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BRITISH ASSOCIATION 


FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE 


REPORT 


OF THE 


ANNUAL MEETING, 1933 
(103rp YEAR) 


EEICESTER 
SEPTEMBER 6-13 


LONDON 


OFFICE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 
BURLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON, W.1 


1933 


bie 


a BAAN ay aE 


ill 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
PMMCHHSEAND COUNCIL: TO33—34 oss sisters Aicivlare sc ois G vip lac cise sere Vv 
SECTIONAL OFFICERS, LEICESTER MEETING, 1933 ..............-- ix 


ANNUAL MEETINGS: PLACES AND DATES, PRESIDENTS, ATTENDANCES, 
Receipts, SuMs PaID ON ACCOUNT OF GRANTS FOR SCIENTIFIC 


EREOSESE(LSST—FOS9)iaionions wisrolsccis a's seisiata cr stemleaiem StavewlGvan liek xii 
FNSTALEATION OF THE, PRESIDENT.(.\¢ 0 fcc. 8 custo ee vtne dou lee tees XVi 
NARRATIVE OF THE LEICESTER MEETING ................0-00000- XVil 
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL TO THE GENERAL COMMITTEE (1932-33).. xix 
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT (1932-33) ...-2--eeececeeecucece XXIV 
MeIMMERCED - OOMMITTERS (1933-34) < . once nee cess ce see scnece sen XXXVili 
RESOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (LEICESTER MEETING) ....... xliv 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS : 


Some Chemical Aspects of Life. By Sir FREDERICK GOwWLAND 
IIOPEINS Pres RAGS sig jciecepqsisusis e..0) + foLedeaeuct® oasyars “1giep « pitherses I 


SECTIONAL PRESIDENTS’ ADDRESSES : 
Seasonal Weather and its Prediction. By Prof. Sir GILBERT 


UAT EER SCO 5lb BERESE« sche Gis b cage seve Seis SLA ee Sele oid es 25 
Natural Colouring Matters and their Analogues. By Prof. R. 

HROBINSON PRIN sD sizcit« idinca sen allecatbis,s ole CekeReraiate. sibeysss levers eos 45 
A Correlation of Structures in the Coalfields of the Midland 

Province. By Prof. W. G. FEARNSIDES, F.R.S. .......... 57 
The Mechanical View of Life. By Dr. J. Gray, F.R.S........ 81 
Geography as Mental Equipment. By the Rt. Hon. Lorp 

IVERSON, COGS OLY te whe da. s Kl aateibalniete asia wih Si Seteca uilgrebers 93 
ane Gold’ Standard. By Prof. J. H. JonEs .........0.....0-: 109 
Some Experiences in Mechanical Engineering. By R. W. ALLEN, 

Se PRU NS Ructh are intare weyanne won SCT TS RRS oO See ees 129 
What is Tradition? By the Rt. Hon. Lorp RaGLan.......... 145 


The Activity of Nerve Cells. By Prof. E. D. AprIAN, F.R.S... 163 


iv CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Status of Psychology as an Empirical Science. By Prof. F. 
PAVRTCING) 3-52 ov da evevandt ain Ope! «ste, al OMe enw cat nelohesd eke Lonaremie ts 17 

The Types of Entrance Mechanisms of the Traps of Utricularia. 
| EAUOLET (Oy Beal Dey) chal 1 og DRE en aise I RADY AL Gita 5 tkin So Sc 183 

The Development of the National System of Education. By 
Wee PETOLUAND a. e terns oie cic tin eae reas Ane es ery Ei Sek 219 
Chemistry and Agriculture. By Dr. A. LAUDER.............. 243 
IREPORTS ON ‘THE SEATE OF SCIENCE, (ETC, 9-2 nae... s\s + = ls eee 265 
SECTIONAL) URANSAGIIONS rs ofors' 216 <' sfa\e =e ete acts ~ ohepeht = Sletten 427 
HB VENTING DISCOURSES (sais aleve cue e)a) +(e leveie) = ote win ayeie) «, 9 «le eka eee etait eee 578 
CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES ........ 589 

On Prant GrowTH Hormones (Auxin-a and Auxin-6). By Prof. 
Dr AIS OGCU oars aero 3s 2 naeliced SEG IP =< SC He - aa ae 600 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATION OF COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SECTIONS 610 


APPENDIX. 


A ScIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT .............. I-100 


British 2 


Association for the Adbancement 


of Science, 


The Lorp LIEUTENANT OF LEICESTER- 
SHIRE (Sir ARTHUR HazLeErRicG, Bt., 


er.). 

The Rt. Worshipful the Lorp Mayor 
oF LEIcESTER (Councillor ARTHUR 
Hawkes, J.P.). 


‘The Lorp BisHop oF LEICESTER (The 
Rt. Rev. C. C. B. Barpsiey, D.D.). 


e Hicu SHERIFF OF LEICESTERSHIRE 
(Joun H. Coray). 


is Grace the DUKE oF RUTLAND. 
The Rt. Hon. the Eart FERRERS, F.S.A. 


e VISITOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 
LEICESTER (Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, 
MOA, LD. D.Litt.) E.BrA.). 


OFFICERS & COUNCIL, 1933-34. 


PATRON. 
HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


PRESIDENT, 1933. 
Sir FREDERICK GOWLAND Hopkins, D.Sc., Sc.D., LL.D., Pres.R.S. 


PRESIDENT, 1934. 


Sir WILLIAM BaTE Harpy, F.R.S. 


VICE-PRESIDENTS FOR THE LEICESTER MEETING. 


The PRINCIPAL OF UNIVERSITY COL- 
LEGE, LEICESTER (F. L. ATTEN- 
BOROUGH, M.A.). 


The PRESIDENT OF THE LEICESTER 
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
Society (H. Percy GEE, J.P.). 


Col. C. J. Bonp;, €.M:G.) FE UR.C:S. 


Councillor AsTLEY V. CLARKE, M.A., 
MED DAs) .P: 


Major E. G. GILLiLan. 
Lt.-Col. R. E. Martin, C.M.G., M.A., 
D.L. 


Alderman Sir JONATHAN NortH, D.L., 
zP; 


The Rev. BERNARD UFFEN, A.T.S. 


OFFICERS AND COUNCIL 


VICE-PRESIDENTS ELECT FOR THE ABERDEEN MEETING, 1934. 


vi 

The Hon. the LorD PROvosT OF 
ABERDEEN (HENRY ALEXANDER, 
PS McA). 


The PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR 
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN 
(Sir GEORGE ADAM SmitH, D.D., 
DE eittalb). Jb BcAs). 

The Most Hon. the 
ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR, 
G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.T. 


The Rt. Hon. the Eart oF CAITHNESS, 
CBE EE. Dy pk: 


The Rt. Hon. the Viscount ARBUTH- 
NOTT. 


The Rt. Hon. Lorp Mzsron, K.C.S.I., 
ELD: 


Sir THOMAS JAFFREY, Bart., LL.D. 
Sir RoBERT WILLIAMS, Bart., D.L., 


12 (Or 


MARQUIS OF | 


Sir GoprrEy P. Cortins, K.B.E., 
C.M.G., M.P. 

Sir ARTHUR KEITH, LL.D., D.Sc., 
BRIS: 


Sir GEORGE ABERCROMBY, Bart., D.S.O. 
Prof. Sir JoHn Marnocu, K.C.V.O., 
D.L. 


Sir ASHLEY W. MackIntTosH, K.C.V.O., 
LED: 


Sir ALEXANDER MACEWEN. 


| James R. Rust, LL.D. 


CHARLES Murray, C.M.G., LL.D. 

Prof. H. M. Macpbona.p, F.R.S. 

Prof. J. J. R. Macteop, D.Sc., LL.D., 
PRES! 


Prof. J. A. MacWiriiam, LL.D., 
Bike: 
Dr: J.B: Orr, DS OF Discs eh ks. 


Prof. R. W. Rerp, LL.D. 


GENERAL TREASURER. 


Sir Jostan Stamp, G.B.E., D.Sc., 


F.B.A. 


GENERAL SECRETARIES. 


Protech. STRATTON, D.S.O.,| Prof. P. G. H. BosweE tt, O.B.E., D.Sc., 
O.B.E., M.A IEERESE 
SECRETARY. 


O. J. R. Howartn, O.B.E., Ph.D. 


ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 
H. Woo.LpripcE, B.Sc. 


ORDINARY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 


Prof. F. AVELING. 

Dr. F. A. BatHer, F.R.S. 

Prof. R. N. RupMosE Brown. 
Prof. F. BALFouR BROWNE. 

Sir Henry DALE, C.B.E., F.R.S. 
Prof. J. DREVER. 

Dr. A. FERGUSON. 

Prof. R. B. FoRRESTER. 

Sir HENRy Fow er, K.B.E. 
Prof. W. T. Gorpon. 


Prof. Dame HELEN GWYNNE-VAUGHAN, 


G.B.E. 
Dr. H. S. Harrison. 


Sir JAMES HENDERSON. 

Prof. G. W. O. Howe. 

Dr. C. W. KIMMINsS. 

Sir P. CHALMERS MITCHELL, C.B.E..,, 
Bese 

Dr. C. Tate Recan, F.R.S. 

Sir Joun Russe Lt, O.B.E., 

Dr. N. V. SIDGWICcK, E.RS. 

Dr. G. C. Stimpson, C.B., F. 

Prof. J. F. THORPE, CBE 

H. T. Tizarp, C.B., F.R. 

Prof. A. M. TYNDALL, 18), 

Dr. J. A. VENN. 


3 


Se 
R. 


Prof. F. E. Weiss, F.R.S. 


OFFICERS AND COUNCIL Vii 


EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 


Past Presidents of the Association, the President for the year, the President 
and Vice-Presidents for the ensuing Annual Meeting, past and present General 
Treasurers and General Secretaries, and the Local Treasurers and Local Secretaries 
for the Annual Meetings immediately past and ensuing. 


PAST PRESIDENTS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 


Sir J. J. THomson, O.M., F.R.S. H.R.H. The Prince oF Watks, K.G., 
Sir E. SHARPEY-SCHAFER, F.R.S. DiGee BRAS: 

Sir OLIVER LopGE, F.R.S. | Prof. Sir ARTHUR KEITH, F.R.S. 

Sir ARTHUR SCHUSTER, F.R.S. | Prof. Sir WiLtt1am H. Brace, O.M., 


Sir ARTHUR Evans, F.R.S. eG ABa oy TRS 
Prof. Sir C. S. SHERRINGTON, O.M., | Sir THomas H. Horranp, K.C.I.E., 


GBB OE UR:S: | K.C.S.1., F.R.S. 
Prof. The Rt. Hon. Lorp RUTHERFORD | Prof. F. O. Bower, F.R.S. 

oF NEtson, O.M., F.R.S. | Gen. The Rt. Hon. J. C. Smuts, P.C., 
Prof. Sir Horace Lams, F.R.S. hGe ling MES ReS 


Sir ALFRED [-wine, K.C.B., F.R.S. 


PAST GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 


Sir E. SHARPEY-SCHAFER, F.R.S. Sirk, EAsSMITEH. heG.st,; Cobi..1SeC. 
Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S. RES: 
Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. 


HON. AUDITORS. 
Prof. A. L. BowLrey. | Prof. W. W. Warts, F.R.S. 


HON. CURATOR OF DOWN HOUSE. 
Sir BucKsTON BrRowngE, F.R.C.S., F.S.A. 


LOCAL OFFICERS 
FOR THE LEICESTER MEETING. 


CHAIRMAN OF LOCAL GENERAL COMMITTEE. 
Alderman Sir JonaTtHAaN Nortu, D.L., J.P. 


CHAIRMAN OF LOCAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
Col. C. J. Bonn, C.M.G., F.R.C.S. 


LOCAL HON. SECRETARIES. LOCAL GENERAL SECRETARY. 
F. P. ArmitacE, C.B.E., M.A. H. Purr, A.C.LS. 
Coutn D. B. Ettis, M.C., M.A. i 


LOCAL HON. TREASURERS. 
H. A. PRITCHARD. | Gopls CAGISADD; | JjsE: 


viii OFFICERS AND COUNCIL 


EQUIPMENT OFFICER. | TRANSPORT OFFICER. 
J. O. THompson. | J. M. Krrxwoop. 
CHAIRMEN OF SUB-COMMITTEES. 

FINANCE - - - - H. Percy GEE, J.P. 

PUBLICATIONS) - - - T. Kinepom, M.A. 

HOSPITALITY ) 

Mua - - ASTLEY V. CLaRKE, M.D., D.L., J.P. 
ENTERTAINMENTS - - Alderman CHARLES SQUIRE. 
EXCURSIONS - - - W. Keay, F.R.I.B.A., M.Inst.C.E. 


LOCAL OFFICERS 
FOR THE ABERDEEN MEETING. 


CHAIRMAN OF LOCAL GENERAL COMMITTEE. 
The Hon. the Lord Provost oF ABERDEEN (HENRY ALEXANDER, M.A.). 


VICE-CHAIRMAN OF LOCAL GENERAL COMMITTEE. 
The PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN 
(Sir GEorGE ADAM SmitTH, M.A., D.D., LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A.). 


LOCAL HON. SECRETARIES. | LOCAL GENERAL SECRETARY. 
Lt.-Col. Epwarp W. Watt, T.D.,M.A. | D. B. Gunn, M.B.E., M.A., LL.B. 
Prof. H. M. Macponartp, O.B.E., | 

| 


M.A., F.R.S. 
LOCAL HON. TREASURER. LOCAL TREASURER. 
Marianus Lunan, J.P. InR=aG. Dursin;Ay-Re, Pov 


OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1933 ix 


SECTIONAL OFFICERS. 


A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 


President.—Sir G. T. WALKER, C.S.I., F.R.S. 

Vice-Presidents.—Prof. H. L. Bross, Prof. E. H. NEvILLE, Prof. J. J. Noran, 
Prof. A. O. RANKINE, O.B.E., W. Taytor, O.B.E. 

Recordey.—Dr. ALLAN FERGUSON. 

Secretaries —M. G. BENNETT, Dr. EzER GRIFFITHS, F.R.S., Dr. R. O. REDMAN, 
Dr. D. M. Wrincu. 

Local Secretavy.—Dr. L. G. H. Huxiey. 


B.—CHEMISTRY. 


President.—Prof. R. Roprinson, F.R.S. 

Vice-Presidents—Dr. E. F. ArMstTRoNG, F.R.S., S. F. Burrorp, Prof. T. M. 
Lowry, C.B.E., F.R.S., Dr. W. H. Mitts, F.R.S., Prof. J. C. Poitip, O.B.E., 
F.R.S., Dr. F. L. Pyman, F.R.S., Rt. Hon. Lord TRENT. 


Recordey.—Prof. T. S. Moore. 
Secretavies.—Prof. J. E. Coates, Dr. J. M. GuLLanp. 
Local Secretary. —Dr. L. HuNTER. 


C.—GEOLOGY. 


President.—Prof. W. G. FEARNSIDES, F.R.S. 

Vice- Presidents —Prof. P. G. H. BoswELt, O.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. W. S. Bourton, 
W. Keay, Dr. E. E. Lower, Dr. Bernarp Smita, F.R.S., Prof. H. H. 
SWINNERTON, Prof. L. J. WILts. 

Recordey.—Dr. A. K. WELLs. 

Secretavies—B, HiLToN Barrett, Dr. H. C. VERSEY. 

Local Secretayy.—H. .H. GrEGory. 


D.—ZOOLOGY. 


President.—Dr. J. Gray, F.R.S. 
Vice-Presidents —Col. C. J. Bonn, C.M.G., Dr. E. E. Lowe, Dr. TH. MorTENSEN, 
Rt. Hon. Lord RotuscuHixLp, F.R.S. 
Recorder.—G. L. Purser. 
Secretary.— Prof. W. M. -TATTERSALL. 
Local Secretayy.—Mrs. HUNTER. 


E.—GEOGRAPHY. 


President.—Rt. Hon. Lord Meston, K.C.S.I. 

Vice-Presidents—Dr. P. W. Bryan, Prof. F. DEBENHAM, Prof. H. J. FLEuRE, 
Sir Epwarp A. Gait, K.C.S.I., C.LE., Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., H. H. 
PEACH. ene one / : ‘ 

Recorder—H. Kine. ; 

Secretaries —J. N. L. Baxer, Dr. R. O. BucHanan, 

Local Secretary.—Miss G. M. Sarson. 


x OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1933 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 
President.—Prof. J. H. Jones. 


Vice-Presidents —Prof. R. B. FoRRESTER, Prof. H. M. Hatiswortu, C.B.E., 
R. F. Harrop, A. RADFORD, R. V. RODWELL, Prof. J. G. SMITH. 


Recordey.—Dr. K. G, FENELON. 

Secretaries.—Dr. J. A. Bowtz, Dr. P. Forp, 

Local Secretary.—H. A. SILVERMAN. 

A Department of Industrial Co-operation—Chaiyman, Dr. J. A. BowiE ; Secretary, 


R. J. Mackay—arranged a special programme in connection with this and 
other Sections. 


G.—ENGINEERING. 
President.—R. W. ALLEN, C.B.E. 


Vice-Presidents.—Lt.-Col. E. Kitson Crarx, L. W. KeEersHaw, W. TAYLor, 
O.B.E., Prof. MILES WALKER, F.R.S. 


Recordey.—]. S. WILson. 
Secretavies—Dr. S. J. DAvizs, J. E. MONTGOMREY. 
Local Secretary.—T. STANFORD GRIFFIN. 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
President.—Rt. Hon. Lord RAGLan. 
Vice-Presidents —M. C. BuRKITT, Prof. V. GoRDON CHILDE, Dr. CyRit Fox, 
Prof. R. RuGGLEs Gates, F.R.S., Dr. MARGARET A. MURRAY. 
Recordey.—Miss R. M. FLEMING. 


Secretaries—Dr. S. Bryan ApDams, Prof. C. DARYLL FoRDE (acting), V. E. 
NASH-WILLIAMS. 


Local Secretary.—Dr. N. I. SpRiaes. 


I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 
President.—Prof. E. D. ADRIAN, F.R.S. 
Vice-Presidents.—Col. C. J. Bonp, C.M.G., Sir Henry Date, C.B.E., Sec.R.S., 
Prof. H. HARTRIDGE, F.R.S., Prof. H. E. Roar, Prof. R. Rosison, F.R.S. 
Recordey.—Prof. R. J. BRocKLEHURST. 
Secretary.—Dr. F. J. W. RouGuton. 
Local Secretary—Dr. R. McD. Catrns. 


J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 
President.—Prof. F. AvVELING. 


Vice-Presidents.—Dr. SHEPHERD Dawson, Prof. BEATRICE EDGELL, E. FARMER, 
Dr. Lt. Wynn Jones, Prof. K. Lewin, Prof. E. C. TOLMAN. 

Recordey—Dr. Mary COoLttins. 

Secretavy.— Dr. S. J. F. Puirport. 

Local Secretayy.—Mrs. N. M. BARNES. 


K.—BOTANY. 
President.— Prof. F. E. Lioyp. 


Vice-Presidents.—Maj. the Hon. RicHarpD Coxe, Prof. J. H. Priestiry, Dr. 
E. N. Mites THOMAS, 

Recordey.—Prof. H. S. HotpeEn, 

Secretaries —Dr. B. Barnes, Dr. E. V. Laine, Miss L. I. Scorr. 

Local Secyetayy.—Dr. E. J. B. Bisu. 


OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1933 xi 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 
President.—J. L. HOLLAND. 
Vice-Presidents—Principal F. L. ATTENBOROUGH, W. M. HELLER, Principal 
H. Stewart, C.M.G. 
Recovdey.—G. D. DUNKERLEY. 
Secretaries —S. R. HumBy, Miss HELEN MASTERS. 
Local Secretary —W. A. BROCKINGTON, C.B.E. 


M.—AGRICULTURE. 
President.—Dr. A. LAUDER. 


Vice-Presidents—Ald. P. F. Astitt, J. M. Catz, Dr. T. MILBuRN, ALFRED 
TuRNER, Prof. R. G. WHITE. 


Recordey.—Dr. E. M. CROWTHER. 
Secretary W. GODDEN. 
Local Secretary —T. HAckKING. 


CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF CORRESPONDING 
SOCIETIES. 


President—Dr. R. E. MorTIMER WHEELER. 
Secretary.— Dr. C. TIERNEY. 
Local Secretary —W. K. BEDINGFIELD. 


xil ANNUAL MEETINGS 


TABLE OF 


| 
Date of Meeting Where held Presidents One alls 
| 

1831, Sept. 27...... | York ... | Viscount Milton, D.C.L., F.R.S. —_ — 
1832, June 1g ...| Oxford ..... --| The Rev. W. Buckland, F.R.S._ ...... -- _ 
1833, June 25 ...| Cambridge .. The Rev. A. Sedgwick, F.R.S. ......... = _— 
1834, Sept. 8 | pene | Sir T. M. Brisbane, D.C.L., F.R.S. ...) ,— = 
1835, Aug. Dublin.. | The Rev. Provost Lloyd, L LL.D.,F.R.S. _ oo 
1836, Aug. Bristol..... ...| The Marquis of Lansdowne, F.R.S. ... —_ _ 
1837, Sept. |) Liverpool), ....2-<s<5<: The Earl of Burlington, F.R.S.......... = _ 
1838, Aug. Newcastle-on-Tyne | The Duke of Northumberland, F.R.S. _ —_— 
1839, Aug. | Birmingham ......... | The Rev. W. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S. —_ a 
1840, Sept. 17 ....| Glasgow ..... The Marquis of Breadalbane, F.R.S. os _— 
1841, July 2o...... Plymouth . The Rev. W. Whewell, F.R.S. . 169 65 
1842, June 23...... Manchester. .| The Lord Francis Egerton, HGS 303 169 
1843, Aug. 17 ...... Cork:....<.. .| The Earl of Rosse, F.R.S. ..........-.+4- 109 28 
1844, Sept. 26......| York ..... | The Rev. G. Peacock, DD., EF: Rese. 226 150 
1845, June 1g ...| Cambridge .. . Sir John F, W. Herschel, Bart. Fale RS. 313 36 
1846, Sept. Io...... Southampton | .| Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Bart.,F.R.S.| 241 Io 
1847, June 23 ...| Oxford.......... ...| Sir Robert H. Inglis, Bart., F.R.S. ...| 324 18 
1848, Aug. 9 ...... Swansea ....... ...| The Marquis of Northampton, Pres.R.S. 149 3 
1849, Sept. 12 Birmingham .........| The Rev. T. R. Robinson, D.D.,F.R.S. 227 12 
1850, July 21 ......| Edinburgh .... Sir David Brewster, K. igh F.R. 8 Beene 235 9 
1851, July 2 .| Ipswich .. ...| G. B. Airy, Astronomer Royal, F.R.S. 172 8 
1852, Sept. 1 Belfast... ...| Lieut.-General Sabine, F.R.S. . 164 Io 
1853, Sept. 3 ...... Ve Gi beer ...| William Hopkins, F.R.S........... I4I 13 
1854, Sept. 20...... Liverpool .. The Earl of Harrowby F.R.S. . wale 23 
1855, Sept. 12...... Glasgow ....... | The Duke of Argyll, F.R.S. ............ 194 33 
1856, Aug. 6 ...... Cheltenham . | Prof.C.G.B.Daubeney, M.D., F.R.S. . 182 14 
1857, Aug. 26...... Dubbin< 23.22: The Rev. H. Lloyd, D.D., F. RS. 236 15 
1858, Sept. 22...... eedSs =. .25405 ...| Richard Owen, M.D., D. (es 1 Ree SS 222 42 
1859, Sept. 14...... Aberdeen “| HLR.H. The Prince Consort ......-.++- 184 27 
1860, June 27_ ...| Oxford ..... ..., Che Lord Wrottesley, M.A., F.R.S. ... 286 21 
L861; Sept. 4. s----s Manchester.. ili irbai 321 113 
TRG e OCLs S, — s.0e8 Cambridge 239 15 
1863, Aug. 26......| Newcastle-on-Tyne | Sir William G. Armstrong 203 36 
1864, Sept. 13...... SAE cocesnctcseneess ted Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., 287 40 
1865, Sept. 6 ...... Birmingham . ...| Prof. J. Phillips, M.A., u: 292 44 
1866, Aug. 22...... Nottingham . .... William R. Grove, Q. Ge F. 207 31 
1867, Sept. 4 ...... Dundee ..... ...| The Duke of Buccleuch, K Ter 167 25 
1868, Aug. 19...... Norwich .. ..| Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, F.R. 196 18 
1869, Aug. 18 Exeter .. .| Prof. G. G. Stokes, D.C.L., 204 21 
1870, Sept. .| Liverpool .. 23|\ Prof. at. ED. Huxley, RL.D., F: 314 39 
| 1871, Aug. .| Edinburgh ...| Prof. Sir W. Thomson, LL.D., 246 28 
1872, Aug. | Brighton ..... ...| Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S.. 245 36 
1873, Sept. Bradford .| Prof. A. W. Williamson, F. 212 27 
1874, Aug ..| Prof. J. Tyndall, LL.D., F. 162 13 
1875, Aug. .., Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S. 239 36 
1876, Sept. .| Prof. T. Andrews, M.D., F. 221 35 
| 1877, Aug. Prof. A. Thomson, M.D., 173 19 
| 1878, Aug. ...| W. Spottiswoode, M.A., F. R. 201 18 
| 1879, Aug. ...| Prof. G. J. Allman, M.D., F.R. 184 16 
1880, Aug. ..| A. C. Ramsay, LL. -D., FLR-S: *aietatene 144 Ir 
| 1881, Aug. | Sir John Lubbock, Ba irt. A GB) Se 272 28 
| 1882, Aug. | Dr. C. W. Siemens, ERS, oa 178 17 

| 1883, Sept. Prof. A. Cayley, D.C.L., 203 | 
| 1884, Aug. .| Prof. Lord perieach, F, R.S 235 20 
1885, Sept. Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B. 225 18 
1886, Sept. ..| Sir J. W. Dawson, C.M.G. 314 25 
1887, Aug. Manchester .. ..| Sir H. E. Roscoe, Dic ; 428 86 
1888, Sept. (BACH) 5 Mee, peer eree Sir F. J. Bramwell, F.R.S. 266 36 
1889, Sept. Newcastle-on-Tyne | Prof. W. H. Flower, eae 277 20 
1890, Sept. BECUS ioc cacasnscnatnenes Sir F. A. Abel, C.B., F.R. 259 21 
1891, Aug. Cardiff Dr. W. Huggins, F.R.S. ... 189 24 
1892, Aug. Edinburgh .. Sir A. Geikie, LL.D., F.R. : 280 14 
| 1893, Sept. ae Nottingham. ae| Prof, 70S. Burdon Sanderson, F. : 201 17 
1894, Aug. Oxford ..... ..| The Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., F.R.S. 327 2i 
1895, Sept. Ipswich ..| Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., F.R.S... 214 13 
1896, Sept. Liverpool ..| Sir Joseph Lister, Bart., Pres, RSs. 330 31 
1897, Aug. Toronto -.| Sir John Evans, K.C.B., F.R.S. ...... 120 8 
1898, Sept. Bristol ... eo oir W.. jronkes, FIRS. G.vccasavcseunensba 281 19 

1899, Sept. PYOVED ny ccceadateeredess Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B.,Sec. R.S. ... 296 20. | 


* Ladies were not admitted by purchased tickets until 1843. + Tickets of Admission to Sections only. 
[Continued on p. xiv. 


ANNUAL MEETINGS Xiii 


ANNUAL MEETINGS. 


Sums paid 
Old INEWIO|) 4-5: ne on account 
Annual | Annual fat Ladies | Foreigners} Total Pet of Grants Year 
Members| Members| “'°S Tickets for Scientific 
Purposes 
_ _— = =- _ 353 == = 1831 
— —_— _— — => > = — 1832 
—_— _ _ = _ goo = — 1833 
_ _ — _ _— 1298 _— £20 0 0 1834 
— —_— —_ _ _ _ = 167 0 oO 1835 
— —_ _— _ —_ 1350 — 435 0 0 1836 
— = _ _ _ 1840 =— g22 12 6 1837 
— — — 1too* _— 2400 —_ Q32. (2 2 1838 
== on == ae 34 1438 2 1595 II oO 1839 
-— = —_ —_— 40 1353 — 1546 16 4 1840 
46 317 —_— 60* — 891 _ 1235 I0 11 1841 
75 376 33t 331* 28 1315 2S 1449 17 8 1842 
185 _ 160 _- — = 1565 I0 2 1843 
45 190 ‘ot 260 —_ _— _ 981 12 8 1844 
94 22 407 172 35 1079 = 831 9 9 1845 
6 39 270 196 36 857 —_— 685 16 o 1846 
197 40 495 203 53 1320 aii 208 5 4 1847 
54 25 376 197 15 819 £707, 0 0| 275 ir 8 1848 
33 447 237 22 1071 963 0 oO} 159 19 6]. 1849 
42 510 273 44 1241 1085 0 o| 345 18 o 1850 
47 244 I4I 37 710 620 0 o 391 9 7 1851 
60 510 292 9 1108 1085 0 o| 304 6 7 1852 
57 367 236 6 876 903 0 oO 205 0 oO 1853 
121 765 524 10 1802 1882 0 o 380 19 7 1854 
IOI 1094 543 26 2133 23Ir Oo © 480 16 4 1855 
48 412 346 9 III5 1098 0 oO 734 13 9 1856 
120 goo 569 26 2022 2015 0 oO 507 15 4 1857 
gI 710 509 13 1698 I93I 0 O 618 18 2 1858 
179 1206 821 a2: 2564 2782 0 0 684 Ir 1 1859 
59 636 463 47 1689 1604 0 Oo 766 19 6 1860 
125 1589 791 15 3138 3944 0.0] IIII 5 10 1861 
57 433 242 25 1161 1089 oO oO] 1293 16 6 1862 
209 1704 1004 25 3335 3640 0 o | 1608 to 1863 
103 I11g 1058 13 2802 2965 0 oO] 1289 15 8 1864 
149 766 508 23 1997 2227 0 0 | T5917 'I0 1865 
105 * g60° 771 It 2303 2469 0 0] 1750 13 4 1866 
118 1163 771 z 2444 2613 0 0] 1739 4 oO 1867 
II7 720 682 45t 2004 2042 0 0] 1940 0 O 1868 
107 678 600 17 1856 I93I 0 oO| 1622 0 Oo 1869 
195 II03 910 14 2878 3096 0 o| 1572 0 Oo 1870 
127 976 754 21 2463 2575 © o| 1472 2 6 1871 
80 937 912 43 2533 2649 0 0| 1285 0 oO 1872 
99 796 601 It 1983 2120 0 0} 1685 0 0 1873 
85 817 630 12 I95I 1979 © O| 1151 16 oO 1874 
93 884 672 17 2248 2397 0 0 960 0 Oo 1875 
185 1265 712 25 2774 3023 0 0 | 1092 4 2 1876 
59 446 283 Ir 1229 1268 0 o|] 1128 9 7 1877 
93 1285 674 17 2578 2615 0 Oo 725 16 6 1878 
74 529 349 13 1404. 1425 © 0| 1080 11 11 1879 
4 389 147 12 915 899 0.9] 731.7 7 1880 
176 1230 514 24 2557 2689 0 oO 476 8 1 1881 
79 516 189 21 1253 1286 0 o| 1126 111 1882 
323 952 841 5 2714 | 3369 0 0] 1083 3 3] 1883 
219 826 74 26&60H.§) 1777 1855 0 oO] 1173 4 0 1884 
122 1053 447 6 2203 2256 o o| 1385 0 Oo 1885 
179 1067 429 II 2453 2532 10) 0 995 0 6 1886 
244 1985 493 92 3838 4335 o o|} 118618 o 1887 
100 639 509 12 1984 2107" Go |) T5rr" 6 "5 1888 
113 1024 579 21 2437 244I O OO] 1417 OIL 1889 
92 680 334 12 1775 1776 0 Oo 789 16 8 1890 
152 672 107 35 1497 1664 0 o| 1029 I0 Oo 1801 
I4I 733 439 50 2070 2007 0 0 864 10 o 1892 
57 773 268 17 1661 1653 0 Oo 907 15 6 1893 
69 941 451 77 232 | 2175 © o| 58315 6] 1894 
31 493 261 22 1324 1236 0 Oo 97715 5 1895 
139 1384 873 41 3181 3228 0 o|] 1104 6 I 1896 
125 682 100 41 1362 1398 0 o| 1059 10 8 1897 
96 1051 639 33 2446 2399 © O| 1212 0 0 1898 
68 548 120 27 1403 1328 o o| 1430 14 2 1899 


t IncludingLadies. § Feliows of the American Association were admitted as Hon. Members for this Meeting. 
b [Continued on p. xv. 


ANNUAL MEETINGS 


Table of 


Date of Meeting Where held Presidents tia teats 
1900, Sept. 5 ...... eadtord), wss.2:-050s-3 Sir William Turner, D.C.L., F.R.S. ...| 267 13 
rgor, Sept. I1...... Glasgow ..... Prof. A. W. Riicker, D.Sc., Sec. R.S. 310 37 
1902, Sept. I0...... Belfast ..... ....| Prof. J. Dewar, LL.D., F.R.S. ......... 243 21 
1903, Sept. 9 ...... Southport .. .| Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S. 250 21 
1904, Aug. I7...... Cambridge ..... Rt. Hon.A. J. Balfour, M.P.,F.R.S....| 419 32 
1905, AU. 15.....- South Africa .. Prof. G. H. Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S. ... II5 40 
1906, Aug. I ...... ODI Neco creas Prof. E. Ray Lankester, LL.D., F.R.S. 322 10 
1907, July 31...... Leicester ...| Sir David Gill, K.C.B., F.R.S. ......... 276 19 
1908, Sept. 2 ...... Dublin........ .| Dr. Francis Darwin, FERS. . 294 24 
1909, Aug. 25...... Winnipeg Prof. Sir J. J. Thomson, F. 117 13 
Igio, Aug. 31...... Sheffield ........ Rev. Prof. T. G. Bonney, F. 293 26 
1gt1, Aug. 30...... Portsmouth .. Prof. Sir W. Ramsay, K.C. 284 21 
1912, Sept. 4 ......| Dundee ........ ....| Prof. E. A. Schafer, F.R.S. 288 14 
1913, Sept. 1o......| Birmingham "| Sir Oliver J. Lodge, F.R.S. . 376 40 
1914, July-Sept. | Australia..... Prof. W. Bateson, F.R.S. .... 172 13 
IQI5, Sept. 7 .....- Manchester Prof. A. Schuster, F.R.S. 242 19 
1916, Sept. 5 ...... Newcastle-on-T yne 164 12 
1917 (No Meeting) ...... Sir Arthur Evans, F.R.S. ..........-- — = 
1918 (No Meeting) ...... _ _ 
Ig19, Sept. 9 ...... Bournemouth......... Hon. Sir C. Parsons, K.C.B., F.R.S....| 235 47 
1920, Aug. 24...... @ardiff, 9... 8b seks. Prof. W. A. Herdman, C.B.E., F.R.S. 288 Ir 
192m," Sept..7 <5. Edinburgh .. Sir T. E. Thorpe, C.B., F.R.S. ......... 336 9 
1922, Sept. 6 ...i.. AVL O caetendavaces ene Sir C. S. Sherrington, G.B.E., Pres. R.S. 228 13 
1923, Sept. 12...... iverpool) ...cc.ssss0s Sir Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S. .,....... 326 12 
1924, Aug. 6 ...... BE OUONIEG | nas dnciat'es oho Sir David Bruce, K.C.B., F.R.S. 119 7 
1925, Aug. 26...... Southampton ...... Prof. Horace Lamb, F.R.S. .......200++ 280 8 
1926, Aug. 4 ...... Oxford Ve sceesdoc- bss ga = The Prince of Wales, K.G., g 

pabeaciewesseiesemesnct eeu -muuece es 35 9 

1927, Aug. 31...... TCCOS). ve cipacsecanessbas Sir Arthur Keith, F.R. s 2 ER REA ee 249 9 

1928, Sept. 5 ......| Glasgow Sir William Bragg, K.B.E., F.R.S. 260 10 
1929, July 22...... South Africa Sir Thomas Holland, K. Ge Ss. I., 

K.C.LE., F.R.S. Pad Sree 81 t 

1930, Sept. 3 ...... BSTIStOL | pe cuyccusao ops Prof. F. O. Bower, F. R. A 221 5 
1931, Sept. 23...... London ... ....-| Gen. the Rt. Hon. J. C. Smuts, P.C., 

IC CET het Ros: faatiesscohanecapdecespuabe-'e 487 14 

1932, Aug. 31...... VOLK icespscas .| Sir Alfred Ewing, K.C. 3. F, R.S. 2 206 4 

1944, mept. O..,..- Leicester Sir F. Gowland Hopkins, Pres. RS... 185 37 


1 Including 848 Members of the South African Association. 

2 Including 137 Members of the American Association. 

3 Special arrangements were made for Members and Associates joining locally in Australia, see 
Report, 1914, p. 686. The numbers include 80 Members who joined in oider to attend the Meeting of 
L’Association Frangaise at Le Havre. 

* Including Students’ Tickets, tos. 

® Including Exhibitioners granted tickets without charge. 


‘ied 


ANNUAL MEETINGS XV 


Annual Meetings—(continued). 


Old New ee rhe on bs ey Slee 
Annual Annual pat Ladies |Foreigners| Total for , ee Year 
Members Members Tickets : niche c 
8 82 9 1915 |f180r o oO /f£1072 10 Oo | 1900 
aA ae ‘ni a40 20 Igi2 2046 0 0 920 9 II | Igor 
an 86 647 305 6 1620 1644 0 0 947 0 O| Igo2 
319 90 688 365 21 1754 1762 0 O| 845 13 2 | 1903 
449 113 1338 317 121 2789 2650 0 o| 887 18 It | 1904 
937" 411 430 181 16 2130 | 2422 0 0} 928 2 2 | 1905 
356 93 817 352 22 1972 1811 0 0 | 882 o g | 1906 
339 61 659 251 42 1647 1561 0 O 757 12 10 | 1907 
465 112 1166 222 14 2297 2317 0 oO | 1157 18 8 | 1908 
290! 162 789 go 7 1468 1623 0 O| 1014 9 9 | Ig09 
379 57 563 123 8 1449 1439 0 0 963 17 0 | I9I0 
349 61 A414 81 31 I241 1176 0 ©O| 922 0 O| Igir 
368 95 1292 359 88 2504 2349 0 O 845 7 6] 1912 
480 149 1287 291 20 2643 2756 0 Oo 978 17 I 1913 
139 4160 539 _ 21 5044" | 4873 0 oO | 1861 16 4*| 1914 
287 116 6284 141 8 1441 1406 0 0 | 1569 2 8 | 1915 
250 76 251° 73 _ 826 821 0 © | 985 18 10 |} 1916 
an — — = — — _ 677°T7" 2 cis 
_— _ = a Si — — 326 13 3 | 191 
254 102 6884 153 3 1482 1736 © O| 410 0 0O| IgI9 
Annual Members 
Id 
sare Prayer ee ey oer Ge Stpdente 
Regular eeting i . ickets 
Meo te cs sid (ied Tickets 
Report 
136 ag2 57t 42 120 20 1380 | 1272 10 0 | 1251 13 0°] r920 
133 410 1394 121 343 22 2768 2599 15 0 518 I 10 1921 
go 294 757 89 235° 24 1730 1699 5 ©O| 772 O 7 | 1922 
Compli- 
mentary? 
123 380 1434 163 550 308 3296 | 2735 15 0 | 77718 6°| 1923 
37 520 1866 41 89 139 2818 3165 19 0} 1197 5 9 | 1924 
264 2 II 1752 1630 5 ©} 1231 0 O| 1925 
97 - 878 6 9 74 8 63 
xox 453 2338 169 225 69 3722, | 3542 0 ©] 9t7 1 6| 1926 
- 84 334 1487 82 264 161 2670 2414 5 O 761 10 O | 1927 
76 554 1835 64 201 74 3074 | 3072 10 0 | 1259 10 0 | 1928 
24 177 42274 |) — 161 83 1754 | 1477 15 0 | 1838 2 1 | 1929 
68 310 1617 97 267 54 2639 2481 15 oO 683 5 7 | 1930 
78 656 | 2994 157 454 449 5702"* | 4792 10 0 | 1146 7 6 | 1931 
44 226 1163 45 214 125 2024 1724 5 O| 1183 13 Ir | 1932 
39 236 1468 82 147 74 2268 2428 2 0 41z 19 1134) 1933 


® Including grants from the Caird Fund in this and subsequent years. 

? Including Foreign Guests, Exhibitioners, and others. 

* The Bournemouth Fund for Research, initiated by Sir C. Parsons, enabled grants on account of 
scientific purposes to be maintained. 

* Including grants from the Caird Gift for research in radioactivity in this and subsequent years 
to 1926. 
a oe us paid in Canada were $5 for Meeting only and others pro rata; there was some gain 
on, exchange. 

4 Including 450 Members of the South African Association. 


43 Including 413 tickets for certain meetings, issued at 5s. to London County Council school-teachers. 
%* For nine months ending March 31, 1933. 


INSTALLATION OF THE PRESIDENT 


January 6, 1933. 


On Friday, January 6, 1933, at Birkbeck College, London, on the 
occasion of the joint meeting of Organising Sectional Committees, 
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Pres. R.S., was installed in the 
Presidency of the Association in succession to Sir Alfred Ewing, K.C.B., 
F.R.S. 

Sir Alfred Ewing said that under the new statute of the Association, 
which came into effect a year ago, the President came into office in 
January and held it throughout the year. It was an excellent rule, for 
it educated the President in the work of the Association and its various 
committees before his chief duty fell to be performed at the Annual 
Meeting in theautumn. There was no need for him to say how fortunate 
the Association was in securing Sir Frederick Hopkins as President—a 
man already so pre-eminent as to be President of the Royal Society. 
Last year it had been, so to speak, the turn of that part of science which 
dealt with the constitution. of non-living matter and with purely 
mechanical processes, which can certainly kill, but cannot make alive. 
Now they turned, perhaps with relief and greater hope, to the still more 
difficult science of life—of whose fascinating problems no one could 
speak with more authority and clearer discernment than Sir Frederick 
Hopkins. One felt certain that in his hands the Association would lose 
nothing of the public attention and interest its great annual conference 
continued to command. More than ever, he believed, the public wished 
to know about the advances of science—partly because these were now 
confessedly tentative and incomplete, and partly also because they might 
provide some guidance in the urgent perplexities of our social affairs. 

It seemed not unlikely, and probably it was desirable, that in future 
meetings of the Association scientists would make a more conscious 
effort to relate their studies to social problems. Science was now playing 
so large a part in human life, both for good and for evil, that they could 
not logically stand aloof: they were bound to recognise the immense 
consequence of discovery and invention, not only on man’s philosophy 
but on his habits of living and his relations to his fellows. Science 
had brought new powers, and with them new dangers—grave dangers 
of which the community were scarcely yet aware. It was clearly the duty 
of science to point these out. The first step towards escape from these 
dangers was to have them fully realised. 


NARRATIVE’ OF THE’ LEICESTER 
MEETING. 


On Wednesday, September 6, at 8.30 P.M. the Inaugural General Meeting 
was held in the De Montfort Hall, when the Rt. Worshipful the Lord 
Mayor of Leicester (Councillor Arthur Hawkes, J.P.) welcomed the 
Association to Leicester, and the President of the Association, Sir 
Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Pres. R.S., delivered an Address (for which 
see p. 1), entitled Some Chemical Aspects of Life. 

On Friday, September 8, in the Great Hall of Wyggeston Boys’ School, 
at 8.15 P.M., Sir Josiah Stamp, G.B.E., General Treasurer. of the 
Association, delivered an Evening Discourse entitled Must Science ruin 
Economic Progress ? (for an abstract of which see p. 578). 

On Monday, September 11, in the Lancaster Hall, at 8.15 P.m., Prof. 
Jocelyn F. Thorpe, C.B.E., F.R.S., delivered an Evening Discourse, 
with cinematograph and illustrations and experiments, entitled The 
Work of the Safety in Mines Research Board (for an abstract of which 


see p. 584). 


* * * * * * 


Public Lectures were given by Sir Henry Fowler, K.B.E., on Tuesday, 
September 5, on Transport for a Century, and by Prof. Julian Huxley, 
‘on Saturday, September 9, on Ants and Men. 


* * * * * * 


The Lord..Mayor and Lady Mayoress of the City of Leicester 
(Councillor Arthur’ Hawkes, J.P., and Mrs. Hawkes) entertained 
members of the Association at a Reception in the De Montfort Hall on 
Thursday evening, September 7. 

The. President (His Grace the Duke of Rutland), the Chairman 
(Sir Jonathan North), the Principal and Members of the College Council 
of University College, Leicester, entertained members of the Association 
at a Garden Party in the grounds of University College on Monday 
afternoon, September 11. 

The President (Mr. H. Percy Gee, J.P.) and Council of the Leicester 
Literary and Philosophical Society entertained members of the Association 
at a Reception in the City Art Gallery and Museum on Tuesday evening, 
September 12. 

Numerous other institutions and works in the city and neighbourhood 
afforded facilities and entertainment to members during the meeting. 

An exhibition indicating the value of planning in connection with 
modern problems in town and country was held under the joint auspices 
of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the University 
College, Leicester, and Section E (Geography) of the Association, and 
helped to illustrate papers read in the Section. 


XViii NARRATIVE OF THE LEICESTER MEETING 


An exhibition of machinery, scientific instruments, and electrical 
instruments was held in connection with Section G (Engineering), and 
consisted of products of firms in Leicester and Leicestershire. 


* * * * * * 


A special service was held in the Cathedral on Sunday, September 10, 
when officers and other members of the Association accompanied the 
Lord Mayor (Councillor Arthur Hawkes) and the City Council in state 
from the Town Hall. The preacher was the Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of 
Carlisle (whose sermon was published in the Church Times, September 15). 


An official Free Church service and other special services were held. 
* * * * * * 


On Saturday, September 9g, general excursions took place to Charnwood 
Forest; Stanton Ironworks, Holwell; Kenilworth and Warwick ; 
Stratford-on-Avon (where one party witnessed a performance of Macbeth 
at the Memorial Theatre) ; Belvoir Castle (by kind permission of the 
Duke of Rutland). Among other excursions and visits, those devoted 
to the interests of special Sections are mentioned among the Sectional 
Transactions in later pages. 


* * * * * * 


At the final meeting of the General Committee, on Tuesday, 
September 12, it was resolved : 


That the British Association most warmly thanks the City and County 
of Leicester for their hospitable reception. It deeply appreciates the 
unsparing efforts of the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and of the Local 
Officers and Committees, in making arrangements for the convenience 
of the meetings and for the comfort of visiting members, as also the judicious 
choice and admirable organisation of the excursions. The thanks of the 
Association are further due to the many institutions, works, and individuals 
_ in the City and neighbourhood for their generous aid in securing the success 
of the Meeting; and the support of the citizens of Leicester who have 
joined the Association as members is very gratefully recognised. 


On Wednesday, September 13, the President and General Secretaries 
and certain other members waited upon the Lord Mayor (Councillor 
Arthur Hawkes) at the Town Hall, in order to take formal leave of him 
and other local officers for the Meeting. 


REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1932-33. 


OBITUARY. 


I—The Council has had to deplore the loss by death of the following 
office-bearers and supporters :— 


Dr. G. C. Bourne, F.R.S. Sir Philip Magnus 
G. R. Carline Sir Daniel Morris, K. C.M.G. 
A. Chaston Chapman, F.R.S. Sir Ronald Riss; K.C.B., 
Sir Dugald Clerk, K.B.E., F.R.S. K.C.M.G., F.R.S. 
Prof. T. Craib Rev. Dr. A. H. Sayce 
Dr. J. E. Crombie Lt.-Col. J. Stephenson, C.I.E., 
Prof. J. C. Fields, F.R.S. F.R.S. 
Sir Walter Fletcher, K.B.E., Sir J. Arthur Thomson 
F.R.S. Prof. W, C. Unwin, F.R.S. 
Bernard Hobson A. Silva White 
Sir Everard im Thurn, K.C.M.G., Dr. A. Wilmore 
C.B. 


Dr. J. E. Crombie’s and Mr. Bernard Hobson’s benefactions to the 
Association are referred to in a later paragraph. 


REPRESENTATION. 


II].—Representatives of the Association have been appointed as 
follows :— 
Sixth International Congress on Scientific 
Management . Mr. R. J. Mackay 
American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, annual meeting, 


1932-33 - Z : . Prof. W. F. G. Swann 
University of London : ‘laying of founda- 

tion stone of new buildings : The President 
Royal Society of Teachers, conference on 

research . Mr. J. L. Holland 
Royal Cornwall Relytechnic Society, cen- 

tenary . 5 F ‘ . Dr. G. C. Simpson, 

C.B., F.R.S. 


Board of Trade Discussion on Conference 
of International Bureau of Weights 
and Measures . ; ; F . Dr... Ezer Griffiths, 
F.R.S. 


RESOLUTIONS. 


III.—Resolutions referred by the General Committee to the Council 
for consideration, and, if desirable, for action were dealt with as follows. 
The resolutions will be found in the Report for 1932, pp. xliii-xliv. 


(a) The recommendation from Section C (Geology) concerning the 
photography of certain special topographical features in north-east 
Yorkshire and elsewhere was referred to the Air Ministry, but this 
authority was unable to take the action desired. 


=x REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1932-33 


(b) Following upon recommendations from Sections E (Geography) 
and M (Agriculture), a deputation waited upon the Ministry of Agri- 
culture, and was assured that as far as possible the publication of 
Agricultural Statistics, Parts 1 and 2, should be expedited, and the needs 
of students in agricultural geography should be met. 

(c) The attention of the Home Office and the Ministry of Transport 
was called to the resolution from Section G (Engineering) concerning 
the desirability of action against noises caused by motor vehicles. 

(d) The Council conveyed to the Museums Association their approval 
of the system of interchange of specimens in museums, and expressed 
the hope that the system would be extended. (Resolution of Section 
H, Anthropology.) 

(ec) A recommendation that the final report of the Colour Vision 
Committee should be communicated to the Ministry of Transport, 
in so far as it referred to the shape of traffic lights, was adopted: ‘The 
report was communicated accordingly, and certain information was 
supplied to the Ministry at its request. 


The Council forwarded the following resolution to H.M. Secretary of 
State for the Colonies :— 

The Council of the British Association have noted with great interest 
the highly important archeological and geological discoveries made in the 
Kendu-Homa area of Kenya Colony, and the promise they give that even 
more valuable results will be obtained there in the future. The Council 
therefore express the strong hope that it may be possible to reserve the 
superficial deposits of this area (which at a minimum may be taken as a 
strip two miles in width from the shore, from Kendu Point to Homa 
Point, on Lake Victoria, a distance of 12 miles) for excavation only by 
qualified scientific investigators. 


Down House. 


IV.—The following report for the year 1932-33 has been received from 
the Down House Committee :— 


The number of visitors to Down House during the year ending June 6, 
1933, has been 7,022, compared with 7,638 in 1931-32, and 5,210 in 1930- 
31. The decrease during the present as compared with last year is 
accounted for by the fact that last year included the Association’s centenary 
week, when a large number of members visited the house. 

Among recent acquisitions reference should be made to the barometer 
used by Darwin on the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, which has been placed 
at Down House by the Royal Society on loan. It has been restored to 
working order by Messrs. Negretti & Zambra, with the kind advice of the 
Meteorological Office. 

Darwin’s dining-room table has been added to the collection by purchase. 

The Old Study was copied as nearly as possible, and with great success, 
as one of the rooms of scientific men exhibited at the Ideal Home Exhibition 
this year. : 

The Committee have acknowledged with deep gratitude a gift of {150 
a year for five years from the Pilgrim Trust to the funds of the Association 
in respect of its trusteeship under Sir Buckston Browne’s gift of Down 
House. The preliminary steps which led to the making of this gift were 


REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1932-33 Xxi 


taken by Sir Alfred Ewing during the year of his presidency of the 
Association. 

The following financial statement shows income on account of Down 
House, and current expenditure, for the financial year ending March 31, 
1933; compared with that for the year ending June 30, 1932. ‘The overlap 
between the two years is accounted for by the recent change of dates for 
the Association’s financial year. 

The figure for income from the Endowment Fund during the past year 
is in a measure deceptive as certain dividends have been paid gross, which 
previously were paid less tax to be subsequently reclaimed ;_ so that this 
year includes both a gross payment and a refund on the preceding year. 
The gross. amount of interest and dividends for a full year is £994 10s. 


Income 1931-32 1932-33 
£7) SOT dd iE? ts) Tas 
By Dividends on endowment fund. é TAT. eaAlae 7700 Or 3 
,, Income tax recovered . 3 ‘ ; Bo cant eee 250 st 7 
,, Rents. ‘ ; : ‘ : : EA7 OO! +) 135) 1040 
» Donations . : : 919 I ee ee 
», Sale of Postcards and Catalogues : eb faa aay 74, en No) 
as Balance, being excess of expenditure (Hin- 
ning iosts). as below, over income : TSoltyeuos 40 7 114 


£1,296 8 5 1,240 11 13 


Expenditure (running costs) 


1931-32 1932-33 
ier Se: vcs eae xt, 
To Wages and National Insurance : : 840 10 11 807 2 10 
», Rates, Land Tax, Insurances ; { 720 PICS 64 10 II 
», Coal, Coke, etc. . ; ‘ ; ; 125 16 2° 104 9 9 
» ‘Water 2 r4i rorni6 orang) 6 
», Lighting and Drainage Plants s (including 
petrol and oil) . sorry 1 69.17 6 
», Repairs and Renewals ‘ . ‘ . Adinust 20 39° 8, 67 
», Garden Materials F 4 ; ; Vs haby eae 58 10 9 
,» Household Requisites . : ‘ ; 16 5 6 16 19 33 
ys Transport and Carriage : : : 4 4 6 ie are 
» Auditors : ; 23° TOO 22 10 10 
», Postcards and Chiatopues (printing) P 44 6 11 9 0 oF 
s, Postages, Telephone, Stationery, etc. ot 519 2 27 8 10 
* Approx: £1,206 8 5 1,240 11 14 


2 Capital > Expenditure, 1932-33 


fe Gs 

Improvement of drainage system . t . . ; 326 15 0 
5, stokehole . : , F F ; 12 14 6 

Radiator alterations . ' : : j : ‘ 16, 0) 40 
£65 9 6 


b2 


xxii REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1932-33 


In connection with so-called ‘ capital’ expenditure by the Association 
upon Down House, detailed in last year’s report, the statement was then 
made that the works of restoration, etc., included under this heading 
were within sight of completion. They have now been completed, and 
the ‘ capital’ expenditure account has been closed at the total sum of 
£3,292 15s. 2d., including catalogues in stock £110 (£119 less approximate 
cost of catalogues sold, £9). 


The Council have granted a lease of the cottage of Homefield to Sir 
Arthur and Lady Keith or the survivor of them, and have authorised 
Sir Arthur Keith to make agreed improvements in the property and 
structural additions to the cottage at his own charges. They have also 
granted an annual tenancy of a piece of land about three-quarters of an 
acre in extent to the Royal College of Surgeons. 


FINANCE. 


V.—The Council have received reports from the General Treasurer 
throughout the year. His accounts have been audited and are presented 
to the General Committee. As the General Committee last year adopted 
a proposal that the financial year of the Association should run from 
April 1 to March 31, the present audited accounts cover a period of nine 
months after June 20, 1932, the close of the last financial year under the 
former plan. A pro forma account of expenditure and income for the 
year as from April 1, 1932, has therefore been added. 

Expenditure from Lt.-Col. Alan Cunningham’s bequest for the 
preparation of new mathematical tables in the theory of numbers has 
been made or sanctioned as follows :—Purchase of calculating machine ; 
preparation of tables of ideal numbers (Dr. E. L. Ince) ; publication of 
Factor Table to 100,000. 

The Council have been informed that the Seismology Committee of 
the Association is a prospective beneficiary in the sum of £1,000 under 
the will of Dr. J. E. Crombie. 

They have also been informed that the Association is a beneficiary 
in the sum of {£1,000 under the will of Mr. Bernard Hobson, ‘ to be 
invested and the proceeds annually devoted to the promoting of definite 
geological research, the trust fund to be called the Bernard Hobson Fund.’ 
The Council propose that they should administer this fund, that it shall 
be competent for the Committee of Section C (Geology) to recommend 
grants as a charge upon the fund, and that grants may be made from it 
in response to special applications arising in the course of any year. 

The Council recommend that a sum not exceeding {£400 should be 
allocated to grants to Research Committees from general funds for the 
ensuing year. 


PRESIDENT (1934), GENERAL OFFICERS, COUNCIL AND COMMITTEES. 


VI.—The Council nominate as President of the Association for the 
year 1934 (Aberdeen Meeting) Sir William Bate Hardy, F.R.S. 


REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1932-33 XXili 


VII.—The General Officers have been nominated by the Council as 
follows :— 


General Treasurer, Sir Josiah Stamp, G.B.E. 
General Secretaries, Prof. F. J. M. Stratton, O.B.E., Prof. P. G. H. 
Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S. 


VIII.—Council—The retiring Ordinary Members of the Council are: 
Sir Daniel Hall, K.C.B., F.R.S., Mr. A. R. Hinks, C.B.E., F.R.S., Sir 
Henry Lyons, F.R.S., Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., Prof. A. C. Seward, 
F.R.S. 


The Council have nominated as new members Dr. F, Aveling, Prof. 
R. N. Rudmose Brown, Prof. F. Balfour Browne, leaving two vacancies 
to be filled by the General Committee without nomination by the Council. 


The full list of nominations of Ordinary Members is as follows :— 


Dr. F. Aveling Sir James Henderson 

Dr. F. A. Bather, F.R.S. Dr. C. W. Kimmins 

Prof. R. N. Rudmose Brown Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell, C.B.E., 

Prof. F. Balfour Browne F.R.S. 

SirHenry Dale,C.B.E.,Sec.R.S. Dr. C.Tate Regan, F.R.S. 

Prof. J. Drever Sir John Russell, O.B.E., F.R.S. 

Dr. A. Ferguson Dr. N. V. Sidgwick, FR. Ss: 

Prof. R. B. Forrester Dr. G. C. Simpson, C.B., F.R.S. 

Sir Henry Fowler, K.B.E. Prof. J. F. Thorpe, C.B.E. F. R.S. 

Prof. W. T. Gordon H. T. Tizard, C.B., F.R. S. 

Prof. Dame Helen Gwynne- Prof. A. M. Tyndall, F.R.S. 
Vaughan, G.B.E. Prof. F. E. Weiss, F.R.S. 


Dr. H.S. Harrison 


IX.—General Committee—Dr. R. E. Gibbs, Dr. C. C. Hurst, Capt. 
W. N. McClean, Prof. A. G. Ogilvie, Dr. Edgar Stedman, Mrs. Ellen 
Stedman, and Mr. H.E. Wimperis, C.B.E., have been admitted as members 
of the General Committee. 


X.—Corresponding Societies Committee—The Corresponding Societies 
Committee has been nominated as follows :—The President of the 
Association (Chairman ex-officio), Mr. T. Sheppard (Vice-Chairman), 
Dr. C. Tierney (Secretary), the General Treasurer, the General Secre- 
taries, Mr. C. O. Bartrum, Dr. F. A. Bather, F.R.S., Sir Richard 
Gregory, F.R.S., Mr. J. V. Pearman, Sir David Prain, F.R.S., Sir 
John Russell, F.R.S., Prof. W.M. Tattersall. 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACGOUNT, 
1932-33. 


Tuer General Committee at the York Meeting last year adopted the 
Council’s proposal that the financial year of the Association should 
‘run from April 1 to March 31, instead of from July 1 to June 30 as 
heretofore. The audited accounts herewith, therefore, cover a period 
of nine months only, from July 1, 1932 (the previous accounts having 
been completed to June 30 of that year), to March 31, 1933. The 
usual figures for comparison with the preceding year are omitted 
from these accounts. 
The auditors have furnished the following notes : 


Members’ Subscriptions (Annual) are mainly in respect of ‘sales of tickets 
at the York Meeting, 1932. Preliminary programmes for the ensuing 
meeting are not issued until April; therefore the advance sale of 
tickets does not materially affect the present account. 


Advertisements are chiefly on printed matter for the Meeting (programmes, 
&c.). At the date of the accounts these are not completed. The 
revenue shown in the nine months accounts is, therefore, practically 
nil, 

Dividends credited in the accounts are the actual amounts received, some 
being in respect of six months, some nine months and others twelve 
months. The dividends credited to General Income and Expenditure 
Account are on balance short by {21 os. 6d. In the case of the Caird 
Income and Expenditure Account, the majority of the dividends are 
for twelve months, and on balance there is an actual excess of £46 19s. 4d. 
This, also applies to Down House, where the amount of excess is 
£31 6s. 3d. ; 


Income Tax Recovered credited in accounts is the actual amount received 
and is for twelve months. 


Dividends received Gvoss——During the period certain dividends (on 
Government Stocks) were received gross instead of net, The 
additional amounts included in the accounts, which would in a normal 
way be included in Income Tax Recovered in the following year, 


amount to: 
General Income and Expenditure Account TIZIZ8 6 A 
Caird Income and’Expenditure Account . ry. ABE gato 
Cunningham Bequest. ; ; 5 ? 8 9 9 
Down House Income and Expenditure Account 30 18 9 
Bonus on Conversion of War Stocks credited in the accounts is non- 
recurring. 


Donations to Centenary Fund credited in the accounts, £62 16s. 6d., are 
also non-recurring. 


Yarrow Fund Realisation. The amount credited to Income and Expendi- 
ture Account, £156, is not according to scale. It is normally at the 
rate of approximately £340 p.a. 


General Expenses includes £100 for special accountants’ fees in connection 
with the Centenary Meeting, 1931. 


Grants.—The amount included in the accounts is in respect of grants 
actually paid. The further grants which have been authorised but 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT XKV 


not yet claimed amount to £152 os. 1d. on General Account, and {100 
Caird Fund. These are noted on the accounts. The majority of 
these grants will, it is expected, be claimed before August 31 next. 


In order to afford a clearer idea of the past year’s working, a pro 
forma account of expenditure and income on general funds for the 
year ending March 31, in the simplest form, is appended to the audited 
accounts. The comparative figures there given are the averages 
(with slight adjustments) used by the Council when considering their 
report.on finance to the General Committee last year. 

Some of the above remarks by the auditors apply to this pro formd 
account equally. On the side of expenditure, general expenses are 
higher than the average, owing mainly to the non-recurrent special 
accountants’ fees referred to. ,. It is hoped that the excess of expenditure 
over income on account of Down House will not recur, thanks to the 
generous gift of the Pilgrim Trustees to which reference is made in 
the report of the Council. The reduction of printing costs anticipated 
in last year’s Report of the Council is taking effect ; on the other hand 
no material reduction in the increased costs of postage can be expected 
under present conditions. On the side of income, reference has been 
made above to non-recurrent items, and to the fact that the full normal 
realisation of capital from the Yarrow Fund (which was heavily drawn 
upon in connection with the Centenary Meeting in 1931) has not been 
given effect. ‘The receipts from sale of publications have fallen, owing 
in part to the reductions of prices authorised last year. The growth 
of advertisement revenue, under the existing conditions of depression, 
cannot be expected to continue. The receipts from membership 
subscriptions were much below the average of the preceding ten years. 

Nevertheless, after taking into consideration all the items in the 
account which are either abnormal or non-recurrent, it is estimated 
that, omitting those items, the account would have been approximately 
balanced, even if there had been charged upon it a full. year’s 
transfer of £500 to the Contingency Fund, But if the position 
appears so far satisfactory, it must be emphasised that the Association 
is still restricted in its activities by insufficient funds; it has.always to 
be remembered that the Yarrow Fund is a wasting asset; and the 
Association is in no position (without trenching further upon its capital) 
to meet all the applications for assistance of important researches and 
other scientific activities which are brought before it every year. The 
expansion of the Association’s membership and the strengthening of its 
financial foundations should be the object of all those who would 
further its interests. 


JostaH C. STAMP, 


General Treasurer. 


XXVI GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Balance Sheet, 


LIABILITIES. 
To General Fund— 5 £ s. da. £, Sista, 
As at July 1, 1932 
As per contra . . . 10,942 19 


(Subject to depreciation in value of Investments) 


», Caird Fund— 


As at July 1, 1932 
As per contra 4 . 9,582 16 
(Subject to depreciation in value of Investments) 


,», Caird Fund Revenue Account— 


Balance at July 1, 1932 . 192 0 0 
Less Excess of Expenditure over Income for the nine 
months . 7 . > * 33 I 4 
‘as per contra —_—__ 158 18 


(Contingent liability for grants authorised at York Meeting, 
1932, but not yet claimed, £100) 


»» Sir Charles Parsons’ Gift— 
As per contra . ° - 5 : a A . = I0,000 oO 


1 Sir Alfred Yarrow’s Gift— 


As per last Account . 6,298 14 8 
Less Transferred to Income and Expenditure Account 
under terms of the Gift 5 . <tOISS'D 16) 
as per contra ————_ 6,142 14 
,, Life Compositions— 
As per last Account » 4 5 = . 4 - 2,087°'2 2 
Add received during year ~ = E 5 $ es 37 10 oO 


2,124 I2 2 
Less Transferred to Income and Expenditure Account 45 00 


as per contra ————-_ 2,079 12 
», Toronto University Presentation Fund— 

As per last Account . e a ‘ . 5 - 182 18 10 
Add Dividends . . 5 c 2 ‘ k P 4f\ 6 
Bonus on Conversion . = > 5 z “ 5 I~ E5440 
189 I 4 
Less Awards given ° . : ° “ 3 * 6 2 6 

as per contra ——_ 182 18 10 


»» Lt.-Col. A. J. C. Cunningham’s Bequest— 


For the preparation of New Tables in the Theory of 
Numbers. 
As per last Account . Z ‘ . : ‘ « 3,007 Ig 0 
Add— 


Income Tax recovered for 12 months ended June 3°, 
1932. 3 2 < . 5 ‘ 32 3 10 
Dividends . 5 e c = ; = 4 78 7 5 


3,118 x0. 3 
Less Grant made ' . ; . s 2 150 0 0 
as per contra ———————-__ 2,968 10 3 
To Down House Endowment Fund— 
As per contra . 5 . ‘ : 5 ° : 20,000 0 Oo 


Carried forward : £62,058 9 Ir 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


XXVii 
March 31, 1933. 
ASSETS. 
By General Fund— £i se ai ‘Re OMe 5 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxiv) “ fj F; 10,888 10 2 
Cashat Bank .° . 3 : 5 . 5 54 811 
——————-___ 10,942 19 I 
»» Caird Fund— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxiv) ° ° . 9,582 16 3 
», Caird Fund Revenue Account— 
Cash at Bank . 4 s . 2 4 A ‘a 158 18 8 
»» Sir Charles Parsons’ Gift— 
Investment as per Schedule (p. xxxiv) . : & é 10,000 o 0 
»» Sir Alfred Yarrow's Gift— 
Investment as per Schedule (p. xxxiv) . 3 é ‘ 6,142 14 8 
», Life Compositions— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxiv) = . ° 2,079 12 2 
»» Toronto University Presentation Fund— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxv) = - - 178 II 4 
Cashat Bank . . a F C . ° 4° 9716 
182 18 10 
», Lt.-Col. A. J. C. Cunningham's Bequest— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxv) 6 A o 2,702 19 2 
Cash at Bank . . e F < 4 5 265 11 I 
———— 2,968 10 3 
» Sir Buckston Browne’s Gift in memory of Darwin—Down House, 
Kent . . ‘ A . . . ° A Not valued. 
Do. Endowment Fund— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxv F J . ad . . 20,000 0 O 
Carried forward . . £62,058 9 11 


XXViil GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Balance Sheet, 


LIABILITIES—continued. 


£ s.—d £ s. da, 
Brought forward 


62,058 9 II 
o REVENUE ACCOUNT— . 
Sundry Creditors. 4 = F : nw 119-6 14 
Do. Do. (Down House) 5 : ; : i 22 16 11 
», Income and Expenditure Account— 
Balance at July 31,1932 . 3 i 7,017, 4. 5 
Less Unexpended Grant in aid 
of Expenses, 1929 (South 
African Meeting), not re- 
coverable . 74.55). 10) 
Less Excess of Expenditure 
over Income for the nine 
months t 4 : Ft a 2 16 
——— 250° FUG 
6,758 16 11 
Contingency Fund A 3) “3975. 401 0 
———___ 7,276 0 2 
(Contingent liability for grants authorised at York Meeting, —_——_—. 
1932, but not yet claimed, £152 os. 1d.) £69,334 10 ‘I 


I have examined the foregoing Account with the Books and Vouchers and certify 
the Investments, and have inspected the Deeds of Down House and the Mortgage on 
Approved. 


ArTHUR L. BowLry : 
W.W. Watts } Auditors. 


1933. 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


March 31, 1933—continued. 


XXIx 


ASSETS—continued. 


Brought forward - fs ; = 2 ; 


By REVENUE ACCOUNT— 
Investments as per Schedule (p. xxxy) 
» Down House Suspense Account— * 
As per last Account 
Purchase of Land adjoining Down House 
Stock of Catalogues at Down House . ; 
Sundry Debtors and Payments in advance 
Do. (Down House) : - : 
Cash at Bank a ‘ 3 
Do. in Hand . 


the same to be correct. Ihave also verified the Balances at the Bankers and 


Isleworth House. 


d. a Pe | 


62,058 9 11 
° 
° 
° 
° 
I 
9 
6- 
° 
7,276 0 2 


£69,334 10 1 


W. B. Kren, Chartered Accountant. 


XXX GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Income and 


For THE Nine MontTHS 


EXPENDITURE. 
£s. da. ara Sarees 
To Heat, Lighting and Bares: : = . r 23) 14 1 
ie Stationery . 4 : j = 5 4 4613 3 
», Rent 5 : . 4 ° - : ° ; F 15 0 
», Postages . ' 5 : 5 : = = + 135 12 8 
5 1 Ee Expenses" 4 < ° c - - 16618 2 
Exhibitioners . ° . : - 3 a A . 53 5 of 
Pa ” General Expenses. - 4 & “ * = 323 17 5 
750 7 I 
», Salaries and Wages A 2 A 5 5 - - 1,474 16 9 
, Pension Contribution (1 year) 4 c 5 6 A é < 75 0 0 
”” Printing, Binding, etc. ° . . ‘ - . ° Ou ee ee 
————— 3243 13 1 
», Grants to Research Committees :— 
Film Committee . , : 5 . = 5 a 200 
General Sciencein School . - . ° 15 I9 IL 
Biology of a Tropical River in British Guiana 4 5 5 20 0 0 
= ae 37 Ig Il 
(Grants authorised at the York Meeting, 1932, but not yet claimed 
amount to £152 os. 1d.) 
To Balance, being excess of Income over Sepentince for the nine 
months . * . . . ° . ° 179 19 7 
£3,461 12 7 
» Contingency Fund 
Amount allocated in accordance with Council Minute, i.e. 
£500 p.a., Proportion for nine months. . . 375.9) (0. 
£375 9 Oo 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT XXXi 
. 
Expenditure Account 
ENDED MARCH 31, 1933 
INCOME. 
Pi) BRoIOgetas, J, 
By Annual Regular Members, including £11 for 1933/4. . . go 13 0 
», Annual Temporary Members, including £22 1s. for 1933/4. 5 92217 0 
», Annual Members with Report, i jee £18 ros. for 1933/4 . 213 Io oO 
», Lransferable Tickets . . . 47 10 O 
», Students’ Tickets . A é : fe . 93 Io o 
»» Life Compositions, Amount transferred ‘ . is < r 45 0 0 
», Sale of Publications . < a 2 4 ! 4 3 , 402 8 10 
», Advertisement Revenue . : 5 4 4 1 
», Income Tax recovered for 12 months ended. 30 June, 1932 a 288 7 9 
», Unexpended Balance of Grants, returned . 5 < 16 5 10 
», Liverpool Exhibitioners . . : A é. 4 2210 0 
», Dividends :— 
Consols 2} percent.Stock . “ . : 5 ~ ‘316 0 
India 3 per cent. Stock ‘ a : 74 5 «0 
Great Indian Peninsula Railway ‘ B’ Annuity 5 5 3 26 Io II 
44 per cent. Conversion Loan = 5 A _ : 48 18 6 
Ditto Sir Charles Parsons’ Gitt - - 5 5 + 39315 0 
3 per cent. Local Loans : : : = 60 16 8 
3% per cent. War Loan ; 374% 3 
Ditto Ditto (Series A), Sir Alfred Yarrow’s Gift 7 57) 9 4 
33 per cent. Conversion Loan 3 ; fr ‘ : 81 12 8 
996 I9 5 
», Sir Alfred Yarrow’s Gift— 
Amount transferred . : 156 0 
Bonus on Conversion of War Stock—Sir A. Yarrow’s Gift 6219 8 
Do, Do, Other . : : : 18 10 6 
81 10 2 
- pra tea on Mortgage ° . . 2 . 1710 0 
Sundry Donations: Centenary Fund . ° . 6 - ° 62 16 6 
£3,461 12 7 
By Balance brought down 179 19 7 
»» Down House Income and Expenditure Account—Balance, being 
Excess of Income over Expenditure for the nine months 
transferred A - a e . Io 17 Ir 
» Balance transferred ‘to Balance Sheet 6. E 7 E ps 184. 2 6 
£375 0 0 


XXXii GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Caird Fund, Income 


For THE Nine MONTHS 


EXPENDITURE. 
Suid. £ s. @. 
To Grants paid— he 
Seismology Committee 5 - - 5 - 300. #070 
Zoological Record Committee 5 i ‘ s . 2 50 0 Oo 
Derbyshire Caves Committee * . 5 5 " ” 50 0 0 
Plymouth Table Committee es 5 s 5 ‘ 50 0 0 
Athlit Caves Investigation . ; ; = : 75.0 0 
Freshwater Biological Station Committee . A < f 50 0 0 
375.9, 0 
(Grants authorised at the York Meeting, 1932, but not yet claimed 
amount to £100) 
£375.09. © 
———————— 


Down House Income 
For THE NINE MONTHS 


EXPENDITURE, 
£ snSe0ds Lsnxst a. 
To Wages of Staff (net) a , 3 r 3 ¢ < Ls,,607,%) 3 
», Rates, Insurance, etc. ‘ . : : 8 5 3 9 49'9 0 
», Coal, Coke, etc. J : ; 3 95;° 0) 2 
in Lighting and Drainage (including oil and petrol) . : : . 54 0 3 
, Water .. . = ‘ : - II 9 4 
a ” Repairs and Renewals 2 E : z : 5 5 P 28 9 4 
,, Garden Material, etc. : ; ‘ - 2 : : 5 4114 I 
», Household Requisites, etc. é 5 : 2 : : 9 16 6 
», Transport and Carriage . : 5 : 5 . ; - I) 2 2E 
», Accountants’ Fees . A y = 22 10 10 
»» Printing, Postages, Telephone, Stationery, ete. . = $ Ig 1r 8 
— Se 949 5 5 
To Balance carried down . - 5 2 F 5 = 7 767 5 
£1,016 12 10 
To Repairs and alterations to Buildings, etc. o 65 9 6 
»s Balance, being Excess of Income over Expenditure for ‘the nine months. 10 17 II 


£78 “7-55 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT xxxili 


and Expenditure Account 
ENDED MarcH 31, 1933 


INCOME. 


By Dividends— 


Canada 34 percent. Stock . 

London, Midland & Scottish Railway Consolidated 4 per cent, 
Preference Stock . 

Southern Railway Consolidated 5 per cent. Preference Stock é 


», Income Tax recovered for 12 months ended 30th June 1932. * 
»» Balance, being excess of Expenditure over Income for 9 months . 


Notr— 
Balance atr July1932_—g 
Less Excess of Expenditure as above . 


Balance at date as per Balance Sheet . 


and Expenditure Account 
ENDED MARCH 31, 1933 


By Rents Receivable . 
», Income Tax recovered for the 12 months ended j une 30, 1932 
», Dividends— 
4% per cent. India Stock A 2 
Fishguard & Rosslare Railway 3h} per cent. Stock : 
New South Wales 5 per cent. Stock : - j 
Great Western Railway 5 per cent. Stock 
Australia 5 per cent. Stock 1945/75 ,, 
Western Australia 5 percent.Stock . 
Birkenhead Railway 4 per cent. Stock . 


», Donations ° ° * 
», Sale of Postcards, ete. 


By Balance brought down . 


£ s. da. issn a 
India 34 per cent. Stock e c ‘ F f 3 : 63 4 1 
65 12 6 
47 5 0 
75 0 0 

251 I 7 

90 17, I 

33 I 4 

£375 0 0 
192 0 O 
a8 x. # 
158 18 8 

INCOME. 

ese "Saris Di BSs) tes 

103 I0 oO 

2555107. 
123 15 0 
7815 0 
46:17 6 
125 5 0 
93 15 0 
93 15 0 
Vey hee 

637 2 6 

Dae oo 

bee 

£1,016012 10 

ee 

GOerons 

£76 7 5 


XXXIV GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Schedules of Investments, etc. 


General Funds— £----s5-d: 
£4,651 ros. 5d. Consolidated 2} per cent. Stock at cost . = 4 + 9,042) 33 
£3,600 India 3 per cent. Stock at cost . ° . ° : = 33522) 2G 
£879 14s. 9d. Great Indian Peninsula Railway ‘B’ Aenuity at cost . « 9827-355) «a 
£52 12s. 7d. War Stock (Post Office Issue) at cost . A . . al 54 5 2 
£834 16s. 6d. 44 per cent. Conversion Stock at cost . . «> 9835! £2: (4 
£1,400 War Stock 34 per cent. at cost . 3 5 ri 4 : - 1,393 16 11 
£94 7s. 44 per cent. Conversion Stock at cost 3 . = Py C 62 15 0 
£326 gs. 10d. 34 per cent. Conversion Stock at cost . é a . 250 0.0 
(Value at date, £10,311 6s. 8d.) £10,888 10 2 

Caird Fund— 
£2,627 os. tod. India 34 per cent. Stock at cost . 2,400 13 3 
£2,100 London Midland & Scottish Railway Consolidated . 4 per seants 

Preference Stock at cost . ° ° . - 2,190 4 3 
£2,500 Canada 33 per cent. Registered Stock eeaciza at ore | 2 2,397 I 6 


£2,000 Southern Railway Consolidated 5 per cent. Preference Stock at cost 2,594 17 3 


(Value at date, £7,159 7s. 11d.) £9,582 16 3 


Sir Charles Parsons’ Gifi— 
£10,300 44 per cent. Conversion Stock at cost = “ “5 3 £10,000 0 Oo 


(Value at date, £11,458 15s.) 


Sir Alfred Yarrow’s Gift— 
£6,142 14S. 8d. 34 per cent. War Loan 5 i = i . £6,142 14 8 


(Value at date, £6,219 ros. 4d.) 


Life Compositions— 


£2,949 12s. 4d. Local Loans at cost é A 4 5 a A - 1,923 12 2 
£156 34 per cent. War Loan 5 = . 5 - = = . #56 ga 


(Value at date, £2,783 2s. 2d.) £2,079 12 2 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


xXXXV 


Schedules of Investments, etc.—continued 


Toronto University Presentation Fund— 
£175 34 percent. WarLoanatcost . . . . . 5 
(Value at date, £177 3s. 9d.) 


Lt.-Col. A. J. Cunningham's Bequest— 
£1,187 6s, tod. Consolidated Stock 24 percent. . C 5 
£300 Port of London 34 per cent. Stock 1949/99 . A 
£100 Commonwealth of Australia 43 percent. Stock . 
£100 New Zealand 5 per.cent Stock . 
£800 India 6 percent. Stock atcost . . 
£1,274 4s. 10d. Local Loans 3 per cent. Stock at ae . 3 i 


(Value at date, £3,359 18s. 7d.) 


Down House Endowment Fund— 


£5,500 India 4} per cent. Stock 1958/68 at cost . é 5 A 
£2,500 Australia 5 per cent. 1945/75 at cost . . 


G'S. ide 
- 178 114 


» 653 
216 
93 
103 

- 801 12 

- 836 6 


ooo0o 


wmoodcosy 


a) 


£2,702 19 


» 5,001 17 4 
2,468 19 0 


£3,000 Fishguard and Rosslare Railway 34 per cent. Guaranteed Pare 


Stock at cost é 4 7 - ° 
£2,500 New South Wales sp per ee Stock 7945/65 atcost . 0 
£2,500 Western Australia 5 per cent. Stock 1945/75 at cost . By 
£3,340 Great Western Railway 5 per cent. Guaranteed Stock at cost 
£2,500 Birkenhead Railway 4 per cent. Consolidated Stock at cost . 


(Value at date, £22,540 6s.) 


Revenue Account— 
£2,098 1s. 9d. Consolidated 24 per cent. Stock at cost 
£4,338 6s. 2d. Conversion 3} per cent. Stock at cost 
£400 3% per cent. War Loan Inscribed Stock at cost 
Second Mortgage on Isleworth House, Orpington, Kent . 


(Value of Stocks at date, £6,353 18s. 10d.) 


+ 2,139 17 
+ 2,467 7 
a sages 

3,436 7 
=) #2;023') 9 


wouwrnwow 


£20,000 0 0 


1,200 0 

+ 3,300 0 
404 16 

joo oO 


ooco 


£5,604 16 o 


— 


XXXVi GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT 


Pro forma Account of Income 


For THE YEAR APRIL I, 1932— 


EXPENDITURE 

Averages, £ £ s.id. 

24 To Heat, light, and power 2 : ‘ { , é : 29 9 I0 

75 », Stationery : . z n A . : : 5714 7 

I », Rent : ‘ 5 \ _ ; 5 i 2 Xr a. ¢ 
I70 », Postages . : 5 “ 3 : : 5 b stg 6 AB Na 7 

I60 », Travelling expenses . : 5 " : 5 FE ON es 

52 », Exhibitioners . ; : 6 : P : 4 53 5 6 

210 ,, General expenses 3 ‘ : : : , . nt} BAinl Sor 

2,026 », Salariesand Wages . : ; ‘ : ‘ t . 15958 .o 9 

75 », Pension contribution . : F : ¢ 5 : y "50.0 

I,700 », Printing, binding, etc. . 5 x 3 . 1,186 6 4 

_ ;, Grants to Research Committees from mee funds Fi . 259 14 I 

_ ,, Down House, excess of expenditure over income (including 

‘capital’ expenditure) . a ‘ 2 : ‘ . 105 17 5t 

,», Transfer to Contingency Fund (nine months) 5 ‘ - 8750-0 


£4,877 13 1 


Down House accounts for the year will be found in the 


GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT XXXVii 


and Expenditure (General Funds) 


—Manrcu 31, 1933 


INCOME 
Averages, £ : f s. a. 
12,500 By Annual Membership subscriptions “ : . : - 1,933 15 0 
= | ,, Life compositions, amount transferred d ‘@ . P 45 00 
: \566 ,, Sale of publications | - - ¥ v A “ 1 wa7Fzis 24 
: ; 242 », Advertisement revenue 4 3 ( ‘ 4 et B57 5 3 
== », Unexpended balances of grants, returned. . J 16 5 10 
: 22 ,», Liverpool exhibitioners : r : e e 22 10 Oo 
—- ,, Centenary Fund donations , b é - 2 . GF tty 8 
' : 250 », Income tax recovered for 1931-32 5 j ’ r . 288 7 9 
—_ ,, Bonus on conversion of War Stock _,. 4 ' ls ‘ 81 I0 2 
f ,, Interest and dividends ; ‘ ¥ - _ £1,335 19, 0 
», Interest on mortgage = 5 ; 26 5.0 
,, Sir Alfred Yarrow’s gift, capital transferred . 156 0 Oo 
HH | 1,577 1,518 4 0 
> ;, Excess of expenditure over income forthe year . - ‘ 44 8 4} 
£4,877 13 1 


_ Report of the Council (Down House Committee’s report). 


RESEARCH COMMITTEES, Etc. 


APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL COMMITTEE, MEETING IN 
LEICESTER, 1933. 


Grants of money, if any, from the Association for expenses connected 
with researches are indicated in heavy type. 


SECTION A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 


Seismological Investigations.—Dr. F. J. W. Whipple (Chairman), Mr. J. J. Shaw, 
C.B.E. (Secretary), Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Dr. C. Vernon 
Boys, F.R.S., Sir F. W. Dyson, K.B.E., F.R.S., Dr. Wilfred Hall, Dr. H. 
Jeffreys, F.R.S., Prof. Sir Horace Lamb, F.R.S., Mr. A. W. Lee, Prof. H. M. 
Macdonald, F.R.S., Prof. E. A. Milne, M.B.E., F.R.S., Mr. R. D. Oldham, 
F.R.S., Prof. H. H. Plaskett, Prof. H. C. Plummer, F.R.S., Prof. A. O. 
Rankine, O.B.E., Rev. J. P. Rowland, S.J., Mr. D. H. Sadler, Prof. R. A. 
Sampson, F.R.S., Mr. F. J. Scrase, Capt. H. Shaw, Sir Frank Smith, K.C.B., 
C.B.E., Sec. R.S., Dr. R. Stoneley, Mr. E. Tillotson, Sir G. T. Walker, 
C.S.1., F.R.S. £100 (Caird Fund grant). 


Calculation of Mathematical Tables.—Prof. E. H. Neville (Chairyman), Dr. L. J. 
Comrie (Secretary), Prof. A. Lodge (Vice-Chaiyman), Dr. J. R. Airey, 
Prof. R. A. Fisher, F.R.S., Dr. J. Henderson, Dr. E. L. Ince, Dr. J. O. 
Irwin, Dr. J. C. P. Miller, Dr. E. S. Pearson, Mr. F. Robbins, Mr. D. H. 
Sadler, Dr. A. J. Thompson, Dr. J. F. Tocher, Dr. J. Wishart. £100. 


SECTIONS A, E, G—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, 
GEOGRAPHY, ENGINEERING. 


To inquire into the position of Inland Water Survey in the British Isles and the 
possible organisation and control of such a survey by central authority.— 
Vice-Adml. Sir H. P. Douglas, K.C.B., C.M.G. (Chairman), Lt.-Col. E. Gold, 
D.S.O., F.R.S. (Vice-Chairman), Capt. W. N. McClean (Secretary), Mr. E. G. 
Bilham, Dr. Brysson Cunningham, Prof. C. B. Fawcett, Dr. A. Ferguson, 
Dr. Ezer Griffiths, F.R.S., Mr. W. T. Halcrow, Mr. T. Shirley Hawkins, 
O.B.E., Mr. W. J. M. Menzies, Mr. H. Nimmo, Dr. A. Parker, Mr. D. Ronald, 
Capt. J.C. A. Roseveare, Dr. Bernard Smith, F.R.S., Mr. C. Clemesha Smith, 
Mr. F. O. Stanford, O.B.E., Brig. H. S. L. Winterbotham, C.M.G., D.S.O., 
Capt. J. G. Withycombe, Dr. S. W. Wooldridge. £40. 


SECTIONS A, J—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, 
PSYCHOLOGY. 


The possibility of quantitative estimates of Sensory Events.—Dr. A. Ferguson 
Chairman), Dr. C. S. Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S. (Vice-Chaiyvman), Mr. R. J. 
Bartlett (Secretary), Dr. H. Banister, Prof. F. C. Bartlett, F.R.S., Dr. Wm. 
Brown, Dr. N. R. Campbell, Dr. S. Dawson, Prof. J. Drever, Mr. J. Guild, 
Dr. R. A. Houstoun, Dr. J. O. Irwin, Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, Dr. 5S. J. F. Philpott, 
Dr. L. F. Richardson, F.R.S., Dr. J. H. Shaxby, Mr. T. Smith, F.R.S., 
Dr. R. H. Thouless, Dr. W. S. Tucker, O.B.E. 


SECTION C.—GEOLOGY. 


To excavate Critical Sections in the Paleozoic Rocks of England and Wales.— 
Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S. 
(Secretary), Mr. W. S. Bisat, Dr. H. Bolton, Prof. W. S. Boulton, Dr. E. S. 


RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. XXXIX 


Cobbold, Prof. A. H. Cox, Mr. E. E. L. Dixon, Dr. Gertrude Elles, M.B.E., 
Prof. E. J. Garwood, F.R.S., Prof. H. L. Hawkins, Prof. G. Hickling, 
Prof. V. C. Illing, Prof. O. T. Jones, F.R.S., Prof. J. E. Marr, F.R.S., 
Dr. F. J. North, Dr. J. Pringle, Dr. T. F. Sibly, Dr. W. K. Spencer, F.R.S., 
Prof. A. E. Trueman, Dr. F.S. Wallis. £20 (Caird Fund, contingent grant). 


The Collection, Preservation, and Systematic Registration of Photographs of 
Geological Interest.—Prof. E. J. Garwood, F.R.S. (Chaivman), Prof. S. H. 
Reynolds (Secretary), Mr. C. V. Crook, Mr. J. F. Jackson, Mr. J. Ranson, Prof. 
W. W. Watts, F.R.S., Mr. R. J. Welch. 


To investigate Critical Sections in the Tertiary and Cretaceous Rocks of the 
London Area. To tabulate and preserve records of new excavations in that 
area.—Prof. W. T. Gordon (Chaiyman), Dr. S. W. Wooldridge (Secretary), 
Mr. H. C. Berdinner, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Miss M. C. 
Crosfield, Mr. F. Gosling, Prof. H. L. Hawkins, Prof. G. Hickling. £15. 


The Stratigraphy and Structure of the Paleozoic Sedimentary Rocks of West 
Cornwall.—Mr. H. Dewey (Chairman), Mr. E. H. Davison (Secretary), 
Mr. H.G. Dines, Miss E. M. Lind Hendriks, Mr. S. Hall, Dr. S. W. Wooldridge. 


To consider and report upon Petrographic Classification and Nomenclature.— 
Dr. H. H. Thomas, F.R.S. (Chairman), Dr. A. K. Wells (Secretary), Prof. 
E. B. Bailey, F.R.S., Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. A. 
Brammall, Dr. R. Campbell, Prof. A. Holmes, Prof. A. Johannsen, Dr. W. Q. 
Kennedy, Dr. A. G. MacGregor, Prof. P. Niggli, Prof. H. H. Read, Prof. 
S. J. Shand, Mr. W. Campbell Smith, Prof. C. E. Tilley, Dr. G. W. Tyrrell, 
Dr F. Walker. £5. 


To prove the character of the Paleozoic Rocks underlying the Carboniferous of 
the Craven area.—Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S. (Chairman), Dr. R. G. S. 
Hudson (Secretary), Prof. O. T. Jones, F.R.S., Prof. W. B. R. King, O.B.E., 
Mr. W. H. Wilcockson. £80 (Bernard Hobson Fund grant). 


SECTIONS C, E.—GEOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY. 


To administer a grant in support of a topographical and geological survey of 
the Lake Rudolph area in E. Africa,—Sir Albert E. Kitson, C.M.G., C.B.E. 
(Chaiyman), Dr. A. K. Wells (Secretary), Mr. S. J. K. Baker, Prof. F. 
Debenham, Dr. V. Fuchs, Prof. W. T. Gordon, Brig. H. S. L. Winterbotham, 
C.M.G.,D.S.0. £385. 


SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY. 


oy cor Bibliography and Publication.—Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. (Chairman), 
r. F. A. Bather, F.R.S. (Secretary), Mr. E. Heron-Allen, F.R.S., Dr. W. T 
aia F.R.S., Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell, C.B.E., F.R.S., Mr. W. L. Saisie. 


To nominate competent Naturalists to perform definite pieces of work at the 
Marine Laboratory, Plymouth.—Prof. J. H. Ashworth, F.R.S. (Chairman 
and Secretary), Prof. H. Graham Cannon, Prof. H. Munro Fox, Prof. J. 
Stanley Gardiner, F.R.S. £50 (Caird Fund grant). 


To co-operate with other Sections interested, and with the Zoological Society, 
for the purpose of obtaining support for the Zoological Record.—Sir Sidney 
Harmer, K.B.E., F.R.S. (Chairman), Dr. W. T. Calman, F.R.S. (Secretary), 
Prof. E. S. Goodrich, F.R.S., Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S. $50 (Caird 
Fund grant). 


To consider the position of Animal Biology in the School Curriculum and matters 
Telating thereto.—Prof. R. D. Laurie (Chairman and Secretary), Mr. H. W. 
Ballance, Prof. E. W. MacBride, F.R.S., Miss M. McNicol, Miss A. J. 
Prothero, Prof. W. M. Tattersall, Dr. E. N. Miles Thomas. 

To determine the behaviour ofa limited and uniform plankton population observed 
under natural conditions.—Dr. G. P. Bidder (Chairman), Mr. A. C. Gardiner 
(Secretary), Dr. J. Gray, F.R.S., Mr. J. T. Saunders. £3 10s. 6d. (Un- 
expended balance). 


xl RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. 


The biology of a tropical river in British Guiana and of the neighbouring districts. 
—Prof. J. S. Gardiner, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Dr. G..S. Carter and Mr. J. T. 
Saunders (Secretaries), Dr: W. T. Calman, F.R.S., Prof: J. Graham Kerr, 
F.R.S., Dr. C. Tate Regan, F.R.S. 


SECTIONS D, I, K—ZOOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, BOTANY. 


To aid competent investigators selected by the Committee to carry on definite 
pieces of work at the Zoological Station at Naples.—Prof. J. H. Ashworth, 
F.R.S. (Chaiyman and Secretary), Prof. J. Barcroft, C.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. 
E. W. MacBride, F.R.S., Dr. Margery Knight. £50 (Caird Fund grant). 


SECTIONS D, K.—ZOOLOGY, BOTANY. 


To aid competent investigators selected by the Committee to carry out definite 
pieces of work at the Freshwater Biological Station, Wray Castle, Winder- 
mere.—Prof. F, E. Fritsch, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Mr. J. T. Saunders (Secretary), 
Miss P. M. Jenkin, Dr. C. H. O’Donoghue (from Section D); Dr. W. H. 
Pearsall (from Section K). £75 (£40 Caird Fund grant). 


SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY. 


To co-operate with the Ordnance Survey in the production of a Population 
Density Map (or Maps) of Great Britain and to endeavour ito get this pub- 
lished as soon as the 1931 Census is available ; and, further, to examine the 
possibility of making similar Maps of the Empire, utilising the International 
Map (1 : 1,000,000) as the base.—Brig. H.S. L. Winterbotham, C.M.G., D.S.O. 
(Chairyman), Capt. J. G. Withycombe (Secretary), Mr. J. Bartholomew, 
Lt.-Col. A. B. Clough, Prof. F. Debenham, Prof. C. B. Fawcett, Prof. H. J. 
Fleure, Mr. H. King, Mr. R. H. Kinvig, Prof. A. G. Ogilvie, O.B.E., Prof. 
O. H. T. Rishbeth, Prof. P. M. Roxby, Mr. A. Stevens. 


To inquire into the present state of knowledge of the Human Geography of 
Tropical Africa, and to make recommendations for furtherance and develop- 
ment.—Prof. P. M. Roxby (Chairman), Prof. A. G. Ogilvie, O.B.E. (Secretary), 
Dr. A. Geddes (Assistant Secretary), Mr. S. J. K. Baker, Prof. C: B. Fawcett, 
Prof. H. J. Fleure, Mr. E. B. Haddon, Mr. R. H. Kinvig, Mr. J. McFarlane, 
Col. M. N. MacLeod, D.S.O., Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A., Mr. R. A. 
Pelham, Mr. R. U. Sayce, Rev. E. W. Smith, Brig. H. S. L. Winterbotham, 
C.M.G., D.S.O. 5. 


To investigate the mapping of historical data for medieval England ‘and to take 
steps to advance such work.—Mr. J. N. L. Baker (Chairman), Dr. H. C. 
Darby, Mr. E. W. Gilbert, Mr. F. G. Morris, Dr. S. W.- Wooldridge. 


SECTIONS E, K.—GEOGRAPHY, BOTANY. 


To complete two maps of England on the 1/M: scale showing (i) the distribution 
of woodland (based on physical evidence) after the establishment of climatic 
conditions approximating to the present, and (ii) the distribution of wood- 
land on the basis of ‘evidence derived from early topographical writings 
and maps.—Sir John Russell, O.B.E., F.R.S. (Chairman), Prof. P. M. 
Roxby (Secretary) ; Prof. H. J. Fleure, Mr. R. H. Kinvig, Prof. A. G. Ogilvie, 
O.B.E., Brig. H. S. L. Winterbotham, C.M.G., D.S.O., Capt. J. G. Withy- 
combe (from Section E); Prof. E. J. Salisbury, Dr. T. W. Woodhead (from 
Section K). $25. 


SECTIONS E, L—GEOGRAPHY, EDUCATION. 


To report on the present position of Geographical Teaching in Schools, and of 
Geography in the training of teachers; to formulate suggestions for a 
syllabus for the teaching of geography both to Matriculation Standard and 


RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. xli 


in Advanced Courses and to report, as occasion arises, to Council through 
the Organising Committee of Section E upon the practical working of 
Regulations issued by the Board of Education (including the Scottish 
Education Department) affecting the position of Geography in Schools and 
Training Colleges.—Prof. Sir T. P. Nunn (Chairman), Mr. L. Brooks (Secre- 
tary), Mr. A. B. Archer, Mr. J. N. L. Baker, Mr. C..G, Carter, Prof, El. Jn 
Fleure, Dr. O. J. R. Howarth, O.B.E., Mr. H. E.M, Icely, Mr. J. McFarlane, 
Rt. Hon. Sir Halford J. Mackinder, P.C., Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A., 
Dr. Marion Newbigin, Prof: A. G. Ogilvie, O.B.E., Mr. A. Stevens, Prof. 
C. B. Fawcett (from. Section E); Mr. J. L. Holland, Sir R. Gregory, 
Bt., F.R.S., Mr. E, R: Thomas, Miss O. Wright, Prof. Godfrey, Thomson 
(from Section L). 


SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS, 


Chronology of the World Crisis from 1929 onwards.—Prof. J. H. Jones (Chaiyman), 
Dr. P. Ford (Convener), Mr. G. N. Clark, Prof. H. M. Hallsworth, C.B.E., 
Mr. R. F: Harrod, Mr. A. Radford, Prof. J..G. Smith. 


SECTIONS F, G, I, J, L—-ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND, STATISTICS, 
ENGINEERING, PHYSIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION. 


Industrial Co-operation’: to report on the provisions for co-ordinating and 
stimulating scientific work bearing on business practice; and to make 
recommendations.—Dr. J. A. Bowie (Chairman), Mr. R. J. Mackay (Secre- 
tary), Prof. J. G. Smith, Major L. Urwick (from Section F) ;: Prof. W. 
Cramp (from Section G); Mr. G. P. Crowden ( from Section I); Dr. C. S. 
Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S. (from Section J); Sir Richard Gregory, Bt., F.R.S. 
(from Section L). 


SECTION G.—ENGINEERING, 


Earth Pressures.—Mr. F. E. Wentworth-Sheilds, O.B.E. (Chaivman), Dr. J. S. 
. Owens (Secretary), Prof. G. Cook, Mr. T. E. N. Fargher, Prof: A. R.Fulton, 
Prof. F. C. Lea, Prof. R.V. Southwell, F.R.S., Dr. R. E. Stradling, Dr. W. N. 
Thomas, Mr. E. G. Walker, Mr. J. S. Wilson. £9 5s. 8d. (Unexpended 
balance). 


Electrical Terms and Definitions.—Prof. Sir J. B. Henderson (Chairman), Prof. 
F. G. Baily and Prof. G. W. O. Howe (Secretaries), Prof. W. Cramp, Prof. 
W. H. Eccles, F.R.S., Prof. C. L. Fortescue, Sir R. Glazebrook, K.C.B., 
F.R.S., Prof. A. E. Kennelly, Prof. E. W. Marchant, Sir Frank Smith, 
K.C.B., C.B.E., Sec. R.S., Prof. L. R. Wilberforce. 


Stresses in Overstrained Materials—Sir Henry Fowler, K:B.E. (Chaiyman), 
Dr. J..G. Docherty (Secretary), Prof. G,. Cook, Prof. B. P. Haigh, Mr, J. S. 
Wilson. £10 (Unexpended balance). 


To review the knowledge at present available for the reduction of noise, and 
the nuisances to the abatement of which this knowledge could best be 
applied.—Sir Henry Fowler, K.B.E. (Chairman), Prof. T. R. Cave-Brown- 
Cave, C.B.E. (Secretary), Mr. R. S. Capon, Prof. G. W. O. Howe, £10. 


SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 


To report on the Distribution of Bronze Age Implements.—Prof. J. L. Myres, 
O.B.E., F.B.A. (Chairman), Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Secretary), Mr. A. Leslie 
Armstrong, Mr. H. Balfour, F.R.S., Mr. L. H. Dudley Buxton, Prof. V. 
Gordon Childe, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, Prof. H. J. Fleure, Dr. Cyril Fox. 


To report on the Classification and Distribution of Rude Stone Monuments in 
the British Isles——-Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Chairman), Dr. Margaret A. Murray 
(Secretary), Mr. A. L. Armstrong, Mr. H. Balfour, F.R.S., Prof. V. Gordon 
Childe, Dr. Cyril Fox, Mr. T. D. Kendrick. 


xlii RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. 


To report on the probable sources of the supply of Copper used by the Sumerians, 
—Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Chairman), Dr. C. H. Desch, F.R.S. (Secretary), 
Mr. H. Balfour, F.R.S., Mr. L. H. Dudley Buxton, Prof. V. Gordon Childe, 
Mr. O. Davies, Prof. H. J. Fleure, Sir Flinders Petrie, F.R.S., Dr. R. H. 
Rastall. 


To conduct Archeological and Ethnological Researches in Crete.—Prof. J. L. 
Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. (Chairman), Mr. L, Dudley Buxton (Secretary), Dr. 
W. L. H. Duckworth, Sir A. Evans, F.R.S., Dr. F. C. Shrubsall. 


To co-operate with the Torquay Antiquarian Society in investigating Kent’s 
Cavern.—Sir A. Keith, F.R.S. (Chairman),Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. 
(Secretary), Mr. M. C. Burkitt, Dr. R. V. Favell, Miss D. A. E. Garrod, 
Mr. A. D. Lacaille. £5, 


To co-operate with a Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute in the 
exploration of Caves in the Derbyshire district.—Mr. M. C. Burkitt (Chair- 
man), Dr. R. V. Favell (Secretary), Mr. A. Leslie Armstrong, Prof. H. J. 
Fleure, Miss D. A. E. Garrod, Dr. J. Wilfrid Jackson, Prof. L. S. Palmer, 
Mr. H. J. E. Peake. £25 (Caird Fund grant). 


To co-operate with Miss Caton-Thompson in her researches in prehistoric sites in 
the Western Desert of Egypt.—Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. (Chair- 
man), Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Secretary), Mr. H. Balfour, F.R.S. 


To report to the Sectional Committee on the question of re-editing ‘ Notes and 
Queries in’ Anthropology.’—Dr. H. S. Harrison (Chairman), Mr. L. Dudley 
Buxton (Secretary), Miss R. M. Fleming, Prof. C. Daryll Forde, Dr. A. C. 
Haddon, F.R.S., Capt. T. A. Joyce, O.B.E., Prof. C. G. Seligman, F.R.S., 
Mrs. Seligman, Miss C. Wedgwood. 


To carry out the excavation of Paleolith cave deposits on Mt. Carmel, Palestine. 
—Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. (Chaivman), Mr. M. C. Burkitt (Secretary), 
Miss G. Caton-Thompson, Miss D. A. E. Garrod, £80. 


To carry out research among the Ainu of Japan.—Prof. C. G. Seligman, F.R.S. 
(Chairman), Mrs. C. G. Seligman (Secretary), Dr. H. S. Harrison, Capt. 
T. A. Joyce, O.B.E., Rt. Hon. Lord Raglan. £50. 


To co-operate with the local committee in the excavation of Pen Dinas hill fort, 
Cardiganshire.—Dr. Cyril Fox (Chairman), Mr. V. E. Nash-Williams (Secre- 
tary), Prof. V. Gordon Childe, Prof. C. Daryll Forde, Rt. Hon. Lord Raglan, 
Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler. £25. 


To excavate a prehistoric and Roman mining site in Rio Tinto, Spain.—Mr. 
M. C. Burkitt (Chaiyman), Dr. C. H. Desch, F.R.S. (Secretary), Prof. V. 
Gordon Childe, Dr. Margaret A. Murray, Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. 
£15 (Caird Fund, contingent grant). 


To investigate blood groups among the Tibetans.—Prof. H. J. Fleure (Chairman), 
Prof. R. Ruggles Gates, F.R.S. (Secretary), Dr. J. H. Hutton, C.1.E., Mr. 
R. U. Sayce. 


SECTION I.—PHYSIOLOGY. 


The supply of Oxygen at high altitudes—Prof. J. Barcroft, C.B., F.R.S. (Chair- 
man), Dr. Raymond Greene (Acting Secretary), Mr. G. S. Adair, Mr. E. N. 
Odell, Major J. A. Sadd. £5. 


To deal with the use of a Stereotactic Instrument.—Prof. J. Mellanby, F.R.S. 
(Chairman and Secretary). 


SECTIONS I, J.—PHYSIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY. 


The conditions of vertigo and its relation to disorientation.— 
(Chairman), (Secretary), Prof. J. H. Burn, Dr. R. 
S. Creed, Squadron-Leader E. D. Dickson, Prof. J. Drever, Dr. J. T. 
MacCurdy. £20. 


RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. xiii 


SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 


To develop tests of the routine manual factor in mechanical ability —Dr. C. S. 
Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S. (Chairman), Dr. G. H. Miles (Secretary), Prof. C. 
Burt, Dr. F. M. Earle, Dr. Ll. Wynn Jones, Prof. T. H. Pear. £20 (Caird 
Fund, contingent grant). 


The nature of perseveration and its testing—Prof. F. Aveling (Chairman), 
Mr. E. Farmer (Secretary), Prof. F. C. Bartlett, F.R.S., Dr. Mary Collins, 
Dr. W. Stephenson. 


SECTION K.—BOTANY. 


Transplant Experiments.—Sir Arthur Hill, K.C.M.G., F.R.S. (Chairman), Dr. 
W. B. Turrill (Secretary), Prof. F. W, Oliver, F.R.S., Prof. E. J. Salisbury, 
Prof. A. G. Tansley, F.R.S. 


Fossil Plants at Fort Gray, near East London.—Dr. A. W. Rogers, F.R.S. (Chair- 
man), Prof. R. S. Adamson (Secretary), Prof. A. C. Seward, F.R.S. 


The anatomy of timber-producing trees——Prof. H. S. Holden (Chairman), Dr. 
Helen Bancroft (Secretary), Prof. J. H. Priestley, D.S.O. $10, 


SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 


To consider the position of science teaching in Adult Education classes, and to 
suggest possible means of promoting through them closer contact between 
scientific achievement and social development.—Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., 
F.B.A. (Chaiyman), Mr. C. E. Browne (Secretary), Major A. G. Church, 
D.S.O., Dr. Lilian J. Clarke, Miss E. R. Conway, C.B.E., Prof. C. H. Desch, 
F.R.S., Mr. A. Clow Ford, Sir Richard Gregory, Bt., F.R.S., Mr. S. R. 
Humby, Dr. C. W. Kimmins, Miss H. Masters, Mr. E.R. Thomas. $10. 


To consider and report on the possibility of the Section undertaking more definite 
work in promoting educational research.—Dr. W. W. Vaughan (Chairman), 
(Secretary), Miss H. Masters, Mr. E. R. B. Reynolds, 

Mr. N. F. Sheppard. £5. , 


SECTIONS M, E.-AGRICULTURE, GEOGRAPHY, 


To co-operate with the staff of the Imperial Soil Bureau to examine the soil 
resources of the Empire——Sir John Russell, O.B.E., F.R.S. (Chairman), 
Mr. G. V. Jacks (Secretary), Dr. E. M. Crowther, Dr. W. G. Ogg, Prof. G. W. 
Robinson (from Section M); Prof. C. B. Fawcett, Mr. H. King, Dr. L. D. 
Stamp, Mr. A. Stevens, Dr. S. W. Wooldridge (from Section E). 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 


Corresponding Societies Committee.—The President of the Association (Chairman 
ex-officio), Mr. T. Sheppard (Vice-Chairman), Dr. C. Tierney (Secretary), 
the General Secretaries, the General Treasurer, Mr. C. O. Bartrum, Dr. F. A. 
Bather, F.R.S., Sir Richard Gregory, Bt., F.R.S., Mr. J. V. Pearman, Sir 
David Prain, C.LE., C.M.G., F.R.S., Sir John Russell, O.B.E., F.R.S., 
Prof. W. M. Tattersall. 


xliv RESOLUTIONS: AND RECOMMENDATIONS 


RESOLUTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS. 


The following resolutions and recommendations were referred to the 
Council by the General Committee at the Leicester Meeting for con- 
sideration and, if desirable, for action :— 


From the General Officers. 


That it be a recommendation to the General Committee to request the 
Council to consider by what means the Association, within the framework 
of its constitution, may assist towards a better adjustment between the 
advance of Science and social progress, with a view to further discussion 
at the Aberdeen Meeting. : 


From Section D (Zoology). 

That the Committee of Section D (Zoology) of the British Association 
regards with grave apprehension the continuing spread of the Musk Rat 
in the British Isles. . It has learned with satisfaction that steps are now 
being taken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to deal with the 
pest, and it earnestly hopes that no effort will be spared to exterminate 
the species completely in this country. 


From Section E (Geography). 

(1) That the Council be asked to urge upon the proper authorities the 
desirability of including population maps in the Census returns. 

(2) That the Council be asked to draw the attention of His Majesty’s 
Government to the backward state of geodetic surveys in the British 
Colonies and Dependencies, and to point out to the Government that the 
lack of reliable surveys and maps greatly delays scientific and material 
progress. 

(3) That the Council be asked to approach His Majesty’s Government 
with a view to accelerating the revision of the large scale maps of the 
Ordnance Survey. 

From Section K (Botany). 

That in view of the value of the cricket-bat willow as a subsidiary farm 
crop, which can be grown satisfactorily by the small farmer as well as by 
the estate owner, the Government be asked to facilitate investigations of 
the diseases or pests causing ‘speck,’ ‘stain,’ and ‘ water-mark.’ 


From Section L (Educational Science). 

That 1,000 copies of each of the reports on Science in Adult Education 
and on General Science with special reference to Biology be reprinted 
and placed on sale at the price of sixpence per copy, and that free copies 
be distributed to the Press and to a selection of local education authorities 
and schools. 


The following recommendation was approved for immediate action :— 


From Section E (Geography). 


That copies of the printed report on the Position of Geography in 
Dominion Universities be circulated to the universities in the Dominions. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
LEICESTER, 1933. 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


SOME CHEMICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE 


BY 
SIR FREDERICK GOWLAND HOPKINS, PRES.R.S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 


Tt 


Tue British Association returns to Leicester with assurance of 
a welcome as warm as that received twenty-six years ago, and of 
hospitality as generous. The renewed invitation and the ready 
acceptance speak of mutual appreciation born of the earlier experi- 
ence. Hosts and guests have to-day reasons for mutual congratu- 
lations. ‘The Association on its second visit finds Leicester altered 
in important ways. It comes now to a city duly chartered and the 
seat of a bishopric. It finds there a centre of learning, many fine 
buildings which did not exist on the occasion of the first visit, and 
many other evidences of civic enterprise. The citizens of Leicester 
on the other hand will know that since they last entertained it the 
Association has celebrated its centenary, has four times visited 
distant parts of the Empire, and has maintained unabated through 
the years its useful and important activities. 

In 1907 the occupant of the Presidential Chair was, as you know, 
Sir David Gill, the eminent astonomer who, unhappily, like many 
who listened to his address, is with us no more. Sir David dealt 
in that address with aspects of science characterised by the use of 
very exact measurement. The exactitude which he prized and 
praised has since been developed by modern physics and is now so 
great that its methods have real esthetic beauty. In contrast I 
have to deal with a branch of experimental science which, because 
it is concerned with living organisms, is in respect of measurement 
on a different plane. Of the very essence of biological systems is 
an ineludable complexity, and exact measurement calls for condi- 


tions here unattainable. Many may think, indeed, though I am 
B 


2 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


not claiming it here, that in studying Life we soon meet with aspects 
which are non-metrical. I would have you believe, however, that 
the data of modern Biochemistry which will be the subject of my 
remarks were won by quantitative methods fully adequate to justify 
the claims based upon them. 

Though speculations concerning the origin of Life have given 
intellectual pleasure to many, all that we yet know about it is that 
we know nothing. Sir James Jeans once suggested, though not 
with conviction, that it might be a disease of matter—a disease of 
its old age! Most biologists, I think, having agreed that Life’s 
advent was at once the most improbable and the most significant 
event in the history of the Universe, are content for the present to 
leave the matter there. 

We must recognise, however, that Life has one attribute that is 
fundamental. Whenever and wherever it appears the steady 
increase of entropy displayed by all the rest of the Universe is then 
and there arrested. There is no good evidence that in any of its 
manifestations life evades the second law of thermodynamics, but 
in the downward course of the energy-flow it interposes a barrier 
and dams up a reservoir which provides potential for its own re- 
markable activities. The arrest of energy degradation in living 
Nature is indeed a primary biological concept. Related to it, and 
of equal importance is the concept of Organisation. 

It is almost impossible to avoid thinking and talking of life in this 
abstract way, but we perceive it, of course, only as manifested in 
organised material systems, and it is in them we must seek the 
mechanisms which arrest the fall of energy. Evolution has estab- 
lished division of labour here. From far back the wonderfully 
efficient functioning of structures containing chlorophyll has, as 
everyone knows, provided the trap which arrests and transforms 
radiant energy—fated otherwise to degrade—and so provides power 
for nearly the whole living world. It is impossible to believe, 
however, that such a complex mechanism was associated with life’s 
earliest stages. Existing organisms illustrate what was perhaps an 
earlier method. ‘The so-called autotrophic bacteria obtain energy 
for growth by the catalysed oxidation of materials belonging wholly 
to the inorganic world; such as sulphur, iron or ammonia, and 
even free hydrogen. These organisms dispense with solar energy, 
but they have lost in the evolutionary race because their method 
lacks economy. Other existing organisms, certain purple bacteria, 
seem to have taken a step towards greater economy, without reaching 
that of the green cell. ‘They dispense with free oxygen and yet 
obtain energy from the inorganic world. They control a process in 
which carbon dioxideis reduced and hydrogen sulphide simultaneously 
oxidised. ‘The molecules of the former are activated by solar energy 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 3 


which their pigmentary equipment enables these organisms to 
arrest. 

Are we to believe that life still exists in association with systems 
that are much more simply organised than any bacterial cell? The 
very minute filter-passing viruses which, owing to their causal 
relations with disease, are now the subject of intense study, awaken 
deep curiosity with respect to this question. We cannot yet claim 
to know whether or not they are living organisms. In some sense 
they grow and multiply, but, so far as we yet know with certainty, 
only when inhabitants of living cells. If they are nevertheless 
living, this would suggest that they have no independent power of 
obtaining energy and so cannot represent for us the earliest forms 
in which life appeared. At present, however, judgment on their 
biological significance must be suspended. ‘The fullest under- 
standing of all the methods by which energy may be acquired for 
life’s processes is much to be desired. 

In any case every living unit is a transformer of energy however 
acquired, and the Science of Biochemistry is deeply concerned with 
these transformations. It is with aspects of that science that I am 
to deal and if to them I devote much of my address my excuse is 
that since it became a major branch of inquiry Biochemistry has 
had no exponent in the Chair I am fortunate enough to occupy. 

As a progressive scientific discipline it belongs to the present 
century. From the experimental physiologists of the last century 
it obtained a charter, and, from a few pioneers of its own, a promise 
of success ; but for the furtherance of its essential aim that century 
left it but a small inheritance of facts and methods. By its essential 
or ultimate aim I myself mean an adequate and acceptable de- 
scription of molecular dynamics in living cells and tissues. 


pt. 


When this Association began its history in 1831 the first arti- 
ficial synthesis of a biological product was, as you will remember, 
but three years old. Primitive faith in a boundary between the 
organic and the inorganic which could never be crossed, was only 
just then realising that its foundations were gone. Since then, 
during the century of its existence, the Association has seen the 
pendulum swing back and forth between frank physico-chemical 
conceptions of life and various modifications of vitalism. It is 
characteristic of the present position and spirit of science that 
sounds of the long conflict between mechanists and vitalists are just 
now seldom heard. It would almost seem, indeed, that tired of 
fighting in a misty atmosphere each has retired to his tent to 
await with wisdom the light of further knowledge. Perhaps, how- 
ever, they are returning to the fight disguised as Determinist and 


4 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


Indeterminist respectively. If so the outcome will be of great 
interest. In any case I feel fortunate in a belief that what I have to 
say will not, if rightly appraised, raise the old issues. To claim, as 
I am to claim, that a description of its active chemical aspects must 
contribute to any adequate description of life is not to imply that 
a living organism is no more than a physico-chemical system. It 
implies that at a definite and recognisable level of its dynamic 
organisation an organism can be logically described in physico- 
chemical terms alone. At such a level indeed we may hope ulti- 
mately to arrive at a description which is complete in itself, just as 
descriptions at the morphological level of organisation may be 
complete in themselves. There may be yet higher levels calling 
for discussion in quite different terms. 

I wish, however, to remind you of a mode of thought concerning 
the material basis of life, which though it prevailed when physico- 
chemical interpretations were fashionable, was yet almost as in- 
hibitory to productive chemical thought and study as any of the 
claims of vitalism. ‘This was the conception of that material basis 
as a single entity, as a definite though highly complex chemical 
compound. Up to the end of the last century and even later the 
term ‘protoplasm’ suggested such an entity to many minds. In his 
brilliant Presidential Address at the Association’s meeting at Dundee 
twenty-two years ago, Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer, after remarking 
that the elements composing living substances are few in number, 
went on to say: ‘ The combination of these elements into a colloid 
compound represents the physical basis of life, and when the chemist 
succeeds in building up this compound it will, without doubt, be 
found to exhibit the phenomena which we are in the habit of asso- 
ciating with the term “life” ’ Such a compound would seem 
to correspond with the ‘ protoplasm’ of many biologists, though 
treated perhaps with too little respect. The Presidential claim 
might have seemed to encourage the biochemist, but the goal 
suggested would have proved elusive, and the path of endeavour has 
followed other lines. 

So long as the term ‘ protoplasm ’ retains a morphological signi- 
ficance as in classical cytology, it may be even now convenient 
enough, though always denoting an abstraction. In so far, how- 
ever, as the progress of metabolism with all the vital activities which 
it supports was ascribed in concrete thought to hypothetical qualities 
emergent from a protoplasmic complex in its integrity or when 
substances were held to suffer change only because in each living 
cell they are first built up, with loss of their own molecular structure 
and identity, ino this complex, which is itself the inscrutable seat 
of cyclic change, then serious obscurantism was involved. 

Had such assumptions been justified the old taunt that when the 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 5 


chemist touches living matter it immediately becomes dead matter 
would also have been justified. A very distinguished organic 
chemist, long since dead, said to me in the late eighties: ‘ The 
chemistry of the living? That is the chemistry of protoplasm ; 
that is superchemistry ; seek, my young friend, for other ambitions.’ 

Research, however, during the present century, much of which has 
been done since the Association last met in Leicester, has yielded 
knowledge to justify the optimism of the few who started to work in 
those days. Were there time, I might illustrate this by abundant 
examples ; but I think a single illustration will suffice to demon- 
strate how progress during recent years has changed the outlook for 
biochemistry. I will ask you to note the language used thirty 
years ago to describe the chemical events in active muscle and 
compare it with that used now. In 1895 Michael Foster, a physio- 
logist of deep vision, dealing with the respiration of tissues, and in 
particular with the degree to which the activity of muscle depends 
on its contemporary oxygen supply, expounded the current view 
which may be thus briefly summarised. ‘The oxygen which enters 
the muscle from the blood is not involved in immediate oxidations, 
but is built up into the substance of the muscle. It disappears into 
some protoplasmic complex on which its presence confers instability. 
This complex, which like all living substance, is to be regarded as 
incessantly undergoing changes of a double kind, those of building 
up and those of breaking down. With activity the latter predomi- 
nates, and in the case of muscle the complex in question explodes, 
as it were, to yield the energy for contraction. ‘ We cannot yet 
trace,’ Foster comments, ‘ the steps taken by the oxygen from the 
moment it slips from the blood into the muscle substance to the 
moment when it issues united with carbon as carbonic acid. The 
whole mystery of life lies hidden in that process, and for the present 
we must be content with simply knowing the beginning and the 
end.’ What we feel entitled to say to-day concerning the respira- 
tion of muscle and of the events associated with its activity requires, 
as I have suggested, a different language, and for those not interested 
in technical chemical aspects the very change of language may yet 
be significant. The conception of continuous building up and 
continuous breakdown of the muscle substance as a whole, has but 
a small element of truth. The colloidal muscle structure is, so to 
speak, an apparatus, relatively stable even as a whole when meta- 
bolism is normal, and in essential parts very stable. ‘The chemical 
reactions which occur in that apparatus have been followed with a 
completeness which is, I think, striking. It is carbohydrate stores 
distinct from the apparatus (and in certain circumstances also fat 
stores) which undergo steady oxidation and are the ultimate sources 
of energy for muscular work. Essential among successive stages in 


6 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


the chemical breakdown of carbohydrate which necessarily precede 
oxidation is the intermediate combination of a sugar (a hexose) with 
phosphoric acid to form an ester. This happening is indispensable for 
the progress of the next stage, namely the production of lactic acid from 
the sugar, which is an anaerobic process. The precise happenings 
to the hexose sugar while in combination with phosphoric acid are 
from a chemical standpoint remarkable. Very briefly stated they are 
these. One half of the sugar molecule is converted into a molecule 
of glycerin and the other half into one of pyruvic acid. Now with 
loss of two hydrogen atoms glycerin yields lactic acid, and, with a 
gain of the same pyruvic acid also yields lactic acid. The actual 
happening then is that hydrogen is transferred from the glycerin 
molecule while still combined with phosphoric acid to the pyruvic 
acid molecule with the result that two molecules of lactic acid 
are formed.1_ The lactic acid is then, during a cycle of change which 
I must not stop to discuss, oxidised to yield the energy required by 
the muscle. 

But the energy from this oxidation is byno means directly available 
for the mechanical act of contraction. The oxidation occurs indeed 
after and not before or during a contraction. The energy it 
liberates secures however the endothermic resynthesis of a sub- 
stance, creatin phosphate, of which the breakdown at an earlier 
stage in the sequence of events is the more immediate source of 
energy for contraction. Even more complicated are these chemical 
relations, for it would seem that in the transference of energy from 
its source in the oxidation of carbohydrate to the system which 
synthesises creatin phosphate, yet another reaction intervenes, 
namely, the alternating breakdown and resynthesis of the substance 
adenyl pyrophosphate. The sequence of these chemical reactions 
in muscle has been followed and their relation in time to the phases 
of contraction and relaxation is established. ‘The means by which 
energy is transferred from one reacting system to another has till 
lately been obscure, but current work is throwing light upon this 
interesting question, and it is just beginning (though only beginning) 
to show how at the final stage the energy of the reactions is con- 
verted into the mechanical response. In parenthesis it may be noted 
as an illustration of the unity of life that the processes which occur in 
the living yeast cell in its dealings with sugars are closely similar to 
those which proceed in living muscle. In the earlier stages they are 
identical and we now know where they part company. You will, I 
think, be astonished at the complexity of the events which underlie 
the activity of a muscle, but you must remember that it is a highly 
specialised machine. A more direct burning of the fuel could not 
fit into its complex organisation. Iam more particularly concerned 

1 Lecture by Otto Meyerhof: in the Press (see Nature). 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 7 


to feel that my brief summary of the facts will make you realise how 
much more definite, how much more truly chemical, is our present 
knowledge than that available when Michael Foster wrote. Ability 
to recognise the progress of such definite ordered chemical reactions 
in relation to various aspects of living activity characterises the 
current position in biochemistry. I have chosen the case of muscle, 
and it must serve as my only example, but many such related and 
ordered reactions have been studied in other cells and tissues, from 
bacteria to the brain. Some prove general, some more special. 
Although we are far indeed from possessing a complete picture in 
any one case we are beginning in thought to fit not a few pieces 
together. We are on a line safe for progress. 

I must perforce limit the field of my discussion, and in what 
follows my special theme will be the importance of molecular 
structure in determining the properties of living systems. I wish 
you to believe that molecules display in such systems the properties 
inherent in their structure even as they do in the laboratory of the 
organic chemist. The theme is no new one, but its development 
illustrates as well as any other, and to my own mind perhaps better 
than any other, the progress of biochemistry. Not long ago a 
prominent biologist, believing in protoplasm as an entity, wrote : 
‘But it seems certain that living protoplasm is not an ordinary 
chemical compound, and therefore can have no molecular structure 
in the chemical sense of the word.’ Such a belief was common. 
One may remark, moreover, that when the development of colloid 
chemistry first brought its indispensable aid towards an under- 
standing of the biochemical field, there was a tendency to discuss 
its bearing in terms of the less specific properties of colloid systems, 
phase-surfaces, membranes, and the like, without sufficient reference 
to the specificity which the influence of molecular structure, where- 
ever displayed, impresses on chemical relations and events. In 
emphasising its importance I shall leave no time for dealings with 
the nature of the colloid structures of cells and tissues, all important 
as they are. I shall continue to deal, though not again in detail, 
with chemical reactions as they occur within those structures. Only 
this much must be said. If the colloid structures did not display 
highly specialised molecular structure at their surface, no reactions 
would occur; for here catalysis occurs. Were it not equipped 
with catalysts every living unit would be a static system. 

With the phenomena of catalysis I will assume you have general 
acquaintance. You know that a catalyst is an agent which plays 
only a temporary part in chemical events which it nevertheless 
determines and controls. It reappears unaltered when the events 
are completed. ‘The phenomena of catalysis, though first recognised 
early in the last century, entered but little into chemical thought 


8 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


or enterprise, till only a few years ago they were shown to have 
great importance for industry. Yet catalysis is one of the most 
significant devices of nature, since it has endowed living systems 
with their fundamental character as transformers of energy, and 
all evidence suggests that it must have played an indispensable 
part in the living universe from the earliest stages of evolution. 

The catalysts of a living cell are the enzymic structures which 
display their influences at the surface of colloidal particles or at other 
surfaces within the cell. Current research continues to add to the 
great number of these enzymes which can be separated from, or 
recognised in, living cells and tissues, and to increase our knowledge 
of their individual functions. 

A molecule within the system of the cell may remain in an inactive 
state and enter into no reactions until at one such surface it comes 
in contact with an enzymic structure which displays certain adjust- 
ments to its own structure. While in such association the inactive 
molecule becomes (to use a current term) ‘ activated,’ and then enters 
on some definite path of change. The one aspect of enzymic 
catalysis which for the sake of my theme I wish to emphasise is its 
high specificity. An enzyme is in general adjusted to come into 
effective relations with one kind of molecule only, or at most with 
molecules closely related in their structure. Evidence based on 
kinetics justifies the belief that some sort of chemical combination 
between enzyme and related molecule precedes the activation of 
the latter, and for such combinations there must be close correlation 
in structure. Many will remember that long ago Emil Fischer 
recognised that enzymic action distinguishes even between two 
optical isomers and spoke of the necessary relation being as close 
as that of key and lock. 

There is an important consequence of this high specificity in 
biological catalysis to which I will direct your special attention. 
A living cell is the seat of a multitude of reactions, and in order 
that it should retain in a given environment its individual identity 
as an organism, these reactions must be highly organised. They 
must be of determined nature and proceed mutually adjusted with 
respect to velocity, sequence, and in all other relations. ‘They must 
be in dynamic equilibrium as a whole and must return to it after 
disturbance. Now if of any group of catalysts, such as are found 
in the equipment of a cell, each one exerts limited and highly- 
specific influence, this very specificity must be a potent factor in 
making for organisation. 

Consider the case of any individual cell in due relations with 
its environment, whether an internal environment as in the case of 
the tissue cells of higher animals, or an external environment as 
in the case of unicellular organisms. Materials for maintenance of 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 9 


the cell enter it from the environment. Discrimination among 
such materials is primarily determined by permeability relations, 
but of deeper significance in that selection is the specificity of the 
cell catalysts. It has often been said that the living cell differs 
from all non-living systems in its power of selecting from a hetero- 
geneous environment the right material for the maintenance of its 
structure and activities. It is, however, no vital act but the nature 
of its specific catalysts which determines what it effectively ‘ selects.’ 
If a molecule gains entry into the cell and meets no catalytic influence 
capable of activating it, nothing further happens save for certain 
ionic and osmotic adjustments. Any molecule which does meet 
an adjusted enzyme cannot fail to suffer change and become 
directed into some one of the paths of metabolism. It must here 
be remembered, moreover, that enzymes as specific catalysts not 
only promote reactions, but determine their direction. The glucose 
molecule, for example, though its inherent chemical potentialities 
are, of course, always the same, is converted into lactic acid by an 
enzyme system in muscle but into alcohol and carbon dioxide by 
another in the yeast cell. It is important to realise that diverse 
enzymes may act in succession and that specific catalysis has directive 
as well as selective powers. If it be syntheses in the cell which are 
most difficult to picture on such lines, we may remember that 
biological syntheses can be, and are, promoted by enzymes, and 
there are sufficient facts to justify the belief that a chain of specific 
enzymes can direct a complex synthesis along lines predetermined 
by the nature of the enzymes themselves. I should like to develop 
this aspect of the subject even further, but to do so might tax your 
patience. I should add that enzyme-control, though so important, 
is not the sole determinant of chemical organisation in a cell. Other 
aspects of its colloidal structure play their part. 


III. 


It is surely at that level of organisation, which is based on the 
exact co-ordination of a multitude of chemical events within it, 
that a living cell displays its peculiar sensitiveness to the influence 
of molecules of special nature when these enter it from without. 
The nature of very many organic molecules is such that they may 
enter a cell and exert noeffect. Those proper to metabolism follow, 
of course, the normal paths of change. Some few, on the other 
hand, influence the cell in very special ways. When such influence 
is highly specific in kind it means that some element of structure 
in the entrant molecule is adjusted to meet an aspect of molecular 
structure somewhere in the cell itself. We can easily understand 
that in a system so minute the intrusion even of a few such molecules 

B2 


10 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


may so modify existing equilibria as to affect profoundly the observed 
behaviour of the cell. 

Such relations, though by no means confined to them, reach their 
greatest significance in the higher organisms, in which individual 
tissues, chemically diverse, differentiated in function and separated 
in space, so react upon one another through chemical agencies trans- 
mitted through the circulation as to co-ordinate by chemical trans- 
port the activities of the body as a whole. Unification by chemical 
means must to-day be recognised as a fundamental aspect of all 
such organisms. In all of them it is true that the nervous system 
has pride of place as the highest seat of organising influence, but 
we know to-day that even this influence is often, if not always, 
exerted through properties inherent in chemical molecules. It is 
indeed most significant for my general theme to realise that when 
a nerve impulse reaches a tissue the sudden production of a definite 
chemical substance at the nerve ending may be essential to the 
response of that tissue to the impulse. It is a familiar circumstance 
that when an impulse passes to the heart by way of the vagus nerve 
fibres the beat is slowed, or, by a stronger beat, arrested. ‘That is, 
of course, part of the normal control of the heart’s action. Now 
it has been shown that whenever the heart receives vagus impulses 
the substance acetyl cholin is liberated within the organ. To this 
fact is added the further fact that, in the absence of the vagus influence, 
the artificial injection of minute graded doses of acetyl choline so 
acts upon the heart as to reproduce in every detail the effects of graded 
stimulation of the nerve. Moreover, evidence is accumulating to 
show that in the case of other nerves belonging to the same morpho- 
logical group as the vagus, but supplying other tissues, this same 
liberation of acetyl choline accompanies activity, and the chemical 
action of this substance upon such tissues again produces effects 
identical with those observed when the nerves are stimulated. 
More may be claimed. The functions of another group of nerves 
are opposed to those of the vagus group ; impulses, for instance, 
through certain fibres accelerate the heart beat. Again a chemical 
substance is liberated at the endings of such nerves, and this substance 
has itself the property of accelerating the heart. We find then that 
such organs and tissues respond only indirectly to whatever non- 
specific physical change may reach the nerve ending. ‘Their direct 
response is to the influence of particular molecules with an essential 
structure when these intrude into their chemical machinery. 

It follows that the effect of a given nerve stimulus may not be 
confined to the tissue which it first reaches. "There may be humeral 
transmissions of its effect, because the liberated substance enters 
the lymph and blood. This again may assist the co-ordination of 
events in the tissues. 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS II 


From substances produced temporarily and locally and by 
virtue of their chemical properties translating for the tissues the 
messages of nerves, we may pass logically to consideration of those 
active substances which carry chemical messages from organ to 
organ. Such in the animal body are produced continuously in 
specialised organs, and each has its special seat or seats of action 
where it finds chemical structures adjusted in some sense or other 
to its own. 

I shall be here on familiar ground, for that such agencies exist, 
and bear the name of hormones, is common knowledge. I propose 
only to indicate how many and diverse are their fuctions as revealed 
by recent research, emphasising the fact that each one is a definite 
and relatively simple substance with properties that are primarily 
chemical and in a derivate sense physiological. Our clear recognition 
of this, based at first on a couple of instances, began with this century, 
but our knowledge of their number and nature is still growing rapidly 
to-day. 

We have long known, of course, how essential and profound is 
the influence of the thyroid gland in maintaining harmonious growth 
in the body, and in controlling the rate of its metabolism. Three 
years ago a brilliant investigation revealed the exact molecular 
structure of the substance—thyroxin—which is directly responsible 
for these effects. It is a substance of no great complexity. The 
constitution of adrenalin has been longer known and likewise its 
remarkable influence in maintaining a number of important physio- 
logical adjustments. Yet is is again a relatively simple substance. 
I will merely remind you of secretin, the first of these substances 
to receive the name of hormone, and of insulin, now so familiar 
because of its importance in the metabolism of carbohydrates and its 
consequent value in the treatment of diabetes. ‘The most recent 
growth of knowledge in this field has dealt with hormones which, 
in most remarkable relations, co-ordinate the phenomena of sex. 

It is the circulation of definite chemical substances produced 
locally that determines during the growth of the individual, the 
proper development of all the secondary sexual characters. The 
properties of other substances secure the due progress of individual 
development from the unfertilised ovum to the end of feetal life. 
When an ovum ripens and is discharged from the ovary a substance, 
now known as estrin, is produced in the ovary itself, and so functions 
as to bring about all those changes in the female body which make 
secure the fertilisation of the ovum. On the discharge of the ovum 
new tissue, constituting the so-called corpus luteum, arises in its 
place. This then produces a special hormone which in its turn 
evokes all those changes in tissues and organs that secure a right 
destiny for the ovum after it has been fertilised. It is clear that 


12 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


these two hormones do not arise simultaneously, for they must act 
in alternation, and it becomes of great interest to know how such 
succession is secured. The facts here are among the most striking. 
Just as higher nerve centres in the brain control and co-ordinate the 
activities of lower centres, so it would seem do hormones, functioning 
at, so to speak, a higher level in organisation, co-ordinate the activities 
of other hormones. It is a substance produced in the anterior portion 
of the pituitary gland situated at the base of the brain, which by 
circulating to the ovary controls the succession of its hormonal 
activities. "The cases I have mentioned are far from exhausting the 
numerous hormonal influences now recognised. 

For full appreciation of the extent to which chemical substances 
control and co-ordinate events in the animal body by virtue of 
their specific molecular structure, it is well not to separate too widely 
in thought the functions of hormones from those of vitamins. 
Together they form a large group of substances of which every 
one exerts upon physiological events its own indispensable chemical 
influence. 

Hormones are produced in the body itself, while vitamins must be 
supplied in the diet. Such a distinction is, in general, justified. 
We meet occasionally, however, an animal species able to dispense 
with an external supply of this or that vitamin. Evidence shows, 
however, that individuals of that species, unlike most animals, can 
in the course of their metabolism synthesise for themselves the 
vitamin in question. The vitamin then becomes a hormone. In 
practice the distinction may be of great importance, but for an 
understanding of metabolism the functions of these substances are 
of more significance than their origin. 

The present activity of research in the field of vitamins is prodigious. 
The output of published papers dealing with original investigations 
in the field has reached nearly a thousand in a single year. Each 
of the vitamins at present known is receiving the attention of 
numerous observers in respect both of its chemical and biological 
properties, and though many publications deal, of course, with matters 
of detail, the accumulation of significant facts is growing fast. 

It is clear that I can cover but little ground in any reference to 
this wide field of knowledge. Some aspects of its development have 
been interesting enough. The familiar circumstance that attention 
was drawn to the existence of one vitamin (B, so called) because 
populations in the East took to eating milled rice instead of the 
whole grain; the gradual growth of evidence which links the 
physiological activities of another vitamin (D) with the influence of 
solar radiation on the body, and has shown that they are thus 
related, because rays of definite wave-length convert an inactive 

precurser into the active vitamin, alike when acting on foodstuffs 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 13 


or on the surface of the living body ; the fact again that the recent 
isolation of vitamin C, and the accumulation of evidence for its 
nature started from the observation that the cortex of the adrenal 
gland displayed strongly reducing properties ; or yet again the proof 
that a yellow pigment widely distributed among plants, while not 
the vitamin itself, can be converted within the body into vitamin A; 
these and other aspects of vitamin studies will stand out as interesting 
chapters in the story of scientific investigation. 

In this very brief discussion of hormones and vitamins I have so 
far referred only to their functions as manifested in the animal body. 
Kindred substances, exerting analogous functions, are, however, of 
wide and perhaps of quite general biological importance. It is 
certain that many micro-organisms require a supply of vitamin-like 
substances for the promotion of growth, and recent research of a very 
interesting kind has demonstrated in the higher plants the existence 
of specific substances produced in special cells which stimulate 
growth in other cells, and so in the plant as a whole. These so- 
called auxines are essentially hormones. Section B will soon be 
listening to an account of their chemical nature. 

It is of particular importance to my present theme and a source 
of much satisfaction to know that our knowledge of the actual mole- 
cular structure of hormones and vitamins is growing fast. We have 
already exact knowledge of the kind in respect to not a few. We are 
indeed justified in believing that within a few years such knowledge 
will be extensive enough to allow a wide view of the correlation 
between molecular structure and physiological activity. Such 
correlation has long been sought in the case of drugs, and some 
generalisations have been demonstrated. It should be remembered, 
however, that until quite lately only the structure of the drug could 
be considered. With increasing knowledge of the tissue structures 
pharmacological actions will become much clearer. 

I cannot refrain from mentioning here a set of relations connected 
especially with the phenomena of tissue growth which are of par- 
ticular interest. It will be convenient to introduce some technical 
chemical considerations in describing them, though I think the 
relations may be clear without emphasis being placed on such 
details. ‘The vitamin, which in current usage is labelled ‘ A,’ is 
essential for the general growth of an animal. Recent research has 
provided much information as to its chemical nature. Its molecule 
is built up of units which possess what is known to chemists as the 
isoprene structure. These are condensed in a long carbon chain 
which is attached to a ring structure of a specific kind. Such a 
constitution relates it to other biological compounds, in particular 
to certain vegetable pigments, one of which a carotene, so called, is 
the substance which I have mentioned as being convertible into the 


14 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


vitamin. For the display of an influence upon growth, however, 
the exact details of the vitamin’s proper structure must be established. 
Now turning to vitamin D, of which the activity is more specialised, 
controlling as it does the growth of bone in particular, we have 
learnt that the unit elements in its structure are again isoprene 
radicals ; but instead of forming a long chain as in vitamin A they 
are united into a system of condensed rings. Similar rings form 
the basal component of the molecules of sterols, substances which 
are normal constituents of nearly every living cell. It is one of 
these, inactive itself, which ultra-violet radiation converts into 
vitamin D. We know that as stated each of these vitamins stimu- 
lates growth in tissue cells. Next consider another case of growth 
stimulation, different because pathological in nature. As you are 
doubtless aware, it is well known that long contact with tar induces 
a cancerous growth of the skin. Very important researches have 
recently shown that particular constituents in the tar are alone con- 
cerned in producing this effect. It is being further demonstrated 
that the power to produce cancer is associated with a special type of 
molecular structure in these constituents. ‘This structure, like that 
of the sterols, is one of condensed rings, the essential difference 
being that (in chemical language) the sterol rings are hydrogenated, 
whereas those in the cancer-producing molecules are not. Hydro- 
genation indeed destroys the activity of the latter. Recall, however, 
the ovarian hormone estrin. Now the molecular structure of cestrin 
has the essential ring structure of a sterol, but one of the constituent 
rings is not hydrogenated. In a sense therefore the chemical nature 
of estrin links vitamin D with that of cancer-producing substances. 
Further, it is found that substances with pronounced cancer-pro- 
ducing powers may produce effects in the body like those of cestrin. 
It is difficult when faced with such relations not to wonder whether 
the metabolism of sterols, which when normal can produce a sub- 
stance stimulating physiological growth, may in very special circum- 
stances be so perverted as to produce within living cells a substance 
stimulating pathological growth. Such a suggestion must, however, 
with present knowledge, be very cautiously received. It is wholly 
without experimental proof. My chief purpose in this reference to 
this very interesting set of relations is to emphasise once more the 
significance of chemical structure in the field of biological events. 

Only the end results of the profound influence which minute 
amounts of substances with adjusted structure exert upon living cells 
or tissues can be observed in the intact bodies of man or animals. 
It is doubtless because of the elaborate and sensitive organisation of 
chemical events in every tissue cell that the effects are proportionally 
So great. 

It is an immediate task of biochemistry to explore the mechanism 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 15 


of such activities. It must learn to describe in objective chemical 
terms precisely how and where such molecules as those of hormones 
and vitamins intrude into the chemical events of metabolism. It is 
indeed now beginning this task which is by no means outside the 
scope of its methods. Efforts of this and of similar kind cannot 
fail to be associated with a steady increase in knowledge of the whole 
field of chemical organisation in living organisms, and to this increase 
we look forward with confidence. The promise is there. Present 
methods can still go far, but I am convinced that progress of the kind 
is about to gain great impetus from the application of those new 
methods of research which chemistry is inheriting from physics: 
X-ray analysis; the current studies of unimolecular surface films 
and of chemical reactions at surfaces ; modern spectroscopy ; the 
quantitative developments of photo-chemistry ; no branch of 
inquiry stands to gain more from such advances in technique than 
does biochemistry at its present stage. Especially is this true in the 
case of the colloidal structure of living systems, of which in this 
Address I have said so little. 


IV. 


As an experimental science, biochemistry, like classical physi- 
ology, and much of experimental biology, has obtained, and must 
continue to obtain, many of its data from studying parts of the 
organism in isolation, but parts in which dynamic events continue. 
Though fortunately it has also methods of studying reactions as they 
occur in intact living cells, intact tissues, and, of course, in the intact 
animal, it is still entitled to claim that its studies of parts are con- 
sistently developing its grasp of the Wholes it desires to describe, 
however remote that grasp may be from finality. Justification for 
any such claim has been challenged in advance from a certain philo- 
sophic standpoint. Not from that of General Smuts, though in his 
powerful Address which signalised our centenary meeting he, like 
many philosophers to-day, emphasised the importance of properties 
which emerge from systems in their integrity, bidding us remember 
that a part while in the whole is not the same as the part in isolation. 
He hastened to admit in a subsequent speech, however, that for 
experimental biology, as for any other branch of science, it was 
logical and necessary to approach the whole through its parts. Nor 
again is the claim challenged from the standpoint of such a teacher 
as A. N. Whitehead, though in his philosophy of organic mechanism 
there is no real entity of any kind without internal and multiple 
relations, and each whole is more than the sum of its parts. I never- 
theless find ad hoc statements in his writings which directly encourage 
the methods of biochemistry. In the teachings of J. S. Haldane, 
however, the value of such methods have long been directly 


16 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


challenged. Some here will perhaps remember that in his Address 
to Section I, twenty-five years ago he described a philosophic stand- 
point which he has courageously maintained in many writings since. 
Dr. Haldane holds that to the enlightened biologist a living organism 
does not present a problem for analysis ; it is, gua organism, axio- 
matic. Its essential attributes are axiomatic; heredity, for example, 
is for biology not a problem but an axiom. ‘The problem of 
Physiology is not to obtain piecemeal physico-explanations of 
physiological processes ’ (I quote from the 1885 Address), ‘ but to 
discover by observation and experiment the relatedness to one 
another of all the details of structure and activity in each organism 
as expressions of its nature as one organism.’ I cannot pretend 
adequately to discuss these views here. They have often been 
discussed by others, not always perhaps with understanding. What 
is true in them is subtle, and I doubt if their author has ever found 
the right words in which to bring to most others a conviction of 
such truth. It is involved in a world outlook. What I think is 
scientifically faulty in Haldane’s teaching is the @ priori element 
which leads to bias in the face of evidence. The task he sets for 
the physiologist seems vague to most people, and he forgets that 
with good judgment a study of parts may lead to an intellectual 
synthesis of value. In 1885 he wrote: ‘That a meeting-point 
between Biology and Physical Science may at some time be found 
there is no reason for doubting. But we may confidently predict 
that if that meeting-point is found, and one of the two sciences 
is swallowed up, that one will not be Biology.’ He now claims 
indeed that biology has accomplished the heavy meal because 
physics has been compelled to deal no longer with Newtonian 
entities but, like the biologist, with organisms such as the atom 
proves to be. Is it not then enough for my present purpose to 
remark on the significance of the fact that not until certain atoms 
were found spontaneously splitting piecemeal into parts, and others 
were afterwards so split in the laboratory, did we really know any- 
thing about the atom as a whole. 

At this point, however, I will ask you not to suspect me of claiming 
that all the attributes of living systems or even the more obvious 
among them are necessarily based upon chemical organisation alone. 
I have already expressed my own belief that this organisation will 
account for one striking characteristic of every living cell—its ability, 
namely, to maintain a dynamic individuality in diverse environments. 
Living cells display other attributes even more characteristic of 
themselves ; they grow, multiply, inherit qualities and transmit 
them. Although to distinguish levels of organisation in such 
systems may be to abstract from reality it is not illogical to believe 
that such attributes as these are based upon organisation at a level 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 17) 


which is in some sense higher than the chemical level. The main 
necessity from the standpoint of biochemistry is then to decide 
whether nevertheless at its own level, which is certainly definable, 
the results of experimental studies are self-contained and consistent. 
This is assuredly true of the data which biochemistry is now acquir- 
ing. Never during its progress has chemical consistency shown 
itself to be disturbed by influences of any ultra-chemical kind. 

Moreover, before we assume that there is a level of organisation 
at which chemical controlling agencies must necessarily cease to 
function, we should respect the intellectual parsimony taught by 
Occam and be sure of their limitations before we seek for super- 
chemical entities as organisers. ‘There is no orderly succession of 
events which would seem less likely to be controlled by the mere 
chemical properties of a substance than the cell divisions and _ cell 
differentiation which intervene between the fertilised ovum and the 
finished embryo. Yet it would seem that a transmitted substance, 
a hormone in essence, may play an unmistakable part in that 
remarkable drama. It has for some years been known that, at an 
early stage of development, a group of cells forming the so-called 
* organiser’ of Spemann induces the subsequent stages of differentia- 
tion in other cells. The latest researches seem to show that a cell- 
free extract of this ‘ organiser’ may function in its place. ‘The sub- 
stance concerned is, it would seem, not confined to the ‘ organiser ’ 
itself, but is widely distributed outside, though not in, the embryo. 
It presents, nevertheless, a truly remarkable instance of chemical 
influence. 

It would be out of place in such a discourse as this to attempt 
any discussion of the psycho-physical problem. However much 
we may learn about the material systems which, in their integrity, 
are associated with consciousness, the nature of that association may 
yet remain a problem. The interest of that problem is insistent 
and it must be often in our thoughts. Its existence, however, 
justifies no pre-judgments as to the value of any knowledge of a 
consistent sort which the material systems may yield to experiment. 


V. 


It has become clear, I think, that chemical modes of thought, 
whatever their limitation, are fated profoundly to affect biological 
thought. If, however, the biochemist should at any time be inclined 
to overrate the value of his contributions to biology, or to under- 
rate the magnitude of problems outside his province, he will do well 
sometimes to leave the laboratory for the field, or to seek even in the 
museum a reminder of that infinity of adaptations of which life is 
capable. He willthen not fail to work with a humble mind, however 
great his faith in the importance of the methods which are his own. 


18 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


It is surely right, however, to claim that in passing from its 
earlier concern with dead biological products to its present concern 
with active processes within living organisms, biochemistry has 
become a true branch of progressive biology. It has opened up modes 
of thought about the physical basis of life which could scarcely be 
employed at all a generation ago. Such data and such modes of 
thought as it is now providing are pervasive, and must appear as 
aspects in all biological thought. Yet these aspects are, of course, 
only partial. Biology in all its aspects is showing rapid progress, 
and its bearing on human welfare is more and more evident. 

Unfortunately the nature of this new biological progress and its 
true significance is known to but a small section of the lay public. 
Few will doubt that popular interest in science is extending, but it is 
mainly confined to the more romantic aspects of modern astronomy 
and physics. That biological advances have made less impression 
is probably due to more than one circumstance, of which the chief, 
doubtless, is the neglect of biology in our educational system. The 
startling data of modern astronomy and physics, though of course 
only when presented in their most superficial aspects, find an easier 
approach to the uninformed mind than those of the new experimental 
biology can hope for. The primary concepts involved are para- 
doxically less familiar. Modern physical science, moreover, has been 
interpreted to the intelligent public by writers so brilliant that their 
books have had a great and stimulating influence. 

Lord Russell once ventured on the statement that in passing 
from physics to biology one is conscious of a transition from the 
cosmic to the parochial, because from a cosmic point of view life 
is a very unimportant affair. Those who know that supposed parish 
well are convinced that it is rather a metropolis entitled to much 
more attention than it sometimes obtains from authors of guide-books 
to the universe. It may be small in extent, but is the seat of all the 
most significant events. In too many current publications, pur- 
porting to summarise scientific progress, biology is left out or receives 
but scant reference. Brilliant expositions of all that may be met in 
the region where modern science touches philosophy have directed 
thought straight from the implications of modern physics to the 
nature and structure of the human mind, and even to speculation 
concerning the mind of the Deity. Yet there are aspects of bio- 
logical truth already known which are certainly germane to such 
discussions, and probably necessary for their adequacy. 


VI. 
It is, however, because of its extreme importance to social pro- 
gress that public ignorance of biology is especially to be regretted. 
Sir Henry Dale has remarked that ‘it is worth while to consider 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 19 


to-day whether the imposing achievements of physical science 
have not already, in the thought and interests of men at large, 
as well as in technical and industrial development, overshadowed 
in our educational and public policy those of biology to an ex- 
tent which threatens a one-sided development of science itself 
and of the civilisation which we hope to see based on science.’ 
Sir Walter Fletcher, whose death during the past year has deprived 
the nation of an enlightened adviser, almost startled the public, 
I think, when he said in a national broadcast that ‘ we can find safety 
and progress only in proportion as we bring into our methods of 
statecraft the guidance of biological truth.’ That statecraft, in its 
dignity, should be concerned with biological teaching, was a new 
idea to many listeners. A few years ago the Cambridge philosopher, 
Dr. C. D. Broad, who is much better acquainted with scientific 
data than are many philosophers, remarked upon the misfortune 
involved in the unequal development of science ; the high degree 
of our control over inorganic nature combined with relative ignorance 
of biology and psychology. At the close of a discussion as to the 
possibility of continued mental progress in the world, he summed up 
by saying that the possibility depends on our getting an adequate 
knowledge and control of life and mind before the combination of 
ignorance on these subjects with knowledge of physics and cherhistry 
wrecks the whole social system. He closed with the somewhat 
startling words : ‘ Which of the runners in this very interesting race 
will win it is impossible to foretell. But physics and death have a 
long start over psychology and life!’ No one surely will wish for, 
or expect, a slowing in the pace of the first, but the quickening up 
in the latter which the last few decades have seen is a matter for high 
satisfaction. But, to repeat, the need for recognising biological 
truth as a necessary guide to individual conduct and no less to state- 
craft and social policy still needs emphasis to-day. With frank 
acceptance of the truth that his own nature is congruent with all 
those aspects of nature at large which biology studies, combined with 
intelligent understanding of its teaching, man would escape from 
innumerable inhibitions due to past history and present ignorance, 
and equip himself for higher levels of endeavour and success. 

- Inadequate as at first sight it may seem when standing alone in 
support of so large a thesis, I must here be content to refer briefly 
to a single example of biological studies bearing upon human 
welfare. I will choose one which stands near to the general theme 
of my address. I mean the current studies of human and animal 
nutrition. You are well aware that during the last twenty years— 
that is, since it adopted the method of controlled experiment—the 
study of nutrition has shown that the needs of the body are much 
more complex than was earlier thought, and in particular that 


20 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


substances consumed in almost infinitesimal amounts may, each in 
its way, be as essential as those which form the bulk of any adequate 
dietary. This complexity in its demands will, after all, not surprise 
those who have in mind the complexity of events in the diverse 
living tissues of the body. 

My earlier reference to vitamins, which had somewhat different 
bearings, was, I am sure, not necessary for a reminder of their nutri- 
tional importance. Owing to abundance of all kinds of advertise- 
ment vitamins are discussed in the drawing-room as well as in the 
dining-room, and also, though not so much, in the nursery, while 
at present perhaps not enough in the kitchen. Unfortunately, 
among the uninformed their importance in nutrition is not always 
viewed with discrimination. Some seem to think nowadays that if 
the vitamin supply is secured the rest of the dietary may be left to 
chance, while others suppose that they are things so good that we 
cannot have too much of them. Needless tosay, neither assumption 
is true. With regard to the second indeed it is desirable, now that 
vitamin concentrates are on the market and much advertised, to 
remember that excess of a vitamin may be harmful. In the case of 
that labelled D at least we have definite evidence of this. Neverthe- 
less the claim that every known vitamin has highly important 
nutritional functions is supported by evidence which continues to 
grow. It is probable, but perhaps not yet certain, that the human 
body requires all that are known. 

The importance of detail is no less in evidence when the demands 
of the body for a right mineral supply are considered. A proper 
balance among the salts which are consumed in quantity is here of 
prime importance, but that certain elements which ordinary foods 
contain in minute amounts are indispensable in such amounts is 
becoming sure. ‘To take but a single instance: the necessity of a 
trace of copper, which exercises somewhere in the body an indis- 
pensable catalytic influence on metabolism, is as essential in its way 
as much larger supplies of calcium, magnesium, potassium or iron. 
Those in close touch with experimental studies continually receive 
hints that factors still unknown contribute to normal nutrition, and 
those who deal with human dietaries from a scientific standpoint 
know that an ideal diet cannot yet be defined. This reference to 
nutritional studies is indeed mainly meant to assure you that the 
great attention they are receiving is fully justified. No one here, 
I think, will be impressed with the argument that because the human 
race has survived till now in complete ignorance of all such details 
the knowledge being won must have academic interest alone. This 
line of argument is very old and never right. 

One thing I am sure may be claimed for the growing enlighten- 
ment concerning human nutrition and the recent recognition of its 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 21 


study. It has already produced one line of evidence to show that 
Nurture can assist Nature to an extent not freely admitted a few 
years ago. That is a subject which I wish I could pursue. I cannot 
myself doubt that various lines of evidence, all of which should be 
profoundly welcome, are pointing in the same direction. 

Allow me just one final reference to another field of nutritional 
studies. Their great economic importance in animal husbandry calls 
for full recognition. Just now agricultural authorities are becoming 
acutely aware of the call for a better control of the diseases of animals. 
Together these involve an immense economic loss to the farmers, and 
therefore to the country. Although, doubtless, its influence should 
not be exaggerated, faulty nutrition plays no small share in accounting 
for the incidence of some among these diseases, as researches carried 
out at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen and elsewhere are demon- 
strating. There is much more of such work to be done with great 
profit. 


VII. 


In every branch of science the activity of research has greatly 
increased during recent years. ‘This all will have realised, but only 
those who are able to survey the situation closely can estimate the 
extent of that increase. It occurred to me at one time that an 
appraisement of research activities in this country, and especially the 
organisation of State-aided research, might fittingly form a part of 
my address. ‘The desire to illustrate the progress of my own sub- 
ject led me away from that project. I gave some time to a survey 
however, and came to the conclusion, among others, that from eight 
to ten individuals in the world are now engaged upon scientific 
investigations for every one so engaged twenty years ago. It must 
be remembered, of course, that not only has research endowment 
greatly increased in America and Europe, but that Japan, China, and 
even India have entered the field and are making contributions to 
science of real importance. It is sure that, whatever the conse- 
quences, the increase of scientific knowledge is at this time under- 
going a positive acceleration. 

Apropos, I find difficulty as to-day’s occupant of this important 
scientific pulpit in avoiding some reference to impressive words 
spoken by my predecessor which are still echoed in thought, talk and 
print. In his wise and eloquent address at York Sir Alfred Ewing 
reminded us with serious emphasis that the command of Nature has 
been put into man’s hand before he knows how to command himself. 
Of the dangers involved in that indictment he warned us; and we 
should remember that General Smuts also sounded the same note 
of warning in London. 

Of Science itself it is, of course, noindictment. It may be thought 


22 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


of rather as a warning signal to be placed on her road: ‘ Dangerous 
Hill Ahead,’ perhaps, or ‘ Turn Right’; not, however, ‘ Go Slow,’ 
for that advice Science cannot follow. The indictment is of man- 
kind. Recognition of the truth it contains cannot be absent from the 
minds of those whose labours are daily increasing mankind’s com- 
mand of Nature; but it is due to them that the truth should be 
viewed in proper perspective. It is, after all, war, to which Science 
has added terrors, and the fear of war, which alone give it real 
urgency ; an urgency which must of course be felt in these days 
when some nations at least are showing the spirit of selfish and 
dangerous nationalism. I may be wrong but it seems to me that, 
war apart, the gifts of science and invention have done little to 
increase opportunities for the display of the more serious of man’s 
irrational impulses. ‘The worst they do perhaps is to give to clever 
and predatory souls that keep within the law, the whole world for 
their depredations, instead of a parish or a country as of yore. 

But Sir Alfred Ewing told us of ‘ the disillusion with which, now 
standing aside, he watches the sweeping pageant of discovery and 
invention in which he used to make unbounded delight.’ I wish 
that one to whom applied science and this country owe so much 
might have been spared such disillusion, for I suspect it gives him 
pain. I wonder whether, if he could have added to an ‘ Engineer’s 
Outlook’ the outlook of a biologist, the disillusion would still be 
there. As one just now advocating the claims of biology I would 
much like to know. It is sure, however, that the gifts of the engineer 
to humanity at large are immense enough to outweigh the assistance 
he may have given to the forces of destruction. 

It may be claimed for biological science, in spite of vague references 
to bacterial warfare and the like, that it is not of its nature to aid 
destruction. What it may do towards making man as a whole more 
worthy of his inheritance has yet to be fully recognised. On this 
point I have said much. Of its service to his physical betterment 
you will have no doubts. I have made but the bare reference in this 
address to the support that biological research gives to the art of 
medicine. I had thought to say much more of this, but found that 
if I said enough I could say nothing else. 

There are two other great questions so much to the front just now 
that they tempt a final reference. I mean, of course, the paradox 
of poverty amidst plenty and the replacement of human labour by 
machinery. Applied science should take no blame for the former, 
but indeed claim credit unfairly lost. It is not within my capacity 
to say anything of value about the paradox and its cure ; but I con- 
fess that I see more present danger in the case of ‘ Money versus 
Man’ than danger present or future in that of the ‘ Machine versus 
Man’! 


THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 23 


With regard to the latter it is surely right that those in touch with 
science should insist that the replacement of human labour will 
continue. Those who doubt this cannot realise the meaning of 
that positive acceleration in science, pure and applied, which now 
continues. No one can say what kind of equilibrium the distribution 
of leisure is fated to reach. In any case an optimistic view as to 
the probable effects of its increase may be justified. 

It need not involve a revolutionary change if there is real planning 
for the future. Lord Melchett was surely right when some time 
ago he urged on the upper House that present thought should be 
given to that future; but I think few men of affairs seriously 
believe what is yet probable, that the replacement we are thinking of 
will impose a new structure upon society. This may well differ in 
some essentials from any of those alternative social forms of which 
the very names now raise antagonisms. I confess that if civilisation 
escapes its other perils I should fear little the final reign of the 
machine. We should not altogether forget the difference in use 
which can be made of real and ample leisure compared with that 
possible for very brief leisure associated with fatigue; nor the 
difference between compulsory toil and spontaneous work. Wehave 
to picture, moreover, the reactions of a community which, save 
for a minority, has shown itself during recent years to be educable. 
I do not think it fanciful to believe that our highly efficient national 
broadcasting service, with the increased opportunities which the 
coming of short wave-length transmission may provide, might well 
take charge of the systematic education of adolescents after the 
personal influence of the schoolmaster has prepared them to profit 
by it. It would not be a technical education but an education for 
leisure. Listening to organised courses of instruction might at first 
befor the few; but ultimately might become habitual in the com- 
munity which it would specially benefit. 

In parenthesis allow me a brief further reference to ‘ planning.’ 
The word is much to the front just now, chiefly in relation with 
current enterprises. But there may be planning for more funda- 
mental developments ; for future adjustment to social reconstructions. 
In such planning the trained scientific mind must play its part. Its 
vision of the future may be very limited, but in respect of material 
progress and its probable consequences Science (I include all 
branches of knowledge to which the name applies) has at least 
better data for prophecy than other forms of knowledge. 

It was long ago written, ‘Wisdom and Knowledge shall be 
stability of Thy times.’ Though statesmen may have wisdom ade- 
quate for the immediate and urgent problems with which it is their 
fate to deal, there should yet be a reservoir of synthesised and 
clarified knowledge on which they can draw. The technique which 


24 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 


brings Governments in contact with scientific knowledge in parti- 
cular, though greatly improved of late, is still imperfect. In any 
case the politician is perforce concerned with the present rather 
than the future. I have recently read Bacon’s New Atlantis afresh 
and have been thinking about his Solomon’s House. We know 
that the rules for the functioning of that House were mistaken 
because the philosopher drew them up when in the mood of a 
Lord Chancellor ; but in so far as the philosopher visualised therein 
an organisation of the best intellects bent on gathering knowledge 
for future practical services, his idea was a great one. When civilisa- 
tion is in danger and society in transition might there not be a 
House recruited from the best intellects in the country with 
functions similar (mutatis mutandis) to those of Bacon’s fancy? A 
House devoid of politics, concerned rather with synthesising 
existing knowledge, with a sustained appraisement of the progress 
of knowledge, and continuous concern with its bearing upon social 
readjustments. It is not to be pictured as composed of scientific 
authorities alone. It would be rather an intellectual exchange 
where thought would go ahead of immediate problems. I believe, 
perhaps foolishly, that given time I might convince you that the 
functions of such a House, in such days as ours, might well be real. 
Here I must leave them to your fancy, well aware that in the minds 
of many I may by this bare suggestion lose all reputation as a realist ! 

I will now hasten to my final words. Most of us have had a 
tendency in the past to fear the gift of leisure to the majority. To 
believe that it may be a great social benefit requires some mental 
adjustment, and a belief in the educability of the average man or 
woman. 

But if the political aspirations of the nations should grow sane, 
and the artificial economic problems of the world be solved, the 
combined and assured gifts of health, plenty, and leisure may prove 
to be the final justification of applied science. In a community 
advantaged by these each individual will be free to develop his own 
innate powers, and, becoming more of an individual, will be less 
moved by those herd instincts which are always the major danger 
to the world. 

You may feel that throughout this address I have dwelt exclusively 
on the material benefits of science to the neglect of its cultural value. 
I would like to correct this in a single closing sentence. I believe 
that for those who cultivate it in a right and humble spirit, Science 
is one of the Humanities ; no less. 


SECTION A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, 


SEASONAL WEATHER AND ITS 
PREDICTION 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF, SIR GILBERT -T. WALKER, C.S.I., FR.S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


I nave chosen the subject of seasonal weather for my address, because 
its economic importance is obvious to most men who have lived in the 
Tropics, and its scientific problems are full of interest. Unfortunately 
there is an additional motive, the need of warning against dangers ahead. 
For the difficulties of long-range forecasting are not in general adequately 
recognised, so that some of the most progressive countries in the world 
are inclined to make predictions on an insecure basis ; their technical 
staff does not realise that though the prestige of meteorology may be 
raised for a few years by the issue of seasonal forecasts, the harm done 
to the science will inevitably outweigh the good if the prophecies are 
found unreliable. We only learn from experience that while the fore- 
casting efforts of a charlatan are judged by their occasional successes, it 
is the occasional failures of a government department which are remem- 
bered against it. 

In a country where conditions are as changeable from day to day as 
they are here, it is natural that we should think in terms of wet or fine 
days rather than of wet or dry periods ; but in the greater part of our 
empire the different seasons are much more sharply defined, and so 
their dominant features stand out more clearly. Also the variability of 
their seasons is in general materially greater than here. Thus in the 
annual rainfall measurements of the last half-century the smallest rainfall 
of Great Britain has been 23 per cent. below normal ; but that of large 
areas in South Africa has been in defect by 40 per cent., in north-east 
Australia by 50 per cent., and in the Punjab by as much as 58 per cent., 
or two and a half times that of this country. 

Now a season that is unusual seems to have some abnormal factor 
permanently at work diverting the weather from its ordinary course ; 
in India I found, when issuing the daily forecast in a dry winter, that I had 
at times to predict no rain, when with identical conditions as shown by 
the weather map I should in a wet winter have predicted a widespread 
fall. Even in England, in winter, there is an appreciable persistence 
in the characteristics: during the last sixty years the fifteen wettest 
Januaries were followed by Februaries of more than average rainfall in 


26 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


ten cases; and with dry Januaries also there is a similar two-to-one 
chance of a prolongation of the character. It is this persistence, especially 
when it is preceded by abnormal features in other regions, that seems 
now to hold out most promise of reliability in forecasting. In agricultural 
countries in which a failure of the rains involves a national calamity, the 
desirability of making preparations in advance has long ago led to efforts 
at prediction ; and the demand has been so great that the supply has 
been forthcoming before its quality would bear the most cursory 
examination. The causes of unusual weather seem hopelessly obscure 
to the layman ; and hence primitive ideas, surviving in the depth of our 
natures from countless ages of magical practices, still come to the 
surface in connection with it. In India I have been officially asked 
what is the need of an expensive and difficult scientific inquiry into the 
causes of drought when Hindu astrology will indicate what is coming ; 
and many a country that claims to be dominated by Western science fails 
to recognise that events in weather obey the ordinary laws of physics and 
chemistry. The almost universal idea that weather must repeat itself 
after a certain number of years finds its origin, I believe, ultimately in 
the ancient belief in the control of our affairs by the heavenly bodies 
with their definite cycles—a belief which clearly shows itself in the 
supposed influence of the moon on the weather. Be that as it may, the 
faith in periods is so deep-seated that even in scientific discussions the 
ordinary tests for validity are very often ignored : more than once I have 
seen in journals of repute the artless remark of an author that if he were 
to limit his results to those which would satisfy the criteria of reality 
he would obtain few results of interest ! 

Another regrettable feature of current practice, even in important 
memoirs, is that of classing together processes with true periods and 
those sometimes called ‘quasi-periodic,’ of which the period varies. 
If our ideas are to be applied with success in the present enterprise 
their currency must be stabilised, and no good can come of attempting 
to pass off a vague surge of a few years as a three-year period. 

After these preliminary remarks I propose to make a rapid sketch 
of the relationships that have been found between seasonal features in 
different parts of the world, then to describe the efforts that have actually 
been made to issue long-range forecasts, and finally to consider the 
directions from which improvements can be hoped for. 

In the collection of World Weather Records, of which the publication 
was made possible by American generosity six years ago, there are about 
a thousand series of monthly data of pressure, temperature and rainfall ; 
and these form but a scanty network. If quarterly values were com- 
puted and correlation coefficients between each pair for contemporary 
seasons, as well as for seasons one quarter before and after, we should 
have about four million coefficients. Co-ordination and generalisation 
are imperatively called for, and the development of the subject lies in the 
discovery of regions over which the variations are linked together. 

After preliminary efforts by Buchan, Hoffmeyer, Blanford, de Bort, 
Hann, Meinardus and Pettersson, the far-reaching possibilities were 
first visualised by Hildebrandsson, who plotted pressure curves for ten 


A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 27 


years of sixty-eight stations scattered over the world and drew attention 
to the relations between them: among these the opposition between 
Sydney in Australia and Buenos Aires was fated to have great influence : 
his subsequent studies involved temperature and rainfall also. In 1902 
the Lockyers confirmed the existence of the see-saw between pressure 
in the Argentine and in India or Australia ; and using graphical methods 
produced a world map, dividing areas in it according as their pressures 
varied with India or South America. ‘They were followed by Bigelow’s 
study of relationships with solar prominences. During recent years 
considerable development has followed the introduction of statistical 
methods, particularly in the hands of Exner, and of members of the 
meteorological services of England and India. 

It will be convenient if I may here introduce a technical phrase. If 
we have two series of numbers of which the variations are connected, 
there will be a certain proportion of the variations of each which are 
associated with those of the other, and this proportion is called the 
correlation coefficient between the series. If it is nearly unity the numbers 
vary closely together ; if it is small there is little relationship between 
them ; and if it approaches —1 the relationship is close, but one series 
goes up when the other goes down. 

Let us now consider some of the results of the analysis of seasonal 
features. It has long been known that in the North Atlantic Ocean there 
are two types of winter. In one pressure is high near the Azores and 
south-west Europe, and low in Iceland, while temperatures are high in 
north-west Europe; in the other type all these features are reversed. 
(See the three upper graphs in Fig. 1.) Let us suppose that we want 
to know the effect of these types on, say, temperature in Labrador. 
An obvious plan would be to plot the variations in successive winters, 
December to February, of the quantities which increase together, such 
as Vienna pressure and Stornoway temperature, and also of the quantities 
which decrease when the former increase, such as Iceland pressure, 
reversing these so as to secure similarity of the graphs. We could then 
draw a graph which is the mean of all these, and could regard it as 
expressing the variations of the North Atlantic fluctuation as a whole. 
(See the lowest graph of Fig 1.) If now we were to plot Labrador tem- 
perature below it we should see that its variations were, like those of 
Iceland pressure, strongly opposed: and on reversing Labrador there 
would be very strong similarity. So Labrador becomes a good example 
of the second group. Now we want to know the effect of the North 
Atlantic oscillation on the pressure temperatures and rainfall of a large 
number of places ; and if in this way we put a hundred graphs under one 
another, some easy to classify and some doubtful in character, it would 
be difficult to draw satisfactory conclusions in a manner capable of 
convenient and accurate expression. So instead of graphs we use 
numbers. Having found by preliminary investigation the stations which 
are most representative, we calculate the figures in successive years for 
the North Atlantic oscillation as a whole, and then work out the correlation 
coefficients of this with the pressures, temperatures and rainfalls of all 
the places in which we are interested. These coefficients are plotted 


28 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


in Fig. 2, and in its top chart we see that the rise of pressure with a 
positive fluctuation is greater as far east as Vienna and as far west as the 
Bermudas than it is at the Azores. ‘There is also to be seen in the second 
chart conspicuous warmth in the east of the United States as well as in 
north-west Europe, and marked cold to the south-east of the Mediterranean 
as well as along the north-east of North America. On rainfall, in the 
lowest chart, the influence is less widespread. ‘The small amount of 
persistency is shown in Fig. 3. The first of its three graphs shows how 


VIENNA PRESS. DEC.~ FEB, 


ELANO PRESS. DEC -FEB 
REVERSED 


5 80 185 go 95 oo} 05 Pbrot rt rita torts 125) 1 1130 


Fic. 1.—N. Atlantic Oscillation. 


close are the relationships of pressure in December with the figures 
expressing the fluctuations of the North Atlantic in that month ; the 
second and third, which give the relationships of pressure and temperature 
in January with the fluctuations of the oscillation of the December before, 
show that little effect of the December conditions survives after a month. 

The more critical in my audience may object that if you are sufficiently 
astute in choosing your successive numbers for the fluctuation you can 
make a certain amount of agreement with any system of pressures and 
temperatures ; and to this the reply is that the fit is very much closer 
than can be explained in this way. Others may urge that all these 
arguments are merely numerical, and quote the jibe that by statistics 
you can prove anything. But if you wish to understand phenomena 
you must collect the facts, and if they are numerical it is only in the 


ad ae CONE ae 


et ce bios 


HTN bia eS Tp 
SHERS SaCSCaReee 
Perret ira 


Seg UV IEr cause 


“at oa ae : ane 


eal 
il 
WL 
finde 
Beard 
ye TA 
ee 
Hees 


pe ee 


par" ee 
= . 


eeosecrion. 7a esa Se aera a Ct 


eRe Te. 


i N Moelle | oy 
Ht 


i ¥) ”) TA : 
‘Ss age ie SI 


eae 


= Saal Ss ae 


mY 


Pans 
ee <coeae 


Sth 
(eS pared a ae MN 


Fic. 2.—Relations of N. Atlantic oscillation with area pressure, tem- 
perature and rainfall of December to February. Numbers based on series 
shorter than 30 years are in brackets ; those for areas are in circles. 


SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


[> 


Yas 
ao 


t 
- 
nw 
____ Brent « 


bs 5 
A HS 
Ss: & 
aN GS 
—. 
a = 
2, / : . 
2 5 S re) 
— a ri 
if 
\ 


vans 


Fic. 3.—Relations with the N. Atlantic oscillation of December. 


~~ 


A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 31 


very simplest of cases that you can see relationships by merely plotting 
curves and comparing them. Statistical methods are inevitably forced 
on us by common sense when we want accurate and reliable inferences 
from series of data, just as a sextant is forced on a sailor when he wants 
to determine accurately the altitude of the sun. One who has lost an 
important lawsuit, owing to the ingenious argument of the opposing 
counsel, may object that by logic you can prove anything ; but that is 
an inadequate defence for being illogical on all occasions. As a matter 
of fact, when studying relations of cause and effect statistical methods 


eee Bete cS Se ee Oo cS gS Se cel) OO Se | Ss 
® 8 $ 8 8 &® @ ® © § 8 S$ 8 S$ 8 8 8 8 B & 

aC bane ell eas a 

0 

-10 

+100 

0 

-100 

+500 

ny 

oO 

ra 

+1 

=500 


NL INL Av 


ail MARRIAGE RATE 
i) i) ' 


Fic. 4.—Illiteracy and unemployment. 


show us what quantities vary together, but strictly by themselves they 
tell us nothing as to causation. If we compare heights of fathers and 
sons, we learn that tall sons have tall fathers ; but in spite of that fact 
We are not convinced that the child is literally father to the man. 

Let us consider an example from data published in 1906 regarding 
‘unemployment and illiteracy as measured by the percentage of persons 
who could not sign their name in the marriage register (Fig. 4). Clearly 
the correlation coefficient between these two factors might lead to most 
undesirable inferences regarding the usefulness of education. But we 
could not expect to arrive at the truth if we ignored such an important 
fact as the amount of trade, and on admitting the data of this factor we 
See at once that faith in the value of our elementary schools need not be 
‘uprooted ; for the revival of prosperity produced marriage, especially 
among those in a humble position who could not write, as well as a 


a4 


lo p 


ay “TI 
lel 


oe ies 
fee 


Dla 
b oS 
q 


eal 


eH 

INES 

VAAL 
EGE 


ao HI 
iA 
ONT sie 


ie 
4 


‘yde 


reuisesserras, 


rd a preat ia 
eLS <7 s0L 


ies 
Ss 
a 


igor 
ma, 


ad 
ale 
Biss 
i 
| 1 


Hy 
? 
| 
| 


= 
“au 


aE 
(eax! 
wit 
ry 
& 
& 


eee 
eS ice 
ery 
HL. [2 Ties" | 
Ses 
Pr Se fete 


Ee 
Td oll AS | 


lege ea 
f 


mal tA NE 

8 (#) 2 i ts 

(4 es a iA 
: 
rey <8 a e 


7a 


ine | 
I) 
"as 


ra 


ENE 


aS Ral ae a 
ie Rae 
PSS ABR Ee |G 


SESS Ei Sika 
|| TBS | Rell 
aes ees 
| ice 
es | Nea | | | Sy 
eS a 
|e ie ZF OL 


Fic. 5.—Relations of N. Pacific oscillation with contemporary pressure, 
: emperature and rainfall. 


A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 33 


zat 


Fa 
3} 
V 


Bos 


a ia 
on ‘ | 
| | 


oa 
Sa 
ular aes 
ae | 


Ass 
Ae 
Pa TN 
rite 


bi 


NI Ae 
stn 
Wak 


+14 
avs 
i 


gp 
ve) 
sul 


' es l< | 
Pee 
50 


ga 


SE 
ee 


Se Se. | RIG UT ASS 
A 2 a | 


kb 


an 


Hew Ret 


ia 
ih 
tid 
Cats 
Lone, 
Pet Ele) 


Sra 
iercmesS 


prep eee 


mule 


Fic. 6.—Relations of Southern Oscillation of December to February with con- 
temporary pressure, temperature and rainfall. 
Cc 


34 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


} 


i ee 
| f 
| a 


NE Eee a ao 
aL aA es 


(ECTION. (3 SS ee =e 


A 
a Mr hata 


see oe aes 


a. 2 — SA | 


By enees cy CB 
eee pa 
“peble [ae Tae a 


ee 
aS CSE EDSRUEECEE 


hee Ag ee at 
: eae 


ie 
La 
5) 


Fic. 7.—Relations of Southern Oscillation of June to August with contemporary 
pressure, temperature and rainfall. 


A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 35 


decrease in unemployment ; so that the last two factors varied similarly. 
We see, then, that we may be misled if we do not take into account all the 
factors that may be operative. In other words, statistical methods like 
logarithm tables are invaluable as a tool for giving correct numerical 
results with the minimum of mental labour ; but neither tool possesses 
imagination or judgment, and neither of them is a substitute for expert 
knowledge of the subject to which it is applied. 

Let us now turn to the North Pacific Ocean which, in spite of its 
limited access to the Arctic seas, is subject to fluctuations very similar 
to those of the North Atlantic. A similar treatment yields Fig. 5, in 
which increased pressure gradients go with high temperature to the 
north-east and south-west, and low temperature to the north-west and 
south-east. It will be noted that in both the North Atlantic and Pacific 


1880-( 1890- 91 1910-11 1930-31 


FOLLOYVING 
SUMMER, 


THE SOUTHERN OSCILLATION. 


Fic. 8.—Forecast of December to February from previous June to August. 


Oceans a fluctuation is classed as positive when the pressure gradient 
is strong and the wind circulation is active. 

The largest known system of related seasonal weather is that called 
the ‘ southern oscillation ’ (or ‘ southern fluctuation ’), which has features 
in the southern summer of December to February somewhat different 
_ from those of the southern winter of June to August. It will be seen 

in Figs. 6 and 7 that at both times of the year the fluctuation is called 
positive when pressure is high in the southern Pacific and low in the 
‘Indian Ocean, and temperature is mostly low in the Tropics ; but. the 
economic importance is in connection with rainfall, for the fluctuation 
has a correlation coefficient of over 0-8 with the summer rainfall of north- 
east Australia, over 0-7 with the monsoon rainfall of India and with the 
Nile floods, 0:6 with the rainfall of large areas in South America, and 
over 0°5 with that of a region in South Africa. 

A surprising fact comes out on comparing the numerical series giving 
the characteristics of the summer and winter values of this fluctuation, 
the control of the southern winter on the succeeding summer being 
expressed by a coefficient of 0-82, the corresponding data being plotted 
together in Fig. 8; but the relationship with the previous summer is 


Be a 
=] ' 
I } 
, | 
NaS || a] 
’ H a 
i 


ee 


Y 


BS 


t:\ 


im 


VIM th ti ae 


aS 
gH ERE: 


fs 
AI oy 


| Sta 


oscillation of previous J—A. 


A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 37 


only 0:2. The immediate effect of this is that numerical values of the 
winter oscillation give us a means of predicting three months in advance, 
at any rate approximately, the summer values of the oscillation and 
therefore of the pressure, temperature and rainfall associated with them. 
In Fig. 9 are the relationships of the values of the pressure, temperature 
and rainfall of December to February, with the numbers indicating the 
fluctuation of the previous June to August. These express relationships 
which have held for about fifty years, and show that we have arrived, 
not at a mathematical figment, but at a physical reality of commercial 
value. 

These methods of prediction can be improved on by study of the 
relationships of individual areas. For example, the coefficient of 0°64 
of rainfall of north-east Australia with the oscillation of the previous 
winter becomes 0-79, when we base it on previous pressure at Honolulu, 


1900 ‘Oo ‘25 ‘30 


2 vaca ANN PS 


STEN neers oe 


ae ee ARE 


Fic. 10.—N.E. Australian rainfall, October to April. 


Port Darwin and South America ; a comparison of the actual rainfall with 
that given by the formula isshownin Fig.10. Similarly, theo-56 of South 
Africa becomeso:72. Butacertain amount of the improvement effected in 
this way by selecting the biggest factors is bound to be fictitious, even 
when there appear to be adequate independent reasons for thinking that 
the relationships are real ; and, if this precaution is ignored, the more 
promising the formula, as indicated by the closeness of its apparent 
relationship, the greater is the likelihood of disappointment. 

It must be admitted that a real control of 0-7 by previous conditions 
is about as good as is now available for forecasting, and the difference 
between the actual and the forecasted amounts will still be considerable ; 
so predictions can only be issued with restraint if public confidence is 
to be won. The natural consequence is silence, except when the 
indications are markedly favourable or unfavourable: in a race with 
thirty starters a conspicuously good horse may, without undue risk, be 
backed to come in within the foremost six, and we may feel confident 
that a thoroughly bad animal will be in the last six; but it would be 
unwise to hazard much on the likelihood that a commonplace individual 
will finish among the central six. It may at first sight seem a confession 


38 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


of weakness to issue no forecast when conditions appear roughly normal ; 
but it is better to admit your limitations, and only speak when you can 
do so with some safety, than to issue predictions when they are little 
more than guesses. 

The objection is sometimes raised that though a foreshadowing 
of abundant or scanty rain over a region may be right four times out of 
five, owing to local variations the predictions will not be so successful 
when applied to a particular farm ; and it must be admitted that this 
criticism is valid. But in England, as I learn from Sir John Russell, 
there are modifications of treatment and manuring that are appropriate 
before wet seasons and others before dry ; in South Africa, in hilly country, 
the upper levels are better for cultivation in wet years and the lower 
ones in dry years; in India, if the rains fail, cotton and millets will 
grow though the ordinary crops may perish. We may hope that, 
when our methods have improved, the prediction when applied to a 
particular farm will be right at least three times in five years; and if 
this is consistently acted upon, it will prove of material value in the 
long run. 

Of further applications of these methods some are worthy of a passing 
notice. For Siam, whose summer rain has a coefficient of 0-7 with the 
contemporary southern oscillation, a former Indian colleague has worked 
out a foreshadowing formula with a relationship of 0-8. And at length 
China, which has suffered terribly from floods as well as droughts, is 
receiving attention. A graduate from Shanghai, now working in London, 
finds that the Yangtse valley and three areas along the coast have enough 
data for a preliminary investigation, and has worked out formule for 
prediction with coefficients between 0:6 and 0-7. Mention should also 
be made of the researches of Okada in connection with the rice crop 
of Japan. 

Let us now turn from the academic to the practical, and see how far 
these theoretical methods justify themselves in actual experience. I 
believe that the earliest regular seasonal forecasts based on meteorological 
instead of astrological data were those of the Indian monsoon of June 
to September, started half a century ago in India by H. F. Blanford, 
and depending mainly for their success on the ill-effect upon the monsoon 
of excessive winter or spring snowfall in the Himalayas ; finally, however, 
he made the big generalisation that droughts might be associated with 
unusually high pressure over a great part of Asia, at Mauritius and in 
Australia. Eliot continued the monsoon forecasts from 1887 to 1903, 
but data in those days were scanty ; he attempted far too much detail, 
his mode of expression was somewhat pontifical, and the newspapers 
became sarcastic ; so latterly he obtained immunity from criticism by 
printing the forecasts as confidential documents. The gradual intro- 
duction of statistical methods in India has undoubtedly led to improve- 
ment; but as we have seen it is much easier to predict the rainfall of 
December to February than that of June to September, and the length 
of the series of Indian data is not yet great enough to give complete 
reliability. After careful scrutiny I estimate that of the forecasts issued 
before the monsoon periods from 1905 to 1932 two-thirds were correct ; 


A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 39 


but I consider that this is not good enough and that we have been too 
ambitious. Also while the approximate prediction formula of 1908 has 
stood the test of time with credit, the later ones of 1924 for north-west 
India and the Peninsula separately, although certainly better in theory, 
have not, in the short period of trial, proved so successful. The contrast 
between the working of the formule before and after their date of 
preparation will be seen in Fig. rr. 

Happily in Southern Rhodesia, which in 1922 adopted statistical 
methods similar to those of India with only twenty-four years of data to 
work upon, the results have been eminently satisfactory. Out of eleven 


1924 FORMULAE 
eee oOavawa—wmyua=s=—' 


a 
PENINSULA  sune-Serr. ‘Limit’ = -g42Vi-eo = 3-48 \ 
CALCULATED [| 


s* Ny pm Ni ai 
JL WSVAVANIEL ATIVAN 
AGAR AMITNMTAVU AIA NGHINA 


ACTUA 
Peis 


N.W.INDIA_ sune-Sepr. ‘Limit’= 3h. 
PERT 


CALCULATED 


5: pe | IN | ! e 

os ASEAN NECA TAY SAVIN NAL ADS 
SNAIL TEDL AVALT TT 
ae INV AVI 


VV, 


1875 


Fig. 11.—Calculated and actual Indian rainfall. 


years since publication was begun, there have been eight in which a 
departure of over 3 in. was given by the formula, and in seven of these 
the character was correctly indicated (Fig. 12). 

At Batavia the efficient Dutch observatory under Braak started in 
1909 to issue forecasts founded on the simple rule that low pressure 
from January to June was followed by abundance of rain from July to 
December. The rule demanded a more complete presistence of pressure 
than actually prevails, and in 1927 Berlage adopted a formula based on 
three local conditions, together with data of the rare rains of northern 
Peru: this gives, on paper, a relationship of over 0°8. 

In Australia calamitous failures in the rains have long demanded 
forecasts, and these led to the production of weather cycles, which broke 
_ down so frequently that their use was discarded. In spite of this 
experience, however, Hunt, the Commonwealth Meteorologist, put 


40 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


forward in 1929 a theory of a four-year period, based on the cooling 
effect of the widespread growth of luxuriant vegetation produced by the 
rainfall in areas that were parched. I believe that the theory has not 
been adopted officially. 

When we turn from the tropical and subtropical to the temperate 
regions, where the persistence of conditions is in general conspicuously 


1922/3 23/4 24/5 25/6 2b/7 27/8 28/9 2/30 30f1 31 32/3 


poser 


ACTUAL 


S. RHODESIA RAINFALL, OCT~APR. 


Fic. 12. 


smaller, we must expect greater difficulties in making long-range forecasts. 
In America the relations of weather and crops have probably been worked 
out more scientifically than in any other country, so that the commercial 
value of reliable predicting has long been recognised ; and not only by 
farmers, but by those interested in water supply, in power schemes, 
in transport and in commerce generally. Thus one of the Californian 
hydro-electric companies makes its own forecasts, because it may spend 
four million dollars more for crude oil in a dry than in a wet year. Ina 
country of exuberant vitality it is not surprising that many efforts should 


A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 41 


have been made to provide for the general demand. In an article in 
1927, by C. F. Brooks, we read that in the absence of forecasts ‘ western 
farmers have paid a “ rainmaker ” thousands of dollars at a time ’ actually 
to produce rain ; that during the previous ten years ‘ well over fifty long- 
rangers of greater or lesser repute have been publishing and, in a great 
many cases, accepting money for worthless or damaging forecasts.’ As 
in Europe, they have predictions based on occurrences on critical days, 
such as Candlemas or St. Swithin’s, as well as on the doings of animals 
and birds. Thus Brooks quotes from an almanac of 1870: ‘ When 
you see 13 geese walking injun file and toeing in you can deliberately 
bet yure last surviving dollar on a hard winter, and grate fluktuousness 
during the next seazon in the price of cowhide boots.’ 

Undeterred by the difficulties, G. F. McEwen, of the Scripps Institution 


A 


NEW F OUN DLAND }CEBERGS. MARCH —-TULY. |, 


PUM ALIV TEV UELIVTTETHAQVTU 


N 


Fic. 13.—Atlantic Icebergs and the previous oscillation. 


of Oceanography in California, has for some time been forecasting rainfall 
by empirical methods, and at first attained considerable success, largely 
on the basis of a short series of ocean temperatures. These, however, 
as he has recognised, have not of late made good their early promise ; 
and he is driven to using sunspot numbers, a cycle of five or six 
years, and a complex method of smoothing in the hope of attaining 
reliability. 

A less difficult task confronts the International Ice Patrol Service of 


the United States in their desire to obtain advance information of the 


amount of Arctic ice drifting into the western North Atlantic. I do not 
know what progress has been made, but the dependence on the previous 
North Atlantic oscillation, with which there is a coefficient of 0:60, would 
appear to suggest a useful starting-point (Fig. 13). 

In Europe the only seasonal forecasts known to me that have a scientific 
foundation, and have been made for anumber of years, are those of Sweden 
and Russia. In Sweden Wallén has for eighteen years made predictions 
for rainfall and for the height of water. Regarding rainfall, he smoothes 
by taking the sums of consecutive twelve months ; and then, assuming 

C2 


42 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


that the nature of the fluctuation so disclosed will not change suddenly, 
he forecasts that the total rainfall of some definite period, usually six 
months or a year, will be greater, or less, than it was in the previous year. 
Now a moment’s thought will make it clear that a man will in the long 
run be right three times out of four if, when last year’s rain was in defect, 
he predicts an increase, or if it was in excess he forecasts a diminution. 
So I think it is not unfair to say that success under the Swedish condi- 
tions begins at 75 percent. The success actually attained is 82 per cent., 
which is encouraging; and the success in dealing with water levels 
is phenomenally great, being slightly over go per cent. 

The seasonal conditions of Russia, which are not very closely related 
with those of the North Atlantic, have been carefully examined by W. Wiese. 
In 1923 the Hydrometeorological Office of Leningrad started publishing 
forecasts of ice in the Barents Sea, and out of seventeen monthly fore- 
casts of which I have information fifteen were approximately correct. 
Predictions of the rainfall of April and May in central and east Russia 
were initiated at the same time, and all the first four years they were 
approximately correct: the biggest difference between the actual and fore- 
casted amounts was only 20 per cent. 

No account of European activity in this department could ignore the 
enterprise of Prussia four years ago in creating at Frankfurt a.M. a post 
for research into long-period forecasting. Dr. Franz Baur has for the 
present wisely limited his activity to the issue of a forecast of ten days ; 
it would be impossible to expect results under these conditions 
which are as accurate as those of daily weather work, but I am in- 
formed that their standard fully demonstrates the trustworthiness of 
the principles employed. It is only by experiments of this kind that 
satisfactory methods of prediction can be developed. 

We may now pass to the consideration of improvements in our methods, 
and the fundamental question at once arises—what is the physical cause 
of seasonal fluctuations ? We should naturally look for it in variations in 
the energy received from the sun, and it is surprising that an increase 
in solar activity as measured by sunspots produces a slight decrease in the 
circulations in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. In the southern 
fluctuation the tendency of numerous spots is to produce positive values, 
but even there the biggest seasonal correlation coefficient is only 0-26, 
which is much too small to provide the explanation that we seek. 
Moreover, it probably arises because a positive fluctuation is associated 
with low temperatures between latitudes 40° N. and 40° S.; and these 
are linked with an increase in sunspots. 

In order to verify that the daily pressures are not produced by short- 
lived emanations from the sun tabulations of the relationships between 
daily and weekly, as well as the monthly and seasonal, values at distant 
places have been made ; for if the daily values over the earth are controlled 
from outside there will be close parallelism between these daily and 
weekly pressures. It was found that between 31 daily contemporary 
pressures at Honolulu and Batavia the coefficient was — 0-12, which is 
negligible ; between 39 weekly ones it was +-0-10, between 47 monthly 
June pressures it was — 0-12, and between the pressures of 47 three- 


A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 43 


monthly seasons of June to August it was —0-46. Between Samoa and 
Batavia December pressures the coefficient was —o0-38, and for the 
season December to February it was —o-60. ‘Thus it is between the 
characteristics that persist over months, not over days or weeks, that 
relationships exist. 

Being forced off short-lived phenomena we search for an explanation 
in terms of slowly changing features, such as ocean temperatures ; and 
the big variations from year to year in the amount of pack ice in the 
antarctic seas forces itself on our attention. But here the reports of 
twelve years from the South Orkneys yield a relationship of only 0-32 
with the southern fluctuation, instead of about 0-9, as we should want in 
a prime cause ; and the variations at the South Orkneys come after rather 
than before those of the southern oscillation. The biggest ocean region 
is the Pacific, and as an index of its seasonal water temperature we 
may use the corresponding air temperature of Samoa, which shows a 
greater persistence than any factor in the world as yet examined ; the 
relationship between its summer and autumn values is as large as 0-94. 
But unluckily the correlation coefficients show clearly that it is mainly 
the southern fluctuation in winter that controls the Samoa temperature. 
Thus a short-cut to the explanation of our fundamental problems seems 
as far away as ever. Our three big fluctuations each form a system of 

_ changes which are apparently held together by meteorological links : 
and there is, in my opinion, as yet no satisfactory proof of any free periods 
associated with them. 

Let us now consider in what direction new developments seem likely. 
A moment’s reflection will convince us that in view of the variations of 
rainfall over large areas, such as Brazil and Central Africa, which are 
scarcely affected by the three big fluctuations, there must be others, 
some of which are probably on a big scale. For example we should, on 
the analogy of the northern oceans, expect a fluctuation of pressure 

_ between the antarctic low pressure belt and the high pressure belt of 
—30°S. Weare at once reminded of the marked opposition which Simpson 
_ found during the short period of four years for which data were available 
_ between pressure at McMurdo Sound and that in a belt round the earth 
_ extending from about 25° S. to about 50°S. All students of this subject 
have found it natural to regard the fluctuations in the amount of pack 
_ ice in the antarctic seas as likely to control sea and therefore air tempera- 
tures over large regions, and the most southern station from which as 
_ Many as twenty-five years of data are forthcoming is the South Orkneys. 
_ Its winter pressure does show the opposition that we should expect with 
that of Australia, but not with the high-pressure region of South America 
, gh-p § 
or Mauritius ; so that it gives little support to the view that there is a 
general pressure oscillation between the low and the high pressure belts 
of the southern hemisphere. On the other hand, the air temperature at 
the South Orkneys may be regarded as an index of the sea temperature : 
and as the ocean current through the Drake Passage would take about a 
year to reach South Africa, we are not astonished at the relationship of 
0°56 between the South Orkneys air temperature in winter and that of the 
next winter at Cape Town. ‘This is not, however, as close as the corre- 


44 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


sponding relationship of 0-84 shown in Fig. 14 between the winter tem- 
perature at New Year Island at the extreme south-east of South America, 
and that at Cape Town a year later. The far greater influence of New 
Year Island is interesting, since between Cape Horn and the South 
Orkneys there runs E.N.E.a line which the recent Discovery expedition 
calls the Antarctic Convergence ; here the cold antarctic water meets the 
northern warmer water and dives under it. So while the current flowing 
past New Year Island can after a year approach South Africa that from 
the South Orkneys is cut off by a barrier. 

If I may summarise these remarks, I would say that although seasonal 
foreshadowing is still very imperfect it has come to stay ; for situations 
will arise from time to time, as they did in India in 1905, in which it 


1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 


+PC 


“PC 


Fic. 14.—Departures from normal of Ano Nuevo temperature, June to August, 
and of Cape Town temperature, June to August, of following year. 


can be foreseen with practical certainty that rains will fail and a warning 
will then be of great value. But those who prepare formule by the 
selection, based merely on the closeness of their apparent relationship, 
of a few out of many factors must remember that they cannot expect the 
value of all these factors to be maintained; and if they have a fore- 
casting formula which on paper works out with a coefficient of, say, 0°75, 
they must realise that this is in reality probably not more than 0-6, or 
in some cases even 0-4. And I would plead for a much severer standard 
in handling questions of periodicity. If these views are right, no 
anticipations should be published except on the strongest evidence of 
excess or defect until the experience of fifteen or twenty years has justified 
a less cautious policy. i 

Finally I would express the hope that the subject may, by its potential 
value to the race, and by the many-sided nature of its interests, enlist the 
services of some of my hearers who are qualified to unravel some of ‘its 
intricacies. 


SECTION B—CHEMISTRY. 


NATURAL COLOURING MATTERS 
AND THEIR ANALOGUES 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF. ROBERT ROBINSON, F.R:S. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


On taking the Chair of this Section I should like to express my thanks 
for the great honour which you and the Council of the British Association 
have conferred on me. 


Although the subject which I have selected for my address is necessarily 
somewhat technical, it occurred to me that the problem of flower colour 
is of general interest, and the gist of what I have to say is a contribution 
to the answer to the question: why are some flowers blue and others, 
containing the same pigment, ved? In the interests, too, of members of 
this audience who are not organic chemists I propose to allow the spoken 
to diverge from the written word, and I shall venture also to attempt the 
performance of a few simple experiments. 

In every country and throughout the ages emotions have been stirred 
and curiosity aroused by the display of colour in Nature, but it is perhaps 
not generally realised that the ready availability of artificial colouring 
matters suitable for every kind of tinctorial purpose, from boot polish 
to finger nails, is a comparatively recent development. We read of the 
ancient Tyrian purple, the purple of kings, and of the red cosmetic pig- 
ments of natives of the Orinoco, so rare that they were used as the basis 
of exchange ; in contrast, at the present time dyes of all shades may be 
indulged in to an extent controlled certainly by individual courage, taste and 
discretion, but hardly at all by limitations of purse or social status. It may 
be that this ‘ freedom of the hues ’ has been enjoyed for so brief a period 
that a state of equilibrium has not yet been reached and we are not using our 
privileges in this matter either as fully as possible or as wisely as possible. 

It is not, however, for an organic chemist to discuss such problems as 
that of masculine sartorial conservatism on the one hand, or to attempt an 
estimate of the esthetic value of the film-fan magazine cover on the other. 

The chemist has been attracted to the investigation of natural and 
artificial colouring matters for a variety of reasons, including not only 
colour-pleasure, the incentive of the knowledge that chlorophyll and 
hemoglobin perform some of the most important functions in vital pro- 
cesses, and the industrial importance of dyestuffs and pigments, but also 
on account of the fact that visible colour more than any other property 
facilitates the experimental study of organic substances whether by 
analysis or synthesis. It furnishes a standard of homogeneity or a measure 
of concentration, it is an invaluable guide in the search for methods of 


46 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


separation and purification, and it at once indicates, by its appearance or 
disappearance, the occurrence of a chemical reaction. Small wonder 
that the successful outcome of the investigation of many colourless sub- 
stances has awaited the discovery of some characteristic colour-reaction ; 
a noteworthy example being Vitamin A. Odour is a more specific 
property than colour as judged by the eye, and in a more limited field it 
has proved equally useful to chemists who prefer to follow their noses. 
However, we cannot yet resolve odours in a spectrum. 

Thus the pursuit of a fascinating object has been along a path of 
relatively low resistance and the pioneers have been richly rewarded. 

Like a list of best books, a catalogue of outstanding achievements 
invites destructive criticism. I do not fear this, however, in recalling 
the researches of Laurent, Kekulé, Baeyer and Heumann on indigo ; of 
Sir William Perkin, Hofmann, Otto and Emil Fischer, Meldola and many 
others on the basic dyes ; of Griess and his host of followers on the azo- 
compounds ; of Arthur Perkin and of Kostanecki on the flavones and 
flavonols ; of Willstatter on the respiratory pigments and the antho- 
cyanins ; and, not least, of Hans Fischer on the synthesis of the prosthetic 
group of the blood pigment. 

No attempt can be made to cover this vast field, but the mere mention 
of these topics serves to prove the immense theoretical and practical value 
of a study of organic colouring matters. ‘The work proceeds and a long 
chapter on the natural carotinoid pigments is even now being written by 
Karrer, Kuhn and others ; it is of great chemical and biological interest. 

Before dealing with the special group of the anthocyanins, some aspects 
of which have recently been studied at Oxford, attention may be directed 
to the analogies in constitution existing between natural colouring matters 
and artificial dyestuffs. 

As the result of the researches of Baeyer, indigotin is generally regarded 
as having the formula I, but a technical digression may be made to the 
effect that the formula II has not yet been completely disproved. 


vA JNEY_/CO 
Ges: & ae va | : 
7 Rg icin. C 
~ me \Y/ Ng aaa 
(I) (11) 


The oxidation of indoxyl to indigotin appears to favour I, but then 
Gabriel has shown that the oxidation of diketohydrindene (III) by means 
of alkaline persulphate furnishes dihydroxynaphthacenequinone (IV). 


OH 

JV SO O Sere 

2 CH: a 
(III) (IV) 


B.—CHEMISTRY 47 


All the indigotin syntheses can give II just as well as I, and II can yield 
isatin on oxidation. ‘The recent researches of E. Hope prove that some 
of the products of the action of benzoyl chloride on indigotin possess the 
skeleton of II, but of course this may arise from an intramolecular 
rearrangement. The chief argument against II is derived from a con- 
sideration of the numerous classes of indigoid dyestuffs which are easily 
formulated on the model of I. 

The industrial analogues of indigo are its substituted derivatives, the 
thioindigos (e.g. V) and similar indigoid dyes, and indanthrone (VI). 
The first-mentioned classes were made in imitation of the indigotin 


(V) (VI) 


structure, but in the case of indanthrone flattery was unconscious. 
Both indigotin, and indanthrone contain the chromophoric quinone 
group —CO—C = C—CO— and closely situated auxochromic —NH— 
groups. 

Graebe and Liebermann’s recognition of the constitution of alizarin 
(madder) (VII) led, as in the case of indigo, to the industrial synthesis of 
the colouring matter itself and of numerous derivatives and analogues. 


ave OH Ai pa ? 
ON “ 
Bm pon Ole 
CO 
(VI) (VHT) 


At the present time we recognise in retrospect that the most important 
outcome of the work on madder was the attention focussed on the study: 
of anthraquinone and its derivatives. It may seem a far cry from the 
adjective natural dyestuff to the modern vat dyestuff Caledon Jade 
Green (VIII), but the descent is in the direct line—alizarin, Alizarin 
Blue, benzanthrone, dibenzanthrone, Jade Green. Technical analogues 
of the anthocyanidins are to be found in the phthaleins, pyronines and 
rhodamines, and some more or less close dyestuff analogy can be found to 
correspond with most of the series of natural colouring matters. 


48 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


The most recent, and certainly one of the most interesting, examples of 
this kind is found in the phthalocyanines which contain a porphyrazine 
structure, that is the porphin skeleton of the natural porphyrins in 
which some —CH= groups are replaced by —N=. Dr. Linstead will 
shortly give an account of his investigations of these substances and of 
their remarkable properties. 

It was primarily with cognisance of Dr. Linstead’s work that I ventured 
to direct your attention to analogues of natural colouring matters ; this is 
at the technical end of the scale, and in contrast Professor Kuhn has kindly 
consented to describe some novel natural colouring matters of high 
biochemical interest. 

The following sections of this address deal with developments of the 
chemistry of the red, blue and violet colouring matters of flowers and 
blossoms. 


STRUCTURE AND SYNTHESIS OF THE ANTHOCYANINS. 


A brief description of the chemistry of the anthocyanins is necessary at 
this stage. ‘The brilliant and pioneering researches of Richard Willstatter 
and his co-workers (1914— __) established the main features of the chemistry 
of the anthocyanins which were recognised as saccharides, occasionally 
acylated, of the anthocyanidins. They exhibit amphoteric character, 
forming salts with both acids and bases. Thus the violet pigment cyanin, 
which can be isolated from blue cornflowers, red roses, deep red dahlias 
and other flowers, forms a blue sodium salt and a red hydrochloride. 
The hydrolysis of the latter by means of hot aqueous hydrochloric acid 
into cyanidin chloride and glucose is represented by the equation : 

Co7H 51046 Cl + 2H,0 = C,5Hy,06Cl + 2C,H,,0, 
cyanin chloride cyanidin glucose 
chloride 


The constitution of cyanidin chloride (X) has been established by analysis 
and numerous syntheses ; the first of these (Willstatter and Mallison) 
utilised the reduction of quercetin (IX) by means of magnesium in 
aqueous methyl alcoholic hydrochloric acid solution (demonstration). 


Cl 
4 On\ OH HO Oo. OH 
HO 
C OH C OH 
eT) ee 
= (& 
Pan NOH H,+HCl 7 NOH +H,0 
WARNES 2 6 SCH +H, 
(IX) | (X) 


In this process a widely distributed anthoxanthin yields a widely 
distributed anthocyanidin, and the temptation to assume that similar 
reactions occur in the plant laboratory is very great. There is, however, 
very little justification for this view and the experimental support brought” 
forward in its favour will not survive careful scrutiny. The alleged 


B.—CHEMISTRY 49 


crystalline anthocyans prepared by the reduction of natural flavones or 
plant extracts containing them are nothing but the said flavones with 
a small proportion of adsorbed colouring matter of anthocyanidin type. 
It seems much more probable that the flavones and anthocyanins are 
independently synthesised, although perhaps from a common starting 
point. The existence of genetic factors which control the occurrence of 
anthoxanthins independent of that of anthocyanins is strong evidence in 
favour of this view. 

The anthocyanidins which have been isolated are the following : 
pelargonidin (XI), cyanidin (XII), peonidin (XIII), delphinidin (XIV), 
petunidin (XV), malvidin (XVI) and hirsutidin (XVII), represented as 
chlorides. All have been synthesised by unambiguous methods and the 
synthetic specimens have been carefully compared and identified with the 


Cl Cl OH 
a ——s 


OH NEO 
HO 


HO 
(XI) (XID) 
ice OMe Saran OH 
HO tt apa OH HO On < ou 
OH OH OH 
HO HO 
(XIII) (XIV) 
om OMe oF, OMe 
HO O a Nou HO? 20 —< You 
OH | ‘OMe 
OH \ 40H 
HO HO 
(XV) (XVI) 
OMe 3 
/OH OMe ae: 5 
HO 5 
(XVII) Numbering Scheme. 


_ hatural products. It will be observed that pelargonidin, cyanidin and 
_ delphinidin are the fundamental types, peonidin being a methyl ether of 
_ cyanidin and petunidin, malvidin and hirsutidin being, respectively, the 
_ mono-, di-, and trimethyl ethers of delphinidin. 


50 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


The greater number of the anthocyanins fall into a comparatively 
restricted number of categories, including : 


(a) the 3-monoglucosides and 3-monogalactosides, 

(6) the 3-rhamnoglucosides and other 3-pentoseglycosides, 
(c) the 3-biosides, 

(d) the 3 : 5-diglucosides, and 

(e) the acylated anthocyanins. 


It is unnecessary to recount the steps taken in reaching these conclusions, 
but they have been finally justified by synthesis in many instances. 

In group (a) we find callistephin (XVIII), the monoglucoside of pelar- 
gonidin occurring as one of the pigments of the aster and as the main 
pigment of scarlet carnations and many other flowers; the related 
galactoside, fragarin, is the colouring matter of the strawberry. 

In the cyanidin series the corresponding pair is chrysanthemin and 
idwin (XIX), the former of wide distribution and the latter occurring 
in the skins of cranberries and in the leaves of the copper beech. 

Peonidin 3-monoglucoside (XX), termed oxycoccicyanin, is found in 
the skins of the larger American cranberries and cenin or malvidin 
3-monoglucoside (XXI) is the colouring matter of the skins of purple- 
black grapes, as well as of certain cyclamen and primule. The delphi- 
nidin representative undoubtedly occurs in bilberries in admixture with 
other pigments, and it has not yet been fully examined ; the petunidin 
and hirsutidin representatives have not been isolated from natural sources, 
although there is reason to believe that the former occurs in the berries 
of the Darwin barberry and the latter has been synthesised. 


Cl Cl OH 

HO 6 | pon coer e 

O0-C,H,05 CA /0-CeliniOs 
HO 


(XVIII) (XIX) 
ee OMe — OMe 
HOY On. < Son HO on < You 
as 
OMe 
WZ O-C,H,,0; /O-C.H1105 
HO HO 
(XX) (XXI) 


In groups (b) and (c) we find large classes of anthocyanins of which 
only a few representatives have been closely studied. These include 
keracyanin (cyanidin 3-rhamnoglucoside), probably identical with antir- 
rhinin (isolated by Miss R. Scott-Moncrieff), and mecocyanin (XXII), 


B.—CHEMISTRY 51 


a pigment of red poppies which is now recognised by synthesis as 
cyanidin 3-gentiobioside. There is very little doubt that pelargonidin 


Beligcric LORE 
sGeee 
a Aiak geal er Cs ena a 
O 


O 
(XXII) 


3-rhamnoglucoside colours the scarlet gloxinia and that pelargonidin 
3-biosides are of widespread occurrence, for example, in the ordinary 
orange-red nasturtium and in the flowers of the scarlet runner bean. 

The anthocyanins of groups (a), (6) and (c), when derived from the same 
anthocyanidin, exhibit similar behaviour as indicators. ‘Thus chry- 
santhemin, keracyanin and mecocyanin all give a violet solution in aqueous 
soda and this becomes blue on the addition of caustic alkali. On partial 
hydrolysis mecocyanin and antirrhinin actually yield chrysanthemin. 

The anthocyanins of class (d) are the most widely distributed and best- 
known members of this series of natural pigments ; they include pelar- 
gonin (XXIII), the colouring matter of the scarlet pelargonium and 
possibly the first anthocyanin to be obtained in a crystalline condition 
(Molisch’s experiment), also cyanin (XXIV), the isolation of which from 
the blue cornflower by Willstatter and Everest in 1914 was the first of 
an impressive series of investigations. 


Cl 
—— 
HO“ AN _ on HONS _< on 


| hey oa 
O-C,H,,0; ee O-C,H,,0; 


C,H,,0,:0 C,H,,0,;°0 
(XXIII) (XXIV) 


Peonin from the deep red peony and malvin (XXV) from the wild 
mallow or from certain primulz, are the peonidin and malvidin repre- 
sentatives in this group, which is completed by petunin and hirsutin. 
Quite recently the delphinidin member has been isolated from Salvia 
patens. 

The anthocyanins of group (d) differ from those of groups (a), (6) and 
(c) in their alkali-colour-reactions and in their marked instability to 
aqueous sodium hydroxide. ‘Thus cyanin, which compares with meco- 
cyanin in group (c), gives a pure blue solution in aqueous soda and the 
dilute solution becomes very quickly yellow on the addition of sodium 
hydroxide (demonstration). 

Pelargonin, cyanin, peonin, malvin and hirsutin have been synthesised 


52 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


and an example of the methods adopted may be schematically indicated 
in the case of malvin. 


MeO MeO 

Acog’ coc! CHAN: Aco co-cHN,  HCO.H 
MeO MeO 
MeO FtOH MeO 

AcO CO: CHEO-CHO Mn... es Aco¢ CO-CH,OH 
MeO MeO 


Hy 
Bromoacetoglucose, 
Ag,CO, 
Bromoacetoglucose 


HO /\.0H 
OM 
CHO KOH in MeCN wae 
for 


HO 
HO/\OH A | 
HCl in CH, 
CHO EtAc mis 
(AcO),:C,H,O-O O-C,H,O(OAc),4 
.-_s. —__~ 


rg Cl 


pee 
IE O OMe 
. va HO 1s < oH 
acetylated hydrolysis Ba(OH), | OMe 
malvin SE EnEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE O-C,H,,0;° 


chloride HsO, tcl  C,8:{0;-0 
(XXV) 


The anthocyanins can be characterised and qualitatively distinguished 
by their distribution between immiscible solvents, and in the case of 
disaccharides the use of n-butyl alcohol is convenient (demonstration). 

Acylated anthocyanins occur in all the anthocyanidin series ; thus, on 
hydrolysis, delphinin, the pigment of species of delphinium, furnishes 
p-hydroxybenzoic acid as well as glucose and delphinidin. 

Many other delphinidin derivatives are acylated by means of p-hydroxy- 
cinnamic acid, probably attached to the sugar hydroxyls, and pelargonin 
and cyanin also occur in acylated forms. ‘These so-called complex antho- 
cyanins are characterised by high distribution numbers ; they are usually 
acylated 3 : 5-dimonosides, but in the delphinidin series, gentianin and 
violanin appear to be p-hydroxycinnamates of delphinidin monoglucoside 
and rhamnoglucoside respectively (Karrer). There is also some evidence 
of another type of depside anthocyanin in which the acyl group is directly 
attached to the anthocyanidin molecule and the glucoside group is borne 
by the hydroxyl of the acid residue. 


e 
OAc 
CO OMe 


B.—CHEMISTRY 53 


ANTHOCYANINS AS INDICATORS AND THE CAUSES OF VARIATIONS OF 
: CoLours OF FLOWERS 


(With Mrs. G. M. Rosinson). 


The amphoteric character of the anthocyanins accounts for the exhibi- 
tion of a wide variety of colours in a range of solutions of graded pH, and 
this method (demonstration), using buffered solutions, can be employed 
for the characterisation of anthocyanidins and anthocyanins. Under the 
specified conditions the results are fully reproducible and the pH values 
have been controlled by electrical methods as well as by the use of indi- 
cators. Thus, if the pH of an acid cyanin solution is increased until the 
violet tone matches that of an alkaline cyanin solution, the pH of which 
is decreased in order to reach the same condition, then the pH of the violet 
solution will be found to be 7:0-9-0, depending on the shade of violet 
produced. Cyanin is red in solutions of pH 3-0 or less, violet at pH 8°5 
and blue at pH 11-0. The red, violet and blue forms are the oxonium salt 
(XXIV), the colour-base (XXVI) and the salt of the colour-base (X XVII). 


HOA Ov, at HOO yy io La PBe 
c=¢7)=0 e=¢ =0 
| tal ee | 
C-0-C,H,,0; C-0-C,H,0; 

/ ay 
C.H,,0,0 & C,H,,0;"0 

H 

(XXVI) (XXVII) 


(There is no evidence in regard to the assumed position of the quinonoid 
group and the acidic hydroxyl.) 

Now cyanin was isolated by Willstatter and his colleagues from the 
blue cornflower and from the red rose, and it seemed quite a simple step 
to assume that the cell-sap in the cornflower was alkaline and that in the 
rose acid, particularly in view of the fact that the absorption spectra of the 
coloured aqueous extracts correspond with these conditions. 

It has indeed been generally assumed that the indicator colour of the 
anthocyanin will give a measure of the pH of the cell-sap, but unfortunately 
this method cannot be relied upon for several reasons. In the first place 
there is a glaring anomaly in the fact that direct measurement by electrical 
methods (glass electrode as arranged by Mrs. Kerridge) shows that the 
cell-saps are all well on the acid side of the neutral point. Thus the 
conventional view for red flowers may well be correct, but some special 
circumstances must be invoked in the case of blue flowers. 

Turning at once to the blue cornflower (the cultivated annual kind), 
a blue filtered extract made with distilled water was found to be sufficiently 
acid to turn blue litmus red. Using 3 g. of petals in 14 c.c. of distilled 
water (pH 6-3 owing to dissolved CO,), the pH was 4:9. (These 
quantities were used throughout the experiments and the use of larger 
relative quantities of the petals did not alter the pH appreciably.) Addi- 
tion of a buffered solution of pH 4-4 did not affect the colour, but the 
colour changed to violet when the B.D.H. Universal Buffer, pH 9:0, 
was added. It was at once apparent that the only simple explanation is 


54 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


that the cyanin anion is present in a complex form, giving a stable aggre- 
gate with a negative charge ; in some way the strength of cyanin colour- 
base as an acid must be vastly increased. 

Some form of colloidal solution was considered most likely to fulfil the 
necessary conditions, and Dr. Conmar Robinson, of the Chemistry 
Department, University College, London, kindly examined a filtered, 
distilled-water extract of blue cornflowers and reported as follows : 

‘'The solution contains ultramicrons easily visible in the slit ultra- 
microscope, but small enough to be in fairly rapid Brownian movement. 
Microcataphoresis showed them to be negatively charged. Without 
more quantitative work it is impossible to say if these particles can repre- 
sent the bulk of the material present, but this seems probable if the 
solution is very dilute ; the possibility of observing a colloidal impurity 
is always a trap. he visibility of the ultramicrons suggests a lyo- 
phobic colloid. It is, however, not precipitated even by 2N NaCl, 
which indicates that a protective colloid is also present.’ 

Our next step was to attempt the production of blue cyanin sols stable 
in neutral or weakly acid solution, and some measure of success was 
achieved, although the solutions are by no means so stable as those from 
the blue cornflower. 

If a little crystalline cyanin chloride is added to boiling tap-water 
(pH 8-0) then the usual violet solution results (see above), the colour 
being what we consider ‘ normal.’ If, however, the cyanin is triturated 
in the cold for a minute with the water and gradually heated to boiling 
with shaking, then a beautiful blue solution results. The fact that the 
same materials can be used to produce two entirely different results shows 
that it can only be the state of aggregation of the cyanin which can have 
stabilised the anionic charge and hence produced a blue colour under 
the conditions that normally produce a violet solution. If very small 
quantities of cyanin chloride are employed, this phenomenon can be repro- 
duced using distilled water. Willstatter and Everest found that their corn- 
flower extracts contained xylan and other polysaccharides, and we have 
attempted to produce blue acid cyanin solutions in the presence of various 
polysaccharides. The addition of dispersed xylan and various kinds of 
starch, also Agar-Agar, makes the preparation of blue solutions of pH about 
7:5 a very simple matter (demonstration), but we have not yet found a way 
of imitating the cornflower solution in respect to its stability at pH 5-0. 

Probably these colloid associations are much more readily formed at 
values of pH between 5-5 and 6-5, and on the whole the blue flowers have 
less acid cell-saps than the red flowers. The petals of the rose in contrast 
with the cornflower constitute an exception (pH 5-6), and the following 
further provisional results may be quoted although no great accuracy 
can be claimed for a method which involves the destruction of the petals. 
The pigment of the orange-red polyantha rose ‘ Gloria Mundi’ is found 
to be pelargonin and the pH was 5-5. On the same plant some flowers 
had reverted to the cyanin type. The red-flowered hydrangea had petal 
PH 3°75, whilst the blue flowers gave pH 4:9; similarly the red-flowered 
linum (anthocyanin based on delphinidin) gave petal pH 4-6, and the’ 
blue variety pH 5-9. Blue anchusa, 6:2; Meconopsis Baileyi, 5-3 
(Miss R. Scott-Moncrieff found that blue and violet flowers had the 


B.—CHEMISTRY 55 


same petal pH); sweet-peas, all about 5-3; delphiniums, 5-6 (most 
violet shade), 5-8 (most blue shade) ; clematis (blue), 5:4; viola, 6-2 
(blue violet), 6-0 (reddish violet) ; lobelia (blue), 5-7. 

It must be emphasised that these variations of pH are quite insufficient 
in themselves to account for the colour changes and it is evident that the 
most important single factor for flower colour, given the nature of the 
anthocyanin, is the question of the condition of the pigment in solution, 
and it would appear that all blue flowers are coloured by colloidal solutions 
of their respective pigments. 

Methods for the determination of the pH of the cell-sap of flowers 
depending on the use of the flower colours as indicators may be sound, 
but only if it can be guaranteed that the colloidal condition of the pigment 
solution is not altered by the extraction with the buffered solutions which 
are employed. In any case, the results bear no relation to the colours 
observed in vitro using isolated anthocyanins and they cannot be trans- 
ferred from flower to flower ; the colour series depends almost as much 
on the other conditions in the cell-sap as on the pH and on the nature of 
the anthocyanin. Another aspect of pH of the cell-saps is that the higher 
values appear to be associated with the formation of delphinidin deriva- 
tives. The remarkable distribution in the tropeolum—Empress of India 
—is as follows: leaf, delphinidin diglycoside (pH 5-6); calyx, cyanidin 
3-bioside (pH 5:0); flower, pelargonidin 3-bioside (pH 4-5). On the 
other hand three scabious with anthocyanins based respectively on 
pelargonidin, cyanidin and delphinidin had all the same petal pH 5:0. 

We have already discussed elsewhere the influence of certain substances 
termed co-pigments on the colour of anthocyanin solutions ; these effects 
are to be detected in strongly acid solution and the presence or absence 
of these substances is undoubtedly a factor to be taken into consideration. 
The extent to which the co-pigment effect is bound up with colloid 
phenomenon is a matter for future experiment and discussion, but it is 
convenient to maintain the term co-pigment for the present. 

Dr. E. A. H. Roberts has observed the shift of the absorption bands 
of chrysanthemin and cenin chlorides on the addition of papaverine 
(strongly blueing effect) and narcotine (weak effect), and correlated this 
with a corresponding change (lowering) of the distribution number of the 
anthocyanin using amyl alcohol (demonstration). 

It seems clear that papaverine salts and cenin salts combine in solution. 
The relation between the distribution number of cenin chloride and the 
concentration of the pigment seems to require the assumption that the 
molecules of the anthocyanin are associated (2 mols.) in aqueous solution 
and free in amyl alcohol. Chrysanthemin and idzin behave similarly, 
also malvidin 3-galactoside. ‘This phenomenon appears to be related to 
that of co-pigmentation. 

The naturally occurring co-pigments include the anthoxanthins (flavone 
and flavonol saccharides, etc.) and tannins and some efficient substances 
not yet identified. 

The justification for assuming the operation of this factor can best be 
indicated by an example. Certain herbaceous phlox contain pelargonin, 
but have a much bluer-red colour than other flowers coloured by this 
anthocyanin. But the same observation applies to the extract in I per 


56 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


cent. hydrochloric acid, and moreover the presence of much anthoxanthin 
is noted. Hence, all the circumstances point to co-pigmentation of the 
pelargonin salt in the flower petal. 

Finally, we do not know whether or no traces of iron and other inorganic 
substances may affect flower colour. In this connection the case of the 
blue hydrangea is always quoted, and we have observed that when the 
stalks of red hydrangea flowers are immersed in very dilute aqueous 
ferric chloride, the flowers slowly become blue. .The ashes of many 
flowers contain 1-2 per cent. Fe,O,, and the anthocyanin test for iron is 
one of the most delicate known. 

Summarising, the main factors affecting flower colours are : 

(1) The nature and concentration of the anthocyanins and other 
coloured substances present. 

(2) The state of aggregation of the anthocyanin in solution—the pH 
of the cell-sap is one of the subsidiary factors affecting this, and naturally 
the presence or absence of protective colloids is another. 

(3) The presence or absence of co-pigments and, problematically, the 
effect of traces of iron and other complex forming metals. 

Time does not permit me to deal with other anthocyanin types such as ges- 
nerin, the leuco-anthocyanins, the yellow anthocyanin of Papaver nudicaule, 
or the nitrogenous beet-pigment and its analogues ; I will close, appro- 
priately I hope, on an experimental note by attempting a demonstration of 
some of the tests which we employ for the recognition of anthocyanidins. 

(1) The oxidation test—addition of 10 per cent. aqueous sodium 
hydroxide to a dilute solution shaken with air—petunidin and delphinidin 
are at once destroyed, the other anthocyanidins are relatively stable. 

(2) Extraction with amyl alcohol, addition of sodium acetate and then 
of a trace of ferric chloride. Characteristic colour reactions are observed, 
and in particular if cyanidin is present the violet amyl alcoholic solution 
changes to pure blue in the last stage. Pelargonidin, peonidin and 
malvidin give no ferric reaction. 

(3) Distribution between 1 per cent. aqueous hydrochloric acid and 
a mixture of anisole (5 vols.) and ethyl zsoamyl ether (1 vol.) containing 
5 g. of picric acid in 100 c.c. Delphinidin is not extracted by the organic 
layer, petunidin is taken up to a slight extent, cyanidin to a considerable 
extent, and malvidin, peonidin and pelargonidin are completely extracted 
if the solution is sufficiently dilute. 

(4) Distribution between 1 per cent. hydrochloric acid and a mixture of 
cyclohexanol (1 vol.) and toluene (5 vols.). Delphinidin and petunidin 
are not extracted at all; malvidin gives the organic layer a faint lilac 
tint ; cyanidin a pale rose tint ; peonidin, and still more pelargonidin, are 
extracted by the organic layer to a considerable extent. 

The deductions are confirmed by a study of the colour reactions of the 
anthocyanins. 


In conclusion I must express my very deep indebtedness to all co- 
workers in these fields, and especially to Dr. D. D. Pratt, Prof. A. Robert- 
son, Dr. W. Bradley and Dr. A. R. Todd on the synthetic aspects of the 
work, and to my wife, without whose co-operation a survey of natural 
anthocyanins could not have been attempted. 


SECTION C.—GEOLOGY. 


A CORRELATION OF STRUCTURES IN 
THE COALFIELDS OF THE MIDLAND 
PROVINCE 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF. WILLIAM GEORGE FEARNSIDES, F.RS., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


Tue effort called for in following rock outcrops over hilly country compels 
the field geologist to think in three dimensions, and, in mountain ground, 
whatever his first interest, he comes early to a stage when structure gets 
the lion’s share of his attention. The rougher the country, the more 
trouble is taken to interpret the implications of its surface geometry, until, 
having achieved a partial solution, the researcher can project his imagin- 
ings in depth and predict the locus of the outcrop in another place. In 
this lies the fascination of our science, and each hill district of Britain is a 
shrine to some enthusiast who would interpret the anatomy of our ancient 
alps. 

Lowland and coalfield country is less attractive, and it is because he 
must that the mining geologist and the official surveyor there collects his 
information. Without some knowledge of its solid geometry no geologist 
can evaluate a coalfield property, nor should the engineer advise how the 
development of mineral may proceed. The whole geometry of a coal 
seam is never known until its wealth is spent, but, pending complete 
solution, it is possible by stages to project from the fully known to the 
unknown ; and in the older coalfields, where mining records have been 
kept, there is such accumulation of local three-dimensional information 
as can never be made available in the best exposed of mountain ground. 

Mine plans are made on a scale so large that, for quick appreciation 
and interpretation as contributions to regional geology, their records must 
be reduced to the dimensions of a map. ‘Treated thus over great indus- 
trial districts, where hundreds of square miles of several coal seams have 
been wrought, they afford exact and documented evidence as well of 
lateral variation of original sedimentation as of the size and form of 
impressed structures. In detail such information is the stock-in-trade 
of mineral agents, but in bulk it is rarely considered except by consulting 
engineers and the maker of the plans. 

Coalfields are extensive, their folding broad, and only where relief is 
exceptional and the rocks diverse does regional structure leap tomeet theeye. 
Coal Measure rocks other than sandstone are soft and weather deeply, 
so that only where artificial excavations expose fresh material, or where, 


58 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


by feature mapping of the harder bands, the position of others can be 
interpolated, can a coalfield map be made from surface evidence. Under 
such conditions, in country which is marred and scarred by man, it is no 
wonder that the local amateur is content to collect fossils from spoil-banks 
or from brick-pits, and accepts from the professional what he is told about 
the stratigraphy and structure. 

Fortunately the officers of the Geological Survey now have full access 
to mining information, and, as they compile the evidence they are recording 
it upon the revised edition of the official 6-in. geological maps. As the 
map sheets are issued their economic usefulness is recognised by the 
mining profession, but, because of their fullness of detail and because 
established prejudice regards all coalfield information as uninteresting 
and dull, the subject matter has not received from other geologists the 
attention it deserves. 

As one whose business it is to teach geology at a university closely 
associated with industry in the East Pennine Coalfield, I find the call for 
local application of our science more often concerned with underground 
geometry than with the composition of the rocks. Therefore, in training 
men to lead in mineral exploitation, I have insisted that structural geology 
is a science of measurement, and that the real geology of an area is not 
fully known until it can be represented by a model true to scale. 

From accumulated mining information, or from the modern geological 
6-in. maps, it is not difficult to exemplify the shape and size of individual 
structures, but in presenting a completed picture of a coalfield—even of a 
district so far exploited as that of Yorkshire—the gaps in present know- 
ledge are so wide that, lacking a working hypothesis to summarise the 
shapes and distribution of the folds and faults, one must exterpolate, and 
continually correct approximations as new information comes along. 
During my years at Sheffield I have enjoyed the sport of correlating 
nearby coalfield structures on dead-reckoning not less than similar pursuits 
among the mountains, and it is in the hope that, from a review of obvious 
trend-lines over a wider area an ordered plan of regional structure may 
emerge, I have chosen the subject for this address. I am confident 
that the study of coalfield structures is an open field for the advancement 
of science, and as mining development proceeds in Coal Measures con- 
cealed beneath the newer rocks, successful projection of the buried 
structures promises no inconsiderable industrial reward. 


Where Coal Measures rest conformably on Millstone Grit, the major 
folds and faults disturbed both formations together, and the unit of struc- 
ture is therefore greater than the coalfield. Recent investigations, in 
establishing Upper Carboniferous zonal correlations, have made it certain 
that a Pennine basin filled with Millstone Grit and Coal Measures 
extended to the Midlands. The limestone massif of the Peak lines up 
with Charnwood Forest, the downfold of Cheshire continues into Shrop- 
shire ; so for a manageable unit of structure it is logical to take the area 
within the nearmost outcrop ring of pre-Carboniferous rock. This is 
the Midland Coalfield Province. It lies all within a circle of sixty miles 
radius round Buxton. Its bounds are set towards the north by the scarp 


C.—GEOLOGY 59 


of the rigid block of Craven; in the west by the compacted ridges of 
Denbighshire and the Berwyns ; and on the south by the ragged ribs of 
ancient rock which fringe the Midland barrier of St. George’s Land. 
Towards the east its unknown boundary lies buried beneath thick Permian, 
Trias and Jurassic rocks, where no man has seen or touched the rocks 
below the Carboniferous. This Midland Coalfield Province includes the 
great coalfields of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire; of 
Lancashire and Cheshire, and North Staffordshire ; and the lesser fields 
of North Wales, Shropshire, South Staffordshire and Worcestershire, 
Warwickshire, South Derbyshire and Leicestershire : and also the proved 
and probable extensions of these coalfields underneath the Trias. Within 
this Coalfield Province are nearly a thousand working mines, five hundred 
of them each employing more than a hundred men in the winning and 
working of some 120,000,000 tons of coal per year, or more than half the 
total mineral wrought underground in Britain. 

Study of regional structure must begin with notice of the mode of 
accumulation of the local rocks and of the crustal movements which allowed 
their accommodation, but in dealing with so wide an area in an address, 
one cannot do more than mention the distribution and the varying thick- 
ness of the sedimentary groups exposed. For details of their constitution 
and stratigraphy a reference to the Geological Survey Sheet and District 
Memoirs, and for a brief discussion and bibliography the chapters by 
Garwood, Wright and Kendall in the 1929 Handbook of the Geology 
of Great Britain, must suffice. The only further references noted are 
to certain recent contributions not included in that extensive bibliography. 


THE MIpLAND CARBONIFEROUS GEOSYNCLINE. 


At all exposures round the edges of the Midland Province, older beds 
of the Visean overlap with discordant unconformity against a land topo- 
graphy of moderate relief. ‘Tournasian rocks are only recognised in the 
deep trough south of the Craven Fault, where, in Pendle and the Craven 
Lowlands, downward movement began early in the Carboniferous, and 


1 The Geological Survey Publications drawn upon for information herein 
summarised, include those descriptive of 1-in. maps, New Series, Sheets numbered : 


76 Rochdale . ? 1927 126 Nottingham and 

77 Huddersfield . 1928 Newark 1908 
85 Manchester . 1930 137. Oswestry . 3 1928 
86 Glossop . : 1933 138 Wem < : 1924 
96 Liverpool . 3 1923 139 Stafford . 1927 

too Sheffield . : IQI4 141 Derby and Bu rton- 
ro8 Flint é F 1924 on-Trent ‘ 1905 
110. Macclesfield r 1906 142 Melton Mowbray 1909 
112 Chesterfield é 1929 152 Shrewsbury ; 1933 
113 Ollerton . : IgII 153 Wolverhampton. 1929 
121 Wrexham . SIESIG27 154 Lichfield . : 1926 
123 Stoke-on-Trent . 1924 155 Atherstone , I9IO 
125 Derby and Wirks- 156 Leicester . = 1903 
worth . ¢ 1908 158 Birmingham . 1924 
169 Coventry . - 1926 


together with those relating to the parts of 1-in. maps, Old Series, Sheets 
numbered : 53, 60, 61, 72, 73, 80, 81, 82, 87, 88, 89 and 90, which have not 
been recently revised. 


60 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


was progressive until 10,000 ft. of pre-Coal Measure sediment was accom- 
modated. Three thousand five hundred feet of alternating Visean shales 
and reef knolls in this mid-Pennine trough contrast sharply with the 
equivalent 400 ft. of Great Scar Limestone and overlying shale deposits 
on the adjoining Ingleborough block. 

Across North Wales and the southern Pennine district, Visean sedi- 
ments are mainly bands and banks of shallow-water limestone, 1,800 ft. 
thick at the head of the Vale of Clwyd, and a little more in the open section 
along the Wye Valley in Derbyshire. Locally in the High Peak district, 
and to a much greater extent where pierced by borings in search of oil 
beneath the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Coalfields, these limestones are 
interstratified with submarine eruptive products. ‘Towards the Midlands 
the amplitude of Visean movements was less, and as the marginal beds of 
limestone lap against St. George’s Land, though all the subdivisions are 
represented, their total thickness has diminished to about 1,000 ft. on the 
northern flanks of Charnwood, and to less than 300 ft. east of the Wrekin 
towards the Severn Valley. 

Visean deposits of the Midland Province end with shallow-water lime- 
stones containing the D3 facies fauna, which may or may not belong to 
one horizon. At some places cherty beds pass up to earthy ‘ black beds ’ 
and bituminous shales. Elsewhere the last of the grey limestones are 
impersistent shell banks and limestone breccias, and there is striking 
evidence of an interformational non-sequence. With application of 
modern zonal methods to the faunas of the shales which overlie the lime- 
stones, it has been recognised that in Pendle, between the topmost Visean 
limestone and the beds with faunas identical with the lowest Edale shales 
of Derbyshire, at least 3,000 ft. of land waste was accommodated. Lower 
Lancastrian shales and grit bands are 2,000 ft. thick in Staffordshire,? but 
have not been recognised in the Derwent Valley, so in Peakland the non- 
sequence may become an unconformity. Transgression near the same 
horizon has been followed along the edges of the Craven-Ingleborough 
block, and the relation of the Holywell shales to the underlying cherts and 
Cefn-y-fedw series in North Wales requires a similar explanation. ‘These 
evidences of structural disturbance are not regular, and whether we regard 
them as marking areas of local uplift, or attribute the non-sequence to 
cessation of downward movement, we must recognise that they coincide 
with arch folds which now dominate the local structure. 

Most important of the early Lancastrian upfolds, from the point of 
view of coalfield distribution, is the limestone plateau outcrop, the “ massif ’ 
of the High Peak of Derbyshire.2 Its margins have steep dips, but 
though its place is the north-west extension of the Charnwood Pre- 
Cambrian platform, there is underground evidence that its topmost lime- 
stones extend widely in all directions beneath the overlying shales,* and 
it cannot be accepted either as reef mass or as a pre-Lancastrian horst. 

2S. W. Hester, ‘The Millstone Grit Succession in North Staffordshire,’ 
H.M.G.S. Summary of Progress for 1931, Pt. II, p. 34 (1932). 

3 W. G. Fearnsides and others, ‘ The Geology of the Eastern part of the Peak 
District,’ Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. 43, p. 152 (1932). 


4 T. Sington, ‘The Search for Petroleum in Derbyshire now in progress,’ 
Trans. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. 57, p- 25 (1919). TIF 


C.—GEOLOGY 61 


Moreover, its monoclinal edges are plicated by pitching cross-folds, on 
whose arches are the reef knolls and beds of limestone breccia, and in 
whose troughs there is the appearance of conformity from cherty limestone 
to Lancastrian shales older than those which are continuous over inter- 
vening arches. These cross-folds have persisted as belts of instability 
throughout and beyond the period of the Carboniferous. ‘Their extended 
axial lines are marked by rapid pinching out of sandstones of the Millstone 
Grit deposits, and they line up with the steep-sided anticlines and synclines 
of the Derbyshire and Midland Coalfields. The most northerly of these 
curving cross-folds terminates and contains the High Peak limestone area, 
and beyond it there is no evidence of pre-Lancastrian uplift of any central 
Pennine fold. 

During the later Lancastrian or Millstone Grit period, and on throughout 
the Coal Measures, negative movement, though progressive, was punctu- 
ated by frequent delays. Sediment was delivered to Yorkshire in such 
quantity that it could not be accommodated until regional settlement had 
made its place. During the waiting periods therefore it drifted on 
towards Cheshire and built its lenses on the front of the growing delta. 
As sinking proceeded there was agitation in the shallows, and coarse 
material was entrapped in deepening troughs. Coarseness of sediment 
in such measures, though it must always be an index of the velocity of the 
inwash current, can in no wise be accepted as a criterion of proximity 
to a shelving shore. 

Lancastrian sediments are thickest north of the Lancashire Coalfield, 
where more than 5,000 ft. of shales and grits were accommodated. ‘The 
Millstone Grit divisions lose thickness southward round about the Peak 
district, but in Staffordshire the bore-hole at Rownall Hall, started below 
the Middle Grits, had not reached limestone at a depth of 2,700 ft.° 
Against the encircling fold which ends the limestone outcrop of the High 
Peak at Castleton, lenses of sandstone, which are exceptionally strong in 
the ‘edges’ of Kinderscout, lose half their thickness. We have no proof 
that P. or lower E. beds were ever deposited over the High Peak district, 
but mineral constitution seems to show that the coarsest Middle Grits 
were persistent from the Derbyshire Edges east of the Derwent to the 
Roaches of Staffordshire. Within the East Pennine Coalfield, deep 
borings indicate a wedging out of the whole series south-eastwards, from 
1,500 ft. thick at Renishaw to less than 300 ft. at Kelham. ‘The available 
records are all from trial oil wells in anticlinal areas, and there is evidence 
of grits and shales outcropping north-west of Charnwood, and Lower 
Lancastrian Ez shales persist beyond the Hathern boring.’ South- 
westwards across Lancashire the advancing Millstone Grit delta did not 
reach North Wales, and in 400 ft. of Holywell shales all the Lancastrian 
zones are represented. 

Despite pulsatory and progressive subsidence, the whole South Pennine 
area was filled and levelled to a plain before the period of the Millstone 
Grit was ended, and the latest G. marine band spread over and drowned 


5 H. P. W. Giffard, ‘ The Recent Search for Oil in Great Britain,’ Tvans. Inst. 


Min. Eng., vol. 65, p. 221 (1923). 
6 ‘ Wells and Springs of Leicestershire,’ p. 99. H.M.G.S. Mem. (1931). 


62 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


a coal seam which extended across the Midland Province. This is the 
famous Alton, Halifax Hard, Bullion, Upper Foot, or Crabtree Coal Marine 
Band. Near the top of the Productive Measures the Mansfield, Sharlstone, 
Dukinfield, or Speedwell Marine Band is similarly continuous in all Pennine 
coalfields, and the thickness of measures between the two affords a trust- 
worthy indication of the aggregate amplitude of negative movement in the 
various districts during the Coal Measure period. By measurement of 
this distance we recognise in South-east Lancashire, where the intervening 
thickness exceeds 4,000 ft., the regional centre of the Coal Measure collect- 
ing dish. About that centre in all directions the thickness of sedi- 
ment accommodated diminishes to 2,000 ft. in less than 50 miles. By 
plottings of isohypses of sediment between successive coal seams, we can, 
with labour and persistence, prove the local variations in the amplitude 
of depression to any degree of accuracy we choose. Each coal seam grew 
at water-level during a waiting period, but individual coals are not 
sufficiently persistent, and only exceptional groups of coals have a coalfield- 
wide distribution. For comparative studies of variations of the rate and 
amount of movement as between one coalfield and another, we therefore 
depend upon the modern method of identification and correlation of Coal 
Measure horizons by interstratified non-marine lamellibranch zones.” 

Consideration of the lowest group, the Halifax Coal Measures, shows 
them thickest in North or Central Lancashire, where also the Millstone 
Grits are thickest. There more than 1,000 ft. of Coal Measures underlie 
the Arley Mine. Equivalent measures § at outcrops in Yorkshire, Derby- 
shire and North Staffordshire are less than half that thickness. The 
Ovalis zone, 600 to 1,000 ft. thick in Yorkshire, is more than 1,500 ft. 
thick in Central Lancashire. It thins eastwards across Yorkshire, and 
to the south-east across Derbyshire to: Nottingham. ‘The Modiolaris 
zone, the main coal-bearing belt, maintains through Yorkshire and 
Derbyshire a wonderfully constant thickness, about 1,000 ft., along the 
strip of country where Park Gate and Barnsley coals are wrought. ‘This 
zone is fully 1,200 ft. thick about Oldham, but thins southwards through 
Cheshire into North Staffordshire, and more rapidly westwards across 
Lancashire. 

Variation of thickness in the Similis-Pulchra zone is much more rapid. 
This zone attains its maximum thickness in the Pennines south-east of 
Manchester. East of the Pennines a plotting of isohypses for the sedi- 
ments between the Barnsley Coal and the Mansfield Marine Band proves 
a thinning from over 1,000 ft. at outcrop to less than 500 ft. in the most 
easterly of working pits, which rate of thinning, if continued, would give 
the Barnsley Bed the Mansfield Marine Band for its roof within a very 
few miles east of the Trent. Beds between the Mansfield and the Shafton 


7 D. A. Wray and A. E. Trueman, ‘ The Non-marine Lamellibranchs of the 
Upper Carboniferous of Yorkshire and their zonal sequence,’ H.M.G.S. Summary 
of Progress for 1930, Pt. III, p. 70 (1931). 

7 A. E. Trueman, ‘A suggested correlation of the Coal Measures of England 
and Wales,’ Proc. South Wales Inst. Eng., vol. 49, p. 63 (1933). 

8 D. A. Wray, L. Slater and G. E. Eddy, ‘ The Correlation of the Arley Mine 
of Lancahsire with the Better Bed Coal of Yorkshire,’ H.M.G.S, Summary of 
Progress for 1930, Pt. II, p. 1 (1931). 


C.—GEOLOGY 63 


Marine Bands in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire similarly wedge out 
rapidly towards the east and south. Across Lancashire the westward 
diminution of thickness is continuous. About Oldham the Dukinfield 
Marine Band is 1,250 ft. above the Furnace Coal, whereas at Tyldesley 
its place is less than 800 ft. above the Rams. In the trough of North 
Staffordshire near Tunstall the Speedwell Marine Band is 1,400 ft. 
above the Ten Foot Coal, but there is rapid wedging out of measures 
both towards the western anticline and towards the south. 

The Pottery Marl and Blackband Ironstone series of the A. Phillipsii 
zone in North Staffordshire may be 1,200 ft. thick. They pass up into 
an equal or greater thickness of red and mottled Etruria Marls. In 
South-east Lancashire 1,800 ft. of grey measures, including the Bradford 
group of coals, overlie the Worsley Four Foot (which may be the Shafton 
Coal of Yorkshire), and underlie the variegated marls and limestones of 
the Ardwick series. East of the Pennines Etruria Marls are preserved 
only in the centres of the synclines. Beneath them in South Yorkshire, 
above the Shafton Marine Band, grey beds, mostly sandstones, are 
1,200 ft. thick, but between Mansfield and Nottingham equivalent 
measures thin south-eastwards to less than 300 ft. 

Because of cumulative displacement by negative pulsations, and 
because the supply of sediment was never-failing, Coal Measures in the 
great coalfields which flank the southern Pennines are an expanded series. 
Southwards along the margins of the Province less accommodation was 
provided, and Productive Measures taper out against the Midland barrier 
of St. George’s Land. Zonal correlation by non-marine lamellibranchs is 
not yet available for the Thick Coal district of South Staffordshire and 
Warwick, and the best suggestion for correlation of horizons is by the tracing 
of coal seams in relation to occasional marine bands. Away from the 
Pennines, the G. or Alton Marine Band has not been proved beyond South 
Derbyshire, where it lies about 1,000 ft. below the Main Coal, and has 
below it Millstone Grit. A more persistent marine band overlies the 
Main Coal in Leicestershire and the Seven Foot Coal in Warwickshire, 
and this may be the White Stone Band below the Heathen Coal of the 
Black Country and the Pennystone of Coalbrookdale. If one may guess 
that it is also the Speedwell Band of Staffordshire, its position within 
_ 200 or even 100 ft. above the pre-Carboniferous bed-rock of the Thick 
Coal districts is evidence that these shores of the Midland barrier did not 
come within the belt of sedimentation until a late stage of the infilling of 
the Coal Measure basin. If it represents the marine band above the 
Seven Foot Banbury, at the base of the Modiolaris zone, it must indicate 
that the creeping transgression which brought these beds across the 
upraised edges of Midland Visean and Lancastrian deposits was in- 
ordinately slow. The thickness of the Productive Coal Measure sedi- 
ments accommodated in the Midland coalfields is from one-tenth to one- 
fifth of that disposed in the Central Pennine area of North Staffordshire. 
Conditions must have been strangely static for a very long period when 
the Thick Coals were growing, but within that series there are no more 
appearances of stratigraphical discordance than where equivalent sedi- 
ments are thick. 


64 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Increase of the thickness zone by zone towards the centre in the southern 
Pennine area may be accepted as evidence of progressive geosynclinal 
development and its differential deepening. ‘There is compounded with 
this regional settlement increase of thickness in troughs and thinnings 
towards the crests of local folds. Probably the best-known coalfield 
example of such local variability is the Potteries syncline and the adjoining 
Western or Rearers anticline of North Staffordshire. ‘There from crest 
to trough the total thickness of Productive Measures underneath the Red 
Beds varies within two miles from 2,500 to 3,500 ft. Individual coal 
seams continue across the whole coalfield ; marine bands and shales with 
non-marine lamellibranchs are similarly persistent, and the variable 
component in the measures is the coarse land waste which accumulated 
in thicker and more numerous sandstone lenses towards the centre of the 
trough. There is no evidence that the crest of this fold was so uplifted 
that some beds might have been denuded ; and it follows that the develop- 
ment of the anticline was by differential sinking of the lateral troughs. 
As with the regional tilting towards the centre of the geosyncline, so in 
this local folding the rate of change of thickness was slow until the more 
important coals had grown (Ovalis and Modiolaris zones), but becomes 
increasingly differential through and towards the later part of the Similis- 
Pulchra zone. 

The Horseshoe anticline in the North Wales Coalfield has a slightly 
different history. It too was sinking more slowly than neighbouring 
areas when measures containing the Lower Coal series were deposited 
across it. Thereafter, though it continued to receive a share of sediment, 
it maintained a line of shoals which acted as a barrier and diverted the 
flow of sediment, so that there is striking dissimilarity between the 
Bulkeley Fireclay series formed in the troughs of Flint, and the Upper 
Coal and Cefn Rock series deposited contemporaneously in Denbighshire. 
At its northern end along the Dee estuary, before the deposition of red 
Upper Coal Measures over it, some hundreds of feet of measures were 
denuded from its broken and upraised crest. Series of wash-outs in 
coal seams under sandstones in the Flintshire syncline are interpreted 
as erosion features produced by stream-courses directed longitudinally by 
the folding of the trough. 

In Coalbrookdale, Productive Measures, including some hundreds of 
feet of measures newer than the Pennystone, were sharply folded and 
faulted by posthumous disturbances of pre-Carboniferous post-Silurian 
folds. 'These movements were mainly completed and the anticlinal crests 
denuded before the overstep of Upper Coal Measures, which is the 
unconformity of the Symon ‘ Fault.’ 

Statistical studies of colliery records within the open folds of Yorkshire 
are bringing evidence that above the Barnsley Coal, and especially towards 
the top of the Similis-Pulchra and through the lower parts of the Phillipsii 
zones, the total thickness and the proportion of sandstone in the sedi- 
mentary column increases progressively to a maximum over the deepest 
parts of the Frickley and Maltby troughs.® ‘There is no suggestion of 


® “Sections of Strata of the Yorkshire Coalfield,’ Midland Inst. of Min. Eng. 
(1927). 


C.—GEOLOGY 65 


any emergence of the Don Valley fold before the Red Beds were deposited 
over it, but both in Yorkshire and in Derbyshire, where the folds are 
steeper and narrower, it is probable that by the time the latest coal streaks 
of the A. Phillipsii zone had accumulated, the workable coals lay many 
hundreds of feet deeper in the synclines than over the anticlines between. 

The latest grey beds of the Phillipsii zone pass up by alternations into 
the Red and Mottled series which for convenience is taken as the lowest 
division of the Upper Coal Measures. ‘These variegated and ill-stratified 
Brick and Tile Marls (Etruria Marls) are over 1,250 ft. thick in the 
trough of the Potteries Coalfield, and as the Ruabon Marl group in 
Denbighshire their thickness is hardly less. Of the equivalent Ardwick 
group of the Manchester syncline, over 1,000 ft. remains below the 
Collyhurst Sandstone. At Farnsfield in Nottinghamshire, some 600 ft. 
of variegated beds are preserved beneath the Permian in the deepest part 
of the East Pennine basin. In South Staffordshire, the thickness of the 
Marl group is very variable, from 800 to 150 ft. within two miles, and 
there is evidence that with redisturbance of local folds across the Black 
Country, trough-like areas were developed in which deposition kept pace 
with the sinking of the floor. In Warwickshire and in Shropshire, and 
in the south of South Staffordshire, the Marl group overlaps the Productive 
Coal Measures against the shores of islands, whose waste provided the 
fragments which compose the Espley Rocks. 

