202 



NATURE 



[July 2, 1908 



having been excavated from Vedda caves. Dr. Selig- 

 mann has made collections of these, but in one cave 

 which he excavated, out of some three hundred pieces 

 of quartz about four per cent, presented definite ap- 

 pearances of having been worked. That particular 

 cave had Sinhalese carving and stone masonry in and 

 around it. Indeed, he has evidence that the Sinhalese 

 were associated with so-called Vedda caves about the 

 beginning of the Christian era. It seems that even 

 arnong the " wild Veddas " there has been a much 

 older and more intimate cultural connection with the 

 Sinhalese than the literature of the subject would lead 

 one to suspect. 



Dr. Seligmann took a large number of photo- 

 graphs, many of which are very successful, but un- 

 fortunately the photographs of the dances of the least 

 sophisticated community are not so satisfactory, as 

 these Veddas would dance only in their usual dancing 

 places, which are deep in the forest, where instan- 

 taneous work was practically impossible. A number 

 of plates of the new colour process were taken out, 

 but the results were not very satisfactory. A very 

 complete series of phonograph records of songs were 

 obtained, from lullabies to invocations to the dead. 

 The great achievement of securing the songs of the 

 women was due to the presence and cooperation of 

 Mrs. Seligmann. An unexpected experience in work- 

 ing "^vith the phonograph was its enormous popularity, 

 not simply amazement or wonder, but sheer delight 

 in it. 



Many ethnologists have felt how desirable it is that 

 trained women should make investigations in the field, 

 since it was realised that information obtained by 

 men, through men, about the practices and ideas of 

 native women must necessarily be imperfect and 

 biassed. The present expedition has conclusively 

 proved the truth of this ; indeed, the mere presence 

 of a woman gave these shy and extremely jealous 

 people such confidence that the Seligmanns were 

 allowed to make their camps close to the Vedda caves. 

 One of the groups of the " wildest " Veddas invited 

 them to share the cave in which the whole community, 

 including the girls and young unmarried women, 

 were living; a surprising offer, as Neville, the most 

 sympathetic of recent observers of the Veddas, records 

 how, as a sign of extreme amity and confidence, he 

 was once allowed to spend a few minutes in the com- 

 pany of the younger women of a community to whom 

 he was well known. It is thus no exaggeration to 

 say that had not Mrs. Seligmann accompanied her 

 husband in this arduous expedition, the results would 

 have been less numerous and important. 



A. C. Haddon. 



JVOT£5. 



The list of honours issued on the occasion of His 

 Majesty's birthday includes the names of a few men dis- 

 tinguished for their work in pure or applied science. 

 Baronetcies have been conferred upon Sir T. Lauder 

 Brunton, F.R.S., and Dr. W. Watson Cheyne, C.B., 

 F.R.S. The honour of knighthood has been conferred 

 upon Prof. K. G. Greenhill, F.R.S., Colonel David Bruce, 

 C.B., F.R.S. , and Mr. R. A. Hadfield, president of the 

 Iron and Steel Institute last year. Mr. W. H. Power, 

 F.R.S., has been promoted to the rank of K.C.B., Dr. 

 T. H. Holland, F.R.S., has been appointed a Knight 

 Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (K.C.I.E.), 

 Dr. A. G. Bourne, F.R.S., a Companion of the same 

 Order (CLE.), and Dr. W. F. King, chief astronomer. 

 Department of the Interior, Canada, a Companion of the 

 Order of St. Michael and St. George (C.M.G.). Dr. 

 NO. 2018, VOL. 78] 



Henry Jackson, regius -professor of Greek, Cambridge, is 

 appointed to the Order of Merit, which was designed " to 

 include British subjects who have won conspicuous dis- 

 tinction in the naval and military services, or in letters, 

 art, and science." Perhaps Prof. Jackson's claims to this 

 honour may be understood at Cambridge. 



Some reference has been made in the daily papers to the 

 ratio of honours awarded to naval and military men, the 

 suggestion being that the Army receives an undue share 

 of these distinctions. With the demands of the two services 

 for recognition we are not concerned, but the question 

 induces us to ask what ratio exists between the award of 

 honours to men who devote their lives to work which 

 promotes the scientific progress of the country and those 

 who do not? As to the relative value to the nation of 

 scientific and party-political work there can be no two 

 opinions ; and statesmen themselves, especially when out of 

 office, are ever ready to acknowledge the important part 

 which scientific knowledge plays in national greatness and 

 development. Judging from their utterances, science should 

 be cherished above all things by the nation which desires 

 to secure advancement ; but while it is thus honoured m 

 the abstract, it gives place to party politics when rewards 

 for national service are being distributed. Probably the 

 reason is that the ministers and officials who are chiefly 

 concerned with the affairs of State and Court live in a 

 world in which science and the results of science are almost 

 unknown. This is really the characteristic of the official 

 mind in England. For instance, the Court newsman in 

 his official report of the King's garden-party states that 

 invitations were issued to " representatives of the musical, 

 dramatic, and literary professions." It is a striking 

 illustration of the state of the official mind that repre- 

 sentatives of the musical and dramatic professions should 

 be referred to as having been invited to meet their 

 Majesties, while science was not mentioned. 



As we went to press yesterday, July i, the Linnean 

 Society celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the reading of 

 the joint paper on natural selection by Charles Darwin 

 and Alfred Russel Wallace. At the afternoon meeting a 

 medal, specially struck for the occasion, was presented to 

 Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, 

 Prof. Ernst Haeckel, Prof. Eduard Strasburger, Prof. 

 .August Weismann, Dr. Francis Galton, and Sir E. Ray 

 Lankester. At the same meeting congratulatory addresses 

 were received from British universities and British and 

 foreign societies and academies. About a hundred of the 

 fellows and guests of the society dined together at the 

 Princes' Restaurant at 6.30, and later in the evening a re- 

 ception was held at the rooms of the society. We hope to 

 give a full account of the proceedings in our next issue. 



M. Henri Becquerel has been elected permanent secre- 

 tary of the Paris Academy of Sciences for the physical 

 sciences. 



Prof. H. H. Turner, F.R.S., has been elected corre- 

 spondant of the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section 

 of astronomy in succession to the late Prof. Vogel. 



The death is announced, at Paris, of Dr. Luiz Cruls, 

 director of the Observatory of Rio de Janeiro. 



The annual exhibition of antiquities, from excavations 

 in Upper Egypt during the past season, was opened at the 

 Institute of Archeology, University of Liverpool, on 

 Monday, June 29, and will remain open until Thursday, 

 Ju'y 9- 



