50G B~RI A I&9T S^SS "OOKSTACKS «.2£r£ - tor ■ AUG 11 1992 MM 2 1992 50& 'Wtisb association for tbe Hovancement of Science TOEONTO MEETING, 1897 :HE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS AND THE SECTIONAL ADDRESSES LONDON OFFICES OF THE ASSOCIATION BURLINGTON HOUSE, W. Price One Shilling \S<2>7 ^kiftsf) JUsociafum for ffye J^opcwccment of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADMESS BY SIE JOHN EVANS, K.C.B. D.C.L., LL.D., Sc.D., Treas.R.S., V.P.S.A., For.Sec.G.S. CORRESPONDANT DE i/lNSTITUT DE FRANCE, &C. PRESIDENT, Once more has the Dominion of Canada invited the British Association for the Advancement of Science to hold one of the annual meetings of its members within the Canadian territory ; and for a second time has the Association had the honour and pleasure of accepting the proffered hospitality. In doing so, the Association has felt that if by any possibility the scientific welfare of a locality is promoted by its being the scene of such a meeting, the claims should be fully recognised of those who, though not dwelling in the British Isles, are still inhabitants of that Greater Britain whose prosperity is so intimately connected with the fortunes of the Mother Country. Here, especially, as loyal subjects of one beloved Sovereign, the sixtieth year of whose beneficent reign has just been celebrated with equal rejoic- ing in all parts of her Empire ; as speaking the same tongue, and as in most instances connected by the ties of one common parentage, we are bound together in all that can promote our common interests. There is, in all probability, nothing that will tend more to advance those interests than the diffusion of science in all parts of the British Empire, and it is towards this end that the aspirations of the British Association are ever directed, even if in many instances the aim may not be attained. We are, as already mentioned, indebted to Canada for previous hos- pitality, but we must also remember that, since the time when we last assembled on this side of the Atlantic, the Dominion has provided the A 2 REPORT — 1897. Association with a President, Sir William Dawson, whose name is alike well known in Britain and America, and whose reputation is indeed world-wide. We rejoice that we have still among us the pioneer of American geology, who among other discoveries first made us acquainted with the 1 Air-breathers of the Coal/ the terrestrial or more properly arboreal Saurians of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Coal-measures. On our last visit to Canada, in 1884, our place of assembly was Mont- real, a city which is justly proud of her McGill University ; to-day we meet within the buildings of another of the Universities of this vast Dominion — and in a city, the absolute fitness of which for such a purpose must have been foreseen by the native Indian tribes when they gave to a small aggregation of huts upon this spot the name of Toronto — 'the place of meetings.' Our gathering this year presents a feature of entire novelty and ex- treme interest, inasmuch as the sister Association of the United States of America, — still mourning the loss of her illustrious President, Professor Cope, — and some other learned societies, have made special arrangements to allow of their members coming here to join us. I need hardly say how welcome their presence is, nor how gladly we look forward to their taking part in our discussions, and aiding us by interchange of thought. To such a meeting the term ' international ' seems almost misapplied. It may rather be described as a family gathering, in which our relatives more or less distant in blood, but still intimately connected with us by language, literature, and habits of thought, have spontaneously arranged to take part. The domain of science is no doubt one in which the various nations of the civilised world meet upon equal terms, and for which no other pass- port is required than some evidence of having striven towards the advance- ment of natural knowledge. Here, on the frontier between the two great English-speaking nations of the world, who is there that does not inwardly feel that anything which conduces to an intimacy between the representa- tives of two countries, both of them actively engaged in the pursuit of science, may also, through such an intimacy, react on the affairs of daily life, and aid in preserving those cordial relations that have now for so many years existed between the great American Republic and the British Islands, with which her early foundations are indissolubly connected ? The present year has witnessed an interchange of courtesies which has excited the warmest feelings of approbation on both sides of the Atlantic. I mean the return to its proper custodians of one of the most interesting of the relics of the Pilgrim Fathers, the Log of the ' Mayflower/ May this return, trifling in itself, be of happy augury as testifying to the feelings of mutual regard and esteem which animate the hearts both of the donors and of the recipients ! At our meeting in Montreal the President was an investigator who had already Attained to a foremost place in the domains of Physics and ADDRESS. 3 Mathematics, Lord Rayleigh. In his address he dealt mainly with topics, such as Light, Heat, Sound, and Electricity, on which he is one of our principal authorities. His name and that of his fellow-worker, Professor Ramsay, are now and will in all future ages be associated with the dis- covery of the new element, Argon. Of the ingenious methods by which that discovery was made, and the existence of Argon established, this is not the place to speak. One can only hope that the element will not always continue to justify its name by its inertness. The claims of such a leader in physical science as Lord Rayleigh to occupy the Presidential chair are self-evident, but possibly those of his successor on this side of the Atlantic are not so immediately apparent. I cannot for a moment pretend to place myself on the same purely scien- tific level as my distinguished friend and for many years colleague, Lord Rayleigh, and my claims, such as they are, seem to me to rest on entirely different grounds. Whatever little I may have indirectly been able to do in assisting to promote the advancement of science, my principal efforts have now for many years been directed towards attempting to forge those links in the history of the world, and especially of humanity, that connect the past with the present, and towards tracing that course of evolution which plays as important a part in the physical and moral development of man as it does in that of the animal and vegetable creation. It appears to me, therefore, that my election to this important post may, in the main, be regarded as a recognition by this Association of the value of Archaeology as a science. Leaving all personal considerations out of question, I gladly hail this recognition, which is, indeed, in full accordance with the attitude already for many years adopted by the Association towards Anthropology, one of the most important branches of true Archaeology. It is no doubt hard to define the exact limits which are to be assigned to Archaeology as a science, and Archaeology as a branch of History and Belles Lettres. A distinction is frequently drawn between science on the one hand, and knowledge or learning on the other ; but translate the terms into Latin, and the distinction at once disappears. In illustration of this I need only cite Bacon's great work on the ' Advancement of Learning/ which was, with his own aid, translated into Latin under the title ' Be Augmentis Scientiarum. 1 It must, however, be acknowledged that a distinction does exist be- tween Archaeology proper, and what, for want of a better word, may be termed Antiquarianism. It may be interesting to know the internal arrangements of a Dominican convent in the middle ages ; to distinguish between the different mouldings characteristic of the principal styles of Gothic architecture ; to determine whether an English coin bearing the name of Henry was struck under Henry II., Richard, John, or Henry III., or to decide whether some given edifice was erected in Roman, 4 REPORT — 1897. Saxon, or Norman times. But the power to do this, though involving no small degree of detailed knowledge and some acquaintance with scientific methods, can hardly entitle its possessors to be enrolled among the votaries of science. A familiarity with all the details of Greek and Roman mythology and culture must be regarded as a literary rather than a scientific qualifica- tion ; and yet when among the records of classical times we come upon traces of manners and customs which have survived for generations, and which seem to throw some rays of light upon the dim past, when history and writing were unknown, we are, I think, approaching the boundaries of scientific Archaeology. Every reader of Virgil knows that the Greeks were not merely orators, but that with a pair of compasses they could describe the movements of the heavens and fix the rising of the stars ; but when by modern Astro- nomy we can determine the heliacal rising of some well-known star, with which the worship in some given ancient temple is known to have been connected, and can fix its position on the horizon at some particular spot, say, three thousand years ago, and then find that the axis of the temple is directed exactly towards that spot, we have some trustworthy scientific evidence that the temple in question must have been erected at a date approximately 1100 years B.C. If on or close to the same site we find that more than one temple was erected, each having a different orientation, these variations, following as they may fairly be presumed to do the changing position of the rising of the dominant star, will also afford a guide as to the chronological order of the different foundations. The researches of Mr. Penrose seem to show that in certain Greek temples, of which the date of foundation is known from history, the actual orientation corresponds with that theoretically deduced from astronomical data, Sir J. Norman Lockyer has shown that what holds good for Greek temples applies to many of far earlier date in Egypt, though up to the present time hardly a sufficient number of accurate observations have been made to justify us in foreseeing all the instructive results that may be expected to arise from Astronomy coming to the aid of Archaeology. The intimate connection of Archaeology with other sciences is in no case so evident as with respect to Geology, for when considering subjects such as those I shall presently discuss, it is almost impossible to say where the one science ends and the other begins. By the application of geological methods many archaeological questions relating even to subjects on the borders of the historical period have been satisfactorily solved. A careful examination of the limits of the area over which its smaller coins are found has led to the position of many an ancient Greek city being accurately ascertained ; while in England it has only been by treating the coins of the Ancient Britons, belonging to a period before the Roman occupation, as if they were actual fossils, that the territories under the dominion of the various kings and princes who struck them have been approximately determined. In arranging the ADDRESS. 5 chronological sequence of these coins, the evolution of their types — a pro- cess almost as remarkable, and certainly as well-defined, as any to be found in nature — has served as an efficient guide. I may venture to add that the results obtained from the study of the morphology of this series of coins were published ten years before the appearance of Darwin's great work on the 1 Origin of Species/ When we come to the consideration of the relics of the Early Iron and Bronze Ages, the aid of Chemistry has of necessity to be invoked. By its means we are able to determine whether the iron of a tool or weapon is of meteoritic or volcanic origin, or has been reduced from iron- ore, in which case considerable knowledge of metallurgy would be involved on the part of those who made it. With bronze antiquities the nature and extent of the alloys combined with the copper may throw light not only on their chronological position, but on the sources whence the copper, tin, and other metals of which they consist were originally derived. I am not aware of there being sufficient differences in the analyses of the native copper from different localities in the region in which we are assembled, for Canadian Archaeologists to fix the sources from which the metal was obtained which was used in the manufacture of the ancient tools and weapons of copper that are occasionally discovered in this part of the globe. Like Chemistry, Mineralogy and Petrology may be called to the assistance of Archeology in determining the nature and source of the rocks of which ancient stone implements are made ; and, thanks to researches of the followers of those sciences, the old view that all such implements formed of jade and found in Europe must of necessity have been fashioned from material imported from Asia can no longer be main- tained. In one respect the Archaeologist differs in opinion from the Mineralogist — namely, as to the propriety of chipping off fragments from perfect and highly finished specimens for the purpose of submitting them to microscopic examination. I have hitherto been speaking of the aid that other sciences can afford to Archaeology when dealing with questions that come almost, if not quite, within the fringe of history, and belong to times when the surface of our earth presented much the same configuration as regards the distribution of land and water, and hill and valley, as it does at present, and when, in all probability, the climate was much the same as it now is. When, how- ever, we come to discuss that remote age in which we find the earliest traces that are at present known of Man's appearance upon earth, the aid of Geology and Paleontology becomes absolutely imperative. The changes in the surface configuration and in the extent of the land, especially in a country like Britain, as well as the modifications of the fauna and flora since those days, have been such that the Archaeologist pure and simple is incompetent to deal with them, and he must either himself undertake the study of these other sciences or call experts in them 6 Report — 1897. to his assistance. The evidence that Man had already appeared upon the earth is afforded by stone implements wrought by his hands, and it falls strictly within the province of the Archaeologist to judge whether given specimens were so wrought or not ; it rests with the Geologist to deter- mine their stratigraphical or chronological position, while the Palaeonto- logist can pronounce upon the age and character of the associated fauna and flora. If left to himself the Archaeologist seems too prone to build up theories founded upon form alone, irrespective of geological conditions. The Geo- logist, unaccustomed to archaeological details, may readily fail to see the difference between the results of the operations of Nature and those of Art, and may be liable to trace the effects of man's handiwork in the chipping, bruising, and wearing which in all ages result from natural forces ; but the united labours of the two, checked by those of the Palaeontologist, cannot do otherwise than lead towards sound conclu- sions. It will perhaps be expected of me that I should on the present occa- sion bring under review the state of our present knowledge with regard to the Antiquity of Man ; and probably no fitter place could be found for the discussion of such a topic than the adopted home of my venerated friend, the late Sir Daniel Wilson, who first introduced the word c pre- historic ' into the English language. Some among us may be able to call to mind the excitement, not only among men of science but among the general public, when, in 1859, the discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes and Dr. Rigollot in the gravels of the valley of the Somme, at Abbeville and Amiens, were confirmed by the investigations of the late Sir Joseph Prestwich, myself, and others, and the co- existence of Man with the extinct animals of the Quaternary fauna, such as the mammoth and woolly-haired rhinoceros, was first virtually established. It was at the same time pointed out that these relics belonged to a far earlier date than the ordinary stone weapons found upon the surface, which usually showed signs of grinding or polish- ing, and that in fact there were two Stone Ages in Britain. To these the terms Neolithic and Palaeolithic were subsequently applied by Sir John Lubbock. The excitement was not less, when, at the meeting of this Association at Aberdeen in the autumn of that year, Sir Charles Lyell, in the presence of the Prince Consort, called attention to the discoveries in the valley of the Somme, the site of which he had himself visited, and to the vast lapse of time indicated by the position of the implements in drift-deposits a hundred feet above the existing river. The conclusions forced upon those who examined the facts on the spot did not receive immediate acceptance by all who were interested in Geo- logy and Archaology, and fierce were the controversies on the subject that were carried on both in the newspapers and before various learned societies. ADDRESS. It is at the same time instructive and amusing to look back on the discussions of those days. While one class of objectors accounted for the configuration of the flint implements from the gravels by some unknown chemical agency, by the violent and continued gyratory action of water, by fracture resulting from pressure, by rapid cooling when hot or by rapid heating when cold, or even regarded them as aberrant forms of fossil fishes, there were others who, when compelled to acknowledge that the implements were the work of men's hands, attempted to impugn and set aside the evidence as to the circumstances under which they had been discovered. In doing this they adopted the view that the worked flints had either been introduced into the containing beds at a comparatively recent date, or if they actually formed constituent parts of the gravel then that this was a mere modern alluvium resulting from floods at no very remote period. In the course of a few years the main stream of scientific thought left this controversy behind, though a tendency to cut down the lapse of time necessary for all the changes that have taken place in the configuration of the surface of the earth and in the character of its occupants since the time of the Palaeolithic gravels, still survives in the inmost recesses of the hearts of not a few observers. In his Address to this Association at the Bath meeting of 1864, Sir Charles Lyell struck so true a note that I am tempted to reproduce the paragraph to which I refer : — 6 When speculations on the long series of events which occurred in the glacial and post-glacial periods are indulged in, the imagination is apt to take alarm at the immensity of the time required to interpret the monu- ments of these ages, all referable to the era of existing species. In order to abridge the number of centuries which would otherwise be indispensable, a disposition is shown by many to magnify the rate of change in pre- historic times by investing the causes which have modified the animate and inanimate workl with extraordinary and excessive energy. It is related of a great Irish orator of our day that when he was about to contribute somewhat parsimoniously towards a public charity, he was persuaded by a friend to make a more liberal donation. In doing so he apologized for his first apparent want of generosity by saying that his early life had been a constant struggle with scanty means, and that "they who are born to affluence cannot easily imagine how long a time it takes to get the chill of poverty out of one's bones." In like manner we of the living generation, when called upon to make grants of thousands of centuries in order to explain the events of what is called the modern period, shrink naturally at first from making what seems so lavish an expenditure of past time. Throughout our early education we have been accustomed to such strict economy in [all that relates to the chronology of the earth and its inhabitants in remote ages, so fettered have we been by old traditional beliefs, that even when our reason is convinced, and we REPORT — 1897. are persuaded that we ought to make more liberal grants of time to the Geologist, we feel how hard it is to get the chill of poverty out of our bones.' Many, however, have at the present day got over this feeling, and of late years the general tendency of those engaged upon the question of the antiquity of the human race has been in the direction of seeking for evidence by which the existence of Man upon the earth could be carried back to a date earlier than that of the Quaternary gravels. There is little doubt that such evidence will eventually be forthcoming, but, judging from all probability, it is not in Northern Europe that the cradle of the human race will eventually be discovered, but in some part of the world more favoured by a tropical climate, where abundant means of subsistence could be procured, and where the necessity for warm clothing did not exist. Before entering into speculations on this subject, or attempting to lay down the limits within which we may safely accept recent discoveries as firmly established, it will be well to glance at some of the cases in which implements are stated to have been found under circumstances which raise a presumption of the existence of man in pre -Glacial, Pliocene, or even Miocene times. Flint implements of ordinary Palaeolithic type have, for instance, been recorded as found in the Eastern Counties of England, in beds beneath the Chalky Boulder Clay ; but on careful examination the geological evidence has not to my mind proved satisfactory, nor has it, I believe, been generally accepted. Moreover, the archaeological difficulty that Man, at two such remote epochs as the pre-Glacial and the post-Glacial, even if the term Glacial be limited to the Chalky Boulder Clay, should have manufactured implements so identical in character that they cannot be distinguished apart, seems to have been entirely ignored. Within the last few months we have had the report of worked flints having been discovered in the late Pliocene Forest Bed of Norfolk, but in that instance the signs of human workmanship upon the flints are by no means apparent to all observers. But such an antiquity as that of the Forest Bed is as nothing when compared with that which would be implied by the discoveries of the work of men's hands in the Pliocene and Miocene beds of England, France, Italy, and Portugal, which have been accepted by some Geologists. There is one feature in these cases which has hardly received due attention, and that is the isolated character of the reputed discoveries. Had man, for instance, been present in Britain during the Crag Period, it would be strange indeed if the sole traces of his existence that he left were a perforated tooth of a large shark, the sawn rib of a manatee, and a beaming full face, carved on the shell of a pectunculus ! In an address to the Anthropological Section at the Leeds meeting of this Association in 1890 I dealt somewhat fully with these supposed ADDRESS. 9 discoveries of the remains of human art in beds of Tertiary date ; and I need not here go further into the question. Suffice it to say that I see no reason why the verdict of ' not proven ' at which I then arrived should be reversed. In the case of a more recent discovery in Upper Burma in beds at first pronounced to be Upper Miocene, but subsequently c definitely ascertained to be Pliocene,' some of the flints are of purely natural and not artificial origin, so that two questions arise : first, Were the fossil remains associated with the worked flints or with those of natural forms ? And second, Were they actually found in the bed to which they have been assigned, or did they merely lie together on the surface ? Even the Pithecanthropus erectus of Dr. Eugene Dubois from Java meets with some incredulous objectors from both the physiological and the geological sides. From the point of view of the latter the difficulty lies in determining the exact age of what are apparently alluvial beds in the bottom of a river valley. When we return to Paleolithic man, it is satisfactory to feel that we are treading on comparatively secure ground, and that the discoveries of the last forty years in Britain alone enable us to a great extent to recon- stitute his history. We may not know the exact geological period when first he settled in the British area, but we have good evidence that he occupied it at a time when the configuration of the surface was entirely different from what it is at present : when the river valleys had not been cut down to anything like their existing depth, when the fauna of the country was of a totally different character from that of the present day, when the extension of the southern part of the island seaward was in places such that the land was continuous with that of the continent, and when in all probability a far more rainy climate prevailed. We have proofs of the occupation of the country by man during the long lapse of time that was necessary for the excavation of the river valleys. We have found the old floors on which his habitations were fixed, we have been able to trace him at work on the manufacture of flint instruments, and by building up the one upon the other the flakes struck off by the primaeval workman in those remote times we have been able to reconstruct the blocks of flint which served as his material. That the duration of the Palaeolithic Period must have extended over an almost incredible length of time is sufficiently proved by the fact that valleys, some miles in width and of a depth of from 100 to 150 feet, have been eroded since the deposit of the earliest implement-bearing beds. Nor is the apparent duration of this period diminished by the consideration that the floods which hollowed out the valleys were not in all probability of such frequent occurrence as to teach Palaeolithic man by experience the danger of settling too near to the streams, for had he kept to the higher slopes of the valley there would have been but little chance of his implements having so constantly formed constituent parts of the gravels deposited by the floods. 10 REPORT — 1897. The examination of British cave-deposits affords corroborative evi- dence of this extended duration of the Palaeolithic Period. In Kent's Cavern at Torquay, for instance, we find in the lowest deposit, the breccia below the red cave-earth, implements of flint and chert corresponding in all respects with those of the high level and most ancient river gravels. In the cave-earth these are scarcer, though implements occur which also have their analogues in the river deposits ; but, what is more remarkable, harpoons of reindeer's horn and needles of bone are present, identical in form and character with those of the caverns of the Reindeer Period in the South of France, and suggestive of some bond of union or identity of descent between the early troglodytes, whose habitations were geographi- cally so widely separated the one from the other. In a cavern at Creswell Crags, on the confines of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, a bone has moreover been found engraved with a repre- sentation of parts of a horse in precisely the same style as the engraved bones of the French caves. It is uncertain whether any of the River- drift specimens belong to so late a date as these artistic cavern-remains ; but the greatly superior antiquity of even these to any Neolithic relics is testified by the thick layer of stalagmite, which had been deposited in Kent's Cavern before its occupation by men of the Neolithic and Bronze Periods. Towards the close of the period covered by the human occupation of the French caves, there seems to have been a dwindling in the number of the larger animals constituting the Quaternary fauna, whereas their re- mains are present in abundance in the lower and therefore more recent of the valley gravels. This circumstance may afford an argument in favour of regarding the period represented by the later French caves as a con- tinuation of that during which the old river gravels were deposited, and yet the great change in the fauna that has taken place since the latest of the cave-deposits included in the Paleolithic Period is indicative of an immense lapse of time. How much greater must have been the time required for the more conspicuous change between the old Quaternary fauna of the river gravels and that characteristic of the Neolithic Period ! As has been pointed out by Prof. Boyd Dawkins, only thirty-one out of the forty-eight well- ascertained species living in the post-Glacial or River-drift Period survived into pre-historic or Neolithic times. We have not, indeed, any means at command for estimating the number of centuries which such an important change indicates ; but when we remember that the date of the commencement of the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period is still shrouded in the mist of a dim antiquity, and that prior to that commencement the River-drift Period had long come to an end ; and when we further take into account the almost inconceivable a^es that even under the most favourable conditions the excavation of wide and deep valleys by river action implies, the remoteness of the date ADDRESS. 11 at which the Paleolithic Period had its beginning almost transcends our powers of imagination. We find distinct traces of river action from 100 to 200 feet above the level of existing streams and rivers, and sometimes at a great distance from them ; we observe old fresh-water deposits on the slopes of valleys several miles in width ; we find that long and lofty escarpments of rock have receded unknown distances since their summits were first occupied by Paleolithic man ; we see that the whole side of a wide river valley has been carried away by an invasion of the sea, which attacked and removed a barrier of chalk cliffs from 400 to 600 feet in height ; we find that what was formerly an inland river has been widened out into an arm of the sea ; now the highway of our fleets, and that gravels which were originally deposited in the bed of some ancient river now cap isolated and lofty hills. And yet, remote as the date of the first known occupation of Britain by man may be, it belongs to what, geologically speaking, must be regarded as a quite recent period, for we are now in a position to fix with some degree of accuracy its place on the geological scale. Thanks to investigations ably carried out at Hoxne in Suffolk, and at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, by Mr. Clement Reid, under the auspices of this Associa- tion and of the Royal Society, we know that the implement-bearing beds at those places undoubtedly belong to a time subsequent to the deposit of the Great Chalky Boulder Clay of the Eastern Counties of England. It is, of course, self-evident that this vast deposit, in whatever manner it may have been formed, could not, for centuries after its deposition was complete, have presented a surface inhabitable by man. Moreover, at a distance but little farther north, beds exist which also, though at a some- what later date, were apparently formed under Glacial conditions. At Hoxne the interval between the deposit of the Boulder Clay and of the implement-bearing beds is distinctly proved to have witnessed at least two noteworthy changes in climate. The beds immediately reposing on the Clay are characterised by the presence of alder in abundance, of hazel, and yew, as well as by that of numerous flowering plants indicative of a temperate climate very different from that under which the Boulder Clay itself was formed. Above these beds characterised by temperate plants, comes a thick and more recent series of strata, in which leaves of the dwarf Arctic willow and birch abound, and which were in all probability deposited under conditions like those of the cold regions of Siberia and North America. At a higher level and of more recent date than these — from which they are entirely distinct — are the beds containing Palaeolithic imple- ments, formed in all probability under conditions not essentially different from those of the present day. However this may be, we have now con- clusive evidence that the Paleolithic implements are, in the Eastern Counties of England, of a date long posterior to that of the Great Chalky Boulder Clay. 12 REPORT— 1897. It may be said, and said truly, that the implements at Hoxne cannot be shown to belong to the beginning rather than to some later stage of the Palaeolithic Period. The changes, however, that have taken place at Hoxne in the surface configuration of the country prove that the beds containing the implements cannot belong to the close of that period. It must, moreover, be remembered that in what are probably the earliest of the Palaeolithic deposits of the Eastern Counties, those at the highest level, near Brandon in Norfolk, where the gravels contain the largest proportion of pebbles derived from Glacial beds, some of the implements themselves have been manufactured from materials not native to the spot but brought from a distance, and derived in all pro- bability either from the Boulder Clay or from some of the beds associated with it. We must, however, take a wider view of the whole question, for it must not for a moment be supposed that there are the slightest grounds for believing that the civilisation, such as it was, of the Palaeolithic Period originated in the British Isles. We find in other countries implements so identical in form and character with British specimens that they might have been manufactured by the same hands. These occur over large areas in France under similar conditions to those that prevail in England. The same forms have been discovered in the ancient river gravels of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Some few have been recorded from the north of Africa, and analogous types occur in considerable numbers in the south of that continent. On the banks of the Nile, many hundreds of feet above its present level, implements of the European types have been discovered ; while in Somaliland, in an ancient river valley at a great elevation above the sea, Mr. Seton-Karr has collected a large number of implements formed of flint and quartzite, which, judging from their form and character, might have been dug out of the drift deposits of the Somme or the Seine, the Thames or the ancient Solent. In the valley of the Euphrates implements of the same kind have also been found, and again farther east in the lateritic deposits of Southern India they have been obtained in considerable numbers. It is not a little remarkable, and is at the same time highly suggestive, that a form of implement almost peculiar to Madras reappears among imple- ments from the very ancient gravels of the Manzanares at Madrid. In the case of the African discoveries we have as yet no definite Palaeonto- logical evidence by which to fix their antiquity, but in the Narbada Valley of Western India Palaeolithic implements of quartzite seem to be associated with a local fauna of Pleistocene age, comprising, like that of Europe, the elephant, hippopotamus, ox, and other mammals of species now extinct. A correlation of the two faunas with a view of ascertaining their chronological relations is beset with many difficulties, but there seems reason for accepting this Indian Pleistocene fauna as in some degree more ancient than the European. AfaDBESS. 13 Is this not a case in which the imagination may be fairly invoked in aid of science ? May we not from these data attempt in some degree to build up and reconstruct the early history of the human family ? There, in Eastern Asia, in a tropical climate, with the means of subsistence readily at hand, may we not picture to ourselves our earliest ancestors gradually developing from a lowly origin, acquiring a taste for hunting, if not indeed being driven to protect themselves from the beasts around them, and evolving the more complicated forms of tools or weapons from the simpler flakes which had previously served them as knives ? May we not imagine that, when once the stage of civilisation denoted by these Palaeolithic implements had been reached, the game for the hunter became scarcer, and that his life in consequence assumed a more nomad character ? Then, and possibly not till then, may a series of migrations to ' fresh woods and pastures new' not unnaturally have ensued, and these follow- ing the usual course of 'westward towards the setting sun' might eventually lead to a Palaeolithic population finding its way to the extreme borders of Western Europe, where we find such numerous traces of its presence. How long a term of years may be involved in such a migration it is impossible to say, but that such a migration took place the phenomena seem to justify us in believing. It can hardly be supposed that the pro- cess that I have shadowed forth was reversed, and that Man, having originated in North-Western Europe, in a cold climate where clothing was necessary and food scarce, subsequently migrated eastward to India and southward to the Cape of Good Hope ! As yet, our records of dis- coveries in India and Eastern Asia are but scanty ) but it is there that the traces of the cradle of the human race are, in my opinion, to be sought, and possibly future discoveries may place upon a more solid foundation the visionary structure that I have ventured to erect. It may be thought that my hypothesis does not do justice to what Sir Thomas Browne has so happily termed ' that great antiquity, America.' I am, however, not here immediately concerned with the important Neolithic remains of all kinds with which this great continent abounds. I am now confining myself to the question of Palaeolithic man and his origin, and in considering it I am not unmindful of the Trenton implements, though I must content myself by saying that the ' turtle- back ' form is essentially different from the majority of those on the wide dissemination of which I have been speculating, and, moreover, as many here present are aware, the circumstances of the finding of these American implements are still under careful discussion. Leaving them out of the question for the present, it may be thought worth while to carry our speculations rather further, and to consider the relations in time between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic Periods. We have seen that the stage in human civilisation denoted by the use of the ordinary forms of Palaeolithic implements must have extended over a vast 14 REPORT — 1897. period of time if we have to allow for the migration of the primaeval hunters from their original home, wherever it may have been in Asia or Africa, to the west of Europe, including Britain. We have seen that, during this migration, the forms of the weapons and tools made from silicious stones had become, as it were, stereotyped, and further, that, during the subsequent extended period implied by the erosion of the valleys, the modifications in the form of the implements and the changes in the fauna associated with the men who used them were but slight. At the close of the period during which the valleys were being eroded comes that represented by the latest occupation of the caves by Paleolithic man, when both in Britain and in the south of France the reindeer was abundant ; but among the stone weapons and implements of that long troglodytic phase of man's history not a single example with the edge sharpened by grinding has as yet been found. All that can safely be said is that the larger implements as well as the larger mammals had become scarcer, that greater power in chipping flint had been attained, that the arts of the engraver and the sculptor had considerably developed, and that the use of the bow had probably been discovered. Directly we encounter the relics of the Neolithic Period, often, in the case of the caves lately mentioned, separated from the earlier remains by a thick layer of underlying stalagmite, we find flint hatchets polished at the edge and on the surface, cutting at the broad and not at the narrow end, and other forms of implements associated with a fauna in all essential respects identical with that of the present day. Were the makers of these polished weapons the direct descendants of Palaeolithic ancestors whose occupation of the country was continuous from the days of the old river gravels ? or had these long since died out, so that after Western Europe had for ages remained uninhabited, it was re-peopled in Neolithic times by the immigration of some new race of men ? Was there, in fact, a ' great gulf fixed ' between the two occupa- tions ? or was there in Europe a gradual transition from the one stage of culture to the other ? It has been said that 'what song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture ' ; and though the questions now proposed may come under the same category, and must await the dis- covery of many more essential facts before they receive definite and satis- factory answers, we may, I think, throw some light upon them if Ave venture to take a few steps upon the seductive if insecure paths of con- jecture. So far as I know we have as yet no trustworthy evidence of any transition from the one age to the other, and the gulf between them remains practically unbridged. We can, indeed, hardly name the part of the world in which to seek for the cradle of Neolithic civilisation, though we know that traces of what appear to have been a stone-using people have been discovered in Egypt, and that what must be among the latest ADDRESS. 15 of the relics of their industry have been assigned to a date some 3,500 to 4,000 years before our era. The men of that time had attained to the highest degree of skill in working flint that has ever been reached. Their beautifully made knives and spear-heads seem indicative of a culmi- nating point reached after long ages of experience ; but whence these artists in flint came or who they were is at present absolutely unknown, and their handiworks afford no clue to help us in tracing their origin. Taking a wider survey, we may say that, generally speaking, not only the fauna but the surface configuration of the country were, in Western Europe at all events, much the same at the commencement of the Neolithic Period as they are at the present day. We have, too, no geological indi- cations to aid us in forming any chronological scale, The occupation of some of the caves in the south of France seems to have been carried on after the erosion of the neighbouring river valleys had ceased, and so far as our knowledge goes these caves offer evidence of being the latest in time of those occupied by Man during the Palaeolithic Period. It seems barely possible that, though in the north of Europe there are no distinct signs of such late occupation, yet that, in the south, Man may have lived on, though in diminished numbers \ and that in some of the caves, such, for instance, as those in the neighbourhood of Mentone, there may be traces of his existence during the transitional period that connects the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages. If this were really the case, we might expect to find some traces of a dissemination of Neolithic culture from a North Italian centre, but I much doubt whether any such traces actually exist. If it had been in that part of the world that the transition took place, how are we to account for the abundance of polished stone hatchets found in Central India 1 Did Neolithic man return eastward by the same route as that by which in remote ages his Palaeolithic predecessor- had migrated westward ? Would it not be in defiance of all probability to answer such a question in the affirmative 1 We have, it must be confessed, nothing of a substantial character to guide us in these specula- tions ; but, pending the advent of evidence to the contrary, we may, I think, provisionally adopt the view that owing to failure of food, climatal changes, or other causes, the occupation of Western Europe by Palaeolithic man absolutely ceased, and that it was not until after an interval of long duration that Europe was re-peopled by a race of men immigrating from some other part of the globe where the human race had survived, and in course of ages had developed a higher stage of culture than that of Palaeolithic man. I have been carried away by the liberty allowed for conjecture into the regions of pure imagination, and must now return to the realms of fact, and one fact on which I desire for a short time to insist is that of the existence at the present day, in close juxtaposition with our own civilisation, of races of men who, at all events but a few generations ago, 16 REPORT— 189^. lived under much the same conditions as did our own Neolithic predecessors in Europe. The manners and customs of these primitive tribes and peoples are changing day by day, their languages are becoming obsolete, their myths and traditions are dying out, their ancient processes of manufacture are falling into oblivion, and their numbers are rapidly diminishing, so that it seems inevitable that ere long many of these interesting populations will become absolutely extinct. The admirable Bureau of Ethnology instituted by our neighbours in the United States of America has done much towards preserving a knowledge of the various native races in this vast continent \ and here in Canada the annual Archaeological Reports pre- sented to the Minister of Education are rendering good service in the same cause. Moreover the Committee of this Association appointed to investigate the physical characters, languages, and industrial and social conditions of the North- Western tribes of the Dominion of Canada is about to present its twelfth and final report, which in conjunction with those already pre- sented will do much towards preserving a knowledge of the habits and languages of those tribes. It is sad to think that Mr. Horatio Hale, whose comprehensive grasp of the bearings of ethnological questions, and whose unremitting labours have so materially conduced to the success of the Committee, should be no longer among us. Although this report is said to be final, it is to be hoped that the Committee may be able to indicate lines upon which future work in the direction of ethnological and archaeological research may be profitably carried on in this part of Her Majesty's dominions. It is, however, lamentable to notice how little is being or has been officially done towards preserving a full record of the habits, beliefs, arts, myths, languages, and physical characteristics of the countless other tribes and nations more or less uncivilised which are comprised within the limits of the British Empire. At the meeting of this Association held last year at Liverpool it was resolved by the General Committee 'that it is of urgent importance to press upon the Government the necessity of establishing a Bureau of Ethnology for Greater Britain, which by collect- ing information with regard to the native races within and on the borders of the Empire will prove of immense value to science and to the Govern- ment itself.' It has been suggested that such a bureau might with the greatest advantage and with the least outlay and permanent expense be connected either with the British Museum or with the Imperial Institute, and the project has already been submitted for the consideration of the Trustees of the former establishment. The existence of an almost unrivalled ethnological collection in the Museum, and the presence there of officers already well versed in ethnological research, seem to afford an argument in favour of the proposed bureau being connected with it. On the other hand, the Imperial Insti- ADDRESS. 1? tute was founded with an especial view to its being a centre around which every interest connected with the dependencies of the Empire might gather for information and support. The establishment within the last twelve months of a Scientific Department within the Institute, with well- appointed laboratories and a highly trained staff, shows how ready are those concerned in its management to undertake any duties that may conduce to the welfare of the outlying parts of the British Empire ; a fact of which I believe that Canada is fully aware. The Institute is therefore likely to develop, so far as its scientific department is concerned, into a Bureau of advice in all matters scientific and technical, and certainly a Bureau of Ethnology such as that suggested would not be out of place within its walls. Wherever such an institution is to be established, the question of its existence must of necessity rest with Her Majesty's Government and Treasury, inasmuch as without funds, however moderate, the undertaking cannot be carried on. I trust that in considering the question it will always be borne in mind that in the relations between civilised and uncivilised nations and races it is of the first importance that the pre- judices and especially the religious or semi-religious and caste prejudices of the latter should be thoroughly well known to the former. If but a single 'little war' could be avoided in consequence of the knowledge acquired and stored up by the Bureau of Ethnology preventing such a misunderstanding as might culminate in warfare, the cost of such an institution would quickly be saved. I fear that it will be thought that I have dwelt too long on primaeval man and his modern representatives, and that I should have taken this opportunity to discuss some more general subject, such as the advances made in the various departments of science since last this Association met in Canada. Such a subject would no doubt have afforded an infinity of interesting topics on which to dilate. Spectrum analysis, the origin and nature of celestial bodies, photography, the connection between heat, light, and electricity, the practical applications of the latter, terrestrial magnetism, the liquefaction and solidification of gases, the behaviour of elements and compounds under the influence of extreme cold, the nature and uses of the Rontgen rays, the advances in bacteriology and in pro- phylactic medicine, might all have been passed under review, and to many of my audience would have seemed to possess greater claims to attention than the subject that I have chosen. It must, however, be borne in mind that most, if not indeed all, of these topics will be discussed by more competent authorities in the various Sections of the Association by means of the Presidential addresses or otherwise. Nor must it be forgotten that I occupy this position as a representative of Archaeology, and am therefore justified in bringing before you a subject in which every member of every race of mankind ought to be interested — the antiquity of the human family and the scenes of its infancy. 18 REPORT — 1897. Others will direct our thoughts in other directions, but the farther we proceed the more clearly shall we realise the connection and inter- dependence of all departments of science. Year after year, as meetings of this Association take place, we may also foresee that ' many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. ' Year after year advances will be made in science, and in reading that Book of Nature that lies ever open before our eyes ; successive stones will be brought for building up that Temple of Knowledge of which our fathers and we have laboured to lay the foundations. May we not well exclaim with old Robert Recorde ? — ' Oh woorthy temple of Goddes magnificence : Oh throne of glorye and seate of the lorde : thy substance most pure what tonge can describe 1 thy signes are so wonderous, surmountinge mannes witte, the effects of thy motions so diuers in kinde : so harde for to searche, and worse for to fynde — Thy woorkes are all wonderous, thy cunning unknowen : yet seedes of all knowledge in that booke are sowen — And yet in that boke who rightly can reade, to all secrete knowledge it will him straighte leade.' 1 1 Preface to Robert Recorde's Castle of Knowledge, 1556. ^grtiisl) Jlssoctafton for ifye Jltocmcemenf of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDEESS TO THE MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SECTION BY Professor A. R. FORSYTH, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. One of the most important events of the past year, connected with the affairs of this Section, has heen the reception by the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, of a deputation to represent the need for the establishment of a National Physical Laboratory to carry out investigations of certain definite types. Such institutions exist in France and Germany, and have proved of the highest usefulness in a field of work that includes the wide range from pure research to the most direct appli- cations of science to industry. The desire for such an institution in England has long been felt, and as far back as 1891 Professor Oliver Lodge, when presiding over our Section at the Cardiff meeting, argued in its favour. It has frequently been discussed since that date, particularly in 1895, when Sir Douglas Galton dealt with it so ably in his presidental address at Ipswich, and also in a communi- cation to our Section. The subject was then formally referred to a committee of physicists, who, at last year's meeting in Liverpool, presented a report containing a workino- scheme for developing the Kew Observatory into an institution of the desired character. The recommendations of the report were approved by a unani- mous vote of this Section; and were subsequently adopted by the Association. Thereupon a joint committee, representing the various scientific bodies throughout the United Kingdom interested in the matter, was constituted to further the plan : in particular, to urge upon the Government the establishment of such a Laboratory, and, if possible, to obtain from them the funds which are a preliminary necessity for that purpose. It was a deputation from this joint committee which, headed by Lord Lister, waited upon the Prime Minister on February 16 last. His reply to the deputation was manifestly sympathetic with the request ; there is conse- quently reasonable ground for supposing that the Government will take the matter into their favourable consideration. After having said, by way of preface, thus much upon the chief event of the past year arising partly from our direct action, I wish to turn to the main line of my address, and to ask, for a brief time, your attention and your consideration for the subject of pure mathematics. If, remembering the brilliant address made at the Montreal meeting, you regret that Lord Kelvin is not again now occupying this position : ' or if, remembering the interest aroused by Professor J. J. Thomson's address last year, you regret that the fascinating tale then opened is not being resumed by some one with imagination enough and knowledge enough to continue it : I can, not unselfishly, share your regret. It appears, however, from the practice of the Council and the General Committee, to be their policy that mathematicians belonging to the extreme right (if the phrase A 2 REPORT— 1897. may be used) shall from time to time be nominated to the presidency of the Section. It is, I think, the case that this Section has always had assigned to it the subjects of Mathematics and Physics. In their development, pure mathematics has con- tinued to be associated with applied mathematics, and applied mathematics with physics. So far as I know, there is no substantial reason why any change should be made, and so far as I have been able to observe, there is a strong consensus of opinion that no change by way of separation need be tried. Wide as is the range of our discussions, distracting as is the occasional variety in the matter of the papers we receive, the complexity of our Section, if in any respect a disadvantage, does not appreciably discount the advantages it otherwise secures. Specialisation in all our subjects has become almost a necessity for progress ; but excessive obedience need not be paid to that necessity. On the one hand, there will be danger of imperfect appreciation if a subject is so completely restricted to a few specialists that it is ignored by all but them ; and, on the other hand, there will be danger of unsound growth if subject and thinkers alike become isolated, and cease to take an active interest in the methods, the processes, and the results other than those which directly concern them. Accordingly, I think that our group of sciences, which form a continuous range, are better united than divided. Aristotle declared that it is unbecoming to praise the gods. Observing his canon, I shall say nothing as to the wisdom and the justice of our Executive in sometimes selecting a pure mathematician to preside over this Section. I shall only appeal to your indulgence in accepting the opportunity they have thus given me of speaking more specially about my own subject. I make this appeal the more earnestly, for two particular reasons. One of these is based upon the conflicting views, popularly held and sometimes summarily expressed, about the subject and those who are addicted to it. It is true that the day has gone by, when it is necessary to give serious consideration to attacks upon mathematical studies, and particularly upon analysis, such as were made by the metaphysician Hamilton : attacks no longer thought worthy of any answer. Feelings of hostility, if ever they were widely held, have given way to other feelings, which in the mildest form suggest toleration and acquiescence, and in the most extreme form suggest solemn respect and distant wonder. By common con- sent, we are allowed without reproach to pursue our aims; though those aims sometimes attract but little sympathy. It is not so long since, during one of the meetings of the Association, one of the leading English newspapers briefly de- scribed a sitting of this Section in the words, ' Saturday morning was devoted to pure mathematics, and so there was nothing of any general interest': still, such toleration is better than undisguised and ill-informed hostility. But the attitude of respect, I might almost say of reverence, is even more trying : we mathema- ticians are supposed to be of a different mould, to live far up the heights above the driving gales of controversy, breathing a rarer intellectual atmosphere, serene in impenetrable calm. It is difficult for us to maintain the gravity of demeanour proper to such superior persons ; and perhaps it is best to confess at once that we are of the earth, earthy, that we have our differences of opinion and of judgment, and that we can even commit the Machiavelian crime of making blunders. The other of my reasons for claiming your indulgence is of a graver character, and consists in the difficulty of framing general explanations about the subject. The fact is that mathematics do not lend themselves readily to general exposition. Clifford, it is true, could lecture and enchant his audience : and yet even his lectures ranged about the threshold of the temple of mathematical knowledge and made no attempt to reveal the shrines in the sanctuary. The explanation of this initial difficulty is, however, at hand. Our vocabulary is highly technical, per- haps as technical as is that of moral philosophers : and yet even the technicality of a vocabulary can be circumvented by prolixity of statement. But the ideas and the subject-matter in any branch of our study, when even only moderately developed, are so abstract as to demand an almost intolerable prolixity of state- ment if an attempt is made to popularise them. Moreover, of the many results obtained, there are few that appeal to an unprofessional sympathy. Adams could discover a new planet by subjecting observations made of the known planets to the TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 3 most profound calculations ; and the world, not over curious about the process, could appreciate the significant result. But such instances are rare ; for the most part, our particular results must remain somewhat intangible, somewhat incomprehensible, to those who dwell resolutely and completely outside the range of mathematical knowledge. What then am I to do ? It would be pleasant to me, though it might not prove satisfying to you, to discourse of the present state of one branch or of several branches of mathematics, and particularly to indicate what seem to be lines of possi- ble and probable growth in the future. Instead of pursuing this course, I shall keep my remarks of a general character as far as possible, and shall attempt, not merely to describe briefly some of the relations of pure mathematics to other branches of science, but also to make a bold claim that the unrestricted cultivation of pure mathematics is desirable in itself and for its own sake. Some — I should like to believe many — who are here will concede this claim to the fullest extent and without reservation ; but I doubt whether this is so in general. And yet the claim is one which needs to be made before an English-speaking audience. For it is a curious fact that, although the United Kingdom has possessed some of the very greatest of pure mathematicians in the second half of this century, the subject has there received but a scant share of attention as compared with that which it has found in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Sweden and Norway, or in the United States. I am not oblivious of the magnificent contributions to other parts of our science made alike by British leaders and British followers ; their fame is known to the world. But apathy rather than attention has been the characteristic feature of our attitude towards pure mathematics ; and it seems to me a misfortune, alike for the intellectual activity of the nation and for the progress of the subject, that English thought has had relatively so small an influence upon its vast modern developments. Now it is not enough for my purpose to be told that the British Association includes all science in its scope, and consequently includes pure mathematics. A statement thus made might be framed in a spirit of mere sufferance ; what I wish to secure is a recognition of the subject as one which, being full of life and over- flowing with a power of growth, is worthy of the most absorbing devotion. The most cursory examination of the opinions of scientific men leads at once to the conclusion, that there are two views of the subject, both accurate so far as they go, both inadequate whether alone or combined, which to some extent explain if they do not justify what may be called the English attitude in the past. Let me deal with these in succession. One of these estimates has been framed by what is called the practical man ; he regards the subject as a machine which is to provide him with tables, as far as tables can be calculated ; and with the simplest formulae and the most direct rules, whenever tables cannot be calculated. Results, not methods, are his want ; it is sufficient for him that an authoritative statement as to a result shall be made; all else is ignored. And for what is beyond, in the shape of work that does nothing to meet his special wants, or of the processes that have led to the results he uses, he cares little or nothing. In fact, he would regard mathematics as a collection of formulae and an aggregate of processes to grind out numerical results; whatever else there is in it, may be vain and is useless. In his view, it is to be the drudge of the practical sciences. Now it is undoubtedly an advantage in any case that labour should be saved and time economised ; and where this can be done, either by means of calculations made once for all or by processes that lead to results admitting simple formulation, any mathematician will be glad, particularly if his own work should lead to some such issue. But he should not be expected to consider that his science has thus fulfilled its highest purpose ; and perhaps he is not unreasonable if, when he says that such results are but a very small part, and not the most interesting part, of his science, he should claim a higher regard for the whole of it. Indeed, I rather suspect that some change is coming ; the practical man himself is changing. The developments in the training for a profession, for example, that of an engineer, and the demands that arise in the practice of the profession, are such as to force gradually a complete change of view. When I look into the text-books that 4 REPORT — 1897. he uses, it seems to me a necessity that an engineer should now possess a mathe- matical skill and knowledge in some directions which, not so very long since, could not freely be found among the professional mathematicians themselves. And as this change is gradually effected, perhaps the practical man will gradually change his estimate of the scope of mathematical science. I pass from the practical men to some of the natural philosophers. Many of them, though certainly far from all of them, expound what they consider proper and economical limits to the development of pure mathematics. Their wisdom gives varied reasons ; it speaks in tones of varied appreciation ; but there can be no doubt as to its significance and its meaning. Their aim is to make pure mathe- matics, not indeed the drudge, but the handmaid of the sciences. The demand requires examination, and deserves respectful consideration. There is no question of giving or withholding help in furthering, in every possible fashion and with every possible facility, the progress of natural philosophy ; there is no room for difference upon that matter. The difference arises when the opinion is expressed or the advice is tendered that the activity of mathematicians and all their investigations should be consciously limited, and directed solely and supremely, to the assistance and the furtherance of natural philosophy. One group of physicists, adopting a distinctly aggressive attitude in imposing limits so as to secure prudence in the pursuit of pure mathematics, regard the subject as useful solely for arriving at results connected with one or other of the branches of natural philosophy ; they entertain an honest dislike, not merely to investigations that do not lead to such results, but to the desirability of carrying out such investigations; and some of them have used highly flavoured rhetoric in express- ing their dislike. It would be easy — but unconvincing—to suggest that, with due modifications in statement, they might find themselves faced with the necessity of defending some of their own researches against attacks as honestly delivered by men absorbed in purely practical work. But such a suggestion is no reply, for it does not in the least touch the question at issue ; and I prefer to meet their con- tention with a direct negative. By way of illustration let me take a special instance : it is not selected as being- easier to confute than any other, but because it was put in the forefront by one of the vigorous advocates of the contention under discussion — a man of the highest scientific distinction in his day. He wrote : ' Measured [by the utility of the power they give] partial differential equations are very useful, and therefore stand very high [in the range of pure mathematics] as far as the second order. They apply to that point in the most important way to the great problems of nature, and are worthy of the most careful study. Beyond that order they apply to nothing.' This last statement, it may be remarked, is inaccurate ; for partial differential equations, of an order higher than the second, occur — to give merely a few examples — in investigations as to the action of magnetism on polarised light, in researches on the vibrations of thick plates or of curved bars, in the discussion of such hydrodynamical questions as the motion of a cylinder in fluid or the damping of air- waves owing to viscosity. Putting this aside, what is more important is the consideration of the partial differential equations of the second order that are found actually to occur in the investigations. Each case as it arises is discussed solely in connection with its particular problem ; one or two methods are given, more or less in the form of rules ; if these methods fail, the attempt at solution subsides. The result is a collection of isolated processes, about as unsatisfactory a collection as is the chapter labelled Theory of Numbers in many text-books on algebra, when it is supposed to represent that great branch of knowledge. Moreover, this method suffers from the additional disadvantage of suggesting little or no information about equations of higher orders. But when the equations are considered, not each by itself but as ranged under a whole system, then the investigation of the full theory places these processes in their proper position, gives them a meaning which superficially they do not exhibit, and indicates the way in which each solution satisfies the general con- ditions of existence of a solution. For the full theory of partial differential TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 5 equations of the second order in, say, two independent variables establishes the con- ditions of existence of a solution, the limitations upon the conditions which make that solution unique, the range of variation within which that solution exists, the modes of obtaining expressions for it when it can be expressed in a finite form, and an expression for the solution when it cannot be expressed in a finite form. Of course, the actual derivation of the solution of particular equations is dependent upon analytical skill, as is always the case in any piece of calculating work ; but the general theory indicates the possibilities and the limitations which determine the kind of solution to be expected. But not only does the general theory effect much by way of coordinating isolated processes — and, in doing so, lead to new results — but it gives important indications for dealing with equations of higher orders, and it establishes certain theorems about them merely by simple generalisations. In fact, the special case quoted is one more instance, added to the many instances that have occurred in the past, in which the utilitarian bias in the progress of knowledge is neither the best stimulus nor in the long run the most effective guide towards securing results. It may be — it frequently is — at first the only guide possible, and for a time it continues the best guide, but it does not remain so for ever. It would be superfluous, after Cayley's address in 1883, to show how branches of mathematical physics, thus begun and developed, have added to knowledge in their own direction; they have suggested, they have even created, most fascinating branches of pure mathematics, which, when developed, have sometimes proved of reciprocal advantage to the source from which they sprang. But for proper and useful development they must be free from the restrictions which the sterner group of natural philosophers would lay upon them. Now I come to another group of natural philosophers who will unreservedly grant my contention thus far ; who will yield a ready interest to our aims and our ideas, but who consider that the possibility of applying our results in the domain of physical science should regulate, or at least guide, advance in our work. Some of these entertain this view because they think that possibility of early appli- cation is, in the last resource, the real test of useful development ; some, because they fear that the profusion of papers annually published and the bewildering specialisation in each branch, are without purpose, and may ultimately lead to isolation or separation of whole sections of mathematics from the general progress of science. The danger arising from excess of activity seems to me unreal ; at any rate there are not signs of it at home at the present day, and I would gladly see more workers at pure mathematics, though not of course at the expense of attention paid to any other branch. But for results that are trivial, for investigations that have no place inorganic growth and development, or in illustration and elucidation, surely the natural end is that they soon subside into mere tricks of i curious pleasure or ingenious pain.' How r ever numerous they may be, they do not possess intrinsic influence sufficient to cause evil consequences, and any attempt at repression will, if successful, inevitably and unwisely repress much more. More attention must be paid to the suggestion that mathematicians should be guided in their investigations by the possibility of practical issues. That they are so guided to a great extent is manifest from many of the papers written in that spirit ; that they cannot accept practical issues as the sole guide would seem sufficiently justified by the consideration that practical issues widen from year to year and cannot be foreseen in the absence of a divining spirit. Moreover, if such a principle were adopted, many an investigation undertaken at the time for its in- trinsic interest would be cast on one side unconsidered, because it does not satisfy an external test that really has nothing to do with the case, and may change its form of application from time to time. To emphasise this opinion that mathematicians would be unwise to accept practical issues as the sole guide or the chief guide in the current of their investiga- tions, it may be sufficient to recall a few instances from history in which the purely mathematical discovery preceded the practical application and was not an elucidation or an explanation of observed phenomena. The fundamental properties A 2 6 REPORT 1897. of conic sections were known to the Greeks in the fourth and the third centuries "before the Christian era ; but they remained unused for a couple of thousand years until Kepler and Newton found in them the solution of the universe. Need I do more than mention the discovery of the planet Neptune by Adams and Leverrier, in which the intricate analysis used had not been elaborated for such particular applications? Again, it was by the use of refined analytical and geometrical reasoning upon the properties of the wave-surface that Sir W. R. Hamilton inferred the existence of conical refraction which, down to the time when he made his inference, had been 6 unsupported by any facts observed, and was even opposed to all the analogies derived from experience/ It may be said that these are time-honoured illustrations, and that objec- tions are not entertained as regards the past, but fears are entertained as regards the present and the future. Very well ; let me take one more instance, by choosing a subject in which the purely mathematical interest is deemed supreme, the theory of functions of a complex variable. That at least is a theory in pure mathematics, initiated in that region and developed in that region ; it is built up in scores of papers, and its plan certainly has not been, and is not now, dominated or guided by considerations of applicability to natural phenomena. Yet what has turned out to be its relation to practical issues ? The investigations of Lagrange and others upon the construction of maps appear as a portion of the general property of conformal representation ; which is merely the general geometrical method of regarding functional relations in that theory. Again, the interesting and important investigations upon discontinuous two-dimensional fluid motion in hydrodynamics, made in the last twenty years, can all be, and now are all, I believe, deduced from similar considerations by interpreting functional relations between complex vari- ables. In the dynamics of a rotating heavy body, the only snbstantial extension of our knowledge made since the time of Lagrange has accrued from associating the general properties of functions with the discussion of the equations of motion. Further, under the title of conjugate functions, the theory has been applied to various questions in electrostatics, particularly in connection with condensers and electrometers. And, lastly, in the domain of physical astronomy, some of the most conspicuous advances made in the last few years have been achieved by introducing into the discussion the ideas, the principles, the methods, and the results of the theory of functions. It is unnecessary to speak in detail of this last matter, for I can refer you to Dr. G. W. Hill's interesting ' Presidential Address to the American Mathematical Society' in 1895; but without doubt the refined and extremely difficult work of Poincare and others in physical astronomy has been possible only by the use of the most elaborate developments of some pure mathematical subjects, developments which were made without a thought of such applications. Now it is true that much of the theory of functions is as yet devoid of explicit application to definite physical subjects ; it may be that these latest applications exhaust the possibilities in that direction for any immediate future ; and it is also true that whole regions of other theories remain similarly unapplied. Opinion and divination as to the future would be as vain as they are unnecessary ; but my contention does not need to be supported by speculative hopes or uninformed prophecy. If in the range of human endeavour after sound knowledge there is one subject that needs to be practical, it surely is Medicine. Yet in the field of Medicine it has been found that branches such as biology and pathology must be studied for themselves and be developed by themselves with the single aim of increasing knowledge ; and it is then that they can be best applied to the conduct of living processes. So also in the pursuit of mathematics, the path of practical utility is too narrow and irregular, not always leading far. The witness of history shows that, in the field of natural philosophy, mathematics will furnish more effective assistance if, in its systematic development, its course can freely pass beyond the ever-shifting domain of use and application. What I have said thus far has dealt with considerations arising from the outside. I have tried to show that, in order to secure the greatest benefit for those practical or pure sciences which use mathematical results or methods, a TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 7 deeper source of possible advantage can be obtained by developing the subject independently than by keeping the attention fixed chiefly upon the applications that may be made. Even if no more were said, it might be conceded that the unrestricted study of mathematics would thereby be justified. But there is another side to this discussion, and it is my wish now to speak very briefly from the point of view of the subject itself, regarded as a branch of knowledge worthy of attention in and for itself, steadily growing and full of increasing vitality. Unless some account be taken of this position, an adequate estimate of the subject cannot be framed ; in fact, nearly the greater part of it will thus be omitted from consideration. For it is not too much to say that, while many of the most important developments have not been brought into practical application, yet they are as truly real contributions to human knowledge as are the disinterested developments of any other of the branches included in the scope of pure science. It will readily be conceded for the present purpose that knowledge is good in and by itself, and that the pursuit of pure knowledge is an occupation worthy of the greatest efforts which the human intellect can make. A refusal to concede so much would, in effect, be a condemnation of one of the cherished ideals of our race. But the mere pursuit or the mere assiduous accumulation of knowledge is not the chief object ; the chief object is to possess it sifted and rationalised : in fact, organised into truth. To achieve this end, instruments are requisite that may deal with the respective well-defined groups of knowledge, and for one particular group, we use the various sciences. There is no doubt that, in this sense, mathematics is a great instrument; there remains for consideration the decision as to its range and function — are they such as to constitute it an inde- pendent science, or do they assign it a position in some other science ? I do not know of any canonical aggregate of tests which a subject should satisfy before it is entitled to a separate establishment ; but, in the absence of a recognised aggregate, some important tests can be assigned which are necessary, and may, perhaps, be sufficient. A subject must be concerned with a range of ideas forming a class distinct from all other classes ; it must deal with them in such a way that new ideas of tbe same kind can be associated