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BRITISH ASSOCIATION
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REPORT
OF THE
ANNUAL MEETING, 1937
(107TH YEAR)
NOTTINGHAM
SEPTEMBER 1-8
LONDON
‘ OFFICE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION
BURLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON, W.1
1937
ili
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MEE EASHAND. COUNCIL, TO97—30 fy <isye + syaie sonia e ne go oie ss vip obi Vv
SECTIONAL OFFICERS, NOTTINGHAM MEETING, 1937 ...-----+-+++5> 1x
ANNUAL MEETINGS : PLACES AND DATES, PRESIDENTS, ATTENDANCES,
REcEIPTS, SUMS PAID ON ACCOUNT OF GRANTS FOR SCIENTIFIC
PGRPOSES 5(TS3T—1O3"7)) sis et Amtek Ricks oj ohe. 0 lehelle) viel oie! sacl ele aiereiets xii
NARRATIVE OF THE NOTTINGHAM MEETING ............0000000005 XVi
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL TO THE GENERAL COMMITTEE (1936-37) .... XVili
GENERAL 'TREASURER’S REPORT AND ACCOUNT (1936-37) .....-..-.- XXV1
RESEARCH COMMITTEES (1937-38) ...---- 0s eewe cere eee ee eee enee xliii
RESOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (NOTTINGHAM MEETING) .... xlIViii
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS :
The History of Evolutionary Thought as recorded in Meetings of
the British Association. By Prof. Sir EDwARD POULTON,
fo CLS TSE A DE ey Ne tee Pairk, Ee in mane ee I
SECTIONAL PRESIDENTS’ ADDRESSES :
Noise and the Nation. By Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, O.B.E. ...... 25
Recent Research in Chemotherapy. By Dr. F.L.Pyman,F.R.S. 57
Pleistocene History of the West Midlands. By Prof. L.J. Wits 71
pehersex Ratio.” By Prof. BOA. E. CREW. 55.55.06 sfsieus adil ofa, exer 95
The Changing Distribution of Population. By Prof. C. B.
RA WUISEE Unt robe ater over! 6 Qcet soe Stedeeak SIA Teas a Dea es gO 115
Economic Research and Industrial Policy. By Prof. P. SarcANT
RAPE NCES etnehe: eet sis eB! PUBS B I, Mg BALE Dt oO 129
Research in Engineering. By Sir ALEXANDER Grips, G.B.E., C.B.,
ESO Titel OTH: SI SIE. TERS RN ss Gche soa 151
Assam Origins in relation to Oceania. By Prof. J. H. Hurron,
MOIR Beare ep cbs Saco eh eo ee PENS aietas o Secunia cho tie’ y «stor Moratckoad 161
Heat Production, Nutrition and Growth in Man—Some New
Wiewssetby. Dr rb. POULTON a t501.- +s \gastnd Sat) Sera 185
Tests in Common Use for the Diagnosis of Colour Defect. By
Des Wiarve CORLING 13 doy aati oe amas. (4 bt ee dee 207
The Modern Study of Plants in relation to Education. By Prof.
EJS SALISBURY PP eRISe TCHR IRD ay EAN ek SRO A 227
The Informative Content of Education. By H. G. WELLs,
RIE tReet ers on ers hee es Cie ere, bcaenena, SNe eau Ag 237i
State Intervention in Agriculture. By J. M. Cale ............ 249
iv CONTENTS
PAGE
REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. .........000seeeeeeeee 265
SECTIONAI) AWRANSACIIONS y o.ys/-) cio. os o,ccfareic/ are ie et oioe teeta ee eae 333
CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES ........ 446
EVENING Discourse: By Dr. R. E. SLADE ............5...s0ne 457
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION .............. 474
ELANNING (DEE IZANDI Ob) ISREDALN: = c's)» vo as «|e /olelert) siete nee 486
RADFORD MaTHER Lecture. By the Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDona_p,
PAC INE OBR Sir ods FL Abe ate $c loca eetde 6 ayach.e epee 500
Norman Lockyer Lecture. By Dr. R. E. MorTIMER WHEELER... 512
REFERENCES TO PUBLICATION OF COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SECTIONS 519
APPENDIX
A SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT ............-. I
ABST W's he femencushepag yey a leneee taf vances» etd VISE GREE ZEN MeN SRO eeh ae 113
PUBLICATIONS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION ...........+.445 (At end)
CORRIGENDA,
SECTION G. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS.
Page 153, lines 17, 18. Read ['The National Physical Laboratory] had
already a total staff of approximately 548. It has now 724.
SECTION I. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS.
Further work since Nottingham has shown a discrepancy between
Benedict’s and DuBois’s results. Benedict’s results (Fig. 1, 2) are incom-
patible with the variable combustion ratio, but are difficult to accept, because
on the alternative theory of the constant combustion ratio an evolution of
oxygen would be associated with an evolution of heat. DuBois’s results
are compatible with both theories.
Calculations on pp. 196, 197 of Cal. per litre of oxygen resulting from
conversion, at rest, after food and in muscular work also conform to both
theories so far as they relate to R.Qs. from about 0.72 to 1.
Those results of DuBois, where there is a large change of rectal tempera-
ture during the experiment, with a resulting large difference between
* direct calorimetric ’ and ‘ eliminated ’ heat are uncertain and these form a
large proportion of the results outside the theoretical limits for O. and
Cal. in Fig. 3, and also account for the apparent similarity of the results of
DuBois and Benedict mentioned on p. 191. Consequently there is no
absolute disproof of the variable combustion ratio ; but the constancy of
the CO, over the range of quotients among other things makes the constant
combustion ratio more probable and basal metabolism is still best defined
and measured by the CO, alone as indicated on p. 200 and the other deduc-
tions from p. 200 onwards stand. It is hoped that a final discussion of this
subject will appear in the Guy’s Hospital Reports.
SECTION L. PRESIDENT’s ADDRESS.
Page 242, line 30. For ‘ terrestrial ’ read ‘ territorial.’
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
OFFICERS & COUNCIL, 1937-38.
PATRON.
HIS MAJESTY THE KING.
PRESIDENT, 1937.
Pror. Stir EpwarpD Poutton, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.
PRESIDENT, 1938.
Tue Rr. Hon. Lorp RAYLEIGH, F.R.S.
VICE-PRESIDENTS FOR THE NOTTINGHAM MEETING.
Sir ALBERT BALL, J.P.
Major T. P. Barser, D.S.O., LL.D.,
“TEAL SNA fel 2
The Rt. Hon. Lord BEtpPER, D.L., J.P.
Sir W. J. Boarp, O.B.E.
Sir HAaroLD BowDeENn, Bart., G.B.E.
Alderman H. Bow es, J.P.
Sir JULIEN Caun, Bart., J.P.
The Very Rev. the Provost OF
, SOUTHWELL (Archdeacon W. Cony-
BEARE).
J. H. Cooper.
Alderman J. N. DERBYSHIRE, J.P.
The Mayor or Lincotn (J. E. Forp-
HAM).
Judge G. M. T. Hirpyarp, K.C., D.L.
men G. HOGARTH, (C. BiB: FuRGCS.,
1D se:
Alderman E. HUNTSMAN.
Brig.-Gen. Sir EDwarD T. LE Mar-
CHANT, Bart., C.B.E., D.L., J.P.
The BisHopP OF SOUTHWELL (The Rt.
Rev. H. Mostey, M.A., D.D.).
Sir Louis PEARSON, C.B.E.
Lt.-Col. N. G. Pearson, D.S.O., M.C.
The Mayor oF Drersy (Mrs. PETTY).
J- D> BEAVER | sr.
W. G. PLAYER, J.P.
| His Grace the DuKE oF PORTLAND,
K.G., G.C.V.O.
The Lorp Mayor oF NoTTINGHAM
(Councillor A. E. PursEr, J.P.).
Sir ALBION H. H. Ricuarpson, K.C.
Lady RoBINSON.
The SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM (Coun-
cillor A. E. SAVAGE).
The Rt. Hon. Lord TRENT.
Sir BERNARD S. WriGurt, J.P.
vi OFFICERS AND COUNCIL
VICE-PRESIDENTS ELECT FOR THE CAMBRIDGE MEETING.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY | Alderman W. L. Briaes, J.P.
(Rt. Hon. the Earl BaLDwWIN OF | The CHAIRMAN OF THE CAMBRIDGE-
BEWDLEY, P.C., F-.R.S.). SHIRE County Councir (H.
The VicE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNI- FRANKLIN).
VERSITY (Professor H. R. Dean,
M.D., Master of Trinity Hall). Tht ee BO 1s eae = a
The HicH STEWARD OF THE UNI- ; eens ix’ i Beak
VERSITY AND OF THE Boroucu (His The Rt. Hon. Lord Farruaven, D.L.
Grace the DuKE oF DrEvonsuireE, | W. A. H. Harpina, M.A.
K.G., G.C:M:G., G.C.V.O., P.C.). W. W. PEMBERTON, M.B., B.Ch., J.P.
The LorD LIEUTENANT OF CAMBRIDGE- Gir J. J. THomson, O.M., F.R.S
SHIRE (C. R. W. ADEANE, C.B., J.P.). Sir F. GowLanpD Hopkins, O.M., F.R.S.
The HicH SHERIFF FOR CAMBRIDGE- :
SHIRE AND HUNTINGDONSHIRE (T, | Sif ALBERT SEWARD, F.R.S.
PEAKE, J.P.). The Very Rev. the DEAN oF ELY (Very
The Mayor oF CAMBRIDGE (E. SAVILLE Rev. LIonEL E. BLAcKBURNE, M.A.).
PEck, M.A.). Rev. Prof. C. E. Raven, D.D.
GENERAL TREASURER.
Prof. P. G. H. BosweEtt, O.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S.
GENERAL SECRETARIES.
Prof. F. T. Brooxs, M.A., F.R.S. | Prof. ALLAN FERGuson, D.Sc.
SECRETARY.
O. J. R. HowartH, O.B.E., Ph.D.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY.
D. N. Lowe, M.A., B.Sc.
ORDINARY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL.
Dr. F. W. Aston, F.R.S. Prof. T. G. Hixt.
Prof. F. AVELING. Prof. G. W. O. Howe.
Prof. F. BALFOUR-BROWNE. Prof. T. S. Moore.
Sir T. Hupson BEARE. Prof. J. C. Puixip, O.B.E., F.R.S.
Rt. Hon. Viscount BLEDISLoE, P.C., | Prof. J. G. SmiTH.
G.C.M.G., G.B.E. W. CAMPBELL SMITH.
Prof. R. N. RuDMOSE Brown. Dr. C. TIERNEY.
Dr. W. T. CALMAN, C.B., F.R.S. | Dr. W. W. VauGcHan, M.V.O.
Prof. F. DEBENHAM. Dr. J. A. VENN.
Prof. W. G. FEARNSIDES, F.R.S. Prof. Sir GILBERT WALKER, C.S.I.,
Prof. H. J. FLEuRE, F.R.S. F.R.S.
H. M. Hattswortu, C.B.E. Prof. F. E. WEtss, F.R.S.
Prof. A. V. Hitt, Sec.R.S. Dr. R. S. WHIPPLE.
J. S. WILson.
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.
OFFICERS AND COUNCIL Vil
PAST PRESIDENTS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
Sir J. J. Tuomson, O.M., F.R.S. | Sir THomas H. Horranp, K.C.S.1.,
(1909). | K.C.LE., F.R.S. (1929).
Sir OLIVER LopGE, F.R.S. (1913). ' Prof. F. O. Bower, F.R.S. (1930).
Sir ARTHUR EvaANs, F.R.S. (1916-18). Gen. The Rt. Hon. J. C. Smuts, P.C.,
: C.H., F.R.S. (1931).
Prof. Sir C. S. SHERRINGTON, O.M., : : ; R
G.BE., FB. (1922). Sir F. GowLanp Hopkins, Pres.R.S.
- | __ (1933).
H.R.H. The Prince oF WateES, K.G., | ci, James H. Jeans, F.R.S. (19
: , ERS: (5934):
D.C.L., F.R.S. (1926). | Prof. W. W. Warts, LL.D., ScD.,
Prof. Sir ARTHUR KEITH, F.R.S. (1927). | F.R.S. (1935).
Prof. Sir Wmi1am H. Brace, O.M., | Sir JostanH Stamp, G.C.B., G.B.E.,
K.B.E., F.R.S. (1928). | D.Sc. (1936).
PAST GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. Sir FRANK SMITH, K.C.B., C.B.E.,
Sec.R.S.
Prof. F. J. M. Stratton, D.S.O., O.B.E., M.A.
HON. AUDITORS
Dr. EzER GRIFFITHS, F.R.S. | Dr. R. S..WHIPPLE.
HON. CURATOR OF DOWN HOUSE.
Sir BucKsTON Browne, F.R.C.S.
LOCAL OFFICERS
FOR THE NOTTINGHAM MEETING.
COMMITTEE.
THE GENERAL PURPOSES COMMITTEE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
NOTTINGHAM.
CHAIRMAN.
Alderman Sir BERNARD S. Wricut, Kt., J.P.
VICE-CHAIRMAN.
Alderman H. Bowtes, J.P.
LOCAL HON. SECRETARIES.
J. E. Ricuarps (Town Clerk of Nottingham).
H. A. S. Worttry, M.A., J.P. (Principal, University College, Nottinghani).
ASSISTANT SECRETARY.
J. W. Harvine, M.B.E.
Vill OFFICERS AND COUNCIL
LOCAL OFFICERS
FOR THE CAMBRIDGE MEETING.
LOCAL HON. SECRETARIES.
C. H. Kemp. F. P. WHITE.
A. TABRUM. E. N. WILLMER.
LOCAL HON. TREASURERS.
R. EDE. | R. H. PARKER.
OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1937 ix
SECTIONAL OFFICERS.
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
President.—Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, O.B.E.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. L. F. Bates, Prof. ALLAN FerGusoNn, Prof. E. H. NEVILLE,
Prof. H. T. H. Piaceio.
Recordey.—Dr. EzER GRIFFITHS, F.R.S.
Secretaries —J. H. AWBERY, Prof. W. H. McCrea, Dr. D. M. WRINCH.
Local Secretaries —N. Davy, H. G. GREEN.
B.—CHEMISTRY.
Pyesident.—Dr. F. L. Pyman, F.R.S.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. J. E. EASTERFIELD, Prof. F. S. Kippine, F.R.S., Prof.
J. W. McBain, Prof. J. C. Pumip, O.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. R. Roprnson,
iBeaikeoe rot. Hi. S7 DAYLOR:
Recordey.—Prof. J. M. GULLAND.
Secretavies.—Prof. J. E. Coates, Dr. H. J. T. Ertincuam, T. W. J. Taytor.
Local Secretary.—Dr. J. B. Frrtu.
C.—GEOLOGY.
President.—Prof. L. J. WIxts.
Vice-Presidents—Dr. H. H. Bemrose, Prof. J. W. Carr, Prof. H. L. HAWKINs,
A. T. Merca.Fe, Prof. V. J. Novak, Dr. R. Ricuter, Prof. E. W. SKEATS,
Prof. H. H. SWINNERTON.
Recordey.—l. S. DOUBLE.
Secretaries —B. HILTON BARRETT, W. H. WILCOcCKSON.
Local Secretary.—S. G. Ciirt.
D.—ZOOLOGY.
President.—Prof. F, A. E. CREw.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. J. W. Carr, Prof. Ross Harrison, Dr. J. S. HUXLEY,
Dr. D. G. J. vAN OorDt.
Recovdey.—Prot. W. M. TATTERSALL.
Secretary.—Dr. G. S. CARTER.
Local Secretary.—E. J. W. BARRINGTON.
E.—GEOGRAPHY.
President.—Prof. C. B. Fawcett.
Vice-Presidents—Dr. P. W. Bryan, Dr. C. FENNER, Prof. E. G. R. TAYLOR,
Brig. H. S. L. WrntersorHam, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., Principal H. A. S.
WORTLEY.
Recordey—H. KInc.
Secretaries —J. N. L. BAKER, Dr. R. O. BUCHANAN.
Local Secretary.—K. C. EDWarDs.
x OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1937
F.—ECONOMICS.,
President.—Prof. P. SARGANT FLORENCE.
Vice-Presidents—C. BERRY, Prof. S. BLyTHEN, Dr. C. R. Fay, A. RaprForD,
A. C. Roz, W. WEsson.
Recordery.—Dr. P. Forp.
Secretaries.—S. R. DENNIsoN, E. D. McCaLttum.
Local Secretary.— A. RADFORD.
G.—ENGINEERING.
President.—Sir ALEXANDER GIBB, G.B.E., C.B., F.R.S.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. C. H. Burtierip, Prof. H. Corton, Prof. W. Cramp,
R. M. Fincu, W. H. Hatve, Sir E. Jarpine, A. D. Puirips.
Recorvdey.—Wing-Commander T. R. CAVE-BROWNE-CAVE, C.B.E.
Secretaries —H. M. CLarkE, C. W. J. TAFFs.
Local Secretary —R. G. ROBERTSON.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY.
President.—Prof. J. H. Hutton, C.1.E.
Vice-Presidents.—A. L. ARMSTRONG, Dr. J. ButtER, Dr. C. von FURER HAIMEN-
DORF, J. HoRNELL, Prof. A. Low.
Recordey.—R. U. SAYCE.
Secretavies.—Miss C. FELL, K. H. JAcKson.
Local Secretary —A. H. McDonatp.
I—PHYSIOLOGY.
President.—Dr. E. P. PouLton.
Vice-Presidents—Dr. Cyrtt Banks, Dr. L. P. Lockuart, Prof. R. J. S.
McDowa.tt.
Recordey.—Prof. H. P. G1LpIne.
Secretaries.—Prof. R. C. Garry, Prof. A. D. MACDONALD,
Local Secretary —Dr. H. H. BARBER.
J.—_PSYCHOLOGY.
President.—Dr. MARY COLLINS.
Vice-Presidents.—Dr. P. B. BALLARD, R. J. BARTLETT, Prof. T. V. Moore, Prof.
H. T. H. Piacerio, Dr. R. H. THoutEss, A. W. WoLTERS.
Recorder.—Dr. S. J. F. PH1Lpotrt.
Secretaries—Dr. HILDA OLDHAM, Dr. P. E. VERNON.
Local Secretary.—W. J. H. Sprott.
K.—BOTANY.
President.—Prof. E. J. Sarispury, F.R.S.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. T. A. BENNET-CLARK, Prof. H. S. HoL_pEn, J. Rams-
me O.B.E., Hon. N. A. OrDE-PowLeErr (Chairman, Dept. of Forestry,
es
Recordey.—Dr. B. BARNES.
Secretaries —Dr. G. Taytor, T. THomson, Dr. S. WILLIAMS.
