contemporaneously, a wise discovery or invention, it is much more likely on the calculation of chances, and considering the much greater number of fools and blockheads ("Thoren und Dummköpfen'), that in two countries widely apart closely similar follies should be simultaneously invented. And then, if the inventing fool happens to be a man of influence and consideration, which is, by the way, an exceedingly frequent coincidence, both the nations are likely to adopt the same foolish practice, and the historian and antiquarian, after the lapse of some centuries, is likely to draw from this coincidence the conclusion that the two nations both sprang from the same stock." Judge and speculate for yourselves how the spirit which breathes in this passage was excited, but note its scientific value too. We must not forget that it is possible, in thought, at least, to dissociate the psychological unity of man from his specific identity even; and that, as regards identity of race, it is only reasonable to expect that when similar needs are pressing, similar means for meeting them are not unlikely to be devised independently by members of two tribes who have for ages been separated from their original stocks. The question to be asked is, does the contrivance about which we are speculating combine, or does it not combine in itself so large a number of converging adaptations as to render it upon the calculation of chances unlikely that it should have been independently invented? Yet this very obvious principle has been neglected, or Lindenschmit would not have found it necessary to say that, by laying too much stress upon certain points of national identity in the stones used for the formation of cromlechs or dolmens, the Hünenvolk might be made out to have chosen to settle only in those parts of Germany where erratic blocks of granite or other such large stones could be found! (Archiv für Anthropologie, iii. p. 115, 1868).

Sir John Lubbock's recently published work on The Origin of Civilization' may, I anticipate, cause the history and genealogy of manners and customs to enter largely into the composition of our lists of papers. There is no need for me, as the author of the book is here himself to speak, as announced, for himself, to occupy your time in recommending his work; but I may be allowed to say that the utility of such pursuits as those which Sir John Lubbock's book treats of receives some little illustration from the fact that, as we learn from him and from Mr. Tylor, the human mind blunders and errs and deceives itself in these subjects in just the same way as it does in the kindred, though more immediately arising, pressing, and important matters of social and political life. In these latter spheres of observation we are apt occasionally to mistake one of those intermittent reactions of opinion, produced as eddies are produced in a river by the deposit of sand and mud at angles in its onward course, for a deliberate giving up of the principles upon which all previous progress has been dependent. The straws which float upon the surface of a backwater may be taken as proofs that the river is about to flow upwards, and a feeble oarsman in a light boat may be deceived for some moments by the backward drifting of his small craft. Now an analogous blunder is often made in matters of purely historical interest; and we may do well to learn from the experience thus cheaply earned. "The history of the human race has," says Sir J. Lubbock, p. 322, l. c., "I feel satisfied, on the whole been one of progress: I do not of course mean to say that every race is necessarily advancing; on the contrary, most of the lower are almost stationary:" but Sir John regards these as exceptional instances, and points out that if the past history of man had been one of deterioration, we have but a groundless expectation of future improvement; whilst on the other, if the past has been one of progress, we may fairly hope that the future will be so

also.

Mr. Tylor's words are equally to the purpose, though, as forming the end of a chapter merely and not the end of a book, they are less enthusiastic in tone (p. 193, Tylor, Early History of Mankind'). They run thus:

a

"To judge from experience, it would seem that the world, when it has once got firmer grasp of new knowledge or a new art, is very loath to lose it altogether, especially when it relates to matters important to man in general, for the conduct of his daily life, and the satisfaction of his daily wants, things that come home to men's business and bosoms.' An inspection of the geographical distribution of art and knowledge among mankind seems to give some grounds for the belief that the history of the lower races, as of the higher, is not the history of a course

of degeneration or even of equal oscillations to and fro, but of a movement which, in spite of frequent stops and relapses, has on the whole been forward; that there has been from age to age a growth in man's power over nature, which no degrading influences have been able permanently to check."

I must not trespass into the province of the botanist, but I should be glad to say that no easier method of learning how the natural-history sciences can be made to bear upon the history of man, as a whole, can be devised than that furnished by the perusal of such memoirs as those of Unger's upon the plants used for food by man. The very heading and title of the paper I am specially referring to appears to me to have an ambiguity about it which, in itself, is not a little instructive. In that title, "Botanische Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete der Cultur-Geschichte," the latter word may be taken, I imagine, etymologically at least, to refer either to culture proper, or to floriculture, or to agriculture. At any rate, the paper itself may be read in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy for 1859; it has, I suppose, superseded the interesting chapters in Link's Urwelt und Alterthum,' of date 1821; and it is not unlikely, I apprehend, to be itself, in its turn, superseded also.