and assimilated ; and it should derive a growing vigour from a growing increase of its range. For its progress, it must possess methods as varied as its range, acquiring and constructing new processes in its growth ; and new methods on any grand scale should supersede the older ones, so that increase of ideas and introduction of new principles should lead both to simplification and to increase of working power within the subject. As a sign of its vitality, it must ever be adding to knowledge and producing new results, even though within its own range it propound some questions that have no answer and other questions that for a time defy solution ; and results already achieved should be an intrinsic stimulus to further development in the extension of know- ledge. Lastly, at least among this list, let me quote Sylvester's words: * It must unceasingly call forth the faculties of observation and comparison ; one of its principal methods must be induction ; it must have frequent recourse to experi- mental trial and verification, and it must afford a boundless scope for the highest efforts of imagination and invention.' I do not add as a test that it must immediately be capable of practical application to something outside its own range, though of course its processes may be also transferable to other subjects, or, in part, derivable from them. All these tests are satisfied by pure mathematics : it can be claimed without hesitation or exaggeration that they are satisfied with ample generosity. A complete proof of this declaration would force me to trespass long upon your time, and so I propose to illustrate it by references to only two or three branches. First, I would refer to the general theory of invariants and covariants. The fundamental object of that theory is the investigation and the classification of all dependent functions which conserve their form unaltered in spite of certain general transformations effected in the functions upon which they depend. Originally it began as the observation of a mere analytical property of a particular expression, interesting enough in itself, but absolutely isolated. This then suggested the inverse question : What is the general law of existence of such functions if they s REPORT — 1897. exist as more than mere casual and isolated occurrences ? and how can they all be determined ? The answer to these questions led to the construction of the alge- braical theory of invariants for linear transformations, and subsequently to the establishment of covariantive forms in all their classes. Next came the question of determining what is practically the range of their existence : that is, is there a complete finite system of such functions in each particular case ? and if there is, how is it composed, when in a form that ought to admit of no further reduction ? These questions, indeed, are not yet fully answered. While all this development of the theory of invariants was made upon these lines, without thought of application to other subjects, it was soon clear that it would modify them greatly. It has invaded the domain of geometry, and has almost re-created the analytical theory ; but it has done more than this, for the investigations of Cay ley have required a full reconsideration of the very foundations of geometry. It has exercised a profound influence upon the theory of algebraical equations ; it has made its way into the theory of differential equations ; and the generalisation of its ideas is opening out new regions of the most advanced and profound functional analysis. And so far from its course being completed, its questions fully answered, or its interest extinct, there is no reason to suppose that a term can be assigned to its growth and its influence. As one reference has already been made to the theory of functions of a com- plex variable, in regard to some of the ways in which it is providing new methods in applied mathematics, I shall deal with it quite briefly now. The theory was, in effect, founded by Oauchy ; but, outside his own investigations, it at first made slow and hesitating progress. At the present day, its fundamental ideas may be said almost to govern most departments of the analysis of continuous quantity. On many of them, it has shed a completely new light; it has educed relations between them before unknown. It may be doubted whether any subject is at the present day so richly endowed with variety of method and fertility of resource ; its activity is prodigious, and no less remarkable than its activity is its freshness. All this development and increase of knowledge are due to the fact that we face at once the difficulty which even the schoolboy meets in dealing with quadratic equations, when he obtains ' impossible' roots ; instead of taking the wily x as our subject of operation, we take the still wilier x + y s/ — \ for that purpose, and the result is a transfiguration of analysis. In passing, let me mention one other contribution which this theory has made to knowledge lying somewhat outside our track. During the rigorous revision to which the foundations of the theory have been subjected in its re-establishment, by Weierstrass, new ideas as regards number and continuity have been introduced. With him and with others influenced by him, there has thence sprung a new theory of higher arithmetic ; and with its growth, much has concurrently been effected in the elucidation of the general notions of number and quantity. I have already pointed out that the foundations of geometry have had to be re-considered on account of results finding their origin in the theory of invariants and co- variants. It thus appears to be the fact that, as with Plato, or Descartes, or Leibnitz, or Kant, the activity of pure mathematics is again lending some assist- ance to the better comprehension of those notions of time, space, number, quantity, which underlie a philosophical conception of the universe. The theory of groups furnishes another illustration in the same direction. It was begun as a theory to develop the general laws that govern operations of substi- tution and transformation of elements in expressions that involve a number of quantities : it soon revolutionised the theory of equations. Wider ideas succes- sively introduced have led to successive extensions of the original foundation, and now it deals with groups of operations of all kinds, finite and infinite, discrete and continuous, with far-reaching and fruitful applications over practically the whole of our domain. So one subject after another might be considered, all leading to the same conclusion. I might cite the theory of numbers, which has attracted so many of the keenest intellects among men, and has grown to be one of the most beautiful and wonderful theories among the many in the wide range of pure TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 9 mathematics ; or without entering upon the question whether geometry is a pure or an applied science, I might review its growth alike in its projective, its descriptive, its analytical, and its numerative divisions ; or I might trace the influence of the idea of continuity in binding together subjects so diverse as arithmetic, geometry, and functionality. What has been said already may, however, suffice to give some slight indication of the vast and ever-widening extent of pure mathematics. No less than in any other science knowledge gathers force as it grows, and each new step once attained becomes the starting-point for steady advance in further exploration. Mathematics is one of the oldest of the sciences ; it is also one of the most active, for its strength is the vigour of perpetual youth. In conclusion, a few words are due to the personal losses caused since our last meeting. It is but little more than two years since Cayley passed away; his life had been full of work, unhasting and unresting in the almost placid course of his great mental strength. While Cayley was yet alive, one name used to be coupled with his when reference was made to English pure mathematics; the two great men were regarded as England's not unworthy contribution to the exploration of the most abstract of the sciences. These fellow- workers, diverse in temperament, in genius, in method, were bound by a friendship that was ended only by death. And now Sylvester too has gone ; full of years and honours ; though he lived long, he lived young, and he was happily active until practically the very end. Overflowing with an exuberant vitality alike in thought and work, he preserved through life the somewhat rare faculty of instilling his enthusiasm into others. Among his many great qualities, not the least forcible were his vivid imagination, his eager spirit, and his abundant eloquence. When he spoke and wrote of his investigations, or of the subject to which the greater part of his thinking life had been devoted, he did it with the fascination of conviction ; and at times — for instance, in his presidential address to this Section at Exeter in 1869 — he became so possessed with his sense of the high mission of mathematics, that his utterances had the lofty note of the prophet and the seer. One other name must be singled out as claiming the passing tribute of our homage ; for, in February last, the illustrious and venerable Weierstrass died. He was unconnected with our Association ; but science is wider than our body, and we can recognise and salute a master of marvellous influence and unchallenged eminence. Thus, even to mention no others, pure mathematics has in a brief period lost three of the very greatest of its pioneers and constructors who have ever lived. We know their genius ; and the world of thought, though poorer by their loss, is richer by their work. Tho' much is taken, much abides, and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are : One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Knowledge cannot halt though her heroes fall: the example of their life-long devotion to her progress, and the memory of their achievements, can inspire us and, if need be, can stimulate us in realising the purpose for which we are banded together as an Association — the advancement of science. £hittsl) Ussociaftcm for tfyc JldDcmcemeni of Science. TOKONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO THE CHEMICAL SECTION BY Professor WILLIAM RAMSAY, Ph.D., LL.D., Sc.D., F.R.S. PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. An Undiscovered Gas. A sectional address to members of the British Association falls under one of three heads. It may he historical, or actual, or prophetic ; it may refer to the past, the present, or the future. In many cases, indeed in all, this classification overlaps. Your former Presidents have given sometimes a historical introduction, followed by an account of the actual state of some branch of our science, and, though rarely, concluding with prophetic remarks. To those who have an affec- tion for the past, the historical side appeals forcibly ; to the practical man, and to the investigator engaged in research, the actual, perhaps, presents more charm ; while to the general public, to whom novelty is often more of an attraction than truth, the prophetic aspect excites most interest. In this address I must endeavour to tickle all palates : and perhaps I may be excused if I take this opportunity of indulging in the dangerous luxury prophecy, a luxury which the managers of scientific journals do not often permit their readers to taste. The subject of my remarks to-day is a new gas. I shall describe to you later its curious properties ; but it would be unfair not to put you at once in possession of the knowledge of its most remarkable property — it has not yet been discovered. As it is still unborn, it has not yet been named. The naming of a new element is no easy matter. For there are only twenty-six letters in our alphabet, and there are already over seventy elements. To select a name expressible by a symbol which has not already been claimed for one of the known elements is difficult, and the difficulty is enhanced when it is at the same time required to select a name which shall be descriptive of the properties (or want of properties) of the element. It is now my task to bring before you the evidence for the existence of this undiscovered element. It was noticed by Dobereiner, as long ago as 1817, that certain elements could be arranged in groups of three. The choice of the elements selected to form these triads was made on account of their analogous properties, and on the sequent oi l their atomic weights, which had at that time only recently been discovered. Thus calcium, strontium, and barium formed such a group ; their oxides, lime, stiontia, and baryta are all easily slaked, combining with water to form soluble lime-water, strontia-water, and baryta-water. Their sulphates are all sparingly soluble, and resemblance had been noticed between their respective chlorides and between their nitrates. Regularity was also displayed by their atomic weights. The numbers then accepted were 20, 42*5 and 65 ; and the atomic weight of strontium, 42*5, is B 2 REPORT — 1897. the arithmetical mean of those of the other two elements, for (65 + 20)/2 =42-5. The existence of other similar groups of three was pointed out by Dobereiner, and such groups became known as ' Dobereiner's triads.' Another method of classifying the elements, also depending on their atomic weights, was suggested by Pettenkofer, and afterwards elaborated by Kremers, Gladstone, and Cooke. It consisted in seeking for some expression which would represent the differences between the atomic weights of certain allied elements. Thus, the difference between the atomic weight of lithium, 7, and sodium, 23, is 16 ; and between that of sodium and of potassium, 39, is also 16. The regularity is not always so conspicuous ; Dumas, in 1857, contrived a somewhat complicated expression which, to some extent, exhibited regularity in the atomic weights of fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine ; and also of nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth. The upshot of these efforts to discover regularity was that, in 1864, Mr. John Newlands, having arranged the elements in eight groups, found that when placed in the order of their atomic weights, 6 the eighth element, starting from a given one, is a kind of repetition of the first, like the eighth note of an octave in music' To this regularity he gave the name ' The Law of Octaves.' The development of this idea, as all chemists know, was due to the late Professor Lothar Meyer, of Tubingen, and to Professor Mendeleetf', of St Peters- burg. It is generally known as the i Periodic Law.' One of the simplest methods of showing this arrangement is by means of a cylinder divided into eight segments by lmes drawn parallel to its axis ; a spiral line is then traced round the cylinder, which will, of course, be cut by these lines eight times at each revolution. Holding the cylinder vertically, the name and atomic weight of an element is written at each intersection of the spiral with a vertical line, following the numerical order of the atomic weights. It will be found, according to Lothar Meyer and Men- deleetf, that the elements grouped down each of the vertical lines form a natural class; they possess similar properties, form similar compounds, and exhibit a graded relationship between their densities, melting-points, and many of their other properties. One of these vertical columns, however, differs from the others, inasmuch as on it there are three groups, each consisting of three elements with approximately equal atomic weights. The elements in question are iron, cobalt, and nickel; palladium, rhodium, and ruthenium; and platinum, iridium, and osmium. There is apparently room for a fourth group of three elements in this column, and it may be a fifth. And the discovery of such a group is not unlikely, for when this table was first drawn up Professor Mendeleeff drew attention to certain gaps, which have since been filled up by the discovery of gallium, ger- manium, and others. The discovery of argon at once raised the curiosity of Lord Rayleigh and myself as to its position in this table. With a density of nearly 20, if a diatomic gas, like oxygen and nitrogen, it would follow fluorine in the periodic table ; and our first idea was that argon was probably a mixture of three gases, all of which possessed nearly the same atomic weights, like iron, cobalt, and nickel. Indeed, their names were suggested, on this supposition, with patriotic bias, as Anglium, Scotium, and Hibernium ! But when the ratio of its specific heats had, at least in our opinion, unmistakably shown that it was molecularly monatomic, and not diatomic, as at first conjectured, it was necessary to believe that its atomic weight was 40, and not 20, and that it followed chlorine in the atomic table, and not fluorine. But here arises a difficulty. The atomic weight of chlorine is 35*5, and that of potassium, the next element in order in the table, is 39*1 ; and that of argon, 40, follows, and does not precede, that of potassium, as it might be expected to do. It still remains possible that argon, instead of consisting wholly of monatomic molecules, may contain a small percentage of diatomic molecules ; but the evidence in favour of this supposition is, in my opinion, far from strong. Another possibility is that argon, as at first conjectured, may consist of a mixture of more than one element ; but, unless the atomic weight of one of the elements in the supposed mixture is very high, say 82, the case is not bettered, for one of the elements in the supposed trio would still have a higher atomic weight than TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 3 potassium. And very careful experiments, carried out by Dr. Norman Collie and myself, on the fractional diffusion of argon, have disproved the existence of any such element with high atomic weight in argon, and, indeed, have practically demonstrated that argon is a simple substance, and not a mixture. The discovery of helium has thrown a new light on this subject. Helium, it will be remembered, is evolved on heating certain minerals, notably those contain- ing uranium ; although it appears to be contained in others in which uranium is not present, except in traces. Among these minerals are cleveite, monazite, fergusonite, and a host of similar complex mixtures, all containing rare elements, such as niobium, tantalum, yttrium, cerium, &c. The spectrum of helium is characterised by a remarkably brilliant yellow line, which had been observed as long ago as 1868 by Professors Frankland and Lockyer in the spectrum of the sun's chromosphere, and named i helium ' at that early date. The density of helium proved to be very close to 2*0, and, like argon, the ratio of its specific heat showed that it, too, was a monatomic gas. Its atomic weight therefore is identical with its molecular weight, viz., 4*0, and its place in the periodic table is between hydrogen and lithium, the atomic weight of which is 7*0. The difference between the atomic weights of helium and argon is thus 86, or 40 — 4. Now there are several cases of such a difference. For instance, in the group the first member of which is fluorine we have — Fluorine . . . . . . . . 19 lfir Chlorine 35*5 JjJ'ji Manganese ....... 55 In the oxygen group — Oxygen . . . . . . . • 16 16 Sulphur ^20*3 Chromium ........ 52*3 In the nitrogen group — Nitrogen . . 14 ^ Phosphorus 31 4. Vanadium 51*4 And in the carbon group — Carbon 12 .„ Silicon 28 3 Titanium 481 These instances suffice to show that approximately the differences are 16 and 20 between consecutive members of the corresponding groups of elements. The total differences between the extreme members of the short series mentioned are- Manganese — Fluorine 36 Chromium — Oxygen ...... 36*3 Vanadium — Nitrogen 37*4 Titanium — Carbon . . . , . .36 1 This is approximately the difference between the atomic weights of helium and argon, 36. There should, therefore, be an undiscovered element between helium and argon, with an atomic weight 16 units higher than that of helium, and 20 units lower than that of argon, namely 20. And if this unknown element, like helium and argon, should prove to consist of monatomic molecules, then its density should be half its atomic weight, 10. And pushing the analogy still farther, it is to be expected that this element should be as indifferent to union with other elements as the two allied elements. ^ My assistant, Mr. Morris Travers, has indefatigably aided me in a search for this unknown gas. There is a proverb about looking for a needle in a haystack ; 4 REPORT — 1897. modern science, with the aid of suitable magnetic appliances, would, if the reward were sufficient, make short work of that proverbial needle. But here is a supposed unknown gas, endowed no doubt with negative properties, and the whole world to find it in. Still, the attempt had to be made. We first directed our attention to the sources of helium— minerals, Almost every mineral which we could obtain was heated in a vacuum, and the gas which was evolved examined. The results are interesting. Most minerals give off gas when heated, and the gas contains, as a rule, a considerable amount of hydrogen, mixed with carbonic acid, questionable traces of nitrogen, and carbonic oxide. Many of the minerals, in addition, gave helium, which proved to be widely dis- tributed, though only in minute proportion. One mineral — malacone — gave appre- ciable quantities of argon ; and it is noteworthy that argon was not found except in it (and, curiously, in much larger amount than helium), and in a specimen of meteoric iron. Other specimens of meteoric iron were examined, but were found to contain mainly hydrogen, with no trace of either argon or helium. It is probable that the sources of meteorites might be traced in this manner, and that each could be relegated to its particular swarm. Among the minerals examined was one to which our attention had been directed by Professor Lockyer, named eliasite, from which he said that he had extracted a gas in which he had observed spectrum lines foreign to helium. He was kind enough to furnish us with a specimen of this mineral, which is exceedingly rare, but tbe sample which we tested contained nothing but undoubted helium. During a trip to Iceland in 1895, 1 collected some gas from the boiling springs there ; it consisted, for the most part, of air, but contained somewhat more argon than is usually dissolved when air is shaken with water. In the spring of 1896 Mr. Travers and I made a trip to the Pyrenees to collect gas from the mineral springs of Oauterets, to which our attention had been directed by Dr. Bouchard, who pointed out that these gases are rich in helium. We examined a number of samples from the various springs, and confirmed Dr. Bouchard's results, but there was no sign of any unknown lines in the spectrum of these gases. Our quest was in vain. We must now turn to another aspect of the subject. Shortly after the discovery of helium, its spectrum was very carefully examined by Professors Runge and Paschen, the renowned spectroscopists. The spectrum was photographed, special attention being paid to the invisible portions, termed the 1 ultra-violet ' and ' infra-red.' The lines thus registered were found to have a harmonic relation to each other. They admitted of division into two sets, each complete in itself. Now, a similar process had been applied to the spectrum of lithium and to that of sodium, and the spectra of these elements gave only one series each. Hence, Professors Runge and Paschen concluded that the gas, to which the provisional name of helium had been given, was, in reality, a mixture of two gases, closely resembling each other in properties. As we know no other elements with atomic weights between those of hydrogen and lithium, there is no chemical evidence either for or against this supposition. Professor Runge supposed that he had obtained evidence of the separation of these imagined elements from each other by means of diffusion ; but Mr. Travers and I pointed out that the same alteration of spectrum, which was apparently produced by diffusion, could also be caused by altering the pressure of the gas in the vacuum tube ; and shortly after Professor Runge acknowledged his mistake. These considerations, however, made it desirable to subject helium to system- atic diffusion, in the same way as argon had been tried. The experiments were carried out in the summer of 1896 by Dr. Collie and myself. The result was encouraging. It was found possible to separate helium into two portions of different rates of diffusion, and consequently of different density by this means. The limits of separation, however, were not very great. On the one hand, we obtained gas of a density close on 2*0 ; and on the other, a sample of density 24 or thereabouts. The difficulty was increased by the curious behaviour, which we have often had occasion to confirm, that helium possesses a rate of diffusion too rapid for its density. Thus, the density of the lightest portion of the diffused gas, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 5 calculated from its rate of diffusion, was 1*874 ; but this corresponds to a real density of about 2*0. After our paper, giving an account of these experiments, had been published, a German investigator, Herr A. Hagenbach, repeated our work and confirmed our results. The two samples of gas of different density differ also in other properties. Different transparent substances differ in the rate at which they allow light to pass through them. Thus, light travels through water at a much slower rate than through air, and at a slower rate through air than through hydrogen. Now Lord Rayleigh found that helium offers less opposition to the passage of light than any other substance does, and the heavier of the two portions into which helium had been split offered more opposition than the lighter portion. And the retardation of the light, unlike what has usually been observed, was nearly proportional to the densities of the samples, The spectrum of these two samples did not differ in the minutest particular ; therefore it did not appear quite out of the question to hazard the speculation that the process of diffusion was instrumental, not necessarily in separating two kinds of gas from each other, but actually in removing light molecules of the same kind from heavy molecules. This idea is not new. It had been advanced by Prof. Schutzenberger (whose recent death all chemists have to deplore), and later, by Mr. Crookes, that what we term the atomic weight of an element is a mean ; that when we say that the atomic weight of oxygen is 1 6, we merely state that the average atomic weight is 16; and it is not inconceivable that a certain number of molecules have a weight somewhat higher than 32, while a certain number have a lower weight. We therefore thought it necessary to test this question by direct experiment with some known gas ; and we chose nitrogen, as a good material with which to test the point. A much larger and more convenient apparatus for diffusing gases was built by Mr. Travers and myself, and a set of systematic diffusions of nitrogen was carried out. After thirty rounds, corresponding to 180 diffusions, the density of the nitrogen was unaltered, and that of the portion which should have diffused most slowly, had there been any difference in rate, was identical with that of the most quickly diffusing portion — i e., with that of the portion which passed first through the porous plug. This attempt, therefore, was unsuccessful ; but it was worth carrying out, for it is now certain that it is not possible to separate a gas of undoubted chemical unity into portions of different density by diffusion. And these experiments rendered it exceedingly improbable that the difference in density of the two fractions of helium was due to separation of light molecules of helium from heavy molecules. The apparatus used for diffusion had a capacity of about two litres. It was filled with helium, and the operation of diffusion was carried through thirty times. There were six reservoirs, each full of gas, and each was separated into two by diffusion. To the heavier portion of one lot, the lighter portion of the next was added, and in this manner all six reservoirs were successively passed through the diffusion apparatus. This process was carried out thirty times, each of the six reservoirs having had its gas diffused each time, thus involving 180 diffusions. After this process, the density of the more quickly diffusing gas was reduced to 2*02, while that of the less quickly diffusing had increased to 2*27. The light portion on re-diffusion hardly altered in density, while the heavier portion, when divided into three portions by diffusion, showed a considerable difference in density between the first third and the last third. A similar set of operations was carried out with a fresh quantity of helium, in order to accumulate enough gas to obtain a sufficient quantity for a second series of diffusions. The more quickly diffusing portions of both gases were mixed and rediffused. The density of the lightest portion of these gases was 1*98; and after other 15 diffusions, the density of the lightest portion had not decreased. The end had been reached ; it was not possible to obtain a lighter portion by diffusion. The density of the main body of this gas is therefore 1*98; and its refractivity, air being taken as unity, is 0*1245. The spectrum of this portion does not differ in any respect from the usual spectrum of helium. As re-diffusion does not alter the density or the refractivity of this e*as, it is b 2 6 REPORT — 1897. right to suppose that either one definite element has now "been isolated ; or that if there are more elements than one present, they possess the same, or very nearly the same, density and refractivity. There may be a group of elements, say three, like iron, cobalt, and nickel ; but there is no proof that this idea is correct, and the simplicity of the spectrum would be an argument against such a supposition. This substance, forming by far the larger part of the whole amount of the gas, must, in the present state of our knowledge, be regarded as pure helium. On the other hand, the heavier residue is easily altered in density by re-diffu- sion, and this would imply that it consists of a small quantity of a heavy gas mixed with a large quantity of the light gas. Repeated re-diffusion convinced us that there was only a very small amount of the heavy gas present in the mixture. The portion which contained the largest amount of heavy gas was found to have the density 2*275, and its refractive index was found to be 0*1333. On re-dif- fusing this portion of gas until only a trace sufficient to fill a Pliicker's tube was left, and then examining the spectrum, no unknown lines could be detected, but, on interposing a jar and spark gap, the well-known blue lines of argon became visible ; and even without the jar the red lines of argon, and the two green groups were distinctly visible. The amount of argon present, calculated from the density, was 1*64 per cent., and from the refractivity 1*14 per cent. The conclusion had therefore to be drawn that the heavy constituent of helium, as it comes off the minerals containing it, is nothing new, but, so far as can be made out, merely a small amount of argon. If, then, there is a new gas in what is generally termed helium, it is mixed with argon, and it must be present in extremely minute traces. As neither helium nor argon has been induced to form compounds, there does not appear to be any method, other than diffusion, for isolating such a gas, if it exists, and that method has failed in our hands to give any evidence of the existence of such a gas. It by no means follows that the gas does not exist ; the only conclusion to be drawn is that we have not yet stumbled on the material which contains it. In fact, the haystack is too large and the needle too inconspicuous. Reference to the periodic table will show that between the elements aluminium and indium there occurs gallium, a substance occurring only in the minutest amount on the earth's surface ; and following silicon, and preceding tin, appears the element germanium, a body which has as yet been recognised only in one of the rarest of minerals, argyrodite. Now, the amount of helium in fergusonite, one of the minerals which yields it in reasonable quantity, is only 33 parts by weight in 100,000 of the mineral ; and it is not improbable that some other mineral may contain the new gas in even more minute proportion. If, however, it is accom- panied in its still undiscovered source by argon and helium, it will be a work of extreme difficulty to effect a separation from these gases. In these remarks it has been assumed that the new gas will resemble argon and helium in being indifferent to the action of reagents, and in not forming com- pounds. This supposition is worth examining. In considering it, the analogy with other elements is all that we have to guide us. We have already paid some attention to several triads of elements. We have seen that the differences in atomic weights between the elements fluorine and manganese, oxygen and chromium, nitrogen and vanadium, carbon and titanium, is in each case approximately the same as that between helium and argon, viz., 36. If elements further back in the periodic table be examined, it is to be noticed that the differences grow less, the smaller the atomic weights. Thus, between boron and scandium, the difference is 33 ; between beryllium (glucinum) and calcium, 31 ; and between lithium and potassium, 32. At the same time, we may remark that the elements grow liker each other, the lower the atomic weights. Now, helium and argon are very like each other in physical properties. It may be fairly concluded, I think, that in so far they justify their position. Moreover, the pair of elements which show the smallest difference between their atomic weights is beryllium and calcium ; there is a somewhat greater difference between lithium and potassium. And it is in accordance with this fragment of regularity that helium and argon show a greater difference. Then again, sodium, the middle TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 7 element of the lithium triad, is very similar in properties both to lithium and potassium ; and we might, therefore, expect that the unknown element of the helium series should closely resemble both helium and argon. Leaving now the consideration of the new element, let us turn our attention to the more general question of the atomic weight of argon, and its anomalous posi- tion in the periodic scheme of the elements. The apparent difficulty is this : The atomic weight of argon is 40 ; it has no power to form compounds, and thus possesses no valency ; it must follow chlorine in the periodic table, aud precede potassium ; but its atomic weight is greater than that of potassium, whereas it is generally contended that the elements should follow each other in the order of their atomic weights. If this contention is correct, argon should have an atomic weight smaller than 40. Let us examine this contention. Taking the first row of elements, we have : LU7, Be = 9*8, B = ll, C = 12, N = 14, = 16, F = 19, ? = 20. The differences are : 2-8, 1-2, 10, 2-0, 2 0, 3 0, 1-0. It is obvious that they are irregular. The next row shows similar irregu- larities. Thus : (? = 20), Na = 23, Mg = 24*3, Al = 27, Si = 28, P = 31, S = 32, 01 = 35-5, A = 40. And the differences : 3-0, 1-3, 2-7, 1-0, 3-0, 1-0, 3*5, 4-5. The same irregularity might be illustrated by a consideration of each succeed- ing row. Between argon and the next in order, potassium, there is a difference of — 0*9; that is to say, argon has a higher atomic weight than potassium by 0*9 unit ; whereas it might be expected to have a lower one, seeing that potassium follows argon in the table. Farther on in the table there is a similar discrepancy. The row is as follows : Ag = 108, Cd = 112, In = 114, Sn = 119, Sb = 120*5, Te = 127*7, 1 = 127. The differences are : — 4-0, 2-0, 5-0, 1-5, 7-2, -0*7. Here, again, there is a negative difference between tellurium and iodine. And this apparent discrepancy has led to many and careful redeterminations of the atomic weight of tellurium. Professor Brauner, indeed, has submitted tellurium to methodical fractionation, with no positive results. All the recent determina- tions of its atomic weight give practically the same number, 127*7. Again, there have been almost innumerable attempts to reduce the differences between the atomic weights to regularity, by contriving some formula which will express the numbers which represent the atomic weights, with all their irregulari- ties. Needless to say, such attempts have in no case been successful. Apparent success is always attained at the expense of accuracy, and the numbers reproduced are not those accepted as the true atomic weights. Such attempts, in my opinion, are futile. Still, the human mind does not rest contented in merely chronicling such an irregularity ; it strives to understand why such an irregularity should exist. And, in connection with this, there are two matters which call for our con- sideration. These are : Does some circumstance modify these ' combining propor- tions ' which we term ' atomic weights ' ? And is there any reason to suppose that we can modify them at our will ? Are they true ' constants of Nature,' unchange- able, and once for all determined ? Or are they constant merely so long as other circumstances, a change in which would modify them, remain unchanged ? In order to understand the real scope of such questions, it is necessary to consider the relation of the 1 atomic weights 1 to other magnitudes, and especially to the important quantity termed ' energy.' It is known that energy manifests itself under different forms, and that one 8 REPORT — 1897. form of energy is quantitatively convertible into another form, without loss. It is also known that each form of energy is expressible as the product of two factors, one of which has been termed the ' intensity factor,' and the other the ' capacity factor/ Professor Ostwald, in the last edition of his ' Allgemeine Chernie,' classi- fies some of these forms of energy as follows : Kinetic energy is the product of Mass into the square of velocity. Linear „ „ Length into force. Surface „ „ Surface into surface tension. Volume „ „ Volume into pressure. Heat „ „ Heat-capacity (entropy) into temperature. Electrical „ „ Electric capacity into potential. Chemical „ „ i Atomic weight ' into affinity. In each statement of factors, the 1 capacity factor ' is placed first, and the ' intensity-factor ' second. In considering the 1 capacity factors/ it is noticeable that they may be divided into two classes. The two first kinds of energy, kinetic and linear, are indepen- dent of the nature of the material which is subject to the energy. A mass of lead offers as much resistance to a given force, or, in other words, possesses as great inertia as an equal mass of hydrogen. A mass of iridium, the densest solid, counterbalances an equal mass of lithium, the lightest known solid. On the other hand, surface energy deals with molecules, and not with masses. So does volume energy. The volume energy of two grammes of hydrogen, contained in a vessel of one litre capacity, is equal to that of thirty-two grammes of oxygen at the same temperature, and contained in a vessel of equal size. Equal masses of tin and lead have not equal capacity for heat ; but 119 grammes of tin has the same capacity as 207 grammes of lead, that is, equal atomic masses have the same heat capacity. The quantity of electricity conveyed through an electrolyte under equal difference of potential is proportional, not to the mass of the dissolved body, but to its equivalent, that is, to some simple fraction of its atomic weight. And the capacity factor of chemical energy is the atomic weight of the substance subjected to the energy. We see, therefore, that while mass or inertia are important adjuncts of kinetic and linear energies, all other kinds of energy are connected with atomic weights, either directly or indirectly. • Such considerations draw attention to the fact that quantity of matter (assum- ing that there exists such a carrier of properties as we term i matter ') need not necessarily be measured by its inertia, or by gravitational attraction. In fact, the word ' mass ' has two totally distinct significations. Because we adopt the con- vention to measure quantity of matter by its mass, the word i mass ' has come to denote ' quantity of matter.' But it is open to anyone to measure a quantity of matter by any other of its energy factors. I may, if I choose, state that those quantities of matter which possess equal capacities for heat are equal ; or that i equal numbers of atoms ' represent equal quantities of matter. Indeed, we regard the value of material as due rather to what it can do, than to its mass ; and we buy food, in the main, on an atomic, or perhaps, a molecular basis, according to its content of albumen. And most articles depend for their value on the amount of food required by the producer or the manufacturer. The various forms of energy may therefore be classified as those which can be referred to an ' atomic ' factor, and those which possess a ' mass ' factor. The former are in the majority. And the periodic law is the bridge between them ; as yet, an imperfect connection. For the atomic factors, arranged in the order of their masses, display only a partial regularity. It is undoubtedly one of the main problems of physics and chemistry to solve this mystery. What the solution will be is beyond my power of prophecy ; whether it is to be found in the influence of some circumstance on the atomic weights, hitherto regarded as among the most cer- tain 1 constants of Nature ' ; or whether it will turn out that mass and gravita- tional attraction are influenced by temperature, or by electrical charge, I cannot tell. But that some means will ultimately be found of reconciling these apparent TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 9 discrepancies, I tirnily believe. Such a reconciliation is necessary, whatever view be taken of the nature of the universe and of its mode of action ; whatever units we may choose to regard as fundamental among those which lie at our disposal. In this address I have endeavoured to fulfil my promise to combine a little history, a little actuality, and a little prophecy. The history belongs to the Old World ; I have endeavoured to share passing events with the New ; and I will ask you to join with me in the hope that much of the prophecy may meet with its fulfilment on this side of the Ocean. BrtftsI) Jlssoctaficm for tfye Jldocmcemenf of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO THE GEOLOGICAL SECTION BY G. M. DAWSON, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. The nature and relations of the more ancient rocks of North America are problems particularly Canadian, for these rocks in their typical and most easily read develop- ment either constitute or border upon the continental Protaxis of the North. The questions involved are, however, at the same time, perhaps more intimately con- nected with a certain class of world-wide geological phenomena than any of those relating to later formations, in which a greater degree of differentiation occurred as time advanced. A reasonably satisfactory classification of the crystalline rocks beneat h those designated as Palaeozoic was first worked out in the Canadian region by Logan and his colleagues, a classification of which the validity was soon after generally recognised. The greatest known connected area of such rocks is em- braced within the borders of Canada, and, if I mistake not, the further understand- ing of the origin and character of these rocks is likely to depend very largely upon work now in progress, or remaining to be accomplished here. This being the case, it seems very appropriate to direct such remarks as I may be privileged to make on the present occasion chiefly to these more ancient rocks, and the subject is one which cannot fail to present itself in concrete form to the visiting members of this Section. Personally I cannot claim to have engaged in extended or close investigations of these rocks, and there is little absolutely new in what I can say in respect to them ; but work of the kind is still actively in progress by members of the staff of the Geological Survey, and the classification and discrimination of these older terranes present themselves to us daily as im- portant subjects of consideration in connection with the mapping of vast areas ; so that, if still admittedly imperfect in many respects, our knowledge of them must be appraised, and, at least provisionally, employed in a practical way in order to admit of the progress of the surveys in hand. Although it is intended to speak chiefly of the distinctively pre-Cambrian rocks of Canada, and more particularly of the crystalline schists, it will be necessary also to allude to others, in regard to the systematic position of which differences of opinion exist. Of the Cambrian itself, as distinguished by organic remains, little need be said, but it is essential to keep in touch with the palseontologically established landmarks on this side, if for no other reason than to enable us to realise in some measure the vast lapse of time, constituting probably one of the most important breaks in geological history, by which the Cambrian and its allied rocks are separated from those of the Iluronian and Laurentian systems. In attempting to review sow T ide a subject and one upon which so much has already been written, the chief difficulty is to determine how much may be legitimately c 2 REPORT — 1897. eliminated while still retaining the important features. This must be largely a matter of individual j udgment, and I can only hope to present what appear to me to be the essential points, with special reference to the geology of Canada. The useful object of any such review is, of course, to bring out what may now actually be regarded as established respecting these older rocks, and in what direction the most hopeful outlook exists for improving our knowledge of them. For this pur- pose, the best mode of approaching the subject, in the first place, and up to a certain point, is the historical one, and it will thus be desirable to recapitulate briefly the first steps made in the classification of the crystalline schists in Canada. This is the more appropriate, because of the substantial accuracy of these first observations, and the fact that they have since been largely buried out of sight by a copious controversial literature of later growth. Soon after the Geological Survey of Canada was begun, now more than fifty years ago, Logan (who in the earlier years of the work may almost be said to have alone constituted the staff) found himself confronted with the great areas of crystalline rocks forming the continental Protaxis. The existing geological edifice has been so largely the result of the past half century of work, that it is not now easy to realise the elementary condition in which its foundations lay at that time. It was then but ten years since Sedgwick and Murchison had given form to their discoveries in regard to the Cambrian and Silurian, and a still shorter time since the definitive publication of the classification of the Cambrian and the appearance of the i Silurian System,' while Hall, Emmons and others, working upon these lines, were actively engaged in building up a similar classification of the Palaeozoic rocks of the Eastern States of the American Union. The Silurian and Cambrian had, in fact, but just been reclaimed from what Murchison speaks of as the 'vast unclassified heaps of greywacke ' or ' transition limestones. 7 It would have been quite appropriate at this date to relegate all underlying and more or less completely crystalline rocks to the ' Primary,' or i Primitive/ or ' Azoic,' but such a solution fortunately did not recommend itself to Logan. It was along the Ottawa Valley, in 1845, that the rocks subsequently classed under the Laurentian and Huronian systems were first examined in some detail. In that year Logan met with and accurately described, severally, rocks which we now refer to (1) The Fundamental Gneiss; (2) The Grenville Series; and (3) The Huronian. He speaks of the rocks of the first class as being in the main syenitic gneisses ' of a highly crystalline quality, belonging to the order which, in the nomenclature of Lyell, is called metamorphic instead of primary, as possessing an aspect inducing a theoretic belief that they may be ancient sedimentary forma- tions in an altered condition.' In what we now call the Grenville Series, he de- scribes the association of crystalline limestones and interbedded gneisses, adding that it appeared to be expedient to consider this mass as a separate metamorphic group, supposed to be newer than the last. Of the Huronian, the relations were at that time left undetermined, although it is observed that its beds hold pebbles of the underlying rocks, here the Fundamental Gneiss. The following season was spent by Logan, and by his assistant Murray, on the north shore of Lake Superior, Thunder Bay and its vicinity being one of the regions especially examined. Without enumerating particular localities, it may be stated that Logan there grouped the rocks met with as follows, beginning with the lowest ; the column added on the left giving the present nomenclature of the several series defined : — Laurentian. . . { \ g^ te and s y enite - Huronian . . .3. Chloritic and partly talcose and conglomerate slates [schists.] Animikie . . .4. Bluish slates or shales inter- stratified with trap. Keweenawan . . 5. Sandstones, limestones, in- durated marls and conglo- merates, intei stratified with t" ap. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 3 It is not distinctly stated that No. 3 rests unconformably on the older rocks, but the observation that granitic boulders were found in it, leads to the belief that such unconformity was assumed. Murray, however, supposed the junction as seen on the Kaministiquia to be conformable, and unites the first three subdivi- sions, as above given, in one series. Logan further states, still referring to the same region, that the ' chloritic slates [schists] at the summit of the older rocks on which the volcanic formations rest unconformably, bear a strong resemblance to those met with on the upper part of Lake Temiscaming on the Ottawa, and it appears probable that they will be found to be identical.' It will thus be observed that the progress in classification made, up to this date at least, entirely accords with the results of the latest investigations. The identity of the rocks placed third in the table with those of the Upper Ottawa was more than conjectured, and the existence of a great stratigraphical break at the base of what is now known as the Animikie was clearly recognised. The several formations were merely described. No specific names were given to them at this time by Logan, and it is further stated that the age of the highest formations (Animikie and Keweenawan) was in doubt, although some reason was found to support Houghton's 1 view (or what was believed to be his view), that these formations are lower than the Potsdam, or 1 lowest fossiliferous formation.' In 1847 and 1848, investigations were continued along the north shore of Lake Huron, of which the characteristic rocks are, it is stated, believed to form a single system. They are described as in part sedimentary (quartzites, conglomerates, &c), and in part igneous (greenstones), the latter being both interposed between the sedimentary beds and intrusive. The ' slates ' are particularly characterised by Murray as often chloritic, epidotic, and micaceous, and would now, of course, be more specifically termed schists. Writing in 1849, 2 however, and later, in a communication presented to this Association in 1851, Logan, although still recognising the manifest unconformity at the base of the Animikie, speaks collectively of the ' Copper-bearing Rocks ' of Lake Superior and Huron, including under this general term what are now known as the Huronian, Animikie, and Keweenawan series, and adds that it is ' highly probable ' that all these are approximately equivalent to each other, and to the Cambrian of the British Islands. In the Report for 1852-53 (published 1854), the name Lauren tian was adopted for what had been previously designated merely as the 1 met amorphic series,' and in the geological sketch printed in Paris in connection with the Exhibition of 1855 (which follows next in order of publication), this system is stated to consist almost exclusively of much altered and disturbed sedimentary beds. It is also, however, made to include some recognised intrusives, such as granite and syenites, forming parts of the mass, as well as the Labradorite rocks, which were after- wards for a time named Upper Laurentian, and to which further allusion will be made in the sequel. The name Laurentian is here therefore first employed exactly in the sense of the term ' Basement Complex,' introduced long afterwards, but under the distinct idea that most of the rocks are altered sediments, from which certain intrusive masses were not clearly separable. In the same publication, the overlying series of Lakes Huron and Superior, including the Huronian proper, the Animikie and the Keweenawan, were collec- tively spoken of as the 4 Huronian or Cambrian system.' These rocks are described as lying discordantly on the Laurentian, and as intervening between it and the lowest known fossiliferous strata. There being no other recognised place for such rocks in the scheme of the day, they are consequently supposed to represent the Lower Cambrian of Sedgwick. It is unnecessary to follow in order the investigations carried on for a number of subsequent years, but reference may now be made to the ' Geology of Canada,' of 1863, in which all previous results of the Survey to that date were collected and 1 Then State Geologist of Michigan. 2 Report on the North Shore of Lake Huron, 4 REPORT — 1897. systematised. In this volume, after stating that Hall's nomenclature of the Palaeozoic rocks in the State of New York had been adopted unchanged for the adjacent Canadian territory, 4 in the interests of unity of plan for future researches,' Logan writes : — 1 To the Azoic rocks no local names have yet been applied in any part of America except in Canada,' and adds : — i The names of the Laureutian and Huronian systems or series, which we have been accustomed to apply to them, are allowed to remain unchanged, particularly as they have been recognised abroad, and have been made by other geologists a standard of com- parison both in America and Europe.' In Chapter V. of this volume the < Upper Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Superior ' are separately treated, and are recognised as comprising two groups which are stated to overlie the Huronian unconformably. These groups are those now known as the Animikie and Keweenawan. There can be no doubt about the classification intended at this time, and the rocks are correctly laid down on the atlas prepared to accompany the volume, but in consequence of an unfortunate error in the geographical description of the distribution of the Huronian about Thunder Bay, that arose in 1846 and was repeated in 1863, several later investigators have been led to regard the rocks of the ' Upper Copper-bearing Series ' as those of Logan's typical Huronian, and to suppose that when examining these rocks they were dealing with those intended to be classed as Huronian. Irving, Winchell, and others have adopted this mistaken view, which it is particularly necessary to refer to here, as it has been the chief cause of all subsequent misapprehension in regard to the i Original Huronian.' 1 The temporary grouping of the Huronian proper with the 1 Upper Copper- bearing Series ' (Animikie and Keweenawan), on the grounds already explained, as * Huronian or Cambrian,' together with the employment (proper enough at the date) of the term ' slates ' for rocks that would now be named schists, further assisted in giving colour to the erroneous view just referred to. In a second geological sketch of Canada, printed in Paris at the time of the International Exhibition of 1867, the same classification is maintained, but to it is added the Upper Laurentian or Labradorian. This sketch was actually written by Hunt, but it was an official publication, correctly representing the views held 1 As already stated, the relations of the principal rock-series of the vicinity of Thunder Bay had been correctly outlined in 1846, although the series had not at that time been named. The Kaministiquia River section had been examined by Murray, who also correctly described the distribution of the series there, stating that the 4 granite, syenite, gneiss, micaceous and chloritic schist ' (Laurentian and Huronian) find their southern limit on a line running from the falls on that river to the ' head of Thunder Bay,' while the ' Upper Slates (Animikie) rest upon them and occupy the country between such a line and Lake Superior ' {Report of Progress, 1846-47, p. 51). In combining his own results with those of Murray, Logan describes the southern line of the granite, gneiss, and chloritic slates as ' commencing in the vicinity of Fort William,' or at the mouth of the Kaministiquia, although the falls, at which this line had been determined by Murray, are some twenty miles up the river. Pro- ceeding {op. cit. p. 25) to describe the extent of the ' superior trappean formations ' (Animikie and Keweenawan), he then reverts to the line previously stated, making these rocks to terminate locally where he had said the older rocks began. In recasting the earlier observations for the volume of 1863 (no further work having meanwhile been done at this place), Logan is thus naturally led to state that the Huronian {i.e. the 'Chloritic Slates') occupies the coast east of the Kaministiquia , whereas this coast, for ten or eleven miles, is actually occupied by Animikie rocks. Subsequent investigators, inspecting this coast-line with the volume of 1863 as a guide, very naturally thus assumed that they were examining Logan's ' typical Huronian,' or a part of it. It is in consequence only of a too consistent adhesion to this misunderstanding, that it has been found necessary to speak of an 'Upper Huronian,' and refer to an ' inter-Huronian ' unconformity. The so-called Upper Huronian is no part of the system as understood by the Canadian Survey. One cannot fail to note, in reading- much that has been written on this subject, that the importance of the great unconformity at the base of the Animikie was realised only after a new classification had been adopted, in which it had practically been ignored. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. at that time, and may be accepted as Logan's last word on the subject. As thus defined and established, he left the Laurentian and Huronian systems. In so far as the stratigraphical relations of the Laurentian, Huronian, and ' Upper Copper-bearing Series ' are concerned (leaving out of consideration the Labradorian), it is thus manifest that the conclusions originally formed from actual study on the ground were those finally held by Logan. The reference for a time of the Huronian proper and the ' Upper Copper-bearing Series' together to the Lower Cambrian, meant only that, as then understood, there was no other systematic position recognised to which they could be assigned. That a great unconformity existed between these two systems was never doubted, but for some years Logan was not prepared to take the bold position of constituting a separate Huronian system beneath the lowest Cambrian ; he was, on the contrary, anxious, if possible, to bring the Canadian section within the lines established in the classic region studied by Sedgwick and Murchison. The introduction of new systematic terms was at that time considered somewhat seriously. When eventually com- pelled to take this step (in 1857), he confined the name Huronian to rocks ante- dating the great break at the base of the ' Upper Copper-bearing Series ' (Animikie), embracing these first seen by him on the Upper Ottawa and on Lake Huron, with their representatives elsewhere, under this new system. In so far as nomenclature goes, Logan thus certainly modified his original application of the name Huronian ; it was not, however, as has been contended, to create an ' extended Huronian,' but on the contrary to restrict the name to rocks beneath the great unconformity at the base of the Animikie. The change was necessitated by the progress of investigation and by the recognition of an upper division of the ' Azoic,' beneath anything that could legitimately be classed as Cambrian. It was made by the author himself, and involved no departure from the law of priority or from any other acknowledged rule. In finally eliminating these upper rocks from his Huronian system, he was no doubt influenced by TVhitney's criticisms of 1857, 1 which were in part correct, although largely devoted to the very conservative contention that all stratified rocks below the great break were inseparable, and should be included in an ' Azoic System.' This influence may be traced in an important paper, of but three pages, communicated to the American Association for the Advancement of Science a few months later than the date of that above referred to, in which, while the name Huronian is reaffirmed for the rocks of Lake Huron and Lake Temiscaming, which are taken as typical of the system, nothing further is said of those now known as Animikie and Keweenawan. In the summary volume of 1863, to which allusion has already been made, the existence of an Upper Laurentian, Labradorian or Norian Series was first tentatively indicated in a supplementary chapter. It is unnecessary to follow here the history of the rocks so classed, for the supposed series has not stood the test of later discussion and research, due chiefly to Selwyn and Adams. The apparently stratified rocks often included in it are now understood to be foliated eruptives. The recognition achieved by this and by other more or less hypothetical series about this time may be traced to the brilliant chemico-geological theories advanced by Hunt, previous to the general acceptance of modern petrographical methods. In a similar manner, and very justly so, Logan, as a field geologist, was in- fluenced by the views held by Lyeil in the early editions of his ' Principles,' to accept without reservation the foliation of crystalline rocks as indicative of original bedding. This was, at the time of his early researches and thereafter for many years, the accepted view, although Dana, in a paper read before the American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science in 1843, had already held that the schistose structure of gneiss and mica-slate was insufficient evidence of sedimentary origin; and Darwin, a few years later, had published his ' Geological Observations,' includ- ing a remarkable chapter on cleavage and foliation, in which he advocated a similar view. No such doctrine, however, achieved general recognition until long after- wards, while that class of facts remaining to be determined chiefly by the micro- 1 Am. Journ. JSci., vol. xxiii. May, 1857. 6 .REPORT — 1897. scope, which may be included under the term i dynamic metamorphism/ were wholly unknown and unforeseen. In admitting that chemical, metamorphic, and uniformitarian hypotheses were thus given, in turn, undue weight, it is not to be assumed that the advances made under these hypotheses have been entirely lost; it has been necessary only to retreat in part in each instance, in order to fall again into the more direct road. In late years, modern microscopical and chemical methods of research have been applied to the ancient crystalline schists of Canada — the older work has been brought under review, and new districts have been entered upon with improved weapons. Here, as in other parts of the world, investigations of the kind are still in active progress ; finality has not been reached on many points, but the ex- planation of others has been found. One advance which deserves special mention is the recognition of the fact that a great part of the Huronian is essentially com- posed of contemporaneous volcanic material, effusive or fragmental. This was first clearly stated by Canadian geologists, but has only become generally admitted by degrees, in opposition to prevalent theories of metamorphism and cosmic chemistry. The first opportunity of studying these Archasan rocks in detail, under the new conditions, fell to Dr. A. C. Lawson, then on the staff of the Canadian Survey, in the vicinity of the Lake of the Woods and elsewhere to the west of Lake Superior. In that part of the Protaxis, the Laurentian appears to be represented only by the Fundamental Gneiss, and the Huronian, by a series to which a local name (Keewatin) was appropriately given, 1 but which is now known to differ in no essential respect from many other developments of the same system. The Huronian stands generally in compressed folds, and along the line of junction the gneisses are related to it in the manner of an eruptive, penetrating its mass and containing detached fragments from it. The same or very similar relations have since been found to occur in many other places. Arguing from observations of the kind last mentioned, it was too hastily assumed by some geologists that the Laurentian as a whole is essentially igneous, and later in date than the Huronian. The conditions are, however, not such as to admit of an unqualified belief of this kind, even in regard to the Fundamental Gneiss. We may go so far as to assume that these rocks (occupying as they do much the larger part of the entire Protaxis) constitute a great ' batholitic ' mass of material at one time wholly fluent ; but even on this hypothesis some primitive floor must have existed upon which the Huronian and the similarly circumstanced Grenville Series were laid down, and no such enormous substitution can have obtained as to result in the replacement of the whole of this floor by exotic material. 2 It seems much more probable that but limited tracts of the Fundamental Gneiss have passed into a fluent condition when at great depths in the earth's crust, and various arguments may be adduced in favour of a belief that the observed lines of contact might be those along which such fusion would be most likely to occur. 3 Moreover, the Huronian in many and widely separated localities is found to con- tain water-rounded fragments of syenitic, granitic and gneissic rocks, forming conglomerates, which may often be observed to pass into schists, but still plainly indicate that, in these places at least, materials not unlike those of the Funda- mental Gneiss and its associates were at the surface and subject to denudation. Such materials cannot be regarded as parts of any primeval superficial crust of the ear< h in an original condition. They represent crystalline rocks formed at great depths, and under conditions similar, at least, to those under which the Funda- mental Gneiss was produced. They imply a great pre-IIuronian denudation, and show that the Huronian must have been deposited unconformably either upon the 1 In the Archaean, local names are particularly useful, inasmuch as correlation must proceed on lithological and stratigraphical data, more or less uncertain when extended to wide areas, even in the case of the older and more homogeneous strata of the earth's crust. 2 For analogous phenomena of much later date geologically, see Annual Report Geological Survey of Canada, 1886, p. 11 B. 3 Hypotheses on this subject are well summarised by Van Hise. Annual Report U.S. Geol. Survey, 1894-95, p. 749. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. '1 Fundamental Gneiss itself, or upon rocks occupying its position and very similar to it in character. There can be no reasonable doubt that the mass of what now constitutes the Fundamental Gneiss originally existed as the floor upon which the Iluronian was deposited. The name Archaean has been adopted and employed by the Geological Survey of Canada in the sense in which it was introduced (in 1874), and consistently maintained by Dana — i.e. to include all rocks below the great hiatus of which evidence was first found in the Lake Superior region. The author of the name never assented to its restricted application as proposed by Irving and followed by Van Ilise and others, and as a synonym for the Fundamental Gneiss or ' Base- ment Complex ' it is not only unnecessary but is scarcely etymologically correct, if we admit that a part of the ' Complex' is of comparatively late date. We have reached a point at which we may ask what is now our conception of these Arch as an rocks in Canada, and more particularly in the great Protaxis, as resulting from the most recent investigations of a critical kind. The reply may be given briefly from the latest reports of those still at work on the problems involved as follows : — The Laurentian comprises (1) the Fundamental Gneiss or Lower Laurentian (also referred to as the Ottawa Gneiss or Trembling Mountain Gneiss in older Keports), and (2) the Grenville Series. An important part of the gneisses of the Grenville Series has been shown by chemical analysis to be identical in composition with ordinary Palaeozoic argillites, and they are interbedded with quartzites and massive limestones, also evidently of aqueous origin, and in some places abounding in graphite. These beds are, however, closely associated with other gneisses in which orthoclase largely preponderates that have the composition of igneous rocks. The Fundamental Gneiss consists chiefly, if not exclusively, of rocks of the last-named class, the banding or foliation of which, though now generally parallel to that of the Grenville Series, has probably been'produced mainly or entirely by movements induced by pressure, in a mass originally differing more or less in composition in its different parts. The two series are sometimes separable on the ground locally, but with difficulty ; in other places they cannot be clearly defined. 1 The Upper Laurentian, Labradorian, Norian or Anorthosite group, maintained for a number of years on the evidence already mentioned, is found to consist essentially of intrusive rocks, often foliated by pressure, later in age than the Grenville Series, but in all probability pre-Pala3ozoic. The Iluronian comprises felspathic sandstone or greywacke more or less tufaceous in origin, quartzites and arkoses passing into quartzose conglomerates and breccia conglomerates, often with large fragments of many different varieties of granite, syenite, &c, diorite, diabase, limestones, and shales or slates chang- ing to phyllites in contact with the numerous associated igneous masses. Over wide areas altered greenstones and their associated tuffs preponderate, often with micaceous, chloritic, sericitic and other schists, many of which are of pyroclastic origin, although some may represent ordinary aqueous deposits, and all have been much affected by subsequent dynamic metamorphism. The iluronian rocks have not yet been found in distinct relation to those of the Grenville Series, but are generally in contact with the Fundamental Gneiss, in the manner previously alluded to. Where not composed of volcanic material it appears to be largely of a littoral character, while the Grenville Series seems rather to indicate oceanic conditions. No reference has so far been made to the development of Archaean rocks, known as the ' Hastings Series.' The rocks thus named occupy considerable tracts to the south of the Ottawa lliver, west of the City of Ottawa. They were originally classed by Logan and Murray with the Grenville Series of the Laurentian, although Murray soon after insisted on their peculiar features, and they came to be recog- nised by the above geographical name during subsequent discussions as to their systematic position, by the authors above referred to, and by Hunt, Vennor, and Macfarlane. These rocks are particularly alluded to now, because later work seems to show that both the Grenville Series and the Huronian are represented ir 1 Cf. Adams, Annual Report Geological Survey of Canada, 1895. 8 REPORT — 1897. the district — in so far, at least, as lithological characters may be depended on. They include a preponderance of thinly bedded limestones and dolomites, finer in grain and usually less altered than those of the typical Grenville Series, associated with conglomerates, breccias and slates still retaining complete evidence of their clastic origin. It is in this Hastings region that careful investigation and mapping are now in progress by several members of the Canadian Survey, with the prospect of arriving at definite results respecting the relations of the Grenville Series and the Huronian. It is too early to forecast what these results may be, for the question is one which must be approached with an open mind ; but the work already com- pleted by Messrs. Adams, Barlow, and Ells, appears to sustain the suggestion that both series occur, and to indicate that they may there be so intimately connected as to render their separation difficult. It must be borne in mind that, although the relations of the Grenville Series and those of the recognised Huronian to the Fundamental Gneiss are very similar, they characterise distinct tracts, to which the Hastings district is to some extent geographically intermediate, although most closely connected in this respect with the Grenville region. Reverting to the original classification of the Archaean of the Canadian Survey, as developed in the field by Logan and his assistants, we may now enquire — In how fnr does this agree with the results of later work above outlined? In the main, this classification still stands substantially unaltered, as the result of all honest work carefully and skilfully executed must. The nomenclature adopted is still applicable, although some of our conceptions in regard to the rocks included under it have necessarily undergone more or less change. The Laurentian is still appropriately made to include both the Fundamental Gneiss and the Grenville Series ; although at first both were supposed to represent ' metamorphic ' rocks, it was even then admitted (1855) that these embraced some plutonic masses practically inseparable from them. Later investigations have increased the importance of such plutonic constituents, while at the same time demonstrating the originally supposed sedimentary origin of the characteristic elements of the Grenville Series ; but the admission of so large a plutonic factor necessarily invalidates in great measure the estimates of thickness based upon the older reasoning, under which any parallelism of structure was accepted as evidence of original bedding. Whatever views may be held as to the propriety of including rocks of the two classes under a single name, the necessity of so doing remains, because of the practical impossibility of separating them over any considerable area for the pur- pose of delineation on the map. jSo advance in knowledge is marked in substi- tuting for Laurentian, with its original concept of a stratified time-series, such a name as i Basement Complex.' It may, indeed, yet prove that the homogeneity of the Laurentian is greater than is at present supposed, for a mass of strata that included ordinary sediments, arkoses, and contemporaneous volcanic deposits of certain kinds, in which the arkose and volcanic constituents preponderated in the lower beds, might, under metamorphism at great depths, produce just such a combination as that of the Grenville Series and the Fundamental Gneiss, the latter representing an aggregate result of the alteration of that part composed chiefly of volcanic material or of arkose — in fact, under the conditions assumed, the lower mass could not now well exist under any other form than that actually found in the Fundn mental Gneiss. In his address at the Nottingham Meeting of this Association, Teall has clearly pointed out that, in such cases, the chemical test must necessarily fail, and that the character and association of the rocks them- selves must be given a greater weight. The Huronian proper, under whatever local names it may be classed, still remains a readily separable series of rocks, with peculiar characters, and econo- mically important because of the occurrence in it of valuable minerals. The subsequently outlined Labradorian has been eliminated as a member of the time-series, and the rocks of the so-called 1 Hastings Group ' remain yet in a doubtful position, but with the promise that they may afford a clue to the true relations of the Grenville Series of the eastern and the Huronian of the western province of the Protaxis. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 9 To what extent the above subdivisions of the Archaean may be legitimately employed in other parts of the continent, mure or less remote from the Protaxis, remains largely a question ror future investigation. In the southern part of New Brunswick, however, the resemblance of the Archaean to that of the typical region is so close that there can be little risk of error in applying the same classificatory names to it. The Fundamental Gneiss is there in contact with a series comprising crystalline limestones, quartzites, and gneissic rocks, precisely resembling those of the Grenville iSeries. Later than this is a great mass of more or less highly altered rock-, chiefly of volcanic origin, comprising felsites, diorites, agglomerates, and schists of various kinds, like those of the typical Huronian. The existence of this upper group correlatively with that representing the Grenville Series, constitutes an argument, so far as it goes, for the separateness of these two formations in the general time-scale. All these Archaean rocks of New Brunswick are distinctly unconformable beneath fossiliferous beds regarded by Matthew as older than Cambrian. In the Cordilleran region of Canada, again, a terrane is found lying uncon- formably beneath the lowest rocks possibly referable to the Cambrian, evidently Archaean, and with a very close general resemblance to the Grenville Series. To this the local name Shuswap Series has been applied, and a thickness of at least o,000 feet has been determined for it in one locality. It consists of coarsely crystalline marbles, sometimes spangled with graphite and mica, quartzites, gneisses, often highly calcareous or quartzose, mica schists, and hornblendic gneisses. With these is a much greater mass of gneissic and granitoid rocks, like those of the Fundamental Gneiss of the Protaxis, and the resemblance extends to the manner of association of the two terranes, of which, however, the petro- graphical details remain to be worked out. 1 While it is true that a resemblance in lithological character, like that existing between the Grenville and Shuswap Series, far remote from each other geographi- cally, may mean only that rocks of like composition have been subjected to a simikr metamorphism, both the series referred to are separated above by an un- conformity from the lowest beds of the Palaeozoic, and there is thus sufficient evidence to indicate at least a probability of their proximate identity in the time- scale. In Scotland, an analogous series, and one apparently similarly circumstanced, seems to occur in the rocks of Gairloch and Loch Carron. 