The Newcastle-under-Lyme group of the Potteries is 600 ft. thick. 
Its variegated grey and green beds mark a temporary late return to normal 
Coal Measure conditions in the south-west Midland area. As the 
Halesowen Sandstone group of South Staffordshire and Warwickshire, 
and the Coalport group of Shropshire, its component members thin as 
they overstep towards the south, and it rests with slight unconformity on 
the Old Hill Marls or older rocks below. 

Over the eastern part of the Midland Coalfield Province, the strati- 
graphical record of the early development of structures ends with the 
deposits of the A. Phillipsii zone. In the south-west, red and purple 
marls, sandstones and conglomerates, deposited in reasonably strict 
conformity upon the latest coal-bearing series, carry on the history of 
settlement and contemporaneous filling of a land-locked basin to a later 
stage. 

In North Staffordshire some 700 ft. of red, purple and grey marls and 
sandstones form the Keele group. Over the Warwickshire Coalfield and 
all round the South Staffordshire Coalfield this group maintains its 
thickness, but in Shropshire it tapers out south-westwards as it overlaps 
beyond the coalfields against the edges of older land. Upwards it passes 
into the calcareous Enville group of Staffordshire or the Corley group of 
Warwickshire, with interstratified lenses of conglomerate, and in the 
higher parts has great wedges of breccia, scree or torrent-borne products 
derived from neighbouring Lower Carboniferous, Silurian, Cambrian 
or Pre-Cambrian outcrops upraised towards the south. In southern 
Warwickshire,!° the thickness of the extended Corley group is not less 
_ 10 F, W. Shotton, ‘On the Geology of the Country around Kenilworth,’ 


Q.J.G.S., vol. 85, p. 170 (1929). 
D 


66 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


than 3,500 ft., and along the Severn Valley the Clent Breccias are also 
thick. Northwards and westwards, as the breccia beds tail out, the group 
becomes difficult to separate from calcareous Keele beds with which they 
are included in the 2,000-3,000 ft. thick Erbistock series of Denbighshire. 

The accommodation of such thickness of Upper Coal Measures over 
the Western Midlands necessitated the shifting the Pennine geosynclinal 
centre towards the south. ‘To what extent the uprising of the Derbyshire 
High Peak area was contemporaneous, is not known, but pebbles in 
Midland conglomerates have not been traced to any Pennine source. In 
the Ingleton Coalfield the highest Red Beds with bands of Spirorbis lime- 
stone are associated with brockram scree deposits, and by this stage uplift 
to the north and denudation of the escarpment of the Craven Faults had 
there exposed the Lower Carboniferous, 

In the Concealed Coalfield of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire basal 
Permian transgresses 5,000 ft. of folded Coal Measures. The simple 
geometry of the floor on which the Permian rests shows that, following 
the storm of crustal movements, the cycle of denudation was completed. 
The regular eastward slope of that buried peneplain from Tynemouth to 
Nottingham is proof that that side of the Pennines was already con- 
solidated as a structural unit, which, rippled by gentle swelling of the 
underlying cross-folds, and cracked a little by rejuvenated coalfield faults, 
has since been tilted as a whole. Such later displacements as, east of 
Leeds and about Nottingham, have also cut the Trias, are of amplitude 
insufficient to distort the structural pattern, which, born before the end 
of the Visean, developed during the Lancastrian and Productive Coal 
Measure period, attained maturity when the Red Beds of the Midlands 
were being deposited, and was dissected and planated before tilting and 
regional settlement depressed it to receive the sediments of the Magnesian 
Limestone sea. 

West of the Pennines, the Collyhurst Sandstone rests with sharp dis- 
cordance upon the tilted Ardwick group, and westwards transgresses 
3,800 ft. of underlying Productive Coal Measures. Its thickness alters 
abruptly, sometimes by hundreds of feet, at the crossings of important 
faults, and its disposition suggests accumulation in the fault scarp hollows 
at the foot of the upraised and faulted Pennine and Rossendale anticlinal 
ridges. The Manchester Marls above it are displaced, but not otherwise 
affected by faulting which also cuts the Trias. They contain a fauna 
correlated with the Lower Magnesian Limestone, and pass up by transition 
into the Bunter Sandstone of the Cheshire Basin. 

South of the Pennines the evidence of post-Carboniferous chronology 
is mainly buried under Trias, which banks against a land surface composed 
of every kind of older rock. Each exposed Midland coalfield is a dish or 
dimple in an upraised horst, bounded by faulted folds of variable pitch, 
which are axially convergent on the Coal Measure geosynclinal centre west 
of the Peak near Manchester. In middle limbs outside the lateral crests 
are powerful but discontinuous boundary faults, flanking the Trias-filled 
deep depressions which contain concealed coalfields. ‘These boundary 
faults are late Carboniferous structures which displace alike all members 
of the Productive and Upper Coal Measures, to and including the Keele 


C.—GEOLOGY 67 


group, and much of the Corley and Lower Enville beds. Several of them 
line up with older breaks in the pre-Carboniferous platform, and many 
are known to have continued their displacement during and after the 
deposition of the Trias. Marl conglomerates towards the top of the 
Upper Coal Measures suggest contemporaneous movement of neighbouring 
faults, but pebble and breccia beds are torrent-borne from southern lands, 
and the main displacement of both folds and faults is later than the Upper 
Coal Measures deposits. Possibly the latest Enville, Corley and Erbistock 
beds are contemporaneous with some Magnesian Limestone, but proof is 
lacking, and the steady structure demonstrated in the basal Permian 
peneplain is not yet recognised west of Derbyshire. 

There being no fossils in the Trias of the Midland Province, the age of 
movements affecting it cannot be checked by zoning. Wedges of Bunter _ 
Sands and Keuper Marls in Nottingham overlap the wedge of Magnesian 
Limestone to rest on Coal Measures and older rocks in Derbyshire and 
Leicestershire. ‘Tilting continued with sedimentation, and east of the 
Pennines the sloping surface of concealed Coal Measures is buried under 
a thousand yards of Permian and Trias within a few miles east of the 
Trent. The great basin of Cheshire with its salt beds, and Shropshire 
with its patch of Lias, downfolded as it filled. Its depth and what lies 
under it are matters for conjecture, but the Plumley borehole pierced 
2,500 ft. of Keuper, and Bunter Beds at Heswall have been proved 
2,200 ft. thick. The turn-up of Trias to the western anticline of 
Staffordshire, and the Red Rock Fault of Cheshire, is evidence of further 
substantial settlement, since the deposition of the down-tilted beds. 

The Trias basin of Staffordshire sagged as a duplex trough on either 
side of the faulted saddle of the Black Country. ‘The western downfold, 
like the Shropshire basin, is edged about with latest Carboniferous Red 
Beds, and within it conformable passage between the two formations is 
not impossible. In the depression to the east of Stafford, the Chartley 
boring passed through 2,000 ft. of Trias, and outliers of Rhztic lie further 
to the east. From the north part of this basin fingers of Bunter extend 
along steep-sided valleys scored in the southern ending of the Pennines. 
The edges of the Leicestershire platform are also ragged ; and against and 
over them Bunter is overlapped by Keuper, which completes the transgres- 
sion of ‘Trias across the coalfield synclines of Warwickshire and Leicester- 
shire, and overtops the sharp, upstanding peaks of Charnwood Forest. 
That core of Pre-Cambrian in Charnwood, along with the western portion 
of the Pennine block, must have been elevated as the Nottinghamshire, 
Staffordshire and Cheshire Trias basins were being filled. Eventually 
all elevations, cluttered up in their own debris, were buried under the 
great bulk of material washed to the Midlands by torrents or wind-swept 
from the foothills of the great Hercynian Chain. By the time the desert 
deposits of the Keuper were covered by the Rhztic Sea, the whole Midland 
Province had been upgraded to a plain. 

Wherever there is exposure of bare rock, and diversity of rock character 


_ to show it, there is evidence that the even lie of Trias and post-'Triassic 


_ rocks has been disturbed by later movements, but in the Midland Coalfield 


Province, except for certain arcuate groups of east-west faults which cross 


68 . SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the Pennines, and a few north-west fractures occupied by Tertiary dykes, 
- the disposition of those faults agrees so closely with the trend of older 
structures that all may be interpreted as posthumous adjustments of the 
underlying floor. The later structural history of the Midland Coalfield 
Province is not documented by its own deposits, and we may leave the 
stratigraphical study of its development at this stage. 


Fotp DISTRIBUTION. 


A striking feature of the small-scale geological map of England is the 
alignment of the coalfields in east-west rows. The coalfield of South 
Wales is an east-west downfold in the forefield of the Hercynian mountain 
chain, and it has been assumed that, beyond the upfold of the Midland or 
Mercian Highland barrier, the Midland group of coalfields occupies the 
following trough. The history of coalfield evolution outlined above tells 
us that the Midland barrier was already a structural unit when Carbon- 
iferous rocks were laid against it. There is no suggestion of natural 
separation of the southern Midland coalfield district from the greater 
coalfields around the southern Pennines. The filled Carboniferous 
geosynclinal basin, subsequently everted, must for structural purposes 
be considered as a whole. The wide pre-Permian break between its 
Yorkshire-Lancashire edge and the downfold containing the Durham- 
Cumberland alignment also may be a Hercynian master-upfold, but 
pending analysis of its structures, it were well to suspend judgment. 

With the idea that east-west downfolds across the Midlands are 
Hercynian, goes the notion that the Pennine ‘ backbone of England ’ is 
a complementary north-south cross-fold; but there is divergence of 
strikes within it, and as we know that the limestone district of Derbyshire 
was upstanding at the time of the pre-Lancastrian unconformity, it is 
difficult to accept it as other than a rejuvenated and accentuated group of 
older structures. 

Having looked for and failed to recognise the leading lines of the 
supposed Hercynian chessboard in the arrangement of coalfields within 
the Midland Province, I long since suggested that the upstanding High 
Peak massif of limestone of Derbyshire is founded upon an extension of 
the pre-Cambrian platform of Charnwood Forest, and I would now 
maintain that contention by a demonstration of the distribution of its 
supporting folds. To this end I have had compiled, first by pantographic 
reduction from the 1-in. geological maps to the }-in. scale, and then by 
photography and retracing, the diagram (Fig. 1), on which are plotted in 
correct relationship all fold-lines which the officers of the Geological Survey 
have located and indicated on the published maps.” ‘The result is striking, 
both in confirming the alignment of the High Peak plateau with Charnwood 
Forest, and in its emphasis of the persistence of other ridge lines from the 


11 W. G. Fearnsides, ‘ Some Effects of Earth Movement on the Coal Measures 
of the Sheffield District,’ Pt. II., Tvans. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. 51, pp. 445-450 
(1916). 

12 The laborious work of this reduction was undertaken by William Pulfrey, 
M.Sc., Ph.D., research worker in the Department of Geology at Sheffield 
University, to whom I return grateful thanks. 


wa 
: 
| 


7 


On tur 


: 
2 
g 
= 


Sak et 


= SEs 


- An ae a - 


FOLD AXES 


IN THE Ls 
LAND COALFIELDS 


Ey 


D 
rT 


| 


Fig. 1. 


C.—GEOLOGY 69 


scattered outcrops of Lower Palzozoic formations around the Midlands in 
later foldings of the Carboniferous rocks. ‘There is no chessboard or other 
interlacing of the folds. ‘The folds are congruent, curving, clustered or 
‘divergent ; acute and often steeply pitching where there is great change 
of stratigraphical level, but ill-defined and widely separated where the 
troughs are broad. It is difficult to perceive how, in yielding under 
unilateral stress, sheets of new-made Coal Measures could have wrinkled 
in such forms. It seems more likely that, like blankets on the bed of 
-arestless sleeper, they have heaved and buckled in accommodating them- 
selves to the movements down below. It is recognised that in the con- 
temporaneous filling of each deepening syncline, as old folds tightened 
differences of rigidity between adjoining areas must have been perpetuated, 
and thus, whatever crustal thrust has later disturbed the underlying Lower 
Palzozoic platform, could not do other than exaggerate existing strains. 
Established lines of yielding have been from age to age rejuvenated, but 
the plotting of fold-lines has discovered no local bending structures in 
the Midland Coalfield Province, which can be determined as begun by 
late Carboniferous movements, or as having adopted a novel impressed 
Armorican or Hercynian trend. 

To the coalminer the unit of structure is the coalfield—a group of 
several down-folds forming a distorted trough or synclinorium. For the 
geologist arches are more conveniently described as individual structures, 
The complex ridge of Charnwood pitches down north-westward under 
the Trent Valley, beyond which, by Ashbourne, folds rise to culminate 
near Buxton. Northwards the Pennine anticlinal crest droops down 
some 2,000 ft. under Kinderscout. ‘Thence it continues almost on level 
course along the mid-Pennine ridge of Millstone Grit, and curves a little 
towards the east to Keighley. At intervals of a few miles the High Peak 
ridge throws off, most noticeably towards the east, trailing transverse 
folds, which spread fanwise across the Derbyshire Coalfield. ‘These trans- 
verse folds are sinuous in plan, and variable both in amplitude and pitch. 
Locally intensified, they bring up the limestone inliers of Crich and 
Ashover, and the cracked domes which were pricked for oil, successfully 
at Hardstoft, but unsuccessfully at Brimington, Renishaw, Ridgeway and 
Ironville. Never straight, their direction swings round in reversed ‘S’ 
bends almost through a quadrant. 'To the north in the moorland country 
the transverse undulations are less acute, their crest-lines swing first 
northwards, and then eastwards and a little southwards, as they lose 
themselves in the broad trough of the Yorkshire Coalfield. 

On the west side of the Pennine-Peak-Charnwood ridge-line the change 
of geological level is rapid. In Leicestershire the Thringston Fault puts 
Coal Measures against Pre-Cambrian, and with the two or three sharp 
infolds of minor coalfields west of Buxton, the High Peak adjoins the 
Cheshire Plain. This last great downfold, however, is not a simple 
structure. To it, as to a neck, the extensions of the folds between 
Charnwood and the Longmynd come to meet and join. The triangular 
form of the North Staffordshire Coalfield demonstrates the gape of the 
virgation within whose southward opening rise the ribs which are the 
Productive Coalfield of the Midland district. The plotting shows that 


70 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


each major fold axis in the Midlands, if extended northwards, would come 
to Manchester. Within the convergence the pitch of folds is somewhat 
variable, but there is no evidence of interweaving, or rise and fall by cross- 
folding, which can be interpreted as compounding with broad east-west 
Hercynian folds. North and west of Buxton folds in the Millstone 
Grit country swing southwards round the High Peak ridge, and there 
is rude symmetry of fold distribution in Staffordshire and Derbyshire 
about the north-west line of the extended Charnian axis. 

Across the Manchester Coalfield the broad trough is cut to ribbons by 
north-west faults, which break the measures, as, bending, they dive 
towards the Cheshire Plain. Minor folds alongside major faults have 
axes which diverge westwards from the Pennine fold. The east-west 
Rossendale anticline of mid-Lancashire is so broad a swell that, as with 
its neighbour the even broader Cheshire basin, the location of its merging 
in the Pennine fold is ill-defined. ‘The sharp monocline which makes the 
Pennine crest near Todmorden bends round to the east towards Keighley, 
and the triangular trough of the Burnley Coalfield is evidence that the 
Charnian midrib of the South Pennine structure, which is more or less 
continuous from Leicestershire, has here ended. 

Beyond the North Lancashire Coalfield the trend of sharp folds in the 
Craven lowlands is north-easterly. They swing to the eastwards through 
Skipton as far as Leeds, to follow and define the northern edge of the 
Yorkshire Coalfield. From their divergence to the westwards it is evident 
that the Craven lowlands and North-west Lancashire is a structural unit 
quite distinct from the North Lancashire Coalfield, and there is similarity 
of structure between this Pendle-Bowland area adjacent to the Craven 
Faults and the fold virgation in North Staffordshire. 

The structure of the North Wales coalfield country north-west from 
Shropshire has lately been discussed by officers of the Geological Survey, 
and folds affecting Carboniferous rocks are interpreted as due to tightening 
and adjustment of structures already developed in the Lower Palzozoic 
rocks.13 Whether or not the upstanding mass of the Longmynd has 
protected from Hercynian fold invasion the plains of Southern Cheshire, 
resultant movement in Flint and Denbighshire has produced the horse- 
shoe anticlines whose range is more or less parallel to the Lower Palzozoic 
outcrop, and in groups separated by great tear faults they bulge eastwards 
upon the Cheshire Plain. 


FAULT-PATTERN. 


Following the consideration of fold axes, a similar plotting and reduction 
has been made " of the distribution and alignment of recorded faults, and 
the intricate patterning of Fig. 2 results. From comparisons of super- 
posed diagrams, as first reduced to the }-in. scale, it is clear that the 
dominant families of faults follow the limbs of folds, but that they sweep 
in curves of radius larger than the axial curvature of folds. No fault 


13 C, B. Wedd, ‘ The Principles of Paleozoic and later Tectonic Structure 
between the Longmynd and the Berwyns,’ H.M.G.S. Summary of Progress for 
$93T,/ Pt. TE pt i(r932): 

14 Also by Dr. Pulfrey. 


FAULT STRUCTURE 
IN THE 
MIDLAND COALFIELDS 


10 
Tin = 


o 


C.—GEOLOGY 71 


outcrop is really straight or continuous for many miles, but major fault- 
lines curve witha radius which is often greater than ten or even twenty miles. 
Leading faults, changing direction, give off tangential branch faults or 
receive tributaries which trail in at angles less than 45°. Transverse 
faults are usual across the troughs of pitching synclines. Where trans- 
verse and longitudinal faults cut the country into more or less quadrangular 
blocks, faults which are ending bend to meet the curve of the persistent 
fault. 

Large faults are generally associated with change of dip or change of 
strike of strata, and are therefore inconstant in their throw. Large 
faults frequently occur en echelon in the middle limbs or sides of troughs, 
where their direction makes a small angle with both the strike of the 
measures and the pitch axis of the fold. Mostly faults tend to converge 
towards a rise of pitch. ‘Transverse faults sometimes displace the crests 
of anticlines, but are of greater importance as they reduce the effect of 
pitch along the synclines. Most transverse faults bend and lose their 
throw as they approach the steeper middle limbs of folds, and change the 
curvature of their direction as they pass from anticline to syncline. 

Certain groups of complex or paired trough fractures sweep in 
discontinuous arcuate curves across the Midland Coalfield Province on 
a radius as great as fifty or sixty miles. These are not obviously related 
either to the trend of noticed folds or to the longitudinal or transverse fault 
breaks, with some of which they join. Of them the most extensive system 
follows a rude semicircle through the North Lancashire and East Pennine 
Coalfields from Accrington, by Todmorden to Huddersfield and Sheffield, 
and across Derbyshire to the Dukeries. If it is continuous with the fault 
belt which from Blackburn extends to Wigan and St. Helens, it may 
encircle the Cheshire Basin. 

Other fault groups which bend round the High Peak of Derbyshire 
also cross the Pennines. These carry on through the Derbyshire and 
Nottinghamshire Coalfield, and may encircle the platform of Charnwood 
Forest. The most northerly of this group traverses the Pennines from 
Rochdale to the Calder Valley, and intercrosses with the Todmorden- 
Sheffield disturbance in the Rishworth Moors. A more southerly group 
close to the limestone boundary at Castleton passing by Holmesfield and 
Chesterfield to the south of Mansfield, crosses and recrosses the reversed 

*$° bend of the Brimington anticlinal axis. 

In Flint and Denbighshire also, arcuate groups of fractures likewise 
slice across the horseshoe fold axes. These are circumferential to the 
Silurian buttress of Snowdonia. Where, in the Trent Valley, Trias is 
banked against the southern ending of the Pennines, broadly arcuate 
east-west fractures cut directly across the Pennine Carboniferous folds. 

Appreciation or description of coalfield fault pattern is difficult except 
by diagram, but regional trends change gradually, and within the Midland 
Coalfield Province the only apparent discontinuities are gaps or obscurities 
due to lack of information. Drift obscures the fault outcrops in the Trias 
_ country, and Carboniferous, deep bedded under Trias, reveals its structure 
only as the coal is worked. 

The criss-cross fault arrangement of the Yorkshire Coalfield has been 


72 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


compared by Professor Kendall }° to the crack lattice produced by twisting 
slabs of glass, and the differential lifting of the Pennines was suggested 
as the agency of the twist. The analogy is a good one in that it reminds 
us that the simplest kind of stress may in a single operation by resolution 
produce the diamond fault-block pattern. North of the Don the most 
persistent faults are longitudinal in the flanks of the wide West Yorkshire 
trough, wherein they converge and anastomose, with rise of pitch north- 
westward. In this area transverse faults preserve an almost constant 
north-easterly direction. Most of their movement was pre-Permian, but 
some have since increased their displacement, and certain east-west faults 
which are longitudinal in the flank of the northern boundary anticline 
extend into the Trias. There is to the north of the Don anticline, near 
Rotherham, one area twenty square miles in extent without a charted 
fault. That, however, is exceptional, and triangular or quadrangular 
blocks, of a few score acres to three or four square miles, are characteristic 
of the Yorkshire Coalfield. 

In Derbyshire, and with less certainty in Nottinghamshire, the fault 
pattern is recognisable as an extension of that better defined in Yorkshire, 
but local folds of variable pitch dominate the Derbyshire structure. 
Faults following the general north-west elongation of the coalfield basin 
join with the arcuate groups, and bend eastward to cut across the limestone 
area of the High Peak. In Derbyshire there is no strong development of 
north-east fractures, and the few faults which break the Permian outcrop 
south of Sheffield are either north-westers, or in the south, near Notting- 
ham, where they become important, members of the east-west arcuate 
system of the southern ending of the Pennines. 

In Lancashire transverse faults have cut the coalfield into boat-shaped 
strips which taper sharply where neighbouring members of the same fault 
series join. About Manchester the master fractures traverse steep 
measures in the trough of the wide syncline as it pitches to the Cheshire 
Basin, and are effective in reducing the average rate of dip. The 45° 
hade of these fractures is exceptional, and must have come by tilting as 
displacement continued during and after the deposition of the Permian 
and Trias. South of Manchester the fractures bend southwards as they 
tail off in the sharp rise of measures in the Cheshire margins of the Peak. 
Towards the north the leading fault lines take a double bend, and swing 
round first westwards and then northwards to cross the Rossendale 
anticline. In North Lancashire, and all the way from Wigan to Todmorden, 
the pattern is broken by the great encircling fault group into which both 
from north and south the local strip fractures trail. In South Lancashire 
to the west of the great Pendleton-Irwell Valley Fault, the north-west 
breaks are less powerful and more widely spaced. There are also strike 
faults, possibly an arcuate series, in the edges of the Cheshire Basin, and 
about Wigan and St. Helens a diamond block pattern, not unlike that of 
Yorkshire, has resulted. 

The swarm of faults which in North Wales slices the country into 
narrow strips range generally north and south, with some eastward 
convexity, and cut across the horseshoe folds obliquely. Northwards 


15 P. F. Kendall and H. E. Wroot, Geology of Yorkshire, p. 243 (1924). 


C.—GEOLOGY 73 


from Wrexham, and along the Dee estuary, they diverge somewhat to the 
westward, but east of Hawarden they bend as if to complete beneath the 
Trias the encircling fractures of the Cheshire Plain. ‘The continuation 
of the Bala or Llanelidan Fault tears across the whole Carboniferous 
outcrop, as does the east-west fault through the Vale of Llangollen. 
North-south faults trail into or branch from these old deep-seated fractures, 
by whose repeated movements the wedge of ground between them may 
have been subjected to horizontal torsional stress. The ring of fractures 
round the slab of Ruabon Mountain is not matched in any British coalfield. 
Further to the south, longitudinal faults bend south-westwards, and the 
Denbighshire Coalfield ends at east-west cross-fractures which also cut 
the Trias. 

Within the Cheshire Basin faulting is recorded only in broken outcrops 
of Triassic sandstones. The known pattern follows that in neighbouring 
outcrops of Carboniferous rocks. At the Staffordshire border the Red 
Rock Fault is at once marginal to the basin and longitudinal in the flank 
of the Rearers anticline. Across it both folding and fault movements 
have been renewed since the deposition of the Trias. 

Between the Red Rock Fault of Cheshire and the plateau of the Peak, 

fractures which gather from East Lancashire die in the lower flanks of 
the steep upfold. Along the crest of that main Pennine fold in Yorkshire 
and Cheshire, longitudinal displacements replace the narrow folds con- 
verging to it from the south, and form the Pennine anticlinal fault. Out 
of this across the Millstone Grit moors, minor branch fractures, cross- 
connected, curve away to the eastward in a wide half-circle, to join the 
longitudinal series of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire Coalfield. 
_ The triangle of country which lies between the Peak of Derbyshire, 
the Longmynd and Charnwood, has longitudinal faults which branch as 
they diverge southwards in the middle limbs of folds. As boundary 
faults in the edges of the exposed coalfields of the Midlands, some of 
these are associated with great change of stratigraphical level. They 
range with slight obliquity to the strike of pre-Carboniferous structures, 
and are in the flanks of late Carboniferous upfolds, which have completed 
perhaps the last third of their movements during or since the deposition 
of the Trias. Faults developing in the limb of the western anticline of 
Staffordshire turn and cross the Potteries syncline obliquely, their 
considerable throw reducing the effect of southward pitch. Numerous 
adjustment faults, often in pairs, traverse the crests of anticlines in the 
North and the South Staffordshire coalfields, and also the coalfield 
synclines of South Derbyshire and Leicestershire. Only east-west faults 
of the arcuate group in the northern margin of the Staffordshire-Trent 
Valley Basin are recognised as breaking across both anticlines and 
synclines, or as having direction unrelated to Carboniferous and older 
structures. 

In his studies of structure in the country between the Longmynd and 

_the Berwyns, Wedd has discussed the development of faults by resolution 
of horizontal stress to lateral shear or spiral torsion, where compact rocks 
have met obliquely an advancing Hercynian crustal wave. Possibly 
Structural disposition along other ribs of reinforcement in the pre- 

D2 


74 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Carboniferous floor of the Midlands has located faults of lateral shift, 
but details await attention, and the subject is too large for further 
discussion here. 


COALFIELD DIMENSIONS. 


In the foregoing description and discussion of structural pattern, 
reference to size has intentionally been omitted. In coalfield engineering 
size is the prime factor controlling development, so, for the better applica- 
tion of the principles which have emerged in the qualitative analysis, 
I shall conclude with notes on the dimensions of those structures in and 
about the several coalfields of the province which have been proved, or are 
likely to prove, important in industrial planning and development. 

The largest and most productive of British coalfields is that of Yorkshire, 
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, the East Pennine or East Midland 
Coalfield, a continuous complex downfold or synclinorium, more than 
seventy miles long between Bradford and Nottingham, and forty miles 
wide along the river Don. Half or more than half of its total area to 
and beyond the rivers Ouse and Trent is buried under Permian and Trias ; 
and there, though folds and fault belts from the exposed area can be pro- 
jected, real knowledge of pre-Permian structure has only come with mining 
exploration and development. Denudation had taken toll of all the up- 
raised anticlines before the Magnesian Limestone was deposited, and so 
between Leeds and Nottingham the Basal Permian rests in turn on each 
and every member of the Productive Coal Measures series. 

The Yorkshire Coalfield north of the Don is a comparatively simple 
dish structure, cracked and broken by its faults. Its deepest part is the 
Frickley trough between Pontefract and Doncaster, where the floor of 
lowest Coal Measures lies 4,500 ft. deep twenty miles in from outcrop. 
Towards the south the broad swell of the Don anticline ends in the 
1,500 ft. deep descent to the Maltby Basin, whose slope is broken en 
echelon by the north-easterly Don Faults. Between Doncaster and 
Worksop the central part of this South Yorkshire Basin includes a patch 
of Upper Coal Measures, and here, with 5,000 ft. of Productive Coal 
Measures, is probably the deepest part of any coalfield east of the Pennines. 
Despite truncation at the Permian unconformity, some Productive Coal 
Measures extend for several miles beyond the Trent. 

Contrasting sharply with Yorkshire, where faults are the main dis- 
turbers of continuous mining development, Derbyshire is characterised 
by steep-sided folds of variable pitch, which undulate the measures in 
troughs and arches, nearly, but not quite, high enough to obscure the 
synclinal structure of the coalfield as a whole. From the suburbs of 
Sheffield, the Ridgeway-Renishaw anticline, 1,000 ft. high, pitches 
south-eastwards and bulges the Silkstone Coal outcrop some six miles 
east, and continues by Barlborough and Whitwell underneath the Dukeries. 
Four miles to the south, it has for neighbour the curving hogsback of the 
Brimington anticline, which for eight miles between Holmesfield and 
Duckmanton maintains an even crest level, while the syncline of Dronfield, 
Staveley and Bolsover, pitching with undulations, descends 2,000, ft. 
alongside the steep east-facing flank which at Brimington rises 1,000 ft. 


C.—GEOLOGY 75 


within a mile. The back slope to the Chesterfield syncline starts immedi- 
ately, and, though not so high, is similarly steep. By sudden change of 
pitch and oblique cross-faulting, 600 ft. of crest elevation is lost at Hasland, 
and about Heath the hogsback becomes a terrace. Southwards the crest 
picks up in the 500 ft. high, mile wide, cracked dome of Hardstoft, beyond 
which, broadening as it pitches, it flattens out eastward in the swell which 
holds the coals at convenient depths across the Sherwood Forest area 
east of Mansfield. The Chesterfield-Clay Cross-Tibshelf syncline, two 
to four miles wide, 500-1,000 ft. deep, broadens and opens out to the 
Oxton-Thurgarton Basin of Nottinghamshire. It is bordered on the 
west by the uneven crest which brings limestone to surface at Ashover, and 
by the broken dome of Ironville, three miles long and two miles wide, in 
which the measures rise 600 ft. ‘This towards the south-east is paralleled 
by the wider anticlines of Cossal and the Erewash Valley. Further to the 
westward are the local basins of Swanwick, Ripley, and Heanor—this 
last two miles wide and 500 ft. deep—which form dimples in the terrace 
in which the margin of the coalfield extends south-westwards towards 
Derby. 

Concerning the extension of fold structures beneath the Nottingham- 
shire Trias, more, and more exact, information is desirable. In Derby- 
shire no trough or crest line ever keeps an even course, and though on a 
small-scale map we may outline in simple curves the information avail- 
able from existing pits and boring records, it is not to be expected that 
all pre-Permian folds in Nottinghamshire are broad and open. Levels in 
the Top Hard Coal between Welbeck and Ollerton rise to the eastward, 
and within two miles there is a further steeper rise to Wellow. Explora- 
tions along the line from Mansfield to Kirklington show sharp diversities 
of level of quite 1,000 ft., and to the south of this line, borings at Farns- 
field, Oxton and Thurgarton have proved 500 ft. of red Upper Coal 
Measures infolded underneath the Permian. Despite the presence of 
Upper Coal Measures in this central trough of Nottinghamshire, because 
of southward thinning of the several subdivisions of the series, it is likely 
that the deepest part of the Nottinghamshire basin is shallower by at least 
1,000 ft. than that of South Yorkshire. 

As the East Midland Coalfield fills the broad synclinorium which flanks 
the Peak uplift on the east, so the Lancashire coalfields, and whatever 
there may be beneath the plains of Cheshire, occupy the deeper downfold 
which abuts upon it from the west. Extended Charnwood, being more 
rigid, has been given greater elevation than the prolongation of the 
Longmynd, but west of this latter under the great oval area which extends 
from Manchester to Shrewsbury (sixty miles), and from Chester to Con- 
gleton (thirty miles), Carboniferous rocks are so deeply depressed and 
covered with ‘Trias as to have remained unproved. A borehole 2,500 ft. 
deep at Plumley near Northwich ended in Keuper, and under the central 
500 ft. of Lias proved at Prees the basin is probably deeper still. 

The fall-off westward from the Peak within the East Lancashire coal- 
field to Manchester, is amazingly steep, 7,000 ft. within the six miles of 
mining ground between Oldham and Manchester, 3,500 ft. in an unbroken 
two-mile dip-slope under Stockport town ; and the whole thickness of 


76 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the local Carboniferous from the lowest D1 to the zone of A. tenuis has 
been exposed and bevelled off in the sixteen miles between Miller’s 
Dale and Stockport. 

Steep dips in the Manchester corner of the Icahedshilge Coalfield are 
half compensated in the pitch of the broad Cheshire syncline by low- 
hading, north-westerly throw-back faults, which die in the limbs of the 
anticlines on the north and east. ‘The Irwell Valley-Pendleton Fault, 
with a throw of not less than 2,000 ft. under the suburbs of Salford, is 
about the last and the greatest of the slasher system faults. Beyond it, 
with steepness decreasing from I in 3 to 1 in 6 or less, the Lancashire 
outcrop of Productive Measures sweeps westward to Wigan, where, 
across more faults, it elbows south by St. Helens and Prescot, and so 
beneath the Trias and across to Wales. Decrease of dip in Lancashire 
is associated with transgression of Productive Measures by Permian or 
by overlap of ‘Trias on to Millstone Grit towards the west. 

The northward rise of Coal Measures from under the Cheshire Basin 
continues to a height greater than their local thickness, which in the east 
exceeds 8,000 ft. Across the ten miles wide plateau of the Rossendale 
Anticline which ranges east-west from Bacup to Chorley, the beds of 
Millstone Grit are almost flat, and stratigraphically only some 1,000 ft. 
lower than in the neighbouring crest of the Pennines, from which this 
fold is separated by a mile-wide sloping ridge or neck. 

The North Lancashire Coalfield is a triangular downfold only some 
1,500 ft. deep, tucked in between the Rossendale plateau and the Pen- 
nines, and is cut off towards the north-west by the sharp uprise of Millstone 
Grit and Lower Carboniferous, which outcrop in the Forest of Pendle 
and the lowlands of Craven and the Ribble. This shallow downfold 
contains little more than Lower Coal Measures. 

The horseshoe folds of Flintshire lie to the east and alongside the 
upstanding mass of limestone and Lower Palzozoic rocks of Denbigh and 
Snowdonia, much as the folds in Derbyshire flank the east side of the 
limestone massif of the Peak. The most easterly of them through 
Hawarden, rising and falling transversely 2,000 ft. in about three miles, 
is of similar dimensions to the Brimington anticline. By Caergwrle it 
turns into the profound pre-Trias disturbance of the Llanelidan Fault, 
a branch of the Bala Fault which crosses Wales. ‘The Denbighshire part 
of the coalfield is also traversed by a 1,000 ft. fault through the Vale of 
Llangollen, but most of the curving fractures which cut the North Wales 
coalfield into longitudinal strips are mainly effective in stepping back 
steeply-inclined measures as they dip under the Trias of the Cheshire 
Plain. ‘The westerly transgression of the Trias in Lancashire is matched 
south of Chester by the sudden incoming of the Midland type of Upper 
Coal Measures at the line of the Bala Fault. By Wrexham these red beds 
increase in thickness, and, overlapping the Productive Measures against 
pre-Carboniferous rocks of Shropshire, are probably continuous to Staf- 
fordshire and provide a large part of the filling of the southern half of 
the Cheshire Basin. 

Although it adjoins the Cheshire Basin, there is no suggestion that 
North Staffordshire was ever downfolded with it. ‘The utmost that can 


C.—GEOLOGY 77 


be claimed is that the marginal strip of coalfield between the crest of the 
Rearers Anticline and the Red Rock Fault was dragged down as the basin 
deepened. The Rearers Fold or Western Anticline of Staffordshire is 
interpreted as an acute upfolding of an extension from the Longmynd. 
Within the coalfield, mining has proved that the coal seams rise and fall 
transversely across it 1,500 ft. within three miles, and that where the fold 
is asymmetrical the slight overturn is towards the west. Where, by 
Astbury, the convergence at the Red Rock Fault brings Trias against 
D2 limestone, the eastward drop into the Biddulph trough introduces 
5,000 ft. of measures within two miles. The divergent Eastern or Endon 
anticline is a part of the gentler north-eastward rise out of the Potteries 
Coalfield trough towards Derbyshire, and is defined eastward by the 
steep-sided shallow syncline of Rudyard and the narrow flat-bottomed 
Shaffalong Coalfield. The main trough of Staffordshire pitches a little 
to the west of south at about 500 ft. per mile, but powerful north-west 
faults make the pitch only partially effective. In fifteen miles the coalfield 
widens southward from one to fifteen miles, and within its gape there is, 
about Newcastle and Trentham, already 5,000 ft. of Productive Measures 
overlain by more than 2,000 ft. of Upper Coal Measures. Within North 
Staffordshire, Trias transgresses and is banked against every member of 
the Carboniferous series, and is itself quite steeply tilted by secondary 
uplift of the Rearers and other anticlines. 

The southward pitching of the Potteries downfold is towards Newport 
and the East Shropshire Coalfield. Inlying outcrops of red Upper Coal 
Measures follow the line of the Rearers fold towards the Longmynd, but 
spread also eastwards towards Lilleshall, where a sharp uprise of the 
Wrekin ridge brings up Cambrian and Carboniferous Limestone, and the 
only suggestion of closure of the Stafford-Shropshire basin includes the 
great oval of ‘Trias and Upper Coal Measures which extends forty miles 
south to Kidderminster and Bewdley, with Stafford and Wolverhampton 
on its eastern side. In this downfold, as in the southern half of the 
Cheshire Basin, the Upper Coal Measures are thick, but development 
from the deep pits already working out westwards from the Black Country 
is evidence that almost all its deep downfolding is subsequent to the 
deposition of the Productive Measures. 

The South Staffordshire or Black Country Coalfield is essentially a 
twenty mile long, four to eight miles wide, flat-topped, north-south ridge 
or plateau, tilted slightly towards the south and diversified with minor 
ridges and hollows, which are re-awakened pre-Carboniferous structures. 
From the trend of its minor folds and bounding faults one may guess that 
it lines up with the Eastern (Endon) anticline of North Staffordshire, and 
that the pitch which brings up limestone under Trias north of Cannock 
is responsible for the ending of the coalfield there. 

As the Black Country is a plateau, so the Lichfield-Birmingham Trias 
area is a steep-sided downfold several thousands of feet deep, widening 
southwards and flanked towards the east by the rise to the Warwickshire 
Coalfield. Possibly this is the trough of the Cheadle Coalfield continued 
southward under the Rhetic outlier of Abbots Bromley, but a local rise 
of pitch allows rocks older than the Trias to appear at surface between 


78 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Walsall and Tamworth, and so divides an Uttoxeter-Burton-Lichfield 
basin from the Birmingham-Stratford syncline to the south. 

The Warwickshire Coalfield is an open syncline two to seven miles wide, 
which widens as it pitches down toward the south. Between Kenilworth 
and Coventry it contains over 4,000 ft. of pre-Trias red beds, the thickest 
development of Upper Coal Measures known in Britain. It is elevated 
somewhat above the level of the Birmingham syncline, from which the 
Productive Measures are separated by the crest of Cambrian rock which 
outcrops at Dost Hill. ‘Towards the east the Warwickshire Coal Measures 
rise sharply with the Nuneaton ridge of Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian, 
over and against whose east-facing side the Leicestershire Trias banks 
and overlaps. This spread of Trias is continuous with that of Lichfield 
and the Trent Valley, but whereas as far as the western margin of the 
Warwickshire and South Derbyshire Coalfields the Lichfield trough 
contains a great thickness of Red Upper Coal Measures underneath the 
Trias, the Cambrian and older rocks of Leicestershire form a diversified 
upraised platform and upon it the Bunter is overlapped by Keuper. 

Across the Leicestershire platform, shallow folds of variable pitch strike 
in a general north-westerly direction towards Dovedale and the conver- 
gence of North Staffordshire, in parallel with the south-west edges of the 
Peak. On it, en echelon on either side of the south-east-pitching Ashby 
anticline, lie the coalfields of South Derbyshire and Leicestershire, each 
six or eight miles long and containing about 1,500 ft. of rich Productive 
Measures across which the Trias rests directly. ‘The structural boundary 
of the Leicestershire Coalfield towards Charnwood is peculiar. For 
miles it is a steep fold, broken by a fault, the fissure being occupied by an 
igneous intrusion. But as the fault bends round north-westward it cuts 
across the pitch of the folds, and, whereas on the coalfield side with east- 
ward dip older rocks appear in order northward from under the Coal 
Measures, on the Forest side towards the north the Pre-Cambrian is 
succeeded by Carboniferous Limestone; and west of Melbourne, where 
Millstone Grit is overlain by Trias, this powerful boundary fault has lost 
itsthrow. Movements along this fault were completed before the overstep 
of the Trias. 


CONCLUSION. 


In the assembly of this information I have noted many structural 
associations the significance of which has not been elucidated. The 
plotting of formational thicknesses of strata by zones has confirmed the 
Midland Province as a structural unit of deposition. Examination of 
Coal Measure stratigraphy has proved its slow development as a Coal 
Measure geosynclinal basin which was everted before Permian time. In 
cross-section the folding of the Province is duplex in all directions, and 
in general it is now a synclinorium with a central lop-sided crumpled 
dome. This bifid, asymmetric elevation, which is the central Pennine 
fold, divides the eastern coalfield from a western, more deeply depressed, 
Trias-filled syncline, and within the fork of double uplift is Staffordshire 
and the fingering coalfields of the Midlands. 

The narrow folds which compose the western branch of the Pennines 


C.—GEOLOGY 79 


have for core in Shropshire the worn plexus of Lower Palzozoic rocks 
which had been foothills to the Devonian Caledonian Alps. The Charn- 
wood core of the eastern limb in Leicestershire is compressed Pre-Cam- 
brian and igneous material. Several, probably all, synclines within the 
Carboniferous synclinoria are disposed between ribs of reinforcement in 
the pre-Carboniferous foundations, which are aligned with the anticlinals 
of their cores. The synclinals deepened intermittently but progressively 
as the geosynclinal filled ; and though as a whole the Province may occupy 
an early downfold in the foreland of the Hercynian alpine chain, its 
leading fold-lines are re-emphasised and rejuvenated structures which 
in origin are older. 

In the beginnings of my study of fold and fault distribution in the 
Pennines, I was content to follow custom, and use established regional 
names for trend. The East Pennine Coalfield has obvious north-west- 
south-east elongation and is continuous to Charnwood. Its longitudinal 
folds and faults, though they bend in flowing curves, do not stray far 
from the Charnian direction. The north-east-south-west oval of the 
Cheshire Basin may be Caledonian, and though it lies athwart the com- 
pressed folds of Wales, it is flanked by folds and faults which are 
rejuvenated Caledonian structures. The Pennines as a hill range trend 
north and south, but north-south folds are only dominant in them for 
some twenty miles along the borders of Derbyshire and Cheshire, where 
they are bunched between the Caledonian trough of Cheshire and the 
Peakland extension of the Charnwood ridge. Continuing with slight 
divergence through North Staffordshire, they point southward as a hand 
with outstretched fingers, the thumb along the Caledonian folds of 
Shropshire, the long fingers following the coalfields of the Black Country 
and Warwickshire, and the little finger the Charnian of Leicestershire— 
a Midland fan of congruent folds and faults, Caledonian and Charnian, 
but on the average ‘ Pennine’ in direction. Northwards also, but in 
curves which are asymmetric, trend-lines from the central Pennines open 
out, in Lancashire bending westwards but in Yorkshire eastwards, to 
return southwards and unite with Charnian structures in Derbyshire and 
Nottinghamshire. 

Surely in this continuous variation of fold and fault direction within 
the type area from which the Pennine trend was named, we see the appli- 
cation of regional trend nomenclature reduced to an absurdity. The 
Pennine uplift is not a simple group of parallel pressure ridges ; and, 
having traced the loosening of its sheaf of structures through the Midlands, 
and seen them almost box the compass in the coalfields on either side, 
I have concluded that as a synonym for north-south trend of structure 
the name of ‘ Pennine’ must disappear. Forced correlation in use of 
nomenclature cannot express tectonic virgation, and for precision in 
indicating fold direction in the course of this address, I have gone 
back to compass-bearing, and for specifying fault-lines I am content to 
mention their alignment and locality. 

Charnian, Caledonian, Hercynian, are well-established names for 
ancient mountain ranges. With reason they are used to designate 
structure impressed when those mountain folds were being compressed. 


80 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


During the filling of the Coal Measure geosyncline, local folds of the 
Pennine family were lines of delayed settlement, and it seems unlikely 
that the Midland Province area was then being compressed. Moreover, 
within this area the flanks and crests and troughs of the folds affecting 
Carboniferous rocks are broken by normal faults of extension, whose 
‘ wants’ or ‘ barren areas’ go far to compensate the shortening of the 
base line required for maintenance of continuous cover for the folds. 
From mining records we have indications that certain longitudinal faults 
had cracked and suffered adjustment as the Coal Measures were deposited, 
but the main displacement of all coalfield faults belongs to the time of 
Hercynian uplift, after the accumulation of the Upper Coal Measure 
Red Beds, and before the planation which made ready for the deposition 
of the Permian. 

By pattern and by distribution over all the area studied, Pennine and 
older and newer faults and folds are so closely associated that it is 
inconceivable that they should have come into existence or developed 
separately. Lateral compression does not explain the existence of 
normal faults along the middle limbs of folds, nor the characteristic 
back-step adjustments in the pitch of troughs ; and by stages Pennine 
structures must have been both tensional and compressional. Only by 
meticulous measurement of the extent of wants and barren areas in 
disrupted sheets of sediment which were once continuous, such as coal 
seams, could the relative importance of positive and negative strains be 
evaluated. It is in the hope that geologists interested in such problems 
will seek out and compute the exact geometrical information available 
in coalfield mine plans, that I have stressed their interest in the opening 
remarks of this address. 


SECTION D—ZOOLOGY. 


THE MECHANICAL VIEW OF LIFE 


ADDRESS BY 
DR: J."GRAY)’F.RIS:, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


EAcu year it becomes more difficult to review the progress which is being 
made in the diverse fields of modern zoology, for as individuals we are 
necessarily specialists, and we tend to forget that the greatest contribu- 
tion which zoology has ever made to human thought was not the result 
of a specialised inquiry. The concept of organic evolution was, on the 
contrary, a brilliant process of integration from every branch of the 
subject, which spread its effect far beyond the confines of zoology itself. 
Although it is impracticable to review, even in the most general terms, 
the progress of the science as a whole, it is perhaps possible to take stock 
of one particular branch of the subject and to discuss its contributions 
towards problems which are of some general scientific and human interest. 
To an increasing extent, experimental zoologists are borrowing the 
weapons of physical chemistry, and possibly the time has come to consider 
the general point of view which underlies this type of attack on zoological 
problems. What is our conception of the essential nature of the living 
organism? Do we believe that the activity of living matter and its 
potentiality for change can be expressed adequately in terms of physical 
units? Do we incline to the belief that living animals have been evolved 
from inanimate matter ? 

The aim of experimental biologists is to express the living organism in 
terms of its dynamic activities and to consider its structure as an active 
and functional machine. It is not infrequently suggested that this is the 
province of the physiologist and the biochemist. I venture to think that 
this is not the case. Let us consider one of the fundamental tissues of 
an animal’s body from the point of view of the physiologist and from that 
of the zoologist. ‘To the physiologist, a muscle is all but invariably an 
isolated preparation functioning under conditions which are often remote 
from those which exist in the body of the organism. Such preparations 
have thrown light on the phenomena of muscular contraction, and on the 
process whereby the muscle is induced to contract when it receives a 
nervous impulse. On the other hand, how many physiologists know, or 
are even interested to know, how a frog jumps? ‘To the zoologist a 
frog’s sartorius should represent an essential part of the locomotory 
machine ; it must be studied im situ and in a way which will illuminate, 
not the nature of a muscular twitch, but the behaviour of the animal in 
its own natural habitat. It is idle to suggest that there is not much 
common ground between physiology and experimental zoology, but, 
from a broad standpoint, the conception of the organism as a single living 


82 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


entity is, or should be, the more peculiar attribute of experimental 
zoology. To some extent it is true that we cannot understand the full 
potentiality of a frog’s musculature until we have a precise knowledge of 
the dynamic properties of a muscle fibre. The fibre is, or appears to be, 
a less complicated system than the muscle which is working in situ, and it is 
tempting to start with the simpler unit and to pass on to the more compli- 
cated systems by a series of apparently logical steps. To a significant 
extent this argument has appealed to experimental zoologists. We start by 
being interested in the organism as a whole, but soon decide to concentrate 
on one specific organ. Eventually the organ gives place to the cell, and 
thence it is an easy step to the bottom of the ladder where we gather 
together to discuss the structure and the functions of living material in 
terms of atoms and molecules. This point of view is of peculiar signifi- 
cance, for, by means of a common language, zoologists, physiologists, 
chemists and physicists have developed, and are continuing to develop, 
a fruitful field of work. It is, however, a field on which it is dangerous 
to tread without adequate safeguards. It is all too easy to over-simplify 
a problem and to ignore the fundamental properties of living matter ; it 
is all too easy to make artificial pearls and cast them before appreciative 
swine. It is, nevertheless, in this field that the foundations of all biology 
eventually may rest, and perhaps the time has come when we should 
review, as impartially as we can, the relationship between the animate 
world of animals and the inanimate world of the physical chemist. 

The application of physical and chemical methods as instruments of 
biological research needs no defence. Its justification is seen in the 
results which have been obtained. During the past twenty-five years 
our knowledge of the living cell, of the respiratory process, and of the 
mechanisms of nerve and muscle fibres has been placed on a high level 
of precision by methods which are identical in type with those used for 
the study of physico-chemical processes in inanimate systems. In so far 
as these results bear on their own peculiar problems, zoologists must 
accept them, and they must influence our conception of the organism as 
a whole. By using appropriate methods we can define the physical 
properties of living matter, but there always remains the possibility that 
the living organism may possess properties of another nature which 
cannot be defined in physical units. 

When, as biologists, we are asked to define our conception of the nature 
or origin of living matter, we must confine ourselves to views which are 
based on the facts of observation. The more accurate and extensive are 
our observational data, the more precise and the more satisfying will be 
our conclusions. The material with which the biologist must deal is of 
extreme diversity and complexity, and we naturally turn to the physical 
world for standards of measurement which will help us to arrange our 
material and to place our observations in a reasonable relationship to each 
other. As I understand it, the age-long discussion between the mechan- 
istic and vitalist schools of thought turns on how far we believe—on the 
basis of observation—that the facts of biology can be sorted out into an 
harmonious and satisfying series without invoking conceptions which are 
found to be unnecessary in dealing with the facts of observation within 
the physical world. The centre of gravity of the problem shifts from 


D.—ZOOLOGY 83 


time to time, but for many years two concepts appear to have influenced 
the discussion to a marked extent. Firstly, the synthesis of organic 
compounds from inorganic material suggests that there is no fundamental 
difference between the type of substances found in or made by living 
organisms and those which are found in or formed by purely inorganic 
systems. Secondly, the inferences drawn from the theories of organic 
and terrestrial evolution suggest that these two processes are funda- 
mentally similar and involve the operation of fundamentally comparable 
forces. Not a few biologists have in fact maintained that living matter 
“ owes its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been 
instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the Universe ’ 
(Schafer, 1911). This was the view of Ray Lankester, who elaborated a 
series of intermediate steps whereby the first type of living organism was 
evolved from inanimate matter. I imagine that not a few modern 
zoologists would tolerate, if not actually accept, a similar view. From 
this it is often, but not always, implied that there is a fundamental 
continuity in the properties of all matter and that the only properties 
which a living organism can possess are those which can be defined in 
physico-chemical terms. 

Opposition to such a view has not been wanting. In 1912 Sir Oliver 
Lodge replied to the views set forth by Sir Edward Schafer and stressed 
the existence in organisms of a principle, not easy to define, which is 
absent from the world of physics and chemistry. From time to time the 
battle has been renewed, and both biologists and physicists have taken an 
active part. It is a curious but pertinent fact that the most far-reaching 
mechanistic views have been and are being put forward by biologists, the 
more cautious views or the vitalistic views are held by physicists and 
chemists. IT. H. Morgan, the author of so much fundamental work in the 
realm of pure biology, states in a recent book: ‘ When, if ever, the whole 
story can be told, the problem of adaptation of the organism to its 
environment, and the co-ordination of its parts, may appear to be a 
self-contained progressive elaboration of chemical compounds.’ Even 
Dr. Barnes accepts the spontaneous origin of living matter as a natural 
phenomenon : ‘ If we could reproduce in the laboratory the conditions 
which existed upon the earth when life first appeared we should cause it 
to appear again.’ On the other side, we find physiologists (whose experi- 
mental contributions to science are of a severely physico-chemical nature)— 
J.S. Haldane and A. V. Hill—regarding the purely physical outlook with 
distrust. It all seems rather like Alice in Through the Looking-glass. 

The exponents of the mechanistic view have been curiously indefinite 
in the exposition of their opinions. I confess that a study of the more 
popular works on physical science leads me no nearer to an understanding 
of those ‘ causes ’ which, according to Sir E. Schifer, ‘ have been instru- 
mental in producing all other forms of matter in the Universe’; nor 
have such chemists as I have had the good fortune to meet been very 
familiar with the concept of ‘ co-ordinated series of self-regulating and 
self-propagating chemical reactions,’ such as are described by Prof. 
Hogben. According to Prof. Hogben, we may look for a complete 
solution to the nature of life within a mechanistic framework, fortified by 
the conviction that ‘ The mechanist has a cheerful attitude to knowledge 


84 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


and refuses to capitulate to the fear of the Unknown: the vitalist, a 
sadder but not necessarily a wiser type, finds balm in the limitations and 
failures of human effort.’ So far as I have been able to observe, it is by 
no means obvious to note in the writings of Dr. Haldane, Prof. Hill, 
or the Bishop of Birmingham those signs which are usually associated 
with a contemplation of the failures of the human intellect. 

The mechanistic view of life seems to imply that if, at any instant of 
time, we were to know the precise distribution of the matter and energy 
which are present in an organism, we would have a complete under- 
standing of all its properties. In other words, the behaviour of living 
systems can be completely defined in terms of laws which are fundament- 
ally similar to those which describe the behaviour of inanimate systems. 
It is of interest to consider how far this conception is based on the results 
of observation, and how far it rests on a rather indefinite foundation of 
intuitive belief. 

Let us look for a moment at the theory of the evolution of animate 
from inanimate matter. From a biological point of view it seems at 
first sight reasonable—it seems to be the natural conclusion to draw from 
the process of evolution which characterises the world of living organisms 
and the universe as a whole. The theory gives us a comfortable feeling 
of continuity of thought. Let us look at the position from a physical 
point of view. As a physical phenomenon it is undoubtedly possible for 
a living organism to have been evolved spontaneously from inanimate 
matter. It is also possible for a stone to leap spontaneously from the 
surface of the earth. ‘These things are possible, but are they probable ? 
To obtain some estimate of the degree of probability it may be useful to 
consider the phenomena of Brownian movement. As biologists we are 
very familiar with the spontaneous motion of very small particles lying 
in a liquid medium. We believe that each excursion is due to a difference 
in the intensity of molecular bombardment along the axis of movement. 
The smaller the particle, the greater is the chance that a molecule of water 
will hit the particle without a simultaneous encounter from another 
water molecule coming in an opposite direction. Water molecules are 
moving at random, and the direction of collision is one of chance—the 
larger the particle, the greater is the chance of an equal average intensity 
of bombardment from all directions at any given moment. Now since all 
water molecules are free to move in any direction, the actual number of 
molecules moving in a common direction at any given moment will vary 
from moment to moment, and the same is true for the molecules of a 
pebble on the ground. It is possible for all the particles in a suspension 
of Indian ink to move simultaneously in one direction. It is also possible 
for all the molecules of a pebble to perform the same feat—but in view of 
the very large number of other possibilities, the probability of simultaneous 
co-ordinated movement is very, very small unless we are dealing with 
very small numbers of molecules. The degree of smallness can be judged 
by putting ten black and ten white balls into a box and drawing them 
out at random in lots of ten. The probability that we will draw ten 
white or ten black balls is five times in one million. If we increase 
the numbers and draw one hundred balls, the probability of drawing 
balls all of one colour is so small that we say that anybody who 


D.—ZOOLOGY 85 


expected it to occur must be slightly demented. In the case of the 
Brownian particles, the chances of ten contiguous particles moving 
simultaneously in the same direction are even smaller, and in practice we 
sum all this up by saying that as long as we are dealing with reasonably 
large numbers of molecules, the events which we observe are the most 
probable events, and we assume that the improbable events do not in 
fact occur. On this arbitrary but effective basis rest most, if not all, the 
laws of physics and chemistry which we apply to the study of living matter. 
We say, in effect, that stones do not leap spontaneously from the earth 
because the chances against it are so extremely great ; similarly we state 
that the pressure of a gas is always inversely proportional to its volume, 
except on a negligible number of occasions. ‘The organisation of the 
simplest living organism is clearly more complex than that of a stone or of 
a motor car, and it carries out processes which are infinitely more complex 
than the sorting out of black from white particles. What, in fact, is the 
probability that any chance distribution of molecules should lead spon- 
taneously to the dynamically active mechanism of the living organism ? 
Would any serious credence be given to the suggestion that a motor car 
or even a footprint on the sands came spontaneously into existence without 
the intervention of directive forces? Why, then, should we accept the 
spontaneous origin of living matter ? It is possible, but it is so improbable 
that, if considered as an observable phenomenon, in any other sphere of 
human thought it would be discarded as a figment of a deranged brain. 
Why should biology accept a standard of probabilities incomparably less 
satisfying than that of other branches of knowledge ? 

Left to himself, the chemist does not seriously consider the spontaneous 
origin of proteins from CO,, water, and simple salts, nor does the physicist 
admit the spontaneous origin of organised machines. Biology itself pro- 
vides not one shred of observational evidence to support the spontaneous 
origin of living matter in the world to-day, and yet not a few biologists 
are prepared to postulate the spontaneous origin of intermediate stages 
between the living and the inanimate worlds—to my mind, the spontaneous 
origins of these stages represent physical events which are so improbable 
that we cannot describe them in terms of ‘ laws’ which only apply to 
events of an entirely different order of probability: if these inter- 
mediate stages actually occurred they must be classified as miracles, 
not as ‘ natural’ events. We may be told that in past ages, events which 
are now very improbable were in fact of quite frequent occurrence. As 
scientists we cannot accept this statement without some assurance as to 
what were the nature of the conditions which made the origin of life 
inevitable or even probable. The distribution of energy and of matter 
in past epochs may have been different ; but if such conditions produced 
the living organism, is it not strange that every attempt to reproduce 
them in the laboratory have completely failed ? 

We can put the facts in another way. Within the physical world all 
systems appear to move towards the state of greatest probability, and the 
events which take place within a dynamic system are those which tend 
to destroy structure and not those which elaborate it. Is there any evi- 
dence which suggests that, within the physical world, a dynamic machine 
has spontaneously come into existence? ‘That such an event might 


86 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


happen is true, but has it, in point of fact, ever occurred under the observa- 
tion of mankind ? Unless a positive answer can be given to this question, 
the belief in the spontaneous origin of living matter seems to be a negation 
of the principles which underlie scientific thought. 

If we decline to accept the spontaneous origin of living from non-living 
matter, there is no particular reason why we should hope to express all 
the properties of an organism in terms of physical laws ; we might just 
as reasonably try to express physical phenomena in terms of biological 
conceptions. It seems more logical to accept the existence of matter in 
two states (the animate and the inanimate) as an initial assumption. 
Some properties are naturally common to matter in either state, and it is 
therefore legitimate to study the so-called physical properties of living 
matter ; but just as the fundamental concepts of physics are based on 
observational facts, so those of biology must conform to the same condi- 
tions. The physicist is not concerned with the origin of inanimate 
matter ; he is content to investigate it as he finds it. The biologist must 
likewise accept the living state as he finds it and not allow his science to 
rest on theories, however spectacular or attractive. It is not easy to 
define Life, but in practice most people will admit that matter in the living 
state possesses characteristics which are fundamentally different from 
those of inanimate objects. 

The central characteristic of living matter is its state of organised 
dynamic structure. This is obvious in all the larger forms of animal life, 
but it is equally true in so-called ‘homogeneous’ protoplasm. This 
important fact emerges from the study of such cells as the eggs of echino- 
derms and molluscs. From a biological point of view, the eggs represent 
not only very remarkable chemical laboratories, but also systems which 
are capable of transforming themselves spontaneously into highly differen- 
tiated organisms. A study of the physical properties of the eggs shows, 
conclusively I think, that the cytoplasm consists of a fluid matrix in which 
lie the granules which are visible under the microscope. ‘The viscosity 
of the fluid matrix has been measured by observing the rate at which 
granules or particles move through the cytoplasmic matrix when exposed 
to a given intensity of centrifugal force—and the value so obtained is 
confirmed by observing the velocity at which such granules redistribute 
themselves spontaneously by Brownian movement. We conclude from 
such observations that the cytoplasm of the cell with all its complicated 
biological properties possesses, in the aggregate, the general properties of 
a liquid and not of a solid. Similarly, the immature nucleus of the odcyte 
has the general properties of a fluid, and yet it proceeds spontaneously 
to form the highly differentiated system seen during meiosis. Within the 
fluid system of the cytoplasm or the nucleus, single molecules or aggregates 
of molecules will distribute themselves at random (just as do the granules 
we can see through the microscope), unless these molecules are subjected 
to suitable restraint. When we try to picture the cell or the nucleus as a 
complex chemical laboratory, it is by no means easy to visualise the type 
of forces which are necessary to hold the various particles or molecules 
in their proper position relative to each other. Were the matrix of the 
cell of a solid nature, the problem would be much simpler. It may be 
suggested that the application of centrifugal force destroys the real struc- 


D.—ZOOLOGY 87 


ture of the egg, so that under natural conditions the cytoplasm possesses 
the properties of a solid rather than those of a liquid. If this be the case, 
we are faced with the striking fact that the centrifuged egg develops 
normally, so that any structure which is destroyed by centrifugal force is 
very rapidly regenerated spontaneously when the force ceases to be 
applied—such powers of spontaneous regeneration are unknown in the 
physical world. The evidence is, however, against the view that the low 
viscosity of cytoplasm is more apparent than real, and the suggestion is 
entirely inadmissible in respect to the nucleus for, in this case, the fluid 
nature is revealed without the application of any force other than gravity. 
If we base our conception of the structure of protoplasm on the facts 
revealed by physical methods, we must imagine a system of very great 
chemical complexity and of very great potentiality for spontaneous self- 
differentiation within a fluid framework. Protoplasm cannot be regarded 
as a fluid crystal, for it possesses dynamic properties which are constantly 
expressing themselves in a variety of ways. Two general conclusions 
seem possible. We may assume that the molecules of protein and of 
other substances in the cell are so arranged in respect to each other that 
they constitute a highly active chemical system, and that the mechanism 
which maintains this molecular orientation is such that individual mole- 
cules or groups of molecules are able to move in the way necessary to give 
fluid properties to the whole system but not free to distribute themselves 
at random. If this be the case, the whole cell must be regarded as a 
fundamental unit, whose organisation is such that its structure cannot be 
destroyed by centrifugal force. So far such an organisation is not known - 
in dynamically comparable systems of an inanimate nature—we must 
regard it for the time being as an attribute peculiar to the living state, 
and as an attribute which is as fundamental as any of those employed for 
the description of inanimate matter. An alternative view is, however, 
possible. 

We may look on a mass of protoplasm as a very fine emulsion, the funda- 
mental units of which are extremely-small. If we assume that the pro- 
perties of the system as a whole are essentially those of each individual 
unit, then we have no great difficulty in seeing how mass disturbances fail 
to affect the properties of the whole system. The displacement of the 
particles by diffusion, or other causes, throughout the mass of the system 
will not influence the fundamental properties of the cell or nucleus if these 
properties are essentially those of the small individual units. The con- 
ception of the living cell as an aggregation of a very large number of funda- 
mental units is in keeping with the fact that small fragments of egg-cells 
retain some at least of the properties of the whole system. It is also in 
keeping with the very small dimensions (as in viruses) within which 
living phenomena have been observed. ‘There is some evidence to support 
the view that single differentiated cells also represent aggregates of very 
small living units. For example, a suspension of the spermatozoa of the 
sea-urchin Echinus in sea-water, after a period of maximal activity, enters 
a phase of declining mechanical and respiratory activity. If we consider 
a single spermatozoon during this period of senescence, we find that the 
intensity of its mechanical and respiratory activity declines in a way which 
is characteristic of a population of units which differ from each other in 


88 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


their viability—the single cell behaves, in fact, as though it represented a 
large population of much smaller units of activity. 

If we accept the view that the fundamental unit of life is extremely 
small, we can see that mechanical disturbances throughout a suspension 
of such units may induce no very far-reaching results. The conception 
of protoplasm as an emulsion of small vital units suspended in a fluid 
system is perhaps the most satisfactory picture we can derive from available 
facts ; but it breaks down when we try to think of the mechanism whereby 
the cell differentiates itself as a whole—for here we must postulate some 
form of co-ordinated relationship between individual units. If, however, 
we shelve this difficulty for the moment and accept the general conception 
that ‘ vital’ properties are associated with very small units of structure, 
a variable number of which are normally aggregated together as a suspen- 
sion to form a single cell—it is obvious that we must exercise very great 
caution in the application of the statistical laws of physics in describing 
the properties of the fundamental units of life. ‘The only legitimate laws 
are those applicable to the behaviour of single units of activity. So far 
as I can form an opinion, such determinate laws have not yet been forth- 
coming. I am inclined to think that the intrinsic properties of living 
matter are as mysterious and as fundamental as the intrinsic properties 
of the molecule of a radio-active substance : when the physicist can tell 
us why one particular molecule explodes and why another goes on existing, 
I venture to think that we can begin to consider the possibility of defining 
the fundamental properties of living protoplasm in physical terms. At 
present, however, the physicist seems more inclined to define physical phe- 
nomena in terms of biological conceptions, for, according to M. Poincaré 
and others, ‘modern physics is presenting us with apparent examples 
of spontaneity and foresight.’ For the moment, however, we must con- 
clude that although physical methods have provided important facts con- 
cerning the state of living material, they have not as yet thrown much light 
on its fundamental properties. 

If we now turn to the behaviour of an echinoderm egg-cell after fertili- 
sation, it is again possible to define certain physical characteristics. We 
can observe changes in the mechanical properties of localised regions of 
the cell and of the nucleus, but we have no adequate picture of how these 
events are initiated. We are, however, acutely conscious of the high 
regulative power of the whole system. If we destroy, by mechanical or 
other means, the astral radiations seen in the cell at the anaphase of mitosis, 
these structures are regenerated in what we can reasonably call the right 
place at the right time. The whole process of nuclear and cell divi- 
sion, when regarded impartially as a physical event, represents an orderly 
process of formation of structural elements—and has physical attributes 
similar to those which characterise the formation of an inanimate machine 
from unorganised material. All attempts to define the mechanism 
whereby this orderly process of segregation is initiated, in terms of physical 
units, are, in my opinion, fanciful. It is more reasonable, at present, to 
regard such powers of effecting an orderly distribution of material as an 
intrinsic and fundamental property of living matter. The operation of 
this power no more involves disobedience of physical or chemical laws 
than does the manufacture of a motor car. 


D.—ZOOLOGY 89 


After cell division has been in progress for a very short period the cells 
which are formed by an egg of a sea-urchin begin to show a marked 
difference in arrangement from those of a polychet worm. At the end of 
the third cleavage cycle, the cleavage pattern of a sea-urchin is seen to be 
orthoradial—the cleavage furrows between the upper quartet of cells lie 
immediately over the furrows of the lower quartet. In the polychet, 
however, the arrangement is spiral, not orthoradial, for the furrows of the 
first quartet of smaller cells lie between the furrows of the basal quadrant 
cells. By experimental means we can force the sea-urchin egg to 
divide in a way characteristic of the worm. ‘This is done by increasing 
the centripetal force which tends to press one cell against another, and we 
can show that the arrangement in the polychzt worm is that assumed by 
a system of spheres so arranged as to pack together within a minimum 
volume. The arrangement in the polychet is essentially the same as in 
the egg of the mollusc or polyclad turbellarian. What conclusions can 
we draw? The classical interpretation associates the similarity in the 
cleavage pattern with a common phylogenetic relationship. From an 
experimental point of view one is inclined to a totally different view—viz. 
that the similarity in form is due to a similarity in the intensity of the 
mechanical forces operating on the cells. In the worm, mollusc, or tur- 
bellarian the centripetal pressure acting on the cells is sufficient to force 
the cells to occupy a form in which a maximum volume is enclosed by a 
minimum area of surface. In the sea-urchin this is not the case. The 
pattern as such plays no essential réle in determining the fate of the egg. 
A spirally cleaving sea-urchin egg develops normally ; it does not develop 
into a worm or mollusc. The mechanical view is peculiarly attractive, 
but it has one serious objection. When the dividing cells of a molluscan 
egg rotate so as to reduce their centripetal pressure to a minimum, a rota- 
tion to the left is as effective as a rotation to the right—and on each occasion 
one would expect an equal number of rotations to the left as to the right. 
In a few cases this seems to occur, but in others the left-handed or right- 
handed pattern appears to be due to determinate and not to chance forces— 
for at any given stage of cleavage all the eggs show a rotation to the right 
or to the left. That this phenomenon is correlated with mechanical 
asymmetry is quite probable, and it may be that the nature of this 
asymmetry will eventually be observed. In the meantime, however, we 
seem to be faced with the fact that a mechanical condition which is satis- 
fiable in either one of two ways, is, in fact, only effected in one way. 
Does it not look as though a disturbance has occurred in the probability 
values of the system ? It is as though we were presented with a bag of 
black and white balls—and each time we pick out the black balls and reject 
‘the whites. Before we attribute a determinate behaviour to the cleaving 
egg-cell we must, of course, make certain that the chance of left- or right- 
handed cleavage is mechanically of equal probability. Up to the present 
we can only say that no mechanical difference is apparent—and in the 
absence of such definite evidence we are free to interpret the facts either as 
evidence of a deficiency in our knowledge of the mechanics of the system, 
or to the possibility that there exists in the egg a potentiality which makes 
certain events more probable than they could be in inanimate systems. 
One is tempted to suggest that the cells of a molluscan egg turn one way 


go SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


or another for intrinsic reasons: an event starts inside the cells—quite 
independent of any external influence—just as in the exploding molecule 
of a radio-active substance. In other words, the cell has an individuality 
of its own—which is free from the limitations of statistical laws. ‘The 
field of cell cleavage is full of possibilities for future inquiry, and would 
well repay more intensive study. 

We must, however, now turn to certain wider aspects of experimental 
embryology, which are best observed in the eggs of the lower vertebrates. 
Within this field the progress of the past twenty-five years has been 
spectacular. By grafting fragments of the developing embryo of the newt 
into positions which they do not normally occupy, it is possible to get 
a picture of embryological development which is incomparably more 
satisfying than any hitherto available. We know that there exists in the 
egg a region or regions which are capable of influencing the fate of the 
neighbouring tissues. Each of these so-called ‘ organising centres’ 
determines in some way the process of tissue differentiation: the raw 
material is, as it were, full of potentialities for differentiation, but the 
exact line which will be followed is affected by the organisers. Once the 
process of differentiation has reached a critical stage, the fate of the tissue 
is determined ; before that period, the raw tissue can be built up into 
a variety of different structures. Quite recently it has been shown that 
such organisers are curiously non-specific—an organising centre from 
a chick can induce organ-formation in the undifferentiated tissue of 
a mammal ; and, still more remarkable, the organising centre does not 
appear to lose its activity after death. These facts are admittedly be- 
wildering—but two points seem to emerge quite clearly. Firstly, the 
potentiality of the organism to control its fate is established at a very early 
stage. If we carry back the facts of experimental embryology to their 
beginning, we see that the essential biological difference between the 
egg of the sea-urchin and the egg of the mollusc (Dentalium) is a difference 
in the relative time at which development becomes independent of 
organising centres—in the sea-urchin it is relatively late; in Dentalium 
it occurs before the egg begins to cleave. By accepting the concept of 
an organising centre the facts of embryology thus appear to arrange 
themselves in an orderly manner—and this, after all, is the supreme test 
of any scientific hypothesis. The second great inference to be drawn 
from these facts is the present inadequacy of expressing the facts in 
physico-chemical terms. The only point at which the phenomena 
seem to be susceptible to physical analysis is the apparent activity of an 
organising centre after death. This would suggest that the action of an 
organiser is either mechanical in its nature or is comparable to that of 
a trigger which releases specific lines of development from unorganised 
tissues of high potentiality. By physical methods we can hope to elucidate 
the physical attributes of this trigger action, but I do not think that the 
facts, so far as they are known at present, present a very convincing argu- 
ment in favour of a mechanistic hypothesis. From a broad standpoint, 
the obvious conclusion we must draw from the facts of experimental 
embryology and from the regeneration of lost parts is that the organism 
behaves as a co-ordinated system even in the very earliest stages of its 
development ; and that this co-ordination is of a degree of complexity 


D.—ZOOLOGY gI 


quite unknown in the physical world. It is important to notice that this 
complexity of structure is essentially of a dynamic nature. We may say, 
if we feel disposed, that it is a system which is physically unstable—but 
where in the chemical world do we find such unstable systems acting in 
such a way as to build up and not to break down a highly complex 
structure ? 

It must be noted that the organising centres of the egg possess physical 
properties by virtue of which their activity may be influenced by external 
conditions. The development of a frog’s egg is affected in a definite 
way by a gradient of temperature applied along particular axes, and we 
know that the egg will not develop in the absence of atmospheric oxygen. 
Can we not say with equal truth that the production of a motor car would 
also be affected by keeping one end of the factory at 30° C. and the other 
at o° C.? Would it not also be affected by depriving the system of 
atmospheric oxygen? ‘The effect of such conditions can be measured 
in terms of physical chemistry, but do they throw any real light on 
the type of organisation necessary for the production of a car or of an 
organism ? 

Within the sphere of embryology we can recognise, more clearly than 
in any other biological science, the two main attributes of living matter : 
(1) an inherent complexity of structure, and (2) a dynamic potentiality 
of initiating events which either do not occur at all or only occur very 
infrequently in inanimate systems. 

Similar inferences can be drawn from another great sphere of experi- 
mental inquiry—namely, a study of the relationship between the fully 
grown organism and its physical and chemical environment, but in this 
case we tend to concentrate on the physical events rather than on the 
potentiality of the organism to control or vary its own activities. For 
example, many animals have the power to elaborate a peculiarly beautiful 
chemical machine for the conveyance of oxygen to the tissues. In such 
cases our main objective is a description of the physico-chemical properties 
of such respiratory systems, and as these are clearly susceptible to statistical 
treatment they can be described in terms of known physical laws. So 
also, in the adult animal, the phenomena of co-ordinated behaviour are 
clearly associated with the central nervous system, and the physical signs 
of this co-ordination are rapidly being analysed by appropriate physical 
methods, but it is important to remember that the phenomena of regulative 
control are present long before the central nervous system has been fully 
differentiated, and are not infrequently detectible in the undivided egg. 
If we are fully to understand the mechanisms of respiration and of co- 
ordinated behaviour we must bear in mind the manner in which the 
fully formed systems come into existence, and not concentrate exclusively 
on the more obvious physical characteristics of the fully developed 
mechanisms. 

Let us now try to summarise the position. The only laws which 
physics has provided for an analysis of biological phenomena rest on a 
Statistical basis ; they only apply to systems which contain a large number 
of participating units and only describe natural phenomena in terms of 
probability and not of absolute truth. If we accept these laws as a means 
of describing the behaviour or the structure of an organism, we must 


92 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


accept the conventions attached to the laws and agree to ignore such events 
as are improbable although they may conceivably occur. From this 
point of view, the spontaneous origin of living from inanimate matter 
must be regarded as a highly improbable event, and as such can be assumed 
not to have occurred. Similarly, the development of an organism from 
so-called undifferentiated protoplasm involves processes which are entirely 
without parallel in inanimate nature. So long as this state of our know- 
ledge persists, it is dangerous to assume that the statistical laws of physics 
can satisfactorily describe all biological events. Our knowledge of the 
physical and biological properties of living matter suggests that the 
fundamental unit of structure is extremely small, and that it contains 
potentialities for change which are unique in the universe. These pro- 
perties we must accept as fundamental axioms of our science which may 
or may not prove (in the future) to have their parallel in the physical 
world. It may seem presumptuous for the biologist to set up postulates 
peculiar to his own sphere; it would be more fitting perhaps for him to 
accept, with medieval humility, the assumptions of his physical brethren. 
One wonders, however, at times whether the concepts of intrinsic 
organisation and of emergent evolution are entirely absent from modern 
physics. Even if this is not the case, we can fortify ourselves by the 
knowledge that physics has from time to time changed its fundamental 
assumptions with advantage to itself and to the world. Those biologists 
who are inclined to accept the views I have ventured to put forward 
may be encouraged by the remark of Prof. Niels Bohr which very 
recently came to my notice. He says: ‘ The existence of life must 
be considered as an elementary fact that cannot be explained, but must 
be taken as a starting-point in biology, in a similar way as the quantum of 
action, which appears as an irrational element from the point of view of 
classical mechanical physics, taken together with the existence of the 
elementary particles, forms the foundation of atomic physics.’ 

Not infrequently the physiologist can restrict his interest to the physical 
properties of isolated organs—the origin of which does not concern him. 
The zoologist, on the other hand, knows that the beautifully adapted 
mechanism known as an ‘ organ ’ was evolved from a system unlike itself 
and may, in turn, initiate something new. For this reason, he cannot 
afford to forget what may be called the ‘ intrinsic potentiality of the living 
organism.’ He may or may not be able to use this conception as a 
guide to more adequate observations, but it should be constantly in his 
mind. Experimental zoology can be divided into two types of study : 
(1) the investigation of the physical and the chemical properties of living 
organisms ; (2) a study of the intrinsic potentialities of living matter, 
revealing as it does a co-ordination of events which is without inani- 
mate parallel. In the first type of work we must use each new weapon 
which the physicist can give us. In the second type of work, however, 
biology must be the mistress and not the servant of physics or of chemistry 
—she must make her own foundations, and build on them fearlessly, 
prepared to change her views, if need be, but not prepared to force the 
wine of life into bottles which were designed for use in the simpler and 
less intoxicating fields of chemical science. 


SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY. 


GEOGRAPHY AS MENTAL EQUIPMENT 


ADDRESS BY 
THE RT. HON. LORD MESTON, K.C.S.I., 


PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 


Most of us believe that every branch of human knowledge wisely 
pursued—every true science, in fact—provides training for the intellect, 
furniture for the mind, and solace for the spirit. That this claim can 
justly be made on behalf of geography is the argument of an amateur 
observer in the present paper. ‘To hear geography described as a 
science at all comes not without an element of surprise to many in our 
older generation, whose education followed normal lines in the third or 
the early fourth quarter of last century. To them geography was the 
dreariest part of their school curriculum, an arid catalogue of physical 
features and figures. ‘To-day it presents itself as a systematic grouping 
of facts, with their causes and their effects, fascinating in their variety and 
vividly human in their interest. In this sense it is a new science, so new 
that many of its devotees mournfully speak of it as the Cinderella of 
sciences. It is, says Dr. H. R. Mills, a synthetic science—and most 
synthetic products are relatively new—deriving its data largely from 
geology, meteorology, anthropology, and other bordering sciences. Its 
youth, however, is among its charms ; and for its entry into the fraternity 
of sciences it has two illustrious sponsors. One is the gallant succession 
of explorers of the earth’s surface, whose enterprise, though it never 
ceases, has reached a definite stage of accomplishment with the opening 
up of Arabia, the surveys of the Antarctic continent, and the flight over 
Everest. The other is the growing body of students engaged on the 
human aspects of geography, in tracing out the relations between 
man and his physical environment, which constitute its philosophic 
basis. 

Being anxious to avoid all shadow of controversy, I must here pause 
to register the claim, pressed by Professor Burrows among others, that 
geography is not young but very old, as old at least as Ptolemy, a mother 
science which has given birth to astronomy, botany, archzology, as well 
as the other specialised sciences already mentioned. Which of these 
two views is the more orthodox may be left for another day. What is 
common to them both is that geography is a function of a number of 
_ other sciences ; and one of the difficulties attending its future may quite 

_ possibly be that of establishing boundaries between it and them, whether 


94 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


they be lineal descendents or merely neighbours. Even the layman knows 
how puzzling it is—and often how unnecessary—to mark out frontiers 
between adjoining sciences. There will often, probably always, be an 
undefined borderland, into which both neighbours stray on their legitimate 
rounds, though working generally, unlike trespassers across political 
frontiers, in mutual helpfulness when they meet. Such a borderland 
must of necessity surround geography ; and in some directions indeed 
it seems to be more extensive than the science, when thoroughly estab- 
lished, will require. All that need be postulated at present is that, in 
order to be a competent geographer, it is not imperative that you should 
first be a skilled astronomer, geologist, and historian. Your value as a 
teacher and as a student will be enhanced by some acquaintance with 
these and the other bordering sciences; but to the ordinary man or 
woman with no such equipment, geography will still offer a vast and 
self-contained field of intelligent interest. It is from the standpoint of 
this ordinary man or woman that I would invite you to survey with me 
some portions of the field, to consider how they serve the purposes of a 
true science, and then to enquire how this science can be advanced (the 
word is taken from the British Association’s title) so as to enter more 
intimately into the cultural outfit of future ordinary men and women 
like ourselves. 


lp 


To many there is a particular attraction in that remote corner of the 
field where geography stands disclosed as a science, not of immutable 
but of ever-changing data, as a study not of a solid earth and everlasting 
hills, but of a surface amply responding to Lucretius’ doctrine of flux. 
We mortals of the day live, it is surmised, in an inter-glacial epoch. It 
is only a fraction of time since this green and pleasant land of England 
was buried deep under an ice-cap, such as Admiral Byrd saw with some- 
thing akin to terror, when he was flying in the Antarctic. It may be 
only another fraction of time before all that we see around us to-day 
is crushed into oblivion by another glacial visitation. How many such 
changes and catastrophes in the past will the record of geography unfold 
when we are able to read it? Meanwhile we can only guess at some of 
them ; picture after picture of an earlier world-surface passing through 
the mind, without any pretence at chronological sequence. We can 
travel, for example, from the ice-bound Britain of which we have just 
been thinking to the African Sahara, then a moist, warm expanse of open 
grass-land, abounding in flocks and herds, and peopled by men primitive 
enough, but yet with a startling artistic skill in rock drawings. Or, instead 
of wandering south from the glaciers of Central Europe, we can turn 
east to the other gigantic ice-fields, which then lay over the uplands of 
Asia and segregated, in their own home territories, to develop on their 
own separate lines, the progenitors of some of the chief racial families 
of mankind to-day. On our way we should pass that ancient central 
Asian ocean which is now representated by shrunken fragments in Lake 
Aral and the Caspian Sea. If, following the same line of thought, we 
try to cast our mind still further back, we get into a sphere of endless 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 95 


speculation in picturing some of the tremendous changes which have 
taken place in the distribution of land and sea since the Tertiary era. 
The union of England and France by a river valley instead of a stormy 
Channel would be a relatively modern feature in the landscape ; so would 
the land-bridges across the Mediterranean, of which only the broken 
piers remain in Malta and certain other islands. Working backwards, 
the student would see North America severed from South America by an 
ocean which has long receded ; and Africa divided in two by another 
great stretch of water. As if in compensation, he would find the Asiatic 
continent running unbroken through Malaya into Borneo and Java, 
until it faced, across a comparatively narrow waterway, the ancient 
Australiasian continent, which embraced Celebes, New Guinea, their 
adjacent archipelago and our modern Australia. To depict in the 
imagination a world so constituted, is given to few of us; but I would 
suggest one help, however inadequate, in carrying the fancy back into the 
Tertiary age. Climb the Puy de Déme—now an easy enough task— 
on a clear day, and let the eye travel slowly over the mass of clear-cut 
volcanic cones which surround you on almost every side, ranging from 
mountains 4,000 feet high to mere pimples on cultivated fields. Then 
imagine all these at work, belching out flame and fume, lava and sulphur, 
the sky darkened by smoke and dust, and the earth a maze of roaring 
furnaces. It is from such an inferno that time has evolved the smiling 
landscape of Auvergne to-day. 

Out of any attempted survey of this particular part of the field, or 
what we might call pre-historic geography, two reflections emerge. 
The first is that, at this phase, geography is entirely dependent on 
other sciences, especially geology, and cannot yet claim an independent 
existence. The second is that, at this phase, it has hardly any conceivable 
interest for us except in relation to the movements of life—and primarily 
of man—about the globe. Amid these forgotten seas, those wastes of 
glaciers and zones of volcanic fire, there seem to have been stray enclaves 
of habitable land. It is those oases which form the focus of our interest 
to-day, with the help which they give in explaining the sharply differential 
characteristics of certain races of the human family. Or, if the mind 
turns rather to the puzzling similarities which have been detected in 
widely scattered races, it may find, in the hypothesis of old land-bridges 
over otherwise pathless oceans, support for the theory of early migrations. 
Did the primitive Mongol, after long isolation in eastern Asia, succeed 
in drafting some of his tribes across the Bering Strait to become the 
progenitors of the American Indian? Did the human family which we 
call the Alpine race, imprisoned through a long glacial epoch in Turkestan, 
ultimately force their way into Russia, the Balkans, Mesopotamia and 
Southern India? Similarly, did the stock which scientists try to dis- 
entangle as the Nordic, after protracted incubation behind the Ural 
mountains, issue through the melting ice into the Baltic coasts and finally 
dominate the Indo-European situation? Or was the conformation of 
the ancient continents such as to permit the aboriginal negroes of Africa 
to wander, almost all the way dry-shod, the enormous distances through 
Asia to Australia or into Melanesia? These are gigantic assumptions ; 


96 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


but, as we know, they are not regarded as impossible by the school of 
anthropologists, who trace all mankind to one ancestral home. ‘There is, 
of course, another theory, but the controversy is not within the ambit of 
my topic to-day. It may be that the march of our science will yet test 
both hypotheses more thoroughly than is feasible at the present state of 
our knowledge. There is at any rate little question that in the subject 
of these rival views lies the chief interest of modern man in pre-historic 


geography. 
II. 


That constant change is the law of geography, as of life, is an axiom 
which calls for no dramatic flights of fancy into a remote past. Change 
is all around us to-day; and to many lay students of geography the 
visible and superficial changes, as opposed to the vaster geological move- 
ments, in the face of nature have a peculiar attraction of their own. 
Picturesque details are always with us. One of us, for example, may 
have examined the treasures collected by Sir Aurel Stein as evidence that 
vast tracts in Central Asia, which are now no better than sandy deserts 
were, not so very long ago, the home of a rich and cultured people. 
Another may have served in Mesopotamia, and seen how the traditional 
Garden of Eden has been transformed into a malarial waste of marshes. 
A third, staying at home and spending a summer holiday on the South 
coast of our own country, may have reflected that Roman galleys once 
sailed from the beach where he stood across to the Thames through 
waterways which are now the cornfields and hop-gardens of Kent. 
These half-obliterated watercourses are for ever catching the observant 
eye : they abound across the railway line from Amiens to Boulogne, and 
their well-worn pebbles are turned up by the plough in countless English 
denes and combes. 

The agencies of change, however, are tireless rather than picturesque ; 
and their very assiduity makes them the fitting subject of study and 
experiment. Probably the easiest of them all, from the ordinary student’s 
point of view, is the wastage of mountain ranges. Look, for example, 
at a hill such as the Saleve outside Geneva, and no trained eye is needed 
to see how it is steadily slipping into the plain below. A vivid picture 
rises to my memory from another continent. It was one morning, after 
two days of torrential rain, at a hill station in the outer Himalayas. A small 
plateau, on which rested a military cemetery amidst a glade of deodars 
and rhododendron trees, had broken away during the night from the 
rock behind and dropped, as a solid mass, into the valley 1,000 feet 
below. There it lay, with the trees and the tombstones still standing, 
athwart the stream which ran through the valley and which was rapidly 
banking up into a temporary miniature lake. Some houses in the valley 
had been engulfed in the landslide, and several lives lost. By this time 
no doubt the scar on the hillside has healed, and part of the debris— 
disintegrated deodars, graves and ruined homesteads—is helping to build 
up a patch of new rice land somewhere in the Sunderbuns. The incident 
opened my eyes to the evidence everywhere of similar attrition which has 
been going on unremittingly since the mountains came into being ; and 


ses) eee 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 97 


in India, with its fine cadastral records, there are potentialities of measuring 
the erosion of the hillsides and the corresponding formation of deltas. 
In most maritime countries another possibility of quantitative study 
exists in the relentless crumpling of the earth’s surface which is slowly 
raising some coast lines and depressing others. ‘These, after all, are only 
casual examples of the knowledge which is capable of being gleaned in 
this part of the geographical field—the part commonly described as 
physical geography. And, incidentally, it seems less than justice to 
stigmatise this branch of our science as synthetic. It relies for help 
on research in climatology, meteorology, oceanography and so on; but 
its problems have a dignity of their own, and a clear place in the general 
pursuit of physical knowledge. The surface of our lithosphere ; its 
response to the influences which beat upon it—rain, winds, tides, ocean 
currents, etc.; the processes of denudation, accretion, desiccation, 
fertility, and so on, these offer material for study and the systematic 
assemblage and analysis of facts which justify the claim I set out to urge 
on behalf of geography as a whole. The philosophy and purpose of 
physical geography will be discussed later ;. they are in close accord 
with the reflections in which we indulged as we meditated on pre-historic 


geography. 
irr 


Meanwhile let me turn to another aspect of geography, more familiar 
to most of us laymen because it bulked so largely in our early education— 
that side of it which is associated with history and is sometimes called 
political geography. In the dark ages of last century to which I am 
always alluding, it hardly merited so imposing a name; for the theme 
of our ordinary school maps was mainly the division of the land into 
national and administrative areas ; and the acme of absurdity was reached 
when we were set to draw maps of England, with its counties a mosiac 
of gaudy colours, but often with no place for rivers, mountains or even 
towns. From that imbecility it seems a long journey to a modern 
historical atlas, such for example as the admirable compendium edited 
by Mr. Ramsay Muir. But the relation of geography to history is still 
far from sufficiently intimate in our ordinary teaching of either subject. 
This would be true even if it referred only to the intelligent use of 
maps as adjuncts, so to say, of visual instruction in history. To take 
an example, consider how few persons of a normal standard of education 
could sketch, with the haziest approach to accuracy, a picture of the 
Europe with which Cromwell had to deal, or contrast it with the Europe 
which Napoleon started to reconstruct. Then think how little terrors 
such a question would have for anyone who had glanced at two half- 
pages in Mr. Ramsay Muir’s atlas. On one side he would have seen, 
the date being that of our English Restoration, three of the great con- 
tinental powers of that day—Sweden, Poland and Turkey—holding 
between them a solid block of territory stretching from the Arctic Ocean 
to the Mediterranean, which shut Russia off from the sea and out of 
Europe, dominated Prussia and dwarfed all the modern States of Central 
Europe. On the opposite half-page he would have observed that, when 

E 


98 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Napoleon came on the scene, Poland was dismembered and no longer 
on the map, Sweden and Turkey were maimed and shrunken, and the 
three great realms of Russia, Prussia, and Austria were overshadowing 
Europe. Let a person of the most moderate intelligence get those two 
vignettes into his head, and the framework for nearly a century and a 
half of crowded history is at his command. 

It is of course by no means only, or even mainly, of its cartographic or 
diagrammatic functions that we think when we try to press geography 
into closer touch with history in our educational system. Geography 
and its first cousin economics have very largely shaped history, and 
without some knowledge of them the study of history is liable to be both 
arid and misleading. ‘That is a truism to which it will be convenient to 
return later. A consequence of it, however, at which it is worth while to 
glance in passing, is that geography has much to teach to those who are 
actually making history to-day, and equally merits attention by those who 
fill the useful réle of critics of the makers of history. We are frequently 
told that a little knowledge of geography would have been of advantage 
at Paris while the Peace Treaties were being negotiated in 1919-20. 
Possibly so; but a bowing acquaintance with geography would not be 
out of place in the multitude who find it so easy to pull the treaties to 
pieces. I say nothing about the Polish corridor. For various reasons we 
may fear or even dislike it; but geography jogs our memory as to the 
long history of Poland’s wide access to the sea, and as to the isolation in 
which East Prussia was born and prospered. A less simple issue is 
raised by the energetic and expensive propaganda now being carried on 
for a revision, on ethnological and geographical grounds, of the new 
boundaries of Hungary. The ethnography of the Succession States of 
the old Habsburg Empire may well puzzle the wisest of us; but the 
framers of the Treaty of ‘Trianon were certainly not ignorant of geography. 
It is one thing to claim that the broad plain between the Tatra range and 
the Danube eastward of Bratislava is Magyar in culture. It would have 
been a very different matter to include that fertile area in the borders of 
Hungary ; and the prosperity which has come to Bratislava and Komarom, 
in spite of racial grievances, is some tribute to the geographical basis of 
the new boundaries. Further east, still along the Danube, there were 
racial arguments for leaving a slice of Carpathian Ruthenia in Hungary ; 
but the result, to quote Dr. Seton Watson, would have been ‘ to cut the 
natural communication between a long series of valleys, to cut off the 
hinterland—one of the poorest and most neglected districts of the old 
Hungary—from the plains which produce the food, to leave Ruthenia 
without railways, and to destroy the railway connections between Czecho- 
slovakia and Roumania.’ These are minor but pregnant instances of the 
value of the large-scale map in the making of history. 

Having now glanced at several sections of the perimeter of our field, 
we have found in each of them one definite pointer towards the centre of 
interest which is common to them all. Prehistoric geography attracts 
us by reason of its mystery and romance; but the romance lies in the 
fact that the grim powers of nature—oceans, volcanoes, sinking con- 
tinents, towering glaciers—were all co-operating in the slow preparation 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 99 


of a surface for our globe on which life can exist. When we come nearer 
historic time, we think of geography in terms of a medium in which at 
least primates can multiply and move, and in which ultimately homo 
sapiens can establish abiding places for his different families. If we then 
turn to physical geography, we are thinking ‘mainly of how the forces of 
nature can be observed and calculated in their action upon the habitable 
globe ; in other words, in what measure they are tending to make it 
more endurable or less endurable for human beings. Lastly, when we 
come to political geography, we are concerned frankly with, and only 
with, the distribution of the habitable area of our planet among the 
various groups of men and women who call themselves nations. It is 
the human aspect of geography which is permanently in the background 
of all its sections; and the essential scientific value and interest of 
geography lies in the part which it plays in preparing and furnishing a 
home for mankind. Of what interest or value to us would be the geo- 
graphy of the Milky Way, or even of the Moon, so long as we know of no 
life which it would influence ? and is not our sporadic excitement about 
the geography of Mars aroused solely by our curiosity as to whether the 
changes observable on that planet are, or are not, the work of hands and 
intelligences somehow akin to ours ? 


LN, 


Thus we arrive at what seems the predestined centre of the field, at 
geography which has no adjectival label, and which one would hesitate 
even to call human geography, lest there should thus be conveyed some 
suggestion of implied antithesis. It is the study of geography as the 
science of man’s physical framework, his home, the material for his 
existence. Seeing that all life lives together, what we are really thinking 
of is not man alone, but animals and plants as well. By the inclusion of 
these, however, the area to be surveyed becomes so vast that I cannot 
touch to-day on those parts of the field which are of special interest to 
the zoologist and the botanist. They have their own entrée to our 
science, but in a sense so specialised that the ordinary amateur geographer 
has no qualifications for discussing it. Taking human geography 
therefore as exactly what its name indicates and no more, we find in its 
lay-out the whole study of the relations between man and inanimate 
nature. If this round globe had a voice which we could hear, and if it 
cared to use our language, it would probably describe our theme as the 
study of a tiny and prolific parasite upon its skin. We naturally think 
better of ourselves. Our study is one of actions and reactions; it in- 
vestigates the reasons why the multiplication and distribution of man is 
influenced by geographical features, and on the other hand the methods 
by which man, reacting to those features, endeavours to modify them. 
It is the whole problem of environment and adaptation. As that 
eccentric but stimulating writer, Hendrik Van Loon, expresses it, ‘ the 
roots of any given people are situated deep in the soil and in the soul. 
The soil has influenced the soul, and the soul has influenced the soil.’ 

As on all other subjects on which students feel deeply, sharp differences 


100 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


have arisen over the treatment of this human geography, mainly focus- 
ing, it would appear, on the order of precedence between environment 
and adaptation in time-space. It would be unbecoming, without know- 
ledge of the arguments, to enter this arena; but I submit that some of 
the disputants have been a little severe in pouring scorn on the early 
exponents of the theme. Old Jean Bodin, it may be, did not see much 
beyond his nose when he divided the world into the cold zone of the 
stupid but vigorous democrats, the hot zone of the intelligent but lazy 
victims of theocracy or any other despotism, and the temperate zone 
occupied by happy France and its ideal monarchy. But at least he did 
some mapping out in his own way, just as Strabo had done in his, and he 
set men thinking. Then Buckle, if I may miss all the great names in the 
interval, comes in for a good deal of mild sarcasm. It is true that his 
famous chapter upon the influence of nature on man is marred by 
curious lapses ; as, for example, when he professes ignorance of the cause 
why all the mighty rivers in the New World flow to its eastern coast, and 
none of them to the western; or again, when he lumps together the 
peoples of Sweden and Norway, and of Spain and Portugal, as being * all 
remarkable for a certain instability and fickleness of character.’ But, if 
occasional odd sayings like these are overlooked, there is much in his 
general argument with which at least one school of modern anthro- 
pologists must be in sympathy. That there is any radical or original 
difference between the various races of mankind, he regards as ‘ alto- 
gether hypothetical,’ and the existing discrepancies he endeavours to 
trace to the influences of climate, soil and food. It must be admitted 
that, as his analysis proceeds, the promised explanation of racial differences 
evaporates, but there survives a review of political and social tendencies, 
in which there is little to challenge, especially when we remember that 
he is dealing exclusively with early societies. In such societies, he argues, 
the accumulation of wealth is largely a matter of climate and soil; with 
wealth comes leisure, and with leisure comes civilisation. Hence civilisa- 
tion appeared first in those lands where nature unaided begat wealth— 
in India, Egypt, Peru and Mexico. But where food is abundant and 
cheap, population tends to increase unduly, and the standards of life 
deteriorate. ‘Thus, in countries where climate and soil are favourable 
and food is ‘ provided by nature gratuitously and without a struggle,’ 
wealth has always abounded, but it has been unequally distributed ; and 
consequently there has been no just division of political power, no 
democratic spirit, but only despotism in the upper, and ‘ contemptible 
subservience ’ among the lower orders. Progress accordingly has been 
insecure and society unstable ; natural decay has set in, and the invasions 
of sturdier races have completed the tale of doom. 

As a philosophic survey, there seems no patent absurdity in all this, 
though it sounds somewhat elementary now ; and the argument is relieved 
by telling patches of colour, as when Buckle describes how the alluvial 
wealth of Southern Asia transmuted the roving savages, the wandering 
shepherds of Arabia into the cultured monarchs of Cordova, Delhi and 
Baghdad. An even finer passage is that in which he distinguishes Brazil 
from other countries where nature is generous with her gifts. In the 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 101 


flow and abundance of life, he writes, ‘ Brazil is marked above all the other 
countries of the earth. But, amid this pomp and splendour of nature, 
no place is left for man. He is reduced to insignificance by the majesty 
with which he is surrounded’; and so on. Finally we reach an argu- 
ment which is independent of any purely literary charm; it comes when 
Buckle leaves climate, soil and food, and speculates on man’s sensitiveness 
to what he calls the aspects of nature. They fall into two categories, 
those which excite the imagination, and those which address themselves 
to the understanding. In countries where the former abound, in the 
shape of mighty mountains, earthquakes, or devastating pestilence, man 
is conscious of his own unimportance, and the powers of nature fetter 
his will. Where, on the contrary, nature is gentle in her manifestations, 
man regains confidence and exercises authority. Buckle takes India and 
Greece as types of the two extremes. In India the tropical grandeurs 
and perils have led to an uncontrolled ascendancy of the imagination, 
which runs riot in its literature, its art, and its theology ; fear governs 
men’s minds and the gods are monstrous. In Greece, at the opposite 
end of the scale, nature is friendly, and the imagination quickly loses its 
supremacy. Reason gains dominion, superstition dies, and the enquiring 
and sceptical faculties of the understanding are cultivated. A touchstone, 
Buckle suggests, is to be found in hero-worship: the canonisation of 
mortals soon became a recognised part of Greek religion ; while in India 
the whole tendency was to widen the distance between men and their 
deities. From this pregnant series of contrasts he concludes that “ every- 
where the hand of nature is upon us, and the history of the human mind 
can only be understood by connecting with it the history and the aspects 
of the material universe.’ 


V. 


In this summing-up we may all agree. Generalisation is a seductive 
and flowery meadow, but it is studded with pitfalls, and into several of 
_ these it may be that Buckle, with all his erudition, stumbled. Neverthe- 
less is there not wide scope for investigation into the rdle which geography 
plays, at first in shaping religions, and afterwards in maintaining morals ? 
This very contrast to which we. have just been listening between Greece 
and India is full of suggestions. Wherever it was situated (and this 
probably we shall never know), there was assuredly one common ancestral 
home for the main gods of Olympus and the earlier occupants of the 
Indo-Aryan pantheon ; on this point the evidence of philology is con- 
clusive. The possibility is that, in the region where they were first 
worshipped, those divinities were the great natural phenomena, which 
man, as soon as he learned to think, watched with wonder and reverence : 
the Sky-father, the Earth-mother, the Sun, the thunder, the fertilising 
rain-cloud. Most of these survived into Greek mythology, but it was 
very largely mythology. They had come down from some ancient cradle 
of the race as a part of its culture. They were honoured by shrines, by 
sacrifices, and offerings on festive occasions ; but they were never the 
object of fear. In that land of clear air and sparkling sea, there was no 
gloom about the temples. The deities in time were personified, moving 


102 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


like men and among men, with similar passions to men. The Greek 
artists fashioned their statues in the form of men and women, supreme 
only in their grace and beauty. Poets narrated their conversations and 
sang of their quarrels. Gradually, alongside the formal national rites in 
their honour, the impish popular wit began to fasten uponthem, Jupiter’s 
infidelities, Juno’s jealousies, Mercury’s petty larcenies, Vulcan’s 
stupidity, Cupid’s mischief, finally scattered the idea of awe, and the 
Greek mind was liberated to reason out for itself the problem of existence 
and the canons of right living. In all this geography undoubtedly had 
a hand. Her peculiar mountain system had divided Greece into a 
number of separate little communities, allies at times, enemies at others, 
but always vigilant for their physical fitness in the defence of their home 
cities. Her extensive and sheltered seaboard brought to her doors all 
the busy intellectual life of the Mediterranean world. With athletic 
bodies, sane and alert intellects, her children had no room for super- 
stitous fears of the unknown, and they laid the foundations of modern 
scientific thought. 

Into India virtually the same theogony had been imported by the Indo- 
Aryan invaders of two or three millennia before Christ. But into how 
different a world they came. Isolated by gigantic mountain ranges and 
stormy oceans from her neighbours, India had very little living contact 
with the thoughts or interests of other lands. Within her borders the 
workings of nature were hard and often cruel. Drought and famine at 
periodic intervals swept off their thousands and their hundreds of 
thousands. Diseases attacked the land in mass formation ; so did flood, 
earthquake, tempest, everything against which man is powerless. Beasts 
of prey swarmed, and no humble home was safe from snakes whose sting 
was inevitable death. ‘The landscape, too, had its times of grimness, as 
those of us know who have lived in the plains through Indian hot weathers. 
The hills were awe-inspiring rather than friendly, and the forests held 
particular dread for those early simple people. In this environment the 
gods soon lost all human touch. The first Veda had addressed them in 
stately and reverent hymns ; but its strains were foreign to the soil and 
were never renewed. The Hindu pantheon became a huge gallery of 
godlings and goblins, in which the heavenly beings of the primitive 
Aryan stock got for the most part changed into objects of terror to be 
propitiated and, whenever possible, avoided. The cult of Krishna, it is 
true, shows how the human heart yearns for a divinity which is consoling 
and kindly ; but Sri Krishna’s observances are only a brief interlude in 
the gloom of India’s religious life. The representations of the gods in 
statuary and painting are deliberately monstrous, as if to mark their 
distance from man, and to our western taste almost always repulsive. In 
tracing this connexion between the rigours of nature and the severity of 
men’s creeds, I would not be taken as ignoring that side of India’s mind 
which strives daringly to plumb the unknowable. In pure metaphysic it 
is possible that India has something to teach to lands where geography 
is kinder; but here again the vague mysticism of her speculation has 


some analogy to the vastness of her plains and the inaccessible sanctuaries 
of her hills. 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 103 


If we turn to two other great religions, Judaism and Islam, is it 
altogether fanciful to surmise that geography has been directly concerned 
in their development ? Their central idea is the oneness of God, not 
as a universal soul, but a solitary, omnipotent and jealous power. We 
are told by scholars that Judaism in origin was the triumph of one tribal 
god, Jehovah, over a number of other rivals. It is not implied, as I 
understand, that the individual tribes were polytheistic, though each 
had its own name and attributes for its own protecting deity. Be that 
as it may, the conception of unity was paramount among the Hebrew 
stock; and it was militantly re-stated by Mahomed. Why did 
unitariansim so fiercely possess the mind of Arabia, to the exclusion of 
the more complex creeds which permeated the rest of Asia? The 
Semitic spirit will hardly furnish the explanation, because it has not 
always and everywhere been incompatible with idolatry. It is in the 
daily life of the desert-dweller that we must look for the reason, in its 
solitude, its stern simplicity, its concentration of thought and purpose 
on the business of the moment. ‘There is no room for the luxury of 
polytheism, and no time ; furthermore, the unity of surrounding nature 
postulates the same quality in the Creator. With other religions the 
case may not be so straightforward ; and I am not sure how far it is 
possible to pursue the same line of thought into the great reforming 
movements of the world. Buddhism, for example, presents a curious 
problem, with its complete disappearance from the land of its birth and 
its fervid acceptance in other geographical areas. Or, coming back to 
Europe, we have the familiar theories as to the spread of Calvinism and 
the present-day distribution of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. 
The ground, however, is too delicate for an amateur geographer. There 
is also very little left of the raw material for such enquiries. Our modern 
creeds cross oceans and capture new territory, just as our modern lan- 
guages do, with more reliance, let us hope, on their intrinsic merits than 
on geographical considerations. 


VI. 


The last section of the survey through which we have been scampering 
is human geography on its material and practical side. Here we study 
nothing less than the eternal conflict of nature versus man,—the rdéle 
which Michelet assigned, though not convincingly, to history. Often it is 
a real conflict, with times and places at which nature defeats man, with 
others at which man gains, or seems to gain, the victory. Often, and 
more often as civilisation advances, it settles down into bouts of diplomacy, 
where man endeavours to get on terms with nature. Geography, if he 
understands it, helps to tell man where defeat has hitherto been final, 
where victories can be snatched, how relations of mutual aid can be 
established. Moralising in a general way on individual instances, it 
would point to the Alpine barrier, which at first protected Rome from 
the north, later admitted the barbarians, and then for centuries compli- 
cated Italy’s connection with Central Europe, until engineering skill 
bored holes through it and cleared away many of the old troubles. Or 
it would tell how the Appalachian barrier for long dictated the lines of 


104 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


colonisation in North America, pinning the English settlements down 
to the. Atlantic coast, and leaving the Mississipi valley open to the enter- 
prise of the French. Or, harking much further back, it would point 
to an older barrier, the tumbled hills and impenetrable forests running 
across the Indian peninsula parallel to the Nerbudda valley, which 
protected, it may be for a thousand years, the Dravidian culture of the 
south from the invasion by Indo-Aryan influences. As types of whole 
nations which have had to wrestle with nature, it might single out Spain 
and Holland. Spain, after the melting away of its oversea dominion and 
the decay of its prestige in Europe, unconsciously surrendered to its 
geographical position. Sheltered behind the Pyrenees, it showed a 
disposition to cut itself out of European politics ; partitioned into un- 
connected sections by intractable mountain ranges, it has allowed the 
same habit of local dissension, which rendered it an easy prey to the Moors, 
to divide its people and weaken its national life once more. Holland, 
on the contrary, typifies a stout refusal to surrender to nature. Its 
people, undismayed by losing their former command of the High Seas, 
turned upon their own sea and ejected it ; so that they have transformed 
into a rich agricultural and industrial land what was once a vast expense 
of tidal marsh and fen, and they are still doing it. 

These are only haphazard incidents in the age-long contest. ‘The 
chief purposes of human geography are to record how the forces are 
arrayed to-day, and to help in the intelligent estimating of how they 
will sway the future. The materials for its task are the extreme diversity 
of nature on the one hand, and the unity of man on the other ; for it 
must deal with the family of mankind as a whole, and with their needs 
as a whole: a home, food, and clothing, and the labour on nature’s products 
by which they earn their shelter and their means of existence. As it 
stands on the threshold of its modern task, geography has to sound its 
trumpet and call in the support of its bordering sciences, geology, 
climatology, botany and all the others, but most especially of one which 
has not yet been mentioned ; for only with their help can it succeed. 
How it will prosper in its endeavour is the responsibility of our educa- 
tionalists ; and it is no small satisfaction to know how far they are prepared 
to go in giving our new science its appropriate place in the teaching 
curricula of our educational system. But in that direction there is still 
much to be done. For, in order to fit geography more usefully into 
the mental equipment of educated men and women, it seems that the 
problem is to secure a new emphasis on the physical features of our 
globe, so as to give them an organic and dynamic, rather than a tabular 
and static, value. 

If we think of the world as an abiding place and study the geography 
of any one country first from that point of view, it does not satisfy us to 
know the names of its chief towns and rivers, or of its mountains, capes, 
and bays should it happen to possess any. Each city has some 
individuality, and a dossier of its own, into which we should like to 
peep. ‘There is something to tell us how it came into existence, whether 
it is growing or decaying, what keeps it together, what is its racial, political, 
or commercial importance ; in short, why men built it, why they live in 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 105 


it, and what they do. We should also, if time permits, be interested to 
know something of its story in the past, what men in it have fought for, 
whether it has often changed hands or creeds, and such personal details 
as to why we call it Oslo when it was once Christiania, or why old St. 
Petersburg is now Leningrad or whatever its name is to-day or may 
happen to be to-morrow. When we get outside the cities, the countryside 
also has its tale. Is it agricultural ; and if so, what is the pressure of 
population on it; or is it mainly a land of manufacturing activities ? 
How much of it is unoccupied, and why ; has it been converted into a 
home for grouse and stags instead of hardy crofters, or has man been 
warned off by malaria or the tsetse-fly? If the next chapter of our 
study is the sustenance which the country offers to man, we find a great 
deal to discard in our old authorities, and much investigation to be 
undertaken with a fresh mind. In the matter of climate, for example, 
we must get rid of our smug statistics of average rainfall and mean 
temperature—among the most misleading data which pseudo-science 
has ever invented. The climate of the country which we are surveying 
will require a more intelligent, though not necessarily an elaborate, 
estimate. So with the soil, and the fertility of its different areas ; its 
irrigation if the rainfall needs supplementing, and the facilities for 
artificial irrigation. ‘Thence to the produce of the soil is an easy step, 
though here also discrimination is advisable. Rice may be grown which 
the indigenes can eat, but which it would be useless to export because it 
is unsuitable for milling ; or cotton which its growers can use, but with 
so poor a staple that no manufacturing country will look at it. The 
agricultural output as a whole needs more sympathetic treatment than 
our text-books often give it. ‘The same may be said about the mineral 
products, especially coal ; and the careful student will watch the opening 
for the development of electrical energy, which we must continue to get 
from either fuel or water until Faraday’s great-great-disciples discover 
how to extract it from sunbeams or the circumambient ether. Another 
step takes us to the manufacturing features of the country. What are 
its industrial centres? To what extent are its manufactures rooted in 
the soil, or due to other special causes, or merely fortuitous ? It will be 
increasingly important to discriminate between industries with definite 
local advantages (like shipbuilding on the Clyde) and industries at the 
mercy of foreign competition (like jute in Dundee, and now cotton in 
Lancashire). Is the necessary labour available among the adjacent 
population ; are wages high or low ; can labour be imported if required ? 
Finally, how does nature help or hinder the marketing of the 
output ? 

The last question brings up the whole problem of transport, the third 
point of view from which the geography of the country has to be studied ; 
and here the co-operation of nature and man has a sphere particularly 
its own ; especially in the navigation of great rivers, a subject on which 
the ordinary reader is often profoundly ignorant. Whether nature co- 
operated, or was defeated, in the matter of the Suez and Panama canals, 
is little more than a dialectic point. ‘The important fact is that transport 
is (as indeed it always has been) in a state of transition ; the advantages 

E2 


106 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


which it confers are constantly being bestowed here and confiscated there ; 
and a vigilant geography is possibly more essential at this point than at 
any other. It is true, says Chisholm, that man cuts through an isthmus 
if it is in his way; but geography determines what isthmuses to cut, 
and deploys the local conditions which man must understand before he 
decides to act. Railways are amenable to the same set of considerations ; 
so are harbours: geography has a powerful say in the alinement of the 
former and the location of the latter. Many generations may not pass 
before transport by air has revolutionised all this, and left our railways 
and highroads as curiosities in the same category as our English canal 
system to-day. But, like the free extraction of electrical energy, this 
is a contingency which we can leave geography to deal with when the 
moment arrives. Meanwhile it should be teaching us something of what 
has been done to make transport easier and shorter, and pointing the way 
to further advance in the same direction. 

If commerce and industry, the lifeblood of the progressive races of 
mankind, are becoming more and more dependent on sound geographical 
knowledge, is it heresy to step down for an instant, and suggest that 
geography might also help man to enjoy his life? In one of the latest 
manuals on the United States, it was refreshing to find an enthusiastic 
page about the Yellowstone Park and the Grand Cafion. Might it not 
be possible, in text-books on our own land, to hear a little about the 
Scottish highlands, or the Welsh mountains, or the Cumberland lakes ? 
And generally, would it be practicable, without poaching on Baedeker, 
to touch here and there on the beauty spots of the world, or even to 
mention, in passing, a great picture-gallery or a famous shrine ? 

Let me, with apologies for this lapse into esthetics, return to the country 
in which we were asking geography to tell us something of its residents, 
its primary products, its industries and its means of transport. It is not 
the only country in the world ; and by the time that we have pursued 
similar investigations for its neighbours, we shall have reached two 
incidental conclusions of some importance. One is the intimate alliance 
which must be established between geography and economics. ‘They 
have become sister sciences. On its commercial side geography’s kin- 
ship with economics is just as close as it is with geology on the physical 
side ; the only difference in the relationship being that, whereas on the 
structural side of its work geography builds upon data provided by 
geology, on the human side it may very well, without loss of self-respect, 
engage itself in furnishing reliable material for the economist. The 
second conclusion is borne in upon us as we study the movements of 
population, the changes in industry which are liable to throw whole 
divisions of the labour army out of employment, the competition for 
markets, and all the struggle for existence on the earth’s crust. They 
suggest that geography may become a more useful agency than hitherto 
for locating danger-spots in the world from the standpoint of international 
peace. There are plenty of Naboth’s vineyards in our midst, and an 
intelligent study of geography should help to identify at least some of 
them, and to warn in time whatever organisation the nations may entrust 
with the policing of our unruly humankind. 


E.—GEOGRAPHY 107 


VII. 


I must now bring my rambling tale to a close. It has been a plea, 
not to a converted audience like this, but to a sceptical and on the whole 
an older generation, that geography is entitled to the full honours of 
a science. To the objection that it has to borrow so much of its raw 
material from other sciences, the answer is that the material is already 
there for the service of human knowledge generally, just as mathematics 
is at the service of astronomy, or physics and chemistry at the service of 
geology. Moreover, there is none of the bordering sciences which is 
prepared to undertake the tasks and fill the rdle of geography. Its 
positive claim is that, while always indenting freely on existing sources of 
knowledge, it is building up for itself, sifting and classifying, a body of 
knowledge which is found nowhere else, and which has a unity of its own 
and a purpose of its own. ‘This process, we claim, raises it definitely to 
the dignity of a distinctive science. 

Its unity is not impaired by the variety of its interests, some of which 
we have been cursorily surveying. Like many a family that is only lately 
ennobled, it can assert a respectable antiquity. It may not be able to 
produce maps showing the exact conformation of the earth’s surface in 
the ages when it was occupied by the mammoth and Neanderthal man ; 
but, from the teachings of geology, it can deduce approximately the position 
of land, water and ice-caps at the time when the races of mankind were 
in their cradles ; and, keeping abreast of geological change, it can guess 
the routes of their subsequent migrations. It can bring the moulding of 
the habitable globe, with reasonable certainty, down to our own day ; 
and the careful geographer can record the surface changes which are now 
going on, and estimate their force and their pace. Alongside of those 
changes he will examine the physical influences which make certain 
portions of the earth suitable or unsuitable for human occupation, as well 
as those which facilitate or obstruct the intercourse of mankind. Geo- 
graphy will then carry us into the detailed investigation of the settlements 
of mankind, with reference more particularly to their national groupings 
and needs. Here, hand in hand with economics, it will explore the 
manner in which the various countries of the world are used for man’s 
habitation, and under what conditions of life and labour and productivity 
they are occupied. Finally, geography in its hours of leisure may tell 
us where to see the supreme glories of nature, and in its more serious 
moods it may warn the League of Nations where to expect those causes of 
economic and territorial friction which imperil world peace. 

Through all this diversity runs a golden thread of unity, in the human 
interest which binds the whole story together. Geography is essentially 
the science which treats of man’s home, and the steady adaptation of the 
surface of our globe to be his dwelling-place and his workshop. And 
just as geography has its essential unity, so also is it transfused by a 
common purpose, the study of the relations between man and nature. 
If to this it can add—and why not ?—the ambition to help in improving 
those relations, then we complete its scientific purpose by associating with 
ita moral aim. Thus, at the risk of wearisome repetition, it is claimed 


108 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


that we have the assemblage, the testing and the analysis of facts, with 
a unified direction and a definite practical aim, which amply respond 
to the definition of ascience. And to the three criteria which the ordinary 
man expects science to satisfy, geography presents a ready face. As 
a training for the intellect, it does not rely on balances, test-tubes, 
mathematical formule, and the like; but it answers Dr. Whitehead’s 
desideratum in being a process of measuring rather than of classifying ; 
and it is an adequate school for exact observation and wise deduction. 
As a contribution to the solacing spirit of humanity, its work in removing 
misunderstandings between peoples and forestalling friction may become 
increasingly valuable. And as a mental equipment it yields to none of 
the kindred branches of knowledge. Apart from its importance to the 
traveller and the student of international affairs, it is essential to the 
economist. Not less so to the historian; you have only to compare 
Trevelyan’s account of Marlborough’s campaigns with most other narra- 
tives of the same events, in order to see how an acute appreciation of the 
geographical setting of warfare is powerful to convert arid prose into a 
living picture. Lastly, without geography the statesman is liable to 
grievous error; and it is indispensable knowledge to the practical 
industrialist and the planner of big business. 

Feeling as we do on the subject, can we expedite the advancement of 
geography to its proper place in our educational system? It was for the 
purpose of evoking discussion on that question that I ventured on this 
address, speaking as one who learned nothing about geography in youth, 
and who realises the handicap. Since Oxford and Cambridge formally 
recognised the subject forty years ago great strides have been made. 
Perhaps the most encouraging advance is the growing attention to regional 
studies, to what Dr. Bryan calls the cultural landscape. It is a landscape, 
as he shows us, upon which each one of us looks out every morning of our 
lives ; and its very familiarity may have led in the past to its neglect. 
But on the steady advancement of this regional work, if we can only get its 
methods properly taught, will depend the future of the science. Mean- 
while the foundations for it have to be laid in the elementary and secondary 
schools, and it is here that we still find blind spots in the national outlook 
on the advantages of the systematic teaching of geography on modern 
lines. Ata recent exhibition held in this city a remarkable demonstration 
was given of the remedies which are being applied ; and in other directions, 
especially in the admirable character of some of our newer text-books, 
there are signs of better things coming. The time is ripe for a combined 
forward move ; is it possible for our meeting here to provide the necessary 
stimulus ? 

In conclusion, may I offer this Section E my most grateful thanks for 
the high honour they have done me in electing me their President for the 
year, and my heartfelt apologies for the poverty of my response. 


SECTION F._ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 


THE GOLD STANDARD 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF. J. H. JONES, 


PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


Wuen the Association, through its representatives, conferred upon me 
the honour of electing me President of Section F for the current year, 
I felt that the subject of the Presidential Address was determined for me 
by the present state of affairs in the world. Currency stability, broadly 
defined—or, better, undefined—is a condition of economic and social 
progress. The outstanding problem of statesmanship is to restore that 
stability which the world enjoyed before the outbreak of the recent war. 
I believe that the causes of present instability and the conditions of 
future stability can be described without the introduction of technical 
terms likely to bewilder those who are not professional economists. 
I therefore felt it to be my duty to devote my paper to a discussion of the 
gold standard and to address the lay rather than the professional section 
of the audience. I shall begin with a very brief survey of the past. 


Li 


Before the war of 1914-18 the gold standard was among the things 
taken for granted as an element of western civilisation. It had served 
England for nearly a century. The echoes of the bimetallic controversy 
on the continent of Europe had already died away. It was a controversy 
that belonged to the nineteenth century. The silver question had 
ceased to be ‘spot news’ in the newspapers of the United States of 
America. The spirit of nationalism in currency affairs was on holiday. 
When, in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, one country 
after another joined the gold standard group, their action was held to be 
a sign of progress and they seemed to hold their heads higher than before. 
They acquired prestige. It was thought that in the Far East the process 
of industrialisation would be marked—as, indeed, it had already been 
marked in India and Japan—by a transition from a silver standard to 
a gold standard adjusted to national conditions. 

An unvarying price average was not, however, among the achievements 
of the gold standard. For roughly two decades before the Franco- 
Prussian war, the so-called general level of prices had risen under the 


IIo SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


influence of an increase in the rate of annual supply of gold following 
upon the Australian and Californian discoveries. The post-war boom, 
which reached its greatest height in the winter of 1872-73, was followed 
by a downward trend which, if measured from the top of the boom to 
the bottom of a depression, continued for approximately twenty-three 
years. his trend in prices is usually attributed to a fall in the rate of 
annual supply of gold, but I believe it to have been due, in greater measure, 
to a rapid increase in the world demand for gold required for monetary 
purposes. It covered the period during which the gold standard became 
popular. One after another of the silver and bimetallic countries trans- 
ferred their allegiance to gold. The United States returned to gold 
after several years on a paper standard. New territories were exploited, 
and the respective Governments adopted the gold standard. ‘The world 
demand for gold reflected the process of transition ; it grew far more 
rapidly than trade and population, and more rapidly than it could be 
expected to grow under any other conditions or at any time in the future. 
By the end of the century practically the whole of the modern industrial 
world was on the gold standard, and from that time forward the standard 
was free from the complications and dangers created by the appearance 
of new disciples. It had become, to all intents and purposes, a world 
standard. It could be judged on its merits as an international standard. 
For the time being the countries that had not yet adopted it could be 
regarded as relatively minor exceptions. The growth in the demand 
for gold would be expected to keep pace with the growth in population 
and in trade per head. During the remainder of the period ending in 
1914 there was a fall in the relative amount of gold needed as money. 
Not only was the banknote increasingly employed in ordinary transactions, 
but in English-speaking and other communities the cheque or its equi- 
valent was growing in popularity. While on the one side the rate of 
increase in the demand for gold was affected by the cessation of the 
march of nations towards the gold standard and the growth in the use 
of substitutes for gold coins, on the other the rate of annual supply was 
increased by the development of the South African gold mines. For 
these reasons the downward trend in prices came to an end about 1895 
or 1896 and was replaced by an upward trend which continued until the 
outbreak of the world war and the suspension of the gold standard. 
"The rise in prices during this period was not acceptable to everybody. 
The lag in wages caused serious discontent and probably hastened the 
growth of national organisations capable of much good but also of serious 
harm. Forces were being generated which have materially helped to 
shape economic and social events since the war. But the period of rising 
prices was also one of rapidly developing trade and relatively high profits. 
The discontent was that of the employed worker rather than, as at present, 
of the unemployed worker. The former might complain of inequalities 
in the distribution of wealth, but he could not complain of the pernicious 
effects of ‘ deflation.’ As the gold standard permitted a steady increase 
in the supply of money, and a rise in prices, the arguments now frequently 
employed against the gold standard would have sounded foolish. ‘The 
standard itself was enjoying a respite from popular criticism. In its 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS III 


broad sense it was accepted on all sides as not merely inevitable but also 
desirable. 

Then came the war, with the usual economic consequences of war. 
The gold standard was abandoned by nearly every country and currencies 
were left to the mercy of needy Governments. The inevitable war-time 
inflation was followed by the customary post-war boom and the process 
of inflation was carried a stage farther. The subsequent period of 
depression and falling prices imposed a searching test of economic policy 
and revealed the degree of exhaustion from which the various countries 
suffered. Currency instability and trade depression were associated in the 
minds of people as cause (or part cause) and effect. It was assumed 
that if and when currency stability was restored the world would have 
a chance of recovery: without such stability recovery was impossible. 
It was known, even at that time, that stability was a term that begged 
most of the questions at issue, but such a detail was of no consequence 
at a time when people longed for the restoration of pre-war conditions. 
The world that disappeared in 1914 appeared, in retrospect, something 
like our picture of Paradise. The financial leaders were strongly sup- 
ported by public opinion when they pressed for a return to the gold 
standard. 

The world returned to gold. The defeated countries, whose currencies 
had been destroyed by inflation pursued to its logical end (though not 
in obedience to logic), created new currencies linked to gold. After 
* looking the dollar in the face ’ for a couple of years we restored the gold 
standard in 1925 at the pre-war rate. In the following year France and 
Belgium stabilised their currencies in relation to gold and in 1928 restored 
the gold standard, France fixing her currency at about one-fifth the 
pre-war gold value. Meanwhile most other countries had joined the 
gold standard group. Within the space of four years the gold standard 
had been restored, and it remained in office—though not always in 
power—until 1931, when it was again destroyed. From 1924 to 1929 
most of the currencies of the world were stable, and the economic 
world made rapid progress, although, for reasons that will presently be 
noted, Great Britain did not enjoy a reasonable share of that progress. 

The depression in trade after 1929 imposed too heavy a strain upon 
our own country and in 1931 we again suspended specie payment. Our 
example was followed at intervals by a large number of other countries 
and now the world is divided into two parts, the group of countries that 
have abandoned the gold standard and those that still, in fact or in theory, 
have clung to it. When, a few months ago, the United States joined the 
former, it became evident that the influence of gold was weaker than it 
had been at any time since the war. 

In this country the gold standard had appeared to act as a strait-jacket. 
The paper pound had been given such a high gold value that our free- 
dom was severely restricted. In spite of pessimistic predictions before 
the step was taken the feeling engendered by the suspension of gold in 
1931 was one of newly found freedom. The fall in the external value 
of our currency actually stimulated trade. We found, however, that 
we were merely enjoying a larger individual share of a diminishing total. 


112 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


And other countries discovered that they could, with advantage, join in 
the game of ‘ beggar-my-neighbour,’ which France had been quietly 
playing for several years and we had begun to play in boisterous fashion. 
Then followed the new practice of ‘ competitive depreciation ’ with the 
aid of instruments euphemistically called ‘ exchange stabilisation’ or 
‘exchange equalisation’ funds. Before this new practice spread we 
were enjoying our new freedom. Gold was a ‘ fair weather standard,’ 
to which we were in no hurry to return. America wanted us to return 
to gold, but why should we rush into new danger? Disillusioriment 
came when the United States (and therefore Canada) joined in the new 
game. ‘The most recent experience, with new and strong players, has 
led us to believe that, after all, the game is not worth the candie, and 
that what we had termed a strait jacket was merely that sort of discipline 
which is a condition of freedom. The gold standard promises once more 
to become popular. 


II. 


The brief survey that I have submitted suggests the need for a restate- 
ment of monetary theory. In spite of all that has been published in 
recent years I do not believe that the monetary standard has yet received 
adequate treatment ds a separate problem. In most cases the discussion 
of the standard has been more or less incidental to the discussion of other 
problems that either appear more urgent or are regarded as the central 
theme of the writer. Naturally I do not propose, in this paper, to attempt 
to fill the gap. But I venture to attempt to place before you those issues 
which, in my opinion, can be appreciated by the general public and must 
be faced if we wish to restore and afterwards maintain the gold standard 
in this and other countries. Moreover, I shall submit reasons for my 
belief that we should again seek to establish that standard, and that some 
modifications recently suggested would tend to weaken rather than enhance 
its value as an instrument of social progress. 

Money is the means by which we secure ownership of things that we 
desire, or obtain services of various kinds. The amount of money paid 
for goods and services is the result of bargaining between buyers and 
sellers, and this result is influenced by certain fundamental considerations. 
One of these is the connection or sympathy that normally exists between 
the rates of payment (which I shall call wages) prevailing for personal 
services. Ifa coal miner earned ten times as much as a railway worker 
everybody would know that there was some highly abnormal influence 
at work which would ultimately disappear. Relative wages are governed 
by silent and persistent forces known to every student of elementary 
economics. ‘They tend to arrange themselves around a mean wage in 
the manner determined by such forces. In a world of change the dis- 
persion of actual wage rates at any time is never precisely that which the 
persistent forces tend to produce ; nevertheless the correcting influences 
are always at work. Again, the ‘ short period,’ during which deviations 
from the ‘ normal ’ distribution about the mean level may continue, tends 
to grow longer. ‘The mills of competition grind slowly. But they con- 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 113 


tinue to grind. We know that a rise or fall in the wages of one group 
will not be permanent unless it is followed by a corrresponding change in 
the wages of the other group, or unless there has been a change in the 
nature of the persistent forces to which I have referred. It is precisely 
this sympathy in wage movements that gives significance to the conception 
of an average wage and to movements in that average. 

If it be true that the relationship between individual wages is not 
arbitrary, it is also true that the relationship between individual prices is 
not arbitrary. In the long run prices are governed by costs, and costs 
ultimately mean wages. Even economic rent, in the last resort, is a 
function of the wage average. If prices are governed by costs and costs 
by wages, and if relative wages obey a law of distribution, it follows that 
actual prices also tend towards a ‘ normal’ arrangement or distribution. 
If a house of ten rooms could be purchased for the same sum as a hundred 
tons of coal, everybody would recognise the existence of some abnormal 
influence which could not fail, ultimately, to bring a correcting influence 
into play. A rise or fall in a large group of prices will not be permanent 
unless either a similar change takes place in the remaining group or a change 
has occurred in the real costs, and therefore money costs, of supply. 
It is precisely this sympathy in prices that gives significance to changes 
in the price average or general level of prices. As in the case of wages 
so, too, in the case of prices : the ‘ short period,’ during which deviations 
from the ‘normal’ distribution may continue, tends to grow longer ; 
but in the long run the effect of the persistent force of competition 
(broadly interpreted) becomes evident even in a constantly changing 
world. 

These elementary facts seem to me to provide the true foundation of 
a theory of money. The supply of money needed by a community, and 
the supply of money that can be absorbed by a community, is a function 
of the price average. If every pound of wages or of prices were called 
ten pounds, the community would merely be using ten times as much 
money as before. Conversely, if the supply of money is fixed, the price 
average must conform to that supply, and in a state of equilibrium the 
wage average and the price average will reflect the normal distribution of 
individual wages and prices. But a change in the supply of money 
produces intermediate effects before the final state of equilibrium is 
reached. Nor is it necessary to stress the practical importance of these 
intermediate effects, which will presently be considered. At the present 
stage, however, it is desirable to confine our attention to the characteristics 
of a community in a state of equilibrium in the sense of being free from 
the intermediate disturbances of a process of change. 

I have referred to the existence of a normal distribution of wages and 
of prices. The statements that I made are applicable to every community 
in which order is maintained, either through the force of competition or 
by legal enactment. But the normal relationship of wages or of prices 
is not the same in all communities: each has its own characteristics. 
Thus, for example, the relative rates of remuneration of school teachers, 
coal-miners and railway workers may not be the same, under normal con- 
ditions, in Great Britain as in Germany. ‘The normal distribution may 


114 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


vary, within narrow limits, even between different parts of Great Britain. 
The statement may be extended to include prices. Nevertheless it is 
true to say that for each community there exists a normal relationship of 
wages and of prices towards which actual wages and prices tend. I 
assume this broad generalisation in all that follows. 

My next statement is equally elementary. It is a truism that some 
commodities and services supply local markets while others supply 
national or international markets. In the market, whether it be local or 
world-wide, there is a strong tendency towards a common price. Within 
this country the price would be quoted in the same money, but in other 
countries it would be quoted in some other kind of money. If, however, 
we exported a commodity we would normally expect to be paid, in foreign 
money, an amount equivalent to the British money obtainable for it if it 
were sold at home. ‘The means of payment may be some foreign money 
—we may, for example, accept payment in marks—but the measure of 
value is our own money. 

For the purpose of simplifying the statement I shall assume commodities 
(including services) to be divided into two groups, international and 
domestic, the former comprising those which are commonly exported 
from one country to another and the latter those which supply local 
markets. Further, I shall neglect variations in costs of transport. Finally, 
I shall assume that all communities or countries employ gold as money. 
It follows that international commodities command the same prices in all 
countries. British exports are sold at the same prices as German exports 
or American exports. But we have already seen that the prices of British 
exports are normally related to the prices of all other things produced and 
sold in Great Britain. Consequently the price average or general price 
level in this country will be such as to produce the international prices 
for international commodities, while the wage average or general level 
of wages will be such (under a normal distribution of individual wages) 
as to produce that price average. It does not, however, follow that the 
wage average in this country must be the same as in other countries. 
The wage average will be a function of natural conditions, industrial 
technique and human efficiency; but it must be such as to enable 
the country to maintain the price average dictated by international 
conditions. 

The same general truth may be expressed in another way, Gold, like 
other international commodities, is distributed among the markets 
(countries) of the world in such a way as to command the same value in 
all. Value in this connection means purchasing power. It follows that 
in the state of equilibrium represented by such a distribution of gold, 
the exports and imports of a country are balanced.” It must be so, for 


1 It is immaterial that, in this case, we accept the risk of exchange : it would 
be possible for us to cover that risk, and the cost of covering it would be a prime 
cost and a component part of the price in pounds. In a state of equilibrium 
there would be no such risk. 

2 It should not be forgotten that I am assuming exchange to be confined 
to commodities, including services. I shall presently refer to movements of 
capital. 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 115 


it is evident that if exports do not balance imports there will be a flow of 
gold from one country to others. This flow will only cease when a true 
equation has been established.® 

It will be clear from the statements already made that if all countries 
employ gold, and only gold, as currency, each must accept the wage and 
price average or level dictated by the price average of international goods, 
and that this will be determined by the gold supply in relation to the 
demand. If the gold supply is x the price average will be half as high 
as if the supply were 2x, for in making such a comparison we may assume 
the rapidity of circulation to be the same in the two cases. Sucha currency 
therefore imposes a discipline upon each country ; it must march in step 
with the others. If one country found a gold mine within its boundaries, 
issued currency to the amount of the new supply and raised wages and 
prices to the extent of the new available currency, exports of other com- 
modities would fall and imports increase, with the result that the gold 
would flow out until a new equilibrium was reached at a correspondingly 
higher international price average. During the intermediate stages the 
industries supplying international commodities would be depressed 
in the country possessing the new gold mine, and correspondingly 
more active in other countries. This change in the state of trade 
would be the active force that would restore the new state of 
equilibrium. 

It will also be evident that the same results will follow if, instead of 
using gold as currency, each country employs paper representing gold, 
pound for pound, or dollar for dollar, so that any variation in the supply 
of gold is automatically followed by a variation in the supply of paper 
currency. Nor is the case altered if gold represents not a hundred per 
cent. but x per cent. of the paper currency. For it is clear that a given 
variation in the supply of gold is followed, automatically, by a similar 
percentage variation in the supply of currency. Moreover, it is obvious 
that the smaller the percentage gold reserve (that is to say, the greater 
the economy in the use of gold) the higher the price average of inter- 
national goods and the wage and price average within each country. But 
it remains true that each country is subjected to the discipline to which 
I have referred. 

Provided one condition is satisfied, the case is not altered if, instead 
of merely employing paper currency the supply of which is automatically 
adjusted to the supply of gold, a country also employs means of payment, 
such as the cheque, the supply of which may vary independently of the 
supply of gold. The condition is that the country remains on the gold 
standard. The gold standard is a legal enactment to the effect that the 
- legal tender of a country shall be convertible on demand into a specified 


3 In the complex economic system which I shall consider at a later stage, 
exchange equilibrium between two or more countries may be defined in either 
of two ways, namely, a rate of exchange which maintains a balance of payments 
and a rate which represents equivalence of price levels. These are not necessarily 
identical. In a changing world they are not even likely to be identical. Failure 
to distinguish between the two, and to state in which sense equilibrium is being 
employed, has clouded much recent controversy. 


116 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


quantity of gold. Its economic significance is that it maintains a fixed 
rate of exchange. 

While a country is on that standard it is forced to adjust its price average, 
and therefore its wage average, to the international price average. So 
long as the currency is a stated proportion of the gold supply the currency 
adjustment to a change in the latter is automatic. But when such 
currency is supplemented by means of payment the supply of which is 
not automatically controlled, some other means of adjustment must be 
found. In modern communities the duty of adjusting the supply of 
money, in its broad sense, and thereby administering the Gold Standard 
Act, is entrusted to the Central Bank or some equivalent organisation. 
The Central Bank is given the right to issue legal tender, and the supply 
is always—though, not necessarily—specified in relation to gold supply.° 
But there is no legal regulation of the use of other means of payment. 
Control is left in the hands of the Central Bank, and the instrument of 
control is the rate of discount, supplemented and made effective by open 
market operations.® 

By means of the rate of discount, reinforced, when necessary, by open 
market operations, the bank is able to control the supply of means of 
payment and thereby to adjust the wage and price average to the inter- 
national price average. That being so, control by law of the supply of 
legal tender is not inevitable. It may still be desirable, for it is usual 
for the discount policy of the bank to be governed by the supply of legal 
tender held in reserve and this, in turn, is determined by gold movements. 
Nevertheless it represents a stage in the evolution of the credit system 
rather than an integral part of a perfect system. It is even more desirable 
in other countries than in Great Britain. On the other hand it is clear 
that the proportion of gold held against currency may be materially 


4 In the English Gold Standard Act of 1925 it was provided that legal tender 
was only convertible into gold provided that the amount to be converted was 
not worth less, at the defined rate, than 400 ounces of gold; but this provision 
was merely a safeguard against the use of gold for internal purposes, such as 
currency. The paper pound was declared to be convertible into gold at the 
rate of £3 17s. 103d. per ounce of standard gold, that is to say, it was worth the 
gold contained in the pre-war sovereign. 

5 The precise methods differ in different countries. We favour a fixed fiduciary 
issue ; other countries favour a fixed percentage gold reserve. This difference 
is not fundamental. The former produces less violent reactions and therefore 
facilitates a steady adjustment. The latter tends to produce unnecessary 
fluctuations during a process of adjustment to a new state of equilibrium. The 
English method seems to me better than that employed in the United States. 

6 It is important to stress the fact that the Central Bank is not a free agent. 
It is entrusted with the duty of maintaining the gold standard, and its action 
must be guided by the need for fulfilling its obligation under the Act which 
defines the standard. Since 1925 the Bank of England has been criticised on 
numerous occasions for pursuing a discount policy which was regarded as inimical 
to industrial progress. I do not suggest that the policy of the Bank has always 
been above reproach. I do not, indeed, believe that academic economists 
usually possess sufficient information to justify comment upon current policy. 
It is clear, however, that much of the popular criticism of the Bank has been 
due to failure to distinguish between the necessities imposed by the Act of 1925 
and the policy of the Bank in circumstances that allowed freedom of choice. 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 117 


altered without prejudice to the present system. ‘The latter secures an 
automatic adjustment of the internal price average to the international 
price average, and this may be done with a 30 per cent. gold reserve as 
effectively as with a 40 per cent. reserve. A change from the larger to 
the smaller reserve would permit a substantial rise in the international 
price level. 

The discussion of the gold standard has been based, so far, upon an 
important assumption, namely, that trade between countries consists of 
the exchange of commodities, including such services as shipping. 
I have ignored capital movements and interest payments. On that 
assumption I have tried to show that, when countries are on the gold 
standard, their internal wage and price averages must be adjusted to the 
price average of international goods. In a state of equilibrium trade 
between the countries will be balanced, that is to say, exports and imports 
will be equal in total value. Within each country the wage and price 
averages will represent a normal distribution of particular wages and 
particular prices. If equilibrium is disturbed gold movements will 
follow. In practice the equilibrium between countries will quickly be 
restored through the adjustment of the internal prices of international 
goods following depression on the one side or, on the other, greater 
activity. But the resulting internal disequilibrium is not so quickly 
removed. Some trades are affected more quickly and seriously than others ; 
some are sheltered, others unsheltered. Wage rates in the latter fall out 
of line with wage rates in the former. So long as this adjustment is 
delayed the intermediate effects will continue. But in the long run the 
condition of domestic disequilibrium will be changed and a new position 
of stable equilibrium reached, both within the country and between 
different countries. 

In the next stage of the discussion it is necessary to consider the effects 
of capital movements. One of the commodities entering into the final 
price average is capital, which, for my present purpose, I shall divide 
into investment capital and liquid capital. It is well known that the 
price of capital is higher in new countries than in countries which, in the 
industrial sense, have reached maturity, and that the difference is greater 
than the measure of relative risk. Hence we find a movement of capital 
from older to younger countries, enabling the latter to develop more 
rapidly than they would be able to do without such assistance. Investment 
is an import (of bonds) which must be offset by an equivalent export of 
commodities. Other things being equal an investing country therefore 
enjoys an excess of current exports of commodities (including current 
services) over imports. We need not pause to consider whether foreign 
investment or the excess of exports is the cause, or which came first. 
It is sufficient to point out that, in a position of equilibrium, the price 
average within a country must again be such as to make the price average 
of exports equal to the international price average and that, for com- 
modities (including current services), the average will be lower than 
it would be if capital were not being exported. But in due course the 
lending country receives interest, and the amount of interest increases 
annually. This inflow of interest neutralises a corresponding outward 


118 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


flow of capital. By 1914 the interest receipts of Great Britain were 
apparently less than the amount of capital annually added to our foreign 
investments. Our exports of commodities (including current services) 
appeared to be less than our imports of the same kind. We were rein- 
vesting abroad nearly the whole of the interest upon accumulated invest- 
ments, but apparently we already needed a small proportion of such 
interest to pay for current imports. A debtor state which had ceased to 
borrow also possessed a surplus of commodity exports, the surplus being 
needed to pay the interest on accumulated debt. Such was the position 
of the United States of America before the outbreak of the world 
war. 

The growth of long-term investment was normally so slow and regular 
that it did not destroy the internal equilibrium of the investing country. 
For short periods it might invest more or less than the commodity surplus 
representing the sum available for investment. But in such cases the 
balance of payments was maintained by the transfer of liquid capital. 
The investment operation was supplemented by a credit operation. 
Similarly, if for any other reason there was a temporary excess of imports 
or exports the surplus or deficit was removed by a movement of liquid 
capital. 

It is here that we find the essential difference between investment 
capital and liquid capital. Investment might well be termed an industry 
resembling coal mining or cotton manufacture. It possessed (if we 
ignore cyclical fluctuations) a fairly constant market outside the country 
and had been built up slowly upon the assumption that the market was 
comparatively safe and likely to grow. Other industries, supplying the 
commodities representing the export surplus available for investment, 
had also grown up alongside the investment industry, their growth being 
based upon the assumption of continuity in the growth of investment. 
In short, investment was an integral part of the industrial structure and 
an influence determining the remaining permanent features of the latter. 
It was not an accident of growth or an occasional visitor. Continuity 
was of its essence, and if all foreign markets for British capital had suddenly 
disappeared, industry would have been reduced, for a time, to a state of 
chaos. Liquid capital, on the other hand, was employed, in different 
places and at different times, as an equalising factor. Its purpose was 
to restore or maintain temporary equilibrium when equilibrium had 
already been destroyed or threatened ; to ease the restoration of true or 
stable equilibrium by reducing the intermediate effects of a process of 
change or the effects of some temporary disturbing factor. I shall 
endeavour to show that some of our most serious difficulties since the war 
have been due to the fact that the distinction between investment capital 
and liquid capital has lost much of its pre-war significance. 


III. 


The conditions that I have described in the second section seem to me 
an essential part of a secure foundation for the working of the gold 
standard. But they do not indicate all the conditions that must be satisfied. 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 119 


In order that this may be made clear it may be desirable to indicate very 
briefly the features of the pre-war gold standard and the essential 
differences between the working of the pre-war standard and the working 
of the standard since the war came to an end.” 

The pre-war standard was of slow growth and became the foundation 
of a financial system of a highly complex character regarded from the 
point of view both of structure and of function. The standard was 
adopted by one country after another under conditions favourable to its 
operation ; it represented a choice between three or more alternatives, 
and its adoption was regarded as a real advance. The first important 
point that I would emphasise is that the industrial structure had been 
adapted to the requirements of the standard. The normal level of wages, 
costs and prices was adapted to the rate of exchange and consequently 
to the international level of prices. The currency was neither over- 
valued nor undervalued, but neutral. The theory of comparative costs 
afforded a real explanation of the distribution of industry and trade 
between nations. Changes in the distribution of trade were slow and 
continuous and were due either to changes in the relationships of real 
costs of production or to changes in tariff policies. It is, of course, true 
that changes occurred in the relation of the gold supply to the world 
demand for gold and therefore in the international price level, but these 
were so slow as to present no serious obstacle to the adjustment of wages 
and costs in individual countries. In this connection it should be observed 
that gold was allowed to move freely from one country to another in 
response to economic influences and that movement was only due to such 
influences. 

In the second place, the savings of the people were invested in long- 
term securities. A comparatively small amount was added every year 
to the fund of liquid capital employed in financing trade ; but this fund 
was determined by trade requirements and by the opportunities for long- 
term investment rather than by the willingness or unwillingness of their 
Owners to invest. 

In the third place, the long-term investments of lending countries, 
such as Great Britain, Germany and France, were appropriate to the 
industrial structures of beth lending and borrowing countries. Thus, 
for example, the industrial structure of Great Britain and the annual 
overseas investments of Great Britain formed pieces which fitted together 
to form part of the economic mosaic. 

In the fourth place, although most of the countries of the world were 
living under protective systems, and of systems of greater or less pro- 
tection, tariffs were not employed to correct temporary failures to balance 
international payments during periods of depression. Protection repre- 
sented a choice of alternatives and in each case the system was carefully 
thought out and determined by long-term considerations. For a rela- 
tively long period of years a protective system could be regarded as a 


7 I discussed these in greater detail in a course of four lectures delivered shortly 
before Christmas to the London Institute of Bankers and published in the Journal 
of that Institute. F 


120 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


constant ; international trade adapted itself to that system and for this 
reason the system did not seriously prejudice the operation of the gold 
standard. This statement does not constitute a defence of protection. 

Finally, the credit system of the world was not only firmly organised, 
but organised in such a way as to facilitate the working of the gold standard. 
The Bank of England acted not only as the Central Bank of Great Britain, 
but also as a sort of International Bank of Economic Settlements. In 
time of need it was able to draw funds from other countries and to employ 
those funds at the place of need and in the manner dictated by that 
need. One of the outstanding features of the system was that, when 
any country was in distress, the Bank of England was able and ready to 
mobilise the reserves of the world and to rush to the rescue of that country. 
Credit or liquid capital was thus a balancing influence rather than an 
influence employed to destroy an existing state of equilibrium. If actual 
gold was needed it was forthcoming, as in the case of the United States 
of America during the crisis of 1907; if a short-term loan was needed 
gold was not unnecessarily moved from one country to another; gold 
movements merely supplemented credit operations. Gold was not an 
alternative to a short loan, neither was it moved about in such a way as 
to necessitate a counteracting short loan operation. Both credit and gold 
movements were correcting rather than disturbing influences; they 
restored rather than destroyed equilibrium. The Bank of England 
adopted a more or less neutral attitude in the sense that it performed the 
essential functions of an International Bank and regarded the problem 
of monetary stability as an international problem. I do not, of course, 
suggest that its attitude was altruistic and that Great Britain voluntarily 
adopted such an attitude merely in the interests of world stability and 
progress. Such was not the case. The economic structure of Great 
Britain and the position that she held as the largest investing country 
and the centre of world finance made her individual interests identical 
with the interests of the world as a whole. There was no conflict, or 
presumed conflict, between the one and the many. 


IV. 


In all these respects the post-war world has differed from the pre-war 
world. Moreover, it seems to me that it is in precisely these differences 
that we find the real explanation of the failure of the gold standard, and 
that, before we can hope to establish any international standard that will 
stand the test of time, it will be necessary to restore those conditions which 
made the pre-war gold standard not merely workable but also highly 
successful. 

In the first place, the post-war gold standard was not of slow growth. 
Most of the countries that had abandoned gold under the pressure of 
war rushed back within the short space of about four years, and with- 
out considering with sufficient care the changes that had occurred in 
the underlying economic conditions. ‘The result was that in some cases 
the rates of exchange were fixed too high and in other cases too low. 
I may refer briefly to the two outstanding examples—Great Britain and 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 121 


France. In 1925 we returned to the gold standard, and in doing so 
gave the pound the same gold value as it possessed before the war, that 
is to say, we restored the pre-war dollar rate of four dollars eighty-six 
cents to the pound. It was felt by many critics that such a value was too 
high in relation to the relative wholesale price levels of Great Britain 
and the United States of America. For several months before we returned 
to gold the dollar value of sterling had been rising, as the result of a 
transfer of funds to this country, without any change in the underlying 
economic conditions. Our price level, it was said, was appropriate to 
the dollar rate that prevailed before such transfer took place, so that in 
restoring gold at the pre-war parity the Government overvalued our 
currency, the extent of overvaluation being estimated roughly at 10 per 
cent. It was therefore necessary to reduce our price level by 10 per 
cent. in order to be able to supply international goods at the international 
price level. 

It seems to me that that criticism was inadequate. After the boom 
of 1920 we suffered a period of severe depression during which wage 
rates in the industries supplying international goods (that is to say, the 
unsheltered industries) were reduced to an extent far exceeding the 
reductions that were made in the rates of wages prevailing in sheltered 
industries. In spite of these reductions the return upon capital invested 
in the sheltered industries fell below the normal rate obtainable in the 
sheltered industries. ‘Thus we were already suffering from an internal 
industrial disequilibrium ; the normal distribution of particular wages to 
which I referred in the second section had been seriously disturbed. 
Although the wholesale price level for international goods was made, 
Say, 10 per cent. too high by the return to gold, it represented a price 
level based upon an unduly low wage average in the industries concerned 
and an unduly low average return upon the capital invested in such 
industries. For that reason I believe that the degree of overvaluation 
was seriously underestimated by the majority of those who objected to 
the conditions under which we returned to the gold standard. The 
new standard imposed two tasks upon this country, the first being to 
reduce by 10 per cent. the price average or price level of the products 
of the unsheltered industries, the second being to make this new level 
represent a normal distribution of wages, costs, prices and profits through- 
out the whole of British industry. Even if there had been no other 
factor in the situation it is clear that an almost impossible task had been 
imposed upon the nation. But a further difficulty arose, after 1925, in 
consequence of a fairly steady fall in the world price level itself. In 
spite of the reductions in wage rates in the years that followed the return 
to gold, I do not believe that we succeeded in doing more than keep 
pace with the world price level. We had failed in the double task that 
had been set by the restoration of the gold standard. 

_ The overvaluation of the pound inevitably produced a depressing 
effect upon British industry. It acted as a veiled tax upon exports and 
a veiled bounty upon imports, with the result that our export surplus 
was considerably less than would otherwise have been the case. At 
the same time the world was in need of capital and the tradition of London 


122 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


as a centre of foreign investment led to an attempt to meet this world 
demand. British capital was invested abroad to an extent exceeding 
the available export surplus, but this result was hidden by the fact that 
during the same period other countries sent their liquid capital to London 
in search of security. I shall return to that point presently ; at the 
present stage I wish to stress the fact that, if such funds had not been 
imported to this country, the underlying weakness of our position would 
have been revealed earlier. It would have been necessary to maintain 
even higher discount rates than those which prevailed and to pursue a 
policy of more severe deflation. The depression in trade would have 
been even greater than actually proved to be the case. This danger was 
averted by the importation of funds from other countries, although such 
importation created a danger of another character which will be presently 
considered. 

The case of France differed materially from our own case. When, 
after a period during which the value of the franc was stabilised, the 
French Government restored the gold standard, the franc was given a 
value of approximately one-fifth the pre-war value in terms of gold. 
But the wage, cost and price levels in that country were such as to suggest 
a value far higher than that actually given to the franc. The result was 
that while in Great Britain the gold wage level was about 75 per cent. above 
the pre-war level, in France it was even below the pre-war level, and even 
at the present time seems to be little if any above the pre-war level. It is 
precisely for this reason that the French at the present time are able to 
contemplate with equanimity the prospect of a return to prosperity with- 
out any rise in the price level of that country. Further, the undervalua- 
tion of the French franc acted as a veiled bounty upon all exports and 
a veiled tax upon all imports. The temporary effect was to increase the 
export surplus (which was further increased by the receipt of Reparation 
payments from Germany) and to enable the French to amass balances 
which were left within call in other countries. The funds that accumu- 
lated in this country were largely French funds. 

In the second place, as we have already seen, a large proportion of the 
savings of the people of different countries, instead of being invested in 
long-term securities, were held within call. Thus a vast amount of 
capital (estimated at two thousand million pounds), which should, and 
normally would, have been invested in industrial and other long-term 
securities, was held in liquid form and was moved about in search 
of security—security which included rapid realisability and was of 
more importance than a substantial difference in the rate of interest. 
That confidence which is generated by peace and normal economic 
development was lacking; the risk factor was overvalued. One result 
was that industries became heavily burdened with fixed-interest and 
short-term debts. In this connection it is important for the future to 
observe that the distinction between investment capital and what I have 
called liquid capital has lost much of its importance. The war has resulted 
in a large increase in securities (mainly issued by governments) which can 
be realised upon an international market with very little delay. These 
securities are now held to a greater extent than in the past by people who 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 123 


wish to retain their capital within call. They are therefore far more 
susceptible to sudden changes in demand and immediately available 
supply, and their existence on such a large scale has added to the 
instability of the post-war economic world. 

In the third place, a change of the first importance has taken place in 
the financial relationships of nations without a corresponding change in 
their industrial structures. The United States of America provides the 
outstanding but by no means the only example of such change. Im- 
mediately before the war that country, although a heavy debtor, had 
ceased or almost ceased to be, on balance, a borrower. Her industrial 
structure was appropriate to that state of affairs. She possessed a large 
export surplus representing interest upon, and to some extent the repay- 
ment of, the accumulated loans of the past. The war enabled her not 
merely to pay off her debts but also to become an important creditor 
state. Her industrial structure remained practically the same as before ; 
the interest element was transferred from one side to the other side of 
her account with the rest of the world. Not only did she possess an 
export surplus in respect of commodities and personal services but that 
surplus was now augmented (where once it was offset) by interest pay- 
ments. She was like Mr. Manhattan of comic opera fame, “all dressed 
up and no place to go.”’ One factor in the situation is the amount owing 
to America in respect of so-called war debts, but from her point of view 
it is not an important factor. The much discussed transfer problem is 
as relevant to and important for America in the case of other forms of 
indebtedness as in that of the debts of other governments. What is 
peculiar to the so-called war debts is the fact that they represent a con- 
tract between two governments, but this is of no international economic 
significance. 

The failure to fit the industrial structure of the world to the new 
financial relationships between nations constituted one of the real diffi- 
culties in operating the post-war standard. I have already referred to 
the fact that, before the war, gold moved from one country to another in 
response to economic influences and that such movement produced its 
effect upon monetary policy and relative price levels. Since the war 
the changed financial relationships have caused not merely a large-scale 
movement of gold but also a concentration of gold in those countries in 
which the change in financial relationships, with the given industrial 
structure, had not been fully offset by a policy of foreign investment. 
Thus France and America have jointly amassed a large proportion of the 
total world supply. But they have not allowed that supply to produce its 
pre-war effects. About ten years ago Mr. McKenna rightly pointed out 
that America was on a dollar standard, not the gold standard. It is, 
I believe, literally true to say that at no time since 1920 has the United 
States been on the gold standard in the full technical sense of the words. 
It is equally true to say that France, while legally on the gold standard 
since 1928, has never accepted the implications of that standard. The 
reason for the failure of these two countries to employ the gold standard 
in the full sense of the words is to be found in their unwillingness either 
to adapt their industrial structures to the new finanical relationship or to 


124 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


embark upon such a policy of foreign investment as would enable them 
to maintain the existing industrial structure. 

Again, the credit system of the world has been completely disorganised. 
The change in the relative financial strengths of Great Britain, America 
and other countries, has tended to reduce the pre-eminence of London 
as the financial centre of the world; the power of the City has been 
challenged by New York and Paris. But that is not the only change that 
has occurred. I have already referred to the existence of a large mass 
of liquid capital that would normally have been absorbed by industry in 
the form of long-term investments. This liquid capital has not been 
employed by the Central Banks as a stabilising factor ; on the contrary, 
it has proved to be a disturbing factor. Before the war the Bank of 
England, as the centre or controller of international credit, employed 
such credit in the service of distressed countries and thereby maintained 
financial stability. Since the war it has not been able to perform this 
function with the same effect, while other countries that were able to 
render assistance could not be relied upon. When the credit of any 
country was threatened, foreigners withdrew their funds in search of 
security. When, in 1931, we needed the type of assistance that we were 
accustomed to render to other countries, the latter deserted us like rats 
deserting a sinking ship. A large mass of liquid capital moved about the 
world leaving crisis in its train and creating embarrassment to the countries 
that it sought, always hunting for security without ever being sure of 
finding it. The most recent victim of the damage wrought by this 
movement is the United States of America. 


NV: 


In the fourth section of my paper I have tried to indicate those 
differences between the pre-war and the post-war gold standards which 
accounted for the success of the former and the failure of the latter. The 
question arises whether, under present conditions, it is worth while either 
to restore the gold standard or to establish any other form of international 
metallic standard. It is known to all economists that the difficulties of 
working the post-war gold standard were increased by technical defects 
in banking organisation, particularly in the United States of America 
and in France. A discussion of these defects would not be possible in 
this paper; I refer to them merely to indicate that I am aware of their 
existence. But I believe, and I therefore assume, that if the more funda- 
mental difficulties to which I have referred were overcome it would be 
possible to solve purely technical problems. 

The essential feature of the gold standard is that it maintains a fixed 
rate of exchange, establishes an international price system in the sense 
of a common measure of value, and controls the internal or domestic 
supply of currency and therefore the domestic level of prices. It seems 
to me that if we are to return to the gold standard it must be a standard 
that retains this feature. Before the war a movement of gold from one 
country to another automatically reacted upon the relative supplies of 
money in the countries affected. It has been suggested by the Gold 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 125 


Delegation appointed by the Economic Section of the League of Nations 
that in future the various countries should maintain free reserves of gold. 
The gold supply of a country should be divided into two parts, the first 
being the legal reserve against currency, the second being the surplus 
available for export. The purpose of the scheme is to secure that an 
export of gold from or an import of gold into the reserve should not react 
upon the currency policy of the country concerned. 

It seems to me that this proposal would destroy the vital element in 
the gold standard. In recent years we have seen how free reserves are 
actually employed in practice. In America they were placed on the 
most inaccessible shelves of the vaults of the Central Banks, In many 
of the smaller countries they were virtually added to the legal reserves. 
They were exported with extreme reluctance and the loss of gold even 
from those reserves reacted upon the discount and currency policies of 
the losers. Further, it is clear that if all countries maintained free 
reserves, a considerable proportion of the total reserve of gold in the world 
would be rendered ineffective as a foundation for currency, with the result 
that the gold price level would be lower than under the alternative system. 
But the real argument against the proposed system is that a movement of 
gold would not be producing the effect upon internal policy that such a 
movement ought to produce under normal conditions. At best we should 
be using the cumbrous method of moving actual gold instead of the pre- 
war method of moving liquid capital or providing credit ; at the worst it 
would delay a domestic adjustment so long as to make such adjustment 
greater and more difficult and thus endanger the standard itself. For 
these reasons it seems to me that the proposal does not constitute an 
improvement upon the pre-war gold standard. ‘The same reasons lead 
me to believe that the suggested compromise of establishing and main- 
taining a wide margin between the buying and selling prices of gold 
would destroy what is most valuable in the gold standard. 

If we ignore other metallic systems it seems to me that the real issue 
lies between the gold standard, rigorously interpreted, and the main- 
tenance of national: currencies which are not linked together by being 
linked to gold or to any other common measure. When we abandoned 
the gold standard the alternative achieved considerable popularity in 
this country, but all recent experience has shown that, during a period 
of currency disturbance, it tends to increase rather than reduce our 
difficulties. My objection to the system, however, is due not to the 
fact that it has created or intensified difficulties under present conditions, 
but to the fact that it would create difficulties of the present type even 
though it were introduced under the best possible conditions. ‘The 
system has been advocated on the ground that it would enable us or any 
other nation to pursue a currency policy that would maintain a stable 
price level. For reasons which I cannot give in this paper I believe 
that precisely that sort of stability which they seek is more likely to be 
achieved under the gold standard than under a system in which such 
stability is the immediate object of national policy. But it seems to me 
that a wider and deeper issue than even price stability is involved in the 
discussion of the two alternative monetary systems. The national 


126 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


currency system is but one aspect of economic nationalism or economic 
isolation, of which tariffs is another. A national system of currency is 
intelligible if not defensible for a nation which isolates itself from the 
family of nations. It is not, however, consistent with a policy of inter- 
nationalism in other departments of economic activity. The gold standard 
stands for internationalism in economic affairs ; it is a condition of free 
development of trade between nations. Nor should it be forgotten that, 
if most countries were on the gold standard, secular changes in the value 
of gold would be relatively small. Post-war changes in the value of 
gold have been due not to the gold standard but to the failure of a number 
of countries to operate that standard. 

Without pausing to consider the case for bimetallism, I venture to 
express the belief that the restoration of the gold standard is necessary 
to the progress of the world in that future which is worth considering. 
I am content to leave the twenty-first century to our great-grandchildren. 
I do not, however, suggest that the gold standard should be immediately 
restored ; on the contrary, I fear that political considerations will drive 
us back to that standard before the essential preliminaries have been 
properly considered. In the first place, it would be folly on our part 
to return to gold until we knew precisely the rate of exchange that would 
enable international trade to be distributed in the manner determined 
by real costs of production. The new rates should be determined by 
purchasing power parities. We are not yet agreed, however, upon the 
precise meaning of purchasing power parity, neither do we possess the 
information that would enable us to estimate purchasing power parity, 
howsoever defined. Again, we should not return to gold until the price 
averages of different countries, expressed in their respective currencies, 
have reached those heights which are regarded as satisfactory; for it 
is clear that subsequent changes must be international rather than purely 
domestic in character. Further, we should not restore the gold standard 
until individual countries are prepared to pursue investment policies 
that are appropriate to the remaining parts of their economic structures. 
It is too much to hope that the great mass of liquid capital which now 
readily—too readily—flows from one country to another will quickly 
be invested in long-term securities and thereby cease to be a danger 
to the financial stability of a number of countries, but it should be easy 
to form an international exchange stabilisation fund under the control 
of an appropriate body which, in effect, would perform the pre-war 
international function of the Bank of England. Such a body would 
direct the flow of funds according to the needs of individual countries, 
not, as at present, in the opposite direction. 

A word should be added on the question of tariffs. Before the war 
the tariff system of each country was determined by long-term considera- 
tions. During the last few years all countries (our own included) have 
found refuge in the doctrines of the mercantilists of earlier days. ‘Tariffs 
have been used not to direct the development of industry but to direct 
the immediate flow of trade. An adverse balance of trade is no longer 
regarded as an incident of economic growth but as a calamity to be avoided 
at all costs. An established system of protection is not inconsistent 


F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 127 


with the operation of the gold standard, but frequent tariff manipulation 
to meet fluctuating trade balances is bound to render any international 
currency standard impossible. It is too much to hope that the world 
will abandon tariffs as a measure of protection, but it will be difficult 
to maintain the gold standard unless the countries of the world are pre- 
pared to abandon the system of ad hoc trade restrictions to overcome 
occasional deficits on current accounts. I do not believe, however, that 
I am too optimistic in stating that this difficulty would quickly disappear. 
The new practice of adjusting tariffs to failures to balance payments is 
largely the product of the failure of our credit system. If liquid capital 
had gone to the rescue of, instead of running away from, countries with 
adverse balances the need for dealing with the situation in another way 
would not have arisen. I therefore believe that if we could solve the 
problem of controlling the flow of credit, either through the creation of 
an international exchange stabilisation fund, or in some other way, the 
difficulties created by the new restrictions upon trade would also be 
solved. 

We are frequently told that a return to the gold standard is impossible 
so long as the world supply of gold is so largely concentrated in two 


countries. It is no doubt true that the present distribution of gold 


presents a serious difficulty, but I do not regard it as an insuperable 


_ difficulty. The present distribution of gold is the result of those post-war 


l(t 


influences to which I have already referred. If we could restore those 
conditions which are essential to the maintenance of the gold standard it 
is not unlikely that a redistribution of gold according to apparent need 
would be accepted. Gold is only preferred to an earning asset so long as 


_ the earnings of the latter do not exceed the money estimate of the risk 


involved. In the last resort, however, the international price level in 


_ terms of gold matters less than the domestic price levels expressed in local 


currencies, so that the difficulty created by an unequal distribution of 


_ gold could be overcome by giving an appropriate gold value to paper 


currency and maintaining a relatively low legal reserve. Moreover, if 


domestic price levels, expressed in local currencies, are sufficiently high, 


the burden of fixed debts necessitating a flow of payments from one 


country to another would not be so heavy as to endanger the gold standard. 
A recent judgment in this country, and still more recent pronouncements 
in the United States, have shown that debts contracted in gold are no 
longer payable in the gold value expressed in the bonds. A foreign debt 
payable ‘in sterling in gold’ in this country can be paid in sterling ; 
a gold bond payable in gold dollars can be paid in dollars. This decision 
has produced a profound effect upon the significance of the gold price 
level in the world and, therefore, upon the present distribution of gold 
supplies. For these reasons, while admitting the importance of a change 
in the distribution of gold, I do not believe that the present distribution, 
or the probable distribution in the near future, constitutes an insuperable 
obstacle to the return to the gold standard. 

I hope it will be evident that I neither contemplate nor desire an im- 
mediate return to the gold standard. Many changes must take place before 
such action can be taken with safety. When a new currency measure is 


128 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


passed we shall be legislating not for a year but, we hope, for a generation 
or more. It should not be forgotten, however, that the gold standard is 
a form of discipline which may itself help to restore some of those con- 
ditions that enable it to be operated with success. It is a problem in the 
art of government to decide when the necessary changes have occurred, 
and how much may be left to the discipline of the standard itself. In 
deciding the actual gold value to be given to sterling, I hope that the 
post-war difficulties of the unsheltered industries will not be forgotten by 
the Treasury. 


SECTION G.—ENGINEERING, 


SOME EXPERIENCES IN MECHANICAL 
ENGINEERING 


ADDRESS BY 
RICHARD W. ALLEN, C.B.E., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


THE variety and range of subject-matter selected for the addresses of 
this Section reminds me how vast a field of human endeavour is now 
occupied by the engineer ; how manifold are the branches of his pro- 
fession ; how diversified are the activities ; and with reflections such as 
these, I realised that I could not hope to range over the whole of the 
relatively limited though still vast field of mechanical engineering, though 
through a life of fifty years I came to the conclusion that for the purpose 
of this address ‘ Some Experiences in Mechanical Engineering ’ may be 
a suitable subject. 

While discussing the progress which has taken place it seems desirable 
to give some definition of what is meant by ‘mechanical engineering.’ The 
expression is often used loosely, and indeed it is not easy to sum up the 
scope of mechanical engineering in a few words. For electrical engineer- 
ing activities are almost inseparably interwoven with those of the 
mechanical engineer ; and the same may be said of civil engineering. 
There is in truth no hard-and-fast dividing line between the various 
branches of the engineering profession ; no one point at which we may 
confidently say, ‘ Here mechanical engineering ends, and there some 
other form of engineering activity begins.’ Nevertheless it is manifest 
that if engineering can best be defined as the adaptation of the forces of 
nature for the service of mankind, then, I suggest, mechanical engineering 
may be described as that branch which deals with invention, design, 
construction, and the installation and operation of machinery by means 
of which those forces are harnessed and applied. 

By the extent to which natural resources are thus utilised one may 
measure—materially, if not morally—the degree of civilisation of a people. 
The story of the progress of civilisation, in the use of machinery, is a 
fascinating but a somewhat neglected study. Just as the accumulations 
of succeeding ages have buried the remains of early man, so the rapid 
succession of new inventions and the modifications of old ones have 
heaped up a quantity of material that tends to diminish our appreciation 
of the labours of the past. We are apt to take most things for granted, 
and to pay little heed to the efforts of those earlier workers by whose 
labours we profit—notably in the use of machines. 

¥F 


130 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


The history of discovery and invention constitutes, indeed, a relatively 
insignificant portion of ‘ history.” Too frequently does this consist 
almost exclusively of a recital of the political changes, the military achieve- 
ments, and the rise and fall of nations and peoples, and of the men who 
have had brief authority over them. Men and even nations pass and are 
forgotten, but knowledge begets knowledge and cannot be stayed, con- 
tinuing to expand at a rate which it seems that no past epoch can possibly 
rival, while it must be exceedingly doubtful whether the future will afford 
a parallel ; but a time will assuredly come when the achievements of men 
and matters of the present day will be appraised at their full value. 

It is, above all, an age of time-saving and labour-saving devices. If 
mechanical engineering is not to fail in its destiny, then its gift to mankind 
must be that of increased leisure. It must be admitted, however, that at 
present the ‘ load ’ is distributed very unevenly, nearly three millions of 
our people being unemployed, so that they must be carried on the shoulders 
of the rest. There can be no question that we are now moving so quickly 
that it often seems doubtful whether mankind can adapt itself to the 
rapidly changing conditions ; and there is thus even a tendency to ques- 
tion the advantage of science, and the value of progress, as factors in 
human happiness. It is as if conservative and unimaginative humanity, 
caught up by a sea of advancing and fast-accumulating knowledge, sorely 
buffeted by the waves it has created, is being carried into unknown waters, 
far from the lighthouses of past experience. 

In mechanical engineering the last few decades have witnessed almost 
incredible advances. We who live in these amazing times cannot appre- 
ciate the rate of change, and can comprehend only imperfectly the vastness 
of the new era. One may recollect that Francis Bacon, whom Sir Richard 
Gregory has designated as the great apostle of modern scientific method, 
‘aspired to take all knowledge for his province.’ It is a striking com- 
mentary upon the progress of science that engineering knowledge alone 
is now far beyond the scope of any one man, even though he were of the 
mental calibre of the great Lord Chancellor himself. 

It may be useful to look back over the past fifty years and consider the 
changes which that period has effected in the field of mechanical engineer- 
ing. ‘Turning first to electric power plant, we may note that, fifty years ago, 
there were no steam turbines, no Diesel engines, no petrol engines— 
indeed, no internal combustion engines of any kind other than gas engines. 
Again, while the electrical generation, transmission and application of 
power were then practically unknown, it is estimated that the world’s 
production of electrical energy to-day is of the order of 200,000 million 
units per annum. As recently as the year 1895 Lord Kelvin put forward 
the statement that he saw no reason why power stations of 100,000 h.p. 
under one roof should not be feasible in the future. This prediction, 
then regarded. as a fantastic dream, has been abundantly fulfilled, for the 
development of this power in one turbo-generator is now accomplished ; 
and here we may consider briefly the development of three very important 
contributions to mechanical science—namely, the steam turbine, the 
Diesel engine, and the centrifugal pump. 

The development of the steam turbine has taken place entirely during 


G.—ENGINEERING 131 


the last fifty years. It was the great pioneering labours of Sir Charles 
Parsons, however, which laid the main foundations for the turbine design 
of to-day. He saw the need for compounding his first turbine, of reaction 
type. This simple non-condensing turbine was naturally very un- 
economical, and as a result the condensing turbine was conceived, where- 
upon turbine steam consumptions and costs began to approximate to 
those of the best reciprocating engines. In the early stages of turbine 
development considerable difficulty arose from the fact of this prime 
mover being more suitable for large outputs, for which in those times 
there was no demand. Parsons next initiated the application of the 
turbine to ship propulsion, building the s.s. Turbinia, in which the pro- 
pellers were driven direct ; the result being that, while the turbine speed 
was too low, that of the propellers was too high to give the best results. 

In the meantime the experience gained on the Turbinia had resulted 
in the design and adoption of the geared turbine, which not only improved 
the position for the smaller sets on land, but also found the solution to 
the problem of marine propulsion—namely, a turbine running at a high 
speed and a propeller at a much lower one, thus producing a condition 
which gave maximum efficiency. 

Progress on the marine side has been so rapid that units capable of 
developing 50,000 shaft h.p. have been constructed. 

On land the progress has been no less rapid, and the application of the 
geared turbine has enabled continuous current dynamos to be built for 
capacities up to 3,000 kw. per machine. Further, the application of the 
geared turbine has been extended to operating various kinds of mills 
and to other fields where its greater economy of space and steam con- 
sumption give it advantages over the steam engine. 

Recent developments in turbine design have tended to endorse the 


principle laid down by Carnot, that the temperature of heat supply 


should be separated as widely as possible from that of heat rejection. 
Thus, total temperatures are creeping upwards. Among other means 
of improving the efficiency is that of feed heating by means of steam 
tapped off from the turbine between the expansions. 

There are many examples of large turbine plant approaching a thermal 
efficiency of 30 per cent. from fuel to electricity, and machines have been 
constructed giving, at the terminals, one kw.-hour for 10,000 B.Th.U., 
corresponding to a thermal efficiency of the turbine of more than 
34 per cent. Although there are turbines at present in commission 
developing 200,000 kw., these very large machines, I understand, show 
little, if any, improvement in efficiency over a machine having an output 
of, say, 40,000 to 50,000 kw. ; and it seems rather unlikely that the size 
of unit will tend to increase in the future. 

The development of the oil engine is another feature of cardinal im- 
portance in recent engineering history. It was only forty-one years ago 
that Dr. Rudolf Diesel obtained his famous patent which was destined to 
effect a revolution in the design of an oil engine. It was the intention of 
the inventor to burn coal direct in the working cylinder, but this was 
found to be impracticable, owing to the large quantities of unburnt 
residue. He thereupon turned to the possibilities of oil, and, after four 


132 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


years of persevering experiment, the first practical engine was constructed. 
It may be that a satisfactory internal combustion engine, utilising powdered 
coal as fuel, will be one of the developments of the future ; but so far oil 
has proved to be the only fuel capable of satisfactory employment in 
engines of the Diesel type. 

We may consider for a moment the conditions under which the fuel 
was to be burnt in the working cylinder, conditions which—whether the 
fuel be in colloidal or liquid form, and whether its injection be by high- 
pressure air or by mechanical means—are fundamentally the same to-day. 
The Diesel cycle relies, for the ignition of the fuel delivered to the cylinder 
during the working stroke, upon the temperature resulting from the high- 
compression pressure to which the charge of air is submitted, a pressure 
of some 500 lb. per sq. in. Ignition begins at about top dead centre, 
and continues for a definite part of the power stroke. The burning of 
the charge takes place at roughly constant pressure, the process being 
sometimes designated as the ‘ slow combustion ’ or ‘ constant pressure ’ 
cycle. In comparison with other available types of prime mover, the 
earliest practical Diesel engines were thermally very efficient, and this, 
together with the manifold advantages of oil for fuel, has led to an 
increasing exploitation of the oil engine down to the present day. 

The advantages of the Diesel engine for ship propulsion—resulting in 
a decided economy as regards fuel, space, weight—were recognised early 
in the present century. A milestone in the history of technical develop- 
ment is denoted by the launching of the Se/andia twenty-three years 
ago, a vessel 370 ft. long, fitted with a four-cycle engine. It is interest- 
ing to record that this ship is still in service and very successful results 
are still being obtained. During the last twenty years considerable 
developments in the building of marine Diesel engines have taken place. 

The supply of high-pressure air for fuel injection purposes has always 
been a difficult problem. With normal designs, a pressure of at least 
1,000 lb. per sq. in. must be available, while the compressors must keep 
in tune for long periods of service, involving a considerable maintenance 
charge for suction and delivery valves, cooling coils and compressor pistons. 
Again, several years before Diesel’s patent, Ackroyd Stuart had made use 
of mechanical injection on a low-compression engine, but, in spite of the 
various advantages of this system of injection, there was for a long time no 
serious attempt to apply it to the Diesel engine. Not only does the 
employment of mechanical injection remove the disadvantages associated 
with high-pressure air, but dispensing with the compressor drive from the 
crankshaft improves engine balance, reduces the overall length and weight 
of the power unit, and increases the overall thermal efficiency of the 
engine. A notable feature of the mechanical injection engine is the 
ability of the governor to take sole charge of the engine throughout the 
entire power and speed range, without the necessary complications by 
having the blast air supply under control when running under a varying 
speed range.’ 

More recent developments in engines operating on both the ‘ constant 
pressure ’ and ‘ mixed pressure ’ cycles have led to gradual but persistent 
reductions in the weight and size of the components, thus enabling speeds 


G.—ENGINEERING 133 


to be raised and the power output per unit of weight greatly increased. 
At the present day engines are made of a vast number of different types, 
two- and four-cycle, single- and double-acting, vertical and horizontal, 
each meeting a particular set of conditions in service. Starting by com- 
pressed air is still the most usual method, being universal in the case of 
large engines. For traction purposes, however, and for the smaller 
stationary sets, electrical and mechanical methods now receive increasing 
attention. 

There is boundless scope for the application of the Diesel engine, both 
actual and potential. Its low initial cost, the limited space required for 
its installation, the ease of starting from cold, and its low costs of operation 
and maintenance, are all contributory to its great industrial exploitation, 
particularly for such public services as water and electricity supply, 
sewage and drainage, apart from industrial application. For marine 
purposes the Diesel engine is making steady progress in its adoption for 
the main propelling machinery. With its convenience and reliability 
for auxiliary purposes it is so widely appreciated as to require only passing 
mention here. Examples of this type of plant are to be seen in many 
modern passenger ships. The recent development of a high-speed 
engine, combined with small size and low specific weight, make this 
engine particularly suitable in railway work for locomotives, where low 
operating costs and low standby losses are essential. This is a sphere 
into which the Diesel engine in our country has only recently entered, but 
its singular suitability for this type of service encourages one to expect 
rapid strides to be made in this direction. So far as industrial road 
vehicles are concerned, this type of oil engine has come to stay, while its 
resiliency of running has permitted its installation in crowded residential 
areas—even in the basements of steel structures consisting of flats, where 
freedom from noise and vibration are imperative. There seems, indeed, 
to be no limit to the sphere of utility—of necessity, even—for this prime 
mover. . 

The centrifugal pump is also largely a development of the period under 
review. As is frequently the case, the principle was known long before 
it was applied successfully to practical uses. There is evidence that 
Leonardo da Vinci, the great artist, engineer and inventor, realised the 
possibility of utilising centrifugal force for raising water, though the 
invention of the centrifugal pump is usually attributed to Johann Jordan. 

So far as known records go, centrifugal pumps began to be used for 
industrial purposes in the second decade of last century ; but at the time 
of the Great Exhibition in 1851 they were still regarded as a mysterious 
novelty. One shown by Appold at this exhibition created much interest 
because its impellers would pass an orange, this being one of the first 
steps in an important modern application of this pump, that of dealing 
with solid materials. For a long time the centrifugal pump could not 
compete with that of the plunger type for the greater pressures and heads, 
its efficiency falling off rapidly in the higher ranges, so that its use was 
confined chiefly to low lifts. When Osborne Reynolds’s patent was 
disclosed in 1875 the multi-stage turbine centrifugal pump appeared, and 
the use of guide vanes was found greatly to improve the hydraulic 


134 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


efficiency at heads which had hitherto been thought quite outside the 
range of this pump. 

In the pioneer days of centrifugal pump development, when the method 
of calculation for design was somewhat rudimentary, a number of basic 
facts were discovered experimentally, from which empirical relationships 
were devised to meet the various conditions imposed. Later on, the 
advances made in the design of high-speed prime movers, particularly 
of steam engines and electric motors, gained for this type of pump a pre- 
eminence which it has maintained ever since and seems likely to enjoy 
for some time to come. ‘To-day, although we have still much to learn, 
centrifugal pump design has become a highly specialised study, and 
characteristics can be forecast, for numerous combinations of conditions, 
with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Compared with the plunger type, 
the centrifugal pump has the advantages of much lower capital and main- 
tenance cost, with concomitant economy in space and weight, which 
renders it particularly suitable for use on board ship. It can be run in 
special cases with a shut-off head. It has a reasonable measure of un- 
chokeability, while its delivery at constant pressure makes it peculiarly 
applicable to boiler feed and similar duties. 

A striking application of this pump has been in the handling of coal, 
sands, gravels, and the like, where, in spite of the abrasive nature of the 
materials, maintenance costs can be kept comparatively low, while lined 
pumps of special construction are capable of passing stones and boulders 
up to the size of the delivery branch. 

The much improved efficiency now obtainable from centrifugal turbo- 
pumps has led to a marked increase in their use for waterworks installa- 
tions, where the high speed enables large quantities of water to be de- 
livered from a comparatively small bore-hole. ‘The pump is suspended, 
often many hundred feet below the surface, from a rising main, the 
impellers being driven by vertical shafting supported in bearings fitted 
to the rising main itself, or, occasionally, by an electric motor which runs 
submerged. 

A comparatively recent development is the axial-flow type of pump, 
and this, with its advantages of reduced weight and space, and higher 
speed, may—when dealing with low heads—be said to carry the low cost 
of construction and installation a stage further. Because the flow is uni- 
directional, the pump being merely an incident in the pipe, higher speeds 
can be obtained with lighter prime movers. Intermediate types, partly 
centrifugal and partly axial-flow, have also been devised. While no one 
dare prophesy as to the future of the pump, it would appear that both 
centrifugal and axial-flow types are in essence so simple that it is difficult 
to see how any future improvement can be expected, except in detail. 

These technical developments have amazingly increased the field of 
application of the centrifugal pump, particularly for graving and floating 
docks, impounding for wet docks, and in the drainage of watery wastes 
and the irrigation of barren deserts, so as to bring large areas of ground 
previously unproductive into a state of high fertility—often affording, 
indeed, a sure means of subsistence to peoples whose very existence had 
hitherto been precarious. In our own country, before the beginning of 


G.—ENGINEERING 135 


the present century, only a comparatively small area of the fenland had 
been drained, and then almost entirely by antique methods, as by scoop 
wheels driven by windmills or beam engines, whose efficiency was in 
inverse ratio to their esthetic value. Here the development of modern 
steam and oil engine-driven centrifugal pumps has supplied a consider- 
able impetus to reclamation. In China and Japan great areas of waste 
land have similarly been drained and brought into cultivation. 

The economic advantages of irrigation work in Egypt and the Sudan 
are familiar to many. In Egypt during the last fifty years the develop- 
ments are very remarkable for their size and number of installations. 
Only after a visit to that country can one fully appreciate the vastness of 
the enterprise and the work carried out there by the engineer. In the 
Sudan, irrigation schemes date from the Battle of Omdurman, when the 
power of the Mahdi was broken by Lord Kitchener, and the tribes of the 
Sudan, whose previous occupation had been largely that of war, had 
somehow or other to maintain themselves in a country ill supplied by 
nature with the means of peaceful existence. The suggestion that cotton 
could be successfully grown in the Sudan, followed by the construction 
of experimental pumping stations—even so far afield as Fashoda—was 
crowned with success, leading to the foundation of the Gezira Irrigation 
Scheme and to the formation of the Sudan Plantations Syndicate, so that 
to-day the Sudan furnishes a considerable proportion of the world’s 
supply of this commodity, and of the highest quality. In many other 
countries, as Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, irrigation methods 
only possible by the installation of modern pumping plant have resulted— 
as, for example, at Mildura—in the development of Australia’s great fruit- 
growing industries. 

Another field in which production has been greatly increased by 
mechanical methods is the tin industry of the Federated Malay States. 
The antiquated Chinese method of raising water from mines by means of 
hand buckets, sometimes in one or two up to as many as six stages, was 
slow, laborious and costly, as compared with the use of a centrifugal pump 
of modern type. Again, the method of hydraulicing—where a jet of 
high-pressure water is directed against a hillside, so as to wash it com- 
pletely away for treatment—has provided still further scope for the use 
of centrifugal pumping plant. 

Shipbuilding has always been one of our national industries in which 
we Britishers take a legitimate pride—an industry in which we are leaders 
throughout the world. Wherever the British flag flies, in the Navy or 
the Mercantile Marine, graving or floating docks are to be found. To the 
engineer the design and construction of such docks present problems of 
absorbing interest—problems ever new, since the conditions to be faced 
differ widely between one country and another, requiring special treatment 
to suit the local surroundings. 

To deal adequately with the pumping machinery required for graving 
and floating docks both at home and abroad would take too long, but 
nevertheless it is a subject which has always appealed to me as one not 
only fascinating but full of romance. 

A survey of recent mechanical progress, though only in outline, would 


136 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


be incomplete without reference to the various classes of machinery used 
for purposes of production. Nevertheless the changes which have taken 
place in recent years are so extensive that they can only be indicated here 
in general terms. It would be difficult, without reference to illustrations 
in the records of the time, or to actual exhibits such as those in the Science 
Museum at South Kensington, to convey to the younger generation of 
engineers how elementary was most of the industrial machinery of 1883 
compared with that of to-day—how relatively limited in quantity, capacity 
and range. Yet already the seeds of change had been sown. For several 
decades British ideals in machine construction had been in conflict with 
those which had found their way to this country from abroad. British 
engineers were accustomed to an ample factor of safety, massive design, 
slow-speed operation, and a regard for appearance. On the other hand, 
engineers in foreign countries were undoubtedly more ready to experi- 
ment freely with novel designs, and were responsible for introducing into 
this country what was then known as the ‘ manufacturing principle,’ 
whereby large numbers of standardised articles were produced by repeti- 
tion processes, with the aid of special-purpose machines designed for 
a single operation, thus reducing the necessity for skilled labour. As 
far back as 18541 it is recorded that Joseph Whitworth visited the United 
States and reported favourably on machinery for repetition work. In 
devising machinery of this kind, he reported, ‘ the Americans showed an 
amount of ingenuity, combined with undaunted energy, which we would 
do well to emulate if we meant to hold our present position in the great 
markets of the world.’ About the same time James Nasmyth had visited 
the Colt pistol factory, then newly established in England,? and confessed 
that he had felt humiliated by the experience. He remarked further 
that ‘ The acquaintance with correct principles has been carried out in 
a fearless and masterly manner, and they have been pushed to their fullest 
extent ; and the result is the attainment of perfection such as I have never 
seen before.’* But though British engineers of outstanding ability thus 
gave generous recognition to the lessons which were to be learnt from 
abroad, there was—as Nasmyth himself pointed out—‘ a degree of timidity 
resulting from traditional notions, and attachment to old systems’; and 
this conservatism, no doubt reinforced by relatively lower labour costs, 
still held back the thoroughgoing mechanisation of British industry 
fifty years ago, and indeed for long afterwards. But in the end, with our 
well-known genius for compromise, we have succeeded in combining the 
best features of both types, with the result that British machinery still 
maintains its high prestige in the markets of the world. It is noteworthy 
too that other countries have not hesitated to benefit by the high 
traditions of design and workmanship which have always been upheld by 
British engineers. 

But though the adoption wherever possible of repetition methods, 
involving standardisation and interchangeability of parts, had a marked 


1 New York Industrial Exhibition: Special Reports of Mr. George Wallis 
and Mr. Joseph Whitworth, Parliamentary Papers, 1854, vol. xxxvi. 

2 Colt’s factory established in England, 1851. 

3 Select Committee on Small-Arms, Parliamentary Papers, 1854, vol. xviii. 


G.—ENGINEERING 137 


influence on mechanical engineering progress, there was another influence 
which was destined to bring about revolutionary changes in the design 
and construction of machinery, in this country and, indeed, the world 
over. This was the gradual substitution of science, and the scientific 
method, for the ‘ rule-of-thumb’ procedure of the so-called ‘ practical 
man.’ The change in this regard has taken place almost entirely during 
the past fifty years. 

As Sir Alfred Ewing pointed out in his Presidential Address to this 
section a few years ago, there were in 1881 a few great leaders—a Kelvin 
or a Hopkinson—who possessed the right kind of basic understanding, 
who could turn to theory for guidance and had the engineer’s instinct to 
give it application. But most of the zealous workers of those days were 
groping in what was at best a half light, full of enterprise and enthusiasm 
and not much more. But the few great mentors to whom Sir Alfred 
Ewing referred were the pioneers who helped to bring about what I 
believe to have been a great material revolution in human affairs. For it 
was they, together with other leaders in the universities and elsewhere, 
who laboured at the development of engineering theory, and who first 
taught us to realise the illimitable benefits to be secured by the application 
of physical science to the whole range of engineering activity. When 
I look back over the period now under review I realise that the greatest 
lesson conveyed is that the advancement of engineering is in the last 
resort determined by the advancement of physical science. I would, 
indeed, go further, and say that my experience, specialised though it has 
been, has taught me that the whole structure of modern civilisation rests 
upon the progressive application of physical science to the ever expanding 
requirements of mankind. 

During the past half-century there has been a similarly phenomenal 
development in many other branches of mechanical engineering, notably 
those concerned with the naval and military services, radio-communica- 
tion, aviation, transport (including rail and road), etc. etc. Considerations 
of time make it impossible to deal adequately with these developments 
here, but, as we have already seen, it seems certain that at no previous time 
in the history of the world has mechanical development been so rapid. 

While the history of engineering development is a fascinating subject, 
we have to live in the present, at a time when economic considerations 
have become of vital importance in their bearing upon technical matters, 
so that no apology should be necessary for discussing very briefly the 
scientific methods of carrying out an engineering installation of to-day. 

Years ago any engineering firm of repute could obtain a considerable 
proportion of its work with no particular effort, sometimes even without 
the necessity of preparing a contract. Such times have gone by. There 
is severe competition for what seems often a somewhat limited amount of 
work, and sustained and intensive effort is necessary to secure the amount 
of business requisite to keep open one’s works. ‘The soil must be tilled 
diligently—sometimes, indeed, for years—before the crop is reaped. 
To achieve this end no effort must be spared. A prospective customer 
often requires much education as to the savings which will accrue from the 
substitution of new and modern plant for his obsolete machinery, and to 


F2 


138 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


appreciate fully the varying considerations of first cost, running expenses, 
maintenance charges, and the like. Where, as with Government depart- 
ments or municipal authorities, the scheme has often been developed to 
a considerable extent before tenders are called for, less preliminary work 
by a firm is required. The difficulties of preparing an estimate are not 
always fully appreciated, for changes in the costs of labour and materials 
must be envisaged, while urgent work will require the working of over- 
time, at higher rates. Consideration must be given to the financial stand- 
ing of the customer, the necessary safeguards for both parties must be 
provided, and, in recent years, where foreign customers are concerned, 
the fluctuating rates of exchange have created further problems with 
corresponding anxieties. 

In the engineering of a large installation it is not always possible for 
those at the head of affairs to attend to more than the general scheme. 
An engineer of suitable experience is consequently deputed to conduct 
the whole contract in all its branches, and he will call upon the technical 
experts attached to the various departments concerned. A document, 
referred to as a technical order sheet, is issued containing a concise synopsis 
of the client’s specification, all special requirements and relevant matter 
concerning duties, speeds, consumptions of the various units comprising 
the whole installation. ‘This document must further contain all informa- 
tion necessary for the various departments of offices and works. Accurate 
detailed records must be kept of all expenditure incurred in the con- 
struction and installation of the machinery. This can best be done by 
assigning to each section of the work a letter to indicate the class of 
machinery, and a series of numbers to denote the individual items. ‘These 
identification marks will be stamped on each of the parts and will appear 
finally upon the finished article, thus facilitating the ordering of spare 
parts at a later date. Against these numbers, the draughtsman will book 
his time, the foreman will draw his materials from the stores, and the 
workman will fill up his time sheets. The cost office will then have no 
difficulty in ascertaining the expenditure at any stage of a contract, and 
will ultimately arrive at the total cost in full detail, for guidance in future 
estimates. 

The question of housing the machinery has also to be considered, and 
if new plant has to be erected and operated beside existing plant which 
must meanwhile be kept running, difficulties may arise, the overcoming 
of which may call for ingenuity and resource of a high order. The 
preparation of drawings is the most important step in the earlier stages 
of a contract, and success will depend very largely upon the amount of 
thought and time that has been given to the work in the design and 
drawing office. As in the case of correspondence, so also with the drawing 
office, one leading draughtsman must be in charge of the whole of the 
work, so that the various sections of the scheme may be in harmonious 
relation with each other. Having obtained all the necessary technical 
details from the design office, the leading draughtsman will prepare 
a preliminary lay-out of the scheme, and this is critically examined, in 
conjunction with the customer, to settle any new points which may then 
have arisen. When all has been suitably arranged, a general arrangement 


G.—ENGINEERING 139 


drawing is prepared, followed by detail drawings of the larger parts, 
which are issued to the pattern shop and forge, while foundation drawings 
are sent to the customer, so that the buildings can be constructed or 
adapted. Drawings of all remaining details and pipework will follow, 
complete with lists of material and any special drawings for erection on 
site. 

An important section of the works manager’s organisation is the plan- 
ning department. This department will interest itself in preparing 
a programme of dates by which the different items must be complete in 
pattern shop, foundry, smiths’ shop, machine shop, erecting shop, etc., 
so that the promised delivery date will be adhered to. ‘This also involves 
a programme of work for the larger machine tools extending possibly 
six months ahead, specifying the hours allowed for the different operations. 

The quality of the materials is the concern of the works laboratory, 
which must ensure that all material specifications are complied with, and, 
where the customer’s inspector desires to witness tests, must arrange for 
these to be carried out without the causation of delay in delivering the 
material in question to the machine shops. In addition to such routine 
testing, the laboratory should carry out considerable investigatory work, 
to keep up with the ever-increasing demands of the designer and for the 
improvement of materials generally. Those parts of the machinery 
required to withstand pressure must be subjected to hydraulic tests some 
50 to 100 per cent. in excess of the maximum anticipated. 

Where possible, running tests are made at the firm’s works under condi- 
tions approximating to those on site. A Diesel engine and dynamo set 
should be tested separately, the engine by the dynamometer brake method, 
and the dynamo electrically ; and a combined test may finally be run in 
the presence of the purchaser. The testing of steam turbines usually 
presents greater difficulties by reason of the great variation in conditions, 
but enough data must be thus accumulated on which to base a judgment 
of performance. Pump testing has also its complications, for a mine 
pump may deliver a small quantity of water against a head of 3,000 ft., 
while a graving dock pump may be required to handle a large quantity 
against a head of less than 50 ft. 

Transport of the finished machinery to site must be considered from 
the efficiency point of view by rail, road, water, or air, the last named from 
necessity rather than efficiency. 

In concluding this part of the address which refers to engineering 
works of various kinds, I have endeavoured to show the changing circum- 
stances in which we live to-day and the difficulties which we have to face, 
requiring constant research and experiment. I would here like to pay 
my tribute to the Director, Sir Joseph Petavel, and his staff at the National 
Physical Laboratory, and express my gratitude for the help they have so 
readily given. It is my experience, and I recommend it to others, that 
when one is faced with a difficult problem the staff at the National Physical 
Laboratory is always ready to offer advice. I have not forgotten the recent 
meeting held at the Royal Society, under the chairmanship of Sir Richard 
Glazebrook, when a discussion took place on the suggestions for research 
work required for the advancement in engineering. 


140 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Further, all engineers owe a debt to the British Standards Institution, 
a very live body under the able directorship of Mr. LeMaistre, which 
has secured for our country a leadership in standards. Much time is now 
saved by the adoption of the various standards recommended by the 
Institution. 

Here also I must refer to the invaluable services rendered by the 
technical Press of this country—of which those old-established journals, 
The Engineer and Engineering, are outstanding examples and repre- 
sentative of all that is best in modern journalism. It may be safely 
asserted that no news service throughout the world is actuated by higher 
principles, has a greater regard for accuracy, or shows a more steadfast 
sense of responsibility than that provided by our technical journals. The 
result is a trustworthy and highly educational record of engineering 
progress, illustrated by admirably selected examples of recent practice and 
developments both at home and abroad. To the leading articles in these 
journals most of us have long been accustomed to turn for helpful and 
stimulating comment upon matters of current interest. 

Having dealt very briefly with a few reflections and given examples of 
modern engineering, this cannot be regarded as a complete story without 
a few remarks on the subject of the human side of engineering. 

I have frequently been asked the question by many professors in 
engineering, ‘ What kind of work do you give our students todo?’ That 
is a natural question, and the answer is largely dependent on the young 
engineer’s outlook after he has served his pupilage. 

The system of training which I am interested in was started by my 
father over fifty years ago, established on a sound basis, and has proved 
remarkably successful. The scheme has been modified from time to 
time to keep pace with changing circumstances, especially post-war 
conditions. 

It will be obvious that the industry cannot be carried on efficiently 
without a continuous supply of highly trained engineers and craftsmen, 
and the training of the engineer is the all-important question. All 
systems of workshop training should be available without payment of 
premium, and it is now general practice to pay wages to all students and 
apprentices. It is necessary to provide workshop training for three main 
classes of students. First, there is the student who wishes to become 
a professional engineer, capable of taking highly responsible positions on 
the administrative, executive, technical or commercial sides of the 
industry. There is, and there always will be, a considerable diversity of 
opinion as to the merits of different systems of training for the higher 
posts, and, since the characteristics and personality of the individual are 
varied, it becomes obvious that the course which is ideal for one is 
not necessarily best suited for another. In any case, a university training 
is desirable, as developing a disciplined mind and ensuring that thorough 
grounding in the fundamentals without which no engineer can be complete. 
An essentially Scottish system of training, which has proved very success- 
ful, is the ‘ sandwich system’ of winter in college and summer in the 
works. It is sometimes advocated that a student should undergo some 
years of works training before proceeding to the university. My own 


G.—ENGINEERING 141 


experience leads me to believe that a university course, followed by works 
training, will be found generally most successful. Having completed the 
university portion of his training, it is not advisable for the student to 
decide upon the particular section of the industry in which he will engage, 
for, without a thorough working knowledge of the whole, neither he him- 
self, nor those who have so far been responsible for his training, can possess 
sufficient data about his capabilities, or the particular branch of engineer- 
ing for which he is most suited. Before this is decided it is essential that 
he should spend three years in some selected engineering works, passing 
from the pattern shop through the foundry to the forge, on to the machine 
and fitting and erecting shops, through the steam engine, oil engine, and 
electrical testing departments, and so on to the drawing and design 
offices. Interspersed among this portion of his training there will be 
various periods of erection work either at home or abroad. Some time 
in his third year of training he and his superiors can begin to form an 
opinion concerning the branch in which his particular abilities can be 
most fruitfully employed. He may be mathematically minded, in which 
case he would be most useful on the scientific and technical side, A man 
of strong practical bent would find ample scope for his talents in some 
such post as that of assistant to the works manager. Or his predilections 
and personal attributes may constitute him an ideal salesman; or he may 
have a desire to go abroad. In the training of the engineer this practical 
experience, obtained in all the main departments of a large works, must 
be regarded as a fundamental necessity, and he will obtain at the same 
time that contact with and understanding of his fellow-men which will 
give him a capacity for co-operation and leadership, indispensable for the 
professional engineer of to-day. 

There is next the student who comes into the works from a public or 
secondary school, after reaching School Certificate or Higher School 
Certificate standard. He may ultimately attain to the same posts as are 
available to the university-trained student, but the road is harder, and only 
to be traversed by those possessed of enthusiasm and determination. Not 
only must he pursue a three or four years’ course, passing through all the 
main departments, but he must also attend evening classes, so as to raise 
his education as nearly as possible to the standard of the university student. 
During his passage through the works he must become a student of one 
of the three institutions—Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers— 
and, if his capabilities be wide enough, he should take an external uni- 
versity degree. Much hard and intensive work is entailed, and there are 
many who fall by the wayside, either from physical disability or flagging 
enthusiasm. But those who succeed, whose character impels them to 
overcome, by pains and tribulation, an initial handicap which can prove 
very hampering, are among the salt of the profession. 

A further problem of industrial training is involved in the production 
of craftsmen, chiefly recruited from boys leaving an elementary school at 
the age of fourteen or fifteen, who, after a preliminary probationary period 
in the works, are apprenticed, at the age of sixteen years, to some par- 
ticular branch of the trade. It is obvious that the general training of any 
such boy must continue in some way or other during the whole of his 


142 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


apprenticeship, for only thus can he acquire the educational and technical 
equipment necessary for his duties and position. ‘The way to the attain- 
ment of more responsible positions must not be barred even to these, who 
should not be allowed to pursue their way unencouraged by the hope of 
attaining a worth-while goal. ‘Thus, while the boy, during his five years’ 
apprenticeship, is attending evening classes and seeking to acquire know- 
ledge in all possible ways by which to qualify himself for the pursuit of 
his trade, he should be able, by competitive examination in the works, to 
qualify for a ‘ student scholarship,’ from which point he may advance to 
positions normally open only to those with university or equivalent 
training. The ‘ scholarship ladder’ from the elementary school to the 
university must have its equivalent ‘ apprenticeship ladder ’ in the works, 
and it must be just as possible to-day for another George Stephenson to 
begin at the bottom of the social ladder and achieve the heights above. 

The training of boys other than apprentices presents an even more 
difficult problem. Such boys may often be temporarily engaged in 
‘ blind-alley ’ occupations, and it is essential to provide for their transfer, 
at a sufficiently early period, into other channels which provide proper 
opportunities for advancement and the attainment of a satisfactory status. 
Any boy worth training should, of course, become an apprentice, when 
his training is automatically provided for. 

Training, however, is not confined solely to the material and technical 
side. Although the passage of a student through any works may appear 
to be a severe and laboriously practical affair, it should at the same time 
engender a spirit very much akin to the Public School spirit, which is 
essential to the formation of a true engineering character. Amongst our 
own students at Bedford this spirit is fostered, even though past students 
may be scattered over the whole world, by the publication of an annual 
Works Magazine, and the formation of a Past and Present Students 
Association, which holds an annual reunion and dinner, maintaining 
contact which is so valuable. 

One cannot leave this subject without paying a justly deserved tribute 
to the craftsman upon whom devolves the task of translating the ideas of 
others into practical shape. The production of work of the first quality 
necessitates the loyal and intelligent co-operation of all, and the quality 
of the finished article reflects the ability of every one of those responsible 
for its production. ‘There must also be remembered those who are sent, 
often abroad, to bring the erection and completion of some engineering 
works to a successful issue. Such men must possess ability, character, 
and that quality of leadership which, difficult though it may be to define, 
is none the less real and essential. Circumstances may sometimes be 
those presenting unparalleled difficulties, but the fact that they are in- 
variably overcome, and that other countries have on occasion employed 
British engineers to erect their work, affords striking confirmation that 
they stand pre-eminent in their craft. 

I must here refer to the work of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 
The Institution was founded with the objects of promoting the theory 
and practice of the science in all its branches, to promote inventions use- 
ful to its members and the community, to afford opportunities for the 


G.—ENGINEERING 143 


meeting and interchange of ideas, and the collection and publication of 
information concerning mechanical engineering in general. To the 
development of both the science and the art the Institution has made 
many notable contributions, and the advancement in status of the 
mechanical engineer of to-day is due very largely to its intensive and 
continued efforts. 

The work of this body has been no less valuable in the matter of train- 
ing. The successive stages of Studentship, Graduateship, Associate 
Membership and full membership of the Institution—combining an 
examination with the requisite practical experience for each grade— 
constitute a means of qualification for higher posts, and this course 
should be followed by every young student, whether or not he already 
possesses a university degree. ‘To the student who does not, it affords 
an alternative qualification of the same merit. That the Institution has 
faithfully pursued the aim of giving the widest possible training and the 
amplest of opportunities to those young men whose education is not of 
university standard is patent from the fact that it provides, to the ele- 
mentary school boy, a means of attaining further knowledge. Thus, by 
attending the evening classes of any recognised technical institute, and by 
dint of hard work, he can obtain National Certificates in Engineering 
subjects, exempting him from certain portions both of the Studentship 
and Associate Membership examinations. From this point his education 
and works training can proceed, side by side, until he is elected an 
Associate Member. The university engineering graduate, provided he 
possesses the requisite works experience, may be elected to the Associate 
Membership without further examination. It will be clear, therefore, 
that—largely by the efforts of the Institution—a complete scheme of organi- 
sation for training in mechanical engineering exists in this country, 
and that the way to advancement is in no way barred to the young student 
who has not had the advantage of a university training, so that an adequate 
supply of trained engineers should thus be assured. 

It is widely recognised to-day that too intensively mechanised an 
existence has a somewhat soul-destroying tendency. Welfare work is 
designed to counteract this influence, and may be defined as a systematic 
and sustained effort to humanise industry. The efficient worker must 
enjoy both physical and mental health, must possess undistorted ambition, 
and must have a true conception of citizenship and his responsibility to 
all his fellow-men. The making of a community of such individuals is 
the aim of welfare work. The need for such work would be demonstrated, 
if it were not already self-evident, by the fact that the Industrial Welfare 
Society now numbers among its members most of the leading firms in 
the country. The Society is particularly fortunate in having for its 
President H.R.H. the Duke of York. All engineers who have the welfare 
of the industry at heart must be infinitely grateful to His Royal Highness 
for his leadership in this vital matter, not only for the interest he shows 
and the great amount of time which he devotes to visiting so many works, 
but for the many practical suggestions for the betterment of conditions 
which he has made. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of 
welfare work among young men, for they are the next generation of 


144 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


engineering workers. ‘The welfare supervisor is responsible for the mental . 
and physical well-being, the work, the progress and the destiny of each 
individual, and he must endeavour to provide such amenities as will lead 
to the achievement of happiness and the making of good citizens. Many 
works now provide a Boys’ Club, by which the natural desire of all boys 
for companionship may be fulfilled and a spirit of team work promoted. 
Indoor games of all kinds and reading and writing rooms should be 
provided. The club should be run entirely by the boys themselves, 
who thus learn the meaning of corporate life and individual responsibility. 
The need for physical training is now becoming much more widely 
recognised, and a gymnasium is thus an important adjunct. For the 
welfare of the employees generally there should be the library, and the 
‘recreation club,’ possessing its own sports field, where the sporting 
instincts of all employees—embracing the vigours of football, cricket, 
hockey, tennis, etc-—may be catered for; while the sociable habits of 
the men are also fostered by the ‘ Men’s Institute.” In the case of many 
firms much, indeed, is done, and very little is left undone, to improve the 
conditions of all employees, both within and outside the works, and such 
amenities cannot but result in a general widening of outlook and a greater 
happiness. 

In conclusion : these, then, are a few of the thoughts that have occurred 
tome. Whatever their worth, they have at least this advantage—that they 
are the product, not of ‘a cloistered seclusion, far from the heat and dust of 
life,’ but are directly derived from personal contact with, and observation of, 
men and things. And this, after all, is the essence of the scientific method 
as I understand it—to learn as far as possible directly from observation 
and experiment rather than indirectly from books. I find this view 
upheld by one of the greatest of former Presidents of the British Associa- 
tion, the late Prof. T. H. Huxley, who said: ‘The great benefit 
which a scientific education bestows, whether as training or as knowledge, 
is dependent upon the extent to which the mind of the student is brought 
into immediate contact with facts—upon the degree to which he learns 
the habit of appealing directly to Nature, and of acquiring through his 
senses concrete images of those properties of things which are, and always 
will be, but approximately expressed in human language.’ 


SECTION H.-ANTHROPOLOGY. 


WHAT IS TRADITION ? 


ADDRESS BY 
. THE RT. HON. LORD RAGLAN, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


A DICTIONARY definition of tradition is ‘ anything that is handed down 
‘orally from age to age’; that definition I propose to adopt, and shall 
begin by considering what it is that is handed down orally from age to 
age. ‘Tradition then consists of— 


(1) Methods of farming. Traditional methods are in most places 
followed in breeding, feeding, milking and killing animals; in 
ploughing, manuring and sowing the land, and in harvesting and 
storing the crops. 

(2) Methods of craftsmanship. Houses are built; weapons, tools, 
implements, utensils, clothes and ornaments are made, in most 
cases, by traditional methods. 

(3) Methods of eating, drinking, and preparing food. 

(4) Methods of dealing with property. Even in civilised countries 
systems of land tenure, inheritance, and transfer of property are 
usually traditional. 

(5) Marriage customs and ceremonies ; bride-price, divorce, etc. 

(6) Rites and ceremonies at birth, death and initiation. 

(7) Etiquette. There are traditional ways of saluting, and of eating, 
dressing, and behaving in company. 

(8) Superstitions. 

(9) Games, sports, songs and dances. 

(10) Traditional narratives. 


Leaving aside for a moment the traditional narrative, we may then 
regard tradition as a code which, entirely in the case of the savage and very 
largely in the case of the civilised, regulates the conduct and activities 
of mankind throughout life. However much tradition may vary from 
group to group, it always has this in common, that it must be learnt in all 
its aspects by the younger members of the group, whatever the group may 
consist of, before the older members will admit them to the full privileges 
of membership. Whether a tradition is rational or irrational makes not 
the slightest difference; traditions about unlucky days or unlucky 
numbers are enforced as strictly as traditions of honesty and truthfulness. 
The traditions of our best schools and professions contain many absurdi- 
ties, as do those of our courts of justice and of Parliament. 

Tradition, then, is a code of rules, covering every aspect of human life, 


146 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


which, though not taught by schoolmasters or enforced by the police, is 
handed down orally from the older to the younger members of the group, 
and enforced by public opinion within the group. 

To this description there is one apparent exception, the traditional 
narrative, and to this I shall devote the remainder of this address. It 
must, however, be borne in mind that in any group the traditional narra- 
tive forms a mere fraction of the great body of tradition, of which some 
at least of the other forms are of far greater sociological importance. 

The traditional narrative takes various forms, such as myth, legend, 
epic poem, ballad, saga and fairy tale. It has been usual in the past to 
divide these into two main classes, those which were believed to contain 
a kernel of genuine historical fact, and those which were regarded as 
purely fictitious. With fiction I shall deal later ; I shall now consider 
the claim of the traditional narrative to be the repository of historical fact. 


Tue Basis oF History. 


The theory that traditional narrative embodies historical fact is based 
on the assumption that among the members of every community in which 
quasi-historical narratives are related there exists, and has existed for 
hundreds or thousands of years, a strong and continuous interest in the 
past history of the community, and a strong and continuous desire to 
preserve the facts of that history as accurately as possible. ‘There appears 
to be no evidence to justify such an assumption. 

Why should anyone wish to know what happened before he was born ? 
There is no obvious reason, and as a fact very few people do. All over the 
world we find people living in the neighbourhood of ancient ruins without 
taking the slightest interest in them. NHistoric monuments are being 
destroyed in England to-day, and by educated and responsible persons. 
If we wish to know who lived in a certain house a hundred years ago, it is 
of little use to ask the local inhabitants ; we may find some elder whose 
father worked there, but the odds are against it. Do we find, in any part 
of the world, young people sitting at the feet of the aged, and eagerly 
drinking in all that they can tell them of the events of their youth ? 
Nowhere that I have ever heard of ; the old man in his anecdotage is 
universally regarded as a bore. 

Even when there is some slight interest in local history, it is the result 
of inquiries by students or tourists ; persons who study local history are 
called antiquaries, and they are rare in the most civilised countries. 

As regards general history, he would be an optimist who would maintain 
that 1 per cent. of the inhabitants of Europe had any real knowledge of 
or interest in the subject. It is true that at times and places of high 
general culture there have often been a certain number of persons who 
studied history in the hope of understanding how people thought and 
acted under different social conditions, or of finding in the past the key 
to the future. It is also true that since the time of Herodotus many of 
the masterpieces of prose have been historical works, and that history has 
therefore tended to form part of the educational curriculum. None of 
these considerations, however, could affect the illiterate, who are interested 
in the present and the immediate future, but never in the past. 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 147 


The only writer on tradition who has touched on this point, so far as 
I can learn, is Prof. Chadwick, who says: ‘ 'The existence of a poem 
‘or story which deals with reminiscences of tribal conflicts necessarily 
* presupposes an absorbing interest in tribal history.’ He goes on toshow 
that this interest could only be due to patriotism, but fails to realise that 
patriots are notoriously indifferent to facts; any fable which gratifies 
their national pride is history to them. ‘The conclusion seems to be that 
since illiterate persons are never interested in history, historical facts can 
never be transmitted by illiterate persons. 

In case, however, we may be thought to have gone too fast, let us ask 
another question: should illiterate persons wish to transmit historical 
facts from age to age, would they be able todo so? Let us first be clear 
as to what we mean by ‘ from age to age.’ We do not speak of our 
parents’ reminiscences as tradition, or apply the term to anything that 
happened within the memory of living men. We apply it only to events 
which may be supposed to have happened in the more or less remote past. 
We must also note that when a tradition is written down it ceases to be a 
tradition, and becomes merely the account of a tradition, unless we can 
be sure that those who repeat it have not been influenced by the written 
record. We may say then that a traditional narrative is one which has 
been handed down for at least a hundred years by people who have 
derived it from purely oral sources. 

Let us now consider what are the sources of history. Apart from 
archeological evidence, which, however valuable, is seldom a guide to 
actual incidents, we may divide them into four classes : 


(z) Accounts written at the time by persons who were present at the 
events which they describe—letters, despatches, memoranda, 
diaries. 

(2) Accounts written by persons who were present, but not till some 
time afterwards—autobiographies, reminiscences, inscriptions. 

(3) Accounts written by people who obtained their information from 
actors or spectators shortly after the event—annals, chronicles, 
proceedings of trials, newsletters, press reports, diplomatic corre~ 
spondence. These would not be accepted as evidence in a court of 
law, but are often very properly accepted by the court of history. 

(4) Accounts obtained by questioning people as to what happened a 
long time before, or accounts obtained at second or third hand. 
These are often recorded as survivors’ tales, conversations, memories, 
gleanings. 

Now it should be clear that the first three are, in varying degree, the 
only genuine sources of history. The fourth may be useful for reconciling 
discrepancies or filling in details, but would not be accepted as a satisfac- 
tory authority for a fact otherwise unknown. I know an old gentleman 
living not far from Leicester who has personal reminiscences of the 
French Revolution of 1848, but the fact would hardly be accepted on his 
sole authority. Second-hand evidence is not admitted in a court of law 
because it is notoriously unreliable. It is admitted by historians, but 


1H. M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 273. 


148 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


only if it is given by persons especially well placed or well qualified to 
obtain it. No one would accept a fact on fourth-hand evidence alone, 
yet this is what tradition is at best. Why historical facts should be capable 
of accurate oral transmission for hundreds and even thousands of years, 
while no other fact can pass down the length of a street without hopeless 
distortion, no one, so far as I can learn, has attempted to explain. Until 
someone has done so I shall feel justified in concluding not merely that 
no illiterate person has ever wished to transmit an historical fact, but that 
no illiterate person would be capable of transmitting an historical fact even 
if he wished to, and that M. Gaston Paris was right when he said that there 
was no such thing as historic oral tradition. 


‘TRADITION AND IMAGINATION. 


At a later stage I shall give illustrations showing that incidents which 
occur in tradition are never historical, and, conversely, that historical facts 
never find their way into tradition. Here it will be convenient to deal 
with the belief that certain forms of the traditional narrative are the result 
of imagination, and then to set out my own view of the origin of the 
traditional narrative. ‘The attempt to divide it into two classes, the his- 
torical and the imaginative, has been made by various writers, notably 
Hartland, MacCulloch and Krappe.? 

Hartland tells us* that the art of story-telling is the outcome of an 
instinct implanted universally in the human mind, and that in the Marchen 
or fairy tale ‘ the reins are thrown upon the neck of the imagination.’ 
MacCulloch says that all over the world simple stories were invented, 
and that ‘ as time went on and man’s inventive and imaginative faculties 
‘ developed, these simple stories . . . became incidents in longer tales.’ 4 
Krappe says that it is ‘ certainly excusable to take the common-sense view, 
‘ and to regard the fairy tale as a definite type of popular fiction, primarily 
‘ designed to please and to entertain.’ ® 

Having stated it as an axiom that fairy tales are the product of the 
story-tellers’ imagination, all three writers proceed, with a convenient 
inconsistency, to show that no story-teller ever displays any imagination 
whatever. It will perhaps suffice to quote Hartland. He says that ‘ it is 
‘ by no means an uncommon thing for the rustic story-teller to be unable 
‘to explain episodes in any other way than Uncle Remus—‘ She wuz in 
‘ de tale, en de tale I give you like hit were gunto me.”’ After telling us 
that Gaelic stories often contain obsolete words; that Swahili story- 
tellers hardly understand the sung parts of their stories, and that Eskimo 
story-tellers have to stick as closely as possible to the traditional version, 
he concludes that, wherever and whenever stories are told, ‘ the endeavour 
“to render to the audience just that which the speaker has himself received 
‘ from his predecessors is paramount.’® ‘Then where does the imagina- 
tion come in? There is no more evidence that illiterate people invent 
fables than there is that they transmit historical facts. We must seek the 
origin of the traditional narrative elsewhere. 


* E.S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales; J. A. MacCulloch, The Childhood 
of Fiction; A. H. Krappe, The Science of Folklore. 
SSP pirn23: 4 P. 457. SIPHyire 6 Pp. 18, 21. 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 149 


THE ORIGIN OF THE TRADITIONAL NARRATIVE. 


I said at the beginning of this address that all forms of tradition, with 
the apparent exception of the traditional narrative, were rules of conduct, 
and I do not believe that the traditional narrative is really an exception 
at all. In my view all traditional narratives are, or once were, rules— 
rules for the performance of rites or ritual dramas. Every rite or drama 
necessarily consists of a sequence of incidents, and the account of such rite 
or drama is therefore necessarily in narrative form. Unlike historical 
events, the interest of which can seldom be more than academic, the 
account of these rites must be preserved, because on their correct per- 
formance is believed to depend the prosperity of the community, and can 
be preserved because, unlike historical events, which occur but once, and 
usually in the presence of but few, these rites are performed repeatedly, 
and in the presence of all. Many of these rites and these narratives are 
world-wide, or nearly so, but variations occur, because there is always a 
tendency to tighten up the ritual in times of adversity and slack off in 
times of prosperity, and the narrative, being an account of what has been 
done rather than what zs done, is usually a little different from the ritual. 
Finally, in many cases, the ritual ceases altogether to be performed, but 
the narrative has itself acquired sanctity, and may be passed on, neces- 
sarily with minor modifications, for many generations, until at last it is 
either written down or forgotten. 

In my view this represents, in brief, the history of every genuine tradi- 
tional narrative. I hope to make this view convincing by the performance 
of three tasks : the first is to show by illustration that there is no connec- 
tion between tradition and history ; the second is to show that the ritual 
drama has in fact played a large enough part in the life of mankind to 
account for the number and variety of the traditional narratives ; the third 
is to show that the features of these narratives can be explained, and can 
only be explained satisfactorily, as features of the ritual drama. It will 
first, however, be as well to deal with two forms of pseudo-tradition, the 
* family tradition ’ and the ‘ local tradition.’ 


‘ FaMILY TRADITION.’ 


There are in this country many families whose ‘ traditions ’ take them 
back to the time of the Norman Conquest, when their ancestors are 
alleged to have distinguished themselves either on the side of the Normans 
or of the Saxons. It can be said without fear of contradiction from those 
who have studied the subject that not one of these is a genuine tradition. 
All are the work of pedigree fakers, who have flourished from very early 
times, and there is not a word of truth in any of them. No English 
family can trace a genuine descent to the Saxons, and though there are a 
few families with a genuine Norman descent, this in no cases goes as far 
back as the eleventh century. Innumerable examples of these faked 
pedigrees and spurious traditions can be found in the works of Dr. Horace 
Round and Mr. Oswald Barron. Those who believe that a craving for 
historical accuracy is the ruling passion of the human race would no doubt 
suppose that all these families were very grateful to Dr. Round and 


150 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Mr. Barron for correcting their pedigrees, but they would be very muc 
mistaken. I will give one example. 

One of our oldest families is that of Wake, of which the present head is 
Sir Hereward Wake, thirteenth Baronet. ‘The family ‘ tradition ’ is that itis 
descended in the direct male line from the famous Saxon hero, Hereward 
the Wake. The facts appear to be these. In 1166 a Norman called 
Hugh Wac came over from Normandy and married the heiress of the 
Norman FitzGilbert, lord of Bourne, in Lincolnshire. About two 
hundred years later the family of Wake, as it had then become, having 
attained to wealth and importance, thought itself entitled to a more high- 
sounding pedigree, and having discovered that a Saxon called Hereward 
had once owned a small part of the lordship of Bourne, decided to adopt 
the great Saxon hero as ancestor. For this purpose a pedigree was 
forged, conferring titles, ancestors and descendants upon the Hereward 
who lived at Bourne, and to make this pedigree more convincing there was 
conferred upon the Saxon hero the hitherto unheard-of cognomen of ‘the 
‘Wake.’ ‘There are some obscurities in the story, but the following facts 
seem certain: that Hereward was never called ‘the Wake’ till he was 
adopted as ancestor by the Wake family about the middle of the fourteenth 
century ; that the Wake family has no traceable connection with Hereward 
or any other Saxon ; and that the first Wake to be christened Hereward 
was born in 1851. As regards Hereward the Saxon hero, he may have 
been a real person, but the fact that among his exploits are narrated the 
slaughter of a gigantic bear in Scotland, and the rescue of a Cornish 
princess, suggests that he was a mythical hero after whom Hereward of 
Bourne and other Saxons were named.’ 

This story has many points of interest which can be followed up by 
those who care todo so. I shall leave it there, but before passing from the 
subject of ‘ family tradition ’ shall ask those who believe in it one question : 
Can any one of them produce a single fact about his great-grandfather 
which has not been placed on record? My great-grandfather, the first 
Lord Raglan, was a man of some distinction, and yet, though I often visited 
his daughters, who lived well on into the present century, I know practically 
nothing about him that is not in print. 


‘LocaL TRADITION.’ 


Sir G. L. Gomme, in his Folklore as an Historical Science, attempts to 
establish the historical value of local tradition, but is constrained to admit 
that it may often be mere false history, started by the local antiquary. In 
my view, with certain exceptions which I shall come to later, it is always 
false history. Let us take an example. ‘There is a well-known folk-story 
of the Faithful Hound, variants of which are found in many parts of 
Europe, Asia and Africa. It is probably derived from a rite, similar to 
that described in Genesis xxii, by which a pretence is made of sacrificing 
a child, and an animal substituted at the last moment. The popularity 
of this story in Wales, and the fact that in an English version the dog 


? D.N.B., s.v. ‘Hereward’; J. H. Round, Feudal England, p. 161; The 
Ancestor, vol. ii, pp. 109-113. 
8 S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 134 seq. 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 151 


is called Kill-hart, apparently led, in the late eighteenth century, to the 
localisation of the story at Beddgelert, a village near Snowdon, the name 
of which is thought to mean the grave of Kelert, an early saint. The fact 
that Llewellyn is a popular North Welsh hero, and the enterprise of a 
local innkeeper, who about 1830 set up a tombstone at a suitable spot, 
were sufficient to establish a ‘ tradition ’ which was accepted by thousands, 
not merely of the ignorant but of the learned.? 

Where local traditions are not the result of such guesswork, they 
usually arise from ignorance and superstition. Krappe!? tells us that 
‘the dolmens of France and the British Isles are the work of fairies ; 
‘the remains of the Roman limes are attributed by German peasants to 
‘the Devil, who divided the earth with Our Lord, and erected the wall 
“to mark the boundary. The ruins of the Roman amphitheatres of 
“Southern France are called the “ palais de Gallienne,’’ Galienne being 
“a powerful Moorish princess and the wife of Charlemagne. To the 
* fellahin of modern Egypt the pyramids are the work of the jinn.’ Those 
who believe that Caesar’s Camp was constructed by Cesar are morally 
bound to believe that the Devil’s Dyke was constructed by the Devil. 
Czsar’s Camp in Sussex, excavated by General Pitt-Rivers, proved to be 
of Norman origin. 

But while we find on the one hand that local tradition, whenever it can 
be checked, proves to be untrue, we find on the other that real events 
never find their way into local tradition. Near where I live are the 
remains of a score of castles, many of them the scene of historic sieges 
and other events. Yet not only are chere no authentic traditions about 
these events—there are no traditions at all. 

I will conclude my remarks on this part of the subject by noting that 
there is one possibility of a genuine local tradition—where the repetition 
of a ritual drama at a given spot gives rise to the belief that the events 
enacted in the drama. really occurred at that spot. There are various 
parts of the world, particularly Ancient Greece, in which this type of 
tradition has probably come into existence. 


TRADITION AND ENGLISH History. 

Those writers who have tried to establish the historicity of tradition 
have invariably, so far as I can learn, adopted the method of taking some 
period the history of which is totally unknown, examining the traditions 
which they assume to belong to that period, striking out all miraculous 
or otherwise improbable incidents, and then dilating upon the verisimili- 
tude of the residue. I shall follow a totally different method. I shall 
take a period the history of which is known, the feudal age in England, and 
see what tradition has had to say about that. According to the usually 
accepted theories, outstanding personalities in the history of a country 
never fail to leave their mark on tradition. Now who were the outstand- 
ing personalities of the period in question? No one, I suppose, will 
object to the inclusion of William the Conqueror and Edward I. The 
Norman Conquest in the one case, and the conquest of Simon de Montfort, 


* J. Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 261-264. 10 Op. cit., p. 75. 


152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Wales and Scotland in the other, cannot have failed to create a tremendous 
impression at the time, and this impression, according to the theory 
which has been repeatedly applied to the Iliad, for example, should have 
perpetuated itself in tradition. Yet what traditions do we find? Of 
William the Conqueror, that he fell on landing, and that he destroyed a 
number of towns and villages to make the New Forest. Of Edward I, that 
his life was saved by his queen, and that he created his newly born son 
Prince of Wales. All these traditions are completely devoid of historical 
foundation. Of the real achievements of these two great monarchs 
tradition had nothing to say whatever. 

Similarly the only traditions of Henry II and Richard I are the fabulous 
tales of Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund, and of Blondel outside the 
castle. 

With the traditional accounts of Henry V, those that have been made 
famous by Shakespeare, I shall deal at greater length. ‘They tell us that 
he spent his youth in drinking and debauchery, in and about London, in 
company with highwaymen, pickpockets, and other disreputable persons ; 
that he was imprisoned by Chief Justice Gascoigne, whom after his 
accession he pardoned and continued in office ; and that on his accession 
his character, or at any rate his conduct, changed suddenly and completely. 
The authorities for these stories are Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Governor 
(1531) and Edward Hall’s Union of the Noble and Illustrious Houses of 
Lancaster and York (1542). ‘These two highly respectable authors seem 
to have relied largely on matter already in print, some of it dating from 
within fifty years of Henry V’s death. I know no argument for the 
historicity of any traditional narrative which cannot be applied to these 
stories—yet there is not a word of truth in any of them. 

The facts are these. In 1400, at the age of thirteen, Henry became his 
father’s representative in Wales, made his headquarters at Chester, and 
spent the next seven years in almost continuous warfare with Owen 
Glendower and his allies. In 1407 he led a successful invasion of Scotland. 
In 1408 he was employed as Warden of the Cinque Ports, and at Calais. 
In the following year, owing to his father’s illness, he became regent, and 
continued as such until 1412. During this period his character as a ruler 
was marred only by his religious bigotry, and what seems to be the only 
authentic anecdote of the time describes the part he played at the burning 
of John Badby the Lollard. In 1412 an attempt was made to induce 
Henry IV, whose ill-health continued to unfit him for his duties, to 
abdicate, but his refusal to do so, together with differences on foreign 
policy, led to the withdrawal of the future Henry V from court, probably 
to Wales, till his father’s death a year later. He did not reappoint Sir 
William Gascoigne as Chief Justice, and there is no truth in the story that 
the latter committed him to prison. 

These facts are drawn from the Dictionary of National Biography, which 
sums up the question by saying that ‘ his youth was spent on the battle- 
‘ field and in the council chamber, and the popular tradition (immortalised 
‘ by Shakespeare) of his riotous and dissolute conduct is not supported by 
‘contemporary authority.’ According to Sir Charles Oman, “his life was 
‘ sober and orderly. . . . He was grave and earnest in speech, courteous 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 153 


‘ in all his dealings, and an enemy of flatterers and favourites. His sincere 
‘ piety bordered on asceticism.’ 

Even had there been no contemporary records of the youth of Henry V, 
there are points in the account adopted by Shakespeare which might lead 
the sober critic to doubt its veracity. The first is that it would be, to say 
the least, surprising that a man should be an idle and dissolute scapegrace 
one day, and the first soldier and statesman of his age the next. The 
second is that the stories belong to an ancient and widespread class of 
folk-tales. Had, however, our critic ventured to express his doubts, with 
what scorn would he not have been assailed by believers in the historicity 
of tradition! ‘ Here,’ they would have said, ‘ is an impudent fellow who 
‘ pretends to know more about the fifteenth century than those who lived 
‘in it. The facts which he dares to dispute were placed on record by 
‘educated and respectable persons, the first historians of their day. 
* Could anything be more absurd than to suppose that they would invent 
‘ discreditable stories about a national hero, at a time when all the facts 
‘ of his career must have been widely known? No reasonable person can 
* doubt that Falstaff was as real as Piers Gaveston.’ As we have seen, 
however, the only evidence for Falstaff’s existence is tradition, and tradi- 
tion can never be evidence for an historical fact. He is a purely mythical 
character, who plays Silenus to Henry’s Dionysus, as does Abu Nawas 
to the Dionysus of Hariin ar-Reshid. 

The assimilation of the king to Dionysus no doubt goes back to a time 
when an aspirant to the throne had to perform various rites and undergo 
various ordeals, but whether these stories had previously been told of 
other English princes, and became permanently attached to Henry V 
through the invention of printing, or whether they were recently introduced 
from classical sources, I have no idea. 

It may be objected that Henry V, an historical character, appears in 
tradition, and that tradition is therefore to that extent historical ; but this 
isnotso. ‘The characters in a traditional narrative are often anonymous. 
When named they may be supernatural beings, or persons for whose 

existence there is no real evidence. When the names of real persons are 
mentioned, these names form no part of the tradition, but merely part of 
the machinery by which the tradition is transmitted. Just as the same 
smart saying may be attributed to half a dozen wits in succession, so the 
same feat may be attributed to half a dozen heroes in succession, but it is 
the anecdote or feat which, if it is transmitted from age to age, becomes a 
tradition, and not the ephemeral name. The name selected is that of 
some prominent person whose memory is fading ; who has been dead, 
that is to say, for about a hundred years, or less if the real facts have never 
been widely known. His name remains attached to the tradition till some 
other suitable person has been dead for a suitable length of time. 

This explains certain facts which have puzzled Prof. Gilbert Murray, 
who asks : ‘ Why do they [sc. the Homeric poets] refer not to any war- 
“fare that was going on at the time of their composition, but to war- 
“fare of forgotten peoples under forgotten conditions in the past? .. . 
“What shall one say of this? Merely that there is no cause for surprise. 
“It seems to be the normal instinct of a poet, at least of an epic poet. The 


154 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


‘ earliest version of the Song of Roland which we possess was written by an 
‘ Anglo-Norman scribe some thirty years after the Conquest of England. 
“If the Normans of that age wanted an epic sung to them, surely a good 
‘ subject lay ready to hand. Yet as a matter of fact their great epic is all 
‘about Roland, dead three hundred years before, not about William the 
‘Conqueror. The fugitive Britons of Wales made no epic to tell of their 
‘ conquest by the Saxons ; they turned to a dim-shining Arthur belonging 
“to the vaguest past. Neither did the Saxons who were conquering them 
‘make epics about that conquest. They sang how at some unknown 
‘time a legendary and mythical Beowulf had conquered a legendary 
* Grendel.’ #4 

The true explanation has nothing to do with instinct ; it is that epic 
poetry, like other forms of traditional narrative, deals with ritual drama, 
and not with historical fact. Real people and events can only be identified 
with ritual drama when their memory has become vague. Roland could 
not have been made to fall at Hastings before about 1166, and by that 
time the form of the epic was fixed in writing. What we learn from the 
Song of Roland are old traditional tales which were probably attached to 
Charlemagne about a hundred years after his death. ‘The real facts of 
his career, like all historical facts, have been, and could only be, ascertained 
from contemporary written records. 

In this connection Dr. Leaf remarks: ‘ When they [the Normans] 
“ crossed the Channel to invade England, they seem to have lost all sense of 
‘their Teutonic kinship with the Saxons, and it is doubtful if they even 
‘knew that their name meant Northmen. The war-song which Taillefer 
* chanted as they marched to battle was not a Viking saga, but the song of 
‘Roland.’ 1* He realised that a people can completely forget its origin 
within a hundred and sixty years—yet still believed in the continuity of 
historical tradition ! 


Tue RiTuaL DRAMA. 


If, as I hold, the traditional narrative is always an account of a ritual 
drama, then the present incidence of traditional narratives must coincide 
with the present or past incidence of ritual dramas ; that is to say that in 
areas where traditional narratives are numerous and elaborate, ritual 
dramas must be, or have been, numerous and elaborate, and where they 
are few, simple, or non-existent, ritual dramas must be, or have been, few, 
simple, or non-existent. And, conversely, where we find ritual dramas, 
there we must expect to find corresponding traditional narratives. 

A preliminary survey of the world suggests that our expectations would 
be fulfilled. ‘Thus among the Yuma Indians of the Colorado the principal 
ritual drama is the creation rite, and the principal traditional narrative is 
a description of that rite in quasi-historical language. We find a similar 
drama and a similar narrative among the Marindineeze of Dutch New 
Guinea. Among the Shiluk of the Upper Nile the principal ritual drama 
is the installation of the king, and the principal traditional narrative is an 


11 Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic, pp. 52-55. 
12 W. Leaf, Homer and History, p. 46. 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 155 


account of this installation, describing how the image of the mythical 
Nyakang is brought to Fashoda as if a real god-king came to Fashoda. 

Where these facts are realised, they are usually attributed to com- 
memoration. I have elsewhere pointed out the absurdity of the com- 
memoration theory. Why should people put themselves to all this 
trouble without hope of benefit, and why should they expect to benefit by 
commemorating the death of some ancient king ? 

No one will deny that the ritual drama in Ancient Greece was of the 
highest religious importance. The plays and fragments of plays which 
have come down to us represent only a very small fraction of those that 
were written, and probably there were thousands more which were never 
written. These plays made up a large part of the religious life of the 
Ancient Greeks, and there are survivals of them among the Greek peasantry 
to this day. Now one of the leading incidents represented at the ritual 
drama at Athens was the death of Agamemnon. Is there any conceivable 
reason why the murder of a king of Mycenz should have been a leading 
incident in the ritual drama at Athens? ‘There can be little doubt that 
it was the dramatised version of a ritual of human sacrifice, a ritual once 
practised all over Greece, by which the old king was ceremonially killed 
by his successor. ‘The myth was localised, but the ritual was universal. 
But while king-killing myths were localised all over Greece, we find no 
battle and siege myths except those localised at Troy and Thebes. I 
venture to conjecture that Troy was once the only place where the 
war ritual was performed ; that all the Greeks used to assemble there 
periodically for a great religious festival , and that later a similar festival 
was established at Thebes for those of the peninsular Greeks who had 
no ships. 

But let us turn to Western Europe. In his Chances of Death Prof. Karl 
Pearson showed what an important part was taken by the miracle or 
mystery plays in the religious life of medizval Europe. In some cases 
these plays covered all time from creation till doomsday, and took as long 
as eight days to perform. ‘They took place in the churches, and while 
heaven was represented by a gallery in which sat those who took the 
parts of the Trinity and the angels, Satan and his host appeared from 
below the main stage. Prof. Pearson concluded that these dramas replaced 
heathen dramas of similar character. He says: ‘ That the old heathen 
“religion was an essentially dramatic one can scarcely be doubted; we 
“have proof enough not only in written statements, but in a vast number 
* of folk-customs of dramatic origin. We find many cases in which heathen 
“customs were introduced into Christian churches . . . both monks and 
“nuns indulged in dances and masquerades directly connected with 
“heathen festivals.’ 14 

The facts which were noted by Prof. Pearson find confirmation and 
amplification in The Culture of the Teutons, by a Danish writer, Vilhelm 
Gronbech, who deals at length with the importance of the ritual drama in 
the heathen religion, shows how the incidents of the dramas can be recon- 
structed from the traditional narratives, and points out the absurdity of 
trying to translate these narratives into terms of history. 

18 Jocasta’s Crime, p. 44. 14 Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 281-282. 


156 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


‘ The legends will not tell us what happened some year or other accord- 
ing to chronology ; in our craving for a kernel of historical truth in the 
myths, we naively insinuate that the myth makers ought to think in a 
system unknown to them, for the benefit of our annalistic studies. . . . 
‘Time is, in our experience, a stream of events descending from the 
‘ unknown mists of beginning and running in a continuous flow down the 
‘ future into the unknown ; to the men of the classical ages the actual life 
‘is the result of a recurrent beginning and has its source in the religious 
‘feast. The festival consists of a creation or new birth outside time, 
‘ eternal it might be called if the word were not as misleading as all others 
‘ and as inadequate to describe an experience of a totally alien character. 
‘ When the priest or chieftain ploughs the ritual furrow, when the first 
‘seed is sown while the story of the origin of corn is recited, when the 
‘ warriors act the war game, they make history, do the real work, fight 
‘ the real battle, and when the men sally forth with the plough or the seed 
‘ or the weapons, they are only realising what was created in the ritual act.’ 1° 

According to Gronbech, then, the myths and legends of the North have 
their origin in the world of ritual drama, a world in which the terms of 
history are quite meaningless. Other writers are moving in the same 
direction. Mr. C, B. Lewis, in his Classical Mythology and Arthurian 
Romance, seeks to show the ritual origin of the Arthurian legends, while 
M. P. Saintyves, in his Les Contes de Perrault et les Récits Paralléles, 
performs the same service for such tales as Cinderella and Bluebeard. 
Prof. S. H. Hooke and his colleagues have recently traced the connection 
between Myth and Ritual in Semitic lands. 

It will be seen, then, what a variety of fortunes has befallen the ancient 
ritual dramas. Some have been converted to Christianity ; some have 
been rationalised into pseudo-history ; others have degenerated into fairy 
tales. There are, however, some which survive, or survived till recently, 
in something like their original form. Let us take, for example, the cycle 
of Robin Hood, which forms the most important body of English and 
Scottish traditional narrative. Attempts have of course been made to 
turn him into an historical character, but he remains the god of the tree, 
a figure of world-wide importance. Hd6d’s Oak is the name given in an 
Anglo-Saxon charter to a place in Worcestershire, and he owns hills, 
rocks, caves and wells in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, 
Derbyshire, Shropshire and Somerset. His story has been localised in 
Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Cumberland, as well as in Scotland, and 
he has been supposed to have lived in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, and sometimes to have been earl and sometimes churl. But 
wherever and whenever he lives, he always has his Maid Marian, his 
Little John and his Will Scarlet, since it is the incidents of the ritual drama, 
and not its setting, which matter. ‘That he was the hero of such a drama 
there can be no doubt. We are told 1° that in the fifteenth century the 
May celebration was called ‘ Robin Hood’s festival,’ and that he was ‘ one 
* of the mythical characters whom the populace was fond of personating in 
‘the semi-dramatic devices and morris-dances performed at that season.’ 
In Scotland he was as popular as in England, and in 1577 the Scottish Par- 


15 Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 226, 261. 16 D.N.B., s.v. Hood, Robin. 


‘ 
‘ 
¢ 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 157 


’ 


liament requested the King to prohibit plays of ‘ Robin Hood, King of May 
onthe Sabbath. In France Robin des Bois and Marian are found in the 
thirteenth century as characters in the Whitsuntide pastourelles—a fact 
which rather suggests that the whole story came to England with the 
Normans, more especially as in other northern lands this drama took the 
somewhat different form which is familiar to us as the story of William 
Tell. The latter was long believed to be an historical character, but the 
story is now recognised as a widespread myth. 

Before leaving this part of the subject I should like to touch on two 
forms of the traditional narrative which are much relied upon by those 
who believe in the historicity of tradition—the Icelandic saga and the 
quasi-historical traditions of Polynesia. The most famous of the Ice- 
landic sagas is probably that of Burnt Njal, and the central incident in it 
is the burning of Njal and his sons in their house. When, however, we 
come to examine this story, we find that it is merely a variant of the Irish 
story of Naisi. Let us take one incident. When Skarphedinn and his 
brothers are shut up in the burning house, Gunnar, a man whose relatives 
Skarphedinn has slain, climbs up and looks over the wall ; Skarphedinn 
throws a tooth at him, hitting him in the eye, and causing his eyeball to 
fall out on to his cheek. Naisi and his brothers are shut up in a house, 
and before Conchobar orders his men to set fire to it he sends Trendorn, 
a man whose relatives Naisi has slain, ‘ to see whether her own shape 
‘remained on Deidre.’ He peeps through a small upper window ; Naisi 
throws a draughtsman at him and hits him in the eye, so that his eyeball 
falls out on to his cheek. I have no douht that Naisi and Skarphedinn are 
names for a northern variant of Heracles, whose adventures and death 
formed part of the ritual drama. 

For Polynesian traditions I shall rely on Mr. Percy Smith, and he, 
though he firmly believes in the historicity of these traditions, nevertheless 
gives us a number of hints that they are really accounts of ritual drama. 
Thus he tells us that ‘ much of the old history of the Polynesians was 
* regarded as sacred, and its communication to those who would make an 
‘improper use of it would inevitably—in the belief of the old priests— 
“bring down disaster on the heads of the reciters. . . . This teaching 
“sc. of the tribal lore] was accompanied by many ceremonies, incanta- 
“tions, invocations, etc. . . . There was a special sanctity attached to 
“many things taught; deviation from the accepted doctrine, or history, was 
“supposed to bring down on the offender the wrath of the gods.’17_ He 
later tells us that ‘ there was a class of roving actors and players, who were 
also the custodians of much of the historic traditions,’ and that ‘ the 
“history of Onokura is a very remarkable one . . . the narrative is inter- 
“spersed with songs and recitative, which would take many hours in 
‘delivery. It is, in fact, a regular “‘ South Sea opera.” ’ 18 

If these traditional narratives were really history, and if the teaching 
of history followed the same course in this country as it is alleged to in 
Polynesia, we should find professors imploring their pupils not to make an 
improper use of the Constitutions of Clarendon ; boys learning the names 
of Henry VIII’s wives with incantations and invocations ; people con- 

1S. Percy Smith, Hawatki, pp. 14-15. 18 [bid., pp. 138, 222. 


158 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


victed of blasphemy for mixing up Thomas Cromwell with Oliver; and 
the history of the Corn Laws related with vocal and instrumental accom- 
paniment. These traditions are sacred, not because they contain historical 
facts, which never are and never could be sacred, but because they are 
ritual, which is always sacred. 


FEATURES OF THE TRADITIONAL NARRATIVE. 


I propose to conclude by referring to a number of features which are 
found in traditional narratives of all descriptions, and which can be 
explained, and in my view only explained, on the supposition that these 
narratives are all accounts of ritual drama. 

(1) The narrative is invariably dramatic. This is, of course, charac- 
teristic of the drama, but not of history, which is seldom dramatic. 

(2) Though the characters are often represented as coming from 
different countries, they all speak the same language. In tradition, as on 
the stage, interpreters are unknown. 

(3) The action of the narrative is often carried on by means of songs 
and rhymes ; this never happens in real life. 

(4) The traditional narrative, unlike history, always contains a great 
deal of conversation. If all the authentically recorded utterances of every 
English king from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries were put together, 
they would not amount to the utterances of the meanest stage hero. 

(5) In tradition the costume of the characters is often described in 
detail. It is, of course, important that the leading characters in the ritual 
drama should be correctly dressed, but we are very seldom told what 
historical characters wore. 

(6) Traditional narratives often have a conventional setting, such as the 
gateway of a city, the doorway of a palace, or outside a hut in the forest. 
In real life people seldom give out their secrets at such places, but in 
tradition they make a practice of it. . 

(7) In the traditional narrative the hero often spends what he supposes 
to be a day in a cave or on an island, and finds on his return home that he 
has been away a whole year. This does not occur in real life, but on the 
stage a year often elapses between Act I and Act IT. 

(8) The characters in the traditional narrative always remain the same age. 
We see this clearly in Homer. Helen’s amorous adventures last for about 
thirty years, but at the end she is still a young and beautiful girl. Nestor, 
at the beginning of the siege of Troy, is a hale but very old man; at the 
end of the siege he is still a hale but very old man, and he returns home 
and goes on being a hale but very old man. In the same way Njal, when 
we first meet him, is a wise old man to whom people go for advice ; forty 
years later he is still a wise old man to whom people go for advice. An 
old Helen, and a young Nestor or Njal, are as unthinkable as an old 
Columbine or a young Pantaloon. 

(9) Not only do the characters remain at the same age, but they are 
all contemporaries. Prof. Gilbert Murray has noticed this ; he says : 
‘ There is an extraordinary wealth of tradition about what we may call 
‘the Heroic Age. Agamemnon, king of Mycenz and Argos, Priam, 
‘ king of Troy, and the kings surrounding them, Achilles, Aias, Odysseus, 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 159 


‘Hector, Paris, these are all familiar household words throughout later 
“history. They are among the best-known names of the world. But 
“how suddenly that full tradition lapses into silence! The Epic Saga 
“can tell us about the deaths of Hector, of Paris, of Priam ; in its later 
* forms it can give us all the details of the last destruction of Troy. Then 
“no more ; except a few dim hints, for instance about the descendants of 
* Eneas. 

“It is more strange in the case of Mycenz and Sparta. Agamemnon 
“ goes home in the full blaze of legend ; he is murdered by Egisthus and 
* Clytemnestra, and avenged by his son Orestes ; so far we have witnesses 
“by the score. But then? What happened to Mycenz after the death 
‘ of AXgisthus ? No one seems to know. There seems to be no Mycenz 
“any more. What happened to Sparta after Menelaus and Helen had 
“taken their departure to the islands of the blest ? There is no record, 
‘no memory. 

“. . . It is the same wherever we turn our eyes in the vast field of Greek 
‘legend. The “ heroes ” who fought at Thebes and Troy are known ; 
“their sons are just known by name or perhaps a little more ; Diomedes, 
* Aias, Odysseus, Calchas, Nestor, how fully the tradition describes their 
“doings, and how silent it becomes after their deaths ! ’ 19 

We find the same phenomenon in many parts of the world, and the 
explanation is, in my view, a simple one. When the drama is over, the 
curtain goes down. 

(10) ‘The fact has been noted by Prof. Chadwick that ‘ the religion 
‘of the Heroic Ages is predominantly the worship of gods, while in his- 
“toric Greece and Scandinavia, etc., forms of chthonic worship are more 
“prominent, and survive for centuries.’ 2° Supernatural beings, to be 
brought on to the stage, must of course be represented in human or 
animal form, 

(11) Among the commonest of the miraculous events which figure so 
largely in traditional narrative is shape-changing. In the Vélsunga 
Saga Freya puts on the gear of a crow and flies off. Sigmund puts on 
a wolf-skin and becomes a wolf. These feats are easy on the stage, but 
difficult in real life. Hartland notes that ‘ the dress (which transforms 
“the heroine into a swan, etc.) when cast aside seems simply an article of 
“human clothing, often nothing but a girdle, veil or apron ; and it is only 
“when donned by the enchanted lady, or elf, that itis found to be . . . a 
“complete plumage.’ #4 The stage properties of the ritual drama must 
often have been few and simple. 

(12) There are few traditional narratives which do not include a king 
and queen. Prof. Pearson explained this by supposing that Europe was 
once divided into a vast number of tiny kingdoms, but the real reason 
is that the king and queen are the centre of all ritual, and must therefore 
be represented in all ritual drama. 

(13) A point which has been noticed by various writers is that the 
battle in tradition is always a series of single combats. Prof. Chadwick 
explains this ®? by saying that the possession of armour constituted an 
19 Op. cit., pp. 52-55. 20 Op. cit., p. 424. 
21 Op. cit., p. 301. 22 Op. cit., P. 339. 


160 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


overwhelming advantage, and that the object of the battle was to kill the 
leaders, who were expected to distinguish themselves by personal bravery. 
The same considerations, however, apply equally to feudal times, yet we 
never find feudal monarchs engaging in single combat. | 

The theory put forward by Ridgeway to account for this and similar 
facts was that people who cannot write keep accurate historical records 
which they transmit orally, but that instead of expressing themselves in 
straightforward language they personify their own and neighbouring 
tribes, and then represent collective activities in terms of individual 
acts. ‘The theory seems to be that at a certain stage in our culture we 
should have described the English conquest of Ireland by saying that 
Britannia jumped a ditch into her neighbour’s garden, and the Battle of 
Trafalgar by saying that Britannia quarrelled with Gallia, and threw her 
bucket down the well. 