Coming, in the third place, to Zoology, I suppose I shall be justified in saying that the largest issue which has been raised in the current year, an issue for the examination of the data for deciding which the two months of July and August which are just past may have furnished persons now present with opportunities, is the question of the kinship of the Ascidians to the Vertebrata. There is or was nothing better established till the appearance of Kowalewsky's paper, now about four years ago, than the existence of a wide gulf between the two great divisions of the animal kingdom, the Vertebrata and the Invertebrata: nothing could be more revolutionary than the views which would obviously rise out of his facts; and within the present year these facts have been abundantly confirmed by Prof. Kupfer, whose very clearly written and beautifully illustrated paper has just appeared in the current number of Schultze's Archiv für microscopische Anatomie.' Kupfer's researches have been carried on upon Ascidia canina; but they more than confirm the accuracy of what Kowalewsky had stated to take place in Ascidia mammillata, and which may be summed up briefly thus:-In the larval Ascidian we have in its caudal appendages an axis skeleton clearly analogous, if not essentially homologous, to the chorda dorsalis of the vertebrate embryo, as consisting, like it, of rows of internally placed cells, and giving insertion by its sheath to muscles. We have further the nervous system and the digestive taking up in such embryos much the same positions relatively to each other, and to this molluscan chorda dorsalis, that are taken up by the confessedly homologous system in the Vertebrata; we have the nervous system originating in the same fashion and closing up like the vertebrate myelencephalon out of the early form of a lamellar furrow into that of a closed tube; we have, finally, the respiratory and digestive inlets holding the vertebrate relationship of continuity with, instead of the invertebrate of dislocation and separation from, each other. Such are the facts; but I am not convinced that they will bear the interpretation that has been put upon them; though I must say the possession of this chorda dorsalis by the active locomotor larva of the Ascidian which one day settles down into such immobility lends not a little probability to Mr. Herbert Spencer's view of the genesis of the segmented vertebral column in animals undoubtedly vertebrate. But on this view I should not be inconsistent with myself, inasmuch as, to waive other considerations, the chorda dorsalis in each case would be considered as an adaptive or teleological modification, not a sign of morphological kinship. Much perplexity may or must arise here; and whilst entertaining these views, I felt myself bound to examine myself strictly to find whether in not taking them up, I might not be giving way to that reactionary reluctance to accept new ideas which advancing years so frequently bring with them; but a recent paper, by Lacaze-Duthiers, published in the Comptes Rendus' for May 30, 1870, and translated in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' for July 1870, would justify me, I think, in calling that reluc* See, however, Mr. Herbert Spencer's Appendix D to his principles of Biology, pt. iv. chap. xvi. This appendix was printed in 1865, but not published till December 1869. I had not seen it when I wrote as above.

tance by another name. For in that paper the renowned malacologist just mentioned has brought to light the fact that there is another sessile and solitary Ascidian, the Molgula tubulosa, which goes through no such tadpole-like stage as had been supposed to be gone through by all Ascidians except the Salpa, which is never active and never puts out the activity which is so remarkable in the other Ascidians, but settles down and remains sedentary immediately after it is set free from the egg-capsula, neither enjoying a Wanderjahr nor possessing a chorda dorsalis. We are not surprised after this that M. Lacaze-Duthiers observes that "although embryology may and must furnish valuable information by itself, it may also, in some cases, lead us into the gravest errors.' Mr. Hancock, of Newcastleupon-Tyne, has sent us a paper upon this subject, which will be read duly and duly noted by us.

Leaving Malacology, which has not in the United Kingdom obtained the same hold as yet upon the public mind that it has on the Continent, where, like Entomology, there and here, it has a periodical or two devoted to the recording of the discoveries of its votaries, I have much pleasure in directing attention to two short papers by Siebold in the Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie' (xx. 2, 1870), on parthenogenesis in Polistes gallica v. diadema, and on pædogenesis in the Strepsiptera. In each of these short papers Siebold informs us that adequate room and time could not be given them in the Innsbruck meeting held just a year ago, or in the report of the meeting. It is to me a matter of difficulty to think what there could have been of greater value than those papers in a section of Wissenschaftliche Zoologie; it will be to all present a matter of congratulation to learn, from the venerable professor's papers, that he will shortly favour us with a new work on the subject of parthenogenesis. A fresh instance of parthenogenesis in Diptera, viz. in Chironomus, has just been put upon record in the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy's Memoirs (xv. 8, January 13, 1870).

