826 



NATURE 



[August 26, 1920 



-which an attempt was made to determine the changes 

 which take place in passing from one pure constituent 

 to the q,ther; and without a working theory of solu- 

 tion the 'interpretation of the results would have been 

 impossible. Many difficulties are encountered in the 

 examination of binary alloys, but they are enormously 

 increased in the investigation of ternary alloys, and 

 with quaternary alloys they seem almost insurmount- 

 able; in the case of steels containing always six, and 

 usually more, constituents, information can be obtained 

 at present by purely empirical methods only. 

 Geology. 



In discussing the relations of palaeontology to 

 other branches of biology in his presidential ad- 

 dress to Section C, Dr. F, A. Bather emphasises the 

 influence of the time-concept, which gives palaeonto- 

 logy a fourth dimension and necessitates a new 

 method of classification. The known facts of suc- 

 cession, while upsetting some rash speculations, do 

 not, unaided, prove descent. Recapitulation, however, 

 does furnish the desired proof. The " line-upon-line " 

 method of research is the only sure one, and this 

 has brought out a continuous transition in develop- 

 ment, and definite directions leading to a seriation of 

 forms. But this appearance of seriation, though it 

 may be sometimes due to determinate variation, in 

 no way implies determination ; and still less do the 

 facts warrant the belief in predetermination so 

 generally held by palgeontologists. After rebutting 

 the various arguments for predestination, counter- 

 adaptive degeneration, and momentum in evolution. 

 Dr. Bather shows how light is thrown on the 

 supposed instances by the study of adaptive form and 

 of habitat. The varying rate of evolution, the recur- 

 rent cycles of structure, and the birth and death of 

 races, all are dependent on the secular changes of 

 environment. To correlate the succession of living 

 forms with those changes is the task of the 

 palaeontologist. When completed, our geological 

 systems will express truly the rhythm of evolution. 

 But if there is no inevitable law of progress for 

 any living creature, neither is there a law of 

 decadence ; and man, by controlling his environment 

 and adapting his race through conscious selection, 

 has but to aim at a high mark in order to prolong 

 and hasten his ascent. 



Zoology. 



Prof. Stanley Gardiner in his presidential ad- 

 dress to Section D asks the consideration of 

 the public to the claims of zoology to support, 

 and of the professional students of the science 

 to the comparative sterility of much of their 

 teaching and research. The chief claim of zoology 

 lies in its broad applicability to human life. Harvey's 

 researches on circulation and embryology apply 

 directly to medicine and human growth. Malaria, 

 typhus, dysentery, trench fever, and now, perhaps, 

 cancer, are understandable only by the studies of the 

 pure zoologist on insects and on the physiology of uni- 

 cellular organisms. Mendel's work gives hopes of the 

 understanding of the laws governing human heredity 

 and of establishing immunity to many diseases. 

 Economic entomology is founded on the seventeenth- 

 century study of insect life-histories, and now we 

 struggle for knowledge of the enemies or parasites 

 of insects wherewith to destroy them by natural 

 means. Curiosity as to the possibilities of life in the 

 deep sea led to the opening up of great banks, with- 

 out which our fishing industry would still be a small 

 thing. River-eels migrate thousands of miles to breed, 

 and mackerel migrations are correlated with sunlight; 

 the Swedish herring fisheries depend on cycles of 

 sun-spots and longer cycles of lunar changes. 



NO. 2652, VOL. 105] 



Great as are such results, they approach the limit 

 of what can be attained from the old zoological studies 

 of anatomy, distribution and development. The 

 future lies in the study of the living protoplasm, its 

 universal association with water, the effects of acidity 

 or alkalinity on reproduction and growth, the pos- 

 sibilities of dissolved food substances and perhaps of 

 vitamines in water, and, finally, reproduction without 

 the help of the male. Yet zoology is in danger, for 

 its results are seldom immediately applicable to 

 industry, and economic specialists are trying to make 

 their students study their specialities without having 

 a sufficiently broad scientific education to be able 

 to consider what life really is. The old naturalists 

 were largely cataloguers, but wh'at they sought was 

 the understanding of life. Then came in succession 

 the anatomists, the embryologists, and the evolu- 

 tionists, the last cle&rly seen to-day in that the 

 subject as taught in many schools is merely history. 

 Zoology must emancipate itself from its dry bones, 

 and recognise that its museums and institutions are 

 means only for the study of life itself. 



Geography. 



In his presidential address to Section E Mr. J. 

 McFarlane discusses the principles upon which the 

 territorial rearrangement of Europe has been based. 

 He considers that the promise of stability is greatest 

 in those cases where geographical and ethnical condi- 

 tions are most in harmony, and least where undue 

 weight has been given to considerations which are 

 neither geographical nor ethnical. The transfer of 

 Alsace-Lorraine to France must be defended, if at 

 all, on the ground that its inhabitants are more 

 attached to France than to Germany. The loss of 

 territory which Germany has sustained both in the 

 east and in the west is aggravated by the fact that 

 from the regions lost she has in the past obtained 

 much of her coal and iron-ore. Serious as her posi- 

 tion is, however, her economic stability is not neces- 

 sarily threatened. The position of Poland is geo- 

 graphically weak, partly because the surface features 

 are such that the land has no well-marked indi- 

 viduality, and partly because there are no natural 

 boundaries to prevent invasion or to restrain the 

 Poles from wandering beyond the ethnic limits of 

 their State. On the other hand, the population is 

 sufficiently large and the Polish element within it 

 sufficiently strong to justify its independence on 

 ethnical grounds. 



Czecho-Slovakia, in various ways the most interest- 

 ing country in the reconstructed Europe, is alike 

 geographically and ethnically marked by some features 

 of great strength and by others of great weakness. 

 Bohemia possesses geographical individuality, and 

 Slovakia is at least strategically strong, but Czecho- 

 slovakia as a whole does not possess geographical unity, 

 and is, in a sense, strategically weak, since Moravia, 

 which unites Bohemia and Slovakia, lies across the 

 great route from the Adriatic to the plains of Northern 

 Europe. Rumania has sacrificed unity of political 

 outlook and ethnic homogeneity by the annexation of 

 Transvlvania, while her position on the Hungarian 

 plain is likely sooner or later to involve her in further 

 trouble with the Magyars. Indeed, the treatment of 

 the Hungarian plain is the most unsatisfactory part 

 of the whole Peace settlement. In that great natural 

 region the Magyar element is the strongest, and to 

 divide it as has been done is to induce a position of 

 unstable equilibrium which is likely to lead to trouble 

 in the future. 



The troubles of Austria are due to the fact that she 

 has failed to realise that an empire «uch as hers can 

 be permanently retained onlv on a basis of common 



