380 Scientific Intelligence. 



many delegates will do much to stimulate efforts toward a solu- 

 tion of the problems discussed. c. s. 



6. The Origin of Man and of his Superstitions; by Carveth 

 Read. Pp. vi, 350. Cambridge University Press, 1920.— It is a 

 large and complex problem that Professor Carveth Read would 

 solve in this volume. There was a time toward the last third of 

 the Ohgocene epoch, some 2,000,000 to 8,500,000 years ago, when 

 some Primate with wolfish instincts organized a hunting pack of 

 his own kind. The venture was successful. It afforded a mixed 

 and continuous diet ; it also developed leadership and the oppor- 

 tunity to translate individual experience into group experience. 

 The effect became cumulative until a point was reached where 

 the individuals of the Primate pack outclassed all other Primates 

 and became Man. 



The last eight of the ten chapters are devoted to the origin of 

 Man's superstitions, which appear to follow from the author's 

 conception of Man's origin. george grant mac curdy. 



Obituary. 



Dr. Sherburne Wesley Burniiam, the astronomer, died on 

 March 11 in liis eighty-thii'd year. He was early connected with 

 the Dearborn Observatory, Chicago; later at the Washburn 

 Observatory at Madison, Wisconsin; the Lick Observatoiy in 

 California; and finally at the Yerkes Observatory of tlie Chicago 

 University. He was an active observer and i's credited with 

 having discovered nearly 1.300 double stars, the subject in which 

 he was particularly interested. 



Dr. Charles Henry Fernald, professor of zoology and 

 entomology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College from 1886 

 to 1910, died on February 22 in his eiglity-third year. 



Professor Irving Angell Field, head of the department of 

 biology m Clark University since 1918, died on February 14. 



Dr. Frederick James Volney Skiff, for many years the able 

 director of the Field IMuseum of Natural History, died on Feb- 

 ruary 24 at tlie age of sixty-nine years. 



Dr. Alfred Gabriel Natiiorst, the distinquished Swedish 

 geologist and paleobotanist, died at Stockholm on January 20 in 

 his seventy-first year. 



Professor T. Miyake, the eminent zoologist of the Imperial 

 University of Tokyo, died on February 2. His contributions to 

 Science were largely in the department of entomology. 



Dr. John Cannell Cain, the English chemist died on January 

 31 at the age of forty-nine. He was particuarly interested in 

 dye stuffs and allied subjects to which he made numerous con- 

 tributions. 



Dr. Carl Toldt, professor of anatomy at the university in 

 Vienna, died recently at the age of eighty years. 