2 Particular attention has been directed throughout to the southern part of the continental Protaxis in Canada. In this region it happened that the Archaean rocks and those resting upon them were originally studied under exceptionally favourable conditions, for ever since the great revolution which succeeded Huronian time, the region is one which has remained almost stable. Selwyn and X. II. Winchell have particularly insisted on the importance of the stratigraphical break which here defines the Archaean above. It is not everywhere so well marked, for in the Appalachian province and in the country to the south of the great lakes, in Wisconsin and Michigan, repeated subsequent earth-movements have flexed and broken the older strata against the base of the table-land of the Protaxis. It is not from these districts, subjected to more recent and frequent disturbance, that the ruling facts of an earlier time may be most easily ascertained. Much careful and conscientious work has been devoted to them, but it is largely, I believe, because of the attempt to apply, for purposes of general classification, the still unsettled and ever-changing hypotheses derived from such more complicated tracts that so much confusion has been introduced in regard to the Archaean and early Palaeozoic rocks. If the unconformity closing Archaean time in the vicinity of the Great Lakes had been observed only in that region, it might be regarded as a relatively local phenomenon ; but subsequent observations, and more particularly those of the last few years, due to Bell, McConnell, Tyrrell, and Low, show that rocks evidently representing the Animikie and Keweenawan, and practically identical with those J Cf. Annual Report Geol. Sur. Can., 1888-89, p. 29 B. 2 Cf. Geikie, Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 115. id REPORT — 1897. of Lake Superior in general lithological character, recur in many places almost throughout the whole vast area of the Protaxis, on both sides of Hudson Bay, and northward to the Arctic Ocean, resting upon the Archaean rocks always in com- plete discordance, and lying generally at low angles of inclination, although often affected by great faults. The surface upon which these rocks have been deposited is that of a denudation-plane of flowing outline, not differing in any essential respect from that characterising parts of the same great plateau where there is no evidence to show that any deposition of strata has occurred since Archaean time. Mr. Low, indeed, finds reason to believe that even the great valleys by which the Archaean plateau of Labrador is trenched had been cut out before the general subsidence which enabled the laying down of Animikie rocks upon this plateau to begin. The area over which these observations extend, thus in itself enables us to affirm that the unconformity existing between the Animikie or Keweenawan (as the case may be) and the Archaean is of the first order. 1 It may be compared with that now known to occur between the Torridonian of Scotland and the under- lying rocks there, and is evidenced by similar facts. If the structural aspects of the Archaean rocks of the Protaxis are considered, the importance of this gap becomes still more apparent. We find long bands of strata referable to the Huronian and Grenville Series, occupying synclinal troughs, more or less parallel to each other and to the foliation of the Fundamental Gneiss, the strata, as well as the foliation, being in most cases at high angles, vertical, or even reversed. This structure is precisely that which would be discovered if a great mountain system, like that of the Alps, were to be truncated on a plane sufficiently low. Analogy thus leads to the belief that the Protaxis was originally, as Dana has suggested, a region of Appalachian folding, differing only from more modern examples of mountain regions of the same kind in its excessive width, which is so great as to render it difficult to conceive that crustal movements of sufficient magnitude to produce it could have occurred at any one period. It is thus, perhaps, more probable that successive and nearly parallel flexures of the kind, separated by long intervals of rest, piled range upon range against the central mass of the protaxial buttress subsequent to the Huronian period. In any case, the rugged mountain region brought into existence when the corrugation still evidenced by its remaining base occurred, was subsequently reduced by denudation to the condition of an undulating table-land such as has been named a 1 peneplain 9 by W. M. Davis — a surface approximating to a base-level of erosion. All this was accomplished after the close of the Huronian period, and before that time at which the first beds of the Animikie were laid down correlatively with a great subsidence. It would be difficult to deny that the time thus occupied may not have been equal in duration to that represented by the whole of the Palaeozoic. If we approach this ruling unconformity from above, in the region of the Protaxis, we find the Animikie and Keweenawan rocks uncrystalline, except when of volcanic origin, and resembling in their aspect the older Palaeozoic sediments, but practically without characteristic organic remains, so far as known. In order to bring ourselves into relation with the ascertained palaeontological sequence, it is necessary to go further afield, and in so doing we lose touch, more or less com- pletely, with the stable conditions of the Archaean platform, and are forced to apply indirectly such facts as it may be possible to ascertain in regions which have suffered more recent and complicated disturbance. It is thus not surprising that the taxonomic position of the Animikie and Keweenawan have been the sub- ject of much controversy. It is not germane to the present discussion to enter at any length into this question, nor into the value of the unconformity which appears to exist between these two series. They have been classed collectively by Selwyn, N. IT. WinchelJ, and others as Lower Cambrian, and are provisionally mapped as such by the Canadian Survey. It is believed to be more in accordance with the general principles of geological induction to refer these rocks above the great unconformity to the Cambrian, for the time being at least, than to unite them with the Huronian under any general term, or to erect a new system in which to place them. In so doing it has been assumed that the Cambrian is the lowest 1 Cf. Selwyn, Science, Feb. 9, 1883. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 11 system of the Palaeozoic, but of late years the position lias been taken by good authorities that the true base of the Cambrian is to be found at the Olenellus zone ; ai d while it appears very probable that, when fossils are found in the Aniurme, they may be referable to this zoae, the adoption of such an apparently arbitrary line certainly, for the time, must be considered as placing the Cambrian reference of the beds in question in doubt ; but it does not interfere with a belief that if they should be found to be lower than Cambrian as thus defined, they may at least be considered as still in all probability Palaeozoic. The definition of the horizon of Olenellus as that of the base of the Cambrian is a question nlmost entirely palaeontological, into which it is not proposed here to enter, further than to p tint ouo that it is only partially justified by what is known of North American geology. In the Atlantic province, and in the Appalachian region, there appears to be a very general physical break at about this stage, which it seems likely may correspond with the great unconformity at the base of the Animikie ; but in the Rocky Mountain or Cordilleran region the Olenellus zone has been found high up in a series of conformable and similar sedi- ments, coinciding with no break, and from these lower sediments some organic forms have been already recovered, but not such as to indicate any great diversity in fauna from that of the recognised Cambrian. Similarly, in one part of eastern Canada, Matthew has lately described a fauna contained in what he names the Etcheminian group, regarded by him as earlier than the Olenellus zone, but still Palaeozoic. Recent discoveries of a like kind have been made in other parts of the world, as in the Salt Range of India. These facts have only last year been particularly referred to by Mr. Marr in his address to the Section. The general tendency of our advance in knowledge appears, in fact, to be in the direction of extending the range of the Palaeozoic downward, whether under the old name Cambrian, or under some other name applied to a new system defined, or likely to be defined, by a characteristic fauna ; and under Cambrian or such new system, if it be admitted, it is altogether probable that the Animikie and Kewee- nawan rocks must eventually be included. In other words, the somewhat arbitrary and artificial definition of the Olenellus zone as the base of the Cambrian, seems to be not only not of world-wide appli- cation, but not even of general applicability to North America ; while, as a base for the Palaeozoic ^Eon, it is of still more doubtful value. In the Cambrian period, as well as in much later geological times, the American continent does not admit of treatment as a single province, but is to be regarded rather as a continental barrier between two great oceanic depressions, each more or less completely different and self-contained in conditions and history — that of the Atlantic and that of the Pacific. On the Atlantic side the Olenellus zone is a fairly well-marked base for the Cambrian ; on that of the Pacific it is found naturally to succeed a great consecutive and conformable series of sediments, of which the more ancient fauna is now only beginning to be known. In thus rapidly tracing out what appears to me to be the leading thread of the history of the pre-Cambrian rocks of Canada, and in endeavouring to indicate the present condition of their classification, and to vindicate the substantial accuracy of the successive steps taken in its elaboration, many names and alternative systems of arrangement proposed at different times, by more or less competent authorities, have been passed without mention. This has been done either because such names and classifications appear now to be unnecessary or unfounded, or because they relate to more or less local subdivisions of the ruling systems which it is not possible to consider in so brief a review. This has been particularly the case in regard to the much-disputed region to the south of Lake Superior, out of which, however, after some decades of complicated and warring nomenclature, a classi- fication, trending back substantially to that originally established and here advocated, is being evolved (albeit under strange names) by the close and skilful stratigraphical work in progress there. It has also been my object, in so far as possible, by omitting special reference to divergent views, to avoid a controversial attitude, particularly in respect to matters which are still in the arena of active discussion, and in regard to which 12 REPORT — 1897. many points remain admittedly subject to modification or change of statement. But in conclusion, and from the point of view of Canadian geology, it is necessary to refer — even at the risk of appearing controversial — to the comparatively recent attempt to introduce an i Algonkian System,' under which it is proposed to include all recognisable sedimentary formations below the Olenellus zone, assumed for this purpose to be the base of the Cambrian. If in what has already been said I have been able correctly to represent the main facts of the case — and it has been my endeavour to do so — it must be obvious that the adoption of such a ' system ' is a retrograde step, wholly opposed, not only to the historical basis of progress in classification, but also to the natural conditions upon which any taxonomic scheme should be based. It not only detaches from the Palaeozoic great masses of con- formable and fossiliferous strata beneath an arbitrary plane, but it unites these, under a common systematic name, with other vast series of rocks, now generally in a crystalline condition, and includes, as a mere interlude, what, in the region of the Protaxis at least, is one of the greatest gaps known to geological history. In this region it is made to contain the Keweenawan, the Animikie, the Huronian, and the Grenville Series, and that without in the least degree removing the diffi- culty found in defining the base of the last-mentioned series. It thus practically expunges the result of much good work, conducted along legitimate lines of advance during many previous years, with only the more than doubtful advantage of enabling the grouping together of many widely separated terranes in other dis- tricts where the relations have not been even proximately ascertained. It is in effect, to my mind, to constitute for geology what was known to the scholastic theologians of a former age as a limbo, appropriate as the abode of unjudged souls and unbaptized infants, that might well in this case be characterised as ( a limbo large and broad.' It is not intended to deny that there may be ample room for the introduction of a new system, or perhaps, indeed, of an entire Geological ^Eon, between the Huronian, as w 7 e know it in Canada, and the lowest beds which may reasonably be considered as attaching to the Cambrian, or even to the Palaeozoic as a whole. On the contrary, what has already been said will, I think, show that in the region of the Protaxis we might very reasonably speak of an 6 Algonkian hiatus,' if we elect so to call it. Elsewhere it will undoubtedly be possible, sooner or later, to designate series of rocks laid down during the time represented only by orogenic movements and vast denudation in the province here more particularly referred to, but before any general systematic name is applied to such terranes they should be defined, and that in such a way as to exclude systems already established as the result of honest work. It seems very likely, for instance, that the Grand Canon Series, as last delimited by Walcott, separated by unconformities from the Tonto Cambrian above and the probably Archaean rocks below, may be referable to such an intermediate system ; but here it may be noted, in passing, that the attempt to apply the new term 1 Algonkian ' in this particular Western region, has led to the inclusion under that name of a great unconformity below the Grand Canon Series, much resembling the post-Huronian break in the Lake Superior district. For such unclassed rocks, wholly or in large part of sedimentary origin, the Canadian Survey has simply employed the term pre-Cambrian, involving for certain regions a frank confession of ignorance beyond a certain point. Indefinite as such a term is, it is believed to be more philosophical than to make an appearance of knowledge not borne out in fact, by the application of any systematic name not properly defined. Although it would be unsuitable, at the close of this address, to introduce the old controversy respecting the Cambrian and Silurian, it may be noted that the ethical conceptions and many of the principles involved in that discussion still apply with undiminished value, and much of its literature may be re-read to-day with advantage. More particularly I would allude to Sedgwick's inimitable and now classic introduction to McCoy's ' Palaeozoic Fossils,' one passage in which, paraphrased only by the change of names involved in that and in the present dis- cussion, may be read as follows : — ' u Est Jupiter quodcunque vides " was once said TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 13 by Dean Conybeare in mockery of the old despotic rule of the name Greywacke. A golden age of truth and reason, and slow but secure inductive logic, seemed to follow, but the jovial days of a new dynasty are to spring up, it seems, under a new name not less despotic than the one which had ruled before it. If all the [sedimentary] rocks below the [Olenellus zone] are to pass under one name, let us cling to the venerable name Greywacke. It can do no mischief while it describes things indefinite, simply because it is without meaning. But the name [Algonkian], if used in the same extended sense, is pregnant with mischief. It savours of a history that is fabulous ; it leads us back to a false type ; it unites together as one systems that nature has put asunder.' ^rifisl) Association for tfye Mbvancemeni of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO THE ZOOLOGICAL SECTION BT Professor L. C. MIALL, F.B.S., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. It has long been my conviction that we study animals too much as dead things. We name them, arrange them according to our notions of their likeness or unlikeness, and record their distribution. Then perhaps we are satisfied, forgetting that we could do as much with minerals or remarkable boulders. Of late years we have attempted something more ; we now teach every student of Zoology to dissect animals and to attend to their development. This is, I believe, a solid and lasting improvement ; we owe it largely to Huxley, though it is but a revival of the method of Dollinger, who may be judged by the eminence of his pupils and by the direct testimony of Baer to have been one of the very greatest of biological teachers. But the animals set before the young zoologist are all dead ; it is much if they are not pickled as well. When he studies their development, he works chiefly or altogether upon continuous sections, embryos mounted in balsam, and wax models. He is rarely encouraged to observe live tadpoles or third-day chicks with beating hearts. As for what Gilbert White calls the life and conversation of animals, how they defend themselves, feed, and make love, this is commonly passed over as a matter of curious but not very important information ; it is not reputed scientific, or at least not eminently scientific. Why do we study animals at all ? Some of us merely want to gain practical skill before attempting to master the structure of the human body ; others hope to qualify themselves to answer the questions of geologists and farmers ; a very few wish to satisfy their natural curiosity about the creatures which they find in the wood, the field, or the sea. But surely our chief reason for studying animals ought to be that we would know more of life, of the modes of growth of individuals and races, of the causes of decay and extinction, of the adaptation of living organisms to their surroundings. Some of us even aspire to know in outline the course of life upon the earth, and to learn, or, failing that, to conjecture, how life originated. Our own life is the thing of all others which interests us most deeply, but every- thing interests us which throws even a faint and reflected light upon human life. Perhaps the professor of Zoology is prudent in keeping so close as he doe3 to the facts of structure, and in shunning the very attempt to interpret, but while he wins safety he loses his hold upon our attention. Morphology is very well; it may be exact ; it may prevent or expose serious errors. But Morphology is not an end in itself. Like the systems of Zoology, or the records of distribution, it draws whatever interest it possesses from that life which creates organs and adaptations. To know more of life is an aim as nearly ultimate and self-explanatory as any purpose that man can entertain. Can the study of life be made truly scientific ? Is it not too vast, too inacces- sible to human faculties ? If we venture into this alluring field of inquiry, shall v> 2 REPORT — 1897. we gain results of permanent value, or shall we bring back nothing better than unverified speculations and curious but unrelated faets ? The scientific career of Charles Darwin is, I think, a sufficient answer to such doubts. I do not lay it down as an article of the scientific faith that Darwin's theories are to be taken as true ; we shall refute any or all of them as soon as we know how ; but it is a great thing that he raised so many questions which were well worth raising. He set all scientific minds fermenting, and not only Zoology and Botany, but Palaeontology, History, and even Philology bear some mark of his activity. Whether his main conclusions are in the end received, modified, or rejected, the effect of his work cannot be undone. Darwin was a bit of a sports- man and a good deal of a geologist ; he was a fair anatomist and a working systematist ; he keenly appreciated the value of exact knowledge of distribution. I hardly know of any aspect of natural history, except synonymy, of which he spoke with contempt. But he chiefly studied animals and plants as living beings. They were to him not so much objects to be stuck through with pins, or pickled, or dried, or labelled, as things to be watched in action. He studied their diffi- culties, and recorded their little triumphs of adaptation with an admiring smile. We owe as many discoveries to his sympathy with living nature as to his exact- ness or his candour, though these too were illustrious. It is not good to idolise even our greatest men, but we should try to profit by their example. I think that a young student, anxious to be useful but doubtful of his powers, may feel sure that he is not wasting his time if he is collecting or verifying facts which would have helped Darwin. Zoologists may justify their favourite studies on the ground that to know the structure and activities of a variety of animals enlarges our sense of the possi- bilities of life. Surely it must be good for the student of Human Physiology, to take one specialist as an example of the rest, that he should know of many ways in which the same functions can be discharged. Let him learn that there are animals (star-fishes) whose nervous system lies on the outside of the body, and that in other animals it is generally to be found there during some stage of development ; that there are animals whose circulation reverses its direction at frequent intervals either throughout life (Tunicata) or at a particular crisis (insects at the time of pupation) ; that there are animals with eyes on the back (Oncidium, Scorpion), on the shell (some Chitonidse), on limbs or limb-like appendages, in the brain- cavity, or on the edge of a protective fold of skin ; that there are not only eyes of many kinds with lenses, but eyes on the principle of the pin-hole camera without lens at all (Nautilus) and of every lower grade down to mere pigment-spots ; that auditory organs may be borne upon the legs (insects) or the tail (Mysis) ; that they may be deeply sunk in the body, and yet have no inlet for the vibrations of the sonorous medium (many aquatic animals). It is well that he should know of animals with two tails (Oercaria of Gasterostomum) or with two bodies per- manently united (Diplozoon) ; of animals developed within a larva which lives for a considerable time after the adult has detached itself (some star-fishes and Nemertines) ; of animals which lay two (Daphnia) or three kinds of eggs (Rotifera) ; of eggs which regularly produce two (Lumbricus trapezoides) or even eight embryos apiece (Praopus 1 ) ; of males which live parasitically upon the female (Cirripedes), or even undergo their transformations, as many as eighteen at a time, in her gullet (Bonellia) ; of male animals which are mere bags of sperm-cells (some Rotifera, some Ixodes, parasitic Copepods) and of female animals which are mere bags of eggs (Sacculina, Entoconcha). The more the naturalist knows of such strange deviations from the familiar course of things, the better will he be prepared to reason about what he sees, and the safer will he be against the perversions of hasty conjecture. If a wide knowledge of animals is a gain to Physiology and every other branch of Biology, what opportunities are lost by our ignorance of the early stages of so many animals ! They are often as unlike to the adult in structure and 1 Hermann von Jhering, Sitz, Berl. Ahad, } 1885; Biol. Centralbl, Bd. vi, pp. 532-639 (1886), TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 3 function as if they belonged to different genera, or even to different families. Zoologists have made the wildest mistakes in classifying larvae whose subsequent history was at the time unknown. The naturalist who devotes himself to life- histories shares the advantage of the naturalist who explores a new continent. A wealth of new forms is opened out before him. Though Swammerdam, Reaumur, De Geer, Vaughan Thompson, Johannes Miiller and a crowd of less famous naturalists have gone before us, so much remains to be done that no zealous inquirer can fail to discover plenty of untouched subjects in any wood, thicket, brook or sea. Whoever may attempt this kind of work will find many difficulties and many aids. He will of course find abundant exercise for all the anatomy and physiology that he can command. He will need the systems of descriptive Zoology, and will often be glad of the help of professed systematists. The work cannot be well done until it is exactly known what animal is being studied. For want of this knowledge, hardly attainable 150 years ago, Reaumur sometimes tells us curious things which we can neither verify nor correct ; at times we really do not know what animal he had before him. The student of life-histories will find a use for physics and chemistry, if he is so lucky as to remember any. Skill in drawing is valuable, perhaps indispensable. If by chance I should be addressing any young naturalist who thinks of attend- ing to life-histories, I would beg him to study his animals alive and under natural conditions. To pop everything into alcohol and make out the names at home is the method of the collector, but life-histories are not studied in this way. It is often indispensable to isolate an animal, and for this purpose a very small habita- tion is sometimes to be preferred. The tea-cup aquarium, for instance, is often better than the tank. But we must also watch an animal's behaviour under altogether natural circumstances, and this is one among many reasons for choosing our subject from the animals which are locally common. Let us be slow to enter into con- troversies. After they have been hotly pursued for some time, it generally turns out that the disputants have been using words in different senses. Discussion is excellent, controversy usually barren. Yet not always ; the Darwinian controversy was heated, and nevertheless eminently productive ; all turns upon the temper of the men concerned, and the solidity of the question at issue. One more hint to young students. Perhaps no one ever carried through a serious bit of work without in some stage or other longing to drop it. There comes a time when the first impulse is spent, and difficulties appear which escaped notice at first. Then most men lose hope. That is the time to show that we are a little better than most men. I remember as a young man drawing much comfort from the advice of a colleague, now an eminent chemist, to whom I had explained my difficulties and fears. All that he said was : * Keep at it/ and I found that nothing more was wanted. I greatly believe in the value of association. It is good that two men should look at every doubtful structure and criticise every interpretation. It is often good that two talents should enter into partnership, such as a talent for description and a talent for drawing. It is often good that an experienced investigator should choose the subject and direct the course of work, and that he should be helped by a junior, who can work, but cannot guide. It seems to me that friendly criticism before publication is often a means of preventing avoidable mistakes. I am sorry that there should be any kind of prejudice against co-operation, or that it should be taken to be a sign of weakness. There are, I believe, very few men who are so strong as not to be the better for help. One difficulty would be removed if known authors were more generous in acknowledging the help of their assistants. They ought not to be slow to admit a real helper to such honour as there may be in joint-authorship. Among the most important helps to the student of life-histories must be mentioned the zoological stations now maintained by most of the great nations. The parent of all these, the great zoological station at Naples, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last April, so that the whole movement belongs to our own generation. How would Spallanzani and Vaughan Thompson and Johannes P 2 4 REPORT — 1897. Miiller have rejoiced to see such facilities for the close investigation of the animal life of the sea ! The English-speaking nations have taken their fair share of the splendid work done at Naples, and it is pleasant to remember that Darwin sub- scribed to the first fund, while the British Association, the University of Cambridge and the Smithsonian Institution have maintained their own tables at the station. 1 The material support thus given is small when compared with the subsidies of the German Government, and not worth mention beside the heroic sacrifices of the Director, Dr. Anton Dohrn, but as proofs of lively interest in a purely scientific enterprise they have their value. Marine stations have now multiplied to such a point that a bare enumeration of them would be tedious. Fresh-water biological stations are also growing in number. Forel set an excellent example by his in- vestigation of the physical and biological phenomena of the Lake of Geneva. Dr. Anton Fritsch of Prag followed with his moveable station. There is a well- equipped station at Plon among the lakes of Holstein, and a small one on the Mii^gelsee near Berlin. The active station of Illinois is known to me only by the excellent publications which it has begun to issue. France, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland all have their fresh-water biological stations, and I hope that England will not long remain indifferent to so promising a sphere of investigation. Biological work may answer many useful purposes. It may be helpful to in- dustry and public health. Of late years the entomologist has risen into sudden importance by the vigorous steps taken to discourage injurious insects. I have even known a zoological expert summoned before a court of law in order to say whether or not a sword-fish can sink a ship. I would not on any account run down the practical applications of Biology, but I believe that the first duty of the biologist is to make science, and that science is made by putting and answering questions. We are too easily drawn off from this, which is our main business, by self-imposed occupations, of which we can often say nothing better than that they do no harm except to the man who undertakes them. There are, for example, a good many lists of species which are compiled without any clear scientific object. We have a better prospect of working to good purpose when we try to answer definite questions. I propose to spend what time remains in putting and answering as well as I can a few of the questions which occur to any naturalist who occupies himself with life-histories. Even a partial answer — even a mistaken answer is better than the blank indifference of the collector, who records and records, but never thinks about his facts. The first question that I will put is this: — Why do some animals undergo transformation while others do not ? It has long been noticed 2 that as a rule fresh-water and terrestrial animals do not go through transformation, while their marine allies do. Let us take half-a-dozen examples of each : — Fluviatile or terrestrial. Without transformation. Crayfish. Earthworm. Helix. Cyclas. Hydra. &c. We get a glimmer of light upon this characteristic difference when we remark that in fresh-water and terrestrial species the eggs are often larger than in the allied marine forms. A large egg favours embryonic as opposed to larval develop- ment. An embryo which is formed within a large egg may feed long upon the food laid up for it, and continue its development to a late stage before hatching. But if there is little or no yolk in the egg, the embryo will turn out early to shift for itself. It will be born as a larva, provided with provisional organs suited to its small size and weakness. Large eggs are naturally fewer than small ones. 1 To this list may now be added the University of Oxford. ' parwin, Origin of Species, chap. xiii. ; Fritz Miiller, Fur Darwin, chap, vii. Marine. With transformation. Crab. Polygordius, Doris, JEolis. Oyster. Most Hydrozoa. &c. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 5 Does the size depend on the number, or the number on the size ? To answer in a word, I believe that the size generally depends on the number, and that the number is mainly determined by the risks to which the species are exposed. At least so many eggs will in general be produced as can maintain the numbers of the species in spite of losses, and there is some reason to believe that in fresh waters the risks are less than in the shallow seas or at the surface of the ocean. 1 In most parts of the world the fresh waters are of small size, and much cut up. Every river-basin forms a separate territory. Isolation, like every other kind of artificial restriction, discourages competition, and impedes the spread of successful competi- tors. In the shallow seas or at the surface of the ocean conquering forms have a free course ; in lakes and rivers they are soon checked by physical barriers. A large proportion of animals are armour-clad, and move about with some difficulty when they have attained their full size. The dispersal of the species is therefore in these cases effected by small and active larvae. Marine animals (whether littoral or pelagic) commonly produce vast numbers of locomotive larvae, which easily travel to a distance. Floating is easy, and swimming not very difficult. A very slightly built and immature larva can move about by cilia, or take advantage of currents, and a numerous brood may be dispersed far and wide while they are mere hollow sacs, without mouth, nerves or sense-organs. Afterwards they will settle down, and begin to feed. In fresh waters armour is as common, for all that I know, as in the sea, but locomotive larvae are rare. 2 There is no space for effec- tive migration. Even a heavy-armoured and slow-moving crustacean or pond- snail can cross a river or lake, and to save days or hours is unimportant. In rivers, as Sollas has pointed out, free-swimming larvae would be subject to a special risk, that of being swept out to sea. This circumstance may have been influential, but the diminished motive for migration is probably more important. At least an occasional transport to a new area is indispensable to most freshwater organisms, and very unexpected modes of dispersal are sometimes employed, not regularly in each generation, but at long intervals, as opportunity offers. Early migration by land is nearly always out of the question. Walking, and still more flying, are difficult exercises, which call for muscles of complex arrange- ment and a hard skeleton. A very small animal, turned out to shift for itself on land, would in most cases perish without a struggle. There might be just a chance for it, if it could resist superficial drying, and were small enough to be blown about by the wind (Infusoria, Rotifera, and certain minute Crustacea), or if it were born in a wet pasture, like some parasitic worms. We can define two policies between which a species can make its choice. It may produce a vast number of eggs, which will then be pretty sure to be small and ill-furnished with yolk. The young will hatch out early, long before their development is complete, and must migrate at once in search of food. They will, especially if the adult is slow-moving or sedentary, be furnished with simple and temporary organs of locomotion, and will generally be utterly unlike the parent. The majority will perish early, but one here and there will survive to carry on the race. Or the parent may produce a few eggs at a time, stock them well with yolk, 1 Indications are given by the survival in fresh waters of declining groups, e.g., Ganoid Fishes, which, when dominant, maintained themselves in the sea ; and by the not uncommon case of marine animals which enter rivers to spawn. I do not at- tempt to count among these indications the supposed geological antiquity of fluvia- tile as compared with marine animals. Some marine genera are extremely ancient (Lingula, Nucula, Trigonia, Nautilus) ; a perfectly fair comparison is almost impos- sible ; and great persistence does not necessarily imply freedom from risks. In the Mollusca, which afford a good opportunity of testing the effect of habitat upon the number of the eggs, marine species seem to produce more eggs as a rule than fluvia- tile, and these many more than terrestrial species. 2 Dreyssensia and Cordylophora are examples of animals which seem to have quite recently become adapted to fresh- water life, and have not yet lost their loco- motive larvae. Many instances could be quoted of marine forms which have become fluviatile. The converse is, I believe, comparatively rare. 6 REPORT — 1897. and perhaps watch over thern, or even hatch them within her own body. The young will in such cases complete their development as embryos, and when hatched, will resemble the parent in everything but size. Which policy is adopted will largely depend upon the number of the family and the capital at command. There are animals which are like well-to-do people, who provide their children with food, clothes, schooling, and pocket-money. Their fortunate offspring grow at ease, and are not driven to premature exercise of their limbs or wits. Others are like starving families, which send the children, long before their growth is completed, to hawk matches or newspapers in the streets. In Biology we have no sooner laid down a principle than we begin to think of exceptions. The exceptions may be apparent only ; they may, when fully under- stood, confirm instead of disturbing the general principle. But this rarely happens unless the principle is a sound one. Exc?ptio probat regulam ; it is the exception which tests the rule, to give a new application to an old maxim. Parasites form one group of exceptions to our rule. Whether they pass their free stages in air, water or earth, whether their hosts are marine, flu via tile or terrestrial, they are subject to strange transformations, which may be repeated several times in the same life-history. The change from one host to another is often a crisis of difficulty ; many fail to accomplish it ; those which succeed do so by means of some highly peculiar organ or instinct, which may be dropped as quickly as it is assumed. The chances of failure often preponderate to such an extent that an enormous number of eggs must be liberated. Even a brief para- sitism may produce a visible effect upon the life-history. The young Unio or Anodon attaches itself for a short time to some fish or tadpole. To this temporary parasitism is due, as I suppose, the great number of eggs produced, and a degree of metamorphosis, unusual in a fresh- water mollusk. The Cephalopoda, which are wholly marine, and the Vertebrates, whatever their habitat, very rarely exhibit anything which can be called transformation. Some few cases of Vertebrate transformation will be discussed later. Cephalopods and V ertebrates are large, strong, quick-witted animals, able to move fast, and quite equal in many cases to the defence of themselves and their families. They often produce few young at a time, and take care of them (there are many examples to the contrary among Cephalopods and Fishes). They are generally able to dispense with armour, which would have indirectly favoured trans- formation. Echinoderms, which are all marine, develop with metamorphosis. There is an interesting exception in the Echinoderms with marsupial development, which develop directly, and give an excellent illustration of the effect of parental care. Insects, which as terrestrial animals should lay a few large eggs, and develop directly, furnish the most familiar and striking of all transformations. I have already discussed this case at greater length than is possible just now. 1 I have pointed out that the less specialised insect-larvae, e.g. those of Orthoptera, make a close approach to some wingless adult insects, such as the Thysanura, as well as to certain Myriopods. Fritz Muller seems to me to be right in saying that the larvae of non-metamorphic insects come nearer than any winged insect to primi- tive Tracheates. The transformation of the Bee, Moth, or Blow-fly is transacted after the stage in which the normal Tracheate structure is attained, and I look upon it as a peculiar adult transformation, having little in common with the transformations of Echinoderms, Mollusks, or Crustaceans. In the same way I believe that some Amphibia have acquired an adult trans- formation. Frogs and toads, having already as tadpoles attained the full develop- ment of the more primitive Amphibia, change to lung-breathing, tailless, land-traversing animals, able to wander from the place of their birth, to seek out mates from other families, and to lay eggs in new sites. Medusae furnish a third example of adult transformation, which seems to find its explanation in the sedentary habit of the polyp, which probably nearly approaches the primitive adult stage. But here the case is further complicated, 1 Mature, Dec. 19, 1895, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 7 for the polyp still proceeds from a planula, which is eminently adapted for loco- motion, though perhaps within a narrower range. We have two migratory stages in the life-history. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The planula, from its small size, is less liable to be devoured, or stranded, or dashed to pieces, but it cannot travel far ; the medusa may cross wide seas, but it is easily captured and is often cast up upon a beach in countless multitudes. Adult transformation may be recognised by its occurrence after the normal structure of the group has been acquired, and also by its special motive, which is egg-laying and all that pertains to it ; the special motive of larval transformation is dispersal for food. The reproduction of the common Eel has been a mystery ever since the days of Aristotle, though a small part of the story was made out even in ancient times. It was long ago ascertained that the Eel, which seeks its food in rivers, descends to the sea in autumn or early winter, and that it never spawns, nor even becomes mature in fresh waters. The Eels which descend to the sea never return, but young eels or Elvers come up from the sea in spring, millions at a time. The Elvers have been seen to travel along the bank of a river in a continuous band or eel-rope, which has been known to glide upwards for fifteen days together. It was of course concluded that spawning and early development took place in the sea during the interval between the autumn and spring migration, but no certain information came to hand till 1896. Meanwhile this gap in our knowledge was a perplexity, almost a reproach to zoologists. The partially-known migration of the Eel could not be harmonised with the ordinary rule of migratory fishes. We tried to explain the passage of marine fishes into rivers at spawning time by the supposi- tion (a true supposition, as I think) that the river is less crowded than the shallow seas, and therefore a region in which competition is less severe. The river is to some migratory fishes what the tundras of Siberia are to some migratory birds, places comparatively free from dangerous enemies, and therefore fit for the rearing of the helpless young. But the Eel broke the rule, and cast doubt upon the explanation. The Salmon, Sturgeon and Lamprey feed and grow in the sea, and enter rivers to spawn. The Eel feeds and grows in rivers, but enters the tea to spawn. What possible explanation could meet cases thus diametrically opposite ? This was the state of matters when Grassi undertook to tell us that part of the history of the Eel which is transacted in the sea. When it leaves the river, it makes its way to very deep water, and there undergoes a change. The eyes enlarge, and become circular instead of elliptical ; the pectoral fins and the border of the gill-cover turn black ; the reproductive organs, only to be discovered by microscopic search before this time, enlarge. The Eels, thus altered in appearance and structure, lay their eggs in water of not less than 250 fathoms' depth. The upper limit of the spawning-ground is nearly three times as far from sea-level as the 100-fathom line which we arbitrarily quote as the point at which the deep sea begins. The eggs, which are large for a fish (2*7 mm. diani.), float but do not rise. The young which issue from them are quite unlike the Eels of our rivers ; they are tape-like, transparent, colourless, devoid of red blood and armed with peculiar teeth. A number of different kinds of such fishes had been previously known to the naturalist as Leptocephali. Giinther had conjectured that they were abnormal larvae, incapable of further development. Grassi has, however, suc- ceeded in proving that one of these Leptocephali (L. brevirostris) is simply a larval Eel ; others are larvae of Congers and various Muraenoid fishes. He has with infinite pains compared a number of Leptocephali, and co-ordinated their stages, making out some particularly important ones by the direct observation of live specimens. You will not unnaturally ask how Grassi or anybody else can tell what goes on in the sea at a depth of over 250 fathoms. His inquiries were carried on at Messina, where the local circumstances are very fortunate. Strong currents now and then boil up in the narrow strait, sweeping to the surface eggs, larvae, and a multitude of other objects which at ordinary seasons lie undisturbed in the tran- quil depths. Further information has been got by dredging, and also by opening the body of a sun-fish (Orthagoriscus mola), which at certain times of the year is 8 REPORT — 1897. taken at the surface, and is always found to contain a number of Leptocephali. When a Leptocephalus has completed its first stage of growth, it ceases to feed, loses bulk, and develops pigment on the surface of the body. At the same time the larval teeth are cast, and the larval skeleton is replaced. Then the fish begins to feed again, comes to the surface, enters the mouth of a river, and, if caught, is immediately recognised as an Elver or young Eel. It is now a year old, and about two inches long. This history suggests a question. Are the depths of the sea free from severe competition ? The darkness, which must be nearly or altogether complete, excludes more than the bare possibility of vegetation. A scanty subsistence for animals is provided by the slowly decomposing remains of surface-life. When the dredge is sunk so low, which does not often happen, it may bring up now and then a peculiar and specially modified inhabitant of the dark and silent abyss. There cannot, we sbould think, be more than tl e feeblest competition where living things are so few, and the mode of life so restricted. Going a step further, we might predict tbat deep-sea animals would lay few eggs at a time, and that these would develop directly — i.e. without transformation. The risk of general reason- ing about the affairs of living things is so great that we shall hold our conjectures cheap unless they are confirmed by positive evidence. Happily this can be sup- plied. The voyage of the i Challenger 1 has yielded prcof that the number of species diminishes with increasing depth, and that below 300 fathoms living things are few indeed. 1 Dr. John Murray gives us the result of careful elaboration of all the facts now accessible, and tells us that the majority of the abyssal species develop directly. 2 We seem therefore to have some ground for believing that the depths of the sea resemble the fresh waters in being comparatively free from enemies dangerous to larvae. The Eel finds a safe nursery in the depths, and visits them for the same reason that leads some other fishes to enter rivers. It may be that the depths of the sea are safer than rivers, in something like the same degree and for the same reasons that rivers are safer than shallow seas. But we must be careful not to go too fast. It may turn out that deep recesses in the shallower seas — holes of limited extent in the sea-bottom — enjoy an immunity from dangerous enemies not shared by the great and continuous ocean-floor. 3 After this short review of the facts I come to the conclusion that the general rule which connects the presence or absence of transformation with habitat is well- founded, but tbat it is apt to be modified and even reversed by highly special circumstances. Tbe effect of habitat may for instance be overruled by parasitism, parental care, a high degree of organisation, or even by a particular trick in egg- laying.. The direct action of the medium is probably of little consequence. Thus the difference between fresh and salt water is chiefly important because it prevents most species from passing suddenly from one to the other. But the abyssal and the fluviatile faunas have much in common, as also have the littoral and the pelagic faunas. Relative density and continuity of population seem to be of vital importance, and it is chiefly these that act upon the life-history. In Zoology, as in History, Biography, and many other studies, the most inter- esting part of the work is only to be enjoyed by those who look into the details. To learn merely from text -books is notoriously dull. The text-book has its uses, but, like other digests and abridgments, it can never inspire enthusiasm. It is the same with most lectures. Suppose that the subject is that well-worn topic, the Alternation of Generations. The name recalls to many of us some class-room of our youth, the crudely coloured pictures of unlikely animals which hung on the walls, and the dispirited class, trying to write down from the lecture the irre- ducible minimum which passes a candidate. The lecturer defines his terms and 1 Challenger Reports. Summary of Scientific Results (1895), pp. 1430-6. 3 Nature, March 25, 1897. 8 I am aware that other things affect the interests of animals, and indirectly determine their structure, besides danger from living enemies. So complicated a subject can only be discussed in a short space if large omissions are tolerated. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 9 quotes his examples; we have Salpa, and Amelia, and the Fern, and as many- more as time allows. How can he expect to interest anybody in a featureless narrative, which gives no fact with its natural circumstances, but mashes the whole into pemmican ? What student goes away with the thought that it would be good and pleasant to add to the heap of known facts ? The heap seems needlessly big already. And yet every item in that dull mass was once deeply interesting, moving all naturalists and many who were not naturalists to wonder and delight. The Alternation of Generations worked upon men's minds in its day like Swam- merdam's discovery of the butterfly within the caterpillar, or Trembley's discovery of the budding Hydra, which when cut in two made two new animals, or Bonnet's discovery that an Aphis could bring forth living young without having ever met another individual of its own species. All these wonders of nature have now been condensed into glue. But we can at any time rouse in the minds of our students some little of the old interest, if we will only tell the tale as it was told for the first time. Adalbert Chamisso, who was in his time court-page, soldier, painter, traveller, poet, novelist, and botanist, was the son of a French nobleman. When he was nine years old, he and all the rest of the family were driven out of France by the French Revolution. Chamisso was educated anyhow, and tried many occupations before he settled down to Botany and light literature. In 1815 he embarked with Eschscholtz on the Russian voyage round the world commanded by Kotzebue. The two naturalists (for Chamisso is careful to associate Eschscholtz with himself, and even to give him priority) discovered a highly curious fact concerning the Salpae, gelatinous Tunicates which swim at the surface of the sea, sometimes in countless numbers. There are two forms in the same species, which differ in anatomical structure, but especially in this, that one is solitary, the other compo- site, consisting of many animals united into a chain which may be yards long. Chamisso and Eschscholtz ascertained that the solitary form produces the chain- form by internal budding, while the chain-form is made up of hermaphrodite animals which reproduce by fertilised eggs. 1 There is thus, to use Chamisso's own words, 4 an alternation of generations ... It is as if a caterpillar brought forth a butterfly, and then the butterfly a caterpillar.' Here the phrase bring forth is applied to two very different processes, viz. sexual reproduction and budding. Chamisso's phrase, ' alternation of generations,' is not exact. Huxley would sub- stitute alternation of generation with gemmation, and if for shortness we use the old term, it must be with this new meaning. Subsequent investigation, besides adding many anatomical details, has confirmed one interesting particular in Chamisso's account, viz. that the embryo of Salpa is nourished by a vascular placenta. 2 The same voyage yielded also the discovery of Appendicularia, a permanent Tunicate tadpole, and the first tadpole found in any Tunicate. Some ten years after the publication of Chamisso's alternation of generations in Salpa, a second example was found in a common jelly-fish (Amelia). Not 3i few Hydrozoa had by this time been named, and shortly characterised. Some were polyps, resembling the Hydra of our ponds, but usually united into permanent colonies ; others were medusae, bell-shaped animals which swim free in the upper waters of the sea. It was already suspected that both polyps and medusae had a common structural plan, and more than one naturalist had come very near to knowing that medusae may be the sexual individuals of polyp- colonies. This was the state of matters when an undergratuate in Theology of the University of Christiania, named Michael Sars, discovered and described two new polyps, to which he gave the names, now familiar to every zoologist, of Scyphis- toma and Strobila. In the following year (1830) Sars settled at Kinn, near 1 Brooks maintains that the solitary Salpa, which is female, produces a chain of males by budding, and lays an egg in each. These eggs are fertilised while the chain is still immature, and develop into females (solitary Salpse). The truth of: this account must be determined by specialists. 2 Cuvier had previously noted the fact. D 3 10 REPORT — 1897. Bergen, as parish priest, and betook himself to the lifelong study of the animals of the Norwegian seas. He soon found out that his Scyphistoma was merely an earlier stage of his Strobila. Scyphistoma has a Hydra-like body, less than half an inch long, and drawn out into a great number of immensely long tentacles. It buds laterally like a Hydra, sending out stolons or runners, which bear new polyps, and separate before long, the polyps becoming independent animals. In the midst of the tentacles of the scyphistoma is a prominence which bears the mouth. This grows upwards into a tall column, the strobila, which is supported below by the scyphistoma. When the strobila is well nourished it divides into transverse slices, which at length detach themselves, and swim away. 1 These are the Ephyrse, which had been found in the sea before Sars' time, and were then counted as a particular kind of adult medusae. They are small, flat discs with eight lobes or arms, all notched at the extremity. A pile of ephyrse is produced by the transverse constriction and division of the strobila in a fashion which reminds us of the rapid production of the animals in a Noah's ark by the slicing of a piece of wood of suitable sectional figure. It was thus ascertained that the scyphistoma, strobila, and ephyra are successive stages of one animal, but for a time no one could say where the scyphistoma came from, nor what the ephyra turned to. At length Sars, aided by the anatomical researches of Ehrenberg and Siebold, was able to clear up the whole story. The ephyra is gradually converted by increase of size and change of form into an Aurelia, a common jelly-fish which swarms during the summer in European seas. The Aurelia is of two sexes, and the eggs of the female give rise to ciliated embryos, which had been seen before Sars' time, but wrongly interpreted as parasites or diminutive males. These ciliated embryos, called planulse, swim about for a time, and then settle down as polyps (scyphistomata). There is thus a stage in which Aurelia divides without any true reproductive process, and another stage in which it produces fertile eggs. There is alternation of generations in Aurelia as well as in Salpa, and Sars was glad to fortify by a fresh example the observations of Ohamisso, on which doubts had been cast. It was not long before the alternation of generations was recognised in Hydro- medusse also, and then the ordinary Hydrozoan colony was seen to consist of at least two kinds of polyps, one sexual, the other merely nutrient, both being formed by the budding of a single polyp. The sexual polyp, or medusa, either swims away or remains attached to the colony, producing at length fertilised eggs, which yield planulae, and these in turn the polyps which found new colonies. Those of us who are called upon to tell this story in our regular course of teaching should not forget to produce our scyphistoma, strobila and ephyra ; the interest is greatly enhanced if they are shown alive. It is not hard to maintain a flourishing marine aquarium even in an inland town, and a scyphistoma may be kept alive in an aquarium for years, budding out its strobila every spring. Alternation of generations, when first announced, was taken to be a thing mysterious and unique. Ohamisso brought in the name, and explained that he meant by it a metamorphosis accomplished by successive generations, the form of the animal changing not in the course of an individual life, but from generation to generation {forma per generationes, nequaquam in prole seu individuo, mutatd). Sars adopted Chamisso's name and definition. Steenstrup a little later collected and discussed all the examples which he could discover, throwing in a number which have had to be removed again, as not fairly comparable with the life- histories of Salpa and Aurelia. He emphasised the alternation of budding with egg-production, and the unlikeness in form of the asexual and sexual stages. Like Ohamisso, he carefully distinguished between development with metamorphosis 1 Leuckart {Zeits.f. wiss. Zool., Bd. III. p. 181) remarks that elongate animals tend to divide transversely or to bud axially, while broad animals tend to divide longitudinally or to bud laterally. The question has been raised more than once whether the division of the strobila is not really a case of budding. Leuckart shows that budding and fission cannot be separated by any definition ; they pass insensibly into one another. {Wagners Handb. d. Physiol., art. ' Zeugung.') TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 11 and alternation of generations. All three naturalists, Chamisso, Sars and Steen- strup, laid stress on this point. In an insect, they would have said, there is de- velopment with metamorphosis. The same animal passes from larva to pupa, and from pupa to imago. In Aurelia or Salpa, however, the animal which lays eggs is not the animal which huds, but its progeny. The cycle of the life-history includes two generations and many individuals. This view has spread very widely, and if we were to judge by what is com- monly taught, 1 think that we should recognise this as the doctrine now prevalent. It is however, in my opinion, far inferior as an explanation of the facts to that adopted by Leuckart, Carpenter and Huxley, who regard the whole cycle, from egg to egg, as one life-history. Huxley and Carpenter, differing in this from Leuckart, do not shrink from calling the whole product of the egg an animal, even though it consists of a multitude of creatures which move about and seek their food in complete independence of one another. Rather than ignore the unity of the life-history of Aurelia or Salpa, they would adopt the most paradoxical language. This attitude was forced upon them by the comparative method. They refused to study Aurelia, for example, as an animal apart ; it had its near and^ its remoter relatives. Among these is the fresh-water Hydra, which develops with- out transformation, buds off other Hydras when food is plentiful, and at length becomes sexually mature. Budding is here a mere episode, which may be brought in or left out, according to circumstances. The same individual polyp which buds afterwards produces eggs. The life-history of Salpa cannot be traced with equal facility to a simple beginning, for it presents points of difficulty, on which the learned differ. In the Poly ch set Worms, however, we find a beautiful gradation leading up to alternation of generations. We begin with gradual addition of new segments and increasing specialisation of the two ends of the body, the fore end becoming non -reproductive, and the hinder end reproductive. Then we reach a stage ( Sy His) in which the reproductive half breaks off from the fore part, and forms (after separation) a new head, while the fore part adds new segments behind. In Autolytus the new head forms before separation, and many worms may cohere for a time, forming a long chain with heads at intervals. In Myrianida the worms break up first, and afterwards become sexually mature. We should gather from these cases that alternation of generations may arise by the introduction of a budding-stage into a development with transformation. The polyp or worm buds while young and lays eggs at a later time. The separation of the two processes of reproduction often becomes complete, each being restricted to its own place in the; life-history. As a rule the worm or polyp will bud while its structure is uncom- plicated by reproductive organs. It is easy to propagate some plants by cutting one of the leaves into sections, and making every section root itself, and grow into a new plant ; but we can seldom do the same thing with a flower. There may therefore be a distinct advantage to particular animals and plants in dividing the life-history into two stages, an earlier budding, and a later egg-laying stage. The advantage to be drawn from budding is easily seen in those animals which find it hard to gain access to a favourable site. Thus a Taenia 1 is very lucky when it establishes itself in the intestine. Once there, it goes on budding indefinitely. It is harder to trace the advantage in the case of many polyps, though some (Cunina, &c.) admit of the same explanation as Taenia. There are yet other cases (some Worms, Salpae, &c.) in which our ignorance of the conditions of life renders a satisfactory explanation impossible at present. The budded forms often differ in structure from the budding forms which produce them, and many writers and teachers make this difference part of the definition of alternation of generations. I think that Leuckart has suggested a probable explanation in his essay of 1851, 2 which is still thoroughly profitable 1 This case is quoted by Leuckart. 2 'Ueber Metamorphose, ungeschlechtliche Vermehrung, Generationswecbsel/ Zeits.f. wiss. Zool., Bd. III. Equally important is the same author's treatise, Ueber den Polymorphismus der Individuen oder die Erscheinung der Arbcitstheilung in der Natur, Giessen, 1851. 12 REPORT — 1897. reading. He attributes the peculiarities of the larva mainly to the circumstance that it is turned out at an early age to shift for itself. In the budded forms there is no such necessity. The parent has established itself on a good site which com- mands a sufficiency of food. Until it has done this, it does not bud at all. The young which it produces asexually need not disperse in infancy, at least until crowding sets in. The tradesman who has founded a business puts his elder boys into the shop ; perhaps the younger ones may be obliged to try their luck in a distant town. The budded forms, reared at the cost of the parent, may therefore omit the early larval stages at least, and go on at once to a later or even to the final stage. Thus the head of Teonia, when it has fixed itself in the intestine, pro- duces sexual segments ; the redia of Distomum produces cercarise or more redige, omitting the locomotive embryo ; the scyphistoma produces ephyrae. The saving of time must often be great, and the days saved are days of harvest. Think how much a tree would lose if in the height of summer it were unable to bud, and could only propagate by seeds. If the budded forms are sexual, while the budding forms are not, there is an obvious explanation of the difference in form. Even where there is no such fundamental difference in function, the circumstances of early life are very different, and may well produce an unlikeness upon which Natural Selection may found a division of labour. No one who tries to trace origins can rest satisfied with Steenstrup's account of alternation of generations. He makes no effort to show how it came about. Instead of considering alternation of generations as a peculiar case of development with metamorphosis, complicated by asexual reproduction, 1 he considers asexual reproduction as a peculiar case of alternation of generations. 2 He ignores all the facts which show that the alternation may have been gradually attained, an omission which is only excusable when we note that his treatise is dated 1842. He asserts dogmatically that there is no transition from metamorphosis to alterna- tion of generations. It is impossible to think much on this subject without falling into difficulties over the word generation. For my own part I believe that such words as genera- tion, individual, organ, larva, adult cannot be used quite consistently in dealing with a long series of animals whose life-histories vary gradually and without end. Ordinary language, which was devised to meet the familiar and comparatively simple course of development of man and the domestic animals, is nob always appropriate to lower forms, with complex and unusual histories. If we are resolved at all hazards to make our language precise and uniform, we either fall into contradictions, or else use words in unnatural senses. Certain recent discussions render it necessary to point out that there can be no alternation of generations without increase by budding. If a single larva produces a single sexual animal, as when a pluteus changes to an Echinus, there is develop- ment with transformation, but not alternation of generations. It is, I think, of importance to be able to resolve so peculiar a phenomenon as alternation of generations into processes which are known to occur separately, and ■which may have arisen imperceptibly, becoming gradually emphasised by the steady action of the conditions of life. Every startling novelty that canthus be explained extends the application of that principle which underlies the theory of Natural Selection — I mean the principle that a small force acting steadily through a long time may produce changes of almost any magnitude. The Hydrozoa yield innumerable and varied examples of development with transformation and also of budding. They yield also the most admirable examples of division of labour. We have Hydrozoan colonies, such as a budding Hydra, in which all the members are pretty much alike, but we soon advance to differentiation of the feeding and the reproductive members. In the Siphonophora the colony becomes pelagic, and floats at the surface of the sea. Then the medusae no longer 1 This is a convenient short account of Alternation of Generations, but it will not apply to every case. In Hydra, for instance, there is an ill-defined alternation of generations, but no metamorphosis. 2 Cf. Leuckart, loc. ext., p. 183. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 13 break off and swim away, but are harnessed to the colony, and drag it along. The colony may contain feeding polyps, which procure and digest food for the rest; swimming bells, which are attached medusae; perhaps a float, which is a peculiar kind of swimming bell; defensive polyps (which may be either batteries of nettling cells or covering organs) ; and reproductive individuals. As the individuals become subordinated to the colony, and lose essential parts of the primitive structure, they pass insensibly into organs. The life-histories of Invertebrates abound in complications and paradoxes. Thus Eucharis, one of the Ctenophors, becomes sexually mature as a larva, but only in warm weather. This happens just after hatching, when the animal is of microscopic size. Then the sexual organs degenerate, the larva, which has already reproduced its kind, grows to full size, undergoes transformation, and at length becomes sexually mature a second time. 1 There is often a striking difference between the early stages of animals which are closely related, or a strong adap- tive resemblance between animals which are of very remote blood-relationship. In the Hydrozoa similar polyps may produce very different medusas, and dissimilar polyps medusas that can hardly be distinguished. There are insects so like in their adult state that they can only be distinguished by minute characters, such as the form and arrangement of the hairs on the legs, and yet the larvae may be con- spicuously different. 2 Annelids and Echinoderms yield fresh examples of the same thing. In Lepidoptera and Saw-flies the larvae are very similar, but the winged insects quite different. 3 New stages may be added in one species, while closely allied species remain unaffected. In Cunina and the Diphyidae we get combina- tions which strain the inventive powers of naturalists even to name. Natural Selection seems to act upon the various stages of certain life-histories almost as it acts upon species. But the history is not always one of growing complexity. Sometimes for example a well-established medusa-stage is dropped. First it ceases to free itself, then the tentacles and marginal sense-organs disappear, then the mouth closes. In the fresh-water Cordylophora the medusa is replaced by a stalked sac filled with reproductive elements or embryos. The Lucernariae present a single stage which seems to be polyp and medusa in one. Hydra has no medusa. It is not always clear whether such Hydrozoa as these are primitive or reduced. Even the hydroid polyp, the central stage in the normal Hydrozoan life-history, may be suppressed, and certain medusae in both of the chief groups develop direct from the egg or planula (Pelagia, Geryonia, iEgina, Oceania). There is no stage common to all Hydrozoa except the egg. The same thing may be said of the Tunicates. The life-history of many Arthropods is to all appearance quite simple. There emerges from the egg a spider, scorpion, or centipede (in most Chilopoda) which merely grows bigger and bigger till it is adult. But if, as in most Crustacea, the circumstances of the species call for a migratory stage, such a stage will be added. In certain Decapod Crustacea (Penaeus, Leucifer) a nauplius and as many as five other stages may intervene before the final or adult stage. Some of these larval stages are common to a great many Crustacea, but none, as we now think, belong to the original phylogeny. If a resting or a winged stage is wanted, it is supplied just as easily, witness the holometabolic insects. Here again, so far as we know, there is nothing absolutely new. 4 The stages which seem new are merely exaggerations for special purposes of sections of the life- hietory, which were originally marked out by nothing more important than a change of skin and a swelling out of the body. Let us not suppose for a moment that it is a law of insect-development that there should be larva, pupa, and imago, or that it is a law of Crustacean development that there should be six 1 Chun, Lie pelagische Thierwelt, p. 62 (1887). 2 Some species of Chironomus are referred to. 1 Baron Osten Sacken (Bert. JEntom. Zeits., Bd. xxxvii. p. 465) gives two cases of Diptera, in which * almost similar larvae produce imagos belonging to different families.' * ' Nirgends ist Neubildung, sonder nur Umbildung.'— Baer. 14 REPORT — 1897. distinct stages between the egg and the adult. Any of these stages may be dropped, if it proves useless — either totally suppressed, or telescoped, so to speak, into the embryonic development. Lost stages are indicated by the embryonic moults of some centipedes and spiders, Limulus, many Crustacea, and Podura. The parthenogenetic reproduction of some immature insects, such as Miastor, shows a tendency to suppress later stages. Perhaps the wingless Thysanura are additional examples, but here, as in the case of Hydra and Lucernaria, we do not certainly know whether they are primitive or reduced. It seems to be easy to add new stages, when circumstances (and especially parasitism) call for them. Meloe, Sitaris, and Epicauta are well-known examples. In some Ephemeridse the moults, which are potential stages, become very numerous, but as a curious exception to a very general rule, the last moult of all, which is usually so important, may be practically suppressed. The fly of an Ephemera may mate, lay eggs, and die, while still enveloped in its last larval skin. Among the many cases of what one is inclined to call rapid adaptation to circumstances (the chief indications of rapidity being the very partial and isolated occurrence of remarkable adaptive characters) are those which Giard 1 has collected and compared, and which he refers to a process called by him Poecilogony. A number of very different animals 2 produce according to habitat, or season, or some other condition closely related to nutrition, eggs of more than one sort, which differ in the quantity of nourishment which they contain and in the degree of transformation which the issuing larva is destined to undergo. The analogy with the summer and winter eggs of Daphnia, &c. cannot escape notice, and Giard connects with all these the pedogenesis of Miastor and Chironomus, and many cases of heterogony. For our immediate purpose it is sufficient to remark that the reproductive processes and the course of development are as liable to vary for motives of expediency as the form of a leg or fin. The supposed constancy (the necessary constancy according to some naturalists) of the embryonic stages throughout large groups, would not be hard to break down, if it were to be again asserted. Probably the doctrine is now totally abandoned; it belongs to that phase of zoological knowledge in which Meckel could declare that every higher animal passes in the course of its development through a series of stages which are typified by adult animals of lower grade, and when an extreme partisan, far inferior to Meckel both in experience and caution, could affirm that the human embryo omits no single lower stage. The tadpole-larva, which is common in lower Vertebrates and their allies, shows the influence of adaptation as strongly as any larva that we know. We may describe the tadpole as a long-tailed Chord ate, which breathes by gills and has a suctorial mouth-disc, at least during some part of its existence. It is a cheap form of larva, when reduced to its lowest terms, requiring neither hard skeleton, nor limbs, nor neck, yet it can move fast in water by means of its sculling tail. Such a tadpole appears in many life-histories, and plays many parts. The tadpole is the characteristic Tunicate larva, and in this group commonly ends by losing its tail, and becoming fixed for life. But Salpa, which is motile when adult, has lost its tadpole. Appendicularia has lost the normal adult stage if it ever had one, and its tadpole becomes sexually mature. The same thing seems to have happened to many Amphibia, whose tadpoles acquire legs, become sexually mature, and consti- tute the normal adult stage. The Lamprey, as Balfour and others have recognised, is another kind of sexually mature tadpole. Thus the tadpole may act as larva to a sea-squirt, fish ( Acipenser, Lepidosteus, Amia), or frog ; it may also constitute the only remaining stage in the free life-history. The lower and smaller animals seem to show beyond others the prevalence of adaptive features. They offer visible contrivances of infinite variety, while they are remarkable for the readiness with which new stages are assumed or old ones dropped, and for their Protean changes of forms, which are so bewildering that 1 C. R. 1891, 1892. 2 E.g. Crustacea (Palasmonetes, Alpheus), Insects (Musca corvina, some Lepidoptera and Diptera), an Ophiurid (Ophiothrix), a Compound Ascidian (Leptoclinus), &c. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. lb many Worms, for instance, cannot as yet be placed at all, while many larvae give no clue to their parentage. These lower and smaller animals show beyond others a tendency to multiply rapidly, and to break away from one another in an early stage. The tendency is so strong in the microscopic Protozoa that it enters into the definition of the group. Fission, budding, alternation of generations, and spore-formation (as in Gregarina) are ultimately due to the same tendency. Weak animals are almost inevitably driven to scatter, and to make up by their insignificance, their invisibility, and their powers of evasion for the lack of power to resist. It is a great thing to a Hydrozoan colony that if one polyp is bitten off, others remain, that no enemy can possibly devour all the medusae liberated from one colony, or all the planulae liberated from one medusa. Low organisation gives very special facilities for extreme division. There are animals and plants which multiply greatly as a consequence of being torn to pieces or chopped small. (Chigoe, some Fungi, &c.) Small animals are usually short-lived. Many complete their life-history in a few weeks. Those w T hich last for so long as a year are often driven, like annual plants, to adapt every detail of their existence to the changing seasons. The naturalist who explores the surface waters of the sea with a tow-net soon learns that the time of year determines the presence or absence of particular larvae. It is probably as important to an Aurelia as to a butterfly that it should tide over the storms of winter by means of a sedentary and well-protected stage. Any one who keeps scyphistoma in an aquarium will remark how small it is, how it creeps into crevices or the hollows of dead shells. But when the depth of winter is past, it pushes out its strobila, which in spring liberates ephyrae. These rapidly enlarge, and by August have grown from microscopic discs to jelly-fishes a foot across. The intelligence of many small animals is very low. They go on doing the thing that they have been used to do, the thing that has commended itself to the experience of many generations. They are governed by routine, by that inherited and unconscious power of response to external stimulus, which we call instinct. But there are some notable exceptions. Of all small animals, insects seem to show the greatest flexibility of intelligence. There is one large group of animals which is in striking contrast to nearly all the rest. Vertebrates, and especially the higher Vertebrates, are usually big and strong. They rely upon skill, courage, or some other product of high organisa- tions, rather than upon numbers and fertility. Vertebrates swallow many other animals, together with their living parasites, but are rarely swallowed alive or fr^sh by Invertebrates. This fact of nature has led to many consequences, among others to this, that many parasites which pass their earlier stages in the bodies of Invertebrates only attain sexual maturity in a Vertebrate host. The complexity of the structure of a Vertebrate precludes the possibility of multiplication by breaking-up or budding, and they multiply only by egg -laying or strictly analogous processes. The higher Vertebrates live so long that the accidents of a par- ticular year or a particular season are not of vital importance. Hence seasonal transformation is almost unknown ; the quadruped or bird may choose the warm months for rearing the family, or celebrate the pairing season by getting a new suit of feathers, or grow a thicker coat against the cold of winter, but that is all. No Vertebrates perish regularly at the approach of winter, leaving only batches of eggs to renew the species in spring, nor is their structure profoundly modified by the events of the calendar (the frog is a partial exception). One minor cause of transformation, which affects the life history of many polyps, worms and insects, is thus removed. Vertebrates often take care of their young, and the higher Vertebrates bring forth few at a time. For this reason among others they rarely afford examples of free larvae. Such Vertebrate larvae as we do find, conform to the Vertebrate type. It is often impossible to predict what adult will develop from an Invertebrate larva, but no one could hesitate to rank an Ammocoetes, a Leptocephalus, or a tadpole among the Vertebrates. It accords with this strength and mastery that Vertebrates, and especially the higher Vertebrates, should be more stable, more conservative, less experimental than other animals. They retain ancient structures long after they have ceased to 16 Report — 1897. be useful. The gill-clefts, gill-arches, and branchial circulation are good examples. Though not functional in Sauropsida and Mammalia, they never fail to appear in the course of the development. Yet the Sauropsida and the Mammalia are posi- tively known to go back to the earliest secondary and late palaeozoic times. Ever since the beginning of the secondary period at least, every reptile, bird, and mammal has continued to pass through a stage which seems obviously piscine, and of which no plausible explanation has ever been offered, except that remote pro- genitors of these animals were fishes. Could not Natural Selection, one is tempted to ask, have straightened the course of development during lapses of time so vast, and have found out less roundabout ways of shaping the tongue-bone and the ossicles of the ear ? Either it costs nothing at all to pursue the old route, or it costs nothing which a higher Vertebrate will ever miss. The second alternative seems to me the more likely. The Sauropsida and Mammalia, in comparison with other animals, are particularly well off, and like wealthy housekeepers, they do not care what becomes of the scraps. It is, I fancy, different with many fishes, which show by their numerous eggs, the occasional presence of peculiar immature stages, and some other slight hints, that their life is a hard one. The presence in the developing reptile, bird, or mammal of piscine structures which are no longer useful has been ascribed to a principle called .Recapitulation, and Haeckel lays it down as a fundamental biogenetical law that the development of the individual is an abbreviated recapitulation of the development of the race. If I had time to discuss the Recapitulation Theory, I should begin by granting much that the Recapitulationist demands — for instance, that certain facts in the development of animals have an historical significance, and cannot be explained by mere adaptation to present circumstances ; further, that adaptations tend to be inherited at corresponding phases both in the ontogeny and the phylogeny. I am on my guard when he talks of laivs, for the term is misleading, and ascribes to what is a mere general statement of observed facts the force of a command. The so-called laws of nature (a phrase to be avoided) may indeed enable us to predict what will happen in a new case, but only when the conditions are uniform and simple — a thing which is common in Physics, but very rare in Biology. I diverge from him when he says that ' each animal is compelled to discover its parentage in its own development,' that ' eveiy animal in its own development repeats this history, and climbs up its own genealogical tree.' When he declares that i the proof of the theory depends chiefly on its universal applicability to all animals, whether high or low in the zoological scale, and to all their parts and organs,' 1 I feel persuaded that, if this is really so, the Recapitulation Theory will never be proved at all. The development, so far as it has yet been traced, of a H\dra, Peripatus, Beetle, Pond-mussel, Squid, Amphioxus, Chick or Mammal tells us very little indeed of the history of the races to which they belong. Development tells us something, I admit, and that something is welcome, but it gives no answer at all to most of the questions that we put. The development of a Mammal, for instance, brings to light what I take to be clear proof of a piscine stage; but the stage or stages immediately previous can only be vaguely described as Vertebrate, and when we go back further still, all resemblance to particular adult animals is lost. The best facts of the Recapitulationist are striking and valuable, but they are much rarer than the thorough-going Recapitulationist admits ; he has picked out all the big strawberries, and put them at the top of the basket. I admit no sort of necessity for the recapitulation of the events of the phylogeny in the development of the individual. Whenever any biologist brings the word must into his statement of the operations of living nature, I look out to see whether he will not shortly fall into trouble. This hasty review of animal transformations reminds me how great is the part of adaptation in nature. To many naturalists the study of adaptations is the popular and superficial side of things ; that which they take to be truly scientific 1 The quotations are from the late Professor A. Milnes Marshall's Address to Section D., Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1890, which states the Recapitulationist case with great knowledge and skill. