OcToBER 15, 1897. ] 
43. Exhibition of Lance-headed Implements of 
Glass from Northwest Australia. Sir W. W. 
TURNER. 
44, The Genesis of Implement-Making. F. 
CUSHING. 
Starting with the arboreal, artless pre- 
curser of man in southeastern tropical Asia, 
Mr. Cushing traced his development and 
extension after the acquisition of a larger 
brain, of the power to use the hand, of 
speech, ete., emphasizing the role of the 
psychic factor—the rule of the ideal instead 
of the physical, and the influence of sea- 
shore residence on primitive man. The 
passage from teeth and nails to shells and 
the passage of man through the pre-lithic 
and proto-lithic periods was indicated with 
numerous illustrative experiments and 
references to the investigations of the shell- 
heaps of Florida and Maine. It was a 
great triumph for man when he ceased to 
be a mere user of tools and came to make 
tools with tools. 
45. Adze-Making in the Andaman Islands 
(lantern illustrations). Prorrssor A. C. 
Happon. 
Professor A. C. Haddon exhibited a se- 
ries of slides from photographs taken by 
Mr. Portman, showing the natives of the 
Andaman Islands in the various stages of 
manufacturing their adzes. It was a model 
series of anthropological photographs. 
In the number and nature of the papers 
read, the discussions which followed them 
and the interchange, after the sessions were 
over, of thought and suggestions, the ses- 
sion was one of the most successful in the 
history of the Association. 
The grants for anthropological research 
made by the General Association were as 
follows, the committees marked * having 
been reappointed : 
*Tylor, Professor E. B.—Northwestern 
Tribes of Canada..............c.ec0sessce eee £75 Os 
*Munro, Dr. R.—Lake Village at Glas- 
OWI O TIT consconcansncen gnosntanosbacebooosooss 37 10 
SCLEN CE. 
583. 
*Brabrook, Mr. E. W.—Ethnographical 
Survey (and unexpended -balance in 
15010) VecneReeeecee re epadcadocuci=soaccooncoocaas 25 0 
* Evans. Mr. A. J.—Silchester Excavation 7 10 
* Dawson, Dr. G. M.—Ethnological Sur- 
WieVAOls Canad ane meentsccsseecae eect eeness om: 
Turner, Sir W.—Anthropology and Nat- 
ural History of Torres Strait............ 
A. EF. CHAMBERLAIN. 
ORGANIC SELECTION.* 
Tuts discussion was held before a joint 
afternoon session of the Zoological and Bo- 
tanical Sections. At the close of Professor 
Poulton’s paper he was obliged to with- 
draw. The question of the inheritance of 
acquired characters was taken up by Profes- 
sor Theodore Gill, and a few remarks were 
made by Professor C. E. Bessey and others 
upon the botanical side. 
Professor Osborn introduced the subject 
by a brief history of the progress of thought. 
in recent years, dwelling especially upon 
the fact that ten years ago all the leading 
Darwinians had strenuously adhered to the 
original view of Darwin, that ‘fortuitous 
variation’ plays the most important part in 
the origin of new types, and that there was 
little evidence for ‘determinate variation.’ 
He continued as follows: The evidence 
for definite or determinate variation has al- 
ways been my chief difficulty with the nat- 
ural selection theory, and my chief reason 
for giving a measure of support to the La- 
marckian theory. This evidence has stead- 
ily accumulated in botanical and zoological 
as well as paleontological researches, until 
it has come to a degree of demonstration 
where it must be reckoned with. 
Quite in another field, that of experi- 
mental embryology and zoology, the facts 
of adaptation to new and untoward cireum- 
stances of environment have begun to 
* A discussion introduced by Professor Henry F. Os- 
born and Professor Edward B. Poultonat the Detroit 
meeting of the American Association, Wednesday, 
August 11th. 
