J 895.] 
F. A. Shillingford —Kusi River. 
41 
control; the process of self-purification is still at so early a stage that 
the external conditions of the individual have to be carefully adjusted 
to his weak condition. He is an ascetic, denies himself abundance of 
food, he inhabits the woods, and carefully and scrupulously lives a life 
away from the haunts of men; thus he flies from temptations because 
temptations may overcome him. So in primitive Humanity the condi¬ 
tions of life are simple. The second picture typifies a higher state of 
self-control and inner development. The previous discipline has 
borne fruit, and the ascetic no longer requires to live in the woods or 
monasteries. At the time of Buddha, or of Christ, a new era was 
inaugurated when the children of God “ live in the world though not of 
it.” Surrounded by temptations of every kind the present and future 
ascetic maintains his firm hold upon the inner life, unmoved and 
without attachment. Thus the two pictures show forth the law of 
evolution as it affects and powerfully modifies the growth of character 
and development of religion itself, or of the Human capacity to receive 
spiritual revelations. 
The following papers were read :— 
1. Description of a new Lathraea from the Eastern Himalaya,—By 
Surgeon-Captain H. A. Cummins, Army Medical Staff. Communicated 
by the Natural History Secretary {Postponed from last Meeting.) 
2. Notes on the bleaching action of light on colouring matters , —By 
Alexander Pedler, Esq., F.B.S., &c. 
The papers will be published in the Journal , Part II. 
3. On changes in the course of the Kusi River, and the probable 
dangers arising from them ,— By F. A. Shillingford, Esq. 
The paper will be published in the Journal, Part 1. 
Sir Charles Elliott said :—“ The paper, as far as it has been ex¬ 
plained to us by I)r. Grierson, is open to criticism on many points. 
The past history of the Kusi river is uncertain. It is admitted that 
it originally flowed in an easterly course, and has gradually reached 
its present position where it flows almost direct south from the gorge 
through which it debouches from the Himalayas. But why should not 
the swing of the pendulum continue till it is deflected as much to the 
west as it ever was to the east? There seems to be no evidence 
adduced to show that, the river has reached its westernmost position, 
or to show that if it has, it will return violently from a direct southern 
to an extreme eastern course, instead of doing so gradually. Neither 
has anything been said about the well-known theory of the westering 
of rivers in the Northern Hemisphere which, so far as it is a ■ true 
theory, would lead us to expect the river to trend in a westerly, net an 