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 17 is some kind of index-making. But we should recognise that comparatively- modern adaptations may be of vital importance to the species, and particularly luminous to the student because at times they show us nature at work. I am accustomed to refer such adaptations to the process of Natural Selection, though if any one claimed to explain them by another process, I should, for p resent purposes, cheerfully adopt a more neutral phrase. There are, I believe, no limits to be assigned to the action of Natural Selection upon living plants and animals. Natural Selection can act upon the egg, the embryo, the larva, and the resting pupa, as well as upon the adult capable of propagation. It can even influence the race through individuals which are not in the line of descent at all, such as adults past bearing or the neuters of a colony. The distinction between historical and adaptive, palingenetic and coenogenetic, is relative only, a difference not of kind but of degree. All features are adaptive, but they may be adapted to a past rather than to a present state of things ; they may be ancient, and deeply impressed upon the organisation of the class. In Biology facts without thought are nothing; thought without facts is nothing ; thought applied to concrete facts may come to something when time has sorted out what is true from what is merely plausible. The Reports of this Association will be preserved here and there in great libraries till a date when the biological speculations of 1897 are as extinct as the Ptolemaic Astronomy. If many years hence some one should turn over the old volumes, and light upon this long-forgotten address, I hope that he will give me credit for having seen what was coming. Except where the urgent need of brevity has for the moment been too much for scientific caution, I trust that he will find nothing that is dogmatic or over-confident in my remarks. pSdfisl) JlssoctaHon for ff)c Jlfcuancemeni of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL SECTION, BY J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., Sec. R.G.S., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. We meet this year in exceptional circumstances. Thirteen years ago the British Association met for the first time in a portion of the Empire beyond the limits of the British Islands. During these thirteen years much has happened of the greatest interest to geographers, and if I attempted to review the progress which has been made during these years — progress in the exploration of the globe, progress in geographical research, progress in geographical education — I could not hope to do it to any purpose in the short time during which it would be right for a president to monopolise the attention of the Section. But we have, at the same time, reached another stage in our history which naturally leads us to take stock of. our progress in the past. We have all of us been celebrating the 60th year of the glorious reign of the Sovereign, of whose vast dominions Canada and the United Kingdom form integral parts. The progress made during that period in our own department of science has been immense ; it would take volumes to tell what has been done for the exploration of the globe. The great continent of Africa has practically been discovered, for sixty years ago almost all but its rim was a blank. In 1837 enormous areas in North America were unexplored, and much of the interior of South America was unknown. In all parts of Asia vast additions have been made to our knowledge ; the maps of the interior of that continent were, sixty years ago, of the most diagrammatic character. The Australian interior was nearly as great a blank as that of Africa ; New Zealand had not even been annexed. Need I remind you of the great progress which has been made during the period both in the North and South Polar areas, culminating in the magnificent achievement of Dr. Nansen? It was just sixty years ago that the great Antarctic expedition under Sir James Ross was being organised ; since that, alas, little or nothing has been done to follow up his work. Sixty years ago the science of Oceanography, even the term, did not exist ; it is the creation of the Victorian era, and may be said almost to have had its origin in the voyage of the ' Challenger/ which added a new domain to our science and opened up inexhaustible fields of research. I have thought then that the most useful and most manageable thing to do on the present occasion will be to indicate briefly what, in my estimation, are some of the problems which geography has to attack in the future, only taking such glances at the past as will enable us to do this intelligibly. It has been customary for the occupants of this chair to try to define the field of geography, and on occasions, in somewhat too apologetic language, to justify its existence as a section of a scientific association. I do not think this is E 2 REPORT — 1897. any longer necessary. Even in England and America, during the last thirteen years, geography has done work enough to prove that she has a mission which no other department of research can fulfil. I say thirteen years, because that not only carries us back to the last Canadian meeting of the British Association, but to the year when the Royal Geographical Society undertook an inquiry into the position of geography at home and abroad, mainly with a view to the improve- ment of geographical education in England. During that time a good deal has been written as to the field and scope of geography, and a good many definitions given. But we really did not require to go to Germany to teach us as to the field and functions of geography. Sixty years ago, the then President of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. William R. Hamilton, delivered the first presidential address ever given at that Society, and his conception of the field and aims of geography was as exalted and comprehensive as the most exacting German geographer could wish. It is too long to quote here. 1 It would be difficult to improve upon Mr. Hamilton's definition, and it shows that a correct conception of the wide and important field of geography is no new thing in England. He proceeded to indicate what remained to be done in the field of exploration, and I commend his address to anyone desirous of forming a conception of the vast progress that has been made since it was delivered, sixty years ago. Since I am dealing with definitions, I may be permitted to quote that given by one so severely scientific as General Sir R. Strachey in a course of lectures which he gave at the University of Cambridge in 1888, in connection with the establishment of a lecturership in Geography in that University. ' The aim of geographical science,' he says, 'is to investigate and delineate the various features of the earth ; to study the distribution of land and sea, the con- figuration and relief of the surface, position on the globe, and so forth, facts which determine the existing condition of various parts of the earth, or which indicate former conditions ; and to ascertain the relations that exist between these features and all that is observed on the earth. ... I claim for geography,' Sir R. Strachey says, ' a place among the natural sciences as supplying the needful medium through which to obtain a connected and consistent conception of the earth and what is on it.' He gives a list of the various matters which, in his conception, it is the business of geography to deal with, and they are varied and important enough to satisfy the demands of the most exacting. ' These are,' he says, 6 the studies through which scientific geography will lead you, teaching you to view the earth in its entirety, bringing together the great variety of objects seen upon it, investigating their connection, and exploring their causes ; and so combining and harmonising the lessons of all the sciences which supply the key to the secrets of Nature.' 2 I think we may briefly define geography as the science of the topographical distribution of the great features of the earth's surface and of all that it sustains — mineral, vegetable, and animal, including man himself. In fact, man is the ulti- mate term in the geographical problem, the final object of which is to investigate the correlation between humanity and its geographical environment. I may be pardoned for dwelling at some length on the function and field of geography. It is a subject that has been occupying the attention of geographers in England for some years, and it may not be without interest to our colleagues on this side of the Atlantic to know the conclusions which we have come to. Moreover, it seems necessary to arrive at some clear conception on the matter, with a view to the researches of the future. I say that the subject has been occupying our attention in England for some time ; it has done so, I may say, as a result of the inquiry by myself on the part of the Royal Geographical Society to which I have referred. The object of that inquiry was mainly to collect in- formation as to the position of geography in education at home and abroad. The report which I presented to the Society attracted some attention, and whether as 1 Journal It.G.S. vol. viii. 1838. 8 'Lectures on Geography delivered before the Universitv of Cambridge/ London, 1888. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 3 a result of that or not it is hardly for me to say, but certainly since that inquiry some twelve years ago the position of geography in England has considerably improved both in education and as a field for research. Better methods have been introduced in our schools ; a much wider scope has been given to the subject ; in many quarters teachers have shown themselves anxious to be guided in the right direction ; and, above all, both Oxford and Cambridge at length consented to the establishment of lectureships in geography. A school of young geographers has grown up, consisting of men who have had a thorough university training in science and letters, and who are devoting themselves to the various branches of geography as a speciality. In this way the arid old text-books and characterless maps are being supplanted by others that will bear comparison with the best pro- ductions of Germany. Photography and lantern slides illustrating special geogra- phical features are coming into use in schools ; and in other directions appliances for use in education are being multiplied and improved. A British geographical literature is growing up, and if, as I hope, the progress be maintained, we shall be able to hold our own iu geography with any country. The interest in the subject has been extended by the foundation of geographical societies in various large centres ; whereas thirteen years ago the only geographical society was that of London, there are now similar societies in Manchester, Newcastle, Liver- pool, and Edinburgh, the last with branches in Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen. If this progressive movement is maintained, as there is every reason to hope it will be, the scientific and educational aspects of geography in Britain will be more nearly on a par with exploration in which our country has so long held the lead. In the United States I found that the position of the subject in education was not much more satisfactory than it was in England. Since then there is reason to believe considerable progress has been made. One of the best text-books on physical geography, Hinman's ' Eclectic Physical Geography/ is of American origin ; while in the States, as in England, a school of scientific geographers has arisen which bids fair to give the subject a high place in that country. I fear, from what I can learn, that the position in Canada is not as satisfactory as it ought to be. It seems to me, then, that one of the great problems which geographers have to face in the future is the place which this subject is to hold in education, both as a body of information and as a discipline. We have been making progress, and if we persevere with intelligence and firmness, and maintain the subject at the highest standard as a field of research, there can be little doubt of our success. There is a prevalent belief that geographers have nothing more to learn in Europe, that that old continent has been thoroughly explored. It is true that nearly every country in Europe has been, or is being, trigonometrically surveyed. Except some parts of the Balkan Peninsula and North of Russia, the topography of the continent has been accurately mapped on scales and by methods sufficient at least for the pur- poses of the geographer. Yet there are districts in the Balkan Peninsula — for example, Albania — which are as vaguely known as Central Africa. But it is a delu- sion to think that because a country has been fully mapped the occupation of the geographer is gone. It is only when a region at large is adequately mapped that the work of geographical research begins. The student, with a satisfactory map of a definite district as his guide, will find on the spot abundant occupation in working out its geographical details, the changes which have taken place in its topography, and the bearing of its varied features upon its history, its inhabitants, its indus- tries. This kind of work has been in progress in Germany for over ten years, under the auspices of the Central Commission for the Scientific Geography (Landeskunde) of Germany, with its seat at Stuttgart. Under the collective title of ' Forschungen zur Deutschen Landes- und Volkskunde/ a long series of mono- graphs by specialists has been published, dealing in minute detail with one or more aspects of a limited district. Thus we have such memoirs as i The Plain of the Upper Rhine and its Neighbouring Mountains/ by Dr. Richard Lepsius ; ' The Towns of the North German Plain in relation to the Configuration of the Ground,' by Dr. Hahn ; 'The Munich Basin: a Contribution to the Physical Geography of Southern Bavaria/ by C. Gruber ; ' The Mecklenburg Ridges and their Relation to the Ice Age/ by Dr. E. Geinitz ; i The Influence of the Mountains on the e3 4 REPORT — 1897. Climate of Central Germany/ by R. Assmann ; ' The Distribution and Origin of the Germans in Silesia,' by Dr. K. Weinhold ; ' Mountain Structure and Surface Configuration of Saxon Switzerland,' by Dr. A. Hettner ; ' The Erzgebirge : an Orometric-Anthropogeographical Study,' by Dr. J. Burgkhardt ; < The Thuringian Forest and its Surroundings,' by Dr. H. Proscholdt, and so forth. There is thus an inexhaustible field for scientific geography in its most comprehensive sense, a series of problems which may take generations to work out. In a less systematic way we have similar monographs by French geographers. One or two attempts, mainly by teachers, have been made in England to do similar work, but the impression generally produced is that the authors have not been well equipped for the task. I am glad to say that in England the Royal Geographical Society has initiated a movement for working out in a systematic fashion what one may call the regional geography of the British Islands on the basis of the one-inch maps of the Ordnance Survey. It is a strange thing that the geography of the Mother Country has never yet been systematically worked out. Taking the sheets of the Ordnance Survey map as a basis, it is proposed that each district should be thoroughly investigated, and a complete memoir of moderate dimensions systematically compiled to accompany the sheet, in the same way that each sheet of the Geological Survey map has its printed text. It is a stupendous undertaking that would involve many years' work, and the results of which when complete would . till many volumes. But it is worth doing ; it would furnish the material for an exact and trustworthy account of the geography of Britain on any scale, and would be invaluable to the historian, as well as to others dealing with subjects having any relation to the past and present geography of the land. The librarian of the Society, Dr. H. R. Mill, has begun operations on a limited area in Sussex. When he has completed this initial memoir, it will be for the Society to decide whether it can continue the enterprise, or whether it will succeed in persuading the Government to take the matter up. I refer to work of this kind mainly to indicate what, in my conception, are some of the problems of the future which geography has to face, even in fully surveyed countries. Even were the enterprise referred to carried out, there would be room enough for special researches in particular districts. But while there is an inexhaustible field in the future for geographical work in the direction I have indicated, there is no doubt that much still remains to be done in the way of exploring the unknown, or little known, regions of the globe. Let us briefly refer to the problems remaining to be solved in this direction. Turning to the continent of Asia, we find that immense progress has been made during the past sixty years. In the presidential address given sixty years ago, already referred to, Mr. Hamilton says of Asia : — 4 We have only a very general know- ledge of the geographical character of the Burman, Chinese, and Japan empires ; the innumerable islands of the latter are still, except occasionally, inaccessible to European navigators. Geographers hardly venture on the most loose description of Tibet, Mongolia, or Chinese Tartary, Siam, and Cochin China.' Since then the survey of India, one of the greatest enterprises undertaken by any State, has been completed, and is being rapidly extended over Burma. But I need not remind you in detail of the vast changes that have taken place in Asia during these years, and the immense additions that have been made to our knowledge of its geography. Exploring activity in Asia is not likely to cease, though it is not to be expected that its inhospitable centre will ever be so carefully mapped as have been the mountains of Switzerland. The most important desiderata, so far as pioneer exploration in Asia *s con- cerned, may be said to be confined to two regions. 1 In Southern and Central Arabia there are tracts which are entirely unexplored. It is probable that this unexplored region is in the main a sandy desert. At the same time it is, in the south at least, fringed by a border of mountains whose slopes are capable of rich cultivation, and whose summits the late Mr. Theodore Bent found, on his last and 1 For part of what follows with reference to Asia, I am indebted to a valuable Memorandum on the subject drawn up by the late Mr. Ney Elias. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 5 fatal journey, to be covered with snow. In exploration, as in other directions, it is the unexpected that happens ; and if any traveller cared to lace the difficulties — physical, political, and religious — which might be met with in Southern and Central Arabia, he might be able to tell the world a surprising story. The other region in Asia where real pioneer work still remains to be done is Tibet and the mountainous districts bordering it on the north and east. Lines of exploration have in recent years been run across Tibet by Russian explorers like Prejevalsky, by Rockhill, Prince Henry of Orleans and Bonvalot, by Bower, Littledale, Wellby, and Malcolm. From the results obtained by these explorers we have formed a fair idea of this, the most extensive, the highest, and the most inhospitable plateau in the world. A few more lines run in well-selected directions would probably supply geography with nearly all she wants to learn about such a region, though more minute exploration would probably furnish interesting details as to its geological history. The region lying to the north of the Himalayan range and to the south of the parallel of Lhasa is almost a blank on the map, and there is ample room here for the enterprising pioneer. The forbidden city of Lhasa is at present the goal of several adventurers, though as a matter of fact we cannot have much to learn in addition to what has been revealed in the interesting narrative of the native Indian traveller, Chandra Das. The magnificent mountain region on the north and east of Tibet furnishes a splendid field for the enterprising explorer. Mrs. Bishop recently approached it from the east, through Sze-chuen, and her description of the romantic scenery and the interesting non-Mongolian inhabitants leaves us with a strong desire to learn more. On the south-east of Tibet is the remarkable moun- tainous region, consisting of a series of lofty parallel chains, through which run the upper waters of the Yangtse, the Mekong, the Salwin, and the Irawady. This last-named river, recent exploration has shown, probably does not reach far into the range. But it will be seen by a glance at a map that the upper waters of the other rivers are carried far into the heart of the mountains. But these upper river courses are entirely conjectural and have given rise to much controversy. There is plenty of work here for the explorer, though the difficulties, physical and political, are great. But besides these great unexplored regions, there are many blanks to be filled up in other parts of Asia, and regions which, though known in a general way, would well repay careful examination. There is the mountain track between the upper Zarafshan river and the middle course of the Sarkhab tributary of the Oxus, and the country lying between that and the Oxus. There is the great Takla- Makan desert in Chinese or Eastern Turkistan, part of which has recently been explored by Russian expeditions and by that young and indefatigable Swedish traveller, Dr. Sven Hedin. It is now one of the most forbidding deserts to be found anywhere, but it deserves careful examination, as there are evidences of its once having been inhabited, and that at no very remote period. It is almost surrounded by the Tarim, and on its eastern edge lies Lob-nor, the remarkable changes in which have been the subject of recent investigation. As readers of Dr. Nansen's 'Voyage of the Pram' will remember, the Siberian Coast is most imperfectly mapped ; of course, it is a difficult task, but it is one to which the Russian Government ought to be equal. China has on paper the appear- ance of being fairly well mapped; but as a matter of fact our knowledge of its mountain ranges and of its great river courses is to a large extent extremely vague. All this awaits careful survey. In North-eastern Manchuria and in many parts of Mongolia there are still blanks to be filled up and mountain and river systems to be surveyed. In the Malay Peninsula and in the great array of islands in the east and south-east of Asia — Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines — much work still remains to be done. Thus for the coming century there will be abundance of work for explorers in Asia, and plenty of material to occupy the attention of our geographical societies. Coming to the map of Africa, we find the most marvellous transformation during the last sixty years, and mainly during the last forty years, dating from Livingstone's memorable journey across the continent. Though the north of Africa 6 REPORT — 1897. was the home of one of the oldest civilisations, and though on the shores of the Mediterranean, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans were at work for centuries, it has only been within the memory of many of us that the centre of the continent, from the Sahara to the confines of Cape Colony, has ceased to be an unexplored blank. This blank has been filled up with bewildering rapidity. Great rivers and lakes and mountains have been laid down in their main features, and the whole continent, with a few unimportant exceptions, has been parcelled out among the Powers of Europe. But much still remains to be done ere we can form an adequate conception of what is in some respects the most interesting and the most intractable of the continents. Many curious problems still remain to be solved. The pioneer work of exploration has to a large extent been accomplished ; lines have been run in all directions ; the main features have been blocked out. But between these lines the broad meshes remain to be filled in, and to do this will require many years of careful exploration. However, there still remain one or two regions that afford scope for the adventurous pioneer. To the south of Abyssinia and to the west and north-west of Lake Rudolf, on to the Upper Nile, is a region of considerable extent, which is still practically unknown. Again, in the Western Sahara there is an extensive area, inhabited mainly by the intractable Tuaregs, into which no one has been able to penetrate, and of which our knowledge is extremely scanty. Even in the Central Sahara there are great areas which have not been traversed, while in the Libyan desert much remains to be done. These regions are of interest almost solely from the geographical and geological standpoints. But they deserve careful investigation, not only that we may ascertain their actual present condition, but in order, also, that we may try to discover some clues to the past history of this interesting continent. Still, it must be said that the great features of the continent have been so fully mapped during the last half century that what is required now is mainly the filling-in of the details. This is a process that requires many hands and special qualifications. All over the continent there are regions which will repay special investigation. Quite recently an English traveller, Mr. Cowper, found not far from the Tripoli coast miles of magnificent ruins and much to correct on our maps. If only the obstructiveness of the Turkish officials could be over- come, there is a rich harvest for anyone who will go to work with patience and intelligence. Even the interior of Morocco, and especially the Atlas Mountains, are but little known. The French, both in Tunis and Algeria, are extending our knowledge southwards. All the Powers who have taken part in the scramble for Africa are doing much to acquire a knowledge of their territories. Germany, especially, deserves praise for the persistent zeal with which she has carried out the exploration of her immense territories in East and West Africa. The men she sends out are unusually well qualified for the work, capable not simply of making a running survey as they proceed, and taking notes on country and people, but of rendering a substantial account of the geology, the fauna, the flora, and the economic conditions. Both in the French and the British spheres good work is also being done, and the map of Africa being gradually filled up. But what we especially want now are men of the type of Dr. J. W. Gregory, whose book on the Great Rift Valley is one of the most valuable contributions to African geography ever made. If men of this stamp would settle down in regions like that of Mount Ruwenzori, or Lake Rudolf, or the region about Lakes Bangweolo and Tanganyika, or in the Atlas, or in many other regions that could be named, the gains to scientific geography, as well as to the economical interests of Africa, would be great. An example of work of this kind is seen in the discoveries made by a young biologist trained in geographical observation, Mr. Moore, on Lake Tanganyika. There he found a fauna which seems to afford a key to the past history of the centre of the continent, a fauna which, Mr. Moore maintains, is essentially of a salt- water type. Mr. Moore, I believe, is inclined to maintain that the ancient connection of this part of Afiica with the ocean was not by the west, as Joseph Thomson surmised, but by the north, through the Great Rift Valley of Dr. Gregory ; and he strongly advocates the careful examination of Lake Rudolf as the crucial test of his theory. It is to be hoped that he, or someone equally competent, will have an opportunity TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. of carrying out an investigation likely to provide results of the highest import- ance. But there are other special problems connected with this, the most backward and the most repellent of continents, which demand serious investigation, problems essentially geographical. One of the most important of these, from the point of view of the development of Africa, is the problem of acclimatisation. The matter is of such prime importance that a committee of the Association has been at work for some years collecting data as to the climate of Tropical Africa. In a general way we know that that climate is hot and the rainfall scanty ; indeed, even the geographers of the Ancient World believed that Central Africa was uninhabitable on account of its heat. But science requires more than generalities, and therefore we look forward to the exact results which are being collected by the Committee referred to with much hope. We can only go to work experimentally until we know precisely what we have to deal with. It will help us greatly to solve the problem of acclimatisation when we have the exact factors that go to constitute the climate of Tropical Africa. At present there is no doubt that the weight of competent opinion — that is, the opinion of those who have had actual experience of African climate, and of those who have made a special study of the effects of that climate on the human constitution — is that though white men, if they take due precautions, may live and do certain kinds of work in Tropical Africa, it will never be possible to colonise that part of the world with people from the temperate zone. This is the lesson taught by generations of experience of Europeans in India. So far, also, sad experience has shown that white people cannot hope to settle in Central Africa as they have settled in Canada and the United States and in Australia, and make it a nursery and a home for new generations. Even in such favourable situations as Blantyre, a lofty region on the south of Lake Nyasa, children cannot be reared beyond a certain age ; they must be sent home to England, otherwise they will degenerate physically and morally. No country can ever become the true home of a people it* the children have to be sent away to be reared. Still, it is true our experience in Africa is limited. It has been maintained that it might be possible to adapt Europeans to Tropical Africa by a gradual process of migration. Transplant Southern Europeans to North Africa ; after a generation or two remove their progeny further south, and so on, edging the succeeding generation further and further into the heart of the conti- nent. The experiment — a long one it would be — might be tried ; but it is to be feared that the ultimate result would be a race deprived of all those characteristics which have made Europe what it is. An able young Italian physician, Dr. Sambon, has recently faced this important problem, and has not hesitated to come to con- clusions quite opposed to those generally accepted. His position is that it has taken us centuries in Europe to discover our hidden enemies, the microbes of the various diseases to which Northern humanity is a prey, and to meet them and conquer them. In Africa we have a totally different set of enemies to meet, from lions and snakes down to the invisible organisms that produce those forms of malaria, anaemia, and other diseases characteristic of tropical countries. He admits that these are more or less due to heat, to the nature of the soil, and other tropical conditions, but that if once we knew their precise nature and modes of working we should be in a position to meet them and conquer them. It may be so, but this is a result that could only be reached after generations of experience and investigation ; and even Dr. Sambon admits that the ultimate product of European acclimatisation in Africa would be something quite different from the European progenitors. What is wanted is a series of carefully-conducted experi- ments. I have referred to the Blantyre highlands ; in British East Africa there are plateaus of much greater altitude, and in other parts of Central Africa there are large areas of 4,000 feet and over above sea-level. The world may become so full that we may be forced to try to utilise these lofty tropical regions as homes for white people when Canada and Australia and the United States become over-popu- lated. As one of my predecessors in this chair (Mr. Ravenstein) tried to show at the Leeds Meeting some years ago, the population of the world will have more than doubled in a century, and about 180 years hence will have quadrupled. At any rate, 8 REPORT — 1897. here is a problem of prime importance for the geographer of the coming century to attack ; with so many energetic and intelligent white men all over Africa, it should not be difficult to obtain the data which might help towards its solution. I have dwelt thus long on Africa, because it will really be one of the great geographical problems of the coming century. Had it been as suitable as America or Australia, we may be sure it would not have remained so long neglected and despised by the European peoples as it has done. Unfortunately for Africa, just as it had been circumnavigated, and just as Europeans were beginning to settle upon its central portion and trying to make their way into the interior, Columbus and Cabot discovered a new world, a world as well adapted as Europe for the energies of the white races. That discovery postponed the legitimate development of Africa for four centuries. Nothing could be more marked than the progress which America has made since its re-discovery 400 years ago, and the stagnation of Africa which has been known to Europe since long before the beginning of history. During these 400 years North America at least has been very thoroughly explored. The two great nations which divide North America between them have their Government surveys, which are rapidly mapping the whole continent and investigating its geology, physical geography, and its natural resources. I need hardly tell an audience like this of the admirable work done by the Survey of Canada under Sir William Logan, Dr. Selwyn, and his successor, Dr. George Dawson ; nor should it be for- gotten that under the Lands Department much excellent topographical work has been carried out by Captain Deville and his predecessors. Still, though much has been done, much remains to be done. There are large areas which have not as yet even been roughly mapped. Within quite recent years we have had new regions opened up to us by the work of Dawson and Ogilvie on the Yukon, by Dr. Bell in the region to the south of Hudson's Bay, by the brothers Tyrrell in the Barren Lands on the west of the same bay, by O'Sullivan beyond the sources of the Ottawa, and by Low in Labrador. But it is not so long since that Dr. Dawson, in reviewing what remains to be done in the Dominion in the way of even pioneer exploration, pointed out that something like a million square miles still remained to be mapped. Apart from the uninhabitable regions in the north, there are, as Dr. Dawson pointed out, considerable areas which might be turned to profitable agricultural and mining account of which we know little, such areas as these which have been recently mapped on the south of Hudson's Bay by Dr. Bell, and beyond the Ottawa by Mr. O'Sullivan. Although the Eastern and the Western Provinces have been very fully surveyed, there is a considerable area between the two lying between Lake Superior and Hudson's Bay which seems to have been so far almost untouched. A very great deal has been done for the survey of the rivers and lakes of Canada. I need hardly say that in Canada, as elsewhere in America, there is ample scope for the study of many problems in physical geography — past and present glaciation and the work of glaciers, the origin and regime of lake basins, the erosion of river-beds, the oscillation of coast-lines. Happily, both in Canada and the United States there are many men competent and eager to work out pro- blems of this class, and in the Reports of the various surveys, the Transactions of American learned Societies, in scientific periodicals, in separate publications, a wealth of data has already been accumulated of immense value to the geographer. Every geologist and geographer knows the important work which has been accomplished by the various surveys of the United States, as well as by the various State Surveys. The United States Coast Survey has been at work for more than half a century, mapping not only the coast but all the navigable rivers. The Lake Survey has been doing a similar service for the shores of the great lakes of North America. But it is the work of the Geological Survey which is best known to geographers — a survey which is really topographical as well as geological, and which, under such men as Hayden, King, and Powell, has produced a series of magnificent maps, diagrams and memoirs, of the highest scientific value and in- terest. Recently this survey has been placed on a more systematic basis ; so that now a scheme for the topographical survey of the whole of the territory of the United States is being carried out. Extensive areas in various parts of the States have been already surveyed on different scales. It is to be hoped that in the future, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E as in the past, the able men who are employed on this survey work will have oppor- tunities of working out the physiography of particular districts, the past and present geography of which is of advancing scientific interest. Of the complete exploration and mapping of the North American continent we need have no apprehension ; it is only a question of time, and it is to be hoped that neither of the Governments responsible will allow political exigencies to interfere with what is really a work of national importance. It is when we come to Central and South America that we find ample room for the unofficial explorer. 1 In Mexico and the Central American States there are considerable areas of which we have little or only the vaguest knowledge. In South America there is really more room now for the pioneer explorer than there is in Central Africa. In recent yeais the Argentine Republic has shown a laudable zeal in exploring and mapping its immense territories, while a certain amount of good w r ork has also been done by Brazil and Chili. Most of our knowledge of South America is due to the enterprise of European and North American explorers. Along the great river courses our knowledge is fairly satis- factory, but the immense areas, often densely clad with forests, lying between the rivers are almost entirely unknown. In Patagonia, though a good deal has re- cently been done by the Argentine Government, still in the country between Punta Arenas and the Rio Negro, we have much to learn ; while on the west coast range, with its innumerable fjord-like inlets, its islands and peninsulas, there is a fine held for the geologist and physical geographer. Indeed, throughout the whole range of the Andes systematic exploration is wanted, exploration of the character of the excellent work accomplished by Whymper in the region around Chimborazo. There is an enormous area lying to the east of the Northern Andes, and including their eastern slopes, embracing the eastern half of Ecuador and Colombia, Southern Venezuela, and much of the country lying between that and Northern Bolivia, including many of the upper tributaries of the Amazon and Orinoko, of which our knowledge is of the scantiest. Even the country lying between the Rio Negro and the Atlantic is but little known. There are other great areas, in Brazil and in the Northern Chaco, which have only been partially described, such as the region whence the streams forming the Tapajos and the Paraguay take their rise, in Mato Grosso. A survey and detailed geographical and topographical descrip- tion of the whole basin of Lake Titicaca is a desideratum. In short, in South America there is a wider and richer field for exploration than in any other con- tinent. But no mere rush through these little-known regions will suffice. The explorer must be able not only to use his sextant and his theodolite, his compass, and his chronometer. Any expeditions entering these regions ought to be able to bring back satisfactory information on the geology of the country traversed, and of its fauna and flora, past and present; already the revelations which have been made of the past geography of South America, and of the life that nourished there in former epochs, are of the highest interest. Moreover, we have here the remains of extinct civilisations to deal with, and although much has been done in this direction, much remains to be done, and in the extensive region already referred to, the physique, the traditions, and the customs of the natives will repay careful investigation. The southern continent of Australia is in the hands of men of the same origin as those who have developed to such a wonderful extent the resources of Canada and the United States, and therefore we look for equally satisfactory results so far as the characteristics of that continent permit. The five colonies which divide among them the three million square miles of the continent have each of them efficient Government surveys, which are rapidly mapping their features and investigating their geology. But Australia has a trying economic problem to solve. In none of the Colonies is the water-supply quite adequate ; in all are stretches of desert country of greater or less "extent. The centre and western half of the continent is covered by a desert more waterless and more repellent than even the Sahara ; so 1 I am indebted for much of the information relative to South America to a valuable Memorandum by Sir Clements R. Markham and Colonel G. E. Church. 10 REPORT — 1897. far as our present knowledge goes one-third of the continent is uDinhabitable. This desert area has been crossed by explorers, at the expense of great sufferings, in various directions, each with the same dreary tale of almost featureless sandy desert, covered here and there with Spinifex and scrub, worse than useless. There are hundreds of thousands of square miles still unknown, but there is no reason to believe that these areas possess any features that differ essentially from those which have been found along the routes that have been explored. There have been one or two well-equipped scientific expeditions in recent years that have col- lected valuable data with regard to the physical characteristics, the geology and biology of the continent ; and it is in this direction that geography should look for the richest results in the future. There remains much to be done before we can arrive at satisfactory conclusions as to the physical history of what is in some respects the most remarkable land area on the globe. Though the surface water supply is so scanty there is reason to believe that underneath the surface there is an immense store of water. In one or two places in Australia, especially in Western Queensland, and in New South Wales, this supply has been tapped with satisfactory results ; millions of gallons a day have been obtained by sinking wells. Whether irrigation can ever be introduced on an extensive scale into Australia depends upon the extent and accessibility of the underground water-supply, and that is one of the geographical problems of the future in Australia. New Zealand has been fairly well surveyed, though a good deal remains to be done before its magnificent mountain and glacier system is completely known. In the great island of New Guinea both the British and the Germansare opening up the interiors of their territories to our knowledge, but the western and much larger portion of the island presents a large field for any explorer who cares to venture into its interior. The marvellous success which has attended Dr. Nansen's daring adventure into the Arctic seas has revived a widespread interest in Polar exploration. Nansen may be said to have almost solved the North Polar problem — so far, at least, as the Old World side of the Pole is concerned. That some one will reach the Pole at no distant date is certain ; Nansen has shown the way, and the legitimate curiosity of humanity will not rest satisfied till the goal be reached. But Arctic exploration does not end with the attainment of the Pole. Europe has done her share on her own side of the Pole ; what about the side which forms the Hinter- land of North America, and specially of Canada ? To the north of Europe and Asia we have the scattered groups of islands Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, and the New Siberian Islands. To the north of America we have an immense archipelago, the actual extent of which is unknown. Nansen and other Arctic authorities maintain that the next thing to be done is to complete exploration on the American side, to attempt to do for that half of the North Polar region what Nansen has done for the other half. It may be that the islands which fringe the northern shores of the New World are continued far to the north ; if so they would form convenient stages for the work of a well-equipped expedition. It may be that they do not go much farther than we find them on our maps. Whatever be the case it is important, in the interests of science, that this section of the Polar area be examined ; that as high a latitude as possible be attained ; that soundings be made to discover whether the deep ocean extends all round the Pole. It is stated that the gallant Lieutenant Peary has organised a scheme of exploring this area which would take several years to accomplish. Let us hope that he will be able to carry out his scheme. Meantime, should Canada look on with indifference ? She has attained the standing of a great and prosperous nation. She has shown the most commendable zeal in the exploration of her own immense territory. She has her educational, scientific, and literary institutions which will compare favourably with those of other countries ; her Press is of a high order, and she has made the beginnings of a literature and an art of her own. In these respects she is walking in the steps of the Mother Country. But has Canada not reached a stage when she is in a position to follow the maternal example still further ? What has more contributed to render the name TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 11 of Great Britain illustrious than those great enterprises which for centuries she has sent out from her own shores, not a few of them solely in the interests of science ? Such enterprises elevate a nation and form its glory and its pride. Surely Canada has ambitions beyond mere material prosperity, and what better beginning could be made than the equipment of an expedition for the exploration of the seas that lie between her and the Pole? I venture to throw out these suggestions for the consideration of those who have at heart the honour and glory of the great Canadian Dominion. Not only has an interest in Arctic exploration been revived, but in Europe at least au even greater interest has grown up in the exploration of the region around the opposite pole of the earth of which our knowledge is so scanty. Since Sir James C. Ross's expedition, which was sent out in the year 1839, almost nothing has been done for Antarctic research. We have here to deal with conditions different from those which surround the North Pole. Instead of an almost landless ocean, it is believed by those who have given special attention to the subject that a continent about the size of Australia covers the south polar region. But we don't know for certain, and surely, in the interests of our science, it is time we had a fairly adequate idea of what are the real conditions. We want to know what is the extent of that land, what are its glacial conditions, what is the character of its geology, what evidence exists as to its physical and biological conditions in past ages ? We know there is one lofty, active volcano ; are there any others ? Moreover, the science of terrestrial magnetism is seriously impeded in its progress because the data in this department from the Antarctic are so scanty. The seas around this continent require to be investigated both as to their depth, their temperature, and their life. We have here, in short, the most extensive unexplored area on the surface of the globe. For the last three or four years the Royal Geographical Society, backed by other British societies, have been attempting to move the Home Government to equip an adequate expedition to complete the work begun by Ross sixty years ago, and to supplement the great work of the ' Challenger.' But though sympathy has been expressed for Antarctic exploration, and though vague promises have been given of support, the Government is afraid to enter upon an enterprise which might involve the services of a few naval officers and men. We need not criticise this attitude. But the Royal Geographical Society has determined not to let the matter rest here. It is now seeking to obtain the support of public-spirited men for an Antarctic expedition under its own auspices. It is felt that Antarctic exploration is peculiarly the work of England, and that if an expedition is undertaken, it will receive substantial support from the great Australasian Colonies, which have so much to gain from a know- ledge of the physical condition of a region lying at their own doors, and probably having a serious influence on their climatological conditions. Here, then, is one of the greatest geographical problems of the future, the solution of which should be entered upon without further delay. It may be mentioned that a small and well- equipped Belgian expedition has already started, mainly to carry out deep-sea research around the South Polar area, and that strenuous efforts are being made in Germany to obtain the funds for an expedition on a much larger scale. But our science has to deal not only with the lands of the globe ; its sphere is tbe whole of the surface of the earth, and all that is thereon, so far at least as dis- tribution is concerned. The department of Oceanography is a comparatively new creation ; indeed, it may be said to have come definitely into being with the famous voyage of the ' Challenger.' There had been expeditions for ocean investigation before that, but on a very limited scale. It has only been through the results obtained by the ' Challenger,' supplemented by those of expeditions that have examined more limited areas, that we have been able to obtain an approximate conception of the conditions which prevail throughout the various ocean depths — conditions of move- ment, of temperature, of salinity, of life. We have only a general idea of the contours of the ocean-bed, and of the composition of the sediment which covers that bed. The extent of the knowledge thus acquired may be gauged from the fact that it occupies a considerable space in the fifty quarto volumes — the ' Challenger Publications ' — which it took Dr. John Murray twenty years to bring out. But 12 REPORT — 1897. that great undertaking has only, as it were, laid down the general features of the oceanic world. There is plenty of room for further research in this direction. Our own surveying ships, which are constantly at work all over the world, do a certain amount of oceanic work, apart from mere surveying of coasts, and islands, and shoals. In 1895 one of these found in the South Pacitic soundings deeper by 500 fathoms than the deepest on record, that found twenty years earlier by the ' Tuscarora ' to the north-east of Japan. The deepest of these new soundings was 5,155 fathoms. In the interests of science, as well as of cable-laying, it is desirable that our surveying ships should be encouraged to carry out work of this kind more systematically than they do at present. This could surely be arranged without interfering with their regular work. We want many more observations than we now have, not only on ocean depths, but on the nature of the ocean-bed, before we can have a satisfactory map of this hidden portion of the earth's surface, and form satisfactory conclusions as to the past relations of the ocean-bed with what is now dry land. I believe the position maintained by geologists, that from the remote period when the great folds of the earth were formed the present relations between the great land-masses and the great oceans have been essentially the same ; that there have no doubt been great changes, but that these have been within such limits as not to materially affect their relations as a whole. This is a problem which further oceanic research would go a long way to elucidate. That striking changes are going on at the present day, and have been going on within the human period, cannot be doubted. Some coast-lines are rising ; others are falling. Professor John Milne, our great authority on Seismology, has collected an extremely interesting series of data, as to the curious changes that have taken place in the ocean-bed since telegraphic cables have been laid down. The frequent breakages of cables have led to the examination of the sub-oceanic ground on which they have been laid, and it is found that slides and sinkings have occurred, in some cases amounting to hundreds of fathoms. These, it is im- portant to note, are on the slopes of the Continental Margin, or, as it is called, the Continental Shelf, as, for example, off the coast of Chili. It is there, where the earth's crust is peculiarly in a state of unstable equilibrium, that we might expect to find such movements ; and therefore soundings along the Continental Margins, at intervals of say five years, might furnish science with data that might be turned to good account. As an example of what may be done by a single individual to elucidate the present and past relations between land and sea, may I refer to an able paper in the ' Geographical Journal ' of May, 1897, by Mr. T. P. Gulliver, a pupil of Professor Davis, of Harvard, himself one of the foremost of our scientific geographers? Mr. Gulliver has made a special study on the spot, and with the help of good topo- graphical and geological maps, of Dungeness Foreland on the south-east coast of Kent, Mr. Gulliver takes this for his subject, and works out with great care the his- tory of the changing coast-line here, and in connection with that the origin and changes of the English Channel. This is the kind of work that well- trained geo- graphical students might undertake. It is work to be encouraged, not only for the results to be obtained, but as one species of practical geographical training in the field, and as a reply to those who maintain that geography is mere book- work, and has no problems to solve. Professor Davis himself has given an example of similar practical work in his elaborate paper on < The Development of Certain English JRivers ' in the 1 Geographical Journal' for February, 1895 (vol. v. p. 127), and in many other publications. Another important problem to attack, and that in the near future, is that of Oceanic Islands. I say in the near future, because it is to be feared that very few islands now remain unmodified by contact with Europeans. Not only have the natives been affected, both in physique and in customs, but the introduction of European plants and animals has to a greater or less extent modified the native fauna and flora. Dr. John Murray, of the ' Challenger,' has set a good example in this direction by sending a young official from the Natural History Museum to Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, one of the few untouched islands TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 13 that remain, lying far away from any other land, to the south-east of the Reelings. AVhat islands are to the ocean, lakes are to the land. It is only recently that these interesting geographical features have received the attention -they deserve. Dr. Murray has for some time been engaged in investigating the physical con- ditions of some of the remarkable lakes in the West of Scotland. Some three years ago my friend and colleague Dr. Mill carried out a very careful survey of the English lakes, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. His sound- ings, his observations of the lake conditions, of the features on the margins of and around the lakes, when combined with the investigation of the regime of the rivers and the physical geography of the surrounding country, conducted by such accom- plished geologists as Mr. Marr, afford the materials for an extremely interesting study in the geographical history of the district. On the Continent, again, men like Professor Penck, of Vienna, have been giving special attention to lakes, that accomplished geographer's monograph on Lake Constance, based on the work of the five States bordering its shores, being a model work of its kind. But the father of Limnology, as this branch of geography is called, is undoubtedly Pro- fessor Forel, of Geneva, who for many years has been investigating the conditions of that classical lake, and who is now publishing the results of his research. Dr. Forel's paper on ' Limnology : a Branch of Geography,' and the discussion which follows in the Report of the last International Geographical Congress, affords a very fair idea in short space of the kind of work to be done by this branch of the science. In France, again, M. Delebecque is devoting himself to a similar line of research ; in Germany Ule, Halbfass, and others : Richter in Austria, and the Balaton Commission in Hungary. I may also here refer appropriately to Mr. Israel 0. Russell's able work, published in Boston in 1895, on 'The Lakes of North America,' in which the author uses these lakes as a text for a discourse on the origin of lake basins and the part played by lakes in the changes studied by dynamic geology. One of the best examples of an exhaustive study of a lake basin will be found in the magnificent monograph on Lake Bonneville, by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, and that on Lake Lahontan by Mr. Israel Cook Russell, published by the United States Geological Survey ; the former is indeed a complete history of the great basin, the largest of the interior drainage areas of the North American continent. In the publications of the various Surveys of the United States as well as in the official reports of the Canadian Lake Surveys, a vast amount of material exists for any one interested in the study of lakes ; in addition, the elaborate special Reports on the great lakes by the Hydrographic Department. Indeed, North America presents an exceptionally favourable field for limnological investigation ; if carried out on a systematic method the results could not but be of great scientific interest. Rivers are of not les3 geographical interest than lakes, and these have also recently been the subject of special investigation by physical geographers. I have already referred to Professor Davis's study of a special English river system. The work in the English Lake District by Mr. Marr, spoken of in connection with Dr. Mill's investigations, was mainly on the hydrology of the region. Both in (iermany and in Russia special attention is being given to this subject, while in America there is an enormous literature on the Mississippi alone, mainly, no doubt, from the practical standpoint, while the result of much valuable work on the St. Lawrence is buried in Canadian official publications. But time does not admit of my going farther. I might have pointed out the wide and vastly interesting field presented b} r what the Germans call Anthropo- geography, dealing with the interrelations between humanity and its geographical environment. Geography, Mr. Mackinder has said, is the physical basis of history; it is, indeed, the physical basis of all human activity, and from that standpoint the field for geographical research is unbounded. But I can only hint at this. I have endeavoured to indicate what are some of the leading geographical problems of the future, first in order to show at this somewhat critical epoch how very much yet remains to be done, how many important lines of inquiry are open to the 14 REPORT — 1897. geographical student, and that the possibilities of our science are, like those of other departments of research, inexhaustible. My aim has also been to indicate by actual examples what, in the conception of British geographers at least, is the field of our subject. We need not trouble greatly about any precise definition so long as there is such a choice of work for the energies of the geographer. I trust I have been, to some extent at least, successful in the double object which I have had in view in this opening address in a country which presents so splendid a field to the practical geographer, ^griftsl) Jlssoctaftcm for tfye Jlouancement of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO TflE ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS SECTION BY E. C. K. GONNTER, M.A., Professor of Economic Science in University College, Liverpool, PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. In the selection of the subject on which I propose to offer, according to custom, a few remarks to-day, I have been influenced by the wish to choose one which is not only of present importance, but such that it may provide occasion for the discussion of the advance which economic study has made, and of the methods whereby that advance has been achieved. The position of the Labour Question in modern thought and its economic treatment is a matter well worth attention from these various points of view. In addition its consideration cannot fail to throw light on the connection which exists between the economic growth of a country and the main developments of Economics as a study. Whatever their view of the subject itself, few will deny the curiously emphatic position occupied by Labour and the various questions relating to it and its conditions at the present day. Illustrations present themselves on many sides. Evidence may be adduced from almost all quarters of literature, even from those seemingly unlikely. To the novel writer and the novel reader working-class life has formed a continent almost as newly discovered as that sighted by Columbus and others, or rather by others and Columbus, in the fifteenth century ; and even when the novelist is chastened into unnecessary discretion and distant allusiveness in his description of detail and habits by the fear, perhaps the unnecessary fear, that his audience is less ignorant than himself, Labour Problems and Labour Difficulties brood like a nightmare in his mind and leave their mark on his pages. It is the same in other literature, where they reign in almost undivided monopoly. The i working man ' button-holes the reader in the library and at the news-stall, and stays beside him in the very discomforting guise of a problem when he sits by the fireside in the evening. And as in literature so in life, as in life so in public discussion. On all sides there is the same feature. In all directions there has grown up the same tacit habit of regarding each question as hardly worth discussion till it has passed the pre- liminary test not only of its effect on the position of the working class, but of the view they are likely to take of it ; rightly, no doubt, inasmuch as it implies the consideration of their interests, often neglected in the past ; wrongly when con- strued into the conclusion that all measures or changes which they resent are necessarily evil. A similar tendency is shown in recent economic literature, and particularly in that of the past quarter of a century, which treats of the con- ditions and remuneration of manual labour with force just as undeniable as the length of the chapters and the number of the books devoted to the subject. What may be termed the bias of economic studies is very evident. Just as at one time F 2 REPORT — 1897. the balance of trade and commercial relations with foreign countries, and at another currency schemes and currency iniquities pervaded the atmosphere, so now Labour and the Labour Question, and writer after writer struggles beneath its fascination, helpless in his efforts to avoid its introduction in every part of his work, suitable or unsuitable. Like the reference to the head of a departed English monarch, it forces an entrance page by page and chapter by chapter. What a revenge time has brought with it for former neglect ! How great the present prominence is and how recent is shown by a comparison between the sub- jects discussed to-day and those discussed at the beginning of the present or during the past century, between the general trend of an economic treatise now and that of those of the past. Then Labour itself was the subject of bare refer- ence as an agent of production, and as one but by no means the chief factor requiring payment, and in only a few cases were there traces that its condition and its environment were even regarded as matters for economists to discuss, while now there is the risk of other elements escaping attention. It is not the way in which the subject is dealt with that is insisted on here, but the bare prominence of the subject, though the former in its turn has changed greatly, the somewhat rigid impassiveness of the earlier date yielding to expressions of a vivid and personal sympathy. On turning to what is the Jirst portion of our task— the consideration of the causes which have made thus conspicuous one agent in production and one economic element — the identification or rather the confusion of labour with labour of one grade calls for remark. Labour is the term used to denote either the work of one class, the class, that is, which monopolises the title of the working-class, or all human work necessary to production. In some instances V e term is stretched so far as to include all effort, direct or indirect, involved in production. But though instances of these different meanings are found in abundance, and though the second of them is the most strictly consistent, as it expresses the dis- tinction between personal effort and that which is not personal, Labour when used emphatically and spelt with a capital initial is almost invariably, so far as popular usage is concerned, taken as implying some particular reference to the grade of manual labour. Other labour, skilled labour or labour of management, if included at all, is treated as comparatively insignificant. To all intents and purposes by labour, especially when conditions and remuneration are referred to, is meant manual labour. This restriction in definition is significant and unfortu- nate. Associations centring round labour in the wider sense come almost imper- ceptibly to be conceived of as relating to labour in the more narrow meaning of the word. Coincident with its growth in popular favour, the tendency to restrict the term has increased. Tt is true, of course, that in economic writings labour, when defined, is applied to personal action of all grades and of all degrees of skill, but even there laxity finds entrance in the frequent unguarded use of slipshod popular expressions, as the difficulties of labour, the labouring classes, conflicts of labour and capital, and the like, when by these are meant the difficulties and interests of one class of labour only. Such, then, is the aspect which confronts the student of social phenomena in the present day. Considerations respecting Labour have acquired, and that comparatively recently, an unusually large share of attention at the very time when the term, in popular usage at any rate, has been shorn of some part of its meaning and severely restricted in definition. The causes of the new prominence of this class of labour form a subject of much importance, for on our knowledge of them largely rest the conclusions as to the true significance of the problem and the meaning of such results as we discern. Such knowledge also provides the means of discriminating between changes due to direct economic movemeuts and those arising out of nothing more than an altered attitude on the part of society brought about by general causes. To some, no doubt, the explanation of this particular change, and of the pro- minence of this question, lies in the greater humanity which characterises the economic thought of the present as contrasted with the past ; to others, in the wide extension of the franchise, and the admission to political power of the classes whose interests lie in the above direction ; while others again believe that they TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION P. 3 find it in the subtle changes in the general conceptions of a restless and singularly receptive society. But these various impulses, important though no doubt their influence has been, are very general in character, and seem hardly definite enough to account for a change in thought so distinctive and so unrelieved in its nature, while all of them are open to the pertinent criticism that they them- selves may be due in part, and in large part, to modifications in economic circum- stances. Were they, or any of them, the sole or even the principal cause, it is hardly necessary to add that the alteration which has taken place has been in the way of looking at things, and not in things which are looked at. Others, again, have found their answer in the greater degree of certainty and assurance with regard to economic elements whicli in earlier times constituted difficulties in the way of progress and menaced considerable dangers, and it is true that much that may be urged in this direction is well founded. Capital which, at the beginning of the present century, was in imminent demand and vastly insufficient for the develop- ment of industry, has grown, not by any slow if certain increase, but by leaps and bounds just as certain, and its accumulation under the most varying vicissitudes has removed the constant apprehensions as to its supply which confront the reader in early literature. The relation between population and its food supply, which left an indelible mark on one period of economic thought, has temporarily, at any rate, retreated into the background with the opening up of new countries, the discovery of new natural forces, and the observed conditions of the more settled nations. Again, so far as England is coucerned, the adoption — and for the time, at any rate, the successful adoption — of a Free Trade Policy, led to a lull in the controversies which raged with regard to tariffs, the balance of trade, and protec- tion. Less importance, too, has been attached to difficulties involved in the ownership of the land and the conditions of its cultivation, partly through measures of economic reform, partly, so far as the older and more settled countries are concerned, by reason of the subordination of agricultural interests to the grow- ing and giant industries of manufacture and commerce. Indeed, the only questions which remain conspicuous by reason either of agitation or intrinsic urgency relate to currency, a matter which, however pressing, suffers under the popular disad- vantage that its discussion is seen to require actual knowledge, because of its use of technical terms, and one whicli to all of us is of increasing interest, the economic relations which should exist between the various portions of a widespread empire, with its aspirations after greater cohesion and co-ordinated though distri- buted strength. But the very fact that in these respects the various nations differ largely, and that despite these differences the position of the manual labour classes uniformly impresses itself, though perhaps in varying degree, upon the plastic mind of the public, suggests the existence of some positive and active force as a cause for this prominence ; and such we find in the alterations in the conditions of labour, which have led naturally, positively and necessarily to a change in the estimation in which it is held. Though the course of economic development during the past century and a half has differed greatly in various countries, being largely affected both by the par- ticular stage of progress to which they have attained and by the varying relative importance of the two great branches of agriculture and manufacture, a change in the method of employment is common to all. In England this feature is displayed in stronger and more definite relief, less embarrassed than elsewhere by extraneous influences ; and it is in England that its nature has been most attentively studied. There the period has been one of undoubted change. The revolution in the methods of industry, of which much has been said, had its counterpart in agricul- ture, less noticed, perhaps, but hardly less important. While in the former the great mechanical inventions, with the introduction of water and steam-power, accelerated the change already in progress from a system of small and local industries to a system of great national industry, the agricultural classes were the witnesses of alterations as vital to their interests, and which were to co-operate in producing a remarkable alteration in the general conditions of employment. Owing partly to improvements in agriculture itself, partly to the sweeping effects of the inclosures 1 KEPORT— 1897. and the abolition of common rights, partly to the greater opportunities afforded for the use of capital by these and other causes, farming came to be carried on in greater separation from proprietorship, and both the average size of farms and of properties would seem to have increased. Agricultural labour became more and . more the occupation of a class of agricultural labourers, disassociated from capital and severed more decisively than before from the ownership of the soil, or the prospect of independent cultivation. But this was the very change which took place at much the same time in manufacture. Here, too, the powerful progress of change was sweeping into the distant past the small master craftsman with his one or two apprentices and his three or four journeymen. Here, too, in ever increasing number throng those who are employed with small hope or prospect of ever employing either themselves or others. The development of the means of communication and locomotion, at first by road-making and canalisation, and afterwards by the laying and extension of the vast railway system, set free demand from those bonds of restriction which had confined it to seek its satisfaction in the products of the district, and by delocalising demand localised industry. Here and there, indeed, local industries continued to survive, here and there special circum- stances stood in the way of the establishment of factories, but elsewhere and in general there emerged into view the colossal growth of the nineteenth century, the system of Great Industry, And one feature, and that the most important feature so far as we are concerned, in industry as in agriculture, was the demar- cation of those engaged into the classes of Employer and Employed. This tendency to horizontal cleavage, to borrow an expressive term, which may be studied in the contrast between the existing systems and those of the past, as Wiell as in the history of the actual movement, was greatly accentuated by the blurring of those lines of vertical division which had left districts and local groups partially self-subsistent and separate ; and, in England and certain other countries, by the disproportionate increase of the urban population, more closely knit and more sensitive to sentiments of union and the possibilities of common action. Non-competing grades have been substituted for non-competing groups. Though these former are more than two, being many in number and capable of extension so far as some degree of non-competition is concerned, there are, however, cir- cumstances inherent in our system which make the separation between the class of manual labour and the others more complete, and restrict within the most rigid limits the competition which can take place. It has been said, indeed, that the leading feature of modem times is the substitution of the cash nexus for the personal nexus, but it may be doubted if it is really the most important. Pecuniary payments connect the employers and those who under the more skilled labour of superintendence control direction and invention, and yet these latter classes rank themselves and are ranked in general estimation with the employers rather than with the employed. They are not included popularly, at any rate, under the term labour when labour difficulties are spoken of. We must look somewhat deeper for an explanation. There are some three or four characteristics which may serve to distinguish labour in its popular sense from the other industrial grades. In the first place, the work is different. Manual labour has to do what is set before it, the others have to devise what is to be done. Their work is one con- cerned largely with management and with organisation as a whole, and this quality not only enables them to realise the entire circumstances