Nov. 14, 1889] 



NA TURE 



41 



Surely this is a very inadequate and even misleading state- 

 ment of the matter. It is surely inconceivable that a por- 

 tion of protoplasm should be affected in these diverse but 

 most definitely diverse ways by the environment of earth 

 and plant-tissues respectively. The radicle and plumule 

 are formed {e.g. in the bean) while still surrounded by the 

 tissues of the parent plant, but no radicle is formed in a 

 growth by gemmation. Even if in all cases a radicle was 

 formed, which radicle became largely developed under 

 the stimulus of earth-environment, it would be difficult to 

 understand why it should atrophy or metamorphose itself 

 within those very plant-tissues under the influence of 

 which it was itself first formed. 



Again, as regards the Begonia leaf, if it is such germ- 

 plasm as Prof. Weismann conceives of, which determines 

 the development of such a leaf into a plant, what can be sup- 

 posed to make it different from the germ-plasm of the seed ? 

 However complex may be the germ-plasm of Begonia, 

 it must be a definite complexity. The germ-plasm cannot 

 be simultaneously built up in two different ways. But a 

 molecular arrangement which compels growth from a 

 seed cannot possibly be the same as a molecular arrange- 

 ment which compels growth from a leaf. The initial 

 stages of the two processes are quite different. 



Certainly the influence of the environment is sometimes 

 very surprising ; but these surprising results hardly, at 

 least at first sight, seem to harmonize with Prof. Weis- 

 mann's views. Thus the effect of the movements of 

 the young of Cynips. newly hatched from an &g'g de- 

 posited in the tissues of a plant (p. 302), is to cause it to 

 produce a gall — a result " advantageous to the larva but 

 not to the plant." It causes " an active growth of cells " 

 around the larva, much to that larva's advantage. Now 

 surely it is too much to ask us to believe that the germ- 

 plasm of the plant, in the first instance, before even, say, 

 :i single Cynips had visited it, had in the complex collo- 

 cation of its molecules, an arrangement such as would 

 compel the plant which was to grow from it, to grow 

 these cells and form a gall as just mentioned.^ However 

 this may be, the production of the gall is certainly a 

 curious effect of the action of the environment on an 

 outgrowth from germ-plasm, conceived of as Prof. 

 Weismann conceives of it. 



But the question of the actual or possible influence of 

 the environment suggests some further difficulties which 

 can hardly fail to occur to any critical reader of what 

 Prof. Weismann says concerning the inheritance of 

 acquired characters. Although he absolutely denies that 

 changes induced in the soma by the action of the environ- 

 ment, can be transmitted to a succeeding generation, he 

 yet allows (p. 98) that the germ-plasm itself may be 

 modified through the action of the environment on the 

 soma increasing its nutrition, and such modifications, on 

 his hypothesis, would be inherited. But if it is true, as 

 stated, that oysters transported to the Mediterranean 

 become rapidly modified, that the Saturnia imported to 

 Switzerland from Texas become modified so as to trans- 

 mit new characters in one generation, and that cats in 

 Mombas, turkeys in India, and greyhounds in Mexico, 

 have also been modified, their modifications being trans- 

 missible, it is very difficult to understand how such 

 changed climatic conditions, or increased or diminished 

 nutrition, could change the molecular structure of the 

 germ-plasm in such a way as to compel the production in 

 a second generation of modifications either so induced in 

 the soma of ^the first, or of a nature appropriate to the 

 conditions presented by a changed environment. 



That the wild pansy does not change at once when 

 planted in garden soil, and yet in the course of genera- 



' It would be very interesting to know how |' natural selection " (to the 

 action of which, as everybody knows, Prof. Weismann constantly appeals) 

 could have caused this plant to perform actions which, if not self-sacrificing 

 (and there must be some expenditure of energy), are at least so disinterested. 

 No doubt the Professor has an hypothesis to produce, though he only says 

 (p. 302) here that " it would be out of place to discuss here the question." 



tions gains new characters which are propagated by seed^ 

 he explains (p. 433) by a modification of germ-plasm thus 

 induced. But such an admission is enough to satisfy 

 much of what is demanded by those who assert the 

 inheritance of acquired characters. After all, such an 

 inheritance must be due to the soma, since it is only 

 through it that the germ-plasm can be modified. 



If this effect on the germ-plasm itself is thus cumulative, 

 may it not be partly due to a cumulative effect on the 

 soma which transmits to the germ-plasm the actions which 

 modify the latter? Can this be declared to be abso- 

 lutely impossible ? Anyhow, it is plain that effects of the 

 environment on Polyplastides may be transmitted to suc- 

 ceeding generations. There are, however, still more 

 striking phenomena amongst mammals which do not 

 seem to accord with Prof. Weismann's theories. I refer 

 to the production of offspring which resemble not their 

 father, but the father of preceding offspring — as in the 

 well-known case of Lord Zetland's brood mare, and the 

 puppies of thoroughbred bitches which have once been 

 coupled with a mongrel. How can the germ-plasm of 

 the first father have been acquired by the offspring of a 

 subsequent father.'* I have ventured to propose these 

 questions, which must of course have occurred to many 

 other naturalists, feeling sure that Prof. Weismann will 

 be glad to have his attention drawn to a few points, a 

 further explanation of which seems necessary for the 

 acceptance of his most interesting hypotheses. 



September 2. St. George Mivart. 



NOTES. 



The Medals of the Royal Society have this year been awarded 

 as follows : — The Copley Medal to the Rev. Dr. Salmon, 

 F.R.S., for his various papers on subjects of pure mathematics, 

 and for the valuable mathematical treatises of which he is the 

 author; a Royal Medal to Dr. W. H. Gaskell, F.R.S., for his 

 researches inXcardiac physiology, and his important discoveries 

 in the anatomy and physiology of the sympathetic nervous 

 system; a Royal Medal to Prof. Thorpe, F.R.S., for his re- 

 searches on fluorine compounds, and his determination of the 

 atomic weights of titanium and gold ; and the Davy Medal to 

 Dr. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S., for his researches on magnetic rota- 

 tion in relation to chemical constitution. Intimation has been 

 received at the offices of the Royal Society that the Queen 

 approves the award of the Royal Medals. 



We regret to learn that another officer of the Geological 

 Survey of India has fallen a victim to the Indian climate. Mr. 

 E. J. Jones, who 'joined the Survey in 1883, died of dysentery 

 at Darjiling on October 15, at the age of thirty. Mr. Jones was 

 an Associate of the Royal School of Mines, and having also 

 studied chemistry at Zurich and Wilrzburg, he was a valuable 

 member of the Survey, to the publications of which he contri- 

 buted several geological and chemical papers. 



To add to the many obligations under which he has laid Cam- 

 bridge University, Prof. Sidgwick has offered to give ^C'S^o 

 towards the completion of the new buildings urgently required 

 for physiology, on condition that the work is undertaken forth- 

 with. The Financial Board has accordingly recommended a 

 scheme by which this can be effected. The alliance between 

 mental science and physiology which this gift represents is a 

 bright feature of Cambridge studies at present. 



The University of St. Andrews is to be congratulated on an 

 extraordinary piece of good fortune. The sum of ;^ioo,ooo has 

 been bequeathed to it by Mr. David Berry, who died last Sep- 

 tember. Mr. Berry was a native of Cupar, Fife, and in 1836 

 went to Australia, where he ultimately inherited the estate ot 

 his brother, Dr. Alexander Berry. The latter had been a 



