574 



NA TURE 



[October 12, 1893 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



Norwegian enterprise has led to the fitling-out of a steamer, 

 renamed the Antarctic, for a whaling voyage to the Ant- 

 arctic Sea south of New Zealand, where Ross attained his 

 highest south latitude in 1842. The Antarciic has already 

 sailed, but will touch at an Australian port to complete pre- 

 parations. It is understood that those on board will endeavour 

 to make as complete meteorological observations as possible 

 throughout the voyage. 



A TELEGRAM from San Francisco, dated October 3, states 

 that the American steam-whaler Newport, one of the fleet work- 

 ing north of the Arctic coast of America, which passed last 

 wmter at Herschell Island (long. 139° W. near the mouth of 

 the Mackenzie), succeeded this summer in steaming through an 

 almost open sea to 84° N. No details are given, and until the 

 observations for latitude have been critically examined it is 

 necessary to reserve an opinion as to the latitude really attained. 

 The farthest north points, reached through Smith Sound, are 

 83° 20' by Markham, and 83° 24' by Lockwood. If the report 

 is correct, the Nitvfort got nearly fifty miles farther north than 

 any previous expedition. 



Mr. F. G. Jackson, who is travelling in the Yalmal penin- 

 sula, reports that Dr. Nansen did not finally leave Yugor Strait 

 Until August 20, the ice in the Kara Sea turning out to be much 

 worse than was expected. The conditions must have improved 

 shortly afterwards, however, as a telegram from St. Petersburg 

 announces the safe arrival in the Yenesei of the Russian vessels 

 which left Dumbarton with railway material on July 29. The 

 date of arrival is not mentioned, but the fact proves that the 

 Fram would have no difficulty in getting east as far as the 

 Yenesei, at any rate, and as she is not reported by the Russian 

 vessels, she was probably fcir beyond that river before they 

 arrived. 



Prok. Koto publishes in \heJournal of the College of Science, 

 Imperial University, Japan, a detailed description of the sur- 

 face changes accompanying the great earthquake of 1891, 

 illustrated by sketch maps and photographic views of the great 

 fault, forty miles long, which was formed in the valley of Neo. 

 On one side of this fault the ground has subsided in places for 

 nearly twenty feet, and has also been displaced horizontally. 

 The result, apart from the destruction of towns and buildings, 

 has been to considerably modify the physical geography of an 

 extensive area, changing the course of streams and their rate of 

 flow, forming swamps, and in many ways accelerating the gentler 

 processes of surface change by erosion. 



Mr. Clements R. Markham, President of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, has this year been invited to deliver the 

 opening lecture at the three provincial Geographical Societies. 

 lie opened the session of the Tyneside Geographical Society at 

 Newcastle, by a lecture on Peru, on the 6 h ; that of the Liver- 

 pool Geographical Society, by an address on the Polar Regions, 

 on the lolh ; and that of the Manchester Geographical Society 

 on the nth, when his subject was Central Asia with special 

 reference to trade routes. The interest taken in the younger 

 societies by the Royal Geographical Society is sure to increase 

 their popularity and usefulness in iheir own localties. 



BIOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



^"\N Thursday the address of the President was for several 

 reasons postponed till 12.30, and the work of the section 

 was opened by the Chairman (Sir William Flower) with a sym- 

 pathetic reference to the recent sudden death of Mr. George 

 Brook, who was to have been one of the secretaries at this meet- 

 ing. A paper was then read by Dr. David Sharp, on the zoology 

 of the Sandwich Islands. This was followed by the report of 

 Prof. Newton's committee on the present state of our knowledge 

 of the zoology of the Sandwich Islands. The committee have 

 obtained valuable results in several departments of zoology, and 

 more especially in entomology. The consignments received 

 during the year from their collector may be roughly estimated 

 at nearly 150 birds' -skins, 3000 insects, 1000 shells, a collection 

 of spiders in spirit, together with some crustaceans, worms and 

 myriapods. The importance and urgency of the work carried 

 on was testified to by Sir Wrlliam Flower, Prof. Newton, Dr. 

