﻿lvi 



PKOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9IO, 



characters are present may be ascertained and expressed as far as 

 possible by numerical values. 



It is not only Comparative Anatomy which has thus enlarged the 

 field of its labours, every branch of science finds itself compelled to 

 undertake new enquiries and to extend its investigations into finer 

 and finer details. 



The memoirs to which these researches give rise are poured out 

 in a continual stream ; they are so numerous, so lengthy, so scat- 

 tered through numberless Transactions, Proceedings, Journals, and 

 other forms of publication, that it becomes increasingly difficult to 

 contend with the literature alone, and Science seems in danger 

 of being overwhelmed beneath the weight of her own acquisitions. 

 Nor does there appear to be any prospect of alleviation by some 

 process of natural selection. Our difficulties are not lessened by 

 the fact that so much of this increasing literature is expressed in 

 a variety of tongues, which include Russian and Hungarian, but 

 not Greek nor Latin. Considering the number of languages which 

 a scientific investigator must be able to read, with at least a certain 

 amount of facility, it would be greatly to his advantage if some of 

 them were more seriously taught at school ; the dead languages are 

 comparatively useless to him, and might be reserved for those who 

 are likely to need them. As regards the literature of Rome and 

 Greece, I must confess to have found greater delight in its master- 

 pieces when presented in a scholarly translation than when spelling 

 them out by my own unaided efforts. To me it seems nothing 

 less than a scandal that so large a proportion of our youth are 

 compelled to waste their best years at school over tasks of very 

 doubtful utility, for which the majority have neither taste nor 

 aptitude. 



It is possible that we may soon find ourselves obliged to learn 

 some Oriental languages : the Japanese have already entered with 

 ardour into scientific research ; they are beginning to share our 

 anthropological studies, and the interest which we have shown in 

 the anatomical peculiarities of their race they are returning by an 

 investigation of ours. Comparatively recently a paper appeared by 

 B. Adache & K. Fujisawa describing the occurrence of Mongoloid 

 spots on a white baby of German parentage, 1 thus lending colour to 

 Huxley's hypothesis of the origin of the Melanochroi by the crossing 

 of the Xanthochroi with a dark race. 



1 ' Mongolen-Kinderflecken bei Europaern ' Zeitschr. f. Morphologie & 

 Anthropologic vol. iv (1902) p. 463. 



