ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



39 



Geological Society, and the results seem to have 

 been very much what might have been expected. 

 ]!' coal is to be found beneath the secondary rocks 

 tin 1 line of search should be carried through the 

 counties of Kent, Surrey, Berkshire, and Wiltshire, 

 though the three latter counties have hitherto been 

 content to leave their underground riches unex- 

 plored. The Kent Coal Exploration Company is 

 doing some good work with a reasonable chance of 

 success, though if they wish to find coal sufficiently 

 near the surface they had better adhere as much as 

 possible to the line of the North Downs, since opera- 

 tions on the Sussex side are only too likely to be 

 within the influence of the Kimmeridgian Gulf, 

 which was proved to exist at Battle (Netherfield). 

 Mr. Etheridge, I hope, will have something to tell us 

 as to the progress of the Kent Collieries Corporation, 

 who now carry on the work at Dover." 



The following-named papers were read and dis- 

 cussed : " The Geology of the District surrounding 

 Bristol," by Lloyd Morgan ; "The Builders of Clif- 

 ton Rocks," " Work of Encrusting Organisms by 

 the Formation of Limestone," and " The Relation 

 and Extension of the Franco- Belgian Coal Feld to 

 those of Kent and Somerset," by Edward B. Weth- 

 ered ; " The -Revision of South Wales and Mon- 

 mouthshire (the South Wales Coal Field) by the 

 Geological Survey," by Aubrey Strahan ; " Explo- 

 ration of Two Caves at Uphill, Weston-super- 

 Mare, containing Remains of Pleistocene Mamma- 

 lia," by II. Bolton ; " Comparative Actions of 

 Subaerial and Submarine Agents in Rock Decom- 

 position," by Thomas H. Holland ; " Arborescent 

 Carboniferous Limestones from Brentry Hill, near 

 Henbury, Bristol," by Horace B. Woodward ; " The 

 Comparative Value of Different Kinds of Fossils in 

 determining Geological Age," by Othniel C. Marsh, 

 of Yale University, New Haven, Conn. ; " The Ag- 



fregate Deposits and their Relations to Zones," by 

 . P. Blake ; " The Geological Structure of the Mal- 

 vern and Abberley Ranges." by Theodore Groom; 

 " The Probable Source of the Upper Felsitic Lava 

 of Snowdon," by J. R. Dakyns ; " On the Occur- 

 rence of Arenig Shales beneath the Carboniferous 

 Rocks at the Menai Bridge," " On an Uplift of 

 Bowlders at Llandegfan," and " The Glacial Sec- 

 tions at Moel Trifaen," by Edward Greenly; "The 

 Age and Origin of the Granite of Dartmoor," by 

 Alexander Somervail ; " On the Comparative Di- 

 mensions of Some Atoms," " On the Leadhillite in 

 Ancient Lead Slags from the Mendip Hills," and 

 41 On a Supplementary List of British Minerals," by 

 W. L. Addison ; ' On the Laws of Climatic Evolu- 

 tion," by Marsden Marson ; " The Sub-Oceanic 

 Physical" Features of the North Atlantic," by Ed- 

 ward Hall ; " The Eastern Margin of the North At- 

 lantic Basin," by Wilfrid H. Hudleston : " The 

 Great Earthquake of 1897 from a Seismological 

 Point of View," by R. D. Oldham ; " Worked Flints 

 from Glacial Deposits of Cheshire and the Isle of 

 Man," by J. Lomas ; " Some Dinosaurian Remains 

 from the Oxford Clay of Northampton," by Charles 

 W. Andrews : " Restoration by Charles Knight of 

 the Extinct Vertebrates Brontosaurus, Phenacodus, 

 Coryphodon, and Teleoceras," by Henry F. Osborn, 

 of Columbia University, New York city ; " Action 

 of Waves and Tides on the Movement of Material 

 on the Seacoast," by W. H. Wheeler; "Further 

 Exploration of the Ty Nenydd Cave at Tremeir- 

 chion, North Wales,"' by G. C. H. Pollen; and 

 "Further Exploration of the Fermanagh Caves," 

 by Thomas Plunkett. 



