. Suppose r to be given, a real positive
quantity. Then, by (8), we may eliminate n from (12) and obtain

fl| + (s2_r2)2 + 4r2(s2_r2) + 4r.3(r_s) = 0 . . . (14).

A1

The first term is very small, and the rest has the factor s — r.
Omit the term which contains this factor twice, and we have

VOL. XVII.

9/4/90

H

(15).

1

114 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.
This has real positive roots if, and only if,

/x2r4 > Be ,

and thus, by (8), when this condition is satisfied n is a pure imagin-
ary, and there can be no oscillation. Of the two roots of (15) we
must, in consequence of our assumption (that (s - r)2 is negligible)
choose that which is nearly equal to r. It might be fancied that,
as this assumption leads to B = — A very nearly, a new limitation
would be introduced as regards the magnitude of rj. But we have

V= - — (A + B)8|ra+”‘>‘ = - r A (\ —

n v n \ r2 + s2/

= - A— nearly.

fir

The wave-pattern, in this case, does not travel but subsides in
situ , its amplitude diminishing according to the approximate factor

g-Ril/2/Ar2

Thus, as was to be expected, the subsidence is slower as the friction
is greater. Also, if gravitation is the sole cause of subsidence, the
longer waves subside the faster ; while if the main cause be surface-
tension, or surface-flexural-rigidity, the shorter waves subside the
faster.

III. If there be a uniform film of oxide or dust, in separate
particles which adhere to and move with the surface, we must add
to the expression for surface-stress in (10) the term

-Mr) o=

= - m(jrn(K + B) + im(rA + ,

where m is the surface-density of the film.

The equations for the elimination of A/B become

(B + mm 2 - en 2 + 2/xr2m) A + (B + mm2 + 2/xrsm)B = 0 ,

Ur2- — )A + (2r* + — -~)b = 0;

v ix J \ /x fx y

so that instead of (12) we have

(e - m(s - r))(B + mm2) = e2n2 - 4 ixr2net + i/x 2rs(s - r) - mn2es .

115

1889-90.] Prof. Tail on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid.

When fi and m are small, this is approximately
R + 2 mm2 = en2 - igr2m .

There is no other term in the first power of m, independent of g ;
so that, to this degree of approximation (which is probably always
sufficient), the dust layer has no effect except to increase R. When
there is no viscosity this increases the ripple-length ( i.e ., diminishes r)
for a given period of vibration.

When terms of the first degree in the viscosity are taken account
of, the effect on n (for a given value of r ) is merely to add to it
the pure imaginary

2/xr2t/(e — 2 mr) ,

whose value increases alike with m and with r.

Thus the period is not affected, but the surface layer aids viscosity
in causing waves to subside as they advance.

This investigation above may be easily extended to the case in
which a thin liquid layer is poured on mercury to keep its surface
untarnished. The only difficulty is with respect to the relative
tangential motion at the common surface of the liquids.

The Determination of Surface-Tension by the Measure-
ment of Ripples. By C. Michie Smith.

(Read March 17, 1890. )

Professor Tait has shown* that accurate determinations of surface-
tensions would be obtained if we could measure the rate of propaga-
tion of ripples set up by the vibration of a tuning-fork of known
pitch. The relation between the rate of propagation ( v ) of the
ripples and the surface-tension (T) is given by the formula

gX 27 r T

2tt X p

where X is the ripple-length and p the density of the liquid. If for
v we write X/t, where t is the vibration period of the fork, the
equation can be written

_XV _ gX2p

2t rt2 4t r2 '

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1875, p. 485.

116 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

The second term on the right-hand side of the equation is the part
depending on gravity, and it is very small relatively to the other
term. In the case of mercury, taking the greatest wave-length
employed, its value is only 1/2040 of the first term, a quantity far
within the limits of observational error. I have accordingly used
in all the calculations the form T = Xzp/2Trt2. If in this A. be
measured in centimetres and t in seconds, T is given in dynes per
centimetre. Previous attempts made by myself and others to
determine surface-tensions by this method failed on account of the
difficulty experienced in measuring the lengths of the ripples, and
since T oc A3, it is evident that the method is useless unless X can
be measured with great accuracy. This difficulty has been over-
come by the use of photography, and it is now possible to test the
practical value of the method by comparing the results that have
been obtained with those got by other means. The application of
photography is easy, since the waves that are dealt with are “stand-
ing” waves, and when the apparatus is in proper adjustment the
photograph is sharp even with exposures of as much as 10 seconds.
The usual exposure is from 1 to 2 seconds. Thus there is an essen-
tial difference between this application of photography and that
made by Lord Kayleigh, who photographs a moving stream in a small
fraction of a second.

The general plan of procedure is as follows :^A tuning-fork in
which the vibrations are electrically maintained is employed to
produce ripples on the surface of the liquid under experiment,
which is contained in a shallow dish. A scale is suitably placed on
the edge of the dish so that its divisions are as nearly as possible
parallel to the crests of the ripples, and a photograph of the dish
is then taken. This photograph is measured with a micrometer,
and the measurements are interpreted by reference to those of the
scale photographed on the same plate.

In the earlier experiments much difficulty was experienced in
getting suitable illumination, but ultimately it was found that the
best photographs were got simply by placing the dish near a window
and using the light from the sky or a bright cloud. In most cases
it was found best to allow a shadow of a bar of the window or of
the tuning-fork itself to fall on the surface, for the edge of such a
shadow becomes regularly serrated, and this serration is easily

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Surface Tension. 117

photographed. The distance between the ripple-crests is easily
measured in such a photograph, but there is some risk of not
measuring exactly at right angles to the lines of crests.

The method of exciting the ripples was found to be of great
importance. In the first experiments the driving-fork of a Helm-
holtz vowel-sound apparatus was taken, and the dipper attached to
one of the prongs was replaced by a light arm of aluminium, bent
downwards at right angles near the end. The point of this was
smoothed and tapered, and was allowed to dip slightly into the
liquid. When the fork vibrated, the point set up a series of
circular ripples which were fairly steady and uniform. A number
of photographs were taken with this arrangement, but on measuring
them it was found that they gave for mercury a wave-length of
only 0T04 cm. for 256 vibrations per second, corresponding with
T = 159. The value for T given by Quincke is 540, and the
difference was evidently far too great to be accounted for by errors
of observation. During these experiments it was noticed that very
perfect ripples were produced when a vessel containing mercury
was laid on the sounding-box of a tuning-fork, and a large series of
measurements were made in this way. Using the same fork of 256
vibrations per second the photographs gave A = 0T08 cm., which
differed but little from the previous results. Experiments were then
made to determine whether the shape, size, or material of the dish
had any influence on the length of the ripples, but the slight varia-
tions observed in the value of A were only such as might easily be
explained by differences in the temperature or in the cleanness of
the surface. The tuning-fork was then changed for one giving 512
vibrations per second, but this, too, gave approximately the same
value for T. Finally, a fork giving 768 vibrations per second was
used, and it was found that with a round glass vessel a result was
obtained which differed widely from previous results. On sub-
stituting a rectangular ebonite dish for the glass one it was found
to be impossible to get ripples distinct enough to be photographed
by simply laying the dish on the sounding-board, and consequently
experiments were tried with the edge of the dish pressing against
one prong of the tuning-fork low down. This proved most effective,
and the first photograph gave A = 0075 corresponding to T = 528
— a result differing only about 2 per cent, from Quincke’s mean value.

118 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

This plan of making the dish actually touch the fork was adopted
in all the subsequent experiments, and yielded consistent results.

The cause of the failure of the earlier methods is not perfectly
clear. The average value of the wave-length in mercury for 256
vibrations per second was found from the ten best photographs to
be 0*108 cm., the values varying from 0*102 to 0*112 cm. If we
take Quincke’s value for T, viz., 540 dynes per centimetre, this
would correspond with a note of 445 vibrations per second.

In the cases in which a dipper was used the explanation may be
found in the circumstance that two impulses are given to the
mercury for each complete vibration of the fork, one as the dipper
enters, the other as it leaves, the liquid. If this is the true source
of error it might be supposed that there is a somewhat similar cause
acting when the vessel rests on the sounding-box, for in that case
too it must receive two impulses for each vibration. On the other
hand, when the dish presses lightly on the prong of the fork it
would receive only one impulse for each vibration. But if the
above explanation were complete one would expect to get ripples
due to a note an octave above that of the fork, whereas those actually
got correspond almost exactly to of the same octave, the fork
giving the C below. I propose to examine this point more carefully
hereafter.

As finally arranged, the driving-fork was placed at a distance and
was connected by loose wires with the fork — one of the series
belonging to a Helmholtz vowel-sound apparatus — actually used to
set up the ripples. This was placed on a stone slab in front of a
window so that it could be illuminated by the light from the sky.
The vessel usually employed was an ebonite developing dish, either
of half-plate or quarter-plate size. This dish was supported near
the fork in such a way as to touch one of the prongs at a point as
low down as possible. The mercury or other liquid was then poured
in till a depth was reached, beyond which any increase seriously
diminished the distinctness of the ripples. If the contact with the
dish be made at a point taken at random a very complex and
unsteady series of ripples will usually be produced, but with a little
care it is possible to find a point which yields two steady series of
ripples crossing each other at right angles. Except with the eye
nearly on a level with the surface of the liquid, the ripples can be

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Surface Tension.

119

seen distinctly only in one particular direction, and care must be
taken to place the axis of the camera in that direction. If the
camera could he placed vertically over the dish it would greatly
simplify the measurement of the plates, since the scale- value would
be the same in all directions. This, however, is seldom practicable,
and usually the axis of the camera has to be inclined to the vertical
at a considerable angle, so that the scale-value varies not only for
different parts of the plate, but also for different directions. The
corrections to be applied cannot easily be calculated, but they can
be got by actual measurement. For this purpose a sheet of paper
was taken of the size of the dish, and on it a number of circles were
described with a radius of 1 cm. This was then laid on the surface
of the mercury and photographed. The scale value for any part of
the mercury surface in any direction can be obtained by measuring
the diameter of the corresponding circle in the same direction.

The results so far obtained can only be looked on as preliminary,
but they are sufficient to test the value of the method. At present
the value of the wave-lengths is probably not trustworthy to within
less than 2 per cent., but there seems no reason to doubt that this un-
certainty can be reduced to at least one-half by the introduction of
certain modifications in the apparatus. An error of 2 per cent, in the
wave-length corresponds to an error of approximately 6 per cent, in
the value of T, and the extreme values obtained differ from each other
by somewhat less than this in the case of mercury. Quincke’s
results for mercury* which are usually accepted, vary from 511 to
572 dynes per centimetre, with a mean value of 540; so that his
extreme values differ from each other by about 1 2 per cent.

In his paper read at last meeting of the Society, Professor Tait
showed that if we take account of the surface-flexural rigidity (E),
the equation for the wave-length takes a form which can be
written : —

T _9P±2 ■ 4ff2E

2t rt2 4tt2 X2 '

4?r2

With small values of A. the factor ^ — becomes very large, and
unless E is excessively small it ought to be possible to detect its
influence by comparing the results got for two forks of very different

Pogg. Annal cv. p. 1.

120 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

pitch. The results obtained so far are not sufficient to enable any
accurate comparison to be made, but they show that if there is any
effect produced by the surface-flexure rigidity it must be very small
compared with that due to surface-tension.

The following table gives the actual results for mercury at a
mean temperature of about 12° C.

Vibrations per
Second.

A.

Centimetres.

T

Dynes per
Centimetre.

768

0-0745

528

3 3

0*0746

531

Average

529-5

512

0-0980

534

0-0971

519

Average

526-5

256

0-157

546

0*154

517

Average

531-5

Average for the whole, 529.

Two photographs were taken for water, but in each of them only a
few waves could be measured, so that no great weight can be placed
on the result. They were both with the fork giving 256 vibrations
per second, and the resulting wave-lengths were 0*195 and 0*208 cm.,
corresponding to the values of 77 and 94 for T. The mean is 85*5,
while Quincke’s value is 81.

A photograph of a mercury surface covered with dilute sulphuric
acid gave A = 0*141 for 256 vibrations per second. If we neglect
all influence of the acid other than in changing the surface-tension,
this would give T = 400, or practically the same as for water and
mercury.

Two photographs were taken of a surface of mercury charged to
a high potential by means of a Holtz electric machine. The photo-
graphs gave very consistent measures : —

No. 43. 256 v.p.s. Average of 58 waves A = 0T43 . . T = 417.

No. 44. 256 v.p.s. Average of 30 waves A = 0"144 . . T = 425.

So that it is evident that electrification produces a considerable

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Surface Tension. 121

reduction in the surface-tension, though the action may he a purely
mechanical one.

I hope to continue and extend the experiments at an early date ;
meanwhile my thanks are due to Professor Tait for many valuable
suggestions, and to Mr D. J. Graham who has assisted me in all
the experiments.

The Absorption Spectra of Certain Vegetable Colouring
Matters. By C. Michie Smith. (With a Plate.)

(Read March 17, 1890.)

For the substances dealt with in this paper I have been indebted
at various times, to the kindness of Mr David Hooper, Quinologist
to the Madras Government. The observations have been made
with several instruments, but have all been reduced to the scale of
the direct vision spectroscope of the Chemical Laboratory of the
Edinburgh University, kindly placed at my disposal for the most
important part of the work. The illumination used with this
instrument is a 10-candle power incandescent lamp; with the
other instruments sun-light was used. I have thought it better for
practical purposes to draw the spectra to the natural scale of the
instrument than to reduce them to a scale of wave-lengths, but
data are supplied for finding the wave-length corresponding to any
part of the spectrum. To represent the varying shades of an
absorption spectrum is extremely difficult, and the results usually
obtained are, at best, far from satisfactory. The method I have
employed is to draw the spectra on a large scale, shading the
various parts by aid of a light curve, and then reduce this drawing
to the required size by photography. The result, though not all
that could be desired, is fairly satisfactory.

Colouring Matter from Trichosanthes palmata. — Mr Hooper has
given me the following notes on this substance : — “ The plant which
yields it is the Trichosanthes jpalmata , one of the Gourd tribe or
Cucurbitaceae, and the rounded scarlet fruits have their seeds im-
bedded in a green bitter pulp. The bitter principle is a glucoside,
soluble in water and alcohol, and affords a red solution, changing
to purple with sulphuric acid. I have named it ‘ trichosanthin,’ as

122 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh, [sess.

it differs from colocynthin. The green matter is best prepared
by agitating the dry pulp with ether, evaporating down and dis-
solving the ethereal residue in strong spirit. In this manner the
hitter principle and fatty matters are eliminated.” The solution
closely resembles a solution of chlorophyll of equal strength.
Both are beautifully dichroic, appearing green in thin, and red in
thicker layers; both also have a red fluorescence. The chief difference
on inspection is that a much thicker layer of chlorophyll is
required to yield the red colour by transmitted light.

Spectrum. — The spectroscope at once shows that this green
colouring matter is not chlorophyll. Spectra (a), ( b ), and (c), in
the plate are for different thicknesses of the trichosanthes colouring
matter, while ( d ) gives the spectrum of chlorophyll from cabbage
of a thickness and strength corresponding as nearly as possible
with ( b ). Taking this as the most characteristic spectrum, it may
be thus described: — The spectrum begins at 1736, and slight
shading continues to 1693. The first band begins (penumbra) at
1638 (W. L. 654*1), and ends about 1600 (W. L. 615), the
maximum absorption being from 1631 to 1627, and from 1605 to
1602. From this there is a small amount of absorption till the
second band begins at 1576 (W. L. 593*4), and continues to 1543
(W. L. 566*8), the maximum absorption being from 1570 to 1563.
From this there is no perceptible absorption till the third band,
which begins at 1516 (W. L. 548*4), and continues to 1495
(W. L. 534*8), the maximum darkness being from 1511 to 150L
There is a fourth band, very faint, with its centre about 1452
(W. L. 510*6), and a fifth extending from 1400 (W. L. 485) to
1371. The spectrum ends about 1355 (W. L. 467). The relative
depths of the maxima of these five bands are 10, 5, 4, 1J, 1.
When a thin layer of the solution is used the spectrum shows
two strongly marked bands from 1625 to 1612 (darkness 10), and
from 1569 to 1550 (darkness 4), and a slight trace of a third band
with its centre at 1501. The spectrum ends sharply at 1340.
With a very thick layer the first band widens out in both directions,
and strong absorption — sufficient to mask bands II. and III. — con-
tinues to 1485. There is also much increased absorption in the blue.
How completely these spectra differ from that of chlorophyll will
best be seen from the plate. The chief band of chlorophyll lies

1889-90.] Mr C. Micliie Smith on Absorption Spectra. 123

between 1665 (W. L. 789) and 1625 (W. L. 639*8), while the chief
hand in a thin film of trichosanthes would almost exactly fill up
the interval between hands I. and II. in chlorophyll. Bands
III., IV., and V. of trichosanthes may he coincident with faint
chlorophyll bands.

The positions of some of the chlorophyll hands, as is well known,
can he changed by the action of reagents, and the trichosanthes
bands are even more strongly affected. The first reagent experi-
mented with was sulphide of ammonia, which probably has a
reducing action. The result is shown in spectra (e), (/) and (y),
which represent the appearance after 2, 11, and 39 days respect-
ively, after which there was no further change. Figure ( h ) gives
the spectrum of chlorophyll similarly treated. The change in the
trichosanthes spectrum is complete. Band I. gradually becomes
weaker, and finally vanishes ; two new bands appear in the space
between bands I. and II. of the original spectrum; band II. is
apparently displaced towards the violet end and intensified ; and
band IV. is greatly widened. Chlorophyll is much less affected,
and the difference between two spectra could hardly be more
complete than that between ( g ) and ( li ).

When the original trichosanthes solution is treated with strong
hydrochloric acid the spectrum consists of three principal bands.
The first band begins (penumbra) 1606, and extends to 1576 ; the
maximum absorption is from 1593 (W. L. 608*6) to 1576 (W. L.
593*4). From this there is considerable absorption to the second
band, of which the maximum absorption extends from 1557
(W. L. 577*6) to 1532 (W. L. 558*8). Slight absorption continues
to the third band, which extends from 1497 (W. L. 536) to 1467
(W. L. 519). The relative intensities of these three bands are
about 8, 7, 4. These three bands may perhaps represent the three
first bands of the natural spectrum moved by different amounts
towards the more refrangible end. When this spectrum (i) is
compared with the spectrum of chlorophyll similarly treated (j), it
is seen that the three bands correspond with three of the chloro-
phyll bands, while there is nothing to represent the first and most
prominent chlorophyll band. It is of importance to notice, too,
that the unrepresented^chlorophyll band is the one least affected
by reagents.

124 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

!

Another difference between the trichosanthes colouring matter and
chlorophyll is that when treated either with ammonia sulphide
or hydrochloric acid the former ceases to be green in thin layers,
while the latter ceases to be red in thick layers. The reason for
this becomes at once plain when the spectra are examined. The
question of the relation which the trichosanthes colouring matter
bears to chlorophyll is one of considerable interest, for it is evident
that there is some relation, since in the products of the action of
hydrochloric acid there are three bands which are common to the
two spectra. That they differ greatly is equally evident from the
dissimilarity of the original spectra and of those got after acting on
the solutions with ammonia sulphide. The trichosanthes colouring
matter is found inside a thick opaque rind, and so has probably
been formed in the dark, at least it cannot serve the purpose which
chlorophyll serves in leaves. Chlorophyll, according to Sachs, is
formed in complete darkness only in the cotyledons of some
conifers and in the leaves of ferns ; but etiolin, which in darkness
usually takes the place of chlorophyll, has a spectrum which does
not materially differ from the chlorophyll spectrum, and is certainly
not the same as that under discussion. Chlorophyll itself is held
by many who have studied it to be a mixture of several distinct
colouring matters. Professor Stokes * finds that the chlorophyll of
land plants is a mixture of four substances, two green and two
yellow, three of which are easily decomposed by acids. I cannot
find any account of the experiments from which this conclusion is
deduced, nor any description of the spectra of the several con-
stituents, but it seems probable that the first band in the red is
that due to the constituent which is not easily decomposed by
acids. Mr Sorby f holds that the chlorophyll of land plants is a
mixture of two substances, which he calls “ blue chlorophyll” and
“yellow chlorophyll.” To each of these he ascribes a single
absorption band in the red; but the diagram which accompanies his
paper is so unsatisfactory that it is impossible to identify these
with bands in the natural chlorophyll spectrum, though presum-
ably the first band in the spectrum is that due to his “ blue
chlorophyll.” But this first band is quite unrepresented in the
trichosanthes spectrum, so that it seems a fair conclusion that the
* Proc. Roy. Soc. xiii. 144. + Proc. Roy. Soc., xxi. 451.

125

1889—90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Absorption Spectra.

“ blue chlorophyll ” of Sorhy, or one, perhaps both, of the green
chlorophylls of Stokes, is absent from the trichosanthes colouring
matter. Its place is taken by another substance which yields the
first band, which is not coincident with any of the chlorophyll
bands. This substance, unlike that yielding the first chlorophyll
band, is very readily decomposed by acids, and is slowly decom-
posed by ammonia sulphide.

Bands II., III., and V. in the trichosanthes spectrum apparently
coincide in position with bands III., IV., and V. of the chlorophyll
spectrum. Of these latter III. and V. are not distinctly shown in
the accompanying plate, but are obtained with a comparatively weak
solution and a strong light. Band IV. of the trichosanthes spectrum
is extremely faint. It is not, however, possible to lay much stress
on the apparent coincidence of these bands, since their behaviour
under treatment with ammonia sulphide is so very different. A
comparison of spectra ( g ) and ( h ) shows that no two of the bands
are even approximately coincident — in fact, the two spectra are almost
complementary. On the other hand, spectra (?') and (j) show that
after treatment with strong hydrochloric acid, there is almost perfect
coincidence between three of the bands in the two spectra. The
influence of hydrochloric acid on chlorophyll has been studied by
many observers. Russell and Lapraik * consider that the change
produced is simply a molecular one, and call the two forms a- and
/2-chlorophyll. Schunck, on the other hand, holds f that the change
is a chemical one, and that the ultimate product is identical with
Fremy’s phyllocyanin. The latter view certainly seems to explain
the observations best, and in accordance with it we may say that the
trichosanthes colouring matter contains a substance which is not
chlorophyll, but which on treatment with hydrochloric acid yields
one of the constituents of phyllocyanin, which is itself probably a
mixture of two substances. In chlorophyll a partial change is pro-
duced by a very weak acid, so that extracts of certain leaves, such
as those of the Virginian creeper, yield the modified spectrum, un-
less care be taken to neutralise the acid before extracting the
chlorophyll. It is possible that a somewhat similar change has
been produced in the trichosanthes colouring matter by the tricho-
santhin which occurs along with it in the pulp.

* Jour. Chem. Soc., vol. xli. p. 334. + Annals of Botany, vol. iii. p. 86.

126 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Colouring Matter from Yentilago madraspatana. — Of this Mr
Hooper writes ' “ The red colouring matter in the other bottle

should he more extensively known. It is a drug that has been used
as a dye in South India for ages, under the name of ‘ Vembadam
hark.’ It is the produce of a large creeper, the Ventilago madras-
patana, which grows on the slopes of the Nilgiris and in the Mysore
district. The hark, besides dyeing silk and other materials, yields
its colour to fixed and volatile oils, and, what is a desideratum, to
kerosene oil. From an analysis, I make it an anthracene derivative.”
The absorption spectrum for thin and thicker films is shown in
figures (k) and (Z). There are no absorption hands, hut the light
is completely absorbed, even with a very thin film, except from
1730 to 1588 (W. L. 604). With a thicker layer the absorption is
complete, except from 1702 (W. L. 743) to 1622 (W. L. 636*6).
Thus the absorption is almost entirely confined to the more
refrangible end. This substance would probably be found very
suitable for dyeing cloths for use as non-actinic blinds in “ dark
rooms.”

Colouring Matter from the Funiculus of the Wattle. — This yields
a very pretty spectrum, figure (m), characterised by two well-marked
absorption bands. The first extends from about 1546 (W. L. 568*8)
to 1519 (W. L. 550*2), the second from 1506 (W. L. 541*8) to 1453
(W. L. 511*2). The relative darkness of the two bands is 10 : 8.
When a thicker layer of the substance is used the two bands almost
come together, but a slight green colour is seen between them. The
absorption between band II. and the end of the spectrum also in-
creases. In an alkaline solution the bands are somewhat narrower,
but their centres are unchanged in position.

Solution of “ War as.” — The dye known as “ Waras” is got from
the glands of the fruit of Flemingia Grahamiana (W. and A.), one
of the Leguminosse. The absorption spectrum shows no bands, but
absorption is complete except between 1580 (W. L. 597) and 1523
(W. L. 552*8).

Solution of “ Kamala” — This dye is got from the glands of the
fruit of Rottlera tindoria, one of the Euphorbiacese. It resembles
Waras very closely, but is transparent to light of a somewhat greater
wave-length. The absorption is complete except between 1688
(W. L. 722) and 1549 (W. L. 571*2). The chemical relations of

oc. Roy. Soc. Edin.

Voi . XVI I

ABSORPTION SPECTRA OF CERTAIN VEGETABLE COLOURING MATTERS.

I Ritchie & |

1889-90.] Mr C. Michie Smith on Absorption Spectra.

127

Kamala and Waras have been examined by Mr D Hooper,* who
shows that they are very similar, but not identical.

It is worth noting that of the colouring matters examined those
giving definite absorption bands yield fugitive dyes, while the others
yield permanent dyes.

My thanks are due to Dr J. Gibson for assistance received during
the progress of the inquiry.

Description of Plate.

(a) Colouring matter from Trichosanthes palmata, 0’5 cm. thick.

(b) ,, „ 2-0 cm. „

(c) „ ,, 4*0 cm. „

(d) Chlorophyll from cabbage, 2 cm. thick.

(e) Colouring matter from Trichosanthes palmata + ammonia sulphide after 2 days.

(f) „ „ „ 11 „

(d) >> ” » 39 ,,

(h) Chlorophyll + ammonia sulphide.

(i) Colouring matter from Trichosanthes palmata + hydrochloric acid.

(j) Chlorophyll + hydrochloric acid.

(Ic) Colouring matter from Ventilago madraspatana, thin layer.

( l ) , , , » thick layer.

(m) ,, funiculus of “W attle.

(n) Waras.

(o) Kamala.

On a Mechanism for the Constitution of Ether.

By Sir William Thomson.

(Read March 17, 1890.)

1. In a communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh of
4th March 1889, I stated the problem of constructing a jointed
model under gyrostatic domination, to fulfil the condition of having
no rigidity against irrotational deformations, and of resisting rota-
tion, or rotational deformation, with quasi-elastic forcive in simple
proportion to rotation. I gave a solution, illustrated by a model,
for the case of points all in one plane ; but I did not then see any
very simple three-dimensional solution. After many unavailing
efforts I have recently found the following.

* Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xviii. p. 213.

128 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

2. Take six fine straight rods, and six straight tubes, all of the
same length, the internal diameter of the tubes exactly equal to the
external diameter of the rods. Joint all the twelve together with
ends to one point P. Mechanically this might be done (but it
would not he worth the doing) by a ball-and-twelve-socket
mechanism. The condition to he fulfilled is simply that the axes
of the six rods and of the six tubes all pass through the one point
P. Make a vast number of such clusters of six tubes and six rods,
and, to begin with, place their jointed ends so as to constitute an
equilateral homogeneous assemblage* of points P, P' . . . . , each con-
nected to its twelve nearest neighbours by a rod of one sliding into
a tube of another. This assemblage of points we shall call our
primary assemblage. The mechanical connections between them do
not impose any constraint ; each point of the assemblage may be
moved arbitrarily in any direction, while all the others are at rest.
The mechanical connections are required merely for the sake of pro-
viding us with rigid lines joining the points, or more properly rigid
cylindric surfaces having their axes in the joining lines. Make
now a rigid frame, G, of three rods fixed together at right angles to
one another through one point O. Place it with its three bars in
contact with the three pairs of rigid sides of any tetrahedron,
(PP', P"P"'), (PP", P'"F), (PP"', FT') of our primary assem-
blage. Place similarly other similar rigid frames, G', G", &c.,
on the edges of all the tetrahedrons congener f to the one first
chosen. The points 0, O', 0", &c., form a second homogeneous
assemblage related to the assemblage of Ps, just as the reds are re-
lated to the blues in § 69 of the Article referred to in the footnotes.

3. The position of the frame G — that is to say, its orientation
and the position of its centre O (six disposables) — is completely
determined by the four points P, P', P", P"' (Thomson and Tait’s
Natural Philosophy , § 198; or Elements, § 168). If its bars were
allowed to break away from contact with the three pairs of edges of
the tetrahedron, we might chose, as its six co-ordinates, the six dis-
tances of its three bars from the three pairs of edges; but we suppose
it to be constrained to preserve these contacts. And now let any

* See “Molecular Constitution of Matter,” §§ 45 (a) . . (j), Proc. Boy. Soc.
Edin. for July 1889, to be republished as Art. XCVII. of Yol. III. of my Papers.

+ Ibid., § 13.

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Constitution of Ether. 129

one of the points P, P', P", P'", or all of them, he moved in any
manner. The position of the frame G is always fully determinate.
This is illustrated by a model accompanying the present communica-
tion, showing a single tetrahedron of the primary assemblage and a
single G frame. The edges of the tetrahedron are of copper wire slid-
ing into glass tubes. The wires and tubes are provided with an eye
or staple respectively, through which a ring passes to hold three ends
together at the corners. Two of the rings have two glass tubes and
one copper wire linked on each, while the other two rings have each
two copper wires and one glass tube.

4. Eeturning now to our multitudinous assemblage, let it be dis-
placed by stretchings of all edges parallel to PP', with no rotation of
PP', or P"P'". This constitutes a homogeneous irrotational deforma-
tion of the primary assemblage. The frames G, G', &c., experience
merely translatory motions without any rotation, as we see readily
by confining our attention to G and the tetrahedron PP'P"P'".
Consider similarly five other displacements by stretchings parallel
to the five other edges of the tetrahedron. Any infinitely small
homogeneous deformation of the primary assemblage (§ 1 above)
may be determinately resolved into six such simple stretch-
ings, and any infinitely small rotational deformations may be pro-
duced by the superposition of a rotation without deformation, upon
the irrotational deformation. Hence an infinitely small homogeneous
deformation of the primary assemblage without rotation produces
only translatory motion, no rotation, of the G frames ; and any in-
finitely small homogeneous displacement whatever of the primary
assemblage, produces a rotation of each frame equal to, and round
the same axis as, the rotational component.

5. It now only remains to give irrotational stability to the G
frames. This may be done by mounting gyrostats properly upon
them according to the principle stated in §§ 3-5 of Article C. of Yol.
III. of my Papers, and in my Address to the Institute of Electrical
Engineers, 10th January 1889. Three gyrostats would suffice, but
twelve may be taken for symmetry, and for avoidance of any
resultant moment of momentum of all the rotators of one frame.
Instead of ordinary gyrostats with rigid fly-wheels, we may take
liquid gyrostats as described below § 6, and so make one very small
step towards abolishing the crude mechanism of fly-wheels and

VOL. xvn. 26/5/90 i

130

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

axles and oiled pivots. But I choose the liquid gyrostat at present
merely because it is more easily described.

6. Imagine a hollow anchor ring, or tore, that is to say, an endless
circular tube of circular cross-section. Perforate it in the line of a
diameter, and fix into it small straight tubes to guard the perforations
as shown in the accompanying diagram. Fill it with frictionless
liquid, and give the liquid irrotational circuital motion as indicated
by the arrow-heads in the diagram. This arrangement constitutes

our hydrokinetic substitute for a mechanical fly-wheel. Mount it
on a stiff diametral rod passing through the perforations, and it
becomes the mounted gyrostat, or Foucault gyroscope, required for
our models. Its use would have considerably simplified and
shortened the description of a model communicated to the French
Academy last September,* which, however, was given purposely
in terms of the Foucault gyroscope because it thus describes real
mechanism by which the exigencies of the model can be practi-
cally realised in a very interesting and instructive manner, as
may be seen in §§ 3-5 of Article C. of my Papers, and in my
Address to the Institute of Electrical Engineers of 10th January

1889.

7. Let XOX', YOY', ZOZ' be the three bars of the G frame :
mount upon each of them four of our liquid gyrostats, those on

Comptes Bendus, 16th September 1889 ; Art. C. of Papers, Yol. III.

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Constitution of Ether. 131

XOX' being placed as follows, and the others correspondingly. Of
the four rings mounted on XX', two are to be placed in the plane of
YY', XX', the other two in the plane of ZZ', XX'. The circuital
fluid motions are to he in opposite directions in each pair.

8. The gyrostatic principle stated in § 5 of Art. C. of Yol. III. of
my Papers, applied to our G frame, with the twelve liquid gyrostats
thus mounted on it, shows that if, from the position in which it
was given with all the rings at rest, it be turned through an
infinitesimal angle i round any axis, it requires, in order to hold it
at rest in this altered position, a couple in simple proportion to i;
and that this couple remains sensibly constant, as long as the planes
of all the gyrostats have only changed by very small angles from
parallelism to their original directions. Hence, with this limitation
as to time, our primary homogeneous assemblage of points, controlled
by the gyrostatically dominated frame, G, G', &c., fulfils exactly the
condition stated for the ideal ether of § 14 of Art. XCIX. of Yol.
III. of my Papers, which is as follows : — It has no intrinsic rigidity,
that is to say, no elastic resistance to change of shape ; but it has a
i^a^'-rigidity, depending on an inherent quasi-elastic resistance to
absolute rotation. It is absolutely non-resistant against change of
volume and against any irrotational change of shape. Or it is
absolutely incompressible. The model may be made so by intro-
ducing struts between the points P of the primary assemblage and
their nearest neighbours 0, O', &c., of the G frames according to § 70
of “Molecular Constitution of Matter” (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin ., July
1889).

9. If the velocity of the motion of the liquid in each gyro-
stat be infinitely great, each G frame exerts infinite resistance
against rotation round any axis; and if the bars and tubes con-
stituting the edges of the tetrahedron, and the bars of the G frames
were all perfectly rigid, the primary assemblage is incapable of rota-
tion or of rotational deformation; but if there is some degree of
elastic flexural yielding in the edges of the tetrahedron, or in the
bars of the G frame, or in all of them, the primary assemblage ful-
fils the definition of § 9, without any limit as to time, that is to say,
with perfect durability of its quasi-elastic rigidity.

10. A homogeneous assemblage of points with gyrostatic quasi-
rigidity conferred upon it in the manner described in §§ 2-8 would,

132

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

if constructed on a sufficiently small scale, transmit vibrations of
light exactly as does the ether of nature. And it would be in- ;
capable of transmitting condensational-rarefactional waves, because
it is absolutely devoid of resistance to condensation and rarefaction.

It is, in fact, a mechanical realisation of the medium to which I
was led one and a half years ago,* from Green’s original theory,
by purely optical reasons, in endeavouring to explain results of
observation regarding the refraction and reflection of light.

On the Swimming Bladder and Plying Powers of Dadyl-

opterus volitans. By W. L. Calderwood. Communicated j
by Professor Ewart. (With Plate.)

(Read February 17, 1890.)

Dadylopterus volitans , the so-called “ flying gurnard,” is not in-
cluded by Gunther in the genus Triglidae, as its name might
imply, but is assigned to the small allied family of Cataphracti.

Gunther diagnoses it as follows : — ■“ Dactylopterus, no lateral line,
pectoral fins very large, an organ of flight, with the upper portion
detached and shorter, granular teeth in the jaws, none on the palate,
air bladder divided into two lateral halves, each with a large
muscle.”

Before proceeding to describe in detail the swimming bladder
and other anatomical peculiarities, it may be well to state, that the j
skull is provided with a superficial bony covering which projects
backwards over the region of the “ shoulder ” in two flattened
plates, each terminating in a spine (seen in fig. 2). Also that the
first four vertebrae of the column have coalesced so as to form a rigid
tube, the neural spines being united as a vertical plate, which for
convenience I have termed the neural plate.

The swimming bladder , so far as I am aware, has a unique
position, since it is situated not below, but above the vertebral
column, not forming part of the abdominal contents, but situated
dorsally in a special cavity of its own. The appearance of the

* Philosophical Magazine , Nov. 1888, “ On the Reflection and Refraction of
Light,” by Sir W. Thomson.

1889-90.] Mr W. L. Calderwood on Dactylopterus volitans. 133

swimming bladder in Trigla is well known ; there, on opening the
abdominal wall, it is distinctly seen projecting downwards from the
dorsal wall of the abdominal cavity. In Dactylopterus, when the
viscera are removed, only the ventral surface of the bladder is seen
forming a part of the dorsal boundary of the abdominal cavity.
This portion is white and tendinous, having on each side the com-
mencement of a powerful muscle (fig. 1). The kidneys overlap it
posteriorly, and the oesophagus and pericardial cavity partially
obscure its anterior end. On removing the dorsal muscles of the
trunk so as to view the bladder from the side and back, the bladder
muscles are seen to continue upwards, to curve inwards towards the
median line, to be reflected downwards on each side of the neural
plate, and finally to become attached to the bodies of the verte-
brae, whose spines go to form that plate. In this way the bladder
becomes divided longitudinally into its two lateral portions. A
careful examination, however, reveals more than this. On tracing
the dorsal surface forwards by removing the superficial backward
prolongation of the skull-sheath, a secondary division of the bladder
is disclosed. It is composed of an extremely thin transparent
membrane, is triangular in shape, its dorsal surface being so super-
ficial as only to be covered by the dorsal plate of the shoulder.
The base of the triangle is towards the median line, the other two
sides are surrounded by bone, the ventral surface also lies in a bony
cup ; so that this whole portion, although composed of an extremely
thin membrane, is completely protected by rigid surroundings.
Moreover, one-half of it may be fairly said to be within the region of
the skull, since a section taken through the plane of the foramen
magnum would, as nearly as possible, bisect the triangle. As seen
in fig. 2, the posterior margin is the only one not surrounded by
bone. Here it is that the primary division of the bladder communi-
cates with this smaller secondary portion, that the muscular coat of
the one thins out to give place to the thin membrane of the other..
Making now a vertical section through the long axes of the primary
portion on one side, so as to obtain a view of the interior, we see
that there is a thin membrane dividing it transversely into two —
that in this membrane there is a foramen situated towards the inner
margin. Immediately behind this membrane there is a tunnel seen
passing in a transverse manner below the vertebral column, forming

134 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

a channel of communication between the primary portions of each
side. This is the only part of the bladder which is situated below
the level of the vertebral column.

The entire bladder, therefore, instead of being composed of 4< two
lateral halves,” is in reality made up of six parts, — on each side a
primary portion divided into two by a membrane, and anterior to
and above this a secondary portion.

Giinther, in his Introduction to the Study of Fishes , tells us that
the air bladder and the organ of hearing are connected in a more or
less simple way in the perch and herring, and by means of a com-
plicated chain of ossicles in Siluridse, Characinidse, Cyprinidse, and
Gymnotidse. The details of the Siluroid Amiurus have been worked
out by Bamsay Wright;* and T. Jeffray Parker has written aOn
the Connection of the Air Bladder and the Auditory Organ in the Red
Cod (Lotella bacchus)” f Taking these data into consideration, and
the fact that part of the swimming bladder of Dactylopterus is pro-
duced into the region of the head, I thought that we might have,
in this instance, a. similar connection. My most careful dissection
revealed nothing but the anterior portion of the bladder ending
blindly in a rigid boundary of bone. Similarly, I might mention
that I could discover no connection between the bladder and
alimentary tract, — no pneumatic duct. The amount of gas present
in the bladder must therefore depend on six retia mirabilia, which,
horse-shoe shaped, are arranged, three in each primary division of
the bladder, — two ventrally and one dorsally.

A. Moreau, in his work Sur la mix des poissons , describes an
interesting experiment which he made on Trigla hirundo . Observ-
ing two nerves passing to the air bladder, having their origin below
the pneumogastric near to the first dorsal pair, he stimulated them
with electricity and produced the characteristic grunting sounds.
On studying the bladder, he found in the dividing septum (which
he calls the diaphragm) both radiating and circular muscular fibres,
forming a sphincter round the central foramen. On removing the
posterior end of the bladder and stimulating again, although no sound
was heard, the sphincter was seen to contract. In the entire bladder,

* On Anatomy of Amiurus, by Ramsay Wright, M ‘Munich, Mae&lhim, and
M4Kenzie.

t Trans . N.Z. Instit ., vol. xv. p. 234, 1882.

1889-90.] Mr W. L. Calderwood on Dactylopterus volitans. 135

if the wall only was stimulated, no sound was produced except when
the current was greatly intensified. He therefore concludes that the
sound is produced by vibrations caused by the contractions of this
diaphragm.

In Dactylopterus, while killing two of the four specimens ex-
amined, sounds exactly similar to those of the gurnard were distinctly
heard, and by holding the fish between the finger and thumb in
the region of the swimming bladder, a distinct contraction of the
bladder could be felt as each sound was produced. These move-
ments and sounds were quite independent of any movements of
the operculum or mouth.

I examined this bladder-diaphragm in Trigla Mr undo, also in
Trigla lyra and in Dactylopterus. In all three the sphincter is
present. Arguing from the fact that all gurnards produce these
sounds, and that they all have perforated diaphragms, whereas a
perforated diaphragm is, so far as I am aware, not found in any fish
which does not produce the sounds, I am inclined to support the
conclusions come to by Moreau.

The flying powers of Dactylopterus are, I find, by some called
into question. The conservator of the Naples Zoological Station
— where these observations were made — insisted that the fish never
left the water. I have been unable to make any observations on
the actual flight myself, but the literature on the subject seems to
me to be conclusive. Mobius,* in speaking of the flight of fish,
discusses the question as to whether Dactylopterus moves the wings.
This he does from direct observation.

Moseley f twice describes the flight. In the second instance,
while collecting in a boat amongst the weed of the Sargasso Sea, he
succeeded in capturing one or two in a hand-net. They flew, he
says, “ at a height of about a foot above the water, for distances of
fifteen or twenty yards.”

Comparing Dactylopterus with the well-known flying fish
Exoccetus, the “ wings ” are, in proportion, quite as large, in each
case reaching, when drawn close to the side, to the base of the caudal
fin. In the former, the first six rays are detached from the rest of
the fin, bent downwards, and are soft at their extremities. The

* Mobius, K., Die Bewegungen der fliegenden Fische durch die Luft.

f Moseley, Notes by a, Naturalist on the “ Challenger pp. 562 and 571.

136

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

pectoral muscles are powerful. They are arranged in a superficial
and a deep layer, both above and below the fin, and are in pairs.
In the upper pair, the superficial elevates, and at the same time
protracts ; the deep adducts, sweeping the fin in to the fiank. The
fin rays are devaricated from one another by tendinous fibres
passing across the upper surface obliquely from the anterior portion
of the superficial protractor. The detached portion of the fin is only
very slightly acted upon by fibres from above.

In the lower pair, both divisions of the fin are drawn forwards
and downwards by fibres from both muscles, the superficial, however,
which is coarsely fasciculated, having the stronger action upon the
large portion of the fin. The detached portion, indeed, has an ex-
tremely limited motion, and always must stand out at an angle from
the body of the fish. The swimming bladder of Exocoetus occupies
the ordinary position in the abdominal cavity and is non-muscular.
This fish, I have no doubt, is capable of flying a much greater
distance than Dactylopterus ; it has much less mass, and in form is
calculated to offer much less resistance to the air, and more readily
to retain its natural position, when out of the water, owing to
its deep-keeled herring body. The significance of the peculiar
swimming bladder in Dactylopterus now seems to me to be
explained.

The true gurnards, that is, the near allies of the Cataphracti, are in
habit bottom feeders. The tips of the free fin rays are provided
with isolated sensory elements,* causing these portions to have a
function analogous to the antennse of crustaceans. Their swimming
bladders have no pneumatic duct and no muscle. When brought
suddenly to the surface by means of a net or line, Trigla invariably
floats belly up. If the fish is then opened, the bladder is found to
be violently expanded. The expansion naturally takes place in a
downward direction amongst the abdominal viscera, this being the
line of least resistance. The balance is in this way destroyed beyond
recovery, and the position of the fish is reversed. I have kept Trigla
cataphmda in a tank in this condition for two days. The fish
eventually dies. The reason of the expansion appears to me to be the
sudden removal of pressure consequent upon the fish being brought

* Zincone, A.
pesci, 1876.

Osservazioni anatomiche su di alcune appendici tattili dei

1889-90.] Mr W. L. Calderwood on Dactylopterus volitans. 137

rapidly to the surface. Dactylopterus is, I believe, an example of a
fish which can readily adapt itself either to a bottom life or to a
more than pelagic one. It has a number of the gurnard characteristics,
the free fin rays, soft and projecting downwards, the flattened head
and ventrally protruding mouth, the heavy-looking rounded body.
I am totally ignorant of any animals which prey upon Dactylopterus,
but let us suppose that for some reason or other it becomes necessary
for it to leave the bottom and take to the air, then the sudden
expansion of bladder seen in the gurnard is prevented by the action
of the strong bladder muscles. In addition to this, its air cavity
has the highest possible dorsal position, as has been already shown,
which must be of great service in enabling the fish to keep its
somewhat unwieldy body in its natural position. The thin-walled
secondary portion of the bladder can, of course, not be expanded
owing to its complete envelopment in bone. From a study of the
young Dactylopterus, i.Q., the fish formerly known as Cephala-
canthus, it is evident that only the adult forms can have the power
of “flight.” The pectoral fins of young examples are quite in-
significant as flying organs.

The smallest specimen I examined was If inches. Here, the
pectorals, when placed along the side, reached only to the level of
the second dorsal fin ray. The swimming bladder was as in the
adult. I was unable to determine the period at which the fish first
ventured into the air, but gauging by the development of the pectoral
fins, it may probably be when it has attained the length of about
6 inches.

In the skull the encephalic arch is the only one which requires our
attention. A strong solution of caustic potash is necessary to
loosen the bony sheath of the head so that the superficial plates may
be removed. From the basioccipital the neural arch slopes for-
wards, and is modified in a peculiar way, so as to make room for the
secondary portion of the swimming bladder. The exoccipitals send
processes backwards curving at an angle and enclosing this secondary
portion, and the paroccipitals take their position immediately in
front. The processes of the exoccipitals are attached to the dorsal
superficial plate, and flatten out posteriorly under the inner suture of
that plate. Each exoccipital, with its process, in this way forms
the outer margin of the secondary portion of the bladder. The

138

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

floor of tlie cavity is formed by the same bone. Each paroccipital
is responsible for part of the anterior end. The supraoccipital and
part of the parietal make up the remainder of the end. The inner
margin is formed by what I have called the neural plate, i.e ., the
coalesced neural spines. The roof is formed by the dorsal sheathing
plate.

It has already been noticed that in the vertebral column, the first
four vertebrae have coalesced so as to form a simple tube. This
region of the body, therefore, taking into consideration this tube and
the dorsal bony plates, exhibits a peculiar rigidity, which must be
highly serviceable to the fish if my explanation of the unique position
of the swimming bladder is correct. A similar condition of vertebral
column is seen in Fistularia (one of the pipe fishes), but here, so far
as I can find out, the bladder is similar to that seen in the other
members of the family to which it belongs ; it is, viz., a simple, non-
muscular bladder, depending in the ordinary way from the dorsum
of the abdominal cavity. This condition, therefore, although closely
associated with the swimming bladder in the case of Dactylopterus,
may not be developed on account of it, or in adaptation to its peculiari-
ties. In cross section the tube takes much the outline of a cervical
vertebra without transverse processes. The lower surface is, along
the median line, formed into a groove, down which passes the dor-
sal aorta. The eminences on the sides of this groove are hollowed
out into canals, which, as it were, tunnel through that part of the
tube to which the bladder muscles are attached, emerging to the
exterior of the tube before and behind the muscle. In Dactylop-
terus we have both a body and a head kidney, and the renal veins,
in passing from the former to the latter, occupy the two canals de-
scribed above. The kidneys call for treatment in greater detail.
This will form the subject of another paper.

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin Vo I XVI i

W.L CALDERWOOD ON DACTYLOPTERUS VOLITANS

Fig. 2.

w - L. C . del. ad.

M'-Fa-rla-ne &■ Erskine, Lit'h’T® EdinT

I

1889—90.] Mr R. E. Allardice on Solution of Equations. 139

Notes on the Solution of certain Equations. By R. E.

Allardice, M.A.

(Read April 7, 1890.)

The equations considered are equations of the third and fourth
degree in a single variable, and systems consisting of two equations
in two variables. This is a comparatively small class ; but if there
be added systems consisting of a single equation of the third or
fourth degree and a number of others all of the first degree, it will
include all equations which admit, in general, of an algebraic
solution.

The object of these notes is to point out the advantage of making
greater use, than is generally the custom, of the discriminant in the
solution of equations, and to emphasise the importance of looking
for geometrical illustrations of analytical methods whenever this is
possible. The usefulness of such illustrations is well known in
considering, for example, limiting cases in the solution of equations,
such as the cases of infinite roots and of equal roots, of the meaning
of which it is almost impossible to form an adequate conception,
without the use of such illustrations.

Consider the system

U E ax 2 + 2 Inxy + by 2 + 2 gx + 2/y + c = 0 1

V E a' x2 4- 2 h'xy + b'y 2 + 2 g'x + 2 \fy + c' = 0 J

This system may be solved algebraically by eliminating one of
the variables, say y, and obtaining a biquadratic in x. This biquad-
ratic may in particular cases be soluble by means of quadratics ;
but, as a rule, it will require the general method of solution, by
means of the reducing cubic. It will, however, in almost every
case be found simpler to determine k so that U + kV shall resolve
into factors. The equation in k will be of the third degree. If the
solution of the system (A) can be made in any way to depend on
quadratics alone, the cubic in k must have at least one rational root,
which can easily be obtained in every case ; whereas the biquadratic
in x will in general have no rational root at all. In the general
case, when the solution of the system (A) cannot be made to depend
on quadratics alone, the use of the cubic in k will save the trouble

140 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

of eliminating y from tlie two equations. It will be found tbat
the cubic in k is identical witb the reducing cubic of the biquadratic

in x .

As an illustration, consider the so-called homogeneous system

U = ax 2 + bxy + cy2 + d = 0 i
V = a'x2 + b’xy + c'y 2 + d' = 0 j

This system may be solved by putting y\x = and obtaining a
quadratic in v. This method of solution is an algebraical interpreta-
tion of the fact that the points of intersection of two concentric
conics are the vertices of a parallelogram. The above system may
also be solved by making use of the fact that - d/d' is one value of
Jc for which U + kV may be resolved into factors ; and this solution
is practically the same as that obtained by putting y/x = v. The
question then naturally arises, what are the other two values of k
which make U + kY resolvable into factors ? These values are the
values for which ( ax 2 + bxy -f cy2) + k(a'x2 + b’xy + c'y2) is a complete
square ; and this suggests another method of solution.

By way of further illustration, a method of obtaining the reducing
cubic of the biquadratic +px2 + qx + r = 0, may be noticed.

The resultant in x of the two equations

x 2 -y + p 2 = 0 ) . , o

o o / „ ^ V is Xr + px 2 + qx + r = 0 .

y2 + qx + r-p2/ 4 = 0 j

Now the equation to determine k so that

(x2 — y +pl 2) + Jc(y 2 + qx + r — p2/4)

may be resolvable into factors is

ks - 2 'pk2 - (4 r ~p2)k + q2 = 0 ,
which is the reducing cubic of

a?4 +px 2 + qx + r = 0 .

[The resultant in y is

?/4 + (2 r - p2/2)y2 - q2y + (j»4/16 + r2 -p2r/2 +pq2/2) = 0 ,
the reducing cubic of which is

k 3 - (4 r -p2)k2 - 2p<fk + f = 0 ,

1889-90.] Mr K. E. Allardice on Solution of Equations. 141

which may be transformed into the above reducing cubic by
dividing the roots by q2 and then forming the reciprocal equation.]

As a last illustration consider the system *

x2 + y = a, y2 + x = b .

The resultant in x is

set- 2ax2 -stx + a2 - b = 0 ..... (1).

Now in the general biquadratic (deprived of its second term)
set +px2 + qx + r = 0, put x = \y ; then

f + (p/X2)y2 + (q/X3)y + r/A4 = 0 .

Now put q/ A3= 1, that is A = q118, and the equation becomes
y4 +py2 + y + t — 0, where p' —pj A2 = pfq218, r = r/q*18.

This may be identified with (1) by putting

-2 a = p' and a2 - & = / ; that is a = —p'/2 , b =p'2/ 4 - r'.

Hence the general biquadratic may be solved graphically by
means of the two parabolas x2 + y = a and y2 + x = b.

The advantage of this method is that these two parabolas only
vary as regards position, a change in a causing the first parabola
to move along the y-axis, and a change in b the second parabola to
move along the a?-axis. In applying this method in practice one of
the parabolas might be drawn permanently on a sheet of paper
ruled in squares ; and instead of shifting the parabola it would be
sufficient to change the position of the origin of coordinates. The
second parabola would require to be drawn on a sheet of tracing-
paper or engraved on glass, f

The above method fails when the roots are equal in pairs, for in
this case ^ = 0. This is also evident geometrically, since two
parabolas cannot have double contact unless their axes are parallel.
Three roots of the given biquadratic will be equal when the two
parabolas have contact of the second order. The point of contact
will obviously lie on the line y — x, and the tangent at the point of

* The idea of using this system of equations for obtaining a graphical
solution of the general biquadratic is due to Professor Chrystal.

t When this paper was read a diagram was shown illustrating the graphical
solution of several biquadratics.

142 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

contact will be equally inclined to the axes ; and from these facts
the conditions are easily found to be a = b = 3/4.

In the cubic x3 + q'x + r' = 0, put x = \y, then

y 3 + (q'/X2)y + (r'/X3) = 0 .

Put q/X2 = ±1, that is X = (±q)112, and the equation reduces to
y3 ± y + r = 0 . This may be solved graphically by means of the
fixed curves y3 = x and the straight line x ± y - r = 0 .

Notes on the Zodiacal Light. By Prof. O. Michie Smith.

(Read April 7, 1890.)

So much has been written on the zodiacal light that it may
appear rather rash to say that a really accurate examination of this
phenomenon has yet to be made. Still I have no hesitation in
saying that neither its position, its shape, nor its spectrum has yet
been determined with sufficient accuracy. In the hope of being
able to add something to our knowledge of the last of these, I
obtained, in 1882, a grant from the Government Grant Fund for the
construction of a spectroscope specially designed for observing and,
if possible, photographing the spectrum of the zodiacal light.
The apparatus, which was made by Mr A. Hilger, consists of two
interchangeable collimators of 36 inches and 8 inches focal length
and 1 \ inch aperture ; an Iceland spar prism inch high,
2J inches side, a camera with a lens of 8 inches focal length, and an
observing telescope and a heavy glass prism which can be used for
eye observations. The camera and telescope are fixed to a common
base movable about a pivot concentric with the pillar carrying the
prism, so that they are readily interchanged. The lenses are all of
quartz, and the dark slide carrying the sensitive plate can be placed
at such an angle that the whole or at least a considerable part of
the spectrum is in focus at the same time. The slit is provided
with shutters for exposing any required portion alone, and the
jaws of the slit both move equally, so that the centre remains fixed
in position. A photographed scale can be thrown in in the ordinary
way, but I have found this useless when dealing with faint spectra,
since any illumination which will render the divisions visible quite
obliterates the spectrum. After trying various plans I finally

1889—90.] Prof. C. Michie Smith on the Zodiacal Light. 143

adopted the following, which is probably not new, though I have
never seen it described. The photographed scale is removed from
the end of its tube, and is replaced by a small slit with adjustable
jaws. The tube is then mounted on a vertical axis concentric with
a fixed horizontal, graduated circle. The tube is rigidly attached to
the arm carrying the verniers of this circle. When the position of
any line has to be determined, the slit is adjusted so as to admit
just sufficient light to render its reflected image visible, and the tube
is rotated till this image coincides with the line. It is of course
easy to adapt Prof. C. P. Smyth’s illumination to this arrange-
ment.

The attempts so far made to photograph the zodiacal light
spectrum have been total failures, but I hope that the use of plates
with a greater range of colour sensitiveness may yet prove successful.

The spectrum as usually seen is extremely faint, so that the
observer ought to prepare himself for his work by remaining in a
dark room for at least ten minutes before he attempts to make
observations, but if this precaution be taken the spectrum can be
seen on any clear night when there is no moonlight and neither
Jupiter nor Venus is very near the place of observation. As
ordinarily seen, very little colour can be distinguished in the spec-
trum, but under favourable conditions a distinct tinge of red can be
observed. Except on a few occasions the spectrum, as I have seen
it, was continuous and quite free from bright lines, but on several
nights in 1883 I saw what appeared to be a bright line. The
following extracts from my note-book give all the cases of this
appearance.

1883. March 7th. — Spectrum in direct vision spectroscope distinct
up to at least 45° altitude: apparently continuous, but with part
more brilliant than the rest.

March 8th. — Spectrum clearly visible. The most notable feature
is the rapid variations in brightness. There seems to be either a
bright band or a part of maximum brightness somewhat like that
seen on the more refrangible side of the D line towards sunset.
(Observation made with long collimator and glass prism.)

March 28 th, 7h 20m to 7h 50m p.m. — Short collimator. Light
faint and very diffuse : no clouds : eight stars easily visible in Pleiades.
Spectrum flickering and faint, but shows almost certainly a bright

144 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

line, apparently in the yellow-green, but position doubtful, as only a
rough method of comparison was available.

March 29th, 7.30 to 8 p.m. — Short collimator, low power eye- 1
piece. Night fine: no clouds. Continuous spectrum, brighter part !
beginning in the yellow. Bright line appeared to flash out at times,
but very doubtful.

April 2nd. — Clouds near horizon. Bright continuous spectrum,
which ended sharply near D. A place of maximum brightness
near centre. Flickering.

April 5th. — Direct vision spectroscope. Clouds near horizon.
Light faint, but spectrum fairly bright. There appeared to be two
bright lines. At times the lines seemed quite distinct, at other
times quite invisible.

April 24 th, 7.30 p.m. — Short collimator, high power eye-piece.
Light clouds and a slight haze near the horizon, through which the
Pleiades were dimly visible. Z. L. not very bright, but extended
through at least 60°. Spectrum pretty bright, and bright line
appeared to flash up near the red end. Position determined by
bringing end of faintly illuminated scale to coincide, and then com-
paring solar lines with the scale on the morning of the 25th, every-
thing having been left unchanged.

The position thus determined corresponded to a wave-length of
558. After this the spectroscope was fitted for photographic work,
and plates were exposed on April 30th and May 1st; on the former
for an hour, on the latter for an hour and a half, hut without
any result. The following is the note for the latter of the two
dates : —

May 1st. — Z. L. very bright but very diffuse, rising well above
Jupiter, near which it seemed to bifurcate. Slight haze about
horizon, but stars visible through it down to the horizon. Spectrum
as seen with eye-piece held behind camera very bright, and extended
to the red. With direct vision spectroscope very bright at first, but
soon getting much fainter. The line at times seemed to flash out.

At other times the spectrum seemed to be banded.

Since then I have never seen the least trace of a line, though on
a number of occasions I have had particularly good opportunities of
examining the spectrum, especially in January 1885, when I spent
the first twelve days of the year on the top of Dodabetta, 8642 feet

1889—90.] Prof. C. Michie Smith on the Zodiacal Light. 145

above mean sea-level. The notes made on that occasion include the
remark “ certainly no bright lines.”

It appears, then, that in all my observations, which have been
carried on at intervals since 1875, the spectrum has appeared con-
tinuous and free from bright lines except during the spring of 1883,
and that even then the lines were not seen with sufficient distinct-
ness to make their existence certain. The estimated position of the
supposed line, W. L. 558, differs but little from that of the auroral
line (W. L. 556’7) which was observed by Angstrom* in the
zodiacal light spectrum in 1867. He, however, was observing at
Upsala, where the auroral spectrum can often be seen in almost all
parts of the sky, even when the aurora itself cannot be detected.
Senor A. T. Acrimis, f observing at Cadiz, saw two bright lines in
the spectrum, but since he used a refractor and a five prism spectro-
scope it is almost certain that it was not the spectrum of the
zodiacal light that he saw. There would seem to be very little risk
of obtaining the auroral spectrum in Madras, and I think that if the
bright line seen was real and not imaginary it must have been due
to the zodiacal light. It seems, too, to be in favour of its reality
that my own prepossessions — arising from hundreds of previous
observations, were entirely against the existence of such a line.
These observations are presented to the Society with great hesita-
tion, but as they were made with every precaution that I could
devise, I think it best to place them on record.

Another point with reference to the zodiacal light on which more
detailed and accurate observations are much needed is its exact
position in the sky. It was only recently that I discovered how
very unsatisfactory existing determinations were, and I do not
propose at present to give any results of my own measurements. I
wish, however, to call attention to one or two points. Very little
weight can be laid on determinations of the inclination of the axis
of the light made in high latitudes, for Searle has shownj that the
difference in absorption between the upper and lower boundaries may
produce a very considerable displacement of the apparent axis.
But no such explanation will account for the differences shown in

* Pogg. Annul., vol. 137, p. 162.

t R. A. S. Monthly Notices, xxxvi. p. 1.

+ Proc. Amer. Acad., vol. xix. p. 146 ; Memoirs Amer. Acad., xi. p. 135.

VOL. XVII. 26/5/90 K

146 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

existing records. Take, for example, those made by Captain Jacob in
Madras in 1856-57-58 compared with those of Captain Tnpman
in the Mediterranean in 1869-71.

The former * found that the axis of the light was inclined but 1
slightly to the ecliptic, and that the extreme positions of the vertex
of the western cone were lat. 2° S. and lat. 6° 17., while the latter
states f that the inclination to the ecliptic was often as much as 20°,
and that an error of 3° or 4° in his observations is inadmissible.

It is extremely difficult to fix the position of the light by any of
the ordinary methods, but I have hopes of getting a very fair
estimate of the inclination of the axis by using a form of clinometer.
This consists of a stand with levelling screws carrying a long wooden
arm movable in a vertical plane about an axis at one end, and
provided with an arrangement for clamping it at any required
angle. The angle is measured by means of a plumb line suspended
from the upper end. I find it possible to place this arm parallel to
the axis of the light with considerable accuracy. At the same time
it seems probable, as remarked by Searle, that no really satisfactory
determination of the position of the light will be obtained except
by a careful photometric survey. A method of making such a
survey has, however, still to be devised, and to be satisfactory it
would have to be preceded by a photometric survey of the region
in which the light falls.

On the Structure and Contraction of Striped Muscular
Fibre of the Crab and Lobster. By Professor William
Rutherford, M.D., F.R.S.

(Read February 28, 1890.)

{Abstract.)

The author gave an account of the microscopical appearances of
striped muscle of the crab and lobster. The muscle of the crab and
lobster is suitable for investigation because of the comparatively large j
size of the structural elements, and the readiness with which the
sarcous matter can be fixed and otherwise prepared in different con-

* Memoirs R. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 119.
t R. A. S. Monthly Notices, xxxi. p. 74.

1889-90.] Prof. Rutherford on Fibre of Crab and Lobster. 147

ditions. The author is entirely opposed to the opinions expressed
by Melland, and more recently by Gehuchten, regarding the struc-
ture of the sarcous matter, and maintains, as he did at the Inter-
national Medical Congress in 1881 ( Transactions International Medi-
cal Congress, 1881, vol. i. p. 270), that the sarcous matter essentially
consists of contractile fibrils, with an interstitial substance between
them — an opinion previously expressed by Kolliker and others,
and recently supported by Rollett. Fibrils are the contractile
elements in non-striped muscle. Fluid is contained in the inter-
stices of the invisible micellar network of their seemingly homo-
geneous protoplasm. The shortening of the fibrils doubtless implies
a change in the relative positions of the micellae in the networks,
but there is no evidence of any shifting of fluid from one part of
the fibril to another. The fibrils of striped muscle are segmented,
and one of the events of contraction is the shifting of fluid from one
segment to another. Each fibril consists of segments arranged in
linear series in regular alternate order. Bowman’s element is the
longest segment, and appears to be the only one that is really con-
tractile. Its dimness is due to a substance resembling myeline
enclosed in a contractile tissue. There is a node in the equator of
Bowman’s element, the position of which is sometimes marked by
a dim line described by Hensen, but the author finds no evidence
of any transverse membrane there as described by some authors.
Between the ends of Bowman’s elements there is a segment about
half the length of Bowman’s element, termed by the author the
intermediate segment. It is a tissue containing a watery fluid, and
there is a globule of myeloid substance definitely located in the
equator of the segment, and marking the position of a node; the
author finds no evidence of a transverse membrane there, such as
Krause and others have described. Myeloid substance also some-
times occurs throughout the shaft of the intermediate segment, but
always in smaller amount than in Bowman’s element. The lateral
coaptation of the central globules in neighbouring intermediate
segments produces the line to which attention was first particularly
directed by Dobie in 1848. The intermediate segments appear not
to be contractile, and probably serve as elastic buffers between the
ends of Bowman’s elements when they approach each other during
contraction. A third segment, termed by the author the proper

148 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

clear segment, is seen between Bowman’s element and the inter-
mediate segment, when the uncontracted fibril is stretched to its full
physiological length. It is almost quite clear, and appears to con- !
sist of a thin envelope containing a watery fluid, and a particle of
myeloid substance belonging to the granule line described by Flogel
as crossing the fibre in the light stripe. The whole fibril has a
thin envelope.

The first event of contraction consists in a shortening of the in-
terval between the ends of Bowman’s elements, which in their
approximation come close to the globule of Dobie’s line. The
shortening appears to result from an active absorption of fluid from
the clear and intermediate segments by Bowman’s elements. In
the second stage of contraction the fibril seems " homogeneous,”
unless it is suitably stained and sufficiently magnified. In this
so-called “homogeneous” stage the ends of Bowman’s elements are
in close proximity to the globule of Dobie’s line, which is now
somewhat flattened ; the myeloid substance has not yet begun to
shift its place in Bowman’s element. In the third stage of con-
traction the myeloid substance moves away from the shaft on each
side of the equatorial node in Bowman’s element, accumulates in
its ends, and the element shortens, owing to a real contraction of
its tissue. There is a “ reversal of the stripes” in the contracted
fibre, as Flogel first pointed out. The dim stripe of the contracted
fibril consists of the approximated ends of two Bowman’s elements
with the myeloid globule of the intermediate segment between them,
now much flattened, owing to lateral extension by the thickening
of the contracted fibril. The light stripe of the contracted fibril
consists of the shaft of Bowman’s element that has become clear,
owing to shifting of the myeloid substance to the ends of the
element. The myeloid substance appears to be completely moved
to the ends of Bowman’s elements only when their shafts contract
and squeeze it out ; but it begins to move out of the shafts before
they contract. The fluid absorbed by the element probably passes
into the interstices of the micellar network; the myeloid substance
appears to be contained in a special set of spaces. The contraction
of the micellar network does not express the absorbed fluid, which
therefore does not leave Bowman’s element until its contraction is
over. The elasticity of Bowman’s element and of the intermediate

1889-90.] Prof. Rutherford on Fibre of Crab and Lobster. 149

segment causes them to return to their normal length after contrac-
tion, but does not lead to the appearance of the proper clear seg-
ment., which is only seen when the fibrils are forcibly extended to
their full physiological length. The phenomena of contraction are
essentially due to vital changes occurring in the tissue between the
equator of Bowman’s element and that of the intermediate segment.

Some Multinomial Theorems in Quaternions. By the

Rev. M. M. U. Wilkinson. Communicated by Professor
Tait.

(Read April 7, 1890.)

The formulae established in a preceding paper are particular
instances of some very general formulae to which I wish to draw the
attention of mathematicians.

A. On Notation and Symbols employed.

Suppose (r + s) vectors taken, , a2 , . . . ar+s , and from these
any selection of r vectors made. Calling the product of these
vectors taken in order (that is, so that two vectors am , am+n , never
occur in the order am+nam , but always in the order amam+n), p, and
the product of the remaining s vectors, likewise taken in order, qf
we form the four quaternions,

SpS#, S.pYq , YpSq, Y.pYq ,

if the sum of the suffixes in p is congruent to Jr(r+ 1), modulus 2
(that is to say, if the sum is odd or even according as the sum in
what will be always regarded as the first term in the series is odd
or even), the sign of the quaternion will be + , if otherwise, - .
Four series are thus formed, each series containing C(r, s) terms,
C (r, s) standing for the number of combinations of (r + s) things
taken r together. We define, as follows,

S(r, s) = S ± SpSq ;

Z(r,s) = 2± S.pYq;

Y(r,s) = 2± Y.pYq;

B(r, s) = % ± Y.pSq .

150

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Thus, selecting out of C (r, s) terms a number quite sufficient to
indicate how all the other terms are formed,

Ar(r, s) = Y. cqa2 . . . arV ar+1ar+2 . . . ar+s - Y. oqoq... ar_xar+ff arar+2 .... ar+s + . . .

+ V . cqa2 . . . ar _ 2arar+1V ar _ xar+2 .... ar+s -...+(- 1 )rs V . as+1as+2 . . . ar+sY cqa

Changing, in each quaternion, the second Y into S, we get the
series for B(r, s) : changing, in each quaternion, the first Y only into
S, we get the series for Z(r , s) : changing throughout Y into S, we
get the series for S(r, s).

In the investigation we have to use series formed in exactly the
same way, but with changed vectors (as, for instance, cq being
omitted). It will be found, practically, quite sufficient to indicate
what is meant by writing S', S", or S^, &c., instead of S., &c. I
have found it convenient that £ shall represent Ycqcq, and x the
quaternion a3a4 .... ar+s , i.e.} the product of all the quaternions
except the first two.

Of course S and Z are always scalars, and Y and B are always
vectors.

B. Statement of Theorem.

S(2r, 2 s) = C(r, s) Scqoqa? ;

Z(2r, 2s) = 0 ;

Y(2r, 2s) = C(r,s-l)Y.a1a2£;

(1)

B(2r, 2s) = C(r - 1, s) Y. a4a2x •

S(2r+1, 2s- 1) = 0;

Z(2r + 1, 2s - 1) = 0 ;

Y(2r + l„2s - 1) = 2C(r, s - 1)Y. a4a2x ;
B(2r +1, 2s - 1) = 0 ;

S(2r, 2s + 1) = C(r, s - ^Soqa^a? ;

Z(2?’, 2s + 1) = 3C (r - 1, s)Sa1a2a? ;

Y(2r, 2s + 1) = C(r, s)Yaia2x ;

B(2r, 2s+ 1) = 0 ;

S(2r + 1, 2s) = C(r - 1, s^cqcq# ;

Z(2r + 1, 2s) = 3C(r, s - ^Scqa^ ;
Y(2r+1, 2s) = 0;

B(2r + 1, 2s) = C(r,s)Ya1a2a?.

1

(2)

(3)

• • (4)

1889-90.] Rev. Mr Wilkinson on Theorems in Quaternions . 151
C. Fundamental Cases.

By fundamental cases we mean cases in whick either one of the
numbers r , s, in (1), (2), (3), (4) is unity. Some of these are the
cases considered in my former paper, which proved that,

B(l, 2n + 1) = 0 ;

B(l, 2 n) =Va1a.2x;

B(2, 2 n) LvojOjja;;

B(2, 2?z+ 1) = 0 ;

of course we have, identically, and at once,

S(l, r) = S(r, 1) = B(r, 1) = 0 ;
and my former paper also showed that,

S(2, 2 n) = (n + lJSa^x ;

S(2, 2n + 1 ) = nSa^a^e ;

and so in other cases, and for Vs and Zs. But as we shall establish
our formulae (1) to (4) by an induction, it will be well to put down
the following simple identities : —

S(1,1) = 0; Z(1,1) = 0; Y(l, l) = 2Ya1a2; B(1,1) = 0;

S(l, 2) = 0; Z(l, 2) = 3Saia2a3; Y(l, 2) = 0; B(l, 2) = Y.a^og ;
S(2,l) = 0; Z(2,l) = 3Saia2a3; Y(2, 1) = Ya4a2a3 ; B(2,l) = 0;

S(l, 3) = 0; Z(l, 3) = 0; Y(l, 3) = 2Ya1o2a3a4; B(l, 3) = 0;

S(2, 2) = 2Saja2a3a4 ; Z(2, 2) = 0 ; Y(2, 2)=Ya1a2a3a4 ; B(2, 2)=Ya1a2a3a4
S(3, 1) = 0; Z(3, 1) = 0; Y(3, 1) = 2Yaia2a3a4 ; B(3, 1) = 0.

2sTo difficulty whatever presents itself in any one of these cases.

So we leave them for the beginner. All others have, doubtless, in
some form or other, met with them frequently before.

So, too, we leave such formulae as,

Z(l, 2r) = 3S(3, 2r-2);

V(2r+1, 1) = Y(l, 2r + 1) = 2Y. a}o^c ;

Y( 2r, 1 ) = Y. ala2x .

Z(2, 2n+ 1) = 3S(3, 2 n) ;

Z( 2, 2n) = 0 .

V(2, 2n) = B(2n, 2) = nVa1a2x;

Y(2, 2n + 1) = (n + lyVa^x ; &c. &c.

152 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

They will be found to be formulae really established by the
investigation to which we now proceed.

D. General Investigation .

We assume that (1) to (4), which have been established in
fundamental cases, hold when the total number of vectors (m + n)
involved does not exceed some odd numbers (2cr+l). First, we
will show that they still hold when (m + n) does not exceed (2 <j + 2) :
next when it does not exceed (2o- + 3). That is to say, assuming
formulae (1) to (4) as they are, we have first to find S(2r+2, 2 s),
S(2 r, 2 8 + 2), S(2 r.+ 1, 2s + 1), &c., and then S(2 r + 1, 2s + 2),
S(2r + 2, 2s + 1), &c. If the same law is found to hold, the
formulae will have been completely established.

We have,

S(2r, 2s + 2) = S. a1B'(2r - 1, 2s + 2) + S. aiB'(2s + 1, 2 r)

= {C(r — 1, s+ 1) 4- C(s,r)}Sa1a2^
l=C(r, s + l)S(K1a2je ........ (5)

So too, S(2r + 2, 2s) = 8(2 s, 2r + 2) = C(s,r + l)SalV ; . . (6)

Z(2r, 2s + 2) = S . axY'(2r - 1, 2s + 2) + 8. a1Y/(2s + 1, 2r) ;

or, Z(2r, 2s + 2) = 0 . ...... (7)

so too, Z(2r + 2, 2s) = 0 ; . ...... (8)

S(2r+ 1, 2s + 1) = S.a1B'(2r, 2s + 1) - SaiB'(2s,2r + 1);
or, S(2r+1, 2s+ l) = 0; ...... (9)

Z(2r+ 1, 2s + 1) = Sa1Y'(2r, 2s + 1) - Sa^+g .... a2r+2s+2V . . . a&+1 + . .

= Sa1Y'(2r, 2s+ 1) - S . axa2 . . . a2s+1Ya2s+2 . . . . 4- . .

= S.a1Y'(2r, 2s + 1) - S.aiY'(2s, 2r+ 1)

= {C(r, s) - C(s, rJJSojo^ ;

or, Z(2r+ 1, 2s-f 1) = 0; (10)

assume,

Y(2r,2s+2)«Y1 + Va + Y8 + Y4,

1889-90.] Rev. Mr Wilkinson on Theorems in Quaternions. 153

where, in

Yj, cq, a2, both occur in first quaternion in each term ;

V4 ,, 5j last ,, ,,

Y2, oq occurs in the first, and a2 in the last quaternion ;
M3} U2 ,, ,, cq ,, ,,

Then,

Yj + Y2 = Y. cq { Z'(2r - 1 , 2s + 2) + Y'(2r - 1, 2s + 2) }

= 3C(r - 1, s)cqSa2a? ;

Yx = Y. cqa2{Z"(2r - 2, 2s + 2) + Y"(2r - 2, 2s + 2)}

= C(f-l,s)Y.a1a2Yir;

Y3= - 3C(r — 1, s)a2Scq# + C (r — 1, s)Y.a2cL1Yx ;

Y4 = Y. oqcq . . . a2r+2^ala2a2r+d • • • a2r+ 2s+2 — • • •

= Y"(2r, 2s)Scqa2 + Y.a3a4. . .a2r+2Y^a2r+3. . .a2r+2s+2 - ■ • .

Y^r, 2s+l) = Y^a3...a2r+1Va2r+2... ~ • . . + Y.a3a4. . . a2r+2M^a2r+3 ...

= Y.£{Z"(2r - 1, 2s + 1) + Y#/(2 r - 1, 2s + 1)} +

Y. a3a4* • •a2r+2 Y £a2r+3.

Y4 = C(r, s - l)Y*Scqa2 + C(r, s)Y£x - 2C (r - 1, s)V.£Ya? ;

Yj + Y2 + Yg + Y4 = C(r — 1, s){3cqSa2a; — 3a2Scqa? 4- Y.cqcqYd? — 2Y.£Yfl?} +
+ C(r, s)Y£r + C(r, s - l)Y^Scqa2 =

= C(r - 1, s){3Y.cqa2Y# - 3Y:rSoqa2 + Ya?Scqa2 — 3Y.£Ya?}

+ C(r, s)Y£x + C(r, s - l)Y^Soqa2, or
Y(2r, 2s + 2) = C(r,s)Ycqa2;r; . . (11)

In our formulae we may, of course, write r + 1 for r and s - 1
for s, and thus obtain in the same way,

Again, if

Y(2r + 2, 2s) = C(r+l,s-l)Ya1o2a?; .

B(2r + 2, 2s) = B1 + B2 + B3 + B4 ,

Bi + B2 = V.cq {S'(2r + 1, 2s) + B'(2r + 1, 2s)}
= C(r — 1, s)a1Ba.2X + C(r, s)Y.cqYa2# ;
B1 = Y.a1a2{S"(2r, 2s) + B"(2r, 2s)}

= C(r, s)£$x + C(r - 1, s) Y.fY* ;

(12)

154 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

B3 = — C(r — 1, s)a2$'a1% — C(r, s)Y.a^Sfa1x + C (r, s)Ya2a1Bx
4- C(r — 1, s)Y.a2a1Y^

= C(r — 1, s)(Y^Sa1a2 — a^Sc^a?) + C(r, s)(a2Sa-|£C — Y ,a2afhx) ;
B4 = "V a3a4. . . a2r4-4Sa1a2a2r_|_g

= B"(2 r + 2, 2s - 2)Sa1a2 + Ya3a4. . .a2r+4S£a2r+5

B^(2r + 2, 2s - 1) = Y.£a3a4. . .a2r+3Sa2r+4- ••-•*• +

Y . a3a4 . . . a2r+4S£a2r_|_g

O = Y.f{S"(2r 4 1, 2s - 1) + Z"(2r + 1, 2s - 1)] +

Y . a3a4 . . . a2r+4S£a2r+5

B4 = C (r, s — l)Ya?Sa-|a2 \

Bi + B2 + B3 + B4 = C(r - 1, s)YxSa^a2 + C (r, s - l)Y^Sa4a2 4
C(r, s)(Va1a2x — Y^Sa4a2) ;

B(2r 4 2,2s) = C {r, s) YHa2x • (13)

So too, B(2r, 2s + 2) = C(r-l, s + ^Ya^x; . . . (14)

Proceeding in the same way, take

Y(2r+1, 2s+1) = Y1 + Y2 + Y3 + Y4;

Y4 + Y2 = Y.a1{Z'(2r, 2s + 1) 4 Y'(2r, 2s + 1)}

= 3C (r— 1, s)a4Sa2^ + C(r, s)Y.a,Ya2x
Y1 = Y.a1a2{Z"(2r-l, 2s 4 1) 4 Y"(2r - 1, 2s+l}

= 2C(r - 1, s) Y.a^Yx;

Y3 = — 3C(r — 1, s)a2$alx - C (r, s) Y. a2Ya^ + 2C (r - 1, s)Y . a2afhx *
Y4 = Y. a3a4. • • a2r+3Y a1a2a2r+4. .......

= Y"(2r+ 1, 2s- l)Sa4a2 + Y.a3a4.... a2r+3Y£a2r+4. . .. -

Yf(2 r 4 1, 2s) = Y. £a3a4. ..a2r+2Ya2r+3. Y.a3a4...02r+3Y^a2r+4. . . 4 . .
O = Y.£{Z"(2r, 2s) 4 Y"(2r, 2s)}-V.a3a4...a2r+3Y^r+4.... + ...

Y4 = 2C(r, s - l)Y^Sa4a2 + C(r, s - 1)Y .£Vx ;

Y4 4 Y2 4 Y3 + Y4 = C(r — 1, s)(3a1Sa2a? — 3a2Sa4^ + 2Y a2afh x) 4

+ C(r, s)(Y. axYa2x - Y. a2Ya4x) + C(r, s - l)(2YtfSalCi2 + Y.gVx)

= {C (r — 1, s) +C(r, s - l)}(a1Sa2» - a^So^a? + 2Va?Sa1a2) 4
+ C(r, s)(Y. axa2x — afa2x + a2Ba1X — Y a2a1x) .

1889-90.] Rev. Mr Wilkinson on Theorems in Quaternions. 155

So that

Y(2r+1, 2« + l) = 2C(r,*)Y.a1aaa?;. . . . (15)

So also, if

B(2 v +1, 2s+ 1) = B4 + B2 1" R3 "t B4 ,

Bi + B2 = Y. a1{S'(2r, 2s + 1) + B'(2 r, 2s + 1)} = C(s - 1, r^Sa^ ;
Bj = Y. a1a2{S,,(2r - 1, 2s + 1) + B"(2r - 1, 2s + 1)} = 0 ;

Bo = — C(s — 1, r)a2Soj_a? ;

B4 = Y . • • • ®’2r+3^®l®2®'2r+4 • • • • • •

= B"(2r + 1, 2s - lJSc^ag + Y.a3a4 . . . a2j.+3S£a2r+4. . . - . . ;

B^(2r + 1, 2s) = Y. £a3a4. . .a2r+2Sa2r+3. Y. a3a4. . .a2r+3S£a2H_4.

B4= - C(r, s)V£x + Y. £{S"(2r, 2s) + B"(2r, 2s)}

= - C(r, s) Y£x + C(r, s)£Sx + C (r - 1, s)Y. fY® ,

= - C(r, s - 1)Y. £Vx ;

whence, since Y. £Vx = a1Sa2a; - ,

B(2r+ 1, 2s+ 1) = 0 . ...... (16)

Thus far we have shown that, if formulae (1) to (4) are true for all
number of vectors up to an odd number inclusive, they hold when
the number of vectors is the next even number.