In criticising this theory, Mr. A. Nutt asked : ‘ Is there such a thing as 
‘ historic myth at all? Do men commemorate tribal wanderings, settle- 
‘ ments, conquests, subjugations, acquisitions of new forms of culture, 
‘ or any of the other incidents in the collective life of a people, in the form 
‘ of stories about individual men and women? I do not for one moment 
‘ deny the possibility of their doing so ; all I ask for is evidence of the fact.’ 
I cannot find that anyone has ever produced any evidence, yet the theory 
is still widely held, and was much later put forward by Prof. Murray, 
who tells us that he strongly suspects the lists of men slain by the heroes 
of the Jiad to be tribal records, condensed, and, ‘ of course,’ transferred 
from their original context. He has already given us an example of one 
of these ‘ tribal records.’ In the Jad it is said that Phzstus was slain 
by Idomeneus, and fell from his chariot with a crash. On this Prof. 
Murray comments: ‘ Idomeneus is the king of Knossos in Crete, and 
‘ Phestus is only known to history as the next most famous town in the 
‘same island. ‘That is to say, Phestus zs the town, or the eponymous 
‘hero of the town. So we have in this passage a record of a local battle 
‘ or conquest in Crete, torn up from its surroundings and used by the poet 
‘ to fill in some details of slaughter in a great battle before Troy.’ 

Even if we admitted the possibility of historic myth, it would be diffi- 
cult to explain why a town should be represented as falling from a chariot.; 
why an eponymous hero should be invented for one town but not for 
the other ; and why the poet of the J/iad should have recourse to Cretan 
records in order to fill in details of a battle before Troy, seeing that in 
more important cases he makes use of ‘mythological changes and false 
‘ identifications.’ 2> It is difficult to acquit Prof. Murray of treating 
those portions of the dad which fit in with his theories as ‘ real history,’ 
and those which do not as ‘ the emptiest kind of fiction.’ *® Sir William 
Ridgeway and Dr. Leaf rendered themselves liable to a similar charge. 
The reason for the single combats in tradition is that the original ritual 
combat was between the king and his challenger. It was this tradition 
which induced Shakespeare, with his habitual disregard of historical 
fact, to make Henry IV fight a single combat with Douglas. 

23 Folklore, vol. Xii, p. 339. 24 Op. cit., pp. 232-234. 
25 [bide 22955 (a 26 (P3253. 


——_—---~ ~~~ 


H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 161 


(14) Another feature of the traditional narrative is that prophecies 
always come true ; that advice, except in certain special circumstances, 
is always taken ; that people frequently embark on enterprises which they 
well know will prove disastrous ; and that, as Prof. Chadwick notes, the 
characters are always boasting of what they have done and what they 
are going to do. ‘The reason is that all present at the ritual drama are 
participants in the drama, and in order that they may add their share of 
luck to the drama and draw their share of luck from it, it is essential that 
they should fully realise what is going on. And this brings me to my 
last point. 

(15) In many forms of the traditional narrative there is a character who 
takes the parts of prompter and stage manager. It is his business to tell 
the actors what to do, and when necessary to tell the audience what is 
being done. The heathen ritual drama consisted largely of acts which 
were regarded by the Church as sinful, and in the gradual process of con- 
verting these dramas to Christianity we find the prompter coming to be 
identified with the Devil. It is clear in Faust, for example, that Mephis- 
topheles is nothing more than the prompter ; without him there would 
be no drama at all. Similarly, in that wonderful play The Miracle, in 
which we are shown many of the features of the ritual drama, the Spielmann 
plays the part of prompter and stage manager. 

In the Vélsunga Saga the part is taken by Odin, who speaks the pro- 
logue and epilogue, and intervenes at critical moments.to direct the action. 
Odin, we are told, was represented as an old man with one eye and a 
broad-brimmed hat ; where could he have been so represented except 
onthe stage? In the Arthurian legends it is Merlin who is the prompter. 
He is always telling the actors what to do and the audience what is going 
to happen. 

In the Homeric dramas there does not seem to have been an individual 
prompter. ‘The gods apparently sat, like the Trinity of the miracle plays, 
on a raised platform. ‘They announced what was going to be done, and 
descended, when necessary, to direct the actors. 


CONCLUSION. 


Ridgeway assures us that unless we are prepared to maintain that both 
Herodotus and Thucydides are utterly untrustworthy, we must ‘accept 
what they tell us of Greek prehistory ; but we are in reality faced with no 
such alternative. We may well believe that these writers, like Ridgeway 
himself, were genuine seekers after truth, but that, also like him, their 
methods were totally unscientific. He, and nearly all the other writers 
whom I have quoted, not merely start by assuming what they wish to 
prove—namely, that the I/iad is historical—but they rely almost entirely on 
internal evidence. It would be possible to prove by this method the 
historical truth of any novel. When Homer says that Ithaka is an island, 
they give him full marks for geography. When he says that it is rich in 
wheat, he does not lose any marks : they merely conclude—at least Dr. Leaf 
did—that in Homer’s time some other island was called Ithaka. This kind 
of thing is not science at all : it is merely a parlour game. Unfortunately, 
however, anthropologists have been taught to take it seriously, and are now 

G 


162 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


engaged, all over the world, in the hopeless attempt to extract history 
and geography from the traditional narratives, instead of putting these to 
their proper use, which is to act as a guide to the rites of the people con- 
cerned, and so to their beliefs and ideas. 

The only sure foundation for the edifice of science is the concrete of 
ascertained fact, reinforced by the steel rods of universally tested theory. 
The ground upon which the edifice of social anthropology had to be built 
was encumbered not merely by the ruins of ancient superstitions, but also 
by the jerry-buildings of pseudo-history and pseudo-psychology, and 
many anthropologists have believed that these survivals could be in- 
corporated in the new edifice. The result has been that social anthro- 
pology has been allotted, very properly, a low place among the sciences. 
It will never occupy what should be its proper place until a vast quantity 
of pre-scientific and pseudo-scientific rubbish has been cleared from 
its path, and if this address helps in the smallest degree to bring about 
this clearance, it will have more than achieved its object. 


SECTION 1—PHYSIOLOGY. 


THE ACTIVITY OF NERVE CELLS 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF. E. D. ADRIAN, F.RS., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


SINcE the biologist seeks to understand life, he cannot be accused of 
lack of courage. But he can find out a great deal without approaching 
too near the central problem. He can find out how the living cell develops 
and how it behaves; he can follow many of the physical and chemical 
changes which take place in it, and could follow more if cells were not so 
inconveniently small. The immediate problems of the physiologist may 
be still further removed from the problem of life. They may deal, for 
instance, with the mechanics of the vascular system or with the physical 
chemistry of blood pigments. But most of us aim at explaining the 
working of the body in terms of its constituent cells, and feel that this 
is a reasonable aim even though we must take the cell for granted. Is 
it a reasonable aim when we are dealing with the working of the nervous 
system? ‘That is the problem which I shall discuss this morning. 
The nervous system is responsible for the behaviour of the organism 
as a whole: in fact, it makes the organism. A frog is killed when its 
brain and spinal cord are destroyed : its heart still beats and its muscles 
can still be made to contract, all the cells of its body but those of the 
brain and cord are as fully alive as they were before; but the frog is 
dead and has become a bundle of living tissues with nothing to weld 
them into a living animal. This integrative action of the nervous system, 
to use Sherrington’s classical phrase, we may be able to explain in terms 


of the reactions of the constituent nerve cells. We can at least discuss 


the point as physiologists. But the human organism includes a mind 
as well as a body. It may be best to follow Pawlow and to see how 
far we can go without bringing in the mind, but if the reactions of our 
nerve cells are to explain thought as well as action we must face the 
prospect of becoming psychologists and metaphysicians as well. 
Fortunately we need not yet go to such extremes. There are problems 
enough on the physiological plane, and they are made all the more 
interesting by this hint of mystery in the background. 

_ The nervous system, the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves, is 
made up of a large number of living cells which grow, maintain them- 
selves by the metabolism of food-stuffs, and carry out all the complex 
reactions of living protoplasm. In this there are enough problems for 
anyone ; but we are concerned not with the general properties of living 
cells but with those special properties which enable the cells of the 


164 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


nervous system to perform their functions. ‘Their function is to make 
the organism respond rapidly and effectively to changes in its environ- 
ment, and to achieve this they have developed a specialised structure, 
and a complex arrangement in the body. ‘They send out long threads 
of protoplasm which serve for the rapid transmission of signals, and 
they are linked to one another by elaborate branching connections in the 
brain and the spinal cord. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 


The mapping of this network of paths was begun many years ago, 
and was the first step in the analysis. No progress could have been 
made without it, and its results are of vital importance to neurology. 
We are now witnessing a fresh period of interest in the geography of 
the central nervous system, but the problem is not how the nerve cells 
and their fibres are arranged, but why they are arranged as they are. 
R. G. Harrison in his recent Croonian Lecture recalled the time when 
he first cultivated living nerve cells outside the body. ‘That experiment 
made twenty-three years ago, marks the new epoch better than any 
other, for, besides introducing the method of tissue culture, it settled a 
long and bitter controversy as to the origin of nerve fibres. Nowadays 
the most elaborate transplantation experiments are carried out by the 
embryologists on amphibian larve. Animals are produced with super- 
numerary limbs, eyes, noses, and even spinal cords. The growing nervous 
system is faced with these unusual bodily arrangements, and by studying 
the changes induced in it we can form some idea of the factors which 
determine its normal structure. A review published this summer by 
Detweiler gives a vivid impression of the plasticity of the developing 
nervous system in the hands of the experimenter. As a rule it accepts 
the extra limb or sense organ, links it by nerve fibres to the rest of the 
organism and may develop more nerve cells to deal with it. ‘The forces 
which mould the nervous system seem to come partly from within the 
central mass of nerve cells and partly from the body outside. These 
forces may be chemical or electrical gradients, and often the nerve fibres 
seem to grow in particular directions because they cling mechanically 
to structures already laid down, e.g. to the main arteries of the limbs. 
It is unlikely that a simple formula will be found for such a complex 
arrangement, but the fact remains that the arrangement can be pro- 
foundly modified at the will of the experimenter. Its detail seems to 
depend not so much on the innate properties of particular cells as on the 
environment provided by the rest of the organism. 


THE REACTIONS OF THE NEURONES. 


This new embryological work supports the older in showing that the 
nervous system is made up of ‘ neurones,’ cells with thread-like extensions, 
and that they are the only active elements in it. ‘These elements are all 
cast in the same mould, but are shaped differently by the forces of 
development. To this we can now add the fact that all neurones seem 
to do their work in much the same way. ‘The activity which they show 
is in some respects remarkably simple. It is essentially rhythmic: a 


I—PHYSIOLOGY 165 


series of rapid alternations between the resting and the active state, 
due probably to rapid breakdown and repair of the surface. ‘This at 
least is a fair description of the way in which the nerve fibres carry out 
their function of conducting messages, and we can detect the same 
kind of pulsating activity in the nerve cells of the brain. 

The evidence comes from the analysis of minute electric changes, for 
cell activity sets up electrical eddies in the surrounding fluid, and these 
can be measured with a minimum of interference. ‘The clearest results 
are given by the peripheral nerve fibres which connect the central nervous 
system to the sense organs and the muscles. The nerve fibres are 
conveniently arranged in bundles to form the nerve trunks: each fibre 
is an independent conducting path and there may be a thousand such 
paths in a fair-sized nerve, but it is not a difficult matter to study what 
takes place in the single fibre when it conducts a message. We may 
begin with an external stimulus acting on a sense organ, a structure 
which includes the sensitive ending of a nerve fibre as an essential part. 
The ending is excited by the stimulus, the delicate equilibrium of its 
surface is upset and the disturbance tends to spread along the fibre. 
The spreading is an active process: it takes place because the fibre has 
a store of energy ready to be liberated at a moment’s notice, and because 
the changes which attend its liberation at one point upset the balance at 
the next point and cause the same activity there. ‘The spread of a flame 
along a fuse is a well-worn analogy. But the nerve fibre is so constituted 
that a disturbance at any point is almost immediately cut short. The 
change spreads along it as a momentary wave—a brief impulse followed 
inevitably by a brief interval of rest and recovery. If the sense organ 
remains excited a second impulse passes up the fibre, and then another 
and another as long as the stimulus is effective. ‘The impulses in a given 
nerve fibre are all alike in magnitude, rate of travel, etc., but the frequency at 
which they recur depends on the intensity of the stimulus, rising sometimes 
as high as 300 a second in each fibre, or falling as low as 10. All the 
' nervous messages take this form ; the central nervous system is continually 
bombarded by trains of such impulses passing along the slender threads of 
protoplasm from the sense organs, and is continually sending out trains 
of impulses to the muscles. 

The conducting threads or nerve fibres are exceedingly insensitive to 
changes in their environment: their endings in the sense organs are 
exceedingly sensitive. ‘The sole function of the ending is to act as the 
trigger mechanism for firing off the impulses, and the sole function of the 
nerve fibre is to carry the message without distortion. Both are specialised 
parts of the neurone with specialised reactions, but it is important to note 
that these reactions are not peculiar to the nervous system. Muscle 
fibres, developed from the mesoderm and specialised for contraction, 
conduct impulses which seem to differ merely in their time relations 
from those in nerve fibres, and they can also be made to behave like the 
sensory endings by treatment with various salt solutions. In sodium 
chloride, for instance, a series of impulses will be set up in a muscle 
fibre when it is stretched, as they would be in one of the sense organs 
whose sole duty is to act as ‘ stretch receptors.’ The muscle fibre makes 


166 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


a poor copy of the nervous mechanism, for it reacts jerkily and is often 
damaged in the process, but the ground-plan of the mechanism is the 
same. 

Thus in the activities concerned in the rapid conduction and in the 
setting up of rhythmic trains of impulses, it does not appear that the 
cells of the nervous system have properties not shared in some degree 
by other tissues. 

So far we have only considered what happens in nerve fibres. We 
can tap the messages which pass along the wires between the front line 
and headquarters, but this does not tell us how they are elaborated there. 
A great deal has been found out already by the analysis of reflexes—i.e. by 
sending in a known combination of signals and finding what signals 
come out to the muscles; indeed, the great part of Sherrington’s work on 
the spinal reflexes and Pawlow’s on the brain has been carried out in 
this way. An account of the central nervous system which does not 
include a full discussion of such important work is like the tragedy of 
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark; but the results are so well known 
that I shall deal instead with a recent line of attack of an entirely different 
kind. This relies on the fact that nervous activity, in the central grey 
matter as in the peripheral nerves, is accompanied by electric changes. 
They seem to be a reliable index of the underlying activity, and by 
recording them we come a step nearer to the main problem. The chief 
difficulty is to interpret the records. In the cerebral cortex, for instance, 
very large electric oscillations are constantly occurring, except in the 
deepest anzsthesia, but they vary from moment to moment and from 
place to place, and it is only in the visual cortex that they are under a 
fair degree of experimental control. Here they can be produced by 
shining a light in the eye (Fischer and Kornmiiller) or stimulating the 
optic nerve (Bartley and Bishop), and the prospects of analysis are more 
hopeful. But at the moment the most significant feature of these records 
from the brain lies in the appearance of the waves. Whenever a group 
of nerve cells is in action, in the cerebral cortex, the brain stem or the 
retina, and whether the nerve cells in question belong to a vertebrate, 
or an insect, the waves are alike in general form. Instead of the abrupt 
spikes which appear in a record from a nerve fibre when a train of 
impulses passes down it, we have more gradual potential changes which 
form a series of waves of smooth contour. In the simpler structures 
where most of the neurones are acting in unison the waves may have a 
regular rhythm (5 to go or more a second), which rises and falls when 
the stimulus changes in intensity. It is often possible to make out 
both the abrupt nerve fibre impulses and the slower nerve cell waves, 
and to show that they occur together. In the cerebral cortex of an 
anzesthetised animal there is much more variety and less orderly repeti- 
tion ; the waves usually occur at irregular intervals ; they vary in size and 
duration, and some of them may last for half a second or even longer. 

Nerve cell waves may be the wrong name, for they are probably due 
to the branching dendrites and not to the cell body of the neurone ; but 
there can be no doubt that they represent a characteristic activity of the 
structures which make up the grey matter. They show that the same 


I.—PHYSIOLOGY 167 


kind of rhythmic breakdown and repair of the surface takes place in this 
part of the neurone as in the nerve fibre, with the important difference 
that the changes develop and subside much less abruptly. The surface 
is not specialised for rapid conduction ; the forces which restore the 
resting equilibrium are less powerful and there is more tendency to 
spontaneous breakdown and to long periods of uninterrupted activity. 
We know that the activity of the grey matter is far more readily influenced 
by chemical changes than is that of the nerve fibre with its elaborate 
fatty sheath and wrappings of connective tissue, and it seems probable 
that both chemical and electric changes may be concerned in the spread 
of activity from one neurone to another. How this spread takes place 
is still uncertain, and it is admittedly the most important problem we 
have to face. In spite of this we can claim to have some of the main 
outlines of neurone activity. Our nervous system is built up of cells 
with a specialised structure and reactions, but the reactions are of a 
type to be found in many other cells. The rhythmic beat of the heart 
is probably due to surface reactions not far different from those in 
the group of nerve cells which produces the rhythmic movements of 
breathing ; and the factors, nervous and chemical, which regulate the 
heart beat are probably much the same as the factors which control the 
discharge of the neurone. We have a store of energy, replenished con- 
stantly by cell metabolism and liberated periodically by surface breakdown. 
The electrical gradients at the active point cause a spread of the breakdown 
to other regions, but sooner or later restoring forces come into play, the 
membranes are healed and the cycle is ready to be repeated. It is a long. 
step from the mechanical precision of an impulse discharge in a nerve 
fibre to the irregularities of a record from the cerebral cortex, but there 
are many intermediate cases which will bridge the gap. 


THe Nervous SYSTEM AS A WHOLE. 


As far as the units are concerned the prospect is encouraging. The 
difficulties begin when we come to the work of the nervous system as 
a whole. Many of its reactions are mechanical enough and can be 
explained in terms of the activity of groups of neurones, but there is 
much that resists this kind of treatment. It is perhaps encouraging 
that the difficulties are greatest when the reactions depend on the cerebral 
cortex, when they involve learning and memory, or, if you prefer it, habit 
formation and conditioning. They have been clearly stated by Lashley, 
and most of them can be reduced in the end to a simple formula, the 
failure of anatomical models of the nervous system. ‘The revolt from the 
anatomical model has been growing for many years, though it may be 
doubted whether its sponsors ever believed in it as much as their critics 
_ suppose. It gave us diagrams of nerve centres and pathways which 
were valuable enough when they referred to known anatomical structure, 
but not when they referred, as they often did, to hypothetical centres 
and to pathways canalised by use. ‘These too may exist, but they are 
not the whole explanation of cortical activity. 

Clinical neurology is partly to blame for the emphasis laid on exact 
localisation. The neurologist must locate brain tumours by analysing 


168 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the disturbances they produce ; consequently he welcomes the slightest 
evidence of localisation of function in the cortex, and finds the anatomical 
model valuable for correlating his observations. Undoubtedly there are 
well-defined nervous pathways, clear differences in cell structure and 
localised activity in different parts of the brain. As a modern addition 
to the evidence we have Foerster’s recent work on the electrical stimulation 
of the human cortex, and his finding that stimulation of the temporal 
lobe may cause sounds and words to arise in consciousness whilst stimu- 
lation of the occipital lobe gives lights or images. Bard has given another 
remarkable example of strict cortical localisation by his observations on 
certain postural reactions in the cat. These depend on a small area in 
the frontal region, are not affected by damage to other parts of the brain, 
and are permanently lost if the frontal area is destroyed. The danger 
nowadays is that we may pay too little attention to such facts ; but it is 
true, nevertheless, that the localisation is a matter of areas rather than 
of single neurones. This is shown by examination of habit formation, 
and by the remarkable way in which the nervous system adapts itself to 
injury. 3 

It has often been pointed out that we learn to recognise shapes—the 
letters of the alphabet, for instance—however they are presented to us. 
The pattern of black and white made on our retina by the letter A need 
not fall on a particular set of retinal endings connected with particular 
cortical neurones. We have learnt to recognise a relation of lines and 
angles, a pattern of activity in the cortex rather than an activity of specific 
points. ‘This kind of reaction is not due to our superior intelligence. 
Lashley finds it in the rat, and psychologists of the Gestalt school have 
pointed out examples from all manner of animals. There is the same 
neglect of specific neurones in the formation of motor habits, for if we 
have once learnt to write the letter A with our right hand, we can make 
a fair attempt to write it with any group of muscles which can control a 
pencil. 

The adaptations to injury present a different aspect of the same story. 
An insect which has lost a leg will at once change its style of walking to 
make up for the loss. This may involve a complete alteration of the 
normal method, limbs which were advanced alternately being now 
advanced simultaneously ; the activities of the nervous system are 
directed to a definite end, the forward movement of the animal—it uses 
whatever means are at its disposal and is not limited to particular pathways. 

When the central nervous system is injured there is more evidence of 
localised function, but the localisation is no hard-and-fast affair. A rat 
uses its occipital cortex in the formation of certain visual habits. When 
this part of the cortex is destroyed the habit is lost, but it can be re-learnt 
just as rapidly as before with what remains of the brain. A monkey’s 
arm is paralysed if the corresponding motor area of the cortex is destroyed, 
but the paralysis soon passes away although there is no regeneration 
of the motor cortex. What is more remarkable is that the recovered 
functions are not associated with the development of a new visual region 
or motor region in the brain. Though they were originally localised 
there is no longer any one part of the cortex which is essential. 


I.—PHYSIOLOGY 169 


In reactions where there is no evidence of localisation (e.g. the learning 
of maze habits in the rat), Lashley finds that the important factor is the 
total mass of the cortex and not the presence of particular regions. ‘The 
effect of an injury depends on its extent and not on its situation. It 
depends, too, on the amount of grey matter (nerve cells and dendrites) 
destroyed, and not on the cutting of connections between the different 
parts of the cortex. ‘Thus the ability of the brain to form new associations, 
and generally to control the behaviour of the animal, depends primarily 
on the total area covered by the nerve cells of the cortex and their inter- 
lacing dendrites. For certain reactions it depends to some extent on 
the arrangement of pathways, but this arrangement is not essential. 
There is more localisation of function in the large brain of man than in 
the very small brain of the rat, for different cortical regions may be 
completely equivalent when they are separated by 5 mm., but not when 
they are separated by 100. But apart from this difference in scale it is 
likely that the human cortex has the same mass effect and plasticity of 
function. 

How do the individual neurones combine to produce a system which 
can recognise a triangle or direct the movements of the organism with 
such disregard of detailed structure? If particular neurones or path- 
ways are not tuned to triangularity, how can the whole mass be tuned to 
it, and why should the tuning be more certain when the mass is greater ? 
Our data may be at fault and the mass effect an illusion, but there is 
certainly enough evidence for it to be taken seriously. ‘Though there 
is no solution at the moment, I cannot believe that one will not be 
found—a solution which need not go outside the conceptions of physiology. 
It should be possible, for instance, to find out how many neurones must 
be combined to give a system which reacts in this way and what kind of 
structure they must form. ‘The nervous systems of insects may provide 
the clue, for these may contain a few thousand nerve cells in place of the 
ten thousand million in the human brain. It is possible also to study 
the reactions of isolated parts of the central nervous system, to see how 
far their behaviour can be explained in terms of the units which compose 
them. The retina is an interesting example of this kind, for it contains 
an elaborate structure of nerve cells and dendrite connections, and has 
some of the reactions which we might expect from a mosaic of sensory 
endings, and some which depend on interaction between the different 
neurones. But even now we can form some idea of the way in which the 
grey matter ‘can act as a whole. The electric oscillations in the cortex 
and in the grey matter generally are often due to a large number of units 
pulsating in unison. Sometimes there are several competing rhythms, 
and sometimes the collective action breaks down altogether, to reappear 
from time to time when some part of the system is stimulated to greater 
activity. When these collective rhythms appear the neurones are already 
acting as though they formed one unit. There is no need to regard the 
dendrites as forming a continuous network, electric forces may well 
bridge the gaps between them, but they may form a system in which 
activity can -be transmitted more or less freely in all directions. The 
patterns of activity in a system of this kind would be like the ripples on 

G2 


170 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the surface of a pond, with the difference that some of the ripples may 
occur spontaneously, whilst others are due to incoming signals. Inter- 
ference figures and nodes of vibration may then be all important. ‘They 
would at least give a basis for the recognition of relations such as those 
of triangularity or squareness without the need for an excitation of specific 
points, and they might be formed with less distortion in a large pond 
than in a small one. 

This does not take us very far: in fact, the major problems of the 
central nervous system are left in greater obscurity than ever. But no 
one can observe these ceaseless electrical pulsations without realising 
that they provide a fresh set of data and may give a fresh outlook on 
the working of the brain. The facts are still too uncertain to be worth 
treating in greater detail. But they accumulate rapidly, and several 
lines of evidence seem to lead in the same direction. For the present 
it is enough to state our problem, that of the organisation of neurones 
into the nervous system. It is still a physiological problem, and I hope 
that a solution will be found on physiological lines. If it cannot be found 
it will be extremely interesting to see where the breakdown occurs, and 
if it can it will be even more interesting to see what light it throws on 
the relation of the nervous system to the mind. 


SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 


THE STATUS OF PSYCHOLOGY AS AN 
EMPIRICAL SCIENCE 


ADDRESS BY 
PROF. F. AVELING, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


As a text for this address, I quote a statement made by a very distinguished 
physicist. Sir Arthur Eddington writes: ‘ Mind is the first and most 
direct thing in our experience ; all else is remote inference.’ Now this 
statement may mean one of several things. It may mean either that we 
directly apprehend the mind itself as an experiencing entity, or that we 
know, and only know directly, phenomena, the objective mental contents 
and subjective states which, as at one time it was widely held, constitute 
our minds or consciousnesses. In this address I shall maintain that we 
know both, the former as an existent in every act of experience, and the 
latter as events within experience. And I shall maintain this for two 
reasons : first, because I find it to be so on introspection ; and, secondly 
(though this perhaps is not a psychological reason), because, unless we 
grant the immediate awareness of the self as existent and active, as well 
as phenomenal occurrences in experience, it is impossible, so it seems to 
me, to account for our belief in an existing external world and for many 
of the conceptual constructions by means of which the various sciences 
attempt to explain it. I do not wish to prejudge the issue of the problem, 
which, as you realise, is an epistemological as well as a psychological one, 
by asserting anything whatever with regard to the nature of this self that 
we experience directly ; but I do wish to assert the reality of the experi- 
ence. For me at least it is as real as the sensory experience in which the 
physical world, including my own body, is revealed to me. 


INADEQUACY OF SENSORY EXPERIENCE. 


There is, then, I maintain, more in ‘ mind ’ than the sensory experiences 
which form the starting-point for physical science. This begins with the 
phenomenological world, a world of objects so-appearing to us ; and, on 
the basis of this experience, abstraction made from the fact that it is 
experience, a physical universe of reference is built up in scientific thought. 
It is thus apparent that physical science, omitting a great deal of experience 
from its purview, makes a selection of experiences. Moreover, in con- 
structing from these the physical universe, it makes use of concepts which 
cannot be discovered among those particular selected experiences that 
form its own peculiar subject-matter. What Eddington calls ‘ remote 


172 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


inferences ’ are only made possible by the occurrence of mental processes 
which are also experienced, though not among the crude sensory data with 
which physical science is primarily concerned. ‘Thus all the sciences of 
Nature begin in sensory experience. ‘They abandon this experience for 
conceptual construction. But they return once more to experience to 
verify their constructive work. For it is not only the function of science 
to theorise. If it did this alone, it might end in crazy hypotheses and wild 
speculation. Its function is also to predict and control. And only in 
the immediacy of experience can the accuracy of the predictions be tested, 
or the competence of the controls be established. 


EMPIRICISM. 


I take it that an empirical science is either one which, as the term 
implies, is supported by the evidence of the senses, or one which is built 
up out of the elements of experience. Physical science, beginning and 
ending in sensory phenomena, is an example of the first kind ; psychology 
an example of the second. But the ordinary use of the term ‘ empirical ’ 
limits experience to that of a sensory nature. My plea is that this limita- 
tion is an arbitrary one and due to a philosophical prejudice. There is 
more in experience than sensory elements. Apart from the self and its 
states, affective and volitional, to which allusion has already been made, 
there are thought-things as well as sensed-things, relations as well a: 
elements, correlates as well as original fundaments, in experience. The 
universe of physical science, for example, consists of thought-things ; 
it is a conceptual universe erected on the foundations of a sensed one. 
The external world, as presented to us by contemporary science, possesses 
none of the glamour and richness with which it is clothed in sensory 
experience. It has no colour, nor sound, nor odour, nor warmth, nor 
extension, nor shape, nor material substance. Yet the physicists would 
tell us that they are dealing with ‘ reality’; and that ‘ reality ’ in itself is 
not what we naively suppose it to be. The world that has successively 
been conceived as a world of extended and solid objects, a world of atoms, 
of electrons and protons, of wave motions, is more physically ‘ real ’ for 
physics than the everyday world in which we consciously live. It must 
be so, for indeed it is looked upon as the cause of our conscious world. 
A secular controversy, not yet concluded, has been waged as to which of 
these worlds is the more ‘ real’ ; for the setting of them over against each 
other is at once as modern as mathematical physics and as ancient as 
Greek philosophy. In calling attention, however, to the distinction, it 
is not with a view to appraising their relative degrees of ‘ reality.’ It is 
in order to point out that both thought-things and sensed-things do in 
fact occur in our experience taken as a whole. A perfect mathematical 
plane triangle when an object of thought, although created by us as the 
result of a purely mental process, and never encountered in any sensory 
fashion whatever, is an experience just as much as a seen or felt (and 
mathematically imperfect) triangle cut out of wood or paper is. Each is 
referred to ‘ some thing’; but both are experiences, whereas the ‘ some 
things ’ are not. 


J.—PSYCHOLOGY 173 


EMPIRICAL AND EXacT SCIENCES. 


In the same way as the sciences of Nature, concerning themselves with 
sensed-things, make a selection from among our experiences, omit many, 
and abstract from the fact that they are experiences of ours, so other 
sciences, concerning themselves with thought-things, make another 
selection of experiences, and consider them as if they also were independent 
of us. The empirical sciences that begin with sensory material work 
from this towards its explanation on conceptual lines. ‘Those sciences 
like mathematics, on the other hand, that begin with abstract quantitative 
concepts, work from these concepts and their relations towards a state- 
ment of the implications that are contained within them. The former 
sciences derive the force of conviction with which they impress us from 
the fact that they are ultimately based upon the evidence of our senses— 
‘Seeing is believing.’ The latter likewise convince us by their proofs, 
because their conclusions evidently follow from their premisses— There 
is no proof like a mathematical proof.’ The point to be stressed again, 
however, is that both these kinds of science are selective of their material 
and leave out of account much experience which, as such, is as good as any 
other. If seeing is believing, and mathematical proof convincing, the 
immediate living experience of myself knowing and feeling and willing is 
most impressive of all. Though not a Cartesian, in this I agree with 
Descartes that such experience is not merely believable or convincing, 
but indubitable. I suggest that these neglected experiences are necessary 
to explain the constructions of the empirical sciences of Nature, for we 
need no longer concern ourselves with the deductive sciences. And 
I further suggest that it is psychology, concerned with the totality of 
experience, objective and subjective alike, of which we are or may be 
conscious, and making no abstraction from the fact that it 7s experience, 
which provides an account of the empirical origin of principles of systema- 
tisation and explanatory concepts alike which are used in the other sciences. 
Though these principles and concepts are abstract, and indeed vary in 
degrees of abstraction, from qualities and their relations, through quan- 
tities and their relations, to being and its relations, in a sort of hierarchical 
order, they are and must be abstracted from something ; and if that 
something is not the sensory material with which physical science deals, 
then it must be discovered in some other region of experience. To 
support this contention it is not necessary to have recourse to innate 
ideas ; for it can be shown that observable mental processes, other than 
the apprehension of sensory experience, can account for the facts. And 
these processes are the apprehension and abstraction of relations between 
any experiences, this term being taken in the broadest sense, the pro- 
duction of correlates in respect of any experience, and the immediate 
awareness of the self energising, or being in one way or another busy 
with its objects. I summarise these considerations as follows. All 
systematic principles and explanatory concepts are in some way derived 
from experience. They are all mental products, the results of mental 
processes. They differ in degree of abstraction. Psychology is concerned 
with the totality of experience as such, and the processes, among others, 


174 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


by which systematic principles and explanatory concepts come to be 
formed. And it is the most empirical of all the sciences, since the con- 
cepts of which it makes use are drawn directly from within experience 
itself, or, if inferences from it, are the least remote of all. I shall hope to 
illustrate this by reference to several of the explanatory concepts actually 
in use in physical and biological science and in psychology. But before 
doing this it will be useful to recall and distinguish the several stages by 
which science proceeds and in which such concepts are reached. 


DATA OF SCIENCE. 


The first step taken in any empirical science is to examine, describe, and 
classify the objects, or aspects of objects, with which it deals; such 
classification being made on the principle of similarity and difference, 
which, it may be noted, does not involve inference, but depends upon the 
immediate experience of relations. The first step in psychology will 
accordingly be to observe, describe, and classify mental processes.as such. 
Psychologists are fairly well agreed on the broad classification of these 
processes under the three heads of cognition, affection and conation, or 
knowing, feeling and willing, as aspects or actualisations of the self. But, 
though I have used the terms synonymously, I may note that there appears 
to me to be good evidence that conation (striving and doing) and willing 
(resolving, intending, choosing) cannot be included in the same general 
category ; and, accordingly, that there are at least four broadly irreducible 
kinds of mental event, which will require four groups of concepts to explain 
them. Classification, however, does not merely mean grouping together : 
it means separation as well. ‘Thus cognitive processes separate into 
sensory perception, conception, judgement, reasoning and remembering, 
for each of which a different explanatory concept may be needed. Though 
memory, for instance, may be involved in perception, we cannot explain 
remembering and perceiving in the same way. Incidentally, the postu- 
late of retentivity is a good example of the kind of inference made in 
psychology. It is evidently an inference, for we do not experience 
retentivity. But it is not a remote inference ; and does not become so 
until we further postulate some such thing as persistent brain traces to 
account for it. Similarly different concepts may be necessary to explain 
the experiences of desire, resolution, impulse and striving, whether they 
are classed under two heads or one, and no matter how closely one may 
be involved in the other. 


STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS. 


The next step consists in the finer structural analysis, so far as this is 
possible, of the phenomenological data. In psychology, this means the 
further splitting up of the products of mental processes. On analogy 
with the procedure of the chemist, who analyses a chemical compound 
into its constituent elements, or of the anatomist, who dissects out the 
fibres of a nerve trunk, the psychologist analyses a percept, memory, 
emotion or will-act. The proverbial seen orange yields in such an 
analysis sensory factors of an elementary kind—colour, odour, sapidity, 
smoothness, and the like. It cannot be said, however, that these are all 


J.—PSYCHOLOGY 175 


actually seen, any more than the thinghood with which the orange is 
invested in our thought. Apart from the shape and colour, all the rest 
comes from other experience than visual. ‘The simplest case of visual 
perception is illustrated by a coloured figure, in which (except for thing- 
hood) the experience is wholly visual ; and here analysis gives shape and 
colour as elements. It has been objected that such analysis destroys the 
mental ‘ whole’ which is so analysed, just as chemical analysis destroys 
the compound, or anatomical dissection the preparation ; and this would 
be still more true did the anatomist separate living structures. He could 
not, by merely bringing them together again, restore the organism, any 
more than the chemist, by merely adding his elements together, could 
recreate the compound. And, indeed, even though we are unable to 
separate one sensation from another in a percept, and can only distin- 
guish them in our thought, this objection holds good. For, if we think 
the sensations separately, and then attempt to add them together con- 
ceptually, we discover that the mere sum of sensations is not the equivalent 
of the percept. This objection has been urged particularly against the 
work of the introspectionist schools, as if they were concerned only to 
find the mental elements out of which all consciousness was once supposed 
to be compacted. But introspection has discovered more than the mere 
sensations that have been distinguished. It has found relations which 
obtain between the sensations, as well as relations obtaining between 
abstract concepts, and between concepts and percepts also. This dis- 
covery is one of the most fruitful of all the empirical observations of 
psychology. A similar consideration might be developed in respect of 
the psychology of volitional processes. The Louvain school, for instance, 
like that of Wiirzburg, analyses the elements that enter into processes of 
resolution and attainment, and of choice. But it would be a mistake to 
think that these elements, so analysed, when conceptually put together 
again, are the equivalents of the will-processes. Here also are discovered 
relations which obtain between them; and among these is that most 
important of all real relations, the relation, namely, of cause, which is so 
closely identifiable with the self. It is in virtue of this relation that a 
will-act from beginning to end is constituted as a temporal whole. If 
one keeps in mind the fact that both in spatial and temporal ‘ wholes ’ 
neither the sensory and volitional elements nor the relations occur in 
isolation, this procedure of structural analysis is fully justified. 


FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS. 


A further step is to discover by functional analysis the conditions or 
laws of occurrence of the various events with which the science is con- 
cerned. In psychology, this has meant in the past the attempt to relate 
physical stimuli and their intensities with psychological occurrences, 
as in the case of Weber’s Law; or to relate physiological events with 
psychological ones, as in the localisation of sensory and motor functions 
in definite areas of the cortex, or conative and emotional changes with 
the physiological disturbances indicated by the pneumograph, sphygmo- 
graph or psychogalvanometer. ‘The establishing of such relations between 
physical properties and physiological processes, on the one hand, and 


176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


psychological processes, on the other, requires, however, that we shall 
already have taken a step away from the empirical standpoint in the first 
sense of the term ; for here we are trying to equate a sensory experience 
with a thought-object, physical or physiological. My sensory impression 
of the weight of a loaded can as greater or less than that of a previously 
lifted can is measured against the ‘ real ’ weights of ‘ real ’ cans as indicated 
by a balance. But what do I know of ‘ real’ weights and ‘ real ’ cans ? 
I have kinesthetic experiences and can discriminate between them ; 
I refer these to cans, and call them weights. I have likewise visual 
experiences of coloured shapes (the balance and cans) altering their 
spatial relations ; again I refer these to the cans, indeed to the same cans, 
and say they are due to weight. So far as sensory experience alone goes, 
I am equating amounts of felt effort with amounts of seen movement, 
and arguing analogically from one to the other. But how is this possible, 
since the two sets of experiences are not only different, but absolutely 
irreducible ? Only, I suggest, because I have conceived something 
which is contained neither in the experience of effort nor in that of visual 
movement—namely, a physical can with physical properties affecting me 
in these ways, a ‘ same thing ’ appearing under two (or more) irreducible 
forms.1 But the kinzsthetic experience of weight does not always 
correspond absolutely with the visual indication ; for the balance can 
detect differences in weight better than I can, or so I believe. And 
I believe this, not in virtue of the sensorial experiences alone, but because 
of even more conceptual construction than has already been indicated. 
In a similar manner, my experience of conation or emotion is equated 
with the visual indications of the instruments I am using. I report more 
or less of ‘ alertness’; I find the galvanometer deflections of greater or 
less excursion ; and I take these to register more or less physiological 
disturbance which is correlated with my experience. Again, there is a 
vast amount of conceptual construction involved in my conclusions. 

These conceptual and inferential procedures, however, are thoroughly 
justified if we admit, as I think we must, that not only sensory experience 
but all experience must be taken into account ; and then we must concede 
a like right of citizenship to whatever we are able to discover within it. 
As we have seen, we find thought-objects as well as sensed-objects and 
relations both ideal and real. Above all, we find an active self busy with 
all these mental objects and relations in the various ways of sensing, 
thinking, feeling, willing, striving, and the like. It is in this complete, 
unselected experience that we discover the experiential grounds for all 
our inferences. 


EXPLANATORY CONCEPTS. 


The last step is to find the least number of suitable explanatory con- 
cepts to cover all the data. Like the conditions and laws of occurrence— 
for indeed they are reached by the same process of functional analysis— 
these may be physical, physiological or psychological. In point of fact, 
for the most part those that have been advanced have been physiological— 


1 Incidentally, this difference between sensed-weight and thought-weight is, 
I believe, an explanation of the size-weight illusion. 


J.—PSYCHOLOGY 177 


special sensory organs, local cortical areas, inhibition centres, association 
fibres, resistance at synapses, drainage of neural energy, and so on. 
There can be no doubt that some of these concepts are illuminating for 
psychology, but again at the price of abandoning the purely empirical 
standpoint in the first sense of the term, and borrowing from experience 
other than sensory in order to make explanatory use of them. And indeed 
the experience from which the loan is taken is precisely that for which 
no physiological explanatory concepts are available. While we may 
accept engrams as the physiological reading of retentiveness, association 
fibres as correlated with the linkages between ideas, and the like, there 
is no suggestion forthcoming from physiology as to what may be the 
physiological bases of becoming aware of experience, abstracting relations, 
producing correlates, the volitional control of mental process, or the 
intimate and immediate awareness of self. Moreover, some of the 
physiological concepts in question have in the first instance simply been 
taken over from psychology, others are yet very speculative and uncertain, 
while others again, plausible enough in hypothesis, would by most ortho- 
dox physiologists themselves be rejected, as, for instance, those of the 
Gestalt theoricians. Still the very fact that these last have been seriously 
put forward shows how little definitely ascertained physiological knowledge 
is as yet of use in explanation of mental events. 

In any case, the physiological phenomena, like the physical ones, do not 
contain the principles of their own explanation within themselves. When 
we examine the segmentation of a cell under a microscope, we conceive of 
it as a process going on in an existent, material and unitary thing. Whence 
do those concepts of existence, matter, unity and thinghood, come? Cer- 
tainly not, I suggest, from the observed visual phenomena. When we 
stimulate the nerve of a nerve-muscle preparation and notice a contraction 
of the muscle, we conceive of the event asacausalone. Whence did we 
derive our notion of cause? Not, again I suggest, from the observed 
sequence. When we measure the intake and output of a living organism, 
we do so in terms of energy. From what experience is that concept of 
energy taken? Again, not from any one, nor from the sum total of 
observations involved in the measurements. All these and like beliefs 
with regard to physiological processes, and in particular in respect of 
their connection with mental events, are inferences from the phenomena, 
made in virtue of experiences of another kind. Physiology, accordingly, 
like physics, is an empirical science in the first sense because it concerns 
itself with certain selected sensory data ; in so far as it is explanatory, it 
is an inferential science. It is none the worse for that, however, even if 
it must borrow some of its concepts from psychology. ‘The point is that, 
generally without acknowledgment, it does so borrow from psychology 
in order to establish the very constructions it offers to reloan to that 
science as explanations of mental events. 


PsYCHOLOGY AS SCIENCE OF EXPERIENCE. 
We turn now to psychology, the most empirical of all the sciences in 
the sense that it deals directly with experience as such, makes no partial 
selection, but embraces all experiences alike indifferently, and at their 


178 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


face value. And here I wish to show how scientific explanatory concepts, 
together with concepts which the physical and biological sciences other 
than psychology usually reject, are all derived from immediate experience. 


ANALYSIS OF CONCEPT OF CAUSALITY. 


Perhaps one of the best ways of developing this thesis is to consider 
first the historical evolution of the notion of causality, which was invoked 
to account for movement or change in the physical universe. After the 
two exceedingly significant though somewhat naive conjectures of love 
and hatred, and of mind as causal principle in Nature, an analysis was 
made by Aristotle, as a consequence of which five explanatory concepts 
were considered necessary to show how any change or movement could 
come about. There were the two intrinsic principles constituting the 
thing to be changed. One of these—‘ matter "—was conceived to be an 
indeterminate though determinable principle, which endures throughout 
the process of change and is, before the alteration, specified in its particular 
mode of being by a determining principle—‘ form.’ Change means that 
a new form comes to actuate the matter ; and it involves also the negative 
concept of ‘ privation,’ since before the change the alterable thing is 
‘ deprived ’ of the mode of being it will exhibit after the alteration has taken 
place. Further than this, there are the two concepts of the agent which 
brings the change about, the ‘ efficient ’ cause extrinsic to the thing changed, 
and the reason why the agent acts, the end, goal or ‘ final ’ cause, towards 
the realisation of which the action is directed. Like the earlier attempts, 
this exceedingly acute analysis of causation, applied as it was to events in 
the external world, is an entirely anthropomorphic one. It reads into 
physical phenomena, in a conceptual manner, experiences which are 
wholly subjective. And this is at once apparent in all the examples that 
are brought forward to substantiate it. For instance, I, the agent or 
efficient cause, mould a thing, let us say wax, which is not now a sphere 
but a cube, into a spherical form, because I wish to have a sphere. Or 
I hew a formless block of marble into the shape of a statue. These are 
goal situations, in which an end must be intentionally set up before any 
action takes place ; something is consciously aimed at, or intended. 


Dr-ANTHROPOMORPHISATION OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 


Now, in the course of the development of scientific thought, first the 
concept of finality was jettisoned as not applicable to events in the physical 
universe : and certainly, though by analogy we can still apply that 
concept, derived from our own immediate experience of volitional activity, 
to the events of Nature, we are unable to discover it within the phenomena 
themselves by which Nature and its events are displayed to us. In those 
phenomena alone there is no indication of goal-seeking. The next con- 
cept to be dropped was that of efficiency, in the sense that one thing 
actually produces changes in others. And though, again by analogy, 
we can apply this concept also to the realities we believe to be sensorially 
presented to us, efficiency is in fact nowhere to be found in the phenomena. 
We are left, then, with sequences of antecedent and consequent, conceived 


: 


J.—_PSYCHOLOGY 179 


as equivalent in amount of energy. To be sure, temporal sequences, as 
well as spatial relations, are to be observed in the phenomena themselves, 
and even similarities that can be interpreted as equivalences ; but they do 
not display energy, any more than teleology or efficiency. Most men of 
science go no further than this in their rejection of the concepts originally 
invoked to account for physical causality. ‘That of ‘ privation,’ perhaps 
because too obvious, is seldom considered; while ‘ material’ and 
‘formal’ principles linger on under other names, such as spatial con- 
figuration or arrangement in stereochemistry, or in the physics of the 
atom. Other men of science, more mathematically and philosophically 
minded, substitute equations for equivalences, and causal indeterminism 
for rigid determinism. The history of the successive modifications of 
the theory of causality, thus briefly and inadequately outlined, is evidence 
of the de-anthropomorphisation of physical science. At every step, how- 
ever, in the refinement of the physical concept one fact emerges—namely, 
that at no point is it possible to dispense with concepts derived from 
experiences other than those actually to be explained. Aiming at ends, 
efficient action, energy, equations, are not found in the phenomena in 
question, any more than thinghood and unity which are necessarily 
involved in any and every conception of causality. What, then, are 
those other experiences in which we have the concrete facts from which 
we abstract the concepts that we apply to the phenomena ? 


ORIGIN OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: 'THINGHOOD, UNITY. 


Beginning with the last concepts named, the notions of ‘ thing,’ ‘ same 
thing,’ and of ‘ unity’ are derived, and can only be derived, from the 
immediate awareness we have of ourselves as unitary, existent and self- 
identical beings. When I see and handle any object, such as a book, 
I have visual and tactile impressions which I refer to an extra-mental 
thing, it matters not what it may be as a physical object. The visual 
impression, however, is not the tactile one ; and neither, nor both to- 
gether, is the book. Sensorially, I do not apprehend the book at all, but 
only ‘ properties’ of the book. Why, then, do I think that there is a 
book? I interpret the phenomena, analogically with my immediate 
awareness of myself as affected by states, and posit a physical book with 
physical properties to account for the phenomena. Only later do I refine 
my notions of physical ‘ properties,’ and conceive them, together with the 
book, not as like but as very unlike the original sensory data. The kind 
of mental process that occurs here is even more strikingly illustrated by 
another consideration. I put the book aside, and busy myself with 
some other matter. ‘Then I pick it up again, and see and handle it afresh. 
I believe it to be the same book. But on what grounds? On the grounds 
of the similarity of the previous and present phenomena. ‘To apprehend 
a relation of similarity between phenomena, however, is not to apprehend 
identity either between the phenomena? or between the physical book 

_ previously posited and again posited now. There is no sensorial way of 
apprehending or of establishing identities. What happens is that again 


2 Indeed, as mental occurrences they are absolutely different. 


180 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


I interpret the similar phenomena, on analogy with my immediate 
(non-sensorial) experience of self-identity, and posit a selfsame physical 
book enduring intime. Finally, my notion of unity also is derived from 
the same source of immédiate, non-sensorial experience of myself, and 
analogically applied to sensed-things and thought-things alike. 


ORIGIN OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: ENERGY. 


Passing next to the explanatory concept of energy, still in general use 
in the sciences of Nature, we find that this also is not to be discovered 
among the particular selected sensory phenomena with which they deal. 
This concept of physical energy, kinetic and potential, refers to a postu- 
lated persistent entity (‘ same thing ’), constant in amount, which may be 
transformed from one state to another, and is capable of doing work in 
bringing about physical movements. To what source in experience can 
we trace this notion? Clearly it is not sensorially apprehended in the 
physical phenomena observed. It might at first sight seem that it should 
be traced to kinzsthetic experience, or the sense of effort in bodily 
activity by which different kinds of work are done ; that we read this 
analogically into the physical phenomena, and project the result into a 
‘ physical’ world. But I do not think that this can be a true explanation, 
for the reason that, like the properties of the book just considered, the 
sense of effort, experienced in one case, is only similar to the sense of 
effort experienced in another. It can in no sensory way be shown that 
they are identical. Likewise, the body, in the same way as the book, in 
any successive pulses of sensorial apprehension, displays no more than a 
relation of likeness. Accordingly, I appeal again to my immediate non- 
sensorial experience of self-identity, in which I discover an active self 
energising in one way or another. It is true I do not find any perpetual 
and unbroken continuity of self-consciousness ; but, whenever I am 
conscious, notwithstanding all the changes that take place in the pheno- 
menal world, including those of my own body, I am conscious of the same 
unitary and self-identical I. Now, can we find the basis of the concept 
of energy here? I maintain that we can, in the sense that this self does 
actualise, or energise, in different ways, now perceiving, now judging, 
now resolving, now enjoying, and the like. And from this I infer, though 
the inference is by no means a remote one, that a self which does all 
these things can do any one of them, even if it is not actually doing that 
one at the moment. Here I find, in immediate living experience, the 
source from which the abstract concepts of energy and dynamism are 
drawn ; and these concepts, applied to the phenomena of motion or change, 
become those of kinetic and potential energy, and are projected upon an 
extra-mental world of things which we have conceived on analogy with 
ourselves. 


VALIDITY OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS. 
There are no doubt other lines of approach to the development of the 


thesis I am maintaining than the one I have taken ; but I have chosen this _ 


because it most readily allows me to stress the point I wish to make. If 
we begin with the principles and postulates of which the different sciences 


J.—PSYCHOLOGY 181 


make use in systematising and explaining their selected data, without a 
previous examination of their source of origin, just taking them for 
granted or as obvious, we are extremely likely to give them precedence 
over all others, and to suppose that they possess a greater validity than 
others, or even that they alone are valid. In this way, it would seem that 
commonly accepted principles of physical science, such as those of deter- 
minism or the conservation of energy, have come to be regarded not only 
as of supreme validity in physics, but even as strictly applicable also to 
psychological events, including those from which, by way of conceptual 
construction, they have been derived. J am here in no way trying to argue 
that these principles and postulates are not true. ‘There may be auniverse 
of physical objects, in which energy is conserved, and all events rigidly 
determined. What I am arguing is that these thought-things are in- 
ferential constructions from sensory phenomena, which are possible only 
because of experiences other than sensory and phenomenal, and that they 
must not be permitted to displace or contradict those very experiences in 
virtue of which they are built up. If we had worked backwards in the 
history of the evolution of the notion of causality, instead of forwards as 
we have done, we should have found that we were leaving the region of 
remote inference for that of proximate inference, and this again for that of 
experience pure and simple, until at last we reach the immediate experience 
of the self as actively engaged with its mental objects. We should have 
reached then the central core, so to speak, of all experience. And here 
we find, not merely a concept nor a phenomenon, but an actual thing, or 
active substance existing in itself, from which the notions of thinghood, 
substance and activity are abstracted ; we find here an efficient cause 
actually producing its effects, such as remembering a forgotten event or 
altering the character of phenomena by willing to do so, and from this the 
concept of efficiency is derived ; we find a substantial cause in multiform 
relations with sensed-things and thought-things, among which is the goal 
relation, whence the idea of finality or teleology arises. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF CONCEPT FORMATION. 


From such experiences as these, to which we apply relations likewise 
experienced, we derive the proximate inferences such as those of reten- 
tiveness or mental energy, to which allusion has already been made. 
From them also, as well as from our immediate experiences of the appre- 
hension of relations and the production of correlates, we infer the proxi- 
mate principles of noetic eduction. And, lastly, from them again, by 
further applications of relations to them, to phenomena, and to correlates 
already produced in our thought, we reach the far more remote inferences 
of which use is made in the sciences of Nature ; for here we refer our 
experiences to transexperiential, extra-mental causes. But the grandiose 
system of the natural sciences as a whole stands in virtue of these original 
experiences ; and it would crumble away into less than dust did they not 
guarantee it. 

It is for this reason, provided the meaning of the term be not limited 
to sensory experience only, but be extended to all and everything that may 


182 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


be experienced, that I maintain that psychology is the most empirical of all 
the sciences. 

Perhaps I may end with another quotation from the writings of the 
same distinguished physicist from whom I quoted as a text: “ We have 
found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have 
devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. 
At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the 
footprint. And lo! it is our own.’ 


SECTION K.—BOTANY. 


THE TYPES OF ENTRANCE MECHAN- 
ISMS OF THE TRAPS OF UTRICULARIA 
(INCLUDING POLYPOMPHOLYX) 

ADDRESS BY 
PROF. FRANCIS ERNEST LLOYD, M.A., D.Sc., 


PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 


Ir is an honour greatly appreciated atid wholly unexpected to have been 
selected to preside over your Section of Botany on this occasion, the 
Leicester Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science. To express my feelings in any plenary sense would take too 
much of your time, better spent on the subject before us. I therefore 
offer you my best thanks for your confidence. If the subject which I have 
chosen is one as full of interest as it is devoid of practical importance (so 
far as we can at present see), I may plead that I am following the example 
of your illustrious Hooker, whose address at the Belfast Meeting in 1874 
was in the same field and equally open to the criticism. 

This subject * has the purpose of setting before you the variety and, so 
far as I have compassed them, the minutiz of structure and behaviour of 
the door, or valve (as Darwin called it), and its contactual parts, par- 
ticularly the threshold, of some 75 species of the genus Utricularia. Such 
a number out of the whole of some 250 known species may be taken as 
sufficiently representative to allow us to obtain a fair picture of the lot. 
That I have been able to examine this fairly adequate series has been due 
to the helpfulness of correspondents in various parts of the world, 
acknowledgments of which I have already made elsewhere. It must, 
however, be added that the study of preserved material to any good purpose 
would not have been possible without the foundation work of studying 
such living material as has been available, including the following species : 
U. vulgaris, U. intermedia, U. gibba, U. emarginata, U. capensis, U. reni- 
formis, U. cornuta, U. longifolia, U. coerulea, etc. In this connection 
I should not fail to add that I have had the able co-operation of Mrs. E. R. 
Johnson, née Reed, of Perth, Western Australia, and of Mr. Allan 
McIntyre and Mr. A. V. Giblin, of Hobart, Tasmania, in carrying out 


1 The present paper may be considered a continuation of my presidential 
address, entitled ‘The Carnivorous Plants—A Review with Contributions,’ 
delivered at the recent meeting of the Royal Society of Canada, May 18~20, 
1933. A motion picture showing the action of Drosera and of Dion@a, exhibited 
te eae occasion, is shown as part of the motion pictures as completed especially 
or this. 


184 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


certain critical observations, which enable me to say with conviction 
things relating to Australasian species which otherwise had not been avail- 
able in the living form and whose peculiarities well-nigh defied analysis. 
I refer to U. dichotoma and related species, and to Polypompholyx. 

The species of Utricularia (I include Polypompholyx for the purpose of 
description from now on) fall into two major ecological groups: the 
submersed, floating forms, of which the familiar U. vulgaris and less 
familiar U. purpurea are good examples, and the so-called terrestrial forms, 
of which the frequently cultivated U. reniformis and U. cerulea may serve 
as illustrations. ‘This statement leads me to emphasise the fact that the 
structure of the bladders, or traps (as I prefer to call them), is far more 
uniform, almost to monotony, within the submersed forms, while the 
contrary is true of the terrestrial. ‘That this should be the case seems 
natural, as the environment of the submersed kinds is more uniform. 
But that the diversity of the remainder should be due to the lack of 
uniformity of environment is not so clear, since the lack is, I imagine, more 
apparent than real. ‘The terrestrial species are all confined to a very wet 
substratum, and grow usually as much submersed as the floating forms ; 
and the species which appear to be the least limited in their need of water 
are those which, like U. reniformis, U. longifolia, etc., grow in wet moss as 
epiphytes, etc., and in spite of this are most like the submersed U. vulgaris 
or U. gibba. Whatever the explanation, it is my present purpose rather 
to display the variety of the traps and to attempt to explain their workings. 

In order to approach immediately to this purpose I shall clear the way 
by summarising those properties which are common to all. 

1. Nature of Action—The trap is a snap-action mechanism—that is, it 
acts with extreme suddenness, much to the surprise of Darwin when he 
examined U. vulgaris.2, So swift is it that the whole action falls within 
the limits of ;'; second, and by means of superspeed cinephotomicro- 
graphy, taking 160 pictures a second, I have found that the opening 
phase of the door falls within ;4, second, while the closing phase is 
completed in four pictures, or #7, second. All the species which I 
have examined act similarly. During this brief moment the side walls 
of the trap spring out, the shape of the periphery as seen in lateral view 
alters correspondingly, the door opens fully and closes, falling into a 
semi-relaxed position, during which a column of water, carrying with 
it any luckless animals if small enough, rushes into the interior of 
the trap. The closing movement of the door shuts off the water 
before the walls have completely relaxed, so that, on closure being 
completed, there remains still some degree of ‘ negative’ pressure. As 
Merl (1922) showed, complete relaxation may be procured experimentally, 
either by puncturing a wall of the trap or by holding the door open for 
a moment, thus throwing it out of action. I have shown also that cutting 
the velum has the same result. 

2 The action of the trap in U. vulgaris, U. gibba and U. purpurea is demon- 
strated by means of motion pictures. By means of animated diagrams the 
particulars of behaviour of the door are shown for U. gibba, U. vulgaris, U. cornuta 
and U. c@yulea. The rate of movement of the door of U. vulgaris is demon- 


strated with superspeed motion picture taken at the rate of 160 frames per 
second. The question of irritability has been dealt with by me elsewhere (1932). 


K.—BOTANY 185 


2. Resetting —After discharge the trap resets itself after a period of 
from 15 to 30 minutes or more, in U. vulgaris, or as long as 2 hours, more 
or less, in U. purpurea. In this operation water leaves the interior of the 
trap by diffusion through the walls, until an equilibrium has been reached 
and the walls have become concave so much as to press tightly on each 
other (in U. purpurea), or at least to be closely approximated (U. vulgaris, 
U. gibba, U. cornuta). In other words, the trap acts as a cell when sur- 
rounded by a slightly hypertonic solution of a sugar or salt if harmless ; 
but in the case of the trap this condition is not necessary, though with 
sufficiently high solutions of sugar, etc., within, the trap will take up 
water rather than lose it. Czaja (1924) has studied this aspect of the 
physiology of the trap, and tells us that the walls are semi-permeable, 
allowing water to pass but not solutes, but evidently this is not the whole 
explanation. For our present purpose we need not discuss this problem, 
merely recognising the fact that water passes out from the interior of the 
trap, thus producing a reduced pressure within. As a result, the outer 
water presses equally everywhere—on walls and door alike. When, 
therefore, the door is shifted out of its position of equal resistance, the 
water pressing thereon pushes the door in. Thus is furnished a part of 
the energy required to actuate the trap. ‘The remainder (an amount not 
measurable, or at least not yet measured) is supplied by the tensions of 
the (living) walls themselves, which, with an even water pressure within 
and without, still always take on an extreme convexity, when the trap can 
be said to be completely relaxed. From this condition a sound, undamaged 
trap will reset itself in a period considerably longer than that required 
after normal actuation when it is only partially relaxed. 

The energy required for the actuation of the trap is derived from the 
water pressure plus the outward spring of the walls. From now on, this 
will be understood and no further reference made to it. 

3. Watertightness—Since the above is always true, it must also be that 
the door is watertight.2 I have shown (1929) that this watertightness is 
owing to the presence of a membrane, the velum (Figs. 21-25), which 
arises as a cuticular development from the pavement epithelium of the 
threshold, though in certain species other regions contribute to produce 
an accessory velum (Fig. 15), as we shall see. All the living species 
examined conform to these statements. How the door is engaged when 
the trap is in unstable equilibrium is a particular question, along with 
others, as to the extent and proportions of the threshold, origin and 
extent of the velum, and the method of actuation. These points, there- 
fore, are to be considered specifically in what follows. There is, however, 
one underlying fact which may be mentioned at once in this connection 
—namely, that the free edge of the door is always longer than the threshold 
at its inner angles (Fig. 23). The latter can be readily understood when 
the development of the trap is considered and, as Meierhofer (1920) has 
cleared this up, it is not necessary to further amplify. It follows that the 
door edge cannot lie smoothly along the surface of the threshold when 


* When the adjective ‘ watertight ’ is used, I imagine that it must not be taken 
too literally. As long as the inleakage is at a lower rate than the outward 
diffusion through the walls, the trap will work. 


186 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


it is parallel with a component thereof; or, conversely, if it does lie 
smoothly, it is always oblique to the threshold. If, as in the former case, 
the edge is parallel to the threshold, there must be a region where, when 
the door is opened, it buckles. In the normal action of the door the point 
of buckling, which is necessary to its opening at all, is structurally pre- 
determined as to its position. How in particular this is accomplished 
will further appear. 

4. Histology of the Door—The tissues of the door are of two kinds 
(always of two courses of cells), hinge and middle piece. The former 
occupies a zone around the sides of the door, the latter a more or less 
extensive area at the middle of the lower edge and extending upward from 
this to some distance. Hinge tissue has a course of deep cells backed by 
a thin course (Figs. 3-8). It is extremely flexible, and can bend sharply 
through an arc of 180 degrees without damage. ‘This results, in large 
part at least, from the character of the deep cells, whose periclinal walls, 
inner and outer, are in the form of bellows. The anticlinal walls of both 
courses are reinforced by numerous cellulose props which prevent collapse 
on bending (Lloyd, 1932). In the middle piece the two courses of cells 
are of equal thickness, and while flexible the tissue has a certain rigid- 
ity and resists flexure in both directions equally. ‘The walls are very richly 
provided with cellulose props. The function of the hinge is to keep the 
door flexed outwardly as far as possible. If this outward stress is met by 
the threshold, the effect of the hinge is to exert a thrust of the middle 
piece against the resisting surface (cornuta type). Aside from the above, 
each type of trap requires special treatment. 

5. Trichomes.—In all species there are glandular trichomes on both the 
outer and inner surfaces of the trap. Those on the outer surface are 
usually sessile, of three cells (basal, mid- and capital cell—the last often 
doubled), the pattern of structure of all the glandular cells wherever 
occurring. These are found scattered over the whole plant surface, and 
are not peculiar to the traps, on whose interior surfaces occur trichomes 
of similar basic structure, but the outer two to four cells forming the 
capital are elongated or, if with a single-celled capital, there is a single 
sausage-shaped terminal or capital cell. Some species, therefore, have 
quadrifid and bifid trichomes (as Darwin called them) devoid of cuticle, 
the latter in the vicinity of the threshold ; or bifid and single trichomes, 
correspondingly placed. They may be few or very numerous, e.g. in 
U. longiciliata but six; in U. Jateriflora, sixteen; in U. vulgaris, 
hundreds. The form is very characteristic, but familiar to anyone who 
has only cursorily examined the interior surface of the trap of any species. 

The distribution of these trichomes is various. There is always 
a segregation of single and bifid, or only bifid trichomes: (a) on the 
inner surface of the threshold bolster, (b) on the surface above the inner 
margin of the threshold, and (c) on the general surface of the interior, 
which may be very thickly studded everywhere, or may be many fewer 
and placed in rather definite positions, e.g. they are frequently absent 
from the flanks and confined to the more peripheral, especially ventral 
region, as viewed laterally. What these differences may mean is obscure ; 
I am inclined to regard such as of no importance whatever. 


K.—BOTANY 187 


6. Appendages.—The trap is usually provided with appendages, though 
there are a few exceptions, e.g. U. cornuta (Fig. 1), U. nana. In the 
submersed, floating, or semi-terrestrial forms resembling U. vulgaris, 
there are two antennz which are more cr less fringed with long bristles, 
and similar bristles radiate from the sides and top edge of the entrance, 
but these may be almost entirely absent. Or, instead of antennz, there 
may be two (U. Jateriflora, Fig. 13) to about seventeen (U. Kirkit) rows of 
bristling trichomes, forming a funnel-shaped lead to the entrance, which 
may also be provided with a proboscis projecting from the upper 
(U. albina) or from the lower lip of the entrance (U. longiciliata) ; or the 
latter may occur in the absence of any other appendages (U. elephas). 
On the surface of it, these appendages have been interpreted as guides to 
the entrance, but in many instances it is difficult to regard them as of 
any importance whatever. For our present purpose these may be dis- 
regarded, except as they may have some bearing on the character of the 
entrance. 

In order to avoid confusion arising out of the great mass of material, 
I shall choose types of various groups for special consideration. 


Tue Type U. cornuta (Figs. 1-8). 


I begin with U. cornuta because it is the simplest in structure, though 
not by this token a primitive form. Schimper published in 1882 a descrip- 
tion which was wrong in most particulars, so far as the structure of the 
door and threshold are concerned. My own account (1931), brief and 
very incomplete as it was, was offered before I had had the advantage of 
studying living material, and it is wrong in regarding the relaxed position 
of the door in the set position. I can now make amends for my 
inaccuracies. 

The trap in lateral view is rounded with a protruding beak beneath 
which is the entrance, and a stalk. ‘The large traps are about 1 mm. in 
diameter (Fig. 1). Viewed on edge, the sides are seen to be concave 
when the trap is in the set condition, and convex after actuation. Owing 
to the approximation of the stalk and beak, an edge view, showing the stalk, 
does not display the entrance proper, but this I have shown in another 
figure (Fig. 2). In this we see that the entrance is bounded by a lower 
lip in the form of an inverted arch, not quite circular. Above the edge of 
the lip we see some irregular cells projecting radially. ‘These are the 
forward courses of cells of the pavement epithelium. Hanging down- 
ward from the beak and extending inward is the door. This figure is 
a thick section, beginning at f, and extending as far back as, say, d, Fig. 3. 
By consulting this latter figure one sees that the arched entrance leads to 
a curved platform (approximately semi-cylindrical) lined with the pave- 
ment epithelium, made up of glandular cells of elongate form, being the 
capital cells of a closely packed tissue of glandular trichomes. Schimper 
recognised these trichomes as being of structure similar to the glands of 
the outer surface, as also did Goebel, Hovelacque and others for other 
Species. But, hitherto, students have supposed that the pavement 
epithelium is uniform in structure, which indeed, when regarded super- 
ficially, it seems to be. If we dissect away the adjacent parts, so_as to 


188 


Se 
SI 


SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


ALS 


SS) 


rO 


Og 


K.—BOTANY 189 


PLATE I—REFERENCES. 


‘Fics. 1-8. Utricularia cornuta. Side and front view of the trap. ‘The 
broken lines indicate the set and relaxed conditions. 


Fic. 2. Front view of the entrance. 


Fic. 3. Sagittal section of the entrance showing the relations of door and 
threshold. d,, door in the set position ; d,, door in the open position ; 
d,, door in the normally relaxed position; d,, door when fully 
relaxed ; d.h., door hinge ; d.t., downward thrust of the lateral hinge ; 
o.t., direction of thrust of the door exerted by the overhang ; and the 
resultant thrust (c) when the trap is set. On the right the lure gland. 


Fic. 4. View of the door as from beneath. m.p., middle piece; /.A., 
lateral hinge ; w.h., upper hinge. Cells in lighter outline are those of 
the inner course. m.r.d.e., middle reach of the door edge ; J.r., lateral 
reaches. 


Fic. 5. Threshold. 7.z., inner zone ; m.z., middle zone ; 0.2. (v.), outer 
zone which bears the velum ; d.h., door hinge ; g., gland which may 
act as a lure. 


Fic. 6. Transverse section of door and adjacent structures: (1) in 
the set position; (2) relaxed after actuation. This section is 
approximately one through arrow e, Fig. 3. 


Fic. 7. Transverse section (arrow d, Fig. 3) of the door through the 
upper region of the middle piece. The broken lines indicate position 
taken when the door is opening. 


Fic. 8. Transverse section of the door near the free edge (arrow c, 
Fig. 3). ¢., the heavy line indicates the inner edge of the threshold ; 
d., dotted line indicates the lower surface of the door edge. The two 
oblique arrows indicate the direction of thrust of the lateral hinges on 
the middle piece (m.p.). When the door is opened the middle piece 
bends along the sagittal line. 


190 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


free the threshold, and carefully spread it (which unavoidably tears it, 
spreading the cells a little, but not enough to disturb our observations), 
We may recognise three transverse zones, which I designate the outer 
(o.z.), middle (m.z.) and inner (7.z.) zones, delimited in Fig. 5. These 
zones can be identified with those in Fig. 3, where the threshold is cut 
sagittally. ‘The component cells having the same fundamental structure 
throughout, we find that those of the outer zone are loosely packed and 
that their cuticles are raised up to form a great mass of loose membranes, 
the velum, which, when the door is closed and the trap set, renders the 
door watertight. ‘The middle zone cells, on the other hand, are smaller 
and tightly packed (their outlines, therefore, angular), and their exposed 
faces are flat. ‘This zone is narrowest at the middle and spreads out fan- 
wise toward the lateral limits of the zone, which furnishes a smooth, firm 
surface against which the face and edge of the door can press when the 
trap is set. The inner zone is narrow and lunate, composed of loosely 
packed cells, with more or less irregular contour. Their general surface 
is slightly uptilted toward the outside of the trap. ‘The back edge of the 
threshold is in the form of a roll of tissue, tapering toward the ends. 
I once thought that this furnished a resistant face against which the door 
edge rests, but I was mistaken (1931). This point was finally settled by 
photographing the door and threshold through the wall of the trap while in 
the living, set condition—optically a rather difficult task. 

The door extends from the end of the beak inwardly, is nearly twice as 
long as broad, and contracted at one point (Fig. 4). This point coincides 
approximately with the forward end of the threshold, along the lateral 
margins of which the sides of the door are attached to the wall (d.h., 
Fig. 3). ‘The extreme ends of the free door edge coincide with the 
inner angles of the threshold, while its edge coincides, when the trap is set, 
with the inner border of the middle zone of the threshold. The histology 
of the door, which is composed of two cell courses, is very important if we 
are to understand its effectiveness. The mapping shown in Fig. 4 
indicates four regions. The outer two-thirds, articulating with the wall 
of the trap in the beak, is of cells which have their longer axes transverse 
in the outer course and longitudinal in the inner. All these cells have 
their radial walls strengthened by cellulose props, but these are much 
more numerous and larger in the walls of the inner course of cells. Both 
anticlinal walls of these latter are folded, bellows-like. ‘The inner course, 
as thus constituted, is capable of much expansion and compression. 
Their own proper tendency is to expand, so that a freed door bends 
sharply outwardly. They can bend inwardly in response to pressure on 
the door, however, so that at once they keep the door pressed on the 
threshold, but can be bent inwardly when the door is opened by the 
pressure of water, only to spring the door back into position when that 
pressure is released. Among the outer course cells there is a number of 
gland cells, with oval capitals, which may act as a lure (Figs. 3, 4, 6), 
together with the special oval gland just below the lip of the entrance 
(Fig. 2). The side walls of the door are constituted quite as the forward 
region above described. ‘They (Fig. 4, /.4.) press firmly in lying in con- 
tact with the sides of the threshold (m.z., Fig. 5) and exert a downward 


K.—BOTANY IQI 


thrust on the middle piece of the door (m.z., Fig. 8), which has quite 
a different structure, in that the two courses are of equal depth, the cells 
small and very densely studded with cellulose props, which appear, in the 
face view of the cells, as more or less regular transverse bands. These 
have the same function as elsewhere, but here are more numerous, because 
of the severe flexing which the middle piece is subjected to during initial 
opening of the door. ‘The properties of the middle piece are stiffness 
and capacity of flexure in either sense. When the door is closed, the 
middle piece is held firmly against the middle reach of the middle zone of 
the threshold (/.4., Fig. 5) by the downwardly thrusting lateral hinges 
Fig. 8). 

in sddition to the door proper, the beak wall cells also take part in the 
flexures of the door, and further exert a longitudinal thrust on the door, 
so that this is pushed backward and downward. The thrust of the door 
edge is then in the direction indicated by arrow c, Fig. 3, and is down- 
ward against the threshold middle zone. The thrust exerted by the beak 
is referable to the total flexures of the trap when exhausted ; when the 
trap has been sprung and is relaxed, the beak is not bent downward so 
sharply (d;, Fig. 3). 

By making photographic silhouettes of traps in the set, relaxed, and 
totally relaxed conditions, the difference in shape of the curvatures can 
be recorded. It has thus been possible to record the position of the door 
under these conditions. In the set condition the door, as betrayed by 
the longitudinal aspect, is bowed upward, and the transverse curvature at 
e and f, Fig. 3, will be flatter (Fig. 6). This has the effect of a more 
directly downward thrust of the door edge. After actuation the sil- 
houette of the door is as shown by the broken line d;, Fig. 3 ; the beak 
being less bent and the thrust due to the beak being eliminated. If total 
relaxation is obtained (as by puncturing the wall of the trap), the door 
takes the position d,—the dot-and-dash line in Fig. 3. These contours 
of relaxation serve to emphasise the significance of the curvatures seen in 
the set condition, when the lateral areas (/.h., Fig. 4) clamp the middle 
piece firmly on the threshold (Fig. 8), and the upper region of the door is 
under transverse tension, bowing the door longitudinally. The chink 
between the door and threshold is now filled with the membranes of the 
velum, making the whole watertight. 

Actuation is procured experimentally by slight pressure of a needle 
point (the operation must be without damage to the tissues) on the surface 
of the door in the region e-f, Fig. 3. Sometimes a very light touch will 
do the trick, but I get the impression that the mechanism is not so sensitive 
as that of U. purpurea or U. vulgaris. The smallness of the trap makes 
experimentation difficult. What happens in nature can only be inferred. 
It is to be noticed that there is a total lack of appendages supposed to act 
as guides and lures, the only equivalent being the gland below the 
‘entrance and the glandular trichomes on the door surface, aggregated 
chiefly in the region of actuation. But it is not difficult to make the 
inference that a small animal (Schimper mentions rotifers, worms and 


“ For a full discussion of the histology of the door, see my paper of 1932 in the 
Canadian Journal of Research. 


192 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


crustaceans, and I have seen the same or similar forms), crawling about 
the entrance, could enter far enough to touch and press inwardly, slightly 
denting the surface of the door in that region. This would upset the 
unstable equilibrium and the pressure of water would take advantage of 
the initial flexure, which would then travel toward the door edge at the 
middle of the middle piece (Fig. 7). ‘This, in turn, would nullify the 
lateral thrusts of the sides of the door, and the water pressure would, 
folding up the sides, open the door (Fig. 3). ‘To be noticed is the fact 
that the structure of the door in the region of actuation is such that it 
would give readily to local pressure, though the distributed water pressure 
would be resisted (Fig. 6). 

In summarising the case before us, we note that the threshold is broad 
(ratio of breadth to length, 2: 1 approximately) ; that the door is long 
and narrow and has no special tripping mechanism, an initial dent being 
sufficient to upset the unstable equilibrium ; and that the velum is very 
broad. The door is held in tight application to the threshold by the 
thick lateral regions, these exerting a downward thrust on the middle 
piece, which can bend longitudinally. ‘The end of the beak also con- 
tributes to the door mechanism, and has inner course cells which are 
strengthened by props. Although simple in appearance, the door 
mechanism is elaborately endowed with suitable curvatures and cellular 
structures which make its behaviour possible. It is a snap-action 
mechanism, as determined by much careful observation. 

U. cornuta is a New World type, and the few species have the identical 
trap structure. A species (my No. 43) from the Aripo Savannah, Trini- 
dad, collected in fluid by Professor R. B. Thomson in 1931, with spatulate 
leaves (thereby distinguishing it from U. cornuta with linear leaves), and 
U. juncea (Vahl) Barnh., collected by De la Cruz, 1543, in British Guiana 
(my No. 108) and by Britton and Britton (29) in Porto Rico (my No. 110), 
are the only other species I know. Of U. juncea I have seen only 
herbarium material. 


Tue Type U. CAPENSIS (Fig. 20). 


I choose for the next type U. capensis, which I had the opportunity 
to study in the living condition on the occasion of the meeting of the 
British Association at Cape Town in 1929. For the use of the laboratory 
and facilities J am indebted to Miss E. L. Stephens, who has continued 
to help me in various ways. ‘The reason for the choice of this type is 
the similarity in the general proportions and curvatures of the mechanism 
we are considering to those of U. cornuta, though it differs in having no 
beak, in the sense we have used the term for that species, nor is the 
posture of the door quite the same. 

The trap (1 mm. long) has a thick, and in front, surrounding the 
entrance, massive structure. It is one with a considerable number of 
species in which the front is provided with a number of radiating rows 
of long trichomes, graduated in size, forming guides to the entrance, 
as we may suppose. These trichomes are glandular and have the typical 
three-celled structure, the basal cell being much enlarged and often sub- 
divided. The number and arrangement are such as to lend to the trap 


K.—BOTANY 193 


a rather horrific appearance. Above the entrance the massive wall 
protrudes as an overhang, and from the under side of this the door rises 
abruptly and not, as in U. cornuta, as an extension of the wall; and we 
have no reason for supposing that the overhang in U. capensis contributes 
to the action of the door, as in U. cornuta, in raising the angular divergence 
with the threshold, contributing to the thrust of the door edge. To 
compensate for this the inner zone region of the threshold has an upward 
slope, thus offering a resistant surface of sufficient angle to afford a 
resting-place for the door edge, while in the door itself there is a set 
transverse bend above the middle piece. 

The door, viewed as a flat object, has a rounded upper region, which 
is, as seen in the longitudinal sagittal section, relatively thin, with a much 
thinner outer course of cells than inner in its upper half and the reverse 
in its lower half. This is correlated with the set transverse flexure, the 
effect of which is to tilt the lower half of the door (the middle piece) with 
respect to the threshold, enlarging the angle of divergence. The lower 
region is differentiated into a large middle piece, whose cell courses are 
of nearly equal thickness, with thicker lateral regions having the same 
structure as the upper hinge region, i.e. thin outer course and thick inner 
course cells. As in U. cornuta, the lateral regions exert a thrust on the 
middle piece. Other features peculiar to U. capensis are, first, a tuft 
of rather large, clavate glands arising from the door upper region and, 
second, arising from the middle point of the upper limit of the middle 
piece, a single, curiously shaped, glandular trichome, which I have called 
the kriss trichome, as well describing the shape of the terminal cell. 
Its stalk (basal cell) is curved gracefully backward ; the mid-cell is short 
and oblique, holding the terminal cell in a backward-reaching position 
between the middle piece and the threshold. If this structure has any 
function, we do not know what it is. The absence of cuticle from the 
terminal cell suggests that, in common with the glandular trichomes, 
mucilage is excreted, but this does not throw light on the peculiar form, 
nor does it help us to know that in another species, U. puberula (New 
World), the door and general structure are similar in every detail but the 
absence of the kriss trichome, there being substituted therefor a pair of 
large, sessile, globular gland (capital) cells. Another species (Old World), 
U. Welwitschit, has, like U. capensis, a kriss cell, but it is more sharply 
curved, scimitar fashion. 

The actuation of the trap seems to be initiated by the contact of the prey 
with the short trichomes on the upper convex portion of the door surface. 
As in U. cornuta, the initial flexure thus caused is transmitted longi- 
tudinally to the middle piece, which, flexing along its midline, releases 
itself from the thrust of the lateral hinges and so the door opens before 
the moving water column. 

Almost identical in structure, as far as the entrance mechanism is 
concerned, is a group of species, the members of which have an elaborate 
guide complex; but here the radiating rows of glandular trichomes 
arise from a funnel-form elaboration of the front of the trap, while the 
upper sector of this funnel is drawn out into a long rostrum, as first 
described by Goebel (1891). The species, as far as known to me, are 

H 


194 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


U. albina, U. nivea, U. rosea and U. Warburgit, the last two having been 
described in general terms by Goebel. Three other collections, sent 
me by Mr. N. D. Simpson (his Nos. 9579, 9857, 9871) from Ceylon, 
though possibly differing specifically or varietally, have the same general 
structure. They are all Indian (with Ceylon) and found nowhere else, 
so far as known. In all these the glandular armature of the door is as 
in U. capensis, except for the absence of the kriss or other similarly placed 
trichome. The mechanics of the door and threshold are doubtless the 
same. 

Another small group of species (only two, so far as known) of minute 
plants with the habit of U. capensis harmonises with the above in regard 
to the entrance structures. The one is a Tasmanian, U. Jateriflora, 
briefly and inadequately described by Kamienski, the other a Ceylonese 
species (Figs. 13, 14), collected by Mr. N. D. Simpson (9482) and sent 
to me (my No. 131). It seems to be undescribed. My Jateriflora 
material has two derivations : one lot transmitted by Dr. Merl, but col- 
lected long ago by Rodway in Tasmania (my No. 85); the other, a well- 
preserved lot from Mr. Allan McIntyre, of Hobart (my No. 157). 

U. lateriflora has a very small trap (including the proboscis, 0-65 mm. 
long—a large one) with a huge conical downward-turned proboscis and 
with two short rows of glandular trichomes extending outward and 
obliquely downward from the lower angles of the entrance, increasing 
in size, the smallest at the entrance. They thus form two oblique shelves 
leading to the entrance, which is blocked in front by the proboscis. The 
capital cells of these trichomes are globose. ‘The door is quite like that 
of cornuta, but the armature of sessile glands is aggregated into a patch 
on the convex surface of the upper part. The articulation of the door 
with the wall is, however, like that in U. capensis. The external glands 
are sessile globose. 

The Ceylon plant (Figs. 13, 14) has a trap which, at a casual glance, 
is quite similar to the foregoing. It has, however, a second pair of rows 
of protuberances on each side and above the level of the entrance opening, 
but these are not glandular (Fig. 13). The basal cells of the other rows 
of trichomes are double-celled. The proboscis is smaller and may 
project straight forward or be more or less bent downward—in this 
there is no constancy. The threshold is composed of fewer and rela- 
tively larger cells, but is clearly zonate, the outer, middle and inner zone 
being readily recognisable. The glands of the outer surface have elongated 
capital cells. 

On the interior surface of the trap there are single, bifid and quadrifid 
absorbing trichomes, but these are very few in number and relatively 
large. In U. Jateriflora there are fourteen bifids in five rows on the 
inner flank of the threshold; six quadrifids above the inner entrance, 
three on each side; and two to six quadrifids in the interior, making 
about twenty-six in all. 


THe Type U. c@RuLea (Figs. 9, 11, 12). 


The mechanical principles prevailing in all the foregoing prevail also 
in a number of species, of which U. caerulea may be taken as a type. 


K.—BOTANY 195 


Because of this, my raising U. caerulea to separate dignity has a 
secondary purpose, namely, to point out that the general form of the 
trap assimilates it to the trap of the type under which U. reniformis, 
U. vulgaris, etc., may be subsumed. A mere examination of the form 
of the trap would readily lead one to suppose that U. cerulea and U. 
reniformis are alike. ‘The former has single and bifid absorbing trichomes, 
the latter quadrifid. 

The trap in U. cewrulea is rounded in lateral view, and the slightly 
protruding curved overhang is provided with two rather long, curved 
antennz. ‘The threshold is broad and its inner region is uptilted, in 
some species in a marked degree. In sagittal section, the curvatures 
of the threshold are singularly graceful. ‘The door, also as seen in sagittal 
section, curves downward and backward, the edge resting on the middle 
zone of the threshold, in front of the uptilted inner zone. The upper 
outer surface of the door is beset with a good number of clavate trichomes, 
somewhat longer above than below, and differing only slightly in form 
from those of U. capensis, etc., and doubtless serving the same function— 
probably contributing to the attraction of prey or facilitating the actuation 
of the trap, which, without doubt, consists in causing an initial dent in 
the upper region of the door, the pressure of water taking advantage of 
the failure of resistance thus started. In structure, the upper part of 
the door has a thin outer course and a thick inner course of cells, the same 
structure extending round the sides as far as the door edge. This is 
the outer hinge area. The middle piece is thicker and is of cell courses 
of equal thickness, with thick outer walls. This is compressed downward 
on the threshold by the lateral hinge areas, as in U. cornuta. 

Plants with traps of this type seem to be confined to the Old World. 
They range from very small delicate plants to rather large ones—e.g. 
U. equiseticaulis Blatter and McCann has leaves up to 9 cm. long; U. 
prehensilis has long twining scapes bearing its yellow flowers. They are 
all ‘ terrestrial,’ the typical habitat being wet, often muddy, places, the 
plants forming dense green mats. The leaves scarcely rise above the 
surface ; when large they lie on the mud, the under surface of the leaves 
bearing traps, often plugged full of the fine sediment and rendered 
incapable of action. 

Of the species fitting the type U. cwrulea, there are known to me 
U. Gibbsie, U. albo-cerulea, U. affinis, U. uliginosa, U. bifida and U. 
reticulata, several Ceylonese species only tentatively named (Simpson 
9484, 9487, 9492, 9517, 9580, 9581, 9856, 9971, 9972) kindly sent 
me by Mr. Simpson. I am further indebted to Mr. R. E. Holttum, 
Mr. 'T. Ekambaram, and Mr. E, Blatter for Malayan and Indian collections. 
The structure of the door is much as in U. cornuta, being as follows: 
the upper half and lateral hinges are composed of a thin outer and 
thicker inner course of cells, the whole effecting outward bending but 
capable of inward swing ; and, surrounded by the lateral areas, is the 
middle piece, appearing as the lower half of the door in sagittal section. 
It is thicker and more rigid and is of cell courses of equal thickness and 
with thick outer walls (cf. Figs. 6-8). 

The pressures inherent in the door itself become apparent when a 


196 


SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


K —BOTANY 197 


PLATE JI—REFERENCES. 


Fic. 9. Sagittal section of U. cerulea. 
Fic. 10. Sagittal section of U. globulariefolia. 


Fic. 11. Sagittal optical section of an entire trap of U. cerulea showing 
the posture of the door and the profile of the entire trap when in the 
set condition (1), and after actuation (2). Inset: longitudinal view 
(diagrammatic) to show the form of the trap as thus seen before (1) 
and after actuation (2). 


Fic. 12. The posture of the door with respect to the threshold in the 
U. vulgaris type (above), and in the U. cornuta type (below). p.d., 
the plane of the door axis; p.t., the plane of the threshold axis. 
(Compare Figs. 5 and 23 for a better idea of the proportions of the 
threshold, narrow in the vulgaris type, broad in the cornuta type.) 


Fics. 13 AND 14. An unnamed species from Ceylon, closely allied to 


U. lateriflora. Fig. 13, the entire trap; Fig. 14, the same in sagittal 
section. 


198 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


trap is completely relaxed. Then the door becomes quite convex, the 
lower part of the door resting on the threshold for a long distance (Fig. rr). 
In the set condition, the posture is reversed. The door, as viewed 
laterally, becomes distinctly concave, and only a relatively narrow strip 
along the door edge rests on the middle zone of the threshold, the edge 
abutting on the raised-up inner zone. It will be seen that this exactly 
parallels the case of U. cornuta. The profile of the trap as a whole shows 
similar changes, from which it is seen (Fig. 11) that the overhang above 
the entrance shares in the flexures which bring the door into the position 
of efficiency in the set condition. These observations rest on a careful 
examination of living material, using the same technique as in the case 
of other species, photographing the living trap before and after actuation, 
and thus obtaining profiles of the door and neighbouring parts. 

As compared with U. vulgaris, U. ceerulea is not so easily actuated, 
nor does it engulf air with the same readiness (Fig. 12). The entrance 
is narrow and the water film does not enter so readily, so that the trap 
may be exposed to air a long time before anything happens, if at all. 
While I have seen traps with air in them, I have not succeeded in seeing 
the spontaneous act. 


Tue Type U. MONANTHOS. 


The species of this type, which has never been seen elsewhere (volubzits, 
Menziesii, dichotoma, monanthos, violacea and Hookeri are known to me), 
are all Australasian. I am indebted to my genial correspondents, Mrs. 
Eileen R. Johnson, Mr. Allan McIntyre and Mr. A. V. Giblin, for excellent 
material. 

In form, the trap is peculiar and very distinctive, either almost circular 
in lateral view, or oval; but the distinction arises in the combination 
of form with two pairs of wing-like appendages, one pair running from 
the stalk to the lower angles of the entrance, the other on the shoulders 
of the trap leading to the upper angles of the entrance. Overhanging 
the entrance is a proboscis, downwardly curved over the front of the 
entrance. Specific differences are to be found in the greater or less 
amount of laciniation of the wings, etc. 

The approach to the entrance has, below it, a large patch of globose 
glandular trichomes, to act presumably as a lure. The entrance opening 
is circular, or nearly so, and is guarded by a thick, circular velum, some- 
what less ample above, arising from sessile trichomes lining the inner 
surface of the wall of the approach to the threshold proper. This circular 
velum is altogether peculiar to this group of species. The upper part of 
the door is so placed that it rests in contact with the circular velum,? its 
patch of low glands being exposed at the opening. The threshold is 
very deep and bends downward toward its inner border ; there is here no 
upturned surface to resist the thrust of the door edge. Indeed, the inner 
end of the door bends down over the ridge of the threshold. From inner 
angle to inner angle of the threshold the door, therefore, has a sharp 
permanent downward bend, the effect of which is to increase resistance 


5 I have, of course, not seen living material. It would take adequate study 
to be certain of the exact door posture in the living trap. 


K.—BOTANY 199 


to longitudinal flexure of the door upon actuation. The upper part of 
the door is wider than the lower part, forming a large convex surface, 
easily flexed by contact through the circular port formed by the velum. 
When this has been caused by the movement of some animal, the pressure 
of water continues the flexure till it reaches the transverse bend near the 
door edge. The sudden reversal of this bend results, in my opinion, in 
the snap action, which has been observed, following my suggestions, by 
Mrs. Johnson. She assures me that such snap action occurs, the changes 
in contour of the lateral walls and the engulfing of air having been observed 
by her, as also by Mr. McIntyre. 

The door is peculiar in shape in having an extensive upper region, 
wider than in the lower region, and thin. Near its attachment to the wall 
of the trap, and where the maximum bending occurs when the door 
opens, the outer course of cells is thin. Elsewhere the two courses are 
approximately equal in thickness, except in the lateral reaches of the 
lower region, where these areas exert downward thrust on the middle 
piece. ‘The transverse curvature of the door in this region is not as sharp 
as in such forms as U. capensis, but this is compensated for by the trans- 
verse flexure of the door in bending down over the back part of the 
threshold. In order to understand how important this flexure is we must 
appreciate that it is not a straight flexure, as a bend in a piece of flat paper, 
but a curved one, like the bend between the rim and crown of a bowler 
hat. The overcoming of the thrusts afforded by this arrangement is the 
peculiar feature of the action of this type of door. The effectiveness of 
the watertightness in view of the extensive outwardly bowed upper region 
of the door is procured by the extensive velum, supplemented by the 
adjunctive or secondary velum arising from the trichomes on all sides of 
the entrance in front of the threshold. The whole arrangement must be 
of a high degree of efficiency, and the in-pull of water great, as the sides of 
the trap are thicker than elsewhere, whereas in the other types the walls 
are of equal thickness on the flanks, with the exception of Polypompholyx, 
as we shall shortly see. 

The actuation of this trap appears to be of the same manner as the 
previous forms described—namely, pressure on a thinner area of the 
door, occupied by a group of sessile glands on the surface and so placed 
as to fall nicely within the hole formed by the ring-shaped velum. This 
rather definitely points to the function of the sessile trichomes on the 
upper part of the door, no less for the previous groups of species described 
than for this—namely, as an area of contact by entering prey, possibly 
attracted thereto. 


POLYPOMPHOLYX. 


In spite of the presence of most of the usual structural stigmata (for 
I failed to find the velum), in my previous publication (1932) I leaned 
toward the view that the door of this plant (of which two species, much 
alike, exist) acts as a simple valve, in the sense meant by Darwin for 
Utricularia. At my request Mrs. Johnson was kind enough to make 
careful observation of the living traps. Her notes, accompanied by 
sketches, leave no room for doubt that snap action occurs. I have made 


200 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


another attempt to determine the presence or absence of a velum with 
material which had been preserved in weak formalin, in which the delicate 
membranes of the velum are not at all well preserved, as I have noticed 
repeatedly in other species, but I have found sufficient indications of the 
velum in the form of very mucilaginous and swollen, as it were semi- 
hydrolysed, remains of the membranes. It is not clear whether the 
velum arises solely from the threshold or also from the glandular trichomes 
just beyond the front of the threshold, and until I obtain well-preserved 
material (in alcohol) the point cannot be settled. 

The threshold is approached, not from in front, but from the sides, as 
the projecting rostrum, the end of it resting on the enlarged stalk, obstructs 
direct approach. There is thus formed, as I have explained elsewhere, 
a sort of atrium, lined with great numbers of long, whip-like, glandular 
trichomes, the same sort occurring on the door itself, which forms the 
roof of the atrium. The capital cell of these trichomes is very long and 
slender, each secreting at its tip a droplet of mucilage. It may be that 
in the living condition these trichomes fill the atrium and act as a con- 
tributory velum. The actual entrance over the threshold is relatively very 
small and hedged about inside with up-jutting trichomes arising from the 
curved tissue shelf, in the front part of which is the pavement epithelium. 
This occupies a narrow strip on both sides of an angular ridge forming 
the front edge of the shelf. This ridge continues laterally to a point 
about half-way up the slope of the threshold, where the threshold pave- 
ment is very narrow. From this point it widens, fanwise, to the articula- 
tion of the door with the threshold, affording a wider out-sloping surface 
of application of the door thereto. The outer and inner zones are broader 
at the middle and narrower at the sides of the threshold. 

The door, as seen en face, differs a good deal from the previous species 
examined, in that it is nearly circular in shape, save for the segment cut 
off by the door edge, making it rather more than semicircular. The upper 
region is very thick, the inner course of cells being very deep and richly 
supplied with props, and capable of much compression. The middle 
piece gradually thins and is curved, and just above it is a weak, thinner 
region, marked by the presence of a number of small, sessile glands. 
This region lies between the upper region of the door, which is covered 
with a dense mass of the aforesaid whip-shaped, glandular trichomes, 
and a narrow strip above the door edge, which engages the threshold. 
The manner of this recalls the condition which is described above for the 
monanthos type—that is, the lower edge of the door is applied to a ridge 
in the threshold, over which it is bent; but the dimensions of the parts 
are different and the condition is not so striking. ‘The lateral reaches of 
the door are applied to the fan-shaped, outwardly sloping surfaces of the 
ends of the threshold. 

The actuation of this trap must be regarded (in the absence of actual 
observation) as being in the same manner as that of U. dichotoma, etc. 
The middle piece is held tightly against the ridge in the middle reach of 
the threshold by the thick lateral portions of the door, which exert 
a strong downward thrust. As a matter of observation, the lateral por- 
tions of the door are thick, in this being commensurate with its thick 


K.—BOTANY 20t 


dimensions, as seen in the sagittal section. The very great thickness of 
the hinge region of the door gives the impression of the need of an adequate 
and unusually large amount of available energy for actuation, and in this 
connection we recall that the trap is triangular in form (regarded trans- 
versely), and that the walls of four courses of cells are very thick. The 
roofing wall, as well as the lateral walls, were observed by Mrs. Johnson 
to be concave in the set condition of the trap. It may be argued that, 
roughly speaking, there is available rather more than 33 per cent. more 
energy than in a trap with only side walls. The trap is certainly a much 
more stalwart structure than usual, and can be compared in this only with 
the type of trap represented by U. globulariafolia. 


Tue Type U. GLOBULARIZFOLIA (Fig. 10). 


With this are several species having traps very much alike—namely, 
U. amethystina, U. tridentata, U. modesta, and U. Roraimense, and, 
according to Merl’s (1915) notes, U. bicolor, all New World, neotropical 
probably. 

The general form of this type of trap was described by Merl. It is 
a thick-walled and, in lateral view, well-rounded structure, with the stalk 
and entrance approximated. From the stalk leading up to the lower lip 
of the entrance there is a narrow but deep ramp, clothed along its ridge 
with long, backwardly curved, glandular trichomes in several rows. The 
overhang, which is massive, is forked, forming two strong antennz, also 
clothed with the same kind of trichomes in rows. All these rows of 
trichomes converge at the door, against which the innermost trichomes 
lie, forming a thick circle and, it would seem, an accessory velum at the 
door surface (somewhat as in U. monanthos), and a long, funnel-formed 
guide to lead prey to the middle region of the door, which is there clothed 
with sessile trichomes. 

The door is relatively small and nearly semicircular in outline, and is 
of nearly equal thickness from insertion to edge, though the inner course 
of cells is thicker toward the insertion. In some species, along the inner 
aspect of the free edge, runs a strip of beading in the form of three or four 
sharp ridges, which may serve to engage the edge of the door against the 
threshold. Its entire absence, however, in some species, throws doubt 
on such an interpretation. The angular divergence of the door and 
threshold is here much greater than in preceding forms, and the thrust of 
the former on the latter is very direct, the water pressure on the door 
having the effect of increasing the angular divergence and thus procuring 
a still more up-and-down thrust. 

The threshold is rather narrow and is supported on a deeply reaching 
shelf of peculiar and graceful form. The outer and middle zones are 
flat, the inner having a velum. The middle zone is very compact. The 
inner zone slopes away, facing inwardly. Its capital cells become more 
rounded and more loosely packed and always bear remains of enlarged 
cuticles, these cells having been subject to the general inflation of the 
cuticular investment giving rise to the velum. Whether the peculiar form 
of the tissue shelf which bears the threshold plays any part in the adjust- 

H2 


202 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


ments which take place during the setting of the trap after actuation is 
a question which may well be asked, but there is no sure answer ; yet it 
may be recalled that Brocher (1911) entertained some such idea in regard 
to U. vulgaris, but I think without objective justification. I think the 
bolster of tissue in such forms as U. vulgaris is capable of resisting changes 
of shape, but if this is the case it does not preclude the possibility from 
other forms. 

The histology of the door deserves remark. The inner course cells of 
the middle piece, or rather the region of the middle piece and the area 
above it, where the sessile glands on the outer face of the door are situated, 
are of long cells, running longitudinally to the edge of the door, as far 
as the beading. These cells are, moreover, very richly provided with 
folds and props, indicating great flexibility in precisely that region, the 
middle piece, where in other forms there is a tendency in the other 
direction, namely, of rigidity. This condition is to be met with also in 
the cells of the central hinge in U. vulgaris and similar forms, a point 
where great flexibility in various directions is present (Lloyd, 1932). 
In the globulariefolia type, the degree of complexity arising from folds or 
corrugations in all directions is very great indeed. The effectiveness of 
the application of the door edge on the threshold lies in part in the con- 
siderable curvature of the door edge, so that the line of contact is itself 
nearly the arc of a circle. 

With this type we conclude our remarks concerning these foregoing 
types which may be collectively subsumed under one generalisation— 
namely, that they are all forms in which the actuation of the trap is pro- 
cured by the inbending of a more flexible area of the door, thus upsetting 
the unstable equilibrium set up. by the physiological activity of the walls 
in expelling water, a state of reduced water pressure within being preserved 
by the somehow engaged door rendered watertight by a velum. 

In this type, however, we have departed from those in which there is 
a small angle to one in which that angle is quite wide, and the application 
of the door to the threshold is along its edge. In this, the trap is like that 
of U. vulgaris, but is otherwise quite of its own kind. Not in this type 
is the pose of the door surface against the threshold insured by the down- 
thrust of its lateral regions. This thrust is now oblique with relation to 
the threshold, pushing the door edge forward to engage the front of the 
middle zone. The rigidity of the door in its efficient closed position is 
assured by the slope of the sides of the threshold, which faces outward ; 
thus the threshold is a short half-funnel into which the door (being 
longer along its edge than the threshold) is cramped, so that the greater 
the water pressure the tighter the contact of the lateral regions of the door 
against the resisting threshold. 

We pass on to consider another series of types, contrasting with the 
foregoing by having a special tripping mechanism, consisting of long 
bristles or glandular hairs protruding from some point of the door 
surface and correlated with the structure of the door itself. We shall 
consider first a curious Asiatic species which appears to stand in a position 
intermediate between those which we have already considered and those 
which are distinctly typical, e.g. U. vulgaris. 


K.—BOTANY 203 


THE Type U. orBICULATA (Figs. 15, 16, 18). 

If a bizarre structure warrants using this species as a type, the choice is 
justified. The plant was first described from the point of view of the 
morphologist by Goebel in 1891. I have been able to include Goebel’s 
Ceylon collection in my studies and I have regarded this material as the 
typical U. orbiculata Wall. It is curious that no other collections sent to 
me from India and Ceylon have yielded species with the characteristic 
tubers of the Goebel material, which he described. All the other 
species sent me are very closely akin to the one before us and, at all 
events, the traps are alike. The trap is pear-shaped in lateral view, with 
the stalk affixed just in front of the middle point of the ventral side. 
Above the oblique entrance there is a short rostrum, giving rise to two 
thick downwardly and outwardly curved antennz, bearing numerous 
uniseriate branches or cilia, each ending in a rather large, globose, 
glandular capital cell. The aspect of this apparatus distinguishes this 
species and its related ones indisputably. ‘The trap is small, scarcely 
ever longer than 1 mm., exclusive of the antennz. 

When the sagittal section of the entrance is examined, it resembles 
closely that of U. capensis, but on study certain important differences 
appear. The threshold, as in U. cerulea, is sharply uptilted near its 
inner border, and has an unusually deep sulcus running transversely ; in 
this the door edge rests along the edge of the middle piece, which is narrow. 
The door edges along the lateral reaches slope up on either side to the 
inner angles of the threshold. ‘There is a velum supplied by the cells of 
the outer zone of the threshold, this being the primary velum, homologous 
with that found in other types. In front of the threshold the forecourt 
leading thereto is lined, as in U. capensis, with a clothing of stalked 
trichomes, graded in length, the shorter the nearer the threshold, in such 
fashion as to continue the general surface of the latter, thus forming 
a narrow channel leading from the outside to the threshold. These 
trichomes produce long, expanded cuticles which form a secondary velum, 
supplementing the primary (Fig. 15). ‘The membranes are voluminous 
and entirely fill the space fronting the door as far as its middle point. 
We have seen that a secondary velum is thus produced in the U. monanthus 
type, except that in U. orbiculata there is no secondary velum above the 
entrance, but merely for the stretch of the three-quarters cylindrical 
forecourt. Only in U. monanthos, etc., the trichomes supplying the 
secondary velum are scarcely distinguishable from those of the threshold 
proper. 

But it is the door which furnishes the bizarre feature. In general 
proportions it resembles that of U. cerulea ; it is not long and narrow, 
hor is it semicircular, but something between these extremes (Fig. 18). 
As seen in the sagittal section, its posture is oblique with reference to 
the threshold, and correspondingly the lateral hinge regions are extensive 
and well developed, and exert a downward thrust which applies the 
middle piece tightly to the middle zone of the threshold. The middle 
piece is laterally not extensive and is composed of smaller cells than those 
of the hinge regions on either side ; nor is it sharply differentiated from 


204 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Fic. 
Fic. 
Fic. 


Fic. 


K.—BOTANY 205 


PLATE IIJ—REFERENCES. 


15. U. aff. orbiculata. Sagittal section of the entrance structures. 
16. The same. View looking into the mouth of the trap. 

17. Sagittal section of U. Kirkit. 

18. U. aff. orbiculata, The door en face. u.h., upper, and Lh., 


lateral hinge ; m.p., middle piece. 


Fic. 


19. Transverse section through a, b, c and d, Fig. 17. 


Fic. 20. Sagittal section of entrance of U. capensis. 


206 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the tissues above, as far as nearly the mid-point of the door. This whole 
stretch is rather massive, however, up as far as a middle region which 
forms a small oval or rounded area occupying a space just above the mid- 
point, and which is slightly convex, especially on the inner surface. ‘This 
spot bears a group of, for the most part, short, clavate trichomes, but 
among them are three very peculiarly constructed trichomes. ‘These 
are larger and stand out boldly, and are of two kinds. A single one is 
in the form of a large club with a slightly oblique head, the capital cell. 
This stands at the apex of an isosceles triangle, with the base above, and 
at the angles formed by the sides and base stand the two other trichomes 
which have the following structure. The basal cell is large and oblique 
and set deeply in the door, so that the inner course of cells beneath is 
very shallow. ‘The basal cell is capped by a large mid-cell which in 
turn bears the capital cell, the cuticle of which in its definitive condition 
is shaped like the cowl of a ship’s ventilator (hence called by me the cowl 
trichome). Within the cowl is a rounded, thick cellulose wall, from one 
side of which, beneath the upper limb of the cowl, extends a long, tapering 
mass of jelly-like material, which is so transparent that it is difficult to 
see. In order to photograph it I have stained it with ruthenium red. 
Its inner end is cupped, indicating, by its interior surface, where it was 
applied to the rounded cell wall remaining within the cowl. The jelly- 
like mass, except when torn or otherwise damaged, has always a tapering, 
horn-like form, curved much as a cow’s horn, and it stands out in front 
of the entrance, pointing forward and downward.® If one faces the 
entrance, looking into it, one sees the two gelatinous horns pointing 
forward, and behind them the single club-shaped trichome, the whole 
blocking the space left by the radiating trichomes which supply the 
secondary velum (Fig. 16). 

The region of the door above the trichomatous patch is usual hinge 
tissue, the outer course being thin, reversing the relation of the courses in 
the former, the structure of which indicates easy bending and can be 
regarded as a sort of central hinge, such as we shall find in U. purpurea, 
movement of which, on the contact of prey with the protruding three 
trichomes described, can be procured sufficiently to upset the unstable 
equilibrium of the system. Yet to what complexity has the apparatus in 
this type been developed as compared with that in U. cornuta or even 
U. ceerulea—and, it would seem, to no better end, no more efficiency 
gained. It may help to regard the gelatinous horns as a lure, but we 
cannot be sure that they are. Their soft and yielding nature does not 
recommend them as a releasing mechanism to assist in actuating the 
door ; only that we do not know even how yielding or otherwise they are 
relatively to the movements of small prey. That not only small but 
relatively large prey can be caught there is no doubt. I have seen a worm 
twice as long as the trap itself lying coiled up inside, which had evidently 
been caught at a gulp, since if they are caught by the pinching of the 
door they usually stay in the position caught. 


® My earlier description of the gelatinous horns (1932) is faulty. 


K.—BOTANY 207 


Tue Type U. vuccaris (Figs. 21-24). 


Of the members of the genus, no species has been more under 
examination than U. vulgaris. F. Cohn and Darwin were the leading 
students of an earlier day (previous to 1882): it was then accepted that 
the door was a simple, inwardly moveable valve, which the prey opened 
easily by pushing against it. Its recurrence to its original position pre- 
vented escape. We need not recount at length the views that the bladders 
were floats, about which there was a lot of discussion finally closed by 
Goebel (1889). It was not till Brocher (1910) made the important 
observations that the bladders engulf air when a plant is raised from the 
water, and was led to see that only when the trap is set, that is, when it 
is in a condition of unstable equilibrium brought about by the exhaustion 
of the water content, that it can do so, he appreciated that the trap is 
watertight, but thought it merely plugged with mucilage, and that the 
trap could act but once. Merl (1921) found that the action of entrapping 
prey could be repeated, and determined the time necessary for the renewal 
of that condition of unstable equilibrium, namely, 15 to 30 minutes— 
observations which were made also by Czaja at nearly the same time. 
It was not quite certain to Merl that the whole action (aside from the 
exhaustion of the water from the interior of the trap) is purely mechanical, 
but Czaja took this position definitely. Recently M. Kruck (1931) has 
resuscitated the view, never very firmly held, that the action of the door is 
a sequel of the transmission therethrough of the stimulus from the protuber- 
ant, stiff,‘ irritable’ hairs : but this has nothing to support it. It isa curious 
fact that none of the above-mentioned observers, nor any others, had 
observed accurately the position of the door and its mode of contact with 
the threshold, nor had anyone save Withycombe suspected the inadequacy 
of Brocher’s idea of the way in which the watertightness of the door is 
procured. For my part, I have shown that this is due to the presence of the 
velum, that the contact of the door and threshold is a delicate adjustment 
involving a tripping mechanism, and that the whole action is mechanical 
and depends for its efficiency on the physical properties and adjustments 
of the various parts. What these are may now be briefly summarised. 

The door may be a continuation of the upper wall above the entrance 
(Fig. 24), or it may arise from a projecting overhang, e.g. U. gibba 
(Fig. 21). This produces no observable difference in the sensitivity of 
the mechanism. In any event, the door is very delicately constructed, in 
some species surprisingly thin, e.g. my No. 27 from Tropical Africa— 
a U. gibba-like form. The shape is nearly that of a quarter-spherical 
surface, one edge being attached to the walls of the trap, the other con- 
stituting the free edge of the door, the convex surface being turned out- 
wardly. A wide outer zone is flexed in front (that is to say, in the middle 
third of the door), so that it is here concave and may be regarded as 
a hinge, or, at all events, a region where the maximum bending can occur, 
as when the door is opened. ‘The outer course of cells is very thin ; the 
inner, thick and richly provided with transverse corrugations supported 
on the ends of props (observed by Meierhofer, 1902) in the radial walls 
(Lloyd, 1932). These cells are elongated radially in the door and, in 


SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


208 


209 


K.—BOTANY 


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SHONaMAITY—AT ALV Id 


210 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the middle area thereof, fade into a somewhat different form of cell, in 
which the corrugations are very prominent and regular and have given 
rise to some misrepresentation. The corrugations are continuous from 
cell to cell, and are very regularly concentric, giving the impression that 
they are the walls of isodiametric cells. The centre thus indicated lies 
just at a point where the door is at its thinnest, the central hinge, and 
immediately below this thin spot issue four (sometimes abnormally more) 
gracefully curved and pointed, stiff, three-celled trichomes. These are 
the tripping hairs, and constitute mechanically a latch lever. At their 
bases they are inserted close together in the upper part of a thickened mass 
of tissue, with courses of cells of equal thickness, the middle piece. This 
is slightly thinner along its middle line, that is, in the sagittal plane. 
When the door is opened the middle piece folds inwardly along this line. 
It acts as a mechanical unit with the latch lever, any movement of which 
disturbs the edge of the door one way or another, in any case effecting its 
release from a slightly outwardly turned surface of the threshold against 
which it rests. On either side the middle piece merges quickly into the 
outer hinge tissue. 

The threshold, supported on a strong, upturned bolster of tissue, is 
nearly circular in axial view, its arc length being shorter by about 10 per 
cent. than the edge of the door (Lloyd, 1932). Since it is the door edge 
which lies in contact with the threshold, its curve lies obliquely from its 
point of attachment—the inner angle of the threshold—to a point in the 
middle in front of the middle zone. This is raised slightly, affording 
a resting-place for the door edge, resisting its inswing. At the sides the 
front surface of the door rests on triangular areas of the threshold at each 
end, these areas facing obliquely outwardly, so that the door under the 
pressure of the outer water is tightly cramped into place. The outer 
zone, wider at the sides than in the middle, carries a velum, consisting of 
several rows of bladdery cuticles, to which is attached a loose membrane 
arising from the cells of the middle zone and, to some extent, of the outer 
zone. ‘The total threshold surface is shaped in correlation with the 
emplacement of the door edge. Important is the angle of divergence 
between the plane of the door and that of the threshold, which approaches 
go degrees, whereas in the series previously considered (U. globulariefolia 
excepted) that angle is a narrow one (Fig. 12). That is, (a) the position 
of the surface of resistance for the emplacement of the door edge is in 
front of the threshold when the angle of divergence is great and in the 
back when that angle is small ; (6) in the latter case also the thrust of the 
sides of the door is directly down on to the threshold, while, when the angle 
of divergence is large, this thrust is directed obliquely forward, toward 
the middle point of the door edge ; (c) the outer zone is wide, furnishing © 
a very wide and ample velum when the angle of divergence is small, or 
narrow when large. 

Actuation of the door occurs when the latch lever is touched in any 
direction. Many trials have failed to convince me that the sensitivity of 
the mechanism is greater for one direction than another. This can be 
understood when one sees that an upward swing of the middle piece frees 
it from the resisting threshold ridge, while a downward swing releases 


K.—BOTANY 211 


short lengths of the door edge on either side of the middle piece. In 
either event the result is the same. The inward movement of the door 
under the pressure of a column of water consists first in a longitudinal 
flexure of the middle piece, which, as the reversal of door curvatures 
advances, becomes curved inwardly. The flexures then move into the 
lateral hinge areas together with the outer hinge, reversing the curvature 
of the whole door. At the top of its swing the door edge is simply curved 
in the arc of a circle (approximately), and the opening, as seen by the 
observer stationed so that he may look into the trap along its axis, appears 
circular, or nearly so, the threshold forming the lower arc, the door edge 
the upper. I have satisfied myself that this is a correct record of the 
movement, by taking motion pictures at high speed (160 frames per 
second), which I shall have the pleasure of showing you. This seems to 
be a simple enough matter, but, as it has been described otherwise, it is 
not superfluous to have spent some effort in getting at the facts. 

It is an interesting cell structure which allows such free movement, 
which is at the same time completely reversible, so that the door springs 
at once into its original position on the slacking of the water column. The 
whole movement occupies 4; second. Furthermore, one may play with the 
door with a not too sharp needle point or with a minute glassbead, moving 
the door hither and yon, with no harmful effect. ‘There is an admirable 
elasticity and flexibility of the tissues which fit its needs (Lloyd, 1932). 

U. resupinata-—In describing the above I have erred to a purpose in 
regarding all the species of the type U. vulgaris as submersed, freely 
floating forms. There are some exceptions, all (?) American species. 
U. resupinata will serve to illustrate a small group of species which are 
terrestrial to the extent that they grow anchored in the bottom of ponds 
where the water is shallow, or in similar situations (wet sand, etc.). In 
U. resupinata the traps are dimorphic, larger ones growing on the terete 
green leaves, and supplied with the vulgaris type of appendages (branched 
antennz and lateral bristles), and small ones on the underground parts, 
with appendages much reduced or absent. The middle piece of the 
door is somewhat more massive than in vulgaris, but, aside from this, there 
is no notable difference. 

Another exceedingly curious plant is U. neottioides, belonging to 
Kamienski’s segregate Avesicaria—a poor name for a plant with abundant 
traps. The plant grows in running water, attached to more or less solid 
substrata. The stolons in contact with hard surfaces grow and appear 
after the fashion of Podostemon. From these arise free stolons with 
linear, leaf-like branches, and near the axils occur the traps, which are 
peculiar in having the entrance and stalk at opposite ends. One may 
imagine this to be correlated with the movement of water, the trap being 
stream-lined and the entrance where the back-swirl occurs. The structure 
of the door and threshold is practically identical with that of U. gibba. 
The antennz are very small and bear one or two short branches.” The 


7 It would be gratifying to see good material of U. rigida, another species 
growing in ‘ swift-running water’ and attached to the substrata. It is said to 
be devoid of traps (Stapf, Flova of Tropical Africa). Later: the material has 
been seen at Kew, but no traps were found. 


212 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES | 


actuation of the trap is accordingly by pressure on the bristles, not seen 
by von Luetzelburg, who gave a good description of the plant as a whole. 


U. RENIFORMIS. 


This plant, well known in cultivation in our greenhouses, is a large, 
orchid-like species from the American tropics. Its habitat is in the 
wet moss and other compact epiphytic growth on stems of big grasses, 
trees, etc. The stolons are thick and white, and bear, for an Utricu- 
laria, very large reniform leaves, long flowering scapes with large, 
purplish flowers, and a lot of very minute traps, smaller than the traps of 
minute species, e.g. U. gibba. With this as typical are associated an array 
of species, severa of which are similarly large or, at any rate, of impres- 
sive size, such as U. longifolia, U. montana, U. Lundu, U. Endresu, 
U. Gliickii, with some much smaller, even diminutive, species, of which 
I have examined U. Dusenii, also seen in cultivation. They are all neo- 
tropical, none of the type occurring in the Old World. 

Except as to minutiz of structure, there is really very little to say in 
comparison with the vulgaris type. Instead of the elaborately branching 
antennz of the floating forms, in the terrestrial forms we are considering 
the antennz are merely tapering horns, curved backwards or forwards, 
from an overhang curved downwards over the entrance. In this respect 
they ally themselves with gibba rather than with vulgaris. The stalk of 
the trap, which in lateral view is well rounded, is usually closely approx- 
imated to the entrance. The door is like that of U. vulgaris, but has 
a more massive middle piece, more so in some species than in others. 
Whether this difference indicates anything as to the delicacy of action or 
not it is difficult to say. The traps of U. reniformis do not seem to engulf 
air by any means as readily as those of the floating forms, and this may 
advantage them, growing as they do merely in a very wet environment 
and not submersed. In all cases actuation of the trap is achieved by 
contact with four latch-lever bristles. I have already pointed out that in 
form the trap of U. caerulea looks like that of the reniformis type, the differ- 
ence being revealed in the absence of the door bristles and in the possession 
of bifid trichomes instead, as in the American species, of quadrifids. 

The threshold is so placed that the face of it is directed obliquely 
outwardly, giving a very characteristic form to the bolster of tissue which 
bears it. This position suggests that the trap is less easily actuated. 

Three peculiar American and one African species can naturally be 
mentioned in this connection, all sufficiently peculiar to deserve specific 
examination. These are U. Lloydiit, U. nana, U. longiciliata, and U. 
Kirku. 

U. Lloydii Merl in MS. is a small plant of terrestrial habit, bearing 
traps which resemble the globulariefolia type in the possession of a steep 
ramp leading up to the entrance from the level of the stalk. The traps 
are dimorphic, the two forms being, in certain details of structure, 
very strikingly different. This dimorphism was first noticed by Merl, — 
who drew my attention to it before I had examined the plant at all. 
There can be no doubt of the dimorphism, which, in lack of conclusive 


K.—BOTANY 213 


evidence, would certainly obtrude itself. The two kinds of traps may be 
found on the same stolon, close together. 

In the one form the door resembles that of the reniformis type, save 
that the middle piece is not so highly specialised. ‘There is, however, 
but a single tripping bristle, straight, tapering and pointed. The basal 
cell and the next cell to it form a special stiff, hinge-like base. ‘There are 
a few short, clavate trichomes on the upper part of the door surface. 
Over the general surface, both on the ramp and elsewhere, are scattered 
globular, sessile trichomes. In the other form there is no tripping bristle 
at all. The door carries numerous long clavate trichomes, and similar 
still longer ones are found along the ridge of the ramp and under the 
antennz, which here resemble those of the globulariefolia type. ‘Thus one 
form of trap resembles reniformis and the other globulariefolia. Neither 
Merl nor I have been able to correlate surely the distribution of the two 
kinds of traps with position on the plant. 

The second species of the American triad, U. nana, also resembles 
reniformis, but is lacking antennz, and for this reason recalls cornuta. 
We need not particularise further than merely to point out that, instead 
of there being only one tripping bristle, as in one form of trap in 
U. Lloydit, or four, as in reniformis, there are just two, standing side by 
side. Their basal cells are somewhat enlarged, but show no striking 
form such as noted in U. Lioydit. The structure of the door is, however, 
precisely like that in U. Lloydii. 

The third species, U. longiciliata, was examined by Merl, who observed 
(1915) that there arises from the middle of the door, just above a massive 
middle piece, a single glandular trichome, consisting of a slender, cylin- 
drical basal cell, a short mid-cell, and an ovate capital cell. In view of 
the massive character of the middle piece and the smallness of the 
trichome, it is not easy to believe that the door is actuated by contact 
with the trichome. The form of this trichome allies the trap with that of 
our last type, U. purpurea. The likeness is perhaps rendered still more 
striking by the fact that there is below the entrance a strong protuberance 
bearing two widely spreading branches. A single protuberance is to be 
seen in some of the allies of U. purpurea, though none in others. There is, 
moreover, also a small rostrum above the entrance, somewhat as in an 
Old World species described above (my No. 131, unnamed). Though 
the general type of trap, aside from the curious appendages, allies 
U. longiciliata with the vulgaris type, I am inclined to look upon it as 
indicating an alliance with U. purpurea on account of the door trichome. 

Finally, here we must place a most intriguing type which I collected 
in Africa at the Victoria Falls, namely, U. Kirkit (Figs. 17, 19), identified 
for me by Dr. Rendle ; and in this connection | recall the kindness of 
Dr. Saunders, who supplied me with vials for my collection, having been the 
more provident. U. Kirkii is a small, blue-flowered plant of terrestrial 
habit, growing in ground where there was abundant seepage, with a trap 
looking to be almost identical with that of U. capensis, but that the rows 
of the more slender peristomal trichomes below the entrance are raised 
somewhat on a collar, as in U. albina. Like capensis, too, it has a broad 
threshold, the lateral thrust of the door being downwards. 


214 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


The upper moiety of the door, as seen in sagittal section, is uniform in 
thickness, with the outer course of cells thin, but somewhat thinner 
toward its lower limit, where it meets the middle piece. The character 
of its tissues marks the upper region as hinge. This hinge extends 
around the sides, forming much thicker lateral hinges. It is evidently 
convex (at least in the relaxed position), and is clothed rather densely with 
short, clavate trichomes. Just at the lower limit and close to the middle 
point (here the door is thin) there are two stiff bristles arising out of the 
outer course of cells. ‘These extend downward and forward. The 
middle piece is quite thin along its sagittal line, just below the upper part 
of the door, but on each side there is a large bulbous protuberance. The 
two masses become thinner toward the door edge, to which they extend, 
and appear to be stiffening agents, giving rigidity to the middle piece in 
one direction without limiting its flexibility in the other. They are 
derived entirely from the inner course of cells (Fig. 19, 5), merely by 
enlargement without additional cell-divisions, in the fashion in which 
the knob of the door of U. purpurea is formed (here from the outer cell 
course) (Fig. 25). It is evident that the thin line of door tissue between 
the bulbous masses is a longitudinal hinge. 

The threshold is like that of U. orbiculata, with a deep transverse 
depression which receives the middle piece edge. ‘The precise posture of 
the door when the trap is in the set position still eludes us, as the material 
could not be studied at the time of collection. It may be suspected that 
the posture represented in the diagram, while probably correct for the 
relaxed posture, should, for the set condition, be less convex, giving the 
middle piece a larger angle of contact with the threshold. We may be 
sure that this occurs, but precisely to what extent we do not know. In 
the relaxed position the tripping bristles appear to lie in the trichomatous 
clothing of the approach to the threshold. Less convexity of the door 
would result in bringing them up into a position which would seem to 
be a better one for their functioning. But in any event it seems fairly 
certain that their position is such that the prey should press down on 
them in approaching the door, their downward swing resulting in prying 
up the upper part of the longitudinal hinge. 

As in the case of U. orbiculata, U. Kirkit combines some of the mechanical 
features of the cornuta type with those of vulgaris. 

In view of the anatomical facts displayed, it would seem that actuation 
of the trap takes place as follows : Pressure on the two juxtaposed trichomes, 
inserted just above the two protuberances and so placed that impact will 
usually be from above, will push the upper part of the middle piece 
inwards along the middle thin line between the protuberances. This 
initial flexure allows the water pressure to act in the usual manner. The 
flexure travels upward along the middle of the upper region, where the 
door is relatively thin, and backward to the door edge. 


THE Type U. PURPUREA (Figs. 25, 26). 
We have come to the last type to be considered, wholly American and 
chiefly confined to the tropics, or at least to South America. North 
America has the one species of which I have been able to study living 


K.—BOTANY 215 


material, found growing in the vicinity of Montreal. It is well adapted 
to motion picture photography, and I show you some results. 

Irrespective of species, the plant body consists of a main axis with 
verticillate lateral axes, each member of which normally bears a terminal 
trap. In some species the trap is wholly devoid of appendages ; in others 
a proboscis-like upturning extension of the lower lip of the entrance is 
to be found, e.g. U. elephas Luetz. The walls are thin and bear three 
kinds of trichomes on the outer surface (Lloyd, 1933), one of which secretes 
a fatty oil. The interior surface bears numerous quadrifids and a dense 
row of bifids on the inner flank of the threshold bolster. 

From our present point of view the point of interest is the form and 
functioning of the door and threshold. These are, in structural detail, 
very different from the foregoing. The most readily observable differ- 
ence is the presence of a radiating group of tripping trichomes, arising 
from a knob-like protuberance placed a trifle above the middle point of 
the door at the upper limit of the middle piece, which is here very large 
but fundamentally like that of vulgaris. The trichomes are of two kinds 
in U. purpurea, of only one kind in U. elephas, U. cucullata, etc. Each 
trichome consists of a long, tapering, terminally expanded cell bearing 
a short, disc-shaped mid-cell, this bearing a spherical capitai cell with 
a much enlarged cuticle ; or, in other species, the end cell may be fusiform 
(Goebel, 1891). At the periphery of the tubercle the end cell is much 
smaller, as is the expanded outer end of the stalk cell. This difference 
has probably no significance. ‘These are the only trichomes on the door 
in U. purpurea ; in cucullata there is in addition a patch of short, clavate 
trichomes forming an oval group below the tubercle. 

The door consists of two chief regions, the middle piece below the 
tubercle and the sigmoid (the outer) hinge. The relative thickness of the 
two courses of cells changes as we proceed from the outer edge to the 
tubercle, so that the maximum flexure can occur where the outer cells 
are the thinnest, namely, just above the cuticle. It is here that the door 
chiefly bends on being opened. The lateral region is similar in structure 
to the outer hinge. The middle piece is massive, the cells being of equal 
thickness. The edge of the door is beaded with a three-quarters bead of 
some thickness, the bead being turned outward. When the trap is set this 
bead rests along the middle zone of the threshold, the velum resting against 
the door edge, over the beading. 

The threshold is narrow in the middle, widening fanwise toward the 
sides, where the door is attached to it. In its narrower middle part the 
outer zone bears an ample velum, consisting chiefly of the ballooned 
cuticles of the component cells, the middle zone cells contributing little, 
contrary to the case of vulgaris. ‘The middle zone is narrow, of small and 
compact cells, and is slightly dished to receive the door edge. The outer 
zone is unique in having the cuticles enlarged and filled with a stiff 
mucilage (a hydrolysed cellulose probably), forming a resisting ridge 
against which the door rests when the trap is set. The emplacement of 
the door otherwise is as in vulgaris, the lateral reaches lying against the 
broader lateral reaches of the threshold, where a broader zone of velum 
cells occurs. 


216 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Actuation of the trap can be caused by touching the glandular door- 
trichomes, when the trap is exhausted of water; in these species, 
owing to the thinness of the walls, it proceeds till the two walls are in close 
contact with each other. This is well shown if a trap which has swal- 
lowed a bubble of air is allowed to reset itself—a process which occupies 
about two hours in this species, four to eight times as long as in vulgaris. 
During this period the bubble changes shape in adapting itself to the 
changing contours of the interior, and this is well shown in the motion 
pictures. In whatever direction the trichomes are touched—the traps 
are not all equally (mechanically) sensitive—the actuation takes place. 
The explanation lies in the rotatory movement of the tubercle, and it is 
so poised that in whichever way it is moved, up or down, the effect is to 
raise the door edge a very slight amount, but sufficiently to upset the 
equilibrium. 


SUMMARY. 


The foregoing account is based on the study of about 75 species of 
Utricularia (including Biovularia and Polypompholyx). 

The bladders (called here the traps) appear in a great variety of form. 
The types selected to represent these forms illustrate the whole range of 
variety, so far as known. 

The study of living material of a number of species shows that certain 
properties of the trap heretofore known to us from the study of chiefly 
U. vulgaris are possessed by all. These are, briefly, a watertight door, 
snap action on actuation accompanied by the inrush of a column of water 
carrying with it the prey responsible for the actuation, the immediate 
return of the door to its original position, and the subsequent exhaustion 
of water from the lumen of the trap resulting in resetting it. ‘This reset- 
ting consists in the close adjustment of the door at all points with the 
threshold. The resulting posture of the door enables it to resist the even, 
if considerable, pressure of outside water on it, the watertightness being 
achieved by the sealing along the door edge by the velum. The effective- 
ness of the door posture depends on the shape of the threshold, which is 
always slightly funnel-shaped, the sides converging inwardly. In addition, 
there is a more markedly outfacing ridge or surface against which the 
middle reach of the door edge finds application, resisting the inswing of 
the door. 

The structure of the door is correlated with the function of its various 
regions. It is composed of two courses of cells, the relative depths of which 
vary according to the function. While the whole is remarkable in its 
capacity for bending, we can recognise areas which can bend very freely 
and through a large arc. This is hinge tissue, in which one course of 
cells is thin, the other thick. The thick course always takes the maximum 
compression. The upper part of the door and the regions around the 
sides are hinge tissue. The capacity of compression and extension of the 
deep cells depends on their bellows structure, their periclinal walls being 
corrugated, each corrugation being supported by stiffening rods in the 
anticlinal walls. The occurrence of props in the anticlinal walls is general 
throughout the door tissues, so that the chief characteristic of hinge tissue 


K.—BOTANY 217 


is the corrugation of the periclinal walls (inner and outer). The middle 
portion of the lower half (more or less) of the door has cell courses of 
equal thickness very strongly supported by large, numerous rods. The 
cells themselves become exceedingly small, especially as they approach 
the door edge. The structure is such as to give some and equal pliability 
in either direction, combined with considerable rigidity. This is the 
part of the door which has to remain in a rigid condition to give the 
door its footing on the threshold. The extent of these parts of the 
door varies with the species and peculiarities of shape of the entrance 
structures. 

There are two general classes of trap : 

(a) Those in which the threshold is broad (from back to front), the 

outer zone bearing a broad velum, the middle zone being broad also, and 
the inner zone narrow. The door in such cases is longer than broad, and 
is so placed that when the trap is set the door edge is held in position by 
the downthrust of the lateral hinge, contributing with longitudinal thrust 
to the firm application of the door edge to a more or less upturned surface 
near the inner limit of the threshold. The angle made by the plane of 
the door with that of the threshold is a small one. The door is devoid 
of special organs for actuation, unless sessile or short trichomes scattered 
on the upper convex surface of the door may be so regarded. At all 
events, actuation follows only on the application of sufficient pressure by 
prey trying to enter to make an initial dent in the surface. ‘This allows 
the outside water to exert its pressure in folding the door lengthwise. 
The fold, travelling to the door edge, releases it from the downward 
thrust of the sides, and the door is opened. The action is by no means 
as vigorous as in the other kind presently described, nor as easily procured. 
But procured it can be, and is vigorous enough to carry in the intruding 
prey. 
(6) Those in which the threshold is narrow. The outer zone is 
relatively broad, and bears an ample velum ; the middle zone is narrow in 
the middle, widening toward the sides relatively more than in the class (a), 
and with an inner zone which is broader. The surface of application of 
the door edge is at the front of the middle zone along the middle reach ; 
along the lateral reaches the surface of the door is applied to broader, 
fan-shaped extensions of the middle zone facing outwards, procuring the 
funnel-like shape of the entrance, into which the door is cramped under 
pressure of water. Here the velum also is broader and deeper. The 
door stands at a large angle to the plane of the threshold. It is provided 
with trichomes which constitute a latch lever for the actuation of the trap. 
Contact therewith disturbs the door edge sufficiently to allow the pressure 
of water against it to become effective in opening the trap and engulfing 
the prey. 

One cannot boast that all the species fit nicely into one or the other of 
the above two categories. Beyond the general statement as made, each 
kind of trap demands its own description. One is impressed by the 
epigrammatic saying of the Italian botanist, Caruel, which was brought to 
my attention by Goebel in conversation about this very question, to wit : 
“La pianta cresce crascuna alla sua idiosyncrasia.’ 


218 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Brocuer, F.: ‘ Le probléme de l’utriculaire,’ Ann. biol. lacustre, 5, 33-46 (1911). 

Coun, F.: ‘ Ueber die Function der Blasen von Aldvovanda und Utricularia,’ 
Beitr. Biol. Pflanzen, 1 (3), 71-92 (1875). 

CROUAN FRERES: ‘ Observations sur un mode particulier de propagation des 
Utricularia,’ Bull. soc. botan. France, 5, 27-29 (1858). 

Czaja, A. T.: ‘ Die Fangvorrichtung der Utriculaviablase,’ Z. Botan., 14, 705— 
729 (1922). 

—— ‘Ein allseitig geschlossenes, selektivpermeables System,’ Ber. deut. botan. 
Ges., 40, 381-385 (1922). 

—— ‘ Physikalisch-chemische Eigenschaften der Membran der Utrviculariablase,’ 
Arch. ges. Physiol. (Pfluger’s), 206, 554-613 (1924). 

Darwin, C.: Insectivorous Plants, New York, 1875. 

GoEBEL, K.: Pflanzenbiologische Schilderungen (Marburg), Part I, 1889; Part II, 
r8o1. 

—— ‘ Morphologische und Biologische Studien. V. Utricularia.’ Ann. Jard. Bot. 
Buit., 9, 41-119 (1891). 

Krucx, M.: ‘ Physiologische und cytologische Studien tiber die Utricularia- 
blasen,’ Botan. Archiv., 88, 257-309 (1931). 

Lioyp, F. E.: ‘The mechanism of the water-tight door of the Utricularia 
trap,’ Plant Physiol., 4, 87-102 (1929). ‘ 

— ‘ The range of structural and functional variation in the traps of Utricularia,’ 

Flova, 125, 260-276 (1931). 

‘ The range of structural and functional variety in the traps of Utricularia 

and Polypompholyx,’ Flora, 126, 303-328 (1932). 

—-— ‘Is the door of Utricularia an irritable mechanism ?’ Canadian Journ. 
Res., ‘7, 386-425 (1932). 

—— ‘The structure and behaviour of Utviculavia purpurea,’ Canadian Journ. 
Res., 8, 234-252 (1933). 

—— ‘ The Carnivorous Plants. A Review with Contributions,’ Tvans. Roy. Soc. 
Canada, Third Series, 27, App. A, 1-67, 16 pl. (1933). 

LUETZELBURG, P. von: ‘ Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Utricularia,’ Flora, 100, 
145-212 (1910). 

MEIERHOFER, H.: ‘ Beitrage zur Anatomie und Entwickelungsgeschichte der 
Utriculariablasen,’ Flora, 90, 84-113 (1902). 

Mert, E. M.: ‘ Biologische Studien iiber die Utviculariablase,’ Flora, 115, 59-74 


(1921). 

—  ‘ Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Utviculavien und Genliseen,’ Flora, 108, 127- 
200 (1915). 

Scuimper, A. F. W.: ‘ Notizen iiber insectenfressenden Pflanzen,’ Bot. Zeitschr., 


40, 225-234, 241-247 (1882). 
Sxutcu, A. F.: ‘ The capture of prey by the bladderwort. A review of the 
physiology of the bladder,’ New Phytologist, 27, 261-297 (1928). 
WitHYcoMBE, C. L.: ‘ On the function of the bladders in Utricularia vulgaris,’ 
Journ, Linn. Soc. Bot., 46, 401-413 (1924). $ 


SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 


ADDRESS BY 
J. L. HOLLAND, B.A. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


I puRPOsE this morning to follow the sound example of those of my 
_ predecessors who have confined their addresses for the most part to matters 
of which they have had first hand experience. My own experience during 
the last thirty years has been that of an administrator in a humble way, 
and I have therefore chosen as my subject ‘ The Development of the 
National System of Education.’ I hasten to assure you, however, that 
I do not design to discuss more than one or two phases of that develop- 
ment. The title is comprehensive enough to enable me to bring under it 
all the things I wish to say, but an inclusive treatment of it would 
require more time than is at your disposal to-day, and a more competent 
exponent than I can claim to be. 

It is vividly present to the mind of every educationist that he is 
serving a society which is disturbed by great private and public anxieties. 
The causes are world-wide. We see the foundations of social order and 
well-being shaking in country after country and we wonder how long our 
own land will be spared. Insuch times of unsettlement that man is hap- 
piest who, with a small thing to do, sees itand does it, who takes short views 
and lives a day at a time, like the caretaker of whom one read recently 
dusting the benches in the Parliament House while revolution was being 
made in the streets without. But the minds of thinking men are quickened 
by the turmoil and must work, and if at times they are depressed by a sense 
of helplessness, that is not the dominant note. It must needs be that 
changes come. By taking thought with their fellows, men can, it may be, 
help to determine the direction and extent of the changes. There pro- 
bably never was a time when every department of social and economic 
life was more vigorously canvassed than it is to-day. Large conventions, 
which in normal circumstances men accept as the price of being allowed 
to get on with their work, are the subject of ceaseless debate ; the quiet 
corners which usually escape notice are ruthlessly being turned out, and 
proposals for reform come from every quarter. 

Education does not sue to be excused from the general re-valuation. 
True that in one aspect it is a great institution with a membership of 
thousands of men and women, concerned like all institutions with the 
effects reform may have on the lives and fortunes of its members. True 


220 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


also that the need for re-construction has notoriously been made a pretext 
for paying off private grudges against individuals and whole classes in 
society. ‘Teachers—some teachers—are apprehensive of similar treat- 
ment, and are naturally stirred to take preventive action. Yet an educa- 
tional system does not consist alone of schools, however numerous and 
well articulated one with the other, nor of teachers, however highly 
qualified : it requires to be informed by an understanding on the part of 
the community at large of the purpose of the schools and the aims of the 
teachers. In the first Presidential Address of this Section, more than 
thirty years ago now, Sir John Gorst defined the task of the British 
Association as the ‘ inculcation of a scientific view of things in every 
department of life.’ 

Education is such a department of life and it cannot function ade- 
quately and healthily unless the nation applies to it that trained organised 
common sense in which, as Huxley said, science consists. On this view 
it is the increasing manifestation of public concern for education which 


enables us to have an educational system at all, and if there are gaps, it is , 


because our public have not yet learned steadily to regard the whole, but 
concentrate now on one part of the field and now on another like an 
infantry company advancing by irregular rushes. Out of the inquisition 
then to which education is being subjected, in common with other social 
services, will assuredly come a summons to advance which mere in- 
difference can never give. 

But the educationist and the teacher should not adopt a passive 
attitude toward the great debate, leaving it to go forward while he immerses 
himself in professional duties. He owes it to the service for which he is 
enrolled to think out his own position, to look before and after, so that 
where he hears education attacked or misrepresented he may be ready to 
explain and defend it. He will not be long in any company without 
having the opportunity. Teachers are often criticised, whether justly 
or not let them judge for themselves, for living wholly in an immature 
world of their own as a caste apart, different from other men. Exaggerated 
devotion of that kind in any sphere leads to unpopularity and loss of 
influence. There is a time to put off the gown: men are flesh and blood 
and apprehensive, and the teacher does right to meet them in the ways of 
the world as a man and not as a schoolmaster. I recall some words of 
Dr. Arnold’s, written at the time when he was actively engaged with the 
establishment of the new London University and was writing his History 
of Rome. ‘I hold,’ he wrote, ‘ with Algernon Sidney, that there are but 
two things of vital importance—those which he calls Religion and Politics, 
but which I would rather call our duties and affections towards God and 
our duties and feelings towards men: science and literature are but a 
poor make up for the want of these.’ 

Nor are his pupils likely to suffer by this suggested diffusion of the 
teacher’s interest. I have seen it said that Thomas Arnold found that his 
work with the Sixth at Rugby never went better than during that 
strenuous time. Routine, like a strangling weed, is only too ready to 
creep over any school with deadening effect, unless conscious efforts are 
made to keep it under. But where the teacher himself is a link between 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 221 


the school and the world outside there is a freshness and rich actuality 
about his teaching compared with which mere formal or traditional 
routine is a feeble thing. 

The development of an educational system in a democratic country 
such as ours is a difficult and complicated enterprise. Consider by way 
of contrast what is happening in certain other and ultra-modern states. 
You are struck at once by the dominance of a single leading idea, to which 
there is little that corresponds in our own society. In soviet Russia it 
is being said that the one purpose of education is to create active workers 
for the construction of a socialistic state. Of Germany much the same 
can be said. The Nazi Minister of the Interior only the other day 
declared that the time had come for abandoning liberal notions of 
free individual development. The child must be reared for complete 
absorption in and subservience to the corporative state. Whatever else 
we may think of it, this concentration on a single aim undoubtedly 
simplifies and speeds up the work of educational construction or re- 
construction. But for us such an immense simplification is out of the 
question. Our system of education has to meet, and if it may to adjust, 
many differing demands: the demand of the parent, of the community, 
of industry, of the state, demands which are not quite the same to-day 
as they were yesterday, and will not be constant to-morrow. And all 
these demands have to be reconciled with the demand that the child or 
young person shall be assisted freely to develop his individual character 
and ability. In the familiar words, ‘ adequate provision must be made 
in order to secure that children and young persons shall not be debarred 
from receiving the benefits of any form of education by which they are 
capable of profiting.’ It is in this assertion of the rights of the individual 
that the English system of education differs fundamentally from those of 
our neighbours who are obsessed, as we think, with the notion of the 
omnipotent state. And it is because of this principle that the educa- 
tionist disappoints many would-be reformers in our own country who 
wish to re-construct our education in the interest of early occupational 
competence. 

Not that the educationist and those who hold with him are blind to 
social and economic necessities, but their concern is for the future 
Education cannot dispose of present emergencies any more than a tree 
can grow ripe fruit overnight. It takes a generation for its policies to 
come into full bearing. ‘The men and women of to-day must deal with 
their own difficulties. ‘The one thing of which we can be certain in these 
rapidly-changing times is that to-morrow will be different. It is, there- 
fore, no mere theory but the soundest possible practice that we should 
develop the powers of youth that they may face emergencies, the nature 
of which we cannot predict, with moral courage, adaptability, and re- 
sourcefulness. But 


If we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, 
Bad is our bargain. 


222 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


The birth of this Section at Glasgow in 1901 came just between the 
passing of the two Acts which laid the foundation of our present educa- 
tional system. The Board of Education Act of 1899, as its title implied, 
set up a State Department under a Minister for the superintendence of 
matters relating to education in England and Wales. It brought together 
two previously existing departments, namely, the Education Department 
in Whitehall, which since 1870 had been developing and systematising 
elementary education, and the Science and Art Department in South 
Kensington, which independently administered the Government grants 
for schools of art and science and generally promoted what we now call 
technical education. ‘The Act passed with little public notice, for very 
few people outside the service saw it for the prelude that it was. 

It was far otherwise with the Education Act of 1902, the second great 
statutory landmark in the development of our educational system—Forster’s 
Act of 1870 being the first and Mr. Fisher’s Act of 1918 the third and 
latest. ‘The feature of this Act which attracted most attention, giving 
rise to bitter public controversy at the time, was that which enabled the 
voluntary schools, previously only state-aided, to receive assistance from 
local rates. ‘The Church schools were put upon the rates, in return for 
some concessions to public control. Although the old controversy has 
died down, it flames up here and there and now and then as smouldering 
fires will in disconcerting fashion. Many attempts have been made since 
to settle the issue once for all; they have all broken down. I do not 
propose to discuss the consequences of this dual system at any length, 
for the subject was dealt with ably and faithfully in a recent Presidential 
Address to this Section. 

But three things perhaps I may suggest. Firstly, no settlement is 
likely to prove permanent which does not give the local authority the right 
to insist that the best qualified applicants shall be appointed to teach in 
in the non-provided schools, and secondly does not allow of the employ- 
ment of any teacher who holds the State certificate in any public element- 
ary school. And thirdly, the present arrangement occasions serious waste 
of teaching power and of public funds, which last, at any rate, is of great 
moment in the present state of national finances. It is, I think, un- 
fortunate that the recent Act, enabling the closing of schools which are 
educationally unnecessary, is crippled by insistence that duality must be 
maintained as a condition precedent. 

But the fundamental change which the Act of 1902 made was the crea- 
tion of local education authorities charged with responsibility for all 
forms of education in their areas, namely, the councils in the adminis- 
trative counties and the county borough councils. In the county boroughs 
the Act replaced one popularly elected authority by another, though with 
widely extended powers, for in almost all the county boroughs there had 
been school boards responsible for a provision of elementary education 
adequate for the needs of the area, so far as those were not met by the 
voluntary schools. In the county areas, however, the position was very 
different. For though the counties have a long administrative history, 
the popularly elected County Council was a very young body and had 
hardly got into its stride before these new duties were thrust upon. it. 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 223 


Moreover, and apart from certain powers which the councils exercised 
under the Technical Instruction Acts, to which I shall refer again, the 
only previously established education authorities in the county areas were 
the school boards, which had been let in under Mr. Forster’s Act where 
the voluntary schools were unable to supply sufficient elementary educa- 
tion. These authorities were scattered irregularly in pockets, usually 
small, over the county areas. Their suppression was locally unpopular. 
Their members, who generally represented what there was of enlightened 
educational opinion in their several localities, had to be conciliated, for 
they were inclined to go into opposition to the new county authority, and 
beyond that, the County Education Committee and its officers had a 
sufficiently heavy task in bringing home to the rate-payers that they were 
now members of a large education area, and in stimulating and focussing 
appreciation of the educational needs of the area as a whole. 

An administrative area for education purposes is not created merely 
by tying together a number of smaller education authorities, or even by 
clothing an authority existing for other purposes with educational powers. 
For effective functioning a common outlook has to be achieved and the 
will to organise and work together for common purposes must be evoked. 
It is a slow process which cannot yet be said to be fully accomplished, 
certainly not in many areas as regards education beyond the secondary 
stage. ‘This weak position in which the counties were in contrast to the 
county boroughs, was in part reponsible for a serious departure in the 
Act from the principle that education is one and that educational adminis- 
tration must be single. I refer, of course, to the Part III authorities 
responsible for elementary education only. Of these there are about 
one hundred and seventy boroughs and urban districts—islands for the 
most part in the areas of the sixty-two English and Welsh counties, and 
containing not quite a third of the total county populations—islands of 
all sorts and sizes from little towns of 9,000 and 10,000 to the urban areas 
round London with populations nearing the second hundred thousand. 
Many of them are beyond doubt very efficient within their statutory 
limitations. ‘They have a civic pride in their schools which is not com- 
mon in the county areas. On the other hand, most of them are too small 
to form satisfactory administrative units even for elementary education, 
and generally they are a clog on the development of the national system. 
The central authority cannot forget them in framing its regulations and 
settling its administrative precedents, yet reasonable treatment for Little 
Pedlington may be merely annoying when meted out to a large county or 
county borough. They cut across county schemes of organisation, and 

while it is only fair to admit that they desire as a whole to co-operate, they 
complicate, and therefore add to the expense of administration. More- 
over, officers and teachers tend to move to the larger areas, and in the 
long run the quality of the local education service is injuriously affected. 
_ But the principal reason for removing the anomaly of the Part III 
authority is that with its existence is bound up the preservation of the 
Statutory distinction between elementary and higher education. It was 
inevitable that, on the transfer of organised elementary education from the 
school boards to the new local authorities, the whole apparatus of parlia- 
} 


| 


224 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


mentary enactment and departmental regulation, including separate 
rating, should go over into the new régime. There were no beginnings 
even of organisation in higher education out of which a unified system 
could be constructed. The distinction, however, always was unreal. 
Higher education is by statute education other than elementary, which in 
the absence of a definition of elementary education gets us nowhere. 
There is no definition of elementary education in any statute, but an 
elementary school is defined as a school in which the principal part of 
the instruction is elementary, which recognises the possibility of some- 
thing more than elementary instruction being given in it. At one time 
indeed the old Science and Art Department impartially aided the teaching 
of science in both elementary and secondary schools. 

In actual practice, higher and elementary institutions have always 
overlapped, both as regards the ages of the pupils attending them and 
as regards the details of the curricula followed. The distinction is purely 
administrative, serving no useful educational purpose, and the modern 
development of the division between primary and post-primary has made 
it not merely useless, but absurd. It is also a nuisance, for it involves 
debatable apportionments of common expenditure, separate accounting, 
and other duplicate arrangements. Economy will be promoted in more 
than one direction by its abolition. 

The tide of opinion is setting towards the effacement of the Part III 
authorities—witness the recent Act which forbade the creation of any 
more of them as the result of the re-arrangement of local areas under the 
Local Government Act of 1929. There is already a clause in the Educa- 


tion Act which allows them to surrender their powers to the county — 


council. Need I say that the instances of such surrender are few. If 
local authorities, educational and other, have a common characteristic, 
it is the pertinacity with which they cling to the powers they possess. 
‘What we have we hold’ is their motto. Some of the Part III’s should 
be absorbed into the adjacent county area, the larger of them should be 
vested with full powers. No authorities should be allowed to survive 
which are unable to support a reasonable number and variety of schools at 
least to the end of the secondary stage ; on which principle some county 
and possibly some county borough authorities ought to lose their present 
powers. 

The relative positions of the central and the local authorities are very 
different in the two spheres of elementary and higher education. The 
Act of 1870 was extremely regulative. The powers, the duties, and the 
procedure of the school boards were prescribed with great particularity, 
and the control of the central authority was secured through its minutes, 
the well-known Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools, 
which, after confirmation by Parliament—an almost nominal proceeding— 
become the conditions of the payment of parliamentary grant. And the 
Code was even more detailed than the Statute. There were 130 articles, 
many of them with sub-sections, in the first Code under the Act of 1902. 
The school board and their successors were to enter the field of elementary 
education, but there must be no walking on the grass. It reminds me of a 
one-time open path which I used to take through beautiful country, but 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 225 


I go that way no more, for now galvanised netting is high on either hand 
for a mile or so, and one arrives at the end in a state of exasperated longing 
for a pair of wire cutters. Some of you may know that walk and the 
educational institution which at vast expense has put such a slight on our 
common ability to behave ourselves. 

There are still stretches of the old statutory fencing in the Education 
Act, although nominally it was all taken down in 1918. ‘The Code of 
Regulations, however, is far less detailed than it used to be. The 130 
articles with sub-sections have shrunk to a reasonable 27. For this 
comparative freedom local authorities have to thank another predecessor 
of mine in this Chair, Lord Eustace Percy. Lord Eustace claimed that 
the Code, as revised in his time at the Board, gives the authorities a wider 
field for the exercise of their discretion, and the claim can be freely allowed. 
‘ The limit of useful State control is to be found at the point where it 
ceases to be an expanding and stimulating force and tends to fetter or 
sterilise.’ Those words are quoted from Sir Robert Morant, the archi- 
tect—if any one man can be so styled—of our present educational system. 
For fifty years from the time of Robert Lowe’s Code of 1862, elementary 
education moved in fetters, and the marks of that servitude are still upon 
it; only gradually is it recovering the vigour, the elasticity, and variety of 
which a too restrictive control deprived it. 

On the other hand, the local authority was given full power from the 
beginning to supply or aid the supply of higher education as it thought fit 
after considering the needs of its area and consulting the Board of Educa- 
tion. In theory, the central authority is here a friendly adviser, and can 
exercise no control so long as the local authority is prepared to finance its 
own schemes entirely. ‘The friendly adviser, however, in this case is 
usually ready to back the advice with offers of financial assistance, and 
although at first in a number of instances authorities were willing to pay 
_ the piper for a tune they preferred, there are not many higher institutions 
left—I do not myself know of any—under local authorities, which the Board 
does not aid. At the same time, this power the local authorities have of 
resuming their independence is very real and colours all their relations 
with the Board. I wish to avoid all suggestion of a reluctance on the part 
of the Board to give the local authorities their due, or of serious differences 
of opinion between them, for in fact consultation between the Board and 
the authorities is frequent and close, and the differences which do occur 
are in matters of detail rather than of principle. But the position is that 
of two parties in a negotiation which either of them can break off, one 
perhaps more easily than the other, and for which each of them desires a 
successful conclusion. 

The administration of the Exchequer grants under regulations framed 
by the Board is the greatest factor in the relations of the central with the 
local authorities. By most people these grants are regarded merely as 
subventions in aid of local expenditure. They are that, but they are also 
a powerful instrument for the furtherance of national policies and a precise 
technique has been worked out for so using them. ‘There is not time to 
develop this point, but an example will illustrate my meaning. I select 
one which at the present time is agitating the county authorities—an 

I 


226 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


example of misuse of the instrument. ‘'T'wo of the elements in the formula 
under which the grants for purposes of elementary education are assessed 
are the expenditure of the authority on teachers’ salaries, of which fifty 
per cent. is met by grant and administrative expenses, of which the 
Exchequer finds twenty per cent. 

Reorganisation in county areas involves the provision of senior schools 
at nodal points to which the older children of the surrounding district are 
transported. ‘The process is attended by some saving in salaries, and 
within certain limits the larger the school the more economically can it be 
run. Not only so, the larger school can combine variety in the curriculum 
with greater uniformity in the classification of the pupils, and in the end 
should prove the better school. But a larger school means a wider 
gathering ground and a heavier transport cost. Yet the Board appro- 
priate half the saving in teachers’ salaries and leave the authority to bear 
four-fifths of the heavy cost of transport. The effect of the grant regu- 
lations is therefore to dissuade the authorities from plans which are 
nationally economical and educationally desirable and to reinforce the 
understandable preference of the countryside for the small and less 
efficient school near at hand. 

This method of giving grants in proportion to expenditure, and at rates 
varying with the type of service aided, was brought into full operation in 
education by Mr. Fisher’s Act of 1918. Obviously it is designed to 
encourage expansion and to stimulate authorities to the more adequate 
discharge of their duties. The argument that the Board bears part of 
the cost can be very convincing. Though not simple in administration 
it keeps pace with the growth of institutions, and through the provision 
of an overriding minimum grant it recognises the importance of the local 
organisation of schools. Notwithstanding its occasional misuse education 
committees generally approve it, though perhaps some of them who are 
chary of expansion and have no wish to be stimulated still hanker after 
the old method of separate grants on a per capita basis for individual 
institutions. 

In the discussions which are raging round education and everything 
else the method of the percentage grant is challenged on the ground that 
it lends itself to extravagance and involves a meticulous interference with 
the business of the authorities, objections which you will observe tend to 
cancel out, and it is suggested that block grants assessed over an authority’s 
expenditure during a standard year and fixed for a term of years, three, 
five, or even seven, should be given instead. A block grant has none of 
that flexibility which enables the percentage grant to be administered in 
immediate conformity with Governmental policy, out of which no local 
authority can expect to be allowed to contract itself. Nor can I see why 
a central department or sub-department, with a policy of its own, should 
be less disposed to encourage expenditure on the part of a local authority 
under a block system grant, which defers the day of reckoning, than under 
a system which automatically obliges it to share the cost. ‘The last report 
of the Estimates Committee of the House of Commons comes to the 
support of my contention, for the Committee therein publicly censures 
the Board of Control for pressing local authorities to incur unnecessary 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 227 


expenditure and the Board is a department of the Ministry of Health, 
where the block grant system obtains. Can you even imagine the Board 
of Education nowadays risking any such rebuke ? 

The task to which the new local authorities of 1902 were principally 
called was the development and organisation of an adequate system of 
secondary education. It was not a virgin field of which they took posses- 
sion. ‘There were the endowed grammar schools, mostly of pre-Reforma- 
tion foundation, individually independent, usually small and struggling 
to make ends meet on very inadequate resources, some of them too dis- 
heartened’ even to struggle—mere class alternatives to the ordinary 
elementary school. ‘There were the schools of the companies, and of the 
religious bodies, not quite so hard pressed, frequently with ends to serve 
other than those which a public system must ensure. There were the 
organised science schools—the categories are not mutually exclusive, 
taking grants from the old Science and Art Department for the teaching 
of specific subjects. ‘There were the centres for the training and education 
of pupil teachers provided by the old School Boards, and there were the 
private schools, good and bad, demanding to be taken into account. 
Rightly indeed were the authorities enjoined to a careful consideration 
of the needs of their area before attempting to bring order into this 
chaos. 

The story of the last thirty years in secondary education is absorbing for 
those of us who lived in it. By strenuous and persistent effort the local 
authorities have transformed the face of this department of national 
education in a generation. It would be difficult to instance another 
movement which achieved as much in as short a time and with so little of 
that wasteful effervescence which characterises and sometimes mars great 
outbursts of activity on a national scale. The story cannot be told now ; 
I can do no more here than mark the line and pace of the development by 
way of giving substance to the high claim I have made for the authorities. 

The Board of Education lost no time in giving a lead. Local authori- 
ties might be sceptical about the need for more secondary schools, but they 
knew that at least the elementary schools must be staffed and that they 
had to find the teachers. In 1903 new Regulations for the Instruction 
and Training of Pupil Teachers were issued, in which it was indicated that 
up to sixteen years of age the intending pupil teacher should be educated 
in a secondary school. That meant that every boy or girl in the public 
secondary schools of some areas would be needed for the teaching pro- 
fession, and the question of increasing facilities was at once brought out 
of the realm of theory. 

A year later came the first Regulations for Secondary Schools, with a 
definition of the term, very general in form, which has not yet been super- 
seded. In the regulations the length of the course, the subjects of study, 
even the minimum of time to be devoted to each subject, were all pre- 
cisely stated. You will look in vain for this last requirement in the 
regulations of to-day. 

Of these two sets of regulations it can, I think, be said that, while in 
form they were prescriptive, laying down conditions which must be 
complied with if the Parliamentary grant was to be taken, the underlying 


228 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


intention was that they should be educative, in the one case formulating 
for the first time a conception of the secondary school for the guidance of 
authorities and teachers, in the other suggesting that the function of 
the secondary school passes beyond the education of the single pupil to 
the service of the community. 

The only other set of regulations which require mention before we 
consider the evidence of progress in the development of the secondary 
school system, are the Regulations of 1907, in which the greater part of 
the 1904 Regulations were included, but which were also further pre- 
scriptive in two important respects. In the first place, no new schools 
could be placed upon the grant list unless the representatives of elected 
authorities formed the majority of the governing body. This was no 
doubt intended to be the first step towards bringing all the schools aided 
by Government grants under local popular control. So far, however, as 
the local education authorities are concerned, the effect has not been 
quite what appears to have been expected. ‘The representatives of the 
popularly elected authorities keep up a useful contact between the aiding 
authority and the aided school, but in my experience they count for very 
little in the control which the aiding authority exercises, for they are 
prone to put the interest of the school they serve first, and the authority 
which appoints them receives but secondary consideration—a very 
English and, on the whole, a healthy habit. 

The other prescription of the 1907 regulations was of much more 
consequence. Provision was to be made for the admission in the normal 
case of 25 per cent. of the new pupils in any year from the public 
elementary school, free of all school fees, but in every other respect on 
the same footing as the fee-paying pupils. ‘The percentage stood as an 
obligatory minimum until the new Special Place Regulations took effect 
a month or so ago, but as a permissive figure it has been raised first to 
40 per cent. and three years ago to 50 per cent. 

I shall have something to say in a moment about the practical effect of 
this regulation. The older among us will remember with what doubt 
and hesitation it was received by the schools, for as Sir Robert Morant 
expressed it in another of his early reports, the idea that elementary and 
secondary schools represent not successive stages of education but 
alternative kinds of education, meant for different social classes, was deeply 
rooted. Those doubts vanished long ago: for the free place holder, 
with few exceptions, readily took on the colour of his new school ; on the 
whole he remained longer and stayed the course better than his fee-paying 
fellow. 

Until the Board and the authorities got down to work it had been 
commonly assumed that their task would be in the main to bring the 
existing unorganised and sporadically created secondary schools into an 
efficient ‘system. The field appeared to be full of resources: what was 
necessary, was in the words of the Bryce Commission, ‘ to correlate and 
harmonise the forces and agencies already at work.’ The local authori- 
ties very soon discovered gaps which needed filling, but what was not 
generally foreseen was the tremendous drive for secondary education 
which an awakened public opinion was about to motive. It was, for 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 229 


example, at first taken for granted that the new free places would be filled 
without competition, indeed that they might even go unfilled for lack of 
qualified applicants. 

Let us see what has actually happened. In 1902 the number of schools 
receiving State aid through the Board was under 300, and the number of 
pupils taking an approved course under 32,000. ‘Three years later the 
number of schools had risen to 600 and the pupils to 100,000. By rg11, 
the last year of Sir Robert Morant’s term at the Board, the number of 
grant-aided schools was 862 and the number of pupils had passed the 
150,000 mark, if we include those in schools recognised as efficient but 
not in receipt of grant. 

The first year of the War came and found 205,000 children in the 
schools. Down to that point the rising tide of numbers from 100,000 
to 205,000 in ten years had encouraged authorities and administrators to 
lay their plans with confidence. The flow was steady as well as strong ; 
there was no falling off in demand to warn us that high water was nearly 
reached. Was the War that warning? Had we come to the turn? 
The answer soon came in a thrust for secondary education the like of 
which this country had never seen before—is hardly likely to see again. 
In the five years 1915 to 1920 the school numbers leaped with accelerating 
speed by 113,000. ‘The thrust was not due, as the cynics suggested, to 
easy money which enabled parents to pay school fees without feeling 
them much, for in the next year, the year of the first economy wave, there 
was a further leap of 32,000 and, save for a slight fall of less than 
1,000 in 1924, the advance has continued until in 1932 there were 
452,000 children, nearly 10°5 per 1,000 of our total population, receiving 
secondary education in nearly 1,600 schools recognised as efficient, of 
which the local authorities provide not quite half. 

In the discussion of educational problems the layman probably gets 
less help from the professional than, as paymaster, he is entitled to, not by 
reason of undue reticence on the part of the professional, for we are a 
talkative profession, but so much of the talk is about temporalities—pay 
and pensions, status and prospects—and argument at the top of the 
voice, in other words shouting one’s opponent down, is very fatiguing to 
the listener. So the layman is driven to reason from his own youthful 
experiences until he renews his contact with the schools through his 
children. It is not surprising that the idea that the secondary school is 
a Class school should still linger on. Is there anything in it? Rapid as 
the growth of the schools has been, the free place holders have increased 
even more rapidly. In the first year of the century there were about 
5,500 children from public elementary schools attending the secondary 
schools with the help of public funds. By 1906, the year before the 
Free Place Regulations were made, there were 23,500. Within four years 
of the passage of the Regulations there were over 49,000 free place 
holders, and nearly a third of the total numbers in the schools were in 
this category. At that time one out of every twenty-two elementary school 
leavers in England went to a secondary school, and one out of every forty- 
six received free education there. This process of social interfusion has 
gone on without a check during the twenty years which have since elapsed, 


230 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


until last year the ex-elementary school child constituted 71 per cent. of 
the English secondary school population and one in eight of elementary 
school leavers made his or her way to the secondary school, every other 
one with a free place. Such figures speak for themselves. 

The story of secondary education hitherto, as we have seen, has been 
one of uninterrupted expansion, but we are at the end of a generation and 
there are indications that the national impulse behind the movement is 
faltering, or perhaps making ready to find another channel. The 
example of Wales, which even now has half as many more children in 
proportion in its secondary schools as there are in the English schools, 
stands as a warning to would-be prophets. Nevertheless, I doubt 
whether many more schools of the secondary type will be founded, and 
when the population ‘ bulge’ of the first two post-war years ceases to 
have effect, the tide of numbers may be expected definitely to ebb. What 
becomes, what has become, of these thousands of pupils, old and new? 
The parallel extension of State control over, and interference with, the 
lives and business of its citizens, the creation of new departments of 
State, the great increase in the Civil Service, both central and local, 
before the War accounted for many of them. They staff the teaching 
profession. About sixteen per cent. of them go to the universities and 
other institutions of higher education. Nearly two-fifths of them enter 
the minor professions, or become clerks or go into business. Less than 
fifteen per cent., rather more than a tenth of the whole, enter any kind of 
industry. But the Civil Services have ceased to multiply, the teaching 
profession is over-full, and the clerk is being replaced by machines of 
every sort. The schools have been remarkably faithful throughout to 
the conception of an education mainly literary, given through a balanced 
curriculum of subjects mainly traditional. They have turned their 
pupils almost exclusively in the direction of the academic, the professional, 
the ‘ black-coated ’ occupations. 

They are staffed from the academic group in the nation, and while it 
has ensured high intellectual standards, that fact has enabled them to 
tolerate the adaptation of their curriculum to the requirements of the 
universities, until recently, with no sense of discomfort. They are academi- 
cally controlled, not only in the advanced work which is the prelude to 
university study for the small fraction of abler pupils, but also through 
the certificate examinations which are the goal of the average. The 
irruption of the free place holder has made little difference. ‘The social 
ideals which underlie the schools’ practice are congenial, if anything too 
congenial, to the poor child and his parents, ambitious that he shall 
escape the drudgery which they have had to undergo. To them a 
secondary education stands for advancement in life and the promise has 
hitherto been realised. 

But, as I have already pointed out, the prospects of advancement along 
the customary lines are not so bright as they were. And another factor 
needs to be reckoned with. For five-and-twenty years we have been 
transferring picked boys and girls from the elementary schools to the 
atmosphere of the secondary school. No wonder industry complains 
that it is being robbed of its best recruits. The thoughtful employer 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 231 


agrees that his junior employees are better mannered, more self-respecting, 
more amenable than those of pre-war days, but he does not find in them 
the alertness, the resourcefulness, the desire for responsibility which a 
sufficiently high proportion of their fathers displayed. Yet British 
industry was probably never more in need of these qualities in its workers 
than it is to-day. 

Is it the business of the secondary school to meet that n>ed of industry ? 
We have in our organisation proceeded on a theory which, nakedly 
expressed, appears to be this. We will choose as well as we may, at about 
the age of eleven, those children who can undergo a further five years of 
full-time education with profit to the community and to themselves ; 
they shall go to the secondary school ; the rest shall complete the compul- 
sory elementary school course, and as for any education beyond that, it 
shall be a voluntary part-time affair. On that theory the secondary 
school is the common full-time school for adolescents. Can we say that 
it is performing so comprehensive a service satisfactorily ? Not unless 
we have the hardihood to maintain that full-time study, extending over the 
period of adolescence, is only necessary for those who are to enter the 
academic or professional classes or the public service, or the managerial 
ranks in industry. 

The schools are now finding themselves obliged to go further afield in 
the search for suitable openings for their pupils, and the contacts they 
are making in this way will in time react healthily upon their work. There 
will be a broadening of the curriculum and maybe a less scholastic 
approach to the more traditional subjects, especially when the grip of the 
School Certificate examinations is relaxed. But anything in the nature 
of a general turn over to the American high school type is to be depre- 
cated, though one would like to see that alternative tried out in some 
of the larger urban areas. The average secondary school is perhaps 
fortunately lacking in the capacity for so great a change, and were the 
change forced upon it by authority much that is honourably distinctive 
would be lost. The high intellectual standards, on which are based not 
merely the after competence of the professional classes, but the whole 
leadership of the nation, would certainly be impaired. If, however, the 
secondary school is to be left unaltered, save for developments from within, 
to continue its present contribution to the national life, there will need to 
be a reduction in the number of its pupils for at least two reasons. 

We are admitting to the schools to-day children who are unequal to 
the curriculum, and whose motive for attempting it is mainly social 
ambition. As Sir Michael Sadler, another former President of this 
Section, pointed out years ago, ‘it is possible to over-stimulate the 
intellectual susceptibility of people of mediocre talent without adding 
much to the sound stock of critical or practical judgment possessed by 
the nation "—a form of waste, he went on to add, ‘ which we are distinctly 
in danger of incurring ’ : a form of waste which we must confess is actually 
being incurred. There are also children of another type in the secondary 
schools, not necessarily inferior, who would be better suited by a less 
academic and more practical curriculum. If these two groups are to be 
turned back, the senior school, the modern school of the Hadow Report, 


232 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


will have to receive them for the present. About the part these modern 
schools will play in English education, I hope to say something later. I 
believe that they will very shortly attract in large measure that public 
interest and support without which no type of school can grow freely in 
our soil. Whether they will develop to any large extent courses for 
industry and commerce, between say the ages of fifteen and eighteen, and 
at the end of the general course, or whether these courses will be provided 
in association with the technical schools as a kind of high school accom- 
modated in technical institute buildings, as some of the old organised 
science schools used to be, is a question for the future. I shall have to 
point out presently that outside the secondary school there is very little 
evidence of a demand for voluntary full-time education after the com- 
pulsory age is reached, so that any development of such education towards 
industry and commerce is bound to be gradual. 

The inquirer approaching the subject of instruction for industry a 
commerce cannot fail to be struck by the unsystematic—almost hap- 
hazard—manner in which facilities appear to be disposed. It is only in 
a few large and highly industrialised areas that one finds evidence of 
constructive planning. Over a large part of the country the field is 
occupied, though not covered, by a medley of institutions which often 
have little relation one to another. The local school of art will probably 
have no connection with the technical college : as likely as not the com- 
mercial school or department will be quite independent of the industrial 
departments of the college ; yet surely design has an important place in 
industry, and what is commerce essentially but the exchange of the 
products of industry? Again, the institutions themselves overlap to a 
surprising extent. The official titles—technical school, technical college, 
evening institute, and so on—afford no certain clue to the range and 
standard of the instruction which is given in them. 

This state of affairs is partly an inheritance from the early nineties of 
last century, when the nation was aroused chiefly by the extraordinary 
expansion of German trade, though the reports of Commissions and 
Committees played their part in the awakening, to the need for more 
and better commercial and technical training, and insisted that something 
must be done. Under the national impetus technical instruction made 
a fresh start. The municipalities and the counties were constituted 
authorities by the Technical Instruction Act of 1889, with rating powers, 
and were encouraged to get to work by Exchequer grants of nearly a 
million pounds out of the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Account, 
popularly known as the whiskey money, which were applied to this purpose 
as an afterthought on the part of Parliament. Many of the municipalities 
hastened to erect technical colleges, sometimes with no very precise ideas 
about the character and extent of the instruction which they were going 
to provide, enthusiasm usurping the place of a careful survey of existing 
provision and of local needs. 

The present confusing position is also in part a consequence of the 
lines on which our educational system is organised. In most continental 
countries technical instruction is a function of the State, and can be 
planned on a national basis, or at least on the basis of large provinces 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 233 


whose inhabitants earn their livelihood in groups of connected industries. 
But in this country the local education authorities are primarily responsible 
for providing technical and other forms of instruction. There are a few 
instances of localised industries whose boundaries coincide, or nearly so, 
with local authority areas, and in those areas systematic planning has led 
to satisfactory results. But industry as a rule has no respect for adminis- 
trative boundaries. In consequence, the attempt to provide for the needs 
of an area without reference to what neighbouring authorities are doing 
usually involves some waste of resources, as well as a loss of efficiency, 
particularly in the higher branches of instruction, by which only a select 
few have the capacity to profit. 

The situation calls for regional planning as the next step in the organisa- 
tion of higher technical education. A beginning has been made by 
groups of authorities, notably in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in 
south Lancashire. In others progress is impeded by causes which I 
have mentioned earlier in this address. It will not be easy gradually 
to transform the local authority colleges into groups of co-ordinated 
regional institutions. In some of the regions the Board of Education 
will probably in the end have to give a strong official lead, instead of 
depending, as they appear to do at present, upon the tactful and unofficial 
ministrations of their inspectors and other servants. 

The public interest displayed in the late eighties and nineties in the 
new movement for technical instruction soon waned, for the early results 
were disappointing. It had to be realised that technical education is not 
self-sufficient, and cannot be successfully provided in the air, so to speak. 
To be of value to the individual and to the community it must build on 
a sound foundation of general education, and the successful completion 
of the elementary school course, gravely deficient as it then was in the ele- 
ment of science, was not sucha foundation. When this was understood, 
the more thoughtful authorities began to give attention and to divert 
some of their funds to the encouragement of the teaching of science and 
other subjects which were more cultural than technical, and to the 
transfer of the brighter elementary school scholars to the secondary 
schools. Their activities in these directions paved the way to some 
extent for the renascence of secondary education which I have already 
discussed. It was not until the Great War was over that industry and 
commerce began to ask on any considerable scale, and apart from isolated 
instances, for the help of the schools in meeting the great changes brought 
about by the application of new scientific discoveries to manufacturing 
processes, and by the invasions of the machine in every department of 
work. Industry and commerce are still busily discussing their require- 
ments and endeavouring to formulate their demands upon the schools. 
As regards industry, at least, the discussions can hardly yet be said to 
have issued in any very clear conclusions. To borrow the language of 
the theatre, what the educationist hears for the most part are ‘ confused 
noises without.’ So long as industry is obliged to make its comments 
* off stage ’ one can hardly expect anything else. 

At this time of day it is unnecessary to stress the argument for a close 
association between the industrialist and the educationist in the business 


12 


234 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


of technical instruction. The need is admitted, though there is here and 
there some lingering reluctance to set about devising methods for meeting 
it. The method officially favoured is the advisory committee of manu- 
facturers and employees. My own experience in connection with the 
boot and shoe industry, however, leads me to advocate the direct repre- 
sentation of the manufacturing interest on the management committee of 
the institution or department. ‘There is the same time-lag in the manu- 
‘facturer’s notion of what the schools are doing, the existence of which 
in the mind of the general public I have already referred to. That time- 
lag is quickly recovered where there is immediate contact with the institu- 
tion itself. Not only does responsibility put a keener edge on service of 
any kind, but advice is tendered more carefully and is generally more 
practicable where that responsibility exists. The typical manufacturer 
is accustomed to see to the carrying out of his own ideas ; he does not 
take kindly to sitting in another room and framing recommendations 
which a committee of management can ignore if it chooses, and is some- 
times even disposed to regard as critical of its own action, or more usually 
inaction. For there is a type of public man which has a great capacity for 
deluding itself into the belief that popular election at once endows the 
elected representative with knowledge adequate for the performance of 
any public duty. Therefore let the manufacturers and employees have 
their representation on the governing body of the technical school or 
college, sharing in the give and take of its discussions, and in its responsi- 
bility for the conduct of the school. The ultimate power of the purse 
can easily be retained for the local authority by requiring an annual 
estimate of expenditure classified under appropriate headings, which 
when approved, must not be exceeded without going through the process 
of the supplementary estimate. 

Technical education in this country rests upon a voluntary basis. As I 
have shown, it owes little to suggestion or consistent stimulation from 
above. ‘The old term ‘ further education ’ would be a better description 
of it, for the desire to ‘ get on’ and prosper is only part of the story. 
Its chief motive force still is the craving of the individual for self-im- 
provement. ‘The youth of ordinary elementary education, on whom it 
dawns at about eighteen or nineteen years of age that his prospects of 
economic advancement are small, bestirs himself to take advantage of it. 
But there are numbers of students who want to develop particular studies 
for their own sake, and again others who are not content to accept the 
riddle of this unintelligible world, which every man becomes aware of 
sooner or later, without making an effort to unravel it. ‘These conditions 
explain why further education is so largely part-time education. They 
also explain the great number of students to be found in the part-time 
classes and institutions of all kinds. There are now about a million of 
these students, of whom perhaps 50,000 are studying in their employers’ 
time, or partly so, during the day, and the rest are attending night schools 
in their own time. Contrast that figure of a million with the number 
of those who are engaged in pre-employment full-time vocational courses. 
There are hardly more than 30,000 of them. If we examine the position 
at the critical age of fifteen to sixteen years we find that there are no more 


L._EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 235 


than 1,000 in full-time technical college courses and day technical classes, 
and another 1,000 in full-time art courses, junior and senior, while there 
are about 6,500 in junior technical schools. Finally, bring into the com- 
parison the 63,500 adolescents of the same age in the secondary schools 
and the remnant of 16,500 who are in the elementary schools. Even 
when allowance is made for the fact that practically all the elementary 
school remnant, and rather more than 7,000 of the secondary pupils aged 
fifteen to sixteen, will eventually find their way into industry, the volume 
of full-time pre-employment education of any kind for industry appears 
painfully small. 

The administrator or the teacher can do very little to make good the 
deficiency. As Mr. Ramsbotham said the other day, ‘the course of 
education is primarily governed by its social surroundings, by the thoughts 
and actions, the needs and aspirations of adult society, and not by the 
desires or ideals of educationists.’ The regional co-ordination of schools, 
even the association of industrialists with their work, will not of them- 
selves create a demand. What is lacking is a conviction on the part of 
adult society that this form of instruction is a necessary element of our 
national well being. ‘The nation must will to have it so, and as yet there 
are few signs, apart from the vociferation of interested parties, that the 
nation is not quite content to have it otherwise. 

In our development of technical education on a part-time basis for those 
already in employment we differ from continental countries, where in 
the main technical instruction is conceived to be a full time pre-employ- 
ment training. We differ from them also in another important respect. 
While we recognise that there must be grades of employees, workmen, 
charge hands, foremen, departmental managers and so on, neither the 
educationist nor the typical industrialist agrees that you can conclusively 
predict beforehand the grade in which the recruit will ultimately come to 
rest. There are too many examples of men in high position who owe 
their success to their character, their temperament, and their capacity, 
rather than to any specialised training they have picked up on the way, for 
us easily to accept the theory of the stratification of labour which lies behind 
the graded schools of the Continent. It has been said that the process 
of horizontal stratification into classes which will leave the individual 
little opportunity for advancement has begun in this country, and that 
the division of the nation’s youth into those who are and those who 
are not to receive a secondary education is a new social phenomenon 
whose consequences will be very far-reaching. But there are, and for a 
long time to come there probably will be, many ways of obtaining a 
secondary education without passing through the gate of the annual schools 
examination. 

It is repugnant to our national thought and practice that an insuperable 
line should be drawn through Society at any age. So it comes about 
that at every stage in our educational system we busy ourselves on behalf 
of those who have not followed the orthodox routes, that they may have 
an opportunity of making up what they have lost. We even play with 
the idea that loss may be converted into gain, the competitors turning up 
at the starting post for the next stage of the race with certain advantages 


236 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


derived from the very independence of the line they have taken to get 
there. We may yet come to the drawing of lines and the erection of 
fences dividing the people, but if we do the educationist, I fancy, will be 
the last person whom the community will choose for the job. 

I have already indicated that the number of young people who 
voluntarily avail themselves of the evening institutes and other forms of 
part-time education reaches a substantial total, but for every one who 
does so there are at least three whose official education ceases when they 
leave the elementary school at fourteen. It is often suggested that this 
is a point at which the principle of compulsion should be introduced into 
a hitherto voluntary system. The compulsory continuation school 
clauses of the Fisher Act have been on the statute books for fifteen years. 
They would secure that every employed young person received in- 
struction in the employer’s time for the equivalent of one day a week 
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and later between sixteen and 
eighteen. Why not put them into force? For a short time they were 
applied in London, but the enforcement broke down because London 
draws so much of its juvenile labour from contiguous areas to which the 
clauses were not applied. There is still one day continuation school 
under Mr. Fisher’s scheme which owes its success largely to the con- 
sistent support of the local employers. For the rest the clauses are a 
dead letter. They are, I fear, destined to remain so for a long time to 
come. Their general enforcement would be a very costly matter. It was 
calculated in 1919 that a complete system would require at the end of the 
third year no less than 32,000 teachers. Enforcement by areas would 
only be less costly on the assumption that some areas would not enforce, 
and the London experience goes to show that enforcement on that assump- 
tion is impracticable. For enforcement by industries, which is a 
conceivable alternative in some industries, Mr. Fisher’s Act did not 
provide. 

We are told that the nation is already spending upon the social services 
the utmost it can afford under present conditions. It may be so, though 
apparently the indulgence of a taste for expensive town halls is of no 
social service and is, therefore, permissible. At any rate in a time in 
which education is only allowed to expand at the price of making counter- 
vailing economies elsewhere, on the principle of the Irishman’s blanket, 
which you remember he lengthened by cutting a piece off the bottom 
and sewing it on the top, the day continuation school can be no more than 
a day dream. Moreover, when funds again become available, the raising 
of the school age has the first clam. We are too far committed to that 
by the adoption of the Hadow policy of senior schools to draw back. 
We may regret that it should be so and that the case for the continuation 
schools has never been properly put to the nation for decision. Indis- 
putably the transition from school to industry is the most critical operation 
in adolescent life. Is it not far more important for society that so 
bewildering a change of outlook and environment should be explained 
and related to the adolescent’s previous experience, that he should be 
guided and steadied through the first years of independence by teachers 
who themselves have a knowledge of industrial conditions, than that the 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 237 


transition should be deferred in favour of one more year of full-time 
schooling ? 

But if we cannot have what we would like, let us try to make the best 
of what we have. It is a solid gain that the young employee’s efforts to 
improve himself in the evening school are no longer regarded by em- 
ployers in general as entirely his own affair. Fees are paid by employers, 
prizes are offered, reports are called for, and are sometimes allowed to 
influence wages and promotion ; and interest is shown in many other 
ways: These are all good in themselves, but a time-off system, such as 
already obtains, for example, in the large engineering centres, would be 
better than all of them put together. Is it treating education seriously 
to relegate it, as we do, to the hours which should be hours of leisure 
after the day’s work is done ? The youth of lively and independent mind 
is repelled by such an arrangement. The standard and quality of the 
work are alike depressed. It is notorious that irregularities of attendance 
occur which no other educational institution would condone. Better 
work is done in the evenings than we have any right to expect, for youth 
will be served whatever the conditions. But until the classes can be held 
in the day, the employer finding his share of the time required, there is 
no prospect of any further large development of part-time education. 

The nearest approach which has been made in this country to the type 
of school with a strictly vocational outlook, but so far comparable in other 
respects with the secondary school that it can reasonably be regarded as 
alternative to it, is the junior technical school, which has been officially 
recognised for about twenty years, though there was much earlier experi- 
ment. At the present time there are about 170 of these schools, with 
about 20,000 pupils between them. They recruit these students at 
thirteen or fourteen years of age for a three or four years’ course of full- 
time education, with the object of preparing them for entry into industry. 
Sometimes they prepare for a single local trade, but usually for a group 
of allied trades. ‘Their success—and they have been very successful— 
is conditioned by their ability to place their students advantageously at 
the end of the course, for enrolment is voluntary, and parents and pupils 
naturally expect some return for the deferment of employment which 
the course involves, ‘Their association with industry is, therefore, bound 
to be close, and for the same reason they have individually no latent 
possibility of indefinite expansion. They are ill suited to the conditions 
of recruitment and employment in some industries—for example, agri- 
culture and the iron and steel industry. There should, however, be room 
for a carefully prepared increase in the number in areas where industries 
predominate, to which the junior technical school is an appropriate 
introduction. 

Their position in the educational system is a little anomalous, for the 
.age of entry does not synchronise with the leaving age in the elementary 
schools, and falling as it does in the middle of the secondary school course, 
they tend to lose the children who are recruited by the secondary schools 
a year or two earlier, for some of whom the junior technical course would 
be more suitable. To overcome this difficulty it has been proposed that 
the junior technical school should be made a complete alternative to the 


238 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


secondary school, recruiting its students at eleven for a five or six years’ 
course, the first two years of which would be devoted to their general 
education. I doubt, however, whether this would advantage the schools. 
With the choice between the secondary school and the technical school 
before them, most parents would elect for the secondary school, and not 
for social reasons only. It is too early to decide at eleven years of age 
that a boy or girl is to enter one of a group of trades at sixteen or seven- 
teen. Even if the object were realised, one would anticipate a large 
increase later on in the number of misfits, and some weakening of the 
vocational purpose, confused, as it would be, by the need to give a general 
course to the younger pupils. 

Meanwhile, the schools are experiencing no difficulty in getting pupils: 
rather they are threatened with a different danger, for they have been so 
successful that in many of them recruitment becomes a matter of selection 
among applicants, and is decided by competitive tests, which as at present 
conducted are no certain guide to the comparative ability of the applicants 
to profit by the instruction given. On the other hand, self-selection by 
the pupil is no certain guide either. 

I can offer no solution of this very interesting little problem. It is 
interesting because we are here within sight of one of the fundamental 
difficulties which the fashionable modern doctrine of the planned society 
encounters. By whom in such a society, and on what principles, are the 
allocations of man-power to be made, and how, if at all, can they be 
reconciled with the preservation of that freedom to strive for advance- 
ment which I have already spoken of as one of the ideals of democracy ? 
Hitherto we have not been much troubled in education with this aspect 
of planning, for the junior technical school is unique among our institu- 
tions in the deliberate equation of supply to demand. But we are likely 
to hear a good deal more about it in the immediate future unless economic 
conditions alter substantially for the better. Although we may not believe 
that education can be reorganised on the quota system, so many and 
no more being trained to be clerks, so many to be machinists, and so on, 
yet I think this feature of the junior technical school is well worth re- 
taining for the sake of the light which will be thrown on the bigger 
question by the working out of the equation on a small scale. 

This discussion of the organisation of pre-employment vocational 
education, fragmentary though it is, should not conclude without some 
reference to the effects which the reorganisation of elementary education 
at the age of eleven into primary and post-primary stages is likely to have. 
This reorganisation is well on the way to accomplishment in the urban 
areas. In the country areas there are special difficulties, due in the main 
to sparseness of population, which it will take years to overcome. 

While it is too early to speak positively of the results of reorganisation, 
certain tendencies can already be discerned. It is much that we are getting | 
rid of the confusion of aim between primary and post-primary, to which 
was traceable the general feebleness and failure to grip the minds of their 
pupils, which was found in many of the old mixed schools. The junior 
school can now apply itself unhindered to the business of the primary 
stage—development of the ability to communicate with others through 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 239 


reading, writing and speech : the active exploration of the material environ- 
ment, including drawing and handwork: the formation of ideas of 
magnitudes of all kinds and the application of the ideas of number to their 
expression. The little country junior school, in particular, freed from 
the incubus of the handful of older scholars who could be such a nuisance 
to themselves and their teachers, is going to be a happier and more 
efficient place. Singleness of purpose promotes earlier accomplishment ; 
there is good reason to hope that in this respect a year at least of school 
life may be saved, and that the curriculum on which not so very long ago the 
elementary school child was released at thirteen years of age may be 
effectively completed by the average child of eleven to twelve. 

In the new senior school, taking children of eleven to fourteen and 
fifteen, the most conspicuous feature is the break with the old bookish 
tradition of elementary education. From a third to a half of the school 
time is given over to practical work—science, experimentally studied, 
including domestic science, woodwork and metal work, and many handi- 
crafts. It is commonly postulated that there shall be no vocational bias 
in this practical work, not even in the later years. At the same time, the 
children, in the words of the Hadow Report, are to be ‘ encouraged to 
take an interest in local industries and occupations, and illustrations for 
teaching in the several branches of the curriculum should be drawn, where 
possible, from local examples.’ 

Allow me for a moment to follow the argument whither it leads. In 
what way that is educationally profitable, and not merely superficial, can 
we interest the older children in local industries and occupations? In 
the case of the modern mass industry, I suggest that at least one way is to 
explain to them the fundamental process or processes on which the industry 
depends, and to allow them where possible to try their hand at them. 
For example, the boot and shoe industry, which is staple in the area in 
which we meet and the area from which I come, is a mass-production 
industry. 

In shoemaking the fundamental process is the attachment of the upper 
to the sole, in the case of the welted shoe by means of stitching mediated 
by the welt and the insole. If that is explained to the children as a process 
of development in time which is not yet completed, and if they are allowed, 
under expert guidance, to try their hand in simple materials at this and the 
immediately connected operations of the original handsewn work as 
practised before the days of machinery, an intelligent interest in that 
particular local industry will have been aroused, and the educational 
effect will extend beyond those of them who know that this is the industry 
which they will take up when they leave school. But what you will in 
fact have done is to put the children through the first lessons which the 
lad who is entering the industry takes in the department of boot and shoe 
technology at the local technical college or in the monotechnic. Teachers 
are prone to be too gingerly in the use they make of vocation in the schools. 
Academically minded people with no personal experience of industry or 
commerce assume an opposition between education through vocation and 
general education: the one they say tends to dwarf the growing mind 
and to narrow the outlook, as against the liberalising, expanding influences 


240 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


of the other. In practice, as my example, I hope, has indicated, there 
need be no sharp opposition: indeed all education should have its 
vocational side, for if on the other hand it seeks to create in the pupil an 
understanding of his surroundings, on the other it endeavours to give 
him the appropriate power of using them for his own purposes. The 
real trouble is that we are very short of teachers of the right kind, by which 
I mean persons trained to teach who also have an industrial vocation in 
their fingers. 

Vocational bias or no, the senior schools bid fair to endow their pupils 
with a craft skill, besides other things, for which later they will demand an 
outlet. In the nature of the case they will find that outlet in local industry. 
While I am far from wishing to suggest that these practical developments 
in the senior school will dispense us from the necessity of establishing 
junior technical schools, where conditions are suitable, I do draw the 
conclusion that if, by the interaction of the junior and senior schools, 
the general level of intelligence is being raised—and it is—and if in the 
senior school the skill of the individual is being trained to a high pitch— 
and again it is—the senior school will make a very substantial direct con- 
tribution toward the training of the rank and file of our industries. As 
one Trade Union leader expressed it, ‘ Industry to-day is worthy of a 
better workman.’ Many industries are going to get him, chiefly through 
the agency of these senior schools. 

Practically all the students in the technical classes and institutions of 
every kind are either in employment or are reasonably assured of employ- 
ment when they are ready for it. But for a large section of the juvenile 
population no such comforting prediction can be made. The national 
conscience is troubled about the problem of adult unemployment. It is 
no longer enough that the State should provide the unemployed with 
the bare wherewithal to keep body and soul together. Voluntary agencies 
are springing up to help the unemployed men and women to maintain 
their self-respect and to keep healthy in mind and body. But the nation 
is not yet fully alive to the magnitude of the problem of juvenile unem- 
ployment and to its terrible consequences. Is there any worse example 
of social waste than that the young boy and girl should be carefully 
nurtured for good citizenship and then plunged without warning into a 
world in which they find they are not wanted, in which their instinct to 
be independent is thwarted and the opportunity of honest useful work is 
denied them? Could they have any experience more destructive of 
mental and moral fibre—in a word, more decivilising ? Yet this is the 
daily experience of thousands of them. 

According to the latest figures which are available (May, 1933), 108,000 
young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen were registered 
with the Ministry of Labour as unemployed though desiring employment. 
Bad as they are these figures do not tell the worst. Registration at the 
Employment Exchange is voluntary between the ages of fourteen and 
sixteen, and if allowance be made on that account there are probably 
not less than 160,000 young people unemployed. The number has more 
than doubled in the last quinquennium, and it is likely to increase, for 
owing to the high birth-rate of the two post-war years there will be an 


L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 241 


increase in the number of boys and girls leaving the elementary schools 
next year of something like 50 per cent. over the number who have left, 
or are leaving, during 1933, and for the same reason the number of juven- 
iles between fourteen and eighteen years of age available for employment 
will continue to grow for another five years.. The Churches, the juvenile 
organisations, and other agencies are making great efforts to cope with 
the evils resulting from this mass of unemployment. The contribution 
of the State, however, is so small as to verge on the insignificant. The 
Minister of Labour took credit recently for an increase from £110,000 
last year to {150,000 this year in his expenditure upon courses of instruc- 
tion for unemployed juveniles. Even so, the percentage of the registered 
and insured unemployed juveniles who were regularly in attendance at 
these courses was less than twenty-three, and the percentage of those 
registered and uninsured was only ten. 

This state of things increases one’s regret that the Continuation School 
Clauses of Mr. Fisher’s Act have not been put into force. The Unem- 
ployment Insurance Act of 1930 empowered the Minister for Labour, 
after consultation with the Board of Education, and subject to regulations 
approved by the Treasury, to arrange with local education authorities for 
the provision of courses of instruction for insured contributors under the 
age of eighteen, and to require attendance at such courses, where they 
are available, as a condition of the payment of unemployment benefit to 
any young person. These are the courses which I have just mentioned. 
As there are less than one hundred of them, however, in the whole of 
Great Britain, a very large fraction of the juvenile unemployed are beyond 
their reach. There are in addition arrangements whereby the juvenile 
unemployed can be sent to the ordinary evening institutes. In May, 
which, of course, is not a typical month in this respect, less then 200 
juveniles had that advantage. 

It is not easy to suggest even the lines of a comprehensive scheme for 
bringing these young people under official educational guidance, for the 
incidence of the condition varies greatly from area to area. In some 
areas the numbers are such that separate centres are economically feasible : 
in others, juvenile unemployment is almost non-existent. But some steps 
could be taken, given the support of public opinion. 

In the first place, boys and girls should be encouraged, subject to 
reasonable age limits, to remain at school until situations can be found 
for them. 

In the second place, the recommendation of the recent Royal Com- 
mission that the age of entry into unemployment insurance be lowered to 
fourteen should be enacted, subject to credit being given against the 
Unemployment Fund in respect of voluntary attendance at school beyond 
that age. This proposal has in the past encountered the opposition of 
teachers and administrators who fear the effect that the possibility of 
entry into employment with insurance may have upon school attendance 
beyond the minimum insurable age. But under the safeguard mentioned, 
the inclination to seek employment at the earliest possible age will be 
weakened, and in any case the position is, I submit, too serious to warrant 
the continuance of opposition on educational grounds. 


242 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


In the third place, the responsibility for framing schemes for dealing 
with their own unemployed juveniles should be thrown upon the local 
education authorities. The Board of Education since Mr. Fisher’s Act 
has had the power to require the authorities to submit schemes providing 
for the progressive development and comprehensive organisation of 
education in their several areas. The scheme procedure is, therefore, 
familiar both to the Board and to the authorities. When the schemes 
have been submitted to, and approved by, the Board, it will become 
the authorities’ duty to carry them out. The change would involve the 
transfer to the Board of Education of the administration of all Exchequer 
grants in aid of juvenile unemployment schemes, subject to such condi- 
tions as the Minister of Labour might think fit to impose. ‘The procedure 
suggested is on all fours with that which is followed in the medical inspec- 
tion and treatment service. The local responsibility for that service is 
cast upon the education authorities : at the centre the Minister of Health 
is responsible, the Board of Education acting as his agents directly in 
contact with the authorities. 

The training of the unemployed juvenile is strictly an educational 
matter. The Ministry of Labour was established for quite other purposes. 
It is responsible for the disbursement of millions of money to individuals, 
and the method of check and counter-check, which in the public interest 
it is bound to adopt, leaves no room for that play of local initiative which 
is a characteristic feature of the relations subsisting between the Board 
of Education and the local education authorities. The problem cannot 
be dealt with properly on the somewhat rigid lines to which the Ministry 
is habituated, for it varies from area to area. The Board of Education’s 
administration, on the other hand, is flexible, and the local authorities are 
accustomed to it. ‘They would be encouraged by the change and would 
be put upon their mettle. But the essential condition of progress in this, 
as in all educational business, is an enlightened public interest. A 
society awake to the degrading influence which enforced idleness is having 
upon this large section of its citizens-to-be could not tolerate a half- 
hearted parsimonious handling of so grave an evil. 


SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE. 


CHEMISTRY AND AGRICULTURE 


ADDRESS BY 
DR. ALEXANDER LAUDER, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 


A RECENT President of this Section referred in his presidential address 
to the fact that while many of his predecessors in this chair had been 
chemists, none of them in recent years had taken the relation of chemistry 
to agriculture as the subject of his address. A glance at the subjects of 
the addresses for the past twenty years shows that the presidents who 
have been chemists have confined themselves to general agricultural 
questions or to problems of agricultural education or research. It is 
true that in his address at Toronto in 1924 Sir John Russell dealt with 
“Present Day Problems in Crop Production,’ and in his masterly survey 
of the progress of agriculture during the past century, delivered at the 
Centenary Meeting of the Association in 1931, he surveyed the develop- 
ment of agricultural chemistry during the century, the treatment in both 
cases being necessarily general. 

The importance of the application of science, particularly of chemistry, 
to agricultural practice has been realised for a very long time. In his 
address to the first meeting of this Section at Dundee in 1912, Sir Thomas 
Middleton dealt with this aspect of the subject (‘ Early Associations for 
Promoting Agriculture and for Improving the Improver’). So far as the 
British Association is concerned, this importance, as we shall see later, 
was early realised. As far back as 1839, a petition to which many 
influential names were attached was presented to the General Committee 
asking for the formation of a separate Section for Agriculture. The 
proposal was rejected however, and for many years there was no direct 
representation of agriculture ; more recently, a Subsection for Agricul- 
ture was formed which was attached either to Chemistry or Botany, and 
the present Section was definitely established in 1912. 

When the Association last met in Leicester in 1907, agriculture was 
represented by two papers presented to the Chemical Section. One was 
a discussion on the qualities of wheat and flour, dealing particularly with 
the strength of flour, and the second on the ‘ Production of Acid or 
Alkaline Reactions in the Soil by Manures,’ by Mr. A. D. Hall. A glance 
at the recent programmes of this Section will give some idea of the 
developments which have taken place since we last visited Leicester. 

At the meeting of the Association in Swansea in 1880 Sir J. H. Gilbert was 
President of the Chemical Section, and devoted his address to the appli- 
cation of chemistry to agriculture. He pointed out that not only was the 


244 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


application of chemistry to agriculture included in the title of the Section, 
but that in 1837 the Committee of the Section had requested the late 
Baron Liebig to prepare a report on the condition of organic chemistry. 
The first part of his report, entitled ‘ Organic Chemistry in its Applications 
to Agriculture and Physiology,’ was presented in 1840, and the second 
part on ‘ Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry in its Application to 
Physiology and Pathology ’ followed in 1842. It is not necessary for me 
to refer to the far-reaching effects of these reports. As Sir John Russell 
said in his Centenary address, they can ‘ without exaggeration be described 
as the most important publication in the whole history of agricultural 
science.” Sir John Gilbert went on to point out that in the forty years 
which had elapsed since the publication of Liebig’s reports, no president 
had taken agricultural chemistry as the subject of his address, and, as 
I have already pointed out, the subject has generally been avoided during 
the succeeding fifty years. 

Gilbert devoted about a third of his address to an historical introduction 
and to a detailed description of the new views brought forward by Liebig. 
He then went on to discuss how far Liebig’s views had been modified in 
the course of time, and to state the conclusions which had been arrived at 
by recent work on plant and animal nutrition. 

As regards plant nutrition, the main problems were the sources of carbon 
and nitrogen, and the views then expressed by Gilbert are still held without 
serious modification at the present day. He confirmed the opinion of 
De Saussure and Liebig, that the greater part, if not the whole of the 
carbon, was derived from the carbon dioxide of the air. It is worthy of 
note in passing that he was greatly interested in the effect of continuous 
daylight on the carbon assimilation of plants and also of the effect of 
illumination by electric light, but concluded as regards the latter that the 
determining factor was the cost, which is still the position at the present 
day. 

He then turns to the difficult question of the nitrogen supply of plants 
and describes the results obtained at Rothamsted by Lawes and himself. 
The careful experimental work led to no conclusive results. Summing 
up the result of the inquiry, Gilbert says that ‘ although the recorded 
evidence is admittedly very conflicting, we then came to the conclusion, 
and still adhere to it, that the balance of the direct experimental evidence 
on the point is decidedly against the supposition of the assimilation of 
free nitrogen by plants. Indeed, the strongest argument that we know 
of in its favour is that some such explanation is wanted.’ 

The explanation followed some six years later, when the memorable 
results of the Hellriegel and Wilfarth investigations were published. 

In the later part of his address, he dealt with two questions which were 
then exciting much attention, viz. the origin of muscular power and the 
sources of fat in the animal body. 

The conclusion arrived at was that the fat of the herbivora is largely 
produced from the carbohydrates of their ration. As regards the origin 
of muscular power, he concluded after a careful review, ‘ that all the 
experimental evidence at command tended to show that by an increased 
exercise of muscular power there was, with increased requirement for 


M.—AGRICULTURE 245 


respirable material, probably no increased production and voidance of 
urea, unless owing to excess of nitrogenous matter in the food or of a 
deficiency of non-nitrogenous matter, the nitrogenous constituents of the 
body were drawn upon in an abnormal degree for the supply of respirable 
material.’ 

He concluded his address by stating that ‘ while much remained to be 
done both in chemistry and physiology as regards the above problems, 
yet I think we may congratulate ourselves on the re-establishment of the 
true faith in regard to them, so far at least as the most important practical 
points are concerned.’ 

I have dealt somewhat fully with the state of knowledge of our subject 
fifty years ago in order that we may appreciate more fully the changes 
which have taken place since then. A great deal of the investigations 
during the past half-century have been concerned with the more accurate 
and detailed working out of the ideas discussed by Gilbert and his con- 
temporaries and the explanation of many points in agricultural practice 
which had been evolved by centuries of experience by farmers, and while 
nothing spectacular in the way of change may have resulted, the cumu- 
lative effect of the more accurate knowledge about soils, fertilisers, crops 
and nutrition has undoubtedly been important, 

In addition, several discoveries of fundamental importance have been 
made ; the synthetic manufacture of ammonia and nitrates; the effects of 
vitamins in animal nutrition ; the theory of base exchange in soils ; and 
the development of bacteriology, to mention some of the more outstanding 
only. 

Some of these, although they might be described as advances purely 
from the scientific side, have yet had practical applications of the highest 
importance. The theory of base exchange in soils, which may be said to 
have originated in this country with the early work of Way in the fifties of 
last century and is associated in modern times with the names of Gedroiz, 
Hissink and Wiegner, has provided an explanation of absorption and 
exchange phenomena and of soil acidity, and has been successfully applied 
to the reclamation of alkali soils in Hungary (Von Sigmond) and the 
Western States of America, as well as in the treatment of land recovered 
from the sea. 

Amongst other notable advances which have had a practical application 
may also be mentioned the use of sulphur for reducing fungoid attacks 
on crops and for reducing alkalinity in soils, particularly soils used for 
growing potatoes, and the study of the functions of elements which occur 
only in minute quantities in plants, e.g. copper, manganese and boron. 
The application of modern statistical methods to the interpretation of 
field experiments and of biological experiments generally, has led to a 
more accurate appreciation of the experimental errors involved, and of 
the significance attached to any result. 

Since the last meeting in Leicester, very real advances have been made 
in our knowledge of the chemistry of the proteins, carbohydrates and fats, 
and of enzymes ; this has led necessarily to a clearer appreciation of the 
processes concerned in the synthesis of plant products and of animal 
metabolism. . 


246 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Among the major problems awaiting solution are the methods by which 
plants take up their nutrients and the further development of biochemical 
methods generally. 


Tue SOIL. 


The study of the soil may be approached from two points of view. In 
the first of these it is regarded as the seat of certain chemical, physical and 
biological processes which are investigated entirely from the scientific 
point of view without any reference to agriculture. This has been the 
method of attack of the Russian school in particular, and the supposition 
is that when a sufficient body of knowledge has been accumulated in this 
way, the consideration of the facts obtained may result in practical appli- 
cations of value to the agriculturist ; it should be emphasised, however, 
that the approach in the first instance is purely scientific. The interesting 
volume published a few months ago by Prof. G. W. Robinson of 
Bangor gives a clear exposition of the methods of this school and of the 
results which have, so far, been obtained. ‘The other method has been 
to study the soil as the medium of plant growth, to investigate practical 
problems as they arise and to have as its definite aim the giving of advice 
to those engaged in agriculture as to improving their methods of tillage 
and crop production. It is obvious, of course, that no definite division 
can be made between the two methods of approach, as is shown by the 
history of recent developments. In this country, while the former 
method has been by no means neglected, as witness the large amount of 
research work carried on at Rothamsted and to a lesser degree elsewhere, 
it is the latter method which has been in the main officially supported 
and subsidised by successive governments. 

Amongst the scientific methods which have emerged and received 
considerable prominence and support in recent years is the modern 
method of soil classification. This, while belonging to the scientific 
method of investigation, also seeks to justify its existence by the claim 
that it is of immediate importance to the farmer. The method was first 
developed in Russia where it was shown as early as 1879 that climate is 
responsible for the great tracts of similar soil found in that country ; 
this idea was developed by later workers and more recently by Glinka 
and others, who recognised some of the limitations of the original method 
and proposed in place of the earlier zonal type of classification a system 
based on the effect of climate on the development of the soil profile. 
Soils were divided into two great groups. In the first were placed the soils 
in which the profile shows that the external soil-forming processes, 
especially climate, have predominated ; the second group comprises those 
soils in which the internal process, i.e. parent material, still predominates. 
These groups are further subdivided, but the whole system lays special 
emphasis on the development of the soil profile—that is, the vertical section 
from the surface soil to the unweathered parent material. 

Although soil surveys had been carried out for a considerable time in 
Europe and the United States, modern soil surveying may be said to date 
from the first International Soil Congress held at Budapest in 1909. 
At this meeting Glinka explained the new method of classifying and 


M.—AGRICULTURE 247 


mapping soils on a climatic basis, and soil surveys on the new basis were 
soon begun in a large number of European countries and in the United 
States. At the International Soil Congress held at Rome in 1924 it was 
agreed to construct a soil map of Europe, and in 1926 the special committee 
representative of the different countries concerned met in Hungary to 
discuss in the field the practical details of the work on which the map 
was to be based. At a subsequent meeting in Budapest the details of 
the methods were adjusted, and it was agreed to undertake the construction 
of a map of the soils of Europe based on as uniform a method of surveying 
as possible. The ‘ General Map of the Soils of Europe,’ under the 
editorship of Prof. Stremme, Danzig, was published in 1927. The 
English text, translated by Dr. W. G. Ogg, of the Macaulay Institute for 
Soil Research, Aberdeen, was published in 1929 with the aid of a grant 
from the Department of Agriculture for Scotland. The first edition of 
the map is on the scale of 1 : 10,000,000, and preparations for a second 
edition are in progress. 

The idea of a soil map of Europe is an ambitious one and the conception 
is not without its attractiveness. In the present state of our knowledge, 
however, it appears to many that the plan is possibly premature and that 
there is a great element of unreality in the results. It is only fair to the 
editors to say that they fully realise the difficulties of carrying out a survey 
of this extent on a uniform basis, and admit that the results are imperfect 
and will require to be modified in various ways. It seems fairly clear, 
however, that the difficulties of making such a map have been seriously 
underrated. Few workers in Europe have any extensive knowledge of 
soils outside their own countries, with the inevitable confusion as regards 
classification and nomenclature. At home, our soil workers have to be 
content with spending a few weeks in the field each summer. It is evident, 
therefore, that the difficulties are great and that the rate of progress must 
be slow. At the same time, the meetings of workers from different 
countries at the International Soil Conferences with the resultant exchange 
of ideas and experiences must be valuable in the development of the subject. 

Turning next to the methods employed in surveying, the profile is 
studied as regards horizons, colour and texture changes, structure, drain- 
age and vegetation. The surface horizons are naturally more extensively 
studied. As regards the chemistry of the profile, most weight is placed 
on the ratio of silica to sesquioxides ; other factors examined are the 
presence and accumulation of salts, including calcium carbonate, and 
changes in acidity with depth. On the results of these observations, the 
soil is placed in its appropriate class. In passing, it may be noted that 
there appears to be a certain reluctance on the part of the advocates of 
these methods to ascertain by means of carefully conducted field experi- 
ments whether some of the differences they are mapping are really signifi- 
cant in practice and whether some of the finer differences which they 
map, between soils within the same type, have any reality and make any 
appreciable difference in agricultural practice. 

As regards the utility of soil surveys generally, a reasonable case can 
be made out for the benefits which are likely to follow a careful survey of 
a new country which is just being developed. ‘The difficulty there, is to 


248 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


provide the staff and funds so that the survey work is kept ahead of the 
development. 

In a country like this, on the other hand, there is considerable doubt on 
the part of many as to whether the benefits which are supposed to follow 
such a survey will ever be realised. 'The question of suitable crop distri- 
bution and association is well established as the result of generations of 
experience and is not likely to be seriously altered as the result of such an 
investigation. It is claimed that a soil survey on the scale of x inch to 
the mile would be of great importance in connection with manuring and 
in the interpretation of the results obtained by the various methods of 
estimating the available plant nutrients in the soil. Before undertaking a 
survey of such magnitude, it should be pointed out that such a claim would 
require to be based on the results of a wider series of accurate field trials 
than are available at present. At the same time, the importance of survey 
methods from the purely scientific point of view and also in connection 
with land reclamation problems should not be overlooked. 

What the farmer wishes to know about his soil is whether it is adequately 
supplied with nitrogen, phosphates and potash, and whether there is 
sufficient lime present to give a satisfactory soil reaction. These are 
reasonable questions, but it must be admitted that in the past the task of 
the agricultural chemist who had to attempt to answer them was by no 
means easy. Much progress has been made in recent years, and although 
much still remains to be done, more satisfactory replies can now be given 
to the farmer’s questions than was formerly the case. 

With regard to nitrogen, no method exists by which we can judge the 
requirements of a soil as regards this element ; the fact that most soils 
respond to dressings of soluble nitrogenous fertilisers is about as far as 
we can go in the way of prediction. 

At the same time, it must be pointed out that considerable progress 
has been made in the difficult question of the nature of the soil organic 
matter. The recent work of Page in England, Schmuck in Russia and 
Waksman in America (S.C.I. Ann. Rep., vol. xvii (1932), p. 461) has shown 
that the so-called ‘ humic acids’ are in all probability protein-lignin 
complexes. Synthetic products of this type have been prepared and 
agree closely in properties with the humic acids found in soil organic 
matter. 

On the other hand, the lime requirement of a soil can now be given with 
reasonable accuracy by routine methods which are suitable for use on a 
large scale. The question as to whether the dressing of lime which is 
theoretically desirable can be recommended is generally an economic 
rather than a chemical one. 

To determine what the requirements of a soil are with regard to available 
phosphates and potassium is a more difficult matter. The most that can 
be aimed at at present is to be able to say whether the soil is well supplied 
or moderately supplied with these constituents, or is deficient in them. 

The difficulties of discriminating between the available and non- 
available constituents in a soil are obvious. In the first place, the way in 
which plants take up their nutrients from the soil is still a matter of con- 
troversy, and the fact that the soil is a heterogeneous and ever-changing 


M.—AGRICULTURE 249 


system of extreme complexity greatly increases the difficulties. The 
chemical methods generally employed involve the extraction of the soil 
with water or some dilute solvent and the estimation of the phosphates 
and potassium which come into solution under standard conditions. 
When the results can be interpretated in the light of field experiments 
or experience, they are a very useful guide in advisory work. The fact 
that the method is an empirical one is a great drawback, but the more 
serious objection is that the results give a measure of the condition of a 
soil at a particular time only and obviously cannot apply to its condition at 
different times throughout the year. There is probably no hard and fast 
line between the ‘ non-available’’ and the ‘ available’ constituents, the 
one set gradually merging into the other. 

These fundamental difficulties have suggested the idea of making use of 
the plant itself as an index to the available plant nutrients in the soil. 
Much work from this point of view has been carried out and two methods 
based on these principles have been in use on the Continent for several 
years. These are the well-known methods of Mitscherlich and Neubauer. 
These methods, as well as Wiesemann’s modification of Mitscherlich’s 
method, have been very ably and critically reviewed by Dr. R. Stewart in 
a recent publication of the Imperial Bureau of Soil Science (Technical 
Communication No. 25, 1932). 

Mitscherlich’s method is based on his claim to have discovered a Law of 
Plant Growth which is applicable to all plant species ; he claims to have 
established that the plant yield can be increased by each single growth 
factor, even when it is not present in minimum, so long as it is not present 
in maximum. In its original form it was given by Mitscherlich as follows : 
The increase of crop produced by unit increment of the lacking factor is 
proportional to the decrement from the maximum. This can be expressed 
mathematically as follows : 


dy 

oY —C(A—y) 

where y is the yield, A is the maximum yield and x the growth factor. 
(It is interesting to observe that this equation is identical with that for 
a mono-molecular chemical change.) 

Mitscherlich developed an elaborate technique for applying his theory 
to the testing of soils by means of pot experiments. Here again, certain 
arbitrary assumptions had to be made, e.g. as regards the depth of 
sampling, the effects of the subsoil and the permeability of the subsoil. 
These assumptions regarding the sampling factor undoubtedly raise 
serious difficulties and have been the subject of adverse criticism. 

__ From his estimation of the manurial content of the soil, Mitscherlich 

then calculates the manurial requirements, the calculation being greatly 
simplified by the assumption of the constancy of the effect factor, which 
means that the manurial requirements for any one soil are the same for all 
crops. 

Mitscherlich’s method has been subjected to severe criticism, first on 
his theoretical assumptions, his treatment of his experimental data and 
the applicability of the Logarithmic Law ; and secondly, on the constancy 


250 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


of the ‘ Effect-Factors.’ Notwithstanding these criticisms, Mitscherlich 
had such faith in the usefulness of his method that he has developed 
stations in different parts of Germany for testing soils by his methods. 
The Soil-Testing Society in East Prussia had in 1931 no less than five 
stations and the number of pots in use was 25,000, equivalent to 2,500 
soils tested. The original cost of a test was {5—-£6, but this has been 
very much reduced in later years. This is direct evidence, at any rate, of 
the belief of the practical farmer in the value of the test. It is satisfactory 
to know that an installation of Mitscherlich pots has been set up at the 
Macaulay Institute for Soil Research at Aberdeen, and that in addition a 
large series of field pots have been laid down on different types of soil 
according to the Mitscherlich plan. It will be interesting to see what 
agreement is found between the results of the tests and the results obtained 
by laboratory methods of extraction. 

The Neubauer method, on the other hand, depends on the estimation 
of the nutrient content of the soil by the growth of young seedlings. The 
method depends on the absorption of phosphates and potassium by plants 
in the early stages of their growth. By adopting a standard technique, 
and using rye seedlings as his crop, Neubauer proved that the amount 
absorbed was constant for a given sample of soil. By using a large 
number of seedlings and by diluting the soil with sand, he considered 
that the phosphates and potassium taken up by the seedlings would 
represent the total available supply of nutrients in the soil. This would 
give the nutrient content of the soil without any reference to the manurial 
requirements of a particular crop, the estimation of this being the same 
problem which is met with in all chemical extraction methods of analysis. 

Having determined the root-soluble nutrients in this way, the next 
problem was to calculate from the figures obtained the manurial require- 
ments of the various crops. ‘To do this he makes two main assumptions— 
(1) that under the conditions of the test the seedlings absorb the total 
quantity of available phosphates and potassium, and (2) that crops under 
field conditions can utilise only a certain fraction of the total amounts 
present owing to the different conditions of growth. Making the above 
assumptions and estimating the quantities of phosphates and potassium 
removed by the various crops, he then calculates the ‘ limit values’ for 
the various crops. In order to calculate the amount of fertiliser to be 
applied to soils showing less than the ‘ limit values,’ he again assumes 
that only 60 per cent. of the potash applied and 20 to 33 per cent. of the 
phosphates are availing during the year of application. 

Neubauer’s method has also been subjected to considerable criticism 
on the analytical details, the influence of external factors and the deter- 
mination of the ‘ limit values.’ 

The analytical work concerned requires a high degree of accuracy and 
possibly some of the criticism of the method has been based on results 
obtained without sufficient care having been taken in the analytical work. 

The question of practical interest is how do the results obtained by the 
two methods agree, and which method is the more reliable as to the 
manurial requirements of a particular soil and crop? Neither of these 
questions is easily answered. It may be said at once that there is a wide 


M.—AGRICULTURE 251 


divergence between the figures obtained and yet, applying the different 
standards of the two methods, it is claimed that there is a good agreement 
in both cases between the results of field trials and the recommendations 
of the methods. It should be pointed out that the method of comparison 
is purely qualitative, i.e. if a deficiency of potassium has been indicated 
by the test and there is a response to a dressing of potassium salts in the 
field, this is taken as a case of agreement. 

One general difficulty which applies to both methods is that they can 
be carried out only at institutes specially equipped for the purpose. The 
Mitscherlich method requires a whole season to carry out the test, while 
the Neubauer requires much supervision and extreme accuracy in the 
analytical work. Attempts have therefore been made to devise simpler 
biochemical methods suitable for the ordinary laboratory use ; of these, 
two are of special interest. 

The Azotobacter Method—The Azotobacter chroococcum is a well- 
known soil micro-organism which has the power of fixing soil nitrogen, 
and its use as a method for testing soils was first worked out in Denmark. 
The organism is very sensitive to acid conditions, and this was used as the 
basis of a method for measuring the ‘ lime requirements ’ of a soil. This 
method has been superseded by the more convenient and more accurate 
physico-chemical methods now employed. In addition to requiring a 
non-acid medium, the rate of growth of the organism depends also on the 
supply of phosphates, and later the method was adopted for the estimation 
of the available phosphates in the soil. The defect of the method is that 
there is no accurate means of estimating the development of the bacteria 
and that the results are therefore only qualitative in character. 

The Aspergillus Method—The principle of this method is the same as 
that described above, but it has the advantage of being more quantitative 
in character, as it is possible to collect the fungus and weigh it. It was 
found that under standard conditions the growth of Aspergillus niger is 
proportional to the amounts of available potash and phosphates in the soil. 

The mould is grown in a suspension of the soil in a culture solution 
containing all the constituents necessary for growth except the one being 
tested for. The mixture is inoculated with the organism and incubated 
for four to six days. During that time, the mycelium develops and covers 
the surface of the liquid like a felt. It is then removed, washed, dried 
and weighed. The estimations are carried out in triplicate or quadrupli- 
cate, and the results of a large number of experiments have shown that the 
standard error is of the order 4 per cent. The particular strain of 
organism employed and the form in which the nitrogen is supplied are 
important factors in the success of the determinations. 

The method has been worked out by Prof. Niklas and his colleagues 
at the Agricultural Research Station at Weihenstephen, near Munich, 
and has also been subjected to a critical examination by Dr. A. M. Smith, 
Edinburgh, who has tested the method with a variety of Scottish soils, 
as well as investigating the effect of different sources of nitrogen on the 
process. 

The results obtained by this method have been compared with those 
obtained by Neubauer’s method and have shown on the whole very good 


252 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


agreement, especially for potassium. ‘The richer the soil as estimated by 
the Neubauer method, the greater the growth of Aspergillus. For phos- 
phates the agreement between the two methods is very good as far as 
poor soils are concerned, but is only moderately good for the intermediate 
or richer soils ; one difficulty is that the absorption of phosphates by the 
fungus is not constant for different types of phosphates. 

The Aspergillus method is therefore likely to be valuable in estimating 
the potassium and phosphate requirements of a soil. The results, as 
might be expected, are more reliable for potassium than for phosphates, 
and while not rigidly quantitative, give information as to whether the soil 
is rich or poor in these constituents. It has the advantage of being rapid 
and requiring no expensive apparatus (A. M. Smith and R. Coull, Scot. 
Journ. Agr. vol. xv (1932), p. 262). 

The whole question of available plant food is necessarily bound up 
with the complex relationships which exist between plant and soil, and it 
is unlikely that any simple or single method will be devised to overcome 
the inherent difficulties of the problem and be generally applicable to 
different sets of conditions. ‘The admitted lack of agreement obtained 
with the various methods at present in use is undoubtedly due, to a large 
extent, to the variety of factors involved, as well as to the fundamental 
objections which may be raised to any one method. We are still very 
ignorant of the process of assimilation by the growing plant, and until 
we have more information on this subject, methods of estimating availa- 
bility must continue to be largely empirical and the results merely first 
approximations. f 

The usual method of approach to the problem has been to study the 
effect of the soil or plant medium on the plant. In Edinburgh attention 
has in recent years been directed in the opposite direction—namely, to a 
study of the effect of the plant on the soil. ‘The alterations to be observed 
are, of course, small, but by applying methods which might almost be 
described as analogous to modern micro-methods of analysis, measurable 
changes can be followed with considerable accuracy. The results which 
have been obtained are interesting and sometimes rather unexpected, and 
although it is scarcely to be supposed that they will furnish a complete 
picture of the relationship between soil and plants, one feels that any 
contribution to the subject from a new angle may be of value in the study 
of such a complex problem. 


FERTILISERS. 


Turning next to the progress which has been made in the manufacture 
and use of fertilisers since the time of Gilbert’s address, there are one or 
two notable dates and achievements to be mentioned. 

In 1878 Thomas and Gilbert introduced their new basic process for 
the manufacture of steel which resulted in the production of basic slag as a 
by-product. It was a few years before the value of the slag as a source of 
phosphates for plants was discovered. ‘The importance of the new slag 
in agriculture was first realised in Germany. ‘The earliest experiments 
in this country were carried out in England by Wrightson and Munro in 
1885, and by A. P. Aitken in Scotland about the same time ; a year.or 


M.—AGRICULTURE 253 


two later J. J. Dobbie carried out the first experiments with the slag in 
North Wales. 

The now classic experiments laid down by Prof. Somerville in 1896 
and carried on and developed by his successors, Sir Thomas Middleton 
and Prof. Gilchrist, have demonstrated the value of this addition to phos- 
phatic fertilisers and show as the result of twenty-five years’ experiments 
that basic slag is, for certain types of soil, even more valuable than 
superphosphate. Changes in the modern methods of steel making and 
the effect of the large amount of scrap iron and steel available in the years 
succeeding the war brought about a considerable alteration in the com- 
position of the slags produced in this country. About ten years ago, 
therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries set up a permanent 
committee on basic slag ‘ to consider the development and improvement 
of the manufacture of basic slag and the extension of its use.’ This 
* committee has produced a valuable series of reports, the last (tenth) report 
being published in September 1932. The work of the committee has been, 
in general, ‘to make a detailed study of the agricultural values of the slags 
now available to farmers and the chemical means by which these values 
can be expressed.’ By means of the old but empirical citric acid test, the 
slags produced in this country can be divided into two groups—a high- 
soluble group in which 80 per cent. or more of the phosphoric acid is 
soluble in 2 per cent. citric acid and a low-soluble group in which less than 
40 per cent. is soluble. The experiments in recent years have been 
carried out with hay, and while no final conclusion can be drawn at this 
stage, the results indicate that with this crop the high-soluble slag showed, 
in the first year, a slight superiority over superphosphate and a marked 
superiority over mineral phosphate and low-soluble basic slag, and there 
was in addition a considerable improvement in the quality as well as the 
quantity of the hay obtained from the more active phosphatic fertilisers. 
The figures obtained for the recovery of phosphoric acid were interesting. 
For two years, the recovery of phosphoric acid added were superphosphate 
12 per cent., high-soluble slag 9 per cent., mineral phosphate 4 per cent. 
and low-soluble slag 2 per cent. 

Pot experiments with barley carried out from 1927 to 1931 gave similar 
results, the high-soluble slags giving better results even than superphos- 
phate on certain types of soil (e.g. Millstone Grit) and markedly better 
than the low-soluble slags. 

It must always be borne in mind that basic slag is a by-product and that 
its composition may be altered by changes in the methods of steel manu- 
facture. The need for the work of such a committee is, therefore, 
obvious and the committee should be continued. 

The beneficial effects of mineral phosphates as fertilisers was noticed 
as far back as 1845. New sources of material and improvements in the 
methods of grinding have led to a great extension of their use in recent 
years, 

Superphosphate—Improved methods of manufacture and better 
sources of raw material have led to a progressive improvement in the 
quality of this fertiliser. In 1907 the total world production was 7,813,570 
metric tons and in 1930 this had been almost exactly doubled (15,582,162 


254 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


metric tons). There has, of course, been a fall since then, but this is due 
very largely to the prevailing depression. Formerly, superphosphate was 
considered an acid manure and its continued use was supposed to deplete 
the soil of lime and to increase its acidity. A large amount of experi- 
mental work has been carried out in recent years, and the result is 
to show conclusively that the objections to the use of the so-called 
physiologically acid manures have been the result of misconceptions or 
possibly even misrepresentations. ‘The use of superphosphate does not 
generally increase the acidity of the soil. 

Nitrogenous Fertilisers —Attention has already been directed to the far- 
reaching effects of Leibig’s reports to the British Association in 1843 and 
1847. Inthe year 1898 the Association was again to take a prominent part 
inthe development of agriculture. ‘The President that year was Sir William 
Crookes, who devoted his address to showing that if the rate of increase then 
assumed of the world’s population was correct, the world would be faced 
with a wheat famine in the not far distant future. He pointed out also 
the necessity, if we were to increase the production of wheat, of the 
increased use of ammonium salts and nitrates as fertilisers. As regards 
nitrogenous fertilisers, he showed that we were living on our capital 
of combined nitrogen compounds and that there was also the danger of a 
nitrogen famine to be faced. The remedy he suggested was to devise 
methods for ‘ fixing’ or bringing into combination the nitrogen of the 
atmosphere, and he actually sketched methods and estimated costs of 
effecting this combination by electrical means. As far back as 1784 
Cavendish had shown that oxygen and nitrogen could be made to combine 
under the influence of the electric spark. Many years were to elapse, 
however, before a practical commercial method was evolved. ‘The 
earlier methods were electrical in character and were developed in 
Norway and Italy, where cheap supplies of electrical energy were available. 
These methods have been more or less superseded, and ammonia is now 
manufactured by a synthetic method on an enormous scale at the works 
of the Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., at Billingham. ‘The method 
used is a modification of the Haber-Bosch process. The practical difh- 
culties which had to be faced were great ; of these I need only mention 
the problem of working at pressures of over 200 atmospheres—i.e. over 
3,000 lb. per square inch—and at an elevated temperature, to enable you 
to realise some of the difficulties which had to be overcome. ‘The success- 
ful development of the method is certainly one of the greatest triumphs 
of chemistry and engineering in modern times. By this process, which 
incidentally dispenses with the use of sulphuric acid, sulphate of 
ammonia can now be prepared more cheaply than from gas liquor 
where the ammonia is obtained as a by-product. 

By the oxidation of ammonia to nitric acid by means of a suitable 
catalyst ammonium nitrate can be prepared, and by mixing this with calcium 
carbonate a valuable fertiliser, known commercially as ‘ nitro-chalk,’ is 
manufactured. 

Concentrated Complete Fertilisers —One of the most interesting develop- 
ments of the synthetic ammonia industry has been the manufacture of 
concentrated complete fertilisers containing nitrogen, phosphates and 


M.—AGRICULTURE 255 


potash in suitable proportions and all soluble in water. The basis of 
these fertilisers is a mono-ammonium phosphate which is made by 
subjecting finely ground rock phosphate to the action of a mixture of 
sulphuric acid and ammonium sulphate. This gives directly a solution 
of mono-ammonium phosphate containing a little ammonium sulphate 
and calcium sulphate is precipitated. ‘The mono-ammonium phosphate 
contains 12-2 per cent. nitrogen and 61-7 per cent. phosphoric acid and 
is thus a highly concentrated fertiliser. By mixing this with ammonium 
sulphate and a suitable potash salt, a wide range of fertilisers can be 
obtained. ‘The ingredients are finely ground and then passed to a special 
incorporator in which they are churned by means of paddles, whilst 
saturated steam is blown in. In this way, granules are formed which 
are then dried ; roughly, one ton of such fertilisers supplies as much 
plant food as two tons of the ordinary mixed fertiliser of similar com- 
‘position. They possess the obvious advantage of reducing freight and 
handling charges and cost of distribution to the land ; they are granular 
in texture and very easy to sow, and they can be stored without risk 
of deterioration ; further, the constituents are all soluble in water. 
Another point claimed in their favour is that they contain little except 
the three fertilisers, nitrogen, phosphates and potash, while the ordinary 
fertilisers contain appreciable, and in some cases large, amounts of calcium, 
sulphur, and other elements. It is possible that in some soils the absence 
of the additional substances might be a disadvantage, and a careful com- 
parison of the new fertilisers with the old mixed fertilisers will be necessary 
_to show that no disadvantage attends the use of the new compounds over 
a number of years. Accurate field experiments on a wide variety of soils 
were carried out in this country in 1930 to compare the relative effects 
of the concentrated complete fertilisers and of mixtures of sulphate of 
ammonia, superphosphate and potash giving the same amounts of nitrogen, 
phosphates and potash. With the three crops examined (oats, potatoes 
and sugar beet), the concentrated fertilisers gave the same average increases 
in yield as the equivalent ordinary mixtures. At certain centres, however, 
the concentrated fertilisers gave better results and at others a poorer yield 
than the ordinary mixtures. The work is being continued. 
It is obvious that if the concentrated fertilisers were used continuously 


over a number of years, increased attention would require to be given to 
liming. 


BIOCHEMISTRY. 


When we consider the development of organic chemistry during the 
past century, we see that the earlier workers were much occupied with 
the investigation of the substances which occur naturally in plants and 
animals ; although many individual organic substances were known before 
this time, the modern developments of organic chemistry may be said to 
date from Wohler’s memorable syntheses of oxalic acid in 1824 and of 
urea in 1828. While the early organic chemists were much interested in 
those compounds which occur in plants and in the animal body, the trend 
of investigation, particularly in this country, then shifted to the investi- 
gation of more theoretical questions, e.g. the investigation of radicles, 


256 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


the theory of substitution and types and the theory of structure. These 
investigations gave a great impetus to organic synthesis and the number of 
known carbon compounds increased rapidly. Most of the substances 
investigated, e.g. the many products obtained from coal tar, had no 
connection with animal or plant life, and organic chemistry became much 
more the chemistry of the carbon compounds than that of living organisms. 
Until the beginning of the present century, the interest in the chemistry 
of natural products steadily declined, and it is only since then that the 
development of Bio-chemistry, as we know it now, may be said to have 
taken place. The monumental work of Emil Fischer on the purines, the 
simpler carbohydrates, the proteins and the tannins, to which he devoted 
the greater part of his life, laid the foundations of this new branch of the — 
science. His method for the separation of the amino-acids by first con- 
verting them into esters and then separating the esters by fractional 
distillation under greatly reduced pressure, has been invaluable in thé 
study of this group of substances. By 1906 bio-chemistry as a separate 
branch of the science may be said to be firmly established, and in that year 
three journals devoted entirely to bio-chemistry appeared in Britain, the 
United States and in Germany respectively. ‘The work initiated by 
Fischer has been carried on by a brilliant band of workers in this and 
other countries, amongst whom may be mentioned Perkin, Willstatter, 
Gowland Hopkins, Robinson, Barger, Haworth, Windaus, Wieland, 
Hans Fischer and Dakin. 

It is obvious that the investigation of the chemical changes which take 
place in a living cell presents difficulties of a very high order. The 
reactions involved take place in very dilute solution ; the intermediate 
bodies formed have a very brief existence, being rapidly changed into 
some further product ; so that, while we may know the initial substances 
involved and the final product of the reaction, there may be little known 
as to the various stages in the formation of the final product. 

While there have been great advances in our knowledge of the structure 
of many of the substances found in plants and animals, we still know rela- 
tively little about the processes by which they are formed. ‘The various 
stages in the fundamental process of photo-synthesis have not yet been 
worked out, although plausible suggestions as to what takes place have not 
been wanting. We are ignorant of the stages by which amino-acids in 
plants are formed from nitrates and carbohydrates and little is known of 
the methods by which carbohydrates are changed into fats and vice versa. 
In the same way, while we have a considerable amount of knowledge as 
to how the proteins, fat and carbohydrates are broken down in animals, 
little information is as yet available as to how similar changes are brought 
about in plants. A notable recent advance is Robinson’s theory of the 
way in which alkaloids are synthesised in plants, which has enabled him 
not only to predict the constitution of certain alkaloids, but also to effect 
the synthesis in vitro of alkaloids and alkaloid-like substances. 

It is interesting to note in passing that where individual instances of 
katabolism have been worked out, the breakdown does not occur, as a 
rule, in the manner which the organic chemist would expect. The same 
is true of the degradation of the amino-acids in the animal body. 


M.—AGRICULTURE 257 


‘In a series of lectures on the amino-acids, proteins and the proteolytic 
enzymes recently delivered in this country, Prof. Max Bergmann of 
Dresden describes the recent advances which have been made in our 
knowledge of the amino-acids and the polypeptides, as well as of the 
changes brought about by the enzymes which attack them. He shows 
that for more than thirty years chemists have been endeavouring to 
discover suitable methods for the synthesis of peptides containing the 
more complex amino-acids, but that only recently has a general method 
been developed. It is generally assumed that in the proteins the amino- 
acids are linked together by condensation of the carboxyl group of one 
amino-acid with the amino group of the next, a molecule of water being 
eliminated and an amide or peptide linkage formed ; the ordinary protein 
molecule is supposed to consist of a large number of such linkages. 
Bergmann points out that the outstanding problem of modern protein 
chemistry is to determine the effect of combination in peptide linkage on 
the different amino-acids, and; secondly, how the nature of the peptide 
linkage itself is influenced by the character of the amino-acids which take 
part in its formation. 

Investigations along these lines, while yet in an elementary stage, have 
thrown much light on many of the biological processes, e.g. the trans- 
formation of an amino-acid to a fatty acid, the biological degradation of an 
amino-acid to a keto-acid, and, conversely, the biological synthesis of 
creatine and many other reactions of the highest importance. Willstatter, 
Waldschmidt-Leitz and Bergmann and his fellow-workers have also devoted 
much time to the action of the enzymes which attack proteins and have 
made significant advances along this line of work. Summing up, Berg- 
mann states: ‘ The key to present day and future protein chemistry lies 
_ in the development of new synthetic methods, in the action of enzymes on 
proteins, and on an extension of the knowledge of protein metabolism 
both in normal and pathological cases.’ 

Similar advances in our knowledge of the structure of the carbohydrates 
have also been made. The work of Purdie and Irvine at St. Andrews 
and of Haworth and his school at Birmingham, of Staudinger, Zechmister 
and Mark in Germany and of other workers in the United States has been 
particularly important in elucidating the structure of these complex 
bodies. 

The structure of the simple sugars and of the di-saccharides has now 
been more or less worked out. The introduction of the six atom ring 
formula and the greatly increased use of stereo-chemical methods of 
exhibiting differences in structure have been important factors in the 
developments which have been made. 

- More recently, the constitution of the polysaccharides has been engaging 
much attention and speculation, and notable advances fall to be recorded 
both by chemical and by X-ray methods of investigation. ‘The adoption 
of Haworth’s hexagon formula for glucose has led to new interpretations of 
the experimental evidence bearing on the constitution of these substances. 
It has been shown by Haworth and his co-workers that the constitution 
assigned to cellulose rests ultimately on the constitution assigned to the 
di-saccharide cellobiose and the mutual linking of -glucopyranose 
K 


258 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


residues in a chain through positions 1 and 4 of the glucose molecule is 
the fundamental principle of modern cellulose structure. By purely 
chemical methods of investigation, they have shown that in some forms 
the cellulose is a straight chain of limited length containing not more than 
100 cellobiose or 200 glucose units. 

The question of the size of the cellulose molecule has been attacked 
by various other methods—by viscosity measurements of cellulose dis- 
solved in Schweizer’s reagent or of the acetate or nitrate in organic media 
(Staudinger), by study of the cleavage products obtained by enzymes and 
by the X-ray methods of the Braggs and of Mark. The interesting fact 
emerges that the results obtained by the X-ray investigations of cellulose 
structure are in such wonderful agreement with the views adopted from 
chemical methods. Sir William Bragg pointed out in a lecture recently 
delivered to the Royal Institution that cellulose is the fundamental mole- 
cular combination occurring in vegetable growth and that it is pre- 
eminently the molecule of growth in the vegetable world. The cellulose 
occurring in plants cannot have the same properties in all directions for 
growth takes place along definite lines. The fibrous nature of cellulose 
has long been recognised, as we see by the use which is made of it in 
spinning threads and ropes which can stand an immense strain in one 
direction. Bragg’s investigations have shown that cellulose is made up 
of crystals, or crystallites, invisible under the microscope, but capable of 
detection by X-ray methods. These crystallites are partly oriented, 
having one direction more or less in common and to this arrangement of 
the crystallites the peculiar and characteristic properties of cellulose are 
due. Recent studies by Thiessen have indicated that the structure of 
the pure cellulose fibre is the same as that of lignified tissue, except that 
the spacing in the latter is wider to accommodate the lignin. Reference 
has already been made to the fact that the organic matter of the soil is 
derived from this lignin complex from which the cellulose has been 
removed. 

It has already been noted that the various stages in the building up of 
carbohydrates in plants have not yet been satisfactorily explained. At 
the same time, much work of the highest importance on the composition 
of the chlorophyll in plants, the active agent in the utilisation of the 
radiant energy from the sun, has been accomplished during the last 
twenty years. In 1912 Willstétter and his co-workers at Munich 
showed that chlorophyll as ordinarily obtained is really a mixture of 
two substances, chlorophyll a (C;;H,,O;N,Mg) and _ chlorophyll 6 
(C;5;HyO,N.sMg). They also investigated the yellow or reddish-brown 
pigments, carotene (C4yyH;,) and zanthophyll (Cy9H;,02), which accom- 
pany the chlorophylls and which are generally referred to as the carotinoids. 
By a series of brilliantly conceived investigations, Willstatter has been able 
to throw much light on the structure of these complicated bodies and, 
in particular, on the relation between the chlorophyll of plants and the 
hemoglobin of blood. In this connection reference must be made to 
the work of Hans Fischer who has already synthesised hamin and made 
great advances towards the synthesis of chlorophyll. 

Enzyme Action.—It has long been known that enzyme action plays a 


M.—AGRICULTURE 259 


highly important part in most of the chemical reactions taking place in 
plants and animals. In addition, the breaking down of complex mole- 
cules by the action of enzymes is often employed in investigating the 
constitution of these substances. 

The action of enzymes has been known for over 100 years. Kirchhoff 
in 1814 had discovered the catalytic action of the glutinous component 
of wheat meal, and later, in 1833, Payen and Persoz separated an active 
preparation of this enzyme from malt, the enzyme now known as amylase. 
While much work of a preliminary kind was carried out in the succeeding 
years, the results obtained were frequently inconsistent and confusing. 
This is not to be wondered at when we consider the excessive complexity of 
these bodies, the difficulties of purifying them and the extremely com- 
plicated reactions in which they play a part. It is again Willstitter, 
whose brilliant work on chlorophyll has just been described, who has been 
mainly responsible for the great advances which have been made in our 
knowledge of the enzymes during the past fifteen years. He began by 
improving the technique of the methods of preparation, introducing 
quantitative methods of control, and in this way was able to prepare 
specifically pure enzymes. ‘This has led to a much more accurate know- 
ledge of the specification of enzymes and has cleared up much of the con- 
fusion which existed previous to his work. He has investigated the 
colloidal characteristics of enzymes, the significance of the H-ion concen- 
tration of the medium and the action of enzymes as synthetic agents—to 
mention only a few of the outstanding results.. In addition, a rational 
classification of the enzymes is now possible and much more detailed 
information about their specific action is available. While the chemical 
constitution of the enzymes has not yet been solved, there is no doubt that 
the results of Willstatter and his school have been most stimulating to 
those engaged in bio-chemical research and have had an important appli- 
cation to the many industries which make use of enzymes in manufacturing 
processes, 

Vitamins—A discovery which will always be associated with the 
name of the distinguished President of the Association this year 
(Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins) is the importance in nutrition of the 
accessory food substances now known as vitamins. As far back as 1881, 
it was noticed that milk cannot be replaced by an artificial mixture of its 
chief constituents. In 1905 Pekelharing of the University of Utrecht 
made the striking claim that there is an unknown but essential substance 
in milk and other foods which is essential to nutrition. This work was 
overlooked, and it was not until the publication of Hopkins’ work in 1912 
that general interest was attracted to the subject. The progress since 
then in the study of these bodies is most striking. One of the most 
remarkable facts which have resulted from these investigations is the large 
number of substances of the vitamin type required for the proper nutrition 
of the higher animals, the number being stated to be at least nine. Ordi- 
narily, five different vitamins are recognised, designated A, B, C, D and E. 
Vitamin B is now subdivided into no less than five substances, commonly 
referred to as the Vitamin B complex. 

Vitamin A,—It is now fairly definitely established that Vitamin A is 


260 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


formed by the liver from the pigment carotene ; this pigment occurs in 
carrots, green leaves, and various vegetables ; it is a hydrocarbon, CyyH,g, 
which is synthesised in plants by the action of light. Carotene has a 
deep colour, but Vitamin A is colourless. How carotene is converted into 
Vitamin A in the tissues is uncertain. The empirical formula C,)H3,O 
(or Cy9Hs,0) has been suggested, and it appears probable that within 
the next few years the constitution of this vitamin will be known and then 
its preparation by synthetical methods will be a possibility. 

Vitamin B—Much work has already been carried out on the various 
members of the Vitamin B complex, but the position is still obscure and 
rather confusing. It is still uncertain how many active substances are 
present and there is still no general agreement as to their properties. 
B, and B, are the only two about which definite conclusions are at present 
available. B, has been obtained in the crystalline state and contains both 
nitrogen and sulphur. The provisional formula C,,H,,ON,S has been 
suggested. It is anticipated that the pure product will be available in 
the near future. While aconsiderable amount of work has been carried out 
as to the chemical nature of Bg, little definite information has yet been 
obtained. 

Vitamin C.—The striking investigations of Szent-Gyorgyi and of 
Waugh and King have led to a great advance in our knowledge of this 
vitamin. What appears to be the essential substance in the vitamin was 
isolated and found to have the formula C,H,O, ; it was named hexuronic 
acid. ‘The preparation of a larger quantity of the material from the 
juice of Hungarian red pepper by Szent-Gyorgyi has enabled the consti- 
tution of the acid to be worked out by Hirst, Cox and Reynolds at 
Birmingham. ‘The substance is now named ascorbic acid, and its anti- 
scorbutic properties are so marked that it may well prove to be Vitamin C 
itself. 

Vitamin D is now available as a commercial preparation under the 
name ‘ Calciferol.’ It is prepared by the irradiation of ergosterol with 
ultra-violet light ; its formula is C,,H,.O. 

The discovery of vitamins has undoubtedly thrown much light on many 
_ of the difficult problems of nutrition and disease, and there can be no 
doubt that, as our knowledge of these substances increases, more and 
more use will be made of them in feeding. Already some notable advances 
have been made. The close connection between the yellow coloured 
pigment carotene and Vitamin A has just been referred to. Milk and 
butter produced in the summer months, when the cows are at pasture, 
have a yellow colour which is associated with the presence of carotene and 
of Vitamin A. On the other hand, butter produced from winter milk, 
when the cows are stall fed, is much whiter in colour and has a much 
lower content of carotene and Vitamin A. ‘The popular view which 
associates the yellow colour of milk with ‘ richness’ is therefore not at 
fault, and incidentally the importance of prohibiting the colouring of 
butter and cheese should be mentioned. ‘The problem was how to 
provide food with the necessary carotene or Vitamin A content during the 
winter months. Experiments on the artificial drying of grass carried out 
at the Agricultural Research Station at Jealotts Hill, Berkshire, have 


M.—AGRICULTURE 261 


shown that grass can be rapidly dried in a band drier at a temperature of 
200° approximately, with scarcely any loss of digestibility or nutritive 
value and, what is more surprising, with only a small loss of the carotene 
content. It was also shown that the carotene content and the nitrogen 
content of pasture herbage were associated, grass of high nitrogen content 
being rich in carotene, so that by properly balanced manuring the carotene 
content of the pasture might be maintained at a higher level. A winter 
feeding experiment with cows was then arranged and the artificially dried 
grass was used to replace an equivalent amount of the ordinary food, with 
the result that the carotene and Vitamin A content of the butter was kept up. 
This effect was not produced by the addition of ordinary green silage. 
The importance to the public health of being able to produce in winter 
butter which, in regard to colour and Vitamin A content, is equal to the 
butter produced in summer from grass-fed cows, can hardly be over- 
estimated. 

As regards vitamins generally, the most important problems are the 
differentiation of the different vitamins and the determination of the 
vitamin requirements of man and the higher animals. By the time this 
is done, it appears probable that there will be an abundant supply of 
pure vitamins to compensate for the deficiencies in the ordinary rations. 

While talking of nutrition, the part played by the mineral matter of the 
food must also be mentioned and the necessity for maintaining a correct 
ratio between the basic and acidic constituents. Much important work 
has been carried out in this country in recent years by the Rowett Institute 
and the Animal Nutrition Research Institute at Cambridge on the mineral 
content of pastures. In his Presidential Address at Bristol in 1930 
Prof. Du Toit described the far-reaching results of Theiler’s work in 
South Africa on phosphorus deficiency, and referred also to Aston’s 
work on iron deficiency in New Zealand. 


AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 


Sufficient has been said of the scientific advances in recent years to 
indicate the great importance of their application, when possible, to 
agricultural industry. At one time it was only too apparent that there 
existed a long lag between scientific discovery and its application in agri- 
cultural research, but this has diminished considerably in recent years ; 
indeed, it may now be said that any new line of work is almost at once 
turned to account in agricultural investigation. 

This agricultural work is undertaken mainly at the new agricultural 
research institutes, although a considerable amount of work is still carried 
out at the universities and the agricultural colleges. 

The development of these research institutes has been one of the most 
marked advances connected with agricultural science which have taken 
place in recent years. 

In Scotland alone, for example, institutes have been established within 
the last few years for research in animal nutrition, in animal diseases, in 
animal genetics, in plant breeding, in dairying and in soil science, and the 
progress in England has been equally great. 

How are the results of these investigations brought before the farmer 


262, SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


and what is his response to them ? How far are they being incorporated 
into modern agricultural practice ? 

It is one of the functions of the agricultural colleges to be the connecting 
link between the research institutes and the farmer. Advisory services 
in connection with the colleges now cover the whole country, so that 
farmers desiring advice have it provided at their own doors and without 
cost. Mention must also be made of the services of the Ministry of Agri- 
culture and Fisheries, the Department of Agriculture for Scotland and 
the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland, whose various publica- 
tions, journals, bulletins, etc., contain much valuable information. 

As to the reaction of the farmer, one is bound to admit that, owing to 
the inherent disinclination of the older farmers to listen to new ideas, 
the response is not what we should desire. At the same time, the more 
intelligent and progressive farmers are fully aware of the value of the 
advisory work of the colleges and make use of them regularly. The 
whole attitude of the farmer to the colleges is vastly different from what 
it was twenty-five or thirty years ago, and the amount of advisory work is 
increasing year by year. 

This much must be admitted, however, that there is still room for 
improvements in agricultural methods and that much of the farming still 
requires to be raised to the level of the best practice. 

We may state, therefore, with confidence that the difficulties of 
present-day agriculture are not due to the lack of scientific advice avail- 
able to the farmer; indeed, it is even sometimes alleged that the 
present-day troubles of agriculture are due to scientific research and to 
an abnormal increase in production ; even the Minister of Agriculture 
remarked semi-humorously the other day : ‘ Improvements in technique 
are the great curse of the modern world. Some infernal scientist comes 
along and shows us how two blades of grass can be made to grow where 
one was before. Instead of that being the highest praise, it is one of the 
most damning accusations you can make against any man or any country just 
now.’ An amusing piece of invective, but no help to us in our difficulties. 

In a paper contributed to this Section last year at York, Mr. E. M. H. 
Lloyd, the Assistant Secretary of the Empire Marketing Board, quoted 
figures to show that the world production of food stuffs and raw materials, 
though it increased rapidly after the set-back due to the war, had not 
reached, in 1929, the continuation of the pre-war trend. The statistics 
suggest that world agricultural production is, in fact, less now than it 
would have been but for the war. ‘ The agricultural crisis is due to the 
fall in prices ; and this fall of prices is due more to diminution of effec- 
tive demand through a contraction of consumers’ money incomes than to 
any exceptional increase of supply.’ 

It is certain, therefore, that the advances in the application of science 
to agriculture are not the causes of the prevailing agricultural depression 
throughout the world, but that these are to be sought for in the absence 
of satisfactory schemes of collective planning, marketing, stability in the 
value of money and the maintenance of better equilibrium between prices, 
wages and debts, to quote again from Mr. Lloyd. 

Whatever opinion may be held as to over- or under-production of agri- 


M.—AGRICULTURE 263 


cultural produce in the world as a whole, this much at any rate is clear : 
that an increased production of home-grown food is of paramount 
importance to our own country. 

There are two main reasons why this isso urgent. We have to remember 
that in the industrial changes which have taken place since the war many 
of our industries have either disappeared or have been so reduced in 
amount that there has been a serious displacement of labour. So far as 
one can see, there is no prospect of these industries recovering their 
former size in this country, and, while new industries may be introduced, 
there is a grave fear that the displacement of many workers from their 
previous occupations is permanent. No better way of using this displaced 
labour can be imagined than to employ it on the land to increase our 
home agricultural production. It is unnecessary to point out or minimise 
the obstacles to so profound a change—the disinclination of an urban 
population to move to the country, the problems of housing and wages, 
and the necessity of obtaining a remunerative price for the food produced 
are only some of the more obvious difficulties involved. 

The second reason is equally important, and that is to supply the 
consumer with as large a proportion as possible of fresh food which has 
not been subjected to chilling or freezing or to any of the chemical 
manipulations or treatment which are much too common nowadays. 
The deleterious effects of some of these processes on the general quality 
of food is now well appreciated, and it is certain that, no matter how care- 
fully these methods are carried out and controlled, the resulting product 
is not as good as the fresh material. The aim of the home producer 
should be, therefore, to produce the type of food in largest quantity 
where this quality of freshness is of the highest importance—e.g. meat, 
milk, butter, eggs, poultry and market-garden produce and fruit. In 
this way he can best meet the menace of overseas competition. At the 
same time much work will require to be done to educate the consumer 
to appreciate the superior value of fresh home-grown food as against 
that which has been chilled or preserved. It is quite certain that the 
consumer will not purchase home-grown produce for sentimental reasons : 
he will have to be convinced that the quality is better and that he is 
getting equally good value for his money. It will be necessary in this 
connection for the home producer to study the public taste a little more 
carefully perhaps than he has done in the past. 