of the industry, but in many cases relieves them from the narrow and unsatisfying consequences of specialisation or restriction to the performance of particular portions of the com- mon task. In the second place, the needs of the manual labour class are particular. Specialisation, and particularly manual specialisation, with its blunting effects on the mind, requires a powerful corrective. In the third place, the highly-skilled labour which directs and invents is less decisively removed from the chance of at- taining to the employing class, and even if few prove successful in this to the full extent, the functions they exert are closely akin. It is, no doubt, true that no posi- tive barrier is placed in the way of indefinite rise on the part of those engaged in labour of any kind, however unskilled ; but in point of practice the obstacles to be overcome amount well-nigh to prohibition. In the fourth place, the dependence TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 5 of several millions of men for their existence on a weekly wage apportioned by others, and dependent on vicissitudes which they not only cannot control, but do not foresee, is a very striking fact. A miserable insecurity attaches to their posi- tion. But a weekly or daily wage and uncertainty are ill companions. Rightly or wrongly, the responsibility is attributed to those who pay the wage, and the inculcation of thrift, with all its good effects, only increases the confusion and sharpens the censure. The influences thus described have, no doubt, rarely been operative all to the same effect, and frequently have not been all present at the same time ; but shorn though it be, in one case of one, in another case of another, the change which has passed over the lower and more numerous classes of labour is substantially the same. Owing to it labour is subject to the condition of employment by others, and is less responsible in feeling and partly in fact for its own direction, and for the continuance of the means of earning its own mainten- ance. To the restrictions of society with some reason, and to those who represent to him the restrictive influences without reason, the working man vaguely, if not definitely, attributes want of work, slackness of work, and change of work. Limi- tations of some kind have always existed, and it would be wrong to ignore the fact that the condition of the classes in question was far worse when these were the incidents of custom and external nature than at present ; but then in those cases the limitations on the action of individuals were both inevitable and impersonal. In many ways they seem to have interfered less with the innate conviction on the part of those who were self-employed that failure and success rested on themselves. But now the whole bulk of the nation is employed by others. Another aspect too. People often resign themselves to the inevitable, but they do not recognise the inevitable in the actions and opinions of others. Moreover, there are other influences besides those purely economic which have added prominence to this important separation into the two classes of Employers and Employed, a very small class of Employers and a very large class of Em- ployed. The extension of political power and political privileges, which has affected the operative class most of all, has had consequences in more than one direction : men who become voters exercise a greater influence on public opinion and on the opinions of their would-be leaders, than is the case when logic and argument form their only weapons or means of persuasion ; and though at times this may take unpleasant forms, in the main it is a perfectly sound political result. People are not made voters in order to act as jurors in an abstract question. They are representative of particular feelings, and are responsible to themselves as to the whole State for bringing into view the interests which are theirs, and the amelioration of which forms part of the problem of government. But even more important in this connection than the influence thus summoned into being for the redress of much that is ill, is the nature of the relation between political equality and social equality. No one nowadays, or, to speak accurately, hardly anyone, believes in the vague and fantastic doctrines which embraced physical and mental equality, as if the time had come for mankind to be cast in one mould, and for identity of condition and accomplishments. But still the extension of political equality may be held to promise something. If not, what can be more vain than the cry for the extended franchise ? A vote by itself is no precious possession if we consider it mainly as the right to give abstract decisions on matters of more or less general interest, and as carrying with it no social assurances. Surely a thing such as this would not have formed the motive of the great enthusiasms, and made death itself a thing of nought to those who sought it in tumultuous times. But it is just because it seemed to them to be something more than this that it w r on its mastery over their life, and because it is taken to be more than this that the more recent extensions of the franchise are so significant. They are construed as ration- ally involving a greater equalisation, so far as human opportunities are concerned, and as conveying an assurance that there shall not be, so far as society can help it, any one class condemned to bear from generation to generation the burden and toil devolving on the lowest ranks of labour. But whether the feeling be rightly defined, whether it be in itself right or wrong, a belief in such a connection is f 2 G REPORT — 1897. powerful in making more conspicuous the subject of Labour, especially the position of Employed Labour. In another way this subject gains additional prominence, as has been suggested, by the temporary abeyance of other causes of economic embarrassment, and insufficient though this might be as a substantive cause, it is impossible to under- rate its effect as subsidiary in the cause of a change already accomplished and capable of attracting more interest with each fresh access of attention bestowed upon it. But even these do not exhaust the number of subsidiary causes to which so much is due. There are others, and though many of them are comparatively unimportant this is far from being the case with one. The age itself and the character of the age has much to do with the attention, and especially with the sympathetic attention, patiently yielded to the problem. To characterise an age is never easy. It is difficult even when the age is far distant and the human memory so far kind as to refuse to retain more than one or two pieces of informa- tion, letting the others slip through and fall into a deep and un recovered oblivion. How much more difficult when the epoch is our own ? But in this instance there are some few features so marked and so capable of identification, that one pauses to ask in amazement if the age of the Renaissance has not dawned upon us again in an altered guise. The resemblance is the more striking if we take the general characteristics and aspect of the two periods as distinct from the particular direction in which the respective movements trend. A renaissance is twofold. On the one hand it is a time of unrest, due, indeed, to the breaking down of old ideals and the decay of former springs of conduct and life, but due also to the magnificent new life quivering to its birth. On the other hand, the meaning of the particular renaissance is to be found in the nature of its own ideals and the fresh direction and impetus imparted to life. Briefly, it is not only a change but a particular change. What the new ideals are and what the new direction, will be determined by the past history and the present needs of the nation passing through its time of stress, and groping blindly after the truth which is to give meaning to its actions, and which it must struggle to express in art and literature and by every means at its command. Analogies between this present period and that of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries present themselves in different ways. Then, as now, the time was one of discovery, for the great geographical discoveries of the earlier epoch find a counterpart in the scientific discoveries which, like them, have had effects both destructive and constructive ; destroying, that is, convictions and opinions resting on certain narrow conceptions of the sphere of life, but giving opportunity on the other hand for new ideas and vaster conceptions. Both are times of a new learning, and though the causes giving rise to the enthusiasm for knowledge may differ, in both cases knowledge has been sought in a return from theories rigid and out of consonance with life to life itself and the facts of life. In the sphere of religion and morals the likeness is strangely evident. In both cases the particular form of religion was found inadequate, in both cases there was failure to distinguish between the fleeting form and the abiding reality, and in both cases there were particular tendencies, largely by way of result, affecting morals and conduct. In the fifteenth century, as now, these latter were not so much in the direction of that coarseness which somehow or other is often called immorality, but rather in that of a lack of moral discrimination and will. Prejudices are to be put on one side, prejudices as to morals, prejudices as to the relations of sexes, prejudices as to one thing and the other. What does it mean ? Partly, perhaps, a positive uncertainty — sometimes a pretended un- certainty — as to right and wrong; partly, again, a wanton and curious desire to experiment on all sides and everywhere, to gain emotional experience irrespective of the means and the cost whereby it is gained. Novelty is allowed to cover a multitude of sins. Some such impulse reveals itself in the literature and life of the Renaissance. Do we recognise nothing like it in the present day ? This peculiar moral attitude has its bearing on the subject of our consideration. Each age works out its own salvation. The media3val Renaissance found its salvation in the emphasis of individuality, alike in religion, in the State, and in TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 7 industrial activity. At the present we seem tending in another direction, and in response to our needs and our circumstances seeking a positive moral guidance in an enlarged conception of social duty and solidarity ; and the position which employed labour occupies with regard to them is sufficient to insure it attention, and not attention only, but sympathetic attention. Those who have lost their means of faith in the first commandment of the New Testament turn with feverish haste to work out their salvation by a stricter attention to the second, and those whose faith is unimpaired but spiritual vision enlarged perceive that the one is imperfect without the other. Social regeneration, socialisation, collectivism, social duty, social action, are phrases which occur in profusion, and, though they disfigure the language, mark the attitude and give distinction to the actions of the present. In England, at any rate, the imagination of the people has been struck and its feelings stirred with regard to this particular problem, which stands out before other matters sharply marked and conspicuous. But though it is true that many general influences have combined to increase this prominence, its main and original cause lies in the vast economic change which has swept mankind into two opposite, though not necessarily opposed, classes. To realise the history of that change is a first step towards understanding its nature and its consequences. But for it it would be possible to interpret present com- plaints as but the repetition of those of the past, and as finding prototypes in the outcries which have arisen from time to time from those who brooded over the contrasts between the poor and the rich. They would mean nothing more than did many an early pamphlet bearing such a title as ' England's Crying Sin with Regard to the Poor/ Or, again, the opposition might be construed as an antagonism between Labour and Capital, in disregard of the union existing between labour of a certain kind and capital, and of the confusion which such a distinction involves between profits and interest. Of equal importance is the light which history throws upon the present con- dition of the masses affected by this grave economic change. Its effects might well have been experienced in two ways. Not only did the power of directing their lot pass from them to others, resulting in somewhat subtle consequences as regards the burden and pride of feeling the full responsibility for action, but in addition it would not have seemed unnatural had they experienced considerable material injury from a competition against an employing class with a practical monopoly of capital ; and it is true tbat the conditions of that competition, which, be it remembered, determines the division of the product between wages, profits, and interest, were in one respect altered to their disadvantage. But in another way, and due to the self-sanie causes, new opportunities were offered for the development of organisations which were to turn the balance in their favour. Till the change of which we have been speaking, till the breaking down of local divisions which held separate those in like circumstances and of like interest in different places, till the simplification into one class of employed of so large a number of those whose means were small, common action for common ends, as, indeed, any definite control and direction by a central authority, were impossible. Thus the very forces occasioning change provided the means for its beneficial regulation. The narrowness of view attributed to a too rigidly specialised labour has been met by educational advantages which, in England at any rate, found their occasion in the factory organisation which began to spread through the country at the close of the eighteenth century. Factory development has given rise to a control which fails of its effect when called on to penetrate into the small workshops and the seats of home industries. Dependence on wages finds a corrective in the growth of benefit societies and the insurance clauses of trade associations ; separation from management and capital has in some instances been stayed by schemes for co-operation and profit-sharing ; \\hile the greatest detect of all, the weakness of employed labour in competition with the allied and resourceful forces of capital and management, has led to the marvellous organisation of traoe unions and kindred associations. In face of these remedial agencies, and despite the mismanagement and abuses which have attended many of them, the ill-fate which seemed at one time to menace the condition of those whose strength lay in 8 REPORT — 1897. manual exertion has not been realised. On the contrary, these classes have shared to the full in the increased results attending production. According to the most reliable estimates, their condition has undergone not only absolute but relative improvement ; and this is due largely, if not altogether, to the opportunities con- cealed in the bosom of the economic causes which affected employment so ominously. The true remedies are those which arise out of the historical circumstances of the complaint. The points which have demanded attention are these. Firstly, the causes primarily economic which have made labour difficulties so prominent ; secondly, the nature of the great economic change resulting in the separation of the labour under employment from that determining and directing industry ; and thirdly, the extent to which this has furnished opportunities for the formation of labour associations, and the development of a State policy for regulating the conditions of employment. With regard to the latter point much has been said. It has, for instance, been argued by some that the great modern interdependence of labour of different kinds, the growth of State control, and the supersession in many directions of the private employer by large companies, trusts, and syndicates, are indications of the necessity and possibility of the monopoly and entire management of industry and commerce by the State. But the simplicity of this remedy, w T hich has proved so attractive to many who dwell in a world of ideas as far removed as possible from fact, is an indication of weakness in the eyes of the student of social and historical phenomena. As he examines the varying moods and forces which unite in the tangled complex of modern industry and society, as he traces from their growth the tendencies which have made them what they are, interweaving, counteracting, modifying and coalescing in the pages of history, he grows aware of the intricacies of the economic constitution and mistrustful of simple theories based on the confident recognition of some elements and the neglect, equally confident, of many others. The one-sided solution is no solution at all. Similarly insufficient is the reading which finds a confirmation of unrestricted individualistic competition in the increased social demand for enterprise and individual energy. The careful study of the past two centuries enforces several conclusions as to economic tenden- cies all of which require recognition. In the first place, with the growth of intricacy and the extension of the area of production and distribution, the free exchange of commodities has become more and more the one effective means of ascertaining what is wanted and what are the requirements of the community. In the second place, so far from there being a diminution, there has been an increase in the urgent need for eliciting and stimulating individual ability. While, in the third place, the necessity for State regulation has been enforced and new opportunities for it provided. In turning to the second matter for consideration, the treatment by economists and in economic writings of Labour and the circumstances of employment, and its results in providing better means of forming correct judgment and judiciously guiding action, will occupy our attention. On the importance, in this respect, of researches into economic history, little need be added. Its value is felt in every direction. Not only does it discountenance premature generalisation based on insufficient, and, if I may use the expression, fleeting data, but it guards us against the still greater danger of first forming con- clusions on hypotheses, and then forgetfully assuming that these conclusions are based on observed facts. Viewed more positively, it adds the conception of organic development and furnishes a large share of the knowledge which forms a preliminary to judgment, and which should form a preliminary to social action. But the point to be insisted on here is the enormous recent advance achieved in this direction. Again, the abstract theory of distribution, dealing with the relation between various classes of payments, as rent, profits, interest and wages, has undergone considerable change, owing to the labours of the mathematical school and other economists, who, starting from the qualitative conceptions first promi- nently employed by Eicardo, have dealt with the inter-relation of these and their connection with value. But by far the most notable progress has been in matters involving quantitative, as well as, or in place of, qualitative admeasurement. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 9 Here rank the elaborate and important researches into the effects produced by alterations in the rate of wages and the hours of labour, into the causes which condition interest and govern its rate, into the effect of royalties and rents in various industries and under varying conditions. While as regards general well- being a vast mass of material has been accumulated, and many careful and sug- gestive treatises published. We know infinitely more than was known even a short time back about the effect of occupations on health ; the character of working- class expenditure and the relation between such expenditure and receipts; the different modes of payment for labour with their respective consequences ; the experiments in co-operation, in profit-sharing, in socialism, in communism, in municipal and State management, and other different directions ; more about the effect of charity in relation to earnings ; about attempts at arbitration, and the like. We have histories of trade unions, of co-operation, of benefit societies, and of other associations depending on working men's efforts for their maintenance in the various industrial countries. The effects of monopolies and partial mono- polies resting either on legislative grant or perpetrated in practice have been carefully examined. Modes of trading, with their almost invariable fringe of speculation, have been treated of, with the view of ascertaining their influence on the standard employments of the nations. These are but illustrations, but they are sufficient for the purpose. They point to active growth in Economics in regard to this particular subject. On the other hand, they are painfully insuffi- cient in themselves. We may know more, but we want to know more still. Concurrent with the advance in knowledge, the general conceptions of labour and with reference to its treatment have undergone alteration most marked in three directions. Labour power is no longer viewed as a mere aggregate of hard and disconnected units which can be sifted out or increased under the stress or stimulus of unhindered competition. We recognise that the labour which survives may be so affected in and by reason of the very process of its selection as to be widely different from the forces contemplated and required. In social evolution de- generation, or at any rate variation in the surviving factor, is an almost regular phenomenon. In the second place, the effects of conditions on efficiency have been established in a variety of directions, a matter of peculiar importance when we pass from the contemplation of the working powers available at any given time to questions of their permanence and their future. In the third place, the economic change in the circumstances of employment has served to introduce to the notice of economists the necessity of certain agencies to counterbalance the lack of self-direction and responsibility, agencies, that is, of education and combination. In view of such and other developments, the great need of the present, apparent nowhere more forcibly than with regard to the matter occupying our attention, is on the one hand the careful modification of the general body of economic reasoning in their light, and, on the other hand, continued close inductive study into the circumstances of both the past and the present. This latter is indeed necessary. To recognise this does not imply any disparagement of other methods required in other stages. In many of the subjects already singled out for notice preliminary deductions have been made and have proved of the highest value. The theory of non-competing groups, the earliest refutation of the wage-fund theory, the theory of the effect upon productivity of altered hours and wages, afford admirable instances of the way in which truths afterwards established on a wide inductive basis were foreshadowed, and an estimate of their importance attempted by writers proceeding along the lines of partial observation and large use of assumption ; but these in common with other like attempts must be regarded as preliminary. They do not indicate, for instance, the extent to which the element of which they treat is important. Surely it is just here that we see the necessary relation and mutual importance of the different methods of study which have some- times been treated as antagonistic. Preliminary and working theories are neces- sary to the wise conduct of inductive inquiries, but these in their turn are necessary to formulate a theory which may be something more or something other than that which it supplants, which is to be representative in place of being suggestive. But it is a grievous mistake to take the working theory for the necessary 10 REPORT — 1897* substance, and to assume that the importance of all subsequent researches lies in their connection with it, and that their function is its general verification and further development, whereas they may bring about its actual subversion. A survey of the results achieved in a particular branch of Economics affords an excellent opportunity for examining the mutual interaction of various methods of study, and their combined progress. The work of the economists of the period extending over the close of last century and the earlier portion of the present one, a period which, as a living economist has well said, has been in- aptly and unfortunately termed classical, was mainly occupied in preliminary discussion and in its formulation of theories, some of which dealt with quali- tative relations, and many of which mast be viewed as working theories only. They dealt, among other matters, with such questions as the connection between the various classes of remuneration and their relation with value, the distinction between utility and material, the causes necessitating payment, and the effect of condition upon the agents of production ; but in nearly every one of these respects very much was left for subsequent generations of students to accomplish, and the way for inductive research was but prepared. And much has been accomplished. Theories have been modified, theories have been recast, and new theories have been formulated. But this gradual advance in study, necessary though it be and common though it is to all sciences and subjects, stands at a peculiar disadvantage in the case of social science, and, to take our particular case, in that of Economics. Here every- thing is claimed, not only as a working theory for the investigator, but as one for practical people and the statesman, and error is invested with grave, positive con- sequences. Incorrect theories as to taxation led to the separation between England and those colonies which now form the United States of America ; unsound eco- nomic and social theories lit throughout Europe the cleansing if devouring fires of the French Revolution ; unsound economic theories threatened to sap the vigour of England in the third and fourth decade of the present century, and, to take a specific instance, embodied themselves in the opposition to Factory Reform. This peculiar gravity is at once the difficulty and the importance of economic study. But when the mistakes of Economics, thus sadly illustrated, are cited in its dis- paragement, does it never occur to those kindly anxious to enforce the salutary lesson, how grave would have been the result had like importance been attached to other sciences in their earlier stages? Have they not had their working theories and made their mistakes ? A review of the course of any one of these shows that the difference between such a one and Economics is not in greater immunity from error, but in the degree of importance attaching to the error. This in its turn has its lesson, or rather its lessons. We in this generation have to pay for the wrong attitude assumed in previous times by those who confused working and tentative theories applicable to one time and one place with truths of universal application, proclaiming their belief with a trying absence of misgiving and hesita- tion. On the other hand, the immense importance of sound economic knowledge, the danger of that which is unsound, coupled with the fact that all legislation and every person must have and will proceed on some economic theory, emphasi&es the need of stimulating economic research and economic teaching. Other sciences are needed by those training for particular professions ; this is needed by all those who, either by action, word, or vote, have a part in the direction of the destinies of a country. It has been suggested with cheap cynicism that differences among economists disprove the utility and need of the study. What a pitiable con- fusion between the spheres of physical and social science. The majority of men are none the worse in their daily life for a general ignorance of chemistry or biology, but in the case of Economics matters are far otherwise. An average citizen can do and does without a knowledge of theories of chemistry ; but some economic theory he will have and some basis for economic action he has or assumes that he has. The only point at issue is whether he should form his opinions after study or in ignorance. Differ though they may on many points of detail and method, economists at any rate will agree in the belief that study is a better TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 11 preliminary for economic action than neglect. Knowledge must be sought by the study both of economic method and of economic facts. The particular question which has occupied our attention illustrates very vividly the great advance made in economic knowledge of recent years. Taken by itself as a type of the general progress which has taken place, a review of its course should serve to reassure those who are tempted in moments of depression to believe that the want of adequate recognition of the study is in some way or other a symptom of its backwardness or failing vitality. The reverse is true. It is the living character of Economics which leads to the demand that its importance should be duly recognised. The advance has been remarkable. The spirit which animates inquiry is as vigorous in the field of Economics as anywhere else. But this much must be remembered. In Economics, as elsewhere, the attainment to anything approaching a perfected theory is very far distant, for a complete theory implies not only full knowledge of facts, but their correct treatment. How distant such a goal is the hardest worker in the field knows best of all, for the circumstances of his inquiries teach him how slow progress is, and how great the continent into which his enthusiasm as a pioneer has enabled him to penetrate some little distance. A few generalisations which may endure; a somewhat mixed mass of material, a brief influence, constitute the work of the foremost. And yet in the history of any science there come times when things move more rapidly than is their wont, as when waters chafing in a narrow passage suddenly burst down all obstacles, and establish themselves once and for ever in a wider channel. It is possible, it seems even probable, that some such moment of advance is before Economics. Materials have been accumulated with singular diligence, critical sagacity has discriminated and classified, and some great constructive advance seems not far distant. The atmosphere of economic thought is instinct with expectation. With a new realisation of the economic elements and motives of society, in the light of some conception perhaps little taken into account as yet, we shall stand nearer to the problem one part of which we strive to unravel — the forces which govern action and constitute society. «38trtftslj Jlssociaftcm for tfye Jlftwutcemenf of Science. TORONTO, 1897 ADDEESS TO THE MECHANIC A L S 1 EN C E S E C T T N BY G. P. DEACON, M.Inst.C.E., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. In this ever-memorable year of the Victorian Age, it is not unnatural that anyone called to fill the chair I occupy to-clay should experience a sense of oppres- sion, when contemplating the fruits of mechanical science during the last sixty years, and the tremendous vista, fading in the distance to a dream, of the fruits it is destined to produce before such another period shall have passed away. There would be no possibility, in the time at my disposal, even if I were qualified to attempt it, of adequately reviewing the past ; and however fascinating the thought may be, it would ill become my office to venture far along the vista before us, lest a too airy imagination should break the bonds of that knowledge and that truth to which she must ever remain, in our rightful speculations, a helpful, if not always an obedient, handmaiden. In the year 1831, two places, the one ancient and memorable, the other young, but destined to become memorable, bore the name of York. At the first of these, amid relics of ancient Rome and lasting memorials of the better phases of Britain's mediaeval history, were met together in that year the earliest members of the British Association. And as the sun at noonday shone on that ancient York, it rose upon the other York —a little town, scarcely more than a village, of 1,700 people, fast springing from a plain on the shores of Ontario, where the wigwam of the Chippewa had lately been ; and between the two lay the Atlantic and a distance of 4,000 miles. Sixty-six years later, the British Association meets in that other York, dis- tinguished under the name of Toronto, and grown into a noble city. Painfully, in stage coaches, must many of the founders of this Association have travelled to that ancient York ; peacefully and amid all comfort and luxury have we from the mother country reached, at her invitation, this great city — chiefest, in its people, its commerce, and its University, of the cities of Western Canada. Neither at the meeting in York of 1831, nor elsewhere, until many years later, was there any expectation of the possibility of these things. Six years later, about the beginning of that glorious reign of which the sixty -first year is now passing — although two or three vessels had already crossed the Atlantic under steam, it was still seriously doubted whether, without the aid of a Government subsidy of considerable amount, a line of steamers, even for the New York service, could be permanently maintained. It was not, indeed, until 1838 that the Great Western inaugurated the attempt on a commercial basis, and she performed in fifteen days the voyage which is now regularly performed with complete com- mercial success in five, 2 REPORT — 1897. Would not the suggestion of such a change, of such a spanning of great dis- tances, of such a consequent growth of prosperity and of culture, within the reign of a princess then approaching womanhood, have been received as the wildest of forecasts by the British Association of 1831 ? Yet this is but one of a multitude of results, no less startling, which the same agencies have brought about. We are now holding the second meeting of the Association in Canada, and at the first such meeting, held thirteen years ago in Montreal, some hundreds of miles nearer home, Sir Frederick Bramwell told you from this chair, in his own inimitable way, the causes of so great a change, and he pointed out to you, as I venture to point out again, that the visible instruments of that change have been forged by the men who are, or were, or ought to be, the mem- bers of Section G. To such encouragement as Section G has given is largely due the progress and triumph of applied mechanics as the natural outcome of theoretical investigation and physical research. Finally, and with no reserve in the minds of reasonable men . the old fallacy of a discord between theory and practice has been swept away. For centuries that fallacy held apart, as it were, the oxygen and the nitrogen of that atmosphere in which alone the new life could exist. It limited the philosopher who examined the laws of nature almost entirely to the study of phenomena external to the earth on which he dwelt, and it stamped the practical man as a lower being, the possessor of certain necessary knowledge, having no relation to the studies of the schoolmen, and which it would be beneath their dignity to pursue. And notwithstanding the great names which have stood out in opposition to these views, the popular idea of discord between theory and practice took long to die, and only within the Victorian Age has the complete truth been generally recognised, that if one fails to account for the result of any physical combination, the cause is to be found not in any discord with theory, but in the fact that the observer has failed to discover the whole of the theory. We English-speaking people, alone, I believe, among civilised nations, use this word, theory, with unpardonable looseness—as almost synonymous in effect with hypothesis, and the result is fruitful of error. Until the truth of any hypothesis is placed beyond all manner of doubt it is not, and should never be called, the theory. Within these walls, the genius loci impels me to thoughts which have not often entered into discussions of Section G ; and, perhaps, if this address were to be discussed, I should choose subjects and premises, the proof of which, to the satisfaction of others than myself, it would probably be less difficult to maintain. In this University of Toronto under whose cegis all that was best in the older schools of thought is cultivated by the side of those practical applications of science which in bygone days were distinguished as the unworthy uses of philo- sophy, one's thoughts insensibly turn to the marvellous change in the opportunities afforded for acquiring a knowledge of applied science — for becoming, in short, an engineer. It is not proposed to discuss the progress and prosperity which mechanical science has brought about in the Victorian Era, much less that which the suc- ceeding years will yield ; but I venture to think that a proper subject for con- sideration from this chair, if not for discussion in this Section, is to be found in any unnecessary waste of energy which may occur in the process of mental development of the men who are to succeed us in the great work to which we devote our lives. Obviously it is to the interests of our calling, and conse- quently of the nation at large, that such waste should be reduced to a minimum, and therefore I make no apology for mentioning certain points in which its presence is particularly striking. There may be waste of potential, as well as of actual energy, and if we fail to expend energy on certain subjects because our time is occupied with others which are less useful, it is waste of energy only differ- ing in degree from its expenditure on useless subjects. There is assuredly no lack of potential energy in the coming race. In spite of any training, whether well or ill directed, a large proportion will become actual and useful energy; but guidance and direction being given, the mode of that guidance and direction should be the one best calculated to secure the highest possible proportion of useful effect. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 8 If we look back at the greatest names among the engineers and inventors of the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first half of this, we find that the majority were brought up in pursuits quite distinct from the work of their after lives, and by which they have become so familiar to us. There were scarcely any means whatever, beyond the original thought and dogged perseverance of the worker, by which those men could attain the knowledge they used with such effect. Men of no less exceptional parts are among us now, but the whole environ- ment of their early work has changed. We have given to the exceptional man a starting-point of knowledge which, wisely used, lifts him as high above our heads as of old, but we have given to the average man a comparatively easy means of attaining the same knowledge. We cannot ensure the wise use of that knowledge, but we can at least endeavour to impart it in such a manner that the sense of right proportion shall be acquired and maintained. We have made it more diilicult to distinguish between the exceptional and the commonplace — between the gold and the silver, if not between the silver and the brass ; let us be careful, so far as early guidance can control it, that the knowledge imparted to the average mind gives to that mind a fair start concerning the relations, undivided and indivisible, between true theory and sound practice. Having myself passed as an ordinary apprentice through workshops of mechanical engineering in the old days when working hours were longer than they now are — from six in the morning till six in the evening, and that, too, on the banks of the Clyde, where no special indulgence was given to what was sometimes called the ' gentleman apprentice,' and feeling convinced, as I still do, of the immense and permanent advantage derived from that experience, I shall not be judged to underrate its value in the case of others who have yet to choose the details of the career by which they expect to gain a place in the profession or business of an engineer. On the other hand, as a student thirty-four years ago under the late Professor Macquorn Rankine and the present Lord Kelvin, I shall not be prone to under- estimate the advantages of academical training in its proper application to the profession to which I am proud to belong. In the pursuit of that profession it has fallen to my lot to observe the training as engineers of many younger men — men of variously constituted minds, but one and all bent on learning some portion of ' the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man,' words wisely chosen, sixty- nine years ago, and set out as the object of the profession in the Royal Charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers. It is a noble object, this direction of the great forces of nature for the use and convenience of man ; it is an ambitious object, and one which I venture to think demands for its right performance the best energies of well-balanced minds working upon a store of knowledge which nothing but years of untiring study and observation can give. Yet there is no hesitation shown to enter the lists. The number of candidates is appalling. In the old country, at least, there certainly is not work for all, but when one points this out, anxious parents only reply that the difficulty is as s:reat in connection with any other profession. Whether this be so or not I cannot judge, but I am persuaded that of those who do enter the business or profession of the engineer, the enormous majority are not born engineers, and cannot, in the nature of things, hope for success unless they take advantage of the best facilities open to them — the best facilities', here is the difficulty : from the multitude of facilities how are we to choose ? Do not suppose that I think the training of the born engineer should not be controlled. He will stand head and shoulders above the rest of us whatever we may do with him ; but in order that his exceptional parts may not wreck him as an engineer, and in order that his energies may be rightly directed at the start, he, too, should have the advantages of that systematic training which to his less gifted brethren is becoming more and more absolutely essential to success. At the time I began practice the large majority of young engineers were left entirely to their own devices so far as the attainment of any scientific knowledge was concerned. As pupils or apprentices, articled or not, they entered an engineer's works or office j for a certain number of years they had the run of the place and 4 REPORT — 1897. some encouragement if they worked well, but it could not, in the nature of things, amount to much more. This was a very necessary, perhaps the most necessary, element of their training; but except to the few who were so constituted that with little or no guidance they could supplement their practical knowledge with the study of principles elsewhere, it was entirely ineffectual in the production of that well-balanced attitude of mind which any person who properly assumes the name of an engineer must hold towards every engineering problem, great or small, which he is called upon to solve. And so strongly have I felt this, that in the earlier days, when there were fewer schools of practical science, and when their utility was little understood, I required, wherever the matter was under my control, the insertion into the articles of apprenticeship of a clause by which, at some incon- venience to the office, the pupil was required to attend two sessions at the science classes of Glasgow University, or at some other approved school of practical science ; and without this condition I declined to take the responsibility attaching to the introduction into the profession of men who, in their earlier careers, from no fault of their own, had not even acquired a knowledge of what there was to learn, much less of how to learn it. More recently this course has generally become unnecessary ; for in West- minster, at least, the young engineer rarely enters an office until he has acquired some knowledge of what he has to learn. He enters, in short, at a much more, advanced age than formerly. When it is essential that he should be earning something soon after he comes of age. anything like a complete training is an impossibility ; his work ceases to be general, and his practice is more or less con- fined in a much narrower sphere than need be the case if the pursuit of further knowledge continues to be his chief duty. But whatever course his circumstances may permit him to adopt, the difficulty of gaining the required knowledge in the time available is a serious one. This is not the place to inquire whether public school education in the mother country is, or is not, the best for the general purposes of alter life, or to discuss what improvements may be made in it ; and of higher education in Canada I unfortu- nately know little or nothing. Personally I admit the possibility of improvement in the English system, and slowly but surely improvement is creeping in, as such changes rightly find their way into institutions which have done so much for Englishmen. In this particular I lean to the conservative side, and whatever our individual views may be concerning the time spent on the study of Latin and Greek, we should all probably agree that the school education of an engineer should be as thorough and liberal as for any other profession. But for the sake of a technical training to follow, this school education is often unduly curtailed, to the great after-grief, in very many cases, of the successful engineer, and not infrequently also of the less successful engineer who, in some phases of his pro- fessional career, has been only too keenly alive to the self-reproach and sense of inferiority which want of thoroughness or of time, or of both, at school has brought upon him. But at some time the boy must leave school. Let us hope that he does not aspire * to control the great forces of nature ' ; but if he does we must make the best we can of him. It is not desirable, at least so it appears to me, that even at this stage his training should be specialised in view of the particular branch of the profession or business he is likely to follow. The fundamental principles of any branch of mechanical engineering are broadly the fundamental principles of any branch of the profession. I hesitate to speak of civil engineering as if it were a separate branch, instead of being, as it really is, the generic name of the profession ; but the training demanded for the various branches of civil engineering in its narrower sense is precisely the same as that required in its earlier stages for mechanical engineering pure and simple. I shall make no attempt to review the large number of excellent courses which are now available for the teaching of applied science in relation to engineering. Experience of the results as judged by the students who have come directly under my notice, and examination of many calendars, has aroused various thoughts con- TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 5 ceruing them, and this thought is perhaps uppermost : are we not in some cases attempting at too early a stage the teaclmig of subjects instead of principles ? attempting at too early a stage the teaching of subjects instead of principles ? Complete subjects, I mean, including the practical working of details which will become the regular study of the student in the office or works of an engineer. It certainly seems to me to be so. I do not say that subject training of this kind at college may not be useful ; but we have to consider whether it does not, for the sake of some little anticipation of his office work, divert the attention of the student from the better mastery of those principles which it is so essential for him to grasp at the earliest possible time, and which do not limit his choice in the battle of life to any branch whatever of the profession or business of an engineer, but which, on the contrary, qualify him better to pursue with success whatever branches his inclination or his opportunities or his means may suggest. Not one in a hundred of us can hope to emulate the careers of exceptional men in our profession, but it is sometimes useful to observe those careers, and whenever we do so we find the very reverse of specialisation. The minds of such men are impregnated with the fundamental principles which we may call the common law of our art ; it has happened that their practice has been large in certain branches, and small or wanting in certain others ; but in any it would have been equally successful. Of no class of men can it be said with greater truth than of engineers that their standard should be sound knowledge of the principles of many things and of the practice of a few. There is some danger in the usual limitation of compulsory subjects in examina- tions for certificates and degrees. When an examination has to be passed subjects not made compulsory are too often entirely neglected, however important to the engineer they may be. A little learning is certainly not a dangerous thing if within its limits it is sound, and every engineer will in after life be grateful to those who in his student days insisted upon his acquiring some knowledge of the principles of such subjects as electricity and chemistry. At present it too often happens that, unless an engineering student is predestined to practise electrical work or some chemical industry, he begins life as an engineer with no know- ledge of the principles of either the one or the other, and chiefly as a result of their neglect for the sake of certain subjects made compulsory for the test he has had to pass, which subjects too occasionally include the highly specialised favourites of a particular professor or verge too completely on perfected details which, I venture to think, cannot be rightly mastered in schools. It is natural and right that each professor of a principal subject should seek to make the best, from his own particular standpoint, of every student who attends his lectures or his labora- tories ; and the professor of a compulsory subject cannot be expected to encourage the inclusion, in a course already overcrowded, of secondary or collateral subjects which are dealt with by other professors ; while, on the other hand, the pro- fessors of secondary subjects, such as electricity or chemistry, not unnaturally value chiefly the students who make those subjects their principal work. For these reasons it appears to me that a certain very moderate standard in all such subjects should be made compulsory if a certificate of proficiency, whether by degree or otherwise, is to be given in engineering or even in physical science. In the teaching of mathematics within the Victorian age a considerable change has taken place, and I plead for still a little more change in the same direction where the training of the engineer is concerned. Mathematics, as taught in our public schools — let us say for the Cambridge University Tripos — may be all that is claimed for it as a mode of mental culture ; but of kindred mental culture the engineer must necessarily have more than most men, and much might therefore be omitted which, to him at least, has only an abstract value, to the great advan- tage of his mastery over those branches which at once train his mind and give point and direct utility to his solutions. In America I understand that a college course of engineering generally includes workshop practice designed to supersede the old system of apprenticeship to a mechanical engineer. This fact and other important differences between the English and American practice have only lately come to my knowledge, and before 6 REPORT — 1897. they did so the substance of this address had been written. It might, in some particulars, require modification as applied to Canada, but it remains the result of my observations concerning the conditions of engineering education which obtain in the mother country. A few words now in relation to that physical and mental training gained laboriously, and somewhat wastefully as I think, at the joiner's bench, in the fitting and turning shops, the foundry and the forge, during the old course of mechanical engineering apprenticeship. I am convinced that the kind of knowledge which comes of thoughtful chipping and filing and turning and forging, though only applied to a few of the materials with which in after life the engineer has to deal, are quite as important as tables of density and strength to his future sense of lightness in constructive design. The use of such work is not merely to teach one the parts and combinations of any particular machine ; in a still higher degree it is the insensible mastery of a much more subtle knowledge or mental power, the application of the senses of sight and touch and force, it may be of other senses also, to the determination of the nature of things. (I am not going to apologise for referring to the sense of force. The vexed question of its separate existence appears to me to have been settled fourteen years ago by Lord Kelvin in his address at Birmingham on < the six gateways of knowledge,' and I may well leave it where he left it.) I should altogether fail to describe adequately what this mastery means. It appears to me to be inscrutable. The value and nature of the power can only be appreciated by those who have experienced it, and who have felt its defect in those of their assistants or in others who do not possess it. But the great workshop training has still further advantages. The apprentice is surrounded by skilled workers from whose example, if he is wise, he learns a great deal ; and apart from this it is no small profit to have rubbed against the British workman, to have discovered what manner of man he is, and to compre- hend how little the world knows of his best parts. The whole time spent in large engineering works cannot, however, be equally beneficial ; the apprentice must take the work as it comes ; the most interesting or instructive portions cannot be reserved for him, and he often feels that some of his time is being well-nigh wasted. A few years ago I should not have though it practicable usefully to substitute for such a course anything that could be undertaken in a student's workshop, how- ever organised ; but the impossibility, in many cases, of including such experience without neglecting something equally important has led me to view with satisfac- tion the introduction of workshop training into certain schools of applied science in England. Such a change cannot of course carry with it all the advantages of experience in the great workshop and of contact with its workers, but those advantages which it does retain may be secured in a shorter time where there is no commercial interest to be served. In Canada and the United States, as I have already said, the principle of the student's workshop has been carried considerably further. Compared with the old country, I believe the number of young assistant engineers who in proportion to the number of their chiefs can find employment in America is much greater, and that it would be practically impossible for the British system of pupilage to be generally employed. Here, therefore, the whole college training of an engineer is designed to fit him for immediate employment in some specific branch of the profession, and up to this point his training is, necessarily no doubt, more academic than in England, where the application of the principles he has acquired at college is still generally left for the office or works of the engineer. With this difference I am not at present concerned, but I desire to reiterate what I have already said to the effect that where, as in England, the student of engineering has the opportunity of continuing his training in the office or works, it is better that his limited college course should cover all that is possible of the principles of those sciences which may prove useful or necessary to him in after life, rather than that any of them should be omitted for the sake of anticipating the practical application of certain others. The compulsory inclusion of the principles of all such subjects as chemistry, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 7 electricity, geology, and many others, in science courses intended for a future engineer is desirable not only because a fundamental knowledge of them leaves open a very much wider field from which the engineer may, as opportunity offers, increase his knowledge and practice in the future, but because many of such sub- jects are inseparable from an intelligent understanding of almost any great engineering work. ' Nothing so difficult as a beginning ' may be a proverb of rather too far-reaching a nature, but it contains the suggestion of a great truth, increasing in weight as we grow older, and the beginnings of such collateral sciences should therefore find a place in every engineering student's store of early knowledge. But after all, when these things have been done in the best manner — when the scientific and practical training of the engineering student has been all that can be desired, it is a matter of general experience among engineers who have closely watched the rising generation that the most successful men in after life are not produced exclusively from the ranks of those whose college course has been most successful. No doubt such men have on the average been nearer the top than the bottom, but it is an undoubted fact that when we class them according to their earlier successes or failures we find the most remarkable disparities. We find many who in academic days gave but little promise, and we miss large numbers who promised great things. These facts are not confined to the profession of the engineer, but they seem to me to be accentuated in that profession. We shall no doubt be right in attributing the disparity to differences of mental temperament and of opportunity ; but does it follow that there are no faculties which may be cultivated to reduce the effect of such differences ? I venture to think there are. I will instance only one, but perhaps the most important of such faculties, and which in my experience among young engineers is exceptionally rare. I refer to the power of marshalling facts, and so thinking, or speaking, or writing of them that each maintains its due significance and value. In the minds of many young engineers a mathematical training undoubtedly has the effect of making it extremely difficult to avoid spending an amount of time upon some issues out of all proportion to their importance ; while other issues which do not readily lend themselves to mathematical treatment, but which are many times more important, are taken for granted upon utterly insufficient data, and chiefly because they cannot be treated by any process of calculation. I believe that nothing but well-directed observation and long experience can enable one to assign to each part of a large engineering problem its due importance ; but much may be done in early training also, and I think ought to be done, to lead the mind in broader lines, to accustom it to look all round the problem, and to control the imagination or the natural predilection for one phase from disguising the real importance of others. In the practical design and execution of important works the man will sooner or later be recognised who has the power so to formulate his knowledge, and on the same principles has succeeded in so marshalling and expressing his thoughts, as to convey to those by whom he is employed just so much as may be necessary and proper for their use. Such considerations are not, it is true, a branch of mechanical science, but being essentially important to the attainment of maximum usefulness in the application of any science to the various branches of engineering which are the chief ends and aims of mechanical science, they are, I think, worthy of mention from this chair. In proportion as the engineer possesses and exercises such powers he will avoid those innumerable pitfalls to which imperfectly instructed ingenuity is so particu- larly liable, and to which the Patent Office is so sad a witness ; and in the same proportion must always be the useful outcome of the great schools of science which have become so striking a feature of the later Victorian age. In relation to the results of applied science, I have spoken only of the steam- ship ; add the telegraph, and I think we have the most important tools by which the present conditions of modern civilisation have been rendered possible. And more than this, I think we have, in the lessening of space,- and the facility for 8 REPORT — 1897. intercourse they give, the chief secret of that marvellous development of the empire which this year has so pleasantly and so memorably signalised. Is i Our Lady of the Sunshine and ' the Snows/ no nearer to the mother land than sixty years ago ? Are the Australias — New Zealand — no nearer to both ? Assuredly they are. Would British Africa, would the Indian Empire have been possible to Britain on the principles and the methods of Imperial Rome ? Un- questionably not. Then let me say again that I claim for the objects and the work of Section G a magnificent record, an abiding power for the peace of the world, and for the unity and prosperity of the great empire to which we belong. ^Shifts!) Jlssoctctiion for ff)e Jlopcutcemenf of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDEESS TO THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SECTION. BY Professor Sir WILLIAM TURNER, M.B., LL.D., D.C.L., D.So., F.R.SS. L. and E., PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. Some Distinctive Characters of Human Structure. When the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its first Canadian meeting at Montreal in 1884, the subject of Anthropology, or the Science of Man, attained on that occasion for the first time the rank of an independent Section. It was presided over by the accomplished writer and learned anthropologist Dr. E. B. Tylor, who selected as the subject-matter of his opening address several prominent questions in Anthropology, with special reference to their American aspects. For example, the question of the presence of a stone age in America ; whether the aborigines are the descendants and representatives of man of the post- glacial period ; the question of the Asiatic origin of the American Indians, and the arguments derived from anatomical structure, language, and social framework, bearing upon tbis theory. The traces of Asiatic influence in the picture writings of the Aztecs, correspondences in the calendar cycles of Mexico and Central America with those of Eastern Asia, and the common use of certain games of chance were also referred to. It is not my intention, even had I possessed the requisite knowledge, to enlarge on the topics so ably discussed by my eminent predecessor. As my own studies have been more especially directed to the physical side of Anthropology, rather than to its archaeological, historical, philological, moral and social departments, I naturally prefer to call your attention to those aspects of the subject which have from time to time come within the range of my personal cognizance. I have selected as the subject of my address ' Some Distinctive Characters of Human Structure/ When we look at man and contrast his form and appearance with other vertebrate creatures, the first thing probably to strike us is his capability of assuming an attitude, which we distinguish by the distinctive term, the e^ect attitude. In this position the head is balanced on the summit of the spine, the lower limbs are elongated into two columns of support for standing on two feet, or for walking, so that man's body is perpendicular to the surface on which he stands or moves, and his mode of progression is bipedal. As a consequence of this, two of his limbs, the arms, are liberated from locomotor functions ; they acquire great freedom and range of movement at the shoulder-joint, as well as considerable move- ment at the elbow and between the two bones of the forearm ; the hands also are modified to serve as organs of prehension, which minister to the purposes of his higher intelligence. The erect position constitutes a striking contrast to the attitude H 2 REPORT — 1897. assumed by fish, amphibia, and reptiles when at rest or moving, in which verte- brates the body is horizontal and more or less parallel to the surface on which they move. Birds, although far removed from the erect attitude, yet show a closer approximation to it than the lower vertebrates or even the quadrupedal mammals. But of all vertebrates, those which most nearly approximate to man in the position assumed by the body when standing and walking are the higher apes. The various adaptations of structure in the trunk, limbs, head, and brain which conduce to give man this characteristic attitude are essential parts of his bodily organisation, and constitute the structural test which one employs in answering the question whether a particular organism is or is not human. These adaptations of parts are not mere random arrangements, made at hap- hazard and without a common purpose ; but are correlated and harmonised so as to produce a being capable of taking a distinctive position in the universe, superior to that which any other organism can possibly assume. If we could imagine a fish, a reptile, or a quadruped to be provided with as highly developed a brain as man possesses, the horizontal attitude of these animals would effectually impede its full and proper use, so that it would be of but little advantage to them. It is essential, therefore, for the discharge of the higher faculties of man, that the human brain should be conjoined with the erect attitude of the body. The passage of a verte- brate organism from the horizontal position, say of a fish, in which the back, with its contained spinal column, is uppermost, and the head is in front, to the vertical or erect position of a man, in which the back, with its contained spinal column, is behind, and the head is uppermost, may be taken as expressing the full range and limit of evolution, so far as the attitude is concerned, of which such an organism is capable. Any further revolution of the body, as in the backward direction, would throw the back downwards, the head backwards, and would constitute a degrada- tion. It would not be an advance in the adaptation of structure to the duties to be discharged, but rather an approach to the relation of parts existing so generally in invertebrate organisms. At an early period in the evolution of the human mind and intelligence an anthropomorphic conception of the Deity arose, to whom were ascribed the posses- sion of the bodily form and attitude of man, and even human affections and passions. This idea took so firm possession of the imagination that, in the course of time, it obtained objective expression in the statues of ancient Greece and Rome and in the masterpieces of Christian art. In one of the most ancient of all books, in which is embodied the conception entertained by the Jewish writers of the Genesis of the world, and of all creatures that have life, we read that ' God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.' By the association, therefore, of the human form with the idea of Deity, there was naturally present in the minds of these writers, although not expressed in precise anatomical language, a full recognition of the dignity of the human body, of its superiority to that of all other creatures, and that the human form was the crown and glory of all organic nature. This conception of the dignity of man in nature is not confined to those writings which we are accustomed to call sacred. The immortal Greek philosopher and naturalist, Aristotle, in his treatise t On the Parts of Animals/ composed at least three hundred years B.C., refers more than once to the erect attitude of man, and associates it with his i God-like nature and God-like essence.' In the second century of our present era lived another Greek author, Claudius Galen, whose writings exercised for many centuries a dominating influence in medicine and anatomy, comparable to that wielded by Aristotle in philosophy. Although Galen, as has been shown by Vesalius and other subsequent anatomists, was often incorrect in his descriptions of the internal parts of the human body, doubtless because his opportunities of dissection were so scanty, he had attained a correct conception of the perfection of its external form, and he thoroughly understood that in its con- struction it was admirably fitted for the sentient and intelligent principle which animated it, and of which it was merely the organ. In his treatise on the use of the various parts of the body he associates the hand with the exercise of the gift TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 3 of reason in man, and he speaks of it as an instrument applicable to every art and occasion, as well of peace as of war. It is, he says, the best constructed of all prehensile organs, and he gives a careful description of how both the hand as a whole and the individual digits, more especially the thumb, are brought into use in the act of grasping. 1 Galen does not indeed enter into the minute anatomical details which have been emphasised by more recent writers on the subject, but by none of these has the use of the hand and its association with man's higher intelligence been more clearly and more eloquently expressed than by the Greek physician and philosopher seventeen centuries ago. By the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin's ever-memorable treatise ( On the Origin of Species,' an enormous impulse was given to the study of the anatomy of man in comparison with the lower animals, more especially with the apes. By many anatomists the study was pursued with the view of pointing out the resemblances in structure between men and apes ; by a more limited number to show wherein they did not correspond. I well remember a course of lectures on the comparative characters of man delivered thirty-five years ago by my old master, Professor John Goodsir, in which, when speaking of the hand of man and apes, he dwelt upon sundry features of difference between them. 2 The human hand, he said, is the only one which possesses a thumb capable of a free and complete movement of opposition. It may be hollowed into a cup and it can grasp a sphere. It is an instrument of manipulation co-extensive with human activity. The ape's hand again is an imperfect hand, with a short and feeble thumb, and with other clearly defined points of difference and inferiority to that of man. It can embrace a cylinder, as the branch of a tree, and is principally subservient to the arboreal habits of the animal. Its fingers grasp the cylinder in a series of spirals. Here then is an important difference in the manipulative arrangements of the two hands, the advantage being with the hand of man, in regard to the greater variety of movement and adaptability, to co-ordinate it with his reasoning faculties. As showing the acuteness of perception of Galen and his complete recognition of a fundamental feature of the human hand, he also dwells on the hand being able to form a circle around a sphere, so as to grasp it on every side, and to touch it with every part of itself, whilst it can also securely hold objects that possess plane or concave surfaces. So impressed was the old Greek writer with the fitness of the hand to discharge the duties imposed on it by the higher intelli- gence of man that, pagan though he was, he regarded its construction as evidence of design in nature, and as a sincere hymn to the praise and honour of the Deity. It is not my intention to dwell upon the multitudinous details of those features of structure which distinguish man from other vertebrates, for these have been considered and described by numerous writers. The leading structural differentiae constitute the merest commonplaces of the human anatomist, and are already sufficiently imprinted on the popular mind. But it may not be out of place to refer to certain aspects of the subject which are not so generally known, and the significance of which has been brought into greater prominence by recent researches. If we compare the new-born infant with the young of vertebrates generally, we find a striking difference in its capability of immediately assuming the characteristic attitude of the species. A fish takes its natural posture and moves freely in its element as soon as it is hatched. A chicken can stand and walk when it is liberated from the egg, though, from its wings not being developed, it is not at once able to fly. A lamb or calf can assume the quadrupedal position a few minutes after its birth. But, as we all know, the infant is the most helpless of all young vertebrates, and is months before it can stand on two feet and move freely on them. During the period of transition, 1 See passages translated in Dr. Kidd's Bridgewater Treatise, 1833, and Dr. J. Finlayson's Essay on Galen, Glasgow, 1895. 2 * On the Dignity of 4 the Human Body,' in Anatomical Memoirs^ by John Goodsir, vol. i. p. 238, Edinburgh, 1868, H 2 4 REPORT — 1897. from the stage of absolute dependence on others to the acquisition of the power of bipedal progression, important modifications in the structural arrangements both of the spine and lower limbs have to take place. At the time of birth the infant's spinal column exhibits only two curves ; one, corresponding to the true vertebrae, extends from the upper end of the neck to the lowest lumbar vertebra, and the concavity of its curve is directed forwards ; the other and shorter corresponds to the sacro-coccygeal region and also has its concavity directed forwards. In the number and character of the curves, the new-born infant differs materially from the adult man, in whose spine, instead of one continuous curve from the neck to the sacrum, there are alternating curves, one convex forwards in the region of the neck, succeeded by one concave forwards in the region of the chest vertebrae, which again is succeeded by a marked convexity forwards in the vertebrae of the loins. The sacro-coccygeal region continues to retain the forward concavity of the new-born child. The formation and preservation of this alternating series of curves is associated with the assumption of the erect attitude, and the development of the lumbar convexity is correlated with the straightening of the lower limbs when the child begins to walk. 1 When the child is born, the curvature of its spine in the dorso-lumbar region approximates to that of an ordinary quadruped in which there is no lumbar con- vexity, so that the spine in that region presents one continuous curve concave forwards. For some time after its birth the infant retains the quadrupedal character of the spinal curve in the dorso-lumbar region, and, as it acquires nervous and muscular power and capability of independent movement, its mode of pro- gression in the early months by creeping on hands and knees approximates to that of the quadruped. It is only after it has attained the age of from a year to sixteen months that it can erect its trunk, completely extend the hip and knee joints, and draw the leg into line with the thigh, so as to form a column of support, which enables it to stand or move about on two feet. Hence there is this great difference between the young of a quadruped and that of a man, that whilst the former is born with the dorso-lumbar curve proper to its attitude, and which it retains throughout life, the child does not possess, either when born, or for some months after its birth, the characteristic spinal curves of the man. These curves are there- fore secondary in their production ; they are acquired after birth, and are not imprinted on the human spine from the beginning, though the capability of acquiring them at the proper time is a fundamental attribute of the human organism. 2 It has sometimes been assumed that the acquisition of the erect attitude by the young child is due to the fostering care of the mother or nurse ; that it is a matter of training, encouragement and education, without which the child would not raise itself upon its feet. I cannot, however, agree with this opinion. If one could conceive an infant so circumstanced that, though duly provided with food fitted for its nutrition and growth, it should never receive any aid or instruction in its mode of progression, there can, I think, be little doubt that when it had gained sufficient strength it would of itself acquire the erect attitude. The greater growth in length of the lower limbs, as compared with the upper, would render it incon- venient to retain the creeping or the quadrupedal position. We cannot lose sight of the important influence which, altogether independent of education, is exercised by parents on their offspring. The transmission of hereditary qualities, through the germ from which each individual organism is derived, is one of the fundamental and most striking properties of the germ plasm. Characters and peculiarities which appertain not only to the family of which the individual is a member, but also to the species to which he belongs, are conveyed through it from one generation to another. Hence, as the capability of assuming the erect attitude and of thus standing and moving on two feet have been attri- 1 Professor Cleland, in Reports of British Association^ 1863, p. 112. ' 2 In his work on the Origin and Progress of Language (vol. i. p. 173, Edinburgh, 1773), Lord Monboddo held that the erect position in man is an acquired habit, and, like speech, is acquired with difficulty and as the result of training, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. butes of the human form from its beginning, there can be little doubt that this power is potential in the human organism at the time of birth, and only requires a further development of the nervous and muscular systems to become a reality, without the aid of any special training. The spinal column in the region of the true vertebrae consists of numerous bones jointed together, and with discs of soft fibro-cartilage interposed between and connecting the bodies of adjoining vertebrae with each other. It is to their presence that the spinal column owes its flexibility and elasticity. These discs are larger and thicker in the region of the loins, where the lumbar convexity is situated, than in other parts of the column, and there can be no doubt that the acquisition of this convexity is intimately associated with the presence of these discs. It is a matter for observation and consideration to what extent the bodies of the vertebrae contribute to the production of this curve. A few years ago Professor Cunningham, of Dublin, 1 and I 2 undertook much about the same time researches into the form and dimensions of the bodies of these bones. Our observations were made independently of each other and on two different series of skeletons, and as we arrived at practically the same conclusions, we may, I think, infer that, in their main features at least, these conclusions are correct. The method followed in the investigation was to measure the diameter from above downwards of the body of each of the five lumbar vertebrae, both in front and behind. If the upper and lower surfaces of the bodies of the vertebrae were parallel to each other, it is obvious that, so far as they are concerned, the column formed by them would be straight, as is the case in a column built of hewn stones possessing similar parallel surfaces. But if the surfaces are not parallel the body of the vertebra is wedge-shaped ; should the front of the collective series of bones have a greater vertical diameter than the back, it is equally obvious that the column would not be straight, but curved, and with the convexity forwards. From the examination of a considerable number of spinal columns of Europeans, we found that, although the vertical diameter of the bodies of the two highest vertebrae was greater behind than in front, in the two lowest the anterior vertical diameter so greatly preponderated over the posterior that the anterior vertical diameter of the bodies of the entire series of lumbar vertebrae in each spine was collectively greater than the corresponding diameter of the posterior surface. In twelve European skeletons I observed that the mean difference was between 5 and 6 mm. in favour of the anterior surface. If we are to regard the collective vertical diameter anteriorly of the five bones as equal to 100, the same diameter posteriorly is only equal to 96, which may be regarded as the lumbar index in Europeans. Dr. Cunningham obtained a similar index from the examination of a much larger number of European skeletons, and he further showed that in women the lumbar convexity forwards is more pronounced than in men. It follows therefore, from these observations, that when the broad end of the wedge-shaped bodies is in front the bones themselves would by their form give a forward convexity to the spine in the lumbar region. But a similar wedge-shaped form is also possessed by the lower intervertebral discs in this region, and especially by that interposed between the last lumbar vertebra and the sacrum. Hence it follows that both vertebral bodies and intervertebral discs contribute in the white races to the production of the lumbar convexity. When we pass to the examination of the corresponding region in the spines of those races of men that we are accustomed to call lower races, we find a remarkable and important difference. Let us take as a characteristic example of a lower race the aborigines of Australia. In their skeletons our observations have proved, that the vertical diameter of the bodies of the five lumbar vertebrae was collectively deeper behind than in front. In my series of skeletons the mean difference was between 6 and 7 mm. in favour of the posterior surface, so that they possessed the opposite condition to that which prevails in Europeans. Hence if the spine had 1 ' The Lumbar Curve in Man and the Apes,' Cunningham, Memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 1886. 