Proceeding to the next odd number of vectors, we have

S(2r + 1, 2s + 2) = S. a4B'(2r, 2s + 2) + S. a1B'(2s + 1, 2r + 1) ,
the sign of the second term being + . Hence,

S(2r+l,2s + 2) = C(r-l,s+l)Sa1a2aj; . . (17)
So too, S(2r + 2,2s+l)«C(r+l,s-l)So1<t2a?; . . (18)

Again, Z(2r + 1, 2s + 2) = Sa4Y'(2r, 2s + 2) +

+ Sa2s+3 .... a2r+2s+3Y a4a2 . . . a2s+2 — . . .

= C(r, s)Sa4a2# 4- Sa4a2 . . . ct2s_|_2Ya2s_|_3 ... — ...

= C(r, s)Saja2a; + Sa4Y'(2s + 1, 2r + 1)

= 3C(r, s)Saia2a;; (19)

So too, Z(2r + 2, 2s + 1) = 3C(r, s)Sa4a2^ ; . . . . (20)

And, proceeding on the same lines as before,
if Y(2r + 1, 2s + 2) = Y4 + Y2 + Y3 + Y4 ,

156 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Yx + Y 2 = Y. a1{Z'(2rf 2s + 2) + Y'(2r, 2s + 2) }

= C(r , s) y. a^SfatfC j

yi = y.a1a2{Z'(2r-l, 2s+2) + Y'(2r- 1, 2s + 2)}

= 3C(r- 1, s)ya1a2SiC;

y3= - C(r, s)Y. a2Y aix + 3C(r - 1, s^a^Sa? ;

y4 = Y. a3a4 • • • a2r+3^rala2a2r+4 • • • — • • •

= y. "(2 r - 1, 2 s + 2)8^2 + V. a3a4 . . . a2r+3Y£a2H_4 ......

y^(2r+l, 2s + l) = Y. £a3a4 . . . a2r+2y a2r+3 Y. a3a4 . . . a2H.3Y . .
y4 = - 2C (r, s)Y£e + y. £{Z"(2r, 2« + 1) + Y"(2r, 2s + 1)}

= - 2C(r, s)Y& + 3C(r - 1, s)£$x + C (r, s)Y. £Va? ;

Yj + y2 + y3 + y4 = c(r, s)( y.^y^x - y.^Ya^ - 2Y^ + y. £Ye) +
+ 3C(r - 1, s)(Ya2a1S^ + £Sx) =

= C(r, s)(Y. axa2x - Y. a2axx - 2Y £x) = 0 ;

or, Y(2r + 1, 2s+2) = 0 ; (21)

Again, if Y(2r + 2, 2s -f 1) = Y4 + Y2 + V3 + Y4 ,

Vi + y2-y.ai {Z'(2r+1, 2s + 1) +• V/(2r+ 1, 2s +1)}

= 2C(r,s)y.a1Ya^;

yi = Y.a1a2{Z"(2r, 2s + 1) + Y"(2r, 2s +1)}

= 3C(r - 1, s)Y. a1a2Sa? + C (r, s)Y. aia2Ye ;

Y 3 = — 2C(?*, s)Y. a^aYx + 3C(r - 1, s)Y. a2a1Sa? + C(r, s)Y. a^Yx ;

Y4 = Y. a3a4. • •aarHYai02a2r+6 •••-••

= Y"(2r + 2, 2s - l)Sa1a2 + Y. a3a4 . . . a2r+^V £a2r+5 .......

Y^(2r + 2, 2s) = Y. £a3a4. ..a2r+3ya2r+4. ...... + Y. a3a4. . .a2r+4y£a2r+5. . . -

So that,

Y4 = C(r + 1, s - l)y^Saia2 + C(r + 1, s - 1)Y&

- Y. £{Z"(2r + 1, 2s) + Y"(2r + 1, 2s)}

= C(r + 1, s - l)yaia^ - 3C(r, s - l)£Sa; ;

Yi + y2 + y3 + y4 = c(r, s)(2Y. ^Ya^ - 2Y. a2ya^ + y. a^Va?) +

+ 3C (r - 1, s)Y. a2afix - 3C(r, s - 1)£S® + C(r + 1, s - l)Yc
= C(r, s)(2Ya1a2x - 2Y a2a4^ - 2Y. ife + Y. a2axYx - 3£Sa;) +

+ C(r + 1, s - ^Ya^a?

1889-90.] Rev. Mr Wilkinson on Theorems in Quaternions. 157

= C(r, s)(4Y& - 2 Vfc + xSa4a2 - Y£Yx - £Sx)

+ C (r 4- 1, s — Y)V a^^x

= C (r, s)Ya1a2x + C(r + 1, s - l)Ya±a2x ;

So that Y(2r + 2, 2s + l) = C(r+ 1, s)Ya1a^c; . . . (22)

Again, B(2r +2, 2s 4 1) = B4 + B2 + B3 + B4 , where,

B1 + B2 = Y. a1{S'(2r + 1, 2s + 1) + B'(2 r + 1, 2s + 1) } = 0 ;

B1 = Y.aia2{S "(2r, 2s+ 1) + B"(2r, 2s + 1)}

= C(r, s - l)£Sx ;

B3 = C(r, s - ^Ya^Sx ;

B4 = Y . Ctga4 . . . 0'2r+£i>CL]CL2a'2r+5' • • • •

= B (2 r 4* 2, 2s — l)Sa4a2 + Y . a3a4 . . . ft2r+4^^’a2r+5 ••••“•••
B|(2r + 2, 2s) = Y. £a3a4. . .a^Sa^. Y. a3a4 . . 02r+4S£a2r+5. ......

B4 = C(r, s)Y£x - Y.£{S"(2r 4- 1, 2s) 4- B"(2r 4- 1, 2s)}

= C(r, s) Y£x - C (r - 1, s)£ Sx - C(r, s)Y.£Ys ;

Bx + B2 + B3 + B4 = C(r, s)( Y(x - £Sx - Y. £Yx) = 0 •
or, B(2r + 2, 2s 4- 1) = 0 ; ..... (23)

And we can easily show that

Y(2 r + 2, 2s + 1) - B(2r + 2, 2s + 1) = B(2s + 1, 2r + 2) - Y(2s + 1, 2r + 2) ■
so that

B(2s+ 1, 2r + 2) = Y(2r + 2, 2s + 1) + Y(2s + 1, 2r + 2)

= C(r+ 1, s)Ya4a2x; (24)

So that our formulse (1) to (4) are completely established.

On an Accidental Illustration of the Effective Ohmic
Resistance to a Transient Electric Current through
a Steel Bar. By Sir William Thomson.

(Read March 17, 1890.)

After the recent meeting of the British Association at Newcastle,
Lord Armstrong, in showing me the appliances by which his house
at Cragside is lighted electrically by water-power, told me of a very
wonderful incident which he had recently experienced. A bar of
steel, which he was holding in his hand, was allowed accidentally
to come in contact with the two poles of a dynamo in action. He

158

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

instantly perceived a painful sensation of burning, and let the bar
drop. He found his hand or fingers, where it had touched the bar,
severely blistered. The bar itself was found immediately after-
wards to be quite cold, or not perceptibly hot. This was a very
marvellous incident. It proved (1) the outer surface of the steel
to have been intensely heated ; (2) that not enough of heat was
generated to sensibly warm the whole bar. The explanation, of
course, was to be found in the known laws of diffusion of electric
currents, through non-magnetic conductors, considered in connection
with the effect of magnetic susceptibility of unknown amount and
law, in conductors of steel or iron.

Lord Armstrong’s accidental experiment seemed to me such a
very instructive illustration of fundamental principles of electro-
magnetic induction, that I wrote to him asking his permission to
communicate it to the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh, at the same time
inquiring as to some details. In reply I immediately received a
letter, of date 7 th March, kindly giving the desired permission, and
containing the following very interesting statement : —

“ I send you, by parcel post, the steel (not iron) bar which I held
££ when it accidentally short-circuited the current. You will observe
“ two little hollows,* which were burnt out of the metal at the
“ instant of contact, and these mark the distance between the points
“ of contact. The bar was held by my fingers midway between
u these two marks, and the bums were inflicted at the places where
“ my fingers touched the metal. The sudden pain caused me to
“ dash the bar instantaneously to the ground, and an attendant
“ immediately picked it up and found it quite cold. Three of my
“ fingers and my thumb were blistered, and had the injuries not
“ been immediately treated by an expert who happened to be
“ present, they would probably have developed into troublesome
“ sores ; as it was, my arm had to be carried in a sling during the
tc first day, and I was not able to hold a pen with comfort for many
“ days afterwards. There was a great blaze of light from the two
“ points of metallic contact, but the flame could not possibly have
“ got under my fingers where they touched the metal and were
££ burnt. If the flame had done the injury, it would have taken

* The distance between the hollows is lS^cms., the bar is about a foot long,
and its diameter is 14 mm.

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Ohmic Resistance. 159

“ effect upon the exposed parts of my hand, but nothing was scorched
“ except the skin at the points of grasp.

“ The dynamo was of Crompton’s pattern, with compound wind-
“ ing. The speed was about 1300 revolutions per minute. The
“ dynamo was not employed in charging batteries, but in the direct
“ lighting of incandescent lamps. The duty of the dynamo at the
“ time would be about 85 amperes and the potential 103 volts. No
“ check in the dynamo was perceived, nor was it likely to be observ-
“ able, seeing that the momentum of the revolving parts would be
“ enormously powerful to overcome any momentary increase of re-
“ sistance. There being two dynamos on one axis, both in motion,
“ though only one was doing work, besides the turbine- wheel and
“ the impinging jets, there would be a collective momentum of great
“ energy for a momentary effort.”

The requisites for working out fully the theory of transient or
periodic currents in conductors of any form, are included in
Maxwell’s fundamental equations of electro-magnetic induction,
and are given explicitly for straight cylindric conductors of non-
magnetic material in §§ 685-689 of his great work. Lord Ray-
leigh in his paper “ On the Self-Induction and Resistance of Straight
Conductors” {Phil. Mag ., May 1886) gives explicitly the proper
formulas for transient or periodic currents, in straight cylindric
rods of iron, on the supposition of constant magnetic susceptibility.
The details of this highly interesting and important branch of the
subject have also been investigated by Heaviside in a very compre-
hensive manner. The tendency of periodically alternating currents,
to be condensed in the outer part of a cylindric conductor, while the
current may be exceedingly feeble or quite insensible in the central
parts, was discussed an^ explained by Lord Rayleigh in p. 388 of
his article already referred to, and its aggravation in an iron con-
ductor specially pointed out. The same considerations show that a
transient current resulting from the application, for a very short
time, of the electro-motive force of a voltaic battery, or of electro
magnetic induction acting not directly on * the cylindric conductor

* This caution is introduced to avoid leading any reader into an error
into which I myself fell in the text, and corrected in footnotes, of an article
in Philosophical Magazine for March 1890, “On the Time-Integral of a
Transient Electro- Magnetically Induced Current.”

160

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

considered, but on a conductor such as the inductor of a dynamo of
any kind, momentarily in circuit with it, is only skin deep if the
duration of the electromotive force be but short enough ; and that
the depth to which the current penetrates in a given very short
time is much smaller for iron than for copper. This is certainly the
explanation of Lord Armstrong’s wonderful experiment.

To find something towards a mathematical solution for the in-
creasing current at any instant during the electric contact of Lord
Armstrong’s experiment, it is convenient first to solve the problem
of finding the subsidence of current initially given in a circuit of
two very long parallel bars connected by end bridges, or in a circuit
of one long bar insulated within a conducting sheath except at its
ends, which are in metallic connection with the sheath.

In all cases of electric currents given in parallel straight lines,
and left to subside,* without any other electromotive force than that
of their mutual electro-magnetic induction, the thermal analogy is
exceedingly convenient. For electric conductivity, c, we have
thermal capacity divided by 47r; for magnetic permeability, the
reciprocal of thermal conductivity ; and for current-density, tempera-
ture multiplied by thermal capacity. Thus, if two infinitely long
straight parallel conducting bars, separated by insulating material,
be given with equal currents in opposite directions through them,
and left to themselves, we have precisely the same mathematical
problem to solve as if in every line of the thermal analogue, we had

* The thermal analogue for a varying or constant electromotive force applied
by a voltaic battery or dynamo, substituted for one of the end-bridges, is
positive and negative sources of heat applied at the interfaces between the
thermal analogues of electric conductor and electric insulator. The quantity
of heat generated per unit of area per unit of time, at any point of either
interface in the thermal analogue, is equal to the rate of variation per unit of
length along the electric conductor, of the electrostatic force in the insulator
in contact with it in the electric analogue. Remark that, in the electric j
system the potential is uniform over each normal section of either conductor,
and that the variation of potential within each conductor per unit of distance
along its length — that is to say, the component electrostatic force in the
direction of the length is exceedingly small in comparison with the component 'i
electrostatic force perpendicular to the length at any place in the insulator,
except close to the ends metallically connected by a bridge. The equations in
the text are unchanged, except the second interfacial condition, it becomes

where a denotes the quantity of heat generated per unit of time in the source.

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Ohmic Resistance.

161

initial temperature multiplied by thermal capacity given equal to
the current-density in the corresponding line of the electro-magnetic
problem, and the system left to itself, with the positive and negative
temperatures in the two bars subsiding towards zero.

The thermal analogue for the insulating material of the electro-
magnetic problem is an ideal medium of zero thermal capacity.
Thus in process of equalisation of temperature we have diffusion of
heat through the substance of each bar, according to Fourier’s
original use of the term diffusion ; while in the ideal medium taking
the place of the electric insulator, we have merely conduction of
heat, without any diffusion properly so called, that is to say, without
any excess of heat conducted out of, above heat conducted into, any
portion of the medium.

If £ denote the temperature at time t , in the thermal analogue,
at any point, P ; 47 re the thermal capacity per unit of volume ; 1 /W
the thermal conductivity of the analogue to either of the electric
conducting bars ; and 1 /z«r' the thermal conductivity of the analogue
to the insulating medium: the equations expressing all the conditions
of the problem are

4 m=±(^+fi),

dt \dx2 dy2J

[P, in either bar]

dx2 dy 2 ’

[P, in the analogue to the insulating medium] :

RMCT

im = im

tAjA \jra

■ [P, in the interface] ;

where djdv denotes rate of variation per unit length in the direction
of the normal, at any point of the interface ; and [ ], and [ ]' denote
values infinitely near the interface outside and inside respectively.

In the particular case of one of the bars of circular cross-section,
and the other a hollow circular cylinder surrounding it coaxially,
the problem becomes greatly simplified. It becomes still farther so
if we suppose the electric conductivity, or in the thermal analogue
the thermal capacity, of this outside sheath to be infinitely great.
In this last case we have identically the same mathematical problem

VOL. xvii. 4/7/90

L

162

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

as that regarding a heated cylinder left to cool, which was pre-
sented and fully solved by Fourier in the sixth chapter of his great
work ( Theorie analytique de la Chaleur). Instead of the bodily
thermal conductivity divided by surface emissivity of Fourier’s
problem, essentially a line which we shall denote by X, we have in
the electro-magnetic problem,

x ns' b

when us and us' are the magnetic permeabilities of the conducting
rod and insulating medium around it, and a and b the radii of the
cross-sections of the rod, and of the inner surface of the enclosing
conductor.

Not considering for the present the interesting case suggested by
Heaviside of an insulating medium composed of soft iron filings
imbedded in wax or other ordinary insulating solid, we have prac-
tically us' = l, wdiether the insulator be air or any ordinary insulat-
ing solid or liquid.

Consider now two cases — a copper rod and a steel or iron rod,
each of the same diameter, 1*4 cm. as Lord Armstrong’s steel rod,
and suppose, for example, b equal to ten times a, we have

X = 2*3a=l*6 cm. for copper;

X = sr1.2‘3a = sr'1.l*6 cm. for steel or iron.

]

If b, instead of being 7 cm. were 70 cm. or 700 cm., X would be only
doubled or tripled ; on the other hand, if b were very small in
comparison with a, \ = b-a. Excluding this case, we see that for
copper X is greater than a , or not incomparably less than a. We
thus have a very fine and a very easy example for working out
numerical results by Fourier’s solution.

On the other hand, for an iron or steel rod we have for us some
large number, possibly about 300 ; or if the currents and therefore
the magnetic forces concerned are very small, we may, according to
Lord Rayleigh’s important experimental investigation on the subject
of magnetic induction * by very small magnetic forces, have us as

* This collocation of words illustrates the exceeding inconvenience of Max-
well’s use of “magnetic induction ” to designate the magnetic force in an air-
crevasse perpendicular to the lines of magnetisation in magnetised steel or soft
iron.

163

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Ohmic Resistance.

small as 80 ; on the other hand, for moderately strong currents and
correspondingly high electromotive forces, we may have sr greater
than 3000.* We shall take it as 300 merely by way of example
and illustration, hut as the permeability varies enormously with the
amount of the magnetising force, and in a manner desperately com-
plicated by magnetic retentiveness, hysteresis according to Ewing’s
designation, no accurate mathematical investigation is practicable
with only our present knowledge of the requisite data for the
diffusion of electric currents through an iron or steel conductor.

Taking for iron or steel 37 = 300, and, as above, a = ' 7, b = 7, we
find A.= 1/130 of a, or 1/187 of a centimetre. Now, because A. is
so small a fraction as 1/130 of the radius of the rod, we see that
the current-density at the surface (or surface-temperature in the
thermal analogue) drops nearly to zero, while there is still but a
relatively small diminution of current-density (or temperature in
the thermal analogue) farther in from the surface than a distance of
1/10 of the radius. Hence, for the roughly approximate investiga-
tion with which we must be content, we may be satisfied with the
very simplifying supposition of X = 0.

If we take 10,000 c.g.s. (or square centimetres per second) as
the resistivity f of steel or iron, we must divide this by 300 x 4 ir
to find the diffusivity for electric current (thermal diffusivity, or
conductivity divided by thermal capacity of unit volume, in the
thermal analogue), which therefore is 2*7 square centimetres per
second. This is only about 12 times the thermal diffusivity of
heat in iron (which is ‘225 of a square centimetre per second).
Hence in 1/4300 of a second (if A = 0), the state of things as
regards falling off of the strength of current towards the final zero,
at different distances from the surface, would be that represented
by number 0T curve of my diagram of laminar diffusion.]; That
is to say, the diffusion curve would be curve number 1 with its

* Rowland for one specimen of iron found the magnetic susceptibility as
high as 3595 for magnetising force 1’317 (see Phil. Mag., Aug. 1873).

t This seems to me a much better word than specific resistance to denote
the resistance per centimetre of length of a bar of a square centimetre of cross-
section of any substance. The resistivity of Lord Armstrong’s steel bar I have
found by measurement to be 14,000 c.g.s.

+ See British Association Report, Bath, 1888, p. 571 ; or Yol. III. of my
collected Papers, to be published in May.

164 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

vertical ordinates reduced to 1/10, or curve number 10 with its
vertical ordinates reduced to 1/100. Now by number 1 curve we
see that at 1/2 centimetre from the initiational surface (supposed
plane) the amount of the falling off is 16 per cent, of the whole.
Hence in our iron or steel rod (on the supposition A = 0) the
current at 1/4300 of a second from the beginning, and at 1/20 of a
centimetre from the surface, would have fallen off by 16 per cent,
of its given amount. Thus we judge that during the first 1/4000 of
a second the effect of the cylindric curvature is but slight, and the
diffusion follows sensibly the law of plane laminar diffusion.

The supposition of a circular cylindric sheath of infinite electric
conductivity, coaxal with the rod considered, and separated from it
by the insulating material, which we have adopted for the sake of
simplicity and definiteness, may be departed from, and instead we
may substitute any conductor parallel to the rod considered, pro-
vided that the distance between the two is a considerable multiple
of the greatest diameter of either. In virtue of this proviso, the
distribution of current-density is necessarily but very little disturbed
from the equality at equal distances from the axis of the rod, which
was provided for by the supposition of a cylindric sheath. If the
second conductor is of the same diameter and of the same material
as the first, and placed at a distance 2 a from it, the expression for A
will be the same as that given above.

Now, instead of the great simplicity of a current, generated (no
matter how), and given initially as a steady current, through the
circuit of two long parallel conductors and the end-bridges between
them ; suppose the conductors and one end-bridge to be given with
no current, and let a voltaic battery be suddenly applied instead of
the other end-bridge. If the difference of potentials maintained by
the latter between the ends to which it is applied be absolutely
constant, the rise of the current through the parallel conductors
from its initial zero to its ultimate steady amount will follow nearly
the same law as the fall from the initial steady current to the final
zero in our former simple case : exactly the same law if the quantity
of positive electricity on one conductor, and of negative electricity
on the other, called forth according to electro-static law, in virtue of
the gradient of potential, is nothing in comparison with the quantity
flowing through the circuit. The quantity of electricity required

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Ohmic Resistance. 165

for the static electrification is not negligible in a large variety of
telegraphic and telephonic problems.* In the ocean cable problem
it is of paramount importance ; and the electro-magnetic induction
with which we are now occupied is negligible. In shorter cables
and high-speed action both the electro-static and electro-magnetic
induction must he taken into account, and both have been very
practically taken into account by Heaviside in the mathematical
theory of the telephone.

In a vast variety of laboratory experimental arrangements the
currents required for the static charges are quite negligible. In
such a case* as that of Lord Armstrong’s experiment, the quantity of
electricity required for producing or changing the electrification of
every part of the circuits or of the conductors concerned is clearly
quite insensible iu comparison with the quantity which must have
flowed through the bar to produce the observed heating effect.

But although we are not troubled with any difficulty in respect
to electro-static charge, we have in Lord Armstrong’s case circum-
stances of such extreme complexity that it is of no use to attempt
to work out a complete mathematical theory. It seems probable,
however, that the solution indicated above, and represented by my
diffusion diagram, fairly illustrates the circumstances of the current
which actually flowed through the steel bar, though scarcely with any
approach to quantitative correctness. At all events we have a very
striking illustration of what really took place, and ample explanation
of the intensity and suddenness of the effect perceived by Lord Arm-
strong, by working out the result numerically of what would take place
if a difference of potentials of 100 volts were suddenly instituted,
and forcedly maintained constant during one or two or three ten
thousandths of a second between two points of the bar 15 J centi-
metres asunder. This with any reasonable assumption as to the
magnetic permeability of the iron or steel bar, and its diffusivity
for electric currents, is easily done on the supposition A. = 0, and
the solution conveniently represented by the diffusion diagram.

We must not, however, suppose that the difference of potentials
between the two points of the steel bar touched by the main elec-
trodes of the dynamo was in reality constant at 103 volts, even for
so long a time as two or three ten thousandths of a second. What was
* Papers, Yol. II. Arts. 72-77 and 80-83.

166

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

really constant may during a part of the time more really have
been the strength of the current through the electrodes leading
from the complex dynamo-circuit of armature and of shunt and
series coils of the electro-magnet, to the external permanent electric
lighting circuit and temporary circuit through the steel bar. The
difference of potentials between the two points of the steel touched
must have been at first 103 volts, and must have fallen very rapidly,
while the current which it produced in the steel rose from 0 to 85
amperes, against ohmic resistance sinking from infinity towards
*000137 of an ohm (this being the actual resistance of Lord Arm-
strong’s bar to a current running full-hore through it, as I have
found by measurement).

The immense quasi-inertia of each partial circuit within the dynamo
forbids the supposition that there can have been any great augmenta-
tion of the outgoing current during the few hundredths of a second
of the short-circuiting by the steel bar ; and, possibly with no prac-
tical error, we may suppose that current to have been constant during
the whole time. Hence, at each instant the electric lighting circuit
must have lost just as much current as that which was passing
through the steel bar. Hence, considering the smallness of the
quasi-inertia of the electric lighting circuit, the 85 amperes through
it before the accident must, after two or three ten-thousandths of a
second, have been very nearly annulled, and, therefore, very nearly
a constant current of 85 amperes must have passed for the rest of
the time through the outer skin of the steel bar.* We have thus

* This suggests an interesting and, happily, an easy problem regarding
electro-magnetic induction in rectilinear electric current through a conductor
surrounded by an insulator. Let the electromotive action, whatever its kind,
be so regulated that the integral amount of current crossing the normal section
of the conductor is kept constant. The mathematical statement of this con-
dition, according to the notation of the text above, is,

where JJdh. denotes surface integration over the cross-section of the con-
ductor. From this, by the first of the equations of the text,

Now, as is well known, and very easily proved, we have in every case,

1889-90.] Sir William Thomson on Ohmic Resistance.

167

no difficulty in understanding that there should have been amply
sufficient current through an exceedingly thin shell of the bar to
produce very suddenly the high temperature of the surface which
Lord Armstrong perceived, and yet that the total amount of heat
generated was insufficient to heat the bar to any sensible degree
after the second or two required for the thermal diffusion (diffusivity
•225 of a sq. cm. per sec.), to spread it nearly uniformly through the
body of the bar. The heat lost outside the bar by surface emissivity
(which is about 1/4000 of a gramme water thermal unit per second
per sq. cm. of surface per degree of excess) would be quite ineffective
to considerably diminish the whole quantity in the time required for
diffusion to nearly equal temperature throughout the bar. If the
dynamo had been doing no work externally at the time of the
accident, the time required to get up a strong enough current out
of the dynamo to produce much heating effect would have been very
much longer than it was. The result to Lord Armstrong might
not have been very noticeably different from what it was, but the
attendant’s fingers would have been burned also.

where Jds denotes integration all round the border of the cross-section.
Hence the condition for constant total amount of current is simply

For the case of circular cross-section with uniform electric conductivity in all
parts of it ; and with the circuit- completing conductor either a coaxial,
cylindric sheath, or a conductor of any form whatever, provided only that no
part of it is near enough to the considered part of the given conductor to
sensibly disturb the distribution, if the current, through its circular cross-
section, from being of equal current- density at equal distances from the axis,
the condition for constancy of total amount becomes simply

at the boundary of the conductor, where r denotes distances from the axis.
The full numerical solution of this problem, from the instantaneous commence-
ment of a current of given total strength (which must necessarily be in the
very outer skin, and must require an infinite current for the first instant)
through the whole time until the current becomes as nearly as may be
uniform throughout the cross-section, is particularly easy, but must be re-
served for a future communication. It is identical with the following par-
ticular case of Fourier’s thermal problem : — Let a given quantity of heat be
initially distributed uniformly through an infinitely thin surface-layer of a
solid cylinder coated with an impermeable varnish ; it is required to find, for
any subsequent time, the temperature at any distance inwards from the
surface of the cylinder.

168

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

On the Segmentation of the Nucleus of the Third Cranial
Nerve. By Dr Alexander Bruce. (With Two Plates.)

The circumstance that the oculomotor or third cranial nerve
supplies no fewer than seven muscles of the eye, two of them
intrinsic and five extrinsic, and the fact that these muscles may be
paralysed either singly or in groups as the result of central
lesions, naturally suggest that each muscle is represented in the
nucleus by a separate group of nerve cells. Hitherto, however,
the anatomical text-books have been content with figuring the
nucleus as a small indefinite group of cells lying in the anterior
portion of the grey matter surrounding the aqueduct of Sylvius.

The well-known experiments of Hensen and Yolckers ( Graefe's
Archiv , Bd. xxiv., 1878, p. 1) would appear to have been the first
attempt to investigate the question. They exposed the nucleus in
the dog, and by stimulating its various portions with electricity, they
came to the conclusion that the centres of the various muscles
were arranged from above downwards in the following order : —

(1) Tensor choroidese (accommodation).

(2) Sphincter iridis.

(3) Rectus internus.

(4) Rectus superior.

(5.) Levator palpebrse superioris.

(6) Rectus inferior.

(7) Obliquus inferior.

In 1881 Kahler and Pick (Prag. Zeitschrift f. Heilkunde , Bd. ii.
p. 30), from the observations of two clinical cases of paralytic
lesions of the muscles, were led to adopt a somewhat different, and
what appears a priori to be a more natural arrangement. They
placed the centres in a median and a lateral group, as follow : —

(Read July 15, 1889.)

Median Group.
Tensor choroidese.
Sphincter iridis.
Rectus internus.

Levator palpebrse superioris.
Rectus superior.

Obliquus inferior.

Lateral Group.

Rectus inferior.

1889-90.] Dr Alexander Bruce on Third Cranial Nerve. 169

This appears a more natural grouping, from the fact that the three
elevators of the eye and eyelid, which habitually act together, are
placed in juxtaposition, whereas, as has been pointed out by
Manthner in his Nuclearldhmung, Hensen and Yolckers placed
a depressor, the rectus inferior, between two elevators, thus separat-
ing it also from its associated centre, that for superior oblique.
Kahler and Pick found in one case in which the elevators were
paralysed that the most external of the hinder (or lowermost) roots
of the third nerve had degenerated, and in another case of paralysis
alfecting the rectus interims that the postero-median rootlets were
degenerated. Manthner (. Nuclearldhmung ) is inclined to accept the
arrangement of nuclei just described. Yon Gudden ( Tgbltt . der
Naturf. u. Aerzte , Salzburg, 1880, p. 100 ; and “ Mittheilungen der
Morph, physiolog. Gesellschaft zu Miinchen,” Aertzl. Intellig. Blatt .,
1883) found in the rabbit two nuclei on each side, a ventral and a
dorsal. The ventral or anterior was connected with the nerve of
the same side, the dorsal or posterior with that of the opposite side.
Thus the right third nerve would arise from the right ventral and
the left dorsal nucleus. He further divided the ventral into two
parts, an anterior ( i.e ., nearer the cerebrum *?) and a posterior portion.

Merkel (G-raefe Saemisch. Handbuch d. Ges. Angenheilkunde , i. p.
135) and Yulpian and Philippeaux (Essai sur Vorigine deplusieurs
paires de nerfs craniens) admit a decussation of some of the fibres of
the third nerve, but Duval denies its existence.

Edinger ( Westphal’s Archiv , 1885, p. 858) describes a median
nucleus lying between the two principal nuclei, which sends fibres
to each of the two nerves. Darkschewitsch ( Neurolog . Centralblatt ,
1886, Ho. 5) describes a small-celled nucleus at the upper extremity
of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus, which he regards as probably
forming part of the oculomotor nucleus.

Westphal (Arch. f. psychiatrie, xviii. p. 847) found in a case of
ophthalmoplegia externa that the main part of the oculomotor
nucleus was degenerated, while two other groups of nuclei remained
normal. One of these lay a little to the side of the raphe, and is
named medial by Westphal. The other, or lateral, lies somewhat
external to the posterior extremity of the medial nucleus. He
apparently does not recognise a nucleus altogether in the median
plane. (Westphal’s paper contains a very exhaustive account of the

170 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

symptomatology and description of the microscopic examination of
the nucleus.)

A considerable body of evidence has thus accumulated in favour
of an anatomical segmentation of the nucleus in question, but no
two authors seem to be agreed on the position and number of the
segmented groups. To investigate the point further, I made a series
of transverse vertical sections of the brain of a human foetus, from
the lower border of the fourth to the upper margin of the third
nucleus ; and a second series, from an adult human brain, of
longitudinal transverse sections through the same nuclei. The first
series is the more instructive. The divisions of the nuclei are
represented in figures 1-8 ; one of the longitudinal transverse
sections is shown in figure 9. From these and the special descrip-
tion of the plates which follows, it will be seen that the nucleus of
the nerve to the superior oblique muscle which lies below the most
inferior part of the nucleus of the third nerve bears the same rela-
tion to the posterior longitudinal fasciculus as does the latter nucleus,
but is always to be distinguished from it by the direction taken by
its root fibres, which pass outwards and backwards along the border
of the central grey matter and the formatio reticularis, while the
rootlets of the third nerve always arise from its anterior (ventral)
surface, and pass at once directly forwards.

Coming to the nucleus under special consideration, we distinguish
the following groups : —

A. An anterior group.

B. A postero-external group.

C. A median nucleus.

D. A postero-internal nucleus.

E. A superior nucleus.

A. The anterior or ventral group, which extends along the greater
part of the nucleus (being absent only at its extreme upper termina-
tion), lies in relation to the innermost part of the main body of the
posterior longitudinal fasciculus, and bears the same relation to it
throughout. It is distinctly segmented, and may be divided into
an inferior nucleus (fig. 2, III. i.n.), characterised by the absence of
commissural fibres between the two sides, and a main nucleus ,
which is again capable of being subdivided into at least three parts,

1889-90.] Dr Alexander Bruce on Third Cranial Nerve. 171

in virtue of its relation to the median nucleus. Of these three, the
lowest (fig. 3) lies below the level of the median nucleus, and has a
highly developed system of commissural fibres; the intermediate
(fig. 4, and fig. 5, III. a.n.) lies at the same level as the median
nucleus, and has also, at least in its lower portion, a well-developed
commissural system; while the upper division lies at a higher plane
than the median nucleus, and has extremely scanty commissural
connections with its fellow (figs. 6 and 7). The anterior nucleus
attains its largest dimensions at its lowest extremity (figs. 3 and 4),
the point at which the commissural system is most highly developed.
It gradually diminishes in size as it ascends. It is seen on longi-
tudinal transverse sections to be imperfectly segmented from what
I have termed the inferior nucleus ; this is of somewhat smaller
size than the adjacent portion of the anterior group. The upper
extremity of the nucleus under consideration is seen to fade gradu-
ally away, its volume and the number of cells diminishing almost
pari passu. It terminates altogether at a slightly lower plane than
does a group of cells to be afterwards described as the superior or
small-celled nucleus.

B. The postero-lateral group is formed of motor cells of the same
size and type as those of the anterior group. It lies on the posterior
surface of the longitudinal fasciculus, near its outer extremity. Its
length is considerably less than that of the anterior group. Below,
it begins slightly above the inferior extremity of the median nucleus ;
while above, it is replaced by the superior or small-celled nucleus.
It begins, below, as a small circular group of nerve cells, distinctly
separated from the anterior group (fig. 5, p.l.n.), and gradually
increases in size upwards, attaining its maximum near its upper
extremity (fig. 6, p.l.n.). I have given the name of external nucleus
(fig. 5, III. l.n.) to a group situated external to the middle and
upper part of the postero-lateral group, partly between, and partly
outside the longitudinal fasciculus. This is much shorter than the
postero-lateral nucleus, lying opposite its middle third.

C. The median nucleus (fig. 4, and fig. 5, m.n.) lies in the middle
line opposite the intermediate portion of the anterior group. Its
upper portion (fig. 5, m.n.) has the shape of an elongated spindle
tapering anteriorly to a sharp point, while the posterior end is
somewhat rounded. A line drawn transversely between the centres

172 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

of tlie two postero-lateral nuclei will pass through the dorsal ex-
tremity of the median nucleus. The upper portion of the median
nucleus is hounded laterally by fine medullated fibres wdiich arise
from its nerve cells and pass along its outer surface forwards to
enter, partly, the root of the nerve, and partly the posterior longi-
tudinal fasciculus. It is also connected with the adjacent portions
of the anterior group by a fine network of medullated fibres. The
lower part of the median nucleus (fig. 4) has an irregularly circular
outline. It has no lateral boundary of nerve fibres.

D. The postero-internal or pale nucleus (figs. 5, 6, 7, 9, p.i.n.)
presents in sections of the adult brain which have been stained by
Weigert’s hsematoxylin a remarkably pale appearance. It is
wedged in between the median and postero-external nuclei (see fig.
5, p.i.n.), but extends to a higher level than the former. It ter-
minates above by a large club-shaped head (fig. 9, fig. 7). (This
apparently corresponds to the medial nucleus of Westphal.) Its
pallor is due to the comparative absence of medullated fibres
between, and the large lymph spaces which surround, the nerve
cells contained in it. These cells differ from those of the other
group, being more oval or rounded, containing large spherical nuclei
having fewer processes, and staining of a much fainter brown by
Weigert’s method.

E. The superior (or small-celled nucleus of Darkschewitsch) lies
at the extreme upper extremity of the oculomotor nucleus, forming
a small indefinitely circumscribed group at the outer margin of the
posterior longitudinal bundle. It deserves a special name from its
distinct segmentation from the postero-lateral group and from the
small size of its cells. It is imbedded among the fibres of the outer
portion of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus, many of the fibres
of wThich evidently terminate in its cells, and it forms the terminus
of many of the fibres of the posterior commissure.

Roots of the Third Nerve. — The sections tend to confirm at least
partially the statements of Kahler and Pick as to the origins of the
nerve. The roots of the postero-lateral and external group of nuclei
form the most external fibres of the nerve as it passes through the
tegmentum. They constitute, however, the upper as well as the
lower external fibres. The anterior nucleus sends its roots into the
innermost part of the nerve, while fibres from the median and the

■1889-90.] Dr Alexander Bruce on Third Cranial Nerve. 173

postero-internal nuclei enter the innermost part of the nerve opposite
the upper half of the nucleus. I have searched in vain for any
decussation of the roots as described by Yon Gudden in the rabbit.

While it is certainly premature to express any positive opinion as
to the functions of the various nuclei described, there would appear
to be ground (see Westphal’s case, loe. eit.) for the belief that the
inferior, anterior, and postero-lateral (including external) groups of
nuclei are connected with the extrinsic muscles of the eyeball and
the elevator of the eyelids, and that the median and the postero-
internal nuclei are the centres for accommodation and contraction
of the pupil. If the view of Kahler and Pick he correct, then the
postero-lateral group will form the centres for the elevators, while
the anterior nucleus will he connected with the internal rectus, and
the inferior nucleus with inferior rectus. With regard to the two
central groups, the median and postero-internal, the evidence seems
to be insufficient for the view which would place the accommodation
centre at a higher level than that for the contraction of the pupil.
The circumstance that a nuclear lesion seems invariably to affect
the accommodation of both eyes, while a similar lesion may un-
doubtedly affect the sphincter iridis of one side alone, seems best
explained by the view that the accommodative act is controlled
from one centre, while there are two centres for the contraction of
the pupil. If this view be correct, then the median nucleus may
form the centre for accommodation and the postero-internal necleus
that for pupil-contraction. In this respect the intimate relation of
position of the median nucleus to the main portion of the anterior
nucleus (the supposed centres for the associated acts of accommoda-
tion and convergence) is of interest.

Description of Plates.

Fig. 1 shows the nuclei (IY. n.) of the two fourth nerves lying imbedded
amongst the outermost fibres of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus ( pd.f, “.).
Its root (IY. r.) is distinguished from that of the third nerve by passing from
the postero-external aspect outwards and backwards, along the anterior
margin of the grey matter surrounding the aqueduct of Sylvius. From the
inner aspect of the nuclei, fibres {t.f. ) pass inwards and forwards to enter the
bundles of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. The anterior parts of the two
posterior longitudinal fasciculi meet so as to form a process shaped like the
capital letter U. Into the anterior surface of this U-shaped process there
enter medullated fibres, which arise apparently in the decussating superior

174

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sees.

cerebellar peduncles. (The level of the section is at the decussation of these
peduncles. )

Fig. 2. Section made almost immediately above the preceding one, through
the lowest portion of the nucleus of the third nerve. The inferior extremity
of the nucleus (III. i.n.) is seen lying upon the dorsal aspect of the posterior
longitudinal fasciculus. At this level none of the root fibres are visible, but
on the inner aspect there are seen fibres {i.o.f.) passing forwards to join the
anterior fibres of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. The two sets of
anterior fibres converge towards each other in the shape of the letter Y. They
appear to be genetically different from the fibres of the main part of the
fasciculus, for fine medullated fibres pass from their anterior surface across the
middle line, forwards, to disappear either in the superior cerebellar peduncle,
or, what is more probable, to terminate in a nucleus situated on the inner side
of each of these tracts, or perhaps in a group of medullated fibres lying still
nearer the anterior surface. (These are not represented in the drawing. ) At
this level there are no commissural fibres between the two nuclei, a fact which
seems to warrant our separating this as a distinct portion of the nucleus, the
inferior oculomotor nucleus.

Fig. 3. Section is made at a level slightly above that of the preceding
through that part of the nucleus at which intercommissural fibres (e.f.) begin
to appear. An oval-shaped nucleus lies on either side dorsally to the posterior
longitudinal fasciculus. Fine fibres form a rich network between the two nuclei.
A large group of medullated fibres ( a.o.f '.) originates in the interior of the
nucleus and passes inwards and forwards, internally to the Y-shaped portion
of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. The fibres which arise from the
anterior surface of this Y-shaped portion pass forwards to the opposite side in
a manner similar to that described in Plate II., but appeared now in the section
from which the drawing was made, rather to end in a group of fibres imme-
diately anterior and internal to the superior cerebellar peduncle. (In addition
to these, other fibres were seen, after crossing the middle line, to bend back-
wards and outwards and become continuous with the fibres known as the deep
fibres of the corpora quadrigemina. ) This part of the nucleus (III. a.n.) forms
the lower part of the anterior group.

Fig. 4. The section is made through the inferior extremity of the median
nucleus (III. w,.n.). The two anterior nuclei still continue to be united by
intercommissural fibres. The anterior nucleus is distinctly increased in size.
It forms a compact oval-shaped group slightly imbedded in the posterior longi-
tudinal fasciculus. Fibres passing from its inner aspect forwards into the
Y-shaped portion of the fasciculus are still well seen. In the median line,
dorsal to the intercommissural fibres, is the lower extremity of the median
nucleus (III. m.n.). At this level it has a very indefinite form and outline,
and the cells are interspersed by a fine net-work of medullated fibres. Among
the fibres of the outer portion of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus, motor
cells are scattered in such numbers as to deserve a special name. I have
accordingly termed these the external nucleus (III. e.n.). The posterior
longitudinal fasciculus, both in its posterior or oblique and in its anterior or
Y-shaped portion, shows a notable increase in the number of its fibres. Part
of this is due to fibres entering its anterior aspect from the various sources
already indicated, but more markedly to the increase of connections with the
higher levels of nucleus on the same side. The condition of the vascular
supply of the nucleus in the section from which the drawing was made is of

1889-90.] Dr Alexander Bruce on Third Cranial Nerve. 175

interest. One artery ran close to the median plane from before backwards into
the median nucleus, while another, placed laterally to the above, ran to each
of the anterior nuclei. This appearance is not shown in the drawing, owing to
want of space.

Fig. 5. The section is made through the centre of the median nucleus
( m.n .). This is seen to occupy the median plane, and to have the shape of
a long spindle tapering more gradually towards its posterior than towards
its anterior extremity. It has on either side a bundle of medullated fibres
arising among its cells and running forwards towards the Y-shaped portion
of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. Some of these fibres evidently arise
from this latter structure, while others as certainly pass through it and enter
into the innermost root fibres of the nerve. The anterior nucleus (III. a.n.)
is seen lying upon the posterior surface of the innermost three-fourths of the
posterior longitudinal fasciculus. Behind the anterior group lies a second
smaller almost circular group of nerve cells, the postero-external (III. p.e.n.),
of a similar shape and size. This lies behind the outermost fourth of
the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. From its anterior surface a bundle
of fibres passes inwards and forwards between the median nucleus and the
anterior group, insinuating itself between the lateral fibres of the median
nucleus and fibres arising from the internal surface of the anterior group.
Most of these fibres from the postero-external nucleus seem to terminate in
the Y-shaped portion of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus of the same side.
It is possible that some of them may join the innermost root fibres of the
third nerve, but it is certain that none of them cross the middle line to enter
the nerve of the opposite side. The root fibres from this nucleus pass through
the underlying portions of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus and enter the
outermost part of the nerve. A small group of nerve cells (external nucleus,
e.n.) lies on the outer side of the posterior part of the posterior longitudinal
fasciculus. In the wedge-shaped space, left between the posterior part of the
median nucleus on the inner side and the posterior nucleus with its ventral
fibres on the outer, lies a large nucleus ( p.i.n .), to which I have given the name
of the postero-internal or pale nucleus. It is characterised by its cells being
(1) considerably smaller than those of the lateral groups, (2) staining less
intensely by Weigert’s method, (3) by the cells being surrounded by large
lymph spaces, and (4) by their having a comparatively slight intercellular
network of medullated fibres. The external nucleus (III. e.n.) is seen as a
small nearly circular group of cells partly imbedded and partly external to the
outermost portion of posterior longitudinal fasciculus ( p.l.f, .).

Fig. 6. A vertical transverse section made above the level of the median
nucleus. The anterior nuclehs (III. a.n. ) is greatly reduced in size, being rather
less than half the size of the same nucleus in fig. 5. The number of the cells
contained in it is diminished in a much higher proportion. The postero-external
nucleus, on the other hand, is slightly increased in size. It maintains the same
relationship to the posterior longitudinal fasciculus as in the previous section.
The two postero-internal or pale nuclei ( p.n .) have the form of long spindles or
ovoids, and are separated from each other by an interval about a third of their
width. The nucleus and its cells present the same distinctive characteristics
as have been described under fig. 5. Fine medullated fibres pass from the
anterior aspect of the three groups of nuclei towards the innermost portions of
the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. Some undoubtedly enter the roots of
the nerve, others become connected with the fasciculus.

176

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Fig. 7. Vertical transverse section through the lower extremity of the superior
nucleus (III. s.n .) or “small-celled nucleus” of Darkschewitsch, the upper
part of the pale nucleus (III. p.i.n.), and of the anterior nucleus (III. a.n.).
The anterior nucleus (III. a.n.), still futher reduced in size, lies internal to
the anterior part of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. Behind and partly
internal to the anterior nucleus is seen the pale nucleus (p.i.n.), in a position
corresponding to that described in the previous section. It is of somewhat
larger size, but its component cells show otherwise similar appearances.
The upper nucleus (II. s.n.) lies imbedded amongst the most posterior fibres
of the posterior longitudinal fasciculus. It is somewhat ovoid in shape, the
cells are distinctly smaller than those of the posterior nucleus, and there is a
somewhat dense outer cellular network of medullated fibres. The posterior
longitudinal fasciculus is considerably reduced in size compared with figs. 5
and 6.

Fig. 8. Transverse section through the superior nucleus (III. s.n.) p.l.f.,
the posterior longitudinal fasciculus greatly reduced in size; p.e., the
posterior commissure passing forwards to terminate (partly) in the small-celled
nucleus.

Fig. 9. Longitudinal section through the III. nucleus. III. p.i.n., the
postero -internal nucleus. Its club shape and its pallor are well represented —
the large head above the narrower part below, p.l.f. posterior longitudinal
fasciculus ; p.e.n., the postero-external (and probably partly anterior) nucleus ;
III. vent., third ventricule.

On the Nature of a Voluntary Muscular Movement.
John Berry Hay craft, M.D., D.Sc.

By

(From the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh. )

(Bead January 20, 1890.)

(Abstract.)

Histologists have long ago demonstrated that a muscle is not a

simple histological unit, and that it consists of innumerable muscle
fibres associated together in fasciculi, each muscle fibre being brought
into individual relationship with the central nervous system by its
own fibre. Physiologists have been too apt to overlook this fact,
and have regarded a muscle as a simple indivisible physiological
unit. When a muscle or its nerve are stimulated by an instantaneous
electrical shock all the fibres contract together, for they are all
stimulated in the same way, and at the same time. This is not the
case, according to the investigations of the author, when the muscle
contracts reflexly or voluntarily, and especially during any pro-
longed contraction. The individual fibres are then never completely
co-ordinated together, and vary constantly in their “pull.” They

s

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. Vol.XV!!

R. A. BRUCE ON NUCLEUS OF OCULO-MOTOR NERVE— Plate i.

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..i.f.

Voi.XVlI

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin.

A, BRUCE ON NUCLEUS OF

0CUL0-M0T0R NERVE— Plate ii.

1889-90.] Dr Hay craft on Voluntary Muscular Movement. 1 77

are like a body of men pulling on a rope where perfect and pro-
longed co-ordination is impossible. The proof of this is obtained
by the use of very delicate levers attached to different parts
(fasciculi) of the same muscle. Two levers attached in this way to
a muscle always give slightly different curves, evidence of individu-
ality being very apparent. Experiments were conducted both upon
the human masseter muscle and upon the gastrocnemius of a frog,
and in each case the curves obtained by the two levers correspond-
ing in the main always differed in detail.

It appears that the fibres running in a fasciculus are more co-
ordinated together than those running in different fasciculi, and
the following experiment shows that the nerve fibres passing from
muscle fibres within a fasciculus run together towards the central
nervous system in close relationship within the nerve trunk.
Make a nerve muscle preparation from a frog, and apply a tiny
drop of strong salt solution to one spot on the side of the sciatic
nerve. After a minute or so the fibres within one fasciculus will
twitch, then those within another, and so on until the whole muscle
twitches. This is no doubt due to the gradual invasion of the
nerve by the salt solution, the nerve fibres lying together, and
therefore stimulated together, all passing to the same fasciculus.

Inasmuch, therefore, as during a voluntary contraction fascicular
movements are always going on, it may be that we have not to look
any further for the cause of the muscle sound. This, as Helmholtz
has shown in an ear resonance sound, would be bound to be set
up by such movements, whether occurring aperiodically or at any
slow period of their own. Kronecker, Schafer, Horsley, v. Kries,
Landois, and others have figured tracings taken by levers and
tambours of muscles contracting under the influence of the will.
These tracings always show superimposed upon the main curve tiny,
almost periodic, oscillations. These observers have considered the
oscillations to indicate that the muscle as a whole is in incomplete
tetanus during voluntary contraction, due to its receiving a series
of nerve impulses breaking one after the other into it. The
oscillations are due, however, to an entirely different cause. They
are in reality the oscillations proper to the recording instrument
which is kept oscillating by the aperiodic fascicular movements due
to want of co-ordination. Granted such movements, which the

VOL. XVII. 4/7/90

M

178

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

[sess.

author has shown to occur, the recording apparatus must a priori he
kept in oscillation at its own period, just as a swing will he kept
swinging when even occasional pushes are given, The complete 1
demonstration of this truth is obtained by changing the record-
ing apparatus, when not only will the oscillations he changed,
but they will he found to correspond with the period of the in-
strument used in every case. This period can be obtained by
tapping the instrument, and causing it to record its own oscilla-
tions. Loven has obtained variations in the electromotive force
of a muscle during voluntary contraction ; these variations are
described as periodic, and are believed to support the view held as
to the interrupted nature of the nerve impulses passing to a muscle.

His results differ from those of other observers in respect to the
period of his variations, and probably his results are due to the
period of the electrometer he used.

If then the muscle sound, the results obtained by Loven, and the
tracings obtained by the use of levers, can all he explained by the
fact that the fasciculi within a muscle are not completely co-ordinated,
there remains no proof that a voluntary muscular contraction is of
the nature of a tetanus.

Muscular Contraction following rapid Electrical Stimula-
tion of Central Nervous System. By John Berry
Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc.

{From the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh. )

(Read February 28, 1890.)

{Abstract.)

Kronecker, Hall, Schafer, Horsley, and others have found, when
stimulating the spinal cord with rapid induced currents (ten, twenty,
thirty, forty times per second), that the muscles always responded
by giving a curve showing oscillations of one invariable period, no
matter what the period of the stimulation may have been. With
rapid stimulation, the muscles in the hands of the first named
observers gave oscillations of twenty a second, in the hands of the
latter observers of ten a second. These results are to be explained
in the following way. When the central nervous system is stimu-

179

1889-90.] Dr Haycraft on Muscular Contraction.

lated, the muscles contract but never smoothly, for local fascicular
movement, as the author has elsewhere shown, always occurring.
These cause the registering apparatus to oscillate at its own period,
just as any swinging body may be kept in motion by occasional
disturbances. We can thus explain how each observer obtained
the same number of oscillations every time he stimulated the
nervous system ; it was because he used the same recording
apparatus each time. We can also see that the different periods
observed by different observers are due to the fact that they each
used a different recording apparatus. The author finds that on
changing the recording apparatus (lever or tambour) the tracing
obtained can be changed at will, and is practically a tracing of the
oscillating period of the instrument used.

On one occasion the author was stimulating the upper dorsal
region of the cord of a rabbit thirty times a second, and was surprised
to find that, in addition to the main oscillations of the tambour just
described, there were finer oscillations at the rate of thirty a second.
These disappeared on changing the tambour or on slowing the
electrical interruptor, or on quickening its speed. They were evi-
dently due to the tambour having some higher overtone of thirty a
second at which it could oscillate ; why other observers had failed
to obtain responses from the muscles synchronous with their stimu-
lation period was because their levers and tambours wTere unable to
respond. While the author was unable to obtain curves showing
a higher period than thirty a second, yet the stethoscope furnished
evidence that changes go on within a muscle synchronous with stimuli
applied at a much greater rate than thirty a second. When the cord
or peduncles are stimulated one or two hundred times a second, the
muscles respond by giving a note of exactly the same pitch.

The ear gives better evidence of the nature of the muscular
response than do such registering apparatus as tambours and levers.
Nevertheless, if one is fortunate enough to get a tambour which has
itself some period corresponding to the period of stimulation, it is
quite capable of registering the effects which follow stimuli applied
twenty or thirty times a second. If the tambours do not respond
in the way indicated, they merely oscillate at their own slowest
period. The oscillations are kept up in this case not only by such
of the motions of the muscle, trembling at a quicker rate, as can

180

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

compound themselves with the period of the lever, hut also by the
fascicular motions which always occur during a muscular contrac-
tion, and which have been elsewhere described by the author.

Synthesis of Sebacic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown
and Dr James Walker.

(Read May 19, 1890.)

{Abstract.)

Potassium ethyl adipate was prepared by adding the calculated
quantity of alcoholic potash to an alcoholic solution of adipic ether,
and boiling. After the alcohol had been driven off on the -water-
bath, the residue, when shaken up with water and ether, yielded an
aqueous solution which after concentration was used for electrolysis.

The electrolysis was conducted in precisely the same manner as
in our former syntheses.* A colourless oil was observed to collect
on the top of the solution. After completion of the electrolysis, the
contents of the crucible used as cathode were extracted by ether,
which was subsequently distilled off and the residual oil kept for
some hours at 120°. When hot this oil smells of melted butter, but
on cooling the fatty odour disappears, a very slight smell resembling
melons being left. The boiling-point of the oil is 307° (uncorr.).
Analysis yielded the following results : —

T452 gr. substance gave *3470 gr. C02
and T329 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for C14H2604.

C 65-18% 65*12%

H 10-16 10-08

The substance has thus the composition of sebacic ether.

A portion of it was saponified by means of alcoholic potash, the
potassium salt separating out on boiling. The acid obtained from
this salt by precipitation with hydrochloric acid was found to melt
at 128° — the melting point of sebacic acid.

A weighed portion of the potassium salt was ignited, and gave
the following numbers : —

•3662 gr. salt gave *1808 gr. K2C03

Found. Calculated for ^ioB ig04K2.

27-88 % 28-06 %

* Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1889-90, p. 54.

K

1889-90.] Professor Crum Brown on Optical Activity.

181

On the Relation of Optical Activity to the Character of
the Radicals united to the Asymmetric Carbon Atom.
By Professor Crum Brown.

(Read June 2, 1890.)

It is obvious that the amount of the optical activity of a given
compound containing an asymmetric atom of carbon depends upon
the amount of difference in character among the four radicals united
to the asymmetric carbon atom, so that if two of them are very
nearly equal we come very near to a compound of a symmetric
carbon atom, in which the optical activity is zero. The question
suggests itself, How are we to measure this difference of character ?
We shall assume that there is a function, capable of numerical
representation, derivable from the composition and constitution of
the radical and the temperature of the substance, and that it is the
difference between the values of this function in the case of two
radicals which gives us the difference of character referred to. For
the sake of brevity, we may call this function the k of the radical.
The object of this paper is to show that, if there be such a function,
there are methods by means of which we may hope to ascertain its
value in each case.

Let us represent the compound by the formula (C)ABrA, in
which (C) represents the asymmetric carbon atom, and A, B, T, A
the radicals united to it arranged in order of the values of k. How
these radicals may be united to the asymmetric carbon atom in either

of two ways. One of these ways — we have as yet no means of
guessing which — corresponds to right-handed rotation, the other to
left-handed rotation. The one form can be changed into the other

182 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. j

by interchanging the positions of any two of the radicals. Now we
cannot directly interchange the positions of two radicals by any
method such that we can be sure which radicals have been inter-
changed, but we can act upon one radical so as to increase or diminish
its k, and if, for example, the k of B is increased so as to be greater
than that of A, we have now a new compound, (C)A1BiriA1,
in which A2 is the modified B, and B1? ri? A1 are the original
A, r, A respectively. But we see that we have changed the order in
which the radicals (arranged in order of values of k) are united to the
asymmetric carbon atom. If the original compound is represented
by (1) in the figure above, the new compound corresponds to (2).

If therefore the original compound were right-handed, the new one
will be left-handed, and vice versa. The change of sense of rotation
is thus an indication that a change has been effected in the value of
the k of a radical such as to change the order of the radicals.

We do not know very many cases of such change, but we know
enough to illustrate the foregoing. In right-handed tartaric acid
there are two asymmetric carbon atoms, but as these are perfectly
similar in all respects we need only look at one. This is then our
(C), and our A, B, T, A, are (arranging them provisionally in order
of mass) -CH(OH)— CO— OH, -CO— OH, -OH, and -H. By
treatment with acetyl chloride, tartaric acid is converted into diacetyl-
tartaric acid. Here the radicals are (preserving the order of union
to the asymmetric carbon atom) -CH(0 — CO — CH3) — CO — OH,
-CO — OH, -0 — CO — CH3, and -H. Now the diacetyl- tartaric acid
from right-handed tartaric acid is left-handed. We shall assume
that addition to a radical increases the value of k, and that there-
fore the k of -CO — OH is greater than that of -OH, and that k is
increased when -OH is converted into -O — CO — CH3; making these
assumptions, we find then that the k of -0 — CO — CH3 is greater
than that of -CO — OH. Again, we can convert right-handed tartaric
acid into its ethyl ether. Here, preserving the old order, we have
the radicals -CH(OH)— CO— 0—C2H5, -CO— 0—C2H5, -OH, and
-H. This ether is right-handed. From it, by the action of acetyl
chloride, we can obtain diethyl diacetyl-tartrate. Here we have
the radicals -CH(0 — CO — CH3)— CO — O — C2H5,-CO — 0 — C2H5,

-0 — CO — CII3, and -H. This ether is also right-handed, but only
to a small extent. We thus see that the k of -0 — CO — CIT3 is less

1889-90.] Professor Crum Brown on Optical Activity. 183

than that of -CO — 0 — C2H5, but not much less. Take now the
case of dimethyl tartrate. This, like the acid, is right-handed, but
yields with acetyl chloride a strongly left-handed dimethyl diacetyl-
tartrate. From this we gather that the k of -O — CO — CH3 is
greater than that of -CO — O — CH3, although the two radicals are
isomeric.

Let us now consider the case of asparagine. We do not know
which of the two formulse HO— CO— CH2— CH(NH2)— CO— NH2,
and HO— CO— CH(NH2)— CH2— CO— NH2 is that of asparagine;
we shall here use the latter.* In potash solution this becomes
K— 0— CO— CH(NH2)— CH2— CO— NH2, if there were no dis-
sociation of the ions. Similarly in hydrochloric acid solution it
becomes H— 0— CO— CH(NH3C1)— CH2— CO— NH2, also if
there were no dissociation of the ions. Here of the two radicals
— CO' — OH and -NH2 the one is increased by dissolving the substance
in potash, the other by dissolving it in hydrochloric acid ; and (as
is well known) asparagine rotates to the left in alkaline, and to the
right in acid solution. The case of aspartic acid is quite similar.

Another case which has been pretty fully investigated is that of
active amyl alcohol and its derivatives, t Active amyl alcohol has the
constitution CH(C2H5)(CH3)(CH2OH) ; it is left-handed, as is also,
to nearly the same extent, the corresponding amylamine. But the
other derivatives, in which the fourth radical in our formula is in-
creased (as the bromide, CH(C2H5)(CH3)(CH2Br), the hydrochloride
of the amylamine, and still more the di- and tri-amylamines), are
right-handed. From all of which we may conclude that the k of
-CH2OH is less than that of -C2H5 and greater than that of -CH3;
that the k of -CH2QH is very nearly equal to that of -CH2NH2,
that the k of -CH2Br is greater than that of — C2H5.

Active lactic acid and its salts have been examined in reference to
their optical activity by Wislicenus.f He finds that active lactic
acid rotates in the opposite sense from its salts — this would mean
that the «c of -COOH is less than that of -CH3, so that the in-

* I use these formulae, and not those in which asparagine is represented as
a salt, because I am here dealing only with asparagine in alkaline or acid
solution.

t See Plimpton, Ohem. Soc . Jour., xxxix. 332 ; and Just, Liebig’s Ann.,
ccxx. 146.

+ Liebig’s Ann., clxvii. 302.

184 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

crease of the k of -COOH by its change into -COOM brings it
above the k of -CH3, and changes the order of the radicals. If this

H H 0

i i 11

be so, then of the three radicals — C — H , — C — 0 — H , — C — OH ,

H H

the k is greatest in the second and least in the third, so that the re-
placement of H by OH raises the value of k, the replacement of
H2 by O lowers it, and lowers it more than the replacement of H by
OH raises it.

There is one set of cases to which we cannot as yet apply the
method ; viz., where the asymmetric carbon atom forms part of a
ring, as in diacetyl-tartaric anhydride, asparagine (if we regard it as
a salt with twice the formula given above), camphor, &c.

Of course we cannot as yet even approximate to a formula for the
amount of rotation in terms of the four k’s and temperature, but as
the rotation becomes zero when any two k’s become equal we may
presume that it contains the product of the differences of the k’s.

The first thing to be done with this speculation is to find whether
k is really a function of the composition and constitution of the
radical and of the temperature of the substance, or varies with the
character of the other three radicals. This will require the prepara-
tion and careful examination of many active substances and their
derivatives.

June 21, 1890.

■

Since the paper of which the above is an abstract was read to the
Society I have seen a note on the same subject by Mr Philippe A.
Guye, published in the Comptes Rendus for March 31st of this year.

There is a good deal common to Mr Guye’s view and mine, and I
take this opportunity of acknowledging his priority in the points
which are common.

The chief difference is that Mr Guye regards the mass of each
radical and the distance of its centre of gravity from the centre of
figure of the tetrahedron as all that has to be considered as deter-
mining the amount of asymmetry, whereas I suppose k to be a
function of the composition and constitution of the radical, not
necessarily proportional to the mass and the distance of the centre
of gravity from the centre of the tetrahedron, so that, for example,

1889-90.] Professor Crum Brown on Optical Activity.

185

the replacement of H2 by 0 diminishes k although it increases the
mass of the radical.

On the Mean Level of the Surface of the Solid Earth.

By Hugh Robert Mill, D.Sc.

(Read June 2, 1890.)

In a paper “ On the Height of the Land and the Depth of the
Ocean,” read to the Society on 19th December 1887, and published
in the Scottish Geographical Magazine , vol. iv. pp. 1-41, Dr John
Murray gives a very detailed estimate of the volumes of oceanic
hollows and continental protuberances. I have recently had recourse
to Dr Murray’s calculations in order to determine the position of
the contour-line which should separate the portions of the solid
earth above the general level of the surface from those below that
level. The results of this determination were published in the
Scottish Geographical Magazine , vol. vi. pp. 182-187 ; but since then
the theoretical importance of the particular contour-line in question
has induced me to give further consideration to the subject.

The term “ lithosphere ” has been applied to the solid part of the
earth, and “ hydrosphere ” to the oceans collectively, corresponding
etymologically with “ atmosphere ” by which the gaseous envelope is
familiarly known. If the lithosphere were smooth and the earth at
rest, it would be entirely and uniformly covered by the hydrosphere.
The amount of dry land emergent above the surface of the hydro-
sphere depends in the first instance on the configuration of the
lithosphere, in the second on the volume of the hydrosphere.

The surface of the hydrosphere is usually adopted as the standard
level from which heights and depths are estimated; theoretically
this is unsatisfactory, on account of the distortion of surface caused
by the gavitational attraction of the ridges on the lithosphere. The
only perfect reference surface is that of the geoid, or smooth figure
which would result if the ridges of the lithosphere were laid to rest
in the hollows. In order to arrive at this mean level of the litho-
sphere (shortly mean-sphere level), the requisite data are the
volumes of the hydrosphere and of the emergent land, together with
the areas occupied by each. From calculations given at length in

186 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

the paper already cited, I was led to fix the position of mean-sphere
level at about 1400 fathoms below sea-level; that is to say, nearly
midway on the very steep descent which everywhere separates the
comparatively flat-topped world-ridges from the still flatter-bottomed
world-hollows. My friend Mr J. G. Bartholomew has drawm my
attention to the fact that recent hydrographic exploration in the
Pacific and Indian Oceans has revealed the existence of a far greater
area more than 3000 fathoms deep than was supposed to exist when
the maps for Dr Murray’s paper were constructed. Hence in that
paper the area with depths between 2000 and 3000 fathoms must
be restricted, and the area with depths greater than 3000 fathoms
enlarged to the same extent. The other contour-lines are practically
unaltered, but the volume of the hydrosphere is greater than was
assumed, and the contour-line of mean-sphere level must lie at a
somewhat greater depth than 1400 fathoms.

It is obvious that the two areas into which the mean-sphere level
line divides the surface of the globe bear no necessary relation of
size to one another. If, for example, the elevated area were a vast
pillar 1 square mile in section, the mean-sphere level line would be
traced round it very near the base ; if, on the other hand, the elevated
area were a mass 166,000,000 square miles in section, mean-sphere
level would be close to the mouth of the narrow pit which formed
the depressed area.

When a map of the sphere on an equal surface projection is cut
out along the contour-line of 1400 fathoms of ocean depth (assumed
mean-sphere level), the area above that level is, as estimated by
weighing the two portions, 20 per cent, smaller than the area beneath
that level. In this experiment, the red line marking mean-sphere
level on the map was visible on the portion representing the de-
pressed area. This line was 80 inches long, and assuming that of
an inch were left on the one side, this would account for one quarter
of the difference, leaving the depressed area 15 per cent, larger than
the elevated area ; i.e, the two areas would be equalised by trans-
ferring 7J per cent, of the larger to the smaller. In so rough an
experiment it is not a great assumption to take the two areas as
equal, but if instead of doing so we inquire into one or two other
ratios, the equality in area of the elevated and depressed region is
practically proved.

1889-90.] Mr Hugh R. Mill on Mean Level of Solid Earth. 187

Using Dr Murray’s corrected figures,* we get —

Area of lithosphere above contour-line of 1000 fathoms, 78,700,000 sq. miles
,, below ,, ,, 118,200,000 ,,

Or the ratio is 1 : 1 -5.

Area of lithosphere above contour-line of 2000 fathoms = 109,200,000 sq. miles
,, below ,, ,, = 87,700,000 ,,

Or a ratio of 1 : 0 *8.

And by my experiment just cited —

Area of lithosphere above contour-line of 1400 fathoms, 89,000,000 sq. miles
,, below ,, ,, 107,600,000 ,,

Or a ratio of 1 : 1 *2.

As previously pointed out, recent researches show that mean-
sphere level should he placed somewhat deeper than 1400 fathoms,
and if this depth were 1700 fathoms the result would almost exactly
correspond to an equalisation of areas.

Pending the remeasurement of large-scale maps on which the
results of the exploration of the Pacific at present in progress by
British surveying ships can he represented, and pending also fuller
knowledge of the relief of polar regions and of the gravitational
distortion of the hydrosphere, it is imprudent to do more than point
out the position of mean-sphere level as somewhere between 1400
and 2000 fathoms beneath mean sea-level. At the same time it
is to he noted that some contour-line between 1400 fathoms and
2000 fathoms (probably that of 1700 fathoms) divides the surface
of the lithosphere into two equal areas — one of elevation, one of
depression.

This coincidence can hardly he accidental, and although at
present I do not see how the fact of the volume of the projecting
portion of one half the lithosphere surface being equal to the volume
of the depression occupying the other half hears upon physical
geography and geology, the question demands, and will probably
repay, investigation. If the substance of the globe were incom-
pressible and elastic, it would follow that the depression of one half
the surface would elevate over the other half a protuberance equal
in volume to the depression. The depressed area is the region
termed by Dr Murray the “ abysmal area,” and has distinct physical

Scot. Geog. Mag., 1890, vol. v. p. 265.

188 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

properties unlike those of the other half of the world. If it were
possible to show that one half of the earth’s surface was subjected
to a compressive stress from which the other half was free during
the period of plasticity, the magnitude of the pressure would be
measured hydrostatically by the mass elevated over the free half.
Except the pressure of the hydrosphere on the abysmal area, no
such force is at present at work, and that pressure is certainly quite
inadequate to the result.

A Geometrical Method, dependent on the Principle of
Translation. By David Maver. (With Plate.)

(Read March 3, 1890.)

The properties of generating lines and surfaces often afford an
easy and beautiful mode of demonstrating geometrical theorems
which, if done by the ordinary method, would be long and tedious.
As the subject, so far as the writer is aware, is new, a short paper
upon it may not be unacceptable.

The following principles will readily be admitted : —

1. Let AB and CD be two parallel straight lines, and EF, GK
any lines whatever drawn from the line AB to the line CD. If
these lines EF, GK advance equal distances along AB and CD,
each keeping parallel to itself, the spaces passed over by these lines
will evidently be equal. Let these spaces be represented by sEF
and sGK, which may be read space generated by EF and space
generated by GK, then we have sEF = sGK. From this it follows
that if one side of a triangle be the direction of motion the spaces
generated by the other two sides are equal, that is if ABC be a
triangle and BC the direction of motion sAB = sAC.

2. If there be two lines EF, GK standing upon the straight
line FK, and if FK be the direction of motion, and sEF = sGK,
then the lines EF, GK are between the same parallels, that is if
EG be joined, EG is parallel to FK.

- 3. If AB and CD be two equal straight lines, and equally in-

clined to their respective directions of motion, we plainly have
sAB = sCD.

1889-90.] Mr David Maver on a Geometrical Method. 189

4. If AB = CD and sAB = sCD, or if p AB = ^CD and ^sAB =
gsCD then AB and CD are equally inclined to their respective
directions of motion.

5. If sAB = sCD and AB and CD are equally inclined to their
respective directions of motion then AB = CD, or generally if
psAB = gsCD then £>AB = gCD.

It would appear, therefore, that of the three conditions, equality
of straight lines, equality of the spaces generated by these lines, and
equality of their inclinations to their respective directions of motion,
if any two are given the third is also given.

There are other properties of generating lines which might be
noticed, but to do so, and show their application to the solution of
geometrical theorems, would extend this paper to too great a length.
We shall therefore proceed to apply what has already been gone
over.

BA and BC (fig. 1) are two tangents to the circle EAC whose
centre is D. If the diameter CDE be drawn and EA and DB joined,
EA shall be parallel to DB. It is easily seen that the angle ABD
= CBD. Let DB be the direction of motion then, sED = sCD =
sCB = sAB, .*. since sED = sAB, EA is parallel to DB (2).

Let the sides AB, BC (fig. 2) of the triangle ABC be bisected by
the straight lines CE, AF intersecting in G, then shall CG = 2EG
AG = 2FG; and if BG be drawn and produced to D, AD = CD.
Let AF be the direction of motion, then sCG = sCF(l) = sBF = sBA =
2sEA = 2sEG, . *. since sCG = 2sEG, CG = 2EG (5). In the same
way AG = 2FG. Again, if DB be the direction of motion, we have
sAD = sAG = 2sFG = 2sFB = sCB = sCD, . *. since sAD = sCD, AD =
CD.

ABCD (fig. 3) is a quadrilateral, and the diagonal BD bisects the
diagonal AC in E. If the opposite sides be produced to meet at
F and G we have the following results: — (1) If GD = mAD then
shall GB = mCB, FD = mCD, and FB = mAB. (2) If BD be pro-
duced it will bisect FG in K. (3) AC is parallel to FG.

(1) TakeDB as the direction of motion, then because GD = mAD
.*. sGD = ms AD = msAE = msCE = msCB ; but sGD = sGB, .*. sGB =
msCB, and GB = mCB (5).

To show that DF = mCD. Because GD = mDA .-. GA = mDA +
DA = (m + l)DA. Taking FB as the direction of motion, we have

190 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

sGA = (m + l)sDA = (m + l)sDF ; but sGA is also equal tosGB =
msCB = msCF, .*. (m + l)sDF = msCF, and (m + l)DF = mCF (5).
Hence (m + 1)DF - mDF = mCF - mDF = m(CF - DF) = mCD • and
(m + 1)DF - mDF=DF DF = mCD. That FB = mAB may be
sliown in the same way as that GB = mCB.

(2) FG is bisected in K. Take KB as the direction of motion,
then sGK = sGD = ms AD -- msAD = msCE = msGD — sFD = sFK,
. \ since sGK = sFK we have GK = FK.

(3) AC is parallel to FG. Because GD = mDA . \ GA = mDA +
DA = (m+l)DA. In the same way FC = (m + 1)DC, and taking
AC as the direction of motion, sGA = (m+ l)sDA = (ra + l)sDC =
sFC, since sGA = sFC, AC is parallel to FG.

Let AB, CD, EF, GK be four straight lines, and AB-CD = EF-GK.
If CD and GK are generating lines, and equally inclined to their
respective directions of motion, we plainly have ABsCD = EFsGK ;
and conversely, if ABsCD = EFsGK then AB-CD = EF-GK. It is
easy to see that this truth is general whatever number of factors
we may have, and that if A-B-C = D«E-F then A-BsC = D-EsF =
A-CsB = D-FsE = C-BsA = F-EsD.

The converse is also evidently true, that if A-BsC = D-EsF, and
the generating lines C, F be equally inclined to their respective
directions of motion, then A-B-C = D-E-F.

For the sake of brevity it will be convenient to use some symbol
to indicate the direction of motion. In the expression sAB(CD)
the symbol is (CD), which indicates that the direction of motion of
the generating line AB is CD.

To employ the properties of generating lines in geometrical de-
monstration, it is necessary to observe those angles which are equal,
and to remember that if the angle made by the generating line with
the direction of motion be changed into its supplement the space
generated is unaltered.

* CA and CB (fig. 4) are two tangents at the extremities of the chord
AB of the circle ABF, and CF a secant cutting the convex circumfer-
ence in D, the chord AB in E, and meeting the concave circumfer-
ence in F ; to show that CF is divided harmonically in D and E.
Join FA, FB, BD. It is easy to see that the angle DBE = DFA in
the same segment, CBD = BFE in the alternate segment, and FAC
the supplement of EBF.

1889-90.] Mr David Maver on a Geometrical Method. 191

CFsED(DB) = CFsEB = EBsCF(FA) = EBsCA = CAsEB(BF) =
CAsEF = CBsEF = EFsCB(BD) = EFsCD ,

since CFsED = EFsCD, and that the generating lines ED and
CD are equally inclined to DB the direction of motion, the angles
EDB, CDB being supplementary, we have CF-ED = EF-CD.

From the extremities of the base BC (fig. 5) of the triangle ABC
are drawn any two lines BD, CE, meeting the opposite sides AC, AB,
or those sides produced in D, E, and intersecting in F : to show that
AB- AC-FEED = FC-FB-AE-AD.

AB-ACEEsFD(DC) = AB-AC-FEEC = ABEEECsAC(CE) =
ABEEECsAE = AB-FC-AEEE(EB) = ABEC-AEsFB =
FC-AEEBsAB(BD) = FC-AE-FBsAD .

It will be seen that the first generating line FD in the foregoing
series of equal products is inclined to its direction of motion at the
same angle as the last generating line AD. Hence

AB-AC-FEED = FC-FB-AE-AD.

ABCD (fig. 6) is a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle, the diagonals
AC, BD intersecting at E, to show that AB2-CE-DE = CD2-AE-BE.
The angle DCE = ABE, being in the same segment, also CDE = BAE.

AB2-CEsDE(EC) = AB2-CEsDC = AB-CE-DCsAB(BE) =
AB-CE-DCsAE = AB-DC- AEsCE(ED) = AB-DC-AEsCD =

DC- AE-CDsBA(AE) = DC-AE-CDsBE = CD2- AEsBE ,

since the first and last generating lines DE, BE are equally
inclined to their respective directions of motion, we have

AB2-CE-DE = CD2-AE-BE .

Let the opposite sides BC, AD (fig. 7) of the circumscribing quadri-
lateral ABCD touch the circle at the points G, E. It is known
that if GE be drawn it will pass through P, the intersection of the
diagonals AC, BD. Show that CB-PG-AP-DP = DA-PE-PB-CP.

CB-PG-APsDP(PA) = CB-PG-APsD A = CB-PG-DAsPA(AE) =
CB-PG-DAsPE - CB-D A-PEsPG(GB) = CB-DA-PEsPB =
DA-PE-PBsCB(BP) = DA-PE-PBsCP ,

192

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

. \ since the inclination of the generating line DP to its direction of
motion PA is equal to that of CP to its direction of motion BP, we
have CB-PG-AP-DP = DA-PE-PB-CP.

By applying the properties of generating lines to the products of
three or more straight lines, as has been done in the last three
examples, any number of geometrical results may be obtained.
But for a fuller development of the subject, the writer would refer
to his work, Parallel Translations of Lines and Surfaces , published
by A. Brown & Co., Aberdeen, in which the principles are extended
and applied to other parts of geometry.

The apparatus for Impact experiments, which was exhibited to
the Society on 20th February 1888, has been greatly improved by
the substitution of a very true slab of plate-glass, thinly covered with
printing-ink, for the sheet of cartridge paper. The record is made
by a needle-point which projects from the falling body, and which
is kept in constant contact with the plate by means of a light spring.
The time of rotation of the plate is given by a tuning-fork, with a
small bristle attached, which is kept in vibration by a periodic
current, and records alongside of the other tracings.

When the paint is dry, the plate is used as a photographic nega-
tive. To correct for possible shrinkage of the photographic paper,
circles of known diameter are described on the inked plate at
various places, and tested when the fixing process is complete.

The following data give a general idea of the results of a 4 foot
fall: — the falling body being a block of hard wood, of 5J lbs. mass,
which impinges on a cylinder of 32 mm. diameter and 32 mm. in
length, half of which is imbedded in a large mass of lead cemented
to the asphalt floor. The time is less for more violent impacts.

Graphic Records of Impact. (Abstract.)

By Professor Tait.

(Read July 7, 1890.)

Material of Cylinder.

Compression in mm.

11-5

2*3

19*0

1-9

Time of Impact.

0S'0077
0 -0014
0 -0166
0 -0018

Vulcanized India-Rubber,
Vulcanite,

Cork

Plane-tree, .

Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin.

Vol.XVIl

D. MAVER ON PRINCIPLE OF TRANSLATION.

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Bust Particles.

193

On the Number of Dust Particles in the Atmosphere of
certain Places in Great Britain and on the Continent,
with Remarks on the Relation between the Amount
of Dust and Meteorological Phenomena. By John
Aitken, F.R.S. (With 3 Plates).

(Read February 3, 1890.)

The portable dust-counting apparatus described in a previous
communication to this Society* was designed with a view of making
observations on the air at situations where it would be inconvenient
to work with the larger laboratory apparatus ; and also to enable
these observations to be made under conditions more favourable for
avoiding local impurities than is possible when working in a house.
As the construction of this portable apparatus was completed just
as I was about to start for the Continent, the opportunity seemed a
favourable one for continuing the investigation into the number of
dust particles in the atmosphere, and extending our knowledge on
the subject in other countries. The portable apparatus is reduced
to such dimensions that it adds but little to one’s personal
luggage, and can be easily carried to the place where the observations
are to be made.

This new form of apparatus has been found to do its work
satisfactorily. If a new set of apparatus were made, the only altera-
tions the past experience would suggest is to omit the smallest
of the stopcock measures, because I have never as yet had
occasion to measure outside air so full of particles that the testing
could not have been done with the second smallest measure. The
smallest measure should therefore be only retained if the apparatus
is required to test air extremely full of particles. For air of
the country comparatively free from pollution, all the stopcock
measures may be omitted, as they are never required. When the
air is pure large quantities of it require to be sent into the
receiver, and the air-pump alone is used. When the air is fairly
pure, such as country air, 5 or 10 c.c. are generally required for each
test.

The silver counting stage of the apparatus was at one time found

* Proc. Boy. Soc. Edin ., vol. xvi.

VOL. XVII. 7/8/90

N

194 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

to be troublesome, frequent polishings being required to keep it in
good working order. Other metals less easily tarnished than silver
have been tried, but with no very satisfactory result as yet. Plati-
num does very well, and keeps free from tarnish, but it is difficult to
give it a very perfect polish. Platinoid, which owing to its property
of keeping bright in impure air, promised to bridge this difficulty,
but on trial it was found to be most unsuitable, as it soon got spotted
all over. The little drops of rain seemed to eat into it, and not
more than one test could be made without repolishing. Blackened
glass had also been tried again, in the hope it might be got to work
well, as it could be much more easily kept in order than silver.
Unfortunately it does not act very satisfactorily, owing to the tendency
of glass to get dewed. As this dewing is not easily observed in the
instrument, it gives rise to difficulties, as the drops are not visible on
the dewed surface. And when the surface is kept undewed the
drops tend to evaporate, and the number counted is rather low.
Further, owing to less light being reflected by the glass surface than
by the silver, the drops are not so brilliantly illuminated and there-
fore not so easily counted. On the other hand, silver has been
found to require very little attention in pure air. The stage has
frequently been used for weeks without once being taken out of
the receiver for polishing, and it worked quite satisfactorily at the
end of the time.

The first place on the Continent at which regular observations
were made with the dust-counter was Hyeres in the south of
France. Hy&res is a small town on the shores of the Mediterranean,
and is the westmost of the health resorts on the French Riviera.
It is situated on the southern slopes of a hill, at rather more than
two miles from the sea. A flat fertile plain extends for some dis-
tance from the town seawards, and at some places the shore is
fringed by marshy lands. Observations were occasionally made at an
open window of the hotel, which is situated just on the outskirts of
the town. The observations of most value, however, were made on
the top of Finouillet, a hill situated at about two miles to the north
of west of Hyeres. Finouillet has an elevation of slightly less than
1000 feet.

