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the able and unwearying assistant of her distinguished husband, the late Sir William Huggins, and was definitely associated with him as joint author of numerous original papers on astrophysical subjects. Among the investigations in which she took special part were those relating to the spectrum of the great nebula in Orion, the photographic spectra of Uranus and Saturn, absorption bands in the spectrum of Mars, the spectrum of Nova Auriga, and the spectra of Wolf-Rayet stars. In laboratory work she collaborated in investigations of the effect of density on the intensities of the H and K lines of calcium, of the modifications of the magnesium line 4481 under different experimental conditions of the spark discharge, and in photographic studies of the spectrum of the spontaneous lumi. ous radiation of radium. Lady Huggins was also joint author of the wellknown "Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra" (1899), which includes the later work of the Tulse Hill Observatory, and a general discussion of the problem of stellar evolution; initial letters and other drawings by Lady Huggins add much to the beauty and interest of this volume. She also acted as joint editor of "The Scientific Papers of Sir William Huggins," published in 1909. In recognition of her valuable services to astrophysics, Lady Huggins was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1903.

THE death is announced, after a short but painful

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illness, of Prof. Eberhard Fraas, curator of the geological section of the Royal Natural History Museum, Stuttgart. Prof. Fraas, who was born in 1862, was the son of Prof. Oscar F. von Fraas, whom he succeeded in the curatorship at Stuttgart in 1897. was a student of Prof. Karl A. von Zittel, of Munich, and devoted his special attention to vertebrate palæontology. His first important work was a memoir on the Labyrinthodonts of the Swabian Trias, published in the Palaeontographica in 1889. This was followed in 1891 by a separate volume on the Ichthyosauria from the Jurassic of Würtemberg. In 1894 he first announced Mr. B. Hauff's remarkable discovery of the integument and fins of Ichthyosaurus, and during following years he described several fossil fishes and reptiles obtained by Mr. Hauff from the Upper Lias of Holzmaden. As a curator of the Royal Museum, Prof. Fraas made a special effort to collect systematically the fossil reptiles from the quarries in the Triassic sandstones round Stuttgart, and met with great success. He not only discovered unusually fine examples of Dinosaurians and Crocodilians of known species, but also obtained several new skeletons throwing light on the ancestry of the Chelonians. Most of this collection still awaits detailed description. Prof. Fraas also interested wealthy friends in the Tertiary mammalia of Egypt, and among the specimens obtained was the skull of the most primitive known whale, which he described in 1904 under the name of Protocetus atavus. He showed that this skull was intermediate between that of ordinary early toothed whales and that of the early land carnivores (Creodonta). In 1907 ill-health caused him to visit German East Africa, and while there he discovered

the first remains of the gigantic Cretaceous dinosaurs, which have subsequently proved to exceed in size even the largest of the dinosaurs known from North America. Prof. Fraas's excellent scientific work will remain as a permanent memorial of his acumen and industry.

THE large Australian collections of stone implements are little known to ethnographers. During the recent visit of the British Association, Miss A C. Breton carefully examined the local museums, and in Man for March she gives an account of them. The finest collection, that at Melbourne, has been carefully arranged by Messrs. A. S. Kenyon and D. J. Mahony, who will, it may be hoped, publish an account of it. Their researches tend to show that, as in other countries, the coup de poign, once invented, was never forgotten. As other forms became known, all continued in use together until something more serviceable was introduced.

THE question has often been asked: Was there an earlier race in occupation of the area in Africa at present held by the Bantus? In Man for March Mr. W. H. Beech reports that in the Kikuyu country some ancient pottery has been found, said to be the work of a people called Gumba, who displaced the Maithoachiana, cannibal dwarfs. These Miathoachiana are now believed to be earth-gnomes, skilled in the art of iron-working. Mr. Beech, with some sibly Bushmen, Pygmies, or both, and that they were amount of plausibility, suggests that they were pos

a local indigenous race of the Stone age, who used the flint implements often found in the Kikuyu country. The Gumba are said to have made pottery and to have taught the Kikuyu the art of smelting. They may have been pre-Bantu Hamite invaders; but of this there is no evidence, and the legend may tend to show that the first discovery of iron was made in Africa.

