DISCOVERY 



251 



lion, reindeer in many attitudes, bear, rhinoceros and 

 mammoth) has recently been discovered in a cave in 

 the Pyrenees, surmounted by the dominating figure of 

 a masked man, wearing a stag's antler on his head and 

 a tail. Was this merely the usual sorcerer of the cave, 

 asked Mr. Burkitt, or docs it represent a primitive but 

 ingenious method of catching stag ? Now a certain 

 very early Gallic god was alwaj's shown masked as a 

 stag, and a Cretan god of Minoan times also, and the 

 question is now raised as to whether there is any 

 cultural connection between these representations of 

 masking as stags. 



***** 



The subjects of discussion were legion — the amount 

 of information imparted very great. And next year 

 they will be at it again ! But the British Associa- 

 tion is something more than a disseminator of 

 scientific knowledge. It is a witness to the spirit of 

 science, and an earnest advocate of the need for the 

 adoption of that spirit by the commonwealth. It 

 seems quite clear that scientific knowledge is going to 

 transform the world if it be acted upon, and ij men 

 will make themselves worthy of the gifts that this 

 knowledge has already brought and is still to bring 

 them. In the degree that the general public realise 

 this and support the work, to that degree the work goes 

 forward and the public benefits. It is a pity that 

 even now many people regard scientific workers as a 

 curious group of old gentlemen with their heads 

 metaphorically in the clouds. But it is they who re- 

 move mountains. The "tame scientists" the clever illus- 

 trated weekly calls them, overlooking the fact that it is 

 " tame scientists " who have made it possible for the 

 weekly to appear at all. Scientific work is a service 

 of public utility. The knowledge derived from it can 

 help in every department of life. If the last ton of coal 

 or the last drop of oil has been burned, it can suggest 

 another way of producing energy. If ten homes in a 

 side street are served each day by four milk-carts, three 

 bakers' carts, three grocers' carts and two butchers' 

 carts and a few errand boys on bicycles — well, it can 

 make certain suggestions for improvement there too. 

 Science does not solve all life's difficulties, but it is a 

 mighty and willing helper if we care to co-operate 

 with it. 



***** 



An interesting development in modern spoken 

 Enghsh is traced by Professor Wyld in his article, 

 " Standards of Correctness in English," the conclusion 

 of which we publish in this number. This is a tendency 

 that has affected our speech, as he shows, since the 

 days of the eighteenth ceatury — a change largely due 

 to the standardisation of spelling in school and dic- 

 tionary. The fact is that we are accustoming our- 

 selves more and more to pronounce our words according 



to the way in which we spell them. Such a tendency 

 is particularly noticeable amongst many of our Ameri- 

 can cousins, who are apt to pause on each separate 

 syllable of a word, according to its spelling. But, 

 perhaps, the alteration in the spoken language is most 

 striking in the English countryside, where you can 

 often hear grandfather speaking in the local dialect, 

 and his ex-soldier grandson using a cosmopolitan 

 speech developed at the village school and in the Army, 

 and largely influenced by the written word. 

 ***** 



Professor \\y\A is a well-known authority on the 

 study of the English language. He graduated at 

 Oxford, but he also studied at two German univer- 

 sities, Bonn and Heidelberg, both conspicuous in 

 the world of etymology. He held a Special Inspector- 

 ship of the Teaching of Phonetics in the Training 

 Colleges of Scotland, the Baines Professorship in English 

 Language at Liverpool Universitj', and was last year 

 appointed to the Merton Professorship of English at 

 Oxford. Besides contributing to the study of popular 

 dialects, he is well known for his various works on 

 phonetics, a subject of whose claims he has been a 

 strong advocate, especially as a part of the training of 

 teachers. Few modern books or notes on the English 

 language are written without some reference to his two 

 standard works. The Historical Study of the Mother 

 Tongue, and A Short History of English. His latest 

 book on phonetics' A History of Modern Colloquial 

 English, has been welcomed as an original treatment 

 of its subject. 



***** 



Our first sensations of horror at the disaster to the 

 ZR2 have already been modified by the course of time. 

 The loss of that gallant band of experts who met their 

 death in the catastrophe is a new and grievous part of 

 the price which mankind has paid in its continual 

 struggle to master the powers of nature. We do not 

 wish to appear callous, but we sincerely hope that the 

 sudden end of the ZR2 will not affect the schemes of 

 imperial transport which the new Air Ministry is 

 trying to foster. There can be no doubt that lighter- 

 than-air machines will eventually become the goods- 

 trains of the air. Their greater wind-resistance may 

 never allow them to develop the speed of the aeroplane, 

 but we have already seen that they can outdo the 

 latter in weight-hfting capacity and length of cruising 

 range. Their safety should be greatly increased by a 

 more general use of helium gas for inflating the envelope. 

 It is far less inflammable than any other gas so far put 

 to this purpose, but its cost of production is, unfor- 

 tunately, very high. We hope that a more economical 

 process of producing this gas will be discovered. 

 ' Published by T. Fisher Unwin, 1920, 21s. 



