Abstract
PARIS Academy of Sciences, September 6.—M. Émile Blanchard in the chair.—On presenting to the Academy a copy of a volume issued on the occasion of M. Chevreul's centenary, August 31, 1886, M. Berthelot remarked that this seemed a suitable occasion for reviving the old custom of celebrating Academic solemnities by the publication of special scientific and literary essays. The present work, in the preparation of which MM. Ch. Richet, G. Pouchet, E. Grimaux, E. Gautier, Dujardin-Beaumetz, E. Demarçay, and Berthelot had co-operated, has been executed with rare taste and care by the editor, M. Alcan, and by him dedicated to M. Chevreul on behalf of himself and his fellow-contributors.—Fluorescence of the compounds of manganese subjected to electric effluvium in vacuum, by M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran. In the experiments here described the author has aimed especially at determining the effects due to the presence of manganese. The fluorescence of some of its compounds is an extremely sensitive reaction, by means of which imponderable traces of this metal may be detected in natural or artificial substances that might otherwise be supposed free from its presence.—Paralytic ataxy of the heart, by M. Mariano Semmola. In this communication the author resumes the results of his further observations on cardiac disorders, already reported in the Transactions of the International Medical Congress, seventh session, London, August 1881.—Remarks in connection with three Italian essays submitted to the Academy, by M. Govi. The first of these papers deals with an episode in the life of Galileo, showing that the hostility of the Jesuits to the Florentine philosopher was not due to the letter addressed by him to his brother in 1606, announcing the expulsion of the Order from Venice. The second describes a curious plano-convex lens executed by Torricelli some time between 1644 and 1647, and recently discovered in the Cabinet of Physics attached to the University of Naples. The third refers to an unpublished letter written by Volta in 1785 on Lavoisier's pneumatic theory, which, although not accepted without reservations, is defended against the assumptions of an Englishman named Lubbock, who had essayed to transform oxygen into a new principle called by him the “sorbile principle.”—On certain differential equations of the first order, by M. Roger Liouville. It is shown that the differential equation—
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