ii6 



NATURE 



[March 24, 192 1 



-nnniversary dinner was held at the Hotel Cecil the 

 same evening, and was attended by more than two 

 Tiundred fellows and guests. Sir James J. Dobbie was 

 In the chair. Of the five jubilee past-presidents whom 

 the council desired to entertain as guests of honour 

 'Only Sir James Dewar and Sir William Tilden w-ere 

 nble to be present. After the loyal toasts had been 

 lionoured Sir Alfred Mond gave the toast of "The 

 Chemical Society," to which the president replied. 

 The toast of "The Past-Presidents " was proposed 

 by Prof. Harold B. Dixon, and response made by Sir 

 James Dewar and Sir William A. Tilden ; whilst Prof. 

 C Moureu (vice-president of the French Chemical 

 Society), the Hon. Mr. Justice .Sargant, and Prof. 

 C. S. Sherrington (president of the Royal Society) 

 replied to the toast of "The Guests," proposed by 

 Prof. F. G. Donnan. 



An Appointments Committee for Russian Scientific 

 and Literary Men has been formed under the chair- 

 manship of Sir Arthur .Schuster, among other members 

 being Lord Bryce, Sir Frederic Kenyon, and Prof. 

 Sherrington, president of the Royal Society. Numbers 

 ■of distinguished Russian scholars, man}' of whom are 

 destitute, while others are engaged in work for which 

 they are unfitted, are scattered over European coun- 

 tries. It is the object of the committee to bring the 

 names and qualifications of these men to the notice 

 ■of universities and other institutions which may be 

 able to offer them suitable employment. A list of 

 n.imes of those at present known to the committee has 

 teen received, and in it we notice the following : — 

 Assistant-Prof. Vladimir IssaiefT, technical chemistry 

 {sugar and fermentation industries) ; Prof. Anatole 

 Poppen, ophthalmology (specialist in trachoma) ; Prof. 

 Lazar Rosenthal, bacteriology; Prof. Vadim Yurevich, 

 ■bacteriology and infectious diseases ; Assistant-Prof. 

 Jacob Khlitchieff, naval engineering and shipbuild- 

 ing ; Assistant-Prof. Nicholas Znamensky, applied 

 mechanics ; Dr. Leonid Dubitzky, hygiene ; Dr. 

 Nicholas Hans, philosophy and psychology ; Dr. Boris 

 Perrot, hygiene and tuberculosis ; Dr. Serge Cha- 

 l<hotin, zoology and physiology; Dr. Ernest Ferman, 

 Tiygiene ; and Dr. Boris SokolofT, protozoology. The 

 hon. secretary to the committee is Dr. C. J. Martin, 

 Director, Lister Institute, London, S.W.i, and he 

 will be glad to forward particulars of the careers of 

 the men whose names are given above, or copies of 

 the circular letter inviting anyone who knows of 

 spheres of work in which they could be engaged to 

 ■communicate with him. Opportunities for providing 

 these stranded scientific workers with positions where 

 their knowledge and experience could be usefully em- 

 ployed must arise from time to time in university and 

 other institutions, and any assistance in bringing 

 mformation of such possible openings to the notice of 

 the committee would be gratefully welcomed. 



Among many savage or barbaric races the belief in 

 the dangers which occur in the course of house- 

 iDuilding is widely felt. A good account of this is 

 ijiven in a paper by Dr. G. Landtman in Acta Aca- 

 demiae Aboensis, part i., in relation to the Papuan 

 Kiwai tribe, inhabiting the district at the mouth of 

 NO. 2682, VOL. 107] 



the Fly River in British New Guinea. At present 

 the people can give no exact explanation of the 

 Darimo, or protective figures of the house. They do 

 not seem to represent any definite being or beings. 

 "The gloomy aspect of the figures and the uncanny, 

 if indistinct, ideas associated with them exercise in 

 themselves a powerful effect upon the native mind 

 without any exact interpretation being required. It 

 is enough for the people that the weird forms are 

 possessed of mysterious properties, partly their own 

 and partly those of the medicines applied to them." 



The study of the aborigines of Tasmania will be 

 much advanced by the publication of a descriptive 

 catalogue, prepared by Messrs. W. L. Crowther and 

 C. E. Lord, of the osteological specimens contained 

 in the Tasmanian Museum. The list forms a record 

 of the largest single collection extant of osteological 

 remains of the extinct Tasmanian aboriginal race. It 

 embraces also specimens concerning which data are 

 being gathered for publication, while additional par- 

 ticulars have been added to specimens already in part 

 described. With the exception of the researches of 

 Harper and Clarke, and later of Berry and Robert- 

 son, on certain of the crania contained in this list, 

 none of the specimens have been described. Even 

 the complete skeleton of Trucanini, the last of his 

 race, remains to be measured and the indices to be 

 tabulated. Some further specimens in private hands 

 have been traced, and anthropologists will await with 

 interest the completed results of the investigation. 



In an interesting review (Joiirtml of Genetics, 

 vol. x.. No. 4) of the sex-ratios and the various ways 

 in which they have been modified in animals and 

 plants, Mr. Julian S. Huxley discusses the relations 

 of modified sex-ratios to the sex-chromosomes, and 

 adopts the probable hypothesis that in many such 

 cases the normal effect of the presence of one or two 

 X-chromosomes has been overridden by a metabolic 

 effect of some environmental factor. This factor may 

 be delayed fertilisation (producing in frogs chiefly 

 males, and also altering the sex-ratio in cattle), attack 

 of the anthers by a smut in the plant Lychnis dioica 

 causing the partial transformation of male plants into 

 hermaphrodites, development of females from male 

 crabs by parasitic castration, and in cattle the partial 

 alteration of a female into a male when twinned with 

 a male owing to the circulation in the blood of sub- 

 stances derived from the male embryo (Lillie). In all 

 such cases the normal effect of the chromosome com- 

 plex in development has been modified probably by the 

 metabolic influence of substances not present in 

 normal conditions. A similar interpretation is applied 

 to the experiments of Goldschmidt and of Harrison 

 with moths and of Riddle with pigeons. It is pointed 

 out that aberrant sex-ratios may result from differen- 

 tial fertilisation, differential mortality of gametes or 

 zygotes, or the overriding of the chromosome constitu- 

 tion by such external factors as those mentioned. This 

 view is applied to an explanation of a case in the 

 "millions fish" (Girardiniis poeciloides), where there 

 was first a great preponderance of males, then a lesser 

 preponderance of females, and finally equality in the 

 numbers of the sexes., 



