scholarly journals X.—Notice of Fossil Trees recently Discovered in Craigleith Quarry, near Edinburgh

1874 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Christison
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
The Other ◽  
Forest Trees ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Separate Species ◽  
Tree Ferns ◽  
Comprehensive Treatise ◽  
The One

In February 1831 the late Mr Witham read to the Royal Society of Edin burgh, a paper of much interest on two fossil trees of great size which had been brought to light, the one in 1826, and the other in 1830, during the excavations carried on in Craigleith sandstone quarry, in the immediate neighbourhood of our city. In March of the same year this paper, with the addition of several chemical analyses of the fossils, was read also before the Natural History Society of Northumberland. In 1833 he included his observations on these fossils in a separate and more comprehensive treatise on “The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic Deposits of Great Britain.” The main purpose of Mr Witham's researches—in addition to an accurate description and delineation of natural objects previously little investigated—was to show that fossil vegetables in the oolitic and carboniferous formations were not, as had been generally supposed prior to his researches, always ferns, tree-ferns, lycopodiums, and other acrogenous plants, but on the contrary many of them woody exogenous trees, showing longitudinal ligneous bundles, transverse medullary rays, concentric annual layers, and other characters belonging to the intimate organisation of our existing forest trees. Mr Witham even went so far as to identify the structure of the Craigleith fossils with that of our modern pines, and to assign them to two separate species.

Societas Scientiarum Fennica

1938 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-62
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
General Information ◽  
The Other ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Académie Des Sciences ◽  
The One ◽  
Large Output

An important event of the present year has been the attainment of its centenary by the Societas Scientiarum Fennica, the Finnish equivalent of the Royal Society or the Académie des Sciences—though indeed of wider scope than these, including as it does a Humanistic section in addition to those concerned with Mathematics and Physical Sciences on the one hand and Natural History on the other. The Society, during the century of its existence, has been responsible for a large output of scientific literature, its main publications being subdivided, on very much the same plan as those of the Royal Society, into (1) Transactions (Acta), which of recent years (1930-38) have been arranged in separate volumes for the physico-mathematical and biological subjects; (2) Proceedings (Ofversigt), which from 1923 onwards are arranged in three parallel series of 'Commentationes’ corresponding to the main sections of the Society’s activities, and (3) an annual 'Arsbok' containing general information, reports of lectures, and obituary notices. The pages of these several publications provide impressive testimony to the importance of the Societas Scientiarum Fennica in the march of modern science.

scholarly journals Description of a new barometer, recently fixed up in the apart­ments of the Royal Society; with remarks on the mode hitherto pursued at various periods, and an account of that which is now adopted, for correcting the observed height of the mercury in the society’s barometer

1843 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chemical Effect ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The One ◽  
And Control ◽  
Usual Scale

The barometer, here alluded to, may in some measure be consi­dered as two separate and independent barometers, inasmuch as it is formed of two distinct tubes dipping into one and the same cistern of mercury. One of these tubes is made of flint glass, and the other of crown glass, with a view to ascertain whether, at the end of any given period, the one may have had any greater chemical effect on the mercury than the other, and thus affected the results. A brass rod, to which the scale is attached, passes through the framework, between the two tubes, and is thus common to both : one end of which is furnished with a fine agate point, which, by means of a rack and pinion moving the whole rod, may be brought just to touch the surface of the mercury in the cistern, the slightest contact with which is immediately discernible; and the other end of which bears the usual scale of inches, tenths, &c.; and there is a separate vernier for each tube. A small thermometer, the bulb of which dips into the mercury in the cistern, is inserted at the bottom : and an eye­piece is also there fixed, so that the agate point can be viewed with more distinctness and accuracy. The whole instrument is made to turn round in azimuth, in order to verify the perpendicularity of the tubes and the scale. It is evident that there are many advantages attending this mode of construction, which are not to be found in the barometers as usu­ally formed for general use in this country. The absolute heights are more correctly and more satisfactorily determined ; and the per­manency of true action is more effectually noticed and secured. For, every part is under the inspection and control of the observer; and any derangement or imperfection in either of the tubes is imme­diately detected on comparison with the other. And, considering the care that has been taken in filling the tubes, and setting off the scale, it may justly be considered as a standard barometer . The pre­sent volume of the Philosophical Transactions will contain the first register of the observations that have been made with this instru­ment.

