_ OcTOBER 30, 1913} 
research, and endowment of beds for certain tropical 
eases, of which about 70,0001. has been obtained. A 
"pleasing event of the evening was the presentation to 
Sir Patrick Manson, the doyen of tropical research, 
of two portraits of himself on behalf of the subscribers, 
by Mr. Cantlie and Dr. Prout, representing the Lon- 
by don and Liverpool Schools respectively. 
A VIOLENT wind-storm passed over part of Wales 
- on Monday night, October 27, causing damage 
roughly estimated at between 30,0001. and 50,000l., 
and the loss of two lives, as well as injuries to many 
people. Two men named Woolford and Breeze were 
_ walking arm-in-arm when they were caught by the 
wind and blown a distance of thirty yards. Woolford 
fell on his head and was killed, and Breeze had two 
ribs fractured. From the position in which the dead 
body of a man named Harries was found in a field 
near Abercynon it is believed that the man must have 
_ been carried 300 or 400 yards by the force of the gale. 
_ Along the whole Taff Valley, from Treforest past 
_ Cilfynydd and by Quakers Yard to Treharris wrecked 
structures and up-rooted trees mark the path of the 
storm. It was first felt at Treforest, and it seemed 
to gather force as it entered the valley at Cilfynydd. 
Along the whole way the storm was confined to a 
_ path about 200 yards wide. 
_ Ar the annual public meeting of the Five Academies, 
held last week at Paris, a paper on the subject of 
prehistoric trepanning was read, by the late Dr. Lucas 
Championniére; it dealt with instances of the opera- 
tion, beginning with the first discovery of such a skull 
by M. Pruniéres under a dolmen in the Lozére, among 
the cave men, the ancient Gauls, and the pre-Colum- 
bian Americans. These people performed trepanning 
by means of flints, and the writer had succeeded in 
piercing the skull of an adult in the dissecting-room 
in thirty-five minutes by means of a flint, which was 
not specially sharpened. He attributed the skill of 
these early surgeons to the now lost art-of rotating 
instruments in fire-making. The operation was per- 
formed in the case of serious skull wounds, and also 
to relieve headache and epilepsy, by releasing the spirit 
to which the attacks were attributed. He himself had 
seen a native at Biskra, in Algeria, whose head showed 
four perforations, and he and his brothers asserted 
that they had trepanned their own father twelve 
times. It is remarkable that the operation was not 
practised among highly civilised races, like Greeks, 
Egyptians, Arabs, Hindus, and Chinese, or among 
some peoples of low culture, like African negroes. 
Av the annual general meeting of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh, held on October 27, the following office- 
bearers and councillors were elected :—President: 
Prof. James Geikie, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents: Dr. fe 
Burgess, Prof. T. Hudson Beare, Prof, F. O. Bower, 
F.R.S., Sir Thomas R. Fraser, F.R.S., Dr. B. N. Peach, 
F.R.S., and Sir E. A. Schifer, F.R.S. General 
Secretary: Dr. C. G. Knott. Secretaries to Ordinary 
Meetings: Dr. R. Kidston, F.R.S., and Prof. A. 
Robinson. Treasurer: Mr. J. Currie. Curator of 
Library and Museum: Dr. J. S. Black. Councillors : 
Prof. T. H. Bryce, Mr. W. A. Carter, Mr. A. Watt, 
NO. 2296, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
273 
Dr. J. H. Ashworth, Dr. J. G. Gray, Prof. R. A. 
Sampson, F.R.S., Prof. D’Arcy W. Thompson, C.B., 
Prof. E. T.- Whittaker, F.R.S., Principal, A. P. 
Laurie, Prof. J. Graham Kerr, F.R.S., Dr. L. Dob- 
bin, Mr. E. M. Wedderburn. It is worthy of note that 
the presidents of the Royal Societies of London and 
of Edinburgh are brothers, natives of Edinburgh, and 
both geologists. 
Ar the annual general meeting of the Cambridge 
Philosophical Society, held on October 27, the follow- 
ing officers and council were elected :—President : The 
Master of Christ’s. Vice-Presidents: Prof. Pope, Dr. 
Barnes, and Prof. Seward. Treasurer: Prof. Hobson. 
Secretaries: Mr. A. Wood, Mr. F. A. Potts, and Mr. 
G. H. Hardy. Other Members of Council: Sir J. J. 
Thomson, Mr. J. E. Purvis, Mr. R. P. Gregory, Dr. 
Cobbett, Mr. J. Mercer, Dr. Marshall, Mr. G. R. 
Mines, Mr. F. J. M. Stratton, Prof. Woodhead, Mr. 
C. Forster Cooper, Mr. C. E. Inglis, and Dr. Duck- 
worth. 
Ar the annual meeting of the Prehistoric Society 
of East Anglia, the honorary secretary made an an- 
nouncement, which will be welcome to archzologists, 
that the society proposes to undertake a survey of 
Grime’s Graves, at Weeting. A few of these con- 
structions were superficially studied in 1852, and one 
was carefully examined by Canon Greenwell in 1870. 
But much still remains to be done, and the import- 
ance of flint implements of the Cissbury type found 
in the caves has been greatly increased by the sug- 
gestion of Mr. Reginald Smith that they are analogous 
to those of the Aurignacian age found on the Con- 
tinent. Contributions are invited for the prosecution 
of this undertaking by Mr. W. G. Clarke, 12 St. 
Philip’s Road, Norwich. The president, Mr. J. Reid 
Moir, discussed the fractured flints found in the 
Eocene ‘‘ Bullhead”’ bed at Coe’s Pit, Bramford, near 
Ipswich, with special reference to the views of M. 
Breuil, who is inclined to regard the fractures as the 
result of natural pressure. The Ipswich bed is now 
overlaid by some 4o ft. of deposits, partly sand, and 
it is difficult to imagine how pressure on the lower 
strata could have been exercised through such a 
medium. Mr. Reid Moir concludes, from experi- 
ments, that pressure may account for the fractures. If 
this be the case, it must have been exercised before 
the deposition of the present overlying strata. In 
later beds the ‘‘human touch” is sufficiently obvious, 
and it is thus possible to differentiate one type from 
the other with some confidence. 
The Eugenics Review for October (v., No. 3) con- 
tains matter of much interest for the citizen. The 
Chancellor of Stanford University, U.S.A., writes on 
the eugenics of war, pointing out that it is the best 
part of the population that becomes the military, and 
that a country, therefore, by the ravages of war, 
suffers not only at the time but for generations after- 
wards. ‘‘Wars are not paid for in war-time; the 
bill comes later,’’ as Benjamin Franklin said. Mr. 
Soéren Hansen marshals evidence on the inferior 
quality of the first-born children, and a State not only 
loses citizens by the limitation of families, but is also 
penalised thereby by a deterioration in racial quality. 
