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NATURE 



[September 19, 1901 



r 



Lee of Philadelphia, until Saturday of the present week. The 

 following is a list of the subjects down for discussion : — The pol- 

 lution of public water supplies ; the disposal of refuse material ; 

 animal diseases and animal food ; car sanitation ; etiology of 

 yellow fever ; steamship and steamboat sanitation ; relation of 

 forestry to the public health ; demography and statistics in their 

 sanitary relation ; cause, prevention and duration of infectious 

 diseases ; public health legislation ; cause and prevention of 

 infant mortality ; disinfectants and disinfection : national leper 

 homes ; dangers to the public health from illuminating and fuel 

 gas ; transportation of diseased tissue by mail ; the teaching of 

 hygiene and granting of Diploma of Doctor of Public Health ; 

 school hygiene ; sanitary aid societies. In the Section of Bac- 

 teriology and Chemistry the following questions will be discussed : 

 On standard methods of water analysis ; bacteriology of milk 

 in its sanitary relations ; variations of the colon bacillus in re- 

 lation to public health ; and exhibition of laboratory apparatus 

 and appliances for teaching hygiene. 



A MEETING of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union will be 

 held at Cadeby (near Doncaster) from Saturday to Thursday, 

 September 21-26, for a fungus foray in the neighbourhood of 

 Melton, Sprotborough and Warrasworth. 



The Government of Victoria, Australia, requiring a director 

 of agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has recom- 

 mended for the post Prof. B. T. Galloway, chief of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, and Prof. W. M. Hays, agriculturist of the 

 Minnesota Experiment Station. 



The Allahabad Pioneer Mail states that a scheme is under 

 consideration by the trustees of the Indian Museum to abolish, 

 on the ground of expense, the office of the trustees and to 

 allow the work to be managed by the librarian of the 

 Museum. The scheme was formally brought before a meeting 

 of trustees recently to be cast into shape before being for- 

 warded to the Government of India for sanction. It is 

 understood that Mr. Risley, chairman of the trustees, has 

 already approved of the more important points of the scheme 

 in consultation with the Revenue and .^igricultural Department 

 of the Government of India. 



Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, 

 Dr. Barton W. Evermann, ichthyologist of the U.S. Fish Com- 

 mission, and Dr. W. H. Ashmead, of the U.S. National 

 Museum, who spent the summer in the Hawaiian Islands inves- 

 tigating on behalf of the U.S. Government the fishes and other 

 aquatic resources of the Islands, have now returned to the 

 United States, says Science. The other members of the party 

 will return during the present month, except Messrs. L. E. 

 Goldsborough and George Sindo, who will go to Pago Pago in 

 the Samoan Islands to make a collection of the fishes found 

 there. The investigations are reported to have been very suc- 

 cessful. The fishery methods, laws and statistics were carefully 

 studied and large and important collections of the fishes were 

 made. Upwards of 300 species were obtained, among which 

 are many species new to science. A preliminary report will be 

 shortly submitted to the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. 

 The final report will not be made until more deep-sea work has 

 been done about the islands. 



The Congress of the International Association for Testing 

 Materials was held at Budapest on September 9 to 14, under the 

 presidency of Prof. L. von Tetmajer, and was largely attended 

 by engineers from all parts of the world. The delegates present 

 included 4 from England, 41 from Austria, 3 from Belgium, 9 

 from Denmark, 2 from the United States, 36 from France, 152 

 from Hungary, 70 from Germany, 3 from Norway, 12 from 

 Italy, 26 from Russia, I from Roumania, 3 from Spain, i from 

 Servia, 10 from Switzerland and 5 from Sweden. After an 

 NO. 1664, VOL. 64] 



inaugural presidential address and address of welcome from the 

 Hungarian authorities, a representative of each country was 

 elected an honorary president of the Congress, Mr. Bennett H. 

 Brough being chosen for England and Prof. H. M. Howe for 

 the United States. The other English and American members 

 present were :— Sir William H. Bailey (Manchester), Mr. 

 Bertram Blount (London), Dr. C. J. Renshaw (Ashton-on- 

 Mersey) and Dr. R. Moldenke (New York). In addition to the 

 various reports of committees dealing with technical problems, 

 the following papers dealing with metals were read and dis- 

 cussed :— on the measurement of internal tension, by Mr. 

 Mesnager (Paris) ; on the forms of carbon in iron, by Baron 

 Jiiptner (Leoben) ; on Brinell's researches, by Mr. A. Wahlberg 

 (Stockholm); on the testing of metals by means of notched 

 bars, by Mr. H. Le Chatelier (Paris), by Mr. G. Charpy (Paris) 

 and by Prof. Belelubsky (St. Petersburg) ; on micrographical 

 researches on the deformation of metals, by Mr. F. Osmond 

 (Paris) ; on metallography, by Mr. E. Heyn (Charlottenburg) ; 

 on the testing of railway material, by Mr. E. Vanderheym 

 (Lyons) ; and on the international iron and steel laboratory, by 

 Prof. H. Wedding (Berlin). Several papers dealing with stone 

 and mortars were also read, and an interesting lecture on the 

 iron industry of Hungary was delivered by Prof. Edvi-Illes 

 (Budapest). 



Two long and highly sensational letters, entitled " A New 

 Record of Totemism '' and " The Early Man and his Stones," by 

 the Hon. Auberon Herbert, have appeared in the Times of the 

 3rd and 7th inst. respectively, describing what he believes to 

 be an important discovery of worked flints. His view, in brief, 

 is that very extensive gravel beds in south Hampshire are prac- 

 tically entirely composed of worked flints which have been 

 carried to their present position by man and then rearranged by 

 water. The age and mode of formation of the gravel beds is a 

 matter for the geologists to determine, and there is little doubt 

 as to what they will say about the origin of the gravels. Archoeolo- 

 gists must decide on the question whether the specimens sub- 

 mitted to them by Mr. Herbert are natural forms or artifacts. 

 Judging from the numerous instances of analogous finds the 

 verdict will be against Mr. Herbert's hypothesis ; but he may 

 rest assured that if he produces his evidence it will receive due 

 consideration from anthropological or archaeological experts. 

 Mr. Herbert sees in his specimens animal and other natural 

 forms, and arrives at the conclusion that they were " totems." 

 Totemism, however, has too long been a " blessed word," 

 and the time has arrived when strong protest must be made 

 against the misuse of the term. There are many animal 

 and plant cults in the world, and totemism is one of them ; 

 indeed it is probable that what is described as totemism among 

 one people may be diff'erent from what is called totemism else- 

 where. Should this prove to be the case the term should be 

 restricted to practices and beliefs which are undoubtedly similar 

 to those of the Ojibway cult. It is entirely unwarrantable to 

 speak of every animal cult as totemism ; the elucidation of 

 primitive beliefs is rendered more difticult, one might say it is 

 made almost impossible, by such looseness of terminology. It 

 is not going too far to assert that whatever the stones may be 

 they can never be proved to be totems or representat' - 

 totems. 



Dr. Carl Lumholtz, the Norwegian explorer, who for the 

 past five years has been travelling in the hitherto unknown 

 regions of North-Western Mexico for the American Museum of 

 Natural History, lectured before the Geographical Society in 

 Christiania on September 12 and gave a description of his life 

 and travels among the wild Indian tribes of the Western Sierra 

 Madre, and especially among the cave-dwellers, who still live 

 in the same primitive way as their forefathers thousands of years 



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