The phosphines, or substances derived from phosphuretted hydrogen by the partial or complete replacement of its hydrogen by hydrocarbon radicals, have formed the subject of many valuable researches; but although their discovery was anterior to that of the compound ammonias, their study has made comparatively little progress. This is no doubt mainly due to the difficulty attending their preparation, a fact which is immediately forced upon the notice of any one who wishes to investigate them.

The singular appearances which were presented to my view by the Trap Rocks of Iceland, and the interest which they excited, made me resolve, as soon as I had given an account of that country to the public, to visit the Islands of Faroe. This expedition was undertaken, for the purpose of ascertaining, whether, in a Trap Country, where no traces of external volcanoes existed, any thing similar to the peculiar features of the rocks of Iceland was to be found. In the latter country were discovered a series of rocks, lying above the beds of Trap, which bore the most striking marks of igneous origin; in some instances having a perfect resemblance to ordinary Trap, and in others to the common Lavas of the country. The beds of Trap, and those above them, being separated by mechanical depositions of Tuffa (Trap-Tuff), led me to the conclusion, that the whole of the beds had been formed at the bottom of the sea, by successive eruptions of a submarine volcano.

A small lot of fossil whale barnacles from the Upper Pleistocene of California and the Middle Pleistocene (Chibanian) of Oregon (United States West Coast), described in a 1972 unpublished MA thesis, are formally described and illustrated herein. In that thesis, a new genus and species name were proposed; however, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, they have no taxonomic standing and are thus unavailable. Based on our reappraisal, two specimens in this lot belong to a new, extinct species that can be assigned to the purportedly extant genus Cetopirus. Cetopirus polysyrinx sp. nov. differs from congeners in that its secondary T-shaped flanges are multitubiferous internally, that is, they are perforated by a high number of irregularly-sized and irregularly-spaced tubules that result in a spongy aspect in transverse section. Whether or not this peculiar condition had any adaptive significance is difficult to determine. Considering that Cetopirus is currently known as an obligate epibiont of right whales (including the North Pacific form Eubalaena japonica (Lacépède 1818)), the host of C. polysyrinx sp. nov. was E. japonica or some other species of Eubalaena. The Plio-Pleistocene deposits of the Pacific coast of North America have yielded a rather idiosyncratic fossil whale barnacle fauna, inclusive of the genera Cetolepas, Cryptolepas and now Cetopirus, which seemingly contrasts with all other coeval assemblages worldwide, the latter being in turn dominated by Coronula spp.

Methodologies that analyse the colouration and external appearance of extant species are very useful tools when facing one of the greatest challenges in the palaeoartistic reconstructions of extinct fauna: inferring the colour patterns. Earlier works have applied this methodology, for example, in the reconstruction of the Miocene bovid Tethytragus, proving that the maximum likelihood (ML) analysis to infer ancestral states has promising potential. This study offers a proposal for the reconstruction of the external appearance of Heteroprox moralesi Azanza 1989, an early cervid of the Middle Miocene present in several fossil sites of Central Spain. For the reconstruction of the external appearance, the colour patterns of all the extant species of the family Cervidae were studied with the method of ML analysis, as well as recent works about their phylogeny. The results show the most probable basal colour pattern of the cervids: dark shades on the limbs, dorsal section, and head of the animal, and, in contrast, lighter colours on the neck and perianal region. This basal pattern can be used as a basis for reconstructing colouration and to hypothesise about the external appearance of extinct taxa. Furthermore, the inferred forest habitat of H. moralesi has been taken into consideration in order to adjust the colour pattern, comparing the final results of the analysis performed in this study with that of the pattern observed in extant forest deer as well as with previous works employing this methodology.