Also a li Report of the Committee appointed for 

 collecting Photographs of Geological Interest in 

 Britain and in Canada," a " Report of the Commit- 

 tee of Fossil Phyllopoda," a " Report of the Com- 

 mittee on Life Zones in the British Carboniferous 



Rocks," a " Report of the Committee on the Flora 

 and Fauna of the Interglacial Beds in Canada," a 

 " Report of the Committee appointed to examine 

 the Conditions under which Remains of the Irish 

 Elk are found in the Isle of Man." a " Report of 

 the Committee on the Erratic Blocks of the British 

 Isles," a " Report of the Committee for Seismo- 

 logical Investigation," a " Report of the Commit- 

 tee appointed to explore Certain Caves in the Ma- 

 lay Peninsula, especially near Singapore, and to 

 collect their Living and Extinct Fauna," a "Re- 

 port of the Committee appointed to consider a Pro- 

 ject for investigating the Structure of a Coal Reef 

 by boring and sounding," and a " Report on the 

 Euryptends of the Pentlands." 



D! Zoology (and Physiology). This section was 

 presided over by Prof. W. F. R. Weldon. who holds 

 the chair of Comparative Anatomy and Zoology at 

 University College, in London. In his address he 

 discussed some of the principal objections which 

 are urged against the theory of natural selection, 

 and described the way in which, in his opinion, these 

 objections could be met. He said the theory of 

 natural selection is a theory of the importance of 

 differences between individual animals. " Three 

 principal objections are constantly brought for- 

 ward against this theory. The first is that the spe- 

 cies of animals which we know fall into orderly 

 series, and that purely fortuitous variations can no't 

 be supposed to afford opportunity for the selection 

 of such orderly series ; so that many persons feel 

 that if the existing animals are the result of se- 

 lection among the variable offspring of ancestral 

 creatures, the variations on which the process of 

 natural selection had to act must have been pro- 

 duced by something which was not chance. The 

 second objection is that minute structural varia- 

 tions can not in fact be supposed to affect the 

 death rate so much as the theory requires that 

 they should. And it is especially urged that many 

 of the characters by which species are distinguished 

 appear to us so small and useless that they can not 

 be supposed to affect the chance of survival at all. 

 The third objection is that the process of evolution 

 by natural selection is so slow that the time re- 

 quired for its operation is longer than the extreme 

 limit of time given by estimates of the age of the 

 earth." These objections he discussed by applying 

 the law of chance to various phenomena, showing 

 thereby that this law " enables one to express easily 

 and simply the frequency of variations among ani- 

 mals." In conclusion he said : " I hope I have con- 

 vinced you that the action of natural selection upon 

 such fortuitous variations can be experimentally 

 measured, at least in the only case in which any 

 one has attempted to measure it. I hope I have 

 convinced you that the process of evolution is 

 sometimes so rapid that it can be observed in the 

 space of a very few years. I would urge upon you in 

 conclusion the necessity of extending as widely as 

 possible this kind of numerical study. The whole 

 difficulty of the theory of natural selection is a 

 quantitative difficulty. It is the difficulty of be- 

 lieving that in any given case a small deviation 

 from the mean character will be sufficiently useful 

 or sufficiently harmful to matter. That is a diffi- 

 culty which can only be got rid of by determining 

 in a number of cases how much a given variation 

 does matter ; and I hope I have shown you that 

 such determination is possible, and if it be 'possible, 

 it is our duty to make it." 



The following-named papers were read and dis- 

 cussed : "As to whether Precis octaria-natalensis 

 and Precis sesamus are Seasonal Forms of the Same 

 Species," by Edward B. Poulton ; " Photographic 

 Records of Pedigree Stocks," by Francis Galton ; 

 " Preliminary Note on the Races and Migration of 