Local Secretarvy.—Miss D. BExon.
OFFICERS OF SECTIONS, 1937 xi
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE.
President.—H. G. WEtts, D.LirtrT.
Vice-Presidents.—Prof. C. M. ArTLEE, B. W. L. BuLkKELEy, Prof. F, CLARKE,
G. D. DuNKERLEY, Sir RicHARD LivinestoneE, A. H. WHIPPLE, Principal
H. A. S. WorTLEY.
Recovdey.—A. GRAY JONES.
Secretavies.—S. R. Humsy, N. F. SHEPPARD.
Local Secretary.—Dr. M. M. LEwIts.
M.—AGRICULTURE.
President.—J. M. Cate.
Vice-Pvesidents —Dr. G. A. CurRRIE, Prof. J. Henprick, Principal H. G.
ROBINSON.
Recordey.—W. GODDEN.
Secretary.—G. V. JACKs.
Local Secretary.—R. N. DOWLING.
CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES.
Pyesident.—Prof. J. RITCHIE.
Secretary.—Dr. C, TIERNEY.
X11
ANNUAL MEETINGS
TABLE OF
Date of Meeting | Where held Presidents bel bt pom ie
1831, “Sept. 27. occ DY OVIO Mess gestases: fe aces 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 ...... Edinburgh .. ...| Sir T. M. Brisbane, D.C.L., F.R.S. —_ —_
1835, Aug. I0...... Dublin..... .-.| The Rev. Provost Lloyd, LL.D.,F.R. s. _ —_
1836, Aug. 22...... Bristol..... .| The Marquis of Lansdowne, F.R.S. —_ —
1837, Sept. I1...... Liverpool ............ The Earl of Burlington, F.R.S.......... _— a
1838, Aug. 10 The Duke of Northumberland, F.R.S. _— —
1839, Aug. 26.. Birmingham . ...| The Rev. W. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S. — —_—
1840, Sept. 17 Glasgow .... .| The Marquis of Breadalbane, F.R.S. — —
1841, July 20...... Plymouth . ...| The Rev. W. Whewell, F.R.S. «| 169 65
1842, June 23...... Manchester. ...| The Lord Francis Egerton, F.G,. ‘s. 303 169
1843, Aug. 17......| Cork........ ...| The Earl of Rosse, F.R.S. ........sces008 109 28
1844, Sept. 26...... York ..... .| The Rev. G. Peacock, D.D., F.R.S.. 226 150
1845, June 19__...| Cambridge... Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart. ., F.R. ‘S. 313 36
1846, Sept. Io...... Southampton ...| Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Bart.,F.R.S.| 241 10
1847, June 23. ...| Oxford.......... ...| Sir Robert H. Inglis, Bart., F.R.S. 314 18
1848, Aug. 9 Swansea ....... ...| The Marquisof 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.H., F.R.S....... 235 9
1851, July 2 Ipswich ...| G. B. Airy, Astronomer Royal, F.R.S, 172 8
1852, Sept. I ...... Belfast..... ...| Lieut.-General Sabine, F.R.S. ......... 164 10
1853, Sept. 3 ...... HpEdiilesnscsee ...| William Hopkins, F.R.S........... 141 13
1854, Sept. 20...... | Liverpool . ...| The Earl of Harrowby, F.R.S 238 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...... Dublin.......... .| The Rev. H. Lloyd, D.D., F.R.S. .... 236 15
1858, Sept. 22 Leeds ..... Richard Owen, M.D., D. G L., F.R.S. 222 42
1859, Sept. 14.. Aberdeen ‘| H.R.H. The Prince Consort ...... A 184 27
1860, June 27 Oxford .| The Lord Wrottesley, M.A., F.R.S. ... 286 21
1861, Sept. 4 ...... Manchester. ..| William Fairbairn, LL.D., F.RSS....... 321 113
1862).Oct. Xi jier <>: Cambridge ............ The Rev. Professor Willis, M.A. ,F.R.S. 239 15
1863, Aug. 26...... Newcastle-on-Tyne | Sir William G. Armstrong, C.B., F.R.S. 203 36
1864, Sept. 13...... Bathe Separcteesconsasee Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., M.A., F.R.S. 287 40
1865, Sept. 6 ...... Birmingham .........| Prof. J. Phillips, M.A., ite, D., F.R.S. 292 44
1866, Aug. 22...... Nottingham .........) William R. Grove, Q.C., F.R. S. aweee 207 31
TSO7 OCDE A iecess Dundee ......... ...| The Duke of Buccleuch, K.C.B., F.R.S 167 25
1868, Aug. 19 Norwich ....... .| Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, F.R.S. ......... 196 18
1869, Aug. 18......| Exeter Prof. G. G. Stokes, D. G Do LED Ss ecos 204 21
1870, Sept. 14......| Liverpool . Prof. T. H. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S. ... 314 39
1871, Aug. 2 Edinburgh Erek. Sir W. Thomson, LL.D.,F.R.S. . 246 28
1872, Aug. 14...... Brighton Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F. Se aucauseace ck 245 36
1873, Sept. 17...... Bradford Prof. A. W. Williamson, F. oe 212 27
1874, Aug. 19...... Belfast Prof. J. Tyndall, LL.D., F. 162 13
1875, Aug. 25...... Bristol Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S. 239 36
1876, Sept. 6 ...... Glasgow Prof. T. Andrews, M.D. vie 221 35
1877, Aug. 15...... Plymouth ...| Prof. A. Thomson, M Ds, 173 19
1878, Aug. 14...... ublin....... .| W. Spottiswoode, M.A., 201 18
1879, Aug. 20 Sheffield ...| Prof. G. J. Allman, M.D. 184 16
1880, Aug. 25.. Swansea .| A. C. Ramsay, LL. D., F, 144 Ir
1881, Aug. 31.. Workieeec Sir John Lubbock, Ba art. 272 28
1882, Aug. 23 Southamp rt. C. W. Siemens, F.R, 178 7,
1883, Sept. I9...... Southport ...... Prot. A. Cayley, D.C.L., 203 60
1884, Aug. 27...... Montreal ...| Prof. Lord Ravlcieh, F.R.S 235 20
1885, Sept. 9 ....-. Aberdeen .| Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B. 225 18
1886, Sept. 1 ...... Birmingham . ...| Sir J. W. Dawson, C.M.G. 314 25
1887, Aug. 31...... Manchester .| Sir H. E. Roscoe, ’D.C.L. 428 86
1888, Sept. 5 ...... BACH ceca seenettes se Sir F. J. Bramwell, F.R. 266 36
1889, Sept. I1...... Newcastle-on-Tyne | Prof. W. H. Flower, C.B. 277 20
1890, Sept. 3 Leeds .........0.ce0000+ Sir F. A. Abel, C.B., F.R. 259 21
1891, Aug. 19......| Cardiff .. .| Dr. W. Huggins, F. RSs 189 24
1892, Aug. 3 ......| Edinburgh . Sir A. Geikie, LL.D., F. RS. 280 14
1893, Sept. 13 ...| Nottingham . .-| Prof. J.S. Burdon Sanderson, F. 201 17
1894, Aug. 8 ...... Oxford ....... ...| The Marquis of Salisbury, K. Ge 327 21
1895, Sept. I1...... Ipswich .... .| Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., F. 214 13
1896, Sept. 16...... Liverpool : Sir Joseph Lister, Bart., Pres, 330 31
1897, Aug. 18...... Toronto . -| Sir John Evans, K.C.B., F.R.S. ...... 120 8
1898, Sept. 7 ...... Bristol Sir. W. Crookes, FURS). .cleccssvecceeneee 281 19
1899, Sept. 13...... OVER cecsieceresseaos- 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
1) 0 New pease anor on account
Annual | Annual avitee Ladies Foreigners Total x fc of Grants Year
Members | Members Ti ant A for Scientific
Purposes
= a a = i 353 ns 1831
==) = = er = = — = 1832
— | _ co == = goo = = 1833
_— — _ —_ _ 1298 _ £20 0 0 1834
— —_— _— _— — —_— — 167 0 0 1835
— —_— —_ —_— — 1350 = 435 0 O 1836
| = —- == = =! 1840 — 922 12 6 1837
| — —_ | _ I110* _ 2400 a 32. 2 .2 1838
[es Se |S = 34. «=| 1438 _— 1595 11 0 1839 |
| — — | — — 40 | 1353 —_ 1546 16 4 1840 |
| 46 3r7. | — 60* — | 891 — 1235 Io II 1841 |
75 BO, |. 33h 331* 28 | 1315 = 1449 17 8 1842
71 185 | — 160 == _— _ 1565 10 .2 1843
45 190 | gt 260 _ — —_ 981 12 8 1844
94 22 lass .407, 172 35 1079 — 831 9 9 1845
65 39 | 270 196 36. | 857 = 685 16 0 1846
197 40 | 495 203 53 1320 | = 208 5 4 1847
54 25) 1) °376 197 15 819 | £707 0 0, 275 1 8 1848
93 33 | 447 237 22 1071 963 0 0 159 I9 6 1849
128 42 510 273 44 1241 1085 0 Oo 345 18 o 1850
61 47 244 I4I 37 710 620 0 Oo Zorg 7 1851
63 60 Brom )\") Zg2 9 1108 1085 0 oO jon 6: 7 1852
56 57 367 |" 236 6 876 903 0 0}| 205 0 Oo 1853
121 121 765 524 10 | 1802 | 1882 0 o 380 I9 7 1854
142 IOI | 1094 543 26 2133 23nt 100)0 480 16 4 1855
ie 104. 48 | 412 346 9 III5 1098 0 0O| 73413 9 1856
| 156 120 | goo | 569 26 | 2022 2015 0 0. 50715 4| 1857
; rrr | gr 710 509 13 | 1698 I93I 0 O 618 18 2, 1858
125 179 1206 821 22 | 2564 2782 0.0 684 11 I 1859
177 59 | 636 463 47 1689 | 1604 0 Oo 766 19 6 1860
184 =| 125 1589 | 791 15 3138 3944 0 O| IIII 5 10 1861
150. | 57 433 | © 242 25 I161 1089 0 0} 1293 16 6 1862
154 209 1704 | 1004 25 3335 | 3640 0 0} 1608 3 10 1863
182 103 111g | «21058 13 2802 | 2965 0 o| 1289 15 8 | 1864
215 149 766 | 508 23 1997 2227 0 0| 1591 710| 1865
mars) | 05 | g60 | 77% II | 2303 2469 0 © 175013 4, 1866
ries, © eek) 1163 771 7 | 2444 2613 0 0| 1739 4 0| 1867
226 | 117 720 | 682 45t | 2004 2042 0 ©O|} 1940 0 O 1868
229 | 107 678 600 17 | 1856 | 1931 0 o| 1622 0 O 1869
303 195 II03 gio 14 | 2878 | 3096 0 O| 1572 0 o | 1870
3II | 127 976 754 21 | 2463 | 2575 0 O| 1472 2 6 1871
280 | 80. | 937 gr2. | 43 | 2533 | 2649 0 0! 1285 0 o| 1872
237 4 oo. | 796 6or | II | 1983 2120 0 0. 1685 0 0o| 1873
232 | Ca | Sr Ait, 6303-4 | 12 Ig51 1979 0 O,| II5I 16 0} 1874
307 93 884 | 672 17 2248 | 2397 0 0| 960 0 Oo 1875
331 185 | 1265 | 712 25 2774 | 3023 0 O| 1092 4 2 1876
238 | Cam | 4406 283 Il 1229 | 1268 o o| 1128 g 7) 1877
fezoo. | | 93 1285 674 «| 17 2578 | 2615 0 O | 725 16 6 1878
239. | Cs | 529 349 13 | 1404 1425 0 ©. 1080 If II 1879
er | 41 389 47.) | 12 gI5 B99 GO TOC) fan 7 7. 1880
313 176 1230 Brae 24 | 2557 2689 0 o| 476 8 xr| x88r
| 253 79 516 189 | 21 1253 1286 o 0o| 1126 rirj 1882
}) 330 323 952 841 5 2714 | 3369 0 0| 1083 3 3| 1883
317 219 | 826 74 26 & 60H.§ T7797), TBSF lwo | 1173, 4 0 1884
332 122 1053 ARGO) 3 6 2203 | 2256 0 0} 1385 0 0 1885
nM 428 179 1067 429 II 2453 | 2532 0 0} 995 0 6 1886
510 244 1985 493 g2 3838 | 4336 0 o| 1186 18 o 1887
399 100 639 509. | 12 1984 | 2107 0 0| 151r 0 5| 1888
412 113 1024 579 | 21 2437 2441 0 O| 1417 O11; 1889
368 92 680 334 12 L775 le For 0 60 789 16 8} 1890
341 152 672 tal a | 35 1497 1664 0 0} 1029 10 0 | 1891
413 I4r | 733 439 50 2070 2007 0 0, 864 10 0| 1892
328 57. | 773 268 17 1661 1653 0 O| 907 15 6 1893
435 | 69 | 94% 451 77 2321 2175 0 0] 583 15 6 1894
290 | Chea 493 26r | 22 1324 | 1236 0 O 977 15 5| 1895
| 383 139 «6©|~=—(1384 873 41 3181 3228 o ©O| 1104 6 I 1896
} 286 | 4125 682 roo | 41 1362 | 1398 © © | 1059 I0 8 1897
| g27. | 96 1051 639 =| 33 2446 2399 © O| I212 0 O 1898
| 324 | 68 548 120°" | 27 1403 | 1328 O O/| 1430 14 2 1899
ir: aa |
t Including Ladies. § Fellowsof the American Association were admitted as Hon. Members for this Meeting.
[Continued on p. xv.
Xiv
Date of Meeting
1900, Sept. 5
1gor, Sept. I1......
1902, Sept. 10......
1903, Sept. 9 ......
1904, Aug. 17..
1905, Aug. 15
1906, Aug. 1 ..
1907, July 31
1908, Sept. 2
1909, Aug. 25
1910, Aug. 31......
Igti, Aug. 30......
1916, Sept. 5
I9I7
1918
1919, Sept. 9
1920, Aug. 24......
1921, Sept. 7
1922, Sept. 6
1923, Sept. 12......
1924, Aug. 6
1925, Aug. 26..
1926, Aug. 4
1927, Aug. 31
1928, Sept. 5
1929, July 22
1930, Sept. 3
1931, Sept. 23......
1932, Aug. 31......
1933, Sept. 6
1934, Sept. 5
1935; Sept. 4
1936, Sept. 9 ......
1937, Sept. 1
ANNUAL MEETINGS
Table of
Where held Presidents Ode
PSragiond. Wwe c<eceasns ‘Sir William ‘Turner, D. G Es; Fikes.) one 267
Glasgow ..... ..| Prof. A. W. Riicker, D.Sc., Sec. R.S. 310
Belfast ..... ..| Prof. J. Dewar, LL.D., F.R.S._ .......-. 243
Southport .. ..| Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., FE.R.S: 250
.| Cambridge ..... | Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., F.R.S.... 419
South Africa Prof. G. H. Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S. ... 115
Work ee..+. Prof. E. Ray Lankester, ap .D., F.R. 322
Leicester ..| Sir David Gill, K.C.B., F.R.S 276
Dublin........ .| Dr. Francis Darwin, RIS H se 294
Winnipeg ............ Prof. Sir J. ef Thomson, F.R.S. 117
MIMCHICIC oes oscstavases Rev. Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. ...... 293
Portsmouth ......... Prof. Sir W. Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. 284
WOOMAEC ooo sescnsesves Prof. E. A. Schafer, F.R.S. 288
Birmingham .........| Sir Oliver J. Lodge, F.R.S. 376
Australia........ .| Prof. W. Bateson, F.R.S. .... 172
Manchester Prof: A. Schuster, FURS). ...2c.0ssnetecvas 242
Newcastle-on-Tyne 164
(No Meeting) ...... Sir Arthur Evans, F.R.S. ............ _—
(No Meeting) ...... =
Bournemouth......... Hon. Sir C. Parsons, K.C.B., F.R.S.... 235
Prof. W. A. Pending C.B.E., 288
Sir T. E. Thorpe, C.B., F.R.S. ....<.0-: 336
Sir C.S. Sherrington, G B.E., Pres. 228
Liverpool ............ Sir Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S. 326
Toronto mccesesresacees | Sir David Bruce, RCs. F.R.S. 11g
.| Southampton .| Prof. Horace Lamb, F.R.S._ ...........- 280
Oxforde teres accese-th H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, K.G.,
RSs iccesscbineertemecest- 358
WebdSieecessevespesrsas | Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S. .. 249
Glasgow .| Sir William Bragg, K.B.E.; Fl 260
South Africa Sir Thomas Holland,
CGS aus Resiay esos tude ask oe eoees 81
Brist@lmesssssehesccsas Prof, F. O. "Bower, Taina aeoesaaneeeeeen 221
Mondonis..i2s0;.-.-0e Gen. the Rt. Hon. J. C. Smuts, P.C.,|
(als ERS RSet ae cnec precast Saeoe | 487
Worle pete etevecsee Sir Alfred. Ewing, K.C.B., F.R.S. ..| 206
Leicester ..| Sir F. Gowland Hopkins, ‘Pres. Risse 185
Aberdeen «| Sir James H: Jeans, FAR.S2.. 0 scenes 199
Norwich ..... ..| Prof. W.W. Watts, F.R.S.......... -|| ° or
Blackpool .| Sir Josiah Stamp, G.C.B., G.B.E. 188
Nottingham ......... Sir Edward B. Poulton, F.R.S. ......... 213
New Life
Members
It
13
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 order to attend the Meeting of
L’ Association Frangaise at Le Havre.
« Including Students’ Tickets, tos.
* Including Exhibitioners granted tickets without charge.
® Including grants from the Caird Fund in this and subsequent years.
? Including Foreign Guests, Exhibitioners, and others.
ANNUAL MEETINGS xv
Annual Meetings—(continued).