Irish Gardening for March, 1915, contains several useful horticultural papers. One on the different species of Hamamelis, or witch hazel, hardy in the British Isles, is appropriate as these interesting shrubs from China and Virginia are so valuable in the Hamamelis garden in full flower in mid-winter.

mollis, from China, with its fragrant flowers, is the most beautiful species. H. virginiana, from eastern North America, was introduced so long ago as 1736, and is further of interest since witch hazel snow or hazelene snow is prepared from an extract of the bark.

THE annual note on the ornamental waterfowl at Kew is always of interest, since so many species breed there in captivity. In 1914 the following birds were reared :-Carolinas; mandarins; common, redcrested, white-eye pochards, and tufted ducks; common sheldrake; Brazilian, common, and Chilian teal; bar-headed, white-fronted, and other geese; and a black-necked swan. Several geese having been destroyed by a badger which took up its abode in the gardens it was decided to dig him out and deport him. When digging him out, his earth was found to be carpeted with bluebell leaves and flowers, and many shovelsful were thrown out.

THE Kew Bulletin (No. I., 1915) contains an account of additions to the gardens, museums, library, and herbarium during the past year. Among many interesting presentations to the gardens the most valuable was the fine collection of botanical orchids presented by Lady Lawrence. Collections of filmy ferns in excellent condition have also been received from the Director of Agriculture, Jamaica, Dr. L. Cockayne, New Zealand, and the Assistant-Director of Agriculture, Trinidad. The herbarium has acquired no fewer than 25,500 specimens as donations or exchanges, and 13,500 by purchase. Among the former, Mr. Crossland's collection of British fungi, with drawings, presented by the Bentham Trustees, is one of the most important additions. The Bentham Trustees have also enriched the library with several rare books, and Miss Willmott has presented a copy of her fine work on "The Genus Rosa."

THE Canadian Department of Mines has published a Memoir (No. 20-E) upon the goldfields of Nova Scotia by Mr. W. Malcolm. This forms a large volume of some 330 pages, and gives a detailed description of the various gold-producing areas, which together include about one-half of the entire province of Nova Scotia. These descriptions are mainly of local interest, but a good deal will be found of importance to the student of ore deposits, owing to the fact that these particular deposits present a number of specially interesting features. The report shows clearly that the veins belong mainly to the type known as bedded veins-that is to say, mineral veins which are interstratified with, and generally conformable to, the country rocks, though some fissure veins that cross the formations are also met with. To the former class belong the numerous saddle veins, and especially those curious corrugated saddle veins, to which the name of "barrel quartz" is given locally; the peculiar structure of these veins has long attracted the attention of geologists. The memoir has been compiled with great care, the detailed statistics of production being amongst its most welcome features, and it forms a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of these goldfields.

THE wet winter of 1914-15 is dealt with in Symons's Meteorological Magazine for March in a preliminary way, it being as yet too early to prepare any complete account of the rainfall. Taking the British Isles as a whole, the four months, November and December, 1914, and January and February, 1915, are said to have been all wet, and of these December and February were, relatively to the average, the wettest. November rainfall was below the average in the south of Ireland and in the south-west of Wales, while December was wet everywhere, especially in the south. More than two and a half times the average fell in the south-east of England, and more than three times the average in Sussex. The rainfall of January was double the average at a few stations in England, again chiefly in the south-east. February more than twice the average rainfall was recorded in the south of England and Wales, in Yorkshire, and in the south and east of Scotland. The rainfall for the four months was 168 per cent. of the

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average over England and Wales, 139 per cent. over Scotland, 150 per cent. over Ireland, and over the British Isles as a whole it was 155 per cent. of the average. No previous winter seems to have been so wet. In the Thames Valley the general rainfall for the four months was 19.19 in., which is 205 per cent. of the average, and previous records, which exist for thirty-two years, show no aggregate general rainfall for four months over the Thames Valley so much as double the average.

