664 
Myers presented his report on the very numerous anthropo- 
metric investigations he has made among the native troops of 
the Egyptian army, and at the same time described a method of 
radial craniometry. The skeleton of Cornelius Magrath, the 
Irish giant, was exhibited, and the subject of giantism was 
lucidly explained, by Prof. J. D. Cunningham ; Prof. A. F. 
Dixon also exhibited a skull modified by acromegaly. Prof. 
J. Symington exhibited some ancient Irish crania collected by 
the late John Grattan, of Belfast, and described the methods of 
cranial investigation adopted by that gentleman ; the president 
also alluded in eulogistic terms to the acumen of Mr. Grattan, 
who, though he was engaged in business and had not received 
a scientific training, yet was in his time in advance of every 
European craniologist so far as methods were concerned. 
Psychology.—Miss A. Amy Bulley read a paper on the 
psychology of primitive man; while primitive man had no 
absolute mental deficiency, he ‘‘sensed” objects singly and 
without anything more than a hazy perception of their relation 
toone another. The results of this deficiency were :—(1) Inability 
to generalise ; (2) no distinction recognised between. essential 
and non-essential characteristics ; (3) imperfect understanding 
of cause and effect. These imperfections were employed as 
tests for certain religious ideas that have been attributed to 
primitive man, such as one supreme God, phallic worship, the 
ghost theory and the theory of the cov¢znuum in religion. Dr. 
W. Graham’s paper on the mental and moral characteristics of 
the people of Ulster led to a very lively debate which was 
fortunately free from excess, although the author referred to the 
increase of insanity due to religious excitement in the north of 
Ireland. The main valid criticism was the pointing out that 
the author fell into the common mistake of calling the non- 
Teutonic element in Ireland ‘‘ Celtic,” thereby entirely ignoring 
the vastly preponderating Mediterranean strain. 
Ethnography.—There were several papers, illustrated with 
lantern slides, which described certain peoples who had been 
studied by the lecturers. Dr. W. H. Furness gave an entertain- 
ing and instructive discourse on the Nagas, whom he visited 
with the special purpose of investigating whether they had a 
connection with any of the interior tribes of Borneo; he came to 
the conclusion that there was no positive proof for this view. 
The Lolos and other tribes of western China were dealt with by 
Mr. A. Henry. A comparison of the Lolo and Mias-tze speech 
with the Chinese suggests that the tonal monosyllabic languages 
form a distinct primitive group and are not the result of linguistic 
degradation ; the peculiar script of the Lolos may be due to 
early Nestorian missionaries ; the surnames of the Lolos always 
signify the name of a tree or animal, which may not be touched. 
Messrs. Nelson Annandale and H.C. Robinson described the 
wild and civilised tribes of Malay Peninsula. No distinction 
could be drawn between the Malays and Siamese of the district 
between Singora and Jambu ; there is evidence of an admixture 
of aboriginal blood ; the savage tribes are the Semangs, Sakais 
and Orang Laut Kappir of Trang. The report on the ethno- 
logical survey of Canada was presented. The Canadian Com- 
mittee itself has not yet got beyond the ‘‘ resolution ” stage ; the 
long report of more than ninety pages is solely the work of the 
secretary, Mr. C. Hill-Tout, who has investigated, mainly lin- 
guistically, the Lower Fraser Indians of British Columbia. The 
Royal Society of Canada has at last undertaken to prosecute with 
vigour the important and pressing objects of this committee. 
Comparative Religion,—The human souls and ghosts of the 
Malays of Patani were described by Mr. N. Annandale, as well 
as the ghosts of inspired magicians, the giving in marriage of 
the son of such a ghost, and the marriage procession (a cyclone) ; 
the evolution was traced of alocal god from such a ghost. Two 
papers by the Rev. J. H. Holmes were read by the president. 
The first described the sacred initiation ceremonies undergone 
by the lads of the Papuan Gulf. The boy is isolated in the 
‘“eravo,” or club house, until his hair has grown to its full 
length. His body must not be exposed to the sun, and he is 
subject to several taboos. The bull-roarer is shown and ex- 
plained, and masks playa great part in the more important cere- 
monies. The second paper dealt with the religious ideas of the 
Elema tribe of the Papuan Gulf. From certain customs and 
taboos, it is evident the natives were totemic people, but they 
appear to have partially passed beyond this phase. There are 
four classes of ghosts—those who have died a natural death, 
who have been killed in a fight, who have been murdered, and 
who have been killed by a crocodile. Every family of living 
things, from man downwards, has its special god or guardian 
NO. 1722, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[OcTOBER 30, 1902 
spirit, for whom there is a feeling of respect ; for example, the 
banana has two gods. The Toaripi or Elema recognise a good 
and an evil supreme god and anumber of subsidiary ones. Mr. 
