14 
NATURE 
[Marcu 4, 1915 



Tur death is announced, on February 20, of Dr. 
Ed. C. Seaton, consulting medical officer of health to 
the Surrey County Council. We are indebted to the 
British Medical Journal for the following particulars of 
his life and work. He studied medicine at St. 
Thomas’s Hospital, and took the degree of M.D. at 
the University of London in 1871. From 1886 to 1908 
he was lecturer on public health at St. Thomas’s Hos- 
pital, and was at different times examiner in State 
medicine in the Universities of London, Oxford, and 
Cambridge, and at the Royal Colleges of Physicians 
and Surgeons of London. He was the author of the 
article on vaccination in Quain’s ‘‘Dictionary of 
Medicine.’ He delivered the address in public medi- 
cine at the annual meeting of the British Medical 
Association in 1891, taking as his subject the evolu- 
tion of sanitary administration in England. He read 
a communication on diphtheria before the Interna- 
tional Congress of Medicine at Budapest in 1894, and 
delivered the Milroy Lectures at the Royal College of 
Physicians in 1896. His Chadwick Lectures at the 
University of London on ‘Infectious Diseases and 
their Preventive Treatment,”’ published in 1910, may 
be taken as containing a summary of his matured 
views on subjects to the study of which he had given 
his professional life. Dr. Seaton took an active part 
in promoting legislation for the compulsory notifica- 
tion of infectious diseases, and was the author of 
numerous reports and papers on the subject. He was 
a Fellow of the Royal Sanitary Institute and a mem- 
ber of the Society of Public Analysts. For more than 
forty years he was a member of the British Medical 
Association. 
SHORTLY after the commencement of the war, the 
British Science Guild referred to two of com- 
mittees the question of the supply of laboratory and 
optical glasses, most of which had been obtained -from 
Germany and Austria. The reports of these com- 
mittees have now been completed, and _ will 
be issued shortly. The Institute of Chemistry 
took up the subject about the same time, and appointed 
a Glass Research Committee, the main purpose of 
which was to determine, by experiment, the constitu- 
tion of glasses suitable for various purposes and to 
communicate the formulz to manufacturers. The re- 
search has been carried on at King’s College, London, 
and formule have been arrived at for an alumina- 
soda glass suitable for the manufacture of chemical 
laboratory ware and for a glass which is a satis- 
factory substitute for Jena glass in respect of its re- 
sistance to water and reagents. Provided with these 
and other formulae, the only question left for manu- 
facturers contemplating the laying down of plant for 
the production of laboratory glass to consider was the 
prospect of the industry after the war. In order to 
obtain information upon this point, the British Science 
Guild, acting jointly with the Association of Public 
School Science Masters, sent a circular letter to local 
education committees throughout England, councils 
of universities and technical institutions, and governors 
of the chief secondary schools, including all the public 
schools represented on the Headmasters’ Conference. 
The result of the inquiry has been most satisfactory. 
NO. 2366, VOL. 95] 
its 

In general it may be said that about three-quarters of 
the bodies concerned have undertaken to use British- 
made laboratory glass during the war, and for a 
period of three years after, provided that the price is 
not prohibitive. Two scientific organisations, on their 
own initiative and without any assistance, financial or 
otherwise, from the Government, have thus been able 
to do most valuable work for British glass manu- 
facture. It is to be hoped that official recognition will 
be given to the service they have rendered to national 
welfare. 
Tue question of the origin of culture, through direct 
transmission by migration or trade from a single 
centre, or by independent evolution in more than one 
area, is in the air at present. A useful contribution 
to the controversy is provided by Mr. Eldson Best in 
the January issue of Man. One of the most beautiful 
of the several types of greenstone pendants made by 
the Neolithic Maori is: that called the Tautau. The 
existence of this type has been, at various times, ad- 
vanced as proof of American and Asiatic relationships 
in Maori art, and Mr. Hamilton, the best authority 
on the subject, states that this form is as yet un- 
explained. Mr. Best now brings forward evidence to 
show that this type is indigenous and not genetically 
related to objects of similar shape found in other 
parts of the world. He traces its origin to a form of 
fish-hook consisting of a bone barb, sometimes beauti- 
fully carved, fitted into a hole which passes through 
the lower end of a straight wooden shaft. A series 
of illustrations indicates the phases through which the 
ornament was gradually developed from this form of 
fish-hook. 
Mr. A. S. F. Gow contributes to the Journal of 
Hellenic Studies, vol. xxxiv., part 2, a valuable paper 
on the evolution of the plough of Greek and Roman 
days. It starts with those ploughs in which the main 
timbers are of one piece. Then follows the plough 
which has stock and pole in one piece, but the tail 
inserted artificially. The next step in complexity is 
when all the three main members are separate timbers 
artificially joined. Fourthly, comes the variety in 
which pole and tail rise together from the hinder part 
of the stock, stock and pole have lost the exaggerated 
solidity seen in the earlier examples, and the pole, 
not the stock, is now the most important member in 
the implement. The accounts of the plough in Virgil 
and Hesiod are carefully discussed, with other classical 
references, and the paper is illustrated with a good 
series of photographs from the monuments and of 
modern Greek and Italian ploughs. The writer does 
not seem to be acquainted with the important article 
by Sir E. Tylor, **On the Origin of the Plough and 
Wheel-Carriage,” in vol. x. of the Journal of the 
Anthropological Institute (1881). 
WE have received from Mr. E. J. Brill, of Leyden, 
a catalogue of books and pamphlets dealing with the 
geology, botany, zoology, ete., of the Dutch East 
Indies, together with others relating to tropical 
diseases and medicine and climatology. 
Ar the monthly general meeting of the Zoological 
Society, held on February 17, it was stated in the 