THE stability relations of the ternary system CaO-Al,O,-SiO, are studied by Mr. G. A. Rankin in the American Journal of Science, vol. xxix (1915), p. 1. Photographs of models, due to the ingenuity of Mr. England, are given; in these, the horizontal positions represent the compositions of the ternary mixtures and the vertical measures give the corresponding melting temperatures. The result has some resemblance to the surface of a mountainous country, the peaks of which represent the melting points of compounds stable at their melting points. The base is an equilateral triangle, the heights above its angles being the respective melting points of the three members of the system, i.e. CaO, 2570°; Al ̧O,, 2050°; SiO, (cristobalite), 1625° C.

THE Washington Bureau of Standards has carried out a useful investigation of the familiar "basic lead acetate solutions." Mr. R. F. Jackson, in Bulletin No. 232, has given a complete equilibrium diagram for the system H2O|PыO|PыC,H.O.. In addition to the free base, Pb(OH)2, and the neutral acetate, PbCH.O., two double-compounds may exist in equilibrium with the solution. The most important of these has the formula PbCH.O.,2PbO,4H2O, but there is a narrow range of compositions within which the compound 3PbC,H,O,,PbO,3H,O, is the stable phase.

THE chemical and mechanical relations of iron, cobalt, and carbon formed the subject of a paper read by Prof. J. O. Arnold at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on March 19. The paper gives account of research work on the influence of cobalt, from which it appears that the tensile strength increases with the percentage of cobalt present. In annealing tests, with 2.68 per cent. of cobalt present, very little of the combined carbon was precipitated as graphite; two-thirds of the combined carbon passed into the graphitic form in specimens containing 5.5 per cent. cobalt, and in specimens having a higher percentage of cobalt, annealing caused the whole of the combined carbon to pass into the graphitic form. Dr. Arnold, in his remarks, pointed out that there were three true steels: (1) the old iron and carbon steel; (2) the true iron and carbon steel with 5 per cent. of vanadium; in this steel carbide of iron ceased to exist, carbide of vanadium is present; (3) iron and carbon steel having 11.5 per cent. of tungsten; the tungsten expels the carbide of iron, giving the true tungsten steel. Iron and carbon steel hardens at 730° C., vanadium steel at a temperature just before the melting point (1450° C.), and in tungsten steel hardening starts at 850° C., and is not completed until nearly 1200° C.

MESSRS. HENRY SOTHERAN AND Co., of 140 Strand, W.C., and 43 Piccadilly, W., have issued in two parts -Nos. 754 and 755-a catalogue of important works in natural history, including zoology, botany, gardening, farming, microscopy, and geology. The library of the late Prof. Howes is included in the collection. Owing to the war, the volumes are being offered at very low prices.

THE reference in NATURE of March 25 (p. 96) to "three Englishmen, namely Sir A. Geikie, Sir William Ramsay, and Lord Rayleigh," who are members of seven national scientific societies, has brought the inevitable letter from a correspondent suggesting injustice to "Scots." In the case of Prussia we used deliberately the phrase "men of science in Prussia," knowing, of course, that Prof. van't Hoff, though he lives in Berlin, is not a Prussian. It would perhaps have been better to have used the word "Britons" instead of Englishmen in the note, or to have said "men of science in England," as the comparative statement holds good only by taking the place of residence of each person.

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The comet is in the constellation of Serpens, and lies a little to the west of the star Eta. It is approaching both the earth and sun, and it will be nearest the earth in about the middle of June. Unfortunately it will be too far south to be seen from these latitudes, but its increasing brightness will make it a conspicuous object for observers in the southern hemisphere. Elements and ephemeris slightly different from the above appear in the Lick Observatory Bulletin No. 268.