The modern farmer must now choose between two courses. He may 
either adhere to traditional systems under which his products have to 
meet those of overseas competitors who possess dominant advantages in 
the production of most of their crops, or, on the other hand, he may alter 
his system to meet the new conditions and produce those commodities 
which will command an unassailable position in the home market. 

This alteration in the system of farming will mean many important 
changes ; more concentrated foods must be grown, e.g. beans and peas, 
and less concentrated foods imported. In this connection the highly 
nutritive quality of young grass and the methods for its utilisation should 
receive more attention ; the growing of hay on a quality basis and the 
adequate use of silage should also be mentioned. 


264 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 


Another problem to which sufficient attention is not being paid. at 
present is the use of the poorer quality of land, such, for example, as we 
find in Scotland at elevations of 600 feet and: over. Much of this, under 
proper methods of management, could produce a larger number of store 
cattle, milk and milk products, and poultry than it does at present. In 
more favourable times the possibility even of further land reclamation 
should not be overlooked. It may seem futile at a time when there is 
such difficulty in getting any adequate return from our best land to 
suggest that further land should be reclaimed ; the present conditions, 
however, will not, we hope, be permanent, and we have to consider what 
may be possible in more normal times. The spectacle of large areas of 
land suitable for reclamation and.close to our great industrial centres 
reflects little credit on the agricultural policy of the past generation or 
two. In many of these areas there are abundant supplies of labour near 
at hand, and the difficulties of housing and transport would be reduced 
to a minimum. It is not suggested that at the present such reclamation 
would be economic, but as a means of using unemployed labour it would 
at least have the merit of leaving something tangible as the result. In an 
article contributed to The Times last November, Sir Daniel Hall gives 
an interesting account of the enormous reclamation and land drainage 
work which has been carried out in Italy during the past ten years, and 
points out that thé agriculturally minded man must regard it as the 
biggest bit of constructive work since the war ended. In conclusion he 
says: ‘A great work. But what of the cost? As yet, it is impossible 
to judge of the finance, for who shall say what land is worth or is going 
to be worth? But the Italian State is said to have expended £31,000,000 
gold in the last ten years on “‘ Bonifica,”’ against which it is claimed that over 
a million acres have been or are being reclaimed. ‘The severely economic 
English view would be that, since land is going out of cultivation, it is 
waste of money to make more. But in Italy men do still live by the land ; 
the money has been spent in Italy and almost wholly on labour, and there 
is something real and lasting to show for the expenditure. It is a return 
to the high Roman way, to the courage that drove the first roads and 
built the bridges through Barbarian Europe.’ 

The importance of agriculture, not merely as a means of producing 
additional home-grown food but as an industry of fundamental social 
value, is now being realised by all sections of the community. 

With the good offices of statesmen, scientists, economists and others 
interested, and with the goodwill of the people at large, it is not too much 
to hope that the British farmer will choose wisely, and that the character 
and energy which have distinguished him for generations will enable him 
to secure once more for our British agriculture that prosperity which is 
vital to the welfare of our nation. 


REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, 
Etc. 


SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS. 


Thirty-eighth Report of Committee (Dr. F. J. W. WuippLe, Chairman ; 
Mr. J. J. SHaw, C.B.E., Secretary ; Prof. P. G. H. Boswe tu, O.B.E., 
F.R.S., Dr. C. VeRNoN Boys, F.R.S., Sir F. W. Dyson, K.B.E., 
F.R.S., Dr. WiLFrep Hatt, Dr. H. Jerrreys, F.R.S., Sir H. Lams, 
F.R.S., Mr. A. W. Les, Prof. H. M. Macpona.p, F.R.S., Prof. E. 
A. Mine, M.B.E., F.R.S., Mr. R. D. O_pHam, F.R.S., Prof. H. H. 
PLaskETT, Prof. H. C. Plummer, F.R.S., Prof. A. O. RANKINE, 
O.B.E., Rev. J. P. Row.anp, S.J., Prof. R. A. Sampson, F.R.S., 
Mr. F. J. Scrase, Dr. H. SHaw, Sir Frank E. Smitu, K.C.B.,C.B.E., 
Sec.R.S., Dr. R. SToNELEY, Mr. E. TILLotson, Sir G. T. WALKER, 
©Si3 F:R:S.), 


Dr. }. E. Crombie—In August 1932 the Committee lost one of its most 
valued members by the death of Dr. J. E. Crombie, who had served since 
1915. He was a practical seismologist and maintained in turn in his beau- 
tiful home near Aberdeen seismographs of several patterns, the last one 
being a Milne-Shaw. In 1919 when a home had to be found for the seis- 
mological equipment and library from Milne’s station at Shide in the Isle 
of Wight, Dr. Crombie provided funds, which were, after some delay, 
devoted to paying part of the cost of a well-schemed extension of the Uni- 
versity Observatory at Oxford. It was his generous help that enabled Prof. 
Turner to continue the international seismological work through the years 
of financial stringency. Dr. Crombie was a man of many interests, and 
served well his University and the City of Aberdeen. His memory is held 
in honour by his colleagues on the Seismological Committee. 

By his will Dr. Crombie provided that on the death of his wife his trustees 
should allocate the sum of £1,000 free of Government duties to the Seismo- 
logical Committee of the British Association ‘ to be applied towards assisting 
in the investigation of seismological research.’ 

Dr. Crombie’s seismographs were bequeathed to the University of 
Aberdeen. The Milne-Shaw seismograph has been set up for trial in a 
cellar at King’s College, Aberdeen. An Agamennone seismograph has been 
presented to the Science Museum, South Kensington, which already had a 
Mainka seismograph given by Dr. Crombie. His other Mainka seismograph 
remains at Aberdeen. 

Finance-—The Accounts for the year ending June 30, 1933, differ in 
several respects from those for the preceding year. The new scale of sub- 
scriptions adopted by the International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics 
in 1930 came into force in 1932 and in spite of prognostications, on which 
the statement in the last report ‘no increase in the subvention from the 
International Seismological Association towards the cost of the International 
Seismological Summary is to be anticipated ’ was based, there has been an 
increase from £259 to £404. In view of this increase, the Committee was 

L 


266 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


able to withdraw the application to the Council of the British Association 
for a special grant for the year. 

On the other side of the General Account there is a large saving in printing, 
but a new item appears, the Committee having accepted for this year the 
responsibility, formerly borne by Dr. Crombie, for part of the salary of the 
scientific assistant at the University Observatory, Oxford. 

The income of the Gray-Milne Trust Fund has fallen (temporarily it is 
hoped owing to the lapse of the dividend due from the Canadian Pacific 
Railway. There has been no considerable call on the Fund during the 
year. It is anticipated, however, that the charges for printing the memoir 
by Messrs. Jeffreys and Bullen referred to below will come out of the Fund. 

It is hoped that at the meeting at Lisbon in September 1933 of the 
International Seismological Association such a grant will be given to the 
University Observatory, Oxford, as will allow the work on the International 
Seismological Summary to be continued there. The Committee wishes to . 
assist the Observatory by devoting to this purpose the £100 payable from 
the Caird Fund. The Committee is not asking for an additional grant 
this year. 


ACCOUNTS, JULY 1932—JUNE 1933. 
General Account. 


Pits) id, Los. d. 
Brought forward . 192 3 8 I.S.S.—Printing . 254 15 Oo 
B.A. Caird Fund . 100 o o Printing and Stationery 4 9 I 
U.G.G.1., for I.S.A. . 404 11 3 Postage . = SSO Peal LR 
Sale of I.S.S.. . © 13° 7 Computing y . 87 11° 5 
Bank Interest . A © 7 © Scientific Asst. 
(Salary, Part) . . 150 0 0 
Translation d . 010 
509 7 114 
Operation of Seismo- 
graphs . F OY OB MEN 
Committee expenses . O10 0 
518 14 64 
Balance carried forward 179 0 11% 
£697 15 6 £697 15 6 
Gray-Milne Trust Account. 
Los. d. Lin gid, 
Brought forward - 342 19 3 Miss Bellamy (Honora- 
Trust Income . . 66 14 10 rium) . ¢ . 30 0.0 
Bank Interest . ; 113 8 Milne Library . , 414.0 
Fire Insurance . ; o1I5 0 
Press Cuttings . , LMEVSIO 
36 10 0 
Balance . ; » 374 17° 9 
£411 7 9 £41r 7 9 


SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 267 


The International Seismological Summary.—During the latter half of 1932 
there were two issues of the Summary. ‘These completed the volume for 
- the earthquakes of 1928. The issues containing the Summary for the first 
two quarters of 1929 have been printed. Prof. Plaskett reports that the 
MS. for the rest of that year is nearly ready for the printer. As far as the 
records for 1930 have been received, they have been copied on to cards in 
readiness for analysis. It is proposed to take into use at once such new 
tables as may be adopted at the meeting of the International Seismological 
Association at Lisbon. 

Seismographs. —The five seismographs belonging to the British Associa- 
tion have remained on loan to the Seismological Stations at Oxford (2), 
Edinburgh, Perth (W. Australia) and Cape Town. 

Interesting memorials of the earliest seismological station in England 
have been obtained recently by the Science Museum, South Kensington. 
Early in 1932 Miss Morey of Newport, Isle of Wight, presented to the 
Museum the original lamp-post on which Milne erected his first seismograph 
at Shide. The drum and recording mechanism of this seismograph, which 
were in the possession of Mr. W. H. Bullock, have been purchased and an 
effort is to be made to reconstruct the apparatus as accurately as possible. 

A good many parts of old instruments from Milne’s workshop are now 
at the University Observatory, Oxford, but it appears that there is nothing 
of definite historical interest, and with the approval of this Committee 
Prof. Plaskett will dispose of the material at his discretion. Some of the 
parts found in this collection have been lent to the Rev. H. Pain of Turville 
Vicarage, Henley-on-Thames, who has constructed a seismograph and 
obtained good results. 

During the year the Milne-Shaw seismographs supplied by Mr. Shaw 
to the Department of Geology, Liverpool University, and to the Depart- 
ment of Geology, University of Vermont, have been brought into operation. 

British Earthquakes——A valuable paper dealing with the macroseismic 
evidence of four recent Scottish earthquakes has been published by Dr. 
G. W. Tyrrell in the Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, 
Vol. xix, Part I, 1931-32. The shocks examined are: 


(1) The Oban earthquake of 1925, December, 23 12%. 

(2) The North Sea earthquake of 1927, January, 24° 5". 

(3) The Collentraive earthquake of 1927, January, 274 92. 
(4) The Lochgilphead earthquake of 1927, January, 27% 162. 


On January 14, 1933, at about 8530™ an earthquake was felt over a large 
area in the North of England ; and a slight after-shock, felt at 16h. 3m. on 
the 17th, was recorded at Stonyhurst. A report on this earthquake has 
been prepared by the Rev. J. P. Rowland. An earthquake which was felt 
in Jersey on April 12 was recorded by seismographs in England. 

Small disturbances not recorded by seismographs were reported by 
newspapers as occurring on the following dates : 1932, December 31, Devon; 
1933, April 23, Canterbury. A weak tremor, reported as being felt at 


Great Harwood, Lancs., on 1933, July 7, was reported at Stonyhurst 
at 12h. 1m. 


The Revision of Seismological Tables —The following note has been 
contributed by Dr. H. Jeffreys and Mr. K. E. Bullen: 

The observations recorded in the I.S.S. from 1923 to 1929 are being 
used to construct revised tables for the principal waves recorded in large 
earthquakes. The method used is equivalent to a least-square solution by 
successive approximation. The numbers of earthquakes used in the 
respective regions are: Europe, with the Mediterranean and Central 


268 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Asia, 10 3 North and Central America, with the North Atlantic, 19 ; South 
America, 4; Japan, 15 ; Pacific and Indian Oceans, 9 ; total, 57... These 
have been selected as specially well observed and capable of having the 
epicentres well determined from the data. 

The solution for P proved to be straightforward. The times already 
found by H.J. and published by the Committee were right within a second 
up to about 19°; but there is a sharp bend in the curve at this distance, 
the maximum correction needed being — 5.7s. at 30°. Beyond that dis- 
tance smaller corrections are needed, reaching + 1s. about 60°. At greater 
distances still the corrections are again negative, reaching — 3s. at 105°. 

In the case of S there was much difficulty owing to misidentifications. 
It seems that the H. J. tables are nearly right to 15°, but need a slight in- 
crease to 19°, and that there is at this distance a discontinuity similar to 
that found for P.; a correction of — 8.7s. is needed at 30°. The correction 
vanishes about 60° and is about +4s. beyond 80°. 

The waves through the core! have also been discussed and times have 
been found for PKP(= P’ =P.P-P), SKS(= ScPcS) and SKKS(=ScPcPcS). 
The forms of the curves differ very little from those given by Gutenberg, 
but, additive constant corrections are needed to adapt them to the same 
focal depth. ‘Times for the diffracted P at distances up to 143° have been 
obtained. 

The outstanding problems relate to the determination of focal depth and 
of the depths at which PP, PS and SS are reflected. So long as the focus 
is within the upper layers the effect of focal depth is simply to make S arrive 
early by about the same amount at all distances, the forms of the P and S 
curves remaining unaltered. This additive constant can be determined 
and allowed for. But it remains doubtful to what focal depth the standard 
S curve corresponds ; though several methods have been tried none seems 
satisfactory. ‘The additive constant varies between different earthquakes 
by as much as 18s. This is inconsistent with the supposition that P move- 
ment is always. generated by the original shock ; in that case the variation 
could only be about 5s. There seems to be no doubt that in some earth- 
quakes there is primitive P movement and in othersnone. All the curves 
have been made to correspond to the same focal depth, but there remains 
some doubt as to what that depth is. Some earthquakes not recorded as 
having deep foci in the I.S.S. have proved to have foci 50 to 100km. below 
the top of the lower layer. 

PP, PS and SS are frequently recorded, but the residuals are irregular and 
it is still uncertain whether any definite conclusions can be drawn from them. 

The bends in the P and S curves at 19° may be the result of either a 
rapid continuous increase of velocity or a discontinuity at a depth of about 
400km., the velocities rising by about ro per cent. when it is crossed. On 
the former alternative points of large amplitude would occur, which have 
been sought by Miss Lehmann but not found. A discontinuity on the 
other hand would give reflexions, which again have not been found, but 
their amplitudes would in any case be small. The most likely one to be 
observable may be one of PP type reflected on the inside of the discon- 
tinuity, just as SKKS is the best observed reflexion on the surface of the 
central core. 

Other waves recorded with fair frequency are PKS, P’, and SKSP. 
An attempt will be made to construct empirical tables for these also. 

Valuable supplementary information has been received in correspondence 
with other seismologists, especially Miss I. Lehmann, Miss E. F. Bellamy 

1 The letter K is used for a compressional wave through the core (Kernwelle). 
The notation is taken from Bulletins issued from Georgetown. 


MATHEMATICAL TABLES 269 


and Messrs. Gutenberg, Scrase, Byerly and Hodgson. This will be 
acknowledged more fully later. 

High Focus Earthquakes —That earthquakes with deep foci occur is well 
established, but the significance of the observations which led Turner to 
attribute high foci to certain earthquakes is not yet known. Mr. E. Tillotson 
has chosen for investigation an earthquake of this type, ‘ The African 
Rift Valley Earthquake of 1928, Jan. 6.’ Mr. Tillotson has examined about 
100 original records of this earthquake. There is no doubt as to the 
location of the epicentre, which is in the Subukia Valley, Kenya Colony. 
The anomalies in the observations are still under consideration. 

Microseisms.—The discussion, by Mr. A. W. Lee, of the microseisms 
recorded in all parts of the world during January 1930 has been completed 
and will be published shortly. Data are available for 57 observatories. 
The most disturbed of them are Reykjavik and Honolulu. 

In Europe microseismic storms do not occur in the absence of barometric 
depressions over the eastern part of the Atlantic, but some deep depressions 
are not accompanied by large microseisms. No evidence for a direct 
connection between microseismic disturbance and the sea-disturbance in 
particular regions has been found. 

Periodicity of Earthquakes.—Two notable papers by Dr. C. Davison (a 
former member of the Committee) on periodicity in earthquakes have 
appeared recently in the Philosophical Magazine (Ser. 7, Vol. 15 (1933) ). 
In the first paper the eleven-year period is discussed on the basis of statistics 
covering the whole globe and the last two centuries. It is found that in all 
parts of the world earthquakes are more frequent in the years of many 
sunspots. In the second paper a 19-year period is investigated. In this 
case the maximum frequencies of the northern hemisphere tally with the 
minimum frequencies of the southern hemisphere. The period seems to 
be identical with the nutation period of the earth and it is therefore demon- 
strated that the strains associated with the movements of the earth’s axis 
are factors in determining when earthquakes shall occur. 

Reappointment—The Committee asks for reappointment and for the 
confirmation of a grant of £100 from the Caird Fund. 


MATHEMATICAL TABLES, 


Report of Committee on Calculation of Mathematical Tables (Prof. E. H. 
NEVILLE, Chairman; Prof. A. LopcE, Vice-Chairman; Dr. L. J. 
Comrie, Secretary; Dr. J. R. Atrey, Prof. R. A. Fisuer, F.R.S., 
Dr. J.. Henperson, Dr. E. L. Ince, Dr. J. O. Irwin, Dr. E. S. 
Pearson, Mr. F. Rossins, Mr. D. H. Sapier, Dr. A. J. THompson, 
Dr. J. F. Tocuer, and Dr. J. WisHart). 


General activity. —Six meetings of the Committee have been held, in London. 
The grant of £50 has been expended as follows : 


Calculations connected with the Bessel functions co 2 

Fi(x), Fa(x), Fa(x), Fa(x) . a7, 19. 10 
Calculations connected with the confluent hypergeometric 

function . Io 0 Oo 
Calculations Eonnesteds with. the Bessel functions Y,(x) 

and Y,(x) for x = 6-o(o- any oO. , : F fa) 227 100" 


Secretarial expenses. ‘ : ; p at Me 5HrOwro 


270 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Cunningham Bequest.—(a) The work on the table of reduced ideals and 
primitive units in real quadratic fields has been continued by Dr. E. L. 
Ince. It is hoped that the manuscript will be ready for the printer by the 
end of this year. 

(b) The printing by a photographic process of Prof. L. E. Dickson’s 
tables of the minimum decompositions of the numbers 1-300,000 into fifth 
powers has been put in hand. ‘This will constitute the Committee’s 
Volume III. 

(c) The Council has authorised the preparation and publication of 
a volume containing all the prime factors of all numbers up to 100,000. 

The calculations are being done voluntarily, in duplicate, one copy 
by Mrs. E. Gifford, and the other by Miss E. J. Ternouth, of Reading 
University, and Prof. A. Lodge. 

(d) The purchase, for table-making, of a National Accounting machine 
(formerly called the Ellis) has been authorised, and the machine is now on 
order. It contains an eleven-column keyboard, printing mechanism, and 
six adding mechanisms. 

Bessel functions—The sub-committee formed to draw up a report on the 
tables of Bessel functions which have appeared in the Reports of the Com- 
mittee, with a view to the possibility of their publication in one volume, has 
now completed the examination of these tables. Interim reports were made 
during the session, and action was taken for the preparation of the Y func- 
tions. ' The full report and recommendations of the sub-committee will be 
considered during the next session. 

The Committee has calculated, at the request of Dr. R. Stoneley, 
47-figure tables of the functions F1(x), F-34(x), F:(~), F-2(~), for the range 
x = 0:00(0:01)0-50(0-02)2-50(0-05)5-0(0-1)20-0. 

The preparation of printer’s copy of ¥9(x) and 7;(x) to 10 decimals for 
% = 0:000(0-001)16-00(0-01)25:00 has been completed, as has also copy of 
8-figure values of J,(x) and I,(x) for x = 0-000(0-001)5-000. 

The preparation of an 8-figure table of Y,(x) and Y,(«) for «= 
0-00(0-01)16:00 has been begun, and will be carried to completion next 
year. 

Airy integral—The Committee has received a request from Dr. H. 
Jeffreys for the tabulation of the Airy integral and its first derivative. It is 
hoped that this may be done next year. 

Confluent hypergeometric functions —The Committee has received a request 
from Dr. R. Stoneley for certain calculations in connection with these 
functions. The work is being put in hand by Dr. A. J. Thompson. 

Publication —The Committee has expressed to the Council its desire for 
the publication of the following material : 

(1) The Legendre functions described in the last report ; 

(2) The Bessel functions of orders +} and +? described in this report ; 

(3) The Bessel functions ¥)(x), 7:(x), Io(x) and I,(«) described in this 

report. 

Reappointment—The Committee desires to be reappointed, with the 
addition of Dr. J. C. P. Miller, and with a grant for general purposes of £100. 


TERTIARY AND CRETACEOUS ROCKS 271 


QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATES OF SENSORY EVENTS. 


Interim Report of Committee appointed to consider and report upon the 
possibility of Quantitative Estimates of Sensory Events (Dr. A. 
Fercuson, Chairman; Dr. C. S. Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S., Vice- 
Chairman; Mr. R. J. Bartiett, Secretary ; Dr. H. BANIsTER, Prof. 
F. C. Bartuett, F R.S., Dr. WM. Brown, Dr. N. R. CAMPBELL, 
Dr. S. Dawson, Prof. J. Drever, Mr. J. Guitp, Dr. R. A. Houstoun, 
Dr. J. O. Irwin, Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, Dr. S. J. F. Porvport, Dr. L. 
F. Ricuarpson, F.R.S., Dr. J. H. SHaxsy, Mr. T. Situ, F.R.S., 
Dr. R. H. Tuouress, Dr. W. S. Tucker). 


THE Committee met on four occasions ; memoranda prepared by members 
have been circulated. 

The memoranda which have been circulated have dealt critically with 
(a) the possibility of quantitative estimates of sensory events, (b) the mean- 
ing of the term measurement in its application to the estimation of sensory 
magnitudes, and (c) the validity of the modes of presentation and interpreta- 
tion of the Weber-Fechner law. 

The matters so raised and discussed have resulted in the resolving of 
many doubtful points and in raising clear-cut issues of fundamental import- 
ance, but it is evident that further discussion and research are necessary 
before a satisfactory synthesis of opinion can be effected. 

The Committee is agreed that (a) a critical résumé of past work on the 
Weber-Fechner law, paying special attention to experimental conditions and 
introspective reports, would be of great value ; and that (b) further experi- 
mental work should be undertaken on the measurement of just noticeable 
differences, equal-appearing intervals, and ratio estimates in the various sensory 
fields, full use being made of modern physical instruments. 

In furtherance of the above, at the suggestion of the Committee, work has 
been commenced at Cambridge, at Cardiff and at Edinburgh, and it is hoped 
that other psychological laboratories will be able to give assistance later. 

The main work of the Committee is necessarily carried out by the 
interchange of memoranda between its members, and the Committee desires 
to record its indebtedness to the Council of the British Psychological Society 
for their hospitality and for the assistance which they have given in the 
duplication of the memoranda involved. 

- The Committee asks to be reappointed, without grant. 


TERTIARY AND CRETACEOUS ROCKS. 


Report of Committee appointed to investigate Critical Sections in the 
Tertiary and Cretaceous Rocks of the London Area and to tabulate 
and preserve records of new excavations in that area (Prof. W. T. 
Gorpon, Chairman; Dr. S.W. Woo.pripce, Secretary; Mr. H. C. 
BERDINNER, Prof. P: G. H. Boswett, O.B.E., F.R.S., Miss M. C. 
CrosFiELD, Mr. F. Gostinc, Prof. H. L. Hawkins, Prof. G. 
HICKLING). 


THE grant allotted to the Committee for 1932-33 was expended in investi- 
gating the structure of a critical area south of the Lower Greensand 


272 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


escarpment near Nutfield, Surrey. Here and eastwards at Tilburstow 
Hill, Godstone, a number of outliers occur south of the main scarp. The 
beds in several cases are highly inclined and much disturbed, and at first 
sight a strong suggestion is conveyed of a major fault parallel to, but to the 
south of, the main escarpment. Such a fault would lie in a known zone 
of tectonic instability, and would form an important element in Wealden 
structure. An alternative hypothesis attributed the outlying disturbed 
masses to large scale slip-faulting of the type seen on many British sea- 
coasts, as well as along the banks of the Panama Canal. A large number 
of borings were made under the supervision of Mr. F. Gosling, B.Sc., 
F.G.S., and the evidence from these has been brought together in maps 
and sections, which it is hoped will shortly be published. ‘The evidence 
so far obtained is definitely opposed to the hypothesis of regional faulting, 
but enables the detailed reconstruction of a structural arrangement con- 
sistent with bodily slipping of portions of the former scarp-face. An 
important contributory factor in the process here, and probably elsewhere, is 
the flattening, or reversal of the general northerly dip, in the vicinity of 
the present escarpment. 


SEX PHYSIOLOGY. 


Final Report of Committee on the Influence of the Sex Physiology of the 
Parents on the Sex-ratio of the Offspring (Prof. J. H. Orton, Chazr- 
man; Mrs. RutH C. Bisse, Secretary; Prof. A. M. Carr- 
SAUNDERS, Miss E. C. HERDMAN). 


Tue EFFECT OF ALTERED SEX PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PARENT ON THE SEX 
RATIO OF THE OFFSPRING IN GUINEA-PIGS. 


SOME years ago a series of experiments was carried out and yielded 
extremely interesting results. Some male guinea-pigs each had one testis 
removed when only a few weeks old. When they became adult they were 
used for breeding, and gave offspring in the proportion of 299:16¢. As 
there were more than 300 young, it seemed fairly certain that the proportions 
were not due to chance. 

An attempt has been made during the past three years to repeat these 
experiments on a small scale, but the animals have bred so slowly that the 
number of offspring is still too small to give a conclusive result. As they 
are breeding so slowly it has been decided not to continue the experiments 
during the coming year, but to wait until the animals can be kept under 
more normal conditions. It is not proposed, therefore, to ask for any 
further grant at the present time. 

A grant of £5 was received last year and was used for the maintenance 
of the stock. 

Mrs. Bisbee wishes to express her gratitude to the Committee for the 
financial help which she has received, and to assure them that the work 
will be continued as soon as possible. 


ZOOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 273 


ZOOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Zoological Bibliography and Publication (Prof. E. B. Poutton, F.RS., 
Chairman; Dr. F. A. BaTHER, F.R.S., Secretary ; Mr. E. HERON- 
Auten, F.R.S.; Dr. W. T. Carman, F.R.S., Sir P. CHALMERS 
Mircuett, C.B.E., F.R.S.; Mr. W. L. Sciater). 


Durinc the past year the Secretary has been consulted on various questions 
of publication and has offered advice in the terms of previous reports by 
the Committee. 

A difficult question has been raised by the Entomological Society of the 
South of England regarding the publication of papers reproduced by dupli- 
cator or other methods than type printing. ‘The Society suggests that a 
minimum limit of 500 copies should be fixed and that the papers should in 
all other respects conform to the requirements of the International Rules 
of Zoological Nomenclature (which are essentially the same as the condi- 
tions laid down by your Committee), We do not think that any distinction 
can be drawn between the various processes of multiplying copies, provided 
that the results are reasonably permanent. The size of the edition must 
be governed by ordinary economic forces and by the probable number of 
people interested in the particular subject. It is important that the publica- 
tion should be advertised ; an edition of 50,000 would be of little use if not 
made known. 

Attention is again drawn to the undesirability of mentioning the systematic 
name of an animal in the title of a paper without any indication of the class 
to which it belongs. Editors of publications in applied, economic, and 
ecologic zoology would help their colleagues by insisting on closer adherence 
to the accepted rules and methods of nomenclature. 

It may assist editors and authors if we mention that the International 
Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, as well as other information of use in 
preparing papers, have recently been printed in the following : 

Krejci-Graf, Karl. ‘ Scientific Nomenclature and the Preparation of 
Papers.’ Geol. Surv. Kwangtung and Kwangsi. Special Publication. 
XII. Canton. December 1, 1932. 

Pearson, Joseph. ‘Ceylon Journal of Science. Instructions and Rules 
to be observed by Authors and Editors.’ March 1933. Private circulation 
only. 

The Secretary has protested in Nature (vol. cxxxii, p. 102, July 15, 1933) 
against the waste of time caused by the omission of page numbers from the 
opening pages of chapters, articles, and so forth. 

The Committee seeks re-appointment with the same constitution as last 
year, and without a grant. 


274 _ REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


HUMAN GEOGRAPHY OF TROPICAL AFRICA. 


Report of Committee appointed to inquire into the present state of Know- 
ledge of the Human Geography of Tropical Africa and to make 
recommendations for furtherance and development (Prof. P. M. Roxsy, 
Chairman; Prof. A. G. OciLviE, O.B.E., Secretary; Prof. C. B. 
Fawcett, Prof. H. J. FLeure, Mr. E. B. Happon, Mr. R. H. 
Kinvic, Mr. J. McFarvane, Col. M. N. MacLeop, D.S.O., M.C., 
Prof. J. L. Myres, F.B.A., Mr. R. U. Sayce, Rev. E. W. Smiru, 
Brig. H. S. L. WInTERBoTHAM, C.M.G., D.S.O.). 


Past ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE. 


THE Committee, which was first appointed after the Oxford Meeting of 
the Association in 1926, was occupied during the first period of its work 
in bringing its proposed activities to the notice of a wide circle of people 
in Africa who are in a position to supply data. This was most effectively 
done by the issue of a pamphlet of 46 pages, first printed in 1930 and re- 
printed in 1931, containing: (1) An introduction setting forth the nature 
of the gap in our knowledge of the material life of African natives, in so far 
as it relates to the use of land and is directly affected by local environment ; 
(2) a list of subjects upon which information is specially required ; and 
(3) reprints of two essays of the kind which the Committee desired to receive 
from residents throughout Africa, these reprints to be regarded as models. 

This pamphlet was sent: (1) in bulk to the Governments of the various 
British Colonies and Mandates in Tropical Africa, and was distributed by 
them to their local officers, and (2) to a number of selected missionaries 
and other residents. The response from members of the latter group has 
been slight, but there is every indication that the interest of Government 
Officers in various parts of Africa has been aroused. The Committee has 
already been able to procure publication of an essay by Mr. L.H.L. Foster on 
the Mlanje District of Nyasaland (Geography, 1932), and is now seeking pub- 
lication for two reports from Tanganyika Territory, by Mr. G. D. Popplewell 
and by Messrs. E. A. Leakey and N. V. Rounce respectively. Other docu- 
ments have been received which, though not suitable for separate publication, 
yet furnish much useful information. Among these are a paper by Mr. R. C. 
Northcote on the Rungwe District of Tanganyika Territory, and reports 
on specific points by officers of the Agricultural Department of Sierra 
Leone. To all of these gentlemen the Committee gratefully acknowledges 
its debt. 

The Committee has further obtained co-operation in several of the 
University Geography Departments in this country, especially with the 
view of constructing population maps of the African Colonies. 


NORTHERN RHODESIA. 


While the Governments of all the Colonies have helped the Committee 
by distributing the pamphlet, the Government of Northern Rhodesia 


1 Arrangements have now been made by which copies of the pamphlet may be 
obtained, price 7d., post free. from the Clerk, Geographical Association, Municipal 
High School of Commerce, Princess Street, Manchester. 


GEOGRAPHY IN DOMINION UNIVERSITIES 275 


invited all the District Officers of the territory to submit reports. Twenty- 
eight of these District reports have now been received by the Committee, 
while only five remain to be sent in. Thus, by the acquisition of what 
it is hoped will soon be material for a complete review of the human 
geography of a large African territory, the Committee is enabled to enter 
upon the second stage of its work, that of examining, collating and making 
available to a wider circle the information so generously compiled by the 
responsible officers on the ground. 

The Committee gratefully acknowledges the courtesy extended to it 
by the Government of Northern Rhodesia, and hopes to make the fullest 
use of the results thus acquired as soon as possible, when it will make the 
proper acknowledgment to the individual contributors. 


FURTHER OUTLOOK. 


The Committee having received certain reports, as above mentioned, 
from other East African territories, hopes that the latter Colonies will in 
the near future yield more comprehensive material. It seems likely that 
this result may be hastened by the present visit to East Africa of Mr. S.J. K. 
Baker, a former member of the Committee. 

It is of course recognised that while the data now accumulating have 
their chief value as contributions to knowledge of specific geographical 
relationships, they will also possess considerable value to anthropological 
and ethnological studies. The Committee therefore intends to establish 
and maintain close touch with bodies which for any reason may be interested 
in the material accumulated, such as the Royal Anthropological Institute, 
the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and the International Institute 
of African Languages and Cultures. 

In short, it will be seen that the real work of the Committee lies before it. 


REAPPOINTMENT AND EXPENSES. 


The Committee therefore asks to be reappointed, with the addition of 
the names of Mr. S. J. K. Baker, Dr. A. Geddes, and Mr. R. A. Pelham. 
It asks for a grant of £5 to cover secretarial expenses in 1933-34, and it 
intimates that any profits accruing from sale of the pamphlet will be handed 
to the General Treasurer of the Association. 

.} 


GEOGRAPHY IN DOMINION UNIVERSITIES, 


Report of Committee appointed to ascertain the place which Geography 
occupies in the curricula of the universities in the various Dominions 
of the Empire (Prof. C. B. Fawcett, Chairman; Dr. L. DuDLEY 
Stamp, Secretary ; Dr. L.J. Burpee; Prof. F. DEBENHAM; Dr.C.A.E. 
FENNER ; Prof. GRIFFITH TayLor ; Prof. J. H. WELLINGTON). 


1. ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE. 


Havinc collected preliminary suggestions from the members of the 
Committee then in England, the Chairman and Secretary met and drew 
up a draft. of a letter and questionnaire to be circulated to all universities 
concerned. These drafts were circulated to the members of the Committee 


276 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


for suggestions and approval. It was agreed to co-opt Dr. Benson to 
help in New Zealand. Copies of the letter and circular as finally approved 
by members of the Committee were then duplicated (Documents A and B 
attached) and distributed as follows :— 
(a) in bulk to Dr. L. J. Burpee for distribution to Canadian universities 
and the collection of replies. 
(6) in bulk to Dr. C. Fenner for Australia. 
(c) in bulk to Prof. J. H. Wellington for South Africa. 
(d) in bulk to Dr. W. N. Benson for New Zealand. 
(e) in bulk to Prof. Griffith Taylor for the collection of comparable 
details of the leading universities of the United States. 
(f) individually by the Secretary to the universities of India, Singapore, 
and Hong Kong. 
(g) individually by the Secretary to the universities and university colleges 
of the British Isles for the collection of comparable details. 


An Interim report was presented in manuscript to the 1932 (York) 
Meeting of the Association and contained details of the replies received 
from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the Far East, with 
replies received from the British Isles and the United States for purposes 
of comparison. The replies from Canada had not, at that time, been 
received; and since the Interim Report certain other replies to the 
questionnaire have been received from other parts of the Empire. 

The sections which follow deal with the major parts of the British Empire 
in turn. 


II. Dominion oF NEW ZEALAND. 


Dr. W. N Benson of the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 
who was co-opted a member of the Committee and collected the replies 
to the questionnaire from his colleagues, summarises the position in New 
Zealand as follows: 

‘The four constituent colleges of New Zealand University are all con- 
cerned with the same prescriptions and the differences between the replies 
merely reflect different arrangements for dealing with the subject. The 
prescriptions are contained in the New Zealand University Calendar, 
Briefly Geography figures in the Entrance or Matriculation examination, 
in the Entrance Scholarship examination requiring one or two years further 
high school work. Examination of these prescriptions is conducted by 
University teachers, almost invariably the Professors of Geography in 
association with one or more assistants, usually University or Teachers’ 
Training College lecturers. Economic Geography is also taught by a 
lecturer in the Department of Economics in each college, for the purposes 
of the B.Com. degree only, such requiring only one, or sometimes two, 
hours per week, unaccompanied by any laboratory work. Geolcgy in 
its general aspects as a subject for the B.A. course, first year work only, is 
taught in the Auckland and Wellington Colleges by the Professor of 
Geology, associated with a lecturer from the Teachers’ Training College 
in Auckland and a lecturer from the Economics Department in Wellington. 
There has resulted from this the emphasis on the physical and economic 
side, without (unless it be in Auckland) any special attention to the human 
side. In the hopes of encouraging advanced study in Geography and the 
appointment ofa teacher specialist in the subject, the University has approved 
courses for a second and third year in Geography for the B.A., but as yet 
provision for the teaching of such courses has not been made by any college. 
The several replies summarised are thus :— 


GEOGRAPHY IN DOMINION UNIVERSITIES 277 


AUCKLAND: Professor of Geology and associate lecturers from the Teachers’ 
Training College are doing most of the B.A. first year Geography 
course ; Professor J. A. Bartrum, M.Sc., F.G.S.; Lecturers, C. R. 
Laws, M.Sc., and — Jones, B.Sc. (Training College). 

WELLINGTON: Professor C. A. Cotton, D.Sc., F.G.S. (Department of 
Geology); Miss Hilda R. Heine, M.A., Ph.D., for Economic 
Geography. 

CuristcHuRCH: R. S. Allan, M.Sc., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geology (not 
giving instruction in Geography every year); G. C. Billing, Lecturer 
in Economics Department, gives the Economic Geography course. 


In addition, the giving of Economic Geography lectures in Auckland by 
a lecturer in the Department of Economics should be noted. 

“It is worthy of remark that it is not possible to take Geography as a 
subject for the B.Sc. degree, nor to take both Geography and Geology as 
subjects for the B.A. degree on account of the overlapping in Physical 
Geography.’ 

Details of Auckland University College were supplied by Professor J. A. 
Bartrum (Professor of Geology), details of Victoria University College, 
Wellington, by Professor C. A. Cotton, and for Canterbury College, 
Christchurch, by Dr. R. S. Allan (Lecturer in Geology). 


III. COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. 


The replies from Australian universities were collected by Dr. Charles 
Fenner, of the University of Adelaide. He summarises the position as 
follows : 

“The attached schedule discloses the replies to the questionnaire 
submitted by the above Committee to the Universities of (1) Sydney, 
(2) Melbourne, (3) Adelaide, (4) Brisbane, (5) Perth, (6) Hobart. 

“Summing up the position it may be said that, except in one instance, 
the teaching of Geography is not in an advanced position in the universities 
of Australia. The exception is the University of Sydney, where a complete 
and well-equipped department of Geography is in existence, carrying out 
a four-year course of work, including Honours, branching into the faculties 
of Science, Arts, and Commerce, and conducting research work. 

“In other Australian universities there exist movements making for the 
progress of geographical teaching ; these come mainly from three directions : 
_ first, from departments of Commerce, which stress the need for the teaching 
of Economic Geography ; secondly, from departments of Geology, where 
it is felt that their physiographic teaching should develop into geographical 
work ; and thirdly, from the public and private schools of the various 
States, where teachers of geography feel the need for university teaching 
and guidance. 

“The movement towards the extension of geographical teaching from a 
geological basis has advanced well in the University of Queensland, as 
reported by Professor H. C. Richards, and also in the University of 
Adelaide, where Sir Douglas Mawson has interested himself in the matter. 
In the latter case Geography is at present a one-year Arts subject ; in the 
former, progress has been held up on account of expense. 

“In the Melbourne University the teaching of Economic Geography is 
on asound basis, and there is some correlation with the Geology Department. 
There is no geographical teaching in Perth, and only a one-year course in 
Economic Geography in Hobart. Thus, apart from the University of 


278 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Sydney, no Australian university is doing geographical work at all com- 
parable with that of the leading universities of Britain.’ 


IV. UNIon oF SoutH AFRICA. 


Replies to the questionnaire from the Union of South Africa were 
collected by Professor J. H. Wellington of the University of Witwatersrand, 
Johannesburg. ‘The position is shown in the schedule. 


V. THE DoMINION OF CANADA. 


The replies to the questionnaire from Canadian universities were collected 
by Dr. L. J. Burpee. Dr. Burpee summarises the position as follows :— 

“It will be seen from the replies received that very little has yet been 
done in this direction (i.e. the establishment of Geography, in the universities). 
In the sense in which the question is meant, it must be said that so far 
there is no Department of Geography in any Canadian university. It will 
be noted that the University of British Columbia and the University of 
Montreal both report a Department of Geography but it would seem that 
for all practical purposes the situation is the same in these universities as 
in Toronto and McGill and most of the other universities, where Geography 
is more or less a course in the Department of Geology and the Department 
of Economics. It will be noticed that from Professor Innis’ letter that 
Toronto University has for some time been feeling its way towards the 
establishment of a Department of Geography, but the time is not yet ripe. 
I think the same situation applies to several other Canadian universities, 
and probably after we have got through this period of depression some 
progress may be anticipated.’ 

The actual position is shown in the attached schedule. 


VI. INDIA AND THE Far East. 


The questionnaire was sent to all the Indian and Far Eastern universities 
(i.e. including Singapore and Hong Kong) and replies were received from 
all those mentioned in the schedule. 


VII. Summary. 


For purposes of comparison, Professor Griffith of the University of 
Chicago obtained replies to the questionnaire from a number of representative 
universities in the United States. 

It will be clear from the replies to the questionnaire that Geography does 
not yet occupy the important position in the curricula of the universities 
of the Dominions that it does in the universities of the Home Country, 
or in the universities of the United States. In the universities of Australia 
and New Zealand the subject is represented, and there is a remarkably 
strong department in the University of Sydney. In South Africa the 
subject is important, especially in the Universities of Witwatersrand and 
Pretoria. 

In India the subject is growing in importance ; there is a specially strong 
department in the modern University of Rangoon. 

The position in Canada, which cannot be said to have any full department 
of geography in its several universities, is a remarkable contrast to the 
United States and to the Home Country. 


GEOGRAPHY IN DOMINION UNIVERSITIES 279 


DocuMENT A. 


Dear S1r,—On behalf of the Committee appointed by Section E (Geo- 
graphy) of the British Association at its Centenary Meeting held in London, 
September 23-30, 1931, to inquire into the position of Geography in the 
universities of the Empire, we enclose a short questionnaire relative to the 
position occupied by Geography in your University. 

It will be of great assistance to us if you will be so good as to answer the 
questions as fully as possible and also add any other information bearing 
on this topic which you think would be of value. 

(signed) C. B, Fawcett (Chairman). 
L. Duprey Stamp (Secretary). 


The Committee consists of the following : L. J. Burpee (Ottawa) ; W.N. 
Penson (Dunedin) ; F. Debenham (Cambridge) ; C. B. Fawcett (London), 
Chairman; C. Fenner (Adelaide); Griffith Taylor (Chicago, late of 
Sydney, N.S.W.) ; L. Dudley Stamp (London, late of Rangoon), Secretary ; 
J. H. Wellington (Johannesburg), with power to co-opt. 


DocuMENT B. 
Questionnaire. 


(1) What is the position of Geography as a subject— 
(a) in the Matriculation or other entrance examination ? 
(6) in Intermediate or other pre-graduation examinations ? 
(c) in the First Degree (Pass and/or Honours) and in what faculty or 
faculties ? 
(d) in Higher Degrees ? 
(e) in other qualifications recognised or awarded by the University 
(e.g. Diplomas) ? 
(f) as part of the training for Degrees in other subjects ? 
(2) (a) Is there a Department of Geography ? 
(6) If so, in what faculty or faculties ? 
(c) Is Geography independent or combined with one or more other 
subjects in a joint Department ? 
(3) What is the teaching staff in Geography? Please give names and 
status. 
(4) What, if any, members of the staffs of other departments teach 
Geography ? Please give names and status. 
(5) What proportion, if any, of the work takes the form of laboratory 
work (in hours per week) ? 
(6) Please give any other information which bears on the subject. 


Replies should be sent as follows :— 

From Canadian universities to Dr. L. J. Burpee, International Joint 
Commission, Ottawa. 

From United States universities to Prof. Griffith Taylor, University of 
Chicago. 
' From Australian universities to Dr. C. Fenner, University of Adelaide. 

From South African universities to Prof. J. H. Wellington, University of 
the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 

From New Zealand institutions to Dr. W. N. Benson, University of 
Otago, Dunedin. 


REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


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REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


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REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


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291 


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REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


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GEOGRAPHY IN DOMINION UNIVERSITIES 
| 
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REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


294 


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295 


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‘Sauphs 4 "yMeg — 


296 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


EMPIRE SOIL RESOURCES. 


Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with the Imperial Soil Bureau 
to examine the soil resources of the Empire (Sir JouHN RussELL, O.B.E., 
F.R.S., Chairman; Mr. G.V. Jacks, Secretary ; Prof.C. B. Fawcett, 
Mr. H. Kine, Dr. L, Duptey Stamp, Mr. A. STEvENs, Dr. 5. W. 
Wootprincz, Dr. E. M. Crowruer, Dr. W. G. Oae, Prof. G. W. 
ROBINSON). 


THE Committee has secured the assistance of several noted geographers, 
who are now engaged in collecting climatic and ecological data of the 
different countries of the British Empire. Corresponding maps are being 
prepared, and it is hoped that a fairly complete series will be ready by the 
end of the year. The Committee has held one meeting, in conjunction with 
its collaborators, at which progress was reviewed and a programme outlined 
for the continuation of the work. 


STRESSES IN OVERSTRAINED MATERIALS. 


Interim Report of Committee on Stresses in Overstrained Materials (Sir 
Henry Fow ter, K.B.E., Chairman; Dr. J. G. Docuerty, Secretary ; 
Prof. G. Coox, Prof. B. P. Haicu, Mr. J. S. Witsown). 


Tue following interim report is submitted : 

“The work of the Committee on the yield point and on stress distributions 
in the initial stages of plastic yield in a variety of cases is proceeding. It is 
hoped that a full report of these experiments will be submitted in 1934.’ 


The Committee ask to be reappointed for another year. 


ELECTRICAL TERMS AND DEFINITIONS. 


Report of Committee on Electrical Terms and Definitions (Prof. Sir J. B. 
HENDERSON, Chairman; Prof. F. G. Barty and Prof. G. W. O. 
Howe, Secretaries; Prof. W. Cramp, Prof. W. H. Eccres, F.RS., 
Prof. C. L. Forrescur, Sir R. Grazesroox, K.C.B., F.RS., 
Prof. A. E. KENNELLY, Prof. E. W. Marcuant, Sir FRANK SMITH, 
K.C.B., C.B.E., Sec. R.S., Prof. L. R. WILBERFORCE). 


IN last year’s report reference was made to the undesirability of making 
a technical report pending the decision of the Symbols, Units and 
Nomenclature (S.U.N.) Commission of the International Union of Physics 
which had just been constituted. 

This Commission has reported, and this report goes a long way to 
remove the difficulties our Committee had encountered. As further reports 
of the above Symbols, Units and Nomenclature Commission are expected, 
we ask for reappointment. 

The Committee’ ask for reappointment without grant. 


EARTH PRESSURES 207 


EARTH PRESSURES. 


Eighth Interim Report of Committee on Earth Pressures (Mr. F. E. 
WENTWORTH-SHEILDS, Chairman; Dr. J. S. Owens, Secretary ; 
Prof. G. Coox, Mr. T. E. N. Farcuer, Prof. A. R. Futon, 
Prof. F. C. Lea, Prof. R. V. SourHwett, F.R.S., Dr. R. E, 
STRADLING, Dr. W. N. Tuomas, Mr. E. G. WaLkKer, Mr. J. S. 
WILson). 


SINcE the Committee’s last report, a meeting was held at Garston on 
June 22, 1933, when the Committee had the advantage of meeting Prof. 
Jenkin and hearing from him an account of the work he has done during 
the past year. A short report from him is appended. 

His work, of which the Committee would again express high appreciation, 
has been of great importance. The work has consisted almost entirely of 
investigations and experiments on the mechanical properties of clay, the 
experiments being carried out with apparatus devised by him. It is hoped 
that these investigations and experiments will lead to an understanding of 
the fundamental principles of the mechanics of clay, and that it will then 
be possible to estimate the forces exerted by clay, used, for instance, as a 
.foundation of a structure or as backing for a retaining wall. 

The Committee would endorse Prof. Jenkin’s conclusion that, although 
no definite results have been reached so far, the experiments are working 
well, and a promising theory is being worked out. 

They recommend that his and their work be carried on for a further 
period. 


REPORT FOR THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION EARTH PRESSURES COMMITTEE. 


May 15, 1933. 

Since my report dated July 1, 1932, the work on the mechanics of clay has 
been carried on continuously. 

The filter press has been improved so that samples of air-free clay can 
now be prepared under any load up to 1,000 Ib. (100 lb. per sq. in. in the 
largest cylinder). The pressure/moisture curve for China clay has been 
determined with this press. The result was quite unexpected : the mois- 
ture left in the clay is found to depend much more on the way the clay 
is handled than on the pressure. Rotating the piston in the press greatly 
reduced the water content, and rotation in alternate directions produces a 
still greater reduction in the water content. 

An apparatus for measuring conjugate pressures on clay cylinders has 
been made and a full series of tests with it carried out. The results were 
again unexpected. It is found that the hydraulic conjugate pressure is 
transmitted through the clay in a few seconds by the water in the clay, so 
that it has no effect; the compression strengths are not altered by the 
_ presence of the hydraulic pressures. Tests were made with positive con- 
jugate pressures up to about 1 atmosphere, and also with negative pressures 
approaching 1 atmosphere. 

This apparatus has also been used to measure the compression strengths 
of clays of all moisture contents, and a complete curve of strength against 
moisture content has been plotted. 

To extend this curve into the region of partially dry clay—i.e. clay into 
which air has penetrated—a simple compression testing machine has been 

M 


298 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


made suitable for applying the larger loads needed. ‘The tests with this 
apparatus are almost complete. 

To enable automatic records of compression load/strain curves to be 
obtained, and particularly to enable hysteresis loops to be recorded, the 
shear apparatus, referred to in the last report, has been slightly added to. 
With the new additions a very large number of records have been made on 
clays of various water contents, and some particularly interesting experi- 
ments have been made on clay tested under water and under oil. This 
‘hysteresis loop apparatus ’ produces records on smoked glass, which are 
varnished and stored. 

At the present time a full investigation is being made on shear strengths 
in the shear apparatus. One of the many difficulties is that water is often 
extruded from the clay during the test. The cause of this extrusion is the 
point under investigation at the moment. 

A good deal of thought and time has been spent on the design of a kneading 
apparatus which is wanted to mix the clay produced in the press so as to 
destroy any possible lamination, Some interesting results have been 
obtained, but no method has yet been found by which clay can be kneaded 
without introducing air. 

All these experiments are valueless unless they lead to the understanding 
of the fundamental principles of the mechanics of clay. ‘They are sufficient 
to show that none of the existing theories are tenable, and they all appear at 
present to point to an explanation which is fundamentally very simple,. 
though disguised by many subsidiary effects. All the work at present is 
aimed at checking the accuracy of this hypothesis. ‘Though there are many 
difficulties, none of them appear to be insuperable. The great trouble 
of endless creep has not appeared in any of the tests, all of which give 
definite results. 

Conclusion—Though no definite results have been reached so far, the 
experiments are working well, and a promising theory is being worked out. 

C. F. JENKIN. 


BRITISH SOMALILAND. 


Report of Committee appointed to make a preliminary survey of some reported 
archeological sites in British Somaliland (Dr. A. C. Happon, F.R.S., 
Chairman; Mr. R. U. Sayce, Secretary; Prof. J. L. Myrss, 
F.B.A.). 


THE Committee was appointed at the Bristol Meeting in 1930, to enable 
Dr. L. S. B. Leakey to visit Somaliland and make preliminary examination 
of some reported archzological sites. Dr. Leakey was, however, prevented 
from going to Somaliland, either on his journey to Kenya Colony or on 
his way home; and has accordingly refunded the grant. 


DERBYSHIRE CAVES 299 


DERBYSHIRE CAVES. 


Eleventh Interim Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with a 
Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute in the exploration of 
caves in the Derbyshire district (Mr. M. C. Burxirr, Chairman ; 
Dr. R. V. Fave.t, Secretary ; Mr. A. LESLIE ARMSTRONG, Prof. H. J. 
FLeurE, Miss D. A. E. Garrop, Dr. J. WILFRID JAcKsON, Prof. L. S. 
Pater, Mr. H. J. E. Peake). 


No new excavation work has been undertaken by the Committee during 
the current year, but the excavation of the Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags, 
has been steadily advanced by Mr. Leslie Armstrong, F.S.A., who reports 
as follows: 


* During the autumn of 1932 work was concentrated upon the depressions 
in the floor of the passage on the east side of the main chamber, referred 
to in the report for 1932. Removal of the breccia over the whole area of 
_ the passage and the trefoil-shaped terminal chamber revealed four large cavities 
in the rock floor, one of which coincided with the width of the passage and 
extended 7 ft. along it. ‘These were entirely filled with cave earth to a depth 
of 2 ft. 6 in. overlying sterile red sand. The cave earth was of Mousterian (1) 
age and yielded examples of the usual fauna, of which the most interesting 
specimens are the greater portion of the skull and lower jaw of a young 
mammoth with complete dentition, and two large fragments of the lower 
jaw of giant deer. Human occupation of the large cavity was demonstrated 
by a small but well-preserved hearth and the presence of a stone pounder, 
animal bones (split and charred), and crude artifacts of quartzite and crys- 
talline stalagmite. Similar tools were recovered from the smaller cavities 
at the rear of the chamber. The most important finds in this level were 
several worked bone tools, including a bone knife and two awls. The red 
sand which underlies the cave earth was removed to a depth of 2 ft. and 
carefully sieved but, with the exception of the uppermost layer, proved to 
be entirely sterile and to have been introduced by water—probably during 
the original formation of the cave. 

“Upon completion of the work in the east passage attention was turned 
to the large inner chamber of the cave, where operations had been suspended 
at the 12-ft. level in order to facilitate the excavation of the passage. This 
has now been completely excavated to the base—a total depth of 17 ft., of 
which the lowest 1 ft. 6 in. was entirely sterile and consisted of red sand, 
similar to that found in the passage cavities and previous sections of the 
main cave. 

-* The layer of fallen slabs which, throughout the cave, has so consistently 
marked the division between the Mousterian (1) and Mousterian (2) levels 
was found to be exceptionally thick and to include several massive slabs 
of tabular limestone. The underlying cave earth (Mousterian (1) in age) 
was also interspersed throughout by rocks and fragments of limestone, 
many of them of large size and entailing considerable labour in their removal, 
despite the disintegration which is common to all rocks and also to the cave 
walls at this level. 
~* The presence of so many rocks no doubt rendered this portion of the 
cave unsuitable for general occupation, and, in consequence, the remains 
recovered there in the Mousterian (1) zone have been less numerous than 
elsewhere in the cave. \'They include, however, a superb side scraper of 
flint and a number of quartzite fragments, split bones, etc. 


300 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


‘Work is now proceeding at the rear of the main chamber, where the 
width of the cave gradually contracts to a mere passage. It is hoped that 
the section under examination will be excavated down to the base level 
before the proposed visit to the cave by Section. H during the forth- 
coming meeting at Leicester, in which case the complete stratification of the 
cave deposits, 17 ft. in thickness, will be exposed to view.’ 


Since the York Meeting, the bone upon which a masked human figure 
is engraved, and also the engraved mammoth ivory lance point, have been 
presented to the British Museum. ‘The most important artifacts and a 
characteristic group of associated objects, faunal remains, etc., have been 
placed in the County Museum, Derby, in accordance with the decision of 
the Committee. 

The Committee desires to be reappointed, and makes request for a 
further grant to enable the work at Creswell to be completed. 


M. C. Burkitt, Chairman. 
R. VERNON FavELL, Secretary. 


DISTRIBUTION OF BRONZE AGE IMPLEMENTS. 


Report of Committee appointed to report on the Distribution of Bronze 
Age Implements (Prof. J. L. Myres, F.B.A., Chairman; Mr. H.J.E. 
PEAKE, Secretary; Mr. A. Lestig ARMSTRONG; Mr. H. BaALrour, 
F.R.S.; Mr. L. H. DupLey Buxton ; Prof. V. GorpoN CHILDE; 
Mr. O. G. S. Crawrorp ; Prof. H. J. FLeure ; Dr. Cyrit Fox). 


IT is now twenty years since this Committee was appointed at the 
Birmingham Meeting in 1913. _ Hitherto the Committee has been engaged 
in compiling an illustrated card catalogue of all.the ‘ Metal objects of the 
Bronze Age’ in museums and private collections in the British Isles, and 
it is able to report that, with insignificant exceptions, all the specimens 
in England and Wales have been drawn, measured and described, and it is 
hoped that by the time that the Association meets in Leicester all the 
cards will have been stored in the drawers of the cabinet, which is being 
housed for the Association by the Society of Antiquaries. 

At an early date it was found that if strict uniformity was to be preserved, 
all the cards should be prepared by one draughtsman. For this purpose 
the services of Mr. C. H. Howell, were engaged, and retained until.a few 
years ago, when the work, then nearing completion, became too intermittent 
to necessitate the services of a whole-time officer. Since then the cards 
have been prepared by Miss L. Chitty and Mrs. Michell-Clarke. While 
the funds necessary for the remuneration of these draughtsmen have been 
partly supplied by donations from generous patrons, a large part has been 
received from grants made to the Committee by the Association. The 
balance from these grants became exhausted before the end of 1932, since 
which date Mrs. Michell-Clarke has very kindly completed the work of 
drawing the specimens at the British Museum free of charge. Thus, ‘the 
Committee believes, it has full information respecting all the metal objects 
of the Bronze Age in England and Wales, excepting the specimens of 
foreign origin in the British Museum, the Ashmolean and the Museum at 
York. In addition, it has a complete series of cards from the Isle of Man 
and the Channel Islands, cards for the majority of the specimens in Scotland 


BRONZE AGE IMPLEMENTS—KENT’S CAVERN 301 


and of a considerable number from Ireland, as well as of those in the 
Harvard Museum and of the early specimens in the Museum of Copenhagen. 

When the catalogue was first projected, the Committee hoped that, with 
international co-operation, it would have been possible to extend this 
catalogue so that it would cover the whole of Europe and the adjacent 
lands. _With a view to thus widening the scope of this work, the Secretary 
attended a Meeting of the Association Frangaise at Le Havre in July 1914, 
where he had an opportunity of bringing the matter to the notice of its 
Anthropological Section. ‘Though much interest in the project was 
expressed, the mobilisation of the French army on the following day 
prevented for a time any help from this direction. Last year the Secretary 
brought the matter before the International Congress for Prehistoric and 
Protohistoric Sciences, and took representatives of France, Germany and 
other countries to see the catalogue. So far, however, no movement for 
extending the work upon the continent has been apparent. 

The Committee asks to be reappointed, to make recommendations 
for the maintenance of the catalogue and for future work. 

The Committee has considered the situation resulting from the virtual 
completion of the catalogue for England and Wales, and for the consequent 
need for a change of procedure in order to deal with accessions for the 
future. Without such provision: the’ catalogue will. rapidly become 
antiquated. The catalogue is now housed by the Society of Antiquaries, 
but without provision for accessions ; and it does not seem likely that the 
Society of Antiquaries would make such provision. 

The Committee recommends that the best permanent repository for the 
catalogue, and for the incompleted records for Scotland and Ireland, would 
be the British Museum, provided that arrangements can be made for 
systematic record of accessions. In the event of an independent survey 
being made of the bronze implements of Scotland and of Northern Ireland, 
the Committee recommends that items should be duplicated for exchange 
between the national catalogues of those countries and the Committee’s 
catalogue. 

The Committee recommends that if this destination of the catalogue is 
approved, the Chairman and Secretary should be authorised to discuss the 
matter with the Director of the British Museum, and to report to the 
‘Organising Committee of Section, H. 


KENT’S CAVERN, TORQUAY. 


Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with the Torquay Natural 
History Society in investigating Kent’s Cavern (Sir A. Keiru, F.R.S., 

Chairman ;, Prof. J. L..Myres, F.B.A., Secretary; Mr. M,. C. 
Burkitt, Dr. R. V. Favett, Mr. G. A. Garritt, Miss D. A. E. 
). Garrop, Mr. LacalLue). 


Tue following report has been received from the excavators, Messrs. F. 
‘Beynon and Arthur H. Ogilvie : 

__ ‘Excavation in the vestibule adjoining the northern entrance to Kent’s 
Cavern was begun on October 3, 1932, and on April 24, 1933, was adjourned 
to the next winter season. 

_ “Work began by digging a trench 24 ft. long by 3 ft. wide alongside the 


302 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


eastern wall of the chamber up to the entrance door. The surface of the 
present floor there is 5 ft. 9 in. below the level of the original granular 
stalagmitic floor, and the trench attained a depth of 1 ft. 6 in. at the inner 
end up to 5 ft. at the entrance, the depth being determined when bed-rock 
was reached. After sorting all excavated material this trench was refilled, 
and three other wide trenches at right angles to the first were made, begin- 
ning at the entrance to the cavern transversely across the passage way. Each 
portion was filled up as soon as bed-rock was encountered, that imme- 
diately inside the door being 7 ft. deep, the next 8 ft., and the third 4 ft. 3 in. 
deep. It is interesting to note that the foregoing shows that the opening 
into the cave at this point must have been at least three times the height that 
it appeared when operations were begun early last century. 

‘ Specimens of the usual cave fauna were found, including a right ramus 
of the lower jaw of a hyena, with its condyle and lower border ungnawed ; 
it is most unusual to find one in this state in Kent’s Cavern, as the hyena 
always seems to have left as little as possible of the remains of his deceased 
relatives. 

‘ The discovery of the bony base of a rhinoceros horn is also of interest. 

* Artifacts found included a fine bone awl and two similar) but less 
noticeable specimens ; also small tines of deers’ antlers which seem to 
have been used as borers. Flint flakes and chips were met with occasionally, 
and encourage the belief that more finished flint-work, of which they are 
the remains, will be found not far away next season.’ (Signed) F. BEYNON, 
ARTHUR H, OGILVIE. 


The Committee asks to be reappointed, with a small grant for the employ- 
ment of a labourer to remove excavated material after examination. The 
expenditure on labourer’s wages during the period covered by this report 
amounted to £8 13s. 9d., of which £5 was met by the British Association’s 
grant. 


SUMERIAN COPPER. 


Fifth Interim Report, by Dr. C. H. Descu, F.R.S., of Committee appointed 
to report on the Probable Sources of the Supply of Copper used by the 
Sumerians (Mr. H. J. E. Peake, Chairman ; Dr. C. H. Descu, F.R.S., 
Secretary ; Mr. H. Batrour, F.R.S.; Mr. L. H. DupLey Buxton ; 
Prof. V. GorDON CHILDE; Mr. O. Davies; Prof. H. J. FLeure; 
Sir FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R. S.; ty eagle RASTALL). 


SINCE the publication of the last Report the analytical work of the Committee 
has been transferred from the University of Sheffield to the National 
Physical Laboratory. Specimens have been received from a number of 
sites, together with a few ores. ‘The presence of arsenic in relatively high 
proportion in several objects of early date has made it necessary to regard 
this, like nickel, as a key element, which should assist in the location of the 
source of the original copper. Unfortunately, the information as to the 
actual composition of copper ores in the regions now being studied is very 
scanty. As a rule, the statements in works of reference, and even in 
geological monographs, are confined to a record of the occurrence of copper, 
together with a figure expressing the average richness of the ore, with 
statistics of production where the mine has been recently worked. It is 


SUMERIAN COPPER 303 


rare to find any mention of the presence of accessory elements. Such 
specimens as have been received for examination, except for the native 
coppers described in the First Report, have been from deep-seated deposits 
of pyrites, whilst the ancient copper was undoubtedly derived mainly from 
oxidised outcrops. Some specimens have proved to be slags from compara- 
tively modern workings. The search for ores is being pursued, and the 
Committee is indebted to Sir Arnold Wilson for his assistance in procuring 
them and in advising as to possible sources. Arsenical copper ores, some- 
times containing nickel, are found in Armenia, south of Lake Van, and in 
Anatolia, at Yenikoi, south of the Sea of Marmora, whilst the ore at 
Kastamouni, near to the Black Sea, is known to contain nickel. The known 
occurrences have been mapped, and the region within which such mixed 
ores, containing both arsenic and nickel, may occur appears to form a band 
extending through Anatolia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, but sources farther 
afield cannot at present be excluded. 

A piece of thin metal from Professor Langdon, from the 1930 excava- 
tions at Kish, reported as of date 3200 B.C., gave 95°17 per cent. copper, 
0:08 nickel, 4-60 arsenic, and 0-15 iron. This proportion of arsenic is 
unusually high. ‘Two objects of early date from Ur were received from the 
British Museum for micrographic examination, having a core of uncorroded 
metal. One proved to be a copper and the other a bronze, the structure 
showing that the former had been hammered and slightly reheated after 
casting, whilst the bronze was in the cast condition. Analyses :— 


Copper. Tin. Nickel. Arsenic. Lead. 
Spear. U 12239 BMLIII . 97:2 0:56 1°36 _- trace 
Axe. U12098 BML XVI . 87-93 11°65 0'20 — 0:22 


An arrow head from Anau, obtained from the Hermitage Museum at 
Leningrad, from its Director, through the good offices of the Foreign Office, 
was accidentally omitted from an earlier Report. A core of unoxidised 
metal was present, and the composition was :— 

Copper, 96°85. Tin, 2:35. Iron, 1°25. 
Nickel, arsenic and lead were absent: ‘The object was found in the North 
Kurgan, but the layer in which it occurred was not indicated. 

An analysis has been received from Philadelphia of the copper spearhead 
found by Mr. Woolley at Ur below the ‘ Flood ’ level, and described as 
copper. The copper found was 99:69 per cent., with 0°16 arsenic, 0-01 
iron, and 0:12 zinc, without a trace of nickel, tin, or silver. The zinc 
reported must be regarded as doubtful. The writer at one time found zinc 
in a number of specimens, which was at last traced to the presence of that 
metal in the glass vessels used for analysis. 

The largest number of specimens examined has come from the excava- 
tions of the Oriental Institute of Chicago at Tell Asmar and Khafaje, sent 
by Dr. H. Frankfort, to whom the Committee is indebted for a grant of 
£20 to supplement that received from the Association. The bronze ‘dagger 
which appears first on the list is of special interest, since it still held the 
remains of an iron blade, analysis showing that this iron is of terrestrial 
origin, and not, as in the case of other early iron objects, examined by the 
Committee, forged from a meteorite. 

A portion of a spearhead from Nineveh, submitted by Mr. Mallowan, 
although completely oxidised, proved to be of pure copper, tin and nickel 
being completely absent, whilst the minute quantity of iron found (0-15 per 
cent.) may well have been derived from the soil. 

A batch of specimens has been received recently from Dr. H. H. von der 


304 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Osten, Field Director of the excavations of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, 
at Alishar Héyiik, in Anatolia. The analyses, so far as completed, are 
included in the table. 

An Egyptian razor of the Fourth Dynasty was received from Sir Robert 
Mond. This thin razor, in very perfect preservation, had all the appearance 
of being of copper, but the analysis showed it to be atrue bronze. Determina- 
tions of hardness showed that the edge had been hardened by severe 
hammering. Analysis :— 


Copper, 88:5. Tin, 8-5. Iron, 1:8. Lead, 0-3. Nickel, o-or. 


A little slaggy matter was present. 

Mention may be made of a few analyses published elsewhere. Dr. C. F. 
Elam has examined five objects from Mr. Woolley’s finds at Ur (F. Inst. Met., 
1932, 48, 97) and found two objects from the earliest levels to be true bronzes, 
whilst the later specimens contain either no tin, or a small and variable 
quantity. This is in accordance with our own observations. The nickel 
content recorded is mostly higher than that found by us, but is of the same 
order. Sir Harold Carpenter has examined an Egyptian axe head of early 
Dynastic age, this being a large object, weighing over three pounds, 
Analysis (Nature, 22 Oct., 1932) :— 

Copper, 97°35. Nickel, 1:28. Arsenic, 0:49. 
Lead, 0°17. Tron, 0:15. Manganese, 0-06. 


The remainder being oxygen. Manganese is known to be associated with 
copper in Egyptian ores. 

In the table which follows, the highly oxidised specimens have not been 
re-calculated, the reason being that the amount of earthy matter present is 
sometimes so large as to make it uncertain whether some of its components 
are to be attributed to the metal, whilst other specimens contain sulphur, 
derived from the ore, and present in the metal as sulphide. This sulphur 
has not been determined, but its presence is noted. In view of the high 
proportion of sulphur in many of the objects from Mohenjo-daro in the 
Fourth Report, specimens of the soil were obtained from Mr. Mackay, 
with the object of determining whether this sulphur was derived from the 
soil. ‘Two samples were received, labelled ‘' Top of mound ’ and ‘ Lowest 
levels ’ respectively. Neither contained any sulphide, and the total quantity 
of sulphate in the lower layer was only 0-16 per cent., that in the upper 
layer being 1°92 per cent. The sulphur found in the specimens had, 
therefore, come from the ore. In the case of the Tell Asmar specimens, 
a core of uncorroded metal is: sometimes present, in which sulphide may 
be detected under the microscope. It does not follow that the pyritic ores 
were deliberately smelted ; it may have been that the outcrop ores were 
more or less contaminated by sulphides. 


Tell Asmar, Pre-Sar- Ar- 
gonid hoard. Copper. Tin. Nickel. senic. Lead. Iron. 
Bronze dagger . 1080 88:61 7°60 0°67 trace 0:94 0°46* 
Vase . 4 . 105t 85-51 Oo 0°02, 0°05 0°36) 5 — 
Vase . : » 1085 85°53 0 0:07 07°06 0:99. — 
Tell Asmar, Akkadian. 
Lump oringot . 764 Q5°OI 0 0'62 0°25 Oo — ft 
Implement . Sige Meera <o 0°13 0°67 ‘i 
Wire bangle . . 1239 93:96 o O'II ovr! 
Arrow butt . f 559 87°48 0°74 0°32 1°57 


* Some oxide. + Much sulphur. 


SUMERIAN COPPER—MECHANICAL ABILITY 305 


Ar- 

Tell Asmar, Early Dynastic. Copper. Tin. Nickel, senic.Lead. Iron. 
Dagger blade . 1329 90°82 2°63 0°33 O°15 0 O°I5 
Sickle blade . sb Jgagx -/88"'rTii0 ° 2°23. 0 0°40 
Arrow butt . . 1048 61°50 oO 0736. 0°37 0 — 
Arrow butt . . 1097 70'0 trace 0°39 0°86 
Rolled pin. . 1038 95°49 0 0°30 1:27 10 1°30 
Rolled pin . ’ 986 87:81 0 0:90 2°08 Oo 1°04 

Khafaje, Early Dynastic. 

Dagger blade . 1296 49°82 0 6°29 0°94 022 °° — 
Rolled pin . epAOR. 520570, 10 ° ° trace 
Rolled pin . 1 187 77°98 o trace 0°22 0 

Lump. : 3 152. 78°73 6°31 0°22 0°90 0 


Alishar Héyiik, Anatolia, 
Copper age and transt- 
tion period. 
e—700 58:12 4°82 0°04 0°14 1°22 
e—833 61°36 10°8 o751 0°03 0 
e—o963 60°52 0°76 trace orII 0°40 


+ Much sulphur. 


MECHANICAL ABILITY. 


Final Report of Committee appointed to inquire into the factors involved in 
Mechanical Ability (Dr. C. S. Myzrs, C.B.E., F.R.S., Chairman ; 
Dr. G. H. Miss, Secretary; Prof. C. Burt, Dr. F. M. Earte, 
Dr. Li. Wynn Jones, Prof. T. H. Pear). 


ARISING out of the work reported to the Association by the Committee 
on Vocational Tests in 1931, the present Committee arranged for a thorough 
revision and statistical examination of the results to be made. As an 
outcome of this work the need was apparent for a further examination of 
the routine manual factor which plays an important part in the process of 
repetitive manual operations. 


I. SuITABILITY OF MEASURES. 


Reliability.—The suitability of the measures upon which the conclusions 
of this report are based was carefully investigated. The reliability of the 
‘ mechanical ’ tests (assembling and aptitude), as indicated by their inter- 
correlations, was in the neighbourhood of 0-6 to.o:7. ‘That of the routine 
tests, based on the correlation of one test with a general repetition, varied 
from 0-52 to 0-91. The reliability of the ‘intelligence’ tests, based 
on the correlation between the sum of the odd sub-tests and that of the 
even, varied from 0:8 to 0°9. 

The intercorrelation of each ‘trial’ with the other trials constituting 
the test was examined in the data on the routine tests obtained from the 
adult subjects. The figures indicated that the reliability of manual tests 
depended primarily on the number of repetitions (or ‘ trials ’) rather than 
upon the complexity and length of the ‘trial’ itself. About the same 
degree of ‘ reliability ’ could be expected from a given number of trials, 

M2 


306 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


irrespective of the length of the operations that are being tested, and which 
constituted the ‘ trial.’ 

The figures also showed that, so far as the first five trials that constituted 
these tests were concerned, one ‘ trial’ was about as reliable as another. 
A similar result was observed during the much longer practice period, for 
it was found that the reliability of the ‘test’ was much the same from 
one day to another, irrespective of the stage of the subjects’ practice. 
Generally, the tests measured ‘ initial’ ability to about the same degree 
of accuracy as they predicted ability after practice. 

Little difference in reliability was observed between the adults and 
elementary school subjects. 

Incentives—The correlation between the scores made at the various 
tests, and estimated ‘incentive,’ proved to be negligibly small. The 
results which we have now to examine can, therefore, hardly be explained 
on the basis of differences in incentive. 


Il. THe SpeciaL ABILITIES (OR GROUP-FACTORS). 


The Mechanical Factor.—Having secured reliable measures of ability, our 
next step was to determine the intercorrelations of all the tests in the 
case of each group of subjects tested (i.e. the ‘ adult ’ group, and the several 
elementary school groups). It was at once evident from these correlations 
that the data tended to fall into three groups, viz.: (i) a ‘mechanical’ group 
consisting of the mechanical aptitude tests and the mechanical assembling 
tests ; (ii) a routine (or ‘manual’) group composed of the routine assembling 
and stripping tests, and the simple manual tests, and (iii) a general 
intelligence group consisting of the tests and estimates of intelligence, and 
general school subjects. 

The next step was to determine, by Spearman’s method of tetrad- 
differences, how far these observed differences in the correlation coefficients 
are due to chance, or to differences in the degree of correlation which all 
of the other tests showed with the intelligence group. The application of 
this criterion indicated that although the general positive correlation running 
throughout the data could best be ascribed to a general factor common to 
all, there were also present group-factors, tending to produce a closer 
relationship between members of the same group than could be accounted 
for by this general factor. 

To determine more precisely the location and range of the group-factors, 
the influence of the general factor was next statistically eliminated and the 
tetrad-difference criterion was then applied to the resulting specific 
correlations. 

It is impossible to present here the numerous correlation tables examined 
in the course of the analysis. It must suffice to say that the following 
conclusions were clearly indicated’: 

(1) The specific intercorrelations of the ‘mechanical’ group: were 
best explicable by a single group-factor common to both the ‘ aptitude’ 
and the ‘ assembly’ tests. This seemed most reasonably identified with 
the mechanical factor (‘m’) which was disclosed in the aptitude type of 
test in a previous research, and whose presence was thus confirmed in the 
present research, and shown, for the first time, to be present in suitable 
tests of the mechanical assembling type. 

(2) The mechanical aptitude type (which, it will be remembered, involved 
no manual activity) were more highly saturated with the mechanical group- 
factor than were the assembling type, and therefore provide better measures 
of this special ability. 


MECHANICAL ABILITY 307 


(3) It was definitely established that the group- -factor in the * mechanical ’ 
group was not the same as the group-factor in the routine ‘ manual ’ tests. 

The Routine Manual Factor.—Statistical analysis of the manual tests 
along similar lines indicated that : 

(1) The specific intercorrelations of the routine ‘manual’ assembling 
and stripping tests, and the simple manual tests, could be best explained 
by a single group-factor. 

(2) This routine (or ‘ manual’) factor was clearly distinguishable from 
the ‘mechanical ’ factor seen in the mechanical aptitude and mechanical 
assembling tests. 

(3) In general, the more complex assembling tests were more highly 
saturated with this factor than were the simpler manual tests. 

(4) Where the tests were both very simple and very similar (such as 
screwing and unscrewing the turnbuckle), small additional factors common 
to the pair of tests concerned, and to these only, were observed. 

The ‘ Abilities’ in Assembling Work.—The independently measurable 
‘ abilities ’ or ‘ group-factors’ in assembling work were thus found to be 
(i) amechanical factor, associated with the solution of a mechanical problem ; 
(ii) a routine manual factor associated with the manual activity involved 
in this work ; and (iii), to a less extent, general intelligence. As the work 
assumes a routine character the mechanical factor tends to disappear. 
There was little evidence of the routine factor in the mechanical assembling 
operations. In these the manual activity involved appears to function 
specifically, rather than as a group-factor. 

The Organisation of Manual Activity.—The more complex forms of 
manual activity appear to depend on a broader and more important group- 
factor than earlier work on simpler manual tests would lead us to suppose. 
As the operations become simpler they depend less upon this common 
factor and more upon factors specific to the particular operation. ‘The 
measurement of this group-factor, in relative independence of other factors, 
as provided by suitably constructed tests, would seem to be essential 
wherever vocational guidance or sélection in the sphere of manual activity 
is in question. 


III. THe MeEntTat Processes IN MANUAL ACTIVITY. 


The analysis divides into two parts. The first attempts to elucidate the 
cognitive processes involved in the solution of the mechanical problem 
which accompanies certain forms of manual activity such as that of the 
mechanical assembling operations. It thereby extends to manual activities 
the analysis of mechanical aptitude which the writer has already described 
in a former work.. In the former analysis the problems were of a different 
kind and were uncomplicated by manual activity. The present extension 
of the analysis to include manipulative operations throws light on another 
large class of engineering occupations. 

The analysis also includes an examination of the processes underlying 
the cognition of shape, and the relation of these to drawing and design. 
The results are therefore of vocational interest wherever the worker is 
called upon to deal with spatial material. 

_ The second part of the analysis deals with those manual activities which 
involve no special mechanical problem and which we termed routine 
assembling operations. It attempts to unravel the cognitive processes 
associated with the manual factor which our objective measurements 
disclosed. It includes an account of the kind of knowledge that is acquired 


308 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


by practice at manual operations, and an analysis into elementary processes 
of the mental activity essential to its acquisition. 

The ‘ mechanical’ factor and the ‘ routine manual’ factor appear to 
enter into many occupations. It is hoped, therefore, that these analytical 
results when published! may find wide application in the field of vocational 
psychology, as also the methods of analysis which have been adopted. 


TRAINING IN PSYCHOLOGY. 


Report of Committee appointed to inquire into (a) the occupations for which 
a training in psychology is necessary or desirable, (b) the place 
psychology should occupy in the curricula for University degrees in 
Arts, Science, Medicine, Education, Economics and other subjects 
(Prof. F. C. Bartiett, F.R.S., Chairman ; A. R. Knicut, Secretary ; 
Prof, F. AVELING, Dr. WM. Brown, Prof. J. DREVER, Prof. BEATRICE 
Epceitt, C. A. Macs, Prof. T..H. Pear, Dr. R. H. THOULEss, 
Prof. C. W. VALENTINE, A. W. WOLTERS). 


I. THE OCCUPATIONS FOR WHICH A TRAINING IN PSYCHOLOGY IS 
NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE. 


1. A TRAINING in psychology is now recognised to be necessary _ for 
(i) teachers, who aim at forming mind and character, (ii) medical 
practitioners, who aim at curing mental as well as physical disorders, and 
(iii) industrialists, who aim at directing human energy in the most economical 
way; and educational, medical, and industrial psychology are three 
established branches of applied psychology. But a training in psychology 
is also helpful to any other person whose work lies in dealing effectively 
with human beings. It helps him not merely because it provides him 
with important and special knowledge of the human mind and of human 
behaviour, but also because it develops in him the habit of dealing with 
human relations and problems in an objective, scientific manner. 


2. (i) Medicine —Every physician should have received, in his medical 
course, a training in general psychology, and in the psychological 
treatment of mental disorder. 

(ii) Education—Intending teachers require a training in general 
psychology, and in the facts about mental growth and the formation 
of character, individual differences, abnormal and delinquent 
behaviour, the measurement of abilities, and the applications of 
psychology to methods of teaching. 

(iii) Theology—Clergymen require a training in general and abnormal 
psychology, in the psychological facts underlying religious and 
moral behaviour, and in the technique of effective pastoral work. 
Missionaries require, in addition, some knowledge of racial — 
psychology and of the mental life of primitive peoples. 

(iv) Law.—Both branches of the legal profession require, or at any 
tate benefit by, a training in general psychology, especially in its 


1 A detailed account of the analysis outlined in this report will be published in 
book form by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. 


TRAINING IN PSYCHOLOGY 309 


relation to motivation, intelligence, mental defect, testimony, and 
the technique of appraising and dealing with people. 

(v) The Services:—Officers in the Navy, Army, and Air Force require 
a training in general psychology, especially in its bearing on the 
selection and training of recruits, leadership, discipline, morale, 
and the mental disorders of warfare. Colonial administrators 
also require a training in general psychology and in the psychological 
problems raised by the government of native races. 

(vi) Industry and Commerce-—Those aiming at executive or adminis- 
trative posts in industry and commerce, or at salesmanship and 
advertising, need a training in general psychology and in the 
various branches of industrial and vocational psychology. 

(vii) Soctal Work.—Those professionally or unprofessionally engaged 
in social or welfare work require a training in general psychology. 

(viii) Other occupations—A training in general psychology, especially 
in its dynamic aspects, is desirable for economists, historians, 
anthropologists, literary critics, biologists, and everyone else who 
aims at describing or explaining the thought and behaviour of 
men or animals. A course on the special senses is also required 
in scientific work where accuracy of observation depends on the 
accuracy of the response of human sense-organs. And there may 
well be other occupations for which some training in psychology 
is necessary or desirable. 


Il. THE PLACE PsyCHOLOGY SHOULD OCCUPY IN THE CURRICULA FOR 
UNIVERSITY DEGREES IN ARTS, SCIENCE, MEDICINE, EDUCATION, 
EcoNOMICS AND OTHER SUBJECTS. 


1. The present position of psychology in the universities of Great Britain 
lacks uniformity. In some universities there is a Professor of Psychology, 
while in others there is not even a specially appointed lecturer. In some 
there is a full, self-contained honours course in psychology, while in others 
psychology, if it is taught at all, forms merely a subordinate part of a course 
in some other subject. Again, in some universities a course in psychology 
qualifies for degrees both in Arts and in Science, while in others it qualifies 
for only one of these degrees or for neither. "And these are not all the 
anomalies. 

2. Psychology should occupy such a place in university curricula as 
‘will exhibit its distinction from philosophy and its status as an independent, 
positive science. The fundamental concepts used in psychology do indeed 
stand in need of philosophical analysis, as do those used in any other branch 
of empirical science. Moreover, since psychology deals with the thought 
‘and behaviour of men, its connection with philosophy and the other 
humanities is much closer than that of other sciences, like physics or 
‘chemistry. And for these reasons it is entitled to a prominent place in 
the Faculty of Arts in each university. Still, its position as one of the 
established biological sciences requires that it shall also be taught in every 
‘Faculty of Science.’ Its special cultural value should not be allowed to 
prejudice its scientific status. An independent, positive science that is of 
special importance to Arts students is still an independent, positive science. 


3. (i) Arts and Science—There should be pass courses and honours 
courses qualifying for degrees both in Arts and in Science. 
(ii) Medicine —Courses in psychology should be compulsory for first 
degrees in medicine. 


310 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


(iii) Education—Courses in psychology should be compulsory for 
degrees or diplomas in education. 

(iv) Theology—Courses in psychology should be available for 
theological students, and compulsory for those proposing to engage 
in pastoral work. 

(v) Law.—Courses in psychology should be available for law students. 

(vi) Military Subjects, etc—If university courses are provided for 
prospective candidates for the fighting services, psychology should 
be made a compulsory subject in such courses.1 Training in 
psychology should also be given to those aiming at the colonial 
administrative services. 

(vii) Economics, Commerce, etc-—Courses in psychology should be 
provided for degrees in economics, commerce, industrial adminis- 
tration, etc. 

(viii) Social Science, etc——Courses in psychology should be compulsory 
for degrees or diplomas in social science, mental hygiene, welfare 
work, etc. 

(ix) General—Short courses on the art of study and effective thinking 
should be available for all university students, especially freshmen. 


4. At present the Committee makes no recommendation as to the precise 
nature and length of these several courses, except in so far as the first part 
of this report indicates the different kinds of course which different 
occupations demand. But it does strongly recommend three things: 
(i) Every course should include experimental work. (ii) Even where some 
special application of psychology—as to medicine, or education, or 
industry—is the main subject of the course, this should always be presented 
against a sound background of general psychology. (iii) Every course 
should be given by a trained psychologist. At present psychology is often 
set before students (especially in Faculties of Medicine and Theology) by 
unqualified persons, with the result that the teaching and examinations are 
unsatisfactory and out-of-date. 


TRANSPLANT EXPERIMENTS AT POTTERNE, WILTSHIRE. 


Report of Committee on Transplant Experiments (Sir ARTHUR HILL, 
K.C.M.G., F.R.S., Chairman; Dr. W. B. TurriLy, Secretary ; 
Prof. F. W. Oxtver, F.R.S.; Dr. E. J. Satissury ; Prof. A. G. 
TAanstey, F.R.S.). 


Tuis Committee was appointed by the British Association at the 1930 
meeting and reappointed at the meetings in 1931 and 1932. 
The second report on the progress of the experiments is being published 
in the Fournal of Ecology for August 1933. A third report is in preparation. 
The balance of £2 6s. 2d. of the British Association grant has been used 
to meet (in part) expenses represented by vouchers (receipts) which have 
been submitted. No further grant is asked for this year. 


1 Professor Pear and Dr. Thouless dissent from this on the ground that specific 
instruction in the application of psychology to problems of warfare should not be 
given in universities. 


KLEINIA ARTICULATA 311 


KLEINIA ARTICULATA. 


Final Report of Committee appointed to investigate the effect of conditions 
on the growth, structure and metabolism of Kleinia articulata (Prof. D. 
TuHopay, Chairman; Mr, N. Woopueap, Secretary; Dr. F. F. 
BLACKMAN, F.R.S.). 


THE starvation experiments referred to in the last report showed that 
malic acid is broken down in the later stages, and associated with this is 
a marked increase in the pH of the sap. When protoplasmic breakdown 
occurs in the pith, the pH of the escaping sap reaches about 8. 

Observations on wound-healing have been continued and extended to 
Kleinia neritfolia and other species. The distribution of solutes in these 
other species has also been examined. 

An experiment, lasting five weeks, was carried out in the three chambers 
previously mentioned, each chamber illuminated by a s500-watt Osram 
lamp with white dispersive reflector and running-water screen. In each, 
24 cuttings, previously sprouted in the dark, were exposed respectively to 
daily periods of illumination of 8 hours, 12 hours and 15 hours. The 
temperature in the chambers during illumination was about 18—20° C., and 
fell in the intervals to about 16-17° C. In the 15-hours chamber many of 
the sprouts rapidly withered. In the 12-hours chamber most of the shoots 
showed a more or less marked tendency to plagiotropism, which was only 
shown by a few in the 8-hours chamber. The average elongation was 
gteatest with the shortest daily illumination, least with the longest. 
Further experiments are contemplated for further analysis of these effects. 

The stock of plants was depleted by this experiment, and attention has 
since been concentrated on replenishing it. The work will be continued, 
but the Committee does not apply for reappointment. 

The following papers have appeared during the year : 


H. Evans; ‘The Pentosan Content of Kleinia articulata,’ Biochemical 
Journal, xxvi, 1095-1100 (1932). 

D. THopay and H. Evans: ‘ The Distribution of Soluble Calcium and 
Phosphate in the Tissues of Kleinia articulata and some other Plants,’ 
Ann. Bot., xlvi, 781-806 (1932). 

D. TuHopay and H. Evans: ‘ The Distribution of some Solutes in the 
Tissues of Kleinia articulata,’ Ann. Bot., xlvii, 1-20 (1933). 


312 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS. 


Final Report of Committee on the Teaching of General Science in Schools, 
with Special Reference to the Teaching of Biology (Dr. LILian J. 
CLARKE, Chairman; Mr. G. W. Ottve, Secretary; Mr. C. E. 
Browne ; Major A. G. Cuurcn, D.S.0.; Mr. G. D. DUNKERLEY ; 
Mr. S. R. Humspy; Sir Percy Nunn; Mr. E. R. B. REYNOLDs ; 
Dr. E. W. SHann; Dr. E. M. THomas; Mr. A. H. WHIPPLE ; 
Mrs. GorDON WILSON ; Miss von Wyss). 


CONTENTS. 


I. Introduction. II. Historical Review of Reports previously issued on 
the Teaching of Science. III. Analysis of the Results of the Questionnaire. 
IV. Examinations. V. Out-of-School Activities in relation to Science. 
VI. Summary and Conclusions. 


I. INTRODUCTION. 


THE committee undertook to ascertain as far as possible the position occupied 
by General Science with special reference to the inclusion of Biology in the 
curriculum of secondary schools of England and Wales. ‘The term General 
Science has frequently been taken to mean physics and chemistryalone. It is 
therefore to be understood that the term when used in this report means a 
course or syllabus which includes at least a study of living things, both plant 
and animal, together with physics and chemistry. Inorderto givetheinquiry 
its maximum value, the co-operation of heads of secondary schools and 
science teachers was invited, and this assistance was fully and freely given. 
Teachers were obviously interested, and.a large number of questionnaires 
were returned, completed in detail and supplemented by explanatory notes. 

At the outset, members of the committee were conversant, broadly 
speaking, with the position occupied by General Science in the schools. 
They were aware of the work undertaken by various bodies and pioneers 
in the past, and of the investigations already made. Their first step was to 
prepare a historical review of the growth of opinion in favour of Biology as 
a part of the general science work of aschool. Their next step was to obtain 
as complete and comprehensive information as possible on— 

(1) The extent to which General Science was already adopted in the 
schools ; 

(2) The attitude of heads of schools and science teachers towards the 
value of General Science under the present organisation of schools. 

This information they sought largely by means of questionnaires, circu- 
lated to schools throughout the country. In this connection, certain 
selected schools were invited to supply information on special features of 
‘their out-of-school activities, as ancillary to the work carried on in school. 

As examinations play a large part in determining the type of science work 
in schools, and exercise a restricting influence on a school’s freedom in the 
choice of subjects or in the scope of a subject, the committee have considered 
the problem of school examinations in relation to the adoption of General 
Science as a school subject. 

Out-of-school activities play an important part in science teaching. It 
was essential, therefore, to obtain information on this point also, and again 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 313 


heads of schools and science teachers gave every assistance. The mass of 
information actually received was large as well as pertinent, and the report 
can do no more than present this in outline. 

At the end of the report will be found a summary as well as a statement 
of the conclusions at which the committee has arrived. 


II. HistortcaL REVIEW. 


The principle that School Science should include more than elementary 
physics and chemistry can be traced back many years. It was in fact present 
in the minds of those who first advocated the study of science in schools. 
Huxley in 1854, when referring to the educational value of Natural History 
sciences, said : ‘ Biology needs no apologist when she demands a place, and a 
prominent place, in any scheme of education worthy of thename. Leaveout 
the Physiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the student 
into the world, undisciplined in that science whose subject, matter would 
best develop his powers of observation ; ignorant of facts of the deepest 
importance for his own and others’ welfare ; blind to the richest sources of 
beauty in God’s creation ; and unprovided with that belief in a living law, 
and an order manifesting itself in and through endless change and variety, 
which might serve to check and moderate that phase of despair through 
which, if he take an earnest interest in social problems, he will assuredly 
sooner or later pass.’ 

The Royal Commission in 1860 recommended that all boys should receive 
instruction in some branch of natural science during at least part of their 
school life, that there should be two branches: one consisting of chemistry 
and physics, and the other of physiology and natural history, animal and 
plant. 

At the Nottingham Meeting of the British Association, 1866, a committee 
was appointed, which included Professors Huxley and Tyndall and Canon 
Wilson, ‘ To consider the best means of promoting Scientific Education in 
schools.’ Ample reference to their report, issued in 1867, was made in the 
Report on Science Teaching in Secondary Schools, published in 1917, 
but it may be noted here that the list of science studies recommended 
included : simple facts of astronomy, of geology, and of elementary physio- 
logy, experimental physics, elementary chemistry, and botany. 

Canon Wilson, in his Essays on a Liberal Education, published in 1867, 
describes the methods adopted when introducing science teaching in 
Rugby School ; he explains that it was lack of equipment and of teachers 
that limited the work actually adopted to Botany and Physics, these two 
being claimed as the standard subjects for the scientific teaching in schools. 
Chemistry was not then considered possible owing to difficulties in obtaining 
suitable apparatus and equipment. 

In 1884 Prof. H. L. Armstrong, when speaking at the International 
Conference on Education in London, said: ‘In my opinion no single 
branch of natural science should be selected to be taught as part of the 
ordinary school course, but the instruction should comprise the elements 
of what I have already spoken of as the science of daily life, and should 
include astronomy, botany, chemistry, geology, physics, physiology and 
zoology. . . . The order in which these subjects should be introduced is 
a matter of discussion ; personally I should prefer to begin with botany, 
and introduce as soon as possible the various branches of science in no 
Particular order but that best suited to the understanding of the various 
objects and phenomena to which for the time being the teaching had 
reference.’ 


314 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Encouraged by grants made on results of examinations by the Science 
and Art Department, and influenced by the establishment of scholarships 
in Natural Sciences at Oxford and Cambridge, and by the inclusion of 
science subjects in the requirements of London Matriculation examinations, 
most schools had by 1890 included science teaching of some kind in their 
curriculum. The teaching of botany, however, did not long survive in 
boys’ schools, by the end of the century it was mainly confined to girls’ 
schools. In 1903 a British Association Committee on ‘The Teaching of 
Botany in Schools’ issued a report on methods of teaching the subject. 
The report drew attention to the need for substituting an experimental study 
of living plants for the excessive study of classification and morphology 
which then obtained in the majority of botanical classes ; emphasis was laid 
on the need for the pupils to work for themselves, to be the inquirers, and 
the recorders of actual experiences instead of being the recipients of didactic 
lessons by teachers. It was further asserted that ‘ In Botanical and Zoo- 
logical teaching, more than in any other scientific courses, it is easy to adopt 
improved methods.’ 

Instead of developing on broad lines advocated in the early years, science 
teaching in boys’ schools became almost wholly concerned with physics 
and chemistry, and for the most part with only very restricted parts of 
those subjects. The influence exerted by the highly specialised university 
requirements for a science degree contributed in no small way to consolidate 
this tendency, for the majority of science degrees were awarded to persons 
without the most elementary knowledge of biology. 

The withdrawal of botany and zoology as compulsory subjects for the 
Intermediate Science Examination of London University in 1898 has been, 
in the opinion of many teachers, a contributory cause for the decline in 
interest in biology in schools, and a cause of the deficiency of candidates 
for that subject at the University. All London graduates in science had, 
up to that time, at least some knowledge of biological principles and 
facts. 

The report of the British Association Committee on ‘ Science Teaching 
in Secondary Schools,’ published in 1917, gives a survey of the position 
of science teaching at that date, and includes important memoranda on 
methods of teaching science, on the value of experimental work, on inspec- 
tion and examination, and on school organisation so far as it affects the 
adequate treatment of the subject. 

About the same time the Civil Service Commission attempted to bring the 
teaching of science in schools more into relation with the facts of daily life 
by demanding for certain examinations a much broader type of science study 
than was usual in schools. Similarly the Science Masters’ Association 
made a vigorous effort to obtain recognition for General Science in the 
School Certificate Examinations. In response to this the Oxford and 
Cambridge Joint Board and the Delegates of the Oxford Local Examination 
provided a General Science paper alternative to those of the special subjects 
of physics and chemistry. 

In 1917 the extension of sixth-form work in grant-aided secondary 
schools was encouraged by the institution of advanced courses by the Board 
of Education. The grant of £400 made in connection with each such 
course made it possible to free a teacher for the instruction of a compara- 
tively small number of pupils in the sixth form, and to give help in the 
equipment of laboratories and libraries. In the first year, 1917-18, 
127 courses were recognised, 82 of which were courses in Mathematics 
and Science. In 1924-25 there were 469 courses, 235 being courses in 
Mathematics and Science. There can be little doubt that the science work 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 315 


in the schools containing Advanced Courses in Science Subjects developed 
considerably under their influence. It might have been expected that the 
existence of specialised courses in the top forms would have left the science 
staff free to devise a General Science course covering the years between the 
years 12 and 16, based in the main on the needs of that large majority of the 
pupils who leave school on reaching the latter age. Unfortunately this does 
not appear to have been the case ; on the contrary, there has been a tendency 
to frame the science course with a view to covering as much ground as 
possible in the subjects of the Advanced Course, and specialisation has 
spread down the school. 

A report was published by the Prime Minister’s Committee on ‘ Natural 
Science in Education’ in 1918 (reprinted in 1927). It stressed the need 
to broaden the basis of science work in secondary schools, saying : 

‘Some knowledge of the facts of the life of plants and animals should 
form a regular part of the teaching in every secondary school. . . . The 
main facts as to the relation of plants and animals to their surroundings, 
and the changes in the material and in the energy involved in life and growth 
should form part of a well-balanced school course.’ 

The same report deals in some detail with various conditions affecting 
the teaching of science, such as the influence of examinations, the supply, 
qualifications and training of teachers, university requirements and 
laboratory accommodation, and says : 

‘The want of teachers with wider scientific qualifications is at present 
the real difficulty in the introduction of biology into school work.’ 

In a summary of the principal conclusions of this committee the following 
are worth quoting, as they refer to the science course recommended for 
pupils of ages 12 to 16: 

‘The science work for pupils under 16 should be planned as a self- 
contained course, and should include besides physics and chemistry some 
study of plant and animal life. . . . More attention should be directed to 
those aspects of the sciences which bear directly on the objects and ex- 
periences of everyday life.’ 

By 1920 there was a rapidly growing opinion that biology is a necessary 
element in all school science, and that neither botany nor zoology as separate 
subjects could take its place. In most girls’ schools botany had long been 
a recognised subject of the curriculum. Only in comparatively few boys’ 
schools had biology been given any serious consideration. Natural history 
of a very elementary type sometimes formed the early stages of a science 
course, but it was, more often than not, relegated to voluntary work out of 
school hours as part of the work of the Natural History Society. 
~ In 1924 the committee of the Science Masters’ Association again attacked 
the problem in their publication General Science. In order that there 
should be no misunderstanding as to the meaning of the title, the authors 
‘expressly ‘ consider that, in any well-balanced course, Biology with Human 
Physiology and Hygiene is entitled to about one-quarter ’ of the total time 
@iven to the science course as a whole. The pamphlet has helped to focus 
‘attention upon the need for reform in school science, it has encouraged 
teachers fortunately placed as regards freedom of action to draw up their 
Own courses, to make trial of them and to give others the benefits of their 
‘experiences. The revised edition, published in 1932, has two specimen 
‘syllabuses, and suggestions for practical work, especially with respect to 
‘the biological aspect of the course. In General Science it is especially 
‘claimed that ‘ the whole essence of General Science lies not in the syllabus, 
but in the interpretation of it. . . . It must not be merely bits of specialist 
science. . . . General Science aims at unity,’ to ‘ be conceived as something 


316 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


whole and undivided,’ and ‘ General Science will not be successful unless 
it is treated as a whole.’ 

In 1925 the Board of Education issued a report of an inquiry carried out 
by their Inspectorate on the conditions affecting science teaching in a number 
of large urban secondary boys’ schools. It pointed out that the recommen- 
dations of the Prime Minister’s Committee of 1918, on the desirability of 
some elementary teaching of biology as a part of the normal curriculum of 
boys’ schools, had produced, so far, practically no effect on the science 
syllabuses in those schools. 

In 1926 the Hadow Report on the ‘ Education of the Adolescent.’ 
suggested ‘ That most schemes for courses in elementary science in modern 
schools, central schools, and in senior classes of elementary schools might 
be grouped round a simple syllabus consisting of : 


‘(a) The chemical and physical properties of air, water, and some of the 
commoner elements and their compounds, and elements of 
meteorology, and astronomy, based on simple observations, and 
the extraction of metals. 

‘(6) A carefully graduated course of instruction in elementary physics 
and simple mechanics, abundantly illustrated by means of easy 
experiments in light, heat, sound, and the various methods of 
production and application of electricity. 

‘(c) A broad outline of the fundamental principles of biology describing 
the properties of living matter, including food, the processes of 
reproduction and respiration, methods of. assimilation in plants, 
the action of bacterial organisms and the like. 

‘(d) Instruction in elementary physiology and hygiene based on lessons 
in biology.’ 


It contained, on page 223, the following recommendations : 


‘(x) As a general rule, in country schools the science syllabus both for 
boys and girls might be largely based on biological interests, the 
study of elementary physics and chemistry being subsidiary but 
arranged so as to supply the indispensable foundation for a 
course in elementary biology with special reference to its bearing 
on horticulture and agriculture. 

‘(2) Science courses for girls in modern schools and in senior classes should 
in their later stages frequently have a biological trend. . . .. The 
work should not be confined to botany, as. the study of simple 
forms of animal life can, under a wise and skilful teacher, be made 
an admirable means of widening and disciplining the pupil’s sym- 
pathies, and giving her broad hygienic ideals and a knowledge of 
nature which may increase her happiness and efficiency as a human 
being. 

‘(3) Instruction in elementary physiology and hygiene developing out 
of the lessons in elementary biology should be given to all boys 
and girls in Modern Schools and Senior Classes... Such instruction 
should be largely the practical outline of a study of elementary 
biology, treated, not as a series of classifications but as the study 
of the development of form and function in suitable types of plant 
and animal life, leading up toa study of how the human body is 
built up and how it works. Such instruction in biology and 
elementary physiology, if properly carried out, might well provide 
the basis for a right attitude to many social problems.’ 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 317 


In 1928 a British Association Committee of Zoologists published a report 
on ‘ Animal Biology in the School Curriculum.’ In this report the com- 
mittee regarded the principle that biological teaching should have some 
place in the education of all children as generally admitted, and after 
emphasising the unity of this teaching in that it must take in the whole 
range of life, plant and animal kingdom alike, they dealt mainly with the 
amount and scope of studies to be recommended. ‘They made suggestions 
for the actual building up of a scheme of work, and presented in outline 
a syllabus of biology for pupils from 11 to 16 years of age. 

In 1929 the British Association Committee on Educational Training for 
Overseas Life again urged that a broader view should be taken of the 
function of school science as a preparation for life and service. ‘They viewed 
with satisfaction the movement to introduce biological studies into the 
curriculum. Such studies dealing with the living environment of the child, 
they claimed, would introduce naturally and purposefully most of the 
biological work possible in many schools as well as much of the physical 
science necessary. 

“In Rural Studies, schools would possess an educational instrument of 
wide adaptability, affording intellectual material of the highest kind. . .. 
The contact with life which rural studies bring gives purpose and reality to 
school work generally ; they create interest and provide a rational basis for 
all branches of scientific inquiry. . . . These studies provide opportunities 
for a simple approach to the physiological processes of life, and, when 
correlated with the teaching of geography and history, constitute a basis 
of instruction of far-reaching importance.’ 

The report draws attention to the chief causes of the slowness of the 
schools to extend their biological work, a course so strongly urged by 
educationists and so clearly in accord with the needs of the time. 

In 1929 the British Association Committee on Science in School Certifi- 
cate Examinations showed, in their report, that a detailed analysis of 
examination statistics proved that ‘ General Science occupies a low place in 
comparison (with specialist subjects) and biological subjects other than 
botany are deplorably neglected.’ This report includes some valuable and 
suggestive syllabuses both for General Science and for Biology. 

In' 1929 a report on the condition of science teaching in Oxfordshire, 
compiled by a committee of the Oxfordshire Branch of the Assistant Masters’ 
Association, emphasised the need for the inclusion of biology in the science 
work of the schools. 

In 1929 the Friends’ Guild of Teachers published a report based on 
answers to a questionnaire sent to the Friends’ schools, to a number of 
other well-known schools, and to a number of specialist teachers. In 
answer to the questions, ‘ What Life Sciences ought to be included in the 
_ curriculum for pupils aged 12 to 18, and on what grounds can their inclusion 
be adequately justified,’ the following expression of view summarises the 
general opinion : 

_ “There is but one ‘‘ Life Science ’’—Biology, of which Nature-study, 
Hygiene, Botany, Physiology, Zoology are specialist sub-divisions. Too 
generally at present the instruction of Life Science in schools provides little 
more than some knowledge of Nature Study, Hygiene and Botany, and a 
very strong case can be made out for instruction in the general principles 
of Biology even as early as the first stage—tr1o to 12 years of age.’ 
~In February 1932, a committee of the Economic Advisory Council, 
presided over by the late Viscount Chelmsford, reported on the ‘ Education 
_ and Supply of Biologists.’ The report, besides making recommendations 
on the education of specialists for work at home and overseas, urges the 


318 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


inclusion of biology in schools ‘ as a cultural subject apart from its value 
for medicine and for the professional biological services.. Biology should 
be brought to the notice of every boy, and none should leave school without 
some knowledge of it,’ and further, ‘ the introduction of biology into the 
schools as a general cultural subject is essential in that the interests of the 
ordinary boy requires consideration as much as those of the scholarship 
candidate.’ 

A memorandum on ‘ Science in Senior Schools’ (Board of Education 
Pamphlet No. 89, 1932) reports that 214 out of 584 senior schools pay no 
attention to Biological sciences. Out of 599 men science teachers, only 
38 have qualifications in Biology, while 198 women teachers had 111 qualifi- 
cations in Physics, 129 in Chemistry, 117 in Botany, and 51 in Zoology. 
The memorandum recommends three periods a week as the minimum for 
science in senior schools. It makes suggestions for teaching various aspects 
of physics, chemistry and biology, urges constant cross-references between 
all parts of the science course, and gives lists of apparatus and equipment 
considered necessary. 

A National Conference on ‘ The Place of Biology in Education ’ was held 
in London, November 1932, under the auspices of the British Social 
Hygiene Council. The conference lasted three days and dealt with the 
following aspects of the subject : 

(1) The National and Imperial Need for a Biological Outlook. 

(2) The Place of Biology in Public Education, including : 

(a) Biology as an Integral part of Science ; 

(b) How Local Education Authorities can further the Teaching, of 
Biology. 

(c) The Teacher’s contribution to Biology. 


(3) Biology in the Training Colleges. 

(4) Biology in National Life. 

(5) Biology in the Elementary School. 

(6) Biology in the Public, Secondary, and Preparatory Schools. 


A discussion followed on the schemes for teaching Biology submitted for 
consideration by Prof. Julian Huxley, Prof. W. Cullis, and Prof. Sir J. A. 
Thomson. 

A report on the School Certificate Examination, prepared by a panel of 
investigators appointed by the Secondary Schools Examinations Council to 
inquire into the working of the examination in question, was published by 
the Board of Education in 1932. 


JII. ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE, 


The questionnaire sent out by the committee asked for information on 
the following topics : 

(1) The present position of science in the schools and science subjects 
taught. 

(2) The position of Biology in the schools. 

(3) The position of General Science, taking that term to include 
chemistry, physics and biology, at least. 

(4) If Biology and General Science are not commonly taught, what are 
the reasons for their exclusion ? 

(5) Where General Science is taught, is it found to be advantageous o 
disadvantageous for the specialised work later in the school course ? 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 319 


1. The present position of science in schools and science subjects taught. 

In England and Wales there were (March 31, 1931) 1,367 State-aided 
and 362 non-aided secondary schools. The questionnaire was sent to the 
majority of these schools, and replies were received from 98 boys’ schools, 
198 girls’ schools, and 62 mixed schools. Table I shows to what extent 
the various subjects were studied in these 358 schools. 


TasB_e I. 
Boys’. Girls’. Mixed. 

Percentage of schools taking Chemistry. 97 83 92 
9 9 »» _ Physics _. 97 72 87 

” »” ” ” General 
Science . 56 69 50 
» ” » Biology . 25 41 32 
» a9 55 So Botany 1 9 22 84 52 
3 sue. » Zoology’ . 16 27 2r 


It is clear from this table that chemistry and physics dominate the science 
work in boys’ schools and in mixed schools, but the position in girls’ schools 
is not at first obvious. To clarify it, Table II shows the percentage of pupils 
taking the various science subjects. 


TaBLeE II, 
Boys’. Girls’, Mixed. 

Number of schools ; ~ ; ; . 98 198 62 
Average percentage of pupils taking Chemistry . 50 26 51 
»”» ” ” ”? »”» Physics i! 55 21 5° 

” ” ”» » ” General 
i Science . 37 40 42 
3 a LEME » Biology. 21 26 28 
” ” ” ” ” Botany . 4 31 24 
” ” > ” ” Zoology od 4 4 3 


_ This table, taken in conjunction with Table I, makes it clear that botany 
is still a popular science in girls’ schools, but that General Science appears 
to be holding an important position. It must be noted that the above 
figures are liable to be misleading as many schools have courses in General 
Science for the younger pupils, but do not carry the subject on to the 
school certificate stage. Of 137 girls’ schools taking General Science, we 
are informed that only 35 take the subject in school certificate, whereas 
almost all the 167 taking botany and two-thirds of those taking chemistry 
present it for examination. It is fair to conclude that in boys’ and mixed 
schools chemistry and physics dominate the science work, and in girls’ 
schools there is a wider field. General Science is usually taken as an 
introduction for pupils of ages 11 to 13, and further, it is clear, from a second 
inquiry that was made, that in many schools ‘ General Science ’ is taken to 
mean chemistry and physics only. None the less, General Science in the 
broader sense is evidently becoming more popular than it was a few years 


ago. 
“It may be profitable to add a note here about Nature Study. This may 
conveniently done in the form of Table III. 


320 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Tasce III. 
Boys’. Girls’. Mixed. 

Number of schools : 98 198 62 
Percentage of schools taking N. ature ‘Study 26 42 44 
Percentage of pupils of these schools taking 

Nature Study . 14 19 25 
Percentage of schools taking Nature Study and 

not Biology : 12 20 23 
Percentage of schools taking Nature Study and 

Biology . 14 22 21 
Percentage of schools taking. Biology but not 

Nature Study 29 30 18 
Percentage of phpils taking Biology in " ‘these 

schools. 13 21 24 


The replies to ae questionnaire hes ige st that gtie» Study is generally 
taken for the first year or two of the pupil’s school life only ; in very few 
schools is it taken beyond the age of 12. 


2. The position of Biology in Schools. 


Taste IV. 
Boys’. Girls’. Mixed. 
Number of schools P : 98 198 62 
Percentage of schools taking Biology ; é 25 41 32 
of », pupils taking Biology in these ; 21 26 28 
a ,, schools taking Bicleey in school 
certificate 2 ; : II 16 19 


The last line of figures may be ca: as a fair measure of the seriousness 
with which biology is pursued in schools, 


3. The position of General Science. 

It is very difficult to obtain figures which give a reliable account of the 
position. All the following subjects are studied by various schools as part 
of their general science courses: chemistry, physics, botany, physiology, 
physical geography, astronomy, biology, zoology, geology, soil science, 
nature study, domestic science, hygiene, and meteorology. In some schools 
the course is evidently an introductory one leading on to a more detailed 
survey of two or more subjects, in others it is a general course for senior 


pupils who are on the classical or modern languages side. In some schools — 


_the course is experimental ; in others it consists of reading and lectures 
only. It will be clear that figures showing the number which take General 
Science will be misleading, and for that reason the figures for General 
Science in Tables I and II must be accepted with caution. It is possible, 
however, to give a few figures whose meaning is clear. 


TABLE V. 
Boys’. Girls’, Mixed. 

Number of schools ‘ 98 198 62 
Percentage of these taking Gétieral Stierce e 56 69 50 

m », pupils taking General Science in 
these . 37 40 42 

i ,, schools taking General Scidnee i in 
school certificate form . 22 18 15 


(The figures in the last line may be a little too es but are certainly not 
a little too low.) 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 321 


4. Reasons why Biology and General Science are not commonly taught. 

Tables IV and V show that at present neither General Science, including 
biology, nor Biology is taught as much as other scientific subjects. ‘The 
main reasons given in questionnaire answers for the absence of biological 
teaching are tabulated : 

Reason A.—Omission due to the requirements of some School Certificate 

Examination. 
Reason B.—Lack of suitable teachers. 
Reason C.—Lack of suitable accommodation. 


eagaatatss Boys’. Girls’. Mixed. 
Number of schools : : : , ; 98 198 62 
Percentage of these giving reasons why Biology is 
not taught y : , : : : 53 36 35 
Of schools giving reasons why Biology is not 
taught : 
Percentage, ReasonA . j ; : 45 50 41 
Percentage, Reason B ; A 3 ; 47 33 aI VAG 
Percentage, Reason C ; 2 : 43 39 4I 


Some schools give more than one reason. 


It should be noted that the above reasons were those suggested in the 
question paper, and they are the most common reasons given. They may 
be taken as the effective reasons for the exclusion of biology at present, 
but, from their nature, they could be overcome if the desire for biology 
were sufficiently urgent. Other reasons which occur fairly often are 
© Crowded curriculum,’ ‘ Insufficient time,’ ‘ Lack of demand generally,’ 
‘ Superior claims of physics and chemistry,’ ‘ Unsuitable subject for young 
pupils.’ A few schools state that they do not consider biological subjects 
to have a greater claim to inclusion than sciences already taken. Generally 
it may be said that schools are alive to the value of biology as an educational 
subject, but they do not see their way to introduce it owing to their over- 
crowded time-table or to difficulties connected with staffing or accom- 
modation. They also doubt whether gain in breadth of teaching is a real 
compensation for loss in depth. . 

Considering one of the main reasons in more detail—difficulties connected 
with the school certificate examination—it is evident that a large number of 
schools find this a very serious factor in their decision to exclude biology. 
General Science including biology is not accepted for matriculation in most 
universities, whereas chemistry and physics are. If a pupil can take 
chemistry and physics as two subjects in the school certificate examination, 
both acceptable for matriculation, it is probable that schools will take the two 
subjects and exclude biology. (It may also be pointed out that most pro- 
fessional bodies do not accept General Science as a qualifying subject for 
the preliminary examinations.) 

Further, with regard to the taking of biology as a separate subject in the 
school certificate examination, certain difficulties are raised. In town 
schools it is said to be more difficult to obtain material for the teaching of 
zoology than for that of botany, and that in any event, botany is an easier 
subject for class teaching than zoology. With the same time available, 
teachers say (1) it is easier for pupils to pass examinations in botany than 
in biology; (2) botany is cheaper than biology, both in materials and 
apparatus ; (3) where the number of science pupils is small, it is very 
expensive to take up a third science owing to increase of staff; (4) the 
classes would have to be smaller than is profitable. 


322 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Many heads of schools are not convinced that biology has any advantages 
over botany or other sciences as an examination or as an educational subject, 
and they are leaving matters in their present position until they can be sure 
that a change is desirable. 


5. General Science in relation to later specialised work. 

The fifth point set out in the questionnaire was the advantage or otherwise 
of General Science as a foundation for the specialised work later in the 
school course. In considering the answers given, it should be borne in 
mind that the term ‘ General Science ’ has different meanings for different 
schools. ‘The following shows the opinions of those schools which take 
General Science and which give their views : 


STs eV Boys’. Girls’. Mixed. 

Number of schools : 98 198 62 
Percentage of these taking General Science - 56 69 47 
Percentage of schools stating General Science 

advantageous for later work : 20 44 20 
Percentage of schools stating General Science 

disadvantageous for later work . 3 3 5 
Percentage of schools taking General Séience i in 

School Certificate forms . F g é 22 18 15 


On the face of this evidence it would appear that the opinions expressed 
were overwhelmingly in favour of General Science but for the lack of 
certainty as to what precisely is meant by ‘ General Science,’ and what by 
specialised work later in the course. An examination of the replies to the 
questionnaire shows that about seventy schools consider two sciences 
constitute a General Science course, and of these two, biology i is very seldom 
one. Further, by ‘ specialised work later in the school course,’ some schools 
mean Higher School Certificate work and others mean School Certificate 
work. Itis clear that, in the first case, the General Science course will mean 
a course extending over three or four years, whereas in the second it may 
mean one or two years’ work with younger pupils. 

Probably the best way to give an accurate impression of the views stated 
is to quote from them, dealing first with those schools which have a General 
Science course of three or four years. 

(1) General Science is taught only to non-science specialists. I should 
strongly disapprove of science specialists going through a course of General 
Science. 

(2) From an educational point of view, entirely advantageous. From 
the point of view of the necessity of passing School Certificate it is still 
advantageous, though the time spent on non-examination subjects is some- 
times grudged by boys. It is greatly to be desired that a School Certificate 
paper in General Science acceptable for matriculation should be provided ; 
a paper consisting of so many chemical, physical and biological questions 
in water-tight compartments does not meet the case. (The point about 
a General Science paper acceptable for matriculation is made by several 
other schools.) 

(3) It is certainly true that a General Science course with its wider scope 
is not advantageous to the specialised work later on, as there is a limited 
amount of time available for the study of science, and what is gained in 
breadth is lost in depth. Nevertheless I am sure that a General Science 
course is desirable. 

(4) As science scholarships are at present awarded it is hardly possible to 
obtain scholarships unless specialisation in physics and chemistry begins at 
fourteen, and at this age only the modern forms go on with General Science. ~ 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 323 


(s) It would be an advantage to Higher School Certificate work if General 
Science were taken up to School Certificate standard ; for examination 
requirements we find it easier'to take a special subject. 

(6) We consider that a General Science course is too disconnected and 
not a scientific training, and therefore not a good foundation for later work. 

(7) General Science course advantageous on the whole, but only in so 
far as it is amplified by more special work for two years below School 
Certificate standard if advanced work is aimed at after matriculation. 

These opinions, typical of many more, would seem to indicate that 
General Science is approved educationally but it is not the best possible 
preparation for the present matriculation or scholarship work. Dealing 
now with those schools whose General Science course comprises one to 
three years in the early part of the school life, it may be said at once that 
the general consensus of opinion is favourable. Very many schools mention 
that a knowledge of the elements of one science is essential to a proper 
understanding of the more advanced work in another science. Very few 
schools object to General Science in these early years, and of those that do, 
a number are largely concerned with the need for more specialised know- 
ledge necessary for examination in separate subjects later in the school 
course. 

Generally, then, it may be stated that most schools which have taken 
General Science find the subject of value educationally, and based most of 
their objections to it on the needs of matriculation and scholarship work. 

(In this analysis the opinions stated are those given to the questionnaire 
except where it was necessary to gather up, in a comprehensive sentence, 
the views previously stated.) 


IV. ExAMINATIONS. 


At present the regulations and schedules of the various School Certificate 
Examination Boards decide to a great extent the content of science teaching 
in schools. In some schools these schedules decide also the form in which 
the instruction is given, and control much of the laboratory work. 

A number of examining bodies include General Science as a subject for 
the First School Examination, but three of them at present consider General 
Science to be a course which includes only chemistry and physics. 

Several universities do not at present accept General Science as a 
qualifying subject for University matriculation. 

Much effort has been expended in late years in attempts to standardise 
more accurately the marking and grading of examinations. There is perhaps 
one danger here to which attention may be drawn. Certain types of 
questions are easy to set and easy to mark with precision. Unfortunately, 
facility in answering them can be acquired without any real knowledge of 
science or understanding of scientific method. This sort of question reacts 
injuriously on the teaching of science. The school teachers, who in recent 
years have been invited in increasing numbers to assist as examiners and 
critics of the papers, can help materially by combating questions of this 
type. The committee would welcome an extension of the system by which 
teachers are utilised as examiners or moderators. 

In 1932 a panel of investigators appointed by the Secondary Schools 
Examination Council issued a report on the School Certificate Examinations. 
The report was drawn up after an extensive investigation, and the panel 
was able, from its constitution, to obtain material which would be available 
to no other body. Included in the report of the panel of investigators is a 
recommendation that all candidates in science should be obliged to take 
a paper in ‘ Elementary Science’ (by which is meant a course similar to 


324 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


what is called ‘ General Science” in this report). While this committee is 
of opinion that the recommendation if adopted would lead to an improvement 
in the study of biological sciences, yet it would prefer some alteration in 
the syllabuses set for examination purposes which would ensure that all 
candidates sitting for the science papers should have passed through an 
adequate course of General Science as defined previously. 

1'The report suggests that optional papers in chemistry, physics and biology 
should be retained as additional subjects, and candidates should be allowed 
to take one or more of these. Candidates who, in good faith, take all these 
additional papers might be exempted from the Elementary Science paper. 

The present system of examinations encourages a narrow specialisation 
which is unsound educationally. A school may find that candidates for, 
say; physics only have a greater chance of examination success under the 
present arrangement than they would if they took General Science. ‘ It 
will be clear that such an attitude towards science teaching is due to 
making the School Certificate Examination an end in itself rather than 
a means to test the results of a course of general education before the pupil 
begins such a course of specialisation as is appropriate for secondary 
schools.”’ (Circular 849, B. of E.) ‘It is a cardinal principle that the 
examination should follow the curriculum and not determine it’ (loc. cit.), 
A course which deliberately sacrifices the best education of the pupil to the 
desire of passing an examination is hard to defend. 

A further recommendation of the panel is that which advocates ‘ Easy 
papers and a high standard of marking.’ 

The plain fact is that it is extremely difficult to test a pupil’s appreciation 
of science, and possibly no written test can be adequate. The one person 
who should be able to say whether the pupil is well grounded in science is 
the teacher. If the teacher is personally known to the examiner, the latter 
may be able to judge of the value of his opinion. Actual contact between 
examiner and teacher is very desirable. One examining body sends an 
examiner to each school for the practical examinations in science, and it is 
clear that the system has great advantages. In a few years the examining 
body would have a shrewd idea of the value of each school and of each 
science teacher, whereby the work of the pupils could be more accurately 
known and assessed. ‘The chief obstacle in the way of adopting the system 
generally is the size of some of the School Certificate Examinations. (Over 
17,000 candidates sat for the School Certificate Examination of one 
authority in 1931.) 

The committee feel bound to state, however, that they see no ultimate 
value in this tendency to standardisation of methods, materials and results. 
Assuming that the one perfect School Certificate Examination were uni- 
formly adopted, the committee would not be satisfied. It is a common- 
place to say that much of the work of a school cannot be examined, and it is 
not too much to say that many of the most valuable parts of a pupil’s make-up 
cannot be tested by any written work. This applies with great force to 
a pupil’s work in science. The efficient school will continue to turn out the 
good pupils and the inefficient school the bad ones however perfectly the 
School Certificate Examination be devised, and the committee feel that 
efforts to increase the efficiency of schools are of more ultimate value than 
efforts to improve the efficiency of examinations. If it is asked to state 
what efforts it has in mind, the committee would suggest more frequent 
inspection, more pedagogic research, a more rigorous selection of candi- 
dates for the teaching profession, more efficient training of teachers. 

1 This committee would have preferred the report to have included options so 
that pupils could take papers in Botany, Zoology or Biology as additional subjects. 


ay 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 325 


fQ : 
5 = E cs 4 ~ 
School Certificate Biol S 4 4 = g iC) — | 3 
f ool Certificate Biology. e So 4 E E = re E 
rea ‘ 
eS A S Z 
| Papers (in hours where stated) | I, II | 13,13) I, I 3. Ee = 3 
| Demonstration of dissection = 
| d; lens =1; microscope=m | 1, m ] d,l,m}| d,1 1 d,1,m 1 dy sl 
| Knowledge ‘of Elementary 
Physics and Chemistry , a esp. ia au Te ae ety de 


| 
(q 
) 
| Differences between animals 


and plants : : : + + au =e 
| Food materials; nature and a 
assimilation of . : 4+ Te £0, ar + 
i Respiration ; energy relation + + 5 2 + o- + oe +. 
| Reproduction ; sexual and an 
| asexual : , j at LE a 2 a — 
‘| Reaction to stimuli + + ae + + + + — 
| Cellular structure ; ; + TA 
Soil Science = s; C. & N. 
Gycles =(c.\: . ; 4 c sh.c s 


| Structure and functions of 
flowering plant : + + + + 
‘ Herbaceous and arborescent 


| _ types 

4 Floral structure ; Buttercup = 
‘ B; Pea = P: several = x oc |B, P| B,P 
| Fruits and seeds ; dispersal = 


Ha 8 +24 
& 
8 
8 


| -d; germination = g Ped aNt hee at GSB? led: & d dre yr d, ig 
| Tubers, corms and bulbs. ok + ate 
| Algee ; Chlamydomonas = C ; 
Pgs Spitogyra=S . Qs hes bivs c oc 
q Fungi; Mucor = M, others 
| =-+ ;, Bacteria = B B M M+ | M+ M oh 
-Archegoniates ; ; Moss = M; 
Liverwort = L; Fern = F M L+ F F 
| Relation of plants to environ- 
qe ment 3 + + (alt)? =F esp. = a 
| Rana , as type; systems and 
functions (alt.) |» + sh y + + - 
| Rana, development (externals Qs 
| eae typ (alt.) Big et 70 teas 
| Mamm as e F P ¥ skelet -- 5 a 
'| Amoeba Sh: eg ge be de lab 
Hydra = H; Worm =W .| H H H te te cided a 
'f S; éxternals = €; life- 7 
% alta =1; dissection = d e, 1 e “See varrerth Hinge e end e, 1 
tolo+ S$ is 
Natu ral history ‘(of certain 3 2 
_ types). falidoskass “- ao 
{ yee of animals to en- 4 
vironment. pas edets 2 + > + + 


F 
otes ue + means the subject is specified; esp., the subject is emphasised; alt., an alter- 
native or option. 


326 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


V. Out-or-ScHOOoL ACTIVITIES IN RELATION TO SCIENCE. 


In response to a special request sent out by the committee many schools 
supplied information upon the various out-of-school activities ; the reports 
received show that science teaching owes much to the work done out of 
the ordinary school hours. 

A natural history society exists in most schools. The older natural 
history societies are usually divided into sections: astronomical, natural 
science, ornithological, entomological, botanical, and so on, the interests 
of each section being supervised by curators or other officers. Physical 
and chemical sections may organise expeditions to works and factories, set 
up demonstrations illustrating phases of the development of the particular 
section, or undertake definite pieces of work in the laboratory. Geo- 
graphical and historical clubs are fairly common, while in a number of 
rural schools bee clubs and gardening clubs are linked with the ‘ Young 
Farmers’ Club’ movement. To all such societies a camera club is con- 
sidered a useful adjunct. 

Under conditions where the time assigned to science is limited or 
negligible, as for example, on a few classical ‘ sides,’ out-of-school science 
may be regarded, without exaggeration, as a saving factor in an unbalanced 
curriculum. 

There seems to be variation in the conditions of membership. In the 
majority of schools boys or girls of all ages are eligible for membership, 
though the natural history society may be divided into senior and junior 
sections. In a few, membership is limited to the older pupils, while in 
others, active membership declines as pupils reach higher forms. Again, 
there are schools in which it would appear that the natural history society 
is run for the smaller boys only, and the old function of the natural history 
society is regarded as having been largely superseded by biological teaching. 

It is evidently becoming more possible for boys to take part in out-of- 
school activities other than organised games. ‘The clash of interests that has 
ensued between games and other out-of-school activities is diminishing, 
probably because many heads of schools exercise wise supervision over the 
activities of all departments, and realise their obligation to maintain a proper 
balance between them. One hears less of the obstacles raised because 
younger pupils must perform house duties or because senior ones are 
impeded by convention. 

Several heads have emphasised the value of organised holiday camps, 
either for week-ends or longer periods. They point out that this enables 
members to spend periods in contact with countryside or seaside, to the 
benefit not only of the work but of the whole life of the school. 

As a development of the principle of doing service to the community, 
one school, at least, sets up experiments and exhibits that are demonstrated 


for the benefit of adjacent schools and adult evening classes, while another | 


school provides surplus biological material for others less fortunately 
situated. 

The records of the societies, whatever their purpose or mode of organisa- 
tion, demonstrate that, as a general rule, the pupils do most of the work and 
bear much of the responsibility, and further, that the work has a depth and 
quality that must reflect most beneficially not only on the scientific training 
of the individual but on the whole educational outlook of the school. 

It is clear that many schools have undertaken pioneer work, and have 
thus made some contribution towards breaking down the artificial boundary 
between indoor and outdoor activities. 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 327 


The following is a summary of the information obtained by the com- 
mittee : 

School Societies—The science club often embraces all the sciences so as 
to give boys or girls, especially those: who are specialising in non-scientific 
subjects, a chance to listen to lectures and debates on scientific subjects of 
current interest. It provides for the display of films of scientific appeal in 
natural history, archeology and other subjects. Lectures by visitors from 
other schools and from universities often provide great interest. Sections 
devoted to particular branches of science-appeal specially to the field worker 
and the collector; they give opportunities for the more enthusiastic 
members to read papers or, less formally, to describe or exhibit natural 
phenomena in the knowledge of which they are versed. Interest in the 
weather is fostered by the regular recording of meteorological observations. 
A combination of zoological and botanical garden for the use of pupils is 
a great asset; skilled guidance is necessary here, but much of this work 
can be done by suitable chosen curators. In this connection it is interesting 
to read the report on the Botany Gardens of the James Allen’s Girls’ School, 
Dulwich (Educational Pamphlet No. 41, Board of Education). A room in 
which special collecting apparatus and aquaria, both large and small, can be 
kept is desirable ; but experience shows that work need not be delayed on 
account of the lack of such accommodation. For more advanced field- 
work a laboratory must be open at suitable out-of-school times. This kind 
of work is very valuable as a training in scientific method, provided the 
workers keep accurate records of data relevant to their observations. 

Lectures of general scientific interest may well be thrown open to the 
whole school, and not limited to members of a society. In the North- 
Western area the Association of Women Science Teachers has a panel of 
lecturers who visit schools in the Manchester and Liverpool districts. The 
lecturers are chiefly teachers in secondary schools or University lecturers 
or museum keepers. 
~ Many school museums are organised to help those interested in particular 
branches of science. ‘The use of the material in the museum is encouraged 
and interest aroused by frequent changes in the exhibits. The possession 
of a museum, however good, offers little stimulus unless the pupil is already 
interested in field-work. 

- According to an experienced teacher of biology there are three stages 
through which boys will usually pass during the course of their member- 
ship in the science club, though not all boys will arrive at the third stage : 
(i) casual interest ; (ii) enthusiastic cdllection ; and (iii) a stage at which 
the work is pursued on scientific lines. 

_ Unorganised Voluntary Holiday Work.—Where the school has scouts or 
guides much useful work is often done under competent leaders. The 
Whitsuntide and Summer camps are the means of introducing many urban 
pupils to some of the secrets and joys of the countryside. 

_ Expeditions —These may have as their primary objective: (i) the culti- 
vation of a wider scientific outlook than class teaching can give; (ii) the 
establishment of an interest in the practical application of scientific know- 
ledge to human affairs ; and (iii) the acquisition of a first-hand experience 
of field-work. Under (i) and (ii) would be included visits to factories, gas 
and electrical stations, wireless stations, dairies, research stations, and 
Zoological and botanical gardens. Managers are almost invariably generous 
in granting facilities for such visits, as well as in providing skilled guidance. 
Under (iii) would be included short expeditions into the country for the 
purpose of studying the flora, fauna and physical features. 


328 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


From the administrative point of view, expeditions may be divided into 
(i) class expeditions in which a whole class takes part, either in school hours 
or on a holiday ; and (ii) voluntary expeditions undertaken for a like purpose 
by groups of pupils from different forms. 

The best results are obtained from biological expeditions if in any one 
year attention is concentrated upon one or two localities only, and visits 
are made at different seasons. Casual expeditions, however enjoyable, are 
liable to be relatively unproductive. It is recommended that before the 
expedition each pupil should be provided with or should make a map of 
the region to be studied. 

Longer voluntary expeditions call for expenditure and are less easily 
arranged ; where they are practicable they justify the trouble involved. 
Some schools arrange a week in the neighbourhood of Port Erin, and while 
studying the flora and fauna of the seashore they are also able to see the 
aquarium, museum and laboratories of the Marine Station there. Similar 
expeditions are made to the Lakes and to Derbyshire. Other schools arrange 
holiday courses in conjunction with the Marine Laboratories at Plymouth 
and at Millport ; while a less advanced course has been devised for younger 
boys at Colwyn Bay during the summer holidays. ‘The biology mistresses 
of several London schools take girls to Seaford for a like purpose in the 
Easter holidays. All teachers of biology who have organised such ex- 
peditions have found them both useful and enjoyable. 


VI. SumMMaRY AND CONCLUSIONS. 


There has been in recent years a definite but relatively slight increase in 
the biological content of school science courses, and good pioneer work is 
being done in the teaching of General Science. 

There is ample evidence that, on the whole, Biology is being taught with 
skill and enthusiasm. The same may be said of General Science, though in 
a few cases the criticism may hold true that the teaching tends to be diffuse 
and generally to lack scientific character. 

There appears to be a general feeling of growing intensity that the 
traditional chemistry and physics or botany of the secondary school is 
insufficient educationally, and that instruction in biology should claim a 
portion of the time available for science. Many arguments in favour of its 
inclusion are given in the historical review. 

There does not seem at present to be any very definite agreement whether 
the biological part of the science course should come early or late in a child’s 
school life. Many teachers would prefer it to be taken in the latter part of 
their school life, so that an adequate foundation of physics and chemistry 
can be assumed. Others think that at an earlier age the pupil’s interests 
will be most easily awakened, and that the work will be less stereotyped 
by shadows of impending examinations. In some schools a compromise 
is effected between these two opinions—viz. that a considerable amount 
of biology and nature study is advisable and possible in the earlier years, 
between 11 and 13, and the subject dropped except for incidental refer- 
ences in relation to both chemistry and physics until the age of 16, when 
the child’s experience enables it to appreciate the more important lessons 
biology has to teach. 

The influence of examinations has been restrictive, so that in many school 
intensive study of some parts of a subject has displaced the conception a 
a more liberal scientific education. 

There seems no reason to think that the introduction of General Science 
into schools will render the science teaching more costly. q 


GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 329 


The chief causes of the neglect of Biology in schools are said to be: 


(a) The apparent absence of any strongly expressed demand from 
parents and others interested in education. 

(6) Inertia and lack of initiative in the face of established custom in schools 
in which only chemistry and physics are taught. 

(c) A shortage of teachers who have studied biology during their 
University career. 


When a sufficiently strong demand develops there is plenty of evidence 
that many teachers will be willing to acquire the necessary knowledge. 
Some Local Education Authorities and other bodies have already organised 
holiday and evening classes to meet this end. 

Out-of-school activities form an important part of the science teaching 
in many schools. It is satisfactory to note that the need for caution against 
indiscriminate collecting of biological material is being emphasised and the 
desirability of making adequate provision for such material encouraged. 


Conclusions —We suggest that : 

General Science should be taught in all secondary schools and on all 
“ sides ’ of suchschools, inasmuch as a knowledge of General Science forms an 
essential part of a liberal education. It should be regarded as an essential 
element in a school curriculum, and after the lapse of an agreed number of 
years no School Certificate should be granted unless the school is certified 
as efficient in this respect. 

A course should not be called General Science unless it provides a co- 
ordinated survey of physics, chemistry and biology, using these words in 
a wide sense. ‘The essential features of such courses should be constant 
emphasis that Nature is not partitioned into special sciences but that prac- 
tical problems can be attacked by a scientific method which is much the same 
whether, for convenience, the problem is considered in terms of one or 
other particular branch of knowledge. ‘The technique of the sciences must 
often differ, but every teacher should take care to draw attention to their 
essential unity of outlook. 

So far as is practicable under the present system of School Certificate 
Examinations, the teaching of General Science should take place free from 
the restrictive influence of examinations. It is especially important that 
when General Science is taken in all schools there should be wide liberty 
of choice of emphasis so that teachers may follow to some extent their own 
interests and make full use of the school environment. Care will be neces- 
sary to avoid inexact and unscientific teaching when a very wide syllabus 
is in use. 

University authorities responsible for the conduct of University Entrance 
Examinations in Science should demand that those candidates who propose 
to proceed to a degree in Science should have received a preliminary ground- 
work of General Science. 

A more intimate system of co-operation between school and school might 
overcome many of the difficulties of material and equipment experienced 
by some schools in the teaching of biology. 

There is a shortage, not so much of qualified botanists and zoologists as 
of teachers who possess the particular kind of ability and training necessary 
for the making of efficient teachers of biology. 

General Science demands in a teacher wider knowledge and understanding 
of scientific procedure than the specialist subjects do. To be effective and 
stimulating the teacher must have real experience of the practical side of 
all three main divisions of the subject—biology, chemistry and physics. 

N 


330 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


VII. THANKs. 


For their valued assistance in supplying the necessary information the 
best thanks of the committee are tendered to the— 

(1) Heads and Science Teachers of individual Schools ; 

(2) Assistant Mistresses’ Association ; 

(3) Association of Women Science Teachers ; 

(4) Assistant Masters’ Association ; 

(5) Headmasters’ Conference ; 

(6) Incorporated Association of Headmasters ; 

(7) Science Masters’ Association. 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION. 


Report of Committee appointed to consider the position of Science Teaching 
in Adult Educational Classes, and to suggest possible means of promoting 
through them closer contact between Scientific Achievement and Social 
Development (Prof. J. L. Myres, F.B.A., Chairman; Mr. C. E. 
BROWNE, Secretary; Major A. G. Cuurcu, D.S.O., Dr. LILIAN 
CLaRKE, Miss E. R. Conway, C.B.E., Prof. C. H. Descu, F.R.S., Sir 
RICHARD GREGORY, Bt., F.R.S., Mr. S. R. HumBy, Miss H. Masters, 
Mr. E. R. THomas. Co-opted: Mr. A. Clow Forp, Dr. C. W. 
KIMMINS). 


CONTENTS 


I. Introduction. II. Abstracts from Replies to Questionnaire. 
III. Suggestions and Recommendations. IV. Bibliography. 
V. Appendix. 


I. INTRODUCTION 


OnE of the most direct reactions of general culture to industrialisation was 
the establishment, in the greater centres of mechanical production, of 
‘Mutual Improvement’ Societies, Literary and Philosophical Institutions, 
and (rather later) of more specialised Field Clubs and Natural History 
Societies, side by side with Archaeological and Architectural Societies, the 
offspring of the romantic movement which was so closely linked historically 
with the industrial. Most of these associations were literally for ‘ mutual 
improvement’; the best informed or most voluble amateur lectured to the 
rest ;, apparatus was home-made ; where a ‘ magic lantern’ was available, 
the slides were hand-painted. London was far off. When the British 
Association was founded in 1831 it was explicitly to bring leading scientific 
men from London and the Universities into occasional conference with 
local workers, as well as local workers with each other. 

It was in the subsequent half-century of this movement, thus assisted by 
the British Association, that quite naturally the great period of popular 
awakening to the value of science took place. The great controversies of 
the period, at times passionate and dramatic, fired popular imagination and 
enthusiasm, and gave force and power to the claim that science should find 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 331 


its way into the curricula of established teaching. 'The result was the 
establishment of many new institutions with an almost exclusively scientific 
outlook. To such an extent, indeed, has ‘ science’ been accepted as an 
element in national life that some have actually asked whether the British 
Association has not now fulfilled the function for which it was called into 
being. 

But such a view is facile : for while it is true that the establishment of the 
younger Universities, University Colleges, ‘Technical Colleges, and so on, 
offer facilities almost undreamed of in the half-century following the 
foundation of the British Association, these facilities (along with which 
must be reckoned also a great deal of ‘ science ’ teaching in schools of many 
different types) by reason, perhaps, of one of their main virtues—the 
insistence upon the rigour of exact laboratory methods—have failed to reach 
effectively a large section of the population ; and notwithstanding these 
great facilities, the number is probably still large who, by reason of geo- 
graphical circumstances, of mental aptitude, of temperament, and of 
upbringing, regard science and its works with casualness, suspicion, and 
hostility—even with contempt. 

. This body of people has long offered a field for investigation, and a problem 

for which, perhaps, solution would not be easy; a field and a possible 
problem, however, that come very definitely within the special purview of 
the British Association. What can be done for those whose early training 
left them uninterested in science, or critical of it, or whose daily work has 
prevented them from actively maintaining their interest. by means of 
institutions with laboratory facilities ? 

Meanwhile, that older provision of ‘ mutual improvement,’ through local 
societies and institutes has, for the most part, given place to modern urban 
Universities and Technical Colleges. _What remains has been drained of 
its energies by the concentration of scientific workers into centres of 
endowed research; by improved access to London, ‘and the growth of 
provincial public libraries; and unfortunately, also by the inclusion of 
formal scientific studies, and even of what has come to be called ‘ nature 
study ’ among ‘ school subjects’ ; voluntary work, and original observation 
and experiment, have been domesticated and systematised ; and with other 
social changes has come, in some field clubs, some restriction of the social 
range of customary membership ; with the result that much accommodation 
and even equipment is no longer put to full use, or even to its original 
purpose of the ‘ mutual improvement’ of artisans. 

There were positive reasons, too, for more rapid growth of organised 
“adult education’ in literary, historical, and economic subjects than in 
scientific With these the present inquiry is only concerned in so far as 
they show that the number of adult classes in science is relatively rather 
than absolutely small. Not many votes are needed to, decide whether 
a centre shall devote itself to science or to an ‘ arts’ subject ; and the choice 
of subjects is in practice much wider in ‘ arts’ than in ‘ science.’ 

There has evidently been, however, a general impression that scientific 
subjects have not recently held the place in adult education that might 
have been expected in view of the large (and ever-growing) influence of 
scientific achievements on the general course of events, and especially on 
social development. 

The Place of Science in Adult Education has, indeed, been the subject of 
several inquiries already. At Newcastle in 1916 the British Association 
received and discussed the report of a Committee (appointed in June of that 
year) on the Popularization of Science through Public Lectures; and its 
Secretary, Sir Richard Gregory, pressed home the main argument of this 


332 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


report in his Presidential Address to Section L at Hull in 1922. Meanwhile, 
in 1921 the Board of Education constituted its Adult Education Committee, 
and this Committee’s Report No. 8, on Natural Science in Adult Education, 
appeared in 1927. The Sixth Annual Conference (1927) of the British 
Institute of Adult Education dealt expressly with Science and Adult 
Education and published its proceedings in full. In 1931 the Workers’ 
Educational Association, at its Annual Conference at Nottingham, considered 
‘the possibilities of stimulating further interest in the study of science on a 
non-vocational basis’; and its Executive Committee’s Report (Central 
No. 198A) on this subject was presented in February 1932. 

In addition to specific suggestions to its own District Secretaries, and 
general recommendations as to wider use of films in science courses for 
adults, that Committee strongly endorsed the opinion that ‘ within the 
restrictions imposed by the interests of the students and the conditions of 
work , . . the primary function ’ of science teaching in tutorial classes ‘ is 
to make the student acquainted with the broad outlines of the great scientific 
principles exemplified in familiar phenomena and applied to the service of 
man.’ Further ‘ our classes in natural science should quite definitely be of 
a character which will tend to attract the uninitiated. We do not wish to 
cater for the members of scientific societies, etc., to the exclusion of the 
ordinary citizen, who has little or no scientific knowledge. What we desire, 
is to see our classes take the form more of a study of the action and reaction 
between scientific knowledge and social life. We feel that it is only in 
relation to the question as to how far and in what ways natural science 
influences and affects society, that our classes can maintain their interest in 
subjects of this character.’ 

During the summer of 1932 the Workers’ Educational Association 
suggested to the British Association that some kind of joint committee might 
usefully discuss the place of science in adult education, with a view to more 
extensive work. At the York meeting the Educational Science Section 
regarded this project as part of the larger question of promoting closer 
contact between scientific achievement and social development, and 
recommended the appointment of a Committee ‘ to consider the position of 
Science Teaching in Adult Education classes, and to suggest possible means 
of promoting through them closer contact between scientific achievement 
and social development.’ 

The Committee’s first task was to ascertain by direct inquiry the amount 
of progress made in the establishment of science classes during the six 
years since the Board of Education published their Report on the subject in 
1927. Accordingly, a questionnaire was sent to the Board of Education, 
the Extra-mural Departments of the Universities of Great Britain, the 
Education Department of the London County Council, the Workers’ 
Educational Association, the British Institute of Adult Education, the Young 
Men’s Christian Association, and to many other institutions promoting and 
controlling Adult Education, as well as to individuals interested in it. ‘The 
main points to be ascertained were : 


The present position of science teaching in adult classes for non-vocational 
studies, and the conditions limiting or inhibiting increase in the number 
of courses in natural science. 

Particulars of the organisation and policy of various bodies controlling and 
promoting such courses. 

The methods usually adopted for obtaining teachers suited to adult teaching 
of natural science. 

Means adopted for popularising science studies among adult students. ~ 

The supply of science books, equipment, and materials. 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 333 


Bibliography of science teaching in adult education. 

Details of any interchange and comparison of field work and other observa- 
tions conducted by adult classes, especially in regional studies and in 
co-operation with existing Field Clubs and Philosophical Societies. 


The replies were accompanied by many valuable memoranda, and in 
addition the Committee have had access to two important surveys recently 
completed : 


(a) On Adult Education in London, undertaken by the London County 
Council in response to a questionnaire from the Board of Education in 
I93I and now incorporated in Paper No 11 of the Adult Education 
Committee of the Board. 

(b) On the Study of Science in Adult Classes, by a special Committee of the 
W.E.A., published in 1932. 


The Committee feel, therefore, they are in possession of the latest data 
available, a digest of which is given below. They gratefully acknowledge 
the valuable assistance they have received from many who have readily and 
ungrudgingly responded to their requests for information. A complete list 
of those from whom memoranda and letters have been received will be 
found in the Appendix. 


II. ABSTRACTS FROM REPLIES TO THE COMMITTEE’S QUESTIONNAIRE. 


The replies to the questionnaire may be most conveniently dealt with 
under the following headings : 


1. The general organisation and control of adult education (p. 333). 
2. The present position of science teaching in adult education (p. 335). 
(a) The extent of the demand for science subjects. 
(b) Explanation of the present small demand. 
3. Conditions adversely affecting the adoption of science subjects (p. 337). 
(a) The apparent remoteness of the exact sciences from everyday 
experience (p. 338). 
(5) The general absence of any real knowledge of science in the average 
adult (p. 339). 
(c) The difficulties of providing adequate accommodation and equip- 
ment for practical work (p. 339). 
(d) The difficulties of obtaining an adequate supply of suitable lecturers 
and tutors (p. 341). 
4. Teachers—lecturers and tutors. 
Qualifications and characteristics desirable and methods of securing an 
adequate supply (p. 342). 
. Aims and purpose of science teaching in adult education (p. 344). 
. Aims and motives of students attending adult science classes (p- 347). 
. Propaganda and publicity (p. 348). 
. The supply of (a) science books, (b) apparatus and material (pp. 351-2). 
. Inter-comm»nal co-operation in the science work of adult classes (p. 353). 
. Assistance from Local Scientific Societies (p. 353). 


oMO ON DUN 


Lal 


1. The General Organisation and Control of Adult Education in 
Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 


_. The agencies through which Adult Education in this country is carried 
on form a complex organisation, and vary remarkably in different districts. 


334 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


There are three principal agencies : the Extra-mural Departments of Univer- 
sities and of University Colleges, the Workers’ Educational Association, and 
the Local Education Authorities. Working with these or independently are 
other bodies, of which the chief are: the Young Men’s Christian Association, 
the Educational Settlements Association, the National Industrial Alliance, 
the Adult School Union, the Co-operative Union, and the National Federa- 
tion of Women’s Institutes. Besides these a number of Colleges are 
recognised under the Adult Education Regulations for grant purposes : the 
Ruskin College, the Catholic Workers’ College, Fircroft College, Hillcroft 
College, and Coleg Harlech for residential students ; the Working Men’s 
College, and Morley College for non-residential students ; also Mary Ward 
College, Toynbee Hall and others. 

Co-operation between the principal bodies is through Joint Committees 
consisting of representatives of the Universities, the W.E.A., the L.E.A., and 
other associations or societies of a district. 

The Adult Education Committee of the Board of Education exercises an 
important coordinating influence, through its Adult Education Regulations 
for the award of financial assistance. Local Education Authorities are more 
and more directly promoting Adult Classes, in addition to assisting local 
Joint Committees by grants of money or by providing rooms, teachers, and 
equipment free of charge. 

Full particulars of these bodies and their inter-relationships are supplied 
by the Adult Education Committee of the Board of Education in its Paper 
No.9, Pioneer Work and other Developments in Adult Education; Paper No. 10, 
The Scope and Practice of Adult Education (1930) ; and Paper No. 11, Adult 
Education in relation to the Local Education Authority (1933). ‘The last- 
named contains an interesting history of the Adult Education Movement. 
It traces the development from the earliest Night School at the beginning of 
the nineteenth century to the complicated structure of Adult Education 
organisation of the present time ; and describes fully the schemes under 
which Adult Classes are organised and maintained in different districts 
throughout the country. 

The arrangements made for Adult Education within the University area 
of Bristol will serve as an example of the co-operative organisation between 
various bodies interested : 

‘In the University area, which covers the cities of Bristol, Bath and 
Gloucester, and the counties of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and 
a part of Dorsetshire, there is a co-operative scheme between the various 
Bodies concerned in Adult Education including the University of Bristol, 
the Local Education Authorities, the W.E.A., the Y.M.C.A., the Adult 
School Union, the Rural Community Councils and various Bodies. Under 
this scheme any type of class can be provided from a single pioneer lecture 
to a full tutorial class or extension lecture course. Some 80 short 
courses of four to six lectures are given in villages, and the W.E.A. provides 
over 100 terminal and one-year courses. During the present session there 
are 18 University Lecture Courses and 30 Tutorial Classes financed by the 
University. 

‘There is a Consultative Committee composed of representatives of all 
the Bodies concerned in each county. ‘Tutorial Classes are organised from 
Bristol by a Joint Committee of the University’ and the W.E.A. Extension 
Lectures are organised by the University directly. 

‘The Courses for which the University is responsible are financed from 
four sources : Grants from the Board of Education, grants from the Local 
Authority, fees from students attending the Courses, University Grant -to 
make up the deficiency.’ 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 335 


Two institutions which are concerned with adult classes for women only 
have so far not considered the question of science teaching in any form, 
viz., the Women’s Institutes and the Townswomen’s Guilds. 

The instruction given in the Women’s Institutes has been mainly of 
a practical character, but their aim is to develop a sense of citizenship and 
spirit of social service. ‘The general secretary, the Hon. Frances Farrer, 
expresses the view that as these aims become more fully realised there is 
likely to be an increasing interest in and desire for further knowledge of 
scientific developments in relation to social and practical matters. She 
stresses the view that success would be likely to depend largely on the 
ability of the lecturer to approach the subject from the practical aspect and 
to deal with it in a non-technical and interesting manner. 

The Townswomen’s Guildsare still in process of formation. It isintended 
that they should take the place, in the towns, of the Women’s Institutes in 
the country. A Central Committee divided into sub-committees for Civics, 
Handcrafts and Homecrafts, is considering the question of programmes and 
the publication of a monthly journal, The Townswoman. It seems possible 
that these Guilds might in future provide a field which has as yet hardly 
been touched for arousing an interest in science in relation to practical and 
social problems. (See also Suggestion 9, p. 356.) 


2. The Present Position of Science Teaching in Adult Classes. 


In the Board of Education Report (1927) on Natural Science in Adult 
Education it is noted that, ‘ compared with the growth of interest in English 
Literature, Music and the Drama since 1921, there has been no corresponding 
growth in the number of classes in Natural Science.’ 

Statistics collected in the course of the present inquiry show that there 
is still a strange neglect by adults of this branch of study, compared with 
such subjects as Literature, History, and Economics. The number of 
Science Courses is not more than approximately 6 per cent. of the total 
number. ‘Taking the Board of Education figures for the same period and 
referring only to those courses accepted under the Adult Education Regula- 
tions, the percentage of science classes for the whole of England and Wales 
is 4-6 per cent. The Extra-mural Department of London University 
reports : 

“ Out of a total of 1,009 courses and classes in the years 1926 to 1932 only 
4I were on science, viz., Biology 19, Anthropology 15, Astronomy 3, 
History of Science 2, Physiology and Hygiene 1, and one course of a general 
character, “‘ Science and Daily Life.” The average attendance at the 
courses was small. In University Extension Courses in general an average 
attendance of 60 to 70 is usual in the London district; but for science 
courses within the same period named it was less than 40. The limited 
interest shown by the public, even when a science course is provided, 
undoubtedly discourages Local Committees responsible for the organisation 
of University Extension Courses from choosing this subject.’ 

In Durham and District ‘ attempts to form classes for the study of 
scientific subjects has met with little or no response.’ 

In 1930 the Co-operative Union included over 2,500 students of such 
subjects as Industrial History, Economics, Public Health, Local Government 
Taxation ; through their associated Guilds the Union is in touch with 
a large field of educational work, e.g. the membership of the Guilds was in 
that year 61,000 in England, and 27,000 in Scotland. The reply of the 
Secretary of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (Educational Depart- 
ment) that ‘ there is no demand for science,’ suggests how little science is 
considered as one of the determining factors in social developments. 


336 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


2A. But while this may be true for a large number of districts, it is not 
true of all. An Extension Lecturer of long experience believes that there is 
everywhere a real demand for science, properly handled, and attributes the 
falling off in attendance at University Extension Lectures since the war 
largely to the financial stringency of the times. Other memoranda point to 
a distinct awakening of interest in science studies. From Loughborough 
College the report is optimistic : 

‘ Statistics show there is a real demand for science classes and that it is 
growing. Moreover, the comparatively high standard of attendance and 
work attained by science classes is a marked feature of adult education in 
Leicestershire. The study of science in our villages is likely to increase 
considerably during the next few years, and every effort will be made to 
provide the right kind of tutor.’ 

Mr. S. Myers, Head of the Deptford Men’s Institute, writes equally 
emphatically : 

‘I have thirteen years’ experience with further education amongst 
working men in London following a year or two with similar groups of 
working men in Lancashire behind my opinion that there is no lack of 
interest in natural science. On the contrary, I have observed—particularly 
since about 1920—a swing away from social, economic and political interests 
towards scientific interests.’ 

A steady increase in the number of science classes is reported from the 
Western districts of the W.E.A. organisation, of which the Universities of 
Bristol and Glasgow are the respective centres, although relatively to other 
subjects the numbers for science are still small. The Extra-mural Depart- 
ment of Queen’s University, Belfast, also reports a steady and an increasing 
demand. 

‘ There is at present a substantial demand in the West of Scotland for 
adult classes in natural and physical science, the only subject group in which 
there is a markedly larger demand being English language and Literature ’ 
(Glasgow). 

‘It is difficult to measure the exact extent of the demand for science 
studies.’ In most classes, however, ‘ there are students who are interested 
in such studies even where there are not a sufficient number of students to 
justify the forming of a class. The demand (in Dorset) for science courses 
of an elementary and general type exists quite definitely, and is probably 
growing ’ (Bristol). 

In the Y.M.C.A. organisation there is said to be a considerable demand 
for presentation of scientific subjects in a non-technical and popular form. 
‘This demand is being met mainly by popular lectures, either in short 
courses or series, or in a programme of miscellaneous, popular lectures.’ 

Our general impression is that the actual demand for science teaching is 
small in most districts, almost non-existent in some, but growing and 
becoming quite considerable in several, especially in parts of the Midlands 
and in the Western districts of England and Scotland. 


2B. Many experienced observers record the opinion that a much larger 
latent demand exists, but that there are limiting and inhibiting conditions, 
not easily removed. In the W.E.A. Science Report (1932) it is suggested 
that ‘ the lack of interest may be more apparent than real owing to the fact 
that Courses in Natural Science have seldom appeared in the lists of possible 
subjects, with the consequence that any potential interest in such subjects 
has not been cultivated.’ 

A reason for this is given by other writers : 

‘ The initiative in arranging classes is taken by one or two educated people 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 337 


who are interested in adult education, and if they, as frequently happens, 
have a purely literary outlook, science classes will not be chosen... . 
The logical and experimental technique of science is now so specialised 
that ordinary men and women tend to accept it as beyond their comprehen- 
sion, and are discouraged by the circumstance that the point at which they 
must begin their studies appears very remote from the results which arouse 
their interest. . . . The reason for the comparative lack of development 
of science studies in science classes in the country generally is, I think, 
primarily the failure of those responsible to put the case to prospective 
students. In spite of the tradition that the adult education movement exists 
to satisfy the spontaneous demands of students themselves, groups are very 
anxious to have suggestions made to them, and are apt to be influenced by 
those suggestions. Since the organisers themselves are frequently interested 
in economic and social problems, that tends to create a bias in favour of 
those subjects. There are, however, difficulties connected with the teaching 
of science which do not affect other subjects ; and that also must be regarded 
as a reason for the backwardness of this side of the work. (Prof. R. Peers, 
Nottingham U.C.) 

A report on the position of science teaching in Adult Classes in the 
United States of America shows a somewhat similar attitude on the part of 
the general citizen. ‘The Secretary of the American Association for Adult 
Education writes : 

“I do not feel that the evidence is at hand to support the belief that there 
is an actual indifference to natural science subjects on the part of American 
adults. As a matter of fact, such evidence as exists points in the other 
direction, for our science lectures, where offered, are usually extraordinarily 
well attended and the interest expressed is keen. I feel quite sure that the 
relatively unimportant place held by science subjects in the adult education 
offerings in this country is attributable first, to lack of adequate financial 
support; second, to the lack of availability of qualified teachers at the 
secondary level ; and third, to the lack of interest in adult teaching on the 
part of qualified teachers of science at the collegiate level. In the past the 
attitude of the research staffs of our universities and scientific institutions 
—the Carnegie Institution of Washington would be a notable exception— 
has been to avoid adult teaching of scientific subjects wherever possible on 
the ground that such “‘ popularization ”’ of necessity involved vulgarization 
and consequent loss of dignity to the research profession.’ 


3. Conditions adversely affecting the Adoption of Science Subjects. 


The poor response to science courses is probably due to many 
conflicting causes. The chief of those adversely affecting the growth of 
science teaching in Adult Education may be stated under the following 
headings, but it must be realised that they are intimately linked in their 
effect, and form a very complex problem for organisers. 


(a) The apparent remoteness of the exact sciences from every-day 
experiences, and the lack of mathematical training in many who are 
interested. 

(6) The general absence of any real knowledge of science in the average 
adult, who therefore does not manifest much keenness about 
attending u class owing to a tendency to regard science as a study for 
* clever ’ people only. 

(c) The difficulties of providing adequate accommodation and equipment, 
even for ordinary demonstration experiments by lecturers or tutors ; 
still more for any practical work by the student. 

N 2 


338 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


(d) The difficulties of obtaining an adequate supply of suitable lecturers 
and tutors. 


3a. Apparent Remoteness of the Subject. 


It is becoming more generally realised that formal courses of work on 
various branches of science, such as elementary physics or chemistry, are 
misdirected and unattractive, lacking in essential elements of Adult 
Education. They fail to awaken interest or understanding, and lead to an 
entire misconception of the practical value of science studies. On the other 
hand, in all cases when the approach is made along popular lines—when the 
courses deal, frankly and simply, with the real issues of life, and touch the 
everyday experience of the students—classes are well attended and high 
enthusiasm is engendered. Indeed, the testimony of many experienced 
teachers shows that starting with these simple natural interests the work 
has frequently developed a high standard of study, and led to the forma- 
tion of clubs and societies that have done good work along both social and 
scientific lines in the most unlikely neighbourhoods, and often under 
very discouraging conditions. 

“The general public regards science courses as too technical and 
specialised for them to understand . . . as too remote for ordinary life to 
interest them. . . . The great majority of people are not interested in 
botany qua botany, or in zoology qua zoology, but they are interested in the 
human and social applications of botany and zoology. . . . Most people 
are not interested in data, but in principles and generalisations. .. . 
(Dr. Brierley, Reading). 

Dr. Brierley further draws attention to the type of lecturer who tends to 
kill interest at the outset by following too meticulously the details of 
a subject, to the exclusion of the more general aspects, and by using academic 
language or technical jargon in place of pictorial terms in which to translate 
the messages of science. Compared with normal University education, he 
says, ‘ the approach must be made with different ideals, from a different stand- 
point, seen in a different perspective, and carried out witha different technique 
. . . the general public is keenly interested and wants to know what science 
can tell it, and what science cannot tell it of real life, but it has no use for 
academic futilities and unreal issues, which are so often put forward in 
answer to its demands.’ 

“The response to the science courses largely depends upon the method 
of presentation. Students are invariably attracted by a scientific lecture if 
care is exercised in the choice of title, and there is something to see as well 
as to hear . . . the adult student, without guidance, is very prone to 
select from those subjects offered which seem likely to throw light upon his 
immediate problems of life . . . hence the choice of economics and allied 
subjects in the first place.” On the other hand, ‘ If the scope of scientific 
classes is put before prospective students with the same degree of persuasive 
explanation that is commonly used with other subjects, then a greater 
response would equally follow ’ (Dr. A. J. Grove, London). 

‘The ordinary man in the street is afraid of science. He knows nothing 
about the nature of science ’ (Dr. Norman Walker, Leeds). For this reason 
he strongly urges the need to bring the students right close up to things, to do 
experiments themselves and: so learn through their own interested observa- 
tions the real meaning of science. His method is fully described in a paper 
published by the British Institute of Adult Education in their Report of the 
Conference held in 1927. 

‘It is absolutely essential that every lecture should be illustrated either 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 339 


by experiments or, when these are not possible, by plenty of specimens and 
lantern slides. I am certain that the experimental illustrations are some of 
the most important parts of the lecture, and the results obtained from them 
fully compensate for the time spent in collecting the necessary materials, 
for the difficulties of transporting everything required for the demonstration, 
and of carrying out experiments without gas, electric light, or a water supply. 
In districts where there is a considerable demand for science classes, and 
where courses are standardised, it would be possible for sets of apparatus 
and materials to be sent to each centre for the lecturer’s use throughout 
the course, but this would not be worth while until the demand increased ’ 
(Dr. A. W. Chapman, Sheffield). 

To remove the inhibiting effects of those conditions referred to in (a) and 
(b) above, lecturers and tutors need to approach their task in a very different 
manner from that adopted for the ordinary student of the university or 
technical college. 


3b. Lack of Elementary Knowledge. 


There is often lack of previous preparation of the students. ‘Inadequate 
or unsuitable previous education is a difficulty in the case of some subjects, 
especially those requiring mathematics. This difficulty rules out Physics, 
Astronomy, etc., except as subjects for popular classes. It is impossible to 
have Tutorial classes in those subjects, since the work cannot be carried to 
a sufficiently advanced stage. ‘The result is a tendency to concentrate on 
two main groups of subjects—Biology and Evolution; and Chemistry, 
Health and Hygiene, etc. A good deal might, however, be done to develop 
the study of subjects such as Geology, Geography and Nature Study’ 
(Prof. Peers, Nottingham U.C.). 


3c. Inadequate Accommodation and Equipment. 


Many correspondents refer to the difficulties under which science labours 
through inadequate accommodation and equipment. This was mentioned in 
the British Institute’s Conference (pp. 332, 356),.as ‘ prejudicial to the growth 
of the Adult Education Movement generally and to the increase in the 
number of science classes particularly.’ The difficulty of securing satisfac- 
tory accommodation is still a serious obstacle. ‘The want of suitable 
accommodation is often an adverse factor in the arrangement of science 
courses which require experimental illustration. Most courses and classes 
are held on premises not intended nor suitable for science work, and there 
are usually no facilities for the use or safe keeping of apparatus ’ (London). 

Classes held in the L.C.C. Men’s Evening Institutes are almost exclusively 
held in the evening, in premises occupied during the day, as a rule, by 
elementary schools. The limitations due to lack of equipment and accom- 
modation wiil be obvious. At best, there is a ‘ practical room,’ furnished 
with tables and chairs instead of the more usual classroom desks, and 
designed, not for science teaching, but for practical, or handwork of various 
kinds. Assuming, therefore, that there were a demand for serious science 
studies of a non-vocational type, this initial handicap would make it impos- 
sible to satisfy it under present conditions. 

This difficulty specially applies in country districts, with few exceptions. 
It is only on University premises and in a few technical and secondary 
schools that any provision is made. In London, for example, with its 
Literary Institutes and well-equipped secondary schools under the L.C.C., 
the demand for facilities for science courses could easily be met for some 


340 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


years to come. Similar advantages are found to some extent in other 
University cities. But outside these centres the difficulty of securing suitable 
accommodation and adequate supplies of apparatus constitutes a really big 
limiting factor in the organisation of science classes for Adult Education. 
In all the most active centres for science work this position is emphasised. 

In Nottinghamshire, ‘ When classes in biology, chemistry, etc., can meet 
in a laboratory, it is possible to do useful work, but facilities of this kind are 
available only in the University towns or in towns which have a secondary 
school : even then it is not always possible to obtain the use of laboratories 
for adult classes. Many of the classes, however, meet in small towns or 
villages, and such elementary requirements as running-water and gas are 
rarely available in the classroom. ‘Tutors have to take all their own 
apparatus, and work with buckets of water, spirit lamps, etc. It is little 
wonder they fall back to a great extent upon lantern ‘slides, or occasional 
demonstrations, and the chief value of science teaching is lost to the 
students ’ (Prof. Peers). 

In Leicestershire, ‘the provision of the necessary accommodation, 
equipment, and material is still very difficult. Most of the classes have to 
be held in village schools which are, of course, not designed to accommodate 
adult science classes. The resources of Loughborough College, however, 
are available for the classes held in Leicestershire, and we are now able to 
provide microscopes, a projector, and other equipment for the use of the 
tutors. Occasionally students have been brought in from a village class to 
have a meeting in the College, where more adequate equipment for demon- 
strations is available. Some of the tutors have cars, and carry a considerable 
amount of equipment to their classes. The students also provide some of 
their own materials for experiment’ (R. J. Howrie, Loughborough T.C.). 

In Glasgow, provision is made to meet the demands for science ‘ largely 
through classes meeting at the University where laboratories are available. 
At most outlying centres it has not been found possible to meet it so fully, 
most of the equipment found necessary, in so far as it could not be provided 
by the students themselves, has been taken from Glasgow.’ 

At Bristol, ‘ there is a certain difficulty with regard to equipment. This 
does not apply in Bristol, where University laboratories are available. 
Outside Bristol, and other large towns, it is not easy to secure equipment, 
except for courses where instruments and material of a portable kind can be 
used.’ 

The result is a fundamental limitation to certain kinds, and aspects, of 
scientific study. One W.E.A. worker in Birmingham writes : 

‘The serious study of science by groups of working people is a new 
development in Education, and its point of departure is different from that 
in schools and Universities. . . . It is found desirable to begin, not as 
physics or chemistry, or biology, but with a mixed elementary introduction 
to all these. This, in itself, has proved difficult to fit in with the ordinary 
supply of apparatus, as it neither is a specialised science course nor hygiene, 
nor nature study. This kind of teaching makes different demands on 
equipment from the ordinary school or college course. It does not demand 
expensive apparatus, so much as different apparatus, with consequent need of 
storage place and opportunity for preparation.’ 

Even in London only three out of the twelve Literary Institutes organised 
by the L.E.A. for Adult Education attempt any classes in science, and only 
two of these possess any equipment for the work. 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 341 


3d. Difficulties in obtaining Supply of Suitable Teachers. 


The Board of Education Report (1927), p. 29, noted that ‘ the greatest 
difficulty which is likely to beset the adult education movement in this 
situation, is that of finding teachers of wide knowledge who are capable of 
inspiring interest in Natural Science as a study of the conditions of human 
action.’ 

The late Dr. Harold Wager pointed out that ‘the success of science 
classes for adult students depends in a special degree on the character of the 
teaching and the personality of the teacher. It is more difficult to secure 
the right sort of teaching for adult students in science than in such a subject 
as Economics.’ 

From London, Mr. G. H. Gater (L.C.C.) writes : 

* As regards teachers of science, it is found that, as is the case with teachers 
of any subject, some of them appeal more strongly than others to adult 
classes. ‘The good teachers become known and their services are largely in 
demand. Others, through inexperience of the special problems, do not at 
first gain their audience, but under the guidance from the inspectors and 
heads eventually succeed. Others again have not the right appeal, quickly 
lose their students, and themselves drop out of the work.’ 

This difficulty of securing a sufficient supply of suitable teachers is shown 
by the evidence received by this Committee to be still a considerable factor 
in holding up the desired advance in science teaching. 

The Secretary of the Oxford Delegacy for Extra-mural Studies writes : 
‘ We could advance more quickly and more securely if we could get a better 
supply of really suitable tutors and lecturers for adult classes.’ 

Similarly the Secretary of the Cambridge Board (Mr. G. F. Hickson) 
writes: ‘In adult education demand does depend to some extent on supply 
(of teachers). It might be very well increased if there were more lecturers 
and tutors capable of dealing with scientific subjects in a suitable fashion for 
this purpose,’ but ‘ no special steps have been taken by the Extra-mural 
Board to attract and secure the services of suitable teachers.’ 

The Registrar for the London Extra-mural Department says : 

“The supply of lecturers available for, and capable of, giving science 
courses intended for adult students for non-vocational purposes is 
undoubtedly limited, and this in its turn reacts on the demand. . . . Most 
science teachers of sufficiently high standing to attract the general public are 
too specialised in their work to be prepared to offer a course of the kind 
required.’ 

Prof. Peers (Nottingham U.C.) lays stress on the comparative scarcity 
of suitable teachers for adult science classes. ‘Science teachers in 
Universities are usually extreme specialists with little interest outside 
their own subjects. In particular they usually lack human interests, and 
the teaching, therefore, is apt to appear arid and meaningless to groups 
of adult students whose interests are mainly social. Not only that, 
but their lack of outside interests and contacts makes it difficult for them 
to acquire the right technique of teaching. They are often less skilful 
as lecturers than those who have to depend mainly on the spoken word 
for the presentation of their subject. On the other hand, the possibility 
of using experiments and demonstrations undoubtedly gives them an 
advantage.’ 

Mr. G. C. Robson, British Museum (Natural History), ascribes the 
decline of popular interest in science to : 

(x) ‘ Lack of good lecturers, due (a) to increased specialisation, and (8) to 


342 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


the increase in remuneration of scientific workers which may have made it 
unnecessary for many to seek evening work to supplement their salaries. 

(2) ‘ The rapid advance in all branches of science over the period under 
review ’ which ‘ may have tended to make the scientific worker obsessed 
with the pressing problems of his own job and little inclined to commit 
himself to popular audiences ; willing to deal with specialised matter to 
a University class, but not to a popular audience.’ 

On the other hand, those writing on behalf of the Local Education 
Authorities of London and Leicestershire, of the Extra-mural Departments 
of Bristol, Manchester, and Liverpool, of the Y.M.C.A., consider that at 
present the supply of suitable teachers is adequate for the demand. 

With these conflicting opinions it is difficult to arrive at a just estimate, 
but it may be noted that on one side reference is mainly made to the 
supply of teachers to meet an increased demand; on the other, to the 
supply of existing demand for science studies. Another opinion is that 
there is a wider and more numerous field for the selection of teachers where 
only lectures are required, than where tutorial work is to be undertaken ; 
a man who is quite a successful lecturer may not necessarily be so happy in 
the more intimate and less formal work of a tutorial class. 

From the Extra-mural Delegacy at Oxford, Rev. F. E. Hutchinson 
makes the practical suggestion that : 

“A panel of teachers suitable for adult classes in various sciences might 
be drawn up by the British Association, and that the University Committees 
should be allowed to communicate with the secretary of the panel when 
particular demands arise.’ 


4. Qualifications and Characteristics of Teachers suitable for Adult Classes. 


Much evidently depends on what are considered to be the characteristics 
and qualifications of a suitable teacher. It is always possible to get plenty 
of teachers of various types, but it is another matter to attract men or women 
of the exceptional type required for the successful handling of science 
courses in Adult Education. Dr. Brierley (Reading U.) requires ‘ a man 
of personality and imagination, with a gift of speaking, and wide human 
interests in addition to his equipment of scientific knowledge, capable of 
always interesting a public audience even if discussing quite technical 
problems, of seeing things from their angle and in their perspective, possess- 
ing the power of speaking accurately, yet rather pictorially in simple, 
every-day language, always illustrating by facts and phenomena of everyday 
life and common experience, of speaking clearly and articulating his words 
distinctly, and of presenting his matter in a simple, logical form, so that 
connecting links are always clear.’ 

Dr. A. J. Grove (London) expresses similar views in a slightly different 
way : 

“The tutor of a tutorial class has to be something very much more than 
a mere purveyor of facts, scientific or otherwise. His business is not so 
much to instil facts into the students’ minds as to cultivate an attitude of 
mind. A purely academic attitude on the part of the tutor is worse than 
useless in adult classes. In addition to a wide knowledge of his subject 
and a facility of presentation, it is important that he should have a wide 
experience of men and affairs, an outlook beyond the scope of his immediate 
topic, and be keenly alive to points of contact between the matter he is dealing 
with and everyday life.’ 

The problem is how to find such men, and when found how to induce 
them to devote their services to the Adult Movement. The problem 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 343 


involves the consideration of career and finance, and turns on the question 
whether science teaching in adult classes should be a whole-time occupation 
or part-time. One aspect of the situation from the young graduate’s point 
of view is that since such work does not lead to a career in itself it leads to 
a constant conflict of interest between the tutorial work whereby he gets his 
living, and the research work on which his future depends. 

It is further suggested by Dr. Brierley (Reading) that : 

‘The whole-time teacher, separated as almost inevitably he must be 
from active research, or intimate contact with such research, would tend to 
lose his inspiration, and to become simply something of a gramophone 
record.’ ... On the other hand, ‘most scientists holding posts in 
Universities, or in research institutions, already find their lives over-full, 
and have not the time and energy to devote to the type of missionary work 
required in adult education.’ 

Some difference of opinion has been expressed as to the best kind of 
experience and training for those who undertake adult classes. Oxford 
opinion is decidedly in favour of high university qualifications, and experience 
in university teaching, rather than in the employment of science masters, 
or of amateurs. 

At Bristol : ‘ For University classes the standard adopted should be that 
lecturers and tutors should hold a good honours degree in the subject 
taught.’ 

At Glasgow: ‘A high standard of knowledge of the subject, such as 
may be looked for in members of a University staff, while almost indis- 
pensable, is not the only essential. It is essential that tutors should be 
inspired by enthusiasm for their subject and should be capable of presenting 
it in such a manner as to arouse the enthusiastic interest of laymen. They 
must be capable, too, of appreciating the questions and the point of view of 
their students, remembering that neither interest nor the equipment of the 
adult student is ordinarily the same as that of the professional scientist, or 
of the University or Technical College student.’ 

At Liverpool ‘the staff is selected by the University; at present all 
members are of the internal University staff. The engagement is for one 
year and renewed for whole courses.’ 

On the other hand: ‘The most suitable teacher is of the “‘ general 
practitioner ” type rather than the highly specialised. It is most important 
that lecturers should have kept abreast of modern developments in science ’ 
(City Literary Institute). 

‘The outlook and qualifications of the teacher of adults will differ very 
considerably from those of the internal University teacher ’ (Dr. Norman 
Walker, Leeds). 

“On the whole, it is probable that secondary school masters are more 
hopeful material than university lecturers ’ (L. A. Fenn, Birmingham). 

The choice of teachers is the more important because, as Dr. A. J. Grove 
(London) puts it : ‘ The wrong kind of tutor can do so much harm. How 
to find the right one, is not easy to answer. If only our primary and second- 
ary education was more concerned with “ educating ” and not so much 
with imparting erudition, then not only would there be many more adult 
students, but the right kind of tutors would be forthcoming. At present, 
apart from a radical change in scholastic and academic teaching, it is difficult 
to see how this problem is to be solved.’ 

One of the recommendations accepted by the Council of the W.E.A . 
and put forward by their special Committee of Inquiry, is that ‘ District 
Secretaries should prepare a panel of scientific lecturers and tutors in their 
areas who would be prepared to undertake either Tutorial Class work, 


344 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


One-Year Class work, Extension work, or popular lecture work in Natural 
Science.’ 

Many men possessing the qualities desired would, no doubt, readily 
respond to an invitation to take charge of science courses, if the remuneration 
was sufficiently attractive and assured. ‘The remuneration can be provided 
if the classes are sufficiently well organised and attended, because they can 
then earn the grant under the Board of Education regulations. But attend- 
ances depend on the extent of the demand for science. Hence follows the 
quandary—on the one hand it is the supply which creates the demand, and 
on the other that the supply cannot be provided until there is a sufficient 
demand to make it worth while. 


5. Aims and Purpose of Science Teaching in Adult Education. 


Several correspondents deal with the ‘ popularisation of science ’ in adult 
classes. In this connection it is important to understand what are the aims 
of those who are already teaching science, as well as of those who wish to 
see the study of science more widely adopted in these classes. It is equally 
important to know what are the desires that prompt (or might prompt) an 
adult student to take up the serious study of any branch of Natural Science. 
These two factors—the aim of the teacher, and the purpose of the student 
—must meet somewhere in sympathetic co-operation, if a true appreciation 
of science by people generally is to be assured. 

The Committee is not primarily concerned with the provision for 
vocational or technical training, but more particularly with the systematic 
presentation of scientific methods and results, both pure and applied. But 
it is realised that these two kinds of teaching often overlap in the same 
course and also that the aims and motives of teachers and of students vary. 

“'The purpose of the science lectures and classes in the evening institutes, 
and in other institutions referred to, is purely cultural. "The aim is to 
foster the good use of leisure and to satisfy the wishes of those who seek 
to know something about science, what it has done for mankind and its 
practical application in matters of daily life’ (G. H. Gater, L.C.C.). 

‘If the important part taken by the Adult Education Movement in the 
national life is to be shaped in the light of the rapidity of the changes which 
are taking place owing to the increased application of scientific invention to 
modern production, it is essential that the education which it provides 
should be wide and liberal, and assign an adequate place in its scheme for 
the teaching of science. The Adult Education Movement cannot afford to 
neglect scientific thought and knowledge. Ignorance of the influence of 
science should belong to the past, and we can only be confident of future 
progress if we understand all the forces which are contributing to the 
re-shaping of social life ’ (W.E.A. Science Report, 1932). 

“The purpose of science teaching in adult classes is obviously not to 
turn out specialists or experts; it is to make the student intelligently 
interested in the world in which he lives and to enable him to understand 
the fundamental facts of life. If he is taught to regard the world merely 
from the economic and political point of view, his thinking will be one-sided 
and incomplete. And the so-called ‘ cultural ’subjects, with no background 
of scientific method, frequently lead to slovenly thinking, and a smug self- 
satisfaction, which needs to be broken down by the discipline of scientific 
study ’ (Prof. Peers, Nottingham U.C.). 

‘From the point of view of the organisers, science classes, like all other 
classes held under the Adult Education Regulations, are, in the words of 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 345 


the Board’s Regulations, ‘ designed for the liberal education of adults.’ 
Such education must be something more than the imparting of information 
about particular topics, and in the case of science teaching, as distinguished 
from the teaching in literature and art, the purpose seems to be primarily 
to cultivate systematic, accurate and impartial study of natural phenomena. 
The teaching of science is concerned with the application of scientific 
method to the explanation of a particular group of phenomena, but the 
scientific attitude of mind is valuable in all studies, and the influence of 
science teaching extends beyond the limits of formal classes in science’ 
(R. J. Howrie, Loughborough T.C.). 

‘The aim which I feel should guide science courses of this type is to 
arouse an interest in scientific outlook and method, to show what the 
application of science has done to afford a better understanding of the world, 
and a change in the conditions of human life, and to explain the function of 
the scientist in modern society ’ (Dr. A. W. Chapman, Sheffield). 

‘ Regarding the purpose of the science teaching in these classes, I do not 
find that there is any marked divergence in the views of the organisers, 
tutors, lecturers and members of the classes. In some instances, however, 
an aim is implicit rather than explicit and a student who originally enters 
a class with one purpose in view becomes interested as his study proceeds 
in some other purpose which it serves. There is, too, a varying emphasis 
on the different aims as between one tutor and another, and as between 
different individuals within the class. The various purposes served by 
study in these classes are: 

‘(1) the provision of knowledge likely to be of interest throughout life, 
either through equipping the student for a leisure-time occupation, or by 
giving a wider meaning to the student’s own vocation, e.g. where a golf- 
green keeper or park gardener studies general botany. 

‘(z) the apprehension of science as a great co-operative enterprise of 
mankind, the interest in science being part of the interest in human activity 
leading to the satisfaction both of the curiosity and of the gregarious 
characteristic of human nature. The study of science from this motive is 
likely to promote social solidarity, giving to each a sense of unity with his 
fellow. 

*(3) through the study of scientific method to reveal thought processes 
and the need for and method of exercise of powers of observation, criticism 
and diagnosis. The achievement of this purpose is manifestly of great 
importance enhancing the value of the student both individually and 
socially. 

*(4) to develop intellectual activity and to establish true self-confidence. 

*(5) to trace the part which science and scientific achievement and 
method have played and may play in moulding human society of to-day. 

*(6) to furnish experience which each individual may correlate with his 
whole experience to form his philosophy of life. 

*(7) to form a bond breaking down barriers between different sections 
of society and different ages. Parents frequently take these classes to 
enable them the better to understand matters in which their children are, or 
may become, interested. 

*(8) in some cases to promote efficiency in vocation. 

“This last aim, while not the primary purpose of these classes, is quite 
justifiable, but it must occupy a subordinate place in adult education, and 
should not be allowed to determine the course to the detriment of the other 
purposes of such education. In this there may be a divergence in purpose 
between tutor and organiser and some members of the classes. Mention 
should be made of the equipment of students to play more efficiently their 


346 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


part in working-class movements, an aim which has been present in the 
minds of many associated with the Adult Education Movement. But this 
purpose is achieved in the case of science through the other purposes, such, 
for example, as (2), (3), (4) and (5) above. Ability to understand the point 
of view of others which may well be fostered by such studies, may be con- 
sidered as akin to (2), (3) and (7) above’ (D. M. Stewart, Glasgow). 

Mr. S, Myers, Head of the Deptford Men’s Institute, writing in the light 
of many years’ experience, and entirely as a matter of personal opinion, says : 

‘ At the L.C.C. Men’s Institutes we adopt a special angle of approach. 
We have found it not only sound but essential to proceed from the immediate 
interests of the students or prospective students, and to build round them 
a progressive educational course. A few examples may make the attitude 
clear. 

“(1) We have classes in ‘ Wireless.’ These have their origin in the fact 
that most working-class homes possess a wireless set. Men talk wireless in 
their workshops, in public-houses, and elsewhere. Realising this, we invite 
men to meet a wireless expert once a week, thus focusing the wireless 
interest in a class. A syllabus is framed to ensure that the class makes 
a sound theoretical study of the subject. 

‘ (2) The ownership of a motor-cycle leads to an interest in internal 
combustion engines, magnetos, carburettors, electric lighting, etc. Here 
again, men who own motor cycles or cars, or who aspire to own them, or 
who drive other people’s cars, are drawn to classes in petrol engines (with 
car lighting, ignition, and starting) held in the Men’s Institutes. ; 

“(3) The widespread use of photographic apparatus leads in the same 
way to an interest in lenses, light, colour, and the chemicals used in the 
preparation of sensitised film and plates, and in the developing and printing 
of photographs. Hence classes in “‘ The Chemistry of Photography ”’ at 
several Men’s Institutes. 

“(4) Poultry, rabbits, cage-birds and domestic pets are extensively kept 
—by way of a hobby—in working-class districts. If fifteen or twenty men 
can be brought together by a desire to know more about these creatures, 
we open Poultry Keeping, Care of Animals, and similar classes.’ 

“In all these classes the instruction is at once practical and scientific. 
Rule-of-thumb is discouraged, and the object is—as my examples may 
indicate—to proceed from practice and observation to general principles 
and thence to the application of principles. The effectiveness of the 
instruction in poultry-keeping, for example, is observable in the extra- 
ordinary success of these ‘‘ backyard poultry-keepers and breeders in com- 
petition with the poultry industry at the appropriate national open 
competitions and laying tests.’ 

Though vocational science is outside the terms of reference, the scientific 
basis of industry offers a promising field of adult education. Professor 
Julian Huxley writes that ‘ industrial work should be more directly linked 
up with its scientific basis; scientific work and invention should be 
encouraged among workers in factories, and knowledge of the scientific basis 
of the processes on which they are employed should be made more accessible 
to such workers.’ 

‘The aim of the Adult Biology Class is not to produce naturalists—not 
more than 1 in 20 average adult student has the makings of a naturalist in 
him—but to make intelligent citizens capable of a scientific attitude towards 
public questions and their own personal matters’ (Dr. Norman Walker, Leeds). 

The Joint Committee in Belfast, representing the Extra-mural Depart- 
ment, Queen’s University, and the W.E.A., ‘seeks to give its students 
knowledge which will enable them to utilise their leisure time in the best 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 347 


possible way, and lead to the application of the scientific method to all 
problems of life.’ 

At Liverpool the teaching is ‘ purely non-vocational, and for purposes of 
wider culture.’ 

At Cambridge, in the Extra-mural courses: ‘ The teaching of lecturers 
and tutors is non-vocational in character and, broadly speaking, their aim is 
to interpret science to the layman and to relate scientific developments to 
daily life.’ 

Another aspect of the problem was discussed by Dr. Charles Singer (London). 
He traces the ‘ current distaste for science ’ to defects in the history teaching 
of ourschools. Starting from the agreed proposition that every adult should 
know the main results of science he specifies particularly the differences 
science has made, (a) in our way of thinking, and (5) in our way of living. 
These he characterises as the most important events in the history of the 
last 300 years. 

He regards teaching of the nature of these differences or changes as one 
of the prime duties of a teacher of history, a duty which, in his opinion, the 
teacher grossly neglects. 

The remedy for this distaste he considers ‘to consist primarily in 
reforming the teaching that goes by the name of history, and making it 
essentially the history of civilisation. Until history teachers teach that the 
most important event of the last 300 years is the rise of science, they will 
continue to teach false history.’ As this aspect of the problem is beyond 
the scope of this inquiry, he suggests that much might be done ‘ by attractive 
adult teaching on the nature and origin of scientific discoveries, and by 
making lectures centre round such personalities as Descartes, Harvey, 
Boyle, Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, Darwin, Davy, Faraday, Helmholtz, 
Fraunhofer, and so forth.’ He advocates such ‘ lectures in which simple 
historical experiments could be repeated and their meaning developed in 
the field of more modern knowledge. Such historical experiments would 
give a human interest to science.’ 

To render these experiments most effective he suggests that ‘ arrangements 
might be made for lecture-demonstrations to last 14 or 2 hours rather than 
t hour, and that the experiments be performed by an assistant in the middle 
of the hall and away from the lecturer. Thus the audience might gather 
from time to time round the experimenting table and then return to their 
seats.’ 


6. Aims and Motives of Students attending Adult Science Classes. 


The aims and motives of the students attending adult classes are less 
definite, and more difficult to interpret. They are probably very mixed, 
and change as their interest and knowledge increase. 

“The motives which lead students to enter classes naturally vary. Some 
come from purely intellectual curiosity, others because they believe that 
science has an important contribution to make towards the understanding 
and control of modern civilisation ’ (Bristol). 

“The average Literary Institute student has neither time nor energy for 
acquiring a thorough knowledge of any science. He is interested rather in 
the conclusions which have been reached and in the theories which are 
being tested. He seeks to coordinate and synthesise his knowledge so as 
to reach an interpretation of experience which is satisfying to himself. It 
is impossible for him to follow out the detailed processes whereby the 
conclusions of science are reached, but he is intensely interested in scientific 
generalisations, which he can link up with his experience of life. This view 


348 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


is common to organisers, lecturers and members of classes’ (City Literary 
Institute). 

‘Students are attracted to science classes by many different interests, 
and any generalisation about motives is likely to be more or less false. For 
instance, some come to biology classes because they are interested in the 
theory of evolution, probably from a philosophical angle ; some want.to 
know something about plant or animal life ; others are chiefly interested in 
personal hygiene. In every case, however, what the students need is 
a grounding in scientific method’ (R. J. Howrie, Loughborough T.C.). 

‘ Biology is by far the most attractive of scientific studies to members of 
Tutorial Classes, and, this being so, we have sought to find out why. We 
are of opinion that the particular attraction which Biology has for the adult 
student is due to the fact that it deals with matters within the student’s own 
experience and observation, and have a close bearing on his daily life’ 
(W.E.A. Science Report, 1932). 

Animportant aspect of biological study is noted by Mr.S. Myers (Deptford 
Men’s Institute) : ‘ Interest in, and the growing practice of, contraception 
has given rise to a keen interest in generation and pre-natal development, in 
inheritance and in allied matters. Other causes may contribute to this 
result. I am not concerned with the ethical aspect of birth control, but 
I am definitely of opinion that married men need some expert guidance in 
what may be called the hygiene of married life, and that this should take the 
form of courses of lectures on biology conducted on lines much less oblique 
in relation to sex matters than the courses generally available under. this 
name, i.e. biology. ‘The working-class wife and mother probably suffers 
more from ignorance—her own and her husband’s—than has yet been 
realised. We have left the most sacred things in human life, as far as they 
concern our poorer neighbours, to the academy of the gutter whose pro- 
fessors do their work tragically well.’ 


7. Propaganda and Publicity. 


The problem of stimulating the demand for science studies in Adult Classes 
is a matter for those who realise the importance of the subject to the com- 
munity generally and understand the serious danger to social stability that 
accompanies ignorance of the facts of science, or of scientific method. It 
is for those to suggest means for awakening interest in these studies and put 
them in operation. Several witnesses bear testimony that behind the 
apparent indifference to science suggested by the comparatively small number 
of classes, men and women are keen to learn when given the opportunity, 
and when they see that what is offered has practical bearing on the problems 
of life. 

Since 1921 there has been very little active propaganda on behalf of 
science. Most organisers of Adult Education are concerned with providing 
what is asked for, and can hold no brief for any one subject. Such bodies 
as the Local Education Authorities, and the Boards of Studies of the 
Universities, naturally act for the most part, on the principle that, if and 
when demand for science courses arise, they will do their best to meet it, 
and will provide the necessary facilities. 

“It has been the policy of the Council to meet the demand on the part of 
students for classes in any suitable subject. For some unknown cause 
science is, relatively speaking, not popular at present and, therefore, there 
has not been the same demand for science classes as for some other subjects. 
It is thought that an increased demand can only arise as the effect of science 
teaching in secondary and other schools becomes more marked and as 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 349 


science is popularised by wireless talks, press articles, and so on. It will be 
realised that the present call for economy in public expenditure renders it 
necessary to go slowly as regards enlarging the scope of the Institutes, but 
the Council never refuses to provide classes where students in sufficient 
numbers present themselves’ (G. H. Gater, L.C.C.). 

‘ Apart from the usual discussion of subjects with Extension Centres and 
prospective classes, no special propaganda has been undertaken in favour of 
scientific studies ’ (Cambridge University Extra-mural Board). 

§ We have no definite scheme for extending scientific work in Adult Classes. 
As the demand arises we endeavour to secure teachers in the subjects asked 
for’ (W.E.A., Western District). 

‘ Advertisements of special courses are issued and notices are sent out and 
meetings held, and groups likely to be interested are specially interviewed in 
the various centres with a view to the formation of classes and the organisation 
of courses of lectures ’ (Manchester University). 

Success in promoting Adult Education in science in the region served by 
a University depends much less on formal organisation than on the mis- 
sionary efforts of individuals. In many parts of the country, especially in 
the North, successful classes in literary subjects have been built up, and 
a connection with the University thus established, so that means are avail- 
able for introducing science into a community where the habit of study has 
already become familiar. In one instance a lecturer in the English Depart- 
ment of a University had been remarably successful in his efforts to establish 
classes under the W.E.A. over a large area, attended mainly by coal miners 
and metallurgical workers. He had a great personal influence on these 
groups, and at his suggestion colleagues from the scientific departments of 
the University were from time to time invited to lecture on their own 
subjects and always found large and attentive audiences. From these 
occasional lectures there has grown a more systematic scheme of scientific 
lecture courses, although practical work by the students has not yet been 
attempted. 

Lectures on the history of local industries make an appeal to audiences in 
such districts. A group of miners will listen to and appreciate an account 
(illustrated by lantern slides and specimens) of the development of mining 
since ancient times, whilst steel workers can be similarly interested in the 
history of metallurgy. If care be taken to show the connection between the 
progress of an art and social conditions, the interest of industrial audiences, 
which usually leans towards the side of economics, can be aroused, and 
a bridge is thus provided leading to the teaching of science proper. It is 
possible that the social history of agriculture might be used similarly in some 
districts as an approach to biology. Compare what has been quoted above 
(p. 347) from Dr. Charles Singer as to the historical approach to science 
generally. 

A teacher imbued with the missionary spirit, and having an influence on 
the extra-mural students in his region, can enlist the help of his university 
colleagues in the teaching of science. It is best that the first steps should be 
entirely informal. The panel of lecturers should be chosen by a few who 
know the region, and not by a committee or a public authority. The 
W.E.A. scheme is elastic, and the extra-mural side of the universities is not 
usually greatly hampered by redtape. The teachers selected must, however, 
have a real evangelical fervour, if they are to succeed. Sometimes it may 
be a senior man who has become impressed in the course of his experience 
by the urgent need of more scientific knowledge on the part of the public ; 
sometimes it may be an enthusiastic junior lecturer who has the gift of 
popular exposition, who will best fill the place. Such men are not common 


350 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


at present, but the experiment must be made slowly, and when a demand 
has once been established, an increased supply of suitable teachers may be 
expected. 

‘ Pioneer work in the form of lectures, either single or in the form of 
a series, by the right kind of tutor, always attracts a number of potential 
students. And having got their interest, never let it flag. 'The subject- 
matter dealt with in these lectures must be of the right kind and be of imme- 
diate interest in relation to everyday things. "The method of presentation 
must be simple, but scientific (not popular) and calculated to whet the 
appetite for more’ (Dr. A. J. Grove, London). 

‘ More propaganda among voluntary organisations engaged in some form 
of adult education would encourage the development of scientific teaching. 
For instance, the study of the drama has been fostered by the Rural 
Community Council. There seems to be no reason why this and similar 
organisations might not foster the study of scientific subjects. ‘This observa- 
tion also applies to the special interest in social subjects on the part of the 
W.E.A.’ (R. J. Howrie, Loughborough T.C.). 

‘ There is need for expository lectures of a non-technical type as a means 
of propaganda for more intensive work ’ (Bristol). 

‘ A demand can perhaps more easily be stimulated in the first instance for 
such a subject as Nature Study than for a more specialised branch of science. 
In the University staff the specialisation necessary on the part of those 
engaged in science teaching makes it somewhat difficult to get tutors who 
will deal satisfactorily with this subject, but tutors may probably be obtained 
from other institutions where a more generalised treatment of science is 
combined with requirement of a suitably high standard of attainment. Like 
Nature Study, Astronomy is a subject likely to prove suitable for introduction 
in a centre where a demand for science classes for adults has not yet revealed 
itself. 

Broadcasting, journals, and other media of propaganda have also a part 
to play in extending interest in the study of science. So also have contacts, 
largely of an informal type, e.g. in outings, with various organisations which 
are interested in younger adults. Mechanical aids may be of considerable 
value in making a lecture more attractive, a point of particular importance 
in a pioneering lecture. But the enthusiasm of a competent lecturer is, in 
pioneer work, an asset for which no adequate substitute can be found. Full 
publicity must, however, be given to any lectures intended to stimulate 
interest in science, and contacts with all existing groups likely to be interested 
should be established. The part which local societies may play in sustain- 
ing interest is to be noted. Both in propaganda lectures and in classes, 
demonstration experiments—which should, however, not be too numerous 
—have proved really useful features ’ (D. M. Stewart, Glasgow). 

Mr. G. C. Robson, British Museum (Natural History), believes there is 
not enough local publicity, and recommends that ‘ Local institutions and 
secretaries might do far more in the way of advertising courses and stimulat- 
ing local societies to support them.’ He further suggests that ‘ in view of 
the keen interest evident in the social implications of Biology, it might be 
fostered and developed if the potential teachers and lecturers (University 
graduates) were made aware of this demand. It is, perhaps, not sufficiently 
made apparent to a man during his University training that biology has 
a humanistic side. ‘The acute specialisation must have the effect of with- 


drawing the average graduate from contact with popular needs and 
interests.’ 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 351 


8. The Supply of Science Books, Equipment, and Materials. 


A. Books, 


An adequate supply of science books is an important consideration in the 
equipment of a science class. ‘The Committee have received several useful 
suggestions in reply to their inquiry in this direction. General library 
arrangements are very fully discussed in Paper No. 11 of the Board of 
Education Committee (p. 93-113). There is theoretically no limit to the 
facilities which exist for supplying the individual students with whatever 
books they require, through the co-operation of the County, or Borough 
Public Library scheme, the National Central Library, and the Extra-mural 
Libraries of the Universities. In practice, however, it depends very much 
upon the County or Borough authority concerned ; in some districts a library 
regulation restricting the use of a book by a borrower to fourteen days 
prevents its use for class purposes; in other districts the Library Com- 
mittee is distinct from the Education Committee, and there is some lack of 
co-operation. ‘The fact that a class needs several copies of one book is 
another difficulty when the Public Library’s stock is not sufficient. 

In addition to the Public Libraries, many voluntary bodies, such as the 
Y.M.C.A. centres, possess fairly well-equipped libraries. The Working 
Men’s College contains some 10,000 volumes. The University of London 
Library allows students to become borrowing members of the library, and 
also issues travelling libraries of the books needed during a course, for the 
special use of the class during the whole of its progress. Such travelling 
libraries are provided in connexion with all Tutorial Classes, and are sent 
to those University Extension Centres which apply for them. 

The Education Library at County Hall has a science section upon which 
science teachers can draw. 

The City Literary Institute Library is not supplied with textbooks, but 
possesses a fair supply of general scientific literature. 

The following replies indicate some dissatisfaction with the type of 
book available : 

“Many of the books recommended by tutors for students’ reading are 
written mainly for the university undergraduate, and are unsuitable for 
adult students. There is little between these and the popular book on the 
wonders of the universe, which, while it may serve to stimulate interest, 
does not serve the needs of students. We need more books of the type of 
Dr. Firth’s Chemistry in the Home, which was produced as a result of work 
done in this Department’ (Prof. Peers, Nottingham). 

“Lack of small ‘‘ popular ’’ books on elementary science—books which 
are not school textbooks but which are really readable—is a serious drawback. 
At present the Dorset County Library is not well supplied with such books ; 
there is a lack of duplicate copies ’ (Resident Tutor, Dorset). 
ih is an urgent need for science primers for adults’. (Glasgow, 

.E.A.). 

In most districts the general arrangement for books seems to be 
satisfactory. 

“There are a great number of popular science books available, and no 
difficulty has been experienced in finding suitable books for reading’ 
(Dr. Chapman, Sheffield). 

‘Science books are at present provided by the University, through 
travelling libraries ’ (Liverpool). 

‘ Books have generally been obtained from Burgh and County Libraries, 
the supply being supplemented where necessary from the Scottish Central 


352 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Library and from the resources of societies. A selection of books is placed 
at the disposal of the class throughout the class period, and this arrangement 
has proved very satisfactory ’ (West of Scotland Joint Committee). 

In the Adult School Union, special handbooks are published by the 
Union. These handbooks have a circulation of about 23,000 copies per 
annum, and the material is used as the basis for discussion throughout the 
whole Adult Schools in the country. 


88. Equipment, Apparatus and Materials. 


References to equipment and to apparatus have been made under sec- 
tion 3c. The general situation appears to be that except for classes held in 
or near University or Technical Colleges the supply of apparatus and material 
is quite inadequate for lecture demonstrations, and still more so for class 
work of individual students. Hence many science classes have to depend 
upon lantern slides for the greater part of the work, with occasional help 
from films. Even in Oxford we are informed that ‘ it is seldom possible to 
have the use of a laboratory, or for members of a class to have access to one 
for practical work except during lecture hours.’ 

In Cambridge ‘ some Tutorial Classes (e.g. in Biology) have been able 
to meet in laboratories, but this depends on local circumstances (e.g. offer 
from a local school). In most cases a few microscopes have been supplied 
by the Extra-mural Board as part of the travelling library.’ ‘ Two classes 
have been granted facilities by the University ; one has met for three years 
in the Biochemical Laboratory, and another for the same period in the 
Psychological Laboratory.’ 

In Manchester ‘some material and equipment could be borrowed 
under guarantees from University departments. The laboratory accom- 
modation in towns outside the University is the main difficulty.’ 

In Glasgow ‘in some instances students have constructed their own 
equipment—one, for example, during a period of unemployment made an 
electrical machine to provide electricity to facilitate his experimental study 
of the subject. A nature study class gave an exhibition of collected speci- 
mens, and students habitually bring along specimens for discussion. Both 
University and Museum University departments are indebted to adult 
students for additions to their collections.’ 

In London from the point of view of the Local Education Authority, 
‘No difficulty appears to have arisen in the way of teachers and students 
finding such equipment and materials as are required for classes of the type 
under consideration. All the institutes are provided with lanterns and 
epidiascopes and the Council’s magnificent collection of lantern slides is 
available for use by science as well as other lecturers. Many of the teachers 
have private equipment and in some instances are also able to draw upon 
resources provided by professional bodies and their daily occupations.’ 

From the point of view of one of the chief Literary Institutes in which 
science courses are taken and where there is practically no equipment for 
science teaching the position does not seem quite so simple. In one 
reply it is stated: ‘ With regard to classes in science conducted at the 
Institute, no public’ funds are expended on material, except for courses in 
Photography. Even here students themselves already supply a very con- 
siderable quantity of equipment and material. In general little com- 
sumable material is required, but whereas equipment such as microscopes, 
spectroscopes, and telescopes would be useful, one hesitates to press local 
Education Authorities to.expend considerable sums for the provision, of 
these, in view of the need for economy.’ 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN'ADULT EDUCATION 353 


Of all Institutions for adult classes, the Working Men’s College seems to 
be best supplied with apparatus and material for science work. The 
equipment there seems to be quite adequate to the demand. 


9. Inter-communal Co-operation in the Science Work of Adult Classes. 


One of the most attractive and useful features of science work is the feeling 
it affords of a personal participation in the search for truth. In an attempt 
to obtain knowledge of things for oneself there is no limit to interest and 
enthusiasm. Even if it results only in gaining knowledge already known to 
other people, it is nevertheless research. Besides there are always new 
aspects of nature to be studied and when they are presented in the form of 
problems for investigation in which the student plays an active if not the 
principal part, science becomes a fascinating subject and a source of never 
failing interest. 

This side of science work must not be overlooked in the future planning 
of science courses for adults; for this intrinsic interest of scientific 
research has a part here to play equally with the interpretation of scientific 
results in their application to modern life and social developments. One of 
the most fruitful methods of procedure is that of team work, wherein most 
or all of the students contribute, by their observations, towards a common 
objective, and thereby collect sufficient date in a comparatively short time 
to justify at least tentative conclusions almost impossible for the individual 
student to reach in the short time available. ‘This is equally true where the 
results of field work and observations made by other groups of students in 
the same district can be pooled and utilised for wider generalisations. 
Useful survey work of a regional type may be undertaken by adult classes 
in subjects connected with agriculture, horticulture, flora, fauna, soil and 
climate of a district. Joint meetings should be organised for general dis- 
cussions of results. Such an objective stimulates independent reading 
serves as an incentive to continuous work, and broadens the outlook of the 
students. 

Very little in the way of such interchange has hitherto been attempted, 
and little in the way of regional survey. This is probably because co-opera- 
tive effort of this kind has not been considered possible. It is urged that 
inter-communal co-operation of the kind suggested would lead to more 
serious studies of the conditions affecting the welfare of the people, and 
assist in establishing a wider appreciation of the value of science to the 
community. 


10. Assistance from Local Scientific Societies to Adult Classes in their District. 


The active agents in promoting this inter-communal activity would 
naturally be a committee of lecturers and tutors of the district. Professor 
Julian Huxley suggests that ‘local scientific societies should, possibly 
under advice from some central body, work out plans by which natural 
history, geological and survey work in the area could be profitably organised, 
and point out ways in which adult education classes and those interested 
could take part in such work.’ 

Similarly the Director of Extra-mural Studies in the University of 
Manchester suggests that ‘it might be useful if the Extra-mural Depart- 
ments of Universities, and the District Secretaries of the W.E.A. co-operated 
from time to time in calling local conferences of Field Clubs, Natural 
History Societies of various kinds, with a view to closer co-operation and 


354 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


the development of facilities. Possibly some of the Societies would be 
willing to give practical assistance in this, and from time to time a one-day 
*‘ School in Science ’’ might be arranged through the hospitality of one or 
more such Societies. ‘There has been a considerable revival of interest in 
Local History under the stimulus of the Rural Community Councils .. . 
perhaps in co-operation with these bodies a good deal might be done for 
geology, botany, and zoology studied locally. The Conferences arranged 
in Derbyshire and elsewhere have further stimulated interest and increased 
the knowledge of local history. ‘The same thing might prove true if con- 
ferences of groups engaged in the study of natural history under local 
conditions were arranged in county or district areas.’ 

From the City Literary Institute, Mr. G. T. Williams sends similar 
suggestions. (1) Scientific societies might place their material occasionally 
at the disposal of classes, by means of travelling exhibits bearing on the work 
of particular groups which are conducting their studies in the Institutes. 
(2) Societies interested in promoting the study of some particular science, 
or aspect of science not usually comprised in the curriculum of Institutes, 
should formulate and circulate specimen syllabuses with reading lists, 
suggestions for equipment, and some indication as to method of approach. 
Institutes might be encouraged to offer in their programme classes which, 
without such suggestions, would ordinarily not have occurred to them as 
within the bounds of possibility. (3) Scientific societies that possess special 
equipment would allow groups from Institutes to meet for special demon- 
strations in their laboratories. 

It is generally reported that Local Field Clubs and Scientific Societies 
are sympathetic and helpful. In Belfast ‘ classes are linked in an unorga- 
nised way with the local Naturalist Societies, i.e. many members of the classes 
pass to membership of these societies, and lectures attended thereat are often 
discussed in class,’ 

Many Committees for Adult Classes publish handbooks in which the 
programmes of the various scientific societies are included . . . as they 
realise that ‘ the help of local scientific societies in stimulating the demand 
for scientific study would be extremely valuable.’ 

The only district, according to the information supplied to the Com- 
mittee, in which interchange of observations and the results of field work 
has been carried out, is in the Western (or Glasgow) District of Scotland. 
Here the Joint Secretary of the Extra-mural Education Committee reports 
that ‘ Contact has been maintained as far as possible between adult classes 
and local societies dealing with Astronomy and Natural History, to mutual 
advantage. ‘The societies afford a field in which the adult students are able 
to carry further and to apply the knowledge gained by them in classes, 
while the classes afford to some of the members of the societies an oppor- 
tunity of making their knowledge more systematic. . . . Nothing has 
been done yet in the way of interregional meetings of adult classes for com- 
parison of local observations, but a beginning has been made with regional 
survey by adult classes, more particularly at Kilmarnock and at Dumbarton 
as part of the West of Scotland survey of plant and animal life, stimulated 
by the visits of the British Association. . . . It is hoped that from the 
nature study class at Dumbarton a local Natural History Society may 
develop. The astronomy section of the Paisley Philosophical Institution 
resumed meetings and activity after a long interval as a result of the contact 
of interested persons provided by an adult class.’ 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 355 


JII.—SuGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 


The Committee has not found it possible, during the current year, to deal 
with all the problems covered by its terms of reference. ‘They have there- 
fore decided to report in the first place on the ‘ position of science in Adult 
Education,’ reserving for subsequent discussion the problems dealing with 
the improvement of the position of science, with the various modes of 
approach, with types of syllabuses, with the function of lecture courses, and 
of tutorial classes, and with other matters affecting the steps that ought to be 
taken for making science, not only a popular study, but a valuable and 
indispensable part of the education of an adult. 

Suggestions to that end have been submitted to the committee by various 
correspondents, and several of these have already been quoted. 

From the statements made to the Committee, it would appear then that, 
in general— 


(1) The demand for science teaching among adults varies at present 
directly with the supply of competent teachers. 

(2) The man is more important than the subject, and the subject than 
elaborate or expensive equipment. 

(3) Apart altogether from systematic vocational training (which is outside 
the scope of this inquiry) the approach must be from popular everyday 
applications of scientific method on practical occasions and common 
experience, to the discovery of principles, and from such discoveries, 
in detail, to the formulation of a systematic body of knowledge. It 
is the scientific outlook, not a multiplicity of scientific experiences, 
that is to be achieved: as it has been expressed to the Committee 
* you are not making science students ; you are preaching a gospel’ ; 
and providing what has also been described as ‘a useful adjunct to 
philosophy.’ 

(4) This difference of aim and procedure, between science teaching for 
adults, and systematic science-teaching in Universities, or even in 
schools, goes far to explain the dearth of teachers qualified to conduct 
this sort of course. For here the teacher’s own systematic knowledge 
can only be applied effectively by reversing academic procedure, and 
guiding (or provoking) the process of rediscovery, and of generalisa- 
tion from facts actually observed by the pupil or the class in some 
episode of daily life. 

(5) While the historical approach to scientific problems provides, through 
its foundation in such experiences the most direct approach for adult 
classes, the prevalent neglect of the history of discovery among 
professional teachers of science is an important reason why teachers 
competent to teach science to adults are so rare. 

(6) Much adult science, which hardly goes even so far as such rediscovery 
and generalisation, has nevertheless its value as a conscious contribu- 
tion to learning, through regional observation, and is capable of 
enhancement, and refinement of technique, especially when it is 
pursued as team work, in conjunction with other workers. 

(7) Here is the proper field of what was formerly called ‘ Natural History,’ 
as an outdoor occupation primarily, though it presumes the leisured 

oe revision and comparison of the notes and collections of field workers, 
under the guidance of an experienced naturalist, who need not have 
academic or tutorial qualifications at all. 


356 


REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


(8) This is where the adult class may reasonably appeal for help to the 


local Field Club or Natural History Society, and also to the local 
Museum. Both institutions stand to gain by enlargement of their 
range of field observers and voluntary collectors of regional material. 


(9) The value of the work which is being done by certain voluntary 


and non-academic organisations should not be overlooked. More 
particularly the Women’s Institutes in the country and the newly 
formed Townswomen’s Guilds inthe towns are bringing together large 
numbers of women unlikely to be touched by other bodies dealing with 
adult education. Up till now the instruction given in this connection 
has been mainly of practical character, but if lecturers with suitable 
outlook and interests were available much might be done through 
these organisations to stimulate an interest in achievement of science 
in relation to practical and social questions and to encourage a more 
scientific attitude of mind towards such matters. 


IV. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION. 


‘ Popularisation of Science through Public Lectures,’ Report of British 


Association Committee (1916) 


‘ Natural Science in Adult Education,’ Board of Education Committee, 


Paper No. 8 (1927). 


‘ Science and Adult Education,’ Conference Papers, Oxford (1927), British 


Institute of Adult Education. 


‘Science, Industry and Human Life,’ Sir John Sankey, Conference 


Address, Oxford (1927), British Institute of Adult Education. 


Articles from the Journal of Adult Education :— 


* Geology as a subject for Adult Classes,’ by D. A. Allan, 1929. 

‘ Some notes on Science and Adult Classes,’ by M. I. Cole, 1930. 
‘The Need for the Popular Lecturer,’ by A. Clow Ford, 1930. 
‘Physics and Adult Classes,’ by G. Cochrane (1931). 

‘ Astronomy for Adult Classes,’ by T. L. Macdonald (1931). 


The Social Function of Science, by Professor C. H. Desch, F.R.S. (1931), 


Sheffield University. 


‘Science in Adult Education,’ by T. L. Macdonald. The Tutor’s 


Bulletin of Adult Education, No. 2, 1931. 


‘Biology and the W.E.A.’ by Dr. Norman Walker. The Highway, 


October 1932. 


‘ Study of Science in Adult Classes,’ Report of Executive Committee of 


Workers Educational Association (1932). 


“Science and the Radio,’ by Austin E. Clark. Scientific Monthly (1932). 
“Memorandum on the W.E.A. Report on Science Study,’ by Scottish 


Tutors, in No. 7, Bulletin of the Association of Tutors in Adult Education, 


I 


933. 
“A Tutorial Class in Physics,’ by A. Cochrane, reprinted from the Journal 


of Adult Education, Vol. VI, No. 2, published by Sidgwick and Jackson, 
London, 1933. 


V. APPENDIX. 


The Committee wish to acknowledge their great indebtedness to all those 


who have been so good as to reply to the questionnaire and supplied: memo- 
randa which have formed the basis of this report. They desire to offer 


SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION 357 


their very hearty thanks for the information received and to express their 
deep appreciation of the help so ungrudgingly given in this inquiry by— 

(1) The Board of Education. 

(2) London University: Mr. John Lea, Extra-mural Department ; 
Prof. Julian Huxley, King’s College; Dr. A. J. Grove; Mr. G. C. 
Robson, British Museum (Natural History). 

(3) London County Council, Education Department, Mr. G. H. Gater 
and Mr. E. M. Rich; City Literary Institute, Mr. G. T. Williams ; 
Deptford Men’s Institute, Mr. S. Myers ; Bec Literary Institute, 
Mr. W. J. Gale. 

(4). British Institute for Adult Education, Mr. J. W. Brown. 

(5) Workers Educational Association, Mr. A. S. Firth. 

(6) Y.M.C.A., Mr. A. Clifford Hall. 

(7) Arsenal Co-operative Society. 

(8) Working Men’s College, Mr. C. Chapman. 

(9) Morley College, Westminster, Mr. S. T. Cottrell; Mary Ward 
Settlement, Mr. Horace Fleming. 

(10) Oxford University, Rev. F. E. Hutchinson, Extra-mural Department. 

(11) Cambridge University : Mr. G. F. Hickson, Extra-mural Depart- 
ment; Mr. G. P. Bailey. 

(12) Reading University, Dr. W. B. Brierley, Extra-mural Department. 

(13) Bristol University : Mr. John Nicholson, Extra-mural Department ; 
Mr. A. E. Douglas Smith, Resident Tutor, Wiltshire; Mr. W. R. 
Straker, Secretary, W.E.A., Western District; Mr. S. H. Can, 
Resident Tutor, Somerset ; Miss M. R. Dacombe, Dorset: 

(14) Midlands: Mr. L. A. Fenn, W.E.A., Birmingham ; Loughborough 
College, Mr. R. J. Howrie, Extra-mural Department ; Nottingham 
University College, Prof. R. Peers, Extra-mural Department. 

(15) Sheffield University : Dr. A.W. Chapman, Extra-mural Department ; 
Prof. C. H. Desch. 

(16) Leeds University, Dr. Norman Walker, Extra-mural Department. 

(17) Manchester University, Mr. H. P. Turner, Extra-mural Department. 

(18) Liverpool University, Mr. E. Hickinbotham, Extra-mural Depart- 
ment. 

(19) Durham University: Rev. E. G. Pace, Extra-mural Department ; 
Mr. T. B. Tilley, Director of Education. 

(20) Glasgow University : Mr. D. M. Stewart, Extra-mural Department ; 
Mr. C. Cochrane; Mr. T. L. Macdonald, W.E.A. 

(21) Belfast, Mr. H. J. Eason, Queen’s University, Extra-mural Depart- 
ment. 

(22) Women’s Institutes, and The Townswomen’s Guilds, Miss Masters. 

(23) National Adult School Union, Mr. G. Peverett. 

_ (24) American Association for Adult Education, Mr. Morse A. Cart- 
wright. 

(25) Kent, Mr. Salter Davies, Director of Education. 

(26) Dr. Charles Singer. 

(27) Sir H. Frank Heath, G.B.E., K.C.B., Universities Bureau of the 

J British Empire. 

_ (28) Lancashire, Mr. P. E. Meadon, Director of Education. 


358 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY. 


Report of Committee appointed to inquire into the position of Inland Water 
Survey in the British Isles, and the possible organisation and control of 
such a survey by central authority (Original Members : Vice-Adml. 
Sir H. P. Douctas, K.C.B., C.M.G., Chairman; Lt.-Col. E. GoLp, 
D.S.O., F.R.S., Vice-Chairman; Capt. W. N. McC ean, Secre- 
tary; Mr. E. G. Bituam, Dr. Brysson CuNNINGHAM, Prof. C. B. 
Fawcett, Dr. A. Fercuson, Dr. Ezer GrirFiTHs, F.R.S., Mr. 
W. T. Hatcrow, Mr. C. C. SmirH, Dr. L. DupLey STAmp, 
Brig. H. St. J. L. WintersotHaM, C.M.G., D.S.0. Co-opted 
Members: Mr. T. Suirtey Hawkins, O.B.E., Mr. W. J. M. 
Menzies, Mr. Henry Nimmo, Dr. A. Parker, Mr. D. RONALD, 
Capt. J. C. A. Roseveare, Dr. BERNARD SMITH, F.R.S., Mr. F. O. 
STANFORD, O.B.E., Capt. J. G. WITHYCOMBE). 


CONTENTS OF REPORT. 
I. Introduction. 
1. Appointment of Committee and terms of reference. 
2. Appointments of Chairman and Sub-committees. 
3. Earlier demands for a survey. 


Il. Position of Inland Water Survey. 
4. Scope of survey. 
5. Existing organisations. 
6. Water users. 
7. Absence of co-ordination. 


III. Possible Organisation and Control of an Inland Water Survey by Central 
Authority. 
8. Examples of organisations in other countries. 
g. Systems of measurement. 
10. Ideal to be aimed at for this country. 
11. Review of available data. 


IV. Conclusions and Recommendations. 
12. Conclusions. 
13. Recommendations (omitted in accordance with practice). 


Appendix : Memoranda. 


I. INTRODUCTION. 


1. Appointment of Committee and terms of reference.— Following the 
meeting of the British Association held at York in September 1932, the 
General Committee, on the recommendation of Sections A (Mathematical 
and Physical Sciences), E (Geography), and G (Engineering), appointed a 
Research Committee for the following purpose :— 

‘To inquire into the position of Inland Water Survey in the British 
Isles, and the possible organisation and control of such a survey by central 
authority.’ : 

A list of the members of the Committee so appointed is given at the 
head of this report. 

2. Appointments of Chairman and Sub-committees—The first meeting 
of the Committee was held on November 9, 1932, when Vice-Adml. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 359 


Sir H. P. Douglas was elected Chairman, Lt.-Col. E. Gold, Vice- 
Chairman, and Capt. W. N. McClean, Secretary. A number of additional 
members, whose experience in various branches of work connected with 
the subject would be of assistance to the Committee, were co-opted. 

The Committee appointed two Sub-committees, viz. the Data Sub- 
committee to collect information relating to the first part of the reference, 
and the Schemes Sub-committee to investigate the second part. Their 
work is referred to below. 


3. Earlier demands for a survey.—Demands and suggestions for a survey 
of the water resources of the country, and for a central water authority, 
have been made on many occasions inthe past.?_ It is necessary, at the outset, 
to draw a clear distinction between an organisation for carrying out a water 
survey and a central authority or National Water Board for the administra- 
tion and control of the national water resources. It is with the former 
only that this Committee is directly concerned. It is of interest to recall 
that the British Association identified itself with the earliest of these demands. 
In 1878, at a meeting of the Association in Dublin, a paper was read by 
Mr. J. Lucas, F.G.S., advocating a hydro-geological survey of England ; 
and a discussion took place in the Mechanical Science Section at which 
Mr. Easton, the President of the Section, suggested the formation of 
watershed boards.? 

In the same year, at a Congress of the Royal Society of Arts, a paper was 
read by Mr. C. Slagg in which the suggestion was made that a State record 
of the surplus water flowing from high and uncultivated lands should be 
regularly kept. A paper was also read by Sir J. Clarke Hawkshaw, 
M.Inst.C.E.,* on the subject of ‘ River Conservancy.’ 

In 1902 the Salmon Fisheries Commission ® expressed the opinion, 
identical with the suggestion made by Mr. Easton at the British Association 
Meeting in 1878, that the time had arrived when the Government should 
cause a survey and estimate of the water supplies available in all watersheds 
throughout the kingdom to be made for the use of the proposed watershed 
boards. 

Before leaving the historical aspect of the subject, reference should also 
be made to the work of Mr. C. E. De Rance ® in which he referred to a 
Research Committee appointed by the British Association in 1874 on the 
subject of the underground circulation of water, and to the above-mentioned 
Congress of the Royal Society of Arts. In this work, which may well be 
regarded as the forerunner of a water survey, the author describes the 
character and quantity of the existing water supplies, the area of the principal 
geological formations, with the amount of rainfall in each of the river basins 
delineated in the catchment basin map of the Ordnance Survey. 

_ Inmore recent years the demand has been repeated, and instances, which, 
however, are by no means exhaustive, are quoted in Memorandum D (1); 
a few of the principal examples are briefly enumerated as follows :— 

A Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament, in 1910, ex- 

pressed the opinion that there was need for a comprehensive survey of the 
_ water supply of the country. 
__ In the same year Parliament ordered a Return as to water undertakings 


* Forbes and Ashford, Our Waterways, chap.i. (Murray, 1906.) 
_# Ann. Report, B.A., 1878, pp. 689, 692. 5 Report of Proc., 1878, p. 112. 

* Journal, vol. 27, p. 623. 5 Report, pp. 12, 49-51, 61. 

® C. E. De Rance, Assoc.Inst.C.E., F.G.S., The Water Supply of England and 
Wales, its geology, underground circulation, surface distribution and statistics. (E. 
Stanford, 1882.) 


360 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


in England and Wales. This was compiled, and issued by the Local 
Government Board in 1914, as a first instalment of the comprehensive in- 
vestigation which had been recommended by various Royal Commissions 
and Committees. 

Subsequently, the Ministry of Health, the successors of the Local 
Government Board, appointed an Advisory Committee on Water who 
from time to time have issued various reports, 

In 1921 a Committee of the Board of Trade on Water Power Resources 
issued their Final Report, which contains the results of extensive investiga- 
tion as to the water power resources available for industrial purposes. The 
Committee recommended the establishment of a Water Commission 
(para. 32) whose primary function would be to compile a record of the 
water resources and water requirements of the country (para. 37). 

In 1927 the Institution of Water Engineers in general meeting passed 
a resolution that there was urgent need of an organisation which would 
ensure a continuous record of the flow and storage of surface and under- 
ground water. 

The passing of the Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act, 1930, and the 
establishment of Catchment Boards under the Land Drainage Act, 1930 
(see Memorandum D (2) appended), have drawn attention anew to the 
subject as a matter of immediate urgency, particularly as regards the 
gauging of streams and rivers to provide reliable data on which to base 
estimates of flood flows; as instances of this may be quoted the Annual 
Report of the Ministry of Health, 1930-31 (pp. 14-15), and the draft Report 
of the Committee of the Institution of Civil Engineers on floods in relation 
to reservoir practice. 

Finally, after the lapse of fifty-four years since the meeting at Dublin, the 
same demand has been repeated at the meeting of the British Association 
at York in 1932. The discussion, inaugurated by Capt. W. N. McClean, 
and supported by thirteen representative engineers and scientists, showed 
a unanimous opinion that the setting up of a national organisation for water 
survey was indispensable (The Times, September 7, 1932). 


II. PosiTIoN oF INLAND WATER SURVEY. 


4. Scope of survey.—Water conservancy has been defined by the President 
of the Mechanical Science Section of the British Association, at the Dublin 
Meeting in 1878,’ as ‘ the treatment and regulation of all the water received ° 
in these islands from its first arrival in the shape of rain and dew to its final 
disappearance in the ocean.’ This involves several branches of science :— 

Meteorology, as regards the precipitation from the clouds, the primary 
source of all water supply, of rain, snow and hail; the condensation from 
the atmosphere of water in the form of dew or hoar frost ; and as regards 
also evaporation by which a portion of the water is returned to the 
atmosphere. These, in their turn, are related to other meteorological 
factors, such as temperature and wind, and to geographical conditions, such 
as proximity to the sea or mountain masses ; 

Geology, as regards the absorption by the soil or rock of a portion of the 
water, its storage and flow in the underground strata and its return to the 
surface in the form of springs and seepage ; 

Topography, as regards the surface flow and storage of so much of the 
precipitated water as is neither evaporated nor absorbed. This includes 


7 Report, 1878, p. 679. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 361 


both the geographical conditions which affect the climate and the land 
surface conditions which determine the size and shape of catchment basins 
and the courses of streams and rivers. 

It remains for the engineer engaged upon the control of water ‘ for the 
use and convenience of man’ to give these sciences their practical applica- 
tion. It is for this purpose that he requires a quantitative survey, giving 
actual measurements of the volume of water available or to be discharged, 
as data for his schemes and designs. 

The scope of a water survey necessary to meet these requirements of civil 
engineers and others interested in water conservancy should include observa- 
tions and measurements and the preparation of continuous records in 
standard form, in connection with rainfall, surface storage and flow, and 
underground storage and flow—in conjunction, in each case, with the 
physical and geological characteristics of the area. The records from all 
sources should be collated, brought into harmony and made available. 

5. Existing organisations—The foundations of such a survey already 
exist, in part, in the work of well-established Government departments 
devoted to the special branches of science mentioned in the previous 
paragraph. 

The published maps of the Ordnance Survey (Ministry of Agriculture 
and Fisheries) are so well known and appreciated that any description here 
is unnecessary. 

The Geological Survey (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) 
has made substantial contributions to our knowledge of underground 
water resources in its published maps and memoirs. The information thus 
collected is admittedly incomplete (see Memorandum E appended). 

The British Rainfall Organization (Air Ministry), described in Memo- 
randum C appended, having grown from small beginnings as a private 
enterprise until it was ultimately taken over by a Government department, 
provides the indispensable information as to rainfall on which engineers 
hitherto have had largely to depend for waterflow data. 

There is, however, no such existing department or central organisation 
to deal with direct hydrological measurements of the amount of water 
derived from rainfall. 

6. Water users—The following table is a summary of the principal 
users of water with the purposes for which direct measurements of water 
are required in connection with their operations and the nature of the 
measurements and records thus involved. 

Many of the bodies concerned, it is known, have measurements taken 
and recorded according to the needs of their particular interests and the 
special avocation of the engineer. In addition, certain scientific societies, 
including the Royal Geographical Society, and private undertakings, such 
as River Flow Records, have done much work on these lines. In some few 
cases, reports have been published (as the appended Bibliography indicates), 
but only a superficial knowledge of the subject can be gleaned from a study 
of these reports. 

It may be anticipated that many will in due course extend this work. 
The consumption of water per head of population for domestic purposes 
has a steady tendency to increase, due to improved standards of sanitation 
such as the laying on of piped water supplies into houses in rural areas, the 
substitution of water-closets for privies, and the provision of baths and hot- 
water supplies. Thus the growth of population and the requirements of 
industry continually increase the demand on water supply resources through- 
out the country. 

° 


362 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Measurements 
and Records. 


Memo. 


appended. Users and Purposes. 


D (1) Surface Water Supplies for Domestic and | Gaugings and levels 


Industrial Purposes. of springs, 
Available reliable yield; droughts and streams, rivers, 
floods ; compensation water for ri- lakes and reser- 
parian interests ; and waste water. voirs ; discharges 


and overflows. 


D (2) Catchment Boards. 
Land drainage ; floods and flow control. | Ditto. 


D (3) Hydro-electric Stations. 
As (1) above, in relation to available water | Ditto. 
power for generating electricity. 


D (4) Electricity Stations. 

Feed and condensing water for steam | Ditto. 
plant ; cooling water for oil- and gas- 
driven plant. 


D (5) Canals and Canalised Rivers. 
Navigational uses and losses by evapora- | Ditto. 
tion, leakage, etc. 


D (6) Fishery and Pollution. 
Fishery interests; pollution problems | Ditto. 
and dilution of sewage and trade 


effluents. 
E Underground Water. Gaugings of springs 
Available supplies from springs, wells as (1) above ; con- 
and bores. tinuous. or peri- 
odic water, levels 


in wells and bores. 


While the amount of water required is thus increasing, and large volumes 
run to waste, unused, to the ocean, the quantity available from suitable 
sources capable of maintaining the supply through times of drought is not 
inexhaustible. "The most conveniently situated sources, whether of surface 
or underground water, have been to a large extent already appropriated, 
and it has long been recognised that a comprehensive survey of the national 
water resources is necessary to enable water conservancy to be placed on 
a basis of fact. 

Again, with regard to rivers, it is said by an American author ®: ‘ The 
damage from floods is increasing ; occasioned more by the increased occupa- 
tion of areas that are sometimes flooded than by any increase in the volume 
of flood flows. 


8 A. Hazen, Flood Flows. (Wylie & Sons, 1930.) 


INLAND} WATER SURVEY 363 


‘ The land along any river may be divided into three parts :— 

‘ (1) The river channel, which all agree ought not to be encroached upon. 

“(2) The middle land, usually dry but sometimes flooded. 

“(3) The high land above all floods. 

“It is the increased occupation of the middle land that causes most of 
the trouble.’ 

This statement is largely applicable to this country, although conditions 
are different in many respects. Reliable data as to the volume of flood 
flows in past years are lacking in the case of all but one or two rivers. | It is 
well known that. river channels have been affected by artificial works, and 
that in many places houses have been built on land liable to occasional 
flooding. If any material alleviation is to be afforded to such areas by the 
River Catchment Boards a thorough study of the river flows is a first essential. 


47. Absence of co-ordination—The foregoing gives a general indication 
of the diversity of interests concerned with water conservancy in some 
form. Numerically there are believed to be, in round figures, over 800 
local authorities and joint boards for water supply ; some 300 water com- 
panies and over 1,000 private proprietors; 46 catchment boards at 
present established ; and over 500 electricity stations, in addition to canal 
authorities, pollution boards, fishery boards and hydro-electric under- 
takings.’ Private interests, such as mills and riparian owners generally, 
are innumerable. 

As has been mentioned, some of these bodies take gaugings and measure- 
ments and. keep records for their own purposes, but, so far as it has been 
possible to ascertain, these form a small minority, and in general there is 
an entire absence of co-ordination or of any organisation for systematic 
recording of data. 


III. Posst1BLE ORGANISATION AND CONTROL OF AN INLAND WATER 
SuRVEY By CENTRAL AUTHORITY. 


8. Examples of organisations in other countries —National water survey 
organisations have been in existence in many countries for a number of 
years. The practice abroad, so far as is exemplified in that of four 
representative countries reviewed in Memorandum B of this Report, is, 
however, by no means uniform. In three out of four cases the observation 
of rainfall is the function of a meteorological survey which is not only 
separate and distinct from that of stream and water storage measurements, 
but is itself the subject of diverse arrangement ; in Italy alone, with a very 
recent organisation on national lines, is the whole series of duties combined 
in a single service—the Servizio Idrografico Italiano. In Canada meteoro- 
logical observations are associated with and controlled by the Department 
of Marine ; in the United States the Weather Bureau is attached to the 
Department of Agriculture, while in Switzerland there is a Station Centrale 
de Meétéorologie, or Meteorologische Zentralanstalt. Stream measure- 
ments and gauging are undertaken in Canada by the Dominion Water 
Power and Hydrometric Bureau, which is a branch of the Department of 
the Interior. In the United States the duties are undertaken by the 
Geological Survey, similarly a branch of the Department of the Interior, 
as one of a group of activities carried on by five co-ordinate branches. In 
addition to this, measurements of river levels are made in certain cases by 
the Weather Bureau, which also issues flood warnings. In Switzerland 
there is a special Service des Eaux (Amt fiir Wasserwirtschaft) which devotes 
itself entirely to hydrometry and the economics of water development. 


364 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Particulars of the services in) other countries might be cited,® but the fore- 
going instances suffice to show the diversity of the systems in vogue on the 
Continent of Europe and in North America: 


9. Systems of measurement.—As described in para. 8, above, the 
authorities in other countries have adopted the direct method of measuring 
the flow itself and obtaining positive data for the study of such subjects as 
flood flows, their frequencies and magnitudes. 

In this country, however, the collection of rainfall statistics has been 
highly organised, but the direct method of measuring the flow has not been 
widely developed, with the result that the engineer who requires to know 
the yield of the rainfall, whether the quantity of water available or the 
maximum flood flow, is usually left in the position that he must make an 
approximate estimation of this by empirical formulz based upon the rainfall. 

It thus arises that, while engineers in other countries have at their command 
a store of data extending over many years for a scientific analysis of the 
subject, committees of British engineers, engaged upon the consideration of 
such important subjects as the assessment of compensation water and 
floods in relation to reservoir practice, have had to confess themselves 
hampered by an insufficiency of such data; and the engineers of catchment 
boards responsible for the control of rivers, to whom measurements of the 
river flow over a series of years are of primary importance, have, in many 
cases, to begin taking river gaugings practically de novo. 


10. Ideal to be aimed at for this country.—The organisation of a survey 
for the purpose of providing hydrometric data in connection with water 
conservancy must be considered in its broader aspects in relation to the 
general conditions and requirements of the particular country concerned. 
The various systems adopted in other countries have been referred to as 
affording some useful guidance from their example and experience rather 
than to enable a model which can be copied to be selected. ‘The conditions 
differ very materially; for instance, irrigation, which is vital in some 
countries, is of minor importance in Great Britain ; hydro-electric develop- 
ment is a necessity in many countries and is of increasing importance here ; 
floods on British rivers do not compare in magnitude with those experienced 
in some parts of America ; and in many cases there remain in those countries 
very extensive water resources as yet undeveloped. 

In Great Britain, on the other hand, the predominant interest is the ever- 
increasing need of public water supply for domestic and trade purposes, 
while, to a very large extent, the more economically available and accessible 
sources have already been appropriated and developed. Second only to 
this in importance are the problems of drainage, floods, motive power, 
navigation and fishing. 

Though the organisations of other countries, therefore, do not afford a 
model, their experience, particularly that of the United States, points to 
two important principles: (a) that the investigational activities of a survey 
should be segregated from those related to construction and administra- 
tion ; and (6) that continuous and reliable records can be collected only by 
the State; ‘those collected by other agencies, however meritorious and 
serviceable in themselves, will be liable to lack of continuity, will not be 
generally available to the public, and will be open to suspicion as to 
reliability.’ ° 

If these principles be accepted, as in the opinion of the Committee they 
should, it necessarily follows that the organisation of a water survey should 
be a national undertaking. The ideal to be aimed at for Great Britain, 
therefore, is a Government department (or section of a department) working 


® Trans. of First World Power Conference, vol. i. 10 See Memorandum B. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 365 


as a central hydrometric authority in the closest co-operation with the 
Rainfall Organisation and the Geological and Ordnance Surveys, and 
independent of any interest concerned with the use or control of water. 

This ideal implies that the authority, conducting a scientific research for 
the benefit of the community, should be financed by public funds and 
provided with necessary powers. The Committee consider that this should 
not prove to be an impossibility in view of the very different attitude now 
adopted by the Government towards scientific research compared with that 
of fifty years ago, provided the need is made sufficiently clear and the 
demand adequately supported by those directly concerned. 


11. Review of available data—With a view to exploring this position the 
Sub-committee appointed to collect data has obtained a number of memor- 
anda from members of the Committee and others representative of the 
various interests. These are annexed as an Appendix to this Report. 


A.—The bibliography indicates the very diverse sources which have to 
be consulted in order to obtain the limited amount of information on the 
subject at present published. 


B.—Contains brief particulars of the organisations for water survey in 
the United States of America, the Dominion of Canada, Switzerland and 
Italy. 


C.—Describes the existing organisation and the work of the British 
Rainfall Organisation. Sub-memorandum :— 
C (1).—Describes the rainfall information needed in relation to inland 
water survey and the arrangements necessary to obtain the data. 


D.—Deals generally with the problem of water survey as regards surface 
water ; the routine of the necessary measurements and observational work, 
and its application to the various water interests. Sub-memoranda :— 

D (1).—Summarises the present position in regard to public water 
supplies in England and Wales, and is supplemented by D (1) (a) in 
regard to the records of water supply authorities. 

D (2) and D (2) (a).—Give a detailed account of the catchment 
boards recently established, and are supplemented by D (2) (8), (c) and 
(d), which describe the gaugings taken in three typical instances. 

D (2) (e).—Describes the work as regards river gauging of a typical 
rivers board dealing with pollution. 

D (2) (f).—Describes the interest taken in the subject by the Motor 
Boat Association, representing the views of the owners of motor boats 
who use the rivers for pleasure purposes. 

D (3).—Indicates the water records kept by hydro-electric companies 
ae points out the importance to them of long-period records of river 

ow. 

D (4).—Explains the water requirements of the generating stations of 
authorised electricity undertakings, and is supplemented by D (4) (a) 
and (bd), giving particulars of the gaugings in two typical instances, and 
by a schedule of the flow of some fifty rivers. 

D (5).—Describes the water requirements generally with regard to 
canals and navigable rivers. 

D (6).—Deals with the question of river gauging in relation to water 
pollution from the point of view of river boards and fishery boards. 


E.— Contains suggestions as to observations and measurements necessary 
in regard to underground water, and describes the work of the Geological 


366 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF. SCIENCE, ETC. 


Survey in connection with water supplies, It is supplemented by E (a), 
(8), (c) and (d), which give particulars in respect of four typical under- 
ground sources. 

F'.—Describes, generally the operations of river gauging and is supple- 
mented by two typical instances in F (a) and (0). 


These memoranda cover a wide field and are representative of the more 
important interests directly concerned with water conservancy, and generally 
they may be said to indicate the need and utility of a survey. 


IV. CoNcLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, 


12. Conclusions.—The conclusions at which the Committee have arrived 
as a result of their investigations are : 


(i) That, with regard to the first part of the Committee’s reference, the 
position of inland water survey in the British Isles is far from 
satisfactory and that a systematic survey of the water resources of 
Great Britain is urgently required ; and 

(ii) That, with regard to the second part of the Committee’s reference, the 
survey, to be of maximum utility, should be conducted by a central 
organisation, preferably under a Government department, inde- 
pendent of any interest in the administration, control or use of 
water. 


The Committee have further given consideration to the steps by which 
the work of the survey could be most expeditiously begun. ‘They have 
formed the opinion that it would not be feasible in the first instance, under 
present conditions, to move for the immediate establishment of an organisa- 
tion to be financed by public funds, but rather that a beginning should be 
made in a comparatively small way, financed by subscriptions from indi- 
viduals and bodies interested, with the prospect of being ultimately 
incorporated in a Government department. 

With this in view the Committee have approached the Council of the 
Institution of Civil Engineers and have been gratified to learn that the 
Council will be prepared, if they are so requested by the British Association, 
to appoint a Committee to investigate the feasibility of carrying out the 
objects outlined in this Report on a self-supporting basis. 


13. Recommendations. — 


In submitting this Report the Committee desire to place on record their 
high appreciation of the services rendered by Capt. W. N. McClean, the 
Hon Secretary. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 367 


APPENDIX: MEMORANDA. 
INDEX. 
Main Memorandum A.—Bibliography :—arranged by J. Glasspoole. 
Main Memorandum B.—Organisations in Certain Foreign Countries— 
Brysson Cunningham. 
Main Memorandum C.—British Rainfall Organization—E. G. Bilham. 
Sub-Memorandum C (1).—Rainfall Data in Relation to Inland Water 
Survey—E. G. Bilham. 
Main Memorandum D.—Surface Water—W. N. McClean. 
Sub-Memorandum D (1).—Water Supply Authorities—F. O. Stanford. 
Appendix (a).—Records of Water Supply Authorities (Gravitation)— 
C. C. Smith. 
Sub-Memorandum D (2).—Catchment Boards—J. C. A. Roseveare. 
Appendix (a).—Paper on Land Drainage in England and Wales— 
J. C. A. Roseveare. 
5} (b).—Thames Conservancy—G. J. Griffiths. 
(c).—River Trent Catchment Board—W. H. Haile. 
(d).—Great Ouse Catchment Board—O. Borer. 
(e).—West Riding of Yorkshire Rivers Board—J. H. Garner. 
a (f).—Motor Boat Association—C. Horton (Secretary). 
Sub-Memorandum D (3).—Hydro-Electric Companies—W. T. Halcrow. 
Sub-Memorandum D (4).—Electricity Stations —H. Nimmo. 
Appendix (a).—River Severn at Ironbridge—E. F. Hetherington. 
x (b).—River Aire at Esholt—T. Roles. 
bs (c)—Low Flows of Twenty Selected Rivers—H. Nimmo. 
Sub-Memorandum D (5).—Canals—T. Shirley Hawkins. 
Sub-Memorandum D (6).—Water Pollution—A. Parker. 
Main Memorandum E.—Underground Water—Bernard Smith. 
Appendix (a).—Water Level in the Chalk at Compton—D. H. Thomson. 
(b).—Methods for obtaining Water Levels in Wells and Bore- 
holes—F. J. Dixon. 


” 


5 (c).—Pumping Tests at New Borings for Water. Gauging 
over Long Periods from Wells in the Chalk—R. C. S. 
Walters. 


(d).—Notes on Rainfall, Rest Levels and Pumping Levels— 
A. E. Cornewall-Walker. 
Main Memorandum F.—River Gauging—W. N. McClean. 


Appendix (a) —Gauging of the River Severn at Bewdley—S. M. Dixon. 
(b).—Gauging of the River Thames—G. J. Griffiths. 


” 


Main Memoranpum A. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE More IMPORTANT PAPERS DEALING WITH 
INLAND WATER IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 
; 1. GENERAL. 
(a) Return as to Water Undertakings in England and Wales, published by the 
Local Government Board, 1914. 


This publication of 642 pages gives details as to every water undertaking 
in England and Wales, with particulars as to the various sources of supply 


368 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


in each case, whether from lakes, rivers or streams, upland surfaces, springs 
or underground sources. 
(b) The Final Report of the Water Power Resources Committee, 1921. 

A summary of the report is given in pp. 72-86. Appendix L (p. 146 
onwards) contains details of a system by which the compilation of records 
can be effected. 

(c) The Final Report of the Water Power Committee of the Conjoint Board of 
Scientific Societies. 

(d) ‘ Report on Stream Flow and Underground Water Records,’ Trans. 
Inst. Water Eng., vol. xxxiv, 1929. 

(e) Annual Reports of the Water Pollution Research Board of the Department 
of Scientific and Industrial Research. 

Recent reports have stressed the importance of systematic records of river 
flow in considering problems of the disposal of sewage and trade effluents. 
(f) Ministry of Health Advisory Committee on Water. Reportof the Technical 

Sub-committee on the Assessment of Compensation Water, 1930. 

The conclusions set forth in the report are based on records from a 
number of catchment areas, which are not available to the general public. 

Some comments on this report are given in the Report of the British 
Waterworks Association, 1930. 

(g) Water Pollution Research. Technical Paper No. 2: Survey of the 
River Tees. Part I : Hydrographical, published by the Department 
of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1931. 

This report gives the results of measurements of current flows in the 
tidal estuary of the river Tees during 1929. It also includes measurements 
of freshwater flow at different levels. "These measurements were made in 
surveying the river Tees in connection with pollution problems. Additional 
measurements were continued until about June 1932, and it is expected 
that these will be included in a Final Report of the Survey, to be published 
during the next year or two. The measurements have not included 
continuous records of water level. 

(h) British Waterworks Year Book and Directory, with statistical tables, 
published by the British Waterworks Association. 

The third edition, for 1930-31, contains useful information respecting 
871 water undertakings. The information deals with such subjects as 
sources of supply, filtration, distribution, hardness of the water, total 
quantity supplied and estimated population. 


2. THE MEASUREMENT OF STREAM FLow. 
(a) Report on Current Meters for use in River Gauging, 1922. 
(b) Report on River Gauging (dealing with methods and appliances suitable 
for use in Great Britain), 1925. 

These two reports were prepared by M. A. Hogan for the Committee on 
Gauging Rivers and Tidal Currents, of the Department of Scientific and 
Industrial Research. The former deals with the information available as 
to the conditions affecting the design and use of current meters, and gives 
a description of those types in use. 

(c) The Gauging of Rivers, statement on pp. 14 and 15 of the rath Annual 
Report of the Ministry of Health, 1930-31. 

This statement in reference to the more systematic gauging of rivers and 
underground waters is based on the work of a Committee set up by the 
Minister of Health to consider the subject and to act as a Sub-committee 
of the Ministry’s Advisory Committee on Water. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 369 


3. REcoRDS OF STREAM FLow. 


(a) The Investigation of Rivers, Final Report, by A. Strahan, N.F. Mackenzie, 
H. R. Mill, and J. S. Owens (published by the Royal Geographical 
Society, 1916). 

This report and the four interim reports, published from 1908 to 1911, deal 
with the discharges of the rivers Severn, Exe, Culm, Creedy and Medway, 
and contain a report on the rainfall of the Exe Valley. 


(b) Monthly Reports of the Thames Conservancy. 

These give daily values of the natural flow and rainfall over the Thames 
Valley above Teddington Weir. The Annual Reports of the Metropolitan 
Water Board, published since 1903, give monthly totals as above. 


(c) ‘ Gauging and Recording the Flow of Streams,’ by S. C. Chapman. 
Trans. Inst. Water Eng., vol. xv, 1910, p. 147. 


(d) ‘The Yield of Various Catchment Areas in Scotland,’ by W. C. Reid. 
Proc. Inst. Civil Eng., 1913. Paper No. 4048. 


(e) ‘ The Measurement of the Flow of the River Derwent, Derbyshire,’ by 
E. Sandeman. Proc. Inst. Civil Eng., 1913. Paper No. 4056. 


(f) ‘ Investigations into the Flow of the River Dee,’ by C. H. Roberts. 
Trans. Inst. Water Eng., vol. xxiv, 1919, p. 60. 


(g) ‘ Notes upon the Average Volume of Flow from Large Catchment Areas 
in Ireland ; the probable duration of stated rates of flow, etc., deduced 
from gaugings on the River Shannon at Killalow,’ byJ. Chaloner Smith. 
Proc. Inst. Civil Eng., Ireland, January 1919. 


(h) Annual Reports of the West Riding of Yorkshire Rivers Board. 
Some data relating to the flow of rivers have been given in these reports, 
e.g. in that on the river Don, issued in 1923 (Special Report No. 755): 


(i) Quarterly Reports of River Flow Records, Ness Basin, Rivers Garry and 
Moriston, 1929-31, by W. N. McClean. 

Continuous records of water level are kept at seven or eight principal 
points on the Ness Basin of 700 square miles, and the flows of the rivers 
Garry, Moriston and Ness have been measured for all water levels between 
ordinary low water and ordinary flood level. The reports give daily 
comparison of rainfall, water level and flow. The records are being main- 
tained and are prepared for publication when the opportunity occurs. 

A paper on this subject by W. N. McClean was published in the 
Geographical Fournal, vol. lxxvi, 1930, No. 1, pp. 39-49. 


(j) ‘ The Lochaber Water-Power Scheme,’ by W. T. Halcrow. Proc. Inst. 
Civil Eng., 1931. Paper No. 4796. 


4. LAKES AND RESERVOIRS. 


(a) ‘ Bathymetrical Survey of the Fresh-Water Lochs of Scotland,’ by 
Sir John Murray. Geographical Journal, vols. iv, ix, xv-xviii, xxii- 
XXVili, Xxx, xxxi, and xxxvi. 

(b) ‘ The English Lakes, with Bathymetrical Maps and Illustrations,’ by 
H.R. Mill. Geographical Fournal, July and August 1895. 

(c) Some statistics as to storage capacities of the various water undertakings 
are given in the Section on Waterworks Statistics in the Water 
Engineers’ Handbook and Directory, 1932, and in the Return as to 
Water Undertakings in England and Wales, published by the Local 
Government Board, 1914 (see 1, a). 

o2 


370 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


5. FLroop LEVELs. 


(a) ‘ Floods in England and Wales, 1875,’ by G. J. Symons. Proc. Inst. 
Civil Eng., 1876. Paper No. 1464. 


(b) ‘ Floods of May, 1886,’ by W. Marriott and F. Gaster. O.7.R. Meteor. 
Soc., vol. xii, 1886, pp. 269-282. 


(c) ‘ Floods inthe West Midlands,’ byHenry Southall. Q.7.R.Meteor. Soc., 
vol. xxi, 1895, pp. 28-39. 


(d) ‘ November Floods of 1894 in the Thames Valley,’ by G. J. Symons 
and G. Chatterton. Q.7.R. Meteor. Soc., vol. xxi, 1895, pp. 189-206. 
These papers give details of the heights attained by certain rivers during 
floods, which can be taken as typical of the information of this character 
available. 


(e) ‘ Report on Thames Floods,’ by A. T. Doodson, and the ‘ Meteorological 
Conditions associated with High Tides in the Thames,’ by J. S. Dines, 
published by the Meteorological Office, Geophysical Memoir No. 47, 
1929. 

An investigation carried out after the disastrous floods in the Thames, 

January 6—7, 1928, as to the causes of such floods. 


6. LAND DRAINAGE. 


(a) The Land Drainage Act, 1930. 

Part II, section 5, provides for the preparation of maps of catchment 
areas. In certain cases these have already been prepared, under Capt. 
Withycombe, by the Ordnance Survey. 

Part V, section 43, p. 41, refers to ‘ powers of Drainage Boards to enter 
and survey lands.’ 


(b) ‘ Land Drainage in England and Wales,’ by J.C. A. Roseveare. Trans. 
Inst. Water Eng., vol. xxxvii, 1932. 


