DISCOVERY 



235 



The new outlook which this has brought enables us 

 to look at animals and plants in a new and illuminating 

 way. A living animal is, above all, an individual, a 

 single whole, with parts organically connected and 

 working together. But from the standpoint of 

 evolution, an individual animal is merely the guardian 

 of the race, the beautiful and comple.K casket in which 

 the reproductive cells arc matured. As Samuel Butler 

 put it, "a hen is the way one egg produces another 

 egg." The view-point brought out by the study of 

 inheritance combines both the others. The race is 

 looked upon as in essentials a specific kind of living 

 substance in which dwell a host of unit-factors. It 

 is these unit-factors which determine the characters 

 of the individuals. Not only this, but the unit-factors 

 are capable of alterations, and these alterations may 

 be permanent, giving rise to what we call mutations 

 in the characters of the individual animals. From the 

 standpoint of genetics, an animal is simply the product 

 of the interaction of these unit-factors. In cattle, for 

 instance, milk-production, colour, the possession of 

 horns, size, shape, and manj' other characters are 

 known to depend on such factors. When, therefore, 

 we have proceeded far enough with breeding experi- 

 ments on cattle to test the relations between the 

 factors for these various characters, we shall be able to 

 write out some sort of genetic formula for the different 

 breeds of cattle. In the same way a chemist writes 

 out formulae for the structure and composition of his 

 chemical compounds ; and the real Vcdue of those 

 formula; in chemistry is that, by studying them, he is 

 able to understand how these compounds will work — 

 how they will react with various other compounds in 

 one or another set of conditions. In the same way, a 

 genetic formula — say of a breed of cattle — will not 

 merely tell us that these animals have a particular 

 arrangement of unit-factors : it will also tell us how 

 those unit-factors will develop — that is to say, the 

 characters of the indi\'idual cows of the breed ; and 

 also how they will interact with other sets of unit- 

 factors — in other words, what we may expect in 

 crossing the breed with another. 



But work of this kind is very technical ; the carrying 

 out of it will demand, for all large animals, long periods 

 of time, and the formula; will be very complex. It is 

 to be hoped that eventually the State will step in, 

 and establish a National Genetical Laboratory on the 

 same general basis as the National Physical Laboratory 

 — as a place which will keep in touch on the one hand 

 with the pure research being done in Universities and 

 elsewhere, and on the other with the needs of agriculture 

 and the community in general. Such an institution 

 would, as a matter of fact, consist of a number of 

 scattered stations, one concerned with the genetics 

 of cows, others with those of wheat, or of pigs, or of 



potatoes. But the central organisation would be 

 there, and would be the clearing-house for genetical 

 work of importance in practical breeding, a register 

 of all the known characters of all domestic animals 

 and cultivated plants, and the recognised centre to 

 which fanners could turn to ask for advice as to their 

 breeds of stock and their strains of roots and cereals. 

 Experiments such as those of Professor Biffen at 

 Cambridge on wheat, and of Pearl in America on fowls, 

 show that the time is nearly ripe for such a scheme. 

 What Go\-ernment will earn fame for itself by daring 

 to extend the Ministry of PubHc Health to include 

 Eugenics, and that of Agriculture to include GeneticEil 

 Research ? 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

 (The Inheritance of Sex) L. Doncaster, The Inheritance of 



Sex. (Cambridge University Press, 1912, ys. 6d.) 

 (Heredity in Man) \V. Bateson, Mendel's Principles of 



Heredity. (Cambridge University Press, 1912, 12s. net.) 

 (Heredity in Man) W. C. D. Whetham, Heredity and Society. 



(Longmans. igi2, 6s. net.) 

 (Plant and Animal Breeding) East and Jones, Inbreeding and 



Outbreeding. (Lippincott, 1919, lOJ. 6d.) 

 (Eugenics) Edgar Schuster, Eugenics. (Collins, 19 13, is.) 



The First Description of a 

 Lake-village 



By W. R. HalHday, B.A., B.Litt. 



Professor 0/ Ancient Ilislonj in the Unlversily 0/ Liverpool 



In 512 B.C. Darius, the greatest of the Persian kings, 

 was free to turn his attention to the problems of his 

 western frontier. His successful revolution against 

 the impostor who for a time had usurped the throne 

 of Persia, had been followed by the restoration of 

 order in the large empire conquered by his predecessors. 

 In the east he had carried their work to completion 

 and the advance to Kashmir had established a satis- 

 factory frontier. Above all, he had constructed an 

 effective system of provincial administration which 

 was to survive even the incompetence of his successors 

 on the throne of the king of kings. In the west, how- 

 ever, work remained to be done. His western frontier, 

 as it stood, was unsatisfactory, for the problems of 

 nationality were as insistent in the days of Darius 

 as in those of the Emperor Franz Joseph. Neither the 

 Dardanelles nor the Aegean was an adequate barrier 

 between his western subjects and their free kinsmen 

 beyond his borders, whose example and sympathy 

 alike incited the spirit of insubordination. These 

 subjects could not be denationalised ; the only alter- 