The subject of the geographical distribution of the various forms of vegetable and animal life over the surface of the globe, and in the various media, air, earth, water, fresh and salt, whether deep or shallow, has always been, and will always remain, one of the most interesting subsections of biology. It was the contemplation of a simple case of geographical distribution in the Galapagos archipelago which brought the author of the 'Origin of Species' face to face with the problem which the title of his work embodies; and it is impossible that sets of analogous and of more complicated facts (many of which, be it recollected, such as the combination now being effected between our own fauna and flora and those of Australia and New Zealand, are patent to the observations of the least observing) should not, since the appearance of that book, force the serious consideration of the explanation it offers upon the thoughts of all who think at all. The wonders of the deep-sea fauna will, I apprehend, form one, the commensalism of Professor Van Beneden another, subject of discussion, and furnish an opportunity for receiving instruction to all of us. The one set of observations is a striking exemplification of the way in which organisms have become suited to inorganic environments; the other is an all but equally striking exemplification of the way in which organisms can fit and adapt themselves to each other. The current journals have*, as was their duty, made us acquainted with what has been done in both of these directions; and I am happy to say that in the case of the deep-sea explorations, as in that of parthenogenesis and spontaneous generation, a new work, giving a connected and general view of the entire subject, is announced for publication.

One instance of the large proportions of the questions which the facts of geographical distribution bear upon, is furnished to us in the address recently delivered before the Geological Society by its president, who is also our president, and who may have forgotten to refer to his own work (see 'Nature,' No. 24, 1870). Another may be found in the demonstration which Dr. Günther, contrary to our ordinarily taught doctrines, has given us (Zool. Soc. Trans. vol. vi. pt. 7, 1868, p. 307) of the partial identity of the fish-faunas of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America; many, thirdly, are furnished to us by Mr. Wallace's works passim.

It would be superfluous, after introducing even thus hurriedly to your notice so * See 'Nature,' No. 39, July 28, 1870, and Royal Society's Proceedings, August 1870, for deep-sea explorations, and 'Academy,' September 10, 1870, for commensalism.

large a series of interesting and important subjects as being subjects with which we shall forthwith begin to deal in this Section, to say any thing at length as to the advantages which may reasonably be expected to accrue from the study of Biology. I may put its claims before you in a rough way by saying that I should be rejoiced indeed if, when money comes to be granted by the Association for the following up the various lines of biological research upon which certain of its members are engaged, we could hope to obtain a one hundredth, or I might say a thousandth part of the amount of money which has in the past year been lost to the State and to individuals through ignorance or disregard of biological laws now well established. I need say nothing of the suffering or death which anti-sanitary conditions entail, as surely as, though less palpably and rapidly than, a fire or a battle; and I might, if there were time for it, take my stand simply upon what is measurable by money. This I will not do, as it is less pleasant to speak of what has been lost than of that which has been or may be gained. And of this latter let me speak in a few words, and under two heads-the intellectual and the moral gains accruing from a study of the Natural-History Sciences. As to the intellectual gains, the real psychologist and the true logician know very well that the discourse on method which comes from a man who is an actual investigator is worthy, even though it be but short and packed away in an Introduction or an Appendix, or though it cover but a couple of pages in the middle of a book, like the "Regulæ Philosophandi" of Newton, more than whole columns of the "Sophistical Dialectic" of the ancient Schoolman and his modern followers. "If you wish your son to become a logician," said Johnson, "let him study Chillingworth"-meaning thereby that real vital knowledge of the art and science can arise only out of the practice of reasoning; and as to the value of actual experimentation as a qualification for writing about method, Claude Bernard and Berthelot are, and I trust will long remain, living examples of what Descartes and Pascal, their fellow-countrymen, are illustrious departed examples. (See Janet, 'Revue de deux Mondes,' tome lxii. p. 910, 1866.)

