December 22, 1923] 



NA TURE 



921 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 



Aristotelian Society, November 26. — Prof. H. 

 W'ildon Carr in the chair. — J. W. Scott : The in- 

 cidence of mathematico-physical speculation on 

 philosophy. Mathematical speculation upon philo- 

 sophical questions is especially forceful at two places 

 — the theory of the infinite and the theorj' of appear- 

 ances and their relation to reality. The naive 

 conception of the infinite has been a common problem 

 for philosophers and mathematicians alike. Kant 

 declares that we can prove with equal cogency that 

 space or time both must be and cannot be infinite ; 

 and Galileo points out that an infinite number is a 

 number such that the number of numbers making 

 it up is the same as the number of numbers making 

 up a contained part of it. Philosophers and mathe- 

 maticians alike do not stop at the difficulty of the 

 naive conception. For each there is a false as well 

 as a true conception of infinity, and their definitions 

 are curiously alike. The essence of infinity consists 

 for the mathematician in a certain relation between 

 the whole and its parts, and for the idealist philo- 

 sopher infinity is only to be ascribed to wholes which 

 are self-contained, such as works of art. The other 

 problem, namely, the problem which of the contra- 

 dictory appearances of a sense-perceived object is 

 the real appearance of the thing, may be solved along 

 the same lines. Perspectives sum into a container. 

 The unity either of a thing or of a sensum is the unity 

 of an infinitude ; and an infinitude is something in 

 some sense self-contained. 



December 3. — Prof. T. P. Nunn, president, in the 

 chair. — Dorothy Wrinch : On certain aspects of 

 scientific thought. Many important scientific hypo- 

 theses embody the assumption that certain pro- 

 perties are irrelevant to each other. They may be 

 grouped together as " irrelevance postulates." Thus 

 in the quantum theory there is an important hypo- 

 thesis to the effect that the energy of a bundle of 

 radiation given off by an atom of matter to the ether, 

 divided by the frequency with which it manifests 

 itself to the spectroscope, is always an integral 

 multiple of a universal constant h. The assumption 

 states that this ratio h has the same value, irrespective 

 of all physical and chemical properties of the matter 

 which emits the radiation. Also other " constants 

 of Nature " such as the charge carried by an electron, 

 the velocity of light, the universal constant of gravita- 

 tion, correspond each to a " postulate of irrelevance." 

 Einstein has suggested a postulate of irrelevance of 

 a still more radical kind in his assumption that the 

 laws of Nature are invariant with respect to systems 

 of co-ordinates which satisfy certain very general 

 conditions. In the generalised theory of relativity 

 these are the Gaussian systems. 



Royal Anthropological Institute, November 27. — 

 Mr. H. J. K. Peakc in the chair. — E. H. Hunt: 

 Hyderabad cairn burials and their significance. 

 Cairn burials with stone circles are found scattered over 

 the whole of South India. Their numbers indicate 

 that important persons alone could have received this 

 form ot burial, and the civili.sation repiesentcd must 

 have held full sway for a prolonged period. Pots 

 are found inside and outside cists. Body positions 

 are commonly " contracted," though " extended " 

 and " urn " burials are found, and burnt bones. 

 Iron is found constantly, but iron affords no evidence 

 of date in India. Surface denudation of more than 

 fifteen feet of hard soil in places and disintegration 

 of granite slabs in the absence of salt afford evidence 

 of considerable age. History shows that these 



NO. 2825, VOL. I 12] 



burials cannot date later than Asoka in any case. 

 Vedic writings are silent. There is a curious series 

 of similarities with early Egypt : (i) Cultivation by 

 irrigation ; (2) orientation of graves ; (3) burials ; 

 (4) pohshed black and red pots, red pots on ring 

 stands, and pot marks, e.g. the " KA " mark ; (5) 

 lapis beads, a stone foreign to Egypt, and probably 

 also to India. Parallel with these resemblances an 

 equally striking series of differences can be made out, 

 such as the absence of stone circles in Egypt, though 

 boulders abound. 



December 4. — H. Balfour: On certain aspects of the 

 technology of the Nagas of Assam. The field-observa- 

 tions recorded were made during a three-months tour 

 through the Naga Hills in company with Messrs. J. H. 

 Hutton and J. P. Mills, resident officials of the I.C.S., 

 in the winter of 1922, during which some 50 or 60 

 native villages were visited. The prevailing system of 

 "dry " cultivation hy jhuming, as contrasted with the 

 elaborate intensive system of "wet" terrace-cultiva- 

 tion practised almost exclusively by the Angami, has 

 had devastating effects upon jungle-growth. Among 

 the Ao Nagas, when fire - making is practised for 

 divination or taking omens, it is not necessary to 

 obtain a spark. The ordinary process is followed of 

 sawing a bamboo thong round a stick, but the latter 

 need not be split as it invariably is for ordinary fire- 

 making. When the thong breaks the broken ends 

 are carefully studied, and the omen is taken from the 

 nature of the fracture. This use of an unsplit stick 

 for divination has not before been recorded. A type 

 of fish-trap is used, not before described from the 

 Naga Hills, the chief interest of which lies in its 

 almost continuous dispersal from this area through 

 the Malayan and Indonesian regions to Melanesia, 

 affording a valuable culture-link between the extremes 

 of its geographical range. This culture-link is further 

 emphasised by the loom and by other items, which 

 together throw light upon the route followed by 

 culture-dispersal within this wide area. The carved 

 " figure-heads " embellishing the huge monoxyle 

 dug-out gongs of the Ao Nagas are conventionalised 

 representations of the head of the water-buffalo. An 

 account was given of " bull-roarers," recently dis- 

 covered by Messrs. Hutton and Mills to exist in this 

 region. 



Royal Microscopical Society (Industrial Applica- 

 tions Section), November 28. — Sir Kenneth Goadby 

 in the chair. — J. E. Barnard : The characteristics of 

 a microscope for general and special purposes. The 

 tests for mechanical efficiency that should be satisfied. 

 — S. H. Browning : The application of the microscope 

 to industrial diseases. — C. A. Newton : The micro- 

 scope in the examination of condensed milk. If a film 

 of sweetened condensed milk be examined at a 

 magnification of from 50 to 100 diameters, the sugar 

 it contains can easily be seen. The sugar crystals 

 afford an indication of the good quality of the milk ; 

 if they appear clean and well defined, the milk will 

 keep well, while in bad milk, or milk likely soon to 

 become bad, there appears also an acicular crystallisa- 

 tion of the milk sugar. Sweetened condensed milk 

 in its normal state is too dense or too opaque for 

 examination by the higher powers of the micro.scope 

 necessary to observe any micro-organisms likely to 

 be present. Diluting with nine parts of distilled 

 water, a thinner film is available, and in the case of 

 bad milk it is then easy to see yeast cells (causing 

 milk to become " blown "), and other micro-organ- 

 isms if any are present. 



Linnean Society, November 29. — Dr. A. B. Rendle, 

 president, in the cliair. — C. C. Lacaita : The Onosmas 

 nf I.inn.Tus and Sibthorp, with a note on those of 



