Juty, 15, .1915] 
NATURE 
Syou! 

nature.” Nor is he less positive that there is no 
evidence whatsoever in support of the theory that 
“species”? may arise from fortuitous, saltatory char- 
acters. This is one of the traditions, he tells us, of 
the master mind of Darwin that we must abandon’ 
But this, surely, is yet at least a debatable 
point. Prof. Osborn apparently is convinced that all 
characters must run the gauntlet of selection. To 
attempt to defend such a position is to court disaster. 
As Prof. Osborn himself maintains, the individual is 
to be regarded as a complex of unstable units, and 
this instability is expressed in a tendency to develop- 
ment along new lines of growth. Each unit, in short, 
has its own individuality and potentialities of develop- 
ment, which are controlled, in the first instance, by the 
immediate environment—the neighbouring units of the 
organism—just as the organism as a whole is in turn 
controlled by the external environment, or by ‘“‘selec- 
tion.” Where the incidence of the struggle for exist. 
ence falls lightly, such units may give rise to hyper- 
trophied outgrowths, as, for example, in the train of 
the peacock, or in the huge wings of the Argus 
pheasant: where the struggle for existence is severe, 
ornament and other exuberances of development are 
suppressed. 
Finally, in regard to natural selection and its rela- 
tion to the origin of characters, Prof. Osborn remarks 
that we know nothing; hence he seems disposed to 
regard with something like approval the recent enun- 
ciation of Prof. Bateson that we may have to forgo 
the theory of the addition of germinal factors, or 
determinants, and substitute the theory of variation 
by loss of factors. 4 
This theory of evolution by ‘‘loss’’ seems to have 
captivated many, but surely when the phenomena on 
which this is based are carefully examined it will be 
found that the phrase ‘‘evolution by loss” amounts 
to no more than an emphasis of the fact that the 
evolution of new types is but a more striking phase of 
the evolution of species. For with types, as with the 
species which they embrace, the material basis of 
evolution is afforded by Prof. Osborn’s ‘‘ allometrons”’ 
or ‘proportional characters.” 
entirely. 

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
EDINBURGH.—At the summer graduation on July 8 
Sir William Turner, the Vice-Chancellor, who pre- 
sided, said the University roll of honour now con- 
tains more than 4000 names. Among the honorary 
degrees conferred were the following :—Doctor of 
Laws: Sir Robert Blair, education officer, London 
County Council; Prof. W. A. Herdman, University of 
Liverpool; and Prof. Arthur Thomson, University of 
Oxford. 

Tue Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 
struction for Ireland has issued as a pamphlet a 
descriptive account of the Irish Training School of 
Domestic Economy. The school is situated at St. 
Kevin’s Park, Kilmacud, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. The 
premises stand in grounds of about three acres, in one 
of the finest situations in South County Dublin. The 
house provides ample accommodation for the staff and 
students, in addition to class and recreation rooms. 
The school is a residential institution, maintained by 
the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- 
tion for Ireland, for the purpose of training teachers 
of domestic economy, and also for providing a train- 
ing in household management for girls who have 
received a satisfactory education. The work of the 
school comprises two courses of instruction—a course 
of instruction extending over one year in household 
management, the object of which is to train girls } 
NO. 2385, VOL. 95| 
\ for the management of their own homes, and a further 
two years’ course of training for teachers of domestic 
economy. 
WE have received a copy of the report of the council 
to the members of the City and Guilds of London 
Institute for the year 1914. The results in the depart- 
ment of technology show that the year 1913-14 was a 
record year, so far as regards attendance at classes 
in technology. During the session 5049 classes in 
technological subjects were registered by the institute 
in 321 towns, and these classes were attended by 
55,996 students, showing an increase of 1486 on the 
numbers in the previous year. At the examinations, 
23,119 candidates were presented in technology, show- 
ing an increase of 1241, and by including candidates 
from India, from the overseas Dominions, and from 
other parts of the Empire, and for special subjects 
other than technology, the total number of examinees 
was 26,776. But the effect of the war has been felt 
severely in this as in other departments of the insti- 
tute’s work. Four appendices contain detailed reports 
of the dean on the City and Guilds (Engineering) 
College, of the principal on the City and Guilds Tech- 
nical College, Finsbury, on the City and Guilds South 
London Technical Art School, and on the work of the 
department of technology, in each case for the session 
1913-14. 

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Physical Society, June 25.—Dr. A. Russell, vice-presi- 
dent, in the chair—Sir J. J. Thomson: Con- 
duction of electricity through metals. | The discovery 
by Kamerlingh Onnes, that at the temperature of 
liquid helium some metals can exist in a state in 
which their specific resistance is less than one hundred 
thousand millionth part of that at o° C., appears to 
necessitate the abandonment of the ordinary theory of 
metallic conduction, as the experimental conditions 
prohibit the explanation of the phenomenon by an 
abnormal increase, either in the number or mean 
free path of the free electrons. The effects observed 
by Kamerlingh Onnes may, however, be accounted 
for by a theory of metallic conduction previously given 
by the author in ‘‘The Corpuscular Theory of 
Matter.” On this theory the atoms of some sub- 
stances contain electrical doublets—i.e. pairs of equal 
and opposite electrical charges at_a small distance 
apart. The effect of an applied E.M.F. is to alter 
the heterogeneous distribution of the axes of these 
doublets by bringing them into partial alignment with 
the field. The function of the applied field is to pro- 
duce the alignment of the doublets; the actual trans- 
ference of electricity is effected by the large inter- 
atomic forces brought into being by the polarisation 
of the doublets. Thus, if the polarisation remains on 
withdrawing the applied E.M.F. the current will also 
remain.—Lieut.-Col. G. O. Squier: An unbroken 
alternating current for cable telegraphy. (1) The 
paper proposes a new angle of view in the method 
of transmission of signals in the submarine telegraph 
cable, and describes some apparatus for operating on 
the general principles involved. (2) An ocean cable is 
considered as a power line, and starting with the 
standard form of circuit which would be used in case 
it were required to operate an electric motor through 
an ocean cable, experiments are described to determine 
the minimum possible variations required in such a 
circuit to permit the alternating current received to be 
interpreted in dots, dashes, and spaces of the present 
alphabet. The uninterrupted alternating current used 
in transmission is operated on synchronously by the 
ordinary transmitting tape, so as ‘o alter the im- 