Twelve specimens of early Toarcian Mecoptera and Diptera from the vicinity of Wolfsburg were investigated for the present study. The material was found during house building activities in the 1980s at the locality Große Kley in Mörse, an urban district of the city of Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The specimens were found in calcareous nodules of the Harpoceras falciferum Zone that occur within the Liassic black shales (Posidonia shale). Six specimens of Mecoptera, five belonging to the family Orthophlebiidae and one belonging to the Bittacidae, and six representatives of the following Diptera families were identified: Ptychopteridae, Limoniidae, Anisopodidae and the superfamily Mycetophiloidea. The fossil fauna of Wolfsburg is similar to that of other early Toarcian sites in Germany, described by Handlirsch (1906, 1939), Bode (1905, 1953) and Ansorge (1996) from Braunschweig, Dobbertin and Grimmen. Two new species are described, Mesorhyphusulrichi sp. nov. (Anisopodidae) and Archipleciomima germanica sp. nov. (Mycetophiloidea).

The immediate purpose of the present research was the investigation of the temperature at different pressures of boiling mixtures of steam and salts, analogous to the well-known freezing mixtures of ice and salt.

When steam is blown through common salt in coarse powder, it condenses to water, which dissolves some of the salt, and the resulting brine is kept boiling by the arrival of more steam. The temperature of this boiling mixture is quite constant so long as there is an abundant supply both of steam and of salt, and as the atmospheric pressure does not change, it is about 8·5° C. above the temperature of boiling water when the barometric pressure is the normal of 760 mm. When the barometric pressure is 560 mm. this excess has fallen to 8·0° C. Most other salts behave in a similar way.

The descriptions of two co-occurring cardioid crustaceans from the Ballagan Formation (Tournaisian, Lower Carboniferous) of Chirnside, Scottish Borders, help to resolve the taxonomy of the genus Tealliocaris. Tealliocaris robusta Peach, 1908 is assigned to Schramocaris to form S. robusta (Peach, 1908) comb. nov. on the basis of morphological characters such as the rugosity and position of the branchial carinae as well as the nature of the pleon, and becomes the earliest representative of this genus in Scotland. A new species of Tealliocaris is also recognised from this locality and is described as T. briggsi sp. nov., based on the smooth carapace, lack of pleonic grooves and the number of spines on the scaphocerite and lateral margin of the anterior carapace. The systematic position of the Pendleian specimens identified by Peach (1908) as ‘Tealliocaris robusta var.’ is finally resolved and described as T. weegie sp. nov.

Drillholes on shells provide a useful way to investigate prey and predator relationships. The current study documents predator–prey interactions exemplified by a faunal assemblage of the fossil gastropod Turritella cingulifera from the Pleistocene Szekou Formation in Hengchun Peninsula, Taiwan. All recognisable skeletal and shell fragments that are larger than 3 mm in size were collected and recorded. Processed bulk sediments (5.24 kg) contained 1462 molluscan shells, including 824 specimens of T. cingulifera, and 27 non-molluscan invertebrates. In the current study, approximately 41.6% (609/1462) of molluscs are drilled with at least one hole. Drilling intensities (DIs) regardless of shell completeness in all gastropods, bivalves and the turritelline gastropod T. cingulifera are 0.546, 0.060 and 0.413, respectively. DI on turritellids is significantly lower than that on other gastropods (χ2= 21.039, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the percentage of drillholes that occur in multiply drilled specimens is 34.7% (95/275) for turritelline gastropods based on complete to nearly complete specimens (n = 588). Our study shows no significant preference of drillhole position either on the suture or on the whorl (χ2= 0.055, P = 0.814). Most drillholes are located in whorls two to four proximal to the aperture. Drillhole diameters of the shells with one drillhole and ones with multiple drillholes are 1.0 and 0.5 mm on average, and the results of Mann–Whitney tests indicate that they are significantly different (P < 0.001). The first turritelline gastropod shell with an incomplete drillhole from Taiwan is documented here. The dominant drilling predators were naticids based on the drillhole morphology and the presence of naticids in the same assemblage. No apparent prey size selectivity is observed, so a ‘size refugium’ does not exist for the turritellids in the current study.

