ASSOCIATIONS FOR ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



33 



ment, by no means involved such progress as a 

 necessary consequence." Of degeneration, rec- 

 ognized by Darwin as a possibility, he said that 

 " both Dohm and Lankester suggested that degen- 

 eration occurred much more widely than was gen- 

 erally recognized." Embryology* was a means, 

 not an end. Their ambition was to explain in 

 what manner and by what stages the present 

 structure of animals had been attained. Toward 

 this embryology afforded most potent aid, and it 

 must not be forgotten that it was through com- 

 parative anatomy that its power to help was de- 

 rived. Anatomy defined the goal, told us of the 

 things that had to be explained ; embryology of- 

 fered us a means, otherwise denied to us, of at- 

 taining it. Comparative anatomy and paleontol- 

 ogy must be studied most earnestly by those who 

 would turn the lessons of embryology to best ac- 

 count. 



E. Geography. Sir R. Lambert Playfair, who 

 spent a quarter of a century as British consul- 

 general to Algiers, treated the members of his 

 section to a historico-geographical tour round the 

 shores of the Mediterranean Sea, sketching the 

 succession of events in those regions from the 

 founding of Tyre to the French annexation of 

 Tunis. His address was perhaps the most popu- 

 lar of all, and among his statements were many 

 facts of interest. He said : " The zone of desert 

 called the Sahara was popularly supposed to have, 

 been a vast inland sea in very recent times, but 

 the theory was supported by geological facts 

 wrongly interpreted." The salt does not prove 

 the former existence of an inland sea ; it is pro- 

 duced by the concentration of the natural salts 

 washed down by winter rains with which the un- 

 evaporated residue of water becomes saturated. 

 The boring of artesian wells seemed to him " to 

 be the true solution of an inland sea." The 

 flooding of the Sahara from the Gulf of Gabes 

 " was as visionary and impracticable as that for 

 introducing the waters of the Atlantic from the 

 west coast of Africa." How civilization had 

 grown along the African coasts until the destruc- 

 tion of Carthage, which he regarded as " a heavy 

 blow to Mediterranean commerce . . . because 

 Rome absorbed wealth and did not produce," and 

 then only revived under the Moors and culmi- 

 nated in the ninth century, and the present re- 

 vival of advanced civilization under the French 

 rule," were all fully described. Once more this 

 historic sea has become the highway of nations ; 

 the persistent energy and genius of two men 

 have revolutionized navigation, opening new and 

 boundless fields for commerce, and it is hardly 

 too much to say that if the Mediterranean is to 

 be restored to its old position of importance, if 

 the struggle for Africa is to result in its regen- 

 eration as happened in the New World, if the dark 

 places still remaining- in the farther East are to 

 be civilized, it will be in a great measure due to 

 Waghorn and De Lesseps, who developed the 

 overland route and created the Suez Canal. 



F. Economic Science and Statistics. " Some 

 Aspects of Competition " was the subject of the 

 address by Prof. Alfred Marshall. Concerning 

 protection, he said that after his visit to America 

 in 1875 he decided that " if an American, I should 

 unhesitatingly vote for free trade. . . . Since that 

 time the advantages of protection in America 

 have steadily diminished and those of free trade 

 VOL. xxx 3 A 



have increased." For England, he said, " a pro- 

 tective policy would, I believe, be an unmixed 

 and grievous policy." The labor question and 

 kindred topics were fully treated. His last 

 words are : " Every year economic problems be- 

 come more complex ; every year the necessity of 

 studying them from many different points of 

 view and in many different connections becomes 

 more urgent. Every year it is more manifest 

 that we need to have more knowledge and to get 

 it soon in order to escape, on the one hand, from 

 the cruelty and waste of irresponsible competi- 

 tion and the licentious use of wealth and, on the 

 other, from the tyranny and the spiritual death 

 of an iron-bound socialism." 



Among the papers read was one on " Recent 

 Forms of Industrial Combination," by Prof. 

 Arthur T. Had ley, of Yale University. Also 

 " The Ideal Aim of the Economist," by Mrs. 

 Victoria C. Woodhull Martin. 



G. Mechanical Science. Capt. Noble, of the 

 British navy, presided over this section, and his 

 address described the advances made in naval 

 construction since the Crimean War. He said : 

 " Were two vessels of the old type to meet, one 

 armed with her ancient armament, the other 

 with modern guns, it would be vain for the 

 former to attempt to close. She would be anni- 

 hilated long before she approached sufficiently 

 near to her antagonist to permit her guns to be 

 used with any effect." He then entered into a 

 minute comparison of the strength of the " Vic- 

 toria " and the " Trafalgar," also comparing the 

 former with the " Victory." One item indicates 

 the story ; the heaviest shot used in the "Victory " 

 was 68 pounds, while in the " Victoria " shot 

 weighing 1,800 pounds are used. " Seamanship 

 will, I fear, in future naval battles no longer play 

 the conspicuous part it has done in times past. 

 The weather gauge will belong not to the ablest 

 sailor, but to the best engineer and fastest vessel." 



H. Anthropology. Owing to the absence of 

 the president, John Evans, his address was read 

 by Prof. F. W. Rudler. It treated largely of 

 the present condition of the science and of its 

 development during the past twenty years. Of 

 the antiquity of the human race, " the evidence 

 of the existence of the human race has been sat- 

 isfactorily established for Quaternary times." 

 Data concerning earlier man were reviewed, but 

 the .speaker said "that the present verdict as to 

 Tertiary man must be in the form of ' not prov- 

 en.' " As to the origin and home of the Aryan 

 man, different views prevailed, and any settle- 

 ment of the question was impossible, although 

 by means of linguistic paleontology and prehis- 

 toric archeology advances were being made that 

 in time might solve the problem. He spoke of 

 the " vastly improved means of comparison and 

 study that the ethnologists of to-day possess as 

 compared with those of twenty years ago," and 

 referred to the " ethnological galleries of the Brit- 

 ish Museum," which he contended would " bear 

 comparison with any of those in the other Euro- 

 pean capitals." After discussing the subject of 

 color blindness and the proposed anthropological 

 survey of the tribes and castes in India, the ad- 

 dress was brought to a close with some remarks 

 on the dwarfs found by Stanley in Africa. An 

 elaborate paper giving' many details respecting 

 the customs of the tribes of British Columbia 



