SCO 



NATURE 



\Sept. 2 2, ]88i 



lated, being about i '<)' aixd 3° Fahrenheit, according as the tem- 

 perature was taken on the surface of the body or between its 

 folds. 



Dr. D. J. Cunningham's paper On the Structure and Homo- 

 loi;ies of the Suspensory Ligament of t/ie Felloe/; in the Horse, Ass, 

 Ox, Sheep, an J Camel, described the particular members of the 

 intrinsic groui^ of muscles which enter into the formation of thi^ 

 lixamen^ He showed further that the process of transformation 

 of muscle to ligament seemed to be effected by a fatty degeaera- 

 tion of the mu-icle-fibres with a coincident multiplication of the 

 connective-tissue elements of the muscle ; that muscular tissue 

 may exist in the body and have no apparent function, unless it 

 were a purposeless contraction, stimulated by the nerve-supply it 

 received from nerves contained within the ligament. In the 

 transformation the nerves remained unchanged ; in the sheep, in 

 which there is not a trace of muscular tissue lefr, the nerves 

 were relatively as large as in the ox or hsrse. 



Other papers were read, by Prof. Struthers, On the Acetabu- 

 lum of Animals in which the Ligainentum teres is described as 

 zi'anting, and On the Correspondence between the Articulations 

 of the Metacarpal and Metatarsal Bones in Man ; by Mr. F. M. 

 Balfour, On the Nature of the Pronephros, or so-called Head- 

 Kidney of Adult Teleosleans and Ganoids ; by Mr. G. E. Dobson, 

 On the Digastric Muscle, its Modifications and Function ; and 

 I5r. W. H. Stone, On the Effect of the I'oltaic Current on the 

 Elimination of Sugar. Altogether fourteen papers were read 

 before this department, which only sat on two days. Half the 

 papers were anatomical, and half physioIo;?ical. It is to be 

 a-sumed that the energies of anatomists and jihysiologists had 

 been so largely occupied with the International Medical Con- 

 gress that no novelties could be produced on this occasion. 



Department of Anthropology 



Miss A. W. Buchland, in a paper On the Geographical Distri- 

 bution of Mankind, discussed the problems awaiting solu'ion in 

 anthropology, especially the relations of brachycephalic and 

 doHchocepbalic peoples, and the questions of the unity of the 

 race, and of the peopling of oceanic islands and of Australia. 

 She considered that nothing definite could as yet be determined 

 regardinr any of these matters. 



Mr. Staniland Wake read a paper On the Papuans and 

 the Polynesians, in which he came to the conclusion that the 

 primitive stock from which both had sprung was now represented 

 by the Australian race, which had formerly a much wider exten 

 .'ion than at present. The existence of two types anions; the 

 Au tralians showed they were not a pure race, being probably 

 intermixed with the Negrito. The Polynesians showed con- 

 siderable traces of this intermixture, while the Papums hid been 

 largely affected by contact with a more modern Asiatic people 

 now represented by the Malays, having been further specially 

 influenced by the intermixture of Arab and Indian blood. 



General Pitt-Rivers gave ; u account of Excavations in the 

 Earthwork called Ambresbury Bank in Epping Forest, which 

 showed that it was a camp of British erection, but it w-as not 

 possible from the excavations made to determine whether it was 

 made before or after the Roman conquest. General Pitt-Rivers 

 read another paper On the Entrenchments of the Yorkshire Wolds 

 and the Excavations in the Earthwork called Danes' Dyke at 

 Flamborou^h, in which he showed that the term Panes' Dyke 

 was undoubtedly a misnomer, for the whole district was the 

 scene of the operations of a much earlier people, who were 

 formidable in their means of offence and defence, and in the 

 discipline necessary to construct the entrenchments, which ex- 

 tended for great distances. At Danes' Dyke he found both 

 flints and flint flakes, showing that the defenders of the earth- 

 w^ork used flint, and lixed not later than the bronze period, at 

 the period of the tunmli of the Yorkshire wolds. In a further 

 communication General Pitt-Kivers described his discovery of 

 flint implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley, near 

 Thebes. 



Dr. Beddoe gave an interesting abstract of results On the 

 Stature of the Inhabitants of Hungary, ba = ed on recruiting statis- 

 tics. The average Hungarian soldier was al)out 5 feet S| inches 

 high. The Germans and Croats gave taller men than the 

 Ma^jyars. The citizens of Budapesth were taller than country- 

 men at the age of twenty. In five western counties (including 

 Pesth), where the population was niaioly Magyar, the mean 

 statm-e at twenty-five years might be taken as 5 feet 5 '2 inches. 