 Hickson, and others. The report of the committee dealing with 



observations on the migrations of birds at lighthouses was then 

 read by Prof. Newton. This committee have made progress 

 with the systematic tabulation of their statistics, and are now 

 commencing to fill up the schedules for their final report. The 

 sixth report of the committee investigating the zoology and 

 botany of the West India Islands shows that the Committee 

 have been chiefly engaged during the past year in working out 

 the great series of specimens secured from the West Indian 

 region by means of the collectors. Papers on the birds, on the 

 myriapods, scorpions, pedipalpi, peripatus, and the parasitic 

 hymenoptera, have been published, and investigations on other 

 groups of insects are now proceeding. Collections of various 

 groups of cryptogams have also been made, are now being 

 worked out, and are proving to comprise many new species. 

 The committee propose to examine next the island of Margarita, 

 the natural history of which is wholly unexplored. An im- 

 portant note on the discovery of Diprotodon remains in Australia, 

 by Prof. Stirling, was read by Prof. Newton. The new mate- 

 rial now found has added to our knowledge of the structure of 

 this remarkable gigantic marsupial, especially in regard to its 

 limbs and feet. 



The presidential address {see Nature, p. 490), in the absence 

 of Canon Tristram from illness, was read in the afternoon by 

 Sir William Flower ; and the vote of thanks was proposed by 

 Prof. Newton and Prof. Burdon Sanderson. 



The section opened on Friday with a physiological discussion 

 on the physico-chemical and vitalislic theories of life. The 

 discussion was opened by Dr. J. S. Haldane, of Oxford, who, 

 starting from the fact that about the middle of the century 

 physical and chemical theories to explain the peculiar properties 

 of living organisms were completely substituted for the tra- 

 ditional vitalistic theories, proceeded to inquire how far this 

 substitution has been justified by the results of subsequent in- 

 vestigation. He argued that as evidence has accumulated the 

 failure has become more and more manifest of the attempts to 

 specify physical and chemical factors from which vital proper- 

 ties may be deduced. This argument he based on the facts 

 relating to cell-formation, nutrition, heat-production, the secre- 

 tion and absorption of solids, liquids, and gases, and to other 

 physiological processes. He then endeavoured to show that the 

 old vitalistic theories were not mere expressions of the negative 

 fact that physiologists are face to face with a large residuum of 

 unexplained facts, but constituted real working hypotheses, 

 which summarised the peculiarities of living organisms, and 

 indicated frnitful lines of inquiry. In conclusion he maintained 

 that the former crude beliefs as to the existence of a material or 

 immaterial "vital principle," formed no essential part of a 

 vitalistic theory of life. 



The Chairman (Mr. Langley), in inviting discussion, said 

 that the problems of life had been thought to be physical and 

 chemical questions, and the mistake had been that they had 

 been thought to be easy questions. Possibly the fact was that 

 the unexplained residue appertained to more complex chemistry 

 and physics than we know at present. 



Prof. Cleland said that the old vitalism was dead, but that 

 there was a new vitalism which must be supported. To him 

 there appeared to be something in life in addition to the mere 

 laws of dead matter. 



Prof. Burdon Sanderson said that the real change that took 

 place about 1840 was not a change of doctrine but a change of 

 method. It was then seen that the only way to investigate the 

 phenomena of life was by processes which they understood, such 

 as those of chemistry and physics. A great number of easy ques- 

 tions had since been settled, and the difficult ones appeared now 

 all the greater because we had come nearer to them. Profs. 

 Schrifer, Allen, Heger, Hartog, Bohr, and Dr. Waller also took 

 part in the discussion. In his reply Dr. Haldane maintained that 

 physiologists had always employed methods of observation based 

 on physics and chemistry. The change at the middle of the 

 century seemed to him to be a change in working hypotheses 

 rather than in methods. 



The Chairman, in closing the discussion, said that during th« 

 first half of the century there had been a lamentable absence of 

 results, mainly owing to the fact that the whole process of 

 research was governed by the vitalistic theory. 



A paper by Dr. A. R. Wallace, on malformation from prenata 

 influence on the mother, was illustrated by photographs of a 

 remarkable case of a child born with an imperfect arm some 

 months after the mother had been engaged in dressing the 

 wound of a gamekeeper who had had his arm amputated. 



NO. 1250, VOL. 48] 



