In a communication given to this Society in December 1905, I described the clinical results obtained in an experimental investigation on the influence of an excessive meat diet on the growth and nutrition of rats. It was there shown that the progeny of meat-fed rats are usually poorly developed and show a high mortality in early life. The present record comprises an account of the naked-eye and microscopic appearances observed in the osseous system of these meat-fed subjects.

In a paper on “The Influence of Diet on Growth and Nutrition,” in the Journal of Physiology (vol. xxxiv., p. iii), Dr Chalmers Watson showed that in rats a diet of ox-flesh begun when the animals were weaned interfered with the development of pregnancy, none of the four flesh-fed animals having young, whereas the control animals from the same litter all became pregnant.

The investigation was undertaken to discover what changes, if any, were produced in the development and structure of the uterus by various diets.

The animals employed in the research were rats. The uteri of 86 animals were examined, both macroscopically and microscopically. The tissue for microscopic examination was removed in all cases from, as nearly as possible , the same area, viz., the junction of the distal and middle thirds of the uterus.

The communication of which this is an abstract has been published in the Society's Transactions (Vol. XLV. Part II. No. 16), with an appendix containing observations made in Loch Ness by members of the Scottish Lake Survey and of the Order of Saint Benedict at Fort Augustus.

The wires used were of good commercial lead and well drawn.

The special difficulty in experimenting with lead is due to its softness, involving initial lack of uniformity in section, which is increased on stretching. That the variability of the section of the wire might be allowed for in the computation of specific resistance, etc., the diameter was measured at the ends, at two points respectively one inch from each end, and at eight other points dividing the rest of the length of the wire into equal parts. The ends of the wire were soldered into copper pieces to prevent serious thinning near the ends when it was stretched.

Throughout Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire many streams and rivulets have beds which are deep reddish-brown in colour. This colour is due to the deposition of ferric hydroxide, and in some cases the deposition is so great that the course of the stream (if a small one) is hindered, and therefore it must be periodically cleared.

On sait que tous les Poissons recueillis lors de la fameuse Expédition de l'Erebus et de la Terror (1839–1843) ne sont pas parvenus jusqu'à nous. Parmi ceux qui ne furent représentés, au retour, que par des dessins, deux des plus intéressants sont, assurément, le Pagetodes et le Prymnothonus.

The peculiarities of the skull of the Prjevalsky horse (Equus prjevalskii) have been extensively studied by Salensky of St Petersburg, and compared by him with the skulls of various other members of the genus Equus. No special attempt, however, has been made to contrast the skull of the wild horse with that of different varieties of the domestic horse. There can be little doubt that given as rich a collection of Prjevalsky horse skulls as were at the disposal of Salensky, and given, at the same time, a representative collection of skulls of different types of the domestic horse, many points of great scientific interest would emerge from a comparison. In default of such a wealth of material, it is clearly desirable that opportunities afforded by even isolated specimens should be turned to as good an account as possible.

Whilst engaged recently in inquiring into diseases and sanitation in the Northern Territory of South Australia, I took occasion to investigate some points in the anthropology and ethnology of the aboriginals. This investigation broke some new ground, and produced results which I consider to be of sufficient interest to be recorded.

The Rolandic cortex is discussed in the following paper, and an account is given of experiments on monkeys, performed with the object of mapping out this region more accurately and of delimiting in it the areas concerned with movements of different parts of the body. The method employed is a new one, and will be described in detail.

1. If for aα+bβ+cγ+…we put

the the product of |a1b2c3| and |f1g2h3| may be written

Since the discovery by Heusler in 1903 of a magnetic alloy of copper, manganese, and aluminium, considerable interest has been aroused by the peculiarities of its properties and the difficulty of their explanation. In the summer of 1905 a preliminary investigation of a sample of the alloy was made in the Physical Laboratory of Glasgow University, and the results obtained have been published in a paper by Professor A. Gray.

In a former paper communicated to this Society in February, the author worked out experimentally and analytically a relation between normal take-up and degree of twist in the same thread.

In a former paper (vol. xxvi., pt. iii., p. 186) the author proved that the contraction due to forming a single thread,

and the contraction due to the two-ply twisting,

where D = diameter of circle in which the axes of singles revolve.

d = diameter of single.

l = length of untwisted single.

L = length of twisted single.

n = turns of twist in single.

x = turns of twist in 2-ply.

Zeleny (Physical Review, xii., p. 321, 1901) has investigated the variation with temperature of the photo-electric discharge from a platinum wire in air at ordinary atmospheric pressure.

A general account has already been given of this interesting paper—interesting as regards the subject, and interesting as being the author's first prentice effort. All that remains to be noticed here is what may be called Cayley's series of vanishing axisymmetric determinants.

In the volume upon Deep-Sea Deposits, issued as one of the reports of the Challenger Expedition, there are published twenty-five analyses of the “red clay.” This sediment is now recognised as the most extensive and important of all the oceanic deposits, for it covers 51,500,000 square miles of the sea-floor, and is characteristic of the greatest depths. It is therefore obviously desirable to know its average composition as exactly as possible, and for that reason the following investigation was undertaken.

The two systems containing one of a pair of optically-active stereoisomers and an independent optically-active substance present many points of interest and importance, but have not hitherto been investigated with any degree of completeness. What is known about them may fairly be said to consist of a series of isolated facts. The present communication also contributes a few more isolated observations, and is, in reality, a preliminary to a more systematic examination of the whole subject.

1. In the first part of this paper (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxvi., 1905.-6, p. 130), a method was suggested by means of which it might be found possible to discriminate amongst certain oscillatory dynamical systems according as they did, or did not, follow the law of equipartition of energy in their respective vibratory freedoms.