There are many isolated records of facts showing that the physical properties of (pure) metals alter when the metals are subjected to hammering, rolling, heat-treatment, and other processes.

Somewhat recently Beilby has shown* that the differences in all the various states of metals are explained by the fact that solids exhibit two distinct phases: these are the amorphous or vitreous, and the crystalline. The properties of a metal in any given state are due to the metal being made up either of one or other of these phases, or both.

In December 1902,1 communicated to the Society a preliminary note “On a New Horse from the Western Islands,” and six months later submitted the results of experiments made with a view to ascertaining whether Prejvalsky's horse is a true wild species, or, as suggested by Flower and others, a chance hybrid between a kyang and an escaped Mongol pony.

The new horse (now commonly known as the Celtic Pony) described in the first paper is characterised by a small head, large prominent eyes, short ears, and narrow nostrils; by a long tail, mane, and forelock, and, during winter, by a thick, light yellow-dun woolly undercoat and a remarkable tail-lock (PL II. 7); by having, like Prejvalsky's horse, only 23 dorso-lumbar vertebræ, and also by the complete absence of callosities from the inner aspect of the hocks and from the region of the fetlocks—i.e. by the absence of the hind warts or chestnuts, and of the four ergots invariably present in typical specimens of the common horse. In speed and staying power, intelligence and docility, the Celtic pony takes after high-caste, fine-tempered Arabs.

Writers on the origin of the horse and its different breeds have been accustomed to refer to the horses of Norway as though they belonged to a single type. Thus Sanson, in his Zootechnie, includes the horses and ponies of that country in his sub-species Equus caballus hibernicus, to which he also refers the various ponies of the British Isles, the Breton in France, and the horses of Iceland and Sweden. The late Captain Maurice Hayes, in his well-known work on the Points of the Horse, refers collectively to Norwegian and Swedish horses as though they belonged to one natural group. Professor Ewart, in describing a typical representative of what he calls the Forest type, which, as he shows, differs essentially from the newly discovered “Celtic pony,” alludes provisionally to the former as the “Norse horse,” because it is common in Norway.

In the present communication I propose (1) to give some account of preliminary experiments in which the effects of codirectional and transverse oscillations upon the magnetic properties of iron are directly compared with each other and with the normal curves without oscillations.

Numerous experiments have been made with co-directional oscillations alternately assisting and opposing the field; also with oscillatory currents in iron wires longitudinally magnetised, giving rise to transverse oscillatory effects.

Scheffers in the Mathematische Annalen, vol. xxxix., pp. 364–74, enunciates the following theorem:—If A is an algebra containing the quaternion algebra B as a subalgebra, and if A and B have the same modulus, A can be expressed in the form B C = A = C B, where C is a subalgebra of A every element of which is commutative with every element of B: in other words, if i1, i2, i3, i4 is a basis of B, it is possible to find an algebra C with the basis e1, e2, … ec, such that each of its elements is commutative with every element of B, and such that the elements eris(r = 1, 2, … c, S = 1, … 4) form a basis of A; and if a is the order of A, then a = 4c.

The aids which may fairly be expected from a library towards the prosecution of research, mathematical or other, are of two kinds. First, there is the aid given by furnishing the names of previous workers in the same field, accompanied by the names of the publications in which the results of their labours have been preserved or entombed. Second, there is the help in the opportunity given of consulting the said publications themselves and of borrowing certain of them for lengthened study. In other words, what the scientific investigator wants from libraries is books and books about books. One of the two is often obtainable without the other, but in that case its value is immensely lessened. To the so-called “ordinary” reader, a library is a labyrinth which probably would give him all he needs if only he had a guide through its intricacies: to the specialist, on the other hand, with his methodic bibliographies and booksellers' lists, it not unseldom presents itself as a lucky-bag in which the blanks are ultimately more in evidence than the prizes.

L'Expédition Antarctique Nationale Ecossaise, sous le commandement de M. W. S. Bruce, a recueilli une importance collection de Poissons au cours de son exploration de l'Atlantique austral et de la Mer de Weddell (1902–1904).

