ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OP SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



more than double the total steam and water 

 [ic.xM-r at pre-enl employed in manufacturing 

 industry in tin- Tinted States.'' 



Of the project, he said: "The present plans 

 contemplate i lie utilization of 100,000 effective 

 h<>r-e power. The principal work of construc- 

 tion is a great tunnel 7,260 feet long, which is 

 to form a (ail-race to the turbine?, starting from 

 lands belonging to the company, and discharging 

 into the lower river. The tunnel is 19 by 21 

 feet, or 386 square feet in area, inside a brick- 

 work lining Hi inches thick." And closing with: 

 "Niagara is likely to become not only a seat of 

 large manufacturing operations of familiar 

 type*, but also the home of important new in- 

 dustries." 



The following-named papers were read before 

 this section : " The World's Columbian Exposi- 

 tion of 1893," by James Dredge and Robert S. 

 McCormack ; " The Use of Furnaces for burn- 

 ing Ash-bin Refuse," by G. Forbes ; " The Con- 

 nection of the East and West Coast of Scotland 

 by a Waterway," by D. A. Stevenson ; " A New 

 Danger in the Destruction of Lightning Pro- 

 tectors by Recent Municipal Legislation," by 

 W. H. Preece ; and " London Sewage Problems," 

 by Crawford Barlow. 



H. Anthropology. The president of this sec- 

 tion, Dr. Alexander Macalister, F. R. S., Profess- 

 or of Anatomy in the University of Cambridge, 

 delivered the address. In his opening remarks 

 he justified the separate existence of the section 

 in that its members were honestly endeavoring 

 to lay a definite and stable foundation upon 

 which, in the future, a scientific anthropology 

 might be based. The past year had not been 

 fertile in discoveries. No new light had been 

 shed on the darkness that enshrouded the origin 

 of man ; but in this connection Dr. Louis Robin- 

 son had, from a series of observations on the pre- 

 hensile power of the hands of children at birth, 

 arrived at the same conclusion which Mr. Robert 

 Louis Stevenson deduced from the study of his 

 grandfather namely, that there still survived 

 in the human structure and habit traces of our 

 probably arboreal ancestry. A more perfect no- 

 menclature, to prevent confusion in the use of 

 such words as tribe, type, race, Celtic, etc., was 

 wanted to bring anthropology into range with 

 the true sciences, a broader basis of ascertained 

 fact for inductive reasoning, and men trained in 

 exact method, who should patiently work at 

 facts and refrain from rushing prematurely into 

 theory. The present position of anthropology 

 was critical and peculiar ; for while, on the one 

 hand, the facilities for research were daily grow- 

 ing greater in some directions, the material was 

 diminishing in quantity and accessibility treas- 

 ures both of the structure and the works of 

 man were accumulating in our museums, but at. 

 the same time some of the most interesting 

 tribes had vanished and others were rapidly dis- 

 appearing or being absorbed in other races, He 

 reviewed the physical side of the subject, or ana- 

 tomical anthropology. Among civilized peoples 

 whose feet were from infancy subjected to condi- 

 tions of restraint, the little toe had become an 

 imperfect organ. A more important branch of 

 anthropology than the physical was the study of 

 man's intellectual nature, and "to disentangle, 

 out of the complex network of religion, my- 



thology, and ritual, those elements which were 

 real truths, either discovered by the exercise of 

 man's reason or learned by him in wavs whereof 

 science took no account, from those adventitious 

 and invented products of human fear and fancy 

 which obscured the view of the central realities. 

 If, however, he concluded, we should ever rise 

 to the possession of a true appreciation of the 

 influences which had affected mankind in the 

 past, with such a knowledge we should be able 

 to advance in that practical branch of anthro- 

 pology, the science of education, and make prog- 

 ress in sociology, a study which did for the com- 

 munity what the science of education did for 

 the individual. 



The papers read before this section included 

 "The Inuo-Europeans' Conception of a Future 

 Life and its Bearing upon their Religions," by G. 

 Hartwell Jones ; " The Discovery of the Com- 

 mon Occurrence of Palaeolithic Weapons in 

 Scotland," by Rev. Frederick Smith; "On a 

 Fronto-Limbic Formation of the Human Cere- 

 brum," by L. Manouvrier; "The Present Inhab- 

 itants of Mashonaland and their Origin," by J. 

 Theodore Bent; "The Value of Art in Eth- 

 nology," by A. C. Haddon ; " Similarity of Cer- 

 tain Ancient Necropoleis in the Pyrenees and in 

 North Britain," by G. S. Phene; "A Contribu- 

 tion to the Ethnology of Jersey," by Andrew 

 Dunlop ; " Notes on the Past and Present Con- 

 dition of the Natives of the Friendly Islands, or 

 Tonga," by R. B. Leefe; "Damma Island and 

 its Natives," by F. Bassett Smith ; " On Skulls 

 from Mobanga, Upper Congo" and "On Some 

 Facial Characters of the Ancient Egyptians," by 

 A. Macalister. 



A plan for an ethnographical survey of the 

 United Kingdom was explained. The reason of 

 its proposal was the necessity of bringing to- 

 gether the results of the investigation which 

 were being made into monuments of antiquity, 

 records of custom and tradition, and physical 

 characters. The report of the Anthropometric 

 Laboratorv Committee was presented. It was 

 reported that at Cardiff last year 103 members 

 of the association had been examined. Of these, 

 78 were males, and the mean stature of the 

 whole was 68 inches, being one inch above the 

 average stature of the British Isles. Also, a dis- 

 cussion on anthropometric identification was 

 opened by Dr. Manouvrier, who described the 

 system of measurements introduced by M. A. 

 Bertillon into the French Criminal Department, 

 and showed the manner in which they were 

 made. He said that by its means the identifica- 

 tion of criminals was made absolutely certain. 

 Dr. Benedikt, of Vienna, also bore testimony to 

 the efficiency of M. Bertillon's system and 

 strongly advocated its introduction into Great 

 Britain. Dr. Garson referred to Mr. Galton's 

 method of identification by means of finger- 

 marks. As a result of this discussion the coun- 

 cil have been requested to draw the attention of 

 Her Majesty's Government to the subject. 



Final Sessions. The last meeting of the 

 General Committee was held on Aug. 10, when 

 the report of the Committee of Recommen- 

 dations was presented. The Research fund is 

 dependent upon the number of membership 

 tickets sold, and at Edinburgh 2.070 were re- 

 ceived, showing that the total number of tickets 



