CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 483 



to turn their attention to the geography of their own country. I do not 

 think a meeting of the British Association ever passes but that there are 

 papers read which are distinctly local in their character. So far as the 

 Glasgow meeting is concerned, I refer particularly to the papers which 

 were read on Friday in Section E by Professor Scott Elliot on ' The 

 Effects of Vegetation on the Valley and Plains of the Clyde ' ; the second 

 by Dr. Marion Newbigin on ' Proposed Geographical Survey of the Valley 

 of the Forth ' ; and the third by Professor W. G. Smith on ' A Botani- 

 cal Survey of Scotland.' The authors of these papers will be glad to receive 

 any assistance they can get from the local Societies, and I am directed 

 generally to draw the attention of the Delegates to the meetings in 

 Section E and to the discussion of local questions which occur there. 



The Chairman : The subject of Limnology, which has received a great 

 deal of attention on the Continent, has been ably dealt with in this 

 country, especially by Dr. Mill ; and I believe that Sir John Murray is 

 to be associated with Mr. Lawrence PuUar in the survey of the British 

 lakes about to be undertaken. If no one else wishes to speak on this 

 matter, which has been fully discussed elsewhere, we will pass on to 



Section F, Economic Science and Statistics. 

 This Section is apparently not represented, so we proceed to 

 Section G, Engineering. 



Professor Dalby : I may state that we have two Committees at work at 

 present, one of which has been sitting for about twenty years endeavour- 

 ing to Standardise Small Screw- Threads. Standards seem to be settled 

 according to the caprice of the different makers ; the Committee has 

 consequently been endeavouring to bring into operation a universal 

 standard ; in fact, such a standard has been proposed and has been put 

 into operation, and has been practically accepted in Paris ; but as the 

 difficulty in making a standard arises on account of the form of the 

 thread, it is more a recommendation that has been made in order to 

 obtain a simpler form of thread than has been done before. Any informa- 

 tion on the point of screw-threads will be welcomed by the Committee. 



The other Committee that I spoke of was only formed last year, and 

 refers to a subject which may be interesting — I i-efer to Road Traction. 

 A Committee was formed to find out how much it costs to pull a 

 wheeled vehicle over different kinds of roads, and the Committee will 

 be very glad to hear about the different kinds of roads in different dis- 

 tricts in order that they may be included in the experiments. Of course 

 the object of the experiments is not so much for horse-drawn vehicles as 

 for motor-cars, and the investigation is to find out how much it costs to 

 take these motor-cars over high roads. I hope we shall receive help on 

 this question. 



The Chairman : We are very much indebted to Professor Dalby for 

 these remarks, and I hope that some Society will see its way to give 

 assistance in these matters. We now come to 



Section H, Anthropology. 



Mr. H. Balfour : I was sent as representative of this Section to put 

 before you some suggestions on the subject of collecting anthropological 

 photographs. I was asked to state that any photographs and negatives 



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