Sponges, especially Calcarea, are minor components of benthic associations, especially during the Mesozoic. In the Lower Cretaceous of the Neuquén Basin, small calcareous sponges have been found building a small monospecific meadow. It is restricted to a marlstone lens-shaped bed in a quiet outer-ramp setting in the Cerro Marucho Locality (Picún Leufú depocentre), above a shell bed of small exogyrid oysters; oysters and sponges were the only preserved macrobenthic faunal elements. Individual sponges were small, under 4 cm high, and presented a sub-cylindrical morphology with one or more rounded, apical osculi, many inhalant openings and triactine spicules. Specimens studied here were assigned to Endostoma sp. aff. Endostoma nodosa. These sponges are quite commonly encrusted by exogyrid oysters, serpulids, sabellids, agglutinating foraminifers and cyclostome bryozoans. Overgrowths among sclerobionts were common, though no undoubtedly in vivo interaction has been recorded. Disarticulated left oyster valves were frequently bioclaustrated by the sponges, showing that in vivo settlement upon sponges was common. Many oysters settled in the periphery of the osculum suggesting a commensal relationship. The study of this sponge meadow and its sclerobiont community allowed the identification of different stages of ecological succession. The pioneer stage was characterised by sponge settlement on oyster valves, within an otherwise soft consistency bottom. High sedimentation or high nutrient inputs, either individually or in combination, could explain the great abundance of oysters. During the climax stage, sponges thrived and harboured several sclerobiont taxa, developing a relatively dynamic palaeocommunity. Finally, an intensification in either sedimentation rates or nutrient input (or both) past the tolerable threshold for sponges may have been the cause(s) of the meadow's demise. Endostoma and similar forms were up to now reported mostly from the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Europe as accessory builders, or as accompanying fauna in reefal settings. This new record shows that in rare occasions they could form low-relief meadows on their own.

The prostates or spermiducal glands form a prominent feature in the anatomy of the large family of the Megascolecidæ. Occurring in the neighbourhood of the termination of the sperm-ducts, they assume one of two forms, the tubular or the lobular. In the first, the gland typically takes the form of a bent, undulating, or coiled tube, cylindrical, with a single central lumen; in the second, it consists of a loosely or tightly packed aggregate of lobules, each with its ductule. The prostatic duct is in the first case a continuation of the glandular tube; in the second, the duct is formed by the union of the ductules; in both cases it is as a rule firm and muscular.

The subject to which I have to invite the attention of the Society this evening is one of no modern origin, the name of Hippocrates, amongst others of the fathers of medicine, being commonly associated with it. There is, indeed, perhaps no branch of medical inquiry whose history dips more deeply into the obscure pages of antiquity. The influence of weather upon disease and mortality has been acknowledged as a potent external force in every age, from that eminently speculative and credulous period when physicians professed to receive their diagnostic as well as their therapeutic inspirations from the stars, down to our own day. And yet there is perhaps no question in the whole cycle of medical sciences which has made slower progress than the one we have now to consider. People believe that the weather affects them. They speak of its influence, sometimes commendingly, more frequently with censure, on the most trivial occasions; but beyond a few commonplace ideas, the result of careless observation, or perhaps acquired only traditionally, they seldom seek a closer acquaintance with the subject. Our language teems with medico-meteorological apophthegms, but they are notoriously vague. The words which are most commonly employed to signify the state of the weather at any given time, possess a value relative only to the sensations of the individual uttering them. The general and convertible terms—bitter, raw, cold, severe, bleak, inclement, or fine and bracing, convey no definite idea of the condition of the weather; nay, it is quite possible that we may hear these several expressions used by different persons with reference to the weather of one and the same place and point of time. In order, then, to render medico-meteorological researches more trustworthy, we must be careful to employ, in the expression of facts, such symbols only as have a corresponding value in every nation.