(c) ‘ Present Conditions of Arterial Drainage in some English Rivers,’ by 
R. F. Grantham. Proc. Inst. Civil Eng., 1916. Paper No. 4184. 


7. UNDERGROUND WATER. 


(a) Water Supply Memoirs and publications on Wells and Springs of certain 
counties, published by the Geological Survey of Great Britain.. These 
give records of sinkings and borings ; each volume, dealing with a 
particular county, includes a detailed bibliography. 

The Water Supply Memoirs include those of Berkshire and Oxon., Bucks 
and Herts, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Nottingham and Lincolnshire, London 
Wells, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, 
Sussex, Yorkshire (E.R.), Cambridge, Huntingdon and Rutland; and 
Memoirs on Wells and Springs of Somerset, Sussex, Leicester, Derby and 
Dorset have already been published. 


(b) Various papers published in scientific and technical journals, including 
especially the publications mentioned on pp. 415, 420, and 421 of 
this Report. 


8. RAINFALL. 


A short bibliography of papers relating to the rainfall of the British Isles 
is attached to the Memorandum on the British Rainfall Organization. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 371 


Main Memoranpum B. 


ORGANISATIONS IN CERTAIN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
By Brysson CUNNINGHAM. 


The following particulars of organisations of water survey in foreign 
countries are derived from information which has been courteously supplied 
from official sources in response to inquiries. 


I. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


The collection of basic information on water, its quantity, quality and 
utility, is made in the United States by two Federal bureaus: the Weather 
Bureau and the Geological Survey. ‘The Weather Bureau collects informa- 
tion with respect to meteorological phenomena, including rainfall, snowfall, 
temperature, wind movement, etc., and also obtains records of stages and 
makes flood predictions for certain of the rivers which have sufficient 
length to permit of the forecasting of floods a considerable time in advance 
of their actual occurrence. The Geological Survey collects information 
on the quantity, chemical quality, availability and utility of water, both 
surface and underground, with reference to its control by reservoirs or 
levees, and to its utilisation for various purposes. 

Administratively, the Geological Survey is grouped with other bureaus 
in the Department of the Interior, and consists of five co-ordinate 
branches: the Geologic Branch, the Topographic Branch, the Alaskan 
Branch, the Conservation Branch, and the Water Resources Branch. 

The Water Resources Branch, which is primarily concerned with the 
collection of data relating to water, is, in turn, made up of five divisions : 
Division of Surface Water, Division of Ground Water, Division of Quality 
of Water, Division of Power Resources, and Division of Water Utilisation. 
The Water Resources Branch maintains at the present time 2,900 river 
gauging stations, of which about 2,000 are equipped with recording gauges. 

Records of systematic observations in meteorology are published by the 
Weather Bureau. Similar observations in regard to water, both surface 
and underground, are published by the Geological Survey. 

The cost of collecting the data and maintaining the above services is 
divided between the Federal Government and the several States. The 
Geological Survey conducts the major part of its investigational work in 
regard to water supplies in co-ordination with about 40 out of 48 States. 
This co-operative work is paid for jointly, but is supervised and controlled 
by the Geological Survey. 

The Director of the Geological Survey, who furnished the foregoing 
information, makes a striking comment which must be quoted in full :-— 

* One of the phases of our organisation, which may be of sufficient interest 
to justify me in mentioning it specifically to you, is the segregation of the 
investigational activities from those related to construction or adminis- 
tration. This segregation seems to us in this country to be of considerable 
importance because of the human tendency to protect in times of stress 
only those activities that are of greatest interest to the controlling officials, 
and because of the suspicion as to integrity or reliability of records that 
arises if the responsible agency in their collection has ex parte interests in 
the records. 

“It has been, I believe, well demonstrated here that continuous and 
reliable records needed as a basis for sound development or for satisfactory 


372 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


administration and adjudication can be collected only by the States or 
the Nation. Records collected by other agencies will be liable to lack of 
continuity, will not be generally available to the public, and will be open 
to suspicion as to reliability.’ 

Finally, it is to be noted that boundaries of districts in which the field work 
of the Surface Water Division is carried on, are made along State lines in 
order to simplify arrangements for State co-operation. In general, each 
district covers an area of one or more States. 


II. DoMINION OF CANADA. 


Observation of rainfall in Canada is the function of the Meteorological 
Service of Canada, which is a branch of the Department of Marine. ‘The 
Service maintains over 700 climatological and other stations making con- 
tinuous records of pressure, humidity, cloudiness, wind, precipitation and 
evaporation. Records are published monthly, and information is supplied 
free of charge. 

The measurement and recording of stream flow is undertaken by the 
Dominion Water Power and Hydrometric Bureau, which is a branch of 
the Department of the Interior and is carried on in each province by virtue 
of co-operative agreements between the Department and the respective 
provincial governments, under which the Department is responsible for 
the basic investigations with the requisite staff and equipment, while the 
provinces contribute to the cost of the field work but not on a uniform 
basis. The organisation has been developed over a period of years dating 
back to the end of last century, when stream measurement work was begun 
in Alberta in 1898. The scope of the hydrometric survey now includes 
every province in the Dominion, and the Bureau obtains and publishes all 
essential data on basic problems relating to stream regulation, flood control, 
navigation, water-power, irrigation, drainage, municipal water supply and 
other uses of water. The number of gauging stations throughout the 
Dominion at present in use is 451: others, having served their purposes, 
are discontinued. Many discharge measurements are made at points 
where no regular gauging station is established. There is a flood warning 
service to those districts where serious floods are liable to occur. 

Storage reservoirs to control stream flow have been constructed in 
many parts of Canada, principally to secure a regulated flow for water 
power development ; these structures have been mainly the result of private 
enterprise, but some have been built by the Dominion and provincial 
governments for various purposes. The policy of governmental assistance 
to water power development has been carried out on a large scale in the 
province of Quebec under the direction of the Quebec Streams Commission. 


III. SwiTzZERLAND. 


In Switzerland there are two independent organisations concerned with 
the collection of data relating to water. Rainfall and meteorological 
observations come under the jurisdiction of a Central Station of Meteorology 
at Zurich, while the collection of hydrometric data and the supervision of 
hydraulic development throughout the country fall within the domain of 
the Federal Water Service (Service fédéral des Eaux). 

Hydrometric observations include the levels of water in the lakes and 
important watercourses, estimation of discharges, the taking of profiles 
along and across certain watercourses, the soundings of lakes at certain 
points—in front of their outlets and of deltas, for example—the contouring 
of basins emptying into watercourses, etc. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 373 


For the observation of water levels there are about 300 stations on 
different watercourses and lakes, and the levels are read from one to three 
times a day by observers who receive a modest remuneration. More than 
half of the stations are provided in addition with automatic apparatus for 
recording the levels graphically. ‘These observations are reported according 
to their importance every day, every week, or every month. The most 
important stations only are permanent ; secondary stations are abandoned 
when observations have been taken for a sufficiently long period, generally 
from ten to fifteen years, and the apparatus removed to a fresh position. As 
regards hydraulic development, the Federal Water Service has supreme 
supervision over the utilisation of hydraulic power from all watercourses, 
public or private, and to this end they examine projects of hydraulic electric 
developments on the basis of a rational utilisation of the force as a whole. 
They investigate also cognate questions such as the regularisation of the 
flow from natural lakes, the creation of storage basins, the steps to be taken 
for reserving the exercise of river navigation, etc. 


IV. ITALY. 


The present Italian Hydrographic Service (Servizio Idrografico Italiano) 
is of recent formation, having been instituted at the close of the Great 
War, though it was preceded by two important regional bodies, the 
Hydrographic Office of the Royal Magistracy of Waters, located at Venice, 
and the Hydrographic Office of the Po, at Parma. In 1917 there were 
added to these two northern districts eight other regions throughout the 
country, and in 1923 the Italian Government placed them all under a 
central authority at Rome—the Third Section of the Consiglio Superiore 
dei Lavori Pubblici. 

The functions of the Service are twofold, comprising duties of a per- 
manent character and special research work. 

The permanent duties comprise :— 


(a) Meteorological observations, including temperature and rainfall. 

(b) Observations and measurements of surface water, covering levels of 
watercourses and lakes, the discharge of watercourses, the amount of 
sediment in suspension, the temperature of watercourses and lakes, 

(c) Observations and measurements of subterranean water. 

(d) The periodical publication in the Hydraulic Annual of the results 
of the above observations and measurements ; and 

(e) Collaboration with the Department of Civil Engineering in developing 
water utilisation concessions and in investigating important schemes of 
hydraulic works. 

The hydrometrical organisation at the end of 1930 had a total of 1,199 
observation posts, of which 748 were hydrometric stations and 451 stations 
for measuring discharges. 


Main Memoranpum C. 


THE BRITISH RAINFALL ORGANIZATION. 
By E. G. BitHam. 


The Organisation was founded about 1860 by G. J. Symons, and remained 
a private enterprise until 1919, when the accumulated records were acquired 
by H.M. Government, and the Meteorological Office, Air Ministry, assumed 
responsibility for continuing the work. The agreement under which the 


374 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


transfer was effected provided for the annual publication of British Rainfall 
in the same form as in the past, and for the continuance of other work 
done by the Organization ‘in like manner.’ This agreement has been 
scrupulously observed, with the result that cordial relationships have been 
maintained with the band of voluntary observers, and with engineers and 
others who were accustomed to look to the Organization for guidance in 
questions relating to the supply and interpretation of rainfall data. 

At the time of the transfer the Organization was rightly described by 
the retiring Director, Dr. H. R. Mill, as ‘ having no parallel in any country.’ 


OUTLINE OF THE ORGANIZATION. 


In its present form the Organization forms a section of the British 
Climatology Division of the Meteorological Office, an arrangement which 
ensures that the resources of the Organization may benefit to the fullest 
extent from the large amount of rainfall data included in the climatological 
returns rendered to the Meteorological Office by voluntary and official 
stations. 'The Meteorological Office has been since 1919 attached to the 
Air Ministry, and its general policy is guided by a Committee, the 
Meteorological Committee, appointed by the Air Council, on which the 
Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and various Government 
departments are represented. Full details will be found in the Report of 
the Meteorological Committee for 1920. 

The aim of the Organization is to encourage private persons and local 
authorities to supplement the work of paid Meteorological Office observers 
by making reliable observations of rainfall, to preserve such records for 
public use, and to publish the data as fully as possible in the annual volume 
British Rainfall. In pursuance of this object the Organization is at pains 
to get into touch with all persons who are known to possess rain-gauges 
and to invite them to forward a copy of their readings at the end of each 
year on a register (Form 1090 for inch measurements, Form 1091 for 
millimetre measurements) supplied gratis. A pamphlet, ‘ Rules for Rainfall 
Observers,’ originally drawn up by G. J. Symons, sets out the approved 
procedure for measuring rainfall and gives advice on the selection of a site 
and the type of gauge to purchase. This is sent gratis to observers, actual 
or prospective. 


The Observing Stations fall into a few well-defined categories :— 
Approximate 
Numbers 
(1) Official Meteorological Office stations—i.e. stations where 
the observers are whole-time or part-time employees of 


the Meteorological Office 4 : : : : 50 
(2) Climatological stations—i.e. stations where rainfall is 

measured as part of the routine of general climatological 

work f 2 : : : i : ; 300 
(3) Stations maintained by public authorities (mainly water 

engineers) or companies concerned with water supply or 

water power : { 4 } ; " ‘ 1,000 
(4) Stations maintained by other authorities, mainly private 

persons. : ; 4 A : i 4,000 


The observers in category (1) are paid for their observations and returns 
by the Air Ministry. In a few other cases where a voluntary observer is 
not available a small annual payment is made for observations of rainfall, 
and in a few additional cases the observer takes readings without payment 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 375 


from a gauge lent by the Office. With these few exceptions the Organization 
relies for its data on returns made voluntarily by persons who have purchased 
instruments themselves. 

In general, daily readings of rainfall are furnished by all observers, but 
for many stations in remote parts of mountains or moors only the monthly 
total is available. All stations in categories (1) and (2) and selected stations 
in other categories forward monthly reports of daily rainfall, for use in 
drawing the rainfall map published in the Monthly Weather Report. At 
the present time the number of stations reporting monthly is about 1,400. 
For about 600 of these stations the monthly total is printed either in the 
Monthly: Weather Report or the Meteorological Magazine, and for a large 
proportion of these the percentage of or difference from average is also 
given. The remaining stations render an annual return only. 

Most stations in category (1) and a few in other categories, maintain 
recording gauges, from the records of which data in regard to rainfall 
duration and the intensity in heavy falls are evaluated. Eighty-one such 
records were available in 1931. 


LocaL RAINFALL ORGANISATIONS. 


In many parts of the kingdom local interest in rainfall is fostered by 
organisations, often forming. a part of a local scientific society, which collect 
observations from their correspondents and publish the readings in various 
forms, usually in the newspaper Press. These organisations have no 
official status, but they represent some approach to a regional system of 
dealing with rainfall data. They vary much in regard to the scale of their 
activities, At one end of the scale we have an organisation in Ayrshire 
under the control of Mr. W. Dunbar of Kilmarnock, who publishes shortly 
after the close of each month a duplicated report containing readings for 
100 stations, together with a map showing the distribution of rainfall over 
the area. At the other end of the scale would be a small group of observers 
sending in records once a month to a secretary for insertion in the local 
paper. In some cases it is found possible to utilise the services of the local 
organiser to deal with questions of the exposure of gauges and reliability 
of readings, but such services are not utilised in any general or systematic 
way. A list of local organisations known to the British Rainfall 
Organization is appended :— 


Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field Club (Mr. C. P. Sinclair). 

Northamptonshire Natural History Society (Mr. R. H. Primavesi). 

Norfolk Rainfall Organisation (Col. H. C. Copeman). 

Barnstaple Atheneum (Miss Young), 

Mid-Wessex Rainfall Association (Rev. F. P. Synge). 

Cornwall Rainfall Association (Mr. A. P. Jenkin). 

Manchester and Stockport Rainfall Organisation (Mr. A. A. Barnes). 

Irish Rainfall Association (Mr. E. W. M. Murphy). 

Mr. A. J. Jenkins of Jersey, Miss Cordelia Marshall of Ambleside, and 
Mr. W. Dunbar of Kilmarnock also collect rainfall statistics regularly. 


EXTRACTION, CHARTING AND PUBLICATION OF Data. 


Monthly and annual totals for nearly all stations are plotted on maps, 
from which the charts of rainfall distribution published in British Rainfall 
on a greatly reduced scale are drawn. Maps are also prepared showing 
the annua] number of ‘ rain-days’ and ‘ wet-days.’ The monthly and 
annual total fall for every station is entered on a ‘ ten-year sheet.’ Stations 


376 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


are classified geographically, first by Districts (groups of counties), then 
by River Divisions. Ten-year sheets for stations in the same River 
Division are filed in sequence, the file thus forming, when completed, a 
ten-year history of the rainfall in each River Division of a District. This 
arrangement makes it possible readily to turn up the rainfall at any station 
in any month and year. 

For the great majority of stations the space allotted in British Rainfall 
is a line in Part III giving the diameter of the gauge, the height of ‘its 
rim above ground, the height above sea-level, the average rainfall (if known), 
the year’s total, the number of rain-days and the number of wet-days. 
Such data were published for 5,329 stations in 1931, 5,316 in 1930, and 5,180 
in 1929. The number has been in the neighbourhood of 5,o00 for the 
past twenty years. Unfortunately the distribution of stations is very 
uneven, the sparsely populated districts being poorly represented. "The 
number of records per 100 square miles of area is as high as 28 in Middlesex, 
but is under 1 in parts of Scotland and Ireland. About 300 new stations 
are enrolled every year, and about the same number terminate. The 
average ‘ life’ of a station is therefore about eighteen years. A frequent 
cause of the cessation of a record is the death of the observer or his removal 
to a new district. In some cases it is possible to arrange for the record to 
be continued by a relative or the new resident, and every effort is made to 
ensure such continuity, more particularly in the case of long records. 

The records for all stations are scrutinised in relation to ‘ heavy falls on 
rainfall days’ (British Rainfall, Part II, Section 7), but selections of stations 
are made for the purpose of studying the special aspects of rainfall dealt 
with in other sections of the volume. For example, 100 stations are used 
for the purpose of Part II, Section 2 (number of rain-days and wet-days), 
Section 3 (droughts), and Section 4 (rain-spells), 400 stations for Section 8 
(monthly rainfall, Table XX), and 150 stations for Tables XXI and XXII, 
giving the monthly and seasonal fall as a percentage of the average. 


RAINFALL DATA IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 


Reference has already been made to the Monthly Weather Report and 
the Meteorological Magazine. Other Meteorological Office publications 
containing rainfall data are the following :— 

The Weekly Weather Report gives weekly and seasonal totals of rainfall 
at each of sixty stations, together with the heaviest fall in each week and 
the relation of the weekly total to the normal. General values !! for Districts 
are also given. 

The Observatories Year Book contains hourly values of rainfall at the four 
Observatories: Aberdeen, Eskdalemuir, Richmond and Valentia; also 
monthly totals of duration in each hour. For Richmond, Surrey, daily 
values of water level in a well are given. 

The Book of Normals (M.O. 236, Section V) contains monthly and 
annual values of average rainfall for the period 1881-1915 at 578 stations, 
and also general averages for the British Isles and its major divisions. 
Monthly averages of the number of rain-days at certain stations will be 


11 In the nomenclature of the British Rainfall Organization ‘ general value’ 
means the average for an area. In the Weekly Weather Report the quantity 
represented by the weekly (or seasonal) general value for a District is the space- 
average of the percentage of normal rainfall in a given week (or season) at five 
selected stations in that District. This value is briefly referred to as the ‘ District 
value. . 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 397 


found in the Book of Normals, Section I. Section II contains weekly, 
monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, seasonal and annual normals for Districts. 
Section III contains small-scale maps showing the monthly and annual 
average distribution of rainfall over the British Isles. Section IV includes 
tables showing the range of variation of rainfall and of the number of 
rain-days at twenty-eight stations. 

Mention should also be made of the Rainfall Atlas of the British Isles, 
published by the Royal Meteorological Society. This contains monthly 
and annual maps of average rainfall, two maps showing the distribution of 
rainfall in the wettest year (1872) and the driest year (1887), and a series 
of maps showing the distribution of rainfall as a percentage of the normal 
in each year from 1868 to 1923. ‘The Introduction, by Dr. H. R. Mill, 
gives the history of the British Rainfall Organization and contains a valuable 
discussion of the data represented in the charts. 


AVERAGES. 


The standard period for which averages are calculated is 1881-1915. 
One of the aims of the Organization is to produce a map of Annual Rainfall 
for the whole of the British Isles, on the scale 2 miles = 1 in. The 
importance of completing this map was stressed by the Water Power 
Resources Committee in paragraph 276 of its Final Report. The position 
(December 1931) is now as follows :— 

England and Wales 1881-1915 (Rainfall Survey) maps completed for 
about two-thirds of the area; work now in progress on Cumberland, 
Leicestershire, Rutland, Gloucestershire, Bucks, Berks, Herts, Middlesex, 
London and Cornwall. Remainder of area already mapped by Dr. H. R. 
Mill, but not for standard period. 

Scotland 1881-1915 maps completed for about half the area. Of the 
remainder about half has already been mapped, but not for standard period. 

In drawing these maps all available information is used, averages for 
stations with short records being weighted to the standard period by com- 
parison with nearby stations having standard averages. The averages so 
computed are included in Part III of British Rainfall. Reduced copies 
of specimen maps and a description of the method used in their preparation 
are given in articles published in Part IV of British Rainfall, 1928 and 1929. 

It should be emphasised that the Rainfall Survey maps are not regarded 
as representing the ‘ last word’ on the subject of the rainfall of a specific 
small area. If required to produce a map, e.g. for the purpose of a water 
supply scheme, the British Rainfall Organization would prefer to go over 
the ground again, and in its final form the map might differ slightly from 
the original Survey map, where the lines are naturally somewhat generalised. 
Ad hoc maps for such purposes can usually be prepared at short notice even 
for areas not yet covered by the Survey. 


RUN-OFF. 


The British Rainfall Organization is not, in present circumstances, 
officially concerned with run-off. The volumes of British Rainfall contain, 
however, certain data which are related to this aspect of hydrology. Each 
volume contains a chapter on evaporation and percolation records. British 
Rainfall, 1931, contains values of rainfall, percolation and calculated 
evaporation at four stations, and of evaporation measured from a free 
water surface in a tank at twelve stations. 


378 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


PROFESSIONAL WORK. 


The Organisation is frequently consulted in connection with the evaluation 
of rainfall for water supply or water power purposes, and any such evaluations 
included in Water Bills generally rest on the authority of the Organization. 
Work of this character is regarded as ‘ professional work’ and is performed 
under the terms set out in an official form (Form 928) which requires the 
applicant to sign a form of agreement (Form 927). Inthe form of agreement 
it is definitely stated that ‘ the opinion and advice shall be limited to con- 
sideration of rainfall, and shall not extend to such matters as evaporation, 
percolation, run-off, or other cognate questions.’ In brief, the Organization 
is prepared to accept responsibility for estimating the average amount of 
rain that may be expected to fall on an acre, but is not prepared to estimate 
how much of it may be available for purposes of consumption or power. 


OTHER INQUIRIES. 


The records of the Organization may be consulted free of charge at the 
Meteorological Office, Exhibition Road, S.W. 7, between the hours of 
10 A.M. and 4 P.M. on Mondays to Fridays, 10 A.M. to I P.M. on Saturdays. 
Replies to inquiries which can be dealt with by reference to the files of 
rainfall data are furnished at a small charge to cover the cost of the clerical 
work involved. 


RESEARCH WORK. 


Original papers on rainfall and associated subjects are included in Part IV 
of British Rainfall. Recent volumes have included important papers on 
the exposure of rain-gauges by F. Hudleston, M.Inst.C.E. Lists of 
published papers will be found in the volumes for 1925 and 1900. A short 
bibliography of the more important papers on the rainfall of the British 
Isles which have appeared in British Rainfall and elsewhere is appended. 


Syort BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PAPERS RELATING TO THE RAINFALL 
OF THE BriTISsH ISLES. 


M. ve Carte S. SALTER: The Rainfall of the British Isles. University of 
London Press, Ltd. 

C. E. P. Brooks and J. GLassPpooLe : British Floods and Droughts. Ernest 
Benn, Ltd. 

H. R. Mitt: ‘ Mean and Extreme Annual Rainfall over the British Isles,’ 
Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, 1903. 

H. R. Mitt and M. bE CaruE S. SALTER: ‘ Isomeric Rainfall Maps of the 
British Isles,’ O.¥.R. Meteor. Soc., vol. xli, 1915, pp. 1-39. 

J. GrasspooLe: ‘ The Fluctuations of Annual Rainfall,’ British Rainfall, 
1921, pp. 288-300. 

M: pe Carte S. SALTER and J. GLAsspooLe: ‘ Fluctuations of Annual 
Rainfall considered Cartographically,’ O.7.R. Meteor. Soc., vol. xlix, 1923, 
pp. 207-225. 

J. GuassPoote : ‘ A comparison of the Fluctuations of Annual Rainfall over 
the British Isles,’ British Rainfall, 1922, pp. 260-266. 

J. GiassPooe: ‘ Fluctuations of Annual Rainfall: A comparison of 35-year 
Rainfall Averages over the British Isles for different groups of 35 years 
falling in the period 1868 to 1921,’ British Rainfall, 1923, pp. 238-256. 

J. GrassPooe: ‘Fluctuations of Annual Rainfall, Three Driest Consecutive 
Years,’ Trans. Inst. Water Engineers, vol. xxix, 1924, pp. 83-110. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 379 


J. Giasspoo_e : ‘ Fluctuations of Monthly Rainfall,’ British Rainfall, 1922, 
PP. 234-259. 

J. GuasspooLe: ‘ General Monthly Rainfall over the British Isles, 1881 
to 1924,’ British Rainfall, 1924, pp. 256-266. 

W. N. McCiean: ‘An Analysis of Scottish Rainfall Records. Rainfall 
of the driest periods of one month and upwards,’ Trans. Inst. Water 
Engineers, vol. xxx, 1925, pp. 95-118. 

J. GuassPooLe: ‘ Average and Extreme Seasonal Rainfall over the British 
Isles,’ Trans. Inst. Water Engineers, vol. xxxiii, 1928, pp. 51-69. 

J. GiasspooLe: ‘ The Distribution over the British Isles in Time and 
Space of the Annual Number of Days with Rain,’ British Rainfall, 
1926, pp. 260-279. 

F. HupLeston: ‘ Experiments with Rain-gauge Shields at Hutton John, 
Penrith.’ Reports areincluded in British Rainfall, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 
1930 and 1931. 

J. Giasspoore : ‘ Areas Covered by Intense and Widespread Falls of Rain,’ 
Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, 1930. 

J. GuasspooLe: ‘ The Reliability of Rainfall over the British Isles,’ Trans. 
Inst. Water Engineers, vol. xxxv, 1930. 

J. GuasspooLe : ‘ Heavy Falls of Rain in Short Periods (two hours or less),’ 
Q.3.R. Meteor. Soc., vol. lvii, 1931, pp. 57-64. 

A. A. Barnes: ‘ Rainfall Reviewed, A Common Long-average Period for 
each Country of the British Isles,’ QO.¥.R. Meteor. Soc., vol. lviii, 1932, 
pp. 126-142. 


Sus-MEMoRANDUM C (1). 


RAINFALL DATA IN RELATION TO INLAND WATER 
SURVEY. 


By E. G. BitHam. 


In Memorandum C the arrangements for dealing with rainfall data, as 
they exist at present, are briefly described. It is now proposed to consider 
the particular aspects of rainfall which call for attention in relation to 
inland water survey. The subject may be treated conveniently under two 
main headings :—(I) The type of data needed, and (II) The arrangements 
necessary for supplying the data. 


I. THe Type or DATA NEEDED. 


In any study relating to inland water, whether surface water or under- 
ground water, the rainfall is of primary importance because it represents 
the starting-point in the sequence of physical operations, the final result of 
which is seen in the variation of river flow, of lake level or underground 
water level. One may assume that when an Inland Water Organisation 
comes into existence it will have two main aims : (a) the determination, by 
direct measurement, of the amount of water that finds its way into streams 
or goes into underground storage; (b) the investigation of the relationship 
between such amounts of water and the amounts which are deposited on 
the catchment area in the form of rain. ‘The first essential, so far as (b) is 
concerned, is that there should be sufficient rain gauges in the catchment 
area and that they should be so exposed and distributed that reliable 
estimates of the general rainfall over the area during a given period can 
be made. Since the rise and fall of river level at a given gauge point 


380 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


represents the integrated effect of the drainage over the whole catchment 
area above the gauge point, we must assume that changes of level in the 
river will be related to the general rainfall over the area, and the scheme of 
operations must be planned in such a way that the general rainfall can 
readily be evaluated as a matter of routine. 

It may be remarked, in passing, that at any given season the fraction 
of the rainfall, incident on a given area, that finds its way into a stream 
depends on the geological characteristics of the area. This is of course 
quite well known, and the object of mentioning it here is to point out 
that in areas where there are wide variations of geological structure it may 
be necessary to make separate evaluations of the rainfall for subdivisions 
of the area based on geological considerations. This would be a point 
to bear in mind when selecting sites for rain gauges. 

The next point that arises is the question as to how often it is necessary 
to read the gauges. For certain purposes, particularly the investigation of 
flood levels, it would be necessary to have continuous records of rainfall 
furnished by recording gauges, at least at a few points within the catchment 
area, but we must assume that the majority of gauges will continue to be 
ordinary gauges of the type in which rain is collected in a receiver and 
read by eye in a graduated measure. Hitherto it has been customary, in 
systematic studies of rainfall and run-off, to deal with calendar monthly 
values. That is, for example, the method adopted by the Thames 
Conservancy, whose reports show in parallel columns the total discharge in 
the month over Teddington Weir, and the general rainfall in that month 
in the Thames Basin above Teddington Weir. If that scheme were 
standardised as the normal procedure under the Inland Water Survey 
Organisation, it would suffice, therefore, if monthly totals of rainfall were 
available for all stations. In practice daily readings of rainfall are made 
by the majority of observers contributing returns to the British Rainfall 
Organization, the monthly totals being arrived at by summation of the 
daily readings. At certain stations, particularly in remote spots on 
mountains or moors, it is impracticable to read the gauge every day and 
the rainfall is, at such stations, normally allowed to accumulate for the 
whole month and then read. ‘There is no evidence to show that a monthly 
total measured directly in this way is not on the whole as reliable as a 
monthly total obtained from separate daily measurements. If the month 
is adhered to as the major unit of time for Inland Water Survey purposes, 
no need arises therefore for any change from existing practice in regard to 
rainfall measurements. 

Captain McClean, however, has on more than one occasion expressed 
the view that a fixed interval such as a month is inappropriate, and that 
for such studies as are contemplated the days should be grouped into 
“rain periods’ and ‘ dry periods.’ In this Memorandum we need only 
consider the pros and cons of that view in so far as they bear on rainfall 
data. From the observing point of view the only stations affected are those 
where gauges have hitherto beenread onlyonceamonth. Captain McClean’s 
proposal involves either reading such gauges daily or making use of some 
form of recorder, the chart of which when removed at the end of the month 
would yield readings foreach day. The latter solution presents considerable 
difficulty, which will be realised when it is remembered that the instrument 
would have to work for a month without attention and would have to be 
fitted with some form of heating device to prevent its being thrown out 


12 At certain stations the gauge is read weekly, fortnightly or at irregular 
intervals, depending on the weather, as well as on the first of each month. % 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 381 


of action by frost. Experience shows, however, that if daily readings are 
available from a number of gauges in a given area, the monthly total measured 
in a mountain gauge can be apportioned with fair accuracy among the wet 
periods occurring in a given month. The loss of precision due to the 
absence of daily readings from particular localities would therefore not 
be very serious. 

Given a sufficient number of stations with daily readings, supplemented 
by monthly totals at stations inaccessible for daily readings, the evaluation 
of general rainfall for rain periods presents no serious difficulty. ‘The most 
accurate method of making such evaluations is to draw large-scale rainfall 
maps, measure the areas with falls between given limits, and thus arrive 
at the space-average or general fall. A quicker and only slightly less 
accurate method is to make a selection of stations, well spaced within the 
area, and determine by a preliminary investigation the relation between 
the arithmetical average of the falls of these stations and the general 
rainfall determined from maps. When this has been done the selected 
stations can be used for the routine evaluations and the maps can be dis- 
pensed with.!* The number of stations need not be very great provided 
they are well distributed and the gauges are well exposed. It is found, 
for instance, that the arithmetical average of the falls measured at twenty- 
four selected stations in the Thames Basin gives a very close approximation 
to the monthly general rainfall deduced by a planimetric method from a 
rainfall map based on readings from over two hundred stations in the basin 
and its vicinity. Six stations suffice to yield an equally close approximation 
in the Lea Basin. When dealing with shorter periods than a month rather 
more gauges would be desirable in order to ensure that localised heavy 
rains were not missed, but it would appear unnecessary, in routine work 
on run-off problems, to deal with daily readings from more than a dozen 
or so gauges in each catchment area, the number depending of course on 
the size of the catchment. A close preliminary study of the rainfall in 
the area would, however, be necessary before the gauges whose records 
were suitable for such routine use could be selected. Such a survey would 
necessitate reference to the records from many more gauges than would ° 
suffice for routine evaluations of general rainfall, and it should be made 
clear that the British Rainfall Organization would always regard it as essential 
to collect records from all available gauges for the purpose of rainfall study 
in general. 

Returning to the question of the time interval, my considered view is 
that while the study of rain periods may possess substantial advantages 
for dealing in detail with the run-off data for single catchments (such as 
might form the subjects of special memoirs), it would be necessary to adhere 
to definite calendar periods such as months, or groups of months, for the 
purpose of any regular periodical publication containing results from all 
the catchments participating in the scheme. 

In regard to the use of recording gauges, I do not regard it as necessary 
to have many in each catchment area. For detailed study of particular 
falls, especially falls associated with floods, the records from one or more 
continuously recording gauges with daily charts would undoubtedly prove 
useful if not essential. Any such gauge should be in the charge of a com- 
petent employee, who could be relied upon to give it the necessary attention, 

*and it would be necessary, in each case, to take daily readings for check 
purposes from an ordinary 5-in. gauge close to the recording gauge. 


18 The routine evaluations could, if necessary, be revised at a later date by the 
British Rainfall Organization, using the cartographic method. 


382 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Since the study of run-off involves questions of evaporation and per- 
colation, it would be desirable to set up evaporation tanks and percolation 
gauges in each area. The word ‘ desirable’ is employed because I think 
it would be well to encourage but impolitic to press water supply authorities 
and other participants to incur the expense of such installations, the value 
of which is problematical. I feel sure, however, that investigators would 
feel the need of some direct measurements—even rough measurements—of 
evaporation and percolation. In seeking the co-operation of authorities 
in any general scheme for Inland Water Survey, the desirability of installing 
evaporation tanks and percolation gauges, at least in a few of the more 
important areas, should therefore be borne in mind. 


II. THE ARRANGEMENTS NECESSARY FOR SUPPLYING THE DATA. 


The British Rainfall Organization has always relied for its information 
mainly on data contributed voluntarily by interested persons. Among 
these, authorities directly connected with water supply have always formed 
a very important section. I assume that it will be the policy of any 
organisation formed for the purpose of Inland Water Survey to follow the 
lead of the British Rainfall Organization in this respect. If that is done 
I have no doubt that the Survey Organisation will have no difficulty in 
obtaining the rainfall data that it needs without expenditure other than 
perhaps a few small annual payments to observers in remote and thinly 
populated areas. 

Except in so far as it will be necessary in some cases to improve the 
distribution of gauges over the catchment areas, it may be said that the 
means for supplying the rainfall data already exist in a fairly complete 
form. 'The need for more gauges in certain areas becomes very evident 
when it is recollected that in more than one recent water bill it has been 
necessary to make provision for the determination of the rainfall of the 
catchment area as a preliminary to the final assessment of compensation 
water. One of the first steps to be taken in any river basin where gauging 

“operations are contemplated is to go over the ground for the purpose of 
ensuring that such rain gauges as already exist are giving satisfactory results, 
and to arrange for starting such additional records as may be necessary 
to secure satisfactory evaluations of general rainfall. 

The gathering grounds under the control of existing water undertakings 
are, in the majority of cases, reasonably well furnished with rain gauges. 
Normally, therefore, it will be necessary to invoke the aid of private persons 
in extending the distribution of gauges into areas where the representation 
is unsatisfactory, and the fact has of course to be faced that the absence 
of human habitations makes it impossible in some areas to obtain readings 
through the usual channels. ‘The Meteorological Office has itself installed 
gauges in certain remote areas, e.g., in the region above Borrowdale in 
Cumberland, and at Newbridge and Cranmere Pool on Dartmoor, and 
arranged for a monthly visit to be paid to the gauges by a local resident. 
In some cases a small annual payment is made for such services. 

Whatever form the organisation for water survey may eventually assume, 
it is quite obvious that it will have to maintain a close liaison with the 
British Rainfall Organization. ‘The liaison should extend to all matters 
relating purely to rainfall and should include : ° 


(1) Advice by the British Rainfall Organization in regard to the selection 
of sites for new gauges and in regard to the reliability of records 
from existing gauges. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 383 


(2) Advice by the British Rainfall Organization in association with the 
Instruments Division of the Meteorological Office, in regard to 
instruments, including evaporation gauges and percolation gauges. 

(3) The selection by the British Rainfall Organization of stations whose 
records should be used for routine evaluations of general rainfall. 

(4) Co-operation with the British. Rainfall Organization in obtaining 
additional observers where necessary. 

(5) Avoidance of overlapping in regard to publication of rainfall data. 

In regard to (5) it may be pertinent to point out that twenty years ago 
there were, in the British Isles, four separate bodies concerned in collecting 
and publishing meteorological data, viz. :— 

The Meteorological Office. 

The British Rainfall Organization. 
The Royal Meteorological Society. 
The Scottish Meteorological Society. 

There is now only one such body, the Meteorological Office, of which 
the British Rainfall Organization forms a constituent part. This unification 
of control has taken years to achieve, and has proved advantageous to all 
concerned. Any arrangement made for the supply of rainfall data to the 
Water. Survey Organisation should be such as to comply with the general 
principle of unification. It should not prove difficult to formulate a scheme 
under which the British Rainfall Organization maintained general super- 
vision of the rainfall data, so that reports rendered by voluntary observers 
remained reports to the British Rainfall Organization, although the scheme 
might involve their passing through the hands of Water Survey officers at 
some stage. 

Such are the general principles which should, I suggest, be kept in 
mind when framing an actual scheme for Inland Water Survey on a national 
scale. 


Main Memoranpum D. 


SURFACE WATER. 
By W. N. McC.ean. 


1. MEASUREMENTS AND RECORDS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 


In many other countries measurements and records of river flow appear 
to be better organised than similar work in the British Isles. Probably this 
is due to the particular problems to be solved and to the lack of rainfall 
records, such as those of the British Rainfall Organization. 

‘The existing organisation of Inland Water Survey in other countries is 
dealt with in Memorandum B. 


2. MEASUREMENT AND RECORDS IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 


All over the country a great many surface water measurements have 
been made, and in many cases there are long records of flow, or of water 
levels. Almost all of these measurements and records arise out of com- 
mercial developments of water and, as is only natural, the measurements 
made have been such as each development required. The measurements 
of a water supply authority are generally those of the actual supply, and of 
the water required by law to pass down the stream or river; and there are 
usually no measurements of total run-off from an area. 


384 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Water power undertakings, canals, electricity power stations, pumping 
stations, etc., practically measure only the water that they use, or may require 
to use. Even with river boards, the total flow of the river has not been 
dealt with seriously. At most ports and harbours will be found automatic 
tide gauges recording the rise and fall of the tide; but there are few of 
these to be found on any of our rivers, and generally a daily reading over 
a weir gives the estimate, by a laboratory formula, of the day’s flow. If a 
questionnaire went round to all water authorities and river boards, the 
answers would probably indicate a host of measurements and quite a 
number of records, dependent on some semi-appropriate formula. 

In these days, instruments and apparatus of considerable accuracy and 
efficiency exist for the measurement of river or stream flow. Measurements 
can be made in various ways, some of which, no doubt, require more 
experience for perfecting. The improved methods of measurement 
should be adopted, and with their adoption would come the keeping of 
continuous records of water level and flow at many important sites on our 
rivers ; and, in addition, records of rises and falls in lake levels, total flows 
from supply catchment areas, and water used daily in canals to cover 
evaporation, leakage and traffic. 

From the measurements and records the engineer would be assured of 
the correct values of available water on which to base his scheme and to 
design the works. 

Water authorities, corporations and individuals are in a position to keep 
the necessary records. Fishery boards, mill owners and water power 
companies, water supply authorities, canal and river authorities, boating 
associations, etc., have their data only in such a form as is sufficient for 
their own purposes. Every one of these individuals and authorities 
should be encouraged to see that, in the future, their measurements show 
not only what they themselves take but, when possible, how much they 
leave for others. 

In the closely-woven pattern of water utilisation in our crowded country, 
no single interest can take away, divert, pollute, hold up, or change the flow 
of our rivers without affecting the interests and rights of other users. This 
country has, therefore, reached that stage when a comprehensive system of 
records of total flow is required in order that the quantities available may 
be known. 


3. WaTER SURVEY IN RELATION TO LAND SURVEY. 


The catchment areas of streams and rivers, the areas and depths of 
lakes, reservoirs, canals, etc., the lengths and sections of rivers, the sites 
of springs and the capacity of flooded areas are all ordinary survey work, 
and can be recorded on the Ordnance sheets or on suitable plans and 
tables. They are the static measurements of surface water, and once 
done only require keeping up to date. 

All these measurements require accuracy, and if not actually made by 
our Ordnance Survey should at least be supervised by that authority. 
The Ordnance sheets to-day give the boundaries or river catchments, the 
sources of streams and rivers, and the sites of lakes, canals, etc., and some 
springs. On the Scottish maps the depths of all lakes are given, and of 
some of the English lakes the depths are known. Flooded areas are denoted 
to some extent on Ordnance sheets, and on main rivers the limit of tidal 
flow is shown. Subsidence areas require to be included where subject 
to flooding. The general slope of river beds requires some representation 
by longitudinal section, with the marking of critical points and the addition 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 385 


of some standard sections of the river ~ likely points for water-level records 
and on typical reaches. 

These static measurements are the foundation work on which to build 
the continuous records of water level and flow. 


4. RAINFALL, STORAGE, AND FLow IN RELATION TO SURFACE 
WATER AND ITS MEASUREMENT. 


(A) Rainfall—The measurement of rainfall by rain gauges distributed 
over a catchment area provides the primary assessment of potential flow 
in the stream or river. In the absence of flow measurements, the total 
flow during any period is estimated from such assessment of rainfall by 
deducting certain assumed losses. Those losses are, in fact, the estimated 
difference between rainfall and run-off derived from some specimen areas 
where rainfall and run-off have been measured over a long period of years. 

In these specimen cases, the assessment of rainfall on the area depends 
on the method of working out the distribution, and must be uncertain unless 
there are a great number of gauges. In practice, the rainfall assessment is 
generally made for the year, and sometimes for each month. Even if the 
gauges are numerous and read daily, it would hardly be practical to make 
a daily assessment. On the other hand, the run-off measurement is a 
concentrated measurement which, with the proper apparatus, may be of 
great accuracy, and may be tabulated for any desired time interval—half- 
hour or three hours or the day. Owing to the present limitations of the 
rainfall assessment there is only an annual estimate of losses, and it is 
necessary to proportion this loss over the months of the year on the basis 
of the evaporation losses measured in a tank. 

This method of estimating run-off from the rainfall has been developed 
on the foundation of our long rainfall records, and in certain directions it 
has been standardised and accepted as a legal measure of run-off, It is 
recognised that this indirect measurement of surface water run-off is un- 
satisfactory and productive of very erroneous results. 

For accurate measurement of water, for any purpose, it is the actual 
continuous records of flow past a measuring point which are essential, and 
rainfall and other measurements then fall into their correct places for use 
in correlation to the measured flows. 

The point emphasised here is that, in fact, the measurement of surface 
water has been dispensed with in practice, because there exists a cheap 
method of estimating flow from rainfall. 

As one example of the danger of such an approximation one may take 
the example of the assessment of compensation flow (Ministry of Health 
Advisory Committee on Water: Report of Technical Sub-Committee on 
the Assessment of Compensation Water. H.M. Stationery Office, 1930). 
As other examples, one may take the cases of water power schemes, etc., 
where erroneous estimates of flow may make the scheme and wreck valuable 
existing interests or, conversely, may wreck a valuable scheme. 


(B) Storage.—Dealing with the whole of a river catchment area, storage 
may take many forms, but, in its widest sense, storage is represented by 
certain natural and artificial physical characteristics of the area which 
modify the intensity, duration and volume of the flow. The need for 
continuous measurement of storage, in its relationship to flow, becomes 
at once apparent. 

: ae forms of storage affecting surface water may be described as 
ollows :— 


386 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


* 

(a) Snow and ice, increasing the flows of the late spring and. causing, 
during a thaw, sudden heavy floods in the lowlands. 

(b) Ground saturation, causing quicker run-off in floods and a slower 
fall after the cessation of rain. 

(c) Tarns, lakes, reservoirs and canals, holding up and prolonging the 
floods and having varying effects on low flows. 

(7) Flooded areas, ditches, etc., in the lowlands, reducing the peak 
intensity of flood flows. 

(e) The capacity of the river channel and artificial channels in the low- 
lands, and of coastal embanked areas which keep out tidal flow. 
All of these affect the water levels and water slopes. 


The measurements of evaporation and condensation, etc., are subsidiary 
to the main measurements and, in fact, cannot be ascertained except through 
analysis of the completed records. 

The capacity for storage of different portions of a catchment is one of 
the principal factors governing intensity and duration of flood flows. When 
rainfall ceases, there are all descriptions of storage in action and, as the 
rainless period extends, the aggregate flow since rain ceased comes nearer 
and nearer to the measure of total area storage. An area will drain off in 
very similar fashion after each flood, subject to certain variants such as 
saturation or melting snow, etc. 

Therefore, after rain ceases, the aggregate flow measures, firstly, the 
flood capacity of the river and some flooded areas: a most valuable 
measurement combined with land survey and river-bed survey and water 
levels. Later, the aggregate flow measures the de-saturation of the area. 
The rains which fall in summer and do not run off are also a measure of this 
de-saturation volume. 

The continuous record of water level at carefully selected sites is the 
foundation of all problems connected with the various forms of storage. 

When the areas of lakes and reservoirs are known at different water 
levels and the outflow is known, the rate of change in water level of such 
areas yields the inflow value. 

When, on a river, the inflow to and outflow from a flooded area has 
been measured, the capacity of such flooded area can be estimated. 

The times of concentration at various points on streams and rivers are 
a measure of area storage. This is particularly applicable to reservoired 
areas, when the interposition of a reservoir lengthens the period of concen- 
tration according to its volume and its weir dimensions. 

In the control of floods, water level information on all these storage areas 
throughout the catchment and the knowledge of the times of filling and 
emptying such storages are of the first importance. 

The bearing of storage on the maintenance of good low flows is obvious 
and probably requires no further comment here. 


(C) Flow.—The River Basin is the obvious unit of area for the records 
of flow, and the general characteristics of the area will indicate the sites 
at which flow measurements should be made and at which continuously 
recorded water levels should be maintained. Gauge post water levels at 
numerous other sites will complete the picture. 

The principal object should always be the measure of aggregate flow as 
obtained by continuity of water level records. The actual measurements 
of flow, for all water levels, at a selected site should be done once and for 
all with the utmost accuracy. 

The aggregate flow which passes a gauging site during a flood or series 
of floods is only in a secondary manner affected by the configuration of 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 387 


the river—sundry minor losses will vary according to the duration of the 
floods and the extent of flooding. ‘Thus the aggregate flow of flood periods 
is a definite figure which may be compared with the rainfall; it is inde- 
pendent of the temporary effect of storage areas and of critical blocking 
points ; it is a figure alike of natural and of controlled flow, to be amended 
only by definite figures of impounded storage and by figures of remaining 
or residual off-flow down to some standard low-water level. 

The peak flows and their times at various points are due to configuration, 
natural or artificial, and their investigation gives the information required 
for river improvement or any required modification of storage and intensity 
of flow. 

The characteristics of the river reaches which determine the selection 
of the actual flow gauging site are better left to the Memorandum on River 
Gauging; it is the characteristics of the whole river basin which indicate 
the general position at which flow measurements are required. It may 
be that artificial works will create a site for flow measurements. ‘The values 
of flow ‘at well-chosen sites will be the best basis for estimates of flow at 
intermediate points. 

The selection of these sites and the continuous records of water levels 
should clearly come under the Catchment Boards; the actual measure- 
ments of flow at principal points should be carried out by trained men 
with the very best apparatus that can be devised. 

A river basin may be subdivided in a general way as follows :— 


(a) The uplands, mountain streams, tarns and springs and artificial 
reservoirs. 

(6) Main tributaries and main rivers in narrow valleys with, generally, 
a considerable water slope and no extensive flooded areas. 

(c) The same, passing through wide valleys with winding courses and 
sometimes lakes, and often with other considerable feeding streams. 

(d) Lowland plains at the junction of tributaries or in the final estuary 
of the main river. 


(a) Streams and springs are measured generally by weirs, preferably at 
the outlet of pools. 

These measurements are made at present only in connection with water 
supply and water power schemes, and the records are often discontinued 
after the completion of the works. With regard to other springs and 
streams it is unlikely that much will be done at this stage, and knowledge 
of rainfall and of measured streams will suffice. 

In any organisation of water measurements and records it is clear that 
water supply and water power authorities should instal apparatus for 
providing complete records of total run-off from their catchment areas. 

Undoubtedly these water supply and water power areas afford an 
excellent theatre for complete water measurement. A great number of 
rain gauges may be installed with daily readings and possibly others of a 
recording type. 

With suitable apparatus for the recording of water levels and flow, not 
only may the total flow be ascertained for any short or long period of time, 
but, in addition, accurate values of flow over different weir crests may be 
ascertained. Also, valuable data will be obtained, on the reservoirs, of 
the period of concentration of floods on upland areas. 

* All this data has already been called for by the Floods Committee of the 
Institution of Civil Engineers in order that a knowledge of flood flows may 
allow of correct design of reservoir spillways. Such data will eventually 


388 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


place the settlement of compensation water on a proper footing and save 
considerable outlay on works. 


(6) The narrow valleys where the river is confined during floods are 
distinctly suitable for flow measurements, especially if a pool reach is 
available or can be made by inserting a sunken weir. Such sites are well 
adapted to accurate current meter gaugings. 


(c) The open valleys and lake areas are eminently suitable for water level 
records which, coupled with flow measurements at the outlet from such 
areas, will give valuable information as to storage effect. 


(6) and (c) will provide the principal flow measurement sites before the 
river emerges on the final lowlands. ‘The continuous water level records 
may, in many cases, be maintained by canal undertakings or electrical 
power stations or river water supply stations or other works. 


(d) Lowland plains: The flow in these lowland plains may be difficult 
to correlate with water levels as the water slopes will vary considerably 
with rising and falling floods and general backing-up effects. It would 
seem more advisable to concentrate on measurement of channels, and so 
forth, and on the installation of well-situated water level stations. 

Improvements in storage capacity and, consequently, in water slope in 
these lowland areas appear to be the key to improved drainage ; and the 
fen areas are an example of what has been effected in this way. With 
increased capacity in the lowlands and with control of tidal inflow, quicker 
run-off through higher reaches may be aimed at without causing floods 
in the lowlands. 

The difficulties of control of tidal inflow on a navigable river are present 
in the problem of the Thames floods below Teddington. 


5. THE ROUTINE OF SURFACE WATER MEASUREMENTS (EXCLUDING 
RAINFALL). 


Section (3) deals with the land survey side of areas, lakes, reservoirs, 
waterways, river channels, etc. ‘These may be termed static measurements 
and the records of such measurements will lie, firstly, on the 6-in. or other 
scale Ordnance maps and, secondly, on such detailed plans and tables, etc., 
as may be necessary. 

The routine of water measurements covers the following procedure :— 

(a) Observational work on water levels. 

(b) Checking and filing of observational work. 
(c) Compiling the records on standard lines. 
(d) Analysis and publication. 


The measurement of river flow at gauging sites does not come under 
this routine work (see Memorandum F). The table of flows resulting 
from this measurement is used for the conversion of water levels into 
flows, at stages (b) or (c) of the above routine. 

It is, however, quite likely that at some gauging sites the continuous 
measurement of maximum velocity will be additional to the water level 
measurements. ‘There is need of a suitable recorder for this purpose. 


(a) Observational work: Water levels —Gauge posts read once or twice 
daily or occasionally. 

Automatic water level gauges. Charts changed weekly. Clock winding. 
Checking of graphs with gauge post readings. 

Returns to filing office with any comments. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 389 


Arrangements have to be made, in some cases, for payment to observers, 
for local repairs and maintenance, and for some system of supervision. 

Storage and flow controls.—At locks, weirs, etc., on canals and rivers and 
reservoirs the openings of sluices and gates, etc., and times thereof, have 
to be recorded, in addition to water levels. 

(6) Checking and filing at the filing office-——When the observers’ returns 
come in, there is considerable routine work necessary in suitable tabulation 
of readings and in the completion of graphs with the necessary gauge post 
checks, etc. ‘There will also be conversion of water levels into flows and 
the compiling of records from all the returns. 

(c) Forms of records——The main record will be a table of water levels 
and flows; and, generally speaking, it will be necessary to tabulate the 
water level and flow for each three hours of the day and to average these 
flows for the day. 

During principal floods, on the smaller areas, a second table will be 
required, dealing with half-hour periods, the values for each half-hour 
being averaged before filling in the 3-hourly values on the principal table. 

Total flows will be arrived at between one low water and the next low 
water, and these will be amended by any changes in reservoir storage and 
by values of remaining flow down to a standard low water; these latter 
values will emerge from the records in the course of a few years. 

In some cases a diagram of water levels may be a convenient form of 
continuous record. 

(d) Analysis and publication : Analysis of records (Summary) : 

(i) Dry weather fall of a river, residual flow after cessation of rain 
and temporary storage on area. Estimates of low flow for 
extended droughts. 

(ii) Concentration times, rates of rise and fall, peak intensities and 
duration of floods. 

(iii) Aggregate flows of long periods. Impounded storage and over- 
flow of reservoirs. 

(iv) Relation of flow to rainfall during flood periods and analysis of 
losses. 

(v) Comparison of gaugings at various points on a river and on 
similar rivers. 

(vi)) Frequencies of flow magnitudes. 

Publication Generally, the publication of records is in the form of an 
abbreviation of the full records kept. 

A usual publication is a graph for the year, giving the day-to-day flow 
above a horizontal time scale. 

Another form of publication is that of the daily frequencies of flow 
magnitudes for each month or year. 

A more complete form of publication, amenable to analysis, would give 
the aggregate flow from some selected date and the residual flow and amounts 
of impounded storage at low-water levels. 


6. APPLICATION OF ROUTINE TO THE VARIOUS WATER INTERESTS. 


One requires to visualise this routine work in action with the present-day 
organisations. 

In what follows I am trying to visualise, in my own way, those little 
modifications and additions to existing measurements and records which 
will change the individual work of the several water interests into something 
which will embrace the whole survey of surface water in its passage to the 


390 REPORTS ON THE STATE, OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


sea. It does not pretend to cover all points. It is intended to show that 
the quiet improvement, step by step, of our recording systems comes first, 
with only the helpful guidance of an. advisory organisation such as might 
be developed out of the beginnings of my ‘ River Flow Records” if it were 
strengthened by a small Council or by formation of an Association to deal 
only with surface water. 

Fishery Boards—Fishermen on all our lakes and rivers have their gauge 
posts and sometimes recorder instruments ; and observers are available. 
It is only necessary to arrange for the data to come into a local office for 
checking and tabulating. One would like to see, eventually, the preparation 
of monthly diagrams of water levels. Fishery Boards could often organise 
this basic work of water levels on our rivers. 

Boating Associations—The statement sent to the Committee by the 
Motor Boat Association is another indication of what may be done on the 
observational side, and here it would seem that the records should go’ to 
the Catchment Board offices. 

This statement is long, and is very briefly summarised in Appendix D (2) (f). 
It has been compiled with much care, and there is no doubt that these 
associations are able to carry through very good work, as is exemplified by 
the charts of small harbours produced by the Cruising Association. 

The Motor Boat Association might be a very useful body to assist in 
connection with records. 

Riverside towns and villages —Here again there should be no difficulty 
with the observational side. Supervision may be very necessary, as such 
centres often view this type of thing from a popular aspect. 

Private estates—There are often good opportunities for observational 
work on private estates ; and experience shows that the best observers are 
those with a routine job throughout the year. 

Water Supply Catchment Areas.—These areas are suitable for complete 
measurements and records, but the design of works and the control of 
flow and the diversion of water from natural catchments complicate the 
problem, and records of total flow are not often maintained. 

The changes in incidence of flow, due to impounding, etc., do not in 
any way falsify the records of aggregate flow ; and analysis of the records 
will give natural flow figures when required. In order that records of 
value may be obtained from these areas, the lay-out of the works should 
be designed for complete measurement, and the keeping up of records 
afterwards should be no side issue. 

Eventually, it is likely that systematic arrangements for measurement 
of total flow will amend, with advantage, present-day measurements of 
water authorities. 

The observational work covers rainfall, storage and flow. The checking 
and filing would fall to the authority’s office; where also the presentation 
of records in suitable form would be dealt with and certain investigation 
would be carried out. Even some additional filing and recording of 
neighbouring stream or river sites might become attached to these centres. 
They would form the proper centre for dealing with the upland records of 
river catchments. Supervision and: direction of these records should be 
under some superintendent of a central water survey authority. 

- Water Power Authorities —On the observational side, these are in similar 
case to water supply areas, and they should not be inferior in the routine 
work of records; but here again, when the works are finished, routine 
measurements should be properly maintained although they may not be a 
commercial necessity. 


: 
| 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 391 


Canals and waterways and locked rivers.—Lock-keepers are naturally 
the observers, and the canal engineer’s office is obviously the place for 
checking and filing of the observational. records. Final tables of flow 
should be prepared in somewhat similar manner to those of the rivers. 
If the routine were once established, the somewhat complicated details 
would soon be collected into suitable form. Without more investigation 
into canal work I am not prepared to suggest any special form of record. 
It is, however, important to realise that the lock of a canal or river is an 
accurate measurement tank which will give valuable information of the 
actual flow through sluices as efficiently as the tank below the Assuan Dam. 

The other record work which falls within the scope of canal measurements 
is the keeping of neighbouring water level records and sometimes flows 
on the rivers and streams used or affected by canal water supplies. 

Electrical Power Stations and other abstractors of river water.—At 
present these stations appear to be only concerned with low flows, whereas 
they will be, in the future, dependent for their supply on natural or artificial 
storage somewhere on the river system. It is rather insufficient that they 
should only make a few low flow measurements of their own: they should 
be responsible for the water level records at all stages of flow, and their 
records should go to the Catchment Boards. The measurements of river 
flow should be supplied to them by the river authority, and their own 
flow measurements should be only those of the water abstracted from 
the river. 

Other users of water would likewise be responsible for maintaining 
continuous water level records under the direction of the Catchment 
Boards. The Catchment Boards should supply them with necessary 
flow values, and they should supply the Catchment Boards with continuous 
water level records and with the figures of their own supply or diversion 
of water. 

Catchment, Conservancy and River Boards —There might be a Committee 
of a few of these catchment board engineers to outline briefly how their 
measurements and records may be developed on lines which will make 
their offices the central record office for the water survey and records of 
their respective river basins. If these boards do not make the whole river 
survey a matter of first importance, there is the real danger that their 
measurements and records, like those of other bodies, will be developed 
only for the solution of their own urgent problems of drainage and pollution. 


SuB-MeEmoranpum D (1). 


WATER SUPPLY AUTHORITIES. 


NOTES ON THE PRESENT POSITION WITH REGARD TO PUBLIC 
WATER SUPPLIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 


By F. O. STanrorp. 


PREFACE. 


The provision of a supply of pure and wholesome water for public 
purposes has by its very nature a prior claim on the water resources of 
the country, and the following notes are intended to indicate, though very 
roughly, the manner and extent to which this claim is exercised. 

The Ministry of Health, as the predominant authority (under Parliament) 
in this respect, has compiled a large amount of data and statistics on the 


392 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


subject, latterly with the voluntary co-operation of the British Waterworks 
Association ; and through the Advisory Committee on Water has conducted 
investigations of special branches of the subject. 

To this extent the original demand of the Select. Committee in 1910, 
referred to below, for reliable information has been met. 

As regards the essential subjects of topography, geology and rainfall; the 
Government has provided a special department for each, and the Ministry 
has the benefit of their assistance and advice when required. 

All recent consideration of the subject, however, points to the fact that 
the available data are deficient in two important respects, which are becoming 
increasingly urgent: viz. reliable information as to the volume of water 
obtainable and available for public supplies in different areas—(a) from under- 
ground sources, and (d) from surface sources. As the former become used 
up or diminish, increasing reliance must be placed on the latter. 


DEMAND FOR A WATER SURVEY. 


Demands for a comprehensive inland water survey have been made so 
frequently that it is hardly necessary to recapitulate them, but one 
authoritative statement on the subject may be quoted as a starting-point. 
A Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament appointed to 
consider the Water Supplies Protection Bill, 1910, stated, inter alia, that 
“in view of the lack of reliable information as to water supply, especially 
from underground sources, and the manner in which local supplies were 
utilised, there was urgent need for a comprehensive survey of the water 
supply of the country and for the adoption of measures to conserve and 
dispose of water to the best advantage.’ 

As the result of the Committee’s report, no further action was taken on the 
Bill, but later in the same year a return as to water undertakings in England 
and Wales was ordered by Parliament. 


RETURN AS TO WATER UNDERTAKINGS, 1914. 


This return was compiled by the Local Government Board, as the result 
of over 3,000 schedules sent out during 1911-13, and the information was 
for the most part correct up to January 1914. Amongst the particulars 
which could not be checked, however, are ‘ the quantity of water derived 
from each source and the additional amounts obtainable.’ 

With this return the Local Government Board issued a Preliminary 
Memorandum, from which these notes are largely derived. 

In this return the undertakings are arranged in five sections, and the 
numbers of undertakings were as follows :— 


: » Oe : No. of 
Section. Description of Undertaking. Undertalivigs: 
ik Separate Local Authorities . 786 
II. Joint Boards and Joint Committees of Local 34. and 

Authorities J | M.W. Bd. 
III. Companies with Statutory Powers “ ‘ 200 
IV. Companies without Statutory Powers . . 84 
Vv. Private Proprietors . y ; 3 é 1,055 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 393 


This return is now nearly twenty years old. For the provision of reliable 
and up-to-date statistics arrangements exist between the Ministry of 
Health and the British Waterworks Association, under which the Associa- 
tion now collect and publish statistical information. The third edition of 
the British Water Works Year Book and Directory contains a large amount 
of useful information respecting 871 undertakings, including Ireland. 

Since 1914 very extensive developments of waterworks have taken place 
throughout the country, and are constantly taking place, but though some 
new undertakings have been established, these developments are chiefly in 
the nature of extensions of existing undertakings, and the above figures 
sufficiently indicate the magnitude of the subject. 

The 1914 Memorandum states that ‘ out of 12,869 parishes in rural 
districts, 4,874 had a piped supply to some at least of their houses.’ This 
number has since been very largely increased, especially by comprehensive 
schemes for groups of parishes ; but much yet remains to be done to keep 
pace with the increased demand consequent upon improved standards of 
sanitation, such as W.C.’s, baths and hot and cold water supplies laid on to 
houses, which have greatly increased the consumption per head throughout 
the country. 

The same memorandum states : ‘ the Return may be regarded as the first 
instalment of the detailed and comprehensive investigation of the whole 
_ subject of surface and underground water supplies which has been recom- 
mended by various Royal Commissions and Committees.’ 


MINIstry OF HEALTH WATER SURVEY AND ADVISORY COMMITTEE. 


The outbreak of the war shortly after the publication of the 1914 Return 
put a stop to further investigation for the time being. 

Following the First Report of the Board of Trade Water Power Resources 
Committee, published in 1921, the Ministry of Health established a Water 
Survey for the compilation of data relating to water undertakings in greater 
detail than in the 1914 Return, including gaugings of springs where avail- 
able. This, though of great use in the department, is of limited scope and 
confined to data obtainable from the respective undertakings, no special 
staff being available for making special investigations. ‘The survey is not 
available in any published form. 

The Minister also appointed an Advisory Committee on Water who have 
published a number of Reports, including :— 


(a) On Measures for the Protection of Underground Water (1925). 
(6) Report of Legislation Sub-committee (1929). 

(c) On Rural Water Supplies (1929). 

(d) On the Assessment of Compensation Water. 


The Committee, in 1930, appointed a Sub-committee on the subject of 
river gauging ; the work of this Sub-committee is, however, at present in 
abeyance owing to the urgent need for national economy. 

The subject of underground water, on which the Select Committee of 
1910 laid emphasis, is dealt with in a separate memorandum, by Dr. Bernard 
Smith, and it is only necessary here to mention the chief points referred to 
in the above Report (a), viz. the interference with underground water 
caused by mining operations and pumping; the waste of water arising 
from such pumping and from overflowing boreholes ; and the need for the 
protection of underground water from contamination. 

As regards legislation, the chief point affecting a water supply is probably 
that relating to the powers of a local authority operating under the Public 

P 


394 REPORTS ON’ THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


Health Acts to acquire water rights and abstract water. The powers are 
thus stated in the 1914 Memorandum previously referred to :— 

‘Common Law. . In England and Wales under the common law every. 
landowner has the right to use water flowing in known or defined channels, 
i.e., the water naturally flowing through, past or under his land, both for his 
domestic use and for his cattle, without regard to the effect of such use 
upon the! landowners lower down the stream. Further, he has the right to 
use the water for any purpose, provided there is no interference with the 
rights of other landowners either above or below. He cannot however 
lawfully abstract from any stream water for sale or for the supply of the 
inhabitants of any neighbouring area... As regards underground water not 
flowing in defined channels, every landowner has the exclusive right to all 
water obtainable from his land.’ 

Consequently, local authorities who desire to use surface water as a 
source of public supply must in general, with few exceptions, obtain 
authority by special Act:of Parliament. Any alteration of the general law 
which would simplify the procedure, e.g. by enabling the necessary powers 
to be given by Order instead of by Act (as recommended by the Select 
Committee in 1910 and proposed in a Bill introduced by the Government 
in 1911-12, which, however, did not proceed), would doubtless lead to some 
considerable increase in the use of such sources, and the necessity for 
gauging streams and the run-off from gathering grounds would become of 
the first importance in this connection. 

As regards the assessment of compensation water, the Report (d) 
mentioned above recommends certain alterations in the present method, 
including— 

‘ Stream gaugings should be used for the determination of the losses due 
to evaporation and absorption. 

‘ Stream gaugings should also be used to measure and allow for the 
variability of flow.’ 

The Report (p.'11) mentions only ten different eatchmierit areas for which 
continuous stream gaugings were available, and of these four cases were 
selected for detail analyses on which the conclusions were based. Ina paper 
on this subject read before the British Water-Works Association in 1929, 
Mr. Fawcett (then Chief Engineering Inspector, Ministry of Health) pointed 
out that ‘ with some exceptions very little reliable data exists of the flow of 
rivers as ascertained by actual gaugings, and the Sub-Committee have felt 
acutely during their investigations the necessity for more records of river 
flows. 

Mr. Fawcett continues : ‘ As regards the various purposes for which river 
gaugings are desirable, it is only necessary to mention (1) water supply, 
(2) industry and power, (3) flooding, etc., (4) dilution, (5) navigation. There 
cannot be any doubt but that water supplies take the first place as regards 
importance of river gaugings.’ 


RESERVOIRS (SAFETY PROVISIONS) ACT, 1930. 


The passing of this Act, which follows the recommendation ofa Select 
Committee as far back as 1865, has brought into prominence the necessity 
for reliable and continuous record of the flow from upland gathering grounds, 
in order to furnish actual figures of the intensities of floods which require 
to be discharged by overflow weirs and channels, in preference to placing 
reliance on formulz and estimations based upon rainfall for this purpose. 

This subject is now under the consideration of a Committee of the 
Institution:of Civil Engineers, whose preliminary report, it is understood, 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 395 


recommends that suitable recording gauges should be set up for this purpose 
on rivers, lakes and reservoirs. 

As a consequence of this Act and stimulated by the findings of this 
Committee, it may be anticipated that this branch of water engineering will 
receive increased attention in the future on those undertakings which possess 
large storage reservoirs for upland water. 


SouRCES OF SUPPLY. 


Referring again to the Local Government Board Memorandum, 1914, 
and classifying lakes, ponds, rivers and streams as surface supplies, and wells 
and springs as underground supplies, the principal sources at that date 
were :— 

Lakes:—Thirlmere, Crummock, Hayeswater and Ennerdale. 

Rivers and streams.—One hundred and thirty-nine undertakings use these 
as sources of supply, some of the most important of which are river Thames 
and its tributaries Lee and Kennet; river Severn and tributaries Avon, 
Chelt, Wye and Elan ; river Derwent ; river Tees and tributary Balder. 

Upland surfaces.—In some cases it is not possible to differentiate between 
supplies derived from upland surfaces and from rivers, streams, lakes and 
springs, but approximately 167 undertakings depend upon gathering grounds 
for the whole or part of their supplies. 

Special Acts authorising the abstraction of water from upland surfaces 
invariably contain provision for compensation either in money or generally 
in compensation water. 

Springs —The actual number of springs from which supplies are obtained 
is not known, but it appears that springs are among the sources of supply of 
520 undertakings. 

Underground sources, excluding springs, comprise wells, borings, adits 
and headings, etc. These furnish supplies to 495 undertakings. 

For some years the supply from underground waters has been increasing, 
and the proportion of underground to surface waters used has been con- 
stantly growing. At that date the amount of underground water supplied 
was put down very roughly as 285 million gallons a day, and particulars are 
given showing roughly the amount derived from each geological formation. 

In this connection it is pointed out that surface water is generally filtered, 
whereas underground water, including that from springs, as a rule is not. 


REGIONAL WATER COMMITTEES. 


_ In 1928 the Ministry issued a booklet (approved by the Advisory Com- 
mittee on Water) recommending the formation of regional water committees 
in districts where anumber of undertakers are concerned in the same general 
sources of supply, and where a common water policy is much to be desired. 

Several such committees have been formed, e.g. the Sherwood Area 
Regional Advisory Committee (mentioned in the Ministry of Health Annual 

ort, 1931-32), comprising twenty-four local authorities whose supplies are 
derived from the Bunter sandstone beds. 

In this booklet the Ministry points out, with regard to surface supplies, 
for -which in few instances are accurate records available :— 

‘It is often necessary to become committed to a source of supply on such 
information as is available before accurate records can be obtained, but the 
earliest opportunity should be taken to instal proper gauges. 

. ‘The collection of reliable data by the Committee will represent a valuable 
' part of their work.’ 


396 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


CONCLUSION. 


From the foregoing notes it will be seen that the demand for records of 
underground water and river gaugings is general and persistent for purposes 
of water supply. The onus of providing these data must in the first place 
fall upon the water authorities for whose benefit they are primarily required, 
as, for instance, in the matter of compensation water, and whose works 
create the liabilities such as have given rise to the Reservoirs (Safety 
Provisions) Act. Further, it is on their property that the observations must 
be made, and their staff are on the spot to make the records. Water 
authorities, however, with few exceptions, have proved slow to realise that 
the slight expense involved would be for the advantage of their individual 
undertakings, as well as contributing to the wider knowledge essential for 
such bodies as regional water committees, and contributing also to the 
science of water engineering on which all such undertakings intimately 
depend. 

It is highly desirable, therefore, that convincing efforts should be made 
to enlist the co-operation of the water authorities. 

When this is secured, water engineers should have no difficulty in estab- 
lishing some appropriate body of experts to give any advice that may be 
desired as to the methods of observing and recording, and to compile the 
results and draw conclusions of value to all concerned. 


APPENDIX D (1) (a). 


RECORDS OF WATER SUPPLY AUTHORITIES 
(GRAVITATION SUPPLIES). 


By C. CLEMESHA SMITH. 


It is probable that many of the stream-flow records, etc., kept by water 
supply authorities are not in a form which would be serviceable to others 
than themselves. 

The regulating effects of impounding reservoirs, the existence of catch- 
waters, tunnels, and conduits which convey the whole or a portion of the 
yield of one catchment area to another, the delivery of compensation water 
either intermittently or continuously, the drawing at irregular rates of supply, 
all render it necessary that adjustments should be made if the yield of a given 
catchment area is to be arrived at. 

The records may be used in two distinct ways :— 

(a) To show the actual yield of the catchment area in such a form that 
it may be compared with the rainfall for stated periods, and, by subtraction, 
show the losses by evaporation and absorption. 

(6) The quantity which passes down the stream as compensation water 
and as unstored flood water. 

Water undertakings reasonably organised should generally be able to 
furnish the following data in respect of their catchment area :— 


Rainfall—The average rainfall over the area for each year, for each 
month, and for specific dry or wet periods. (Note.—Automatic recording 
gauges are fixed on a few catchment areas. An extension of their use is 
desirable.) 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 397 


Run-off.— 
(a) (i) The total run-off from the area. 
(ii) The monthly run-off from the area. 
(iii) The total run-off for specific dry or wet periods. 
(iv) Daily and weekly run-off could be obtained from the records when 
necessary. 


As regards peak rates of flow, these can in most cases only be ascertained 
approximately, few reservoirs having instruments recording the rise and 
fall of water level throughout the entire depth. 


(6) (i) The annual run-off (overflow water and compensation) passing 
into the stream below the lowest reservoir. 
(ii) The monthly run-off (overflow water and compensation) passing 
into the stream below the lowest reservoir. 
(iii) The run-off for specific dry or wet periods. 
(iv) Daily and weekly figures of a similar nature could be furnished 
when necessary. 


Most undertakings reasonably organised aim at statistics in respect of 
(a) (i), (ii) and (iii), and could furnish also (8) (i), (ii) and (iii). 

It would not serve any immediately useful purpose to work out (a) (iv) 
and (8) (iv) for the whole year. In most cases the adjustments are laborious 
and would only be undertaken where the results would be valuable. 

It is very desirable that peak rates of flow should be ascertained in the 
cases of the maximum floods in each year, and undertakings should provide 
the necessary recording instruments. 


SuB-MEmMoRANDuM D (2). 


CATCHMENT BOARDS. 
By J. C. A. ROSEVEARE, 


The forty-six Catchment Boards set up by the Ministry of Agriculture 
and Fisheries, under the Land Drainage Act, 1930, have jurisdiction over 
39,000 square miles, which is 67 per cent. of the area of England and Wales. 
Many of these statutory areas consist of a number of separate river-basins 
amalgamated for convenience in administration. 

It is unfortunate for the purpose of water survey that these authorities 
do not cover the whole of England and Wales, but the Minister has power 
to set up additional Catchment Boards if necessary. The boards are 
representative of all the interests in the catchment areas, two-thirds of the 
members being nominated by county councils and county borough councils, 
and one-third representing lowland areas in the catchment area. 

It will be admitted that a catchment basin is the proper unit for water 
survey as regards rainfall and river flow, but this is not entirely so when 
considering underground water, which may, in special cases, travel from 
one catchment basin to another. 

In order to design works in the most economical way, Catchment Boards 
should know the maximum and minimum flows in their rivers, and should 
keep continuous records of the rainfall and the flow resulting therefrom. 

It is suggested that these Catchment Boards should undertake the water 
survey of their respective areas. From information received from a few 
Catchment Boards, it appears that some are already taking steps to this end. 


398 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


APPENDIX D (2) (a). 
Paper BY J. C. A. ROSEVEARE. 


On ‘ LAND DRAINAGE IN ENGLAND AND WALES,’ PRESENTED TO THE 
INSTITUTION OF WATER ENGINEERS, AT THEIR WINTER MEETING, ON 
DECEMBER 2, 1932. 


The paper, and the discussion which followed, appeared in the winter 
number of Water and Water Engineering. 

The paper describes the formation and constitution of the forty-six 
Catchment Boards under the Land Drainage Act of 1930, and gives 
information as to the areas, length of ‘ main river,’ rateable value and 
other details of the catchment areas. 

. The paper and the discussion both indicate the lack of information as to 
river flows, the crudeness of the estimates of flood flows, and the need for 
accurate gauging. 


APPENDIX D (2) (8). 


THAMES CONSERVANCY. 
(REPLY TO QUESTIONNAIRE.) 
By G. J. GRIFFITHS. 


(1) The gaugings of the river Thames are made at Teddington Weir, 
which is at the seaward end of the Conservators’ jurisdiction. The river 
below Teddington Weir is tidal. ‘The measurements are made of the water 
passing over gauge crests and weir overfalls and through sluice openings. 

The water levels are recorded by continuous clock recorders at points 
some little distance upstream and down-stream of the weir. 

The formule from which the calculations are made were evolved some 
fifty years ago, and though they are not entirely in accordance with modern 
formule, they are retained in order that the results may be kept comparative 
with those of the past. The estimated flow has been checked from time 
to time by current meter observations at various magnitudes of discharge, 
and, on the whole, close agreement has been found between the calculated 
gaugings and the current meter observations. : 

(The formule employed are given in the original statement.) 

Current meter observations are taken at times for the purpose of ascertain- 
ing the flow at certain other parts of the river or of tributaries, particularly 
in periods of drought. 

See Appendix F (5). 

(2) Part of Teddington Weir is normal to the direction of the stream, and 
part is at an angle thereto. sea 

The tail-water side being tidal, there is a considerable variation in the 
‘fall’ from head to tail at the weir during the day. This differs from 
about 3 in. to some ro ft. in periods of low flow, and from about 1 ft. 3 in. 
to 2 ft. in times of high flood. 

The range of water levels at which flows have been calculated extend 
over some 6 ft. or 7 ft. on the headwater side of Teddington Weir, or over 
a range of 16:5 ft. on the tail-water side, the flows ranging from 33 cub. ft. 
to 37,000 cub. ft. per second. 

At some other weirs upstream of Teddington the range is from ro ft. to 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 399 


14 ft: on the tail-water scale, but none of these represent the full ‘ natural ’ 
range between minimum and maximum flow, owing to the influence of the 
weir next down-stream, in artificially holding up the level in times of low flow. 
This feature renders a scale of flows for varying water levels very insensitive 
for low readings, but use is made of such station gauges for obtaining 
approximate estimates of flow when required. Water is ‘ drawn off’ or 
abstracted from the Thames: in very large quantities by the Metropolitan 
Water Board and other water companies. The quantities so abstracted 
are measured and calculated for each day and are added to the volume 
gauged at Teddington, the sum being then described as the ‘ natural flow ’ 
of the river. 

With such numerous and varied methods of abstraction as are employed 
it will be obvious that the measurements and calculations of the quantities 
are somewhat complicated, and they are made in very considerable detail 
to ensure accuracy. 

(3) Each lock (there are forty-six lock sites) is provided with a scale gauge 
at'the head- and tail-water sides, and ‘these are read and recorded at every 
gauge four times in the twenty-four hours. This is in addition to the 
automatic recorders at Teddington, and at certain other weirs. 

There are at present no station gauges or automatic recorders on any of 
the tributaries, but at certain critical times (periods of very low flow) 
gaugings have been made of the tributaries. 

(4) It may be mentioned that daily records of rainfall are taken at some 
seventeen stations distributed over the Thames Valley, and that daily 
rainfall averages, together with the records of, natural and gauged flow, are 
printed monthly, and are available to the public at a charge of 1s. per 
monthly sheet. 

Surveys of main tributary streams.are in progress, and information 
respecting the rainfall, maximum and minimum flows of these will be 
obtained in due course. 

It is in view for the future to establish a gauging station on each tributary 
from which daily estimates of the flow may be obtained, but for similar 
reasons to those mentioned in regard to the main river, there are features 
which render this a proceeding of considerable difficulty, and it is doubtful 
if the value of the results would at present justify the cost of obtaining them. 


APPENDIX D (2) (c). 


RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD. 
(REPLY TO QUESTIONNAIRE.) 
By W. H. Haltte. 


1. Methods of river gauging at principal site or sites—The weirs across 
the ‘ main river’ generally are of an antiquated character and are unreliable 
for computing river discharges. 

The more modern weirs are usually for the purpose of maintaining head- 
water for turbines. Part of the river flows over the weir, the remainder 
passing through the mill ; thus the weir discharge is not the correct river 
discharge. 

Up to date it has only been possible to take current meter observations 
for special Parliamentary litigation purposes. A start, however, has been 
made to take regular current meter readings in the river Trent, at all river 
levels, to obtain a rating curve of discharge. The site of the observations 


400 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC, 


is just above Beeston Weir, near Nottingham, above which all the main 
tributaries join the river. 

Head- and tail-water levels of the eight main weirs across the Trent are 
taken three times daily by the Trent Navigation Company. The informa- 
tion is at our disposal at any time. 

2. Method of computing flows.—At the site the Trent is 280 ft. wide. 
An accurate cross-section has been taken, subdivided into 20-ft. vertical 
strips, fourteen subdivisions in all. At the centre of each subdivision, 
velocity readings are taken vertically, approximately at 18-in. intervals. 
The mean velocity is computed from the plotted velocity curve for each 
subdivision, the total discharge being the sum of (area X mean velocity) 
for the fourteen subdivisions. 

This series of observations is to be taken at all water levels to obtain a 
rating curve to cover all stages from low summer level to flood level. 

Knowing the head over the weir crest for each calculated discharge, 
constants for the weir discharge can be obtained. 

The instrument used is Troughton & Simms’ ‘ Improved Current 
Meter.’ 

3. Keeping of water level records (near gauging site).—It is intended 
eventually to establish rating curves for the principal tributaries near their 
junctions with the Trent. On computing the rating curves, automatic 
recording instruments to give discharge of river at any water level will be 
installed at the various gauging sites. 


APPENDIX D (2) (d). 


GREAT OUSE CATCHMENT BOARD. 
(REPLY TO QUESTIONNAIRE.) 
By O. Borer. 

1. River flow gaugings—I have found no record of past -discharge 
observations. The only discharge observations made by me were at 
Bottisham Lock, and for the lock gate sluices I used the formula 

Q = -62A V2gh (Love’s Hydraulics). 
and for the drowned weir— 
Q=L [3-1 {@ +h) A) + 6-4ah +2] 
(Love’s Hydraulics). 


I have not yet taken any river discharge observations, but we shall do so 
in the Marsh Cut, where we are having a gauging site arranged. 

The site selected has a straight uniform reach of 14 miles in length, and 
we are fixing gauges at each end and in the centre. We shall read the 
surface slope from the gauges and take direct discharge observations at the 
centre by— 

(a) Surface floats, using the formula 


V= 


PN ER where V_ = the mean velocity, 
V, = the maximum surface velocity, 
and C is Bazin’s coefficient for the H.M.D. 


(6) By means of velocity rods, floating vertically in the stream and so 
giving the mean velocity in the vertical plane. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 401 


From the discharges so observed and the recorded surface slopes the 
correct value of N in Kutter’s formula will be ascertained for this particular 
reach of river, and subsequent discharges will be calculated from the surface 
slopes as observed on these gauges. 

The cross-section of the river at the centre gauge (which at this site is 
fairly stable) will be periodically checked to correct error due to any change 
in this. 

2. Current meter measurements by velocity meter are being taken when 
observing discharges in rivers and drains. 

3. Water level records near flow gauging sites—No record by continuous 
recorders, but a record of gauges at important points read daily or twice 
daily has been kept for many years. 

4. Water level records at other sites.—There are no recording gauges yet 
fixed, but eight recording gauges have been prepared and will be fixed 
within the next few months, 


APPENDIX D (2) (e). 


WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE RIVERS BOARD. 
(REPLY TO QUESTIONNAIRE.) 
By J. H. GARNER. 


When my Chairman and myself met you in London last November 
I think we explained the steps which the West Riding Rivers Board have 
so far taken in regard to river flow gauging. You will find some particulars 
of our work in the special report on River Don Gauging and in the copies 
of the Annual Reports. 

Up to the present three Lea Recorders have been fixed as follows: 
No. 1, river Don at Hadfields’ Weir, Sheffield (this gauge is now owned 
by the Sheffield Corporation and supervised’by the manager of the Sheffield 
sewage works); No. 2, river Calder at Kirkthorpe Weir, Wakefield ; 
No. 3, river Aire at Beal Weir, near Knottingley. These recorders give a 
continuous record of rate of flow and level of water. 

Gaugings have also been made on the river Rother at Canklow, and 
river Dearne at Hoyle Mill, Barnsley. In these cases the gaugings were 
made over a reach of each river by taking the widths and areas of sections 
at different water levels and ascertaining velocities by floats. 

It will interest you to know that I am in negotiation with the engineer of 
the river Ouse (Yorks) Catchment Board with the object of establishing 
co-operation in regard to river flow gauging between the Catchment Board 
and the Rivers Board. 

My Committee has authorised the expenditure of £100 for the purchase 
of another Lea Recorder. This will be fixed to work with a suitable weir 
on another river in the West Riding where no gaugings have hitherto been 
continuously made. 

In the West Riding most of the rivers have been industrialised and there 
are many weirs, a good many of which the Catchment Board will no doubt 
be able to put into satisfactory condition for use with automatic flow 
recorders of the Lea type. 

So far as the Rivers Board are concerned, the use of suitable weirs would 
appear to be the only direction in which gaugings can be made, as the Board 
have no staff which could be spared to devote the necessary time to making 
gaugings by any other means. 

P2 


402 REPORTS ON. THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


AppENDIX D (2) (f). 


THE MOTOR BOAT ASSOCIATION 
(83, Patt. Matt, Lonpon, S.W. 1). 


ABSTRACT FROM A MEMORANDUM ON INLAND WATER SURVEY. 


1. INTRODUCTION. 


The Motor Boat Association’ appreciates the request of the British 
Association Committee to put forward views in connection ‘with «the 
organisation of water level survey records on rivers and lakes. 

The M.B.A. is representative of owners of motor boats used solely for | 
pleasure purposes. Its membership embraces owners in every part of the 
British Isles as well as owners on the Continent. 

The Association understands that the terms of reference to the Committee 
are ‘ To inquire into the position of Inland Water Survey in the British 
Isles, and the possible organisation and control of such a survey by central 
authority.’ 

Whilst the Association not unnaturally visualises the benefit of such a 
survey from the point of view of navigation of such waterways, it is also not 
unaware of the extension of the benefits to such interests as power houses, 
fisheries, drainage, etc. 

It is aware of the immense bearing which a comprehensive survey and 
official and regular collation of results must also have on the important 
subjects of industry and research. The latent power inherent in many of 
the inland waterways of the country can only be effectively harnessed and 
adapted to the best possible service of industry if those responsible for 
commercial undertakings can have recourse to some central body from 
whom they can secure up-to-date and comprehensive information as to the 
potentialities of waterways in areas in which they may be considering 
erecting factories, power houses} etc. 

On the aspect of research little need be said. Thei importanca, of continued 
study into the inland waterways, conducted over a regular and duly notated 
period of time, will be apparent. There is opened up, by a comprehensive 
survey, a vast field for useful research into the changing conditions and 
influences of the inland waterways of the country. 

Therefore, in putting forward suggestions as to the organisation for dealing 
with such a survey, the Association does so bearing all such interests in mind. 


2. NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY 

3. WATERWAYS TO BE SURVEYED 

4. RECORDING STATIONS (not abstracted). 
5. RECORDING INSTRUMENT 

6. RECORDING AUTHORITY 


7. THE M.B.A. AS THE RECORDING AUTHORITY. 


. . . the further point emerges that the Association has at the moment 
the nucleus of the organisation required for the regular and systematic 
collection and tabulation of water level data. In its service arrangements 
it has, at many centres, its own official boatmen and honorary local 


representatives. 
8. THE STRUCTURE OF THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY (not abstracted). 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 403 


9. CONDITIONS AS TO APPOINTMENTS. 


There are, of course, various other directions from which the data can 
be collected, and the machinery in this connection may be summarised as 
(i) Officials of catchment boards and waterway authorities. 
(ii) M.B.A. and other boatmen. 
(iii) Angling clubs. 
(iv) Rowing and motor boat clubs. 
(v) Specially engaged surveyors. 


10. FINANCE (not abstracted). 


11. AVAILABILITY OF DATA. 


- The Area Superintendents would be expected to have available, and in 
their custody, the data from time to time forthcoming as the result of the 
surveys, while tabulated information from the whole of the country would 
be maintained at and available from the headquarters of the central 
authority in London. 

12. CONCLUSION. 

It is appreciated that the scheme as put forward by the M.B.A. is but 
in the nature of skeleton framework upon the broad conception of which 
much consideration of detail requires to be given if the proposal so suggested 
commends itself as worthy of further exploration. 

The Grand Council of the M.B.A. would desire to assure the Committee 
of the British Association of its entire sympathy with the objects which its 
inquiry is designed to achieve, and in acceding to the request of the British 
Association to put forward its views the M.B.A. does so in the earnest desire 
to provide a constructive contribution to the question under consideration. 

While it feels that it can, if thought fit, readily adapt within its present 
constitution the machinery necessary to enable it to undertake the important 
functions of a central authority such as is envisaged, it would equally 
emphasise the fact that, were it so desired, it would be ready to co-operate 
fully in the information and working of a separate central authority, to 
afford to such authority every assistance in its power, and to accord to it the 
hospitality of its office and organisation, and, in short, to do everything in 
its power to collaborate in the important work of inland water survey which 
it realises must, sooner or later, be adequately dealt with. 

In conclusion, the M.B.A. would again express its appreciation for the 
opportunity of expressing its views, accorded to it by the courtesy of the 
British Association. 

(Signed) C. Horton, 
Secretary, Motor Boat Association. 


SuB-MEmMorRANDuUM D (3). 


WATER RECORDS KEPT BY HYDRO-ELECTRIC 
COMPANIES. 


By W. T. Hatcrow. 


1. In the absence of records of river flow, all large hydro-electric schemes 
in Great Britain have been designed on an estimated yield of water from the 
catchment areas, based on rainfall records. Many millions of pounds 
have been spent on these undertakings, and it would have been of great 
assistance. had long-period records of river flow been available for the 
engineers. Under present conditions there is an element of uncertainty in de- 
termining the economic capacity of such unalterable works as pressure tunnels, 


404 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


as experience may show that the yield is either greater or less than has been 
anticipated ; if the latter, unnecessary expenditure may have been incurred. 

2. The hydro-electric works which have been constructed give an 
opportunity of recording the yield from catchment areas, and such informa- 
tion is helpful i in dealing with adjacent catchments of similar character. 

3. It is customary for the hydro-electric companies to prepare a balance- 
sheet of the rainfall and of water utilised and lost. The following informa- 
tion is usually recorded :— 

(a) Year. 

(b) Average rainfall on catchment area in inches. 

(c) The level of the water in the main reservoirs on January 1. 

(d) The increase or decrease of storage water during the year. 

(e) Water lost over the spillway of dams as measured by continuously 

recording water level gauge. 

(f) Losses from any subsidiary catchments not flowing directly to the 

main reservoirs, or water run to waste. 

(g) Water utilised for power as measured over weirs or through Venturi 

meters. 

(h) Total available water. 

(2) Total water accounted for. 

(j) Loss due to evaporation, absorption, etc., i.e. the difference between 

(h) and (2). 

By means of these balance-sheets the yield from the catchment area is 
obtained, and, by measurement of exceptional increase in the rate of rise of 
water in the reservoirs, intensities of inflow owing to flood conditions and 
melting snow can be calculated ; should the reservoir be full when such 
flood conditions occur the record of the flow over the dam spillway would 
also give a measure of the flood conditions. 

4. I believe that the hydro-electric companies would be willing to give 
information of the yield of catchment areas to a central authority. It is 
possible that existing systems of recording data may require modification 
to bring them into accord with any recommendations of a central authority. 


Sus-MEmoranDvuM D (4). 


ELECTRICITY STATIONS. 
By Henry Nimmo. 


There were 454 stations owned by authorised electricity supply under- 
takers in operation at the end of 1932, against 483 in 1931 and 511 in 1930. 
With the coming into operation of the grid the decrease will be more rapid 
in the next two or three years, until only about 120 selected stations are left 
to generate all the electricity required by authorised electricity supply 
authorities. 

In addition there were, at the end of 1932, 50 (against 55 in the previous 
year) stations owned by railway, tramway and certain non-statutory bodies, 
and there are still a large number in factories, mines, etc. "The number 
of these, however, is expected to decrease rapidly when the full effect of 
the grid scheme takes place. 

At the end of 1932 there was installed in the stations of authorised under- 
takers over 7 million kw. of plant, of which nearly 97 per cent. is steam 
driven, the remainder having oil and gas (about 2 per cent.) and over 1 per 
cent. water-driven prime movers. 

The maximum load on the stations of authorised undertakers was of the 
order of 4 million kw., and 12,225 million kilowatt-hours were generated 
during the year, the load factor approaching 35 per cent. 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 405 


In steam-driven stations the water in use in the steam cycle is used over 
and over again with an addition of from 2} to 5 per cent. to make up for 
leakage and other losses. 

The amount of circulating water required varies with the design and 
layout of the station. Under existing conditions of load factor, approxi- 
mately 60 gallons are required per unit generated, and the total quantity 
used by authorised undertakers (including oil- and gas-driven stations, 
using about 4:5 gallons per kw. of plant in operation) is equivalent to 
something like 300 million gallons (one and one-third million tons) per hour 
for 3,060 hours, or a total of over 4,000 million tons in the year. For every 
ton of coal consumed in these stations about 500 tons of circulating water 
is needed. 

In this connection steam-driven generating stations may be classed under 
three heads, viz. :— 

(1) Those using tidal water, like Battersea and Barking (where 22 million 
gallons per hour may ultimately be handled), which are only limited by the 
size of the intake tunnels and pumps. 

(2). Those using river or canal water ; and 

(3) Those with a limited supply from wells or other sources and having 
cooling towers so that the circulating water may be used over and over 
again. In this case from 3 to 5 per cent. is lost in evaporation. 

With a single station ultimately handling up to 22 million gallons per 
hour, the provision of an adequate supply of water is of first importance, 
and this accounts for the fact that all large new stations are either placed on 
a river bank or within reach of tidal water. 

In the annual questionnaire sent out by the Electricity Commissioners to 
all electricity supply authorities, those with generating stations are requested 
to state, under the sub-heading ‘ Condensing Facilities,’ (i) the source of 
water supply (stating whether tidal water, non-tidal river, canal, etc.) :— 

(a) Minimum dry weather flow in gallons per hour. 

(5) Normal usable flow at other times in gallons per hour. 

This information, though not complete, is therefore available in respect of a 
large number of stations. ‘The flow of many of the rivers has been measured 
from time to time, and a list is available giving details of flow in respect of 
fifty rivers in England and Wales and the method of gauging at thirty-seven. 

Unfortunately, in many cases very rough-and-ready methods have been 
employed and some strongly conflicting results obtained. A few have been 
measured with some degree of accuracy, but none over any extensive period 
of years. While the results on the whole may not be of much value, they 
will serve to show what has been done. 

One of the most careful and accurate measurements made was on the 
Severn at Ironbridge by the West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority, 
and details of this survey are given at the end of this memorandum. The 
Severn Navigation Board also gauged the Severn at Worcester and could 
no doubt supplement the information given here. 

Some of the rivers have been gauged at several points—the Irwell, for 
example, at five different places—and some others at two or three ; among 
the latter the river Aire, which has been gauged at Bradford, Leeds and 
Ferrybridge. When the Bradford Corporation Station at Esholt, on the 
Aire, was under consideration, the City Electrical Engineer, Mr. Thomas 
Roles, had gauging records of the flow taken from 1917 to 1921 (see details 
attached). Upstream from the power-station site the river had been 
impounded many years ago for supplying water power to a factory, and 
the dam wall was adapted by Mr. Roles for the construction of a weir 
115 ft. long and 12 in. deep, and a flute chamber some io ft. upstream 


406 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


was built in the river bank, into which a seven-day Lea Recorder was 
installed to measure the rate of flow. ‘These observations were discontinued 
in September 1921, but Mr. Roles thinks this gauging station could be 
re-established at a cost of £50 to £100. 

In regard to underground water, some information is also available in 
respect of wells at various power stations, but no systematic flow measure- 
ments appear to have been made. 


AppENDIx D (4) (a). 


GAUGING OF THE RIVER SEVERN AT IRONBRIDGE 
BY THE WEsT MIDLANDS JOINT ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY. 
By E. F. HETHERINGTON. 


Ironbridge power station has been designed for an ultimate capacity of 
200,000 kw., consisting of four 50,000 kw. maximum: continuous-ratéd 
machines. When the construction of the station was under consideration 
in 1925-26 rough measurements of the river flow were made. In 1927 a 
further set of measurements was made, and a third survey was completed 
in the summer of 1928 after a long dry spell, when the flow was at its 
minimum. The result of these measurements showed that even undér 
the extreme conditions prevailing in 1928 there was sufficient water for the 
operation of three generating sets at full load, the fourth acting as a standby. 

Since that date constant observations have been taken, and a complete 
record of the daily river levels from June 1929 to the present day has been 
kept and a curve plotted. 

The Authority is quite satisfied that during eight or nine months of the 
year there is more than sufficient water for the operation of 300,000 or 
400,000 kw. of plant, and this being the case they have never troubled 
to gauge the river accurately at the higher rates of flow. 

The method of gauging adopted was to select a certain stretch of the 
river and make an accurate survey of its depth. The particular length 
chosen for this purpose had practically the same depth contour throughout, 
and this considerably simplified measurements. The floats were designed 
and made of a type indicated on a plan which is available, if required. 
These floats consist of a kind of boat-shaped raft with a sinker weight, which 
could be arranged to hang down into the water at any desired depth, by which 
means a more or less mean velocity could be obtained between the surface 
of the water and the flow nearest to the river-bed. Levels were very 
accurately taken by theodolite, and lines were placed across the stream at 
two points, (a) and (b). The floats were timed over the course, and a 
velocity table attached indicates the rates of travel down stream. From 
time to time intermediate timings were taken, which clearly showed that 
the floats traversed the whole length of the course at a constant velocity. 
The cross-section of the river (copy available if required) worked’ out at 
448 sq. ft., while the mean velocity of flow, as indicated on the table attached, 
was found to be 0-849 ft. per second, and taking the number of gallons per 
cubic foot as 6°25, the quantity of water was 

448 X 0:849 X 6:25 X 3,600 = 8,580,000 gallons per hour. 

The Authority has not troubled to take very accurate measurements of 
the higher rates of flow, although a number of tests have been made from 
time to time, from which it would appear that the normal summer flow of 
the river at this point is in the region of 12 million gallons per hour, 


(Table of measurements accompanies original statement.) 


407 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 


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408 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


APPENDIX D (4) (c). 


TABLE 
ACCOMPANYING SuUB-MEMORANDUM D (4). 
By H. Nimmo, 


The original table gives for each place and authority on fifty rivers :— 
(1) Normal summer flow. 
(2) Area of gathering ground. 
(3) Minimum flow and month of occurrence. 
(4) Method of gauging and remarks. 


The following abridged table gives the areas and the normal summer 
flow and minimum flow in cusecs per thousand acres. 


Normal es 
P Thousand Minimum 
River (and County). Alves! peer ico Method. 
ow. 
Cusecs | Cusecs 
per 1,000 | per 1,000 
Acres. Acres. 
Aire (Yorks) . ; : — — — Weir 
ae Me : 5 , 244 2°9 1°3 Floats 
x > f : ; 298 Lg ov! Weir 
Avon (Hants) . : : 416 1°5 0°4 Meter 
» (Wilts) . ; ; 403 ad 0°2 Weir 
Calder (Yorks) ; ; 181 1°8 0°6 Floats 
sy : 206 1°4(av.) o0°8 Weir 
»> (Lancs) 57 i: 5 o'5 Weir 
» (Yorks) ‘ 101 3°8 O°5 Weir 
Colne ae - ; 57 1'9 o'7 Weir 
Dee (Cheshire) : E 439 2:1 0°6 Weir 
Derwent (Derby) . é 270 1°8 0°7 Weir 
~ ‘ 300 2°9 I°5 Meter 
Don (Yorks) . : ; gI 3°4 1°2 Weir 
Eden (Cumbd.) : ; 640 1°3 0'6 —_— 
Exe (Devon) . : ; 412 I'l 0°6 Weir 
Irwell (Lancs) : ‘ 199 06 o°4 Weir 
Nene (Northants) . ci 403 o'5 0°3 Floats 
Severn (Worcester) . . | 1,046 o'5 0°3 — 
»,  (Salop) 2 F 704. 0-7 o'5 Floats 
Taff (S. Wales) ; : 125 2°2 1°6 Floats 
Taf Fechan (Wales) . : 25 2°1 o's — 
Tame (Cheshire) . F 22 3°9 2°0 Weir 
Thames (Oxford) . : 672 o'8 ovr Floats 
Trent (Derby and Staffs) . 704, 1°2 o'2 Weir 
Tone (Somerset) . g 83 °'9 o'4 — 
Welland (Lincoln) . 5 137 o-2 o'r Floats 
Witham s3 - : 38 O°4 o'r Sluice gates 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 409 


SuB-MEmMorANDUM D (s). 


CANALS. 
By T. SHrRLEY HAWKINS. 


1. Inconsidering what water measurements it may be desirable to take in 
the case of canal authorities it would first be as well to set out what different 
forms the canals may take, i.e. 

(i) The artificially cut canal ; 

(ii) the combination of artificially cut canal and the canalised river ; 

(iii) the canalised river ; 
and with these large differences in type it will be seen that the number 
and character of the measurements required would vary for each of the 
three types. 

2. There are, however, four common purposes for which all three types 
of canals require a supply of water, viz. to replace losses caused by :— 

(a) Traffic requirements. 

(6) Evaporation from the water surface. 

(c) Percolation and absorption through the earth banks and waste due 

to leakage. 

(d) Leakage at the lock gates and sluices and under and around the 

locks themselves. 

The measurements, so far as (b), (c) and (d) are concerned, have not to 
my knowledge ever been accurately measured or gauged. The amount 
required for (a) is easily calculated, and the only quantitative knowledge 
we have so far as regards (5), (c), and (d) is the amount of feed water that 
has to be let down to keep the several reaches filled and to meet the traffic 
requirements, so by deducting the known requirements from the total 
we can find the necessary amount of water that is required for (0), (c) and 
(d), but I know of no means of separating these three into distinct units. 

The leakage coming under (d) is often considerable and can be traced 
to faulty construction, the state of repair and maintenance, the careless 
closing of the gates, and to obstructions that get across the bearings of 
the stops, mitres and meeting faces. 

3. I next come to the question of supply of water to meet these several 
requirements and they differ in all the three cases. Generally, supplies 
may be obtained from any of the following sources : 

(i) By the rainfall over a catchment area which can be collected and 
stored in artificially made reservoirs. 

(ii) By the flow directly.into the canal of rivers, streams, etc. 

(iii) The storage water obtained under (i) being taken to the canal either 
by gravitation or pumping, according to the level of the supply 
water in its relation to the canal water level. 

(iv) By pumping water from rivers near by the canal, but which are at 
a lower level than the canal. 

(v) By returning the water ‘ used up’ by traffic to the higher reaches 
by means of pumps erected on the lower reach. 

4. So far as the ‘ artificially cut canal’ is concerned, its supply may be 
derived from all the before-mentioned sources, and a lot of very useful 
nN could be obtained by arranging for systematic measurements being 

en :— 

At the reservoirs to ascertain the rate of fall in the level of the water in 

the reservoir due to the feed water supply that is kept on, and also 


410 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


to ascertain the rate of rise in the reservoir due to ‘ run-off’ from the 
rainfall. 

Of the amount of feed water that is ‘ kept on’ to supply the requirements 
set out under (a), (0d), (c) and (d). 

Of the amount of feed water that is ‘kept on’ at the individual locks 
together with recorded levels of the reaches both on up- and down- 
stream sides of the lock. 

Of the number of lockings that occur daily at each lock. 


5. So far as the ‘ combination of artificially cut canal and canalised river ’ 
is concerned, in this case no doubt fairly extensive weirs will be constructed 
on the various reaches for carrying away flood water, so in this type it 
would be desirable for records to be kept :— 

At each lock of the level of the water in the reaches (up- and down-stream), 

Of the amount of feed water that is ‘ kept on.’ 

Of the daily number of lockings at each lock. 

Of the height of the water passing over the several weirs during normal 

and flood periods. 

6. This introduces another subject which will certainly arise, i.e., what 
is the formula to be adopted for the calculation of the amount of water 
passing over the weir under various heads, and it is suggested that a very 
useful amount of experimental work could be carried out by gauging the 
flow in the artificial cuts carrying away the weir water to ascertain how the 
coefficient of discharge varies according to the types of weir constructed. 

7. So far as the ‘ canalised river ’ is concerned, the measurements required 
will be practically similar to those necessary for the immediately preceding 
type, except that in all probability the weirs will be longer and larger, 
and we may also have the problem of mills being constructed athwart the 
river and absorbing a large amount of water, and arrangements for measuring 
the amount of water they consume should also be made in addition to the 
measurements to meet canal requirements. In many cases millers are 
responsible for the river and/or canal water level being kept too high or 
run too low in the several reaches both as regards canal working and also 
as regards the standing surface water level of the surrounding land. 

8.,Of the various sources of supply mentioned in paragraph 3, only 
the first has a sufficient and efficient organisation in existence to supply 
the necessary data ; the others are only dealt with by canal authorities to the 
extent that the efficient working of their canal demands. 

9g. No doubt the various canal authorities have a lot of information 
available, but whether they would be prepared to consent to this information 
being supplied to a co-ordinating body set up for the purpose is one that 
would have to be very tactfully ascertained from them, and this would 
form a suitable subject for discussion with the main Committee of which 
we are a Sub-committee, to ascertain from them how far they consider the 
matter should be pursued. 


SuB-MeEmoraNnpDuM D (6). 


WATER POLLUTION AND RIVER GAUGING. 
By A. PARKER. 


GENERAL. 


Accurate information regarding the flow of rivers and streams, river levels 
and underground sources of water is of value not only in connection with 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 411 


water supplies, land drainage, fisheries, hydro-electric schemes, electricity 
supply stations and various manufacturing processes, but also in attempts 
to control and prevent water pollution. The extent to which sewage or 
other polluting effluent ought to be purified is dependent partly on the 
diliition afforded by the river into which the effluent is discharged ; the 
greater the dilution the more rapidly the river recovers asa result of self- 
purification processes. A knowledge of the flow of the river or stream 
concerned is therefore necessary if plant for the treatment of sewage and 
industrial effluents i is to be designed and operated on the most economical 
lines. 

“Attention has been directed on many occasions to the importance of 
river flow data in’ relation to water pollution problems. The Royal 
Commission on Sewage Disposal, whose comprehensive inquiry during 
the period 1898 to 1915 dealt with the methods of treatment and disposal 
not only of sewage but also of trade effluents, definitely stated that the 
standards to be applied to sewage effluents should be adjusted according 
to the character of the streams into which they are to be discharged. ‘The 
same principle undoubtedly applies to trade effluents. During the inquiry 
a considerable number of rivers and streams of different. types were kept 
under observation with a view to tracing the effects of discharging various 
séwage liquids of known composition and volume into streams of known 
any. volume and velocity; and the scheme of standards which the 

oyal Commission finally recommended for sewage liquids was based on 
the results of these observations. The value of river flow data in dealing 
with problems of pollution has also been stressed in each of the published 
annual reports of the Water Pollution Research Board of the Department 
of Scientific and Industrial Research since the appointment of the Board 
in 1927. In addition, references to this same application of measurements 
of river flow have been made in published reports issued by the Ministry 
of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the West Riding 
of Yorkshire Rivers Board, and in other publications. 

’ Unfortunately, comparatively little information on the flows of rivers 
and streams in this country is available, with the result that in most instances 
the effects of discharges of polluting ‘effluents on individual rivers cannot 
properly be assessed. As an example of the dearth of information of this 
kind, even for important rivers, reference might be made to the river 
Tees. Early in 1929, the Water Pollution Research Board began a compre- 
hensive scientific survey of this river, with the object of obtaining reliable 
data regarding the quantities of polluting effluents of various kinds which 
can be allowed to enter a river without unduly retarding the natural processes 
of self-purification of the polluted river water. In this instance there 
were at the outset no gauging stations on the main river or its tributaries, 
and. no reliable records of river flow and levels. The chemical and 
biological work of the survey had to be supplemented, therefore, by hydro- 
graphical measurements not merely of tidal currents in the estuary, but also 
of freshwater flows in the upper river. 

In recent years the various authorities, undertakings and individuals 
responsible for dealing with pollution problems have undoubtedly begun 
to appréciate the importance of river flow data. A few have already made 
observations of the flows and levels of the rivers in which they are interested; 
and there are definite signs that, with encouragement, many others will be 
willing to arrange for river flow ‘and level measurements to be made. 

It may be asked whether the labour and expense likely to be involved 
in securing data on river flow can be justified in relation to the value of 
such data in dealing with pollution problems. In the first place river flow 


412 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


data are necessary in deciding whether the discharge of a particular effluent 
to any individual stream is likely to cause nuisance or to endanger public 
health. Many rivers which are to some extent polluted will, in the future, 
have to be utilised after treatment as sources of water supply for both 
domestic and industrial purposes. In such cases more accurate information 
on the effects on rivers of various discharges and more careful control of 
the discharges will be required. Secondly, as already mentioned, data 
on the flow of the river concerned are necessary if plant for the treatment 
of sewage and industrial effluents is to be designed and operated on the 
most economical lines. It is not possible to estimate the expenditure 
involved in the satisfactory treatment and disposal of industrial effluents, 
but it must be considerable in view of the very large number of industrial 
undertakings in this country producing effluents which have to be treated 
and discharged into rivers and streams. As regards sewerage and sewage 
disposal, loans sanctioned by the Ministry of Health for expenditure on 
such works during the three years 1929-30, 1930-31, and 1931-32, amounted 
to £5,800,000, £8,900,000, and £7,740,000 respectively. 


RIVERS POLLUTION PREVENTION AUTHORITIES. 


The principal statutory enactments relating to river pollution are con- 
tained in the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts, 1876 and 1893, which are 
directed towards the abatement of pollution in the public interest generally, 
and in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1923, which has in view 
the same object in the interests of fisheries. 

The duty of enforcing the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts was originally 
entrusted to the sanitary authorities, i.e. town councils and urban and rural 
district councils. Under Section 14 of the Local Government Act, 1888, 
county councils were given concurrent powers throughout their adminis- 
trative counties. ‘The same section also gave power to the Local Govern- 
ment Board (now Ministry of Health) to set up, by Provisional Order, 
subject to confirmation by Parliament, joint committees or similar bodies 
for the purpose of administering the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts. 
Under this section three such bodies have been set up : (1) the Ribble Joint 
Committee, (2) the Mersey and Irwell Joint Committee, and (3) the West 
Riding of Yorkshire Rivers Board. Fishery Boards also have power, 
under Section 55 of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1923, to 
institute proceedings under the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts. 

According to the general law at present, therefore, the power of en- 
forcing the Acts of 1876 and 1893 is vested in : 

(1) All town councils, and urban and rural district councils. 

(2) All county councils. 

(3) In respect of the Ribble, the Mersey and Irwell, and the rivers in 
the West Riding of Yorkshire, joint committees or rivers boards 
set up to deal with those particular rivers. 

(4) Fishery boards under Section 55 of the Salmon and Freshwater 
Fisheries Act, 1923. 

In addition there is a Joint Committee, without statutory powers to 
take legal proceedings, set up under Section 57 of the Local Government 
oe ee in respect of the upper waters of the Tame (a tributary of the 

Trent). 

The Upper Thames and the Lee are the subject of special legislation 
which has set up Conservancy Boards possessing wide powers of controlling 
pollution. Both these rivers supply the Metropolitan Water Board with 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 413 


water for public supply. The powers granted to the two Conservancy 
Boards are greater than are given in the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts. 

Reference should also be made to a clause in the Land Drainage Act, 
1930, which provides that a provisional order constituting for a catchment 
area or combination of catchment areas a joint committee or other body 
having any of the powers of a sanitary authority under the Rivers Pollution 
Act, 1876, may be made under Section 14 of the Local Government Act, 
1888, by the Minister of Health of his own motion and without any 
application by the Council of any of the counties concerned. No joint 
committee or similar body has so far been set up under this particular clause. 

From the preceding paragraphs, it is clear that the administration of 
the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts is vested in local sanitary authorities, 
joint committees, fishery boards and other bodies on which the local 
authorities are represented. In dealing with problems of pollution and of 
fisheries, these bodies are definitely interested in river flow data, river 
levels, compensation water and similar matters. It is suggested that these 
bodies should in general be in a position to arrange for systematic measure- 
ments of river flow and river level, the results of which might then be sent 
to some central office for collection, correlation and, possibly, publication. 
Some of the local organisations mentioned are obtaining data on river flow, 
but in most instances no systematic observations have yet been made. 


Matin MEMORANDUM FE, 


UNDERGROUND WATER. 
By BERNARD SMITH. 


I. SUGGESTIONS AS TO OBSERVATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS NECESSARY. 


In any organisation dealing with inland water resources accurate 
observations should be taken on the occurrence, amount and quality of the 
water stored underground in suitable permeable strata, and upon that 
which issues in the form of springs and seepages. 

In some districts percolating water is stored in rocks of open porous 
texture such as certain sandstones, which form natural reservoirs lying 
between, or faulted against, impermeable strata in such a way that a definite 
measurable water-table is established ; while in others it is stored mainly 
in systems of connected fissures and bedding planes (such as those in 
chalk), also with a fairly definite measurable water-table. In other cases, 
again, it occurs in more sporadic fashion, either (a) in thin, and at times 
discontinuous, permeable strata—as when thin beds of limestone or sand- 
stone alternate with shales, or sandy lenticles occur in glacial clays—or 
(6) in irregular fissures from which isolated springs may arise, but in which 
no definite water-table can be determined—as in slates, granites, etc. 

Beneath cover, and down dip, many of these rocks in their subterranean 
extension will yield water under artesian head when tapped by bores or wells. 

In all cases the thickness, geological character and structures of the 
water-bearing rocks require careful study. 

Water-tables.—It is essential that any measurable water-tables occurring 
in strata that fall within a definite drainage-basin should be studied in 
detail, and contours or cross-sections drawn to show their levels at three, 
four or more different periods of the year. For this purpose it is desirable 
to have standing water levels measured in a carefully selected series of 
wells, that tap water in the bed or beds undergoing observation, within as 


414 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


small a time limit as possible (say one week or less) for-each chosen period 
of the year. _In some wells at which continuous pumping is not going on 
the levels might be taken daily or weekly and related to rainfall, percolation 
and -evaporation. ‘These would give a more continuous picture of the 
fluctuations of the water-table during the year. 

Local co-operation would be necessary to gather widespread and consistent 
data for drawing contours; but the selection of the wells and the general 
supervision might be the task of a hydrogeologist. Some central authority 
is needed to encourage a standardised procedure and receive the necessary 
data for the construction of a continuous series of contoured maps. 

The seasonal fluctuation in the water-tables at or near outcrop would 
appear to depend upon :— 

(1) Percolation and evaporation ; (2) issue from springs ; (3) pumping. 

At trial borings and established pumping stations records are needed of. 
(1) the actual amount of water pumped (stating whether working at full 
capacity); (2) the maximum fall in water level during pumping; (3) the 
rate of lowering of the water level; (4) the rate of recovery after cessation 
of pumping; andsoon. Cones of depression in the surface of the water- 
table should be mapped out and related to the diameter of the well or 
boring, the suction level, capacity of pumps, physical character of the 
water-bearing rock and other relevant factors. 

Arising out of the plotting of water-table contours, the effects of pumping 
on the general, as distinct from strictly local, water-table over a number 
of years could be studied, and the results of overpumping—with possible 
deterioration of the water both in quantity and quality—properly evaluated. 

Amongst associated rocks with different degrees of permeability, perched 
water-tables are to be expected. 

Isolated wells—In areas where isolated or very widely spread wells 
occur it may not be possible to construct either contours or sections of the 
water-table (even if present); yet the original geological details, and 
subsequent continuous pumping records, will be useful guides to estimating 
prospects for future boreholes in the neighbourhood. Their value: will 
increase as more and more wells are sunk. 

Springs and wet-lines —All springs should be marked down and ganged 
consistently. They are the headwaters or subsidiaries of surface streams 
fed from underground storage and occur (1) as overflows from permeable 
rocks at positions where the water-table cuts the surface of the ground— 
as in the Bunter Sandstone area of Sherwood Forest, or in Chalk districts; 
where also ‘ bournes’ commence to flow when the water-table rises above 
a certain level; (2) as isolated and unrelated issues from irregular. systems 
of fissures in less permeable rocks. As a rule springs are much more 
regular in yield than the streams they help to feed, and, like rivers issuing 
from lakes, far less liable to rapid fluctuations. 

It may be:noted that geologists frequently discover previously eens riick 
springs, especially alongside, and in the beds of, streams during low-water 
periods. ‘They also note and usually map ‘ wet-lines ’ or lines of seepage— 
the potential sources of springs—and relate them to the local geology. 

Data of this kind are extremely valuable when local water supplies or 
impounding schemes are in question, and are especially desirable in 
districts—such as those of predominantly shaly, slaty or granitic rocks— 
where no water-table, in the ordinary sense, is to be expected. 

Quality of water (mineral). —A point that requires research is that of the 
potability of water apart from the effects of organic pollution. In certain 
cases waters in formation near outcrop, and for a short distance beneath 
cover, are potable, but become increasingly hard, saline, and unpotable 


INLAND WATER SURVEY © 415 


some distance down-dip—yet still well inland, as at Lincoln (Boultham). 
In other cases sea-water may gain access to concealed water-bearing rocks 
near the coasts or in estuaries—as in parts of Essex, Kent and Sussex. 
It is required to discover the approximate line at which the water becomes 
unpotable, and the underlying causes of the change. Help from geo- 
physicists may be obtained in future, for already it is thought by some to 
be possible to detect the change from fresh to saline waters in buried rocks 
by means of instruments. Again, changes in the mineral content of water, 
where permanent pumping machinery has been in action for many years, 
are apt to recur pari passu with lessening yield. Quite apart from changes 
that may occur as the distance increases down-dip, or as the overlying 
geological cover may alter in character (e.g. in some Chalk areas), research 
is needed on the relative qualities of waters derived from definite individual 
strata. These ought to be studied much as a palzontologist concentrates 
on fossil zones. The form of mineral analyses of waters seems to require 
standardisation so that rapid comparisons may be made. It frequently 
happens that a bore taps two or three water-bearing horizons, and the 
analysis made is that of a mixed water. One of the sources, from a 
particular bed, may be known from previous research to be highly saline. 
If located and tubed off the quality of the remainder would be improved. 

Other problems for study—Amongst other problems to be studied are 
(a) the prevention of pollution of underground waters by sewage and 
soakaway, (4) the possible repletion of underground reservoirs by means of 
dumb-wells, (c) the effects of mining on the distribution of underground 
waters. 

Conclusion—Records as complete as possible should be secured of all 
new wells or borings, and studied from every point of view. Such work 
can be undertaken only by persons with special qualifications as hydro- 
geologists. 


2. OUTLINE OF THE RECORDING AND ASSEMBLY OF DATA. 
CoNTINUOUS MEASUREMENTS OF WATER LEVELS. 


» Records of water levels during static periods or whilst pumping is in 
progress are kept at the larger water undertakings in the country and 
occasionally also at private wells (see Appendices (a), (b), (c), (d)), some 
covering as much as eighty years; but few of these (apart from those 
within the orbit of any economic unit) have been brought into regular and 
continuous relationship with others outside, although several undertakings 
may draw water from the same geological formation in the same drainage 
area. Hence the regular construction of maps or diagrams showing the 
(say, monthly) variations in the water-table has been impracticable hitherto. 
Useful maps and diagrams and empirical rules as to fluctuations to be 
expected have indeed been issued from time to time in printed papers or 
water supply memoirs (see Appendices (d) and (e) and Bibliography) ; but 
usually the maps refer to only one or perhaps two isolated periods in any 
one year, or to a mean annual level alone. 

An excellent summary of the kind of observations that might be and 
frequently are taken at pumping stations and private wells will be found 
in the Report on Stream Flow and Underground Water Records, Section II, 
C and E, issued by the Committee of the Institution of Water Engineers 
(October 1929), under the chairmanship of Dr. H. Lapworth. 

Flow from springs could be measured by weirs. ; 
» Collection of general water-supply data.—With regard to the collection 
of widespread geological and water-supply data derived from the sinking 


416 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


of borings and wells and the study of springs, those of the Geological 
Survey are doubtless the most extensive, and may be referred to here as 
showing the uses to which such collections may be put. Most of the large 
boring and exploration firms and many water engineers and consulting 
geologists have considerable, but naturally less extensive, collections of 
their own, that have been drawn upon for useful publication from time 
to time. 

Geological Survey: water supply data—Throughout its existence, 
now nearly a century, the Geological Survey has collected records of well- 
sections and borings ; but in the early days their use was in the main purely 
geological, as an aid to stratigraphy and mapping. Later, when the value 
of geological knowledge for underground water-supply became generally 
recognised, they were sought for this purpose also. 

The information, formerly assembled or published in connection with the 
Old Series 1-in. Geological Maps, was next filed under counties, and 
the issue of special County Water-Supply Memoirs was begun. This 
policy has been continued to the present day and twenty-six memoirs have 
been published. ‘There are also chapters on water-supply in many of the 
Sheet Memoirs. Data for the early memoirs were gathered from various 
sources, but the exact siting of a number of the bores left much to be 
desired, and the other information was, in many cases, all too meagre. 

At present the collection, filing and siting of records, which already 
amount to many thousands, is more consistent, and special studies of areas 
of underground water-supply are made from time to time. 

Details of wells or bores are entered on section sheets with a special 
heading (Geological Survey Memoir form), and comprise as many observa- 
tions of a general nature as are likely to be of value—failing continuous 
observations of water-levels ; but it must be noted that the information 
received is usually incomplete, since the only powers exercised by the 
Geological Survey are in respect of borings and shafts over 100 ft. in depth, 
sunk in search of minerals. 

Present sources of information are from :— 

(1) Old Survey Memoirs and other geological publications. 

(2) Information obtained on the spot during the 6-in. surveys now 
in hand, or from special limited surveys for Water-Supply Memoirs. 

(3) Well-sinkers, owners and others who apply for geological advice 
on water-supply, or who consult the Survey whilst their work is 
in progress. 

(4) The books and files of well-known water-boring firms. 

(5) The Ministry of Health, who forward copies of the records supplied 
to them in cases with which they deal. In important instances 
the Survey is asked to give an opinion upon the geological aspects of 
the schemes submitted and the prospects for finding the required 
amount or quality of water. 

With regard to source (3), inquiries about water prospects are now 
followed up, after a reasonable interval, if the inquirers do not communicate 
further. As a result, the Survey files are becoming increasingly ample, 
and a greater number of essential details are secured. In particular, the 
accurate location of the well or bore is asked for, and this is plotted on a 
I-in. map reserved for the purpose. 

Inquiries about water-supply dealt with at headquarters in London, 
Edinburgh, Manchester, York and Newcastle, amount to several hundreds 
a year. 

As a result, the Survey is generally in a position, when inquiries are 
made about an area, to give a reasonable or accurate estimate of water 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 417 


prospects; and this power is increasing with time. Furthermore, the 
geologists become specialists on those areas with which they are best 
acquainted, from having surveyed and studied either the actual rocks in 
question, or their counterparts. 

Questions of water-supply apart, it is incumbent upon the Survey, as it 
always will be, to collect as many records as possible of strata pierced by 
wells, boreholes or shafts, and to secure important rock specimens and 
fossils for study. 

Although much has been done in the past, and more is contemplated for 
the future, it is not claimed that the organisation is as good as it might 
be, and this for two main reasons :— 

(1) The information has chiefly to be acquired (i) by willing acquiescence 
or gratuitous offers on the part of water engineers, well-sinkers, and others 
who appreciate the work that is being done; (ii) by personal relationship 
between them and Survey officers ; or (iii) by the following up of inquiries. 

(2) The work is necessarily limited by the time and energies of the 
staff that can be spared from carrying on the general work of the Survey. 


EXAMPLES OF CONNECTED RECORDS OF WATER LEVELS, ETC., 
PUBLISHED IN GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MEMOIRS. 


Water Supply in Nottinghamshire, 1914.—Contours, at 5-ft. intervals, of 
the water-table in a part of the Bunter Pebble Beds, south of Bawtry and 
west and south-west of Retford (Fig. 1, p. 7). From one series of 
measurements only. The concealed surface of the Pebble Beds is con- 
toured (Plate I). ‘This shows the depth with reference to Ordnance Datum 
at which artesian Bunter waters can be struck beneath impervious Keuper. 

Saffron Walden Memoir, 1932 (Explanation of Sheet 205).—Contours, 
at 25-ft. intervals, of the water-table in the Chalk, for February 1928 and 
June and October 1929 (Plates IV and V). Plotted from measurements 
made by Cambridge geologists under Mr. W. B. R. King, O.B.E., M.A., 
and by officers of the Royal Engineers, under Major R. S. Rait-Kerr, R.E. 

Wells and Springs of Sussex, 1928.—Map and diagrams of the summit 
of the water-table in the South Downs, near Brighton, by Mr. A. B. 
Cathcart, M.Inst.C.E. (Fig. 5); and graphs showing the relationship of 
water-level in a well at Broadwater, Worthing, to rainfall from drawings 
by Mr. F. Roberts, M.Inst.C.E. (Fig. 6). 

Records of London Wells, 1913.—Contours of the underground water 
surface at various dates (Fig. 2), and a coloured map of underground 
water-levels at 25-ft. intervals (Plate I). Also a diagram showing difference 
in amount of bourne-flow water passing Kenley and Purley gauges (Fig. 4), 
and a map of the London districts showing contours of the pre-Tertiary 
Chalk surface. 


APPENDIX E (a). 


WATER LEVEL IN THE CHALK AT COMPTON, 
W. SUSSEX. 
By D. Hatton THomsOoN. 
Measured in well at Compton House, Compton. Ground 


level, 266 ft. O.D. Depth of well, 180 ft. Recorded water 
level varies between 220 and 94 ft.O.D. No pumping. 


The saturation level in the chalk emerges at ground level at varying 
points lower down the valley up to a distance of 44 miles from Compton, 


418 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


according'to rainfall and season. ‘This intermittent stream forms the upper 
reaches of the River Ems. 

Weekly water levels are available from 1893 to 1930, and the record is 
still being maintained (February 1933); there are, however, gaps in the 
record prior to 1898. Also, prior to 1903, the measurements were made 
at another well in the near vicinity. 

Rainfall records at the same site are available for the whole period ; also, 
since 1920, a percolation gauge, recording percolation through 3 ft. of chalk, 
has been maintained. 

An examination of the well-record shows that during dry periods there 
is, at any given level, a maximum rate at which that level falls, and that this 
maximum rate decreases as the level itself decreases. By piecing together 
these maximum rates a ‘ dry weather depletion curve’ can be established > 
when the observed rate of depletion is less than that shown by the curve, 
or if the level is actually rising, the difference is ascribed to percolation : 
The curve, therefore, can be used to analyse the record into two components, 
(1) depletion by underflow, and (2) replenishment by percolation. It is: 
also found that there is a direct relation between the vertical displacement 
of the ground-water level and the effective percolation, by means of which 
the fluctuations can be converted into rainfall units. 

The water levels are normally lowest in the late autumn, when percolation 
is negligible. If the record is divided into periods of nine to fifteen months, 
according to the date of recommencement of the annual percolation cycle, 
it is found that the percolation figures, as measured by the subsoil gauge 
and as calculated from the water levels, are in close agreement. It is also 
found that the annual evaporation loss, after excluding the effect of ground- 
storage, is nearly constant. 


APPENDIX £ (6). 


THE SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE WATERWORKS COMPANY. 


DESCRIPTION OF METHODS FOR OBTAINING WATER LEVELS IN 
WELLS AND BOREHOLES. 


By F. J. Drxon. 


In the case of shallow wells the water level is usually obtained by direct 
measurement with a wooden float and cord, or if permanant apparatus is 
desired then a copper float with a flexible metallic cord working through 
either pulleys or geared reducing apparatus indicates the water level. 

The actual indication at the surface can be shown on a graduated gauge 
board or a dial, but if a permanent record is desired then.a recorder in 
which the movement of the chart is synchronised with a clock is the best. 
Usually these recorders are made to give a seven-day record, but a shorter 
or longer period chart can be used if the recorder gears are arranged to suit. 

For deep wells float gears are not so suitable and in boreholes their use 
is impracticable. 'The two most suitable methods are the direct measure- 
ment method by galvanometer and the pneumatic system reading either on 
a gauge or recorder, 

The galvanometer consists of a rubber-covered single or double core 
cable on a drum fitted with handle for winding up the cable. At the loose 
end of the cable is a sinker with brass contact, which is connected to the 
cable and covered with a vulcanite sheath, having a hole in the bottom and 
a small vent hole at the level of the contact.’ In the case of the double-core 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 419 


cable, there are two contacts and this sheath prevents the instrument giving 
a false reading if water from the strata is falling down the borehole. 
Suitably arranged in a box with the cable drum, are a milliameter and a 
9-volt dry battery. In the case of the single core cable the circuit is 
completed by earthing on to the pump or by a copper bar pushed direct 
into the ground. ‘To obtain the water level the cable is lowered until 
the pointer of the milliameter is deflected, showing contact has been made 
at the water level when the cable is drawn up and the level determined by 
measurement. 

“The pneumatic system consists of a gauge or recorder, mounted usually 
with the pump gauges, together with an air bottle with pressure gauge, 
control cocks, foot pump and copper-piping carried down the borehole 
below the lowest water level. 

The piping (4-in. bore) is clamped to the pump and lowered with it as 
erection proceeds. If the size of the borehole will allow, then a bell is 
usually placed on the end of the pipe to act as a small air reservoir. 

The gauge or recorder is connected direct on to the pipe and a branch on 
the pipe connects to the air bottle, which is turn is connected to the foot 
pump. A control valve is placed directly under the gauge and also on the 
pipe leading from the air bottle. ‘The gauge or recorder is graduated in 
feet below floor level, but the dial is reversed as regards marking when 
compared with a standard gauge. Assume the gauge or recorder was to 
read to a maximum depth of 200 ft. below floor level, then the end of the 
pipe or bell must be exactly this distance below the floor. If the water 
was down to this level there would be no pressure in the pipe and the 
pointer in its zero position would show 200 ft. on the dial or chart. It is 
necessary to maintain a pressure in the air bottle higher than pressure due 
to variations in water level and a gauge is fitted on the air bottles to enable 
the operator to see he is maintaining a suitable pressure with the foot pump. 

If we now assume the water level is 100 ft. below floor level and the 
pressure in the bottle was go lb., then the air admitted to the gauge pipe 
would leak away at the bell or‘pipe end until the pressure just balanced the 
head of water in the borehole and the pointer would now show 100 ft. below 
floor level on the gauge or recorder. Where there are marked variations in 
water level due to alterations in the rate of pumping, or the plant is only 
operating a certain number of hours daily, then the best instrument to instal 
is the seven-day recorder type, as every alteration is indicated and the actual 
time when it occurred, the charts thus obtained giving valuable permanent 
records. 

- A galvanometer is usually provided at each station to check the pneumatic 
depth recorder and also for use in case of a failure on the air-pressure 
system. 


APPENDIX E (c). 
1. PUMPING TESTS AT NEW BORINGS FOR WATER. 


*" 2..GAUGING OVER LONG PERIODS FROM WELLS 
IN THE CHALK. 


By R. C. S. WALTERs. 


1. NEw WATERWORKS, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE, 1930. 


tthe water is from Bunter beds lying 223-300 ft. below surface, and 
ees Keuper Sandstones and Marls. Borings consisted of a trial bore 
and two permanent boreholes. 


420 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


In May 1926 the trial hole was tested. This hole was 8 in. in diameter 
and 300 ft. deep, and was found to justify the development of the site. 

By January 1927 the first of two permanent boreholes, 32 ft. apart, each 
23 ins. diameter and 300 ft. deep had been sunk and tested. The second 
permanent boring was sunk and tested by the following July. The trial 
boring was 5 ft. distant from No. 1 borehole and 31 ft. from No. 2 borehole. 

The table below summarises these tests. 

The great variation in tests may be traced mainly to the effect of opening 
out the strata by several borings and also the result of clearing by extended 
pumping. It is obvious that in such strata any conclusions as to the true 
yield can only be arrived at after many tests or prolonged pumping. 


SuMMaARY OF TESTS ON BOREHOLES. 
DuRATION ONE TO FIvE Days. 


* Specse 
uantity | Rest . yield. 
Test. Date. Hole. | Gals. per | Level ion RewOr, Gals. per 
hour. Feet. * | hour per 
foot. 
I May 1926 . | trial 4,840 25 43 I10 
3 January 1927 .|No.1 10,500 26 70 150 
6 | February 1927 . |No.1]| 10,000 28 44 227 
8 | July 1927. . |No.2] 15,500 25 113 138 
9 | January 1929 «6. | No.2] 12,500 29 59 212 
1o | January 1929 «6. |No.1| 12,500 | 29 44 284 


2. A summary of the facts concerning wells in the Chalk which have 
been gauged for continuous long periods—varying from a minimum of 
three to a maximum of eighty-four years—will be found in Table I of ‘ The 
Hydro-Geology of the Chalk of England,’ Trans. Inst. Water Engineers, 
vol. xxxiv, 1929. 


APPENDIX E (d). 
NOTES ON RAINFALL, REST-LEVELS AND PUMPING LEVELS 
IN THE CHALK 
as deduced from records supplied by 
A. E. CoRNEWALL-WALKER. 
The East Surrey Water Company. 


The records consist of graphs, for 1924 to 1930 (inclusive), at the Purley 


Well, of (a) Rest Level ; (6) Pumping Level, and (c) Rainfall. 
From a study of the graphs the following points emerge :— 


(1) The low degree of porosity is shown by the way in which the rise off 
the water level lags some four months behind periods of heavy rainfall. 


(2) Irregularities in the rainfall curve tend to become smoothed out in 


the rest-level curve ; thus, at one point, two ‘ peaks ’ in the former produce 
one in the latter. 


(3) After long periods of heavy rainfall the water-level remains high for a 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 421 


considerable period, the curve being flat-topped ; while after short periods 
of heavy rainfall the high water-level soon drops, giving pointed curves. 
(4) The average curve of pumping-levels follows closely the curve of 
rest-levels. In the present case a composite pumping-level curve is shown, 
stronger pumps having been installed in 1926. A measure of water 
pumped is shown by the difference in feet between the two water-level 
curves ; and the stronger pumps increase this difference without otherwise 
affecting the similarity of the two curves. From this illustration it is seen 
that in wells where it is not possible to measure rest-levels, except at very 
long intervals, some idea of the rest-level may be obtained if records of 
pumping-levels are kept, and the difference between pumping and rest- 
levels, as determined by occasional measurement, added. 
(5) Compare— 
(a) ‘ London Wells ’ (Mem. Geol. Surv.), Plate III. 
(6) £ Wells and Springs of Sussex ’ (Mem. Geol. Surv.), pp. 19-20. 
(c) ‘ Hydrogeological Conditions in the Chalk at Compton, Sussex,’ 
Inst. Water Engineers, 1921. 
(d) British Rainfall, 1919, pp. 257-262, for summary of details, and 
bibliography, of records from 1836 onwards, for Chilgrove. 


Matin MeEmMoranpumM F. 


RIVER GAUGING. 
By W. N. McC ean. 


1. CHOICE OF SITES. 


The sites generally chosen by river authorities for gauging rivers are at 
weirs which have been constructed for the purpose of abstracting water or 
controlling flow. ‘These sites are chosen because, by installing a recorder 
water level gauge in still water above the weir, the flow at any water level 
is given by some weir formula. That there is any resemblance to accuracy 
during floods seems to be unlikely. For low flow estimates they may be 
very convenient. 

In practice, the weir itself is not the weir of the laboratory experiment ; 
except at low flows, it is partially or wholly submerged and a varying formula 
has to be used according to the downstream water levels at some vague 
point. The velocity of approach is probably unmeasured. Records of 
the water abstracted, which may be the greater part of the low flow, have to 
be kept accurately. There are often many complications of sluice control. 

Generally speaking, the best site for river gauging, with the current meter, 
is a steady-running reach with a steeper water slope down stream, so that 
there may be no backing up due to the downstream flood conditions. 

These sites are not always obtainable, and often the water-slopes on rising 
and falling rivers will have to be very carefully measured during the gaugings 
and afterwards for the records. 

Sites should be chosen where the river is always within its banks or where 
the overflow is never of any considerable amount. 

The choice of a site for gauging is not often an easy matter and it may be 
necessary to use different sites for floods and low waters. There is much 
to be said for the reading of low flows at weirs or in narrow channels and the 
big wide reaches are best for floods. 

_ The main object of gauging a river should be to obtain continuous records 
of water level and of corresponding flow. 


422 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


2. SITE SURVEY AND WATER LEVEL GAUGE INSTALLATION.. 


Assume that a suitable site has been selected. 

A careful survey of the river bed and banks should be made above and 
below the gauging section. The zero for levels and the zero and direction 
of the gauging section should be fixed, for all time, by permanent stations 
on the banks which are included in the survey. 

The sites of the water level recording points have then to be settled. One 
of these will have to be the final station for the continuous records of water 
level. Another will have to be on the gauging site in order to give the depths 
of water during the gaugings. ‘This will have to be a permanent gauge if 
the water slopes are found to differ on the rising and falling river. 

The water level apparatus requires special consideration according to 
the nature of the site, but automatic recorders and gauge posts are necessary. 

When sufficient funds are available there is little difficulty in setting up 
permanent stations with float gauges; but in the moreordinary circum- 
stances it is best to follow the bank up with short gauge posts: or with a 
series of pipe-wells for the use of a hook-gauge. ‘The automatic takes the 
form of an air box in the lower well connected by a small diameter pipe to 
the clock-driven chart on the bank top. 

The site may now be considered as equipped with the necessary water 
level apparatus for the flow measurements and for the permanent records. 


3- FLow GauGING APPARATUS, ITS SETTING-UP AND USE. 


On rivers of any considerable width where floods are to be measured, the 
apparatus is the boat or punt or double-punt, with a cross river ropeway ; 
the velocities being measured by current meters on wire or rod. The 
writer and others have used the bos’n’s chair on a ropeway, and it is not satis- 
factory. A portable bridge with trestle piers on the lower part of the bank 
may prove best on narrower rivers. 

In the writer’s experience, accuracy of current meter observations is 
dependent principally on the use of a rod which holds the current meter 
steady to the point and depth ; readings then become uniform, even in the 
presence of considerable turbulence. 

The writer’s apparatus has been developed gradually. It is founded on 
a secure ropeway across the river which remains unchanged throughout the 
whole period of gauging work. It is easily transported, and is adaptable to 
most sites. The head lines of the double-punt are attached to a small 
trolley which is made to travel along the ropeway by means of an endless 
rope worked from a winch on the bank. The double-punt is steadied and 
held in position by another light wire rope across the river. ‘This rope 
passes round a drum fixed at the base of the frame which holds the gauging 
rod, and the strain on therope is regulated from the bank. An independent 
tally line marked at each 5 ft. is permanently stretched across the river 
about 2 ft. upstream of the actual gauging section. 

The double-punt used by the writer is very completely equipped for 
control from a small cabin. The operations are :— 

(1) Adjustment up and down stream on the head lines. 

(2) Adjustment to the tally line mark by revolving the drum. of the 

straining rope. 

(3) Adjustment of the current meter dan by raising or lowering the rod. 

Each punt is in two parts for ease of transport and launching. 

The principal point to emphasise is the use of the streamlined rod, which 


Dritish 44ssoci 


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W.N MecCuean See Memoranoum F 


(To face p. 422. 


British Association—Inland Water Survey 


River Moriston 


Powr-6or = STAGE — DISCHARSE 


— WN MeComn See Masons F =| 
(To yace p. 438 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 423 


enables steady observations to be made at depths of 17 ft. or over in high 
velocities. ‘This rod resembles the struts of an aeroplane in section. It is 
also used for soundings. The efficient and safe carrying out of the gauging 
is dependent on the care, skill, and accuracy of a surveyor, who is a practical 
engineer, a rigger and a boatman. 


4. CURRENT METERS, 


There are many good types of meters which record, electrically, the 
revolutions of the meter. 
The essential gauging points are :— 


(a) The care of the meters. 

(6) The careful work of looking out for weeds, leaves, etc., on the 
meter during gauging. 

(c) The frequent calibration of the meters at the National Physical 
Laboratory and the use of several meters. 


5. THE GauGING OPERATIONS AND ACCOMPANYING FIELD Work. 


On a 100-ft. to 300-ft. width of river, the velocities are measured on every 
gauging at each 10-ft. mark on the tallyline, and often at every intermediate 
5 ft. At each of these points, velocities are measured at 6 in., 1 ft., and each 
foot to the bottom, and at intermediate 6 in. near the bottom. 

The time intervals given by the buzzer are entered on the field sheets, 
and also the clock time at the point. 

On shore, the assistant keeps the water level records at the two gauges 

against the clock time. A hook-gauge in a well is used for these water 
levels, and they are plotted for the day. Automatic recorders may be used 
in the future. 
+ During floods, the water levels vary very considerably during the gauging 
day, but the underlying principle of the writer’s method is that each point 
on the river has its separate stage-discharge curve, thus eliminating inac- 
curacies of computation due to varying water level during the gauging day. 
The gauging day thus ends with velocity field sheets and the graphs and 
readings of water levels. 


6. COMPUTATIONS. 


These do not need description in detail, and the whole work centres on 

the Stage-Discharge Diagram at each gauging point on the section. A 
diagram is attached to this Memorandum, giving, for each water level gauged, 
the cusecs passing the point for a 1-ft. width of river and, by intermediate 
markings, the cusecs passing at each foot or 6 in. of depth. The water 
slope is given against the water-level height of the recorder gauge. To this 
diagram is added a diagram of maximum velocities at and near the surface. 
This yields a maximum velocity-stage graph, and, by applying different 
coefficients to these maximum velocities, the coefficients applicable to each 
stage of the river may be judged. 
_ These coefficients are used for the final smoothing of the stage-discharge 
curve of each point, and, finally, the discharges at each 3 in. of water level 
height are transferred to a diagram giving the discharges for the whole river 
section at each 3 in. of water level. The results are also tabulated. On 
these lines, if there is no overflow, the discharge values may be reasonably 
extended to higher floods and approximately to lower low waters. 


424 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


47, THE CONTINUOUS RECORD OF WATER LEVELS CONVERTED INTO 
FLow REcorDs. 


There is, firstly, the table of flow for each } in. or so of water level, which 
has resulted from the river gaugings. 

From the graph of the water level recorder, the average water level of 
each 3 hours is tabulated on the main records table and each 3-hourly 
value is converted into flow. ‘The daily average flow is then tabulated. 

On special floods, shorter time intervals may be used on a similar table. 
Such tables will provide all necessary data for any investigation required. 

The essential point to make clear is that the records should be, firstly, 
records of water level and the conversion to flow should not be made on 
the water level recorder graph. The reasons for this decision are many. 
The shortest way of putting the point is that flow measurements are sub- 
sidiary to water-level measurements and that the connection between the 
two may change (1) by changes in the river, and (2) by improved measure- 
ments. But beyond that, water levels are a definite record of storage and 
stage throughout the whole river system. 


In further reference to river gauging, extracts from Prof. Dixon’s and 
Mr. Griffiths’ statements are attached (see Appendices a and b). 


APPENDIX F (a). 


NOTES ON THE GAUGING OF THE RIVER SEVERN, 
AT BEWDLEY. 


By S. M. Dixon. 


1. The gauging site, half a mile above Bewdley Bridge, is in a section of 
the river which is sensibly straight and of reasonably uniform width for a 
little over three-quarters of a mile. About a quarter of a mile above the site is 
a short section of rapids, which dries partially at extreme low flows. Another 
similar shallow section occurs three-quarters of a mile below the gauging site. 
The river, near the site, flows between high steep banks, its width varying 
from about 140 ft., at minimum flow, to about 180 ft., at which point it over- 
flows its banks into level fields on either side. ‘The bottom is of rock, and 
the depth at minimum flow varies from 7 ft. in midstream to about 3 ft. 
close to the banks. 

There is a gauge post at the site, consisting of four cast iron sections, 
bolted to steel channels, set in concrete on the bank, each projecting 3 ft. 
from the ground, and recording over a total rise of 11 ft. in water level. 
Each foot is divided into tenths. 

Daily records of the water level are read on a permanent cast iron scale 
fixed just below Bewdley Bridge, about half amile down-stream of the gauging 
site, and on a sloping concrete scale cut in the Aqueduct carrying the 
Birmingham Corporation’s water supply across the river two miles above 
the site. An automatic recording gauge is also installed at the latter place 
and is attended to weekly by the Corporation Water Department’s walksman, 
who lives close by. The sloping concrete scale serves to check the setting 
of the automatic recorder. 

The zero of the gauge at Bewdley Bridge was chosen to correspond with 
the lowest water level which was likely to occur. The zeros of the other 
fixed gauges were chosen arbitrarily, the zero of the automatic gauge at the 


INLAND WATER SURVEY 425 


Aqueduct being the same as that of the fixed gauge beside it. On the 
Aqueduct gauge the reading of the lowest water-level recorded is 9°4 ft., 
corresponding to a discharge of 290 cusecs. Other extreme readings are :— 

Highest recorded level, 24‘5 ft. corresponding to a discharge of 17,000 
cusecs. 

Highest summer level, 21:7 ft. corresponding to a discharge of 12,400 
cusecs. 

Lowest winter level, 10-15 ft. corresponding to a discharge of 710 cusecs. 

2. Two meters are used for measuring discharges, an Amsler propeller- 
type meter, and the small Price bucket-type meter. In each case, velocities 
are measured at intervals of 1 ft. vertically in planes ro ft. apart horizontally. 

The Amsler meter is always used on a rod operated from a flat-bottomed 
punt. The punt is located and kept stationary by two wire cables, bow and 
stern, anchored to the banks, and the rod held over the side. 

The Price meter is always used suspended from a cable slung between 
two permanent steel standards fixed on either bank. Raising and lowering 
and traversing the meter are accomplished by means of two winches, one 
on either standard. A full description of this apparatus, and of the method 
of using it, will be found in a paper entitled ‘River Gauging’ by M.A. Hogan, 
Ph.D., and published by the Department of Scientific and Industrial 
Research. 

Except close to the banks, and in conditions of extreme low flow, the 
velocities of water at the gauging site always exceed about ? ft. per sec., 
and no attempt is made to measure velocities below # ft. per sec. 

Occasional measurements of surface velocities are made with wooden 
floats 3 in. square and 1 in. thick, their paths being determined by 
readings from two theodolites on the tow-path. 

The field book contains five columns, Distance (from a fixed point on 
bank), Sounding, Depth of Meter, No. of Revolutions (of meter) and Time. 
The corresponding velocities are subsequently determined from the meter’s 
rating curves—which are checked from time to time in the College Labora- 
tory—and the discharges are worked out graphically, by plotting cross 
sections of the river and the velocity-depth’ curves at each ro ft. vertical. 
Corrections are applied, if necessary, for alteration of the water-level during 
gauging, and for down-stream sag of the meter’s suspending cable. 

Up to the present, some eighty-five gaugings have been made on about 
fifty different occasions during the last eleven years. It is hoped that it 
will shortly be possible to compare the results with measurements of the 
discharge made at Lincomb Weir, some four miles further down the river. 

(Diagrams have been made showing the section of the river at the gauging 
site, a typical annual hydrograph, and a drawing from which the results of a 
gauging were calculated.) 


APPENDIX F (5). 
THAMES CONSERVANCY. 


NoTEs ON GAUGING. 
By G. J. GRIFFITHS. 


Current Meter Gauging .—A straight uniform section of the river is selected, 
usually 100 ft. in length, and carefully cross-sectioned at both ends and in 
the middle. Wires are spanned across the river at each cross-section, 
divided into 10 ft. intervals or compartments. 


Q 


426 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 


A current meter (propeller type), with either visible or audible revolution 
counter, is then submerged at 6 in. and at other regular depths down to a 
point of 6 in. above the river bed, in the centre of each compartment, 
readings being taken at each depth. From the plotted velocity curve an 
average velocity for the compartment is obtained. 

This velocity, in feet per minute, is multiplied by the area of the compart- 
ment, and the summation of this process for all the compartments gives 
Q for the length of river in question. ; 

At times the gradient of the river is also taken and a discharge is calculated 
and compared with the current meter observations, with a view to finding 
the appropriate coefficients for the section of river under examination. It 
may be pointed out, however, that this investigation is by no means easy of 
application on the Thames. The river is weired at average intervals of 
24 to 3 miles, and it is only when the weirs are fully drawn, or nearly so, 
that an approximately natural condition can be obtained. 

Also when the river is in full flood the water overflows the banks and 
shallow side streams flow over land and meadows which are obstructed by 
hedges, fences, buildings, etc. ‘These and many other practical difficulties 
have to be provided for, and it is largely a matter of experience as to the best 
method to be adopted under the particular conditions of each case. 

In certain cases it is found advisable to substitute rod or float readings 
for current meter observations. 


NOTE. 


The Report on Inland Water Survey was adopted at the Leicester 
Meeting of the British Association, 1933, by Sections A (Mathematical and 
Physical Sciences), E (Geography), and G (Engineering), on whose recom- 
mendation the Committee was appointed in 1932. It was felt by these 
Sections that Memorandum E and its appendices, dealing with the measure- 
ment of underground water, should be regarded as a basis for fuller 
treatment of the subject, after consultation with Section C (Geology). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS. 


(For reference to the publication elsewhere of communications entered in the 
following lists of transactions, see end of volume, preceding index.) 


SECTION A. 
MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Prof. L. VecarD.—The auroral spectrum and the upper atmosphere (10.0). 


A summary account is given of present knowledge of the auroral spectrum 
and its consequences. 

Most of the results are based on spectrographic work carried out in 
Northern Norway, at Bosekop and Tromsé6 (1912-26), and during the last 
three years important results were obtained at the new Auroral Observatory, 
Tromsé, in collaboration with Mr. L. Harang and Mr. E. Ténsberg. 

In the explored region from 9,000 A.ininfra-red to the limit of atmospheric 
transmission in ultra-violet, 85 bands and lines have been detected. Apart 
from the strong green line and a couple of red lines, probably due to oxygen, 
the auroral spectrum is dominated by nitrogen bands belonging to the negative, 
and the first and second positive, groups. The type of nitrogen spectrum 
agrees well with the theory of Birkeland, that the luminescence is produced 
by electric rays from the sun. The high intensity of the green line is ex- 
plained by assuming oxygen atoms excited through collisions of the second 
kind with active nitrogen, where a kind of resonance effect takes place. 

The auroral spectrum gives no indication of an upper atmospheric layer 
dominated by hydrogen and helium. 

Typical variations within the auroral spectrum have been detected and 
studied. One of these consists of the enhancement of red lines producing 
the red colouring of the aurore. A second is an altitude effect detected in 
1923, one aspect of which is the enhancement, with increasing altitude, of the 
nitrogen bands relative to the green line. 

The temperatures of the emitting molecules of the auroral region were 
quantitatively measured by means of negative nitrogen bands. 

The spectral altitude effect, seen in relation to the height, extension and 
luminescence of the auroral streamers and to the low temperature observed, 
shows that nitrogen must be carried to high altitudes through the effect of 
an electric state set up by the action of a solar radiation of short wave-length. 
The resulting state and the distribution of matter, resembling the sun’s 
corona, is described and shown to fit in with results of radio-echo work, 
and to give a simple explanation of the zodiacal light and the night-sky 


luminescence, agreeing well with spectral observations of Rayleigh and 
Slipher. 


Dr. R. J. VAN pE Graarr.—The electrostatic generation of high voltage 
for nuclear research (10.30). 


428 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


Joint Discussion with Section K (Botany) on The X-ray analysis of 
fibres (11.0) -— 

Mr. W. T. AstBury.—Some recent developments in the X-ray inter- 

pretation of the properties of hair, feathers and other protein 
structures. 


The recognition by X-ray methods of the regular, side-to-side cohesion of 
long, chain-like molecules to form crystalline bundles has served to give 
form to existing physico-chemical data, and helped us to understand for 
the first time many of their most characteristic properties. In particular, 
it has been found possible to follow changes under applied stress and 
chemical treatment of the configuration of gigantic protein molecules, such 
as those of the keratin of hair and feathers, and thereby to study the molecular 
mechanism of their long-range elasticity and link it up with that of simpler 
molecules. The crystal analysis of the chain-bundles involves at the outset 
some generalisation of the usual geometrical treatment, with the result that 
we are led to the concept of standard average dimensions of intra-molecular 
units, from which can be predicted the probable density of proteins as a 
class and the weight per unit area of mono-molecular protein films. Devia- 
tions from these standard average dimensions, as in the case of gelatin, may 
be used to investigate the linkages which give rise to them and ultimately, 
it may be hoped, to derive the precise form of the intra-molecular pattern, 
while from a knowledge of the molecular direction associated with each 
particular dimension we may follow the course of localised reactions such 
as the attack of water on the protein side-chains. The interaction of water 
with protein and other chain-bundles offers points of considerable interest, 
especially when studied in relation with their elastic properties. 


Dr. R. D. Preston.—The structure of the cell wall of Valonia. 


While the cells of most species of Valonia are approximately isodiametric 
and are not to be considered as fibres in the morphological sense, their walls 
are certainly composed of molecular fibres such as are typical of the true 
fibres of the plant. Sufficient work has already been carried out to indicate 
the importance of investigations on the walls of these large cells in relation 
to the organisation of the walls of what may be called the ‘ obvious ” fibres. 
The wall of Valonia consists of a kind of molecular basket-work over the 
whole surface composed of two sets of cellulose chains, crossing at about 
80° to each other, which have been shown to be parallel to the two sets of 
striations visible under the microscope. These chains of cellulose exist in 
the form of well-defined crystalline aggregates whose orientation is usually 
remarkably perfect. As observed by Sponsler, the planes of ‘spacing 
6-1 A. tend to lie parallel to the surface of the wall, though there exists an 
undoubted dispersion. Variation of the relative amounts of the two sets 
of chains from point to point in the wall gives rise to a somewhat misleading 
heterogeneous appearance in the polarising microscope. 

The structure of the cellulose net of the whole wall is now being mapped 
out by a ‘ lines of force method,’ and it seems highly probable that the 
crossed chains observed at any point are portions of two spirals. 


Dr. J. B. SpEAKMAN.—Fibre chemistry and X-ray analysis. 


Wool fibres may be stretched as much as 70 per cent. of their length in 
cold water without losing the power of returning to the original length. 
If, however, stretched fibres are exposed to the action of steam for, say, 
six hours, they assume a ‘ set ’ which is not eliminated even by re-steaming 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 429 


in the absence of tension. The discovery that deaminated fibres are in- 
capable of taking a ‘set’ permanent to steam, gives an opportunity of 
interpreting the molecular mechanism of the setting process. ‘The problem 
is interesting because its solution involves the combined use of chemical 
and X-ray methods, and because of the many analogies between the action 
of steam on strained fibres and the heat coagulation of egg albumin. 


Mr. J. THEwWLIs.—Fibre structure in teeth. 


X-ray analysis reveals that tooth enamel, like several other growing 
structures (e.g. asbestos, cellulose), consists of fibres. "Tooth enamel con- 
sists mainly of calcium, oxygen and phosphorus, with the possible addition 
of chlorine or fluorine, and the atoms of these elements are arranged in the 
same way as in the mineral apatite. The crystals of apatite, and hence of 
enamel, are hexagonal, and the arrangement of the enamel fibres is such that 
the hexagonal axes of the individual crystallites all tend to be parallel— 
i.e. the hexagonal axis is the fibre-axis. 

In human enamel there are two sets of fibres, one with the fibre-axis 
inclined at about 20° to the normal to the surface of the tooth, and on the 
same side as the tip; the other with the fibre-axis inclined at about 10° 
to the normal to the surface, and on the opposite side to the tip. In dog’s 
enamel the fibre-axis is at right angles to the surface of the tooth. 

Variations in degree of fibreing are found in_ histologically normal 
enamel, and three kinds of enamel can be distinguished. In human teeth 
it is found that one kind is associated with clinically immune teeth, and the 
other two with clinically susceptible teeth. 


Mr. Oar BLocu.—Principles and applications of infra-red photography 
(12.30). 

A photograph of the audience was taken at the beginning of the 
demonstration, the hall being illuminated with infra-red light. 

The renascence of interest in infra-red photography is due to the syn- 
thesis of a new tricarbocyanine dyestuff which renders possible the produc- 
tion of emulsions of considerably higher speed to infra-red radiation and 
greater cleanliness in processing than existed previously. 

Much interest has been created by the long-distance photographs in 
which there has been a considerable amount of haze penetration owing to 
the lessened scatter of infra-red light by moisture particles constituting 
haze or mist. But there are many other applications of the process to the 
arts and sciences, and examples of these are shown and discussed. They 
include astronomy, medical work, photo-micrography, investigation of 
dyed materials, spectroscopy, the detection of obliterated, over-written or 
erased writings. Some of these depend upon the power of infra-red 
radiation to penetrate beneath the surface of tissues, etc., which are opaque, 
or nearly so, to visible radiation. In short, since most photography is record 
work depending upon differentiation, wherever differences exist between the 
infra-red photograph and the ordinary photograph, the process is one which 
may have a useful application. 


AFTERNOON. 
Excursion to Daventry Broadcasting Station. 


430 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—A. 


Friday, September 8. 


PRESIDENTIAL ApprEss by Sir G. T. Waker, C.S.I., F.R.S., on Seasonal 
weather and its prediction (10.0). (See p. 25.) 


Prof. F. Linxe.—The influence of the stratosphere on cyclone formation 
(11.0). 


The Norwegian polar-front theory stands in contradiction to the opinion 
of several German and Austrian meteorologists, in that the formation and 
movement of cyclones are produced by inertia or gravitational waves in the 
stratosphere. 

The wave movements originating on the fronts of the troposphere are 
insufficient to explain the energy produced thereby. 

The following facts speak for independent stratospherical waves : 

(1) On all stratifications with sufficiently great density gradients inertia- 
waves can originate, therefore also in the tropopause. 

(2) By means of isallobar maps one can study the course of very expansive 
wave systems right round the earth, which do not agree with the movements 
of the cyclones and even intersect them. ‘These wave systems must have 
their origin in the stratosphere. It is observed that fronts which are 
becoming stationary again become activised by such waves. 

(3) According to the Norwegian view, on the ground, cooling must be 
connected with rising air pressure and decrease of cloudiness, warming 
with falling air pressure and increase of cloudiness. Frequently, however, 
especially in the middle latitudes, a rise of pressure is observed with warm 
air invasions, and a fall of pressure with cold air invasions. This can only 
be explained by means of the overlying stratospherical waves. 

(4) Persistent obviously stratospherical high pressures and low pressures 
are sometimes observed. ‘These are circumscribed by short stratospherical 
waves, which can invite the building of cyclones. 

The stratosphere therefore controls }the tropospherical cyclones. 
‘Fronts ’ are stimulated when energy is supplied to them through altera- 
tions of the pressure gradient, which are determined in the stratosphere. 

On the other hand, however, a reaction of the occurrences in the tropo- 
sphere on the stratosphere also takes place. ‘This must be explained on 
purely dynamical lines, whereas the action of the stratosphere is purely 
statical. "There exists, therefore, a mutual coupling between stratosphere 
and troposphere. The Norwegian and German-Austrian cyclone theories 
are united in a ‘ theory of the complex cyclone,’ whose further investigation 
constitutes the chief problem of synoptical meteorology. 


Prof. E. REGENER.—New results in cosmic ray measurements (11.25). 


Mr. Wm. Tay tor, O.B.E., and Mr. H. W. Lee.—The development of 
photographic lenses at Leicester (11.50). 


The problem of the photographic lens is to secure a well-defined image 
over a considerable flat field. The solution was not discovered till dense 
barium crown and light flint glasses were available to the lens designer, 
although the principles applied by Dennis Taylor in the Cooke lens could 
have provided a solution with the older glasses. Rudolph (1890), Goerz 
(Dec. 1892), and H. Dennis Taylor (Jan. 1893) solved the problem, in 
different ways, with the aid of these. The Continental type of lens, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 431 


comprising many components cemented together, is compared with the 
Cooke lens in its various types. 

For aerial photography during the war a special type of lens was required, 
and the Cooke-Aviar was developed. At this time also the aperture of the 
Cooke was increased to F/3. In recent times still larger apertures have 
been called for, and the Cooke F/2 and F/2:5 and F/1-5 lenses developed. 
Projection lenses for the modern cinema also have had to be of greater 
aperture, and this has led to the development of a series of lenses of apertures 
F/2 to F/1:5. It is noteworthy that all the modern large-aperture lenses 
consist, like the Cooke lens, of separated components, and that the Con- 
tinental lens, with many components cemented together, has practically 
dropped out in the race. 

The anastigmatic Telephoto lens was also first made at Leicester. 

The problems of optical design, and the methods used, are reviewed. 

The trend of photographic optics is towards the production of lenses of 
small focal length and greater speed, largely influenced by the increasing 
employment of small cameras, kinematographs, and finer grained emulsions. 

Leicester methods of manufacture and testing lenses. Interchangeable 
manufacture. 


Dr. L. Stmons and Mr. E. H. Smart.—Demonstration of a model to 
illustrate the classical motion of a diatomic rotator with two degrees 


of freedom (12.40). 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to British Thomson-Houston Works, Rugby. 


Monday, September 11. 
DIscussIONn on Atomic transmutation :— 


Rt. Hon. Lorp RuTHERFORD oF Netson, O.M., F.R.S.—A review 
of a quarter of a century’s work on atomic transmutation (10.0). 


In 1907 a discussion on the constitution of the atom was held before 
Section A at the meeting of the British Association at Leicester, in which 
the importance of the study of the transformations of radioactive bodies 
was indicated, and the difficulty of explaining the part played by positive 
electricity was emphasised. 

In 1911 clear evidence for the nuclear structure of the atom was put 
forward. It soon became evident that outer electrons played no major 
part in transmutations, and that in order to institute any permanent atomic 
transmutation the structure of the nucleus must be changed. In 1919 
decisive experiments were made. When «-particles were fired in nitrogen, 
a new type of particle appeared—the proton. Photographic evidence 
showed that the capture of an «-particle by the nucleus was accompanied by 
the emission of a proton. The nitrogen nucleus, therefore, of mass 14 and 
charge 7, assimilates an «-particle of mass 4 and charge 2 and expels 
a proton of mass 1 and charge 1. We are therefore left with a nuclear 
structure of mass 17 and charge 8, which is an isotope of oxygen. Other 
transmutations may be similarly checked, remembering that all such changes 
must obey what may be termed general energy conditions. 

Beryllium of mass 9 and charge 4, when bombarded, captures an «-particle 
of mass 4 and charge 2, giving rise to a nucleus of mass 12 and charge 6, 


432 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


emitting a neutron of mass 1 and charge zero. Future experiments will 
show that the neutron is a very powerful weapon of research. 

Five years ago it became evident that other types of fast particle must be 
used if more information were to be forthcoming, and it was found possible 
to obtain from the electric discharge large supplies of particles the speeds of 
which might be raised by passage through an electric field. This demand 
has resulted in the development of laboratory methods for the production 
of high potentials. 

Lately, developments of wave mechanics theory have shown that particles 
which could not normally surmount a potential barrier might yet get 
through if intense streams were employed at relatively low voltages. 


Dr. J. D. Cocxcrort and Dr. E. T.S. WaLton.—The transmutation 
of elements by high velocity protons (10.30). 


The production of types of nuclear transmutation other than the classical 
#-particle-proton synthesis by Rutherford and Chadwick was for many 
years considered to require ions of several million volts energy for use as 
projectiles. This deterrent was removed by the new view of atomic col- 
lisions introduced by the wave mechanics, Gamow’s theory of the nucleus 
suggesting that protons having energies of a few hundred thousand volts 
ought to be able to penetrate the nuclei of the lighter elements. 

The apparatus developed by the authors produces protons having 
energies up to 700 kilovolts ; with these protons they have been able with 
certainty to disintegrate the elements lithium, boron and fluorine, the entry 
of the proton leading in all three cases to the ejection of an «-particle. 
Lithium splits up into two «-particles, two types of transmutation occurring 
in one of which an energy equivalent of 17 million volts is liberated. Boron 
appears to split up into three «-particles with a total energy release of about 
9 million volts. Wilson chamber photographs of the disintegration pro- 
cesses are shown, and the evidence for the conservation of energy and 
momentum discussed. 'The relations between the Gamow theory and the 
experimental results are considered. 


Dr. M. L. OL1pHaNT.—The disintegration of the elements with hydrogen 
ions at low bombarding energies (11.0). 


Experiments are described in which many of the elements in a very 
pure state have been bombarded with protons and with ions of the hydrogen 
isotope of mass 2. It is shown that the heavy elements, and in particular 
lead and uranium, are not disintegrated appreciably by bombardment at 
energies below 220 kilovolts. ‘The extraordinary sensitivity to traces of 
boron and lithium are described. 

The disintegration of boron by proton bombardment is discussed in 
detail, and the results obtained are explained tentatively by a simple theory. 

The disintegration of lithium by both protons and ‘ deutons ’ is described, 
and the remarkable efficiency of the latter particle as a disintegrating agent 
is pointed out. 


Mr. P. I. Dee.—A photographic investigation of the transmutation of 
the elements (11.30). 
The experimental methods used in the investigation of the transmutation 


of the light elements, as described by the earlier speakers, have been 
extended by the construction of an expansion chamber to work in conjunc- 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 433 


tion with the high voltage apparatus of Cockcroft and Walton. The beam 
of high velocity ions was directed upon a thin target of the element under 
investigation, contained in an evacuated tube which passed through the 
glass roof of the expansion chamber. The walls of this tube where they 
surrounded the target were constructed of mica of such thickness that the 
disintegration particles passed through them and formed cloud tracks 
which ended in the chamber, whilst any protons scattered at the target 
were completely absorbed in the mica. 

With a target of lithium subjected to proton bombardment under these 
conditions photographs were obtained which showed the emission in 
opposite directions of pairs of particles, each of range 8:3 cm. ‘This would 
correspond to the mode of transmutation given by the equation 


Li? + ,H!—> jHet + sHe’. 


Photographs showing a similar emission of pairs of oppositely directed 
particles were obtained when lithium was bombarded by ions of the heavy 
isotope of hydrogen, but in this case each particle had a range of 13°4 cm. 
This would correspond with transmutation according to the equation 


3Li® + 1H? —— 2He?* + oHe?. 


The ranges of the helium atoms obtained by substitution of the exact 
atomic masses in these equations are 8-4 cm. and 13:0 cm., agreeing closely 
with the observed values. 

Photographs of the short range particles produced when lithium and 
boron are bombarded by protons have also been obtained, but conclusions 
as to the mechanism of disintegration in these cases cannot yet be drawn. 
Greater technical difficulties arise in the investigation of such short ranges, 
and attempts are being made to develop a more suitable method. 


Discusston on The positive electron (Mr. P. M. S. Biacketr and 
others) :-— 


Mr. P. M.S. BLacketTT (12.0). 


Positive electrons are produced in certain types of collision processes. 
Their first detection, by Anderson and by Blackett and Occhialini, was due 
to the study of cosmic rays by the cloud method. These photographs 
showed the presence of positively charged particles with a mass comparable 
with that of a negative electron. From the ionisation along their tracks it 
can be deduced that the mass and charge of the positive electron do not 
differ in magnitude from those of the negative electron by more than 
50 per cent. The positive electrons appear to originate in some type of 
atomic or nuclear process brought about by the incident cosmic radiation. 

Positive electrons have also been found by Chadwick, Blackett and 
Occhialini, by Curie and Joliot, and by Meitner and Phillip to be produced 
when the radiation from a beryllium target is bombarded by alpha particles. 
The measurements of Curie and Joliot suggest that they are produced by 
the hard gamma rays emitted by the source rather than by the neutrons. 
It has further been shown by Anderson that positive electrons are also 
produced when the gamma rays from Thorium C” are absorbed by heavy 
élements. It is therefore probable that the production of positive electrons 
plays an important part in the anomalous absorption of gamma rays. 


Q2 


434 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


Tuesday, September 12, 
Discussion on The expanding universe (10.0) :— 


Prof. Sir A. S. EppincTon, F.R.S.—The expanding universe. 


The observational facts which led to the idea of an ‘ expanding universe ’ 
are, I think, pretty well known. Outside our own galaxy of stars there are 
millions of other galaxies which appear to us as spiral nebule ; and these (so 
far as they have been observed) are found to be running away from us. 
The greater the distance, the faster they move ; and approximately, at least, 
the speed is proportional to the distance. This progression of speed with 
distance has been traced up to a distance of 150 million light years, where 
the speed amounts to 15,000 miles a second. For the moment we stop 
there because observation is becoming too difficult, but no doubt in due 
time still more remote nebulz with still higher speeds will be found. 

If we plot this distribution of motion it is easy to see that the spiral 
nebule are running away from each other just as much as they are running 
away from us. It is, therefore, not a case of scattering away from one point, 
but a general uniform expansion or dispersal in which all mutual distances 
are increasing in the same proportion. We have therefore an expanding 
system of galaxies—or, since the system of galaxies is all the universe we 
know, an expanding universe. We may therefore say it is a simple, direct 
fact of observation that our material universe is expanding. Whether it has 
always been expanding and always will expand is another question. 

I do not think the speakers who are to follow me will challenge this— 
I am judging by what I already know of their views—and it will probably 
be accepted as the common basis of discussion. It is therefore, perhaps, 
all the more incumbent on me to say that it is not universally accepted as 
proved ; there is scepticism in some quarters, and it must not be assumed 
that either I or the other speakers regard this scepticism entirely with con- 
tempt. We have generalised from data which are not so extensive and not 
so accurate as we could wish. It is often pointed out that what we actually 
observe is a red shift of the spectrum of the nebulz ; and although a red 
shift of the spectrum usually means that the object is running away from us, 
it is possible that there might be other causes. We can only reply that if 
some other cause is operating in the case of the spiral nebula, it is some 
entirely unknown circumstance of which we have as yet no hint, either in 
theory or observation. I suppose that entirely unknown circumstances 
might upset all our scientific inferences, and there seems no need specially 
to introduce this bogy in connection with nebular velocities. 

Turning to theory, it is a necessary consequence of the theory of 
relativity that there should exist in addition to the ordinary gravitation of 
bodies a repulsive force which we call ‘ cosmical repulsion.’ This is too small 
to affect small-scale systems such as the solar system, and we can only 
expect to detect it in a system on the largest possible scale—if it is detectable 
at all. Cosmical repulsion is of such a nature that if it acted on a system 
of galaxies at rest it would make it expand uniformly—just the type of 
expansion or dispersal that we observe. We must not forget that the 
galaxies are attracting one another in the ordinary way, and that this attrac- 
tion might, in certain circumstances, hold the dispersing force in check. 
However, if the dispersing force once gets the upper hand it will keep it ; 
because as it drives the galaxies further apart their mutual attraction will 
weaken and offer less opposition to the dispersal. ; 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. | 435 


Thus observation tells us that the galaxies form an expanding system; 
and theory tells us that there is a force of cosmical repulsion which, if not 
counteracted, will produce just such an expansion. So far, so good. But 
there is still a doubt whether the theory has anything to do with the observa- 
tion, because the relativity theory omits to tell us how large the force of 
cosmical repulsion will be. So far as the current theory is concerned, it 
might be imperceptible in the system of the galaxies. ‘Therefore, having 
no idea of the size of the effect, it is rather a big jump to identify it with the 
first thing we come across that looks at all like it. I have tried to contribute 
to the settlement of this question by developing relativity theory (with the 
aid of wave mechanics) in a way which leads to a direct calculation of the 
amount of the cosmical repulsion. I have to begin at the other end of 
things and ask you to consider the mass of an electron. 

By the mass of the electron we mean the mass in C.G.S. units—i.e. in 
terms of the standard kilogram. Accordingly, in any experimental deter- 
mination of the mass of an electron, whatever auxiliary apparatus may be 
employed, there are two indispensables, viz. an electron and the lump of 
metal called the standard kilogram. ‘The experimenter cannot proceed 
without a theory: he reads certain deflections, angles, etc.; but he would 
not know what to do with these, unless a theorist gave him directions 
how to combine them and extract the numerical quantity m out of them. 
What is this theory—these equations which connect the behaviour of 
the two indispensables, the electron and the kilogram mass? ‘The 
experiment will consist of a number of links, and each link will have its 
corresponding theory; at the electron end we shall use microscopic, i.e. 
quantum theory ; at the kilogram end we shall use macroscopic theory, i.e. 
classical mechanics, or, for greater refinement, relativity theory. But there 
must be one link which unites a microscopic mass with a macroscopic mass, 
included neither in quantum theory nor in relativity theory but with one 
‘end in each. It is this link that my investigation supplies. It will be said 
that this link is already known; we know how to make the step from 
microscopic to macroscopic theory, e.g. as in Bohr’s Correspondence 
Principle. Quite so. We know how to do it; it only remains to do it— 
to find what formule result in this particular problem. I do not require 
any new hypothesis in my investigation: it is the mathematical working 
out of principles already accepted. ‘The result is that microscopic and 
macroscopic masses are linked through the equation 

1om® — 136mm + mo? = 
where m is the mass attributed to the single particle and mo is the mass of 
the reference frame to which it is implicitly referred. 

' In passing it may be mentioned that this equation gives two values of m, 
one 1847°6 times the other, which is as nearly as we can tell the ratio of the 
‘mass of the proton to that of the electron. But we are more concerned with 
Mo, which is connected with cosmical magnitudes. I will try to show, by 
‘a short cut, how the mass of the reference frame arises. "The argument will 
probably appear fishy—as short cuts generally are. But I have also found 
the same result by going the long way round. The short cut depends on 
the Uncertainty Principle. 

If we have a particle in space of radius of curvature R and know nothing 
at all about its location, we may express its uncertainty of position as + R; 
‘+ is here an abbreviation for ‘in an unknown direction.’ ‘The particle is 
“distant ’ R from the centre of curvature of space in an unknown direction. 
By the Uncertainty Principle the corresponding uncertainty of momentum is 
+h/2rR ; that is to say, it has a momentum //27R in an unknown direction 


436 - SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


arising out of the uncertainty relation. If we take a frame of reference con- 
stituted out of the mean of N such particles, the uncertainty of position 
of the mean is -- R/1/N according to the usual theory of combination of 
vectors in random directions, and the corresponding momentum is 
4/Nh/2nR in an unknown direction. The proper mass is obtained by 
dividing the momentum by c. Hence the frame has a mass 


fives N, 
anc R 


In quantum theory (which follows the methods of statistical mechanics) 
we lay down what is called ‘an a priori probability distribution ’ of the 
electron or electrons considered, and this serves as a frame of reference. 
This will give an average density and average momentum at all points, and 
hence an energy-tensor. By Einstein’s equation the energy-tensor cor- 
responds to a curvature of space. This curvature is usually neglected in 
quantum mechanics ; but in the linkage between microscopic theory and 
macroscopic theory it is clearly of fundamental importance, since macro- 
scopic mass corresponds to space-time curvature. Without going into 
details, we may conclude that it is necessary to identify the curvature due to 
the a priori probability distribution of particles in quantum theory with 
the curvature Ag,» which forms the standard with which the curvature 
due to macroscopic objects is compared. Each theory uses a standard 
distribution in the way that a geodesist uses a geoid ; and to unite micro- 
scopic and macroscopic theory we have to adapt them to the same geoid. 
The result is that N is the number of particles in the whole universe and R 
the ‘de Sitter’ radius of space-time. The two formule above given 
determine +/N/R in terms of the mass m of an electron or proton. 

Knowing +/N/R, we can find the theoretical value of the limiting speed 
of recession of distant objects. It turns out to be 780 km. per sec. per 
megaparsec. The observed value (which is subject to considerable uncer- 
tainty, and may be a little less than the limiting speed owing to the gravita- 
tional attraction of the nebulz on one another) is 550 km. per sec. per 
megaparsec. 


Prof. E. A. Mixne, M.B.E., F.R.S. 


The earliest reference I have found to the expansion of the universe is 
Genesis i. 6, when the Authorized Version gives in a marginal note the in- 
formation that in Hebrew the word ‘ firmament’ means also ‘ expansion.’ 
We may conjecture that if allusion could be made to the expansion of the 
universe in so primitive a cosmology as that ascribed to Moses, then the 
expansion itself must be a very primitive phenomenon. This seems to be 
the case. 

The observed motions of the extra-galactic nebulz, considered as units, 
are utterly different from the Keplerian motions of the planets in the solar 
system, from double-star orbits, and from the motion known as star- 
streaming and galactic rotation. The extra-galactic nebule are simply 
separating from one another. This is a characteristic of any system of 
particles in free flight, or endowed with velocities sufficiently large to 
escape from the gravitational attraction of the remainder. Such a system, 
from the moment at which it is first given (save for negligibly improbable 
initial conditions) inevitably expands, and its constituent particles sort 
themselves out in velocity, the fastest being the furthest at any given epoch, 
followed by the next fastest, and so on. ‘The velocity zones partially over- 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 437 


lap, but the velocity segregation becomes more perfect with increasing time. 
Further, the relation between velocity v and distance r, measured from any 
particle of the system, is a simple proportionality v~ 1/t, where t is the time 
that has elapsed since the system was first given. ‘These characteristics 
hold for any system of particles unconfined by any rigid boundary, free to 
occupy an indefinitely large volume of space. The epoch at which the 
system is first given is the epoch of minimum volume of the system, and 
affords a natural time-zero. At this instant (except for negligibly improb- 
able distributions) both the system itself and its velocity-reverse necessarily 
undergo expansion. 

It appears then that the motion of a gravitation-free system of particles, 
or of any system with sufficiently large speeds, reproduces the observed 
motions of the extra-galactic nebulz in the three characteristics of expansion, 
velocity-zoning and a velocity-distance proportionality. The value of t, our 
present epoch, reckoned from the epoch of minimum volume, comes out at 
about 2 X 10° years; this simply describes the position of the epoch we 
happen to be experiencing. On a broad view then it is suggested that the 
system of the nebule is that of a system of particles in free flight, subject to 
zero or negligible gravitational influences. In any case the expansion is an 
inevitable phenomenon, arising kinematically and not in virtue of gravita- 
tion; repulsive forces are not required to be invoked to account for it. 
It is a primitive phenomenon, as foreshadowed by the author of Genesis. 
It is the most natural thing in the world. 

The expansion phenomenon itself, however, is only a part of the general 
cosmological problem, which is that of the distribution of both matter and 
motion in the universe. ‘The usual theory of relativistic cosmology assumes 
part of the answer to this problem outright : it assumes that the universe is 
homogeneous. For a world devoid of motion the notion of homogeneity 
is unambiguous. If the density at any point, to any one observer attached 
to a stationary particle of the system, is the same as at any other point, then 
the same will be true for any second observer attached to some other par- 
ticle of the system. But if to one observer A the universe is homogeneous 
but changing in density with the time owing to the motion, then it cannot 
appear homogeneous to a second observer B attached to some other particle 
in relative motion with respect to A. For by saying that the universe is 
homogeneous to A, we mean that at a world-wide instant ¢ for him (i.e. at 
instants simultaneous in his reckoning) the density at P equals the density at 
Q: e(P,t) = e(O,t). But these will not be in general simultaneous instants 
for B; consequently, if the universe is also homogeneous to B, he will 
consider A to be measuring the density at different times, when accordingly 
the density e(P) is not equal to the density ep(Q). This is a contradiction. 
Einstein, in destroying the notion of absolute simultaneity, destroyed also 
the notion of absolute homogeneity for asystem whose density is not constant 
in time. The usual theory of relativity cosmology evades this difficulty by 
constructing a map of the world in which the ‘ surfaces of constant density ’ 
are labelled ‘ surfaces of constant cosmic time t’; Tt is not the time of 
experience, and surfaces ‘@ = constant’ are not ‘spatial’ sections of 
experience. The homogeneity of the section ‘~ = constant ’ is a fictitious 
homogeneity, obtained by examining each element of the universe at the 
stage at which its density, measured locally, takes a given value. No infer- 
ence can be made as to the homogeneity or otherwise of an actual spatial 
section of experience until cosmic time Z is linked with experienced time f, 
as has been done recently by Dr. McCrea and others. The resulting maps 
of the world are ‘ expanding maps.’ They are maps of a very particular 
kind, since on the general theory of relativity, given the distribution of 


438 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


matter in motion, the curvature of the map to be used is definite. The 
geometry of any map is, however, a matter of the arbitrary choice of axioms. 
But just as it is legitimate to use curved maps and expanding maps, so, if we 
free ourselves from the restrictions in map-drawing imposed by the general 
theory of relativity, we can use flat maps and stationary maps. ‘ Space’ in 
the abstract is a non-entity, like the aether, and hence to talk of ‘ curved 


space’ or ‘ expanding space’ is to label as phenomena of nature what are © 


really attributes of a man-made map. The picture of the expansion 
phenomenon obtained by the consideration of a swarm of particles is a case 
of the use of an ordinary flat map. 

Instead of making any direct assumption as to the homogeneity or other- 
wise of the smoothed-out universe, we may return to the kinematic system 
previously considered and simply ask what must be its velocity distribution 
if it is to possess no preferential velocity-frame—that is, if the velocity dis- 
tribution is to be the same from whatever particle the system is viewed. We 
must, of course, employ some principle to correlate the observations of 
different particle-observers. A sufficient principle is that, for any two 
particle-observers in uniform relative motion, each observer is completely 
equivalent to the other. When each particle-observer possesses a temporal 
experience, it is then possible to infer+ the Lorentz formule of ‘ special ’ 
relativity, which are thus available for correlating the observers’ descriptions 
of events. 

It is then readily found that the velocity distribution must be of the form 


B du dv dw 
ce (1 — Lu?/c?)? 
where B is a constant, u, v, w being the components of velocity. It then 
follows, by making the substitutions 
x ¥y 


z 
Eb My (8 Fy Wes 


t t 


that the spatial distribution tends to the asymptotic form 


Bt dx dy dz 
(2 — Xx?/c?)* 
which gives the particle-density. This can now be considered as an ideal 
world-model. It represents a hydrodynamical system of flow satisfying the 
equation of continuity. 

This system has very remarkable properties.. Each particle-observer is 
equally the centre of the system. ‘To any such particle-observer, at his 
epoch t the system appears to occupy the interior of an expanding sphere of 
radius ct, the particles being distributed inside this sphere homogeneously 
near the observer but with increasing density towards the boundary. Near 
the boundary itself the particles are nearly invisible, owing to recession with 
the speed of light. The density tends to infinity at the boundary. This 
singularity, at time ¢ in the experience of the central observer, is the counter- 
part of the singularity in his past history at t = o, the natural time-zero. 
The system includes an infinite number of particles, but the total brightness 
is finite. " 

The system not only possesses no centre, it possesses no mean velocity. 
Thus it defines no absolute frame of rest—every particle-observer may 
equally consider himself as at rest relative to the system. Further, it 


1 It is even possible to define what is meant by ‘uniform relative motion’ in 
terms only of the temporal experiences of the observers. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 439 


possesses no unique radius or unique age at any given event. If in the 
experience of a central observer O, who assigns at a certain epoch of his 
experience the radius ct to the system, an event occurs on another particle P, 
moving with radial velocity V at the same time tf, then at this event P assigns 
to the system the radius ct(1 — V?/c*)?, and ‘ age’ t(1 — V*/c?)#. Thus at 
a given event the radius or age of the system depend on the observer observ- 
ing this event. Particle-observers close to the boundary (in the experience 
of a given observer) are to themselves close to the time-zero. In the experi- 
ence of a given observer, the system always (i.e. for any t) contains particles 
arbitrarily close, in their own experience, to the singularity called by 
Friedmann ‘ creation.’ An observer reckoning himself as central assigns 
a greater age to the system than any of the other observers in his world-wide 
present, and so reckons himself as the ‘ oldest inhabitant’ of the system. 
Every other observer does the same. Each observer has a definite temporal 
experience (say, measured by his local density), and in observing other particles 
witnesses experiences similar to those of his own past; but he can never 
witness experiences similar to those of his own future. 

Though each particle-observer experiences an evolutionary history, there 
is no meaning to be attached to saying that the system as a whole is evolving ; 
it always contains experiences arbitrarily early in time, reckoned from the 
time-zero. This is markedly different from the conclusion of de Sitter in 
a recent paper (M.N. June 1933) that ‘ the present structure of the universe 
is only an episode of a very ephemeral character.’ It appears to me that, 
although of course de Sitter is well aware that cosmic time is not the time of 
experience, save locally, he has here inadvertently interpreted a section 
“z = constant’ as a world-wide section in an observer’s present. 

The above properties refer to the world-map made by a given observer, 
from his observation of world-pictures. The world-picture he observes at 
epoch t is readily specified. If 7, is the distance of a particle or nebula at the 
time when it emitted light which arrives at the observer at time ¢ (a given 
epoch), then its velocity V is given by 


V =7,/(t — r/c) 
and the density ‘ distribution ’ in the world-picture at time ¢ is given by 


47 B r,2dr; 
ec t(t > 27,/c)? 


The world-picture necessarily has a radius } ct. The interest of the density- 
formula for the world-picture is that it gives a first-order increase of density 
with increasing distance. This is a necessary consequence of the expansion, 
for in passing from the world-map to the world-picture we must compress 
the outer portions proportionally more than the inner, as the outer portions 
have expanded more than the inner during the larger time of travel of the 
light. ‘This prediction is not peculiar to my model—it holds for any locally 
homogeneous world-map in which the motion obeys a velocity-distance 
proportionality. Observation of position-distribution of nebule made at 
a given instant—i.e. counts of nebulz on photographs—should already disclose 
this effect; but the inference of distance from apparent brightness must 
also allow for the reduction in luminosity due to the recession of the sources. 

Each particle of my ideal model is in uniform motion with respect to any 
other. The question arises whether this state of motion will maintain itself 
if the particles are supposed to act on one another according to any assigned 
law of gravitation compatible with relativity. It can easily be shown that 
the resultant gravitational field of this system of particles in motion is zero, 


440 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


whatever the density. For consider a system of frames of reference dis- 
tributed according to the above laws, and place a particle in each instanta- 
neously at rest in its own frame. The given particle O, being central with 
respect to the system, in its own frame, has zero acceleration in its own 
frame. Let f be the radial acceleration of a particle P, measured in the 
frame of O. Transform to the frame associated with P. Let f’ be the 
resulting acceleration of P, in its associated frame. ‘Then in this frame P is 
central, and so f’ is zero. Hence, by the Lorentz formule for accelerations, 
fis zero. The system is thus self-screened from gravitation. It goes on of 
itself. It is a sort of Faraday chamber—it resembles the interior of an 
electrostatic conductor. The universe as here pictured realises H. G. 
Wells’s dream of a perfect gravitational shield. 

This conclusion has been recently criticised by Drs. McCrea and Kermack. 
These authors claim that I have left out gravitation. The above proof 
seems to me to dispose of their objections. The accelerations they calculate 
refer to an expanding-map universe of non-zero density, but they have not 
re-mapped their system in the flat space I am using for comparison with my 
model. The freedom of the ideal system from gravitation shows that the 
actual system will have only a small residual gravitational field, and so 
justifies the original comparison with a swarm of particles in free flight. 

Much further information may be obtained by a less complete degree of 
smoothing out than is implied by the reduction of the world to a hydro- 
dynamical system. If we construct a statistical spatio-velocity distribution 
in which the members of each pair of particles in uniform motion have 
indistinguishable world-views, we find a distribution 


u(Z?/X Y) dx dy dz du dv dw 
c& Xi Ys 


where Xap” yi, Zz Mae 20'23 
oe” 


and | is undetermined. Imposition of the principle of conservation of 
particle-number—the condition that the object counted have a permanent 
existence—determines the components of acceleration f, g, h as 


payhitlgy Asana EO” 3 nx MO baka 
fa-@-m 52 oe! 


SGLORT.. Ani Mubbess « coct JPeneeh B= ZX 
g=-O- 5 | et See ba snl eee 


Y Cc 
h=-@-w) 3 [1-e—ore | 


Thus the accelerations are definite, apart from an undetermined constant C, 
as soon as ¢) is specified, and thus there is a connection between the distribu- 
tion of matter and motion and the acceleration. This is what we mean by 
a law of gravitation. We notice that the accelerations vanish for the 
particles for which u = x/t, v = y/t, w = 2/t. This confirms our earlier 
conclusion as to the freedom of such a sub-system of particles from gravita- 
tion. The mean particle-density m of this statistical distribution can be 
shown to be (as judged by the observer at (0, 0, o) at his epoch 2) 


; co 1 0 

a ¢ 4 282 = 1 s 

a (2 — Dx2/e2)? (s? — x)3 ds [a dn 
(I— Sx2/or2) 2 5, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 441 


which can be reduced to 


co 
= att ctr 
n (te a Dix? /c?)? bir bias aa . G a3 arm! v(1 +)dt 


It thus reproduces in broad outline, though not exactly, the hydrodynamical 
density-distribution. Again, the mean radial velocity at (x, y, 2) at time ¢, 
say Ur, can be shown to be 


©o ©o 
| a Y(n*)dn 
_ Y r 3 (1—?r Jott?) 2 AY 


vireg Hi a) Tor) ‘ oo 
_28" ~ 1 ds [ b(4?)dn 
% 1S 


(s? — 1)2 


~ (n= #2[c%t2) 2 


where r = (x? + y? + 2)2:. The second term is always small, and so the 
statistical system reproduces in broad outline the motion of the hydro- 
dynamical system. But near r = 0, the second term is dominant to the 
first (though itself tending to o as r > 0) and so gives a local ‘ K-effect’ 
when the cosmical recession is negligible. 

We can, however, go much further. We can choose the distribution in 
such a way that for a particle of zero velocity near the observer, the radial 
acceleration (f,,.) satisfies the condition that 


'r 
— fro / z | 4nnr*dr 
° 


has a finite limit as ro. This limit will be described by a Newtonian 
observer as Gm, where m is the mass he assigns to a particle of the system 
and G is the Newtonian ‘ constant’ of gravitation. It is clear that (&) 
must possess a singularity at € = 1, and the above relation determines the 
singularity as of the form 


VEO) & & (log ‘) (6 ~ 0) 


It is then found that 7 possesses a very mild singularity at r ~ 0, 
4rA Cr\ +3 
MET 5 (Ios aa 


so that the number enclosed in a sphere of radius 7 tends to 0 as r> oO. 
The singularity is so mild that the mean density inside the sphere of radius 
r is practically equal to the density at 7 itself. The singularity is no longer 
evident at quite small distances from r = o, and here the mean mass-density 
@ comes out to be 

3 s} I 


Ba 4nG? 
This must agree with the central mass-density in the hydrodynamical model, 
namely, m,B/c*t®, where m, is the mass of a nebula; whence we find 


My 
(7 ee a 
4nm,G 


442 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


and from this 
Gyre 16%? mG 


A ee 
A physical meaning can be given to these formule. Let the sphere of 
radius ct in the hydrodynamical model be filled homogeneously with matter 
of density equal to the central density (density near the observer). The 
total mass of the ‘ extrapolated homogeneous universe ’ is then 


mB et 
4n(ct)? mo = 4nm,B = G 


Accordingly c®t/G is a world-constant (4mm,B). Its value is about 
2°4 X 1055 grams, 


the mass assigned by the theory of Lemaitre to his finite universe. This is 
the world-constant on which Eddington bases his theory of the proton. It 
is the only independent constant occurring in the present theory, and it is 
determined from observation. Since B is a constant, we must have G < ¢. 
The Newtonian ‘ constant’ of gravitation should be proportional to our 
present epoch, measured from the natural zero of time. 

The mean density 9 of the smoothed-out universe near the observer, at 
our present epoch, should be (4mG?#?)-1. Taking, for t, 2 x 10° years, this 
gives p = 10-2” gram cm.—%. If we spread the estimated population of our 
galaxy, 10! suns, over a cube of side equal to the distance of the Andromeda 
nebula (approximately our nearest galactic neighbour), we obtain just under 
0°3 X 10-27 gram cm.—*, The agreement is as good as could be expected. 
This formula for the central density is numerically the same as the formula 
for the mean density of the homogeneous universes of other theories. 

The analysis of the statistical world-system then, when is properly 
chosen, yields the remarkable property that the observer sees a mild singu- 
larity in density near himself, but nowhere else ; it predicts a local density 
roughly equal to that observed, and it suggests that the finite mass of the 
universe in the theory of Lemaitre is an extrapolation due to the identifica- 
tion of ‘ cosmic time ’ with experienced time. (The two only coincide near 
the observer.)2 In that theory, of course, G is treated as a constant. 

The cosmological principle employed in the above—the equivalence of 
uniformly moving observers in their world-wide experiences—implies the 
Lorentz formule of ‘ special ’ relativity and a very general law of gravitation. 
One particular distribution, out of the permissible ones, agrees for resting 
particles near the observer with Newtonian gravitation; save that now 
Gat. The definition of world-systems in the usual relativistic cosmologies 
is by means of a ‘ local homogeneity ’ postulate, which then requires to be 
supplemented by the use of Einstein’s theory of gravitation. The cosmo- 
logical principle I employ is thus very powerful. It has the advantage of 
making possible the use of a flat non-expanding map for the description of 
the world, and the further advantage of beginning with actual temporal 
experience ; the other cosmologies require a translation of their cosmic 
time into the time of experience, before yielding descriptions of phenomena 
as observed. The general cosmological principle removes the necessity for 
attributing any special properties to the phase of world-history we happen 
to be witnessing, and it correctly predicts the leading features of this world- 
history. Its bearing on world-evolution and its avoidance of any ultimate 
‘ heat-death ’ for the universe cannot be treated here. The cosmological 


2 As shown by McCrea and Kermack (M.N., June 1933). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 443 


principle here employed differs from the homogeneity principle of rela- 
tivistic cosmology in that it compares the world-wide experiences of observers 
with one another, whereas the homogeneity principle compares merely their 
local experiences. But the theory here outlined agrees in many quantitative 
respects with the general relativity theories. It avoids, however, such 
predictions as the possibility of closed light-circuits, or the prediction of the 
ultimate dissolution of the universe into causally disconnected systems. All 
roads lead to heaven, or, at worst, those which lead elsewhere are paved with 
good intentions. 


Dr. G. C. McVirr1e.—Condensations of matter in an expanding 
universe. 


In the expanding universe theory as originally developed by Lemaitre it 
was assumed that a fair approximation to the actual universe could be 
obtained by treating all the matter in the universe as if it were evenly spread 
out in space so as to form a cosmic cloud. Like a gas or fluid, this cosmic 
cloud is characterised by possessing a definite density and pressure at each 
point. But actually the matter in the universe is not evenly spread out in 
space : it occurs in the form of discrete masses, such as the spiral nebulz or 
the stars, separated by regions of comparatively empty space. The question 
therefore arises : Can the theory of the expanding universe be adjusted so 
as to take account of the discontinuous distribution of matter in the universe ? 
The answer to this question is found to be closely bound up with a number 
of problems left unsolved by the theory of Lemaitre. 

We have, then, to substitute for Lemaitre’s cosmic cloud a set of discrete 
massive ‘ particles,’ as I shall call them, or condensations of thecosmic cloud. 
Put mathematically, we have to find, by solving the equations of general 
relativity, the metric of a universe occupied by an arbitrary number of 
discrete particles. At the very outset it must be admitted that no one has 
yet succeeded in doing this. Even if we assume that there are only two 
particles in the universe, the problem proves intractable. So we try to 
dodge the difficulty in the following way : we concentrate our attention on 
one particle and smooth outall the others so that their material forms a cosmic 
cloud of the type imagined by Lemaitre. Thus our solitary particle, instead 
of being surrounded by empty space in which other particles occur here and 
there, is surrounded by a cosmic cloud which fills practically the whole 
universe. It turns out that the equations of general relativity are soluble 
for such a case. The solution is not, however, unique: various types of 
single particles surrounded by cosmic clouds are possible. One particle, 
for instance, is of constant mass ; another grows at the expense of the cosmic 
cloud. Moreover, the presence of the particle causes changes in the density, 
pressure and state of flow of the cosmic cloud in its immediate neighbour- 
hood, Further away, however, these disturbances become quite negligible, 
and the universe approximates closely to the completely smoothed-out 
universe of Lemaitre’s theory. 

Having obtained these solutions, we can now turn to the problems 
already mentioned which were left untouched by Lemaitre’s theory. The 
chief of these is, perhaps, the question of the disturbance of the equilibrium 
of the Einstein universe. It is probable that our own universe started to 
expand from a state of equilibrium in which the cosmic cloud had constant 
density everywhere and approximately zero pressure. Space was also 
spherical and closed. Such a state of affairs had been known long before 
Lemaitre’s theory was thought of, under the name of the Einstein universe. 


444 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


Its equilibrium, it is easy to show, is unstable: an appropriate impulse 
will set it off either expanding or contracting. Now Lemaitre’s theory 
gave no indication as to why it should begin doing the one rather than the 
other. It was the inquiry whether the condensation of the cosmic cloud 
in the Einstein universe into particles would start it expanding, that first 
gave rise to the theory of condensations. 

Unfortunately, the effects produced by the formation of particles on the 
equilibrium of the Einstein universe turned out to be much more numerous 
and complex than appeared at first sight. ‘The reason is that the dis- 
turbance of the equilibrium is a second-order effect : to a firstapproximation 
the formation of the particles has no effect whatever on the equilibrium. 
This so complicates the problem mathematically that no really satisfactory 
method of solution has yet been evolved. Instead attempts have been made 
to decide on more or less a priori grounds which one of the many perturba- 
tions produced by the particle is the predominating one from the point of 
view of upsetting the equilibrium. Lemaitre, for example, has tried to show 
that the presence of the particle never has any direct effect on the equili- 
brium at all, on the ground that the neutral zone surrounding the particle 
must always remain in equilibrium. This neutral zone is the region where 
the gravitational effect of the particle is balanced by that of the cosmic 
cloud. He postulates instead that expansion is due to a diminution in the 
pressure of the cosmic cloud at this neutral zone. Unfortunately, it seems 
doubtful whether particles do actually possess these neutral zones; and, 
moreover, it cannot be proved that there must be a diminution in the pressure 
at the neutral zone, supposing the latter to exist. 

Another investigator, N. R. Sen, has put forward a theory that expansion 
is caused by the very effect Lemaitre disbelieves in, viz. the mere presence of 
particles. Sen neglects all possible counterbalancing effects such as 
changes in pressure in the cosmic cloud, and shows that, under these circum- 
stances, the formation of a particle in the Einstein universe is impossible 
unless expansion sets in. His theory certainly seems more convincing than 
Lemaitre’s, but in both cases you will see that the attempts to solve this 
problem suffer from over-simplification. ‘The most we can say to-day is 
that it is probable that the bubble of our universe began to burst the moment 
those particles we call spiral nebulz started to condense out of the primeval 
cosmic cloud. 

I now pass to another question on which the theory of condensations 
sheds a more certain light. It is the much-debated one of ‘ cosmic’ time. 
The introduction of ‘cosmic’ time into Lemaitre’s universe is directly 
attributable to the Einstein assumption which it satisfies: ‘ All points in 
the universe are equivalent.’ This means, amongst other things, that all 
observers in the universe can differ from one another only in position. It 
then becomes possible to define a sort of time common to all of them, which 
has been called ‘ cosmic’ time, since it allows of the reintroduction of the 
idea of simultaneity of events. Opponents of Lemaitre’s theory of the 
expanding universe, notably E. A. Milne, have spoken as if this ‘ cosmic’ 
time were a consequence, or a necessary ingredient, of the theory. ‘The 
truth is that ‘ cosmic ’ time is an a priori simplification introduced into the 
theory by investigators anxious to make the mathematics easier! 'The 
position becomes clearer if we allow the universe to contain a particle of the 
kind I have tried to describe. Consider an observer in the neighbourhood 
of this particle. His proximity to it marks him out as different from all 
other observers in the universe ; he also has atime peculiar to himself. Now 
it is easy to show that Lemaitre’s theory holds for this observer to a high 
degree of approximation everywhere except near the particle, with the 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 445 


reservation, however, that it is not ‘cosmic’ time that enters into the 
formule, but the peculiar time of this observer. In other words, the so- 
called ‘ cosmic ’ time of an event is nothing more than the time an observer 
chooses to assign to it. It happens that in Lemaitre’s simplified theory the 
observers are all so alike that their ‘ times ’ can be co-ordinated so as to give 
the impression of a single ‘ cosmic’ or ‘ absolute ’ time in the universe. 

In conclusion, reference should be made to a question which may have 
occurred to most of you. If our universe is flying to pieces at the present 
astounding rate, how is it that periodic systems in the universe such as our 
Sun and his planets seem so excessively stable and permanent? The 
answer is supplied by the theory of condensations, which shows that an 
observer using the methods of measurements terrestrial astronomers employ, 
necessarily concludes that planetary systems are fixed and unchanging in 
size, whilst the system of the nebule expands. Conversely, if we imagine 
a cosmical being who looked upon the system of the nebule as fixed and 
unchanging, this being would see the Sun and his planets shrinking away to 
nothing. Indeed, the nature of our minds is such that we instinctively 
endow our immediate surroundings with an element of permanency, and 
relegate to the distant nebulz the evidences of the instability of the world 
in which we live. 


Dr. W. H. McCrea.—The relation of Milne’s theory to general 
relativity. 


I wish to say something about the relation of Prof. Milne’s theory of 
world structure to the general relativity theory of the expanding universe. 

There is a temptation to start with a moralising homily on the history of 
the subject. General relativity, through the work of Prof. de Sitter, 
actually predicted the systematic recession of distant nebulez. Data derived 
subsequently by Hubble and others gradually accumulated to provide 
observational support for this apparent recession. Result: one up for 
general relativity! The next development was that Friedmann, Lemaitre 
and others investigated non-static universes and arrived at the concept of 
the expanding universe—still using general relativity theory. The result 
was to make a systematic recession, or at any rate a systematic motion, of 
distant nebulze seem inevitable. At the same time an explanation was 
given of the particular form of Hubble’s empirical law for the observed 
variation of velocity of recession with distance. I should say, however, that 
the inevitableness of the phenomenon was apparent only to the initiated. 
For it was all very sophisticated and bound up with the difficult ideas of 
the curvature of space-time, and the mysterious cosmical constant A. 

In passing one might comment on the prevalent fashion of giving \ a name. 
Sir Arthur Eddington himself calls it ‘ Gulliver.’ But I fancy he ought to 
call it ‘Mrs. Harris.’ For this friend of Sir Arthur’s gets the credit for 
marvellous doings—as, in fact, he has just been telling us. Nevertheless, 
does she really exist? Einstein and de Sitter have been irreverent enough 
to suggest that she might be a zero quantity ! 

To pursue our history, however, we next come to an unexpected move. 
Prof. Milne suggested an explanation of the scattering of the galaxies, which 
he has just explained to us, which makes the whole thing seem intuitive in 
an absurdly simple way. As Milne himself has remarked, had this explana- 
tion occurred to anyone before the advent of general relativity, it would 
probably have been immediately hailed as the obvious one. At this point 
someone is doubtless heard to murmur: ‘ What a pity Prof. Milne did not 
arrive on the scene fifteen years sooner and save us all this trouble of trying 


446 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS—A. 


to fathom the general relativity theory!’ It is, however, my purpose to-day 
to show that it is fortunate that things turned out as they did. For I believe 
that general relativity provides the best mathematical method for dealing 
with Milne’s phenomenon, and I am thankful that he had patience to wait 
till this method had been discovered before giving us his own theory, which 
otherwise might have been taken to be the last word. In short, general 
relativity was all the time studying the simple phenomenon contemplated 
by Milne, but somehow never realised the fact! Only general relativity 
goes somewhat further, and takes account of the influence of gravitation, 
and also of the influence of the cosmical constant—that is, if Mrs. Harris 
really does interfere. 

The results I am about to summarise were arrived at in collaboration 
with Dr. Kermack of Edinburgh.1.We discovered afterwards that 
Prof. H. P. Robertson? of Princeton had simultaneously arrived at 
identical conclusions. 

Milne has stated his postulates. He wants a universe in which every 
observer, or every one of a particular class of observers, sees the same 
sequence of world-pictures. To fix the ideas we take the simplest solution 
of his problem, which is provided by his ‘ hydrodynamic’ solution. This 
represents a set of particles all setting out from a single point with uniform 
velocities relative to each other. If the velocities are distributed from zero 
up to the velocity of light, in the particular manner calculated by Milne, then 
each observer will see himself for all time as the centre of the whole bunch. 
Any observer at any instant will describe the universe by associating with 
each point the velocity and density of particles found by Milne. 

Now, in arriving at these results, Milne chooses to map his events in 
a four-dimensional Minkowski space. He is quite entitled to do this. 
For his space-time is introduced from a different standpoint from space- 
time in general relativity. He chooses his space-time first, and then seeks 
the law of gravitation for the actual universe which will reproduce the 
observed state of affairs. General relativity, on the other hand, puts the 
law of gravitation first, and then seeks the form of space-time for the actual 
universe, again so that the observed state of affairs is reproduced. ‘These 
two distinct methods of approach must always be possible. 

Now there is one case in which the space-time of general relativity reduces 
to the space of Milne’s map. That is when we neglect the effect of gravity. 
In general relativity, however, the result of neglecting gravity is equivalent 
to flattening out curved space-time. But the general relativity theory of 
the expanding universe admits a whole class of curved spaces. What we 
can show then is that, 7f we choose the right one of these expanding universes, 
with \ =o, and flatten it out, i.e. neglect the gravitational interaction of the 
particles, then we get exactly Milne’s universe described above. We get 
identically the same velocity and identically the same density associated with 
a given point at a given time. So this particular general relativity solution 
enjoys all the virtues of Milne’s solution, in particular its simplicity and its 
explanation of why the universe appears to be expanding and not contracting. 

This is very important, for, as I have already mentioned, it means that the 
mysterious expansion of the universe is nothing more or less than the simple 
kinematical scattering of Milne’s theory, allowing, of course, in the general 
case for the influence on the scattering of the gravitational interaction of the 
particles. General relativity has, so to speak, invented a way of doing sums, 
but had to wait for Prof. Milne to come along and tell us what the sums 


1 W. O. Kermack and W. H. McCrea, M.N., R.A.S., 98, 519-529 (1933). 7 
2 H. P. Robertson, Zeit. fiir A strophysik, 6, in press (1933). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 447 


were all about. But I think I still prefer the general relativity way of 
doing the sums. 

Two qualifications must be appended to this result. First, it holds, as 
stated, onlyifA =o. If A +0, we get a scattering of galaxies dependent 
on the value of \, and if we take the simplest case and neglect the gravita- 
tional interaction of the matter, we get de Sitter’s universe. If further we 
make A > 0, we find that the velocity of scattering > o also. So this kind 
of scattering is physically different from Milne’s. 

Second, I suspect Prof. Milne might object to my saying that his calcula- 
tion neglects gravitation. For he would contend, if I understand him 
aright, that large-scale gravitation is just such as to reproduce this particular 
kind of scattering found by him, and no other. I would answer that 
I believe it possible to show that his theory certainly does not take account 
of the detailed interaction of pairs of particles. As regards the large-scale 
effect it is, as a matter of fact, contrary to the strict spirit of general relativity 
to’ distinguish kinematical and gravitational effects, for the method of 
general relativity is to turn all dynamics into kinematics. Consequently, 
his objection would be quite consonant with a proper relativistic outlook. 
Nevertheless, I think that the language we have been employing does help 
in the physical understanding of the phenomena. 

This latter point seems to me largely one of epistemology. The point of 
real importance is, what happens to Milne’s theory when the detailed 
gravitational interaction of the particles is allowed for. Actually general 
relativity provides what is, within its own field of postulates, a complete 
solution of the problem which Milne sets out to solve, taking full account of 
gravitation. For, in starting with the invariance of the element of interval, 
general relativity ensures the constancy of the velocity of light. Thus the 
first of Milne’s requirements ts satisfied. 

Then, further, the expanding universes of general relativity are based on 
the requirements of isotropy and homogeneity. These ensure that an 
observer at rest in the spatial co-ordinates sees the world as isotropic, i.e. 
as spherically symmetrical about himself, and that all such observers have 
the same view of the world at the same cosmic instant.? If, then, these 
observers be taken as Milne’s fundamental class, they satisfy precisely the 
requirement he makes that each should have exactly the same sequence of world 
views. All the general relativity solutions satisfying these requirements are 
known.4 

It is important to recall, as I was recently reminded by a conversation 
with M. l’Abbé Lemaitre and Dr. McVittie, that these solutions are 
independent, in the first place, of Einstein’s law of gravitation, and are 
derived only from the invariance of the element of interval. The law of 
gravitation merely gives the value of the density-momentum tensor asso- 
ciated with each solution. A different law of gravitation might lead to 
a different value of the tensor associated with any particular universe, but 
it could not alter the whole class of universes satisfying the fundamental 
requirements. 

If, then, Prof. Milne ultimately arrives at conclusions different from 
those of general relativity, it must be either by denying the invariance of 
the element of interval, or else by something equivalent to using the same 


8 Milne in his original paper, Zeit. fiiy A strophysik, 6 (1933), I-99, criticised the 
concept of cosmic time, but it is pointed out by Kermack and McCrea, and by 
Robertson (/.c.), that cosmic time is implicit in his own theory. There it appears 
as the proper time of any one of his fundamental particlessince its passage through 
the space-time origin. 

4 H. P. Robertson, Proc. Nat. Acad. 


448 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


space-times as general relativity, but with a law of gravitation different from 
Einstein’s. Otherwise the two theories will differ onlyinmethod. I believe, 
however, that all Prof. Milne’s results so far derived are included amongst 
those of general relativity. 


M. VAbbé Lemairre——The cosmical significance of the clusters 
of nebula. 


The theory of the expanding universe seems to indicate that the universe 
is not older than a few thousand million years, i.e. not much older than the 
earth. On the other hand, the generally accepted theory of evolution of 
the stars with transformation of matter into radiation needs a period one 
thousand times greater. The conflict between these two theories could be 
solved if the mechanics of the expanding universe provided some means of 
substituting for the slow evolution of the stars a rapid evolution which would 
explain the formation of stars, nebulz and clusters of nebulz in a period of 
a few thousand million years. 

Progress of the theory of the behaviour of local condensations in the 
expanding universe show, at least in the case of spherical symmetry, that 
each concentric shell of matter would obey the same law as a universe. But 
they need not all follow the law of the same universe. ‘The universe at 
large, starting with a very small radius, would expand with a diminishing 
velocity, slow down to pass over the equilibrium radius, and then expand 
again for ever with an accelerated velocity. On the contrary, interior regions 
of a somewhat greater density might fail to attain equilibrium and contract, 
collapsing towards their centre, while the universe at large continues to 
expand. This is a new typical case of instability, very small differences in 
the initial density being followed in the long run by extremely great 
modification of the motion. 

This property of the universe seems to be able to explain the rapid forma- 
tion of nebula. But when we try to follow up this idea in more detail, we 
meet a very essential difficulty. For a condensation of a thousand million 
suns, as seems required to build up a normal nebula, the equilibrium radius 
would be about 80,000 light-years, although the radius of a typical elliptical 
nebula is not much greater than one thousand light-years. Now, although 
the condensation must first collapse, it will evidently rebound and cannot 
adjust itself to a permanent radius of one thousand light-years unless some 
vigorous stopping process takes place in the course of the contraction. The 
energy which must be taken off is really enormous, and at first sight it seems 
difficult to understand what mechanism would account for it. Actual 
computation shows that the loss of energy must be equal to the total heat 
content of the stars contained in the nebula. This gives the solution of the 
puzzle. The stopping process, which prevents the nebule from rebounding 
too far, is the formation of the stars. Before the contraction the matter was 
formed of gas, dust or meteorites. When the whole mass collapses towards 
its centre, powerful encounters take place ; the diffuse matter agglutinates 
suddenly into stars and the energy turned into heat by this process explains 
together how the new-born stars have the necessary heat to start on the sub- 
atomic processes which provide their continuous output of light, and why 
the nebulz can adjust themselves to their present radius. 

Stars and nebule are born together in an astronomical instant. Sudden 
evolution of the universe takes the place of slow evolution of the stars, with 
the same net result, even with equipartition of energy among the stars. 
The shape of the nebula depends on its initial moment of momentum, 
elliptical nebulz or spiral nebulze being born together. Here evolution 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—A. 449 


theory must give way to a statistical theory in order to compute the proba- 
bility of the momentum responsible for the rotation of the nebula, and there- 
fore of its more or less elongated shape. The total mass of the nebula is also 
a matter of chance. Some mass might be more probable, and therefore 
more frequent, than another, but nebulze of any mass might exist, and it is 
no longer astonishing that we are living in a fairly large nebula. 

We have used so far in these considerations the two possible types of 
motions which must most probably occur—the ever-expanding type of 
motion for the universe at large, the collapsing type for the nebula itself. 
Between these two types of motion there is an intermediate type, in which 
the motion tends to the equilibrium radius without further contraction or 
expansion. Although this event must be comparatively less probable it 
must some time occur, and we have to investigate what would happen in 
this case. The region under investigation would finally form a part of an 
Einstein universe ; it would be in equilibrium, but in unstable equilibrium. 
As the time-scale is short and the time of disintegration is rather long, at 
least for such a region of large size, we might expect it to survive. We may 
hope that the equilibrium would remain in the mean, but not for every small 
part of the region, so that local condensations must occur and form ordinary 
nebulz by the mechanism we have just described, although the assembly of 
these nebulz would neither contract nor expand. The result will be 
a cluster of nebulz. 

It is possible to test this hypothesis on the origin of the clusters of nebulz. 
If it is true, all clusters must have the same density, and this density must be 
adjusted to the cosmical constant, as in an Einstein universe. The value of 
the theoretical density of a cluster can therefore be computed from Hubble’s 
ratio of the distance to the spectroscopic velocity of the nebule. ‘The data 
are not yet very numerous, but computation for eight clusters, according to 
Hubble’s data, gives concordant results in good agreement with previous 
estimates of the mass of a nebula computed from the spectroscopic rotation 
or the absolute luminosity. If this hypothesis can be definitely tested it 
would practically determine the value of the density of matter in the universe. 
The result is really not new; it simply confirms Hubble’s estimates, but 
although Hubble’s determination was thought to be subject to an uncer- 
tainty of perhaps a factor of one hundred, it would practically turn out to be 
exact. 


Prof. W. DE Sitrer.—A critical discussion of certain solutions. 


450 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 


Mr. C. H. H. FranKLin.—Demonstration of the orbits of a spherically free 
pendulum (12.30). 


A pendulum which is free to swing over a segment of a sphere has possible 
paths which vary from a rotation resembling an engine governor ball to the 
swing of a simple pendulum in a plane ; which plane appears to rotate very 
slowly, but really indicates the rotation of the earth beneath it (the Foucault 
pendulum effect). 

The intermediate orbits between the circular and the linear paths are 
ellipses, which latter precess at a rate dependent on the maximum and 
minimum angles of the pendulum and corresponding ratio of major and 
minor elliptical axes. This precession of the ellipse produces a pattern 
which corresponds to that produced by two opposed rotations having 
a ratio near unity (such as 100: 101, with appropriate amplitude) ; which 
may be drawn by harmonograph, etc. Virtually, the pendulum behaves as 
if it had two frequencies ; which is in agreement with the facts that the 
effective length of a pendulum swinging in a circle is cos « L, where « is the 
angle of the swing maintained and L is the length of the pendulum, and in 
tracing a single ellipse a maximum and minimum angle and corresponding 
minimum and maximum effective length are reached twice. 

It will be seen that the greater the angle reached, the greater the variation 
of effective length of the pendulum, and it is found that the rate of precession 
increases rapidly as the angle increases. 

Also, if the ratio of major and minor axes of the ellipse is high (which, in 
the limit, becoming ©, means the pendulum swinging in a plane), the rate 
of precession is small, in the limiting case becoming o. 

And as the ratio of the major and minor axes approaches 1, the rate of 
precession becomes a maximum for the angles involved. 

When the pendulum is capable of swinging over a hemisphere, and is 
oriented to maximum and minimum angles of 180° and 90° (which is a 2: 1 
ellipse), the vertical projection of the orbit becomes a 5-loop figure, corre- 
sponding to the 3:2 figure with opposed rotations as produced by the 
twin-elliptic pendulum, etc., with appropriate amplitudes. 

If the pendulum is taken above the equator of its sphere of rotation, 
a further reduction in the number of possible loops in the orbit appears to 
occur, but this is deceptive, because there is now a loop above and a loop 
below the equator, which correspond. Also the figuring can now be 
dependent on velocity, the angle of initial swing not necessarily deciding 
the pattern, as in small spherical angle orbits. 

If the speed of projection of the pendulum is high, the orbit tends to 
become a great circle on its sphere, which orbit precesses in the same 
direction as would be the case with a gyroscope. 

It follows that if the orbit is nearly in the horizontal plane, precession 
occurs rapidly for any given mean velocity of pendulum ; and as approach- 
ing the vertical plane precession becomes relatively slow, it should, in the 
limit, become zero again when the pendulum completely rotates in a vertical 
plane. 

The rate of precession for any given inclination of great circle orbit now 
depends on the velocity of the pendulum bob, in the same way that the rate 
of precession of an unbalanced gyroscope at a given slope depends on the 
velocity of rotation. 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to University College, Nottingham. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—A, Af. 451 


Wednesday, September 13. 
Prof. Dayton C. MILLer.—The ether-drift experiment, and the absolute 
motion of the solar system and the orbital'motion of the earth (10.0). 


Major A. G. Cuurcu, D.S.O.—Recent developments in television (10.30). 
Visit to Messrs. Taylor, Taylor and Hobson’s Optical Works. 


PAPERS OF INTEREST TO THOSE ENGAGED IN 
TECHNICAL PHYSICS (Af). 


Friday, September 8. 
Mr. H. Warren.—The talking film in industry (11.0). 


Mr. L. J. Davies.—Hot cathode gas discharge tubes (11.40). 
A description of various types of industrial hot cathode discharge tubes 


such as ‘ Thyratrons,’ gas discharge lamps, etc., with particular reference to 
the design of cathodes for various applications. 


Mr. J. T. RANDALL.—Spectroscopy in the service of industry (12.20). 


Monday, September 11. 
Dr. C. H. Spiers.—Some physical problems of leather manufacture (12.0). 


Mr. H. Braptey.—(1) A study of water absorption and vapour absorption 
by leather and other shoe materials, with a note on the importance of 
these processes in shoe manufacture. 

Solutions of the diffusion equation with various boundary conditions 
and their application to experiments with leathers immersed in water 
or exposed to various atmospheric humidities. Absorption isotherms 
—absorption hysteresis—air permeability—porosity—the relation of these 
properties to the absorption and adsorption processes. Absorbed moisture 
and thermal conductivity. 

The importance of this work in modern shoe factory development. 

(2) The testing of flexible sheet materials by hydrostatic or pneumatic 
pressure. 

A discussion of the method of test as applied to paper, textile fabrics, 
metal foil and sheet, leather, rubber, and a presentation of experimental 
results and calculations bearing on the theory of the subject. 


Tuesday, September 12. 
Discussion on High voltages and high vacua (10.0) :-— 


Mr. C. R. BurcH.—On the design and operation of oil condensation 
pumps. 

The operation of a condensation pump on low vapour pressure organic 

fluids, such as vacuum distillates from mineral oils, is influenced by con- 

siderations which do not arise when mercury is used as working fluid. 


452 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—At. 


The necessity for avoiding ‘ cracking ’ restricts the maximum temperature 
and the pressure of the vapour stream, and the fact that the oil wets the 
pump surfaces prevents the use of small clearances between cowl and 
condensing tube. It is therefore not possible to use such pumps against 
a high fore vacuum pressure. Consideration of the properties of a pump 
as a vacuum fractionating column shows that the extent to which the final 
vacuum is influenced by impurities of small amount (1 in 10°) may depend 
markedly on whether the condensing surface is water-cooled or not, even 
though a water-cooled trap is placed between the pump and the fine system. 
Similar considerations show that it is not advisable to cool the fore vacuum 
pipe. It is necessary to constrict the pump mouth above the cowl, to con- 
dense the ‘ reverse jet’? due to multiple collisions : this theoretical point 
appears to have escaped notice so long as mercury was the only working 
fluid used. 5 

Contamination of the working fluid by mercury has been found to be an 
insidious cause of trouble, so that it is desirable to modify one’s technique of 
performing various experiments—e.g. speed measurements—-so as to avoid 
the use of mercury. It is in any case undesirable to use McLeod gauges 
in oil condensation pump systems, as the readings are no criterion that the 
pump is working properly. It is necessary to bake out an ionisation gauge 
before an oil condensation pump will produce a really good vacuum in it ; 
it is difficult to say how much this is a question of outgassing the gauge, 
and how much a question of indirect ‘ conditioning ’ of the pump. 


Mr. B. L. Goopier and Mr. A. BEETLESTONE.—The production of 
high voltages. 


The paper deals with the production of small powers at high voltages for 
general laboratory purposes, and particularly for use in connection with 
high vacuum equipment. 

Such high voltages may be either unidirectional or alternating. Uni- 
directional voltages may be continuous pulsating or impulsive ; alternating 
voltages may be damped or undamped and of high or low frequency. ‘The 
paper outlines the characteristics and methods of producing these various 
types of high voltage, and gives details of equipment available. 


Dr. T. E. ALLIBonE.—High voltage vacuum tubes. 


This paper deals with the construction of vacuum apparatus suitable for 
operation at high voltages, such as electron and positive ion discharge tubes, 
oscillographs, thermionic rectifiers, three electrode valves, and X-ray tubes. 

The apparatus described is primarily intended to be continuously 
evacuated, and demountability is one of its special features, so facilitating 
experimental work and the replacement of defective parts. Even for high 
voltage experiments the oil diffusion pumps are operated without the use 
of liquid air traps, thus allowing big pumping speeds to be attained. 
Examples of high voltage vacuum tube pumping systems are given. 


Dr. J. D. Cockcrort.—A high voltage D.C. generator. 


In order to produce high speed atomic particles for work on nuclear 
transformations, it has been necessary to develop sources of steady potential 
of seven or eight hundred kilovolts, capable of producing currents of several 
milliamperes, and to develop vacuum tubes to withstand these potentials. 
Transformers capable of providing these potentials are bulky and expensive, 
and difficulties arise in applying such transformers directly to a chain: of 
rectifiers. A voltage multiplier has therefore been devised which will 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—At. 453 


multiply a transformer potential by a factor whose magnitude depends 
simply on the number of condensers and rectifiers employed, the final output 
being a potential hav.ng a ripple of only a few per cent. A tower of glass 
cylinders evacuated by an oil diffusion pump constitutes the four rectifying 
units employed in the 700,000-volt generator at the Cavendish Laboratory. 

The general principles underlying the design of vacuum tubes for these 
voltages are discussed. 


Dr. R. J. vAN DE Graarr.—Engineering possibilities of electrostatics 
with vacuum insulation, 


An electrostatic force requires merely the presence of electric charges, 
whereas an electromagnetic force requires in addition the continuous 
motion of the charge. This movement of the large charges necessary for 
electromagnetic force inevitably causes certain difficulties, fundamentally 
limiting the efficiency, compactness and lightness of electromagnetic 
machinery. These difficulties can be eliminated by the use of electro- 
static rather than the usual electromagnetic force, provided that a suitable 
insulating medium is available for the high voltages and gradients required. 

Certain experimental evidence supports the belief that high vacuum has 
the desired insulating properties, and that it can be suitably produced for 
large electrostatic machinery. Assuming that the above evidence is correct 
in showing that vacuum insulation can be made to prevent electrical break- 
down, designs for electrostatic generators and motors are given, with cal- 
culations showing that they would have a greater power output per unit 
of size and weight, with energy losses many times less than present electro- 
magnetic machinery. 


Prof. W. Cramp.—Axial spin of a magnetic field. 


At the end of the year 1831 Faraday carried out a series of experiments 
upon the effects of the relative motion of a conductor and a magnetic field. 
He concluded that the moving conductor was the seat of the e.m.f., and that 
there was ‘a singular independence of the magnetic field and the bar in 
which it resides.’ Subsequent writers, however, are at variance as regards 
the relationship between a permanent bar magnet and its field, some taking 
the view that when such a magnet is given an axial spin its field moves with 
it, and others that the field is structureless, and that rest or motion as applied 
to it are meaningless. 

In an attempt to resolve this problem, the author has carried out a long 
series of experiments, not only upon conductors and magnets, but also upon 
conductors and solenoids, The results are in some instances unexpected, 
but in general lead to the conclusion that a spinning magnet and a spinning 
solenoid behave in an exactly similar manner, and that in no circum- 
stances can the magnetic field of a cylindrical bar magnet be regarded as 
rotating with the bar in an axial spin. Further, it appears to be impossible 
to cause a turning moment about the axis of such a magnet by means of 
current-carrying conductors lying in its magnetic field. In short, while 
the mechanical effects upon conductors carrying currents and lying in a field 
leave little doubt as to a connection between the current and the material 
of the conductor, there is no evidence of a similar attachment between 
a magnet and its field. 


AFTERNOON. 


Visit to University College, Nottingham. Meeting in Physics Depart- 
ment, with papers by members of the department. 


454 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—aAt, A*. 


Wednesday, September 13. 
Visit to Messrs. Taylor, Taylor and Hobson’s Optical Works, Leicester. 


DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS (A*). 


Thursday, September 7. 


Dr. E. H. Lrnroot.—On the dissection of large numbers (11.0). 


Much of the recent work in the theory of numbers has been concerned 
with the representation of a positive integer as a sum of integers of specified 
type. The Waring and Goldbach problem: are of course the outstanding 
examples, but there are several others of a less formidable nature which are 
of considerable interest. One of these is the representation of a number 
as the sum of kth power-free numbers (numbers not containing any kth 
power greater than 1 as a factor) ; this problem yields up its main results 
to purely arithmetical arguments, though there are some cases in which 
the Winogradoff method, based on the Farey dissection of an interval, is 
needed to obtain the sharpest error terms. 

The theorems discussed are all of purely arithmetical nature. The 
following are two examples. (1) We ask whether every sufficiently large 
number can be diss cted into, say, a square and a quadratfrei number. 
Estermann showed that it can, and gave an asymptotic formula for the 
number of dissections. We then ask whether the dissection can still be 
made if the two parts are restricted to be ‘ almost in a given ratio ’—that 
is to say, whether for all 7 greater than some number mo the equation 

n = m? + q (q = quadratfrei) 
always has a solution satisfying 
m? = dyn + O(n 8); g =Agn + O(n" 4), 
where Aj, A» >O; Ay +A, =1; 0o<B<1. It will be shown that such is 
the case provided B <i, and an asymptotic formula for the number of 
representations will be given. 

(2) A similar theorem holds for dissections into two quadratfrei 
numbers almost in a given ratio; in this case the asymptotic formula is 
valid and significant for all values of B in the range (0, 1). 


Dr. L. S. Bosanquet.—The absolute summability of Fourier series (11.30). 


A series Lay is said to be absolutely summable (A) if Lanx” converges to 
f(x) for o<x<1 and f(x*) is of bounded variation in (o, 1). The sum is 


then _ lim of (*)- 


i= 
The Pasties series of an even function 9(¢), integrable L, is absolutely 
summable (A) to zero at the point t = 0 if, for example, 


(1) @a(t)/t is integrable L in (0, yn) for some « > 0, or 
(2) 9.(t) is of bounded variation in (0, 1) ie some « >0, and 9,(t) > 0 
as t-> o, where 


t 

Qa(t) = “| (t — u)*-1 o(u)du, «>0, 
° 

Pa(t) = et). 


The second condition includes the first. Special cases were given” by 
J. M. Whittaker and B. N. Prasad. j 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A*. 455 


Lan is said to be absolutely summable (C,«) if &| S% —S%_, | is con- 
vergent, where S% is the «-th Cesaro mean of Sx =ad.+ ...+4n, 


The sum is then = S%, and the series is also absolutely summable (A). 


By employing absolute summability (C) more precise results may be 
obtained for Fourier series. In particular, (2) is necessary and sufficient 
for absolute summability (C) of an unspecified order. 


Dr. A. C. OrrorD.—Fourier and Hankel transforms (12.0). 


Two functions f(x) and F(x) are said to be Fourier cosine transforms of 
one another when they are connected by the formule 


(x) F(x) = (2) "cos xuf(u) du, 
° 
-00 

(2) f(x) = (2) ‘| cos xuF(u) du, 
° 


where the integrals may be either integrals of the classical kind or integrals 
in some generalised sense. 

More generally f(x) and F(x) are Hankel transforms of one another when 
they are connected by the relations 


F(x) = [vou Pema 
fe} 


ie | vowl (ou) F(u) du, 
(eo) 


where Jy(z) is Bessel’s function and R(v) > —}4. Whenv = — i, } these 
reduce to the cosine and sine transforms respectively. 

For simplicity we will first state the results for the special case of the cosine 
transform. We say that f(x) belongs to the class H if 


W 
(H) - \| (: — 4) cos xu f(u) du| < M, 
a w 
for all w and x, M being an absolute constant. This condition will obviously 
be satisfied when / (x) is absolutely integrable in (0, cc). We show that every 
function of H has a cosine transform which is bounded. More precisely 
we prove that, when f(x) belongs to H, the integral (1) is summable 
(C, 1) almost everywhere to F(x) and (2) is summable (C, 2) almost 
everywhere to f(x). 

Now consider the converse problem, Let F(x) be a bounded function 
and let it be such that the integral 


(2) (Pse ra, 
° 


TT 


which is known to exist in the (C, 1) sense, is uniformly summable (C, 1) 
to an indefinite integral. So that we can almost always write 


: co. 
(x) = (2)8 f \, sin (u) du. 


456 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A*. 


When this is the case we say that F(x) belongs to the class B* and we take 
4(x) to be its cosine transform. 

We can now state our results as follows : 

(i) A function of H has a cosine transform in ‘De. 

(ii), A function of B* has a cosine transform in H. 

Suppose now that f(x) belongs to’ H and is bounded. Then we show that 
its transform F(x) belongs to H. Hence there is a class HB, consisting of 
all the bounded functions which belong to H, which is such that the cosine 
transform of a function of HB belongs also to HB. 

These results hold also for Hankel transforms. We say that f(x) belongs 
to Hy if 


Ww 
[f(s =) won syle) fd de | <M 
° wW 


for allx and w. There is a corresponding definition of the class By*, and 
there is a symmetrical class HyB as in the case of the cosine transform. 


We can now apply the analysis of Hardy and Titchmarsh (Quart. Fournal, 
Ox. Series, i, pp. 196-231) to find the class of all the functions of HyB 


which are their own Hankel transforms. We obtain, in fact, the following 
result. 
A necessary and sufficient condition that a function f(x) of HyB should be 


its own Hankel transform is that it should be of the form 
co 
I ’ 
f(s) = = x(t) 2 -4-i di, 
—co 


where the integral is summable (C, 1) almost everywhere, and x(2) is such 
that 


io 
la m8 
| [6 laa) x(t) x dt| < M, 


x(t) ti finctl 

: = tion of t. 

st FRG eg ea a) even function o 

Putting v = — 4, we get the necessary and sufficient condition for a 


function to be its own cosine transform. 
It is possible to extend the theory for cosine transforms to functions of 
several variables. 


Friday, September 8. 


Mr. W. V. D. Hopce.— Abelian integrals attached to algebraic varieties (11.0). 


G. Mannoury has shown how a complex projective plane can be repre- 
sented as a closed four-dimensional locus in Euclidean space in such a way 
that many projective properties of the plane can be represented as metrical 
properties of the locus. His method can be extended to algebraic varieties 
of any number of dimensions, and in this way we can obtain a representation 


of the Riemannian manifold of an algebraic variety of m dimensions as a 
locus of 2m dimensions in a Euclidean space. The differential form 


which gives the element of length on this locus has many interesting pro- 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A*. 457 


perties, when considered according to the general theory of quadratic 
differential forms. 

It can be shown that the anti-symmetric tensors B(i, . . . ip) which satisfy 
the equations 


prt . . . . . 
D> ( = 1)r-t Bay, + + 6 lp-rly+1 . .. ptr, Zr) =o 
r7=1 


PIBGNs 24. By 1% 5) S10 


and which are finite everywhere on the manifold are all linear combinations 
with constant coefficients of Rp independent tensors, where Ry» is the p-th 
Betti number of the manifold, and that the integrals formed from these 


| Be, es tp) dx... dx'e, 


which are called harmonic integrals, cannot be without periods. It is usual 


to take 21, . . . , 2” as the complex parameters on the variety, and writing 
at = or inet, 
we take x1, ..., x?” as the real parameters on the manifold. Then 


among the harmonic integrals are included the real and imaginary parts of 
the Abelian integrals (of the first kind) 


| PG 2. tp) dz... dz'p 


attached to the variety. A study of the harmonic integrals leads to many 
new and interesting properties of the Abelian integrals, some of which are 
described. 


Dr. D. W. Bassace.—Cremona transformations (11.30). 


If V; is a rational k-dimensional locus in space S,, of m dimensions, 
which can be birationally projected from each of two [n — k — 1]’s, Il, and 
II,, then we can use V;, to set up a Cremona (1, 1) correspondence between 
two [R]’s, S,% and S,, taken in general position in S,, two points, 
P,, Ps, of these spaces corresponding when the [7 — k]’s, which join II, to 
P, and Il, to P, respectively, meet V, in the same point P. Segre has 
obtained Cremona transformations of ordinary space arising by two pro- 
jections in this way from rational scrolls of planes, and Marletta has given 
a simple method by which any Cremona transformation T can be inter- 
preted in terms of two projections of a locus of higher space; but apart 
from the work of these, little has been done by hyperspatial methods. 

In the present paper these methods are used to give a simple interpretation 
and classification of the so-called rational and elliptic Cremona trans- 
formations of ordinary space S3, the genus of a Cremona transformation 
of S; being defined with Loria as the genus of the general plane section 
of a general member of one of the two homaloidal systems of the trans- 
formation, a number which is an invariant of the transformation. The 
question of resolving a Cremona transformation T into the product of several 
simpler transformations is often simplified when T is given a hyperspatial 
interpretation ; for example, the known fact that all the rational Cremona 
transformations of 3 can be built up from quadro-quadric Cremona trans- 
formations is rendered practically self-evident. 


Dr. P. Du Vat.— Multiple planes (11.50). 


A multiple plane of n sheets may be defined as the projective image of 
a rational involution of sets of m points on an algebraic surface. It has a 
R 


458 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A*. 


branch curve, locus of images of sets in which two points coincide, which 
has a cusp for each set in which three points coincide, and a node for each 
set in which four points coincide by pairs. The arithmetic genus of a 
multiple plane is given by 


Dart es (8. 1) (Remi2): the ex — 8 


where 7 is the number of sheets, 28 the order of the branch curve, 3x the 
number of its cusps, and 48 that of its nodes. 

Double planes form a class of surfaces somewhat analogous to hyper- 
elliptic curves, in having a rational involution of pairs of points; the 
analogous property holds, that the canonical system belongs to the 
involution. 

A double plane can have as branch curve any curve of even order, but for 
n > 2 the branch curve must have some cusps and (for m > 3) nodes in order 
that the surface may exist at all. 

A topological condition (of presence and arrangement of cusps and 
nodes) on the branch curve for the existence of a multiple plane exists but 
is not easy to apply. 

By comparatively simple algebraic methods, however, it is possible to 
enumerate all the cases that can arise with branch curves of reasonably 
low order. 


Mr. J. H. C. WuITEHEAD.—On the calculus of variations in the large: loct 
of conjugate points (12.10). 
Let Vn be an analytic manifold with a positive Finsler metric 
ds? = gij (x, dx) dx' dx, 


the g’s being homogeneous of degree zero. By minimising the integral 
fds we obtain a family of extremals. Each extremal through a given 
point O may be regarded as the image, possibly the singular image, of a 
straight line through a point (0) in a Euclidean space, En. As when 
setting up a normal co-ordinate system one can vary the straight line through 
(0) and so represent V» as the image of Ey in a single-valued analytic 
transformation E, > Vn. The points in Ey, at which this transformation 
fails to be locally (1-1) correspond to the points in Vn, which are conjugate 
to O. They constitute an analytic complex Ky... The object of this 
paper is to study the complex Ky, and the nature of the transformation 
En — Vn near points on Ky. 


Mr. H. G. Green.—Pascal’s Theorem in n dimensions (12.30). 


The paper describes the work of the author and a colleague on an appli- 
cation, which is still in progress, of the theory of involutions of restriction 
1 to a generalised Pascal figure. The methods used are a development 
from those of Pomey, which give opportunity for a closer discussion of 
special cases. The methods of the extension are illustrated by details of 
the figure in three dimensions, in which the place of the two dimensional 
Pascal line is taken by a series of closed networks of lines and the pro- 
jective connection with the plane figure is established. In the general 
n dimensional case it is shown that it is only for special forms of m that 
a symmetric figure can be constructed, and that the networks-are then of 
two types, open and closed. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A*, At. 459 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Joint Discussion with Section J (Psychology, g.v.) on The validity and 
value of methods of correlation (10.0). 


DEPARTMENT OF COSMICAL PHYSICS (At). 


Thursday, September 7. 


Dr. W. H. McCrea.—Problems of the solar chromosphere and corona (11.0). 


Survey of recent work, particularly Rosseland’s theory depending on the 
ejection of fast electrons by the sun. The possibility of such ejection. 


Mr. W. M. H. Greaves.—The observation of stellar colour temperatures 
(11.25). 


Dr. G. C. McVitt1r.—Non-static solutions, with singularities, of Einstein’s 
gravitational equations (11.50). 


Generalisation of Schwarzschild’s solution for a mass-particle, in the ex- 
panding universe theory. The choice of co-ordinate systems. The dis- 
tribution of matter outside the mass-particle. The cosmical constant. 


Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer.—Periodic changes in two Be-type spectra (12.15). 


One of the researches which is being carried out at the Norman Lockyer 
Observatory at Sidmouth is the spectroscopic study of some of the brighter 
stars of the Be type—i.e. those stars which exhibit bright hydrogen lines in 
their spectra. This work was commenced in the year 1923, and has been 
continually pursued since then. 

The Sidmouth research has been chiefly confined to the determination 
of the changes in the relative intensities of the bright components of each 
of the hydrogen lines, for each hydrogen line consists of a broad absorption 
band on which are superimposed two bright lines, separated by a strong sharp 
absorption line. These intensity differences are determined by two methods 
—one by eye-estimates under a small magnifying power ( x 2), and the other 
by a wedge-micrometer. The results are here given for two stars only, to 
illustrate the methods. The first deals with the star 7 Persei, of magnitude 
4°19, for which a period of change of 126°8 days is deduced. The character 
and intensities of several absorption lines in the spectrum are also discussed. 
The second star, y Cassiopeiz (mag. 2:o1), is a star the spectrum of which 
has never before been detected to exhibit any change. Distinct variations 
are here indicated, and a probable variation of about four years in length 
is clearly indicated. 


Mr. A. D. Tuackeray.—The measurement of line intensities in stellar 
spectra (12.40). 


Stellar spectra for the measurement of line intensities have to be 
standardised photometrically in order to relate the photographic density to 
the intensity of the original incident light. Many photographic errors may 
arise due to differences in stellar and standard exposures, and especially to 


460 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—Af. 


Eberhard effect. The microphotometer will introduce further errors, but 
the largest errors of all probably arise in the final process of reducing the 
microphotometer tracings, the difficulties of drawing in the continuous 
background and eliminating blends being often insuperable. With spectro- 
graphs of ordinary dispersion, an error of 20 per cent. is to be expected in 
many cases. This seriously limits the usefulness of such observations in 
deriving values of atmospheric pressures, compositions and opacities, and 
of stellar rotations. 
EVENING. 


Prof. F. Linxe.—Cloud evolution (with cinematograph demonstration, 
8.30). 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Mr. A. GraHAM.—The instability of air layers (10.0). 


Walker and Phillips have shown that the vortex patterns produced, when 
a thermally unstable layer of air is subjected to a double shear, show close 
similarity to certain cloud formations in the sky ; in the sky, however, there 
is ordinarily a single shear. ‘The paper describes some experiments with 
an unstable layer subjected to single shear. 

The upper surface of the experimental channel was a long strip of plate 
glass ; it was drawn steadily over a short, hot iron plate, thus producing 
a single shear in the air layer between them. As in the double shear experi- 
ments straight vortices could be formed, aligned either transversely to or 
along the shear; in addition, there were formed a square pattern having one 
set of diagonals along the shear, and some transitional patterns ; hexagons 
were obtained without shear and also with a certain value of the shear. 
There is a steady change from hexagons into longitudinal rolls through the 
other patterns. All these patterns have their counterpart in the sky. 

An investigation was made into the patterns formed in the absence of shear. 
If the lower surface of an air layer is rapidly warmed, cells having ascending 
air at the centres are produced ; if the upper surface is rapidly cooled, the 
cells have descent in the centres. In the sky cells are formed having ascent 
in the centres and also cells with descent, thus it appears that they should 
be formed under the above conditions. If in the laboratory the temperature 
difference between the top and bottom surfaces of an air layer is large the 
cells have descent in the centres, whereas with a liquid layer the cells have 
ascent ; this phenomenon is apparently due to the fact that the cool upper 
surface of an air layer has a lesser viscosity than the warm lower surface 
and is therefore less stable, while for a liquid it is the reverse. 

The experiments considerably strengthen the theory that many cloud 
patterns are due to thermal instability and not to Helmholtz waves. 


Mr. E. Tititotson.—High focus earthquakes in the International 
Seismological Summary (10.20). 


From June 1914 to March 1928 there were twenty-four so-called shallow 
focus earthquakes, whilst there were about three times as many deep focus 
earthquakes and approximately 11,000 normal tremors published in the 
International Seismological Summary. One of the ‘ shallow ’ focus earth- 
quakes had a focus 0°04 of the earth’s radius above normal, and so it has 
been suggested for this and other reasons that the normal depth of -an 
earthquake is about 160 miles below the surface. More recently, however, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—Af. 461 


Dr. Harold Jeffreys and others have shown that the normal depth of an 
earthquake is at the base of the granitic layer, or about 11 miles deep. 

There is no peculiarity in the periodicity of these ‘ shallow ’ focus earth- 
quakes, nor is there any system about the position of their epicentres in the 
earth’s surface. Also when the seismograms for such tremors are examined 
they appear to be perfectly normal, and the L phase is not unduly large. 

At Oxford the epicentres of all earthquakes are determined from the 
S-P differences, using Zéppritz-Turner tables, and a shallow focus earthquake 
is one which calls for a removal of the epicentre so determined away from 
all observing stations, no matter what their azimuth. In other words, if 
the P phase arrives at its correct time, then S appears to arrive late. 

Travel-time graphs have been drawn and calculations made for all the 
readings for all the ‘ shallow ’ focus earthquakes separately, and from these 
it appears that the P wave is quite normal and always well observed, whilst 
the true S by Jeffreys’s tables is practically absent, and the readings usually 
given for S approach more nearly to the Gutenberg PS curve. Several 
seismograms have been examined, and in all these P, PP, PPP,and PS waves 
are discernible, but S and SS are either extremely doubtful or absent 
altogether. 


Conclusions. 


1. The peculiarity of the so-called ‘ shallow ’ focus earthquakes appears 
to be due to the absence or doubtful presence of the true S pulse on all the 
seismograms, though the PS pulse is present and has been usually identified 
as S 

2. Too great praise cannot be bestowed on the work of the International 
Seismological Summary at Oxford, and it seems advisable to continue to 
print all the readings sent by observing stations. 

3. More reliance may be placed on the general identification of the P than 
the S pulse, though it is important to have good tables for P and S separately. 
These are confidently expected when Dr. Jeffreys has completed his present 
work on his new tables. 

4. The fine adjustment of epicentres might with advantage be carried 
out with P readings alone. 

5. Itis advisable to have field evidence with regard to an epicentre wherever 
possible in addition to the evidence of seismograms. 


Rey. J. P. RowLanp, S.J.— The Wensleydale earthquake of 1933, January 14 
(x0.40). 

On January 14, 1933, at about 8.30 a.m. G.M.T., an earthquake shock 
was felt over a large area in the north of England, and was recorded at all 
the British seismological stations, and at a few on the Continent. 

By collation of all the newspaper reports and a few private advices— 
about a hundred reports in all—a seismic map was drawn, which gave 
a series of isoseismals ranging from 7 to 2 on the Rossi-Forel scale, the 
highest enclosing a small area round Upper Wensleydale, and the lowest an 
area of about 25,000 square miles, extending from near Berwick-on-T weed 
to Anglesea, and from the Isle of Man to some distance in the North Sea off 
the Yorkshire coast. The disturbed area is about the average given by 
C. Davison for British earthquakes of central intensity 7. 

Measurement of the P* and S* phases on the seismograms of the three 
nearest observatories, Stonyhurst, Durham, and Bidston, gave the position 
of the epicentre as 54° 20’ N., 2° 18’ W., which is at the head of Wensleydale, 
about one mile to the N.E. of Hawes Junction railway station. Reference 


462 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—Af. 


to the Ordnance Survey geological map of the area shows that this position 
lies on a fault which runs for about two miles in a north-easterly direction 
from the head of the Dale. 

From this epicentre distances were calculated to all the observatories—11 
in number—from which records were available, and a time-distance diagram 
was plotted for all the points measured on the seismograms. From this the 
travel-times, velocities and apparent delays in starting of the six phases 
exhibited in the following table were deduced. 'The values obtained by 
Dr. Harold Jeffreys for two previous British earthquakes are given for 
comparison. 


WENSLEYDALE. JEFFREYS. 
Vel. Delay. Vel. Delay. 
Phase. km./sec. sec. km./sec. sec. 
P 8°55 II 7°8 9 
Pp* 6°21 2 6°3 5 
Pg 5°23 6 574 3 
S 4°29 10 4°35 8 
S* 3°54 ° Shh 4 
Sg 3°30 4 3°3 ° 


It will be noted that whilst the velocity of the Sg wave is identical with 
that previously found, that of the P wave is appreciably higher, and all the 
rest are slightly lower than the normal. The apparent times of starting also 
follow a different order. ‘These anomalies may be related to depth of focus, 
which appears to have been somewhat greater than normal. In determining 
the epicentre from the three nearest stations, it was found impossible to 
obtain intersecting circles by adopting the velocities appropriate to Pg and 
Sg, but good concordance was obtained by taking those of P* and S*. 

It should be stated that at all the stations except Stonyhurst and Durham 
the movements recorded were extremely small, rendering measurement and 
identification of phase difficult, so that any conclusions arrived at can only 
be taken with some reserve. ‘The points measured, however, lie very well 
on the straight lines corresponding to the values in the above table, which 
accordingly seems to be fairly well established. 


Mr. A. C. Best.—Temperature gradients near the ground (11.0). 


A paper was read at the British Association Meeting in 1925 by N. K. 
Johnson, describing the results obtained from a study of the vertical gradient 
of temperature in the atmosphere over the height interval 1-2 m. to 17°1 m. 
These results were subsequently amplified and published as a Geophysical 
Memoir by the Meteorological Office. 

The apparatus used by Johnson has remained in use since that date, and 
in 1931 additional apparatus was erected by the author with a view to 
examining the temperature gradient below 1-2 m. 

Records of the temperature differences over the height intervals 2-5 cm. 
to 30 cm. and 30 cm. to 120 cm. over close cropped grass have been 
obtained for approximately two years by means of thermocouples. 'The 
results have been analysed to give mean values corresponding to clear and 
overcast skies. The greatest values of the temperature differences for each 
month are also given, the maximum values of the lapses found for the lowest 
interval being of the order of one thousand times the dry adiabatic lapse rate. 

Some temperature-height curves for the height interval 2-5 cm. to 
17*1I m. are given, and the time of maximum temperature at various heights 
is discussed. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—Af. 463 


Discuss1on on Condensation of water in the atmosphere :— 


Dr. G. C. Stvpson, C.B., F.R.S.—Problems of the condensation of 
water in the atmosphere (11.20). 


A simple straightforward description of the physical processes involved 
in the condensation of water in the atmosphere leading up to precipitation 
would appear to be as follows : 

The nuclei of condensation are hygroscopic particles, mainly sea salt. 
These collect water and grow in size with increase of relative humidity, 
but remain invisible even in saturated air except as a haze. When air is 
cooled below the dewpoint, water is deposited on the nuclei, and a mist, 
fog, or cloud is produced. Continued cooling (within ascending air currents) 
causes growth of cloud particles, until their increased size, augmented by 
collisions, results in rain. 

This simple statement will be considered in the light of the Pole wine 
difficulties or problems : 


(a) Kohler’s statement that if p is the concentration of salt in water 
derived from clouds (grams per litre), then p = p. 2” in which pois aconstant 
and 7 is an integer. 

(6) Kéhler’s similar but quite unrelated statement, that if v is the volume 
of a cloud particle, then v = vo2” in which ¥o is a constant and n is an integer. 

(c) Why do some clouds rain and others not ? 

(d) Is coagulation caused by (1) the relative motion of drops of different 
size, (2) the turbulent motion of the atmospheres, (3) electrical charges ? 

(e) Bergeron’s statement that no rain (other than fine drizzle) occurs 
without the presence of snow in the upper part of the cloud—the melting 
snow-flakes being the origin of the raindrops. 

(f) Do certain sizes of raindrops occur more frequently than others, as 
first suggested by Defant, and later by K6hler and Niederdorfer ? 

(g) The part played by radiation in fog. 

(h) The diurnal variation of fog. Is Entwistle’s explanation of the high 
frequency of fog just after sunrise satisfactory? (Jour. Roy. Aeronautical 
Soc., 1928). 

(t) Optical phenomena show that spherical cloud particles occur at very 
low temperature—e.g. cirro-cumulus clouds, fogs in polar regions, etc. 
What is the physical state of these particles ? They cannot be supercooled 
water because they appear in air masses, the temperature of which is always 
far below the freezing-point, and it is difficult to see why sublimation should 
not build up crystals at such low temperatures. 


Mr. H. L. Green.—A critical study of direct methods for determining 
the number and size-frequency of particles in aerosols (11.40). 


The ranges of sizes of particles found amongst atmospheric nuclei, dusts, 
fogs, clouds and other aerial disperse systems are considered, and direct 
methods for determining the number and size-frequency of such particles 
are critically examined. The study is confined mainly to condensation 
(Aitken), photographic, microscopic, ultramicroscopic and other optical 
methods, particular attention being paid to the accuracy and limitations of 
each method. 


Prof. J. J. Notan and Mr. J. P. Ryan.—Discharge from a raindrop 
in an intense electric field (12.0). 


When a drop is exposed to an intense electric field, it becomes pulled 
out and begins to discharge. Negative discharge is greater than positive 


464 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—Af, B 


and occurs at lower field values. The onset of discharge is determined 
by the approximate relation F1/r = 3,600, where F is the uniform field in 
volts /cm. and ¢ the radius of the drop. 

In ordinary atmospheric air the ions discharging from the drop attach 
themselves to condensation nuclei and form large ions. But in pure air, 
ordinary small ions only are found. No production of large ions or nuclei 
can be detected even when a drop is discharging up to 55 micro-ampéres 
and is being visibly broken up by the discharge. 

