October 22, 19 14] 



NATURE 



1 1 



discussions, bearing as they did largely on Australian 

 problems which are concerned with the most primitive 

 of existing human types, were throughout directed to 

 fundamentals. Needless to say, the shadow of the 

 great war raging in Europe cast a chill over the spirits 

 of all concerned, and it needed a certain moral effort 

 to carr\^ through a programme in which, at least as 

 originally designed, business and pleasure claimed 

 equal shares. As it was, the inclmation of the balance 

 towards the side of seriousness was not without its 

 advantage for those students who found the allotted 

 time all too short to enable them to cope with Aus- 

 tralia's magnificent ethnological collections. These 

 must be seen before one is in a position to assign to 

 Australian culture its true place in the evolutionar\- 

 scale. 



In Western Australia certain anthropologists of the 

 advance party got into touch with aboriginals, and 

 again in South Australia Prof. Stirling organised a 

 most successful expedition of the whole section to 

 Milang, where a large group of the Narrinyeri tribe 

 were on view, so that everyone was presently hard at 

 work, spurred on by the discovery that, even if de- 

 generation has gone far, there still exists plenty of 

 valuable lore to be garnered. It must be added that 

 in the Adelaide Museum Prof. Stirling has amassed 

 wealth untold in the way of ethnological material, 

 special value attaching to the spoils from the central 

 deserts, illustrative as they are of the life of the now 

 famous Arunta and their congeners. At Adelaide, 

 too. Prof. SoUas gave an evening lecture on prehistoric 

 man, which delighted his large audience. 



Formal proceedings opened at Melbourne on Friday, 

 August 14, Prof. G. Elliot Smith leading off with a 

 remarkable comparison of certain customs and inven- 

 tions of the ancient Egyptians with those of primi- 

 tive peoples of the Far East, the full^rtfvelopment of 

 his argument being unfortunately somewhat hampered 

 by want of time. After Dr. A. Low had described 

 the finding of certain curious cists of the Bronze age 

 in the north-east of Scotland, the section adjourned 

 to the museum. Here, first of all, Messrs. A. S. 

 Kenyon and D. J. Mahony exhibited and explained a 

 very rich series of aboriginal stone implements, ex- 

 tending from the well-polished adze at one end of the 

 scale to the roughest Palaeolithic and even Eolithic 

 types at the other. Then Prof. Baldwin Spencer 

 showed all manner of specimens of native handiwork, 

 including a remarkable series of drawings on bark 

 from the Alligator River, Northern Territory. 



On Tuesday, August i8, Mr. Balfour gave forth the 

 results of his investigations into the remains of an 

 early Stone age in South Africa. He was followed by 

 Dr. Marett, who, as chairman of the committee that 

 has undertaken the recent excavation of a Mousterian 

 cave habitation in Jersey, was able to report a rich 

 harvest of discoveries. Prof. G. Elliot Smith and 

 Prof. J. Symington then engaged in a discussion, 

 scarcely less impassioned than it was profound, con- 

 cerning the possibilit}' of deducing the shape of the 

 human brain from that of the inner surface of the 

 cranial wall, with special reference to the primitive 

 characters that have been attributed on these grounds 

 to the Piltdown skull. Major A. J. N. Tremearne, who 

 was returning next day to Europe on militan,- duty, 

 wound up the morning with a well-illustrated account 

 of the Bori, or disease-spirit, ceremonies of certain 

 Hausa colonies in North Africa. In the afternoon 

 Prof. Felix von Luschan, of Berlin, delighted a large 

 audience with a discourse dealing with the question, 

 "Are we degenerate?" and embodying various more 

 or less startling proposals of a practical nature in the 

 interest of eugenics. 



On Wednesday, Augfust ig, the whole morning was 

 devoted to a debate, initiated by Dr. Rivers, on the 



NO. 2347, VOL. 94] 



subject, *' Is Australian Culture Simple or Complex? " 

 The section listened with the greatest interest to Dr. 

 Graebner, who holds strong views on this psrticular 

 topic, and the ball was kept rolling by Prof. Sollas, 

 Prof. Berrv, Prof, von Luschan, Prof. Haddon, Rev. 

 J. Mathew, Mr. Balfour, Mr. A. R. Brown, Dr. 

 Malinowski, Dr. Marett, and others. The discussion 

 as a whole was most profitable, though perhaps it 

 raised more problems than it solved. It remains to 

 add, in reference to proceedings in ^'icto^ia, that, be- 

 sides enjoying unlimited facilities for study at the 

 museum, and in Prof. Bern,'s well-equipped depart- 

 ment of anatomy, the anthropologists had the oppor- 

 tunity of visiting an aboriginal quarr)- at Fisherman's 

 Bend, near Melbourne, and, again, of making further 

 acquaintance with aboriginals, since the Colanderrk 

 station near Healesville provides types from several 

 parts of the continent, the older members of the native 

 community preserving considerable traces of their 

 former culture, as witness their corrobborree songs 

 which Prof, von Luschan was careful to record by 

 means of the phonograph. • 



Arrived at Sydney, the section on Friday, August 21, 

 was treated by Sir Everard im Thurn to a presidential 

 address which summed up in telling fashion his im- 

 pressions of the character of the so-called " savage " 

 in the shape of the primitive Fijian. He emphasised 

 " the enormous, scarcely conceivable difference in habit 

 of thought which separates the savage from the 

 civilised man," and showed on the strength of his 

 experience as an administrator that the process of 

 mutual adjustment, so far as it is possible at all, 

 must necessarily be slow, demanding, too, on our part 

 much patience, good will, and anthropological sciencie. 

 Dr. Ashby followed with an account of various 

 archaeological discoveries of his own at Malta. Then 

 a most sensational announcement was "" sprung " on 

 the meeting. It appears that, just about the time 

 that the pioneers of the British Association were 

 setting foot on Australian soil, a highlj- f>etrified skull 

 was found on the Darling Downs, Queensland, such 

 as may ver}- wellprove to be assignable to Pleistocene 

 times. Pleistocene nrian in Australia having hitherto 

 existed only in the sphere of pure hypothesis. Profs. 

 David and Wilson, who exhibited the specimen to the 

 much-moved section, were careful to state the case for 

 the attribution of a high antiquity to the specimen 

 with the greatest caution, the chief argument, pend- 

 ing a full study of the anatomical characters, resting 

 on the fact that the state of petrification which the 

 skull displays corresponds closely to that obsers'able 

 in regard to the remains of Diprotodon and other 

 extinct animals from the same district. The Rev. Dr 

 Greorge Brown then read extracts from an interesting 

 paper on Samoan folk-lore, which he has offered to 

 Folk-Lore for publication. 



On Tuesday, August 25, the morning session opened 

 with a discussion, led by Dr. Haddon, on the import- 

 ance of the study of anthropology for the adminis- 

 trator. The president lent the weight of his great 

 authority to the plea for a more thorough instruction 

 of those who are set over natives in the mental habits 

 and culture of their charges, and something was said 

 by other speakers of what is being done by some of 

 the British universities to provide an education in 

 anthropology, both theoretical and applied. Dr. Rivers 

 next spoke of gerontocracy in its bearing on marriage 

 in Australia, showing how the old men's tendency to 

 appropriate all available wives has in certain cases left 

 its mark on the permanent structure of society. Mr. 

 A. R. Brown followed with an account of the varieties 

 of totemism in Australia, his classification covering 

 several new types recently discovered by himself in 

 Northern Territory, or by Mrs. Bates in the Eucla 

 district. In the afternoon the section repaired to the 



