82 



NATURE 



[March i8, 1920 



In 1756 a book on the subject was published at Wor- 

 cester by Richard Lovett, a lay clerk at the cathedral, 

 in which he records the treatment of a number of 

 diseases with electricity. In 1780 John Wesley, the 

 great divine, anonymously published a book entitled 

 "The Desideratum; or, Electricity made Plain and 

 Useful." In this he appeals to the medical profession 

 for a trial of the curative effects of electricity, and 

 records many alleged cures. 



We have received the first number of a new British 

 journal devoted to pathology, entitled the British 

 Journal of Experimental Pathology. It is published 

 bi-monthly under the editorship of a board of editors 

 by Messrs. H. K. Lewis and Co., the annual sub- 

 scription, post free, being 2I. The journal has been 

 founded for the publication of original communica- 

 tions describing the technique and results of experi- 

 mental researches into the causation, diagnosis, and 

 cure of disease in man. Among the contributors to 

 this first number are Prof. Bayliss (" Is Haemolysed 

 Blood Toxic?"), Dr. Craijier ("On Sympathetic 

 Fiever and Hyperpyrexial Heat-stroke"), Prof. 

 Mcintosh and Mr. Smart (" Determination of the 

 Reaction of Culture Media"), and Mr. Fildes ("Sero- 

 logical Classification of Meningococci "). The journal 

 is well produced, and will, we believe, fill a lacuna 

 in the means of publication of research work at the 

 disposal of British pathologists. 



Mr. W. L. George, who gave evidence before the 

 National Birth-rate Commission, has contributed to 

 the Fortnightly Review for March a summary of the 

 arguments he presented to that body, which does not 

 appear yet to have arrived at a conclusion upon them. 

 The line he takes is that a high birth-rate corresponds 

 with a low degree of education, a low level of com- 

 fort, and poor foreign trade. He views, therefore, with 

 calmness, and, indeed, with satisfaction, the recent 

 decline in the birth-rate, and would take active steps 

 in that direction by promoting the understanding of 

 contraceptives and other preventive measures. 

 Whether this could be done without leading to grave 

 evils may be doubted. x'Xt any rate, Mr. George is 

 justified in opposing proposals tending in the other 

 ditfection, such as those for the endowment of mother- 

 hood, which would have the effect of encouraging im- 

 prudent marriages or illicit connections, and, as they 

 involve an expenditure that he sees is financially 

 impossible, must fall to the ground. He would have 

 us base our quest for national prosperity on good 

 births rather than on more births, on quality rather 

 than on quantity. Like all difficulties that arise out 

 of the passions and the instincts of mankind, the 

 problem is soluble only by an appeal to reason and by 

 a gradual education of the will in men and women. 

 It should be noted that large families have given to 

 the community many valuable members. 



A SUPPORTING expedition for Roald Amundsen's 

 trans-polar voyage has been organised by the Nor- 

 w/egian State. Some details from Scandinavian 

 sources are published in La Geographie (vol. xxxiii., 

 No. i). The expedition which reached Greenland last 

 summer is in charge of Lieut. G. Hansen, a Danish 

 naval officer who accompanied Amundsen in the 

 NO. 2629, VOL. 105] 



voyage of the Gjoa in 1903-5. Lieut. Hansen is now 

 wintering at Etah, in about 78° 15' N. This month 

 he hopes to leave with a dozen sledges for Cape 

 Colombia, the most northerly point of Grant Land, 

 in 83° N. Stores and provisions for a year will be 

 taken. Amundsen, who proposes to leave his ship, 

 the Maud, at the most northerly attainment of its 

 drift, is expected to make for Cape Colombia, and 

 may arrive there in March, 192 1. 



At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Societv 

 on March 8, a paper was read by Miss E. M. Ward 

 on "The Evolution of the Hastings Coast-line." We 

 can scarcely agree that the Wealden dome stretches 

 from Beachy Head to the North Foreland, as it does 

 not extend beyond the Warren at Folkestone, where 

 the chalk of the North Downs comes down to the 

 sea, or that the North Foreland is in the Channel, 

 as we might be led to believe. It may be pointed out 

 that the eastward-flowing drift of flint beach is general 

 on the South Coast, and that this has resulted in 

 most of the southern-flowing rivers being turned to the 

 east, whilst forming a spit of beach on the seaward 

 side of the stream, this being the result of the con- 

 flict between the eastward-flowing tide and the south- 

 ward-flowing stream. As the streams lost their 

 velocity and carrying power they deposited their silt, 

 and finally the conflict between sea and mud ended 

 in the victory of the former, when the sea made 

 its bold attack on the land, which is still going on, 

 and against which engineers are fighting. The exist- 

 ence and continued growth of Dungeness have never 

 yet been satisfa'ctorily accounted for, but there is 

 some reason to believe that the destruction of the 

 Hastings headland let loose vast quantities of beach 

 which had accumulated on its western side, and that 

 this gave rise to the various low terraces still to be 

 observed on the west side of the Ness. Miss Ward 

 finds it difficult to believe that at Hastings there was 

 a promontory in Neolithic times even so much as 

 seven miles in length, but it is fairly generally be- 

 lieved that the passage between England and France 

 was comparatively narrow in those times, and 

 Prof. Boyd Dawkins even suggested that Neolithic 

 man came across on dry land. 



In the Proceedings of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences (vol. Iv., December, 1919), Messrs. 

 George F. McEwen and Ellis L. Michael deal with 

 the functional relation of one variable to each of a 

 number of correlated variables when the representa- 

 tion by linear regression is unsatisfactory. The basal 

 idea is to assume that the dependent variable may 

 be represented by a sum of functions of the indepen- 

 dent variables, and to determine these functions by 

 dissection of the material into a series of groups 

 If, for instance, a variable w is to be expressed in 

 terms of x, y, and 2, a series of groups of {w. x), 

 {w, y), and (w, z) are formed; a first approximation 

 to the relation between w and x is obtained by taking 

 the averages of the (w, rv) groups; corrections are 

 then derived from the averages of the (w, y) and 

 (w, s) groups ; from the second approximations third 

 approximations are derived, convergence being ob- 



