NA TURE 



765 



I 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



The Genesis of the World 765 



Textile Research Fellowships 766 



A Manual of Tides. 15y Dr. A. T. Doodson . 767 



Electrothermic Processes in J^teel Manufacture . 768 



Physiolog-y of the Growing Plant .... 769 



Life among- the Sema Nagas 769 



More Books on Relativity. By E. Cunningham . 770 

 Principles of Spectacle Design. By Dr. James Weir 



French 772 



Our Bookshelf 772 



Letters to the Editor :— 



Geolog}^ and the Nebular Theory. —Prof. A. P. 



Coleman, F.R.S 775 



Species and Adaptations.— Dr. J. T. Cunningham 775 

 Evolutionary Faith and Modern Doubts. — C. R. 



Crowther 777 



Transcription of Russian Names. — J. G. F. Druce 777 

 Immediate Solution of Dynamical Problems. — Sir 



George Greenhill, F.R.S 778 



Arabic Chemistry.— E. J. Holmyard . . . 778 



The Notion of Asymmetry. — Thomas Iredale . 779 

 The Evolution of Plumage. — Prof. J. C. Ewart, 



F.R.S. ; H. F. G 779 



The Atomic Weight of Mercury from Different 



Sources. — Prof. J. N. Brbnsted ; Dr. G. Hevesy 780 



The English Ph.D.— Prof. E. W. Scripture . . 780 



Identification of a Missing Element. By E. R. . 781 

 Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. By Col. William 



Hawley, F.S.A 781 



The Sense of Smell in Birds : a Debated Question 783 

 The Hull Meeting of the British Association. By 



T.s : 784 



Obituary :— 



Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S. By Dr. A. C. 



Haddon, F.R.S 786 



Dr. William Carruthers, F.R.S. By A. B. R. . 787 



Adolphus Collenette 788 



Current Topics and Events 788 



Our Astronomical Column 791 



Research Items 792 



Iron Ore in Europe. By Prof. J .W. Gregory, F.R.S. 794 



The Photographic Plate. By C. J 795 



Agricultural Research at Aberystwyth . . 795 



The Royal Observatory, Greenwich .... 796 



The Carnegie Trust and Scientific Research . 797 



University and Educational Intelligence . . 797 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers 798 



Societies and Academies ... . 799 



Official Publications Received 800 



Diary of Societies 800 



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NO. 2746, VOL. 109] 



The Genesis of the World. 



»' "i T THENCE sprang this world, and whether framed 

 VV By hand divine or no— " 



are questions that have fascinated and perplexed the 

 greatest thinkers of every age, or at least since man 

 reached such a level of intellectual evolution that he 

 could speculate about them. If we may reason 

 from our knowledge of the mentality of the lowest 

 grades of humanity as we know them to-day, it is 

 reasonably certain that man must have existed on the 

 earth for aeons before he attained to a degree of mental 

 development that would enable him to give the slightest 

 consideration to such matters. Anthropologists tell us 

 that even in this twentieth century there are races of 

 men; situated in remote and widely separated regions 

 of the world, who have never framed, and, so far as can 

 be discovered, have never attempted to frame, any con- 

 ception or surmise concerning its origin. And yet 

 these races are as far removed in development from the 

 prehistoric man as the prehistoric man was from the 

 ape. 



It is nevertheless true that thousands of years before 

 the beginning of our era there were some whose mental 

 powers enabled them to ponder upon the problem, and 

 to attempt to form the beginnings of a theory of 

 creation which should in some measure satisfy their 

 curiosity and reasoning faculty. But these people 

 existed comparatively late in the history of mankind, 

 and still later in the history of the world. We are apt 

 to think that the legends of Brahma, the spirit who 

 created by his will and the mere exercise of thought the 

 primeval water, the primordial element out of which 

 the world was fashioned, date from the remotest periods 

 of antiquity. This is not so, as we now reckon the age 

 of the world, or the time that man has existed upon it. 



It is far from our present purpose to attempt to 

 trace, however slightly, the broad outlines of the growth 

 of knowledge and speculation concerning the genesis 

 of the world — from the myths of primitive races down 

 to our times, when the great enigma is being attacked 

 by modem methods of research and in the light of con- 

 temporary science. The subject is too vast to be 

 handled within the narrow confines of an article such 

 as this. But it may be worth noting how characteristic 

 is the difference between the modern methods and the 

 old. The earhest cosmogonies were based upon con- 

 ceptions which were really incompatible with the ex- 

 periences of those who framed them. These concep- 

 tions must have been repugnant to the intelligence of 

 all who were alive to the teachings of natural pheno- 

 mena, or refused to blind their reason at the behests of 

 the priests by whom the myths were devised. In one 

 respect the speculations, or at least some of them, may 

 be said to be so far scientific in that they contain the 