Sums paid
Old New ecke ! posses on account
Annual Annual Gaatee Ladies |Foreigners} Total hoe of Grants | Year
Members Members | Tickets for Scientific
Purposes
207 45 801 482 9 1915 |f1801 0 o \f1072 10 0 | 1900
374 131 794 246 20 1912 2046 0 0} 920 g II | Igor
314 86 647 305 6 1620 1644 0 0 947 © O|} I902
319 90 688 365 21 1754 1762 0 0 845 13 2 | 1903 |
449 113 1338 317 121 2789 2650 0 0 887 18 Ir | 1904
937° 411 430 181 16 2130 2422 0 0 928 2 2) 1905
356 | 93 817 352 22 1972 181i 0 Oo 882 0 9g | 1906 |
339 Ar 7h) 659 251 42 1647 1561 0 O 757 12 10 | 1907
465 SEG.” 5} pe LOG 222 14 2297 2317 0 O| 1157 18 8 | 1908
2907 162 789 go 7 1468 1623 0 O|} 1014 9 9 | 1909
379 57 563 123 8 1449 1439 0 0} 963 17 ©] I9gI0
349 61 414 81 31 1241 1176 0 O| 922 O O}| I9gII
368 95 1292 359 88 2504 2349 0 O 845 7 6) I912
480 149 1287 291 20 2643 2756 0 Oo 978 17 1 | 1913
139 4160 539° = 2 50442 | 4873 0 0 | 1861 16 4*| 1914
287 116 628 141 8 1441 1406 0 oO| 1569 2 8 | 1915
250 76 251° 73 — 826 821 0 o| 985 18 10 | 1916
== = = | — = = = 677 17 2 | 1917
_ — — — — —_ —_ 326 13. 3 | 1918
254 102 688* 153 3 1482 1736 0 oO 410 0 O| IQgI9
-— | | |
Annual Members |
Old
data | aeating| eousa | tities [Cees
egular eetin . 7 ickets |
Members and meeting Tickets
Report y |
136 192 571 42 | 120 20 | 1380 1272 10 0} 1251 13 0°} 1920
133 | 410 | 1394 I2T/ A349 22 2768 2599 I5 O 518 I 10} 1921 |
OO) 294 | 757 89 235° 24 1730 1699 5 ©} 722 0 7 | 1922 |
! Compli- |
mentary? |
123 380 1434 163 550 308 | 3296 | 2735 15 0 | 777 18 6°| 1923
37 * 520 | 1866 Axe 89 139 0«6| «2818 3165 19 0% 1197 5 9 | 1924 |
97 264 | 878 62 I19 7h | ag kGee 1630 5 O| I23I 0 O} 1925 |
IoI 453 2338 | 169 225 | 69 3722 3542 0 0 917 I 6] 1926
4 334 } 24877 -| 82 264 161 | 2670 2414 5 O 761 10 O| 1927
76 554 | 1835 64 201 7A WO 2074: 3072 I0 0| 1259 10 0} 1928 |
| | |
24 177 1227) _ 161 83 1754 1477 15 0 | 2193 2 1 | 1929 |
68 310 1617 97 | 267 54 | 2639 2481 15 0} 63% I yg | 1930 |
| ’ |
78 656 | 2904 157 | 454 | 449 | 5702%* | 4792 10 0 | 1319 9 6} 1931
44 226 | 1163 A531) 274 125 | 2024 1724 5 O| 1218 13 II | 1932
39 236 1468 82 147 74 2268 2428 2 0| 562 19 11%) 1933
30 273 1884 181 280 70 2938 2900 13 6 | 1423 4 9 | 1934 |
29 237 1444 142 197 7oO 2321 2218 14 6| 1649 2 4 | 1935 |
290 257 1184 128 178 93 2067 2006 14 0 | 1098 I 1 | 1936 |
28 | 290 1096 102 200 g2 2027 1883 12 0 720 15 £| 1937
8 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
0 1926.
0 Subscriptions paid in Canada were $5 for Meeting only and others prorata; there was some gain
on exchange.
11 Including 450 Members of the South African Association.
12 Including 413 tickets for certain meetings, issued at 5s. to London County Council school-teachers.
48 For nine months ending March 31, 1933-
14 Sir William B. Hardy, F.R.S., who became President on January 1, 1934, died on January 23.
NARRATIVE OF THE NOTTINGHAM
MEETING.
On Wednesday, September 1, at 8.30 P.M., the Inaugural General Meeting
was held in the Albert Hall, Derby Road, when the Rt. Worshipful the
Lord Mayor of Nottingham (Councillor A. E. Purser) welcomed the
Association to Nottingham. The President of the Association, Prof. Sir
Edward B. Poulton, F.R.S., delivered an address (for which see p. 1)
entitled The History of Evolutionary Thought, as recorded at Meetings of the
British Association.
Evening Discourses were delivered to the Members as follows :
(1) Friday, September 3, Great Hall, University College, at 8.30 P.M.
Dr. R. E. Slade: Grass and the National Food Supply. (See p. 457.)
(2) Monday, September 6, Albert Hall, Derby Road, at 8.30 P.M.,
Prof. J. Gray, F.R.S.: The Mentality of Fishes.
Public lectures were delivered as follows :
LINCOLN.
Mr. R. Kay Gresswell : Rivers and Waterways. At the New Co-operative
Hall, Lincoln, on Friday, September 3, at 8 P.M.
MANSFIELD.
Prof. J. Walton: Coal andits Origin. At the Lecture Theatre,
Technical College, Mansfield, on Friday, September 3, at 7.30 P.M.
NOTTINGHAM.
Prof. H. Hartridge, F.R.S.: Illusions of Colour. At the Hippodrome
Picture Theatre, Theatre Square, Nottingham, on Sunday, September 5,
at 8.15 P.M.
DERBY.
Sir Gilbert Walker, C.S.I., F.R.S.: The Mechanics of Sport. At the
Guildhall, Derby, on Monday, September 6, at 8 P.M.
NEWARK-ON-TRENT.
Mr. T. M. Herbert: The Transport of Food. At the County Technical
College, Newark-on-Trent, on Monday, September 6, at 7.30 P.M.
Lonc Eaton.
Dr. J. E. R. Constable: Science in Every-day Life. At the County
Secondary School, Long Eaton, on Tuesday, September 7, at 8 P.M.
A lecture to school children was given by Dr. Alexander Wood on
Noise, at the Cottesmore School Hall, Derby Road, Nottingham, on
Friday, September 3, at 2.30 P.M.
NARRATIVE OF THE NOTTINGHAM MEETING XVii
A summary of Sectional Transactions on September 2-8 will be found
on pp. 333 and following. All Sections had their meeting-rooms,
together with the Reception Room, in the University College or immedi-
ately adjacent thereto.
The Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of Nottingham enter-
tained members of the Association at a Reception in the Castle Museum
on Thursday evening, September 2.
A Garden Party was given by the Headmaster of Repton School, at
the School, on Monday, September 6.
A Garden Party was given by the Council of University College,
Nottingham, in the College, on Tuesday, September 7.
On Saturday, September 4, general excursions were arranged :
(1) To Southwell, Newark, Lincoln (where the Mayor of Lincoln
entertained the party).
(2) To Sherwood Forest and the Dukeries.
(3) Through Derbyshire (His Grace the Duke of Devonshire receiving
the party at Chatsworth). _
Other excursions and visits devoted to the interests of special Sections
are mentioned among the Sectional Transactions in later pages.
A special service was held at St. Mary’s Parish Church on Sunday
morning, September 5, when the preacher was the Vicar (the Rt. Rev.
Neville S. Talbot, D.D., M.C.). Special services were held in other
places of worship also.
At the final meeting of the General Committee, on Wednesday,
September 8, it was resolved :
That the British Association places on record its warm thanks for the
reception accorded to it by the City of Nottingham. The generous co-
operation of the City Council and the thorough preparations made by the
local officers have been deeply appreciated. The Association also extends
most cordial thanks to the commercial, industrial, and educational institu-
tions in Nottingham and the neighbourhood, which have so generously
provided accommodation and facilities for meetings, excursions, and visits.
A special expression of gratitude is offered to the authorities of the University
College, who have provided the most convenient possible arrangements for
the Reception Room and for the sectional and other meetings.
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37.
H.M. Kine Grorce VI, Patron OF THE ASSOCIATION.
I.—His Majesty The King has been graciously pleased to confer his
Patronage upon the Association.
II.—The following Address has been forwarded to His Majesty :—
To The King’s Most Excellent Majesty.
May it please Your Majesty,
We, the President and Council of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, humbly submit to Your Majesty and to Her
Majesty The Queen our heartfelt good wishes on Your Accession. We
trust that Your Majesty’s Reign may mark an era of peaceful progress,
shared by Your Majesty’s peoples with mankind at large; and that to
such progress Science may contribute its full share. To assure that end
will be the constant aim of the Association, inspired thereto by the
Patronage which Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer
upon it.
III.—The President, Prof. Sir Edward Poulton, F.R.S., accepted an
invitation to represent the Association at the ceremony of Their Majesties’
Coronation in Westminster Abbey.
OBITUARY.
IV.—The Council have had to deplore the loss by death of the following
office-bearers and supporters :—
Prof. H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S. Sir D. Orme Masson, F.R.S.
Prof. A. W. Borthwick Hon. W. Pember Reeves
Prof. E. B. Elliot, F.R.S. Mr. J. H. Reynolds
Prof. G. Forbes, F.R.S. Rt. Hon. Lord Rothschild, F.R.S.
Prof. D. F. Fraser-Harris Prof. Sir G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S.
Sir Albert Kitson, C.M.G. Prof. W. J. Sollas, F.R.S.
Prof. T. M. Lowry, F.R.S. Mr. W. Taylor, F.R.S.
Dr. F. S. Macaulay, F.R.S. Dr. Max Weber
Prof. J. A. MacWilliam Prof. Sydney Young, F.R.S.
REPRESENTATION.
V.—Representatives of the Association have been appointed as
follows :—
Coronation of Their Majesties The King
and Queen, Westminster Abbey, May 12 Prof. Sir E. B. Poulton,
‘ F,.R.S., President.
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL,
British National Committee on Geodesy
and Geophysics
British National Committee on 1 Geography
xix
1936-37
Dr. H. Jeffreys, F.R.S.
Prof. R. N. Rudmose-
Brown.
Joint Committee of utp] ee ba Re-
search and Teaching . ‘
Publications Committee of the "Royal
Society on bibliographical reference
Association Frangaise pour l’Avancement
des Sciences, Paris, May 18-22
Dr. H. S. Harrison.
The Secretary.
Lt.-Col. W. Campbell
Smith, T.D., M.C.
American Association for the Advancement
of Science, tooth Meeting, June 21-26. Prof. N. V. Sidgwick,
C.B.E., F.R.S.
Association Frangaise pour l’Avancement
des Sciences, Paris, July 24-27 Prof. C. S. Spearman,
F.R.S.
Buchan Club, ee Vario Peterhead,
August 7 Prof. J. Ritchie.
Professor Sidgwick accepted the invitation of the American Association
to deliver the Hector Maiben Lecture at the above meeting.
RESOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
VI.—Resolutions and recommendations, 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 1936, p. lxi.
(a) The following resolution, received from Section B (Chemistry)
at the Blackpool Meeting, was considered at a special meeting of the
Council :—
The members of the Committee of Section B, in agreement with the
views expressed in their President’s address regarding science and
warfare, request the General Committee to secure all possible publicity
for the following: (1) The extent to which Chemistry is applied for
beneficent purposes in connection with the industry of the British
nation and the health of its citizens, is enormously greater than the
scope of its employment for purposes of warfare. (2) Whilst the
individual must remain free to determine his own action in relation to
national defence, chemists as a body view with grave concern the
increasing use of science for destructive ends.
After full consideration, and examination of the wording as affecting all
Sections, it was resolved by a majority that no action be taken.
(6) Following upon a resolution of Section C. (Geology), the Council
considered the report of a Committee of that Section on the teaching
of geology in schools, approved its circulation to authorities con-
sidering syllabuses about the close of the year 1936, and appointed
a committee, under the chairmanship of Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S., to
consider and deal with any further distribution.
b
xx REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37
(c) At the request of the Council, the Geological Society agreed to
forward to the International Geological Congress the suggestion that
recent evidence of climatic change should be discussed at the Congress.
(Resolution of Section C, Geology.)
(d) A resolution from Section G (Engineering), referring to legal
procedure in connection with patent actions, was not adopted.
(e) The Councils for the Preservation of Rural England, Scotland,
and Wales were informed that the subject of rubbish dumping had
been brought before the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding
Societies, and that the Council would be pleased to offer the collabora-
tion of the Association, through its Corresponding Societies, if it should
appear to the Councils addressed that such collaboration would be
useful. (Resolution of the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding
Societies.)
(f) The following resolution was received from the Conference of
Delegates of Corresponding Societies :—
To request the Council of the British Association to support the
Council for the Preservation of Rural England in its endeavour to
stimulate His Majesty’s Government to consider and take action upon
the report of the Government Committee on National Parks.
This resolution was adopted by the Council, and the Council for the
Preservation of Rural England were informed accordingly.
FINANCE.
VII.—The Council have received reports from the General Treasurer
throughout the year. His account has been audited and is presented to
the General Committee.
The Council made the following grants from funds under their
control :—
From the Caird Fund.
£
Committee on Seismology . : : : : : et)
», Mathematical Tables : : : ; : tO
A », Zoological Record t : : . I eeO
- », Plymouth Marine Laboratory . ; : : ‘ 50
From the Bernard Hobson Fund.
Committee on Brundon Bone-bed : sane yes
og », Reptile-bearing OGlite of Stow-on- the-Wold 4 iE es
a », Thermal Conductivities of Rocks: such part of the
grant of £25 as the remaining income of the fund
will allow.
From the Leicester and Leicestershire Fund.
Committee on Perseveration } et. TO
», Routine Manual Fietor’s in nr Miechanieel Ability E 3 30
”
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37 xxi
A maintenance grant of £30 was made from the Leicester and Leicester-
shire Fund to Mr. H. O. Chaplin, of University College, Leicester, to
enable him to carry on research into the réle of the resonating hydrogen
atom as a causative factor in molecular association.
Following upon the resolution reported last year, to use the donation
of £105 from the Local Committee for the Norwich Meeting, 1935, for
grants for researches of special interest in East Anglia, the following
grants were made from that fund :—
To the Norfolk Research Committee, for excavation of West £
Rudham tumulus. 30
To the same, for investivation of ‘post-glacial deposits of East
Norfolk . 40
To Mr. A. S. Watt, for investigation of cyclic Phenomena i in the
vegetation of Breckland : : : Pe Neyo
VIII.—A final payment of £341 has been received under the Herbert
Spencer Bequest, bringing the total to £1241.
As reported last year, the Council adopted a proposal, supported by the
Down House Committee, that the sum of £500 should be earmarked to
meet temporarily the cost of repairs and other works on the Down House
property, and the provision of facilities for scientific work there as occasion
should arise. ‘This matter is referred to in the Report of the Down House
Committee, annexed to this present Report of the Council.
The Council empowered the General Treasurer to expend from the
Spencer Bequest a sum not exceeding {100, if necessary, by way of grant
in aid of travelling expenses for a representative of the Association to
attend the Denver Meeting of the American Association, June 21-26,
1937 (see above, § V).
It may be recorded here that the terms of the bequest, while leaving
the Council a wide discretion as to the disposal of the money ‘ for the
work or objects or purposes’ of the Association, prescribes that no part
of it ‘ shall be utilised in any way for purpose of endowment but on the
contrary shall within the period of five years from the date of payment .
be expended.’ The date of receipt of the final payment was November 3,
1936.
"The Council, on receipt of the final payment, forwarded an expression
of their thanks to the trustees under the will.
PRESIDENT (1938), GENERAL OFFICERS, GENERAL COMMITTEE,
AND COUNCIL.
IX.—The Council’s nomination to the Presidency of the Association
for the year 1938 (Cambridge Meeting) will be announced to the General
Committee at the Nottingham Meeting.
X.—The General Officers have been nominated by the Council as
follows :—
General Treasurer, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, F.R.S.
General Secretaries, Prof. F. 'T. Brooks, F.R.S., Prof. Allan Ferguson.
xxii REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1036-37
XI. General Committee.—The following have been admitted as members
of the General Committee, mainly on the nomination of Organising
Sectional Committees under Regulation 1 :—
Dr. D. A. Allan Prof. T. H. Easterfield
Lady Briscoe Prof. H. Hartridge, F.R.S.
Dr. H. O. Bull Mr. M. A. C. Hinton, F.R.S.
Dr. O. M. B. Bulman Mr. K. P. Oakley
Prof. D. Burns Mr. S. I. Tomkeieff
Mr. L. R. Cox Mr. L. H. Tonks
Miss E. Dix Dr. C. B. Williams
XII. Council—The retiring Ordinary Members of the Council are :
Sir Henry Dale, F.R.S., Prof. R. B. Forrester, Dr. H. S. Harrison,
Dr. J. S. Huxley, Prof. R. Robinson, F.R.S.
The Council have nominated as new members Prof. H. J. Fleure,
F.R.S., Prof. T. S. Moore and Dr. R. S. Whipple ; leaving two vacancies
to be filled by the General Committee without nomination by the
Council.
The full list of Ordinary Members nominated is as follows :—
Dr. F. W. Aston, F.R.S. Prof. T. G. Hill
Prof. F. Aveling Prof. G. W. O. Howe
Prof. F. Balfour-Browne Prof. T. S. Moore
Sir T. Hudson Beare Lt.-Col. W. Campbell Smith
Rt. Hon. Viscount Bledisloe, P.C., Dr. C. Tierney
G.C.M.G., G.B.E. Dr. W. W. Vaughan, M.V.O.
Prof. R. N. Rudmose Brown Dr. J. A. Venn
Dr. W. T. Calman, C.B., F.R.S. Prof. Sir Gilbert Walker, C.S.1.,
Prof. F. Debenham F.R.S.
Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S. Prof. F. E. Weiss, F.R.S.
Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S. Dr. R. S. Whipple
H. M. Hallsworth, C.B.E. J. S. Wilson
Prof. A. V. Hill, Sec.R.S.
FuTurRE MEETINGS.
XIII.—The future places of meeting already determined by the General
Committee are Cambridge (1938) and Dundee (1939). There have been
received invitations for the Association to meet in Swansea in any con-
venient year, in Belfast in 1941 or any year nearly following, and in 1943
in Birmingham. No invitation definitely for the year 1940 has been
received.
MISCELLANEA.
XIV. Visit to the Isle of Man.—This visit was paid by a representative
party of members immediately after the Blackpool Meeting, 1936, and on
its conclusion the Council forwarded a vote of thanks to the island authori-
ties and individuals who had kindly collaborated in the arrangements.
XV. British Science Guild—Under the arrangement proposed last year
by the Council and adopted by the General Committee, the British
Science Guild was incorporated into the Association as from November 30,
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37 xxiii
1936. Inaccordance with the agreement of incorporation a British Science
Guild Committee has been appointed to continue arrangements for lectures
already initiated by the Guild, and for any others of similar character
which may be approved by the Council. The Council of the Guild
appointed to this Committee Lady Lockyer, Commander L. C. Bernacchi,
and Sir Richard Gregory, Bart., F.R.S.; and the Council of the Associa-
tion appointed Prof. A. Ferguson, Sir Daniel Hall, K.C.B., F.R.S., and
Dr. W. W. Vaughan.
The first of the lectures arranged by the Association under the above
scheme was the Alexander Pedler lecture, given in Leicester on May 3,
in co-operation with the University College in that city, by Prof. Allan
Ferguson.