THE NINTH SATELLITE OF JUPITER.-An account of the discovery, observations, and orbit of the ninth satellite of Jupiter is given by Seth B. Nicholson in No. 265 of the Lick Observatory Bulletin. The discovery of this faint object (about 19 mag.) was made with the Crossley reflector at the Lick Observatory on plates taken on July 21 and 22 of last year. A series of photographs was being made to secure positions of the faint satellites of Jupiter, and it was on the first plates taken for the eighth satellite that the new member was found. The plate was so exposed that the photographic image of the eighth satellite should not be elongated, and a similar exposure was made on the following night. A comparison of the two plates indicated the image of an almost circular object on both plates near the eighth satellite. Further photographs on July 23 and 24 corroborated the reality of the images in question, and in consequence the discovery was publicly announced. The present bulletin is accompanied by a plate showing reproductions of the photographs taken on July 22, 23, and 24, indicating the eighth and ninth satellites. Mr. Nicholson next describes

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RELATIVE PROPER MOTIONS OF THE PLEIADES.-In the Astronomische Nachrichten No. 4790 Dr. R. Trümpler gives details of an interesting investigation on the relative proper motions of the Pleiades group. The work is based chiefly on a previous research (1901) by J. Lagrula entitled "Etude sur les occultations d'amas d'etoiles par la lune avec un catalogue normal des Pléiades," in which the differential positions of 102 stars in the Pleiades group in relation to the central star of ʼn Tauri were determined. Dr. Trümpler ท derives the following conclusions from Lagrula's proper motions of forty-three stars. The relative proper motions of the eleven brightest stars are very small. The relative motions of the fainter stars have larger velocities than the bright stars, and exceed the limit of errors of the determinations. The proper motions of the fainter stars indicate a systematic variation from those of the brighter stars, or, in other words, the system of the fainter stars appears to displace itself with regard to the system of the brightest stars. In the case of the fainter stars there is indicated a movement of rotation in the direction of decreasing position angle, one rotation being of the order of two million years; the brightest stars appear to take either no part or only a very small part in this movement. The point of radiation for the proper motions of the Pleiades cannot be deduced with certainty. It can only be said that from the observed radial velocities of the brightest stars the parallaxes of the Pleiades must be smaller than 0.1".

Report of thE STONYHURST College OBSERVATORY. -The report of the director of the Stonyhurst College Observatory for the year 1914 consists for the main part of the results of the meteorological, magnetical, and seismological observations. Reference to the astronomical work accomplished during the past year is incorporated under the heading, "Report and Notes by the Director." These include, first, the results of the measures of the disc areas of sun-spots as measured from drawings. It is shown that the year 1913 was the minimum year of sun-spot activity, while the year 1912 was the minimum year for the mean range of magnetic declination. These results are in accordance with those published in this column for March 18 (p. 75). An account is also given of the expedition to Hernösand, Sweden, to observe the total solar eclipse of August 21, 1914. Reference is made to the record of the strong red radiation coronal line 6374-3, which is described here as "a strong member of a band or fluting. . . .' The presence of this coronal radiation was first announced by M. Deslandres (Comptes rendus, November 16), and was soon corroborated by M. Carrasco by the examination of his own eclipse spectrograms.

RECENT WORK OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

IN N No. 82 of the handsome series of Professional Papers published by the United States Geological Survey, Myron L. Fuller describes "The Geology of Long Island, New York." This suburban island, from the lively beach of Coney Island on the west to the old-time refinements of Easthampton, protects the Connecticut coast for more than a hundred miles. Its core consists of sandy strata, which are now recognised as Cretaceous; these appear at the base of the bluffs of the north coast and in wells in the interior. The early events of the Ice age piled the Manhasset Formation across them, and on the somewhat irregular plateau thus built up two great moraines were deposited as records of the Wisconsin epoch of ice-advance. One of these appears conspicuously along the axis of the island, while the younger moraine lies near to the north coast. The sandy plains formed by the outwashed material from these ridges cover a large part of the country. The present memoir, with its two large folding maps, may not appeal to the motorists who denude the roads on Sundays; but it will be prized on the shelves of those cultured citizens who have built their summer homes among the gracious woods and inlets of the sound.

It is a long stretch from the New York shores to the shifting mouths of the Mississippi. E. W. Shaw, in No. 85-B, deals with the mud lumps that attracted Lyell as examples of the seaward growth of land, and concludes that they arise from the creep of semi-fluid clay from beneath the land and the shallows, under the pressure of new alluvium deposited by flooding. Where currents sift the delta-material, leaving sandy banks behind, the resistance to outward flow is sufficient to cause the moving clay to rise up to the surface. Some of the lumps stand 8 ft. above the water. Unless they subside, they are worn away by the sea in a few years. The reader of this paper must remember that a "pass in the delta is not a passageway, but a delta-finger dividing one bay from another.