I pass on now to say a word on the working of natural-science studies upon the faculty of attention, the faculty which has very often and very truly been spoken of as forming the connecting-link between the intellectual and the moral elements of our immaterial nature. I am able to illustrate their beneficial working in producing carefulness and in enforcing perseverance, by a story turning upon the use of, or rather upon the need for, a word. Von Baer, now the Nestor of biologists, after a long argumentation (Mém. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Pétersbourg, 1859, p. 340) of the value which characterizes his argumentations generally, as to the affinities of certain oceanic races, proceeds to consider how it is that certain of his predecessors in that sphere, or, rather, in that hemisphere, as Mr. Wallace has taught us Oceania is very nearly, had so lamentably failed in attaining or coming anywhere near to the truth. This failure is ascribed to something which he calls "Ungenirtheit," a word which you will not find in a German dictionary, the thing itself not being, Von Baer says, German either. I am happy not to be able to find an exact equivalent for this word in any single English vocable; the opposite quality shows itself in facing conscientiously "the drudgery of details, without which drudgery," Dr. Temple tells us (Nine Schools Commission Report, vol. ii. p. 311), "nothing worth doing was ever yet done." Mr. Mill, I would add, speaks to the same effect, and even more appositely, as far as our purpose and our vocations are concerned, in his wise Inaugural Address at St. Andrews, p. 50. For the utter incompatibility of an ἀταλαίπωρος ζήτησις (these two words give a Thucydidean rendering of “ Ungenirtheit") with the successful investigation of natural problems, I would refer any man of thought, even though he be not a biologist, to a consideration of the way in which problems as simple at first sight as the question of the feeding or non-feeding of the salmon in fresh water (see Dr. McIntosh, Linn. Soc. Proc. vii. p. 148), or that of the agencies whereby certain mollusks and annelids bore their way into wood, clay, or rocks, must be investigated. It is easy to gather from such a consideration how severe are the requirements made by natural-science investigations upon the liveliness and contínuousness with which we must keep our faculty of attention at work.

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I shall speak of but one of the many purely moral benefits which may be rea

sonably regarded either as the fruit of a devotion to or as a preliminary to success in natural science. Of this I will speak in the words of Helmholtz, taking those words from a report of them as spoken at the meeting of the German Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held last year at Innsbruck. There Professor Helmholtz, in speaking of the distinctive characteristics of German scientific men, and of their truthfulness in particular, is reported to have used the following words:-"Es hat diesen Vorzug auch wesentlich zu verdanken der Sittenstrenge und der uneigennutzige Begeisterung welche die Männer der Wissenschaft beherrscht und beseelt hat, und welche sie nicht gekehrt hat an äussere Vortheile und gesellschaftliche Meinungen." These words are, I think, to the effect that the characteristics in question are in reality to be ascribed to the severe simplicity of manners and to the absence of a spirit of self-seeking which form the guiding and inspiring principles of their men of science, and prevent them from giving themselves up to the pursuit of mere worldly advantages, and from paying undue homage to the prejudices of society. I think Sittenstrenge may be considered as more or less adequately rendered by the words severe simplicity of manners; at any rate, as things are known by their opposites, let me say that it is the exact contradictory of that "profound idleness and luxuriousness" which, we are told by an excellent authority (the Rev. Mark Pattison, "Suggestions on Academic Organization," p. 241), for whose accuracy I would vouch in this matter were there any need so to do,-"have corrupted the nature" of a large class of young men amongst ourselves; whilst the absence of a spirit of self-seeking is, in its turn, the contradictory of a certain character which Mr. Mill (. c. p. 90) has said to be one of the commonest amongst us adults, and to which Mr. Matthew Arnold has assigned the very convenient epithet of "Philistine." Investigation as to whether these undesirable tendencies are really becoming more rife amongst us, might be carried on with advantage in a place such as this, in the way of inquiries addressed to colonists returning home after a successful sojourn abroad. Such persons are able to note differences without prejudice, and, ex hypothesi, with unjaundiced eyes, which we are apt to overlook, as they may have grown up gradually and slowly. But, perhaps, researches of this kind are not quite precisely the particular kind of investigation with which we should busy ourselves; neither would the leaders of fashion, the persons with whom all the responsibility for this illimitable mischief rests, be very likely to listen to any statistics of ours, their ears being filled with very different sounds from any that, as I hope, will ever come from Section D. Whether men of science in England are more or less amenable to blame in this matter than the rest of their countrymen, it does not become us to say; but it does become and concern us to recollect that we have particular and special reasons, and those not far to seek, nor dependent on authority alone, for believing and acting upon the belief that real success in our course of life is incompatible with a spirit of self-seeking and with habits of even refined self-indulgence.

BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY.

On the Effects of the Pollution of Rivers on the Supply of Fish.
By Colonel Sir James Alexander, K.C.L.S.

Note on the Changes produced in Lotus corniculatus by Cultivation.
By Prof. T. C. ARCHER, F.R.S.E.

During a late visit to the Shetland Islands, my attention was called to a singular transformation produced by giving greenhouse cultivation to the hardy and beautiful Lotus corniculatus so common in our fields.

One of the most agreeable spots in the Shetland Islands is that on which the interesting garden and hospitable mansion of Miss Mowatt is situate on the south side of the island of Bressay. The garden is especially interesting; for in it the