iv. Proceedings. \^November\2th,\<^\^. 



Professor C. A. Edwakds, D.Sc, read a paper entitled 

 " The Hardness of Metals." 



The author gave an account of various methods of 

 making hardness determinations, and described a new 

 apparatus which was designed for making hardness tests at 

 high temperatures. He also gave data showing that the 

 hardness of pure sohd elements is a periodic function of 

 their atomic weight. 



Ordinary Meeting, November 12th, 1918. 



The President, Mr. William Thomson, F.R.S.E., F.I.C., F.C.S. 

 in the Chair. 



Professor G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., conveyed 

 to the Society his regret, that owing to illness, he was unable to 

 be present to read his paper entitled ''The Retention of 

 certain so-called Simian Features in the Human 

 Brain." 



The human brain retains in a definite and unmistakable 

 form 'every feature which has hitherto been claimed to be 

 distinctive of apes. Noit only soi, but it retains the 

 specialised forms of these featui'es that are distinctive of 

 the Anthropoid Apes, reproducing even quite trivial and 

 apparently unessential details of the arrangements revealed 

 in the brains of Chimpanzees and Gorillas. 



Emphasis was laid upon the fact "that the retention of a 

 large operculated sulcus lunatus (the so-called simian 

 sulcus) was not necessarily an indication of defective brain 

 development. Although such exact reproduction of the 

 features of the occipital end of the Gorilla's brain is most 

 often found in the poorly developed cerebrum of the more 

 primitive peoples, it may persist even in brains of excep- 

 tional development in European people of high cvilturc. 



Captain D. M. S. Watson, R.A.F., spoke on "Biology and 

 War." After referring to the use of much of the theory 

 of natural selection in the apologies of militarism and 

 pointing out the confusion always present in the minds of 

 those who so use it, the speaker referred very briefly to 

 the various types of evolutionary changes exhibited by 

 phylitic series of animals known from palasontological evi- 

 dence, and pointed out that such evidence of this kind 

 as is available suggests that natural selection has only 

 played a very limited part in the actual progress Avhich has 

 occurred in animal structure. 