The first Norman Lockyer lecture to be so arranged will be given by
Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler in the Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, by kind
permission of the Goldsmiths’ Company, on November 24.
XVI. Radford Mather Lectures—The first of the triennial lectures
under the foundation of Mr. G. Radford Mather will be given by the
Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, P.C., M.P., F.R.S., in the Royal Institu-
tion, London, by kind permission of the managers, on October 22.
XVII. Indian Science Congress Association—The Council recorded
their great satisfaction that Lord Rutherford had accepted the presidency
of the joint Congress of the Indian Science Congress Association and a
delegation from the British Association in 1938. A committee of the
Council have been actively engaged in arrangements for this delegation.
The Council recommend that inasmuch as it is important that the
visit should be a marked success, a grant of £1,000 should be made from
the funds of the Association to the India Fund.
XVIII. American Association for the Advancement of Science -—Follow-
ing upon discussion and correspondence, a scheme has been proposed in
order to facilitate the attendance of members of the American Association
at meetings of the British Association and vice versa, and also the receipt
of the publications of either association by members of the other.
XIX. Corporation Membership.—The Institution of Professional Civil
Servants, and Messrs. Macmillan & Co., publishers, have been admitted
to corporation membership of the Association.
XX. Armorial Bearings—The Association has received a grant of
~ armorial bearings from the College of Arms, the incidental costs being
met by the gifts of an anonymous donor and of ex-Presidents of the
Association. ‘The blazon is as follows :—
Arms : Azure ten stars, two of six, four of five, and four of four points
Argent (representing the constellation of Libra) over all a Balance Or.
Motto : Sed Omnia Disposuisti.
The motto is taken from Wisdom of Solomon, ii, 20 (‘ But Thou hast
ordered all things in measure and number and weight’).
XXI. L’ Association francaise pour Vavancement des Sciences.—The
Council had the pleasure of entertaining at Down House, on July 29,
XXiv REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37
a party of representatives of L’Association frangaise visiting England,
and including M. Maurain, the President, Mme. Maurain, Dr. Verne,
the Secretary-general, and Mme. Verne. The party was received by
Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., ex-President (in the absence of the President,
Sir Edward Poulton, F.R.S.), and by members of the Council and others.
The medal of the French Association was presented by M. Maurain to
the British Association, and copies thereof to the General Secretaries,
Lt.-Col. W. Campbell Smith, and the Secretary.
XXII. Amendment of Statutes—In view of the occupation of premises
by the Association at Burlington House and at Down House, the Council
recommend that Statute VI, 5, where now reading ‘ The Secretary shall
be charged . . . (ii) with the control and direction of the office and of all
persons therein employed,’ be amended to read ‘ The Secretary shall be
charged . . . (ii) with the control and supervision of all persons in the
employment of the Association and of premises in its occupation.’
Down House.
XXIII.—The following report for the year 1936-37 has been received
from the Down House Committee :—
The number of visitors to Down House during the year ending June 6,
1937, has been 6,148, compared with 7,022 in 1935-6, and an average of
7,242 per year for five years in 1931-6.
The Committee have expressed their gratitude to Prof. F. T. Brooks,
F.R.S., who, on succeeding to the chair of botany in the University of
Cambridge, continued the loan of Darwin’s library to Down House. This
loan was originally granted by Prof. Brooks’ predecessor, Sir Albert Seward,
F.R.S., the possession of the library having been vested, under the will of
Sir Francis Darwin, in the professor of botany in Cambridge for the time
being.
A fine plaster model of a seated figure of Darwin has been presented to
the house by Mr. J. Peacock. Enquiry has not revealed the name of the
artist.
Lady Avebury has presented to Down House twelve letters from Darwin
to John Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury), and one from Francis Darwin
to Lubbock.
The Committee reported last year that they had obtained an architect’s
report on the structural condition of the house and other buildings on the
estate. Acting upon this report, the Committee have undertaken certain
repairs (mainly of the cottages and old farm buildings) ; for the rest, the
report provides the Committee with some guidance as to works which may
be expected to become necessary in the course of the next few years. The
Committee deeply appreciate the action of the Council in placing at the
disposal of the General Treasurer the sum of £500 from the Herbert ~
Spencer bequest towards the cost of repairs, renewals, and the provision of
scientific appliances if required.
The Committee have enquired into the question of carrying on scientific
observations at Down, and are grateful to Sir George Simpson, C.B., F.R.S.,
Dr. F. J. W. Whipple, and Dr. R. G. Hatton, for their personal interest in
this matter. Various possibilities have been considered, but, with the
exception of the establishment of a standard rain-gauge, no line of enquiry
which would be both possible and justifiable on the ground of expense of
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1936-37 XXV
appliances has as yet been proposed. On the suggestion of Miss Saunders,
of Goldsmiths’ College, the Committee asked a number of heads of depart-
ments in London colleges whether the fitting-up of the old farm buildings
for laboratory purposes would be likely to be of use to students engaged in
field-work in the district or for any other such purpose ; but the response
was not such as to justify the Committee in pursuing this possibility further
for the present.
The following financial statement shows income and expenditure on
account of Down House for the years ending March 31, 1936 and 1937 :—
Corresponding
Income 1936-37 figures, 1935-36
SanieSeand: A ess lid.
By Rents receivable 3 ; t : 14I 0 Oo TAT Onto
,, Income Tax recovered F ; ; 168 1 6 168 I 6
,, Interest and Dividends : f ; 817 2) 0 826 8 6
», Donations : Zybizjougn Ty halal
», Sale of Postcards and Catalogues . ; 23 98h 4 2512 7
», Pilgrim Trust Grant . : 150 0 0 I50 0 O
», Instalment of Grant from Herbert
Spencer Bequest . ‘ ‘ ; EQ2 ies —
LiAg5 2 eee gay dee
Corresponding
Expenditure 1936-37 figures, 1935-36
i stds Lor “se Gd.
To Wages of Staff . : ‘ : j 803 19 7 783 I5 10
», Rates, Insurance, etc. ; : ‘ 69 5 6 66 5 8
», Coal, ‘coke, etc. . ‘ 138 14 8 86 18 6
Bs Lighting and Drainage (including oil
and petrol) . : 79 4 11 76 3 10
», Water F : : 4 : ‘ TS. <7) er 15 16 8
», Surveyor’s Fee . ; : ; ; — Leto
,, Rain-gauge : : ‘ ‘ at Viah 1S —
,, Repairs and Renewals j . , 159 2 4 74.13 9
» Garden and Land: Materials and
Maintenance . : 45 19 8 POET DOT
,, Donations to Village Institutions . : Se eso 5a 150
;, Household Requisites, etc. . . : 15 18 10 TS TO. A
,, [Transport and Carriage é : : 116 6 BUTGUIT
,, Accountants’ Fees. : : ; 8 8 o 18 18 I
., Printing, Postages, 1 eee and
Stationery . 25) 7s 30) "0,0
Balance, being excess sof income over
”»
expenditure for the year, transferred
to Suspense Account ; ‘ ‘ Girt G4ins2h ir
£1,435 12 3 £1,327 9 9
GENERAL TREASURER’S REPORT, 1936-37
IN 1932 the then General Treasurer, Sir Josiah Stamp, made a report
to the Council in which he recommended the establishment of a Con-
tingency Fund to be regarded as ‘an insurance against small or very
unprofitable meetings,’ in order to enable grants in aid of research to be
maintained at a fairly constant figure, and not made ‘ on a year-to-year
consideration of available balances.’ The Council, on this report,
recommended to the General Committee, and the General Committee
approved, a proposal that for a period of five years ‘ not more than £400
should be spent annually from general funds on grants for research, and
that an annual sum of £500 should be placed to a contingency fund.’
The five-years’ period is now finished, so that it is my duty to take
stock of the outcome of these proposals.
In each of the five years there has been a balance, on general funds, of
income over expenditure, but in no year has this reached £500. The
actual figures are as follows :
Year f vis. ed:
1933 : ; : : feos (B75 NOG
1934 ; ; ; , : 394 17 II
IE eh Ripe 12> amuxeaaee etiam Ask: Monk oe
1936 : ; : : ‘ 273 +. 13k
1037 : . . . . 443 “Dew
Total ‘ ; : Senf l 940. toy gk
There is also a debtor sum due this year, although not forthcoming
until next year, which should properly fall into the Contingency Fund,
bringing it up to £2,000 or a little more. It was not thought necessary,
in practice, to credit more than these available balances to the Contingency
Fund each year, since this would merely have created artificial adverse
balances on the general accounts of receipts and expenditure.
As for the resolution that ‘ not more than £400 should be spent annually
from general funds on grants for research,’ the average annual expenditure
under this head has been approximately £323, on account of grants made
being unclaimed.
As I am reviewing the results of the financial report of 1932, I should
perhaps recall that the Council then expressed the view that ‘ the true
function of the Association, in making grants to research committees, is
the initiation of particular pieces of research rather than their quasi-
permanent endowment.’ The General Committee adopted this view,
with the proviso that it ‘ should not be held to preclude [quasi-permanent]
grants to institutions at which successive researches are to be carried
on under research committees of the Association.’ It does not appear
that the destination of grants has been materially affected by this expression
GENERAL TREASURER’S REPORT XXVil
of policy. A chart which I have caused to be prepared shows that from
1919 (and in fact earlier) initiation rather than quasi-permanent endowment
was actually the object of the larger proportion of our grants ; but in 1931
the sum devoted to quasi-permanent endowment for the first time
exceeded that of other grants, and this practice has continued each year
since that date. There seems to be a good case for separate endowment
of such quasi-permanent research committees, for they are undoubtedly
doing excellent work.
I have now proposed, and the Council has recommended, that the
Contingency Fund should be maintained at a sum of about £2,000,
except in any year when receipts should be abnormally low, and,
further, that inasmuch as the existing Contingency Fund is earmarked
for grants in aid of research, any excess of income over expenditure
on general account should be used for the creation of a second fund
for contingencies not connected with such grants.
The Herbert Spencer Trust was wound up during the past year, and
the Spencer Bequest to the Association amounted in aggregate to £1,241,
as stated in the Report of the Council to the General Committee, par. VIII.
In that report it is indicated that a sum of £500 has been definitely
allocated, and the accounts herewith show that a part has been spent,
for purposes connected with Down House, while a sum of {100 was
voted contingently for another purpose during the ensuing financial year.
The will prescribed the expenditure of the whole bequest within five
years of the winding-up of the trust, that is to say, by November 1941.
The purposes for which the bequest may be expended give the Council
a wide discretion, and for the moment I do not propose to make any
definite recommendation as to the disposal of the balance.
On the incorporation of the British Science Guild into the British
Association, a capital sum of £3,431 was handed over to the Association,
and will yield an annual income of about £100. Life Fellows of the Guild
were admitted to life membership of the Association without further pay-
ment; but life members of the Guild were offered life membership of
the Association on payment of the difference of fee (£5 ros.), with the result
that our life membership fund has been augmented by the sum of £99.
We assume the maintenance of the Norman Lockyer and Alexander
Pedler Lectures, which were founded by the Guild ; and the fees and other
charges in connection with these, excluding printing, are estimated to
amount to about £35.
Lastly, I have gratefully to acknowledge the gift of £250 from Mr. G.
Radford Mather, a life member since 1901, for the purpose of establishing
a Triennial Lecture on Recent Advances in Science and their relation to
the Welfare of the Community.
P. G. H. Boswe tt,
General Treasurer,
b2
XXVIil
Oorresponding
Figures
81st March,
1936.
ae ds
38,687 10 11
9,790 6 11
68 14 7
1,354 65 10
182 18 10
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT
LIABILITIES
Bohn Buf
GENERAL PURPOSES :—
Sundry Creditors . : : : 169 12 6
Hon. Sir Charles Parsons’ gift
(£10,000) and legacy (£2,000) . 12,000 0 0
The late Sir Alfred Ewing’s legacy 500 0 0
British Science Guild: Capital Fund 3,431 9 1
Bequest of Jaakoff Prelooker . . 10 0 O
Yarrow Fund
As per last Account £5,115 6 4
Less Transferred to In-
come and Expendi-
ture Account under
terms of the gift . 370 10 3
——— 4,744 16 1
Life and Corporate Compositions
As per last Account 2,891 2 2
Add Received veg
year. : 277 10 0°
3,168 12 2
Less Transferred to In-
come and Expendi-
ture Account : 30 0
3,138 12 2
Contingency Fund
As per last Account 1,497 7 6
Add Amount trans-
ferred from Income
and Expenditure
Account r ‘ 443 9 7
nee CA se
Accumulated Fund b : : . 16,488 9 0
SPECIAL PURPOSES :—
Caird Fund
Balance at Ist April, 1936 . 4 9,790 6 11
Add Excess of Income over Expendi-
ture for the year . : : 1 81
Mathematical Tables Fund
Balance at Ist April, 1936 . : 68 14 7
Receiptsfrom Sales. 4 F fo 8
Cunningham Bequest Fund
Balance at Ist April, 1936 . 5 1,354 5 10
Add Excess of Income over ers
ture forthe year. ; 41
Toronto University Presentation Fund
Capital . : : ‘ 2 178 11 4
Revenue . : : : . 4 7 6
Carried forward
Balance Sheet,
42,423 15 1)
9,791 15 10
1,395 9 10
182 18 10
53,938 6 8
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT
31st March, 1937
Corresponding
Figures
31st March,
1936.
Se sa) 7d:
38,687 10 11
9,790 6 11
68 14 7
1,354 5 10
182 18 10
GENERAL PURPOSES :—
Investments as scheduled with Income
and Expenditure Account, No. 1
Sundry debtors and poms in ad-
vance .
Cash at bank .
Cash in hand .
SPECIAL PuRPOsEs :—
Caird Fund Account
Investments (see Income and Ex-
ASSETS
penditure Account, No. 2)
Cash at bank
Mathematical Tables Fund Account
Cash at bank
Sundry debtors
| Cunningham Bequest Fund Account
Investments (see Income and Ex-
penditure Account, No. de ie
Cash at bank
Lise
41,961 12
d.
1
94 9 8
347 7 3
20
9,582 16
208 19
70 19
136
1,305 7
“IW
7
8
2
90 2 8
Toronto University Presentation Fund Account
Investments (see Income and
penditure Account, No. 4) .
Cash at bank :
Carried forward
xxix
42,423 15 11
9,791 15 10
144 6 3
1,395 9 10
182 18 10
53,938 6 8
XXX
Corresponding
Figures
31st March,
1936.
£
ae
1,080 2 2
1,065 & 4
20,068 9 7
72,247 17 2
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT
Balance Sheet,
LIABILITIES (continued)
Ss. d. Sound.
Brought forward : -
Bernard Hobson Fund
Capital . ‘ 3 1,000 0 0
Revenue—Balance per
last Account . SOneae 2
Add Excess of Income
over Expenditure for
the year Sin 77h
——— Somos
Leicester and Leicestershire Fund, 1933
Capital ; : , : 1,000 0 O
Revenue— Balance per
last Account 65 8 4
Less Excess of Expendi-
ture over Income for
the year . - Zon on 10
—_——— 42 2 6
Herbert Spencer Bequest Fund 1241 0 0
Less Amounts Expended during
year . ; : : 133 11 0
Norwich Fund, 1935
Radford Mather Lecture Fund
Indian Science Congress Delegation Fund
Subscriptions received to date
Down House
Endowment Fund : : 20,000 0 0
Sundry Creditors and Credit
Balances : : : 2S
Suspense Account
Balance perlastAccount 24 18 8
Add Excess of Income
over Expenditure for
the year . Soya
— 80 13 9
NOTE,.—There are contingent Liabilities in respect of grants voted
to Research Committees at Blackpool and by Council in
1936 but not claimed at 3lst March, 1937, amounting to
£579 7s. 6d.
The amount which should, in accordance with Council’s resolu-
tion, have been in the Contingency Fund at 31st March, 1937,
was £2,375, but the surplus income available for this purpose
has been insufficient by £434 2s. 11d. to meet the full annual
amounts transferable. i
YE Nea b
53,938 6 8
1,058 1 3
1,042 2 6
1,107 9 0
105 0 0
250 0 0
278 5 0
20,093 5 5
£77,872 9 10
I have examined the foregoing Account with the Books and Vouchers and certify
and the Investments, and the Bank have certified to me that they hold the
Approved.
Ezer. GRIFFITHS
\ Auditors.
R. S. WHIPPLE |
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT XXxXi
31st March, 1937 (continued)
Corresponding
sist March, ASSETS (continued)
1936.
£ os. d. i BES ds IY a
Brought forward : - = 53,938 6
Bernard Hobson Fund Account
Investments (see Income and Ex-
penditure Account, No. 6) =, 150008 Of 70
Cash at bank ; : . : OS vl
1,030 2 2 SS SSS O53)" 1) 3
Leicester and Leicestershire Fund, 1933 Account =
Investments (see Income and Ex-
penditure Account, No. 6) 20) 1,000" +0) 0
Cash at bank 3 : : : 42 2 6
1,065 8 4 —_————— 1,042 2 6
Herbert Spencer Bequest Fund Account
Investments (see Income and Ex-
penditure Account, No. 7” , 741 0 0
Cash at bank . : 366 9 0
Co
1,107 9 0
Norwich Fund, 1935 Account
(Income and nee Account,
No. 8) - 3
Cash at bank C : 105 0 0
Radford Mather Lecture Fund Accousi
Investments (see Income and Ex-
penditure Account, No. 9) - 250 0 0
Indian Science Congress Pras Fund Account
Cash at bank. 278 5 0
Down House Account
Endowment Fund Investments (see
Income and papel Account,
No. 10). a - 20,000 0 0
Cash at bank : - : ‘ 36 12 8
Cash in hand : : i Wr Geat
Sundry debtors and payments in
advance . : : 22” “Oe 9
Stock of catalogues - : = 26 16 1
20,068 9 7 ————._ 20,093 5 5
72,247 17 2 £77,872 9 10
the same to be correct. I have also verified the Balance at the Bankers
-Deeds of Down House.
W. B. Keen, Chartered Accountant.
23 Queen Victoria St., London, E.C. 4.
4th June, 1937.
GENERAL TREASURER’S ACCOUNT
XXXii
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‘OT “ON
RESEARCH COMMITTEES, Etc.
APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL COMMITTEE, MEETING IN
NOTTINGHAM, 1937.
