October 27, 192 1] 



NATURE 



271 



Letters to the Editor. 



|T/itf Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Biological Terminology. 



When one is appealed to by name throughout two 

 whole pages of Natlre (October 6) to answer various 

 questions, it would be churlish to give no replv. 

 Bur, now the holidays are over. Sir Archdall Reid 

 must forgive me if I do not take up all his points. 

 It is the more easy to escape gracefully, because one 

 can refer him to the clear and thoughtful address 

 of Prof. Goodrich to Section D of the British Asso- 

 ciation, which seems to put in more acceptable form 

 the ideas that Sir Archdall is struggling to impress 

 on us. 



To confine myself to the sentence, "Variation is 

 the sole cause of non-inheritance, etc.", Sir Archdall 

 Reid accepts my description of it as an identical 

 proposition, and admits that the words "the sole 

 cause of" are redundant. The second part of his 

 sentence I represent by -'etc.," because I agree with 

 him that it means the same as the first part. If 

 Sir Archdall Reid asserts that these statements are 

 also the same in meaning as the sentence, "apart 

 from variations, offspring tend to recapitulate the 

 parental development." we must accept his inter- 

 pretation, merely pointing out that it has no great 

 bearing on the alleged phenomenon usuallv known as 

 recapMtulation. 



These matters being agreed on, I would ask what 

 is gained by this laborious insistence on the state- 

 ment that "variation" and "non-inheritance" are 

 two words for the same thing? Surelv the problem 

 before us remains the old one : What is the cause of 

 variation? In this question the words "the cause 

 of " are not redundant. Suppose we accept the 

 whole Mendelian apparatus of separate factors and 

 regard each as a minute portion of a chromosome, 

 admitting all the mechanism of their transmission as 

 worked out bv T. H. Morgan and his school, we 

 have still to ascertain whv and how one or more of 

 these units should change. Is the change aTwavs 

 sudden, and only the representation in the characters 

 apparently gradual? Or mav the change of the unit 

 Itself be gradual? Is the change produced solelv bv 

 some action in the germ-cells, or mav it be the result 

 of a modification in the parental bodv? If the latter 

 alternative be proved, can we explain the further 

 apparent fact that the change in the factor or factors 

 induces a change of character harmonising with the 

 environmental modification ? 



These are a few of the questions that assail us, 

 and I have tried to express them without using anv 

 of the terms to which Sir Archdall Reid objects. It 

 i> hopeless to answer them by speculation alone ; wp 

 lust learn how the mechanism works. Sir Archdall 

 Reid is right in emphasising the need for crucial 

 exoeriments. but, so far as I can see, mv biological 

 colleagues do not need the lesson. What we a'l 

 should like would be some suggestions of practicable 

 experiments or observations that would decide some 

 of the questions exemplified above. Biit that, even 

 Sir Archdall Reid must admit, would be something 

 other than "biological terminology." 



F. A. Bather. 

 U imbledon, October i6. 



NO. 2713, VOL. I08I 



Indian Land Mollusca. 



In an undated letter, without address, published in 

 Nature of October 6, p. 180, under the title " Indian 

 Land Mollusca," Dr. Annandale states that he wrote 

 offering the loan of the material of the Indian 

 Museum to help in the preparation of Mr. Gude's 

 work on these molluscs. This is the first intima- 

 tion that the author or the publisher or the editor of 

 this volume has had of the offer. Dr. Annandale 

 states definitely that the " offer was ignored or 

 refused." It is impossible to ignore or refuse an 

 offer which never arrived. 



It is also impossible to make those who stayed at 

 their work in India during the four years of the war 

 realise the difficulties and straits under which we in 

 Europe were living. Had Dr. .Annandale been nearer 

 the seat of the war he might, perhaps, have realised 

 that a ver\- large number of ships coming from India 

 were sunk in the Mediterranean by submarines. It 

 is not unlikely that the offer is still lying at the 

 bottom of the sea in the hold of some sunken vessel. 



A. E. Shipley. 



Christ's College Lodge, Cambridge, 

 October i;. 



Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921. 



Prof. .Armstrong's letter in Nature of October 24 

 conveys the impression that he has become suddenlv 

 aware of the potentialities for evil of the above Act 

 in its present form. Protests have, however, appeared 

 in the Press over the signatures of Sir Clifford 

 Allbutt, Sir Ernest Rutherford, and Sir G. Sims 

 Woodhead ; and in the House of Commons Major 

 Barnes and Mr. F. D. Acland attempted to have in- 

 serted in all applicable clauses exemptions for articles 

 required for scientific research. In this action Major 

 Barnes and Mr. Acland were guided by the expressed 

 wishes of the National L'nion of Scientific Workers, 

 which has also fought the clauses of the Dyestuffs 

 (Import Regulation) Act, 1920, and the German 

 Reparation (Recover)) Act, 192 1, which penalised re- 

 search in this country. 



We agree that if we believe in our craft we must 

 be militant in its protection, though we are not sure 

 that scientific workers would get much shrift if thev 

 adopted the policy Prof. Armstrong advocates. We 

 agree that as an expedient in the present state of the 

 English Constitution a strongly worded and unani- 

 mously supported memorial to' the Prime Minister 

 might throw into welcome relief the unhappy plight 

 of science, and we therefore invite Prof. Armstrong, 

 and those in agreement with him, to support this 

 union and the British Association of Chemists, the 

 bodies which have taken the initiative in directing 

 the attention of Parliament to the disastrous effect 

 that the above measures will have on research unless 

 they are speedily modified. They might help us also 

 to back up Major Barnes in his efforts to get the 

 promised committee for the investigation of com- 

 plaints against the working of the Act appointed with- 

 out further delay. 



We suggest that Prof. Armstrong should add to his 

 motion before the council of the Chemical Societv the 

 recommendation that that body should lend us their 

 aid. 



L. Bairstow, 



President. 

 A. G. Church, 



Secretary 



National Union of Scientific Workers, 

 25 Victoria Street, Westminster, 

 London S.W.i, October 25. 



