November 29, 19 17] 



NATURE 



549 



five, though the fact may be known to few, not only 

 in mineral wealth, but also in agricultural possibilities, 

 and must in the near future, when central and trans- 

 African railways are constructed, become a field of vast 

 undertakings, of thriving native industries, and per- 

 haps the world's chief source of raw materials." What 

 he would have in order to hasten the utilisation of these 

 resources is, first, a central institution in London 

 which, according to his ideas, would be merely a fuller 

 levelopment of the Imperial Institute on the lines of 

 :he Hamburg Colonial Institute, of which he gives an 

 iccount, and, secondly, Colonial sub-centres which the 

 . hief centre would supply with abstracts of the volu- 

 minous information already collected. " It should be 

 >>bvious that where the information and training are 

 most useful is at the source of the raw material." For 

 this idea also he acknowledges German origin, refer- 

 ring to his own experience at the fine botanical gardens 

 ind laboratories at Victoria, in the German Cameroon 

 rolony. All this seems well worthy of considera;tion, 

 hut we would add one suggestion, that the information 

 ihus collected and distributed should include, so far as 

 possible, estimates of the cost of production of the 

 Colonial commodities, ex,pressed not merely in money, 

 but also in amount of labour employed. Production 

 ))er head is an even more important rubric than pro- 

 duction per acre. 



The inaugural address on "Science and its Func- 

 tions," delivered by the chairman, Mr. A. h. Campbell 

 Swinton, at the Royal Society of Arts, on November 21, 

 contained an appreciative reference to the work of Sir 

 Henry Trueman Wood, who recently resigned the 

 post of secretary of the society' held by him for thirty- 

 eight years. Mr. G. K. Menzies, who has been Sir 

 Henry's assistant for the past nine years, succeeds him 

 as secretary. The chairman then reviewed the pro- 

 gress of science in the past, showing that the most 

 primitive peoples had applied a knowledge of natural 

 laws in an elementary way in fashioning their weapons 

 and implements. Later, in the kingdoms of Babylon, 

 Assyria, and Egypt, and later in Greece, various 

 .sciences were studied, and the lecturer mentioned in- 

 stances of their application to practical problems. 

 Turning to more recent periods, he contrasted the con- 

 dition of this country in 1754, the year in which the 

 society was formed, with those prevailing to-day. The 

 society was older than many familiar discoveries and 

 inventions. Dealing with the problem of scientific 

 education, Mr. Campbell Swinton pointed out that 

 many of the greatest discoveries and inventions had 

 been made in the* past by men with little formal 

 scientific training, and in fields quite outside their 

 ordinary vocations. Thus James Watt was a maker 

 of mathematical instruments, George Stephenson 

 a colliery fireman, Arkwright a barber. Edison 

 began life as a railway porter. Cavendish, 

 Boyle, Sir William Herschel, and other great 

 workers in the field of pure science might be 

 described as gifted amateurs. No rigid distinction 

 could be drawn between pure and applied science. 

 Wireless telegraphy afforded a good instance of purely 

 theoretical work leading to unforeseen vast practical 

 results, and the same would doubtless apply to recent 

 researches in molecular physics. Finally, the lecturer 

 pointed out that the acquisition of wealth was not 

 necessarily a disservice to humanity. Inventors and 

 men of science by their discoveries created wealth, and 

 in general received but a small fraction of the riches 

 which their efforts conferred on the community. 



In the November issue of Man Mr. Harold Peak 

 describes a figure recently acquired by the Borough of 

 Newbury Museum. It is said to have been discovered 

 at Silchester, and it has all the appearance of being 



NO. 2509, VOL. 100] 



contemporary with the Romano-British town of Cal- 

 leva. It is of dark bronze, 12 cm. in height, and 

 represents a male deity or Lar, standing erect, with 

 the head surmounted by a sun with twelve rays. The 

 right hand holds three ears of some grain, probably 

 wheat, while the left, which is raised to the level of 

 the shoulder, but with the elbow flexed, is bearing 

 what seems to be a crescent moon attached to a handle. 

 In the centre of the crescent is a small figure with two 

 faces, the head surmounted by what appears to be a 

 pair of short horns. 



Mr. N. W. Thomas, in the November issue of Man, 

 excusing the brevity of the account of secret socie- 

 ties in West Africa, published in his recent report, 

 remarks that he was about to be initiated into the 

 Poro Society, which is by no means banned by the 

 Government, and carries on its rites with as little 

 secrecy as a Masonic lodge, had he not been prevented 

 by an order issued by a subordinate official to the chief 

 forbidding him to allow Mr. Thomas to go near Poro, 

 Bundu, or any other sacred bush. This case, now 

 brought to the' notice of the local Government, should 

 lead to the reconsideration of such orders, which throw 

 difficulties in the way of ethnographical investigations 

 carried on by the official ethnologist. 



Mr. H. Ling Roth has issued in the second series 

 of Bankfield Museum Notes, No. g, the second part 

 of his " Studies in Primitive Looms," this instalment 

 being devoted to those of Africa. He finds' no fewer 

 than seven forms of loom in use in the continent : 

 the vertical mat loom, the horizontal fixed heddle loom, 

 the vertical cotton loom, the horizontal narrow band 

 treadle loom, the pit treadle loom, the Mediterranean 

 or Asiatic treadle loom, and the Carton loom. These 

 forms are easily distinguishable, and occupy distinct 

 areas, although in parts they overlap considerably. 

 The most primitive of all the forms, the vertical mat 

 loom, has a wide distribution, extending fr<jm the 

 west coasit to the east of the Great Congo Basin. The 

 paper is lavishly illustrated by excellent sketches, and 

 forms a valuable contribution to the study of the 

 history of primitive weaving. 



In a paper in the Geographical Journal for Novem- 

 ber (vol. 1., No. 5) Miss Newbigin discusses the rela- 

 tionships between race and nationality. After point- 

 ing out that the physical differentiae of race, at least 

 as they occur in the sub-races of Europe, are of little 

 importance under modern conditions, Miss Newbigin 

 maintains that man's power of adaptive response to 

 his- environment is incompatible with the view that 

 the practice of a peculiar mode of life endows him 

 with certain fixed characteristics, such as are cited 

 by many writers as racial characteristics. Nationality 

 is not permanent and unalterable. What makes a 

 nation, according to the author's argument, is not 

 only race, or religion, language, history, or tradi- 

 tion, but, partially at least, community of economic 

 interests dependent upon geographic factors. One of 

 the most important of these factors is the existence 

 of an area capable of supporting a large population 

 surrounded by one which becomes progressively less 

 fitted to support such a population. Among nation- 

 making factors she emphasises the existence side by 

 side, within the belt favourable to population, of the 

 most fertile lands, of those best fitted to form segts of 

 industries, and of great nodal points focussing internal 

 and external lines of communication. 



In May, 1903, Dr. C. Gorini, writing in the Rendi- 

 conti del R. Istituto Lomhardo (vol. xxxvi., p. 601), 

 directed attention to the property possessed by the 

 bacillus of typhus and certain other bacteria of climb- 

 ing up the surface of the agar used for the culture. 