A paper On the Physical Characters and Proportions of the 

 Zulus, read by Mr. Bloxam, gave the details of an examination 



of sixteen male and three female Zulus brought to this country, 

 and measured in the presence of Prof. Flower, General Pitt- 

 Rivers, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. F. Galton. It appeared that the 

 average stature of the males was 67"3 inches, one-third of an 

 inch less than the average Englishman of the same age. The 

 average chest girth was 36-5 inches ; Englishman's, 35 25 inches ; 

 average weight: Zulu, 151 lbs.; EngHshman, 141 lbs. Of 

 course the Zulus, being exhibited for their dancing and spear- 

 ihrowing accomplishments, were in high training, and very well 

 developed in muscle. 



Mr. E. F. im Thurn, in a paper On the Animism of the 

 Indians of British Guiana, dwelt at some length on the con- 

 fusion introduced by the application to animism of the termino- 

 logy and conceptions of higher religious systems. The Indians 

 of Guiana had an animism of a very pure and primitive kind, 

 very little affected by the modifications \\hich change animism 

 into higher religion. They had no belief in the everlasting 

 duration of the spirit, no ideas corresponding to heaven, hell, 

 and retribution, no knowledge of purely spiritual beings, i.e. 

 gods, and no worship, though certain arts were practised to 

 avoid attracting the attention of malignant beings, 



Mr. Park Harri-on, in exhibiting a collection of photographs 

 of types of different races in the British Islands and in France, 

 urged the necessity, for the purposes of scientific comriarison, of 

 having photographs taken of uniform size, both in full face, and 

 sufficiently in profile to show the brow, the projection of the 

 nasal bone, and also the form of the ear, which appears to be a 

 racial characteristic, though much disguised by mixture of blood. 

 This, however, would be attended with expense greater than tlie 

 Anthropometric Committee could afford. Prof. Fl >wer, in com- 

 menting on this communication, said the subject had scarcely 

 yet been fairly attacked in this country ; it was only by the pho- 

 tographing of numbers in each part of England that they might 

 ultimately have a chance of arriving at the types of the principal 

 races that had contributed to the mixtures now prevailing. There 

 was great difficulty in forming an opinion as to what types people 

 really rei-re^ented ; no doubt the comparison of photographs, 

 done on a certain scale, would be of much value in this matter. 



The Anthropological Department sat on five days, and thirty- 

 seven papers or reports were presented to it. Among others 

 that we may particularise as of interest were those by Mr. J. R. 

 Mortimer, Oti Six Ancient Divellings found near to British 

 Barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds ; Mr. Francis Galtnn, On the 

 Application of Conposite Portraiture to Anthropological Purposes : 

 Mr. J. Harris Ston;, On the Viking Ship discovered at Sandefjord, 

 Norway, in 18S0 ; Mr. Hyde Clarke, On the Early Colonisation 

 of Cyprus and Attica, and its Relation to Babylonia ; Mr. H. 

 Stopes, On Traces of Man in the Crag ; Prof. T. McK. Hughes 

 and Mr. A. W. Wynn, On the Age of the Deposits in the Caves of 

 Cefn, near St. Asaph, with special reference to the Date of Man's 

 first Appearance in them. 



Department of Zoology and Botany 

 Sir John Lubbock's paper On the Sense of Colour in Animals 

 first de.alt with Bonnier' s experiments on bees, and showed many 

 fallacies in them, which were avoided in a series of his own 

 observations recently made. He took slips of glass of the size 

 generally used for microscopic work, and pasted on them slips of 

 paper coloured blue, green, orange, red, white and yellow, and 

 induced a bee to viit all in succession when covered by a plain 

 slip on which was a drop of honey. Then the honeyed slips 

 were removed, and the situation of the coloured glasses was 

 changed ; w hen the bee returned from the hive the order of its 

 visits to particular colours was noted, and the result of 100 dif- 

 ferent experiments was that blue was the bee's favourite colour, 

 then white, yellow, and green. The ob;en'atioiis were varied 

 in several different ways, with the same results. The question 

 naturally arose. How then are there so few blue flowers? Sir 

 John believed that all flowers were originally green, and that 

 they have jiassed through stages In which they were white or 

 yeliovv', while many have become red, and finally blue. This 

 was supported by facts such as the folljwing : — In Kanunculaceoe 

 many simple open flowers, as buttercups, were yellow or white ; 

 while the blue delphiniums and aconites wtre of highly spe- 

 cialised form, and therefore proljably of more recent origin. 

 Among the C.aryophyllacex the red and purplish species were 

 among those with highly specialised flowers, while the simple 

 flowers, as stellaria and cerastium, were mostly w bite. Among 

 violets many of the mo^t highly specialised forms were blue ; 

 the simpler ones yellow. In gentians, again, the deep-blue 



