July 20, 191 1] 



NATURE 



3; 



The twenty-sixth congress of the Royal Sanitary Insti- 

 tute is to be held in Belfast on July 24 to 29. Dr. Louis 

 C. Parkes, deputy-chairman of the council of the institute, 

 will deliver a lecture to the congress on "The Prevention 

 of Tuberculosis : A National Task." Prof. H. R. Kenwood 

 will deliver the popular lecture on "The Open Window." 

 More than two hundred authorities, including foreign and 

 colonial Governments, Government departments, county 

 councils, county boroughs, and other sanitary authorities, 

 have already appointed delegates to the congress ; and as 

 there are over four thousand members and associates in the 

 institute, a large attendance is expected. A health exhibi- 

 tion of apparatus and appliances relating to health and 

 domestic use will be held, as practical illustration of the 

 appliances and carrying out of the principles and methods 

 discussed at the meetings. There will be many exhibits 

 relating to the planning of cities and towns arranged by the 

 executive committee of the Town Planning Exhibition. The 

 meetings of the congress have been arranged in two sections, 

 one concerned with sanitary science and preventive medicine, 

 the other with engineering and architecture. Conferences 

 have been arranged during the meeting of municipal repre- 

 sentatives, port sanitary authorities, medical officers of 

 health, engineers and surveyors, veterinary inspectors, sani- 

 tary inspectors, women on hygiene, and on the hygiene of 

 childhood. The local honorary secretaries are Messrs. 

 W. H. Bailie, J. Munce, and J. G. Harris. 



The fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and 

 Demography will be held in Washington, D.C., from 

 September 23 to 28, 19 12, under the honorary presidency of 

 the President of the United States. Dr. H. P. Walcott, 

 president of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, 

 will be the active president. Twenty-two Governments have 

 accepted already an invitation to participate, and in addition 

 each of the States of the Union has received an invitation 

 which includes its contained cities. The committee on 

 organisation includes Dr. Hermann Biggs, Dr. John S. 

 Billings, Prof. R. H. Chittenden, Prof. Irving Fisher, Prof. 

 Theobald Smith, and Prof. W. H. Welch. The secretary- 

 general is Dr. John S. Fulton, Army Medical Museum, 

 Washington, D.C. The official languages will be English, 

 French, and German. The work of the congress will in- 

 clude an exhibition of recent progress and the present con- 

 dition of the public health movement in the cooperating 

 countries, and scientific meetings. For the latter the con- 

 gress will be divided into nine sections. The sections, with 

 the presidents, are : — (1) Hygienic Microbiography and 

 Parasitology, Prof. Theobald Smith ; (2) Dietetic Hygiene, 

 Hygienic Physiology, Prof. R. H. Chittenden ; (3) Hygiene 

 of Infancy and Childhood and School Hygiene, Dr. A. 

 Jacobi ; (4) Industrial and Occupational Hygiene, Dr. 

 G. M. Kober ; (5) Control of Infectious Diseases, Dr. 

 Hermann Biggs ; (6) State and Municipal Hygiene, Dr. 

 Frank F. Westbrook ; (7) Hygiene of Traffic and Trans- 

 portation, Dr. W. Wyman ; (S) Military, Naval and Tropical 

 Hygiene, Dr. H. G. Beyer; (9) Demography, Prof. Walter 

 J. YVillcox. Inquiries and applications for membership 

 should be addressed to the secretary-general. 



The account in the July issue of Man, by Miss A. C. 

 Breton, of some of the museums of archaeology and 

 ethnology in America, will excite among British students 

 of these sciences mingled feelings — admiration at the 

 enterprise and liberality of the American people, and regret 

 . that the contrast between the institutions of America and 

 those in England is so clearly to our disadvantage. The 

 museums described in this paper are the New York Natural 

 History Museum, the Brooklyn Institute, the Peabody 

 Museum of Harvard College, the Yale University Museum, 

 NO. 2 1/7, VOL. 87] 



the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, the National 

 Museum at Washington, and the National Museum of 

 San Jose, Costa Rica. Practically all these representative 

 collections are provided with suitable buildings and 

 adequate staffs; each has its library, to which access is 

 readily permitted, and arrangements are made by which 

 the officials usually spend part of each year in field work, 

 and are thus in a position to supply to inquirers first- 

 hand information. 



The present uncertainty of some of the evidence on the 

 ethnology of the Australian race is embarrassing to those 

 who are engaged in the study of the aborigines of that 

 continent. Prof. Frazer, for instance, in his recently pub- 

 lished treatise on " Totemism and Exogamy," bases his 

 conclusions regarding the customs of the Arunta tribe on 

 the researches of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and dismisses 

 the sources upon which the Rev. Mr. Strehlow has drawn 

 in his description of another branch of the same tribe as 

 " deeply tainted." Again, in the July issue of Man Mr. 

 R. S. Mathews contradicts the statement of Dr. Howitt 

 that descent among the Kaiabara tribe is patrilinear, and 

 suggests that this error has led Mr. A. Lang into erroneous 

 conclusions regarding them. Mr. Lang, again, in the 

 June issue of Man, disputes Mr. Mathews' view that the 

 phratries represent two ancient distinct races, one of the 

 Papuasian type, with curly hair, the other fairer, with 

 straight hair, akin to the Dravidians and Veddahs. It is 

 much to be desired that the Federal Government, by the 

 establishment of an ethnological bureau or by the 

 appointment of a special commission, should undertake an 

 official investigation into the ethnology of the aborigines 

 before they finally disappear, and arrange for the prepara- 

 tion of a series of authoritative monographs on the native 

 races, such as the valuable series which we owe to the 

 enlightened Government of the United States on the 

 American Indians. 



In The Entomologists' Monthly Magazine for Julv, Mr. 

 E. G. Bayford directs attention to the potency of electric 

 light in attracting, insects, and its consequent value to 

 collectors, more especially those to whom beetles are the 

 chief favourites. 



To Naturtvisscnschaftliche Wochenschrift for July 2, Mr. 

 P. J. du Toit, of Zurich, contributes an elaborate and 

 well-illustrated summary of Dr. Broom's views with regard 

 to the derivation of mammals from the theromorphous or 

 (in the wider sense of the term) anomodont reptiles. After 

 referring to the development of the idea of the existence of 

 such a relationship, the author describes the mammalian 

 fralurcs observable in the theromorphous limb-skeleton and 

 limb-girdles, and then proceeds to discuss S'eeley's views 

 as to the reptilian nature of Tritylodon. While admitting 

 the possibility of that genus being a mammal, Mr. du Toit 

 points out that its resemblances to the theromorphs are so 

 marked that there is considerable justification for including 

 it in that group. As regards the mammalian features in 

 tile theromorph skeleton, the following are regarded as the 

 most important : — The union of the pubis and ischium to 

 form an innominate bone, which is unknown in any other 

 reptiles except certain chelonians. An entepicondylar 

 foramen to the humerus, found also in the tuatera. The 

 fusion of the coracoid with the scapula — paralleled among 

 certain salamanders. The differentiation of the teeth into 

 series. The union of the quadrate with the adjacent 

 elements of the skull. The relations and mode of articula- 

 tion of the two-headed ribs. The resemblance of the tarsus 

 (esp.ei ially as regards the tibio-tarsal position of the line of 

 flexure) and phalanges to those of the monotremes. These 