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and ice-carved region around Philipsburg in western Montana, which was lifted from the sea with the central Rocky Mountains in earliest Eocene times. Pre-Cambrian rocks here come to light, and it is interesting to note that features of stoping and intimate penetration, resembling those so well seen in Finland, have arisen in them by the intrusion of Cainozoic granodiorite during the general uplift (Fig. 1). A careful description is given of the products of contact-metamorphism and of exhalation from the igneous invaders. The district includes ores of gold and silver, imported by these early Cainozoic intrusive bodies (p. 186). The first mining operations were undertaken twenty-five years before the arrival of the railway, and exploitation has now so far worked away the ores that the small town of Philipsburg may look forward to relying on its agricultural industries. The usual beautifully printed maps accompany this memoir.

Early Eocene granite appears on the west flank of the mountains in Idaho (Bulletin 528, "Geology and Ore Deposits of Lemhi County," by J. B. Umpleby), and it suffered from erosion in Middle Eocene times

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FIG. 1.-Stoping and absorption-features at contact of Cainozoic granodiorite and Algonkian sediments,

Oklahoma, the paradise of protected Indians, is being explored for oil-pools, and the illustrations in Bulletin 547 introduce us to the broad alluvium-filled valleys of the country, in which the rivers may run almost dry, while sand-dunes (p. 31) may gather near their banks. The conditions remind us of those of Permian times in England. Another interesting view of river-action in easily denuded strata is given in Bulletin 575, where the Grand River, a tributary of the Missouri in South Dakota, is seen meandering on a great plain of level Pierre Shale, leaving outliers of the more resisting Foxford Sandstone, the highest marine Cretaceous deposit, standing out above it. To the west, in Wyoming, the Cretaceous beds, though still frequently horizontal, are associated with mountainous outcrops of contorted Carboniferous rocks, and the rainfall allows of a thick growth of trees across them (Bull. 543, "Lincoln County, Wyoming," by A. R. Schultz). In Professional Paper 78, W. H. Emmons and F. C. Calkins guide us through a high

Storm Lake, Montana.

(p. 43). Gold-bearing veins are associated with the rhyolitic lavas that broke out in the area in the Miocene, and possibly the Pliocene period, and this bulletin is largely concerned with mining. The main routes for traffic are eastward; the differences of elevation cause a great variety of climatic conditions in Lemhi County, but the photographs around Salmon City have a distinctly pleasing air. The same author describes a somewhat similar region in Bulletin 539 ("Some Ore Deposits in North-Western Custer County, Idaho"), where the open season lasts from the beginning of May to the end of October, and where tetrahedrite and galena are mined at 8000 ft. and upwards above the sea. A remarkable erosion-surface, developed near base-level in Eocene times, has left traces that are now elevated to 9600 ft., with valleyfloors 5000 ft. below them. The mines on Poverty Flat thus stand at 9500 ft., on the margin of a partly wooded plateau covering twenty-five square miles, which has been worn as a peneplane across steeply tilted Palæozoic rocks. As a result of elevation, valleys were developed in the Miocene lacustrine

strata to a depth of more than 4000 ft., prior to their occupation by the post-Pliocene glaciers (p. 17). These figures serve to illustrate the removal of Flysch beds and other Cainozoic strata during Pliocene times from the surface of our European Alps.

B. S. Butler, in Professional Paper So, reports on the copper and other ores of the San Francisco district in Utah. The mines lie in the arid Great Basin, near the south end of the lost Lake Bonneville. The block-structure of the country is rendered all the more interesting by the continuation of the faulting into recent times. The intrusion of quartz-monzonite in a Cainozoic epoch (p. 70) has produced diopside as a common contact-product in the early Palæozoic limestones, and an example (pl. xii., Fig. A), where this has become altered into serpentine is of interest for comparison with various "eozoonal" rocks.

