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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XM. No.. 1046 



peninsula, are all discussed from the point of 

 view of ttis search for an additional or an 

 easier access to another sea. Thirdly, mari- 

 time powers, in his opinion, necessarily strive 

 to extend their dominion over the coasts which 

 face their own. Eome and Carthage, Italy 

 looking across the narrow Adriatic, and also 

 across the Mediterranean to Tripoli, France and 

 Algiers, the designs of Britain upon the coasts 

 which encircle the Indian Ocean, are all given 

 as examples. Again he points out that when 

 any power possesses a part of a navigable 

 stream there is a tendency for it to seek to 

 extend its dominion down to the mouth. 

 Similarly, a colonizing power which has taken 

 possession of the mouth of a river tends also 

 to follow that river up to its source. The 

 same thing may tend to happen in civilized 

 countries, if the water of the river is used for 

 irrigation, or if stream control is necessary. 

 Thus the control of the lower course of the 

 Vistula by Prussia is difficult because its upper 

 waters are extra-Prussian. But the difficulty 

 'of the Polish question makes it necessary for 

 ^Prussia to avoid covetousness in this connec- 

 Uion, while a frontier adjustment which would 

 deprive Prussia of the lower Vistula would cut 

 off wholly German territory from the empire. 

 The Ehine, he states, is another case where 

 purely political conditions stand in the way of 

 a natural economic tendency. It is an advan- 

 tage to Germany for the mouth of this river 

 to remain in the hands of a neutral state so 

 long as the neutrality of this state is 

 effectively maintained, for as it faces a power- 

 ful sea power, it would, if German, be liable 

 to blockade in war time. Again, the fact that 

 the Elbe and Danube are both Austrian as 

 well as German rivers means that those two 

 powers must either be allies or enemies, and 

 these rivers thus form part of the geographical 

 justification of the triple alliance. On the 

 other hand, the relation of the great rivers of 

 South America to the different states there 

 suggests to the author that the political divi- 

 sion of South America is in an unfinished 

 condition, and that great readjustment will 

 probably take place there. 



Finally Dr. Dix is of opinion that a spe- 



cifically modem cause of political differences 

 among nations lies in warring interests in 

 the construction of great transcontinental 

 railway routes. The permanent tension be- 

 tween Britain and Germany he ascribes, not 

 to the causes usually given on either side, but 

 to the great extra-European railway schemes 

 of the two powers. Germany, he says, is de- 

 sirous of constructing and controlling an east 

 to west line across the continent of Africa, 

 while Britain desires to complete the Cape 

 to Cairo route, to which Germany is strongly 

 opposed. Similarly, he states that Britain is 

 desirous of linking the Nile to the Indus by 

 rail, and therefore opposes the completion of 

 the Bagdad line to the Persian Gulf under 

 German auspices. These causes of dissension 

 might be got over by a mutual arrangement 

 between the powers, or by a German-British 

 alliance. 



TEE SUXLEY LECTURE 

 The Huxley lecture at Charing Cross Hos- 

 pital was delivered by Sir Eonald Eoss on 

 November 2. From the report in the British 

 Medical Journal we learn that before pro- 

 ceeding to the main subject of his address, 

 which discussed recent advances in science 

 and their bearing on medicine and surgery, 

 with special reference to malaria and the trans- 

 mission of diseases, he paid a well-conceived 

 tribute to Huxley, who. Sir Eonald Eoss said, 

 was not only the bulldog of Darwin, and the 

 interpreter of Darwin's profundities to the 

 world, but also a patient and passionate in- 

 vestigator and a patient and dispassionate 

 thinker regarding phenomena. But, the lec- 

 turer continued, Huxley was still more: he 

 was a philosopher possessing all the very first 

 qualities required for true philosophy. The 

 clarity of his style was itself a guarantee of 

 the genuineness and completeness of his 

 thought. Secondly, his mind was fiercely 

 critical in its search for truth, and he accepted 

 nothing as fact which he himself had not en- 

 deavored to probe to the depths. Thirdly, no 

 one has ever doubted that his aim was, not to 

 astonish or to defeat or to persuade, so much 

 as to reach the actual truth of every matter 