It would appear, therefore, that the low mobility ions required by C. T.R. 
Wilson’s theory of thunderstorm electrification are not rs produced 
by discharge from raindrops. 


Mr. L. H. G. Drnes.—Observations of supersaturation of water in the 
free atmosphere, and an example of a cumulus cloud composed of 
supercooled water drops (12.20). 


A number of observations of relative humidity in the upper air over 
England are summarised, made with sounding balloons carrying recording 
meteorographs. The conclusion is reached that on many occasions, in 
clouds, a state of supersaturation of water vapour exists. It is suggested 
that the degree of this supersaturation may often exceed a relative humidity 
of 120 per cent. 


SECTION B.—CHEMISTRY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. R. Rosinson, F.R.S., on Natural 
colouring matters and their analogues (10.0). (See p. 45 .) 


Discussion on Natural colouring matters (11.0) :— 


Prof. Dr. R. Kunn.—Carotenoids and flavines. 


In recent years many new natural colouring matters of the carotene-group 
have been discovered, and a general view is given of their genetical relation- 
ships. The first products of synthesis in plants are the dyestuffs with 
40 carbon-atoms, from which carotenoids, containing fewer carbon-atoms, 
are produced by oxidative disintegration. The splitting of the carbon- 
chains may occur in different ways :— 


(1) Cyg —+> Cop + Cao, B-carotene —— 2 vitamin A. 

(2) Cy —~C,g + Cy, + Cg, lycopene —— bixin + 2 methylheptenone. 
(3) Cao —~> Cyp + Cop + Cy, proto-crocin —-—>crocin + 2 picro-crocin. 
(4) Cy —~>Cy3 + Cy,, proto-azafrin ——(ionone) + azafrin. 


a-, B- and y-carotene are provitamins A. The constitution of «- and 
Y-carotene isasymmetric; they supply only 1 mol. of vitamin A, and therefore 
their physiological activity is only half that of the symmetrical B-carotene. 

Widely distributed in nature are certain water-soluble dyestuffs, coloured 
yellow and fluorescing intense green. They have been called flavines. 
Ovoflavine from egg-albumin and lactoflavine from milk have been prepared 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 465 


by Th. Wagner-Jauregg in crystalline condition. ‘The elementary analysis 
suggests the formula C,,;HN,O,. According to the experiments of 
P. Gyérgy, lactoflavine, three times recrystallised (m.p. 267°), promotes 
normal growth, when administered in doses of 5 y daily to rats deprived of 
vitamin Bg. 

The properties of flavines (lyochromes) and of carotenes (lipochromes) are 
in many respects complementary. 


Lyochromes. Lipochromes. 
Solubility Soluble in water Insoluble in water 
Colour Yellow, orange Yellow, orange, red 
Fluorescence Green (very strong) Yellow-green (weak) 
Combined with Proteins, polysaccharides — 
Composition Containing nitrogen Nitrogen-free 
Acids Resistant Labile 
Alkalies Labile Resistant 
Oxidation Resistant Labile 


Biologically related to Vitamin B, and enzymes Vitamin A 
5 Y & or yY-carotene 


Effective daily dose 5 y lactoflavine 2°5 7 B-carotene 


The flavines can be reversibly reduced (flavine + 2H= leuco-flavine), and 
therefore they act in the cell as transporters of oxygen. When combined 
with carriers of high molecular weight, they appear to act more strongly 
as enzymes (O. Warburg). Apparently the flavines are exogenous precursors 
of such oxidation-enzymes (pro-enzymes). The undialysable enzyme- 
preparations act also as vitamin B,; the dialysable flavines have no more 
enzymatic activity; the irradiated flavines, soluble in chloroform, have 
neither the properties of enzymes nor those of the vitamin. 


Flavines. Activity as 
Vitamin Bg. Enzyme. 
(1) Combined with carriers of high 
molecular weight (undialysable) + a 
(2) Crystallised dyestuffs (dialysable, 
insoluble in chloroform) . + = 


(3) Crystallised irradiated flavine 
(soluble in chloroform) . : - - 


Dr. R. P. Linsteap.—The phthalocyanines : a new class of synthetic 
colours. 


When phthalimide is heated wth certain metals, notably iron and 
magnesium, in a current of ammonia, a complex reaction occurs with the 
formation of highly coloured substances of a novel type. These have been 
named phthalocyanines from their origin and deep-blue colour. 

Identical compounds may be made from o-cyanobenzamide C,H,4(CN) 
CONH, by the action of metals and metallic derivatives, such as oxides, 
at temperatures of about 250° C. The metal may be eliminated from the 
magnesium compound by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid to yield 
phthalocyanine, the parent substance of the group. 

Like indigo and indanthrone, these substances may be purified by crystal- 
lisation from boiling quinoline and by sublimation in a vacuum, and may 
Beer snes as homogeneous macrocrystalline blue solids with a fine purple 
reflex 

Analysis shows them to contain the unit (CsH,N,) combined in their 

R2 


466 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 


simplest form with a divalent metal or with hydrogen in the manner : 
(C,H,N,),H2 or (CsH,N2),.metal. The mode of synthesis and the re- 
actions of these compounds indicate that they contain a system of iso-indole 
rings linked by nitrogen atoms and forming a large ring with the metal held 
in the centre by primary and secondary valencies. 

The phthalocyanines exhibit two features of special interest. First, their 
fundamental unit resembles that of porphin, which is the basis of the 
naturally occurring pigments of the chlorophyll and hemin group. The 
structural unit of the natural pigments differs in containing no benzene 
ring and in having methine (— CH =) links in place of nitrogen. 


C—N= CGH 
; 4\/\ CH/\ 
Phthalocyanine Pwd IN Porphin Unit | oN 
Unit \ fo P CEN in 


| | 


Secondly, the phthalocyanines are among the most stable of complex 
organic compounds. For example, the copper compound sublimes un- 
changed at 600°; dissolves in strong sulphuric acid without decomposition 
or loss of metal ; and resists the action of molten caustic potash. Other 
compounds of the group show a similar stability. 


Dr. N. V. Srpewick, F.R.S. 


The plane arrangement which these formule require us to ascribe to 
the covalencies of the metals they contain is of great interest. According 
to the theory, a plane distribution of four covalencies of an atom is possible 
(1) for four of the six covalencies of a 6-covalent atom, (2) for a 4-covalent 
atom of one of the later transitional elements, such as nickel and perhaps iron. 
The iron compounds described would then come under (2), and the 
magnesium complexes could only exist under (1) if the atom was 6-covalent, 
which would explain why these compounds have two molecules of water. 

An interesting test would be to examine the beryllium complexes of these 
substances. On the theory, beryllium cannot form more than four covalen- 
cies, and these cannot lie in a plane, but must be tetrahedral. It should, 
therefore, be incapable of forming links with four nitrogen atoms in a plane. 
On the other hand, beryllium co-ordinates with such energy that it will form 
the complexes if it can; and we could thus discover whether the steric 
conditions permit of their formation. 


Friday, September 8. 


Discuss1on on Hormones (10.0) :-— 


Prof. Dr. F. KocL.—Plant growth hormones (Auxin a and Auxin b). 
(Ordered by the General Committee to be printed im extenso. See p. 600.) 


Mr. G. A. D. HasLewoop.—Earlier chemical work on estrin. 


From 1903 onwards, many extracts of ovarian tissue were prepared which 
could produce cestrus in normal and ovariectomised animals. In 1923, 
vaginal cornification was adopted by Allen’and Doisy as a method of assay. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B, 467 


Ascheim and Zondek in 1927 discovered the hormone in pregnancy urine. 
The chemical nature of the active substance was partially disclosed by 
methods of obtaining potent extracts. Its phenolic nature was recognised 
by Funk and by Marrian in 1929. 

Doisy, Veler and Thayer, in 1929, and shortly afterwards Butenandt, and 
also Dingemanse, isolated crystalline ketohydroxycestrin, C,H», (CO)(OH). 
Marrian obtained trihydroxyestrin, C}sH2;(OH)s, in 1930. 

Butenandt, having found both compounds in pregnancy urine, de- 
monstrated that ketohydroxyeestrin was formed by potassium bisulphate 
dehydration of trihydroxyeestrin, a reaction which Marrian and Haslewood 
later showed to occur through elimination of the elements of water between 
the two alcoholic hydroxyl groups of trihydroxyeestrin. 

Examination of surface films of cestrin derivatives by Adam and Danielli 
and a crystallographic investigation by Bernal showed the estrin molecule to 
possess a rigid fused-ring structure of the phenanthrene or anthracene type, 
with the phenolic group remote from the other oxygen-containing groups. 

The absence of ethylenic double bonds was shown by the preparation of 
substituted mono-bromo-derivatives. 


Dr. A. BUTENANDT.—The relation of the sex hormones to the sterols 
and bile acids, 


The following constitutional formule have been proposed for the follicular 
hormone, C,,;H 2302) and its hydrate, Ci3H.,0; : 


O OH 
CH; | CH; | 


(SP i nS 


iparifions ¢ 
HO\V/\Y (D HOVY/\/ (ID 

These formulz are based on the following observations : 

(x) The follicular hormone is a hydroxyketone, the hydrate a trihydroxy- 

compound ; both contain one acidic hydroxyl group, similarly linked in each 
case, whilst in the hydrate two adjacent secondary alcoholic groups replace 
the keto-group. 
_ (2) The results of catalytic hydrogenation conjoined with those of the 
measurement of molecular refraction show decisively the presence in the 
molecule of only three double bonds. This being established, the hydrogen 
content as determined by analysis demands a four-ring system. 

(3) The three double-bonds confer aromatic character, as shown by their 
chemical behaviour and in view of the results of measurements of molecular 
refraction and ultraviolet absorption. The acidity of the phenolic group 
is to be explained by its phenolic character. 

(4) The keto-group or the two hydroxyl groups are in a terminal five- 
membered ring, which is opened by the alkali-fusion of the hydrate, a 
dicarboxylic acid C,;H.,O; being formed. 

(5) The points of union of this ring are shown by the degradation of 
the acid C,,H,,O; to 1 : 2-dimethyl-7-hydroxyphenanthrene and 1 : 2-di- 
methylphenanthrene. 

The formule I and II demonstrate a clear connection between the folli- 
cular hormone and the sterols, bile-acids, and pregnandiol. This relation- 
ship is substantiated by the preparation of degradation products common 


468 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 


to both classes of compounds (e.g. 1 : 2-dimethylphenanthrene from ztio- 
bilianic acid). : 

The testicular hormone (male sex-hormone), the action of which is 
demonstrated by the growth of the cock’s comb, is a hydroxyketone, 
CigH 3902, which contains a saturated four-ring system. Its relationship to 
the follicular hormone and to the sterols has not yet beenshown with certainty. 


Prof. E. C. Dopps.—The significance of synthetic estrogenic com- 
pounds. 


Hitherto the cestrus reaction has been regarded as a specific response to 
cestrin and its derivatives, none of which have as yet been prepared syntheti- 
cally. In collaboration with Cook it has been shown that compounds of 
widely differing chemical structure may be synthesised, capable of causing 
a full ceestrus reaction quite indistinguishable from the natural phenomenon. 
Thus, 1-keto-1 : 2 : 3 : 4-tetrahydrophenanthrene falls into this category, 
and also 9g: 10-dihydroxy-g : 10-di-n-butyl-9 : ro-dihydro-1 : 2:5 : 6-di- 
benzanthracene. In addition, it has been shown that calciferol will 
produce cestrus when injected in large quantities, as also the two carcinogenic 
hydrocarbons 1 : 2-benzpyrene and 5 : 6-cyclopenteno-1 : 2-benzanthracene. 
It would appear, therefore, that it is possible to have one molecule possessing 
pharmacological activity of two entirely different varieties. The theoretical 
importance of these observations is obviously great, since it may mean 
that the processes of cestrus-production, cancer production and vitamin-D 
activity are related in some unsuspected manner. 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Messrs. Boots, Nottingham. 


EVENING. 
Sectional dinner. 


Saturday, September 9. 
AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Ketton Cement Works. 


Monday, September 11. 
Discussion on The interatomic distances and forces in molecules (10.0) :— 


Dr. .N. V. Sipewick, F.R.S. 
Prof, J. E. LENNARD-JONES. 


Dr. J. M. Rospertson.—Interatomic distances in some aromatic hydro- 
carbons from a Fourier analysis of the X-ray crystal data. 


If X-ray crystal analysis can be carried far enough it yields the most 
accurate and complete information regarding interatomic distances, and has 
the great advantage of being applicable to very complicated structures with 
the same precision as to simple atomic arrangements. Owing to the 
essentially periodic structure of a crystal, we may represent the electron 
density by means of a Fourier series 

+co +00 +co 
e(x,y,2)= 2 LY XZ Apg cos 2x (px/a + gy/b + r2/c), 
—coo co 


—co — 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—B. 469 


assuming a centre of symmetry in the structure. It can then be shown 
that the coefficients Ag, are proportional to the structure factors of the 
crystal, which can be determined from experimental measurements of 
intensity. ‘These measurements, however, do not tell us the phase constant, 
or sign, which must be attached to each term. These must at present be 
found by trial and error. In practice a double Fourier series is the most 
convenient to apply, representing a projection of the structure on a given 
plane. 

Examples of such projections from anthracene, naphthalene and durene 
were shown. ‘The benzene ring in all these compounds consists of a regular 
plane hexagon of carbon atoms, the distance between the centres being 
1°41 A. In durene the methyl groups are reasonably spherical, and are 
situated at 1°47 A. from the adjacent aromatic centres. These methyl 
groups are also displaced slightly away from each other, towards the unsub- 
stituted positions of the benzene ring, the displacement being about 3° from 
the symmetrical or unstrained position. 


Dr. J. D. BERNAL. 


Mr. E. J. BoweEn.—Forces between atoms in molecules. 


The characteristic vibration frequencies of simple molecules can be 
found from Raman spectra, near infra-red absorption spectra, and from 
electronic absorption spectra in the visible and ultra-violet region. 
A diatomic molecule has one characteristic frequency, from which the force 
constant of vibration can be calculated. More complex molecules have 
a number of characteristic frequencies which must be assigned to specific 
modes of vibration. For this purpose use is made of selection rules due to 
Placzek and to Dennison. In the case of certain simple types of organic 
molecules (e.g. the cyanogen halides) it is possible to assign frequencies 
with some degree of reliability by intercomparison of the observed fre- 
quencies with those of other molecules, but in general it is necessary to 
examine the infra-red absorption bands at high dispersion in order to apply 
Dennison’s assignment rules. Such infra-red work at high dispersion has 
been carried out in few cases at present. When the observed frequencies 
of a simple molecule such as SO, have been correctly assigned to specific 
modes of vibration, approximate values for the force constants of the links 
and the apex angle of the molecule can be obtained by treating the molecule 
as an assemblage of masses and springs. A more refined treatment must 
take into consideration ‘resonance degeneracy’ and the anharmonic 
character of the vibrations. This necessarily means the introduction of 
many new constants into the problem. A very complete treatment of the 
vibrations of the CO, molecule, allowing for these factors, has recently been 
given by Adel and Dennison. From the experimental values of the funda- 
mental frequencies (allowing for resonance interaction), of the overtones 
(which are not the sum of integral multiples of the fundamentals), and of 
the rotational structure of the vibration bands (which is modified by the 
vibration), they build up an equation of twelve constants which completely 
expresses the experimental results. The next development lies in the 
elimination of many of these constants by the discovery of a suitable potential 
energy function which will also reproduce the results. Adel and Dennison 
apply a Morse potential energy function to each of the C=O links in the 
molecule, and an empirical exponential function to allow for the repulsion 
of the oxygen atoms for each other. The resulting equation containing four 
constants is capable in a semi-quantitative way of reproducing the features 


470 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 


of the original twelve constant equation. Further work on these lines is 
likely in the near future to provide a clearer picture of the interaction within 
a molecule of atoms which are linked together and of atoms which are not 
linked in the chemical sense. 


Mr. C. N. HINsHELWoop, F.R.S. 


The curves showing the rate of reaction of certain gaseous substances as 
a function of pressure have proved to be composite in nature, although only 
one set of reaction products is formed. ‘Thus it must be concluded that 
a given molecule can be activated in more than one way for the same 
chemical transformation. This phenomenon presumably depends upon 
the localisation of the energy of activation in different modes of vibration, 
and should be correlatable with the information about the internal structure 
and vibrations of the molecules, as obtained from other methods of 
investigation. 

AFTERNOON. 


Visit to Messrs. Briggs’ Tannery, Leicester. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Discussion on The chemistry of the tanning process (10.0) :— 


Dr. D. Jorpan Lioyp.—The chemistry of skin, and the problem 
confronting the tanner. 


Animal skin consists of a tissue of fibres which are the biological units. 
Each fibre has crystalline properties and is formed of packets of elongated 
molecules between which are planes of weakness. ‘The fibre can be split 
up at these planes into fibrils. This is an essential pre-tanning process since 
it increases the capillary space through which the colloidal tannins can diffuse 
and makes the polar groups of the protein accessible to the tan. Collagen 
carries postively and negatively charged polar groups, and collagen fibres 
contain both bound and free water. ‘Tanning consists in conferring chemical 
and physical stability on the collagen fibre by the suppression of the active 
groups and the elimination of water. 


Prof. Dr. K. FREUDENBERG.—TZannins and their behaviour towards 
proteins. 


It is known that phenols form molecular compounds with amines and 
amides (e.g. phenol itself with aniline or urea). ‘The amines and amides 
can be simple or complex, like proteins ; the phenols also can be simple or 
complex, as for example the tannins of the gallotannin or catechin groups 
(whose constitutions are discussed). It is therefore affirmed that, when a 
tannin and a protein particle come together, a molecular compound is 
formed first. In a single tannin particle there are available many phenolic 
groups capable of combining with the active groups of a protein particle. 
After the first contact the two particles combine in such a way that the 
greatest possible number of the phenolic and peptide groups are near one 
another. 

The first process is a contact at single points, the second is the mutual 
permeation of the parts. Until then the process is mainly reversible. 
The third process is the condensation of the neighbouring tannin particles 
te insoluble high molecular compounds. The two first steps may be 


Pn 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 471 


compared with the adsorption of indigo-white on the fibre; the third 
resembles in some way the production of the insoluble indigo itself on the 
fibre, and this process is irreversible. The third step, that is the self- 
condensation of the tannin, is portrayed in this connection, 


Dr. P. MairLanp.—The chemistry of Quebracho tannin. 


The hypothetical stem substance of Quebracho tannin, the so-called 
Quebracho-catechin, whose formula was suggested by Freudenberg in 1925, 
has now been prepared synthetically from the corresponding pyrylium salt. 
This new catechin is very similar to ordinary catechin itself, and has been 
condensed to a product which shows many similarities to the purified 
Quebracho tannin of natural origin. 

The ‘ phlobaphene ’ reaction of the catechins has also been studied, and 
some light thrown on its probable mechanism. 


Prof. Dr. M. BERcMANN.—The chemistry of skin, and the catechol 
tannins. 


Skin is altered by tanning in such a way that it becomes more resistant 
to putrefaction. ‘The chemical groups of the skin are also so altered by 
tanning that they can better resist the chemical attack of the proteolytic 
enzymes of the organisms of putrefaction. 'This resistance to enzymes is, 
however, only limited in vegetable-tanned leather. According to the 
tanning material used, the pre-tanning treatment of the skin and the manner 
of tanning, the leather can be digested by the proteolytic enzymes to a 
greater or less extent. The measure of this digestion is a measure of the 
quality of the tanning. There appears to have been found here a new 
analytical means for the investigation of leather since progress of tanning 
can be measured by a falling away of a particular chemical characteristic. 
By simple experiment it can be shown that liming and bating with enzymes 
have a quite recognisable influence on the colloidal condition of the skin 
which must make itself felt during the course of tanning. 

The behaviour of a tannin during the tanning process depends directly 
on its general chemical character. By sulphiting, the chemical nature is 
altered and it then produces leather of different properties from non-sulphited 
tans. Even the molecular size of the tannin is of fundamental importance 
in the tanning process. 

These particular lines of thought and experimental methods show the 
way to a rational method of leather manufacture. The properties of the 
leather can be altered at will by selected variations of the methods of tanning. 


Dr. H. Puitiies.—The nature of the vegetable tanning process. 


Gelatin in solution combines instantaneously with tannins, hide powder 
less rapidly, whilst the structurally intact hide tans slowly. The speed of 
tannage is thus governed by the rate of diffusion of the tannins into the hide. 
This rate of diffusion is dependent on the following inter-related factors : 
(a) the size of the intermolecular spaces in the hide ; (b) the intensity of the 
electrical charge on the protein molecules ; (c) the size of the tannin mole- 
cules ; (d) the charge on the tannin molecules ; (e) the degree to which the 
tannin molecules are hydrated. The non-tannins in vegetable tanning 

“materials play an important part in the process since they influence the size 
of the intermolecular spaces in the hide and also modify the properties of 
the tannins. Vegetable tanning materials vary in character, and the tanner 
blends and manipulates the tan liquors so that penetration of the hide by 


472 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B, C. 


small non-tan molecules is followed by the absorption of tannins possessing 
large molecules. Reasons are given for upholding the view that the com- 
bination of collagen with tannins is mainly electrostatic in character, being 
partly salt formation between tannin and protein and partly association 
arising from the polar character of the molecules. 


Mr. F. C. THompson.—The gelatin-tannin reaction. 


This interesting reaction has a long history beginning with Seguin and 
Humphrey Davy, but has not yet been completely elucidated in spite of 
the efforts of many workers. The variability in the composition of the 
precipitate under differing experimental conditions attracted the attention 
of the earliest investigators and led ultimately to the somewhat vague 
characterisation of the reaction as a ‘ colloidal’ or ‘ adsorption’ reaction. 
Attempts to gain a closer insight into the mechanism have been made in 
several quarters. J.T. Wood showed that the reaction had little in common 
with what is usually considered to be adsorption. Stiasny has emphasised 
the importance of the degree of dispersion of the reactants, whilst Kruyt 
has considered the reaction as an electrical discharge followed by dehydration. 
A simple chemical theory assuming the formation of an insoluble salt from 
the tannin as acid and the gelatin as base (a salt which largely resists 
hydrolysis by reason of its high degree of insolubility) is fairly satisfactory 
up to a point but does not cover all the facts of the case. An adequate 
chemical theory will probably have to take account, following Freudenberg, 
of the molecular compounds formed by phenols and organic bases. 


Dr. F. E. Humpureys.—Factors influencing the tanning properties 

of tan liquors and extracts. 
The average molecular weight and degree of hydration of the constituents 
of the more common vegetable tanning materials and extracts have been 


determined. ‘The influence of these factors on the tanning properties of 
the materials examined is discussed. 


AFTERNOON. 
Excursion to Fort Dunlop. 


SECTION C.—GEOLOGY. 


Friday, September 1—Wednesday, September 6. 


GEOLOGICAL ExcuRSION TO SHROPSHIRE AND THE WELSH 
BORDERLAND. 


This excursion, carried out under the general direction of Prof. W. W. 
Watts, F.R.S., occupied the time from September 1 till the opening of 
the meeting. The headquarters were at Much Wenlock, and the districts 
visited included the following : the Wrekin, Charlton, and Overley areas 
under the guidance of Dr. R. W. Pocock ; the Cambrian and Longmyn- 
dian Rocks of Caer Caradoc and Church Stretton under the guidance of 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 473 


Dr. E.S. Cobbold ; the Tremadoc Rocks of Shineton and the Ordovician 
Rocks of Evenwood with Dr. C. J. Stubblefield ; the Silurian Rocks of 
Wenlock, Ludlow, Leintwardine, and Onibury with Mr. Shirley and 
Dr. Whittard ; and the Ordovician and Valentian Rocks of the Onny 
and the northern Shelve country under the guidance of Dr. W. F. 
Whittard. ‘The excellent weather allowed of the carrying out of a very 
full programme, and satisfactory collections of rocks and fossils were 
made. 


Dr. E. 5. Coppo_p.—Notes on Comley Quarry, near Church Stretton, 
Shropshire. 


The geological history of this quarry may be sketched as follows : 

In 1878 Dr. Charles Callaway claimed the discovery of Cambrian 
(‘ Ffestiniog Beds ’) here, on the evidence of brachiopods. 

In 1888 Prof. Charles Lapworth announced that he had collected frag- 
ments of Olenellus, now relegated to the genus Callavia, and that the rocks 
were of Lower Cambrian age. 

In 1891 the same author described and figured a number of fragments of 
Olenellus (Holmia) callavei, as he named the species, together with a restora- 
tion of the trilobite so far as was then possible. At the same time he gave 
a preliminary description of a Paradoxides found by T. T. Groom (P. groomi 
Lapw.), which showed that the Middle and Lower Cambrian were in 
juxtaposition at this spot. 

In 1892 Mr. John Rhodes (senior) made a considerable collection for 
H.M. Geological Survey, under Prof. Lapworth’s direction. 

Since that time many geologists have visited the area and numerous 
fragments have been collected. 

In 1907, with the advice and help of Prof. Lapworth, and with grants 
made to me by the Committee of the Association for the excavation of 
critical sections among the Paleozoic rocks, I commenced a series of 
excavations in the area, the principal results of which have appeared in the 
Annual Reports of the Association and in the Quarterly Yournal of the 
Geological Society. 

Quarrying has now been abandoned, and much of the detail is lost under 
débris and vegetation. I have, therefore, sketched a section of what was to 
be seen some twenty-five to thirty years ago, in order to supply the present 
deficiency. 

The two divisions, Middle and Lower Cambrian, meet at the darkly 
shaded line on the section representing the impersistent Lapworthella Lime- 
stone, which by its fauna is relegated to the Lower Cambrian. To the east 
of this we have the coarse grits of the Middle Cambrian, seen in the remains 
of the quarry face in the south corner and in a depression in the floor, at the 
eastern end of which they graduate by interpolation into fine shale, all 
dipping about 70° to the east. An initial deposit, varying greatly from 
place to place, occurs at the base. 

In the trench seen to-day this deposit takes the form of a very dark, 
gritty breccia ; two or three yards farther on it appeared as a black phos- 
phatic skin adhering to the top of the Lapworthella Limestone, and contained 
Dorypyge laket Cobbold, Paradoxides fragments, now referred to P. 
elandicus Sjégren, and other fossils. 

To the west of the dividing limestone the Lower Cambrian is seen 
apparently in close conformity with the grits and shales above mentioned. 
The beds consist of (i) three grey limestones—in descending order the 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 


474 


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SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 475 


Protolenus-, Strenuella-, and Eodiscus bellimarginatus-Limestones. Un- 
fortunately, they are much disturbed by strike faults or differential sliding, 
but are well seen in an excavation 200 yards to the south. Below these 
come (ii) the Callavia Beds, as we now call the Olenellus Limestone of 
Lapworth, which graduate downward into the Lower Comley Sandstone. 

The five calcareous beds carry very distinct faunas and are regarded as 
representing five separate faunal horizons. 

The Lower Comley Sandstone is seen on the west. It is a green, fels- 
pathic and micaceous rock estimated at 450 feet and includes some bands of 
shale. It is not, as previously supposed, unfossiliferous. ‘The base of this 
sandstone formation merges, by interpolation, into the Wrekin Quartzite. 


SECTION of GoMLEY LiMESTONES at Excavation N22 


WD De 47 “Sy PAGS BG 2B gol? 
FEES 


E Surtace of rield: 


oh 
M. CAMBRIAN. 74 L* CAMBRIAN. 
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eS ah os 


The evidence for the inter-Cambrian unconformity is indicated in this 
quarry, (1) by the abrupt change in the lithology from fine-grained felspathic 
sandstones to coarse quartzose grits, (2) by the complete change in the faunas, 
(3) by the finding of fossiliferous fragments of the pre-existing Lower 
Cambrian rocks in the conglomerate at the base of the coarse grits. 

Further afield in Robin’s Tump these same grits are seen to rest with 
discordant strike and dip upon sandstone beds that are estimated to be 
100 feet below the Lapworthella Limestone. 

A more striking exhibition of the unconformity is seen within 200 yards 
of this quarry in the ‘Comley Breccia Bed,’ where the matrix carries 
a younger Middle Cambrian fauna (the P. tessini fauna of Scandinavia), 
while the included blocks consist almost entirely of Lower Cambrian 
Limestones and Sandstones. 

The characteristic Lapworthella nigra of the Lapworthella Limestone was 


476 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 


so named because it marks the dividing line between the Middle and 
Lower Cambrian in which Prof. Lapworth was greatly interested. The 
deposit is black, phosphatic, and calcareous, about 3 inches thick at its best, 
and crowded with brachiopods (Acrothyra) and Hyolithellus micans.. The 
little Lapworthella shells are abundant. There are also three or more other 
organisms and some nodular bodies, probably algal in origin. 

This limestone occurs in the same stratigraphical position at Rushton. 


‘TRANSACTIONS AT THE LEICESTER MEETING. 


Thursday, September 7. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. W. G. FEaRNsIDzES, F.R.S., on A correlation 
of structures in the Coalfields of the Midland Province (10.0). (See 


P- 57:) 
Mr. H. H. Grecory.—The geology of the Leicester district (11.0). 


Mr. Francis Jones.—Further notes on the petrology of the igneous rocks 
of Leicestershire (12.30). 


The intrusive rocks of the Leicestershire-Warwickshire area group into 
five divisions, viz. (1) Diorite-Granophyres of Charnwood, (2) Micro- 
diorites of South-West Leicestershire, (3) Mountsorrel Granite complex, 
(4) Camptonite-Diorites of Nuneaton, (5) Intrusions into Caldecote series. 
Chronological or genetic correlation is difficult. The age of the last two 
groups is known within limits : that of the granophyres is established with 
the fifth group. The ‘ camptonites’ contrast with all the others not only 
as regards basicity, but in being concordant intrusions of ‘ wet ’ magma. 
~ Structural study of the Mountsorrel complex confirms the evidence of 
its mineral freshness that it is a late intrusion. The isolated outcrops of 
the non-granophyric diorites of the south-west make special difficulty in 
interpreting their position in the sequence. Joint phenomena suggest 
structures excluding contemporaneity with the granophyres. Mineralogi- 
cally they ‘ fit in’ between the granophyres and the granite. They show 
diversity of detail mainly in regard to hydrothermal alteration and to the 
occurrence of epidote. The Croft-Huncote rock is of especial interest in 
regard to the former. Here albitisation is advanced : analcite and laumon- 
tite have been developed as vein minerals, and prehnite occurs within the 
altered rock. The phenomena developed resemble those described by 
Gilluly in his paper ‘ Replacement Origin of the Albite Granite, Sparta, 
Oregon ’ (U.S. Geol. Sur. Prof. Paper, 175-C). 


AFTERNOON, 
Excursion 1: Demonstration of geophysical methods in the field. 
Leaders: Dr. A. F. Hatitrmonp, Mr. A. T. J. DoLvar. 


Excursion 2: The glacial geology of the Leicester district. Leaders: 
Mr. W. Keay and Mr. Martin GIMson. 


Yes ry 


- 


he ee ee ee 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 477 


Friday, September 8. 


Discussion on St. George’s Land and the shore-lines of the Midland 
Barrier during Carboniferous times (10.0) :-— 


Prof. W. S. BouLTon. 


Name proposed by Jukes-Browne for the continuous tract of land in 
early Devonian time extending from Wales across St. George’s Channel to 
eastern and central Ireland. Prolonged erosion of this part of the Cale- 
donian continent was followed by submergence ushering in the Carboni- 
ferous. ‘The delimitation of St. George’s Land during this period is the 
main subject under discussion. 

Repeated oscillatory movements during the Carboniferous and Permian 
shifted the shore-line, so that it is necessary to refer the land margin at any 
place to the particular time-division when it so stood. The ‘ Mercian 
Highlands ’ of Midland geologists are the eastern extension of St. George’s 
Land. 

A map is exhibited showing the shore-lines in early Tournasian and late 
Viséan times, and also the areas where Millstone Grit (sensu stricto) and Coal 
Measures were presumably not deposited. ‘The points specially referred 
to are: 

(1) The advance of the shore-line northward followed by retreat south- 
ward in the South-West Province during the Avonian, and the southward 
advance in the Midland Province during the Viséan. 

(2) The land boundaries in the Leicester area deduced from outcrop and 
borehole evidence. A possible sea connection west of Leicester between 
the Midland and South-West Provinces in Viséan time. 

(3) Evidence from the pebbles and breccia-fragments of Permian 
(Enville) beds points to eroded Avonian under the Triassic cover of the 
Midlands. 

(4) A brief summary of evidence from borings as to the extent of con- 
cealed Coal Measures between the Birmingham and Leicester areas. 


Mr. E. E. L. Dixon. 


St. George’s Land appeared in Caledonian times, and during the deposi- 
tion of the Upper Old Red Sandstone (Farlovian), its southern slopes 
extended at least as far north as Brown Clee. Subsequent changes on its 
northern side differed from those on the southern, and resulted in a southern 
shift of the barrier, the northern side being progressively submerged, whereas 
to the south land gained on the sea. The changes were due largely to con- 
temporaneous earth movements, but the retreat of the sea on the south was 
helped by the deposition of grits on the margin—the Cornbrook and 
Drybrook Sandstones of Titterstone Clee and the Forest of Dean respec- 
tively. The barrier was greatly enlarged by the mid-Carboniferous upheaval. 
On the northern side the later depression which brought about the deposi- 
tion of the true Millstone Grit (Namurian) and Coal Measures commenced 
much earlier in the more central parts (N. Staffs., etc.) of the Midland basin 
than near the barrier (S. Staffs., etc.).. The contrast in this respect between 
neighbouring coalfields is so great as to suggest that the depression included 
contemporaneous northward down-faulting between the contrasting coal- 
fields. The southward encroachment of the Midland Province was only 
checked by the mid-Carboniferous upheaval, and when sedimentation was 
resumed it extended over what had formerly been part of the South-Western 


478 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 


Province. ‘Thus Titterstone Clee, formerly part of the latter, was covered 
with Coal Measures of Midland facies. 


Dr. T. NEvILLE Grorce.—The Carboniferous shore-line in S. Wales. 


The general Armoricanoid trend of the South-Western Province was 
established in pre-Carboniferous times, and the Carboniferous sediments 
accumulated in an oscillating geosyncline to the south of St. George’s Land. 

Though generally the Lower Limestone Shales are conformable with the 
underlying O.R.S., they locally transgress, and probably overlap north- 
wards. Thus the shore-line at the commencement of the Carboniferous 
can be fixed, and its movements in Lower Avonian times deduced. 

The intra-Avonian unconformity, visible between the Vale of Neath and 
Kidwelly, indicates a southward retreat of the shore-line in C,S, times, 
followed by a re-advance, causing Sz beds to transgress probably down to 
the O.R.S. 

In D times the shore-line lay beyond the existing coalfield, though not 
far distant to the north. At the close of the Avonian, regional emergence 
accounts for the unconformity beneath the Millstone Grit; while the 
overlap of higher goniatite zones over lower ones suggests an embayment 
in the mid-portion of the North Crop between two southward-extending 
headlands. 

The east to west trend of the Armoricanoid axes was modified in places by 
transverse structures which had considerable effect upon sedimentation 
and coast-line configuration during the Carboniferous period. 


Dr. E. NEAVERSON. 


The Carboniferous Limestone of Flintshire and Denbighshire forms a 
fringe dipping off various zones of Lower Ludlow rocks which formed the 
Carboniferous land surface in this part of St. George’s Land. West of the 
Denbighshire Moors the great Ordovician tract of Snowdonia extends 
north into Anglesey. Carboniferous rocks occur in the eastern part of 
this island and on the southern shore of the Menai Strait. The ancient 
shore-line in North Wales is now modified by marginal faulting of com- 
paratively slight effect as a whole. 

The limestone often rests on a basement of red conglomerate and sand- 
stone containing water-worn boulders of older rocks. In Anglesey these 
are mainly pre-Cambrian and Ordovician rocks of local origin. Around 
the Denbighshire Moors the red beds contain abundant boulders of Upper 
Ludlow flagstone not known in situ in North Wales, but a former north- 
ward extension from the type-area is indicated. ‘The junction of basement 
beds and limestone corresponds approximately with the base of the Dibuno- 
phyllum zone, thus dating the Carboniferous transgression from the north. 

The Carboniferous Limestone is formed almost entirely of marine organic 
debris ; hence peneplanation of the adjacent land mass is inferred, or perhaps 
a cliffed plateau protected against marine abrasion by offshore shoaling. 

In the Vale of Clwyd the lithology of the D, limestones suggests a 
landlocked bay with slight tidal range. ‘There is some evidence of overlap 
at the southern end of the Vale, though nothing higher than D, occurs on 
the western side. The present Clwyd Range was possibly separated from 
the western massif in D, times, and there was probably an extension up the 
Dee Valley to Corwen in D, times. The occurrence of knoll-limestones 
in North Flintshire is noteworthy. 

In Flintshire the Holywell Shales have yielded marine faunas representing 
several goniatite zones. Above these are typical Coal Measures which 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 479 


connect with the Midland Coalfields. In the Vale of Clwyd the limestone is 
overlaid by the Purple Sandstone, usually ascribed to the Lower Coal 
Measures. Coal Measures of limited extent are known under the Drift 
in Anglesey. 

Carboniferous rocks were probably never deposited on Snowdonia, the 
Denbighshire Moors and the Clwydian Hills. The western extension of 
St. George’s Land across the Channel to Ireland is questionable. 


Mr. T. Eastwoop. 


South Staffordshire furnishes examples of proximity to land during 
Upper Carboniferous times—the ‘ Silurian banks,’ extending as north-to- 
south peninsulas or islands to the north of St. George’s Land. ‘These 
banks were completely submerged before the Upper Coal Measures were 
deposited, though land still occurred to the south as is evidenced by the 
overstep of the Halesowen Group and by other facts. 

In Warwickshire there was land, probably an island, north of Nuneaton. 
South of Nuneaton basal Coal Measure Shales rest upon Cambrian Shales 
indicating deposition in quiet waters some distance from a shore-line. 
Later, at Dosthill, an island of Cambrian Shales contributed breccia to the 
Etruria Marls, while in the same locality the Productive Measures show 
few signs of proximity to land. "The Cambrian Shales also contributed 
material to the Etruria Marls at Nuneaton; but farther south the latter 
formation is barely distinguishable from Productive Measures, and this 
suggests a northerly provenance, though land probably lay some distance 
to the south and furnished material for the Corley conglomerates. 

Between the Warwickshire and Leicestershire Coalfields the Trias rests 
on older rocks probably folded along meridional axes of pre-Triassic date. 
In borings at Chilcote and Desford rocks were encountered which may be 
interpreted as shore-line deposits. 


Dr. W. R. Jones.—Silicosis : the minerals which cause it (12.15). 


The definition accepted at the International Congress on Silicosis at 
Johannesburg, in 1930, was, ‘ Silicosis is a pathological condition of the lung 
due to inhalation of silica dioxide,’ and that ‘ to produce the pathological 
condition, silica must reach the lungs in a chemically uncombined con- 
dition.’ Also, under English law (Silicosis Scheme for compensation), free 
silica is the basis: ‘ For the purposes of this Scheme (No. 342 of 1931) 
silica rock means quartz, quartzite, sandstone, gritstone or chert, but does 
not include natural sand or rotten rock.’ 

Cases in the anthracite district of South Wales came under the direct 
notice of the author, however, where no rock of the type named in the 
Scheme occurred in the underground working-places of the deceased, 
although post-mortem examination confirmed silicosis as the cause of death. 
It was therefore decided to investigate the possibility that rocks other than 
those included in the Scheme caused silicosis. This was done by examining 
the mineral residues from twenty-nine lungs, each from a person whose 
death had been certified as due to silicosis or to silico-tuberculosis. "The 
cases include potters, colliery workers, a stone-mason, and a silica-brick 
worker. Residues from other lungs have also been examined (fifty-one in 
all) ; they include pulmonary cases other than silicosis, and a normal lung 
used as control. 

The bulk of the mineral residues obtained from each of the silicotic lungs 
consists of minute fibres of sericite. ‘This mineral is abundantly present 
also in all the rocks which gave rise to the inhaled dust ; it is present in these 


480 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C, 


in the size and form in which it is found in the residues and in sections of 
silicotic lung tissue. Silica in the uncombined state (quartz) is also present 
in these residues as relatively coarse and fine grains ; it occurs, however, 
in amounts subordinate to sericite. Especially is this so with regard to the 
small number of quartz particles as compared with the countless fibres of 
sericite. One of the largest of these grains of quartz contributes as much 
silica, in a chemical analysis of a residue, as 1,630 fibres of sericite of the 
size found in the residue and in the lung tissue. 

Silica in the uncombined state is not the chief cause of silicosis. This 
appears to be established by : (a) the examination of the mineral residues 
and sections of silicotic lung tissue under the petrological microscope ; 
(6) the chemical analyses of these residues ; (c) the numerous cases of silicosis 
where rocks containing sericite are worked (e.g. South Wales Coalfield, the 
Rand, South Africa), and the complete absence of silicosis where silica rocks 
containing as much free silica (Scottish Coalfields) and even a higher per- 
centage (Kolar Coalfields, India) have been exploited by thousands of 
underground workmen for a long period of years ; (d) many cases of silicosis 
in mines where the ore and adjacent rocks contain only a low percentage 
of free silica ; and (e) by the fact that no silica rock hitherto investigated 
has given rise to silicosis-producing dust except those which contain sericite 
or fibrous minerals. 

It is submitted, therefore, that it is mainly the presence in the exploited 
rocks of fibrous minerals, be they sericite, sillimanite, tremolite, etc. (or 
a fibrous form of free silica as in chert, or a fibrous rock as in pumice), in 
aggregates which become freed into the atmosphere as individual fibres, 
that enables sufficient material in course of time to enter the lungs to cause 
silicosis. 

AFTERNOON. 

Excursion to the Carboniferous Limestone inliers of the Breedon 

district. Leader: Prof. H. H. SwINNERTON. 


Saturday, September 9. 


Excursion to the Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian of the Nuneaton district. 
Leaders: Prof. L. J. Wits, Dr. F. Raw, Mr. F. W. SHoTTON. 


Sunday, September 10. 


Excursion to the Pre-Cambrian of the Charnwood Forest area. 
Leaders: Prof. W. W. Warts, F.R.S., Mr. H. H. Grecory. 


Monday, September 11. 


Dr. A. Ratstrick.—The microspores of coal and their use in correlation (10.0). 


The microspore-content of coal samples can be extracted and isolated by 
the use of solvents such as Schultz solution, followed by ammonia, which 
remove the oxidisable coal matrix and leave the spore exines and micro- 
spores untouched. The microspores are mounted for micro-examination, 
and are dealt with statistically, in the same way as tree pollen in peat investi- 
gations. Microspore types are very varied and very definite, and their 
determination in the micro-separations is a matter of precision. There is 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 481 


good evidence that particular coal seams are characterised, over a wide area, 
by an assemblage of certain groups of microspores present in fairly definite 
proportions. ‘The principal microspore types are illustrated and described. 


Prof. G. Hickiine and Mr. C. E. MarsHaLi.—Recent studies of plant 
structure in coal (10.35). 


Improvements in the technique of section-cutting and photography have 
made it possible to show that coal consists largely of plant-remains in which 
the details of the original structure are preserved with remarkable perfection. 
This detail, in some respects, far exceeds that which can be observed in the 
familiar calcified or silicified petrifactions or coal-balls, since in the coal most 
of the original substance of the plant remains, while in the petrifaction it has 
been replaced. By the study of isolated sheets of bark and portions of wood 
which are preserved as coal in the coal-measure shales the microstructure 
of the plants can be studied in relation to their external form. ‘The bark- 
structures of Lepidodendron, Bothrodendron and Sigillaria have been so 
studied, as well as certain woods. In certain cases it appears possible to 
demonstrate conclusively that the existing coal consists in part of the original 
plant-substance and in part of additional organic material which has been 
absorbed by the plant after death. 


Mr. A. T. J. DoLLaR.—The dike-swarm of Lundy (11.30). 


The Lundy dike-swarm comprises 122 dominantly vertical rock-sheets 
of basic and intermediate composition which occur respectively in the pro- 
portion of 91:9. It includes typical crinanites, olivine- and analcite- 
dolerites, quartz-dolerites and tholeiites, together with orthophyres, vitreous 
and non-vitreous andesites and pitchstones. Extreme types are repre- 
sented by metallic ores, gabbroid rocks and very vitreous pitchstones. The 
assemblage as a whole is distinctly Tertiary in affinity. 

These dikes cut both the coarse granites and Devonian sediments of the 
island with an average frequency of 26 per linear mile of coast. The mean 
thickness of an individual sheet is about 4 ft., but the basic varieties range 
between 3 in. and over 20 ft., while the less abundant types of inter- 
mediate composition generally exceed 10 ft. in breadth. The width of the 
swarm is approximately coincident with the north-south length of the island, 
and a crustal extension of 3 per cent. has been produced in this direction 
by the minor injections. 

Apart from intermediate and basic intrusions there are numerous thick 
and thin inclined sheets of microgranite which are confined to the major 
granites of the island, while many quartz veins cut both the granites and 
sediments. The two kinds of microgranites are remarkable for their 
similarity to granophyric rocks of the Mourne Mountains, Ireland. 

The distribution of intermediate and basic dikes is rigidly controlled by 
jointing and fan-fractures. The latter radiate from centres which appear 
to lie on submarine planes of weakness. Magnetic properties of the basic 
dikes have been investigated and are comparable with those of corresponding 
British Tertiary rocks. 


Dr. FREDERICK WALKER.—The Crinanite dike of Maiden Island, Oban 


(11.45). 
The bulk of Maiden Island (about 13 miles north-north-west of Oban) 
consists of a north-north-west crinanite dike of great breadth and con- 
siderable diversity of composition. The west contact of the dike is not 


482 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C, 


visible, but the eastern one shows a junction with a quartzite conglomerate. 
The length of the visible portion of the dike is just under 400 yards, while 
the greatest breadth is 125 yards. ‘The crinanite occurs as medium-grained 
and very coarse varieties which have sharp, unchilled junctions, and segre- 
gation veins are abundant: ‘These veins include felspathic, zeolitic, and 
picritic types. ‘The last type occurs as a contemporaneous marginal modi- 
fication, and thus affords an interesting problem in differentiation. The 
mutual relations of the various modifications are discussed in this paper. 


AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to Corby ironstone district. Leaders: Prof. W. G. 
FEARNSIDES, F.R.S., Dr. A. F. HALLIMOND. 


Tuesday, September 12. 
Discussion on The origin of red sedimentary rocks (10.0) :-— 


Prof. G. HICKLING. 


There has long been almost universal agreement that ‘ red rocks’ are of 
non-marine origin; but the exact conditions under which they have been 
formed are still open to discussion. "They show two marked facies : un- 
stratified sandstones, and red marls of peculiar composition which often 
contain saline deposits. Normal limestones are absent, but magnesian lime- 
stones may be developed. Breccias and conglomerates of several unusual 
types are commonly found. Fossils are rare and occur sporadically in very 
restricted areas. Except in the occasional magnesian limestones, which 
may yield stunted marine forms, the fossils are restricted to fishes, land 
vertebrates and a limited flora. Long duration of stable conditions is 
indicated by the occurrence of faunas of widely different ages in a sandstone 
mass without any determinable stratigraphical break between them. ‘The 
red coloration is attributable to prolonged exposure of the sediments above 
the ground-water level, though they may have been subsequently distributed 
and deposited by water. It is aided by the total absence of carbonaceous 
colouring matter which results from a restricted flora and the complete 
oxidation of any organic remains. Red rocks may show a lateral passage 
to a marine facies, usually with an intermediate zone of alternating conditions. 
It is suggested that the rocks are the product of arid or semi-arid delta or 
flood-plain conditions, and that the explanation of the different types of 
deposit is to be sought mainly in variations of humidity and temperature, 
coupled with the effect of earth-movement in bringing the surface of deposi- 
tion above or below the level of the ground-water. 


Prof. W. S. BouLTON. 


Arising from his studies of the Red Rocks of the Midlands, the speaker 
refers to breccia- and conglomerate-formation in relation to contem- 
poraneous earth movement. Attention is drawn to peculiarities of recurrent 
coloration in sands, and to peculiarities in Spirorbis limestones. I 


Prof. W. T. Gorpon. 


The evidence of the plants as to the physical and climatic conditions 
during the formation of the red beds. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 483 
Mr. F. W. SHOTTON. 


Examination of the cores of a group of three boreholes near Coventry led 
to the discovery of a typical ‘ Permian’ breccia band in the middle of the 
’ Allesley Conglomerate Division, well below the first appearance of breccias 
previously known in the Warwickshire coalfield. A detailed study of the 
constituents of all the pebbly horizons in the boreholes provided some data 
which has a bearing upon the mode of deposition of breccias and con- 
glomerates during the formation of the Midland Hercynian ranges. 

In the first place, the small quantity of pre-Cambrian material in the 
conglomerates is always angular, while any Silurian or Avonian fragments 
in the breccia are well rounded. Hence it is concluded that the production 
of a breccia or of a conglomerate depended mainly on the nature of the rocks 
that were undergoing erosion. 

Secondly, there is a deposition-cycle from conglomerates (mainly of 
Avonian pebbles) to a breccia of pre-Cambrian material and back to a con- 
glomerate. Now since it is likely that the cores of the Hercynian ridges 
would be mainly pre-Cambrian rocks, a general uplift with increased 
velocity of the rivers would lead to the distribution of pre-Cambrian pebbles 
in the intermont basins where previously only the more local Avonian and 
Silurian material had been transported. From this it is deduced that the 
observed cycle of deposition coincides with a period of uplift of the adjacent 
mountains, followed by their gradual lowering by erosion. 


Dr. BERNARD SMITH, F.R.S. 


In general red rocks contain less iron than non-red rocks. The colour is 
due to dehydration of ferric oxide, which takes place most rapidly in warm, 
moist climates under conditions usually productive of heavy vegetation. 
Residual soils of such regions may be distributed by streams without losing 
their ferric oxide. If subjected to powerful reducing action in swamps or 
the sea they usually lose their red colour. 

A residual soil underlies part of the Carboniferous Limestone of West 
Cumberland, and in the Carboniferous Basement Beds of part of North 
Wales red beds derived from residual soils give place upwards to marine 
lagoon-phase deposits. 

Most of our red beds were doubtless formed under desert or semi-arid 
conditions ; yet the question arises whether certain sediments laid down in 
comparatively arid tracts were not derived from uplands with residual soils 
formed under warm, moist conditions. We may, indeed, have to reconsider 
some of our views. 

In normal Coal Measure times the hinterlands may have supported 
a considerable upland flora and a red residual soil. ‘There would be oxida- 
tion of this vegetation in situ, and reduction of the ferric oxide of the soil 
swept into the swamps. 

In Upper Coal Measure times, when coal swamps were at a minimum, 
telative uplift of the land (of which there is internal evidence) probably 
brought about a freer drainage, entailing less chance of reduction of ferric 
oxide to the ferrous state. 

True aridity, however, seems to have set in towards the end of the period. 


. 
©. 


Dr. H. C. Versey. 


In the Penrith Sandstone two periods of coloration are found: i.e. 
pre-cementation and post cementation. . Part of the iron oxide is, apparently, 
precipitated from colloid solution, but much is detrital. ‘The impossibility 


484 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 


of marked climatic difference between the highland source area and the 
area of deposition leads to the conclusion that the red coloration is only in 
part due to dehydration in the arid Permian climate, but mostly to detrital 
iron oxide formed in the monsoonal conditions of the Upper Carboniferous. - 


Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S. 


The speaker reviews the evidence afforded by the contemporaneous 
fauna as to the conditions in which the red beds were formed. 


Mr. J. H. Taytor.—Contribution to the petrology of the Mountsorrel 
igneous complex (12.0). 


The paper deals with two aspects of the complex which have received 
little attention : (1) the nature and characteristics of the accessory minerals ; 
and (2) the processes by which the several members of the complex were 
formed and emplaced. 

Under (1) some twenty mineral species are recorded from the area and 
described in detail, particular attention being given to the widespread and 
varied zircon and apatite. Points of special significance are the corrosion 
of many of the zircons, and the occurrence of dark, sometimes almost 
black, apatites. 

Under (2) the view is expressed that both granodiorite and quartz-mica 
diorite are of hybrid origin, resulting from the action of acid magma on 
basic rock. The latter was almost certainly the gabbro of Swithland 
reservoir, while some indication of the nature of the acid magma is afforded 
by a thin marginal facies of the granodiorite that has the composition of 
alkali granite. "The granodiorite was formed below present ground level, 
and was subsequently injected into the position it now occupies. 

Three new chemical analyses are quoted and discussed, and comparisons 
are made with rocks of the Channel Islands, Dartmoor and the Isle of Man. 


Dr. F. Raw.—On the Triassic and Pleistocene surfaces developed on some 
Leicestershire igneous rocks (12.15). 


The well-known grooved and polished surfaces exhibited by some of the 
Leicestershire igneous rocks have long been regarded as dating from the 
Triassic period, and as bearing evidence of formation by natural sand- 
blasting under desert conditions. The author has reached the conclusion 
that these features are here due to the Pleistocene glaciation. 


AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to the granite area of Mountsorrel. Leaders: Mr. H. H. 
Grecory, Dr. E, E. Lowe. 


Wednesday, Septémber 13. 
Dr. L. S. B. Leaxey.—The age of part of the Rift Valley in Kenya (10.0). © 


In East Africa, work during the past seven years has thrown much new 
light upon the age of the Great Rift Valley, which was formerly considered 
to be an event of Mio-Pliocene age, with only small secondary movements 
during the Pleistocene. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 485 


On the new evidence it would appear that the greatest period of faulting, 
when faults of a throw of over 1,000 ft. took place, occurred during the latter 
part of the Pleistocene, long after man was in the country. 

The evidence is discussed and compared with similar evidence from the 
other parts of the Great Rift Valley, both north and south of East Africa. 


Dr. S. W. Wootpripce and Mr. J. F. Kirxatpy.—The longitudinal 
profiles of certain rivers in southern England, and their bearing on the 
eustatic theory (10.40). 


A comparison is instituted between the longitudinal profiles of the 
Kentish Stour, the Mole, the Rother (East Sussex), the Rother-Arun, the 
streams of the Hampshire basin and some of the East Anglian rivers. 

In all cases the curves are composite, indicating successive phases of 
rejuvenation with respect to successive marine base levels. For the area 
of the Weald and the Hampshire basin the close correspondence of rejuvena- 
tion features points to a general absence of differential warping during 
Pleistocene times—a conclusion also enforced by the attitude of the higher 
and older erosion surfaces. There seems thus to be good ground for 
supporting the application of the eustatic theory to the classification of the 
Pleistocene deposits of the area; though it has been very generally ignored 
by British workers on the wholly inadequate grounds that it does not apply 
to regions like Scandinavia, East Anglia, etc., whose physiographic history 
is, in fact, entirely different. 

The composite character of the curves is also used to invalidate the 
common assumption that terraces fall on a curve parallel to the present 
valley bottom. In many cases this is demonstrably not the case, and the 
consequences in the field of palzontological and archeological correlations 
are noteworthy. 


Mr. H. C. Cooke and Mr. W. A. JoHNstToN.—Possibilities of increasing 
the gold production of Canada (12.10). 


The Canadian Shield, from which 92 per cent. of Canada’s gold now 
comes, is likely to yield still larger amounts in the next few years. The 
three gold-producing provinces of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec have all 
shown a rapid increase in annual production during the last seven years, and 
analysis of the causes of the change indicates that further important increases 
are to be expected, particularly in Ontario. 

Unless new discoveries are made in the near future, lode gold production 
from British Columbia will probably not increase notably in the next few 
years, and may even decrease somewhat with exhaustion of the Premier 
mine, the largest present producer. 

Placer gold production from Yukon may increase in the next few years 
if the number of dredges in use is increased. In British Columbia, hydrau- 
licking is the chief method of placer mining and will continue for many 

, years, but the annual output of gold from this method of mining may not 
much exceed the present output. More efficient methods of recovery of 
fine gold, for example by flotation, offers some prospect of success for dredg- 
ing of bar deposits on streams in British Columbia and Alberta. Extensive 
prospecting that is being carried on may result in the discovery of new fields. 


Report oF RESEARCH COMMITTEE on Critical Sections of Tertiary and 
Cretaceous rocks (12.30). 


486 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 


SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


PRESIDENTIAL AppreEss by Dr. J. Gray, F.R.S., on The mechanical view 
of life (10.0). (See p. 81.) 


Mr. E. Heron-ALten, F.R.S.—Diffusion and extension phenomena 
observed in the behaviour of living protoplasm (11.0). 


Dr. G. P. Bripper.—The energy of flagellate cells (11.30). 


My estimate of the work done per second per gramme weight of sponge 
flagellate cells (Brit. Ass, Report, Leeds, 1927, p. 73) was a modification of 
calculations explained to the Society of Experimental Biology in 1924, 
based (a) on velocities observed in isolated cells compared with rate of 
vibration of their flagella ; (b) on a priori calculations from size and rate of 
vibration of the flagella; (c) on the observations of velocity from the vent 
of Leuconia (= Leucandra) aspera, resistance in its channels, and the number 
of its collar cells, described to Section D at Hull (O.7.M.S., 1923, p. 293). 

Through Prof. Dohrn’s kindness, I made in 1932 new experiments at 
Naples on the current from the vent of L. aspera, afterwards weighing 
alive in sea-water the sponges used. The improved experiments have 
made it possible to calculate the oscular velocity from each observation of 
the further part of the jet ; they verify the theoretical conclusion (O.7.M.S., 
1923, Pp- 320) that the oscular velocity is characteristic of the species, and 
irrespective of size of individual. With this velocity the determination of 
the protoplasmic volume gives a solid datum for a more certain estimate of 
the useful work done per gramme of collar cells—necessarily very small 
compared with the efficiency of purely motor protoplasm. 


Dr. V. B. WiccLeswortH.—The réle of water in the physiology of 
excretion in insects (12.0). 


The elimination of waste products, particularly the elimination of nitrogen, 
with the least possible loss of water is one of the chief problems with which 
insects, in common with all terrestrial animals, are faced. Insects discard 
their nitrogen chiefly as uric acid, which can be readily precipitated and 
excreted in solid form. In the blood-sucking bug, Rhodnius prolixus, the 
precipitation of free uric acid is brought about by the secretion of urate in 
solution in the upper parts of the Malpighian tubes and the reabsorption 
of base and of water in the lower parts. In many insects a further mechanism 
for the recovery of water exists at the hind end of the gut, where the so-called 
rectal glands, or the general rectal epithelium, reabsorb water from the 
excrement before it is allowed to leave the body. In the aquatic larva of the 
mosquito, the so-called anal gills, which bear a superficial resemblance to 
prolapsed rectal glands, absorb water from the surrounding medium so 
that a constant supply is available for excretion, and only when this absorp- 


tion is prevented experimentally does solid uric acid appear in the excretory 
system. 


Dr. Georcr SALT.—Experiments on the behaviour of insect parasites (12.30). 
Most animals are capable of increasing their numbers very rapidly, -but 


are prevented from doing so, partly by carnivorous animals that prey upon — 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS,—D. 487 


them. In this connection the group of insect parasites known as parasitoids 
(‘ refined predators ’) are very important and haye been used in many parts 
of the world to limit the numbers of noxious organisms. The problems 
involved in the use of these beneficial insects are obviously problems of 
population, since they deal with the numerical interaction of the parasites 
and their hosts ; but they are also problems of animal psychology, since the 
behaviour of the individual parasites and hosts must be considered. 

One of these problems is that of the selection of suitable hosts by the 
parasite. It has been supposed that parasites are distributed in a given 
host population at random, and on this assumption a theory of parasite dis- 
tribution has been developed. But the field observations and the laboratory 
experiments described show that the basic assumption is not true. Some 
parasites have the ability to discriminate between suitable hosts and those 
that have already been parasitised, and they distribute themselves much 
more efficiently among the host population than chance would do. This 
result is discussed from the two points of view, of populations and of insect 
behaviour. 


o 
AFTERNOON. 


Dr. G. C. Rosson.—The limitations of adaptability in the animal kingdom 
(2085). 

The main phyla and the subordinate groups of the animal kingdom differ 
markedly in their range of adaptability (i.e. specialisation for a particular 
mode of life). Differences of this kind are probably to be found in all 
animal activities, e.g. in the incidence of parasitism, methods of getting 
food, ete. The author dealt chiefly with the question of habitat-occupation, 
and pointed out that, whereas several of the main animal groups had been 
highly successful in colonising a large range of habitats, other equally large 
groups have a far more limited range. Thus the Insecta have failed to 
produce more than a few truly marine forms ; the Cephalopods have not 
established themselves in water below normal marine salinity ; the Echino- 
derms have not made their way into fresh water, though a few occur in 
estuaries. ‘The incidence of habitat-occupation in the various families of 
Gastropods was described and sundry cases of apparently idiosyncratic 
adaptability were given. The adaptive achievements of certain groups were 
then contrasted with their limitations, and the failure of the Lamellibranchs 
to establish themselves on land and of the Cephalopods to colonise either 
land or water of less than normal marine salinity was discussed. The 
nature and origin of the factors limiting adaptation were considered. The 
writer felt that individual predilection could not be excluded from the 
various factors determining habitat-occupation. 


_ Mr. A. Rorsuck.—The rook in the rural economy of the Midlands (3.0). 


Rooks have been studied in five midland counties—Leicestershire, 
Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Rutland. 

A census of the whole area, repeated after an interval of four years, showed 
the rook population to be constant. 

About ro per cent. of the rookeries change their sites annually, 
__ There is no evidence that migration materially affects the problem in 
the Midlands. 
__ The distribution of their roosts during the winter is considerably different 
from that of their nesting rookeries, although many remain on the same 
sites all the year round. 


488 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 


Except for a brief period rooks are restricted to a limited area for a feeding- 
ground, the area in the vicinity of the rookery. ‘Those roosting at a distance 
in winter return daily. 

The census gives the rook population when it is at its lowest. 

The nesting season is coincident with the emergence of insect life and 
their rapid reproduction. 

During the months of March to July, when the young are reared, the 
proportion of insect food in the diet is at its highest. 

The greater proportion of the annual food is also consumed in this 
period. 

The quality of the food eaten varies somewhat in different localities and 
is necessarily associated with the type of local husbandry. 


Mr. M. A. C. Hinton.—The musk-rat and its problems (3.30). 


Friday, September 8. , 
Prof. D.M.S. Watson, F.R.S.—The origin of land-living vertebrates (10.0). 
Mr. G. L. Purser.—Some points in the anatomy of Calamoichthys (11.0). 


Mr. J.T. CunnincHAM.—Conditions of life and reproduction in Lepidosiren, 
the South American lung-fish (11.30). 


The eggs and larvee of Lepidosiren develop in a nest-burrow at the bottom 
of a tropical swamp. The larve are provided with external gills, and the 
male parent, which is found with its progeny, has long vascular filaments on 
its pelvic limbs. ‘These filaments are absent or rudimentary in the female, 
and developed only in the breeding season of the year. It was proved 
experimentally by Carter and Beadle in 1927-28 that the water at the bottom 
of the swamp contained little or no dissolved oxygen, and by Cunningham 
and Reid in 1930-31 that oxygen was emitted by the filaments when the 
fish bearing them was placed in deoxygenated water. It must be concluded 
that the respiration, and therefore the life of the eggs and larve, depend on 
the oxygen given off by the filaments of the male parent. This is the first 
case in which evidence has been obtained of the emission of oxygen to the 
external medium as the normal function of special organs in any animal. 

The evolution of the filaments is discussed in relation to modern theories 
and concepts, and the theory that the peculiar conditions have acted only 
by selection, direct or indirect, of mutations not caused by these conditions 
is rejected. 


Miss A. M. Brpper.—The alimentary canal of the Cephalopoda (12.0). 


The structure of the digestive system in a representative series of Cepha- 
lopoda (including Nautilus pompilius) was examined, and the results com- 
pared with existing descriptions. Where possible, living or fresh material 
was used, Gut-contents showed a macrophagous carnivorous diet for the 
whole group. : 

The digestive tract consists throughout the group of (1) a buccal mass 
containing beak-like jaws and radula ( he last absent in Cirromorpha only) ; 
(2) esophagus ; (3) a muscular stomach, or gizzard; (4) a more thin- 
walled cecum; (5) intestine. Fore-gut glands open into the buccal mass, 
and mid-gut digestive glands into the cecum. (Esophagus and stomach 
are lined with a cuticle, cecum and intestine with a ciliated mucous 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 489 


epithelium. Itwas found that the cecum hasan elaborate structure constant 
for the group, and contains a ciliary collecting mechanism. 

Principal variations are ; (1) presence or absence of a‘ crop’ ; (2) relative 
size and form of stomach and cecum; (3) length of intestine; (4) size 
and form of the glands. ‘True size of an organ is very difficult to determine 
owing to individuals differing in (a) state of feeding ; (6) fixation. Dis- 
cussion follows of function in the various parts, and possible functional 
significance and mutual relationships of variations in (a) internal volume, 
(b) internal surface area of the gut, and (c) size and nature of the mid-gut 
gland. 


Mr. P.S. Mitne.—The distribution of insects by currents at various levels 
in the atmosphere (12.30). 


Insects which are being carried about by air currents are filtered from the 
atmosphere by the action of the wind upon a conical collecting net supported 
above the ground by a system of kites. 

The net is sent up closed to the desired height, is allowed to fly open for 
a predetermined period, and, after closing again, is hauled down for an 
examination of the catch. The opening and closing of the net are controlled 
by a simple chemically-operated release mechanism. 

By this means a knowledge of the influence of wind upon the distribution 
of insects is being obtained. Particular attention is being paid to agricul- 
tural pests, and their possible introduction into this country from the 
Continent at high altitudes. 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to the Midland Agricultural College, Sutton Bonington. 


‘THE MEMBERS OF THE SCIENTIFIC StTaFF OF Discovery II.—The effect of 
currents on the plankton distribution in the surface waters of the 
southern oceans (2.15) :— 


Mr. G, E. R. Deacon.—Hydrology. 


There are three kinds of surface currents in the southern oceans : antarctic 
surface currents, sub-antarctic currents and sub-tropical currents. These 
currents are movements of antarctic, sub-antarctic, and sub-tropical waters, 
and their speeds and directions are directly responsible for the distribution 
of the three types of surface water. There are generally well-defined con- 
vergences on the surface between the different waters, and these divide the 
southern oceans into antarctic, sub-antarctic, and sub-tropical zones. The 
waters of the three zones differ in their characteristics and consequently in 
the type and quantity of life which they can support : the differences are due 
partly to the origin of the waters and partly to the climatic conditions of the 
zones in which they are found. The hydrological conditions in each zone 
are almost uniform and only change gradually with latitude. The greatest 


differences are found in the antarctic zone, where, south of 65° in the 


Atlantic and Indian sectors and south of about 68° in the Pacific sector, 
the surface water flows westwards. North of this current the water 
flows eastwards. The eastward-flowing antarctic water receives additions 
from the westward-flowing current, and also mixing of antarctic and sub- 
antarctic surface waters takes place in a few areas where the antarctic 


currents are deflected northwards by the configuration of the land or by 


irregularities in the topography of the sea-bottom. The easterly antarctic 
s 


490 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 


current receives additions from the westerly near South Georgia and near 
the Kerguelen-Gaussberg ridge; mixing of antarctic and sub-antarctic 
water takes place across the Antarctic Convergence between the Falkland 
Islands and South Georgia. 


Mr. Ditwyn Joun.—Plankion. 


The different surface waters of the southern hemisphere have distinctive 
planktonic faunas. The recent work of the R.R.S. Discovery IT has led to 
an extensive knowledge of those of the antarctic and sub-antarctic surface 
waters ; series of tow-nettings were made across each kind of water in all 
sectors of the hemisphere and at all seasons of the year. The boundary 
which separates them, the Antarctic Convergence, acts as a hard and fast 
barrier to the horizontal distribution of certain groups of animals though 
not to others. 

Two species of Euphausia occur only in the antarctic, four only in the sub- 
antarctic : there is one species, an exception, which occurs in both. ‘Two 
Chaetognaths, species of different genera, occur very numerously throughout 
the surface waters of the antarctic and sub-antarctic, but in both species 
there are two ‘ races,’ one confined to each kind of water. Few Copepoda 
are limited in their horizontal distribution by the Antarctic Convergence. 
In some places where there is a bend in the convergence and abnormal 
hydrological conditions occur, areas of mixed antarctic and sub-antarctic 
plankton are found. The extent to which the power of vertical migration 
is involved in this horizontal mixing is discussed. 

The surface current of antarctic water flowing to the west, south of 65° S., 
has planktonic forms peculiar to itself. They are carried north, even to the 
convergence, where the configuration of antarctic land deflects this water 
northwards. The most interesting and important example is the wide 
distribution of whale-food, Euphausia superba, in the sector of the antarctic 
which is affected by the Weddell Sea current. 


Mr. F. S. RussELL.—The behaviour of marine plankton animals in 
relation to the conditions of their surroundings and to their life- 


cycles (3.15). 
Mr, P. ULLYott.—Vertical movements of the Zooplankton (3.45). 


Saturday, September 9. 
Excursion to Charnwood Forest. Leader: Mr. W. E. Mayes. 


Monday, September 11. 
Mr. L. C. BEADLE.—Osmotic regulation in Gunda ulve (10.0). 


Dr. Stewart MacLacan.—The prediction of insect outbreaks in Britain 
(10.30). 


Discussion on The structure of protoplasm (Mr. J. E. Harris; Dr. D. 
Jorpan Lioyp; Mr. W. T. AstBury) (11.0). ce 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 491 


AFTERNOON. 
Dr. H. O. Butu.—The experimental study of conditioned responses in 


fishes (2.15). 


Dr. C. F. A. Pantin.—Nerves and nerve-nets in Invertebrates (3.0). 


Nervous action in the Invertebrates is often said to differ fundamentally 
from that in the Vertebrates. But in fact there appears to be only one 
important difference. Except in the Vertebrata, ‘ peripheral facilitation ’ 
is enormously developed, especially between nerve and muscle. That is, 
the first nervous impulse passes into few or none of the muscle fibres, while 
each succeeding impulse is increasingly successful in doing so. This is 
responsible for the varied muscular responses of the Crustacea, the Actinozoa 
and probably the Echinoderms. ‘The special properties of the nerve-net 
in the latter groups are due to facilitation. 

The natural responses of the Actinozoa are effected by well-defined 
muscles, which fall into two groups according to their relation to the nerve- 
net. In one the net acts as'a simple conducting unit from the site of the 
stimulus to the muscle ; facilitation occurs only between the nerve-net and 
the muscle. In a second group the nerve-net supplying the muscle is 
partly isolated from neighbouring regions of the net. Between these 
regions inter-neural facilitation takes place. This analysis throws much 
light on the nature of autonomy in the nerve-net and on the origin of polar 
conduction. A fairly complete picture ¢an be drawn of the Actinian 
nerve-net and of the manner in which it subserves the organism in its 
natural environment. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Joint Discussion with Sections I (Physiology) and K (Botany), on 
Genetics :— 


Prof. J. S. Huxtey.—Physiological genetics (10.0). 


Prof. R. R. Gates, F.R.S.—The general nature of the gene concept 
(10.30). 
Dr. C. C. Hurst.—The significance of genetics in evolution (11.0). 


The science of genetics has advanced rapidly during the last decade. 
The mechanism of heredity and variation, which was unknown to Darwin, 
has been revealed to us by the microscope. Experiments show that mor- 
phological, physiological, and psychological characters are alike organised 
by sets of genes carried by the chromosomes of the cells. Consequently 
it is now possible to re-arrange the old indefinite Linnean species into 
definite genetical species which are experimentally determinable by their 
gene-chromosome complexes. ‘Thus taxonomy becomes an exact science 
and the genetical species provides a measurable unit of evolution. 

The gene is the unit and basis of life and progressive evolution can be 
traced from the monogenic species of Bacteriophage of molecular size to the 
polygenic species of the Primate Man carrying a genechromosome complex 
which produces a conceptual mind. The exercise of this in scientific 
research is rapidly bringing power and freedom to man by gaining more con- 
trol over nature and life. Experimental hybridisation of genetical species 


492 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 


and bombardment of their germ-cells by X-rays have already created 
numbers of new species and forms, and the time is at hand when natural 
selection can be replaced by human selection and man himself will be 
able to control evolution and in a large measure determine his own destiny. 


Dr. K. B. BLackBurN.—The synthesis of species (11.20). 


Recently new true breeding species have been produced experimentally 
by crossing two other species and these do not, as a rule, produce fertile 
offspring when backcrossed with their parents. The secret of their origin 
is revealed by their cytology. Lack of fertility in a species hybrid is often 
due to incompatibility of the chromosomes of the parents, but most of these 
new species have been produced by a doubling of the complete complement 
of the hybrid, thereby producing two equivalent sets to pair at meiosis. 
This gives the pure breeding character which marks them off from the 
hybrid swarms produced from crosses which are more or less fertile in the 
first instance. Such forms have been produced by crossing species (Primula 
Kewensis, Nicotiana digluta, Crepis artificialis) or even genera (Raphano- 
Brassica, Atgilotricum). Similar naturally occurring forms have now been 
recognised (Rosa Wilsoni, Spartina Townsendii), but the crowning piece of 
evidence for this as a natural method of species building is the production 
by Miintzing of plants indistinguishable from the common hemp-nettle 
(Galeopsis tetrahit) by crossing two quite distinct species, G. pubescens and 
G. speciosa. 


Dr. IRENE Manton.—The analysis of species (11.40). 


Col. C. J. Bonn, C.M.G.—Hormones and genetics (12.0). 


The importance to physiology of the particulate discontinuous nature of 
the heredity process, as established by Mendel. 

Diabetes a familial disease ; the pancreatic defect on which the disease 
depends is heritable. ‘Treatment with insulin ameliorates symptoms, but 
does not remove the defect. Effect of this on racial welfare. 

The evidence derived from a study of binovular twins, one of which may 
be a Cretin, or achondroplastic dwarf, and the other normal, throws light 
on the genetic factors concerned in thyroid and pituitary abnormality. 

Tissue cell susceptibility to hormonic influences may vary on the two 
sides of the body. Examples. The gynandromorphic pheasant. Asym- 
metrical spur development in hens. Asymmetric polydactyly in fowls. 
Gynandromorphism in insects. 

Acquired immunity and genetics. The immunity reaction in bacterial 
or coccal infections compared with that in virus diseases. ‘The influence 
of size of the infecting agent on the permanence of the reaction. If cell 
descendants (not offspring) are to remain immune, the nuclear heredity 
mechanism of the somatic cell must be concerned in the reaction. 


GENERAL DIscussION (12.20). (Prof. F. A. E. Crew; Dr. E. Asupy; 
Mr. J. T. CunnrincHAM; Mrs. C. B. 5. Hopson.) 


AFTERNOON. 


Mr. Micuart GraHaM.—Prediction of North Sea cod fisheries (2.15). 


It is known that fluctuations in the yield of certain fisheries, e.g. herring, 
plaice and cod, in the North Sea are largely determined by the degree of 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 493 


success in survival of broods some years previously. The proportion of 
particular broods is estimated when the fish are large enough to be taken 
in trawls. Having found that the important fisheries depend on fish of 
a restricted age, say, five to six years old, estimates of the yield at that age 
can be made some years in advance, from the abundance of fish of, say, 
one to two years old. 

The particular case considered, the cod in the North Sea, is interesting 
in that : 


(1) The area populated by small fish is so extensive that adequate sampling 
of small cod can only be obtained in the trade statistics of landings, cause 
being shown for considering the magnitude of certain seasonal changes in 
the statistics as a measure of brood strength. 

(2) The age of the cod (by which landings of small cod are related to 
brood years and to subsequent yield of large cod) has to be obtained in- 
directly, from size ; partly because of the said sampling difficulty and partly 
because the more usual determinations of age from scales or otoliths are un- 
reliable for this fish (in the North Sea). The necessary analysis involves 
somewhat unconventional methods, which are, however, justified by the high 
correlation found. (See (3).) 

(3) Formulz are deduced from the investigations of (1) and (2) and relate 
brood strength to subsequent yield per unit of fishing power, in a perfectly 
rigid manner, so that, up to a point, the prediction is precise and depends 
merely on arithmetic (its precision being estimated by prediction of the 
‘probable error’). High correlation has been found between the estimate 
of brood strength and subsequent yield, 


Mr. E. Forp.—Growth in length and change in form with increasing age 
in fishes, especially the herring (2.45). 


The communication deals with changes in form brought about by the 
different rates at which the various parts of a fish’s body increase in length 
during the transition from a transparent larva to a fully scaled adolescent, 
and with the subsequent growth in length of the body as a whole, by the 
addition of progressively diminishing annual increments throughout life. 
Simple mathematical treatment of observed data raises interesting questions 
in phylogeny and ontogeny, and suggests a convenient method for the 
comparison of growth in different geographical regions. 


Dr. C. H. O’DonocHuE.—Fasper Park, Rocky Mountains : its biology 
and fisheries (3.15). 


In 1925 the Biological Board of Canada requested the author to investigate 
the lakes in Jasper Park with a view to improving their fishery value. It was 
considered worth while to conduct the examination on broad lines, since 
no similar survey had been made within a radius of 2,000 miles, and the 
mountainous character of the country, its altitude and essentially virgin 
conditions made it unique in North America. This report covers two 
summers’ field work and their results. One noteworthy problem was the 
entire absence of fish from the Maligne-Medicine drainage system. The 
answer to this question was found in the peculiar geological conditions of 
the outlet of this system into the Athabasca valley, whereby the system is 
cut off from the possibility of fish immigration. A fairly full investigation 
of the physical and chemical constitution of certain types of lakes was made 
and also a survey of their flora and fauna. Resulting from the survey 


494 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D, E. 


various suggestions were made, among them the planting of the Maligne- 
Medicine drainage area with Speckled Trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. Most 
of the experiments were successful, and a report made for the Board this year 
states: ‘ The stocking of the Maligne-Medicine system with speckled ‘trout 
has given results second to none in the history of fish culture.’ 


SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Mr. M. Gimson.—The water supply of Leicestershire, with special reference 
to human settlement (10.0). 


The subsoil of Leicestershire consists mainly of impervious clays—the 
Lias Clay and the Keuper Marl—in which water, when obtainable at all, 
is found at considerable depths. 

Water near the surface is only found in: 

(a) The Valley Gravels. 
(b) The Glacial Gravels. 


The former are found on each side of the principal rivers, and provide 
good sites for villages, when in the form of River Terraces, with water 
easily accessible. 

The latter occur mainly on the higher ground, where the glacial covering 
still remains. 'This covering is principally Boulder Clay, but water-bearing 
sands and gravels are found associated with it in places. 

Such sands and gravels form the only source from which water could, 
in early days, be readily obtained away from the main watercourses, and 
their influence in deciding the position of settlements is clear. It is particu- 
larly well shown in East Leicestershire, where, almost without exception, 
villages on the uplands are situated on small isolated patches of sand or 
gravel, and where in the southern portion there are many such villages, 
while in the northern part large areas of the higher ground are scantily 
populated, owing to the glacial covering being devoid of sand or gravel. 


Miss G. M. Sarson.—The growth of population in Leicester (10.45). 


The city of Leicester is situated in the valley of the river Soar, from 
which the ground rises eastward and westward. To the east are the 
Spinney Hills and the Victoria Park, the former 264 ft., the latter 289 ft. 
high, while westward are the Dane Hills, over 200 ft. above sea level. The 
oldest part of the city was situated on a gravel terrace on a spur 190 ft. to 
210 ft. high, on the right bank of the Soar, which formed a boundary and 
a defence on the western side. To the north the ground sloped downwards 
to the marshy meadows of the Soar, 20 ft. lower than the gravel terrace. 
The Fosse Way entered from the north-east, to cross the river at the present 
West Bridge, and afterwards passed in a south-westward direction towards 
High Cross. In medieval times life centred round the abbey and monastic 
houses. ‘These declined in importance, but there was an increased trade 
in the markets, the chief of which—the Saturday market—was in the south- 
east corner of the town. Here the agricultural produce of the district was 
sold, for Leicester was the market centre of the county. 

The population until the end of the seventeenth century has been estimated 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 495 


at 5,000 people, but by the end of the next century the number increased 
to 16,953, due chiefly to the establishment of the framework knitting 
industry, and the beginning of the manufacture of boots and shoes. The 
latter half of the nineteenth century was a time when the greatest increase 
in population took place, and by 1921 the census statistics show that 
Leicester had a population of over 240,000. Other industries, in addition 
to the two chief occupations of hosiery and boot and shoe manufacture, are 
the making of machinery, manufacture of optical instruments, and printing. 
Thus, after remaining through many centuries a community of approximately 
4,000 people, the city developed from a small country town into one of the 
most densely populated centres of modern commerce of the north-east 
Midlands. 


Dr. P. W. Brran.—Preliminary survey of land utilisation in the City of 
Leicester (11.30). 


Mr. H. H. Peacu.—Regional planning and the Leicester district (12.15). 


The study of the cultural landscape and value to town and country 
planning. The necessity of study of planning, not only by experts but by 
the ordinary man, to save the country from disfigurement. Schultz 
Naumburg’s studies on cultural landscape referred to. 

Rapid development of land by economic circumstances and breaking up 
of old estates, where planned development used to be carried out, is having 
serious effect on landscape. Difficulties in planning by local authorities 
and distrust of same felt by many. New Town and Country Planning Bill 
and what can be done. Local problem of Charnwood Forest. Economic 
value of planning in development. Leicester rapidly developing town, 
clean, little planning, much ribbon development. 

Dreariness of new suburbs. Officials and destruction and disfigurement 
of trees. No control of elevations. C.P.R.E. and Advisory Panel system, 
a help towards suitable building. Local housing schemes compared. Parks 
and allotments. Need of walking ways. New Walk example. Advertise- 
ments and planning. Curse of enamel sign. Industry finding need and 
value of taste in design and lack of training in schools, a vital matter in 
planning. Engineer and expert often spoil good plans by bad taste. 
Leicester City Council and Art Advisory Committee. Need of more 
co-operation and neighbourliness in building and planning. 


AFTERNOON. 


Tour of the City of Leicester to study land utilisation and general 
position. 


Friday, September 8. 


Dr. Vaucuan Cornis.—The visualisation of landscape (10.0). 


_ The science of physiological optics, which has been long and successfully 
pursued, provides reliable information as to the extent of the surrounding 
‘sphere which it is possible for the eye to perceive ; the distance to which 
stereoscopic vision extends ; the perceptible contrasts of light and colour ; 
and, generally, as to that which it is possible for our eyes to recognise in the 
surrounding landscape—when we try. 


496 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 


The pleasurable, or zsthetic, impression of landscape has, however, 
relatively little to do with what we can see when we try, but, on the contrary, 
depends upon what we notice when we make no conscious effort. ‘The 
investigation of this branch of psychological optics is ‘herefore indispensable 
to the creation of an esthetic science of scenery. In the present paper the 
author describes the methods which he has employed to ascertain the modes 
of selective action by which the eye unconsciously provides the ordinary 
man with a vision of the landscape which is, in fact, an artistic composition. 

The review includes examples relating to impressions of tone, colour, 
form, magnitude, multitude and movement in the landscape of different 
climates and latitudes. 


Mr. J. A. Steers.—Scolt Head Island: a study in physical geography 
and ecology (10.45). 


Scolt Head Island, on the Norfolk coast between Hunstanton and Wells, 
affords excellent scope for the study of (1) constructional coast forms, 
(2) comparatively rapid erosional changes, and (3) the relations of plant 
ecology to shore-line studies. 

It is a National Trust area, and is best known as a bird reserve. But 
the geographer has much to interest him both on the island and along the 
adjacent coast. 

The origin of the island is rather uncertain, and is here discussed. One 
of the more interesting problems that yet await solution is the possible 
light that archeology may throw on this problem. ‘Two ancient encamp- 
ments are very close to the area, one being in marshland. Their excavation 
may afford very interesting results. This island is a long sand and shingle 
formation, with numerous recurved ends running back from it. Within the 
main beach and between the laterals is an admirable development of 
saltmarshes, with characteristic flora. 

On the mainland side of the creek which separates the island from the 
land are some other shingle ridges which have apparently been built in a 
direction (i.e west to east) opposite to that of the main island. They are 
directly comparable with the ridges still forming on the distal end of 
Brancaster Golf Links. 

Near by is a submerged forest, the future investigation of which should 
afford some data for the chronological history of the island. 


Col. M. N. Macteop.—The mapping of the Empire (11.30). 


The mapping of the Empire has barely begun, and the lack of maps is a 
serious obstacle to ordered development. Much money has been wasted 
in the past on this account. 

To remedy this situation the first thing is to find the money. Surveya 
are most necessary in those colonies least able to pay for them. Progress 
will be slow unless the money can be borrowed. ‘The Colonial Development 
Fund was established for such purposes. Having found the money, the 
next thing is men. Enough trained surveyors are not available. Air 
survey provides a new and suitable technique, but is hampered by the high 
cost of photography and the lack of geodetic foundation. 

Geodetic surveys of the Empire are particularly backward eae more 
energetic prosecution is especially necessary. Finally there is the question 
of revision. Every scheme for systematic survey should include provision 
for periodical revision. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 497 


Lt.-Col. A. B. CLoucu, O.B.E.—The preparation of maps and illustrations 
for geographical articles and theses (12.15). 


Geographers wishing to illustrate their articles by maps can either : 
(1) Draw the map de novo from their own survey material or by copying 
or tracing from existing maps ; or 
(2) Use an existing map as a topographical base on which to overprint 
their special information. 


In all such cases where they are preparing drawings in any form for 
reproduction, some knowledge regarding the processes of reproduction will 
be found very helpful. 

In the case of (2) above, the Ordnance Survey can supply impressions in 
non-photographic blue of detail or water or contours or of any combination, 
on which the special material can be drawn in its correct position. This 
special drawing can then be reproduced as an overprint in any colour on 
the chosen map sheet, the basic topographical detail being printed either in its 
normal colouring or in grey, dependent on whether it is desired to emphasise 
or not the special information in comparison with the topography. 

For Great Britain a choice of Ordnance Survey maps ranging between 
the large scale 1/2,500 to the small scale 1/million is available. 

When compiling material for subsequent reproduction in conjunction 
with an Ordnance Survey map, it is wise to use the appropriate Ordnance 
Survey map as the key and not to use other maps of nominally the same 
scale. Otherwise subsequent difficulties in register may ensue. 


AFTERNOON. 


Prof. Lt. RopweEtt Jones and Mr. F. H. W. Green.—Rainfall in Kenya 
and Uganda (2.15). 


In Kenya there are some 230 rainfall stations, of which only 80 have 
records for a period of more than fifteen years. 'The corresponding numbers 
for Uganda are 35 and 14. 

In both countries the stations are unevenly distributed, and in some cases 
the records obviously unreliable. Even so it seemed possible to construct 
maps which should aid a rapid assessment of the rainfall conditions and do 
no serious injustice to the general facts. 

A 1/250,000 contoured map exists for much of the area, and the isohyets 
were drawn with constant reference to the relief. The usual methods of 
interpolation were used in respect of the records of short-period stations. 
Maps showing distribution by months for the long-period stations have 
also been prepared. Amongst much else it emerges definitely that a rain 
shadow is formed by the Eastern Highlands, and that there is a difference 
in the distribution type for places in the same latitude but on opposite sides 
of the Northern Rift. 

From hourly velocity readings windroses were prepared for the three 
first-class stations for selected months. 

At Kampala the chief influence appeared to be the land and sea breezes 
of the northern verge of Lake Victoria. 'The same phenomenon, for definite 
hours, causes a deflection in the otherwise monsoon directions evinced at 
Zanzibar. 


Mr. E. W. GiLBert.—The human geography of Mallorca (3.0). 


Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands, is 1,350 square miles in 
extent, almost the same size as the county of Cornwall, and contained about 


s2 


498 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 


270,000 inhabitants according to the census of 1920. The object of this 
paper is to examine the distribution of population in relation to the physical 
and economic geography of the island. Mallorca can be divided by its 
relief into four regions. The principal feature of the relief is a range of 
mountains, 45 miles long and about 10 miles broad, which form the north- 
western part of the island and rise in places to heights of nearly 5,000 ft. 
The south-east of the island contains a range of hills of much lower general 
altitude than the northern mountains, the maximum height being only 
1,500 feet. ‘These two regions are separated by a wide central plain, whose 
general level is interrupted by a fourth region, the isolated mass of Randa. 
The four major regions can be subdivided on the basis of the natural and 
cultivated vegetation. The whole of the central plain is cultivated and 
forms a vast orchard of fruit trees, principally almonds. The climate 
makes irrigation essential, by wells on the plain and by tanks in. the 
mountains. 

Palma is the principal settlement and with its suburbs contains nearly 
one-third of the population of the island. With the exception of Palma 
there are no large coastal settlements. ‘The area of greatest density of 
population occurs along the southern foot of the northern mountains. 
A marked feature of the distribution of population in the central plain is 
the absence of hamlets and villages, as population is concentrated in small 
towns containing 1,500 or more inhabitants. The population is, however, 
more dispersed than it was a hundred years ago. 


Prof. C. DaryLtt Forpe.—Variations in the native economy of arid 
regions (3.45). 

A comparative review of the native economies of the arid regions of the 
world shows clearly that the general climatic conditions are of less signi- 
ficance than (a) particular physiographic and biological conditions, and 
(6) the cultural history of the larger areas of which these desert regions 
form a part. Climatic divisions into ‘ hot’ and ‘ continental’ deserts and 
gradations from winter to summer precipitation appear to be largely 
irrelevant to the classification of native economies. 

Areas climatically and vegetationally closely similar exhibit fundamental 
contrasts. | Even at the lowest economic levels the peculiar features of a 
particular habitat are all-important. ‘The Coahuilla of the Mohave Desert 
and the Bushmen of S.W. Africa are the one almost entirely collectors of 
wild fruits and the other dominantly hunters. This differentiation is not 
dependent on divergence of general physical conditions but on the sharp 
contrasts in the relative abundance of particular forms of plant and 
animal life. 

Every type of economy is represented in arid areas, and the introduction of 
various domestic animals and types of agriculture has profoundly modified 
the distribution and density of settlement and the seasonal rhythms of 
activity and settlement. Food-gathering economies have long been largely 
extinguished in the Old World deserts of the northern hemisphere, and 
comparisons of the Badawin and Saharan Berber economies on the one 
hand with those of the Bushman and Aranda on the other, and of the Kazak 
economy in southern Turkestan with that of the Paiute of the Great Basin, 
bring out some of the profound consequences of pastoralism and access to 
marginal settlements of higher culture. The penetration of higher economies 
is often partial and is sometimes delayed by cultural factors. Maize culti- 
vation under conditions of natural flooding has been practised for more 
than a millennium in parts of the arid region of south-western U.S.A. and 


| 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—E. 499 


northern Mexico, but the special physiographic conditions have been utilised 
only over a relatively small and fluctuating area. Considerable areas in 
which springs and flood waters afforded opportunities for agriculture were 
occupied by non-agricultural peoples. This region, in which sheep 
pastoralism has developed among the Navajo in post-Columbian times, 
affords an interesting example of the co-existence of three contrasted 
economies practised by different peoples occupying a single region. 


Saturday, September 9. 
Excursion to Holwell Iron Works and the Melton District. 


Sunday, September 10. 
Excursion to Leicester, Uppingham, Peterborough, Wisbech. 


Monday, September 11. 


PRESIDENTIAL ApprRESS by Rt. Hon. Lorp Mesron, K.C.S.I., on 
Geography as mental equipment (10.0). (See p. 93.) 


Sir Epwarp A. Gait, K.C.S.I., C.I.E—Races and languages of India 
(11.15). 


India contains a remarkable diversity of languages and peoples. The 
223 indigenous languages belong to four distinct linguistic families— 
Dravidian, Austric, Aryan and Tibeto-Chinese. There is nothing definite 
to show where the first two originated, but the last two were brought by 
immigrants from the north-west and east respectively. Aryan languages are 
now spoken by three-quarters of the population. 

The ‘ Aryan’ physical type predominates in the north-west, and the 
Mongoloid in the east. The people in the south, known as ‘ Dravidian,’ 
are a composite race. North of the ‘ Dravidian’ there is a blend, on the 
west with Aryan and on the east with Mongolian. 

The post-Aryan invasions did not much affect the physical type, but 
those of the Afghans and Mughals brought the Muhammadan religion now 
professed by one-fifth of the population. 

'The existing divisions are based mainly on religion and language. The 
most notable is that between Hindus and Muhammadans. The linguistic 
groups may be regarded as distinct races, but in their religion and traditions 
the Hindus throughout India have a bond of union which has been 
strengthened by the wide diffusion of English which serves as a lingua franca. 


Discussion on India (11.45). 


AFTERNOON. 
Sectional Lunch (1.0). 


Prof. F, DrseNHAM.—Report on the Polar Year (2.30). 


Dr. E. H. Se_woop.—Classification of communities by means of occupations 


(3.0). 
The standard set up last year at York that if 40 per cent. of the workers 
are engaged in any one occupation it was sufficient to characterise that 


500 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 


community is maintained in Scotland and Ireland. In the latter agriculture 
rises in the west even to 90 per cent. of the total workers. ‘The Dublin area 
differs from the remainder of the southern part of the island. 

‘ Craft ? (manufacture) is confined almost entirely to the north-east, the 
Dublin, Waterford and Cork areas. There is, however, one town, Clara, 
which in composition is strikingly like Buckfastleigh in Devon. 

In distribution the Personal Attendants class differs from that of the 
other island ; whereas in England and Wales the average in rural areas is 
about 14 per cent., in Ireland an average of only about 5 per cent. is noted. 

Attention is called to the correlation between occupations—in some cases 
the coefficient rises even to + 0-60, pointing to common governing factors, 
and it is hoped that as these governing factors are isolated, a more definite 
determination of governing conditions may be made. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Dr. H. C. Darsy.—The geographical conceptions of a medieval bishop 
(10.0). 


The scholarship of the Middle Ages was far from being the narrow super- 
stition we are sometimes told it was, and fewer individuals demonstrate 
this better than Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1255). He stands a repre- 
sentative figure of the medieval renaissance of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. Embodying Ancient Greek and Arabic learning, his writings 
are characterised by their appeal to reason as distinct from tradition, 
and by their critical faculty. In them is to be found the scientific geography 
of the time—discussion of the sphericity of the earth, the distribution 
of land and sea, causes of regional differences on the earth’s surface, 
meteorological problems, and the features of oceanic phenomena. ‘Though 
not free from theological preoccupation, the discussion of these topics by 
Grosseteste presents an intelligible view of contemporary geographical 
theory, in itself an intelligent achievement. 


Dr. L. DupLey Stamp and Mr. E. C. WILLaTTs.—Changes in the utilisation 
of land in the south-western part of the London Basin, 1840-1932 


(10.45). 


This paper represents an attempt to use one of the first sheets to be pub- 
lished by the Land Utilisation Survey of Britain (1-inch, England and 
Wales, No. 114, Windsor) as a starting-point for a detailed study of changes 
in land utilisation in the south-western part of the London Basin. From 
the MSS. records kindly made available by the Ministry of Agriculture.and 
Fisheries of tithe apportionment made under the Tithe Act of 1836 it 
has been possible to identify the individual fields and so to construct, for 
certain parishes, a land utilisation map for the period about 1840. The 
parishes especially considered in the paper are White Waltham, Berkshire 
(Chalk, Reading Beds and London Clay) ; Winkfield North (mainly London 
Clay, comparatively remote from the influence of London); the group 
formed by Egham, Wraysbury, Staines, Ashford and Stanwell (forming a 
strip from the Bagshot Beds, through London Clay to the Thames Gravel 
and alluvium) ; Ashtead and Headley (Chalk and Plateau Gravels of the 
North Downs and London Clay). 

Apart from housing development, there has been, contrary to common 
generalisation, remarkably little change in some areas—even an extension 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 501 


of arable land—but enormous changes in other areas, especially on tracts 
of heavy soil. Amongst the factors specially considered have been soil, 
slope, accessibility, value and desirability for residential purposes and 
economic factors consequent upon the growth of London. A further 
extension of the work has been possible in one or two areas by using 
seventeenth-century manorial maps. 


Prof. E. G. R. TayLor.—Economic geography of early Stuart England 
(11.30). 

The economic problems of England three centuries ago, as they are dis- 
cussed in the literature of the period, are strikingly similar to those dis- 
cussed in newspapers to-day. Over-population, the decay of rural life, 
urbanisation, unemployment, the burden imposed by high wages and 
rising prices on the upkeep of great estates, the ruin of the roads by heavy 
traffic for which they were not designed, the dangerous depletion of timber 
supplies, ‘ unfair’ foreign competition in the fishing industry, free trade 
and the balance of trade, the need for improvement of internal water-ways, 
for the control of flood-waters, for the reclamation of fens and marshes, 
for the improvement of methods of husbandry—all these had their geo- 
graphical aspects, and their brief discussion is intended to throw light on the 
geography of early Stuart England. 


Mr. H. C. K. HENDERSON.—Downland agriculture of East Sussex (12.15). 


During the last 150 years several surveys of land utilisation on the South 
Downs have been made. The first is an unfinished map of Sussex, four 
sheets of which were published in an incomplete state in 1780 : the published 
map is on a 2-inch scale, and was constructed by Yeakell and Gardner 
in competition for the prize for large-scale county maps. Between 1836 
and 1851 the tithe maps were constructed for each parish, and the roll in 
most cases records land utilisation ; fortunately Sussex was almost entirely 
tithable. In 1875 the Ordnance Survey issued the first edition of the 
25-inch maps of Sussex, together with area books which include utilisation 
details. The extent of arable activities and the crop distributions have 
been mapped on a 6-inch scale for 1931, and also, for part of the region 
concerned, for 1918 and 1927, by the writer. 

Each of these larger-scale surveys has been reduced to the common scale 
of t inch to 1 mile, whence a direct comparison of the varying extent of 
arable cultivation can be obtained. 

Finally, a statistical summary of crop distributions relative to various 
factors has been compiled from the actual field distributions of crops in 
1931. 

AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to Charnwood Forest. 


Wednesday, September 13. 


Mr. K. C. Epwarps.—Some aspects of the Luxemburg iron industry 
(9.45). 
For more than a century before the exploitation of the munette ore of 
Lorraine (mainly since 1870) there existed in central Luxemburg one of the 
important iron-working regions of Europe. The mineral was obtained 


502 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 


from alluvial deposits and the workings, though widely scattered, were 
situated in relation to the forests and streams. Furnaces and forges were 
often far apart, and coal and coke were not in general use until after 1865. 

The working of the minette ore in the southern extremity of the Grand 
Duchy caused a striking change in the location and character of the industry. 
The delay in this development was due almost as much to the lack of trans- 
port facilities as to the fact that the ore demanded special treatment. ‘The 
interesting sequence of changes accompanying the evolution of the industry 
is shown by a study of the works at Fischbach (1768), Eich (1845), and 
Esch-sur-Alzette (1870). 

The progress of the modern iron and steel industry has exercised important 
effects upon the distribution of population, emigration and immigration, 
agriculture, and upon economic relations with the neighbouring countries. 


Mr. R. E. Dicktnson.—The metropolitan regions of the United States of 
America (10.30). 

(1) The distinctive characteristics of a metropolitan city. The criteria 
to be adopted in selecting cities which have attained some degree of metro- 
politan development (population, per capita sales of manufactures, 
wholesale and retail goods, distribution of merchandising space, markets, 
Federal Reserve banks). 

(2) On the basis of these criteria, the selection and classification of those 
cities which have attained metropolitan proportions. 

(3) The character and extent of the ‘ zones of influence ’ of a metropolitan 
city, illustrated with specific examples from the United States (twin cities, 
Chicago, Philadelphia). 

(4) The areas served by the metropolitan cities of the United States in 
some of their distinctive functional capacities, based on an examination of 
maps showing areas of supply of live stock and grain markets, wholesale 
trade areas, areas served by district branch houses of representative com- 
panies, Federal Reserve districts, newspaper circulation areas, etc. 

(5) The delimitation of composite metropolitan regions, and an attempt 
to classify the metropolitan centres, on the basis of function and growth, 
in relation to the extent and character of the regions they serve. 


Miss H. G. WaNKLYN.—The Niemen River: a neglected waterway 
(11.15). 


The Niemen River rises in the marshes of White Russia and flows into 
the Kurisches Haff just south of the Baltic port of Memel. It could be made 
navigable as far as the Russian village of Naujas Svierzenes, about 892 kilo- 
metres from its mouth, but as yet only the lower reaches have been regulated. 

Before the war the Niemen basin was the natural hinterland of the 
German port of Memel, as wood, the main export from Memel, was 
floated down the Niemen from the forests of White Russia and Russian 
Poland. 

By the re-alignment of frontiers after the war, the transit trade of the 
Niemen River was interrupted by two frontiers : that between Soviet Russia 
and Poland, and that between Poland and Lithuania. ‘The river also forms 
the boundary between Germany and Lithuania. The multiplication of 
frontiers in this area has been especially disastrous, as owing to the dispute 
between Poland and Lithuania over the Vilna region there has been a com- 
plete severance of relations between the two countries for the last fourteen 


years. 
Passenger traffic between Poland and Lithuania is diverted through Latvia, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E, F. 503 


and the doubtful absorption of the German Memel territory by the new state 
of Lithuania has also added to economic difficulties. 

In consequence the dredging of the Niemen has been neglected and the 
timber trade has declined steadily. The victim of bad political relations 
has been the Memel port, whose chief export commodity is now relegated 
to the Vistula waterway. 

The undesirability of the boycott is dawning on both governments. 
Poland, by seizing the Vilna district by force, has stultified its economic 
development and deprived it of its natural outlet. Lithuania has lost the 
greater part of her transit trade. 


SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND 
STATISTICS. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Sir Grorce BucuanaNn, K.C.I.E.—The economic position of Burma (10.0). 


Burma has always been famous for its rice, but a tremendous impetus 
was given to paddy cultivation by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, 
which, by lowering freights between East and West, greatly stimulated the 
demand for rice in Europe. 

Burma has in half a century reclaimed and brought under cultivation for 
paddy 124 million acres of land, and is to-day the greatest rice exporting 
country in the world, with an annual export of 3 million tons of cleaned 
rice. 

This great work carried out entirely by Burmese peasantry; initial 
advantages being large areas suitable land; regular rainfall ; single crop 
over whole area, and cheap labour from India. No capital in country ; 
cultivators financed by Indian moneylenders, supplemented by co-operative 
societies, which began well but ultimately collapsed. Milling of rice and 
its export in hands of Europeans and Indians. World distribution and 
value. Other agricultural products and development of oil and teak 
industries. Total value of Burma’s export trade and how distributed. 
Burma not a manufacturing country and dependent on outside sources for 
all manufactured goods. Extent and value of import trade, penetration of 
Japan in textile requirements. 

The political situation and introduction of politics in country not con- 
ducive to happiness and prosperity of people. 

Revenue and expenditure and balance of trade. 

Disastrous effect of world crisis and unfortunate dependence of Burma 
on one staple trade. Increasing competition with other rice-producing 
countries. Seventy per cent. of population engaged in agriculture, prin- 
cipally paddy cultivation ; unless fair price obtained for paddy, which again 
is dependent on price of rice in world’s markets, whole economic structure 
must fall to ground and people revert to primitive standard of living. 
Alternative : development of other agricultural products and make country 
self-supporting by creation of industries ; this difficult because no coal in 
country, nor possibility of hydro-electric power in Lower Burma at 
economic price. 


PRESIDENTIAL AppRESS by Prof. J. H. Jones on The Gold Standard 
(11.30). (See p. 109.) 


504 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—F. 


Friday, September 8. 


Prof. ARNOLD PLaNnt.—Economic theory of patent and copyright law 
(10.0). 


There has not so far been sufficient discussion by economists of the 
economic effects of the systems of patents for inventions and of copyright 
for literary and artistic production. ‘Two contrary assumptions have been 
made concerning the relationship between the patent system and the display 
of inventiveness. On one side it is asserted that without patents there 
would be no inventions ; the profusion of innovation in our own time in 
fields which fall outside the range of patent legislation suggests that this is 
unlikely. On the other side it is assumed that the patent system has little 
influence upon the amount of inventing that takes place, but that it serves 
to direct inventing into the fields of greatest social advantage ; an assump- 
tion which in turn conflicts with normal expectations concerning the dis- 
position of the factors of production in a monopolistic regime. 'Thecon- 
ditions making for the display of inventiveness are analysed and the patent 
system is shown to influence the amount of invention of the type that is 
induced by changes in economic conditions. Light is shed upon these 
questions, and upon the relation between variations in prosperity and 
variations in the output of ‘inventions,’ by an analysis of the statistics 
relating to applications for patents in various countries. ‘There are reasons 
for concluding that the patent system results, at least in the short-run, 
in misdirection of the factors of production. ‘The arbitrary and clumsy 
nature of this system of encouraging an infant industry is examined. 

The closely parallel copyright legislation is shown on economic analysis 
to be equally arbitrary in its provisions and lacking in clear basic principle. 
The peculiar treatment of the right of mechanical reproduction of musical 
compositions, under existing English law, is contrasted with the provisions 
relating to literary and artistic works, as compared with the device of the 
“Licence of Right’ in post-war patent legislation. An extension of the 
application of this device would probably reduce the amount of restriction 
of output made possible by this type of legislation. ‘There are, however, 
administrative difficulties. 


Sir ARNoLD Witson, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., C.M.G., D.S.0O., M.P.—The 
effect of Suez Canal dues upon tnter-continental trade (11.30). 


A statistical comparison of the incidence of tolls—both on vessels and on 
cargo passing through the Suez and over the Panama Canals respectively— 
shows that dues levied differ by nearly 334 per cent. in favour of the latter. 
An examination of the figures indicates that the difference is sufficient to 
divert trafic between London and certain Australian and Far Eastern 
ports, and between New York and other ports. 

The method of calculation of the dues in each case is contrasted, and it is 
pointed out that they are based in each case not on the weight or bulk of 
cargo carried, but on the carrying capacity of the ship. This tends to place 
an unduly heavy burden on raw material as compared with manufactured 
goods. 


Monday, September 11. 


Discusston on Technological and economic progress (Mr. R. F. Harrop ; 
Prof. J. A.S. Watson ; Dr. K. G. FENELON) (10.0). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—F. 505 


Prof. H. M. Hatiswortu, C.B.E.—The work of development boards 
(12.0). 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Prof. P. S. FLorence.—Types and supply price of entrepreneur and business 
administrator (10.0). 


Economists are still apt to assume that management is mainly in the 
hands of an entrepreneur highly sensitive to variations in profit. In reality 
there are to-day a number of types of business administrator in control of 
industry, many of them with weaker pecuniary incentives. 

These types include the self-made entrepreneur, the head of a family 
business, the financier, the guinea-pig and ex-professional-man director, 
the ex-foreman, the ex-technician, and, finally, the trained administrator. 
Each type has different incentives and reacts differently to the vital problems 
upon whose solution large-scale efficiency depends. Each must be assessed 
differently in respect of efficiency in initiating large-scale expansion, in 
co-ordinating the several departments and functions of the firm, in re- 
investing capital, in making appointments, and in co-operating or combining 
with other firms. 

The self-made entrepreneur often fails to adapt himself and his organisa- 
tion to large-scale planning and technique ; his education, experience and 
individualist habits are not conducive to the successful co-ordination and 
reintegration of specialists or to co-operation with other firms. The 
family-head entrepreneur does not always wish to expand business in 
response to the chance of higher profits; he has the fixed though high 
standard of living of the gentleman of leisure, and the chance of a higher 
supply price will not necessarily increase his output. The trained adminis- 
trator offers on the whole the best hope that large-scale operations may be 
expanded with the same initiative that the entrepreneur displays when 
expanding his small-scale undertaking. 


Mr. E. L. Harcreaves.—The problem of business recovery (11.30). 


General view of industrial fluctuations. The different phases of fluctua- 
tions. The stage of recovery. The various explanations of how recovery 
occurs. The inadequacy of these explanations. The conception of an 
oscillation round an equilibrium level. The neglect of long period or 
secular movements. The various types of secular change and their inter- 
dependence. Relative rates of change of long-period factors. Inter- 
relations of cyclical and secular movements. The explanation of the 
differences in different cycles. Historical considerations and some quali- 
fications. Economic progress and future tendencies. Questions of policy. 
Conclusions. 


Wednesday, September 13. 
Mr. J. Syxes.—Public expenditure and public works (10.0). 


The aim is to examine some of the fundamental arguments advanced 
for and against the policy of promoting public works during depression, 
with more particular reference to the contemporary situation. 


506 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F, F*. 


Mr. GILBERT WALKER.—A rational and economic division of function 
between road and rail (11.30). 


Legal regulation of railway charges makes it profitable for road carriers 
to undercut the railways for all goods classed as General Merchandise, and 
to operate only where trafficis dense. A rational division of function should 
enable the railways to charge rates for General Merchandise competitive 
with road charges, and it should ensure that road carriers find it most 
profitable to compete for traffic where it is least dense. 

The classification upon goods classed as General Merchandise must be 
abolished and the railways allowed to charge rates competitive with road 
charges. ‘They must be permitted to discriminate against goods carried 
along the lighter traffic routes, and to close all unprofitable lines. 

The railways will become smaller organisations ; the road hauliers will 
have to work less lucrative routes, and the competitive relations between 
traders will be disturbed. The alternative to this is a monopoly which must 
include all lorries run in competition with the railways. In either case the 
disturbance to vested interests may be great enough to make an economic 
division of function unobtainable. 

If the existing and most uneconomic division of function cannot be 
avoided the railways must be protected from road competition by restricting 
road transport much more severely than is attempted by the Road and 
Rail Traffic Act. 


DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION (F*). 


Thursday, September 7. 


AFTERNOON. 


Discussion on Organisation as a technical problem (Chairman: Dr. E. F. 
ARMSTRONG, F.R.S.) (3.0) -— 


Major L. UrwickK.—Organisation as a technical problem. 


Importance of organisation. Principles which should govern human 
association of any kind can be studied as a technical problem irrespective of 
constitutional, political or social theory, the purpose of the particular under- 
taking or the personnel composing it. The work of Mooney and Reilly. 
Co-ordination as the main principle of organisation. The ‘span of control’: 
Graicunas’ theory. Lack of recognition of the limitations imposed by the 
“span of control.’ League of Nations organisation. 'The British Cabinet. 
Methods of dividing up activities : the ‘ line ’ principle and the ‘ functional’ 
principle. Effect of increasing specialisation, due to increasied scientific 
knowledge on co-ordination. Subdivision and delegation of the: work of 
co-ordination. The ‘ staff’ principle. Two sets of factors to be studied 
in any scheme, the allocation of duties and responsibilities and 1:he relations 
which result. ‘The relations of a ‘ staff’ offieer in the British Army’. The 
effect of such relations in the co-ordination of a single function : supply. 
The co-ordination of all functions in a British division. A parallel problem 
in industry: purchasing. Translating technical principles into operating 
practice. The problem of personalities. The historical approach; an 
army example. The importance of comparative study : an industf ial 
parallel of to-day. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F*. 507 


Mr. A. B. Biaxe.—Trade associations and combinations. 


(1) Historical aspect. 
(2) Extent.and significance. 
(3), Types of combination: 
A. Permanent. 
B. Terminable. 
(4) Aims, and inherent advantages and disadvantages. 
(5) Legal status and legislative restriction. 
(6) Formation. ‘ 
(7) Conclusion : constructive uses and the current trend. 


Friday, September 8. 
AFTERNOON. 


Discussion on The réle of accountancy in scientific management (Chair- 
man: Mr. ALFRED SALT) (3.0) :— 


Mr. F. R. M. ve Pauta—The réle of finance and accountancy in the 
management of large business combines. 


The new problem that has arisen by the introduction of the modern 
large-scale organisation. Successful administration, management and con- 
trol are absolutely dependent upon a sound organisation throughout. 

The administration of a large business combine, with its wide-flung and 
countless ramifications, is affected by every movement in the economic life 
of the world. 

The point of action is often far removed from the seat of management. 
The problem is how such an organisation is to be successfully managed and 
controlled. Management itself is becoming a new science. Finance is 
the basis of industrial enterprise. Finance, including accountancy, must 
be one of the main divisions of the organisation of a large business, the others 
being production, purchasing and selling. The placing of the finance division 
in the organisation of a business. The functions and responsibilities of the 
finance division and the part it should play in control and policy decisions. 

The accountancy organisation and the interlinking of same with a system 
of budgetary control, costing and statistical records. ‘The way in which 
this organisation should be used in the management of such a business. 
The type of personnel required and their training. An outline of the 
organisation of the finance division, centralisation and decentralisation. 
The great need for speed in the production of figures, reports, etc. The 
objects of a budgetary control system. 


Prof. WM. ANNAN.—The réle of accountancy in the average business. 


Introduction.—Post-war industrial conditions outcome of invention, 
scientific discovery, world-wide competition and high taxation. Indus- 
trialists have sought to overcome adverse conditions by combination, and 
formation of large units. 

Classification of business—Big business favoured by Government and 
Trades Unions. Encouragement of mergers and holding companies. 
Reaction towards individualism and average-sized business. Proportion 
of whole country’s trade carried by such. 

Need for statistics. —Statistics necessary for average-sized business as for 
large concerns. Possible without expert staff and expensive equipment if 


508 SECTIONAL 'TRANSACTIONS.—F*. 


book-keeping system properly planned. Réle of accountancy to plan 
system and provide figures to guide principal. Freedom to concentrate on 
manufacturing (or buying) and selling essential. 

Education of book-keepers.—Methods of preparation of statistics insuffi- 
ciently emphasised by current text-books. Elaboration desirable. Mean- 
time, under proper supervision, book-keepers can meet requirements. 

Kinds of statistics—No general forms. Each business own peculiar 
problems. Attitude of owner and book-keeper. History of specific case. 
Statistics produced without extra cost. Main statement comparison of 
Working Capital monthly, and monthly Manufacturing or Trading and 
Profit and Loss Account. Examples given and method of compilation 
explained. Budgeting for sales, estimates of gross profit, expenses and 
net profit, with proper form of standard costs. Periodic comparison 


with actual results. All a preventive against price-cutting and ultimate 
bankruptcy. 


Monday, September 11. 
AFTERNOON. 


Discussion on The psycho-physiological requirements of modern factory 
equipment, including particular instances of applied physiology and 
psychology (Chairman : Sir Henry Fow ter, K.B.E.) (3.0) :— 


Mr. G. P. CRowDEN.—The practical value of physiology to industry. 7 


Physiology, the medical science which deals with the working of the normal 
healthy body and the daily needs of man, has a dual field of application in 
industry, namely, to the worker in relation to his work and to the products 
of manufacture. Nearly sixteen million men and women in England and 
Wales are engaged in industry, and the daily cycle of work, fatigue and 
recovery must be in equilibrium if the health, comfort and efficiency of 
these workers are to be maintained. 

The execution of the work without undue fatigue; the intensity and 
nature of lighting requisite fora given task ; the conditions of temperature 
and ventilation in factories, workshops and mines compatible with human 
comfort, efficiency and health ; noise, vibration, food and clothing in rela- 
tion to occupation and environment—these are physiological problems 
some of which have been studied in this country and abroad, but much 
remains to be done. 

The products of industry, lighting installations, heating and ventilating 
systems, boots, headwear and clothing for this country and the tropics, 
insulation in building and ship construction and passenger transport vehicles, 
manufactured food-stuffs—all these things are bought by consumers for their 
better health, comfort or efficiency, and therefore the physiological needs 
of man should be studied and understood. 

Industrial science and physiological science should be working hand in 
hand—the latter prescribing and the former providing for the wants of man. 


Dr. G. H. Mires.—The human factor in relation to the design of 
factory equipment and machinery. 

Factory equipment and machinery has in the past been designed from the 
point of view of the engineer who desires to attain a definite mechanical 
result. Modern management is interested not only in the result, but in 
the efficiency with which the result can be repeated throughout each working 
day. An important factor in efficiency is the human being who controls’ 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—F*. 509 


the machine. Designers of machinery and factory equipment should 
therefore take into account the limitations of those who will use the 
machinery and equipment. Some of the limitations are due to :— 

(1) Fatigue, which may be caused by: (a) badly arranged controls or 
working positions ; (b) unduly heavy muscular effort ; (c) harmful posture, 
etc. 

(2) Rhythm of machine operations which do not fit in with rhythm of 
worker. 

(3) Working or observation points being badly placed. 

(4) Attention being distracted by moving parts. 

(5) Attention being distributed in cases where concentration is essential 
to efficiency. 

(6) Frustration of effort owing to bad design, in setting up, stripping and 
cleaning machines. 

Human effort can and does overcome many of the defects of machine 
design, but at a great loss of efficiency. The quality of work often suffers, 
and the wholly unnecessary strain is detrimental to human well-being. 
For the highest efficiency the machines should be designed to fit the human 
being. In cases where there are insuperable mechanical or process limita- 
tions, the workers should be specially selected to suit the peculiarities of 
the machine or process. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


AFTERNOON. 

Discussion on What are the essential basic data for the organisation of 
economic distribution ? (Chairman: Mrs. EtHeL M. Woop, C.B.E.) 
(3.0) :— 

Mr. Lawrence NEAL.—From the viewpoint of the retailer. 


In the triangle—consumer, distributor, producer—our basic knowledge is 
remarkably small. Vis-ad-vis the consumer we have practically no market 
analysis of his purchasing power by areas or by commodities ; no assessment 
of major trends in habits of spending. Nor has there been any classification 
of shopping districts. 

The internal structure of distribution has similarly remained unexamined. 
There are distributive costs in the sales organisations of the factory, in 
wholesaling, and in retailing. Further, the last-named subdivides into 
types such as the multiple chains, the departmental store, the small shop ; 
yet we know little about the present functions or the performance of each. 

Vis-a-vis the producer, mass-distribution may be usefully viewed as the 
last stage in the chain of productive processes. It requires, therefore, a 
very real knowledge of the economy of the factory. The possibilities and 
limitations of a material or a product in manufacture ; the dependence of 
costs on the size and regularity of the market ; elasticity of demand and new 
uses—such questions can only be satisfactorily solved where there is 
co-ordination between production and distribution. 

For a practical study of this subject attention might well be concentrated 
on actual examples of individual and successful experiment. 


Mr. G. I. AKEROYD.—From the viewpoint of the ‘ manufacturer- 
retailer.’ 


Instances of the practical value of basic data obtained where manufacturing 
and distributing outlets are centrally controlled and co-ordinated. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 


SECTION G.—ENGINEERING. 


Thursday, September 7. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Mr. R. W. ALLEN, C.B.E., on Some experiences 
in Mechanical Engineering (10.0). (See p. 129.) 
Mr. Wo. Taytor, O.B.E.—Historical and engineering features of Taylor, 
Taylor & Hobson’s works (11.15). 


Mr. JoHN CHAMBERLAIN.—The mechanisation of knitting (11.30). 
Although the invention of the first knitting machine by the Rev. Wm. 
Lee, of Calverton, Notts, in 1589, was a triumph of mechanical ingenuity, 
the machine was, of necessity, crude, and many scientific developments 
were required before the mechanisation of that type of machine could be 
achieved.. Onthe contrary, the latch needle, invented by Matthew’ Townsend 
of Leicester, in 1849, was definitely adapted to mechanisation soon after 
its invention. Many types of machines were introduced in the nineteenth 
century, but mechanisation proceeded much more rapidly after this time, 


510 


and, broadly speaking, developed on the following lines :— 
(1) The replacement of manual operations by automatic devices. 
(2) The development of scientific methods of loop forming and loop 


manipulation. 


(3) The introduction of stop motions for yarn breakage, etc. 


(4) The improvement in machine tools for knitting machine production. 


The following table shows the extent of the progress made. 


Apparatus Machine (C ee gs 
» ourses or er in. 
Date. or Machine. co = Revs. per a per 
Se: Min.). Operator. 
To A.D. 1933 | Knitting pins — — 200 to 300 
or crochet 
hook 
A.D. 1589 | Hand stock- | One-at-once, 20 courses 1,920 
ing frame 12-gauge. 
A.D. 1775 | Hand warp | 20-in. wide, | 20  ,, 4,800 
loom 12 needles 
per in. 
A.D. 1864 | Cotton’s Four-at-once, | 40 ,, 38,400 
frame 30-gauge. 
A.D. 1868 | Latch needle | 4 machines, | 20 revs. 192,000 
circular 4 feeders, 
machines 600 needles. 
A.D. 1933 | Cotton’s 24 - at- once, | 70 courses 829,440 
system 48-gauge. 
A.D. 1933 | Locknit warp | 2 machines, | 200 __,, 1,200,000 
looms 100 in. wide, 
30-gauge. 
A.D. 1933 | Circular 8 machines, | 27 revs. 3,110,800 
machines 12 feeders, 
1,200 needles. 
A.D. 1933 | Seamless hose| 10 machines, | 200 ,, 600,000 
machines 300 needles 
X 34 in. dia. 


DISCUSSION (12.15). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 511 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to works of Messrs. Taylor, Taylor & Hobson. 


Friday, September 8. 


Mr, R. S. Capon.—The reduction of aircraft noise (10.0). 


Audiometer measurements have been made of aircraft noise in flight, and 
of the noise of airscrews and engines on the ground. The experiments are 
described and deductions are made as to the means by which the noise may 
be reduced. 

It is shown that the airscrew noise depends primarily on the speed of the 
tips of the blades: lower tip speeds are therefore required for quietness. 
The improvement obtainable in this way is limited by the engine exhaust 
noise, which is about 80 decibels in cruising flight. Effective exhaust 
silencers of the baffle type can be made, but they may involve some increase 
of fire risk in the event of an accident. It is estimated that the noise level 
in a single-engined aircraft might be reduced to rather less than 70 decibels 
(approximately that in a train with open windows) by the use of an exhaust 
silencer and a low-speed airscrew. 

Reduction of noise in cabins by sound-proofing the walls is briefly 
considered, and some reference is made to the reduction of aircraft noise 
heard on the ground. 


DIscussION (10.30). 


The film in engineering—Opening Statement by Mr. H. E. Wimprris, 
C.B.E. (11.0). 


Cinemaphotography is found to be an increasingly useful tool in scientific 
and technical investigations. It may be used in three quite different ways. 
The simplest of all is its use to record the rapidly changing indications on the 
dials of instruments in cases where it is impossible to have an observer, or 
where, if there were one, he could not make and record his observations 
quickly enough ; an example is the ‘ automatic observer ’ used in the testing 
of single-seater aircraft. 

Another use lies in the ability of the cinema camera to make at any desired 
speed a record of the position or attitude of some moving body, the films 
being afterwards measured up under a microscope. An example of this, 
again drawn from aeronautical engineering, is the study of the motion of the 
spin of a free flying model ; another the study of the full scale motion of 
porpoising in a flying-boat. 

The third method of using the film is to take slow-motion pictures of 
rapid movements so that they are easily followed by the eye, thus enabling 
the quality of the action to be studied or demonstrated—e.g., the study of 
the launching of an airplane from a catapult. 

A series of short films prepared by the Empire Marketing Board are 
shown to illustrate some of the methods employed in aeronautical research, 
together with another Empire Marketing Board film illustrating the technical 
development of a motor transport train to open up undeveloped territories 
in Africa. 


Examples : 
Mr. H. E. Wimperis, C.B.E.—Aeronautical research (11.10). 


512 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 


Sir Henry FowLer.—An oversea motor unit (11.30). 


Some five years ago, following certain committees, the Overseas Motor 
Transport Directing Committee was formed under the Chairmanship of 
Sir James Currie, K.C.M.G., K.B.E. The object of this committee was 
to investigate the question of motor transport in the Dominions and Colonies, 
in undeveloped areas which were not ready for railway transport. After 
considerable investigation the Committee, with financial assistance from the 
Empire Marketing Board and the Dominions and Colonies concerned, 
decided to build experimental 15-ton units capable of traversing difficult 
country, the design being largely due to a member of the Committee, 
Mr. Herbert Niblett, C.B.E., D.S.O. 

The film shown is that of one of these 24-wheel vehicles, which has 
been successfully running in the Gold Coast since March 1933, and depicts 
very clearly not only the performance of the unit, but the various engineering 
difficulties which were met with and overcome by the unit. 


Mr. W. WILson.—Testing electrical switch equipment (11.50). 


The kinema camera is destined to play an increasingly important. part 
in the testing of electrical equipment. Its principal uses are first, the 
recording of the visual results of tests, more especially those effects which 
may be too transient for reliable detection by the eye; and secondly, the 
keeping of a continuous record of instrument readings. Examples of the 
first category are breaking capacity and instantaneous carrying capacity tests 
on electrical circuit breakers, for which the kinema is specially useful for 
recording the emission of flame and the moving or springing of the various 
parts. One of the commonest visual phenomenon is the electric arc, and 
since the duration is short, it can be recorded by a simplified form of kinema 
_ camera capable of very high speeds, and taking only say 12 or 24 successive 
frames on a single glass plate. Half a dozen illustrations are given of 
records taken with the kinema and the high-speed camera, including a 
short circuit at a Grid sub-station, the blowing of a similar fuse by DC 
and AC short circuits, the operation of a lightning arrester, the flash-over of 
rotary converters and its extinction by a high speed circuit breaker, and the 
continuous recording of no less than 17 instrument readings simultaneously 
during the sea trials of an electrically propelled vessel. 


Mr. Atec RopGeR.—Some psychological tests (12.20). 


This film though intended primarily to illustrate a number of the more 
practical tests used by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 
shows the application of the film to that side of engineering which deals 
with the selection of operatives. It also illustrates the use that can be made 
of the film completely to record definite examples of dexterity and quickness 
in manipulation, and in judgment, also to establish comparisons between 

alternative methods. 


AFTERNOON. 


Visits : (i) to works of Messrs. Mellor, Bromley & Co. Ltd. 
(ii) to works of Messrs. Wildt & Co. Ltd. 


Saturday, September 9. 


Visit to works of Messrs. John Ellis & Sons Ltd., quarry of Mountsorrel 
Granite Co. Ltd., Hallgates Filter House of the Leicester City Council, 
and Cropston Waterworks Pumping Station. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 513 


Monday, September 11. 
Discussion on Sewage treatment and disposal (10.0) :— 


Mr. J. Duncan Watson.—Introduction. 


One of the indispensable needs of a great city is a copious supply of potable 
water, but after that water has been used and fouled, there is sometimes 
a temptation to discharge it into the nearest river, regardless of consequences. 

Thanks to progress in sanitary engineering, aided by biological and 
chemical discoveries, there is less excuse for inefficient treatment than 
formerly ; but the multiplicity of industrial wastes admitted into sewers 
accentuates the problem of what is the best form of treatment. 

Land irrigation is a sound and reliable method of purifying sewage, but 
it is unsuitable for the majority of urban districts. 

The percolating filter has taken the place of the contact bed, but its 
universal popularity is on the wane, chiefly because it tends to give rise to 
smell and to engender flies in summer. 

Bio-aeration or activated sludge treatment now takes first place; it is 
devoid of both smell and flies, and is mechanically adaptable to the pro- 
duction of an effluent which meets the requirements of the stream. 

Sludge digestion is at last receiving the attention it deserves. It is 

economical, efficient and final. It produces a valuable non-smelling gas 
—methane—and yields a humus which is easily dried, containing about 
3 per cent. of nitrogen. This method of sludge treatment has come to 
stay. 
Public opinion may have been slow to appreciate the work of the sanitary 
engineer. Still, it has advanced steadily, and it is evidenced by recent 
legislation—e.g. the Local Government Act, 1929, which contemplates 
the co-ordination of urban district authorities with the object of reducing 
the number of sewage purification works. The predominant example of 
this is found in the county of Middlesex, where one up-to-date plant is 
being substituted for twenty-nine existing sewage works. 


Mr. H. F. Arter.—Legal aspect of river pollution, with special 
reference to the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876 (10.10). 


The Joint Advisory Committee on River Pollution in 1928 reported that 
there was no lack of administrative authority for enforcing thelaw. ‘ Never- 
theless it is admitted on all hands that many of our rivers are seriously pol- 
luted and that the law designed to prevent avoidable contamination is to a 
large extent not put into operation.’ This paper examines the provisions 
of the existing law, more particularly the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 
1876, and suggests means by which it may be more effectively enforced. The 
Act deals in separate parts with solid refuse, sewage and trade refuse. It 
applies to all non-tidal rivers and streams, and the duty of enforcing it is 
entrusted to County Councils, Borough Councils, Urban and Rural District 
Councils and Fishery Boards. The procedure is not expensive, as the 
County Courts have jurisdiction to deal with all offences. The Act also 
enables local authorities to give facilities to manufacturers to drain their 
trade effluents into the sewers, and thus enables sewage and trade refuse to 
be purified at one centre under expert management. 


Prof. W. E. Apenry and Dr. A. G. G. Leonarp.—Purification of 
sewage by natural processes (10.25). 


Results of laboratory experiments which elucidate certain fundamental 
principles involved in the aerobic purification of sewage liquors are given. 


514 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 


By the extraction and analysis of the gases occurring in polluted waters 
undergoing oxidation it has been possible to study the changes accompany- 
ing the destruction of impurities occurring in true and colloidal solution in 
such waters. Thus it has been established, within the limits of experi- 
mental error, that equal volumes of the same polluted water undergoing 
aerobic fermentation consume equal quantities of oxygen and give rise to 
products which are constant in quantity, provided always that dissolved 
oxygen be present in excess. 

The rates of solution of oxygen and nitrogen by fresh and salt waters 
have been determined and a well-defined mathematical equation obtained 
connecting rate of solution, surface exposed, volume of water, temperature 
and degree of saturation. 

Air dissolved by water at its surface does not remain concentrated in the 
surface liquid but sinks more or less rapidly, causing aeration to depths of 
at least 10 ft., a process for which the term ‘ streaming ’ has been adopted. 


Mr. JouN Hawortu, M.B.E.—Bio-aeration or activated sludge 
(10.40). 


Mr. Frank C. Voxes.—The treatment and utilisation of sludge 


(10.55). 

Toward. the middle of the last century the frequent epidemics, which 
attacked urban populations, aroused public opinion, and gave rise to the 
gradual development of pure water supplies, water carriage of the excreta, 
the removal of the settleable solids from the sewage, and the oxidation of 
the foul water. 

Anticipations of a rich financial return from the general application of 
the settled solids to the land have not been realised. In many cases it is 
necessary to dispose of this offensive matter or sludge on site. Its character 
can be completely altered by subjecting it to a process of digestion. 

At the works of the Birmingham Tame and Rea District Drainage Board 
is treated the sewage from a population of 1,200,000. The watery mass of 
highly odorous material known as sewage sludge is digested in separate 
tanks in two stages, pumped on to drying beds, lifted and dumped. There 
is no nuisance from smell. 

The size of the works required for carrying out this process has been 
materially decreased recently by utilising the gaseous products of the 
digestion process. The power required for other purposes has been 
supplied continuously by consuming the sludge gas in engines having 
a total of 1,000 horse power, the waste heat abstracted from the engine 
cylinders and from the exhaust gases being used to raise the temperature 
of the digesting sludge. 

The rate at which digestion occurs depends very largely upon temperature, 
and the provision of means for maintaining the digesting sludge at a uniform 
temperature enables a sewage works to be independent of any outside source 
of power. 


Mr. H. R. Lupton.—Machinery for dealing with sewage (11.10). 


The paper is intended primarily as an appendix to those dealing with 
sewage treatment. It deals only with the mechanical appliances involved, 
not with constructional and civil works. 

The mechanical appliances are divided into four categories according -as 
they deal with (a) crude sewage, (b) sewage liquor, (c) sludge, (d) screenings. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 515 


Under the first category are described (i) pumps and ejectors, with special 
reference to unchokeability, (ii) settling tank mechanisms and screening 
plant. 

Under the second category, in addition to (i) pumps, fall (ii) aeration 
devices, including agitators and surface aeration plant, sprinklers and air- 
compressors with diffusers, and (iii) dosage apparatus including chlorinators 
and devices for adding precipitants, etc. 

Under the third category fall (i) pumps and ejectors, (ii) stirrers, gas- 
collectors, heating mechanism, etc., (iii) sludge presses and driers, grease 
extraction apparatus, etc. 

In the fourth category are included (i) conveyors, (ii) disintegrators. 

In addition to the above, brief reference is made to special valves, floating 
arms, etc., which are used in connection with sewage manipulation. 


DISCUSSION (11.30). 
AFTERNOON. 


Visits : (i) to sewage works of Birmingham Tame and Rea Drainage 
Board. 


(ii) to Fort Dunlop. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Mr. JosEPpH GOULDBOURN.—Shoe manufacturing machinery and some 
special problems in its design (10.0). 


The paper outlines the comprehensive character of the machinery and 
summarises categories of special machines developed for performing certain 
important operations of the many different ones into which the manufacture 
of shoes has become divided. In illustration of peculiar problems which 
the designer has had to solve, salient features of several machines are 
discussed. These are a stitching machine, which will set a lockstitch 
reliably at a selected depth in a sole as much as # of an inch thick while 
sewing 1,000 or more stitches per minute ; metallic fastening machines com- 
prising means for marshalling and delivering both headed and headless nails ; 
a pulling over machine pneumatic mechanism for simultaneously inverting 
and delivering a number of tacks to an equal number of tack driving 
mechanisms ; a lasting machine for securing the upper to the insole by 
staples which clinch themselves in the thickness itself of the comparatively 
thin insole; a sole edge burnishing machine in which, while the sole 
edge is traversing across the tool, both are automatically adjusted to the dual 
sole curvatures by systems of feelers operating machine controls through 
hydraulic relays, and, lastly, a pattern grading machine embodying duplex 
pantograph mechanism. 


Prof, Mites Wa.ker, F.R.S.—Great engineering works of profit as a cure 
for unemployment (11.0). 


During the last twenty years many sane engineering projects have been 
brought forward in different parts of the country—underground railways 
-in large towns, bridges over rivers, extensions of electric power generation 
and transmission, the change from tramways to Diesel-driven omnibuses, 
the change from steam-driven locomotives on our main-line railways to 
Diesel-electric locomotives especially of the type containing torque-con- 
version apparatus. Projects of these kinds are still before the public. In 


516 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 


many cases the possibility of a large margin of profit can be shown. In 
many the margin of profit is not sufficiently enticing to stir the people to 
action. The paper deals with some of the projects which promise a fair 
return and would keep employed hundreds of thousands of workmen and 
workwomen. 

It also deals with methods of finance similar to those proposed in America ; 
for enabling the people to purchase the things that they have made or for 
contributing to the cost of the future wealth-producing projects. 


Mr. M. Du-Piat-TayLor.—Sea defences and reclamation of land from 
the sea (11.30). 


The loss by coastal erosion and the gain of land by accretion around the 
coasts of Great Britain about balance, but the land lost is generally good 
agricultural land, and even parts of towns or villages, and the gain is orly 
sand or shingle. 

The loss can be prevented by coast defence works, such as sea embank- 
ments or sea walls, the drainage of clay cliffs, and groyning. Although 
reclamation of land from the sea for industrial purposes may be an economic 
process it is not so for agricultural purposes unless it is carried out in 
combination with dredging or the disposal of waste materials. 

Material deposited on reclamation areas may be material dredged from 
adjoining navigation channels, which can be pumped ashore by suitable 
plant. This is often cheaper than sending it out to sea to be dumped in 
deep water. 

House refuse may also be used for raising the level of such low-lying 
lands if economical means can be found for so depositing it. In London 
alone, the quantity of house refuse to be disposed of annually is 1} million 
tons, and in addition, 3 million tons of sludge from sewage disposal is sent 
out to be dumped at sea. The Author suggests that means of disposing 
of all this upon marsh or mud land should be investigated. 

As regards coast defence works, various forms of protection will be dis- 
cussed and approximate costs given; and finally, various schemes for 
enclosure and reclamation which have already been put forward will be 
examined from the point of view of probable ultimate profit and the relief 
of unemployment. 


Mr. WALTON Mauenan, M.1.Struct.E.— Some canal projects (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to works of British United Shoe Machinery Co. Ltd. 


Wednesday, September 13. 


Mr. A. M. McKay and Mr. R. N. Arnotp.—The effect of time and 
temperature on the embrittling of steels (10.0). 


The effect of stress, of temperature of heating, and of time of heating 
on the embrittlement of steels are considered ; brief mention is made of 
results obtained from tensile and hardness tests. Results of tests showing 
the embrittlement with time of mild steel after quenching from moderate 
temperatures are also given; an attempt is made to correlate results and 
to suggest a possible explanation of embrittling phenomena. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G, H. 517 


REPORTS OF RESEARCH COMMITTEES (10.45) :— 
Earth Pressures. 
Electrical Terms and Definitions. 
Stresses in Overstrained Materials. 


SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Mr. K. H. Jacxson.—An aspect of Celtic seasonal literature : the weather 
prophecy (10.0). 


The primitive mantic tradition in Ireland included prognostications of 
weather and fertility as well as prophecies relating to human affairs, the two 
not being separated but treated as general manifestations of prosperity or 
the reverse, and traces of the same kind are found in Wales ; certain obscure 
Irish poems are to be explained in this way rather than as charms or descrip- 
tions, but the distinction between charm and prophecy is not always easy 
to draw. Various systems of foretelling the weather other than by direct 
inspiration, particularly from observations about New Year’s Day ; perhaps 
originally part of the native mantic and seasonal lore, but later much 
influenced by the Latin learned tradition and disinfected from the taint of 
paganism by Christian formule. Survivals in modern Celtic folklore. 

The possibility that weather prophecies influenced seasonal poetry ; 
similarities of phrasing common to the mantic poems and prose weather-lore 
are perhaps to be found in some of the Irish poems on the seasons, and also 
traces of Welsh weather-wisdom in an early Welsh poem on winter. 


Prof. Dr. Juttus Pokorny.—The origin of the Celts (10.45). 


People usually look for the Celtic cradle to south-west Germany and 
the Rhineland, where are found the greatest number of Celtic river-names, 
and where later the historical Celtic La Téne culture originated from the 
western Hallstatt culture; in the Bronze, Age the so-called Tumulus 
culture was found there. 

Of late it has become evident that at about 1200 B.C., important move- 
ments of peoples and cultures had gone to transform the cultural aspect of 
the greater part of Europe. ‘The people of the Lausitz culture or urnfield 
civilisation, starting from eastern Germany and western Poland, seem to 
have conquered great parts of middle and southern Europe, among them 
the Celtic cradle, where they became finally absorbed by the earlier Tumulus 
folk. In this way the Celts of history came into existence. 

The language of the urnfield people gives us an important clue to the 
origin of the Celts. The urnfield colonies in Hungary and Upper Italy 
can be shown to belong to the Illyrians and Venetians, two branches of the 
western Aryans, and the great number of Veneto-Illyrian place- and river- 
names in the Lausitz territory point to the same direction. The linguistic 
isolation of the Teutonic languages (for the relations with Celtic are late) 
is easily explained by the fact that their southern and eastern frontiers were 
occupied by Veneto-Illyrian peoples, of whose language, the ancestor of 
modern Albanian, we know very little. 


518 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—H. 


The Celts must be the product of amalgamation between the Veneto- 
Illyrians and the Tumulus people, which may be called Proto-Celts. Since 
the Aryan invaders of Italy, whose language is most closely related to that of 
the Celts, seem to have come from the same region, the Tumulus people 
may be identified with the primitive Italo-Celts who had remained in their 
old home after the Italic peoples had left for the south. 

The speaker has been able to show for the first time the close relation 
between the Veneto-Illyrian and Celtic languages, and has discovered many 
linguistic traces of the Veneto-IIlyrian occupation in Celtic territory. The 
Aryan elements in the language of the so-called Ligurians are probably 
due to an Illyrian invasion as well. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Rt. Hon, Lord RaGLaNn on What is Tradition ? 
(11.30). (See p. 145.) 

Mrs. H. Wrace E.tcee.—The Earth Mother cult in N.E. Yorkshire 
(12.30). 

The Earth Mother is found as the Old Wife in our Moorland area, this 
name being attached to sacred stones, old trackways and burial sites. The 
Old Wife is the name given to the last sheaf of corn cut at harvest, in our 
area known as the mell-doll. Another name for the Old Wife is Carlin, 
of Scandinavian origin. As a spring goddess she is preserved to-day in 
Carlin Sunday. She was worshipped as Freya and Nanna in the ninth and 
tenth centuries. We have ample evidence that she was guardian of the dead 
throughout the Bronze Age, and a double-axe cult derived from Crete 
pervaded the district. Not only the axe, but shells, necklaces and cup- 
stones are all sacred symbols of the Earth Mother. She was also wor- 
shipped in the Bronze Age as a sky goddess. A hitherto unrecognised type 
of megalithic monument, groups of three standing stones, represent her in 
her threefold aspect. We find many traces of her cult to-day, as, for 
instance, in our inn signs and bee customs. 


AFTERNOON. 
Mr. W. Keay.—The Raw Dykes, Leicester : a Roman aqueduct (2.15). 


On the south side of Leicester, within a mile of the centre of the City, 
is a grass-grown earthwork known as ‘ The Raw Dykes,’ the use of which 
has puzzled many generations. 

It is constructed on side-long ground, on the ‘ give and take’ principle, 
the excavation on the east side being deposited as an embankment on the 
west side. ‘The channel thus made is 340 ft. long, 20 ft. wide at the bottom, 
72, ft. at the top, and averages 10 ft. deep. ‘There is evidence to show that 
the raat (within recent years) extended towards the city for nearly 
a mile. 

Former writers have ascribed its use as ‘ the bounds of a Roman Cursus 
or Racecourse,’ others to ‘ Some defence to the Roman Camp.’ 

The author contends that it is the remains of a Roman. aqueduct 
tapping the river on the upstream side, for the water supply of Leicester 
(Ratz), and discharging it on the downstream side. 


Mr. A. T. J. Dottar.—Prehistoric and some historic communities of 
Lundy, Bristol Channel (2.45). 


The presence on Lundy of undoubted microliths, well-finished round 
scrapers of Bronze Age type and many manipulated blades of beach-flint 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS ,—H. 519 


and quartzite which occur in association with lean-to dolmens, standing 
stones, part of a stone row, stone circles, tumuli and kists indicates that this 
isolated granite island in the Severn Sea was occupied by at least two pre- 
historic communities of Cornubian affinity. 

Evidence on the island suggests that an early and backward settlement of 
Neolithic cultural type was absorbed or replaced by a subsequent population 
of Mesolithic or Early Bronze Age culture. 

The earlier community seems to have produced and employed distructive 
tools, including rostrated round scrapers, deeply notched flakes, limpet- 
lifters and limpet-hammers. 

The later community is to be associated with the more elaborate tools of 
blue flint, with the stone monuments and the graves. Discoveries of barrel- 
shaped collared beads and fragments of a gilt-bronze ornament, together 
with cylindrical and spherical beads of cobalt glass, point to an occupation 
of Lundy by a Viking or Irish Early Iron Age people. An inscribed mono- 
lith bears out the former conclusion. 

The island was known to the Romans as Herculea, while it appears as 
Caer Sidi, the Fortress of the Fairies in Welsh folk-lore. Its recorded 
history, which begins in thetwelfth century, is one of many short occupations 
by a succession of transient communities, including rebellious French nobles, 
Scottish sea-raiders, Spanish pirates, Turkish corsairs, English privateers, 
soldiers, farmers, monks and quarrymen. 


Dr. A. Ratstrick.—Developed Tardenoisian sites in N.E. England (3.15). 


Many surface finds of flints of Mesolithic type have been recorded in recent 
years from the North of England, but only rarely have flint sites been excavated 
in a position with clear stratigraphy, until the work of Buckley and Armstrong. 
This paper records several sites from the north-east coast, which occur on 
the boulder clay and are covered by the coastal sand-dune belt, and several 
sites from the Pennines where peat (dated by pollen analysis methods) is 
the cover. Some of the coastal sites are very rich and have yielded a few 
thousand flint chips and implements, sufficient to warrant a statistical 
summary of the culture. The main types of worked flint are very beautiful 
elongated cores and core scrapers, small circular scrapers, blades with 
secondary microlithic chipping, and geometric and semi-geometric ‘ pygmy ’ 
points. The culture shows local development from early Tardenoisian, 
and is occasionally associated with finely chipped arrow points and early 
types of Neolithic implements. The relation of the sites to the sand-dunes 
and coastal ‘ forest-bed ’ peats has been investigated, as well as the age of 
the peat cover of the Pennine sites. 


Dr, F. OswaLp.—Margidunum, a Claudian camp on the Fosse Way (3.35). 


Mr. BertraM Tuomas, O.B.E.—The first crossing of the South Arabian 
Desert (5.30). 


Friday, September 8. 


Prof. C. DaryLL Forpe.—Native warfare on the Lower Colorado River 
(10.0). 


The tribes of the Lower Colorado River are remarkable for their cultural 
divergence from immediately surrounding peoples. They are not transi- 
tional between the Pueblo peoples to the east and the Central Californians 
to the west and appear to have been uninfluenced by the westward infiltration 


520 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 


of Puebloan concepts, although there is evidence that some of these reached 
the Pacific coast. One of their outstanding characters is the existence 
of strong tribal sense and its association with warfare. ‘These features 
are lacking among the peoples of adjacent areas. An analysis of the military 
conventions and insignia ot the Lower Colorado peoples suggests unexpected 
parallels with the Western Plains area beyond the Rockies. This relation 
is, however, not to be explained by a late westward diffusion of Plains con- 
cepts, but rather to acommon basis of military tradition, probably of southern 
origin. No elaboration of military societies has occurred in the Lower 
Colorado region, but the belief that military success is essential to the well- 
being of the tribe and that warfare should be conducted by tormal challenge 
and set battle has led to prolonged hostility between traditional enemies 
within the area. 

No economic objective or territorial aggrandisement is sought in warfare. 
Militarism is maintained and perpetuated by magical beliefs and by the social 
prestige of bravery as exhibited in conventional forms and obligations. 


Prof. V. Sux.—The Eskimos of Labrador and the extinction of primitive 
races of man (10.30). 


The latitude of the Labrador peninsula is about the same as that of England, 
and Cape Chidley in the north corresponds with the North Cape of Scotland. 
Yet, owing to the North Pole currents, the whole region has more or less 
the character of an arctic country. Its aboriginal inhabitants were Eskimos, 
yet, at present, there are beside 800 pure blood Eskimos many mixed breeds, 
White and Eskimo, and White settlers as well. There is no doubt left that 
the pure blood Eskimos of Labrador, who two centuries ago inhabited also 
the South Coast, and at present are restricted to the North Coast, are 
slowly dying out. It is the same with the Alaskan Eskimos, and not only 
Eskimos, but many of the more isolated small groups of mankind are dying 
out. It is certain that the Labrador Eskimos were, for the last hundred and 
fifty years, fortunate enough to be under a very conscientious and peaceful 
administration, yet, in spite of that, their numbers are diminishing. For 
comparison we may consider the fate of the Australian aborigines, and a 
close study of both groups indicates that the main causes show the same 
features. So, taken altogether, the history of primitive groups of mankind, 
the downward trend of their vitality and consequent extinction may be 
summarised as follows: (1) Extinction by weapon, in the same sense as 
many animals have been exterminated. This is, of course, now out of 
question and only of historical interest, for, in fact, all over the world 
we see the working of humanitarian bodies, as, for instance, Native Health 
Service, Mission Societies, etc. (2) Extinction by sudden changing of the 
respective milieu. (3) Extinction by imported disease. (4) Extinction by 
destruction of the natural resources necessary for the aboriginal mode of 
life. (5) Extinction by mixing. The items under Nos. 2, 3, and 4 we may 
include under one heading as ‘ Effects of Europeanisation,’ and these, under 
the modern aspects of general pathology and teachings on nutrition and 
morbidity, are of greatest importance—in fact, Europeanisation is at present 
almost the only factor to be taken into consideration. 

This paper is based on personal observations among the Eskimos of 
Labrador, on Dr. Hutton’s study of health conditions among the Eskimos 
of Labrador, on the studies of the health status of Australian Natives by 
Prof. Burton Cleland, on the study of the health status of different African 
tribes by Orr and Gilk and on the works of R. McCarrison, Coonoor, 
South India, on nutrition and disease. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—H. 521 


Dr. L. S. B. Leaxkey.—Kikuyu marriage customs and problems arising 
therefrom as a result of contact with European civilisation (11.0). 


Mr. James HorNELL.—Indonesian contact with East African culture 
(11.30). 

Indian contact with Sumatra and Java, commencing before the opening 
of our era, gave rise to a rich civilisation, coupled with much maritime 
activity and the construction of large sea-going vessels with double-out- 
riggers. Voyaging in these, Sumatrans formed settlements in Madagascar 
about the second to fourth centuries A.D. The voyages were probably 
coastwise, with calls at Ceylon, Malabar, and the East African coast. Other 
settlements were made in the tenth century or possibly rather later. African 
slaves formed part of the tribute sent to China from Sumatra and Java and 
an Arab writer mentions a slaving expedition from Indonesia in the tenth 
century. 

The Bantu strain in Madagascar is probably the result of the importation 
of African slaves by the Indonesian colonists. 

Technological evidence also points to intimate contact. The presence 
of the coconut palm, the coconut scraper, the bar-zither and the double- 
outrigger canoe in East Africa is strong evidence of long-continued 
Indonesian influence radiating from coastal settlements. Arab writers 
mention Sumatran and Malagasy voyages to Kilwa and Mogadishu, and one 
records a definite tradition of the occupation of Aden by Malagasy people. 
Their influence has penetrated inland by diffusion; the Baganda canoe 
incorporates features of Javanese vessels, the bar-zither has penetrated to 
Lake Tanganyika and some of the beads in Rhodesian ruins have Indonesian 
counterparts. 


Dr. M. Fortes.—Some eae: of kinship and the family in West Africa 
(12.0). 

An area in the northern territories of the Gold Coast has been selected, 
and the structure and functions of the family investigated. The type of 
family found is common in many parts of West Africa. It is a joint family, 
acting as a unit in most departments of cultural life, under the control of 
a patriarchal head. While the type is constant, many variations occur. 
It is proposed to investigate, on the one hand, the factors which make for the 
internal cohesion of this type of family grouping, and, on the other, how its 
cohesion with the greater society is preserved. 


Dr. Lucy Mair.—The growth of economic individualism among African 
peoples (12.30). 

The essential difference between native and European economic organisa- 
tion lies, not in some form of communism, but in the fact that in the native 
system the mechanism of distribution did not consist in a series of exchanges 
of goods with a view to profit, but was closely correlated with the whole political 
system. Wealth was the privilege of political authority, and was acquired 
not by economic skill or effort but by the exercise of qualities approved 
by those in authority, especially wisdom in council and courage in war, and 
the desire for it was thus a motive for socially approved behaviour. Wealth 
carried with it the obligation of generosity to relatives or subjects, and one 
treason why it was sought was because it enabled the possessor to make the 
gifts required by custom on a more lavish scale than his neighbours. This 

T 


522 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 


system worked satisfactorily, largely because native wealth consisted in 
a limited range of commodities in which the point of satiety was reached 
fairly early. 

The introduction of European economic methods has profoundly modified 
such systems. Wealth is now the direct result of individual economic 
effort, and the opportunities of acquiring what he desires by wage-labour 
make the individual independent of paternal as of political authority. 
Economic privileges begin to be abused when there is so much to be gained 
by disregarding the obligations that go with them. Thus the economic 
progress of Africa is tending to be a cause of serious social disintegration. 


AFTERNOON. 


Mr. A. F. Durron.—Inheritance of acquired characters (2.15). 


The fact that many eminent men were begotten by fathers of ripe age 
suggests that capability may be in some degree an acquired character and 
that the older the father the greater the chance of it being acquired. The 
striking difference between the frequency distributions of the paternal 
ages of one thousand eminent men and those of a more normal population 
supports this view. 

The reason is discussed why, when the inheritance of other acquired 
characters is barely perceptible, the inheritance of a development of the 
brain should be comparatively striking. Further evidence is adduced in 
support of the thesis. ‘The question as to whether acquired characters are 
inherited is considered to be not merely of academic interest but, so far as 
man is concerned, one of paramount importance. ‘The eugenic implications 
are briefly discussed. 


Prof. R. Ruccies Gates, F.R.S.—The blood groups as an index of racial 
characteristics (2.45). 


It is now generally agreed that the A and B blood groups are inherited as 
dominant Mendelian units, and that the factors A, B and O are multiple 
allelomorphs. The A and B blood groups appear to have arisen as repeated 
mutations from O. A and O only are present in such primitive or outlying 
peoples as the Australian aborigines, Bushmen, Lapps and Polynesians. 
On this and other evidence A is regarded as older than B. It has probably 
spread, (a) by repeated mutations, (b) by inheritance, (c) by migration of 
peoples. B, which is highest in Eastern and Southern Asia, where A is 
also present, probably spread later from an Asiatic centre. 

The Eskimos and American Indians, when pure-blooded, are probably 
all O. This is difficult to account for, as they are relatively advanced and 
Mongoloid, and might therefore have been expected to have received both 
A and B before crossing Behring Strait. Tests of 300 coastal Indians of 
British Columbia show that they also probably had originally no B nor A, 
and are thus in agreement with other American Indians. The blood groups 
also. throw further light on infiltration and race mixture in the case of 
Australian aborigines, Bushmen, Maoris and Indians. 


Dr. Harry CaAMPBELL.—The factors which have determined man’s evolution 
from a primitive primate (3.15). 
The evolution of man from a Primitive Primiate has. essentially been an 
evolution of brain. A study of this evolutional phase brings into prominence 
certain evolutional factors: (1) The apparent potency of natural selection 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 523 


as compared with the transmission of acquired characters: seeing that 
cerebral neurons do not multiply after birth, phylogenetic cerebral increase 
must have been due to the selection of innate cerebral variations. (2) The 
stimulating influence of competitive social life. (3) The possession of 
exquisitely prehensile hands conferring survival value on super-average 
intelligence. (4) The scope factor, which widened out from the arboreal to 
the semi-terrestrial life, and from this to the wholly terrestrial life. (5) A 
hunting career, which, in the case of the proto-human (who lacked the 
equipment, anatomical and instinctive, of the carnivore), caused success in 
the hunt to depend largely upon the possession of a nimble intelligence, 
thus enhancing the survival value of super-average intelligence. (6) The 
influence of polygamy: the bravest and most intelligent leaders secured 
the largest number of mates, and thus left the most numerous progeny. 
(7) Inter-tribal warfare, which led to the elimination of the least intelligent 
groups. 


Mr. A. L. ArMsTtRoNG.—Summary of recent and current excavations at 
Creswell Crags (3.45). 


Dr. E. H. Hunt.—The Rafai fakirs of Hyderabad (5.30). 


Saturday, September 9. 


Excursion to Creswell Crags, Derbyshire; Southwell Minster ; 
Newark Castle ; Margidunum (in the Fosse Way). 


Sunday, September 10. 


AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to earthworks in East Leicestershire; Burrough Camp ; 
Sauvey Castle, and Castle Hill Camp, near Hallaton. 


Monday, September 11. 


Mr. A. W. CarpDINALL.—The strengthening of superstitious beliefs among 
the tribes of the Gold Coast (10.0). 


It is commonly agreed that contact with Europeans has been to a con- 
siderable extent destructive of African social, political and religious insti- 
tutions. This is only partly true; actually in certain spheres the reverse 
has been the case. 

The most prominent features of religion as observed in the Gold Coast 
are sumanism, nature-gods and witchcraft. Complementary to these are 
the observance of omens and a deeply ingrained belief in luck. 

In these European contact tends to increase superstition through example, 
inquiry, acquiescence and even belief therein by individuals. Authority 
has been forced on many occasions to recognise and support beliefs that 
were dying out ; and in the case of witchcraft European Administrations 
“have been placed in the dilemma either of recognising it in order to prohibit 
‘its practice or of strengthening its power by forbidding measures taken by 
the indigenes against its machinations. 


524 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 


The numbing effect of omen-taking, consultations with soothsayers and 
similar practices has not hitherto received the attention it deserves. Most 
Gold Coast natives will do nothing without observing the ritual of the 
omen. Thus he naturally tends to become more and more engulfed in 
the ruts of custom. The introduction of new ideas by Europeans has 
increased the opportunities and broadened the outlook of the native, and 
thereby enlarged immensely the field and scope of this practice. 

Finally the attribute of luck given to one who has power or success has 
been inevitably attached to the European. This has resulted in magnificent 
loyalty, which in turn has ensured success and therefore confirmed the belief. 


Dr. R. S. Ratrray, C.B.E—Present tendencies of African Colomal 
Governments (10.40). 


The British system of governing her Colonial possessions in Africa may 
be conveniently summed up in the phrase ‘ Indirect Rule.’ By this is 
implied, (a) the administration of the African masses by or through Africans 
on lines conforming to their own national customs and traditions, and 
(6) that the European is only there to guide, with a minimum of interference, 
being prepared eventually to quit, leaving the African ‘ to stand alone.’ 

A certain long-standing self-complacency, regarding this system—arising, 
perhaps, from the fact that all lovers of Africa and her people desire to see 
the African national genius preserved, and because ‘ Indirect Rule’ seems 
the only way of attaining this end—has begun to give place, in the minds 
of some of its staunchest adherents, to genuine doubts and grave anxiety. 
It seems certain that the system will very soon have to withstand onslaughts 
both from within and from without. The assault from the inside will come 
from the masses of the people themselves, who are likely to become estranged 
owing to the undoubted tendency of ‘ Indirect Rule,’ as now applied, to 
build up centralised African autocracies, disregarding the bases of former 
African constitutions and states, which were decentralised and democratic. 
The attack from the outside will be delivered by that ever-growing educated 
African element who feel aggrieved, because they sometimes appear to be 
excluded by a system where Western education and Western lines of progress 
seem at a discount. 

Were neither of these dangers ever to materialise, there would yet be a 
third. Does ‘ Indirect Rule’ mean that we are to build up states, which, 
while perhaps being Arcadian for the anthropologist, and possibly a model 
for barbaric or medizval sovereignties, would nevertheless be greatly 
handicapped were their sheltered privacy to be rudely invaded, and were 
they suddenly called upon to stand alone and unprotected amid the rough 
forces of the ever-changing world around them ? 

I believe I am voicing the opinion of the majority of educated Africans 
when I state that ‘ Indirect Rule’ and ‘ Anthropology ’ are both regarded 
by them as veiled attempts at ‘ keeping the Africans in their place.’ Yet, 
without their co-operation, the whole structure of ‘ Indirect Rule ’ and any 
permanent value accruing from anthropological research must surely 
crumble. ‘These and other questions are briefly discussed. 


Sir Ricumonp Patmer, K.C.M.G.—Stone circles in the Gambia Valley 
(11.25). 


(1) A short survey of the ethnic factors present in the Western Sahara 
and Sudan in the period a.D. 600-1400, distinguishing between the stocks 
known as Sarakolle, Jolof, Tuculor, Sereres, Mandinka, etc., the primitive 
Saharan stock known as Nemadi. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 525 


The Nemadi, it is believed, represent the peoples who, as far back as can 
be ascertained, were the original Wangara—i.e. Hamite or Kushite nomads 
and hunters, ‘people of a place’ or, perhaps, ‘ cave.’ It was intermarriage 
between the Nemadi and the darker races round them which produced the 
negroid Wangara or Wakori who were the subjects of the early kings of 
Gana. 

The term Wangara continued to be applied to the Mandinka negroids 
after they invaded from the south the region called Aukar or Wagadu 
about A.D. 1200. 

The Nemadi, the Sereres, and possibly after A.D. 1200 Jula-speaking 
Mandinkas, represent the Wangara or Gangari stock which fused with nomad 
Fulbe Barbars in Hodh and Aukar about A.D. 900-1000, produced the so- 
called Tucolor or Takrur, commonly called Fulahs or Fulani, and Taurud 
by Sultan Muhammad Bello of Sokoto. 

The Sarakolle, on the other hand, are the descendants of mixed marriages 
between aliens of Jewish or, at least, Syrian origin, who towards the middle 
of the first millennium a.D., by peaceful penetration, developed the ‘ gold 
trade ’ with Bambuk from Morocco and Gana, and Sus. 

(2) The ‘Stone Circles’ of the Gambia and Sine in Senegal are described, 
and their probable connection with the mode of burial practised by the 
Sarakolle kings of Gana is shown—a mode of burial which must have been 
common to many Barbar or half-Barbar tribes extending across the Sudan 
to Bornu and Borku in the period A.D. 600-1000. 

In so far as burials are concerned, the interior of the circles presents the 
same features as those excavated at El Walaji near Timbuctu, at Katsina, 
and in Bornu. 

The question arises, why were these burial mounds surrounded with 
menhirs, and how is it that the stone-work of these menhirs is so good ? 

The answer to the first question is that the menhirs correspond to the 
stockade of a town or compound ; to the second, that the stone-work must 
have been due indirectly to guilds of Jewish and Syrian stone-masons who 
flourished at Sijilmessa in the eleventh century, as also at Kumbi, the Gana 
capital. 

The geographical distribution of the circles, as well as other considera- 
tions, show that they were erected at a period when the influence of Gana 
extended to the Gambia River, before the rise of the Malinki towards 
A.D. 1200, and thus that traditions enshrined in the fourteenth-century 
maps concerning the ‘ Nile of Gana’ should be interpreted as referring to 
the towns which created these stone circles, and the ‘ Gambia River’ as 
being the principal mouth of the ‘ Nile of Gana.’ 


Dr. J. H. Hutron, C.1.E.—Megalithic work in Assam (12.10). 


AFTERNOON. 


Mr. E. G. Bowen.—Hill forts and valleyward movements of population 
in Wales (2.15). 


A classification of the chief early earthworks of the Principality indicates 
the importance of the following types : the contour camp, the promontory 
fort, the rectangular earthwork and the motte-and-bailey castle. These 
groups cover a wide range in time, and a detailed examination of the earth- 
works of the county of Carmarthen shows that each has a distinct altitudinal 
province. The average altitude of the contour camps is about 600 ft., the 
promontory forts about 430 ft., the rectangular earthworks about 250 ft., 


526 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 


while that of the motte-and-bailey castles is about 180-190 ft. With the 
exception of the promontory forts whose general altitude depends on 
physiographical factors, it is suggested that this altitudinal sequence illus- 
trates changes in human economy over the period represented by the age 
of the earthworks concerned. ‘The contour camps, together with a large 
number of the promontory forts, occur beyond the highest level of early 
cultivation, and their occupants were interested mainly in mountain pastures. 
Earthworks of rectangular form, situated mainly on the lower hill-slopes, 
suggest that their occupants had but an intermittent interest in the upland 
pastures, which they visited perhaps only during the summer season. The 
location of the motte-and-bailey castles illustrates that the homes of the 
newcomers were definitely in the valley bottoms, associated with an arable 
as opposed to a pastoral economy. Though the conquest of the once 
densely forested valleys was complete by this time, interest in the uplands 
continued, as is shown, by the survival of seasonal transhumance in Wales 
throughout the Middle Ages, and even into our own time. 

This survey has been undertaken for the forthcoming History of Car- 
marthenshire, and will form part of a section which is being prepared in 
collaboration with Dr. Cyril Fox. 


Mr. R. U. Savce.—The distribution of the belief in fatries (2.45). 


Prof. W. W. Jervis and Mr. S. J. Jones.—The village of Congresbury, 
Somerset : a study in land tenure (3.15). 


Congresbury is situated 12 miles south-west of Bristol on the main 
Bristol-Weston road. It has particular interest for the student of land 
tenure because in two of its common meads—the East and West Dolmoors— 
a curious method of annual, land allocation persisted until the local 
enclosure Act of 1811. ‘The redistribution took place on the Saturday 
before Old-Midsummer. Each man having a claim to land in the Dolmoors 
had a distinctive mark which was cut on a number of apples equal to the 
number of strips to which he was entitled. As each acre was measured, 
with a chain the length of which had been checked along the central aisle 
of Puxton Church, one of these apples would be drawn from a basket by 
a small boy. The mark on it would be cut in the turf, and thus the owner- 
ship of the acre for the ensuing twelve months would be decided. The 
main objects of this paper are to study the manner in which these holders 
settled jointly questions concerning these common meads, and to make 
a contribution towards the solution of the problem of this curious survival. 
The data presented is derived mainly from surveys and from the accounts 
of the Overseers of the Dolmoors, the latter covering the period 1685-1766. 
It is shown that the Dolmoors were comparatively poor land which con- 
tinued to be allotted annually at a time when most of the better land had 
been enclosed. The customs noted in connection with them probably 
once operated over the whole of the village land. The Dolmoors are, in 
fact, remnants of the common meads around which have persisted ancient 
customs, the origin of which cannot yet be.definitely determined. 


Dr. Cyrit Fox.—The colonisation of Britain with special reference to the 
Midlands (5.30). 
The geographical relation of Britain to the Continent is perhaps more 


familiar than its structural character; both aspects are found to be’of 
primary importance in the study of the colonisation of the island from 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS —H. 527 


Neolithic times onwards. Broadly speaking, Britain south of the Forth- 
Clyde isthmus consists of two parts, the Highland Zone to the west, and the 
Lowland Zone to the east. 

The structure and soil-character of Lowland Britain explain in large 
measure the distribution of the population in this, the most important half 
of the country, in early times. ‘The chalk formation forms the main frame- 
work. To the west and north-west of this complex lie the limestone ridges 
of the Mendips and the Cotswolds ; an extension of the latter (the Jurassic 
outcrop) leads by way of Lincoln Edge to the Humber, beyond which is 
a habitable outlier of chalk—the Yorkshire Wolds. Waterways such as the 
Thames, the Fen rivers and the Trent provide easy access for invader or 
trader to every part of the Lowland Zone. 

The chalk and limestone downlands, gravel terraces by the rivers, and 
sandy heaths as in East Anglia, provide the settlement areas most sought 
after by early man; he shunned the claylands, the gradual utilisation of 
which is the story of civilisation as expressed in geographical distribution. 
The large extent of clay in the Midlands hindered the occupation and 
development of this area of Lowland Britain. 


EVENING. 


A folk dance exhibition by a traditional team from Great Easton, 
Leicestershire, and others, with local folk songs. Introductory remarks 
by Mr. Eric Swirt (8.0). 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Mr. OLiver Davies.—Sotiel Coronada : an illustration of Roman mining 
technique (10.0). 


The paper describes the remains of Roman mining and metallurgy’ at 
Sotiel Coronada and Sta. Rosa in south-west Spain on the Odiel. At 
Sotiel there were two periods of working, one by a Roman capitalist about 
the first century B.c., and the other probably by a government official trained 
at Rio Tinto of a rather later date. The latter worked to rule, though his 
knowledge was limited ; interesting evidence is to be found as to Roman 
methods of prospecting and surveying, the sections of their shafts, and their 
pairs of shafts. In the second period an iron tool was used, probably a gad ; 
in the first, it is likely that the rilled stone hammer was still common, and 
indeed this tool almost certainly continues until Roman times. Finally 
some remarks are made about a metallurgical establishment exposed at 
Sta. Rosa ; both liquation and cupellation seem to have been practised here, 
and there were found a smelting furnace and what appear to be cupels. 


Miss D, A. E. Garrop.—Excavation of the Mugharet el-Tabun, Mount 
Carmel (10.30). 


Mr. T. Burton Brown.—The Transition from the Neolithic Period to 
the Bronze Age of Western Asia (11.0). 


Prof. V. GorDON CHILDE.—WNotes on some painted potteries from India 
and East Iran (11.30). 


Corresponding to the uniform geographical area of alluvial cultivation 
dependent on a single river system and the advanced urban civilisation 


528 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 


developed under these conditions, the painted pottery of the Indus civilisa- 
tion from Amri on the lower Indus at least as far as Harappa on the Ravi 
500 miles away is astonishingly uniform and at the same time highly sophisti- 
cated. Its individuality is expressed in a self-conscious style the distinguish- 
ing peculiarity of which is the free use of repetition motives (i.e. motives 
which can be repeated indefinitely in any direction). ‘Though doubtless 
inspired by textile models, this style finds so far no parallels in the third 
millennium or earlier except perhaps in Crete. 

Baluchistan and Waziristan, broken up into a number of discrete valleys, 
did not become the scene of a higher civilisation, but exhibit a variety of 
barbaric ceramic groups. Both the black-and-red-on-red wares, com- 
monest in Waziristan and the black-and-red-on-buff or cream, commoner 
in Baluchistan and absent from the Zhob valley, seem closely allied one to 
another and to the Indus ware both technically and in the motives employed. 

Shahi-tump (funerary) ware is closely allied to that of Susa I both in 
forms and in specialised motives, notably the ‘ Maltese square ’ decorating 
the centres of dishes at both sites (and also at Samarra). Sherds could be 
found illustrating the transition from the prevailing grey tint to a pink; in 
Sistan the same transition is illustrated as well as that to a green tint indis- 
tinguishable from that so common on al’Ubaid and Samarra wares. The 
connection in the pot-fabrics is confirmed by other graves goods—lapis 
lazuli beads, alabaster vases, stamp seals, axes of copper—common to Shahi- 
tump and Susa I. The Shahi graves indeed reveal an extension eastward 
of Frankfort’s ‘ Highland culture’ in a very pure form and precisely that 
represented at Susa itself. Yet these graves cannot be earlier than the 
third millennium and must be later than or partly contemporary with the 
Indus culture. They therefore demonstrate the direction of the spread of 
the Highland culture eastwards, not vice versa—but afford no clue as to the 
sources of the common elements in the Indus and Sumerian ceramic 
traditions. 

The pottery from Nal and Nundara in Baluchistan is more sophisticated 
and shows a deliberate style. 'The designs are outlined in black on a pale 
slip and filled in with plum red and sometimes other colours. ‘This fabric, 
though in time probably contemporary with the Indus black-on-red wares, 
might be regarded as a development of the black-and-red-on-pale-slip ware 
from Amri in Lower Sindh which is older than the classical Indus ware. 
Amri ware in its turn has technical and stylistic affinities to the Jemdet Nasr 
ware of Mesopotamia, while, on the other hand, some designs foreshadow 
the typical Indus system of repetition motives. 


Dr. C. L. WooLtey.—Ur : the archaic period (12.10). 


AFTERNOON. 


Dr. L. S. B. Leaxey.—Excavations at Apis Rock, Tanganyika Terri- 
tory (2.15). 


Mr. G. KincsLey RotH.—The decaying ee and crafts of Fiji (3.0). 


Since the advent of European and other civilisations to Fiji which began 
over a hundred years ago the practice of the arts and crafts of the indigenous 
population has progressively decreased and processes have changed. ‘The 
manufacture of bark-cloth and of pottery may be instanced as examples of 
arts which in some districts are quite obsolete or in others have been 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 529 


considerably modified by the use of foreign tools or vessels. Such use of 
introduced implements has in itself caused a number of ancillary occupations 
to be forgotten. Similarly the means adopted for personal enhancement are 
now largely those used by Europeans: clothing has replaced the use of oil 
and native-made ornaments are now rare and becoming rarer because no 
longer made. The Kava ceremony is an example of a custom which has 
stood the test of pressure from extraneous influences, only, however, 
because it is a ceremony essential to many social occasions. 'Tatuing is 
not now practised, but the processes have not yet been fully described. 
The old men to whom one naturally turns for information are passing out 
and with them is being lost the possibility of recording customs hitherto 
unrecorded, for the younger generation take little interest in the practices 
of their forefathers. 


Wednesday, September 13. 


Prof. E. E. Evans-PritcHarD.—The nature of bride-wealth among the 
Azande (10.0). 


Dr. A. N. Tucker.—Primitive music in the Southern Sudan, with tllus- 
trations on native instruments (10.40). 


This paper is concerned only with the pagan tribes of the upper reaches 
of the Nile, not with Arabs. 

Music plays a great part in the life of these people, and has many aspects. 
A very tentative analysis of Nilotic music is here given, obtained from 
studying their songs and illustrated with some of their musical instruments. 

Nilotic scale —Fundamentally pentatonic, but difficult for us to ascertain 
which note may be regarded as the ‘ key’ note in any song. Certain notes 
in any song seem to vary, within half a tone, according to the mood of the 
singer, which have a profound influence on our interpretation of the song. 
These the author calls the ‘ uncertain ’ notes. 

This fluctuating pentatonic scale is illustrated on flutes from the Acholi 
country, which give a reliable scale (since their intervals cannot be altered 
by any ‘ tuning’; in other instruments, one has to rely on a conception of 
native tuning). 

Rhythm.—This aspect of African music is by far the harder for Europeans 
to grasp. In playing the instruments here, the rhythm is relatively steady, 
and is often marked by tapping the instrument or the ground. The main 
rhythms are 4/4, 3/4 and a fast 6/8. Drum rhythms, which are the most 
complicated, are not dealt with here. 

Types of instruments.—F lute, horn, harp, lyre, sanza, and their distribu- 
an in the Southern Sudan, and their probable origin. Songs to illustrate 
their use. 


Dr. S. F. Napvet.—Anthropological aspects of musical research, with 
illustrations by gramophone records (11.25). 


This paper demonstrates the réle which the study of primitive music 
can play in anthropological research. Central phenomenon of human life as 
it is, music becomes a paradigm of that complex interrelation and intersection 
of the different scientific aspects which is so characteristic for anthropological 
method. The study of music in primitive society can even claim to open 
to anthropology new ways of approach to some of these aspects. Four 

T2 


530 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H, I. 


main aspects are dealt with in detail, and are illustrated on gramophone 
records of primitive music. 

(1) The sociological aspect. Music as general enjoyment and as social 
privilege in primitive society. Professional musicians. Music as a central 
factor in religious ceremony. 

(2) The psychological aspect. General laws established by the psychology 
of sound can explain certain widespread characteristics in primitive music. 
Thus the fluctuation of intervals can be derived from psycho-physiological 
factors, or the development of a certain primitive polyphony (the so-called 
‘ Parallel-Organum ’) appears to be due to the elementary psycho-physio- 
logical phenomenon of the ‘ similarity of tones.’ 

(3) The aspect of historical connection. Historical relations, borrowing 
and diffusion, have to account, in certain cases, for corresponding musical 
styles in different areas, thus checking very often the psychological aspect 
(e.g. the ‘ historical’ explanation of the Parallel-Organum suggested for 
certain areas). Musical instruments become here specially important. 
Built on principles of physics, and bound up with measures, they offer 
most accurate and objective criteria for establishing cultural relations 
(e.g. the ethnology of the African ‘ marimba ’). 

(4) The racial (biological) aspect appears to be tangible through music—i.e. 
through certain musical characteristics which are deeply rooted in biological 
factors (e.g. the motoric type of man). It is tried to illustrate this as yet 
very tentative approach on the melodic motion-type characteristic for the 
songs of two racial groups: the American Indian and the Austronesian. 


SECTION I.—PHYSIOLOGY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Dr. F. W. Epripce-Green, C.B.E.—A criticism of Roaf’s theory of 
colour vision (10.0). 


Whilst Roaf’s work on colour vision and very fair criticisms of the work 
of others deserve great praise, his theory presents the same difficulties as 
any form of the trichromatic theory. ‘There is no evidence of any trichro- 
matic light perceiving apparatus in the human retina. Houstoun has shown 
that the trichromatic theory is mathematically untenable. The chief objec- 
tion to it, however, is that like every other theory but mine, it will not explain 
colour-blindness, particularly those facts predicted by my theory. How, for 
instance, can the fact that 50 per cent. of the dangerously colour-blind pass 
the wool test be explained, or that 90 per cent. of the dangerously colour- 
blind agree with the normal white equation, though they may make an 
anomalous white equation ? 

A dichromic or trichromic makes mistakes through defective discrimina- 
tion and not through the defect of a light perceiving substance when there 
is no shortening of the spectrum or defect in light perception. A man with 
shortening of the red end of the spectrum may recognise a very feeble red 
of shorter wave-length, so this condition cannot be due to a defect in a light 
perceiving substance which is affected by all rays of the spectrum. 


Joint Discuss1on with Section J (Psychology, g.v.) on Disorientation 
and vertigo (10.30). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I. 531 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Messrs. Boots, Nottingham. 


Friday, September 8. 
Discussion on Ossification (10.0) :— 
Prof. R. Rosison, F.R.S. 


The development of the calcified animal skeleton may sipponded by 
two routes, one leading primarily to calcified cartilage, the other 
directly to bone. Though histologically distinct these processes manifest 
the closest biochemical relationship. Hypertrophying cartilage cells 
and osteoblasts both synthesise phosphatase; and both, at a certain 
stage in their development, secrete in the intercellular spaces a highly 
specialised ground-substance possessing properties distinct from those 
of the enzyme but also essential for normal calcification. In the animal 
the actual deposition of calcium salt may lag somewhat behind the 
formation of this specialised matrix ; but the presence and extent of the 
latter may be demonstrated by calcification in vitro. ‘Thus it is found that 
in embryonic rabbit femora and tibie the hypertrophic cartilage is fully 
calcifiable, possessing both phosphatase and the second essential mechanism 
(Niven and Robison). In the rudimentary long bones of fowl embryos, 
however, the cartilage hypertrophies and synthesises phosphatase but does 
not at once become calcifiable. The full calcifying mechanisms are subse- 
quently developed in parts of the cartilage, but part becomes eroded without 
acquiring these powers (Fell and Robison). Similar stages in the develop- 
ment of the calcifying mechanisms were noted in cultures of endosteal bone, 
grown in vitro. The area of calcifiable tissue was sharply defined and did 
not include the whole of the osteoid (Fell and Robison). 

Other experimental work (Rosenheim and Robison) has thrown further 
light on the phosphatase and second calcifying mechanisms, but has not yet 
provided an explanation of the latter. The calcification im vitro of other 
tissues, such as kidney and aorta, has also been effected by prolonged im- 
mersion in calcifying solutions (Rosenheim and Robison) ; but these experi- 
ments have emphasised yet more strongly the special properties exhibited 
by the fully developed hypertrophic cartilage and osteoid tissue. 


Dr. Honor B. FELL. 


The classical conception of the osteoblast as a specific bone-forming 
cell has recently been much questioned. It is sometimes held that 
osteoblasts and fibroblasts are identical and that ossification is caused 
by the presence of excess calcium in a young and highly vascular 
connective tissue. This view is not supported by experiments in vitro, in 
which osteoblasts from the embryonic fowl mandible and from the perios- 
teum and endosteum of the developing limb-bones, when isolated from the 
body and cultivated under standard environmental conditions, readily form 
bone in vitro, whilst similar cultures of connective tissue growing under the 
same conditions do not ossify. These results imply that the osteoblast 
possesses inherent bone-forming properties which are lacking in the 
ordinary unmodified fibroblast. 

A close histogenetic relationship exists between the osteoblast and the 
hypertrophic chondroblast, and tissue culture experiments have shown 
that the one type of cell can be directly transformed into the other. 


532 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—I. 
Dr. H. D. Kay. 


The work of Robison and his collaborators has shown clearly the import- 
ance of phosphatase in the deposition of bone salts, and has incidentally 
called attention to the fact, apparently forgotten for many years, that phos- 
phorification as well as calcification takes place in growing bone. The 
phosphatase mechanism is also probably concerned with bone resorption ; 
in vitro experiments have shown that under certain conditions bone salts 
can be transformed again into soluble phosphoric esters in the presence of 
phosphatase. 

Changes in the phosphoric ester content of the tissues in experimentally 
induced abnormal bony conditions have been observed. The marked 
increase in phosphatase content of the blood, which is frequently associated 
with diseases involving the skeleton, has been shown to be reversible after 
adequate therapeutic measures have been taken. 

The production of experimental rickets in rats, on a normal diet containing 
vitamin D, by adding small quantities of beryllium carbonate to the diet 
has enabled evidence to be brought forward in support of the view that one 
of the major activities of vitamin D is to stimulate the uptake of phosphate 
through the intestinal wall. 


Dr. LesLiz J. Harris. Vitamin action and bone formation. 


The following theory of the mode of action of vitamin D explains the 
known facts and has enabled predictions to be made which were subse- 
quently verified : vitamin D acts primarily by raising the blood Ca x P, 
causing increased absorption of Ca and/or P from the gut and diminished 
excretion into the gut (i.e. increased ‘net absorption’); the increased 
calcification in the bone is secondary to the blood change. It has been 
shown that this theory accounts for the following known facts :— 

(1) The association of rickets with high fecal and (2) low blood 
Ca and/or P and (3) low bone Ca and P ; 

(4) The rectification of these errors with vitamin D, (5) the rise in 
blood Ca X P preceding the new calcification ; 

(6) The influence of the dietary acid-base balance ; (7) dietary Ca-P 
ratio ; (8) Be, etc. 

(9) Differences in species susceptibility. 

(10) Calcification im vitro (proportional to Ca x P). 


The writer predicted from this theory that overdoses should cause 
hypercalcemia and/or hyperphosphatemia, and hence excessive calcifica- 
tion, e.g. at growing end of bone. These effects were duly found and have 
since been confirmed by others, the bones and teeth in hypervitaminosis 
showing highly characteristic abnormalities. (With maximal overdoses and 
insufficient Ca and P available in the gut, some of the extra Ca and P may 
be drawn from parts of the bony store.) 

The widely advocated theory that vitamin D acts by stimulating the para- 
thyroid has been disproved by showing that the latter, in contrast with 
vitamin D, does not increase ‘ net absorption,’ and acts by withdrawing Ca 
from bone, causing loss to the body. 

The primary effect of vitamin C deficiency is to cause degeneration of 
osteoblasts, odontoblasts, ameloblasts, etc. ; hence cessation of osteogenesis. 
Other effects in the hard tissues are secondary. 


Dr. DonaLD HUNTER. 


The clinical worker is in a position to study ossification in patients under 
treatment. Progress is followed by estimations of the blood chemistry and 


. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I. 533 


calcium balance, together with histological sections of bone and radiograms 
taken by controlled methods. In rickets and osteomalacia, vitamin D 
restores the blood chemistry and radiogram picture to normal. Investi- 
gations suggest that the theory of halisteresis is erroneous, and that the 
action of vitamin D is to calcify osteoid seams. 

Clinical, biochemical, radiographic and histological evidence exists that 
two hormones influence the metabolism of bone. The parathyroid hormone 
raises the serum calcium, depresses the plasma phosphorus, and causes 
excessive excretion of calcium in the urine. The thyroid hormone raises 
the excretion of calcium in both urine and faces, but there is no increase 
in the serum calcium. Calcium is removed from the skeleton both in 
hyperparathyroidism and in hyperthyroidism, and in both the mechanism 
of removal is a lacunar resorption by osteoclasts. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. E. D. ADRIAN, F.R.S., on The activity 
of nerve cells (12.0). (See p. 163.) 


AFTERNOON. 


Col. C. J. Bono, C.M.G.—Some recent observations on certain phases of 
leucocytic and erythrocytic activity (illustrated with the projection 
microscope) (2.0). 


(1) Incubated leucocyte films showing— 
(a) active, (b) resting, (c) reactivated cells. 
(2) Endothelial cells. Ditto. 
(a) resting cells ; (6) active cells ; (c) phagocytosed red cells. 
(3) Phagocytosis of pigment particles in active, resting and reactivated 
cells. 
(4) Leucocytes and dendrites (3). 
(5) Living pus cells. 
(a) active, (5) resting. 
(6) Washed red cells, showing passage from disc, through prickled, to 
the spheroidal shape. 
(7) foot to disc form by addition of blood serum or soap (sodium 
oleate). 
(8) Auto (pseudo) compared with group agglutination. 
(9) Effect of reagents on intracellular hemoglobin. 
(10) Avian, amphibian and fishes’ red cells. 


Dr. F. J. W. Roucuton.—Carbon dioxide transport in blood : recent 
developments (2.45). 


This paper surveys the changes in outlook which have occurred during 
the past three years due to— 

(a) The isolation from red blood corpuscles of an enzyme, carbonic 
anhydrase, which accelerates the formation of carbon dioxide from 
carbonic acid, and vice versa. 

(6) The evidence that some carbon dioxide may be carried in direct 
combination with the blood proteins, probably as protein carbamate. 


Dr. THomas BeprorD and Mr. A. F. Durron.—WNose-opening rays (3.15). 


Leonard Hill’s theory that there are ‘ nose-closing’ rays and ‘ nose- 
opening ’ rays appeared to be of paramount importance in the study of the 


534 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I. 


physical conditions conducive to human comfort. Hill’s observations are 
not confirmed ; in well-controlled experiments with eighty-five subjects 
no evidence whatever is found of ‘ nose-opening ’ rays. 

Nose-closing is found to occur not only with a dull fire but also with a 
bright fire. It can also be produced by heating the subject by convection 
(heated air) or by conduction (warm fomentation). Even the sun is a 
potent nose-closer. 

The average person tolerates most heating effects without discomfort and 
without recourse to mouth-breathing ; it is only in those who are peculiarly 
sensitive (e.g. by reason of deflected septa) that any difficulty arises. 


Monday, September 11. 
Discussion on The chemical control of the circulation (10.0) :— 


Sir H. H. Date, C.B.E., Sec.R.S. 


The study of the chemical control of the circulation began with the dis- 
covery of adrenaline and of the pituitary pressor principle. The former is 
predominantly augmentor to vascular tone, though there is evidence that 
its actions include a vasodilator effect; concerning the physiological 
significance of the pituitary principle little is known. 

It has long been improbable that there is any organ of internal secretion 
which forms a hormone predominantly vasodilator in function, though 
depressor substances were early found in most tissues. The first of these 
vasodilator substances to be identified was choline. This was followed by 
histamine which has been shown to exert a dilator effect on the minute 
vessels, complicated to different extents in different species by a constrictor 
action on larger arterioles and venules ; this substance plays an important 
part in the effects of local injury to the skin. Another dilator substance, 
an unstable choline ester and indistinguishable from acetyl choline, is 
liberated as the result of stimulating various parasympathetic nerves and 
the arteriodilator branches of sensory fibres. Further vasodilator sub- 
stances which have been discovered in recent years are the adenosine series, 
constituents of muscle extracts, and kallikrein, which appears to circulate 
in an inactive form in the blood and to be rendered active by a rise of acidity. 

Evidence seems still to be lacking for the direct action of any of these 
vasodilator substances as a true hormone. In this respect there is a general 
contrast between them and the true, mainly vasoconstrictor, hormones ; 
this contrast, however, is by no means an absolute one, since it appears 
possible that adrenaline may be held in an inactive form peripherally, to be 
released by sympathetic nerve-impulses as a humoral transmitter of their 
effects, 


Prof. J. H. Burn. 


It has previously been shown that vasoconstrictor substances such as 
tyramine and ephedrine exert only a slight effect when injected into the 
arterial system of the body wall and limbs of cats or dogs perfused by 
defibrinated blood ; similarly stimulation of the sympathetic chain exerts 
only a slight effect. "The constrictor action of tyramine, ephedrine, and of 
sympathetic stimulation is increased if adrenaline is continually added to the 
blood used for perfusion so as to maintain a uniform concentration. The 
addition of adrenaline has the further effect of bringing to light dilator effécts 
following the injection of ephedrine and the stimulation of the sympathetic 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I. 535 


chain. It is shown that the effect of a maintained concentration of adrena- 
line on the tyramine response is exerted pari passu with its effect on the 
histamine response, and also with a similar effect on the response to acetyl- 
choline. The vasodilator effect of small doses of adrenaline is not seen in 
circumstances in which vasodilatation from sympathetic stimulation occurs. 
The effect of adrenaline is considered to be an effect on the vessel walls in 
general and not on the neighbourhood of the sympathetic terminations in 
the walls. 


Dr. A. N. Drury. 


Adenylic acid, isolated from muscle, has a depressor activity which is 
shared by related compounds such as adenosine, yeast adenylic acid, and 
yeast cytidylic acid. The last substance is of interest, as there is evidence 
that in muscle extracts a depressor substance is present, in addition to 
adenylic acid, which has very similar properties to yeast cytidylic acid. 
The depressor activity of adenylic acid and adenosine is lost when the 
amino group is split off, and this led to the idea that the effect is associated 
with deamination, though recent work fails to give it support. Adenylic 
acid has been isolated from the blood, and is considered to be the substance 
responsible for the ‘ primary toxicity’ of fresh defibrinated blood. It is 
liberated from damaged muscle and may therefore play a part in the dilata- 
tion of vessels which accompanies injury. Moreover it produces a local 
dilation and leucocytosis, and may be responsible for this phenomenon of 
tissue damage. It is quickly inactivated by the tissues, so that it must be 
liberated continually if it is to produce a lasting effect. 


Dr. J. H. GappuM. 


There are at least two vasodilator substances in some tissue extracts which 
have hitherto baffled the chemists. ‘These have been arbitrarily called 
kallikrein and P-substance. They are both unstable substances with rather 
large molecules, and are both readily carried down from solutions by various 
adsorbents. Both substances produce a fall of blood pressure in animals 
which have received atropine, and so been rendered insensitive to choline. 
They are both distinguished from histamine by the facts that they are 
unstable in acid solutions and produce a fall of blood pressure in etherised 
rabbits. They are distinguished from adenosine by the fact that they are 
unstable in alkaline solutions. 

Kallikrein has been obtained from urine and blood, but has been found 
to be present in a particularly high concentration in the pancreas. It is 
insoluble in alcohol. 

P-substance is present in intestine and brain. It is distinguished from 
kallikrein by its distribution, and by the fact that it is soluble in absolute 
alcohol. ‘There are also various pharmacological differences, but it will be 
difficult to obtain any certain knowledge of the general actions and signi- 
ficance of these substances until better methods of purification can be 
devised than those at present available. 


Dr. W. FELDBERG. 


Prof, R. J.S. McDowa_t. 


When 5 per cent. carbon dioxide is administered to a chloralised cat 
there may be no alteration of blood pressure, but it is not, therefore, to be 


536 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—I. 


presumed that the carbon dioxide has been inactive. Such percentages 
of carbon dioxide have been shown by Jerusalem and Starling and others 
to increase the output of the heart. New experiments are described which 
show that the vasomotor centre has been stimulated, since there is a marked 
increase in the resistance of a limb perfused separately and connected to 
the animal only by nerves. It may therefore be concluded that, since the 
output of the heart is increased and the vasomotor centre stimulated with- 
out causing a rise of blood pressure, the carbon dioxide has caused a 
diminution of peripheral resistance. ‘These results support the view 
previously put forward that the carbon dioxide of the arterial blood has in 
the periphery a dilator action which balances its central effect. 


Prof. H. Harrripce, F.R.S. (12.25) -— 
(a) Variations in skin resistance due to electrical currents. 


Ebbecke found that the resistance of the skin to galvanic currents could 
be decreased either by rubbing the skin or by the continued passage of a 
galvanic current of such strength that whealing was ultimately produced. 
Lewis and Zotterman, using small electrodes, obtained a similar drop in 
resistance which they attributed to breaches in the horny layer, whereas 
Ebbecke has attributed it to stimulation of the living cells which lie deep to 
that layer. 

I have repeated these experiments with electrodes of large area, and I find 
the same fall of resistance. I have noticed, however, that on cessation of the 
galvanic current the skin resistance rises until it reaches a value considerably 
greater than that to which the galvanic current had depressed it. If the 
explanation of Lewis and Zotterman is correct, one must conclude that the 
breaches in the horny layer heal again with very great rapidity. 


(b) An experiment in favour of the resonance theory of hearing. 


A brass disc, about 12 in. in diameter, is provided near its circumference 
with two concentric rows of slots. The inner row consists of ninety-six 
equidistant slots ; the outer row also consists of ninety-six slots, at equal 
distances except for one interval only which is half the distance of each of the 
others, thus introducing a change of phase (a half wave-length). When the 
disc is rotated by an electric motor and a stream of air is directed on to the 
inner row of slots, a continuous musical tone of constant pitch is produced. 
When the stream of air is directed on to the outer row of slots a musical 
tone of constant pitch is heard, but this tone is interrupted once at each 
revolution of the disc when the change of phase occurs. Since the interrup- 
tion effect heard by the ears can be imitated by stopping up two neighbouring 
slots of the inner row, I conclude that this is a true interruption and not, 
for example, a change of pitch of the tone. 

This confirms an earlier conclusion that a change in phase of a musical 
tone causes it to be ‘ out of step ’ with the ear resonators, so that the latter 
first are arrested and then recommence their vibrations. 


(c) Competitive reaction time apparatus. 


A number of neon lamps are connected so that each lamp has a separate 
switch. The lamps and their switches are connected in parallel between 
two buss bars, one of which is connected to one wire of the 200-volt D.C. 
main, the other buss bar being connected to the other wire of the main 
through a suitable resistance (usually 10,000 ohms). The current passing 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I, J. 537 


through this resistance (about 10 m.a.) is sufficient to strike one neon lamp 
and to keep it alight, but when once this lamp has lit the resultant voltage 
between the buss bars is insufficient to strike any additional lamps. Con- 
sequently, when after turning on the main a neon lamp lights, it indicates 
that the switch connected to that lamp was the first to be closed. The 
apparatus can thus be used to ascertain which one of several individuals 
takes the least time to close his switch after a given signal which corresponds 
to the switching on of the main. 


(d) Advancing and retiring colours. 


‘Chromatic stereoscopy ’ (Hartridge, Journ. Physiol., lii, 222, 1918) is 
not limited to coloured objects, for I find that it is possible for black and 
white to be advancing and retiring colours when placed on backgrounds of 
suitable colour. ‘Thus when they are placed on a red ground, black advances 
and white retires ; but when they are placed on a blue ground, white ad- 
vances and black retires. ‘These relative positions may be explained as 
follows : A black object on a red ground is seen in the same position as a 
red object on a black ground would be. A white object on a red ground, 
however, is equivalent to a blue-green object, or a black ground plus a 
uniform red ground without any object on it (as may readily be seen by 
summing the colours). Now a blue-green object on a black ground retires 
relatively to a red object on a black ground and, therefore, substituting the 
equivalents we have just found, a white object on a red ground retires but a 
black object on ared ground advances. Observation shows that a white object 
on a blue ground advances, whereas a black object on a blue ground retires, 
but a white object on a blue ground may be replaced by a yellow on a black 
ground plus a uniform blue ground. We know, however, that a yellow 
object on a black ground advances, whereas a blue object on a black ground 
retires. Therefore we have explained the phenomenon in this case also. 
For grounds of intermediate colour for red and blue, namely yellow and 
green, the phenomenon is not so striking as it is for red or blue. 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Leicester Royal Infirmary. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Joint Discussion with Sections D (Zoology, €8) and K (Botany) on 
Genetics (10.0). 


SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Prof. C. W. VaLentine.—The early development of language in the 
child (10.0). 


Evidence based on observations of five children from the first day to the 
age of 3, when all the main forms of language structure have been learned. 


538 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


The essential bases of language : 
(a) Spontaneous expressions of feeling. 
(b) Spontaneous babblings and practice in sound making. 
(c) Association of sounds heard with feeling, objects, or general 
situations. 

Early effects of social influences. 

Individual differences indicative of future development occur as early 
as 1 and 2 months. (Slower speech development of A and B as compared 
with Y indicated before 2 months.) 

From 4 to 9 months practising of new sounds very important. 

The ‘ understanding ’ of meaning of some words clearly established at 
6 or 7 months. 

‘ Understanding’ and ‘ expression’ far from identical. For expression 
a different word from the word heard and understood may be used for the 
same thing. 

Prominence of feeling or conational aspect of early speech. 

Importance of imitation, especially from 14 or 14 years onwards. 

The generalisation of meanings; the specialisation of words. 

Does the child originate words ? 

Special characteristics of the period 13 to 2 years. Use of negative. 
First questions. 'Two- or three-word sentences. 

The great discovery— Things have names.’ 

From 2 to 3 years. Words indicating spatial and temporal relations. 
Testing by experiments the understanding of prepositions. Subordinate 
sentences : Why and Because. All forms of sentence structure now used. 


Joint Discussion with Section I (Physiology) on Disorientation and 
vertigo (10.30). 


Dr. J. T. MacCurpy. 


Dependence of spatial orientation on balancing system. (Examples.) 
When latter disturbed, get disorientation and a secondary confusion 
(psychological), which produces failure to recognise objects. 

Under normal circumstances balance depends on postural and righting 
reflexes. These are stimulated by changes in otolith organs, semicircular 
canals, muscle tensions, deep pressure and vision. ‘The muscular system 
is the most important (Garten’s experiments). It has incredibly low 
threshold and speed of reaction and is unconscious. There is probably 
awareness only for response, and for that only when exaggerated, i.e. when 
balance is lost ; awareness is for disequilibrium, not equilibrium. (‘ Falling’ 
is a visual perception.) Disequilibrium is sensed by vision and vestibulo- 
proprioceptive organs. 

This is illustrated in flying, which demands an acquired balancing reaction. 
Until this is gained visual orientation is difficult or impossible (Data). 
Innate balancing reactions are made to actual direction and value of g, but 
visually to aeroplane. Hence conflict and giddiness until aeroplane is 
treated as part of body (acquisition of manipulative control). Conflict 
leads to excessive proprioceptive stimuli because reaction does not abolish 
stimulus as in effective balancing. 

This leads to nausea via excessive and incoordinate reflex response. 
Two types of sensitiveness, one to increase in value and one to change in 
direction of g. Normal response to increased g (alighting on ground when 
jumping) is tension in extensors and rigidity of abdominal walls to prevent 
displacement of viscera. If rapid and effective, diaphragm does not move, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 539 


and there is no consciousness of trunk muscle response. If ineffective, get 
diaphragmatic tug (e.g. in lift). Co-ordinate response involves accurate 
abdominal muscle contraction to balance g and, if this has to be maintained, 
a change from diaphragmatic to costal breathing. With incoordinate 
response diaphragm works against rigid belly wall, the abdominal contents 
are squeezed as in vomiting, and if this persists the whole nausea-vomiting 
cycle is evoked. In the other type there is a general rigidity of limbs and 
trunk in an exaggerated and incoordinate effort to prevent displacement of 
the body. This includes rigidity of abdominal muscles, and so the same 
result ensues. 


Flight-Lt. J. A. G. Hasta. 


Experiences from flying relating to the subjects of the discussion ; these 
will illustrate some of the points in Dr. MacCurdy’s paper (q.v.). 


Dr. T. G. MaITLanp. 


Rectilinear movement as a cause of general vertigo— 

The relation of general vertigo to special vertigo in so far as they both 
result from passive displacement. Among modern forms of locomotion 
the best example of displacement causing general vertigo is the swift vertical 
drop in a lift, and of that causing special vertigo the flat spin of an aeroplane. 

Under which category do the movements of swings, switchbacks, of 
aeroplanes passing through air pockets, of boats in a rough sea, fall? All 
these movements have angular direction, but the resulting vertigo is general 
rather than special, which implies the activity of a rectilinear factor. 

What, then, is the relation of the semicircular canals to rectilinear move- 
ment? 

The reactions, both physiological and psychological, associated with general 
vertigo would seem to demand another receptor. 

The interpretation of vertigo and its biological significance. 


Sq.-Leader E. D. Dickson. 


Mr. R. J. BARTLETT. 


Insufficiency of oxygen supply in brain owing to faulty breathing as 
a cause. Disequilibrium not essential. In air and water travel dis- 
equilibrium possibly a principal cause of faulty breathing. Train and 
motor sickness not readily so explained. Partly explained by somatic 
reactions to variations in speed. Complaints of vibration and noise. 
Noise investigation results stress psychological factors. Some Effects of 
Low Frequency Vibration on Body and Mind reported in 1930. ‘ Giddiness,’ 
* dizziness,’ ‘ dullness,’ ‘ sleepiness ’ and ‘ intense cold ’ induced by vibra- 
tion. Accompanying pneumograph records show shallow, fluttering or 
panting breathing punctuated with deep gasps. The pulse also affected. 

Mechanical vibration not essential. A ticking metronome induces 
changes in breathing of susceptible subjects. As metronome rate changes 
breathing changes in sympathy until it becomés impossible to change 
further, when there is great discomfort until subjective metronome rhythm 
changes to one with which breathing can harmonise. ‘ Torture’ due to 
the ‘ drip-drip ’ of water similar. Record of a case in which the water- 
dripping frequency was slowing down and passed through the pulse rate. 

External physical causes not essential. Purely physiological causes 


540 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


sufficient. Fear, dizziness and collapse apparently due to shortage of 
blood in brain occasioned by digestive trouble. 

Purely psychological causes effective. Fear and revival of unpleasant 
past experiences often reported by subjects. 

Practical questions: Is a volitionally controlled breathing that will 
frustrate the tendency to engine control possible ?) Can such ‘ willed’ 
breathing be transformed into a ‘ habit’ ? 


Dr. R.S. Creep; Sq.-Leader G. H. Rem. 


AFTERNOON. 
(Section meeting in two divisions.) 


Division 1. 
Miss A. G. SHaw.—Motion study applied to small assembly and machine 
work (2.0). 


Mr. A. Ropcer.—Why and how the vocational psychologist studies tem- 
perament (3.30). 


The term temperament may conveniently be used to cover such charac- 
teristics as are represented by the words sociability, frankness, cheerfulness, 
co-operativeness, neatness and cautiousness. For the purposes of the 
vocational psychologist most temperamental characteristics may be regarded 
as belonging to one of two main types; those which are displayed in an 
individual’s attitude towards other people, and those which are displayed 
in his attitude towards his work. It is clear that in some occupations it is 
more important that a worker should possess certain of these characteristics in 
high degree than that he should possess either outstanding general intellectual 
ability or really good practical abilities. Psychologists have attempted to 
devise numerically-scored tests for many of them, but so far their efforts 
have met with scant success. The National Institute of Industrial Psy- 
chology is endeavouring to break fresh ground by adopting what may be 
called a ‘ biographical ’ procedure and by seeking definite assistance from 
the parents and teachers of those who apply to it for vocational guidance. 
This involves a study not only of an individual’s temperamental charac- 
teristics as they are at the moment, but also of those characteristics as they 
have been in the past. In this way some indication of their all-important 
“trend ’ is obtained. 


Miss R. M. GOLDTHORPE.—Effect of the distribution of practice periods on 
the learning curve in industrial operations (4.15). 


Division 2. 


Dr. R. B. CaTTELL.—Friends and enemies ; their g,p, c, and w values (2.0). 


A previous research has shown temperament and character traits to fall 
into two broad patterns: the ‘surgent’ temperament determined by a 
general factor c, and the will-character determined by a factor w 
(Webb). 

In a group of 62 students, who had been the subjects of estimates on 
these factors, and who had also been tested for intelligence, perseveration, 
and ‘ fluency of association,’ each student was asked to name two others 
who were his especial friends and one other for whom he felt a particular 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 541 


aversion. It was hoped that, in spite of historical accidents operating 
to determine many friendships and antipathies, some systematic trend, 
according to temperament and character similarities or differences, would 
be perceptible. 

Indications of such relationships were found, particularly with p, c and w. 
(The scatter of g was so small in this examination-selected group as to make 
any analysis in this respect useless.) There is also an indubitable tendency 
for popularity (number of friends) to vary with p and w. Thoughthe causes 
of these trends are obscure, confirmation and extension of these findings 
would make profitable discussion possible and, at the same time, throw light 
from a new angle on the natures of p, c and w. 


Mr, F. C. THomas.—A _ simplified synthesis of the factor and noegenetic 
theories (2.45). 


After a brief introduction, it is assumed that the existence of general and 
specific cognitive factors (g and the s’s) is now adequately proven. These are 
regarded as determining only a person’s maximum performance at a given 
task. Factors of other kinds may, and normally do, intervene ; causing 
his actual performance on any given occasion to fall short of what his g—s 
equipment alone would lead us to expect of him. These ‘ quantitative 
determinants ’ of cognition fall into three classes, as follow: (1) per- 
severation, oscillation, constancy of cognitive output, persistence of motive 
and conative control of cognition—which limit achievement by affecting g; 
(2) Fatigue and retentivity, which affect the s’s; (3) ‘ Basic constitution ’ 
(= primordial potency), or factors of age, sex, heredity, and health, which 
affect the other quantitative determinants. The three noegenetic processes 
are then regarded as being the tasks that g performs when, under the 
restraint of the quantitative determinants, it activates the s’s. 


Dr, P. E, Vernon.—The applicability of quantitative methods to traits of 
temperament and personality (3.30). 


A temperamental or personality trait differs in many respects from an 
aptitude or ability. It cannot be defined solely in terms of objective 
behaviour, but is dependent upon the observation and interpretation of 
such behaviour by human mentalities. A man’s traits are not so much his 
own ‘properties,’ as relations between him and the persons who observe 
him. The trait is a name for a very general class of behaviour, hence its 
content is extremely ambiguous, It is impossible to find distinct dividing 
lines between different traits, or to isolate any one trait as more fundamental 
than another. 

A single test, or set of ratings, cannot give an adequate measure of a trait; 
instead a variety of diverse tests should be combined into a crude composite 
score. In personality testing, unlike aptitude testing, no objective criterion 
of validity is available ; but the inter-correlations within such a composite 
indicate its theoretical validity. Though the tetrad difference technique 
may be applied to these composites of personality tests, yet elaborate 
Statistical treatment and factorial analysis are unjustifiable owing to the 
inherent subjectivity of the trait concept. 


Mr. F. H. Gace.—The quantitative aspect of brightness in visual sensations 
(4-15). 

At the meeting of the British Association last year, there was a discussion 

on the quantitative relation of physical stimuli and sensory events. The 


542 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


following work has been performed with a view to investigating one of the 
simplest cases in vision, the relation between the intensity of the stimulus 
and the sensory brightness. 

Experiments have been performed in which three white circular patches 
are simultaneously presented side by side on a black background. ‘These 
patches differ only in respect of their brightnesses. ‘The intensities of the 
two outside patches bear a known ratio to each other, while the intensity of 
the middle patch can be adjusted to appear equally spaced in brightness 
between the outer patches, that is, its brightness is neither nearer one nor 
the other. Using this method, it is shown that consistent observations can 
be obtained, and that observers substantially agree in their estimations 
although real differences appear between them, but that fundamental 
difficulties arise which prevent a scale of brightness being constructed by 
this method. 

The experimental evidence is against the measurability of the brightness 
of visual sensation. 


Friday, September 8. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADpREsS by Prof. F. AveLING on The status of Psychology 
as an empirical science (10.0). (See p. 171.) 


Dr. WILLIAM Brown.—The psychology of personal influence (11.0). 


The problem of personal influence arises in a challenging form in the use 
of methods of suggestion and hypnotism, and also in the phenomenon of 
so-called ‘ transference’ in psychoanalysis. It is important to decide, if 
possible, how far hypnotic effects may be explained in terms of transference, 
and again what are the probable bases of temperamental compatibility and 
incompatibility. Wider possibilities, of a spiritual and psychic nature, 
should not be left out of account, so far as science can deal with them. 


Prof. F. A. E. Crew.—An attempt to determine the factors operating in 
Professor McDougall’s Lamarckian experiment (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 
(Section meeting in two divisions.) 
Division i. 
Dr. R. H. TuHovutess.—Some practical consequences of phenomenal 
regression (2.0). 


The purchaser of a telescope for terrestrial observation wants objects to 
‘look big’ and not merely to make a large retinal image. Apparent size is 
not simply a function of retinal size. Distant large objects look larger than 
near small ones when their retinal sizes are equal. The extent of this effect 
(of phenomenal regression) differs in different individuals and under different 
conditions of perception. Monocular observation through a blackened tube 
is found experimentally to diminish phenomenal regression and it thus acts 
as a mental factor reducing the apparent magnification of a telescope. This 
is one reason for the greater satisfaction obtained by vision through pee 
lars even when these are of lower power. 

Similarly a condition of lifelike representation on a screen is that the 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 543 


scene. represented should look large enough. The stray light in a cine- 
matograph theatre, which gives the screen the character of a definite object 
at a considerable distance, favours phenomenal regression which increases 
apparent size. For a small screen at a short distance (such as that of a 
television apparatus) the best results would, on the contrary, be obtained 
by conditions of observation eliminating phenomenal regression as far as 
possible. 

Ability to drive a car quickly and accurately through traffic obviously 
depends on ability to judge the real size of a gap at whatever distance it 
may be observed. Experiments have been performed in order to determine 
how far this ability depends on the individual’s amount of the tendency7to 
phenomenal regression (that is, on the amount of his tendency to see objects 
in their ‘ real ’ sizes irrespective of their distance from him) 


Dr. J. H. QuasteL.—Narcosis and mental function (2.45). 


The psychological effects of oxygen want (anoxzmia) resemble in many 
ways the reactions present in psychotic and neurotic conditions, and those 
found also in alcoholism and light narcosis. ‘The study of the biochemical 
basis of narcosis has shown that narcotics act, apparently, by preventing the 
nerve cells from receiving the amount of energy necessary for their functional 
activity. This they do by bringing about a condition equivalent to anoxemia, 
not by interfering with the amount of oxygen present, but by diminishing 
the ability of the cells to oxidise substances (glucose, lactic acid) which 
form the main fuel of the cells. Further study has shown that substances 
normally formed in the body and normally broken down in the liver have 
effects similar to narcotics, so that a disturbance of the detoxicating powers 
of the body might lead to conditions whose psychological reactions would 
resemble those found in oxygen want. ‘The treatment of psychotic con- 
ditions by prolonged narcosis is extremely important ; it is suggested that 
the success of the treatment depends on the removal, during the narcotic 
state, of toxic metabolites (or fatigue products) in the brain. The main 
danger to the narcosis treatment is the disturbance in the carbohydrate 
metabolism in organs such as the liver whereby intense ketonuria may be 
established. ‘The introduction of the glucose-insulin modification of 
prolonged narcosis treatment has removed this danger, so that the treatment 
is now comparatively safe. 


Dr. C. C. Hurst.—Genetics of intellect (3.30). 


Two thousand one hundred and eighty-two parents and offspring in 
406 families individually graded for general mental ability (Spearman’s g), 
using scale of 11 grades (o-10) each approximately equivalent to 20 I.Q. 
Data include 194 modern Leicestershire families, objectively graded by 
author, and 212 ancient Royal Families of 11 countries in eight centuries 
histriometrically graded by Dr. Adams Woods. Both groups show same 
genetical types of families : non-segregating with like offspring and segregating 
with unlike offspring. Neither family environment, simple heredity nor 
free will can account for co-existence of these two family types exhibiting 
dominance and segregation. Analyses show that 98:1 per cent. of data are 
consistent with genetical formula of type Nu + (AaBbCcDdEe) where Nn 
is a major pair of genes for Normal (N) and Abnormal (m) Intellect and 
Aa. .Ee are minor pairs cumulatively modifying nn as in experimental wheats 
where A. .E are increasers and a..e decreasers. ‘Thus NN and Nm produce 
normal mediocre intellect of mid-grade 5, unaffected by the modifiers, while 


544 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


nn produce abnormal low and high grades o-10, according to the modifiers 
present. The formula is relatively simple, involving only seven kinds of 
effective gametes, and is of fundamental practical importance since it predicts 
with considerable precision the results of any grade-matings. A scheme of 
family allowances based upon it would maintain minimum number of high- 
grade children necessary for preservation of modern civilisation. 


Division 2. 


Mr. R. J. BARTLETT.—The effect of so-called ‘ constant’ errors in sensory 
comparisons (2.0). 


Further work with geometric series of weighted containers. The ‘ con- 
stant error’ increases in amount as weight increases or decreases from a 
‘datum’ value. This ‘datum’ not a weight or a density but a value 
depending on nature and size of the container. The error has sign and in 
adults appears to be approximately proportional to the cube of the difference 
between the weight lifted and the ‘ datum ’ weight. With children the error 
appears to increase more rapidly. 

With practice, the ‘ constant errors’ for a particular series decrease in 
amount, and possibly would eventually become zero throughout the scale. 
With the series used decrease is more rapid at the heavy end than at the 
light end, and there are indications that after the first few sittings of a subject 
the heavy weights are regressing towards a heavier and shifting datum, while 
the light ones are still referred to the original datum or to one only slightly 
heavier. 

The common experience of subjects that discrimination is easier at the 
heavy than at the light end is supported by the decrease in value of the scatter 
error of the best equal value as the standard weight increases in value, and 
indicates that the true ‘ Weber constant’ (freed from the masking effect of 
the ‘ constant error ’) slowly decreases in amount as the stimulus increases 
in value. 


Mr. M. F. Lowe.—Alterations in blood distribution during mental work 
(2.45). 


In this communication experiments with the Mosso Balance, and also 
with two modifications of it, are described. 

Results from the simple Mosso Balance indicate that the ‘ head end ’ of 
the apparatus becomes lighter during mental work, and not heavier as 
Mosso had stated. Further, it is shown that the conclusions of Ernst Weber 
in regard to the controlling influences of the position (in regard to the axis 
of the balance) of the abdominal organs of the subject must be revised. 

In the first modification the apparatus was arranged so as to rock from 
side to side instead of up and down as the original Mosso Balance had done. 
It is shown that the approach to sleep is accompanied by a gradual depression 
of the left side of the balance, while mental activity is accompanied by a rise 
of the left side. 

In the second modification the balance was constructed upon the gimbal 
principle so that deflections from the up-and-down Mosso motion and from 
the side-to-side motion could be recorded simultaneously. From these 
experiments it is shown that various mental states (e.g. activity, passivity, 
sleep) can be connected with definite combinations of balance movements. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 545 


Dr. G. SetuH.—Some clinical aspects of stuttering (3.30). 

1. The incidence of stuttering among school children. The sex-difference 
in the percentage of stutterers. 

2. Accepted causative factors. The réle of heredity and imitation. 

3. Developmental history of the stutterer. Other neurotic manifesta- 
tions. The psycho-analytic theory of the disorder. 

4. The stuttering character. 


(Full Section Meeting.) 
Prof. E. C. Totman.—The learning of rats (4.15). 


Sunday, September 10. 
Visit to Besford Court Mental Deficiency Institution, near Worcester. 


Monday, September 11. 


JornT SEssIon with Section L (Educational Science, ¢.v.) on The predictive 
value of school examinations and psychological tests (10.0). 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Lowdham Grange Borstal Institution, Nottingham. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Jomnt Discussion with Department A* (Mathematics) on The validity 
and value of methods of correlation (10.0) :— 


Prof. C. SPEARMAN, F.R.S.—The theory of two factors. 


Foundation pillars of the theory.—Correlations between test scores ; 
observation of regularities; allowances for sampling errors; deduced 
constitution of scores ; other deductions. 

Points on which objections have been raised——Correspondence of theory 
with observation ; uniqueness of the factors; necessary existence of the 
factors ; interpretation of the factors ; scientific significance of the theory. 


Dr. WILLIAM Brown. 


As an important example of the value of methods of correlation in psy- 
chology, one may mention the employment of the tetrad-criterion 
(112%34 — T13%¥2, = 0) to test for the presence of a central intellective 
factor (g). The results of an extensive research, by Dr. W. Stephenson and 
the present speaker, on a large and homogeneous sample of boys, using 
nineteen carefully selected and standardised mental tests, show a frequency- 
distribution of tetrad-differences in close agreement with a ‘ theoretical ’ 
distribution, such as may be expected from a random sample drawn from 
correlations actually due to one central factor, thus supporting Spearman’s 
theory of ‘g.2. The form of distribution approximates closely to a Type IIA 
Pearson curve. 


Dr. S. Dawson. 


546 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


Dr. J. WisHarT.—Sampling error in the tetrad theory. 


Although much progress has been made with the establishment of the 
tetrad theory on a rigorous mathematical basis, the difficulties inherent in 
the study of the appropriate sampling errors have prevented a corresponding 
advance in this all-important part of the work. In deciding whether a given 
body of numerical data is in accordance with theory, we cannot expect the 
tetrads to be exactly zero, and must therefore make allowance for the random 
sampling error. This is usually done by forming the distribution of sample 
tetrads (necessarily symmetrical if each is to be counted twice, once positive 
and once negative), and comparing its standard deviation with an average 
theoretical value obtained by admittedly approximate methods. In this 
paper the inperfections of existing practice are noted, and some attempt 
is made to formulate more exactly the problems to be solved before the 
matter can be considered as settled. A full solution is not reached, but an 
extension of some earlier work of the author, in which a tetrad of product 
moments was used in place of that of the correlation coefficients, is sug- 
gested as a reasonable method of approach to a more exact solution. 
Illustrations are furnished from two series of numerical data supplied by 
Prof. Spearman. 


Dr. S. S. Witxs.—A criterion for testing the mutual independence 
of several sets of traits. 


Suppose that each of N persons has been measured on a set A of n 


traits, t;, to, . . . ¢,. Furthermore, let A be subdivided into k groups 
A,, Az, ... Ax, with the 7-th group A; having n; traits specified by 
ta,, tan, . . . tay;, The question with which we are concerned is the 


following : can this sample of Nn measurements be regarded as having 
come from a population in which there is no correlation between any trait 
of one group and any trait of another? For example, if several motor and 
several mental abilities are measured on a group of individuals, it might 
be important to ask if these two categories of abilities may be regarded as 
independent of each other. Again, in the problem of fitting factor patterns 
containing group factors to psychological data, which has been considered 
by T. Kelley and others, it would perhaps be useful in some cases to group 
the traits by a priori reasons and test for the significance of any dependence 
between the groups before attempting to find coefficients of the overlapping 
factors. Otherwise such coefficients may be insignificant. The same 
questions of independence will arise when linear transformations of the 
traits are considered. 

If rpq is the sample value of the correlation coefficient between tp and tg 
in A, D the determinant | rpq | of co:relation coefficients in A, and D; the 
determinant of correlation coefficients in A; (i= 1, 2... k), then the 
proposed criterion for testing the significance of the mutual independence 
of the groups A,, As, ... Az is OQ = D/(D, D, . . . Dy). When the 
hypothesis is true that these measurements have been made on a group of 
persons which has come from a normal population in which A, Ao, . . . Ap 
are mutually independent the sampling mioments are known, and in a 
number of cases exact expressions have been obtained for the probability 
integrals in terms of incomplete B-Functions. The QO criterion will be unity 
when, and only when, all of the 7’s vanish in D which do not occur in 
D,, Dz, . . . Dz—that is, when there is no correlation in the sample between 
any trait of one group and any trait of another. @Q becomes zero as the 
hypothesis of mutual independence becomes untenable, as far as the sample 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 547 


is concerned. QO may be regarded as a generalisation of 1—R?, where R is 
the multiple correlation coefficient between one variate and several others. 
The use of 1—R? as a criterion to test the significance of the independence 
of one variate and a group of several others is well known. Ina similar 
manner O may be used to test the significance of the mutual independence 
of several groups of variates. 


Dr. J. O. IRwin. 


It is possible that coefficients of association have been used too much in 
psychology. They should only be used after the most careful consideration 
of the assumptions on which they are based, and should in any case be supple- 
mented by statistical methods having a more direct meaning. An example 
of their careful use is given from some of the work done for the Industrial 
Health Research Board on ‘‘ Tests for Accident Proneness,” by Messrs. 
Farmer, Chambers and Kirk. 


Prof. H. T. H. Praccio. 


How far is g determinate? Analysis of tests by Murdoch, Brown, and 
Stephenson. No appreciable increase in determinateness possible by 
further increase in the number of tests. New tests with greater g-saturation 
needed. 


AFTERNOON. 
(Section meeting in two divisions.) 
Division 1. 
Prof. C. SpEARMAN, F.R.S.—The international plan for determining an 
individual’s unitary traits (2.0). 
Unprogressiveness of psychology ; revolution and evolution. 
Scheme to determine unitary traits; Thorndike’s plan; formation of 
committee ; extension of plan. 
International aid up to the present ; fundamental objections ; constructive 
suggestions. 
Experimental investigations already in progress: London; New York ; 
Nashville ; Washington ; Chicago. 
Mathematical advances made in theory of factorisation. 


Collaboration for the future: criticism; corroboration; supplementation ; 
interpretation ; special controversies ; final general conference. 


Dr. G. G. N. Wricut.—Personal relations and the small group (2.45). 


Two minds come into relation with one another when each seeks expres- 
sion in a frame of external circumstances of which the other is a part. 
A sociological view of such an event must apprehend the points of view of 
both persons as equally parts of one sociological situation which com- 
prehends the relevant mental states and behaviour of both. When these 
are in concord, and a common programme of activity follows, the dispositions 
in both minds which determine it may be regarded as constituting a single 
functional system or common mental frame. ‘The general lines of the more 
primitive common mental frames are innately determined; but (a) they 
undergo modifications specific to particular personal relations, and (0b) co- 
operative relations may rest upon common mental frames which have 
little or no innate basis but arise out of: (i) similar responses to a common 
situation ; (ii) complementary responses to a common situation ; (iii) the 


548 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 


pursuit of a common end ; (iv) the pursuit of interdependent ends. The 
structure of human relations is further complicated by («) the develop- 
ment of regulative mental structures, (8) volitional processes and other- 
consciousness. 

The structure of all groups small enough to be accessible for this kind of 
study may be described in similar terms. 


Miss M. D. VERNoN.—Binocular vision of flickering fields (3.30). 


Differing fields illuminated by steady or flickering lights were presented 
separately to the two eyes. ‘The critical frequency of flicker was higher 
when both fields were flickering than when one field flickered and the other 
was dark, showing that a binocular summation of brightness occurred. 
If one field was illuminated by flickering light, and the other by a steady 
light of equal or less brightness, no increase of critical frequency occurred, 
showing that there was no binocular summation of brightness. If the 
steady light was much brighter than the flickering light, the flickering 
frequency was slightly decreased. 

If figures of differing complexity were introduced into the steadily 
illuminated field, or into both fields simultaneously, there was in 
general a decrease in the flickering frequency. This seems to show that 
the critical frequency of flicker is a function of the nature of the fields, as 
well as of their brightness, and that perceptual factors are of importance in 
determining the critical frequency. 


Division 2. 
Mr. N. M. Batcuin.—A psychological approach to market research (2.0). 


It is a mistake to think of market research as a new development. There 
has always been market research of a crude, unconscious type. Recent 
workers have sought to make market research an exact, numerical science, 
in which the consumer is wrongly considered as a mechanical and invariable 
unit. 

True market research is not, and cannot be, a mathematical science. 
The collection, classification and numerical analysis of data are necessary 
preliminaries, but the essence of market research lies in the interpretation 
of this data, not in terms of numerically expressed fact, but in terms of 
psychological tendency. 

The examination of the present state of a market is the beginning of 
market research, but its end, if it is to have a constructive value, is less 
concerned with what people do than with why they do it, and less concerned 
with what is than with what will be in certain changed circumstances. 

If market research is to continue and develop, it must provide constructive 
suggestions rather than statistical information. ‘To that end it must study 
the psychology of the customer and his probable reaction to change rather 
than his conditioned responses to present circumstances. 

Market research must be a market barometer, not a market thermometer. 


Mrs. W. RaPHAEL.—A comparison of the psychological effects of employment 
by the Civil Service, by large companies, and by ‘ family ’ firms (2.45). 
There is a tendency for the goodwill of the worker towards the concern 
in which he is employed to vary inversely with the size of the concern. 
An attempt is made to study the causes of this tendency, such as the 
increased subdivision of labour in large concerns, the loss of direct contact 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—], K. 549 


with the management, the reduction in opportunities for promotion and 
the increase of interdepartmental jealousies. 

The attitude of the lower grade civil servant towards his work is very 
unlike that of the averag: employee of a business house. This may be 
partly due to different methods of recruitment, but is largely the effect of 
certainty of employment, regularity of promotion and the traditions of 
the service. 

The modern trend is towards larger groupings of employees, both in state 
and in commercial undertakings. Suggestions are made for minimising 
the resulting bad effects for the worker. 


Mrs. N. M. Barnes.—The function of the psychologist in the administrative 
scheme (3.30). 


The psychologist should be a recognised factor in the scheme of every 
local authority. His functions will be both practical and advisory. He 
should keep in touch with the problems of the normal school, and be 
prepared to give advice in those matters where his scientific training is 
likely to be of special value. 

It will also be his function to deal with variations from the normal, and 
to examine and advise the cases of special difficulty of learning or behaviour. 
He should be able to draft children to some school in the area where such 
cases can be dealt with. He would act in an advisory capacity to such a 
school and keep in touch with the children’s progress. 

He should devise means for keeping in touch with the problems of 
parents and teachers, of keeping them informed of such discoveries in 
psychology as are of special importance to educators, since the success of 
his work is dependent on the degree of intelligent co-operation he can 
count upon. 


SECTION K.—BOTANY. 


Thursday, September 7. 


Prof. A. C. Szwarp, F.R.S—The past and present floras of the Kerguelen 
Archipelago (10.0). 

The occurrence of the fossil coniferous wood in beds believed to be 
Tertiary in Kerguelen Land has long been known. A few years ago 
Dr. de la Riie collected several specimens of impressions, the best of which 
are foliage shoots and cone scales of Araucaria ; he found also fragments of 
ferns and imperfectly preserved leaves of Angiosperms and other plants. 
A general account of the geological and physical features of the Archipelago 
is given, and the main features and geographical relationships of the present 
flora are discussed. 

A brief description is given of the fossil plants, the age of which is 
believed to be Tertiary. Special attention is paid to the geographical 
range of present and past representatives of the genus Araucaria. The 
main purpose of the paper is to draw attention to phytogeographical 
and paleogeographical problems raised by the recent discovery, particu- 
larly to the difficulty of finding satisfactory solutions without assuming 
the movement of land masses. 


550 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 


Dr. H. HamsHaw THomas.—The nature and origin of the Stigma (10.45). 


The conventional view of the carpel is a purely subjective concept. An 
objective treatment of carpel morphology at once demands a provisional 
solution to the question of the origin of the stigma. ‘The suggestion that 
the evolution of the stigma preceded the inrolling of the carpellary leaf 
involves physiological improbability. In seeking a new explanation we 
need to know more of the structure of the stigma, and of the cells or tissues 
which conduct the pollen tubes to the micropyles. The existing information 
furnished by Capus, Guéguen, Juel, and others has been almost entirely ig- 
nored by English and German morphologists. ‘The stigma is only the upper 
termination of the “‘ conducting tissue ”’ of the style > (Capus). This tissue 
usually extends downwards as a definite band or bands on the ovary wall 
to the vicinity of the ovules; it appears to originate from papillate cells with 
specialised contents, but becomes much modified in certain families (e.g. 
Composite), especially in the style. In many cases the conducting tissue 
extends to the bottom of the gynzcium before entering the ovary, and it seems 
only possible to explain this on the assumption that the conducting tissue 
(and therefore the stigma) originated at the base of the ovary and later ex- 
tended upwards. The structure and development of the carpel and stigma in 
Alchemilla, Rhodotypus,and other members of the Rosacez supports this idea. 

On this assumption a picture of the evolution of the stigma and carpel 
can be drawn which is possible from both the morphological and physio- 
logical standpoints, the carpel wall representing two fused pteridospermous 
cupules. This view provides an explanation of what we know about the 
early stages of carpel development, of the vascular system of the carpel and 
of the anatropous ovule. We now know of fossil plants which exemplify 
most of the earlier stages in the supposed sequence of events. 

The angiospermous flower is not homologous with a vegetative bud, and 
it is quite possible that the Rosacez may be one of the more primitive 
families now living. 


Joint Discussion WITH Section A (Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 
q.v.) on The X-ray analysis of fibres (11.0). 


Alternative programme for Members not attending the above discussion :— 
Prof. H. S. HoLpeEnN.—On a new pteridosperm stem from Shore (11.5). 
The specimen described is a stem which has a markedly stellate outline 
in transverse section. There is a small homogeneous pith surrounded by 
primary xylem with mesarch protoxylem. The leaf-trace is mesarch and 


undivided. In common with the group of species described by Kubart, this 
stem forms a link between Lyginopteris and Heterangium. 


Prof. J. DoyLeE—The nature of heterospory (11.20). 


Dr. T. M. Harris.—On the reproductive organs of some early Bennettitales 
(11.40). 


Prof. R. A. FisHer, F.R.S.—The genetical system responsible for ever-sporting 
stocks (12.10). 
_ An outline of Winge’s theory of doubleness in stocks, and of its implica- 
tions, is given. 
A simple method of diagrammatic representation, applied to Miss Saunder’s 
data of 1911, shows both that the observed excess of doubles is due solely 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 551 


to their greater viability, and that one family there reported was exceptional 
in giving one-quarter doubles, as should the progeny of a plant freed from 
the pollen lethal. 

The close linkage between the pollen lethal and the factor for doubleness 
is due to selection acting automatically in the propagation of the ever- 
sporting lines, which has thus built up the ever-sporting character. 


AFTERNOON. 


Prof. N. G. BaLL.—The effect of nocturnal illumination on the subsequent 
opening of flower buds (2.0). 


The flowers of certain plants, Turnera ulmifolia var. elegans, Asystasia 
gangetica, Ipomea spp. and others, which normally open in the morning, 
are markedly affected when the buds are subjected to light during the pre- 
vious night. In buds which have been treated in this way, the petals, 
although they become elongated, may fail to diverge, and short-lived flowers 
may become withered while they are still in the closed condition. A some- 
what similar result is obtained when the buds are illuminated two nights 
before they are due to open, even if this is followed by normal conditions 
during the second night. 

In most species where this effect of light has been observed, the failure 
of the flower to open is correlated with a partial inhibition of the normal 
hydrolysis of starch in the petals. This inhibition is associated with a 
decrease in the diastatic activity of the cell-sap. 

In the case of flowers which react in this way, a comparatively weak 
illumination during the night is sufficient to prevent the buds from opening. 
When a screen which only transmits the red rays is placed between the light 
and the plant, the result is the same as it is with white light, but the infra- 
red rays alone do not have this effect. On the other hand, when buds 
are exposed during the night to the blue and violet rays only, even when 
the intensity of the light is considerably increased, they behave in a similar 
manner to those which have been kept in the dark and open normally. 


Dr. B. T. CRoMWELL.—Berberine in the metabolism of Berberis Darwinii 
(2.30). 

Experimental evidence leads to the deduction that the alkaloid 
berberine is a waste product of metabolism, and that it is produced in 
largest amounts when conditions favourable for protein breakdown are 
realised. Accumulation of the alkaloid in the root and stem bark takes 
place from year to year. Application of inorganic nitrogenous salts alone 
does not lead to increased alkaloid production, but if, in addition, glucose 
is supplied, or organic nitrogenous compounds, such as asparagine, are 
applied alone, rise in berberine content is observed. Light is an important 
factor in the synthesis, and all tissues growing in absence of light show high 
values. In shoots which have been grown for alternate periods in darkness 
and in light, only those regions which have made growth in absence of light 
exhibit high percentages of alkaloid. Withdrawal of essential elements 
leads to variations in yield. Under conditions of nitrogen starvation, 
alkaloid still accumulates : therefore it does not play the part of a nitrogenous 
reserve. Deprivation of calcium does not check berberine production, but 
withdrawal of potassium appears to inhibit synthesis. It is suggested that 
the alkaloid is synthesised from carbohydrate and protein residues. 


Excursion to Charnwood Forest. 


552 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 


Friday, September 8. 


Miss L. I. Scorr and Prof. J. H. Prresttey—On the Monocotyledon 
shoot from the standpoint of development (10.0). 


Miss M. T. Martin.—The structural and other differences between Sueda 
maritima and S. fruticosa (10.40). 


Suceda maritima and S. fruticosa are both maritime plants found on the 
coasts of Britain; the former is a small herbaceous annual inhabiting the 
lower levels of salt marshes, and the latter is a shrubby perennial found 
characteristically on maritime shingle banks. The present investigation 
includes a morphological and anatomical study of the two species, together 
with an attempt to correlate their outstanding features with some of the 
environmental factors involved. 

In the first part of the paper a brief account is given of the two species ; 
their habit, distribution, and the chief features of their habitats. This is 
followed by a brief summary of their anatomical characters, selection being 
made of any features of special interest, and particularly of the main points 
of difference between the two. Finally, an attempt is made to correlate 
these results with the environmental conditions, and to point out any bearing 
which they may have upon the general problems of halophytic vegetation. 


Miss M. M. Cuattaway.—The development of the rays of the Sterculiacee 
(11.20). 


The development of the rays in the wood of the Sterculiaceze has been 
studied by means of serial tangential sections. New rays originate either 
by subdivision of a fusiform initial or by the splitting up of a large ray ; the 
latter process appears to be closely related to a low surface-volume ratio 
in the larger rays, and is achieved by the reversion of ray initials to the 
fusiform condition, and not by the intrusion of adjacent initials. 

The number of initials in the rays is increased either by the swelling and 
division of existing ray initials, or by the addition of fusiform initials which 
are converted into ray initials, this latter method giving rise to sheath cells 
(hullzellen), which are characteristic of the Sterculiacez. 

In what appear to be the more advanced woods of this family the size of 
the rays is strictly limited, and fusiform initials are only converted to ray 
initials for the formation of new rays. ‘These small rays are often very 
numerous, their surface-volume ratio remains high, and the reversion to 
fusiform initials and splitting of the rays does not occur. 


Prof. F. E. Litoyp.—Is Roridula to be regarded as carnivorous ? (11.50). 


The two species of Roridula (R. gorgonias and R. dentata) are conceded to 
be carnivorous. 'This concession appears to be based on their taxonomic 
position as Droseraceez and on their possession of glands which simulate 
those of Droserainform. Fenner (Flora, 1904) showed, however, that their 
histological structure is different. As he worked on herbarium material, he 
naturally overlooked an important fact—namely, that the abundant secretion, 
which does indeed trap insects, is not water-soluble, but is rather a resin _ 
or an admixture of resins. It is soluble in ether, acetone, etc., and is acted — 
upon by alkali and acid, being changed into a brittle, frothy substance. 
There are no glands which secrete a water-soluble mucilage, nor any glands 
which might be regarded as digestive, comparable to those of Drosera. - 

The gland in its simplest expression—i.e. a small one—consists of four 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 553 


longitudinal series of epidermal cells with a thick cuticle. In a large gland 
the number of longitudinal series of cells is multiplied and the interior isnow 
occupied by a parenchyma. Thus far, Fenner is correct. There are, 
however, no pores or fissures in the cuticle, the sole opening being apical 
and schizogenous (Lloyd, Trans. R.S.C., 1933). Leading to this opening 
there are intercellular canals, one between each two longitudinal series of 
epidermal cells and bulbous towards its proximal end. These are filled 
with the resinous secretion, which escapes only through the apical opening. 
The findings indicate a negative answer to the question proposed. 


Dr. E. N. Mires Tuomas.—Recent work on the significance of seedling 
anatomy (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 


Prof. Dame HELEN GwYyNNE- VAUGHAN, G.B.E., and Mrs. H. S. WILLIAM- 
son.—The development of Ascophanus aurora (Crouan) Boud. (2.0). 


Ascophanus Aurora (Crouan) Boud. is a minute, coprophilous fungus ; 
it is moneecious and homothallic. The antheridium is globular, borne at 
the end of a stalk. The oogonium is ovoid, somewhat twisted, with a 
multicellular trichogyne. The sexual nuclei fuse in the oogonium and a 
few relatively large ascogenous hyphe grow out, in which the nuclei lie in 
single file. After simultaneous division of the nuclei in the ascogenous 
hyphez, walls are formed across the spindles, so that the hypha is divided 
into a terminal uninucleate cell, a basal uninucleate cell, and an intervening 
series of binucleate cells. Asci are formed in the usual way, and three 
successive divisions give rise to the nuclei of the ascospores. 


Miss M. Nosie.—The life-history and morphology of Typhula trifolit 
Rostrup (2.30).1 


The life-history and morphology of Typhula trifolit has been investigated. 
Sclerotia are formed in multispore cultures, and these germinate freely and 
produce the hymenophores ; the latter are also produced directly from the 
mycelium, 

The fungus is probably heterothallic ; clamp connections are present 
in multispore cultures but are not found in the monospore cultures, and these 
latter do not produce typical sclerotia or hymenophores. 

The parasitism of T. trifolii is being investigated. The distinctions 
between T. trifolii, T. bete and T. variabilis are not well defined. 


Dr. B. Barnes.—British aquatic fungi (3.0). 


The lower Phycomycetes have been little studied in Britain, but many 
species have been described in Europe and in North America. Recently, 
several interesting forms have been found in this country. They have been 
obtained from masses of moribund alge, from twigs, and from other 
vegetable debris taken from reasonably clean ponds and ditches. Such 
substrata, when placed in small quantities in one to two litres of cool, clean 
tap water, will sometimes develop crops of Phycomycetes in a week or so. 
Sterilisation of the water is not necessary unless it is desired to show that 
a given fungus occurs in a given body of water. ‘The fungi found include 
species of Monoblepharis, Gonapodya, Rhipidium, Sapromyces, Pythiomorpha 


1 In the absence of Miss Noble owing to an accident, the communication was 
tead by Dr. A. H. Campbell. 


U 


554 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 


and Pythiogeton ; it is probable that further search will add Allomyces and 
Araiospora to the British flora. 

The peculiar Hyphomycete, Tetracladium Marchalianum, sometimes 
occurs among dying alge. 

Other interesting Phycomycetes, in particular Thraustotheca clavata and 
Geolegnia inflata, have been obtained from the soil of a garden in South 
London. These fungi, with species of Pythium, and numerous forms not 
yet identified, developed on boiled cress seeds placed in a shallow layer 
of water and soil and subsequently transferred to clean water. 

All these forms deserve further study, as they are of great interest 
morphologically, and of importance taxonomically. 


Saturday, September 9. 


Excursion to the Peak District. 


Sunday, September 10. 
Excursion through Rutland (via Oakham), Stamford, etc. 


Monday, September 11. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. F. E. Luoyp on The types of entrance 
mechanisms of the traps of Utricularia (including Polypompholyx) 
(10.0). (See p. 183.) 


Prof, J. McLean THompson.—On the acarpous nature of certain forms of 
inferior ovary (11.30). 


Within recent years the author has been privileged to examine a wide 
range of Scitaminean plants, and in particular to examine the development 
and morphology of their inflorescences. 

He has been compelled to the conclusions that many forms of cymose 
inflorescence in the affinity have arisen by reduction of branched cone- 
bearing strobili, with flowers arranged in spiral order, and that sub-floral 
branching is not involved. The final stages in reduction of the intermediate 
cymes are simple spikes. 

The flowers themselves are considered to have been crateriform, with 
vegetative organs displayed} in spiral succession on the outer surface of the 
crater and with microsporangiophores on and towards the rim. ‘There 
were neither carpels nor styles, but the crater was occupied by mega- 
sporangiophores produced in spiral manner. The latter are the modern 
ovules. The crater is considered to have been reduced and its margin to 
have been curtailed, so that upper microsporangiophores came to lie on the 
inner rim. Here they were sterilised to styles, and their subjacent areas of 
support within the crater became the modern placente. ‘The acarpous 
view of the ovary is supported by evidence of progressive contribution of 
the andreecium to the style without involving the organisation of the ovary. 


Mr. F. F. Hype.—Notes on the floral morphology of the Campanuloidee 
(12.15). 


The structure of the flower in a number of genera is described with special 
reference to the vascular anatomy. ‘The bearing of the investigation on 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 555 


such problems as those of the syngonous condition (epigyny) and the nature 
of the gynecial members is indicated. Reference is made to the floral 
development of some of the species. The paper constitutes a pre- 
liminary account of an investigation of the floral structure throughout the 
Campanulacez. 

AFTERNOON, 


Exposition of exhibits in the laboratories of the Department of Biology, 
University College, Leicester (2.15). 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Joint Discussion with Sections D (Zoology, g.v.) and I (Physiology) 
on Genetics (10.0). 


Alternative programme for Members not attending the Genetics Dis- 
cussion :— 


Prof. F. A. F. C. Went.—Recent progress in the study of growth-substance 
(Auxin) in plants (10.0). 


Although growth substances in plants (auxins) have been studied else- 
where, the present paper is limited to an account of the work done in the 
Botanical Laboratory at Utrecht. As far as the influence of auxin on the 
cell wall is concerned, Heyn is continuing the studies he began at Paris 
and Leeds (i.e. X-ray investigations of cell walls), which led him to dis- 
tinguish between plastic and elastic extension. The first of these is due 
to the action of growth substance and is irreversible. "The elastic extension 
can be explained by a relaxation of the outer layers of the cell wall, due to 
the influence of strain. By studying the load extension relationship of 
the wall he was able to provide an explanation of differences of elastic 
extensibility, which occur as a result of changes of the rate of elongation. 

A study of phototropism with seedlings of Raphanus and Lepidium made 
by Van Overbeek has given results by which a synthesis of the theories of 
Blaauw and F. W. Went could be obtained. Here the auxin is produced 
in the cotyledons under the influence of light, and it flows towards the base 
in a longitudinal direction so long as the seedlings are kept in the dark or 
are equally illuminated on all sides. If, however, unilateral illumination 
is used, the flow of auxin is diverted laterally, so that the shaded side gets 
more growth substance than the other one and consequently grows faster. 
A curyature therefore results. 

On the other hand, light has a very distinct retarding influence on the 
growth of these seedlings. It may be proved that this—which is obviously 
the light-growth reaction of Blaauw—is due to a diminished sensibility 
of the cells to growth substance. The same quantity of auxin with the same 
cell gives a greater elongation in the dark than in the light ; whether this 
is a direct action of radiation on the cell walls or not has yet to be seen. 
Lateral illumination thus has two different effects on the seedlings of 
Raphanus sativus—(1) it diverts the growth substance to the shaded side, 
in consequence of which this side will grow faster ; (2) it diminishes the 
reaction of the illuminated cells to growth substance, in consequence of 
which the illuminated side will show a lesser reaction. Both effects are 
additive, and the result will be a positive phototropic curvature, the amount 
of which could be calculated by Van Overbeek. A somewhat similar 


556 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K,. 


explanation, though not going so far, has been put forward by Du Buy for 
the phototropic curvature of oat seedlings. 

Dijkman, studying the geotropic curvature of seedlings of Lupinus, has 
shown that here also the explanation of Dolk holds good. When these 
seedlings are placed in a horizontal position the distribution of the auxin 
is altered, the lower half getting more than the upper one ; consequently it 
must grow faster, and a negative geotropic curvature results. ‘The amount 
of the curvature may be calculated from the distribution of the growth 
substance. 

Bottelier has made a study of protoplasmic streaming in the coleoptile 
of Avena. The influence of temperature is small in young plants, but in 
older ones he obtained a ratio for the velocity of streaming at 16:5° C. to that 
at 24° C. of 10 to 21-3, which is almost identical with the ratio found by Van 
der Wey for the velocity of the transport of auxin. Light, especially of short 
wave-length, has a very pronounced influence on the velocity of protoplasmic 
streaming ; it is very remarkable that this influence is almost the same as 
in the light-growth reaction according to the data obtained by Van Dillewijn 
several years ago. 

The amount of protoplasmic streaming was not always the same, but it 
became evident that it changed with the sensitivity of oat seedlings to the 
growth substance. This amount is small when the sensitivity is low, and 
greater with a higher sensitivity. 

An investigation into the factors which influence this sensitivity in a room 
kept at constant temperature and constant humidity is in progress under 
the auspices of Kégl, and is being carried out by Haagen Smit and J.J. Went. 
There is sometimes a certain periodicity in this sensitivity, so that at a 
certain time of the day it is high, at another time low. ‘They could get rid 
of this periodicity by the use of metal boxes in the constant temperature 
room. Whilst it was not necessary to make use of leaden boxes, they had 
to be made of a good conductor of electricity. Hence it was clear that 
cosmic rays had no direct influence on the phenomenon, but possibly the 
electrical conductivity of the air played some part in it. The investigators 
could alter the sensitivity of the seedlings by passing a feeble electric current 
through them. When the tip is negative with respect to the base the sen- 
sitivity is lowered ; in the opposite case it can be carried up to an amount 
never yet found under natural conditions. ‘The currents necessary for 
obtaining the same deviations of the sensitivity as under natural conditions 
were of the order of 10-§ ampere. Oat seedlings are remarkably good 
objects for such experiments, since the effect can be quantitatively measured 
in them much better than in other cases. 


Miss E. N. SparsHott.—Tuberisation, with special reference to the 
development of Testudinaria elephantipes (10.40). 


The adult tuber of Testudinaria elephantipes is semi-globular with a 
flattened base from which roots arise centrifugally. Except at the apex 
the surface is covered with cork, thin over the base, but thick and deeply 
fissured elsewhere, owing to internal growth. Each season one or more 
new climbing vegetative shoots develop in the axil of one of the scale leaves 
surrounding the apex of the tuber. 

The embryo shows no tuberisation. The plumule remains very short 
and bears one relatively large leaf. Assimilates accumulate in the hypo- 
cotyl, which rapidly undergoes tuberisation. Early thickening results from 
division and hypertrophy of existing cells. 'Tuberisation is continued by 
secondary growth mainly from a pericyclic ‘ growth zone,’ but also from 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 557 


successive phellogens. The ‘ growth zone’ resembles an inverted cup 
with a hole in the bottom—i.e. beneath the apex of the tuber. Apex and 
base are further developed from the surrounding meristem and respectively 
produce a sympodium with reduced internodes and fibrous roots. 
Adventitious buds may develop when a fissure penetrates beneath the 
‘ growth zone ’ and causes its cells to collapse in that area. The conditions 
thus brought about are comparable with those obtaining at the tuber apex. 


Miss L. M. Wicxs.—The significance of the inverted bundle system (11.20). 


In Amaryllidaceous leaves the development and course of the vascular 
system was studied, especially in concentric leaves on account of the presence 
of two systems of vascular bundles : (i) a system of large normally orientated 
bundles ; (ii) an adaxial system of small inverted bundles. Throughout 
the leaf-limb the two systems are connected by transverse commissures. 
In the leaf-base the relationship of the inverted bundle system to the 
normally orientated one and to the stem system varies, and the following 
three types were found : 

(1) The Ianthe type—Certain normally orientated bundles in the bi- 
facial leaf-base curve round and enter the concentric leaf-limb as inverted 
bundles. 

(2) The Agave type—The inverted bundles are formed by special 
branches given off from the normally orientated bundles in the leaf-base. 

(3) The Narcissus type-—The most marked variation occurs in Narcissus, 
where the inverted bundles pass down from the leaf-limb into the upper 
part of the leaf-base, where they end abruptly in groups of small tracheids. 

According to the Phyllode theory the concentric monocotyledonous 
leaves are morphologically petioles, the inverted bundles resulting from the 
flattening of a petiole with a circle of vascular bundles as seen in transverse 
section. It is difficult to see how such variations as shown in the three types 
here enumerated can be made to fit in with the phyllode theory. 

The inverted bundles can be considered as secondary structures developed 
during the evolution of the primitive monocotyledonous leaf, possibly to 
increase the amount of vascular tissue in order to supply the increased 
amount of assimilating tissue of the concentric leaf. 


Prof. G. Senn.—The influence of light on the permeability of the plant 
cell (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 
Business MeerInG of the Section (2.0). 
Discussion on The teaching of botany in courses of biology (3.30). 


Prof. J. R. MatrHews.—Semi-popular lecture—The British flora and 
some of its problems (5.0). 


Wednesday, September 13. 


Visit to demonstration by the Timber Fireproofing Co., Ltd., Market 
Bosworth (10.0). 


558 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—K*. 


DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY (K*). 


Thursday, September 7. 


CHarRMAN’s Appress by Major the Hon. RicHarD CoKE on A system of 
forestry for the British Isles (10.0). 


(1) The need for a system which is in accordance with nature’s methods 
and which, besides aiming at the production of timber of the utmost com- 
mercial value that is possible under the local conditions, has due regard for 
sporting amenities. 

(2) Reasons for and against planting large blocks of one species only. 

(3) Reasons for and against uneven-aged mixed woods known as 
‘ Jardinage ’ in France. 


(4) The prevalent neglect of encouraging natural regeneration in the 
British Isles, and the economic importance thereof. 


Lt.-Col. E. Pratt, M.C.—Factors affecting the propagation and rate of 
growth of Salix cerulea (11.0). 


At its meeting last year, this section of the Association discussed the 
systemity and origin of the cricket-bat willow, and Dr. Burtt Davy ex- 
pressed the view, which was undisputed, that the Essex or Chelmer Valley 
strain was, whatever its origin, the most reliable one for growers to plant. 

Having decided on the correct strain, we need to consider the factors 
which produce the growth of the large rings of white wood needed to make 
the popular light cricket bat. 

Salix coerulea is a tree naturally producing a red timber. The 
cricket-bat manufacturer aims at a bat weighing a little over two pounds, 
and the best way to obtain this is from trees which have made such a rapid 
growth, that seven to eight years’ thickness of white sap wood is obtainable. 
This can only be done by considering every factor which tends to produce 
rapid growth, and by utilising the timber before that growth has been 
checked. 

The factors to be considered are, the wood of the original cutting and its 
development into a strong pollard, the cultivation of the shoots of that 
pollard to produce the quickest and straightest growth, the question whether 
the set should be put in the nursery to grow a root before planting out, 
the best conditions as to site and propinquity to other trees, the manuring, 
pruning, and after-care of the growing tree, precautions against disease, 
and, finally, the decision as to the best age at which to sell and the best 
method of marketing. 


Mr. Wo. Datiimore.—Trees and the countryside (12.0). 


The important part played by trees in the landscape effect of the country- 
side is emphasised, with special reference to park, field and hedgerow trees, 
as apart from those grown in woods and forests. Some of the forces 
operating against the maintenance of such trees are discussed, and sugges- 
tions made for the better selection of trees for planting in small shelter 
woods, and spinneys, and in hedgerows on large estates and farms, with 
a view to maintaining the amenities of the countryside and bringing profit 
to the owners. Reference is also made to the need for better cultural care 
in the management of park and hedgerow trees. Attention is directed to 
the danger to healthy trees by allowing dead, dying and otherwise worn-out 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*., 559 


trees, that have no definite historic value, to stand in fields, woods and 
parks, and a plea is made for their removal and for planting young trees to 
take their places. 

AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to Nanpanton, Loughborough via Thurcaston, Woodhouse, 
visiting Olverscroft Priory and Bradgate Park (by permission of Alan 
Moss, Esq.). 


