300 oles and Comments. 
that the modern view of the structure of the earth added greatly 
to the interest of its study, for it recognised the world as an 
individual entity of which both the geological structure and the 
history had to be considered as a whole. Once the earth was 
regarded as a mere lifeless, inert mass, which had been spun by 
the force of gravity, that hurled it on its course into the shape 
of a simple oblate spheroid. Corresponding with this astro- 
nomical teaching as to the shape of the world was the geological 
doctrine that all its topography was the work of local geo- 
graphical agents, whose control over the surface of the earth 
was as absolute as that of the sculptor’s chisel over a block of 
marble. 
THE WSHAPE, OR) TAE VEARTEE 
In his Presidential Address to the Mathematical Section, 
Prof. A. E. H. Love asked, if the ocean could be dried up, what 
would be the shape of the earth? By means of interesting dia- 
grams he demonstrated his theory of ‘ gravitational instability,’ 
accounting for the existence of the oceans, and the suggestion 
that without the oceans the sphere would be deformed into a 
sort of irregular pear-shaped surface, with the stalk of the pear 
in the southern part of Australia, and containing Australasia 
and the Antarctic continent. In attempting to estimate the 
bearing of his theory on geological history he was guided by 
the consideration that the earth is not now gravitationally 
unstable. From observations of the propagation of earthquake 
shocks to great distances, they could determine the average 
resistance to compression, and they found that this resistance 
was now sufficiently great to keep in check any tendency to 
gravitational unstability. 
CEPHALOPODS. 
Dr. W. E. Hoyle, of the Manchester Museum, in his 
Presidential Address to the Zoological Section, dealt with ‘The 
small and economically unimportant group of the Cephalopoda,’ 
a subject of which he has made a special study, and in giving 
the results of his own researches Dr. Hoyle unquestionably 
acted wisely. The classification of the Cephalopoda was the 
President’s theme, and whilst it is admittedly not a subject 
which can be made interesting to all, his contribution can be 
looked upon as a clear statement of the present position of 
a far too neglected branch of Zoology. Dr. Hoyle spoke as a 
specialist, as a systematist, ‘one whose main work has been the 
discrimination and definition of genera and species.’ 
Naturalist. 
