June 2, 1921] 



NATURE 



419 



uniformity in the weights and measures used in 

 the sale of corn and other crops, the Corn Sales 

 Bill is now being considered by a Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons ; but as 

 the standard proposed is one of 112 lb., 

 while the whole of the futures market is 

 based on the decimal system, the Bill can be 

 nothing more than a makeshift measure. In the 

 textile industries, from which comes the chief 

 opposition to the use of metric measures, the 

 standards of measurement vary greatly in dif- 

 ferent centres, and there is no common relation- 

 ship between them. British and American 

 measures with the same denomination, such as 

 the pound, yard, gallon, and bushel, also differ 

 in quantity in the two countries. The advantages 

 of a uniform system — a common language — from 

 the point of view of world service are obvious, 

 and the jealous attitude of conservative corpora- 

 tions towards it represents, not the spirit of pro- 

 gress, but rather that of obscurantism. 



The fact that local and trade usage sanctions 

 such a variety of weights and measures as that 

 now existing in this country and in the United 

 States is in itself sufficient to justify a movement 

 towards reasonable uniformity. There is an official 

 British system of weights and measures, but when 

 trade transactions are concerned its standards are 

 often varied to suit industrial convenience or local 

 custom. A proposal that the British standards 

 should be made compulsory in all transactions, 

 and that no departures from them should be re- 

 cognised, would evoke quite as much opposition 

 as is now offered by certain industries to the intro- 

 duction of the metric system. No one supposes 

 that by making the metric system compulsory 

 after a period of years the people as a whole 

 would think in terms of metric units. Local de- 

 nominations of fractions and multiples of such 

 units are commonly used in all countries where 

 the metric system has been adopted, but they do 

 not interfere in the slightest degree with the larger 

 transactions of trade and commerce. 



If the Government adopted the metric system as 

 the sole legal system in all its Departments, and 

 announced that '^ter a particular date all speci- 

 fications for its work would have to be expressed 

 in terms of that system, a great step would be 

 taken towards its general use. This course and 

 the publication of all official trade statistics In 

 metric terms would lead to similar action by 

 municipalities, railways, and other corporations, 

 and promote the voluntary adoption of metric 

 standards by the trading community generally. 

 NO. 2692, VOL. 107] 



Lamarckism Unashamed. 



Initiative in Evolution. By Dr. W. Kidd. 

 Pp. X -1-262. (London : H. F. and G. Witherby, 

 1920.) 155. net. 



FOR more than twenty years Dr. Walter Kidd 

 has interested himself in the arrangement 

 of the mammalian hair, and pondered over its 

 significance, especially in relation to theories of 

 evolution. He has shown that definite patterns 

 due to the diverse lie of the hair are of common 

 occurrence, that they are subject to change, and 

 that they are hypothetically interpretable on Neo- 

 Lamarckian lines. Whether one agrees with his 

 interpretations or not, one must thank him for a 

 very enjoyable book, written with whimsical 

 humour and with a delightful urbanity in con- 

 troversy. One admires also the candour with 

 which Dr. Kidd states and seeks to dispose of 

 some serious criticisms brought against his posi- 

 tion as expressed in previous books. 



A study of the lie of the hair on a cow shows 

 great definiteness ; thus it slopes first backwards 

 and then forwards on the neck; behind a whorl 

 over the shoulders it slopes backwards again ; 

 along the middle line of the upper part of the tail 

 there is a streak of hairs at right angles. 



" Arrangements of its hair so audacious as 

 these need explanation, and it is found in the mode 

 of life of the cow. So large a part of its daily life 

 is spent in the business of grazing with her muzzle 

 close to the ground, during which the neck of the 

 animal is constantly stretched downwards from 

 the back at the level of the shoulders, that the 

 skin, which is very loose in this and most other 

 portions of its body, is dragged upon to allow of 

 the extreme flexion of its neck. This traction is 

 for all this time acting against the normal or back- 

 ward slope of the hairs, and has given rise to this 

 victory of a new force through a thousand genera- 

 tions. It is equally clear that a mechanical ex- 

 planation of the line of erect hairs on the first 

 nine or twelve inches of the tail is forthcoming, 

 for one has only to watch a cow standing on a 

 hot day, undergoing her torment of flies, to see it 

 writ large. ... It is hardly necessary to point 

 out how the underlying muscles would drag upon 

 the skin of the tail over them and gradually 

 reverse more or less the ' lie ' of the hairs." 



Similar interpretations, often very ingenious, 

 abound in the pages of Dr. Kidd's book. There is 

 an unusual pattern of hairs on man's back; it is 

 to be correlated with his ancestors' habit of sitting 

 with their backs against the side of the cave, or 

 sleeping with their heads raised on some sort of 

 pillow. From between the eyes of a cat the hair 

 on the broad snout slopes downwards, but on a 

 dog's snout it slopes upwards; this is put down 

 to the fact that the dog rubs his head on the 



