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NATURE 
| JANUARY 22, 1914 
tific study of the geology, botany, and zoology 
of the districts readily accessible from Perth. 
The Irwin River coal beds, the goldfields, the 
caves at Yallingup, Bunbury, and other places 
will be visited. 
So far as it is at all possible, official functions 
in the Eastern States will be limited in number, 
and members will be given considerable oppor- 
tunity to see the country within reasonable dis- 
tance of the capitals. The week-ends are to be 
kept for this purpose throughout, and those who 
feel equal to further travelling after the long 
journeys between the main centres will find abun- 
dant outlet for their energies on the excursions 
which have been planned. From Adelaide a small 
party will visit the mines at Broken Hill; others 
will proceed to the Sturt and Hallett’s Cove, 
while numerous trips of shorter distance are ar- 
ranged. From Melbourne, visits will be paid to 
the National Park at Wilson’s Promontory (a 
sanctuary for native game), to the gold districts 
of Ballarat and Bendigo, and to the glacier forma- 
tions of Bacchus Marsh. Sydney supplies many 
interesting and lengthy excursions for its week- 
end, and its local committee has kept from the 
Friday evening until the following Tuesday morn- 
ing quite free from formal gatherings. _ The 
Federal Capital site, the huge Burrinjuck Reser- 
voir, the Cobar Mines, the Jenolan Caves, and 
the Maitland coal district are among the places 
offered for the traveller’s choice. From Brisbane 
the Nambour and Blackall ranges will be visited, 
also the Gympie Mines and the Ipswich Engineer- 
ing Works. For those specially interested who 
can remain a short time after the conclusion of 
the meeting, excursions to Mount Morgan, Towns- | 
ville, and more distant places will be possible. 
It has been a difficult matter to include in the 
programme so much touring and yet to do justice 
to the hospitality of official persons and bodies in 
the different States. Receptions and luncheons, 
together with the regular sectional meetings and 
the. evening discourses, make a very full pro- 
gramme. The details of this were drawn up in 
Australia earlier in the year, and will before long 
be finally adopted with some amendments sug- 
«ested by the council of the association. Prof. 
Bateson will deliver his presidential address in 
two parts at Melbourne and Sydney on August 14 
and 20 respectively. The list of lecturers for the 
evening discourses, at present receiving the con- 
sideration of the council, is a long one. 
It is interesting to learn that applications for 
inclusion in the oversea party, both from British 
and from foreign and colonial members, have 
been greatly in excess of all estimates. In fact, 
it seems likely that Australia’s very strong desire 
that the whole party, without exception, should 
be treated as guests during their stay in the 
Commonwealth, must give way before the unex- 
pectedly large number of visitors. Special 
arrangements have been made with steamship 
companies for reduced passage rates by way both 
XO. 2308, VOL. 92] 
ITH 
of the Suez Canal and South Africa. Members 
will leave England about the end of June or the 
beginning of July. In the choice of route for the 
return journey, many possibilities are open, of 
which perhaps the most attractive is that vid Port 
Moresby (the chief town in Papua), Darwin (in 
the northern territory), and three ports in Java. 
In Australia the main directing body is the 
Federal Council, under the presidency of the Hon. 
the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth and the 
chairmanship of Prof. Orme Masson. Strong 
local committees are also at work in each capital. 
Quite independently, New Zealand is preparing to 
receive a small group of members at the conclu- 
sion of the Sydney session. 
A great deal is expected from this visit of the 
British Association. In a prosperous and sparsely 
populated country where Nature bestows gifts 
readily and liberally, the application of scientific 
methods in the great primary industries seems to 
be less called for than it is under less abundant 
natural conditions. Hence, perhaps, the general 
appreciation of scientific labour, whether for its 
own sake or in the pursuit of material ends, is 
apt to be lessened. ‘That Australians recognise 
the danger of this is attested by the cordiality, 
shown on every hand, of the invitation extended 
to the British Association. Australia requires and 
welcomes the stimulus of the association in its 
academic, economic, and industrial life, and it 
offers in return an exceedingly varied field for the 
observation and investigation of its visitors. 
A REMARKABLE ANTICIPATION 
DARWIN.1 
E presidential address to the Linnean Society 
of London, delivered last May by Prof. 
E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., and recently published in 
separate form, deals with a truly astonishing work 
by G. W. Sleeper, printed, apparently, in Boston, 
U.S.A., in the year 1849, and containing an anti- 
cipation of modern views on evolution and the 
causes and transmission of disease, which, con- 
sidering all the circumstances, is extraordinary. 
The work, which is a small pamphlet of some 
thirty-six pages, was sent by an American gentle- 
man, Mr. R. B. Miller, to the late Dr. Alfred Russel 
Wallace, who forwarded it to Prof. Poulton with 
an interesting letter quoted in the latter’s address. 
Dr. Wallace justly observed that the author’s 
“anticipation of diverging lines of descent from a 
common ancestor, and of the transmission of 
disease germs by means of insects, are perfectly 
clear and very striking.” 
It is well known that the idea of the derivation 
of species by descent, and even of the operation 
of natural selection, had occurred to other thinkers 
before Darwin. The passage cited by Darwin 
himself from the “Physica Auscultationes” of 
Aristotle shows, though its import has often been 
misunderstood, that the Greek philosopher had 
OF 
1 A Remarkable American Work upon Evolution and the Germ Theory 
of. Disease. Address delivere! by Prof. Fd. B, Poul on, President of the 
Linnean Society, at the anniversary meeting of the society on May 24, 1913, 
