of Zernez and Tarasp on a ninety-nine years’ lease by 
the Société Helvétique and the Ligue Suisse pour la 
Protection de la Nature, backed by the Federal Govern- 
ment itself. This has been set apart for the beasts 
and the birds and the plants to live in, there to breed 
and to struggle for existence in their own untram- 
melled way. 
There is no other place in the world corresponding 
to this. The Yellowstone Park is open to the tripper, 
and the wilds still unexplored in Brazil and elsewhere, 
even when free from savage man, may at any moment 
be exploited by the rapacious European or American. 
But the creatures of the National Park of Switzerland 
are protected against the lord of creation by a charter, 
which, it is to be hoped, will never be treated as a 
mere scrap of paper. Picnickers even are forbidden, 
and it was only by special permission that the members 
of the Société Helvétique were supplied with excellent 
refreshment in a flowery pasturage within the pre- 
cincts. 
As you pass along the solitary paths you have to 
check the impulse to cull the many-coloured flowers 
that carpet the borders, and even spring up between 
the stones at your feet. This is one of the first rules 
of the park, and brings home to the visitor the fact 
that the park is no more for the collector than it is 
for the tourist. 
It was in the earliest dewy morning of a beautiful 
August day that some two hundred _ members of the 
society started up the Gorge of the Clemgia. By ten 
o’clock they had reached a rocky ridge, the Alp Minger, 
dominating a flowery mead, untouched by the scythe. 
Here Prof. Schréder, one of the originators of the 
movement to which the park owes its origin, addressed 
the members in German. By midday the party had 
reached a magnificent height, the Col de Sur Ii Fass, 
at the boundary of the park. Here they rested on the 
short velvety grass; it was too high for the luxuriance 
of vegetation which had marked the lower slopes. In 
front the ground fell sharply down into a ravine, on 
the other side of which a line of snowy peaks stood 
up clear against the sky. On this grand spot another 
of the originators, Prof. Paul Sarasin, of Basel, 
addressed the assembly in French, welcoming the 
society to the park, and characterising the aims of 
its institutors. He stated that the project is being 
entertained of founding a second park of the same 
kind in French Switzerland. 
When he had finished, before the party left the park, 
it was characteristic of such Swiss functions that one 
of the many beautiful Swiss airs should be sung in 
chorus. The words were particularly appropriate, 
“Salut, glaciers sublimes.”’ 
This expedition took place on the last of the three 
days (August 7-9) devoted to the meeting. On the 
first day a lecture was given*by Prof. Edouard Fischer, 
of Berne, on “The Notion of Species in Fungi,” and 
by Dr. Briner, of Geneva, giving an account of the 
experiments carried out by himself and others on “ The 
Réle of Pressure in Chemical Phenomena.” 
The Schaefli prize was awarded to Prof. Gogel, of 
Fribourg, for a valuable memoir on “The Radio- 
activity and Electricity of the Atmosphere,” and we 
may note, as perhaps the most interesting event of 
the meeting from a scientific point of view, the pre- 
sentation by the veteran Ziirich geologist, Prof. 
Heim, of the volume of memoirs of the society con- 
cerning the Rhone Glacier. The observations 
chronicled in this volume cover a period of forty years; 
they have for a long time been carriéd on under the 
direction of Col. Held. supported financially by the 
Alpine Club; the task of digesting the results has been 
ably effected by Prof. Mercanton, of Lausanne. 
A largé number of interesting communications were 
NO. 2454, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
; matique, where also abstracts,of many of the paper 
| that tragedy originated in the honouring or com- 
[NovEMBER 9, 1916 ’ 
made in the sections of mathematics, physics, geo- 
physics and meteorology, chemistry, geology and 
mineralogy. For a list of these we must, for want 
of space, refer our readers to the Enseignement Mathé- 
at 
will be found. . 
Grace CHISHOLM YOUNG. — 
ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION. : 
ROF, RIDGEWAY, in a paper on “The Origin 
of the Actor,"’ pointed out that an examination 
of Greek drama and its descendants in Europe, as also 
of non-European drama, led him to the conclusion 
memoration of the dead. Pantomimic dances repre- 
senting events in the life of the dead were like funeral 
games—a means of keeping the dead in remembrance. — 
The wearing of masks was a concomitant of such 
mimetic dances. Cases were quoted from many parts 
in which the masks represented the spirit in whose 
honour the ceremony was held. In some instances, as 
in Manipur, a living member of the community is 
regarded as the actual residence of the spirit of the 
departed until his final send-off to spirit-land, and ~ 
dresses in the clothes of the deceased and takes his 
place at the family table until the last rites are per-— 
formed. In ancient Rome the dead man was per- 
sonated by an actor dressed to represent him, who 
copied his peculiarities and was accompanied by 
masked attendants to represent his ancestors. It is 
probable that these were regarded as the temporary 
receptacles of the spirits of the deceased and his 
ancestors. If in Greek time the actor was still re-— 
garded as the temporary abode of the hero’s spirit 
Solon’s anger against Thespis is explained. : 
Prof. Keith, in a paper entitled “Is the British 
Facial Form Changing?’’ described some interesting 
facts derived from a comparison of a series of ancient 
and modern complete skulls. He finds that the malar 
bone is becoming tilted as a result of a gradual 
atrophy from disuse of the zygomatic processes of the 
temporal and maxillary bones—a natural result of the 
change in dietetics which has occurred since the early 
years of the Christian era, cooked food and soft 
cereals replacing tough meats and imperfectly ground 
corns. Besides the obvious maxillary shrinkage in a 
lateral direction, bone has been laid down so as to in- — 
crease the vertical dimensions of the jaws and also 
around the orifice of the nares. This deposit Prof. 
Keith regards as inexplicable on the mechanical theory 
as if due merely to disuse of the jaws, but thinks it to 
involve some change in the mechanism of bone pro- 
duction under the influence of the internal secretions 
of the ductless glands, hazarding the suggestion that 
it may be in some way associated with the increased 
prevalence of adenoids. Associated with the dietetic 
changes, it is interesting to note that in early British 
skulls, while the teeth were much worn and dental — 
abscesses and pyorrhcea were common, ordinary dental 
caries was unknown. 
In the discussion Miss Freire-Marreco pointed out 
that these changes in the incidence of dental disease 
could be observed occurring within a single generation’ 
among the Pueblo Indians. 
Mr. W. G. Collingwood, in a paper on “Early 
Christian Monuments in Northumbria,” traces the 
history of the Anglian crosses from finely ornamented 
forms with well-drawn saints and angels with elaborate 
plaits and leaf scrolls by a gradual debasement of 
figure drawing, simplification of interlaced patterns, 
and. the conversion of scroll-work into dragonesque 
