MECHANICAL BASIS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



261 



puzzled. He will think, and he will think rightly, that the parties 

 in question are ignoring unwarrantably, not only their opponents' 

 case, but even their opponents' existence. 



I speak as a layman with no claim to be a scientific expert, and 

 with no claim to be even a student of science in any but a super- 

 ficiar sense. And yet I think I am right in saying that the 

 mechanical theory of science is too often put before the world, 

 either consciously or unconsciously, as if it were the view of science 

 as a whole, as if it was not sharply criticised on scientific grounds, 

 and as if no other hypothesis was in competition with it. 



LUJAURITES FROM THE TRANSVAAL. — H. A. 



Brouwer, in Comptcs Rcndns, Vol. 149, pp. 1006-1008, com- 

 pares two recent analyses of lujaurite from Pilandsberg, in the 

 north-east of Rustenburg. with the published analyses of speci- 

 mens from the Kola Peninsula (Lapland) and other localities. 

 Nos. I. and II. below are the analyses of the Transvaal 

 samples, and were performed by M. Pisani, while No. III. is 

 an analysis of Kola lujaurite quoted from v. Hackmann. 



II. 



III. 



SiO. 



TiQ, 



ZrO: 



.\\.& 



Fe.O, 



Fe'O 



MnO 



CaO 



MgO 



K„0 



Na.O 



CO',1 



H.O 



Total 



TRANSACTIONS OF SOCIETIES. 



Chemical, Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa. — 

 Saturday. February 26th: A. McArthur Johnston, M.A., M.I.M.M., F.C.S., 

 President, in the chair. — " Further notes on Rand Mining " : T. Johnson- 

 Suggestions for deahng with the roof of working places in mines, together 

 with a general view of underground conditions. — " The Tube-]\Iill circuit and 

 classification " : G. O. Smart- The author pointed out how it was possible 

 to obtain a more desirable uniformity of condition as regards tonnage and 

 moisture in the pulp entering the tube-mill than could be secured by the 

 classifiers now in common use on the gold fields. 



South African Society of Civil Engineers. — Wednesday, March 9th : 

 H. H. Elliott, A.M.I.C.E., President, in the chair. — " The amalgamation of 

 Railways under Union " : H H. Elliott (Presidential address). 



Royal Society of South Africa. — Wednesday, March i6th : S. S. Hough, 

 j\I.A. F.R.S., President, in the chair. — " The ovule of the Bruniaceae " : W. T. 

 Saxton- — " Some new South African Succulents " : Dr. R. Marlotb. 

 A description of Mesembrianthemum mitratiim, discovered in the desert belt, 

 east of Port Nolloth, by Mr. Garwood Alston, and of Euphorbia elastica, from 

 which a sort of rubber had been prepared in Little Namaqualand. — " Gravity 

 on the South African Table land " : Prof. R. A. Lehfeldt- 