Along with this paper is given a table showing the results obtained
at this situation, and also at a number of other places on the Conti-

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

195

1889-90.]

nent and in this country. In the table is entered the number of
dust particles, per cubic centimetre, observed in the air of the place,
at the hour and date given, each of the numbers given is an average
of ten tests made in rapid succession. The direction and force of the
wind is also entered, as well as the temperature and the humidity.
The humidity is indicated by the amount to which the wet bulb
was depressed below the dry one at the time the tests were made.
These records of humidity are not very satisfactory, owing to the
difficulty of getting suitable positions for making the observations
at the different places. In a few cases the observations were
made with wet and dry bulb thermometers placed at a window,
and in shade and protected as much as possible from radiation.
In some cases the humidity was taken with a hygroscope, and its
readings converted into wet bulb depressions by comparative read-
ings of the two instruments. In the second last column of the table
is entered the state of the air with regard to transparency. These
transparency observations are far from satisfactory, as no special
means have been adopted of measuring it. It has simply been
judged by the unaided eye, which is a very rough method of estimat-
ing it. There are many things which alter the apparent trans-
parency of the air, and make the estimate taken in this way very
unsatisfactory. For instance, when the sky is clouded all over the
air looks more transparent than under a cloudless sky, because the
haze in the air between us and the distant scene is not illuminated
by direct sunlight, and therefore does not show so much. Again,
when looking in the direction away from the sun, the air appears
clearer than when looking in the opposite direction. Only a very
rough scale of clearness has therefore been attempted. Some special

I instrument would require to be devised before more definite records
can be obtained.

It will be seen from the table that a great number of particles
was observed in the air on the 19th March, at the open window of
the hotel at Hyeres. This high number was evidently due to local
contamination, the wind at the time blowing from the town. On

I the 21st the wind was towards the town, and, as will be seen, the air
was much freer from dust, the number per c.c. falling from 46,000
to 5000.

The top of Finouillet was selected for testing the air of

196 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

the district surrounding Hy&res on account of its position and
shape. The hill is situated near the centre of a plain ; on its south,
west, and north sides it rises with steep slopes to a rather fine
point. Its top rises therefore into what we might expect to he the
pure air of the district. An examination, however, of the table
will show that no very low number was obtained at this situation,
never less than 3500 per c.c. The reason for this would appear to
be that the hill is surrounded on three sides by a highly cultivated
plain, which is dotted all over with the houses of the peasantry, and
at many places there are villages. The air of this district is there-
fore very much polluted with the products of combustion, and
though the situation where the observations were made is nearly
1000 feet high, and the hill rises abruptly from the plain, yet it is
evident that the polluted lower air came up to the top of the hill,
being driven up the slopes by the wind. This ascent of the lower
air to the tops of hills has been frequently observed, and will be
referred to later. The rapid change in the number of particles
observed at short intervals, showed that the lower air was rising
to the hill top. On the 23rd and 25th the numbers varied greatly
owing to the impure lower air being imperfectly mixed with the
purer air above. It is no doubt possible that some of this variation
may have been due to change of direction of wind bringing air from
more or less polluted parts.

It will be observed that on the 4th of April the number of
particles at this situation was remarkably great, the number being
as high as 25,000 per c.c. This high number was fairly steady
during all the tests made on that day. When I had tested the
different parts of the dust counter and found no reasonable cause
for doubting its indications, it became necessary to look for some
outside cause for this very high number. On looking in the direc-
tion of Toulon, distant about nine miles, it was seen that the wind
was blowing direct from that town, and bringing the products of
combustion to the place of observation ; the smoke being traced for
some distance from the town coming in a straight line towards
Finouillet.

On the 29th March observations were made at La Plage with
the view of examining the air resting on the sea. These observa-
tions were made at three different places near the shore. The first

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Bust Particles.

197

on the beach, the second at 100 yards inland, and the third at 250
yards from the beach. The wind at the time was directly inshore,'
but it is possible it may have been polluted, as there are a few
dwellings on the islands outside. Two observations were made on
the beach at an interval of an hour and a half. The second
observation gave twice the number observed in the first. This may
have been due to many of the particles having been produced by
the waves, and as the waves continued nearly the same, while the
wind fell to about one-half, the number of particles of spray in the
air would be increased at the time of the second observation. The
increase, however, may have been due to pollution from the dwellings
on the islands. At both the situations at a distance from the
shore the number was less than on the beach. This may have
been due to the air with the spray particles being diluted on its
passage, through the woods, to the situations at a distance from the
beach.

The next town at which observations were made was Cannes.
The position selected for testing the air of this district was the top
of La Croix des Gardes, a small hill in the west bay, having an
elevation of about 500 feet. The hill is situated quite outside the
town, but it is surrounded on most sides by houses at no great
distance. On the 10th of April, when there was a strong west
wind, the air was very pure, there was only 1600 particles per c.c.
rioted. The air on this day was likely to be as pure as it will ever
be at this situation, as it came with a fresh wind direct over the
Esterel Mountains, and from a very thinly populated district.
The lowest number observed here was much less than the lowest at
Hyeres, but at the latter place the wind on the days the tests were
made never came from the least populated district, so that the
observations taken at the two places do not admit of comparison.
The observation taken at Cannes on the 12th show an entire change
in the state of matters. The number on this day was very great,
being as high as 150,000 per c.c. This was due to a change of
wind, which blew direct from the town, and brought the products of
combustion to the place of observation.

On the 13th, observations were made on the sea air at Cannes.
The wind was from the south, that is inshore, but it was light.
These observations on sea air can only be made when there is little

198

Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

wind, otherwise the spray "produced by the breaking waves
introduces a disturbing element. The place selected for testing the
sea air was in the west bay, at the outer end of the small iron pier.
There were no waves breaking outside of the position of observa-
tion, and the number obtained would be correct for the air at the
time. The number was very large, 10,000 per c.e., and when again
tested on the beach to the lee of the breakers, which were high con-
sidering; there was so little wind, the number was 12,000 per e.c.
This increase on shore may have been due to particles originated
by the waves. The very large number got at this situation would
seem to suggest that the air had not come from far over the sea, but
might have been land air which had circled round as the wind was
light, or it might have been the air of the land breeze of the
previous night returning as a sea breeze.

Very few favourable opportunities occurred for making observa-
tions on the air of Mentone. On the afternoon of the 25 th of April
tests were made on a hill about 1000 feet high, situated to the
north-west of the town. When the observations began the wind was
from the north, that is from the mountains, and there were 1200
jjarticles per c.c. in it. A little later the wind changed and brought
up the air of the town, when the number began to rise, and became
as great as 7200, and was still rising when the observations were
concluded.

On the morning of the 27th April I took a boat and pulled out
to some distance seawards of the Mentone breakwater, and tested
the air coming in from the sea. The number was 5000 per c.c.
There was not wind enough to crest the waves. Later in the day
the wind increased in force from the south-west, so that possibly
the air examined in the morning may have been true sea air.

A number of observations were made at Bellagio on the Lake of
Como. All these tests showed the air to be very full of dust for a
mountainous district. But during the time of my visit the wind
always blew from the south, that is from the inhabited parts of
Italy; and, further, it was always light, so that local impurities
were not swept away. The tests were made at an open window
overlooking the lake, when the wind blew towards the shore,
and at other times they were made on the top of the hill at the
Villa Serbilloni.

i

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

199

The Baveno observations were made in similar weather to those
of Bellagio, that is with little wind on most days, and the air damp
and generally very thick, due to an accumulation of local impurities.
The only occasion on which a low number was obtained here was
on the afternoon of the 16th May. This pure air was found at
some distance from Baveno, at the entrance to the Simplon Pass,
above all the villages near the lake. The wind was light, but it
descended from the mountains and was pure ; owing however to the
imperfect mixing of the hill and valley airs, the numbers varied a
good deal. As will be seen from the table, they varied from 546 to
850 per c.c.

On the 18th of May the air was tested at Locarno, at the head of
Lake Maggiore. The place selected for observing was on the hill-
side above the pilgrimage church of Madonna del Sasso, about 600
feet above the lake. The wind was northerly, that is from the
mountains, and the air was fairly pure, only 1300 per c.c. There
was thunder at the time, and there had been heavy showers all day.

The Rigi Kulm Observations.

Being desirous of making some observations on the air at the
top of mountains, the Bigi was selected as the most suitable for
the purpose, on account of its elevation and isolated position. The
convenience of being able to live at the top was another recommen-
dation, as one would always be in a position to take advantage of
any meteorological change which might take place. In all these
respects perhaps Mont Pilatus would have been a better place for
the purpose, as it is more isolated and is 1000 feet higher, but at
the time of my visit the railway was not finished, and there was a
difficulty in getting up apparatus and luggage sufficient for a visit
of some days. I found the Bigi Kulm hotel a very convenient and
comfortable place for observations of this kind. The hotel is so
near the top of the hill, that on any change taking place one can
be at the top in a minute or two and have a clear view all round,
and the dust-counting apparatus can be placed in such a position
that it tests the true passing air from whatever direction the wind
may happen to blow at the time.

As the Bigi observations will probably be the most interesting, I
have entered in the table the results of most of the tests, and later

200 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

on will have something further to say with regard to certain meteoro-
logical phenomena observed here. I arrived at the top of the moun-
tain about midday on the 21st May. On the way up we entered
a dense fog at about 2000 feet from the top. This fog continued all
the way up, and at the top it was impossible to see more than 50
yards in front. I began work at 2 o’clock, selecting the top of the
hill as the most suitable place for observing. The result was not
satisfactory. The number of particles was found to vary greatly,
going up to 1300 per c.c. and falling to under 500 in a short
interval. This at once suggested local contamination, from which
I was unsuccessful in freeing the observations, by change of position,
as the thickness of the air prevented me seeing from what direc-
tion the polluted air might come • I had therefore to return to the
hotel for information as to the direction of all possible sources
of local pollution. I was then informed that the gas-work, engine-
house, and other buildings connected with the hotel were situated
on the slope of the hill to the windward, and within a few hundred
yards of the place of observation. Having ascertained the direction
of all possible sources of local pollution, a new situation was selected,
well clear of all possible contamination, and a number of tests
made. In this situation the number of particles was fairly constant,
being 285 per c.c. when the testing began, and falling to 210 an
hour later.

The morning of the 22nd opened bright and fine. The fog had
cleared off the hill top, the clouds having sunk to a lower level and
cleared away a good deal to the south ; but to the north the whole
country was covered with a nearly uniform layer of clouds, the
upper surface of which was about 1000 feet below the top of the
mountain. In the morning the number of particles was about 800.
per c.c., at 10.30 a.m. the number fell to about 500, and in the
afternoon the number was 1450 and gradually increased to 2300.
During the afternoon observations an occasional cloud passed over
the hill top.

As will be seen from the table, the number of particles on the
varied greatly during the morning observations, the successive
tests made within an hour varying from about 500 per c.c. to 1100
per c.c. This want of uniformity in the passing air may have been
due to the strong wind blowing at the time, bringing imperfectly

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust, Particles.

201

mixed masses of the impure air of the valleys to the hill top. In
the afternoon the wind fell a little, and the numbers were more
constant, varying from 600 to 850.

The observations made on the 24th show the air on the morning
of this day to have been much the same as it was the previous
afternoon. The wind had fallen still further, and the number
recorded between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. varied but little, being from 617
to 685, showing a more uniform condition and a lower average than
the previous day. At 4 p.m. the number had decreased to about
400, and by 5 p.m. the number tended to increase and become the
same as it was in the morning.

The next day, the 25th, being the last day of my visit to the
Rigi Kulm, I determined to make a number of tests on my way to
Lucerne. Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. observations were made on
the top of the mountain. The number observed was fairly constant,
varying from 532 to 580. The wind was still blowing from a
southerly direction, but not strong. On descending to Vitznau on
the lake, I at once proceeded to make observations on the air at this
level. The result at first somewhat astonished me, as the tests
gave only about 600 per c.c. On examining the conditions, I
noticed that the wind had greatly increased in force, and at this
situation was blowing in strong gusts, and it did not come down the
lake but came over the shoulder of the Rigi, and struck direct down
on Yitznau, and spread out fan-like from the village as a centre.
On each side of Yitznau the wind blew from the village, and on the
lake in front it was off shore, so that the air tested at Yitznau
had come from near the top of the mountain and would be much
the same air as that tested in the morning at the top of the hill.

Leaving Yitznau I took steamer for Lucerne, and again tested the
air, selecting for the purpose a position on the lake side about a
mile up the lake and to the windward of the town. The number
observed here was but slightly increased from what it was at
Yitznau, being only about 650 per c.c. At this situation also, the
air came direct from the mountains to the place of observation with-
out local pollution, as it was driven down the lake by a strong wind,
and came to the instrument from off the water, so that unless from
a passing steamer there was no chance of pollution. The air was
again tested in Lucerne at the open window of the hotel overlooking

202 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

b

a garden, and even here the number was small, but as the hotel is

situated on the lake there was but little chance of pollution.

These Lucerne and Yitznau observations showed the air of this
part of Switzerland to be remarkably pure. We must, however,
remember that on this occasion the wind was strong, and that it
came from the wide unpolluted tract of country covered by the
mountains and valleys of the Alps. On the day following these
tests the wind changed and blew from the north-east, and brought
up the air from the inhabited parts of Switzerland. The tests made
on this day show a marked increase in the number of particles.
Though the wind had only recently changed, the pure air of the
previous day had acquired a great increase in dust in its passage
through the inhabited parts. The number on the afternoon of this
day varied from 2160 to 3660 per c.c. in the open country near
Lucerne.

The numbers obtained at all the Swiss stations, beginning with
Locarno, are small, but the number of observations are too few to
give anything like a true indication of the state of the air in that
country. Still there are other reasons for supposing that the air of
Switzerland is very free from dust. The vast tracts of mountainous
country which surround it on most sides act as purifiers of the air,
not only on account of the absence of population, and the time
given for the dust to settle out of the air, but also by the pure
upper air being mixed with the lower impure air, by the irregular
currents and eddies formed by the wind in its passage across the
mountains. It seems therefore possible that much of the trans-
parency and brilliancy of the Swiss air may be due to its freedom
from dust.

The Eiffel Tower Observations.

We have reason for supposing that the air at the top of mountains

even such isolated ones as the Rigi, is not pure air, the same as
one would get if they ascended to the same height in a balloon ; but
that along with the pure air there is mixed much of the air of
the valleys driven up the slopes by the wind or carried during
calm weather by the air heated by the sun on the mountain slopes.
The amount of this lower air which may be carried by the wind
to the upper level depends on the shape of the hill and other

1889-90.] Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles. 203

conditions. If the hill is a long ridge, and the wind blowing at
right angles to its length, the probability is the impure air of the
valley will come almost unmixed with pure air to the hill top.
Balloons might be used to carry the observer free from the pollution
of the lower air, but they are evidently unsuitable for observations
of this kind. The Eiffel Tower, however, looks as if it had been
specially constructed for the purpose ; only it does not go high
enough and is not movable. The wind-driven air passes through the
open framework of the tower, and the structure has no tendency to
cause the lower air to rise and mix with the upper. Its position in a
city, however, confines any investigation done on it, to the special con-
ditions, which are only in a secondary way meteorological. Though
not suitable for general meteorological work, the tower is evidently
very suitable for investigating the vertical distribution of the im-
purities rising into the air over cities. As it is indeed the only place
where satisfactory work of this kind can be carried on, I determined
to return by Paris and if possible make some observations on the top
of this tower. Owing to the kindness of M. Eiffel I was enabled to
get access to the tower before it was opened to the public, M.
Eiffel very kindly accompanying me to the first stage by the lift.
Erom there I ascended to the top by the stairs, the upper lifts not
being then finished.

The observations on the Eiffel Tower were made on the 29th
May. The day was cloudy, with passing showers and strong
southerly wind. On my way up the tower I stopped for a short
time at the platform about 100 m. from the top, and tested the air
at this elevation. The number at this height was 41,000 per c.c.,
showing the air to be very much polluted to a height of 200 m. I
then ascended to the top, passing through the top platform and
ascending some distance higher, and made the test on the small
gallery just under the electric lamp, at about 300 m., or a little
under 1000 feet from the ground. Tests were made at this eleva-
tion from 10.15 a.m. till 1 p.m.

My intention before starting was to make a series of tests at
different elevations to try and find the rate at which the city im-
purities decreased with the height above the ground. A few
observations on the top soon showed this plan to be impracticable,
that with anything like the limited series of tests I would be able

204 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

to make it would be impossible to find any regular diminution at
the different heights. I therefore confined my attention and gave
most of my time to the variations taking place at the top, as a series
of observations made there seemed to promise to give more informa-
tion than a few taken at different heights.

It will be seen from the table that the numbers varied greatly
from time to time, the changes taking place very quickly ; indeed,
it was often impossible to change the quantity of air used quick
enough to meet the changing conditions. For instance, when the
particles were few for a short time, they would suddenly increase to
such a number that the quantity of dusty air which gave a con-
venient number of particles for counting gave in the next test a
number so great they formed a fine fog, so dense it was impossible
to count the particles. The two extremes which were counted with
any degree of certainty were 104,000 per c.c. and 226 per c.c. The
last and low number remained fairly constant during the taking of
the ten tests of which the above is the average. This small number
was obtained while a shower of rain was passing over the tower. As
this rain was quite local, falling only over a small breadth of the
city, the descending drops would strike down the impure city air
and at the same time draw the pure upper air downwards. It seems
probable that while this shower was passing, the top of the tower
was in nearly pure air, probably of a level higher than its top.

An examination of the Eiffel Tower figures show that the impure
air of the city must rise to a much greater height than 1000 feet.
They also show that this air does not diffuse itself uniformly
upwards, but rises in great masses, the rapid rise and fall in the
numbers showing that the hot city air rises in columns through the
purer air above, and that at considerable elevations over a city the
air is of a very different character at places quite close to each other.
It seems possible that a sensitive quick-acting thermometer might
show these changes in the passing air by the rise and fall in the
temperature. This want of homogeneity, apart from the dust and
impurities, is one of the causes of the unsuitableness of the air
near a city for astronomical observations.

On the way down from the top of the tower a halt was made at the
lower platforms, and tests made at a height of 200 m. and at 115 m.
As will be seen from the table, the results of these tests are of little

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

205

value, too few observations being obtained. After descending from
the tower some tests were made of the lower air. These tests, owing
to the kindness of M. Mascart, were made in the garden of the
meteorological office in the Rue de PIJnivershA The situation is
not far from the tower, and the air at this place would be much
the same as at the base of the tower. The number at the low level
was very great when the tests were made. The number, however,
varies greatly at low levels near the sources of pollution, owing to
local circumstances, and the number varies greatly from time to time.
On this occasion the number varied from 210,000 to 134,000 per
c.c. In the same situation in March the number was much lower,
being 92,000, the difference being probably due to atmospheric
conditions. In March the air was much dryer.

London.

The only observations of interest made in London were taken on
the 3rd of June. The day was bright and dry, with a fresh westerly
wind. Observations were made at the window of an hotel in Victoria
Street, and also in a garden on the bank of the Thames a little
below Battersea Bridge. To this latter situation the air came direct
from Battersea Park uncontaminated by immediate local pollution.
It will be seen from the table that the numbers for Battersea Park
varied from 48,000 to 116,000, the number varying a good deal with
the velocity of the wind. It would be interesting to know what the
number is at this situation when the air is damp and heavy and
but little wind blowing. As no such day occurred during my visit,
there was no opportunity of testing this point.

Kingairloch .

The next observations entered in the table were taken at
Kingairloch in July. Kingairloch is situated in Argyleshire, in the
wilds of the West Highlands, amidst the mountains on the north-
west side of Loch Linnhe, nearly opposite Port Appin. At this
situation the air is very free from local pollution, there being only a
very few houses for many square miles. The air at this situation
was generally very pure, but the amount of dust was occasionally
found to vary considerably at short intervals. This was particu-
larly the case when the wind blew across the valley in which the

206 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

observations were made. This rapid variation in the numbers was
no doubt due to the cross currents mixing masses of upper and
lower air, so that sometimes one and sometimes the other passed
the instrument. This seems to be the probable explanation of the
variations sometimes noticed here, as they were too small to be
due to local impurities.

The table shows that the purity of the air, even at this isolated
situation, varied from day to day, being as high as 4000 particles per
c.c. on the 4th and as low as 205 per c.c. on the 6th. The higher
numbers were generally got with southerly winds and the lower
with northerly ones. This relation of direction of wind to number
of particles would seem to indicate that the higher numbers were
due to pollution from the inhabited parts of the country, as all to
the east and south of this situation is densely populated, whilst in
the other directions there are but few dwellings. It is true that the
distance to the densely populated parts is very considerable, yet
from the extreme slowness with which these fine particles settle, and
the short time required for the wind to bring them to the place of
observation, there seems to be a possibility of their being carried as
far as this. When we remember the number observed on the top
of Finouillet when the wind blew direct from Toulon, we can
understand how it is possible for the dust of the densely populated
parts of the lowlands being brought to the wilds of the Highlands.
It may be remarked that an examination of the weather charts for
these dates -T shows that much reliance cannot be placed on this
conclusion, as the winds observed may have been and sometimes
were quite local, and the distribution of pressure was such that the
winds were light and the direction of the general circulation
frequently doubtful.

Ben Nevis .

The Council of the Scottish Meteorological Society having pro-
posed to acquire dust-counting apparatus for the observatory on the
top of Ben Nevis, for the purpose of carrying on a regular series of
observations on the dust in our atmosphere at that situation, it
became necessary for me to make an ascent of the mountain for the
purpose of seeing what arrangements would be required for the
carrying out of this investigation under the conditions existing

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

207

there. My visit was made on the 1st August under fairly favour-
able conditions of weather. The morning was dark and cloudy,
with detached patches of mist on the hill-sides. Fortunately as the
day advanced the mist gradually rose, and as I ascended the
mountain it cleared away and at last was all gone by the time
the top was reached. The air was fairly clear, as we could see
Schiehallion quite distinctly on the one side and the hills of Skye
on the other, the whole horizon within that range being clearly visible
all round. The day, however, was favourable for transparency, as the
sky was clouded all over and the sun did not shine on and illumin-
ate the little haze there was in the air. On testing the air the
number of particles counted by Mr Omond and myself was 335 per
c.c. at 1 p.m. and 473 at 3 p.m.

Alford.

Observations were made from the 5th to the 15th September at
Alford, a small village in the valley of the Don in Aberdeenshire.
These tests were made near the Manse of Alford, which is situated
at a distance of about 2 miles to the west of the village. There are
but few houses near, so that the air would be fairly free from local
pollution. An examination of the figures given in the table for this
situation shows that the air here was not quite so pure as at
Kingairloch. This might possibly be due to there being more houses
in this locality than in the neighbourhood of Kingairloch, but part
was also due to the weather. While these tests were being made
the wind was generally very light, and frequently blew from the
east and south-east, that is from the polluted districts, and it rarely
came from the mountains, so that probably the air was a good deal
polluted; and, moreover, owing to the wind being generally light, the
air was stagnant and local pollutions would tend to accumulate. It
is probable that the numbers given for this situation are too high
for an average for the district, as the weather at the time was close,
dull, and thick, with a marked absence of the usual clear crisp
Aberdeenshire air of September.

On the morning of the 9th the wind blew from the south-west,
that is from an unpolluted direction; it was therefore determined
that an ascent of Callievar should be made that day, for the purpose
of testing the air at the top. Callievar is a somewhat isolated:

208 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

mountain, situated at a distance of five or six miles to the west of
Alford. It rises in easy slopes from the east and south, though !
rather steep on the north and west, and attains a height of 1747
feet. The early morning of the 9th had been very thick, hut it
soon began to clear. On testing the air at 9 a.m., before beginning
the ascent, it was found to have 3000 particles per c.c.; on arriving
at the top of the hill the number was found to be much lower. At
midday there were only 262 per c.c. by the first test and 336 by
the second, which was taken shortly afterwards, each of these
numbers being as usual the average of ten tests. On again
testing the air at 2 p.m., two sets of tests gave the same average,
namely, 475 particles per c.c. This gradual increase was probably
due to local contamination. When the first tests were made the wind
was south-west, and came over an uninhabited district, whereas by
the time the last tests were made the wind had veered to the west-
ward, and brought the smoke of the dwellings in the Don valley
towards the hill top. The view from the hill on this day was fairly
clear, the Cairngorms and Lochnagar being quite distinct, but seen
through a good deal of haze, which was illuminated by a bright sun,
shining in a cloudless sky. On returning to the foot of the hill and
again testing the lower air it was found to have 900 particles per
c.c. It seems therefore probable that the lower air at this situation
is considerably contaminated by local causes.

Dumfries.

The last series of observations entered in the table were made at
Isle, near Dumfries. The site of these observations is quite in the
country, at a distance of six miles, up the Nith valley, from
Dumfries ; it is not near any village, but is surrounded in all direc-
tions by farm and other houses. The site being on the banks of a
river, the air at it will have the peculiarities belonging to such situa-
tions, such as greater humidity, less air circulation, and lower
temperature at nights than at more exposed situations.

An examination of these Dumfries figures shows the air at this
situation to have been remarkably impure for a country district.

It was probably much more impure than it generally is, owing to
certain meteorological conditions prevailing during the time these
tests were being made. The table shows that the air was very pure

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Bust Particles.

209

on the 30th of October, the number being as low as 235 per c.c., and
it was fairly low on one or two other days, but on many occasions
the number was over 5000 per c.c. The weather accompanying
this impure atmospheric condition was true November weather,
dull, thick, and damp, with only an occasional fine day.

On the Pollution of the Atmosphere by Artificial Causes.

On looking over the numbers given in the table one is struck by
the amount of dusty pollution introduced into our atmosphere by
human means ; and one cannot help feeling that the earth’s atmo-
sphere is profoundly modified by the vast quantities of dust it
holds in suspension, much of which owes its origin to the presence
of human beings. When we ascend into the higher atmosphere, or
go to uninhabited districts, the quantity of dust in the atmo-
sphere is comparatively small, but whenever we approach human
habitations the quantity increases, and near cities the air is
laden with these floating particles. At the top of the Bigi, and in
the wilds of Argyleshire, air was tested which had only a little over
two hundred particles per c.c. On the top of Ben Nevis, on
Callievar, and in Dumfriesshire, the number was occasionally only
about three hundred, but when we get near villages, the number
goes up to thousands, and in cities to hundreds of thousands.

Though the number of particles in the atmosphere increases
enormously as we approach the centres of human habitations, yet
when we look more closely at the numbers in the table, we find that
the increase, though great, is not by any means in proportion to the
increase of the sources of pollution. A small village or town may
make the passing air nearly as polluted as a large city. Now why
should the pollution not be in direct proportion to the number of
fires and other sources of contamination. Is it possible that when
the number of particles becomes very great, so that they are very
close together, that many may unite and form one 1 so that what
we count as one, in city air, may really be a vast number adhering
together. As yet we have no information as to whether these very
fine dust particles ever do attract and adhere to each other or not.
There is, however, an evident reason why the particles do not in-
crease in number in direct proportion to the amount of the pollution,
which is this, — with the increase in the size of the city there is not

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o

210

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

only an increase in tlie number of particles in the air, but there is
also an increase in the depth of the polluted stratum of air, over the
city. The Eiffel Tower tests showed that the polluted air of Paris
rose to a height of more than 1000 feet. Probably on the day the
tests were made it may have extended to many times that height, as
extremely polluted air came to the top of the tower from time to
time. The larger the city the greater will be the mass of heated
air rising over it, and the greater its ascending power, so that the
depth of polluted air leaving a city must be very great, while that
leaving a small town will be much less. So that when we add to
our knowledge of the number of particles, the greater depth of the
polluted stratum of air over cities, we are better able to understand
why the air of cities is not more impure than the tests show it to be.

When the Eiffel Tower tests were made the air was fairly dry,
which favoured the ascension of the heated air. When, however,
the air is damp, it seems probable that the products of combustion
will become loaded with condensed moisture, and this will counteract
the ascending tendency of the heated air, and the thickened air
during this weather will probably keep lower down and give rise to
the dull thick town atmosphere of damp weather, and to town fogs
when the -wind falls, especially if the condensation is intensified by
the cold produced by radiation.

It may here be asked, Is 200 particles per c.c. the lower limit
of the purity of our atmosphere, or is there such a thing as air
absolutely free from dust % The air at extreme elevations never has,
and probably never will be tested; but nature has provided a test
which shows that even at very great heights dust is present. Where-
ever a cloud forms we know there is dust, and as clouds form at
great elevations we may conclude that dust is present at even these
great heights. It has been shown in a previous paper that conden-
sation may take place in dust-free air ; but while this is so, yet the
conditions under which this is possible are such as never happen
in nature, because before it can take place the air requires to be
greatly supersaturated, and be put into rapid eddying movements, or
receive some violent shock, a condition of things never likely to
happen in the upper strata of the atmosphere. And further, if
condensation did take place, it would not take the cloudy form but
the rainy one ; that is, the centres of condensation would be few

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

211

and widely separated, so that each particle would be large and fall
rapidly as rain. At present therefore all the evidence points to the
conclusion that dust is present in our atmosphere at whatever eleva-
tion clouds form.

Now though this conclusion maybe true, so that on the one hand
we may have evidence that at very great heights in our atmosphere
there may be enough dust to form clouds, and that while experi-
ment shows there may be only 200 particles per c.c. in the air, wTe
are yet without any guide as to what is the number of particles in
pure unpolluted air. The air at tops of mountains, and even at great
heights away from mountains, may be polluted by artificial causes.
The dust of the lower air will be carried by ascending currents to
great heights, and much that is present in what we have called pure
air may be of terrestrial origin. But even supposing the lower air
never carried dust to great heights, yet there will be dust there, due
to the disintegration of the vast quantities of meteoric matter, which
is daily showered down into our atmosphere, where it becomes
highly heated and dissipated, thus forming fine meteoric dust.
What the number of particles of this meteoric dust may be, we
cannot say, nor can we tell what its proportion to terrestrial dust
may be at the different elevations, but it seems probable that the
meteoric dust will vary in quantity from time to time, with the
earth’s position in space.

Dust and Atmospheric Transparency.

When I made my last communication to the Society on atmo-
spheric dust, * reference was made to the close relation which was
observed between the transparency of the air and the number of
particles of dust in it, when the tests were made at Colmonell. At
the same time it was pointed out that this relation was likely to
hold good only under certain conditions, that the amount of vapour
in the air, or rather the humidity or degree of saturation, would be
likely to modify the effect of the dust. My reason for qualifying
the Colmonell conclusion was that it had been shown in a previous
paper f that there is an affinity between the dust in our atmosphere
and water vapour, and that some kinds of dust begin to condense

I* Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin ., vol. xvi. p. 160.

t Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxx. part i.

212 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

moisture before tbe air is cooled to the dew-point, that is, condense
vapour in unsaturated air.

It is evident, therefore, that if the ordinary dust of our atmosphere
has an affinity for vapour, and causes condensation to begin while
the humidity of the air is some distance from the dew-point, that
the condensed moisture will increase the size of the particles, and
by so doing cause a decrease in the transparency of the air, under
conditions which at present are not understood. It will be therefore
necessary for us to bring a considerable amount of evidence to bear
on this point, as the opinion generally held is that though condensa-
tion may be caused to take place in unsaturated air by the artificial
introduction into it of certain vapours and gases, yet condensation
does not as a rule begin in our atmosphere till the air is saturated.

The question then comes to be, Is there any evidence to show
that condensation really does take place on the ordinary atmospheric
dust, before the air is saturated, and if so at what stage of relative
humidity does it begin to take place 1 The dust-counting apparatus
evidently places in our hands a method of investigating this point;
indeed, without it, it would be nearly hopeless to attempt its solu-
tion. During the investigation this is one of the points to which
attention was closely directed, and the conclusion come to, from
all the evidence that has been collected so far, is that we have
been far too much in the habit of supposing that condensation can
only begin just at or immediately before saturation is reached.
This investigation distinctly points to condensation beginning long
before saturation is attained, and while the air is still dry enough
to give a difference of some degrees between the wet and dry bulb
thermometers.

In order to get the necessary information to enable me to come
to a conclusion on this point, it was customary to enter in the note-
book, along with the number of particles observed, as many of the
meteorological conditions as possible. Amongst other things noted
were the direction of the wind, the temperature, the humidity, and
the clearness of the air. These have been entered in the table,
given with this paper. As already stated, the records of humidity
and clearness are not very satisfactory, owing to the want of proper
screens for taking the wet and dry bulb observation at the different
stations and for the want of some satisfactory method of measuring

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

213

1889-90.]

the transparency of the air, especially when one is constantly
changing the position where the observations were made, and where
the visibility of hills at different distances cannot he noted. Though
these observations do lack accuracy, yet they point in a rough but
perfectly distinct way to the conclusion that it is not necessary for
the air to be saturated in order that condensation may take place ;
they rather indicate that at almost all states of humidity the dust
has some moisture condensed on it, and that as the humidity
increases the amount of deposited moisture increases with it, and
increases at a rate much quicker than the humidity, especially when
the air is approaching the point of saturation.

It may be remembered that in the Colmonell observations it was
noticed that the transparency of the air depended on the number
of dust particles in it; with 9000 particles per c.c. the air was
extremely thick, with 5000 it was thick, and was clear only when
the number fell below 1000. The Colmonell observations were
made in winter, while the air was damp, and its humidity did not
vary enough to have a great influence on the transparency.

To illustrate the effect of humidity, let us turn to the observations
recorded in this paper. Taking the Hyeres observations first, it
will be at once seen that the humidity has a powerful modifying
influence on the effect which the number of particles has on the
transparency of the atmosphere. It is true that owing to local
pollution the numbers observed at this station may be too high, and
only correct for the air near the ground. We shall take only the
Finouillet and La Plage observations as of any use, the others being
too polluted from local causes. It will be seen from these that air
with even more than 4000 particles per c.c. may be very clear and
transparent if it is very dry — with that number of dust particles and
a depression of the wet kulb of 10 degrees or more, the air was
very transparent, as on the 21st March and 3rd April. It may be as
well to note here that the observations taken on the 4th of April,
when the number of particles was very great, are of no value for
our present purpose, as on this day the wind brought the smoke of
Toulon direct to the top of Finouillet, and while the air generally
was clear, yet in the direction of Toulon it was thick.

The effect of humidity is very clearly seen in the observations
taken at Cannes. There was no very great difference in the number

214

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

of particles on the mornings of the 10th and 11th April — hut the
air on the 10th was very clear, owing to it being very dry, the wet
bulb being depressed 13°; while the morning of the 11th was thick,
owing to a great increase in the humidity, the wet bulb on this
occasion being depressed only 2°.

The Bellagio and Baveno observations show the same result, but
not so satisfactorily. Though every precaution was taken to test the
air where it was free from local pollution, yet it is evident this was
not possible under the conditions at these stations.

Coming now to the Rigi observations, it will be noticed that the
air was thickest on the 21st, when it contained the fewest particles.
This thickness was owing to humidity, a good deal of moisture being
deposited on the dust. It will be noticed that there was a depres-
sion of 1°*5 in the wet bulb at the time, showing that the air
was not saturated. As this was the first occasion on which I had
made observations on this dense form of condensation, I carefully
noted the state of the air with regard to dryness. The depression
of the wet bulb given in the table may not be quite correct, though
taken as carefully as possible under the conditions. It may possibly
be too great, owing to the air having been heated locally. It was
observed that all objects in the open air were quite dry, not only
stones which might have been kept dry by heat communicated from
beneath, but all surfaces, such as wooden fences, &c. The only
exception to this was the grass, which carried drops of moisture at
the tips of its blades, but this came from within the plant, there
being no indication of the other parts of the blades being wetted
by fog.

It is, however, very evident that though all exposed surfaces were
dry on this occasion, it does not necessarily follow that the air
was not saturated. The reason why the fog particles did not
wet the exposed surfaces may have been that these surfaces were
all heated by radiation, and the fog particles would be evaporated
in the hot air in contact with the exposed surfaces, as radiation can
undoubtedly penetrate a great depth of fog. I regret that no
observations were made in this direction.* It may be noticed in
passing, that the Swiss Meteorological Report for the Rigi Kuhn
shows the depression of the wet bulb at one o’clock on the 25th
* It has, however, been confirmed by later observations.

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

215

to have been 0o,9 C., or almost exactly the same as found by me.
But as the thermometer at this situation is exposed in a metal box,
it also would be exposed to radiation and slight heating. As there
was a considerable amount of light at the time, there would be but
little fog overhead. It seems therefore probable that radiant heat
would penetrate and heat all surfaces and keep them dry, and heat
the air in contact with /them. The wet bulb depression recorded
was therefore probably too high.

On the morning of the 22nd there were far more particles in the
air than on the 21st, but the air was clear owing to an increase in
the dryness, the wet bulb being now depressed 6°. As the day
advanced the air got hazy, owing to an increase in both dust and
moisture. On the 23rd the air was very clear, both dust and moisture
having decreased. The dust and moisture remained much the
same till the close of the observations, and the air retained its
clearness to the end. So clear was it that occasionally Hochgerrach
was visible, a condition of the atmosphere which, to those who know
the Bigi, will be a good indication of the transparency.

At Lucerne on the 25th the dust and moisture were both very
low and the air was very clear. On the 26th the dust increased
considerably, while the humidity remained nearly the same, and
the air was hazy.

Ho conclusions can be drawn on this point either from the Eiffel
Tower or the London observations.

Passing over the tests of city air, we shall now enter more into
detail of the Kingairloch observations, as the air at that situation
was less polluted, and the observations are better suited than the
previous ones for showing the effect of dust and of humidity on
the transparency of the atmosphere. First let us consider the effect
which the number of particles has on the transparency of the air,
and see if the conclusion contained in the previous paper is con-
firmed by these later observations. This conclusion was that the
greater the number of particles the thicker was the air. For this
purpose, as already explained, we must select observations made on
days when the humidity was the same. Taking those days on which
the wet bulb was depressed 4°, namely, on the 6th, 10th, and 15th
of the month, and arranging them in the order of the number of
particles, thus —

216 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Number
of Particles.

Date.

State of Air.

550

814

1000

1900

15th, at 11.30 a.m.
10th, ,,

6th, at 10.30 A.M.
15th, at 2 p.m.

Clear.

Medium.

Thick.

Thick.

It will be seen that with a humidity corresponding to a depression
of 4°, that if there were 550 particles the air was clear, and that
as the number of particles increased the transparency decreased.
Again, take the 12th and 13th; on both of these days the humidity
was the same, namely, 5°, but the one was clear which had only 710
particles in it, while the other was thick owing to there being 3000
particles present Again, there was the same humidity on the
morning of the 5th as at 1.30 p.m. on the 6th, but on the 6th the
air was clear owing to there being only about 300 particles in it,
while on the previous day it was thick owing to the presence of
more than four times that number.

These figures all tend to confirm the conclusion previously arrived
at from the Colmonell observations, namely, that the transparency of
the air depends on the number of particles of dust in it. We shall
now see how far the Kingairloch observations support the other
conclusion, that the amount of moisture in the air has also an effect
by increasing the size of the particles, and so reducing the
transparency. We shall use those Kingairloch figures and see if this
affinity of the dust for moisture has practically any effect on the
transparency of the atmosphere.

When the observations began on the 3rd of July there was a
good deal of dust in the air, about 3000 per c.c. This degree of
impurity continued next day, but fell to about one-half on the 5th
and to one-third on the morning of the 6th. Now, though the dust
gradually decreased during these days, it will be observed that the
thickness gradually increased from a haze on the 3rd to thick on
the 6th. The reason for this decrease in the transparency was the
increase in the humidity which took place with the decrease in the
dust, the humidity falling from a depression of 13° on the 3rd to
4° on the 6th. Here the decreased transparency produced hy in-
crease in size due to humidity more than counteracted the effect of the
decrease in numbers, showing how powerful the influence of humi-
dity is, even when the humidity is some degrees from saturation.

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

217

This dependence of transparency on humidity may be illustrated
by these observations in another way. Taking days on which the
number of particles was nearly the same, but on which the humidity
was different. On the 5th, with 1500 particles and a wet bulb
depression of 6°, the air was thick ; with about the same number
of particles on the 8th, but with a depression of 9°, the air had a
medium clearness ; on the morning of the 10th, with 814 and a
depression of only 4°, the air was medium clear ; whereas at 1.30 p.m.
on the 16th it was very clear, with the same amount of dust, but a
depression of 7°. With 500 particles and a depression of 4°, the
air was clear on the 15th, but very clear on the 17th with the same
number of particles but 8° depression. It will be noticed that
when there was a depression of only 4° the air was thick, unless
there was less than 1000 particles per c.c., and that if the numbers
increased and the air was at all clear there was also an increase in
the dryness.

It will be observed that the number obtained on the morning of
the 9 th does not agree very well with the others. The number on
this morning was high and the dryness not very great, and yet the
air had a medium clearness. We, however, leave the figures in the
table, and the only explanation we can offer is that this number
was local and due to an almost entire absence of wind at the time,
though it must be admitted that the numbers are rather constant to
be explained in this way.

The Alford observations point to the same conclusions. I must,
however, state here that the figures entered in the columns headed
temperature and humidity were not obtained by myself at the
place and hour of observation, but are from the weather report
of the Scottish Meterological Society’s Station at Logie Coldstone,
which has been kindly supplied to me by Dr Buchan. Further,
the temperatures are the maximum temperatures for the day, and
the humidities are the maximum humidities for the day calculated
from the morning and evening readings considered with reference
to the maximum temperature. The temperatures will therefore be

I 1 higher than if they had been taken at the time the dust tests were
made, and the wet bulb depression will also be much greater.
We can therefore only compare these Alford tests amongst them-
selves. It is, however, unnecessary here to enter into a detailed

218

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. I

examination of the figures, the effects of hoth dust and humidity-
being evident.

The most interesting of the Alford tests are those made on the
16th of September. On the morning of that day the air was medium
clear, with bright sunshine, and the number of particles was 1125
per c.c. As the day advanced the air thickened in a very remark-
able way; from having a medium clearness in the morning it
gradually thickened and lost its transparency as the day advanced,
and in the afternoon it was extremely thick, but clear overhead
and free from clouds. When the air was tested at 5.30 p.m. the
dust particles were found to have increased to a higher number
than had been observed at this station — the number was 5700 per
c.c. The great increase in the thickness of the air which took place
during the day was evidently due greatly to this increase in the
amount of dust. Increased humidity may possibly have had some
effect, but probably it was not the chief cause, as the wet bulb was
only depressed 1°*5 more at 9 a.m. than at 9 p.m.

An examination of the Dumfries series of observations bears out
the conclusions we have come to from the other figures. The
relation between the transparency and the dust and humidity is
evident, but the figures obtained at the last situation are not so
clear on this point, probably owing to the air not being so free from
local pollution. The Dumfries observations might have been omitted
if it were not that they give us information on some other points.
It will be observed that the numbers at Dumfries were generally
very high, often extremely so, for a thinly populated country
district. An examination of the figures in the column headed wind,
shows us that these very high numbers generally occurred when the
wind was slight or variable, as on the 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and
19th of November. The increase in the amount does not seem to have
been entirely due to the direction of the wind bringing the air from
impure sources, as the lower current as well as the general upper
circulation varied on these days from south by west to nearly north.
These large numbers may therefore have been greatly due to an
accumulation of purely local impurities, as it will be seen that
whenever the air was very impure it always got much purer when-
ever the wind increased. These Dumfries observations are evidently
of less value than the Ivingairloch ones for investigating the relation

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

219

between the transparency and the dust and humidity, because the
air at the former place being polluted by local causes, it is probable
there would be a want of uniformity in the air at different points
near each other, and in the air from time to time. This was con-
firmed by the observations. The numbers varied a good deal at short
intervals. The effect of the wind in reducing the number of particles
may be noticed also in the Kingairloch and Alford observations.

There is a point of some interest brought out by a comparison of
the Dumfries and Kingairloch observations to which it may be worth
while directing attention. It is, that while the transparency of the
air depends on the amount of dust, and on the humidity, or degree
of saturation of the air, it would appear that the thickening effect
of the humidity depends on the temperature, that is on the tension
of the vapour. Dor instance, a humidity which gives a depression
of 4° at a temperature of 60° has a much greater thickening effect
than the same depression at 50°. This might have been anticipated,
but it was only while the Dumfries tests were being made that it
was thought that the air was clearer for the same humidity than it
was at Kingairloch. An examination of the figures in the table
supports this conclusion. Dor instance, take the following examples
when the air had about the same amount of dust and about the
same depression of the wet bulb.

Date.

Number.

Humidity.

Temperature. Transparency.

5th July

1500

6

64

Thick.

6 th July

1000

4

61

Thick.

6 th Nov.

1360

4'6

50

Clear.

29th Oct.

1200

4-6

50-5

Medium.

Compare the above observations when the dust and the wet bulb
depression were similar. In July, when the temperature was over
60°, the air was thick, whereas in October and November, when the
temperature was 10° lower, the air was clear or medium. The
other figures mostly point in the same direction. The air observed
on Ben Nevis would probably not have been nearly so clear if its
temperature had not been low.

This result I have said might have been anticipated, because
at the higher temperature with the same wet bulb depression the
vapour tension wfill be considerably greater than at the lower, and
each particle will attach to itself a greater amount of water. These

220 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

conclusions, however, require many more, and much more carefully
conducted experiments to prove them satisfactorily. The objections |
to the Dumfries observations are many. First, the situation is low,
and the dust would tend to collect there to an undue amount.
Second, the humidity is too high, owing to this station being near
water, so that while the dust-counter and the thermometers gave
the condition of the air in the valley, the tests for transparency
were necessarily made through a higher stratum of air, in which
both dust and humidity would probably be less. Then again, the
difficulty of estimating transparency, and also in comparing these
estimates made at different stations. The different hills visible at
each station should have been graduated off, and used as a scale of
transparency. This, however, was not done till the last observations
were made.

Though these results should be received with caution, yet I think
it will be admitted that they clearly point to an interesting line of
enquiry, and encourage us to push on our investigations into the
dust in the atmosphere. I may remark that it is advisable not to
make comparisons of these tests when the wet bulb is depressed only
about 1°, because when the saturation is so great, accuracy can-
not be attained, as local conditions, such as wet trees, the exposure
of the bulbs, &c., may cause an error equal to the whole depression.

The Dumfries observations show an interesting relation between
the weather and the amount of dust in the air. During the whole
time the weather remained dull and thick, the air was highly charged
with dust. Another important point was that when the clouds
cleared away, dense fogs formed, owing probably to the great
radiating power of the air, due to the great amount of dust in it. It
will also be noticed that on the fine days the air had generally little
dust in it.

The conclusion forced upon us by a consideration of all these
observations is that the dust in our atmosphere condenses vapour
when the air is far from being saturated. It seems probable that
in all states of humidity the atmospheric dust has some moisture
attached to it, and that as the humidity increases the load of
moisture also increases ; and further, all observation seems to point
to this form of condensation producing even a very thick condition
of the atmosphere before the air is quite saturated. The observa-

'

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

221

tions made on the Rigi, when the mountain top was covered with
cloud, points to the formation of even this dense form of condensa-
tion in unsaturated air. It must he admitted that the Rigi
observations of the humidity on this day are not very reliable, and
the subject might be dismissed were it not that there are many
observations made by other observers, on Ben Nevis and elsewhere,
which point to the same conclusion.

There is another point to which I can only call attention at
present, as it has not yet been investigated. It has reference to the
effect of the direction of the wind on the thickness of the air. It
has been sometimes thought, while these tests were being made,
that with certain directions of wind the air was unduly thick for
the number of particles and the humidity. This would imply that
the dust particles brought by certain directions of wind were larger
or more hygroscopic than those brought from other directions.
This seems possible, as it is the winds from inhabited districts that
are suspected of being unduly thick. As these bring the sulphur
products formed in burning coal, it seems possible they may be
charged with vapour condensing particles. This point, however, is
one that requires further investigation.

Apparatus for Testing the Condensing Power of Dust.

While on the subject of the condensing power of dust, or the
affinity of atmospheric dust for vapour, I may here refer to some
experiments made a year or two ago on this point. The principle
I then tried to develop was to collect the atmospheric dust on glass
plates, and test if water vapour condensed on the deposited dust
in unsaturated air. The following was the plan adopted of carrying
out this idea. First as to the method of collecting the dust. This
was done by placing glass plates inside a thermometer screen, a

I room, or wherever it was desired to get the dust to be tested. These
plates were sometimes placed horizontally, and the dust allowed to

I fall on them. Another plan of collecting the dust was to deposit
it on the glass plates by the method used in my thermic filter. If
it was desired to collect the dust inside a room by this method, the
glass plate was placed vertically and in close contact with one of
the panes of glass in the window. The plate was kept in its place
by means of a little india-rubber solution. As this plate was colder

222 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

than the air in the room the dust was deposited upon it. If it was
desired to collect the dust in the outer air, the plate of glass was
attached to the outside of the window pane, hut kept at a distance
of two or three millimetres from it. It was held in its place by the
india-rubber solution, four pieces of sheet india-rubber being fixed at
the comers to keep the plate away from the window glass. By this
arrangement the outside air circulated in the space between the
outside plate and the window, and as this air got heated on the
window pane it was warmer than the plate and deposited its dust
on its cold surface. It may be mentioned that the plates used for
collecting the dust were small pieces of glass mirror about 10 cm.
square. Mirrors were used, as the condensed vapour is more easily
detected on them than on clear glass.

Having collected the dust in either of these ways, its condensing
power was tested in the following manner. A small cell was pre-
pared about 4 cm. square and 1 '5 cm. deep, and open at the top.
The top edge of the cell was covered with a thickness of india-rubber.
The dusty plate was placed so as to form a cover to the cell, being
held down by means of spring catches ; the india-rubber enabled the
plate to make a water-tight joint with the cell. The cell was pro-
vided with two pipes, one for taking in water and the other for
taking away the overflow. A thermometer was fixed with its bulb
occupying the centre of the cell; and further the cell was provided

as a Dines’ hygrometer. The dusty plate, before it was put in its
position, had the dust carefully cleaned off one half of it, so that
when put in its place one half of the glass covering the cell was
dusty and the other half clean. Cold water was then run through
the cell and the temperature of the plate gradually lowered, the
plate meanwhile being closely watched to see when condensation
began on the different halves, and the temperature noted when it
began on the dusty half and when it began on the clean part, and
the difference, if any, noted. In this way a measure of the con-
densing power of the dust was obtained, as the difference between
these two temperatures gives the temperature above the dew-point
at which the dust condensed vapour.

It will be noticed that the plates for collecting the dust were
much larger than the cell. By this means the cooled surface over

1889-90.]

Mr J . Aitken on Dust Particles.

223

the cell was surrounded by an uncooled part of the plate, and any
change in the appearance of the cooled dust could be easily detected
by contrast with the surrounding area.

The first thing to be done was to test the working of the
apparatus, and see how it acted with dusts of known composition
and known condensing power. For this purpose smoke of burning
magnesium, gunpowder, and sodium were used — the first on
account of its small affinity for water vapour, the second for its
condensing power. It is well known that the smoke from gun-
powder is far more dense in damp than in dry weather, the difference
being due no doubt to the condensation which takes place on the
smoke when the air is damp. While sodium smoke was selected
on account of its great affinity for water. The smoke of these sub-
stances was produced by burning a little of them in an enclosed
space, the test plates were placed in the enclosure, and the smoke
allowed to fall on them. The mirrors with the deposited dusts
were then tested, and their condensing powers measured, with the
following result : — Magnesia was found to condense at almost
exactly the same temperature as the glass, but gunpowder smoke
began to show signs of condensing at a temperature 5° above the
dew-point ; while the soda condensed vapour from air at a tempera-
ture 17° above its dew-point. In making these tests it is necessary
that the air in the room, where the testing is done, be very dry,
otherwise the beginning of the condensation on the dust cannot be
detected, because the dust surrounding the cooled surface already
has some moisture condensed on it. To overcome this difficulty it
was customary to heat and dry the plates before testing them.

The different kinds of dust, when tested in this way, having thus
shown a distinct difference in their affinities for vapour, tests were
now made of the dust collected from the atmosphere. It is un-
necessary to go into the detail of these experiments, as although
they distinctly point to atmospheric dust having an affinity for
water vapour, and this affinity seemed to vary with the dust, yet the
method of testing is not very accurate. As the condensation begins
by imperceptible degrees, it is very much a question of quickness
of perception, and carefulness of working, that determines when the
first appearance of condensation will be detected ; and even the first
appearance is not the real beginning, but only the state at which it

224 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

has become visible to the observer. It may, however, be mentioned
that dust collected in a smoking-room showed a decidedly greater
condensing power than that from the outer air. Of ten tests made
with dust from the smoking-room, the dust that had the least con-
densing power showed condensation at a temperature of 2° 2 above
the dew-point, whilst the most powerfully condensing dust con-
densed at 4° *5 above the dew-point, while the mean of the ten gave
3° above the dew-point. Of the ten tests of the dust from the
outer air, the lowest showed a condensing point of l°-8 above the
dew-point, and the highest of 30,2, and a mean of 2° ’3. It should
he mentioned that the depth of the deposit did not seem to have
any influence on the condensing power of the dust, as the amount
of dust that collected in one day gave about the same effect as that
collected in thirteen days.

This condensing power of dust would seem to explain why it is
that the glass in picture frames, and other places, frequently looks
damp when the air is not saturated. The same damp deposit may
he easily seen on windows during cold weather, particularly if they
have not been cleaned for some days. The damp- looking deposit
can be easily detected by cleaning a small part of the pane. The
cleaned part will remain undewed, while the surface surrounding it
will be damp, and be greasy when rubbed. I need not say that a
certain degree of humidity in the air is necessary for seeing this
clearly, as the glass must be cooled by the outer air to near the
dew-point of the air in the room. Again, this condensing power of
dust may in part explain the reason why it is so necessary to keep
electrical apparatus free from dust, if we wish the insulation to
he good. The damp collected hy the dust will decrease the insulat-
ing power of the glass or other insulator.

Dust and Condensation.

We have seen that these observations all point to the conclusion
that moisture is deposited on the particles of atmospheric dust in
air which is not saturated. This condensation seems to take place
while the air is comparatively dry, and the amount deposited in-
creases with the humidity. The deposit which takes place under
these conditions will probably be caused by the affinity — chemical
or surface — of the particles for vapour, while true cloud condensation

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Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

225

seems only to begin when the air is near the point of saturation.
There seems no definite degree of humidity necessary for the first form
of condensation to begin, or if there is, it begins while the air is
very dry, and by such imperceptible degrees, it has not been noticed.
There is no hard and fast line between what we call clear air and
thick haze. The clearest air has some haze, and the effect of in-
creasing humidity is to increase the thickness of the air. But from
clear air up to cloudy condensation there is no real difference in
kind, only in the amount, of the thickening. But when cloudy
condensation begins, a real change in the nature of the condensation
takes place. The dust particles have now no tendency to condense
the vapour ; each particle seems to have got its affinity satisfied, and
true condensation begins, owing to the tendency of the saturated
vapour to condense. The affinity of the particles has now little
influence, but the size of the different particles has ; the larger ones
getting the most moisture deposited on them. All the particles at
this stage seem to cease to attract the vapour, and the vapour is no
longer deposited on the whole number of particles ; but a compara-
tively small proportion, and these the larger particles, receive the whole
of the condensing molecules. This seems to be the reason why at
about saturation a change occurs in the appearance of the condensa-
tion, a sudden thickening of the air takes place along with an
increased light reflecting power.

It might be thought that if this incipient condensation, due to
affinity, took place before the true condensation, then there ought
to be some evidence of it in the every day phenomena of nature.
Bor instance, does the upper moving front of a cumulus cloud show
this incipient stage of condensation? At first sight we might
expect it would. I do not think, however, that it has been noticed,
possibly owing to the conditions necessary for seeing it not being
easily obtained. We cannot expect to see it at the upper surface
after the cloud is formed, the transition at that surface from
saturated to dry air is far too sudden. If we are to see it, in the
formation of a cumulus cloud, we must look for it just before the
cloud begins to show, in the clear and rising air, where it is
possible we may find a thickening taking place before, and at a
lower level, than that at which the true cloud condensation begins.
This as yet has not been observed, but in other conditions the

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226 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

gradual thickening has been frequently seen. At the Italian lakes,
on many occasions, when the air was damp and still, there has been
noticed in close proximity every stage of condensation, not divided
by the hard line usually observed, but where it was impossible to
say where the thick air ended and the cloudy began. Again, this
gradual change can often be seen in the sky overhead. With
approaching change of weather, the sky is often seen to change by
imperceptible degrees from perfect transparency to “thick,” and
then to cloud. It is very doubtful if we are entitled to expect to
find any well defined haze in the air immediately surrounding
clouds, as we do not know sufficient about the conditions existing
there. It may be as well to note here that on all occasions on
which I have had an opportunity of making observations on this
point, that the transition from moist air in the cloud to dry air
immediately outside it was very rapid, so rapid as to give only a
sharp outline.

Haze.

The conclusion to which these observations point is that haze is
caused by the dust in our atmosphere, and that this dust has in
almost all degrees of humidity more or less water attached to it. A
thick haze may be the result of much dust and little moisture or of
little dust and much moisture, but the moisture less than saturation.
According to this view, in most conditions of our atmosphere, haze
is but an attenuated or arrested form of condensation — arrested for
want of moisture, or it may be a decayed form of condensation, that
is, cloudy condensation changed to haze by the reduction of its
humidity, possibly by rise of temperature, and the fog particles
evaporated, till they hold only the water of attraction. If the
humidity be decreased still further the haze clears more and more,
but the dry dust still has a hazy or thickening effect on the
atmosphere.

This conclusion is confirmed by an examination of the figures in
the table, where it will be seen that whenever the air was dry
and hazed there was much dust in it, and that as the dust
decreased the haze likewise decreased. It is well known that hot
weather is often accompanied by a thick haze. The explanation of
this would appear to be, that during hot weather we have generally
much dust in the air, and further as has been already explained

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Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

227

this dust owing to the high temperature has much moisture attached
to it, even though the air is what is called dry. The conclusion we
have come to is, that though there may be other causes of haze, yet
dust is generally the cause of it.

Notes from the Rigi Kulm.

While at the Eigi Kulm, I observed a few meteorological pheno-
mena which may be briefly referred to here, as they have some
bearing on our subject. On my arrival at midday on the 21st of
May, the hill top was covered with clouds, and we remained all
day in a thick fog. However, as the afternoon advanced, an
occasional glimpse was obtained of some of the higher Alps of the
south, standing clear above the mass of cloud which filled in the
valleys, and from time to time enveloped the place of observation.
These unfortunately were but limited and passing glimpses, and all
to the west was blocked with clouds. At last, however, shortly
before the sun dipped below the horizon, the clouds began to clear
overhead, and at last they rolled away, and the top of the Eigi
stood clear above a billowy mass of clouds, and the western sun
suddenly burst out brilliantly, dissipating in a moment the dull
chill oppression of the fog. So sudden and welcome was the change,
that the few who were waiting on the mountain top, in the almost
forlorn hope of seeing the setting sun, raised a cheer of welcome ;
a cheer which rose simultaneously from every one, and could not
have been more real, spontaneous, and stirring had we been a body
of sun-worshippers welcoming our divinity.

The change, however, was momentary, for soon another mass of
cloud passed across the hill top and obscured the view, but not for
long, and it, in turn, was followed by another, each succeeding mass
being less than the previous one, while each glimpse showed the
west to be clearing, and at last no clouds rose above the mountain,
and a magnificent view was obtained all round. Occasional openings
in the clouds below gave passing views of the lakes and valleys low
down near the base of the mountain, but on this occasion the great
attraction was the cloud scenery. In most directions there extended
a vast sea of clouds, the upper surface of which was slightly lower
than the point of view. This wide area of clouds extended nearly
level as far as the eye could see, its upper surface brilliantly

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illuminated by the setting sun. It looked like a vast sea over
whose waves gravitation had ceased to hold sway, and whose waters
were luminous with condensed sunshine.

When the hill top began to emerge from the clouds and to be
only occasionally covered with fog, as each fog mass cleared away
to the east and let the sun shine on us, we saw our shadows cast by
the setting sun on thej retreating bank of cloud, “ glories ” surround-
ing the shadow-heads. Around the shadow of his head each
observer saw a coloured halo ; near the shadow-head there was a
small luminous but colourless halo, and round this a rainbow-like
circle of colours, violet being inmost and red outside. When this
coloured circle was brilliant another circle of colours immediately
outside was seen, and having the colours in the same order as the
first.

After this display of colour in the east had come to an end, and
no more clouds passed over the hill top, owing to the air being
now clear to the west, an interesting display of colour took place
in the west. At a point between the sun and the observer, there
was a break in the cloud stratum, and the air seemed to be rising
through this opening, and tearing the eastern edge of the cloud into
fragments, which it carried from the dark shadow up into the sun-
light. Here these fragments were rapidly dissolved in the dryer air
above, and as they dissolved they gave rise in their dying moments
to a brilliant display of opalescent colours, the different parts of
the vanishing fragments taking on the most brilliant colours, and
changing from one colour to another, and then vanishing so quickly
that it was impossible mentally to follow the rapid display.

The display of opalescent colours in the sky has been commented
on a good deal during the last few years, and Professor Tait has, I
think, remarked that it must take place oftener than is imagined.
There does seem to be a probability of it occurring often, but the
conditions necessary for the eye perceiving it do not seem to be
frequent. On this occasion the colours were seen against a dark
background, formed by the shadowed eastern edge of the cloud.
These colours were seen near the sun, at only a small angle from
it, and it would appear they are produced in the same way as the
colours in halos seen round the sun. In experimenting artificially
with these halos, it may be observed that the particular colour does

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Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

229

not depend on the angle at which it is seen, but that it depends
also on the size of the fog particle producing it. For instance, if we
produce a cloudy condensation in a closed vessel placed between us
and a light, the light is surrounded by a coloured halo, but the
colour at any particular angle is not constant, but changes as we
change the size of the fog particles ; so that if we have two
quantities of air, each with different sized particles in it, and both
of these seen at the same angular distance from the sun, we will see
different colours at the same angle and close to each other.

This mixture of colours producing the opalescent effect may be
produced artificially. All that is necessary is to place a vessel of
hot water nearly in a direct line between the observer and a bright
light. As the condensed vapour rising from the hot water re-evapor-
ates, the particles which were at first too large to give colour effects
shine out in brilliant colours when vaporized to the size necessary to
give the result. As the rising strata of air having different sized
particles in them are close to each other, different colours are seen in
close proximity, and as the size of the particles diminishes rapidly the
colours change quickly. These colours are best seen when the steam
is seen against a black surface, and the eye shaded from the direct
light of the lamp.

On this evening on the Rigi brilliantly coloured rings were also
seen surrounding the sun when just setting. The rings changed too
rapidly for anything definite to be noted. These rings did not appear
when a foggy cloud passed over the sun, but when there was only a fine
haze ; that is, the cloud particles were too large to produce colours,
and it was only when they were nearly vaporized that the effects
were produced.

All the brilliant display of colour we were favoured with on the
21st was gone by the following day. The morning of the 22nd
was fine, the clouds had all settled down to a much lower level,
to about 1000 feet below the top of the mountain, and the upper
surface of the cloud stratum had now become more irregular,
cumulus shapes tending to form at different places. During the
rest of my visit to this station the clouds gradually cleared away
and the weather was fine, and there were no other opportunities for
seeing these interesting colour phenomena.

When working at an elevated position such as the Rigi Kulm,

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one frequently observes a great difference in the condition of the
upper and lower airs ; and while making the observations on the
transparency of the upper air which are entered in the table, a note
was at the same time kept of the state of the lower air as it changed
from hour to hour. As these latter observations bear directly on
our subject, I shall here make some extracts from my note-book,
and owing to the kindness of M. Billwiller of the Swiss Meteoro-
logical Office, Zurich, I am enabled to give the condition of the air
with regard to humidity at different places at the lower levels on
the dates corresponding to the Rigi observations.

Of the Swiss observations, those taken at Lucerne and Gersau are
the most suitable for our purpose, as Lucerne is situated down the
lake while Gersau is up the lake and on the opposite side of the
Rigi. So that, while the Lucerne observations may be taken to
represent the condition of the air towards the north of the Rigi,
and the more open and inhabited parts of Switzerland, the Gersau
ones will represent the condition of the air to the south and
mountainous parts.

On the 21st, owing to the fog, no view could be got of the lower
air. On the morning of the 22nd the view was still closed by the
stratum of clouds covering the country to the north. In the after-
noon, however, these clouds cleared away sufficiently to show the
condition of the lower air. In my notes it is recorded that the air
high up was fairly clear ; but on looking down to lakes and valleys
it was decidedly tliickisb, and in the evening the air to the north,
east, and west was very thick, while to the south it did not thicken.
Turning now to the Swiss Meteorological Report for this day, I find
that at 1 p.m. the air to the north gave a depression of the wet bulb
of 4°*2 C.,%hile that to the south gave 3°-0 C. But as the evening
advanced the humidity at Lucerne increased, and at 9 p.m. the de-
pression was only 1° C., while at Gersau the depression had increased
to 7° ‘6 C. Here we have a clearly indicated relation between the
transparency and the humidity. The observations on the hill top
being made in the afternoon, the air to the north would be more
nearly saturated than it was when the 1 p.m. readings were taken ;
that is, the depression would be less than 4° C., and as stated the
air looked thickish. In the evening it got very thick owing to the
humidity increasing, the wet bulb depression decreasing to only

1

1889-90.] Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles. 231

1° C. Now note the difference, the air to the south did not thicken
in the evening, this was owing to the air on this side of the
mountain getting dryer as the evening approached.

On the morning of the 23rd the air low down was thick all
round, owing to the humidity being high on both sides of the
mountain. At Lucerne the depression was only 2° C., and at Gersau
only 10,4. In the afternoon matters changed, and became much the
same as they were on the afternoon of the previous day. The air
to the south was clear low down, hut to the north it was thick and
hazy. To the north the wet bulb depression was 5° *2 C. at 1 p.m.,
and fell to 2° at 9 p.m., while in the south it was 3° *7 C. at 1 p.m.,
and increased to 7° '7 C. in the evening. Here again may he ob-
served the same relation between the transparency and the humidity.
The only difference of importance in the air on the 22nd and 23rd
was a strange blackness in the air to the north on the 23rd which
had not been observed on the previous day.

On the 24th and 25th nothing special was noted in the lower air
in the different directions. On both of these days the air was clear
both high up and low down, and on looking at the Swiss Meteoro-
logical Report I see the humidity was low on these days in both direc-
tions. At Lucerne the wet bulb depression at 1 p.m. was as much as
7 °*8 C. on the 24th and 8°’4 C. on the 25th, and at Gersau it was 9°T
C. and 9° -6 C. respectively, and in the evening the air kept fairly dry
at both places. All through these observations of the air below the
mountain we find the relation between the humidity and the trans-
parency to hold good. Increased dryness was always accompanied
by increased transparency. I was much struck while making these
observations with the difference in the appearance of the air low
down when looking north and when looking south of the mountain,
and thought it might be due to the amount of dust in the two
directions, the thickest air being towards the inhabited parts of
the country. At the time I did not expect this difference in the
humidity of the air at the two places which the Swiss observations
show. It would be difficult to trace the cause of this difference in
the humidity of the two places which are so near each other. Any
attempt to trace it to direction of wind would be difficult owing to
the influence of the surrounding mountains in producing local
currents. It is quite possible the difference in the air to the north

232 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

and south of the mountain may have partly been due to the amount
of dust in it, and the blackness noticed on the 23rd may have been
due to this cause, as at Lucerne the wind in the early morning of
that day was blowing from the north, and would bring polluted air
up from the populated parts of the country. This north wind did
not seem to penetrate into the mountainous parts south of the Rigi,
as the wind at Gersau was south-west.

It may he asked, Is the air at the top of a mountain polluted to
any extent by the valley air ? Is the air on the mountain top the
same as we breathe in the valley, only reduced in pressure? ~No
very direct answer can he given to this question. There seems
however, to he very little doubt that the valley air frequently
rises to the tops of hills, hut this valley air will generally he more
or less mixed with the purer upper air, the amount of impure air
depending on the height, the shape of the hill, and other causes.

It will be observed from the observations made on the 25 th of
May on the Rigi Kulm and at Yitznau at the foot of the mountain,
that there was no very great difference in the amount of dust in
the air at the two places. When allowance is made for the higher
pressure at the lower station, there was less at the foot at midday
than at the top in the morning. For practical purposes we may
look on the dust on these two occasions as being the same, showing
that in all probability the air tested at the foot of the mountain
was the same as at the top. This, however, does not prove that the
air of the valley ascended to the mountain top, because on this
occasion a strong wind was blowing and the air was coming from
the unpolluted area of the Alps, so that both the upper and lower
air might have been free from local impurities. The observations
made on Callievar showed there was much less dust in the air at
the top than at the foot ; still they also showed that the air came
up from the valley as the numbers increased with a change of wind
from a populated direction. The observations made on Finouillet
show the air at that station to he frequently very impure from the
ascent of valley air. The Rigi observations also show that in all
probability the valley air came to the hill top of course more or
less diluted with pure air. When there was little wind, as on the
21st, the amount of dust was small; but on the 23rd, when the
wind began to blow, the amount of dust gradually increased to a

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

233

fair number of particles, and only decreased after blowing some
time.

When on the Eigi it was also noticed when there were clouds
in the valley, that the wind in driving them along, also drove them
up the slopes of the mountains, sometimes to the very top. The
condensation of the moist air in the clouds supplied some of the energy
necessary for the ascent, as in some cases the clouds were seen to leave
the hill-side and rise nearly vertically. We therefore seem to have
very good reason for supposing that even at such an isolated position
as the Eigi Kulm the air is more or less polluted with valley air. At
stations on the tops, or on the slopes of long ridge-shaped hills, the
air will be practically valley air when the wind is at right angles to
the ridge.

There is another point which I noticed at this elevated situation,
with which I shall close these Eigi notes. It has reference to the
colouring of earth and sky seen at sunrise and sunset when observed
from the top of mountains. I think the general impression is that
the colouring is much finer on these occasions when seen from an
elevation than from the valley. How the result of my observations
during my stay at the Eigi Kulm all point the other way.

The weather was favourable for seeing the sun. rise and set on
all the days I was there, and yet on none of them did I see any
display of colour ; indeed, I was much struck by the want of it.
On the 24th, which was the finest sunrise during the time, the dis-
tant snows were tinged slightly red for a few minutes only while the
sun -was just on the horizon; immediately it got a very little clear of
the horizon all colour was gone. The same was the case with the
sunsets, greys predominated over other colours. How during this
time I was told that, as seen from Lucerne, the sunsets were remark-
ably fine for colour effects. This would seem to indicate that the
colouring, at least under the conditions existing during my visit,
was mostly done by the lower air — that the pure air between the
mountains and the sun robbed the sun’s rays of but little of their
blue light, and that it was the lower impure air between the hills
and the observer to which most of the colouring was due.

This supposition, that the lower dusty humid air is the chief
cause of the colour in sunset effects is supported by other observa-
tions. When on the top of the mountain I frequently saw large

234 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

cumulus clouds; the near ones were always snowy white, while it was
only the distant ones that were tarnished yellow, showing that the
light came to these clouds unchanged, and it was only the air between
the far distant clouds and the observer that tarnished them yellow,
it required a great distance at this elevation to give even a slight
colouring. It seems probable that the lurid light of thunder clouds
owes its colouring to the dust and humidity of the lower air being
excessive at the time, and that these clouds are really white, if we
saw them near enough, it being the heavy moist air near the earth
which changes the white to a reddish colour in its passage to the
observer. We seem therefore to have good reason for supposing
that the colouring at sunrise and sunset will be more brilliant when
seen from the valley than from the mountain top.

Dust and Wind.

It may now be asked, Are there any other meteorological pheno-
mena connected with the amount of dust in our atmosphere 1 It is
evidently rather soon to begin drawing conclusions on the relation
beween dust and many of the complex phenomena in nature, as the
number of observations yet taken is far too small, and many of them
are not free from local influences, which greatly reduce their value.
There are, however, one or two points to which we may here refer;
but it must be clearly understood that anything we have to say in
this part of the paper cannot be taken as indicating anything
final. They are given more as suggestions as to some of the many
points in connection with our subject which await investigation.

One of the first things a meteorologist is likely to ask is, Do you
find any relation between the amount of dust in our atmosphere
and the distribution of pressure ? Has the air in cyclonic and anti-
cyclonic areas the same amount of dust 1 The answer to the question
is easy and direct, but the interpretation of the answer is more diffi-
cult. There is no doubt from the observations here given that, as
a rule there is less dust in cyclonic than in anticyclonic areas. For
instance, when the observations were made at Kingairloch, on all
days on which the number of particles was low, a cyclone was
passing near, and on all days the number was great the circulation
was anticyclonic or complicated.

To illustrate this, the diagram given on Plate No. 1 has been pre-

'

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

235

pared. At the bottom of the diagram are the dates on which the
observations were made, and underneath the date is marked whether
the station was in a cyclonic or anticyclonic area, A. indicating anti-
cyclonic, C. cyclonic, and ? indicating that it could not be said to be
in either the one or the other. In the diagram is shown the number
of particles observed on each day. Each observation, given in the
table referred to in a previous part of this paper, is indicated in
the diagram by a small circle, the height of the circle above the
base line indicating the amount of dust on the date, the scale
being shown on the right hand side of the diagram. These dust
observations are all connected by means of a dotted line. It will
be noticed that in a general way the numbers were least in cyclonic
areas.

Plate No. 2 illustrates the same thing for the Alford observa-
tions. Here the circulation was anticyclonic for the first four days,
and the number of particles was high. A cyclone passed on the
9th, and the number fell to about one-third. The circulation was
doubtful on the 10th and 11th, but on the following days it was
generally anticyclonic, but it will be observed that the numbers
were low during the beginning of this period. A curious point was
the great increase which took place on the 16th. The number in
the morning was 1125, but it rapidly increased during the day, and
rose to 5700 in the afternoon. In connection with this it may be
interesting to note that on the previous day the centre of the anti-
cyclone had passed over this station, and on the 16th lay imme-
diately to the east of it.

Taking now the Dumfries observations, which are shown on
Plate No. 3, it will be noticed that the relation between the
dust and the barometric distribution was more marked than in the
previous cases. The circulation was cyclonic on the following
dates — October 29th, 30th, 31st, November 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and
15th, on all of which dates there was little dust. On only other two
days was there little dust, namely, on the 25th October and 9th
November. On these days the number was low and circulation
anticyclonic. The high numbers were all got in anticyclonic or
complicated areas.

Now comes the question, What interpretation are we to put on
these facts? If the anticyclonic areas have more dust in them than

236 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

the cyclonic, then this at first sight might seem to indicate that
anticy clonic air is more impure than cyclonic; that is, that air
moving from areas of high pressure, which is generally supposed to
come from the upper strata, has more dust than that near the earth,
which would be equivalent to saying that meteors falling into our
atmosphere produce more dust in the upper strata than is thrown
into the lower by all the sources of pollution on the earth’s surface
in country districts.

There is, however, evidently another interpretation of these facts.
One marked difference between a cyclonic and an anticyclonic area
is, that the isobars in the former are much closer together than in
the latter; that is, the barometric gradient is steeper in the cyclonic
areas; or what this indicates is that there is more wind in the
cyclonic than in the anticyclonie areas. That is to say, that in cyclonic
areas there are high winds and little dust, while in anticyclonic
areas there is little or no wind, and the amount of dust is great.
Accepting this explanation of the greater or less amount of dust
in the two areas, let us see how it is borne out by the observations.

In order to investigate this point we may lay off a series of
points representing the distance between the isobars, on the
different dates. The height of this curve would be inversely pro-
portional to the velocity of the wind. Instead of using the baro-
metric curves, we will use the observations of the velocity of the
wind observed at the stations. These observations are entered in
the diagram and connected by a fine line. It will be seen in
diagram Ho. 1 that the fall in dust which took place on the 6th
was accompanied by a rise of wind, and that the fall of the wind on
the 9th was accompanied by an increase in the dust. The wind
increased on the 10th, and the dust fell; but on the 12th, 13th, 15th,
and 16th both curves rose and fell together. In diagram No. 2 it
will be seen that both wind and dust rose and fell together from
the 5th to the 9th, but on the 9th the wind increased and cleared
away the high dust that had prevailed for some days. From the
9th to the 13th the dust increased whenever the wind got less,
but on the 16th a great increase in dust took place with a slight
increase in wind. When, however, we come to diagram No. 3, the
relation between the wind and the dust is much more marked.

It will be observed that almost every rise of wind is accompanied

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

28 7

by a fall in dust, and a fall in wind with an increase of dnst. It
seems therefore that the amount of dust is not so much a question
of cyclonic or anticyclonic areas, as of wind velocity. It will be
noticed that the exceptions in the Dumfries observations on the
25th October and 9th November,, when the numbers were small and
the distribution of pressure anticyclonic, have no existence where
we adopt the wind explanation.

Having traced the connection between the number of particles
and the velocity of the wind at low levels, the question still
remains, What is the action of the wind ? Two explanations seem
possible. The wind will evidently mix the upper and lower airs,
and may thus prevent the number being great, either by preventing
the dust in the upper atmosphere from settling into the lower, or
it may prevent the accumulation of local impurities, from which
no locality is entirely free. The latter of these suggestions seems
to be the more probable, as the atmospheric dust is so excessively
fine that it is likely to take long to settle, and the duration of calms
does not seem long enough for it settling from the upper strata.
There is no doubt that for all the dust to settle out of even a few
feet a very long time is necessary. It must, however, be kept in
mind, that while all the dust takes long to settle, the heavier
particles will fall quicker, and these no doubt in calm weather will
add something to the impurity of the lower air. It, however, seems
probable that the absence of wind will act chiefly in allowing local
impurities to accumulate and keep near the ground. It may be as
well to recall here, that on the Rigi Kulm, the lowest number of
dust particles was recorded in calm weather ; and that with increase
of wind increase of dust took place, which increase continued
till the wind had blown some time, thus indicating the power of
the wind to make the upper air impure, and the complement of this
will be to make the lower air purer.

That the increase of dust during calm periods is principally due
to the accumulation of local impurities, seems to be supported by
the difference, already pointed out, of the effect of wind as shown
in the three diagrams. At Dumfries the relation between the
amount of dust and wind velocity is constant all through, while at
Kingairloch and Alford there were marked exceptions to it. Now,
Dumfries is a much more polluted district than the others, and it is

238 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

polluted in all directions, whereas the other stations are not polluted
equally in all directions. It seems, therefore, to he on this accumu-
lated local impurity that the wind acts.

Another point which is shown in the diagrams Nos. 1, 2, and 3,
is the influence of the direction of the wind on the amount of dust.
At the foot of these diagrams are entered arrows showing the direc-
tion of the wind at the dates. The lower arrow shows the direction
of wind as observed at the station. The upper one is from the
weather charts issued by the Meteorological Office. These upper
arrows will probably represent the general air circulation, while the
lower ones will frequently be purely local. It will be observed
that when the wind came from populous parts of the country, the
numbers were generally large. Taking the Kingairloch observa-
tions,— all the country from the south to the east is thickly popu-
lated, but in all other directions there are but few habitations. On
the 9th, with a light wind from the south, the number was great ;
whereas, with a light wind from the east or north, the number was
less. The high numbers were all with southerly winds. At Alford,
the most densely populated direction is from east to nearly south,
and it will be observed that it was with winds from these directions
that the greatest amount of dust was observed. The low numbers
observed at this station, when the wind was slight from the 11th to
the 14th, was probably due to the air coming from a comparatively
poorly populated district. This seems to explain why on these
days the number of particles was not great, as is generally the case
when the wind falls. It will be noticed that the wind was south
when the great increase of dust occurred on the 16th, with increase
of wind. The effect of the direction of wind is not so apparent in
the Dumfries observations, probably owing to this station being
surrounded on all sides by towns and villages. It is, however,
interesting to note that the northerly winds which were pure at the
other stations were found to be impure here. The reason for this
probably is, that many towns, as well as iron and other works, lie
in that direction.

Fog.

The condition of the air during fog has been tested in a number
of cases, of which no record is given here, and in all of them there
was found a great quantity of dust. This is what we should now

1889-90.] Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles. 239

expect, as fogs are formed when the air is still, and we have seen
that when this happens the quantity of dust increases. The ex-
planation of the formation of fogs would appear to he, — calms tend
to increase the quantity of dust and moisture in the air near the
ground, and as the dust increases the radiating power of the air it
soon gets chilled to the condensing point, when fog forms. The
density of the resulting fog depends in part on the quantity of dust
present, as town fogs are thicker as well as blacker than country
ones. These remarks only apply to radiation fogs, and not to fogs
resulting from the mixing of hot and cold air, nor to fogs formed
by reduction of pressure. Fogs seem to be much more frequent in
town than in country air. This possibly may be due in part to the
greater amount of dust in the city air increasing its radiating power,
so causing it to become colder than country air, when there is no
protection above it. If the air was clear and perfectly diather-
manous, then the radiation would be only from bodies on the earth’s
surface. The air would then be cooled by these surfaces, and
deposit its vapour on them as dew ; but when there is much dust
in the air, these particles acting as radiating surfaces get cooled, and
the vapour being deposited on them, fog is the result.

Speculations.

Another question which may be asked is, Is there any relation
between the amount of dust and the temperature of the air ? It
has been shown that there is a distinct connection between the
amount of dust in the air and its transparency. We are, there-
fore, led to expect that the dust will have some effect on the
temperature, by the alteration it will effect on the diathermancy
of the air. In order to see if any information can be gained on this
point from these observations, there are entered in the diagrams,
Plates I, II and III, the maximum and minimum temperatures
of the air on the days on which the dust observations were taken.
It is evident that there are two distinct effects of the dust which
we must distinguish. First, its effect on the heat received by the
earth from the sun ; and second, its effect on the heat radiated into
space by the earth. We may expect the former of these effects will
be best seen in summer, when the sun is high, while the latter will
be best studied during night temperatures and during winter.

240 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

For investigating whether the amount of dust in the air has any
influence on its temperature while the sun is shining, the only
observations illustrating the point are those made at Kingairloch in
July; the others made in September, October, and November,
when the sun was low, shew no marked effect from its rays. When
we examined the Kingairloch observations, we were struck by the
marked relation shown between maximum temperature and the
amount of dust. It will be observed that the curve of maximum
temperature shows four maxima, and that the dust curve has also
four maxima, and that three of these maxima of dust happen on the
three days of maximum temperature. On the 4th, 9th, and 13th it
will be seen both dust and temperature were above the average. The
same thing though not so marked, may be noticed in the Alford
observations. At the beginning of the observations both dust and
temperature were high; both fell towards the end, and just at the
finish both rose again.

These considerations point to a connection between the amount of
dust and the temperature ; the greater the amount of dust the higher
was the maximum temperature. But what explanation are we to put
on this? Is it a case of cause and effect? or are both due to one cause ?
or is it merely a coincidence ? One would have expected that the
phenomena are far too complex for any such effect to show out so
clearly as it seems to do in these records. Amongst other influencing
causes besides dust, there is the wind. The force of the wind does
not seem to assist in explaining the agreement between the dust
and the temperature curves in these cases ; the direction of the wind,
however, seems to have some effect. For instance, the wind was
somewhat southerly with the high temperatures, but southerly winds
at these stations are generally accompanied with much dust, while the
northerly ones have a lower temperature, and little dust. This, how-
ever, does not dispose of the whole question, as the greater or less
dust in the different winds may be in part the cause of the difference
in their temperature. We do not find any influence of the dust on the
maximum temperature in the Dumfries observations; when the sun
is low, the direction of the wind seems to be the principal influencing
cause. Most of the high temperatures occurred with southerly to
westerly winds.

