574 



NA TURE 



[April 12, 1906 



to be given, in addition to the existing grants. It is pro- 

 posed in another part of the Bill to make educational 

 endowments as serviceable as possible for the advancement 

 of education, and to consolidate, simplify, and improve the 

 administrative machinery nc w in use. No provision is 

 made for the training of teachers. We are not con- 

 cerned here with the sectarian difficulties which seem to 

 make it hopeless to contemplate a permanent settlement 

 of 1 lie question of religious teaching in State schools. The 

 denominationalists regard the provision of religious instruc- 

 tion without creed or catechism, prescribed by the Hill, as 

 opposed to their principles and as an endowment of un- 

 denominationalism ; therefore they will oppose the measure. 

 The Labour Party, on the other hand, has taken the | 

 logical position that State aid should only be given for 

 secular education; and that all religious instruction should 

 be abolished in elementary schools, though moral or 

 ethii al teaching could be given based upon the best thoughts 

 and works to be found in the literature and history of the 

 world. Until a common factor of agreement is found in 

 so, tarian doctrines, or religious instruction is banished 

 entirely from elementary schools, our educational system 

 promises to continue to be the shuttlecock of opposing 

 parties. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Societv, Per en her 7, 1905. — " On a Pn penv wl ich 

 holds good for all Groupings of a Normal Distribution of 

 Frequency for Two Variables, with Applications to the 

 Study of Contingency-tables for the Inheritance of Un- 

 measured Qualities." Bv G. Udny Yule. Communicated 

 by Prof. OT Henrici, F.R.S. 



Suppi se a contingency-table to have been formed for two 

 characters which have been assigned in some way (not 

 necessarily quantitatively) into classes. Extract from the 

 general contingency-table the frequencies in any four 

 adjacent compartments, and consider these as forming, by 

 themselves, an elementary contingency-table. If the sign 

 of association in all such elementary tetrads be the same, 

 the general contingency-table may be termed isotropic. In 

 an isotropic table the sign of the association is the same, 

 not only for every tetrad of adjacent frequencies, but for 

 everj sot of four frequencies in the compartments common 

 to two rows and two columns. The table remains isotropic 

 in whatever w,i\ it may be condensed by grouping together 

 adjacent rows or columns, and if, as an extreme case, it 

 be reduced to four-fold form, the sign of the association in 

 such four-fold table is the same as in the elementary 

 tetrads of the original table. If the rows and columns of 

 an isotropic table be disarranged, the disarrangement is 

 no longer isotropic, but the rows and columns can easily 

 be rearranged in isotropic order. The normal frequency 

 distribution for two variables is isotropic, and possesses the 

 preceding properties. An examination of a number of 

 tables recently published by Prof. Pearson for inheritance 

 of anthropometric measurements (stature, span, forearm 

 and head measurements) shows that all are at least 

 approximately isotropic. On the other hand, the tables for 

 inheritance of eye-colour published by the same writer on 

 the basis of Mr. Galton's material, are, without excep- 

 tion, anisotropic, the divergence from isotropy being of 

 such a kind as would be produced by an excess of frequency 

 in the diagonal compartments of the table corresponding 

 to identity of eye-colour in the two relatives. This excess, 

 in the case of the tables for inheritance in the first degree, 

 is not, however, so great as would be given by the theory 

 of simple alternative inheritance, which accordingly re- 

 quires modification. The same type of anisotropy appears 

 to hold for the great majority of the tables for inheritance 

 of coat-colour in horses given by Prof. Pearson, and also 

 for the miscellaneous characters, mental and physical, in 

 man, given by him in the Huxley lecture (1903). The 

 marked prevalence of this type of distribution for such 

 very diverse qualities, as compared — so far as investigation 

 has gone — with its complete absence in the case of measured 

 characters, raises the question whether it may not be, in 

 whole or in part, of subjective origin. 



The above abstract should have preceded that printed 

 in last week's Nature (p. 551). 



NO 1902, VOL. 73] 



January tS. — " The Growth of the Oocyte in Antedon : a 

 Morphological Study in Cell-Metabolism." By Dr. Gilbert 

 Chubb. Communicated by Prof. E. H. Starling, F.R.S. 



