686 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 357. 



earliest known Greek inscriptions, and by 

 six or seven the first dated record of Phoe- 

 nician script. In addition to the linear 

 tablets others of a contemporary age were 

 discovered inscribed with characters of a 

 hieroglyphic nature, probably of an entirely 

 different language. Excavations have also 

 been carried on at Praseos, the capital of 

 the ancient Eteocretans, and have yielded 

 an inscription in Greek characters of the 

 fifth century B. C, but composed in the 

 Eteocretan language, and excavations at 

 Zakro, in the extreme east of the island, 

 revealed about 150 clay impressions of My- 

 cenaean gems and signets, some of which 

 throw new light on the early religion of 

 Crete. 



In connection with the meeting of the 

 Section a pleasing incident was the formal 

 opening of the new Anatomical Laboratory 

 of the University of Glasgow, erected with 

 the aid of a bequest from the trustees of the 

 late Mr. J. B. Thompson. The chair was 

 occupied by Lord Lister, and speeches were 

 made by Mr. Barr in behalf of the Thomp- 

 son trustees, Principal Story on behalf of 

 the University, Sir William Turner and 

 Professor CI eland, who has presented to the 

 University his large collection of anatom- 

 ical preparations. At the close of the 

 speech-making the guests were entertained 

 in the new laboratories by Professor and 

 Mrs. Cleland and were given an opportunity 

 of examining the arrangement of the rooms 

 and the collections. 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL SECTION. 



The opening address of the Physiological 

 Section, delivered by the President, Pro- 

 fessor J. G. McKendrick, was a considera- 

 tion of the dilemma suggested by Clerk 

 Maxwell in his article on the Atom in the 

 Encyclopsedia Britannica. The dilemma 

 was to the effect that a germ cell cannot be 

 structureless, yet it is too small to contain 

 a sufl&cient number of molecules to account 



for all the characteristics which are trans- 

 mitted by it. Professor McKendrick, on 

 making calculations based on more modern 

 data concludes that Maxwell's estimate of 

 the possible number of molecules in an ovum 

 is too small and instead of containing only 

 something like a million the fecundated 

 ovum may start with as many as twelve 

 million million organic molecules, a num- 

 ber probably sufficiently great to account 

 for the transmission of all hereditary char- 

 acters. He also suggested that since the 

 physicists conceive of molecules as being 

 more or less in motion, it is possible that 

 the activities of living matter may be due 

 to a certain kind of motion as yet unknown 

 to physicists. 



Sir John Burdon Sanderson described the 

 application of the telephone to the investi- 

 gation of the rhythmic phenomena of mus- 

 cles and detailed the results obtained by 

 this method by Miss Buchanan, working in 

 the physiological laboratory at Oxford, and 

 which have already appeared in the Jour- 

 nal of Physiology. Professor Sherrington 

 gave an account of experiments upon the 

 cerebral cortical centers in two chimpan- 

 zees, the first experiments of the kind which 

 had been performed on animals higher in 

 the scale of life than monkeys. In one of 

 the animals the cortical center for the hand 

 was delimited and excised, the result being 

 an immediate paralysis of the hand, which, 

 however, in a few weeks completely passed 

 away. In the second animal the center for 

 the foot was similarly treated, with similar 

 results. A study of the degenerated tracts 

 in the first animal revealed the existence of 

 a direct pyramidal tract in the spinal cord, 

 a group of fibers which has hitherto been 

 supposed to occur only in man. The de- 

 generation resulting from the extirpation 

 of the foot center did not affect this tract. 



Dr. Kennedy, of Glasgow, described, with 

 lantern views, a case in which a long-stand- 

 ing spasm of the facial muscles had been 



