November 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



131 



tessions, and the poverty of the people. Our trades and 

 ndustries are dying out, and prosperity is out of the ques- 

 ion if we do not revive them. Our lands are immense 

 reasures, for gold is buried there if we only render them 

 iroductive. We cannot grow one quarter of what they 

 ,0 in the civilised countries of Europe and America for the 

 !ame area. There is immense room for improvement in 

 .1! these directions, especially in agriculture ; and although 

 here has been a general awakening, and Government has 

 een kindly lending its help, our capitalists do not come 

 orward to invest money in such undertakings." He con- 

 luded : — " I would most earnestly appeal to you to try 

 reate an indomitable passion for education in your 

 Is, relatives, and fellow-brethren, without which our 

 .; ration for the regeneration of our community is but 

 i\;ng in the wilderness." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, November i6.— Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 ' B., president, in the chair. — Sir E. Ray Lankester : 



discovery of a novel type of flint implements below 



ase of the Reg Crag of Suffolk, &c. (i) Flint imple- 



^ of human manufacture have been discovered by Mr. 



id Moir, of Ipswich, in the detritus beds at the base 



■ Red Crag in Suffolk, and by Mr. W. G. Clarke at 



base of the Norwich Crag in Norfolk. (2) These 



ihijments are of a novel type — the " rostro-carinate, " or 



i::agle's beak " — but include also scrapers, hammers, and 



ige one-sided picks. They do not include any forms re- 



inbling the Chellian and Acheuilian ovate implements. 



sub-crag type (rostro-carinate) is essentially com- 



d from side to side. The Chellian and Acheuilian 



Moustierian types are essentially depressed or flattened 



a leaf. (3) They were manufactured at a period 



lus to one of severe glaciation, which set in before 



iwest beds of the Red Crag and Norwich Crag were 



led, and characterise a phase of human development 



than any hitherto known by equally indisputable 



!ce. (4) The rostro-carinate implements were not 



■bably used for dressing and smoothing the skins of 



lis. (5) On the land surface from parts of which 



implements were moved into the detritus beds at the 



'f the East Anglian " Crags," similar implements re- 



d, which were embedded in the subsequent deposits 



Glacial period, and have been found in a few isolated 



ces in mid-glacial sands and Boulder Clay. (6) The 



Crag is commonly regarded as of greater geologic 



iian its proper fauna would indicate. Its mammalian 



~ are derivatives of an earlier age, and the few 



-cs of Pliocene character found in its earlier layers 



ingering survivors from a warmer condition of the 



They became extinct at the early onset of the con- 



- proper to the Red Crag sea. The Red Crag should 



J cHiped _ with the Pleistocene rather than with the 



""•ne series. (7) The race of men who manufactured 



^ub-crag flint implements probably lived on the land 



•■ not remote from the sea during the period of the 



line Crag, which was characterised by a warmer 



'■ than that of the Red Crag, and may justly be re- 



1 as marking the close of Pliocene conditions" in this 



I if Europe. The land barrier joining Britain to 



linavia, which had kept the southern part of what 



V the North Sea from access of cold northern waters 



ince the earliest Tertiary period, disappeared at the 



ling of the deposition of the Red Crag. (8) If these 



:tions are justified, it remains a question for later 



whether the men who made the sub-crag imple- 



were of greater antiquity than those who made the 



Clients (so-called eoliths) of the high plateau gravels 



lit, or than those recognised by some archaeologists 



ikers of roughly chipped flints found in other locali- 



l>ut not hitherto generally admitted as of human 



iianship. (9) In any case, the implements from the 



ig beds in East Anglia are of special and very 



t type, and cannot be associated with anv known 



my other locality.— Prof. E. W. MacBride': Studies 



redity. I. — The effects of crossing the sea-urchins 



•■mils csculentus and Echinocardiuni cordattim. Many 



logists have investigated the question as to how far 



\0. 2195. VOL. 88] 



