288 
NATURE 
[ Aug. 10, 1871 

tame and impudent, allowing a very near approach, and when 
closely pursued retiring but a short distance. 
of gull, this bird is in the habit of carrying clams high in the air 
and then dropping them, in order to break the shell. Dr. Studley 
says: *‘In watching one thus employed I was very much amused 
at the unsuccessful endeavours he made to break the shell of a 
clam by letting it drop upon soft ground. He continued for a 
long time carrying and recarrying the same clam high aloft and 
fruitlessly dropping it on the prairie sod. He nevertheless per- 
sisted in his efforts until I became tired of watching him. What 
the result was I am unable to state.” 


THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT 
EDINBURGH 
EDINBURGH, Wednesday Morning 
Apes proceedings of this year’s meeting are now rapidly 
drawing to a close, so near, in fact, is the end, and 
so apparently far back in time is the beginning, that 
already it is easy to sum up the results, and to get a general 
view of the meeting in its various aspects. 
The meeting has certainly been in every respect a most 
successful one; the weather has done all in its power 
to conduce to the enjoyment of the members, and to belie 
the southern notions as to climate. First, as to the 
attendance: The numbers attending the former meetings 
here have been almost, if not quite, doubled, and, in fact, 
we may assume that they have been much larger than 
was expected, otherwise another, though in some respects 
a less convenient arrangement for the sectional work 
would have been adopted. As it is, we have had all the 
sections massed in the University in the various class- 
rooms—an arrangement which reduces the necessary loco- 
motion to a minimum, and gives the greatest facility to 
those who choose to visit all the sections, affording a 
striking contrast to the great waste of time and other in- 
conveniences which resulted from the disconnected posi- 
tions of some of the sections at Liverpool. The draw- 
back is, that the numbers being so large, the small class- 
rooms have quite broken down in the matter of accommo- 
dation, and ingress and egress have been almost im- 
possible. 
But in British Association Meetings, as in other things, 
numbers alone must not be too muchconsidered ; and 
this leads us to the wonderful galaxy of physicists who 
apparently have come to Edinburgh to do konour to the 
President. The brilliancy of the gathering, both of British 
and Foreign men of science in the mathematical and 
physical section, has been the subject of general remark, | 
and we refer to it, not at the expense of the other sections, 
but as an indication of what has happened there also, 
though not to such an extraordinary degree. Joule 
and Colding, Cayley and Sylvester, Thomson and 
Tait, Janssen and Huggins, Clifford and Spottiswoode, 
are combinations not to be seen every day, and the ex- 
treme interest of the discussions carried on under such 
conditions may be easily imagined, much more easily 
imagined, indeed, than described. Prof. Zenger, of 
Bohemia; Dr. Paul Giissenfeldt, of the University 
of Bonn; Prof. Van Beneden, of Louvain; E. L. 
Youraans, of New York; Rev. J. R. Loomis, LL.D., 
President of University of Lewisburg, U.S.; Pref. 
Dr. E. H. von Baumhauer, Secretary of the Dutch 
Society of Science, Haarlem; Dr. C. H. D. Buys Ballot, 
of Utrecht ; C. Gilbert Wheeler, Professor of Chemistry 
at the University of Chicago; Dr. Baron R. Eétvés, Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of 
Pesth; Dr. D. Bierens de Haan, Professor of Mathe- 
matics, Leiden; are among the foreigners who have 
attended the meetings in addition to those alluded to last 
week ; not to mention the names of many distinguished 
Like some species | 

English and Scotch savans, who attend as representatives 
of various scientific bodies in different parts of the country. 
Then as to the number of papers presented. With the 
exception of the Mechanical Section, presided over by 
Prof. Jenkin, the supply of papers has been superabundant. 
with a quality above the average. So numerous have been 
the papers in some sections, that divisions have been 
formed to enable them to be get through. 
As to the local conditions of success, we need only say 
that the meeting is in one of the most beautiful cities of 
the world, the society of which takes its tone froma wide 
diffusion of intellectual culture, and where hospitality 
takes no refusal, and just escapes killing by kindness. 
This meeting may be said to have really commenced 
on the day before the meeting of the General Committee, 
and of the delivery of the President’s address, in conse- 
quence of the attendance of so many men of science at the 
graduation ceremonial of the University, to which we re- 
ferred last week, when we gave the names of those who 
had the honorary degree of LL.D. conferred on them. We 
may here add that the recipients were introduced by Prof. 
Macpherson, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, in a way 
which greatly enhanced the value of the honour. 
This ceremony was followed by the “capping” 
of ninety-six gentlemen who had just completed their 
studies. One of the secrets of Edinburgh’s great success 
as a medical school appears to us to lie in the mode of 
bringing out originality among her students, which we 
would gladly see adopted in the science teaching of our 
English Universities. When a student takes the degree of 
M.D., he is required to write a thesis on some subject 
belonging to the sciences related to medicine. Gold 
medals are awarded for such theses as contain an amount 
of original work which is deemed worthy of the honour. 
The consequence of this is, that every year two or three, 
or even more, really good original memoirs are produced. 
These are, in very many instances, the nuclei of still greater 
things in after-life. Powers of research, which might 
otherwise have lain dormant, are brought out ; and so at 
an early period of life, men get into the habit of doing 
original work, We are assured by Edinburgh men that 
the system is, as one would have expected, fraught with 
excellent results. Our wealthy English universities would 
do well to take a lesson from their poorer sister ; and, 
instead of re\varding so highly mere grinding in science, 
they would do well to dosomething more to develop doers 
of original scientific work. On this occasion the gentleman 
who obtained the highest honours is Dr. Urban Pritchard. 
This ceremony, after all, however, was merely the 
prelude. Prof. Bennett’s graduation address was the 
first sensation of the meeting. Indeed, those who had 
come north with more acquaintance with Dean Ramsay’s 
stories than with the present tone of thought, were simply 
astonished at the boldness with which Mr. Bennetthandled 
subjects on which, it was imagined, any expression of 
opinions such as his would not be tolerated. Here, for 
instance, is a specimen :— 
“ At the congress of naturalists and medical men held 
at Innsbruck in 1869, Helmho tz claimed for Germany the 
principal agency in the progress of modern science. She 
owes this superiority, he said, to the boldness of her savans 
in propagating truth, whilst, he asserted, that in England 
and France they dare not do so openly, for fear of com- 
promising their social interests. But I trust the time is 
past, even in Scotland, when scientific truth has anything 
to fear from superstitious bigotry or clerical intolerance, 
It is true that we are constantly hearing that there is a 
tendency to place new scientific doctrines in Opposition to 
religious beliefs. But I would suggest that the cause of 
this is not that scientific men are irreligious, so much as 
that religious men are unscientific. It is utterly impos- 
sible, in these days, to oppose the most obvious facts, or 
persecute the great discoverers of the day, because the 
writers of the Old and New Testament, 1,800 or 3,000 
. 
Se 
