70 



NATURE 



[March 27, 1919 



the chair. Resolutions of regret at the death of Dr. 

 F. Du Cane Godman, treasurer for fourteen years, and 

 of Canon A. M. Norman, a former member of the 

 council, were passed. The treasurer. Dr. S. F. 

 Harmer, was congratulated upon his appointment as 

 director of the Natural History Museum. It was 

 announced in the report of the council that vol. iv. 

 of the " British Fresh-water Rhizopoda and Heliozoa," 

 by G. H. Wailes, was ready for binding, and that 

 the "British Orthoptera," by W. J. Lucas, and vol. i. 

 •f the " British Charophyta," by James Groves and 

 Canon Bullock-Webster, were in the press. Prof. 

 E. B. Poulton was elected a vice-president, and Dr. 

 A. W. Alcock, Dr. G. B. Longstaff, and Mr. A. W. 

 Oke were elected new members of the council. Prof. 

 Mcintosh, Dr. Harmer, and Mr. John Hopkinson 

 were re-elected to their respective offices of president, 

 treasurer, and secretary. 



On March i8 the Illuminating Engineering Society 

 held its tenth anniversary dinner, the president, Mr. 

 A. P. Trotter, presiding. The toast of the society 

 was proposed by Mr. Thos. Goulden, senior vice- 

 president of the Institution of Gas Engineers, and 

 seconded by Mr. C. H. VVordingham, president of 

 the Institution of Electrical Engineers, both of whom 

 referred to the valuable, impartial platform which the 

 society affords for the discussion of topics of common 

 interest to both gas and electrical engineers. In 

 replying to the toast, the president remarked that the 

 society's activities have expanded continuously since 

 its foundation, and it has frequently brought together 

 those interested respectively in the design and manu- 

 facture of lighting apparatus and those who use it. 

 Mr. F. W. Goodenough proposed the toast of kindred 

 societies, represented at the meeting by the Royal 

 Society, the Royal Society of Arts, the British Science 

 Guild, the Council of British Ophthalmologists, the 

 Royal Institute of British Architects, the Institutions 

 of "Gas, Electrical, and County and Municipal En- 

 gineers, and the Electrical Contractors' Association, 

 on behalf of which Sir George Beilby, Col. J. 

 Herbert Parsons, and Mr. A. A. Campbell Swinton 

 replied. Mr. Gaster, in proposing the toast of "The 

 Guests," referred especially to the important report 

 issued by the Home Office Departmental Committee 

 on Lighting in Factories and Workshops in 1915, 

 and expressed the hope that in the near future there 

 will be definite legislative reference to the provision 

 of adequate lighting in factories in the interests of 

 health, safety, and efficiency of work. In the United 

 States such legislation has been adopted by five of 

 the States, and it is to be hoped that this country, 

 which took the initiative in this matter before the 

 war, will regain the lead. 



In an article entitled "International Use of Patent 

 Searches," published in the Journal of the Patent 

 Office Society for February last, Mr. Scott H. Tilly 

 directs attention to a wish expressed in an address 

 given by the director of the Canadian Patent Office 

 to the employees of the United States Patent Office 

 to the effect that the Canadian Patent Office might 

 officially have the benefit of searches made in the 

 United States in respect of any matter in relation to 

 which applications are also filed in Canada. It is 

 argued that, since the great majority of applications 

 filed in Canada are filed in substantially the same 

 form in the United States of America, one search 

 as to novelty should be sufficient; and further, since 

 the facilities for search are better in the United States 

 ^than in the Dominion, the single search suggested 

 ^Ishoiild, in the interests of economy and efficiency, be 

 '>conducted at Washington. Mr. Tilly desires to see 

 the matter carried further still, and suggests that it 



XO. 2578, VOL. 103] 



is worthy of investigation whether it could not be 

 made profitable for Washington to report as to novelty, 

 not only to 6anada, but also to England and to the 

 other British Colonies having patent systems. How- 

 ever, as it is the standard of novelty accepted in any 

 particular country, and not the form in which applica- 

 tions are filed there, that determines the value of the 

 examiner's work, no useful purpose would be gained 

 by the adoption of the proposals for instituting a single 

 search. The legal standard of novelty accepted in this 

 country has, from the inventor's point of view, many', 

 advantages over the standard adopted in the United 

 States ; therefore, by resorting to the protection of the 

 British patent law inventors in our Colonies stand to 

 gain. Further, in cases where the Colonies are un- 

 able to provide for efficient search for their own pur- 

 poses, the proper remedy seems to be for the Imperial 

 Government to make suitable arrangements for con- 

 ducting patent searches in London on behalf of those 

 Colonial Patent Offices which may desire to avail 

 themselves of the exceptional facilities existing in this 

 country for such a purpose. 



Dr. W. H. Rivers has reprinted from the Bulletin 

 of the John Rylands Library (vol. iv., 1918) a lecture 

 entitled "Dreams and Primitive Culture." He dis- 

 cusses the most essential feature of Freud's theory, 

 according to which " the dream as we remember it, 

 and record or relate it^ — the manifest content of the 

 dream — is the product of a process of transformation. 

 By means of this process the motives producing the 

 dream — the latent content of the dream, or the dream- 

 thoughts— often find expression in a form differing 

 profoundly from that by which they would be ex- 

 pressed in the usage of ordinary waking life." The 

 next process, that of symbolisation, "implies a relation 

 between the underlying motive of the dream and the 

 form in which this motive is expressed, the relation 

 being of such a kind that the image of the manifest 

 dream is a concrete symbol of the thought, emotion, 

 or sentiment which forms its latent motive." On 

 this analogy, among savage {peoples, dramatic repre- 

 sentation goes far more deeply into the texture of 

 their lives than would appear if we attend only to its 

 place in religious ritual. This would go some way to 

 explain why rude rites and customs have their origin 

 in the unconscious, and it enables us to understand 

 why it is impossible, among peoples of the lower 

 culture, to obtain any rational explanation of rites 

 and customs, even when such explanation seems to 

 us to be obvious. 



In a recent issue of the Rivista di Antropologia 

 Prof. Giuffrida-Ruggeri makes a contribution (" Se i 

 popoli del mare delle iscrizioni geroglifiche apparten- 

 gano tutti all' Italia") to the much-discussed problem 

 of the identity of the Mediterranean peoples who took 

 part in the conflicts with Egypt during the Nineteenth 

 and Twentieth Dynasties. He agrees with A. J. Reinach 

 as to the history of the Etruscans. As Seneca wrote, 

 Tuscos Asia sibi vindicat. At the time of the great 

 Mediterranean turmoil (thirteenth and twelfth cen- 

 turies B.C.) the "Tursha" or Etruscans were among 

 the people who set out from their Lydian home and 

 attacked Egypt. "They came to the Nile Delta with 

 their women and children, and were evidently looking 

 for land to colonise, but were ' thrown into the sea ' 

 (circa 1260 B.C.) by the armies of Merenptah, and again 

 by Ramses III. (circa 1190 B.C.). These failures must 

 have diverted them in another direction, towards the 

 barbaric regions of the west. So it was that about 

 the eleventh century B.C. their boats reached the' 

 western peninsula, the fabled Hesperia, and they 

 occupied Tuscany." But Prof. Giuffrida-Ruggeri dis- 

 agrees with Reinach 's claim that their Lydian neigh- 



