514 



NATURE 



[August 17, 19 16 



of the technical chemist. For example, the part-time 

 system whereby the summer vacation is spent in the 

 industry is condemned ; the value of industrial fellow- 

 ships is regarded as diminishing as the liberty to pub- 

 lish is restricted. The report is eminently practical, 

 and it will well repay serious consideration in this 

 country. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Phi'osophical Society, May 30. — Prof. 

 W. W. Haldane Gee, vice-president, in the chair. — 

 Dr. W. H. R. Rivers : Irrigation and the cultivation 

 of taro. In the New Hebrides and New Caledonia 

 irrigation is only used for the cultivation of Colocasia 

 antiqiiorum, the taro of the Polynesians. This inti- 

 mate connection between irrigation and taro, which is 

 found in other parts of Oceania, suggests that if irri- 

 gation belongs to the megalithic culture (W. J. Perry, 

 Manchester Memoirs, vol. Ix., part i.), taro must have 

 had a similar history. The distribution of the plant 

 supports this suggestion, showing a close correspond- 

 ence with that of the megalithic culture when its 

 tropical and semi-tropical habits are taken into account. 

 It occurs in Oceania, the Malay Archipelago, India 

 and eastern Asia, Arabia, Egypt, East and West 

 Africa, the Canary Islands, Algeria, southern Italy, 

 Spain and Portugal, as well as tropical America. 

 Since the original habitat of the plant is southern 

 Asia, its use as a food was probably acquired by the 

 megalithic people in India and taken by them both to 

 the east and west. Although the general distribution 

 of taro in southern Melanesia corresponds with that of 

 the megalithic influence, a difficulty is raised by the 

 island of Malekula, in the New Hebrides. So far as 

 we know, irrigation does not occur in this island, 

 although megalithic influence is present in a very 

 definite form. To account for the absence of irriga- 

 tion in this island it is shown that modes of disposal 

 of the dead point to two megalithic intrusions into 

 Oceania, and the high degree of development of irriga- 

 tion in such outlying islands and districts as New 

 Caledonia, Anaiteum, and north-western Santo in 

 Melanesia, and the Marquesa and Paumotu Islands 

 in Polynesia, suggests that this practice belonged to 

 the earlier of the two movements. There is reason to 

 believe that this movement had relatively little influ- 

 ence in Malekula.— Prof. G. Elliot Smitli : The arrival 

 of Homo sapiens in Europe. At a time when little 

 was known of early man and his works beyond the 

 stone implements which he fashioned. Sir John Lub- 

 bock (afterwards Lord Aveburv) suggested the use of 

 the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic to distinguish 

 respectively between the earlier part of the Stone age, 

 when crudely worked implements were made, and the 

 later period, when more carefully finished workman- 

 ship was shown. In spite of the fact that subsequent 

 investigation revealed a high degree of skill in the 

 craftsmanship of the Upper Palaeolithic period, which 

 in many respects shows a very much closer affinity to 

 the Neolithic than to the Lower Palaeolithic period, 

 Lubbock's terminology has become so firmlv estab- 

 lished that it has continued to determine the primary 

 subdivision into epochs of the early history of man. 

 Recent research has brought to light a vast amount 

 of new information relating to the achievements of 

 Upper Palaeolithic man, and has conclusively shown 

 that human culture and artistic expression had already 

 attained the distinctive characters which mark them 

 as the efforts of men like ourselves. This view has 

 been amply confirmed by the general recognition of the 



fact that, after, the disappearance of Neanderthal man 

 at the end of the .Mousterian period, the new race of 

 men that supplanted them in Europe and introduced 

 the Aurignacian culture conform in all essential re- 

 spects to our own specific type, Homo sapiens. Thus 

 the facts of physical structure, no less than the artistic 

 abilities and the craftsmanship, of the men of the 

 Upper Palaeolithic proclaim their affinity with our- 

 selves. The earlier types of mankind which invaded 

 Europe and left their remains near Piltdown, Heidel- 

 berg, and in the various Mousterian stations belong 

 to divergent species, and perhaps genera, which can 

 be grouped together as belonging to a Palaeanthropic 

 age, which gave place (at the end of the Mousterian 

 epoch in Europe) to a Neoanthropic age, when men of 

 the modern type, with higher skill and definite powers 

 of artistic expression, made their appearance and sup- 

 planted their predecessors. So long as primary im- 

 portance continues to be assigned to the terms Palaeo- 

 lithic and Neolithic, the perspective of anthropologv 

 will be distorted. Though the facts enumerated in 

 this communication are widely recognised, it is found 

 that the writers who frankly admit them lapse from 

 time to time into the mode of thought necessarily 

 involved in the use of the terms Palaeolithic and 

 Neolithic. If modern ideas are to find their just and 

 unbiassed expression some such new terminology as is 

 suggested here becomes necessary. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, July 31.— M. Ed. Perrier in the 

 chair. — At the preceding meeting of the Academy the 

 president, in announcing the death of Sir William 

 Ramsay, gave an account of his work in chemistry. — 

 J. Bergonie and C. E. Guillaume : Surgical instru- 

 ments adapted to the field of the electro-vibrator. 

 Ordinary surgical instruments utilised in the field of 

 the electro-vibrator are, like the projectile sought for, 

 submitted to an intense oscillatory movement, a 

 matter of difficulty for the surgeon. To reduce this 

 vibration to negligible proportions, it is necessary that 

 the instruments should be constructed of a metal non- 

 magnetic and of high resistivity. The iron-nickel 

 alloys, containing between 22 per cent, and 30 per 

 cent, of nickel, fulfil these conditions, but offer diffi- 

 culties in manufacture. Another group of alloys suit- 

 able for this purpose contains 90 per cent, nickel, the 

 remaining 10 per cent, consisting of chromium, 

 manganese, and a little copper. Such an alloy, under 

 the name of baros, has been used for some years for 

 weights of precision, and fulfils all the conditions of 

 the present problem ; it works like mild steel, is 

 practically unoxidisable, and is free from action in 

 the field of the electro-vibrator. — R. Garnier : Studv 

 of the general integral of equation (VI.) of M- 

 Painlev^ in the neighbourhood of its transcendental 

 singularities. — H. Arctowski : The influence of Venus 

 on the mean heliographic latitude of the sun- 

 spots. The earliest communication on this subject 

 was due to Warren de La Rue, Stewart, and Loewy in 

 1867, and F. J. M. Stratton has recentiv taken up the 

 same question. The author does not think the results 

 of Stratton 's calculations can be considered as con- 

 clusive, and has made a fresh series of calculations 

 based on the Greenwich heliographic observations. 

 It is difficult to decide from the curves whether thr 

 action of Venus is direct or the inverse. — A. Colani : . 

 The oxalates of uranyl and potassium. — C. Zenghelis : j 

 The composition and use of Greek fire. — F. Dienert 

 and L. Gizolme : The influence of the algae on sub- 

 mere^ed sand filters on the purification of water. Th« 

 purifying oower of these filters is a function of the 

 development and vitality of the algae, and can be ^ 



NO. 



2442, VOL. 97] 



