The British Association at Dundee. 
365 
late for a well-trained mind to master a new subject, but be who 
neglects the substance of education for the shadow of mere 
knowledge robs himself of half the pleasure of his work and of every 
chance of greatness.” Admirable doctrine, which we heartily 
commend to teachers and students alike. 
The President then went on to claim that we had, after all, 
some virtues in greater degree than our Victorian predecessors : 
“ theirs the higher meed of culture; ours, perhaps, the greater 
perspicacity.” And a sign of this contrast is that while 
Mendel lived among them, it remained for us to discover his work. 
The Mendelian Method and the Problem of 
Flower-Colour. 
This served to introduce the second main topic of the address, 
the current applications of Mendel’s laws. In the first place, Dr. 
Keeble claimed that “ there can be no criticism ” of the method of 
Mendelian research, because it is like a knife which can cut a loaf 
whose crust “ has turned the edge of other implements.” And then, 
after a short general exposition of Mendelian theory, he went on to 
consider the application of the Mendelian method to the analysis 
of flower-colour, with which his own researches have been lately 
concerned. 
In the first place he called attention to the fact, which Mendelian 
research revealed some years ago, that two kinds of white flower 
have to be distinguished, the so-called “ dominant ” and the so- 
called “ recessive whites.” The first cross of a “ recessive white ” 
with a coloured flower gives a coloured F t generation and three 
coloured to one white in F 2 . The first cross of a “dominant 
white ” with a coloured flower gives, on the contrary, a white Fj^ 
generation, and three white to one coloured in F 2 . Of these three 
whites one “ breeds true to whiteness,” i.e., is homozygous in 
respect of that character, while the other two are heterozygous, 
i.e., when self fertilised, their offspring again show segregation, 
giving rise to three white and one coloured form ; and so on. This 
result is explained by the hypothesis that the dominant whites 
carry a factor for colour and also a factor for colour inhibition—- 
an hypothesis which perfectly explains the observed genetic results 
and shews the fruitfulness of Mendelism by propounding “ a series 
of questions to the physiologist and the biochemist.” 
After some illuminating remarks on the relation of the new 
method to the general—and hitherto quite insufficiently defined— 
problem of the variation of species, introduced by the observation 
that variation in the conditions of growth may alter the adult 
character in the case of the inheritance of an unpaired factor— 
the case cited being the destructive effect of heat on the colour 
inhibitor, leading to flushing of the flowers—Dr. Keeble went on 
to discuss the recent advances in our knowledge of the factors 
giving rise to plant pigments, and to show the very important 
results that are accruing from the combination of Mendelian and 
biochemical work. 
“The merit of being the first to combine the genetical with the 
biochemical method belongs to Miss Wheldale, to whom, more¬ 
over, we owe a good working hypothesis of the nature of the 
