July 3, 1919] 



NATURE 



351 



portunity. If this view found acceptance, the situation 

 could be met by the institution of a preliminary 

 examination limited in nature and extent, but suffi- 

 cient in character to enable the inventor to approach 

 the capitalist in the first instance with a broad claim 

 for his invention, the title to which could be assured 

 later by carrying out the manufacture of the invention 

 within the realm. 



The controversy on the subject of mother-right 

 which has arisen' between Dr. E. Sidney Hartland 

 and some American anthropologists is continued bv 

 Mr. R. H. Lowe in the University of California Pub- 

 lications on American Archaeology and Ethnology 

 (vol. xvi.. No. 2). Dr. Hartland advanced two pro- 

 positions : first, that normally, and apart from a few 

 exceptions that seem well established, kinship was 

 originally reckoned on one side only ; secondly, that 

 descent through the mother regularly preceded descent 

 through the father. The objection raised to the first 

 dogma is that almost uniformly the lowest tribes lack 

 the unilateral mode of reckoning kinship. The second 

 proposition is vigorously contested : the development 

 of patrilinear out of matrilinear descent is denied as 

 ignoring two vital groups of empirical phenomena— 

 the frequent absence of the supposed symptoms among 

 undoubtedly matrilinear peoples, and the enormous 

 extent of borrowing. The matter is still suh judice, 

 but the discussion, which is full of interest, may be 

 commended to the notice of all students of sociology. 



In the University of California Publications in 

 American Archaeology and Ethnology (vol. xiv., No. 4) 

 Mr. S. A. Barrett gives an elaborate account of a 

 series of rites performed by the Wintun Indians, who 

 formerlv occupied a territory lying between the Sacra- 

 mento River and the crest of the coast range of Cali- 

 fornia. Their culture seems more closely related to 

 that of the Pomo, adjacent on the west, than to that of 

 the Maidu, who are separated from them by their own 

 south-eastern kinsmen. The object of all their cere- 

 monies, but especially that of the Toto and the Hesi, 

 is, primarily, by a series of dances and dramatic per- 

 formances, to ensure plentiful wild harvests, and, 

 secondarily, to secure the health and general prosperity 

 of the people. The performance of the Toto is be- 

 lieved to assure an abundance of green foods, such 

 as Indian potatoes, by which is meant Brodioea, 

 Calochortus, and their bulbs, as well as the plants 

 the foliage of which is eaten. The Hesi is thought to 

 produce ripe foods in plenty : grass seeds, manzanita 

 berries, and especially acorns. 



In Mind (N.S. no, April) Mr. H. S. Shelton dis- 

 cusses the syllogism and other logical forms. His aim 

 is to define more clearly than is usually done in text- 

 books the exact sphere of logic, and to distinguish 

 elements in it which, being of a metaphysical type, 

 are misleading in logical argument. He maintains 

 that in making anv deduction three processes are 

 involved :— (a.) The abstracting from reality the con- 

 < epts of the aspect with which we are dealing, 

 >) reasoning with regard to these concepts by means 

 ^1 some universal rule, and (c) the reference back 

 again to reality of our conclusion. It is only when 

 this last has been completed that we can be sure 

 that our conclusion is materially true. He emphasises 

 strongly that the sphere of deductive reasoning is not 

 the sphere of empirical reality, and so logical con- 

 clusions require empirical verification. This view 

 must not, however, be taken to imply that there is 

 no sphere for formal logic; on the contrary, by 

 defining more clearly what it cannot do, we are able 

 to recognise what it can do. It is argued that the 

 fundamental form of deductive reasoning is the 

 syllogism, and that there is a sense in which all 



NO. 2592, VOL. 103] 



deductive reasoning, whether the rough and readv 

 product of ordinary life or the more exact deduction's 

 of mathematical science, is and must be formal. In 

 everyday life and ordinary arguments the various 

 elements are so entangled as to obscure the essential 

 characteristics of reasoning, and it is the function of 

 logic to emphasise those aspects likely to be over- 

 looked. The article should prove interesting both to 

 men of science and to logicians. 



An artificial lava-flow, in places 6 ft. thick, was 

 recently formed at a bottle factory in Kinghom, Fife, 

 by the corrosion of the floor of a tank through the 

 solvent action of the glass. Seventy tons of "metal" 

 were thus liberated, taking five days to cool, and 

 developing, either directly or by contact-action with 

 bricks, an interesting series of rock-forming minerals. 

 The products have been carefully studied by Mr. 

 G. V. Wilson from a petrographic point of view 

 (Journ. Soc. Glass Technology, vol. ii., p. 177, 1918; 

 see also Nature, May 16, 1918, vol. *ci., p. 217). 

 Corundum occurs as a contact-product wnth bricks 

 rich in alumina, and sillimanite, similarly developed, 

 proves valuable as a protective lining on the bricks, 

 as was pointed out in the discussion following the 

 paper. Oligoclase arose in the absorption-zone 

 between the bricks and the attacking glass, and small 

 bipyramidal crystals of quartz, like those of many 

 rhyolites, separated out in a portion of the glass that 

 was stained violet by manganese and injected into the 

 bricks after the main greenish glass. It is hence inferred 

 that these later injections consolidated below 870°, 

 and questions of temperature are critically considered 

 throughout the paper. Tridymite and wollastonite 

 were the onh' minerals developed in the general body 

 of the glass, which is held, on account of the absence 

 of pseudo-wollastonite, to have been at no time at a 

 higher temperature than 1200°. 



In Professional Paper No. 17 of the Survey of 

 India, Col. Sir S. G. Burrard makes an important 

 contribution to the theory of isostatic compensation 

 of inequalities in the earth's crust. Hayford in 1909 

 showed that in the United States this compensation 

 is generally complete, and uniformly distributed in 

 depth down to a uniform depth of about no km. 

 But measurements of gravity in the outer Himalayas 

 and in the adjacent alluvial plains of the Gangetic 

 trough have hitherto been regarded as incompatible 

 with the theory of isostasy. "One suggestion which 

 has been made to account for this is that in India 

 the geological uoheavals have taken place too recently 

 to allow the compensation to be perfected as yet, but 

 the anomalies in gravity seemed to correspond with 

 over-compensation. Sir S. G. Burrard discusses this 

 and other recent views on the subject preparatory to 

 describing his own investigation, in which the novel 

 point is that the excesses and deficiencies of density 

 occurring in the different geological formations of the 

 region are taken into account. In the past the theory 

 of isostasy has been applied only topographically to 

 the excesses and deficiencies of mass visible as moun- 

 tains and oceans at the earth's surface; the density 

 of the geological formation has not been considered 

 hitherto because the depth to which any particular 

 rock extends is frequently undetermined, so that its 

 total volume and mass are unknown. Sir S. G. 

 Burrard estimates the average depth and width of the 

 Gangetic trough across six different Sections, and 

 adopts mean values of the densitv of the 'ight rock 

 deposits in the trough, including those into which, at. 

 no considerable depth, the alluvium is compacted by 

 pressure. Tlie crustal attenuation in the trough, 

 assumed comoensated for by denser rocks beneath, 

 according to the isostatic theory, is shown to produce 



