SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— G, H. 385 



and accurac}'. In the existing British classification, every specification is indexed 

 thoroughly for all matter of interest, whether claimed or not, and appears in the 

 indexes under all relevant sub-headings (this is not the U.S.A. or German practice). 

 Each class or sub-class is specifically defined by the headings appearing under it 

 and the references from it to other classes. There are no ' see also ' references. The 

 published classification and allotment of cases under it is exactly that used by the 

 examining staff. This is not so in the U.S.A. office, where repeat copies are placed in 

 the official search files, that are met only by cross-references in the printed ke}'. 

 This is not so, also, in German practice. The British classification is based upon 

 construction or structure and not upon application. Nevertheless, the classification 

 bears marks of its evolution from a classification based upon industries or application. 



An exhibition of working refrigerating plants suitable for small busi- 

 nesses and domestic purposes was on view in the Engineering Labora- 

 tories, Park Road, from August 4 to August 10. 



Mr. Leonard Andrews demonstrated the hydraulic classification of 

 fine materials at 12.30 and 2.30 each day of the meeting from August 5 

 to August 10, in the Engineering Laboratories, Park Road. 



SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 



(For references to the publication elsewhere of communications entered in the 

 following list of Transactions, see page 447.) 



Thursday, August 5. 



1. Capt. G. Pitt-Rivers. — On Method, Approach, and Diagnostic Fallacies 



in dealing tvith the Problem of Depopidation in the Pacific. 



The cultural anthropologist is constantly inviting the collaboration of specialists 

 in other departments of research. A united effort on the part of ethnographer, 

 biologist, psychologist, and demographer is called for. It has been left to recent 

 workers, notably, for instance, to workers like the late Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and Dr. 

 B. Malinowski, to appreciate fully that, in the matter of life or death of a race, mental 

 and cultural as well as physical adaptation must be considered. When two races 

 meet there are three ways by which one may extinguish the other — directly by 

 violence, indirectly by the gradual substitution, through differential birth- and 

 survival-rates, of one population for another, and thirdly, when they mix freely, by 

 selective eUmination of less adaptable characters. Racial decline and decUne of 

 population are often confused. Cultural clash by one racial group with another does 

 not always initiate decline, it may promote the opposite. The factors of elimination 

 most frequently listed as alleged causes of decrease of Pacific races can be grouped 

 under two mutually contradictory classes. There is no evidence of any general 

 decline before the advent of Europeans into the Pacific. The true approach to solving 

 the problem of depopulation lies in elucidating the problems of miscegenation in 

 relation to variations in adaptabiUty. 



2. Miss W. Blackman. — Beliefs and Ceremonies connected with Modern 



Egyptian Saints {Coptic and Moslem) and their Ancient Analogies. 



3. Miss D. A. E. Garrod. — Excavation of a Mousterian Site and Discovery 



of a Human Skidl at Devil's Tower, Gibraltar. 



Excavations carried out in a rock-shelter near Devil's Tower, Gibraltar, have 

 brought to light five archaeological levels (maximum thickness 8 metres), resting on 

 a raised beach at 8 metres above sea-level. Typical Mousterian implements, with 

 associated fauna, were present in all the levels, and in the fourth from the surface 

 were found the frontal and one parietal bono of a human skull embedded in a hard 

 travertine. 



1926 C C 



