NA TURE 



817 



CONTENTS. p^c^ 



Research Professorships . . • • .817 



Electronic Theories for Chemists. Bv A. L. . .819 

 Bruce of the Scotia. By Dr. Hugh Robert Mill • 821 

 Mendelian Inheritance and Eugenics. By J. 



McL. T 822 



Our Bookshelf 823 



Letters to the Editor : — 



The Polarisation of Double Bonds.— Sir J. J. 



Thomson, O.M., F.R.S 826 



Experiments on Ciona and Alytes. — Dr. Paul 

 Kammerer . • • • • • • 826 



Problems of Hydrone and Water : the Origin of 

 Electricity in Thunderstorms. — Prof. Henry E. 



Armstrong, F.R.S 827 



The Gorilla's Foot.— R. I. Pocock, F.R.S. . 827 



Colour Vision and Colour Vision Theory. — Prof. 



W. Peddie .828 



Late Fertilisation and Sex- Ratio in Trout. — Julian 



S. Huxley 828 



Is the Pentose of the Nucleotides formed under the 

 Action of Insulin?— L. B. Winter and W. 

 Smith ........ 829 



Fixation of Human Embrj'ological and Cytological 



Material. — Prof. J. Bronte Gatenby . . 830 



Linnean Nomenclature. —Dr. F. A. Bather, F.R.S.; 



The Reviewer . . • • .830 



Bessemer .Steel. — Prof. H. C. H. Carpenter, 



F.R.S. ; The Reviewer . . -830 



The .Spectr.i of Fifth Croup Metals.— Arthur E. 

 Ruark, F. L. Mohler, Paul D. Foote, and 



R. L. Chenault 831 



Tracts for Computers.— Prof. Karl Pearson, F.R.S. §3' 

 Mfsozoic Insects of Queensland. — Dr. A. B. 



Walkom 831 



ILifniiim or Jargonium. — Prof. T. L. Walker . 831 

 Solid Solutions and Inter- Metallic Compounds. 

 f IVitA Diagram. ) By Dr. Walter Rosenhain, 



F.R.S 832 



Weather Influences in the British Isles. By C. E. P. 



Brooks 834 



Obituary : — 



Mr. T. Pridgin Teale, F.R.S. By C A. . 837 



Brigadier-General G. E. Pereira . . 837 



Mr. W. H. Dudley Le Soufef • . . -837 



Current Topics and Events ..... 838 



Our Astronomical Column ..... 842 



Research Items ...... 843 



The Royal Society Anniversary Meeting . . 845 



University and Educational Intelligence . 848 



Societies and Academies ...... 850 



Official Publications Received , ■ . . . 852 

 Diary of Societies ....... 852 



F.diiorial und Publishini> Offices : 



MACMILLAN £r CO., LTD., 

 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON. W.C.2. 



Telegraphic Address: PHUSIS. LONDON. 

 Telephone Number • GERRARD 8830 



NO. 2823, VOL. I I 2] 



Research Professorships. 



'^r^HIS year's anniversary meeting of the Royal 

 X Society, an account of which is given elsewhere 

 in the present issue of Nature, was the first since 

 Sir Alfred Yarrow made his munificent gift of ioo,oooZ. 

 to the Society in February last, " to mark my sense 

 of the value of research to the community." The 

 meeting was, therefore, appropriately devoted in the 

 main to an account by the president, Sir Charles 

 Sherrington, of the purposes to which this and other 

 large benefactions are to be used. The essential aim 

 of the Society is the creation of new knowledge by 

 scientific inquiry, and the new professorships which 

 have been founded through recent gifts will promote 

 and facilitate this intention. 



Lord Justice Warrington, in proposing the toast of 

 the Royal Society at the anniversary dinner at the 

 Hotel Victoria, drew a parallel between the proceedings 

 in a court of law and those in a laboratory of science. 

 In both cases evidence is elicited with the object of 

 arriving at a correct judgment upon it, and endeavours 

 are made by cross-examination to test the truth of the 

 testimony given. The suggestion that it is much easier 

 to get truthful response by appropriate stimulus in 

 Nature than it is from human witnesses is, however, 

 one to which scientific investigators may hesitate to 

 subscribe. Nature can never be trusted to give a 

 direct answer to a question if she can avoid it, and 

 will deceive the inquirer if she can. Also, while the 

 laws of civil life can be broken, there must be no 

 exception to a law of Nature, which is simply a descrip- 

 tion of certain relationships expressed in words or in 

 mathematical terms. When observations prove such 

 a relationship to be incorrect, then the law has to be 

 modified or abandoned to take the new facts into 

 consideration. Moreover, while in civil law precedent 

 is all-powerful, in science it counts, or should count, for 

 nothing. 



The motto of the Royal Society, Nullius in verba, 

 adapted from Horace's Nullius addictus iurare in verba 

 magistra — not bound to swear to the words of any 

 master — is an expression of the revolt against authority 

 which was in the ascendant when the Society was 

 founded. Long before the reaction against the Aris- 

 totelian method and doctrine which Francis Bacon 

 represented with such virulence and bitterness, Roger 

 Bacon had claimed for himself and his contemporaries 

 the liberty of independent inquiry. At the Renaissance, 

 impatience with the constant appeal to the authority 

 of Aristotle was widespread among all who were fore- 

 most in the revival either of science or of letters, and 

 what Francis Bacon did in his " Novum Organum " 



