November 1, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



683 



greatest importance from both political and 

 sociological standpoints. 



A number of papers describing itinera- 

 ries in various portions of the world were 

 presented to the section, but reference need 

 be made to but few of these and of the 

 more general topics discussed a few may be 

 briefly mentioned. Professor Ireland, in a 

 paper on ' The Geographical Limits of Pop- 

 ular Government,' maintained that climatic 

 conditions unfitted the inhabitants of trop- 

 ical regions for representative government, 

 and in these regions the administration 

 must be placed in the hands of trained 

 Europeans. Dr. W. G. Smith presented an 

 account of the botanical survey of Scotland, 

 which is at present being carried out on the 

 basis of a modification of the plan adopted 

 by Professor Flahault of Montpelier. The 

 entire flora is regarded as being composed 

 of a number of ' plant associations,' in each 

 of which there is one or more dominant 

 species, and the object of the survey is to 

 map out these associations. Maps of the 

 associations of Northern Perthshire and of 

 an area in the vicinity of Edinburgh have 

 already been published and the work on 

 Fife and Forfar is ready for publication. 

 Professor Moreno, of the Museum of La 

 Plata, gave an interesting account of the 

 anthropogeography of the Argentine Re- 

 public, in the course of which he took the 

 position that the races of South America 

 were of great antiquity and that instead 

 of the civilizations of Peru and Bolivia com- 

 ing from the north, they were in reality 

 much older than such civilizations as that 

 of the Pueblos. 



An account of the National Antarctic 

 Expedition organized by the E-oyal and the 

 Royal Geographical Societies was given by 

 Dr. Scott Keltic, and Mr. W. S. Bruce de- 

 scribed the plans of an expedition which he 

 hoped to lead next year to the Weddell Sea 

 and which he spoke of as the Scottish 

 National Antarctic Expedition, since the 



expenses have been entirely defrayed by 

 Scotsmen. Captain Lemaire gave an in- 

 teresting account of the Belgian Scientific 

 Expedition to Ka-Tanga, Central Africa, in 

 1897, and spoke in hopeful terms of the 

 possibilities of the high plateaus of that 

 region for European colonization, stating 

 that all the usual European vegetables and 

 many fruits had already been cultivated 

 with great success. Finally, a paper by 

 Dr. A. Lawrence Rotch, director of the 

 Blue Hill Observatory near Boston, was 

 presented under the title ' Exploration of 

 the Atmosphere at Sea by Kites.' It was 

 pointed out that on land the use of kites 

 was possible only when the wind blew at 

 a velocity of over twelve miles an hour, 

 but on ships this difficulty was done away 

 with, the motion of the vessel giving the 

 desired velocity. The importance of some 

 knowledge as to the height to which the 

 trade winds extended and also as to the 

 direction and strength of the higher cur- 

 rents was pointed out and the possibility of 

 acquiring such knowledge by the use of 

 kites was suggested. 



A conference was held with the Geolog- 

 ical and Zoological Sections for the purpose 

 of discussing the scheme of a survey of the 

 lakes of the British Isles which is to be 

 carried out by Sir John Murray and Mr. 

 Lawrence Pullar. It is intended to make 

 a complete survey of each lake from all 

 standpoints, bathymetrical, thermometrical, 

 geological, botanical and zoological. Many 

 interesting suggestions were made in the 

 discussion which followed the reading of a 

 letter by Sir John Murray stating the 

 plans that he had formed for the work and 

 a resolution was passed expressing the 

 gratification of the Sections that such a 

 survey was to be carried out. 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SECTION. 



The address of the president of the An- 

 thropological Section, Professor D. J. Cun- 



