396 Scientific Intelligence. 



with the fact that parts of an organism, resulting from sponta- 

 neous or artificial division, possess the same formative power as 

 did the undivided organism. But it must be remembered that 

 most organisms do not admit of such division, and that in those 

 that do admit of it, everything depends on how the division is 

 made. The extra-capsular portion of a Radiolarian does not re- 

 produce the central capsule, nor does the non-nucleated fragment 

 of an infusorian regain its lost parts. Even here, then, it is not 

 permissible to disregard the physiological correlation of parts, 

 since both nuclear and cyptoplasmic elements are indispensable to 

 the preservation of the formative power. We still have to regard 

 such organisms as physiological wholes, although the physiologi- 

 cal connexus may be representable in aliquot parts. 



" The principle holds true of every organism, irrespective of 

 whether the mass is divided into cells or not. The fact that 

 physiological unity is not broken by cell-boundaries is confirmed 

 in so many ways that it must be accepted as one of the funda- 

 mental truths of biology." 



IY. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Meeting of the British Association at Bath in 1888. — The 

 meeting of the British Association opened on the 5th of Septem- 

 ber, with the inaugural address of the President, Sir Frederick 

 Bramwell. There were Addresses before the several sections on 

 the following day by the Presidents of the sections, Prof. W. 

 Boyd Dawkins, of the Geological section, Wm. A. Tilden, of the 

 Chemical, W. T. Thiselton Dyer, of the Biological, Col. C. W. 

 Wilson, of the Geographical, W. H. Preece, of the section of 

 Mechanical Science, and Lieut. Gen. Pitt Rivers, of that of 

 Anthropology. Probably no geological paper excited greater 

 interest than that of Mr. C. D. Walcott, of the United States 

 Geological Survey, on the remarkable collection of fossils he had 

 made during the. summer from the Cambrian beds of south- 

 eastern Newfoundland, leading to a change in the order of suc- 

 cession of the American Cambrian fauna, putting the Olenellus 

 zone at the bottom. A future number of this Journal will contain 

 an account of his important results. 



The addresses above mentioned and abstracts of some of the 

 papers presented will be found in the numbers of Nature for the 

 months of September and October. 



OBITUARY. 



Mr. Benjamin B. Chamberlin, the author of a pamphlet 

 recently published on the Minerals of New York County, died 

 suddenly on the 13th of October, at the age of fifty-seven. 