F. T. Elworthy exhibited a number of perforated stone amulets 
from Lincolnshire, Dorset, Somerset, co. Antrim, and southern 
Italy which are used as prophylactic agents against witchcraft 
in houses, cattle byres, or in gardens. An important paper on 
the Lia Fail of Tara and election of kings by augury was com- 
municated by Mr. E. S. Hartland. The famous Lia Fail, or 
Stone of Destiny, often, but erroneously, identified with the 
Coronation Stone, was astone on which were enchantments, for 
it used to roar under the person who had the best right to obtain 
the sovereignty of Ireland at the time the men of Ireland 
were in assembly at Tara to choose a king over them. It was 
thus an oracle, and the choice of king was made by the augury 
which it gave. Kingship was something more than human ; it 
was thus necessary to ascertain the will of the gods. Other 
examples from diverse times and places were given as proofs of 
the widespread character of these customs. 
Survivals.—Mr. E. Lovett discoursed in an_ interesting 
manner on tallies; these are records kept by cutting notches 
in sticks of wood, and are a survival of probably the earliest 
appliance of a commercial nature made by man. There are 
two varieties: (1) the contract tally, formed by a stick split 
through the notches, and (2) the simple or memorandum 
tally, a single notched slip of wood. The simple or folk tally 
has survived the complex form as elaborated in the banker’s and 
exchequer tallies. Numerous modern examples were exhibited. 
Mr. Hartland exhibited two wooden ‘‘ swords” formerly worn 
as professional emblems by medical practitioners in Japan ; 
one represented a bean pod, and the other was a rough piece of 
wood. 
Museums.—On the last morning, a very interesting discussion 
on the classification and arrangement of exhibits in anthropo- 
logical museums was started by the reading, by the recorder, of 
a very suggestive paper by Dr. W. H. Holmes, of the U.S. 
National Museum. The chief methods of arrangement are the 
ethnographical on a geographical basis, and the evolutionary and 
distributionary. It was generally agreed that no hard and fast 
rule could be laid down, but that it was desirable that every 
museum should develop along its own lines, subject to a con- 
trolling idea along one of these chief directions. It was held essen- 
tial that museums should be liberally labelled, and rendered at 
the same time instructive and interesting ; more attention should 
be paid to these points, as the success of a museum depends 
upon the interest that it awakens. r 
Classtfication.—The business of the Section terminated with 
a discussion of the classification of the subject-matter of anthro- 
pology ; this was opened by Mr. E. N. Fallaize with a sug- 
gested scheme which was offered for future consideration. 
A popular feature of the Section was the interesting museum 
mainly of local archeology and ethnographic survivals which, 
thanks to the courtesy of Prof. Symington, were exhibited in the 
dissecting room and anatomical museum. Mr. R. Welch ex- 
hibited numerous photographs and other objects, notably a 
series of remarkable primitive vehicles from co. Antrim, which 
illustrated several stages in the evolution of the Irish jaunting 
car. Many of the papers read at the meeting will be published 
in full by the Anthropological Institute either in their Journal 
or in Man. 
PHYSIOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION. 
ROF. HALLIBURTON, president of the Section, 
read a paper on the regeneration of nerves, con- 
tributed by Dr. Mott and himself. Two opinions existed 
in regard to the regeneration of nerve-fibres. One set 
of observers concluded that the new nerve-fibres sprout 
out from the central stump of the divided nerve-trunk, 
This was the opinion of by far the larger number of 
workers. The other opinion was that the new nerve-fibres were 
of peripheral origin. Those who held the latter view relied 
almost entirely upon histological evidence. But a strand of cells 
that looked like a nerve-fibre to the microscope might neverthe- 
less be not physiologically a nerve-fibre, inasmuch as it might be 
quite unable to be excited as a true nerve-fibre is or to conduct 
nerve impulses as a nerye-fibre can. These functional perform- 
ances were the true criteria for nerve-fibres. Among recent 