Humidity, no doubt, will have a powerful influence on the

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

241

temperature apart from its effect as a vapour, as a high humidity
will increase the effect of the dust by increasing the size of the
particles, while a low humidity will decrease the influence. The
records of observation are as yet too fragmentary to warrant the
drawing of any general conclusions on this subject.

Before the relation between the dust and the temperature can he
settled with any degree of certainty, far more data are required.
We would require to have, along with the dust tests, records of the
strength of the sunshine taken by a more accurate method than the
ordinary black-bulb vacuum thermometer ; and also records of the
hours of sunshine, the direction and velocity of the wind, not made
at long intervals but continuously.

We shall now turn to the diagrams, and see if the earth’s radia-
tion at night is influenced by the amount of dust in the air, but
our information is too meagre for a correct interpretation of the varia-
tions in temperature. The fall of temperature at night being due
to the earth’s radiation, before we can compare the cooling on
different nights, continuous records of the amount of cloud in the
sky are required, as well as the direction and velocity of the wind.
As no records were kept of the clouds at night, and only imperfect
ones of the wind, any conclusion we may draw from these curves
will be of little value. The Dumfries observations will be most
suitable for studying the night radiations, as they were taken during
the long nights of winter. At first sight there does not seem to be
any relation between the amount of dust and the cooling taking place
at night. The reason for this is, that there are other influences at
work besides dust, and one of these is the velocity of the wind — a
high velocity preventing an accumulation of cold air near the earth’s
surface by mixing the cooled air with the warmer upper air. The
Dumfries observations show that on all nights when there was wind
the fall in temperature was slight, and that great falls only took place
in calm weather. To get the effect of dust we must therefore com-
pare only nights on which there was no wind or only slight airs. In
order to assist our inquiry, there is placed in the diagram of the
Dumfries observations another series of temperature observations
taken by means of a minimum thermometer placed on the grass.
These observations are shown connected by the curve underneath
the curve of minimum air temperature. The difference between

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242 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

these two curves, or the difference between the minimum air tem-
perature and the minimum ground temperature, shows the intensity
of the earth’s radiation on the different nights. As the air is
partly cooled by its passage over surfaces cooled by radiation,
we might expect the fall of temperature from the previous day’s
maximum would be proportional to the difference between the
minimum temperature and the minimum temperature on the grass.
This, however, will only he the case when all other things are
equal, such as amount and duration of cloud, diathermancy of upper
air, radiating power of lower air, and velocity of wind.

Selecting the nights on which there was little wind, let us see if
we can trace any effect due to dust. On the 30 th October there
was very little dust, and it will he noticed there was a great fall in
the temperature on the following night, though the wind does not
seem to have fallen very low. On this date the air was the purest
observed at this station, and on the following night the radiation
was the greatest observed. The fall in temperature of the air,
though considerable, was not the greatest recorded ; but we are not
entitled to expect it would be, as the fall in temperature of the air
depends on the duration as well as on the intensity of the radiation.
No very satisfactory conclusion can be drawn from the other
observations, as on the occasions when the amount of dust was low
there seems to have generally been some wind, and this would
check the fall of the thermometer on the grass. Further the dust
observations were not taken at sufficiently short intervals for
ascertaining whether the air at night had the same amount of dust
as on the previous evening, or on the following morning. It may
be as well to notice here, that on the 12th November there was a
fair amount of dust, and yet the temperature fell considerably at
night. The reason for this would seem to be, that though there
was a good deal of dust, it was probably confined to the lower
stratum of air, so that while the lower air was a good radiator
from the amount of dust in it, it was unprotected above by dusty
air. The reason for stating this is that on the following morning,
tne 13th, when the amount of dust was great, there was a dense fog,
but this fog was only low down, while immediately overhead the
sky looked clear.

The relation between the dust and the night temperature appeared

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

243

in an interesting way in the Alford observations. For some days
towards the end of the observations it will he noticed that the amount
of dust was small, and the night minimum steadily decreased,
while the small amount of dust continued. But on the 16th, the
last day the tests were made, when the sudden increase of dust took
place, there was a change also in the minimum temperature, which,
instead of falling to a lower point, was the following night higher
by nearly 12°. We must not, however, conclude that these
changes of night temperature were entirely due to dust, as it will
he noticed that the wind was occasionally northerly while the
low night temperatures lasted, and that on the 15th the direction
changed to southerly.

In the previous remarks there is something like a contradiction,
which it may he as well to explain here. It is stated that the wind
decreases the amount of dust, and also that it raises the minimum
temperature. It is further stated that a decrease in dust is accom-
panied by a low minimum temperature. This apparent contra-

1 diction disappears when we consider that it is only when the wind
has fallen that we can see the effect of the low dust in producing
a low temperature.

We might sum up the results thus : — 1st, During the summer
there was generally a high maximum temperature when there was
a maximum of dust in the air. 2nd, There was a tendency to a

I low temperature at night when there was little dust in the air.
3rd, During the time of the Dumfries observations the mean tem-
perature was high, and the amount of dust great.

Stated in another way, it amounts to this, that dust increases
the day temperature and checks the fall at night, thus increasing
the mean temperature. If this be so, then it looks as if the dust
absorbs the sun’s heat during the day, but does not radiate the
earth’s heat at night. We might expect that the condition of air
that got highly heated by the sun’s rays would be greatly cooled
at night by radiation. It will be as well, however, to remember
that at present we are in great ignorance as to the diathermancy
and radiating power of our atmosphere, and further it is easy to see
j that the heating and cooling will take place under different condi-
tions. The sun’s rays heat the air, and evaporate the moisture
from the dust particles, and so tend to open the atmosphere to the

244 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. I

passage of heat through it ; whereas, at night, an opposite action
takes place. The chilling tends to deposit moisture on dust, and
so impede terrestrial radiation.

In connection with this subject, there is a point that has been
observed for some years, with regard to the earth’s radiation, which,
as is hears on our subject, we may refer to here. Tor some years
I have taken the usual meteorological observations, and along with
these there has been kept a record of the earth’s radiation at night.
When taking the readings in the evening, it has been noticed that
on the evenings when there were no clouds, that the radiation
effect was strongest just about sunset. If it was observed shortly
afterwards, the radiation was almost always weaker, even though
the sky kept clear. This would seem to indicate that the air
is more diathermanous to terrestrial radiation just about sunset
than it is later. The explanation which I would now offer of this
is, that at sunset the air is more diathermanous than it is later, on
account of the dust in the air holding little moisture. After the
sun has been set for some time the air chills, and the dust particles
increase in size by the vapour deposited on them ; and this increase
in size tends to check the free passage of the earth’s heat into
space. It is evident we cannot here attribute the decreased diather-
mancy, with the advance of the evening, to the action of the water
in its gaseous form, as there is at that time no sudden increase in
its amount in the air. It would rather appear to be due to change
which then takes place in the condition of the moisture from vapour
to liquid. I have said the air is more diathermanous just about
sunset than it is later. Probably it is more diathermanous to the
earth’s variations during the day than it is at sunset ; but observa-
tions on this point are difficult to make, owing to the complications
introduced by the sun’s heat radiated and reflected by our atmo-
sphere.

At first sight, we might think that the truth or falsehood of these
conclusions might be easily determined. If dust increased the day
temperature and decreased the fall at night, then the mean tempera-
ture will be increased by a large amount of dust. Can it then be
proved from general meteorology that this is the case? Do inhabited
countries have a higher mean temperature than uninhabited ones,
other things being equal ; or has the temperature of these islands

1889-90.] Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles. 245

risen since coal has come into such extensive use; or is the tempera-
ture of a place higher when the wind brings dust-laden air to it
from a populous district than when it brings pure air ; or has the
temperature in the populous parts of New Zealand or Australia
increased with the increase of population 1 Unfortunately this is a
case where, wdiile a positive reply might support the conclusion, a
negative one does not weaken it, because the dust from human
habitations keeps near the ground, and if there is no protection
above it, its effect will probably be, not to keep up the night
temperature, but rather to lower it, on account of the increased
radiating power of the atmosphere caused by the dust.

There is still another reason why we must move herewith caution.
Should the possibility here shadowed fortldbecome a reality, then we
should find it entering the arena of one of the most highly contested
fields of scientific speculation — we should find it claiming to be the
great regulator of the earth’s climate in bygone ages. Meteorolo-
gists would be disputing with astronomers, and claiming for their
domain the cause of the great changes which geologists tell us have
taken place in the earth’s climate from time to time. They would
no longer ask the astronomer if he could tilt the earth’s axis so as
to bring first one part and then another under the influence of the
sun’s rays. All the meteorologist would have to do would be in
imagination to steer the solar system into a part of space where
meteoric matter was absent. Were cosmic dust absent from the
earth’s atmosphere, the earth’s heat would have a freer passage into
space, and a glacial climate would be the result. To change this,
it would only be necessary that the system passed to where meteoric
matter was abundant, when the earth’s atmosphere, now full of
cosmic dust, would conserve the sun’s rays and its own heat, and
thus cause the glacial conditions to disappear.

Such are some of the problems suggested by this investigation,
none of which are worked out, and some only suggested. It is of
course possible, perhaps probable, that many of the conclusions here
set forth may be quite wrong. The whole phenomena are too con-
plex to be solved so easily, and it will require continued records of
all the meteorological phenomena, extending over long periods, and
under many different conditions, before many of these conclusions
can be satisfactorily established.

246

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Conclusions .

The following are some of the conclusions arrived at in this
paper : —

1st, The earth’s atmosphere is greatly polluted with dust pro-
duced by human agency.

2nd, This dust is carried to considerable elevations by the hot
air rising over cities, by the hot and moist air rising from sun
heated areas of the earth’s surface, and by winds driving the
dusty air up the slopes of hills.

3rd, The transparency of the air depends on the number of dust
particles in it, and also on its humidity. The less the dust the more
transparent is the air, and the dryer the air the more transparent it
is. There is no evidence that humidity alone — that is, water in
its gaseous condition, and apart from dust — has any effect on the
transparency.

4th, The dust particles in the atmosphere have vapour con-
densed on them though the air itself may not be saturated.

5th, The amount of vapour condensed on the dust in unsaturated
air depends on the “ relative humidity,” and also on the “ absolute
humidity ” of the air. The higher the humidity and the higher
the vapour tension, the greater is the amount of moisture held by
the dust particles when the air is not saturated.

6th, Haze is generally produced by dust, and if the air be dry,
the vapour has but little effect, and the density of the haze depends
chiefly on the number of particles present.

7th, Hone of the tests made of the Mediterranean sea air show
it to be very free from dust.

8th, The amount of dust in the atmosphere of pure country dis-
tricts varies with the velocity and the direction of the wind. Tall
of wind being accompanied by an increase in dust. Winds blowing
from populous districts generally bring dusty air.

9th, The observations are still too few to afford satisfactory
evidence of the relation between the amount of dust in the atmo-
sphere and climate.

1889-90.]

Mr J ohn Aitken on Dust Particles.

247

Table of the Number of Dust Particles in the Atmosphere.

Place.

Date.

Hour.

Number
of Par-
ticles
per c.c.

Wind.

Tern pera-
ture.

Humidity.

State of
the Air.

Remarks.

Hyferes, . .

Mar.

19

10.0 a.m.

46,000

S.E. 1

11

Clear.

At window of hotel.

Finouillet, .

21

3.30 a.m.

5,000

W. 1

10

Near top of mountain.

Hyferes, . .

22

11.0 a.m.

9,000

W. 1

11

At window of the hotel.

,,

,,

5,600

,,

Near the top of the mountain.

Finouillet, .

23

3.15 p.m.

4,100

19,000

S.W. 1

9

Thickish.

,,

3.45 p.m.

Very thick.

, , beginning to rain.

At top of mountain.

25

4.0 p.m.
12.0”

3,550

10,000

W. 1

13*

Clear.

La Plage, .

,,

Number very variabie.

29

2,150

S.E. 1

13*

Taken on the beach.

1.30 p.m.

4,800

1,850

S.E. 0-5

,,

Wind fallen.

1‘45 p.m.

,,

,,

At 100 yards from shore.

2.0 p.m.

1,800

,,

)(

At 250 ,, ,,

Finouillet, .

Apr.

3

3.30 p.m.

4,400

N.W. 6

61-2

13

Extly. clear.

Observed on top of mountain.

4,500

25,600

W.’ 3

,,

,,

Clear.

,, ii

4

55

8-5

Wind direct from Toulon.
Observed on the top of La

Cannes, . .

10

11.0a.m.

24,400

1,550

1,600

”

65'5

13’

Veiy cleai\

11.30 a.m.

,,

Croix des Gardes.

11

1,950

S.W. 3

54

2

Very thick.

ii ii

12

10.30 a.m.

140.000

150.000

E. 1

63

10

Very clear.

Large number due to wind blow-

,,

t ,

135,000

10,000

S. 0-5

58

,,

Thickish.

ing from the town.

13

11.30 a.m.

7

On pier in west bay.

11

12,000

62

,,

Very clear.

On shore in west bay.

Mentone, . .

25

3.0 p.m.

1,200

N.W. 1

12

Observed on hill about 1000 feet

,,

7,200

S.E. 1

13

high to the N.W. of Mentone.

27

10.0 a.m.

5,000

S.E. 0-5

64

Observed in small boat outside

BeUagio, . .

May

3

11.15 a.m.

10,000

S.W. 0-5

64

7

Thickish.

the pier.

Observed at open window.

3.0 p.m.

10,000

S. 0-5

63

6

,,

Observed on the top of the Villa

3.30 p.m.

9,500

,,

Serbelloni.

6

3.0 p.m.

3,000

S.W.’ 0-2

60

3

Thick.

At open window, rain.

7

2.30 p.m.

5,600

S. 0-2

66-5

7-5

Thick.

Taken at window.

■

8

12.30 p.m.

2,900

S.W. 1

62

5

Very thick.

,, ,, been rain.

Taken at window.

Baveno, . .

13

10.30 a.m.

9,000

N.W. 0-2

70

10

Thick.

3.30 p.m.

6,780

Very thick.

ii ii

14

11.0 a.m.

3,200

N.W. 3

56*5

3**5

,, „ wet night, rain-

ing, distant thunder.

At window, still raining.

3.0 p.m.

3,800

N.W. 4

57

4

Thickish.

15

10.30 a.m.

10,000

Calm

58

2

,, ,, raining, calm.

12.15 p.m.

6,120

V ,, ,,

2.0 p.m.

4,500

e.’ot

59*

2*

Extly. "thick.

ii >> ii

3.0 p.m.

2,900

E. 0-2

Very thick.

j> ii ii

Simplon Pass,

16

10.0 a.m.

5,600

N.W. 3

58*

3*5

Very thick.

,, „ wet morning.

3.30 p.m.

850

N.W. 0-5

Clear.

Taken a short way up the

3.45 p.m.

546

Simplon Pass.

Increase due to change of wind.

1

4.0 p.m.

14,000

s.e!’o-5

,,

Baveno, . .
Locarno, . .

17

10.0 a.m.

6,250

S.E. 0-5

65*

6*

Medium.

Taken at window.

11.15 a.m.

6,600

,,

Thickish.

Taken on hill side at 600 feet

18

4.0 p.m.

1,150

£*2

6*

Rigi Kulm, .

21

2.0 p.m.

1,300

Variable

46

1-5

Thick fog.

above the lake.

Taken on the top of the hill.

3.30 p.m.

285

11 11

4.30 p.m.

210

45

1 *5

11 11

11

227

,,

11

22

9.30 a.m.

850

S.E. 2

51

6*

Clear.

1 1

?

700

11.30 a.m.

434

11 11

518

Occasional passing fog.

3.30 p.m.

1,450

55*

4*

Haze.

1 1

1 1

1,550

Thunder storm to the east.

11

1,550

2,050

11

ii

11

ii ii

11

1 1

2,200

1111

11

4.30 p.m.

2,350

11

”

2,050

50*

4*

11 11

248

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh.

Number of Dust Particles — continued.

Number

& .

Places. \

Date.

Hour.

of Par-
ticles

Wind.

p<£
| £

s

1

State of
the Air.

Remarks.

.

per c.c.

H

S

Rigi Kulm, .

May-

23

10.0 a.m.

850

S.E. 3

54-5

8

Clear.

Some clouds below the level of

1,100

...

the hill top, and on the moun-

580

tains to south-east.

99

,,

yy

515

850

...

yf

35

571

Hi

M

11.0 a.m.

1,080

3.30 p.m.

1,036

850

S.E. 2

Very clear.

Thunderstorm to the south-

850

east, but distant.

850

Low clouds all gone.

600

yy

600

840

4.3o’p.m.

665

850

53-5

9*5

.

24

10.0 a.m.

685

S.E. 1

53-5

9-5

Very clear.

yy

665

665

11.0 a.m.

617

58

11 ’

fM

'

4.0 p.m.

395

,

392

»;

350

5.0 p.m.

575

592

51

8*

25

9.0a.m.

532

S.S.E. 1

53-5

10

Very clear.

Taken on the top of the moun-

540

tain.

560

580

10.0 a.m.

547

Vitznau, . .

12.30 p.m.

585

S.E. 3

14 ’

Very clear.

Taken at the level of the lake.

Lucerne, . .
”

616

5.0 p.m.

616

S.E." 3

14”

Very clear.

Taken on lake side at a distance

650

of one mile to the windward ,

652

of the town.

6.30 p.m.

1,970

At hotel window over garden.

26

10.30 a.m.

23,000

n'o-5

13”

Medium.

„

2.0 p.m.

7,500

N.E. 0-5

Taken in a field about a mile to

3.0 p.m.

2,330

2,400

the windward of the town.

2,160

9 9 9 9

2,750

9 9 9 9

3,000

9 9 9 9

Eiffel Tower,

4.0 p.m.

3,660

29

10.0 a.m.

41,000

S. 3

Taken at an elevation of 200 m.

10.15 a.m.

52,000

Taken at the top of the tower 1

,,

,,

,,

15,000

immediately underneath the

,,

99

3,300

lantern for the electric light

”

;;

”

6,600

104,000

at an elevation of nearly 300 m. ^

”

”

45.400
62,000

22.400

99 9 9

11 n

,,

12.0 a.m.

2,850

aVs

v»

n

226

Heavy shower of rain.

24,000

Rain ceased.

1.30 p.m.

42,000

S."*6

Taken at an elevation of 200 m.

>'

;;

2.15 p.m.

56,000
1 43,000

Taken at an elevation of 115 m.
Taken in the garden of the Mete-

Paris, . . .

»

4.0 p.m.

210,000

134,000

S.’ 4

orological Office.

,,

160,000

Mar.

”

15

June

11.30 a.m.

92,000

N.E. 2

«

London, . .

3

10.0 a.m.

102,000

Taken at window in Victoria

99

yy

140,000

Street.

»

12.0 a.m.

88,000

W. 2.

Taken in a garden, the wind

1889-90.]

Mr John Aitken on Dust Particles.

249

Number of Dust Particles — continued.

Places.

Date.

Hour.

Number
of Par-
ticles
per c.c.

Wind.

Tempera-

ture.

Humidity.

State of
the Air.

Remarks.

June

London, . .

3

12.0 a.m.

84,000

blowing direct from Battersea

V

116,000

Park.

48,000

W. 3.

Wind increased.

1.0 p.m.

84,000

”

July

2.30 p.m.

150,000

At window in Victoria Street.

Kingairloch.

3

12.30 p.m.

3,150

S.E. 1.

73

13

Haze.

Observations made at about 50

3,000

feet above the level of the sea.

7.0 p.m.

2,150

f ” •

2,250

2,200

e. i.

;;

4

11.0 a.m.

3,600

70

10”

Thick haze.

4,000

7.0 p.m.

1,550

W. 1.

1,250

5

10.0 a.m.

1,250

S.E. 1.

64

g

Thick.’

3j

1,550

1,500

6

10.30 a.m.

1,000

Variable.

61

4*"

Thick.’

1,000

1.0 p.m.

400

N.W. 2.

Clear.

Clouds on hill tops.

325

336

”

385

1.30 p.m.

303

60

6”

Clear.”

4.30 p.m.

205

99

250

i...

»

8

10.0 a.m.

1,650

N.W. 2.

6 if

9 "

Medium.

Cloudy, with occasional showers.

1,450

9

10.0 a.m.

2,500

S.0-2

69’

k"

Medium.

Dull morning.

2,500

”

2,400

12.30 p.m.

1,230

s.”6-5

64

9*

Clear.

6.0 p.m.

2,650

E. 1

61

6

Thickish.

10

11.30 a.m.

814

E. 3

59

4

Medium.

Been raining.

12

5,30 p.m.

710

S.E. 0-5

60

5

Clear.

Fine, but cloudy.

13

10.30 a.m.

3,000

S. 1

62-5

5

Thick.

Fine morning.

,,

3,000

M

1.0 p.m.

2,900

65

5 '5

”

11.30 a.m.

3,100

Variable.

TT

15

425

56

4

Clear.

Thunder in distance.

„

550

Carry S.W.

550

2.0 p.m.

1,900

N.W. 1

57

4-5

Thick.’

Air became much thicker.

1,850

IT '

16

10.0 a.m.

1,400

Variable.

59*

6*

Medium.

Fine, but clouded.

1,300

•

1.30 p.m.

800

62

7

Very clear.

Cany from north.

,,

,,

850

,,

,,

,,

One of the clearest days at this

place.

17

10.0 a.m.

' 5io

E. 0-2

59

8

Very clear.

Cloudy, carry from north.

Aug.

Ben Nevis, .

1

•1.0 p.m.

335

S.W. 1

45

2

Hazy.

Fairly clear, Schiehallion and

!

3.0 p.m.

473

45-5

2-6

,,

Skye hills visible.

Sept.

Alford, . .

5

11.0 a.m.

2,000

Variable.

7V2

107

Thick.

Dull, foggy morning.

5.30 p.m.

1,800

~

6

10.30 a.m.

3,850

E.’l

71 '2

1 0*9

Very thick.

,,

7

10.0 a.m.

2,7.50

E. 0-5

62

62

9

9.0 a.m.

3,000

S.W. 1

68

101

Thickish.

Cloudy.

Callievar, . .

,,

12.0 a.m.

262

S.W. 3

Clear.

Clouds clearing away.

336

2.0 p.m.

475

S.W.W. 3

Clouds nearly gone.

475

Alford, . .

’9

4.30 a.m.

900

S.W.W. 2

,,

10

9.30 a.m.

1,750

W. 0-5

67' ’

6’5

Thickish.

Dull day.

,,

6.0 p.m.

530

S.W. 1

Hazy.

,,

”

11

10.0 a.m.

1,125

Variable

67*

59

Thick.

Dull morning.

250 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Number of Dust Particles — continued.

Places.

Date.

Hour.

Number
of Par-
ticles
per c.c.

Wind.

Tempera-
i ure.

Humidity.

State of
the Air.

Remarks.

Alford, . .

Sept.

12

10.0 a.m.

650

E. 0-5

597

4'5

Thickish.

Dull, cloudy morning. 1

13

11.0 a.m.

1,400

900

E. 0-2

55

1 '6

Thick.

Light rain all day.

,,

,,

2.0 p.m.

Calm

Clear.

,,

14

10.0 a.m.

850

E. 0-2

521

4'9

■) i

,,

5.30 p.m.

850

N.W. 0-2

■

16

10.0 a.m.

1,125

S. 1

63"

8*6

Medium.

Fine bright morning.

Oct.

24

5.30 p.m.

5,700

S.W. 0-5

Extly. thick.

Gradually became very thick.

Dumfries,

10.30 a.m.

600

E. 1

51

7-5

Clear.

Sunshine and cloud.

25

10.0 a.m.

1,025

N.E. 0-5

Clear.

Fine day.

26

2.45 p.m.

1,475

N.E. 1

44*

6-5

Medium.

Fine day, with clouds in morn-

850

E. 2

47-5

7-5

ing and sunshine in after-

.

3.30 p.m.

1,200

47

7

noon.

,

28

10.0 a.m.

5,500

N.W. 1

45

6'5

Thickish.

Cloudy all day.

,,

29

3.30 p.m.

11,000

S.W. 0-2

45-2

1-2

Very thick.

Dull most of the day.

,,

1,200

S. 0-8

50-5

4-6

Medium.

30

10.0 a.m.

325

S.W. 5

52

1

Very thick.

Raining.

3.30 p.m.

235

52-5

1

Thick.

Been wet and stormy. .

31

10.0 a.m.

1,600

S.W.’ 0-5

47-8

2'6

Clear.

Fine day. |

Nov.

1

10.0 a.m.

550

S.W. 6

42

0-8

Very thick.

Rainy, stormy.

r,

,,

3.30 p.m.

395

W. 4

44-2

1-8

Thickish.

Rain ceasing.

2

10.0 a.m.

635

N.W. 3

47

5

Clear.

Very fine day.

4

,,

4,600

N.W. 0-2

43-5

1-5

Thickish.

Wind variable, fine day.

5

,,

1,350

S.W. 0-2

42

0'2

Very thick.

6

,,

1,635

S.W. 0-2

47-5

2-5

Medium.

11 11

’?

2.30 p.m.

1,360

1,250

W. 1

50

4-6

Clear.

Fog on hills. Dull all day, with

10.0 a.m.

W. 1

56

1-5

Thickish.

,,

3.0 p.m.

1,400

W. 1

56-5

15

Thick.’

slight rain.

V9

8

10.0 a.m.

5,350

S.W. 0-2

49-8

1-8

Wind variable, dull day.
Fine day.

2.30 p.m.

2,670

.

50

0-5

Thick.

9

10.0 a.m.

625

W. 2

54

2-0

Very clear.

,,

3.0 p.m.

750

W. 3

53-8

2-5

Very clear.

Dull day.

11

10.0 a.m.

2,250

W. 0-5

50-2

1-4

Thickish.

2.45 p.m.

1,375

49-2

1-2

Very thick.

12

9.30 a.m.

2,500

S. 0-2

49-5

0-5

Extly. thick.

Dull day.

13

10.30 a.m.

8,600

Calm

39

o-o

Extly. thick.

Very thick fog.

1

3.0 p.m.

8,000

Calm

39-3

o-o

Thick fog, but clear overhead.

14

10.0 a.m.

9,900

7,070

45-1

1-6

Extly. thick.

Not so thick as previous day.

,,

2.30 p.m.

S.W.’ 0-5

47-8

2'0

15

10.0 a.m.

975

51-5

0-5

Thick.’

Dull most of day.

3.0 p.m.

900

52'7

1-8

Air got slightly clearer.

,

4.0 p.m.

650

S.W. 1

52-9

2-9

Thickish.

Air now much clearer.

16

10.0 a.m.

7,700

N.W. 0-2

43'5

2-5

Thick.

Cloudless all day.

IT

,,

12

4,700

Calm

46

3-5

Thickish.

Fine day.

18

10.0 a.m.

9,000

11,500

46

0-9

Very thick.

Dull all day. f

”

19

10.0 a.m.

S.W. 0-2

48-8

1-0

Extly. thick.

Dull.

Mr J . Aitken on Dust Particles.

251

1889-90.

APPENDIX.

Being desirous of getting more observations on the effect of
humidity when the temperature is low, in order to check the con-
clusion come to in the paper, I made a visit to the west of Scotland
in the end of January last, in the hope of finding the conditions
suitable for the purpose. Garelochead was selected for these obser-
vations. This situation is fairly free from local pollution so long
as the wind is not south, south-east, or east. In all other directions
it is fairly free from contamination.

The observations were generally made on the hills above Gare-
lochead ; the site for each day being always selected to the wind-
ward of the houses. Unfortunately, the weather was not suitable
for the special purpose intended, as during most of the time the
temperature was high and the weather extremely stormy. As,
however, the observations were taken in exceptional weather, and
the results show peculiarities, they may be thought of sufficient
interest to be recorded here.

The observations were begun on the 23rd of the month. On this
day the number of particles was 2360 per c.c., and the temperature
34° ; but unfortunately the wet-bulb depression is doubtful, owing to
the temperature of the wet-bulb being below the freezing point. The
wet-bulb fell to 32°, where it remained steady. As the temperature
was falling fast, the conditions would be all changed before the
water on the wet-bulb was all frozen, and it was therefore useless
to wait to see how far it would fall below 32°. Fortunately, I
had a hygroscope exposed at the same time, and it showed a reading
corresponding to a wet-bulb depression of fully 3°.

This is the only observation obtained at this situation suitable
for illustrating the influence of temperature on the effect of the

I humidity, and it confirms the conclusion previously arrived at.
We have shown that when there was a wet-bulb depression of
about 4°, and a little over 1000 particles per c.c., that the air was
thick if the temperature was 60° or more ; clear or medium if it
was about 50°; and, in the case here recorded, the air was clear, with
nearly double the number of particles, and the air not quite so dry,
but at a temperature of 34° It seems probable from this that
observations made on Ben Nevis and in cold climates generally

252 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

will not show the influence of humidity, so markedly as those made
in warm climates.

In making out the table given with this paper, the humidity
might have been shown in other ways. For instance, in place of
entering the wet-bulb depression, the relative humidity or the
dew-point of the air might have been given. It was, however,
thought better to enter the wet-bulb observations themselves, since
either of the others can be easily calculated from them. At
ordinary temperatures the relative humidity and the dew-point are
approximately proportional to the depression of the wet-bulb, the
dew-point being nearly twice as much as the wet-bulb below the
temperature of the air. But for low temperatures the proportions do
not agree so well. For instance, the dew-point at the temperature
of 60° is 1 ‘88 times the wet-bulb depression below the temperature
of the air; at 50° it is 2*06 times ; while if the temperature is 34°,
it is 2*77 times. So that for low temperatures part of the clearness
is due not only to the lower vapour pressure, but also because, for a
given wet-bulb depression, the dew-point is really farther below the
temperature of the air with a low than with a high temperature.
For instance, taking the above examples with a wet-bulb depression
of 4°, the dew-point at 60° is 7° 5 below the temperature of the air,
at 50° it is 8° *2, while at 34° it is fully 11°| and when the tempera-
tures are still lower the difference increases rapidly. The result
is that, when there is a small difference between the wet and dry
bulbs while the temperature is very low, the dew-point is a con-
siderable distance below the temperature of the air. For instance,
at a temperature of 20° and a wet-bulb depression of only 1°, the
dew-point is fully 8° below the temperature of the air. If the
temperature had been 53°, in order that the dew-point might be as
many degrees below the temperature of the air, the wet-bulb
depression would require to be 4°.

We must therefore only use the wet-bulb depression for com-
parison when the temperature is over 50°, below that temperature
allowance must be made. In the future, perhaps, either the depres-
sion of the dew-point or the relative humidity would be a better
figure to use in these tables.

Returning now to the table in the appendix, it will be observed
that on the 24th that there were 725 particles per c.c. and a depres-

1889-90.]

Mr J. Aitken on Dust Particles.

253

sion of only 2°-5, and the air was clear. The tests on this day
also confirm our conclusion regarding the less effect of the humidity
when the temperature is low, hut the numbers are not extreme
enough to show it in a marked degree.

The observations made on the 25th are interesting, as they were
taken in exceptional conditions, and gave exceptional results. This
day will long be remembered as one of the stormiest of a very
stormy January. From the table it will be seen that at no time in
the day was the number of particles over 1000 per c.c., and it will
be also noticed that the air was dry, giving a wet-bulb depression
of fully 5°; and yet, contrary to all previous experience, the air was
thick, the hills at little over three miles being invisible. As to
the cause of this thickness with few particles and dry air, it is at
present difficult to say anything definite. It, however, seems
possible that the size and the nature of the particles may have had
something to do with it. The gale would enable the air to hold in

suspension large particles of dust, and the atmosphere would also
contain salt spray. It was noticed that the air had a peculiar
glistening appearance, quite unlike the usual look of thick air. On
the evening of this day the air became much clearer, due possibly to
there being fewer salt particles, as the wind had veered, and the air
had to travel a greater distance over land before reaching the place
of observation. Part of the greater clearness was doubtless due to
the increased dryness which took place in the afternoon.

On the 27th the wind was again high, blowing strong from the
north-west. The number of particles had fallen to 250 per c.c., and
the air had become much clearer.

The 28th is principally remarkable for being the day on which
was recorded the smallest number of particles yet observed. The
storms had now passed, and the wind fallen to a gentle air from due
north. These tests were made on the hill-side to the north of
Whistlefield. On this occasion there was great difficulty in getting
clear of artificial pollution, the great purity of the air enabling the
existence of a house at a distance of half a mile to be easily
detected. The site selected for the observations had to be changed
a number of times before one was found free from local impurities,
from the instrument revealing the existence of dwellings hidden
away at a distance among the hills.

254 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

The air on this day being very pure, all the tests made are entered
in the table, and not averaged, as is frequently the case on the other
days. Of course, each of the tests given is as usual an average of
ten readings. The lowest test gave 86 per c.c., being the number
for the purest air yet observed by me.

When this small number was obtained the barometric distribution
was very complicated. While the tests were being made the cyclone
of the previous days had passed away to the north-east, and an
anti-cyclone had appeared on the west coast of Scotland. The air
tested seems to have been true anti-cyclonic air, which was but little
contaminated by local pollution.

On the following day the wind was still northerly and slight, and
the dust had begun to accumulate, the numbers increased to nearly
three times what they were on the previous day. The air remained
clear, as it was both pure, dry, and cold.

Table showing the Number op Dust Particles in the Atmosphere.

Place.

Date.

Hour.

Number
of Par-
ticles
per c.c.

Wind.

Tempera-

ture.

Humidity.

State of
the Air.

Remarks.

M

Jan.

°

°

j

Garelochead,

23

3.30 p.m.

2,360

N.W. 0-2

34

3-5

Clear.

24

11.45 a.m.

725

S.W. 1

40

25

y

Sky clouded.

25

11.30 a.m.

700

S.W. 6

50

5

Thick.

Hills visible to only 3 miles.

1.0 p.m.

925

W.S.W. 7

49-8

5-8

3.30 p.m.

925

W.S.W. 6

48

6-5

Medium.

,, to more than 10

miles.

27

11.30 a.m.

250

N.W. 6

41

3

Clear.

Passing showers.

28

116

N. 1

40

4-5

Extly. clear.

Clearest day observed.

100

,,

Sky cloudless and sun brilliant.

93

}}

95

88

1.0 p.m.

86

39

4:75

J J

29

11.30 a.m.

253 '

N.W. 1

42

3-75

Very clear.

Sky dull, upper air thickening.

lOCi)

Vol. XVII Plate I.

Sd-

<r

Mi

7Si

/if)

*

i

255

1889-90.] Mr William Somerville on Larix europcea.

Larix europeea as a Breeding-Place for Hylesinus pini-
perda. By William Somerville, D.GEc., B.Sc.

(Read July 7, 1890.)

The special point that I wish to bring before the Society relates
to a case of the common larch being made use of by Hylesinus
piniperda for purposes of oviposition. As occasion demands, this
insect has been found to utilise as a breeding-place every species of
Pinus, but, so far in Europe or North America, no case has been noted
of any trees belonging to the genus Larix having been similarly
attacked. In Asia an observer, namely, Middendorff, has recorded
one case which came under his notice in the district of the Bogan id a,
in Siberia, in 71° north latitude ( Sibirische Reisen , Band iv. Theil
i. p. 603).

In the beginning of April of this year, in the Upper Ward of
Lanarkshire, on a south-west slope, at an elevation of some 800 feet,
I found that several larches, which had been felled during last
winter, were attacked by large numbers of this insect. In its com-
pany I also found Hylastes palliatus , but by far the greater number
of galleries were the work of Hylesinus piniperda. During the past
three months these trees have been kept under close observation,
with the result that I find one or two particulars in which the
attack of this insect on the larch differs from its mode of attacking
the Scots pine.

The greater abundance of fluid resinous matter in the larch, as
compared with the Scots pine, seems to have considerably interfered
with the work of forming galleries. I noticed that all the trees
lying in the wood were not attacked, but only those at one side,
where they were within the shade cast by a dense wood of pines
situated to the south. This, I believe, to be due to the fact that
the cambial activity and formation of resinous solutions were
retarded in these trees owing to their not being directly reached by
the sun’s rays; whereas the cambium and cortex of those trees fully
exposed to the sun were so saturated with resin as to be safe from
attack. Even in some of the trees attacked I found unfinished
galleries quite full of resinous secretions, and containing the dead
bodies of the male and female insects, which had doubtless been
j drowned or suffocated by the resinous exudations.

256 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

Another peculiarity in the galleries made by the parent insect in
the larch, is that in a large number which I have examined I have
only on one occasion found an air-hole. This is somewhat remarkable,
because, when the galleries are made in the natural food-plant of
the insect, at least one air-hole is present in each, and, as a general
rule, they contain two or three. I am somewhat at a loss to account
for this, because, half-smothered by resin as the insects are in their
galleries, the admission of air would appear to be a most desirable
consideration. It is probable that here also the great amount of
resin in the cortex of the larch interferes with the normal formation
of the galleries.

As to the cause of H. piniperda attacking the larch, I believe
a ' satisfactory reason can be given. About ten years ago the
southern counties of Scotland were visited by a succession of ex- ,
ceptionally severe gales, which overturned enormous numbers of
pines and other trees. Partly owing to the glutted state of the
market, and partly to the difficulty experienced in dealing with
such a large amount of fallen timber, the woods were allowed to
remain undisturbed in their devastated condition for a number of
years. These dead and dying trees furnished an exceptionally
favourable breeding-place for H. piniperda , which consequently
increased at a prodigious rate, each average-sized pine being capable
of producing, it is said, as many as 80,000 insects. Within the
past year or two the last of this fallen timber has been removed,
with the result that the huge army of forest insects, by which the
country is overrun, cannot be accommodated with the breeding- j
places which they prefer, and have therefore been compelled to
oviposit on what they must consider most unsuitable material.
Thus, owing to stress of circumstances, H. piniperda has been
driven to attack the larch, and in this country I have also found
Scots pines, not exceeding eight years of age, infested by it, although
hitherto trees of a less age than fifteen years have seldom been
known to be attacked.

f

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 257

Researches on Micro-Organisms, &c. Part III. By Dr A.
B. Griffiths, P.R.S. (Edin.), F.C.S. (Lond. & Paris), Member
of the Physico-Chemical Society of St Petersburg, &c.

(Read March 16, 1889.)

Dr P. W. Latham, in the Harveian oration at the Royal College
of Physicians, on October 17, 1888, supported my own researches
(which have already been published in the Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin.,
vol. xiv. pp. 97-106, and vol. xv. pp. 33-63), on the subject of
“disease germs.” He says: — “We might hope to find that the
action and growth of the bacilli [of phthisis] might be inhibited by
certain substances, and then, by injecting these substances into the
blood, disease might be prevented, or if disease existed it might he
arrested or cured.”

These remarks are almost in the same language as those I have
already had the honour of presenting to the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh.

In Part II. of this paper {Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xv. p. 34),
the following words will he found : — “ The principle of these
researches is to find some germicidal agent capable of destroying
the microbes of disease, which have been proved to reside in the
blood, and are the causes (directly or indirectly) of certain con-

Itagious diseases. At the same time, an aqueous solution of such an
agent, while destroying the microbes of disease, must have very
little or no detrimental action upon the blood. Having found
such a substance, the rationale is to inject (hypodermically) a
solution of the microbe-destroyer directly into the blood. By so
doing, the destruction of the pathogenic organisms in situ would be
the result.”

Having once more alluded to the rationale of the proposed method
of treating those contagious diseases whose microbes reside in the
blood, we now describe a further series of experiments performed
on living micro-organisms.

I. The Alkaloids op Living Microbes.

The origin of the “ vital ” alkaloids, or those produced by living
microbes, is not thoroughly understood. They may be the products
VOL. XVII. 24/9/90 R

258

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. !

of the metabolism of protoplasm, or the result of the decomposition
of albuminoid substances.

Since my last paper (Joe. cit.) was published, I have discovered a
new alkaloid produced by Bacterium allii * growing on nutrient
agar-agar, having the following symbolic formula, C10Hl7N. The
results of the analyses of this substance were as follows : —

I II. III.

C =79*47 79-50 79-48

11 = 11-26 ... 11-24

N= 9-27

The alkaloid (extracted by Gautier’s process) is a white solid —
soluble in water, alcohol, ether, and chloroform. It crystallises
from water in microscopic needles belonging to the prismatic system.
These crystals are extremely deliquescent. The alkaloid forms a
platino-chloride having the composition (C10Hl7N, HC1)2 PtCl4. It
is a yellow-coloured compound, slightly soluble in cold water, but
soluble in hot water.

II. Action of Certain Antiseptics and Disinfectants upon

Microbes.

I have already shown ( loc . cit.) the action of disinfectants on a
number of organisms, but a much more efficient germicide has recently
been reported on by Bouchard.

Bouchard (Comptes Rendus , vol. 105, p. 702) found that 0*33
gram, of /?-naphthol in 1000 c.c. of various cultivating media pre-
vented the development of several species of “ bacteria,” including
those of —

Bacillus anthracis.

Bacterium pneumonicum agile.

Bacillus typhosus (weak cultivations).

Bacillus tuberculosis (retards the development).

Bacterium cholerce gallinarum.

This substance may be introduced into the stomach of a rabbit to
the extent of 3*8 grammes per kilogramme without producing death.
“The fatal dose for a man of 65 kilogrammes would therefore be

* Several tubes containing growths of B. allii were exhibited at the meeting
of the Lincoln Scientific and Literary Society on March 3, 1888.

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 259

more than 250 grammes, and it is only slightly more 'poisonous when
injected subcutaneously”

These results have been confirmed by Dr J. Maximo vitch
( Comptes Rendus , vol. 106, p. 1441). We may, accordingly, conclude
from the above investigations that /3-naphthol is a true germicide,
and is capable (to a certain extent) of being injected into the system
without toxic effects.

We have thus at our command several reagents which have been
proved to destroy the microbes of some of the worst forms of disease
which afflict man and animals. We may then, perhaps, look for-
ward to physicians putting into practice the ideas given in these
papers of destroying the disease germ by the injection of a germi-
cidal agent.

At this point, we consider the action of certain reagents on the
growth and development of various microbes.

(a) Bacillus tuberculosis.

I have found (for a second time) that solutions of salicylic acid
(natural), potassium iodate, and sodium fluosilicate (in the propor-
tions already mentioned in this paper) destroy Bacillus tuberculosis.

It is impossible to inoculate tubes containing sterilised blood
serum plus 3 per cent, of salicylic acid with Bacillus tuberculosis from
a pure cultivation or from sputum (from the worst form of phthisis).
This clearly shows the germicidal nature of the reagent. I have
performed the same experiments with Bacterium allii , Bacillus sub-
tilis, Bacillus oedematis maligni , and Deneke’s Spirillum , and found
that their growth was inhibited in a precisely similar way.

(b) Bacteria of Infantile Faeces.

On April 13, 1888, Dr Baginski read a paper, before the Berlin
Physiological Society, on the cultivation of Bacterium lactis (obtained
from infantile faeces) in a sterilised solution of pure milk-sugar.

After fermentation, no lactic acid but acetic acid was found as
the result of the life-work of the micro-organism in this particular
medium. The microbe in this medium is both aerobic and anaerobic,
and always produces acetic acid. The gaseous products of the
fermentation are carbonic acid gas, hydrogen and marsh gas.

Baginski says that when the microbe is cultivated in gelatine,

260 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

acetic acid proves a germicide. Therefore the product of its own
life-history plays the part of a powerful toxic agent on the further
life of the bacterium.

From Baginski’s researches may we not draw the inference that
in certain contagious diseases “ the turning-point for the better”
is due to products formed by the microbes, which act detrimentally
upon any further growth and development.

In a paper read before L’Academie des Sciences on October 26,
1886, Pasteur stated that “a large number of microbes apparently
give rise, in the media where they grow, to substances which have
the property of opposing their own growth.” And again, “ might
it be that rabies virus was made up of two distinct substances, the
one living and capable of multiplying in the nervous system, the
other not living, but capable still, when in suitable proportions, of
arresting the development of the first ” %

(c) The Microbe (?) of Hydrophobia.

M. Galtier of Lyons found that salicylic acid injected hypo-
dermically was quite inefficient in preventing the development of
hydrophobia.

In a communication to the International Medical Congress
(Copenhagen meeting), held on August 11, 1884, M. Pasteur stated
that “ the process for isolating the microbe is still imperfect, and
the difficulties of its cultivation outside the bodies of animals
have not yet been got rid of, even by the use, as pabulum, of fresh
nervous matter.” Then, again, in a paper read before L’Academie
des Sciences on February 25, 1884, Pasteur stated that in micro-
scopical sections of a rabid medulla there are numerous minute
granules, “ suggesting the idea of a microbe of extreme tenuity, in
shape neither a bacillus nor a diplococcus ; they are like simple dots.”

From the researches of Pasteur, we note that the microbe of
rabies has a very different life-history from other micro-organisms.
The principal seat of the virus is in the central nervous system;
even after the injection of the poison into the blood system, “the
spinal marrow is the region first attacked, the virus locating itself
and multiplying there before spreading to other parts.” Therefore,
the virus of rabies does not reside in the blood, — which accounts for
Cal tier’s failure with salicylic acid.

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 261

From these details, it appears that the medium in which the un-
discovered microbe of rabies resides is essentially nervous matter,
and not in the blood system. Hence the hypodermic injection
method is useless as a means for preventing or curing this terrible
disease.

(d) Various Micro-Organisms.

The following micro-organisms —

(1) Bacillus fioccus (obtained from garden soil),

(2) Bacillus toruliformis (obtained from garden soil),

(3) Bacillus tardecrescens (from ammonium carbonate solution),

(4) Micrococcus candicans (from the atmosphere),

(5) Micrococcus rosaceus (from the atmosphere),

(6) Micrococcus chlorinus , — -

as well as those mentioned in my last paper ( loc . cit.) on this
subject, have all been destroyed by the germicides already men-
tioned.

III. Vitality of Certain Micro-organisms.

In continuation of the experiments recorded in Part II. of this
paper, I have found that the vitality of certain micro-organisms is
considerable.

Portions of a pure cultivation of Micrococcus chlorinus (growing
on white of egg) were mixed with calcium sulphate and calcium
carbonate (the mineral ingredients were previously sterilised at a
temperature of 135° C.) and placed in a number of sterilised tubes,
which were then hermetically sealed. Twelve of these tubes each con-
tained from 8 to 10 grammes of the mixture. Twelve sterilised tubes,
not hermetically sealed (see Part II. of this paper), also contained the
same quantity of the mixture. The twenty-four tubes were kept at
a dry heat of 32° C. from one to eight months. Two hermetically
sealed tubes and two of the “ open ” tubes were opened after an
exposure at 32° C. for one month. Four tubes containing sterilised
nutrient beef-broth were inoculated from the contents of the tubes.
In the two inoculated from the “open” tubes, growths of Micro-
coccus chlorinus (proved by staining, microscopical and macroscopical
appearances) made their appearance after nine days’ incubation.
Growths of Micrococcus chlorinus also made their appearance in the

262 Proceedings of Poyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

two tubes (inoculated from the contents of the sealed tubes) after
thirteen days’ incubation. Four more tubes were opened after an
exposure for two months at 32° C. (dry heat). Inoculations from
two “open” tubes revealed the vitality of this microbe after
sixteen days’ incubation; — and inoculations from the two sealed
tubes proved the vitality of the micrococci after the lapse of twenty-
one days’ incubation. The remaining tubes were examined in a
similar manner after the lapse of three, four, six, and eight months
respectively.

After an exposure at 32° C. (dry heat) for three, four, and six
months, the vitality of Micrococcus chlorinus was not destroyed.
And finally, after being dried up for eight months, the vitality of
this microbe was completely destroyed ; for no growths made their
appearance in sterilised nutrient beef-broth kept at a temperature
between 32° and 36° C. for nearly three months.

A similar series of experiments were performed with other micro-
organisms (the final inoculations being made in different media so
as to suit each case). The results were as follows : —

After an Exposure at 32° C. (dry heat) for : —

1

month.

2

months.

3

months.

4

months.

5

months.

6

months.

7

months.

8

months.

Micrococcus rosaceus ,

L*

L

L

L

...

D

D

D

Bacterium allii,

L

L

L

L

L

L

D

D

Micrococcus prodi-
giosus,

Bacillus tuberculosis ,

L

L

L

D

D

D

L

L

L

L

D*

D

From these experiments, it will be seen that various microbes are
capable of being dried up in the dust of the atmosphere for several
months without losing their vitality.

M. Duclaux ( Comptes Rendus , vol. 100, pp. 119 and 186) proved
that the germs of certain species of Tyrothrix, especially Tyrothrix
scaber , are not destroyed by at least three years’ exposure in a dry
state to air of a tropical temperature, but were killed by exposure to
direct sunlight at the same temperature for some weeks.

L = living. D = dead.

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 263

IV. Action of Freezing Mixtures upon certain Micro-organisms.

Daring these researches, I found that certain micro-organisms
were killed at low temperatures.

Tube cultivations of the following microbes were used in these
experiments : —

(1) Bacillus tuberculosis.

(2) Bacterium allii.

(3) Bacillus subtilis.

(4) Spirillum tyrogenum.

The temperatures employed were obtained by using the following
freezing mixtures : —

Mixture.

In the Proportion

Minimum Tempera-

of (by weight).

tures recorded.

/ Ice,

\ Salt,

2

1

| - 18° C.

/ Water,

\ Ammonium nitrate,

1

1

| - 15° C.

/ Sodium sulphate, .

8

| - 17° C.

\ Hydrochloric acid,

5

After the micro-organisms had been exposed to the above tem-
peratures for several days, a number of tubes containing sterilised
agar-agar, blood serum, &c., were inoculated from the contents of
the above tubes ( i.e ., the tubes exposed to the low temperatures).

From these experiments the following results were obtained: —

oo

rH

4-3

3C.

At -17°

C.

At - 15c

’ C.

For

1

day.

For

3

days.

For

14

days.

For

1

day.

For

3

days.

For

14

days.

For

1

day.

For

3

days.

For

14

days.

Bacillus tuberculosis,

L*

D

D

L

D

D

L

D

D

Bacterium allii,

D*

D

D

D

D

D

L

L

D

Bacillus subtilis,

L

D

D

L

L

D

L

L

D

Spirillum tyrogenum,

L

D

D

L

L

D

L

L

D

* L = living. D = dead,

I

264 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

It appears that certain microbes are able to withstand the severity
of a low temperature, although their vitalities (proved by a longer
period of incubation) are impaired.

being exposed to a temperature of - 110° C.

Y. Electrical Experiments on Certain Micro-organisms.

The following results- concerning the action of the electric
current on the vitality of certain micro-organisms form a
continuation of those recorded in Part II. of this paper. The
experiments were performed upon pure cultivations of three micro-
organisms.

(1) Bacillus tuberculosis growing in previously sterilised fluid
blood-serum was killed by an E.M.F. of 2T6 volts.

(2) Bacterium allii growing in previously sterilised pork-broth
(neutral) was killed by an E.M.E. of 3*3 volts.

(3) Bacillus subtilis growing in previously sterilised pork-broth
(neutral) was killed by an E.M.E. of 2 -72 volts.

The temperature of the laboratory was 17° C., and the current was
allowed to pass for ten minutes in each case.

The “ electrified ” micro-organisms were then “ transplanted ” to
a certain number of tubes containing the above cultivating media.
After an incubation, at 35° C., for twenty days, no growths made
their appearance in any of the tubes.

The above experiments show that the electric current proves a
powerful germicide.

YI. The Micro-organisms of the Atmosphere.

The method used in these experiments for determining the number
of “ colonies ” (of micro-organisms) in a known volume of air, was
that devised by Hesse (Mittheilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen
Gesundheitsamte , 1883, bd. ii.).

After August 6, 1888, a similar method to the one described
by Dr P. F. Frankland in Nature (vol. xxxviii. p, 235), was used
in the experiments.

The following three tables speak for themselves : —

It has been stated that Bacillus anthracis retains its vitality after

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 265

(a) The Air of Lincoln.

(. Average number of “ colonies ” in three gallons.)

Place.

Year 1887.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

(1) Top of hill
{near the Cathedral)

(2) Base of hill,

( Broadgate )

}s

}18

6

26

14

30

16

41

19

50

25

62

34

65

No experi-
ments made
in Lincoln.

30

59

28

57

12

19

4

17

(b) The Air of Paris.

{Average number of <c colonies ” in three gallons).

Place.

Situation in
Paris, &c.

August 1887.

(1) Cimetiere du Pere la Chaise ( near tomb of
Abelard and Helo'ise), ....

E.

96

(2) Boulevard St Germain, ....

Central

104

(3) Forest of Ville d’Avray, ....

S.W.

81

(4) Rue de Rennes,

Central

99

(5) Palais du Trocadero, ....

W.

50

(6) Park of Versailles {near Palace),

S.W.

78

(7) St Cloud {near Palace ruins), .

S.W.

82

(8) Boulevard Voltaire,

E.

100

(9) Cimetiere Montparnasse, ....

s.

98

(10) Cimetiere Montmartre {near tomb of Offen-
bach), ......

1ST.

95

(11) Parc des Buttes Chaumont,

N.E.

80

(c) The Air of London.

{Average number of “ colonies ” in three gallons)

Place.

July 1888.

August 1888.

(1) Forest Gate {Essex), .....

64

79

(2) City {near Bank), .....

85

110

(3) West End {Piccadilly), ....

80

96

(4) East End {near Mint), ....

88

160

The conclusions to be drawn from this portion of the research are
the following : —

266 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

(1) That there are a larger number of micro-organisms in the
summer than either in the spring or winter. They appear to reach r
their maximum number during the month of August.

(2) The number of micro-organisms found in the atmosphere
decreases the higher one ascends. Hence near the Lincoln Cathedral
there are fewer micro-organisms in the atmosphere (on any given
day) than in the valley of the Witham ( Table (a) ). The same re-
mark also applies to the number of micro-organisms found in the
atmosphere on the top of the Trocadero Palace, Paris, where there
are fewer than in a low-lying, but crowded, thoroughfare like the
Boulevard St Germain.

(3) There are a larger number of micro-organisms in the atmo-
sphere of crowded centres than in less densely populated centres ;
hence more in cities than in the country.

(4) The number of micro-organisms are fewer when the air is
“ at rest ” than at any other time. For instance, there were fewer
micro-organisms in the atmosphere of tranquil places, like the
cemeteries of Pere la Chaise, Montparnasse, and Montmartre, than in
busy streets like the Kue de Rennes, Boulevard Voltaire, &c.

During my researches, attempts have been made to isolate
pathogenic microbes from the atmosphere, but up to the present
without success.

VII. Hypodermic Injections of Salicylic Acid for Phthisis.

R. Wood, M.D., L.R.C.P. (mentioned in Part II. of this paper)
reports that he has cured a girl of phthisis by injecting a saturated
solution of salicylic acid into her system. He says, in a letter dated
September 2, 1888 : — 11 1 have been injecting salicylic acid twice a
week on a girl for one year , and she is now better”

Dr Wood is injecting salicylic acid into the blood of another
phthisical patient. On September 4, 1888, he sent me a bottle
labelled — 11 Sputum of a girl , Webb, phthisical night sweats , age 14.
Has spit blood. I am injecting a saturated solution of salicylic acid
daily. — R. Wood.”

I found in the sputum a considerable number of tubercle-bacilli.

There is little doubt that salicylic acid (natural) is a powerful
germicidal agent.

In Part II. of this paper I gave the details of certain injection

1889-90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 267

experiments performed on Mr John Snodgrass. His case was that

tinctly tubercular several years ago.

Although Mr Snodgrass was greatly relieved, and his life pro-
longed, by the injection methods ( Proc . Roy. Soc. Bdin., vol. xv.
p. 53), yet there was hardly any hope of a permanent cure in his
case. He suffered from a complication of diseases, which caused
him to discontinue the injections of salicylic acid (Part II., p. 62).
The disease proved fatal on May 24, 1888.

The administration of salicylic acid in the form of pills will have
no effect in curing phthisis. During its passage throngh the system
salicylic acid becomes altered.

It combines with glycocine forming salicyluric acid, thus —

The salicyluric acid so formed passes off by the urine.

The rationale of piy method is to destroy the “ germs ” of disease
in the blood (i.e., where they reside).

Since the reading of my last paper on this subject, before the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, I have injected into my own system
two other substances (besides salicylic acid), without any ill effects.
One of these was 20 minims of a 0*4 per cent, solution of sodium
fluosilicate. We have already seen that this substance is a power-
ful germicidal agent, capable of destroying Bacillus tuberculosis.

The other substance injected was 20 minims of an 1*0 per cent,
solution of sodium salicylate.

Sodium salicylate is far more soluble in water than salicylic acid,
but it is not a germicidal agent.

Sodium compounds (as a general rule), with non-poisonous acid
radicles, have little or no action on the blood when used in small
quantities.

It was the suggestion of Dr Wood that sodium salicylate might
prove a valuable antiseptic, but my experiments have all failed to
show that it possesses this property.

On the other hand, Dr Grandeau and others have shown that
when potassium compounds are injected into the blood, they para-
lyse the heart and striated muscles (Kemmerich’s Archiv fur Physio -

of a “ lung disease ” of thirteen years’ standing, which became dis-

'OH

COOH +

268

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

logie, bd. ii. p. 49). This action occurs even when dilute solu-
tions are injected into the system. The blood contains normally a
small percentage of potash, but certain limits must not be exceeded,
or poisonous effects are the results.

From the above it will be seen that a solution of potassium
iodate * (which is a germicidal agent of great power) is useless for
injection purposes.

VIII. Sugar and Cellulose, two Products formed during
the Life-History of Bacillus tuberculosis.

About six years ago M. Pouchet extracted sugar (C6H1206) from
the lungs of phthisical patients. And Dr Freund discovered that
Bacillus tuberculosis forms cellulose in the organs and blood of
tuberculous persons. I have also proved the presence of cellulose
in the sjputa of phthisical patients ( Proc . Roy. Soc. Edin ., vol. xv.
p. 36). My experiments on this point have been repeated several
times, and always with the same results.

1

IX. The Infectious Nature of Human Sputum.

There is little doubt that the expectorations of phthisical patients
are of an infectious nature ; as it has been proved that when sus-

ceptible animals are fed on tuberculous matter, they become infected

i

with the disease.

I think it accordingly advisable for physicians attending phthisical
patients to give full instructions for nurses and others to disinfect
the urine, faeces, and sputa, so that there may be no chance of
infection. It would not be a difficult task for nurses attending
consumptives to immerse all handkerchiefs after use in water
containing carbolic acid.

s

X. Bacillus tuberculosis in the Breath of Phthisical
Patients.

I have already shown that the saliva of consumptive patients
often contains the germs of phthisis (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin ,, vol. xv.
p. 55). I have also obtained growths in blood-serum, exhibiting
all the macroscopic and microscopic appearances of tubercle bacillus
from the breath exhaled by a person in a state of advanced phthisis.

Already mentioned in this paper.

1889—90.] Dr Griffiths on Researches on Micro-Organisms. 269

XL Soluble Ferments produced by Microbes.

Professor Giglioli ( Fermenti e Microbi) describes the production
of soluble ferments by living micro-organisms. What have the
soluble or non-organised ferments (produced by pathogenic microbes)
to do with contagious diseases ? Before the formation of alkaloids,
is a soluble ferment excreted by each microbe 1 Is it possible that
the ferment causes the chemical disintegration of albuminoid
molecules with the ultimate formation of alkaloids ?

We know that vegetable diastase (produced in the first instance
from albumin by the action of living cells) is capable of converting
starch into dextrose, and cane-sugar into dextrose and levulose : —

(a) C6H10O5 4- H20 = C6H1206.

(b) C12H22On + h2o = c6h12o6 + c6h12o6.

These substances are of a definite chemical composition and
formed by the action of non-organised ferments. Therefore, may
we not infer that the alkaloids of disease are possibly produced by
the soluble ferments secreted by pathogenic microbes.

The researches of Giglioli {Fermenti e Microbi ) and Schiavuzzi
{Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei , 1886) have thrown consider-
able light on this all-important but most obscure subject.

Recently, N. Kravkoff {Journal of the Russian Physico-Chemical
Society , vol. xx. [part 8], pp. 623 — 632) has made a thorough
inquiry into the properties and action of pure vegetable diastase.

The production of alkaloids by pathogenic microbes is most
important ; for “ one of the most interesting facts observed in the
growth of septic micro-organisms is this, that the products
of the decomposition started and maintained by them have a
most detrimental influence on themselves, inhibiting their power of
multiplication ; in fact, after a certain amount of these products has
accumulated, the organisms become arrested in their growth, and
finally may be altogether killed. Thus the substances belonging to
the aromatic series, — indol, skatol, phenol, and others which are
produced in the course of putrefaction of proteids, — have a most
detrimental influence on the life of many micro-organisms, as has
been shown by Wernich and others” {Klein).

Quoting from Part II. of this paper : — “ If the soluble zymases

270 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [ses

produced by living pathogenic microbes are the real cause of disease,
the hypodermic injection method steps in, for many substances are
known to interfere with the action of soluble ferments. The
destruction of the microbes prevents the formation of soluble
zymases or alkaloids, and any given contagious disease (under these
circumstances) would be at an end. Nature would then have a
chance of restoring to their ‘ normal standard the lowered vitality
which enabled the microbes to get a footing.5 ”

Conclusion.

There is little doubt that the most rational method of treating
contagious diseases (whose microbes reside in the blood) is by the
injection of some germicidal agent. When the microbes are
destroyed the disease would be at an end.

My investigations on this subject are still incomplete, but I
sincerely hope that they will be found interesting and full of sug-
gestions for the pathologist and physician.

My apology for bringing them (in their present incomplete
condition) before the Society, is in the words of Lavoisier: — “A
man would never give anything to the public if he waited till he
had reached the goal of his undertaking, which is ever appearing
close at hand, and yet ever slipping farther and farther as he draws
nearer.55

On the Solution of the Three-Term Numerical Equation
of the wth Degree. By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren.

(Read March 17, 1890.)

The method of solution developed in this paper, while perfectly
general in its character as regards three-term equations, may also
be considered as a solution of the complete equation of the 5th
degree; because, by known methods resulting from the theory of
equations, every equation of the 5th degree is reducible to three
terms.

I may be permitted here to make an introductory observation on
the supposed superiority of an algebraic to a numerical solution.
The algebraic solution has undoubtedly an aspect of theoretical

‘

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Equation of n th Degree.

271

completeness ; but in point of utility there is very little difference.
Supposing that an equation of the 5th degree could be solved
algebraically so that x is expressed as the 5th root of a function of
known quantities, a , b , and c. If we write for a , 5, and c their
values, and proceed to find the 5th root of the function, there is no
known method of obtaining the root except by the use of logar-
ithms. Now the extraction of the 5th root by the division of a

logarithm is equivalent to the solution of the transcendental equa-
lly

tion a= 105, , which is only possible because tables of values of y to
the argument x have been computed.

The solution which I here offer is obtained by the use of
differential logarithms, and is not different in character from that
which I have considered.

It is not an approximate solution, as I understand the expression;
because the value found for x is obtained by one operation, and is
incapable of being made more accurate by applying corrections to it.

The value found for x is, however, only true on the assumption
that the tabular values^ are true values. But this limitation of the
accuracy of the solution is not a consequence of any imperfection
of the method, but results solely from the fact that the tabular
quantities which are assumed to be known are quantities which do
not admit of exact numerical expression, or wdiich, in other words,
cannot be completely expressed in a series of powers of the number
ten.

Method of Logarithmic Differences. — These functions, which are
sometimes called Gaussian logarithms, were really invented, or first
computed, by Lionelli (i Supplement Logarithmique, Bordeaux,
1802-3 ; German translation, 1806). Gauss’s table was published
in 1812, with the knowledge, on Gauss’s part, of what Lionelli had
done. It may be convenient here to point out how these functions
are constructed, and how the tables are used : —

Let u = log (ci + b) ; then u - log a = Su. The quantity 8u is the
logarithmic difference, or tabular quantity, which has to be added to
log a, to make up u , or log (a + b). In this paper the logarithmic

differences are denoted by the symbol, Aoy“; i.e., log

the

Greek character being used to distinguish these from common
logarithms.

272

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

If instead of log (a + b) we take such a quantity as log ( axn + /3xp), '
the logarithmic difference may be denoted by the symbol, Xoy%,
where

Xoy™ = log ( aXn + /3xp) - log aXn = log ^1 -f- -Xp . ( 1 ).

In the tables of Logarithms of Addition , the logarithmic differ-
ence is found from the argument (log a - log b), or in the second
case from (log axn - log f3xp), which I denote by the symbol n\ ®
or trip, where

= (2).

It seems desirable that quantities which are of general application
should be denoted by symbols not liable to be mistaken for the
symbols of other things, which is my reason for proposing this
notation.

Similarly, for logarithmic differences of subtraction, we have

Xoynp = log ( axn - I3xp) - log axn = log ^1 - xp n ^ . . (3).

m; as before = log • • • • (2)-

In the numerical examples given in this paper I have made
use of Zech’s Tables of Logarithms of Addition and Subtraction
(Berlin, 1863), in which the argument (in) is given to five signi-
ficant figures with proportional parts, and the logarithmic difference
(Xoy) is given to seven significant figures.

The property of these functions which attracted my attention, and
led to this new application of them is this : that for any function,
log (a + &), or log ( axn + j3xp), the logarithmic difference does not
depend on the absolute values of a and 5, or axn and /3xp, but solely
on their ratio.

For if we denote a logarithmic difference (as above) by A.oyB

have, XoyA = log (A + B) - log A = log = log what-

ever may be the absolute values of B and A.

By means of this property we are enabled to eliminate the powers
of x from the logarithmic equation, and to obtain equations between

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Equation of n th Degree.

273

Xoy, rri, and known coefficients, by which Xoy and rri are first
found, and afterwards x.

Solution of the Equation of the 5th degree.

It is known from the theory of equations that by a not difficult
operation any quintic equation may be reduced to three terms. I
suppose this preliminary reduction performed, and the equation
given in the form

ax 5 ± /&e4 = 1.

If we take the upper sign there are two possible solutions derived

from the relations, log ( ax 5 + fix*) = j + 1

- 1 =10 gPxt + Xoyif (b).

If the equation has more than one real root, which is not generally
the case where the two powers of x are both positive, one of these
may be found from each form.* If there be only one root, the first
formula will be used if the quantity ax5 be < /3x\ and vice versa, as is
usually evident from the values of the coefficients.

(1) From the given equation we have log (ax5 f fix4) = 0, and
from formula (a) we have, as above,

log (ax5 4- J3x 4) = 0

- log x =

log a f 5 log x + Xoy! ;
Xoy 4 -flog a
5~

(i).

The equation of the argument, mL of \oy\ is m! = log (axb) - log (/£c4)
- log a? = log a -log/?- rrt . . . . (2).

By equating the values of logx in (1) and (2) we obtain
5m! + Xoy! = 4 log a - 5 log /?, or

iTli + i ^-oyl = 5 log a - log P — 1 .... (I.)

This may be considered a formula of reduction for the 5th degree.
The character of the solution then is : — The equation ax 5 + /fcc4 = 1
is made dependent on the solution of the transcendental equation
V + 5 -4>y — c) while the latter is soluble by reason that tables of cf>y

(i.e., log ^1 + have been computed.

The operator is now to look in the table of Logarithmic Differences

* If the equation has two real roots, it must have three.

VOL. XVII.

s

274

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

for values of rri and Xoy which satisfy the relation (I.). The nearest
tabular places may be taken out at once by a mental computation
identical with that which we perform in long division * in finding
the successive figures of the quotient. This slight mental effort
might, however, he saved by preparing a four-place table, in which
the value of rrt would be given to the argument q for the 3rd, 4th,
and 5th degrees respectively. The fifth figure would then be inter-
polated ; as to which see note at the end of this paper. Xoy would
then be found by the existing tables from rri as argument. The
proportional parts are to be subtracted, because Xoy diminishes as
rri increases.

The quantities Xoy! and rnj being thus determined, x is imme-
diately found from (1) or (2); but the possible error in the last

decimal place, due to the imperfections of the tables, is avoided by
using the form (1), in which the sum of the quantities has to be
divided by 5 for an equation of the 5th degree, in order to obtain
log x, which is the required solution.

(2) From the given equation, ax5 + /3x4 = l, we also have
from ( b )

log {ax5 + pxt) = 0 = log (/3x4) + Xoy4, whence

-iog,^ a).

- log x = rri4 + log a - log/? .... (2).

5 log P - 4 log a = 4 trig - Xoy4; ) Formula of

iris - iXoyl = f log p - log a = q. J Reduction II.

If the result of substituting the numerical values of log p and
log a in the formula of reduction II. is to make q negative, the
formula is to be used with signs changed.

(3) For the equation ax5 - /?x4 = 1, we have

Also,

whence

log { ax 5 - px*} = 0 = log (ax5) - Xoyl ;

. Xoy! - log a

log X — ' 6 ■ •

log x = TriJ + log P — log a ; . . . .

5tri! _ ^°yl = 4 log a - 5 log p ; ) Formula of

ml - i Aoyt = ‘ log a - log 13 = q. J Reduction HI.

(!)•

(2)-

* In long division, when we mentally find a figure of the quotient, we solve
an equation of the form y=ax + z.

1889-90.] Lord APLaren on Equation of nth Degree. 275

(4) If /?a?4 be > ax5, we have

log {/L?4 - ax5} = 0 = log /3 + log ( x 4) - A.oyg ;

(1).

Also,

ioga?=iog/3-ioga-m5; .... (2).

whence 4mj + Xoyt = 5 log j3 - 4 log a ; ) Formula of

In using formulae of reduction III. and IY. (1) the quantities
Any and m are to be taken from the table of Logarithms of
Subtraction. (2) If the result of inserting the numerical values of
log a and log (3 is to make q negative, the formula is to be used
with signs changed.

For the equation of terms of contrary signs, a root can always
be obtained from either of the formulae III. and IY.

The first formula of reduction is the one to be used, or
4 log a - 5 log f$ = 5 md + Any! .
a = *02? ; £=-00694.

(I.)

log a = log ‘027 = 2*4436977 ; lo g£ = 3*8416377

4 log a 7-7747908; 51og£ lT-2081885

Subtracting 5 log £ 11-2081885

4 log a - 5 log £ = 2 = 4-5666023 = 5 m^ + Aoyj . . . (a)

Looking down the table of Logarithms of Addition for the nearest
values of rrt and A.oy corresponding to 5 itl + Any = 4-56 or rq + \ Any
= 0*9 1 we find,

m = 0-90300 Any = 0-051 1625

Prop, part, 9 Prop, part, - 98

n\l -90309 Aoy® -0511527

mi + i Xoyt = i log £ - log a = q.

Eeduction IY.

Example (1).

a;5 + Jx4 = 36; or -027a?5 + *00694£c4= 1.

Add 5m! 4-51545

4*56660 = 2, agreeing with (a).

276 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

II. The Equation of Solution is, as above (1), - log^ = ^-{Aoy4
+ log a}

log a = 2-44369
Xoyl -05116
2-49485

i{log a + Xoy} =1-69897 = log” ; whence i = -5 ; x = 2.

This value evidently satisfies the given equation.

Example (2).

x5 - \x£ = 10 ; or TOa?5 - '025a?4 = 1.

The third formula of reduction is the one to he used, or

4 log a - 5 log p = 5ttl4 - hoyl [a= TO ; /? = * 025.

I.

log a = log TO = 1*0 ; log /? = log *025 = 2*39794

4 log a, 4-0000 51o g/3 9-9897

Subtracting 5 log /3 9-9897

4 log a- 5 log /3 = 2 = 4-0103 = 5111 - Xoyl (a).

The nearest tabular values in the table of Logarithms of Sub-
traction are

m! 0-81640 Xoyl *07192

Pp. 4 The proportional part is insensible

0*81644 in the result.

5rn,4 4*08220

Subtracting Xoy® '07192

5rri4 _ A-oy®, 4-01028, which agrees with the value given by (a) .

II. The Equation of Solution is , log x = ^{ Xoyl - l°g a}

Xoyl,

0-07192

Verification.

- log a, - 1 -0

Xoyl — log a, 1-07192

^-{ A.o74 — log a} = log x -214384

a = 1-63825
a5 11-8010

Also log x5
logic4

1-07193

0-85754

x4, 7-2035 )
i, 1-8009 J ix4

1-8009

10-0001

1889-90.] Lord M'Laren on Equation of n ill Degree.

277

Thus the value of the equation resulting from the value found
for x is correct within the limits of accuracy attainable in logarithmic
computation.

Solution of the Three- Term Equation of the n th degree.
cuxn ± (3xn ~p .

I. Where the two terms of x are both positive , we have the two
forms corresponding respectively to

, , , f =log(aXn) + \oy™ )

log {«*” + /&-}={ =log(/&-) + Xoyr4
Case (1). Log {axn + /3xn~p] = 0 = log a + n log x + \oynn_p ;

... -w=x°y"-*+1°ga ....

Also log (oaf) - log (/ 3xn p) = vcC_p ;

- log £ = log a - log p - C, • •

Equating (1) and (2),

P hoynn_p +p log a = n log a - n log /3 - nV(C-p \
' n -ps

whence

mIU+

(fK,-c

loga-log/3 = ?

(1).

(2).

(A)

For the indices n and (n — 1), this becomes

m:-. + ©wu, =(^) M } <A.>-

Case (2). Where /3xn~p is the greater of the two terms , in the
positive equation,

log { ocxn + pxn-p} = 0 = log p + (n -p) log X + \oynp-p ;

(1).

- log X =

Also

- log X =

whence,

mrp-(

Voy;
Kn -pj

(n-p)
l~p + \og(
p

For the indices n and (n- 1) this becomes
1

(2).

m

n-p

— r hoynn- 1 = log log CL . . . (Bj) .

— l n i

278

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

[»

II. Where in the given equation the terms of x have contrary
signs , or

axn — fix71 ~p=l .

Case (3). Log {oaf - /3xn~p} = 0 = log a + n log x - XoyZ_p ;

Also,

whence.

loga? =

loga? =

_A^y^-loga

m^-p + log _£-loga

p ’

/p\ x (n - p\ _ . f Formula of

VCln-p ~ J^oyn-p = ^ n J l°g a ~ P = I ^ Eeduction

For the indices n and (n - 1), this becomes

(1) .

(2) .

(C).

m:-i-(^)Aoy^_1 = (^-)1°ga-log/3 = g . . (Cj).

The formula (C) is to be used with signs changed when necessary
to make q positive.

The quantities rq and Xoy are found from the table of Loga-
rithms of Subtraction. These observations apply also to formula
(D).

Case (4). If fixn~p be the greater of the two terms , we find

/ 1 \ { n „ i ( Formula of ) .

WT' = J log /» - log « - 2- { Reduction / P)-

For the indices n- 1 and n, this becomes

mT1 + (^l) Xo^r 1 = (fh) l0g Z3 - lo8 “ = 2 ' (Di)-

It is evident that the solutions given for the quintic equation are
only particular cases of the three-term equation of the nth. degree.

Example —

x7 + 3xi = l . [» = 7; = — =i

a = 1 ; p = 3.

As x is evidently fractional, the term 3a?4 is greater than a?7, and
we must use the formula of reduction (B), or

flog 3 -log (1) = vni - f Xoyi

I. Log a = 0 ; log /? = log 3 = 04771213

<? = f log /3 = 08349623 = rav- f Aoy4 . . (a).

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Equation of nth Degree. 279

The nearest tabular values of rq and Xoy, after applying the
proportional parts, are

m74 =0-875680 Xoy? = *054285

-| XoyJ, 0-040714

q = 0-834966, which agrees with the value found above (a).

II. The equation of solution is

-loga? = J{log3 + XoyJ}

log /3 = log 3 = 0-47712

Verification.

\oyi, 0-05428

log *, 1-86715

sum, 0-53140

log*4, 1-46860

|=-log*, 0-13285

log 3, 0-47712

log a?, 1*86715

log3*4, T-94572; 3*4= -88250

:c= 0-736461

log*7, 1-07005; *7= -11750

1

x7 + 3x4 = 1-00000

Thus the value of the equation resulting from the insertion of the
value found for x is correct to the last place of decimals.

Apparently the method of logarithmic differences is incapable of
extension to equations of more than three terms.

Note as to Mode of finding Xoy and rq from the Tables by
Interpolation.

Supposing values of rq and Xoy to be taken out by inspection
for the three highest figures or decimal places (which can easily be
done mentally), we wish to find these quantities to four and eventu-
ally to five places.

Let rq", X" be the nearest values of these quantities in three figures,
and let f be the approximate value of q resulting from the insertion
of rq", X" in the formula of reduction. Let rq', X', q' be the corre-
sponding values in four decimal places. The relation between the
quantities is of the form rq ± aX = q.

Then since X diminishes as rq increases, we have

rq'-rq" + a (X - \") = q' - q" ; or Sg = Sm + a(SX) . (1).

In the table the 3rd figure of the argument rq is changed at each
line ; but the 3rd figure of X changes much more slowly, and the

280

Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

S2m

rate of change is nearly constant through a whole page, or is
extremely small.

We* may therefore proceed as follows : — Taking the upper sign
in (1) we first find q" (or value of q which results from inserting
the three figure values of 1U and X in the formula of reduction);
and subtract this from the known or true value of q (as found
from the constants) to get Sq. Then 8q = Srrt - (SX)a = (s± l)aSA,
where s is the number of lines through which the value of the

3rd figure of A. is unchanged SX = . —7 This form gives
0 a{s ± 1)

the nearest value of X in four figures. With this and the corre-
sponding value of nx in four figures we may find the value of X to
five places by the same form, only that s now represents not the
number of lines hut the number of horizontal places in the table
from one change of the 5th figure of X to the next change.

This must be checked by finding q from Xoy and rrt, and noting
whether it corresponds with the true value.

By following this method I have generally been able, in a few
minutes, to take out the exact values of rrt and Xoy corresponding
to the known value of q ; and while the solution would be theoreti-
cally more perfect if we had a supplementary table giving values of
rrt to the argument q , this is not practically necessary. Under the
actual conditions, the equation of three terms can be solved to such
number of places as the tables furnish with very little more trouble
than is involved in the solution of a quadratic equation.

I have not given examples of the solution of cubic and quartic
equations ; but it is evident that the solution by logarithmic
differences is very much simpler than the methods now in use,
while the preliminary reduction to three terms is equally necessary
under either process.

Note. — Since this paper was written, my attention was called by Dr
Muir to a short paper in Zeuthen’s Danish Journal of Mathematics ,
1880, p. 135, in which the author makes use of Gaussian Logarithms
for the solution of the equation xn +px + q. But as that paper is
less general in its aim and method than mine, and the solution
given involves some unnecessary transformations, I have thought it
desirable to publish my paper as read, subject to this explanation.

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion-Caustics of Curves . 281

On the Reflexion-Caustics of Symmetrical Curves.

By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren. (With Two Plates.)

(head April 7, 1890.)

The caustics here considered are those resulting from the reflexion
of systems of parallel rays. The subject is purely geometrical.
The caustic is considered as a derived curve, and is defined as the
envelope of a system of lines drawn from the primary curve, whose
inclination to a given line is double the inclination of the normal
at the incident point.

It is comparatively easy to find an expression for a caustic in
mixed coordinates. But, where the coordinates of the primary
curve have to be eliminated, the problem becomes more difficult,
and unless this condition be fulfilled the expression cannot be con-
sidered a true analytical solution of the locus. In the present
paper, differential and algebraic expressions are first found contain-
ing the coordinates of the focal point corresponding to a point in
the primary or reflecting curve, and the coordinates of the latter
are then eliminated between the differential and algebraic equations.

So far as I am aware, very little has been written on the caustics
of reflexion for parallel rays.

Professor Cayley’s investigations relate to the caustics of con-
verging and diverging pencils, and include refraction-caustics. In
the recent paper of Mr Mannheim, published in the Transactions of
the Academia dei Lincei , the author develops a method of deter-
mining a series of points which are the foci of the reflected rays for
a given curve or surface; but his method does not furnish the
equation of the continuous caustic or locus of focal points which I
conceive to be geometrically the only admissible solution. I may
add that a method analogous to that here employed was used by
Mr Childe, in his Treatise on Reflected Ray-Surfaces and their Rela-
tion to Plane Reflected Caustics , to determine the caustic by reflexion
for a radiant point which is coincident with the pole or origin of
polar coordinates of the reflecting curve. Prom the examples given
by Mr Childe of the application of his method, it is evidently
applicable generally to two-term polar equations ; though the author
does not directly announce this limitation, nor does he treat at all

282 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

of the caustics by reflexion of pencils of parallel rays. It appears to
me that the case investigated by Mr Childe, and the case of parallel
rays here treated, embrace all that can be found by the method of
auxiliary curves, and my paper may therefore be regarded as comple-
mentary to this part of Mr Childe’s work, although the auxiliary
curves used and the proofs are quite different for the two cases.

The general solution here given (which is essentially geometrical)
was suggested by my solution of a particular case, that of the
Reflexion-Caustic of the Parabola, which appeared in the Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society for 1887. The solution
is general for the parallel-ray caustic of any reflecting curve which
can be expressed as a two-term polar equation. The equivalents of
the polar equations in Cartesian coordinates are then determined for
the curve of any degree n ; and it is shown that these include funda-
mental forms or types of every class of symmetrical algebraic curves,
whether these be finite or infinite in extent, central or parabolic.
The solution may be held to apply generally to algebraic curves of
perfect symmetry , if we consider those curves only to have perfect
symmetry whose axes of symmetry are separated by equal angular
intervals ; in other words, curves whose branches are all equal and
are symmetrically disposed about a centre.

1. Differential Equation of a Reflected Ray.

I begin with the fundamental expressions for the length (L) of a
reflected ray, from the incident to the focal point. These are

L = J/Oic°st . . . (1); L = Jp2secfc . . . (2),

where p15 p2 are respectively the greatest and least radii of curvature
at the incident point, and t is the angle of incidence or reflexion.