Friday, September 8. 
Mr. H. Munpt.—Good forest and thinnings (10.0). 


Foresters utilise results from the past, live by the present, and work for 
the future. Aims and means ought to be discussed, understood, explained 
by measurement, graphs and valuations, suitable for international inter- 
course. Forests characterise a country and react strongly upon the life 
of men. A complex of ‘ stands’ and ‘ cultures’ do not suffice; a forest 
is required : natural, vigorous, with big trees and great values, in constant 
activity everywhere, beautiful and still rooted in sound economy. 

Thinnings every two to five years can transform the forest astonishingly 
and augment both revenue and capital-value considerably. Where 10 to 
15 per cent. of the volume each two to five years is a reasonable revenue, 
three times as much every six to fifteen years will be destructive. By con- 
stantly assisting the best and biggest trees, we can-improve the assimilation 
system, the forest climate, self-sowing, the form of young plants and the 
flora and fauna. Moderate volumes of great value and big increment can be 
furthered and the periods of fallow, so ruinous for forestry-economy, 
avoided. 

Wonderful progress is obtained by new species of trees and better race, 
but above all it is good forestry to make the most of what already exists 
and carefully keep up that continuity which belongs to nature. 


Mr. James MacponaLp.—Some effects of thinnings in coniferous plantations 
(11.0). 


Mr. A. P. Lonc.—The utilisation of thinnings (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to the timber yards of Messrs. W. Gimson & Sons. 


Saturday, September 9. 


Excursion to Boughton Estate near Kettering (by permission of the 
Duke of Buccleuch). 


Sunday, September 10. 
Excursion to Belvoir (by permission of the Duke of Rutland). 


Monday, September 11. 
The Hon. Nicer A. OrpE-PowLett.—Forestry and sport (11.15). 


Debt of forestry to sport in the past. Large areas planted for covert 
that would otherwise have remained derelict, Original natural woods 


560 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*. 


maintained through early and middle ages solely for sporting purposes. 
On majority of estates before the war little planting but for sport. Debt of 
sport to forestry, very little owing to general absence of organised forestry. 
Introduction of new species cuts both ways. Present-day position. Uni- 
versal interest both in sport and forestry. Financial importance of both 
subjects. Vital necessity of friendly relationship. Pessimism no excuse 
for inaction. Points of contact. Very large areas of woodland are of no 
value for sporting. Ground game should not come under sporting. 
Pheasant and grouse shooting the only types of sport affected by forestry. 
Very few grouse moors should be afforested from the financial or silvi- 
cultural point of view. Pheasant shooting inevitably very closely bound 
up with forestry. Requirements of pheasant pr serves. Coverts, nesting 
ground, flushing points. Effects on these of systematic forest management. 
Importance of size and distribution of woodland area upon the sporting. 
Treatment of (a) large blocks, (6b) scattered woodlands. Formation of 
flushing points for permanent covert. 


Dr. M. C. Rayner.—An account of recent experimental work on Mycorrhiza 
in relation to forestry. 


Experimental evidence is offered that there exists a direct causal relation 
between presence of mycorrhiza (where there is evidence of normal func- 
tioning) and satisfactory growth in seedlings of several species of Pine. 

On soils where formation of mycorrhiza by young trees is inhibited 
or markedly delayed, it can be expedited by inoculation of seed plots, 
previous to sowing, with small quantities of humus known to contain active 
mycorrhizas of the host tree. 

It is not believed, however, that this treatment alone will remove the 
trouble permanently on certain soils, since the development and func- 
tioning of healthy mycorrhiza is conditioned by the physiological state of 
both roots and mycelium. This in turn is bound up with environmental 
soil factors, and it may be expected therefore that experimental modification of 
such factors will be reflected in the condition of the root system, both in 
regard to the amount and kind of mycorrhiza formed. 

Following the adoption of a working hypothesis that the correct environ- 
ment is bound up with certain humus constituents of the soil, the results of 
experiments involving the application of special organic composts are 
described and illustrated by means of lantern slides. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Mr. J. A. B. Macponatp.—Preliminary results from peat planting experi- 
ments at the Lon Mor Experimental Station (10.0). 


This area of poor Scirpus peat moorland was selected in 1925. The 
exposure is full and the underlying rock an acid gneiss. 

Before draining the dominant Scirpus was accompanied by much Erica 
tetralix. In addition to Sphagnum species Rhacomitrum was frequent. 
The lichen Cladina and the liverwort Pleurozia also occurred. 

Previous investigations had shown notched planting to be radically 
unsuited for this type of ground. 

To permit plant roots to ramify without delay the system of planting, 
later to be known as the ‘ shallow-turf ’ method, was devised. 

From an early date it was intended to investigate mechanical means ‘of 
draining and turf provision in order to reduce otherwise prohibitive costs. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*. 561 


Amongst projects tackled experimentally were the following : 

(1) Method of inserting plants into a shallow turf and comparison of 
single shallow turf-method with other systems of turf planting. 

(2) Manuring and top dressing, chiefly with phosphates ; inoculating 
with active peat. 

(3) Effects of shelter. 

(4) Effects of preparation in advance and of turf decomposition ; season 
of cutting peat. 

(5) Use of peat from different depths. 

(6) Intensity of drainage. 

(7) Age and type of plants. 

(8) Trials of different species and races. 

Several of the experiments embraced costing trials. 

Experimental lay-out of various kinds has been used. 

Preliminary results show amongst other things : 

(a) The successful start made by surface planted trees. 

(b) Beneficial effects from phosphatic manuring. 

(c) Preparation in advance is, apparently, unnecessary. 

(d) Shelter is of secondary importance. 

(e) Surprisingly good growth of various exotic conifers compared with 
species previously considered more hopeful. 

While results obtained are only of a preliminary nature everything 

points to the urgent need for— 
(1) Cheap draining and turfing by mechanical means. 
(2) Cheap supply of suitable phosphatic manure. 


Mr. W. A. Rosertson.—Public opinion in the Empire upon forestry (11.0). 


Forestry is an unpopular subject or, at best, of indifferent interest to the 
public in the Empire and in the English-speaking part of the world. Why 
is it so? 

In the Dominions and probably most of England, forestry stands for 
plantation work and little or nothing else, and plantation ‘is associated 
mostly with conifers, and exotic conifers at that. Apart from this, forests 
are only associated with collections of decaying veteran trees esteemed for 
picturesque or sentimental reasons. 

The reliance on imported supplies of timber is of very old standing, 
while home woodlands are associated with sport only. Does this account 
for public indifference to forestry ? 

To get forestry properly appreciated in England and the Dominions 
ought not the supporters of forestry to try to give emphasis to the position 
of forests as part of the general land economy of the country and demonstrate 
the continuity of forests: the employment they give, the tending, pro- 
tection and management that they require ; and get away from the idea that 
forestry means the planting of an area and its neglect until the owner wants 
some cash? Some suggestions as to how this may be tried for, if not 
definitely achieved. 


Wednesday, September 13. 


Excursion (with Section K) to the works of the Timber Fireproofing 
Co., Ltd., Market Bosworth, near Nuneaton. 


562 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 


SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 


Thursday, September 7. 
TRAINING FOR BUSINESS AND ADMINISTRATION :— 


Principal H. Stewart, C.M.G., D.S.O.—University training for 
business (10.0). 


(1) A function of University to train mind ; not a function to turn out 
ready-made business man any more than complete engineer. Practical 
training essential ; given outside, and preferably after, University course. 

(2) Two types of training : (i) course without commerce bias ; (ii) course 
with commerce bias. Opinion divided as to which is more suitable. Many 
prefer former, regarding manner of training more important than subject. 

(3) Limitations. University cannot provide the fundamental personal 
qualities essential : those of character, not intellect. Prolonged academic 
work unsuitable. University trainees more likely to develop established 
business than build up from nothing. 

(4) Advantages. Training to think, grasp principles and essentials. 
This is the primary advantage. Secondary advantages are: (i) training in 
use of language; (ii) moulding of character in microcosm of student life. 
Cultural interests and athletic prowess less relevant. Given the fundamental 
qualities, University education valuable for higher positions. Graduates in 
early business career behind other recruits in technical knowledge, after- 
wards definitely superior in judgment, vision, executive power. 

(5) Changed attitude towards apprenticeship on probation at small 
salary, as in engineering. Training after entering business. Difficulty of, 
and case for, preferential treatment. 

(6) University only one of several avenues, but of growing importance. 
Increasing necessity and demand for well-trained minds in business. 


Mr. T. Kincbpom.—Secondary school training for business (10.15). 


General aims of secondary school education in preparation for life as well 
as livelihood—cultivation of qualities as well as inculcation of knowledge. 

The large increase in the numbers receiving secondary education means 
that far more pupils must go into business. Ought this to mean any 
modification in our methods and curriculum? Employers seem to be 
satisfied on the whole with the product they get. ‘The School Certificate 
gives a good general grounding in a variety of subjects. It should not be 
confused with Matriculation. Roughly, only half the pupils in secondary 
schools secure the School Certificate, and many pupils well suited for 
business cannot pass it. Value of headmaster’s recommendation. Danger 
of the black-coated professions securing the pick of the brains. 

Qualities desirable in business, such as method, tidiness, courtesy, adapta- 
bility, resourcefulness, initiative, and leadership, can only be developed 
if pupils stay longer. A year’s course for business pupils of 16 plus, 
whether they have passed the School Certificate or not, is very desirable. 
Possible co-operation with technical colleges. Suggested curriculum to 
include modern languages, economics, manual work, and perhaps shorthand. 


Mr. E. I. Lewis —The requirements of a business career (10.30). 


For many years secondary schools have been preparing boys for certain 
professions and branches of industrial life, particularly in science and 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 563 


languages. ‘To make further provision for an educational type will there- 
fore violate no principle. Any subject or any number of subjects can be 
taught in a specialised manner, and almost any one of them can be entirely 
educative. The study of industry and commerce is no exception. The 
schools profess to prepare boys for work and leisure. Since industry and 
commerce touch nearly everyone directly or indirectly, and everyone by his 
franchise can influence their course, a well-educated man to-day should 
know enough of them to understand at least what his daily journal seeks, 
for the country’s sake, to teach him. The boy who enters industry or 
commerce nowadays goes to an extremely complicated and highly depart- 
mentalised institution. Leaders of industry of the future must inevitably 
be more cultivated in business matters. ‘To prevent an early narrowness of 
view, and to promote the growth of wide interests within business concerns— 
to provide a bridge from school life to business life—a young man, before 
he enters the office or the works, should have studied, in an educational 
manner, some of the more pressing problemis of business life and organisa- 
tion. The paper indicates briefly the scope and the principles upon which 
to construct such a course. 


Mr. F. W. Lawe.—Selection and training of university men in a depart- 
ment store (10.45). 


The actual process of the selection and training of University men in 
one firm is examined, and some light thrown on the general problems of 
transition and adjustment. 

Two schemes of selection and training, covering eleven years in all, have 
been tried by the Department Store in question. The first, which ran for 
seven years, was characterised by liberality of outlook in selection and light- 
handed control in training. The training course consisted, as in many 
firms, of a sojourn in each of the important departments. The trainees 
acquired their knowledge successfully or otherwise in accordance with their 
individual characters. The results were not encouraging. Of eleven 
selected, five remained at the end of a seven-year period, and only three 
at the end of eleven years. All three remaining fully justified their choice. 
The second scheme, which superseded the first, has been in action only 
four years. Seven selections have been made. None have left. The three 
first selections are already in responsible posts and promise well. ‘The 
characteristics of the second scheme are (a) the limitation of entrants to 
First Class or good Second Class Honours men; () the introduction into the 
training course of methods specially devised for rapid and accurate learning ; 
and a tutorial system intended to develop initiative and to foster the 
adjustment of personality. 


Mr. G. C. Wickins.—Training of the Post Office counter staff (11.0). 


INTRODUCTION.—The detailed description in this paper applies to 
the counter staff in the London Postal Service. 

RECRUITMENT.—The male Probationary Counter Clerks are recruited from 
Boy Messengers. The female Probationary Counter Clerks are recruited in 
two ways : (a) open competition ; (6) limited competition. The‘ limited ’ 
candidates enter the service as Girl Probationers. 

TRAINING.—(a) General—The fundamental principles underlying the 
scheme of training are that it should be of a practical nature, and that the 
instruction should be so arranged as to develop the interest of the students 
in their own work, and to enable them to understand the relation which 
that work bears to other Post Office activities. 


564 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 


(b) Classes—Separate classes are arranged for male and female students, 
and they are divided into : 

Junior Class for new entrants—course, twenty weeks, half-day. 

Senior Class for counter clerks who are working in post offices, but are 
not yet qualified in the more important counter duties—two weeks’ 
course. 

Supervising Class for counter clerks who are about to substitute on 
supervising duties—one week course. 

(c) Instructors—The instructors for the junior and senior classes are 
senior counter clerks. Supervising officers take the supervising classes. 

(d) Funior Class —(i) Syllabus—The Standard Time Tiable—Appendix I 

—shows the subjects taught, and the order in which the lectures are 

given. 

(ii) Lectures —Summaries of the subjects dealt with in the lecture are 
dictated at intervals to the students after the instructor has explained 
the subjects. Accurate summaries are an important feature of the 
work. 

(111) Practical work —The students act in turn as counter clerk and 
‘member of the public,’ and each transaction is completed in the same 
manner as in actual business. 

(iv) Tests.—Written, practical, and recapitulative practical tests 
are included. 

(v) Completion of training—The training is completed at a post 
office counter. 

(e) Senior Class—Co-operation and discussion between instructor and 
students are encouraged. A précis of each lecture is distributed, on which 
students make their own notes. 

(f) Supervising Class—The main features are lectures by heads of 


departments on general questions of supervision, and practical instruction 
in Post Office counter accounts. 


DIscussIoN (11.15). (Principal J. Cameron Smalt, O.B.E.) 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE on Science Teaching in Adult Education (Prof. 
J. L. Myrss, F.B.A.; Dr. C. H. Descu, F.R.S.; Mr. A. S. Firtu; 
Miss H. Masters; Mr. R. J. Howrie; Prof. R. Peers; Mr. G. C. 
Hickson) (11.45). 


DISCUSSION. 


AFTERNOON. 
Visit to Loughborough College. 


Friday, September 8. 
EDUCATION FOR THE INDUSTRIES OF THE East MIDLANDS :— 
Dr. P. W. Bryan.—Geographical and general introduction (10.0). 
Mr. H. Satt.—The boot and shoe industry (10.20). 


Five problems have to be considered : 


(1) The change in the conduct of the industry from home to factory 
work, 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 565 


(2) The change from hand operations to almost identical operations 
done by machines. 

(3) The lack of uniformity in the industry’s raw materials. 

(4) The standard of ‘ studentship.’ 

(5) The lack of suitable books of reference, and the means adopted 
up to the present to solve this. 


Mr. JOHN CHAMBERLAIN.—The hosiery industry (10.35). 


Education for the hosiery industry was originally of a technological 
character, and the subject was treated in a very general manner, but, as the 
trade developed, it was found necessary to form grouped courses of instruction 
for the training of persons occupying functional positions, as follows : 
(1) General hosiery course. (2) Course for designers and makers-up. 
(3) Dyeing and finishing course. (4) Administration and salesmanship. 

Course (1) is intended to give the student a clear idea of trade processes 
and machinery, as well as the sciences underlying the industry. Yarn 
testing and fabric analysis form part of this course. Both full-time and 
part-time courses are available for this course and courses (2) and (3). 
Course (2) is based essentially on a knowledge of art, especially dress design, 
but includes technical subjects, such as the theory of knitting, stitch effects, 
patterning mechanisms and fabric production. Course (3) has a bias 
towards chemistry and provides instruction for the dyeing of all fibres used 
in knit-wear. Analysis of reagents used and testing of dyed materials is 
specially emphasised. Finishing processes for knit-wear are included in the 
course. Course (4) is as yet in the experimental stage, but includes a study 
of business methods, commercial and industrial administration, economics, 
salesmanship and modern languages. 


Dr. H. ScuorretD, M.B.E.—An experiment in education—the Lough- 
borough scheme of engineering training on production (10.50). 


Great controversy has always ranged around the subject of the best 
scheme for the training of the engineer, but all seem agreed that practical 
instruction is essential. 

It is growing increasingly difficult to secure an all-round training. Mass- 
production methods in engineering have come to stay, and the all-round 
kind of experience that the old apprentice received is no longer available. 
On the practical side the best boy tends to have the least chance. ‘There is 
little connection between the offices of the firm and the works, and pro- 
motion inevitably seems to be more open to a bright youth in the office 
than for an equally clever boy in the foundry or the machine shop. On the 
academic side there is a great tendency to grow stale. University syllabuses 
tend to govern curricula, and these concern themselves with the mathe- 
matical and physical sections of the work only, taking little account of 
management, with all its problems, and the technique of selling goods. 

The so-called engineering workshops of the modern University or 
Technical College are laboratories rather than workshops, and gifts to 
Technical Institutions are often made from plant no longer required for 
modern productive industry. Depreciation is still held to be a governing 
factor, rather than regard being paid to considerations of obsolescence. 

To overcome these difficulties several schemes have been tried. ‘The 
productive college first came into being in America, and in this country it 
has been very highly developed at Loughborough. 'The University lecture 
rooms and laboratories exist side by side with the productive workshops of 
the commercial engineering firm, and in one and the same set of buildings, 


566 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 


under the same control, using a week-in and week-out system, the student 
in a five-year course experiences all sections of productive output, from the 
foundry to the drawing office, and from the machining and fitting shops 
to the tool room. He is brought up against estimating, costing, and selling. 
The exercise no longer exists, and the student is engaged in interesting 
productive work throughout his whole course. 


Mr. J. R. Bonn, M.B.E.—Agriculture (11.5). 
Mr. W. A. BrockIncToN, C.B.E.—Summation (11.20). 


DISCUSSION (11.35). 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE on The teaching of science, with special reference 
to biology (Dr. Littan J. CLarKE; Dr. E. L. Hirst; Mr. G. W. 
O.trve; Sir F. Gowianp Hopkins, Pres.R.S.; Dr. W. W. 
VAUGHAN) (12.0). 


DISCUSSION. 
AFTERNOON. 


Visit to Rugby School and Rugby Day Continuation School. 


Monday, September 11. 


Jomnt Session with Section J (Psychology) on The predictive value of 
school examinations and psychological tests :— 


Prof. C. W. VALENTINE.—The unreliability of entrance examinations 
to secondary schools and the awarding of university scholarships 
(10.0). 


Dr. D. W. Oates.—Some factors in scholastic ability and their pre- 
dictive value for secondary education (10.15). 


(1) Why predictive values are low. The implied assumption that the 
criterion is non-variable and represents the ideal. The distinction between 
ability and capacity. 

(2) The need for a sharper definition of what the secondary school 
demands. Recent evidence of the importance of specific abilities in the 
secondary school. ‘ Success in the various subjects depends more upon 
specific abilities than upon general capacity.’ 

(3) The ‘ snapshot’ impression of a single examination, even with the 
best examination technique, may present a distorted and badly weighted 
index of a pupil’s normal achievement and power. The discrepancy 
between the entrance examination result and subsequent achievement is 
not necessarily due to faulty measures of achievement, but may be the 
natural result of other factors. 

(4) The results of investigations of the factors in scholastic ability. The 
importance of some traits which we can crudely describe but for which we 
have at present no tests that are even approximately objective. The bearing 
of certain personality factors other than intelligence upon academic success. 

(5) The predictive value of a written examination, intelligence test, 
head-teachers’ estimates, and ratings and tests for temperament qualities 
as revealed by correlation with subsequent secondary school achievement. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 567 


Mr. F. BarracLoucH.—The reliability of entrance examinations to 
secondary schools (10.30). 


In recent years local education authorities have paid much attention to 
the syllabuses for scholarship entrance examinations, but in many cases a 
corresponding lack of attention to the machinery of the examination has 
vitiated their efforts. 

School records and the position of children in non-provided schools are 
matters requiring further research. 

In making a comparison between the results of scholarship entrance 
examinations and school certificate examinations the methods of analysis 
of variance enable the investigator to test the significance of his results. 

The work of Prof. Valentine regarding the predictive value of scholar- 
ship entrance examinations revealed the need for additional research, and the 
results of an investigation conducted in ‘ non-Valentine’ areas are given. 
The predictive value of intelligence tests is also discussed. 


Mr. F. SaNDON.—Difficulties in using entrance examinations, intelligence 
tests and school results for comparative purposes (10.45). 


Prediction is a question in probabilities, and our estimate of a, the 
ability to profit by education at a secondary school, depends on correct 
statistical procedure. No test, by reason of various kinds of variability, 
will be perfect, and any test will only correlate to some degree with the 
criterion. Even if we have a theoretical correlation table with r, between 
mark and criterion, as 0-85, in the top one-fifteenth two-fifths of the selec- 
tion should not be there and the correlation for selected candidates would 
be computed at 0:3. This illustrates a principle of Karl Pearson that 
examination statisticians have apparently overlooked. Selection modifies 
means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients. In an observed 
case a correlation of 0-67 on feebly selected material was by more and more 
stringent selection reduced through values of 0:07 and —o-16 to —o-93. 
The farther we get away from the measure of the selection the less will be 
the effect on the correlation of correlated measures—the other test will 
always tend to be the better. A correlation coefficient between two measures 
should not be given in vacuo ; the material studied should be revealed and 
special study made of possible selection effects. 

Other statistical and allied difficulties are referred to and some suggestions 
submitted. 


Prof. J. Drever—The comparative reliability of examinations and 
tests respectively (11.0). 


Examination marks are unreliable from two points of view. In the first 
place one and the same examination paper, it is well known, may be 
differently assessed by different examiners, and even by the same examiner 
at different times. This defect might to some extent be removed by objec- 
tive methods of assessment. In the second place school examinations at 
best have been shown to have an extremely low correlation with University 
success even in the same subject. The causes of the unreliability in this 
case would appear to be very complex. The first type of unreliability ought 
not to be present to any considerable extent in the case of intelligence tests, 
and the second is certainly not present in the same degree. 


568 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 


Miss A. B. DaLe.—Tests and entrance examinations as predictive of 
academic success among university women students (11.15). 


During the past seven years a comparison has been made between the 
intelligence test scores of students of Newnham College, Cambridge, and 
their performances in academic examinations, the total number of students 
dealt with being about 530. Students were tested during their first term 
at Cambridge and again later in their University career. Records were kept 
of their performances in entrance or scholarship examinations and in their 
tripos or other academic examinations taken at the end of each year of their 
course. 

The results appear to show that success in advanced and highly specialised 
academic work depends to a considerable extent on factors other than that 
measured by intelligence tests, although the influence of this general factor 
varies in different academic subjects. 

Performance in entrance or scholarship examination differs markedly 
' from that in the final examination taken 3} years later in about 14 per cent. 
of the cases considered. A special study of these cases shows to what extent 
a truer forecast of success would have been obtained by combining an 
intelligence test with the academic papers of the entrance examination. 


Mr. E. Farmer.— The predictive value of examinations and psychological 
tests in skilled occupations (11.30). 


DISCUSSION (11.45). 


AFTERNOON. 
Symposium on The cultural value of science in adult education :— 


Sir RrcHarD Grecory, Bart., F.R.S. (5.30). 


When the Workers’ Educational Association was founded thirty years 
ago, its deliberate intention was to arouse among the workers greater interest 
in higher education, particularly in relation to subjects of a non-utilitarian 
character. It represented the view that, in the training of citizens, oppor- 
tunities for general culture were needed as well as facilities for technical 
education. ‘There was to be a broad highway to realms of intellectual 
delight in literature, history and art, as well as in natural science, and the 
education was to touch the heart and imagination independently of its 
industrial or commercial contacts. 

The cultural value of science in adult education is thus no new subject, 
but it cannot be said that any clear principles of promoting this value have 
yet emerged from any educational organisation. 

When science is taught, not as an aid to a vocation, but as part of the 
training of a modern citizen, it may be said to have a cultural value. Atten- 
tion should, therefore, be given to the influence of scientific discovery and 
its applications upon social and economic life and thought. Science rightly 
conceived is modern humanism in the fullest sense. Even if the humanities 
are understood to mean letters, history and art, there should be no conflict 
between these studies and natural knowledge. It should be understood 
that the object of teaching science to general students in adult classes is not 
to produce specialists but to create in the rank and file appreciation for what 
is good and needful for intelligent citizenship. 


Prof. W. J. PucH.—Geography and geology (5.45). 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. 569 


Prof. W. B. BRIERLEY.—Natural Science (zoology, botany) (6.0). 


Consideration of this question depends on one’s idea of the meaning of 
the word ‘ culture.’ To the author it means an integration of knowledge 
and experience which helps an individual to lead a reasonably full and free 
intellectual and emotional life and fits him to play a contributing part in the 
social community ; in short, an orientation towards life which makes for 
personal happiness and social usefulness. Cultural values are traditionally 
ascribed to particular subjects but, in fact, cultural values are not inherent 
in any subject, but derive from the method of treatment and the personal 
- relationship to a subject. There are few, if any, subjects whose study is not 
of potential cultural value, but the traditional methods of approach often 
lead only to the accumulation of information unrelated to life as a whole. 
To possess cultural value a subject must be regarded not as an isolated 
department of pure knowledge but as an integral part of human life and 
social welfare, and its pedagogy must have this orientation. The study of 
biology (zoology and botany) by reason of its methodology of observation, 
experiment, deduction and generalisation, together with its techniques of 
recording, can be made to yield ample scope for the development of an 
individual’s sensory, emotional, and intellectual life. By reason of its sub- 
ject material, which is the basis of all human development and social structure, 
it can be made to induce appreciation of fundamental principles of life and 
civilisation. 


Dr. ALLAN FERGUSON.—Chemistry and physical science (6.15). 


Prof. J. L. Myres, F.B.A.—The general educational problem (6.30). 


Education, as a preparation for life, approaches its task in different ways 
and by appropriate methods, according to the life to be lived, and the pre- 
supposed experience of the pupil. In adult education, the student’s experi- 
ence is wide but ill-co-ordinated ; his faculties though mature, are ill-trained ; 
he is less receptive of systematic ins*ruction, more appreciative of theoretical 
assistance applied to concrete episodic problems. His approach to all 
enquiry,—‘ scientific’ in the popular sense, or other,—is rather that of 
explorer and pioneer, than of pupil or disciple. Collaborative apprentice- 
ship, however, has been his normal introduction to technical skill; and 
usually he understands what team-work means, even when he is not by 
disposition suited to it. ‘These considerations affect the teaching, no less 
than the learning, of adult students. Historical and economic studies have 
had their vogue mainly because they have been presented to adult classes 
as remedies for social inconveniences in daily experience. Comparative 
indifference to the natural sciences results less from intrinsic abstruseness, 
than from the failure of academic exponents, laboratory-trained themselves, 
to appreciate the necessity of beginning with what the student practically 
knows and can do, with the simple means at his disposal and chiefly with his 
own trained eye and skilled hand. 


Dr. VAUGHAN CorNIsH.—The esthetic aspect (6.45). 


Sir Josran Stamp, G.B.E.— Summation. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


PRESIDENTIAL ApprEss by Mr. J. L. HoLtanp on The development of the 
national system of education (10.0). (See p. 219.) 


570 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—L. 


RESEARCH WORK BY TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS :— 
Dr. A. H. SmitH.—Field-names (11.10). 


Dr. L. DupLtey Stamp.—Some types of local survey (11.30). 


This paper describes an attempt to apply a simplified form of the regional 
survey method on a nation-wide basis. Starting with the assumption that 
a fundamental aim of juvenile education is to provide an adequate prepara- 
tion for adult life, an intensive study of the home region and of the local 
environment is used as a starting point for a training in citizenship by 
awakening an appreciation of the significance and relative importance of the 
facts of local geography, history, and economics. Several bodies exist to 
encourage regional survey as an educational method and amongst them was 
the Regional Survey Committee of the Geographical Association. The 
author, on his resignation from the Indian Educational Service in 1926, 
became Secretary of this Committee and it was soon apparent that only the 
larger or better-equipped schools could, except with specially enthusiastic 
leadership, organise a complete local survey. A search was made for a 
simplified form which could be undertaken by the smallest rural schools— 
even single-teacher schools—but which would carry the advantage of the 
method and would, at the same time, yield results of permanent value. By 
a magnificent pioneer effort, Mr. J. L. Holland, Director of Education for 
Northamptonshire, assisted by Dr. E. E. Field, showed how the rural schools 
of a county could effectively undertake a survey of the uses of land, each 
school studying its own parish. With this example before them, the Land 
Utilisation Survey of Britain was formed in October 1930, with the help 
of a grant from the Rockefeller Fund of the London School of Economics. 
The Survey was careful to remain an independent body and all work has 
been carried out on a voluntary basis, though the approval of the Board of 
Education, Scottish Education Department, County Councils Association, 
and many other bodies was first obtained. The Survey was organised ona 
county basis, England, mainly in 1931 ; Wales and Scotland mainly in 1932. In 
seventy of the ninety-three administrative counties the Director of Education 
has been the county organiser. It is estimated that 10,000 schools and 
200,000 children have taken part in the study of the 22,000 sheets of the 6-in. 
ordnance map which are involved. The methods followed are described ; 
independent opinions and estimates of the value of the work are given. A 
number of the maps on the scale of 1 inch to 1 mile, now being issued by 
the Ordnance Survey as a result of the Survey, are mentioned. The results 
of the Land Utilisation Survey further illustrate in a remarkable way the 
controlling influence on the progress of educational experiments exercised 
by the County Education Committees. 


Mr. A. S. McWiti1am.—A research in agriculture at Lady Manners 
School, Bakewell (11.50). 


This paper is an account of some of the field experiments carried out by 
the boys and girls in connection with the biology course. The experiments 
are arranged in collaboration with the Rothamsted Experimental Station. 

The experiments on meadow hay consist of, first, an eight plot manurial 
test which gives significant results for the complete manure, all the other 
treatments containing nitrogen and for potash in the presence of nitrogen. 
The second one demonstrates the importance of the degree of solubility of 
phosphatic fertilisers ; and the third is a two years’ trial to compare the 
action and manurial residues of dung and complete artificials. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L, M. 571 


The experiments on arable crops are (1) the comparison of nitrogenous 
fertilisers on potatoes in which nitrogen in all the forms tried gave significant 
results, but the differences between the various forms of nitrogen were not 
significant, and (2) a rotation experiment on the eight plot system which 
brings out some overall effects. The size of the plot varies from 1/120 to 
1/200 acre each; the treatments are replicated and randomised. ‘The 
standard errors compare favourably with those obtained at research centres 
where larger plots are used. 


Miss J. K. Jones.—A village survey (12.10). 


A short account is given of the work done in two small Oxfordshire 
village schools over a period of years under the guidance of Miss C. V. 
Butler, M.A., who, with Miss C. A. Simpson, wrote the Board of Education 
Pamphlet No. 61 on ‘ Village Survey Making—an Oxfordshire Experiment.’ 

One of the schools, Lower Heyford, is in a ‘ compact’ village, in the 
centre of the county, on the Cherwell, typically a valley village ; and this 
survey is compared with that of Idbury and Fifield, on the extreme west of 
the county, 600 ft. above sea-level, on one of the Cotswold slopes. 

The points of comparison will be : 


(1) Geological formation, involving types of water supply, buildings, 
boundaries, crops, and fields with their names. b 

(2) Economic life of the inhabitants; local industries, existing and 
extinct ; markets. 

(3) Illustrations of social history Enclosures and commons, tithe 
barns, pounds, turnpikes, manorial rights. 

(4) Local customs ; Folk lore, weather lore, children’s games. 

(5) Nature study ; Trees. 

(6) Method. (a) Utilisation of children and the effect on ordinary 

school work. 
(6) Utilisation of parents—neighbours and old scholars. 

(7) Limitations and value. (a) As ‘ finding out’ with some real con- 

tribution to knowledge ; (b) as an educational method. 


DISCUSSION (12.30). 


SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE. 


Thursday, September 7. 


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Dr, A. LauDER on Chemistry and Agriculture 
(10.0). (See p. 243.) 


Discussion on Some sociological aspects of agriculture :— 


Mr. R. R. ENFIELD.—What is our objective in agriculture: high 
production, high employment or high standard of living ? (11.0). 


The objective of a higher standard of living. Its relation to general 
economic progress. Economic factors affecting the problem of increasing 
agricultural production and employment. The trend towards economic 
nationalism. The country’s balance of payments. Sociological factors. 
How can these be measured? Their relation to economic factors. Ex- 
amples of other countries. Technical questions involved. The effect of 


572 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 


modern technique on employment and production. Questions of procedure. 
Conclusion. 


Prof. A. W. AsHspy.—Technical and economic efficiency and some 
social results (11.30). 


DISCUSSION (12.0). 


AFTERNOON. 


Excursion to the Robert Bakewell Memorial and the Midland 
Agricultural College. 


Friday, September 8. 


Discussion on Land drainage :— 
(1) Lancer WaTERWAYS. 


Mr. A. T. A. Dosson, C.V.O., C.B.E.—The law of land drainage ; 
arterial drainage (10. 0). 


A brief account is given of the trend and object of land drainage legislation 
prior to 1930, when a new and comprehensive Act was passed repealing all 
previous enactments, and providing for the constitution of a new class of 
land drainage authority. 

The more important of the powers conferred by this latter Act are shortly 
described, and some account is given of the progress that has already been 
made and i is likely to be made in the future by the new authorities which 
have been set up under that Act, in dealing with the task before them, and 
in organising the drainage system of the districts for which they are 
responsible. 

The nature of the operations which urgently require to be carried out on 
the main rivers of England and Wales is referred to, and an attempt is made 
to show that powers now exist for the first time under the Land Drainage 
Act, 1930, whereby every watercourse from the farm ditch to the great 
arterial or estuarial river, can be maintained in a reasonably effective manner 
with the financial resources provided under the Act. 


Discussion. (Mr. W. Hare.) 
(2) Fietp Drains. 


Mr. H. H. NICHOLSON (10.30) -— 
(a) A general survey of the position on farms. 


The area of land requiring field drainage varies enormously from one 
part of the country to another, depending on such factors as physiography, 
geological formation, the main drainage channels, the type and maintenance 
of previous drainage operations. ‘Tile draining and mole draining are still 
practised, the former to a diminished extent. Ditching and the cleaning of 
watercourses are still carried out with effect, but these important links between 
the field drains and the main water-ways are being increasingly neglected. 


(6) Drainage investigations at Cambridge. 


The field moisture profile of the soil and its variations throughout the 
year have been studied particularly on heavy land, in conjunction with the 
incidence of rain and the performance of drain outfalls. ‘The mode of 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 573 


operation of mole drains, their shape and the changes which take place with 
age, have been examined. Observations have been made on the permeability 
of the soil in the field and its seasonal variations. 


Dr. H. Janert.—Drainage investigations on the Continent (11.10). 


Many soils in Germany require amelioration to make farming profitable 
and to intensify cropping to the level necessary to provide home-grown 
foodstuffs for the whole population. ‘To this end the German states have 
always paid careful attention to land amelioration work, and a special 
organisation was set up to lead and to supervise amelioration generally and 
drainage in particular. 

Land amelioration boards exist in all the German states and possess a 
large staff of trained amelioration experts, called Kulturtechniker. The 
duties of these experts are very diversified and include irrigation, cultiva- 
tion of moor and marsh land, and particularly drainage. 

It is now fully recognised that efficient drainage can only be expected if 
the water and soil conditions are carefully investigated and taken into 
account. The soil conditions are of particular importance in determining 
the appropriate drain depth and separation. Before modern methods of 
soil investigation were introduced into drainage practice, the soil conditions 
were estimated simply by practical experience. This was found to be 
most unreliable, and it has been shown by field and laboratory researches 
that close relations exist between the results of certain laboratory tests and 
the response of a soil to drainage. 

These relations apply only to tile drainage, which, however, becomes 
uneconomic in the case of the extremely heavy soils. In some of these 
mole draining can be successfully employed, but in others the moles do not 
hold, and some internal support must be provided for the mole channels. 
A new method for this purpose is proposed and described. 


Mr. J. H. BiackaBy.—Drainage machinery (with a note on the 
measurement of outflow) (11.35). 


Mole draining requires considerable power, a variation from 7 to 23 
drawbar horse power being shown in the records of tractor working. The 
methods of providing this power are a team of horses, a portable winch 
operated by hand, horse or low-powered engine, steam cable engines, direct 
tractor haulage and tractor cable haulage. Each has advantages and limita- 
tions. Mole ploughs in this country are essentially of simple form ; there 
are points in construction which make for good work. Continental machines 
have been elaborated for various purposes. Mole draining can be done 
very cheaply. Mole drains have lasted fifty years, shallow tractor-drawn 
mole drains have worked well for five or six years. 

Tile drainage is comparatively expensive by reason of the hand labour 
involved. Various forms of excavator have been developed to minimise 
this and speed up the work. Ditch cleaning has also been mechanised. 
For arterial watercourses, excavators of varying size of the drag-line or grab 
type are used. 

A meter for measuring drainage outflow has been designed and tried out 
in the field by the Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering. 
This meter is automatic and self-recording and can deal with rates of flow 
from zero up to 4 gallons per minute. 


DISCUSSION (12.0). 


574 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 


Saturday, September 9. 


Excursion to open fields, Laxton. Paper during excursion :— 


Mr. C. S. ORwin.—The open field parish of Laxton. 


Laxton has an unique interest for the agriculturist and the economic 
historian in that it is the last survivor of the open field parishes, and it 
remains the only place where the manorial system can be studied as a living 
organism. 

The population is still concentrated in the village, with the farm buildings 
and crofts behind each dwelling-house. ‘The demesne lands, all of them 
ancient inclosures, extend along one side of the parish. The common, 
with its cow-gates attached to certain of the holdings, is still in being. ‘The 
plough land of the parish is still divided into three great fields, over which 
are scattered the holdings of the tenants, and they are farmed strictly on 
the old three-course rotation—winter corn, spring corn, fallow. Stubbles 
and the fallow field are still grazed in common by the livestock of the tenants. 
The Court Leet is still summoned by the Bailiff, and the jury is sworn by 
the Steward of the Manor. A Pinder is appointed to control the common 
grazing, and to impound straying or unauthorised stock in the parish pinfold. 
The jury inspects the state of cultivation and fines delinquents. 

Laxton has belonged to the family of Earl Manvers for the last three 
hundred years. It is an historical monument of the first importance, for it 
demonstrates the manorial system in a way which no written description can. 


Monday, September 11. 


Discussion on Grazing problems :— 


Alderman P. F. Ast1Lt.—Grazing in the Midlands (10.0). 


The grazing of the rich pastures of the Midland area consists of feeding 
animals for a comparatively short time till they are fit to butcher. The 
feeder has to consider what type is most suitable for his pastures, and at 
what weight and age the animal commands the best price. He must 
estimate the number his farm will carry, and have a proportion of his stock 
ready to market as soon as his pastures have reached their maximum growth. 

The greatest factor in producing these renowned pastures has been the 
management. 

Their richness or strength has unfitted them for feeding the younger 
animal the public now demands and presents an unsolved difficulty which 
merits most careful inquiry. The consumer’s demand for a small and 
tender joint is much easier to meet in the production of mutton and lamb 
than in beef. 

The rearing of the right type of store is increasingly important and there 
are good reasons to expect an early improvement. 

The increase of the grass acreage has caused an unequal production of 
both beef and mutton, with great fluctuations in value which tend, in the 
period of short supply, to limit the demand for home-produced meat. 


Mr. Martin G. Jones.—The art of grazing and its effect on the 
sward (10.30). 

Pasture is a perennial crop, and the art of grazing resolves itself into two 

aspects, viz. the maximum production from the sward in any particular 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 575 


season and the maximum benefit to that sward for production in future 
years. 

Both aspects are closely bound up with the botanical nature of the sward, 
and therefore any treatment that favours the best plants will improve the 
sward for future years, whilst any treatment that favours undesirable plants 
will cause a deterioration. 

Pastures generally contain a number of different species and strains of 
plants which are in continual competition with one another, and the experi- 
ments to be described have shown how the grazier by adjusting the rate of 
stocking at various times of the year does unconsciously determine which of 
the botanical constituents in his sward shall predominate. Starting with 
an uniform area of pasture it has been possible to convert one portion into 
a clover-dominant sward, whilst a corresponding portion has been converted 
into a grass-dominant sward. The grassy sward has been further divided, 
causing ryegrass to become dominant over cocksfoot in one section, whilst 
the adjoining section has cocksfoot as the dominant plant. 


Mr. W. Davies.—The biotic factor : lessons from Australian and 
New Zealand grasslands (11.0). 


Grassland is an unstable vegetation complex, often a direct biotic complex 
which depends upon the action of grazing animals for its maintenance as 
grassland. ‘The problems of pastures established by man in place of forest 
are compared with those of semi-arid (steppe and savannah) regions. ‘The 
influence upon the pasture complex of contrasting management and different 
types of stock are examined, as for example, the control of grazing by 
domestic live stock and uncontrolled grazing by wild animals, as rabbits, 
kangaroo and other organisms. 

The principles of pasture maintenance and pasture improvement are 
briefly considered from the several view points of (1) species and strains ; 
(2) soil fertility ; and (3) management. 

(1) Desirable attributes in herbage plants ; the value of knowing source 

of origin in purchasing pasture seeds ; seed certification in relation 
‘to herbage plants—tendencies in New Zealand, Australia and 
Britain. 

(2) The improvement of soil fertility. The value of pasture legumes as 
soil improvers and as payable pre-crops: lessons based on 
Australian experience. Pasture plants classified according to the 
demands made by them upon soil fertility. 

(3) Grazing technique in relationship to botanical composition. The 
influence upon the sward of differential grazing: (a) heavy con- 
tinuous; (b) heavy intermittent; (c) overstocking and under- 
stocking ; (d) haphazard and controlled grazing. The reactions of 
individual species and causes of depletion in semi-arid grazings. 


Mr. A. BripGes.—Some economic aspects of grassland (11.30). 


Since the war the problem of grassland has received considerably more 
attention than formerly. . In rather less than twelve years a vast amount of 
scientific knowledge has been gained in relation to the management of grass 
and placed at the disposal of farmers if they have the wish and the need to 
use it. The reason which has prompted this attack on the grassland 
question is the large increase in the area under grass since the war. A 
peculiar feature of the post-war situation is the large increase in the area 
of rough grazings. The increase in the area of grass is the result of two 


576 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 


tendencies. First, it is the complement to the increase in livestock farming ; 
and, secondly, the result of a desire to curtail expenditure on unprofitable 
arable land during the depression. ‘The improvement of this latter class of 
land may not be desirable at present. 

The improvement of old grassland in poor condition can be financially 
successful, as Mr. Bligh’s experiences show, yet it makes little headway on 
a national scale. ‘There are certain factors limiting activity in improving 
poor grassland : (1) the alternative of an increased output from better class 
grassland ; (2) the laying down of arable land to grass; (3) the special 
function of poor grassland in systems of farming ; (4) the speculative nature 
of the investment. 

In the subject of the economics of grass and hay versus purchased foods 
as a Management question it appears that grass and hay are much cheaper 
to produce than most purchased foods. Yet purchased foods play a special 
part on grassland farms. For their reliability and convenience, as compared 
with an uncertain and variable supply of food from grass, farmers are 
prepared to pay a higher price. Scientists must remove the uncertainties 
of grass as a food supply. 


DISCUSSION (12.0). 
AFTERNOON. 


Visit to the Market Harborough grazing area. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Discussion on Milk production and distribution in relation to nutrition 
and disease :— 


Prof. T. J. Macxre.—The milk supplies of the country in relation to 
the public health (10.0). 


Introductory : milk in human diet ; milk as a vehicle of infection—the 
hygienic problem ; consumption of milk in this country ; need for a higher 
standard of purity. 

Factors that have influenced the condition of the general milk supplies— 
the distribution of milk to the urban communities—transportation and 
retailing of milk. 

Bacterial contamination : sources—milk as a bacterial growth-medium— 
hygienic and economic aspects—methods of dairying and distribution. 

Milk-borne infection: bovine tuberculosis and human infection by the 
bovine type of tubercle bacillus—prevalence of bovine disease and of tubercle 
bacilli in market milk—human mortality and morbidity due to bovine-type 
infection ; other infections and their sources ; bovine contagious abortion 
and undulant fever (‘ abortus-fever ’) of the human subject—prevalence of 
Bacillus abortus in market milk. 

The control of milk-borne tuberculosis ; ‘ open ’ tuberculosis of cattle— 
tuberculosis detected by tuberculin reaction—existing legislation in control 
of disease—eradication of the disease from dairy herds, methods, achieve- 
ments, and future progress—the position of the individual farmer ; designated 
milks. 

Disinfection of the ordinary market milk—pasteurisation : question of 
its efficacy—methods—need for control—effect on nutritive qualities— 
question of compulsory pasteurisation. 

Immediate measures to ensure safe milk supplies. 


SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 577 


Mr. W. Goppen and Dr. J. BLackwoop.—The nutritional aspect 
(10.30). 

Dr. N. C. Wricut.—Some implications of compulsory pasteurisation 
(10.50). 

Apart from the relation of pasteurisation to the reduction of milk-borne 
disease and to the nutritive value of milk, certain other factors must be 
taken into account in deciding whether a policy of compulsory pasteurisa- 
tion for city milk supplies is justifiable. Such factors include the effect of 
compulsory pasteurisation on the producer-retailer and the small distributor ; 
the influence of pasteurisation on the production of clean milk and on the 
eradication of bovine disease ; its effect on wholesale and retail milk prices ; 
and, finally, the expediency of applying an element of positive compulsion 
to the artificial treatment of such a widely consumed foodstuff as milk. 
These factors are discussed in the present communication. 


Mr. Ben Davies.—The problem from the point of view of the dairy 
industry (11.10). 


Prof. G. S. Witson.—The necessity for a safe milk supply (11.30). 

Milk is a valuable food, and so far as its nutritive properties are concerned 
it is not an expensive food. Its importance in infant feeding, its power to 
stimulate the growth of under-nourished school children, and its value in 
the treatment of disease, amply justify for it a very special place in the 
human dietary. Unfortunately, however, owing to the fact that it is par- 
ticularly liable to become infected, and that it furnishes an admirable 
medium for the multiplication of many types of pathogenic bacteria, its 
use in the raw state is bound to be accompanied by a certain amount of 
danger to the human population. While the production of clean milk 
from healthy animals may diminish this risk to some extent, it can never 
entirely eliminate it. To do this, the only satisfactory measure at the 
moment is some form of heat treatment that will destroy all pathogenic 
aka while interfering to a minimal degree with the nutritive value of 
the milk. 


Discussion (11.50). (Dr. H. D. Kay, Miss OLGA NETHERSOLE.) 


EVENING DISCOURSES. 


FIRST EVENING DISCOURSE 
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1933. 


MUST SCIENCE RUIN ECONOMIG 
PROGRESS ?? 


BY 
SIR JOSIAH STAMP, G.B.E. 


Economic progress is the orderly assimilation of innovation into the general . 


standard of life. It usually connotes a widespread sharing of new benefits, 
but is by no means inconsistent with some degree of uneven distribution 
of wealth or income, for in a non-socialistic community some disparity 
generally raises the standard of life of the mass to a point higher than it 
would be under a forced equality of distribution of wealth, the envies 
caused by disparity notwithstanding. The purely material standard in 
Great Britain was raised fourfold during the nineteenth century, and 
probably rather more in the United States. If we take into account also 
length of life and proportion of leisure, the increase is much greater. ‘The 
improvement arises only to a very small extent in changes in the average 
innate capacity of man, not co-operant with, or parasitic upon, his environ- 
ment. It is almost all due to innovation in social activity (including social 
education and the reactions of economic betterment upon physical and mental 
ability). ‘The greater part of the innovation is scientific innovation—in 
physics, engineering and public health ; but a not inconsiderable part falls 
outside these categories, and belongs to the non-physical section—better 
ideas about money, more social confidence in banking and credit, improved 
political and social security and legal frameworks for the better production 
and diffusion of wealth. The elaboration of these factors depends partly 
on intellectual prevision and invention, but mainly upon average moral 
standards and calibre of character, since many political schemes, including 
international co-operation, are impracticable only because of failings in the 
present standards of human nature. 

It is being commonly stated that scientific changes are coming so thick 
and fast, or are so radical in their nature and implications, that the other 
factors of social life, the intangibles of credit, the improvements in political 
and international organisations and ideas, are unequal to the task of ab- 
sorbing and accommodating them, or else they present new problems 
which have no counterpart. If changes in social forms and human nature 
or behaviour cannot possibly be made rapidly enough for the task, then in 


1 For further reports, see Lecture Recorder, 3, 3, Oct. 1933; Nature, 182, 3333, 
Pp- 429, Sept. 16, 1933. 


MUST SCIENCE RUIN ECONOMIC PROGRESS? 579 


that sense science may ‘ ruin’ economic progress, and the world might be 
better served in the end if scientific innovation were retarded to the maxi- 
mum rate of social and economic change. Civilisation went through a 
long period when the limiting factor to progress was the scientific, but is now 
passing through a stage when the limiting factors are non-scientific. The 
lack of identity in the tempo of change creates new problems, tending to 
offset scientific advantages, of three types. First, for example, the utilisa- 
tion for essential or competitive purposes of rare minerals, the need for which 
becomes general, but the distribution of which is particular and accidental, 
sets up great political strains, and we have invented no means of adjusting 
the international effects of accidental monopoly of essential elements. 
Second, the problem of scope, where the scale of production upon which, 
for example, a chemical innovation can be made to give its real economic 
advantages, is a scale inconsistent with the size of markets freely open in 
a nationalistic world. Here strains are set up in the international machine, 
and the balance of trade, which may gravely jeopardise economic progress, 
and dry up the juices of commerce. Third, for example, where the innova- 
tion is absorbed most easily for offensive purposes in a military or naval 
sense, it may create rivalries and changes of balance of power inimical to 
economic security, and compel new economic sacrifices outweighing the 
direct economic advantages of peaceful uses. It is open to question whether 
the innovation of aircraft has yet become, on net balance, economic 
progress. 

Inasmuch as all economic production creates real vested interest in a 
location or a skill devoted to it, and every scientific innovation alters the 
centre of gravity of collective demand, every such scientific change disturbs 
an economic equation. That equation for human life may often be richer 
ultimately, but the pain or waste of disturbance has to be debited to the 
gain, before the net balance is progress. For the time being, the balance 
may be net loss, the price paid for to-morrow. If to-morrow is continually 
postponed, because it, in its turn, is redisturbed, and the economic to- 
morrow never comes, it is literally jam yesterday, jam to-morrow, but never 
jam to-day. Wastes of absorption will be at a minimum in certain con- 
ditions, which are related to the wearing life of existing assets and places, 
and to the rate of flow of new skill into new directions. The orderly ab- 
sorption of innovation into economic progress, apart from improvements 
in the non-economic factors of such progress, depends upon two kinds of 
balance. The first is the balance between two classes of scientific discovery, 
that which accelerates or makes easier the production of existing economic 
goods, and that which creates new kinds of economic satisfactions—the 
derivative and the direct. Let us suppose that in static society a million 
people are employed making boots, and the gramophone has not been 
invented. Then let a labour-saving device be invented, such that the same 
quantity of boots can be made by half the workers, and boots are half the 
price. Assuming that the demand for boots is quite inelastic, and no more 
are wanted, there is potential unemployment for half a million people, and 
the whole population has now reserve unspent purchasing power, saved on 
cheaper boots. The gramophone is introduced, employing the potentially 
unemployed, and absorbing the reserve or released purchasing power. ‘The 
progress of the past hundred years has been essentially of this order, and 
innovation has enabled purchasing power to be released for new spending— 
first, upon far more of the same article at the reduced price ; second, upon 
more of other existing goods; and, third, upon entirely new kinds of satis- 
faction, bicycles or radio sets. In this connection it must be remembered 
that an old article may be so transformed in degree as to be equivalent to 


580 EVENING DISCOURSES 


a change in kind—the silk stocking and feminine footwear are cases in point. 
Now even if these two classes of innovation, direct and derivative, are in 
balance, the process of absorbing them will give rise to economic growing 
pains and temporary dislocations of capital and employment, but the gains 
will rapidly outweigh the disadvantages. But when they are not in balance 
the process is more painful, and the debit to be set against progress very much 
greater. The introduction of machinery has been for three hundred years 
accompanied by the same hostile arguments, for the immediate effects in 
unemployment are much more obvious and human than the countervailing 
employment given by the released purchasing power, which may occur in 
some other place or country. Illustrations may be found all the way from 
Queen Elizabeth’s sentiments on stocking-knitting machinery to the Luddite 
riots, and the eight looms per weaver of to-day. But in the literature of the 
whole series, nothing can outdo, for detailed economic jeremiad and precise 
calculation of woe, a contemporary examination of the effect of the intro- 
duction of the stage-coach in the middle of the seventeenth century upon the 
post-horse industry and all that depended upon it. (In Grand Concern of 
England, 1673.) 

The argument so far, no doubt, begs the question of the meaning of pro- 
gress, and assumes that silk stockings and fine shoes represent ‘ higher ” 
standard of life than black homespun woollens and rough boots—a doctrine 
that is not acceptable to Mr. De Valera, for example; but as we are not 
entering the field of morals or ethical aims, we are obliged to assume that 
those objects which are actually the subject of average human desire must 
be given their economic significance accordingly, and not attempt to solve 
the larger problem simultaneously. In this sense such a mechanical 
invention as the totalisator must take its place in ‘ progress ’ at this stage. ~ 

The problem of balance, in the direct and the derivative, is not however 
so simple in practice, for the sum total of the effect of derivative innovations 
(creating technological unemployment) ought to be balanced by the sum 
total of direct innovations or increased demand for other products (new 
and expanded employment). But many direct innovations are not additive, 
they are substitutional, and destroy the need for old commodities. If combs 
are made from celluloid, and dishes from papier maché or pyrex, they will 
certainly not create a wholly additional demand or employment—there 
will be a displacement of the old types in metal or bone combs or china 
dishes. This substitution goes into rival classes of utility also, and a radio 
set may be a real substitute for a billiard table, and oil may be the enemy 
of hops, if cheap bus-riding supplants long sittings in public-houses. These 
substitutions may be gradual enough to be absorbed as a normal feature of 
progress, but if they are very rapid and coincide with certain other economic 
disturbances they may be very distressing. By ‘normal’ I mean such as 
can be coped with by the direction of new labour entering industry or new 
capital spent on renewals, leaving the contractions to take place by natural 
age attrition without unemployment, or by premature obsolescence—for the 
moment this is the optimum point of change. 

The lack of balance between derivative and direct innovation may be 
due, of course, to a terrific drive and rapidity in scientific recovery of the 
industrial type, but it is only fair to say that the excess of one may be due 
to causes on the economic side. If, for purely monetary reasons, the gold 
standard, etc., the purchasing power of money is continually increasing 
through falling prices, and, with the current inability to change the money 
totals of wages and other costs, real wages are rising, it becomes increasingly 
possible to substitute innovations of machinery for hand labour, or complex 
for simple. A change that was not worth making on a balance of old wage 


MUST SCIENCE RUIN ECONOMIC PROGRESS? 581 


costs against new capital costs in 1923, became well worth making by 1932, 
and indeed imperative, if any profits were to be preserved. Hence the 
almost artificial pressure which a rigid monetary system may bring to 
bear towards the over-rapid application of new methods and creation of 
unemployment. 

The second kind of balance which is vital to economic progress and which 
may be ruined by over-rapid innovation is that between obsolescence and 
depreciation. Nearly all scientific advance for economic progress has to 
be embodied in capital forms to be effective, more and more elaborate, 
large and costly. ‘The productivity of such apparatus and plant per man 
involved becomes greater, and, even allowing for the men employed in 
making the machinery or process, the total satisfaction is continually pro- 
duced with less and less human effort. Now it used to be said of British 
machinery that it was made good enough to last for ever and long after it 
became old-fashioned, whereas American machines were made to be worn 
out much earlier, and were thus cheaper, but could be immediately replaced 
by capital assets containing the latest devices. If the period of physical life 
and fashionable life can be made to correspond, there is greatest economy 
and security of capital. But if the expensive embodiment of the latest 
science can be outmoded and superseded long before it is worn out, there is 
waste of capital, loss of interest, and resultant insecurity of business and in- 
vestment. ‘The factor of physical safety alone means that each embodiment 
must be really durable, even if roughly finished, and, therefore, it is impos- 
sible wholly to reduce physical life to probable ‘ obsolescent ’ life. In this 
way an over-rapid series of innovations may mean the scrapping or unprofit- 
ability of much excellent capital for very small marginal gains. A responsible 
socialist community would see each time that the gain was worth while, 
but competitive individuals have no collective responsibility. Suppose the 
giant Cunarder attracts a profitable contingent for two years only, when 
a lucky invention in a new and rival vessel attracts all her passengers at 
a slightly lower fare. Here is progress in one typical sense, but the small 
net advantage to be secured by individuals as free-lance consumers may be 
dearly purchased by large dislocations or loss of capital, reacting even upon 
those same individuals as producers. 

Now, if the innovation were very striking, and were reflected in working 
costs, the margin of difference between the old working costs and new 
working costs may be large enough to pay interest on the new capital 
employed, and also to amortise the cost of the unrealised life of the asset 
displaced. A locomotive may have many years of useful life left, but a 
new type may provide a margin by lower working costs not only sufficient 
to make one adopt it on normal renewal, but also to pay for the premature 
scrapping of the old type. ‘The majority of modern innovation is, however, 
of the type which does not pay the costs of obsolescence and proceed by 
orderly and natural physical renewal or substitution. A similar type of 
argument applies to the capital expenditure generally on a district, which 
can be amortised over the economic activity of that area, such as a colliery 
area, but which is wasted if a dislocation occurs by the adoption of some 
innovation stimulating rival activity in another place. Similar but more 
poignant considerations apply to obsolescence in human skill and training, 
more rapid than the ordinary attrition through age retirement can accom- 
modate. Physical capital forms, human vocational training, and centring 
in geographical areas, are all essential features in the absorption of scientific 
innovation into economic progress. Each has its natural time span, and 
a narrower span of scientific change is bound to set up large economic debits 
to be set against the economic credits of the change. A man running a 


582 EVENING DISCOURSES 


race might be stopped to be given a new magic cordial which, after allowing 
for the two minutes stoppage, would enable him to finish a minute earlier. 
But if he is stopped at frequent intervals for other magic cordials, each 
advantageous by itself, the total period of stoppages would at some point 
exceed the possible gains of speed during the short undisturbed running 
periods, and he would finish later at the post, instead of earlier. This is 
a parallel to the current effects of too rapid disturbance on progress. 

Under an individualistic form of society it is difficult to alter the social 
technique of change, and to make its credits really pay for the debits, and 
make all the people who gain by the profits on new capital pay also for the 
losses on prematurely displaced capital, or the gainers by cheapness and 
variety pay the human costs of unemployment and no-longer-wanted skill. 
The basic economic reason for social unemployment relief is not the humani- 
tarian argument of social obligation against distress, or the argument against 
revolution, but the plain argument that the social gainers by innovation 
should bear the losses of innovation. At the same time much can be done 
to shorten the hitherto natural time span and make society ready to absorb 
the quickened tempo of science. No prices ought to be charged except 
on the basis of costs fully loaded with short-period obsolescence—this 
would prevent over-rapid substitution, economic only to a narrow range of 
people. We have no adequate technique of change: we treat life as mainly 
static, with occasional and exceptional periods of change, whereas we must 
learn to look upon it as continuously changing, with occasional and abnormal 
periods of rest, and we have to secure all the changes of social outlook implied 
by that reversal of view. 

The next field in which scientific advance alters the economic problem 
faster than we can solve it, is in the duration of human life. We have to 
provide social dividend adequate to maintain a much larger proportion 
beyond the age to contribute to it. Combined with the altered birth-rate, 
a profound change is taking place in age densities, and the turnover from 
an increasing to a stationary and then a declining population, in sight in this 
country, Belgium, Germany and even the United States, is bound to affect 
the tempo of economic life. A larger and more immediate problem of 
adjustment is, of course, the absorption of the results of science not in 
increased masses of new kinds of commodities made by the released labour 
of labour-saving devices on old kinds, but in generalised leisure. The 
transition from a state of affairs in which we have an uneconomically high 
commodity wage paid to a part of the population, and the rest with a 
mere pittance and enforced idleness, to a state where a part of the reward is 
taken all round in larger leisure, and where economic satisfaction from leisure 
is deliberately equated to that from commodities in the standard of life, 
may need a surgical operation, or a catalyst, such as the United States 
experiment can show. 

In the past, the absorption of innovation has been achieved, according 
to contemporary explanation, by four agencies : 


(x) Great elasticity of demand for the old commodities at reduced prices— 
food and staple household necessities. 

(2) Rapid introduction of new things. 

(3) The rise in population created by the increase in produce. 

(4) Overseas outlets in more backward industrial countries. 


In the first the elasticity completely alters as the standard rises, and generally 
there is not now the scope for lower price in food or clothing increasing the 
demand pro tanto; for the third, a rising standard no longer stimulates 
population but tends the opposite way ; for the fourth, the external outlets 


MUST SCIENCE RUIN ECONOMIC PROGRESS ? 583 


are now largely self-producers. As regards the rapid introduction of new 
things—these mostly now demand increased leisure for their proper ab- 
sorption and use, so that the two are co-related and mutually dependent. 

It can be conceived that a socialistic organisation of society could obviate 
such of the maladjustments as depend upon gains and risks of absorption 
not being in the same hands, and a theoretic technique can be worked out 
for the most profitable rate of absorption of scientific invention having regard 
to invested capital, and skill and local interests. It is sufficient to say that 
it needs a tour de force of assumptions to make it function without hopelessly 
impairing that central feature of economic progress, viz. individual choice 
of the consumer in the direction of his demands, and an equally exalted 
view of the perfectibility of social organisation and political wisdom. But 
in the field of international relations and foreign trade, which alone can give 
full effect to scientific discovery, it demands qualities far beyond anything 
yet attainable. 

Economic life must pay a heavy price, in this generation, for the ultimate 
gains of science, unless all classes become economically and socially minded, 
and there are large infusions of social direction and internationalism, care- 
fully introduced. ‘This does not mean government by scientific technique, 
technocracy, or any other transferred technique, appropriate as these may be 
to the physical task of production. For human wills in the aggregate are 
behind distribution and consumption, and they can never be regulated by 
the principles which are so potent in mathematics, chemistry, physics, or 
even biology. 


584 EVENING DISCOURSES 


SECOND EVENING DISCOURSE 


Monpay, SEPTEMBER II, 1933. 


THE WORK OF THE SAFETY IN MINES 
RESEARCH BOARD 


BY 
PROF. J. F. THORPE, C.B.E., F.R.S. 


Tue Safety in Mines Research Board is appointed by and reports to the 
Secretary for Mines and is financed liberally from the Miners’ Welfare 
Fund. Its experimental work is carried out at two Research Stations, one 
at Harpur Hill, Buxton, and the other in Portobello Street, Sheffield, 
where it is in close association with the Department of Applied Science 
of the University. Both these Research Stations are under the direction 
of Dr. R. V. Wheeler, to whom Dr. H. F. Coward is Assistant Director. 
Falls of roof and haulage accidents are investigated by Major Hudspeth, 
Chief Mining Engineer to the Board. The Board works also through a 
number of sub-committees, of which the Explosives in Mines Research 
Committee, the Spontaneous Combustion Committee, and the District 
Support of Workings Committees may be regarded as types. 

Time does not permit me this evening to deal with the great problems 
under investigation by Major Hudspeth and his staff, although it is evident 
that such problems are of great importance in relation to mine safety. 
Indeed, by far the greater number of casualties and fatal accidents in coal 
mines, during the period 1922-31, have been due to falls of ground and 
haulage accidents. ‘Thus persons killed through explosions during this 
period numbered 521, whereas the deaths due to falls of ground and haulage 
accidents were 5,199 and 2,276 respectively. Nevertheless the casualties 
due to the two causes last named are mainly adventitious, and it is difficult 
to subject them to scientific, as distinct from human, control. On the other 
hand the causes of explosions and their elimination can be made the subject 
of scientific investigation and the fact that the terrible disasters of the past 
no longer occur must be ascribed to the application of the knowledge which 
has been gained by scientific research and investigation. It is my object this 
evening to describe the way in which this has been done and to show the 
many causes which may lead to the ignition of gas, and the methods which 
are being taken to remove these causes. 

All the experiments have been arranged at the Board’s Sheffield Research 
Stations by Dr. H. F. Coward. Three members of the staff, Messrs. 
Hartwell, White and Russell, are in attendance as demonstrators. 


SAFETY IN CoaAL MINEs. 


The conditions of coal-mining create dangers from which other industries 


are free. 
The fact that work may be carried on underground at depths up to a mile 


WORK OF THE SAFETY IN MINES RESEARCH BOARD 588 


below the surface of the earth, and perhaps two or three miles from the 
pit-bottom, causes the problems of roof-support and underground transport 
of men and materials to be particularly difficult. It is not surprising, 
therefore, to find that accidents due to falls of roof and accidents incurred 
during underground haulage are by far the most numerous. 

Yet the accidents which cause most concern, both to the miner and to 
the public, are those due to explosions. Partly, perhaps, because of man’s 
inherent dread of fire; and partly because an explosion so often claims 
many victims. 

Explosions may be caused either by gas or by coal dust. During the 
process of formation of coal from decaying vegetable matter, a process of 
bacterial fermentation, the gas methane, the fire-damp of coal mines, was 
evolved. This gas remains to-day pent within the coal substance, or stored 
in the associated strata, whence it may be liberated into the mine workings 
with disastrous results. Coal dust, if fine enough, forms explosive mixtures 
with air as dangerous as or, in some respects, more dangerous than mixtures 
of firedamp and air. 

Efforts to eliminate explosions and, more importantly, the fear of ex- 
plosions from coal-mining, have been fairly successful, more particularly 
as regards coal dust explosions. Little by little the various causes of 
explosions, of the initial ignition of firedamp or coal dust, have been 
recognised and controlled. Our aim is to eliminate them completely. 

The greatest danger, initially, of explosion lies with firedamp, because 
its presence, unlike that of coal dust, may remain unsuspected; and 
because it is so easily ignited. Firedamp is only explosive, however, when 
mixed in certain proportions with air, between the ‘ lower limit’ of about 
5 per cent. and the ‘ upper limit ’ of about 14 per cent. If, therefore, the 
gas, as it issues into the workings, is so diluted with air that it never forms 
more than 5 per cent. of the atmosphere anywhere in the mine, it ceases to 
be dangerous. Good ventilation of the mine is thus the primary safeguard 
against firedamp explosions, and there are, in consequence, stringent 
regulations governing the ventilation. 

Supposing, though, that the ventilation fails to be effective, there are 
many potential means of ignition of firedamp in the pit. Each of these 
potential means of ignition—lights, explosives, electricity, frictional sparks— 
has to be safeguarded. Much of the experimental work on safety in coal 
mines, that is being carried out in this country and abroad, is directed 
towards safeguarding all possible means of ignition of firedamp. 

Coal dust, which during one period in the history of coal-mining, con- 
stituted the more formidable danger, can be rendered harmless as an 
explosive agent. Credit, perhaps for the discovery and certainly for the 
practical application of the remedy, stone dust, is due to a Yorkshire mining 
engineer, the late Sir William Garforth. 

The application of the remedy, the spreading of fine stone dust wherever 
coal dust can accumulate in the mine workings, so that the mixture is 
incapable of propagating flame when raised as a cloud in air, appears at first 
sight to be simple, but the problem is complicated by the fact that there is 
not a dead level of inflammability of coal dusts. Some coal dusts are much 
more inflammable than others, and require to be treated with a proportion- 
ately greater quantity of stone dust before they can be regarded as harmless. 
Wise mine managers treat the roadways of their mines with an excess of 
stone dust considerably above that required by regulations ; and it can be 
said with some confidence that, in this country, the widespread disasters 
due to coal dust extending small firedamp explosions throughout the 

x 


586 EVENING DISCOURSES 


workings of the mine, such as occurred in 1905-12, need no longer be 
feared. 

The study of the causes of mine accidents, whether they be due to falls 
of roof, to mishaps during haulage or to explosions, and the devising of 
remedies, are not in themselves sufficient to secure the increased safety of 
the mine worker that we all desire. Often enough, the application of a 
remedy against an accident rests with the miner. It is necessary, therefore, 
to instruct the miner, who has shown himself most willing to be instructed, 
as to the reasons for the measures for safety, sometimes arduous, that he is 
called upon to perform, and as to the risks he runs if he neglects them. 
For this reason the educational work of the Safety in Mines Research Board 
ranks equal in importance with its experimental work. 


EXPERIMENTS. 


Experiment I.—Experiments on propagation of flame in methane-air mixtures. 


Mixtures.—10 per cent. methane-air mixtures. Measurements of the 
required amounts of air and methane are made by means of rotameters ; 
after passing through a mixing apparatus the mixture is passed into the 
explosion tube. 

Tube.—Horizontal glass, 19°5 ft. long, 2 in. diameter. 

Ignition.—By single break spark between electrodes (4 mm. gap). 

Experiment (a). Propagation from open to closed end of tube.—Mixture 
ignited by spark at electrodes 6 cm. from the open end of tube. 

Propagation showing uniform movement and subsequent vibratory phase. 

Experiment (b). Propagation from closed to open end of tube.—Mixture 
ignited by spark electrodes 2:5 cm. from the closed end of tube. 

Higher mean speed of propagation with vibrations. 


Experiment II.—Experiments on the inflammability of coal dust and the effect 
of stone dust thereon. 


Test I.—Violent inflammation of a typical coal dust. 
Test II.—Suppression of inflammation by using an adequate proportion 
of stone dust. 
Typical coal-dust . ; : . 45 per cent. 
Fuller’s earth ; : i UBIGIUT SG Ee 
Test III.—Partial suppression of inflammation by using less than the 
statutory amount of stone dust. 
Typical coal dust . : 4 . 65 per cent. 
Fuller’s earth ! . f TOtyED BOL 


Experiment III.—Experiments on the ignition of methane in air by a heated 
surface and the effect of iodine on the ignition temperature. 

Notr.—The late Professor H. B. Dixon showed that traces of iodine 
had an inhibiting effect on the ignitions of methane air mixtures. 

A jet of methane is passed on to a heated alundum surface, maintained at 
a temperature sufficient to ignite the methane in the surrounding air stream. 
When the air stream is passed over crystals of iodine at laboratory tempera- 
ture (and thus contains 0°03 to 0°04 per cent. of iodine vapour) ignition 
does not occur owing to the inhibiting action of the iodine. It is proposed 
to erect two similar heated surfaces, cylindrical in shape. One will be 
maintained at a temperature just sufficient to ignite the jet of methane in 
air. ‘The second apparatus will be used for experiments with air contain- 
ing iodine to show that a higher temperature is necessary for ignition 
under these conditions. 


WORK OF THE SAFETY IN MINES RESEARCH BOARD 587 


Experiment IV.—Experiment showing the ignition of firedamp by heat of impact 
of handpick on rock. 


The apparatus consists of a wooden box 2 ft. by 1} ft. by x ft., fitted with 
oiled paper releases and a glass observation window. Attached to the pick is 
a rubber diaphragm, covering a circular hole in the cover of the chamber. 
The stretching of the rubber is sufficient to allow of a good blow of the pick. 

Sufficient pure methane is admitted to the chamber to give an approximate 
7 per cent. methane-air mixture. A sampler, fitted with platinum elec- 
trodes, is attached to one side of the chamber to check this percentage. 

The rock used is that suspected of causing ignition at Canavan’s Mine, 
Valleyfield Colliery. A glancing blow of the pick on the rock must be 


delivered to cause ignition, there being a bright yellow flash at the point 
of contact. 


Experiment V.—Experiments on signalling with bare wires. 


Pit conditions render it necessary that signalling should be possible at 
any point in the roadways over a distance of perhaps four miles, and it is, 
therefore, only possible to do this by means of bare wires which are 
crossed to make the signal. 

The bare wire connections from a signalling bell are brought into contact 
in a mixture containing 8-3 per cent. of methane, confined in a glass vessel 
of approximately 400 cc. capacity. A vertical exit tube, closed by a loosely 
fitting rubber bung, provides a release on ignition. 

Bell—A.T.M. (Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co.) Model, 
working on 24 volts. 

Experiment (a). Unsafe condition—A 500 ohm shunt, connected in 
parallel across the ends of the magnet windings, is disconnected by means 
of aswitch. Signalling by bringing wires in contact causes ignition. 

Experiment (b). Safe conditions —The 500 ohm shunt is connected across 
the coils. No ignition occurs on signalling. 


Experiment VI.—Experiment with clay and sand-clay stemmings. 


Blown-out shots are a possible cause of ignition and lead to loss of 
efficiency in the use of the explosives. It is found that sand-clay remains 
but clay is ejected as stemming—a mixture of sand and clay is actually 
used. 

Experiment. —Lead tubes, 2 ft. long and 2 in. bore by # in. wall are used. 
A wooden piston with a brass handle has been made to fit these tubes 
closely. When clay is packed into one of these tubes, little force is required 
to push the material through the tube. With sand, hammering of the piston 
produces a bulge of the lead wall and the sand is not ejected. 


Experiment VII.—Lamp testing experiments. 


A flame lamp (No. 2a Davis-Haydock pattern) is raised into mixtures 
containing from 1 to approximately 6-5 per cent. of methane in the Oldham 
chamber. ‘The mixtures are prepared by means of rotameters. 

As the percentage of methane in the air is raised from 1 per cent., the 
flame of the lamp becomes gradually higher and is finally extinguished in 


a mixture containing approximately 6 per cent. of methane. This latter 
mixture is ignited with a taper. 


Experiment VIII.—Showing that a lighted cigarette does not ignite a 6 per cent. 
methane-air mixture. 


588 EVENING DISCOURSES 


Experiment IX.—Illustration of spontaneous ignition by means of pyrophoric 
iron. 
Models.—Sheathed explosives. 
Films— 
Film (1).—Showing a demonstration of a coal dust explosion at the 
Research Station, Buxton. 
Film (2).—Showing shot firing with 
(a) Clay stemming. 
(b) Clay and sand stemming. 
Slides— 
(a) Showing total casualties in coal mines. 
(6) Showing total fatal casualties. 
(c) Showing effect of stone dusting on casualties due to explosions. 


CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF 
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 


Tue Conference was held in the Lord Mayor’s Rooms, Hastings Street, 
Leicester, on September 7 and 12, under the presidency of Dr. R. E. 
Mortimer Wheeler, F.S.A., 43 delegates attending representing 52 
societies, in addition to a large audience. 


Thursday, September 7. 


The President conveyed the congratulations of the delegates to the 
Manchester Statistical Society upon the recent attainment of its centenary. 
Mr. Frank H. Roby, representing the Society, responded. 

The delegates considered the following report communicated by the 
Secretary, which was approved and adopted. 


“Committee to take cognisance of proposals relating to National 
Parks by the Government and other authorities and bodies concerned, 
and to advise the Council as to action if desirable.’ 


The Chairman and Secretary report that no proposals have arisen during 
the past year requiring the consideration of the Committee ; and in view 
of the improbability of any such proposals arising in the immediate future 
under the prevailing financial stringency it is recommended that the 
matter might suitably be referred to the Corresponding Societies’ Com- 
mittee, with power to co-opt thereto competent members for the special 
consideration of the subject should occasion arise. 


ADDRESS ON 


THE CENTRALISATION AND CO-ORDINATION 
OF RESEARCH IN ITS RELATION TO LEARNED 
SOCIETIES 


By Dr. R. E. M. WHEELER, 
President of the Conference. 


WE live in a period of feverish co-operation. We co-operate to wage 
war, to inflict peace, to abolish old frontiers and to create an infinitude of 
new ones. But whatever the difficulties of political or economic co- 
operation, an effective co-ordination of effort on an international scale 
within the limits of any scientific discipline should be practicable without 
a disproportionate expenditure of effort. ‘That difficulties of one kind 
or another will indeed arise even in so impersonal a pursuit as that of 
knowledge is, of course, inevitable so long as man remains a political 
animal. For instance, quite recently, in a branch of science which shall 


590 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 


be nameless, steps were taken for the first time since the war to organise 
an international conference. All went well until the question of locale 
arose ; and in the controversy which ensued, the detached observer could 
not but recall to himself Mr. H. G. Wells’s remark that ‘ Europe is sunk 
in pits of stale and unventilated history.’ As a matter of interest, I may 
add that, out of the whole of Europe, only in two regions would the delegates 
of the various nations consent without exception to meet in conference— 
namely, in Scandinavia or in Great Britain. ‘The choice of Scandinavia, 
which has, I suppose, always been the least provocative part of Europe, 
calls for no comment. But it cannot by the most ardent patriot be averred 
that Great Britain has always maintained a similar detachment, and we may 
perhaps flatter ourselves that the final choice of this country for the inter- 
national conference in question was due to something more than a purely 
negative quality in our national character. 

This mention of national character brings me to a point which will 
probably be implicit in much that will be said to-day. My main subject 
is the problem of co-ordination of effort amongst the various scientific 
societies of Great Britain; and our discussion will be more than tinged 
with unreality unless we realise quite clearly at the outset that neither 
co-ordination nor effort is, in the senses which we have in mind, an out- 
standing quality of the British character. We make a fetish of individual 
freedom to the extent of inhibiting ourselves with all sorts of restrictions 
to prevent that freedom from being violated ; and so inclined are we to 
laziness that we impose upon ourselves all manner of strenuous enjoyments 
as an alternative to work. ‘To these queer complexes we shall have per- 
petually to refer any scheme of formal co-operation to which logical argument 
may lead us. We may all agree in the abstract that duplication of research 
is a waste of time and money, and that some efficient mechanism whereby 
results may be freely interchanged and policies co-ordinated would 
materially hasten the advance of knowledge. It is, however, one thing to 
draw up a logical scheme of the kind and quite another thing to put it 
effectively into operation. ‘The personal qualities to which I have alluded 
do not induce us in this country, even as scientists, to conform easily to 
the dictates of logic and method, that blessed word to which our Teutonic 
friends are so devoted. One may perhaps go so far as to say that any 
Englishman is perfectly prepared to make a principle of his practice, but 
will see you further before he makes a practice of anyone’s principle. In 
other words, any effective attempt at further co-ordination amongst the 
various bodies which we represent here to-day will proceed rather by the 
amplification of present effort than by any attempt to impose a brand new 
complete and highly-principled scheme. 

By way of introduction, therefore, to the discussion which is our main 
function this afternoon, it may be useful to review briefly some of the 
efforts which have been or are now being made to collate and to prevent 
waste of effort amongst scientific bodies. I shall take my examples mainly 
from the province with which I myself happen to have an immediate 
contact—that of archeology, though, at the same time, I am fully conscious 
that, in certain respects, other branches of research have already reached 
a more advanced stage alike of centralisatiori and of judicious delegation. 

In his Presidential address to the Society of Antiquaries a few years 
ago, Sir Charles Peers dealt in some detail with the desirability of reviewing 
the whole field of scientific archeology in this country at the present 
time and of drawing up a considered policy of research. Subsequently, 
Sir Charles opened a discussion on the same subject at the Annual Congress 
of Archeological Societies at Burlington House. He pointed out, on the 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 591 


one hand, the unprecedented extent of the work, particularly field-work, 
now being carried out in Great Britain both by central and by local 
archzological societies ; and he appealed, on the other hand, for a greater 
co-ordination of this work and for a more fitly proportioned distribution 
of energy over the whole field of study. Incidentally, he pointed out 
certain specific directions in which current research was overcrowded and 
others in which progress had been unduly retarded. 

Before we consider the ways and means whereby a reasonable policy of 
the kind can be implemented, let us glance at some of the causes of the 
present inequality of effort in the province with which I am, for the moment, 
concerned. It will, I think, be found that parallel causes are in greater 
or less degree the basis of similar difficulties in other branches of science. 

In archeology, we are at the present time approaching the end of a 
transitional phase. A generation or two ago, the science—then only 
partially scientific in method—was still essentially an amateur accomplish- 
ment. As such, it was widely cultivated by the country gentry, who formed 
the nucleus of most of our learned societies. Some of the research carried 
out under these conditions was surprisingly good; much of it, less 
surprisingly, bad. But whatever the value of this work in detail, it had— 
and, so far as it continues, still has—one outstanding and overwhelming 
merit. If it did not necessarily create a scientific understanding of 
archzology, it at least established and maintained a widespread sympathy 
for that study, and so, more than any other factor, prepared the way for 
the next great advance. 

That advance is best symbolised by the inauguration of centralised State 
effort. The first symptom of the new order, in this country, was the passing 
in 1882 of the first Ancient Monuments Act, giving the government slight 
and nebulous powers for the preservation of certain classes of antiquities. 
I describe this primitive Act as nebulous. It was, indeed, a cloud no bigger 
than a man’s hand. It had behind it, however, though not in this country, 
a significance out of all relation to its initial size. As long ago as the second 
half of the eighteenth century, the great Gustavus III of Sweden had 
instituted a State inquiry into the antiquities of that country. We need not 
inquire too closely into his motives, which were perhaps as mixed as those 
which have induced another autocratic statesman of more recent days to 
expose and to advertise the grandeur of Rome. But the Swedish example 
has been taken up during the past century in France, Germany, Spain and, 
recently, in Ireland, to an extent that enables us to regard a considerable 
measure of State control in matters archeological as a normal function of 
a civilised country at the present time. 

In Great Britain, the protoplasmic Ancient Monuments Act of 1882 
has grown successively into the Acts of 1913 and 1931, and has incidentally 
brought into being the three Royal Commissions which are now busily 
engaged upon recording the ancient and historic structures of England, 
Scotland and Wales. The growth of the Ancient Monuments Department 
of H.M. Office of Works, which administers the Act, and of the three 
Royal Commissions is a factor of primary importance in our problem in so 
far as it is concerned with this particular study. 

Its importance is this. With the parallel but more reluctant growth 
of museum organisation, it has created a nucleus of what may best be 
called professional archeology. It might be argued that the emergence 
of archeology as a science and its emergence as a profession are really one 
and the same thing. One may, indeed, claim archeology as the youngest 
of the sciences, and, if only for that reason, you will, I trust, forgive me for 
devoting an unconscionable share of my remarks to it. 


592 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 


Now this new professional status of archzology has had, and is having, 
a number of rather important reactions. In the first place, the universities 
are devoting an increasing amount of attention to it—at least seven new 
chairs and lectureships have been created since the war—and so are just 
beginning for the first time to impose a sort of academic monopoly upon 
the science. In the second place, the position of the older type of local 
society is undergoing a change by reason of the widening gulf between the 
amateur and the professional. In the third place, so long as the profession 
remains a relatively small one, it is on its part peculiarly liable to develop 
within itself an excessive narrowness and isolation—in fact, the vices of 
most restricted professionalism. 

All these are in one way or another disruptive influences. They are 
tending to divorce the archzologist from the layman whose sympathy and 
help are perhaps more necessary in this branch of knowledge than in any 
other. They are tending to divide professed archzologists themselves into 
schools which reproduce their own kind, and—of all vices the most subtly 
noxious—the new science is inclined to suffer from a kind of snobbism which 
the older sciences have largely outgrown. With the minutize of these 
dangers and diseases I am not here concerned. Something may be said, 
however, on broad lines of the attempts which are being made, or might 
profitably be made, to remedy them. 

First, let us take the broadening rift between the professional and the 
layman. Here, interest and duty agree in fixing the responsibility. The 
professional scientist, and he alone, can properly stimulate that great mass 
of lay opinion upon which not a little of his own achievement must ulti- 
mately depend, whether in the form of individual or of corporate patronage. 
On all grounds, a close liaison between professional science and the lay 
public is essential to the maintenance and development of research. 

This may sound a mere truism, but it is a truth of which three-quarters 
of professional science is unappreciative. And in re-affirming it to-day, 
I would urge it not merely from the motives of professional self-interest to 
which I have referred. I would urge it also as a salutary counter-irritant 
to one of the worst afflictions from which a closely-restricted professionalism 
can suffer. A few years ago in a presidential address at a meeting of the 
British Association, attention was drawn to the plague of pedantic verbiage 
which had infested modern science, and a plea was made for simplification 
and classification. That plea was a timely one; it might fittingly have 
been extended from professional science to such activities as professional 
football, professional cinematography and professional journalism. The 
dangers of scientific jargon are twofold ; it adds to the obscurity of science 
from the lay standpoint, and, sooner or later, it tends to obscure and obstruct 
scientific thought itself. I have just been turning over the pages of an 
excellent journal which makes it its business to present the results of 
scientific archeology to the general public, and my eye has caught three 
articles by three of the most distinguished archzologists of the day. On 
one page I am caught up in the astonishing hyphenated word ‘ leaf-shaped- 
sword-culture-complex ’ ; on another, I see the dark phrase “ the diagnostic 
value of negative lynchets’ ; on a third, the remarkable sentence, ‘ These 
names were left by the equestrian inhumators who brought in the later 
Hallstatt culture... One may perhaps suppose that the ‘ equestrian in- 
humators’ had their counterpart in such folk as ‘ pedestrian incinerators,’ 
and were the forbears of such distinguished sects as the ‘ aerial seventh-day 
Adventists ’ and the ‘ submarine Rosicrucians.’ In any case we may best 
describe this obscurantist jargon by the one simple word, Hokum. And, 
whatever may be the case in other branches of science, it is sufficiently 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 593 


certain that in professional archzology at the present day, Hokum is on the 
increase. Learned and estimable young men in baggy trousers and suede 
shoes are spreading contagiously from our universities and are beginning 
to cloud their science and their own minds with a whole lot of unnecessary 
Hokum, fortifying themselves the while with the disastrous slogan, Odi 
profanum vulgus et arceo. 

The remedy, could it be enforced, is an easy one. Could these young 
men—and, indeed, some of their elders—but be compelled to explain their 
ideas periodically to, shall we say, the Netherwallop Antiquarian Society 
and Field Club in language intelligible to the local birdscarer, then could 
we begin to hope at length for clarity of expression and clarity of thought. 
But what in fact happens in all too many cases is this. A young man of 
ability goes up to one or other of the older universities and there comes 
under the influence of a highly-specialised teacher, who instils his own 
special tastes and ideas into his disciple and ultimately secures a fellowship 
for him. The youth remains at the university for the rest of his mortal 
existence, coming only intermittently and accidentally into contact with the 
profanum vulgus beyond its walls. I am speaking now in particular of my 
own science of archeology, where the number of professional openings 
outside the universities is restricted to an extent perhaps unparalleled in any 
other branch of science. 

In this problem, therefore, of the co-ordination of research, I would begin 
by urging a closer contact and sympathy between the scientist and the 
general public. That contact is the return which, whether in its individual 
or its collective capacities, the general public has the right to demand for 
its constant and, on the whole, liberal support of research. Furthermore, 
the maintenance of contact is in itself a fine discipline for the scientist, 
compelling, as it does, a constant simplification and valuation of ideas. In 
other words, it is an excellent and essential antidote to that insidious pro- 
fessional pedantry which I have here called Hokum. 

I have spoken so far of the inter-relationship of layman and professional 
as it were of the interchange of courtesies between aliens, and I have not 
hesitated to put this vital factor into the forefront of my remarks. I now 
turn briefly to the more domestic problems of effective co-operation within 
the actual limits of organised science. In particular, we are faced at once 
with that ever-recurring problem of the proper working-relationship 
between the more central scientific bodies and the more local organisations. 
In this connection, I cannot refrain from expressing a personal regret that 
the central scientific societies in London and Edinburgh do not take a more 
active interest in assemblies such as that which I now have the honour to 
address. This aloofness is detrimental to the interests alike of the central 
societies and of their provincial kindred, and is in some sense another aspect 
of that snobbism to which I have already referred as a disruptive force. 
I speak with the impartiality of one who is a member both of more central 
and of more provincial societies than my banker cares to contemplate ; and 
it seems to me that, in future years, something might perhaps be done to 
secure a participation of the great metropolitan societies in our proceedings. 
It would be impertinent for me to point out here the fundamental value of 
the output of many even of the most local of provincial societies. But 
I would remind you that we have already had occasion to-day to congratulate 
the Manchester Statistical Society on the completion of a century of useful 
industry, and would emphasise also the solid scientific work, produced over 
a long period of years, in zoology, botany, geology and archzology, by closely- 
localised organisations such as—to take a random example—the Cardiff 
Naturalists’ Society. I recall as significant the delighted surprise with 

X2 


594 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 


which the Transactions of the Cardiff Society (now covering a period of 
over half a century) were discovered for the first time two or three years 
ago by one of the great scientific societies in London. There is abundant 
evidence, indeed, that the gulf between the central and provincial societies 
is still an unnecessarily wide one. How can it best be narrowed ? 

Here we are up against certain of those traits in the British character 
to which I referred at the beginning of my address. It would be easy for 
a central society to draw up a clear-cut programme of research and to 
allocate to local bodies appropriate shares in its execution—shares, that is 
to say, appropriate to the environment and attainment of these various 
local organisations. Could this ideal scheme be carried out with reasonable 
precision over a period of years, there is no doubt that, in theory, the ratio 
of achievement would increase with leaps and bounds. Such, however, 
is the unreasonable nature of our British temperament that any attempt 
to conscript science in this sort of way is liable to immediate disaster. We 
are all anxious to learn but hate to be taught, and any semblance of dictation 
is calculated to arouse all the most unthinking. obstinacy in our nature. 
Nevertheless, the difficulty is one of method rather than of principle, and 
I would again refer to the carefully-considered statement of the present 
position of archzological research recently promulgated by the President 
of the Society of Antiquaries. On this a further word may be said. 

This statement, drawing attention to the major desiderata in British 
archeological research at the present time, owes its importance to two 
factors. In the first place, under the leadership of Sir Charles Peers, it 
received a very thorough preliminary consideration from a committee 
representing all the principal interests and localities throughout the country. 
In the second place—and I would draw special attention to this factor— 
it was discussed by and disseminated through a thoroughly representative 
Congress of provincial societies. ‘These societies had thus a direct voice 
in the final formulation of the statement, and ultimately received it in a 
shape which all or the great majority of their representatives regarded as 
acceptable and workable. How far the positive recommendations of the 
scheme will be carried into effect by these societies, it is at present too 
early to say, but, without going into details in the present context, I may 
observe that certain preliminary steps have already been taken in the right 
direction. 

Here, then, we have a scheme of co-ordination, drafted first by a central 
society and then shaped and approved by the provincial societies in conclave. 
The whole procedure was, we may say, parliamentary and British, and is, 
I think, a fair sample of the kind of method which, at any rate in certain 
branches of science, is likely to yield the most satisfactory results. The 
essential medium was, as I have indicated, the congress of appropriate 
societies; and although the principle of procedure by conference is perhaps 
sometimes overdone, it seems to be that method which most nearly accords 
with the needs of the age in which we live. I have in mind not merely 
the Congress of Archeological Societies but other co-ordinating bodies 
such as the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, which, incidentally, 
owes so much to the enterprise of our Secretary, Dr. Tierney. Here, in 
the South-Eastern Union, we have an organisation through which, in 
particular, the smaller local societies find a useful and stimulating medium 
of exchange. I would emphasise the word ‘ useful’ and would give one 
example to illustrate my point. 

The illustration is indeed one of several which will occur readily to the 
minds of many of you. You will recall that, as the Great War proceeded, 
our Local Government Board realised the potential source of dangerous 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 595 


infection to the population of this country through the introduction of the 
malarial parasite by infected troops returning in large numbers from 
Macedonia, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and elsewhere. The Board accordingly 
instituted inquiries amongst local scientific societies to ascertain the pre- 
valence and distribution of anopheline mosquitoes in England and Wales. 
In the course of this investigation, the suspicion arose that an elusive tree- 
hole breeding species of anopheline mosquito (Anopheles plumbeus) was 
capable of becoming an infected intermediary host of the malarial parasite, 
and of transmitting it. This suspicion was confirmed, and special steps 
were promptly taken to ascertain the distribution of the noxious species. 
The task was not an easy one, and its accomplishment was due in no small 
degree to the officially-invited co-operation of the South-Eastern Union of 
Scientific Societies, by which inquiries were instituted among the affiliated 
societies throughout the Union’s area.1_ As the result of these and parallel 
researches, the danger was successfully countered; and the ravages of 
malaria, which have been ingeniously credited with the decline and fall of 
the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations, cannot now be saddled with 
the responsibility of any declension in our own. 

The example which I have just given emphasises the utility of regional 
congresses or unions of scientific bodies as a machinery for stimulating 
and co-ordinating effort. At the present moment, I believe, steps are 
being taken to form some such union for the great midland area in which 
we are meeting this week. The movement deserves all success, and should 
be followed in other parts of the country. The more numerous local 
scientific societies become—and they have increased rather than diminished 
in numbers since the war—the more urgent becomes the need for 
systematic co-ordination. A general meeting held once a year under the 
auspices of the British Association is no sort of substitute for regional 
organisation. Let me refer in this context to the co-operative movement 
which has, during the past decade, been growing in strength amongst the 
museums of England and Wales. The wasteful rivalries and petty jealousies 
which had tended to obstruct the proper functioning of local and, indeed, 
of national museums seemed to some of us not to be the inevitable 
alternative to apathy and ineffectiveness ; and schemes whereby smaller 
museums could work in affiliation with larger museums on a regional 
basis were brought into operation. The method was first evolved, I think, 
in Wales, which happens to be an obvious and convincing territorial unit 
and where, incidentally, co-ordination in a country so sharply subdivided 
by geography and tradition was specially desirable. The result of the 
experiment there has been completely successful; the local museums 
and the National Museum to which they are affiliated have alike benefited 
in various important directions which I need not here particularise. The 
Welsh example has been followed in Lancashire and Cheshire and elsewhere, 
and the movement as a whole received strong approval and encouragement 
from the recent Royal Commission on National Museums and Galleries. 
No central national organisation—however useful as an ultimate co- 
ordinating authority—can replace regional organisation of this kind, whether 
amongst museums or amongst other scientific institutions, as a practical 
solution of the problem with which I am here concerned. 

Lastly, as a mere spectator in the fields of natural science, I freely confess 
to a feeling of envy for the comparative simplicity of the problem of co- 
operation in those researches which do not directly relate to the handiwork 
of man. The distribution of a species, the ecology of a plant, can be 

1 The history of the investigation is summarised by Dr. Tierney in the 
Transactions of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, 1923. 


596 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 


studied up to a point through the instrumentality of relatively unskilled 
labour. A specimen can be sent up for verification ; it is rarely unique 
in the locality where it is found, and its locale can therefore be verified, if 
any particular report or record is open to doubt. But in the scientific 
study of man—in archeology, anthropology, tertiary or quaternary geology— 
this is, as arule, not the case. The value of a bone or an artifact is generally 
the value of its finder’s skill and acumen. Its intrinsic interest is very 
often negligible. Its precise relationship, before disturbance, to the 
strata in which it lay is probably of cardinal importance. But that 
relationship is intelligible only to the highly trained eye, and, once disturbed, 
can rarely be reconstructed or satisfactorily checked. Under such circum- 
stances, what I have called ‘ unskilled labour ’ is nearly useless, and semi- 
skilled labour, through misinterpreting the subtleties of a discovery, may 
be a positive danger. It is, I suppose, the destiny of the human sciences— 
the sciences relating directly to man—to be inexact. I turn therefore more 
hopefully to those sciences which are of a more reputable kind, which deal, 
it may be, with the inferior orders of creation but can at least deal with them 
in a very superior way. And I conclude by inviting what I may call a 
‘descriptive discussion’ of the efforts and needs of the various branches 
of organised science for more effective organisation. 


Dr. G. C. Rosson.—Zoological Surveys. 


Dr. Robson, inviting the co-operation of societies in the compilation of 
zoological surveys in their own areas, drew attention to the value of such 
surveys, especially where the results are published in the transactions of 
some central organised body embracing the area, such as a union of 
scientific societies, where such records as may prove of value are more 
readily accessible for scientific reference than when published in the 
proceedings of societies having a purely local circulation amongst their 
own members. 

In the discussion which followed, Captain T. Dannreuther reported 
upon the development and progress of the Insect Immigration Survey 
undertaken by the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies. Mr. R. 
Adkin, Prof. F. Balfour Browne, Dr. F. A. Bather, F.R.S., Mr. T. 
Sheppard, Dr. G. F. H. Smith, and Mr. E. W. Wignall also contributed. 


Tuesday, September 12. 


Mr. T. SHepparD, M.Sc., Chairman of the River Hull Pollution Com- 
mittee —The Effects of Pollution on the Flora and Fauna of Rivers. 
The Pollution of the River Hull. 


(Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in full.) 


I HAVE been asked to address the Conference of Delegates from the Corre- 
sponding Societies of the British Association on the subject of the cause 
and effect of the pollution of the river Hull, for two reasons: (1) that the 
work was largely carried out by amateurs, members of local scientific 
societies ; and (2) that our experience of what to do, and more particularly, 
what not to do, may be of service to members of the Corresponding Societies 
in whose areas similar investigation might profitably be carried out. ‘ 
The river Hull has its source at Emswell, near Driffield, in East York- 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 597 


shire, and its upper reaches, where it emerges from the chalk, form one of 
our best trout streams. It flows in a southerly direction along the west 
of the ‘ Isle of Holderness’ until it reaches the estuary of the Humber at 
the city usually called Hull, though its correct name is Kingston-upon-Hull. 
In its lower reaches the river is tidal and very brackish. When it is remem- 
bered that the Humber is fed by the Trent and Ouse, and their tributaries, 
which carry the sewage from a large proportion of the towns of the north 
of England, in addition to which a fair share of the material denuded from 
thirty miles of the Holderness Drift cliffs is carried into the estuary, it will 
be understood that this area is not of much interest to anglers. 

The area reviewed in these notes therefore is a matter of sixteen miles 
between the Top Lock at Beverley, where the tidal influence ceases, and Drif- 
field, about which place the trout streams are pure and well stocked with fish. 

The growing population at Driffield and Beverley, with the increase in 
factories; sewage disposal works; the more modern methods of agricultural 
drainage, with its contamination caused by the increase of artificial and other 
manures on the land, as well as the effect of tar sprays and petrol washed 
from the roads, all have helped to change the nature of the fauna and flora of 
the river. 

Many years ago Hull’s water supply was extracted from the river Hull, 
and was passed through filter beds at Stoneferry to the north of the 
city. A serious epidemic at Beverley was followed by a much more 
serious outbreak at Hull, for, while the filter beds clarified the water, they 
were unable to extract the bacteria. Since then Hull has bored into the 
chalk for its water supply. 

In that section of the river which has had our supervision for some years, 
the anglers first drew attention to the fact that sections of the stream, which 
once were prolific, are now almost useless for angling purposes. While 
making investigations in a part of the river Hull known as Whinhill, we 
record that a man ‘ who gave his age as 76 years, stated that the most 
interesting day of the week on which to view the canal at Whinhill is Tuesday, 
as on that day “‘ blood and suds ”’ come down the stream ; blood from the 
slaughterhouses at Driffield, Tuesday being killing day ; and “‘ suds ”’ from 
the washing of clothes which takes place on the same day of the week.’ He 
also stated that years ago the stream was full of fish, and now there is not 
one. 

The members of the various angling societies in the district, realising that 
the changes in the river were resulting in the fish gradually disappearing, 
appealed to the Yorkshire Fishery Board, which in turn appealed to the 
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. That Board sent its scientific 
representative, Dr. E. C. Jee, to make inquiry, and eventually a local com- 
mittee was formed, thoroughly to investigate the fauna and flora, the effect 
of sewage contamination, and the chemical and biological changes which 
were taking place. 

This committee consisted of representatives of the Hull and Driffield 
angling societies, amateurs interested in the vertebrate fauna, mollusca, and 
other lower forms of animal life; the flora and lower forms of vegetable 
life ; and chemistry, meteorology, etc., likely to affect the problem. These 
were drawn from the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists’ Club, the Uni- 
versity College of Hull, etc., and the Hull Waterworks Department ; the 
Secretary was Commander A. L. Woods of the Ministry of Agriculture and 
Fisheries in Hull, the Chairman being T. Sheppard. 

To begin with, periodic examination was made of the state of the micro- 
scopic fauna and flora of the river, as upon these the freshwater snails, 
worms, etc., are fed, which in turn supplied food for the fish. In this way, 


598 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 


for some years, samples have periodically been taken at various points in 
the stream. The effects of sewage, gas-works effluents, and other sources 
of contamination were apparent, and having obtained sufficient scientific 
evidence to show that these sources of pollution had a detrimental effect 
upon the health of the river fauna, and were therefore likely to be detrimental 
to the health of human beings, interviews were arranged with the various 
parties concerned. 

The nature of the filthy and evil-smelling slime which stifled the vegetation 
and made animal life impossible in the vicinity of sewage outfalls, told an 
obvious story. As a result, improvements have been made in the method 
of treating the sewage, and in preventing poisonous gas liquor from finding 
its way into the river, all of which is to the good. 

The reports of the various observers of the macroscopic and microscopic 
fauna and flora, as well as the marvellous series of observations on the 
chemical and other properties of the water carried out month by month by 
Mr. N. C. Akers, have indicated certain directions in which experiments 
might definitely be made to ascertain the effect of the polluted water upon 
the fish in different parts of the river. For this purpose, with the aid of the 
Yorkshire Fishery Board and the local angling societies, large numbers of 
different species of fish were secured, and placed in specially designed cages 
at selected points of the river, and periodically examined. So far, however, 
the experiments have been largely of negative value, though we have been 
able to ascertain what to avoid in dealing with captive fish. 

In the first place, most freshwater fish suffer by being handled, and still 
more during transport—so much so that the damaged scales, etc., readily lend 
themselves to the growth of a fungus which quickly causes a large mortality. 
Similarly, if the cages, though kept under water and with facilities for 
the fresh water to pass through, are too small, or unsuitable in their con- 
struction, and the fish damage themselves and thus soon die. Further, also, 
marking the fish in different ways before allowing them their freedom in 
the stream has given negative results, as none of the hundreds of marked 
fish has been recovered. At the present time trout, and ‘ goldfish "—which 
seem to be immune from many of the troubles referred to—are being subject 
to experiment. In any case the work has proved to be exceedingly interesting 
from a scientific point of view, and before our labours are completed we hope 
that results of a practical nature will accrue. 

At the same time, however, as years go on, increasing population on the 
banks of the river and on its tributary streams, together with the necessity 
for disposing of the waste liquors from the factories which increase in size 
and numbers, all militate against a return to the ‘ good old times.’ But 
the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries considers that the work done in 
East Yorkshire by amateur zoologists, botanists, chemists, and others might 
easily be undertaken in other areas ; and the object of these notes is to suggest 
to the delegates that they consider whether they can help; and I am assured 
that the Ministry will give every facility and place its accumulated records 
at the disposal of any society inclined to take up this fascinating work. 

As one who has missed but very few of the scores of meetings which have 
been held dealing with nearly all aspects of the question, I can assure you 
that the investigations are full of interest. 

There are other aspects of the matter which I have not dealt with, but which 
are bound to arise, namely, the legal questions, which are keenly watched 
and contested by the legal representatives of the different parties. ‘These 
difficulties and the wonderful arguments which have been brought forward 
are, I fear, beyond me; though they have been quite entertaining! This 
particular subject was dealt with by Mr. H. F. Atter in Section G yesterday. 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 599 


Mr. J. W. Walton (Folkestone) contributed a note on the apparent 
deleterious effect upon the fish in the Royal Military Canal at Hythe, 
Kent, by the reduction of the water level and the dredging and cutting of 
plant growth in the canal. A discussion followed in which Mr. F. T. K. 
Pentelow, representing the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, warmly 
welcomed the observation of local societies upon the variation and changes 
of the fauna and flora of the rivers within their respective areas. Mr. J. 
Adams, Mr. T. S. Dymond, Mr. H. E, Salmon, and Dr, J. F. Tocher also 
took part. 


Mr. J. Fairgrieve read a paper on The Amateur Meteorologist, in which 
he directed attention to the importance and value of the meteorological 
organisation of this country, which was in large measure due to, and 
founded upon, the work of the amateur observer. He indicated ways 
and means whereby an extension of those observations and records would 
be of value, especially by observers in remote districts. Dr. G. C. 
Simpson, C.B., F.R.S., supporting Mr. Fairgrieve, stressed the desirability 
of societies undertaking regular local observation in their own areas and 
supplying such records to their municipal authorities, thereby affording 
material assistance in the compilation of the meteorological records of 
their own localities. Prof. F. G. Baily, Captain T. Dannreuther, the Rev. 
Pryce Jones, and Mr. T.. Sheppard also contributed to the discussion. 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 
(AUXIN A AND AUXIN 8B) 


BY 
PROF. DR. FRITZ KOGL, Urrecut. 


(Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extenso.) 


THE experiments which I am about to bring before you were mainly carried 
out in conjunction with Dr. Haagen-Smit and Dr. Hanni Erxleben; they 
are based on modern researches on the physiology of vegetable growth— 
researches which we owe chiefly to the school of Prof. Went of Utrecht. 
As a preliminary I would summarise the chief results of these researches as 
follows : Whilst animal growth takes place almost exclusively by multi- 
plication of cells, we must distinguish in plants between cell division and 
cell extension. ‘The obvious increase in volume which is seen in higher 
plants depends principally on cell extension. Fig. 1 shows two stages in the 


<— Growth 
substance 
ts formed 
tn the top 

of the 

Avena- 
coleontite. 
(Avena sativa 
= oats ). 


ek 


removed a 


‘deficiency con- 
dition"is induced 


resulting in an 


interruption of 


substance 
wanders 


extension 
of cefts. 


During this 
interval new 
wth can be 
Grought about 
6y See a 
btock of agar 


containing Guxins 


of the Clock of 
agar is placed 
on the cofeontife 
stump asymmetri- 
cally, a curvature 
results from the 

unequat growth 


of the two sides, 


, Under certain 
4 Conditions this 


curvature 


ts according to 
FWWent 


Lrgnortional 

to the concentration 
auxin. 

Of the angle (o:) is 10° 

the tis 


Avena-unit. 


sds 
=< 


+ Shototronism: 
vege 
side ts s found 
to have a 

higher 
auxin content 


38, 3 
-Seotronism: 


the under side is 
Jound tohave a higher 
auxin content 


extensional growth 
during ajew hours. 


of various sources. than the opposite side. 


BGs 2s Fic. 3. 

cell extension of oats seedlings. This extension takes place under the 
influence of definite growth substances, which may be termed auxins. 'The 
mode of their physiological action and recognition is represented diagram- 
matically in Figs. 2 and 3. ‘The active substances are formed in the top of 
the seedling and wander from there into the base ; if the top is removed a 
* deficiency condition ’ is induced, resulting in an interruption of extensional 
growth during afew hours. During this interval new growth can be brought 
about by auxins from various sources. If the block of agar containing 
growth substance is placed on the coleoptile stump asymmetrically, a curva- 
ture results from the unequal growth of the two sides. Under certain 
conditions this curvature is, according to F. W. Went, proportional to the 
concentration of the growth substance ; if the angle of curvature is 10° the 


British ASSOCIATION REPORT, 1933 


Fic. 1.—Two stages in the cell extension of oats seedlings. 
A = 2 days old; B = 4 days old. 


Fic. 14 


Illustrating Prof. Kégl’s paper on Plant Growth Hormones 


[To face p. 600 


Lar. My Jp 
17 JAN 34. 


lig je LIS oes 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 6or 


growth effect is called one Avena?! unit (A.U.). We may further mention 
that phototropic and geotropic curvatures are also caused by auxins ; thus 
the shaded side of the shoot (in the former case) or the under side (in the 
latter case) are found to have a higher auxin content than the opposite side. 
The growth test of Went, by the help of which we were able to isolate the 
auxins, is best shown ina film. (Demonstration.) 

When some two and a half years ago we were searching for a suitable 
source from which to isolate auxins, our attention was directed to the high 
auxin content of human urine. We know now that the isolation of the 
auxin from urine implies a concentration of 21,000 times ; its isolation from 
the vegetable sources which were known at this time would have meant 
a concentration of at least 500,000 times. Under these circumstances 
it will be readily understood that we followed the line of least resistance and 
first attempted the isolation from urine, although this is an animal source, 
a circumstance which many botanists no doubt felt to be an esthetic defect 
in our work. 

We have earlier described the isolation of auxin from urine. The quan- 
tity of crystallised auxins which we have obtained so far from urine—about 
400 mg.—would have just been sufficient for three or four com- 
bustions before Pregl introduced micro-analysis seventeen years ago. If, 
now, we had devoted all our energy to the preparation of pure auxin, it 
might have been possible to convert the trail or the footpath which led us 
to the crystalline substance into a high road. For the problem as a whole 
it seemed to us, however, more important to devote a part of our time to 
the study of new physiological problems which presented themselves ; this 
also helped the chemical investigation in many ways ; we were, moreover, 
able to compensate to some extent for the shortage of material by improve- 
ments in the preparative micro technique. 

Micro-analyses, determinations of the molecular weight, and titrations, 
led us to the formula C,,H;,0; for auxin; this composition also agrees 
with that of the derivatives obtained so far. In addition to a carboxyl 
group the molecule contains three alcoholic hydroxyl groups ; the course 
of the hydrogenation shows that auxin contains one double bond and one 
carbon ring ; it is therefore a monocyclic trihydroxy carboxylic acid with 
one ethenoid link. If we call the basic hydrocarbon C,,H3, auxane, then 
the growth substance is auxene-triol-acid. 

A second crystalline substance of equal physiological potency was recog- 
nised in auxin lactone C;,H3,O,. Like auxin the lactone exhibits mutarota- 
tion, which is evidently due to the attainment of an equilibrium between 
the acid and its lactone. A constant rotation is reached after two or three 
hours, and if we may utilise the results of Haworth and his collaborators by 
way of comparison, we can deduce the size of the lactone ring. According 
to these authors 8-lactones usually attain equilibrium in a few hours, whilst 
y-lactones require days. We consider it therefore probable that in our 
case the substance is a 8-lactone. If there were hydroxyl groups in both 
the y- and 5-positions, the formation of a y-lactone would very probably be 
favoured, whence we conclude that there is in auxin no hydroxyl group in 
the y-position (with respect to the carboxyl group). 

So far we have only been able to sacrifice 126 mg. of the substance for 
degradation experiments. Miss Erxleben has succeeded in isolating two 
important oxidation products. The first oxidative attack was directed 
against the double bond. On treatment of 25 mg. with permanganate in 
sodium carbonate solution a crystalline optically active acid was obtained. 


1 Avena sativa = oats. 


602 ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 


The experiment was repeated twice with the acid, and once with the lactone ; 
we were thus able to characterise the degradation product by means of 
analyses, titration, and preparation of the p-Phenyl phenacyl ester as a 
dicarboxylic acid of the formula C,;H5,0,4. 

Of course one is inclined to assume that the auxin molecule was split 
at the double bond, and that one of the carboxyl groups of the dicarboxylic 
acid was identical with that one already present as such in the auxin molecule. 
This assumption, however, at once creates a difficulty: since our C,3-acid 
does not contain the hydroxyl group which in auxin occurs in the $-position 
relative to the carboxyl, this group must have been present in the C; residue 
removed by oxidation. If we do not wish to assume a lactone ring with 
more than six members, we arrive at the partial formula of Fig. 4, according 
to which the C,;-acid should be a substituted malonic acid. The acid, 
however, could be heated 100° above its melting point, without losing carbon 
dioxide. We assume therefore that both carboxyls of the C,;-acid have been 


Cra th 0, + CsthO, 
(auxin) (arcarfoxylic acta) 
— C7 


AH 
R- Git: v NC 


COOH- 


This formula would ead 
tod malonic acid: 


v2 CA COOH 
Double Bond betwe COOtt 
Cand Cy ssainael wou Gsad toan 


austin hes no 
enolic hiydrosgt ? 


Fic. 4. 


newly formed by the oxidation of auxin, whilst the ‘ auxin carboxyl’ 
originally present was removed with the C;-residue. 

In order to test this hypothesis further, we oxidised dihydro auxin in 
glacial acetic acid solution with chromium trioxide. So far we could only 
do one experiment, with 22 mg. of substance. Fortunately we obtained 
besides oxalic acid a neutral product which could be converted into a crys- 
talline p-nitrophenyl hydrazone, the micro-analyses of which indicate the 
formula C,;H;,O for the oxidation product. Since it gives no aldehyde 
reactions it must be a ketone. In this oxidation also the oxygen atoms 
originally present in the auxin molecule have disappeared with the C; 
residue ; evidently the cyclic ketone corresponding to the C,3-acid has been 
formed. 

The simplest explanation of the results of the degradation leads to the 
following working hypothesis (Fig. 5) : 

(1) The three hydroxyl groups are not distributed over the whole mole- 
cule, but are localised in the region of five carbon atoms ; one of these five 
carbon atoms belongs to the carboxyl group. 

(2) In the C;-residue there is probably a hydroxyl group in the 8-position 
with respect to the carboxyl, whilst the y-position is free of hydroxyl. The 
two other hydroxyls would then have to be in positions « and 8. : 

(3) The ring of auxin is not terminal ; it probably contains the double 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 603 


bond, and it is at acarbon atom bearing this double bond that the C;-residue 
is attached. 


I will not present here probable formule for auxin which may seem rather 
premature ; but I will limit myself to a few formule which by now have 


6uplanation of degradation. 
results : 

"Cotes 
4 Coonpea ase? Seni, 
Cy -mesidue : 
—CL CH-Ch- CH Coow- 
. "lactone w 

3, C,-restdue : ane 

—G 


4, OxCdation ofauxin: 
: Ee oir Meany Cog COOH 
A ND (Fe) 
3; Quidation of difydro anvin : 


CF rb Gz C008 


Me ro, C0 (tind) 


Fic. 5. 


already been disproved but nevertheless afford an illustration of the con- 
stitutional problem. Attention may first be called to the formula of chaul- 
moogric acid (Fig. 6). Like auxin this vegetable acid contains 18 carbon 
atoms, a double bond, and a ring ; there is, however, no relationship, for 
chaulmoogric acid has a terminal ring. Of the formule in Fig. 7, the first 
may be excluded with certainty since 4-m-heptyl cyclo hexanone, synthesised 
by Mr. Picard, is not identical with our ketone. The exact comparison of 
B-n-heptyl adipic acid, which was also synthesised, has not yet been made, 


=CH 
(TS cHe- (Ct COOH: 


Cte —Ch 


chaulmoogric acid 
(Cratt20) 


Fic. 6. 


since the synthetic acid has not yet been resolved into its enantiomorphs ; 
the same applies to «-n-heptyl adipic acid synthesised by Mr. Koningsberger. 
The following experiments showed us, however, with certainty that our 
C,;-acid has a different structure, for we submitted the two adipic acids, 
in quantities of 20 mg., to Blanc’s reaction and could obtain definitive 
evidence of the formation of pyrolytic ketones. The degradation product 
however furnished in a similar experiment no such ketone, but an acid 
anhydride. The formation of an anhydride in Blanc’s reaction is quite 
general with glutaric acids, exceptional with adipic acids. Hence we con- 
sider it to be more probable that our degradation product is a glutaric acid 
and that auxin contains a five ring. Numerous substituted glutaric acids 


604. ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 


are being synthesised in my laboratory. If our working hypothesis is in 
the main correct, the problem consists further chiefly in determining the 
way in which the ultimate residue of Cy is attached to the glutaric acid and 
to the corresponding cyclopentene ring. Perhaps we can obtain further 
insight into the constitution of auxin by the syntheses of octyl glutaric acids 
and dibutyl glutaric acids which are in progress ; in this connection we are 
especially concerned with isoprene as a possible unit. We shall of course 
also utilise X-ray analyses, and we sincerely hope that it will not be necessary 
to synthesise and resolve all the 1,200 substituted glutaric acids containing 
13 carbon atoms ! 

Although it was of course self-evident that we should first try to isolate 
the vegetable growth substance from the most favourable source, we were 
conscious from the very beginning that its isolation from vegetable sources 
should next be attempted. Our whole experience indicated that the reac- 


Ci, 
Cth, Cth Oh CCC - CHG Ne=ctt cy ct ctt. 
“4 & On * On OF by 

| ee. 


Oh Ch, 
Ch-Ch-CH-CH-C hCG ZD, 
pn hepyl.odenio Ce 


Ch CH 
CH Cthy Ch; Cir Oh” Yc=0 
#-n-heptyl cyclohexanone C-Ch 


Cy Oh Ct Cie Cth Ch Ch HCE 
-2-R Cadi 20 £ 
ih hol A a 


Fic. 7. 


tion of Went is a strictly specific test, and it seemed likely that the active 
substances from various sources were identical or very closely related. 
But recently such predictions require, more than ever, experimental proof, 
for in the case of the follicular hormone (cestrine) it has been found that the 
“lock * can be opened not only by the classical ‘ key,’ but also, more or less 
easily, by rough copies, or even by skeleton keys. 

My collaborator, Kostermans, has undertaken the difficult task of isolating 
the vegetable growth substance from yeast, which requires a concentration 
of about 500,000-fold. Miss Erxleben has already succeeded within the last 
few months in obtaining active crystalline material from other vegetable 
sources, first from maize germ oil and then from malt. Both these materials 
are very closely related to the coleoptiles of oats, in which the growth 
substance was first discovered. Although specially favourable samples were 
used, the maize oil required a 300,000-fold concentration, malt one of 
100,000-fold ; the procedure employed was essentially that worked out 
for urine. Both from maize oil and from malt two active crystalline sub- 
stances were obtained. The first was found, by means of its melting point, 
mixed melting point, analyses, and physiological action, to be identical with 
auxin isolated from urine. The second crystalline substance melted 13° 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 605 


lower than auxin ; according to its very probable formula C,,H )O, it is 
isomeric with auxin-lactone, from which it differs however completely, 
already by its acid nature. A close relationship to auxin must, however, be 
assumed on account of various chemical properties; the physiological 
activity is of the same order of magnitude as that of auxin and its lactone 
round about 50,000 millions A.U. per gram. Within the last few months 
we have prepared 120 mg. of the new crystalline substance which we will 
designate as aquxin-b ; the substance first isolated from urine will hence- 
forth be called auxin-a. Of the four oxygen atoms of auxin-b, two belong 
to a carboxyl and one to a hydroxyl group. The course of the mutarotation 
once more indicates that this hydroxy] is in a §-position with reference to the 
carboxyl. The fourth oxygen is present as a ketogroup: auxin-b yields 
a crystalline semicarbozone and on treatment with methyl alcoholic hydrogen 
chloride forms a crystalline lactone of the dimethyl acetal. Finally, we can 
also give some indication of the position of the carbonyl group relative to 
the carboxyl. At its melting point auxin-b rapidly evolves carbon dioxide 
and passes into a neutral substance. As far as we can see this is only com- 
patible with the assumption that auxin-b is a B-ketonic acid (Fig. 8) ; we are 
surprised that the substance can nevertheless be isolated. We have not 


Auxin-a G20; 
C rprkt tri-of- a) 
R-Ci 1 Ct -C TCE, OHO OK 


AAuxin-6 Ce tbo 
(auxene-ofon-acid) 


R-CH-CH-CO- Co, 
Fic. 8. 


yet succeeded in transforming one of the auxins into the other, but we have 
been able to oxidise auxin-b with permanganate to the same dicarboxylic 
acid with 13 carbon atoms which we had already obtained from auxin-a ; 
the double bond must therefore be in the same position in both molecules. 
Finally, it should be mentioned that the crystals of both auxin-a and of 
auxin-b completely lose their physiological action on keeping for some 
months. All these facts make it certain that our two auxins are very 
closely related. 

The occurrence of auxin-a in urine brought this vegetable hormone 
(‘phytohormone ’) also into the realm of animal physiology. We have 
given considerable attention to the problems arising in this connection, but 
I can only mention the results here very briefly. Adults excrete about 
2 mg. of auxin-a per day, independently of age or sex.. Urine excreted a 
few hours after a meal has the highest auxin content (Fig. 9). During a day 
of fasting less auxin is eliminated and the characteristic ‘ auxin peak’ does 
not appear. We have tested various diets and found that after ingestion of 
glucose, starch, or egg white no auxin peak appears, but that such a peak 
does appear after ingestion of salad oil (arachis oil; Fig. 10), and butter 
(Fig. 11). Fats and oils contain the auxins in a free or in an esterified form. 
A hydrogenated coco-fat, in which the auxins had been modified by reduc- 
tion and inactivated as regards plants, produces no auxin peak (Fig. rr). 
The auxin peaks do not therefore arise indirectly after ingestion of fats. 
A large part of the eliminated auxin is derived from the fats of the food. 


606 ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 


Presumably there are also in food unknown precursors or derivatives of the 
auxins. So far we have been unable to isolate auxin-b from urine ; we 
must therefore conclude that the auxin-b ingested with the food is trans- 


: frourty elimination of auxin in urine. ; 
chiief,18% | chief meat 18: oftef meal 10 | chicef meat 10% ‘cfiefmect73% 
Se is coun: Cok ea 


“GE. : i 


| 
-% : 


-~ 


Fic. 9. 


formed in the organism into auxin-a. In this connection we may recall the 
relationship between methyl glyoxal and glycerol, and that between the 
follicular hormone and its hydrate. 

The isolation of auxin-b has of course raised many new physiological 
questions. At present I would merely mention that according to experi- 
ments dueto Dr. Albert Fischer of Copenhagen, the growth of fibro-blasts of 


trourty elimination of cuir on urgestion of various, Food stuzs. 


no food i gfzcose | starch | saladoil: egguhite | 
y 


{ ; 7 3 

100ce + (So, 125: : @oocc) : 7110, 

foe ge 9) (1259) sal (7709) 

16 milfvons of ALL aaa na 72h H 2h 
peer hoar 


Syne oof 


” 


7 


| 
| 


the heart is not accelerated when auxin-a or auxin-b is added to the nutritive 
medium of tissue cultures. So far we have obtained no indication that our 
vegetable growth hormones have also the function of animal hormones. 
Rather is it a question whether the auxins, which are so important to the 
plant, have for the animal organism the character of vitamins, or whether 
they are merely substances indifferent to the animal body. 

Finally, I would like to refer to certain experiments which are really a 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 607 


‘ by-product’ for us chemists, but are of great biological interest. The 
potency of 50,000 million A.U. per gram of our phytohormones is only an 
average value ; the actual potency varies from day to day, and in the course 
of time we have observed with standard solutions all degrees of potency 
between about 10,000 million and 100,000 million A.U. per gram. Our 
suspicion has been more and more strengthened that these large variations 
are not due to experimental error but to unknown external causes, which 
can even exert their influence in our dark laboratory kept at constant tempera- 
ture and humidity. We paid special attention to the various atmospheric 
conditions, but no certain relationship could be deduced even from observa- 
tion extending over several months. My colleague, Prof. Went, informs 
me that the possibility of such unknown influences of the weather has often 
been canvassed in vegetable physiology, but that all experiments aiming at 


Denendence of auxin elimination 
upon the nature Sf wegested pe a 


age oe Gutter Aueragenated 
OTE i 703° H ak (7009); 


the discovery of definite relationships, e.g. to ‘ atmospheric electricity,’ have 
failed. 

We did not make any progress until we undertook the examination of the 
potency of the auxins at hourly intervals during periods of 24 hours. This 
examination was more easily planned than carried out, but the skill and 
perseverance of my collaborator, Dr. Haagen-Smit, overcame all technical 
difficulties. Whilst we normally carry out tests on 300 to 400 seedlings per 
day, up to 1,500 seedlings had to be examined on the following important 
experimental days. Since the age of the seedlings in the test reaction is not 
a matter of indifference, we use them exactly 88 hours after sowing. ‘The 
determinations of potency during the 24 hours of an experimental day were 
therefore only valid, when the sowing had likewise taken place at hourly 
intervals, four days previously. The results of the experiments are repre- 
sented in Figs. 12 and 13, in chronological sequence. I would here sum- 
marise them by a few empirical rules : 

We found that in the morning hours—not always but mostly—there occurs 
a pronounced maximum of potency. Thus, for instance, one and the same 


608 ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 


auxin solution was, on December 17th, at 4 A.M., six times as active as in 
the forenoon of the preceding day. A potency which we had previously 


Standard variations 
‘ Sent.30% Oct.1" 1932. 


o 70° per G 


Nov. 4% Nor:S*1932. 


regarded as characteristic of an individual day, in reality therefore applies 
to the actual hour of the experiment. 
After consultation with Prof. Ornstein of the Physical Institute and his 


6 & 0 2 W 16 8 20 2 2% 2 


ae wall perg Jan.20% Fan21°1933. 


FO —e- 


e o- Tae, 
60° ZUR 


Toten 


assistant, Mr. Jan Went, we carried out further series of experiments in 
order to elucidate the changes in the potency of our standard. We tested 
the potency of auxin solutions on seedlings grown in a Faraday cage, in 


ON PLANT GROWTH HORMONES 609 


metal boxes, and in bakelite boxes, and also kept in these containers during 
the twenty-four hours of the actual experimental day. We, of course, took 
care to have the same temperature and humidity inside the boxes as in our 
laboratory. 

Now whilst the action of the auxin on the ‘ cage seedlings ’ and ‘ bakelite 
seedlings ’ was pretty much the same as that on the control seedlings out- 
side, the seedlings in the metal boxes gave us quite a different curye of 
potency ; this curve is on the average higher and the percentage variations 
aremuchsmaller. The difference is all the more striking if we bear in mind 
that the seedlings have to be removed from the boxes during a short interval 
each time they are manipulated in carrying out the test. 

What conclusions can be drawn from these experiments ? The essential 
difference between metal and bakelite boxes is doubtless that in the former, 
that is inside a conductor, an electrical field is abolished and atmospheric ions 
are eliminated. ‘The electrical field is also abolished inside the cage, but 
the latter does not completely eliminate atmospheric ions. No difference 
could be observed between zinc walls of 0-8 mm. and leaden ones of 5 cm. 
in thickness. The leaden box was suggested by our physical advisers with 
a view to the detection of a possible influence of cosmic rays. 

It was of course our aim to influence the susceptibility of the seedlings to 
auxin solutions at will, by physical means. We were as yet unable to do 
this by definite electrical fields and a supply of atmospheric ions, but we 
succeeded by means of an experimental arrangement suggested by a con- 
versation with Prof. Pohl of G6ttingen. On the supposition that the 
observed variations were caused by very weak electrical currents in the 
seedlings, we have artificially produced a potential difference in them: 
For this purpose (Fig. 14) a moist silk thread was fastened to the agar block 
and then, for instance, connected to the positive pole of the source of current, 
while the plant trough was joined to the negative pole, or conversely. We 
had for example a potential difference of 80 millivolts per cm. and a current 
of 0-0008 milliamperes. What was the effect ? 

The auxins are acids. When the silk thread was connected with the 
negative pole, the transport in a basal direction of the physiologically active 
auxin anion is accelerated. In this case we could increase the potency of 
the standard solutions—that is to say the susceptibility of the plants—to 
120,000 million A.U. per gram. On commutation the transport in a basal 
direction is inhibited and the susceptibility can be lowered to 10,000 million 
A.U. per gram. Finally, we may point out that atmospheric conductibility 
in a closed space is also known to be subject to diurnal variations. We may 
therefore safely conclude that the normal variations of susceptibility are 
also due to changes in the electrical conditions of the air. 

It will be the task of the botanists to deduce from these experiments 
conclusions concerning the finer mechanism of vegetable tropisms. But 
we think that our experiments may also be of interest to medical investi- 
gators, especially since the effect of unknown climatic influences on disease 
and the unequal distribution of births and deaths during a period of 24 hours 
has of late been the subject of renewed discussion. The physician, however, 
will have a more difficult task than ourselves, for man is a less suitable ‘ ex- 
perimental object ’ than are our seedlings. 

Finally, I should like to express my gratitude for the kind invitation to 
address the British Association at Leicester on the subject of the auxins. 
It has given me great pleasure to accept this invitation, since it offered to 
me a welcome opportunity of making the acquaintance of British colleagues. 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATION OF 
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SECTIONS 


AND OTHER REFERENCES SUPPLIED BY AUTHORS. 


The titles of discussions, or the names of readers of papers in the Sections 
(pp. 427-577), as to which publication notes have been supplied, are given 
below in alphabetical order under each Section. 

References indicated by ‘ cf.’ are to appropriate works quoted by the 
authors of papers, not to the papers themselves. 

General reference may be made to the issues of Nature (weekly) during 
and subsequent to the meeting. 


SECTION A. 


Astbury, W. T.—WNature, 182, 3337, p. 593, Oct. 14 (1933); to appear 
in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc.; cf. ibid., A, 280, 75 (1931) ; Nature, 126, 913 
(1930) ; Fourn. Text. Inst., 218, T17 (1932); Trans. Far. Soc., 29, 193 (1933); 
Fourn. Soc. Dyers & Colourists, 49, 168 (1933) ; ‘ Fundamentals of Fibre 
Structure ’ (Astbury), O.U.P. (1933). 


Bloch, O. F.—Cf. Fourn. Roy. Soc. Arts, 81,'Feb. 3 (1933). 

Church, Maj. A. G.—Nature, 182, 3335, p. 502, Sept. 30 (1933). 
Cockcroft, Dr. J. D.—Proc. Roy. Soc., 187, p. 229. 

Dee, P. I.—Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 141, p. 733 (1933). 

Eddington, Sir A.—Times, Sept. 13 (1933). 

Franklin, C.H.H.—To appear in Nature; may appear in Journ. Phys. Soc. 
Lee, H. W.—Engineering, 186, 3539, p. 533, Nov. 10 (1933). 

McCrea, Dr. W. H.—Monthly Notices, R.A.S., 92, pp. 7-12, Nov. (1931). 
McVittie, D. G. C_—WMonthly Notices, R.A.S., 92, pp. 7-12, Nov. (1931). 


Miller, Prof. Dayton C.—Reviews of Modern Physics, Aug. (1933); short 
account to appear in Nature. 


Milne, Prof. E. AA—Cf. Nature, July 2 (1932) ; Zeitschr. fiir Astrophys., 
6, p. 1 (1933) ; Monthly Notices, R.A.S., Supp. Notice, 98 (1933). 


Oliphant, Dr. M. L.—Proc. Roy. Soc., Sept. (1933) ; Nature, Sept. 16 
(1933) ; cf. Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 141, pp. 259 and 722 (1933). 


Preston, Dr. R. D.— Nature, 132, 3337, P- 594, Oct. 14 (1933). 


Regener, Prof. Dr. E— Nature, 182, 3340, p. 696, Nov. 4 (1933) ; Times, 
Sept. 12 (1933); to appear in Zeitschr. fiir Physik. 


Rutherford of Nelson, Lord.—Proc. Roy. Soc., Sept. (1933) ; Nature, 182, 
3333, P- 432, Sept. 16 (1933) ; Times, Sept. 12 (1933). 


Simons, Dr. L.—Proc. Phys. Soc., 45, pt. 2, 247, p. 266, March 1 (1933). 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 611 


Smart, E. H.—Proc. Phys. Soc., 45, pt. 2, 247, p. 266, March 1 (1933). 
Speakman, Dr. J. B— Nature, 182, 3337, p. 594, Oct. 14 (1933). 
Taylor, W.—Engineering, 136, 3539, p. 533, Nov. 10 (1933). 


Thewlis, J.—Expected to appear in Brit. Dental Fourn., and Phil. Mag.; 
cf. Brit. Journ. Radiol., 5, p. 353 (1932) ; Brit. Dental Fourn., 58, p. 655 
(1932) ; Nature, 182, 3337, p. 594, Oct. 14 (1933). 

Vegard, Prof. L.—Nature, 182, 3339, p. 682, Oct. 28 (1933) ; Engineering, 
186, 3537, p. 470, Oct. 27 (1933); cf. Geophys. Publ. Oslo, 9, 11 (1932) ; 
Rae Sept. (1932) ; Geophys. Publ. Oslo, 10, 4 (1933); zbid., 10, 5 

1933). 
Walton, Dr. E. T. S.—Proc. Roy. Soc., 187, p. 229. 


PaPERS IN TECHNICAL Puysics, Af. 


Beetlestone, A.— Engineering, 186, 3537, p. 471, Oct. 27 (1933). 


Bradley, H.—On ‘ Testing of flexible sheet materials,’ to appear in Journ. 
Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ Chemists, Feb. (1934). 


Burch, C. R.—Engineering, 186, 3537, p. 470, Oct. 27 (1933). 

Cockcroft, Dr. J. D.—Proc. Roy. Soc., 186, p. 619. 

Cramp, Prof. W.—Electrician, 111, 2890, p. 471, Oct. 20 (1933) ; Engineer- 
ing, 186, 3537, Pp. 471, Oct. 27 (1933). 

Goodlet, B. L..—Engineering, 186, 3537, p. 471, Oct. 27 (1933). 

Randall, J. T.— Nature, 182, 3336, p. 574, Oct. 7 (1933); Times, Sept. 12. 


Spiers, Dr. C. H.—Leather Trades’ Rev., Oct. 4 (1933) ; may appear in 
Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ Chemists. 


DEPARTMENT A*. 
Du Val, Dr. P.—Cf. Journ. Lond. Math. Soc., 8, pp. 11 and 199 ; further 
papers to appear in later issues. 
Green, H. G.—Cf. Journ. Ecole pu oN 31, Serie II. 


Hodge, W. V. D.—Math. Gaz., Jan. (1934) ; Journ. Lond. Math. Soc., 
8, 4; to appear in Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. 


Offord, Dr. A. C.—On ‘ Fourier transforms,’ to appear in Proc. Lond, 
Math. Soc. On ‘ Hankel transforms,’ may appear in Ann. of Maths. 


DEPARTMENT Af. 


Best, A. C—May appear as Geophys. Memoir. 


Lockyer, Dr. W. J. S—Monthly Notices, R.A.S., 85, p. 580 (1925) ; 
ibid., 86, p. 474 (1926) ; ibid., 93, p. 362 (1933) ; ibid., 93, p. 619 (1933). 


McVittie, Dr. G. C.—Monthly Notices, R.A.S., 98, pp. 325-339, March 
(1933). 
SECTION B. 
Tanning, discussion ——To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ 
Chemists, Feb. (1934) ; Engineering, 186, 3539, p. 526, Nov. 10 (1933). 
Bergmann, Prof. Dr. M.—¥ourn. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ Chemists, 


612 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 


Oct. (1933); ibid., Feb. (1934); cf. ibid., 244 (1931) and 239 (1931) ; 
Naturwissenschaften, 18, 114 (1930) ; Biochem. Zeitschr., 250, 568 (1932). 

Butenandt, Prof. A.— Nature, 180, 3276, p. 238, Aug. 13 (1932); Ber. d. 
Deutschen chem. Gesellschaft, 66, 601 (1933); Zettschr. fiir physiol. Chem. 
(1933); Naturwiss., 49 (1933). 

Dodds, Prof. E. C.—Cf, Lancet, 1107 (1928); Biochem. Journ., 22, 6, 
1526 (1928) ; Journ. Obstet. & Gynecol. of Brit. Empire, 36, 1 (1929) ; 
Journ. Physiol., 68, 4, Jan. 27 (1930); Lancet, p. 683, March 29 (1930) ; 
ibid., 1, p. 1390, June 28 (1930) ; Biochem. Fourn., 24, 4, p. 1031 ; Journ. 
Obstet. & Gynecol. of Brit. Empire, 37, 3, p. 447; Fourn. Physiol., 88, 2, 
Oct. 22 (1931) ; Amer. Fourn. Obstet. & Gynecol., 22, 4, p. 520, Oct. (1931); 
Proc. Roy. Soc. Medicine, Jan. 16 (1932) ; Nature, 181, p. 56, Jan. 14 (1933) ; 
Naturwissenschaften, Feb. (1933); Journ. Soc. Chem. Industry, 52, 12, 
March 24 (1933) ; Chem. & Industry, no. 13, pp. 287-291, March 31 (1933). 

Freudenberg, Prof. K.—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc, Leather Trades’ 
Chemists, Feb. (1934); cf. ‘Tannin, Cellulose, Lignin’ (Freudenberg), 
Springer, Berlin (1933): 

Haslewood, G. A. D.—Chem. and Industry, 51, 2777. 

Humphreys, Dr. F. E.—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather 
Trades’ Chemists, Feb. (1934). 

Linstead, Dr. R. P.—Expected to appear in extended form in Journ. 
Chem. Soc. 


Lloyd, Dr. D. Jordan.—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather 
Trades’ Chemists, Feb. (1934). 

Maitland, Dr. P—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ 
Chemists, Feb. (1934). 

Phillips, Dr. H—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ 
Chemists, Feb. (1934) ; cf. ibid., 15, 465 (1931) ; ibid., 16, 345 (1932). 

Robertson, Dr. J. M.—Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 140, p. 79 (1933); «bid., 
141, p. 594 (1933) ; and subsequently. 

Thompson, F. C.—To appear in Journ. Internat. Soc. Leather Trades’ 
Chemists, Feb. (1934). 

SECTION C. 

Dollar, A. T. J.—Geol. Mag., '70, pp. 479-480, Oct. (1933) ; cf. zbid., 69, 
pp. 265-268 (1932) ; Report Brit. Assn. (1932). 

Eastwood, T.—Colliery Guardian, p. 531, Sept. 22 (1933); cf. Mem. 
Geol. Survey (1923, 1925 and 1927). 

Jones, Dr. W. R.—Yourn. Hygiene, 38, 3, pp. 307-329, Aug. (1933); 
Engineering, 186, 3539, p. 527, Nov. 10 (1933). 

® 
Section D. 

Beadle, L. C.—May appear in a form in Journ. Exp. Biol.; cf. 

ibid., 8, 3, p. 211, July (1931). 


Bond, Col. C. J.—To appear in Brit. Med. Journ. ; cf. ‘ Genetic Sig- 
nificance of Hemilateral Asymmetry in the Vertebrate Organism,’ William 
Withering Lecture, Univ. Birmingham (Bond), Lewis & Co. (1932). 


Cunningham, J. T.—Proc. Roy. Soc., B, 110 (1932) ; Proc. Zool. Soc., 
Jan. (1933) ; Nature, June 24 and Aug. 12 (1933). 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 613 


Deacon, G. E. R.—Work on South Atlantic Ocean in Discovery Reports, 
? (1933). Work on whole of Southern Ocean to appear in later volume. 


Gates, Prof. R. Ruggles.—Summary to appear in Nature. 


Graham, M.—To appear in Fishery Investigations, Series II, either 18, 
5, or 14, 2; cf. ibid., 18, 5, or 14, 1. 


Heron-Allen, E.—Times, Sept. 8 (1933). 


Hurst, Dr. C. C.—Gard. Chron., p. 291, Oct. 14 (1933); cf. ‘ Mechanism 
of Creative Evolution’ (Hurst), C.U. Press (1932). 


MacLagan, Dr. S.— Scotsman, Sept. 12 (1933); expected to appear in 
Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. 


Manton, Dr. Irene.—To appear in Zeitschrift fiir induktiv Abstammungs 
und Vererbringslehre. 


Roebuck, A.—To appear in British Birds or as bulletin of Midland 
Agricultural College ; Lincolnshire section in Trans. Lincs. Naturalists’ 
Union (1933); cf. British Birds, 27, no. 1, pp. 4-23, June (1933). 


Russell, F. S.—Cf. Journ. Marine Biol. Assn., 18-18. One further 
paper expected to appear. 


Watson, Prof. D. M. S.—Times, Sept. 9 (1933). 


Wigglesworth, Dr. V. B.—Cf. Journ. Exp. Biol., 8, pp. 411-451 (1931) ; 
Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 109, pp. 354-359 (1931); Quart. Journ. Micr. Scei., 
75, pp. 131-150 (1932) ; fourn. Exp. Biol., 10, pp. 16-26 (1933). 


SECTION E. 


Clough, Lt.-Col. A. B—May appear in Scot. Geog. Journ. 


Dickinson, R. E— Amer. Geog. Rev. (1934) ; cf. ‘ Commercial Functions 
of Nuclei of English Conurbations,’ Sociol. Rev. (1929). 


Edwards, K. C.—Colliery Guardian, Sept. 29 (1933) ;_ cf. ‘ Luxembourg 
Studies,’ Leplay Soc. (1933). 


Forde, Prof. C. Daryll—To appear in Scot. Geog. Mag. 
Gait, Sir Edward A.—7ourn. Roy. Soc. Aris, Oct. 20 (1933). 
Gilbert, E. W.—Expected to appear in Scot. Geog. Mag. 
Gimson, M.—Leics. Mercury, Sept. 7 (1933). 


Peach, H. H.—Leics. Mercury, Sept. 7 (1933); Leics. Evening Mail, 
Sept. 7 (1933); cf. Journ. Roy. Soc. Arts, 78, 4022, Dec. 20 (1929). 


Steers, J. A.—Cf. Geophys. Fourn., Jan. (1927); Trans. Norfolk & 
Norwich Nat. Hist. Soc., 12 (1925-6); ibid., 18 (1931-2); ‘ Scientific 
handbook on Scolt Head Island’ (editor, J. A. Steers), in preparation. 


SECTION F. 
Florence, Prof. P. S.—Industry Illustrated, Oct. (1933) ; Chap. VII of 
‘ Logic of Industrial Organisation ’ (Florence). 
Plant, Prof. A.—Financial News, Sept. 9 (1933). 
Walker, G.—May appear in Economica ; cf. Econ. Fourn., June (1933): 
( ee Sir Arnold T.—Cf. ‘The Suez. Canal’ (Wilson), O.U. Press 
1933). 


614 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 


DEPARTMENT F*, 


Annan, Prof. W.—Accountants’ Mag. (Edinburgh), Nov. (1933); cf. 
Accountant, Aug. 19 (1933); Proc. Internat. Congress on Accounting 
(Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1929) ; Accountants’ Mag., Nov. (1927) ; 
tbid., Jan. (1927). 

Armstrong, Dr. E. F.—Engineer, p. 254, Sept. 15 (1933). 


Crowden, G. P.—Lancet, pp. 665-666, Sept. 16 (1933) ; Industry Illus- 
trated, pp. xv-xviii, Sept. (1933); Industrial Welfare & Personnel Manage- 
ment, Sept. (1933) ; Electrician, Sept. 22 (1933); Nature, p. 684, Oct. 28 
(1933) ; to appear in full in Human Factor. 

Neal, L.—Lecture Recorder, 3, 3, Oct. (1933); to appear in Industry 
Illustrated ; cf. ‘ Retailing and the public’ (Neal), Allen & Unwin. 


de Paula, F. R. M.—Industry IIlus., Sept. (1933); Accountant, Oct. 7 
(1933). 


Urwick, Maj. L.—Published by Management Library; to appear im 


extended form as ‘ Organisation as a technical problem’ (Urwick), 
McGraw Hill. 


SECTION G. 


Adeney, Prof. W. E.—Engineering, 186, 3532, p- 339, Sept. 22 (1933) ; 
ibid., 136, 3535, Pp. 423, Oct. 13 (1933). 


Arnold, R. N.—Engineering, 186, 3535, p. 417, Oct. 13 (1933) ; Engineer, 
p. 314, Sept. 29 (1933). 
Atter, H. F.—Engineering, 186, 3532, p. 339, Sept. 22 (1933). 


Capon, R. S.—Engineering, 186, 3537, p. 475, Oct. 27 (1933) ; Engineer, 
Pp. 255, Sept. 15 (1933). 


Chamberlain, J.—Engineering, 186, 3530, Sept. 8 (1933); Engineer, 
Pp. 254, Sept. 15 (1933). 

Du-Plat-Taylor, M.—Engineering, 186, 3533, p. 372, Sept. 22 (1933) ; 
ibid., 186, 3533, p- 369, Sept. 29 (1933) ;_ cf. ‘ Reclamation of land from sea’ 
(Du-Plat-Taylor), Constable (1930). 


Gouldbourn, J.—Privately printed; Engineering, 186, 3533, p. 368, 
Sept. 29 (1933). 


Haworth, J.—Engineering, 186, 3531, p. 284, Sept. 15 (1933); zbid., 
186, 3532, p. 340, Sept. 22 (1933). 

Leonard, Dr. A. G. G.—Engineering, 186, 3532, p. 339, Sept. 22 (1933) ; 
ibid., 186, 3535, p. 423, Oct. 13 (1933). 


_ Lupton, H, R.—Engineering, 186, 3532, p. 340, Sept. 22 (1933), and later 
issue. 


_ McKay, A. M.—Engineering, 186, 3535, p. 417, Oct. 13 (1933) ; and later 
issue ; Engineer, p. 314, Sept. 29 (1933). 

Maughan, W.—Engineering, 186, 3533; p. 368, Sept. 29 (1933) ; Daily 
Express, Sept. 13 (1933). 

Taylor, W.—Engineer, p. 254, Sept. 15 (1933). 

Vokes, F. C.—Engineering, 186, 3531, p. 317, Sept. 15 (1933); zbid., 
136, 3532, p. 340, Sept. 20 (1933) ; Surveyor, Sept. 22 (1933); cf. Proc. 
Inst. C.E., 226, pt. 2, paper no. 4660 (1927-8) ; World Power, April (1933). 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 615 


Walker, Prof. Miles.—Engineering, 186, 3532, p. 326, Sept. 22 (1933); 
Modern Transport, 80, 757, p. 5, Sept. 16 (1933) ; Engineer, p. 292, Sept. 22 
(1933). 

Watson, J. D.— Engineering, 186, 3531, p. 283, Sept. 15 (1933); ibid., 
136, 3532, p. 339, Sept. 22 (1933). 

Wilson, W.—To appear in Engineering ; Engineer, p. 255, Sept. 15 (1933). 


SECTION H. 


Cardinall, A. W.—Cf. ‘ Nations of Northern Territories of Gold Coast ’ 
(Cardinall, 1920); ‘In Ashanti and Beyond’ (Cardinall, 1927); ‘ Tales 
Told in Togoland ’ (Cardinall, 1931) ; ‘ The Gold Coast, 1931 ’ (Cardinal, 
1932). 

Childe, Prof. V. Gordon.—To appear in extenso in Ancient Egypt and the 
East ; summary to appear in Nature. 

Davies, O.—To be extended in book form; cf. ‘ Roman and Medieval 
Mining,’ Trans. Inst. Mining and Metall. (1933-4). 

Dollar, A. T. J—Man, 38, p. 166, Oct. (1933); Ilfracombe Chron., 
Sept. 15 (1933). 

Evans-Pritchard, Prof. E. E—To appear in Man. 

Forde, Prof. C. Daryll—Summary to appear in Man; cf. ‘Ethnography 
of the Yuma Indians ’ (Forde), Univ. California Press (1931). 

Fox, Dr. C.—Cf. ‘ Personality of Britain: Its Influence on Inhabitant 
and Invader in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times ’ (Fox), Nat. Museum 
of Wales. 

Gates, Prof. R. Ruggles.—Yourn. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., Jan. (1934). 

Hornell, J—To appear in Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. ; cf. Man, §5 (1919) ; 
tbid., 67 (1920) ; Mariner’s Mirror, 19, pp. 439-445 (1933): 

Hutton, Dr. J. H—Summary to appear in Nature; may appear in 
Current Science (Bangalore). 

Jackson, K. H.—In part in Bull. Board of Celtic Studies, Nov. (1933) 3 
remainder expected to appear in Man. 

Nadel, Dr. S. F.—Cf. Musical Quarterly (New York), 16 (1930); 
Erdball (Berlin) (1931) ; Zettschr. Wien Akad. Wissensch. (1931); ‘ Georg- 
ische Gesinge’ (Nadel), Lautabteilung, Berlin (1933); ‘ Messungen an 
Raukasischen Grifflochpfeifen ’ (Nadel), Anthropos (1934). 

Palmer, Sir Richmond.—May appear in Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. 

Pokorny, Prof. J.—Zeitschr. fiir celtische Philologie, 20 (1933) ; to appear 
in Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. 

Rattray, Dr. R. S.—Times, Sept. 12 (1933). 

Roth, G. K.—Man, 170, Oct. (1933) ; expected to appear in detail in 
Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst.; cf. Man (1933), articles no. 49, 67 and 167. 


SEcTION I. 
Bedford, Dr. T.—To appear in Journ. of Hygiene. 


_ Burn, Prof. J. H.—Cf. Quart. Journ. Pharm. Pharmacol., 2, 187 (1930) ; 
Journ. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther., 46, 75 (1932); Journ. Physiol., '75, 144 


(1932). 


616 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 


Dufton, A. F.—To appear in Journ. of Hygiene. 

Edridge-Green, Dr. F. W.—CE. ‘ Physiology of Vision ’ (Edridge-Green, 
1920) ; ‘ Science and Pseudo-Science ’ (Edridge-Green, 1933). 

Feldberg, Dr. W.—¥ourn. Physiol., Nov. 18 (1933) ; in part in Pfliigers 
Archiv, 23, remainder to appear in Journ. Physiol. 

Harris, Dr. L. J.—Cf. Science Progress, 18, 68 (1928) ; Lancet, 1, 1031 
(1932) ; Biochem. Fourn., 28, 206 (1929) ; ibid., 25, 367 (1931). 

Hunter, Dr. D.—Cf. Lancet, 1, 897, 947, 999 (1930) ; Brit. Journ. Surg., 
19, 203 (1931-2). 

Kay, Dr, H. D.—Cf. Physiol. Rev., 12, pp. 384-422 (1932); Fourn. 
Nutrition, 6, pp. 313-324 (1933). 

Robison, Prof. R.—Cf. work to appear in Biochem. fourn.; ‘ Herter 
Lectures ’ (Robison), New York Univ. Press (1932). 


SECTION J. 


Correlation, discussion on methods.—Nature, Oct. 21 (1933). 

Balchin, N. M.—Journ. Nat. Inst. Indust. Psych. ; Industry Illus. 

Brown, Dr. W.—On ‘ Personal Influence,’ Brit. Med. Fourn., Sept. 16 
(1933). 

Cattell, Dr, R. B.— Brit. Journ. Psych., Jan. and July (1933). 

Creed, Dr. R. S.—Expected to appear in Nature. 

Hurst, Dr. C. C.—Eugenics Rev., Jan. or April (1934) ; cf. Proc. Roy. 
Soc., B, 112 (1932). 

Piaggio, Prof. H. T. H.—To appear in extended form in Brit. Journ. 
Psych. ; Nature, Oct. 21 (1933); cf. Brit. Journ. Psych., 24, 88, July (1933). 

Rodger, A.—-fourn. Nat. Inst. Indust. Psych., Feb. (1934); cf. Brit. 
Journ. Educ. Psych., 8, 2, June (1933). 

Shaw, Miss A. G.—Labour Management, Oct. (1933) ; Engineer, p. 254, 
Sept. 15 (1933). 

Tolman, Prof. E. C.—Cf. Psych. Rev., 40, pp. 60-70, Jan. (1933) ; ibid., 
40, pp. 246-255, May (1933); Univ. Calif. Publ. Psych., 4, 5, pp. 71-89, 
Sept. (1929). 

Thouless, Dr. R. H.—Expected to appear in Brit. Journ. Psych.; cf. 
ibid., 21, pp. 339-359 ; 22, pp. 1-30; 22, pp. 216-241. 

Valentine, Prof. C. W.—To be embodied in book yet to be published. 

Vernon, Miss M.D.—Expected to appear in Brit. Journ. Psych. (1934). 

Vernon, Dr. P. E.—Psych. Rev., 40 (1933); cf. Eugenics Rev., 28, 
PP. 325-331 (1932). 

Wishart, Dr. J —Cf. Brit. fourn. Psych., 19, pp. 180-187 (1928). 

Wright, Dr. G. G. Neill —To appear as_part of ‘Society and the Human 
Mind’ (Wright). 


SECTION K. 


Ball, Prof. N. G.—Expected to appear in New Phytologist ; cf. bid., be 
p. 13 (1932). 
Barnes, Dr. B.—Cf. Trans. Brit. Mycological Soc., 17, p. 82 (1932). 


REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 617 


Chattaway, Miss M. M.—To appear in Forestry ; cf. New Phytologist, 
$1, 119 (1932). 

Cromwell, Dr. B. T.—Biochem. Fourn., 27, 3, pp. 860-872 (1933). 

Fisher, Prof. R. A.—To appear in Ann. Bot. 

Gwynne-Vaughan, Prof. Dame Helen.—-Amn. Bot., 48, Jan. (1934). 

Hyde, F. F—May appear in New Phytologist or Ann. Bot. ; cf. Analyst, 
P- 523, Sept. (1933). 

Matthews, Prof. J. R.—Cf. Ann. Bot. (1923, 1924, 1926). 

Seward, Prof. A. C-——Expected to appear in Ann. Bot. 

Thomas, Dr. H. Hamshaw.—To appear in New Phytologist (1934). 


Thompson, Prof. J. McLean.—Publications of Hartley Bot. Labs., 11, 
Univ. Press, Liverpool, Oct. (1933). 


Went, Prof. F. A. F. C.—Nature, 182, 3333, p. 454, Sept. 16 (1933). 
Williamson, Mrs. H. S.—Ann. Bot., 48, Jan. (1934). 


DEPARTMENT K*, 
Coke, Maj. the Hon. R.—Expected to appear in Journ. Roy. Scot. For. 
Soc.; Journ. Roy. Engl. For. Soc., Jan. (1934). 
Long, A. P.—Expected to appear in Quart. Journ. Forestry, Jan. (1934). 


Mundt, H.—Expected to appear in Scot. Forestry Journ. ; cf. Communica- 
tions from Congress of Nancy, pp. 326-347 (Internat. Union Inst. For. Res. ; 
1932). 

Orde-Powlett, Hon. N. A.—To appear in Journ. Roy. Scot. Geog. Soc. 


Pratt, Lt.-Col. E—Quart. Journ. Forestry, Jan. (1934) ; cf. back numbers 
of Fourn. Roy. Agric. Soc., and Estate Mag. 


Rayner, Dr. M. C.—To appear in Journ. of Ecology; cf. Forestry, 3, 
p. 26 (1929) ; ibid., 4, p. 65 (1930) ; Empire For. Fourn., 9, p. 182 (1930) ; 
Reports of B.A. Cttee. on Mycorrhiza (1930, 1931, 1932). 


Robertson, W. A.—Timber Trades Fourn., Sept. 23 (1933) ; to appear in 
Journ. Scot. For. Soc. 


SEcTION L. 

Examinations and psychological tests, discussion.—Yourn. Educ., p. 666, 
Oct. (1933). 

Barraclough, F.—Fourn. Educ., Oct. and Noy. (1933); Schoolmaster, 
Sept. 21 (1933). 

Brierley, Prof. W. B.—Yourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 

Chamberlain, J —Hosiery Trade Fourn., Oct. (1933). 

Cornish, Dr. V.—Fourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 

Dale, Miss A. B—May appear in Journ. Educ. Psych. 

Farmer, E.—To appear in Brit. Journ. Educ. Psych. 

Ferguson, Dr. A.—Yourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 

Gregory, Sir R.—¥ourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 


Lawe, F. W.—Expected to appear in Journ. Nat. Inst. Indust. Psych., 
Industry Illus., Journ. of Careers. 
Y 


618 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 


Lewis, E. 1.—Financial News, Sept. 11 (1933); cf.‘ Making of a Chemical’ 
(Lewis), Benn (1927). 


McWilliam, A. S.—High Peak News, Sept. 23 (1933); cf. Derbyshire 
Farmer (1932) ; Annual Reports, Rothamsted Experimental Station. 


Myres, Prof. J. L.—Fourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 


Oates, Dr. D. W.—To appear in Journ. Educ. Psych.; cf. Brit. Journ. 
Psych., 19, 1, pp. 1-30; Forum of Educ.,'7, pp. 171-185 ; Journ. Educ., 
Aug. (1029). 

Pugh, Prof. W. J.—Yourn. Educ., Nov. (1933) ; may appear in Nature. 


Salt, H.—Shoe and Leather Record, Sept. 15 (1933); Shoe and Leather 


News, Sept. 14 (1933) ; expected to appear in Fourn. Shoe Manufrs. Fedn. 
or Journ. Nat. Inst. Boot and Shoe Industry. 


Sandon, F.—Yourn. Educ., 65, 771, p. 666, Oct. (1933); cf. Forum of 
Educ., 2, p. 29 (1924) ; ibid., 4, p. 223 (1926) ; ibid., 8, p. 24 (1925) ; Math. 
Gazette, May (1926); Forum of Educ., 6, p. 270, Nov. (1928) ; ibid., 7, 
p. 23, Feb. (1929); Brit. Journ. Educ. Psych., 1, 3, p. 296, Nov. (1931) ; 
ibid., 3, 3, p. 269, Nov. (1933). 


Valentine, Prof. C. W.—Cf. ‘ The Reliability of Examinations’ (Valentine), 
Univ. Lond. Press (1932). 


Wickens, G. C——Supplement to Counter Clerk (Assoc. Counter Clerks 
and Telegraphists) ; Yourn. Inst. Public Admin. ; supplement to Post Year 
Book (Union Post Office Workers). 


SecTIoN M. 
Ashby, Prof. A. W.—Expected to appear in Welsh Journ. Agric., 10 
1934); cf. Scot. fourn. Agric., 8, 2 (1925). 


Astill, Ald. P. F—Bull. 10, Imp. Bureau of Plant Genetics : Herbage 
Plants, Sept. (1933). 


Blackaby, J. H.—To appear in Engineering ; cf. ‘ Technical Notes on 
Mechanised Farming, No. 1, Mole Drainage ’ (Blackaby), Univ. Oxf. Inst. 
Research Agric. Eng. (1932). 


Blackwood, Dr. Janet H.—Cf. Bulletin 5, Hannah Dairy Res. Inst., Feb. 
1933): 

Bridges, A.—Bull. 10, Imp. Bureau of Plant Genetics : Herbage Plants, 
Sept. (1933). 

Davies, B.—Times, Sept. 13 (1933) ; N. Wales Observer, Oct. 5 gah} 

Davies, W.—Bull. 10, Imp. Bureau of Plant Genetics : Herbage Plants, 
Sept. (1933). 

Dobson, A. 'T. A.—Times, Sept. 9 (1933). 

Godden, W.—Cf. Bulletin 5, Hannah Dairy Res. Inst., Feb. (1933). 

Jones, M. G.—Bull. 10, Imp. Bureau of Plant Genetics : Herbage Plants, 
Sept. (1933). 

Kay, Dr. H. D.—In part in Journ. Dairy ‘Riese siDsnne(@g38)- 

Orwin, C. S.—To be incorporated in book (1934). 


Wilson, Prof. G. S.—Lancei, p. 829, Oct. 7 (1933); cf. Quart. Bull. Health 
Organisation, League of Nations, 1, no. 4, p. 664 (1932). 


Wright, Dr. N. C. Scot. Ph on Agric., Jan. (1934). 
wt te & 


ee 


APPENDIX 


A 
SCIENTIFIC SURVEY 
OF 


LEICESTER 


AND DISTRICT 


PREPARED FOR 
THE LEICESTER MEETING 


#955 


BY VARIOUS AUTHORS 


EDITED BY 


P. W. BRYAN, Ph.D., B.Sc.+(Econ.) 


Vice-Principal, University College, Leicester 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.—Leicester in its Regional Setting. By P. W. BRYAN ........ ‘ 

Ii—Geology:, By Tiwi. GREGORY 3... ga4)« «fas Rsyoeusoe quate teas 17 

III.—The Flora of Leicestershire. By A. R. HoRwoop.......... 25 
IV.—The Zoology of Leicestershire. By E. E. Lowe, W.E. Mayes, 

RSWAcsrarrEyand S:.O., FAYLOR: | ..c's ocesutemeeies 33 

V.—tThe Climate of Leicestershire. By E.G. BILHAM ........ 40 

VI—Farming in Leicestershire. By 'THomaS HACKING ........ 48 
ViI.—The Industries of Leicester. By L. W. KersHaw, F. R. 
ANTCLIFF, J. CHAMBERLAIN, J. P. IvEeNs, and F. W. 

ROBERTS) ole. eae PRIOR Aceh ts aie. os Sains area eee on ERRNO 60 


VIII.—Municipal Activities of Leicester. By H. A. PRITCHARD .... 72 
TX.—Education in Leicester. By F. P. ARMITAGE .............. 80 


X.—Men of Science in Leicester and Leicestershire. By F. B. 
OTT it fy: Werte. tre. eeMetees talons tes sek, « 0 eh cae ee reaae 84. 


A SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF 
LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


Ih 
LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 


BY 
P. W. BRYAN, Ph.D., B.Sc. (Econ.), 
VICE-PRINCIPAL, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LEICESTER. 


Definition of ‘ District ’—Cultural and Natural Landscape—Satisfaction of Man’s 
Desires in the Leicester Region—General Topography and Geology—The 
Grasslands—Cultural Forms of—Water Supply of—Market Harborough 
Area—Hunting—Upland Grasslands—Cultural Forms of—Physical Setting 
of—Vale of Belvoir—Cheese-making—Wold Country—Melton Mowbray 
Area—Keuper Marl Grassland—Arable Land in the North-east—Iron Ore 
Workings—Ironworks at Asfordby—Leicestershire | Coalfield— Cultural 
Forms of—Physical Setting of—Charnwood Forest Area—Relief and 
Structure of—Formation of—Quarries of—Leicester—Site of—Roman 
Roads—Expansion of City—Different Areas in the City—Manufacturing 
Activities—Communications of the Region—Conclusion. 


THE region of which Leicester is the focal point exhibits, to a greater 
degree perhaps than any other area of the East Midlands, diversity in 
unity. The keynote of this diversity is found in the differing ways in 
which man has here adapted to serve his needs differing physical settings. 
The city of Leicester, functioning as the chief focal point—the principal 
collecting, distributing and organisation centre—for a series of districts 
located in the vicinity, is the chief unifying force operating in the area. 
Before examining these districts with a view to discovering their chief 
characteristics and their relationships to the city it may be well to define 
what we have in mind by the term ‘ district.’ It is here used to denote 
an area in which there is a combination or grouping of a series of more or 
less related phenomena which tend to repeat themselves throughout the 
area. It may beasked, What phenomena? It is assumed that the pheno- 
mena referred to are those connected with man’s utilisation of the physical 
setting in which he lives to satisfy his desires. ‘The phenomena therefore 
are of two main kinds—those which make up the physical setting or 


4 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


natural landscape, and those which constitute the cultural landscape or 
natural landscape as modified by man. The motivating force effecting 
this modification is taken to be the effort of man to satisfy his desires. 

Man desires beef and milk. He uses the extensive grasslands of the 
Leicester area to raise cattle and sheep. He desires cereals and potatoes. 
The lighter and better-drained limestone and sandstone soils of the north- 
eastern part of the county provide him with a suitable area for tillage. 
He needs to transport his products. In the quarries of the Charnwood 
Forest and elsewhere he finds excellent road metal to surface his roads. 
He desires buildings to house and shelter his activities and their resulting 
products. In the marlstone at Scalford, the limestone at Croxton, and 
the clays of the lower grounds he finds material for his houses and villages. 
He needs factories in towns and cities in which to shape his products into 
articles suitable for consumption. In Leicester he takes leather and wool 
and fashions them into boots and hosiery with the aid of organisation, 
capital, labour, and coal from the nearby coalfield. The cities and towns 
require municipal government and the performance of social services for 
their inhabitants. Man erects suitable buildings to house these activities, 
constructs waterworks and power stations, and organises government. 
He needs recreation. He takes waste areas and converts them into the 
numerous playing fields, golf courses, parks and open spaces to be found 
in the city and countryside. He desires to gratify his esthetic senses and 
preserve some of the beauties and amenities of the countryside for present 
and future use. He sets aside, as at Bradgate Park and Swithland Wood, 
beautiful scenic areas in which town and country dwellers may enjoy 
nature unspoilt. ‘Through scientific methods of cultivation and produc- 
tion applied to his natural surroundings he obtains surpluses which he 
exchanges for commodities from other areas. In this fashion Leicester- 
shire beef, milk and cheese, hosiery, boots and engineering products pro- 
cure for the country and town dweller the surpluses of other regions. 

These are only some of the chief relationships which exist between 
man and nature in the Leicester region. In all these activities man in the 
Leicester region makes use of his environment. His activities change 
from place to place throughout the region with changes in the natural 
environment. In each district man moulds the face of nature, and his 
activities are in turn moulded and modified by it. In this general geo- 
graphical survey we can only touch briefly on the chief districts, with 
some of the cultural and natural phenomena related to man’s activities, 
which fall within the Leicester region. 

Although from the writer’s point of view the most satisfactory approach 
to the study of a region is through an examination of the human activities 
in the area, it may be more helpful for the general reader to have before 
him a brief description of the region from the topographical and geological 
standpoints. : 

The city of Leicester is situated near the centre of the county, on the 
river Soar. This valley is the central topographical feature of the region. 
It runs roughly south-north, bending eastward in a flat bow to avoid the 
ancient rocky masses of the Charnwood Forest. Some miles north of the 
city the river Wreake enters the Soar at a right angle from the north-east. 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 


“ONILLAS IVNOIDEAY SLI NI WALSHOIAT ALVUALSATII OL NOILOUS TVOIDOIOdL) ALVWIXOUddYy 


[Fea] = BNGLSIWW7 DILZH HY BIG@IS BALyw/x0vss 
[| ONES NOALIWEHLYON —————_——— ot 
OM SNOLSTY EL SIN 1 f e) 
ES SALT) D/SS5H/7 Y 
x SFYNSVIW THOD 
[- -] Txwtw YFSIM N UINYE HD y 


SMIOY 
=a WALAAT TE . 


ey aa 


“as 


i fl T f 
if 77/4 [veoxs DAZ INIWISG ICT yz YUOS t JIVWATHOD AGHSY 
DISAII/F7 TAIVHOSINA OW 
WEHINISSA AITOVYM PNQUSTHY VW Uszy0y NOIDxsv’ag 
FIV7WL = SONU ISSUYD DNYTIN a ld Bg Le JOOMNY YHD G7F/A THO) 
‘3° MN =) M 


6 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


These two valleys with their adjacent lowlands divide the region into 
three regions of upland—the Charnian mass to the west, the Melton Ridge 
to the north-east, and the Jurassic uplands to the east. Along the river 
valleys, between the river valleys and the uplands, and, in some cases, 
surrounding, penetrating, and overriding the uplands, are the great grass- 
lands for which Leicestershire has become justly famed. 'To west of the 
Charnwood Forest the low ground is occupied by the Leicestershire 
coalfield stretching north-westward towards Burton. 'To the extreme 
south-east around the headwaters of the river Welland lie the rich 
grasslands of Market Harborough. 

Broadly speaking, the underlying structure of the region is a fairly simple 
arrangement of clays, marlstones, sandstones, and limestones running in 
bands from south-west to north-east and dipping eastward. ‘They are 
mostly of Triassic, Jurassic, and more recent origin. ‘To west of the Soar 
valley, projecting through these younger rocks, are the coal measures form- 
ing the Leicestershire coalfield, and the ancient volcanic materials of 
which the rocky peaks and ridges of the Charnwood area are formed. 
These older materials have been partly buried in the marls of Triassic age. 
To east of the river Soar a low escarpment of limestone (Rhetic) forms 
the high ground overlooking the city. ‘To east of it a long sweep of clay 
country (the Lower Lias) rises to the foot of the marlstone escarpment, 
beyond which lie the grassland uplands capped with clays. This marl- 
stone country also forms the Melton Ridge whose escarpment looks down 
steeply on to the clay-covered grasslands of the Vale of Belvoir. The 
eastern part of the Jurassic uplands round Uppingham is capped with 
Northampton sandstone, while the eastern part of the Melton Ridge is 
capped partly with the Northampton sandstone and partly with the Lincoln- 
shire limestone. From the standpoint of soils the position is complicated 
by widespread deposits of chalky boulder clay. This occupies the surface 
of much of the Melton Ridge, the Jurassic uplands, and the lowlands 
between the river flood plains and the upland edges. 

In our brief survey of the districts which make up the Leicester region 
we may usefully begin with the grasslands. Our justification may be that 
out of the land available for crops and grazing in the county approximately 
five-sixths is under grass, some of which is claimed to be the best grassland 
in England. As nearly two-thirds of the value of English agricultural 
produce is derived from grassland farming, the importance of Leicester- 
shire in this connection will be realised. ‘The Leicestershire farmer 
contributes largely to the milk, cheese, beef and mutton supply of England. 
The Leicestershire grassland is a perennial resource which does not 
become exhausted as does land under crops, nor worked out as do areas 
from which minerals are obtained. Its fertility is maintained through 
the droppings of the live stock coupled with a winter rest period. Efforts 
are, however, being made to increase its yield. Experiments show that 
under favourable conditions grassland yield can be increased up to 
50 per cent. with modern methods. The development of better types of 
grass, the application of fertiliser, and even simple harrowing, all help to 
increase the yield. 

As we have already seen, the Vale of Belvoir to north of the Melton 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING if 


Ridge, the Wreake valley to the south of it, the Soar valley in the centre 
of the county, the country to south of the Charnwood, and the district 
around Market Harborough on the headwaters of the Welland are all 
lowland grasslands. ‘They possess certain features in common, and certain 
other features which differentiate them. ‘These features are in part due 
to the physical circumstances, chiefly the soils, and in part to man. ‘The 
soils are chiefly alluviums, heavy clays, or clayey loams. The clays and 
loams are mainly derived to west of the river Soar from the Keuper marl 
and boulder clay ; to east of the river from the lower and middle Lias and 
the chalky boulder clay. ‘The upland grassland to east of the marlstone 
escarpment is capped with boulder clay and the upper Lias clay. Under 
the influence of the differing soils resulting from these different formations 
and of variations in the topography, the human activities of these grass- 
lands and the minor cultural forms tend to vary. 

The main cultural forms of the grassland are the grass fields with their 
herds of cattle and sheep, the farmsteads and the scattered houses of the 
herdsmen, the well-cared-for whitethorn hedges, the broad road spaces 
with their wide grass margins, the scattered villages usually smaller than 
those of the tilled country, and the prevalence of brick as a building 
material. Minor forms are the small red boards warning huntsmen of 
the presence of wire in the fences, and in the milk country the milk-cans 
are to be seen at the roadside either on the ground or on small platforms 
waiting collection by the milk lorries. Where tillage has given place to 
grassland, as in much of the chalky boulder clay country, the ridges and 
furrows of the old drainage system are characteristic. Along the river 
valleys the alluvial lands are subject to periodical flooding. This flooding 
keeps the land well watered and helps to renew its fertility while rendering 
it useless for crops. Raised footpaths on wood or iron posts are common 
in the flood plains of these valleys. 

On the slightly higher grasslands above flood-plain level the numerous 
brooks and rivulets are evidence of a high water table. They ensure the 
land being well watered. There are some 600 of these in the county. 
In the areas of ridge and furrow which give alternate belts of drier and 
wetter land there is always, even in the driest summer, some moist herbage 
in the furrows. ‘This is of considerable importance to the Leicestershire 
grasslands, as the county lies in that part of Great Britain which has the 
most Continental type of climate. 

Of the subdivisions of the grasslands those around Market Harborough 
near the headstreams of the Welland and those along the flood plain of 
the river Soar are probably the richest. In the Market Harborough dis- 
trict the soils are mostly heavy clays or medium loams. In many parts of 
the district neither cake nor fertiliser is used ; the droppings of the live 
stock evenly spread and well trampled are adequate to maintain these 
lands in high condition for finishing full-grown cattle without making 
undue demands on the plant food in the soil. ‘They can feed one bullock 
or twenty sheep to the acre, and it is said that a bullock gains in weight 
about 2 lb. per day on these untreated lands. As is pointed out by 
Mr. Hacking in his chapter on ‘ Agriculture’ in this survey, grassland 
management is here carried to a fine pitch. From this district beef and 


8 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


mutton of the very best quality are sent to market. ‘The numerous dairy 
herds to be seen in the fields also indicate that milk, while a secondary 
product in this district, is none the less produced on a fairly large scale. 

Market Harborough is one of the chief hunting centres of the Midland 
clay vales, and therefore one of the chief hunting centres of England. In 
the grassland, except for dairy work, there is little to be done during the 
winter. Where finishing beef cattle is the main activity the cattle are 
usually bought in the spring, fattened on the grassland during the summer, 
and sold in the autumn. During the winter the grassland rests, and the 
beef farmer is largely free for hunting. ‘The undulating grassland, with 
its stiff fences, lying between the river flood plains and the uplands, and 
the sharply dissected plateau country of the upland grassland, both form 
ideal hunting country which makes stern demands on men and horses. 
Its value for hunting is enhanced by the absence of tillage and the relative 
absence of live stock in the fields during the winter. In addition to the 
Market Harborough country, that around Melton Mowbray, and the Vale 
of Catmose in the eastern part of the area, are famous hunting centres, and 
it is here that we find the Quorn, the Cottesmore hunt, the Belvoir, and 
the Pytchley—all names famous in the annals of the chase. 

North of Market Harborough and east of Leicester the country rises 
in a series of long grass-covered slopes to the clay-topped marlstone 
plateaux forming the upland grassland. In this grassland we have clearly 
marked that grouping and repetition of phenomena which we have assumed 
above to be the hallmark of a district. Its eastward boundary is Wardley 
Hill, near Uppingham. Within the district, with the exception of a few 
small and poor-looking villages, the distribution of buildings is of the 
dispersed type. Numerous hedges divide the area into grass fields with 
small farms and their associated buildings dotted about in the grassland. 
A few arable fields are to be seen, but they merely serve to emphasise the 
widespread dominance of grass. With the exception of one or two main 
roads, the roads up to a few years ago were poor and narrow. ‘To-day 
many of these side-roads are surfaced with tarmac. By the roadside on 
small platforms we see milk-cans. Cattle and some sheep are in the fields. 
Should we pass in the winter we may see fox-hunting in full swing. We 
are in the country of the Quorn and the Fernie. Over a distance of 
eight or ten miles from Houghton-on-the-Hill to Wardley Hill we observe 
a repetition of the same elements of human occupancy—small farms, small 
houses for the herdsmen, grassfields, well-cut hedges, poor narrow side- 
roads—mostly gated,—one great main road, the milk-cans and their plat- 
forms, the milk lorries on the road, the small villages, the live stock in the 
fields, and the scattered population. It is clear that the people are mainly 
concerned with the tending of live stock, chiefly cattle, partly for beef, 
but mainly for milk, with sheep herding as a lesser activity. 

The above forms of the cultural landscape concretely express man’s 
relationship to the physical setting of these uplands. ‘This physical 
setting is clear-cut and definite. It consists in the main of a repetition of 
simple topographical and structural elements. A series of gently undulat- 
ing clay-covered marlstone plateau tops are deeply dissected by sharply 
cut little stream valleys with clay floors and marlstone slopes. Of these 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 9 


stream valleys that of the Eye Brook is the largest. The rock layers are 
nearly horizontal. The weathering is typical of conditions in a relatively 
wet area on rocks of varying resistances. Although capable of growing 
corn, as is evidenced by the ridge and furrow in many of the fields, the 
elevation of the district, from 500 to 750 ft. above sea-level, together 
with the clay covering, make it unsuitable for cultivation with agricultural 
prices at their present levels. The district is thus for practical purposes 
an upland extension of the great grass vales of the Midlands. The 
poorer soils and the more severe climatic conditions make it less rich 
than the vales. As we have seen, it specialises in milk rather than beef, 
its holdings are smaller, its villages are poorer, and it contrasts sharply 
with the richer and more varied land, with its larger farms and more 
prosperous-looking villages, on the mixed soils and rock outcrops of 
Rutlandshire beyond Wardley Hill. 

At the other subdivisions of the grassland we can only briefly glance. 
In the Vale of Belvoir to north of the Melton Ridge the clay soil is derived 
from the lower Lias. Here again we have the grazing of cattle and sheep, 
but there is a distinct tendency to specialise in the production of milk and 
the Stilton cheese for which the district has become famous. As far back 
as 1790, William Marshall, who was probably the first ecologist in this 
country, studied soils and the cultivation of grasses in this county from the 
standpoint of cheese-making. At Long Clawson, north of the Melton 
Ridge, there is a co-operative factory engaged in cheese-making. The 
boulder clay-covered Wold country to north-west and to west of the Melton 
Ridge, around Six Hills on the Foss Way, is a western extension of the Vale 
of Belvoir grass country. The grassland here is only of moderate quality, 
particularly where the boulder clay tends to be of a sandy or gravelly type. 
It makes cheese, produces milk and raises young sheep and stock. In 
the Melton Mowbray district to south of the ridge there is excellent grazing 
land, partly in the river flood plain and partly on the clay-covered land 
sloping up on the one side to the Melton Ridge and on the other to the 
upland grasslands of eastern Leicestershire. In the area south of the 
Charnwood and west of the river Soar, although the majority of the farms 
are devoted to milk production, the farming, owing to the presence of the 
Keuper marl with patches of sands and gravels of glacial and Triassic age, 
tends to be of a more mixed type. Stock is raised, and the lighter soils 
are devoted to such crops as wheat, oats, barley, beans, sugar-beet and 
mangolds. 

The chief area of cultivation in the Leicester region lies north-east of 
Melton Mowbray. It is found in the district extending from Scalford to 
Knipton and Croxton on the soils derived from the marlstone, the 
Northampton sands and the Lincolnshire limestone. The relationship 
between human activities and soils is very clearly marked here. Running 
northward from Melton to Scalford we are on a sheet of chalky boulder 
clay, the heavier parts of which are under grass, while the lighter soils are 
tilled. Beyond Scalford we enter the marlstone rock bed. Here most 
of the surface is under the plough for wheat, beet, or oats. The marlstone 
soil is fertile, light and easily tilled. Between Knipton and Croxton a belt 
of the upper Lias clay crops out, forming a zone of pasture land lying 


10 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


between the arable land below on the marlstone and the cultivation above 
on the limestone and sand. 

Throughout much of this district the fields lie definitely below the level 
of the road. ‘This is an indication of the working of the area to recover the 
iron ore present in the marlstone and in the Northampton sandstone. 
The ore bed, which may be up to 14 ft. in thickness, lies from a few feet 
down to 18 ft. below the surface. It is readily worked, in long narrow 
strips, by removing the surface cover, transferring the cover to the other 
side of the strip, calcining the ore on the spot, and shipping after about 
eight weeks, the time needed for calcining. In this fashion the agricul- 
tural land is preserved. It is claimed that its fertility is actually increased. 
The general level of the land is reduced by the approximate thickness of 
the ore bed, though the amount of settling varies with the nature of the 
material forming the cover. Within our region the chief workings in 
operation are at Holwell, Buckminster, Branston, Knipton, Croxton, 
Eastwell, and Stainby to north and north-east of Melton, and at Tilton 
in the grassland uplands to east of Leicester. Many other workings, as at 
Corby, to east of our area exist. Much of the ore worked in the Leicester 
area goes to the furnaces at Asfordby near Melton. Here pig iron is pro- 
duced and is made into castings and piping, Although some of the ores 
are markedly calcareous, additional limestone for fluxing purposes is 
obtained from the Lincolnshire limestone. Coke comes from Yorkshire, 
and sand for moulds from the Bunter deposits near Nottingham. Since 
approximately nine-tenths of the British output of iron ore comes from 
the Northampton Sand and the Middle Lias, these workings are of great 
interest. ‘This interest is enhanced by the fact that the ironworks and 
also the iron workings are set in the midst of a fertile agricultural area and 
do a minimum of damage to the agricultural resources of that area. 

Although there is little commercial connection between the iron work- 
ings and the Leicestershire coalfield, we may next glance at its main 
features. Standing on Bardon Hill, the highest summit of the Charn- 
wood Forest, we look out westward over a landscape which contrasts 
sharply with that of the rest of our region. At our feet a steep slope runs 
down to the lowland. This lowland is studded with the pithead gears of 
the collieries and the long lines of the miners’ dwellings. These are 
clearly visible round Coalville and vanish into the distance towards 
Ashby, Donisthorpe, Swadlincote, and Burton. ‘To southward the pit- 
head gears become fewer and give place to pasture land. The towns are 
small, being little better than small market towns or overgrown villages, 
for there is no large scale manufacturing industry here. The towns and 
villages are mainly marketing centres and dwelling places for the miners, 
together with those engaging in a few subsidiary and minor activities. 
The coal raised is of a quality mainly suited for household purposes, 
and moves out of the district for consumption elsewhere. The few 
industries, other than coal mining, are largely connected with the suitability 


of the coal-measure clays for the manufacture of drain-pipes, saggars, and 
firebricks. 


1 The sandstone ore is calcined on the spot to save the cost of carriage and 
fuelin the furnaces. The marlstone ore is not calcined at the quarries. 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING II 


Below the surface the coal lies in a geological basin, the upturned edge 
of which is faulted against the Charnian mass on which we are standing. 
It was probably formed at a period when the Charnian mass was an island 
or series of islands in the Carboniferous swamps. ‘The coal basin is 
divided into two parts or zones running from north-west to south-east 
parallel to the axis of the Charnwood, by an anticline running approxi- 
mately through Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This central area is largely 
unproductive. The chief mining areas therefore lie in a western zone 
round Swadlincote, Moira and Donisthorpe, and in an eastern zone 
around Coalville and Coleorton. This latter zone is mostly concealed 
under a thick sheet of Triassic marls and boulder clay. Much of the 
western zone is heavily faulted. This adds to the difficulty and expense 
of working. ‘The pithead gears, the miners’ rows, the numerous small 
towns and overgrown villages, the absence of large scale manufacturing 
industry, the numerous mineral spur lines of railway, and the relatively 
dense population, are all forms of the cultural landscape which here reflect 
a definite relationship or series of relationships to the underlying geological 
structure and surface topography. ‘They are the concrete expressions of 
man’s relationship to nature in the Leicestershire coalfield. 

A wholly different district is that of Charnwood Forest. Here we find 
some of the very few parts of the Leicester Region in which some of the 
natural landscape remains, though even here much of the natural forest 
cover has been removed and that which remains has been largely replanted. 
Elsewhere in the Leicester region the landscape which we see is either 
man-made or is nature modified by man. In the Charnwood Forest 
district, bare, rocky peaks, steep slopes, narrow gorges, wooded hills, 
patches of woodland, bracken, heather, gorse and moorland, and small 
streams are the chief natural features of the landscape. Of the cultural 
forms, grass fields and cultivation in the valley bottoms and middle slopes, 
scattered farmsteads with a few small villages, quarries in the hillsides, 
five reservoirs on the edges of the district, a few bungalows and small 
houses for vacationists and weekenders, one good main road and numerous 
improved side roads, are the more obvious. 

The district consists of a mass of ancient rocks partly buried in the 
younger Triassic marls. The general trend of the relief is from north- 
west to south-east. ‘There are four main belts of upland which break out 
here and there into ragged, rocky eminences—the projecting ribs of the 
underlying structure. These belts of upland are separated by three 
longitudinal depressions. ‘They contrast sharply in their smooth outlines, 
their arable and pasture land, with the barren, rocky, and often tree- or 
bracken-covered ridges on either hand. In this contrast lies one of the 
great charms of the Forest area, and in it is to be found one of the reasons 
why the district performs the useful function of being a playground for 
the people of Leicestershire. The fine air available on the ridges and 
slopes and in some of the more elevated villages such as Woodhouse 
Eaves is a further reason. 

Near the centre of each longitudinal depression there is a water parting. 
From it streams flow north-west and south-east, sometimes turning 
sharply ata right angle to cut their way through a bar of ancient rock—thus 


12 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


forming a steep-sided gorge. One of the best-known examples of this 
occurs at the Brand in Colonel Martin’s estate. These rock bars have 
helped to retain in the Charnwood valleys the red marl which gives them 
their fertility. 

We have symmetry and great contrast as two of the marked character- 
istics of the Charnwood district. Both are related to the geological struc- 
ture and development of the area. The geological outcrops take the form 
of a series of crude horseshoes placed one within the other—the open ends 
of the shoes being towards the north-west. ‘The present ridges correspond 
roughly to the more resistant arms of the shoes, while the depressions 
were formed in the less resistant arms. ‘The whole arrangement has been 
very much modified by severe faulting and displacement along the inside 
curves of the shoes. A brief picture may be given of the probable develop- 
ment of the present relief. A series of volcanic islands probably occupied 
in Archean times what is now the site of the Forest. Much volcanic ash 
and lava were ejected from the volcanoes. The material cooled and 
solidified, becoming partially stratified in the surrounding sea. Sub- 
sequently this material, once horizontal, was ridged up into the form of a 
crude ellipsoidal dome. Weathering processes then broke open the dome 
and produced a steeply marked ridge and valley topography. This was 
later depressed and buried during the Triassic period in the Keuper marl. 
Still later erosional processes began to reveal once more the hidden land- 
scape—a process which is still going on. ‘The valley floors, with one 
exception, are still buried in the marl, to what depth it is not possible 
to say. 

Within the Charnwood, and at places to the east and south in the lower 
grounds, there are numerous quarries. These are in part connected with 
the rock of which the Charnian mass has been built up, and in part with 
granites and syenites which represent upwellings of the molten magma 
penetrating the Charnian rocks and, in places, as a result of erosion, reach- 
ing the surface through the Keuper marl in the low grounds to the south 
of the Forest. Thus at Bardon Hill in the west, Groby in the south, and 
Mountsorrel in the east of the Charnwood, granites and related rocks are 
quarried for road metal and paving sets. At Enderby, Croft, Stoney 
Stanton, and Huncote, outcrops of syenite probably connected with the 
main upwellings in the Charnwood, are quarried in the midst of an 
otherwise purely farming country. 

The Charnian reservoirs on the edge of the district, conveniently 
placed for gathering the heavier rainfall of the ridges, are to-day inadequate 
to supply the rapidly growing needs of the neighbouring population 
centres, such as Leicester and Loughborough, and adequate supplies are 
now obtained from a reservoir near the headstreams of the Derwent in the 
Pennine uplands. This supply Leicester shares with the cities of Sheffield, 
Nottingham, and Derby. 

We cannot leave the Charnwood area without recording the public- 
spirited action of the late Mr. Charles Bennion in securing for the com- 
munity Bradgate Park, the home of Lady Jane Grey, and of the Leicester 
Rotary Club in preserving the beautiful Swithland Woods, threatened with 
destruction for building purposes. Mr. Bennion’s son and Messrs. 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 13 


Bastard and Viccars have added to his gift. Nor can we refrain from 
regretting that an open area adjacent to the beautiful Swithland Woods 
should be spoiled by the unsightly erection of hutments for week-end 
visitors. 

To conclude our brief account of the Leicester Region we have yet to 
describe Leicester itself in the Soar Valley. The river has cut out a wide 
flat flood plain which varies in width up to a mile. For a distance of 
about 12 miles the right bank of this flood plain is formed by a minor 
escarpment caused by the river cutting into the Rhatic limestones of the 
lower Lias.2 At Barrow-on-Soar, about 6 miles north of the city, the 
presence of a lime works indicates the utilisation of the stone to make an 
excellent hydraulic cement from which drainpipes and artificial paving 
stones are made. This cement hardens readily under water and is 
therefore of great value for coastal and harbour work. The beds are of 
especial interest to the geologist, since in them have been found many 
fossil reptiles of the Jurassic period. 

The original site of Leicester was a gravel terrace on the east side of 
the river Soar. This dry terrace was the chief town or camp of a Celtic 
tribe. It was occupied by the Romans who carried through it the Foss 
Way on its way from High Cross to Lincoln. Above and below this 
point the river valley was marshy. ‘The gravel terrace coming close to 
the water’s edge doubtless formed a convenient crossing point for the 
Foss Way, and an equally convenient terminal point for the Via Devana, 
which, starting from Colchester, ran by way of Godmanchester and 
Medbourne to Ratz Coritanorum, as the Romans called Leicester. The 
many Roman remains found in and about Leicester indicate something of 
the importance of Leicester at the end of this line of route to the Romans. 
With the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, the land approach 
from the south-east was replaced by the water approach from the north, 
along which came first the Angles and later the Danes. Both Angles and 
Danes have left traces of their occupation of the region in the numerous 
place-names terminating in ‘ ton,’ ‘ ham,’ and ‘ by.’ This latter termina- 
tion, of Danish origin, is very common along the rivers Soar and Wreake, 
then navigable streams, as at Sileby, Rearsby, Frisby, Asfordby, and 
Kirby. 

The modern city has spread far beyond the limits of its original site on 
the gravel terrace by the river. Its chief expansion has been eastward 
up the face of the Rhetic escarpment and on to the plateau top beyond. 
On the plateau top is a fine open space, the Victoria Park, at the south-west 
edge of which, overlooking the city, are the buildings of the University 
College. One of the best residential areas in the city now extends along 
this high ground for a distance of about 24 miles south-eastward to Oadby. 
This high ground carries the main road to London and forms a clearly 
marked plateau-like ridge running north-west and south-east. It is 
bounded to the north-east by the sharply cut valley of the Willow brook, 


2 This escarpment is greatly obscured in places by boulder clay. 

3 Although this lime works is still in operation, the local quarries supplying the 
raw material have been abandoned, owing to the increasing thickness of the clay 
overburden. 


14 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


running to the Soar and to the south-west by the Knighton brook, another 
tributary of the Soar. To northward and southward along the east bank, 
and to a lesser extent along the west bank of the river, working-class and 
manufacturing areas have sprung up. Many of the older manufacturing 
establishments are along the river and near the centre of the city on the 
low ground. Newer industrial areas have developed in the tributary 
valley to the east and in the Belgrave area to the north. On the higher 
ground of the Dane Hills to west of the city a better type of residential 
area has recently grown up at Western Park. Near the centre of the city 
are grouped the chief retail shopping areas, the offices of wholesalers and 
of the chief professional firms, such as lawyers, accountants, architects, 
auctioneers, insurance agents, and the head offices of banks. Here also 
are the retail and wholesale markets, the municipal offices, the headquarters 
of the omnibus services, the Colleges of Art and Technology, and, just 
outside the centre, the main stations of the railways serving the city. 

The retail market-place and the motor-bus headquarters are of par- 
ticular interest, because they typify an increasing link between the city and 
the surrounding countryside. Leicester, in addition to her manufacturing 
activities, is a great market and distributing centre for the whole of the 
region we have discussed above. Markets are held three times a week in 
the market-place. ‘To that held on Wednesday the country people flock 
both to buy in the market and in the adjacent shopping centres. The 
added transport facilities offered by the motor bus have tended in the last 
few years to increase this side of Leicester’s activities. ‘The importance 
of the pastoral activities of the surrounding countryside is emphasised 
by the size of her periodical cattle and sheep fairs. 

In the foregoing paragraphs we have only been able to glance briefly 
at the city. No account, however brief, would be adequate without some 
reference to its manufacturing activities. As these are fully discussed in 
a later section of the survey, we will here only touch briefly on them. The 
two staple industries of the city are the manufacture of hosiery and boots 
and shoes. Coupled to these major industries are a series of others, some 
of which are independent and others are subsidiary. Two of these are 
wool-spinning and engineering. ‘The former is the oldest of the Leicester 
industries. As far back as the thirteenth century, Leicester wool had 
established a reputation among English wools. This reputation was 
enhanced in the eighteenth century by Robert Bakewell, who, on his farm 
near Loughborough, developed the new Leicester breed of sheep, and 
artificially irrigated his land to improve the herbage. Wool was spun and 
woven in the district by hand, and from these small beginnings sprang the 
wool-spinning industry of the city. 

Three hundred years later the hosiery industry developed out of this 
wool-spinning industry in a series of villages to west of the river, and 
especially in Leicester, Loughborough, Hinckley and Castle Donnington. 
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution concentration took place 
in the larger centres, though the industry is still carried on under factory 
conditions in a number of villages, chiefly to south of the Charnwood, no 
doubt helped by the lower county rates and the labour supply available. 
‘To-day Leicester is by far the biggest centre in the country for the manu- 


LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 15 


facture of woollen hosiery. The headquarters of firms with a world 
reputation in the hosiery industry are to be found in the city. 

It is difficult to say how far, if at all, the boot and shoe industry of 
Leicester can be related in its origin to geographical circumstances. No 
doubt there have always been shoemakers in the city. No doubt their 
work was facilitated by the skins obtained from the adjacent pasturelands 
and the oak bark for tanning. Oaks were numerous on the clay-covered 
lowlands of the Midlands. But the modern industry, which is a highly 
organised example of machine production involving both steam power and 
inventive genius, was only developed in the city during the last century. 
Its raw materials to-day are drawn from all over the world ; its demands 
on bulk coal production are small ; the value of its finished products in 
relation to its raw materials is high. We can say, perhaps, that Leicester, 
situated almost as far from the sea as any city in England can be, is not 
unfavourably located for the carrying on of an industry of this type, since 
transportation charges on its finished products and raw materials do not 
affect it to the extent that they do affect the heavier industries. Once 
established, the supply of skilled labour, the development of subsidiary 
industries, and the centralisation of the organisation and finance of the 
industry in the city would naturally tend to attract new-comers and develop 
established firms. ‘These considerations apply also to the earlier estab- 
lished hosiery industry. To-day Leicester is the headquarters of many 
of the biggest firms engaged both in the manufacturing and in the distribut- 
ing end of the boot and shoe industry. Many of the latter firms control 
numerous retail shops scattered all over the country. Like hosiery, boots 
and shoes are also made in many of the smaller towns and villages in the 
southern part of the region. 

The engineering industry is in part a subsidiary of the two staple trades, 
and in part independent. Its chief activity is perhaps in connection with 
machinery for the two staple industries. In addition, it produces a great 
variety of other machines and appliances, particulars of which will be found 
in the section of this survey which deals with engineering. 

Loughborough to north of Leicester is situated on the west bank of the 
Soar. It is primarily a local market centre. In addition to this function 
it has developed hosiery, engineering and bell foundry industries, and 
contains Loughborough College, which has attained a widespread reputa- 
tion as a centre for engineering training on production. 

We have already briefly touched on the roads of the region and the pro- 
duction of road metal. From the broader standpoint of road communica- 
tion in relation to outside areas Leicester is very favourably situated. A 
straight line on the map from the London Docks to the Manchester region 
passes close to Leicester. It roughly corresponds to the main route from 
London to the north-west. Using either the route through the gap in 
the chalk near Luton or that at Dunstable, road traffic enters the Leicester 
region at Market Harborough. ‘Thence, by way of the Soar valley and 
Leicester, it passes north-west to Derby, and from there has a choice of 
three routes to Manchester. Other main roads radiate north, east, south, 
and west to Newark, Grantham, Stamford, Peterborough, Rugby, 
Coventry, Birmingham, and Burton. With two exceptions these roads 


16 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


keep to the valleys or the low ground. The exceptions are the Roman 
Foss Way, which crosses the Wold country to Newark, and the road to 
Peterborough, which rises over the Jurassic uplands. The Grantham 
road, which uses the Wreake valley to Melton, is forced to rise over the 
Melton Ridge. The railways mostly keep to the river valleys or the low 
ground, avoiding the three areas of upland, but the railway from Melton 
to Nottingham is forced to tunnel under the Melton Ridge, and that which 
runs directly eastward from Leicester towards the marlstone escarpment 
tunnels under a spur before turning south-east through a gap in the 
escarpment. Water communication is not much used, though the Soar 
is canalised to its junction with the Trent. 

In the above rapid survey of the Leicester region we have necessarily 
been forced to sketch in the broad outlines and omit detail. We have 
seen, however, something of the more obvious relationships between man 
and nature in the region, and something of the way in which the cultural 
forms express that relationship. ‘The position of the city, the areas of 
grassland and tillage and their subdivisions, are related to slope, elevation, 
soils, drainage and climatic conditions. The iron workings, the coal 
mines and the quarries are related chiefly to the geological structure ; 
the roads and railways to the relief; the reservoirs to elevation, slope, 
stream and rainfall; the hikers, week-enders, and other visitors in the 
Charnwood to the scenic beauty of the physical setting. The focusing 
of much of the economic and other activities of the region on the city is 
mainly a matter of distance, but partly also a matter of its position in 
relation to a series of highly diversified neighbouring areas, and of its size 
as a large manufacturing entity with the many subsidiary industries and 
activities which that fact involves. ‘The city is perhaps fortunate in that 
her two staple trades, hosiery and boots, help to supply one of the three 
great primary needs of mankind, the need for clothing, and that, while 
she carries on a large foreign trade, the main market for these goods is at 
home. She is also perhaps fortunate in being located in one of the 
richest grassland areas in England, for it is on the grassland with its pro- 
duction of beef and mutton, milk and cheese, under steadily improving 
methods of handling, that much of the future prosperity, and therefore 
the purchasing power, of the English countryside would seem to depend. 


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GEOLOGY 17 


II. 
GEOLOGY 


BY 
H. H. GREGORY, M.A., 
ASSISTANT CURATOR, LEICESTER MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY. 


Position of the Area—Chief Rock Formations—Charnwood Forest Rocks— 
Granitic Rocks—Mountsorrel Granite—Carboniferous Limestone—Millstone 
Grit—The Coal Measures—The Triassic Rocks—Rhetic Beds—The Lower 
Lias—The Middle Lias—The Marlstone Escarpment—Ironstone at Tilton— 
The Upper Lias—Inferior Oolite—Glacial Drift and River Deposits—The 
Quarrying Industry. 


LEICESTERSHIRE can claim much of interest in the diversity of its general 
geology. Situated as it is in the Midlands of England, it forms part of 
the wide central plateau which is composed of Triassic and Jurassic 
rocks, It lies to the south of the southern termination of the Pennine 
axis, around which sweeps the plain of Triassic rocks on both the east 
and the west. ‘Two narrower arms of this central plain bifurcate from 
the area and continue northwards. On the eastern margin of the Trias 
the Jurassic rocks form prominent scarp features. The line separating 
the Triassic and Jurassic rocks runs across the irregularly pentagonal- 
shaped county of Leicestershire from a point about two miles west of 
Lutterworth in a N.N.E. direction, through Dunton Bassett and Wigston, 
passing east of the city of Leicester to Brooksby in the Wreake Valley, 
thence westwards to Sileby and north-north-westerly to Stanford-on- 
Soar, when it continues northwards and north-eastwards into Notting- 
hamshire. 

To the west of this line the Triassic rocks form the major portion of 
the solid floor of the surface of the county through which appear the 
older rocks, for which Leicestershire is so justly famed, while to the 
east of the line the lower and middle Jurassic rocks (Lias and Oolite) 
rise. in escarpments, whose scarps, where prominent, face westwards. 
A variety of resulting physical features and land forms within this area 
is therefore not surprising. 

Were the superficial deposits (glacial boulder clay, sand and gravel) 
to be removed, the city of Leicester would be seen to be almost centrally 
Situated in the county, nestling as it were in the lea of the Jurassic rocks 
and itself built on the Keuper Marls, but within easy access of each of 
the outcrops of the other geological formations and in a position at the 
navigable head of the river Soar. The river Soar, for much of its 
course, actually skirts the line separating the Triassic and Jurassic rocks. 

The north-eastern lobe of the area culminates in the Belvoir ridge, 
an escarpment composed of Lower and Middle Lias rocks, of which 

B 


18 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


the latter are largely quarried for ironstone to supply the local furnaces 
at Holwell, near Melton Mowbray. 

The eastern margin is formed of typical ‘ wold’ country comprising 
hills of circumdenudation with cappings of soft Upper Lias clay and 
inferior Oolite outliers culminating in Whatborough Hill, near Tilton, 
which reaches a height of 755 ft. above sea-level. The eastern boundary 
of the county descends in a general southerly direction to Great Easton 
in the Welland Valley and then by a south-westerly course along the river 
through Market Harborough to Catthorpe, near Rugby. 

The county boundary then runs along Watling Street, over Triassic 
rocks, to the neighbourhood of Atherstone, and then north-eastwards 
across Coal Measures of the Ashby and South Derbyshire Coalfield, 
Millstone Grit and Triassic rocks to the river Trent at Long Eaton. 

The oldest rocks in this area appear at the surface through the covering 
of Keuper Marls, about six miles north-west of Leicester and about 
three miles west of Loughborough on the west side of the Soar valley. 
These are the pre-Cambrian rocks of Charnwood Forest. 

The highest point is Bardon Hill, 912 ft. high, though several com- 
manding view-points rise to a height of over 800 ft. These include 
Timberwood Hill, Beacon Hill, and Birch Hill. 

The Charnwood Forest sequence consists of a varied suite of pyro- 
clastic volcanic ashes, agglomerates, grits, hornstones, conglomerates and 
slates, which have been divided into three conformable series. The 
oldest, the Blackbrook series, has not been subdivided and consists of 
greyish massive grits interbedded with greyish and greenish hornstones, 
often beautifully banded and heavily stained along the joint faces from 
the overlying Trias. On Ives Head occurs a porphyritic Felsite dyke 
unrelated to any other known rocks of the Forest. 

The Maplewell series consists of tuffs, agglomerates and hornstones 
and comprises several subdivisions, the most striking of which the 
Slate Agglomerate—an andesitic tuff containing fragments of purple 
and green slate—is traceable on both sides of the anticline. 

The Brand series, consisting of conglomerates, grits, quartzite and 
slates, forms the outermost beds, several of which have been formerly 
worked for roofing slates. This industry has now become extinct. 

The Charnwood rocks are stated by Prof. W. W. Watts to be ‘ not 
like the Uriconian or Torridonian rocks unless we except the grits and 
conglomerate of the Brand series, which have some resemblance to 
the Torridonian rocks. On the other hand, they have nothing in common 
with the gneisses and schists of the north-west or central Highlands of 
Scotland. Many of the individual bands are like those of the Longmynd 
in Shropshire, and indeed if we could imagine the pyroclastic materials 
from the Charnwood volcano dropped far from the vent and sorted and 
stratified in water, they would be likely to produce a group of rocks 
much like those of the Longmynd. It is impossible at present to push 
the comparison further, and meanwhile it may be better to be content 
with naming the whole group the Charnian System, and to refer i it to some 
unascertained position in the great pre-Cambrian sequence.’ 

The beds forming the Charnian System were folded by earth move- 


GEOLOGY 19 


ments into an ellipsoidal dome or pericline. This dome was traversed 
along a north-east to south-west axis by a major fault, which displaced 
the relative levels of the two halves so that the denuded south-eastern 
portion only raises its jagged crags above the mantle of Keuper Marls, 
while much of the remaining portion still lies buried to the north-west. 

Faults and thrusts, however, have greatly dislocated large blocks of 
rocks, thus disturbing the general continuity of the beds around this 
semi-ellipse or periclinal dome. Many of the subdivisions, however, 
can be located so as to reconstruct the once perfect continuity of the 
pericline. 

The movements which produced these structural features directed the 
intrusion of igneous rocks. 

Into the pyroclastic volcanic rocks, grits and slates of the Forest several 
types of igneous rocks were intruded, the chief of which are quartz- 
diorite-porphyries, or so-called ‘ porphyroids,’ and augite-syenites. 

The quartz-diorite-porphyries, or so-called ‘ porphyroids,’ which 
occur at Peldar Tor, High Sharpley, High Cademan, Grimley, High Tor 
Farm, Birch Hill and elsewhere were first intruded. These bear strong 
evidence of shearing and crushing, probably by the main north-west and 
south-east movements of pre-Cambrian date. These rocks only occur 
in the north-west portion. Lenticular-shaped masses and bosses of 
augite-syenite, granophyric in texture, which bear no marked evidence 
of shearing, and which, therefore, were of later intrusion than the 
* porphyroids,’ occur in Bradgate Park, at Groby, Markfield, Hammercliffe, 
Bawdon Castle, Newhurst and elsewhere in the Forest. Further afield, 
at Enderby, Narborough and Croft, Earl Shilton and Stoney Stanton, 
finer-grained igneous rocks occur, giving rise to noticeable tumulus-like 
hills. ‘These latter, however, may possibly be of later age. 

The main folding, faulting and cleaving of the Charnwood Forest 
deposits, and the intrusion into them of the igneous rocks, appear to 
have taken place in pre-Cambrian times. But from that date onwards 
until Middle Triassic times, if not somewhat later, the region was sub- 
jected to denudation. At the present time the majority of the rocks 
are only just being uncovered, and so, as Prof. Watts has picturesquely 
stated, ‘ they still present a scarcely altered Triassic landscape ; to this 
day many of the summits are as rugged and precipitous as when they 
were mountain tops overlooking a Triassic desert, or just submerged 
beneath the waters of a Triassic lake.’ 

In the Nuneaton district, lying to the south of Atherstone, Cambrian 
rocks—Stockingford Shales—traversed by numerous dykes of diorite 
occur. The igneous rock lies in sheets and varies greatly in thickness 
from 200 ft. to small veins, often following the line of strike. The 
Warwickshire coalfield succeeds the Cambrian shales on a synclinal 
trough to the south. 

The only intrusion of granitic rocks exposed in the area and for a 
considerable distance beyond its boundaries is the Granite of Mountsorrel. 
Covered by a mantle of Keuper Marls, its extent beneath the cover is 
unknown. 

Investigations of the extent of the Mountsorrel area eastwards have 


20 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


afforded no positive knowledge, but the magnetic anomaly which has 
been known to exist in the neighbourhood of Thrussington has been 
again investigated, and it is probable that the granitic intrusion of Mount- 
sorrel extends eastwards into that area under the cover of the Secondary 
rocks of the east side of the county. Geophysical methods have been 
used with some success in this research by members of H.M. Geological 
Survey. These methods will be demonstrated on the site during the 
visit of the British Association. 

The area of this igneous mass lies to the east of Charnwood Forest, 
approximately six miles north of Leicester and to the west of the main 
Loughborough-Leicester road. It is prominently exposed at Castle Hill, 
Mountsorrel, and large quarries are located to the west and north-west 
in the near neighbourhood. A boss forms the fine wooded feature of 
Buddon Wood which overlooks the Swithland Reservoir around the 
margins of which are found some of the finest modifications, including 
hornblende-gabbro, of this interesting granitic area. 

The Mountsorrel granite mass is essentially and integrally separate 
and distinct in age from the neighbouring Charnwood Forest area. No 
indisputable contact with the Charnian rocks is exposed, though, on its 
western margin, a hornfelsed rock with garnets is found. The Mount- 
sorrel area shows no evidence of having been affected by the earth move- 
ments which have produced the structural complexities of the Forest. 
It is therefore newer than pre-Cambrian in age and may be as late as 
Carboniferous, though petrologically it resembles the post-Silurian granites 
of Britain. 

Mineralogically and petrologically the rock of the main mass is a 
granodiorite which increases in basicity westwards. It occurs in two 
forms—red and grey—in the main quarry. 

It is traversed by several veins and dykes of varied composition, which 
include aplite, dolerite, diorite-porphyrite, augite-andesite and orthophyre, 
though these are not of great numerical significance. 

On the western edge of Swithland Reservoir is a boss of quartz-mica- 
diorite, of which Brazil Wood is composed, while on the opposite margin 
at Kinchley the contact of this rock with the Mountsorrel granite occurs. 
In this small exposure masses of diorite of varying coarseness occur as 
xenoliths in the acid granite together with veins of aplite or micro- 
granite. This intimate intermingling of two igneous masses is indeed 
striking and shows almost every gradation of mixing. 

Dr. E. E. Lowe, in his monograph on the Igneous Rocks of the Mount- 
sorrel District, aptly states: ‘ It would seem that at Kinchley we have a 
manifestation of invasion phenomena similar to those developed on a 
grand scale in Jersey, Skye, and other classic localities. Our manifestation 
is a very modest one, it is true, but in spite of restricted area, Kinchley 
possesses interesting and instructive features which make it well worth 
the attention of geological students.’ 

Recently Mr. J. H. Taylor has been working on the petrology of the 
Mountsorrel igneous rocks. He considers that the quartz-mica-diorite 
is of hybrid origin, the result of assimilation of the hornblende-gabbro 
by acid magma. ‘There is evidence to show that the earliest acid magma 


GEOLOGY 21 


to be injected in the Mountsorrel area was of alkali granite type, and it is 
suggested that the granodiorite itself is the result of basification of this 
magma. Mr. Taylor has also studied the accessory minerals of the 
rocks in detail and records some twenty different species. 

Inliers of Carboniferous Limestone occur to the north-west of Charn- 
wood Forest at Grace Dieu, Osgathorpe, Barrow Hill, Breedon Cloud 
and Breedon-on-the-Hill on a fault line which is a continuation of the 
main Charnian axis. On a parallel line similar outcrops are brought up 
at Dimminsdale, Calke, and Ticknall, just beyond the border of the county. 
The rock is a magnesian limestone or dolomite and is now extensively 
worked at Breedon and Breedon Cloud. A rich fauna, which is somewhat 
decomposed, is found both at the Breedon quarries and at Ticknall. 
Limestone shales also occur in association with the Carboniferous Lime- 
stone at several of these localities. 

Millstone grit occurs near Thringstone and again south-west of Ticknall, 
but these outcrops may belong more to Coal Measures with which they 
are in close proximity, and are of little significance. 

By far the most important beds in the Leicester district are the Coal 
Measures, which are exposed at the surface over an extensive area of 
upwards of 70 square miles to the west and north-west of Charnwood 
Forest. The Coal Measures are divided into three parts, acentral district 
of unproductive measures containing no important coal seams, and the 
lowest measures with an axis north-west—south-east, forming an anti- 
clinal arch through Ashby-de-la-Zouch. On the south-west side lies the 
productive South Derbyshire and Moira Coalfield, separated by the 
Boothorpe Fault, while on the eastern flank is the Coleorton Coalfield, 
bounded on its eastern side by the Thringstone Fault. The Coal Measures 
further to the south-east are overlain by Triassic rocks, but are extensively 
worked as far south as Desford. 

The Triassic rocks cover a greater area than any other solid formation 
in the Leicester district. By far the major portion consists of the Keuper 
Marls, often beautifully inter-banded with thin bands of sandstones 
and green marls as at Sileby and Enderby, while on the north-western 
side of the county the Keuper sandstone and also some associated beds 
of the next older member, the Bunter Pebble beds with sandstone beds, 
occur in close association with the Coal Measures and Charnian rocks. 

Near Leicester beds of Gypsum occur in the Keuper Marls. 

The transitional Rhzetic beds occur as dark shales in the area, but the 
only exposure, at Glen Parva, which has yielded very rare fossil remains, 
is now inaccessible. 

The outcrop of the Lower Lias extends from the Vale of Belvoir in a 
wide strip of over 4 miles to form the basal feature of a projecting 
spur of Liassic rocks, which reaches as far west as East Leake Hills. 
Its outcrop, however, is almost wholly obscured by drift deposits, At 
Barrow-on-Soar, the Lower Lias was until recently quarried extensively 
for its hydraulic limestone, which was used for the making of cement. 

The Lower Lias in this area consists of a lower and an upper series of 
beds. ‘The lower series comprises thin bands of argillaceous limestones, 
varying in thickness from about a foot to a few inches, interbedded with 


22 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


blue shales. These beds of the lower series have been quarried at 
Barrow-on-Soar, yielding many large fossil reptilian remains of 
Plesiosaurus macrocephalus Owen, Ichthyosaurus communis Conybeare, 
I. tenuorostris Conybeare, as well as numerous fossil fish. Many of these 
specimens can be seen in the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. 

At Kilby Bridge, south of Leicester, similar beds have been worked 
until recently, but at both quarries work has now ceased on account of 
the great thickness of useless overburden of glacial drift which first had 
to be removed. 

In the upper part of the Lower Lias, blue clays and shales of considerable 
thickness occur. These upper beds are only exposed along a narrow 
tract of country below the Middle Lias escarpment, and along the numerous 
small streams which flow westwards into the Soar. 

In the clay pit at Glen Parva brickyard, the base of the Lias is seen 
resting on the Rheetic Shales. 

The Middle Lias outcrop traverses the county from near Harstone 
on the north-east border, south-westerly through Eastwell and Holwell 
to Old Dalby, thence eastwards to Sproxton, southwards to Wymondham 
and then in an irregular outcrop through Burrough Hill, Tilton, Billesdon, 
Goadby and Hallaton, to the near neighbourhood of Market Harborough 
in the south-east. Following a series of sinuous curves, its outcrop, 
where free from drift, forms a marked topographical feature or escarpment, 
with outliers which have been denuded from the main outcrop, as at 
Gumley, Foxton, Stonton Wyville, and Great Bowden in the southern 
part of the county. 

The Middle Lias comprises two important divisions,—the rock-bed 
consisting of Marlstone and the shales below the rock-bed. 

In the north-eastern area the Middle Lias forms a prominent and 
unbroken escarpment, stretching from Belvoir Castle to the neighbourhood 
of Old Dalby. ‘The Marlstone forms the protective capping to this 
escarpment whose highest point (569 ft.) is reached at Broughton Hill, 
near Wartnaby. Around Belvoir Castle the country is well wooded 
and very picturesque, the escarpment offering a number of very fine 
view-points in the area. The ridge itself is divided into three large 
outcrops by a great sheet of boulder-clay which overlaps its southern 
edge and extends down the scarp slope for some distance on to the Lower 
Lias below, forming gaps at the head of which are the villages of Eastwell 
and Scalford. 

In the neighbourhood of Tilton, the Middle Lias attains its greatest 
thickness and forms a series of bold escarpment features. ‘These bold 
features can be seen wherever the rock-bed is free of drift, as at Life 
Hill (727 ft.). Billesdon Coplow marks the most westerly outcrop of 
the rock-bed, and is underlain over a rather more extensive outcrop by 
the underlying sandy shales, and rises to an elevation of 7oo ft. On 
account of the thinning of the rock-bed southwards the Marlstone iron- 
stone has not been extensively worked for iron ore south of Tilton, though 
recently much increased activity has been apparent at Tilton on account of 
economic conditions enabling local iron ore to be again profitably worked. 

The rock-bed of Marlstone ironstone quarried at Tilton by the 


GEOLOGY 23 


opencast system is about 12 ft., though in the railway cutting near the 
railway station about 18 ft. of ironstone is exposed, and is underlain by 
sandy shales. 

Further north, around Somerby and Pickwell, the Middle Lias escarp- 
ment becomes free of drift deposits, and the rockbed or ‘ Transition 
bed,’ as it has been called, is well exposed as a flat-topped hill dipping 
gently eastwards and presenting a bold escarpment to the west around 
Burrow-on-the-Hill or Burrough Hill, where it attains a height of 690 ft. 
It is on this flat tableland that an early Romano-British encampment was 
located. 

Over considerable portions of this area the Marlstone has been removed 
for supplying the Holwell Ironworks at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, 
with raw material. 

There has recently been much increased activity in quarrying the 
ironstone, and the average annual output in this area is over half a million 
tons. The content of iron varies from about 23 per cent. to 2g per cent. 

Above the Middle Lias in this area and separated from the Marlstone 
‘ Transition bed,’ the upper surface of which shows some pene- 
contemporaneous erosion, are beds of clay with nodular limestone in 
bands and septaria. These are succeeded by the ‘ paper shales’ and 
fish and insect limestones. These beds comprise the Upper Lias in 
this area. They form steep banks, and in quarrying the underlying 
Marlstone by the open-cast system for ironstone these measures form the 
overburden which is removed. 

The Upper Lias outcrop in the north-east is only about a mile wide, 
but on the borders of Rutland, into which county it passes, the width is 
greatly increased, and east of Tilton and Tugby it attains its greatest 
width of outcrop of about six miles. South of the river Welland, near 
Market Harborough, the outcrop again narrows to pass beyond the county 
boundary. 

On the east side of the county, in the neighbourhood of Tilton, outliers 
of Inferior Oolite form the cappings of the highest hills, as at Whatborough 
Hill (755 ft.), Robin-a-Tiptoe (726 ft.), and Barrow Hill, near Lod- 
dington, and at Launde Wood. A larger outlier in the neighbourhood 
of Medbourne and Neville Holt on the north side of the river Welland 
is capped by Lincolnshire Limestone, the upper member of the Inferior 
Oolite. Further north in the neighbourhood of Waltham-on-the-Wolds, 
Stonesby and Croxton Park, is a faulted block of Lincolnshire Limestone, 
a cream-coloured oolitic limestone, detached from the main mass at 
Sproxton, Saltby and Croxton Kerrial. Unlike the bold features usually 
presented in the main mass further east, this outcrop has little effect on 
the relief, only forming a plateau which reaches about 570 ft. at Waltham 
and near Lings Hill, north-west of Croxton Park. 

The Lincolnshire Limestone, which varies from a ragstone or oolite 
to a freestone in different localities, overlies the Northampton Sand. 
In east Leicestershire the Inferior Oolite series comprises the 
Northampton Sand, usually rich in ironstone, passing up into brown 
sands, succeeded by sands and clays of a lighter colour. These beds 
represent the Lower Estuarine series. 


24 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


In the working of the ironstones, the Lincolnshire Limestone, where 
suitable, is worked for its lime content in smelting. Much new activity, 
however, is anticipated in the neighbouring district around Corby, where 
these beds are to be worked more extensively. 


GLactIAL DrirT AND RIVER DEPOSITS. 


Later Secondary and Tertiary rocks are not represented in the district. 
The major topographical features had been determined by the end of 
Tertiary time. All the minor features, however, owe their origin to 
the presence of the glacial deposits which obscure the pre-glacial 
topography of large areas of the whole district. The glacial deposits 
are essentially diverse in character, and consist of beds of older sand and 
gravel and older boulder-clay with quartzose sand interbedded and 
succeeded by chalky boulder-clay and valley drift. 

These drift deposits appear to be of two distinct ages, one containing 
quartzite pebbles being derived from the west and north, and the other 
containing chalk, lias limestone and oolite from the east. Possibly a 
third series, found only at lower levels in the valleys and consisting of 
clays and gravels, were deposited at a later date, after the existing valleys 
had taken their primeval form. 

By far the major portion of Leicestershire is drained by the river 
Soar and its tributary, the Wreake. The Soar is a strike stream, having 
cut its valley in a sigmoid curve in Triassic marls at the foot of the 
Jurassic scarps. It is probable that its present course approximates to 
its pre-glacial course. The retreat of the ice-sheet left the country 
strewn with thick masses of glacial detritus which, as one vast sheet, 
rose gradually to the watershed and fell away gradually on either side. 
At Six Hills it is over 120 ft. thick, while in a recent boring for water, 
on the outskirts of Leicester 70 ft. of boulder-clay was proved. Through 
this sheet the rivers and streams have re-excavated their channels, 
often exposing the solid strata below. The numerous brooks draining 
to the Soar on its right bank, north of Leicester, flow down the scarps 
of the Jurassic rocks into which they have eaten their head-waters, while 
the Wreake has collected numerous obsequent or scarp streams and 
joined the Soar as a stream, running along the strike of a projecting spur 
of these Jurassic rocks. Other interesting examples of stream abnor- 
malities can be seen at the Brand and at Ulverscroft Mill, on Charn- 
wood Forest, and also at Croft in the upper reaches of the river Soar. 

After the final retreat of the ice-sheet, the rivers flowed at a higher 
level with greatly increased volume, depositing along their courses much 
sorted sand and gravel, which at the present day remain as river-terraces 
along their banks. Teeth, tusks, and skeletal bones of extinct animals, 
such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, bison, and others, are 
found in these terraces. 

These deposits yield valuable supplies af sand and gravel, and a 
thriving industry has grown up with the ever-increasing demand. 
Recently at Quorn and Barkby Holt extensive works have been opened 
for the working of these gravels. 

The Leicestershire quarrying industry has long held a premier position 


GEOLOGY 25 


in this country. The rocks at almost every geological horizon are quarried 
in great quantities for some industrial purpose and used in many parts 
of the country ; the Charnian rocks and their associated igneous rocks, 
as well as Mountsorrel granite for road metal, setts, building stone and 
slates, the coal measures for coal and fireclay, the Carboniferous lime- 
stone for lime-burning and road-dressing, the marls and clays for gypsum 
and brick-making, the Lower Lias Limestone for cement, the Middle 
Lias and Inferior Oolite ironstone and limestone for smelting, and the 
Quaternary sand and gravels for road-dressing and concrete. 


Ill. 
THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 


CONSIDERED BOTANICALLY, AND IN RELATION TO 
HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


BY 
A. R. HORWOOD, F.L.S. 


Flora in Relation to the Geological Formations—Flora of the pre-Cambrian 
Rocks of Charnwood Forest—Flora of the older Limestones—Flora of the 
Coal Measures—Flora of the Oolites—Flora in Relation to Human Activities 
—Scenery and Vegetation—Local Plants of Economic Interest—Great 
Chalky Boulder Clay—Forestry and the Flora of the District. 


SoME OF THE LocaL Types OF NATURAL VEGETATION. 


Tue flora of Leicestershire may be considered like that of any other area, 
characterised by the nature of the soils derived from the geological 
formations of the area, each soil type supporting a different type of wood- 
land and other correlated plant community. Broadly speaking, the rocks 
of the whole district consist of four or five main types. 

(1) The pre-Cambrian Rocks of Charnwood Forest, largely of volcanic 
origin, of higher elevation than the rest of the county, mountainous on 
a small scale, and affording generally sandy or siliceous soils, bear woods 
of oak, pedunculate and sessile, oak-birch heath, or birch wood, grass 
heath, siliceous grassland, calluna heath, and heather moor. Such soils 
being largely confined to the area of Charnwood, the plant associations 
named and the component species are likewise more or less confined to 
Charnwood Forest. 

Deforested several times, Charnwood Forest was probably once part of 
a former more extensive forest, part of the Forest of Arden, stretching from 
the Avon to the Trent, and beyond to Sherwood, and eastward to Lyfield, 


26 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


or Leighfield, in Rutland, and Rockingham in the north of Northampton- 
shire. ‘Thus, only remnants or vestiges of original forest survive, and 
no very old oaks are left, the communities named being derivations from 
woodland. A large area has been enclosed, cultivated, drained, and 
materially altered artificially. ‘The tendency, moreover, all over the open 
areas which have become drier, causing the moor peat to lose its character, 
is for bracken to overrun the district, and to oust less aggressive members 
of the communities named. A few illustrations with examples of a moiety 
of the more characteristic plants of each locality selected are all that can 
be attempted in so brief an analysis. ‘Thus, at High Sharpley, on Sharpley 
porphyroid and Beacon beds, at 600-700 ft. O.D., there is evidence of 
this spoliation of more natural vegetation, heather moor, calluna heath, 
siliceous grassland and grass heath, which of small extent individually, 
are intercalated, by the dominance of bracken, which has overrun them, 
and eliminated other species. Here grows one of the rarest plants in the 
county, the cowberry, Vaccinium Vitis-idea, which only extends to 
a few square yards. It is a northern montane plant, which here reaches 
its most southern limit in the Midlands. Bracken is dominant as a whole. 
Mat grass and purple moor grass form a belt around the lower part of 
the slopes, the former sometimes dominant, in drier places, the latter in 
wetter spots, as elsewhere on the Forest, where the peat layer has become 
exposed to drainage on the one side or waterlogged on the other. Old 
rills are filled with various rush species, bog moss (sphagnum), or 
Harpidia, etc. In between, hummocks are formed by Calluna, or ling, 
and Vaccinium Myrtillus, whortleberry. Cross-leaved heath or bell heather 
is scattered amongst the heather in more peaty, moister situations. Occa- 
sionally bog moss or sphagnum (where sundew also, no doubt, grew for- 
merly) fills the surface rivulets, formed to drain the enclosure, and occupies 
the lower, wetter slopes. Dwarf furze, characteristic of the Forest area 
generally, is more frequent on the more rocky slopes or dry knolls. 
Wood sage, sheep’s sorrel, heath hair grass, early hair grass, a montane 
glaucous form of annual meadow grass, buckler fern, circle round the 
higher ground near the rocks, with occasional patches of ling and whortle- 
berry in crevices. Bracken is generally dominant on the drier slopes, 
gradually eliminating other species and obscuring the traces of the various 
successions following the original oak wood. ‘There are a few small bog 
pools with a water buttercup (Lenormand’s crowfoot), water blinks, 
lesser spearwort, montane hepatics, lichens, desmids, diatoms, etc. 
On the rocks on the north side overlooking the old Blackbrook Reservoir 
(now Loughborough Waterworks), where sundews, etc., once grew, 
rupestral montane mosses and lichens are more abundant, and in wetter 
spots sphagna, whilst Empetrum probably grew in moist ground to the 
north-east. Bog violet, marsh pennywort, green-ribbed sedge, heath 
rush, heath wood rush, pill-headed sedge are other characteristic 
species that form small societies here and there. Generally speaking this 
then is upland moorland, very different to the great grassland tracts on 
the clay plains of the rest of the county. 

Spring Hill, Peldar Tor (7oo ft. O.D.), is another area, on Peldar 
porphyroid, which forms a similar modified type of heather moor and 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 27 


calluna heath, with whortleberry and ling forming hummocks on high 
ground, with heath hair grass, mat grass, and purple moor grass, 
etc., as at High Sharpley, gradually being dominated by bracken, and in 
process of elimination. Here is the only station now for the crowberry, 
Empetrum nigrum, much endangered by quarrying operations, and petty 
whin, Genista anglica, a plant which has become very rare in the county, 
elsewhere recently seen only at Six Hills. For the rest the characteristic 
species resemble those of High Sharpley, occurring in different degrees of 
frequency, with birch and pine here and there, becoming locally abundant, 
and the same applies to contiguous tracts at Charnwood Heath, just above 
the Hanging Stone, where formerly grew the hare’s tail cotton grass, 
which was, no doubt, once dominant there, and probably helped along 
with sphagnum, to contribute to the moor peat cover of these ancient 
rocks. This peat layer has become so thin and desiccated that it can no 
longer support its characteristic vegetation—heather moor or calluna 
heath—and is now being further altered by the growth of bracken, 
calluna and whortleberry, with the absolute elimination here and every- 
where else on the higher ground of North-west Charnwood, of the purple 
heather (not seen since 1886), which was, no doubt, as common once as ling 
to-day in places. Much of this ground is now calluna heath or dominated 
by grass types and grass heath, siliceous grassland, with here and there 
holly, rowan, woodsage, seedling pines, Ulex, mat grass, purple moor 
grass, etc. Timberwood Hill adjoining, now planted up with larch at 
800 ft. on Felsitic agglomerate and Beacon beds, is of similar type, with, 
on the open moorland, whortleberry dominant, and bracken likewise here 
sub-dominant, and aggressively destroying the other natural vegetation, 
of heather moor, etc., which includes the other common species, heath 
rush, ling, heath bedstraw, gorse, mat grass, purple moor grass, 
heath hair grass, sheep’s sorrel, etc. Sundew once here has gone, like 
most of the other rare plants recorded in 1745-47 by Dr. Richard Pulteney, 
as found on Charnwood. This was largely, no doubt, due to the Enclosure 
in 1829, when great ploughs drawn by eight horses were used to fit for 
cultivation an area once forest or ‘ waste.’ 

Of woodland, Copt Oak at 700 ft. O.D., on Beacon beds, is a sessile oak 
wood, with sessile oak, birch, holly, rowan, and alder, with various 
forest Rubi, and in the ground flora bracken is dominant, but there is also 
much whortleberry, purple moor grass, heath hair grass, bog violet, 
soft grass, heath bedstraw, tormentil, heath wood rush, mountain 
fern (becoming scarce), bluebell, foxglove, woodsorrel, etc., and in an 
adjoining covert, oak-birch heath, with the two birches dominant, some 
sessile oak, bracken, buckler ferns, ling ; in swampy, peaty places, creeping 
forget-me-not, marsh willow-herb, hard fern, bell heather, purple 
moor grass, marsh pennywort, etc. 

Swithland Wood, at about 300 ft. O.D., partly on Keuper Marl, 
surrounding the Swithland Slates, is a damp oakwood, or oak hazel, with 
bluebell, great wood rush, a little bracken, hazel, cow wheat, dog’s 
mercury, ramsons, wood anemone, yellow dead nettle, primrose ; and 
around the slate pits, on the Swithland Slates, birch is dominant, whilst 
amongst the slates in clefts grows navelwort (Cotyledon Umbilicus), 


28 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


polypody fern, etc.; and around the pits, Teesdale’s cress, woodsage, 
foxglove, etc., typical of birch and sandy oak wood, this being a composite 
wood on different soil types. 

Buddon Wood is similarly composite, with dry or sandy oakwood types, 
much holly and rowan, whortleberry, etc., around the granite, and oak 
hazel elsewhere on Red Marl, including the only station now for club 
moss. On the edge of the wood is also the only locality for subterranean 
clover, and also spreading bell flower, Campanula patula, known there 
since 1745. One of the best types of sessile oakwood is Benscliff Wood, 
at 570-700 ft. O.D., on Felsitic agglomerate and Beacon beds, with 
whortleberry and ling, and birch around the pillars of agglomerate, which 
form small kopje-like rocky knolls in the wood, with bluebell, soft grass, 
woodsorrel, sheep’s sorrel, heath bedstraw, woodsage, wood pimpernel, in 
wet places purple moor grass, etc. Pine, beech, and wych elm have been 
planted. 

(2) The next distinct type of rock includes the older limestones, or 
Carboniferous Limestone of Breedon, Breedon Cloud (the wood itself partly 
also on Red Marl, and Boulder Clay, or ash oak, with yellow star-of- 
Bethlehem, Solomon’s seal, butterfly orchid, giant bellflower, hybrid 
cowslip—primrose, often called ‘oxlip,’ etc.), Barrow Hill, Osgathorpe, 
Gracedieu. This is not a pure limestone, but an earthy magnesian lime- 
stone of a creamy-buff colour, not blue like the typical limestone at 
Calke and Ticknall, just over the Derby border. 

At Breedon Hill old quarry, on the limestone grassland formed on it at 
380 ft. O.D., a typical limestone flora is developed, including musk 
thistle, mountain flax, lady’s bedstraw, wild thyme, mullein, sheep’s 
fescue, Keeleria, white bryony, stork’s bill, cudweed, biting stonecrop, 
wild parsley, white campion, rue-leaved saxifrage (growing on the rocks), 
wall rue fern, Burnet saxifrage, musk mallow, perforate St. John’s wort, 
harebell, etc.; and on similar rocks at Barrow Hill (280 ft. O.D.), 
oxtongue, marjoram, wood reed grass, creeping rest-harrow, barren 
strawberry, quaking grass, etc. 

(3) On the third type of soil, sandy as a whole, in the Coal-Measure area, 
around Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the woods such as South Wood, Lount 
Wood, Ashby Old Parks, Spring Wood, Coleorton, The Smoile, etc., are 
of the sandy oakwood type, with pedunculate oak, hazel, bluebell, soft 
grass, woodsage, foxglove, common speedwell, rosebay, woodsorrel, etc., 
and in peaty pools, common loosestrife, wood reed grass, tussock sedge, 
creeping forget-me-not, Carex Pseudocyperus, etc. 

One of the most interesting areas in the county is on the peat and 
alluvium formed on Coal Measures at Moira Reservoir, there being aquatic 
and marsh formation, alder willow and fen carr, oak-birch heath, and 
formerly calluna heath to the west, where purple heather, ling, etc., 
grew. The very rare Tofieldia palustris was found here in 1820 by Dr. J. 
Moore, and was a relic of the Arctic and montane flora which extended 
south in the Glacial period, and on retreat of the ice was only able to 
persist at the higher altitudes formed by the Pennine Chain, of which 
Charnwood Forest and its adjacent north-west area is a prolongation. 
This is also the only locality for the pillwort, and the sole station for 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 29 


marsh cinquefoil, shoreweed being likewise abundant in the Reservoir 
itself. Several rare Rubi also grow here, and in the district, and although 
now styled a reservoir this, once feeder of the old Ashby Canal, was 
doubtless a natural pool in the wildest surroundings, before it was com- 
pletely transformed by coal-mining operations. ‘The canal itself contains 
Elisma natans, and on its banks Sagina nodosa, etc. 

Groby Pool, which is in the south-east corner of Charnwood, in a hollow 
of Red Marl and Granite surrounded, at ‘ Frog Hole,’ with a cover of peat 
and alluvium, at about 300 ft. O.D., is another old natural reservoir, 
where there is quite a large assemblage of rare plants. In the pool itself 
mare’s tail, bladderwort, and recently a gentianaceous water plant, 
Limnanthemum, have been found. In the marshy alder swamp at the back 
grow grass-of-Parnassus, bog bean, marsh helleborine, and other marsh 
and spotted orchids, twayblade, marsh pennywort, two kinds of cotton 
grass (not the hare’s tail, once erroneously reported), marsh bedstraw, 
marsh red-rattle, great and lesser spearworts, bog speedwell, various 
water buttercups, a great variety of sedges, some rare, marsh spike rush, 
etc., besides all the more usual marsh and aquatic plants. By the roadside 
hardby occur, in grass heath, silver cinquefoil, soft knotted clover, 
hare’s-foot trefoil, red sandwort; in the quarry clammy groundsel, 
American cress; and in the adjoining Sheet Hedges or Groby Wood, 
a sandy oakwood in part, both golden saxifrages, bear’s garlic, columbine, 
foxglove, cow wheat, pretty St. John’s wort, giant bellflower, hawk- 
weeds, etc. 

(4) The newer Limestones or Oolites constitute a fourth type, the 
Lincolnshire Limestone, forming calcareous soils and limestone pasture. 
On the Cotswolds and elsewhere the beech and ash form woodland, but 
locally in north-east Leicestershire around Saltby where this type is best 
developed there is very little woodland. Limestone pasture occurs 
extensively at Saltby, Stonesby, Sproxton, Waltham, on the Mere Road, 
and elsewhere. This flora includes the typical grasses, tor grass, as 
aggressive as bracken, and tending to destroy or exclude the more interest- 
ing members of the association, especially in Rutland where limestone 
pasture is better developed, erect brome grass, sheep’s fescue, Keeleria, 
rock rose, horseshoe vetch, purple milk vetch, marjoram, autumnal 
gentian, field gentian, lady’s fingers, pyramidal orchid, bee orchid 
(also on older limestones at Breedon Cloud Quarry and elsewhere on Lias, 
etc.), early spotted orchid; long-stalked crane’s bill, yellow wort, 
dropwort, greater knapweed, and the rare chalk milkwort at Sproxton 
(also in Rutland where I found it six weeks earlier on April 28), squinancy 
wort, white mullein (King Ludd’s encampments), field ragwort ; and 
formerly pasque flower and mountain everlasting were said to grow near 
here. At Saltby also is an interesting limestone swamp at the junction 
of the Upper Lias and Northampton Sand, with several plants previously 
confined to Charnwood Forest, and thought to be extinct, viz: butterwort, 
black bog rush, etc. Besides these there may be found in this north-east 
area many other limestone plants of more general occurrence. In the 
Harston district also the Marlstone supports a distinctive limestone flora, 
and the Upper Lias a series of woods resembling sandy oak woods, with 


30 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


Digitalis, Pteris, etc., and at its junction is a limestone swamp, with 
Sphagnum (very rare outside Charnwood Forest), ‘mountain fern, heath 
rush, and several other interesting helophytes. 

(5) In East Leicestershire a series of woods of ash oakwood type 
occurs on the Great Chalky Boulder Clay, Middle and Upper Lias clays 
and loams and calcareous sandstones and marls, with a characteristic 
flora not found elsewhere, including wood forget-me-not, which colours 
the woods a cambridge blue in May and June; nettle-leaved bellflower, 
lesser teasel, herb Paris, wood vetch, small reed grass, etc. 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE IN RELATION TO HuMAN ACTIVITIES. 


Leicestershire as a great grassland country.—As ‘ the Shires ’ Leicester- 
shire is a great grassland county which affords some of the best hunting 
in England, fox hunting having been a recognised occupation as well as 
pastime locally since about 1670, when a pack was kept at Tooley Hall, 
near Peckleton. This excellence of grassland is no doubt due to the 
prevalence of a clayey or clayey loam soil over a wide area. It is in fact 
especially characteristic of the clays and loams of the Lower Lias, Upper 
Lias, and Great Chalky Boulder Clay, and other less extensive outcrops, 
e.g. Middle Lias. On these clays the grassland appears to be especially 
suitable for cheese-making. Stilton cheese which goes all over the world 
was first made at Withcote, but sold for a family reason as Stilton. 
Withcote is in East Leicestershire on these clays. It was the originator 
of the old Board of Agriculture, William Marshall, who, in 1790, in his 
Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, one of his agricultural surveys of 
every county, first showed the necessity for studying the character of the 
grassland in order to select the best land for cheese-making. For this 
purpose, during his survey of Leicestershire, he made careful lists of all 
the species of grasses, legumes, and other types in each field, noting the 
frequency of each species. He likewise cultivated grasses to determine 
which was more suitable for this purpose. Marshall was thus really the 
first ecologist in this country, not only in recognising the difference 
between different grass types on different soils and the need for determin- 
ing their dominance or frequency, but he also knew that besides the exist- 
ence of different natural types of grassland, woodlands were similarly 
dependent upon soil ; and that there were different types of woods, based 
on this factor. He likewise understood that there were natural woods 
and artificial woods, and realised that woods on ‘ ridge and furrow ’ were 
of the latter type. By cultivation of the grasses he established one of the 
leading principles of modern plant breeding and genetics. 


SCENERY AND VEGETATION : THE BEAUTY OF CHARNWOOD FoRrESsT. 


Natural vegetation is based mainly upon the geological formation and 
soils to which they give rise so that where the one is diverse the other will 
be equally diversified. Charnwood Forest is structurally an ancient 
mountain chain, with its highest peaks buried and a very small proportion 
of its height and extent is visible. The highest point is but g12 ft. 
(Bardon Hill), and apart from that the rest of the high ground in the north- 
west is about 800 ft., whilst the general altitude of the country west of the 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 31 


Forest is about 500 ft., so that the hills form but a miniature range. The 
high ground is pierced at short intervals by ragged sharp crags, with 
shallow undulations between, with occasionally steeper slopes or cliffs, as 
at Bardon. Sometimes the rocks are pillar-like as the Hanging Stone 
near Flat Hill, and Charnwood Heath, or at Woodhouse, or the Altar 
stones, Benscliff Wood, etc., where the rocks appear as natural altar 
stones or menhirs. ‘This contrast of rock and bracken, furze, or ling- 
covered slopes or heights is also varied by the large number of small 
tracts of woodland dotted here and there, like the relics of scattered forest- 
land they really represent. ‘There is thus a great diversity of physio- 
gnomic detail which makes Charnwood Forest a fascinating and picturesque 
region of primeval rocks and miniature moors, knoll-covered, with pine, 
larch, and oak, mountainous, diversified, wild. It is, as it were, a rocky 
islet in a sea of grass, the surrounding plains of grassland being flat or little 
undulating, until the great Jurassic escarpment running across Leicester- 
shire north-east by south-west isreached. ‘This runs north-east to Belvoir, 
with a break between Tilton and Burrough, and east of that line is broken 
up and cut into a series of meandering valleys or gorges, with striking, 
flat-topped hills here and there as at Life Hill, Billesdon Coplow (720 ft.), 
Burrough, Robin-a-Tiptoes, Whadborough, etc. This East Leicester- 
shire country is also well wooded in places, and with its great tabular, 
high-level plateaux (700 ft.) and undulating dells or denes cut by the 
rivers Chater, Gwash and Eye, etc., it is a region of great picturesque and 
arresting natural beauty, seen at its best perhaps just over the Rutland 
border at Wardley Hill, Bushy Dales, Deep Dene—all in the Uppingham 
district. 


Some LocaL PLANTs oF EcoNomic INTEREST. 


In every district some local industry or craft may be found to have 
played an important part formerly, if not to-day. Though there is little to 
guide us, doubtless woad-growing and dyeing had its share in the pros- 
perity of the Leicester community, as it did on the Continent from the 
Middle Ages until indigo killed the trade. Blith in 1653 spoke of the 
county as suitable for its cultivation, and the ‘ Records of the Borough of 
Leicester ’ contain fines for infringement of the strict woad regulations 
locally. Flax and hemp were cultivated as part of the native raw produce 
for the manufacture of textiles, for which woad served as a dye substance. 
In certain old terriers, e.g. one of Claybrooke, 1708, these crops were 
rendered also as part of the tithe. Old, dry hollows in the Sheepy district 
and elsewhere, unless marl pits, may have been retting pools where flax 
fibre was prepared by fermentation (there is a flax pool near Castle 
Donington). Hemp occurs here and there as an alien plant, perhaps as 
a relic, in the same way as wood and flax, of former cultivation. 

Many plants figure in the former use of ‘ simples,’ or household herbal 
remedies, and to this cause we may probably attribute the occurrence in 
almost every village of such plants as greater celandine, black horehound, 
marsh mallow, Good King Henry, etc., and less frequently white hore- 
hound, clary, hemlock, vervain, etc. To-day men may be seen to 
go round the county in autumn picking mountain or purging flax by the 


32 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


sackful. Railway goods guards, I found when resident in Leicester, are 
particularly fond of collecting herbs on their journeys, and in this way 
I have secured further evidence of the occurrence of such plants as bella- 
donna or henbane, in spots where they were undoubtedly alien. In 
Rutland the former is perhaps native in some woods, and great quantities 
were collected during the Great War for pharmaceutical purposes from 
Exton Park, where it is abundant. 

Wild fruits of the countryside in some districts figure in season in 
the local market periodically, and Pulteney in 1746-1765 records the 
local names of the raspberry and of whortleberry brought into 
Loughborough or Leicester markets. 

Willows of every type, sallows, osiers, etc., play a part also locally in 
industry, the Ellmore factory with its osier plantations at Thurmaston 
and elsewhere being well known. Mr. Ellmore expressed the belief 
that there were no hybrid willows, but Linton at Shipley, was able by 
cultivation and experiment to show that there were. 


THE CHALKY BOULDER CLay AREA AND ITS EARLY COLONISATION 
BY THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 


In Essex it has been found by Woolridge that the distribution of the 
Great Chalky Boulder Clay coincides very remarkably with the distri- 
bution of the Anglo-Saxon settlements and to a less degree the later 
Danish ones. The reason given for this is the suitability of the soil, 
a stony loam or calcareous marl, for crop cultivation, and the fact that it 
is also one of the best superficial water-bearing strata. An examination 
of the area of the Great Chalky Boulder Clay, largely confined to that 
part of Leicestershire east of the Soar valley, leads to the same conclusion, 
that it is more or less that area in which the Anglo-Saxons in their first 
settlements in the county took up their abode. That area is, moreover, 
almost entirely ‘ ridge and furrow,’ a relic of Saxon drainage. 


FORESTRY AND THE FLORA OF THE DISTRICT. 


It is reasonable to suppose, since pine occurs in deposits of pre-Glacial 
age in the Midlands, that this was one of the forest trees at higher altitudes 
in this area, and that Charnwood Forest was once partly pinewood, 
which would account for the prevalence (formerly more marked) of ling 
and other heaths, which follow in natural succession after loss of pine- 
wood in an area, just as bracken follows oakwood—a process in widespread 
operation on Charnwood at the present time. In this region the area most 
generally afforested was Charnwood Forest. "The Domesday Survey shows 
large gaps between scattered woodlands, elsewhere than on Charnwood, 
in 1086, and the existence of much land in such areas under plough or 
grass as early as that period. 

Charnwood Forest itself appears—if Burton be correct (though Throsby 
doubted him)—to have been disafforested shortly after the Conquest, 
and afforested by Henry II, but disafforested by Henry III. It was also 
bare of forest, ‘ almost without a tree,’ in Marshall’s time (1790). -In 
recent years, since the Enclosure (1829), much pine, larch, beech, wych 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 33 


elm, have been planted. It is thus almost impossible to indicate any single 
spot on it that could be called virgin forest, so greatly has it suffered at 
the hands of the woodman and his axe in the long distant past. 
Note.—The Flora of Leicestershive and Rutland, by A. R. Horwood and the late 3rd 
Earl of Gainsborough, will be published by the Oxford University Press before the 


Leicester Meeting of the Association. Price £1 15s. With 2 maps, portraits, and 
botanical photographs. 


IV. 
THE ZOOLOGY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 


BY 


E. E. LOWE, B.Sc., Ph.D. (Director, LkEIcESTER MuszEuUM AND ART 
Ga.LLery), W. E. MAYES, R. WAGSTAFFE, anv S. O. TAYLOR, 


General—Published accounts—Mammals—Birds—Reptiles and Batrachia— 
Fishes—Freshwater Invertebrate Fauna—Protozoa—Porifera and Ccelen- 
terata — Platyhelminthes — Rotifera — Annelida — Crustacea — Insecta — 
Coleoptera—Diptera—Hymenoptera Aculeata. 


LEICESTERSHIRE possesses no geological or geographical features so 
remarkable and extensive as to produce a striking or peculiar fauna. 
Charnwood Forest is, of course, from a geological point of view unique, 
and is the home of several interesting species of insects (Coleoptera) 
which are apparently survivals from earlier conditions, but the area of 
the forest is now so restricted and so cut up that it offers no other faunal 
peculiarities. It is a matter for congratulation, however, that in Bradgate 
Park, on the south-eastern edge of the forest, an area of about nine hundred 
acres presented to the city and county by the late Mr. Charles Bennion in 
1928, certain portions have been reserved from public use and will no 
doubt in time produce interesting records. 

There are two available accounts of the Leicestershire fauna : (1) that 
published in the Victoria County History : Leicestershire, in 1907 ; and 
(2) that compiled by Mr. A. R. Horwood for the handbook Leicester and 
Neighbourhood, issued to the members of the British Association on its 
first visit to Leicester in the same year. Both are admittedly very incom- 
plete except in regard to such familiar groups as the birds, butterflies, 
moths and beetles. Many additional records have been made since the 
publication of these accounts, chiefly by members of the Leicester 
Museum staff and by workers in the ranks of the Leicester Literary and 
Philosophical Society, and some of these records are mentioned below. 
The brief notes on various groups which follow have been kindly contri- 
buted by Mr. W. E. Mayes (Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Batrachia and Fish), 
Mr. R. Wagstaffe (Freshwater Invertebrates), and Mr. S. O. Taylor 
(Coleoptera). 


Cc 


34 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


MaAmMMALs. 


The red deer and the fallow deer are still preserved in a semi- 
domesticated state in Bradgate Park and other parks in Leicestershire, 
but by reason of the breaking up of some of these old estates the herds 
have become more or less restricted. ‘The red deer in Bradgate Park are 
believed to be the descendants of the ancient herd. 

The badger is still fairly common throughout the county, particularly 
on the eastern side. ‘The otter, on the other hand, is a much-persecuted 
species and is rapidly decreasing in numbers. 

Leicestershire, with its vast acreage of grassland, provides the best 
fox-hunting in England, and it is solely due to the protection afforded to 
the fox for purposes of the chase that this beautiful mammal is still 
plentiful. 

The pine marten (Mustela martes L.) and the polecat (M. putorius) have 
long ceased to exist in any part of the county. The last recorded ap- 
pearance of the pine marten was at Bradgate in 1868. Of the small 
Carnivores, the stoat and weasel are still well represented, though the 
latter is by no means as common as the former. 

In spite of the persistent war that has been waged against the mole by 
professional mole-catchers, for the sake of its fur, there seems to be no 
decrease in the numbers and general distribution of this mammal. 

Though all three species of shrew are found in Leicestershire, the 
water shrew (Sorex fodiens) must be regarded as very rare. This interest- 
ing little mammal has been particularly searched for, and only two have 
been recorded during the past fifteen years. Both were noted during the 
prolonged drought experienced in the summer of 1930. It therefore 
seems reasonable to suggest that normally the brooks and streams of 
Leicestershire carry too much water to enable the water shrew to become 
established. 

The lesser or pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus L.) has never hitherto been 
mentioned in any previous record of the fauna of Leicestershire, but in 
1925 an example was found at Barkby Thorpe. Subsequent investigation 
has produced four more examples from other localities, proving the 
pygmy shrew to be an established species. ‘That it has long existed in 
the county but has been overlooked is almost certain. 

The common shrew (S. vulgaris L.) is plentiful in all parts. 

Of the fifteen species of bats listed as British, only seven have so far 
been recorded for Leicestershire. These are as follows : Barbastelle Bat 
(S. barbastellus), Long-eared Bat (P. auritus), Whiskered Bat (V. mysta- 
cinus), Daubenton’s Bat (V. daubentoni), Natterer’s Bat (V. nattereri), 
Common Bat (V. pipistrellus), and Noctule Bat (V. noctula). 

The red squirrel is not so frequently met with as formerly. Several 
examples of the grey squirrel have been seen or shot, but so far their 
numbers have not given cause for alarm. 

The dormouse (M. avellanarius L.) and the harvest mouse (MM. minutus) 
seem to have disappeared from the county. The former was doubtfully 
recorded previous to 1885, but there seems indisputable evidence that the 
harvest mouse was fairly common in the neighbourhood up to 1889. 


THE ZOOLOGY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 35 


Since that time there has been no record of either of these interesting little 
creatures having been seen. 

The brown rat (Mus decumanus) is unfortunately too abundant, but no 
recent occurrence of the black rat (MV. ratius) has been noted. So far 
there is no evidence that the musk rat, which is doing so much damage in 
Shropshire and other counties, has invaded Leicestershire, though recent 
reports state that it has been seen in Rutland. 


BIRDS. 


Since the publication of the list of birds in the Victoria County History of 
Leicestershire and Rutland in 1907, a number of additional species have 
been recorded. It is also pleasing to note that several of the rarer species 
in the earlier lists are still occasionally met with. For example, a raven 
was seen at Wanlip during the winter of 1919, and remained in the district 
unmolested for some days. Ravens nested in different parts of Charn- 
wood Forest in earlier days, the last record of a nest being at Garendon 
in 1825. 

A rough-legged buzzard was observed at Bradgate in 1909, and an 
osprey in the same locality in the autumn of 1913. ‘Two hen harriers 
were seen and unfortunately shot at Normanton in 1919. 

Though recorded as an uncommon summer visitant, the hobby has, 
for the last two or three years, nested at Barkby Holt and at Humberstone. 