Emerson's Atom and the Matter of Suffering

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-47
Author(s):  
Mark Noble
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Classical Field Theory ◽  
Classical Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Solid Bodies ◽  
Lines Of Force

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson's interest in the cutting-edge science of his generation helps to shape his understanding of persons as fluid expressions of power rather than solid bodies. In his 1872 "Natural History of Intellect," Emerson correlates the constitution of the individual mind with the tenets of Michael Faraday's classical field theory. For Faraday, experimenting with electromagnetism reveals that the atom is a node or point on a network, and that all matter is really the arrangement of energetic lines of force. This atomic model offers Emerson a technology for envisioning a materialized subjectivity that both unravels personal identity and grants access to impersonal power. On the one hand, adopting Faraday's field theory resonates with many of the affirmative philosophical and ethical claims central to Emerson's early essays. On the other hand, however, distributing the properties of Faraday's atoms onto the properties of the person also entails moments in which materialized subjects encounter their own partiality, limitation, and suffering. I suggest that Emerson represents these aspects of experience in terms that are deliberately discrepant from his conception of universal power. He presumes that if every experience boils down to the same lines of force, then the particular can be trivialized with respect to the general. As a consequence, Emerson must insulate his philosophical assertions from contamination by our most poignant experiences of limitation. The essay concludes by distinguishing Emersonian "Necessity" from Friedrich Nietzsche's similar conception of amor fati, which routes the affirmation of fate directly through suffering.

scholarly journals XXVII. Description of a Roman Altar found in the neighbourhood of Aldston Moor, in Cumberland: in a Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, K.T. President of the Society of Antiquaries, &c. &c. by the Rev. Stephen Weston, B.D. F.R.S. and S.A.

Archaeologia ◽  
1814 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 229-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Weston
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Silver Coin ◽  
The One

I beg leave to offer to your Lordship and the Society a Description of a Roman Altar lately dug up in the neighbourhood of Aldston Moor, in Cumberland, near a military road, and not far from a great Roman station. The altar is three feet high, sixteen inches wide, and eight thick. It is divided into three compartments, the capital, the square or plane, and the base. On the top is an oval cavity one inch and a half deep, and about nine over by six, in which the wine, the frankincense, and the fire were placed, and was called Thuribulum, the censer, or the focus; but this hole is not on all the Roman altars found in Great Britain. On the sides however of the one I am describing are two bass-reliefs, representing on one part the infant Hercules strangling two serpents (as he is seen on a silver coin of Croton in Italy), and on the other the god in all his strength about to combat the serpent in the garden of the Hesperides (as he appears on a coin of Geta struck at Pergamus).

scholarly journals On some circumstances relating to the economy of bees

1833 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 346-347
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Compact Mass ◽  
Whole Number ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
The One ◽  
Hollow Tree ◽  
As If

The author had already stated, in a former communication to the Royal Society, his having noticed that for several days previous to the settling of a swarm of bees in the cavity of a hollow tree adapted to their reception, a considerable number of these insects were incessantly employed in examining the state of the tree, and particularly of every dead knot above the cavity which appeared likely to admit water. He has since had an opportunity of observing that the bees who performed this task of inspection, instead of being the same individuals as he had formerly supposed, were in fact a continual succession of different bees; the whole number in the course of three days being such as to warrant the inference that not a single labouring bee ever emigrates in a swarm without having seen its proposed future habitation. He finds that the same applies not only to the place of permanent settlement, but also to that where the bees rest temporarily, soon after swarming, in order to collect their numbers. The swarms, which were the subjects of Mr. Knight’s experiments, showed a remarkable disposition to unite under the same queen. On one occasion a swarm, which had arisen from one of his hives, settled upon a bush at a distance of about twenty-five yards; but instead of collecting together into a compact mass, as they usually do, they remained thinly dispersed for nearly half an hour; after which, as if tired of waiting, they singly, one after the other, and not in obedience to any signal, arose and returned home. The next morning a swarm issued from a neighbouring hive, and proceeded to the same bush upon which the other bees had settled on the preceding day; collecting themselves into a mass, as they usually do when their queen is present. In a few minutes afterwards a very large assemblage of bees rushed from the hive from which the former swarm had issued, and proceeded directly to the one which had just settled, and instantly united with them. The author is led from these and other facts to conclude that such unions of swarms are generally, if not always, the result of previous concert and arrangement.