For surfaces of revolution, to which these investigations are
usually confined, the relation (1) applies to the focus of consecutive
reflected rays in a principal plane ; and the relation (2) applies to
the focus of consecutive rays reflected from a cyclic section of the
reflecting surface (see “ Theory of Systems of Rays,” Trans. Royal
Ir. Ac., vol. xv. p. 97). I shall deal only with the form (1) applicable
to reflexion in a principal plane, it being evident that the cone of
rays represented by (2) has its vertex or focus in the axis of the
surface of revolution if the incident pencil is direct, and that if the

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion- Caustics of Curves. 283

pencil is oblique, or inclined to this axis of symmetry, the rays do
not intersect at all, except in a principal plane.

To simplify the investigation the pencil of parallel rays will, in
the first instance, be supposed to be parallel to the axis of symmetry
(X) of the reflecting curve, which is also taken as the axis of polar
coordinates. The solutions are then extended to the case of oblique
pencils. In the notation of this paper,

r, 0 are the coordinates of the primary, or reflecting curve ;

p, to are the coordinates of its pedal ;

v, \ Jr are the coordinates of its negative pedal ;

B, 0 are the coordinates of the caustic.

x, y ; X, Y are rectangular coordinates of the primary curve and
its caustic.

p is the radius of curvature of the primary curve, and is the only
radius of curvature necessary to be considered.

t is the angle of incidence or reflexion.

v is the angle between any radius-vector and the perpendicular
from the pole on the tangent.

In the fundamental relation (1) we have a variable origin (the
incident point of the particular ray), and a reference line, p (the
radius of curvature), whose direction varies from point to point of
the reflecting curve. The transposition to a definite origin and a
fixed reference line (X) may be effected by finding an expression
for the difference of position of a point (S) of the reflecting curve
and a corresponding point (C) of the caustic, in coordinates, x, y ,
of the reflecting curve, and X, Y of the caustic.

Observing that the inclination of the reflected ray to the axis of
X is 2i, we have, evidently, from (1)

If p be the perpendicular drawn from the origin to the tangent

then p is parallel to the normal at S ; and, as the incident ray is
assumed parallel to the axis of reference, we have,

at any incident point, S1? and o> be the inclination of p to the axis,

O) = i

(3a)

284 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Writing w for i, and putting for p its known value, p = r and

for x and y their values, r cos 0 and r sin 6 — the equations (3)
become —

■v ^ 1 dr —

A = r cos v - ^ r • • cos w • cos 2o> ;

2 dp 3

-a 1 dr

Y = r sin 6 - — r • — - • cos to • sm 2cu.
2 dp

From these equations it is evident that if p and w were known in
terms of r and 0, one of these pairs of variables might be replaced by
the other, and the equations integrated. This condition is fulfilled in
the case of all curves which can be expressed in the two-term polar form
an = rn • cos (m6)

j a" = r" • cos {mV) 1
| an = rn • sec (in6) j

where m and n are any numbers, integral or

I IIW I J

fractional.

It is proposed to investigate the caustics of curves expressed in
this form, and thereafter to determine their equivalents in £-and -y
coordinates. It will be shown that the equation of the caustic by
reflexion is of the form —

E = a • sec* (pO) • sin ( q6 ) ;
or, E = a • cos* (pO) • sin (qO) .

where Z, p, q , are given in terms of m and n.

2.

Systems of Derivative Curves.

In a system of curves of different degrees, each of which is the
pedal of the curve preceding it, and the negative-pedal of the curve
following it in the series, by a known theorem, all the tangents of
corresponding points of the system make equal angles with their
respective radius- vectors. If Sm, Sm_1? &c. (fig. 1), be correspond-
ing points in such a series of curves, all the angles OSTO Sm_1}
Sm_2, &c., are equal. As the adjacent angles are right angles,
it follows that the triangles are similar, and that all the angles at
the centre, vm , vm-i> &c., are equal. In other words, if vm be the
angle between the radius-vector and the perpendicular on the tangent
for any curve ; vm+1 the corresponding angle for the negative-pedal,
and vm_! the corresponding angle for the pedal — then

i+i

(5)

-1

1889-90.] Lord M/Laren on ’Reflexion-Caustics of Curves. 285

This is a property of plane curves in general, and is not peculiar
to the systems of curves which are considered in this paper.

By a known property of polar equations of the forms —

rm = am cos mO , . . (a), and rm = am sec mO , . . (6),

we have v = m6 for all values of ra, integral or fractional. This may
he verified by logarithmic differentiation of the equations. The
forms (a) and ( b ) are the generalised forms of the equations of the
primary curves whose reflexion-caustics are to be found.

(1) From ( a ) the first form of the equation we have

™ra+ 1 m — —

7 • m+1

p> — r cos v — — ^ rm+ = amp ; or, r = am p
a

Substituting for r its value, the equation of the pedal is

m m

^?m+1 = am+1 cosv; (c)

and similarly, we find for the equation of the negative-pedal,

m m

v1_m = a1_mcos (d)

(2) From (b) the second form of the equation of the primary, we
find for the equation of the pedal,

m in

= a~m sec v ;

and for the equation of the negative-pedal,

m m

v . m+i — : am+1 sec v

(0

(d')

(3) In order to find a geometrical relation from the polar differen-
tial expressions, let the quantities r, p, v , and a be reduced to the
first power, then from (a), (c), and (d) we have, by reduction and
differentiation,

■y 1 _1 j

r = a-cos™v; p = a-cosm (v); v = a- cosm (v). .

3_ J_+1

dr d(a • cosmv) d( secm v) d(sec2v) 0nnnmM

= U S6C V e • »

dp J_+1 J-

d(a • cos m v ) d( sec m v) d(sec v)

(«)

(/)

286 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.
(4) From ( b ), (c'), and ( d ') we obtain similarly

[sess.

r = a sec m v ; p = a • sec ™ ^ • v = a • sec

(«')

<i(a • sec m v)

By a known relation between r, p, and tbe radius of curvature p ,

p = i

dr

dp

p r dr

= 2 dip = a * C0S m v = v (^n case)* • (6)

Similarly, £ = a • sec m +V = v (also in the second case). ... (6)

On this property of the system of curves (which appears to have
been hitherto unnoticed) the determination of the equation of tbe
caustic is founded.

The property is this : — The semi-radius of curvature of any curve
of the system is equal in length to the radius-vector of the negative-
pedal, or next higher curve of the system ; so that, if we distinguish
these radii by suffixes corresponding to the degrees of the respective
curves we have

From the two equations (6) we have also, = a • secm v • sec v

A

= r sec v , where p and r are the radius of curvature and radius-

vector of the same curve (6a)

Moreover, since v ■= m6 we have for all curves of the series
<o = (m±l)0; if/— 1)0 , where the signs are determined by the
geometrical construction

3. Reflexion-Caustics of Two-Term Polar Curves of the Degree ,
Case 1. — Equation of the Reflexion-Caustic of the Curve,

T ± 0

t m — am sec — •
m

In this case, the primitive curve is concave to the pole.

The accompanying diagram (fig. 2) is drawn to scale for curves of

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflection-Caustics of Curves. 287

the 4th and 5th fractional degrees of r and a ; but is applicable to
the proof for polar equations of any fractional degree.

OV is the reference line and axis of symmetry of the curves.

SS' is the primary, or reflecting curve, which may be denoted by
</>1 ; SS', its negative pedal, or </>2 . Their equations may be written
for present purposes in the form

r — a • sec m (—) = a sec mv :

\m'

v=a- sec m ( ) = a sec mVm . . . (d')

\m+ V

S is the incident point, and S a corresponding point on the negative-
pedal, to which radii OS, OS are drawn.

SC is the reflected ray.

OP is a perpendicular on the tangent to the primary at S, or
radius-vector of its pedal.

The rectangular figure OSSQ' being completed, let a circle be
described from T, the intersection of diagonals, as cenrte through the
four points 0, S, S, Q j and let QC be drawn perpendicular to the
reflected ray, and therefore meeting it at a point C on the circle.

(1) As the figure SSOQ is rectangular by construction, ^SOS =
^:QSO; SOS is also analytically = ^SOP = v, because they are
respectively the angles between radius-vector and perpendicular on
tangent of the two curves, <f>2 and <£15 of the system (by 5).

. *. ^iQSO = <^.SOP ; and SQ is parallel to OP the perpendicular
on the tangent to SS' at S.

.*. SQ is a normal to SS' at S, and being also = SO or v, it is the
semi-radius of curvature (by 6).

Also SC = SQ- cos QSC= £ • cos i = £-• cos w . . . (7)

A A

.*. C is a point on the caustic (by 2).

(2) To find its coordinates E and 0, we have

0 = ^SOV - ^ SOC = ^SOV - ^ SQC = 0 - (90° - w),

since the points Q and 0 lie on the circumference of a circle ; or,
by expressing all the angles in terms of v,

.*. 0 = (2m - l)v - — j

288 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

or again, by changing the reference line for the caustic from X to Y,

0 = (2m - l)j/ (8)

(3) Also, R = 0C = 02 • sin 02C = 02 • sin OSC

= 02 • sin (QSC - QSO) ; = 02 • sin (QSC - S02) ;

. \ R = v • sin (a) - v) = a • secm+V • sin (m-2)v (9)

(by taking the value of v from (e').*

If, in this equation, we substitute for v its value from (8), ;

0

2m - 1 5

we obtain finally,

R = a • sec

m+ 1

e

(2m - 1)

e

sin

m

2m

or

R . cosw+1- = a sin ( ^— 2 ©) ;

2m - 1 v2m - 1 /

(10)

the equation of the Reflexion-Caustic.

From (9) we see that when v = 0, R = 0, and there is a cusp at
the principal focus.

When v =

m - 2 ’ 2

, R = r, and the caustic meets the reflecting

curve.

When v =

R is infinite.

Case 2. — Reflexion-Caustic of the Curve ,

-)•

■ m/

JL p

rm — am cos

The primitive curve in this case also is concave to the pole.

(1) In diagram (3) the construction is similar to diagram (2), only
the form of the curve is different, and the order of the points 2, S
and P is reversed. The proof is substantially the same as in case
1, as far as equation (7), and C is a point on the caustic.

By ( c ) and ( d ) the equation of the pedal is given by changing m

into m , , and that of the negative-pedal by changing m into m

m + 1

1 - m

* The change of the reference line does not affect the value of R, because the
coefficient, sin (co - v) is a function of the difference of two angles.

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion-Caustics of Curves. 289

But these formulae are not required for the proof, which, as in the
preceding case, is purely geometrical.

(2) To determine the coordinates of R and 0, we have

© = ^SOV - ^SOC = ^SOV - ^SQC = 0 - (90° - ©).

0 = (2m + l)v - ^ ,

or by changing the reference line to Y ; 0 = (2m + l)v. . . (11)

(3) Also,

R = OC = 02- sin 02C = 02 -sin OSC ;

= 02 • sin (QSC + QSO) = Ot • sin (QSC + S02) ;
.*. R = v • sin (w + v) = a • cosm_1i/ • sin(w + l)v + v
= a • cosTO_1i/ • sin (m + 2) v .

(by taking the value of v from (e).

Substituting for v its value from (11), v=(-~® , V we have
& x ' \2m+ 1/

finally —

B = a ■ cosm~1(' ® V sin( m + ^ o) , or
\2m + 1 / '2m +1 /

R-sec™ Y — ) = a sin(^-~ 2 o)
\ 2m +1/ '2m +1 /

. (12)

I It is easily seen that Cases 1 and 2 are closely related. The
curve which passes through corresponding points of the series of
pedals is a spiral which never attains the centre, having an infinite
number of convolutions in both directions.

!

Cases 3 and 4. — Reflexion-Caustics of Curves which are Convex
to the Pole.

The equations of these curves are of the forms —
rn = an • sec nO ;
rn = an • cos n6.

In the curves whose equations are in this paper considered, the
pole is evidently either a focus or a centre. In the equations with
fractional exponents which have been already considered, the curve
is generally parabolic and the pole is an interior focus. But if the

VOL. XVII. 25/9/90 T

290 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

exponent, n, is a whole number, the curve is always central (as will
be shown in the sequel), and it consists either of infinite branches
which are convex to the centre, or of loops or “ foliations ” passing
through the centre. These forms are shown in diagram (4), which
has been very carefully drawn to illustrate the proof of the general
theorem for the case of curves of integral degrees and integral
coefficients of 0.

The curve SS'S' is a branch of a real curve of the 4th degree
(copied from my paper on “ Homogeneous Equations ”), consisting
of four hyperbolic branches symmetrically placed about 0 as a
centre. The four foliations of the pedal pass through the centre 0,
which is a point of inflexion for these. Only two of the foliations,
P, P', are shown in the diagram. The negative pedal, 3^', is neces-
sarily parabolic, because only at the point infinity does its tangent
become perpendicular to the radius-vector, or asymptote, of the
primary curve.

In the figure, S is the incident point.

S, 2, and P are corresponding points in the three curves, from
which radii are drawn to O.

SQ is the normal produced to SQ' in the opposite direction.*

The values of R and 0 are found as before, attention being paid
to the signs in the general expressions (6 b) viz. a> = (ra±l)0;
i]/=(m+ 1) 6.

To avoid fractional expressions it is convenient to reduce angles to
6 instead of v. It is unnecessary to give a figure for each variety.

For curves of the forms shown in figure (4), the equation of
the primary being rn = an cos (nO), that of the caustic is

Case 5. — Reflexion-Caustic of the Curve rn = an’ cos m6 .

Where the coefficient of 6 has a value different from the exponent
of r and a , we can also obtain geometrical solutions or simultaneous

* SC is the reflected ray produced to C' in the opposite direction. The
proof is the same as in Case 1, as far as Equation (7), if we substitute SC'
for SC. Then taking SC = SC', C is a point on the caustic. It is now
evident that the curve should have been treated as a convex reflector. C' is
a point on the true caustic, if the direction of the incident ray be reversed.

R = a • cos 71

1 -n

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion-Caustics of Curves. 291

values of lines and angles from which points on the caustic may be
computed.

These are, in the first instance, obtained in terms of the coordi-
nates of a fundamental curve, rn = an cos ( nQ ), whose caustic has
already been found. The fundamental curve coordinates r, 6, <o, p,
&c., are distinguished by the suffix (1). The coordinates of the
given curve, or primary, and those of its pedal, negative-pedal, and
caustic, are distinguished by the suffix (2). These are —

i p2iw2 i V2xl/2 ’> ^2

(1) I consider those to be corresponding points of the fundamental
curve, and the given primary curve, <£2(r2A)> which

rx = r2 ; accordingly the suffixes for r are omitted in the proof.
Hence for such corresponding points,

2. ___ 1 <y\j

cos” ttfl^cos” m02; 02 = — '@i> • • • (1)

(2) For the perpendicular on tangent (or radius- vector of the
pedal), we have p2 = r cos v2 ;

o d$2 , ,\m/ n „ d0x

. \ p9~ rz • 7 " = r * d — 7- = — r2 • ;

A as as m as

n

*P Q — P\ )

/2 m 1

• • (2)

also,

p9 np , n

cos i/9 = —= 1 = — • COS V , . . . .

z r mr m

• • (3)

also,

n

w2 = v2 + 62 = v2 + — d1 . . . .

. . (3a)

(3) For the radius- vector of the negative-pedal — observing that,
by the general law given above (5), between p and r = ^i between
r and v = v — we have by similar right-angled triangles,

C2=k=^-secm02=^}'seOB0i; (Byl)-

mv,

v9 = — 4 j
2 n

w

For the angular coefficient,

'l'2 = V2±62 = V2±—01 (4«)

292 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

(4) Comparing (4) with (2) w~e see that the ratios } are

Vl V2

equal. But, as before found, see Title (2), Equation (6), v1 = ;

finally, v2 = ~p2 (5)

It is thus proved that for all curves of the form,
rn = an cos mO ,

where the exponent may be either integral or fractional, the semi-
radius of curvature of the primary curve is equal to the radius-vector
of the negative-pedal.*

(5) It results from the value last found that all the geometrical
relations deduced from the diagrams for the fundamental curves
are true for similarly constructed figures applicable to the curves
here considered, where m and n have different values.

If we take a system of curves in the form of the figure of
diagram 4, we find for B2 and 02 —

Erom the relation,

^iSOC' = ^SQ'C' = 90° - QSC = 90° - <o2 ;

®2 = 02 + SOC' = 02 + f -«2; .... (6)

Erom the relation, ^.CO^S = - SOC' = v2 + «2 - ,

.*. R2 = 0^5 • cos C(E2 =u2 • sin (v + a>2) .... (7)

From these simultaneous equations, a point R2, 02 on the caustic
may be found corresponding to any point on the primary ; and from
(3) and (4), points on the positive and negative pedals may be
similarly determined.

Lastly , It is evident, by inspection of the diagrams, that all
circles described on a semi-radius of curvature, as diameter, pass
through the pole, which pole is either a centre or (in the case of
parabolic curves) a focus.

This curious geometrical property is known to be a property of
parabolas of the 2nd degree, and from it, if four points be given,
the focus of the parabola may be found. I am not aware that the

* The proof probably admits of extension to the form rn = an cosmO ■ cos jpd,
but this has not been completely investigated.

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion-Caustics of Curves. 293

extension of this theorem to all two-term polar equations has been
previously given.

By means of Formula 10, the equations of the following curves
with their caustics may be written : —

Reflecting Curve. Caustic.

m =

2

r =

a ■

■sec

2(i

0)

R =

= 0

• (Parabola).

m =

3

r =

a-

sec

3U

6)

R =

=

sec

4(i ey

■sin(i

6).

m =

4

r =

a '

■sec

4(i

6)

R =

= a-

sec

*{^ey

• sin ( f

e).

m —

5

r =

a-

sec

5(i

0)

R =

= a

•sec

•sin( |

6).

m =

8

r =

ci-

■ sec

8(l

6)

R =

= a-

•sec

9(tW

sin(f

6).

m =

11

r =

a<

•sec

11 /JL
Vi 1

0)

R =

= a

•sec

• sin ( f-

6).

m —

14

r =

a>

• sec

14/ 1
V 1 4

0)

R =

= a

•sec

15 (A-tf)

• sin(|-

6).

m —

17

r =

a -

• sec

17 /_!_
Vl 7

6)

R =

= a-

•sec

18(*0)

■sin(A

6).

m =

20

r =

a

•sec

20/ 1
\20

6)

R =

= a •

•sec

“(A*)-

sin (A

6).

For all values of m exceeding 5, the coefficients of 6 follow a

regular law. If m = Zn + 5, the first coefficient of 6 is — - — ,

6rc + 9

• w -f- 1

and the second coefficient of 0 is — •

2n + 3

Similar results might be given for the caustics comprised in
Formula 12, and of course in both cases, also for fractional indices
of the secants corresponding to integer indices of r and a in the
usual form of the equation.

Case 6. — Caustics of Oblique Pencils.

The case of a pencil of parallel rays inclined to the axis of the
reflecting curve may be next considered.

Let (3 be the inclination of the pencil to the axis of symmetry,
then the inclination of the reflected ray to the normal is w + /?, and

the distance of the new focal point, C', is i - • cos (to + / 3 ) .

2

By inspection of diagram 2, it is evident that as OC'S is a right
angle, the new point C' lies on the circle 3SOQ, but is nearer the
reflecting curve or further from it, according as the incident ray is
inclined from the axis or towards it.

In going over the proof, if we allow for the quantity (3, we shall
find for 0 in the caustic the value (2m-l)v±/3; and for R the
value r' sin (m -2 )v± (3.

294

Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh.

b

The equation of the caustic of oblique pencils (Case 1) is accord-
ingly

R = a sec

m+i / p±P\

\2m-l)

sin

(m- 2)9 + /?

(2m -1)

(13).

In the parabola we have from this equation

B-a-ec(!+s)

3

smv; or R = a-sinysec3 ^ .

By taking a new reference line, making ^- = y with the old, this
reduces to

e

R = sec3

3 ’

which is the equation found by an independent geometrical proof
in the paper read to the Royal Astronomical Society, referred to in
the introductory paragraph of this paper.

We now see that this is only a particular case of the form (12) of
the general equation of the reflexion-caustics of polar curves.

4. Locus of the Field of View in the Optical Caustic.

In the preceding paragraph it is pointed out that for a given point
S on the reflecting surface, all the focal points C, C', &c., for pencils
of different inclinations lie on the same circle ^SOQ.

If S0 be the vertex of the reflecting curve, the series of points C, C',
&c., are the principal foci for different pencils (e.g., stars in the
telescopic field), and these all lie on a circle in a principal plane
whose diameter is the principal focal length. For a reflecting sur-
face of revolution the field of view is accordingly the surface of a
sphere whose diameter is the focal length.

From a note communicated to me by Professor Cayley, and
quoted in the above-mentioned paper, it would appear that this is a
property of all reflecting surfaces. It may now be added that if
any other point Sj on the reflecting surface be taken, the foci for
all pencils reflected at this point in a principal plane also lie on a
circle whose diameter is half the radius of curvature at the point.

This property is not confined to the polar curves here investigated,
because it results from the general equation for the length of the
reflected ray as given by Sir William Hamilton in the paper above
referred to. This circle corresponds to the generating circle of the

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion-Caustics of Curves. 295

epicycloid which is the caustic of the circle of curvature at the
given point ; and the caustic of any reflecting curve is evidently the
envelope of all the epicycloidal caustics of the circles of curvature.

5. Equivalents in Cartesian Coordinates of the Polar Curves whose
Caustics have been found.

For polar curves having integral indices and coefficients n and
m, the equivalents in rectangular coordinates are easily found.
Cos mO, when expanded in terms of cos #, is always a homogeneous
expression in sin # and cos #, provided that m is an integer, and it
is easily proved by the inductive method that, if the expansion he
homogeneous for any one value of m, it is also homogeneous for
m+ 1, and therefore for any integral value of m. The expan-
sions of cos mO for even numbers from m = 2 to ra=10 are as
follows : —

Cos 2# = cos 20 - sin2# ;

Cos 4 0 = cos4# - 6 cos2# • sin2# + sin4# ;

Cos 60 = cos6# - 15 cos4# • sin2# +15 cos2# • sin4# - sin6# ;

Cos 8# = cos8# - 28 cos6# • sin2# + 70 cos4# • sin4# - 28 cos2# • sin6#
+ sin8# ;

Cos 10# = cos10#- 45 cos8# • sin2# + 210 cos6# • sin4# -210 cos4# •
sin6# + 45 cos2# • sin8# - sin10#.

The law of the expansion is this : — It contains the even terms of
the binomial theorem with the sign of every alternate term changed.
The expansion of sin mO contains the odd terms of the binomial
theorem, with the signs of alternate terms changed.

From the values of cos mO above given the equivalents of polar
equations for even values of n and m may be written out as
follows : —

For equations of the form rn = an sec (mO), or an = rn cos (m#),
suppose n= 10 ;

aio_rio cos (io#).

— a?10 — 45#8i/2 + 210d?6y4 — 210a?4?/6 + 45a?2g/8 - 2/10 ; . . . (1)

a10 = r10 • cos (8#) = (x2 + y2) • r8 • cos (8#),

= ( x 2 + y2){x8 - 28 x6y2 + 7 Oxhfl - 28 x2yQ + y8 • } ; . . . (2)

296 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

a10 = r10 • cos (60) = (x2 + y2)2 • r6 • cos 66,

= (; x 2 + y2)2{x 6 - 1 5#4y2 + 1 5x2y^ - y6}; (3)

a™ = cos (i6) = (x2 + y2)6 [x^ - 6x2y2 + y^} ; .... (4)

a10 _ rio cos ^2 6) — (x2 + y2Y{x2 - y2} (5)

To these may be added —

aio _ rio . cos 2^ . cos 5 6 ; a10 = r10 cos 20 • cos 4 6 ; a10 = r10 cos 26 •
cos 36; a10 = r10 cos s(26) ; 1010 = r10 cos 3 (30).

When these ^-and-y equations are fully expanded, they are found
to he central homogeneous equations of the 10th degree, each having
its distinct combination of + and - signs. Numbers (1) to (5) are
all hyperbolic curves without inflexions, and having the branches of
each curve all equal and all symmetrically disposed about a centre.
These characteristics evidently apply to all curves of even integral
degrees so obtained.

In (1) there are 10 asymptotes, with angular intervals of 18°, and
10 real branches.

In (2) there are 8 asymptotes, with angular intervals of 22J°, and
8 real branches.

In (3), (4), and (5) the number of asymptotes and branches are
respectively 6, 4, and 2, and the angular intervals are 30°, 45°, and
90°, the circle being always equally divided. The curves of the
equations containing two cosines have not been examined. The
above are all the symmetrical homogeneous hyperbolic curves that
can be formed in the 10th degree, and for any degree the number
of such curves is evidently w/2. They are all curves of “ perfect
symmetry” in the sense defined in the introductory paragraph.

If m exceed n , as, for example, in the expression a10 = r10 cos (120),
we obtain by transformation to rectangular coordinates a homogeneous
equation of the second class (so termed in my paper on this subject),

i.e., of the form <}>n(x, y) = 4>p(x, y), or = 1. The number of

VA00 j V )

such curves (all traceable) for any degree, n —p, is infinite.

For the equations of the form rn = an • cos (m6) or an = rn sec (m6),
above considered ,

we also obtain homogeneous Cartesian equations of the second

Vol.XVIl.

pc. Roy. Soc. Edin.

LORD M'LAREN ON REFLECTION-CAUSTICS OF CURVES,

Figure 2.

Vol.XVIl.

Pro Roy. Soc. Edin.

lord m'laren on reflection-caustics of curve

CO

1889-90.] Lord McLaren on Reflexion- Caustics of Curves. 297

class. These are of the looped or foliated type. Those of the 6th
degree are figured in my paper on homogeneous equations. An in-
finite number of such curves (all traceable) may be formed for a
given degree (n-p) by augmenting the values of n and^>.

It is evident that the caustic will not in general be the locus of a
homogeneous equation. If we take, for example, the solution in
(Equation 10), p. 288,

B

cos

<srr i)-

sin

the condition that the curve shall be a homogeneous equation of the
second class, or of the form <j>p(x, y ) = <£</#, y), is that the coefficients

1

of 0 shall be whole numbers ; that is,

2m - 1

and — — A must be
2m- 1

integers, in order that the expansions of the two trigonometrical
quantities may each be a homogeneous expression in sin 0 and
cos 0, and so be transformable into homogeneous equivalents in x
and y.

Synthesis by Means of Electrolysis. — Part III. Synthesis
of n-Dicarbodecahexanic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown
and Dr James Walker.

(Read June 16, 1890.)

(Abstract.)

The synthesis of the diethyl ether of this new acid was effected by
the electrolysis of a strong aqueous solution of potassium ethyl
sebate, COOC2H5(CH2)8COOK. This salt was prepared by adding
the calculated quantity of alcoholic potash to an alcoholic solution
of diethyl sebate. After some time the potassium ethyl salt began
to separate out : the whole was then boiled, allowed to cool, and
filtered. What remained on the filter was dissolved in water ; the
aqueous solution was extracted twice with ether, and then evapo-
rated to a concentration suitable for electrolysis (cf. this vol. p. 54).

When the electric current was passed through the cold solution,
it rapidly diminished in intensity, and in a few moments ceased to
flow altogether. This we found to be due to the fact that the pro-
duct of electrolysis is solid at the ordinary temperature. Heating

298 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. !

to 50° restored the current. On completion of the electrolysis a
colourless oil was seen to float to the surface of the liquid, and this
oil oh cooling solidified to a white crystalline mass, which was
washed several times with water, dried, and analysed. The results
of analysis were as follows : —

T628 gr. substance gave *4254 gr. C02
and *1687 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for C^H^Ch

C 71*26 per cent. 71*35 per cent.

H 11*51 „ 11-35 „

The substance thus corresponds to the formula C22H4204, showing
that the reaction took place in the expected direction, viz. —

2C2H5COO(CH2)8COOK = C2H5COO(CII2)16COOC2H5 + 2C02 + 2K

The acid of which this substance is the diethyl ether we propose
to name w-dicarbodecahexanic acid. The ether melts at 43°, is
practically insoluble in water, soluble in ether, is sparingly soluble
in cold alcohol, but when melted mixes freely with hot alcohol. It
possesses a faint, somewhat unpleasant smell, and decomposes
rapidly when heated to 200°. In order to saponify it, its boiling
alcoholic solution should be added gradually to a boiling solution
of potash in alcohol. The potassium salt separates out. It is
easily soluble in water, giving a soapy solution.

Analysis of the potassium salt gave the following numbers : —

*3565 gr. substance gave *1253 gr. K2C03

Found.

K 19*87 per cent.

20*00 per cent.

The calcium, barium, zinc, lead, silver, and copper salts fall out
from an aqueous solution of the potassium salt as insoluble, mostly
gelatinous, precipitates. The copper salt is green.

The acid itself is precipitated in gelatinous form, but from hot
alcohol it separates on cooling in small hard warty masses. It is
practically insoluble in water, only slightly soluble in cold alcohol
and in ether. Its melting-point is 118°.

The yield of the dicarbodecahexanic ether is over 20 per cent,
of the sebacic ether employed.

1889-90.] Prof. Crum Brown & Mr Jas. Walker on Synthesis. 299

Synthesis by Means of Electrolysis. — Part IV. Synthesis
of Suberic and n-Dicarbododecanic Acids. By Prof.
Crum Brown and Dr James Walker.

(Read July 7, 1890.)

(Abstract.)

Suberic Acid. — In continuation of our syntheses of dibasic acids
by means of electrolysis, we have prepared suberic acid from glu-
taric acid, and from the former again a new acid, which we term
%-dicarbododecanic acid.

Potassium ethyl glutarate was electrolysed under the same condi-
tions as are described in our first paper (Proc. Boy. Soc. Edin .,
1888-9, p. 54). A colourless oil floated to the top of the solution
after completion of the electrolysis. This oil was separated, dried,
and heated for some time on the water-bath to drive off any alcohol
formed by saponification of the potassium ethyl salt by the potas-
sium (potash) liberated at the negative pole. It was found to boil,
not very constantly, between 265° and 275° (uncorrected). Analysis
yielded the following results : —

T137 gr. substance gave *2602 gr. C02

and *0959 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for C12H2204

C 62*41 per cent. 62*61 per cent.

H 9*37 „ 9*56 „

On saponification, a white potassium salt was obtained, which
could he recrystallised from alcohol. The acid prepared from this

by precipitation melted at 138°. Analysis of the potassium salt

resulted as follows : —

*2484 gr. gave *1388 gr. K2C03

Found. Calculated for K2C8H1204

K 31*6 per cent. 31*2 per cent.

The yield of ether is about 20 per cent, of the potassium ethyl
glutarate employed.

n-Dicarbododecanic Acid. — Potassium ethyl suberate falls out

300 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

after a short time when the calculated quantity of moderately
strong alcoholic potash is added slowly to a strong alcoholic solu-
tion of suberic ether.

A strong solution of this salt, when electrolysed, yields a colour-
less oil, which floats to the top of the solution. This oil, after being
freed from alcohol, solidifies, on standing for twenty-four hours, to
a pure white crystalline mass. When dried on porous tile the
crystals melt at 27° quite sharply. Analysis : —

T249 gr. substance gave ‘3146 gr. C02

and -1235 gr. H20

Found. Calculated for ^18^34^4

C 68*69 per cent. 68*79 per cent.

H 10-98 „ 10-83 „

The crystals are soluble in alcohol and ether, insoluble in water.

Saponification yielded a potassium salt very soluble in water, and
slightly soluble in cold alcohol. A solution of this salt was pre-
cipitated by salts of barium, calcium, zinc, silver, and copper, the
precipitates being all flocculent and extremely insoluble in water.
The copper salt is green. The silver salt is exceedingly soluble
in ammonia. The acid prepared from the potassium salt melts
at 122°. Analysis of the barium salt yielded the following
result : —

*4261 gr. substance gave -2531 gr. BaS04

Found. Calculated for BaC14H2404

34*92 per cent. 34*86 per cent.

The yield of ether in this case reaches over 20 per cent, of the
theoretical value.

Preliminary Experiment on the Thermal Conductivity of
Aluminium. By A. Crichton Mitchell, B.Sc.

(Read July 7, 1890.)

-*

The recent improvement in the process of manufacture of pure
aluminium, and the consequent lowering in its price, has placed
it within the reach of those who desire to make any experiments

1889-90.] Mr A. C. Mitchell on Conductivity of Aluminium. 301

requiring large quantities of this substance. It seemed desirable
that an investigation of the thermal conductivity of aluminium
and its alloys should be made, but before obtaining the necessary
bars a smaller bar was obtained from experiments on which a pre-
liminary notion was got of the thermal conductivity; this being
necessary in order to determine the most convenient dimensions for
the long bars used in Forbes’s method of conducting these experi-
ments.

The present note gives the result of this preliminary experiment.
The small bar used was furnished by the Aluminium Company,
Birmingham, who now manufacture pure aluminium by the Deville-
Castner process. Analysis showed that the particular sample used
contained nearly 98 per cent, of pure metal, the chief impurity being
iron. The method employed for finding the conductivity was sub-
stantially that of Forbes, the only difference being that the cooler
end of the bar was inserted in a cold bath. The bar used, being
20 inches long and 1 inch square in section, was of such a length that
it could be also used for the cooling experiment. Four holes were
drilled in the bar, separated by intervals of 3 inches. The thermo-
meters used were those employed in Professor Tait’s and my own
previous work. The source of heat was simply a Bunsen burner,
applied to one end of the bar.

For such a preliminary experiment it is unnecessary to give all
the data regarding rates of cooling, values of tangents, &c. ; and it
will therefore suffice to state simply the result. By these experi-
ments the thermal conductivity of aluminium was found to be
•072 when expressed in foot-pound-minute units. This number
represents the conductivity at (about) 100° C. The corresponding
numbers for other metals are —

Copper, . . . . *071

Iron, *0116

German silver, . . . *0078.

Hence the thermal conductivity of aluminium (see Trans. Roy. Soc.
Edin ., vol. xxxiii. p. 559) is slightly greater than that of the best
conducting copper.

Recently (see Nature , June 20, 1889), in a lecture delivered at
the Royal Institution, London, Sir H. Roscoe stated that Faraday

302 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 1

had found that aluminium conducts heat as well as silver, but I
have been unable to find this result of Faraday’s, or any reference
to it, in his papers.

Note on Electrolytic Conduction. By Robert L. Mond,

B.A.

(Read July 10, 1890).

At the suggestion of Professor P. G. Tait, I undertook the further
investigation of an experiment, an account of which he communi-
cated to this Society on Monday, the 15th of April 1878.

In this experiment a platinum plate of moderate thickness is in-
serted between the electrodes of an electrolytic cell, so as to com-
pletely fill the cross-section. This platinum plate thus becomes the
common electrode of two cells, and on perforating it it is found that
a comparatively small hole at once changes its functions to that of
an obstacle in one cell.

It is interesting to study experimentally as fully as possible the
complete chain of events from the first perforation to the total
removal of the plate.

The interposition of a platinum plate of the same dimensions
as the electrodes (namely, 1 sq. cm.) reduced the strength of the
current to about one-half. The plate was then perforated with a
fine needle, readings being taken for each perforation.

The strength of the current is observed rapidly to rise, the
quantity passing through the plate rapidly and regularly decreasing;
a transition period ensues, after which the whole current passes
through the holes. The polarisation remains practically constant
for the experiment as long as the area of the perforations is small
compared to that of the plate.

The results thus obtained were plotted as curves, the deflections
of the galvanometer being measured along the axis of ordinates, and
the number of holes along the axis of abscissae.

The first curve (A) was obtained by using one central plate of 1
sq. cm. area, the currents being obtained from storage cells arranged
to give 10 volts, and the deflections were measured on a Helmholtz
Tangent Galvanometer. Seventy perforations were made, each hole
having approximately sq. cm. section.

1889-90.] Mr Robert L. Mond on Electrolytic Conduction. 303

This curve shows that only the first few points obtained show
any rapid rise in current strength, the curve tending to become
parallel to axis of abscissae, which it does when the plate is re-
moved.

In order to more fully elucidate the first points on this curve,
three plates, of 1 sq. cm. each, were interposed instead of one, the
storage cells being used, arranged in the previous manner, the
results for 10 holes being embodied in curve (B), the deflections
being those of Sir William Thomson’s Reflecting Galvanometer of
22-3 B.A. units resistance, shunted through a resistance of 1 ohm.

Since the mechanical disturbance due to the liberation of gas
bubbles vitiated the results obtained, the experiment was repeated
with the current from two Bunsen cells whose E. M. F. was about
1*8 volt each; the size of the plates remaining the same, the results
for nine holes in each plate are plotted in curve (C).

For the first two holes in the plates the curve is practically a
straight line, a great part of the current still passing through the
platinum; for the next three holes we observe the transition period,
and after that the whole of the current flows through the holes, the
current slowly and regularly increasing in strength as the cross-
section of the liquid passing through the holes is increased.

This experiment was repeated under the same conditions with
much larger plates (having an effective area of 24 compared to 6 sq.
cm.). The curve (D) did not give very satisfactory results, it very
quickly becoming a straight line.

The experimental difficulties were greater than at first suspected,
especially in finding a means for firmly securing the platinum. This
was finally achieved by making the whole cell out of a block of
paraffin, the platinum being firmly imbedded along the edges in the
latter. Great care had also to be taken to keep the surface of the
platinum clean and to ensure the electrolyte passing through the
holes when made.

In conclusion, I must express my best thanks to Professor Tait
for his advice and the facilities placed at my disposal during these
and other experiments; likewise to Dr Peddie, for the interest he
has taken in my work.

304

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

List of West Australian Birds, showing their Geo-
graphical Distribution throughout Australia, includ-
ing Tasmania. By A. J. Campbell, F.L.S. Communi-
cated by Rev. James MacGregor, D.D., F.R.S. Edin.
(With a Map).

(Read June 16, 1890.)

“ There were hut few land fowls. We saw none but eagles of the

larger sort of birds, but five or six sorts of small birds. The biggest

sort of these were not bigger than larks, some no bigger than wrens,
all singing with great variety of fine shrill notes ; and we saw some
of their nests with young ones in them. The water-fowls were
ducks (which had young ones now, this being the beginning of the
spring in these parts), curlews, guldens, crab-catchers, cormorants,
gulls, pelicans, and some water-fowl such as I have not seen any-
where besides.” Such are the quaint remarks of the celebrated
British navigator, Captain William Dampier, when in Shark’s Bay,
August 1699, on his second visit to New Holland. This is probably
the first recorded note of the avi-fauna of Western Australia, or
indeed of any part of Australia, if we except Ylaming, who two
years previously introduced into Europe the black swan for the
first time. Ylaming in 1697 discovered and named the Swan
River (upon which Perth, the capital of Western Australia, stands),
on account of the number of these exceedingly handsome birds he
found upon that water.

Gilbert, the worthy coadjutor of the immortal John Gould,
between the years 1839-42 worked up the bulk of the ornitho-
logical notes of Western Australia which we are in possession
of, and which are embodied in Gould’s Birds of Australia. By
reason of the number of aboriginals he had to assist him, Gilbert’s
work was very accurate and complete. On the 28th June 1845,
poor Gilbert met a premature death at the hands of treacherous
natives during Leichardt’s expedition to North Australia. Gould
pathetically adds, “and so I lost an able coadjutor and science a
devoted follower.”

Then George Masters, assistant curator of the Australian
Museum, Sydney, on two occasions, and Cockerell on his own

1889-90.] Mr A. J. Campbell on West Australian Birds. 305

account, as well as that excellent and observing collector, William
Webb of Albany, W.A., have added much interesting information
to West Australian ornithology.

And now I humbly beg, through this learned Society, to add to
the heap of knowledge my worthy forerunners have built, a few
pebbles chiefly with regard to the geographical distribution of the
species. These pebbles were gathered during a brief research of
four months spent in Western Australia last year.

Another consideration has induced me to forward some of my
observations to Great Britain, namely, the fact of the “ Enabling
Bill ” for the self-government of Western Australia, now before
the Imperial Parliament, towards which no doubt the attention of
many persons is directed ; therefore, any information, scientific as
well as political, about the great western territory, may perchance
not be altogether devoid of interest.

The following fifteen species of birds are now recorded for the
first time as West Australian, namely : — Melithreptus brevirostris ,
Cacatua gymnopis, Cacatua roseicapilla , Platycercus zonarins , Ochy-
phcips lophotes, Dromains novce-hollandice, Geronticus spinicollis,
Grus australasianns , Xenorhynchus asiaticus, Synoicus sordidus,
Cereopsis novce-hollandice, Puffinus nugax , Phaeton candidus , Phaeton
rubricauda, , and Catarrades chrysocome.

The following having been omitted from Western Australia in a
Tabular List of Australian Birds lately issued, are now reinstated,
namely : — Tinnuneulus cenchroides , Lagenoplastes ariel , Petroeca
leggii, Cincloramphus cantillaus , Lavus novce-hollandice , and Podi-
ceps cristatus.

With regard to the emu, it may be noticed that Gould records
only one species, Dromaius irroratus ; while Dr Ramsay questions
the existence of the common or second species ( D . novce-hollandice).
From reliable evidence, as well as from personal observations, I
have been able to establish for a certainty the latter bird as well.
It is the more common in all parts of Western Australia, whereas
the spotted emu ( D . irroratus) has a more restricted range, being
principally confined inland to what is known as the “silver grass”
country, although I have seen specimens from Geographe Bay,
south west, as well as from Roebuck Bay, north-west of the
colony.

VOL. XVII. 25/9/90

u

306 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess-

In reference to the range of distribution over the other parts of
Australia of the West Australian birds, the Table is chiefly the
results of observations when on brief excursions to the other colonies
during the many years I have been working at the “ Oology of
Australian Birds.” But where personal knowledge of any species
did not exist, I have referred to Gould’s and Dr Ramsay’s tabular
lists, so as to render the distribution as complete as possible up to
date. Bor, no doubt, as the various colonies are further explored
and opened up, so there will be many extensions of localities,
and probably not a few new species or varieties discovered,
especially in the far interior and the north-west of our vast island
continent.

It occurred to me that the divisional line between west and north-
west might be conveniently drawn about the Tropic of Capricorn or
the North West Cape. The same imaginary line is also used to
subdivide North from South Queensland.

At some future time I hope to furnish a more complete list of
the north-west birds of Western Australia, because, knowing the
nature of the country, I am sensible that many hiatus occur in that
column.

There are between 760 and 770 known Australian birds.
Rather more than one-third, or about 280, occur in Western Australia
(in that portion south of the Tropics), and are distributed as
follows : —

[Table.

1889-90.] Mr A. J. Campbell on West Australian Birds. 307

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(M (NcqCXN <N

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

321

Pharmacology of Morphine and its Derivatives. By D. B.
Dott, F.C.S., F.I.C., and Ralph Stockman, M.D., Research
Scholar of the British Medical Association.

(Read July 7, 1890.)

It is necessary for a clear understanding of the chemical changes
which occur on treating morphine in various ways, and for compar-
ing its physiological action with that of the bodies so formed, that
we should summarise at some length the exact position of our
present knowledge regarding its chemistry and pharmacology.

Morphine has the composition represented by the formula
C17H19N03. It is generally supposed^ crystallise with one mole-
cule of water, hut there is reason to believe that the composition of
the hydrated base is really 8 C17H19N03, 9 H20, the water being
present in the proportion of 1^ molecule. Morphine is a monacid
base, forming neutral and readily soluble salts with all the stronger
acids. Like all alkaloids, it is built up on the ammonia (NH3)
type, and is a tertiary amine, all the hydrogen atoms having been
replaced by more or less complex radicals. This is shown to
he the case by the fact that when treated with methyl iodide, the
latter body becomes directly united to the morphine molecule, com-
bining with the nitrogen and so forming a quaternary ammonium
base, analogous to tetramethyl-ammonium iodide. Such alkaloidal
derivatives are therefore to be regarded as additioii compounds, as
indicated in the formula Cl7H19N03, CH3I. To How belongs the
credit of having been the first to form these compounds, by acting
on morphine, codeine, strychnine, and other alkaloids with alkyl-
iodides. He fell into the error, however, of regarding them as sub-
stitution compounds, in which hydrogen had been replaced by the
different alcohol radicals.

Although the constitution of morphine is not' exactly known,
much information has been accumulated regarding it, and our
knowledge of certain of the groups contained in the molecule is
considerable, and of practical importance. The first distinct advance
in such knowledge was made by Beckett and Wright, who found
that by treating morphine with acetic acid and acetic anhydride,
first one and then another hydrogen atom were replaced by the

VOL xvil. 26/9/90

X

322 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. I

acid radical, such derivatives being substitution compounds. The
substitution could not by any means be carried further. That is to
say, monoacetyl- and diacetyl-morphine were formed, but not the
triacetyl or any higher derivative. Butyric and benzoic anhydrides
were tried with precisely similar results. Whence it is manifest
that the morphine molecule contains two hydroxyl groups, a fact
which has been confirmed by the experiments of Hesse and of
Gerichten. On referring to the original paper of Beckett and
Wright, it will be observed that these chemists adopt the double
formula C34H38N206 for the molecule of morphine, so that they use
the terms diacetyl- and tetracetyl-morphine for what we have called
monoacetyl- and diacetyl-morphine. In a former communication
to this Society we have fully discussed the objections to the higher
formula. It seems to be clearly established that the third atom of
oxygen is either connecting or ketone oxygen, i.e. oxygen which acts
as the connecting link between two atoms of carbon, or otherwise
has its combining powers saturated by union with one atom of
carbon. The next important point to be noticed is that those two
hydroxyl groups in the morphine molecule have different values —
fulfil different functions. It had long been known that morphine
is readily soluble in solutions of the caustic alkalies and in lime
water, but it was reserved for Chastaing to show that this ready
solubility is due to the formation of definite compounds with the
alkalies. These bodies have the general composition M, cwro*
H20 or M0H,Cl7H19N03, where M represents a monatomic metal
such as sodium. That is to say, that while the morphine molecule
contains two hydroxyl groups, only one of these is capable of having
its hydrogen replaced by a metal. In this respect and in some
others, such as its coloration with ferric salts, morphine resembles
a phenol. Indeed the readiness with which morphine reacts with
potash, evolving heat and forming a crystalline compound, is very
suggestive of phenol (carbolic acid). In the same way that phenol
(C6H5OH) forms ethers, as methyl-phenylether (C6H5O.CH3) so mor-
phine (C17H18N020H) gives us ethers, the morphine-methyl ether
being codeine (Cl7H18N02.0CH3) which is found along with mor-
phine in opium. By a study of the products of decomposition of
codeine under different conditions, additional light is thrown on the
constitution of morphine. Anderson first showed that codeine is

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

323

morphine in which one hydrogen atom has been replaced by methyl,
and Grimaux in 1881 succeeded in forming codeine from morphine.
Beckett and Wright, by acting on codeine with acetic anhydride,
found that they could only introduce one acetyl group, the other
hydroxyl hydrogen (of the morphine molecule) having been already
replaced by methyl. For the same reason, Gerichten found that
by submitting codeine to the action of phosphorus pentachloride,
he was able only to replace one hydroxyl by chlorine, the compound
obtained having the formula C18H20ClNO2 (chlorocodide). By
continued action of the pentachloride, the compound C18H19C12N02
was obtained, whence it is evident that the third atom of oxygen in
the morphine molecule does not exist as hydroxyl.

By oxidation of morphine Chastaing obtained picric acid, proving
that morphine contains the benzene chain. Wright and Mayer
obtained pyridine on distilling morphine with potash. By distilla-
tion with zinc dust Gerichten and Schrotter obtained pyridine,
phenanthrene, pyrrol, trimethyl-amine, and other compounds.
Although up to the present time the constitution of morphine has
not been certainly determined, there is reason to believe that it is
essentially a phenanthrene derivative, containing alkyl and hydroxyl
groups. Phenanthrene consists, as it were, of three benzene rings
welded together, and is represented graphically as follows : —

HC=CH HC=CH

HO— C C— CH

HC=-(JH

The nitrogen probably replaces one of the CH groups as in pyri-
dine, and it would appear from the number of hydrogen atoms in
the morphine molecule that the latter must be a hydro derivative, as
piperidine is of pyridine. We are aware that it has been recently
suggested that there are a methyl and an ethyl radical directly com-
bined with the nitrogen, in which case the nitrogen could not be
combined as it is in pyridine and chinoline. In view of the fact
that pyridine has been obtained from morphine, and from the

324 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

analogy that several of the other alkaloids are known to be pyri-
dine or chinoline derivatives, one is inclined to regard morphine as
of the same class until conclusive proof is advanced to the contrary.

Physiological Action of Morphine.

There is now complete agreement among authors regarding the
general symptoms observed after the administration of morphine,
although many points of practical, as well as theoretical, interest still
require elucidation. All recent observers state that the central
nervous system is the part primarily affected, and have described
the symptoms as divisible into two stages — a narcotic and a
tetanic.

Frogs. — After 2-5 centigrams of a soluble salt of morphine have
been given subcutaneously to a frog, the animal becomes in a few
minutes dull and heavy, and shows a distinct inclination to remain
quietly in one position. When pinched or otherwise irritated, it at
first jumps quite well, but very shortly loses its power of accurate
muscular co-ordination. It then ceases to move away even when
pinched, and if placed on its back remains in that position.
The corneal reflex becomes abolished, while the spinal reflexes are
diminished, but seldom wholly disappear. All these symptoms
indicate depression of the brain and spinal cord, and Witkowski has
pointed out that the cerebral lobes succumb first, the other parts
of the central nervous system becoming involved in order from
before backwards.

The frog remains in this helpless narcotised condition for a
varying time until the second stage supervenes, the spinal reflexes
gradually becoming more and more exaggerated until tetanic spasms
occur spontaneously and on stimulation. After a longer or shorter
period exhaustion ensues, the frog then responding to stimulation
by a mere twitch. It may finally die or gradually recover.

During both stages the brain is deeply narcotised, as irritation of
the cornea during the tetanic condition brings on a general spasm
but no closure of the eyelid. The spasms are spinal, as section of
the cord at the atlanto-occipital membrane does not stop them ; the
succeeding exhaustion also arises from the spinal cord, as the motor
nerves and muscles are found to be only slightly diminished in
electric irritability. A very distinct peculiarity of the morphine

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

325

tetanus is that after each spasm a period of exhaustion ensues, and
there is no further tetanus — either spontaneous or reflex — until a
short interval has elapsed. Not only, therefore, is the spinal cord
abnormally easily excited, but it is abnormally easily exhausted.
A healthy frog will react to stimulation time after time in an equal
degree and gently, while the morphinised frog gives out all its
energy for the time being in one prolonged and exaggerated spasm.
According to Witkowski, the apparent stimulation is in reality
a kind of paralysis, and is simply a failure on the part of the spinal
cord to husband and properly distribute its resources, this dis-
arrangement resulting in an unmanageable and violent explosion of
nerve energy. Hence it requires a rest until more is stored up.
We have observed, however, that the smaller the dose by which
tetanus is induced, the less marked is the tendency to exhaustion,
and if the animal survive a few days this tendency to exhaustion
after each spasm wears off, and the tetanic attacks cannot be dis-
tinguished from those of strychnine.

Smaller doses cause only narcosis and depression, followed,
generally on next day or earlier, by a marked increase in the reflex
excitability, not amounting to tetanus. Very small doses simply
cause slight narcosis.

That small doses of morphine depress the reflex and conducting
powers of the spinal cord can be shown without much difficulty.
Meihuizen, using decapitated frogs (Tiirck’s method), found that
there was depression, followed by increase of reflexes. This has
been confirmed by Witkowski and by ourselves in many experi-
ments. To confirm these results obtained by Tiirck’s method, we
administered morphine to decapitated frogs, and found that, although
in many cases the spinal reflexes were very slightly depressed, yet
in others the depression was extremely marked, and was succeeded
in due time by tetanus. As in these cases the brain was removed,
the primary depression and subsequent tetanus must have been quite
independent of it, and due solely to an action on the cord. Moreover,
small doses of morphine directly injected into the aorta of decapi-
tated frogs (so as to make the results independent of irregularities
in absorption from the stomach or subcutaneous tissue) gave similar
results. Thus —

Expt. 1. — Frog pithed; right aorta tied.

326 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

11.21. — 0-01 grin, morphine hydrochlorate in 1 cub. cent, water
into left aorta.

There gradually ensued indifference to mechanical stimuli. At
first a slight pinch with forceps was felt, later it was not felt,
and had gradually to he increased in severity to elicit a reaction.

11.38. — Requires a very severe pinch to elicit a reaction.

11.50. — Reflexes slightly exaggerated.

12.0. — Reflexes much more exaggerated. On stimulation gives
a tetanic kick out.

12.20. — Still slight tetanus on stimulation, hut is rapidly be-
coming exhausted.

12.30. — Is now much exhausted; only gives a slight spasmodic
twitch on stimulation.

In such experiments the cutting off of the hlood supply to the
cord causes much more rapid exhaustion than would otherwise
ensue. Similar results were got with doses of 5 milligrammes.

In the descriptions of the morphine action hitherto published it
has always been assumed that the occurrence and sequence of the
two stages of narcotism and tetanus are a necessary result of the
action of the drug on the nerve cells, the explanation given being
that morphine “first depresses” and “then stimulates” the spinal
cord. Witkowski advances the opinion that both stages are really
the result of paralysis. We have found, however, that the
sequence of depression and tetanus is entirely a question of dosage,
and of how much morphine reaches the spinal cord. As we have
seen, an ordinary dose of the alkaloid first depresses the cord, and
this is followed by tetanus. When a minimum narcotic dose is
given the narcosis is not deep, but no tetanic stage ensues on the
narcotic, and hence it is evidently necessary to give a dose of a
certain size if we wish to get both stages. When such a dose is
given, what happens is that the morphine is but slowly absorbed
from the stomach or subcutaneous tissue, only a small portion reaches
the spinal cord at first, and hence the depression; but as more
morphine becomes absorbed, more of it comes in contact with
nerve cells of the cord, and as a result we get tetanus.

Tetanus, we have found, can be induced at once without any
preliminary depression if the morphine be thrown into the circula-
tion so as to immediately reach the cord in sufficient quantity.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 327

Hence it is by no means a necessary consequence of the action of
morphine that depression succeeded by tetanus should occur. The
following experiment shows this decisively.

Expt. 2. — The brain of a frog was destroyed. Next day it had
recovered from the pithing. A ligature was passed round the
lumbar region, excluding the lumbar nerves ; the right aorta was
tied ; a cannula was inserted into the left aorta.

11.40. — 0’035 grins, morphine hydrochlorate in 1 cub. cent, water
was injected into the cannula. At once there was rigid tetanus.

11.42. — Another tetanic spasm.

11.44. — Having frequent spontaneous rigid spasms.

12.30. — The spasms have continued, but are gradually getting
feebler.

12.45. — Quite exhausted. No response on stimulation.

It is necessary to tie the vessels in the lumbar region to ensure
that sufficient of the morphine solution reaches the cord at once,
and also (although this is not of such importance) to protect the
motor nerves from the depressing influence of the morphine. If
this precaution be neglected the experiments never succeed so well,
as the greater part of the morphine, instead of going to the spinal
cord, gets distributed over the whole body. Tetanus generally
appears in such cases, but rather late, although never nearly so late
as when the morphine is given subcutaneously.

In the present state of our knowledge it is useless even to
speculate as to what changes morphine brings about in the nerve
substance of the cord. Small amounts of the alkaloid coming in
contact with the grey nerve cells interfere with their vitality
and chemical changes only in so far as to inhibit or depress their
proper activity, whereas larger amounts cause much more profound
changes, apparently leading to irregular and violent chemical action,
which leads to similar irregular and violent discharges of nerve
energy, followed by extreme exhaustion. During the first condition
the cells are more or less incapable of conducting impulses or acting
reflexly, whereas in the second they are completely changed in these
respects, and respond vigorously to the slightest impression. It is
impossible to characterise the changes more definitely.

The delay in the tetanus when morphine is given subcutaneously
or by the stomach can be accounted for, however, in two ways.

328

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

We have seen that a certain amount of morphine is necessary to
cause the tetanus, and therefore (1) we may suppose that the
nerve cells have a special affinity for the morphine, that they
abstract it from the blood and store it up, and that it is only when
they have absorbed and retained sufficient to bring about the
requisite changes that tetanus comes on • or (2) we may suppose
that the morphine is not stored up in the nerve cells, hut that,
passing frequently through them dissolved in the blood, it gradually
brings about changes which result in tetanus.

With regard to the action of morphine on motor nerves great
differences of opinion have been expressed by different experi-
menters. The older observers, finding that the motor nerves were
considerably depressed in electric irritability at the end of the
poisoning, concluded that the alkaloid had a directly depressing
effect on them. Witkowski, however, is of opinion that this is due
to exhaustion after the prolonged tetanus, for on dividing one
sciatic nerve, and then administering a large dose of morphine, he
found that the divided nerve had remained perfectly excit-
able, while the undivided nerve was more or less depressed.
Vulpian also found that in rabbits the motor nerves remain
unaffected.

We have repeated Witkowski’s experiment frequently, with a
result similar to his, hut we are of opinion that his conclusion is
erroneous. The result must he due to the morphine not reaching
the terminations of the motor nerves in sufficient quantity to
paralyse them markedly, for we found when we injected a solution
into the aorta, so as to make sure of it reaching the terminations of
the motor nerves, that these were paralysed. The amount required
is, however, large, and the end-organs of motor nerves are certainly
not very sensitive to the action of morphine. The following is one
of the experiments.

Expt. 3. — Frog pithed. Sciatic nerves excitable well at 200 mm.
Du Bois Beymond Coil.

12.35. — 0*06 grm. morphine hydrochlorate in If cub. cent, water
injected into abdominal aorta just above bifurcation.

At once there was marked diminution in the excitability of
sciatic nerves.

12.45. — Sciatic nerves excitable only to strongest currents. The

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 329

muscles are also diminished somewhat in irritability, but not to
anything like the same extent as the nerves.

1.5. — Sciatics not excitable at 0. Muscles contract fairly well
to moderate current.

In another frog, when 0‘0425 grm. in cub. cent, -water was
injected into the abdominal aorta, the sciatics were inexcitable to
strongest current in 1 1 minutes, while the muscles of the legs were
still quite excitable to direct stimulation. Small doses, such as 0*01
grm., given in same way had a scarcely appreciable effect on the
motor nerves.

In another frog the following experiment -was performed as con-
firmation.

Expt. 4. — Frog pithed ; left femoral artery tied ; sciatic nerves
excitable at 220 mm.

2.28. — 005 grm. morphine hydrochlorate subcutaneously in
solution.

3.40. — Both nerves excitable at 220 mm.

The frog passed through the narcotic and tetanic stages. Next
day completely exhausted. Left (protected) sciatic nerve stimulated
at 1 00 mm. gives good contraction of leg muscles ; right (unpro-
tected) sciatic at 0 mm. gives scarcely perceptible twitch of muscles.

In this experiment both sciatic nerves were subjected to the ex-
haustion consequent on the tetanus ; but the right nerve, in addition,
was exposed to the action of the morphine circulating in the blood.
The protected nerve diminished very much in excitability (in con-
sequence of the tetanus plus the cutting off of its blood supply), but
the unprotected nerve wholly lost its excitability, and this difference
can only be attributed to the action of the morphine on the latter.

On repeating Vulpiap’s experiment on rabbits, we got (contrary
to his results) paralysis of the motor nerves. Thus —

Expt. 5. — Rabbit was put under ether. At 12.5 the right
femoral artery was tied and the right sciatic nerve divided. A
cannula was inserted into the left femoral artery, and the left sciatic
nerve divided. Both nerves excitable at 90 mm.

12.10. — 0*2 grm. morphine hydrochlorate was injected into the
left femoral artery.

12.20. — R. sciatic nerve quite excitable at 90 mm. L. sciatic at
70 mm. gives very feeble twitch of muscles.

330

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

12.30. — R. sciatic nerve gives feeble twitch of muscles at 90 mm.,
fair contraction at 70 mm. L. sciatic nerve gives no response at 0.
Muscles are equally excitable on both sides to direct stimulation.

In another experiment of the same kind 0*1 grm. abolished the
excitability of the sciatic nerve in eighteen minutes. It is evident
therefore that very large doses of morphine do paralyse the termina-
tions of motor nerves, but that ordinarily death ensues before the
depression is very marked. With small therapeutic doses it is hardly
possible that even a trace of this action is present.

On sensory nerves and their terminations morphine, even in large
doses, has probably a scarcely appreciable effect. The condition of
affairs is no doubt much the same as with motor nerves, — that is, if
large doses could be applied directly to the nerve terminations, the mor-
phine would act as a paralysant to the nerve tissue, but by the ordinary
methods of administration its effect is practically nil. It is evident
during the tetanic stage that the sensory nerves are perfectly acute, as
the slightest stimulation of the skin brings on a spasm. The common
method of applying opium fomentations as an anodyne has probably
no action except what results from heat and moisture, as the alka-
loids cannot penetrate the skin, and even if they did do so, would not
be in sufficient amount to paralyse the sensory nerve terminations.

Mammalia. — The higher animals are affected by morphine in the
same way as frogs, but there are certain differences in the symptoms,
depending not on a different action of the poison, but on differences
in the nervous system, and on the closer interdependence of its
various parts in the higher animals. Frogs live long after the
respiratory centre is paralysed, whereas mammals die at once, so
soon as this centre is thrown out of action, hence the longer con-
tinuance of the symptoms and the marked development of the
tetanic stage in the former. The greater importance of the spinal
cord relatively to the brain in batrachians has no doubt also an
effect in modifying the symptoms. Rabbits, cats, and dogs pass
through a narcotic and a tetanic stage if the dose be large enough.
With small doses only the first stage is seen. (For doses and
particulars, see Tables of Experiments.)

The condition of affairs is the same as with frogs. Small doses
depress the brain and spinal cord, while larger ones throw the cord
into a condition of hyper-excitability. Whether large doses affect

331

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

the cerebrum in the same way remains doubtful, as death occurs
early in such cases from paralysis of the respiratory centre. The only
method of determining this point would be to apply morphine directly
to the brain. We were unable to carry out such experiments, but the
results of certain observations by Deguise, Dupuy, and Leuret seem
to show that large doses of morphine applied to the brain directly do
produce convulsions. In Part II. of their paper, Experiments 11,
12, 13, 16 and others (dogs and rabbits), the injection of morphine
solutions into the lateral ventricle, or their application to the cortex,
produced well-marked convulsions of an epileptiform character.

For purposes of comparison it is necessary to refer briefly to the
action of morphine on some of the other systems. In dogs and cats,
nausea, vomiting, and slight diarrhoea are always very prominent
symptoms, unless the dose be very small. In man, as is well known,
small doses cause constipation, but nausea and vomiting, with some-
times slight looseness of the bowels, are not infrequently observed.
The exact reason of this is still to be explained, but Alt has
recently shown that morphine given hypodermically is very rapidly
secreted into the stomach, and no doubt the consequent irritation
is sufficient to account for the intestinal symptoms.

The heart and blood-vessels are affected very slightly, and only
secondarily to the nervous system. Owing to dulling of the vaso-
motor centre there is slight loss of tone in the arteries, accompanied
by a correspondingly slight fall of blood pressure. The pupil is
contracted during the narcotic stage, but as soon as tetanic symptoms
develop, it begins to dilate, and often is fully dilated during the
greater part of the poisoning. The respiratory centre is very much
depressed, and respiration greatly slowed, even with small doses.

As the object of our research was to compare the action of mor-
phine with the actions of a number of bodies closely related to it
chemically, we thought that the best plan to obtain an accurate idea
of their relative toxicity and effects would be to ascertain the mini-
mum dose which produced visible symptoms, and by gradually
increasing it until the minimum lethal dose was reached, we had a
complete picture of the general action of the substance. Owing to the
large number of alkaloids investigated by us, it was necessary to
confine our experiments almost entirely to frogs and rabbits, the
information thus obtained being sufficient for purposes of com-

332 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

parison. In a few instances, where an emetic action was suspected,
the substances were administered to dogs also. In our experiments
we used morphine hydrate dissolved in acetic acid and water, or
morphine hydrochlorate, obtained from J. F. Macfarlan & Co.,
Edinburgh.

Toxicity of Morphine.

There are wide discrepancies in the statements regarding the
minimum lethal dose of morphine in frogs, for, while Frohlich fixes
it at O'Ql grin., Witkowski states that he has seen frogs recover
after 0*05 grm. hydrochlorate. We found that it varied a good
deal according to the condition of the frog and the season of the year,
but that the ordinary lethal dose for a medium-sized frog is from
3-5 centigrms. ( R . temporaria). The frog, after passing through the
narcotic stage, remains tetanised or completely exhausted for several
days, and ultimately dies of exhaustion. One to two centigrms. cause
a marked narcotic stage, followed next day by an increase of reflexes,
not amounting to tetanus. Five milligrms. caused very slight nar-
cosis, which was not followed by any visible increase of reflexes.

In rabbits also we could get no information regarding the mini-
mum physiological dose, while the minimum lethal dose as given
by different investigators (see Table) varied so much, that to

Table showing the Minimum Lethal Dose of Morphine in Rabbits ,
as fixed by previous Experimenters.

Name.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Salt of Mor-
phine used.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose reckoned as
Morphine Hydrate.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Remarks

British Medical As-

1360

Hydrochlorate

0-77

0-627

0-461

Death with severe con-

sociation Commis-

vulsions in about one

sion

hour.

Do. do.

1360

Meconate

0-65

0"456

0-335

Death with convulsions

in 1 to 2 hours.

Frohlich .

Hydrochlorate

0-3

0-242

2 Experiments only.

Death in 10 and 24

hours respectively.

Koning* .

330-

Hydrochlorate

0-47

0-379

0-66

570

1-15-

Camus

Hydrochlorate

1-0

0-806

Death in 4j hours.

Falck ....

1250-

Sulphate

1 to 2

0-799-

0-63-

Death in from 1 hour 36

1500

1-6

1-08

minutes to 3 hours 27

minutes.

Do

1310

Hydrochlorate

1-0

0-806

0-61

Death in 2 hours 45

minutes.

Quoted by Frohlich.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

333

determine both points we had to institute special experiments.
The results of these are given in the following Tables.

Three decigrms. of morphine hydrate given subcutaneously was
usually a fatal dose for medium-sized rabbits. This is equal to
about 037 grm. of morphine hydrochlorate, sulphate, or tartrate,
to 0*4 grm. acetate, and 0'43 grm. meconate. Certain rabbits were
killed with less, and others required more. The minimum lethal
dose of any substance can hardly be fixed with complete accuracy,
as the rate of absorption and excretion, the condition of health of
the animal, along with other less evident factors, all influence the
result and make it variable. In addition to our own results,
Lenhartz has found the minimum lethal dose of morphine per
kilo, in dogs to vary from 027 to 059 grm., while recovery took

Table of Experiments made to fix the Minimum Lethal Dose of
Morphine Hydrate in Rabbits.

No.y

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose of Morphine
Hydrate in Grms.

Dose per Kilo, of
Body Weight.

Deeply Narco-
tised in

Pupils after Con-
tracting began to
Dilate in

Increased Reflex
apparent in

First Marked
Tetanic Spasm in

Result.

1

1548

0-28

0-180

min.

min.

hr. min.
0 55

hr. Min.
1 5

Death in 1 hour 19 minutes.

2

1530

“ 0-25

0-163

8

16

0 36

1 36

There were very frequent
tetanic attacks and nearly
continuous slight trem-
bling.

Recovery nearly complete in

3

Same

0-28

0-183

10

20

0 35

None ;

6 hours. The convulsions
were never severe.
Recovery in 5 hours.

4

5

Same

Same

0-3

0-35

0-196

0-228

0 30

simply

tremors

2 0

Recovery in 6 hours after
very severe tetanus.

Death in 2 hours 18 minutes.

6

1530

0-3

0-196

3

35

0 35

3 5

Death in 3 hours 45 minutes.

7

1445

0-3

0-207

6

15

0 9

2 15

The convulsions were very
severe, and consisted of
almost continuous clonic
spasms, with frequent tonic
spasms. Died quietly in
state of exhaustion.

Death in 3 hours 35 minutes.

8

1757

0-3

0-170

6

38

0 38

1 8

Symptoms as in Expt. 6.
Death in 1 hour 43 minutes.

9

1614

0-3

0-185

1 20

None. Only

Symptoms as in Expt. 6.
Recovery in about 6 hours.

10

11

Same

Same

0-35

0-4

0-216

0-247

tremors
and slight
startings.

Recovery in about 5 hours.

Had marked tetanus.
Death in 3 hours 25 minutes.
Symptoms as in Expt. 6.

334 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

place after 0*13 to 0*46 grm. per kilo. Distinct narcosis occurred
in medium-sized rabbits after 5 milligrms., smaller amounts than
this having a scarcely perceptible effect. The smallest dose with
which an increase of reflexes was obtained was 0*15 grm. (see
Tables).

Table showing the Effects of Small and Medium Doses of
Morphine Hydrate on Rabbits.

No.

j Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Effects.

1

907

0*0025

0*0027

Scarcely perceptible drowsiness. Not much
change in demeanour.

2

1692

0*005

0*003

Slight narcosis observed 18 minutes after ad-
ministration, and lasted 3 hours. Respira-
tion fell about two-thirds. Ears hypersemic
and blood-vessels dilated.

3

0*01

Light narcosis in 14 minutes, and lasted 4
hours. Respiration fell from 30 to 4 per 10
seconds. Pupil became somewhat smaller.

4

1650

0*02

0*012

Light narcosis observed in about 10 minutes,
and lasted 6 hours. Respiration fell from
30 to 6 and 4 per 10 seconds. Pupil some-
what smaller.

5

1304

0*05

0*038

Narcosis marked in 4 minutes, and lasted all
day. It was deep, and animal could hardly
be roused. Pupils were extremely small all
the time. Respiration fell from 22 to 4 per
10 seconds.

6

1420

0*1

0*07

Deep narcosis set in after 2 minutes and lasted
all day. Pupils extremely small all the time.
Respiration fell from 25 to 3 per 10 seconds.
When severely pinched only made a slight
movement. There was no increase reflexes.

7

907

0*15

0*16

Deep narcosis 1 hour 1 8 minutes after admini-
stration. There was slight increase in re-
flexes, which passed off very soon, the narcosis
remaining deep. The pupil was at first very
much contracted, but 17 minutes after ad-
ministration became rather larger and re-
mained so. It never dilated more than to a
small medium size.

8

1304

0*2

0*15

There was rapidly deep narcosis. 38 minutes
after administration pupil had dilated to large
medium size and remained so. In 2 hours
28 minutes there was slight increase reflexes
and animal was restless and gnashing its
teeth. Respiration fell from 15 to 5 per 10
seconds. Effects lasted all day.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

335

Physiological Action of Codeine.

(Methylmorphine Cl7H17NO.OH.OCH3).

The action of codeine obtained directly from opium has been
investigated by many experimenters (see Bibliography). We
found that artificial codeine prepared from morphine has identically
the same action as the natural product, and hence a comparatively
small number of experiments was sufficient for our purpose.

Its action is exerted on the central nervous system, and has
a close generic resemblance to that of morphine. Schroeder and
others have pointed out that it causes an evident narcotic stage,
followed by a condition of increased reflex excitability which
amounts to tetanus if the dose be large enough. The narcotic
stage is, however, shorter and much less deep than with morphine,
and if large doses be given to animals is often hardly noticeable
or quite absent.

The narcotic action of codeine on man is much feebler than that
of morphine, and only in one case (a child) has its tetanising effect
been observed.

Its paralysing influence on motor nerves in frogs has been
pointed out by several observers, and is very much greater than
that of morphine. In frogs the heart is slowed; in Mammalia blood
pressure is not affected, and the pulse-rate only very slightly.
This is probably due to depression of the cardiac motor ganglia
(Schroeder). In dogs and cats it produces marked vomiting and
diarrhoea, much more so than morphine.

Frogs. — Our own experiments on frogs confirmed Schroeder’s to
a large extent. We found that very small doses, such as 00013
grm. had no apparent action at the time, although next day there
was a very faint increase in the reflexes. Larger doses of 5 milli-
grms. and upwards caused a characteristic stage of depression with
diminished reflexes. This is not deep, lasts but a short time, and
is followed by increased reflex. When the dose was 0‘01 grm. or
more, the narcotic stage was followed by tetanus.

Schroeder states that if as much as 2 or 3 centigrms. be given, the
narcotic stage is never developed, but that tetanus comes on almost
at once. This, however, depends entirely on the rate of absorption.
We found that much larger doses (even (H)6 grm.) occasionally had

336 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. ,

marked narcosis preceding the tetanus, while 2 centigrms. might
give tetanus almost at once. It is clearly a question of rapidity of
absorption.

With the smaller doses the tetanus is exactly like that of strych-
nine ; hut with larger amounts there is great tendency to exhaus-
tion, just as with morphine, so that soon no tetanic spasm can be
induced, the frog responding to stimulation by a mere twitch.
This condition depends partly on depression of the cord and partly
on depression of motor nerves. When the codeine is injected
directly into the aorta tetanus occurs at once. Thus,

Expt. 6. — Frog pithed ; body ligatured, with exception of lumbar
nerves.

12.22. — 0-005 grm. codeine in \ cub. cent, water and acetic
acid (q.s.) per aortam.

12.23. — Violent tetanus.

12.28. — Tetanus is becoming less violent, hut is still marked.

12.45. — Is now a good deal exhausted, hut still gives a violent
jerk on stimulation.

1.0. — FTo response on stimulation. The cord is quite exhausted.

The brachial nerves (unprotected) are quite excitable at 180 mm.,
the sciatic nerves (protected) also excitable at 180 mm.

Experiments made ia the same way with 1, 2, 3, and 5 centigrms.
gave similar results, but exhaustion ensued more rapidly, and,
especially with the larger doses, the motor nerves were completely
paralysed, or very much depressed in excitability. When small
doses such as |~2 milligrms. are administered by the aorta, there
occurs a stage of depression, followed by an increase of reflexes,
just as in the case of morphine.

With regard, therefore, to the action of codeine on the cord, we
find (as with morphine) that small doses depress its reflex and con-
ducting power, while larger ones cause tetanus. If a large dose he
thrown at once into the substance of the spinal cord by injecting
it directly into the aorta, then no preliminary narcotic stage occurs,
but an increase of reflexes from the very first.

The action of codeine on the motor nerves in frogs is very
distinct. When the codeine is injected directly into the vessels it
occurs very rapidly, hut if a large dose (about 5 centigrms.) be
given subcutaneously, paralysis or very marked depression occurs

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

337

only after some hours. Thus after 6 centigrms. it was five hours
before the sciatics became completely paralysed, the heart still con-
tinuing to heat. Much smaller doses, however, cause very evident
depression. The exhaustion of the nerve terminations, consequent
on the prolonged tetanus, also contributes to the paralysis, for if
one sciatic nerve be cut before administering the codeine, we found
that it did not become so much paralysed as the other which was
left intact.

A dose of 2 centigrms. and upwards was fatal in most cases.

Rabbits. — The action on rabbits is essentially similar to what we
have seen in frogs. The narcosis is slight, the animal can easily
be aroused, and when the dose is increased, this, instead of deepen-
ing the narcosis, causes a condition of increased reflex excitability.
The animal in consequence gives frequent starts, or may have
tetanus. As a result of the continual disturbance, the narcosis
becomes distinctly lighter, although it does not wholly disappear.

The most typical effects can be got by giving the alkaloid in
divided doses.

A careful comparison of the results of previous experimenters
shows that the minimum lethal dose varies from 0*06 to 0T grm.
in rabbits. When such large doses are given at once, the narcotic
stage is very ill defined or entirely absent, the tetanus supervening
almost at once.

The effects of small doses are seen in the accompanying Table.

Action of Small Doses of Codeine on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body|
Weight.

Effects.

1

1530

0-005

0-003

No effect.

2

1445

o-oi

0-006

Scarcely perceptible drowsiness.

3

1530

0-02

0-013

Slight drowsiness, lasting 1J hour. Slight
slowing of respiration.

4

1587

0-02

0-012

Same as Experiment 3.

5

1304

0-03

0-023

Very distinctly drowsy for over two hours. Sat
up all the time; respiration unaltered.

6

1644

0-03

0-018

Was drowsy for over two hours. Lay on belly ;
pupils small ; respiration unaltered.

VOL. XVII. 26/9/90 y

338

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

From the foregoing it is evident, as Schroeder and others have
previously pointed out, that the action of codeine is qualitatively
very similar to that of morphine. Its tetanising action and its
action on motor nerves are very much greater, while its toxic effect
is at least about three times larger. On the other hand, its narcotic
power is about four times less than that of morphine (in rabbits).
In man the narcotic effect is probably even much more diminished,
but exact experiments are wanting to determine the extent.

Ethylmorphine (Codethyline of Grimaux and Bochefontaine).

This compound is the analogue of codeine, being the ethyl ether
of morphine, whereas codeine is the methyl ether. We prepared
the base by treating together morphine, soda, and ethyl iodide, in
molecular proportions in alcoholic solution. The base was further
separated and purified in substantially the same way as described
under methocodeine. The hydrochloride was found to be very
soluble in water, which fact interfered with its purification from
that menstruum. From the hydrochloride, which had been re-
crystallised both from water and from alcohol, the chloroplatinate
was prepared.

(a) *433 grin, (dry in water-bath) gave on ignition *0822 grm.
Platinum = 18-98 per cent.

(b) -3098 grm. (dry at 140° C.) gave *0588 grm. Platinum = 18-97
per cent.

2[Ci7Hi8(C2H5)N03.HCl].PtCl4 = 18-97 per cent. Pt.

The alkaloid itself was prepared from the solution of its muriate
by precipitation with ammonia, and recrystallisation from alcohol ;
by which process it is obtained in well-defined prismatic crystals.
In the air-bath the crystals fused at, or near, 190° C.

Physiological Action of Ethylmorphine.

The only observations on the pharmacology of this substance are
contained in a short paper by Bochefontaine, who obtained it
from Grimaux. He found that in frogs doses of 0-007 to 0-012
grm. caused violent tetanic convulsions like those of strychnine.
Rabbits died after 0*1 1 grm. subcutaneously, the symptoms being
again violent tetanus. He considers that its action is the counter-
part of the strychnine action.

339

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

Our experiments, while confirming those of Bochefontaine as
regards the effect of large doses, have led us to the conclusion that
ethylmorphine has an action identical with that of codeine
(methylmorphine), and that if the dose he properly chosen one can
easily distinguish in animals a narcotic and a tetanic stage, just as
with the other members of the group. Bochefontaine used too
large doses, thereby completely masking the narcotic effect. It
seems to be indifferent, therefore, whether a molecule of methyl or
ethyl be introduced so long as they replace the same H atom in
morphine.

In our experiments we used the hydrochlorate of ethylmorphine,
which is quite soluble in water.

Frogs. — With doses of 0*005 - 0*025 grm. the narcotic stage is well
marked; the animal becomes lethargic, the reflexes are diminished,
movements are not so active, respiration is less frequent, and the
pupils diminish in size. With the smaller doses this is followed by
an increase in reflexes, with the larger by tetanus. As the dose
increases the narcotic stage gets shorter and less pronounced, and
the tetanus supervenes more rapidly. Exhaustion follows just as
with codeine. The convulsions are spinal, and occur or continue
after division of the spinal cord at the atlanto-occipital membrane.

The pupil is small during the first stage, but dilates as the reflex
excitability increases.

During the poisoning the motor nerves gradually become impaired
in excitability. To avoid repetition we may simply state, that they
are affected just as with codeine.

With doses of 0*01-0*015 grm. the heart is considerably slowed,
and the strength of the beats lessened.

Direct injection of a solution into the aorta (0*01 grm.) brought
on tetanus at once without previous depression.

The minimum lethal dose for a frog is generally about 2 centigrms.,
although smaller doses sometimes prove fatal, probably from ex-
haustion after the tetanus.

The following experiment shows its action : —

Expt. 8. — Frog, 24 grms.

3.8. — 0*01 grm. ethylmorphine hydrochlorate in J cub. cent,
water subcutaneously.

3.12. — Pupil much smaller; rather sluggish.

340 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

3.18. — Pupil still smaller; more sluggish; jumps very heavily;
placed on back, struggles but cannot recover its position. Reflexes
are much diminished ; only responds slightly to pinching toe.

3.25. — Lies on back without struggling, otherwise about same.

3.45. — Reflexes increased. Prog is having almost continuously
slight tetanic jerks. Pupils are very dilated. Position is that of
a frog poisoned with strychnine.

4.5. — The slightest touch causes one tetanic spasm, leaving the
frog much exhausted.

4.50. — Same, but becoming more exhausted.

The duration and onset of the two stages vary a good deal even
with the same dose, this being doubtless due to differences in the
rate of absorption of the poison.

Rabbits. — Here also the action is similar to that of codeine.
When small doses are given the animal becomes drowsy and
lethargic or sleeps quietly, respiration is slowed, while the heart and
pupil are but slightly affected. It can always be easily roused.

When larger doses are administered there is considerable narcosis,
intermingled after a short time with increased reflexes, which may
proceed to clonic and tonic convulsions. During these the pupil
dilates.

When a lethal dose is given the animal quickly dies in tetanus,
just as with strychnine. About 0T grm. is the minimum lethal
dose for medium-sized rabbits. The following experiment, along
with the subjoined Table, gives a tolerably correct idea of its general
action : —

Expt. 9. — Rabbit, 1502 grm. Ht., 32 ; R., 27 in 10 secs.

10.54. — 0*08 ethylmorphine hydrochlorate in 2 cub. cent, water
subcutaneously.

11.0. — Quieter, resting chin on table; no increase reflexes.
H., 27 ; R., 25.

11.3. — Alarmed, jerks at least noise.

11.5. — Had a clonic convulsion (trembling).

11.7. — Is a good deal narcotised, but reflexes are increased, and
starts spontaneously or on stimulation.

11.20. — Pupil dilated. In statu quo.

11.47. — Lying on belly narcotised, but can be easily aroused.
Often gives a slight spontaneous start. H., 27 ; R., 22.

341

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

12.0. — Narcosis deeper; reflex excitability is diminishing.
H., 26; R, 12.

1.30. — Lying on belly with head on table; is easily aroused but
relapses at once into somnolence. Sometimes gives a faint twitch.
H., 30 ; R, 8.

3.30. — Has gradually recovered, and, although still very sleepy, is
now sitting up.

5. 30. — Almost completely recovered, but still sleepy and lethargic.
H., 33 ; R, 13.

Action of Hydrochlorate of Etliylmorphine on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Gratis.

Dose

in

Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Remarks.

1

1247

o-oi

0-008

Was slightly drowsy for 3 hours.

2

963

0-02

0-021

Very distinctly narcotised for about 4 hours.
Respiration fell from 29 per 10 seconds to 4.
Ht. from 34 to 26. Was always easily roused.
No increase reflexes.