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 (Chaiyvman), Mr. J. J. Shaw,
C.B.E. (Secretary), Miss E. F. Bellamy, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E.,
F.R.S., Dr. E. C. Bullard, Dr. A. T. J. Dollar, Sir Frank Dyson, K.B.E.,
F.R.S., Dr. A. E. M. Geddes, O.B.E., Prof. G. R. Goldsbrough, F.R.S.,
Dr. Wilfred Hall, Mr. J. S. Hughes, Dr. H. Jeffreys, F.R.S., Mr. Cosmo Johns,
Dr. A. W. Lee, Prof. E. A. Milne, M.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. H. H. Plaskett,
F.R.S., Prof. H. C. Plummer, F.R.S., Prof. J. Proudman, F.R.S., Dr. A. O.
Rankine, O.B.E.. F.R.S,, Rev. C. Rey, S.J., Rev. J. P. Rowland, S.J., 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, F.R.S., Mr. E. Tillotson, Sir G. T.
Walker, C.S.I., F.R.S. £100 (Caird Fund grant).
Calculation of mathematical tables.—Prof. E. H. Neville (Chairvman), Dr. J.
Wishart (Secretary), Prof. A. Lodge (Vice-Chaiyman), Dr. W. G. Bickley,
Prof. R. A. Fisher, F.R.S., Dr. J. Henderson, Dr. E. L. Ince, Dr. J. O.
Irwin, Dr. J. C. P. Miller, Mr. F. Robbins, Mr. D. H. Sadler, Mr. W. L.
« Stevens, Dr. A. J. Thompson, Dr. J. F. Tocher. £200 (Caird Fund grant).
SECTIONS A, B, I—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
CHEMISTRY, PHYSIOLOGY.
To co-ordinate the activities of Sections A, B, I, as regards joint symposia, etc.,
in so far as these relate to the Sciences lying on the border-lines between
Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology.—Prof. David Burns, Dr. P. B. Moon,
Prof. H. S. Raper, C.B.E., F.R.S., Prof. S. Sugden, F.R.S., Dr. D. M.
Wrinch.
SECTIONS A, C.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
GEOLOGY.
The direct determination of the thermal conductivities of rocks in mines or
borings where the temperature gradient has been, or is likely to be,
measured.—Dr. Ezer Griffiths, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Dr. D. W. Phillip
(Secretary), Dr. E. C. Bullard, Dr. H. Jeffreys, F.R.S. (from Section A) ;
Dr. E. M. Anderson, Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S., Prof. G. Hickling, F.R.S.,
Prof. A. Holmes, Dr. J. H. J. Poole (from Section C). #40.
SECTIONS A, J.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
PSYCHOLOGY.
The possibility of quantitative estimates of sensory events.—Prof. A. Ferguson
(Chairman), Dr. C. S. Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S. (Vice-Chaivman), Mr. R. J.
Bartlett (Secretary), Dr. H. Banister, Prof. F. C. Bartlett, F.R.S., Dr. Wm.
Brown, Dr. N. R. Campbell, Prof. J. Drever, Mr. J. Guild, Dr. R. A.
Houstoun, Dr. J. O. Irwin, Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, Dr. S. 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.
xliv RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC.
SECTION C.—GEOLOGY.
To excavate critical geological sections in Great Britain.—Prof. W. T. Gordon
(Chairman), Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S. (Secretary), Prof. E. B. Bailey,
F.R.S., Mr. H. C. Berdinner, Mr. W. S. Bisat, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E.,
F.R.S., Prof. W. S. Boulton, Prof. A. H. Cox, Miss M. C. Crosfield, Mr. E. E. L.
Dixon, Dr. Gertrude Elles, M.B.E., Prof. E. J. Garwood, F.R.S., Mr. F.
Gossling, Prof. H. L. Hawkins, Prof. G. Hickling, F.R.S., Dr. R. G. S.
Hudson, Prof. V. C. Illing, Prof. O. T. Jones, F.R.S., Dr. Murray Macgregor,
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, Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S., Dr. W. F.
Whittard, Dr. S. W. Wooldridge. £50 (£25 Bernard Hobson Fund; £25
contingent, Caird Fund).
To investigate the reptile-bearing odlite of Stow-on-the-Wold, subject to the con-
dition that suitable arrangements be made for the disposal of the material.—
Sir A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Mr. C. I. Gardiner (Secretary),
Prof. S. H. Reynolds, Mr. W. E. Swinton. £25 (Bernard Hobson Fund grant).
To consider and report upon petrographic classification and nomenclature.—
Mr. W. Campbell Smith (Chairman and Secretary), Prof. E. B. Bailey, F.R.S.,
Dr. R. Campbell, Dr. W. Q. Kennedy, Mr. A. G. MacGregor, Dr. S. I.
Tomkeieff, Dr. G. W. Tyrrell, Dr. F. Walker, Dr. A. K. Wells. 10.
To investigate the bone-bed in the glacial deposits of Brundon, near Sudbury,
Suffolk.—Prof. W. B. R. King, O.B.E. (Chaivman), Mr. Guy Maynard
(Secretary), Mr. D. F. W. Baden-Powell, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E.,
Mr. J. Reid Moir, Mr. K. P. Oakley, Mr. C. D. Ovey, Dr. J. D. Solomon,
Sir A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S. 48. ‘ :
To consider and report on questions affecting the teaching of Geology in schools.—
Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Prof. A. E. Trueman (Secretary),
Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S., Mr. C. P. Chatwin, Prof. A. H.
Cox, Miss E. Dix, Miss G. Evans, Prof. W. G. Fearnsides, F.R.S., Prof. A.
Gilligan, Prof. G. Hickling, F.R.S., Prof. D. E. Innes, Prof. A. G. Ogilvie,
O.B.E., Prof. W. S Pugh, Mr. J. A. Steers, Prof. H. H. Swinnerton, Dr. A. K.
Wells.
The collection, preservation, and systematic registration of photographs of
geological interest.—Prof. E. J. Garwood, F.R.S. (Chairman), Prof. S. H.
Reynolds (Secretary), Mr. H. Ashley, Mr. G. Macdonald Davies, Mr. J.
F. Jackson, Mr. A. G. MacGregor, Dr. F. J. North, Dr. A. Raistrick, Mr. J.
Ranson, Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S.
To consider and report on erosion in part of the coast of Norfolk.—Prof. P. G. H.
Boswell, O.B.E., F.R.S. (Chaivman), Prof. W. T. Gordon (Secretary),
Dr. Burton, Mr. F. Leney, Rt. Hon. E. Lyttelton, Mr. L. M. van Moppes,
Mr. J. E. Sainty, Mr. G. Slater, Mr. J. Solomon, Mr. J. A. Steers, Mr. J. S.
Wilson, Dr. S. W. Wooldridge.
SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY.
To nominate competent naturalists to perform definite pieces of work at the
Marine Laboratory, Plymouth.—Dr. W. T. Calman, C.B., F.R.S. (Chaivman
and Secretary), Prof. H. Graham Cannon, F.R.S., Prof. H. Munro Fox,
Dr. J. S. Huxley, Prof. H. G. Jackson, Prof.C.M. Yonge. £50.
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. (Chaiyman), Dr. W. T. Calman, C.B., F.R.S. (Sec-
vetary), Prof. E. S. Goodrich, F.R.S., Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S. £50.
To investigate the adaptations of freshwater animals to waters of very high
salinity in Algeria.—Prof. P. A. Buxton (Chaivman), Mr. L. C. Beadle
(Secretary), Dr. G. S. Carter, Dr. E. B. Worthington. £50.
To investigate the social behaviour of the grey seal.—Prof. J. Ritchie (Chair-
man), Dr. Fraser Darling (Secretary), Prof. E. A. E. Crew, Dr. J. S. Huxley,
Dr. E. S. Russell. £50. iy
RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. xlv
The progressive adaptation to new conditions in Artemia salina (Diploid and
Octoploid, Parthenogenetic v. Bisexual).—Prof. R. A. Fisher, F.R.S. (Chair-
man), Mr. A. C. Fabergé (Secretary), Dr. F. Gross, Mr. A. G. Lowndes,
Dr. K. Mather, Dr. E. S. Russell, O.B.E., Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S.
£20.
To investigate British immigrant insects.—Sir E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. (Chairman),
Dr. C. B. Williams (Secretary), Prof. F. Balfour-Browne, Capt. N. D. Riley.
To consider the position of animal biology in the school curriculum and matters
relating thereto.—Prof. R. D. Laurie (Chaiyman and Secretary), Mr. P.
Ainslie, Mr. Cousins, Dr. J. S. Huxley, Mr. Percy Lee, Mr. A. G. Lowndes,
Prof. E. W. MacBride, F.R.S., Dr. W. K. Spencer, F.R.S., Prof. W. M.
Tattersall, Dr. E. N. Miles Thomas.
To confer with the Museums Association on matters concerning the place and
function of the Museum in Zoology.—Dr. J. S. Huxley (Chaivman), Dr. A. C.
Stephen (Secretary), Dr. W. T. Calman, C.B., F.R.S., Prof. W. M. Tattersall,
Prof. C. M. Yonge.
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. E. W. MacBride
(Chaivman and Secretary), Prof. Sir J. Barcroft, C.B.E., F.R.S., Dr. Margery
Knight, Dr. J. Z. Young. £50.
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), Dr. E. B. Worthington
(Secretary), Prof. P. A. Buxton, Miss P. M. Jenkin, Dr. C. H O’Donoghue
(from Section D) ; Dr. W. H. Pearsall (from Section K). 875.
Co-ordinating committee for Cytology and Genetics——Prof. Dame Helen
Gwynne-Vaughan, G.B.E. (Chaivman), Dr. D. Catcheside (Secretary),
Prof. F. T. Brooks, F.R.S., Prof. F. A. E. Crew, Dr. C. D. Darlington, Prof.
R. A. Fisher, F.R.S., Mr. E. B. Ford, Prof. R. R. Gates, F.R.S., Dr. C.
Gordon, Dr. J Hammond, Dr. J. S. Huxley, Dr. T. J. Jenkin, Mr. W. J.
C. Lawrence, Dr. K. Mather, Dr. F. W. Sansome, Dr. W. B. Turrill, Dr. C.
H. Waddington, Dr. D. Wrinch. 45.
SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY.
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 (Chaiyvman), Prof. A. G. Ogilvie, O.B.E. (Secretary),
Dr. A. Geddes (Assistant Secretary), Mr. S. J. K. Baker, Miss D. M. Doveton,
Prof. C. B. Fawcett, Mr. W. Fitzgerald, Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S., Prof,
C. Daryll Forde, Mr. R. H. Kinvig, Mr. J. McFarlane, Brig. M. N. MacLeod,
D.S.O., Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A., Mr. R. A. Pelham, Mr. R. U. Sayce,
Rey. E. W. Smith, Brig. H. S. L. Winterbotham, C.B.,C.M.G.,D.S.O. 2.
To co-operate with bodies concerned with the cartographic representation of
population, and in particular with the Ordnance Survey, for the production
of population maps.— (Chaiyman), Prof. C. B.
Fawcett (Secretary), The Director General of the Ordnance Survey, Col. Sir
Charles Close, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., F.R.S., Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S.,
Mr. A. C. O’Dell, Mr. A. Stevens, Mr. A. V. Williamson.
To consider and report upon ambiguities and innovations in geographical
terminology.— (Chaiyman), Dr. S. W. Wooldridge
(Secretary), Mr. H. King, Mr. R. H. Kinvig, Prof. E. G. R. Taylor.
xlvi RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC.
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS.
Chronology of the world crisis from 1929 onwards.—Prof. J. H. Jones (Chaiyman),
Dr. P. Ford (Secretary), Mr. McDougall (Assistant Secretary), Prof. G. C.
Allen, Mr. H. M. Hallsworth, C.B.E., Mr. R. F. Harrod, Prof. J. G.
Smith. £25.
SECTION G.—ENGINEERING.
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. (Chaiyman), Wing-Commander T. R.
Cave-Browne-Cave, C.B.E. (Secretary), Mr. R. S. Capon, Dr. A. H. Davis,
Prof. G. W. O. Howe, Mr. E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E. £10 (Contingent,
Caird Fund).
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, Prof. A. E. Kennelly, Prof.
E. W. Marchant, Prof. J. Proudman, F.R.S., Sir Frank Smith, K.C.B.,
C.B.E., Sec. R.S., Prof. L. R. Wilberforce.
SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY.
To co-operate with a Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute in the
exploration of caves in the Derbyshire district —Mr. M. C. Burkitt (Chatr-
man), Mr. A. Leslie Armstrong (Secretary), Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S., Miss
D. A. E. Garrod, Dr. J. Wilfred Jackson, Prof. L. S. Palmer, Mr. H. J. E.
Peake. £25.
To conduct anthropometric work in Cyprus.—Prof. J. L. Myres (Chaiyman),
Mr. L. Dudley Buxton (Secretary), Dr. G. M. Morant, Miss M. L. Tildesley.
£25.
To conduct archeological excavations in the Fens.—Prof. J. H. Hutton, C.I.E.
(Chaivman), Mr. K. H. Jackson (Secretary), Mr. M. C. Burkitt, Dr. J. D. G.
Clark, Miss Eleanor Hardy, Mr. T. C. Lethbridge. £25 (Leicester and
Leicestershire Fund).
To investigate early mining sites in Wales——Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Chaiyman),
Mr. Oliver Davies (Secretavy), Prof. V. Gordon Childe, Dr. C. H. Desch,
F.R.S., Mr. E. Estyn Evans, Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S., Prof. C. Daryll Forde,
Sir Cyril Fox, Dr. Willoughby Gardner, Dr. F. J. North, Mr. V. E. Nash
Williams. £8.
To investigate blood groups among primitive peoples.—Prof. H. J. Fleure
(Chaiyman), Prof. R. Ruggles Gates, F.R.S. (Secretary), Dr. F. W. Lamb,
Dr. G. M. Morant. §&7.
To co-operate with a committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute in
assisting Miss G. Caton-Thompson to investigate the prehistoric archeology
of the Kharga Oasis.—Prof. J. L. Myres, O.B.E. (Chairman), Miss G.
Caton-Thompson (Secretary), Dr. H. S. Harrison, Mr. H. J. E. Peake.
To report on the probable sources of the supply of copper used by the Sumerians.
—Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Chaivman), 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, F.R.S., Dr. A. Raistrick, Dr. R. H. Rastall.
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, Miss D. A. E. Garrod, Mr. A. D. Lacaille.
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.
RESEARCH COMMITTEES, ETC. xlvii
To report on the classification and distribution of rude stone monuments in the
British Isles—Mr. H. J. E. Peake (Chaivman), Dr. Margaret A. Murray
(Secretary), Mr. A. L. Armstrong, Mr. H. Balfour, F.R.S., Mrs. E. M. Clifford,
Sir Cyril Fox, Mr. T. D. Kendrick.
To conduct archeological and ethnological researches in Crete——Prof. J. L.
Myres, O.B.E., F.B.A. (Chaiyman), Dr. G. M. Morant (Secretary), Mr. L.
Dudley Buxton, Dr. W. L. H. Duckworth.
To report to the Sectional Committee on the question of re-editing ‘ Notes and
Queries in Anthropology.’—Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S. (Chairman), Mr. Elwyn
Davies (Secretary), Dr. H. S. Harrison, Dr. G. M. Morant, Prof. C. G. Seligman,
F.R.S., Mrs. C. G. Seligman.
SECTION I.—PHYSIOLOGY.
To deal with the use of a stereotactic instrument.—Prof. J. Mellanby, F.R.S.
(Chairman), Prof. R. J. S. McDowall (Secretary).
SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY.
To develop tests of the routine manual factor in mechanical ability.—Dr. C. S.
Myers, C.B.E., F.R.S. (Chaiyman), Dr. G. H. Miles (Secretary), Mr. H. Binns,
Prof. C. Burt, Dr. F. M. Earle, Dr. Ll. Wynn Jones, Prof.T.H. Pear. £50.
The nature of perseveration and its testing.—Prof. F. Aveling (Chaiyman),
Dr. W. Stephenson (Secretary), Prof. F. C. Bartlett, F.R.S., Dr. Mary Collins,
Prof. J. Drever, Mr. E. Farmer, Prof. C. Spearman, Dr. P. E. Vernon.
£10 (Contingent grant, Caird Fund).
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,
F.R.S., Prof. A. G. Tansley, F.R.S. 5 (Leicester and Leicestershire Fund).
SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE.
To consider and report on the possibilities of organising and developing research
in education.—Prof. F. Clarke (Chaiyman), Miss D. Bailey, Mr. A. Gray
Jones, Dr. M. M. Lewis, Mr. W. H. Robinson, Mr. J. Sargent. £5
(Leicester and Leicestershire Fund).
To consider and report on the gaps in the informative content of education, with
special reference to the curriculums of schools.—Sir Richard Gregory, Bart.,
F.R.S. (Chairman), Mr. G. D. Dunkerley (Vice-Chaiyman), Mr. A. E
Henshall (Secretary), Prof. C. M. Attlee, Miss L. Higson, Mr. H. G. Wells.
£10 (Leicester and Leicestershire Fund).
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES.
Corresponding Societies Committee.—The President of the Association (Chairman
ex-officio), Dr. C. Tierney (Secretary), the General Secretaries, the General
Treasurer, Dr. Vaughan Cornish, Mr. T. S. Dymond, Prof. W. T. Gordon,
Dr. A. B. Rendle, F.R.S., Prof. J. Ritchie, Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith.
RESOLUTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS.
The following resolutions and recommendations were referred to the
Council by the General Committee at the Nottingham Meeting for con-
sideration and, if desirable, for action :
From Section A (Mathematical and Physical Sciences).
That Section A, on the occasion of a visit to the grave of George Green,
the world-famous mathematician of Nottingham, viewed with some concern
the deterioration that is taking place in the tombstone, and would respect-
fully suggest that representations be made to the proper authorities to take
such steps as seem fit to maintain in good condition the resting-place of this
renowned man.
From Section D (Zoology).
That the Committee of Section D, having learned from the public press
that the buildings and collections of the Museum established at Tring by
the late Lord Rothschild have been bequeathed to the nation on condition
that the Trustees of the British Museum undertake their custody and
maintenance, desire to record their opinion that the continuance of the
Tring Museum as an active centre of scientific research is a matter of the
utmost importance from a national, and indeed from an international, point
of view. For many years the collections preserved there, more particularly
the vast and unequalled collection of Lepidoptera, have attracted research
workers from all over the world and have been the means of adding largely
to our understanding of the problems of geographical variation. ‘The
Sectional Committee earnestly desire that the permanent conservation of
these collections and the continuance of the facilities for their study provided
by the munificence of the late Lord Rothschild will be ensured by their
being placed in the custody of the Trustees of the British Museum.
The Committee request the Council of the British Association to bring
this expression of opinion to the notice of the Trustees of the British
Museum.
From Section E (Geography).
That the Sectional Committee of Section E learn with great regret of the
discontinuance by the Ordnance Survey of the fifth (relief) edition of the
one-inch map. ‘This map marked an advance in the cartography of the
country in that it gave, for the first time, invaluable data for the study of
land forms. Much geographical work has been done in those areas for
which sheets have been published, and the Committee view with grave
concern the prospect of having to abandon work in other areas, or to
postpone it indefinitely, in consequence of the suspension of this edition.