The paper deals with the growth of the oocyte in Antedon 

 bifida, Pennant, and is an attempt to utilise the morpho- 

 logical changes accompanying this process to determine the 

 relative physiological significance of the various cell- 

 structures. 



The most striking expression of nucleolar activity con- 

 sists in the intermittent discharge of spherules into the 

 cytoplasm throughout the growth of the egg. Of these 

 spherules, those discharged during the earlier period of the 

 egg's growth constitute the yolk-nucleus, and both the 

 origin and later behaviour of the latter structure are shown 

 to be due to the progressively changing physical consistency 

 of the cytoplasm. Neither the yolk-nucleus nor the 

 nucleolar matter discharged subsequent to its formation 

 take any part in yolk formation. 



Evidence is adduced to show that the chromatin is re- 

 sponsible for the formation of the nucleolus, and that it is 

 in this latter structure that the waste products of cyto- 

 plasmic activity undergo their final changes. 



The irregularity of the germinal vesicle, so often accepted 

 as tin indication of the direct participation of this structure 

 in yolk formation, is shown to be due to purely physical 

 causes. The actual process of yolk formation is shown to 

 be unaccompanied by increased nuclear activity, and to 

 consist merely in the automatic conversion into a more- 

 stable form of material deposited in solution in the cyto- 

 plasm by the chromatin throughout the entire growth of 

 the egg. 



Zoological Society. March 20. — Dr. Henry Woodward, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Descriptions of the 

 species of the coleopterous genus Sciobius : Guv A. K. 

 Marshall. The gentis comprised forty-one species, of 

 which twenty-two were described as new. — A contribution 

 to the study of evolution based upon the Mexican species 

 of Cnemidophorus : Dr. Hans Gadow. The main object 

 of the paper was to trace the correlation of certain vari- 

 ations exhibited by the lizards of this genus, and the 

 environmental, bionomic conditions. To do this a revision 

 of the numerous species of the genus had been necessary, 

 most of the ample material for which had been collected 

 by the author himself. Especial attention had to be paid 

 to an exhaustive study of the surprisingly great variability 

 of certain characters, in particular the changes of the 

 colour-pattern and the scutellation of the collar and of the 

 limbs. The distribution of the many races, Into which 

 some of the species seemed to have recently differentiated 

 themselves, was likewise followed up in detail. 



Geological Society. Maich 21. — Mr. Aubrey Stiahan, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — The Chalk and Drift 

 in Moen : Rev. Edwin Hill. The problem of Moen is to 

 account for portions of Drift, isolated, and seemingly in- 

 cluded, in cliffs of Chalk. It has been assumed that these 

 portions occupy dislocations, and that the dislocations were 

 either simultaneous with, or subsequent to, the deposition 

 of the Drift. But cases are here described where Drift is 

 seen to occupy cavities in dislocations, which had been 

 water-worn, and consequently had been produced, before 

 the advent of the Drift. A probable assumption that there 

 were pre-Glacial cliffs similar to the present, with clefts 

 and furrows in the cliffs, which were covered in Glacial 

 times with a mantle of Drift now in course of removal 

 bv denudation, explains every variety of Drift-inclusion. 

 Slopes of uniform inclination, which rise from the beach 

 to the bases of the vertical cliffs, appear to be talus-slopes. 

 In reality they are everywhere solid Chalk, with only a 

 skin of debris; this suggests post-Glacial changes in sea- 

 level. — The relations of the Chalk and Boulder-clay near 

 Royston (Hertfordshire) : Prof. T. G. Bonney. On the 

 uplands south of Royston. Mr. H. B. Woodward has de- 

 scribed three sections (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. lix.. 

 [ 9°3. P- 362). which in his opinion indicate that a great 

 ice-sheet, as it advanced from the north, sheared off large 

 masses of Chalk and mixed them up with its ground- or 

 englacial moraine (the Chalky Boulder-clay). The author 

 points out that this interpretation rests on an hypothesis 

 — namely, that the latter deposit is the direct product of 



