36 



NATURE 



[September ii, 1919 



lasting. The work commenced by assisting a number 

 of researches conducted by scientific and professional 

 societies which were languishing as a result of the 

 war, and grants were also made, to the National 

 Physical Laboratory and to the Central School of 

 Pottery at Stoke-on-Trent. The grants for investiga- 

 tion and research for the year 1916-17 totalled 11,055/., 

 and for the present year are anticipated to be 93,570/. 

 The total income of the National Physical Laboratory 

 in 1913-14 was 43,713/., and, owing to the great en- 

 largement of the laboratory, the total estimate of the 

 Research Department for this service during the cur- 

 rent year is 154,650/. 



."Xnother important part of the work of the Depart- 

 ment has been to foster and to aid financially associa- 

 tions of the trades for the purpose of research. Nine 

 of these associations are already at work; eight more 

 are approved, and will probably be at work within 

 the next two months; and another twelve are in the 

 earlier stage of formation. There are also signs of 

 great increase of lesearch by individual factories. 

 Whether this is due to the indirect influence of the 

 Research Department or to a change in public opinion 

 and a more general recognition of the importance of 

 scientific industrial research it is diflicult to say. 



The possibility of the uncontrolled use on the part 

 of a nation of the power which science has placed 

 within its reach is so great a menace to civilisation ■" 

 that the ardent wish of all reasonable people is to 

 possess some radical means of prevention through the 

 establishment of some form of wide and powerful 

 control. Has not science forged the remedy bv making 

 the world a smaller arena for the activities of civilisa- 

 tion, by reducing distance in terms of time? .Mliances 

 and unions, which have successfully controlled and 

 stimulated republics of heterogeneous' races during the 

 last century, will therefore have become possible on 

 a \yider and grander scale, thus uniting all civilised 

 nations in a great league to maintain order, security, 

 and freedom for every individual and for everv State 

 and nation liberty to devote their energies to the con- 

 trolling of the great forces of Nature for the use and 

 convenience of man, instead' of applying them to the 

 killing of each other. 



Many of us remembe-- the president's banner at 

 the Manchester meeting in 1915, where Science is 

 allegorically represented by a sorrowful figure cover- 

 ing her eyes from the sight of the guns in the fore- 

 ground. This year Science is represented in her more 

 joyful mien, encouraging the arts and industries. It 

 is to be sincerely hoped that the future will justifv 

 our present optimism. 



SUMM.\RIES OF .ADDRRSSES OF PRESIDENTS 

 OF SECTIONS. 



Agriculture. 



TN his address to Section M, Prof. Somerville pointed 

 -*■ out that during the war the area of land in the United 

 Kinjjdom under g'rass was reduced by more than three 

 million acres, with a correspondinp;- increase of the 

 area under tillag'e crops. Even were this increase of 

 cultivated land maintained there would still remain 

 more than 30 million acres under permanent and tem- 

 porary s;''ass, exclusive of about 16 million acres of 

 mountain land used for grazing. Several attempts have 

 been made to discover a relationship between the botani- 

 cal composition and the feeding properties of perman- 

 ent pastures, but the results have been largely negative ; 

 neither has it been possible by chemical analysis to 

 differentiate between f^^rass of poor and of hipfh quality. 



^ For instance, it might *iome dav he discovered how to liberate instin- 

 taneoiisly the energv in rad-um, and radium contains 2,500,000 times the 

 energy of the sa-ne weight of T.N.T. 



NO. 2602, VOL. 104] 



The only trustworthy test of quality that can be 

 applied would appear to be through the agency of 

 animals consuming the produce of the meadows or 

 pasturing the fields. This work was initiated at 

 Cockle Park in Northumberland in 1897, and has 

 been extended to some twenty other experimental 

 stations in various parts of the United Kingdom and 

 in New Zealand. It has been conclusively proved that 

 poor grass land is susceptible of rapid and profitable 

 improvement, especially through the agency of phos- 

 phates. In many cases the stock-carrying capacity of 

 land has be.en more than doubled, while the progress 

 of the individual animals has .'ilso been largely in- 

 creased, so that the output of meat or milk from land 

 suitably manured has often been trebled or quadrupled 

 with advantage to the nation and substantial profit to 

 the farmer. One conspicuous result of experiments on 

 manuring-for-meat has been the long-continued action 

 of dressings of phosphate, 200 lb. per acre of phos- 

 phoric acid in the form of basic slag still producing 

 very marked effects at the end of nine years. Nitro- 

 gen, potash, and lime as an addition to phosphates 

 have been tried at several stations, but in most cases 

 with comparativelv' little effect. Indirect manuring 

 through feeding stock with cake has- also given un- 

 satisfactory results. 



Research during recent years has been directed 

 towards discoverinfj how the marked improvement 

 secured by an initial dressing of phosphate can be 

 maintained, and it has been found that in no way can 

 the maintenance of fertility of pasture be better 

 secured than by means of supplementary dressings of 

 phosphate. 



Anthropology 



Prof. Arthur Keith, as president of Section H, 

 devoted his address to "The Differentiation of Man- 

 kind into Racial Types." It was maintained that an 

 overwhelming majority of anthropologists were con- 

 vinced that all varieties of living human races were 

 descendants of a common ancestral stock, and that 

 some varieties had departed less from the original 

 pattern than others. There was no agreement, how- 

 ever, as to how the differentiation had come about. 

 Natural and sexual selection were certainly parts of 

 the evolutionary machinery which had given the 

 Negro, the Chinaman, and the European their distinc- 

 tive features of face, skull, and body, and also certain 

 characteristics of mind, but it was clear that they 

 did not constitute the whole of the machinery. 

 Nothing was more desired by anthropologists at the 

 present time than a rational explanation of how man- 

 Idnd has come by its racial characteristics. 



There were many indications that the kev to such 

 problems was to be obtained by a close study of the 

 disturbances or disorders which occasionally affect the 

 development and growth of the human body. The 

 disorders of growth are of many kinds ; some are 

 definitely proved to result from a functional derange- 

 ment of one or more of the glands of internal secre- 

 tion — the pituitary, thyroid, pineal, adrenal, and 

 genital glands. In a manner which we are only 

 beginning to perceive, the functions carried on in 

 these glands regulate, not only the dimensions of the 

 body, but also the shape and size of each individual 

 ■part. 



The machinery of race differentiation is resident in 

 the growth-controlling glands of the body. The mis- 

 take is sometimes made of regarding each gland as 

 carrving on a simple function, whereas each carried 

 on a multitude of functions. Substances contained" in 

 the secretion of the pituitary gland not only could 

 affect the size and proportion of the body, but also 

 might pick out and emphasise the growth of one or 



