May i, 1913] 



NATURE 



22- 



Creek Park, was finally found suited for the purpose, 

 and has now been purchased. The building will be 

 about 52 by 101 ft., and will consist of two stories 

 and a basement. It will contain adequate facilities 

 for office, laboratory work, and instrument shop, and 

 will be ready for occupation early in 1914. The mag- 

 netic survey vacht Carnegie left St. Helena on April 9 

 bound for Bahia, and is expected to return to her 

 home port at the end of the year, thus completing the 

 three vears' circumnavigation cruise begun in June, 

 19 10. After leaving Bahia she will once more call at 

 St. Helena, and proceed next to Falmouth, where 

 she is due early in September. It will be recalled 

 that the Carnegie made Falmouth one of her chief 

 ports on the cruise of 1909. 



One of the most beautiful objects in western Eng- 

 land is the famous screen in Banwell Church, about 

 seventeen miles south-west of Bristol, in co. Somerset. 

 Among the most treasured possessions of the parish 

 is a record of churchwardens' accounts between 1515 

 and 1602, which give full particulars of the cost of 

 the screen and of the workmen engaged upon it. 

 These have been abstracted, with good illustrations 

 of this fine piece of woodwork, by the vicar, Rev. 

 C. S. Taylor, in part i., vol. xxxv., of the Transactions 

 of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological 

 Society for 1912. 



Nigeria presents a promising and almost unworked 

 field for the collection of folk-tales. Major A. J. N. 

 Tremearne, in his recently published " Hausa Super- 

 stitions and Customs," has issued a large number of 

 tales. From Southern Nigeria Mr. E. Dayrell, Dis- 

 trict Commissioner, in continuation of his " Folk 

 Stories from Southern Nigeria," published in 1910, 

 has now published, through the Royal Anthropological 

 Institute, a series of Ikom folk-stories. These are of 

 much ethnological interest, as they throw much light 

 on matrimonial customs, of which female circum- 

 cision forms part. He also deals with human sacrifice 

 and the Ju-ju form of sorcery, on which our informa- 

 tion is still incomplete. "The more," he says, "one 

 learns about Ju-ju the more hopeless it seems. It 

 must seem incredible to people at home that a man 

 can die because a Ju-ju has been made against him — 

 for example, two sticks crossed on the path with, say, 

 a rotten egg and a fowl stuck on a stick, the man's 

 name having been 'called.' And yet one knows of 

 numerous instances where men have died, and young, 

 healthy men, too, against whom such a Ju-ju has been 

 made." Parallel instances from Australia at once 

 suggest themselves. Mr. Dayrell thinks it possible, 

 in such cases, that poison may have been adminis- 

 tered, but it is most difficult to get any proof. 



The power of the body to adapt itself to its needs 

 is one of the most familiar of physiological truths. 

 It has long- been known that among the organs the 

 heart shows ready adaptability. This is very strik- 

 inglv illustrated by numerous measurements recently 

 published by Dr. Grober, of Jena (Naturwissenschaft- 

 liche Wochenschrift, April 6 and 13). The figures 

 refer to men in different employments, and to various 

 animals with varying activities. The most remark- 

 able fact (the explanation of which is not clear) 

 NO. 227O, VOL. 91] 



recorded is that the right side of the heart usually 

 increases in bulk more than the left side does. 



The British Review for April contains an interesting 

 article, entitled "Colour-hearing," in the form of a 

 dialogue between the writer (" C. C. Martindale "), 

 an "exceedingly eminent specialist" ("the Doctor"), 

 a ladv ("Mrs. X."), a scoffer ("the Metaphysician"), 

 and " N. K.," who is able to "hear colour" (or, more 

 accuratelv, to "see sounds"). No one acquainted 

 with the characteristics of synesthesia can doubt that 

 it is a substantially accurate account of a conversation 

 that took place. Indeed, the anonymity of "the 

 Doctor" and "Mrs. X." is but thinly veiled. The 

 article is hence of value to those interested in the 

 study of this attractive but obscure subject. 



The Adamson lecture for 1913, delivered by Prof. 

 Bernard Bosanquet, in the University of Manchester, 

 entitled "The Distinction between Mind and its 

 Objects," consists in a brilliantly critical examina- 

 tion of the claims of Modern Realism — a twentieth- 

 century philosophical school of thought, "which, 

 whether unsatisfactory or not, is definitely new." 

 Prof. Bosanquet reaches the conclusion that neither 

 Realism nor its antagonist, Mentalism, is satisfactory 

 per se. "What special use or gainj' he asks, "is 

 there in saying that knowledge is physical, when you 

 have to subjoin an elaborate explanation admitting 

 into this physical realitv all the ignorance, errors, and 

 illusions that the feeblest or most fantastic of minds 

 could be guilty of? Or w : hat gain for mentalism is 

 there in treating" knowledge as a part of your mind, 

 when you must say in the same breath that it is only 

 knowledge in virtue of the reality that appears in it? 

 The double nature of knowledge, as the continuity 

 of mind and reality, is the ultimate truth to insist on." 



Two very interesting lectures on the present posi- 

 tion of the sex-determination problem, by Profs. 

 Correns and Goldschmidt, have been published by 

 Borntraeger (Berlin), under the title " Die Vererbung 

 und Bestimmung des Geschlechts " (pp. 149, price 

 4.50 marks). Prof. Correns deals with the subject 

 largely from the botanical side, but devotes ten pages 

 to the case of Abraxas grossitlariata, and has numerous 

 shorter references to other experiments with animals. 

 Prof. Goldschmidt devotes the greater part of his 

 section to an account of the cytological side of the 

 subject. One of the difficulties in the study 

 of this question has hitherto been that ob- 

 servations and experiments on the zoological and 

 botanical side have been published largely in 

 different periodicals, so that the worker on one side 

 has been in some danger of overlooking results 

 obtained on the other. For the zoological investigator, 

 therefore, Prof. Correns's summary of our present 

 knowledge of the phenomena of sex in plants is of 

 great value. Prof. Goldschmidt gives a carefully 

 chosen and lucid account of "sex-chromosomes," but 

 the most valuable part of his section is probably the 

 demonstration that there is no discordance between 

 the cytological and experimental investigations ; they 

 are, in fact, complementary, and each confirms and 

 amplifies the other. Both lectures are illustrated with 

 excellent diagrams. 