2 'Report on Human Skeletons,' Challenger Reports, Part XLVIL, 1886. 6 RETORT— 1897. been constructed of vertebrae only, instead of a lumbar convexity, the column would have possessed a forward concavity in that region. For this character, as shown in the skeleton only, I have suggested the descriptive term ' Koilorachic.' We know, however, that elastic discs are intercalated between the bodies of the osseous vertebrae in the black races as well as in Europeans. It is necessary, therefore, to examine their spinal columns, when the intervertebral discs are in position, in order to obtain a proper conception of the character of the curve in the living man. A few years ago Professor Cunningham had the opportunity of studying the spinal column of an aboriginal Australian, 1 in which the intervertebral discs had been preserved in their proper position, in relation to the bones, without losing their flexibility, or their natural shape and thickness. He found that, whilst the bodies of the lumbar vertebrae were longer than in Europeans, the proportion of inter- vertebral disc to vertebral body was distinctly less, so that the disc appeared to be reduced in depth, in relation to the greater vertical diameter of the vertebral body. Notwithstanding this difference, as compared with the white man, the Australian spine had a marked lumbar convexity which showed no material difference from that seen in Europeans. As the lumbar curve was not due to the wedge-shaped form of the bodies of the vertebrae, it was therefore produced solely by the strong wedge-shape of the intervertebral discs, and was not, as in Europeans, a product of a combination of both these factors. The spinal column, when complete, is not therefore koilorachic in the lumbar region. The greater vertical diameter of the bodies of the lumbar vertebrae behind than in front, as compared with Europeans, is not limited to the Australians, but is participated in by other black races, as the now extinct Tasmanians, the Bushmen, Andaman Islanders, and Negroes, which, if tested solely by the measurements of the skeleton, would also be koilorachic. But in these races intervertebral discs are also present, and there can be no doubt that through the compensating influence of the wedge-shaped discs, with their deeper ends in front, the lumbar curve is in them also convex forwards. It is clear, therefore, that in the black races the intervertebral discs play relatively a more important part in the produc- tion of the lumbar curve than in Europeans. One of the requirements of civilisation is the wearing of clothes, and fashion frequently prescribes that they should be tight-fitting and calculated to restrict motion in and about the spinal column. In savage races, on the other hand, clothing is often reduced to a minimum, and when worn is so loose and easy as in no way to hamper the movements of the body. The spinal column retains there- fore in them much more flexibility, and permits the greater measure of freedom in the movements of the trunk, which is found in savage man, and has often been referred to by travellers. It used to be considered that the possession of a lumbar convexity in the spinal column was the exclusive privilege of man, and was shared in by no other verte- brate. There can be no doubt that it attains a marked development in the human spine, and as such is associated with the erect posture. But the observations of Cunningham on the spinal column of apes, more especially the anthropoid group, made in fresh specimens, in which the intervertebral disc^ were in place, have proved that in the Chimpanzee the lumbar convexity is probably as strongly pro- nounced as in the adult man. In a Chimpanzee, two years old, the development is more advanced that in a child of the same age. The lumbar convexity is established at an earlier age than in the child, for it would seem as if the Chim- panzee attained its maturity at a younger period of life than the human being. In the Orang the lumbar curve is more feeble than in Man and the Chimpanzee, and in the specimen described by Cunningham resembled that of a boy six years old. In a fresh specimen of the Gibbon, examined by the same anatomist, the lumbar curve was intermediate between the Chimpanzee and the Orang. In 1888, 1 purchased the bones of an adult male Gorilla, in which the vertebrae 1 Proc. Roy. Soc. London, January 24, 1889, vol. xlv. ; also see Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. xxiv. 1890. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. were in position and connected together b} r the dried intervertebral di^cs. This condition is of course not so satisfactory, for the study of the spinal curves, as if the specimen had been fresh, and with the discs retaining their natural flexibility and elasticity. But it was quite obvious that the spine possessed an alternating series of convex-concave curves from above downwards. The cervical and lumbar convexities, more especially the latter, did not project so far forwards as in man, and the dorsal concavity was not so deep. The most projecting part of the lumbar convexity was at the junction of the bodies of the third and fourth lumbar verte- bras and their intermediate disc. A vertical line drawn downwards from the most prominent part of this convexity fell in front of the coccyx. When prolonged upwards it passed in front of the bodies of the dorsal vertebrae, and intersected the body of the sixth cervical vertebra, so that the bodies of the vertebras, higher than the sixth, were directed obliquely from below upwards and forwards in front of the vertical line. The dried state of the discs did not enable one to determine precisely the proportion in which they entered into the formation of the length of the column, but the vertical diameter of the interlumbar and lumbo-sacral discs was obviously not as great as in the human spine. On the other hand, the vertical diameter of the bodies of the lumbar vertebras was greater than in man, so that the length of the lumbar spine, and possibly its degree of convexity, were due more to the bodies of the vertebras than to the elastic discs interposed between them. The Gorilla corresponds with the Chimpanzee in having longer vertebral bodies and shorter intervertebral discs than in man. Without going into the question whether a lumbar convexity exists in the tailed monkeys, the determination of which with precision is a matter of some difficulty, it must be obvious that the presence of this convexity can no longer be regarded as the exclusive prerogative of man. It undoubtedly forms an important factor in the study of the erect attitude; but in order that man should acquire and be able to retain his distinctive posture, something more is necessary than the possession of a spinal column with a curve in the lumbar region convex forwards. Our attention should now be directed to the lower limbs, more especially to the two segments of the shaft, which we call thigh and leg. If we look at a quadruped we see that the thigh is bent on the trunk at the hip joint, and that the leg is bent on the thigh at the knee joint ; whilst the foot forms more or less of an angle with the leg, and the animal walks either on the soles of its feet or on its toes. In the Anthropoid apes there is also distinct flexure both of the hip and knee joints, so that the leg and thigh are set at an angle to each other, and the foot is modified, through a special development of the great toe, into an organ of prehension as well as of support. When we turn to the human body we find that in standing erect the leg and thigh are not set at an angle to each other, but that the leg is in line with and immediately below the thigh, that both hip and knee joints are fully extended, so that the axis of the shaft of the lower limb is practically continuous with the axis of the spine. The foot is set at right angles to the leg, and the sole is in relation to the ground. The vertical axis of the shaft of the lower limb, the extended condition of the hip and knee joints, and the rectangular position of the foot to the leg are therefore fundamental to the attainment of the erect attitude of man. In narratives of travel by those who have studied the Penguins in their native habitats, you may read that these birds may be seen standing on the rocks on the coasts which they frequent, in rows, like regiments of soldiers, and the idea has become implanted in the minds of many that they can stand erect. Even so accomplished a writer and acute a critic as the late Mr. G. H. Lewes thought that the Penguins had the vertical attitude when standing, and that some mammals, as the Jerboa and Kangaroo, very closely approached to it. The attitude of man was, he con- sidered, merely a question of degree, and did not express a cardinal distinction. 1 In arriving at this conclusion, however, only the external appearance of the birds and mammals referred to by him can have been looked at. If the skin and 1 Aristotle, A Chapter from the History of Science, p. 309, London, 1864. 8 REPORT — 1897. flesh be removed, and the arrangement of the constituent parts of the skeleton be studied, it will be seen that the axis of the spine in them, instead of being vertical, is oblique, and that there is no proper lumbar convexity ; that the hip and knee joints, so far from being extended, are bent ; that the thigh is not in the axis of the spine, and that the leg, instead of being in a vertical line with the thigh, is set at an acute angle to it. The so-called vertical attitude therefore in these animals is altogether deceptive. It does not approximate to, and can in no sense be looked upon as equivalent to, the erect attitude in man. We may now consider what agents come into operation in changing the curve of the spine from the concavity forwards, found in the new-born infant, to the alternating series of curves so characteristic of the adult. The production of the lumbar convexity is, without doubt, due to structures associated with the spine, the pelvis and the lower limbs, whilst the cervical convexity is due to structures acting on the spine and the head. There can, I think, be little doubt that muscular action plays a large part in the production of the cervical and lumbar convexities. The study of the muscles, associated with and connected to the spinal column, shows that large symmetrically arranged muscles, many of which are attached to the neural arches and transverse processes of the vertebrae, extend longitudinally along the back of the spine, and some of them reach the head. On the other hand, those muscles which lie in front of the spine, and are attached to the vertebrae, are few in number, and are practically limited to the cervical and lumbar regions, in which the spine acquires a convexity forwards. It has already been pointed out that the formation of the lumbar convexity is correlated with the power of extending the hip joints and straightening the lower limbs. When these joints are in the position of extension, an important pair of muscles called the 'psoae,' which reach from the small trochanter of the femur to the bodies and transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae, are in a state of tension. In the act of extending the hip joints so as to raise the body to the erect position, the opposite ends of these muscles are drawn asunder, and the muscles are stretched and elongated, so that they necessarily exercise traction upon the lumbar spine. Owing to its flexibility and elasticity, a forward convexity is in course of time produced in it in this region. By repeated efforts the convexity becomes fixed and assumes its specific character. Along with the changes in the spinal column, a modification also takes place in the inclination of the pelvis during the extension of the hip joints and the straightening of the lower limbs. The muscle called 1 iliacus ' is conjoined with the psoas at its attachment to the small trochanter, but instead of being connected to the spinal column by its upper end, it is attached to the anterior surface of the ilium. It exercises traction therefore on that bone, draws it forwards and increases the obliquity of the pelvic brim. This in its turn will react on the lumbar spine and assist in fixing its convexity. By some anatomists great importance has been given to the ' ilio-femoral band,' situated in the anterior part of the capsular ligament of the hip joint, as causing the inclination of the pelvis, and in promoting the lumbar curve. This band is attached by its opposite ends to the femur and the ilium. As the hip joint is being extended, the ends are drawn further apart, the band is made tense, and the ilium might in consequence be drawn upon, so as to affect the inclination of the pelvis. As the ligament has no attachment to the spinal column, it cannot draw directly on it, but could only affect it indirectly through its iliac connections. It can therefore, I think, play only a subordinate part in the production of the lumbar curve. Contemporaneous with the straightening of the lower limbs and the extension of the hip joints, the spinal column itself is elevated by muscles of the back, named ' erectores spinae,' which, taking their fixed points below, draw upon the vertebra} and ribs and erect the spine The lumbar convexity is the form of stable equilibrium which the flexible spinal column tends to take under the action of the muscular forces which pull upon it in front and behind. It is probably due to the fact that the average pull, per unit of length, of the psoae muscles attached in TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 9 front is greater than the average pull, per unit of length, of the muscles attached behind in the same region. The muscles which lie on the back of the neck and which are attached to the occipital part of the skull, when brought into action, will necessarily affect the position of the head. The new-born infant has no power to raise the head, which is bent forward, so that the chin is approximated to the chest. As it acquires strength the head becomes raised by the muscles of the back of the neck, and the flexible spine in the cervical region loses its primary curve, concave forwards, and gradually assumes the cervical convexity. The formation of this curve is, I believe, assisted by the anterior recti muscles, the lower ends of which are attached to the front of the vertebrae, whilst their upper ends are connected to the basi-occipital. In the elevation of the head the opposite ends of the muscles are drawn apart, which would exercise a forward traction upon the cervical vertebrae. The production of the cervical convexity precedes the formation of the lumbar curve, for an infant can raise its head, and take notice of surrounding objects, months before it can stand upon its feet. We shall now look at the bones in the thigh and leg, which possess characters that are distinctively human, and which are associated with the erect posture. These characters can be more clearly recognised when the bones are contrasted with the corresponding bones of the large Anthropoid apes. As compared with the ape, the shaft of the human thigh bone is not so broad in relation to its length ; when standing erect the shaft is somewhat more oblique, it is more convex forwards and generally more finely modelled, and it has three almost equal surfaces, the anterior of which is convex. But, further, a strong ridge (linea aspera) extends vertically down its posterior surface ; so that a section through the shaft is triangular, with the two anterior angles rounded and the posterior prominent. In the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and Orang, the shaft is flattened from before backwards, and the linea aspera is represented by two faint lines, separated from each other by an intermediate narrow area. A section through the shaft approximates to an ellipse. In the Gibbon the femur is greatly elongated, and the shaft is smooth and cylindriform. The linea aspera is for the attachment of powerful muscles, which are more closely aggregated in man than in apes, so that the human thigh possesses more graceful contours. In the human femur the shaft is separated from the neck by a strong anterior intertrochanteric ridge, to which is attached the ilio- femoral ligament of the hip joint, which, by its strength and tension, plays so important a part in keeping the joint extended when the body is erect. In the Anthropoid apes this ridge is faint in the Gorilla, and scarcely recognisable in the Orang, Gibbon, and Chimpanzee, and the ilio-femoral ligament in them is comparatively feeble. It may safely therefore be inferred that in apes, with their semi-erect, crouching attitude, the ilio-femoral band is not subjected to, or capable of sustaining, the same strain as in man. The head of the thigh bone is also distinctive. In the apes the surface covered by cartilage is approximately a sphere, and is considerably more than a hemi- sphere. It is sharply differentiated from the neck by a definite boundary, and it has a mushroom-like shape. In man the major part of the head is also approxi- mately a sphere ; but, in addition, there is an extension outwards of the articular area on the anterior surface and upper border of the neck of the bone. The form of this extended area differs from the spherical shape cf the head in general. The curvature of a normal section of its surface has a much larger radius than the curvature of a normal section of the head, near the attachment of the ligamentum teres. The amount of this extended area varies in different femora, but as a rule it is larger and more strongly marked in Europeans than in the femora of some savages which I have examined. When the joint is in the erect attitude, the area is in contact with the back of the iliac part of the ilio-femoral ligament. It provides a cartilaginous surface which, during extension of the joint, is not situated in the acetabulum, but, owing to the centre of gravity falling behind the axis of movement, is pressed against that ligament, and contributes materially to its tension. It is associated with the characteristic position of the human hip joint in ii 3 10 REPORT — 1897. standing, and may be called appropriately the extensor area. When the femur is abducted it passes within the acetabulum. The head of the femur in man is not so sharply differentiated from the neck as in the Anthropoid apes, especially in the region of the extensor articular area. Both man and apes possess at the lower end of the femur a trochlear or pulley- like surface in front for the patella, and two condyles for the tibia. In the apes the trochlea is shallow, and the concave curve from side to side is a segment of an approximate circle, with a large radius. In man the trochlea is much deeper, and the inner and outer parts of the curve deviate considerably from a circle, and are not symmetrical ; the outer part is wider and extends higher on the front of the bone than the inner part, whilst the direction of the curve changes towards the edges of the trochlea. In the apes the articular surface of the inner condyle is very markedly larger than that of the outer condyle, both in breadth and in the extent of its backward curve, which winds upwards on the posterior part of the condyle, so that the articular surface is continued on to its upper aspect. The curve of the outer condyle is much sharper, and the condyle does not project so far backwards ; its articular surface is not prolonged so high on the back of the bone. In the apes, therefore, the inner is the more important condyle in the construction of the knee joint, and the marked extension of its articular area backwards and upwards is associated with the position and movements of the knee in flexion. In the ape the thigh is more rotated outwards than in man, and the inner condyle is directed to the front of the limb. In man there is not nearly the same disproportion in the size of the two con- dyles as in the apes. I have occasionally seen in man the articular area of the inner broader than that of the outer condyle, but more usually the outer is appre- ciably the wider. The backward curve of the outer condyle is also prolonged somewhat higher than that of the inner, and thus the condition of the two con- dyles is the reverse of that found in the ape. It should, however, be stated, as has been shown by Dr. Havelock Charles, 1 that in persons, who habitually rest in the squatting position, an upward extension of the articular area of the inner condyle exists, which is associated with the acute flexion of the knee whilst squatting. In man, the outer condyle, when seen in profile, is, as compared with the inner, more elongated antero-posteriorly than in the Gorilla. The approximate equality in the size of the two condyles in man is, without doubt, associated with the ^ ex- tension of the knee joint in the erect attitude, and with the more equable distribu- tion of the weight of the body downwards on the head of the tibia. In the ape the intercondylar fossa, in relation to the size of the bones, is wider in front than in man ; but it is wider behind in man than in the ape, for in the latter the inner condyle inclines nearer to the outer condyle than in man. In man, when the knee joint is extended, the tibia is slightly rotated outwards on the femoral condyles, and the joint is fixed, partly by the tension of the lateral and posterior ligaments and the anterior crucial ligament, and partly by the gene- ral tension of the muscles and fasciae around the joint. So long as these structures remain tense, the joint cannot be bent, and no lateral movement, or rotation, is permitted. The fixation of the joint is of fundamental importance in the act of standing. Free rotation of the human knee can only take place when the joint is acutely bent. In apes, the joint cannot be fully extended ; its natural position, when the animal is standing, is partial flexion, and in this position a limited rotation is per- mitted, which can be greatly increased when the joint is more completely bent. In rotating the leg on the thigh the inner condyle is apparently the pivot. The rotation facilitates the use of the foot as an organ of prehension, and assists the ape to turn the hole inwards and forwards when holding an object. These move- ments produce results, which approximate to those occasioned by pronation and supination of the radius on the ulna, in the movements of the forearm and hand. In the Anthropoid apes, the head of the tibia slopes very decidedly backwards at the upper end of the shaft, so that its axis forms an angle with that of the shaft, 1 Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. xxviii. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 11 and the head may be described as retroverted. If the shaft of the tibia were held vertically, the articular surface for the inner condyle would also slope downwards and backwards, and to a greater degree than that for the outer condyle. But in the natural semiflexed position of the ape's knee the condylar articular surfaces of the tibia are essentially in the horizontal plane. In the human tibia the axis of the head is, as a rule, almost in line with that of the shaft, and the backward and downward slope of the inner articular surface is not so great as in the ape. In some human tibiae, however, well-marked retroversion of the head has been seen. In skeletons referred to the Quaternary period of the geologist, this character has been noticed by MM. Oollignon, Fraipont, and Testut, and the inference has been drawn that the men of that period could not extend the knee joint and walk as erect as modern man. It has, however, been shown by Professor Manouvrier 1 and Dr. Havelock Charles 2 that this condition of the tibia is not uncommon in some races of men, in whom there can be no question that the attitude is erect when standing. Dr. Charles has associated the production of retroversion to the habit in these races of resting on the ground in the position of squatting. I have found in the tibiae of the people of the Bronze Age that retroversion of the head of the tibia is not uncommon. In five specimens the backward slope of the head formed with the vertical axis of the shaft an angle which ranged in the several bones from 20° to 30°. But when these tibiae were put into the erect position alongside of similarly placed modern European bones, the condylar articular surfaces were seen to approximate to the horizontal plane in all the specimens. In order, therefore, that retroversion of the head of the tibia should be associated with inability to extend the knee joint, it is obvious that the articular surfaces should have a marked slope down- wards and backwards, as is the case in the Anthropoid apes, when the shaft of the tibia is held in a vertical plane. I shall now proceed to the examination of the human foot (pes), and in order to bring out more clearly its primary, use as an organ of support and progression, I shall contrast it with the human hand (manus) and with the manus and pes in apes. In man, while standing erect, the arched sole of the foot is directed to the ground, and rests behind on the heel and in front on pads, placed below and in line with the metatarso-phalangeal joints, the most important of which is below the joint associated with the great toe. It is therefore a plantigrade foot. The great toe (hallux) lies parallel to the other toes, and from its size and restricted move- ments gives stability to the foot. The ape's foot agrees with that of man in possessing similar bones and almost similar soft parts ; but it differs materially as to the uses to which it can be put. Some apes can undoubtedly place the sole upon the ground, and in this position use the foot both for support and progression ; though the Orang, and to some extent other Anthropoid apes, rest frequently upon the outer edge of the foot. But in addition these animals can use the foot as a prehensile organ like the hand. The old anatomist Tyson, in his description of a young Chimpanzee, 3 spoke of the pes as ' liker a hand than a foot ' and introduced the term ' quadrumanous,' four- handed, to designate this character. This term was adopted by Cuvier and applied by him to apes generally, and has long been in popular use. The eminent French anatomist was, however, quite alive to the fact that though the pes was capable of being used as a hand, yet that it was morphologically a foot, so that the term was employed by him to express a physiological character. In the ape, the great toe, instead of being parallel to the other toes as in man, is set at an angle to them, not unlike the relation which the thumb (pollex) bears to the fingers in the human hand. It is able, therefore, to throw the hallux across the surface of the sole in the prehensile movement of opposition. As it can at the same time bend the other toes towards the sole, it also has the power of encircling an object more or less completely with them. By the joint action of 1 Memoires de la Soeiete $ Anthropologic de Paris, 1890. 2 Journal of Anatomy and Physiology \ vol. xxviii. 8 Anatomy of a Pygmie, 1699, p. 13. 12 REPORT — 1897. all the toes a powerful grasping organ is produced, more important even than its hand, in which the thumb is feebly developed. It has sometimes been assumed that the human foot is also a prehensile instru- ment as well as an organ of support. In a limited sense objects can undoubtedly be grasped by the human toes when bent towards the sole. In savages, this power is preserved to an extent which is not possible in civilised man, in whom, owing to the cramping, and only too frequently the distorting influence, exercised by badly fitting boots and shoes, the proper development of the functional uses of the toes is impeded and their power of independent movement is often destroyed. Even in savages who have never worn shoes, the power of grasping objects by the toes cannot be regarded as approximately equal in functional activity and usefulness to the range of movement possessed by the ape. The four outer toes are so short and comparatively feeble, that they cannot encircle an object of any magnitude. But, what is even more important, the great toe cannot be opposed to the surface of the sole, in the way that an ape can move its hallux or a man his thumb. Savage man can no doubt pick up an object from the ground with the great toe. Many of us have doubtless seen, among civilised men, persons who have had the misfortune to be born without arms, or who have accidentally lost them in early life, who have trained themselves to hold a pen, pencil, brush, or razor with the foot, and to write, draw, paint, or even shave. But in these cases the object is held between the hallux and the toe lying next to it, and not grasped between the great toe and the sole of the foot by a movement of opposition. If we compare the anatomical structure of the human foot with that of the foot of the ape, though the bones, joints, and muscles are essentially the same in both, important differences in arrangement may be easily recognised, the value of which will be better appreciated by first glancing at the thumb. Both in man and apes the thumb is not tied to the index digit by an intermediate ligament, which, under the name of ' transverse metacarpal/ binds all the fingers together, and restricts their separation from each other in the transverse plane of the hand. The great toe of the ape, similarly, is not tied to the second toe by a ' transverse metatarsal ligament,' such as connects together and restricts the movements of its four outer toes in the transverse plane of the foot. The hallux of the ape is therefore set free. It can, like the thumb of man and ape, be thrown into the position of opposition and be used as a prehensile digit. Very different is the case in the human foot, in which the hallux is tied to the second toe by a continuation of the same transverse metatarsal ligament which ties the smaller toes together. Hence it is impossible to oppose the great toe to the surface of the sole in the way in which the thumb can be used, and the movements of the digit in the transverse plane of the foot are also greatly restricted. The development of a connecting transverse band, for the restriction of the movements of the great toe in man, is not the only anatomical structure which differentiates it from the hallux of an ape, or the thumb in the hand. In the manus both of man and apes the joint between the metacarpal bone of the thumb and the bone of the wrist (trapezium) is concavo-convex, or saddle-shaped, and permits of a considerable range of movement in certain directions, and notably the movement of opposition. A joint of a similar configuration, permitting similar movements, is found in the pes of the ape between the metatarsal of the hallux and the tarsal bone with which it articulates. In the foot of man, on the other hand, the corresponding joint is not saddle-shaped, but is almost plane-surfaced, and con- sequently the range of movement is slight, and is little more than the gliding of one articular surface on the other. One of the chief factors in the production of the movement of opposition in the manus of man and apes is a special muscle, the opponens pollicis, which, through its insertion into the shaft of the metacarpal bone of the thumb, draws the entire digit across the surface of the palm. In the foot of the Anthropoid apes there is not complete correspondence in different species in the arrangement of the muscles which move the great toe. In the Orang the abductor hallucis, in addition to the customary insertion into the phalanx, may give rise to two slips, one of which is inserted into the base and proximal part of the first metatarsal bone, and the other transactions of section h. 13 into the radial border of its shaft for a limited distance; these slips apparently represent an imperfect opponens muscle, which acts along with the adductor and short flexor muscle of the great toe. In the other Anthropoid apes, the muscle seems to be altogether absent, and the power of opposition is exercised solely by the adductor and the flexor brevis hallucis, the inner head of the latter of which is remarkably well developed. 1 In the human foot there is no opponens hallucis, and the short flexor of the great toe is, in relation to the size of that digit, comparatively feeble, so that no special provision is made for a movement of opposition. The character and direction of the movements of the digits both in hand and foot are imprinted on the integument of palm and sole. In the palm of the human hand the oblique direction of the movements of the lingers towards the thumb, when bent in grasping an object, is shown by the obliquity of the two great grooves which cross the palm from the root of the index to the root of the little ringer. The deep curved groove, extending to the wrist, which marks off the eminence of the ball of the thumb from the rest of the palm, is associated with the opponent action of the thumb, which is so marked in man that the tip of the thumb can be brought in contact with a large part of the palmar surface of the hand and fingers. Faint longitudinal grooves in the palm, situated in a line with the fingers, express slight folds which indicate, where the fingers are approximated to or separated Irom each other, in adduction and abduction. In some hands a longitudinal groove marks off the muscles of the ball of the little finger from the rest of the palm, and is associated with a slight opponent action of that digit ; by the combination of which, with a partial opposition of the thumb, the palm can be hollowed into a cup — the drinking-cup of Diogenes. These grooves are present in the infant's hands at the time of birth, and I have seen them in an embryo, the spine and head of which were not more than 90 mm. (three and a half inches) long. They appear in the palm months before the infant can put its hand to any use ; though it is possible that the muscles of the thumb and fingers do, even in the embryo, exercise some degree of action, especially in the direction of flexion. These grooves are not therefore acquired after birth. It is a question how far the intra-uterine purposeless movements of the digits are sufficient to produce them ; but even should this be the case, it is clear that they are to be regarded as hereditary characters transmitted from one generation of human beings to another. They are correlated with the movements of the digits, which give the functional power and range of movement to the hand of man. In the palm of the hand of the Anthropoid apes grooves are also seen, which differ in various respects from those in man, and which are characteristic of the group in which they are found. In these animals the palm is traversed by at least two grooves from the index border to that of the minimus. In the Gibbon they are oblique, but in the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and Orang they are almost transverse, which implies that in flexion the fingers do not move so obliquely towards the com- paratively feeble thumb as they do in man. The curved groove which limits the ball of the thumb is present, but on account of the less development of that eminence, it is not so extensive as in man. The longitudinal grooves in the palm are deeper than in the human hand, and in the Gorilla and Orang a groove differentiates the eminence associated with the muscles of the little finger from the adjoining part of the palm. The character and direction of these grooves are such as one would associate with the hand of an arboreal animal, in which the long fingers are the chief digits employed in grasping an object more or less cylindrical, like the branch of a tree, and in which the thumb is a subordinate digit. I have not had the opportunity of examining the palm of the embryo of an Anthropoid ape, but in that of an embryo Macaque monkey I have seen both the groove for the ball of the thumb which marks its opposition, and the transverse and longitudinal grooves in the palm which are correlated with the movements of 1 For a comparative description of the muscles of the hand and foot of the Anthropoid apes consult Dr. Hepburn's memoir in Journal of Anatomy and Physiology \ vol. xxvi. 14 REPORT — 1897. the fingers. In apes, therefore, as in man, these grooves are not acquired after birth, but have an hereditary signification. We may now contrast the grooves in the skin of the sole of the human foot with those which we have just described in the palm. For this purpose the foot of an infant must be selected as well as that of an older person in which the toes have not been cramped and distorted by ill-fitting shoes. 1 The toes are marked off from the sole proper by a deep diagonal depression, which corresponds with the plane of flexion of the first and second phalanges. Behind this depression, and on the sole proper, is a diagonal groove, which com- mences at the cleft between the great and second toes, and reaches the outer border of the foot. It is seen in the infant, but disappears as the skin of the foot becomes thickened from use and pressure. This groove marks the plane of flexure of the first phalanges on the metatarsal bones of the four smaller toes. Associated with its inner end is a short groove which curves to the inner border of the foot, and marks off the position of the joint between the first phalanx and the metatarsal bone of the great toe. The groove indicates the movements of the great toe in flexion, and in adduction to, or abduction from, the second toe. It has sometimes erroneously . been regarded as the corresponding groove in the foot to the deep curved groove in the hand, which defines the muscles of the ball of the thumb and is associated with the movement of opposition. This is not its real character, for the chief joint concerned in opposition is that between the metacarpal bone and the corresponding carpal bone, and not that between the metacarpal bone and the phalanx. In addition, one, or it may be two faint grooves run from within outwards near the middle of the sole. In the infant's foot a groove also extends longitudinally in the centre of the foot. The grooves on the integument of the sole are in harmony with the inner anatomy of the foot, and confirm the statement, already made, that the great toe in man cannot be opposed to the sole, as the thumb can to the palm, for the great curved groove expressing the movement of opposition is wanting. In the apes, the condition of the tegumentary grooves in the sole is very different from the human foot. In the Anthropoid group, the ball of the great toe, with its muscles, is marked off by a deep curved groove, which extends from the margin of the cleft between it and the second toe, backwards along the middle of the sole almost as far as the heel. Its depth and extent are associated with the powerful opponent, or grasping action of the hallux. Two other grooves, in front of that just described, pass obliquely across the sole, from the cleft between the hallux and the second toe, and reach the outer border of the foot. They are associated with the movements of the four smaller toes, and their obliquity shows that, when the foot is used as a prehensile organ, the object is grasped not only by the great toe being moved towards the sole, but by the smaller toes being moved towards the hallux. From these arrangements it is obvious that the pes of the ape is, physiologically speaking, a foot- hand, it is pedimanous. Though anatomi- cally a foot, it can be used not only for support and progression, but for prehen- sion, and, for the latter-named office, the hallux is a more potent digit in the foot than is the pollex in the hand. The external rotation of the thigh at the hip joint, and the power of rotating the leg inwards on the thigh at the knee joint, contribute to make the foot of the ape a more important prehensile instrument, and enable the animal to use it more efficiently for thi9 purpose when sitting, than would have been the case if there had been no contributory movements at the hip and knee. The power of assuming the erect attitude, the specialisation of the upper limbs 1 These grooves have been described generally by the late Professor Goodsir (Anatomical Memoirs, vol. i. 1868) ; by myself in a lecture on hands and feet, Health Lectures, Edinburgh, 1884 ; and by Mr. Louis Robinson, the last named of whom has called especial attention to their arrangement in the feet of infants {Nineteenth Century, vol. xxxi. 1892, p. 795). The integumentary grooves in both hands and feet of men and apes have also been described and figured in detail by Dr. Hepburn in Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol xxvii. 1893, p. 112. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 15 into instruments of prehension, and of the lower limbs into columns of support and progression, are not in themselves sufficient to give that distinction to the human body which we know that it possesses. They must have co-ordinated with them the controlling and directing mechanism placed in the head, known as the brain and organs of sense. The head, situated at the summit of the spine, holds a commanding position. Owing to the joints for articulation with the atlas vertebra being placed on the under surface of the skull, and not at the back of the head, and to the great reduc- tion in the size of the jaws, as compared with apes and quadrupeds generally, the head is balanced on the top of the spine. The ligaments supporting it and connected with it are comparatively feeble, and do not require for their attachment strong bony ridges on the skull, or massive projecting processes in the spine, such as one finds in apes and many other mammals. The head with the atlas vertebra can be rotated about the axis vertebra by appropriate muscles. The face looks to the front, the axis of vision is horizontal, and the eyes sweep the horizon with com- paratively slight muscular effort. The cranial cavity, with its contained brain, is of absolutely greater volume in man than in any other vertebrate, except in the elephant and in the large whales, in which the huge mass of the body demands the great sensory- motor centres in the brain to be of large size. Relatively also to the mass and weight of the body, the brain in man may be said to be in general heavier than the brains of the lower vertebrates, though it has been stated that some small birds and mammals are exceptions to this rule. We have abundant evidence of the weight of the brain in Europeans, in whom several thousand brains have been tested. In the men, the average brain-weight is from 49 to 50 oz. (1,390 to 1,418 grm.). In the women, from 44 to 45 oz (1,248 to 1,283 grm.). The difference in weight is doubtless in part correlated with differences in the mass, weight, and stature of the body in the two sexes, although it seems questionable if the entire difference is capable of this explana- tion. It is interesting to note that even in new-born children the hoys have bigger heads and heavier brains than the girls. Dr. Boyd gives the average for the girl infants as 10 oz., and for boys 11*67 oz. A distinction in the brain weight of the two sexes is obviously established, therefore, before the child is born, and is not to be accounted for by the training and educational advantages enjoyed by the male sex being superior to those of the female sex. The brains of a number of men of ability and intellectual distinction have been weighed, and ascertained to be from 55 to 60 oz. In a few exceptional cases, as in the brains of Cuvier and Dr. Abercrombie, the weight has been more than 60 oz. ; but it should also be stated that brains weighing 60 oz. and upwards have occa- sionally been obtained from persons who had shown no sign of intellectual eminence. On the other hand, it has been pointed out by M. Broca and Dr. Thurnam, that if the brain falls below a certain weight it cannot properly discharge its functions. They place this minimum weight for civilised people at 37 oz. for the men, and 32 oz. for the women. These weights are, I think, too high for savage men, more especially in the dwarf races. We may, however, safely assume that if the brain-weight in adults does not reach 30 oz. (851 grm.), it is associated with idiocy or imbecility. There would seem, therefore, to be a minimum brain-weight, which is necessary in order that the mental functions may be actively discharged. We have unfortunately not much evidence of the weight of the brain in the uncultivated and savage races. The weighings made by Tiedemann, Barkow, Reid, and Peacock give the mean of the brain in the negro as between 44 and 45 oz., a weight which corresponds with that of European women ; whilst in the negress the mean weight is less than in the female sex in Europeans. In two Bush girls from South Africa — representatives of a dwarf race — the brain is said to have been 34 and 38 oz. respectively. 1 From the weighings which have been published of the brains of the Orang and 1 Sir R. Quain in Pathological Transactions, 1850, p. 182, and Messrs. Flower and Murie in Journal of Anatomy and Phys., vol. i. p. 206. 16 REPORT — 1897. chimpanzee, it would seem that the brain-weight in these apes ranges from 11 to 15 oz. (312 to 426 grm.),and the brain-weight appears to be much about the same in the Gorilla. These figures are greatly below those of the human brain, even in so degraded a people as the dwarf Bush race of South Africa. They closely approximate to the weight of newly born male infants, in whom, as has just been stated, the average weight was 11*67 oz. For the purposes of ape-life, the low brain-weight is sufficient to enable the animal to perform every function of which it is capable. Its muscular and nervous systems are so accurately co-ordi- nated that it can move freely from tree to tree, and swing itself to and fro ; it can seize and retain objects with great precision, and can search for and procure its food. In all these respects it presents a striking contrast to the infant, having an almost similar brain- weight, which lies helpless on its mother's knee. Another line of evidence, of which we may avail ourselves, in order to test the relative size of the brain in the different races of men and in the large apes is to be obtained by determining the internal capacity of the cranium. Examples of the brains of different races (except Europeans) are few in number in our collections, but the crania are often well represented, the volume of the civity in which the brain is lodged can be obtained from them, and an approximate conception of the size and weight of the brain can be estimated. In pursuing this line of inquiry, account has of course to be taken of the space occupied by the membranes investing the brain, by the blood vessels and the cerebro -spinal fluid. A small deduction from the total capacity will have to be made on their behalf. There is a general consensus of opinion amongst craniologists that the mean internal capacity of the cranium in adult male Europeans is about 1,500 c.c. (91*5 cub. in.). The mean capacity of the cranium of fifty Scotsmen that I have measured by a method, which I described some years ago, 1 was 1,493 c.c. (91-1 cub. in.). The most capacious of these skulls was 1,770 c.c, and the one with the smallest capacity was 1,240 c.c. Thus, in a highly civilised and admittedly intellectual people, the range in the volume of the brain-space amongst the men was as much as 530 c.c. in the specimens under examination, none of which was known or believed to be the skull of an idiot or imbecile, whilst some were known to be the crania of persons of education and position. In twenty- three Scotswomen the mean capacity was 1,325 c.c, and the range of variation was from a maximum 1,625 to a minimum 1,100 c.c. — viz., 525 c.c. Again I have taken the capacity, by the same method, of a number of crania of the Australian aborigines, a race incapable apparently of intellectual improve- ment beyond their present low state of development. In thirty-nine men the mean capacity was only 1,280 c.c. (781 cub. in.). The maximum capacity was 1,514 c.c, the minimum was 1,044 c.c The range of variation was 470 c.c In twenty-four women the mean capacity was 1,115 6 c.c, the maximum being 1,240 and the minimum 930, and the range of variation was 310 c.c. It is noticeable that in this series of sixty- three Australian skulls, all of which are in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh, eight men had a smaller capacity than 1,200 c.c, and only four were above 1,400 c.c Of the women's skulls ten were below 1,100 c.c, four of which were between 900 and 1,000 c.c, and only three were 1,200 c.c. and upwards. Time does not admit of further detail on the cranial capacities of other races of men. Sufficient has been said to show the wide range which prevails, from the maximum in the Europeans to the minimum in the Australians, and that amongst persons presumably sane and capable of discharging their duties in their respective spheres of activity ; for we must assume that the crania of the Australians, having the small capacities just referred to, were yet sufficient^ large for the lodgment of brains competent to perform the functions demanded by the life of a savage. From a large number of measurements of capacity which I have made of the skulls of the principal races of men, I would draw the following conclusions : First, that the average cranial capacity, and consequently the volume and weight of the brain, are markedly higher in the civilised European than in the savage races ; second, that the range of variation is greater in the former than in the * Jluman Crania, Challenger Reports, Pt. xxix. 1884, p. 9, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 17 latter ; third, that in uncivilised man the proportion of male crania having a capacity equal to the European mean, 1,500 c.c, is extremely small ; fourth, that though the capacity of the men's skulls is greater than that of the women's, there is not quite the same amount of difference between the sexes in a savage as in a civilised race. It may now be of interest to say a few words on the capacity of the cranium in the large anthropoid apes. I have measured, by the method already referred to, the capacity of the skulls of five adult male Gorillas, and obtained a mean of 494 c.c, the maximum being 590 c.c. and the minimum 410 c.c, the range of variation being 180 c.c. Dr. Delisle found the old male Orang (Maurice), 1 which died a short time ago in the Jardin des Plantes, to have a capacity of 385 c.c, whilst the younger male (Max) had a capacity of 470 c.c 2 The mean of eleven specimens measured by him was 408 c.c, which is somewhat less than the measurements of males recorded by M. Topinard and Dr, Vogt ; but it should be stated that in some of Dr. Delisle's specimens the sex could not be properly dis- criminated, and possibly some of them may have been females. The cranial capacity of seven male Chimpanzees is stated by M. Topinard to be 421 c.c The determination of the mass and weight of the brain as expressed in ounces, and of the capacity of the cranial cavity as expressed in cubic centimetres, are only rough methods of comparing brain with brain, either as between different races of men, or as between men and other mammals. Much finer methods are needed in order to obtain a more exact comparison. The school of Phrenologists represented in the first half of the century by Gall, Spurzheim, and George Combe, whilst recognising the importance of the size of the brain as a measure of intellectual activity, also attached value to what was called its quality. At that time the inner mechanism of the brain was almost unknown, for the methods had not been discovered by which its minute structure could be determined. It is true that a difference was acknowledged, between the cortical grey matter situated on the surface of the hemispheres and the sub- jacent white matter. Spurzheim had also succeeded in determining the presence of fibres in the white matter of the encephalon, and had, to a slight extent, traced their path. The difference between the smooth surface of the hemispheres of the lower mammals and the convoluted surface of the brain of man and the higher mammals, and the influence which the development of the convolutions exercised in increasing the area of the cortical grey matter, were also known. A most important step in advance was made, when, through the investigations of Leuret and Gratiolet, it became clear that the convolutions of the cerebrum, in their mode of arrangement, were not uniform in the orders of mammals which possessed convoluted brains, but that different patterns existed in the orders examined. By his further researches Gratiolet determined that in the anthropoid apes, notwithstanding their much smaller brains, the same general plan of arrange- ment existed as in man, though differences occurred in many of the details, and that the key to unlock the complex arrangements in man was to be obtained by the study of the simpler disposition in the apes. These researches have enabled anatomists to localise the convolutions and the fissures which separate them from each other, and to apply to them precise descriptive terms. These investigations were necessarily preliminary to the histological study of the convolutions, and to experimental inquiry into their functions. By the employment of the refined histological methods now in use, it has been shown that the grey matter in the cortex of the hemispheres, and in other parts of the brain, is the seat of enormous numbers of nerve-cells, and that those in the cortex, whilst possessing a characteristic pyramidal shape, present many variations in size. Further, that these nerve-cells give origin to nerve axial fibres, through which areas in the cortex become connected directly or indirectly, either with other areas in the same hemisphere, with parts of the brain and spinal cord situated below the cerebrum, with the muscular system, or with the skin and other organs of sense. 1 Nouvelles Archives du Museum (VHistoire naturelle, 1895. 2 The stature of Maurice was 1 m 40 ; that of Max 1 m. 28. 18 REPORT— 1897. Every nerve- cell, with the nerve axial fibre arising from and belonging to it, is now called a Neurone, and both brain and spinal cord are built up of tens of thousands of such neurones. It may reasonably be assumed that the larger the brain the more numerous are the neurones which enter into its constitution. The greater the number of the neurones, and the more complete the connections which the several areas have with each other through their axial fibres, the more complex becomes the internal mechanism, and the more perfect the structure of the organ. We may reasonably assume that this perfection of structure finds its highest manifestations in the brain of civilised men. The specialisation in the relations and connections of the axial fibre processes of the neurones, at their termination in particular localities, obviously points to functional differences in the cortical and other areas, to which these processes extend. It has now been experimentally demonstrated that the cortex of the cerebrum is not, as M. Flourens conceived, of the same physiological value throughout ; but that particular functions are localised in definite areas and con- volutions. In speaking of localisation of function in the cerebrum, one must not be understood as adopting the theory of Gall, that the mental faculties were definite in their number, that each had its seat in a particular region of the cortex, and that the locns of this region was marked on the surface of the skull and head by a more or less prominent ( bump.' The foundation of a scientific basis for localisation dates from 1870, when Fritsch and Hitzig announced that definite movements followed the application of electrical stimulation to definite areas of the cortex in dogs. The indication thus given was at once seized upon by David Ferrier, who explored not only the hemi- spheres of dogs, but those of monkeys and other vertebrates. 1 By his researches and those of many subsequent inquirers, of whom amongst our own countrymen we may especially name Beevor, Horsley, and Schafer, it has now been esta- blished that, when the convolutions bounding, and in close proximity to the fissure of Rolando are stimulated, motor reactions in the limbs, trunk, head and face follow, which have a definite purposive character, corresponding with the volitional movements of the animal. The Rolandic region is therefore regarded as a part of the motor apparatus ; it is called the motor area, and the function of exciting voluntary movements is localised in its cortical grey matter. By the researches of the same and other inquirers it has been determined that certain other convolutions are related to the different forms of sensibility, and are sensory or perceptive centres, localised for sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Most important observations on the paths of conduction of sensory impressions in the cortex of the convolutions were announced last year by Dr. Flechsig, 2 of Leipzig, so well known by his researches on the development of the tracts of nerve-fibres in the columns of the spinal cord, published several years ago. He discovered that the nerve-fibres in the cord did not become myelinated, i.e. attain their perfect structure, at a uniform period of time, so that some acquired their complete functional importance before others. He has now applied the same method of research to the study of the development of the human brain, and has shown that in it also there is a difference in the time of attaining perfect structural development of the nerve-tracts. Further, he has discovered that the nerve-fibres in the cerebrum become myelinated, subsequent to the fibres of the other divisions of the cerebro-spinal nervous axis. When a child is born, very few of the fibres of its cerebrum are myelinated, and we have now an anatomical explanation of the reason why an infant has so inactive a brain and is so helpless a creature. It will therefore be of especial interest to determine, whether in those animals which are active as soon as they are born, and which can at once assume the characteristic attitude of the species, the fibres of the cerebrum are completely developed at the time of birth. Flechsig has also shown that the sensory paths myeli- nate before the motor tracts ; that the paths of transmission of touch, and the other impulses conducted by the dorsal roots of the spinal nerves, are 1 West Riding Asylum Reports, 1873. 2 Die localisation der Geistigen Vorgdnge, Leipzig, 1896. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 19 the first to become completely formed, whilst the fibres for auditory impulses are the last. Flechsig names the great sensory centre which receives the impulses associated with touch, pain, temperature, muscular sense, &c.,Kdrperfuh!sphdre, the region of general-body-sensation, or the som aesthetic area as translated by Dr. Barker. 1 The tracts conducting these impulses myelinate at successive periods after birth. They pass upwards from the inner and outer capsules and the optic thalamus as three systems. 2 Some enter the central convolutions of the Rolandic area, others reach the paracentral lobule, the inferior frontal convolution, the insula, and small parts of the middle and superior frontal convolutions ; whilst considerable numbers reach the gyrus fornicatus and the hippocampal gyrus, which Ferrier had previously localised as a centre of common or tactile sensibility. The Rolandic area, therefore, is not exclusively a motor area, but is a centre associated also with the general sensibility of the body. The motor fibres in it are not myelinated until after the sensory paths have become developed. As the motor paths become structurally complete, they can be traced downwards as the great pyramidal tract from the pyramidal nerve-cells in this area, from which they arise, into the spinal cord, where they come into close relation with the nerve- cells in the anterior horn of grey matter, from which the nerve axial fibres proceed that are distributed to the voluntary muscles. Flechsig's observations agree with those of previous observers in placing the visual centre in the occipital lobe ; the auditory centre in and near the superior temporal convolution ; and the olfactory centre in the uncinate and hippocampal convolutions. Of the position of the taste centre he does not speak definitely, although he thinks it to be in proximity either to the centre of general sensation, or to the olfactory centre. The centres of special sense in the cortex, and the large Rolandic area, which is the centre both for motion and general sensation, do not collectively occupy so much as one-half of the superficial area of the convolutions of the cortex. In all the lobes of the brain — frontal, parietal, occipito-temporal, and insula — convolutions are situated, not directly associated with the reception of sensory impressions, or as centres of motor activity, the function of which is to be otherwise accounted for. These convolutions lie intermediary to the sensory and motor centres. Flechsig has shown that in them myelination of the nerve-fibres does not take place until some weeks after birth, so that they are distinctly later in acquiring their structural perfection and functional activity. As the nerve-fibres become differentiated, they are seen to pass from the sense-centres into these inter- mediate convolutions, so as to connect adjacent centres together, and bring them into association with each other. 3 Hence he has called them the Association centres, the function of which is to connect together centres and convolutions otherwise disconnected. 4 We have now, therefore, direct anatomical evidence, based upon differences in their stages of development, that, in addition to the sensory and motor areas in the 1 Johns Hopkins Bulletin, No. 70, January 1897. 2 Drs. Ferrier and Aldren Turner communicated to the Royal Society of London a few weeks ago (Proc. R.8. June 17, 1897) an account of an elaborate research on the tracts which convey general and special sensibility to the cerebral cortex of monkeys. Their results were obtained by the aid of destructive lesions and the study of the consecutive degenerations in the nerve-tracts. From the brief abstract in the Pro- ve i_ dings, their research, though conducted by a different method, harmonises with the observations of Flechsig on the human brain, in regard to the course and connections of the great thalamic cortico-petal sensory fibres. They have also traced association fibres in connection with both the visual and auditory systems. 3 The term association fibres was introduced a number of years ago to express fibres of the cerebrum which connect together parts of the cortex in the same hemi- sphere. Flechsig's fibres belong to this system. 4 The Association centres had previously been referred to by other observers as 1 silent portions ' of the cortex, not responding to electrical stimulus. Their possible function had been discussed by Professor Calderwood in Relations of Mind and, Brain, 2nd edit,, 1884. 20 REPORT — 1897. cortex of the human brain, a third division — the association centres — is to "be distinguished. It we compare the cerebrum in man and the apes, we find those convolutions which constitute the motor and sensory centres distinctly marked in both. An ape, like a man, can see, hear, taste, smell and touch ; it also exhibits great muscular activity and variety of movement. It possesses, therefore, similar fundamental centres of sensation and motion, which are situated in areas of the cortex, resembling in arrangement and relative position, though much smaller in size than, the corre- sponding convolutions in the adult human brain. It is not unlikely, though the subject needs additional research, that the minute structure of these centres resembles that of man, though, from the comparatively restricted area of grey matter in the ape, the neurones will necessarily be much fewer in number. In the cerebrum of a new-born infant, whilst the motor and sensory convolu- tions are distinct, the convolutions for the association areas, though present, are comparatively simple, and do not possess as many windings as are to be seen in the brain of a chimpanzee not more than three or four years old. Again, if we compare the brain of the Bushwoman, miscalled the Hottentot Venus, figured by Gratiolet and by BischofT, or the one studied by Mr. John Marshall, with that of the philosopher Gauss, figured by Rudolph Wagner, we also recognise the convolutions in which the motor and sensory areas are situated. In all these brains they have a comparative simplicity of form and arrangement which enables one readily to discriminate them. When we turn, however, to the association areas in the three tiers of convolutions in the frontal lobe, and in the parieto- occipital and occipito-temporal regions where the bridging or annectant convolu- tions are placed, we cannot fail to observe that in a highly-developed brain, like that of Gauss, the association convolutions have a complexity in arrangement, and an extent of cortical surface much more marked than in the Bushwoman, and to a still greater degree than in the ape. The naked-eye anatomy of the brain there- fore obviously points to the conclusion that these association areas are of great physiological importance. The problem which has now to be solved is the determination of their function. Prolonged investigation into the development and comparative histology of the brain will be necessary before we can reach a sound anatomical basis on which to found satisfactory conclusions. It will especially be necessary to study the suc- cessive periods of development of the nerve-fibre tracts in the cerebrum of apes and other mammals, as well as the magnitude and intimate structure of the association areas in relation to that of the motor and sensory areas in the same species. Flechsig, however, has not hesitated to ascribe to the association centres func- tions of the highest order. He believes them to be parts of the cerebral cortex engaged in the manifestations of the higher intelligence, such as memory, judgment, and reflection ; but in the present state of our knowledge such conclusions are of course quite speculative. It is not unlikely, however, that the impulses which are conveyed by the inter- mediate nerve-tracts, either on the one hand, from the sense centres to the associa- tion centres, or on the other, from the association centres to the sensory and motor centres, are neither motor nor sensory impulses, but a form of nerve energy, determined by the terminal connections and contacts of the nerve fibres. It is possible that the association centres, with the intermediate connecting tracts, may serve to harmonise and control the centres for the reception of sensory impressions that we translate into consciousness, with those which excite motor activity, so as to give to the brain a completeness and perfection of structural mechanism, which without them it could not have possessed. We know that an animal is guided by its instincts, through which it provides for its individual wants, and fulfils its place in nature. In man, on the other hand, the instinctive acts are under the influence of the reason and intelligence, and it is possible that the association centres, with the intermediate association fibres which connect them with the sensory and motor centres, may be the mechanism through which man is enabled to control his animal instiucts, so far as they are dependent on motion and sensation. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 21 The higher we ascend in the scale of humanity, the more perfect does this control become, and the more do the instincts, emotions, passions and appetites become subordinated to the self-conscious principle which regulates our judgments and beliefs. It will therefore now be a matter for scientific inquiry to determine, as far as the anatomical conditions will permit, the proportion which the associa- tion centres bear to the other centres both in mammals and in man, the period of development of the association fibres, in comparison with that of the motor and sensory fibres in different animals, and, if possible, to obtain a comparison in these respects between the brains of savages and those of men of a high order of intelligence. The capability of erecting the trunk ; the power of extending and fixing the hip and knee joints when standing ; the stability of the foot ; the range and variety of movement of the joints of the upper limb ; the balancing of the head on the summit of the spine ; the mass and weight of the brain, and the perfection of its internal mechanism, are distinctively human characters. They are the factors concerned in adapting the body of man, under the guidance of reason, intelligence, the sense of responsibility and power of self-control, for the discharge of varied and important duties in relation to himself, his Maker, his fellows, the animal world and the earth on which he lives. i&dftsl) Jlssoctaftcm for tfye $lbvancement of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDKESS TO THE PHYSIOLOGICAL SECTION BY Professor MICHAEL FOSTER, M.A., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Sec. U.S. PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. We who have come from the little island on the other side of the great waters to take part in this important gathering of the British Association, have of late been much exercised in retrospection. We have been looking back on the sixty years reign of our beloved Sovereign, and dwelling on what has happened during her gracious rule. We have, perhaps, done little in calling to mind the wrongs, the mistakes and the failures of the Victorian era ; but our minds and our mouths have been full of its achievements and its progress ; and each of us, of himself or through another, has been busy in bringing back to the present the events of more than half a century of the past. It was while I, with others, was in this retrospective mood that the duty of preparing some few words to say to you to day seemed suddenly to change from an impalpable cloud in the far distance to a heavy burden pressing directly on the back ; and in choosing something to say I have succumbed to the dominant influence. Before putting pen to paper, however, I recovered sufficiently to resist the temptation to add one more to the many reviews which have appeared of the progress of physiology during the Victorian era. I also rejected the idea of doing that for which I find precedents in past presidential addresses — namely, of attempting to tell what has been the history of the science to which a Section is devoted during the brief interval which has elapsed since the Section last met; to try and catch physiology, or any other science, as it rushes through the brief period of some twelve months seemed to me not unlike photographing the flying bullet without adequate appara- tus ; the result could only be either a blurred or a delusive image. But I bethought me that this is not the first, we hope it will not be the last, time that the British Association has met in the Western Hemisphere ; and though the events of the thirteen years which have slipped by since the meeting at Montreal in 1884 might seem to furnish a very slender oat on which to pipe a presidential address, I have hoped that I might be led to sound upon it some few notes which might be listened to. And indeed, though perhaps when we come to lo.