paternal and maternal characters are transmitted when 

 different species of echinoderms are crossed, and have 

 arrived at inconclusive and contradictory results. The 

 reasons for the unsatisfactory results of their investigation 

 are largely to be found in incomplete study of the normal 

 development of the species to be crossed, and consequent 

 dependence being placed upon characters which are either 

 slightly marked or variable in the normal larva. There 

 are two cases where the larvae are distinguishable from 

 one another by sharply marked characters, about the 

 presence or absence of which there can be no possible 

 doubt. The first case, that of the late larvje of Echinus 

 miliaris and E. esculentus, which are distinguished by the 

 number of ciliated epaulettes, has been investigated by De 

 Morgan and Shearer, who find that the hybrid in all cases 

 shows purely maternal characters. The second case,, that 

 of the larvae of Echinus esculentus and Echinocardium 

 cordatum, the larvae of which are distinguished by the 

 presence of an aboral spike in those of the latter species 

 and its absence in those of the former, forms the subject 

 of this paper. It is shown that the eggs of Echinocardium 

 fertilised by the sperm of Echinus give rise to hybrids 

 which show the paternal character in the total absence of 

 the spike, whilst the eggs of Echinus fertilised by the 

 sperm of Echinocardium form a fertilisation membrane, 

 but then undergo cytolysis. Loeb and his pupils have been 

 able to fertilise the egg of sea-urchins with the sperm of 

 animals belonging to different classes of animals. In all 

 these cases the larvae are a purely maternal tvpe. It is, 

 therefore, startling to find that when the eggs' of Echino- 

 cardium are fertilised with the sperm of a creature so far 

 apart in systematic position as Echinus the paternal 

 character should be so clearly marked in the hybrid. — Prof. 

 W. M. Thornton : The influence of ionised air on 

 bacteria. — Dr. T. Graham Brown : The intrinsic factors in 

 the act of progression in the mammal, (i) By means of a 

 stimulus (namely, section of the spinal cord) central in 

 application, although remote from the local centre, the 

 act of progression may be induced in muscles de-afferented 

 by the cutting of their appropriate posterior spinal roots. 

 It occurs thus after all the muscles of both hind limbs have 

 been de-afferented, and all but the recording pair have 

 been put out of action by motor paralysis. (2) The act of 

 progression as exhibited by these muscles, and thus 

 induced, scarcely differs, if indeed it differs at all, from 

 the act similarly induced when the afferent parts of the 

 recording muscles have not been broken. (3) In either 

 case the reaction, as evidenced in movement at the ankle- 

 joint, shows three periods. In the first the record is 

 characterised by a state chiefly of maintained flexion. In 

 the last there is a state characterised by maintained 

 extension. Intermediate between these there is a period of 

 " balance," in which the movements of progression are 

 most perfect. (4) The rhythmic sequence of the act of 

 progression is consequently detertnined by phasic changes 

 innate in the local centres, and these phases are not 

 essentially caused by peripheral stimuli. (5) The proprio- 

 ceptive stimuli which are generated by the contraction of 

 muscles taking part in the act (when the appropriate 

 posterior spinal roots are intact) play a regulating, and 

 not an intrinsic, part in the act. Their chief importance 

 may he in the grading of the individual component move- 

 ments to the temporary exigencies of the environment. — 

 Dr. J. L. Jona : The refractive indices of the eye media 

 of some Australian animals. — S. G. Paine : The permea- 

 bility of the yeast cell. — G. A. Buckmaster and J. A. 

 Gardner : Ventilation of the lung in chloroform narcosis. 

 The authors give a number of plethysmographic tracings 

 to show the lung-ventilation during chloroform anaesthesia 

 with different percentages of chloroform and ether, and also 

 analyses of the blood gases. They show that with un- 

 impeded respiration under ancEsthesia by chloroform given 

 at a slight positive pressure the ventilation of the lung 

 takes place at a lowered level. During a narcosis in which 

 respiration continues the lung-ventilation is diminished in 

 the first three minutes by about 60 per cent, of its original 

 value, and by a similar amount after prolonged anjesthesia. 

 They consider that the carbon-dioxide content of the blood 

 is reduced below a threshhold value by any state of hyper- 

 pncea prior to administration of the drug, and this diminu- 

 tion in carbon-dioxide content plus the diminished excita- 