There are several large sheets of water around Leicester, forming part 
of the city’s water supply. ‘These reservoirs, of which Swithland Reser- 
voir is the largest, have thickly vegetated margins, and form excellent 
habitations for most of the commoner species of water-fowl. ‘The stately 
great crested grebe visits these waters every spring to nest, with a popula- 
tion per reservoir ranging from two to eight pairs. Avery few occurrences 
of the sclavonian grebe (C. auritus), the red-necked grebe (C. griseigena) 
and the eared grebe (C. migricollis) have also been recorded. ‘The rare 
wood sandpiper (TJ. glareola L.) occurred at Swithland Reservoir in the 
autumn of 1919. The reservoirs also provide excellent feeding-places for 
herons. Leicestershire can boast of but one small heronry, at Stapleford 
Park, the seat of the Hon. John Gretton, J.P.,M.P. Stapleford is situated 
on the extreme eastern edge of the county, and the herons are very strictly 
preserved. Early records show that herons have made unsuccessful 
attempts to establish heronries at Mere Hill, Martinshaw Wood, Buddon 
Wood and Bradgate. 

The lapwing or green plover (V. vanellus) inhabits the low-lying 
pastures in the valley of the river Soar in large numbers. 

At Wanlip is a large extent of marshy land near the river, which is used 
for the cultivation of osiers. ‘The bird population of this ‘ osier holt ’ is 
extensive, and several pairs of reed warblers (A. streperus) nest there every 
year. The grasshopper warbler’s prolonged ‘ reeling’ notes may also 
be heard there almost every spring. In 1931 this interesting little visitor 
nested near the village of Queniborough. 

There appears to be a marked increase in the numbers of the tawny 
owl of recent years, whilst the barn owl becomes correspondingly scarce. 
The little owl is now all too common, though in 1907 it was a rarity. 


36 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


The nightjar visits the county each year, and nests are frequently found 
at Bradgate Park, ‘The Brand, and other parts of Charnwood Forest. 

The nightingale is by no means a rare visitant, and reports of its singing 
are annually received from many parts of the county. 

Among records of casual visitors the following are worth noting: the 
black-throated diver (C. arcticus) at Blackbrook Reservoir in 1919 ; 
the peregrine falcon at Barkby Thorpe, 1930 and 1931; the spotted 
crake (Rallus porzana L.) at Wanlip, 1919; the black redstart (Ruticilla 
tithys L.) at Thurmaston, 1925 ; the dipper at Bradgate Park, 1913 (the 
dipper was formerly resident there). 


REPTILES AND BATRACHIA. 


The common grass-snake (7. matrix) is still fairly frequent all over the 
county, whilst the viper or adder (V. berus) and the common lizard 
(L. vivipara), though not common, are occasionally met with, chiefly in 
the Charnwood Forest area. No occurrence of the sand lizard (L. agilis) 
seems to have been recorded to support Harley’s supposition that this 
species existed in the county. 

The blind-worm (A. fragilis) is still to be found, though it is not so 
common as formerly. 

The common frog and the toad are widely distributed, but the natter- 
jack (B. calamita) has never occurred in the county. ‘The great crested 
and the smooth newt are common, and the palmated newt is believed to 
occur, though there is no reliable record. 


FISHES. 


According to early records the brook trout (S. trutia) was fairly plentiful 
in many of the smaller streams. Its present status is entirely dependent 
upon private enterprise in regard to re-stocking. Some of the large 
reservoirs, including Thornton and Cropston, contain trout, but owing to 
the enormous number of perch which have by some means been intro- 
duced into these waters, they are only maintained with great difficulty. 
Leicestershire waters have produced some very large perch. It is recorded 
in the Victoria County History of Leicester and Rutland, 1907, that in 1888 
two specimens taken from Thornton Reservoir weighed g lb. together. 
The pike, too, is particularly abundant, and very large specimens have 
been recorded from time to time. 

The common carp (C. carpio) is to be found in many pools throughout 
the county, whilst the crucian carp (C. carassius) is sparingly distributed. 

The barbel (B. vulgaris) is practically unknown in Leicestershire waters, 
though one or two examples have been taken by anglers at the confluence 
of the rivers Soar and Trent. The gudgeon, roach, chub and dace are 
all very widely distributed, but the rudd is very rarely met with. The 
bleak, once very common, is now rarely seen. The common bream 
(A. brama) and the white bream (A. blicca) both occur in the river Soar, 
though sparingly of late years. ‘The species last named is common in 
some of the larger pools in the county, including Groby Pool and Moira 
Reservoir. ‘The stone loach (N. barbatulus) and the spined loach (C. tenia) 
have both been recorded. ‘The former species is still to be found in the 


THE ZOOLOGY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 37 


small streams in Charnwood Forest. The ruffe (A. cernua) and the 
‘bullhead’ (C. gobio) occur in parts of the river Soar. The three- 
spined stickleback (G. aculeatus), which at one time infested almost every 
brook and pool, is now not nearly socommon. ‘The minnow (L. phoximus) 
is abundant in nearly all the brooks. The common eel is to be found in 
most waters in the county. Early records state that the lamprey (P. flu- 
viatilis) was very occasionally seen, but there is no evidence of this 
interesting species having occurred during recent years. 


THe FRESHWATER INVERTEBRATE FAUNA. 


Leicestershire with its large reservoirs of Thornton, Saddington, 
Swithland, Moira, etc., together with its innumerable ponds and ditches, 
presents ample facilities for investigation to the student of the freshwater 
fauna, and there is scope for an immense amount of intensive study. 

Protozoa——Many well-known forms have a wide distribution in the 
county. Actinophrys sol is to be met with in most suitable localities, while 
Actinospherium eichornii is rather more local. Of late years the wider 
distribution of Volvox globator has become noticeable, and it is now found 
in places where it was formerly considered to be rare. Vorticella chloro- 
stigma and V. globularia, although previously unrecorded, are frequent 
in the river Soar, the former on Myriophyllum and the latter on Cyclops. 
Other species hitherto overlooked or unrecorded are Ophrydium versatile, 
Stichotricha secunda, Chilomonas paramecium and Phacus longicaudatus. 

Porifera and Celenterata—There are two freshwater species to be 
found in the county—Ephydatia (Spongilla) fluviatilis and Spongilla 
lacustris. The former is to be found frequently in the river Trent and 
river Soar, and the latter, previously recorded only for Saddington 
Reservoir, is to be found also in the canal at Great Glen. 

Hydra vulgaris, H. fusca and H, viridis are common. It is a surprising 
fact that, although of frequent occurrence, Hydra viridis has never 
previously been recorded. 

Platyhelminthes —Little attention has been paid to this group. It is 
noteworthy, however, that epidemics of Fasciola hepatica (the flat-worm 
which causes ‘ liver-rot ’ in sheep) have considerably decreased owing to 
better drainage of land and modern methods of treatment of infected 
animals. 

Rotifera.—Almost all stretches of water are profitable hunting grounds 
for the members of this group. The ponds and ditches near Desford 
have proved particularly good, such interesting species as Rotifer neptunis, 
Scaridium longicaudum, and also Polyarthra platyptera being found in 
abundance at certain times of the year. In the withy pickle-dykes at 
Wanlip osier-beds are to be found Melicerta ringens, Stephanoceros 
eichornii and Floscularia campanulata, while Floscularia cornuta, F. ornata 
and Limnias ceratophylli are not rare in various parts of the county. 
Perhaps the most widely distributed forms to be found in Leicestershire 
are Proales werneckii, Rotifer vulgaris and certain species of Brachionus. 

Annelida.—It is impossible at present to estimate how many different 
truly aquatic species occur within the limits of the county ; that additions 
will be made to the already published list there can be no doubt, for 


38 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


Leicestershire abounds in suitable localities awaiting systematic explora- 
tion. Here it is only possible to remark upon the present-day distribution 
of a few interesting species. Nats proboscidea and Tubifex rivulorum are 
common in most places ; in fact, examples of the former can be obtained 
from any ditch or pond in the county, while the latter is especially abundant 
in the reservoirs. Piscicola geometra occurs in many places, together with 
allied species, and is often introduced with fish into the Museum aquaria. 
In the lists given in A Guide to Leicester and District, 1907, the medicinal 
leech (Hirudo medicinalis) is mentioned as having occurred within the 
county ; unfortunately, neither date nor place of capture is stated, but 
in all probability it is extinct in Leicestershire as elsewhere in England, 
if indeed it ever occurred, for the fact that the horse leech (Hemopis) 
occurs but is not recorded rather suggests erroneous determination. 

Crustacea —Of the five species of Daphnia recorded, D. pulex is the 
most widely distributed. In the canal at Great Glen, Ceriodaphnia 
reticulata is common, while Scapholeberis mucronata is not rare in some 
parts of the county. Bosmina longirostris is not uncommon, but the most 
abundant Entomostracan seems to be Chydorus sphericus. ‘Two species 
of Cypris have been taken, Cypris fuscata and C. virens. Limnocythere 
monstrifica has occurred at Fleckney. 

Some seventeen Copepoda have been taken in the county, but no doubt, 
when more attention has been paid to the group, the number of species 
recorded will be increased. ‘Two species of Diaptomus, D. castor and 
D. gracilis, the former more frequent than the latter; ten species of 
Cyclops and five species of Canthocamptus, constitute the present list. 

Argulus foliaceus is abundant in all the reservoirs. A. coregoni has been 
recorded for Leicestershire as the first British-taken example of this 
species, but as there is some doubt as to its authenticity, this record is 
unreliable. 

That the freshwater crayfish exists in the river Soar at Aylestone 
has long been known. Recently it has been taken in large numbers in an 
artificial pond fed by a small stream at Desford. 


INSECTA. 


Coleoptera——The Coleoptera of the county have been carefully worked 
by several well-known collectors in the past, amongst them Matthews, 
Plant, Harris, the brothers Bates, Bouskell and others. The number of 
species recorded by them is more than 1,700: quite a good proportion 
of the British list. Many of these records depend on the capture of single 
specimens which have not been taken since. The most noteworthy of 
them was the first British record of Tvopideres sepicolafrom Buddon Wood, 
but it has not been seen again. The rare weevil Trachodes hispidus, 
which used to be sent all over the country to collectors, is still to be found 
at Buddon. An old record of one specimen of the large water beetle, 
Hydrophilus piceus, from Syston has been confirmed recently by the cap- 
ture of two more from the same neighbourhood. The higher ground of 
the Charnwood Forest, although the highest point is little more than 
goo feet, has produced a number of mountain species, and the beetles 
generally bear a striking resemblance to those found in North Wales. 


THE ZOOLOGY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 39 


Some of the later additions to the county list are the first British record 
of the longicorn (Tetropium Gabriel’) from Sutton Ambion, since occurring 
at Bardon and on the other side of the county at Keyham ; Gnorimus 
nobilis, from Loughborough, said at one time to be extinct in this country ; 
Cenopsis fissirostris, Bradgate Park ; Trachys troglodytes, Owston Wood ; 
Aleochara brunneipennis, Sutton-in-the-Elms; Clytus mysticus, var. 
hieroglyphicus, Wistow; and Cartodere filum, Leicester. Bembidion 
obliquum and a few other species, said not to be found in the Midlands, 
are common near the reservoirs. 

In the Museum collection of Coleoptera all the local specimens are 
marked with red discs, and the records, where there is no local specimen, 
are indicated by red discs on pins. 

Diptera—The most remarkable recent record is of a Dipteron new not 
only to the county but to the British Isles—namely, Argyrameba (Anthrax) 
anthrax Schranck, first taken by Mr. P. A. H. Muschamp at Woodhouse 
Eaves in 1929. This specimen was presented to the British Museum. 
In 1930 Mr. Muschamp took a second specimen at Cocklow Quarry, 
which is now in the Leicester Museum collection. It is difficult to under- 
stand how so distinct and striking an insect could have escaped observation 
had it been long in this country, and the inference is that it is probably 
a recent importation. 

Hymenoptera Aculeata—It is evident from the brevity of the list of 
Hymenoptera Aculeata published in the Victoria County History of Leicester- 
shire in 1907 that these insects had not up to that date been seriously studied 
or collected in the county. Only 65 species are enumerated out of more 
than 350 species then known to inhabit Britain. Many additional species 
have since been caught in the county, but there is room for much more work, 
particularly in the direction of investigating habits and life-histories. 

In the absence of sandy tracts of country, the old mud-walls (now, 
alas | fast disappearing) supply favourite nesting sites for many burrowing 
species, and others find a congenial habitat in the waste heaps from quarries, 
when the heaps have been for years undisturbed—as in some parts of the 
Mountsorrel area. 

This is not the place to enumerate the additions to the Leicester list, 
and only two will be mentioned as typical of many. One is an interesting 
new local record among the fossorial forms, namely Agenia variegata Linn., 
a small black digging-wasp which provisions its nest with spiders. Each 
spider is paralysed by a sting in one or more of the nerve centres, and so 
keeps alive and fresh until devoured by the larva of the digger-wasp. The 
first specimen was taken on the top of one of the characteristic dry stone 
walls of Charnwood Forest near to Stoneywell Cottage, in the act of 
dragging a benumbed spider to its burrow. Others have been taken 
since in various parts of the forest, so it is probably not uncommon, 
though previously overlooked. 

Among the Anthophila perhaps the most interesting new record is 
Anthidium manicatum Linn. This bee has been regularly observed for 
several years flying at the downy Stachys Janata in a garden on the out- 
skirts of Leicester, in June and July. It appears to visit nothing else. 
The females visit the flowers for the purpose of collecting nectar and 


40 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


pollen, while the males appear to visit the plants only in search of the 
females. The flight of this bee is swift, and it hovers like a humming- 
bird before the flowers. Oswald Latter says that its nest is like a ball of 
white wool, and Gilbert White states that it visits the garden campion 
for the sake ofits tomentum. It was suspected to be frequenting Stachys 
lanata for the sake of the tomentum, but, though watched carefully many 
times, the bee was never detected in the act of gathering or carrying the 
down. Nor has a nest been found. The connection between Stachys 
lanata and Anthidium manicatum seems close. In early July 1931 a large 
patch of the plant was noticed in a garden near Oxford. On going up 
to the patch, Anthidium was seen flying in numbers before the flowers. 
Any entomologist in the neighbourhood of Leicester could attract Anthidium 
manicatum by planting a good patch of Stachys lanata. It is much to be 
desired that local students should take up the investigation of the many 
biological problems which the Hymenoptera Aculeata present. 


The information given in the foregoing brief notes on the Leicester- 
shire fauna is necessarily somewhat disconnected and very incomplete. 
Members of the British Association who désire further information, 
however, are cordially invited to consult the members of the staff of the 
Leicester Museum, who will be pleased to help as far as lies in their power. 
They would also put visiting members in touch with local workers. 


V. 
THE CLIMATE OF LEICESTERSHIRE 


BY 
E.G. BILHAMspiR:Se,,. DIC. 


General Conditions—Records kept—Rainfall—Temperature—Humidity— Wind 
Direction—Sunshine—Hail— Thunder—Frost. 


From the climatic point of view Leicestershire may be regarded as 
typifying the ‘inland’ conditions of Great Britain, uncomplicated by 
large masses of high-lying land. A line drawn westward from Lowestoft 
and a line drawn northward from the Isle of Wight intersect within the 
county, which thus lies, as nearly as may be, in the centre of England. 
We should expect the climate of Leicestershire, therefore, to exemplify 
almost the highest degree of ‘ continentality ’ possible in a land mass of 
the size and geographical situation of Great Britain. That is to say, we 
should expect a large diurnal and annual range of temperature, a high 
frequency of ground frosts and radiation fogs, and a well-marked. 
development of diurnal convective phenomena. 


THE CLIMATE OF LEICESTERSHIRE 41 


Unfortunately the county has never been very well served in regard to 
climatological observations, and we are obliged to rely, except in respect 
to rainfall, very largely on the records from Belvoir Castle, which is very 
near to the north-eastern boundary of the county. In recent years we 
have records from Lutterworth, kept by Mr. M. W. Binns, whose kindness 
in supplying data I am glad to acknowledge. At the moment of preparing 
these notes I have also learnt of a long record kept at Woodhouse Eaves, 
near Loughborough, by Colonel Dashwood, but it has not been found 
possible to carry out the work of summarising his observations in time 
for inclusion in this article. 

The station at Belvoir Castle, maintained by the Duke of Rutland, K.G., 
began observation of rainfall in 1855, of temperature in 1896, and of 
sunshine in 1906. Averages of these elements, weighted to the standard 
period, 1881-1915, are printed in the Book of Normals, Section I. In 
the case of temperature (maximum and minimum and mean), averages 
for the period 1901 to 1930 have recently been computed, and I am 
enabled to include these by permission of the Director of the Meteoro- 
logical Office. The observations at Lutterworth refer to the period 1921 
to 1932. 


RAINFALL. 


The mean annual rainfall of Leicestershire varies from about 23 in. 
near South Wigston to nearly 29 in. on the high land in the Charnwood 
Forest area. Only a small portion of the county has an annual fall 
exceeding 27:5 in. Table I shows the mean monthly and annual 
totals (referred to the epoch 1881-1915) at three stations, from which 
long records are available. It will be seen that October and August are 
the wettest months, April and February the driest. In Table II the 
rainfall at Belvoir Castle is dealt with in greater detail. The average 
annual number of days of rain (o-o1 in. or more) is distinctly higher than 
at other places, such as Camden Square, London (163), Shrewsbury (166), 
Oxford (168), Hull (185), Wakefield (165), and Portland Bill (163), where 
the rainfall is about the same as at Belvoir Castle. Rain occurs on about 
two days out of three in October, November and December, and is least 
frequent in June, when days without rain outnumber days with rain in 
the ratio of three to two. The wettest months of any name were July 
1880, and July 1932, in each of which the fall was 6-59 in., or 271 per 
cent. of the normal July total. Reckoned as a percentage of the normal 
for the month, the rainfall of April 1920 (329 per cent. of the normal) 
occupies first place. The driest months were February 1891, and March 
1929, in each of which the fall was only 0-07 in. The highest yearly 
total, 35-73 in., or 142 per cent. of the normal, occurred in 1882, and 
the lowest, 16-05 in., or 64 per cent. of the normal, in 1921. From 
data given by Dr. J. Glasspoole,! it appears that the standard deviation of 
annual rainfall over Leicestershire is rather more than 18 per cent. of 
the annual total. The heaviest rainfall in a day (24 hours to g h.) occurred 


1 ‘The relation between annual rainfall over Europe and that at Oxford 
and at Glenquoich,’ British Rainfall, 1925, pp. 254-269. 


42, SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


on August 6, 1922, when 3-62 in. was measured. At Leicester on that 
day, 2-15 in. fell in 12} hours. 

At Lutterworth the driest month was June 1925, with a fall of 0:06 in., 
and the wettest, May 1932, with 5-62 in. Mr. Binns points out that 
the driest spells of weather and also short heavy downpours associated with 
thunder usually occur with winds in the north-east quadrant. 


TaBLe I—MOonrTHLY aND ANNUAL RAINFALL (1881-1915). 


Kebworth Thornton Belvoir 
Beauchamp. Reservoir. Castle. 
Latitude. ‘ 1g2° 32 NUP. Psa ag Nos seater 
Longitude «. : . 1 Oo W. 1°) 48" W Codie aay 
Height above M.S.L. . 390 ft. 371 ft. 259 ft. 
In. In. In. 
January I-go 1-98 £279 
February 1-69 1°67 1°67 
March 1-78 1-84 1°81 
April . RA of 1°70 Teas 
May . 1°88 2°O1 2°11 
June . 1°94 2°16 I-QI 
July 2°58 2°48 2°43 
August C 2272 2°80 2°62 
September . 1°87 1-81 1°87 
October. 2°82 2°81 2°70 
November . 2°26 2°26 2-20 
December . 2°56 2°68 2°46 
Year : b t ¥25367 26-20 253e0E 


‘TEMPERATURE. 


The only long series of temperature records available for reference is 
that for Belvoir Castle, going back to 1896. Table III shows the mean 
monthly and annual value of daily maximum and daily minimum in the 
24 hours to 21 h. and the mid-temperature computed as half the sum of 
maximum and minimum, for the period 1901 to 1930, together with 
extreme values from 1896 to 1932. It may be noted that although on the 
average July is decidedly the warmest month, the highest recorded 
temperatures have occurred in August and September. In July, go° F. 
has been reached on only one occasion, viz. July 10, 1921. A temperature 
below 32° F. in the screen has occurred in every month except July and 
August. The lowest recorded temperature, 7° F., occurred on January 17, 
1926, during a noteworthy cold spell in which a grass minimum tempera- 
ture below zero Fahrenheit occurred at several inland stations in southern 
England. The mean diurnal range of temperature is 14-2° F. The 
corresponding ranges at a few other inland stations at about the same 
height above sea-level are as follows : Rounton (Yorks.) 13-9° F., Little 
Massingham (Norfolk) 15-0° F., Woburn (Beds.) 15-3° F., Belper (Derby) 
13:2° F., Coventry (Warwick) 15-2° F., Hereford 15-5° F., Ross-on-Wye 


43 


THE CLIMATE OF LEICESTERSHIRE 


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44. SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


15°4° F., Cheltenham (Glos.) 14:6° F., Reading (Berks) 15:6° F. The 
extreme values recorded at Lutterworth in the period 1921 to 1932 
slightly exceeded those for Belvoir Castle, but do not otherwise call for 


special mention. 


Tas_e [1] —TEMPERATURE (BELVOIR CASTLE). 


Mid- 
Wea Highest Daily Mean| Lowest Daily /Tempera- 
Max Max. Min. Min. ture 
"|  (1896-1932.) (1896-1932.) + (max. 
-+ min.). 
se NS oa syle Be ve 
Ist, 1916) 
Jan 43°6| 57 49th, 19217| 33°7 | 7 r7th, 1926 | 38-7 
eee 1922 
7th, 1917 
Feb; Aas? Whe. Groth (1899) 43381 ke-9 4 E4th, 17th soy 
{23rd 8 aie | 
) 
March. | 48-1 | 69 loath, aot 34.°5-}-13- s- 49th, 1947 AE*3 
April EasOoh wher aend estas 43770 | 10 . 2ni, T9or7 45°0 
IgOl 
May 60-24). 840 23rd, 1922. | 43°1 | 26 ““th, 1967 51°7 
6th, 1896 | 
June 65-1 | 86 nw eee 47°5 | 302 Beth, aor 56-3 
, . {r1th, 1917) ‘ 
July 69-0 | go" roth, 1928 <|"5r-5 | 35 Uist. oat | 60°3 
Aug. 67°7 | 95 9th, r91r | 50-9 | 34 3xst, 1919 | 5973 
Sept. 63°31, 92 < Ist, 2nd) |-46"9° j.29 28th, 20th, | 5522 
1906 I9Ig 
Oct. 55°O | 7o": ‘6thyiz92r |'42'o)'|.23) vagthi roar 48-9 
th, 
Nov Aza)! O30 «2nd. 1927) |. 30-0, | 15 loc. Babs f)40°7 
Dec 44°0 | 59 4th, 1931 | 34:2 | 10 30th, 1908 30°21 
Year BS i} Oh) CAugiothy 4 Aie=9 jronth, Janr rghe 48-0 
IQII 1926 
HumiIpiry. 


Table IV gives the mean values of relative humidity and vapour 
pressure in millibars at Belvoir Castle for the 25 years 1896 to 1920, 
based on readings of dry and wet bulb thermometers at g h. and 21 h. 
The tabulations of hourly values of relative humidity at observatories 
show (a) that the average value of the relative humidity at g h. and 21 h. 
gives a close approximation to the mean for the day, and (b) that the 


THE CLIMATE OF LEICESTERSHIRE 45 


vapour pressure at 21 h. is on the average nearly the same as at the time 
of occurrence of the maximum temperature and minimum relative 
humidity. Consequently a close approximation to the mean value of the 
daily minimum relative humidity can be obtained from the relation 


Minimum R.H. = —V-P-2¢2t b._ y 200 
Sat. press. corre- 


sponding to max. 
temperature 


Data calculated from this relationship are included in Table IV. 


TaBLe 1V.—Humipity (BELVvoIrR CasTLe, 1896-1920). 


Vapour Pressure. Relative Humidity. 

Mean of Mean 
ah. oe Oe aeeealaan gh.and2rth.| Minimum. 
mb. mb. % a Je ye 

Jan. 6-9 TEEN SORT (A OL 92 74 
Feb. . 6°7 6:8 87 87 87 71 
March 733 2 88 88 88 63 
April . 8-2 8-0 80 84 82 58 
May . 2 Og LON 77 84 80 57 
hanie’) « + Pees 12" 3 Fig) 84 80 58 
July . 14° 13°9 78 85 81 57 
Aug. . I4°0 13°6 80 86 83 59 
Sept. . T2395 11-6 83 88 85 58 
Oct. . 10°2 Hoa 89 gl go 66 
Nov. . 8-1 8-2 gI gI gi 73 
Dec. . 7°4 775 | 92 | 92 92 77 
Year . 9°9 9:6 85 88 86 66 


The results show that Belvoir Castle experiences a high average moisture 
content of the atmosphere. From October to January the average 
relative humidity (mean of g h. and 21 h.) reaches go per cent. or more. 
The mean values of daily minimum relative humidity do not differ much 
from those computed for York.? 


WIND DIRECTION. 


Table V shows the percentage frequencies in each month, and the 
year of winds from the different points on the 8-point scale as determined 
from the observations at Belvoir Castle in the period 1896-1930. The 


2 ‘ The climate of York,’ Scientific Survey of York and District, B.A., 1932. 


46 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


results show the usual predominance of winds from south-west, particu- 
larly in the winter months. East winds are very infrequent, averaging 
only 2:5 percent. North and north-east winds show a marked maximum 
frequency in the spring and early summer. 


TaBLE V.—WIND FREQUENCIES 
(BELVOIR CASTLE, 1896-1920). 


Percentage Frequencies of Wind Direction (9 h. and 21 h.). 

Caton, Ne NE oo ES ev nt eee ane eee 

To |e folio thi %o, |. 7 1/0. | ave) | eam cave 
Jan. 10°3 | 5°9| 4:1 | 2°3 | 5°9 | 17°2 | 32-0 | 13-1 | 9°3 
Felal) | 1rho 89643) |) ¢4:-0}|)a°'7 | 6-2 | 20-1 |,29°1" | 1256)" 920 
March!y| 12:oligxofp | 9°3:|'2-0 | 3°9 | 14-9 "| 25; EU! 13"0 | 10°9 
April cl 13°93. \_mge8! og: 3} aca |.5-0.). 20-8 4tp- yl Oe sz 3 
May .)\57-x 16ers! | 52-3) | 309 | -5:-8.1 20-7 naw | Teta 87 
Junes." |), 20"G, 04" Shleso' 71,64 | 54.) 10s | cae) Opeg aae 
July2. |, 20°2 6118) |ou5-8)| 286 | 4525) 10-0-)-18*3 | 16:05) 1226 
Aug, . | 26-Sdle 9° E! |) a3e3hhite2 |°327-| 13°01229: 74) 5eO 1s op 
Dept. . || 17°T deto-4) | grzil Se2 | 5:40] 13°20) 20-g | 1350 oss 
Oct, .).| ROrG1o Fe 4 |p 52: |. Set 4570.) 20-0, |-2e-Aigiso-2 i eorp 
Nowe . || t5*o lo 8-2, (ae 8h\a77. |. 4:6.) 16°01) 20-3 | T2:Qrlro ed 
Dee, eat Ip Aro) neae 7 eeet [Set | 20°45) 34 Sa] TE Gn 
Wear.) /' 05 "4 Jo O+7;.| 60°! | 2am 5405). 14°9.| 23; Fanta tero 


The station at Belvoir Castle is not well exposed for observations of 
wind force. From observations of the highest wind each day at 
Lutterworth, Mr. Binns concludes that January is the windiest month and 
September the quietest. 


SUNSHINE. 


In Table VI the first column of figures shows the mean daily duration 
of daylight in each calendar month. The second column shows the 
mean daily duration of sunshine, adjusted to the standard period 1881— 
1915, as registered by the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at Belvoir 
Castle. ‘The third column shows the mean recorded sunshine expressed 
as a percentage of the possible duration—that is to say, as a percentage of 
the value given in the first column. 

May is the sunniest month, with an average daily duration of 6-55 hours, 
42 per cent. of the possible amount, a value which compares favourably 
with the records at other inland stations. ‘The winter sunshine at Belvoir 
Castle is relatively abundant, being exceeded only at stations on the 


THE CLIMATE OF LEICESTERSHIRE 47 


east and south coasts. The yearly mean daily duration, 4-21 hours, is 
compared below with corresponding data for other inland stations. 


Belvoir Castle . . 4°21 hours 
Cockle Park (Northumberland) 428994 .} 
York . ABT & 
Cambridge . d i A ag?',, 
Rothamsted (Herts) 422"? 5 
Harrogate G:Or-9 
Sheffield Z°6r os 
Nottingham 3 63.4 AN 
Oxford es ig ar 
Cirencester Eg! 
Greenwich J : ; Tahar ORI f 
Stonyhurst . F : ‘ 2 TAZA! OLN 
Bath . : ; , ; Se oc ae 


The mean value for the ‘ Midland Counties ’ district, as defined for 


official climatological purposes, is 3-82 hours, a value exceeded at Belvoir 
Castle by ro per cent. ; 


TaBLE VI.—SuUNSHINE AND MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA 
(BELVorR CasTLE). 


Sunshine, 1881-1915. Mean Number of Days of : 
Mean | Bright Pp Snow, P peli Hail, Thunder, Ground 
Length | Sun- | P& |,896-IY™81;896-| 1896— | Frost, 
8 . cent. |1°9> |rg13-°9 ag 1908— 
of Day. | shine. 1930, ro30,| 1930 1930. 1930. 
Hrs Hrs. A 
aie). ore 1°74 AT (OR a heal oe orl 16°3 
Pepe. 2) ery iad ae LO) 273 Ont EO) LO" & 673 ar 
March. | 11-78 3°58 307 5 | LAr eee Ong 14°5 
pat y..| 13-88 | 5-50 |-40 | r-7-| 0-4.) D1 1-4 IL" 5 
Mayer -. 0)... 25°73 6°55 42 |.0°3 o | 0:8 A082 4°1 
June . | 16°75 G84 38 fo) 0 | 0°3 3-9 0'9 
ary) £O"S9 "| 6-23 38 fe) 0 | 0-3 4:0 fe) 
meee ..| 14°67 | 6-00 | 41 fo) Oo fo) 3°9 fo) 
pept. ...|. 12°66 | 4°83 38 ) Oy|,,0*2 ge E32 
Oet.y. 110-58 3°35 32 | o'r ovo-3 [4 vo“8 7°0 
Nov. .| 8-68 | 2:23 26 | 1-4 |'0°3:}'0*3 0°2 13°9 
Pecs6, 7°60 | 1°45 19 | 3°1 | O-9 | o-4 Orr 14°4 
Meat b..|.12:22 | 4-21 34° /19°8 | 7-1 | 5°7 | -19°9 99°5 


48 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA. 


The right-hand portion of Table VI shows the mean monthly and annual 
frequencies of days of snow, snow lying, hail, thunder and ground frost 
as observed at Belvoir Castle. A day of ‘ snow lying ’ is defined as one 
on which more than half of the country surrounding the station is covered 
with snow at the time of the morning observation. A day of ground 
frost is one on which a minimum thermometer exposed on short grass 
registers 30°4° F. or below. Similar data for other stations are given in 
the Book of Normals, Section IV. The frequency of days with snow 
has varied from 3 in 1928 to 53 in 1917, in which year there were 44 days 
of snow lying. ‘There were 39 days of snow in 1919 and 37 in 1906. 
Hail is relatively infrequent, but occurs most often in the spring months. 
Thunder, with an average frequency of 20 days a year, occurs more often 
at Belvoir Castle than at any other British station for which the data are 
available, a fact which seems to indicate that Leicestershire is in the 
region of maximum thunderstorm frequency for the British Isles. As is 
commonly the case in the Midlands and the south-eastern half of England, 
the months giving the highest frequencies of thunder are the summer 
months from May to August. 

Ground frost is frequent but not remarkably so, considerably higher 
frequencies being observed at some other inland stations. During the 
year 1932, for instance, there were 184 ground frosts at Rickmansworth 
(Herts), 132 at Sprowston (Norfolk), 131 at Chelmsford (Essex), and 
135 at Ascot (Berks), as compared with g5 at Belvoir Castle. 


VI. 
FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 


BY 


THOMAS HACKING, M.Sc., 
DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANISER FOR 
LEICESTERSHIRE. 


Rock formations—General Characteristics of County—Soils—Management of 
Grassland—Vale of Belvoir—Western Area—Melton Mowbray Area— 
Agricultural Statistics—Decline in Arable Land—Crops and Grass—Cattle— 
Sheep—Pigs—Horses—Cereals and Potatoes—Permanent Grass—Agricul- 
tural Holdings—Agricultural Workers. 


THE agriculture of a county is largely determined by its geology and 
climatological conditions. If we take a brief general survey of 
Leicestershire, we shall find the rocks fall into five broad divisions : 
(1) In the north-west rises the hilly, almost mountainous region of 
Charnwood Forest, composed of very ancient igneous and meta- 
morphic rocks. 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 49 


(2) Westward of Charnwood Forest and extending across the western 
boundary of the county into Derbyshire, the coal measures, with 
their accompanying beds of grit, shale and limestone, form the 
region known as the Leicestershire Coalfield. 

(3) ‘ Red Rocks’ of Triassic age form much of the land north, east, 
south, and south-west of Charnwood, covering, in fact, the greater 
part of the western half of the county. The river Soar may be 
regarded as the eastern boundary of this division. 

(4) In the eastern half of the county, stiff bluish clays of Liassic age 
preponderate, with a hard bed of marlstone, whilst above them 
in the extreme north-east, and in one or two outlying patches else- 
where, sand and limestone of Lower Oolitic age are found. 

(5) Lastly, scattered in varying thickness and with great irregularity 
over all the rocks mentioned, there are beds of clay, gravel, and 
sand, with occasional boulders of varying size which are described 
as ‘ Drift —relics of the last glacial period, or Great Ice Age, 
when the Midlands were covered with sheets of ice. The alluvial 
deposits in the valleys of the main rivers are extensive and give 
rise to fairly rich soils which are liable to repeated and extensive 
flooding. 


GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS. 


The nature, composition, and arrangement of the underlying rocks 
have a most important bearing upon the formation of soils as well as 
their subsequent cultivation. The average rainfall of the Midland area 
is by no means high, and the general topography of Leicestershire is that 
of a gently undulating county, which only rarely exceeds 600 feet above 
sea-level. ‘Though the county does not possess many large rivers it has 
a large number of well-distributed small streams of great value to the 
farming industry ; these serve as tributaries to the Soar, Welland, and 
Wreake, which are the main rivers in the county. It should be noted, 
however, that at certain points on the county boundary the rivers Trent 
and Avon are reached, though only over limited distances, 


SOILS OF THE COUNTY. 


The soils of the best grazing area are varied. The eastern half of 
Leicestershire and part of Northants and Warwick lie chiefly upon the 
lower Lias clay, and soils from this formation are to be found in the 
valleys, as in the Vale of Belvoir, where many excellent pastures lying 
directly on the Lias clay are to be seen. ‘The outcrops of the middle 
and upper Lias generally appear upon the gently rising slopes and summits 
of the rounded hills. Over the whole of the Lias formation, and especially 
in the more elevated parts of this roughly defined Midland area, varying 
expanses of boulder clay are met with and patches of glacial drift are not 
uncommon. ‘These give rise to soils of a sandy and gravelly character, 
usually supporting a herbage of only moderate quality, but generally 
making good land for the rearing and growth of store cattle and sheep ; 
and occasionally the best of this type of land will fatten heifers quite 
satisfactorily. 

D 


50 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


In the Market Harborough district many gradations of soil from a 
tenacious clay to medium loams are met with, most of which, in the 
hands of experienced graziers, produce beef and mutton of the very best 
quality. Some of the best old pastures have been down in grass for a 
large number of years. We know very little as to the conditions under 
which these pastures were seeded—probably they were self-sown, or it 
may be, in those far-off days when enclosure took place, the natural grass 
and clover seeds were used, and these were probably obtained from the 
bottoms of haystacks ; at any rate, we have no definite knowledge about 
the early conditions under which these famous grasslands were sown 
down. But in recent years much valuable scientific data relating to the 
chemical composition of the soils and the botanical character of the 
herbage has been obtained, and in addition there is also much practical 
information available as to the system of management pursued on these 
pastures which has been carefully recorded by several observers during 
the last hundred years. The best of these pastures have received very 
little more than the droppings from the sheep and cattle which have 
grazed them, many of them have never received fertilisers of any 
description, they have never been mown, and cakes or other concentrated 
foods have very rarely been used, and then only for a very limited portion 
of the grazing period. When the soils are examined, analyses show that 
they are in a fertile condition, usually rich in phosphates, potash, lime 
and nitrogen, and similarly the analysis of the herbage shows that the 
soil fertility is reflected in a herbage of superior quality, and surprisingly 
simple in its composition in so far as the species of herbage plants are 
concerned. The truth is that the finishing of full-grown cattle and sheep 
on this land does not make a serious demand on those constituents of 
the soil upon which fertility depends. These pastures have always 
been heavily stocked and well grazed, and consequently there is rarely 
any indication of anything in the nature of ‘ tuftiness’ or matted con- 
ditions of surface ; the constant trampling by cattle and sheep maintains 
the surface soil in excellent condition. ‘The scythe may occasionally be 
used to mow coarse or strong-growing patches, and this helps to keep the 
pastures uniform ; and in addition great care is taken to spread evenly 
all manurial droppings, a process known locally as ‘ clot knocking.’ In 
years gone by it was a common practice to collect ‘ clots,’ which were 
carefully preserved and spread over the weaker portions of the pasture 
during the following autumn and winter months. The fences, mainly 
whitethorn, are well kept, and a special feature is made of providing well- 
constructed drinking-places for the grazing stock. ‘Thistles are kept 
under rigid control by spudding and pulling: local blacksmiths make 
a special kind of implement for the purpose of pulling thistles which is 
very effective. 


MANAGEMENT OF GRASSLAND. 

The management of the grassland in this area is of a distinctly high 
character ; it is, in fact, a fine art—the grazier’s art—which has done so 
much to make the Harborough district famous. Its graziers possess an 
unrivalled knowledge and judgment of the merits of grazing cattle and 


NN <r Cr er eee 


— 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 51 


sheep. The occupation of the grazier is one of very great interest, and 
whilst perhaps not so strenuous as arable or dairy farming it offers 
considerable variety. The management of land and stock occupies the 
grazier’s close attention for a considerable portion of the year, but 
opportunities for relaxation are usually sought in the hunting field during 
the winter months ; many good graziers are ardent supporters of fox- 
hunting, and excellent horses, both hunters and shires, have been bred 
in the Harborough country. 

The chief breeds of cattle grazed in the Market Harborough district 
include Shorthorns, Lincoln Reds, Herefords (pure and crosses), Devons, 
Aberdeen Angus, and Angus and Shorthorn crosses, whilst the sheep are 
usually crosses of Suffolk or Down breeds crossed usually with Border 
Leicester, Cheviot or half-bred or Mashams. These make excellent 
grazing sheep and during recent years have become exceedingly popular. 

During the early part of the grazing season 1931, the following notes 
were made in order to show how some of the best grazing fields were 
stocked about the end of May or early June in that year : 


Field. Acreage. Bullocks. Sheep. 

I 9:0 9 12 
2 5°7 8 15% 
3 28-0 27 25 
4 136 14 14 
5 16°2 20 22 
6 14°4 18 22 

86° 96 95 


The foregoing table shows clearly that the stocking of good pasture 
land is very heavy and has much to do with maintaining these pastures 
in a condition of high productivity. 


THE VALE OF BELVOIR. 


The Vale of Belvoir in the north-east of the county is mainly given 
over to the grazing of cattle and sheep and the production of milk, which 
is partly sold for the liquid milk trade, though a very great proportion 
is used in the manufacture of the famous Stilton cheese for which the 
Vale is well renowned. The Sixhills district comprises a wide area of 
land of moderate quality, mostly in grass, and here milk production and 
the rearing of young stock is pursued in conjunction with the breeding 
of sheep. 

THE WESTERN AREA. 


The western half of the county is given over to farming of a rather 
more mixed character. On the ploughed land, wheat, oats, barley, 
beans, sugar-beet, mangolds, and other green crops such as cabbage and 
kale are grown, but the majority of the farms are mainly devoted to milk 
production. In rather scattered and isolated areas Leicestershire cheese 
is still made, though not to the same extent as in former years. With 


52 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


regard to sheep, it is a remarkable fact that the famous breed of Leicester 
sheep is not found in the county ; this breed, which is popular in many 
parts of this country and has also a great reputation in the colonies, was 
the outcome of the work done in breeding by the famous Robert Bakewell, 
who was born and died at Dishley Grange, near Loughborough (1726-1795). 
The last pure-bred flock of Leicester sheep was kept for many years at 
Beau Manor, near Loughborough, but this flock was dispersed several 
years ago. Bakewell also did much to improve the breed of Longhorn 
cattle, and whilst there are no herds of this breed in this county, it is 
well to note that the work he carried out at Dishley in the eighteenth 
century had much to do with laying the foundations of a system of farm 
live-stock breeding for which Great Britain has become deservedly 
famous. 
THe MeLTON Mowsray AREA. 


There is also marked agricultural activity all round the famous hunting 
centre of Melton Mowbray. Here excellent grazing land is to be found, 
and to the north-east considerable areas of ploughed land on the red 
soils of the middle and upper Lias. More limited in extent but under 
the plough are the lighter soils on the Northampton sands and Lincolnshire 
limestone ; here sheep and arable farming are closely connected. During 
recent years good progress has been made in this district in the application 
of co-operative principles to the business of marketing agricultural produce. 
The Farmers’ Co-operative Association controls an extensive business 
which deals with the disposal of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry; a 
successful National Mark egg depot is also in operation which has done 
much towards developing a keen interest in the extension of the poultry 
industry, and most of the eggs produced are now graded and sold under 
the National Mark and through a progressive collecting depot. The 
Association also conducts a butchery business very successfully, and for 
this purpose the animals are supplied by its members. Agricultural 
co-operation has had a chequered experience in this county, but it is 
gratifying to note that co-operation amongst farmers at Melton Mowbray, 
Long Clawson, and other places in the Vale of Belvoir has been very 
successful. Progress at most of these centres has been largely due to 
enthusiastic leaders who possessed a wealth of energy and sound practical 
judgment, and have been imbued with a keen desire to be of service in 
securing the improvement of marketing conditions. ‘The country to the 
south and south-west of Melton Mowbray is mainly in grass and on the 
whole well farmed, and is of a gently undulating character. ‘This area 
comprises the land over which the famous Quorn pack is regularly hunted. 
Lying still further south is the almost equally famous Fernie country 
occupying much of what is called High Leicestershire, and centring 
round Billesdon Coplow. Both ‘ countries’ consist of rolling uplands 
requiring the best of horses and horsemanship, and some excellent 
hunters are bred and trained in these areas. 


AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS FOR LEICESTERSHIRE. 


Like the farming in most counties, that of Leicestershire has under- 
gone many changes, and the following statistics have been chosen with 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 53 


the object of showing the nature and extent of such changes, especially 
with regard to cultivated land and the fluctuation in crops and stock. 


Total area (excluding water) ; . 1932 530,642 acres 
Total acreage under crops and grass  . 1932 457,930 ,, 
Rough grazings ‘ : . - 1932 g 072+? ts 


Decline in Arable Land. 


ear, Acreage. 
1870 179,892 
1875 176,249 
1895 120,854 
1914 96,977 
I9Ig 131,023 
1923 107,962 
1926 92,189 
1933 731542 


From the foregoing table it will be seen that during the last sixty years 
or so the arable area has decreased by over 100,000 acres. In more 
recent years, notably the period between 1919 and 1932, it shows a 
decrease of no less than 57,481 acres, and this in a period of only thirteen 
years. Even in the acreage under crops and grass there has been a 
serious decrease, owing, no doubt, to the extension of building schemes 
and other demands upon the agricultural area of the county. 

The enormous change in the arable area has undoubtedly produced 
very great changes in the systems of the farming pursued and -has had 
far-reaching effects on the social life of the country side. Broadly the 
results have been a serious and steady decline in the numbers of the rural 
population and consequently the local and allied industries such as those 
of the blacksmith, wheelwright, and saddler have also declined and in 
some districts have disappeared entirely. 

Generally speaking, grassland requires far less labour than arable land, 
and is usually less productive, though in the case of dairy farming the 
aggregate value of milk produced may well be greater than the value of 
the crops when the land was under the plough. The number of active 
farm workers in such cases may not be seriously less, but taking the situa- 
tion as a whole, it is certain that this great change in arable farming has 
been accompanied by a very considerable decline in the number of agricul- 
tural workers. A still more serious feature of the decline in arable land 
is the fact that during the last ten years there has been an average annual 
decline of nearly 3,500 acres, equivalent to an area of about 5 square miles 
per annum. 


CROPS AND GRASS. 


A steady decline in the acreage of crops and grass is also taking place 
and the figures show that there has been a decline of over 9,000 acres 


54 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


during the last ten years, which means a serious encroachment upon the 
farming area of the county. 


Year. Acreage. 
TQ22 he. 5 - . 460,978 
TQ bails . , = (r459:049 
Lg2z0t : : . 456,306 
1932, -% : ‘ . 451,930 


CATTLE, INCLUDING DaIRY AND GRAZING STOCK. 


Between 1915 and 1923, the cows and heifers increased by 8,755. 
This increase was spread very evenly over every Petty Sessional Division 
and showed that the change over to milk production was taking place 
more or less throughout the county. 

During the last ten years the number of cattle has not altered to any 
very serious extent, though there has been a steadily increasing tendency 
for farmers to extend their activities in milk production, and consequently 
dairy cows have further increased in numbers. As to breeds of dairy 
cows the Shorthorns are pre-eminent, though excellent herds of Jerseys, 
Friesians, and Ayrshires also exist in the county. ‘The business of milk 
production has reached a very high standard and flourishing associations 
for milk recording and graded milk have been in existence for several 
years and have done excellent propaganda work. During recent years 
improved methods of feeding and equipment have been adopted, and over 
one hundred milking machines are now in regular use. 

The breeding of good dairy cattle has been materially assisted by the 
Ministry of Agriculture’s Live Stock Improvement Scheme, under which 
are placed at various centres in the county no less than thirty-four premium 
bulls. With regard to grazing cattle, a large proportion are bought as 
stores and brought into the county during the autumn and spring ;_ they 
comprise a wide range of breeds such as Shorthorns (both English and 
Irish). Aberdeen Angus, Devons, Welsh, Herefords, and their respective 
crosses are very popular with the Leicestershire graziers, but it should be 
here recorded that the grazing industry, like other sections of British 
farming, has experienced very difficult and unremunerative conditions 
during the last few years, and a careful analysis of live stock statistics show 
that a gradually declining number of cattle have been grazed in recent 
years. Improved prices would no doubt do much to improve the grazing 
industry. 

The following table gives the figures of dairy and grazing stock and 
other cattle from 1923 to 1932: 


Year. Head of Cattle. 
TO230:* 5 . : 4 149,107 
1925°™. : : . 161,049 


1926. 2 : . 158,387 
1932. : : . 156,996 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 55 


SHEEP. 


Sheep have been steadily declining in the county for many years and 
between 1915 and 1923 there was a decrease of 59,798, but the following 
figures for the last ten years indicate that a steady recovery is taking place. 


Year: No. of Sheep. 
LOSS ts . P +n ihQ2,102 
TO ar : : wn BBA 570 
1020) . 2 - 253,485 
to gy a é : . 312,490 


Whilst there have been great changes from the plough to grass, the 
increase in the number of dairy cows limits the grazing area available for 
sheep, and for many years a steady decline in the numbers of sheep has 
been experienced. In 1923 the figures for sheep were the lowest ever 
recorded in the county. 

Since that year there has been a steady increase up to the end of 1929, 
when sheep made reasonably good prices ; then came a sudden and serious 
depression in the price of wool as well as mutton. At the present time, 
however, the price of mutton shows a gradually improving tendency, 
though wool remains at a very poor price. The favourite breeds of sheep 
for a long period included Leicesters, Lincolns, and occasional flocks of 
Down sheep, such as the Oxfords, Suffolks, Dorset Horn, Hampshires, 
etc. The heavier breeds are gradually giving way to breeds of sheep 
which are more suitable for grassland conditions and recent years have 
seen considerable introductions of the half-bred, Border-Leicester, and 
Cheviot cross, pure Cheviots, Kerry Hills, Cluns, Mashams, and many 
crosses with Suffolk, Oxford, and Hampshire rams. There has been a 
tendency to concentrate upon the production of fat lambs, which have 
yielded, under good management, fairly satisfactory results. Recent 
prices of wool have not been encouraging, but should an era of better 
prices set in, it may be safely prophesied that the sheep population will 
continue to increase, but it is extremely probable that any such extension 
will be almost entirely amongst breeds suitable for grass feeding. 


Pics. 


The variation in the numbers of pigs in Leicestershire is shown in the 
following table : 


1923 . . - 23,547 
TOAG Ys : ‘ » ene OZ 
1926. : j Pies iO 9 
TO32" *"s 4 : 26,7770 


The pig population of Leicestershire was much greater in the years 
when larger quantities of Stilton and Leicester cheese were made. ‘The 
whey, a by-product in cheese making, is a very useful addition to the 
usual meals used for pig feeding, but with the decline of this by-product 
pig feeding became a less attractive section of farming, and the increase 
of imported bacon was also a powerful factor in steadily limiting the 


56 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


production of bacon pigs. In the vicinity of our manufacturing towns there 
has always been a ready market for porker pigs, and whilst prices have 
fluctuated—at times violently—the pork trade has maintained a moderate 
degree of steadiness in the matter of price. 

The more popular breeds have been the Large White, Middle White, 
Berkshire, Large Black, Tamworth, Wessex, Welsh and many indis- 
criminate crosses. A growing interest in pig breeding is being steadily 
stimulated by the pig-rnarketing scheme which is now before the country, 
and which will doubtless be adopted and put into operation about August 
this year. This scheme offers a price for bacon pigs which is definitely 
associated with the price of feeding stuffs, and, moreover, the price is such 
as to practically guarantee a definite market for all bacon pigs of suitable 
breeding and weight, with little or no risk of loss. The pig population 
recorded in 1932 was the highest during the last ten years, and under the 
new reorganisation scheme there is every prospect of the pig industry 
extending upon a very considerable scale. ‘The British pig breeder can do 
much to supply a greater proportion of the bacon consumed than here- 
tofore. In preparation for developments the County Milk Recording 
Society has started a litter recording scheme which is meeting with a fair 
amount of support from progressive pig breeders. The object of the 
scheme is to help breeders to select their breeding stock with a greater 
degree of confidence than has been possible in the past. There are 
twenty pedigree boars in the county under the Live Stock Improvement 
Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture. 


AGRICULTURAL HorsEs. 


The reduction in the numbers of horses in the county is shown in the 
following table : 


1923. : : . 23,519 
EQ25 81, : d . 21,084 
1926. L ‘ . 19,855 
193. : : . 16,249 
THZ2 “1 : ; . 16,061 


The influence of the machine age is clearly evident in the foregoing 
figures, for it will be noted that a steady but relentless decline in the number 
of horses is in operation. In past years, Leicestershire has held a well- 
merited reputation for breeding some of the best shire horses, and for 
many years Leciestershire breeders have always occupied excellent posi- 
tions in the list of awards at the Shire Horse Show in London. It is also 
a noteworthy fact that some of the most successful breeders of shires have 
been tenant farmers, many of whom have been ardent supporters of the 
activities of the Melton Mowbray Shire Horse Society. This Society 
has contributed materially to the developmient of horse breeding, and has 
readily paid very high premiums for the hire of some of the best stallions. 
The breeding of hunters is keenly pursued, especially by farmers and 
others interested in hunting, and for many years King’s Premium stallions 
have been available. The undulating character of the county and its 
strong and well-laid bullock fences necessitates the breeding of a type of 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 57 


hunter which must have not only great powers of endurance, but well up 
to average as a weight carrier, and, in addition, possessed of great speed 
and a clever jumper. ‘The nature of the country and the character of the 
fences necessitate horsemanship of a very high order, and the hunting 
“countries ’ of Leicester may well claim to have provided for many long 
years some of the very best training grounds for cavalry officers and all 
others who desire to excel in that noble art of riding ‘ straight ’ to hounds. 


CEREALS AND POTATOES. 
FO7G 09M g2y. 1925. 1926. IQ3I. 1932. 


Wheat . . 44,404 25,298 19,786 21,126 13,599 14,185 
Barley . St Age ne ORet.) Sete 2 S27 44,004 aeAOU 
Oats : Peo OOO SS EQZO5 E7007. 07 cot.  Le.e7e, Ee bak 
Potatoes . o Laas eg SONG ye AOO . 2hat © Agee or 


Total acreage . 100,296 55,154 47,414 46,511 35,373 33,914 


From the foregoing table it will be seen that the decline in the acreage 
of cereals in the last fifty-six years amounts to very nearly 70,000 acres, 
and that during the last ten years a decrease of no less than 21,000 acres 
has to be recorded. ‘The low prices of cereals during recent years have 
been such that arable farmers have been compelled to limit the acreage, so 
far as they could consistently do so, keeping in mind the requirements of 
the farm so far as the straw for bedding was concerned. Of the three 
cereals a decline of barley and oats was inevitable, and the slight increase 
in the acreage of wheat is undoubtedly due to the stimulating influence 
of the wheat quota. During the last ten years the acreage of potatoes 
has gradually increased, and under the new marketing scheme for potatoes 
it is very probable that the potato acreage in future may increase still 
further. Crops of mangolds and swedes, during recent years, have shown 
a marked tendency to decline in acreage, but this decline has been prac- 
tically met by the increase of crops of marrow-stemmed kale, cabbage, and, 
notably, sugar beet. 

During the last ten years the interest in the growth of sugar beet has 
been steadily increasing ; this crop has the advantage of being one that the 
farmer can turn directly into cash, and, in addition, the tops and crowns 
provide a very useful fodder. Sugar beet growers are also entitled to 
receive a proportional supply of dried beet pulp at a preferential price. 
Dried beet pulp has been proved to be an excellent food for dairy cows 
and other farm live stock. 


PERMANENT GRASS. 


1923. 1925. 1926. 1931. 1932. 
Not for hay . 254,827 265,606 203 -LOm * 2OL.aeo” "27a 200 
For hay . 98,189 95,544 100,948 115,004 107,108 


353,016 361,150 364,048 = 376,224 380,388 


58 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


With the gradual decline of the arable acreage it is natural to expect 
that such decline would be reflected in the increase of grassland, and 
from the above table it will be seen that a steady increase in the permanent 
grass acreage has taken place during the last ten years, and, in addition, 
there has been a gradually increasing area mown each year for hay, this 
being necessary for the increased number of dairy cattle which have to 
be wintered indoors, with the consequent need for more bulky fodder. 
The acreage under permanent grazing has not only increased, but during 
the last ten years there has been a decided advance in the management of 
grassland. Surface cultivation coupled with liberal phosphatic manuring 
has done much to increase the stock-carrying capacity of the pastures. 
The use of fertilisers has also assured heavier crops of hay of a superior 
feeding value, the value of a high quality hay being now more fully 
recognised by progressive dairy farmers. The soil and climatic conditions 
of the county are extremely favourable for the development of good grass- 
land, and these natural advantages are being more fully utilised each year. 


Total Number of Agricultural Holdings. 


1922. 4 ; . . 6,526 
L925... > é : . 6,460 
1926 . e : : »f 1105380 
E31}... s ; : . 6,050 
1932... " ‘ ; . 6,008 
Holdings above 1 Acre and not Exceeding 50 Acres. 
ge), ; : : Lo hao 
rg25- * : : é IM 4.765 
1926 . : : ‘ § 92050 
IQ3I_ . ’ é s #f Bare 
RG3ar : : ; aA eAG 


During the last ten years there has been a decline in the number of 
agricultural holdings to the extent of slightly over 500. It is not possible 
to analyse fully all the causes of this decline but doubtless the demands 
for building sites of various kinds and public improvements have played 
an important part. 

It will be noticed that there has been a decline in the number of small 
holdings, and whilst there has been much said in recent years about the 
necessity of small holdings, it will be seen that during the last ten years 
there has been a decline in the number of holdings above 1 acre and under 
50 acres of no less than 586 holdings in this county. 

This result would seem to support the idea that there cannot be a real 
and substantial reason for increasing the number of such holdings. It 
may well be that this result is due to the difficult times which agriculture 
has experienced during the last few years. Better times may possibly 
stem this unfortunate decline, for it is admitted on all hands that the finest 
asset a nation can possess is a healthy, numerous, and rural population, a 
virile and prosperous countryside. It should be noted that no less than 


FARMING IN LEICESTERSHIRE 59 


54 per cent. of the holdings in the county are under 50 acres in extent, 
veritably a county of small holdings. 


Regular Workers. 


1923)" ; ‘ : «18256 
1G25. , , : » #6958 
1920 ; : : . 8,196 
1931. . . . - 7,439 
pS cp hae : s ‘ ani fe -7 


(Excluding the occupier and his wife and domestics.) 


Total Workers, Regular and Casual. 


LQS3 i108 . ° . - 9,957 
1925. d : d . 10,062 
1926 . , ; , 5 ps E 
EOUE. ; ‘ ‘ te zig) 
1932. ; : : ’ . 8,269 


When we come to consider the common problem associated with the 
drift of agricultural workers to the towns, the figures in the foregoing 
tables emphasise a tendency which has often been deplored by all who have 
the welfare of the countryside at heart. Of the regular workers in agricul- 
ture in the county there has been a decline of no less than 1,091 during 
the last few years, and the figures seem to suggest that the decline has by 
no means been arrested. The same tendency is also seen when the total 
number of regular and casual workers is considered. If any evidence were 
required as to the seriousness of the agricultural depression which has 
extended over the last ten years, it is amply provided by this brief 
review of Leicestershire farming. 


60 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


VI. 
THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 


BY 


L. W. KERSHAW, B.Sc., A.M.Inst.C.E., F.G.S. (PRINCIPAL, 
LEICESTER COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY) ; F.R. ANTCLIFF, B.Sc., 
A.M.1I.Mech.E.; J. CHAMBERLAIN, F.T.L.; J. P. IVENS, 
M.A.; anp F. W. ROBERTS, F.B.S.1. 


The Hosiery Industyy.—Introduction—State of Employment—Early Period— 
Introduction of Machinery—Materials Used—Purchase of Raw Materials— 
Processes—Machines Used—Labour—Marketing—Piece-work—Technical 
and Art Training. 

Boot and Shoe Industyy.—Mass-production—Invention of Machines—Domestic 
System—Raw Materials—Specialisation—Processes—Statistics—Relations 
of Employers and Employed—Wages—Agents and Merchants—Women’s 
Shoes. 

Engineering Industvyy—Products—Hosiery Machines—Elastic Web Industry— 
Shoe Machinery—Machine Tools—Quarry and Roadstone Machines— 
Wood-working Machines—Heating and Ventilating—Scientific and Optical 
Instruments and Photographic Lenses—Electric Clocks—Cardboard Boxes 
—Typewriters—Technical Training. 

Subsidiary Industries and other Industries, including Printing. 


THE popular slogan which avers that ‘ Leicester clothes the world,’ 
doubtless owes its origin to a sudden consciousness of local patriotism 
strengthened by the city’s relative prosperity in a world of economic 
depression. As a statement of tendency and asa reference to the multi- 
plicity of trades established there, the boast is true and invites analysis, 
as affording a possible explanation of this prosperity. Of the population 
of 239,000, nearly 50 per cent. (115,000) are insured workers, of whom 
65,000 are men and 50,000 women. ‘This percentage, in respect of both 
men and women, is nearly double the average percentage for the whole 
of the country, and indicates that the purchasing power of the working- 
classes in Leicester, other things being equal, must be approximately 
twice as great as that of the ‘ average’ worker for the whole country. 
Other things, however, are not equal. At the beginning of the present 
year about 16,000 men and women in Leicester were unemployed, a 
proportion (x4: 4 per cent.) which compares very favourably with the 
national percentage of 21-5. Some explanation of these figures is to be 
sought in the nature of the two staple industries on which the economic 
life of the city and county depends. If food and rent together constitute 
a ‘first charge’ upon income, clothing and footwear are none the less 
to be included among primary necessities. Further, the fact of the 
existence of two staple industries exerts, even in normal times, an im- 
portant influence on local conditions. It is true that these trades are 
seasonal and that their ‘ off’ seasons usually coincide; it is also true, 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 61 


however, that in a long period consideration a non-seasonal depression 
in the hosiery industry rarely corresponds in time to a non-seasonal 
depression in the boot and shoe industry. There has thus grown up in 
Leicester a considerable body of mobile labour capable of ready assimila- 
tion into either of these staple trades—a phenomenon relatively rare in 
industrial towns and possessed of very definite advantages. 


Tue Hosiery INDUSTRY. 


Since the time of King Alfred the scarps and meadows of Leicestershire 
have been recognised as highly suitable pasture lands for sheep, and 
even in that remote age crude textile fabrics were produced in both town 
and country. In the thirteenth century wool was spun by hand and 
woven into blankets and coarse fabrics, and wool fairs were held in 
Leicester. 

In the sixteenth century a new industry had arisen; wool-combers 
supplied the yarn they spun to persons willing to knit stockings by hand. 
The trade prospered, and about two thousand people were employed. 
Meanwhile in 1589 the Rev. William Lee of Calverton, Nottingham- 
shire, invented the hand stocking-frame, and in the early years of the 
following century the industry established itself in Leicester and Leicester- 
shire. Although the frame-work knitters of London obtained a Charter 
in 1663, the trade gradually left London and developed in the Midlands. 
The eighteenth century witnessed a period of trade depression, and 
stockingers who had been earning from nine to eleven shillings per week 
were compelled to refund from two to four shillings for certain ‘ charges,’ 
such as frame rent, standing room, light and fuel, winding, taking-in, 
deductions for faulty work, etc. The workers were even required to 
purchase the needles to replace breakages, and, before the passing of the 
Truck Act, were often forced to accept commodities in lieu of money. 
A large number of small stockingers’ shops existed, and ‘ middlemen ’ 
obtained yarn from the warehouses and knitted it into stockings, which 
they returned at the end of each week. This method of trading continued 
until the Industrial Revolution, when factories were erected and power 
machines introduced. 

By about 1860 machinery developments had resulted in the construction 
of several types of machines, the chief of which were ‘ Cotton’s Patent 
Frames’ in 1863 (which produced fully fashioned garments), circular 
loop wheel and sinker wheel machines, and, thanks to Matthew Townsend’s 
invention of the latch needle in 1849, circular and flat latch needle 
machines. Cotton, who was born at Seagrave, Leicestershire, in 1819, 
invented his machine at Loughborough, whilst Townsend was a Leicester 
‘fancy hosier.’ Since that time many improvements have been made in 
the mechanisation of knitting, and knitted fabrics are now used for all 
types of hose in both underwear and outerwear. The ‘ fancy ’ trade was 
inaugurated in Leicester by William Kelly early in the nineteenth century, 
and although many different articles of apparel were knitted—gloves, 
cravats, franklins or jerseys, children’s boots, etc——the term “ hosiery ’ 
still held its ground ; even to-day it is still used in a generic sense. 


62 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


In the early periods of the trade each of the three knitting 
counties tended to specialise in the use of a particular material. As time 
went on, however, this distinction disappeared, although traces of its 
effect still exist. ‘Thus as finer counts of cotton and silk could be spun, 
stockings of finer gauge were made in increasing quantities in Nottingham- 
shire and Derby, and this tendency still holds in a lesser degree to-day. 
Similarly, as fancy hosiery is more often made of wool, that trade increased 
more rapidly in Leicester than elsewhere. To-day practically all textile 
materials are used for knitting—viz., cotton, wool, silk, rayon, acetate silk, 
and, to some extent, flax, ramie and camel-hair. Modern hosiery yarns 
differ considerably from those used in weaving, in that they have less 
‘twist’ and more fullness. Australian, Cape and Argentine wools are 
largely used, owing to their peculiar properties, although a certain amount 
of wool is spun in Leicester itself. Other yarns are spun in Yorkshire 
(wool), Lancashire (cotton), Warwickshire and Derbyshire (artificial silk), 
raw cotton is obtained chiefly from the U.S.A., Egypt, India, Brazil and 
Peru, and silk is imported from Japan and Italy. 

In the purchase of these raw materials spinners do not as a rule 
approach manufacturers directly, but through agents. The latter call 
periodically on manufacturers, and may each represent a number of 
spinners. Orders for yarns are usually placed ‘ firm,’ although orders 
for knitted goods are subject to cancellation. This system is somewhat 
disconcerting to manufacturers, but is said to have its compensations in 
regard to early placements of orders, and is still in being. The method 
of payment usually provides for one month’s credit and a cash discount. 
The prices of yarns vary, of course, with fluctuations in raw material 
prices or tops. Hence a certain amount of speculation exists, and 
manufacturers follow raw material prices, crop reports, etc., with interest 
if not always with profit. 

The cycle of processes involved in manufacture depends upon the type 
of garment to be produced. For our present purpose, however, we may 
regard the following operations as constituting the customary succession : 


(a) Winding (and in some cases warping). 

(6) Knitting (circular, seamless, fashioned). 

(c) Seaming, linking, welting (closing operations). 

(d) Cutting out and machining (making-up operations). 


Mending is carried out on rough fabric and also on dressed fabric or 
goods. Scouring, dyeing, or bleaching and finishing may be carried out 
either on a fabric before it is cut out or after goods have been knitted to 
shape and seamed. 

All goods are subsequently taken to the warehouse and paired (if 
necessary), folded, stamped, etc., and boxed ready for sale. 

The machines used in the manufacture of hosiery do not require a large 
amount of power. Formerly gas, steam or oil engines were used, but 
modern practice prefers the electric drive. One horse-power is sufficient 
to drive eight sewing machines, four to six seamless hose machines, or 
three fabric machines. In some cases the motor is incorporated with 
the machine, but generally small groups of machines are driven from orie 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 63 


motor. This method effects a great saving in shafting, belts, etc., and 
total stoppages are therefore rare. 

Although mass production of like articles is carried out as far as possible, 
the great variety of styles which prevails in single garments rendered the 
team system very difficult. If the fastest operation be taken as unity, 
the numbers of machines may be regarded as multiples of this in the 
production of a given garment, and the machines so arranged that a 
conveyor system becomes possible. A change in garment or style, 
however, necessitates a complete re-arrangement, and, in practice, the 
machines are often ‘ averaged ’ in order to take account of a more or less 
constant variety of articles. Factory planning has now developed to a 
high degree so as to ensure a flow of goods in a given direction. 

Hosiery manufacture demands a large proportion of skilled and semi- 
skilled labour. The most highly skilled work is that of ‘ legging ’ fully 
fashioned silk hose of fine gauge, and this is usually done by men, while 
‘ transferring ’ and ‘ footing ’ are done by mixed male and female labour. 
Seamless hose machines, web frames, and warp-knitting machines are 
operated by both male and female labour, usually by women during the 
day and by men during night-shifts. Winding, mending, seaming, 
linking and machining are carried out by women. 

In dyeing and finishing, the light operations, such as turning, brushing, 
calendaring, etc., are carried out by women, but scouring, milling, dyeing, 
napping, pressing and boarding are usually done by men. A shortage 
of skilled labour sometimes occurs, owing to the custom of working shifts 
in a busy season. 

There is no systematic method of training labour, no scheme of 
apprenticeship, for example, but youths and girls are first employed as 
assistants or ‘ runabouts,’ and afterwards transferred to knitting or sewing 
machines. Opportunities for practice work are afforded by the Leicester 
College of Technology and by the colleges at Loughborough and Hinckley. 
This assists in some measure, although the conditions under which the 
work is done do not approximate very closely to those of the factory. 

The earlier system of marketing, whereby wholesalers, after purchasing 
finished goods, distributed them to shopkeepers, still persists on a con- 
siderable scale. To-day, however, many quite small firms supply the 
multiple stores and largeshopsdirect. In other cases, especially with large 
firms, manufacturers advertise their own goods and employ travellers or 
salesmen, both at home and abroad. Manufacturers’ agents also assist in 
the distribution. 

Within the factory the system of piece-work applies generally through- 
out the trade, although the time-rate is not unknown. Prices which were 
established before the war are still utilised as a basis, and to these is added 
a bonus which varies according to the cost of living. This plan has 
proved very satisfactory, and few disputes have taken place. Wages are 
high in comparison with those paid on the Continent and, of course, in 
the East, and the industry has been protected to some extent by the 
imposition of tariffs. 

During recent years Leicester has developed a large knitting-machine 
building business, which has enabled manufacturers to benefit by the 


64 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


installation of improved machinery ; several types of machines used are, 
however, still made abroad. The community, too, has benefited greatly 
by the introduction of knitted garments, which are cheap, efficient, 
hygienic, comfortable and stylish. In many cases woven goods have 
been replaced by knitted goods, so that Leicester has prospered at the 
expense of her competitors. On the whole, considerable enterprise has 
been shown in the development of new garments, new fashions and new 
designs. Nevertheless, in spite of statements to the contrary, the hosiery 
trade remains a seasonal trade subject to fluctuations of weather and 
fashion. As production is high and machinery developments are 
prodigious, severe competition at home and abroad is inevitable. 

Both machine builders and manufacturers have realised the advantages 
of technical and art training, and at the local colleges combined courses 
have been instituted with success. At Leicester alone some 500 students 
attend courses in the Hosiery Department, and that in spite of the 
absence of any definite apprenticeship scheme. Of these, approximately 
80 per cent. attend in the evenings, but signs are not lacking that more 
attention is being paid to the advantages of day training. In this and in 
other ways the Leicester and Leicestershire hosiery manufacturer is 
playing a worthy part in British trade. Fortunately or unfortunately, the 
hosiery industry lends itself to the establishment of small self-contained 
manufacturing concerns which may employ from 300 to 400 people without 
the necessity of instituting elaborate and costly systems. ‘Thus personal 
contact is preserved between employer and employee, matters can be 
arranged quickly and satisfactorily, and rapid changes can be effected to 
follow the day’s fashion. Businesses launched with comparatively small 
capital outlay may, by the use of modern methods, the purchase of 
modern machines, and the study of modern fashion and design, be 
developed quite successfully by sheer grit and hard work. 


Tue BooT AND SHOE INDUSTRY. 


The history of the hosiery trade in Leicester and Leicestershire takes 
us back into the remote past ; both town and county have grown up in 
a ‘ tradition of wool,’ and we acknowledge a certain fitness in the sequence 
of events on learning, for example, that on the site of the present Friar 
Mills there once stood the Monastery of the Black Friars of St. Dominic, 
themselves wool merchants as long ago as the early thirteenth century. 
In contradistinction to this, the story of boots and shoes is quite modern, 
and falls almost entirely within the last hundred years. A company of 
* jornemen of schomakers ’ existed in the days of Elizabeth, but it remains 
doubtful whether before 1830 the shoemakers of the town ever satisfied 
a wider need than that of its own inhabitants. 

In long-period considerations of industrial growth we perceive the 
principle of development as a transition from the slow handicraft of many 
highly skilled individual productive units (a system characterised in its 
early stages by personal acquaintance between craftsman and customer) 
to the rapid mass production of mechanised industry, in which the 
craftsman is replaced by the ‘machine minder,’ and the customer 
becomes, at least for the workman, a generalised abstraction. ‘This 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 65 


development has taken place in the manufacture of boots and shoes. 
Its meaning is better seen if we consider the function of the shoe. Most 
feet, like most faces, appear to have their individual peculiarities of 
proportion, and a slight misfit, such as in clothing would pass unnoticed, 
is of vital importance in shoes. Again, the simple and inert rigidity of 
the last contrasts with the complex flexibility of the human foot. Herein 
lie the problems of the mass production of boots and shoes—to produce 
them by the million and to place them upon the market so that any one 
can walk into any shop and obtain a pair that will fit his own ‘ particular ’ 
pair of feet. 

Until 1790, when Thomas Saint invented a chain-stitch machine for 
sewing together the various parts of the upper, shoes were made entirely 
by hand, slowly and laboriously. While to-day some four hundred types 
of machines are in common use, the wider application of machinery to 
manufacture did not really begin before the middle of last century. 
Mechanisation, however, once established, made rapid progress. Walter 
Hunt’s first lock-stitch machine (1832), improved by Elias Howe in 1846 
and followed in 1849 by Allen Wilson’s rotary hook principle, represents 
a further stage in the manufacture of the upper. Early in the century 
Randolph and Brunel had applied themselves to methods of riveting by 
machinery. Then Thomas Crick, the ‘father of the Leicester shoe 
industry,’ securing an iron plate to the sole of his last, clinched rivets, 
driven through the leather, against it. His son introduced the method 
of inside riveting, whereby uppers and insoles were riveted together, 
then turned and the sole attached. This was in 1853. In the same 
decade appeared the ‘ Blake ’ sewer, whereby the outer and inner soles 
(the latter with upper attached) were sewed together, an invention which, 
by its revolutionary effects, heralds the modern period. The rest is a 
matter of detail—the ‘ clicking’ press, the eyeleting machine; screwing 
and heeling machines, edge-trimming machines, burnishing machines and 
so on, until the introduction of the hand-method lasting machine in 1885 
completed the industrial revolution from hand to machine. 

Under the Domestic System, when each worker’s home was a law unto 
itself in the matter of hours and working conditions, when father and sons 
riveted and ‘finished’ and the womenfolk performed the ‘ closing ’ 
operations on crude treadle machines, when workshops were badly 
ventilated and insanitary, and tuberculosis was rampant, life was a frantic 
struggle, a demoralising experience. When this system, even under 
rapidly improving conditions, received its death-blow, after the national 
strike of 1895, and the present factory system firmly established itself, 
most people looked to the future with much confidence and little regret. 

A century ago the raw materials of shoe production included horse-hide 
and ox-hide, the skins of sheep, calves and goats, and little else. ‘To-day 
a wonderful variety of materials, drawn from all over the earth and made 
from scores of species of animals, birds, reptiles and fish, enters into the 
routine of large-scale manufacture. The canvas is too large for even the 
sketchiest of outlines. 

Boot and shoe manufacture has thus become a highly specialised 
industry. Even so, few realise to what extent variety in choice of material 

E 


66 . SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


and multiplicity of styles and ‘ fashions’ have influenced methods of 
construction ; more than a dozen different manufacturing methods exist, 
each of which may involve some 150 distinct operations and, at least, 
100 different machines. It is possible in this brief survey to refer only to 
a few of those major operations through which all boots and shoes must 
pass in the process of manufacture. 

The making of the ‘ last’ model has remained a highly skilled craft 
through its defiance of the application of a formula. Its evolution owes 
much to the inventive genius of Leicester firms. ‘Taking account in its 
form of every movement of the foot, to the end that movement shall be 
easy and natural, the last must yet be rigid in the shoe and mobile in 
removal. Dried Canadian maple wood is used. The rough block, 
weighing nine or ten pounds, is first shaped and trimmed until it satisfies 
the necessary conditions. ‘This original is then used as a model in a 
turning lathe for the production of as many as are required. The 
necessary mobility has been attained by dividing the last into two parts, 
while its rigidity in the shoe depends upon the use of suitable devices 
inserted into the V-shaped aperture between the parts. The finished 
product weighs about a pound. 

After last-making comes pattern-cutting, a process which calls for a 
high degree of skill in the correct placing of curves and seams in the upper 
in order to maintain the form of the shoe in wear, and necessitates further 
study of the shape of each part to effect economy in cutting. 

‘ Clicking ’ and ‘ closing ’"—the cutting out and the sewing together of 
the parts of the upper—and the accurate preparation of bottom stock 
are not merely automatic machine processes. While the old hand-sewer 
produced some ten or twenty stitches per minute and the early treadle 
machine about 300, the modern power-driven machine makes 3,000 
stitches per minute, equivalent, in machines fitted with four needles, to 
200 stitches per second—a truly amazing speed, and one which is eloquent 
of the deft touch of the skilful ‘ closer.’ 

But it is in the lasting and making departments that the genius of the 
modern machine finds its fullest expression. Here are machines which 
by means of mechanically operated pincers seize the flat-cut upper, 
stretching and drawing it to conform to the subtle curves of the last, and 
securing it by tacks or staples. Here are machines which imitate at 
high speed the ‘ welting’ methods of the old-time craftsman with awl 
and thread. Here, too, are machines which cut and drive thousands of 
nails a day. Every type of machine known within the industry operates 
in Leicester’s factories. It was in no small degree due to the opposition 
in other parts to the introduction of machinery into factories that so many 
workers from these centres came to Leicester and placed their experience 
and skill at the disposal of local manufacturers. 

The number of boot and shoe manufacturers in Great Britain is esti- 
mated at 950, with about 132,000 employees and an output of 117 million 
pairs per year. The comparatively recent industrialisation of manufacture 
partly explains why the industry is not confined to just one or two large 
centres, but has grown and developed in small towns and villages over a 
wide area. Despite this, Leicester is the greatest shoemaking centre in 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 67 


the world, the industry supporting 30,000 operatives (of whom 20,000 are 
men) and producing an annual output of approximately 25 million pairs. 
The statistics of employers, employees and output for Leicester and 
county are 130, 350,000 and 40 million pairs respectively. 

From the bitter fight between employers and employed in 1892 (the 
only serious dispute in Leicester in the history of the trade) emerged the 
Boot and Shoe Operatives’ Union and the Federation of Boot and Shoe 
Manufacturers. The Arbitration Board (founded in 1878), which 
gathered strength from the same struggle, affords a notable example of 
how trade disputes may be amicably settled without recourse to strike or 
lock-out. This conciliatory spirit has been responsible for the almost 
entire absence of industrial disputes during the last forty years. Few 
large manufacturing centres can claim so happy a record. 

The actual wages earned are good. For men of 22 years and over, as 
for women of 20 years and over, standard minima have been established, 
with the following graduated scales for boys and girls : 


Sano So, ots 
Boys: Ages. » askgreud Girts: Age 15 . q tol esd 
56. epptQe6 307 LOK ote ee 
did Foe win 2Bi20 35: SEGAL 2 pahide 
swonkbis sy 290E 0 sso ntSies 256 
fon Lhe a5 GS gx Ques shiBih}-2 
yhnc2Or» vere 42030 519 2 213620 
isk s and§Se00 
Lp 2rio . 60 0 


The National Conference Agreement provides that ‘ Piece-work or Quantity 
Statements shall be prepared on a basis to ensure the average worker 
earning not less than 25 per cent. over the minimum wage.’ When 
employed full time, men may earn as much as £5 Ios. or £6, and women 
from £2 10s. to £3 10s. per week. Piece-work is the usual basis of 
payment. 

Agents and merchants, who supply manufacturers with their raw 
materials, owe their commanding position in the industry to the fickleness 
of fashion, which effectively frustrates manufacturers’ attempts to place 
orders for any considerable period ahead or to produce largely for stock. 
This increasing inconstancy tends to cause the flow of orders to become 
more and more irregular and to result in alteration of periods of * rush’ 
and of short time, tendencies whose ultimate influence may be reflected 
in comparatively high production costs. As in Leicester women’s shoes 
form the bulk of the output, this tendency is marked. 

While women’s shoes make up the bulk of the output, there is also a 
very large production of boys’ and girls’ footwear and of sports goods. 
Leicester-made football boots have long been well known in the trade, 
while white duck and canvas shoes for tennis and other purposes are 
exported to all parts of the world. On the whole, it may be said that the 
great mass of production is for the ‘ medium ’ and ‘ better medium ’ trade, 
and aims at the making of good-wearing shoes at a reasonable price. 


68 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


Despite the difficulty referred to above, of basing the commercial side of 
the industry upon long contracts owing to ever-changing styles, production 
in Leicester still takes place on so large a scale that each season’s novelties, 
after separation into numerous categories, may be subjected to massed 
means of manufacture with the required economies of production. 

Even the most rapid survey of the shoe industry in Leicester would be 
incomplete without some reference to the conditions which prevail in 
the factories and to the men and women who work in them. For in vivid 
contrast to the dark and dirty ‘ up-entry ’ workshops of a generation or 
so ago are the bright and spacious factories of to-day, pure of air, warm, 
well-ventilated and clean. They are filled with ‘ operatives ’ who do not 
merely take a decent interest in their exterior, but display pride in their 
work and a sense of progressive efficiency. 


THE ENGINEERING INDUSTRY. 


Engineering ranks third among the industries of Leicester. In addition 
to supplying and maintaining machinery for the boot and shoe and hosiery 
trades, the engineer in Leicester is responsible for the provision and 
upkeep of plant in many subsidiary industries. The following list will 
serve to show how diverse are his activities : quarrying and road-making 
machinery ; machine tools; woodworking machinery; heating and 
ventilating engineering ; box-making machinery ; hoisting appliances ; 
iron-founding ; constructional engineering ; optical instruments and fine 
measuring machinery ; clocks ; typewriters ; small electrical machinery ; 
printing machinery. 

Leicester produces vast numbers of automatic hosiery machines. The 
evolution of the modern machine, from Lee’s stocking-frame to the 
automatic or ‘ Straight Bar Machine,’ and thence to the early circular 
knitting machine made by Thompson of Leicester and incorporating the 
latch needle of Matthew ‘Townsend, also a Leicester man, is a fascinating 
romance. ‘To every fresh demand of the hosiery makers of the country 
the machine builders of Leicester have responded; indeed, in many 
cases, the machinery inventions have dictated the changes which have 
occurred in the design and production of hosiery wear. 

Leicester can claim to be the birthplace of the elastic web industry, 
its craftsmen having journeyed to the Continent and America to teach 
the technique of elastic web weaving. ‘The recent introduction of wide 
corset web and the use of artificial silk in the manufacture of elastic web 
necessitated both the adaptation of the Lancashire piece-goods loom to 
the industry and the invention of many new types of machines to deal 
with preparatory processes. ‘These adaptations and inventions are, in 
many instances, the work of local engineers. "The whole of the machinery 
necessary for the manufacture of shock-absorbing rings for aircraft was 
designed and produced in the engineering department of a Leicester firm. 
It is interesting to record that Mr. L. Rowland, B.Sc., A.M.Inst.C.E., a 
distinguished Leicester engineer, has been a member of the British 
Standards Committee on Rubber since its inception. Some years ago, 
when a member of the engineering staff at the College of Technology, he 
designed the standard machine used for the testing of rubber. 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 69 


The story of another of Leicester’s industries, the manufacture of 
boots and shoes, illustrates inventive genius. Leicester boot and shoe 
manufacturers have always encouraged machinery engineers and have 
been quick to place the very latest shoe-machinery in their factories. As 
some 400 different machines are used to-day in the manufacture of boots 
and shoes, the place of the engineer in this industry is paramount. 
Further, nearly the whole of the shoe factories of the British Empire are 
equipped with Leicester-built machines, while many machines are 
exported to foreign parts. In the section of this survey which reviews 
the boot and shoe industry reference has been made to types of machines 
used and to their evolution. 

Specialisation in branches of engineering not immediately connected 
with Leicester’s staple industries occupies the energies of many firms 
in Leicester and district. A number of firms, for example, specialise 
in machine tools, and mass production in the engineering workshop owes 
much to Leicester. Drilling machines, capable of drilling fifty-six holes 
at one operation, have recently been made in Leicester, and the products 
of the Leicester machine tool manufacturers are to be found in every 
large motor car works in the country. 

Leicester lies at the apex of a wedge of igneous rock which provides 
granite for road-making, and granite quarries stretch from Mountsorrel 
through Whitwick, Bardon Hill and Cliffe Hill, southwards to Enderby, 
Stoney Stanton and Croft. These quarries, from which granite has been 
extracted since the earliest times, provide one-quarter of all the granite 
used on English roads, and Leicester has thus become the home of the 
quarry and roadstone machinery maker. Leicester-made breakers, 
granulators, crushing rollers, washers, driers, concrete and tarmacadam 
mixers are exported to every part of the world, and the manufacture of 
these machines provides employment for many hundreds of men. Leicester 
has earned the reputation of being one of the cleanest cities in the kingdom. 
Her road-making engineers, by their careful study of road surfaces, have 
contributed to this result. It is of interest to note that the modern 
concrete mixer and tarmacadam mixing machine originated in Leicester. 
There is also a considerable industry in the production of auxiliary quarry 
equipment, in sand and gravel washing, and in the manufacture of screening 
plant for concrete-making and of excavating plant for quarrying. 

The engineers of Leicester have specialised for nearly thirty years in 
the making of woodworking machinery, including machines for sawing, 
mortising, tenoning, planing and moulding operations. Of special 
interest is the exceedingly ingenious machine known as the universal 
pattern miller, by means of which practically every pattern-making 
operation can be performed. The patterns both for the Rolls Royce 
Schneider Trophy engines and for the huge fans installed at the Ford 
works at Dagenham were produced in Leicester. 

Heating and ventilating is a highly important branch of engineering in 
which Leicester specialises. The new Parliament building of Northern 
Ireland and the Shell-Mex edifice in London are two of the more recently 
erected structures of repute to be heated and air-conditioned by Leicester 
engineers. In addition, many of the most modern cinema theatres have 


70 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


called upon Leicester for the installation of their heating and ventilation 
equipment. The quarrying, boot and shoe and woodworking industries 
require, of course, dust-extracting plant, and the satisfaction of this need 
has consequently become an associated branch of the work of specialists 
in heating and ventilation. Dust-extracting plant made in Leicester has 
been installed in industrial houses all over the world. 

An industry in which Leicester stands as a pioneer, and one which has 
become peculiar to the town, is the manufacture of scientific and optical 
instruments and of photographic lenses. When it is stated that a 
Leicester-made lens has to fit a standard gauge to within a half-millionth 
part of an inch, the degree of precision in its manufacture will be realised. 
Some of the most accurate machines in the world must be those engaged 
in the production of optical instruments and measuring machines for 
which the city is famous. In view of the extraordinary degree of accuracy 
in screw-threads necessary in the manufacture of optical instruments, 
extensive research was an essential preliminary to manufacture. This 
research proved invaluable in the fixing of the British Standard Specifica- 
tion for screw-threads, and it can be truly said that many of our present 
standards emanated from Leicester. In addition, the majority of films 
exhibited in British cinemas are both produced and projected through 
lenses made in Leicester, while the greater proportion of projectors at 
Hollywood are equipped with these same Cooke lenses. 

The largest electric turret clock in the world, that in the tower of the 
Singer building at Glasgow, was constructed by a Leicester firm which 
has specialised in bells, clocks and other electrical devices for sixty years. 
‘ Pul-syn-etic ’ electric clocks are met with in every country in the world. 
Delhi is timed by ‘ Pul-syn-etic,’ with five master clocks and 400 auxiliaries ; 
while the new Parliament building at Belfast is equipped with 137 of these 
clocks. Electro-motor chiming gears for use in conjunction with the 
‘ Pul-syn-etic ’ system constitute a further activity of the same firm, while 
travellers by Cunard and other lines will set their watches and take their 
meals by clocks made in Leicester. Thus can Leicester engineers claim 
to keep the world punctual. 

There may be something coincidental in the fact that the multifarious 
industries of the city and county seem to agree upon the desirability of 
producing especially those classes of goods which the ultimate consumer 
insists upon receiving in cardboard boxes. Leicester, of course, makes 
her own boxes, and her many box-makers are, moreover, well served by 
local engineering firms engaged in the manufacture of highly ingenious 
machinery for that purpose. Box-making machinery from Leicester is 
despatched to all parts of the country, and a very satisfactory export trade 
is maintained. 

Leicester possesses the largest typewriter factory in the British Empire. 
The modern typewriter, consisting as it does of some 2,000 parts, is a 
triumph of engineering skill, and one learns with interest that the Leicester 
firm of manufacturers permits a margin of error of only one-thousandth 
part of an inch. 

The cordial relations which have long existed between the Engineering 
Department of the College of Technology and the engineers of Leicester 


THE INDUSTRIES OF LEICESTER 71 


are attested by the large amount of experimental and investigation work 
which the staff of the department undertakes for industry. The splendidly 
equipped testing laboratory and the staff are thus available for all testing 
and investigation work received from local firms. The major portion of 
the equipment has been generously provided by the Engineering and 
Allied Employers’ Leicester and District Association, the Leicestershire 
and District Munitions Committee’s Engineering Education Fund, and 
the Leicester Association of Engineers. 


THE PRINTING INDUSTRY. 


Leicester is accepted throughout the country as being a prominent 
centre for the production of printing of the higher class, especially colour 
printing. Within a small radius of the city there has grown up a body 
of manufacturers educated in the art of national distribution of their 
products, skilled in the application of branding to salesmanship, and 
fully appreciative of the value of modern printing. Their requirements 
are more fully met by the local members of the printing industry than 
elsewhere, and the standard of excellence established has attracted the 
attention of students and buyers of printing in all parts of the country. 

Despite the unhelpful conditions prevailing generally, considerable 
progress is being made in the development of printing and printing 
processes. Fundamentally, there is more adequate provision of facilities 
for the technical training of printing apprentices. Steadily working over 
a number of years, executive and district committees have evolved systems 
of apprentice selection which are resulting in the introduction of a more 
intelligent and more highly educated type of apprentice. They have 
been helped in their work by the very favourable rates of remuneration 
in all branches of the industry. 

In Leicester this problem is being solved by the Gateway Secondary 
School, which is unique in the kind of pre-apprenticeship training it 
offers to printers. In addition to a secondary education, specially selected 
boys are given practical instruction in the various branches of printing. 

In Leicester, as in the other more important centres, day as well as 
evening training is provided for apprentices. Here the training is 
carried out in the College of Arts and Crafts—a fact that accounts in a 
large measure for the high artistic standard of local printing. 


CONCLUSION. 


The extremely varied character of the many subsidiary industries of 
the town and county renders a connected account quite impossible within 
the limits of space at disposal. More than seventy classifiable trades, 
many of which thrive with no apparent links to connect them, provide 
employment for thousands of workpeople. 

It is interesting to observe that the two staple industries tend more 
and more to be independent of other areas, save in the provision of raw 
materials. The extremely large number of manufacturing processes 
involved and the derived demand for commodities, to be used again in 
further manufacture, have led to the growth of numerous subsidiary 
industries which, while remaining ancillary to the main industry, serve 


72 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


a wide industrial field beyond the confines of the county. In respect of 
the shoe industry, for example, there are several thread factories, while 
local manufacture supplies nails, tacks, knives, wires, hammers, etc., in 
far greater quantity than is required for use in Leicester. Thus too do 
we explain the prosperity of local tanneries and of firms specialising (on 
the chemical side of the business) in the manufacture of dyes, stains, 
inks, waxes, cements, paints, and so on. A further step in the same 
direction brings us to an understanding of Leicester’s unique position 
in boot and shoe distribution: hundreds of retail stores with branches 
scattered all over the country are owned and controlled by Leicester 
firms, who thus bridge the gap between manufacturer and customer. 

The position with respect to the hosiery industry is very similar. 
Wool-spinning, the manufacture of cotton threads and of rubber latex 
threads, dyeing and finishing, box-making, needle manufacture, and so on, 
tend to make Leicester more and more independent of her neighbours, 
more and more self-sufficing. 

Tyres for all types of vehicles, from perambulators to omnibuses and 
aeroplanes ; elastic web measured in miles, buttons in millions ; all sorts 
of celluloid articles; fountain pens, dolls, cameras; cigars; pies and 
cheeses, confectionery ; ready-made suits; show-cases, shop fronts, 
metal stands, electric signs ; umbrellas ; medical dressings and surgical 
appliances ; corsets, corselets, brassieres, girdles ; furniture, upholstery, 
cane goods ...and so might one prolong the list. Versatility, a 
refusal to hang on to just a couple of staples—this is, it would appear, 
the interpretation of the group-mind of Leicester. 


VIII. 


MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES OF 
LEICESTER 


BY 
H. A. PRITCHARD, 
TOWN CLERK. 


The Corporation— Water supply—The Derwent Valley Water Board—Gas 
undertaking—Electricity supply —Tramways and Omnibuses—Sewage dis- 
posal—Open spaces and recreation areas—Roadway development— Judicial 
Courts—Diocese—Civic status restored—Arms of the City. 


IT is now just a century since the Royal Commission was appointed to 
examine the then existing municipal corporations’ activities, and it was 
in consequence of the famous Report of this Commission, generally known 


MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES OF LEICESTER 73 


as ‘ the postscript to the Reform Bills,’ that municipal corporations were 
established as they exist to-day. 

The ancient governing authority of Leicester passed into history, and 
on Saturday, December 26, 1835, the new Council was elected. ‘ Peace 
and honour be unto the memory of their predecessors. January 1st, 
1836.’ Thus reads the last entry in the Common Hall Books, the records 
of the ancient Chartered Corporation which had governed the town for 
so many centuries. 

The newly-elected Corporation entered upon their duties with an 
enthusiasm which the extreme democrat may admire, the antiquarian 
regret. No doubt inspired with a desire to be thorough, the newly-elected 
governing body proceeded forthwith to dispose of all the Corporation 
plate and regalia. The gold mace was sold as a useless bauble. ‘Their 
successors, during the decades which followed, have done their best to 
recover what their predecessors so hastily disposed of, and, by the public- 
spirited action of the citizens, much of it has since been restored. The 
mace, purchased during the Commonwealth in 1669 to replace one lost 
at the siege of the town in 1645, was repurchased from the then owners 
by subscription in 1866. A mayor’s chain was acquired, and the serjeant’s 
mace presented to the Corporation by a gentleman who purchased it 
at the time of the auction. 

A citizen of a century ago would gaze with astonishment upon the city 
to-day. A country town of about 44,000 inhabitants in 1836, to-day 
Leicester embraces a population of approximately a quarter of a million, 
but to attempt an epitome of the doings, and to record the progress of 
one of our great industrial centres within the space at disposal, is not 
an easy task. 

For many years there is little to relate of general interest. ‘The gradual 
progress of the industries, the introduction of and improvement in 
machinery, particularly in the boot and shoe trades, the enterprise of their 
business men, and possibly their geographical position, and the nature of 
their industries all tended to convert the old country town into the large 
industrial centre we know as Leicester to-day. 

Prompt advantage was taken of the powers conferred by the Sanitary 
Acts, and Leicester as a public health authority was early in the field, but 
it was not until the seventies, when the general trend was to absorb 
existing undertakings for the supply of gas and water, that we find Leicester 
enlarging her scope of control so as to include what are known as ‘ trading 
undertakings,’ and it may be of interest to describe what the city’s activities 
embrace at the present time. 


WATER SUPPLY. 


By the enterprise of a private company, Leicester received a supply of 
water for some years before the date when public authority controlled it, 
but as time progressed and the population increased, this supply became 
inadequate, and further efforts on behalf of the private undertaking were 
found to involve financial assistance by the city to enable their enterprise 
to be carried on. Eventually the city authorities decided to acquire the 
water undertaking, and contemporaneously to acquire the undertaking 


74 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


carried on by a private company for the supply of gas for lighting purposes. 
The water undertaking in Leicester is to-day supplied from ‘Thornton 
Reservoir, completed in 1854 ; Cropston Reservoir, completed in 1870 ; 
and Swithland Reservoir, completed in 1894. From these reservoirs the 
undertaking can obtain 6 million gallons per day, but it was realised many 
years ago that this supply was not sufficient to meet the ever-growing 
demand. 

Eventually a bill was promoted in Parliament in 1899, upon the advice 
of the late Mr. John Breedon Everard, authorising the impounding of 
water from the Valley of the Derwent in Derbyshire. The cities of 
Nottingham and Sheffield and the borough of Derby at the same time 
considered they were entitled to a supply from this area, and the result 
was an arrangement whereby a joint board was established by an Act of 
Parliament passed in that year. The Derwent Valley Water Board to-day 
consists of representatives of the corporations of Leicester, Nottingham, 
Derby and Sheffield, and from this source Leicester (being the pre- 
dominant partner) receives an average daily supply of approximately 
seven million gallons. ‘The whole of the works authorised to be con- 
structed have not yet been carried out, but when they are completed, the 
joint board will be enabled to supply an amount of water which will 
furnish to Leicester an average daily amount of 10} million gallons. 

The water obtained from the Derwent is excellent and, following upon 
filtration at Bamford (the southernmost point of the Derwent watersheds), 
the Leicester portion is delivered at Hallgates, some five miles out of the 
city. At Hallgates the water is subjected to mechanical pressure filtration, 
during which process it is decoloured and rendered alkaline. The first 
process renders the water suitable for drinking and manufacturing pur- 
poses, and the latter process is carried out as a prevention against plumbo- 
solvency and action upon iron pipes. 


Gas AND ELECTRICITY. 


It has already been observed that the gasundertaking of the Corporation 
was acquired contemporaneously with the water undertaking. Originally 
operated by a private company, it has since 1878 formed part of the 
Corporation’s activities. ‘The undertaking has developed extensively in 
the course of years, and. to-day supplies the city and a considerable area 
beyond with gas for power, industrial, and domestic purposes. There 
are two large works, one at Aylestone, where the plant established is of 
the Glover West vertical retort system, of a producing capacity of 
105 million cubic feet per day, together with carburetted water gas plant, 
capable of producing 6} million cubic feet per day. ‘This includes the 
latest automatic plant of Messrs. Humphreys & Glasgow, capable of 
producing 2+ million cubic feet per day. The second works, at Belgrave, 
is also equipped with Glover West vertical retort coal gas plant, of a 
producing capacity of 4 million cubic feet per day. The undertaking 
has been financially a great success, and the Corporation have always 
endeavoured to keep their plant in good condition and up to date. 

Originally, the electricity supply by the city, under the powers of a 
Provisional Order obtained in 1891, formed part of the undertaking 


MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES OF LEICESTER 75 


carried on by the city’s gas department. A small plant was established at 
Aylestone, and although current was taken for lighting purposes some- 
what extensively in the centre of the city, it did not progress to any marked 
degree for some years. It was found to be not entirely suitable for power 
purposes. 

In 1908 the Corporation, in order to meet the demand, promoted a 
Private Act, and obtained power to sell current from the plant operated 
by them for the purpose of supplying power to their tramways under- 
taking, and under this provision they were enabled to supply consumers 
by agreement for power purposes. ‘Thereafter, we find the demand for 
current increasing to a very marked extent. Further plant was estab- 
lished from time to time, and eventually the undertaking was severed 
from the control of the gas department, and power obtained to build a 
new generating station. 

In 1919 the Corporation acquired a large area of land known as the 
Freemen’s Meadow, and, in pursuance of powers possessed by them, have 
erected on that site a very fine modern station. At Freemen’s Meadow 
they have installed six units of 69,750 kilowatt capacity, generating 
upwards of 108 million units per annum, of which they dispose of 
approximately 86 millions. The rates for supply are low, and electricity, 
largely the prime mover in the city factories, is becoming more and more 
extensively used. 


TRAMWAYS AND OMNIBUSES. 


In pursuance of their general policy to absorb all public utility under- 
takings, the Corporation acquired in 1902 the then existing tramways, 
and obtained powers by an Act of that year to operate them municipally. 
They at once proceeded to extend their route mileage, and to-day operate 
178 tramway cars upon 23 miles of route. The undertaking has been 
maintained out of revenue, and is to-day probably one of the best services 
of its kind in the country. 

In order to link up, and to meet the growing demands for transport, 
the Corporation further obtained powers in 1930 to operate a fleet of 
omnibuses. These, sixty-two in number, now serve most districts within 
the city. 


SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 


Leicester is so situated that, except in the river valley, it is surrounded 
by rising country, and as a result the city has been put to considerable 
expense in dealing with its sewage. In common with other large cities, 
the proper drainage of the district and the sewage disposal have become an 
ever-increasing problem. This difficulty was somewhat accentuated in 
Leicester in consequence of the extensive pumping required. 

The first works were constructed at the Abbey Meadow in about 1853. 
The sewage was then pumped into tanks, lime was mixed by means of 
agitators, and the effluent run off into the river. In 1877 ten acres of 
additional land were purchased, and additional tanks were constructed, 
but following a report by their then surveyor, the Beaumont Leys Farm 
was acquired, consisting in the aggregate of about 2,000 acres. The 


76 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


scheme was completed in 1891, and consisted of a pumping station and 
14 miles of double 33-in. rising mains, sedimentation tanks, etc. In 
1894 an 8-ft. diameter storm outfall culvert was constructed at a cost of 
£80,000, leading from the Abbey Pumping Station to Wanlip, about four 
miles away, with a discharging capacity of about 80 million gallons per day. 

An increase in the population necessitated further works, and in about 
1902 the sewage from the Belgrave district was, by increased pumping 
plant, dealt with at Beaumont Leys Farm. Further sedimentation tanks 
were constructed, and 12 acres of contact beds laid down. The sewage 
was treated in this manner until 1912, and, despite the fact that the main 
beam engines at the Abbey Pumping Station had been working night and 
day with efficiency for nearly forty years, the town had outgrown their 
pumping capacity, with the result that slight storms overflowed the weir 
discharging into Wanlip. 

A scheme was prepared by the late City Surveyor, Mr. E. George 
Mawbey, in consultation with the late Mr. G. Midgley Taylor. It has 
already been observed that Leicester lies in a basin, and all sewage has 
consequently to be pumped 167 ft. to Beaumont Leys Farm for treatment. 
Belgrave Pumping Station raises the flow from that district, amounting 
to 660,000 gallons d.d.w.f. through a 15-in. pumping main to the old 
high-level works. ‘The remaining d.d.w-f. flows to the Abbey Pumping 
Station, partly through three 5-ft. diameter cast-iron pipes passing under 
the river into the large bellmouth, and partly through the new 5 ft. g in. 
diameter western main outfall, the whole discharging into the new 
screening chamber. The flow enters the screening chamber by a new 
16-ft. by 5-ft. reinforced concrete culvert, and is joined by the western 
main before referred to. ‘The sewage is then screened by four electrically 
driven screens and raking apparatus. It then passes through four 
detritus tanks, 108 ft. long by 20 ft. wide, where heavy mineral matter is 
intercepted. The detritus is removed by an electrically driven travelling 
grab crane which runs along the outer walls of the tanks. The detritus 
is tipped on land which has been purchased by the Corporation for this 
purpose. The sewage flows continuously through these tanks over weirs 
at both inlet and outlet ends. At the latter three times the dry weather 
flow, amounting to 23 million gallons per day, flows direct to the pumps. 
The sewage in excess of the 23 million gallons flows over a weir 148 ft. 
long, through a reinforced concrete spillway to five underground storm 
water tanks, having a total capacity of 24 million gallons. There are 
numerous other ancillary works, and the sewage system to-day in Leicester 
is proving very effective. 


OPEN SPACES AND RECREATION AREAS. 


Leicester has long been known for its numerous open spaces, and 
approximetely one-tenth of its area is appropriated for this purpose. 

The Victoria Park embraces an area of 69 acres. It is situated on the 
main road to London, and was for a number of years used as a race-course. 
The site forms part of the town’s ancient estate, and is now appropriated 
for general use as an open space. It is in this park that Leicester’s 
famous War Memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the form of 


MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES OF LEICESTER 77 


an Arch of Remembrance, is situated, and the gates at the entrances to 
London Road and Lancaster Road, the generous gift of Sir Jonathan 
North, were also designed by the same architect. 

The Abbey Park, situated to the north-west of the city, embraces 
57 acres. This park was constructed upon land reclaimed after Leicester’s 
flood prevention scheme. Upon the opposite side of the stream stands 
Leicester Abbey, the gift to the city of Lord Dysart. Cardinal Wolsey 
was buried here, though the actual position is not known. 

The Western Park, situated as its name implies on the western side of 
the city, is the largest open space possessed by the city. One hundred 
acres are appropriated as a park and for recreation, cricket, football, and 
tennis, and 84sacres for the purpose of an 18-hole golf course. 

About a quarter of a mile away, another intersting addition to the 
Corporation’s parks and open spaces has recently been acquired. ‘The 
city purchased a few years ago a large estate of approximately 1,000 acres 
to enable them to proceed with their very extensive housing schemes. 
The park has been appropriated by the Corporation as an open space. 

There are numerous other recreation grounds and open spaces, and it 
would not do to leave this feature of our city without a reference to 
Bradgate Park, which consists of some 1,000 acres, once the home of 
Lady Jane Grey. It was purchased by the late Mr. Charles Bennion and 
presented to the city and county. The freehold is vested in the city and 
county jointly, and is managed by a trust, upon which the city and county 
are represented, together with three donor’s trustees. ‘The park is main- 
tained in its original condition, and forms one of the most attractive features 
of the county. 


Roapway DEVELOPMENT. 


Leicester, in common with all other of the old English towns, has had 
to consider and, at very serious expense, endeavour to adapt itself to 
modern requirements. Many improvements of purely local importance 
have been effected from time to time by our ancestors, but the exigencies 
of modern traffic have forced us to consider town development upon 
a greater and more far-reaching scale. 

Apart from an improvement in the High Street about thirty years ago, 
Leicester had made no serious attempt to widen her main thoroughfares 
until 1922, when a proposal was submitted for widening the main street 
from the Midland Station to the Clock Tower. This proposal, while 
relieving one of the most congested thoroughfares in the city, would 
have had to have been supplemented by some means by which the traffic 
could have passed on. It did not, however, gain local support and was 
abandoned. 

Later, a scheme was submitted by the Corporation of a somewhat 
Napoleonic character. This scheme, prepared with great care, would, 
in effect, have immensely improved the internal communications in 
Leicester in the course of time, in addition to providing better means for 
dealing with through traffic. The scheme would have involved a gross 
expenditure, according to the estimates submitted, of approximately 
£3,830,000, and would have dealt with traffic east and west as well as 


78 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


north and south. It was not intended to do otherwise than take parlia- 
mentary powers to acquire the requisite properties compulsorily, and the 
scheme would have been put in hand in sections as and when time 
proved practicable. 

The proposal, however, met with severe opposition. ‘There appeared 
to be a general impression that the huge expenditure involved would be 
incurred immediately, and was beyond the financial capabilities of the 
city. Without expressing any view as to whether this objection could 
have been sustained, it undoubtedly would have made Leicester, in days 
to come, a vastly different town from what it is at the present time. How- 
ever, the proposal was not approved, and in consequence, in the year 
1924, the Corporation submitted a modified scheme which involved the 
construction of a new street passing from the London road immediately 
below the present Midland Station and going straight across the Humber- 
stone Gate to the Old Cross, Belgrave, and by the widening of Belgrave 
to the Great Northern Station, achieving a wide and direct thoroughfare 
north and south. Certain connecting approaches were also embraced. 

The proposal was submitted to Parliament and duly sanctioned. The 
estimated expenditure for the execution of the necessary street works and 
the acquisition of the lands was £1,111,000. 

Parliament considered the work so essential for traffic purposes, that 
the Corporation were placed under an obligation not only to acquire the 
lands, but to construct the works within ten years from the passing of the 
Act. The actual street construction has been carried out, and through 
communication has been effected, the new road being 85 ft. wide. 

This internal improvement, the largest ever undertaken by the city of 
Leicester, and one of the largest undertaken by any of the great towns, is 
undoubtedly proving an immense traffic convenience. 


JupiciaL Courts. 


The city of Leicester has long had its separate Commission of Assize, 
and although prior to the Reformed Corporations Act, Leicester had long 
possessed a Recorder, it was granted a separate Court of Quarter Sessions 
in 1836 and a separate Commission of the Peace in the same year. 


Tue DIOCESE OF LEICESTER. 


Leicester was a diocese in the year 680, consequent upon the division 
of the diocese of Mercia, but ceased to be a diocese in 870, following the 
Danish Invasion. In 1072 it became part of the then newly established 
diocese of Lincoln, and in that diocese it remained for more than 750 years, 
until it was transferred to the diocese of Peterborough in 1839. It was 
separated from the diocese of Peterborough in 1927, and now forms the 
centre of the diocese of Leicester. ’ 


Civic STATUS AND City ARMs. 


Leicester, as we have seen, was a city so far back as 200 years before 
the Norman Conquest, but lost its civic status in the manner already 
related. 


MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES OF LEICESTER 79 


In the year 1919 their present Majesties King George and Queen Mary 
officially visited the city, and in commemoration of that occasion by 
Royal Warrant restored to the city their civic title, and in 1928 by Royal 
Warrant the title of Lord Mayor was conferred upon its Chief Magistrate. 

Leicester is proud of its ancient history, and it may be fitting to con- 
clude with a short description of the Arms of the City. 

The Arms of the City of Leicester are held by prescription and not by 
grant, and date back earlier than the College of Heralds itself. ‘The 
circumstances attending the user of portions of the Arms are lost in the 
mysteries of the past. The cinquefoil, forming the centre-piece, probably 
takes its origin from the following circumstances. 

After the Conquest, the Norman earls controlled the small centres of 
population, which then constituted the boroughs, and the townsmen were 
the earl’s men who followed him, each using the device effected by their 
respective lords. The cinquefoil was the device adopted by Robert 
de Beaumont, first Earl of Leicester, and used by Fitz Parnel, one of his 
successors. It was commonly used and adopted at that time by the 
burgesses as their device. Its origin is uncertain. 

The Wyvern, which appears as the crest upon the helmet, is derived 
from Thomas, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester. It appears upon his seal 
in 1301. Itis described in Boutell’s English Heraldry Book as ‘ a fabulous 
creature, being a species of dragon with two legs and represented with its 
tail nowed, that is to say, coiled in a knot as a snake.’ It would appear 
probable, that the Wyvern was used by the men of Leicester from the 
earliest times. It is recorded in the early days of the Wars of the Roses, 
that the followers of each lord were led to the field under distinctive 
banners, which were emblazoned with well-known crests or heraldic 
emblems. The townsmen played a conspicuous part in the battle of 
Towton Moor on the Yorkists’ side, and it is recorded that they met 
under their various banners: the Black Ram of Coventry, the Ship of 
Bristol, the Dragon of Gloucester and the Griffin of Leicester. ‘The 
Griffin is the Wyvern referred to. 

The Arms of the City were confirmed in 1681, in the reign of Charles II, 
and upon the charter already referred to, granted by his present Majesty, 
restoring the title of the civic dignity to the city, the College of Heralds 
granted supporters—‘ on either side a lion reguardant Gules gorged with 
a Ducal Coronet suspended therefrom by a Chain or a Cinquefoil ermine 
pierced Gules.’ 


80 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


IX. 
EDUCATION IN LEICESTER 


BY 
F, PP) ARMITAGE,’ C:B‘E.,"M.A:, 
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION. 


Early History—Thomas Wyggeston—Collegiate School—Technical Classes— 
College of Art and Technology—School of Cookery—Wyggeston Boys’ and 
Girls’ Schools and Alderman Newton’s—Mary Royce’s Night Classes— 
Canon Vaughan and the Vaughan Working Men’s College—Adult School 
Union—Workers’ Educational Association—Leicester Education Authority 
and the 1918 Act—Schools Grouping Scheme—Provision of Playing Field 
Facilities—‘ Experimental’ School—Special Schools—Medical Inspection— 
After-school Employment—Additional Secondary Schools—Growth of- the 
Colleges of Art and Technology—Founding of the University College— 
Vaughan College becomes the Extra-mural Department of the University 
College. 


IN the sixteenth century Thomas Wyggeston founded a free school in 
High Cross Street, and for 150 years there was no other place of public 
education in the town. Then, in 1708, a school was built in East Bond 
Street by members of the Great Meeting. In 1761 Alderman Newton 
founded his Green Coat School; St. Mary’s, the first parochial school, 
was built in 1783; St. Martin’s in 1790, St. Margaret’s in 1807. The 
County National School, built by subscriptidn in 1814 on a piece of land 
provided by the Crown, was intended to be a central model school for 
town and county; here young masters received. their first lesson in 
the art of teaching. The population of Leicester was then 24,000. 

Between 1814 and 1870 more schools were built by the Established and 
Free Churches and by the Roman Catholics. Private enterprise provided 
the Collegiate School—at first a private secondary school for boys, among 
whom was Wallace the naturalist—and the Proprietory School, the 
buildings of which were taken over by the Corporation for the purposes 
of a museum in 1848. 

By 1870 Leicester’s population had grown to 96,000. In the various 
schools in the town providing an elementary school education there 
were 10,053 pupils; the accommodation required under the 1870 
Education Act was 17,903. During the next five years eight schools were 
built accommodating over 7,000 children. 

At this time the leaving age was 13, but total exemption could be 
attained at the age of 10. The percentage of attendance was sometimes 
as low as 70. By 1892 it was 81—but 818 cases were heard by the 
magistrates. ‘To-day the percentage of attendance is almost go, and 
scarcely a case ever comes before the magistrates. In 1892 there were 
1,588 half-timers on the school rolls—two years later there were none.” 


EDUCATION IN LEICESTER 81 


Meanwhile special instruction had been provided for the mentally 
deficient, the blind and the deaf, and a school at Desford opened for 
children committed by the magistrates. 

For many years a Committee working under the influence of the 
Leicester Chamber of Commerce was responsible for technical classes 
in hosiery and boot and shoe manufacture; these were held at the 
Wyggeston Boys’ School (now the Alderman Newton’s) and in the old 
Mercury Office, 21 St. Martin’s. Moreover, since 1870, a private 
society had maintained a School of Art. 

In the early nineties a Technical and Art Schools Committee of the 
Corporation was formed; the first wing of the College of Art and 
Technology was opened in 1897. 

In 1877 the Leicester and Leicestershire School of Cookery was 
established in No. 21 St. Martin’s. From 1890 to 1907, before it was 
taken over by the Education Committee, it was known as the North 
Midland School of Cookery. 

When the Education Act of 1902 came into force there were three 
secondary schools in the borough—the Wyggeston Boys’ and Girls’ 
Schools and the Alderman Newton’s. The former came under the 
Education Authority in 1909, the latter in 1910. In 1908 what had been 
a pupil teachers’ centre was converted into a dual secondary school, the 
Newarke School. 

During the second half of the nineteenth century private effort had 
done much to put the tools of knowledge within reach of the illiterate. 
Mary Royce chose to teach boys when the Sunday school was opened 
in Sanvey Gate in 1868. Soon she was teaching the three R’s, chemistry 
and French to week-night classes, then taking her pupils for holiday 
rambles. Ultimately she built the Royce Institute in South Church 
Gate. 

The Rev. Daniel James Vaughan was Vicar of St. Martin’s. Following 
the example of his friend F. D. Maurice, who founded the London 
Working Men’s College, he opened, in 1862, the Working Men’s 
Institute in Union Street. This institute became known as the Working 
Men’s College, and when Canon Vaughan died in 1905 there were over 
2,000 students on the rolls. In 1908 the Vaughan Working Men’s 
College and Institute in Great Central Street was opened by Sir Oliver 
Lodge. 

In 1822 Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, started an adult school ‘ for 
the poor and utterly uneducated.’ Other schools gradually came into 
being in town and county, and in 1889 the Leicestershire Adult School 
Union was formed. 

In 1908 a branch of the Workers’ Educational Association was formed 
in Leicester. 

The passage of the 1918 Education Act almost coincided with the end 
of the war and the consequent return of teachers from military service. 
All was ready for an advance. The first thing done was to institute a 
-general examination for all children between 11 and 12 who were 
competent to get a fair percentage of marks. This threw on the 
Authority the responsibility of pointing the way to secondary schools to 

F 


82 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


qualified children. The examination revealed the extraordinary differ- 
ence in attainment of children of the same age in the elementary schools. 

In accordance with the new Act, the Leicester Education Authority— 
like other Authorities,—prepared a scheme to cover the developments 
proposed for the next ten years. The core of their scheme lay in 
grouping the schools in the several areas of the town. This grouping 
allowed the bringing into certain schools of sufficient children over 11 
to allow at least duplication of classes (boys and girls separately) for 
those of approximately the same year of age, the schools from which 
they were transferred becoming Junior Schools with a similar duplication 
of classes. Moreover, it was found possible to reserve one school in an 
area for children who had qualified for a secondary education but whose 
parents for one reason or another could not permit them to go to the 
secondary school. In these intermediate schools children were to 
follow a curriculum similar to the conventional secondary school curri- 
culum, that they might easily be transferred to secondary schools should 
their parents on second or third thoughts wish this. 

The Geddes axe came down upon many of the proposals made under 
the 1918 Act, but that portion of the Leicester scheme which affected 
‘ grouping ’ was put into operation, area by area, till in 1929 all the 
Council schools and most of the non-provided schools were reorganised. 

Meanwhile the Hadow Report in 1926 gave national recognition of the 
principle on which Leicester had worked since 1921. 

About the same time that the Authority began to reorganise their 
schools they began to provide playing-field facilities for the senior 
children. To-day every child over 11 has one organised game per week 
on the 87 acres owned or rented by the Authority, or on the parks and 
recreation grounds. 

As one result of the duplication and triplication of classes and the 
consequent modification of curricula to suit different categories of 
intellect and interest it has been found possible to reduce the number 
of those transferred to special schools. On the other hand, it became 
very apparent that there was need for a school of a special type to deal 
with cases of special disability as to reading, writing, behaviour, etc. The 
Committee, therefore, opened an ‘ experimental ’ school at Haddenham 
Road, where such problem cases could spend 3, 6, 9 months, 1 year, 
2 years, as the case might be, until the disabilities were removed and the 
children could return to the normal schools. 

Infant departments were unaffected by grouping, but, during the 
last five years, nursery classes to the number of 23 have been provided 
where children between 3 and 5 can be educated as in nursery schools 
in good social habits. 

The school for the deaf and semi-blind is accommodated in a mansion 
situated in beautiful grounds in Stoneygate. A new school for the 
mentally deficient has recently been built. The much larger premises 
hitherto occupied by them—also a mansion in extensive grounds,—have 
been appropriated by the experimental school. 

The Leicester Education Authority have made very complete provision 
for the medical inspection and treatment of children in the elementary 


EDUCATION IN LEICESTER 83 


and secondary schools. Every child in the former is inspected three 
times during school life. There are three dental clinics, an eye clinic, 
an operative clinic with twelve beds for tonsils, adenoids and mastoids 
and an operative clinic for crippling. For many years X-ray treatment 
has been provided. It is worth noting perhaps that the records of school 
medical officers show that since 1902 there has been an average increase 
in height of the Leicester boys of 1 in., girls, 14 in., and an average 
increase in weight of boys by 6 lb., girls 8 lb. 

During the last term of an elementary school child’s life he is visited 
at the schools by the Committee’s employment officers and advised as 
to the vacancies that have been notified by employers, and his own 
qualification for filling them. At the age of 16, when he becomes eligible 
for unemployment benefit, he must attend an evening institute as a 
condition of getting this benefit. 

It has been stated already that one result of the general examination 
was to show the extraordinary diversity of academic attainment among 
elementary school children—it also showed how many there were qualified 
to profit by the conventional type of secondary education in comparison 
with the number of places in secondary schools available. ‘The Education 
Committee, in 1919, immediately took steps to remedy this—the provision 
of intermediate schools has been referred to above,—by providing a 
Secondary Boys’ School and two Secondary Girls’ Schools, one (the 
Collegiate) by purchase from a private owner. ‘There were then 3,500 
places available. But the Committee were not satisfied that the con- 
ventional secondary curriculum was adapted to provide a right form of 
secondary education for all of ability to profit by staying at school till 
at least 16. In consequence they opened a new type of school—the 
Gateway School for Boys,—in which those of marked ability but with 
no special interest in acadeinical subjects could be educated till 16 years 
of age at least. They built, moreover, a ‘ Gateway School’ for Girls 
in the Newarke, but for reasons of economy. transferred the Newarke 
Girls’ School there and used the old Newarke School buildings in part 
for administrative offices. 

But it was not only in respect of full-time education that the post-war 
enthusiasm displayed itself; each year the number of those attending 
the evening schools, particularly students over 18, increased. The 
evening classes at the Technical and Art School—now the Colleges of 
Art and Technology,—grew till they more than filled the premises of a 
large Secondary School as well as that of the College which had already 
been increased by an additional wing in 1898. It was necessary to add 
another wing, and even then the premises were not big enough—the 
completion of the building is only held over until the present straightened 
circumstances are passed. 

The 1918 Act made it incumbent on the Authority to make such 
provision that no boy or girl should be deprived of any form of education 
by which he or she could profit. ‘There was no University or University 
College in the immediate neighbourhood : Leicester set out immediately 
to develop one of her own. The University College was registered as 
a company in 1921; a site had been presented and a considerable 

F2 


84 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


endowment fund provided. ‘To-day there are 94 full-time and 116 part- 
time students on the College rolls. 

It should be noted that during the year 1931-32, from the city alone, 
11g secondary school pupils obtained exemption from the London 
Matriculation and 21 passed the Intermediate Examination for the 
B.A. Degree. 

Since its opening the Vaughan College has been the centre of education 
conducted in the spirit of its founder. In 1930 the Board of Governors 
handed the buildings and endowment over to the University College 
as a home for the extra-mural classes conducted under the latter’s zgis. 
The development of extra-mural work has been in consequence very rapid. 
Half the building was let to the Education Committee for the holding of 
adult classes in connection with the Evening Institutes. This adult 
Vaughan Institute has proved extraordinarily popular. 

In connection with the great developments referred to above, one 
name must be mentioned, that of Alderman Sir Jonathan North, D.L., 
J.P., who for 26 years has been chairman of the Education Committee, 
and (from its earliest days) chairman of the University College Council. 

It is believed that in very deed the way to the top by any recognised 
route is open to every Leicester child. By free places, maintenance 
allowances, scholarships, and loans the travelling along this route is 
made possible to the poorest. 


X. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER 
AND LEICESTERSHIRE 


BY 
F. B. LOTT, M.A. 


Individual Scientists in Early Days—William Lilly, 1602-1681—William 
Ludlam, 1717-1788—Robert Bakewell, 1725-1795—-Richard Pulteney, 
1732-1814—Richard Phillips, 1767-1840—Henry Walter Bates, 1825-1892 
—tThe Scientific Sections of the Leicester Literary and Scientific Society— 
Geology, Botany, Zoology, Meteorology, Chemistry and Physics, Ento- 
mology, Economics, and Astronomy—tThe Leicester Museum, 1849—-1914— 
Brief Sketch of more Recent Changes and of Present Conditions. 


Tuis chapter gives a short account of men born in, or connected with’ 
Leicestershire who did notable work in science. 

The first of these is that of one widely known and important in his 
lifetime—William Litty (1602-1681). He was born at Diseworth and 
educated at the Grammar School, Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Early in his life 


° 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 85 


he went to London, and there he was a very successful practitioner in 
astrology—not without some mixture of medicine and politics. He 
wrote his autobiography. He occupies more than eight columns in the 
Dictionary of National Biography. 


The next name is that of the Rev. William LupLam (1717-1788), 
mathematician. He was the son of Richard Ludlam, M.B. Cambridge, 
who practised in Leicester. He went from Leicester Grammar School 
to Cambridge and became a Fellow of St. John’s College. In 1749 he 
was Vicar of Norton-by-Galby, Leicestershire. In 1768 he had the living 
of Cockfield in Suffolk. He then gave up his fellowship and came to 
live with his brother Thomas, who was Confrater of the Wyggeston 
Hospital in Leicester. In 1772 he married, but he lived on in Leicester 
till his death in 1788. During these last twenty years of his life he wrote 
most of his works. His Rudiments of Mathematics (1785) ‘ became a 
standard Cambridge text-book, it passed through several editions and was 
still in vogue in 1815.’ Six other mathematical publications are named 
in the Dictionary of National Biography. An essay of his on Newton’s 
Second Law of Motion, for which he proposed to substitute something 
of his own, was rejected by the Royal Society. The Society accepted 
papers by him on mechanics and on astronomy. 


Robert BAKEWELL (1725-1795), the son of a farmer, was born at Dishley. 
He succeeded his father in the farm and became one of the most successful 
and perhaps the most renowned of scientific agriculturists. His fame 
rested on his great success in improving the breed of sheep. He developed 
a breed known as ‘ Leicesters,’ with long lustrous wool. This was of 
importance not only to the manufacturers of hosiery in Leicestershire ; 
the ‘ Leicesters ’ were prized in other counties, and were for many years 
known in France as ‘ Dishleys.’ Bakewell also improved the breed of 
cattle. He was successful in irrigating grassland and in all details of 
farm management. 

“Many of the present humane notions regarding animals were antici- 
pated by Bakewell, his stock being treated with marked kindness, his 
sheep being kept “‘ clean as race-horses, and sometimes put into body 
clothes,”’ and even his bulls were remarkable for obedience and docility ” 
(Quotation in the D.N.B. from Throsby’s Views in Leicestershire). 


Joseph PaceT (1700-1789) and ‘Thomas PaGeT (1732-1814), of Ibstock, 
were friends of Bakewell of Dishley. ‘They worked on the same lines, 
being pioneers of land drainage and of cattle and sheep breeding. Later 
Pagets were eminent in Leicester as surgeons and as bankers. One of 
the family, John Paget (1808-1892 see D.N.B.), having married a Hun- 
garian lady, introduced scientific agriculture in Hungary. He wrote 
a book on Hungary and Transylvania. 


Richard PuLTENEY (1730-1801), physician and botanist, was born at 
Loughborough. His father, Samuel Pulteney, was a tailor who had 
some landed property, which passed to his son Richard. Richard Pulteney, 
after being apprenticed to an apothecary, went to Leicester and was for 
some years in practice there, with little success. He had, however, begun 


86 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


to write on botany in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and had sent some papers 
to the Royal Society. His mind had been guided to botany by an uncle, 
his mother’s brother. 

In 1764 he went to Edinburgh to get the degree of M.D. He got it 
without spending time in residence. In the same year he went to London 
and was introduced to William Pulteney, who in 1742 had been made Earl 
of Bath. The Earl recognised him as a kinsman and made him his own 
physician. Very soon the Earl died. Dr. Pulteney then went to Bland- 
ford in Dorset. He quickly made a fortune by a very widely spread 
practice. He devoted his leisure to botany and conchology. His most 
important works were A General View of the Writings of Linneus (1781), 
and Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in 
England (1790). Among his minor writings was ‘ A Catalogue of rare 
Plants found in the Neighbourhood of Leicester, Loughborough, and 
Charley Forest.’ This was contributed to Nichols’s great book on 
Leicestershire. 


Richard PuILuips (1767-1840) came to Leicester and opened a com- 
mercial academy in 1788. He is not eminent as a man of science, but he 
did, in conjunction with William Gardiner, Leicester’s most famous 
amateur musician, found a society for scientific investigation. It was 
called ‘ The Adelphi.’ A number of young men joined it. It was, so 
far as the compiler of these notes can ascertain, the first attempt in 
Leicester to initiate the co-operative scientific study of a society, as dis- 
tinguished from the studies of individual persons. The society had a 
short life. It was suspected of sympathy with the French Revolution 
and soon suppressed by the Town Authority. In 1790 Richard 
Phillips opened a shop for books and medicines. He was imprisoned for 
eighteen months for selling The Rights of Man by Tom Paine. In 1796 
he went to London. He became a remarkably successful publisher of 
educational and scientific books. In 1807 he was Sheriff of London. 
In 1808 he was knighted by George III. Sir Richard Phillips lived till 
1840.1 

In 1845-46 a friendship began in Leicester between two young men 
who both afterwards became famous. Henry Walter Bares (1825-1892), 
a native of Leicester, and Alfred Russel WALLACE (1823-1913), who was 
at that time an assistant master in the Collegiate School.2 H. W. Bates, 
after some education at Creaton’s boarding school at Billesdon, had been 
apprenticed to a hosier, his duties comprising opening and sweeping up 
the warehouse between seven and eight in the morning. Subsequently 
he worked as aclerk. ‘ His scanty leisure he devoted to self-improvement 
at the liberally managed Mechanics’ Institute. His holidays when 
possible were spent in scouring Charnwood Forest with his brothers ; 
for he was already an enthusiastic entomologist and collector. His first 
contribution to entomological literature was a short paper on ‘ Coleopterous 

1 An Old Leicester Bookseller, by F. S. Herne. 

* The first headmaster of the Collegiate School was William Thompson, then 
Fellow and afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. J. F. Hollings 


was a master and F. T. Mott a scholar at the Proprietary School. (They will be 
mentioned later.) (Leicester Memoirs, by C. J. Billson.) 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 87 


Insects frequenting Damp Places,’ dated Queen Street, 3 Jan., 1843, 
and printed in the first number of the Zoologist. 

A. R. Wallace had taken up botany and started an herbarium in 1840. 
They joined in the study of entomology and they both read Malthus on 
Population and Darwin’s Journal of a Naturalist. In 1848 they went 
together to the Amazons. Bates spent eleven years there, and in 1863 
published The Naturalist on the Amazons, having been urged to publish 
the book by Charles Darwin. In 1864 he became assistant-secretary to 
the Royal Geographical Society : ‘a post which, to the inestimable gain 
of the Society, and to the advantage of a succession of explorers, to whom 
he was alike Nestor and Mentor, he retained till his death’ (Encyclopedia 
Britannica, Article ‘ Bates, Henry Walter ’). 


LEICESTER LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 


So far these notes have been about men whose scientific studies were 
personal and shared, if shared at all, only by kinsfolk or private friends.* 
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century and in the first half of the 
nineteenth many local societies for co-operation in studies were formed. 
This movement was checked and suspended during part of that period 
by the shock of the French Revolution, by the long war which followed 
it, and by the bitter party spirit which prevailed after the war. 

Among the earliest of these societies was the Manchester Literary and 
Philosophical Society. It was founded in 1781. It lived through the 
troublous years. In 1835 George Shaw, M.D., who had been a member 
of the Manchester Society before he came thence to Leicester, and his 
friend, Mr. Alfred Paget, were the prime movers in the foundation of 
the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society.4 In 1837-38 this 
Society began to collect a museum. The collection rapidly increased. 
In 1849 it was presented to the town, formally accepted by the Mayor 
at a large gathering, and housed in the building (which a few years 
before had been built for the Proprietary School) purchased by the 
Town Council for what thus became the Town Museum. 

The Society had formed committees of its members to manage 
departments of its Museum before presenting it to the town. For a 
long time the connection between the Museum Committee of the Town 
Council and the Council of the Society continued to be very close indeed, 
the same persons being in many cases members of both. There can be 
little if any doubt that the ‘ Sectional Committees’ of the Society for 
the study of particular branches of Science, afterwards called simply 
the ‘ Sections,’ originated from the committees appointed for ‘ depart- 
ments’ of the Museum before it became the Town Museum. In the 


3 Some more of the early botanists, especially the Rev. W. H. Coleman and 
the Rev. A. Bloxam, whose works were used by the editors of The Flora of 
Leicestershire will be mentioned later. 

4 Prof. Sedgwick, at a dinner given to him in Leicester in October 1837, said : 
‘The additions made to the great stream of knowledge by societies formed in 
provincial towns were rich and copious. Manchester, from a period when it 
was not more extensive than Leicester, had taken the lead. Cambridge and 
Newcastle, York and Bristol, were following that bright example, he trusted that 
Leicester would soon distinguish itself in the same noble course.’ 


88 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


course of years the relations between the Society and the Museum have 
greatly changed, but up to the present time much of the most valuable 
work of the Society, that of its Sections, has been done in close connection 
with the Museum, not a little of it by officers of the Museum. The 
following pages will tell of the subjects studied by the Sections and 
indicate the shares in the work of some of the chief workers. 

Geology was taken up by the Society before the Sections were definitely 
constituted in 1849. In March 1837 the Rev. Andrew Irvine, B.D., 
F.G.S., in his Presidential Address, suggested that a Natural History 
Museum should be formed, and said that he would willingly present to 
it his own collection of specimens, mineralogical and geological. The 
first honorary members of the Society were the Rev. William Buckland, 
D.D., F.G.S., and the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, B.D., F.G.5., pioneers of 
geology in Oxford and Cambridge. The latter spoke about the geology 
of Charnwood Forest at a dinner given to him at the Three Crowns on 
October 6, 1837. 

The two members of the Society, who in these early days read most 
papers on geology, were Mr. John Laurance,® who left Leicester and 
became an honorary member in 1842, and Mr. James Plant, F.G.S. 
The latter also spoke on geology at the Society’s excursions. On March 28, 
1870, he lectured on ‘ Geological Formations of the County as illustrated 
by the Column of Rocks in the Museum Grounds.’ He had constructed 
this column in order to preserve in a permanent and educational form a 
large number of specimens liberally supplied by the owners of quarries 
throughout the county for exhibition at the meeting of the Royal Agri- 
cultural and Royal Horticultural Societies at Leicester in 1868. The 
column was removed when the Museum building was enlarged in 1877. 
It was an imitation on a small scale of a huge column at the Great 
Exhibition of 1851, and of others at the Crystal Palace.6 The late 
Dr. F. W. Bennett remembered seeing it. 

The section of the Society for Geology decreased in numbers during 
the eighties, and though there were a few who were diligent in the study 
hardly any papers were read, and the meetings dwindled away. The 
Council in their Report in 1889 ‘ regret that Section C (Geology) has 
been obliged to follow the example of Section B (Astronomy, Physics 
and Chemistry), and ask the Council to terminate its existence. They 
have however made arrangements for the amalgamation of Section C 
with Section E (Zoology), so that the opportunity for organised study of 


5 John Laurance was the author of a book entitled Geology in 1835: A 
popular sketch of the Progress, Leading Features, and latest Discoveries of this 
vising Science. The first sentence of the preface is: ‘ The attempt to compress 
so vast a theme as Geology within the narrow limits of a duodecimo volume of 
such spare dimensions will be regarded by those, who in ponderous tomes have 
communicated to the world the results of years of labour in this department of 
science, as absurd and futile.’ I 

The book was published by Simpkin and Marshall in London, 1835, but printed 
by Cockshaw in Leicester. Geology was then a rising science. The Geological 
Society of London was founded in 1807. The Oxford Dictionary gives 1795 
for the first quotation of the word in the modern sense. For many geological 
words later dates, e.g. “ Cambrian,’ 1836. ¢ 

6 Leicester Chronicle, April 2, 1870. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 89 


Geology may not be lost.’ The records in the Transactions of Section E 
show that the study was maintained.” 

On January 16, 1899, while Geology was still amalgamated with Zoology, 
Dr. Frederick William Bennett, M.D., gave an account of ‘ The Rocks 
of Charnwood Forest.’ It was the first time in which his name appears 
in the Transactions. The opening is thus recorded: ‘ During 1898 
I studied the detailed descriptions of the Charnwood Forest Rocks given 
by Mr. Hill and Professor Bonney and obtained a large number of 
specimens of the rocks. I have arranged about 300 of these on a rough 
map of the district so that comparison can easily be made between the 
rocks of different parts.’ 

In 1899 those who were especially interested in geology petitioned 
the Council ‘ in view of the increased interest in the subject to reconstitute 
Section C.’ This was done. The reconstituted Section had for its 
chairman, Hermann Alfred Roechling, C.E., F.G.S., whose professional 
address was ‘ The Office of the Borough Surveyor,’ and for its vice- 
chairman, Mr. Louis B. M. Hodges, the Headmaster of St. Martin’s 
School. Mr. C. Fox Strangways, of H.M. Geological Survey, was a most 
valuable member. The first paper on May 4, 1899, was by Mr. Hodges— 
‘ Suggestions for working a Geological Section.’ In the first session there 
were seventy-nine members. ‘There were twelve evening meetings, in- 
cluding a conversazione, and six summer excursions, four of which were 
conducted by Mr. C. Fox Strangways. The activity of the Section was 
suspended during the war. It was very active before the war, and it has 
been so since the war, under the leadership of the late Dr. F. W. Bennett, 
who devoted the bulk of his spare time to the study of, and possibly 
possessed an unrivalled knowledge of, the rocks of the Charnwood Forest. 


List OF GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 


Mr. H. H. Gregory, M.A., the Honorary Secretary of the Geological 
Section, has supplied the following bibliography of the works of members 
of the Section. He has pointed out that it does not contain many valu- 
able addresses, especially those by leaders of excursions, of which there 
are scanty records in the Minutes of the Section. ' 


Bibliography of the Works of Members of the Geological Section 
of the Literary and Philosophical Society. 


1. PLaNnt, J.: ‘ Are the (Slate) Rocks of Charnwood Forest Laurentian ?’ 
Geol. Mag., 1865. 

2. PLANT, J.: ‘ Geology of Leicestershire,’ Leicester Lit. & Phil. Soc., 
1874-75. 


7 At this period the Transactions were printed at great length. ‘ A Contribu- 
tion to the History of the Geology of the Borough of Leicester,’ by Montagu 
Browne, F.G.S., F.Z.S., Curator of the Museum and Art Gallery, read before 
Section E, begins with p. 123, and ends, with half a page of thanks to the many 
who had helped him and to the Society for the publication, on p. 240. There 
are illustrations and diagrams. 


go 


SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


. Harrison, W. J.: © The Syenites of South Leicestershire,’ Mid. Nat., 


1880, also 1884. 


. BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘The Charnwood Forest Rocks,’ Trans. Leic. 


Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1903. 


. BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ The Buck Hill Grit,’ zbid. 
. STRACEY, Dr. B., and BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ The Felsitic Agglomerate 


of the Charnwood Forest,’ Part I, ibid. 


. StRAcEY, Dr. B.: ‘ The North-west of Charnwood,’ Trans. Lit. & 


Phil. Soc., 1906. 


. Keay, W., and Gimson, M.: ‘ The relation of the Keuper Marl to 


the Charnian Rocks at Bardon Hill,’ ibid., 1907. 


. STRACEY, Dr. B., and BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ The Felsitic Agglomerate 


of the Charnwood Forest,’ Part II, ibid., 1907. 


. Horwoop, A. R.: Vol. xii, Part ii, The Fossil Flora of the Leicestershire 


and South Derbyshire Coalfield, and its bearing on the age of the Coal 
Measures, 81-181. 


. BoswortH, T. O., B.A., B.Sc.: The Keuper Marls around Charnwood 


Forest. (Published by Leicester Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1911.) 


. BENNETT, Dr., STRAcEyY, Dr., BoswortH, T. O.: ‘ Excursion to 


Charnwood Forest,’ Proc. Geol. Assoc., xxii, 24, 1911. 


. BENNETT, Dr., and Stracey, Dr.: ‘ Excursion to Charnwood Forest,’ 


ibid., Xxii, 205, IQI1. 


. BENNETT, Dr., and Lowe, E. E., B.Sc.: ‘ Excursion to Mountsorrel,’ 


ibid., Xxili, 25'7, 1912. 


. BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ Note on Morley Hill,’ Trans. Leic. Lit. G& Phil. 


Soc., 67, 1922. 


. BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ The So-called Junctions at Bardon Hill,’ Trans. 


Leic. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1923. 


. BENNETT, Dr. F. W.: ‘ Age of the Charnwood Rocks,’ Trans. Leic. 


Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1925. 


. Lowe, E. E., Ph.D., B.Sc.: Igneous Rocks of the Mountsorrel District. 


(Published by Leic. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1926, price 6s. 6d.). 


. Jones, F., M.Sc., F.G.S.: ‘ The Petrology and Structure of the Charnian 


Rocks of Bardon Hill,’ Geol. Mag., xviii, 1926. 


. Jones, F., M.Sc., F.G.S.: ‘ Preliminary Inquiry into direction of 


Joints, Faults, etc., at Groby,’ Trans. Leic. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 1926. 


. Jonss, F., M.Sc., F.G.S.: ‘A Structural Study of Charnian Rocks and 


Associated Igneous Intrusions,’ ibid., xxviii, 24, 1927. 


. Grecory, H. H.: ‘ Swanimote Rock,’ vol. xxix, Geology of Charnwood 


Forest, Trans. Leic. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 15-20, 1927-28. 


. BENNETT, F. W., Lowe, E. E., Grecory, H. H., Jones, F.: vol. xxxix, 


Geology of Charnwood Forest, Proc. Geol. Assoc., 241-298, 1928. 


. BENNETT, F. W.: ‘ Remarkable Features in the Ulverscroft Valley,’ 


vol. xxx, Geology of Charnwood Forest, Trans. Leic. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 
40-45, 1928-29. 


. Lowe, E. E., Stracey, B., Grecory, H. H.: Jbid., vol. xxxii, Geology 


of Charnwood Forest, 26-34. 


. Stacey, B.: ‘On Some Swiss Glaciers,’ ibid., vol. xxxii, p. 45. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 91 


What is to be said of the botanists of Leicestershire may be introduced 
by referring to the title-page and the preface of The Flora of Leicestershire. 
This is the title-page :— 


THE FLORA OF LEICESTERSHIRE 
INCLUDING THE 


CRYPTOGRAMS 
WITH MAPS OF THE COUNTY 
IsSUED BY THE LEICESTER LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 


COMPILED BY THE FOLLOWING SUB-COMMITTEE OF THE 
Socrety’s BioLocicaL SECTION : ® 


F. T. Mort, F.R.G.S. Tuomas Carter, LL.B. 
E. F. Cooper, F.L.S. J. E. M. Fincu, M.D. 
C. W. Cooper, M.B. 


On the basis of a manuscript prepared in 
1852 by the late Rev. W. W. CoLeman, 
which has been enlarged, completed, brought 
up to date, mostly rewritten and entirely 
rearranged in accordance with the third 
edition of HooKer’s ‘ STUDENT’S FLORA.’ 


WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 
1886 


In the preface it is stated that the only published Flora of Leicestershire 
was that of Miss Mary Kirby,® published in 1850; and that in 1875 
Edwin Brown, Esq., of Burton-on-Trent, placed the manuscript of his 
friend the Rev. W. H. Coleman ‘at our disposal.’ The manuscript 
was dated 1852 and was almost ready for publication. Mr. Brown had 
stipulated that if it were published Mr. Coleman’s name should be on the 
title-page. 

The preface goes on to say that there had been great changes in Botany 
since 1852, and that more modern Flora had been published, that of 
Plymouth by T. R. Archer Briggs, and that of Hampshire by F. Townsend. 
Coleman had omitted nativity and habitat. 

Three periods of botany in Leicester are then distinguished. The 
first was before 1820. Its authorities were Richard Pulteney, George 
Crabbe,!® and Dr. Arnold, a physician in Leicester. ‘The second period 
of botany in Leicestershire was 1820-1850 A.D. Its authorities were the 


8 At that time Section D was for ‘ Biology (Zoology and Botany).’ After- 
wards it was for Botany only. 

® Miss Mary Kirby (Mrs. Gregg) and her sister Elizabeth Kirby wrote many 
story-books for children. She also wrote a very interesting book, Leaflets of 
my Life. She had many botanical correspondents, including the Rev. W. H. 
Coleman and the Rev. A. Bloxam. 

10 See above, p. 85, for Richard Pulteney. George Crabbe, the poet, had 
made a catalogue of plants in the vicinity of Belvoir. 


92 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


Rev. W. H. Coleman and Miss Kirby (already mentioned), the Rev. 
Churchill Babington, D.D., Fellow of St. John’s College and Professor 
of Archeology, Cambridge, and the Rev. Andrew Bloxam of T'wycross 
and Harborough Magna, near Rugby. He had been the naturalist on 
board the frigate Blonde, in the Pacific Ocean in 1824-25. He was 
Coleman’s chief colleague and he prepared the list of plants for T. R. 
Potters’ book on Charnwood Forest.'? Others mentioned are the Rev. 
Charles Cardale Babington, Professor of Botany, Cambridge; James 
Harley, a well-known local naturalist; James Francis Hollings; the late 
Rev. R. W. McCall, F. T. Mott; and John Plant. 

The editors of the Flora stated that they owed the chapter on ‘ Algze’ to 
Mr. Frederick Bates, a brother of ‘ Bates of the Amazon,’ and that they 
had adopted, with some alterations, the chapter on ‘ Geography and 
Hydrography ’ from the manuscript of the late Rev. W. H. Coleman. 

Mr. Frederick Bates is also named in a comparatively long list of 
those who helped the editors in their third period from 1850 to 1886. 
In writing of this period the editors were to a great extent writing of 
the work of themselves and of their contemporaries. One of them, 
Frederick Thompson Mott, is remarkable in many ways in the history of 
the Society. He was its President twice: in the sessions 1874~75 and 
1890-91. He was chairman of the Section then named ‘ Natural 
History,’ and later ‘ Biology,’ from 1879-80 to 1895-96, except for two 
sessions, 1891-92, in which the Rev. 'T. A. Preston was chairman, and 
1892-93, in which Mr. Thomas Carter was chairman. Mr. Mott’s 
subjects were generally botanical or zoological ; but sometimes literature, 
art, or philosophy. In March 1878, in a lecture to the Society entitled 
‘A Modern Theory of the Universe,’ he ‘ proceeded to lay before his 
audience the outline of a theory which, he contended, preserved all the 
old truth, while at the same time it cast off all the worn-out garments, 
and added a great deal that was necessary to bring it up to date.’ ... It 
might seem to those who had been accustomed to regard matter as a real 
and substantial thing, and energy as something altogether different, 
that this theory which made active energy the only substance in the 
universe was a mere dreamer’s speculation, but they must remember 
that it was little more than a modern development of the conclusions of 
such well-known thinkers as Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, and Bishop 
Berkeley. In conclusion Mr. Mott said that in his judgment ‘ the 
evolution of the organic world and the puzzling problems of social life 
were much more rationally explained by this philosophy than by the 
laws of natural selection and political economy as now understood.’ 


11 The Rev. William Higgins Coleman was a master in Christ’s Hospital School 
at Hertford ; he was part author of a book on the Flora of Hertfordshire. In 
1847 he came to the Grammar School of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He contributed 
notes upon mosses and flowering plants to the Flora of the district surrounding 
Tutbury and Burton-on-Trent, by Edwin Brown in Sir Oswald Mozley’s Natural 
History of Tutbury, 1863. The writer of the article on him in the Dictionary of 
National Biography does not seem to have known of his manuscript Flora of 
Leicestershire. 

12 The Rev. Andrew Bloxam is also in the D.N.B.. It is there said of him ; 
‘ He may be regarded as perhaps the last of the all-round British naturalists.’ 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 93 


Further, that, as an elevating and moralising influence upon mankind, 
some such view of the universe as that suggested by this philosophy 
would be the next great influence brought to bear upon society in the 
next era of mental struggle and reform (Transactions of Leicester Literary 
and Philosophical Society, vol. iv. (1895-98), pp. 510-513.7% 

Mr. Mott was certainly a man of a very active and self-confident mind 
which delighted in the details of botanical observation, and in those bold 
flights or dives by which science soars or plunges into philosophy. 

Among those who were thanked by the editors of the Flora was 
James Francis Hollings. He was a master in the Proprietary School and 
had taught F. T. Mott. ‘He was a deeply learned man and studied 
science as well as literature.’ ‘ His weekly lectures on science, many 
of which were open to the public, were, as Mr. Mott says, “ an important 
feature of the curriculum of the school.” They were always “ illustrated 
by experiments,- specimens or diagrams. His varied and accurate 
knowledge was surprising. Chemistry, geology, botany, or physics— 
he seemed to be familiar with almost every branch and was always able 
to make his subjects interesting. . . . Many of his pupils have kept up 
their interest in science and owe to him their initiation into this delightful 
study.” ’ 14 

But though he taught science not only to schoolboys but to adults in 
lectures and papers at the meetings of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society and at the Mechanics’ Institute, his chief studies were in literature 
and history, of which he had a very wide knowledge, together with the 
ability of dealing with a particular subject, as in his History of Leicester 
during the Great Civil War. He was thrice President of the Literary and 
Philosophical Society and Mayor of Leicester in 1859. He died in 
1862. 

The Rev. Thomas Arthur Preston, Rector of Thurcaston (1885-1905), 
was an excellent member of the Botanical Section of the Society. In 
December 1gor he read a paper in which he sketched a plan for a second 
edition of the Flora and enumerated seventeen points for immediate 
consideration. It is hoped (April 1933) that this edition will soon be 
published. Other papers were Reports on the Herbarium. In 1898 the 
number of specimens had been calculated to be 5,826. In 1902 he con- 
sidered that the Herbarium had just been doubled. ‘Two old Herbaria 
had been acquired, one of them that of Miss Kirby. 

At the first meeting in February 1905, after the death of Mr. Preston, 
the Section placed on record an emphatic minute to express appreciation 
of his work in all branches of botany and of his kindness in helping 
members individually.1° 

An interesting botanical theory was introduced in a paper, entitled 
‘On Lichens,’ read by Miss Gertrude Clarke in February 1893. She said 


13 In 1883 he argued that instead of two great divisions of organic life there 
should be a primary fourfold division into Thallophytes, Protozoa, Cormophytes 
and Metazoa (Transactions, 1882-83, p. 53). 

14 Leicester Memoirs, by Charles James Billson. 

15 ‘A Reminiscence and an Appreciation,’ by Mr. William Bell, was read 
before Section D, May 20, 1908 (Tvansactions, xii, 211-220). 


94 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


that it had been first propounded twenty-five years before by Prof. 
Schwendener, that it had at first been met with contempt and ridicule, 
and was still disputed. The theory was: ‘ Each Lichen is not a simple 
plant at all; but each is really an establishment of two plants living in 
intimate union and for their mutual benefit. Every Lichen 1s a Fungus 
and an Alga.’ 

In October 1894 she (Mrs. C. D. Nuttall, B.Sc.) read a paper entitled 
‘ Symbiosis.’ She emphasised the difference between Symbiosis and 
Parasitism, and told that for many years Symbiosis was only known to 
exist in Lichens. But Prof. Marshall Ward, a great botanist, ‘ of 
whom England may be proud in these days of the ascendancy of German 
scientists,’ had described two other examples of Symbiosis: at the roots 
of many trees, beeches, willows, poplars, etc., and zm the roots of 
leguminous plants.1® 

In 1897 Prof. Marshall Ward lectured to the Society on ‘ Symbiosis.’ 

‘ Mendel’s Discoveries in Heredity ’ was the title of a paper read on 
January 8, 1904, by Mr. C. C. Hurst, F.L.S., of Burbage. He added 
to the paper a list of sixty books and articles bearing on this subject ; 
fifty-one of these had been published in the years 1900-1904. He read 
two more papers on ‘ Mendelism,’ and in February 1908, in a lecture on 
‘ Mendel’s Law of Heredity and its application to Man,’1? he told that 
after, by his own experiments and observations, witnessing Mendelian 
phenomena in peas, poppies, sweet-peas, antirrhinums, primulas, tomatoes, 
orchids, and other plants, as well as in poultry, rabbits and horses, he had, 
with the willing co-operation of the inhabitants of Burbage, compiled 
tables showing the working of Mendel’s law in the inheritance or non- 
inheritance of eye-colour, hair-colour, and musical sense. 

An important paper on ‘ The Cryptogamic Flora of Leicestershire,’ by 
Mr. A. R. Horwood, was read in March 1907. It is somewhat amplified 
in the Transactions, vol. xiii, pp. 15-87. 

Steady work was carried on by the Botanical Section till the outbreak 
of the war. During the war the work was hampered, but not suspended. 
The report of the Section to the Council in vol. xx of the Transactions, 
a volume covering the years 1915 to 1919, stated that meetings had been 
held fairly regularly during the winter months throughout the war, but 
the attendance had not been good. Owing to train difficulties the summer 
excursions had been very few, but there had been some footpath walks 
and some visits to gardens. ‘The report of the Flora Committee recorded 
with regret the deaths of its members, Dr. Finch, Mr. Pattison and 
Mr. Cooper, and also of Lieutenant G. E. Mercer, who was killed in 
action. His paper on the Flora of Belgrave and Birstall had been pub- 
lished in the last volume of the Transactions. Mr. A. E. Wade, whose 
paper on the Flora of Aylestone and Narborough was in the present 
volume, had returned from active service with an injured arm; despite 
this he was, as he had been before, giving valuable aid in getting the 
Herbarium into good order. The work of the Committee had been 

16 There were other papers by Mrs. Nuttall, and she gave a lecture on Trees 


to the Society in October 1910 (Tvansactions, xv, 26-45). 
17 Tyansactions, xii, 35-48. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 95 


much hampered by the absence on active service of Mr. A. R. Horwood, 
the general editor of the Flora. 

. Two papers by Mr. G. J. V. Bemrose, an officer in the Museum, were 
printed in the Transactions of the Society: one on ‘'The Adventitive Flora 
of Leicester and District ’ and one on ‘ The Flora of Rutland.’ '* 

Mr. Bemrose was appointed Curator of the Museums and the Art 
Gallery of Stoke-on-Trent in 1930. 

Two notable additions were made to the Herbarium about this time. 
Mr. Horwood’s collection of Leicestershire plants was purchased by 
Mr. Turner and presented to the County Herbarium. A very unex- 
pected donation was received from the National Museum of Wales— 
specimens collected by the Rev. W. H. Coleman and Miss Kidger of 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch. 

Geology and Botany are two scientific subjects which have been most 
continuously and successfully treated by sections of the Literary and 
Philosophical Society. Other scientific sections have done good work, 
but only one has rivalled them in years of working. The work of no 
other has had such results as the sequence of treatises on Geology or 
the Flora of Leicestershire. 

There has nearly always since 1849 been a section for the study of 
animal life, but its name has often changed : so has its relation to kindred 
studies. Zoology and Botany have been separate sections ; they have 
been simply joined as ‘ Zoology and Botany’; joined as ‘ Natural 
History’; joined as ‘ Biology (Zoology and Botany)’; and then very 
soon a new Section, ‘ Zoology,’ was started which was separate from 
‘ Biology (Zoology and Botany).’? The chief object of the new Section 
was to study the Fauna of Leicestershire. From 1894 to 1915 there 
was a separate section for Entomology. 

To give a just appreciation of the work done by the students of the 
various branches of Biology is not within the capacity of the compiler 
of these pages, and it seems to him that the generally abbreviated records 
of their papers on very various subjects hardly give sufficient material 
for such an appreciation. But something should be said about the 
duplication of the Section for Biology, and the working of the new 
Section. 

At the first meeting of the new Section its Secretary, Mr. Montagu 
Browne, F.Z.S., urged that it should have some definite scheme of work 
and suggested that the MSS. notes of the late James Harley, * our 
Leicestershire Gilbert White,’ should be arranged and edited for publica- 
tion. In the report of the Section 1883-84 it is stated that the published 
lists of Potter, Babington and Macaulay, and unpublished lists of Harley, 
Davenport, Ellis, Widdowson, Ingram, Walker and others, have been 
carefully gone through, and are now being edited by the Secretary. In 
the report 1884-85 it is stated that the publication of ‘ The Vertebrate 
Animals of Leicestershire,’ by the Secretary, Montagu Browne, F.Z.S., had 
begun in the Zoologist. In 1889 Mr. Montagu Browne published The 
Vertebrate Animals of Leicestershire and Rutland. In the preface he said 


18 Tyansactions, xxviii, 45-72, and xxix, 21-25. 


96 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


that he was in possession of the whole of the MSS. of the late James 
Harley.?® 

While Mr. Harley’s notes were in the hands of Section E,?° Mr. F. T. 
Mott put before Section D, the other biological Section which studied 
Botany and Zoology, the MS. of Mr. John Plant’s Catalogue of Leicester- 
shire Mollusca, with the author’s comments and with hisown. Mr. Plant’s 
catalogue gave eighty-two species. It wascompletedin1850. It referred 
to two lists, one by the poet, the Rev. George Crabbe, of shells found near 
Belvoir,” and one of shells found near Congerstone by the Rev. A. Bloxam.” 
Six persons are named as finding certain Mollusca, among them ‘ my 
friend, Mr. James Harley.’ Three manuals of Conchology #? and 
Pennant’s British Zoology are referred to. 

The references to, or rather the indications of, old-time students of 
science, in the preceding paragraphs seem to be pertinent to the purpose 
of these pages, which is to give an account in an historical sketch of the 
study of science in Leicestershire. ‘These men gave their minds to their 
studies without having the encouraging suggestion or the assistance 
afforded by an already existing Society. Because there were such men 
it was possible for a Society such as the Leicester Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society to be founded and to be strengthened and increased by 
the formation of its ‘ Sections’ for the study of particular branches of 
science. 

The original scientific Sections for Geology, Botany and Zoology were 
founded in 1849. In 1850-51 two were added: one for Meteorology, 
and one for Chemistry and General Physics. These were less permanent. 
The Section for Meteorology became Meteorology and General Physics 
in 1871, but it ended in 1882. Chemistry and General Physics went under 
that name or as ‘ Chemistry ’ till 1870. Then it vanished, but reappeared 
in 1883 in a new Section for Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry. 

The Meteorological Section began its work in 1850, the year in which 
the Royal Meteorological Society was founded in London by Mr. Glaisher. 
He selected the instruments, which at first were only barometer, thermo- 
meter and rain gauge. They were kept at the Museum. In 1873-74 
the Rev. A. Mackennal was chairman of this Section. On his advice 
the Museum Committee of the Town Council purchased a complete set 


19 James Harley was a notable man, much thought of by those who knew him. 
He lectured to the Society four times in 1844-1858. His lecture on his friend 
and correspondent, the great ornithologist, the late Prof. Macgillivray, was 
published in the Society’s volume of selected lectures, 1855. The death of the 
well-known naturalist, Mr. James Harley, was spoken of in the Annual Meeting, 
1861. “J. Harley’ was an active member of the Society (see lists of officers) 
between 1844 and 1853. Ina list of dates of arrival of summer birds in Leicester- 
shire Mr. Montagu Browne states that the dates between 1843-55 are from 
Harley’s MSS. (Tvansactions, i (1889), Parti, 27). 

20 No date is given. The text is in vol. i, Part ii, of the Tvansactions, 1887. 

*1 Nichols, vol. i, p. cxci. 

22 This is in the Analyst. 

*8 In the Shorter Oxford Dictionary the first known use of the word ‘ Conchology ’ 
is 1776, of ‘ Mollusk’ and ‘ Mollusca’ 1783. 

*4 A Section for Chemistry began again in 1924-25, and a Section for Physics 
in 1926-27. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 97 


of meteorological instruments. The Museum was made a Government 
station. Observations were made and reported and tabulated, the work 
being at first shared between members of the Section and the Curator 
of the Museum. As time passed the Meteorological Station became a 
department of the Museum. In the Museum Report for 1890 the follow- 
ing paragraph occurs: ‘The death of the Meteorological Assistant 
(Mr. J. C. Smith), in 1888, led the Committee to consider if the expendi- 
ture of some £70 per annum in keeping up a station of the second class 
—so near to Loughborough, a station of the first class—was warranted 
by results. The Committee fully considered the matter in all its bearings, 
and unanimously decided to discontinue the observations.’ 


There is nothing in the printed records of the Society about the meetings 
of, or the subjects discussed by, the Section for Chemistry and General 
Physics between 1850 and 1870. 

In 1883 the Section was reconstituted for Astronomy, Physics and 
Chemistry. The Rev. Edward Atkins, B.Sc., was the chairman, and 
Mr. W. S. Franks, F.R.A.S., was the Secretary, till the Section again 
ceased in 1886-87. Summaries of several of the papers read are in the 
Transactions. They are on abstruse questions in the three branches of 
science for which the Section had been re-established. ‘There were not 
many members, and on some dates for which meetings had been announced 
no meetings were held. The report of the chairman to the Council of 
the Society in 1887 was a statement of the reasons why the Section resigned 
its existence. He said that the absence of any kind of apparatus was an 
almost insuperable barrier to the investigation of physical problems. 
There would not be enough students to justify the purchase of sufficient 
apparatus to meet even the elementary requirements of a Section whose 
title embraced the whole range of physical science from Astronomy down 
to Chemistry. Experimental researches in even one branch like 
Chemistry would need a properly equipped laboratory. The members of 
a Section which embraced as its basis so many sciences could not enter 
into each other’s work. The report ended with a recommendation that 
the Section should be omitted from the list of Sections for the coming 
year, for which no officers had been elected.”* 

A Section for Entomology was appointed by the Society in January 
1894. It ‘ made a vigorous beginning.’ It had a vigorous separate life 
for about twenty years. In 1919-20 it was amalgamated with the Section 
for Biology. When it was founded there were some keen students of 
Entomology who wished for a section of their own. Some practical 
work was done by a committee of this Section, which studied and gave 
advice about injurious insects in farms, gardens and orchards. 

After a paper by Mr. Frank Bouskell on October 28, 1896, on ‘ ‘The 
Disappearance of Certain Species of Insects, with notes on their Slaughter 
and Protection,’ it was decided to urge upon the Entomological Society 


25 The Rev. Edward Atkins was a master in the Wyggeston Boys’ School. 
The latter meetings of the Section were held in the new laboratory of the school. 
It seems that it was the first laboratory in Leicester. In 1883 the Society had 
contributed £100 towards its erection. 


98 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


of London and on local societies the danger of the extermination of 
species of rare insects by ‘ over-collecting,’ not so much by collectors 
who were ‘ simply foolish ’ as by those who collected for dealers. The 
London Society appointed a Protection Committee. The Societies of 
Northampton, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Marlborough concurred. 
Lists of insects of which the captures should be limited or inhibited were 
circulated. 

An interesting paper on ‘ The Scientific Aspect of Entomology ’ 2° was 
read before this Section in January 1898 by J. W. Tutt, F.E.S., in which 
he enlarged on the great change in the science which had come about 
since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). ‘ The “‘ how ” 
and ‘‘ why ” of the things rather than the things themselves became the 
main consideration of the student, and the sleepy, dry-as-dust science, 
represented by the herbaria and the cabinets, had breathed into it the 
breath of movement, of life, of intellectual possibilities hitherto never 
conceived by its votaries.’ 

Mr. Frederick Bates,?? a brother of ‘ Bates of the Amazon,’ was a member 
of this Section. He made a collection of Coleoptera, which after his 
death was purchased by the British Museum. In 1907 Mr. Herbert 
Ellis, who had been chosen to be President for that year because he was 
considered by all to be the best person to represent the Society during 
the visit of the British Association, gave a really remarkable presidential 
address on social questions, and suggested that there should be a Section 
for Economics. The Section was formed. It has not flagged since its 
formation. 

In the year 1915 a Section for Astronomy was formed. Its first 
meeting was on June 23, 1915. Before Armistice Day there had been 
twenty-one meetings, including one open-air study of the sky. This 
Section was the result of two courses of University Extension lectures. 
Its last meeting was on April 8, 1925. During its short life it owed 
much to Mr. J. W. Durrad, F.R.A.S.,?8 and to Dr. J. E. M. Finch. 

It is hoped that what has been written so far will give the reader an 
intelligible sketch of the study of science in Leicestershire, and of its 
development in Leicester into the co-operative studies of the ‘ Sections ’ 
of the Literary and Philosophical Society. The sketch is, of course, not 
a complete view : it represents the chief stream of such studies. 

In this as in other matters the war was a great break. Post-war is 
other than pre-war. It has been indicated above that the Sections for 
Botany, Astronomy, and Economics did not cease their activities during 
the war. Another piece of work which had begun before the war was 
not suspended. In 1913 Mr. C. J. Bond, F.R.C.S., Mr. E. E. Lowe, 
the Curator of the Museum, and the Rev. J. Wallace Watts, Chairman, 
Vice-Chairman, and Hon. Secretary of the Section for Biology, with 
the approval and the help of the Museum-and Art Gallery Committee, 
gave lectures with practical work on Zoology. These classes were con- 


26 The paper is in vol. iv, pp. 527-539, of the Transactions. 

27 A paper on the Coleoptera of Bradgate Park by him, with a list of 507 species, 
is in the same volume, pp. 170-176. . 

#8 Mr. Durrad designed the table of the sun-dial in Museum Square. 


MEN OF SCIENCE IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE 99 


tinued, though not without difficulty and not throughout by the same 
lecturers, all through the war time.” 

The Report of the Council of the Society for the session 1922-23 
contained this sentence : ‘ It may now be said that the depression and 
difficulties due to the war have passed.’ 

With regard to the work of the Sections for Geology, Botany, Biology, 
Economics, and of two new *° Sections, one for Chemistry and one for 
Physics, it may after ten years be said that that sentence was not too 
optimistic. 

No attempt is here made to give particular accounts of the post-war 
work of these Sections, but something may be said of changes in or 
affecting them all. 

The different Sections seem to help one another more than in former 
years, not only by such a permanent partnership as that between the 
Sections for Zoology and Botany, but by arranging joint meetings to 
discuss overlapping subjects. Meetings also are arranged with technical 
or academical bodies, and visits are paid to places where work is carried 
on under the guidance of applied science. 

The Museum was the child of the Literary and Philosophical Society. 
After a period in which it may be said to have been first a nursling and then 
a pupil of the Society, it acquired independence not only from parental 
authority but from all parental interference. In the many years since 
this emancipation was completed there has been harmony between parent 
and child. The Museum as an institution and its curators and other 
officers—not a few of them have held office in the Society and its Sections— 
have been leaders in scientific studies in Leicester. Till late in the 
nineteenth century this could be said of no other institution. In modern 
days the growth and development of the University College, of the 
Colleges of Art and Technology, and of the Scientific Departments of 
Secondary Schools, have made a great change. There are in Leicester 
a number of men and women who are in virtue of their profession students 
and teachers of science. There has also been an increase of the number 
of experts in applied science who are employed in the service of the city, 
or are engaged in industry. The conditions of local scientific study have 
changed, and its possibilities are greater than ever. It may reasonably 
be hoped that there will always be a number of people who, though not 
professionally engaged in science, will find in some of its provinces an 
attractive but serious parergon for their leisure time, and that those who 
are professionally learned in one province may be amateurs in others. 
So it is reasonable to hope that such little societies as the Sections of the 
‘ Lit. and Phil.’ may in the future surpass the good work of their bygone 
years. 

Such a hope was expressed long ago in the Report of the Council to 
the Annual Meeting in June 1877: ‘ There is no reason why the Sections 
should not become small Societies in themselves, of recognised position, 


29 Three out of four first-year medical students who were attending these classes 


were killed in the war. , 
30 The Section for Chemistry began work in 1924-25, that for Physics in 1925— 
1926. 


too SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 


able to hold their own by the side of other large Societies in the kingdom ; 
why in fact there should not be a Geological, a Natural History, or other 
Society, affiliated to the old Parent Society, but each working in its own 
sphere.’ 

In his Presidential Address in 1912 Dr. Astley V. Clarke spoke of the 
Sections as the raison d’étre of the Society. 

Times have changed since 1877, and since 1912. It is still much to 
be wished that such small societies may continue to work each in its own 
sphere, but each ready to work together with others, so that there may be, 
in effect, a Leicester Association for the Study of Science. 

The writer is aware that the foregoing is an incomplete account of the 
study of science in Leicester. It gives no account of institutions which 
have among their work in other subjects given instruction in science—such 
as the Mechanics’ Institutes from 1834 to about 1860, Working Men’s 
College (now Vaughan College), Adult Schools, University Extension 
Lectures, and other bodies—but it is hoped that it gives a correct account 
of the most permanent and important streams of science study other than 
that in modern colleges and modernised schools. 


Printed in England at THE BALLANTYNE PRESS 
SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. 
Colchester, London & Eton 


INDEX 


References to addresses, reports, and papers printed in extended form are given 


in italics. 


* Indicates that the title only of a communication is given. 
When a page reference to a paper is given in italics, it is to a note of its 
publication elsewhere, or to a note of other publications by the author 


on the same subject. 


References preceded by the abbreviation Appdx. will be found in the appendix 


_ immediately preceding this index. 


Abelian integrals, by W. V. D. 
Hodge, 456, 6117. 

Account, General Treasurer’s, 1932-3, 
XXiv. 

Accountancy, réle in scientific man- 
agement, discussion by A. Salt, 
F. R. M. de Paula, Prof. W. 
Annan, 507, 6r4. 

Acquired characters, inheritance, by 
A. F. Dufton, 522. 

Activated sludge or bio-aeration, by 
J. Haworth, 514, 674. 

Apams, J., Fauna and flora of rivers, 


Adaptability, limitations in animal 
kingdom, by Dr. G. C. Robson, 
487. 

ADENEY, Prof. W. E., Natural puri- 
fication of sewage, 513, 614. 

Administration and business, train- 
ing for, discussion by Prin. H. 
Stewart, T. Kingdom, E. I. Lewis, 
F, W. Lawe, G. C. Wickins, Prin. 
J. C. Smail, 562, 617, 678. 

ApRIAN, Prof. E. D., Activity of 
nerve cells, 163, 533*. 

Adult education; cultural value of 
science in, symposium by Sir R. 
Gregory, Prof. W. J. Pugh, Prof. 
W. B. Brierley, Dr. A. Ferguson, 
Prof. J. L. Myres, Dr. V. Cornish, 
Sir J. Stamp, 568, 617, 678. 

Adult education, science teaching in, 
report, 330, 564*. 

discussion by Prof. J. L. Myres, 

Dr. C. H. Desch, A. S_ Firth, 

Miss H. Masters, R. J. Howrie, 

Prof. R. Peers, G. C. Hickson, 

564*, 618. 


Aeronautical research, by H. E. 
Wimperis, 511. 

Aerosols, particles in, by H. L. 
Green, 463. 

Africa, kinship and family in West, 
by Dr. M. Fortes, 521. 

Africa, report on human geography of 
tropical, 2'74. 

African Colonial Governments, 
present tendencies, by Dr. R. S. 
Rattray, 524, 615. 

African peoples, growth of economic 
individualism among, by Dr. L. 
Mair, 521. 

Agriculture, downland of E. Sussex, 
by H. C. K. Henderson, sor. 

Agriculture, education for, by J. R. 
Bond, 566*. 

Agriculture, efficiency in, and social 
results, by Prof. A. W. Ashby, 
572, 618. 

Agriculture, objective, by R. R. 
Enfield, 571. 

Agriculture, sociological aspects, dis- 
cussion by R. R. Enfield, Prof. A. 
W. Ashby, 571, 678. 

Agriculture and chemistry, by Dr. A. 
Lauder, 243, 571*. 

Air layers, instability, by A. Graham, 
460. 

Aircraft noise, reduction, by R. S. 
Capon, 511, 674. 

Aire, gauging at Esholt, by T. Roles, 
407. 

AKEROYD, G. I., Organisation of 
economic distribution, 509. 

ALLEN, R. W., Experiences in 
mechanical engineering, 129, 
510*. 


102 


ALLIBONE, Dr. T. E., High voltage 
vacuum tubes, 452. 

ANNAN, Prof. W., Accountancy in 
average business, 507, OI 4. 

Annual meetings, table, xii. 

AntTcLIFF, F. R., Industries of 
Leicester, Appdx. 60. 

Apis Rock, excavations, by Dr. L. S. 
B. Leakey, 528*. 

Arid’ regions, variations in native 
economy, by Prof. C. D. Forde, 
498, 673. 

ARMITAGE, F. P., Education in 
Leicester, Appdx. 80. 

ARMSTRONG, A. L., Excavations at 
Creswell Crags, 523*. 

ARMSTRONG, Dr. E. F., Organisation 
as a technical problem, 506*, 
614. 

ARNOLD, R. N., Embrittling of steels, 
516, 614. 

Aromatic hydrocarbons, interatomic 
distances, by Dr. J. M. Robertson, 
468, 612. 

Ascophanus aurora (Crouan) Boud., 
by Prof. Dame H. Gwynne- 
Vaughan and Mrs. H.S. William- 
son, 553, 617. 

AsuBy, Prof. A. W., Efficiency in 
agriculture and social results, 572, 
6r8. 

AsHByY, Dr. E., Genetics, 492*. 

Assam, Megalithic work in, by Dr. 
J. H. Hutton, 525*, 675. 

Astpury, W. T., Structure of proto- 
plasm, 490*. 

X-ray interpretation of pro- 
perties of hair, feathers, etc., 428, 
6I0. 

AstTILL, Ald. P. F., Grazing in Mid- 
lands, 574, 618, 

Atomic transmutation, discussion by 
Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, Dr. 
J. D. Cockcroft and Dr. E. T. S. 
Walton, Dr. M. L. Oliphant, 
P. I. Dee, 431, 610, 671. 

AtTTeErR, H. F., Legal aspect of river 
pollution, 513, 674. 

Auroral spectrum and upper at- 
mosphere, hy Prof. L. Vegard, 
427, OIT 

Auxin a and b, by Prof. Kégl, 466*, 
600. 

Auxin in plants, by Prof. F. A. F.C. 
Went, 555, 617. 


INDEX 


AVELING, Prof. F., Status of psy- 
chology as empirical science, 171, 
542*. 

Azande, bride-wealth among, by 


Prof. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, 
529*, 615. 
BappacE, Dr. D. W., Cremona 


transformations, 457. 

BAILy, Prof. F. G., Amateur meteor- 
ologist, 599*. 

Batcuin, N. M., Psychological 
approach to market research, 548, 

r6. 

BALL, Prof. N. G., Effect of nocturnal 
illumination on opening of flower- 
buds, 551, 626. 

Barnes, Dr. B., British aquatic 
fungi, 553, 626. 

Barnes, Mrs. N. M., Function. of 
psychologist in administrative 
scheme, 549. 

BaRRACLOUGH, F., Reliability of en- 
trance examinations, 567, 617. 
BarRTLETT, Prof. F. C., on Training 

in psychology, 308. 

BaRTLETT, R. J., ‘ Constant’ errors 
in sensory comparisons, 544. 

Disorientation and vertigo, 539. 

Be-type spectra, periodic changes, 
by Dr. W.J.S. Lockyer, 459, 6717. 

BEADLE, L. C., Osmotic regulation 
in Gunda‘ulve, 490*, 672. 

BEDFORD, Dr.T., Nose-opening rays, 
533, 615. 

BEETLESTONE, A., Production of high 
voltages, 452, 611. 

Bennettitales, reproductive organs 
of early, by Dr. T. M. Harris, 
550*. 

Berberis Darwinii, Berberine in 
metabolism of, by Dr. B. T. 
Cromwell, 551, 617. 

BERGMANN, Prof. M., Chemistry of 
skin and catechol tannins, 471, 
6IT. 

BERNAL, Dr. J. D., 
distances, 469*. 

Best, A. C., Temperature gradients 
near ground, 462, 611. 

BippER, Miss A. M., Alimentary 
canal of Cephalopoda, 488. 

Bipp_er, Dr. G. P., Energy of flagel- 
late cells, 486. 


Interatomic 


INDEX 


BitHaM, E. G., British Rainfall 
Organization, 373. 

Climate 

Appdx. 40. 


J. Haworth, 514*, 614. 

BuackaBy, J. H., Drainage ma- 
chinery, 573, 618. 

BLACKBURN, Dr. K. B., Synthesis of 
species, 492. 

BuackETT, P.M.S., Positive electron, 
433- 

Biackwoop, Dr. J., Nutritional 
aspect of milk supplies, 577*, 618. 

Brake, A. B., Trade associations and 
combinations, 507. 

Biocu, O., Infra-red photography, 
429, 610. 
Blood, carbon dioxide transport in, 
by Dr. F, J. W. Roughton, 533. 
Blood distribution during mental 
work, by M. F. Lowe, 544. 

Blood groups as index to racial 
characteristics, by Prof. R. R. 
Gates, 522, 615. 

Bonp, Col. C. J., Hormones and 
genetics, 492, 612. 

Leucocytic and _ erythrocytic 
activity, 533. 

Bonp, J. R., Education for agri- 
culture, 566*. 

Boot and shoe industry, education 
for, by H. Salt, 564, 678. 

Boreholes, water-levels, by 
Dixon, 418. 

Borer, O., Great Ouse Catchment 
Board, 400. 

Borings, pumping tests at new, by 
R. C. S. Walters, 410. 

Botany in adult education, by Prof. 
W. B. Brierley, 569, 617. 

Botany in courses of biology, report 
on, 557*. 

Bouton, Prof. W. S., Red sedi- 
mentary rocks, 482. 

St. George’s Land, 477. 

Bowen, E..G., Hill forts and valley- 
ward movements of population in 
Wales, 525. 

Bowen, E. J., Forces between atoms 
in molecules, 469. 

BrapD.ey, H., Water absorption by 
leather, etc., 451. 

Testing of flexible 

materials, 451, 6II. 


Ha J. 


sheet 


of Leicestershire, | 
| Bripces, A., Economic aspects of 
Bio-aeration or activated sludge, by 


103 


Bride-wealth among Azande, by 
Prof. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, 529*, 
6I5. 


grassland, 575, 618. 

BRIERLEY, Prof. W. B., Zoology and 
botany in adult education, 569, 
617. 

Britain, colonisation, by Dr. C. 
Fox, 526, 615. 

British Isles, system of forestry for, 
by Maj. Hon. R. Coke, 558, 6177. 

British Rainfall Organization, by 
E. G. Bilham, 373. 

British Somaliland, report on, 298. 

BrRocKINGTON, W. A., Education for 
industry, 566*. 

Bronze Age implements, report on, 
300. 

Brown, T. B., Transition from Neo- 
lithic to Bronze Age of W. Asia, 
527": 

Brown, Dr. W., Personal influence, 
542, 616. 

Validity of methods of corre- 
lation, 545, 616. 

Bryan, Dr. P. W., Education for in- 
dustries of East Midlands, 564*. 

—— Land utilisation in Leicester, 
495*. 

—— Leicester, 
Appdx. 3. 
BucuHaNnaNn, Sir G., Economic posi- 

tion of Burma, 503. 

Butt, Dr. H. O., Conditioned 
responses in fishes, 491*. 

Burcu, C. R., Oil condensation 
pumps, 451, 671. 

Burkitt, M. C., on Derbyshire caves, 
299. 

Burma, economic position, by Sir 
G. Buchanan, 503. 

Burn, Prof. J. H., Chemical control 
of circulation, 534, 615. 

Business administrator and entre- 
preneur, types and supply price, 
by Prof. P. S. Florence, 505, 673. 

Business and administration, train- 
ing for, discussion by Prin. H. 
Stewart, T. Kingdom, E. I. 
Lewis, F. W. Lawe, G.' C. 
Wickins, Prin. J. C. Smail, 562, 
617, 618. 

Business recovery, by E. L. Har- 
greaves, 505. 


regional __ setting, 


104 


BUTENANDT, Dr. A., Relations of 
sex hormones to sterols and bile 
acids, 467, 612. 


Calamoichthys, anatomy, by G. L. 
Purser, 488*. 

Campanuloidez, floral morphology 
of, by F. F. Hyde, 554, 617. 

CAMPBELL, Dr. H., Man’s evolution 
from primitive primate, 522. 

Canada, gold production, by H. C. 
Cooke and W. A. Johnston, 485. 

Canal projects, by W. Maughan, 
516*, 614. 

Canals, by 'T. S. Hawkins, 409. 

Capon, R. S., Reduction of aircraft 
noise, 511, 614. 

Carbon dioxide transport in blood, 
by Dr. F. J. W. Roughton, 533. 

Carboniferous’ shore-line in S 
Wales, by Dr. T. N. George, 478. 

CaRDINALL, A. W., Superstitious 
beliefs in Gold Coast, 523, 615. 

Carotenoids and flavines, by Prof. 
R. Kuhn, 464. 

Catchment Boards, by Capt. J. C. A. 
Roseveare, 397- 

Catechol tannins and chemistry of 
skin, by Prof. M. Bergmann, 471, 
Orr. 

CaTTELL, Dr. R. B., Friends and 
enemies, g, p, c and w values, 540, 
616. 

Celtic weather prophecy, by K. H. 
Jackson, 517, 615. 

Celts, origin, by Prof. J. Pokorny, 
517, 615. 

Cephalopoda, alimentary canal, by 
Miss A. M. Bidder, 488. 

CHAMBERLAIN, J., Education for 
hosiery industry, 565, 617. 

Industries of Leicester, Appdx. 


60. 

Mechanisation of knitting, 510, 
614. 

CuHaTTaway, Miss M. M., Develop- 
ment of rays of Sterculiacez, 552, 


617. 

Chemical aspects of life, by Sir F. G. 
Hopkins, 1. 

Chemistry and agriculture, by Dr. A. 
Lauder, 243, 571*. 

Chemistry in adult education, by 
Dr. A. Ferguson, 569*, 617. 


INDEX 


Child, development of language in, 
by Prof. C. W. Valentine, 537, 
616. 

CuILDE, Prof. V. G., Painted pot- 
teries from India and East Iran, 
527, 615. 

CuurcH, Maj. A. G., Television, 
451*, 620. 

Circulation, chemical control, dis- 
cussion by Sir H. H. Dale, Prof. 
J. H. Burn, Dr. A. N. Drury, 
Dr. J. H. Gaddum, Dr. W. Feld- 
berg, Prof. R. J. S. McDowall, 
534, 615. 

CLaRKE, Dr. L. J., on General science 
in schools, 312, 566*. 

Classification of communities by 
occupations, by Dr. E. H. Sel- 
wood, 499. 

Cloud evolution, by Prof. F. Linke, 
460*. 

CriouceH, Lt.-Col. A. B., Preparation 
of maps and illustrations, 497, 
613. 

Coal, microspores, by Dr. A. Rais- 
trick, 480. 

Coal, plant structures in, by Prof. G. 
Hickling and C. E. Marshall, 481. 

Coalfields of Midland province, by 
Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, 57, 476*. 

CoBBoLp, Dr. E. S., Comley Quarry, 


473- 

CocxcrorFtT, Dr. J. D., High voltage 
D.C. generator, 452, 6IT. 

—— Transmutation of elements, 
432, 610. 

Coxe, Maj. Hon. R., System of 
forestry for British Isles, 558, 617. 

Colorado River, native warfare, by 
Prof. C. D. Forde, 519, 675. 

Colour-vision, criticism of Roaf’s 
theory, by Dr. F. W. Edridge- 
Green, 530, 616. 

Colouring matters, natural, by Prof. 
R. Robinson, 45, 464*. 

Colouring matters, natural, discus- 
sion by Prof. R. Kuhn, Dr. R. P. 
Linstead, Dr. N. V. Sidgwick, 
464; 612. 

Colours, advancing and retiring, by 
Prof. H. Hartridge, 537. 

Comley Quarry, by Dr. 
Cobbold, 473. 

Compton, water level at, by D. H. 
Thomson, 417. 


E.nnS. 


INDEX 


Condensation of water in atmo- 
sphere, discussion by Dr. G. C. 


Simpson, H. L. Green, Prof. J.J. | 


Nolan and J. P. Ryan, L. H. G. | 


Dines, 463. 


Condensations of matter in expand- | 


Ci OF 


ing universe, by Dr. 
McVittie, 443, 6r0. 


Congresbury, land tenure at, by 


Prof. W. W. Jervis and S. J. Jones, | 


526. 
Conjugate points, large: loci, by 
J. H. C. Whitehead, 458. 


Cooke, H. C., Gold production of | 


Canada, 485. 

Copyright and patent law, by Prof. 
A. Plant, 504, 673. 

CORNEWALL-WALKER, A. E., Rain- 
fall, rest levels and pumping levels, 
420. 

CornisH, Dr. V., Science in adult 
education, 569*, 617. 

Visualisation of landscape, 495. 

Correlation, value of methods, dis- 
cussion by Prof. C. Spearman, 
Dr. W. Brown, Dr. S. Dawson, 
Dr. J. Wishart, Dr. S. S. Wilks, 
Dr. J. O. Irwin, Prof. H. T. H. 
Piaggio, 459*, 545, 616. 

Corresponding Societies, conference of 
delegates, 589. 

Cosmic ray measurements, by Prof. 
E. Regener, 430*, 610. 

Council, report 1932-3, xix. 

Council and Officers, v. 

Cramp, Prof. W., Axial spin of 
magnetic field, 453, OIT. 

CrEED, Dr. R. S., Disorientation and 
vertigo, 540%, 616. 

Cremona transformations, by Dr. 
D. W. Babbage, 457. 

Creswell Crags, excavations at, by 
A. L. Armstrong, 523*. 

Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, report 
on, 271. 

Crew, Prof. F. A. E., Genetics, 492*. 

McDougall’s Lamarckian ex- 
periment, 542*. 

CROMWELL, Dr. B. T., Berberine in 
metabolism of Berberis Darwinii, 
551, 617. 

CRrowDEN, G. P., Value of physiology 
to industry, 508, 614. 

CuNNINGHAM, Dr. B., Foreign water 
organisations, 371. 


105 


CUNNINGHAM, J. T., Genetics, 492*. 

Life and _ reproduction of 
Lepidosiren, 488, 612. 

Cyclone formation, influence of 
stratosphere, by Prof. F. Linke, 


430. 


| D.C. generator, high voltage, by 


Dr. J. D. Cockcroft, 452, 6717. 

Dairy industry and milk supplies, 
by B. Davies, 577*, 678. 

Date, Miss A. B., Tests and exam- 
inations of University women 
students, 568, 617. 

Date, Sir H. H., Chemical control 
of circulation, 534. 

Da.uimore, W., Trees and country- 
side, 558. 

DANNREUTHER, Capt. T., Amateur 
meteorologist, 599*. 

Darsy, Dr. H. C., Geographical 
conceptions of medieval bishop, 
500. 

Davies, B., Dairy industry and milk 
supplies, 577*, 628. 

Davies, L. J., Hot cathode gas dis- 
charge tubes, 451. 

Daviges, O., Sotiel Coronada, 527, 


6I5. 
Davies, W., Biotic factor of grazing, 
575, 6r8. 


Dawson, Dr. S., Validity of methods 
of correlation, 545*, 616. 

Deacon, G. E. R., Hydrology of 
southern oceans, 489, 673. 

DEBENHAM, Prof. F., Polar year, 
499*. 

Deeg, P. I., Transmutation of ele- 
ments, 432, 610. 

Delegates, Conference of, 589. 

Department store, University men 
in, by F. W. Lawe, 563, 617. 

DE PauLa, F. R. M., Finance and 
accountancy in large business 
combines, 507, 614. 

Derbyshire caves, report on, 299. 


| DescH, Dr. C. H., on Sumerian 


copper, 302. 

Science teaching in adult edu- 
cation, 564*. 

DE SITTER, Prof. W., Expanding 

_ universe, 449*. 

Development boards, by Prof. H. M. 
Hallsworth, 505*. 


106 


Diatomic rotator, by Dr. L. Simons 
and E. H. Smart, 431*, 670, 6z17. 

Dickinson, R. E., Metropolitan 
regions of U.S.A., 502, 613. _—. 

Dickson, Sq.-Ldr. E. D., Dis- 
orientation and vertigo, 539*. 

Dinss, L. H. G., Supersaturation of 
water in free atmosphere, 464. 

Disintegration of elements, by Dr. 
M. L. Oliphant, 432, 6r0. 

Disorientation and vertigo, discus- 
sion by Dr. J. T. MacCurdy, 
FL.-Lt. J. A. G. Haslam, Dr. T. G. 
Maitland, Sq.-Ldr. E. D. Dick- 
son, R. J. Bartlett, Dr. R. S. 
Creed, Sq.-Ldr. G. H. Reid, 
530%, 538, 616. 

Dissection of large numbers, by 
Dr. E. H. Linfoot, 454. 

Distribution, organisation of eco- 
nomic, discussion by Mrs. E. M. 
Wood, L. Neal, G. I. Akeroyd, 
509, 6©4. 

Dixon, E. E. L., St. George’s Land, 


477. 

Dixon, F. J., Water levels in wells, 
etc., 418. 

Dixon, Prof. S. M., Gauging River 
Severn, 424. 

Dosson, A. T. A., Law of land 
drainage, 572, 618. 

Dopps, Prof. E. C., Synthetic 
cestrogenic compounds, 468, 612. 

Dotiar, A. T. J., Dike-swarm of 
Lundy, 481, 612. 

—— Lundy communities, 518, 675. 

Dominion universities, report on 
geography in, 275. 

Douctas, Vice-Adml. Sir H. P., on 
Inland Water Survey, 358. 

Doy .g, Prof. J., Heterospory, 550*. 

Drainage, land, by Capt. J. C. A. 
Roseveare, 398. 

Drainage, land, discussion by A. T. 
A. Dobson, W. Haile, H. H. 
Nicholson, Dr. H. Janert, J. H. 
Blackaby, 572, 618. 

Drever, Prof. J., Comparative reli- 
ability of examinations and tests, 
567, 617. 

Drury, Dr. A. N., Chemical control 
of circulation, 535. 

Durton, A. F., Inheritance of 
acquired characters, 522. 

Nose-opening rays, 533, 616. 


INDEX 


Du-PLat-Taytor, M., Sea defence 
and land reclamation, 516, 674. 
pu VaL, Dr. P., Multiple planes, 

457, OIT. 
Dymonp, T.5S., Fauna and flora of 
rivers, 599*. 


Earth Mother cult in N.E. York- 
shire, by Mrs. H. W. Elgee, 518. 
Earth pressures, report on, 297, 517*. 


Earthquakes, high focus, by E. 
Tillotson, 460. 
East African culture, Indonesian 


contact, by J. Hornell, 521, 675. 

Eastwoop, T., St. George’s Land, 
479, 612. 

Economic progress and science, by 
Sir J. Stamp, 578. 

EDDINGTON, Sir A. S., Expanding 
universe, 434, 610. 

EDRIDGE-GREEN, Dr. F. W., Criti- 
cism of Roaf’s theory of colour 
vision, 530, 616. 

Education, development of national 
system, by J. L. Holland, 210, 
569*. 

Education for industries of East 
Midlands, discussion by Dr. P. 
W. Bryan, H. Salt, J. Chamber- 
lain, Dr. H. Schofield, J. R. Bond, 
W. A. Brockington, 564, 617, 
6r8, 

Epwarps, K. C., Luxemburg iron 
industry, 501, 673. 

Einstein’s gravitational equations, 
non-static solutions, by Dr. G. C. 
McVittie, 459, 677. 

Electrical switch equipment, testing, 
by W. Wilson, 512, 615. 

Electrical terms and definitions, report 
on, 296, 517*. 

Electricity stations, by H. Nimmo, 
404. 

Electrostatic generation of high 
voltage for nuclear research, by 
Dr. R. J. van de Graaff, 427*. 

Electrostatics, engineering possi- 
bilities, by Dr. R. J. van de Graaff, 
453. 

EuceEe, Mrs. H. W., Earth Mother 
cult in N.E. Yorkshire, 518. 

Empire, mapping, by Col. M. N. 
Macleod, 496. 7 

Empire soil resources, report on, 296. 


INDEX 


Employment by Civil Service, com- 
panies and ‘ family ’ firms, psycho- 
logical effect, by Mrs. W. Raphael, 
548. 

ENFIELD, R. R., Objective in agri- 
culture, 571. 

Entrepreneur and business adminis- 
trator, types and supply price, by 
Prof. P. S. Florence, 505, 613. 

Erythrocytic and leucocytic activity, 
by Col. C. J. Bond, 533. 

Eskimos of Labrador, by Prof. V. 
Suk, 520. 

Ether-drift experiment, by Prof. 
D.C. Miller, 451*, 6z0. 

Evolution, genetics in, by Dr. C. C. 
Hurst, 491*, 673. 

Evolution, man’s, from primitive 
primate, by Dr. H. Campbell, 522. 

EvANS-PRITCHARD, Prof. E. E., 
Bride-wealth among Azande, 
529*, 615. 

Examinations and_ psychological 
tests, predictive value, discussion 
by Prof. C. W. Valentine, Dr. 
D. W. Oates, F. Barraclough, F. 
Sandon, Prof. J. Drever, Miss 
A. B. Dale, E. Farmer, 545*, 566, 
617, 618, 

Expanding universe, discussion by 
Sir A. S. Eddington, Prof. E. A. 
Milne, Dr. G. C. McVittie, Dr. 
W. H. McCrea, Abbé Lemaitre, 
Prof. W. de Sitter, 434, 610. 


Factor and noegenetic theories, by 
F. C. Thomas, 541. 

Factory equipment, psycho-physio- 
logical requirements, discussion 
by Sir H. Fowler, G. P. Crowden, 
Dr. G. H. Miles, 508, 6r4. 

FAIRGRIEVE, J., Amateur meteor- 
ologist, 599. 

Fairies, distribution of belief in, by 
R. U. Sayce, 526*. 

Farmer, E., Examinations and psy- 
chological tests, 568*, 617. 

Fawcett, Prof. C. B., on Geography 
in Dominion universities, 275. 

FEARNSIDES, Prof. W. G., Correla- 
tion of structures in coalfields of 
Midland province, 57, 4.76*. 

FELDBERG, Dr. W., Chemical control 
of circulation, 535*, 616. 


107 


FELL, Dr. H. B., Ossification, 531. 

FENELON, Dr. K. G., Technological 
and economic progress, 504*. 

FERGUSON, Dr. A., Chemistry and 
physics in adult education, 569*, 
617. 

on Quantitative estimates of 
sensory events, 271. 

Fibre chemistry and X-ray analysis, 
by Dr. J. B. Speakman, 428, 6z1. 

Fibre structure in teeth, by J. 
Thewlis, 429, 6rI. 

Fibres, X-ray analysis, discussion 
by W. T. Astbury, Dr. R. D. 
Preston, Dr. J. B. Speakman, J. 
Thewlis, 428, 550*, 6r0, 6rr. 

Field names, by Dr. A. H. Smith, 
570*. 

Fiji, decaying arts and crafts, by 
G. K. Roth, 528, 675. 

Film in engineering, discussion by 
H. E. Wimperis, Sir H. Fowler, 
W. Wilson, A. Rodger, 511, 675. 

Finance and accountancy in large 
business combines, by F. R. M. 
de Paula, 507, 614. 

FirtH, A. S., Science teaching in 
adult education, 564*. 

FisHerR, Prof. R. A., Genetical 
system for ever-sporting stocks, 
550, 617. 

Fisheries, prediction of North Sea 
cod, by M. Graham, 492, 673. 
Fishes, change in form with in- 
creasing age, by E. Ford, 493. 
Fishes, conditioned responses in, by 

Dr. H. O. Bull, 491*. 

Flagellate cells, energy, by Dr. G. P. 
Bidder, 486. 

Flavines and carotenoids, by Prof. 
R. Kuhn, 464. 

Flickering fields, binocular vision, 
by Miss M. D. Vernon, 548, 6126. 

Flora, problems of British, by Prof. 
J. R. Matthews, 557*, 617. 

FLORENCE, Prof. P. S., Types and 
supply price of entrepreneur and 
business administrator, 505, 613. 

Flower-buds, effect of nocturnal 
illumination on opening of, by 
Prof. N. G. Ball, 551, 676. 

Forces between atoms in molecules, 
by E. J. Bowen, 469. 

Forp, E., Change in form with in- 
creasing age in fishes, 493. 


108 


ForbeE, Prof. C. D., Native warfare 
on Lower Colorado River, 519, 
615. 

Variations of native economy 
in arid regions, 498, 613. 

Forest, good, and thinnings, by H. 
Mundt, 559, 677. 

Forestry, public opinion on, by 
W. A. Robertson, 561, 617. 

Forestry, system for British Isles, by 
Maj. Hon. R. Coke, 558, 677. 

Forestry and sport, by Hon. N. A. 
Orde-Powlett, 559, 617. 

Fortes, Dr. M., Kinship and family 
in West Africa, 521. 

Fourier and Hankel transforms, by 
Dr. A. C. Offord, 455, 6r7. 

Fow.er, Sir H., Overseas motor 
unit, 512. 

Psycho-physiological require- 

ments of modern factory equip- 

ment, 508*. 

on Stresses in 
materials, 296. 

Fox, Dr. C., Colonisation of Britain, 
526, 615. 

FRANKLIN, C. H. H., Orbits of 
spherically free pendulum, 450, 
6I0. 

FREUDENBERG, Prof. K., Tannins 
and proteins, 470, 612. 

Friends and enemies, g, p, c and w 
values, by Dr. R. B. Cattell, 540, 
616. 

Fungi, British aquatic, by Dr. B. 
Barnes, 553, 616. 


overstrained 


Gappum, Dr. J. H., Chemical con- 
trol of circulation, 535. 

Gace, F. H., Brightness in visual 
sensations, 541. 

Galt, Sir E. A., Races and languages 
of India, 499, 673. 

Gambia Valley, stone circles, by 
Sir R. Palmer, 524, 615. 

Garn_Rr, J. H., West Riding of York- 
shire Rivers Board, 401. 

Garrop, Miss D. A. E., Excavation 
of Mugharet el-Tabun, 527*. 

Gaters, Prof. R. R., Blood groups 
as index of racial characteristics, 
522, 615. 

General nature of gene con- 

cept, 491*, 673. 


INDEX 


Gelatin-tannin reaction, by F. C. 
Thompson, 472, 612. 

Gene concept, by Prof. R. R. Gates, 
491*, 613. 

General science in schools, report on, 
312, 566*. 

General science in schools, dis- 
cussion by Dr. L. J. Clarke, Dr. 
E. L. Hirst, G. W. Olive, Sir F. G. 
Hopkins, Dr. W. W. Vaughan, 
566*. 

General Treasurer’s Account, 1932-3, 
XXIV. 

Genetical system for ever-sporting 
stocks, by Prof. R. A. Fisher, 550, 
617. 

Genetics, discussion by Prof. J. S. 
Huxley, Prof. R. R. Gates, Dr. 
C. C. Hurst, Dr. K. B. Blackburn, 
Dr. I. Manton, Col. C. J. Bond, 
Prof. F. A. E. Crew, Dr. E. Ashby, 
J. T. Cunningham, Mrs. C. B.S. 
Hodson, 491, 555*, 612, 613. 

Genetics of intellect, by Dr. C. C. 
Hurst, 543, 676. 

Geographical conceptions of medi- 
eval bishop, by Dr. H. C. Darby, 
500. 

Geography, economic, of early 
Stuart England, by Prof. E. G. R. 
Taylor, 501. 

Geography as mental equipment, by 
Rt. Hon. Lord Meston, 93, 499*. 

Geography in adult education, by 
Prof. W. J. Pugh, 568*, 678. 

Geography in Dominion universities, 
report on, 275. 

Geology in adult education, by Prof. 
W. J. Pugh, 568*, 678. 

GeorcE, Dr. T. N., Carboniferous 
shore-line in S. Wales, 478. 

GILBERT, E. W., Human geography 
of Mallorca, 497, 623. 

Gimson, M., Water supply of 
Leicestershire, 494, 673. 

GLASSPOOLE, J., Bibliography of in- 
land water, 367. 

GoppEN, W., Nutritional aspect of 
milk supplies, 5'77*, 628. 

Gold Coast, superstitious beliefs in, 
by A. W. Cardinall, 523, 675. 
Gold standard, by Prof. J. H. Jones, 

109, 503*. 

GoLpTHoRPE, Miss R. M., Distri- 

bution of practice periods, 540*. 


INDEX 


Goob ET, B. L., Production of high 
voltages, 452, OIT. 

Gorpbon, Prof. W.'T’., on Cretaceous 
and Tertiary rocks, 271. 

Red sedimentary rocks, 482. 

GouLDBOURN, J., Shoe manufactur- 
ing machinery, 515, 614. 

GraHaM, A., Instability of air layers; 
460. 

GraHAM, M., Prediction of North 
Sea cod fisheries, 492, 613. 

Gray, Dr. J., Mechanical view of 
life, 81, 486*. 

Grazing problems, discussion by 
Ald. P. F. Astill, M. G. Jones, W. 
Davies, A. Bridges, 574, 618. 

Great Ouse Catchment Board, by 
O. Borer, 400. 

Greaves, W. M. H., Stellar colour 
temperatures, 459*. 

GREEN, F. H. W., Rainfall in Kenya 
and Uganda, 497. 

GreEN, H. G., Pascal’s Theorem in 
n dimensions, 458, 617. 

Green, H. L., Particles in aerosols, 


463. 

Grecory, H. H., Geology of Lei- 
cester district, 476*. 

Geology of Leicester, Appdx. 17. 

Grecory, Sir R., Science in adult 
education, 568, 617. 

GriFFiTHs, G. J., Gauging River 
Thames, 425. 

—— Thames Conservancy, 398. 

Gunda ulve, osmotic regulation in, 
by L. C. Beadle, 490*, 612. 

GwyNneE-VaucGuaNn, Prof. Dame H., 
Development of Ascophanus 
aurora (Crouan) Boud., 553, 617. 


Hackxinc, T., Leicestershire farming, 
Appdx. 48. 

Happon, Dr. A. C., on British 
Somaliland, 298. 

Haire, W. H., Law of land drain- 
age, 572*. 

Trent Catchment Board, 399. 

Hatcrow, W. T., Hydro-electric 
companies, 403. 

Hattsworty, Prof. H. M., Work of 
development boards, 505*. 

Hankel and Fourier transforms, by 
Dr. A. C. Offord, 455, 671. 


109 


Harcreaves, E. L., Problem of 
business recovery, 505. 

Harris, J. E., Structure of proto- 
plasm, 490*. 

Harris, Dr. L. J., Vitamin action 
and bone formation, 532, 616. 
Harris, Dr. T. M., Reproductive 

organs of early Bennettitales, 
50%. 
Harrop, R. F., Technological and 
economic progress, 504*. 
HartrRIDGE, Prof. H., Advancing and 
retiring colours, 537. 
—— Competition reaction time, 536. 


| —— Resonance theory of hearing, 


536. 

—— Skin resistance, 536. 

HasiaM, FI.-Lt. J. A. G., Dis- 
orientation and vertigo, 539. 

Has.Lewoon, G. A. D., CEstrin, 466, 
612, 

Hawkins, T. S., Canals, 409. 

Haworth, J., Bio-aeration or acti- 
vated sludge, 514*, 614. 

Hearing, resonance theory, by Prof. 
H. Hartridge, 536. 

Henperson, H. C. K., Downland 
agriculture of E. Sussex, 501. 

HENDERSON, Sir J. B., on Electrical 
terms and definitions, 296. 

HeERON-ALLEN, E., Diffusion and 
extension phenomena in living 
protoplasm, 486*, 673. 

Heterospory, by Prof. J. Doyle, 
550°. 

HETHERINGTON, E. F., Gauging 
River Severn at Ironbridge, 406. 
HIcKk.inG, Prof. G., Plant structure 

in coal, 481. 

Red sedimentary rocks, 482. 

Hickson, G. C., Science teaching in 
adult education, 564*. 

High voltages and high vacua, dis- 
cussion by C. R. Burch, B. L. 
Goodlet and A. Beetlestone, Dr. 
T. E. Allibone, Dr. J. D. Cock- 
croft, Dr. R. J. van de Graaff, 451, 
oI. 

Hitz, Sir A., on Transplant experi- 
ments, 310. 

Hill forts and valleyward movements 
of population in Wales, by E. G. 
Bowen, 525. 

HrnsHELwoop, C. N., Interatomic 
distances, 470. 


Z2 


110 

Hinton, M. A. C., Musk rat, 
488. 

Hirst, Dr. E. L., Teaching of 


general science, 566*. 

Hopce, W. V. D., Abelian integrals, 
456, O11. 

Hopson, Mrs. C. B. S., Genetics, 
492*. 

Ho pen, Prof. H. S., New pterido- 
sperm stem from Shore, 550. 

Ho.ianp, J. L., Development of 
national system of education, 219, 
569%. 

Hopkins, Sir F. G., Some chemical 
aspects of life, 1. 

—— Teaching of general science, 
566*. 

Hormones, discussion by Prof. F. 
Kégl, G. A. D. Haslewood, Dr. 
A. Butenandt, Prof. E. C. Dodds, 
466, 612. 

Hormones, plant growth, by Prof. F. 
Kégl, 466*, 600. 

Hormones and genetics, by Col. 
C. J. Bond, 492, 612. 

Horne.., J., Indonesian contact 
with East African culture, 521, 
615. 

Horton, C., Motor Boat Association, 
402. 

Horwoop, A. R., Flora of Leicester- 
shire, Appdx. 25. 

Hosiery industry, education for, by 
J. Chamberlain, 565, 617. 

Hot cathode gas discharge tubes, by 
L. J. Davies, 451. 

Howrie, R. J., Science teaching in 
adult education, 564*. 
Hull, pollution of river, 

Sheppard, 596. 

Human geography of tropical Africa! 
report on, 274. 

Humpureys, Dr. F. E., Tanning 
properties of tan liquors and ex- 
tracts, 472, 612. 

Hunt, Dr. E. H., Rafai fakirs of 
Hyderabad, 523*. 

Hunter, Dr. D., Ossification, 532, 
616. 

Horst, Dr. C. C., Genetics of intel- 
lect, 543, 616. 

Significance of genetics in 
evolution, 491, 613. 

Hutton, Dr. J. H., Megalithic work 
in Assam, 525, 615. 


by T. 


INDEX 


Huxtey, Prof. J. S., Physiological 
genetics, 491*. 

Hype, F. F., Floral morphology of 
Campanuloidee, 554, 617. 

Hyderabad, Rafai fakirs, by Dr. 
E. H. Hunt, 523*. 

Hydro-electric companies, by W. 'T. 
Halcrow, 403. 


Igneous rocks of Leicestershire, by 
F. Jones, 476. 

India, races and languages, by Sir 
E. A. Gait, 499, 673. 

Indonesian contact with East African 
culture, by J. Hornell, 521, 675. 
Infra-red photography, by O. Bloch, 

429, 610. 
Inland water, bibliography, by J. 
Glasspoole, 367. 
Inland water survey, report on, 358. 
Insect outbreaks in Britain, pre- 


diction, by Dr. S. MacLagan, 
490*, 613. 

Insect parasites, by Dr. G. Salt, 
486. 


Insects, distribution by air currents, 
by P. S. Milne, 489. 

Insects, water in physiology of ex- 
cretion, by Dr. V. B. Wiggles- 
worth, 486, 673. 

Intellect, genetics of, by Dr. C. C. 
Hurst, 543, 626. 

Interatomic distances and forces in 
molecules, discussion by Dr. N.V. 
Sidgwick, Prof. Lennard-Jones, 
Dr. J. M. Robertson, Dr. J. D. 
Bernal, E. J. Bowen, C. N. Hin- 
shelwood, 468, 672. 

Invertebrates, nerves and nerve-nets, 
by C. F. A. Pantin, 491. 

Inverted bundle system, by Miss 
L. M. Wicks, 557. 

Irwin, Dr. J. O., Validity of methods 
of correlation, 547, 616. 

Ivens, J. P., Industries of Leicester, 
Appdx. 60. 


Jackson, K. H., Weather prophecy, 
Celtic, 517, 615. 

Janert, Dr. H., Drainage investiga- 
tions, 573. 

Jasper Park, biology and fisheries, 
by Dr. C. H. O° Donoghue, 493. 


INDEX 


JENKIN, Prof. C. F., on Earth pres- 
sures, 297. 

Jervis, Prof. W. W., Land tenure at 
Congresbury, Somerset, 526. 

Joun, D., Plankton in southern 
oceans, 490. 

Jounston, W. A., Gold production 
of Canada, 485. 

Jongs, F., Petrology of igneous rocks 
of Leicestershire, 476. 

Jones, Prof. J. H., Gold standard, 
109, 503.* 

Jones, Miss J. K., Village survey, 
571. 

Jones, Prof. Ll. R., Rainfall in 
Kenya and Uganda, 497. 

Jones, M. G., Grazing and effect on 
sward, 574, 618. 

Jones, Rev. P., Amateur meteoro- 
logist, 599*. 

Jones, S. J., Land tenure at Congres- 
bury, Somerset, 526. 

Jones, Dr. W. R., Silicosis, 479, 
612, 


Kay, Dr. H. D., Milk production 
and distribution, 577*, 618. 

Ossification, 532, 616. 

Keay, W., Raw Dykes, Leicester, 
518. 

KeitH, Sir A., on Kent’s Cavern, 
301. 

Kent’s Cavern, report on, 301. 

Kenya and Uganda, rainfall, by 
Prof. Ll. R. Jones and F. H. W. 
Green, 497. 

Kerguelen Archipelago, floras, by 
Prof. A. C. Seward, 549, 617. 

KersHaw, L. W., Industries of 
Leicester, Appdx. 60. 

Kikuyu marriage customs, by Dr. 
L. S. B. Leakey, 521*. 

Kincpom, T., Secondary school 
training for business, 562. 

Kirkapy, J. F., Longitudinal pro- 
files of southern English rivers, 


485. 
Kleinia articulata, report on, 311. 
Knitting, mechanisation, by J. 


Chamberlain, 510, 614. 

Kéct, Prof. F., Plant growth hor- 
mones, 466*, 600. 

Kuun, Prof. R., Carotenoids and 
flavines, 464. 


IItl 


Labrador, Eskimos of, by Prof. V. 
Suk, 520. 

Lady Manners School, agriculture 
research, by A. S. McWilliam, 
570, 618, 

Landscape, visualisation, by Dr. V. 
Cornish, 495. 

Land utilisation in S.W. London 
basin, by Dr. L. D. Stamp and 
E. C. Willatts, 500. 

Lauper, Dr. A., Chemistry and agri- 
culture, 243, 571*. 

Lawe, F. W., University men in 
department store, 563, 617. 

LAXTON, open-field parish, by C. S. 
Orwin, 574, 618. 

Leakey, Dr. L. S. B., Excavations 
at Apis Rock, 528*. 
—— Kikuyu marriage 

21%: 

Rift Valley in Kenya, 484. 

Leather, absorption of water, by H. 
Bradley, 451. 

Leather manufacture, physical prob-. 
lems, by Dr. C. H. Spiers, 451*, 
6II. 

Lee, H. W., Photographic lenses at 
Leicester, 430, 610. 

Leicester, development of photo- 
graphic lenses, by W. Taylor and 
H. W. Lee, 430, 610, 627. 

Leicester, education in, by F. P. 
Armitage, Appdx. 80. 

Leicester, geology, by H. H. Gregory, 
Appdx. 17. 

Leicester, growth of population, by 
Miss G. M. Sarson, 494. 

Leicester, industries, by L. W. Ker- 
shaw, F. R. Antcliff, J. Chamber- 
lain, J. P. Ivens, F. W. Roberts, 
Appdx. 60. 

Leicester, land utilisation, by Dr. 
P. W. Bryan, 495*. 

Leicester, municipal activities, by 
H. A. Pritchard, Appdx. 72. 

Leicester, Raw Dykes, by W. Keay, 
518. 

Leicester, regional setting, by Dr. 
P. W. Bryan, Appdx. 3. 

Leicester and district, scientific survey, 
Appdx. 3. 

Leicester and Leicestershire, men of 
science, by F. B. Lott, Appdx. 84. 
Leicester district, geology, by H. H. 

Gregory, 476*. 


customs, 


112 


Leicester district, regional planning, 
by H. H. Peach, 495, 673. 

Leicester meeting, narrative, xvii. 

Leicestershire, climate, by E. G. 
Bilham, Appdx. 40. 

Leicestershire, farming, by 'T. Hack- 
ing, Appdx. 48. 

Leicestershire, flora, by A. R. Hor- 
wood, Appdx. 25. 

Leicestershire, petrology of igneous 
rocks, by F. Jones, 476. 

Leicestershire, water supply, by M. 
Gimson, 494, 673. 

Leicestershire, zoology, by Dr. E. E. 
Lowe, W. E. Mayes, R. Wag- 
staffe, S. O. Taylor, Appdx. 33. 

Leicestershire igneous rocks, Tri- 
assic and Pleistocene surfaces, by 
Dr. F. Raw, 484. 

LEMAITRE, L’Abbé, Cosmical sig- 
nificance of clusters of nebule, 448. 

LENNARD-JONES, Prof. J. E., Inter- 
atomic distances, 468*. 

LeonarD, Dr. A. G. G., Natural 
purification of sewage, 513, 614. 
Lepidosiren, life and reproduction 
of, by J. T. Cunningham, 488, 

612, 

Leucocytic and erythrocytic activity, 
by Col. C. J. Bond, 533. 

Levels, rest and pumping, and rain- 
fall, by A. E. Cornewall-Walker, 
420. 

Lewis, E. I., Requirements of busi- 
ness career, 562, 618. 

Life, chemical aspects, by Sir F. G. 
Hopkins, 1. 

Life, mechanical view, by Dr. J. 
Gray, 81, 486*. 

Light, influence on permeability of 
plant cell, by Prof. G. Senn, 557*. 

Linroot, Dr. E. H., Dissection of 
large numbers, 454. 

Linke, Prof. F., Cloud evolution, 
460*. 

Influence of stratosphere on 
cyclone formation, 430. 

LinsteaD, Dr. R. P., 
cyanines, 465, 612. 

Luioyp, Dr. D. J., Chemistry of skin, 
470, 612. - 

—— Structure of protoplasm, 490*. 

Luoyp, Prof. F. E., Is Roridula car- 
nivorous ?, 552. 

Traps of Utricularia, 183, 554*. 


Phthalo- 


INDEX 


Lockyer, Dr. W. J. S., Periodic 
changes in Be-type spectra, 459, 
61T. 

Lone, A. P., Utilisation of thinnings, 
559, 617. 

Longitudinal profiles of southern 
English rivers, by Dr. S. W. Wool- 
dridge and J. F. Kirkaldy, 485. 

Lon Mor Experimental Station, 
peat planting, by J. A. B. Mac- 
donald, 560. 

Lott, F. B., Scientific men of 
Leicester and Leicestershire, Appdx. 


Loughborough, training of engineers 
at, by Dr. H. Schofield, 565. 

LoweE, Dr. E.E., Zoology of Leicester- 
shire, Appdx. 33. 

Lowe, M. F., Blood distribution 
during mental work, 544. 

Lundy, communities of, by A. T. J. 
Dollar, 518, 675. 

Lundy, dike-swarm, by A. T. J. 
Dollar, 481, 672. 

Lupton, H. R., Sewage machinery, 
514, 614. 

Luxemburg iron industry, by K. C. 
Edwards, sor, 673. 


McCiean, Capt. 
gauging, 421. 
Surface water, 383. 
McCrea, Dr. W. H., Milne’s theory 
and general relativity, 445, 6r0. 
Solar chromosphere and cor- 
ona, 459. 

MacCurpy, Dr. J. T., Disorienta- 
tion and vertigo, 538. 

MAcDONALD, J., Effects of thinnings 
in coniferous plantations, 559*. 

Macpona.Lp, J. A. B., Peat planting 
at Lon Mor Experimental Station, 
560. 

McDouca.i’s Lamarckian experi- 
ment, by Prof. F. A. E. Crew, 542. 

McDowa tt, Prof. R. J. S., Chemical 
control of circulation, 535. 

McKay, A. M., Embrittling of 
steels, 516, 624. 

MacxiE, Prof. 'T. J., Milk supplies 
and public health, 576. 

MacLacan, Dr. S., Prediction of | 
insect outbreaks in Britain, 490%, 
613. 


W. N., River 


INDEX 


Mac.eop, Col. M. N., Mapping of 
Empire, 496. 

MeVirttiz, Dr. G. C., Condensa- 
tions of matter in an expanding 
universe, 443, 610. 


Non-static solutions of 
Einstein’s gravitational equations, 
459, OI. 

McWiuiam, A. S., Agriculture 


research at Lady Manners School, 
570, 678, 

Magnetic field, axial spin, by Prof. 
W. Cramp, 453, 611. 

Maiden Island, Crinanite dike, by 
Dr. F. Walker, 481. 

Mair, Dr. L., Growth of econo- 
mic individualism among African 
peoples, 521. 

MaitLanp, Dr. P., Chemistry of 
Quebracho tannin, 471, 612. 

Maitianp, Dr. T. G., Disorienta- 
tion and vertigo, 539. 

Mallorca, human geography, 
E. W. Gilbert, 497, 673. 

Manton, Dr. I., Analysis of species, 
492*, 613. 

Maps and illustrations, preparation, 
by Lt.-Col. A. B. Clough, 497, 
673. 

Margidunum, by Dr. 
519%. 

Market research, psychological ap- 
proach, by N. M. Balchin, 548, 
616. 

Marsna., C. E., Plant structure in 
coal, 481. 

Maartin, Miss M. T., Suzeda mari- 
tima and S. fruticosa, 552. 

Masters, Miss H., Science teaching 
in adult education, 564*. 

Mathematical tables, report on, 269. 

Matruews, Prof. J. R., Problems 
of British flora, 557*, 617. 

Maucuan, W., Canal projects, 516*, 
614. 

Mayss, W. E., Zoology of Leicester- 
shire, Appdx. 33. 

Mechanical ability, report on, 305. 

Mechanical engineering,  experi- 
epee; by R. W. Allen, 129, 
510%, 

Mechanical view iof life, by Dr. J. 
Gray, 81, 486*. 

Megalithic work in em 
Dr. J. H. Hutton, 525*, 675. 


by 


F. Oswald, 


by 


113 


Mental work, blood distribution, by 
M. F. Lowe, 544. 

MestTon, Rt. Hon. Lorp, Geography 
as mental equipment, 93, 499*. 

Meteorologist, amateur, discussion 
by J. Fairgrieve, Dr. G. C. 
Simpson, Prof. F. G. Baily, Capt. 
T. Dannreuther, Rev. P. Jones, 
T. Sheppard, 599. 

Midlands, grazing, by Ald. P. F. 
Astill, 574, 618. 

Muss, Dr. G. H., Human factor in 
relation to design of factory equip- 
ment and machinery, 508. 

Milk production and distribution, 
discussion by Prof. T. J. Mackie, 
W. Godden and Dr. J. Black- 
wood, Dr. N. C. Wright, B. 
Davies, Prof. G. S. Wilson, Dr. 
H. D. Kay, Miss O. Nethersole, 
576, 618. 

Miter, Prof. D. C., Ether-drift 
experiment, 451*, 670. 

Mine, Prof. E. A., Expanding 
universe, 436, 610. 

MILng, P. S., Distribution of insects 
in atmosphere, 489. 

Milne’s theory and general relativity, 
by Dr. W.-H. McCrea, 445, 610. 

Mines, Safety Research Board, by 
Prof. J. F. Thorpe, 584. 

Monocotyledon shoot, by Miss L. I. 
Scott and Prof. J. H. Priestley, 
552". 

Motion study of small assembly and 
machine work, by Miss A. G. 
Shaw, 540, 616. 

Motor Boat Association, 
Horton, 402. 

Motor unit, overseas, by Sir H. 
Fowler, 512. 

Mountsorrel igneous complex, by 
J. H. Taylor, 484. 

Mugharet el-Tabun, excavation of, 
by Miss D. A. E. Garrod, 527*. 
Multiple planes, by Dr. P. du Val, 

457, OIL. 


byraic, 


| Munpt, H., Good forest and thin- 


nings, 559, 617. 

Music, primitive, in S. Sudan, by 
Dr. A. N. Tucker, 529. 

Musical research, anthropological 
aspects, by Dr. S. F. Nadel, 529, 


615. 
Musk rat, by M. A. C. Hinton, 488. 


114 


Mycorrhiza and forestry, by Dr. 
M. C. Rayner, 560, 617. 

Myers, Dr. C. S., on Mechanical 
ability, 305. 

Myres, Prof. J. L., on Bronze Age 
implements, 300. 

Science in adult education, 
569, 618. 

——on Science teaching in adult 
education, 330, 564*. 


NabeEL, Dr. S. F., Anthropological 
aspects of musical research, 529, 
615. 

Narcosis and mental function, by 
Dr. J. H. Quastel, 543. 

National system of education, develop- 
ment, by J. L. Holland, 219, 
569%. 

Native warfare on Lower Colorado 
River, by Prof. C. D. Forde, 519, 
615. 

NEAL, L., Organisation of economic 
distribution, 509, 614. 

NEAVERSON, Dr. E., St. George’s 
Land, 478. 

Nebulz, cosmical significance of 
clusters, by l’Abbé Lemaitre, 448. 

Neolithic Period to Bronze Age in 
W. Asia, by T. B. Brown, 527*. 

Nerve-cells, activity, by Prof. E. D. 
Adrian, 163, 533*. 

Nerves and nerve-nets in inverte- 
brates, by C. F. A. Pantin, 491. 
NETHERSOLE, Miss O., Milk pro- 
duction and distribution, 577*. 
NEVILLE, Prof. E. H., on Mathe- 

matical tables, 269. 

NicuHotson, H. H., Field drains on 
farms, 572. 

Drainage investigations, 572. 

Niemen River, by Miss H. G. 
Wanklyn, 502. 

Nimmo, H., Electricity stations, 404. 

Low river flows, 408. 

Nose, Miss M., Typhula trifolii 
Rostrup, 553. 

‘Noegenetic and factor theories, by 
F. C. Thomas, 541. 

Noise, reduction of aircraft, by 
R.S. Capon, 511, 674. 

Notan, Prof. J. J., Discharge from 
raindrop in intense electric field, 


463. 


INDEX 


North Sea, prediction of cod fish- 
eries, by M. Graham, 492, 673. 
Nose-opening rays, by Dr. T. Bed- 
ford and A. F. Dufton, 533, 675. 


Oates, Dr. D. W., Factors in 
scholastic ability, 566, 678. 

Occupations, classification of com- 
munities by, by Dr. E. H. Sel- 
wood, 499. 

O’DonocuuE, Dr. C. H., Biology 
and fisheries of Jasper Park, 493. 

(Estrin, by G. A. D. Haslewood, 
466, 612. 

(Estrogenic compounds, synthetic, 
by Prof. E. C. Dodds, 468, 6r2. 

Officers and Council, v. 

OrrorD, Dr. A. C., Fourier and 
Hankel transforms, 455, 627. 

OurPHANT, Dr. M. L., Disintegra- 
tion of elements, 432, 6I0. 

OuivE, G. W., Teaching of general 
science, 566*. 

OrDE-POWLETT, Hon.N.A., Forestry 
and sport, 559, 617. 

Organisation as technical problem, 
discussion by Dr. E. F. Armstrong, 
Maj. L. Urwick, A. B. Blake, 506, 
64. 

Orton, Prof. J. H., on Sex physio- 
logy, 272. 

Orwin, C. S., Open-field parish of 
Laxton, 574, 618. 

Ossification, discussion by Prof. R. 
Robison, Dr. H. B. Fell, Dr. 
H. D. Kay, Dr. L. J. Harris, Dr. 
D. Hunter, 531, 616. 

OswaLp, Dr. F., Margidunum, 
519*. 

Ovary, acarpous nature of inferior, 
by Prof. J. McL. Thompson, 554, 
617. 


PALMER, Sir R., Stone circles in 
Gambia valley, 524, 615. 
PANTIN, C. F. A., Nerves and nerve- 
nets in Invertebrates, 401. 
ParkKER, Dr. A., Water pollution, 410. 
Pascal’s theorem in 7 dimensions, by 
H. G. Green, 458, 617. 
Pasteurisation, implications of com- 
pulsory, by Dr. N. C. Wright, © 
577, O18. 


INDEX 


Patent and copyright law, by Prof. 
A. Plant, 504, 673. 

PeacH, H. H., Regional planning 
and Leicester district, 495, 673. 
Peake, H. J. E., on Sumerian copper, 

302. 


Peat planting at Lon Mor Experi- | 


mental Station, 
Macdonald, 560. 
Peers, Prof. R., Science teaching in 
adult education, 564*. 
Pendulum, spherically free, by C. 
H. H. Franklin, 450, 620. 
PENTELOw, F. T. K., Fauna and 
flora of rivers, 599*. 
Personal influence, by 
Brown, 542, 616. 
Personal relations and small group, | 
by Dr. G. G. N. Wright, 547, 616. 
Personality and temperament, by 
Dr. P. E. Vernon, 541, 616. 


Dr. W. 


by J. A. B.| 


Puiiuires, Dr. H., Vegetable tanning 


process, 471, 612. 
Photographic lenses at Leicester, by 


W. Taylor and H. W. Lee, 430, | 


610, 611. 

Phthalocyanines, by 
Linstead, 465, 612. 

Physics in adult education, by Dr. 
A. Ferguson, 569*, 617. 

Physiology, value to industry, by 
G. P. Crowden, 508, 674. 

Praccio, Prof. H. T. H., Validity of 
methods of correlation, 547, 616. 

Plankton, behaviour in relation to 
conditions, by F. S. Russell, 490, 
613. 

Plankton, distribution in southern 
oceans, by G. E. R. Deacon and 
Dilwyn John, 489, 673. 

Pant, Prof. A., patent and copy- 
right law, 504, 613. 

Plant growth hormones, by Prof. F. 
Kégl, 466*, 600. 

Pokorny, Prof. J., Origin of Celts, 
517, 615. 

Polar year, by Prof. F. Debenham, 
499*. 

Positive electron, by 
Blackett, 433. 

Post Office counter staff, by G. C. 
Wickins, 563, 678. 

Potteries, painted, from India and 
East Iran, by Prof. V. G. Childe, 
527, 615. 


Dra Res P. 


PAIMEWS. 


115 


PouLTon, Prof. E. B., on Zoological 
bibliography, 273. 

Practice periods, distribution, by 
Miss R. M. Goldthorpe, 540*. 
Pratt, Lt.-Col. E., Propagation and 

growth of Salix ccerulea, 558, 617. 

President, installation, xvi. 

PRESTON, Dr. R. D., Cell wall of 
Valonia, 428, 6r0. 

PRIESTLEY, Prof. J. H., Monocotyle- 
don shoot, 552*. 

PRITCHARD, H. A., Municipal activi- 
ties of Leicester, Appdx. 72. 

Protoplasm, diffusion and extension 
phenomena in living, by E. 
Heron-Allen, 486*, 673. 

Protoplasm, structure, discussion by 
J. E., Harris.) Dew Ds aje- Lloyd, 
W. T. Astbury, 490%. 

Psychological tests, by A. Rodger, 
Ghee 

Psychological tests and examina- 
tions, predictive value, discussion 
by Prof. C. W. Valentine, Dr. 
D. W. Oates, F. Barraclough, 
F. Sandon, Prof. J. Drever, Miss 
A. B. Dale, E. Farmer, 545*, 566, 
617, 618, 

Psychologist, function in adminis- 
trative scheme, by Mrs. N. M. 
Barnes, 549. 

Psychology, report on training in, 308. 
Psychology, status as empirical science, 
by Prof. F. Aveling, 171, 542*. 
Psycho-physiological requirements 
of modern factory equipment, dis- 
cussion by Sir H. Fowler, G. P. 
Crowden, Dr. G. H. Miles, 508, 

6r4. 

Public expenditure and _ public 
works, by J. Sykes, 505. 

Publication, reference to, 610. 

Pucu, Prof. W. J., Geography and 
geology in adult education, 568*, 
618, 

Pumps, oil condensation, by C. R. 
Burch, 451, 677. 

Purser, G. L., Anatomy of Calamo- 
ichthys, 488*. 


QuasTEL, Dr. J. H., Narcosis and 
mental function, 543. 

Quebracho tannin, chemistry, by 
Dr. P. Maitland, 471, 612. 


116 


Racial characteristics, blood groups 
as index, by Prof. R. R. Gates, 
522, 615. 

Rafai fakirs of Hyderabad, by Dr. 
E. H. Hunt, 523*. 

Racuan, Rt. Hon. Lorp, What is 
tradition ?, 145, 518*. 

Raindrop, discharge in intense 
electric field, by Prof. J. J. Nolan 
and J. P. Ryan, 463. 

Rainfall, rest and pumping levels, by 
A. E. Cornewall-Walker, 420. 

Raistrick, Dr. A., Developed Tar- 
denoisian sites in N.E. England, 
519. 

Microspores of coal, 480. 

RANDALL, J. T., Spectroscopy in 
industry, 451*, 611. 

RapHaEL, Mrs. W., Employment by 
Civil Service, companies and 
‘family ’ firms, 548. 

Rats, learning of, by Prof. E. C. 
Tolman, 545*, 626. 

Rattray, Dr. R. S., Present ten- 
dencies of African Colonial 
Governments, 524, 615. 

Raw, Dr. F., Triassic and Pleisto- 
cene surfaces on Leicestershire 
igneous rocks, 484. 

Raw Dykes, Leicester, by W. Keay, 
518. 

Rayner, Dr. M. C., Mycorrhiza and 
forestry, 560, 617. 

Reaction time, competition, by Prof. 
H. Hartridge, 536. 

Reclamation of land and_ sea 
defences, by M. Du-Plat-Taylor, 
516, 614. 

Red sedimentary rocks, discussion 
by Prof. G. Hickling, Prof. W. S. 
Boulton, Prof. W. T. Gordon, 
F. W. Shotton, Dr. B. Smith, 
Dr. H. C. Versey, Prof. D. M.S. 
Watson, 482. 

REGENER, Prof. E., Cosmic ray 
measurements, 430*, 620. 

Regression, phenomenal, by Dr. 
R. H. Thouless, 542, 676. 

Rep, Sq.-Ldr. G. H., Disorienta- 
tion and vertigo, 540*. 

Relativity and Milne’s theory, by 
Dr. W. H. McCrea, 445, 620. 
Research, centralisation and co-ordina- 
tion, by Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler, 

589. 


INDEX 


Research Committees, xxxviii. 

Resolutions and recommendations, 
xliv. 

Rift Valley, age, by Dr. L. S. B. 
Leakey, 484. 

River gauging, by Capt. W. N. 
McClean, 421. 

River pollution, legal aspect, by 
H. F. Atter, 513, 674. 

Rivers, changes in flora and fauna, 
discussion by J. W. Walton, 
F. T. K. Pentelow, J. Adams, 
T. S. Dymond, H. E. Salmon, 
Dr. J. F. Tocher, 599*. 

Rivers, low flows, by H. Nimmo, 
408. 

Road and rail, division of function, 
by G. Walker, 506, 673. 

Roperts, F. W., Industries of 
Leicester, Appdx. 60. 

RoBERTSON, Dr. J. M., Interatomic 
distances in aromatic hydro- 
carbons, 468, 612. 

ROBERTSON, W. A., Public opinion 
of forestry, 561, 617. 

RoBINSON, Prof. R., Natural colour- 
ing matters and analogues, 45, 
464*. 

RosBIson, Prof. R., Ossification, 
531, 616. 

Rosson, Dr. G. C., Limitations of 
adaptability in animal kingdom, 
487. 

Zoological surveys, 596. 

Rosy, F. H., Manchester Statistical 
Society, 589*. 

Ropcer, A., Psychological tests, 
512. 

Temperament and vocational 
psychologist, 540, 616. 

Roesuck, A., Rook in rural economy 
of Midlands, 487, 673. 

Roxes, T., Gauging River Aire, 
407. 

Rook in rural economy of Midlands, 
by A. Roebuck, 487, 673. 

Roridula, is it carnivorous ?, by 
Prof. F. E. Lloyd, 552. 

ROSEVEARE, Capt. J. C. A., Catch- 
ment boards, 397. 

Land drainage, 398. 

Rotu, G. K., Decaying arts and 
crafts of Fiji, 528, 675. 

RoucuTon, Dr. F. J. W., Carbon 
dioxide transport in blood, 533. 


INDEX 


ROWLAND, Rev. J. P., Wensleydale 
earthquake, 461. 

Roxsy, Prof. P. M., on Human 
geography of tropical Africa, 274. 

RussELL, F. S., Marine plankton 
animals, 490, 673. 

RussELL, Sir J., on Empire soil re- 
sources, 296. 

RUTHERFORD, Rt. Hon. Lorp, Atomic 
transmutation, 431, 610. 

Ryan, J. P., Discharge from rain- 
drop in intense electric field, 463. 


Safety in Mines Research Board, by 
Prof. J. F. Thorpe, 584. 

Saint George’s Land, discussion by 
Prof. W. S. Boulton, E. E. L. 
Dixon, Dr. T. N. George, Dr. 
E. Neaverson, T. Eastwood, 477, 
612. 

Salix ccerulea, propagation and 
growth, by Lt.-Col. E. Pratt, 


558, 617. 


SaLmon, H. E., Fauna and flora of | 


rivers, 599*. 

SaLT, A., Accountancy in scientific 
management, 507*. 

Sat, Dr. G., Insect parasites, 486. 

SaLT, H., Education for boot and 
shoe industry, 564, 628. 

SANDON, F., School examinations 
and psychological tests, 567, 618. 

Sarson, Miss G. M., Growth of 
population in Leicester, 494. 

Sayce, R. U., Distribution of belief 
in fairies, 526*. 

ScHorieLD, Dr. H., Engineering 
training at Loughborough, 565. 
Scholastic ability, factors, by Dr. 

D. W. Oates, 566, 678. 

School research work, discussion 
by Dr. A. H. Smith, Dr. L. D. 
Stamp, A. S. McWilliam, Miss 
J. K. Jones, 570, 678. 

Science and economic progress, by 
Sir J. Stamp, 578. 

Science in adult education, sym- 
posium by Sir R. Gregory, Prof. 
W. J. Pugh, Prof. W. B. Brierley, 
Dr. A. Ferguson, Prof. J. L. 
Myres, Dr. V. Cornish, Sir J. 
Stamp, 568, 617, 618. 

Science teaching in adult education, 
report on, 330, 564*. 


117 


Science teaching in adult education, 
discussion by Prof. J. L. Myres, 
DraiGeH.-Desch; At SioPicth; 
Miss H. Masters, R. J. Howrie, 
Prof. R. Peers, G. C. Hickson, 
564*. 

Scolt Head Island, by J. A. Steers, 
496, 613. 

Scott, Miss L. I., Monocotyledon 
shoot, 552*. 

Sea defences and land reclamation, 
by M. Du-Plat-Taylor, 516, 674. 

Seasonal weather and its prediction, 
by Sir G. T. Walker, 25, 430*. 

Sectional Officers, ix. 

Seedling anatomy, significance, by 
Dr. E. N. M. Thomas, 553*. 

Seismological investigations, report 
on, 265. 

SELwoop, Dr. E. H., Classification 
of communities by occupations, 
499. 

SENN, Prof. G., Influence of light 
on permeability of plant cell, 
557%. 

Sensory comparisons, ‘ constant’ 
errors, by R. J. Bartlett, 544. 

Sensory events, report on quantitative 
estimates of, 271. 

Seto, Dr. G., Clinical aspects of 
stuttering, 545. 

Severn, gauging at Bewdley, by Prof. 
S. M. Dixon, 424. 

Severn, gauging at Ironbridge, by 
E. F. Hetherington, 406. 

Sewage treatment and disposal, dis- 
cussion by J. D. Watson, H. F. 
Atter, Prof. W. E. Adeney and 
Dry vA... ‘Ge Ge beonardiasy: 
Haworth, F. C. Vokes, H. R. 
Lupton, 513, 614, 615. 

Sewarp, Prof. A. C., Floras of 
Kerguelen Archipelago, 549, 617. 

Sex hormones, relation to sterols 
and bile acids, by Dr. A. Bute- 
nandt, 467, 612. 

Sex physiology, report on, 272. 

Suaw, Miss A. G., Motion study of 
small assembly and machine work, 
540*, 616. 

SHEPPARD, T’., Amateur meteor- 
ologist, 599*. 

Pollution of River Hull, 596. 

Shoe manufacturing machinery, by 
J. Gouldbourn, 515, 614. 


118 


Shore, new pteridosperm stem from, 
by Prof. H. S. Holden, 550. 

SHOTTON, F. W., Red sedimentary 
rocks, 483. 

Shropshire, 
472. 

Sipewick, Dr. N. V., Interatomic 
distances, 468*. 

Natural colouring matters, 466. 

ey by Dr. W. R. Jones, 479, 

men , 

Simons, Dr. L., Diatomic rotator, 
431*, 650. 

Simpson, Dr. G. C., 
meteorologist, 599. 

Condensation of water in at- 
mosphere, 463. 

Skin, chemistry, by Dr. D. J. Lloyd, 


geological excursion, 


Amateur 


470, 612. 

Skin, chemistry, and -catechol 
tannins, by Prof. M. Bergmann, 
471, OIT. 


Skin resistance, by Prof. H. Hart- 
ridge, 536. 

Sludge, treatment and utilisation, by 
F. C. Vokes, 514, 614. 

SmalL, Prin. J. C., Training for 
business and administration, 564*. 

Smart, E. H., Diatomic rotator, 


7. ee Nini a ON 5 a 

Smitu, Dr. A. H., Field names, 
570%. 

SmitTH, Dr. B., Red sedimentary 
rocks, 483. 


Underground water, 413. 

SmitH, C. C., Water supply authori- 
ties’ records, 396. 

Soil resources, Empire, report on, 
296. 

Solar chromosphere and corona, by 
Dr. W. H. McCrea, 4509. 

Sone Coronada, by O. Davies, 527, 

ioe 

South Arabian Desert, first crossing, 
by B. Thomas, 519*. 

Southern oceans, hydrology, by 
G. E. R. Deacon, 489, 673. 

Southern oceans, plankton, by D. 
John, 490. 

SpPaRSHOTT, Miss E. N., Tuberisa- 
tion, 556. 

SPEAKMAN, Dr. J. B., Fibre chem- 
istry and X-ray analysis, 428, 611. 

SPEARMAN, Prof. C., Determination 
of unitary traits, 547. 


INDEX 


SPEARMAN, Prof. C., Theory of two 
factors, 545, 616. 

Species, analysis of, by Dr. I. 
Manton, 492*, 673. 

Species, synthesis of, by Dr. K. B. 
Blackburn, 492. 

Spectroscopy in industry, by J. T. 
Randall, 451*, 6r17. 

Spigrs, Dr. C. H., Physical problems 
of leather manufacture, 451*, 677. 

Stamp, Sir J., Must science ruin 
economic progress ?, 5°78. 

Science in adult education, 

. 569*. 

Stamp, Dr. L. D., Changes in utili- 
sation of land in S.W. London 
basin, 500. 

Types of local survey, 570. 

STANFORD, F. O., Water supply 
authorities, 391. 

Steels, embrittling, by A. M. McKay 
and R. N. Arnold, 516, 6r4. 

Steers, J. A., Scolt Head Island, 
496, 673. 

Stellar colour temperatures, by W. 
M. H. Greaves, 459. 

Stellar spectra, line intensities, by 
A. D. Thackeray, 459. 

Sterculiaceez, development of rays, 
by Miss M. M. Chattaway, 552, 
617. 

STEwakrT, Prin. H., University train- 
ing for business, 562. 

Stigma, nature and origin, by Dr. 
H.H. Thomas, 550, 677. 

Stocks, genetical system for ever- 
sporting, by Prof. R. A. Fisher, 
550, 617. 

Stone circles in Gambia Valley, by 
Sir R. Palmer, 524, 675. 

Stratosphere, influence on cyclone 
formation, by Prof. F. Linke, 430. 

Stresses in overstrained materials, 
report on, 296, 517*. 

Stuttering, clinical aspects, by Dr. 
G. Seth, 545. 

Suzeda maritima and S. fruticosa, by 
Miss M. T. Martin, 552. 

Sudan, S., primitive music, by Dr. 
A. N. Tucker, 529. 

Suez Canal dues and inter-continental 
trade, by Sir A. Wilson, 504, 673. 

Sux, Prof. V., Eskimos of Labrador, 
520. 

Sumerian copper, report on, 302. 


INDEX 


Supersaturation of water in free 
atmosphere, by L. H. G. Dines, 
464. 

Superstitious beliefs in Gold Coast, 
by A. W. Cardinall, 523, 675. 

Survey, types of local, by Dr. L. D. 
Stamp, 570. 

Survey, village, by Miss J. K. Jones, 


571. 
Sykes, J., Public expenditure and 
public works, 505. 


Talking film in industry, by H. 
Warren, 451*. 

Tan liquors and extracts, tanning 
properties, by Dr. F. E. Hum- 
phreys, 472, 612. 

Tanning process, chemistry of, dis- 
cussion by Dr. D. Jordan Lloyd, 
Prof. K. Freudenberg, Dr. P. 
Maitland, Prof. M. Bergmann, 
Dr. H. Phillips, F. C. Thompson, 
Dr. F. E. Humphreys, 470, 611, 
612. 

Tannins, behaviour to proteins, by 
Prof. K. Freudenberg, 470, 612. 
Tardenoisian sites, developed, in 

N.E. England, by Dr. A. Raistrick, 


519. 

Taytor, Prof. E. G. R., Economic 
geography of early Stuart England, 
501. 

Tay or, J. H., Mountsorrel igneous 
complex, 484. 

Tay or, S. O., Zoology of Leicester- 
shire, Appdx. 33. 

Taytor, W., Features of Taylor, 
Taylor & Hobson works, 510*, 614. 

Photographic lenses at Leices- 
ter, 430, 6IT. 

Taylor, Taylor & Hobson works, 
by W. Taylor, 510*, 614. 

Teachers, research work by, discus- 
sion by Dr. A. H. Smith, Dr. 
L. D. Stamp, A. S. McWilliam, 
Miss J. K. Jones, 570, 628. 

Technological and economic pro- 
gress, by R. F. Harrod, Prof. 
J. A. S. Watson, Dr. K. G. 
Fenelon, 504*. 

Teeth, fibre structure, by J. Thewlis, 
429, OII. 

Television, by Maj. A. G. Church, 
451*, 610. 


119 


Temperament and personality, by 
Dr. P. E. Vernon, 541, 616. 

Temperament and vocational psy- 
chologist, by A. Rodger, 540, 616. 

Temperature gradients near ground, 
by A. C. Best, 462, 6r7. 

Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks, report 
on, 271. 

Testing flexible sheet materials, by 
H. Bradley, 451*, 671. 

Testudinaria elephantipes, by Miss 
E. N. Sparshott, 556. 

Tetrad theory, sampling error, by 
Dr. J. Wishart, 546, 676. 

Tuackeray, A. D., Line intensities 
in stellar spectra, 459. 

Thames, gauging, by G. J. Griffiths, 
425. 

Thames Conservancy, by 
Griffiths, 398. 

THEWLIS, J., Fibre structure in teeth, 
429, OIL. 

Thinnings, effects in coniferous 
plantations, by J. Macdonald, 
559%. 

Thinnings, utilisation, by A. P. 
Long, 559*, 617. 

Thinnings and good forest, by H. 
Mundt, 559, 617. 

Tuopay, Prof. D., on Kleinia articu- 
lata, 311. 

Tuomas, B., First crossing of South 
Arabian Desert,.519*. 

Tuomas, Dr. E. N. M., significance 
of seedling anatomy, 553*. 

Tuomas, F.C., Factor and noegenetic 
theories, 541. 

Tuomas, Dr. H. H., Nature and 
origin of stigma, 550, 6177. 

Tuompson, F. C., Gelatin-tannin 
reaction, 472, 612. 

Tuompson, Prof. J. McL., Acarpous 
nature of inferior ovary, 554, 617. 

Tuomson, D. H., Water level at 
Compton, 417. 

TuorPE, Prof. J. F., Safety in Mines 
Research Board, 584. 

Tuou.ess, Dr. R. H., Phenomenal 
regression, 542, 616. 

TILLotson, E., High focus earth- 
quakes, 460. 

Tocuer, Dr. J. F., Fauna and flora 
of rivers, 599*. 

Toitman, Prof. E. C., Learning of 
rats, 545*, 616. 


Givy. 


I20 


Trade associations and combina- 
tions, by A. B. Blake, 507. 

Tradition, what is?, by Rt. Hon. 
Lord Raglan, 145, 518*. 

Training in psychology, report on, 308. 

Traits, determination of unitary, by 
Prof. C. Spearman, 547. 

Traits, mutual independence of 
several sets, by Dr. S. S. Wilks, 
546, 616. 

Transmutation, atomic, discussion 
by Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford. 
Dr. J..D. Cockcroft and Dr. E. 
T.S. Walton, Dr. M. L. Oliphant, 
P. I. Dee, 431, 610, 6117. 

Transplant experiments, report on, 310. 

Trees and countryside, by W. Dalli- 
more, 558. 

Trent Catchment Board, by W. H. 
Haile, 399. 

Tuberisation, by Miss E. N. Spar- 
shott, 556. 

Tucker, Dr. A. N., Primitive music 
in S. Sudan, 529. 

Two-factor theory, by Prof. C. 
Spearman, 545, 616. 

Typhula trifolii Rostrup, by Miss M. 
Noble, 553. 


U.S.A., metropolitan regions, by 
R. E. Dickinson, 502, 673. 


Uganda and Kenya, rainfall, by | 


Prof. Ll. R. Jones and F. H. W. 
Green, 497. 

ULLyorTT, P., Vertical movements of 
Zooplankton, 490*. 


Unemployment, engineering works | 
as cure, by Prof. M. Walker, 515, | 


615. 
Ur, archaic period, by Dr. C. L. 
Woolley, 528*. 
Urwick, Maj. L., Organisation as a 
technical problem, 506, 614. 
- Utricularia, entrance mechanisms of 
traps, by Prof. F. E. Lloyd, 183, 
554*. 


Vacuum tubes, high voltage, by Dr. 
T. E. Allibone, 452. 

VALENTINE, Prof. C. W., Develop- 
ment of language in child, 537, 626. 

Unreliability of entrance exam- 

inations, 566*, 678. 


INDEX 


Valonia, cell wall, by Dr. R. D. 
Preston, 428, 610. 

VAN DE GraarrF, Dr. R. J., Electro- 
static generation of high voltage 
for nuclear research, 427*. 

Engineering possibilities of 
electrostatics, 453. 

VaucuHaNn, Dr. W. W., Teaching of 
general science, 566*. 

VeEGARD, Prof. L., Auroral spectrum 
and upper atmosphere, 427, 6IT. 

Vegetable tanning process, by Dr. 
H. Phillips, 471, 612. 

VERNON, Miss M. D., Binocular 
vision of flickering fields, 548, 676. 

VERNON, Dr. P. E., Temperament 
and personality, 541, 626. 

VersEY, Dr. H. C., Red sedimentary 
rocks, 483. 

Vertebrates, origin of land-living, by 
Prof. D. M. S. Watson, 488*, 
613. 

Vertigo and disorientation, discus- 
sion by Dr. J. T. MacCurdy, 
Fl.-Lt. J. A.G. Haslam, Dr. T. G. 
Maitland, Sq.-Ldr. E. D. Dick- 
son, R. J. Bartlett, Dr. R. S. 
Creed, Sq.-Ldr. G. H. Reid, 530*, 
538, 616. 

Visual sensations,quantitative bright- 
ness, by F. H. Gage, 541. 

Vitamin action and bone formation, 
by Dr. L. J. Harris, 532, 616. 

VoKEs, F. C., Treatment and utilisa- 
tion of sludge, 514, 614. 


WacstTartfFeE, R., Zoology of Leicester- 
shire, Appdx. 33. 

Wales, hill forts and valleyward 
movements of population, by 
E. G. Bowen, 525. 

Watker, Dr. F., Crinanite dike of 
Maiden Island, 481. 

WatkerR, G., Division of function 
between road and rail, 506, 613. 
WALKER, Sir G. T., Seasonal weather 

and its prediction, 25, 430*. 

WALKER; Prof. M., Engineering 
works as cure for unemployment, 
515, 615. 

Watters, R. C. S., Pumping tests at 
new borings, 419. 

—— Gauging chalk wells over long ° 
periods, 419. 


INDEX 


Watton, Dr. E. T. S., Transmuta- 
tion of elements, 432, 6ZT. 

Watton, J. W., Hythe canal fish, 

* 

WANKLYN, Miss H. G., Niemen 
River, 502. 

Warren, H., Talking film in in- 
dustry, 451*. 

Water, surface, 
McClean, 383. 

Water, underground, by 
Smith, 413. 

Water organisations, foreign, by Dr. 
B. Cunningham, 371. 

Water pollution and gauging, by Dr. 
A. Parker, 410. 

Water supply authorities, by F. O. 
Stanford, 391. 

Water supply authorities’ records, by 
C. C. Smith, 396. 

Watson, Prof. D. M. S., Origin of 
land-living vertebrates, 488*, 673. 

Red sedimentary rocks, 484. 

Watson, Prof. J. A. S., Techno- 
logical and economic progress, 
504*. 

Watson, J. D., Sewage treatment 
and disposal, 513, 615. 

Weather, prediction of seasonal, by 
Sir G. T. Walker, 25, 430*. 

Weather prophecy, Celtic, by K. H. 
Jackson, 517, 615. 

Wells, chalk, gauging over long periods, 
by R. C. S. Walters, 419. 

Wells, water levels, by F.J. Dixon, 418. 

Wensleydale earthquake, by Rev. 
J. P. Rowland, 461. 

WENT, Prof. F. A. F. C., Growth- 
substance (Auxin) in plants, 555, 
617. 

WENTWORTH-SHEILDS, 
Earth pressures, 297. 

WHEELER, Dr. R. E. M., Centralisa- 
tion and co-ordination of research, 
589. 

Wuiper Le, Dr. F. J. W., on Seismo- 
logical investigations, 265. 

WuiteEHeaD, J. H. C., Calculus of 
variations of large: loci of con- 
jugate points, 458. 

Wicxkins, G. C., Post office counter 
staff, 563, 628. 

Wicks, Miss L. M., Inverted bundle 
system, 557. 


by Capt. W. N. 
Dra B. 


EF. E., on 


I2I 


WIGGLEsSWorTH, Dr. V. B., Water 
in physiology of excretion in 
insects, 486, 673. 

Witks, Dr. S. S., Mutual inde- 
pendence of several sets of traits, 
546, 616. 

Wittatts, E. C., Changes in utilisa- 
tion of land in S.W. London 
basin, 500. 

Wirtuiamson, Mrs. H. S., Develop- 
ment of As scophanus aurora 
(Crouan) Boud., 553, 617. 

WILSON, Sir A., Suez Canal dues 
and inter-continental trade, 504, 
613. 

Witson, Prof. G. S., Necessity for 
safe milk supply, 577, 618. 

Witson, W., ‘Testing electrical 
switch equipment, 512, 615. 

Wimperis, H. E., Film in engineer- 
rhover, Iito ie 

Aeronautical research, 511. 

WisHart, Dr. J., Sampling error in 
tetrad theory, 546, 616. 

Woop, Mrs. E. M., Organisation of 
economic distribution, 509*. 

Wootprince, Dr. S. W., Longitu- 
dinal profiles of southern English 
rivers, 485. 

WoolttEy Dro Cae. ie 
archaic period, 528*. 

WricuT, Dr. G. G. N., Personal 
relations and small group, 547, 616. 

Wricut, Dr. N. C., Implications of 
compulsory pasteurisation, 577, 
678, 


the 


X-ray analysis of fibres, discussion 
by W. T. Astbury, Dr. R. D. 
Preston, Dr. J. B. Speakman, J. 
Thewlis, 428, 550*, 610, 611. 


Yorkshire, West Riding, Rivers Board, 
by J. H. Garner, 401. 


Zoological bibliography, report on, 
Wee 

Zoological surveys, by Dr. 
Robson, 596. 

Zoology in adult pauiation: by Prof. 
W. B. Brierley, 569, 617. 

Zooplankton, vertical movements, 
by P. Ullyott, 490*. 


G. C: 


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