>k into it closely almost every period would seem to have a value of its own, the past thirteen years do, in a certain sense, mark a break between the physiology of the past and that of the future. When the Association met at Montreal in 1884, Darwin, whose pregnant ideas have swayed physiology in the limited sense of that word, as well as that broader study of living beings which we sometimes call biology, as indeed they have every branch of natural knowledge, had been taken from us only some two I 2 REPORT — 1897. years before, and there were still alive most of the men who did the great works of physiology of the middle and latter half of this century. The gifted Claude Bernard had passed away some years before, but his peers might have been present at Montreal. Bowman, whose classic works on muscle and kidney stand out as peaks in the physiological landscape of the past, models of researches finished and complete so far as the opportunities -of the time would allow, fruitful beginnings and admirable guides for the labours of others. Brown-Sequard, who shares with Bernard the glory of having opened up the great modern path of the influence of the nervous system on vascular and thus on nutritional events, and who, if he made some mistakes, did many things which will last for all time. Briicke, whose clear j udgment, as shown in his digestive and other work, gave permanent value to whatever he put forth. Du Bois Reymond, who, if he laboured in a narrow path, set a brilliant example of the way in which exact physical analysis may be applied to the phenomena of living beings, and in other ways had a powerful influence on the progress of physiology. Donders, whose mind seemed to have caught something of the better qualities of the physiological organ to which his professional life was devoted, and our knowledge of which he so largely extended, so sharply did he focus his mental eye on every physiological problem to which he turned — and these were many and varied. Helmholtz, whose great works on vision and hearing, to say nothing of his earlier distinctly physiological researches, make us feel that if physics gained much, physiology lost even more when the physiologist turned aside to more distinctly physical inquiries. Lastly, and not least, Ludwig, who by his own hands or through his pupils did so much to make physiology the exact science which it is to-day, but which it was not when he began his work. I say lastly, but I might add the name of one who, though barred by circumstances from contributing much directly to physiology by way of research, so used his powerful influence in many ways in aid of physiological interests as to have helped the science onward to no mean extent, at least among English-speaking people — I mean Huxley. All these might have met at Montreal. They have all left us now. Among the peers of the men I have mentioned whose chief labours were carried on in the forties, the fifties and the sixties of the century, one prominent inquirer alone seems to be left, Albert von Kolliker, who in his old age is doing work of which even he in his youth might have been proud. The thirteen years which have swept the others away seem to mark a gulf between the physiological world of to-day and that of the time in which most of their work was done. They are gone, but they have left behind their work and their names. May thev of the future, as I believe we of the present are doing, take up their work and their example, doing work other than theirs but after their pattern, following in their steps. In the thirteen years during which these have passed away physiology has not been idle. Indeed, the more we look into the period the more it seems to contain. The study of physiology, as of other sciences, though it may be stimulated by difficulties (and physiology has the stimulus of a special form of opposition unknown to other sciences), expands under the sunshine of opportunity and aid. And it may be worth while to compare the opportunities for study of physiology in 1884 with those in 1897. At this meeting of the British Association I may fitly confine myself I was going to say to British matters ; but I feel at this point, as others have felt, the want of a suitable nomenclature. We who are gathered here to-day have, with the exception of a few honoured guests from the Eastern Hemisphere, one common bond, one common token of unity, and, so far as I know, one only; I am speaking now of outward tokens; down deeper in our nature there are, I trust, yet others We all speak the English tongue. Some of us belong to what is called Great Britain and Ireland, others to that which is sometimes spoken of as Greater Britain. But there are others here who belong to neither; though English in tongue, they are in no sense British. To myself, to whom the being English in speech is a fact of far deeper moment than any political boundary, and who wish at the present moment to deal with the study of physiology among all those who speak the English TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 3 tongue, there comes the great want of some word which will denote all such. I hope, indeed I think, that others feel the same want too, The term Anglo-Saxon is at once pedantic and incorrect, and yet there is none other ; and, in the absence of such a better term, I shall be forgiven if I venture at times to use the seemingly narrow word English as really meaning something much broader than British in its very broadest sense. Using English in this sense, I may, I think, venture to say that the thirteen years which separate 1884 from to-day have witnessed among English people a development of opportunities for physiological study such as no other like period Las seen. It is not without significance that only a year or two previous to this period, in England proper, in little England, neither of the ancient Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which, historically at least, represent the fullest academical aspirations of the nat ion, possessed a chair of physiology ; the present professors, who are the first, were both appointed in 1883. Up to that time the science of ph\ si- ology had not been deemed worthy, by either university, of a distinctive professorial mechanism. The act of these ancient institutions was only a manifestation of modern impulses, shared also by the metropolis and by the provinces at large. Whereas up to that time the posts for teaching physiology, by whatever name they were called, had been in most cases held by men whose intellectual loins were girded for other purposes than physiology, and who used the posts as step- ping-stones for what they considered better things, since that time, as each post became vacant, it has almost invariably been filled by men wishing and purposing at least to devote their whole energies to the science. Scotland, in many respects the forerunner of England in intellectual matters, had not so much need of change ; but she, too, has moved in the same direction, as has also the sister island. And if we turn to this Western Continent, we find in Canada and in the States the same notable enlargement of physiological opportunity, or even a still more notable one. If the English-speaking physiologist dots on the map each place on this Western Hemisphere which is an academic focus of his science, he may well be proud of the opportunities now afforded for the development of English physiology ; and the greater part of this has come within the last thirteen years. Professorial chairs or their analogues are, however, after all but a small part of the provision for the development of physiological science. The heart of physiology is the laboratory. It is this which sends the life-blood through the frame ; and in respect to this, perhaps, more than to anything else, has the progress of the past thirteen years been striking. Doubtless, on both sides of the waters there were physiological laboratories, and good ones, in 1884 ; but how much have even these during that perod been enlarged and improved, and how many new ones have been added ? Iin how many places, even right up to about 1884, the professor or lecturer was fain to be content with mere lecture experiments and a simple course of histology, with perhaps a few chemical exercises for his students ! Now each teacher, however modest his post, feels and says that the authorities under whom he works are bound to provide him with the means of leading his students along the only path by which the science can be truly entered upon, that by which each learner repeats for himself the fundamental observations on which the science is based. But there is a still larger outcome from the professorial chair and the physio- logical laboratory than the training of the student ; these are opportunities not lor teaching only, but also for research. And perhaps in no respect has the development during the past thirteen years been so marked as in this. Never so clearly as during this period has it become recognised that each post for teaching is no less a post for learning, that among academic duties the making knowledge is ;is urgent as the distributing it, and that among professorial qualifications the gift of garnering in new truths is at least as needful as facility in the didactic exposition of old ones. Thirteen years has seen a great change in this matter, and the progress has been perhaps greater on this side of the water than on the other, so far as English-speaking people are concerned. We on the other side have witnessed with envy the establishment on this side of a university, physio- logy having in it an honoured place, the keynote of which is the development of 4 HEPORT — 1897. original research. It will, I venture to think, be considered a strong confirmation of my present theme that the Clark University at Worcester was founded only ten years ago. And here, as an English-speaking person, may I be allowed to point out, not without pride, that these thirteen vears of increased opportunity have been thirteen years of increased fruitfulness. In the history of our science, among the names of the great men who have made epochs, English names, from Harvey onwards, occupy no mean place ; but the greatness of such great men is of no national birth ; it comes as it lists, and is independent of time and of place. If we turn to the more ever} day workers, whose continued labours more slowly build up the growing edifice and provide the needful nourishment for the greatness of which I have just spoken, we may, I will dare to say, affirm that the last thirteen years has brought contributions to physiology, made known in the English tongue, which, whether we regard their quantity or their quality, signifi- cantly outdo the like contributions made in any foregoing period of the same leugth. Those contributions have been equally as numerous, equally as good on this side as on the other side of the waters. And here I trust I shall be pardoned if personal ties and affection lead me to throw in a personal word. May I not say that much which has been done on this side has been directly or indirectly the outcome of the energy and gifts of one whom I may fitly name on an occasion such as this, since, though he belonged to the other side, his physiological life was passed and his work was done on this side, one who has been taken from us since this Association last met, Henry Newell Martin ? Yes, during these thirteen years, if we put aside the loss of comrades, physiology has been prosperous with us and the outlook is bright ; but, as every cloud has its silver lining, so shadow follows all sunshine, success brings danger, and something bitter rises up amid the sweet of prosperity. The development of which I have spoken is an outcome of the progressive activity of the age, and the dominant note of that activity is heard in the word 4 commercial.' Noblemen and noblewomen open shop, and every one, low as well as high, presses forward towards large or quick profits. The very influences which have made devotion to scientific inquiry a possible means of livelihood, and so fostered scientific investigation, are creating a new danger. The path of the professor was in old times narrow and strait, and only the few who had a real call cared to tread it ; nowadays there is some fear lest it become so broad and so easy as to tempt those who are in no way fitted for it. There is an increasing risk of men undertaking a research, not because a question is crying out to them to be answered, but in the hope that the publication of their results may win for them a lucrative post. There is, moreover, an even greater evil ahead. The man who lights on a new scientific method holds the key of a chamber in which much gold may be stored up ; and strong is the temptation for him to keep the new knowledge to himself until he has filled his fill, while all the time his brother-inquirers are wandering about in the dark through lack of that which he possesses. Such a selfish withholding of new scientific truth is beginning to be not rare in some branches of knowledge. May it never come near us ! Now I will, with }^our permission, cease to sound the provincial note, and ask your attention for a few minutes while I attempt to dwell on what seem to me to be some of the salient features of the fruits of physiological activity, not among English-speaking people only, but among all folk, during the past thirteen years. When we review the records of research and discovery over any lengthened period, we find that in every branch of the study progress is irregular, that it ebbs and flows. At one time a particular problem occupies much attention, the peri- odicals are full of memoirs about it, and many of the young bloods flesh their maiden swords upon it. Then again for a while it seems to lie dormant and unheeded. But quite irrespective of this feature, which seems to belong to all lines of inquiry, we may recognise two kinds of progress. On the one hand, in such a period, in spite of the waves just mentioned, a steady advance continually goes on in researches which were begun and pushed forward in former periods, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 5 some of them being of very old date. On the other hand, new lines of investiga- tion, starting with quite new ideas or rendered possible by the introduction of new methods, are or may be began. Such naturally attract great attention, and give a special character to the period. In the past thirteen years we may recognise both these kinds of progress. Of the former kind I might take, as an example, the time-honoured problems of the mechanics of the circulation. In spite of the labour which has been spent on these in times of old, something always remains to be done, and the last thirteen years have not been idle. The researches of Hiirthle and Tigerstedt, of Roy and Adami, not to mention others, have left us wiser than we were before. So again, with the also old problems of muscular contraction, progress, if not exciting, has been real ; we are some steps measurably nearer an understanding what is the exact nature of the fundamental changes which bring about contraction and what are the relations of those changes to the structure of muscular fibre. In respect to another old problem, too, the beat of the heart, we have continued to creep nearer and nearer to the full light. Problems again, the method of attacking which is of more recent origin, such as the nature of secretion, and the allied problem of the nature of transudation, have engaged attention and brought about that stirring of the waters of controversy which, whatever be its effects in other departments of life, is never in science wholly a waste of time, if indeed it be a waste of time at all, since, in matters of science, the tribunal to which the combatants of both sides appeal is always sure to give a true judgment in the end. In the controversy thus arisen, the last word has perhaps not yet been said, but whether we tend at present to side with Heidenham, who has continued in^o the past thirteen years the brilliant labours which were perhaps the distinguishing features of physiolo- gical progress in preceding periods, and who in his present sufferings carries with him, I am sure, the sympathies if not the hopes of all his brethren, or whether we are more inclined to join those who hold different views, we may all agree in saying that we have, in 1897, distinctly clearer ideas of why secretion gathers in an alveolus or lymph in a lymph space than we had in 1884. I might multiply such examples of progress on more or less old lines until I wearied you ; but I will try not to do so. I wish rather to dwell for a few minutes on some of what seem to be the salient new features of the period under review. One such feature is, I venture to think, the development of what may perhaps be called the new physiological chemistry. We always are, and for a long time always have been, learning something new about the chemical phenomena of living beings. During the years preceding those immediately recent, great progress, for which we have especially, perhaps, to thank Kiihne, was made in our knowledge of the bodies which we speak of as proteids and their allies. But while admitting to the full the high value of all these researches, and the great light which they threw on many of the obscurer problems of the chemical changes of the body, such, for instance, as the digestive changes and the clotting of blood, it could not but be felt that their range was restricted and their value limited. Granting the extreme usefulness of being able to distinguish bodies though their solution or precipi- tation by means of this or that salt or acid, this did not seem to promise to throw much light on the all-important problem as to what was the connection between the chemical constitution of such bodies and their work in the economy of a living being. For it need not be argued that this is an all-important problem. To day, as > esterday and as in the days before, the mention of the word vitalism or its equivalent separates as a war-cry physiologists into two camps, one contending that all the phenomena of life can, and the other that they cannot, be explained as the result of the action of chemico-physical forces. For myself, I have always felt that while such a controversy, like other controversies as I ventured to say just now, is useful as a stirring of the waters, through which much oxygen is brought liome to many things and no little purification effected, the time for the final judgment on the question will not come until we shall more clearly understand than we do at present what we mean by physical and chemical, and may perhaps be put off until somewhere near the end of all things, when we shall know as fully ■as we ever shall what the forces to which we give these names can do and what I 2 6 REPORT — 1897. they cannot. Meanwhile the great thing is to push forward, so far as may be r the chemical analysis of the phenomena presented by living beings. Hitherto the physiological chemists, or the chemical physiologists as perhaps they ought rather to be called, have perhaps gone too much their own gait, and have seemed to be constructing too much a kind of chemistry of their own. But that, may I say, has in part been so because they did not receive from their distinctly chemical brethren the help of which they were in need. May I go so far as to say that to us physio- logists these our brethren seemed to be lagging somewhat behind, at least along those lines of their science which directly told on our inquiries ? That is, however, no longer the case. They are producing work and giving us ideas which we can carry straight into physiological problems. The remarkable work of Emil Fischer on sugais, one of the bright results of my period of thirteen years, may fully be regarded as opening up a new era in the physiology of the carbohydrates, opening up a new era because it has shown us the way how to investigate physiological problems on purely and distinctively chemical lines. Not in the carbohydrates only, but in all directions our younger investigators are treating the old problems by the new chemical methods; the old physiological chemistry is passing away ; nowhere, perhaps, is the outlook more promising than in this direction ; and we may at any time receive the news that the stubborn old fortress of the proteids has succumbed to the new attack. Another marked feature of the period has been the increasing attention given to the study of the lower forms of life, using their simpler structures and more diffuse phenomena to elucidate the more general properties of living matter. During the greater part of the present century physiologists have, as a rule, chosen as subjects of their observations almost exclusively the vertebrata ; by far the larger part of the results obtained during this time have been gained by inquiries restricted to some half a dozen kinds of backboned animals ; the frog and the myograph, the dog and the kymograph have almost seemed the alpha and the omega of the science. This has been made a reproach by some, but, I cannot help thinking, unjustly. Physiology is, in its broad meaning, the unravelling of the potentialities of things in the condition which we call living. In the higher animals the evolution by differentiation has brought these potentialities, so to speak, near the surface, or even laid them bare as actual properties capable of being grasped. In the lower animals they still lie deep buried in primeval sameness ; and we may grope among them in vain unless we have a clue furnished by the study of the higher animal. This truth seems to have been early recognised during the progress of the science. In the old time, observers such as Spallanzani, with but a mode- rate amount of accumulated knowledge behind them, and a host of problems before them, with but few lines of inquiry as yet definitely laid down, were free to choose the subjects of their investigation where they pleased, and in the wide field open to them prodded so to speak among all living things, indifferent whether they possessed a backbone or no. But it soon became obvious that the study of the special problems of the more highly organised creature was more fruitful, or at least more easily fruitful, than that of the general problems of the simpler forms ; and hence it came about that inquiry, as it went on, grew more and more limited to the former. But an increasing knowledge of the laws of life as exempli- fied in the differentiated phenomena of the mammal is increasingly fitting us for a successful attack on the more general phenomena of the lowly creatures possessing little more than that molecular organisation, if such a phrase be per- mitted, which alone supplies the conditions for the manifestation of vital activities. And, though it may be true that in all periods men have from time to time laboured at this theme, I think that I am not wrong in saying that the last dozen years or so mark a distinct departure both as regards the number of researches directed to it, and also, what is of greater moment, as regards the definiteness and clearness of the results thereby obtained . One has only to look at the results recorded in the valuable treatises of Verworn and Biedermann, whether obtained by the authors themselves or by others, to feel great hope that in the immediately near future a notable advance will be made in our grasp of the nature of that varying collection of molecular conditions, potencies and changes, slimy hitherto to the intellectua TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 7 no less than to the physical touch, which we are in the habit of denoting by the more or less magical word protoplasm. And perhaps one happy feature of such an advance will be one step in the way of that reintegration which men of science fondly hope may ultimately follow the differentiation of studies now so fierce and attended by many ills ; in the problems of protoplasm the animal physiologist touches hands with the botanist, and both find that under different names they are striving towards the same end. Closely allied to and indeed a part of the above line of inquiry is the study of the physiological attributes of the cell and of their connection with its intrinsic organisation. This is a study which, during the last dozen years, has borne no mean fruits ; but it is an old study, one which has been worked at from time to time, reviving again and again as new methods offered new opportunities. More- over, it will probably come directly before us in our sectional work, and therefore I will say nothing more of it here. Still another striking feature of the past dozen years has been the advance of our knowledge in regard to those events of the animal body which we have now- learnt to speak of as ' internal secretion/ This knowledge did not begin in this period. The first note was sounded long ago in the middle of the century, when Claude Bernard made known what he called ' the glycogenic function of the liver/ Men, too, were busy with the thyroid body and the suprarenal capsules long before the meeting of the British Association at Montreal. But it was since then, namely in 1889, that Minkowski published his discovery of the diabetic phenomena result- ing from the total removal of the pancreas. That, I venture to think, was of momentous value, not only as a valuable discovery in itself, but especially, perhaps, in confirming and fixing our ideas as to internal secretion, and in encouraging further research. Minkowski's investigation possessed this notable feature, that it was clear, sharp and decided, and, moreover, the chief factor, namely sugar, was subject to quantitative methods. The results of removing the thyroid body had been to a large extent general, often vague, and in some cases uncertain ; so much so as to justify, to a certain extent, the doubts held by some as to the validity of the con- clusion that the symptoms witnessed were really and simply due to the absence of the organ removed. The observer who removes the pancreas has to deal with a tangible and measurable result, the appearance of sugar in the urine. About this there can be no mistake, no uncertainty. And the confidence thus engendered in the conclusion that the pancreas, besides secreting the pancreatic juice, effects some notable change in the blood passing through it, spread to the analogous conclusions concerning the thyroid and the suprarenal, and moreover suggested further experimental inquiry. By those inquiries all previous doubts have been removed ; it is not now a question whether or no the thyroid carries on a so-called internal secretion ; the problem is reduced to finding out what it exactly does and how exactly it does it. Moreover, no one can at the present day suppose that this feature of internal secretion is confined to the thyroid, the suprarenal, and the pancreas ; it needs no spirit of prophecy to foretell that the coming years will add to physiological science a large and long chapter, the first marked distinctive verses of which belong to the dozen years which have just passed away. The above three lines of advance are of themselves enough to justify a certain pride on the part of the physiologist as to the share which his science is taking in the forward movements of the time. And yet I venture to think that each and all of these is wholly overshadowed by researches of another kind, through which knowledge has made, during the past dozen years or so, a bound so momentous and so far-reaching that all other results gathered in during the time seem to shrink into relative insignificance. It was a little before my period, in the year 1879, that Golgi published his modest note, ' Un nuovo processo di technica microscopical 1 That was the breaking out from the rocks of a little stream which has since swollen into a great flood. It is quite true that long before a new era in our knowledge of the central nervous system had been opened up by the works of Ferrier and of Fritsch and Hitzig. Between 1 Bendiconti del reale Istitulo Lombardo, vol. xii. p. 206. 8 REPORT — 1897. 1870 and 1880 progress in this branch of physiology had been continued and rapid. Yet that progress had left much to be desired. On the one hand the experimental inquiries, even when they were carried out with the safeguard of an adequate psychical analysis of the phenomena which presented themselves, and this was not always the case, sounded a very uncertain note, at least when they dealt with other than simply motor effects. They were, moreover, not unfrequently in discord with clinical experience. In general the conclusions which were arrived at through them, save such as were based on the production of easily recognised and often measurable movements, were regarded by many as conclusions of the kind which could not be ignored, which demanded respectful attention, and yet which failed to carry conviction. It seemed to be risking too much to trust too implicitly to the apparent teaching of the results arrived at ; something appeared wanting to give these their full validity, to explain their full and certain meaning by showing their connection with what was known in other ways and by other methods. On the other hand, during nearly all this time, in spite of the valuable results acquired by the continually improving histological technique, by the degeneration method, and by the developmental method, by the study of the periods of myelination, most of us, at all events, were sitting down, as our forefathers had done, before the intricate maze of encephalic structure, fascinated by its complexity, but wondering what it all meant. Even when we attempted to thread our way through the relatively simple tangle of the spinal cord, to expect that we should ever see our way so to unravel out the strands of fibres, here thick, there thin, now twisting and turning, and anon running straight, or so to set out in definite constellations the seeming milky way of star-like cells, so to do this as to make the conformation of the cord explain the performances of which it is capable, appeared to be something beyond our reach. And when we passed from the cord to those cerebral structures the even gross topography of wnich is the despair of the beginner in anatomical studies, the multiple maze of grey and white matter seemed to frame itself into the letters graven on the gateway of the city of Dis, and bid us leave all hope behind. What a change has come upon us during the past dozen years, and how great is the hope of ultimate success which we have to-day. Into what at the meeting at Montreal seemed a cloudy mass, in which most things were indistinct and doubtful, and into which each man could read images of possible mechanisms according as his fancy led, the method of Golgi has fallen like a clarifying drop, and at the present moment we are watching with interest and delight how that vague cloud is beginning to clear up and develop into a sharp and definite picture, in which lines objectively distinct and saying one thing only reveal themselves more and more. This is not the place to enter into details, and I will content myself with pointing out as illustrative of my theme the progress which is being made in our knowledge of how we hear and how sounds affect us. A dozen years ago we pos- sessed experimental and clinical evidence which led us to believe that auditory impulses sweeping up the auditory nerve became developed into auditory sensations through events taking place in the temporo-sphenoidal convolution, and we had some indications that as these passed upward through the lower and middle brain the striae acusticse and the lateral fillet had some part to play. Beyond this we knew but little. To-day we can with confidence construct a diagram which he who runs can read, showing how the impulses undergoing a relay in the tuberculum acusticum and accessory nucleus pass by the striae acusticae and trapezoid fibres to the superior olive and trapezoid nucleus, and onwards by the lateral fillet to the posterior corpus quadrageminum and to the cortex of the temporo- sphenoidal convolution. And if much, very much, yet remains to be done even in tracking out yet more exactly the path pursued by the impulses while they are still undeveloped impulses, not as yet lit up with consciousness, and in understand- ing the functional meaning of relays and apparently alternate routes, to say nothing of the deeper problems of when and how the psychical element intervenes, we feel that we have in our hands the clue by means of which we may hope to trace out clearly the mechanisms by which, whether consciousness plays its part or no, sounds affect so profoundly and so diversely the movements of the body, And haply some time or other to tell, in a plain and exact way, the story of how TRANSACTIONS Of SECTION I. 9 we hear. I have thus referred to hearing because the problems connected with this seemed, thirteen years ago, so eminently obscure ; it appeared so pre-eminently hard a task, that of tracing out the path of an auditory impulse through the con- fused maze of fibre and cell presented by the lower and middle brain. Of the mechanism of sight we seemed even then to have better knowledge, but how much more clearly do we, so to speak, see vision now ? So also with all other sensations, even those most obscure ones of touch and pain ; indeed, all over the nervous system light seems breaking in a most remarkable way. This great and significant progress we owe, I venture to say, to Golgi, to the method introduced by him ; and I for one cannot help being glad that this impor- tant contribution to science, as well as another contingent and most valuable one, the degeneration method of Marchi, should be among the many tokens that Italy, the mother of all sciences in times gone by, is now once more taking her right place in scientific no less than in political life. We owe, I say, this progress to Golgi in the sense that the method introduced by him was the beginning of the new researches. We owe, moreover, to Golgi not the mere technical introduction of the method, but something more. He himself pointed out the theoretical signifi- cance of the results which his method produced ; and if in this he has been out- stripped and even corrected by others, his original merit must not be allowed to be forgotten. Those others are many, in many lands ; but two names stand out conspicuous among them. If rejuvenescent Italy invented the method, another aucient country, whose fame, once brilliant in the past, like that of Italy, suffered in later times an eclipse, produced the man who, above all others, has showed us how to use it. At the meeting at Montreal a voice from Spain telling of things physio- logical would have seemed a voice crying out of the wilderness; to-day the name of Kamon-y-Cayal is in every physiologist's mouth. That is one name, but there is yet another. Years ago, when those of us who are now veterans and see signs that it is time for us to stand aside were spelling out the primer of histology, one name was always before us as that of a man who touched every tissue and touched each well. It is a consoling thought to some of us elder ones that histological research seems to be an antidote to senile decay. As the companion of the young Spaniard in the pregnant work on the histology of the central nervous system done in the eighties and the nineties of the century, must be named the name of the man who was brilliant in the fifties, Albert von Kolliker. When I say that the progress of our knowledge of the central nervous system during the past thirteen years has been largely due to the application of the method of Golgi, I do not mean that it, alone and by itself, has done what has been done. That is not the way of science. Almost every thrust forward in science is a result- ant of concurrent forces working along different lines : and in most cases at least significant progress comes when efforts from different quarters meet and join hands. And especially as regards methods it is true that their value and effect depend on their coming at their allotted times. As I said above, neither experimental investigation nor clinical observation nor histological inquiry by the then known methods, had been idle before 1880. They had moreover borne even notable fruits, but one thing was lacking for their fuller fruition. The experimental and clinical results all postulated the existence of clear definite paths for impulses within the central nervous system, of paths moreover which, while clear and sharp, were manifold and, under certain conditions, alternate or even vicarious, and were so constructed that the impulses as they swept along them underwent from time to time — that is, at some place or other — transformations or at least changes in nature. But the methods of histological investigations available before that of Golgi, though they taught us much, failed to furnish such an analysis of the tangle of grey and white matter as would clearly indicate the paths required. This the method of Golgi did, or rather is doing. Where gold failed silver has succeeded, and is succeeding. Thanks to the black tract which silver when handled in a cer- tain way leaves behind it in the animal body, as indeed it does elsewhere, we can now trace out, within the central nervous system, the pathway afforded by the nerve cell and the nerve cell alone. We see its dendrites branching out in various directions, each alert to dance the molecular dance assigned to it at once by the 10 REPORT — 189?. more lasting conditions which we call structural, and the more passing ones which we call functional, so soon as some partner touch its hand. We see the body of the cell with its dominant nucleus ready to obey and yet to marshal and command the figure so started. We see the neuraxon prepared to carry that figure along itself, it may be to far-distant parts, it may be to near ones, or to divert it along collaterals, it may be many, or it may be few, or to spread out at once among numerous seemingly equipollent branches. And whether it prove ultimately true or no that the figure of the dancing molecules sweeps always onwards along the dendrites towards the nucleus, and always outwards away from the nucleus along the neuraxon, or whatever way in the end be shown to be the exact differences in nature and action between the dendrites and the neuraxon, this at least seems sure, that cell plays upon cell only by such a kind of contact as seems to afford an opportunity for change in the figure of the dance, that is to say, in the nature of the impulse, and that in at least the ordinary play it is the terminal of the neuraxon (either of the main core or a collateral) of one cell which touches with a vibrating touch the dendrite or the body of some other cell. We can thus, I say, by the almost magic use of a silver token — I say magic use, for he who for the first time is shown a Golgi preparation is amazed to learn that it is such a sprawling thing as he sees before him which teaches so much, and yet when he comes to use it acquires daily increased confidence in its worth — it is by the use of such a silver token that we have been able to unravel so much of the intricate tangle of the possible paths of nervous impulses. By themselves, the acquisition of a set of pictures of such black lines would be of little value. But, and this I venture to think is the important point, to a most remarkable extent, and with noteworthy rapidity, the histological results thus arrived at, aided by analogous results reached by the degeneration method, especially by the newer method akin to that of Golgi, that of Marchi, have confirmed or at times extended and corrected the teachings of experimental investigation and clinical observation. It is this which gives strength to our present position ; we are attacking our problems along two inde- pendent lines. On the one hand we are tracing out anatomical paths, and laying bare the joints of histological machinery; on the other hand, beginning with the phenomena, and analysing the manifestations of disorder, whether of our own making or no, as well as of order, we are striving to delineate the machinery by help of its action. When the results of the two methods coincide, we maybe con- fident that we are on the road of all truth ; when they disagree, the very disagree- ment serves as the starting-point for fresh inquiries along the one line or the other. Fruitful as have been the labours of the past dozen years, we may rightly con- sider them as but the earnest of that which is to come ; and those of us who are far down on the slope of life may wistfully look forward to the next meeting of the Association on these Western shores, wondering what marvels will then be told. Physiology, even in the narrower sense to which, by emphasis on the wavering: barrier which parts the animal from the plant, it is restricted in this Section, deals with many kinds of being, and with many things in each. But, somewhat as man, in one aspect a tiny fragment of the world, still more of the universe, in another aspect looms so great as to overshadow everything else, so the nervous system, seen from one point of view, is no more than a mere part of the whole organism, but, seen from another point of view, seems by its importance to swallow r up all the rest. As man is apt to look upon all other things as mainly subserving his interests and purposes, so the physiologist, but with more justice, may regard all the rest of the body as mainly subserving the welfare of the nervous system ; and, as man was created last, so our natural knowledge of the working of that nervous system has been the latest in its growth. But, if there be any truth in what I have urged to-day, we are witnessing a growth which promises to be as rapid as it has seemed to be delayed. Little spirit of prophecy is needed to foretell that in the not so distant future the teacher of physiology will hurry over the themes on which he now dwells so long, in order that he may have time to expound the most important of all the truths which he has to tell, those which have to do with the manifold workings of the brain. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 11 And I will be here so bold as to dare to point out that this development of his science must, in the times to come, influence the attitude of the physiologist towards the world, and ought to influence the attitude of the world towards him. I imagine that if a plebiscite, limited even to instructed, I might almost say scientific, men, were taken at the present moment, it would be found that the most prevalent conception of physiology is that it is a something which is in some way an appendage to the art of medicine. That physiology is, and always must be/the basis of the science of healing, is so much a truism that I would not venture to repeat it here were it not that some of those enemies, alike to science and humanity, who are at times called anti-vivisectionists, and whose zeal often outruns, not only discretion, but even truth, have quite recently asserted that I think otherwise. Should such a hallucination ever threaten to possess me, I should only have to turn to the little we yet know of the physiology of the nervous system and remind myself how great a help the results of pure physiological curiosity — I repeat the words, pure physiological curiosity, for curiosity is the mother of science — have been, alike to the surgeon and the physician, in the treatment of those in some way most afflicting maladies, the diseases of the nervous system. No, physiology is, and always must be, the basis of the science of healing ; but it is something more. When physiology is dealing with those parts of the body which we call muscular, vascular, glandular tissues and the like, rightly handled she points out the way not only to mend that which is hurt, to repair the damages of bad usage and disease, but so to train the growing tissues and to guide the grown ones as that the best use may be made of them for the purposes of life. She not only heals, she governs and educates. Nor does she do otherwise when she comes to deal with the nervous tissues. Nay, it is the very prerogative of these nervous tissues that their life is above that of all the other tissues, contingent on the envi- ronment and susceptible of education. If increasing knowledge gives us increasing power so to mould a muscular fibre that it shall play to the best the part which it has to play in life, the little knowledge we at present possess gives us at least much confidence in a coming far greater power over the nerve cell. This is not the place to plunge into the deep waters of the relation which the body bears to the mind ; but this at least stares us in the face, that changes in what we call the body bring about changes in what we call the mind. When we alter the one, we alter the other. If, as the whole past history of our science leads us to expect, in the coming years a clearer and clearer insight into the nature and conditions of that molecular dance which is to us the material token of nervous action, and a fuller, exacter knowledge of the laws which govern the sweep of nervous impulses along fibre and cell, give us wider and directer command over the moulding of the growing ner- vous mechanism and the maintenance and regulation of the grown one, then assuredly physiology will take its place as a judge of appeal in questions not only of the body, but of the minr! ; it will raise its voice not in the hospital and con- sulting-room only, but also in the senate and the school. One word more. We physiologists are sorely tempted towards self-righteous- ness, for we enjoy that blessedness which comes when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. In the mother-country our hands are tied by an ^ct which was defined by one of the highest legal authorities as a ' penal ' Act ; and though with us, as with others, difficulties may have awakened activity, our science sutlers from the action of the State. And some there are who would go still farther than the State has gone, though that is far, who would take from us even that which we have, and bid us make bricks wholly without straw. To go back is always a hard thing, and we in England can hardly look to any great betterment for at least many years to come. But unless what I have ventured to put before you to-day be a mocking phantasm, unworthy of this great Association and this great occasion, England in this respect at least offers an example to be shunned alike by her offspring and her fellows, drifts!) Jlssociaficm for tfye glbvancemmt of Science. TORONTO, 1897. ADDRESS TO THE BOTANICAL SECTION BY H. MARSHALL WARD, Sc.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Honorary Fellow of Christ's College, and Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge, PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. The competent historian of our branch of science will have no lack of materials when he comes to review the progress of botany during the latter half of the Victorian reign. The task of doing justice to the work in phanerogamic botany alone, under the leadership of men like Hooker, Asa Gray, Mueller, Engler, Warming, and the army of systematists so busily shifting the frontiers of the various natural groups of flowering plants, will need able hands for satisfactory treatment. A mere sketch of the influence of Kew, the principal centre of syste- matic botany, and of the active contingents of Indian and colonial botanists working under its inspiration, will alone require an important chapter, and it will need full knowledge and a wide vision to avoid inadequacy of treatment of its powerful stimulus on all departments of post-Darwinian botany. The 6 Genera Plantar urn,' the 'British Flora,' the 6 Flora of India,' suffice to remind us of the pres- tige of England in systematic botany, and the influence of the large and growing library of local and colonial floras we owe to the labours of Bentham, Trimen, Clarke, Oliver, Baker, Hemsley, Brandis, King, Gamble, Balfour, and the present Director of Kew, is more than merely imperial. The progress in Europe and America of the other departments of botany has been no less remarkable, and indeed histology and anatomy, comparative mor- phology, and the physiology and pathology of plants have perhaps advanced even more rapidly, because the ground was newer. In England the work done at Cambridge, South Kensington and elsewhere, and the publications in the 6 Annals of Botany' and other journals sufficiently bear witness to this. A consequence has been the specialisation which must soon be openly recognised — as it already is tacitly — in botany as in zoological and other branches of science. No note has been more clearly sounded than this during the past twenty-five years, as is evident to all who have seen the origin, rise, and progress of our modern laboratories, special journals, and even the gradual subdivisions of this Association. We may deplore this, as some deplore the departure of the days when a naturalist was expected to teach geology, zoology, and botany as a matter of course ; but the inevitable must come. Already the establishment of bacteriological laboratories and a huge special literature, of zymo-technical laboratories and courses on the study of yeasts and mould fungi, of agricultural stations, forestry and dairy schools, and so on — all these are signs of the inexorable results of progress. E 2 REPORT — 1897. There are disadvantages, as the various Centralblatter and special journals show ; for hurried work and feverish contentions for priority are apt to accompany these subdivisions of labour ; and those of us who are most intimately concerned with the teaching of botany will do well to take heed of these signs of our times, and distinguish between the healthy specialisation inevitably due to the sheer weight and magnitude of our subject, and that incident on other movements and arising from other causes. The teaching and training in a university or school need not be narrow because its research-laboratories are famous for special work. One powerful cause of modern specialisation is utility. The development of industries like brewing, dyeing, forestry, agriculture, with their special demands on botany, shows one phase ; the progress of bacteriology, palaeontology, pathology, economic and geographical botany, all asking special questions, suggests another. In each case men are encouraged to go more and more deeply into the particular problems raised. Identification of flowers in Egyptian tombs, of pieces of wood in Roman excavations, the sorting of hay-grasses for analysis, or seeds in the warehouses ; the special classifications of seedlings used by foresters, or of trees in winter, and so on, all afford examples. It is carried far, as witness the immense labour it is found worth while for experts to devote to the microscopic analysis of seeds and fruits liable to adulteration, or to the recognition of the markings in imprints of fossil leaves, or of characters like leaf-scars, bud-scales, lenticels, and so on, by which trees may be determined even from bits of twigs. If we look at the great groups of plants from a broad point of view, it is remarkable that the Fungi and the Phanerogams occupy public attention on quite other grounds than do the Alga3, Mosses, and Ferns. Algae are especially a physiologists' group, employed in questions on nutrition, reproduction, and cell- division and growth ; the Bryophyta and Pteridophyta are, on the other hand, the domain of the morphologist concerned with academical questions such as the Alternation of Generations and the Evolution of the higher plants. Fungi and Phanerogams, while equally or even more employed by specialists in Morphology and Physiology, appeal widely to general interests, and evidently on the ground of utility. Without saying that this enhances the importance of either group, it certainly does induce scientific attention to them. I need hardly say that comparisons of the kind I am making, invidious though they may appear, in no way imply detraction from the highest honour deservedly paid to men who, like Thuret, Schmitz, and Thwaites in the past, and Bornet, Wille, and Klebs in the present, have done and are doing so much to advance our academical knowledge of the Algae ; and Klebs' recent masterpiece of sustained physiological work, indeed, promises to be one of the most fruitful contributions to the study of variation that even this century has produced. Nor must we in England forget Farmer s work on Ascophyllum, and on the nuclei and cell-divisions of HepaticcB ; and while Bower and Campbell have laid bare by their indefati- gable labours the histological details of the Mosses and Vascular Cryptogams, and carried the questions of Alternation of Generations and the evolution of these plants so far, that it would almost seem little remains to be done with Hoffmeister's brilliant conception but to ask whither it is leading us ; the genetic relation- ships have become so clear, even to the details, that the recent discovery by Ikeno and Hirase of spermatozoids in the pollen tubes of Cycas and Girujko almost loses its power of surprising us, because the facts fit in so well with what was already taught us by these and other workers. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of these comparative studies, not only of the recent Vascular Cryptogams, but also of the Fossil Pteridophyta, which, in the hands of Williamson, Scott, and Seward, are yielding at every turn new building stones and explanatory charts of the edifice of Evolu- tion on the lines laid down by Darwin. All these matters, however, serve to prove my present contention, that the groups referred to do not much concern the general public ; whereas, on turning to the Fungi and Phanerogams, we find quite a different state of affairs. It is very significant that a group like the Fungi should have attracted so much scientific TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 3 attention, and aroused popular interest at the same time. In addition to their importance from more academical points of view — for they claim the attention of morphologist and physiologist as much as any group, as the work of Wager, Massee, Trow, Hartog, and Harper, and an army of Continental investigators, with Brefeld, Yon Tavel, Magnus, &c, at their head, has shown — the Fungi appeal to wider interests on many grounds, but especially on that of utility. The fact that Fungi affect our lives directly has been driven home, and whether as poisons or foods, destructive moulds or fermentation-agents, parasitic mildews or disease germs, they occupy more of public interest than all other Cryptogams together, the flowering plants alone rivalling them in this respect. A marked feature of the period we live in will be the great advances made in our knowledge of the uses of plants. Of course, this development of Economic Botany has gone hand in hand with the progress of Geographical Botany and the extension of our planting and other interests in the colonies, but the useful applica- tions of Botany to the processes of home industries are increasing also. The information acquired by travellers exploring new countries, by orchid- collectors, prospectors for new fibres or india-rubber, or resulting from the experi- ences of planters, foresters, and observant people, living abroad, has a value in money which does not here concern us ; but it has also a value to science, for the facts collected, the specimens brought home, the processes observed, the results of analyses, the suggestions gathered — in short, the puzzles propounded by these wanderers — all stimulate research, and so have a value not to be expressed in terms of money. The two react mutually, and I am convinced that the stimulus of the questions asked by commerce of botanical science has had, and is having, an important effect in promoting its advance. The best proof to be given of the converse — that botany is really useful to commerce — is afforded by the ever-increasing demands for answers to the questions of the practical man. At the risk of touch- ing the sensibilities of those who maintain that a university should regard only the purely academical aspects of a science, I propose to discuss some cases where the reciprocal influences of applied, or useful, and purely academic or useless botany — useless because no use has yet been made of it, as some one has wittily put it — have resulted in gain to both. In doing thi3, 1 wish to clearly state my conviction that no scientific man should be guided or restricted in his investiga- tions by any considerations whatever as to the commercial or money value of his results : to patent a method of cultivating a bacillus, to keep secret the composi- tion of a nutritive medium, to withhold any evidence, is anti-scientific, for by the nature of the case it is calculated to prevent improvement — i.e. to impede progress. It is not implied that there is anything intrinsically wrong in protecting a dis- covery : all I urge is that it is opposed to the scientific spirit. But the fact that a scientific discovery is found to have a commercial value also — for instance, Wehmer's discovery that the mould fungus, Citryomyces, will convert 50 per cent, of the sugar in a saccharine solution to the commercially valuable citric acid ; or Matruchot's success in germinating the spores of the mushroom, and in sending pure cultures of that valuable agaric into the market — is no argument against the scientific value of the research. There are in agri- culture, forestry, and commerce generally, innumerable and important questions for solution, the investigation of which will need all the powers of careful observation, industrious recording, and thoughtful deduction of which a scientific man is capable. But while I emphatically regard these and similar problems as worthy the attention of botanists, and recognise frankly their commercial import- ance, I want to carefully and distinctly warn all my hearers against supposing that their solution should be attempted simply because they have a commercial value. It is because they are so full of promise as scientific problems, that I think it no valid argument against their importance to theoretical science that they have been suggested in practice. In all these matters it seems to me we should recog- nise that practical men are doing us a service in setting questions, because they set them definitely. In the attempt to solve these problems we may be sure science will gain, and if commerce gains also, so much the better for commerce, and indirectly for us. But that is not the same thing as directly interesting ourselves K 2 4 .REPORT — 1897. in the commercial value of the answer. This is not our function, and our advice and researches are the more valuable to commerce the less we are concerned with it. It is clear that the magnitude of the subject referred to is far beyond the measure of our purpose to-day, and I shall restrict myself to a short review of some advances in our knowledge of the Fungi made during the last three decades. Little more than thirty years ago we knew practically nothing of the life-history of a fungus, nothing of parasitism, of infectious diseases, or even of fermentation, and many botanical ideas now familiar to most educated persons were as yet unborn. Our knowledge of the physiology of nutrition was in its infancy, even the significance of starches and sugars in the green-plant being as yet not under- stood ; root-hairs and their importance were hardly spoken of ; words like heter- cecism, symbiosis, mycorhiza, &c, did not exist, or the complex ideas they now -connote were not evolved. When we reflect on these facts, and remember that bacteria were as yet merely curious 6 animal culae,' that rusts and smuts were generally supposed to be emanations of diseased states, and that i spontaneous generation ■ was a hydra not yet destroyed, we obtain some notion of the condi- tion of this subject about I860. As with other groups of plants, so with the Fungi, the first studies were those •of collecting, naming and classifying, and prior to 1850 the few botanists who •concerned themselves with these cryptogams at all were systematists. So far as the larger fungi are concerned, the classification attained a high degree of perfec- tion from the point of view of an orderly arrangement of natural objects, and the student of to-day may well look back at the keen observation and terse, vivid descriptions of these older naturalists, which stands in sharp contrast to much of the more slovenly and hurried descriptive work which followed. It may be remembered that even now we rely mainly on the descriptions and system of Fries (1821-1849) for our grouping of the forms alone considered as fungi by most people, and indeed we may regard him as having done for fungi what Linnaeus did for flowering plants. But, as you are aware, a large proportion of the Fungi are microscopic, and in spite of the conscientious and beautiful work of several earlier observers, among whom Corda stands pre-eminent, the classification and descriptions of the thousands of forms were rapidly bringing the subject into chaos. The dawn of a new era in Mycology was preparing, however. A few isolated observers had already begun the study of the development of Fungi, but their work was neglected, till Persoon and Ehrenberg at the beginning of this century again brought the subject into prominence, and then came a series of discoveries destined to stimulate work in quite other directions. The Tulasnes may be said to have brought the old period to a close and pre- pared the way for the new one ; they combined the powers of accurate observation with a marvellous faculty of delineation, and applied the anatomical method to the study of fungi with more success than ever before. Their new departure, however, is more evident in their selection of the parasitic fungi for study, and you all know how indispensable we still find their drawings of the germinating spores of the Smuts and Rusts. It is difficult to say which of their works is the most masterly, but probably the study of the life-history of Claviceps purpurea deserves first place, though successive memoirs on the Uredineae, Ustilagineae, Peronosporeae, Tuberaceae, and then that magnificent work the * Selecta Fungorum Carpologia,' cannot be forgotten. In England, Berkeley was the man to link the period previous to 1860 with the present epoch. A systematist and observer of high power, and with a rare faculty for appreciating the labours of others, this grand old naturalist did work of unequalled value for the period, and the student who wishes to learn what was the state of mycology about this time will find it nowhere better presented than in Berkeley's works, one of which — his ' Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany ' — is a classic. Like all classifications in botany, however, that of the Fungi now took two courses ; one in the hands of those who collated names and herbarium-specimens, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 5 and proposed cut and dried, but necessary and from a certain point of view very complete systems of classification, and those who, generalising from actual cultures and observation of the living plant, proposed outline schemes, the details- of which should be filled in by their successors. No one who knows the history of botany during this century will deny that it is to the genius of De Bary that we owe the foundation of modern mycology, for it was this young Alsatian who, though profoundly influenced by the work of Yon Mohl and Schleiden on the one hand, and of Unger and the Tulasnes on the other, refused to follow either the school cf the phytotomists — though his laborious 'Comparative Anatomy of the Ferns and Phanerogams' shows how well equipped he was to be a leader in that direction — or that of the ana- tomical mycologists. Tso doubt the influence of Cohn, Pringsheim, and others of that new army of microscopists who were teaching the necessity of con- tinued observation of living organisms under the microscope, can be traced in impelling De Bary to abandon the older methods, but his own unquestionable originality of thought and method came out very early in his investigations on the Lower Algae and Fungi. If I may compare a branch of science to an arm of the sea, we may look on De Bary's influence as that of a Triton rising to a surface but little disturbed by currents and eddies. The sudden upheaval of his genius set that sea rolling in huge waves, the play of which is not yet exhausted. The birth and flow of the new ideas, expressed in far-reaching generalisations and suggestions which are still moving, led to the revolutions in our notions of polymor- phism, parasitism, and the real nature of infection and epidemics. His development of the meaning of sexuality in Fungi, his startling discovery of heteroecism, his clear exposition of symbiosis, and even his cautious and almost wondering whisper of chemotaxis were all fruitful, and although the questions of enzyme-action and fermentation were not made peculiarly his own, he saw the significance of these and many other phenomena now grown so important, and here, as elsewhere,, thought clearly and boldly, and criticised fearlessly with full knowledge and justice. I do not propose to occupy our time with even a sketch of the history of these and other ideas of this great botanist ; but rather pass to the consideration of a few of the results of some of them in the hands of later workers, in schools now far developed and widely independent of one another, but all deeply indebted to the- genial little man whom we so loved and revered. The most marked feature noticed in the founding of the new schemes of classi- fication of the Fungi was the influence of the results of pure and continuous cultures introduced by De Bary. The effect on those who followed can best be traced by examining the great systems of subsequent workers, led by Brefeld and Van.' Tieghem, and the writings of our modern systematists. This task is beyond my present scheme, however, and there is only time to remind you of the fungus floras of Saccardo, Constantin, Massee, and others, in this connection. The word i fermentation ' usually recalls the ordinary processes concerned in the- brewing of beer and the making of wines and spirits ; but we must not forget that the word connotes all decompositions or alterations in the composition of organic substances induced by the life-activities of Fungi, and that it is a mere accident which brings alcoholic fermentation especially into prominence. I ventured some time ago to term alcoholic fermentation the oldest form of f microscopic gardening practised by man, and this seems justified by what we know of the very various and very ancient processes in this connection. But the making of beers, wines, and spirits, as we understand them, constitutes- but a small part of the province of fermentation, and even when we have added cider and perry, ginger-beer, and the various herb and spruce beers to the list, we have by no means exhausted the tale of fermented drinks. Palm-wines of various* kinds, toddy, pulque, arrack, kava, and a number of tropical alcoholic fermented liquors have to be included, and the koumiss and kephir of the Caucasus, the- curious Russian kwass, the Japanese sake, and allied rice-preparations must be mentioned, to say nothing of the now almost forgotten birch-beer, mead and metheglin, and various other strange fermented decoctions of our forefathers' time or confined to out-of-the-way localities. 6 REPORT — 1897. In all these cases tlie same principal facts come out — a saccharine liquid is exposed to the destructive action of fungi, which decompose it, and we drink the altered or fermented liquor. As is now well known, the principal agents in these fermentations are certain lower forms of fungi called yeasts, and since Leeuwen- hoeck, of Delft, discovered the yeast cells two hundred years ago, and La Tour, Schwann, and Kiitzing (about 1840) recognised them as budding plants, living on the sugar of the liquid, and which must be classed as Fungi, the way was paved for two totally different inquiries concerning yeast. One of these was the fruitful one instigated by Pasteur's genius about 1860, and concerned the functions of yeast in fermentation. In the hands of Naegeli, Brefeld, and others abroad, and of A. J. and Horace Brown and Morris and others in England, Pasteur's line of research was rapidly developed, and, as we all know, has had a wide influence in stimulating investigation and in suggesting new ideas ; and although the theory of alcoholic fermentation itself has not withstood all the criticism brought against it, and seems destined to receive its severest blow this year by E. Buchner's isolation of the alcoholic enzyme, we must always honour the school which nursed it. The divergent line of inquiry turned on the origin and morphological nature of yeast. What kind of a fungus is yeast, and how many kinds or species of yeasts are there ? Reess, in 1870, showed the first steps on this long path of inquiry, and gave the name Saccharomyces to the fungus, showing that several species or forms existed, some of which develop definite spores. In 1883, Hansen, of Copenhagen, taking advantage of the strict methods of culture introduced and improved by De Bary, Brefeld, Klebs, and other botanists, had shown that by cultivating yeast on solid media from a single spore it was possible to obtain constant types of pure yeasts, each with its own peculiar properties. One consequence of Hansen's labours was that it now became possible for every brewer to work with a yeast of uniform t} 7 pe instead of with haphazard mixtures, in which serious disease forms might predominate and injure the beer. Another consequence soon appeared in Hansen's accurate diagnosis of the specific or varietal characters of each form of yeast, and among other things he showed that a true yeast may have a mycelial stage of development. The question of the nucleus of the yeast-cell, on which Mr. Wager will enlighten us, has also occupied much attention, as have also the details of spore formation. Meanwhile, a question of very general theoretical interest had arisen. ; , Beess, Zopf, and Brefeld had shown that many higher fungi can assume a yeast-like stage of development if submerged in fluids. Various species of Mucor, Ustilago, Exoascus, and as we now know, numerous Ascomycetes and Basidio- mycetes as well, can form budding cells, and it was natural to conclude that probably the yeasts of alcoholic fermentation are merely reduced forms of these higher fungi, which have become habituated to the budding condition — a con- clusion apparently supported by Hansen's own discovery that a true Saccharomyces can develop a feeble but unmistakable mycelium. With many ups and downs this question has been debated, but as yet we do not know that the yeasts of alcoholic fermentations can be developed from higher fungi. During the last two years it appeared as if the question would be settled. Takamine stated that the Aspergillus used by the Japanese in brewing sake from rice develops yeast-like cells which ferment the sugar derived from the rice. Jiihler and Jorgensen then extended these researches and claimed to have found yeast-cells on other forms of fungi on the surface of fruits, and to have established that they develop endogenous spores — an indispensable character in the modern definition of the genus Saccharomyces — and cause alcoholic fermen- tation. Klocker and Schionning have this last year published the results of their very ingenious and thorough experimental inquiry into this question, and find, partly by pure cultures of the separate forms, and partly by means of excellently devised TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 7 cultures on ripening fruits still attached to the plant, but imprisoned in sterilised glass vessels, that the yeasts and the moulds are separate forms, not genetically connected, but merely associated in nature, as are so many other forms of yeasts, bacteria and moulds. It is interesting to notice how here, as elsewhere, the lessons taught by pure cultures are found to bear fruit, and how Hansen's work justifies the specialist's laboratory. Among the most astonishing results that have come to us from such researches are Hansen's discoveries that several of the yeasts furnish quite distinct races or varieties in different breweries in various parts of the world, and it seems impos- sible to avoid the conclusion that their race characteristics have been impressed on the cells by the continued action of the conditions of culture to which they have so long been exposed — they are, in fact, domestic races. Much work is now being done on the action of the environment on yeasts, and several interesting results have been obtained. One of the most striking examples is the fact observed by Sauer, who found that a given variety of yeast, whose activity is normally inhibited when the alcohol attains a certain degree of concen- tration in the liquid, can be induced to go on fermenting until a considerably higher proportion of alcohol is formed if a certain lactic- acid bacterium is added to the fermenting liquor. The bacterium, in fact, prepares the way for the yeast. Ex- periments have shown that much damage may be done to beers and wines by foreign or weed germs gaining access with the yeasts, and Hansen has proved that several yeasts are inimical to the action of the required fermentation. But not all pure fermentations give the desired results : partly because the race-varieties of even the approved yeasts differ in their action, and partly, as it appears, on account of causes as yet unknown. There are facts which lead to the suspicion that the search for the best possible variety of yeast may not yield the desired results, if this particular form is used as a pure culture. The researches of Hansen, Rothenbach, Pelbruck, Van Laer, and others, suggest that associated yeasts may ferment better than any single yeast cultivated pure, and cases are cited where such a symbiotic union of two yeasts of high fermenting power has given better results than either alone. If these statements are confirmed, they enhance the theoretical importance of some investigations I had made several years previously. English ginger-beer contains a curious symbiotic association of two organisms — a true yeast and a true bacterium — so closely united that the yeast-cells imprisoned in the gelatinous meshes of the bacterium remind one of the gonidia of a lichen entangled in the hyphae of the fungus, except that there is no chlorophyll. Now it is a singular fact that this symbiotic union of yeast and bacterium ferments the saccharine liquid far more energetically than does either yeast or bacterium alone, and results in a different product, large quantities of lactic and carbonic acids being formed, and little or no alcohol. In the kephir used in Europe for fermenting milk, we find another symbiotic association of a yeast and a bacterium ; indeed, Freudenreich declares that four distinct organisms are here symbiotically active and necessary, a result not con- firmed by my as yet incomplete investigation. I know of at least one other case which may turn out to be different from either of the above. Moreover, examples of these symbiotic fermentations are increasing in other directions. Kosai, Yabe, and others have lately shown that in the fermentations of rice to produce sake, the rice is first acted on by an Aspergillus, which converts the starch into sugars, and an associated yeast — hitherto regarded as a yeast-form of the Aspergillus, but, as already said, now shown to be a distinct fungus sym- biotically associated with it — then ferments the sugar, and other similar cases are on record. Starting from the demonstrated fact that the constitution of the medium pro- foundly affects the physiological action of the fungus, there can be nothing sur- prising in the discovery that the fungus is more active in a medium which has been favourably altered by an associated organism, whether the latter aids the fungus by directly altering the medium, or by ridding it of products of excretion, 8 REPORT — 1897. or by adding some gas or other body. This granted, it is not difficult to see that natural selection will aid in the perpetuation of the symbiosis, and in cases like that of the ginger-beer plant it is extremely difficult to. get the two organisms apart, reminding us of the similar difficulty in the case of the soredia of Lichens. Moreover, experiments show that the question of relative abundance of each constituent affects the matter. I must now return for a moment to Buchner's discovery that by means of extremely great pressures a something can be expressed from yeast which at once decomposes sugar into alcohol and carbon-dioxide, and concerning which Dr. Green will inform us more fully. This something is regarded by Buchner as a sort of incomplete protoplasm — a body composed of proteid, and in a structural condition somewhere between that of true soluble enzymes like invertin and complete living protoplasm. If this is true, and Buchner's zymase turns out to be a really soluble enzyme, the present theory of alcoholic fermentation will have to be modified, and a reversion made towards Traube's views of 1858, a reversion for which we are in a measure prepared by Miquel's proof in 1890 that TJrase, a similar body extracted from the urea-bacteria, is the agent in the fermentation of urea. At present, however, we are not sufficiently assured that the body extracted by Buchner is really soluble, and I am told that very serious difficulties still face us as to what solution is. The enormous pressures required, and the fact that the i solution ' coagulates as a whole, might suggest that he was dealing with expressed proto- plasm, still alive, but devoid of its cell-wall ; against this, however, must be urged the facts that the ' solution ' can be forced through porcelain and still act, and this even in the presence of chloroform. We may fairly expect that the further investigation of Buchner's ' zymase,' Miquel's e urase,' and the similar body obtained' by E. Fischer and Lindner from Monilia Candida will help in deciding the question as to the emulsion theory of protoplasm itself. In any case, soluble or not, these enzymes are probably to be regarded as bits off the protoplasm, as it were, and so the essentials of the theory of fermentation remain, the immediate machinery being not that of protoplasm itself, but of some- thing made by or broken off from it. Enzymes, or similar bodies, are now known to be very common in plants, and the suspicion that fungi do much of their work with their aid is abundantly confirmed. Pay en and Persoz discovered diastase in malt extract in 1838, and in 1886 Schwann discovered peptase in the juices of the animal stomach. Since that time several other enzymes have been found in both plants and animals, and the methods for extracting them and for estimating their actions have been much improved, a province in which Horace Brown, Green, and Vines have contributed results. It seems not improbable that there exists a whole series of these enzymes which have the power of carrying over oxygen to other bodies, and so bringing about oxidations of a peculiar character. These curious bodies were first observed owing to studies on the changes which wine and plant juices undergo when exposed to the action of the oxygen of the air. In the case of the wine certain changes in the colour and taste were traced to conditions which involved the assumption that some body, not a living organism, acts as an oxygen-carrier, and the activity of which could be destroyed by heating and antiseptics. It was found that similar changes in colour and taste could be artificially produced by the action of ozone, or by passing an electric current through the new wine ; indeed, it is alleged that the ageing of wine can be suc- cessfully imitated by these devices, and is actually a commercial process. The browning of cut or broken apples is now shown to be due to the action of a similar oxydase — i.e. an oxygen-carrying ferment, and the same is claimed for the deep-colouring of certain lacks, or lackers, obtained from the juice of plants such as the Anacardiacea, which are pale and transparent when fresh drawn, but gradually darken in colour on exposure to air. Bertrand found in these juices an oxydase, which he terms laccase, and which affects the oxygen-carrying, and con- verts the pale fluid juice to a hard dark brown varnish. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 9 Other oxydases have been isolated from beets, dahlia, potato-tubers, and several other plants. These discoveries led Bourquelot and Bertrand in 1895 to the explanation of a phenomenon long known to botanists, and partly explained by Schonbein as far back as 1868. If certain Fungi (e.g., Boletus luridus) are broken or bruised, the vellow or white flesh at once turns blue : the action is now traced to the presence in the cell-sap of an oxydase, the existence of which had been suspected but not proved, and the observers named assert that many fungi (59 out 107 species examined) contain such oxydases. It will be interesting to see how far future investigations support or refute the suggestion that many of the colour-changes in diseased tissues of plants attacked by fungi are due to the action of such oxydases. Wortmann, in 1882, showed that bacteria, which are capable of secreting diastase, can be made to desist from secreting this enzyme if a sufficient supply of sugar be given them, and since then several instances have been discovered where fungi and bacteria show changes in their enzyme actions according to the nature of their food supply. Nor is this confined to fungi. Brown and Morris, in 1892, gave evidence for the same in the seedlings of grasses : as the sugar increased, the production of diastase diminished. It is the diastatic activity of Aspergillus which is utilised in the making of sake from rice in Japan, and in the preparation of soy from the soja bean in the same country, and a patented process for obtaining diastase by this means exists ; and Katz has recently tested the diastatic activity of this fungus, of Penicillium, and of Bacterium megatherium in the presence of large and small quantities of sugar. All three organisms are able to produce not only diastase, but also other enzymes, and the author named has shown that as the sugar accumulates the diastase formed diminishes, whereas the accumulation of other carbo-hydrates produces no such effect. Hartig's beautiful work on the destruction of timber by fungi obtains new interest from Bourquelot's discovery of an emulsion-like enzyme in many such wood- destroying forms. This enzyme splits the Glucosides, Amygdalin, Salicin, Coniferin, &c, into sugars and other bodies, and the hyphse feed on the carbo-hydrates. I purpose to recur to this subject in a communication to this Section. The fact that Aspergillus can form invertins of the sucrase, maltase, and trehalase types, as well as emulsin, inulase, diastase, or trypsin, according to circumstances of nutrition, will explain why this fungus can grow on almost any organic substratum it alights on, and other examples of the same kind are now coming to hand. The secretion of special enzymes by fungi has a peculiar interest just now, for recent investigations promise to bring us much nearer to an understanding of the phenomena of parasitism than we could hope to attain a few years ago. De Bary long ago pointed out that when the infecting germinal tube of a fungus enters a plant-cell, two phenomena must be taken into account, the penetration of the cell-walls and tissues, and the attraction which causes the tips of the growing hypha to face and penetrate these obstacles, instead of gliding over them in the lines of apparent least resistance. The further development of these two themes has been steady and unobtrusive, and from various quite unexpected directions more light has been obtained, so that we are now in a position to see pretty clearly what are the principal factors involved in the successful attack of a parasitic plant on its victim or i host.' That fungi can excrete cellulose-dissolving enzymes is now well known, and that they can produce enzymes which destroy lignin must be inferred from the solution of wood- cells and other lignified elements by tree-destroying fungi. Zopf has collected several examples of fungi which consume fats, and further cases are cited by Schmidt, by Bitthausen, and Baumann. In these cases also there can be no doubt that an enzyme or similar body is concerned. There is one connection in which recent observations on enzymes in the plant- cell promise to be of importance in explaining the remarkable destructive action of certain pays of the solar-light on bacteria. As you are aware, the English K 3 10 REPORT — 1897. observers Pownes and Blunt showed long ago that if bacteria in a nutrient liquid are exposed to sunlight, they are rapidly killed. Further researches, in which I have had some part, gradually brought out the facts that it is really the light rays and not high temperatures which exert this bactericidal action, and by means of a powerful spectrum and apparatus furnished by the kindness of Professor Oliver Lodge I was able to obtain conclusive proof that it is especially the blue-violet and ultra-violet rays which are most effective. This proof depended on the pro- duction of actual photographs in bacteria of the spectrum itself. Apart from this, I had also demonstrated that just such spores as those of anthrax, at the same time pathogenic and highly resistent to heat, succumb readily to the action of these cold light-rays, and that under conditions which preclude their being poisoned by a liquid bathing them. The work of Brown and Morris on the daily variations of diastatic enzyme in living leaves, and especially Green's recent work on the destructive action of light on this enzyme, point to the probability that it is the destruction of the enzymes with which the bacterial cells abound which brings about the death of the cell. That these matters are of importance in limiting the life of bacteria in our streets and rivers, and that the sun is our most powerful scavenger, has been shown by others as well as myself. In this connection may also be mentioned Martinand's observations, that the yeasts necessary for wine-making are deficient in numbers and power on grapes exposed to intense light, and he explains the better results in Central France as contrasted with those in the South as largely due to this. fact. Whether, or how far, the curious effects of too intense illumina- tion in high latitudes and altitudes on plants which might be expected to grow normally there, can be explained by a destructive light action on the enzyme of the leaves, has not, so far as I know, been tested ; but Green's experiments certainly seem: to me to point to the possibility of this, as do the previous experiments with screens of Pick, Johow, myself, and others. It is interesting to note that Wittlin and others have confirmed the conclusion my own few trials with Rontgen rays led to ; they show no action whatever. That branch of mycology which is now looked upon by so many as a separate department of science, usually termed bacteriology, only took shape in the years 1875-79, when its founder, the veteran botanist Cohn, who recognised that the protoplasm of plants corresponded to the animal sarcode, and who has been recently honoured by our Royal Society, published his exact studies of these minute organisms, and prepared the way for the specialists who followed. It is quite true that isolated studies and observations on bacteria had been made from time to time by earlier workers than Cohn, though it is usually over- looked that Cohn's first paper on Bacteria was published in 1853. Ehrenberg in particular had paid special attention to some forms ; but neither he nor his successors can be regarded as having founded a school as Cohn did, and this botanist may fitly be looked upon as the father of bacteriology, the branch of mycology which has since obtained so much diversity. It should not be overlooked that the first proof that a specific disease of the higher animals is due to a bacillus, contained in Koch's paper on Anthrax, was published under Cohn's auspices and in his ' Beitrage zur Biologie der Pflanzen ' in 1876, four years after Schroeter's work from the same laboratory on pigmented bacteria, and that the plate illustrating Koch's paper was in part drawn by Cohn. It is of primary importance to recognise this detail of Koch's training under Cohn, because, as I have shown at length elsewhere, popular misapprehensions as to what bacteriology really consists in have been due to the gradual specialisation into three or four different schools or camps of a study which is primarily a branch of botany ; and, again, it is of importance to observe that the whole of this particular branch of mycology, to which special laboratories and an enormous literature are now devoted, has arisen during the last quarter of a century, and subsequent to the foundation of scientific mycology by De Bary. When we reflect that the nature of parasitic fungi, the actual demonstration of infection by a fungus spore, the transmission of germs by water and air, the meaning and significance of poly- morphism, heteroecism, symbiosis, had already been rendered clear in the case of TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 11 fungi, and that it was by these and studies in fermentation and in the life-history of tbe fungus Saccharomyces that the way was prepared for the aetiology of bacterial diseases in animals, there should be do doubt as to the mutual bearings of these matters. Curiously enough, it was an accident which deflected bacteriology along lines which have proved so significant for the study of this particular group of minute organisms, that an uninitiated visitor to a modern bacteriological laboratory (which in England, at any rate, is usually attached to the pathological department of a medical school) hardly perceives that he is in a place where the culture of micro- scopic plants is the chief object — for the primary occupation of a bacteriologist is really, after all, the cultivation of minute organisms by the method of 1 micro- scopic gardening,' invented by De Bary, Klebs, and Brefeld, whether the medium of culture is a nutritive solution, or solid organic substrata like potato, agar, or gelatine, or the tissues of an animal. This accident — I use the word in no disrespectful sense — was Koch's ingenious modification of the use of gelatine as a medium in which to grow bacteria : he hit upon the method of pouring melted gelatine containing distributed germs on to plates, and thus isolating the colonies. Pasteur and Cohn had already coped with the difficulty of isolating mixed forms by growing them in special fluids. When a given fluid favoured one form particularly, a small quantity containing this predominant species was put into another flask of the fluid, then a drop from this flask transferred to a third flask, and so on, until the last flasks contained only the successful species, the others having been suppressed : these 1 fractional cultures ' were brought to a high state of perfection by the botanist, Klebs in 1873. Then Brefeld (1872) introduced the method of dilution — i.e., he diluted the liquid containing his spores until each single drop taken contained on the average one spore or none, whence each flask of sterile nutritive solution receiving one drop contained either none or one spore. Brefeld was working with fungi, but Lister — now Lord Lister, and our late President — applied this 1 dilution method ' to his studies of the lactic fermentation in 1878, and Naegeli, Miquel, andDuclaux carried it further, the two latter especially having been its chief defenders, and Miquel having employed it up to quite recently. Solid media appear to have been first generally used by Schroeter in 1870, when he employed potatoes, cooked and raw, egg-albumen, starch-paste, flesh, &c. Gelatine, which seems to have been first employed by Vittadini in 1852, was certainly used by Brefeld as early as 1874, and even to-day his admirable lecture on Methoden zur V atersiichung der Pike of that date is well worth reading, if only to see how cleverly he obtains a single spore isolated in gelatine under the microscope. Klebs used gelatine methods in 1873. We thus see that when Koch proposed his method of preparing gelatine plate- cultures in 1881 he instituted, not a new culture-medium, for cultures on solid media, including gelatine, had been in use by botanists for eight or ten years ; nor did he introduce methods for the isolation of spores, for this had been done long before. What he really did was to ensure the isolation of the spores and colonies wholesale, and so facilitate the preparation of pure cultures on a large scale, and with great saving of time. It was a brilliant idea, and, as has been said, ( the Columbus egg of Bac- teriology ; ' but we must not lose sight of the fact that it turned the current of investigation of bacteria from the solid and reliable ground established by Cohn, Brefeld, and De Bary, into a totally new channel, as yet untried. We must remember that De Bary and Brefeld had aimed at obtaining a single spore, isolated under the microscope, and tracing its behaviour from germination, continuously to the production of spores again ; and when we learn how serious were the errors into which the earlier investigators of the mould-fungi and yeasts fell, owing to their failure to trace the development continuously from spore to spore, and the triumphs obtained afterwards by the methods of pure cultures, it is not difficult to see how inconclusive and dangerous all inferences as to the mor- phology of such minute organisms as bacteria must be unless the plant has been so observed. K 4 12 REPORT — 1897. As matter of fact, the introduction and gradual specialisation of Koch's methods- of rapid isolation of colonies encouraged the very dangers they were primarily intended to avoid. It was soon discovered that pure cultures could be obtained so readily that the characteristic differences of the colonies in the mass could presumably be made use of for diagnostic purposes, and a school of bacteriologists arose who no longer thought it necessary to patiently follow the behaviour of the single spore or bacillus under the microscope, but regarded it as sufficient to describe the form, colour, markings, and physiological changes of the bacterial colonies themselves on and in different media, and were content to remove speci- mens occasionally, dry and stain them, and describe their forms and sizes as they appeared under these conditions. To the botanist, and from the points of view of scientific morphology, this mode of procedure may be compared to what would happen if we were to frame our notions of species of oak or beech according to their behaviour in pure forests, or of a grass or clover according to the appearance of the fields and prairies com- posed more or less entirely of it, or — and this is a more apt comparison, because we can obtain colonies as pure as those of the bacteriologist — of a mould-fungus according to the shape, size, and colour, &c, of the patches which grow on bread, jam, gelatine, and so forth. Now it is obvious that this is abandoning the methods of morphology, and the consequence has been that two schools of descriptive bacteriologists are working along different lines, and the ' species' of the one — the test-tube school — cannot be compared with those of the other, the advocates of continuous culture from the spore. The difficulty of isolating a bacterium and tracing its whole life-history under the microscope is so great, that the happy pioneers into the fascinating region opened up by the test-tube methods ma}' certainly claim considerable sympathy in their cry that they cannot wait. Of course they cannot wait ; no amount of argument will prevent the continual description of new test-tube ' species,' and all we can do is to go on building up the edifice already founded by the botanists Cohn, Brefeld, De Bary, Van Tieghem, Zopf, Prazmowski, Beyerinck, Fischer, and others who have made special studies of bacteria. The objection that such work is slow and difficult has no more weight here than in any other department of science, and in any case the test-tube school is already in the plight of being frequently unable to recognise its own ' species/ as I have convinced myself by a long-continued series of cultures with the object of naming common bacteria. I wish to guard myself against misconstruction in one particular here. It is not insinuated that the test-tube methods and results are of no value. Far from it ; a vast amount of preliminary information is obtained by it ; but I would insist upon the discouragement of all attempts to make ' species ' without microscopic culture ; and continuous observation of the development as far as it can be traced. The close connection between bacteriology and medicine has been mainly responsible for the present condition of affairs ; but it is high time we recognised that bacteriology only touches animal pathology at a few points, and that the- public learn that, so far from bacteria being synonymous with disease germs, the majority of these organisms appear to be beneficial rather than inimical to man. There is not time to attempt even a brief description of all the ' useful fermenta- tions ' due to bacteria, but the following cases will point the conviction that a school of bacteriology, which has nothing to do with medical questions, but investigates problems raised by the forester, agriculturist, and gardener, the dairyman, brewer, dyer, and tanner, &c, will yet be established in England in connection with one or other of our great botanical centres. There are many industrial processes which depend more or less for their success on bacterial fermentations. The subject is youug, but the little that has been discovered makes it imperative that we should go on, for not only are the results of immense importance to science, but they open up vistas of practical application,, which are already being taken advantage of in commerce, and we may be sure that every economic application of such knowledge will give the people employing it an TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 13 advantage over those who proceed by the old rule-of-thumb methods, where nobody knows or cares where the waste or leakage occurs that spoils a commercial product. The discovery by Alvarez of the bacillus which converts a sterilised decoction of indigo-plant into indigo sugar and indigo white, the latter then oxidising to form the valuable blue dye, whereas the sterile decoction itself, even in presence of oxygen, forms no indigo, may be cited as a case in point. It remains to be decided whether this bacillus alone is concerned, or whether the infusion of indican will fer- ment under the action of enzymes alone derived from the leaves of the indigo plant. It also remains for future investigation to determine whether the indigo bacillus is the same as the pneumonia bacillus — which resembles it — and will also induce the indigo fermentation, and to explain why the woad-makers of the Fens find a sale for this indigo preparation among the indigo makers, as well as to clear up certain mysterious ' diseases ' in the indigo-vats. Our much more extensive knowledge of the diseases of beer and wine suggests the possibility of profitable bacteriological investigations in several directions here. That certain stages in the preparation of tobacco leaves — as also in the pre- paration of tea — depend on a carefully regulated fermentation, which must be stopped at the right moment, or the product is impaired, or even ruined, has long- been known. Regarding the possible role of bacteria in the preparation of tea, nothing is ascertained, but, if Suchsland's investigations are confirmed, there is among the many and various organisms concerned in the fermentation of West Indian tobacco a bacterium which has been isolated and plays an important part. It is claimed that the flavour of European-grown tobacco can be materially improved by its use. I read that the process is patented, which may or may not affect its value as a scientific announcement ; but in view of the increasing number of researches into this subject by Behrens, Davalos, Schloesing, and others, it is evidently a domain for further bacteriological investigations in a properly equipped laboratory. Every botanist knows that flax and hemp are the bast fibres of Linum and Camuihk respectively, separated by steeping in water until the middle lamella is destroyed and the fibres isolated ; but it is perhaps not so well known that not every water is suitable for this ' retting ' or steeping process, and for a long time this was as much a mystery as why some waters are better than others for brewing. Only quite recently Fribes, working under Winogradsky, has isolated the bacillus which accomplishes this dissolution of the middle lamella, and its behaviour brings to light some very interesting details, and furnishes another of those cases where the reactions of living micro-organisms can be utilised in deciding questions of plant chemistry too subtle for testing with ordinary reagents. You are aware that recent researches, especially those of Maquin in France and of Walter Gardiner in Cambridge, Cross and Bevan and others, have caused us to discard the view that the middle lamella is composed of cellulose, and to learn that it consists of pectin compounds. Now Fribes' anaerobic bacillus dis- solves and destroys pectins and pectinates, but does not touch cellulose or gum, and thus enables us to criticise from a new point of view the bacillus (B. Amylo- bacter) which Van Tieghem asserted to be the cause of cellulose fermentation and of the retting of flax. Clearly it cannot be both, otherwise the flax-fibre would be destroyed ; and we know from other facts that B. Amylobacter is not the cellulose ferment. Fribes' discovery has yet to be tested with reference to other processes of retting. The Indian Government have lately published a series of notes on jute and other fibres, and the description of the retting of jute suggests this as a very definite problem for investigation. I am told that a patent exists in the United States for a process whereby the retting organisms may be sown and encouraged in waters otherwise unfitted for the steeping of flax, &■&, another indication of the keen interest taken in these matters. It goes without saying that the steeping of skins in water in preparation for 14 REPORT — 1897. tanning involves bacterial actions, owing to which the hair and epidermal cover- ings are removed ; but it appears from recent investigations that in the process of swelling the limed skins, the gases evolved in the substance of the tissues, and the evolution of which causes the swelling and loosens the fibre so that the tanning solutions may penetrate, are due to a particular fermentation, caused by a bacterium which, according to Wood and Wilcox, is similar to, if not identical with, a lactic ferment. If Haenlein's results may be accepted, it is a bacillus introduced into the tanning solution by the pine bark, which is responsible for the advantageous acidification of the tanning solutions much valued for making certain kinds of leather, and of decisive importance in the quality, so that tanners add the souring liquor of other vats to encourage the souring of the doubtful one. Hay is made in very different ways in different countries, and in those where a 1 spontaneous ' heating process is resorted to there seems to be no doubt that cer- tain thermogenic bacteria are concerned. The researches of Bohmer, Dietrich, Fry, Lafar, and others show that here and in the preparation of ensilage we have important fermentation processes which affect the end result. The whole question of fermentation in hay, and the high temperatures produced in the process, as well as what occurs in straw-stacks under similar conditions, have important theoretical bearings, and we know of bacilli which grow at 70° 0. Probably no other subject in this domain has, however, attained so much im- portance as the bacteriology of the dairy — the study of the bacteria found in milk, butter, and cheese in their various forms. In all cases of this kind, as in brewing, bread-making, and so on, there are three aspects of the bacteriology of the opera- tions : we have to consider first the bacteria concerned in the normal process ; secondly, introduced forms which bring about abnormalities, or ' diseases ' of the normal operation ; and, thirdly, the possible pathogenic bacteria, i.e., pathogenic to man, which may lurk in the product. Of milk especially much has been said as a disease-transmitting medium, and with good reason, as is well known ; and if we may accept the statement of a Con- tinental authority, who calculated that each time we eat a slice of bread and butter we devour a number of bacteria equal to the population of Europe, we have grounds for demanding information as to what these bacteria are, and what they are doing. And similarly with cheese, every kind of which teems with millions of these minute organisms. Now I cannot, of course, go into the question of pathogenic bacteria, nor is there time to discuss those forms which bring about undesirable or abnormal pro- cesses in the dairy ; but I want to call your attention to the splendid field for bacteriological investigation which is being opened up by inquiries into the normal changes utilised in making butter and cheese. We may pass over the old controversies as to the souring of milk, culminating in Pasteur's discovery of the bacteria of lactic fermentation in 1857-58. Lister in 1877 isolated Bacterium lactis. Hueppe in 1884 confirmed his results, and added several other lactic bacteria, and we now know a whole series of forms which can turn milk sour by fermenting its sugar, and this in various ways, as Warington and others have shown. The souring of milk and cream by merely leaving it to stand often led to failure, and the study of this preliminary to butter- and cheese- making is itself a bacteriological question of great importance. We shall not be surprised, therefore, that when, in 1890, Wiegmann proposed to use pure cultures of lactic-acid bacteria for the souring of cream, the plan was at once taken up. Some years ago Storch found that the peculiar aroma of a good butter was due to a bacterium which he isolated, and Wiegmann has now two forms, or races, one of which develops an exquisite flavour and aroma, but the butter keeps badly, while the other develops less aroma, while the butter keeps better. According to a recent publication of Conn's, however, this subject has been advanced considerably in America, for they have isolated and distributed to numerous dairies pure cultures of a particular butter-bacillus which develops the famous ' June flavour 1 hitherto only met with in the butter of certain districts during a short season of the year. I am told that this fine-flavoured butter is now prepared constantly in a hundred or more American dairies. Simultaneously with TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 15 these advances in the manufacture of pure butter with constant flavour, the days of i diseased ' butters seem numbered. Properly considered, the manufacture of cheese is a form of microscopic garden- ing even more complex and more horticultural in nature than the brewing of beer. From the outset, when the cheesemaker guards and cools his milk till his stock is ready, he is doing all he knows how io do to keep down the growth of the germs introduced into the milk ; he then coagulates it, usually with rennet — an enzyme of animals, but also common in plants — and the curd thus prepared is simply treated as a medium on which he grows certain fungi and bacteria, with the need- ful precautions for favouring their development, protecting them against the in- roads of animal and plant pests, and against unsuitable temperature, moisture, access of light, and so on. Having succeeded in growing the right plants on his curd, his art then demands that he shall stop their growth at the critical period, and his cheese is ready for market. The investigations of Duclaux, Wiegmann, and others on the Continent, of Conn in America, and of Lloyd in England, to say nothing of other workers now busy at this subject in various parts of the world, are getting at the particular forms of fungi concerned in so altering the constitution of curd that it becomes the very different article of food we call cheese, and they have even determined to some extent what role is played by these plants in giving the peculiar odours and flavours to such different cheeses as Camembert, Stilton, and .Roquefort. It is known, for instance, that a certain fungus (Tenicilliuin) cultivated on bread is purposely added to Eoquefort, and that it destroys the lactic and other acids and so enables certain bacteria in the cheese, hitherto inhibited in their actions by these acids, to set to work and further change the medium, whereas in making Emmenthaler cheese the object is to prevent this fungus thus paving the way for these bacteria. Pammel claims to have discovered a bacillus which gives a peculiar and much-admired clover aroma to certain cheeses, and according to recent state- ments a definite Streptococcus is responsible for the peculiarities of certain Dutch cheeses, and so on. Nevertheless, we are still profoundly ignorant of most of the forms concerned in the ripening of cheese, and every research which throws light on this difficult and complex subject, and so paves the way to rendering uniform and certain this at present most haphazard and risky manufacture will be doing service to the State. Considering that Cohn only discovered that the ripening- process is due to bacteria in 1875, and that Duclaux only published his researches on Tyrothrix in 1878, we can scarcely be surprised that the interval has not been long enough for the isolation and study of the numerous and curious forms, several hundreds of which are now imperfectly known. Nevertheless, there are signs of advance in various directions, and researches into the mysteries of Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Emmenthaler, and other cheeses are being industriously pursued on the Continent. Even as I write this comes the news that Ereudenreich has dis^ covered the coccus which causes the ripening of Emmenthaler cheese. It is: not impossible that the much more definite results obtained by investigations into the manufacture of the vegetable cheeses of China and Japan will aid bacteriologists- in their extremely complex task. These vegetable cheeses are made by exposing the beans of the leguminous plant Glycine — termed soja-beans — to bacterial fermentations in warm cellars, either after preliminary decomposition by certain mould-fungi, or without this. . The processes vary considerably, and several different kinds of bean-cheeses are made, and known by special names. They all depend on the peculiar decompositions of the tissues of the cotyledons of the'soja-bean, which contain 35 to 40 per cent, of proteids and large quantities of fats. The softened beans are first rendered- mouldy, and the interpenetrating hyphse render the contents accessible to certain bacteria, which peptonise and otherwise alter them. Here, however, 1 must bring this subject to a close, and time will not permit of more than the mere mention of the vinegar fermentation, to which Mr. Adrian Brown lias lately contributed valuable knowledge, cf the preparation of soy, a brine extract of mouldy and fermented soja-beans, of bread-making, and other equally interesting cases. 16 REPORT — 1897. When the idea of parasitism was once rendered definite, as it was by De Bary's work, and the fundamental distinction between a parasite and a saprophyte had been made clear, it soon became evident that some distinction must be made between obligate facultative parasites and saprophytes respectively ; but when De Bary proposed the adoption of these terms of Van Tieghem's he can hardly have contemplated that they would be abused as they have been, and was clearly- alive to the existence of transitions which we now know to be so numerous and so gradual in character that we can no longer define any such physiological groups. Twenty years ago Tenicillium and Mucor would have been regarded as saprophytes of the most obligate type, but we now know that under certain circumstances these fungi can become parasites ; and the border-land between facultative parasites and saprophytes on the one hand and between the former and true parasites on the other can no longer be recognised. In 1866 the germ of an idea was sown which has taken deep root and extended very widely. De Bary pointed out that in the case of lichens we have either a fungus parasite on an alga, or certain organisms hitherto accepted as algse are merely incomplete forms. In 1868 Schwedendener declared the lichen to be a compound organism. In 1879, in his celebrated lecture, De Bary definitely launched the new hypo- thesis, and brought together the facts which warranted his disturbance of the serenity of those unprepared to accept so startling a new notion as Symbiosis. The word itself, in the form i Symbiotismus,' is due to Frank, who, in an admirable paper on the biology of the thallus of certain lichens, very clearly set forth the existence of various stages of life in common. This paper has been too much overlooked ; but its existence is the more note- worthy from its being in the same number of the i Beitrage zur Biologie ' — which we owe to Cohn, the founder of scientific bacteriology — in which Koch's remark- able paper on Anthrax occurs. The details of these matters are now principally of historical interest ; we now know that lichens are dual organisms, composed of various algoe, symbiotic with ascomycetes and even basidioraycetes, and, as Massee has shown, even gastromycetes. The soil contains also bacterio-lichens. The point for our con- sideration is rather that botanists were now awakened to a new biological idea — viz., that a fungus may be in such nicely balanced relationships with the host from which it derives its supplies as to afford some advantage in return, whence we must look upon the limited liability company formed by the two symbionts as a better business concern than either of the plants could establish for itself— a case, in fact, where union is strength. Symbiosis, consequently, is now under- stood to be of advantage to both the symbionts, and not to one only, as is the case in parasitism, or, to use Vuillemin's term, Antibiosis. In 1841 an English botanist, Edwin Lees, discovered the existence of ' a hirsuture that appears like a byssoid fungus ' on the roots of Monotropa, and observed that the hyphae linked the roots to those of a beech ; he regarded the fungus as conveying nutriment from the latter to the former, and as an essential constituent of the Monotropa. This discovery was published in the now defunct ' Phytologist ' for December 1841, and was unearthed by Oliver and by Dr. Dyer, of Kew. This is apparently the first observation of a mycorhiza yet recorded, and, although the naturalists referred to did not understand the full significance of Lees' find, several of them made excellent guesses as to the meaning of the pheno- menon. As Dr. Dyer points out, it disposes of Wahrlich's claim that Schleiden (1842) first discovered mycorhiza, as well as of Woronin's contention that the priority is due to Kamienski, though the latter (1881-82) probably was the first to clearly indicate that we have here a case of symbiosis, and thus anticipated Frank's generalisation in 1885. Kamienski and Frank, followed by numerous other observers, among whom Oliver and Groom are to be mentioned, have now shown that the peculiar type of symbiosis expressed in this intimate union of fungus-hyplnie with the living cells of the roots of trees and other plants in soils which abound in vegetable remains — e.g., leaf-mould, moors, &c. — is very common. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 17 In the humus of forests we find the roots of beeches and other Cupuliferce, •willows, pines, and so forth, clothed with a dense mantle of hyphre and swollen into •coral-like masses of mycorhiza ; in similar soils, and in moorlands which abound in the slowly decomposing root-fibres and other vegetable remains so characteristic of these soils, the roots of orchids, heaths, gentians, &c, are similarly provided with fungi, the hyphae of which penetrate further into the tissues, and even send haustoria into the living cells, but without injuring them. As observations multiplied it became clear that the mycorhiza, or fungus-root, was not to be dismissed as a mere case of roots affected by parasites, but that a symbiotic union, comparable to that of the lichens, exists; and that we must assume that both the tree and the fungus derive some benefit from the connection. Pfeffer, in 1877, suggested that the deficiency of root-hairs observed in orchids might be explained by the fungus-hyphce playing the part of these organs, and taking up materials from the soil which they then handed on to the roots. He is quite clear on the subject, and recognises the symbiosis definitely, comparing it with other cases of symbiosis indicated by De Bary. Frank stated that, as the results of experiments, seedling forest-trees cannot be grown in sterilised soil, where their roots are prevented from forming mycorhiza, and concluded that the fungus conveys to the roots organic materials, which it obtains by breaking down the leaf-mould and decaying plant-remains, together with water and minerals from the soil, and plays especially the part of a nitrogen- catching apparatus. In return for this important service the root pays a tax to the fungus by sparing it certain of its tissue contents, and no doubt can well afford to do so. It appears that the mycorhiza is only formed where humus or vegetable-mould abounds. In sandy soils the roots bear root-hairs, as usual, and it is now clear that, while mycorhiza is a far more general phenomenon than was previously supposed, it is not essential for all the roots, nor even under all circumstances for any of them. Probably what really happens is this. Trees and other plants with normal roots and root-hairs, when growing in ordinary soil, can adapt their roots to life in a soil heavily charged with humus only by contracting the symbiotic association with the fungus and paying the tax demanded by the latter in return for its ■supplies and services. If this adaptation is impossible, and no other suitable variation is evolved, such trees cannot grow in such soils. In certain cases — e.y., ground orchids, Monotropa, various Ericacece, &c. — it would seem that the plant is unable to grow in other than humus soils, and always forms mycorhiza. Much further we cannot at present go, but it is evident that various different grades of symbiosis exist in these mycorhizas. In the first place, there are several different fungi concerned — those on cupuliferse and pines, apparently mostly Tuberacece and G aster omycetes, and allied forms, being different from those in orchids, some at least of which appear to be Nectrias or related genera. The physiological relations of the root to the fungus must be different in details in the case of non-green, purely saprophytic plants, like Neottia, Monotropa, &c, and in that of the green plants like Erica, Fagus, Pinus, &c. It is well known that ordinary green plants cannot utilise vegetable debris directly, whereas trees in forests appear to do so ; this in appearance only, how- ever, for the fungi, yeasts, and bacteria there abounding are actively decomposing the leaves and other remains. Xow it is possible that the mycorhiza theory is not applicable in all cases, and that, sometimes, what happens is this. The trees, once well established, make so good a fight that in spite of the leaf-decomposing fungi attacking their roots para- •sitically, or merely ensconcing themselves in the dead primary cortex as it is sloughed, they manage to keep going and to obtain such shares of the nitrates and other products due to the fungus-action as satisfy their needs. But although there may be something to be said for this view as regards a few forest-trees, it is not easy to see how it would apply to the non-assimilating humus-plants like Neottia, Monotropa, &c, and we may probably regard the two sets of cases as standing or falling together. IS REPORT — 1897. No treatment of this subject would "be complete without reference to those obscure cases of symbiosis — as we must regard them — between certain algas which occur in the cavities of the leaves of Azolla and in Gunnera, and those found in the intercellular spaces of cycad-roots. When we know more of the physiology of these blue-green algte, it may be possible to explain these puzzles, but at present they are mysterious curiosities. A class of pseudo-symbiotic organisms is being more and more brought into the foreground where the combined action of two symbionts results in death or injury to a third plant, whereas each symbiont alone is harmless, or compara- tively so. Some time ago Vuillemin showed that a disease in olives results from the inva- sion of a bacillus (B. olece), which, however, can only obtain its way in the tissues through the passages driven by the hyphae of a fungus (ChcBtophoma). The result- ing injury is a sort of burr. Vuillemin has this year observed the same bacillus and fungus in the canker burrs of the ash, and so confirms Noack's statement to the same effect. Among many similar cases, well worth further attention, the invasion of potato-tubers by bacteria, which make their way down the decaying hyphse of pioneer fungi, may be noted. I have also seen tomatoes infected by these means, and have facts showing that many bacteria which quicken the rotting of wood are thus led into the tissues by fungi. Probably no subject in the whole domain of cryptogamic botany has wider bearings on agricultural science than the study of the flora and changes on and in manure and soil. As vegetable physiology and agricultural science progressed, it became more and more of primary importance that we should learn what manure is composed of, what changes it undergoes in the soil, and what the roots of plants do with it. Chemistry did much to solve some of the earlier problems, but it soon became evident that it only raised new questions which it could not solve ; and it was not till the sequence of changes induced by the successive growths of Mucor, Pilobolus, Coprimes, Ascobolus, and other moulds and fungi of various sorts, followed by bacteria and yeasts, began to be understood, that anything approaching a coherent account of the complex phenomena going on in soil or in a manure-heap could be attempted. Not that all the difficulties have been solved even now, but we are at least able to trace some very important chains of occurrences which throw light on many hitherto obscure matters going on in the field. Since Pasteur in 1862, and Van Tieghem in 1864, showed that certain bac- teria are concerned in converting urea to ammonium carbonate, much has been learnt, and we now know from the investigations of Miquel, Jaksch, Leube, and others that numerous urea-bacteria exist; and Miquel, in 1890, isolated an ex- tremely unstable enzyme — urase — which converts sterile urea to ammonium carbonate very rapidly, a discovery of considerable interest, as it was one of the first examples of this class of bodies to be examined ; and when we reflect on the enormous quantities of urea which have to be destroyed daily, and that fresh urine is in effect a poison to the roots of higher plants, some idea of the importance of these urea-bacteria is obtained. The necessity for preventing the losses of this volatile ammonia by fixing it in the soil and presenting it to the action of the nitrifying organisms is also obvious. Winogradsky's classical isolation and cultivation of bacteria which take up these ammonia compounds and oxidise them to nitrous and to nitric acids in the soil, may be quoted as further instances of the bearing of bacteriological work on this department of science, as explaining not only the origin of nitre- beds and deposits, but also the way the ammonia compounds fixed by the soil in the neigh- bourhood of the root-hairs are nitrified and so rendered directly available to plants. The theoretical explanation of many questions connected with the washing out of nitrates from fallows, the advantages of autumn and winter sowing, and processes occurring in the upper soil as contrasted with subsoil, has been rendered much easier by these researches ; moreover, as is now well known, they brought TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 19' to our knowledge a startling instance of the assimilation of carbon-dioxide by these non-green plants — bacteria — which not only take some of the purely in- organic ammonia, but by means of energy set free by its oxidation obtain their carbon also by breaking up the carbonate — a true case of the assimilation of carbon-dioxide by a plant devoid of chlorophyll and without the direct aid of light. Indirectly, it is true, the source of the energy is the light of the sun,, because the oxygen employed by these aerobic forms has been liberated by green plants in the last instance ; but the case is none the less a startling and important contribution to physiology, and "Winogradsky's work, which had been preceded by investigations in England by Warington and others, affords one of the best illus- trations I know of the importance of this branch of botanical investigation. Stutzer and Hartleb's recent publications go to show that the nitrifying organism is a much more highly developed and complex form than has hitherto been suspected ; that it can be grown on various media, and exhibits considerable polymorphism — for instance, it can be made to branch, and show the characteristics of a true fungus, statements confirmed to a certain extent and independently by the even more recent work of llullmann ; and it appears that we have much more to learn of the morphology of this widely spread and interesting plant. It is impossible to go into the controversy between the observers referred to and Winogradsky, the discoverer of the definite nitrifying organism ; but there is one point I must just mention : if Stutzer and Hartleb's details are confirmed we have here the most remarkable case of polymorphism I know of, for they claim characters for their fungus which prevent our putting it into any existing group. I have for some time insisted on the fact that river-water contains reduced forms of bacteria — i.e., forms so starved and so altered by exposure to light, changes of temperature, and the low nutritive value of the river-water, that it is only after prolonged culture in richer food-media under constant conditions that their true nature becomes apparent. Now, Stutzer and Hartleb show that the morpho- logical form of this nitrifying organism can be profoundly altered by just such variations in the conditions as the above, and occurs as a branched mycelial form,, as bacilli or bacteria, or as cocci of various dimensions according to conditions. These observations, and the researches of Zopf, Klebs, and others on variations in form (polymorphism) in other fungi and bacteria, open out a vast field for further work, and must lead to advancements in our knowledge of these puzzling organisms ; they also help us to explain many inconsistencies in the existing systems of classification of the so-called i species ' of bacteria as determined by test-tube cultures. But the urea bacteria and the nitrifying organisms are by no means the only forms found in manure and soils. In 1868 Reiset found evidence of a reduction of nitrates in fermenting beet- juices, and in 1873 Schloesing found that free nitrogen escaped in certain soil- fermentations. Further work by Mensel, Deherain, and others led to the suspicion that certain bacteria can undo the work of the nitrifying organisms, and in 1879 "Warington showed that both nitrites and nitrates occurred in his soil-fermentations. In 1886 Gayon and Dupetit put this almost beyond doubt, and in 1891 Giltay and Aberson isolated and cultivated a denitrifying bacterium, capable of com- pletely reducing nitrates with evolution of free nitrogen, provided it is cultivated anaerobically. Several such forms have now been obtained, the observations of Burri and Stutzer that certain of the commonest bacteria of the alimentary canal — e.g. B. coli commune — abounding in fresh manure, are especially active, being particularly suggestive. You will thus notice that we have now a sketch of the whole of the down-grade part of the cycle of organic nitrogen in Nature : it only needs supplementing by the history of- the fixation of free nitrogen from the atmosphere by leguminous plants and certain soil-organi3ms to complete the sketch. As is well known from investigations in which Eriksson, Woronin, Frank, Prazmowski, and others, including myself, have taken part, the nodules on the roots of leguminous plants contain a fungus — the morphological nature of which is in dispute — living in symbiotic union with the protoplasm of the cells. Ilellriegel 20 REPORT — 1897. and Wilfarth showed in 1888-90 that, provided the root-nodules are present, these leguminous plants fix the free nitrogen of the atmosphere ; and Laurent and Sckloesing put this be}^ond all doubt in 1892 by demonstrating that a closed atmosphere in which Leguminosce grow loses nitrogen in proportion as the plants gain it. Meanwhile Schulz Lupitz had shown that agricultural land poor in nitrogen can be made to accumulate it in paying quantities by growing lupines on it, and -quite recently pure cultures of the organism of the nodules have been placed on ithe market under the unfortunate name Nitragin. It is claimed that these organisms can be readily used in practice to inoculate the seeds or soil. Kossowitsch in 1894 showed that certain symbiotic unions of algae with bacteria are also capable of fixing nitrogen ; and Winogradsky declares that there exists in the soil a bacterium which, provided it is kept protected from oxygen by aerobic soil organisms, can itself do this. We are quite unaware of the mechanisms here concerned ; but in all cases it appears certain that active destruction of carbohy- drates is an essential condition, and we can only assume that the nitrogen is forced into synthetic union by means of energy derived from this destruction. Here, then, we have a glimpse of the up-grade part of the cycle of nitrogen in Nature, the importance of which to agriculture cannot be overrated. As to the theoretical bearings of the matter, we are still much in the dark, and can only anxiously await the results of further investigations into the nature of the peculiar fermentations and their products going on in these nodules. 1 now want to draw your atten- tion to a bearing of the above discoveries concerning denitrifying bacteria on some agricultural and horticultural questions. It is well known that a gardener eschews the use of fresh manure. Why is this ? The most obvious reply might seem to be, because the ammonia compounds and other nitrogenous constituents in such manure are. not directly useful, or are even harmful to the roots of the plants. Some recent researches suggest that the matter is more complex than this. It has not unfrequently happened that a farmer, finding himself short of stable- manure, has made up the deficit by adding some such artificial manure as Chili saltpetre, his argument running somewhat as follows : — Both are good nitro- genous manures, the one acting slowly, the other rapidly, so that a mixture of both should be better than either alone. The results have disappointed him, and numerous experiments in Norfolk, as I am informed by Mr. Wood, and in the North of England, as Dr. Somerville assures me, have shown that most disastrous results ensue if such mixtures are used, whereas if the farmyard manure is em- ployed at first — the 6 shorter ' the better — and the nitrates applied later on as a 4 top-dressing,' excellent crops follow. The explanation seems to come from some recent experiments by Wagner, Maercker, Burri and Stutzer, and others. The farmyard manure, especially if fresh, so abounds in denitrifying bacteria that they destroy the nitrates rapidly and completely, free nitrogen escaping. Curiously enough, a very active denitrifying bacillus was found on straw, and we know that straw abounds in such manures. I did not intend to go so far into agricultural details as this, but it was impos- sible to resist these illustrations of the splendid field of mycological research which here lies before us. Nor can I avoid instancing at least one more example of the organisms at work in manure. We all know what enormous quantities of cellulose are manufactured daily, and even hourly, by the activity of green leaves : and when we reflect on the millions of tons of dead-wood, straw, fallen leaves, roots, &c, which would accumulate every year if not destroyed, we see at once how important is the scavenging action of the moulds and bacteria which gradually reduce these to carbon-dioxide and water, setting these gases free to enter once more into the cycle of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen in Nature. In 1890 Van Senus obtained two bacteria, one an aerobic and the other an anaerobic form, which in symbiotic union were found to excrete an enzyme which dissolved cellulose. Such a cellulose-dissolving enzyme I had myself isolated from the Botrytis of the lily-disease in 1888. In 1895 Omeliansky, working with river mud, found an anaerobic bacillus which dissolves paper with remarkable TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 2% rapidity. I can only hint at the importance of these forms in connection with the production of marsh gas in swamps, the question of the digestion of cellulose in herbivorous animals, the manufacture of ensilage, and the processes of ' shorten- ing ' of manure ; and it is clear they have much to do with the destruction of paper, &c, in sewers and refuse-pits. Moreover, their further investigation pro- mises a rich harvest of results in explanation of the rotting of stored tubers, certain diseases of plants, and several theoretical questions concerning anaerobism, butyric fermentation, and, possibly, that extremely difficult question on which Mr. Gardiner has done such excellent work, the nature of the various celluloses and constituents of the cell-wall. I now turn to the subject of fungus epidemics, of world-wide interest, if only because the annual losses to agriculture due to epidemic diseases of plants amount to millions of pounds sterling. The history of wheat-rust can be traced to Genesis, and at least five references- to it exist in the Old Testament. The Greeks were familiar with it, and the Romans had a special deity and ceremonies devoted to it. References can be given to it in old Norman times, and Shakespeare can be quoted as acquainted with it. According to Loverdo, a law existed in Rouen in 1660, authorising the pulling up of barberry bushes as in some mysterious way connected with rust, and in 1755 the celebrated Massachusetts law was promulgated. Eriksson refers to an English farmer destroying his neighbour's barberry in 1720. The words Robigo, Rubigo, Rouille, Ruggine, Rufus, and Rust comprise a his- tory in themselves, into which, however, we have not time to go, and there are many fascinating points in the history of wheat-rust which must be passed over. Felice Fontana in 1767 probably made the first scientific investigation of rust; he distinguished the uredo- and puccinia-stages under other names, and even thought of them as rootless plants exhausting the wheat ; in this, and his convic- tion that no remedy was possible until a careful study of all phases of the disease had been made, he was far ahead of his times. Jethro Tull, Marshall, and Withering are the most conspicuous English names- in connection with this question and period, and Marshall in 1781-84 experimented intelligently with barberry and wheat inter-planted. Persoon in 1797 gave the name Puccinia graminis to the fungus. In 1805 Sir Joseph Banks described it, and suggested that the germs entered the stomata : he also warned farmers against the use of rusted litter, and made important experi- ments on the sowing of rusted wheat-grains. A great discussion on the barberry question followed, in which Banks, De Candolle, Windt, Fries, and others took part, Fries particularly insisting on the difference between ALcidium berberidis — a name conferred by Gmelin in 1791 — and Puccinia graminis, De Candolle had also distinguished Uredo rubigo-vera in 1815, and Schmidt soon after described a third wheat-rust — Uredo glumarum. Matters were at about this stage when Tulasne confirmed the statement of Henslow — one of my predecessors in Cambridge — that the uredo- and puccinia- stages really belong to the same fungus, and are not, as Unger asserted, mixed species. Then came De Bary and his classical investigation of the whole question in 1860-64. He proved that the sporidia of some Uredinese (e.g., Coleosporium) will not infect the plant which bears the spores, and that the secidia of certain other forms are only stages in the life-history of species of Uromyces and Puccinia. In 1864 De Bary attacked the question of wheat rust, and by means of numerous sowings of the teleutospores on barberry proved beyond doubt that they bring about its infection. But De Bary did more. For the first time in history he saw the entrance of the infecting tube and the beginning of its growth in the tissues. In 1865 he- demonstrated in the same faultless way the infection of the cereal by means of the secidio-spores, and showed that P. rubigo-vera alternates on Boraginere as JEc. asperifolii, while P. coronata, separated by Corda in 1837, does the same as sEc~ Rhainni on Rhamnus* :22 REPORT — 1897. Thus was discovered the astounding- phenomenon of Hetercecisin, introducing a new idea into science and clearing up mysteries right and left. During the next twenty-five years the number of heteroecious forms has risen to about seventy, including Woronin's recent discovery of this phenomenon in an ; asc omy cete — Sclero tinia hetei 'cecia . About 1890 the rust question entered on a new phase. In Australia, India, Sweden, Germany, and America especially, active commissions, inquiries, and experiments were set on foot, and amid some confusion of meaning among some of those concerned much knowledge has resulted from the investigations of Plowright :and Soppitt in England ; Barclay in India, Cobb, Anderson, and McAlpine in Australia ; Arthur, Bolley, Smith Ellis, Galloway, Farlow, Harper, and others in the United States ; Dietel, Klebahn, Sorauer, and others in Germany ; Rostrup in Denmark ; and especially from the continued and indefatigable researches of Eriksson and Henning in Sweden. This renewed work has resulted in the complete con- firmation of De Bary's results, but with the further discovery that our four common •cereals are attacked by no less than ten different forms of rust belonging to five separate species or ' form-species,' and with several physiological varieties, and capable of infecting the barberry. Some of these are strictly confined to one or other of the four common cereals, others can infect two or more of them, and yet others can infect various of our common wild grasses as well. The fact that what has usually gone by the name of Puccinia graminis is an aggregate of several species is in itself startling enough, but this was not un- expected ; the demonstration that varietal forms exist so specially adapted to their host that, although no morphological differences can be detected between them, they cannot be transferred from one cereal to another, points, however, to physio- logical variation of a kind met with among bacteria and yeasts, but hitherto un- suspected in these higher parasitic fungi. It now appears that we must be pre- pared for similar specialisation of varietal forms among Ustilaginece as well as among other Uredince, as follows from the results obtained by Kellermann and Swingle in America, by Klebahn, Tubeuf, and others in Germany, and by Plowright and Soppitt in England. Not less remarkable is the conviction that among the many different pedigree varieties of wheat, some are more susceptible to attacks of rust than others. This had often been asserted in general terms, but the extensive observations of Cobb in Australia, and the even more extensive and exact experiments of Eriksson in :S\veden, seem to put the matter beyond doubt. Of course attempts have been made to account for these differences in predis- position to the attacks of wheat-rust. X. A. Cobb, who has done much for the investigation of Australian wheat- rusts, regards the different susceptibility to rust as due to mechanical causes, and seeks to explain it by the difference in thickness of the cell-walls on the upper and lower leaf-surfaces offering different resistance to the outbreak of the spore-clusters ; the average number of stomata per square millimetre differing in the different sorts of grain, influencing the predisposition to infection ; the presence of waxy bloom affording a protection, and so on. Eriksson and Henning have made a critical examination of Cobb's mechanical theory, and show that, for Sweden at any rate, the conclusions of the Australian investigator cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, the problem remains. As matter of fact, different sorts of wheat, of oats, of barley, and of rye are susceptible to their particular rusts in different degrees, and the question is, Why ? Some complex physiological causes must be at the bottom of it. Sorauer pointed out in 1880 that every change of vegetative factors induces differences in composition and form of a plant, and therefore alters the predispo- sition of each individual and variety ; and this applies to the fungus as well as to the host. De Bary's proof, in 1886, that a Peziza succeeds in being a parasite only after saprophytic culture to a strong mycelium, that its form is altered thereby, and that probably a poison is excreted, throws side-lights on the same question: while I myself showed that similar events occur in the case of the lily disease. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 23 Reioliardt, in 1892, showed that the apical growth of a Peziza is disturbed and interrupted it' the culture solution is concentrated by evaporation or diluted ; and Biisgen, in 1893, showed that Botrytis cinerea excretes poison at the tips of the hyphsB, confirming my results with the lily-disease in 1888, and that a similar excretion occurs in rust-fungi. De Bary had also shown, in 1886, that the water-contents of the infected plant influence the matter ; and I may remark that we have here also to consider the case of Botrytis attacking chrysanthemums, &c., in autumn, with respect to the chilling of the plant, which lowers the vitality of the cells and causes plasmolysis, as well as the fact that cold increases the germinating capacity of spores, as Eriksson showed. I discussed these points at some length a few years ago iu the Croonian Lecture to the Royal Society, and it now remains to see if any further gleams of fight can be found in the progress of discoveries during recent years. You are all no doubt familiar with Pfefter's beautiful work on chemotaxis, and with the even more fascinating experiments of Engelmann, which prove that bacteria will congregate in the neighbourhood of an algal cell evolviug oxygen. When PfefTer took the matter up in 1883, he was interested in the question as to the stimulating action of various bodies on mobile organisms, for he found that many motile antherozoids, zoospores, bacteria, &c, when free to move in a liquid, are vigorously attracted towards a point whence a given chemical substance is diffusing. Pfefler's problems had nothing to do with those of Engelmann ; he was .concerned, not with the proof of oxygen evolution or the movements of bacteria as evidence of the presence of that element, but with a fundamental question of stimulation to movement in general. PfefTer found that the attractive power of different chemical substances varies according to the organism, and according to the substance and its concentration. He also showed that various other bodies besides oxygen thus attract bacteria — e.g., peptone, dextrose, potassium salts, &c. These experiments are by no means difficult to repeat, and are now employed in our laboratories. During the course of several years not only were these facts confirmed, but it was also shown that this remarkable attraction — chemical attraction, or i chemotaxis' — is a very general phenomenon. Pfeffer had already shown that swarmspores of the fungus Saprolegnia are powerfully attracted towards the muscles of a fly's leg placed in the water in which they are swimming about, and pointed out that in many cases where the hyphas of fungi suddenly and sharply bend out of their original course to enter the body of a plant or animal, the cause of the bending lies in a powerful 6 chemotropic ' action due to the attraction of some substance escaping from the body. This idea of an attractive action between the living substance of two organisms growing in close proximity was not entirely new — it was, so to speak, in the air — e.g., the fusions of mycelial cross-connections and clamp-organs, and of the spores of Tilletia, Entyloma, &c. One of the most striking examples is afforded by Kihlmann's demonstration of the parasitism of Melanospora on Isaria, where he states that some attractive action exists. In 1882 I had myself seen zoospores of Pythium suddenly dart on to the cut surface of a bean-stem, and there fix them- selves. But it is due to Pfeffer and his pupil Miyoshi to state that they were the first to demonstrate these matters clearly. To understand the important consequences which followed, I must now refer to another series of discoveries. When a spore of a parasitic fungus settles on a plant, it frequently behaves as follows. The spore germinates and forms a slender tube of delicate consistence, blunt at the end and containing colourless protoplasm. De Bary long ago showed that such a tube — the germinal hypha — only grows for a short time along the surface of the organ, and its tip soon bends down and enters the plant, either through one of the stomata or by boring its way directly through the cell-walls. Several observers, and among others myself, remarked how the phenomena sug- gested that the end of the tube is attracted in some way and by some force which 24 REPORT — 1897. brings its tip out of the previous direction, and De Bary even threw out the hint that this attraction might he due to some chemical substance excreted by the host- plant. I myself showed that the condition of the attacked plant affected the ease with which the tube penetrates the cell-walls, and that the actual boring of the cell-walls is due to a solvent enzyme secreted by the tip of the fungus, and in clearly demonstrating this excretion of an enzyme capable of dissolving cellulose carried a step further what was so far known, principally from De Bary's researches, as to this process. In 1892, Bernhardt showed that the tips of hyphaa curve over towards spores they are about to attack, and found that sugar-gelatine of greater strength attracts them from the same medium with a smaller proportion of sugar. Miyoshi then showed, in 1894, that if a leaf is injected with a substance such as ammonium-chloride, dextrine, or cane-sugar, all substances capable of exerting chemotropic attraction on fungus-hyphae, and spores of a fungus then sown on it which is not parasitic, the hyphse of the fungus penetrate the stomata and behave exactly as if the fungus were a true parasite. This astounding result throws a clear light on many known cases of fungi which are, as a rule, not parasitic, becoming so when the host-plant is in an abnormal condition — e.g., the entry of species of Botrytis into living tissues when the weather is cold and damp and the light dull ; the entry of Mucor into various fruits, such as tomatoes, apples, pears, &c, when the hyphfe meet with a slight crack or wound, through which the juices are exposed. Nay, I venture to suggest that it is even exceedingly probable that the rapid infection of potato-leaves in damp weather in July is not merely traceable to the favouring effect of the moisture on the fungus, but that the state of super-saturation of the cell- walls of the potato leaf, the tissues of which are now unduly filled with water and dis- solved sugars, &c, owing to the dull light and diminished transpiration, is the primary factor which determines the easy victory of the parasite, and I suggested some time ago that the suppressed life of Ustilaginece, in the stems of grasses, is due to the want of particular carbo-hydrates in the vegetative tissues there, but which are present in the grain. Miyoshi, in 1895, carried to proof the demonstration that a fungus-hypha is really so attracted by substances on the other side of a membrane, and that its tip pierces the latter ; for the hyphse were made to grow through films of artificial cellulose, of collodion, of cellulose impregnated with paraffin, of parchment-paper, cork, wood, and even the chitinous coat of an insect, simply by placing the intact films on gelatine impregnated with the attracting substance, and laying the spores on the opposite side of the membrane. Hyphse so separated by similar membranes from gelatine to which the attracting substance was not added, did not pierce the membranes, whence we may conclude that it is really the substance referred to which incites the hyphae to penetration. Now, obviously, this is a point of the highest importance in the theory of parasitism and parasitic diseases, because it suggests at once that in the varying conditions of the cells, the contents of which are separated only by membranous walls from the fungus-hyphas, whose entrance means ruin and destruction, there may be found circumstances which sometimes favour and sometimes disfavour the entrance of the hyphse ; and it is at least a remarkable fact that some of the substances which experiments prove to be highly attractive to such hyphse — e.g., sugars, the sap of plums, phosphates, nitrates, &c. — are just the substances found in plants, and the discovery that the action depends on the nature of the substance as well as on the kind of fungus, and is affected by its concentration, the temperature, and other circumstances, only confirms us in this idea. Moreover, there are substances which repel instead of attracting the hyphce. Is it not, then, natural to conclude that the differences in behaviour of different parasites towards different host-plants, and towards the same host-plant under different conditions, probably depend on the chemotropic irritability of the hypha) towards the substances formed in the cells on the other side of the membranous cell-walls ? And when, as often happens, the effusion of substances such as the TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 25 cells contain to the exterior is facilitated by over-distension and super-saturation, or by actual wounds, we cannot be surprised at the consequences when a fungus, hitherto unable to enter the plant, suddenly does so. In spite of all the progress made towards an explanation of the origin and course of an epidemic of rust, however, one serious inconsistency has always puzzled men who have worked with it in the open and 'on a large scale. This inconsistency concerns the outbreaks of epidemics over large areas, at periods, and within intervals, which do not agree with the weather records and the described biological facts. We know, speaking generally, the conditions of germination of the spores, we know how long infection requires, and the latent period is known : we know much as to the conditions which favour or disfavour the fungus mycelium in the tissues, and, nevertheless, an outbreak of disease over large areas sometimes occurs under conditions which appear quite inconsistent with this knowledge. During his six years' study of the wheat rusts Eriksson was so impressed with these difficulties that he has lately committed himself to an hypothesis which may perhaps crystallise the ideas which have floated in the minds o several who have been puzzled by these matters. The facts which seem to have finally impelled Eriksson to his hypothesis were those of the distribution of the wild rusts and grasses. Having learnt which grasses could infect the wheat, oat, barley, and rye respectively, he found cases of epidemics occurring where it was impossible to fit in the facts with the view that spores had been transferred from these grasses within the period required for infection and development of the disease spots. Again, seasons occurred when all the conditions pointed to the probability of a serious outbreak of rust, and no such epidemic occurred. Further, experiments were made in which cereals of varieties known to be susceptible to given rusts were planted in close vicinity to grasses infected with such rusts, and, nevertheless, in seasons eminently suitable for the outbreak of this particular rust on these particular cereals none appeared, or so little that it was impossible to explain the outbreaks of this same rust on this cereal elsewhere, during that season, as due to direct infection from the surrounding grasses. More and more it became evident that the infective capacity of the rusted grasses is small, and confined to restricted areas, and that the outbreaks in certain seasons — rust-years — must be due to something other than wind-borne spores dis- tributed by gales over the district. Three hypotheses can be suggested to account for the non-spreading of the disease on to susceptible cereals — (1) Indisposition to germinate on the part of the spores ; (2) unfavourable weather for germination ; (3) some structural peculi- arities of the leaves on which the spores fell, of such a nature that infection was prevented. The results of many experiments showed that, as matter of fact, the spores are often very obstinate, and refuse to germinate even when the weather is apparently favourable, and Eriksson discovered during these experiments that cooling the ripe spores on ice increased their germinating power. Neither of the other two hypotheses mentioned could be brought into agreement with the results, however. The conclusion was thus arrived at that an outbreak of rust cannot always be referred directly to the normal germination and infection of wind-borne spores from neighbouring centres of infection. In some patches of extremely susceptible cereals, the disease appeared simul- taneously on plants isolated from all perceptible sources of infection, and on plants not thus protected ; the date of outbreak in these cases — reckoned from the sowing of the grain — was far too late to be explained by direct infection from spores on the soil, or on the grain sown. Experiments demonstrated that if such spores had been there, and germinal tubes formed as usual, the disease would have shown itself much earlier. These and numerous other inconsistencies drove Eriksson to look for an ' internal source of infection/ in spite of the improbability of any such existing, and of its apparent incompatibility with scientific theory since De Bary's time. 26 REPORT — 1897. Two methods were pursued. In one each plant of the cereal was enclosed from the beginning in a long glass tube, stuffed with cotton-wool above and below, and so carefully protected against infection from wind-blown spores that we may accept forthwith the improbability of such infection. Notwithstanding these precautions, the cereal was rusted at the same time as its unprotected neighbours, and equally badly. Granting the accuracy of the experiments, only two explanations seem tc suggest themselves. Either (1) winter-spores attached to the grain had germinated and infected the young seedling — a not impossible event, since several observers have found spore-bearing mycelia in the pericarp of the ripe grains, and we knovv these spores can conserve their germinating power for months ; or (2) the infective material had been handed down to the embryo from the parent plant — an almost inconceivable hypothesis. To answer this question Eriksson protected his seed-plants from external infection, and sowed the grains in sterilised soil in specially constructed green- houses, through which the air can only pass via cotton-wool filters. Between the double-glass windows water was allowed to stream, and the plants thus kept cool. Some of these protected plants became rusted. Before we draw any conclusions from such difficult experiments as the above, let us see the results of microscopic examination. Reference has already been made to the mycelium and spores in the tissues of the pericarp of the grain ; no trace could be, or ever has been, detected in the endosperm or embryo. In some cases the seedlings, four to eight weeks old, showed the first uredo-pustules on their leaves, and the mycelium but no spores could be detected in the seed-coats. The tissues of the leaf, in the neighbourhood of young uredo-pustules, frequently showed curious clumps of protoplasm in the cells, either free in the cell-cavity, or attached to the primordial utricle, and looking like haustoria. Eriksson assumes that we have here the key to the puzzle ; he regards these * plasmatic corpuscles ' as the protoplasm of the fungus which, after leading a dormant life commingled symbiotically with the living protoplasm of the cell, is now gaining the upper hand and beginning to form a dominant mycelium. We are therefore to suppose that when the spores of rust, even if of the right variety, alight on the tissues of a wheat-plant, it is a matter decided by external and internal conditions whether the germ-tubes forthwith infect the plant and grow out into a dominant, parasitic, sporiferous mycelium, as we know they usually do, or simply manage to infect the cells with enough protoplasm to live a latent symbiotic life for weeks — or even months — as a Mycoplasma, which may, under favourable circumstances, gain the upper hand, and grow out in the form of a mycelium. This is a startling hypothesis, and brings us to the most advanced point along this line of biological speculation. We must distinguish sharply and clearly between such a view, which is by no means inconsistent with all we know of parasites, so far as the dormant mycelium goes, and all the hazy, mystical sugges- tions as to ' infective substance ' and so forth, which were so freely flung about at the beginning of this epoch, and which De Bary's strictly scientific methods put down so firmly. The idea of symbiosis is now comparatively old, and there are many cases of dormant life now well established. Even the astounding notion of blended proto- plasms can no longer be regarded as new. I need only remind you of Oornu's Rozella, which invades the thallus of Saprolegnia, and Woronina in Vaucheria, the protoplasm of the two organisms apparently blending and living a common life for some time before the true nature of the parasite manifests itself. Eriksson has avowedly been influenced by these and other cases among the Chrytridiacece. That the remarkable intra-cellular fusions of Tlasmodiophora and the now well- established symbiosis of the organism of the leguminous root-nodules have also had their influence on his work may well be assumed, and I think we may trace also the effects of our knowledge of the latent life of Ustilago during the vegetative period of the attacked cereal. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 27 But there are other cases which prevent our casting aside as impossible the view that Eriksson has put forward. I showed some years ago that the mycelium of the Botrytis of the lily disease can lie dormant for some time in the cell-walls, and I have observations showing that other forms of Botrytis which attack roses and chrysanthemums only gain the upper hand when the cold autumn nights so chill the attacked cells that they succumb ; the mycelium was there long before, but so long as the cells were active no progress could be made, and only when the plasmolysed chilled cells exude their sap can the mycelium advance. Many cases of similarly dormant mycelia appear to exist in those cortex and cambium diseases which result in the production of cankers — e.g., Nectria ditissima and Peziza Willkommii, and Tubeuf 's experiments with Gymnospovangium are even more suggestive. Tubeuf found that if G. clavariceforme is sown on hawthorn seedlings the fungus forms yellow spots and induces marked hypertrophy, and normal spermogonia and recidia — Roestelia lacerata — are developed ; but if Pyrus Aucuparia is used as the host, no yellow spots or hypertrophy result, though a mycelium is formed and will even produce a few starved spermogonia. On allied species of Pyrus the fungus may even succeed in forming a few poorly developed aecidia. But on the quince the fungus only just succeeds in establishing an infecting mycelium, and soon dies ; and Wagner describes similar events with fungi on SteUaria. These cases point to a struggle between the protoplasm of the cells of the different hosts, and of the fungus respectively: sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. The following cases are also suggestive. De Bar}- found that the germinal hyphag of Peronospora pygmcea, which is parasitic on Anemone, will penetrate the tissues of Ranunculus Ficaria, but cannot maintain its hold, and the mycelium soon succumbs and dies. Still more remarkable and to the point is the following case. Soppitt and Plowright in England, and Klebahn and others on the Continent, have gradually unravelled a curious case of heteroecism and specialised parasitism among certain Puccinias found on Smilax, Convallaria, Paris, and Digr aphis. The story is too long to recount in detail, but the Pucci?iia-spores from Phalaris were found by Klebahn to refuse to infect Polygonatum leaves successfully, though they readily infect the allied Convallaria. Close investigation show r ed, however, that although the sporidia failed to develop a mycelium in the Polygonatum leaves, they really penetrate the cells, and the delicate germ-tube is kiiled oft* by the protoplasm, a red spot marking the place of entrance. The perennial mycelia of "Witches' Brooms, aecidia in Euphorbia, Taphrina, and many other perennial mycelia are also cases in point. It is not my purpose to hold a brief for Eriksson's hypothesis, but I may point out that it is in no way contradictory to the facts already known since De Bary's time. Its most serious aspect is with regard to possible treatment, and it is obvi- ously essential that we should have it tested to the utmost, for it must be remem- bered that no method of spraying or dusting has been, or apparently can be, devised for cereals ; hence the questions as to the existence of really resistent forms, and whether dormant mycelia lurking in their tissues have deceived us in these cases also, require sifting to the bottom. Experience, so far, points to the selection of pedigree wheats and careful cultivation as the first necessities ; how far the ques- tion of spring versus winter wheat aids us is still matter for further experiment ; early and late ripening are also concerned. Climate we cannot hope to control, but it remains to be seen — when the facts are known — how far it can be 1 dodged.' Clearly what is needed, then, is experiments with varieties of wheat under all conditions, and we may congratulate the Australian, Swedish, and United Spates experimental stations on their preliminary efforts in this direction. I have only been able to give a mere sketch of this rapidly growing subject, but I think you will agree that we are justified in saying that an epidemic of para- sitic fungi depends on the interaction of many factors, congenital variations of the host-plant and topical variations of its cell-contents being probably among the most important ; and since we cannot hope to control the variations of the parasite, or the meteorological conditions, it behoves agriculturists to pay more systematic 28 REPORT — 1897 attention to the selection of those varieties of the cereal which are least predisposed to rust. When we find the annual losses from wheat-rust alone put down at sums vary- ing from 1,000,000/. to 20,000,000/. in each of the great wheat-growing countries of Europe, India, Australia, the United States, and elsewhere, it strikes one as very remarkable that so little should be done to encourage the scientific investigation of these practical questions. I need hardly say that the establishment and main- tenance of a fully equipped laboratory and experimental station does not cost the interest on the smallest of these sums. It should be also clear that in the further development of our knowledge of the treatment of parasitic diseases of plants the farmer, gardener, and forester can alone supply the experimental evidence which will enable us to put theory to the test in the field, garden, and forest. The botanist, by means of his pure cultures of the fungus, can now show clearly what stage in the life-history of a parasite is vulnerable. In his ' microscopic gardens ' he can show what antiseptics may be employed, how strong they should be, and when and how they should be em- ployed. But we must not forget that it is one thing to kill a fungus when grown pure, and another to kill it when growing on or in, or even associated with, other plants, without harming the latter. We may compare the first case to the destruction of weeds on a gravel path, where the antiseptic dressing may be employed lavishly and at any time, because there are no other plants to injure ; but it is another matter to kill the same weeds growing in a lawn or a flower-bed, where we have to pay attention to the neighbouring plants. Experiments in the open, simple in themselves, but conducted intelligently and with due regard to the rigorous demands of science, can alone determine these questions. Brewers have long known that burning sulphur in the barrels will rid these barrels of the moulds and yeasts growing on their damp beer-soaked sides ; and Berkeley saw clearly that sulphur could be applied to the outside of plants on which such fungi as the hop- or grape-mildew, &c, are growing, the critical period being when the spores are germinating, so that the slowly oxidising sulphur should evolve sulphurous acid in just sufficient quantities to destroy the delicate germs without injuring the leaves. And even better results have been attained with Bordeaux mixture. But it is clear that this can only be done with an intelligent appreciation of the life-history of the fungus, and a knowledge of when the germinating stage is at hand. The successes obtained in France and America with Bordeaux mixture attest this. It would obviously be absurd to powder sulphur or spray liquids over plants attacked by bunt- or smut-fungi, for we know that the germ-tubes only infect the germinating grain as its first root emerges. Here, as was shown long ago, and especially by the experiments of Hoffmann, Kiihn, and De Bary, the practice known as i dressing the grain ' must be followed. Knowing that the spores of the fungus are attached to the grain, or to particles of soil around, the efforts must be directed to covering the outside of the grain with an antiseptic which is strong enough to kill the germs but not the grain. If the land is known to be clean, the grain may be immersed in hot water, the temperature being experimentally determined, and high enough to kill the spores but not the wheat, and so on. In these matters also the American stations have done good work. Neither of these classes of treatment can be adopted, on the other hand, for diseases such as \ Finger and Toes,' where we have a delicate slime-fungus making its way into the roots already in the soil ; but, here again, intelligently devised experiments, such as those of Somerville and Massee, have shown that liming the soil renders it so unfavourable to this disease that it can be coped with. And similarly with other diseases ; the particular methods of dealing with the * damping* off ' of seedlings, ' dry-rot ' in timber, the various diseases of trees, and so on, do and must differ in each case, and the guiding principle must be always the same — having learnt all that can be learnt of the habits of the fungus and of TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 29 the host, and of the relationships of each to the other and the environment, to see how it is possible to step in at the critical moment and interfere with these rela- tionships in the direction desired by human interests. The whole matter thus resolves itself into a study of variation — a purely experimental inquiry into complex biological relationships, and it is encouraging to see that this is being understood in the large American and other stations, which are distinguishing themselves by their efforts. r UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBAN A 506 BRIA C001 1897 President's address and the sectional ad