September 16, 1922] 



NA TURE 



393 



of the State but of the landowners, may be stabilised on 

 a remunerative basis, among which may be mentioned 

 the organisation of credit facilities, co-operative pur- 

 chase and sale, utilisation of machinery and power, 

 improvement of livestock sires, establishment of central 

 dairies and bacon factories, the fuller exploitation of all 

 farm products, especially in times of glut, and above 

 all the elimination of superfluous and unnecessary 

 middlemen. Apart from the heavy burden of local 

 and Imperial taxation the toll levied by the middlemen 

 is the main cause of the poverty-stricken condition of 

 the English agricultural labourer ; the disparity of the 

 prices paid to the farmer and by the consumer for the 

 same produce was well illustrated by tables. 



During the last eight years occupying owners have 

 increased by 49 per cent, and the acreage that they 

 own by 100 per cent. ; the political and industrial 

 power resulting from this considerable reinforcement 

 of their class should prove the greatest stimulus to 

 enterprise on the part of landowners. The existence 

 of the Central Landowners' Association is a welcome 

 augury of future corporate efficiency, as its objects 

 are to a great extent economic and constructive. In 

 conclusion Lord Bledisloe emphasised once more the 

 need for the effective organisation of agriculture and 

 for the solidarity of all three classes of the agricultural 

 community, without which continuous progress is 

 difficult of attainment. 



Current Topics and Events. 



The Rowett Institute of Research in Animal 

 Nutrition, Aberdeen, was formally opened by H.M. 

 the Queen on Tuesday, September 12. It will be 

 remembered that the Institute, which in the two years 

 of its existence has done valuable work on problems 

 of animal feeding, is under the control of the Uni- 

 versity of Aberdeen and the North of Scotland Agri- 

 cultural College ; the director is Dr. J. B. Orr. The 

 Institute owes much to the generosity of Dr. J. Quiller 

 Rowett, after whom it was named, who contributed 

 a sum of 10,000/. towards its endowment (Nature, 

 September 9, 1920, p. 67). This was followed by 

 another gift for the purpose of purchasing a farm 

 which would allow of expansion of the Institute ; 

 H.M. Treasury, on the recommendation of the De- 

 velopment Commission, promised a further sum of 

 20,000/. It is the establishment of such institutions 

 as the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and 

 the Rowett Institute of Research in Animal Nutrition 

 which will go far towards improving the unsatisfactory 

 state of our knowledge of food problems, both animal 

 and human. 



To the August number of the Nineteenth Century 

 Sir Arthur Keith contributes a timely article on 

 the present position of Darwinism as applied to the 

 problem of man's origin. The strange action of a 

 strong party among the legislators of Kentucky in 

 America, and ill-informed articles in certain American 

 newspapers, have met with some feeble response in 

 this country ; and an authoritative statement of the 

 case which can be understood by the general reader is 

 especially needed at the present time. Sir Arthur 

 Keith has stated the case admirably, and he em- 

 phasises the fact that if. a new edition of Darwin's 

 " Descent of Man " were prepared to-day, the work 

 would merely need large additions, and scarcely any 

 important revision. The discoveries of the fossil 

 remains of man made since 1871 agree in pointing 

 towards a common ancestry with the apes. The 

 progress in our knowledge of human embryology 

 within the same period has revealed a succession of I 

 facts which can be explained only on the theory of 

 descent from lower forms of life. The latest discovery, 

 that the development and growth of all parts of the 

 body are regulated and co-ordinated by a " hormone " 



NO. 2759, VOL. IIO] 



mechanism (the pouring of substances into the 

 circulating blood by the ductless glands), leads even 

 to the hope that before long we may begin to learn 

 something about the processes of evolution. To the 

 investigator, indeed, Darwinism is not a mere theory, 

 but an instrument of advance, trusted as implicitly 

 as are the Admiralty charts by a navigator. 



We learn from the Times that an expedition headed 

 by Capt. F. Hurley has left Sydney for Port Moresby 

 with the object of exploring New Guinea from the air. 

 The party will include an ethnologist and a naturalist. 

 Two seaplanes are being taken and will be used in a 

 four months' air survey of the western portions of 

 British New Guinea. Meanwhile the scientific section 

 of the expedition will navigate the Fly River in a 

 ketch. The cost of the seaplanes is being borne by 

 Mr. L. Hodson, of Sydney. Owing to the densely 

 forested nature and steep slopes of the interior, 

 exploration of New Guinea on foot is most arduous. 

 Capt. Hurley's scheme promises some hope of success, 

 but landing places, except along the coast, will be 

 difficult to find. The leader's previous experience in 

 exploration was obtained with the Australian Ant- 

 arctic Expedition. He has also flown across the 

 Australian continent. 



The earthquake reported on the morning of August 

 27 in the Midland Counties was possibly, as Sir George 

 Fordham has suggested in the Times, caused by 

 the bursting of a meteorite. A tremor and sound 

 were observed at 9.12 a.m. (G.M.T.) over an area 

 of about 650 square miles with its centre a few 

 miles south of Birmingham ; at Woodhouse Eaves, 

 seven miles north-north-west of Leicester, at 9.13 ; 

 and at Whissenthorpe, near Oakham, at 9.10. The 

 observed times are so close that it seems probable 

 that all three shocks were due to the same cause, and 

 the detachment of the three areas and their nearly 

 linear arrangement are certainly suggestive of succes- 

 sive explosions of a meteorite. 



The centenarv of the Yorkshire Philosophical 

 Society, which was founded in 1822, will be cele- 

 brated on Wednesday, September 20. The members 

 of the Society and its guests will be received in the 