A la suite de la publication de mon mémoire sur les Poissons de la Belgica,* M. Bruce m'ayant fait l'honneur de me prier d'étudier les matériaux ichthyologiqucs qu'il avait rapportés, je me propose de soumettre à la Société Royale d'Edimbourg, si elle veut bien me le permettre, les résultats de mes recherches, au fur et à mesure de leurs progrèss, afin d'assurer à la Scotia la priorité de ses découvertes, en attendant que je sois assez avancé pour faire paraître mon travail définitif.

In a paper published in vol. xli., part i., of the Transactions of this Society, entitled “Spectroscopic Observations of the Rotation of the Sun,” I communicated the first results obtained with a spectroscope specially designed for the purpose of measuring the displacements of the solar lines on opposite limbs of the sun occasioned by the motions of the absorbing gases to or from the observer in consequence of the sun's axial rotation. The investigation was originally undertaken with the view of ascertaining whether the peculiar law of surface rotation of the sun, first discovered by Carrington from the motions of solar spots, and afterwards confirmed by Dunér from spectroscopic observations similar to my own, was, or was not, subject to alterations depending on the general state of solar activity.

I. The use of an excessive meat diet in rats induces a deterioration in the health of the animals. This deterioration is shown in (a) an imperfect physical development, (b) a loss of reproductive power, (c) defective lactation, and (d) a high mortality in early life in the second generation of meat-fed subjects.

II. The recuperative powers of these deteriorated animals, on a normal diet, is very striking.

III. In animals deprived of their ovaries, the minimum amount of proteid required is less than in normal females.

The establishment of the nature of the chemical relationship of the purin bodies, the diureides which form the chief end-product of proteid metabolism in birds and reptiles, with urea, the endproduct in mammals, is not the least important of the valuable contribution of E. Fischer to physiological chemistry. The constant presence of diureides in the mammalian urine, and of urea in the urine of birds, shows that,no hard-and-fast line exists between the metabolic processes in the two groups, and the fact that in the mammalian foetus an important end-product of metabolism is a diureide—allantoïn—is a further proof of the close affinity of the tissue changes throughout the vertebrate series.

Loch Muick (see fig. 1) lies at the head of Glen Muick, at a height of 1310 feet, on the property of His Majesty the King. On both sides of the loch the mountain slopes rise precipitously from the water's edge, and reach a height of 2400 feet on the south-east and from 2326 to 3352 feet on the north-west. The rocks surrounding the lake are granite.

The loch trends in a N.E. and S.W. direction, and is miles in length, the maximum breadth being ½ mile at the north-eastern end. The maximum depth recorded is 256 feet, and the mean depth calculated from the volume of water is 111·69 feet, approaching the half of the extreme depth. The ratio of maximum depth to the length is 46.

In statistical work which deals with integral variates, the data frequently appear in the form of ratios, or unreduced proper fractions, e.g. sex- and fecundity-ratios; and to facilitate comparison these are arranged in classes, all the ratios falling within the same class being considered as equivalent. These classes must, as far as possible, contain an equal number of the ratios. Further, in certain fields the different kinds of ratios do not all occur with the same frequency, that is, one denominator will occur more frequently than another, without any reference to the number of fractions having this denominator.

It is well known that the Boltzmann-Maxwell Law, which asserts average equi-partition of kinetic energy amongst the various motional freedoms, finite or infinite in number, of suitably conditioned systems, meets with apparently insuperable difficulties in its application to actual gases. Even in the case of gases showing complicated spectra, and therefore possessing numerous vibrational freedoms, the actual values of the ratio of the specific heats never deviate much from values which should, according to the law, be limited to very simple systems. Possible modes of evading this result, such as that supplied by J. J. Thomson's suggestion (Arch. Néerlandaises, 1900, Ser. II. t. v.) that individual molecules may not be concerned in radiation, are too problematical to give much relief.

