336 
canoes.’ He discussed especially the causes 
leading to the display of seismic and vyol- 
eanic activity and the benefits to be derived 
from studying the phenomena. Dr. H. O. 
Forbes gave, on Saturday evening, the usual 
lecture to artisans, taking as his subject 
‘Borneo.’ Meetings were also held for the 
conferring of degrees on several of the 
prominent members both by Toronto Uni- 
versity and by Trinity College. 
The arrangements for social intercourse 
and entertainment were numerous and at- 
tractive. A reception was given by the 
Governor-General and the Countess of 
Aberdeen on Thursday evening; there was 
a conversatzione in the University building 
on Tuesday evening and a banquet in 
honor of Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister and Sir 
John Evanson Wednesday evening. There 
were garden parties daily in the afternoons 
and many luncheons and dinners. JHx- 
cursions were made on Saturday to Niagara 
Falls and in other directions, and for the 
Thursday following the meeting excursions 
were arranged to Montreal, Ottawa and 
elsewhere. Finally elaborate excursions 
were planned under the most favorable 
conditions to the maritime provinces and 
to Manitoba and the Pacific coast. 
The business of the Association is trans- 
acted by the General Committee, chiefly on 
advice of the Council. This year part of 
the arrangements, including the election of 
officers for next year, were deferred until an 
autumn meeting in Great Britain. Pro- 
fessor Roberts-Austen was made General 
Secretary in succession to Mr. Vernon Har- 
court, and in the room of the five members 
of the Council who retired there were 
elected F. Darwin, Esq., Sir C. W. Free- 
mantle, Professor W. D. Halliburton, Pro- 
fessor 5. P. Thompson and Sir W. H. 
White. Dr. F. Kohlrausch, Berlin; Dr. 
Van Rejckevorsel, Rotterdam, and Pro- 
fessor E. Zacharias, Hamburg, were made 
corresponding members. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. VI. No. 140. 
The report of the Council adopted by the 
General Committee contained reports of 
two important committees appointed at the 
Liverpool meeting. The committee ap- 
pointed to bring before the government the 
question of the establishment of a national 
physical laboratory has been in so far suc- 
cessful that the Treasury is taking the mat- 
ter into consideration and has appointed a 
committee to report on such a laboratory. 
The committee appointed to urge upon 
the government the importance of estab- 
lishing a Bureau of Ethnology for Greater 
Britain, consisting of the President and 
General Officers, with Sir John Evans, Sir 
John Lubbock, Mr. C. H. Read and Pro- 
fessor Tylor, made the following report: 
A central establishment in England, to which 
would come information with regard to the habits, 
beliefs and methods of government of the primitive 
peoples now existing would be of great service to 
science and of no inconsiderable utility to the goy- 
ernment. 
1. The efforts of the various societies which have, 
during the last twenty years, devoted themselves to 
collecting and publishing ethnological information 
have necessarily produced somewhat unequal, and 
therefore unsatisfactory, results. Such societies had, 
of course, to depend upon the reports of explorers, 
who usually travelled for another purpose than that 
in which the societies were interested ; and such re- 
ports were naturally unsystematic, the observers be- 
ing mostly untrained in the science. Again, whole 
regions would be unrepresented in the transac- 
tions of the societies, perhaps from the absence of 
the usual attractions of travellers, e.g., big game 
or mineral riches. This has been to some extent cor- 
rected, at least as to the systematic nature of the re- 
ports, by the publication of ‘ Anthropological Notes 
and Queries,’ by the Anthropological Institute, with 
the help of the British Association. 
If it be admitted that the study of the human race 
is an important branch of science, no further argu- 
ment is needed to commend the gathering of facts with 
regard to the conditions under which aboriginal races 
now live, and if this work is worth doing, it should 
be done without delay. With the exception, perhaps, 
of the negro, it would seem that none of the lower 
races are capable of living side by side with whites. 
The usual result of such contact is demoralization, 
physical decline and steady diminution of numbers ; 
