606 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 



The greater part of Friday was occupied by Archdeacon Free- 

 man, Rev. F. 0. Morris, and Dr. McCann, who read papers opposed 

 to Darwinianism and Evohitionism. The Archdeacon's paper was 

 simply a sermon, treating every statement in the Mosaical account 

 of the Creation as a fact of equal value with the facts observed 

 by naturahsts, and dwelling mainly on " those mysterious four- 

 footed creatm'es, the cherubim," which it was maintained were 

 the antitypes of all created things. Mr. Morris brought for- 

 ward the usual old objections to Mr. Darwin's views, such as the 

 assertion that varieties only last so long as artificial culture is con- 

 tinued; and the supposed inextricable dilemma that immigrants 

 into a new country must be either adapted or not adapted to their 

 new conditions ; if adapted, why should they change ? if not 

 adapted, how could they exist till they changed? Dr. McCann's 

 paper was a vigorous and able attack on Professor Huxley's cele- 

 brated article "On the Physical Basis of Life," which, as it will no 

 doubt be published in fuU, it is unnecessary to say more about here 

 than that it contained some very hard and telling hits at the weak 

 points in the Professor's philosophy. Great interest was manifested 

 in Professor Huxley's reply, which consisted, however, more of sar- 

 casm than of argument. Dr. Hooker, Messrs. Vivian, Wallace, and 

 others also spoke, and much surprise was expressed that the time of 

 the Section should have been occupied by papers which ought never 

 to have been admitted, since they either transgressed the Hmits of 

 scientific inquiry or contained nothing original. 



When the Section again descended to the level of Natural His- 

 tory science, Professor E. Percival Wright described a new shark 

 of a monstrous size, which he had discovered at the SeycheUe 

 Islands, and which he named Bhinodon typicus. He saw speci- 

 mens which he computed to be sixty feet long, although he could 

 only obtain smaller ones for examination, and these appeared to 

 subsist entu-ely upon sea-weed. 



Miss Lydia Becker read a paper " On Alteration in the Struc- 

 ture of Lychnis diurna observed in connection with the Develop- 

 ment of a Parasitic Fungus." This was a cm-ious case of the 

 occurrence of bisexual plants of which the anthers were attacked 

 by a fungus which gave them a purple colour; this fungus only 

 attacking the hermaphrodite and not the male plants. Miss Becker 

 supposed that the fungus was the cause of the development of the 

 pistil in what would otherwise have been unisexual male plants. 

 Professor Balfour and Drs. Dixon and Wilks took part in the dis- 

 cussion, and while they all admitted the value and interest of Miss 

 Becker's observations, did not agree with her intcrprcstation of the 

 facts. They could not, however, ofl'er any more satisfactory cxpla- 



