proceedings: anthropological society 69 



into other forms. The fate of the human race is wrapped up with the 

 fate of the minute satclHte which we call the earth, and is subject to the 

 ever active mobilizing forces of the cosmos. It must be molded and 

 remolded into other worlds and suns and stars forever. 



"But there are other wonders. The atoms which now enter into the 

 constitution of all things — our bodies, the world, and the universe, — are 

 indestructible. They have existed always and will continue to eternity. 

 The milHons of atoms which now form a drop of human blood, for 

 example, have each a history more marvelous than words can tell or 

 mind conceive, each having passed through changes without beginning 

 and must continue to pass through other changes without end. 



"At a certain stage in the earth's evolution life was generated and 

 there is no reason why a million worlds may not have reached a cor- 

 responding stage — the stage at which the elements and the energies 

 acting under immutable laws necessarily bring about the particular 

 phenomenon known as Hfe. But in the transformations of worlds these 

 phenomena of life can be but negligible incidents, and the human race 

 which we see so large is with all the other attendant phenomena of life 

 in the world, and in all worlds for that matter, only as a breath in the 

 unending cataclysms of the incomprehensible cosmos. 



'Tf any part of the story of man's place in the universe thus outlined 

 should be challenged, and many parts are open to challenge, the chal- 

 lenger may be assured that, if the present interpretations of science are 

 wrong in whole or in part, the storj^ which will finally be told, or which 

 may never be told, must be more marvelous than this or any other that 

 the human mind has conceived." 



The 119th meeting of the Academy was held in the Assembly Room 

 of the Cosmos Club the evening of Thursday, January 17, 1918, the 

 occasion being the first of a series of illustrated lectures dealing with 

 Science in Relation to the War. The speaker, Maj^S*. J. M. Auld, of 

 the British Military Mission, delivered an address on the subject 

 Methods of gas warfare. A summary of the lecture will be found else- 

 where in this number of the Journal (pp. 45-58). 



William R. Maxon, Recording Secretary. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 517th meeting of the Society was held in the Auditorium of the 

 U. S. National Museum on Tuesday, December 4, 1917, at 4.30 p.m. 

 At this meeting Dr. Amandus Johnson, of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, addressed the society on The Scandinavian peoples, illustrating 

 his address with lantern slides. 



The Scandinavian Peninsula has undoubtedly been inhabited by its 

 present occupants for 10,000 years or more. When the climate of the 

 country became tolerable after the vast icefields receded, tribes of the 

 Aryan race found their way into southern Sweden, and established there 

 the original home of the Germanic peoples. About the year 3000 B.C., 