Further, the Committee feel that the issue of special relief printings
without names and other detail, which was initiated with this edition,
provided for the first time an adequate base map for studies in land forms
and regional geography ; and it would urge that, whether the fifth (relief)
edition be proceeded with or not, sheets showing relief and water features
only in the style of the fifth (relief) edition should be available.
RESOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS xlix
From Section G (Engineering).
That following the Presidential Address delivered to Section G by
Sir Alexander Gibb, the Sectional Committee considered what action could
best be taken by the British Association to assist in improving and co-ordin-
ating the various forms and channels in which new engineering knowledge
is now published. Improvement is urgently required and the Institution
of Civil Engineers is already taking action to this end. The Engineering
Section of the British Association, however, is in touch with such an
exceptionally wide range of engineering that it sees the importance and
also the difficulty of co-ordinating all branches of engineering in the matter
of publications.
It is therefore recommended that letters be written on behalf of the
Council to the Institution of Civil Engineers and to the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research, drawing attention to the great im-
portance of improving the co-ordination of arrangements for publishing
and indexing new engineering knowledge and the results of engineering
research, and expressing a hope that any new system which is being developed
may be made to cover the widest possible range.
From Section H (Anthropology).
That in view of the importance of anthropology as a means of promoting
concord and understanding between men of different traditions, the British
Association earnestly recommends to H.M. Government that anthropology
should be made a compulsory subject of study in the training of all
probationers appointed to proceed to India or Burma.
From Section L (Educational Science).
That in view of the great contribution that an extended system of adult
education might make to the political and cultural life of the nation, it be
urged that H.M. Government be asked to refer the question of developing
adult education either to the Consultative Committee of the Board of
Education or to any other appropriate Committee.
From the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies, supported
by Section D (Zoology).
That the Council of the British Association be requested to represent to
His Majesty’s Minister of Agriculture and to His Majesty’s Secretary of
State for Scotland, the necessity of instituting an inquiry to ascertain the
effects, in respect of efficiency, economic reactions, and humaneness, of
available methods of dealing with rodents and other wild mammals that
affect agriculture.
From the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies.
That the Conference recommend to the Council of the British Association
the desirability of establishing through its Corresponding Societies’ Com-
mittee a close liaison with the Association for the Study of Systematics in
Relation to General Biology with a view to the Corresponding Societies
undertaking work bearing upon systematic problems.
23 FEB 1938
Hritish Association tor the Advancement
of Science.
NOTTINGHAM: 1937
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
THE HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY
THOUGHT
AS RECORDED IN MEETINGS OF THE
BRITISH ASSOCIATION
BY
Pror. Sim EDWARD B. POULTON, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.
Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford
PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION.
Sir WILLIAM THOMSON, in his Address at Edinburgh in 1871, said
that ‘ the real origin of the British Association ’ was given in the
words of a letter written by David Brewster to John Phillips on
February 23, 1831, a few months before the first meeting : ‘ The
principal object of the Society would be to make the cultivators of
science acquainted with each other, to stimulate one another to new
exertions, and to bring the objects of science more before the public
eye, and to take measures for advancing its interests and accelerating
its progress.” That the time was fully ripe for the birth of the
Association is made very clear by the words written by John Keble
to a friend, referring to the D.C.L. degrees conferred, at the Oxford
meeting in 1832, on David Brewster, Robert Brown, John Dalton
and Michael Faraday: ‘The Oxford Doctors have truckled sadly
to the spirit of the times in receiving the hodge-podge of philosophers
as they did ’—an opinion on which Lord Salisbury commented at
the Oxford meeting in 1894: ‘ It is amusing at this distance of time,
to note the names of the hodge-podge of philosophers whose
academical distinctions so sorely vexed Mr. Keble’s gentle spirit.’
It is not only amusing but pathetic that such words should have
been used by a revered member of a University which had done
B
2 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
' splendid service for science, as has been so well shown in Dr. R. T.
Gunther’s volumes.
Faced by the serious duty of preparing this address, I felt that the
best hope of interesting you would be to choose a subject which has
received special attention at our meetings. I have selected the
progress of thought on Organic Evolution as it may be followed in
addresses, papers, and discussions, mainly restricting myself to the
series of meetings which began with the Jubilee at York in 1881, the
first of many that I have had the pleasure of attending.
The British Association provides a very favourable field for the
discussion of many-sided subjects such as Evolution—subjects
which attract members from very different as well as from closely
related Sections. Hence a wide range of varied experience is open
to one who can look back over more than half a century ; and I do
not propose to exclude some of the humorous sayings and incidents
which, from time to time, have enlivened our meetings and con-
tributed to their success. Some of them certainly deserve to be
rescued from oblivion, although to perform this pious duty I must
risk the enmity of the Goddess of Folly, who as Erasmus tells us,
proclaimed: ‘I hate a man who remembers what he hears.’
The Fiftieth Anniversary at York was a memorable meeting, with
Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) as President, and the Chair of
every Section except Economics, under Grant Duff, taken by a
Past-President of the Association.
I then enjoyed to the full one of the chief benefits conferred by
our Association upon its younger members—the opportunity of
meeting older men, up to that time only known to them by the fame
of their discoveries. Prof. O. C. Marsh had come over from Yale,
his main object being to buy for his University Museum the second
and more perfect fossil of the wonderful ancestral bird Archzo-
pteryx, with teeth and a long, lizard-like tail—clear evidence of
Reptilian origin. The earlier example had been bought for the
British Museum at a price which was said to have provided the
dowry for a professor’s daughter, and Marsh soon realised, as he
told me, that the second was not for sale on any terms. ‘ We let
the other go and I believe they would kill me if this were sold ’ was
the reply given to him by the authority in Munich. He was
able, however, to study the fossil, and his description and drawings
of the teeth, in the Geological Section, followed the only attack on
Evolution itself, as distinct from its causes, which I have ever
witnessed at any of our meetings. It was the exhibition by H. G.
Seeley of his reconstruction of Archzopteryx from this fossil,
1 Early Science in Oxford, vols. i-xi.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 3
which aroused the fury of the palzontologist, old Dr. Thomas
Wright of Cheltenham: ‘ Archzopteryx hasn’t got a head, how
can it possibly have teeth?’ he growled, knowing nothing of the
latest find or of the fact that Sir John Evans, our President at Toronto,
had discovered a detached head and scattered teeth on the slab in
which the older specimen was embedded. In spite of Prof. Newton’s
positive statement and the form of the teeth, drawn by Prof. Marsh
at the request of the Chairman, Dr. Wright, quite unconvinced, con-
tinued muttering ‘ Archzopteryx is a very good bird,’ its virtue in
his opinion entirely uncontaminated by any taint of Reptilian affinity.
Prof. Marsh also read a paper in the Zoological Section on his own
wonderful discoveries of toothed birds from the rocks of the western
United States. Richard Owen, President of the Section, was in the
Chair and, with the memory of old and embittered controversies in
his mind, the author told me that he had felt rather anxious in
bringing this communication forward. But in that friendly atmo-
sphere there was no reason for alarm. Owen welcomed the paper
warmly and in confirmation told us, in the most charming manner,
of the traces of teeth found in an embryo parrot.
The event which stands out most clearly in my memories of the
Jubilee meeting is Huxley’s evening lecture on ‘ The Rise and
Progress of Palzontology ’—the science which provides an essential
part of the foundation on which Geographical, Geological and
Biological evolutionary history has been built. The insuperable
difficulty felt by the older naturalists was to believe that the land
had been for the most part deposited under the sea, and to account
for the presence of fossils, or as they were called, ‘ formed stones.’
The true solution, Huxley explained, was found and published in
1669 by Nicholas Steno, a Danish Professor of Anatomy at Florence,
who carefully studied certain fossils, known as ‘ glossopetre,’ which
abounded in the Tuscan rocks and were believed to be fossil
fig-leaves. Steno, who was not satisfied with this interpretation,
dissected a shark’s head and showed that the ‘ glossopetrz ’ exactly
corresponded in every particular with the teeth—‘ that in fact they
were shark’s teeth.’ The emphasis with which Huxley made this
statement comes back to me after the lapse of nearly sixty years.
From this Steno was led to conclude that they were the teeth of
shark-like fishes living in the Tuscan sea and later embedded, with
other remains, in the strata which had there accumulated.
I have not noticed the fanciful suggestion of ‘ fossil fig-leaves ’ in
any published version or account of Huxley’s lecture that I have
seen, but he certainly told us of it and it is an interesting example of
the attempts made by the naturalists of the day to explain the fossils
embedded in rocks then believed to be of terrestrial origin. I
4 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
cannot resist the temptation of quoting Plot’s ? more ingenious and
amusing effort to account for the well-known layer of oyster-shells
(Ostrea bellovacina) found ‘.. . at some places here in England,
particularly at Cats-grove [now Katesgrove] near Reading . . .;
which how they should come here without a Deluge, seems a difficulty
to most men not easily avoided.’
Plot was, however, helped ‘ to a salvo’ for his own objection by
remembering that Reading was ‘ a Town of very great action during
the Invasions of the Danes, who cutting a deep trench cross between
the Kennet and Thames, and inclosing themselves as it were in an
Island, held it against King Ethelred, and Alfred his Brother a
considerable time; from whence in all probability, the Saxons
having removed their Cattle and other provisions before the Danes
arrival, ’tis likely they they might be supplyed from their Navy with
Oysters, which during the time of the aboad of the Army on Land,
might be a very suitable employment for it: Which conjecture, if
allowed, there is nothing more required to make out the possibility
of the bed of Oysters coming thither without a Deluge, but that
Cats-grove was the place appointed for the Armies repast.’
The probability of this suggestion may be inferred from the age
of the ‘ Woolwich and Reading’ beds in which the oysters are
found—estimated by my friends Prof. Watts and Prof. Hawkins at
about 50 to 60 million years.
Dr. Plot’s explanation of fossils in general as well as of flowers
was of a very different kind. ‘To account for their existence he
appealed to ‘ the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Nature, by
the School-men called Naturans, that governs and directs the Natura
naturata here below, to beautifie the World with these varieties ;
which I take to be the end of such productions as well as of most
Flowers, such as Tulips, Anemones, &c. of which we know as little
use as of formed stones.’
The modest and withal amusing paragraph which follows I
venture to quote in full as an example to be followed in scientific
controversy :
* And thus I have given the grounds of my present opinion, which
has not been taken up out of humor or contradiction, with intent only
to affront other worthy Authors modest conjectures, but rather
friendly to excite them, or any others, to endeavor collections of
shell-fish, and parts of other Animals, that may answer such formed
stones as are here already, or may hereafter be produced: Which
when ever I find done, and the reasons alleged solidly answered, I
2 The Natural History of Oxfordshire, being an Essay toward the Natural History
of England, by Robert Plot, D.D. Printed at the Theater in Oxford. 1677.
Dedicated To the most Sacred Majesty of Charles the Second, King of Great
Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. (pp. 118-122).
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 5
shall be ready with acknowledgment to retract my opinion, which
I am not so in love with, but for the sake of Truth I can chearfully
cast off without the least reluctancy.’
One chief object which, as I believe, Huxley had before him was to
bring forward a calm, clear statement of the evidence on which
alone it was posstble to achieve that ‘ reconstruction of an extinct
animal from a tooth or bone,’ which had made so deep an impression
on the imagination. ‘The reconstruction was in fact a simple
inference based on anatomical experience such as that gained by
Steno when he dissected the shark and concluded that the ‘ glosso-
petrz ’ were the teeth of shark-like fishes. But this reasoning—
that a fossil tooth or bone on the surface of a rock, cannot by itself
enable the geologist to predict that a skeleton of a certain type lies
hidden beneath—seeming to diminish the glory of Cuvier’s splendid
work, was resented by Owen who had replied with the bitter taunt
that a tooth can tell us a great deal—a donkey can kick his master
but he cannot eat him. ‘This may have been the encounter referred
to by Huxley when he wrote of a friendly meeting with Owen at the
Zoological Section of the Association in Leeds (1858): ‘so that
the people who had come in hopes of a row were (as I intended they
should be) disappointed.’* In the same spirit, I think, Huxley
was glad to speak of the ‘ glossopetrz ’ at the Jubilee meeting, where
Owen was President of a Section, and calmly and simply, to reaffirm
conclusions which are unassailable.
Huxley then passed on to Steno’s further study of fossils and his
proof of their relationship to terrestrial freshwater and marine
organisms, and to his application of this evidence to the past condi-
tion of 'Tuscany—all discussed ‘in a manner worthy of a modern
geologist’ and later extended by Buffon to all parts of the world
then known to be fossiliferous. ‘These conclusions, ‘ which almost
constitute the framework of palzontology,’ only required one
addition, made towards the end of the eighteenth century by William
Smith, who showed that geological strata contained characteristic
fossils so that rocks of the same age could be identified in all parts of
the world, while the biologist could follow the changes in the living
population of the globe—a record of constant extinction and con-
tinual generation of new species. We were then led to three general
conclusions: (1) the vast length of time during which life has
existed on the earth—‘ certainly for millions of years’; (2) the
continual changes which living forms have undergone during this
period ; (3) the successive changes in the best-known fossil groups
are such as we should expect if each series ‘ had been produced by
the gradual modification of the earliest form... .’ This last
conclusion meant evolution which so completely accorded with
3 Life and Letters, vol. i, p. 157-
6 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
recent discoveries that ‘if it had not existed, the palzontologist
would have had to invent it.’
I can never forget the words spoken to me after the lecture by a
dear friend of my youth, the late Viriamu Jones, Principal of
University College, Cardiff: ‘At every sentence I felt myself
bowing to Huxley and saying “ you are the greatest man here ; no
one else could have said that as you have said it.” ’
As Huxley’s lecture continued in a calm spirit an embittered
controversy, so his thoughts on the immensity of past geological
and biological time lead naturally to another controversy on the age
of the earth conducted intermittently at our meetings between 1892
and 1921. It is, I think, a good example of the invaluable help
which the British Association brings to discussion when there
appears to be a difficulty in reconciling the conclusions reached by
the followers of different sciences. Lord Kelvin’s estimate of a
hundred million years as the period during which the earth had been
cool enough to permit the existence of life upon its surface—a period
reduced by Prof. Tait to ten million—was a great difficulty to
geologists and biologists who believed that an immensely longer
time was required for the history of the fossiliferous rocks and the
evolution of animals and plants. Thus, to quote only one instance,
Darwin writing to Wallace in 1871 and referring to ‘ missing links,’
said, ‘I should rely much on pre-Silurian time ; but then comes
Sir William Thomson, like an odious spectre.’ The geologists
resisted more firmly. Thus Sir Archibald Geikie, in his Presidential
Address at Edinburgh in 1892, concluded his discussion of the sub-
ject with these words: ‘ The geological record furnishes a mass of
evidence which no arguments drawn from other departments of
Nature can explain away, and which, it seems to me, cannot be
satisfactorily interpreted save with an allowance of time much
beyond the narrow limits which recent physical speculation would
concede.’ At the Leeds meeting in 1890 I had many opportunities
of meeting Prof. John Perry, and when we were walking together on
the Sunday afternoon I asked him to tell me something of the Kelvin-
Tait conclusions and how far they must be accepted. He had been a
demonstrator under Kelvin and spoke of the intense interest with
which he had followed his lectures at Glasgow, and he gave me no
hope of escape. His change of opinion, throwing a most interesting
light upon the influence of the British Association, was the result of
the Presidential address at Oxford in 1894, when Lord Salisbury
chaffed the believers in natural selection, telling them that he did not
wonder that they required many hundred million years for so slow
a process, but that ‘if the mathematicians are right, the biologists
cannot have what they demand. ... The jelly-fish would have
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 7
been dissipated in steam long before he had had a chance of dis~
playing the advantageous variation which was to make him the
ancestor of the human race.’ When Perry read this pronouncement,
sweeping aside the firm convictions of biologists and geologists, he
was led to re-examine the evidence and soon found a flaw. ‘The
heat of the earth had been calculated on the assumption of a con-
ductivity uniform through the whole mass, but Perry showed that
with a conductivity becoming higher with increasing depth the
Kelvin-Tait estimate of the time required for cooling to the existing
temperature—on which the age of the habitable earth had been
based—must be immensely lengthened. Perry told me of this
destructive criticism and very kindly helped me to make use of it
in the address to Section D at Liverpool in which I replied to Lord
Salisbury’s amusing attack on the evolutionists.
Lord Lister was our President at Liverpool in 1896, and I cannot
resist the temptation to digress for a moment and recall the address
in which one of the greatest benefactors of mankind told us, with the
utmost simplicity and modesty, the story of his life’s work and the
success which, in spite of all opposition, had been achieved. To
hear him was an enduring inspiration.
The year 1896 was also the Jubilee of Lord Kelvin’s wonderful
half-century of achievement in research and teaching, and I could
not help feeling some regret that any criticism of his work
should appear at this particular time. But in the kindly spirit
of our Association such doubts were quite unnecessary. I well
remember how he came one day to our Sectional Committee-room
to bring me some volumes of his works, and how, as I have recorded
before, in the following year as we were travelling across Canada
after the Toronto Meeting and the chance of collecting insects for
a few minutes at each station could not be resisted, Lord Kelvin
said to his wife,‘ My dear, I think we must forgive Poulton for
thinking that the earth is so very old when he works so hard in one
day out of all the endless millions of years in which he believes |’ 4
The one line of evidence which left some anxiety in 1896, was
suggested by Helmholtz who allowed the sun only eighteen million
years to have been giving out radiant heat at the present rate—a
period Lord Kelvin was willing to extend to 500 million—and this
estimated maximum was also accepted by Sir George Darwin, who,
in his address ® at Cape Town in 1905, spoke of the new evidence
obtained by M. and Mme. Curie in their proof that radium gives
out heat, and, quoting in confirmation the work of R. J. Strutt,
W. E. Wilson, and G. H. Darwin, finally concluded that ‘ the
physical argument is not susceptible of a greater degree of certainty
4 Report, British Association, Centenary Meeting, 1931, p. 78.
5 Report, British Association, 1905, pp. 514-518.
8 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
than that of the geologists, and the scale of geological time remains
in great measure unknown.’ The light thrown by radium upon
the Helmholtz estimate was also referred to in the Presidential
Address of Ray Lankester at York in 1906, of J. J. ‘Thomson, quoting
the work of Strutt, Joly and Rutherford, at Winnipeg in 1909, and
became a predominant subject in the Joint Discussion on the Age
of the Earth, between Sections A, C, D and K, at Edinburgh in
1921.6 Lord Rayleigh in opening this discussion concluded ‘ that
radioactive methods of estimation indicate a moderate multiple of
1,000 million years as the possible and probable duration of the
earth’s crust as suitable for the habitation of living beings. . . .’
