. 



ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (AUSTRALASIAN.) 



a " Report on the Northwestern Tribes of Canada," 

 being (a) a "Report of the Investigations into the 

 Physical Characteristics of the Tribes of British 

 Columbia," by Franz Boas and Livingston Farrand,' 

 and (b) a "Summary of the Work of the Committee 

 in British Columbia," by Franz Boas; a "Report on 

 the Ethnological Survey of Canada " with appendices 

 of (a) "On an Investigation into Haida Stories and 

 Beliefs." by C. Hill Tout, and (b) " On an Inquiry 

 into the Customs and Habits of the Earliest Settlers 

 of Canada," by Benjamin Suite; and a " Report of 

 the Torres Straits Anthropological Expedition," 

 were presented before the section. 



K. Botany. This section was presided over by 

 Prof. Frederick 0. Bower, who is Regius Professor 

 of Botany in the University of Glasgow. The gen- 

 eral subject of his address was " The Morphology 

 of Plants." He said : " This is a department of 

 science pure and simple. The results which it 

 brings have not, and can not be expected to have, 

 any money value in the markets of the world. The 

 present time is one of unusual bustle and change in 

 morphology, consequent upon the discovery of new 

 facts and the introduction of new methods. The 

 development of the study may be divided into three 

 periods, we ourselves standing upon the threshold 

 of the third. The earliest phase was that of descrip- 

 tion and delineation of what might be observed of 

 the mature form of plants ; this includes the work 



of the herbalists and of the earlier systematists, who 

 thus furnished the basis for classification. The 

 tendency to comparison thus already perceptible, 

 asserted itself strongly in the next phase of our 

 study, to which it gave its character. And now the 

 need arose for observing development ; this was in- 

 itiated by Schleiden, and carried to a triumphant 

 climax by Hofmeister. Morphology has lately 

 passed to a third stage that of experiment with 

 a view to ascertaining the effect of external agencies 

 in determining form, and the limits of variability 

 under varied circumstances. Development of itself 

 shows only how a part originates ; it does not dem- 

 onstrate what it is, nor what it may become, under 

 special conditions. The ideal aimed at in the study 

 of the morphology of plants is to trace their real 

 relationships and mode of origin, on the basis of the 

 widest observation in short, to reconstruct the 

 evolutionary tree. In order to make comparison 

 possible, or at least manageable, a terminology is 

 necessary, and this not only of the plants themselves, 

 but also of their parts. We may for the moment 

 leave on one side that summing up of morphological 



I opinion represented by the systematic arrangement 

 of plants in a taxonomic system. I propose to-day 

 to discuss not the classification of plants, but the 

 classification of the parts of plants, their grouping 

 according to their homology." This part of his 

 address was quite lengthy, and necessarily highly 

 technical. " But," he said, " the questions above 

 discussed are mere matters of detail, compared with 

 that great enigma of the alternation of generations 

 in green plants, or of alternation at large. This is 

 after all a question of degree of homology, not now 

 of the parts only, but of the whole plant or ' genera- 

 tion.' How this greatest of all adaptations was 

 really initiated we can not expect to bring to the 

 point of demonstration ; at best we can only ven- 

 ture opinions of probability." In this connection 

 the following three topics were taken up as most 

 material to the discussion : (1) The bearing of the 



I alga? and certain fungi on the question ; (2) the 

 3omparison from the bryophyta ; and (3) the argu- 

 ment from abnormalities. In concluding, he said : 

 ''I have attempted to touch upon some of those 

 questions in the morphology of plants which spe- 

 cially interest us at present, and I dare say in doing 

 so have revealed to you some of the special weak- 



nesses of this branch of the science. The want of 

 finality in this unraveling of history without docu- 

 ments, the ample latitude for difference of opinion, 

 according to the relative weight attached by one or 

 another to the same facts these are difficulties in- 

 herent in the very nature of our study, while to 

 many minds they increase rather than diminish its 

 attractions. Nevertheless, the progress of morphol- 

 ogy in late decades has plainly been toward a truer 

 appreciation of how divers forms have originated, 

 and so toward a better recognition of affinities." 



The following-named papers were then read and 

 discussed : " The Form of the Protoplasmic Body 

 in Certain Florideas," by Reginald W. Phillips; 

 " On Reproduction in Dictyola dicftotoma," by K. 

 Lloyd Williams: "The Origin of Railway Bank 

 Vegetation," by J. T. Dunn ; " A Method for ob- 

 taining Material for illustrating Smut in Barley," 

 by W. S. P. Ellis; "A New Medullisa from the 

 Lower Coal Measures of Lancashire," "A Fine 

 Specimen of the Halonial Branch of a Lepidoden- 

 dron allied to L. fuliginosum" "On an English 

 Botryopteris," and " On the Structure of Zygopteris," 

 by D. H.Scott; " Penicillium as a Wood-Destroying 

 Fungus," by Marshall Ward ; " The Alcohol-Pro- 

 ducing Enzyme in Yeast," by J. Reynolds Green ; 

 " The Breathing Mechanism of Plants, experiment- 

 ally considered," by F. F. Blackman ; "The Ex- 

 ternal Characters, Internal Structure, and Geological 

 History of a Rare Fern, the Genus Matonia," by A. 

 C. Seward ; " The Prothallus of Lycopodium cla- 

 ratum~L." by W. H. Lang; "On the Anatomy of 

 the Stem of Species of Lycopodium," by C. E. Jones ; 

 " A Potato Disease not due to Phytophthora," by 

 Marshall Ward ; " The Peltation of Leaves," by C. 

 de Candolle ; " Changes in the Sex of Willows," by 

 I. H. Burkhill; "Changes in the Gland Cells of 

 Drosera produced by Various Food Materials," by 

 Miss Lily H. Hule ; " A Theoretical Calculation of 

 an Osmotic Optimum," " The Unit to be adopted 

 for Osmotic Measurement," and " The Structure of 

 the Yeast Cell," by Leo Errera ; " The Origin and 

 Use of the Knight-Darwin Law," by Francis Dar- 

 win ; " The Structure of the Yeast Plant," by Harold 

 Wager; "Observations on the Cytology of Achlya 

 Americana (var.-nov.)," by G. Brebner. 



Attendance and (Grants. The Bristol meeting 

 may be regarded as highly successful, and this in 

 spite of the somewhat oppressive heat and unfortu- 

 nate destruction by fire, at the last moment, of Col- 

 ston Hall, which had been selected for the larger 

 gatherings. The number of members in attendance 

 was 2,446. There was distributed 1,485 among the 

 sections in grants for research, which was appor- 

 tioned as follows : Mathematics, 470 ; chemistry, 

 70 ; geology, 155 : zoology, 350 ; geography, 35 ; 

 economic science and statistics, 5 ; anthropology, 

 180 : physiology, 150 ; botany, 45 ; and corre- 

 sponding societies, 25. 



Next Meeting. The association will meet in 

 1899 in Dover, beginning on Sept. 13. This meet- 

 ing was selected owing to the meeting of the French 

 Association for the Advancement of Science on the 

 opposite side of the Channel, and arrangements 

 have been considered for certain meetings to be 

 held in common. Invitations were received from 

 Bradford and from Cork for the meeting to be held 

 in 1900, and it was decided to accept that of Brad- 

 ford. Dr. Michael Foster, the eminent physiologist, 

 who has filled the chair in Physiology in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge since 1893, and whose address 

 at Toronto last year was so well received, was made 

 president-elect for the meeting in 1899. 



Australasian. The seventh meeting of the 

 Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science was held in Sydney, New South Wales, be- 

 ginning on Jan. 6 and continuing until Jan. 15. 