In a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in June 1905, on the Hydrodynamical Theory of Seiches, Professor Chrystal published a number of formulæ from which could be calculated the periods and positions of the nodes of seiches in lakes of various shapes.

The solutions of the most general problems, involving variations of the three dimensions, are there made to rest ultimately upon certain typical cases in which the element of breadth remains constant while the depth is some defined function of the length. In the paper referred to, formulae are given immediately applicable to lakes of uniform breadth, whose longitudinal sections include concave and convex parabolas, quartic curves, and rectilinear shapes.

For the standardisation of adrenalin preparations.

(a) The colorimetric method is not reliable with weak or impure solutions.

(b) The effect on the pupil of the frog's eye gives uncertain results.

(c) The determination of the minimum effective dose on the arterioles of the perfused frog is tedious and uncertain; on an average 0·1 per million produces an effect.

(d) The determination of the minimum effective dose in causing a rise on the blood pressure of the atropinised rabbit yields fairly satisfactory results.

(e) Adrenalin, suprarenalin, and hemisine all give a precisely similar result, 0·0003 mg. per kilo of body weight, or 0·006 per million, of the rabbit's blood causing a distinct rise in the blood pressure in the rabbit, and 0·012 mg. per kilo of body weight, or 0·24 per million, of the blood causing a rise in the cat.

(f) The most satisfactory method is the determination of the dose just sufficient to antagonise 0·6 mg. of nitroglycerin (Parke, Davis & Co.). Of adrenalin, 0·0075 mg. is sufficient.

I wish to express my indebtedness to Dr Noël Paton for much help in the preparation of this paper.

The expenses of this research were defrayed from a grant made to the Laboratory by Mr J. Francis Mason for investigations on the physiology of the ductless glands.

Le deuxiéme Poisson abyssal de la Scotia dont je désire entretenir la Société Royale d'Edimbourg appartient au genre Neobythites, qui fut découvert, en réalité, par le Challenger, en 1875, près du Japon, par 1875 fathoms, bien que le nom n'ait été crée qu'en 1886, sur des matériaux de l'Albatross, comme nous le verrons plus loin.

Et ce deuxième Poisson est encore une espèce nouvelle, à laquelle je donnerai le nom de Neobythites Brucei, en l'honneur de M. W. S. Bruce, Leader de l'Expédition Antarctique Rationale Ecossaise, comme un témoignage de reconnaissance pour les services rendus à la Science au cours de soil importante Exploration.

The “take-up” in twisting threads together is a factor of very great importance in the manufacture of every textile material. The manufacturer who considers this matter so trivial that he makes no allowance for it in his calculations will undoubtedly suffer pecuniary loss. Since many lines of textile work at the present day are cut very keen, the thin fringe of profit which the manufacturer imagines himself to be making may actually have assumed a negative value entirely in consequence of this seeming trifle. The fact that the elementary rule usually employed in the estimation of the size number of a twist takes no account of any contraction which may arise in the process of twisting fosters the idea that this quantity is negligible.

The author has designed and constructed an instrument for the purpose of drawing the curve which is the summation of a number of simple harmonic curves; and as the apparatus has been found to work very satisfactorily in practice, it seems worth while to publish a description of the machine, especially in view of its numerous applications. Various forms of harmonic synthetiser are already in existence, but there were two reasons which induced the author to add another to their number. In the first place, it was desired to ascertain whether results of a high degree of accuracy could not be obtained from an apparatus of quite inexpensive design; and in the second, to construct a machine in which both the amplitude and periodic time of each of the simple harmonic constituents might be varied at will while the instrument is in motion.

In a paper communicated to the Society in 1897, the author drew attention to increase in electrical conductivity as a characteristic of photo-chemical action, and in a second communication in December of the same year, made the following statement—

“It would appear that the chemical behaviour of the acids just mentioned (HNO3, HCl, H2SO4) depends in many of their reactions on whether their concentration is above or below that corresponding to their maximum electrolytic conductivity.”