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nVFATRFR :^0. 191 I 



and iii^ht fvi s, whilst i 

 pk'xioil is far ])ri doiiiiii: 

 moti ic in\ rstigations— 

 that all ^\■.■stern .\<\:\ ■ 

 geneous mclatiorl- 

 heads, and with 



all tlu; olhi-r fjroups dari-: imn- 



I. Thn final result of :uUhropn- 



•o men were muasiired — is 



iially inhabited by a homo- 



uiih extremely short and high 



nose. About 4000 B.C. began 



a Semitii invasion from the south-east, probably from 

 Arabia, and by people looking like modern Bedouins. 

 Two thousand years later begins a second invasion, this 

 time from the north-west, and by xanthochroous, long- 

 headed tribes, like the modern Kurds, perhaps half savage, 

 and in some way or other connected with the historic 

 Harri, Amorites, and Tamehu. The modern Turks, 

 Greeks, and Jews are all three equally built up upon these 

 three elements— the Hittite, the Semitic, and the xantho- 

 chroous Nordic. Quite differently is it with the Armenians 

 and the Persians, who, and still more the Druses, thr 

 Maronites, and the smaller sectarian groups of Syria and 

 Asia Minor, represent the old Hittite element, and are 

 little or not at all influenced by the somatic character of 

 alien invaders. 



An extra meeting of the Chemical Society was held at 

 Burlington House on Thursday last, November 23, when 

 Prof. Harold B. Dixon, F.R.S., past-president, delivered 

 o memorial lecture in honour of Pierre Eugene Marcelin 

 Berthelot. Prof. Dixon dealt fully with the life &nd 

 character of Berthelot, referring to his persistence, his 

 feverish energy, and devotion to his work. Berthelot, a 

 native of Paris, was born on October 25, 1827, in a flat 

 overlooking the Rue du Mouton. From this flat he must 

 often have been a spectator of many violent scenes enacted 

 during the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. He was educated 

 at the Lyc6e Henri IV, and in 1861 was promoted to 

 the chair of organic chemistry at the College de France, 

 a position he held until his death. Reference was made to 

 the intimate and enduring friendship between Berthelot 

 and Renan, to Berthelot 's romantic marriage with Madame 

 Breguet, and to the great happiness of their married life. 

 Berthelot was in Paris in 1870 during the Siege of Paris, 

 and gave con-^iderable assistance to his country in the 

 manufacture of explosives. Madame Berthelot, with her 

 children, had to leave her husband, going first to Rouen 

 and thence to London. In addition to his professorial 

 duties, Berthelot took his share in the government of his 

 country. In 188 1 he was elected a Senator, and five years 

 later became the Minister of Education. In 1895 he held 

 for a short time the position of Foreign Minister in the 

 Bourgeois Cabinet. From 1863 onwards honour upon 

 honour was bestowed upon him. He became a foreign 

 member of numerous scientific societies, including the 

 Royal and the Chemical Societies ; and in 1900 he was 

 elected one of the forty of the Acad6mie Fran^aise. A 

 year later, on November 24, 1901, the savants from the 

 universities and societies all over the world met at the 

 Sorbonne, in Paris, to celebrate the seventy-fifth 



NO. 2196, VOL. 88] 



his birthday, tic I'rc-ia'.Mi! ot the Fr 

 Ix)ub*>t) presiding. In 1907 came 

 istrious c.r ' ! ij 



un .March . 

 : varied researches for uhich Bert 

 iig more particularly to his worh 

 i< uhub, and to ' igations on the acetylid«t 



nnd copper nr;: 1 -searches on explosions. 



uiber Messrs. J. L. Todd and G. 



'■■ ' * - =-•' - - •'■ Gaf 



Eui 

 ana ui'ir uDjfct, judging iii': in^ discovered' 



the course of the excavations, Ichral. The Ml 



dingo, who now occupy the regi'M m which they are fc 

 know little about them, and refii them vaguely to 

 tribe which preceded them. Their builders must 

 possessed more knowledge of stone-working than 

 .M.-mdiiiLid-. of th< present day, and had considerable af 

 til !• i'l Wftini^r h. riw weights. If the recent speculations 

 accepted, though they involve 

 li ration for the construction of 

 monunients came from the Egyptian stone-workers. 

 present Mandingos so far venerate these circles that 

 niakn war sacrifices near, or on, one of the stones, 

 hui \ spear-heads there. The excavations disclosed rei 

 of weapons verj' like those used by \he tribe at pr< 

 The facts, so far as they go, indicah. that they were 

 work of a branch of the Mediterranean race, to wt 

 similar constructions in western Europe have, with 

 degree of plausibility, been attributed. 



In the first part of the Journal of the Royal Anthr 

 logical Institute for the current year Dr. H. J. Dur 

 field Astley discusses the well-worn subject of the 

 and interpretation of the cup and ring markings 

 appear on stone monuments. Dismissing the nume 

 theories of previous inquirers, he suggests that they 

 stitute the " heraldry of primitive man," being used, 

 the Churinga of the .Australian Arunta, to define 

 exogamous groups. Before this explanation can be acce 

 more than one difficulty must be cleared up. We mus 

 certain, in the first place, that the social organisatiofl 

 the Arunta at the present day is comparable with ths 

 the people who engraved these . symbols on the monumfl 

 Secondly, Dr. Frazer finds no proof of totemism or tot 

 clans in the races of western Europe, and it is uns 

 factory to assume that totemism is established by the 

 ence of these symbols. Dr. .'\stl. \ 's paper is learned 

 interesting, but we fear that the secret of these mark 

 must still remain a mystery. 



In her lecture " On the Marriage of First Cousl 



(Eugenics Laboratory Lecture Series, No. iv. ; Lor 



Dulau and Co., 191 1, pp. 39, price is. net). Miss B«| 



Elderton presents the evidence for and against this 



of matrimonial alliance in a clear and interesting ma 



Consanguineous marriages have been objected to, and 



objected to, on the ground that they result in (i) marke 



decrease in fertility ; (2) high infantile mortality ; (3) the 



occurrence of deaf-mutism, insanity ,_ albinism, hare-lip, and 



i other deformities with greater frequency among the off- 



I spring than among the general population. The conclusions 



arrived at may be broadly stated as follows : — (i) there is 



no evidence available to indicate whether the marriages 



i of first cousins are more often absolutely sterile than those 



i of persons unrelated to one another, but, omitting sterile 



marriages, the average number of children is approximately 



the same in both cases ; (2) the statistics collected by Mr. 



Arner in .America, and published in the year 1908, tend to 