3

963

0-02

0-021

Same as in Experiment 2.

4

1247

0-05

0-04

Lay as if deeply asleep for 2 hours, and then
gradually recovered. Respiration fell from 19
to 11. Ht. and pupil remained unaltered.
Could always be easily roused.

5

1502

0*08

0-053

Experiment 9 in text.

6

1190

0*08

0-066

Almost same as 5.

7

963

o-oi

0103

Was at first narcotised, but in 6 minutes had
clonic spasms, and in 9 minutes violent tetanus,
during which it died. Post mortem was negative.

The action of ethylmorphine is therefore, so far as our experi-
ments permit us to judge, exactly similar to that of codeine, and
stands in the same relation to morphine.

A mylmorphine.

This compound was formed in the same manner as the methyl
and ethyl derivatives, by allowing morphinate of soda and amyl
chloride to react together in alcoholic solution, with subsequent
evaporation and extraction with chloroform. On converting the
base into muriate the salt readily crystallised.

342 Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Of the chloroplatinate -3115 grm. gave *055 grm. Pt = 17*68 per
cent.

2[Ci7Hi8(C5Hii)N03]PtH2Cl6 = 17*48 per cent. Pt.

Physiological Action of Amylmorphine.

The hydrochlorate of amylmorphine was used, but as the results
showed its action to be very similar to, if not identical with, that
of methyl- or ethylmorphine, it is unnecessary to go into further
details.

A cetylmorphine.

The acetyl derivatives of morphine "were first investigated by
Wright. In our first experiments we prepared acetylmorphine by
the action of boiling glacial acetic acid on morphine for several
hours, but we found on analysis of the substance prepared in that
way that it evidently contained morphine. Better results were
obtained by heating together at 100° C. equivalent proportions of
anhydrous morphine and acetic anhydride. After reacting for an
hour, water was added, and ammonia in slight excess. The mixture
was then shaken up with ether, in order to remove the acetyl-
morphine, and the ethereal solution agitated with hydrochloric acid,
which caused the acetylmorphine to separate as hydrochloride. This
salt is rather sparingly soluble in water. The chloroplatinate dried
at 100° lost no wreight further by drying at 130°.

•124 grm. gave by ignition *023 grm. Pt= 18*54 per cent.

2[Ci7His(C2H30)N03.HC1]PtC14 = 18*48 per cent. Pt.

The salt, as prepared by the action of glacial acid on morphine,
gave a chloroplatinate, yielding 18*20 per cent. Pt.

Physiological Action of Acetylmorphine.

The only previous experiments with this alkaloid are those of
F. M. Pierce, who obtained it from C. R. A. Wright. He made
three observations on dogs and two on rabbits. These were
sufficient to demonstrate that the action has a general resemblance
to that of codeine, but they do not show what relationship qualita-
tively and quantitatively exists between acetylmorphine and the
other members of the morphine group.

Our own observations were made on frogs, rabbits, and dogs. As

343

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

the hydrochlorate is not a very soluble salt, we used a solution of
acetylmorphine in water and acetic acid.

Frogs. — Doses of 5 milligrms. caused restlessness, but no character-
istic symptoms. When 0*01 grm. is exhibited the frog shows perfectly
the two stages, although neither the narcotic nor the tetanic condi-
tion is very pronounced. With 0*015-0*025 grm. there is marked
lethargy and depression of reflexes, followed in a very short time by
violent tetanic spasms. The larger the dose the more rapidly does
tetanus ensue.

If a solution (2-3 centigrms.) be injected directly into the aorta
tetanus ensues at once without any preliminary depression of reflexes.
Acetylmorphine paralyses or depresses motor nerves to very much
the same extent as codeine does.

The heart is markedly slowed. After 0*01 grm. the rate fell from
56 to 44 per minute.

The following experiments show its general action : —

Expt. 10. — Frog, 26 grms. K., 20 in 10 seconds.

2.40. — 0*01 acetylmorphine subcutaneously.

2.48. — Mery dull and lethargic. Pupils smaller. R., 17.

3.0 — Lies on back if placed there. Jumps very clumsily.
Pupils small. R., 8. Reflexes diminished.

3.42. — In same condition.

4.22. — Pupil now very large; slight increase in reflexes. Is
active and lively.

5.10. — About same. Narcosis has now passed off.

Next day, active and lively. Slight increase of reflexes.

Expt. 11. — Frog, 28 grms. R., 18 in 10 seconds.

10.59. — 0*025 under skin of back.

11.2. — Much more sluggish ; pupil smaller. R., 14.

11.10. — R. ceased. Lies on back; pupil very small; responds
only to severe pinching.

11.16. — Is still much narcotised, but each irritation brings on a
tetanus. Pupil remains small during the spasm.

11.20 — Lying in strychnine position. Tetanus occurs spontane-
ously and on irritation.

11.35. — Is very exhausted after each spasm, so that irritation
does not bring on another until after an interval. Corneal reflex

gone.

344 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

12.10. — Yery much exhausted, and on irritation gives simply a
jerk.

12.30. — Lying as if dead. Only sign of life is heating of heart,
10 in 30 seconds.

Rabbits. — In rabbits the narcotic action is developed after the
very small dose of one milligrm. The stupor is by no means pro-
found, but the animal remains drowsy for some hours ; the pupils
are small, and the respirations are diminished in frequency. When
the dose is gradually increased there occurs marked narcotism, with
great weakness in the limbs, and remarkable slowing of the respiration.
The respiration may be so much slowed that the blood is not
properly aerated and dyspnoea results. When the dose is increased
to 0T5-0’25 grm. the narcotic stage is much shortened, the
increase of reflex excitability comes on more quickly, and proceeds
to clonic or tonic spasms and death. The heart becomes very
feeble towards the end.

Just as with other members of the morphine group, the narcotised
condition of the brain does not wholly pass off during the tetanic
stage, although it seems to be a good deal lessened, probably by the
constant irritation and state of disquietude in which the animal is
kept by the spasms.

Dogs. — In a spaniel weighing 13 kilogrms., 1 milligrm. subcutane-
ously caused slight drowsiness ; larger doses (1-4 centigrms.), while
having a more marked narcotic effect, had a distinct tendency to
cause nausea and looseness of the bowels.

Expt. 12. — Rabbit, 1474 grms. Ht., 27; R., 13 in 10 seconds.

1.22. — 0T acetylmorphine subcutaneously.

1.24. — Head on table. H., 22, irregular and intermittent; R., 2.

1.30. — H., 24, regular; R., 2. Holds head in air as if suffering
from dyspnoea. Pupil slightly smaller.

1.37. — H., 27; R., 2 in 15 seconds; head still held up. Lying
on belly, with legs spread out.

1.45* — Reflex excitability is increased.

1.55. — H., 27 ; R., 3. Noise or touch causes slight start.

2.40. — H., 24 ; R., 5, Reflexes very little increased. Legs very
weak ; cannot stand.

4.10. — H., 26; R., 6. Is still a good deal narcotised. Reflexes
not increased now.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

345

7.30. — H., 26 ; R., 4. Is still a good deal narcotised. Next day,
well.

Expt. 13. — Rabbit, 935 grms. H., 29; R., 22 in 10 seconds.

9.56. — 0T5 acetylmorphine in 10 seconds.

9.58. — H., 25 ; R. scarcely perceptible. Lying on belly7', with
head on table. Pupil extremely small.

10.2. — H., 28; seems scarcely to breathe. Evidently suffering
from dyspnoea, as it holds its head backwards and upwards. No
increase reflexes. Pupil still very small.

10.10. — H., 29; R., 3. Slight increase reflex excitability.

10.15. — Had slight tetanic jerk.

10.25. — Has clonic spasms continuously, trembling and jerking.
H., 25 ; R, 5. Pupils medium.

10.32.— Clonic spasms more violent.

11.0. — H., 27 ; R., 6. Spasms not quite so frequent.

11.45. — Tendency to spasm is rapidly passing off. Lying on
belly with chin on table ; legs are sprawled out, and so weak that
rabbit cannot move itself. H., 28; R., 8.

12.30. — Has lain quietly. H., 29; R, 3. Pupil medium.
Stimulation still causes slight spasm.

2.5. — H., 29; R., 6. Lying on side; still gives occasionally a
slight jerk. Resp. is extremely faint and hardly perceptible.

2.20. — Died quietly from gradual failure of respiration.

Post-mortem. — Appearances of asphyxia.

In acetylmorphine the same hydrogen atom of morphine has been
replaced as in methyl- or ethylmorphine, but by an acid radical
(acetyl) instead of an alkyl radical. Its action is much nearer to
that of codeine than to that of morphine.

Compared with morphine, its power of causing tetanus is much
increased, while its narcotic effects, although visible after smaller
doses, are not nearly so deep. As soon as we increased the dose
for the purpose of deepening the narcosis, the increase of reflexes
was developed and disturbed the narcotic effect. The depressant
action which it exerts on respiration is much greater than that of
morphine.

Compared with codeine, an equal narcotic effect is induced in
rabbits by about one-tenth of the dose, while about a three times
larger dose is necessary to cause tetanus. Qualitatively, therefore,

346 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. i

we find that acetylmorpliine closely resembles the other members of
the group, differing chiefly quantitatively and in some slight matters
of detail, — that is to say, it acts on the same systems and organs
of the body, and affects them in a similar manner.

Action of Acetylmorphine on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Effects.

1

1464

o-ooi

0-0006

Was distinctly drowsy for 2 hours. Respira-
tion fell from 23 per 10 seconds to 11.
Heart unchanged.

2

849

o-ooi

o-ooii

Drowsiness began in 5 minutes and lasted
about 2 hours. Lay during this time as if
soundly asleep. After 9 minutes respiration
had fallen from 19 to 4 per 10 seconds.
Heart remained same.

3

1350

0*0025

0-0016

Same as 2.

4

793

0-0025

0-003

In 10 minutes after administration lay on
belly with chin on table as if soundly asleep,
and remained so for 3 hours, then slowly
recovered. Respiration fell from 21 to 6 in
10 seconds. Pupils were small. Heart
remained same. ,

5

1020

0-005

0*005 .

In 2 minutes was drowsy, and pupils smaller ;
in 4 minutes respiration had fallen from 22
to 5 per 10 seconds and pupil very small ;
cannot stand up ; in 10 minutes respiration
2 ; was considerably narcotised for 5 hours
and gradually recovered.

6

930

o-oi

0-011

Was drowsy in 2 minutes ; pupil very small in
4 minutes, and respiration fell from 19 to 5.
Lay for 5 hours as if deeply asleep ; difficult
to rouse.

7

1133

0-05

0-043

Was considerably narcotised for 8 hours. No
increase in reflexes.

8

1474

o-i

0-067

Experiment 12 in text.

9

935

0-15

0-16

Experiment 13 in text.

10

1077

0-25

0-23

Same as Experiment 9.

Diacetylmorpliine.

This compound was prepared by the action of acetic anhydride
on anhydrous morphine, in the proportion of 25 parts of the
former to 30 parts of the latter. When a smaller amount of acetic
anhydride was used, the product was found to be mixed with the
monacetyl derivative. After digesting the morphine and acetic
anhydride together for several hours on the water -bath, the product

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 347

was evaporated, taken up with water, and slight excess of sodium
carbonate added. The mixture was then shaken up with chloro-
form, which on evaporating left a crystalline residue. This was
dissolved in hot alcohol, the solution left to crystallise, and the
crystals separated and pressed. From these a chloroplatinate was
prepared, and a portion of it dried in water-bath.

*255 grm. gave ‘043 Pt. = 16*86 per cent.

Portion dried in air-bath at 130° C.

•2985 grm. gave *0505 Pt= 16*91 per cent.

2[Ci7Hir(C2H30)2N03.HCl]PtCl4= 17*13 per cent.

Physiological Action of Diacetylmorphine.

Pierce also made a few experiments on dogs with this alkaloid,
and obtained much the same results as with acetylmorphine.

Our experiments were made on frogs, rabbits, and dogs with a
solution of diacetylmorphine in acetic acid and water.

We found its action to be exactly similar to that of acetylmor-
phine, and hence a detailed account is superfluous. It seems to us
to be slightly more active, both as a narcotising and tetanising agent,
but otherwise there is no difference. The lethal dose is about the
same, and the same very remarkable slowing of the respiration was
observable.

For purposes of comparison we give notes of some of the experi-
ments.

Expt. 14. — Babbit, 1530 grms. H., 34; B. 19 in 10 seconds.

12.48. — 0‘01 diacetylmorphine subcutaneously.

12.50. — Drowsy.

12.52. — H., 27; E., 3. Pupils much smaller; chin resting on
table, exactly as if sound asleep.

12.58. — H., 29 ; E., 1. Blood in ear vessels looks very venous.

1.30. — H., 30; E., 2. Very narcotised, no increase reflexes.

2.0. — H., 33; B., 5.

2.30. — H., 29; B., 2, Lying as if very sound asleep. Easily
roused, but falls asleep again almost at once.

3.30. — H., 30 ; B., 3. About same.

4.30. — H., 29 ; B., 6. Still rather drowsy; can move about, but
legs are very shaky and weak.

Expt. 15. — Eabbit, 840 grms. H., 28; B., 15 in 10 seconds.

348

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

10.53. — 042 grm. diacetylmorphine subcutaneously.

10.55. — H., 29 ; R., 2. Pupils smaller; lying on belly.

11.0. — H., 30; R., 3. Increase of reflexes marked; pupil large.
11.6. — Violent tetanic convulsion, followed shortly by two more.
11.20. — Lying on belly; frequently starts violently, and some-
times has tetanus. H., 28 ; R., 3.

12.30. — Clonic spasms have been nearly continuous ; head, neck,
and legs are jerked almost without ceasing, and the teeth are gnashed.

Touch causes a start. H., 28 ; R., 3.

2.30. — Has been same, and has had several violent tetanic attacks.

2.50. — Lying on side, having frequent tetanic attacks, very nearly
dying in each. Pupil large. H., 12; R., 4.

3.20. — Died during a convulsion.

Post-mortem examination was negative, except the ordinary
appearances of death by asphyxia.

Action of Diacetylmorphine on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rahhit
in Grms.

Dose in
Gnns.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Effects.

1

1474

o-ooi

0-0006

Was drowsy for about 2 hours ; respiration fell
from 19 to 9 per 10 seconds.

2

750

o-ooi

0-0013

Was drowsy for 3 hours ; respiration fell from
17 to 8.

3

1530

0-005

0-0032

Was drowsy in 2 minutes ; in 4 minutes lay
down with chin on table ; pupils verjT small ;
in 14 minutes respiration was 3 in 10 seconds ;
weak on legs and cannot stand. Remained
considerably narcotised for 4 hours.

4

1530

0-01

0-065

Experiment 14 in text.

5

935

0-02

0-021

In 6 minutes respiration fell from 18 to 2 per 10
seconds. Lay as if deeply asleep ; pupils
small ; legs very weak. Remained so for 6
hours.

6

1530

0-04

0-026

Became deeply narcotised in a few minutes.
Temperature, pulse-rate, and respiration fell ;
great weakness in legs. Remained so all day.

7

954

0-05

0-052

Was deeply narcotised all day.

8

840

0-12

0-14

Experiment 15 in text.

9

1530

0-15

0*098

Much the same as in Experiment 8, but re-
covered.

In a dog weighing 7400 grms. the administration of 5 milli-

grammes caused drowsiness for three hours. There was consider-

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

349

able fall of heart-rate and respiration, salivation and a tendency to
diarrhoea. The narcosis was by no means deep. Larger doses, of
2 and 5 centigrammes, caused symptoms very similar to what Cl.
Bernard has described as occurring in dogs after codeine.

Benzoylmo rphine.

This body was originally prepared by the action of benzoyl
chloride on morphine. The process has the disadvantage in that,
if an excess of alkaloid be used, there is apt to be a very small yield
of the desired product, while, on the other hand, if excess of benzoyl
chloride be employed, there is sure to be formation of a certain
amount of dibenzoylmorphine. It occurred to us that the method
which succeeded with alkyl chlorides might also be applied with
chlorides of acid radicals. Accordingly 30 grms. of morphine were
dissolved in alcohol with 4 grms. of caustic soda, and 14 grms. of
benzoyl chloride added. The mixture was allowed to stand in the
cold for twelve hours, then heated to boiling and evaporated. Water
and a little sodium carbonate were added to the residue, the mixture
shaken up with chloroform, filtered, and the chloroform separated
and evaporated. The residue so obtained was purified by crystal-
lisation from hot alcohol. From the product a chloroplatinate was
prepared and dried at 130°. Of this *373 grin, gave *0605 grm.
Pt. = 16-22 per cent.

2[Ci7H18(C7H50)N03.HCl]PtCl4= 16-48 per cent. Pt.

The base gives no blue coloration with ferric chloride. As
observed in the air-bath, it fused at 168° C. When converted into
hydrochloride, the strong aqueous solution showed no signs of
crystallisation even after several days. From these results it is
evident that the above method of double decomposition proceeds
with benzoyl chloride as it does with methyl chloride.

Physiological Action of Benzoylmorphine.

The physiological action of this substance has not been previously
investigated. After a few experiments it became evident to us
that the action is practically identical with that of acetylmorphine.
In frogs 5 milligrms. caused a slight degree of narcosis, followed
by increase of reflexes. One centigrm. induced marked narcosis,

350 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

followed by tetanus in a quarter of an hour or more, while 2 centi-
grms. was a lethal dose.

The action on rabbits can be seen from the subjoined Table.
Filehne has stated that benzoylmorphine is a local anaesthetic,
but after a number of experiments on ourselves and on animals
we are unable to confirm his results.

Benzoyl, like acetyl, is an acid radical, and our results seem to show
that it is of little consequence as regards action which of them is intro-
duced, so long as they replace the same hydrogen atom in morphine.

Action of Benzoylmorphine on Babbits.

No.

Weight of Rahhit
in Gnns.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body-
Weight.

Effects.

1

1500

o-ooi

0*00066

Lay for 2J hours as if gently asleep ; respira-
tion fell from 17 to 10 per 10 seconds.

2

1304

0*005

0*0039

Lay as if asleep for 6 hours. Was a good deal
narcotised, but could always be easily roused.
In 5 minutes respiration fell from 16 per 3 0
seconds to 11, and in 11 minutes to 3.

3

1560

o-oi

0*0064

Was deeply narcotised for 6 hours. Respira-
tion rapidly fell from 24 to 2 in 10 seconds.
No increase reflexes.

4

1560

0*1

0-064

Was at first much narcotised, but in 20 minutes
reflexes had greatly increased and in 27
minutes had tetanus. After lasting for
about 6 hours, the tetanic condition passed
off, but the animal remained deeply nar-
cotised for many hours afterwards.

Dibenzoylm orphine.

10 grms. of anhydrous morphine and 20 grms. benzoylchloride
were together heated in a sealed tube placed in a water-bath for
seven hours. The contents of the tube were then evaporated, the
residue treated with hot water, and excess of ammonia added. The
whole was now shaken up with chloroform, and the latter evapor-
ated. There were no signs of crystallisation ; wherefore the sub-
stance was dissolved in ether, and the ether driven off, but the solu-
tion refused to crystallise. Its chloroplatinate, dried at 140° C.,
was ignited. '2565 grm. gave *0365 grm. Pt. = 14*23 per cent.
2[Ci7Hi7(C7H50)2N03-HCl]PtC]4= 14*03 percent. Pt.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

351

It was attempted to further purify the compound by treating
with alkali, washing the precipitate, and dissolving the same in
alcohol. Crystals formed very slowly, were rather dark in colour,
and gave a platinum salt, which yielded only 13*5 per cent, of
metal on ignition ; whence it is probable that the dibenzoyl
derivative is somewhat prone to decomposition, and is therefore
not a very satisfactory compound to work with.

Physiological Action of Dihenzoylmorphine.

So far as we could judge, the action of this substance given by
the stomach resembles the action of benzoylmorphine. It was im-
possible to carry out exact observations, as the attempt to form a
soluble salt of dihenzoylmorphine by adding acid resulted in the
compound being broken up and benzoic acid precipitated.

Methylmorphium Chloride ( Morphine Metliochloride).

When methylchloride is brought in contact with morphine in
solution, preferably under pressure, direct combination of the two
compounds takes place. If morphine methochloride were a com-
pound strictly analogous to morphine hydrochloride, we should
expect that the former would yield, on treatment with potash,
potassium chloride, methyl alcohol, and morphine. As a matter of
fact, however, we obtain potassium chloride and methylmorphium
hydroxide (morphine methohydroxide), no precipitate of morphine
being obtained under any circumstances. When a morphine or
methylmorphine salt is heated in a sealed tube with hydrochloric
acid, apomorphine is the chief product of the reaction. On heating
methylmorphium chloride in the same manner, we have found that
no apomorphine is formed. The compounds formed by the union
of an alkaloid with an alkyl haloid were described by Crum Brown
and Fraser as methylmorphium iodide, ethyl strychnium chloride, &c.,
to indicate that these are analogous to the corresponding ammonium
compounds, the alkaloids from which they are derived being analo-
gous to ammonia. The compounds in question are now more
usually described as morphine methiodide, strychnine ethochloride.
&c., these names being considered more systematic from a chemical
point of view, hut the nomenclature adopted by Crum Brown and
Fraser is probably the better, from a pharmacological standpoint,

352 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. jj

A curious error has crept into several text-books referring to these
additive compounds of alkaloids, an error which amounts to a
misrepresentation of the investigation of Crum Brown and Fraser.

In these hooks the compounds are referred to as substitution com-
pounds, in which hydrogen has been replaced by an alcohol radical,
whereas they are addition compounds. Stolnikow, in his paper
on morphine, and Boehm (Herzgifte, p. 3), have made this same
mistake.

The methylmorphium chloride employed in our experiments was
prepared as follows. Morphine was dissolved in hot methylated
spirit with a proportion of soda, and gaseous methyl chloride passed
into the solution. The alcohol was then evaporated, and the codeine
extracted by means of chloroform ; after which the solution was
neutralised with hydrochloric acid, and faint excess of ammonia
added. By this process the morphine was separated, and on evapo-
rating the mother-liquor, methylmorphium chloride crystallised out.

The salt was purified by several crystallisations from water, and
was obtained in colourless, well-defined prisms. The solution gave
no precipitate with ammonia or sodium carbonate, and otherwise
behaved like a methylmorphium salt.

The salt lost weight by exposure in the water-bath, hut even at
1 20° C. was not completely dried. On raising the temperature to
140°-145° *4997 grm. lost *0475 grm.

Loss of weight at 140° = 9 ‘505 per cent.
C17H19N08.CH8C1.2H20 = 9*690 per cent. H20.

The chlorine was estimated in the air-dry salt by dissolving in
water, adding nitric acid and nitrate of silver, according to the
usual method.

•5385 gave *208 Ag Cl= *0514 Cl, which is = 9f54 per cent. Cl
Cl7H19N03.CH3.C1.2H20 = 9-55 per cent. Cl.

In a second determination *621 grm. gave *239 Ag Cl =*0591
Cl, which is = 9*51 per cent.

The chloroplatinate was prepared by dissolving the salt in water,
adding slight excess of platinic chloride, and washing the collected
precipitate with cold water. *268 grm. of the chloroplatinate (dry
in water-bath) was incinerated, and left ‘0496 platinum = 18-50 per
cent.

(Cl7H19N03.CH3Cl)2.PtCl4*3H20 = 18-51 per cent.

353

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

Another portion of the chloroplatinate was dried in air-bath at
120° C. ’271 grm. incinerated left '0528 grm. Pt., which is = 19*48
per cent.

(Cl7H19N03.CH3Cl)2PtCl4= 19*50 per cent. Pt.

Physiological Action of Methylmorphium Chloride.

The only previous investigation into the action of this body is
that of Crum Brown and Fraser. Our results confirm theirs in
some respects, but differ materially in others, and hence it may be well
to give a summary of their experiments. They used the iodide and
sulphate of methylmorphium, and performed the following experi-
ments with them : — 20 grains of the iodide were given subcutaneously
to a rabbit, suspended (but not dissolved) in 2 drachms water ; 30
grains were given per os. Dr Fraser took \ and 1 grain. In no
case was any visible effect produced. The iodide is, however,
owing to its insolubility, an unsuitable salt for experiment, and
would dissolve so very slowly that its effects might be inappreciable.
Hence these observations may be left out of account. To get rid of
this fallacy, they used the sulphate, which is quite soluble. Doses
of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 grains gave marked symptoms, while 10 grains
was fatal to rabbits in 55 minutes, and 15 grains in 7 minutes.

On frogs they performed four experiments. One grain of iodide
of methylmorphium caused paralysis, followed by recovery • 2 grains,
paralysis, followed by death. Two experiments made with 1 grain
of the sulphate caused death, preceded by paralysis. In neither
case was the duration of the symptoms observed. Their conclusions
are given as follows : — “ It has been proved in a most satisfactory
manner that sulphate of methylmorphium possesses no convulsant
action ; for neither in the experiments we have described in detail,
nor in any of the others we performed with this substance, was
there any trace of spasmodic action or of exaggeration of the reflex
function. It, however, undoubtedly causes hypnotic symptoms.
It would therefore seem that sulphate of methylmorphium agrees
with morphia in possessing a hypnotic action, but differs from it in
producing paralysis and in being free from all convulsant action.”
They hold that the most prominent action of methylmorphium
consists in paralysis of the terminations of motor nerves, and that
this is the cause of the general paralysis.

vol. xvn. 26/9/90

z

354 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Our results agree with theirs as regards the fact that methyl-
morphium retains the narcotic action of morphine, hut we find that
it also retains the tetanising action to a very marked degree. As
Crum Brown and Fraser point out, the action on motor nerves is a
markedly paralysing one, but, as we shall show, this obscured the
tetanus and led them to incomplete conclusions. The four frogs
on which they experimented received too large doses, and were not
observed for a sufficient length of time to show the proper develop-
ment of the action of methylmorphium.

Our experiments were made on frogs and rabbits with the chloride
of methylmorphium, which is a very soluble salt.

Frogs. — When a small dose of 5 milligrms., or a larger dose, is
given subcutaneously to a frog, the symptoms are very much the
same in all cases. The animal speedily passes into a more or less
flaccid condition, and remains so for a length of time varying with
the size of the dose.

On examining more particularly into the causes of this paralysis,
and into what parts of the nervous system are affected, we found
that these depended greatly on the amount of methylmorphium
administered. When a small or medium dose is given, the brain
and spinal cord are depressed in very much the same way as by a
small dose of morphine, while the motor nerves are left practically
unaffected. The depression is followed by slight increase of the
reflex excitability.

This is shown in the two following experiments : —

Expt. 16. — Frog, 31 grrns. R., 22 in 10 seconds.

11.38 — 0‘005 ini Cub. cent, water subcutaneously.

11.47. — Is much duller; reflexes much diminished. R., 14.

11.58. — Lies on back if placed there; reflexes much diminished ;
movements badly co-ordinated. R., 12.

12.4. — Left sciatic nerve exposed, and when stimulated at 220
mm. (Du Bois Reymond Coil) gives marked contraction of muscles.

12.12.— Reacts only by slight twitch when severely pinched with
forceps. Sciatic nerve markedly excitable at 220 mm.

1.0 — Is quite flaccid ; scarcely responds to severe pinching. Left
sciatic quite excitable at 200 mm., right sciatic at 180 mm.

2.10. — Recovering; moves about if pinched. Nerves same.

6.30. — Is still rather depressed. Nerves same.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

355

Expt. 17. — Frog, 24 grms. Whole tissues of right thigh liga-
tured except sciatic nerve.

2.36. — 0*005 grm. methylmorphium chloride subcutaneously.

2.40.— Much duller.

2.44. — Lies on back; ceased to respire.

2.48. — No response to severe pinching with forceps. Right
sciatic quite excitable at 90 mm.; left sciatic quite excitable at
90 mm.

6.0. — Has been in same condition. Both sciatic nerves are
equally excitable at 100 mm.

Next day. — Has recovered greatly ; active and lively; slight in-
crease in reflex excitability. Both sciatic nerves are equally excit-
able.

From these experiments it is evident that the brain and spinal
cord are much depressed in activity, the motor nerves being left
intact, or nearly so. The paralysis and narcosis are due entirely to
the action on the nerve centres.

After larger doses deep narcosis quickly supervenes, with greatly
diminished reflexes, indifference to painful stimuli, and contraction
of pupils. Much later, complete paralysis or marked depression of
the motor nerve termination comes on, bub as soon as this has
passed off the reflex excitability is seen to be greatly increased.

These results are shown in the following experiment: —

Expt. 18. — Frog, 24 grms.

12.3. — 0*01 methylmorphium chloride subcutaneously.

12.10. — Lying quite flaccid; both pupils small; reflexes greatly
diminished. When pinched crawls away.

12.15. — Makes very slight response to severe pinching. Both
sciatic nerves quite excitable at 120 mm.

12.45. — Faint twitch of muscles when sciatic nerves are stimu-
lated.

1.20. — Sciatic nerves inexcitable to strongest current.

Next day. — Reflexes are slightly increased. Frog active and
lively.

Third day. — Reflex excitability is now markedly exaggerated.

In another experiment in which the same dose was given the
motor nerves were never completely paralysed, although much de-
pressed in electric excitability.

356

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

When 0*02 grm. and upwards is given, there is marked depres-
sion of the brain and spinal cord, but very soon (in J-J hour) the
motor nerves begin to be impaired, and finally their excitability is
entirely abolished. With the smaller of these doses the paralysis
of motor nerves passes off next day, and the frog is found to be in
a condition of greatly increased reflex excitability, but if the dose
be 3 centigrammes or upwards it generally dies before the paralysis
has passed off.

Exyt. 19. — Frog, 31 grins.

2.20. — 0’02 grm. methylmorphium chloride subcutaneously.

2.40. — Has gradually become more and more flaccid; pupils
extremely small. Both sciatic nerves paralysed.

Second day. — Sitting up in its natural position. The reflex ex-
citability is greatly increased ; pupils large.

Third day. — Found dead.

When the alkaloid is given subcutaneously the reflex excitability
is never so much increased as to amount to tetanus, the reason
being that doses large enough to cause tetanus kill the animal before
the paralysis of motor nerves has passed off. If, however, the
motor nerves be protected, and the methylmorphium be then injected
into the aorta so as to reach the spinal cord at once, we get im-
mediate violent tetanus, just as we have seen with morphine itself,
or with codeine and other morphine derivatives. This proves con-
clusively that methylmorphium still retains the convulsant action
which is simply masked by its paralysing action on motor nerves.
The following experiment may serve as an example : —

Expt. 20. — Frog decapitated ; body ligatured, except lumbar
nerves; right aorta tied; cannula in left aorta.

11.10. — 0*03 grm. in 1 cub. cent, water injected into left aorta.

At once there was rigid tetanus, which lasted till 11.21, when
it became somewhat relaxed.

11.25.— Each stimulation causes one tetanic spasm.

11.34. — Response much feebler to stimulation.

12.0. — A faint twitch on stimulation. The lumbar nerves are
still quite excitable to electric stimulation, hence the exhaustion
must be due to paralysis of the spinal cord.

Two centigrammes administered in the same way gave similar
results, but small doses such as 5 milligrammes caused depression

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 357

of spinal cord, just as we found small doses of morphine or codeine
to do. We found 2 centigrammes and upwards to be a lethal dose
for frogs. The heart heats well long after paralysis is completely
developed.

Rabbits. — On rabbits methylmorphium chloride has the same
action as on frogs, but owing to their higher organisation the details
cannot be worked out in the same complete manner. When 2J to
5 centigrammes are given subcutaneously drowsiness and narcotism
ensue, apparently without any paralysis of motor nerves. With
larger doses there is marked narcotism, probably some depression of
motor nerves, and a tendency to increased reflex which is never
very pronounced. Probably it is obscured by the depression of the
motor nerves. As soon, however, as the dose is large enough to
paralyse the motor nerves death occurs rapidly from asphyxia.

The blood-vessels in ears were seen always to dilate enormously.

Expt. 21. — Rabbit, 1653 grms. H., 32; R., 26 in 10 seconds.

12.4. — 0'3 methylmorphium chloride subcutaneously.

12.13. — Gait less steady. H., 33; R., 24.

12.19. — Lying down. Trembles, and occasionally gives a slight
start ; starts if tapped or on hearing a noise ; pupils widely dilated.

12.25. — Very flaccid, but gives occasionally a spasmodic jerk;
sciatic nerves are much depressed in excitability. H., 28 ; R., 6.

12.40. — Had an irregular convulsion (probably dyspnoeic, not
tetanic) ; corneal reflex very sluggish ; pupil dilated ; sometimes
gives a violent start on stimulation.

1.5. — Sitting up. H., 27 ; R., 14. Increase in reflexes has com-
pletely passed off ; . still drowsy.

5.0. — Has gradually recovered.

Expt. 22. — Rabbit, 780 grms. H. 28; R., 23 in 10 seconds.

2.36. — 0’5 grm. subcutaneously.

2.39. — Chin fallen on table; pupils smaller. R., 12.

2.40. — Lies in any position as if deeply narcotised; gives oc-
casionally a start.

2.42. — R. is difficult; pupil very small; cyanosed.

2.43. — Died quietly. The motor nerves were found inexcitable
to electric stimulation, otherwise nothing remarkable.

The minimum lethal dose seems to be about 3 decigrammes for
medium-sized rabbits, about the same as the lethal dose of morphine,

358 P roceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

but its tendency to paralyse motor nerves probably makes it some-
what more deadly.

Action of Methylmorphium Chloride on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose in
Grins.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Effects.

1

1680

0*025

0*015

Slightly drowsy for 2| hours.

2

Same

0*05

0*03

Was drowsy for more than 4 hours. Respiration
fell in 42 minutes from 23 to 12 per 10 seconds.

3

1680

0*1

0*06

Drowsiness and weakness of gait in 8 minutes,
and lay down. In 38 minutes there was slight
increase in reflexes, which soon passed off, and
animal remained drowsy all day.

4

1790

0*2

0*112

Drowsy all day. 51 minutes after administra-
tion there was slight increase of reflexes, which
soon passed off.

5

1160

0*2

0*172

About same as Experiment 7.

6

1790

0*3

0*167

Same symptoms as in Experiment 7, but died in
1 hour 40 minutes from paralysis of motor
nerves.

7

1653

0*3

0*180

Experiment 21 in text.

8

Same

0*5

0*302

Same as in Experiment 9.

9

780

0*5

0*65

Experiment 22 in text.

From the foregoing experiments it is obvious that the addition of
a molecule of methylchloride to morphine does not alter its physio-
logical action so profoundly as has been stated. The paralysing
action on motor nerves is considerably increased and the narcotic
action is lessened, but qualitatively its effects on the animal organism
remain similar to those of morphine.

Looking at the matter from a chemical point of view, this is what
one would expect. Here, just as in the case of methylmorphine or
acetylmorphine, &c., we have not made any profound chemical
change in the intimate structure of the morphine molecule. We
have simply added on a radical to one of its outlying groups, and
although the addition has altered the quantitative action it has
left untouched the qualitative.

Methylcodeium Sulphate.

Equivalent quantities of codeine and iodide of methyl dissolved
in rectified spirit were heated in the water-bath in a sealed tube

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

359

until the iodide of methylcodeium was formed (C18H21N03CH3I).
It is not very soluble in water, and was decomposed by treatment
with sulphate of silver, when iodide of silver was thrown down, and
the easily soluble sulphate of methylcodeium was left in solution.
After purification and several recrystallisations it was obtained in
the form of large colourless crystals. It is an addition compound,
the sulphate of methyl being simply added on to codeine.

Physiological Action of Methyl-Codeium Sulphate.

The only experiments which have been previously made with
this substance are those of Crum Brown and Fraser who worked
with the iodide and the sulphate. With the iodide of methyl-
codeium (a tolerably soluble salt) they saw no symptoms in
rabbits after 5 grains subcutaneously, while 10 and 15 grs. caused
some degree of paralysis, followed by recovery in a few hours, and
20 grs. was fatal in 13 minutes. W7ith the sulphate, 4 grains
subcutaneously had no effect, while 8 grs. caused some degree of
paralysis, and 10 grs. death in 19 minutes.

On frogs four experiments were performed : two of these with
2 and 2J grs. iodide of methyl-codeium and two with 1 gr.
sulphate. In all the result was death, preceded by paralysis. The
paralysis commenced in from 11 to 21 minutes after administration,
and in no case was the duration of the symptoms or the time of
death observed. They sum up thus: “We learn from our experi-
ments that the iodide and sulphate of methyl-codeium have a very
different action from codeia. We have never observed any hyp-
notic effect follow their administration, and, in place of convulsions,
we have seen that they produce paralysis. This, indeed, is the
only marked symptom that follows their administration, and it is
apparent that it does not depend on an effect on the muscles nor
on the cerebral lobes.” They conclude that it is due to an action on
the terminations of motor nerves.

These conclusions, however, as we shall presently show, are
drawn from experiments made with very large doses, doses which
(especially in frogs) were much too large to show clearly any effects
except those resulting from paralysis of motor nerves. Our experi-
ments with sulphate of methyl-codeium have shown us that the
addition of methyl sulphate to codeine does not alter the action of

360 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

the latter so materially as one would expect from the description
of Crum Brown and Fraser.

Codeine, as we have already seen, besides acting on the brain and
spinal cord, exercises a considerable depressant power on motor nerves.
In the case of methyl-codeium sulphate the depressant action on the
spinal cord and motor nerves is much more marked and occurs with
smaller doses, while that on the cerebrum is lessened. Increase of
reflexes also occurs after methyl-codeium sulphate. With small
doses this increase is seen only after about 24 hours in frogs, while
with larger doses it is obscured or wholly masked by the paralysis
of motor nerves. If the motor nerves he protected, however, by
tying the blood-vessels of a part, and the alkaloid be thrown
directly into the circulation so as to reach the spinal cord at once
in large amount, then we immediately get marked tetanus, just as
with other members of the morphine group.

We now give an account of our experiments from which these
conclusions have been drawn.

Frogs. — So small a dose as 1 milligramme subcutaneously pro-
duces well-marked symptoms of depression of the spinal cord. The
motor nerves are unaffected, and next day the reflexes are slightly
increased. Sometimes the increase of reflexes lasts two days.

When 2-5 milligrammes are given the same symptoms are seen.

Fxpt. 23. — Frog, 24 grms. R., 25 in 10 seconds.

11.0. — 0‘005 grm. methyl-codeium sulphate subcutaneously.

11.7. — Much less active ; movements very clumsy, and jumps with

difficulty. R., 17.

11.12. — Placed on back cannot recover itself; pupils small.

R., 13.

11.20. — Very flaccid; responds if pinched. R., 14.

11.30. — Pupils small; corneal reflex very sluggish; responds
feebly when pinched. R., 10.

11.45. — Same. Sciatic nerve exposed and stimulated at 220 mm.
(Du Bois Reymond Coil) gives marked contraction of muscles.

12.30. — Quite flaccid ; when pinched responds by feeble move-
ment of legs. Sciatic nerve excitable at 220 mm.

1.0. — Is gradually recovering.

2.20. — Can now jump; no increase of reflexes, but a slight dimi-
nution still.

1889—90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

361

3.40. — Appearance and attitude normal. Reflexes are very
slightly increased.

4.20. — Reflexes increased.

Next day there was still a slight increase of the reflexes.

When such a dose as 1 centigramme is given the motor nerves
are much depressed in excitability but seldom completely paralysed.

Expt. 24. — Frog, 28 grms. R., 23 in 10 seconds.

12.50. — 0'01 methyl-codeiuni sulphate subcutaneously.

1.0. — General paralysis has gradually come on. Crawls about
with great difficulty. R., 9.

1.20. — Much worse. No response to severe pinching of toe.
Both sciatic nerves are excitable at 190 mm. Electrodes placed
over spine anteriorly (near head) cause contraction of both legs.

2.0. — Sciatics excitable at 80 mm.

3.0. — Has recovered somewhat. Both sciatics excitable at
80 mm.

4.30. — Can now jump and move about.

Next day. — Slight increase in reflexes.

After 2 centigrammes and upwards we soon get complete
paralysis of motor nerves. This, however, wears off very soon,
and is followed by increase of reflex excitability which sometimes
amounts to tetanus.

Expt. 25.— Frog, 28 grms.

11.40. — 0-04 grm. methyl-codeium sulphate subcutaneously.

12.40. — Quite flaccid. On stimulating sciatic nerves with strong
current the muscles did not respond. Pupils are mere slits.

Second day. — Still very flaccid. Sciatics slightly excitable to
strong current.

Third day. — Reflexes slightly increased. Sciatic nerves quite
excitable.

Fourth to eighth day. — Reflexes have been greatly exaggerated.

Ninth day. — Tetanus on stimulation.

Tenth to sixteenth day. — The reflex increase has gradually passed
off.

Twentieth day. — Is now quite recovered.

The amount required to paralyse motor nerves is therefore very
large, the paralysis soon passes off, and as soon as it has done so
the increase of reflexes can be, and is, manifested.

362 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Small doses, or large doses given subcutaneously, always depress
the cord as the first stage of their action. If, however, me thy 1-
codeium sulphate in sufficient dose (2 centigrammes) be injected
directly into the aorta (after protecting the motor nerves) we get
tetanus at once without any preliminary depression of reflexes.

Five centigrammes is the usual lethal dose for a frog. This is
larger than the lethal dose of codeine, but smaller amounts of it
than of codeine produce physiological action. It may therefore be
regarded as much more powerful than codeine (in frogs). The
reason of its lethal dose being so large probably is that the paralysis
of the motor nerves prevents the tetanic spasms, and thus protects
the frog from the exhaustion consequent on convulsions.

Rabbits. — Crum Brown and Fraser found that methyl-codeium
sulphate had no hypnotic effect on rabbits. This is hardly the
case, however, although it is diminished to a very great extent.

Thus the large dose of 1 decigramme had almost no action of any
kind beyond causing slight quietude.

When 0*2 grm. is given the narcotic action is well marked, and
is accompanied by a certain degree of increased reflex. There
seemed to be also some depression of the motor nerves which
obscured the symptoms rather.

Expt. 26. — Rabbit, 1170 grms. ; H., 28; R, 22 in 10 seconds.

2.45. — 0*2 methyl-codeium sulphate subcutaneously.

2.55. — Has lain down.

3.0. — H., 32; R., 17. Vessels of ears very dilated.

3.5. — Pupils small, chin on table, drowsy.

3.10. — H., 29; R., 13. Ears same, pupils smaller, lies in any
position in which it is placed. Slight touch of leg causes violent
tetanic jerk of whole body. Quite sensitive to pain.

3.16. — Lies in any position; corneal reflex very sluggish.

3.30. — Has been lying as if deeply narcotised. Pays no atten-
tion to slight stimuli. Increased reflex has quite passed off. H.,
29 ; R., 7. No sign of dyspnoea.

3.45. — Rabbit made a great effort and sat up. Very drowsy and
shaky.

4.5. — H., 26; R., 12. Very drowsy.

Next day. — Well.

Larger doses cause death from paralysis of motor nerves. Thus

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 363

after 0’3 grm. a rabbit became drowsy, bad marked increase of
reflexes, and died in 55 minutes. The motor nerves were found to
be paralysed.

As a result, we must conclude that methylcodeium sulphate has
the same qualitative action as codeine and other members of the
morphine group. Its quantitative action on different parts of the
nervous system is, however, not the same.

Action of Methyl-codeium Sulphate on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grins.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

Effects.

1

1110

o-i

0*09

Yery slight quietude, lasting about 2 hours.

2

1110

o-i

0-09

Quieter for about 2 hours. Respiration fell some-
what and pupils became smaller.

3

1170

0-2

0-17

Experiment in text.

4

1150

0-2

0*18

Same as Experiment 3.

Drowsiness in 5 minutes, pupils became small,
respiration much slowed, reflexes increased on
stimulation, and also gave spontaneous tetanic
starts. Death in 55 minutes. Heart found
beating after death ; sciatic nerves inexcitable.

5

1560

0-3

0-19

Methocodeine.

This substance was investigated by Grimaux, who named it
methocodeine, and also by Hesse, who describes it as methylmorphi-
methin. It is apparently the methyl ether of methylmorphine ; in
other words, it is codeine in which one of the non-hydroxyl atoms
of hydrogen has been replaced by methyl. It is formed by the
action of caustic potash oh codeine methiodide.

Ci8H21N03.CH3I + KHO = C19H23N03 + KI + H20.

We prepared the compound by the following method : — Morphine
was dissolved with an equivalent quantity of soda in purified wood
spirit, and an equivalent of methyl iodide added. The solution
was then warmed for half an hour, allowed to cool, a second
equivalent of methyl iodide and of soda added, and the solution
again heated. The spirit was then evaporated, water added, and
the solution exhausted with chloroform. The chloroform having

364 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

been driven off, the residue was treated with hydrochloric acid in
excess, which rapidly caused crystallisation of the hydrochlorate.
The crystals were pressed, and purified by recrystallisation from
water and from alcohol. So obtained, the salt was nearly free from
colour, and when examined under the microscope the crystals
appeared to be all of the same form.

Chloroplatinate prepared in usual manner, dried in air-bath at
120° C. 0*28 grm. gave ‘0522 grm. platinum, which is =18 '64 per
cent.

(C19H23N03.HC1)2, PtCl4, H20 = 18'65 per cent. Platinum.

A quantity of the hydrochlorate was purified by recrystallisation,
and a chloroplatinate prepared from the purified crystals.

•309 grm. (dried at 100° C.) ignited, gave *0576 grm. Platinum,
which is = 18*64 per cent.

As from these results the chloroplatinate appeared to contain a
molecule of water, although dried at 120°, a portion of the compound
was exposed in the air-bath at gradually increasing temperatures,
but there was no distinct loss of weight till 160° was reached, at
which temperature there was also distinct evidence of decompo-
sition.

Several determinations of the chlorine were made by precipi-
tation with nitrate of silver in the usual way.

(a.) *469 of the hydrochloride (dry in water-bath) gave '189
AgCl = '0467 Cl, which is = 9*95 per cent.

( b .) -2485 grm. gave '099 AgCl = *02449 grm. Cl = 9'85 per cent.

(c.) *595 grm. gave -2403 AgCl= '05944 Cl = 9'98 per cent.

(i d .) '4515 grm. dry at 140°, gave T822 grm.; AgCl='0450 grm.
Cl= 9*98 per cent.

Mean of the four determinations = 9 '9 4.

(C19H23N03.HC1)2.H20 = 9 '90 per cent. Cl.

The alkaloid itself was obtained by dissolving the hydrochloride
in water, and adding slight excess of ammonia. A viscous precipi-
tate separated, but after standing some hours, with occasional
stirring, it became a mass of small prismatic crystals. These were
washed with cold water and dried in the air. The air-dry sub-
stance lost no weight in the water-bath or at 120° C. When the
temperature was raised to near 135°, the substance fused and dark-

365

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

ened in colour, yet the loss of weight was only a fraction of a per
cent., whence it is almost certain that the alkaloid is precipitated
in the anhydrous state.

It will be observed that the chloroplatinate and the hydrochloride
appear obstinately to retain water in the proportion of one molecule
to two molecules of alkaloid ; so that, so far as our results go, the
alkaloid may have the composition C38H48lSr207. If that be the
case, the equation above noted should be —

2C18H21N03.CH31 + 2KHO = C38H48¥207 + 2K1 + H20.

Whether the water is merely combined as hydrate, or has become
a constituent part of the molecule of the base, is a point we have
not had opportunity of absolutely determining; but the pharma-
cological results are more in harmony with the latter theory.

Physiological Action of Methocodeine.

The chemical change represented in methocodeine completely
alters the action characteristic of the morphine group — so much so,
indeed, that points of similarity are hard to find. The distin-
guishing features of morphine-poisoning are wholly absent ; there
is no narcosis and no tetanus. The symptoms are due chiefly to
poisoning of the muscles, and, to a less extent, depression of the
spinal cord.

In our experiments we used the hydrochlorate, or the alkaloid
dissolved in acetic acid and water.

Frogs. — A dose of 5 milligrammes usually had very little action.
The animal became rather less active, but as a rule little further
change was observable.

When 1 centigramme was given, however, the frog shortly
became sluggish, there was depression of reflex excitability and
poisoning of the voluntary muscles. The muscles at the place of
injection were first affected, their electric excitability gradually
becoming diminished until it completely disappeared. This con-
dition slowly spread to all the other voluntary muscles. A similar
mode of action on voluntary muscle has been observed in the case
of caffeine, benzoylecgonine, and a number of other alkaloids.

The following experiment shows the usual course of poisoning
after 1 centigramme: —

366

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Expi. 27. — Frog, 27 grms. B., 21 in 10 seconds.

12.10. — 001 grm. methocodeine hydrochloride into abdominal
cavity.

12.20. — Has become much less active.

12.30. — B., 14; very shallow. Only moves if pinched.

12.50. — B. ceased. Lies on back if turned over. Draws up leg
if severely pinched.

1.20 — Faint response if severely pinched. Sciatic nerves excit-
able to very weak current.

3.20. — Frog’s muscles all over body are much depressed in irri-
tability. Many of them do not contract when stimulated with
strongest electric current, others only very feebly. Motor nerves
still excitable, for, when stimulated, the muscles which are not in
complete rigor respond faintly. Heart stopped. Corneal reflex
still present.

In many cases the poisoning of the muscles took place more
slowly, death occurring only after some days, hut in all the general
symptoms were the same.

One centigramme proved fatal to frogs sooner or later. With
larger doses also the results are the same.

Expt. 28. — Frog, 28 grms. B. in 10 seconds, 23.

12.10. — 0-025 grm. under skin of abdomen.

12.25. — Has become much depressed; moves away heavily if
pinched.

1.0. — Lies in any position; still responds to severe pinching.

1.40. — Sciatic nerves excitable to very weak currents (250 mm.).

2.45. — Sciatics same. Muscles of abdominal wall and left thigh
are in rigor mortis ; other muscles contract on electric stimulation.

5.30. — Muscles and sciatic nerves much diminished in electric
irritability.

Next day. — Heart stopped in marked systole ; none of the volun-
tary muscles contract to electric stimulation.

An increase of reflexes was never observed. Direct application
of a solution to the exposed spinal cord or injection into the aorta
depressed the reflexes or entirely abolished the vitality of the cord
in a very short time.

In frogs small doses of 5 milligrammes depress the power and
rate of the heart.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 367

Rabbits. — On rabbits no narcosis was ever observed and no trace
of increased reflex. The alkaloid seems to act chiefly as a muscle-
poison, and to produce death by gradually poisoning the muscles.
At the same time the cord is somewhat depressed. After 5 centi-
grammes the animal showed no symptoms except slight quietude.

When 3-5 decigrammes were given to small rabbits death occurred
after a longer or shorter period from paralysis of muscles of respiration.
If the alkaloid be injected at both sides of the thorax the respiratory
muscles are quickly paralysed and death soon occurs, but if injected
into the thighs, for instance, death is considerably delayed. The
muscles in the neighbourhood of the injection first pass into a
condition of rigor mortis , which gradually spreads to other voluntary
muscles. The urine was always of a deep emerald-green colour,
owing, no doubt, to some green-coloured product from dimethyl-
morphine being formed in the body and excreted by the kidneys.

Apomorphine, as is well known, also tends to decompose into a
green-coloured substance, and is also in a very marked degree a
muscle-poison. Methocodeine, however, has not an emetic action.
Even large doses had no effect on dogs beyond restlessness and
anxiety. Harnack has pointed out that apomorphine, although
used entirely in medicine for its emetic action, is essentially a
muscle-poison, and that the emesis produced by it is, as it were, an
accidental circumstance. Its chemical formula is C1>rHl7N02 (that
is, morphine minus H20)t but the change is probably much more
profound than the removal of a molecule of water ; and there is, no
doubt, to some extent a rearrangement of the morphine molecule.
Methocodeine probably resembles it in chemical constitution, just
as it does in pharmacological action.

Morphine-Sulphuric Acid.

We have so named this compound, as it appears to be morphine
in which a hydrogen atom is replaced by the radical HSOs. It is
described by Stolnikow as Morphin-dtherschmfelsdure , and we
exactly followed his directions in its preparation. 20 grms. mor-
phine and 8 grms. caustic potash were dissolved in 25 c.c. water,
and to the solution was added gradually 15 grms. finely powered
pyrosulphate of potash. After 12 hours the solution was diluted
with 350 c.c. water, and filtered. The filtrate is rendered faintly

368 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

acid with acetic acid, whereupon the moryhin- either schwefelsaur.
crystallises out, while acetate of morphine and sulphate of potash
remain dissolved. The precipitate is purified by crystallisation
from hot water. In two successive experiments we obtained a very
small yield of material. However, it was sparingly soluble, did
not give the morphine colour-reactions, and gave a considerable
precipitate when warmed with barium chloride and hydrochloric
acid, so that we have no doubt the substance was practically the
same thing as obtained by Stolnikow. According to that writer,
the reactions which take place in the formation of the compound
are as follows : —

Cl7H18N02H0 + KHO = C17H18H02K0 + H20 .
C17H18N02K0 + K2S207 = C17H18H02.K0.S03 + K2S04 .

c17h18ho2.ko.o.so2+c2h4o2=c17h18no2.o.so2.oh +
c2h3ko2 .

Physiological Action of Morphine-sulphuric Add.

The only experiments on the action of this substance are those
of Stolnikow. He attempts to prove that the characteristic action
of morphine depends on the phenol-like hydroxyl group which
it contains, and contends that when the H. of this hydroxyl
is substituted by an alkyl radical another physiologically active
element is introduced into the molecule. But if a physiologically
inactive substance (such as he assumes HS03 to be) be introduced,
then the action is very materially altered.

He found in frogs that doses of 5 milligrammes of his compound
were almost inert, but that after 3 to 5 times this dose tetanus
occurred almost at once. He ranks it among the tetanising group
of opium alkaloids. From his experiments Stolnikow concludes
that with the hydroxyl group (OH) in morphine is bound up — (1)
its narcotic properties, its property of acting specially and chiefly
on the cerebrum ; (2) its poisonous properties.

Although our experiments confirm Stolnikow’s to a certain extent,
viz., that the activity of morphine is diminished by the substitution
of HS03 for H., yet it is not diminished to anything like the extent
which he states, nor is the hydroxyl group so important a constituent
as he makes out. The new body retains the morphine action — a
narcotic and tetanic stage — perfectly, although its toxicity is less

369

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

than that of morphine. The substance is practically insoluble in
water and dilute acids, and for our experiments had to be dissolved
in a small amount caustic soda.

Frogs. — One centigramme caused lethargy, followed by an increase
in reflexes. When the dose was increased to 2 centigrammes the
two stages became very distinct, and tetanus was developed.

Expt. 29. — Frog, 33 grms. R, 22 in 10 seconds.

11.38. — 0*02 subcutaneously in solution.

11.40. — Heavy and sluggish.

11.46. — Corneal reflex gone. Will not lie on back.

11.52. — Very heavy and sluggish; jumps very abortive. R, 15.
Reflexes are greatly diminished.

12.0. — R. has ceased. Lies in any position.

12.30. — Reflexes increased.

12.40. — Gives start on stimulation.

2.30. — Almost tetanus on stimulation.

4.0. — Same.

Next day. — Tetanus on stimulation.

Larger doses were fatal ; the narcotic stage is not very deep and
tetanus soon supervenes, followed by exhaustion.

Rabbits. — As we had only a small quantity of the substance, we
made only four experiments on rabbits. The result showed that
its narcotic power in rabbits is very much less than that of morphine.
We had not sufficient to test its tetanising power.

The experiments are given in the following table : —

Action of Morphine Sulphuric Acid Ether on Rabbits.

No.

Weight of Rabbit
in Grms.

Dose in
Grms.

Dose per Kilo. Body
Weight.

\ Effects.

1

1000

0-02

0-02

Scarcely any effect. Was a little quieter for
about 2 hours, during which respiration fell
from 19 to 12 per 10 seconds.

2

1000

0-04

0-04

Was distinctly lethargic for 3 hours, but hardly
amounting to narcosis.

3

1412

0-05

0*035

Same as Experiment 2.

4

1412

01

0*07

Was much quieter for 3 hours. Respiration fell
from 16 to 9 per 10 seconds. Narcotic effect
very slight.

2 A

YOL. XVII.

26/9/90

370 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Chlorocodide.

We first tried to prepare this compound by the action of strong
hydrochloric acid on codeine, after the manner described by Wright.
The solution of the hydrochloride was precipitated in fractions, but
each of the fractions gave a chloroplatinate indicating a different
molecular weight ; whence it was concluded that the substance was
a mixture, a fact which was confirmed by the physiological experi-
ments. We then tried the method of Gerichten. 13*5 grms. of
codeine hydrate was dried at 120° and mixed with 10 grms. of
pentachloride of phosphorus ; 50 grms. of oxychloride of phosphorus
was then poured over the mixture, whereon a violent action ensued.
After some hours the clear solution was diluted, ammonia added,
and the precipitate received on a filter. The precipitate was washed,
pressed, and dried by exposure to the air ; then dissolved in chloro-
form, which was left to evaporate. On adding alcohol to the residue,
it became filled with crystals, which were purified by pressure and
recrystallisation. The substance so obtained yielded a chloro-
platinate, which after drying in exsiccator lost no further weight
at 100°.

•3195 grm. gave *060 grm. Pt., which is = 18*77 per cent.
(C18H20CmO2.HCl)2.PtCl4= 18-73 per cent. Pt.

Physiological Action of Chlorocodide.

Gee has previously made a few experiments with this sub-
stance. He gave 9J grains in divided doses to a cat, which
ultimately died in convulsions, the chief symptoms being salivation,
dilatation of the pupils, restlessness, and a mixture of tetanus and
paralysis. Consciousness was unaffected. In Gee’s opinion, the
action is exactly like that of codeine. A dose of J grain per os,
and subcutaneously in man, had no effect.

For our experiments we used a neutral solution in acetic acid and
water.

Frogs. — One milligramme caused in frogs sluggishness and de-
pression of reflexes, followed by an increase of reflexes. With
larger doses the exhaustion (or depression) accompanying or follow-
ing the tetanus was extremely marked at first, but gradually passed

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine. 371

off, leaving only tetanus. The same tiling has been noted as occur-
ring with morphine.

The following experiment will serve as an example : —

JSxpt. 30. — Frog, 27 grms.

1.50. — 0*005 chlorocodide subcutaneously.

2.0. — Pupils very small ; respiration ceased ; reflexes dull. Lies
on back if turned over, struggles if pinched.

2.7. — Spinal reflexes now a good deal increased ; no corneal
reflexes.

,2.10. — Least touch causes violent jerk, but frog lies quite ex-
hausted and flaccid after it. Pupils are mere slits.

3.30 — Same.

5.30. — Gives faint tetanic jerk when stimulated.

Second day. — Reflexes greatly increased.

Third day. — Greater increase reflexes.

Fourth day. — In violent tetanus.

When a larger dose, such as 1 centigramme, was given, there was
great depression of the cord, so much so that only a faint indication
of the tendency to tetanus was observable in many cases, although
in others it was well marked. One centigramme by the mouth
caused well-marked but not extreme depression, followed shortly by
tetanus.

Two centigrammes injected into the aorta produced tetanus at
once.

The paralysing effect of chlorocodide on motor nerves is about
equal to that of codeine; 15 milligrammes injected into the iliac
artery destroyed the electric excitability of the sciatic nerve in a
few minutes.

So far the action of chlorocodide closely resembles that of codeine,
but is more depressing to the spinal cord. In addition, however, it
is a very decided muscle-poison. When injected subcutaneously
the muscles in the immediate neighbourhood very soon become
poisoned and cease to respond to electric stimuli, while those at a
distance seem to be little affected.

The heart also is very much depressed.

In frogs 1 centigramme sooner or later proves fatal.

Rabbits. — In rabbits doses of 2-5 centigrammes caused marked
weakness in legs, depression of the spinal cord, slow and weaker

372

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

action of the heart, and a great inclination to lie down. There was
no narcosis.

When larger doses, up to 1 decigramme, are given, the depression
of the spinal cord is extreme, hut there is also a tendency to tetanic
jerking. The symptoms are exactly as if a spinal stimulant and
depressant had been given together.

When still larger doses are given tetanus of a very decided
character is seen, hut towards the end of the poisoning becomes very
feeble owing to the marked weakness of the whole muscular system.

The following experiments show the action of large doses: —

Expt. 31. — Rabbit, 1800 grms.

12.5 — 0T5 grm. chlorocodide subcutaneously.

12.12. — Legs weak, gait affected.

12.14. — Cannot walk ; occasionally gives slight start.

12.16. — Tetanic attack with opisthotonos.

12.18. — Clonic spasms.

12.35. — Has had frequent clonic spasms not amounting to
tetanus.

I. 10. — Increased reflex passing off; legs very weak; has to lie
down.

3. 0. — Is recovering ; can drag itself about.

4.20. — Nearly well.

Expt. 32. — Rabbit, 1760 grms.

II. 44. — 0-2 grm. chlorocodide subcutaneously.

11.48. — Slight tetanus ; can still walk.

11.54. — Severe tetanus, succeeded by very great flaccidity and
depression.

11.59. — Lying flaccid, and evidently suffering from muscular
weakness. Occasionally gives a slight start.

12.15. — Same.

12.40. — Has frequent clonus of head ; the rest of body less
affected.

12.55. — Tendency to spasm much greater. The jerkings are
almost continuous. Had one severe tetanic spasm with opisthotonos.

1.55. — Has been in almost continuous clonic spasms.

2.50. — Died quietly.

Post-mortem immediately. — Heart stopped ; not excitable to electric
stimulation ; peristalsis good ; the voluntary muscles all over the

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine,

373

body contract very slightly to strong electric currents, and even this
feeble amount of contraction disappeared in about five minutes.

Chlorocodide therefore partakes partly of the action of codeine
and partly of the action of apomorphine.

Trichloromorphide.

There do not appear to be any published results giving experi-
ments on the action of phosphorus pentachloride or oxychloride on
morphine. When anhydrous morphine and phosphorus penta-
chloride are mixed and heated, there is evidently some action ; but
we could not obtain in this way any considerable amount of material
other than morphine, or possibly one of the polymerised morphine
bodies described by Wright. It was impossible to try any experi-
ment on a solution of morphine, as there is no known solvent for
that alkaloid which is not at once attacked by the pentachloride.
We therefore adopted the method used by Gerichten for the pre-
paration of chlorocodide. 13 grms. anhydrous morphine and 17
grms. phosphorus pentachloride were mixed, and several grms. of
oxychloride of phosphorus poured over the mixture. The mixture
was left for some hours, with occasional agitation, until solution
was complete. It was then diluted with water, and ammonia added.
The precipitate so obtained was slightly washed, dried, and treated
with chloroform. On evaporation the chloroform left a non-
crystalline residue, from which a platinum salt was prepared. Of
this compound *091 grm. gave 0T6 grm. Pt. = 17‘58 per cent.
The portion of the precipitate undissolved by the chloroform was
treated with boiling alcohol, which on evaporation left a partially
crystalline coloured residue. This yielded a chloroplatinate of which
T575 grm. gave *0275 grm. Pt= 17*45 per cent.

(Ci7Hi6C13lsr0)2' Pt H2 ci6 = 17-43 per cent. Pt.

It would be too much to assume that that is certainly the com-
position of the substance obtained, as it is quite conceivably a mix-
ture. We anticipated that the two hydroxyls would be replaced by
chlorine atoms, but the chlorination seems to have gone further.
As from the formation of methocodeine, there appears to be in the
morphine molecule a non-hydroxyl hydrogen atom which is more
readily replaced than the others, it has possibly in the compound

374 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

under consideration been replaced by chlorine. However that may
be, we regard the physiological results obtained with this substance
as of considerable value, as they indicate the general modification
in the action of morphine caused by the substitution of chlorine
for the hydroxyl groups.

Physiological Action of Trichloromorphide.

Frogs. — Trichloromorphide acts primarily on the central nervous
system, causing depression of the spinal cord, followed by tetanus.
It has, however, even in moderate doses, a marked paralysing effect
on motor nerves, wdiich tends to obscure the tetanus while it lasts.
The paralysis is, however, somewhat slow in appearing, and soon
wears off, usually leaving the animal in violent spasm. In addition,
trichloromorphide has some slight action as a muscle-poison.

The following experiments show its action in all these respects : —

Expt. 33. — Frog, 30 grms.

12.8 — O'OOo. grm. trichloromorphide subcutaneously.

12.12. — Keflexes slightly diminished.

12.15. — Keflexes very distinctly depressed, but frog still moving
about.

12.20. — Sluggish; lies on back; pupils small. Keflexes slightly
increased.

12.25. — Slightest touch causes violent start.

12.30. — Spontaneous tetanus, followed by great flaccidity.
Slightest touch brings on tetanus.

12.37. — How gives a mere twitch on stimulation.

12.42. — Ho response on stimulation. Sciatic nerves inexcitable
to strong electric current.

Second day. — In violent tetanus.

Third to fifth day.— In tetanus.

Sixth day. — Dead.

If the sciatic nerve of one leg be protected by tying the femoral
artery, and 5 milligrms. be given, the protected nerve is not paralysed
while all the others are.

Expt. 34. — Frog, 30 grms.

12.46 — 0‘01 grm. trichloromorphide subcutaneously under skin
of back.

12.58. — Has gradually become deeply paralysed.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

375

1.10. — Slight increase in reflexes.

1.20. — Reflexes greatly increased.

I. 45. — Motor nerves much depressed in excitability. Reflex
increase can scarcely he manifested.

2.15. — Motor nerves paralysed.

3.0. — -Muscles of hack paralysed and not excitable to interrupted
current ; other muscles of body excitable ; heart still heating.

Rabbits. — In rabbits 1-4 centigrammes caused slight narcosis,
and very slight tendency to increased reflexes. Respiration
diminished greatly in frequency, and the heart slightly.

Doses of from 8-25 centigrammes caused varying degrees of
increased reflex without marked narcosis. The larger the dose the
less tendency there was to narcosis, hut the more to paralysis of
motor nerves with consequent paresis and depression.

Expt. 35. — Rabbit, 1635 grms. H., 32; R., 22 in 10 seconds.

II. 50. — 025 trichloromorphide subcutaneously.

11.56. — Has lain down. R., 7 ; H., 31. Ears very hypersemic.

12.0. — Legs very weak; slight increase in reflexes. H., 30;
R., 7. Pupils larger.

12.5. — Reflexes markedly increased, hut there is also very con-
siderable paralysis. Pupils widely dilated.

12.12. — Slight tetanic attack.

12.35. — Lying on belly; every few seconds gives a spasmodic
twitch. R., 7.

2.50. — Has been much in same condition. There has been no
narcosis.

5.0. — The increase of reflexes is wearing off, hut there is still
great depression.

7.0. — Increased reflex^ gone.

8.0. — Still great depression.

Next day was quite well.

In this experiment, as in others with large doses, it was evident
that the partial paralysis of the motor nerves prevents the full
manifestation of the tetanus, and probably thereby prevents death
from convulsions.

The action of trichloromorphide resembles qualitatively that of the
other morphine derivatives ; its action on motor nerves is markedly
paralysing, and it is in addition a not very powerful muscle poison.

376

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Nitrosomorphine. — C27H18(N0)N03.H20.

This compound was prepared by E. L. Mayer by passing nitrous
fumes (prepared by action of nitric acid on arsenious acid) into a
solution of morphine. The composition indicated is the same as
that of morphine nitrite, and there seems to be some little doubt
as to the purity of the substance.

Physiological Action of Nitrosomorpliine.

Nitrosomorpliine is a very insoluble substance, and we had
difficulty in getting a proper solution for subcutaneous injection in
frogs. We therefore gave it by the mouth in substance. When
0-015 grm. was so given, the animal gradually developed a narcotic
condition, followed in due time by increase of reflexes and tetanus.

In rabbits 4 or 5 centigrammes subcutaneously caused light
narcosis, lasting four or five hours. We found it difficult to give
larger doses.

These experiments, although not very satisfactory, show that
nitrosomorphine has the same qualitative effect as morphine.

Physiological Action of some other Morphine Derivatives.

C. R. A. Wright prepared a number of morphine derivatives
which were examined by M. Foster and by R. Stocker.

Deoxymorphia. — ^Cl7H19N02(Cl7Hl7N0^-

Deoycodeia. — C18H21, N 02.

With these substances Foster found that 5 centigrammes caused
in cats excitement, while 1 decigramme caused convulsions and
excitement.

Bromotetramorphia. — C68H75BrN4012 (4 molecules of morphine
coalesced together and one H. replaced by Br.).

Bromotetracodeia. — ^72^-83-^r^4^12*

Ghlorotetracodeia. — ^72®83^^4^12*

These all acted in same way. The hydrochlorates were used.

In cats 1 decigramme caused excitement and symptoms similar
to morphine. In rabbits the same amount caused only slight
excitement.

Stocker experimented with dicodeia (2 molecules of codeine

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

377

coalesced together), tricodeia and tetracodeia , on cats and dogs.
These all had a very similar action to codeine.

The substances C68H81IN4O10.4HI from codeine and
C68H82l2N4Oio.4HI from codeine and morphine in doses of 1-3
decigrammes had little effect beyond causing looseness of the bowels
in dogs.

The experiments are not sufficient to enable us to determine the
action of these substances beyond saying that they have a generic
resemblance to morphine and codeine.

Oxydimorphin. — C34H30N2O6 (2 molecules of morphine minus
2H). This is the oxymorphine (C1^H19N04) of Schiitzenberger.

According to Diedrich this substance has no narcotic action.
It weakens the heart and causes diarrhoea and vomiting. The
emesis occurs after subcutaneous injection, and, according to Died-
rich, is due to an action on the medulla. Its frequent intravenous
administration caused changes in the gastric mucosa, hypersemia,
swelling, and ulceration. Probably, therefore, it is excreted from
the blood into the stomach and bowel, and by its local irritation
acts as an emetic and purgative reflexly through the vagus.

Nothing is known as to its constitution, but it is probably allied
to apo morphine more closely than to morphine.

Marme and Diedrich express the opinion that morphine is
converted into oxydimorphine in the blood, and hence its frequent
nauseating and purgative effects when given subcutaneously. It is
more probable, however, that the excretion of morphine into the
stomach (Alt) causes these symptoms independently of any chemical
change.

Summary.

I. The methyl (codeine), ethyl (codethyline), and amyl ethers of
morphine form a group of substances having exactly similar actions.
In all the same hydrogen atom has been replaced in morphine by an
alkyl radical ; they are therefore substitution derivatives. It seems
to be a matter of indifference which radical is introduced, so long as
it replaces the same hydrogen atom in morphine. In all the narcotic
action of morphine is much diminished, the tetanising action and the
paralysing action on motor nerves are increased, while the lethal dose
(on account of the greater tendency to convulsions) is much smaller.

378 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

The action is, however, of essentially the same nature as the
morphine action ; the same parts of the central nervous system are
affected, and in the same way as by morphine, but not in the same
degree.

This is what one would expect from chemical considerations, for
in making these substances no profound change has been effected
in the morphine molecule, but simply an alkyl radical has been intro-
duced into one of the outlying groups which compose it.

II. Acetyl-, diacetyl-, benzoyl-, and dibenzoyl-morphine form a
group of substances having exactly similar actions. In them one
or both of the hydroxyl hydrogens of morphine have been replaced
by an acid radical.

Comparing them with morphine, their action is the same in kind
but differs in degree. Their tetanising power is much greater, while
their narcotic action, although visible after smaller doses, is not nearly
so profound. Increase of dose, instead of deepening the narcosis,
brings on tetanus.

Comparing them with codeine, they induce an equal narcotic
effect (rabbits) with about one-tenth of the dose, while a dose about
three times larger is necessary to induce tetanus. Their depressing
action on motor nerves is about the same.

It seems quite indifferent which radical is introduced, and whether
one or both of the hydroxyl hydrogens are replaced. Just as with
codeine and its analogues, no great change has been made in the
morphine molecule, but simply in the outlying hydroxyl groups.

III. In morphine-sulphuric acid and nitroso-morphine the radicals
HS03 and NO replace the hydroxyl hydrogen atoms, and the action
is modified much in the same wray as by the introduction of other
acid radicals (II.).

IV. Chlorocodide and Trichloromorphide are chlorine derivatives ;
in the former Cl replaces the OH of codeine, while in the latter both
hydroxyl groups, and in addition one H atom of morphine, have been
replaced by 3 Cl.

They retain the characteristic actions of morphine on the nervous
system, but are in addition marked muscle poisons.

V. In metho-codeine two methyl molecules have been introduced
into morphine, one of which replaces a hydroxyl hydrogen atom,
while the other replaces an H in the body of the morphine molecule.

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

379

This completely alters the character of the action, as metho-codeine
has the action of a muscle poison (like apomorphine).

VI. Methylmorphium chloride and methylcodeium sulphate are
addition products, formed by adding on methyl chloride and methyl
sulphate respectively to the intact morphine or codeine molecule.
The action is not profoundly altered by the chemical change.

The paralysing action on motor nerves is considerably increased,
and the narcotic action is lessened, but qualitatively the effects on
the animal organism remain similar to those of morphine or codeine.

The chemical change made in the intimate structure of the mor-
phine molecule has not been profound ; there has been simply the
addition of a radical, and hence one would scarcely expect the action
to be much altered.

VII. Other morphine and codeine derivatives which have been
examined by other investigators seem to retain essentially the mor-
phine action.

With regard to morphine, it seems certain that so long as
the chemical changes are restricted to what may be called
the outlying groups of the molecule, very little alteration
takes place in the physiological action.

The change which does take place does not depend so
much on the substituting body, as on what part of the mole-
cule is substituted.

When a change is made in the kernel or groundwork of the
molecule, then the action is much more profoundly altered.

Literature of Morphine and its Derivatives.

We do not include in this list papers which are of purely toxi-
cological or therapeutical interest. Certain writers have already
published a considerable portion of the morphine literature, and as
their papers are easily accessible to scientific workers we do not
enumerate here the papers which they mention.

Alt, Berlin. Min. Wochenschr., p. 560, 1889, “ Untersuchungen liber die Aus-
scheidung des subcutan-injecirten Morphin durch den Magen.”

Binz, Archiv f. expt. Path, and PharmaL, vi. 310, 1877, “ Zur Wirkungs-
weise schlafmachender Stoffe.” Deutsche Med. Wochenschr., pp. 615,
627, 1879 ; p. 149, 1880, “ Ueber den arteriellen Druck bei Morphium-
vergiftung. ”

380

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

SESS.

Bochefontaine, Comptes Rendus, xciii. 743, 1881, “Sur l’action physiologique
de la codethyline. ”

Bouchut, Comptes Rendus, lxxiv. 1289, 1872, “ Recherches sur l’action des
bases tirees de 1’opium, &c.”

Brown and Fraser, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxv. 1, 1868-9, “On the Con-
nection between Chemical Constitution and Physiological Action.”

Brunton and Cash, Cbl. f. d. med. Wiss., p. 241, 1886, “Temperatur-
erniedrigende Wirkung des Morphin auf Tauben.

Calvet, Essai sur le morphinisme aigu, Paris, 1877.

Camus, Gazette Hebdomadaire, p. 498, 1865, “ Recherches exper. sur l’antago-
nisme de l’opium et de la belladonne.”

Commission Brit. Med. Assoc., Brit. Med. Jour., ii. 486, 1874, “ On the
Antagonism of Medicines.”

Deguise, Dupuy, and Leuret, Recherches et Experiences sur les effets de
V Acttate de Morphine, Paris, 1824.

Diedrich, TJeber Oxydimorphin, Inaug Diss., Gottingen, 1883.

Dietl and Yintschgau, Pfluger’s Archiv, xvi. 316, 1878, “Das Yerhalten
der physiologischen Reactionszeit unter dem Einfluss von Morphium,
CafFein, und Wein.

Eckhard, Beitrdge zur Anat. and Physiol., viii. 77, 1879, “ Ueber den Mor-
phium-diabetes ” (gives literature of morphine diabetes).

Falck, Toxicologische Studien ueber das Hydrocotarnin, Inaug. Diss., Mar-
burg, 1872.

Filehne, Archiv f. expt. Path, and PharmaJc. , x. 442, xi. 45, 1880, “TJeber die
Ein wirkung des Morphins auf die Athmung,” Berlin Min. Wochenschr.,
1887.

Foster, Proc. Roy. Soc., xix. 1870-1.

Frohlich, RossbacEs PharmaJc. Untersuchungen , i. 186, 1873, “ Beitrage zur
Lehre von dem physiol. Antagonismus in der Wirkung der Gifte.”

FronMuller, Klinische Studien der narlcotischen Arzneimittel, Erlangen,
1869.

Fubini, Cbl. f. die med. Wiss., p. 773, 1880, “TJeber den Einfluss der
wichtigsten Opium -alcaloide auf die Menge des von Mensohen in 24
Stunden ausgeschiedenen Harnstoffs.” Ibid., p. 579, 1882, “ Einfluss der
elec. Inductions-strome, &c., auf die Geschwindigkeit der Bewegungen
des Diinndarms.”

Gee, St Bartholomew1 s Hosp. Reports, v. 215, 1869, “Note upon Apomorphia
and Chlorocodide. ”

Grasset and Amblard, Comptes Rendus, xciii. 373, 1881, “De Taction
convulsivante de la Morphine chez les Mammiferes.”

Heubach, Archiv f. expt. Path., viii. 31, 1878, “Antagonismus zwischen
Morphin und Atropin.”

Krage, Ueber Albuminurie and Glycosurie nach Morphium, Inaug. Diss.,
Greifswald, 1878.

Landsberg, PJluger's Archiv, xxiii. 413, 1880, “ Untersuchungen liber das
Schicksal des Morphins im lebenden Organismus. ”

Legg, St Barts. Hosp. Reports, vi. 97, 1870, “Observations on the physiol.
Action of Apocodeia, &c.”

Lenhartz, Archiv f. expt. Path, and PharmaJc., xxii. 335, 1887, “Exper.
Beitrage zur Kenntniss der acuten Morphinvergiftung und des Antagonis-
mus zwischen Morphin and Atropin.”

381

1889-90.] Mr Dott and Dr Stockman on Morphine.

Levinstein, Die Morphiumsucht , Berlin, 1877. Translated by Chas. Harrer,
London, 1878.

Marm^, Deut. Med. Wochenschr., p. 197, 1883, “ Untersuchungen zur acuten
and chromischen Morphinvergiftung ” (M. found in urine and faeces).

Meihtjizen, Pfliiger’s Archiv, vii. 201, 1873, “ Ueber den Einfluss einiger
Substanzen auf die Reflexerregbarkeit des Riickenmarks.”

Nasse, Beitrage zur Physiologie der Darmbewegung, Leipzig, 1866.

Nothnagel, Virchow's Archiv, lxxxix. 1, 1882, “Ueber die Einwirkung
des Morphin auf den Darm.”

Ott, Journ. of Menial and Nervous Diseases, Chicago, 1878, “Action of the
Alkaloids of Opium.”

Picard, Comptes Bend., lxxxvi. 1144, 1878, “Sur Paction de la morphine
chez les chiens.”

Pierce, Practitioner, ii. 437, 1875, “On the Phys. Action of some new
Morphine and Codeine Derivatives.”

Preisendorfer, Deutsche. Archivs f. Min. Med., xxv. 40, 1880, “Zur Lehre
von der Wirkung der Narkotika.”

Rabuteau, Comptes Bend., lxxiv. 1109, 1872, “Recherches sur les pro-
priety de divers principes immediats de Popium.”

Rabuteau et Papillon, Comptes Bend., lxxvii. 1370, 1873, “Observations
touchant Paction de certaines substances toxiques sur les poissons de
mer.”

Schroeder, Archiv f. expt. Path.,xv ii. 96, 1883, “ Untersuchungen liber die
pharmakologische Gruppe des Morphins.”

Stocker, Proc. Boy. Soc., xx. 1871-2.

Stolnikow, Ztschr. f phys. Chemie, viii. 235, 1884, “Ueber die Bedeutung
der Hydroxylgruppe in einigen Giften ” (gives literature regarding excre-
tion of morphine in urine).

Tauber, Archiv f. expt. Path., xxvii. 336, 1890, “Ueber das Schicksal des
Morphins in theirischen Organismus” (literature).

Vulpian, Comptes Bend., xciv. 555, 1882, “ De Paction qu’exercent des
fortes doses de Strychnine sur la motricite des nerfs chez les mammiferes.

Wach, Beitrag zur Path, und Ther. der chronischen Morphiumvergiftung,
Inaug. Diss. , Jena, 1880.

Witkowski, Archiv f. expt. Path., vii. 247, 1877 (gives the pharmacological
literature very fully — 35 papers).

Husemann and Hilger, Die Pflanzendoffe, 2 ed., vol. ii., 1884 (gives the
chemical literature very fully, and also a few papers not mentioned by
Witkowski or by us).

Literature of Codeine.

Wachs, Das Codein, Inaug Diss., Marburg, 1868 (literature from 1832-68).

Schroeder, Archiv expt. Path., xvii., 1883 (gives literature partially).

Cl. Bernard, Les AnestMsiques et V Asphyxie, 1875.

Baxt, Beichert and Du Bois Beymond Archiv, p. 112, 1869, “Die physiol.
Wirkung einiger Opium- Alkaloide.”

Weir Mitchell, Amer. Jour, of Med. Sc., lix., 1870, “On the Effects of
Opium and its Derivative Alkaloids.”

Harley, Old Vegetable Neurotics, London, 1869.

Among the authors previously cited Bouchut, Crum Brown and Fraser,

Falck, Fro.nmuller, Ott, and Rabuteau describe the action of Codeine.

382

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

A New Method for Determining Phosphorus in Organic
Phosphorus Compounds. By Prof. E. A. Letts and
R. F. Blake, Esq., Queen's College , Belfast.

Read July 21, 1889.

In the phosphines and their derivatives, which we have inves-
tigated from time to time, considerable uncertainty has always
attended the determinations of phosphorus by the ordinary methods
recommended for the purpose. In fact, we never felt any confidence
in the result, for no matter bow carefully the determinations were
made, duplicate analyses led to different numbers.

The uncertainty depends partly upon the difficulty of oxidising
the phosphorus in such compounds to phosphoric acid. For, as a
rule, in any dry combustion process which may be employed, vola-
tile oxidation products, containing phosphorus, are formed of great
stability, which frequently pass over the red-hot oxidising mixture
almost unchanged. Moreover, the glass of the tube is attacked by
the oxidising mixture, and this undoubtedly leads to inaccuracies,
probably of considerable magnitude.