Even in the present year Sir Ambrose Fleming, in his address to
the Victoria Institute, is reported in The Times of January 12 to have
maintained that ‘ We were not in possession of any generally agreed
scientific modes of geological time measurement, but only with
estimates which were based for the most part on personal predilec-
tion or guesses at truth.’ It is to be regretted that the conclusions
of scientific colleagues should be attributed to ‘ personal predilec-
tion,’ and as for ‘ guesses at truth —what are these but hypotheses ;
and surely the discoverer whose imaginative effort led to the therm-
ionic valve and did so much to endow the world with the infinite
possibilities of wireless—surely he has little cause to choose for the —
serious efforts of others the word which in this connection carries a
suggestion of shallow irresponsibility.
Geologists and biologists do not profess to know the age of the
earth as the abode of life, but they are sure that, in the words used
by Sir William Turner at Bradford in 1900, its birth ‘ must have
been in the far-distant past, at a period so remote from the present
that the mind fails to grasp the duration of the interval.’
I fear that too much of our time has been occupied by the attempt
to show that the field is clear for the discussion of Organic Evolu-
tion, but, until this could be done, any such discussion appeared to
be well-nigh useless.
It is, I think, a mistake to emphasise too strongly the very
natural shock received by many who read the Origin or heard of
its teaching for the first time and without any preparation ; and I
believe an even greater mistake to criticise the clergy for the time that
elapsed before their acceptance of the new teaching. I shall never
forget the reception of Aubrey Moore’s paper, ‘ Recent Advances in
Natural Science in their Relation to the Christian Faith,’ by the
Church Congress at Reading in 1883.’ No speaker could have
carried his audience with him more thoroughly: there was not a
single protest or indication of dissent—nothing but enthusiastic
® Report, British Association, 1921, Pp. 413-415.
7 Science and the Faith, London, 1889, pp. 222-235.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 9
applause. The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Mackarness, was in the chair
when the paper received this unanimous welcome—only twenty-
three years after the Oxford meeting at which another Bishop of
Oxford put his rude and foolish question to Huxley. It is pleasant
to know that their celebrated encounter left no bitterness, for
Huxley wrote in 1891 to Francis Darwin—‘ In justice to the Bishop,
I am bound to say that he bore no malice, but was always courtesy
itself when we occasionally met in after years.’
I remember as a youth receiving a gentle parental warning against
committing myself too entirely to a belief in evolution—a very
different experience from that of our President at Hull in 1922, my
friend Sir Charles Sherrington, who in 1873 was persuaded by his
mother to take the Origin with him on his summer holiday, with the
inspiring words—‘ It sets the door of the Universe ajar ! ’
I have already recalled Dr. Wright’s indignation at York in 1881
as my only experience of opposition to a belief in Organic Evolution
at any of our meetings, and the published Proceedings confirm this
impression of unanimity. Thus, R. H. Traquair, addressing the
biologists at Bradford in 1900, said, ‘ I hardly think that we should
now find a single scientific worker who continues to hold on to the
old special creation idea’ ; and Lord Salisbury at Oxford in 1894,
referring to Darwin, said, ‘ He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of
the doctrine of the immutability of species. It has been. mainly
associated in recent days with the honoured name of Agassiz, but
with him has disappeared the last defender of it who could claim
the attention of the world.’ The mention of this great American
naturalist recalls ‘T'yndall’s fine address at Belfast in 1874 and his
memories of Agassiz’s words, ‘ I was not prepared to see this theory
received as it has been by the best intellects of our time. Its success
is greater than I could have thought possible.’
Huxley, who had seconded the vote of thanks to Lord Salisbury,
wrote to Hooker a few days later: ‘ It was very queer to sit there
and hear the doctrines you and I were damned for advocating
thirty-four years ago at Oxford, enunciated as matters of course—
disputed by no reasonable man !—in the Sheldonian Theatre by
the Chancellor. . . .’ §
A letter written two days earlier to Boyd Dawkins records Huxley’s
opinion of another part of the address. ‘ Lord Salisbury gave him-
self away wonderfully, but he was so good about Darwin himself
that I shut my eyes to all the nonsense he talked about Natural
Selection.’ ®
8 Life and Letters, 1900, vol. ii, p. 379.
® From a letter of August 10, 1894, printed in the Jesus College (Oxford)
Magazine, for Lent Term, 1928; and reprinted in Hope Reports, vol. xvi, 1929,
No. 3, p.6. (Privately circulated to many scientific libraries.) Huxley’s letter
of August 18, 1894, to Lewis Campbell (Life and Letters, vol. ii, p. 379) refers to
the same subject.
B2
10 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Leaving now the subject of Organic Evolution itself, as generally
accepted, I- wish to speak on the difficult question of its motive
causes which for many years have formed the subject of addresses,
discussions and papers at our meetings. The great division into two
opposed theories of causation became clear in 1887 when Weismann
attended the meeting at Manchester, and a discussion on ‘ The
Hereditary Transmission of Acquired Characters’ was held in
Section D. From that time evolutionists attending our meetings
have been either ‘ Lamarckians,’ following Erasmus Darwin,
Lamarck, Buffon and Herbert Spencer, or ‘ Darwinians’ who
followed Darwin and Wallace. Darwin himself, however, included
the Lamarckian conception of ‘ use-inheritance ’ as a motive cause,
although believing it to be far less important than Natural Selection.
The term ‘ Neo-Darwinian’ has therefore been applied to those
who, accepting Weismann’s teaching, reject ‘ use-inheritance ’
altogether.
It must always be remembered that, apart from any theory of
causes, the world owes its belief in organic evolution to all the great
men whose researches and teaching have. founded the two schools,
and perhaps chiefly, at any rate among the English-speaking nations,
to Herbert Spencer. I was first led to realise the extent of his
transatlantic popularity when I learned from an American story
greatly enjoyed in those far-off undergraduate days, that his books
were keenly appreciated by a bashful hero, who was so far from
sharing the sublime confidence of their author, that he was only led
to perform the most fateful action in life by the pressing advice of
a very young nephew who assured him, in the presence of the lady,
that if he was fond of her, the proper thing to do was to kiss her.
Herbert Spencer’s infallibility certainly lent itself to such stories as
that of his supposed reply to an argument—‘ That can’t be true, for
otherwise First Principles would have to be re-written—and the
edition is stereotyped’; or how Darwin said that to read Spencer
always made him feel like a worm, but that he retained the worm’s
privilege of wriggling, and at another time ‘ wonderfully clever, and
I dare say mostly true.’ But, allowing for a style which provoked
these and other amusing comments, we must never forget that
believers in the doctrine of Organic Evolution owe an immeasurable
debt to Herbert Spencer.
James Russell Lowell’s amusing lines in the Biglow Papers ?°
appear to prove that Lamarckism was prevalent in America many
years before the Origin :
‘Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty’s granted
The minnit its proved to be thoroughly wanted,
10 The lines are quoted from the First Part, published 1846-48.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS II
Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin’
Wen p'litikkle conshunces come into wearin’ ,—
Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail,
Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail.’
The year of the Manchester meeting, 1887, was the fiftieth anni-
versary, and we are now celebrating the Centenary, of the entry in
Darwin’s pocket-book :
“In July opened first note-book on Transmutation of Species.
Had been greatly struck from about the month of previous March
on character of South American fossils, and species on Galapagos
Archipelago. ‘These facts (especially latter), origin of all my views.’
It is especially interesting to recall that these views, as Professor
Newton told us in his address to D, the Biological Section, did not
include Natural Selection which only came into Darwin’s mind
when he read Malthus, On Population, in October, 1838. Newton,
who had read the proof-sheets of the great Life of Darwin, pub-
lished later in 1887, then spoke of Wallace’s independent discovery,
made twenty years after Darwin’s, a discovery suggested to him also
by reflecting on Malthus, and of the friendship between the two
great men to whom this fruitful conception had come, referring the
cynic who would ‘ point the finger of scorn at the petty quarrels in
which naturalists unfortunately at times engage’ to this ‘ greatest
of all cases, where scientific rivalry not only did not interfere with,
but even strengthened, the good-feeling which existed between two
of the most original investigators.’ And here I cannot resist the
desire to quote a part of the speech made by Wallace at the most
thrilling scientific gathering I have ever attended—the fiftieth
anniversary of the Darwin-Wallace Essay read before the Linnean
Society on July 1, 1858, only twelve days after the arrival of Wallace’s
letter and manuscript from the Moluccas. Wallace then said, on
July 1, 1908 :
“ The idea came to me, as it had come to Darwin, in a sudden flash
of insight : it was thought out in a few hours . . . and sent off to
Darwin—all within one week. J was then (as often since) the “ young
man in a hurry”: he, the painstaking and patient student, seeking
ever the full demonstration of the truth that he had discovered,
rather than to achieve immediate personal fame. ... If the per-
suasion of his friends had prevailed with him, and he had published
his theory, after ten years’—fifteen years’—or even eighteen years’
elaboration of it—J should have had no part in it whatever, and he
would have been at once recognised, and should be ever recognised,
as the sole and undisputed discoverer and patient investigator of the
great law of ‘“‘ Natural Selection,” in all its far-reaching con-
sequences,’ 14
11 Darwin-Wallace Celebration of the Linnean Society of London, 1908, pp. 6, 7.
12 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Amusing evidence of the difficulty with which this ‘ great law ’ was
understood is afforded by a verse written by Lord a and dated
May, 1861 :
‘A deer with a neck that was longer by half
Than the rest of its family’s (try not to laugh),
By stretching and stretching, became a Giraffe,
Which nobody can deny.’ 1?
Yet Wallace, referring to Lamarck’s hypothesis and ‘ that now
advanced,’ had written in his Section of the Joint Essay :
*‘ Neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach
the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck
for the purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its
antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range
of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions,
and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them.’
There were fortunately others who did not launch such ill-aimed
criticism. ‘Thus Professor Newton, reminding the Section that the
new teachings had been at once accepted by Canon Tristram 4° before
the appearance of the Origin of Species (on November 24, 1859),
expressed, with all the enthusiasm of one who was devoted to the
same delightful branch of natural history, ‘ the hope that the study
of ornithology may be said to have been lifted above its fellows.’
It was indeed very fortunate that the Darwin-Wallace Essay should
have been read so soon after its appearance by a naturalist who looked
on the species question as did Tristram—a great traveller and observer
who studied indefatigably the birds he loved, as living creatures and
in as many countries as he could visit.
At the last meeting of the British Association in Nottingham (1893)
Canon Tristram was President of Section D and, in his address,
gave an account of the observations referred to by Newton at Man-
chester. The historic interest of this early acceptance of Natural
Selection is such that I have prepared a brief abstract of his chief
conclusions :
During a visit of many months to the Algerian Sahara in 1857-58,
he ‘ noticed the remarkable variations in different groups, according
to elevation from the sea, and the difference of soil and vegetation.’
On his return he read the Darwin-Wallace Essay and wrote, ‘ It is
hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate this theory better than
by the larks and chats of North Africa.’ He then explained how the
colours arose by selective destruction of birds which harmonised
less well than others with the surface of the desert. And similarly
with other larks having ‘ differences, not only of colour, but of
12 The Origin of Species. A newsong. In Songs and verses, social and scientific,
by an old contributor to Maga. Edinburgh, 1868, 2nd Ed.
18 Ibis, October, 1859, pp. 429-433.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 13
structure,’ chiefly ‘ marked in the form of the bill.’ He took as
instances a very long-billed lark (Galerita arenicola), resorting
exclusively to the deep, loose, sandy tracts, and a very short-billed
allied species (G. isabellina), haunting the hard and rocky districts.
He then pointed out that there is individual variation in the bills
of larks and that the shorter-billed birds would be at a disadvantage
in obtaining food from sandy areas but at an advantage among the
rocks where strength is required. He concluded, ‘ Here are only
two causes enumerated which might serve to create, as it were, a new
species from an old one. Yet they are perfectly natural causes,
and such as | think must have occurred, and are possibly occurring
still. We know so very little of the causes which, in the majority of
cases, make species rare or common that there may be hundreds of
others at work, some even more powerful than these, which go to
perpetuate and eliminate certain forms “according to natural means
of selection.” ’
The temptation to record an amusing incident which happened
at one of the meetings of Section D at Manchester, cannot be
resisted. Work was proceeding smoothly under the genial guidance
of Prof. Newton when, suddenly, Dr. Samuel Haughton of Dublin
entered and from the back of the room announced in arresting tones
that he had an important communication to make about the animals
preserved from the Flood. He believed that Mrs. Noah strongly
objected to her husband’s intention to take the elephants on board,
fearing that their weight would cause a dangerous displacement of
the Ark’s metacentre. How this domestic difference was composed
we had no opportunity of learning, for as the Chairman, whose
expression combined sympathetic amusement with mild deprecation,
was rising and about to protest, Dr. Haughton, anticipating the
result, had already turned towards the door, telling us over his
shoulder that he was on his way to make a fuller communication
on the subject to the Anthropological Section.
After this brief description of an event, which I hope you will agree
ought not to be forgotten, we must return to Organic Evolution and
to one of the most important subjects debated at any time before a
meeting of the British Association—the question, ‘Are Acquired
Characters Hereditary ? "—brought before the world by Prof. August
Weismann, who was present at Manchester and spoke in the dis-
cussion (unfortunately not reported), introduced by Ray Lankester,
in which Dr. Hubrecht, Patrick Geddes, Marcus Hartog and the
present speaker, took part. Weismann’s conclusion that ‘ Acquired
Characters ’ are not inherited, was held by Prof. Goodrich, in his
address to Section D at Edinburgh in 1921, to be ‘ the most important
14 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
contribution to the science of evolution since the publication of Dar-
win’s Origin of Species,’ an opinion with which the great majority of
biologists will agree, although the terms employed for the two classes,
the Inherited and the Non-inherited, together with the ideas under-
lying them, were shown by Adam Sedgwick, at Dover in 1899,
Archdall Reid, and others, as well as by Goodrich himself, to be
incorrect. Nevertheless it will probably be impossible to abandon
the word ‘ acquired,’ employed by Erasmus Darwin (1794), Lamarck
(1809), and Prichard (1813) as well as by later authorities. Whenever
environmental conditions are followed by characteristic changes,
absent when these conditions are absent; or when such changes
follow the use or disuse of the parts of an organism, or the education
it has received, then we have before us the ‘ acquired’ characters
maintained by Weismann to be incapable of hereditary transmission.
This vital conclusion, accepted, as I believe it is, by nearly all
biologists, is not appreciated as it ought to be by the general public.
A brief statement of a single piece of evidence may convince some
who are doubtful about a conclusion with which human life is very
deeply concerned.
My old friend the late A. A. Macdonell, Professor of Sanskrit at
Oxford, spoke two languages, English and German, as they are
spoken by native Englishmen and Germans. I asked him whether he
thought it was possible for any mature person to learn a foreign lan-
guage so perfectly that he would be mistaken for a native. He replied,
that he was sure it could not be done and that his own ability
to speak the two languages as he did had been only made possible
because as a small child he had been continually taken backwards
and forwards between the two countries. Yet any human being trans-
ported as a baby from his own country to another and brought up
there among the natives will learn to speak as they speak. All the
past generations, however many, during which his ancestors spoke
the language af his birthplace, will count for nothing, will not retard
his acquisition of another tongue or modify it in any way.
An interesting and amusing example is provided by the futile
striving of an Englishman to pronounce the Welsh double-l, generally
attempted by the substitution of ‘th.’ And even the advice given
by a Welsh clergyman to the English Bishop of his diocese is unlikely
to bring success: ‘ You must put the tip of your Right Reverend
tongue against the roof of your Right Reverend mouth, and hiss like
a goose.’
The result of education as an ‘ acquired’ character in the Weis-
mannian sense is of such special importance that I think it is well
to quote the conclusions stated by Sir Ray Lankester in his address to
the seventy-fifth meeting of the Association at York. He then main-
tained that the ‘ power of building up appropriate cerebral mechanism
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 15
in response to individual experience, or what may be called ‘‘ educa-
bility,” is the quality which characterises the larger cerebrum, and
is that which has led to its selection, survival, and further increase
in volume’... ‘“ Educability”’ can be transmitted; it is a
congenital character. But the results of education can not be
transmitted. In each generation they have to be acquired
afresh... .On the other hand, the nerve-mechanisms of instinct
are transmitted, and owe their inferiority as compared with the
results of education to the very fact that they are not acquired
by the individual in relation to his particular needs, but have
arisen by selection of congenital variation in a long series of
preceding generations.’ 14
Lankester was led by these conclusions to reject altogether the
theory of G. H. Lewes, G. Romanes, and others, “ that instincts are
due to lapsed intelligence,’ a theory also disproved by Lloyd Morgan’s
observations on young birds described by him at the Ipswich meeting
in 1895.15 Another very important subject brought forward by
Lankester was the evidence, originally published by him in 1894,1°
that Lamarck’s first and second laws of heredity ‘ are contradictory
the one of the other, and therefore may be dismissed.’ His state-
ment may be briefly summarised as follows :
The first law assumes that in spite of thousands of generations
during which a normal environment has ‘ moulded the individuals
of a given species of organism, and determined as each indi-
vidual developed and grew “responsive ”’ quantities in its parts
(characters) ; yet, as Lamarck tells us, and as we know, there is in
every individual born a potentiality which has not been extinguished.
Change the normal conditions . . . and (as Lamarck bids us observe),
in spite of all the long-continued response to the earlier normal
specific conditions, the innate congenital potentiality shows itself.
The individual . . . shows new responsive quantities in those parts
of its structure concerned, new or acquired characters.’
‘So far, so good. What Lamarck next asks us to accept, as his
“second law,’’ seems not only to lack the support of experimental
proof, but to be inconsistent with what had just preceded it. The
new character which is ex hypothesi, as was the old character
which it has replaced—a response to environment . . . is, according
to Lamarck, all of a sudden raised to extraordinary powers. The
new or freshly acquired character is declared . . . to be capable of
transmission by generation ; that is to say, it alters the potential
character of the species. It is no longer a merely responsive
14 Report, British Association, 1906, pp. 26-27. The conclusions here quoted had
been communicated to Société de Biologie of Paris, in 1899 (Jubilee Volume) and
were reprinted in Nature, vol. lxi, 1900, pp. 624-625.
18 Report, British Association, Pp. 734-
16 Nature, vol. li, 1894, p. 127; Report, British Association, 1906, pp. 29, 30.
16 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
or reactive character, determined quantitatively by quantitative
conditions of the environment, but becomes fixed and incorporated
in the potential of the race, so as to persist when other quantitative
external conditions are substituted for those which originally
determined it.’
