August 9, 1906J 



NA TURE 



IT^ 



committee, and issued by Mr. Arrowsmith, of Bristol. In 

 it is traced the institution from its inception (as the Bristol 

 Library Society) in 1772 to the present day. The 

 pamphlet, which is well worth perusal, is illustrated by 

 some excellent process engravings. 



The Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute for August 

 contains the inaugural address delivered by Sir Edward 

 Fry, president of the congress held last month ; it contains 

 also the lecture by Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan on " The 

 Relation of Heredity to Physical Deterioration," and that 

 on " The Wastage of Human Life " by W. Fleming 

 Anderson. 



The July issue of the Museums Journal contains, in 

 addition to its General Notes, the address on " The 

 Education of a Curator," delivered at the Bristol con- 

 ference of the Museums Association by Dr. W. E. Hoylo, 

 the president of the conference. 



A NEW book on the microscope, by Sir A. E. Wright, 

 F.R.S., is announced for early publication by Messrs. 

 .'Vrchibald Constable and Co., Ltd. The work will contain 

 a complete vocabulary of technical terms relating to the 

 microscope. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Finlay's Comet (igoGd). — The results of a number of 

 observations of Finlay's comet (1906^) are published in 

 No. 4108 of the Astronomische Nachrichten. 



.At the Utrecht Observatory the comet was seen on 

 July 21, and recorded as very faint; the observation showed 

 that corrections of —12m. 58s. and —1° 51' were necessary 

 to the ephemeris published by M. Fayet. 



The magnitude of this object was found to be g-o when 

 observed at Strassburg on July 17, its diameter being re- 

 corded as 12'. 



In No. 4109 of the Astronomische Nachrichten M. L. 

 Schulhof states that the ephemeris derived from his 

 elements shows a greater error than he had foreseen, an 

 error which a superficial revision of his calculations for 

 the perturbations has failed to discover. The comet 

 appears to have suffered a retardation which as yet is 

 unexplained. 



Applying, provisionally, the corrections shown to be 

 necessary by the Strassburg observation, he has calculated 

 another ephemeris, from which the following is taken : — 



Ephemeris 12/). (M.T. Paris). 



1906 a (app.) S (app.) log .i I : r-^A- 



Aug. 8 



Observation of a Bright Meteor. — A communication 

 by Herr Ph. Fauth in No. 4109 of the Astronomische 

 Kachrichten states that a bright meteor was observed at 

 Landstuhl on July 16. 



The time of observation was iih. 39m. (local M.T.), 

 and the object appeared in the N.N.W. Its brightness was 

 greater than that of the full moon, and its path was 

 between 12 Canum Venaticorum and y Virginis. The 

 duration of the light was about 1-5 seconds, and no 

 detonation was noted. 



Double-star Measures.— The results of the micrometer 

 measures of double stars made with the 28-inch refractor 

 at Greenwich during the year 1905 appear in No. S, vol. 

 Ixvi., of the Monthly Notices (R.A.S.). 



In addition to a large number of stars contained in the 

 ordinary working list, and for which the name, position, 

 position-angle, distance, magnitudes, and epoch of observ- 

 ation are given, a number of Struve stars which have been 

 NO. I919, VOL. 74] 



neglected, 01 for which periodical observations are re- 

 quired, were observed. Only the names of the latter are 

 now published, the results of the measures being reserved 

 for the Greenwich observations for 1905. 



The measures now published are, in general, confined to 

 stars of wliich the separation does not exceed 4" or which 

 show orbital movement. 



In Nos. 4107-8 of the .istronomische Nachrichten Dr. 

 G. van Biesbroeck publishes the results of the measures 

 of 177 Slruve stars made with the 12-inch refractor of the 

 Heidelberg Astronomical Institute. The measures of 

 twenty-nine comparison double stars are also given. 



INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON 

 HYBRIDISATION AND PLANT-BREEDING. 



HTHE Royal Horticultural Society held high festival in 

 its new hall and elsewhere from July 30 to August 3. 

 The occasion was the third conference on plant-breeding, 

 previous gatherings having been held at Chiswick and in 

 New -york. Mr. William Bateson presided, and was so 

 thoroughly imbued with his subject that the visitors found 

 it difficult which to admire most, his grasp of difficult 

 and complex problems, his able management, or his 

 powers of endurance. The programme was a very long 

 one, although some of the papers were, in the absence of 

 their authors, taken as read. All the memoirs will be 

 printed in full in the journal of the society. The speakers 

 included, besides our own countrymen, Danes, Swedes, 

 Germans, Austrians, French, and Americans. 



" Mendelism " was naturally to the fore, and the 

 numerous e.xhibits in illustration of the phenomena did 

 more to secure general acceptance for the theory than did 

 the elaborate disquisitions. Some of these, especially those 

 of a mathematical character, evoked from the chairman 

 the remark that we had reached the limits of our com- 

 prehension. In his introductory address Mr. Bateson gave 

 a very interesting summary showing the advances that had 

 been made since the first conference in 1898. The pre- 

 dominant note then was mystery — in igo6 we speak less 

 of mystery and more of order. 



Mr. Bateson suggests the adoption of the term 

 " genetics " to indicate the nature of our researches into 

 the phenomena of heredity and variation, in other words, 

 the physiology of descent. He showed that we had 

 already arrived at a clear conception of the true meaning 

 of " pure-bred," pointing out that an individual is pure- 

 bred when the two cells, male and female, from which it 

 develops are alike in composition, containing identical 

 elements or characters. Instead of regarding genetic 

 purity as a vague state which may or may not be attain- 

 able by a long course of selection or fixation, we now know 

 exactly what it is and how it is produced. 



Similar explanations were given as to the significance 

 of "reversion"; the reappearance of the ancient 

 characters is brought about by the meeting together of 

 distinct elements long parted, but how this is effected is 

 still unexplained. Conversely, " variation " is often due 

 to the separation or elimination of factors, and sometimes 

 probably to the addition of new factors. Heredity is now 

 known to be a regular phenomenon less or more amenable 

 to experimental methods of research. When someone 

 says, " But can't you breed a Derby winner or do some- 

 thing useful?" Mr. Bateson replies that "though in the 

 attempt to discriminate among animals all good enough 

 to win science may be as much at fault as common sense, 

 yet it would not surprise me if science were to devise a 

 way of breeding even racehorses which would not produce 

 about a hundred ' wasters ' for one fit to win — and yet 

 I understand that common sense remains content with 

 that rather modest attainment after two centuries and a 

 half of steady trying." Mr. Bateson concluded by pointing 

 out that the great advances in the application of science 

 have generally become possible through discoveries made in 

 the search for pure knowledge. In no other spirit can 

 natural knowledge be more profitably pursued. 



Other papers were contributed by Prof. Johannsen, of 

 Copenhagen, whose views did not meet with universal 

 acceptance, Messrs. Hurst, Darbishire, Yule, Dr. Wilson, 