My first precise views of the structure of the Tunicata were formed by the perusal of Mr Huxley's masterly papers dealing with the anatomy of Salpa, Pyrosoma, Doliolum, and Appendicularia, in the Phil. Trans. for 1851, Part II.; and I have since had abundant opportunity of verifying all the important facts, made known by that original observer, in the papers to which I have alluded.

Having thus acknowledged my guide in this field of research, I can scarcely claim much originality as relates to pure anatomy; but I hope that the method here adopted, in opening up this interesting subject, will be found in keeping with nature, as it is the result of much study and practical investigation.

Authorities on the action of medicinal substances agree in including convulsions among the effects on man of belladonna, and of its active principle, atropia. Similar effects are described as occurring when large doses of these substances are administered to dogs, rabbits, and other mammals, and to various birds. The recent remarkable progress of our knowledge of the exact and ultimate physiological action of many medicinal substances is greatly due to investigations that have been made on animals of a lower type of organisation; and, accordingly, numerous observers have instituted experiments with atropia on such animals, and especially on frogs. Hitherto, however, convulsions and tetanus have not been described among the effects of atropia-poisoning in cold-blooded animals.

Dear Sir,

Some time ago I promised to send you the result of a series of observations, made to determine the situation of this place. Having, however, been much hurried of late, I am only able at present to transmit you the determination of the latitude, deduced from a series of observations of the sun's meridian zenith distances. With respect to the longitude, as soon as it is in my power, I will reduce some observations of occultations, and of the late solar eclipse, and send you the results.

Muscovite is so easily recognised by its optical properties that the only cases which seemed to me to call for analysis were those which, from being possessed of characteristic colour, were of special interest. Of these the most singular is a variety found rarely in the great vein of Ben Capval, Harris; it occurs in crystals of a peculiar green tint, the crystals are small and have somewhat of a pearly lustre.

My main purpose in the following short paper is to publish figures illustrating some of the more important facts of the early development of myotomes and motor nerves in Lepidosiren. The bearing of some of the observations of nerve development upon current theories renders it particularly desirable that they should be illustrated by untouched photographs of the sections. A few photographs illustrating the more important stages in the development of the motor nerve trunks are given on Plate I. For the preparation of the photographs here published, as well as several others, I am indebted to the skill of my friend Dr T. H. Bryce, and of Mr Fingland, our University photographer.

In this paper, theorems which are extensions of the following, are discussed:—

We define J[n] (λ, x) as

In this expression

1. During recent years increased attention has been paid to the question of measuring or estimating the extent or degree of disturbance in the earth's magnetic field. Two distinct purposes have been kept in view. The first and more general is to provide some measure of disturbance capable of use as a means of correlating terrestrial magnetic change with other geophysical or cosmical phenomena; in particular, solar phenomena. The second seeks to assign to each Greenwich day a numerical value for the degree of disturbance on that day, so that a selection may be made in each month of a certain number of days on which the terrestrial field has been least or most disturbed. The immediate object here is to secure comparability between results—particularly diurnal inequalities—obtained at different magnetic observatories.

It is a fundamental principle in Algebra, that a problem admits of solution, when the number of independent equations is equal to that of the unknown quantities. If simple expressions only occur, the answers will always be found in numbers, either whole or fractional. But if the higher functions be concerned, the values of the unknown quantities will commonly be involved in surds, which it is impossible to exhibit on any arithmetical scale, and to which we can only make a repeated approximation. Hence the origin of that branch of analysis which is employed in the investigation of those problems, where the number of unknown quantities exceeds that of the proposed equations, but where the values are required in whole or fractional numbers. The subject is not merely an object of curiosity; it can be applied with advantage to the higher calculus. Yet the doctrine of indeterminate equations has been seldom treated in a form equally systematic with the other parts of algebra. The solutions commonly given are devoid of uniformity, and often require a variety of assumptions. The object of this paper is to resolve the complicated expressions which we obtain in the solution of indeterminate problems, into simple equations, and to do so, without framing a number of assumptions, by help of a single principle, which, though extremely simple, admits of a very extensive application.