Abstract
LONDON. Royal Society, February 12.—Sir William Crookes, CM., president, in the chair.—S. G. Brown: Chemical action that is stimulated by alternating currents. This paper describes experiments on the effects produced by passing a rapid alternating current through simple voltaic cells, the general effect being to stimulate chemical action and to cause the cells to give a greater supply of continuous current which otherwise would not be produced.—R. D. Oldham: The effect of the Gangetic alluvium on the plumb-line in northern India. The depression occupied by the Gangetic alluvium along the southern face of the Himalayas, as determined by geological observation, has a nearly vertical face on the north, and a floor sloping upwards in a southerly direction to the surface. The effect of the defect of mass in the Gangetic depression is calculated and shown to be capable of producing about 30″ of northerly deflection of the plumb-line at the margin of the range, a deflection which drops rapidly on either side of the margin, but more rapidly to the south than the north. At twenty to thirty miles south, the distance depending on the width of the trough, it becomes zero, and at greater distances is replaced by a southerly deflection.—G. W. Walker: Note on the origin of black-body radiation.—Prof. H. M. Mac-donald: The transmission of electric waves along the earth's surface. A series is obtained which represents the magnetic force at any point on the surface when the oscillator is also on the surface; the series converges rapidly for large values of θ, and for not very large values the first term is a sufficient approximation. For small values of θ the series converges very slowly.—Dr. G. T. Beilby: Transparence or translucence of the surface film produced in polishing metals (see page 691).—Dr. S. W. J. Smith and J. Guild: A thermomagnetic study of the eutectoid transition point of carbon steels. The magnetic properties of steel at temperatures near the eutectoid transition point (Ai) seemed to deserve further examination. Simultaneous observations of intensity of magnetisation and of temperature were made over various ranges of heating and of cooling in different magnetic fields. Nine steels containing percentages of carbon ranging between 0.1 and 1.5 were used. Each steel contained about 0.2 per cent., or less, of silicon and manganese. It was found that the temperature corresponding with the beginning of the transformation of the eutectoid during heating (Aci) could be fixed within ±1° C. under suitable conditions. This temperature was 735° C., and was the same for all the steels.—W. R. Bousfield: Note on osmotic pressure. It is shown that the assumption that the molecular interspaces of a solution are filled with vapour, which there behaves as a perfect gas, leads to the same general relation between vapour pressure and osmotic pressure as is given by thermodynamical considerations. The anomalous fact that the osmotic pressure of a deci-normal sucrose solution is found to be greater at 0° C. than at 5° C. is explained by reference to the constitution of water and the effect of compression upon the ice molecules.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 92, 703–705 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/092703a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/092703a0