If any moist combustion process is resorted to, only a part of the
phosphorus is converted into phosphoric acid. A more certain and
trustworthy process than any of those which are in general use was
therefore desirable, and in some of our investigations, where every-
thing depended upon a correct estimation of the phosphorus, it was
essential. It occurred to one of us that the difficulty in finding such
a process ought not to be so great after all, for by burning a substance
in the ordinary way with oxide of copper, the phosphorus ought to
be completely oxidised, and should be found at the end of the opera-
tion as phosphate of copper, in which it could be estimated without
much difficulty by the molybdate method. In addition to the sim-
plicity of such a method, it should also possess the great advantage of
permitting the simultaneous determination of carbon and hydrogen.

Our anticipations have been fully realised, and the new process,
based on the above principle, if somewhat tedious, we believe to
be accurate, of general application, and easily carried out. We shall
describe it with the necessary detail, and then give some of our
results obtained with it.

1889-90.] Prof. Letts and Mr Blake on Phosphorus. 383

At the outset we experienced some difficulty in obtaining pure
oxide of copper ; for any commercial samples we examined, even
when called “pure” by the manufacturer, were invariably found
to contain phosphorus or arsenic, often in considerable quantity.
We therefore prepared it for ourselves, as follows : —

Commercial sulphate of copper was dissolved in water, and the
solution saturated with chlorine. On evaporation and crystallisa-
tion, fairly pure crystals were obtained, but we preferred to re-
crystallise them once. The cold saturated solution of this salt was
then electrolysed in a large beaker or shallow glass dish, the elec-
trodes being platinum plates, of the size generally used in the cell
of a Grove’s battery. The gas engine used to drive our dynamo was
1J horse-power, and with it we obtained about 100 grms. of pure
copper in 7-8 hours. The copper was then dissolved in pure
nitric acid in a platinum dish, the solution evaporated, and the
residual nitrate of copper calcined at a dull red heat with constant
stirring. The resulting oxide formed a black crystalline powder.

In making the phosphorus determination, a narrow tube about
50 cm. long and 7-8 mm. bore was employed, which was found to
contain, when properly charged/about 25 grms. of oxide of copper.
It was drawn out in the usual way, and sealed at the posterior end ;
then charged first with about 5 cm. oxide of copper, afterwards
with about 10-15 cm. of the mixture of substance and oxide, and
finally with the pure oxide, the whole being kept in its place by a
plug of copper gauze. The combustion was then proceeded with
in the ordinary manner, and a current of oxygen passed at its
conclusion.

When cold, the tube was removed from the furnace, the plug of
copper gauze hooked out, and the remainder of the contents shaken
into a beaker. The tube was then washed two or three times with
hot nitric acid, to dissolve every trace of adhering oxide of copper.
To do this, the broken (tail) end was sealed up again, the tube filled
with nitric acid, and heated in front of an ordinary fire. The nitric
acid washings were added to the contents of the tube, which had
been shaken into the beaker, and a further quantity of the same acid
added — sufficient to dissolve the whole of the oxide of copper, for
which about 100 c.c. in all were usually required. Solution of the
oxide was effected by boiling. When all had dissolved, about 200

384

Proceedings of Eoycd Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

c.c. of the molybdate of ammonia mixture* was added, and the whole
placed in a hath with a thermo-regulator at 50° C. for about twenty-
four hours. The precipitate was then collected, and the phosphorus
converted in the usual way into pyrophosphate of magnesium.

In our first experiments we aimed only at determining the phos-
phorus, while later we determined carbon and hydrogen in addition.

The following are the chief results we have as yet obtained : —

Determinations of Phosphorus only.

1. In oxide of tribenzyl phosphine —

(A) 0-4477 gave 0-1582 Mg2P2Or = 0-04418 P = 9*86 per cent.

(B) 0*3294 „ 0-1178 „ =0-032899 P = 9-98 „

Calculated for (C7U7)3IJ0

0-1178

Obtained.

A B

Phosphorus, 9*86 9 -98

9-68

2. In dibenzyl-phosphinate of methyl —

0-2592 gave 0*1088 Mg2P20^ = 0*0304 P = 11-72 per cent.

Obtained. Calculated for C15H17P02

Phosphorus, 11 -72 11 -92

3. In tribenzyl phosphine —

0*3634 gave 0*1352 Mg2P207 = 0*037758 P= 10*39 per cent.

Obtained. Calculated for (C7H7)3P

Phosphorus, 10*39 10*19

4. In mono-benzyl phosphinic acid —

0-2559 gave 0-1608 Mg2P207 = 0*044908 P = 17*54 per cent.

Obtained. Calculated for (C7H7)H2P03

Phosphorus, 17*54 18*02

Determination of Phosphorus , Carbon , and Hydrogen.

1. In dibenzyl phosphinic acid —

V 1*4058 C02 = 0*3834 C = 67*99 per cent.

0*5639 gave { 0*3315 H20 = 0*036833 H = 6*53 per cent.

( 0*2639 Mg2P207 = 0*073701 P= 13*06 per cent.
Obtained. Calculated for (C7H7)2HP02

Carbon, 67*99 68*29

Hydrogen, 6*53 6*09

Phosphorus, 13*06 12*60

These examples show that even when small quantities of the
phosphorised compounds are submitted to analysis, fairly accurate
results are obtained — far more accurate, indeed, than might have
been anticipated, considering the very large quantity of nitrate of
copper with which the phosphoric acid was diluted previous to
precipitation by the molybdate. It is probable that with larger
quantities even better numbers would have resulted.

* Prepared according to Frsenius’ Manual.

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 385

List of the Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei of Fife and the
Lothians. By R. H. Traquair, M.D., F.R.S.

(Read July 21, 1890.)

No district of Great Britain is so rich in genera and species of
Carboniferous Dipnoi and Ganoidei as that of Fife and the Lothians,
and in the frequency of entire specimens of these fishes it is only
approached by North Staffordshire.

Another feature of the greatest geological interest is the abund-
ance of fish remains in estuarine strata below the horizon of the
Millstone grit, whereby a means of comparing the Ganoid fish
faunae of the Upper and Lower divisions of the Carboniferous for-
mation is afforded. Lower Carboniferous Ganoids and Dipnoans
occur, it is true, in the western part of the great central Scottish
carboniferous area, and a very remarkable assemblage of fishes of
that period was discovered not many years ago in the district of
Eskdale and Liddesdale in the south. But in England and Ireland
and in other parts of the world generally, the Lower Carboniferous
fish remains known to us are mainly those of marine Selachii, so
that an especial interest attaches to the Carboniferous fish-fauna of
Scotland, and particularly to that of the district with which the
present list has to deal.

A list of the fossil fishes of the Edinburgh district, compiled by
the late Mr Salter, is given in the Memoir of the Geological Survey,
explanatory of Sheet 32 (Scotland), and published in 1861. Since
the appearance of this Memoir, now nearly thirty years ago, no
collective list of the fossil fishes of this part of the country
has been drawn up, though the amount of material amassed by the
labours of many collectors has enormously increased during those
years. Among those who have contributed, by their work in the
field, to an augmentation of the material for a new and expanded
list of the fossil fishes of this district, I may mention, besides Messrs
Bennie and Macconochie, collectors to the Geological Survey of

I Scotland, Mr W. Tait Kinnear, Mr W. Anderson, now of the Geo-
logical Survey of New South Wales, Mr T. Stock, Mr James Kirkby,
and the late Mr Robert Walker of St Andrews ; while I myself,
during the past sixteen years, have been able to procure both for
VOL. XVII. 2 B

386 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

the Museum of Science and Art and for my own collection, a very
considerable number of specimens from the localities round Edin-
burgh.

One result of this large increase of material is that a number of
undoubtedly new species have to be chronicled. Another result is,
that the increase of knowledge which this increase of material has
brought with it, induces me to withdraw several species which I
myself had previously named, but which I now must place among
the synonyms. Where species have been otherwise rectified, I have
not considered it necessary, in a list like this, to occupy space by
giving the entire synonymy.

As I hope to take up the cataloguing of the Selachii next session,
the present list is restricted to the Dipnoi and Ganoidei, including
the problematical Acanthodei, which ought perhaps, as in the
opinion of many, to be rather considered as Elasmobranchs. The
list itself cannot be supposed to be complete, but it will, it is to be
hoped, be of a certain utility for a time.

Horizons.

The Upper Old Red Sandstone (U.O.R.) cannot, I think be asso-
ciated with the Carboniferous rocks on account of its fish remains,
which have a greater general resemblance to those of the Lower Old
Red of the North of Scotland, in spite of the well-known uncon-
formity which exists between the two sets of strata. In the Car-
boniferous system two great divisions — Upper and Lower — may be
adopted, and these again subdivided according to the plan in use by
the Director-general and Officers -of the Geological Survey. In this
arrangement the Lower Carboniferous falls into two subdivisions,
the Calciferous Sandstone Series (C.S.) extending up to the first
Gilmerton Limestone, and the Carboniferous Limestone Series
(C.L.) extending from the last-mentioned horizon to the Millstone
Grit, or Rosslyn Sandstone. And in their turn the Upper Car-
boniferous rocks fall likewise into two subdivisions — the Millstone
Grit below, and the Coal Measures (C.M.) above. I have given no
contraction for the Millstone Grit, as I have seen no fish remains
from this set of rocks in the East of Scotland.

It is certainly worthy of note that in this list not one species is
common to the Upper and Lower Divisions of the Carboniferous

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 387

formation. So far as fish-life at least is concerned, there certainly
occurred an important palseontological break at the base of the
Millstone Grit. And my friend Mr Kidston tells me that the same
is true with regard to the plants.

Order DIPNOI.

Family Ctenodontidce.

1. Phaneropleuron Ander-

soni, Huxley.

2. Ctenodus interruptus,

Barkas.

3. Ctenodus cristatus, Ag.

4. Ctenodus angustulus, Traq.

5. Sagenodus quinauecostatus,

Traq.

Syn. Ctenodus obliquus , var.
quinquecostatusfY.x&<\.

Hemictenodus quinque-
costatus , Traq.

List.

U.O.R.

Dura Den.

C.S.

Pittenweem, Fife ; West

Calder.

C.L.

Gilmerton, Loanhead ;

Kinghorn.

C.M.

Dalkeith.

C.L.

Loanhead.

C.L.

Gilmerton, Loanhead.

Family TJronemidae.

6. Uronemus lobatus, Ag. C.S.

Syn. Phaneropleuron ele-

gans, Traq.

7. Uronemus splendens, Traq. C.L.
Syn. Ganopristodus splen-

denst Traq.

Burdiehouse.

Loanhead ; Dry den.

Order GANOIDEI.

? Suborder Acanthodei.

Family Acanthodidce.

8. Acanthodes sulcatus, Ag. C.S. Wardie; Burdiehouse;

Oakbank; W. Calder;
Straiton ; S. Queens-
ferry ; Pitcorthy, Fife ;
Ardross, &c.

388

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

SESS.

9. Acanthodes Wardi, Egert.
„ sp. indet.

10. Acanthodopsis Wardi,
Hancock & Atthey.

C.M. Edmonstone.

C.L. Gilmerton, Loanhead.
C.M. Smeaton, near Dalkeith.

Suborder Placodermi.

Family Pterichthyidce.

11. Bothriolepis hydrophilus U.O.R. Dura Den; Drumdryan.
(Ag.)

Syn. Pterichthys hydro-
philus, Ag. ; Egert.

Pamphractus hydro-
philus, Ag.

Pamphractus Ander-
soni, Ag.

Homothorax Fle-
mingii, Ag.

Suborder Crossopterygii.

Family Holoptychiidoe.

12. Holoptychius Flemingii, U.O.R.

Ag.

Syn. Holoptychius Ander-
soni, Ag.

Platygnathus Jame-
soni, Ag.

13. Holoptychius nobilissimus, U.O.R.

Ag.

Syn. Holoptychius Mur-
chisoni, Ag.

Gyrolepis giganteus,

Ag.

Family Rhizodontidce.

14. Rhizodus Hibberti {Ag.) C.S.
Syn. Megalichthys Hib-
berti, Ag., pars.

Plvyllolepis tenuissi-
mus. Asr.

Dura Den.

Dairsie ; Drumdryan,
Fife.

Wardie ; Burdiehouse ; S.
Queensferry ; St An-
drews; Straiton; Pit-
corthy.

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 389

Syn. Holoptydiius Hib-

C.L.

Gilmerton ; Loanhead ;

berti , A g., pars.

The Moat ; Penstone ;

Rhizodus gracilis ,

Bo’ness : Lochgelly ;

M‘Coy.

Denhead.

15. Bhizodus ornatus, Traq.

C.S.

Burdiehouse ; Straiton ;

Syn. Megalichtliys Hib-

Pittenweem; Pitcorthy.

berti , Ag., pars.

C.L.

Gilmerton ; Denhead.

Holoptydiius Hib-
berti , Ag., pars.
Rhizodus Hibberti ,
Traq., pars.

16. Archichthys sulcidens,

C.M.

Smeaton.

Hancock and Atthey.

1 7. Archichthys Portlocki {Ag. )

C.S.

Pittenweem ; Ahden.

Syn. Holoptydiius Port-
locki , Ag.

18. Strepsodus sauroides,

C.M.

Ed monstone; Pirnie Col-

{Binney). liery, Leven.

Syn. Holoptydiius saur-

oides, Binney.

1 9. Strepsodus striatulus, Traq.

C.L.

Loanhead; Ahden.

20. Strepsodus minor, Traq.

C.S.

Pitcorthy.

21. Bhizodopsis sauroides,

C.M.

Smeaton ; Edmonstone.

( Williamson).

Syn. Holoptydiius saur-
oides, Williamson.
Rhizodus granulatus ,

Salter.

22. Bhizodopsis, sp. indet.

C.L.

Loanhead.

Family Saurodipteridoe.
23. Glyptopomus minor, Ag.

U.O.B.

Dura Den.

24. Glyptolsemus Kinnairdi,

U.O.B.

Dura Den.

Huxley.

Syn. Diplopterus Dalgleish-
iensis , Anderson.

25. Megalichthys laticeps,

C.S.

Burdiehouse ; Burnt-

Traq.

island.

390 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

26. Megalichthys lsevis, Traq.

27. „ Hibberti, Ag.

„ sp. indet.

Family Coelacantliidce.

28. Coelacanthus lepturus, Ag.

„ sp.

Suborder Acipenseroidei.
Family Palceoniscidce .

29. Elonichthys nemopterus,

(A&-)

Syn. Amblypterus nemo-
pterus, Ag.

Amblypterus punctatus,
Ag. pars.

Palceoniscus Robisoni ,
Hibberfc.

Palceoniscus striolatus ,

H-

Elonichthys intermedins ,

Traq.

Elonichthys ovatus , Traq.

„ Dunsii, Traq.
Elonichthys tenuiser-
ratus , Traq.

30. Bucklandi (Ay.)

Syn. Pygopterus Buck-
landi, Ag.

31. pectinatus, Tray.

32. multistriatus, Traq.

33. striatus {Ag.)

C.S. Straiten.

C.M. Smeaton ; Shawfair.
C.L. Gilmerton, Denhead.

C.M. Smeaton.

C.L, Abden.

C.S. Wardie ; Burdiehouse ; S.

Queensferry; Straiton;
Pumpherston; W. Cal-
der; Broxburn; Juniper
Green; Burntisland;
Pitcorthy.

C.L. Gilmerton ; Loanhead ;

Wally ford; Denhead.

C.S.

Burdiehouse

; Wardie ;

Straiton ;

S. Queens-

ferry; Burntisland.

C.L.

Loanhead.

C.S.

W. Calder;

Oakbank ;

Straiton.

C.L.

Loanhead ;

Gilmerton ;

Kingseat :

; Abden ;

Denhead.

C.L.

Gilmerton ;

Loanhead.

C.S.

Wardie ;

Burdiehouse ;

Juniper Green; Strait-
on; Pitcorthy.

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 391

Syn. Amblypterus striatus ,

A g.

Cosmoptycliius striatus ,

Traq.

34. Rhadinichthys ornatissi-

mus (Ag.)

Syn. Falceoniscus orna-
tissimus , Ag.
Rhadiniclithys lepturus,

Traq.

35. Rhadinichthys carinatus

^g.),

Syn. Palceoniscus carina-
tus, Ag.,

Rhadinichthys Geikiei ,
Traq.

3 6. Rhadinichthys brevis, Trag.

37. Rhadinichthys tenuicauda,

Traq.

38. Rhadinichthys ferox, Traq.

39. „ macrocepha-
lus, Traq.

40. JSTematopty chius Green-

ockii, Ag.

Syn. Pygopterus Green-
ockii , Ag.,
Pygopterus elegans,

C. W. Peach.
Nematopty chius gra-
cilis, Traq.

41. Acrolepis semigranulosus

Traq.

42. Gonatodus punctatus, Ag.,
Syn. Amblypterus punc-
tatus, Ag. pars.

,, Amblypterus ancono-
cechmodus Walker.

43. Gonatodus macrolepis, Traq.

C.S. Burdiehouse; Wardie;

Straiton ; S. Queens-
ferry; Burntisland.

C.S. Wardie, Pumpherston,

Pitcorthy, Colinton ;
Redhall ; Corn Ceres,
near Kilrenny.

C.S. Wardie.

C.L. Wallyford.

C.S. Wardie.

C.S. Pumpherston.

C.S. Wardie ; Burdiehouse ;

Burntisland; Straiton;
Oakbank ; W. Calder ;
Juniper Green.

C.L. Gilmerton ; Loanhead.

C.S. Straiton.

C.S. Wardie; Straiton; Bur-
diehouse; Pitcorthy.

C.L. Gilmerton.

392 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

44. Gonatodus parvidens, Traq.

C.L.

Loanhead ; Lochgelly.

45. Drydenius insignis, Traq.

C.L.

Loanhead.

46. Cryphiolepis striatus, Traq.

C.L.

Loanhead.

Syn. Coelacanthus striatus,
Traq.

Family Platysomidce.

47. Eurynotus crenatus, Ag.

c.s.

Wardie ; Burdiehouse ;

Syn. Eurynotus firnbri-

Juniper Green ; Craig-

atus, Ag.

leith ; S. Queensferry ;

C.L.

Pumpherston ; Burnt-
island ; Pittenweem ;
Pitcorthy ; Kenly-

mouth ; Corn Ceres,
near Kilrenny.

Gilmerton ; Loanhead ;

48. Eurynotus microlepidotus,

C.L.

Abden; Denhead.
Loanhead.

Traq.

49. Platysomus parvulus, Ag.

C.M.

Edmonstone ; Smeaton.

50. Cheirodus crassus, Traq.

C.L.

Abden.

Notes on Some of the Species in the Preceding List.

Acanthodes sulcatus, A g. — The type specimen from Wardie, in
the Oxford Museum, is so poor a fragment that the reference to
this species of the now pretty numerous and tolerably perfect
examples of Acanthodes from the Calciferous Sandstone Series of
the district is more a matter of guess-work than of absolute scien-
tific proof, though at the same time there is no real reason for
doubt. The fish attains to a very considerable size, and is very
closely allied to A. Wardi, Eg., of the Coal Measures. The little
“sulcus” or groove on the scales, figured by Agassiz, and upon
which he founded the specific name, is very inconstant, and can
hardly be used as a character; in fact, the only tangible mark
which I can find to distinguish sulcatus from Wardi is a somewhat
greater straightness and slenderness of the “ styliform ” bone.

I am of opinion that the remains of Acanthodes which occur in

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 393

the Carboniferous Limestone Series are specifically distinct both
from Wardi and sulcatus, but unfortunately they are not sufficiently
perfect to warrant the application of a new name.

Sagenodus. — At the suggestion of Mr Smith Woodward, I adopt
the term Sagenodus , Owen, for Ctenodont fishes of the type of
obliquus, Atthey, and quinquecostatus , Traq.,in place of Hemictenodus,
Jaeckel. Sagenodus inequalis seems pretty certainly to have been
founded by Sir K. Owen on a microscopic section of a young speci-
men of Gtenodus obliquus , Atthey {Trans. Odontolo. Soc., vol. v.,
1867, p. 395, pi. xii.), while on the other hand one cannot feel sure
that Jaeckel was correct in referring Atthey ’s species to his genus
Hemictenodus.

Phaneropleuron. — I include Phaneropleuron with Gtenodus and
its allies in the family Ctenodontidse, because the recent observations
of Whiteaves, Jaeckel, and myself on specimens of Ph. curtum ,
Whiteaves, from the Upper Devonian of Scaumenac Bay, Canada,
clearly show what I had long suspected in the case of Ph. Andefsoni ,
Huxley, that the configuration of the palatal bones and palatal
dentition was essentially the same as in Gtenodus and Dipterus.
Marginal teeth have, it is true, been also described by Huxley in Ph.
Andersoni and by Whiteaves in Ph. curtum , but I do not consider
that this character excludes it from the family. The name Cteno-
dontidse is, I think, preferable to Pander’s “ Ctenododipterinse,” as
Dipterus is the only member of the family known to us in which
the dorsal fin is differentiated into two.

Uronemidce. — Notwithstanding the great external resemblance of
Uronemus to Phaneropleuron , I am constrained to put the former
in a distinct family, owing to the fact that the dentition does not
assume the form of “ctenodont” plates, and the shape of the
palatal bones is quite different. In Uronemus these bones are
broad plates, with only a row of teeth along the outer margin, the
surface internal to which is simply granulated. Details as to the
structure of Uronemus will be given in a subsequent memoir.

Strepsodus minor , n. sp. — Scales about -J inch in length by J inch
in breadth ; usually more or less quadrate or rectangular in aspect,
the upper and lower borders being straight and parallel, the posterior
border gently convex. Covered surface showing fine concentric striae,
exposed area with radiating raised lines or feeble ridges, indicative

394

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

of subjacent vascular channels. Associated with these scales is a
small tooth, shaped as in Strepsodus sauroides, hut with the striation
of a much more delicate character (Museum of Science and Art).

Megalichthys Icevis, n. sp. — I apply this term to a comparatively
small species of Megalichthys , whose more or less disjointed remains
are not uncommon in the ironstone nodules contained in the “roof ”
of the Dunnet oil shale worked at Straiton and Pentland. Its dis-
tinguishing specific character is the thinness of the scales and the
absence of the usual prominent rib or keel on the under surface.
In fact, these scales, when seen from below, are almost indistinguish-
able from those of Rhizodopsis. Externally they are brilliantly
ganoid on the free portion of the surface, as in other species. Type
specimens in the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh.

Elonichthys nemopterus, Ag. — After puzzling for years over in-
numerable specimens of the Robisoni type of Elonichthys , which is
so common in the Lower Carhoniferous Eocks of central Scotland,
and in vain seeking for definite characters towards dividing them
into “ good ” species, I have been reluctantly compelled to abandon
the quest, and to seek for a solution of the question by reuniting
them all, with the exception of E. Buchlandi (Ag.), which can always
be easily recognised by the strongly-marked and deeply-cut orna-
ment of its scales.

It is no doubt easy enough to put together a set of extreme forms,
which any one might readily be tempted to adopt as distinct species,
and in fact I did so myself at the commencement of my investiga-
tions ; but the more material I obtained, the more and more unre-
liable did I find every character turn out upon which I had fixed
as diagnostic. Eor example, the relative fineness or coarseness of the
fin-rays, and the relative distance of their transverse articulations,
are characters which are quite inconstant. As a rule, the fin-rays
are proportionally more slender and more distantly articulated in
young specimens, though this condition sometimes persists in adult
forms. Also, no reliance can be placed on the relative extent to
which the scales are striated or punctate, or upon whether the
punctate area is nearly smooth or thickly covered with punctures.
Unfortunately the relative size of the scales and the number of rays
in each fin are characters which can only be accurately ascertained
in exceptionally well-preserved specimens, as a certain amount of

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 395

distortion is common to the greater number of those specimens as
they occur in the rock.

All the forms which I include under Elonichthys nemopterus are
fishes of a tolerably deeply fusiform shape, with large fins, the dorsal
and anal triangular, and high in front ; the fin rays longitudinally
striated, save in some cases the proximal parts of those of the lower
lobe of the caudal ; the principal rays of the pectoral articulated up
to their origins. The scales are finely serrated on their posterior
margins ; their ornament is delicately striato-punctate, as shown in
my description and figures of those of the variety striolatus (Cart).
Ganoids, Pal. Soc ., 1877); hut, as remarked above, there is an infinite
variety in the relative extent of the striation and punctation. As
a rule the most anterior scales are entirely striated ; those of the
middle of the body striated towards the anterior margin and punctate
posteriorly ; while those towards the tail become nearly smooth.
The cranial roof bones are for the most part finely tuberculated ; those
of the face striated, and very considerable variety occurs here as to
the closeness and prominence of the striation.

As well marked varieties I may retain the following : —

a. E. nemopterus , Ag. type. — Fin-rays slender, rather distantly

articulated, striated ornament prevalent on the scales.
C.S., Wardie, Pumpherston.

b. Yar. striolatus , Ag. — Fin-rays relatively coarser, very

closely articulated , scales delicately striate-punctate. The
Palceoniscus Robisoni of Hibbert and Agassiz ( Elonichthys
Robisoni , Traq. olim) is doubtless the young of this variety.
C.S., Burdiehouse, Burntisland, Pitcorthy.

c. Yar. intermedins, Traq. — Like striolatus , but the transverse

articulations of the median fin-rays not so close. C.S.,
Wardie, Burdiehouse, S. Queensferry, Pitcorthy, &c.
This includes one of the two types of Agassiz’s Arnblyp-
terus punctatus from Wardie.

d. Yar. Dunsii , Traq. — Rays of the dorsal fin finely serrated

posteriorly. C.S., Broxburn.

e. Yar. tenuiserratus, Traq. — Scales with the external ornament

very delicately marked, nearly smooth, posterior serration
very fine. Sculpture of head bones strongly marked. Of
all the forms enumerated above, this is the one I abandon

396 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh . [sess.

with the most reluctance, hut the occurrence of links
apparently connecting it with the others, leaves me no
alternative. C.S., W. Calder.

/. Yar. affinis, Traq. — Like intermedins , hut the fins appar-
ently rather smaller and composed of fewer rays. C.L.,
Gilmerton, Loanhead, Wallyford, Denhead.

As to E. ovatus, Traq., I abandon it altogether, as being pretty
certainly a form with the body shortened up by distor-
tion.

Elonichthys midtistriatus , n. sp. — The remains of this remarkable
and undoubtedly new species which have as yet been found, consist
of fragments of fishes more or less distorted, and also disjointed
scales and bones. The former set of remains indicate that the body
was deeply fusiform, the fins large and composed of numerous
closely striated rays, and the head bones resembling in shape those
of E. pectinatuSj Traq. But the scales are altogether peculiar.
Those of the flanks are higher than broad, more or less rectangular
in form, the covered area narrow, the exposed portion covered with
fine sharp raised striae or ridges, which are sub-parallel, frequently
bifurcating and also anastomosing, and cross the surface of the
scale obliquely from above downwards and backwards. From the
upper margin of the scale, and rather near the anterior superior
margin, there projects a strong pointed and grooved articular spine ;
the posterior margin is entire and without serrations.

When I first saw the scales of this fish, their form and manner
of ornament strongly suggested Platysomid affinities, but the maxilla
and cast of the mandible lying with them in the same slab clearly
showed that we had to deal with a member of the Palseoniscidse.
Other specimens, as aforesaid, indicate that the safest genus to
place it in is Elonichthys. It must have attained a considerable
size.

C. A., Gilmerton and Loanhead. Type specimens in the collection
of the author.

Elonichthys striatus , Ag. — I formerly separated this species
under the generic term Cosmoptychius, owing to the presence of a
small plate, which is wedged in anteriorly between the operculum
and the quadrate plate beneath it, usually reckoned as suboperculum.

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and G-anoidei. 397

As in the Lower Permian genus Rliabdolepis of Troschel, this plate
extends back the whole way to the opercular margin, and com-
pletely separates the operculum from the quadrate plate beneath.
I considered it as the true “suboperculum,” and reckoned the
quadrate plate as “interoperculum,” an opinion which I subse-
quently recanted in my paper on Chondrosteus * in which I restored
the term “ suboperculum ” to the quadrate plate, and considered the
small intermediate one as accessory. I had not, at the time I
instituted the genus Cosmoptychius, observed this little triangular
accessory plate in Elonichthys , but since then I have seen it
frequently, and in consequence I feel that there is no sufficient
ground for separating striatus from the other species of the last
named genus.

Rhadinichthys ornatissimus , Ag. — I have long had no doubt as
to my former R. lepturus from Burntisland being only a young
specimen of R. ornatissimus , and therefore cancel the species. Ex-
ceptionally fine specimens of R. ornatissimus have recently occurred
in the roof of the Dunnet shale at Straiton and Pentland.

Rhadinichthys carinatus , Ag. — I much regret that a similar fate
must befall R. Geikiei from Redhall; but the accession of a fine
series of carinatus from Pumpherston has so much added to our
knowledge of its characters, that it has become clear that the little
specimens from the former locality, which I named in honour of
the Director-general of the Geological Survey, must be absorbed in
the Agassizian species. In Agassiz’s type of this species from
Wardie, as well as in other specimens from that locality, the outer
surface of the scales is imperfectly shown, hence I formerly
described it as entirely smooth or nearly so ; but the Pumpherston
specimens, which I cannot avoid referring to carinatus , from the
general appearance and contour of the body and fins, clearly display
the same character of scale ornament as I had previously attributed
to Geikiei ( Proc . Roy. Soc. Edin ., ix. 1877, p. 439). I also, in my
paper on the Eskdale Ganoids , doubtfully identified the common
Rhadinichthys of the Glencartholm beds with the supposed species,
R. Geikiei , and it has been long evident to me that this doubt was
amply justified. Though closely allied, the Glencartholm fish has
a considerably coarser serration of the posterior margins of the
* Geol. Mag ., June 1887, p. 253.

398 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

scales, which is very constant in spite of the numerous other
variations exhibited by the large series of specimens which I have
examined ; and the name Geikiei having been originally applied in
error to another species, it cannot now be adopted for any member
of the genus, so that for the more southern species I must adopt
the name elegantulus , previously given by me to one of its varieties.
R. delicatulus , Traq., from the same beds, is also a mere variety of
the same species.

Rliadinichthys macrocephalus, n. sp. — Allied to R. carinatus in
general appearance and scale sculpture, but proportionately shorter,
with a smaller number of transverse scale-bands, the flank scales
rather high in proportion to their breadth, the head proportionately
larger, and the suspensorium less oblique than in the species last
referred to. C.S., Pumpherston ; the most common species in the
“curly shale” worked there and at the adjacent oil work of
Holmes. Type specimens in the collection of the author.

Nematopty chius Greenocki , Ag. — N. gracilis , Traq., from the
Gilmerton Black Band Ironstone, is certainly a young individual of
this species.

Acrolepis semigranidosus, n. sp.— -From the roof of the Dunne t
shale at Straiton, the Edinburgh Museum possesses a slab covered
with scales of a large Acrolepis , the sculpture of which is different
from that of .any other member of the genus with which I am
acquainted. These scales, which have the size and form of those
of A. Hopkinsi (M‘Coy), are covered on their exposed area with
innumerable closely-set fine ridges, often tortuous, and tending
constantly to break up into tubercles ; their main direction is, how-
ever, as usual, obliquely across the scale from the anterior margin.

As my Elonichtliys ortholepis from Glencartholm turns out to be
a young specimen of a large Acrolepis , there are now four species of
Acrolepis known, or at least described, from the Carboniferous rocks
of Great Britain, viz., — Hopkinsi , M£Coy ; Wilsoni , Traq. ; ortholepis ,
Traq. ; and semigranulosus, Traq.

I may here mention that I can see no radical distinction between
the scales of the fish from the Carboniferous Limestone series of the
West of Scotland, which I described as Acrolepis Rankinei (Ag.),
and the scales from Derbyshire in the Woodwardian Museum,
Cambridge, figured by M‘Coy as Holoptychius Hopkinsi. Though,

1889-90.] Dr Traquair on Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei. 399

according to the traditions of the Glasgow geologists, this species
is Agassiz’s Gyrolepis Rankinei , the name, having been accompanied
by no description in the Poissons Fossiles , has no right of priority.

Drydenius insignis, n. gen. and sp. — When my attention was
first drawn to the vertebrate fossils of the Borough Lee and Loan-
head Blackband Ironstone, I attributed certain small jaw-fragments,
showing peculiar bent cylindro-conical and conspicuous teeth, to
Gonatodus macrolepis, Traq. ; but after collecting a large number
of those little dentigerous bones, it began to be clear to me that I
had, on the other hand, to deal with a new fish, of which more
or less entire specimens with the teeth in situ began also to
turn up.

The most entire example I have seen is 4 inches in length, and,
but for the peculiarity of the dentition to be presently described,
one would indeed be inclined to refer it to Gonatodus. The scales
are exactly, as in that genus, nearly smooth, with finely serrated
posterior margins ; the fin-rays are proportionally rather coarse and
also smooth ; the cranial roof bones are ornamented with flattened
tortuous ridges. It is in the bones of the jaws that the peculiarities
reside, which have induced me to elevate the species also to the
type of a genus. The hinder part of the maxilla forms a short
expanded plate, from the middle of the anterior aspect of which the
narrow anterior or suborbital process extends, so that the tooth-
bearing margin is posteriorly bent suddenly downwards at a con-
siderable angle. This margin is set as in Gonatodus with a single
row of proportionally stout cylindro-conical pointed teeth. The
dentary element of the mandible is rather stout, and shows on its
upper margin a row of similar teeth. The splenial element presents
a dental armature which I have not seen in any other palseoniscid.
The bone is narrow, rounded posteriorly, concave externally, and
tapering to a point in front, its upper straight margin being set with
a single row of short conical pointed teeth. But the inner, or oral
aspect, shows an area about the middle, and occupying more than
1 of its length, from which a row of six powerful cylindro-conical
teeth arises, behind which are three or four small ones. The large
teeth seem disproportionally large for the small size of the fish, and
are conspicuous even in the most crushed heads. They are strongly
curved with the convexity inwards.

400 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

As already mentioned, I have seen no such dentition either in
Gonatodus or in any other palseoniscid fish, and consequently I have
considered it advisable to constitute the new genus, Drydenius, for
this little fish. The name is taken from the Yale of Dry den, which
is in close proximity to the ironstone mines of Borough Lee and
Loanhead. Type specimens in the Edinburgh Museum of Science
and Art.

Eurynotus crenatus , Agassiz. — The original specimen of E. fim-
briatus , Ag., from Wardie, in the Oxford Museum, is a very poor
fragment, upon which no specific characters distinguishing it from
E. crenatus can really he founded, especially if one takes into
account the enormous number of other specimens of the genus from
the Scotch Lower Carboniferous rocks which have been collected
since Agassiz wrote the Poissons Fossiles. These specimens show
very great differences in many respects; but the result of my
puzzling over them for years is that, with the exception of a peculiar
form from Loanhead, all must be referred to the same species,
namely, E. crenatus , Ag. In some cases the scales are comparatively
smooth, in others more ornamented ; in some the crenation of their
edges in the dorsal region is extremely coarse, in others this character
is not so marked. With regard to the fin-rays, the same remarks
apply which I made in the case of Elonichthys nemopterus, namely,
that in young specimens these are more slender and the transverse
joints more distant than in adults, in which also there is no fixed
condition as regards this particular. In many instances the rays of
the dorsal fin are serrated posteriorly, but I cannot venture to found
a species on this.

Eurynotus microlepidotus , n. sp. — Characterised by the small size
of its scales and the large dimensions of its fins. C.L., Loanhead.
Type specimens in the collection of the author.

Cheirodus crassus, n. sp. — Scales with a relatively coarser ornament
than in Ch. granulosus , Young ; internal rib or “ lepidopleuron,”
not nearly so distinctly marked off ; C.Z., Abden. The same scales
occur at Beith, Ayrshire, associated with dentary plates referable to
Cheirodus. Type specimens from Abden in the Museum of Science
and Art. From Beith, in the collection of Kobert Craig, Esq.,
Langside, Beith.

1889-90.] Prof. Knott on Interactions of Magnetisations. 401

The Interactions of Circular and Longitudinal Magnetisa-
tions. By Prof. C. Gr. Knott, D.Sc.

(Read July 21, 1890.)

Preliminary Note.

In the course of an extended series of investigations into the
relations of magnetism and stress, part of which is already pub-
lished in the Transactions (vol. xxxv.), I was led to consider the
effect of a current passing along a wire upon its longitudinal mag-
netic intensity. Wiedemann, Buff, and Villari* have discussed
this problem in some of its aspects. It does not seem possible, how-
ever, to deduce from their results completely satisfactory conclusions
as to the effect of the current upon the apparent longitudinal per-
meability. The question, as it presented itself to my mind, was not
so much as to the effect of a varying current along the wire upon
the apparent longitudinal moment, but rather as to the behaviour
of the wire in various longitudinal fields according as it was carry-
ing a current or not. It was to be expected, in accordance with the
results of previous investigators, that a diminution of longitudinal
intensity would be an evident accompaniment of a steadily sustained
circular magnetisation. In other words, the susceptibility to a
longitudinal magnetising force would, in all probability, be smaller
when a current was passing along the wire. This has been fully
established in the experiments, of which this forms a short pre-
liminary note. Other effects, however, have been observed, which
are (so far as I know) novel, and which may lead to clearer views
regarding the internal structure of magnets and magnetised matter.

In the experimental work I have been assisted by Mr Tsuruta, a
graduating student of physics in the Imperial University.

The wire to be experimented with was carefully annealed, and
then inserted as the core of a solenoid of copper wire of 138 coils
per centimetre length. The wire and solenoid lay magnetically east
and west, and at a suitable distance from the one end a delicately
suspended mirror with small magnets attached to its back served in
the usual way as the magnetometer. The deflections were measured
by the familiar reflected beam method, the spot of light moving

* For references, see Wiedemann’s Die Lehre von der Eledricitat , vol. iii.
pp. 456-462 ; for theoretical discussion, see p. 476.

VOL. XVII. 26/1/91 2 C

402 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

over a scale at a distance of 1*7 metres from tlie magnetometer
mirror. Before the wire was inserted, the electromagnetic action of
the coil on the magnetometer was corrected by a small adjustable
coil in circuit with the solenoid and set close to the magnetometer.
The wire was then inserted and subjected to cyclic variations of
magnetic force. The magnetising current was changed continuously
from a given positive value to an equal negative value, and back
again to the original positive value. The variation was effected in
a gradual manner by means of a liquid rheostat, consisting of a
column of dilute sulphate of zinc with zinc electrodes, through
which a steady current from a battery of Daniell cells was con-
stantly flowing. By means of a sliding zinc electrode, the necessary
current was shunted through the solenoid circuit. The tangent
galvanometer included in this circuit was, of course, far removed
from the solenoid, and was so placed that the operator in adjusting
the rheostat could easily read the galvanometer deflection.

In the earlier experiments careful attention was paid to the first
effects, as well as to the permanent cyclic condition, which soon
becomes established after a few cyclic changes of the magnetising
current have been gone through. At suitable stages in the variation
of the current, the current was kept steady until the corresponding
deflection of the magnetometer needle was observed and noted.
These remarks will suffice at present to indicate the general method
adopted in studying the cyclic changes which have been so fully
investigated by Warburg and Ewing.

One of my objects was to study the modification produced on
this cycle, and on whatever else may be associated with it, when a
current is passed along the magnetised wire. This linear current
(as we shall call it) was derived from one or more Bunsen cells. It
entered the iron wire at the end furthest removed from the magneto-
meter, and returned along two copper wires stretched parallel to the
iron wire, and very close to it.

A complete set of experiments consisted in —

(1) Taking a permanent magnetic cycle when no linear current

was flowing along the wire ;

(2) Observing the initial effect when the linear current was

made to flow in one direction along the wire, and taking the
permanent magnetic cycle, with this current kept steady ;

1889-90.] Prof. Knott on Interactions of Magnetisations. 403

(3) Observing the initial effect when the linear current was
broken, and taking again the permanent magnetic cycle,
as in (1);

(4) Observing the initial effect of the linear current put on in

the other direction, and taking the permanent magnetic
cycle with this current steady;

(5) Operating as in (3).

It was soon found that in good experiments the permanent
magnetic cycles in (1), (3), and (5) were practically identical ; so
that in later experiments (3) was omitted. It was also established
by direct experiment that the permanent magnetic cycle in (2) was
quite independent of the magnetic condition of the wire when the
linear current was put on.

Some of the features of the case are shown in the curves given.
This is chosen as an average type, the departures from which, when
the relative magnitudes of linear current and field are altered, will

be briefly indicated below. In these curves magnetic force (t£j) is
measured horizontally ; magnetic intensity (!£) measured vertically.
The magnetic force is given in electromagnetic c.g.s. units, and the
magnetic intensity (very roughly) in the same.

404 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Curve (a) corresponds to the permanent magnetic cycles (1), (3),
(5); curves ( b ) and ( c ) give the cycles when the linear current is
flowing first in the one and then in the other direction. The
current used in this experiment was about 2 amperes.

A glance at these curves is suffleient to teach us that the linear
current modifies the properties of iron in relation to the magnetic
after-effect in three well-marked ways.

First , the total range of magnetic intensity produced by a given
cyclic variation of magnetic force is markedly diminished when the
current is flowing along the wire. This means a diminution in
susceptibility. Here also may be mentioned the fact that the first
effect of putting on the current when the wire is strongly magnetised
is a diminution of longitudinal magnetic intensity.

Secondly , when the linear current is flowing, the average magnetic
intensity over a whole cycle no longer corresponds to the condition
of zero polarity, as in the normal case, when no linear current is
flowing. For the one current the magnetic intensity oscillates, so
to speak, about a large positive polarity ; and, for the current in the
reverse direction, it oscillates about a nearly equal negative polarity.
If we reckon polarity in the usual way, as a directed quantity
measured from the south pole to the north, then the direction of
the linear current is in the same direction as the average polarity
which it sustains, when the wire is subjected to an absolutely
symmetrical cycle of magnetising force on each side of zero.

Thirdly , the curves (b) and (c) are no longer symmetrical on the
side of the zero line of magnetic force. The closed curve (b) is
more pointed at its positive end than at its negative end; the
curve (c), on the other hand, is more pointed at its negative end
than at its positive. If we turn the figure upside down, the
general appearance remains the same as before. Thus, the effect
of the linear current is such as very distinctly to modify the form
of the ascending and descending branches. The descending branch
of (b) is very similar to the ascending branch of (c) ; and the
'ascending branch of ( b ) is very similar to the descending branch
of (c). We may connect this peculiarity with the peculiarities
already described in these words : —

A current passing along an iron wire, which is being magnetised,
diminishes the apparent susceptibility of the wire ; but this effect

1889-90.] Prof. Knott on Interactions of Magnetisations. 405

is more pronounced when the wire is acquiring a longitudinal
polarity in the opposite direction to that in which the linear current
is flowing. Hence, during any cyclic operation, the wire tends to
acquire an average polarity in the same direction as that in which
the current flows.

These effects are more pronounced the stronger the linear current
is as compared with the magnetising field. In a moderate cyclic
field, the effect of the linear current may he so strong as to prevent
the wire ever acquiring other than one kind of polarity. For
example, this effect was produced in a field ± 4, with a current of
nearly 2 amperes. For the linear current in one direction the
( b ) curve never dipped below the zero intensity line ; and for the
current in the other direction the curve ( c ) never rose above it.

On the other hand, in stronger magnetising fields, from 10 and
upwards, the ( b ) and ( c ) curves for the same linear current of
2 amperes tend to terminal coincidence, but diverge at the inter-
mediate stages. It is proposed to study more fully these relations,
and to extend the investigations to nickel and cobalt.

In the course of these experiments, an effect was noticed, which
demonstrates the extraordinary complexity of magnetic distribution
in a magnetised wire. If, before the wire has been magnetised at
all, a current is passed along it, no appreciable longitudinal polarity
is produced, as measured by a magnetometer needle placed as in
the above experiments. Suppose, however, that the wire has been
pretty strongly magnetised ; and that, in the manner discussed by
Auerbach, and used almost universally now, the wire is de-
magnetised by reversals of gradually diminishing magnetising
currents until the magnetometer needle stands almost exactly at
zero. It is, of course, generally recognised that the wire so de-
magnetised cannot be regarded as being in anything like the same
condition as it was in its originally unmagnetised state, although
it appears to have lost polarity. That this view is correct may be
at once demonstrated by simply passing a pretty strong current
along the wire, when a very pronounced polarity will be evidenced
by a comparatively large deflection of the magnetometer needle.
Reversing the current will reverse this polarity. Heating to a red
heat can alone truly demagnetise an iron wire.

406

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Closing Address. By The Hon. Lord M£Laren.

(Read July 21, 1890.)

As the Chairman for this evening, I have been asked by the
Council to lay before you a brief summary of the events of the
session, which will conclude the public business of the session.

In this retrospective view the most interesting point is the
number and variety of the papers which have been read. Of these
there were in all 74 papers, of which 19 were in the department of
Natural Philosophy, 16 in Mathematics, 11 in Chemistry, 1 in
Geology, 9 in Zoology, 1 in Botany, 6 in Physiology, 2 in Anatomy,
5 in Meteorology, 2 in Physical Geography, and 2 in Philology.
These contributions, I may say, in the opinion of competent judges,
are calculated to maintain the reputation of our publications for
originality and accuracy. In the present session, moreover, we
have had two important contributions in the department of philology
and literature, for which we are indebted to Professor Blackie. In
these papers the author emphasised the remarkable fact that the
Greek language, as now spoken and written, is substantially the
same language as the Greek of Lucian and Plutarch, having under-
gone no material change during the elapse of 2000 years. A late
learned and enthusiastic French Hellenist, Monsieur d’Eichthal,
held the opinion that Greek (I will not call it Modern Greek, which
I take to be a misnomer) will one day take the place of Latin as
the medium of correspondence between cultivated men of all
countries. Without going quite so far, we may at least point to the
vitality of the ancient Greek tongue and its power of adaptation to
modern requirements as an answer to the arguments of those who
seek to discourage the study of classical literature at our universities,
on the ground of the supposed discordance between the ancient and
the modern modes of thought and expression.

A more true explanation of the comparative decline of pure
scholarship and the preference accorded to the more recondite and
perhaps more laborious researches which are necessary for the
development of scientific truth, may be found in this observation of
M. Renan : — “ The intense satisfaction attending scientific work
arises from the assurance which the scientist feels that he labours

1889-90.]

Chairman’s Closing Address.

407

at work which reposes on an eternal basis of fact, and of which the
object at least is eternal, — a work which all civilised nations feel
bound to pursue.”

There were 12 admissions of new Fellows this session. Last
session the admissions amounted to 18 ; whilst during the three
preceding sessions the admissions attained the average number of
36. The high rate, therefore, which characterised those three
sessions has not been maintained either in this session or the
immediately preceding one. But the admissions have been more
than sufficient to maintain the numerical efficiency of the Society,
notwithstanding the inevitable diminution of its numbers through
death. It is with regret that I have to record the fact that during
the past session the Society has lost ten Ordinary Fellows and one
Honorary Fellow by death. Of these obituary notices will be
forthcoming at the proper time and place, but I may be per-
mitted to say a few words regarding some of the deceased Fellows
who are personally, as well as from their public position, known to
most of us who are here engaged in carrying on the work of the
Society.

Sir Henry Yule, an Honorary Fellow of this Society, was born
at Inveresk in May 1820, He was destined for an Indian military
career, and in December 1838 he joined the Bengal Engineers.
He served in the Sutlej and Punjab campaigns, and during the
Mutiny, and was afterwards successively Under-Secretary and
Secretary of the Public Works Department in India. In 1875 he
was appointed a Member of the India Council. He was editor of
the Travels of Marco Polo and of many other books of mediseval
adventure in Asia. II is Glossary of Anglo-Indian Terms is con-
sidered a very valuable work.

Andrew Young, a man of true literary and poetic feeling, died
on Saturday, the 30th November 1889. He had attended a meeting
of this Society on the Monday preceding. After a brilliant career
in arts and theology at the university of this city, where he gained
in Professor Wilson’s class the prize for the best poem on “ The
Highlands,” he was appointed to the Head-Mastership of Niddrie
School, and afterwards became English Master in Madras College.

408 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

He regularly attended our meetings, and was much esteemed by his
friends and fellow-citizens.

Many amongst us will remember the portly presence and genial
manner of Patrick Don Swan, who was provost of Kirkcaldy
continuously from 1842 to 1886. The celebrated Thomas Carlyle
assisted him as tutor in his early life : the friendship of tutor and
scholar was unbroken to the last. During the provostship of Mr
Swan, Kirkcaldy became prosperous largely through his efforts, and
he will long be remembered there for the civic improvements he did
so much to effect, and for his munificence to the poor. He died on
the 17th December 1889.

It will not be necessary for me to say anything further regarding
our much esteemed associate Dr Andrew Graham, as an obituary
notice of him has already been communicated to the Society.

James Leslie was educated at the University of Edinburgh, his
uncle Sir John Leslie being then professor of mathematics there.
It would occupy too much time even to enumerate the various
engineering works with which he was connected. These consisted
chiefly in the construction of docks, in increasing the water supply
of cities, and in fixing the limits of estuaries. Among his other
undertakings, he designed a plan for the Monkland Canal, by which
empty boats could be conveyed by an inclined plane instead of
through locks. This ingenious expedient, which foreshadowed the
ship railway, has been much admired by engineers. He was a
liberal subscriber to every public purpose. He died on 29th
December 1889.

The career of Dr James Lorimer is too well known to render
it necessary for me to do more than briefly advert to it here.
After studying at the universities of Edinburgh, Geneva, Berlin,
and Bonn, he was called to the bar of Scotland in 1845, and was
appointed successively to the Principal Lyon Clerkship and to the
Chair of Public Law in the University of Edinburgh. His principal
works are the Institutes of Laic, which has been translated into
Erench and Spanish ; and his Institutes of the Law of Nations. He
was the only Scottish Professor to whom the high distinction of an

1889-90.] Chairman's Closing Address. 409

honorary degree was accorded by the University of Bologna at its
octo-centenary in 1888. He died on February 13, 1890.

Sir Peter Coats was Paisley’s foremost citizen, esteemed alike
for his charitable benefactions to the poor of the town, as well as for
his princely gifts to the community. The manufacturing firm of
which Sir Peter was at the head employs about 6000 persons. It
was to his liberality that Paisley is indebted for the buildings of its
Public Library and Museum, costing with the site about XI 8,000
In recognition of this gift he received the honour of knighthood.
He died on 9th March 1890, at Algiers, in the 82nd year of
his age.

Dr Leonhard Schmitz was born at Eupen, near Aix-la-Chapelle,
in 1807, and settled in England in 1837. In 1844, he published
from the notes which he had taken in the class-room at Bonn two
volumes of Niebuhr’s Lectures on Roman History, for which the
King of Prussia awarded to him the great gold medal for literature.
In 1846 he was appointed rector of the Royal High School at
Edinburgh. He was selected to give lectures in history to the
Prince of Wales and to the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Due
d’Aumale, the Prince de Joinville, and the Due de Nemours placed
their sons under his tuition at the High School. After leaving
Edinburgh he held various appointments connected with the higher
education of the country. He was projector and editor of The
Classical Museum , wrote several historical works, and contributed
largely to the great classical dictionaries, to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica and other publications. He died at the age of 83.

On looking over the work done in the last session, and the
papers in our Transactions recently published, we cannot fail to
remark that some of the most important communications come from
the laboratories of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and
from the laboratory recently founded in this city by the Royal
College of Physicians. The Firth of Forth also, which Professor
Ray Lankester has called “the classic sea of naturalists,” has
furnished materials in its fauna for important biological work.

It will be noticed that the elaborate investigations of our Secretary,

410 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Professor Tait, on the Theory of Knot Forms, have induced other
scientists in England, in the United States of America, and on the
Continent, to follow him in the same department of research, and to
give to our Society valuable communications on these subjects. I
think we may also attribute to the same source the revival of
interest in the abstruse subject of the Quaternion Calculus with
which the name of my distinguished friend is largely identified.

It is also pleasing to observe that many papers have been received
from comparatively young men, who, after distinguishing themselves
at the university, now hold important appointments in distant
colonies and dependencies of the Empire and among the old and
rapidly advancing nations of the extreme East.

I have now only to announce the conclusion of the public business
of the session of 1890.

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

411

Meetings of the Royal Society— Session 1889-90.

Monday , 25 th November 1889.

•General Statutory Meeting. Election of Office-Bearers. P. xvii. 1.

Monday , 2nd December 1889.

Prof. Sir Douglas Maclagan, Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. On the Transformation of Laplace’s Coefficients. By Dr G. Plarr.
Communicated by Professor Tait. T. xxxvi. 19.

2. Preliminary Note on the Thermal Conductivity of Aluminium.
By A. Crichton Mitchell, Esq., B.Sc.

3. On Coral Reefs and other Carbonate of Lime Formations in
Modern Seas. By John Murray, LL.D., and Robert Irvine, F.C.S.
(With Lantern Illustrations.) P. xvii. 79.

The following Candidates for Fellowship were balloted for, and
•declared duly elected Fellows of the Society : —

Prof. Ralph Copeland, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland.

G. A. Gibson, M.A.

Monday , \§th December 1889.

Sir Arthur Mitchell, K.C.B., LL.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.

A series of Photographs of Stars and Nebulae, presented by Isaac
Roberts, Esq. ; and Photographs of Lightning taken in Natal, presented
by C. W. Methven, Esq., were exhibited.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Note on Cayley’s Demonstration of Pascal’s Theorem. By Thomas
Muir, M.A., LL.D. P. xvii. 18.

2. On Self-Conjugate Permutations. By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D.
P. xvii. 7.

3. On a Rapidly Converging Series for the Extraction of the Square
Root. By Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D. P. xvii. 14.

4. On some Quaternion Integrals. By Professor Tait.

5. On the Glissette of a Hyperbola. By the Same. P. xvii. 2.

412 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

6. On certain Substances, found in the Urine, which reduce the Oxide
of Copper upon Boiling in the Presence of an Alkali. By Herbert H„
Ashdown, M.D. P. xvii. 58.

7. Enzyme Action in the Lower Organisms. By G. E. Cartwright
Wood, M.D., B.Sc. Communicated by Dr Woodhead. P. xvii. 27.

8. Observations upon the Structure of a Genus of Oligochseta belong-
ing to the Limicoline Section. By Frank E. Beddard, Esq., M.A.
P. xvii. 5 ( Abstract ) ; T. xxxvi. 1.

Monday, 6th January 1890.

The Hon. Lord M‘Laren, LL.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.

A Photograph of a Group of Sun Spots and of the Sun’s Surface, pre-
sented by James Nasmyth, Esq., was exhibited.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Obituary Notice of Sir James Falshaw, Bart. By Bailie "Russell,
B.Sc., M.B. P.

2. The Effect of Friction on Vortex Motion. By Professor Tait.

3. On the Connections of the Inferior Olivary Body. By Alexander
Bruce, M.A., M.D. P. xvii. 23.

4. The Internal Condensation of some Diketones. By W. H. Perkin,
D.Sc., Ph.D.

The following Candidates for Fellowship were balloted for, and
declared duly elected Fellows of the Society : —

David Hepburn, M.B.

William Henry White, F.R.S.

Monday , 20 th January 1890.

Sir William Thomson, F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

An Obituary Notice of Dr Andrew Graham, R.N., by John Romanes,.
Esq., W.S., was read by the General Secretary.

The following Communications were read : —

1. On Electrostatic Stress. By the President.

2. The Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan in Japan. By Professor C.
Michie Smith. P. xvii. 65.

3. On a Curious Set of Fog-Bows. By Professor Heddle.

4. On the Nature of a Voluntary Muscular Movement. By J. Berrt
Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc. P. xvii. 176 (Abstract).

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

413

Monday , 27 th January 1890.

The Eev. Professor Flint, D.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.
The following Communication was read : —

On Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature. By Professor Calderwood,
LL.D. P. xvii. 71.

Monday , 3rd February 1890.

Sir William Thomson, P.R.S., President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. New Estimates of Molecular Distance. By W. Peddie, D.Sc.

2. On the Gravimetric Composition of Water. By Prof. Dittmar.

3. On the Number of Dust Particles in the Atmosphere of
certain Places in Great Britain and on the Continent, with remarks
on the Relation between the Amount of Dust and Meteorological
Phenomena. By John Aitken, Esq., F.R.S. P. xvii. 193.

4. Note cn some Barometric Curves in Relation to the Strength of
Wind at Ben Nevis Observatory, by Dr Alex. Buchan, was postponed.

The following Candidates for Fellowship were balloted for, and
declared duly elected Fellows of the Society : —

Aikitu Tanakadate.

The Rev. George Matheson, M.A., B.D., D.D.

Monday , \7th February 1890.

Sir William Thomson, F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. On Descartes’ View of Space ; and Sir William Thomson’s Theory
of Extended Matter. By S. Tolyer Preston, Esq.

2. A New Synthesis of Dibasic Carbon Acids. By Prof. Crum Brown,
P. xvii. 53 (Abstract). T. xxxvi. 211.

3. On the Electrolysis of Potassium-Ethyl Malonate and of Potassium-
Ethyl Succinate. By Prof. Crum Brown and James Walker, D.Sc.
P. xvii. 54 (Abstract).

4. The Action of Sodium Carbonate and Bromine on Solutions of
Cobalt and Nickel Salts. By Dr Gibson. P. xvii. 56 (Abstract).

5. On the Swimming Bladder and Flying Powers of Dactijlopterus
volitans. By W. Calderwood, Esq. Communicated by Prof. Ewart.
P. xvii. 132.

414

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Friday , 2 8th February 1890.

Sir Douglas Maclagan, M.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Structure and Contraction of Striped Muscular Fibre of Crab and
Lobster. By Prof. Rutherford. P. xvii. 146 (Abstract).

2. The Histology, Functions, and Development of the Carapace of the
Chelonia. By John Berry Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc.

3. Muscular Contraction following rapid Electrical Stimulation of
Central Nervous System. By John Berry Haycraft, M.D., D.Sc. P.
xvii. 178 (Abstract).

Monday , 3 rd March 1890.

Sir William Thomson, F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Note on Ripples in a Viscous Liquid. By Prof. Tait. P. xvii. 110.

2. A Geometrical Method, based on the Principle of Translation. By
D. Maver, Esq. Communicated by Dr. T. Muir. P. xvii. 188.

3. Phases of the Living Greek Language. By Emeritus Prof. Blackie.
T. xxxvi. 45.

Dr John C. M‘Vail was balloted for, and declared to be duly elected a
Fellow of the Society.

Monday , 17 th March 1890.

Sir William Thomson, F.R.S., President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. An accidental Illustration of the Effective Ohmic Resistance to a
Transient Electric Current through an Iron Bar. By Sir Wm. Thomson.
P. xvii. 157.

2. The Absorption Spectra of Certain Vegetable Colouring Matters.
By Prof. C. Michie Smith. P. xvii. 121.

3. On the Solution of the Three-Term Numerical Equationof the ?ith
Degree. By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren. P. xvii. 270.

4. The determination of Surface-Tension by the Measurement of
Ripples. By Prof. C. Michie Smith. P. xvii. 115.

5. On a Mechanism for the Constitution of Ether : illustrated by a
model. By the President. P. xvii. 127.

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

415

Monday , 'Ith April 1890.

Professor Ealph Copeland, Ph.D., in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Notes on the Solution of certain Equations. By R. E. Allardice,
Esq., M.A. P. xvii. 139.

2. Some Multinomial Theorems in Quaternions. By the Rev. M. M.
U. Wilkinson. Communicated by Professor Tait. P. xyii. 149.

3. On the Reflexion-Caustics of Symmetrical Curves. By the Hon.
Lord M‘Laren. P. xvii. 281.

4. An Inquiry concerning Spontaneous Generation. By J. Oliver,

M.D.

5. Notes on the Zodiacal Light. By Professor C. Michie Smith. P.
xvii. 142.

6. Special Integrals of some Linear Partial Differential Equations,
with constant Coefficients. By Professor Tait.

Monday > 5 th May 1890.

Sir Arthur Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Adamantios Koraes, and his Reformation of the Greek Language.
By Emeritus Professor Blackie. T. xxxvi. 57.

2. The Anatomy of the Antipatharia — Part 2. Schizopathinse. By
George Brook, Esq.

Monday, 19 th May 1890.

Professor Chrystal, LL.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. Obituary Notices: — of

Dr Edmond Ronalds. By J. Y. Buchanan, Esq. P.

J. J. Coleman, Esq.

Professor Donders. j By Professor M‘KendKick. P.

2. On the Synthesis of Sebacic Acid. By Professor Crum Brown
and Dr Walker. P. xvii. 180 {Abstract). T. xxxvi. 211.

3. Note on some remarkable Quarternion Formuke. By Professor

Tait.

4. On the Roots of the Auditory Nerve, and their connections. By
Dr Alexander Bruce, F.R.C.P.E.

416

Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Monday , 2nd June 1890.

Prof. Sir Douglas Maclagan, M.D., Vice-President, in the Chair.
The following Communications were read : —

1. On the Relation of Optical Activity to the Character of the Radicals
united to Asymmetric Carbon Atom. By Professor Crum Brown, F.R.S.
P. xvii. 181.

2. On the Mean Level of the Surface of the Solid Earth. By Hugh
Robert Mill, D.Sc. P. xviii. 185.

3. Weierstrass’ Contributions to the Calculus of Variations. By J.
Crockett, Esq. Communicated by Professor Tait.

4. Barometric Record in the Vicinity of a Tornado. By John Ander-
son, Esq. Communicated by Dr Buchan.

The following Candidates for Fellowship were balloted for, and
declared duly elected Fellows of the Society : —

Dr J. J. Charles, M.A.

R. L. Mond, B.A. Cantab.

Monday , 1 §th June 1890.

The Hon. Lord M‘Laren, Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. List of West Australian Birds ; showing their Geographical Distri-
bution throughout Australia, including Tasmania. By A. J. Campbell,
Esq., Melbourne. Communicated by the Rev. Dr MacGregor. P.
xvii. 304.

2. On a Difference between the Diurnal Barometric Curves at Green-
wich and at Kew. By Alexander Buchan, Esq., LL.D.

3. On the General Formulae for the Passage of Light through a
spherically-arranged Atmosphere. By E. Sang, Esq., LL.D.

4. On a remarkable Barometric Reading at the Ben Nevis Observatory
on April 8, 1890. By Alex. Buchan, LL.D.

5. Synthesis by means of Electrolysis — Part III. Synthesis of
w-Dicarbodecahexanic Acid. By Professor Crum Brown and Dr James
■Walker. P. xvii. 293.

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

417

Monday , 7th July 1890.

Sir William Thomson, President, in the Chair.

PRIZES.

The Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for 1887-90 was presented to
Professor Tait, for his work in connection with the “Challenger”
Expedition, and his other Researches in Physical Science.

The President, on presenting the Prize, said : —

This work was primarily undertaken by Professor Tait, for the
purpose of correcting thermometric observations affected in a com-
plex manner by the severe and varying pressures to which the
instruments were subjected, and deducing the true temperatures of
the water at the great depths explored in the “Challenger” expedi-
tion. Even had the investigation been confined to this object alone,
it must have included highly interesting researches regarding the
thermoelastic qualities of water, mercury, and glass. But a mere
knowledge of the temperature at all depths in the seas and oceans
has comparatively little interest or importance in science without
knowledge of physical properties of sea water, such as compressi-
bility and thermal expansivity at pressures corresponding to all the
depths. Particularly the temperature of maximum density for any
given pressure, which is a property calculable from the other two, is
of supreme importance in explaining the observed results of thermo-
metric determinations in water over submarine slopes and under the
levels of the lips of submarine basins, and using the results for the
theory of the great oceanic circulations. Accordingly, Tait has
included all these subjects in his investigation, which, carried on
with exemplarily determined perseverance, and with peculiar skill
and inventiveness, through six years, has added to science a valu-
able body of results regarding the compressibility and expansivity
of fresh water and sea water at different temperatures and pressures,
the compressibilities of water with different proportions of common
salt in solution, and the compressibilities of glass.

Many of us, who have seen something of the work from time to
time, will remember with vivid interest the great Woolwich and the
small Edinburgh guns, and the wonderful appliances for producing
and measuring the enormous pressures up to 457 atmospheres (3
tons weight per square inch) which were used, and their effects on
the apparent bulk of mercury in glass. But I am afraid I have
misused the word apparent : we saw neither mercury nor glass, but
VOL. xvir. 26/1/91 2 D

418 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

were told they were there, screened from our eyes by 43 millimetres
of steel. Electric contacts made by mercury on fine platinum wires
as it rose in the glass tube, forming a long neck to an inverted
bottle of water, showed, by electric signals outside the gun, the
volumes of the compressed mercury as measured by the less com-
pressed glass measure, with the different pressures shown by a proper
pressure measurer at the times of the electric signals. Tait com-
municated this novel and ingenious method of measuring an unseen
liquid by an unseen measuring vessel in a space subjected to a
pressure of hundreds of atmospheres to Amagat, at a critical time in
the course of his great work when it was much needed, and proved
most valuable. In return, Amagat gave Tait the pressure-measuring
instrument, which was as great an acquisition to him as Tait’s inven-
tion was to Amagat.

The Royal Society awards to Professor Tait for this work the
Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize. It will, I am sure, be gratifying to
Dr Gunning, the founder of this prize, that so valuable a contribution
to science has earned it for the period 1887-90.

The Keith Prize for 1887-89 was presented to Professor Letts,
for his Researches into the Organic Compounds of Phosphorus.

Professor Crum Brown, on presenting the Prize, said : —

The Council has awarded the Keith Prize, for the biennial period
1887-1889, to Professor Letts, for his papers on the Organic Com-
pounds of Phosphorus. The work was difficult, and has been very
thoroughly done, and the results are of great interest. The special
difficulty arose from the nature of the substances to be dealt with,
and also from the want of a trustworthy mode of determining the
quantity of phosphorus contained in them. The latter difficulty
Professor Letts has completely got over, and has devised a method
by means of which the phosphorus in these compounds can be
accurately determined. The special interest of these investigations
depends on the remarkable similarities and equally remarkable dis-
similarities shown by the corresponding compounds of phosphorus,
nitrogen, and sulphur. It was indeed the desire to trace out these
analogies and differences through a large series of compounds that
led Professor Letts to undertake what has turned out to be a very
laborious piece of work. This steady purpose has given unity to a
considerable series of papers, in some of which Professor Letts had
the collaboration of his assistant. Messrs Collie, Wheeler, and Blake
have thus successively shared in this important investigation.

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

419

The Neill Prize for 1886-89 was presented to Mr Robert Kidston,
for his Researches in Fossil Botany.

Professor James Geikie, on presenting the Prize, said : —

In Scotland, geological science has been for many years prosecuted
chiefly in its physical departments. Nor is this to be wondered at
when one considers the generally unfossiliferous character of Scottish
rocks, and, on the other hand, the many interesting problems which
the intricate structure of our country presents. Dr Hutton, the father
of physical geology, is the characteristic product of such a country
as this, just as William Smith, the father of historical geology, is
the typical product of England, with its long and orderly succession
of fossiliferous systems. The richly fossiliferous Mesozoic and
Tertiary strata, which occupy so large a part of the sister country,
are very sparingly developed here. The palaeontologist with us has
to content himself with much older strata, which, after all, are only
locally fossiliferous, and with a few meagre representatives of
younger systems. Limited as are the opportunities for the pro-
secution of palaeontological research in Scotland, we have yet never
wanted able investigators in this branch of science. Few of these,
however, have worked much in the department of fossil botany.
Doubtless this is largely due to the difficulties that beset the study
itself. The evidence with which the palaeophytologist has to deal is
often very hard to understand, and its interpretation demands a
wider and more profound knowledge of the structure of living and
extinct forms than is generally required in the study of invertebrate
palseozoology. When one glances over the contents of a palaeon-
tological museum, one can readily understand why the study of
extinct animal life has come to be more assiduously cultivated than
fossil botany. The contrast between the more or less perfect state
of preservation of many of the corals, shells, and other invertebrates,
and the fragmentary character of the plant-remains — the flotsam and
jetsam of vanished risers, lakes, and seas — is quite sufficient to
account for the preference that is given to palaeozoology. When a com-
petent investigator, therefore, devotes himself to the difficult study
of fossil botany he is deserving of every encouragement; and when
his researches have resulted in eminent success, they must claim the
ungrudging appreciation of all who wish well to geological science.
The researches in which Mr Robert Kidston has been engaged have
made his reputation amongst geologists everywhere. Trained in
botanical science by the late Professor Dickson, under whom he
studied for some years, Mr Kidston took up the somewhat ungrateful

420 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess

study of palaeophytology, devoting himself more particularly, as
might have been expected, to palaeozoic botany. In this department
of science he has contributed upwards of thirty papers — all of which
are characterised by accurate observation and clear definition and
description.

One of the principal objects of his studies has been to determine
the affinities of palaeozoic genera and species with those of existing
forms. With this view he has described the fructification of a
number of carboniferous ferns and lycopods, and has also given
special attention to the arborescent lycopods of the same great
system. Another important object he has constantly kept before
him has been the working out of the horizontal and vertical distri-
bution of the carboniferous plants of Britain. He has consequently
been led to compare the plant-remains of the several British coal-
fields with each other and with those of the coalfields of other
countries, and has thus thrown much wished-for light on the rela-
tive age of widely separated areas of carboniferous strata.

Mr Kiaston’s more important papers have generally appeared in
the Transactions of this Society. The first of the series, dealing
wdth the fossil flora of definite areas, was his “ Report on the Fossil
Plants collected by the Geological Survey in Eskdale and Liddes-
dale ” {Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxx.), which was followed at
intervals by papers on the “ Fossil Flora of the Radstock Series of
the Somerset and Bristol Coalfield” {Ibid., vol. xxxiii.), “On some
Fossil Plants from Teilia Quarry” {Ibid., vol. xxxv.), and “On
the Fossil Flora of the Staffordshire Coalfields” {Ibid., vol. xxxv.).
Several papers treating of the fructification of ferns have likewise
appeared from time to time in the publications of this Society and
the Royal Physical Society, as also in the Annals and Magazine of
Natural History ; while the same subject has been dealt with by Mr
Kids ton in his papers descriptive of the flora of various coalfields.
His wide and accurate knowledge of his subject was recognised by
the authorities of the British Museum, who requested him to pre-
pare the Catalogue of Palaeozoic Plants in the Museum (188G).

For the great zeal with which he has pursued his researches, and
the extensive additions to our knowledge which have resulted from
his labours, the Council of the Society has deemed Mr Kidston well
worthy to receive the Heill Prize.

The following Communications were read : —

1. On the Submarine Cable Problem, with Electromagnetic Induction.
By the President.

2. Synthesis by means of Electrolysis — Part IY. Synthesis of Suberic

1889-90.]

Meetings of the Society.

421

and w-Dicarbododecanic Acid. By Professor Crum Brown and Dr James
Walker. P. xvii. 299 {Abstract) ; T. xxxvi. 211.

3. Graphic Records of Impact. By Prof. Tait. P. xvii. 192 {Abstract)-,
T. xxxvi.

4. On the Reduction of certain Algebraic Equations. By the Hon.
Lord M‘Laren.

5. Preliminary Experiment on the Thermal Conductivity of Alumi-
nium. By Professor A. Crichton Mitchell, D.Sc. P. xvii. 300.

6. Pharmacology of Morphine and its Derivatives. By Ralph Stock-
man, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., and D. B. Dott, Esq., F.C.S., F.I.C. P. xvii. 321.

7. On the Fossil Flora of the Potteries’ Coal-Field. By R. Kidston,
Esq. T. xxxvi.

8. Larix europcea as a Breeding-Place for Hylesznus piniperda. By Dr
W. Somerville. P. xvii. 255.

The following Candidates for Fellowship were balloted for, and
declared duly elected Fellows of the Society : —

Johnstone Christie Wright.

T. D. Brodie, W.S.

T. A. Helme, M.D.

Monday, 21st July 1890.

The Hon. Lord M‘Laren, Yice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications were read : —

1. On the Telluric Lines of the Solar Spectrum. By Dr L. Becker.
Communicated by Prof. Copeland. T. xxxvi.

2. Some Points in the Physics of Golf. By Piiof. Tait.

3. On the Fishes of the Oil-Shales of Midlothian and Linlithgowshire.
By Dr R. H. Traquair, F.R.S.

4. List of the Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei of Fife and the Lothians.
By the Same. P. xvii. 385.

5. The Knot-Forms of the Eleventh Order. By Prof. Little of
Nebraska. Communicated by Prof. Tait. T. xxxvi.

6. On the Electrodynamie Equations. By Prof. Tait.

7. Note on Electrolytic Polarisation. By R. L. Mond, Esq. P. xvii. 302.

8. On the Interaction of Circular and Longitudinal Magnetisations.
By Prof. Knott. P. xvii. 401.

9. Notes on the Ammonia and Organic Matter in Expired Air. By
Dr Hunter Stewart.

10. A new method for determining Phosphorus in Organic Phosphorus
Compounds. By Prof. Letts and R. F. Blake, Esq. P. xvii. 382.

11. Remarks on the work of the Session. By the Chairman. P. xvii.
406.

Donations from Authors to the Library of the Royal Society
during 1890.

Adams (Prof. J. C.), M.A. I. On the Calculation of the Bernoullian
Numbers from B32 to B62. II. On the Mean Places of 84 Funda-
mental Stars, as derived from the places given in the Greenwich
Catalogues for 1840 and 1845 when compared with those resulting
from Bradley’s Observations. 4to. Cambridge [1890].

Aikman (C. M.), M.A. Nitrogen : its Uses and Sources in Agriculture.
8vo. Glasgow [1890].

Bonaparte (Le Prince Roland). Le Premier Etablissement des Neer-
landais a Maurice. 4to. Paris, 1890.

Le Glacier de l’Aletsch et le Lac de Marjelen. 4to. Paris, 1889.

La Norvege et la Corse. 8vo. Geneve, 1889.

Campbell (Arch. J.). Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, embracing
Papers on “Oology of Australian Birds” read before the Field
Naturalists’ Club of Victoria. 8vo. Melbourne, 1883.

Cayley (Arthur), Sc.D., F.R.S. Collected Mathematical Papers. Vol.
III. 4to. Cambridge, 1890.

Congres International de Bibliographie des Sciences Mathematiques,
tenu a Paris du 16 au 19 Juillet, 1889. Proces- Verbal Sommaire.
8vo. Paris, 1889. — From Le Ministere du Commerce , de VIndustrie et
des Colonies.

Dana (James D.), LL.D. Corals and Coral Islands. 3rd ed. 8vo.
New York [1890].

Durham (Wm.), F.R.S.E. Evolution, Antiquity of Man, Bacteria, &c.
8 vo. Edinburgh, 1890.

Astronomy, Sun, Moon, and Stars, &c. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1890.

Fletcher (L.), M.A. An Introduction to the Study of Minerals. 8vo.
London, 1889.

An Introduction to the Study of Meteorites. 8vo. London, 1890.

Reprints from the Mineralogical Magazine , 1881-90.

Galileo. Le Opere di Galileo Galilei. Edizione Nazionale sotto gli
auspicii di sua Maesta il Re d’ltalia. Vol. I. 4to. Firenze, 1890.
— Presented by the Italian Government.

Ganser (Anton). Die Wahrheit. Kurze Darlegung der letzten und
wahren Weltprincipien. 8vo. Graz, 1890.

Gegenbaur (C.). Lehrbuch der Anatomie des Menschen. 4te verbesserte
Auflage. 2 Bde. 8vo. Leipzig, 1890.

Goppelsroeder (Prof. Dr. Fred.). Ueber Feuerbestattung. 8vo. Mul-
hausen-i-Els, 1890.

Green (W. S.). Professor James Dana’s “ Characteristics of Volcanoes.”
8vo. Honolulu, 1890.

Griffiths (Dr A. B.). Researches on Micro-Organisms. 8vo. London,
1891.

424 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess.

Haeckel (Ernst). Plankton-Studien. Vergleichende Untersuchnngen
iiber die Bedeutung und Zusammensetzung der Pelagischen Fauna
und Flora. 8vo. Jena, 1890.

Harris (Wm. A.). A Technological Dictionary of Insurance Chemistry.
8vo. Liverpool, 1890.

Klossovsky (A.). Differentes formes des Grelons observes au sud-ouest de
la Russie. 8vo. Odessa, 1890.

Kolliker (A.). Zur feinern Anatomie des Centralen Her vensy stem. ler
Beitrag, Das Kleinhirn. 8vo. Leipzig, 1890.

2er Beitrag, Das Riickenmark. 8vo. Leipzig, 1890.

K opocvis (AhoLftowTiog) ' vno /A. &s^etoci/ov. Ex.tv7tovto&{ oi,voc.7\a[Aoi(n too Qtxovo-
fxuov l£hYi(>o}>oTYiiua,Tos. 3 rofxoi. 8°, ev Ts^ysonj, 1889. — Presented
by the E tov O ixovo/xsiov KT^yiQohoTYifxccTog.

Maclagan (R. C.), M.D. Fionn, a Prehistoric Scottish Study. 8vo.

Edinburgh, 1889.

Maxwell (James Clerk), M.A., LL.D. The Scientific Papers of, Ed.
by W. D. Niven, M.A., F.R.S. Yols. I. and II. 4to. Cam-
bridge, 1890. — Presented by the Syndics of the Cambridge University
Press.

Memoire sur les Travaux d’ Amelioration du Cours duBas-Danube executes
pendant la periode 1873-1886, par la Commission Europeenne.
4to. Galatz, 1888.

The Same. Atlas. Folio. Leipzig, 1887. — Presented by Sir

Charles A. Hartley.

Mensbrugghe (G. van der). Sur la Condensation de la Vapeur d’Eau
dans les Espaces Capillaires. 8vo. Brux., 1890.

Monaco (Le Prince Albert de). Recherche des Animaux Marins. Progres
realises sur VHirondelle dans l’outillage special. 8vo. Paris, 1889.

Mueller (Baron Ferd. von). Second Systematic Census of Australian
Plants, with Chronologic, Literary, and Geographic Annotations.
Part I. Yasculares. 8vo. Melbourne, 1889.

Payne (F. F.). Notes upon the Eskimo of Cape Prince of Wales, Hud-
son’s Strait. 8vo. Salem, U.S.A., 1890.

Prentice (Chas. F.). Dioptric Formulae for Combined Cylindrical Lenses
applicable for all Angular Deviations of their Axes. 8vo. New
York, 1890.

Rand (Rev. Silas T.), D.D. Dictionary of the Language of the Micmac
Indians. 8vo. Halifax, N.S., 1890. — Presented by the Government of
Canada.

Scott (Robert H.), F.R.S. The Variability of the Temperature of the
British Isles, 1869-1883, inclusive. (From Roy. Soc. Proc.) 8vo.
(1890.)

Slopes (H.), F.G.S. Indications of Retrogression in Prehistoric Civilisa-
tion in the Thames Valley. 8vo. Leeds, 1890.

Tebbut (John), F.R.A.S. Reports of Mr Tebbut’s Observatory, Windsor,
N.S. Wales, for the years 1888, 1889. 8vo. Sydney, 1889-90.

Thomson (Sir Wm.), LL.D., D.C.L., &c. Mathematical and Physical
Papers. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. Cambridge, 1882-84.

1889-90.]

Donations to the Library.

425

Thomson (Sir Wm.), LL.D., D.C.L., &c. Eeprints of Papers on Elec-
trostatics and Magnetism. 2nd edition. 8vo. London, 1884.

Popular Lectures and Addresses. In 3 vols. Yol. I. Constitu-
tion of Matter. 8vo. London, 1889.

Tolstoi (Count Leon). Boyhood Adolescence and Youth. Translated
by Cons. Popoff. 8vo. London, 1890.

What I believe. Translated by Cons. Popoff. 8vo. London, 1885.

Topinard (Dr Paul). La Societe, l’Ecole, le Laboratoire et le Musee
Broca. 8vo. Bruxelles, 1890.

Vinci (Dr Salvator). Della Natura della Luce, di quella dei Colori, e
del Numero di questi ultimi. 8vo. Catania, 1890.

Whitehouse (Cope), M.A. The Raiyan Moeris. 8vo. New York, 1890.

INDEX

Absorption Spectra. See Spectra.

Acanthodidse, a family of Ganoidei,
387.

Acetylmorphine, 342.

Acipenseroidei, a sub-order of Gan-
oidei, 390.

Addresses. — Address by Sir Wm.
Thomson on presenting the Gunning
"Victoria Jubilee Prize (1887-90) to
Prof. Tait, 417.

Address by Prof. A. Crum

Brown on presenting the Keith
Prize (1887-89) to Prof. Letts, 418.

Address by Prof. James Geikie

on presenting the Neill Prize (1886-
89) to Mr Robert Kidston, 419.

Closing Address for Session

1889-90 by the Hon. Lord M‘Laren,
406.

Aitken (John), on the Number of
Dust Particles in the Atmosphere
of certain places in Great Britain
and on the Continent, with Remarks
on the Relation between the Amount
of Dust and Meteorological Pheno-
mena, 193 ; the Rigi Kulm Observa-
tions, 199, 227 ; Eiffel Tower Observa-
tions, 202; Observations at London,
205 ; at Kingairloch, 205 ; at Ben
Nevis, 206 ; at Alford, 207 ; at
Dumfries, 208 ; on the Pollution of
the Atmosphere by Artificial Causes,
209; Dust and Atmospheric Trans-
parency, 211; Apparatus for Testing
the Condensing Power of Dust, 221 ;
Dust and Condensation, 224; Haze,
226; Dust and Wind, 234; Fog, 238;
Speculations, 239; Conclusions, 246.

Allardice (R. E.), M.A. , Notes on the
Solutions of certain Equations, 139.

Aluminium, Thermal Conductivity of,
by A. Crichton Mitchell, B.Sc., 300.

Amylmorphine, 341.

Ashdown (Herbert H.), M.D., on
certain Substances found in the
Urine, which reduce the Oxide of

Copper upon Boiling in the presence
of an Alkali, 58.

Asymmetric Carbon Atom. See Brown
(Prof. A. Crum).

Australian Birds. List of West
Australian Birds, showing their
Geographical Distribution, including
those of Tasmania, by A. J. Camp-
bell, 304.

Bandaisan, Volcanic Eruption at, by
Prof. C. Michie Smith, 65.

Bacillus Tuberculosis, 259, 263, 264,
268.

Beddard (Frank E.), M.A. Observa-
tions on the Structure of a Genus of
Oligochseta, belonging to the Limi-
coline Section, 5.

Benzoylmorphine, 349.

Birds (West Australian). See Camp-
bell (A. J.).

