44 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



above-mentioned article was that on the very principle brought 

 forward by the pessimistic writers, it was impossible to be 

 sure of the racial effect of a war until we knew the quality 

 of those who return from the war as compared with those 

 who had gone to the conflict. It was necessary to reckon with 

 the possibility that the quality of those who returned from a 

 war was so much higher than that of the whole army which 

 had originally become engaged, that the quality of the sur- 

 vivors, as a whole (namely, the returned soldiers and those 

 who had never joined the army) was actually superior to the 

 quality of the male population as a whole before the war. 

 This possibility appeared to me to be of some interest, and in 

 his general discussion of the matter. Sir Hercules Read men- 

 tions some statistics which bear upon this point and of the 

 existence of which I was unaware in 191 5. The figures in 

 question relate to the effects of the Franco-German War. 

 The existence of conscription in France made it possible to 

 judge of the character of the boy-babies born during and 

 after the Franco-German War — to judge them, that is, when 

 they had grown to military age. And it was found that 

 whilst the generation born during the war— the youths who 

 appeared as conscripts in 1890 — ^were, indeed, below the 

 average of stature and physique, those born immediately 

 after the war were much above the average, which seemed to 

 prove that they were the sons of exceptionally fine sires. 

 Many factors would, of course, have to be considered ; for 

 instance, the inferior quality of the men born during the war 

 might, and in some cases certainly would, be caused by the 

 privations existing in parts of France during the conflict ; 

 but in view of the discussion which has taken place the sta- 

 tistics are very interesting and deserve to be widely known. 



In connection with this subject, another paper may be 

 mentioned, which appears in that excellent journal the 

 American Naturalist (vol. liv. No. 630, Jan.-Feb. 1920). This 

 paper is by Prof. Raymond Pearl and is entitled " Certain 

 Evolutionary Aspects of Human Mortality Rates " ; and it 

 will be found as suggestive as papers in the American Natural- 

 ist usually are. 



Mr. J. Reid Moir's recent work has been largely directed 

 towards a demonstration of the possible evolution of the 

 rostro-carinate implements into the ordinary paleolithic imple- 

 ments of the so-called river-drift type. Another of his papers 

 bearing upon this and cognate questions will be found in the 

 above-mentioned number of the Journal of the Royal Anthro- 

 pological Institute. The paper in question is under the title : 

 " On the Occurrence of Humanly-fashioned Flints, etc., in the 

 ' Middle Glacial ' Gravel at Ipswich, Suffolk." 