At the Sources of Norway’s Foreign Policy Orientation: the Part Played by the November Treaty of 1855

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7 (105)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Jens Petter Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Policy Orientation ◽  
East And West ◽  
The One

This article deals with the background for the November treaty of 1855 between Great Britain and France on the one hand, and the United kingdoms of Sweden and Norway on the other. The November treaty explicitly pointed to Russia as a potential aggressor against Norway and Sweden and offered these states protection by the two Western Powers. The author elucidates the prerequisites for the conclusion of the treaty, and its role as a first step in Norway’s orientation between East and West — and a foreboding of independent Norway’s foreign policy (from 1905).

Spiders, Ants, and Bees

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Doina-Cristina Rusu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Histories

This paper argues that the methodology Francis Bacon used in his natural histories abides by the theoretical commitments presented in his methodological writings. On the one hand, Bacon advocated a middle way between idle speculation and mere gathering of facts. On the other hand, he took a strong stance against the theorisation based on very few facts. Using two of his sources whom Bacon takes to be the reflection of these two extremes—Giambattista della Porta as an instance of idle speculations, and Hugh Platt as an instance of gathering facts without extracting knowledge—I show how Bacon chose the middle way, which consists of gathering facts and gradually extracting theory out of them. In addition, it will become clear how Bacon used the expertise of contemporary practitioners to criticise fantastical theories and purge natural history of misconceived notions and false speculations.

XXIV.—On the Temperature Coefficient of Concentration Cells, in which the same salt is dissolved in two different solvents

1912 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 375-396
Author(s):  
A. P. Laurie
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Coefficient ◽  
Potassium Iodide ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Platinum Electrode ◽  
The Other ◽  
Absolute Alcohol ◽  
Concentration Cell ◽  
New Type ◽  
The One ◽  
Concentration Cells

In a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxviii., part v., p. 382 (1908); Zeit. phys. Chem., lxiv. 5) I described a new type of concentration cell, in which the one platinum electrode was surrounded by a solution of ·025 molecules of KI containing ·001 molecules of iodine dissolved in absolute alcohol, and the other electrode was surrounded by ·025 molecules of KI and ·001 molecules of iodine, dissolved in water. This cell developed a considerable E.M.F. of ·198 volts at 25° C. in the direction which would transfer the iodine from water to alcohol and potassium iodide from alcohol to water.

scholarly journals VII.—On the Motion of a Heavy Body along the Circumference of a Circle

1865 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Edward Sang
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Elliptic Functions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Magazine ◽  
Circular Arc ◽  
Heavy Body ◽  
Great Ease ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

In the year 1861 I laid before the Royal Society of Edinburgh a theorem concerning the time of descent in a circular arc, by help of which that time can be computed with great ease and rapidity. A concise statement of it is printed in the fourth volume of the Society's Proceedings at page 419.The theorem in question was arrived at by the comparison of two formulæ, the one being the common series and the other an expression given in the “Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine” for November 1828, by a writer under the signature J. W. L. Each of these series is reached by a long train of transformations, developments, and integrations, which require great familiarity with the most advanced branches of the infinitesimal calculus; yet the theorem which results from their comparison has an aspect of extreme simplicity, and seems as if surely it might be attained to by a much shorter and less rugged road. For that reason I did not, at the time, give an account of the manner in which it was arrived at, intending to seek out a better proof. On comparing it with what is known in the theory of elliptic functions, its resemblance to the beautiful theorem of Halle became obvious; but then the coefficients in Halle's formulæ are necessarily less than unit, whereas for this theorem they are required to be greater than unit.

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