Blake (R.F.), and Letts (Prof. E. A.).
A New Method for Determining
Phosphorus in Organic Phosphorus
Compounds, 382.

Bromine and Sodium Carbonate. Ac-
tion of, on Solutions of Cobalt and
Nickel Salts, by Dr John Gibson,
56.

Brown (Prof. A. Crum). A New Syn-
thesis of Dibasic Carbon Acids, 53.

On the Relation of Optical

Activity to the Character of the
Radicals united to the Asymmetric
Carbon Atom, 181.

Address on presenting the Keith

Prize for 1887-89 to Prof. Letts, 418.

and Walker (Dr James), on

the Electrolysis of Potassium-Ethyl
Malonate and of Potassium-Ethyl
Succinate, 54.

and Walker (Dr James). Syn-
thesis of Sebacic Acid, 180.

and Walker (Dr James). Syn-
thesis by Means of Electrolysis
— Part III. Synthesis of w-Dicar-

428

Index.

bodecahexanic Acid, 297 ; Part
IV. Synthesis of Suberic and n-
Dicarbododecanic Acids, 299.

Bruce (Alexander), M.A., M.D., on
the Connections of the Inferior
Olivary Body, 23.

On the Segmentation of the

Nucleus of the Third Cranial Nerve,
168.

Calderwood (Professor Henry), on
Evolution and Man’s Place in
Nature, 71.

Calderwood (W. L. ), on the Swimming
Bladder and Flying Powers of
Dactylopterus volitans, 132.

Campbell (A. J.), F.L.S. List of West
Australian Birds, showing their
Geographical Distribution through-
out Australia, including Tasmania,
304.

Carbonate of Lime Formations in
Modern Seas. See Coral Beefs.

Caustics. See Reflexion-Caustics.

Cayley’s Demonstration of Pascal’s
Theorem, by Thomas Muir, M.A.,
LL. D. , 18.

Chlorocodide, 370.

Cobalt and Nickel Salts. See Gibson
(Dr John).

Codeine, Physiological Action of, 335;
Methylcodeium Sulphate, 358, 363;
Methocodeine, 363 ; Chlorocodide,
370 ; Literature of Codeine, 381.

Coral Beefs and other Carbonate of
Lime Formations in Modern Seas,
by John Murray, LL.D., and
Robert Irvine, F.C.S., 79.

Crab and Lobster, Striped Muscular
Fibre of, by Prof. Wm. Rutherford,
146.

Cranial Nerve. On the Segmentation
of the Third Cranial Nerve, by Dr
Alexander Bruce, 168.

Crossopterygii, a sub-order of Ganoidei,
388..

Ctenodontidee, a family of Dipnoi, 387.

Curves. See Reflexion-Caustics.

Systems of Derivative Curves,

by the Hon. Lord McLaren, 284.

Reflexion-Caustics of Curves

whieh are Convex to the Pole, by
the Hon. Lord M‘Laren, 289.

Equivalents in Cartesian Co-
ordinates of the Polar Curves whose
Caustics have been found, by the
Hon. Lord M‘Laren, 295.

Dactylopterus volitans , the Swimming
Bladder and Flying Powers of, by
W. L. Calderwood, 132.

Diacetylmorphine, 346.

Dibasic Carbon Acids, A New Syn-
thesis of, by Prof. A. Crum Brown,
53.

Dibenzoylmorphine, 350.

Dicarbodecahexanic Acid. Synthesis
of ^-Dicarbodecahexanic Acid, 297.

Dicarbododecanic Acid. Synthesis of
%-Dicarbododecanic Acid, 299.

Dipnoi (Fossil) of Fife and the Lothians,
by R. H. Traquair, 385.

Donations from Authors to the Library
during 1890, 423.

Dott (D. B.), F.C.S., and Stockman
(Ralph), M.D. Pharmacology of
Morphine and its Derivatives, 321.

Dust Particles. On the Number of
Dust Particles in the Atmosphere
of certain Places in Great Britain
and on the Continent, and on the
Relation between the Amount of
Dust and Meteorological Pheno-
mena, 193.

Earth (The). On the Mean Level of
the Surface of the Solid Earth, by
Dr Hugh Robert Mill, 185.

Election of Office-Bearers, Session
1889-90, 1.

Electric Current. On an Accidental
Illustration of the Effective Ohmic
Resistance to a Transient Electric
Current through a Steel Bar, by
Sir William Thomson, 157.

Electrolysis. See uuder Synthesis.

Electrolysis of Potassium - Ethyl
Malonate, and of Potassium-Ethyl
Succinate, by Prof. Crum Brown
and Dr James Walker, 54.

Electrolytic Conduction, Note on, by
Robert L. Mond, 302.

Ellipse and Hyperbola, Glissettes of,
by Professor Tait, 2.

Enzyme Action in the Lower Organ-
isms, bj7- Dr G. E. Cartwright
Wood, 27.

Equations of the 3rd and 4th Degree
in a Single Variable, and Systems
of Two Equations in Two Variables,
by R. E. Allardice, M.A., 139.

Solution of Three -Term

Numerical Equation of the wth
Degree, by the Hon. Lord M'Laren,
270.

Solution of the Equation of

the 5th Degree, 273.

Differential Equation of a

Reflected Ray, by the Hon. Lord
McLaren, 282.

Ether. On a Mechanism for the Con-
stitution of Ether, by Sir William
Thomson, P.R.S.E., 127.

Index .

429

Ethylmorphine, 338, 341.

Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature,
by Prof. Henry Oalderwood, 71.

Ganoidei (Fossil) of Fife and the
Lothiaus, by R. H. Traquair, 385.

Geikie (Prof. James). Address on pre-
senting the Neill Prize for 1886-89
to Mr Robert Kidston, 419.

Gibson (Dr John). The Action of
Sodium Carbonate and Bromine on
Solutions of Cobalt and Nickel Salts,
56.

Glissettes of an Ellipse and Hyperbola,
by Professor P. G. Tait, 2.

Griffiths (Dr A. B. ). Researches on
Micro-Organisms, &c. , Part III. , 257 ;
the Alkaloids of Living Microbes,
257 ; Action of Certain Antiseptics
and Disinfectants upon Microbes,
258 ; Vitality of certain Micro-
Organisms, 261, 264; Micro-Organ-
isms of the Atmosphere, 264 ;
Hypodermic Injections of Salicylic
Acid for Phthisis, 266 ; Soluble Fer-
ments produced by Microbes, 269.

Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for
Period 1887-90. See Prizes.

Haycraft (Dr John Berry), on the
Nature of a Voluntary Muscular
Movement, 176.

(Dr John Berry). Muscular

Contraction following Rapid Electri-
cal Stimulation of Central Nervous
System, 178.

Hyperbola. See Ellipse.

Hylesinus piniyerda. See Larix euro-
pcea.

Hydrophobia, 260.

Impact, Graphic Records of, by Prof.
P. G. Tait, 192.

Inferior Olivary Body. See Olivary
Body.

Irvine (Robert), F.C.S., and Murray
(John), LL.D., on Coral Reefs and
other Carbonate of Lime Formations
in Modern Seas, 79.

Keith Prize for Period 1887-89. See
Prizes.

Kidston (Robert), awarded Neill Prize
(1886-89), .419,

Knott (Prof. C. G.), D.Sc. The Inter-
actions of Circular and Longitudinal
Magnetisations, 401.

Larix europoea as a Breeding-Place
for Hylesinus piniperda, by William
Somerville, D.CEc., 255.

Letts’ (Prof. E. A.), and Blake (R. F.).
A New Method for Determining
Phosphorus in Organic Phosphorus
Compounds, 382.

Letts (Professor), awarded Keith Prize
(1887-89), 418.

Library, Donations from Authors to
the, during 1890, 423.

Lobster. See Crab.

Magnetisations (Circular and Longi-
tudinal). The interactions of, by
Prof. C. G. Knott, 401.

Malonate. See Potassium-Ethyl Malon-
ate.

Maver (David). A Geometrical Method,
dependent on the Principle of Trans-
lation, 188.

M'Laren (The Hon. Lord), on the Solu-
tion of the Three-Term Numerical
Equation of the nth Degree, 270;
Method of Logarithmic Differences,
271 ; Solution of the Equation of
the 5th Degree, 273.

On the Reflexion-Caustics of

Symmetrical Curves, 281 ; Differen-
tial Equation of a Reflected Ray, 282 ;
Systems of Derivative Curves, 284 ;
Reflexion-Caustics of Two-Term
Polar Curves of the Degree, m, 286;
Locus of the Field of View in the
Optical Caustic, 294.

Closing Address for Session

1889-90, 406.

Meetings of the Society during Session
1889-90, 411.

Methocodeine, 363.

Methylcodeium Sulphate, 358, 363.

Methylmorphium Chloride, 351.

Microbes. See Micro-Organisms.

Micro-Organisms, Researches on, Part
III., by Dr A. B. Griffiths, 257.

Mill (Dr Hugh Robert), on the Mean
Level of the Surface of the Solid
Earth, 185.

Mitchell (A. Crichton), B.Sc. Pre-
liminary Experiment on the Ther-
mal Conductivity of Aluminium,
300.

Mond (Robert L.). Note on Electro-
lytic Conduction, 302.

Morphine. Pharmacology of Mor-
phine and its Derivatives, by D. B.
Dott, F.C.S., and Ralph Stockman,
M.D., 321 ; Toxicity of Morphine,
332 ; Morphine Hydrate, 334 ;
Ethylmorphine, 338, 341 ; Amyl-
morphine, 341 ; Acetylmorphine,
342 ; Diacetylmorphine, 346 : Ben-
zoylmorphine, 349 ; Dibenzoylmor-
phine, 350 ; Methylmorphium Chlo-

430

Index.

ride, 351 ; Morphine-Sulphuric
Acid, 367 ; Trichloromorphide, 373 ;
Nitrosomorphine, 376 ; Literature
of Morphine and its Derivatives, 379.

Muir (Thomas), M.A. , LL.D., on Self-
conjugate Permutations, 7.

On a Rapidly Converging

Series for the Extraction of the
Square Root, 14.

Note on Cayley’s Demonstra-
tion of Pascal’s Theorem, 18.

Murray (John), LL.D., and Irvine
(Robert), F.C.S., on Coral Reefs and
other Carbonate of Lime Formations
in Modern Seas, 79.

Muscular Fibre of the Crab and Lob-
ster, by Professor William Ruther-
ford, 146.

Muscular Movement. On the Nature
of a Voluntary Muscular Movement,
by Dr John Berry Haycraft, 176.

Muscular Contraction, following rapid
Electrical Stimulation of Central
Nervous System, by Dr John Berry
Haycraft, 178.

Neill Prize for Period 1886-89. See
Prizes.

Nervous System. Muscular Contrac-
tion, following rapid Electrical
Stimulation of Central Nervous
System, by Dr John Berry Hay-
craft, 178.

Nickel Salts and Cobalt. See Dr John
Gibson.

Nitrosomorphine, 376.

Note on Cayley’s Demonstration of
Pascal’s Theorem, 18.

Office-Bearers, Session 1889-90, 1.

Ohmic Resistance to a Transient Elec-
tric Current through a Steel Bar, by
Sir William Thomson, 157.

Oligochaeta belonging to the Limi-
coline Section, by Frank E. Beddard,
M.A., 5.

Olivary Body. On the Connections
of the Inferior Olivary Body, by
Alexander Bruce, M.A., M.D., 23.

Optical Activity. Its Relation to the
Character of the Radicals united to
the Asymmetric Carbon Atom, by
Prof. A. Crum Brown, 181.

Papers, Titles of, read during Session
1889-90, 411-421.

Pascal’s Theorem. Note on Cayley’s
Demonstration of Pascal’s Theorem,
by Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., 18.

Permutations. See Self - conjugate
Permutations.

Phosphorus. A New Method for Deter-
mining Phosphorus in Organic
Phosphorus Compounds, by Prof.
E. A. Letts and R. F. Blake, 382.

Placodermi, a sub-order of Ganoidei,
388.

Potassium-Ethyl Malonate, Electro-
lysis of, by Prof. Crum Brown and
Dr James Walker, 54.

Potassium-Ethyl Succinate, Electro-
lysis of, by Prof. Crum Brown and
Dr James Walker, 54.

Prizes. Gunning Arictoria Jubilee
Prize (1887-90) awarded to Pro-
fessor Tait, 417.

Keith Prize (1887-89) awarded

to Professor Letts, 418.

• Neill Prize (1886-89) awarded

to Mr Robert Kidston, 419.

Quaternions. Some Multinomial
Theorems in, by Rev. M. M. U.
Wilkinson, 149.

Reflexion-Caustics of Symmetrical
Curves, by the Hon. LordM‘Laren,
281.

of Two-Term Polar Curves of

the Degree, m, 286.

Locus of the Field of View in

the Optical Caustic, 294.

Ripples- Note on Ripples in a Viscous
Liquid, by Prof. Tait, 110.

Determination of Surface-

Tension by the Measurement of
Ripples, by Prof. C. Michie Smith,
115.

Rutherford (Professor William), on the
Structure and Contraction of Striped
Muscular Fibre of the Crab and
Lobster, 146.

Salicylic Acid for Phthisis, 266.

Sebacic Acid. Synthesis of, by Prof.
Crum Brown and Dr James Walker,
180.

Segmentation of the Third Cranial
Nerve, by Dr Alexander Bruce,
168.

Self - conjugate Permutations, by
Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., 7.

Series (Rapidly Converging) for the
Extraction of the Square Root, by
Thomas Muir, M.A., LL.D., 14.

Smith (Professor C. Michie). The
Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan,
65.

The Determination of Surface

Tension by the Measurement of
Ripples, 115.

The Absorption Spectra of

Index.

431

Certain Vegetable Colouring Matters,

121.

Smith (Professor C. Michie). Notes
on the Zodiacal Light, 142.

Sodium Carbonate and Bromine, Ac-
tion of, on Solutions of Cobalt and
Nickel Salts, by Dr John Gibson,
56.

Somerville (William), D.CEc., Larix
europcea as a Breeding-Place for
Hylesinus piniperda, 255.

Spectra (Absorption) of certain Vege-
table Colouring Matters, by ' Prof.
C. Michie Smith, 121.

Square Boot. On a Rapidly Con-
verging Series for the Extraction of
the Square Root, by Thomas Muir,
M.A., LL.D., 14.

Stockman (Ralph), M.D., and Dott
(D. B.), F.C.S. Pharmacology of
Morphine and its Derivatives, 321.

Suberic Acid. Synthesis of, 299.

Succinate. See Potassium -Ethyl Suc-
cinate.

Surface - Tension, Determination of,
by the Measurement of Ripples, by
Prof. C. Michie Smith, 115.

Symmetrical Curves, the Reflexion-
Caustics of, by the Hon. Lord
M‘Laren, 281.

Synthesis by means of Electrolysis—
Part III., 297, Part IV., 299 — by
Prof. Crum Brown and Dr James
Walker.

Tait (Professor P. G.). Glissettes of an
Ellipse and Hyperbola, 2.

Note on Ripples in a Viscous

Liquid, 110.

Graphic Records of Impact,

192.

Awarded Gunning Victoria

Jubilee Prize (1887-90), 417.

Tasmania, Birds of. See Campbell
(A. J.).

Thomson (Sir William), P.R.S.E., on
a Mechanism for the Constitution
of Ether, 127.

On an Accidental Illustration

of the Effective Ohmic Resistance
to a Transient Electric Current
through a Steel Bar, 157. |

Thomson (Sir William), P.R.S.E.
Address on presenting Gunning
Victoria Jubilee Prize for 1887-90
to Prof. Tait, 417.

Three-Term Numerical Equation of
the nth. degree, by the Hon. Lord
M‘Laren, 270.

Translation. A Geometrical Method
dependent on the Principle of
Translation, by David Maver,
188.

Traquair (R. H.), M.D. List of the
Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei of Fife
and the Lothians, 385.

Trichloromorphide, 373.

Tuberculosis. See Bacillus.

Urine. Certain Substances found in
the Urine, which reduce the Oxide
of Copper upon Boiling in the pre-
sence of an Alkali, by Herbert H.
Ashdown, M.D., 58.

Uronemidse, a family of Dipnoi,
387.

Vegetable Colouring Matters — their
Absorption Spectra, by Prof. C.
Michie Smith, 121.

Viscous Liquid. Note on Ripples in a,
by Prof. P. G. Tait, 110.

Volcanic Eruption at Bandaisan, b}7
Prof. C. Michie Smith, 65.

Walker (Dr James), and Professor
Crum Brown. The Electrolysis of
Potassium-Ethyl Malonate and of
Potassium-Ethyl Succinate, 54.

Walker (Dr James), and Brown (Pro-
fessor Crum). Synthesis by means
of Electrolysis — Part III. Synthesis
of %-Dicarbodecahexanic Acid, 297 ;
Part IV. Synthesis of Suberic and
%-Dicarbododecanic Acids, 299.

Wilkinson (Rev. M. M. U.). Some
Multinomial Theorems in Quater-
nions, 149.

Wood (G. E. Cartwright), M.D.
Enzyme Action in Lower Organisms,
27.

Zodiacal Light, by Professor Michie
Smith, 142.

INDEX TO OBITUARY NOTICES.

OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED.

PAGE

Coleman (Joseph J.). By Professor M ''Kendrick, , . . xxix

Dickson (William). By Josiah Livingston, .... xxiv
Donders (Franz Cornelius). By Professor M ‘Kendrick, . , xxx

Drew (Dr Samuel). By Arthur Jackson, Esq., M.R.C.S., . . xxiii

Falshaw (Sir James), Bart., D.L. By Bailie J. A. Russell, M.A.,

M.B., . . . . . . . xxvi

Graham (Dr Andrew). By John Romanes, S.S.C., . . xxv

Grant (Rev James), D.D., D.C.L. By A, Beatson Bell, Advocate, . xxxii
Gray (Asa). By Professor Frederick 0. Bower, xx

Gray (Robert), F’.-P.R.S.E. By R. H. Traquair, M.D., F.R.S., xvi

Kolbe (Professor Herman). By Professor Crum Brown, . . xxxv

Madvig (Professor Johan Nicolai). By Professor Sellar, . . iii

Matthews (James Duncan). By Professor W. Carmichael M‘Intosh,

F.R.SS. L. & E., . . . . . xxxviii

Ronalds (Dr Edmund). By J. Y. Buchanan, . . xxviii

Smith (Robert Mackay). By Professor Swan, LL.D., . . x

Wilson (Charles Edward), M.A. , LL.D. By William Jolly, F.G.S., . vi
Yule (Colonel Sir Henry), R. E., C.B., K.C.S.I., LL.D., &c. By

Coutts Trotter, ....... xliii

PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH.

Obituary Notices.

xxv

Dr Andrew Graham, R.N. By John Romanes, S.S.C.

(Read January 20, 1890.)

Another of our Fellows has gone to his rest. Dr Andrew Graham,
Fleet Surgeon, Retired, died at his residence at the Albany, Piccadilly,
London, on the 1st December 1889, in the 73rd year of his age. He
was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London.

He came of a family of medical practitioners. His grandfather, Dr
Andrew Graham, settled in Dalkeith upwards of a century ago, and
after some forty years of extensive practice, died in 1824, leaving five
sons, four of whom were graduates in medicine in the Edinburgh
School. The eldest of these, Dr Walter Graham, the father of the
subject of the present notice, assisted his father for many years, and
died of fever contracted in practice at Dalkeith in 1827, while the
subject of our notice was but a boy of about ten years of age. After
passing the earlier stages of his education, the latter prosecuted his
studies at the University of Edinburgh. At the medical classes he
was a diligent and successful student, and in 1837 became a licentiate
of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the following year he graduated
as doctor of medicine ; and shortly thereafter, on the 19th November
1838, he entered the service of his Queen and country as an assistant
surgeon in the Royal Navy. He became staff surgeon on 27th July
' 1847, and fleet surgeon on 22nd June 1864 ; and, after a full period
of service, retired (with retired pay) on 1st April 1870.

He served for some time in the Mediterranean and East Indies ;
and during the Russian war he served as surgeon on board the flag
ship in the Baltic, under Admiral Sir Charles Napier. At a later
date he served in the West Indies in H.M.S. “Agamemnon,” under
Captain Thomas Hope, Pinkie.

He received the Baltic medal, and also Sir Gilbert Blane’s gold
medal.

Wherever he served, he proved himself an able and accomplished
navy surgeon, admirably cool in danger, and attentive, both in times
of peace and war, to the health and welfare of those under his care.

He was of a quiet unassuming disposition, and endeared himself
by his goodness of heart to all who were acquainted with him. He
died a bachelor ; but though many of his friends had gone before,
he is survived by many — friends, relatives, brother officers, and
fellows — who will sincerely mourn his loss.

c

xxvi Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh.

Sir James Falshaw, Bart. By Bailie J. A. Russell, M. A., M.B.

(Read January 6, 1890.)

Last June Sir James Falshaw, Bart., J.P., D.L., who had been
long and honourably known in connection with railway and muni-
cipal matters in Scotland, died in Edinburgh, at the age of 79.
He was the son of a wool merchant in Leeds, where he was born
on 21st March 1810, the sixth of a family of fourteen; but it was
in Scotland that he won fortune and reputation, and that he finally
settled. At school he sat on the same bench with Sir John
Hawkshaw under Mr Jonathan Lockwood, and at the age of
fourteen he was articled for a seven years’ apprenticeship to Mr
Cusworth, architect and surveyor. At this time he laid the
foundation of his first success by mastering the subject of skew
arches. He then became agent in charge of a section of the Leeds
and Selby Railway for the contractors Messrs Hamar & Pratt, who
subsequently appointed him to the entire charge of the construction
of the Whitby and Pickering Railway. In this bit of work he
gained experience of steep gradients, curves, and other difficulties
which afterwards stood him in good stead. Thereafter he obtained
the position of chief-assistant to Mr G. Leather, engineer of the
Aire and Calder ^Navigation, Goole Docks, &c. During the seven
years he was with Mr Leather he had a share in preparing many
important engineering schemes, among which were the Leeds
Waterworks, involving a tunnel of \\ mile, the Bradford Water-
works, and the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, of which Mr (now
Sir John) Fowler was resident engineeer. When 33 years of age,
just at the time when the great outburst of railway construction
was in progress, he began business on his own account as a railway
engineer and contractor, and achieved considerable success. He
then joined the staff of Messrs John Stephenson & Co. in the
making of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, which now forms
part of the London and North- Western Trunk Line. This engage7
rnent brought him into contact with Mr Brassey and Mr Mackenzie,
who were associated with Mr Stephenson, and with the first
named well-known engineer he enjoyed a life long friendship.
Under the auspices of this firm, Sir James Falshaw took a leading
part in making large portions of the Caledonian and Scottish
Central Railways and Scottish Midland Railways. In 1851 his

Obituary Notices.

xxvn

connection with the firm of Messrs John Stephenson & Co. ceased,
and Mr Falshaw joined Mr Brassey as contractors for the construc-
tion of the Inverness and Nairn and Elgin Bailway, Mr Falshaw
taking the entire management. By himself he contracted for the
upkeep for seven years of the Scottish Central and Scottish Mid-
land Lines, and for the construction of the Denny branch Scottish
Central Bailway, and the Portpatrick, Stranraer, and Glenluce
Bailway. With Messrs Morkill & Prodham, two former assistants,
he contracted for the Berwickshire Bailway and the Blaydon and
Conside Branch of the North-Eastern.

He became a director of various minor railways, manufacturing,
hanking, shipping, and insurance companies, but never forgot the
duty which he owed, to devote a portion of his time to the public
good, and took the opportunity of a four years’ residence in Nairn
to enter the Town Council, whereupon he was elected Senior Bailie.
In 1858 Sir James Falshaw settled in Edinburgh, and at once began
to interest himself in the affairs of the city. He was returned to
the Town Council in 1861, and three years later he was elected a
Bailie, and on the resignation of Mr James Cowan to become
Member of Parliament for the city in 1874, he was elected Lord
Provost. At this time the Town Council had to face many difficult
questions, including the promotion of no less than three hills in
Parliament; and the city of Edinburgh owes much to the energy and
sagacity shown by Sir James Falshaw in all departments of the city’s
work. He showed great zeal in making preparations when cholera
threatened to visit the town, and he had a considerable share in
passing the Improvement Trust Act, which has done so much for
the health and amenity of Edinburgh. Among the improvements
executed during his reign as Lord Provost may be mentioned the
widening of Princes Street, the widening of the North Bridge, the
opening of West Princes Street Gardens to the public, the covering
in of the Waverley Market, and the purchasing of the Arboretum.
Undoubtedly, the most important work of Sir James Falshaw’s
municipal life was the introduction of the Moorfoot water supply
into Edinburgh — a scheme in which he took a deep interest, and
which was completed after his term of office as Lord Provost had
expired, but while he was Chairman of the Works Committee of
the Water Trust. His Baronetcy was conferred upon him in 1876,

xxviii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

on the occasion of the visit of the Queen to inaugurate the
equestrian monument erected in Charlotte Square to the memory of
the Prince Consort. Sir James also filled the honourable office of
Master of the Merchant Company. He was long connected with
the North British Railway Company, of which he was elected
Deputy-Chairman in 1881, and subsequently Chairman, an office
which he held until 1887, when advancing age led him to vacate the
more onerous position to again become Deputy-Chairman. It was
during his tenure of the chair that the Tay Bridge was opened, and
he had a lively interest in the still greater undertaking promoted by
the Forth Bridge Company, of which he was the first Chairman.

Sir James Falshaw was elected an Associate of the Institution of
Civil Engineers in 1854, and became a Fellow of this Society in
1866.

He was twice married — first, in 1841, to a daughter of the late
Mr Thomas Morkell of Astley, who died in 1864; and again in 1871
to a daughter of Mr Thomas Gibbs, Norwood. Sir James was pre-
deceased by Lady Falshaw, and left no family. He was not
only recognised as a man of sterling integrity, but one of high
Christian character, and though of a brusque demeanour, he had
many friends. He was a Wesleyan Methodist, and in politics a
Conservative. In the conduct of public business he was clear-
sighted and hard-headed, utterly fearless, and full of energy and
determination, and the results, of his reign — both at the Town
Council and Railway Board — were generally excellent, though it
must he confessed, in the words of the Scotsman , that his impatience
of long speeches and his laconic methods of conducting business,
occasionally staggered the advocates of liberty of speech. In grati-
tude for his services to the city, his portrait was painted by sub-
scription among leading citizens, and now hangs in the Council
Chambers.

Dr Edmund Ronalds. By J. Y. Buchanan, Esq,

Dr Edmund Ronalds was born in Canonhury Square, London,
in the year 1819. His father was Edmund Ronalds, merchant in
London, and his mother Eliza Anderson, daughter of James Anderson,
LL.D., also of London. His father’s elder brother was Sir Francis

Obituary Notices. xxix

Ronalds, well known in connection with the origin of the electric
telegraph. He was educated at a private school in England, after
which he went abroad, and studied at Giessen, Jena, Berlin, Heidel-
berg, Zurich, and Paris. At Giessen he was the fellow-student of
Hermann Kopp, Fresenius, Will, and other well-known chemists.
He returned to England in 1840, and lectured on chemistry at St
Mary’s and the Middlesex Hospital. In 1849 he was appointed
professor of chemistry in Queen’s College, Galway. In 1856 he
gave up his professorship, and took over the Bonnington Chemical
Works, where the tar and ammonia liquor of the Edinburgh Gas
Works were dealt with. At the expiry of the contract Dr Ronalds
retired from business, and lived at Bonnington House until his
death, on 9th September 1889. He was a constant attendant at
the meetings of the Society, and although he rarely took an active
part in its proceedings he always took a lively interest in every-
thing that went on. He had an admirably appointed laboratory,
with the use of which he was most generous; and among the
numerous chemists who, either as students or teachers, have from
time to time resided in Edinburgh during the last thirty years, there
are none who do not remember him with affection.

Joseph J. Coleman. By Professor M‘Kendrick.

Joseph J. Coleman died on 18th December 1888, in the 49th
year of his age. Trained first as a chemist and druggist, he was
early led to the study of chemical science, and so soon as in
his 22nd year he contributed papers on chemical subjects to the
Proceedings of the British Association. In course of time he
became chemist to the Young’s Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil
Company, and in this capacity made original investigations on the
gases produced in the distillation of bituminous shale. By sub-
mitting these to great pressure, at a low temperature, Mr Coleman
obtained highly volatile liquid hydrocarbons. This investigation
led him to the problem of the mechanical production of low
temperatures, and to the invention of the well-known machine by
which a low temperature is maintained in the holds of steamers
conveying large cargoes of fresh meat from America and Australia.
Along with Mr James Bell, the method was successfully carried out,

xxx Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

and Mr Coleman’s dry-air mechanical refrigerators were fitted np in
many steamers. Mr Coleman acquired a modest fortune from his
invention, and, retiring to Bearsden, near Glasgow, he built a small
private laboratory in connection with his house, and devoted him-
self entirely to original investigation. He contributed numerous
papers to the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, to this Society, to
the Society of Chemical Industry, and to the Institution of Civil
Engineers. For many years Mr Coleman suffered from weak health,
and at length his frail body succumbed to a complication of disorders.
He was a man of bright and lively intelligence, who took an original
view of any scientific question to which his mind was directed.
Although eminently practical as a chemical engineer, he had a great
regard for the first principles of science, and even for those problems
in chemistry and physics that are of merely speculative interest to
most men. Few were more gifted with the power of recognising the
practical applications of scientific theory, and it was this quality
of mind that led him to the invention of the machinery for the
mechanical transference of heat with which his name will always
he associated.

Franz Cornelius Bonders. By Professor M‘K©ndrick.

This distinguished physiologist and ophthalmologist was horn in
North Brabant on 27th May 1818, and died at Utrecht on 24th
March 1889. Educated in the Dutch Boy al Hospital for Military
Medicine and Surgery, he practised for a time as army surgeon in
Yliessingen and in the Hague ; hut an anatomical and pathological
investigation on the nervous centres having attracted the attention
of the authorities, he was soon appointed lecturer on anatomy and
physiology to the Boyal Military Academy in Leyden. This office
he held till 1848, when he was appointed professor extraordinary in
the Medical Faculty of the University of Utrecht; in 1852 he
became an ordinary professor ; and on the death of Schroeder van
der Kolk, in 1862, he was called to the chair of physiology. He
filled this chair till 1889, when he retired in compliance with the
law of the universities in Holland, by which no professor can occupy
a chair after attaining his seventieth year. Soon after his retirement
his health gave way, and he died after a series of apoplectic attacks.

Obituary Notices.

xxxi

In 1843, when physiologists were much occupied with the cell
theory of Schleiden and Schwann, Donders carried on researches
with Mulder, more especially in the chemical examination of the
tissues while under the microscope. He also about this time came
under the influence of the great German physiologist Johann
Muller, whose doctrines, more especially those relating to the
nervous system and the senses, have largely moulded the life-work,
not only of Donders, hut of Helmholtz, Carl Ludwig, and many
other physiologists in Germany. In these early years, also, he was
much occupied with the study of the dynamical characters of living
beings, and in a well-known paper on the Metabolism of Tissue as
the Source of the proper Heat of Plants and Animals, he showed how
the skin acts as a regulator of bodily temperature, and he discussed
the relation between heat and work in the living tissues. The
fame of Donders largely rests, however, on his researches on vision.
In 1846 appeared a paper on the Movements of the Human Eye,
and this was followed by many similar contributions through a
series of years. In these papers, which were largely devoted to the
problems of single vision, the nature of the horopter, the conditions
of stereoscopic vision, and the mechanism of the movements of the
eyeballs, Donders substantially laid the groundwork of our present
knowledge of these subjects. He also wrote on the Relation between
Convergence and Accommodation, the Regeneration of the Cornea,
and on the Use of Lenses in the^Treatment of Squint. After a visit
to London in 1851, when he became acquainted with the dis-
tinguished ophthalmologist von Graefe, he resolved to devote his
life chiefly to this department of the medical art, and for many years
he enjoyed a large practice as an ophthalmic surgeon. For twelve
years he edited the Nederlandsch Lancet , in the pages of which many
important communications on ophthalmological subjects appeared
from his pen. The great work of his life, however, was a volume
entitled Anomalies of Refraction and Accommodation , a translation
of which was published by the Hew Sydenham Society. Familiar
with the researches of Gauss, Listing, and Helmholtz, Donders
investigated mathematically and by experiment the optical conditions
of the normal eye, and showed how these were modified in myopia,
hypermetropia, and astigmatism. He also discussed theoretically
the influence of age upon refraction and the mechanism of accom-

xxxii Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh %

modation, and he gave precision to the optical methods for ascer-
taining and estimating anomalies of refraction. In all of these
researches he not only showed himself to he an able mathematician
and physicist, but he enlisted the interest of the medical profession
at large by the careful clinical records given of individual cases
suffering from anomalies of vision, and by the ingenuity and
efficiency of the means devised for their relief. Donders also
contributed papers on Physiological Time in Psychical Processes, the
Nature of Vowel-Tones, Speech, and the Cardiac Sounds. All his
writings are characterised by exactitude of statement, facility in
illustration, and graceful diction. The subject is always treated
with the hand of a master. Of commanding stature, a dignified
presence, a large Apollo-like head with a luxuriant wealth of hair,
dark somewhat rugged features, and eyes that sparkled with the
lustre of genius, Donders was a man whose personality is not likely
soon to fade from the memory. Eminent among physiologists, chief
among oculists, a great teacher, and a good citizen, his life-work is
thus summed up by his friend Moleschott: — “Of him it would be
difficult to pronounce whether he was greater or more prolific as an
investigator, or clearer or more effective as an expositor, or, lastly,
more duteous and helpful as a healer of that organ which is the
portal of wisdom and love.”

Rev. James Grant, D.D., D.C.L. Oxon. By A. Beatson Bell,
Esq., Advocate.

(Read January 5, 1891.)

James Grant was the third son of the Rev. Dr Andrew Grant,
proprietor of the estate of Limepotts, in the county of Perth, and
minister successively of Portmoak, Kilmarnock, Canongate, Trinity
College, and St Andrews, Edinburgh, Dean of the Chapel Royal,
and Chaplain in Ordinary to George III., George IV., and
"William IV.

He -was born in the manse of Portmoak, Kinross-shire, on 23rd
January 1800, and when James was quite a child, his father was
translated to Kilmarnock. He there received the elements of his
education, and on his father’s subsequent translation to Edinburgh

Obituary Notices, xxxiii

he was sent to the High School 6f this city, and afterwards
attended the University, both in Arts and Divinity. His career
there was marked with distinction, especially in the field of Classics,
and in Greek he was a class-fellow and rival of Dr William Yeitch
of Jedburgh, the learned author of the well-known work on the
Greek irregular verb. It was a tradition that, at least in one
session, James Grant succeeded in standing first, while Yeitch was
second in the Greek class.

He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, and almost
immediately thereafter, in 1824, was ordained minister of the first
charge of South Leith. There he remained with much acceptance
to the large congregation for nineteen years, notwithstanding some
tempting offers of translation. He early was acknowledged as a
leader in the Church Courts, and in 1837 was one of a deputation
(which included Dr Chalmers and other eminent divines) who
presented in person the congratulatory address from the Church of
Scotland to Queen Yictoria on her accession. In the same year he
was one of a deputation sent by the General Assembly to inquire
into the religious condition of the people of the Island of Skye.

By this time the troublous events of the “ ten years’ conflict ”
had commenced, and Dr Grant was much engaged in its various
controversies. Many of these are now matters of somewhat remote
history, and it would be improper in a notice such as this to stir
embers of former fires. It may be enough to mention that when
the party opposed to those with whom Dr Grant acted proceeded to
the extreme act of deposition of some ministers in the Presbytery of
Strathbogie, Dr Grant and his friends denied the legality of the
proceedings, and deliberately visited Strathbogie for the purpose of
holding ministerial communion with the deposed ministers. For
this ecclesiastical offence the majority of the Assembly inflicted the
nominal punishment of suspension from judicial functions for
nine months. During his suspension he received a largely-signed
address of confidence from his flock, and the same year (1842) the
University of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of D.D. At
this time also he was appointed chaplain to the Highland and
Agricultural Society of Scotland, an honour which he much valued,
and which he retained till his death. Hext year (1843) saw the
end of the ten years’ conflict. The parish of St Mary’s, Edinburgh,

xxxiv Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

had become vacant by the demission of Dr Henry Gray, who had
gone out with the Free Church, and Dr Grant was offered by the
Town Council the presentation. After full deliberation he accepted
the translation, and the rest of his active ministerial life was passed
in St Mary’s. At a later period of the same year he was offered by
the Town Council a presentation to one of the charges of the High
Church (St Giles), but he declined the offer. He was also then
appointed Collector of the Widows’ h'und of the Ministers and
Professors, an office which he held until 1860, and in which his
remarkable talent for business found congenial scope. For ten years
after his removal to Edinburgh he was much occupied in a contro-
versy which, in its day, excited bitter feeling, but which is happily
now nearly forgotten — viz., the Edinburgh Annuity Tax question,
in regard to the manner in which funds for the payment of the
stipends of the ministers of Edinburgh were raised. Dr Grant, as
one of these ministers, was a prominent figure in the discussions,
and ultimately when the controversy was settled by legislation on
the footing of the payment of a capital sum by the Corporation of
Edinburgh, the interest of which was to take the place of the old
tax, and to be applied by a newly-constituted Ecclesiastical Com-
mission, Dr Grant was at once elected a member of that Commission,
and ultimately became its chairman. This was the period of his
greatest activity, both in parochial work and in the Church Courts,
and in 1851 he became Moderator of the General Assembly. The
same year he received from Oxford at Commemoration the honorary
degree of D.C.L., the only other recipient of that degree among the
clergymen of the Church of Scotland having been Dr Chalmers.
In 1860 he began to retire from active life outside his parochial
work. His attendance in Church Courts almost ceased, and in that
year he resigned the Collectorship of the Widows’ Fund. In 1871
he resigned his parochial charge, and for the last nineteen years of
his life he lived in retirement from active ministerial work, devot-
ing himself much to the management of various religious, charitable,
and educational institutions, in the governing bodies of which he
held a seat. He was for more than fifty years an Honorary Fellow
and Chaplain of the Harveian Society, and at the annual meetings
of that body he came in contact with many of the most eminent
medical men in Scotland, including many Fellows of this Society.

Obituary Notices.

XXXV

He became a Fellow of our Society in 1851, and for many years
was a regular attender at the meetings, and he served for several
years on the Council. Although not himself a scientific worker, he
took much interest in hearing of the progress of science in the
world, hut the papers on the literary side of the Society, then more
numerous than of late years they have been, probably had greater
attractions for him. He passed away on 28th July 1890, at the
ripe age of ninety, preserving his intellect unclouded and his
interest in life unabated to the end.

Although he could not be described as a great preacher, his pulpit
ministrations were appreciated by his successive flocks, and his kindly
interest in their welfare secured the affection of many. Probably his
most characteristic quality was his sagacity as a counsellor, whether
amid the turmoil of ecclesiastical strife, or, later in life, in the manage-
ment of the numerous societies and institutions with which he was
connected. His memory will be cherished as that of one who
realised the dignity of his high profession, and exhibited in his
person some of the best qualities of a Scottish clergyman of a school
now fast passing away.

Professor Kolbe. By Prof. Crum Brown.

Professor Herman Kolbe was the eldest son of the Rev. Carl
Kolbe of Elliehausen, near Gottingen, and was born on the 27th
of September 1818. He was educated at home by his father till
his fourteenth year, when he entered the Gottingen Gymnasium. In
April 1838 he began the study of chemistry, under Wohler, in the
University of Gottingen, where he also acquired a thorough theo-
retical and practical knowledge of physics and mineralogy under
Listing and Hausmann.

In 1842 Kolbe was appointed assistant to Bunsen in the chemical
laboratory of the University of Marburg. He took the degree of
Ph.D. in that university in the following year, the title of his
thesis being “ On the Products of the Action of Chlorine on Bisul-
phide of Carbon.”

In the autumn of 1845 he removed to London as assistant to
Lyon Playfair. In the spring of 1847 he returned for a short time
to Marburg, and in the autumn of the same year removed to

xxxvi Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Brunswick, to undertake the editorship of the great Dictionary of
Chemistry , begun by Liebig and Poggendorff in 1837.

In 1851 he was called to Marburg to succeed Bunsen, who
had been translated to Breslau. He remained in Marburg till
1865, when, on the unanimous request of the Faculties of Medicine
and Philosophy, he was called to succeed Kuhn as professor of
chemistry in the University of Leipzig.

In 1870 he added to his professorial work that of the editorship
of the Journal fiir praktische Chemie. He died very suddenly,
of heart disease, on the evening of the 25th November 1884.

This short notice of the principal landmarks in Kolbe’s life has
been taken from the full and interesting account given by his son-in-
law, Professor E. v. Meyer, in the Journal fur praktische Chemie.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Kolbe’s scientific character
was its independence. His opinions and views were his own, and
were to an extraordinary degree unalfected by the opinions and
theories of others. This independence gives a peculiar value to his
theoretical writings, but it had also its disadvantages. The in-
dividual character of his style of thinking and writing certainly
confined his immediate influence very much to those — comparatively
few — chemists who took the trouble to learn his language and
understand his methods. The ideas which he originated have now
been to a great extent translated into the language of modern
chemistry and form part of the common doctrine, but many
chemists are unaware of their source, and would scarcely recognise
them in the form in which they were first published. The loss
to science was temporary, and Kolbe’s fame may be safely entrusted
to future historians ; but the misunderstanding, which was a mis-
understanding on both sides, led sometimes to a kind of strife
painful to all the friends of those involved in it.

It is not possible, within the limits of an obituary notice, to do
more than very briefly indicate the general character of the groups
of investigations made by Kolbe, and of the theoretical conclusions
he drew from their results.

Kolbe’s first great research, published in 1845, was on the com-
pound formed by the joint-action of chlorine and water on bisul-
phide of carbon. This substance has the composition CC14S02,
and its investigation formed the natural sequence to his graduation

Obituary Notices.

xxxvn

thesis mentioned above. From this “sulphite of perchloride of
carbon ” Kolbe obtained the potassium salt now represented by the
formula CC13S020K, and from the corresponding hydrogen salt,
by successively replacing the chlorine by hydrogen, CHC12S020H,
CH2C1S020H, and CH3S020H.

A great series of investigations, beginning with a joint work by
Frankland and Kolbe on the action of caustic potash on the cyanides
of the alcohol radicals, led Kolbe to theoretical views as to the con-
stitution and relation to one another of the group of acids now known
as “carboxyl compounds” and the corresponding aldehydes, alcohols,
ketones, &c. These considerations profoundly influenced the history
of chemistry, although, for the reason already mentioned, Kolbe has
not even now obtained full credit for what he did. It is true that we
are very apt to read old papers in the light of recent discoveries and
to find in them more than their writers intended, and the composer
of an eloge is specially liable to this error; but it is impossible
to read Kolbe’s papers without seeing that he fully recognised, at
a time when no one else had a glimpse of the truth on the matter,
what is the real relation of the “sulphone” and “carbone” acids to
sulphuric and carbonic acids respectively, and expressed these
relations and those of the acids to the aldehydes, alcohols, ketones,
&c., with perfect distinctness. His theory enabled him to predict
the discovery of the secondary and tertiary alcohols; and when
Friedel published his discovery, that acetone gives, by treatment
with nascent hydrogen, a propylic alcohol, Kolbe at once declared
that this must be one of his secondary alchohols, and that on oxida-
tion it must give, not propionic aldehyde and acid, but acetone, as
wras soon after found to be the case.

A very early and most interesting investigation by Kolbe, on the
“ Electrolysis of Potassium Yalerianate and Potassium Acetate,”
belongs to the period of his short residence in London. The most
striking result was the synthesis of the hydrocarbons R2, if we write
the potassium salt electrolysed R’COOK ; but the products of the
electrolysis were very carefully examined by Kolbe, who detected
among them the ethers R'COOR.

Another important and extensive series of researches bear upon
the “ oxy-acids.” His investigations on lactic acid, and the long and
interesting controversy with Wurtz on the constitution of lactic

xxxviii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

acid, the synthesis of salicylic acid (by Kolbe and Lautemann), and
the reduction of numerous oxy-acids by means of hydriodic acid,
carried out by his pupils, belong to this group. In this connection
it is right to note that it is to Kolbe that we owe our knowledge of
the antiseptic action of salicylic acid.

Besides numerous scientific papers, chiefly published in the Anna-
len der Chemie und Pharmacie and in the Journal fiir praldische
Chemie , Kolbe wrote many of the articles in the great Dictionary
of Chemistry , of which he was editor, and a very valuable Ausfuhr-
liches Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie. In the first and second
volumes of this Lehrbuch (the only part written entirely by Kolbe)
we have a very full account of his views on the constitution of the
alcohols, acids, and their derivatives. He also published two short
text-books, one on inorganic, and the other on organic chemistry.

James Duncan Matthews. By Professor W. Carmichael
MTntosh, F.B.SS. Lond. and Edin.

(Read January 5, 1891.)

The story of a long life, spent in the service of science, for the
most part tells it own tale, and is more or less independent of the
biographer; but it is different when a young worker, broken in
health, and thus hampered in his efforts, succumbs before reaching
middle age.

Born in Aberdeen, Mr Matthews commenced life as an architect
in the office of his father (ex-Lord Provost Matthews of Springhill),
intending to follow this profession. At the age of nineteen, how-
ever, he suffered from a severe attack of typhoid fever, which
greatly enfeebled his constitution, and permanently injured his
lungs. Though he made several long sea-voyages to Australia and
America for the benefit of his health, he only partially succeeded,
for the chest-affection continued slowly to progress.

Though in feeble physical health, his active mind was eager for
action, and he was led to pursue microscopical work. He then
entered Aberdeen University, and studied various biological
subjects — especially zoology — which was taught by Professor
Ewart, then newly appointed, and with whom a friendship sprung
up. Greatly interested in the subject, he resolved to devote his

Obituary Notices.

xxxix

whole energies to zoological pursuits. His first essay — communi-
cated to the British Association at Southport — wras on “Wool
Plugs and Sterilised Fluids,” a subject for which his conscientious
exactness and ingenuity peculiarly fitted him. He concluded by
expressing doubts as to the efficiency of wool plugs as filtering
agents when a strong current passed through them.

When Professor Ewart was transferred to Edinburgh, Mr
Matthews followed him — becoming Demonstrator in Zoology in
the University. While in this position, he won the favour of the
students and others by his unvarying courtesy, punctuality, and
attention to duty. Professor Prince, now of St Mungo’s College,
Glasgow, who was associated with him in class-work during the
summer of 1884, writes of him thus : — “One of the brightest spots
in my Edinburgh experience was my daily association with Duncan
Matthews, a devoted and unwearied worker amidst all the dis-
advantages of ill-health and bodily weakness. He was a most
accurate and painstaking zoologist, a skilful draughtsman, and was
well acquainted with foreign ichthyological literature. Edinburgh
never had a more worthy and accomplished, or a more unobtrusive
and kindly, professorial assistant. His published papers give no
idea of his laborious industry and devotion to zoological work —
work which social and other circumstances rendered by no means a
necessity.”

Along with Professor Ewart he drew up and published a series
of directions for the students of the Practical Class on the examina-
tion of various invertebrates — similar to those used in University
College, London. The critical acuteness of Mr Matthews was
well fitted for this work, which, indeed, mainly fell on his shoulders.
Yet at this time he seemed to experienced eyes to be on the verge
of grave thoracic complications, and one could not but feel for the
young assistant gallantly adhering to duty in the absence of his
senior when the cold winds of spring told so heavily on his cough.
Nevertheless, no complaint fell from his lips, and he performed
every task cheerfully and well. He subsequently, ^however, had to
interrupt his labours, and obtain partial relief of the symptoms by a
visit to the quiet grounds of Springhill. JSText year (1885) he
published a very interesting paper oil the presence of an oviduct in
an adult male skate, besides another series of the joint notes for the

xl Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

students on the dissection of the skate. These notes gave him
even more labour than the previous publication on the invertebrates.

Besides his duties in connection with the class of Zoology in the
University, he was employed by the Fishery Board for Scotland to
carry on various researches on fisheries’ subjects and tabulate
results, but he was not responsible for certain of the deductions
made from the latter. His singularly clear and cautious mind made
him slow to arrive at conclusions — especially in cases fraught with
both doubt and difficulty. One of his earlier papers on fisheries’
questions was a most careful and methodical report on the sprat-
fishing of 1883-84. He accurately pointed out the various
distinctions between the sprat and the herring (with the exception
of the pelagic egg of the sprat — then unknown), and concluded by
demonstrating that in the Firths of Forth and Tay, and in the
Moray Firth, the sprat fishermen captured during the winter
months 143,000,000 young herrings.

He continued his researches, notwithstanding very feeble health,
in 1885, and — his father being then Lord Provost of Aberdeen —
he besides took much interest in the arrangements for the meeting
of the British Association at Aberdeen in the autumn of the same
year. He attended many of the meetings of the Association —
especially in Section D (Biology) — though he did not communicate
any of his papers. He had much to do, however, in aiding his
father in his entertainments at Springhill, and in making his guests
(amongst whom were Sir Lyon Playfair, President of the Associa-
tion, Lady Playfair, and Lord Rayleigh) spend a most pleasant
week.

How fairly entering into the spirit of the fisheries’ work, he
took up the question of the varieties of the herring. In the skilful
hands, and by the exact methods, of Mr Matthews certainty took the
place of doubt, and though difficulties still remained, he at any rate
reduced the errors from limitation of observation to a minimum.
Heincke’s paper on the varieties of the Baltic herring did not come
into his hands before his own observations were nearly completed,
but he was able to make a comparison of the methods. The labour
involved in this paper may be estimated when it mentioned that
16,000 measurements and 20,000 subsequent calculations were
included, and that the general size, dimensions of the head, differ-

Obituary Notices.

xli

ences in the position of the fins, and other points, were elaborately
investigated and tabulated with a tenacity of purpose and innate
skill in the manipulation of figures which vrere prominent charac-
teristics of Mr Matthews. He cautiously concludes this preliminary
paper by the statement that the winter and summer herrings
slightly differ, viz., in the more posterior position of the fins, the
doubtfully smaller head and slightly lesser size of the summer
herrings.

About this time he also investigated the kindred subject of the
whitebait of the Thames and Forth, and published, in conjunction
with Professor Ewart, his results in a short paper. The percentage
of sprats and young herrings in these localities is given — the former
largely predominating. In the winter fishing of the Firth of Forth
the young herrings are practically absent, and in that of the
Thames they are in the proportion of only 6 per cent. As the
season advances the number of young herrings increases — reaching
in May and June 80 per cent, of the shoals, but again decreasing
in July.

He continued his persevering researches on the supposed races of
the herring in Scottish waters, and issued a second paper on the
subject in the Fishery Board’s Report for 1887. Here, again, the
careful nature of his work, his respect for the observations of others,
and his own sound deductions are noteworthy. As the result of
his laborious tables and long-continued attention to the subject, he
states that there is no true racial distinction between the herrings of
the various localities around our coasts, and that the slight differ-
ences indicated in his former paper do not — after more extended
observations — warrant him in making' a distinction. The variations
in the position of the dorsal fin during the growth of the herring
would alone have rendered the observer careful not to place too
much weight on the slight differences formerly indicated, and one
can almost sympathise with the earnest young worker who so faith-
fully plodded through such a mass of materials — skilfully handling
every available point — yet with only a negative result as the reward
of his free expenditure of labour. He, however, had a talent for
figures, and his deductions were always characterised by conscien-
tiousness and exactness.

His investigations on the herring had rendered hipi familiar with

d

xlii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

the anatomy of the fish, and more particularly with the skeleton
and its variations. Accordingly, at this time he drew up
an elaborate account of the skeleton of the herring, detailing
every hone individually and in relation to its neighbours —
the whole illustrated by seven plates, for he had a facile
and accurate pencil. The amount of patient and monotonous
work in this treatise is great, and must with his other labours have
taxed the delicate frame of Mr Matthews to a dangerous extent —
careful as he was to husband his energies — solely for the advance-
ment of science. The skull, vertebrae, fins, and other parts are
minutely described and figured, and the more important differences
occurring in the twaite and the allis shad, the pilchard and the
sprat, are mentioned. This investigation alone would have entitled
Mr Matthews — as a skilful comparative anatomist — to the respect
of every zoologist.

This year (1887) was his most prolific one, for in addition to the
foregoing laborious papers he produced two others. The first con-
sisted of a report on the examination of 400 stomachs of whiting,
the contents of which were carefully tabulated. His observations
led him to believe that the whiting fed for the most part on small
fishes and crustaceans, thus differing to some extent from the cod
and haddock, both of which had a more varied dietary. The
second paper gave an account of the nest, eggs, and newly-hatched
larvae of the Ballan Wrasse (Labrus maculatus) from Broadford in
Skye. Mr Matthews was thus the first observer who recorded this
feature in our country.

The efforts of 1887 just recorded, and of the previous years — when
he several times lectured for Professor Ewart, as well as conducted
the class of Practical Zoology — proved too severe a strain, and he had
to retire to Springhill, his quiet walks amidst the beautiful gardens
and grounds of which had formerly restored a measure of health.
There, as his brother-in-law, Dr Ogston, tells us, he lived amongst his
specimens and aquaria — “ converting his rooms into extemporised
workshops and laboratories, where his investigations were carried
on. As his strength waned, these grew more intermittent, but even
to the latest hour of consciousness he remained surrounded by his
plants and animals, and showed his interest in them.” A journey to
London to attend the funeral of his uncle, Dr Matthews Duncan,

Obituary Notices.

xliii

a kindred spirit, and to whom he was tenderly attached, danger-
ously exhausted him, and since that time his strength gradually
diminished. He died on the 24th November 1870 at the age of
thirty-nine years.

Mr Matthews had a singularly clear, well-balanced, and vigorous
intellect, keen observation, and remarkable powers of application.
There is, indeed, no doubt that he would have achieved an eminent
position in science if his health had been favourable. As it was,
he became one of the best authorities on the clupeoids, and no one
took more interest in the group. Even when confined to bed, and
unable to do more than write briefly in pencil, he perseveringly
tried to secure anchovies, then appearing here and there on our
coasts, so that fresh observations on this form might be
carried out.

Taken as a whole, the career of Mr Matthews is an instance of
exemplary devotion to duty — under great physical difficulties — in a
field he had deliberately chosen. Many men in his position would
have felt the weight of physical illness sufficient to bear, and would
have passed their valetudinarian hours in search of ease and repose.
Not so with Mr Matthews. Like Edouard Claperede of Geneva, he
even adhered to his labours after repeated haemoptyses — preferring
“ rather to wear the sword out than let it rust out.” The hand of
the gentle young naturalist has vanished, but his accurate work will
remain as a proof of his resolute perseverence under difficulties, and
of his loyalty to zoological science.

Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I.,
LL.I)., &c. By Coutts Trotter.

(Read January 5, 1891.)

When the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in 1883, conferred the
distinction of an Honorary Fellowship on Colonel Henry Yule, they
were moved thereto, probably, as much by the wide range of sub-
jects felicitously touched by his genius, as by the rare quality of
the work done by him in his special domain of Comparative
Geography.

The difficulty of adequately handling these numerous and

xliv Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

varied topics, and still more of doing justice to the personal
qualities of the man, within the space usually allotted to such a
notice, increases the hesitation I have felt in complying with the
wish of the Society that I should undertake the task ; and, in so
far as I owe this honour to my intimate friendship with Henry
Yule, I am not reassured when I recall the many eminent and
representative men with whom I shared that privilege.

The youngest son of Major William Yule of the Indian Army
(himself a devoted student of Oriental literature), Henry Yule was
born at Inveresk on the 1st May 1820. The family had for
many generations previously held a leading place among the
well-to-do farmers of East Lothian, being settled in the parish of
Dirleton, where they also owned some land ; and many of them lie
buried in the old church of Gullane, The subject of this memoir
had two brothers, who both distinguished themselves in India — Sir
George, a very able and popular civilian, and Robert, who fell
fighting at the head of his regiment, the 9th Lancers, before Delhi,
during the Mutiny. The family is said to be of Danish origin,
the name, spelled Jul, or Juul, being still not uncommon at
Copenhagen.

Henry Yule was at first intended for Cambridge, and probably
for the Law, for after leaving Edinburgh he was placed successively
under two mathematical tutors — Hamilton, author of Conic
Sections and subsequently Dean of Salisbury, and Challis, after-
wards Plumerian Professor at Cambridge. His fellow-pupils here
were the late Rev. Dr John Mason Neale, and Dr Harvey Good-
win, the present Bishop of Carlisle. The latter, to whose kindness
I am indebted for these reminiscences, says that Yule “ showed
much more liking for Greek plays and for German than for mathe-
matics, though he had considerable geometrical ingenuity.” That
he had this seems, indeed, pretty clear from the fact that on one
occasion he solved a problem which had puzzled the future accom-
plished mathematician who tells the story. Yule’s comment on the
matter, addressed to Goodwin, being — “ The difference between you
and me is this, you like it and can’t do it ; I don’t like it and
can do it.” He added “ Neale neither likes it, nor can do it.”

His having to leave Mr Challis, who could no longer accom-
modate him as a pupil on removing to Cambridge, may have led

Obituary Notices. xlv

Yule to reconsider his future course and abandon Cambridge for an
Indian career.

In 1837 he went to the Indian Military College of Addiscombe,
and passing out thence at the head of his term was appointed,
in 1840, after a year’s residence in Chatham, to the Bengal
Engineers. Whilst at Chatham, as his contemporary General
Collinson writes :* “Although he took small part in the games and
other recreations of our time, his knowledge, his native humour, and
his good comradeship, and especially his strong sense of right and
wrong, made him both admired and respected.”

His earliest Indian appointment, among the Khasias, a primitive
Mongoloid people on the north-east outskirts of Bengal, is interest-
ing as having led to the first of his many quaint and curious notices
of remote Eastern peoples.!

Another literary memorial of his early days, evidence already of
the literary instinct, was a volume on “Fortification,”! written
while at home on furlough (1849-51), and lecturing on the subject
at a long-vanished Edinburgh institution — the Military Academy.
“ It may still,” his brother engineer writes, “ be read with benefit ; ”
while for the general reader its interesting biographical notices and
portraits of famous engineers make it very unlike the ordinary pro-
fessional treatise. A French translation appeared in Paris in
1858.

Henry Yule had previously, in 1843, been at home on leave,
when he was married to Anna Maria, daughter of General Martin
White of the Bengal Army; and on his return to India in 1852,
after his second furlough, his wife, owing to bad health — the result
of an accident soon after their marriage — was unable again to
accompany him. Between 1843 and 1849 he was serving with
that group of distinguished engineer officers — among whom we
recall the names of Baird Smith, Cautley, W. E. Baker, Napier
(afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala), and Bichard Strachey (the
last named the only survivor) — then engaged on that great and
successful enterprise, the restoration and development of the irriga-
tion system of the Mogul dynasty in the North-West Provinces.

* Royal Engineers’ Journal , 1st February 1890.

t Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal^ vols. xi. and xiii.

J Published by Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1851.

xlvi Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

These labours were interrupted in 1846 and 1848 by the first
and second Punjab wars, in botli of which be saw active service.

The confidence already placed in him by Lord Dalhousie was
shown by his appointment to an important post in connection with
the great scheme of Indian railways which that statesman had just
introduced, and was pressing on with characteristic energy, a post
entailing, from its novelty, much hard and anxious study ; and this
led on to his appointment as Under-Secretary in the newly-
established department of Public Works, to the head of which he
succeeded on the retirement, after the Mutiny, of his friend and
chief Sir W. Baker. In the meanwhile, during the Burmese war,
he was despatched to survey the frontiers of Arakan, when he
acquired the friendship of Sir Arthur Phayre, a capable and justly
popular administrator, wdiose name will always be honourably
associated with Burmese affairs. This acquaintance, no doubt, led
to the appointment of Captain Yule as secretary to the return
mission of reconciliation despatched to Burmah in 1855, after the
war, under Sir Arthur Phayre. It was stipulated, however, by
Lord Dalhousie that Yule should be the chronicler of the expedi-
tion, a promise amply fulfilled in a Eeporb to Government, which
was afterwards re-cast and published by Smith & Elder in 1858, and
is interesting to us as his first independent work of importance.

It has been said that his attention was first directed by his
Burmese journey and studies to the affairs of those regions beyond
India, on which he afterwards became so great an authority ; but
the truth is, we find much of the knowledge, and of the literary
intuition, here already, and even thus early in his career we wonder at
the variety of information displayed, and the luminous generalisa-
tions put forth, both alike destined — and this is no common
praise — to stand the test of later and fuller investigations, now so
much more easy to make. The illustrations are mostly from his
own pencil, in the use of which he was no mean proficient.

The work, compiled amid the absorbing labours of his Calcutta
office, was finished, to judge by the concluding sentence of its
preface, amid still more engrossing scenes. It is dated “ Portress
of Allahabad, October 3, 1857.”

“ If life be granted, I doubt not all my companions in the Ava
Mission will look back to our social progress up the Irawadi, with

Obituary Notices.

xlvii

its many quaint and pleasant memories, as to a bright and joyous
holiday; which, indeed, it was. But for one standing here on the
margin of these rivers, which a few weeks ago were red with the
blood of our murdered brothers and sisters, and straining the ear to
catch the echo of our avenging artillery, it is difficult to turn the
mind to what seem dreams of past days of peace and security ; and
memory itself grows dim in the attempt to repass the gulf which
the last few months has interposed between the present and the
time to which this Narrative refers.”

He visited soon after these tragedies the historical Well of
Cawnpore, and afterwards designed the erection which encloses it.

On his way home from Burmah he was sent to report on the
defences of Singapore, and the works he recommended were
sanctioned by Government.

Although residence in India during the latter years of his stay
became in some degree distasteful from various causes — among
others the prolonged absence from wife and child, and considera-
tions of health — he enjoyed the compensation of feeling that his
character and services were appreciated in the highest quarters, for
the confidence and regard, so fully and heartily bestowed by Lord
Dalhousie, were continued in no stinted measure by Lord Canning ;
the intimacy becoming naturally greater, for such a crisis as the
Mutiny brings out the deeper qualities of good men, and reveals
them to each other. His admiration for Lady Canning, and regret
for her loss — a victim to the anxieties of that terrible time — are
recorded in some touching lines to the memory of that charming and
gifted woman. He retired from the service in 1862, with the less
hesitation that Lord Canning, who was then returning to England,
had given him the confident assurance that he should receive some
suitable employment. And no doubt this would have been the
case had Lord Canning lived. But, as may be remembered, he died
almost immediately after his return, and even had he left any
political heir, Colonel Yule would have been the last man to urge
his own claims. Full, however, of sympathy and interest, personal
as well as public, in his late chiefs career, he was desirous to
write his life. But the family declined his offer, which is to be
regretted, not merely because the various short memoirs he has
since compiled are models of what such essays ought to be, but also

xlviii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

because the deliberate utterances of such a man, treating, as he
must have done, some of the more important Indian topics of the
day, would have had much interest and value.*

The harsh stroke of fortune, by which he was denied professional
employment, was a gain to literature, for the period of thirteen
years which elapsed before he found himself again in official
harness produced, with other important work, the book on which
his literary reputation chiefly depends, viz., the translation and
editing of Marco Polo. It seems safe to prophecy a lasting
reputation for this work, since it is hardly conceivable that editing
could be better done, and its appearance in 1870 placed its author
by common consent, here and abroad, in the very front rank of the
geographers of his time. Yet its appearance was not, strictly
speaking, a surprise. The nature and extent of the writer’s
learning was already known by various essays on allied subjects,
and notably by a work written for the Hakluyt Society four
years previously, entitled Cathay and the Way Thither. This
important work, long out of print and practically inaccessible,
contains a fund of curious information on mediaeval Asia, and on
the relations from earliest times between China and the West, more
especially during the period of Chinese exclusiveness which inter-
vened between the fall of the Mongols and the arrival on the
scene, two centuries later, of the Portuguese and Spaniards. But
the Hakluyt Society addresses a limited class of readers only, while
Marco Polo , alike from the romance which still clings to the old
traveller’s name, and from the quaint illustrations and other excel-

* His principal biographical notices are of Major James Rennell, R.E., the
geographer ; General A. C. Robertson ; General Sir W. E. Baker (written
jointly with General R. Maclagan) ; General W. A. Crommelin ; General W.
W. Greathed ; and Colonel George Thomson. The last-named officer is known
to fame as having performed the feat which led to the fall of Ghuznee.
Accompanied by two subalterns, under a heavy fire, he carried a bag of
gunpowder to the gate of the fortress and blew it in, enabling our troops
to enter. A leading newspaper, writing his obituary, stated that Thomson
“was present at the capture of Ghuznee,” on which Yule characteristically
comments — ‘ ‘ The fact will hardly be controverted ; we believe it is also true
that Todleben was present at the defence of Sebastopol.” These are all in
the Royal Engineers' Journal. A notice of Sir Arthur Phayre is in the
R.G.S. Proceedings for 1886. There is also a very curious notice of George
Strachan, an early Persian traveller, in the Asiatic Quarterly Review , v. 10.

Obituary Notices.

xlix

lences of the volume, appealed to a far wider circle. Not the least
among the merits and attractions of this famous book is the style of
the translation itself. It is archaic, and yet living, and instinct
with the very spirit of the old Venetian. The translator has lived
so long with him and his contemporaries that, while always his
editor, and wielding the accumulated knowledge and diacritic
faculty of these later days, he is in intimate sympathy with these
brethren five hundred years his juniors. How thorough-going the
intimacy, is sufficiently shown by the preface, written in fourteenth-
century French, to the second edition, and which some matter-of-fact
readers, though greatly puzzled, are said not to have discovered to
be a jeu d’ esprit.

A fashionable London lady, otherwise imperfectly posted, once
addressed Sir Henry Taylor as “Mr Van Arteveldt;” and Colonel
Yule’s popular identification with his hero was hardly less complete,
and he enjoyed it, and often signed occasional letters to the papers
with the initials “ M. P. V.” (or “ Marcus Paulus Venetus ”).

But beyond even this spirit of discriminating sympathy, as giving
value to these works, were his remarkable thoroughness and accu-
racy, the outcome of a scrupulous and uncompromising honesty, and
an “infinite capacity for taking pains.” And with sympathy, accu-
racy, and memory — and Colonel Yule had a marvellous memory —
the diligent scholar is already far on his way.

It is characteristic of him that he takes a personal satisfaction in
rehabilitating the reputation for accuracy, and anyhow the truthful-
ness of intention, not only of the great “ Marco Milione,” hut of
such lesser lights as Friar Odoric, Marignolli, and others, among the
medisevals ; while with equal shrewdness and generosity he defends
the Abbe Hue against the strictures of Prejevalski,* reasoning
acutely enough that his amusing and phenomenal lack of science
was no proof of had faith or dishonesty. For all these travellers,
as workers in his own Fach , have his special sympathy, and he,
with a wider grasp than others of their special difficulties, is the
more ready to make allowance for them. He had a strong feeling,
not only that all such work should he done as well as possible, but

* Mongolia , &c., by Lieutenant-Colonel N. Prejevalski. Translated
from tlie Russian by E. D. Morgan, with introduction and notes by Colonel
Yule.

1 Proceedings of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh.

that it was in itself important, as adding to the wealth of the
world. It is difficult to think of him as ever asking “ Cui
honor

He has been accused of being deficient in a sense of literary
proportion. The chief ground for the charge, and perhaps its
excuse, may he found in his extraordinary fulness of knowledge,
always at hand and ready to come forth. He used often to
laugh at (what cynics might call) its “uselessness,” and could
quite enjoy the charge from its humorous side. But his whole
heart was in his subject as he wrote, and his conviction of the
importance of his subject infects the reader, whose judgment at the
same time is gained by the assurance which comes to him of the
truthfulness and appositeness of the references, the comparative
values of which, besides, have meanwhile been all worked out
for him.

It would be beyond the scope of this paper to institute a com-
parison between our present knowledge of the physical geography,
and of the condition in mediaeval times, of Central Asia, and what
was available, under either head, in Colonel Yule’s younger days.
It sounds like exaggeration to compare Central Asia before Yule,
with Central Africa before Livingstone ; but the comparison is less
far fetched than might be supposed. And even now, notwithstand-
ing the extensive labours of recent explorers — often carrying Yule’s
Marco Polo in their hands, and always revolving in their minds
some problem he has suggested or illustrated — there remain vast
tracts virtually unknown, and some great hydrographic questions
only partially solved. And, as in respect of the geography, so too
in the mediaeval history and archaeology ; the awakening of interest,
and the direction of research, are largely due to the influence of
these works. The sources of knowledge existed, indeed, before, but
they were remote and unfamiliar, and above all undigested ; it
needed his intuitive power of sifting and collating, separating the
wheat from the chaff, while throwing a glamour of interest over all,
to make such a subject at once intelligible and popular. I may be
allowed to confirm this estimate by some words of Baron F. von
Richthofen, who holds the very first rank in his own country as at
once an enterprising and scientific traveller, and a man gifted with
wide philosophic observation. Hot only in England, he says,

Obituary Notices.

li

“ aber auch in den Literaturen von Frankreich, Italien, Deutsch-
land nnd anderen Landern ist der machtig treibende Einfluss der
Yule’schen Methode, welche wissenschaftliche Grundlichkeit mit
anmutender Form verbindet, bemerkbar.” And after some touch-
ing words on the personal character of the man, he emphatically
accords him “den nnbestrittenen Platz als des ersten Yertreters
und Bahnbrechers unserer Zeit auf dem Gebiet der historischen
Geographie.” *

I may cite, further, a letter from Mr Delmar Morgan, who, not
only as a scholarly writer and an expert in Asiatic geography, but
also from his position on the Hakluyt and Asiatic Societies, is
specially conversant with Colonel Yule’s work. He dwells on “ his
rare skill in making intelligible to his readers the most perplexing
and confused accounts of geographical explorations, the thorough
way in which he mastered his authorities, and knew from a con-
scientious study of their works how much reliance was to be
placed on them. Take his Marco Polo and open it at any page,
and you will find as much learning in a single note as some

writers are content to put into a chapter, or even a volume

Lastly, in all he wrote and all he did he was always Al.
Nothing second-rate or mean emanated from him.” The veteran
geographer, Mr H. W. Bates, F.K.S., also writes to me expressing
himself emphatically in the same sense, both from the literary and
from the moral point of view ; and those who know him will not
question the competency of his judgment in either particular.

The labour of compiling such a work as Marco Polo was
enhanced by a compulsory residence at Palermo, where he had
taken up his abode in 1864 on account of his wife’s health. The
comparative nearness to the great Italian libraries was, however, an
assistance; and in truth his references were drawn from every
corner of the world, and he had occasionally to wait for months for
the verification of a single statement by a correspondent, in the
heart, maybe, of China or Tartary. But such labour was repaid by
a correspondence often of great interest, and by the acquaintance,
not seldom ripening into fast friendship, of many distinguished
men of various countries, and not the least of Italy, where such an

* Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, Bd. xvii.
No. 2,

lii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

edition of her famous traveller was received, as was natural, with
warm appreciation.*

Of the remarkable intuition with which he was wont to resolve a
geographical puzzle, a single instance — as it deals with a curious
piece of geographical scandal — may he quoted. In the years follow-
ing 1860 the countries lying between the then Russian frontier and
our own were the object of very keen interest to geographers, the
political rivalry underlying this interest being not less keen.
Accordingly, much surprise was felt in this country at the discovery
that there existed at the Russian War Office a narrative of explora-
tion in those countries by a certain German baron, said to have
been in the employ of the Indian Government. The authenticity
of the narrative was warmly maintained by Russian geographers,
hut it was proved that no such person as the traveller in question
had been in the service of the Indian Government, and on other
counts the narrative was pronounced here, by Sir H. Rawlinson
and Lord Strangford, to be a forgery.

It was, however, a circumstantial story, and its geography agreed
with the map published from Jesuit sources by Klaproth. Along
with this document there was another, purporting to he a transla-
tion (by Klaproth) of a Chinese traveller; while a collection of
papers of similar tenure, which had been sold by him for a large
sum to our Foreign Office, came to light about the same time.
Colonel Yule, on close examination of the positions of places in
Klaproth’s map, observed a uniformity of error founded evidently
on some principle, and finally discovered that certain of the
separate squares on which, according to the Chinese practice, the
map had been originally drawn, had first been omitted, putting
thereby the longitude of places to the west of the lacuna , so caused,
too far to the east; then, the error having been discovered, the
missing portion had been inserted, and again a certain uniformity of
error appeared in the positions ; and this last time he discovered that
this portion of the map, when being inserted, had been accidentally
turned round in an angle of 90° (making east north, and north

* The Bollettino della Society Geografica Italiana for March 1890 contains an
eloquent tribute of affectionate regard, along with a very high estimate of
Henry Yule’s geographical achievements, from the very competent pen of Pro-
fessor Giglioli.

Obituary Notices.

IB*

west, and so on), an accident possibly due to the fact that on
Chinese maps tbe names are written perpendicularly instead of
horizontally. And, in conclusion, as the positions thus falsified in
the map agreed with those given to the places in the narratives in
question, the latter were evidently fictitious, and but too clearly
from the pen of the able geographer who was probably the only
person capable of having concocted them !

The errors, honest enough as far as the map was concerned,
affected our own atlases during many years.*

The introduction by Colonel Yule to Captain Gill’s River of
Golden Sand f brings a mass of lucid research to bear on the vast
river system which, originating on the plateaux of Eastern Tibet,
sends its streams either eastward through China, or south, in long
parallel courses, to the Indian Ocean. The whole question, of great
difficulty owing to the inaccessible and little known character of
the region, had occupied his mind for many years ; the distinguished
French explorer of the Mekong, Francis Gamier, being one of his
many sympathetic correspondents.

After his wife’s death, in 1875, Colonel Yule returned to
England, where he was very warmly welcomed, and was at once
placed on the Indian Council. Although not many years after this
he was attacked by the wasting disease to which he eventually
succumbed, we find but little diminution, up to the last, in his
recorded work, while the amount of unrecorded work, friendly help
given, often under the heavy pressure of physical prostration, to
the literary labours of others, was very great ; his keen appreciation,
in fact, of such labour attracted his sympathy irresistibly to the
workers themselves. And his interest in all else that life had to
offer — in art, in politics, in discovery, in social and philanthropic
movements, in the welfare of his friends — continued to the last
unabated.

His second marriage, in 1877 — to Mary Wilhelmina, daughter
of Mr Fulwar Skip with, late of the Bengal C.S. — brought into his
life an episode of hardly four years’ domestic happiness, unclouded,
save by the anxiety caused by his wife’s delicate health ; and he lost

* See Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1872, vol. xliv., and
Introduction to Wood’s Journey to the Source of the River Oxus, new
edition, 1872. Murray. f Murray.

liv Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

her just when his own health was declining, and his need of such
companionship the greater.

Among other subjects of interest to him in these latter years, the
Hakluyt Society had naturally a prominent place, its objects corre-
sponding closely to the line which he had made more especially
his own ; and not a few of the merits of various works by others in
that series have been due, as their authors would willingly admit,
to the help he so ungrudgingly gave. His own last work in the
series, The Diary of Sir William Hedges , to which he devoted
much of his latest energies — poured out like the profuse flowering
of a dying tree — overflowed into a third volume, which contains,
inter alia , a mass of curious documentary material towards a
biography of Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the first Lord Chatham, and
of “ Pitt Diamond ” celebrity — the story of that famous stone being
given at length. It was but very shortly before his death that he
resigned the Presidency of this Society, and sent for his accom-
plished fellow-labourer, Mr Clements Markham, to express the hope
that he would succeed him there. He was, naturally, an honoured
member and Gold Medallist of the Koyal Geographical Society, and
an Honorary Pellow of our own Scottish Geographical Society.
He received the LL.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh
at its tercentenary commemoration. He was also President, till his
health failed, of the Asiatic Society, and was wont to urge its
claims for support from all interested in our Eastern Empire.

He was always on the look out for fresh materials for a second
edition or supplement to his Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial
Words and Phrases , and of Kindred Terms, f which appeared in
1886, the compilation of which, apart from the sense of exhaustion
which work produced, had been to him, as he says in the touching-
dedication to his brother, “ trium ferme lustrorum oblectamentum
et solatium.” Each of the terms is used as a peg whereon to hang
the quaint medley of illustrations and references collected in his
miscellaneous reading, and stored till wanted in the chambers of an
unfailing memory. The book was begun in connection with Dr
Arthur Burnell, and owes much to his great philological knowledge;
but he died soon after it was commenced, and some seven-eighths
of the volume is Colonel Yule’s. The book is far less known, and
its merits less appreciated, than they deserve to be.

Obituary Notices.

lv

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica his articles on “Sir John Mande-
ville ” and on “Prester John” are exhaustive, and good examples of
his style of work, and the paper on “Lhasa” is also valuable.*

He was singularly happy in the composition of monumental and
other inscriptions; and, in a very different line, in his poetical effu-
sions, sometimes grave, but others highly humorous, and occasionally
in good Scotch. He had begun shortly before his death to collect
his fugitive pieces, with sketches and photographs illustrating them,
and it is to be hoped some instalment of these may see the light
before long.

The humorous verses, and the inscriptions referred to, recall two
marked features in his character; a deep seriousness, with occasional
despondency, and for antidote a keen and delightful humour, never
far from the surface in his conversation or his writings. And he
appreciated humour in others, so long as it was free from cynicism
or unkindliness ; this revolted him, for he had great delicacy of
feeling, and a warm and tender heart, with a ready sympathy for
real sorrow, though small patience for the unreal or conventional.
If he was vehement in assertion, and scathing in denunciation of
all that to him seemed mean, or false, or unjust, this came mainly
from the old Scottish sense of the seriousness of life, and of the
importance, in all things, of being on the side of truth and right.
For personally his simplicity and humility were alike marked and
touching, though his presence had all the personal dignity of one
who knew he had long and steadily followed a lofty ideal. He
had a large capacity for friendship, and in his rooms the walls, and
even the doors, were covered with the portraits of his principal
friends, as also with a very interesting and complete collection he
had made of portraits of the Governors-General and Commanders-
in-Chief of India.

It was only a few months before his death that he resigned his
place on the Indian Council, which the kindness and considera-
tion of his colleagues had enabled him to retain far longer than he
could otherwise have done. Here his services had long been
valued, not only for the extent of his knowledge, and his clearness
of perception, but from the spirit and tone in which he was wont to

* For a fuller list of his contributions to literature, see the Scottish Geographical
Magazine for February 1890.

lvi Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh.

handle public questions. And, indeed, by many who knew but
little of him from the scientific side, he will be long remembered as
an example of chivalrous integrity, and for his consistent and often
fiery protests against all that was unworthy and base.

As a striking instance of the clearness of a strong mind amid the
final prostration of the body, I may quote the dying reply — instinct
with more than the old Roman’s dignity, while resting on a higher
faith — which he dictated in Latin to the French Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, which had just made him a Corre-
sponding Member.

“ Reddo gratias, illustrissimi domini, ob honores tanto nimios
quanto immeritos. Mihi robora deficiunt, vita collabitur, accipiatis
voluntatem pro facto. Cum corde pleno et gratissimo moriturus
vos, illustrissimi domini, saluto. — Yule.”

The following sympathetic commentary on these words appeared
in the Academy of March 29, 1890, over the signature “D. M.” : —

“ Moriturus vos salutoA

Breathes his last the dying scholar —

Tireless student, brilliant writer ;

He “salutes his age,” and journeys
To the undiscovered country.

There await him with warm welcome
All the heroes of old story —

The Venetians, the Ca Polo,

Marco, Nicolo, Mappeo,

Odoric of Pordenone,

Ibn Batuta, Marignolli,

Benedict de Goes — “ Seeking
Lost Cathay and finding heaven.”

Many more whose lives he cherished,

With the piety of learning ;

Fading records, buried pages,

Failing lights and fires forgotten,

By his energy recovered,

By his eloquence rekindled.

“ Moriturus vos saluto .”

Breathes his last the dying scholar,

And the far-off ages answer :

“ Immortales te salutant .”

He died at his residence in London on the 30th December 1890.

Ill

PAGE

On the Number of Dust Particles in the Atmosphere of certain Places in Great
Britain and on the Continent, with Remarks on the Relation between the
Amount of Dust and Meteorological Phenomena. By John Aitken, F.R.S.

(With Three Plates), . . . . . . . .193

Larix Europcea as a Breeding-Place for Hylesinus piniperda. By William

Somerville, D.(Ec., B. Sc., . . . . . . . 255

Researches on Micro-Organisms, &c. Part III. By Dr A. B. Griffiths, F.R.S.
(Edin.), F.C.S. (Bond. & Paris), Member of the Physico-Chemical Society
of St Petersburg, &c., . ... . . . . . 257

On the Solution of the Three-Term Numerical Equation of the nth. Degree. By

the Hon. Lord M‘Laren, . . . . . . .270

On the Reflexion-Caustics of Symmetrical Curves. By the Hon. Lord McLaren.

(With Two Plates), . . . . . . . .281

Synthesis by means of Electrolysis. — Part III. Synthesis of ?i-Dicarbodecahex-

anic Acid. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr James Walker, . . 297

Synthesis by means of Electrolysis. — Part IV. Synthesis of Suberic and n- Di-

carbododecanic Acids. By Prof. Crum Brown and Dr James Walker, . 299

Preliminary Experiment on the Thermal Conductivity of Aluminium. By A.

Crichton Mitchell, Esq., B.Sc., ...... 300

Note on Electrolytic Conduction. By Robert L. Mond, Esq., B.A., . . 302

List of West Australian Birds, showing their Geographical Distribution through-
out Australia, including Tasmania. By A. J. Campbell, Esq., F.L.S.
Communicated by Rev. James MacGregor, D.D., F.R.S. Edin. (With a
Map), .......... 304

Pharmacology of Morphine and its Derivatives. By D. B. Dott, Esq., F.C.S.,
F.I.C.,'and Ralph Stockman, M.D., Research Scholar of the British Medical
Association , . . . . . . . 321

A New Method for Determining Phosphorus in Organic Phosphorus Compounds.

By Prof. E. A. Letts and R. F. Blake, Esq., Queen’s College , Belfast , . 382

List of the Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoidei of Fife and the Lothians. By R. H.

Traquair, M.D., F.R.S., . . . . . . . 385

The Interactions of Circular and Longitudinal Magnetisations. By Prof. C. G.

Knott, D.Sc., . . . . . . . . 401

Closing Address. By the Hon. Lord M‘Laren, ..... 406

Meetings of the Royal Society — Session 1889-90, . . . .411

Donations to the Library, ........ 423

Index, .......... 427

Obituary Notices. ( See separate Index), ...... 432

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