"The San Franciscan Volcanic Field, Arizona," described by H. H. Robinson (Professional Paper 76), lies three hundred miles farther to the south, beyond the Grand Canyon country, but sufficiently near to allow of a confusion of the mountain names. San Francisco Peak, rising 12,611 ft. above the sea, retains its general form as a great volcano with secondary cones,

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of Dutton's survey in the fine illustrations to his work The Shinumo Quadrangle." In the region treated there is only one permanent habitation. Plate xviii. shows the geological history of the country, concerning which much has been learnt since Dutton's work, as recorded in a natural section rising a mile above the river. A hill of inclined Algonkian quartzite is seen half-way up, buried by horizontal strata from Cambrian to Upper Carboniferous. H. H. Robinson, the author of the paper on the San Franciscan volcanic field, is cited (p. 91) as providing the most recent summary of the physical history of the canyon country.

Alaska, which is being explored so conscientiously, is represented by nine bulletins published in 1913 and 1914. While these are mostly concerned with mining prospects, glacialists will appreciate the evidence of the forward movement of ice across forests in Bulletin 526, and of the formation of "push moraines" 25 ft. high, where a glacier-nose impinges upon beachdeposits. Though boulder-clays are rarely specifically mentioned, it is clear that a large part of the Alaskan "moraine" material is of this character. In Bulletin 534, for instance (p. 43), on the Yentna district, we

read that " deposits of glacial till of the ground moraine type are widespread," up to 75 ft. in thickness, with particularly abundant striated pebbles and boulders.

Among publications dealing with minerals, we may note the illustrated descriptions of Ferberite, or wolfram free from manganese, by F. L. Hess and W. T. Schaller, in Bulletin 583. The latter author investigates the crystallography of the species. Alunite attracts attention in Bulletin 540 ("Contributions to Economic Geology, 1912," published in 1914, p. 347). Numerous saline deposits have been prospected without results for potash salts on a commercial scale (p. 406). The phosphatic shales at the top of the Carboniferous beds in Idaho, and probably of Permian age, are described in Bulletin 577. No. 585 consists of a list, with localities, of all the useful minerals and rocks of the United States, arranged under the States in which they occur. H. S. Gale refers the calcium borate, Colemanite, of southern California to the emission of boric acid from basaltic lavas into travertine deposits of Miocene age (Professional Paper 85-A, p. 8). G. A. J. C.

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FIG. 2.-Recent cone formed of ash with lava above, north-east edge of the San Francisco volcanic field.

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and fine igneous studies can be made in the ravines upon its flanks. It is believed (p. 52) to have originally risen 8800 ft. above the plateau of horizontal Carboniferous rocks, and to have lost 3000 ft. by denudation. This region stood close to sea-level in late Pliocene times, and then became deluged by flows of basalt; elevation by faulting followed, and rhyolites and andesites appeared on the surface as it underwent dissection. The great volcanoes belong to this epoch, at the opening of the Quaternary era. greater elevation, amounting to thousands of feet, then took place, introducing the present or canyon cycle of erosion" (p. 93), and scattered vents emitted basalt and built up lava and scoria cones (see Fig. 2). The railway across the Colorado Plateau, from which a branch runs north to the Grand Canyon, gives access to this volcanic field. The great cone of Bill Williams Mountain, named after a scout killed in Indian warfare, is already ascended by a touristtrack, and in time we may hope that Flagstaff Station will be as famous among geologists as Mont Dore. Visitors will pass on, however, to the canyon country, and L. F. Noble (Bulletin 549) revives our memories

THE POSITION OF THE ORGANIC CHEMICAL INDUSTRY.1

THE

HE value of the colouring matters consumed in the United Kingdom is 2,000,000l. per annum, and these dyes are essential to textile industries, representing at least 200,000,000l. a year, and employing 1,500,000 workers, and to many other industries, such as the wall-paper, printing, and paint industries, requiring lakes and pigments. In recent years Germany has supplied this country with nearly all these dyes, with organic chemicals required for photographic purposes, with the natural and artificial products used in the manufacture of scents and perfumes, with synthetic and other drugs and disinfectants, and 1 Abstract of the presidential address delivered before the Chemical Society on March 25 by Prof. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S.

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