1880, ] Scientific News, 829 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
— The fiftieth meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science was held at Swansea, beginning August 
26th. The inaugural address of the president, Prof. A. C. Ram- 
Say, was on the recurrence of certain phenomena in geological 
time. It was a contribution to the doctrine of uniformita- 
rianism. He claimed that the deposition of the Laurentian 
rocks took place far from the beginning of recognized geological 
time ; that the phenomena of metamorphism extend from that date 
all through the later formations down to and including part of the 
ocene strata; that volcanic forces played no more important 
part in any period of geological time than in our modern epoch, 
that the formation of mountain chains has gone on with increas- 
ing vigor from before the deposition of Silurian rocks to Pliocene 
times ; that the deposition of salts from aqueous solutions in 
inland lakes and lagoons appears to have taken place through all 
time; that glacial phenomena began with the Cambrian epoch. 
He concludes, therefore, that the earliest of the physical events 
alluded to by him were so enormously removed from the primi- 
tive events assumed by the nebular hypothesis, “ that they appear 
to me to have been of comparatively quite modern occurrence, 
and to indicate that from the Laurentian epoch down to the 
present day all the physical events in the history of the earth 
have varied neither in kind nor in intensity from those of which 
we now have experience.” The address of H. C. Sorby, presi- 
dent of the section of geology, was on the comparative structure 
of artificial slags and erupted rocks, there being a gradual pas- 
sage from one type to the other. The address of Dr. Günther, » 
president of the section of biology, was on museums, with espe- 
cial reference to the British Museum. The address of Mr. Bal- 
four in the department of Anatomy and Physiology, was on 
recent progress in embryology, and is a valuable résumé of our 
present knowledge of the origin of the different anatomical sys- 
tems of the animal body, with especial’ reference to the genesis 
of the nervous system. 
— A London paper of recent date gives the following particu- 
lars of an extraordinary match at rat killing. “ Hollinwood, near 
Manchester, was the scene of a rather novel rat-killing match the 
other day, between Mr. Benson’s fox terrier dog, Turk, and a Mr. 
Lewis's monkey, for £5. The conditions of the match were that 
each one had to kill twelve rats, and the one that finished them 
You may guess what 
nd a commotion it caused. ime g 
the monkey’s turn, a 
s immediately put to his twelve rats, Mr. 
called, the monkey wa 