The effect of Lamarck’s laws on the hereditary transmission of
acquired characters would be this: ‘ A past of indefinite duration
is powerless to control the present, while the brief history of the
present can readily control the future.’
After hearing a very condensed statement of conclusions so
essentially bound up with the progress of Organic Evolution, I feel
sure that you will wish to be reminded of Prof. Ewing’s words which
followed the address at York :
‘ Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by
this Ray of Lankester.’
Returning to the unreported discussion on the inheritance of
acquired characters at Manchester, I venture to bring forward
certain observations opposed to a belief in.Lamarckian evolution by
means of inherited experience—observations which I then described
and have not known to be answered. In the relationship between
enemy and prey there is very commonly no opportunity for the
latter to learn by experience. The wonderfully elaborate adapta-
tions by which sedentary insects are hidden from enemies have been
evolved, not by experience of enemies but by avoidance of enemies.
In these examples, and they are numberless, we are driven to accept
Weismann’s conclusion and with him to invoke ‘ the all-sufficiency
of Natural Selection.’. When one of the twig-like caterpillars, of
which there are so many in this country, is detected by an insecti-
vorous bird it can do nothing and is devoured at once. Its one
defence is the astonishingly perfect resemblance to a twig of the
bush or tree on which it lives. It is firmly fixed and its weight also
supported by an almost invisible thread so that it cannot escape as
many caterpillars do by dropping to the ground and sheltering in
the grass or among dead leaves. Its one chance of survival is to
gain so perfect a disguise that it will not be seen, and to attain this
end the adaptive devices are most elaborate and wonderful: its
twig-like shape and colours with the power of gradually adjusting
these so as to resemble the bark of the bush or tree on which the
parent moth laid the egg from which it came, even the power to
reproduce exactly the appearance of lichen, the rigid stick-like
attitude maintained during the hours of daylight. Finally there is
the evidence, recently obtained by Robert Carrick,!” that the disguise
does protect ; for examples of one of these caterpillars, resting on
” Trans. Roy. Ent. Soc., Lond., vol. 85, part 4 (May, 1936), p. 131, 3 pls.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ey
a branch of its food-plant fixed over a wren’s nest containing young,
were unnoticed by the parent bird which used the same branch as
a convenient perch ; yet seen and at once taken when placed on a
white surface below.
One of the best examples of a prophetic instinct is to be found in
the larva of an African Tabanid fly (7. biguttatus). This maggot
lives and feeds in soft mud which, during the dry season when the
chrysalis stage has been reached, will be traversed in all directions
by wide and deep cracks in which insectivorous animals can search
for prey. But the maggot, while the mud is still soft, prepares for
this danger. By tunnelling spirally up and down it makes a line of
weakness which will cause a pillar to separate from the mass when
the mud hardens and contracts. It then tunnels into the still soft
pillar and becomes a chrysalis in the centre of its deeperend. How-
ever wide the cracks which appear in the mud, the maggot has
arranged beforehand that they will not invade its cylinder. Dr.
W. A. Lamborn, who made this most interesting discovery, observed
that the summits of the pillars, forming circular discs of about the
size of a penny, scattered here and there over the surface, were never
thus traversed, but that an empty shell was protruding from the
centre of each when the fly had emerged.1® My friend the late Prof.
J. M. Baldwin, the distinguished American psychologist, well
remembered at many of our meetings, wrote when he heard of this
discovery : ‘it seems complete—one of those rare cases of a single
experience being sufficient to establish both a fact and a reason for
the fact! It is beautiful.’
I would ask any believer in Lamarckian evolution, or in Hering’s
and Samuel Butler’s theory of unconscious memory residing in the
germ-cells, how it would be possible to explain these prophetic
instincts, adapted not to meet but to avoid future experience, except
by the operation of natural selection.
The appeal to Orthogenesis, or internal developmental force, as
the motive cause of evolutionary progress has often been made—
generally by paleontologists rather than by the observers of living
forms. Any such belief in the potency of an internal tendency is,
I think, open to the criticism made by Thiselton Dyer in his address
to Section D at Bath in 1888: ‘ This appears to me much as if we
explained the movement of a train from London to Bath by attri-
buting to it a tendency to locomotion. Mr. Darwin lifted the
whole matter out of the field of mere transcendental speculation by
the theory of natural selection, a perfectly intelligible mechanism
by which the result might be brought about. Science will always
18 Proc. Roy. Soc., B, vol. 106, 1930, p. 83, pl. v; Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., vol. v,
1930, p. 14,
3 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
prefer a material modus operandi to anything so vague as the action
of a tendency.’
It is not necessary for me to speak on the rediscovery of Mendel’s
great work and all that it has meant to our Biological Sections in the
early decades of the present century. The recent developments,
following the work of Haldane, R. A. Fisher, and others, and the
vitally important relationship between Mendelism and Natural
Selection were brought before us last year in Julian Huxley’s
illuminating address to Section D. The older belief that only
large variations, or mutations as they then began to be called, were
subject to Mendelian inheritance, and that small variations were
not inherited at all, disappeared when further researches proved
that extremely minute differences were ‘heritable in the normal
Mendelian manner,’ !® and, with this, the foundation of Darwinian
evolution became immensely strengthened. It is also right to
remember that Bateson, the leader of Mendelian research in this
country, always believed in Natural Selection, regarding it indeed
as self-evident and not very interesting. Also that Ray Lankester,
as long ago as his 1906 address at York, maintained that however
far Mendelism was advanced it ‘ would not be subversive of Mr.
Darwin’s generalisations, but probably tend to the more ready
application of them to the explanation of many difficult cases of the
structure and distribution of organisms.’
The relationship between the germinal foundation of Mendelian
and Weismannian heredity was considered in a paper by L. Doncaster
read before Section D at the South African meeting in 1905. He
then maintained that Weismann’s ‘ hypothesis that the material
bearer of hereditary qualities is the chromatin of the nucleus’ of
the germ-cells had been confirmed by recent work on their matura-
tion which ‘ has shown that they contain a mechanism which seems
precisely adapted to bring about that segregation of characters which
forms the most fundamental part of the Mendelian theory, and
it seems hardly possible that the two things are unconnected.’
MacBride also, in his address to the same section at Newcastle in
1916, spoke of the ‘ great epoch-making discovery of experimental
embryology, viz. the existence of SPECIFIC ORGAN-FORMING SUB-
STANCES.’ ‘These fundamental discoveries bring to mind a conversa-
tion with Weismann when he had been finally driven to frame and
elaborate this hypothesis, and was so appalled by the number and
minuteness of the material bearers of hereditary qualities contained in
a single germ-cell that, as he told me, he could not believe that the
physicists and chemists were correct in their conclusions about the
size of the atom. He admitted that diverse lines of evidence led to
19 Report, British Association, 1931, p. 77 and references quoted.
i
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 19
the same result, but even so, he believed the future would prove
that physicists were mistaken and that the atom was far smaller.
It is impossible to say more than a few words about the very
interesting and important discussion on ‘ The present state of the
Theory of Natural Selection ’ held at the Royal Society on May 14
last year. The subject was approached from many points of view
by both zoologists and botanists, and their conclusions were very
welcome to Darwinians who remembered the earlier opinions
expressed when Mendel’s great work was rediscovered. I think,
however, that Prof. D. M. S. Watson, in the opening address, was
inclined to underestimate the value of the existing evidence for a
‘ selective death rate,’ although everyone will agree that ‘ any new
evidence . . . or indeed any suggestion of cases which might be
capable of investigation,’ would be most desirable.
I may briefly mention a few experiments brought before Section D
at the Bristol meeting in 1898 beginning with the work of Weldon
and Thompson on the Common Shore Crab, showing that the
effect of china clay and other impurities in the sea at Plymouth was
selective and promoted changes of shape which ensured that the
water flowing over the respiratory surface was more efficiently
filtered.
Then, on the subject of chance, the heroic help rendered by Mrs.
Weldon, who four times recorded the result of 4,096 throws of dice,
showing that the faces with more than three points were on the
average, uppermost slightly more often than was to be expected.
It comes back to me very clearly because of the interesting explana-
tion—that the points on dice are marked by little holes scooped out
of the faces, and that points 6, 5, and 4, respectively opposite 1, 2,
and 3 are somewhat lighter, more of the ivory having been removed ;
also because of Francis Galton’s delight and his humorously
expressed wonder whether the facts had been realised by those
who had an interest other than scientific in the throwing of dice.
Experimental evidence was also submitted by Miss Cora B.
Sanders (Mrs. C. B. S. Hodson) and myself, proving that when the
rough, angular pupa of the small tortoiseshell butterfly “is sus-
pended from a surface against which it stands out conspicuously,
it is in far greater danger than when it is fixed to one upon which it
is concealed.’
To the observer of living creatures, however, the most convincing
evidence is provided by animals themselves. When a wild bird is
seen to capture some conspicuous butterfly or moth and then
immediately to reject it the association between inedibility and a
warning colour is more convincingly suggested than when insects
are offered to animals in confinement, although such experiments
20 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS |
are of great value and often provide the only available evidence.
There are, however, instances in which abundant data for statistical
investigation are furnished by the wild animals themselves. Thus
the long-eared bat has the convenient habit of eating moths—its
regular food—while it hangs suspended from a surface to which it
returns after each capture ; and as the wings are rejected, these may
be collected in large numbers, yielding valuable information on the
significance of concealing and warning patterns.
In the attempt to determine the motive causes of organic evolu-
tion, the work of the naturalist, the student of living nature, is
essential. His task is to do what Lyell did for geology by directing
attention to the forces now in operation and seeking with their help
to interpret the past. By the death of Lord Rothschild, on
August 28, the world has lost a great naturalist who devoted his life
to the creation of a splendid museum offering unique opportunities
for the study of modifications which arose as the species of an
important Insect Order (Lepidoptera) gradually spread over the
areas which they now occupy. It was his wish that this immense
field for research upon these latest phases of evolutionary change
should become the property of the Nation, forming a magnificent
addition to the British Museum. I feel confident that it is the
earnest hope of us all that Lord Rothschild’s wish may be realised
and that this great memorial of a life devoted to Natural History
will provide constant inspiration to many workers in the same
branch of science.
Associated with these researches is the study of adaptations
which have been developed in recent times and can, in certain
instances, be proved to undergo changes even now. Thus the
interesting observations of H. Lyster Jameson showed that a pale
local race of the common mouse had been formed, although in-
completely, in from 100 to 125 years, by the selective attacks of owls
and hawks on sandhills near Dublin.2® I have long believed that
the colours of animals provide one of the most fruitful fields in
which to pursue these investigations, and I regret that this work has
been recently attacked by an American zoologist who, referring to
the recent revival of natural selection, continues—‘ if the doctrine
can emerge minus its sexual selection, its warning colors, its
mimicry and its signal colors, the reaction over the end of the century
will have been a distinct advantage.’#4 It is of course impossible
to discuss, on the present occasion, this confident attempt to de-
preciate the value of work associated with the names of Darwin,
Bates, Wallace, Trimen and Fritz Miller. I will only point out
20 Journ. Linn. Soc. (Zool.), vol. 26, 1898, p. 465, pl. 30.
21 Evolution. A. Franklin Shull. (New York, 1936.)
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 21
that the conclusions on warning colours and mimicry have been
immensely strengthened and confirmed by the later observations of
Guy Marshall, W. A. Lamborn, St. Aubyn Rogers, Hale Carpenter,
V. G. L. van Someren, C. F. M. Swynnerton and others in Africa ;
by the experiments conducted by some of these naturalists, and also
by H. B. Cott and R. Carrick, and in the United States by Morton
Jones.
It is interesting to remember that a paper by two American
entomologists 2 was among the first to accept and support by fresh
observations the conclusions brought forward by H. W. Bates in
his great memoir on the mimetic butterflies of the Amazon Valley,”
and that one of the authors treated the same subject more completely
in a later paper ** much appreciated by Darwin.”
It is also important to remember that the above-mentioned con-
clusions have been reached by the study of marine animals no less
than terrestrial, as was shown by Herdman in his address to Sec-
tion D at Glasgow in 1go1, and by his experiments communicated
to the same Section at Ipswich in 1895 ; also that Garstang, with his
very long and intimate experience of marine life, adopts the same
interpretation of colour and form with the associated attitudes and
movements.
If time permitted it would be possible to speak of numerous
papers on mimicry and the related subjects which have been brought
before our meetings. It is impossible to attempt this now, but
many will feel with me that the name of the late Dr. F. A. Dixey
should not be forgotten—one who attended so regularly, so often
read papers at our meetings, presided over Section D at Bournemouth
in 1919, lectured at Leicester in 1907, always giving the results
yielded by the study of his favourite insects, and their interpretation
by the theory of natural selection ; also one who delighted in the social
gatherings of his Section, where his rendering of Widdicombe Fair
will be long remembered.
In my concluding remarks I am anxious to refer to a very
interesting and encouraging subject—the feeling for animals and
the care for their welfare to-day, as contrasted with the treatment
they received a hundred years ago and even in the youth of many
among us. Only last autumn The Times of October 12, reported
that 1,000 swallows had arrived at Venice ‘ sent there by bird-lovers
from Vienna and Munich in order to save them from the effects of
#2 Walsh and Riley: The American Entomologist, St. Louis, Mo., 1869, vol. i,
p. 189.
23 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., vol. xxiii, 1862, p. 495.
24 Riley: Third Annual Report on the Noxious . . . Insects of . . . Missouri,
TS7l, Ds AZ.
25 Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection (Poulton, 1896), p. 202.
22 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
the cold weather. Soon after their arrival they were set free and
flew south along the Adriatic coast.’ And a little earlier the writer
of the amusing * Fourth Leader’ referred to a meeting of the Society
for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire at which the care
of the opossum was discussed, comparing this with the report of
happenings a hundred years earlier when there was a ‘ humorous
debate ’ at the Zoological Society ‘ about puffing cigar-smoke into
the cages of the monkeys,’ to their evident discomfort. The writer,
yielding too far, we hope, to the depression of the present day, con-
cludes: ‘The world, it may be, is “‘ man-sick”’ and yearning to
be rid of a bad mistake. But the creature cannot be wholly vile
when instead of torturing monkeys it takes thought for the opossum.’
It would not be right to quote from a century-old report without
speaking of all that is done and has been done during many years for
the care and health of animals by the great London Society and its
branch at Whipsnade, and in doing this, for the education and
happiness of our people. But the change of which I have spoken
is most deeply impressed on those who remember, as many of us do,
the misdirected hours in youth when birds were shot in our gardens
and brick traps made to catch them. I feel sure that those who did
these things are not essentially different from their children and
grandchildren who have grown up in a kinder atmosphere. I must
not occupy more time on a subject which to some may seem in-
appropriate, but it is bound up with education in its true sense—
the detection and training of unrecognised ability—and if, as Sir
Ray Lankester said at York, and we are all coming to believe, the
hidden powers within are inherited while the results of their develop-
ment are not, then there is no easing of the burden with the passage
of time, but each generation afresh must bear the heavy responsi-
bility of conducting this development in the best way so that its
successor may be able to meet the changing and, at this time, the
increasing needs. ‘The relationship between the powers within and
their development was suggested in arresting words by the late
Prof. Scott Holland: ‘To say that a man cannot be made good by
Act of Parliament is such an obvious truth that people forget what
an outrageous lie it is!’
Thoughts on the development of these hidden powers by the
educating influence of social environment, suggest the greatest of
the problems by which we are faced—the end of international war.
Sir Michael Foster, in his Address at Dover in 1899, after speaking of
progress in the material of warfare was led to believe that, ‘ happily,
the very greatness of the modern power of destruction is already
becoming a bar to its use, and bids fair—may we hope before long ?>—
wholly to putan end toit; in the words of Tacitus, though in another
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 23
sense, the very preparations for war, through the character which
science gives them, make for peace.’ And in his concluding pages
he expressed the hope that the brotherly meeting between the
English and French Associations at Dover and Boulogne might be
looked upon as a sign that science, by nobler means than the develop-
ment of armaments, was steadily working towards the same great end.
And, in a time of still greater need and perplexity, may we not, in
the same hopeful spirit, look upon the recent visit by which members
of the French Association have honoured us, and feel strengthened
in the belief that the great end will be reached.
There are, I know, very many people who look upon the Great War
with later wars and rumours of wars as the close of Sir Michael Foster’s
dream. The words in which Sir Arthur Schuster concluded his
address at Manchester in 1915, and Sir Edward Thorpe at Edin-
burgh in 1921, indicate, I hope, that the British Association does not
thus despair, and in this belief I bring before you a passage from the
far earlier address which Sir Richard Owen delivered to the
Twenty-eighth Meeting at Leeds in 1858—a passage which makes
a special appeal at a time when the British and American Associa-
tions are confidently hoping to strengthen still further the bonds of
sympathy and mutual appreciation by which they have been happily
united for so many years.
Referring to the transatlantic telegraph Sir Richard said :
“We may confidently hope that this and other applications of
pure science will tend to abolish wars over the whole earth ; so that
men may come to look back upon the trial of battle between mis-
understanding nations, as a sign of a past state of comparative
barbarism ; just as we look back from our present phase of civilisation
in England upon the old border warfare.’
Confident words inspired by the forging of a new link between
the two great English-speaking nations. Nearly eighty years have
passed since they were spoken, but with all the terrible disappoint-
ments there has been great progress, and a time will surely come,
and may it come quickly, a time which shall prove that the visions of
the young and the dreams of the old were prophetic of a glorious
reality.
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SECTION A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
NOISE AND THE NATION
ADDRESS BY
Ga We (RAYE, O-B.E. M.A.) D-SC.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Appited Physics and related Matters
Acoustics and the British Association
Notse and the Nation.
The Measurement of Noise.
The Decibel and the Phon.
Noise Meters.
(i) Subjective Noise Meters.
(ii) Objective Noise Meters.
The Analysis of Noise.
Noise Level Measurements.
Noise on the Railway.
Noise in the Air.
Noise on the Road.
(i) Ministry of Transport Tests.
(ii) Tests on New Motor Vehicles.
(iii) Tests on ‘ Used’ Motor Vehicles.
(iv) Summary of Tests.
(v) Motor Horns.
(vi) Pneumatic Road Drills.
The Abatement of Noise.
Quiet Housing.
(i) The Insulation of Walls and Windows.
(ii) The Insulation of Floors.
(iii) Sound Absorbent Treatment of Rooms.
APPLIED PHYSICS AND RELATED MATTERS.
TueERE is a feeling, which of late years has been gathering strength, that
the primary concern of the British Association should be to bring home
to the community how much its welfare and its interests owe, and are
likely to owe in the future, to science and its developments. Our
President at Blackpool last year emphasised this outlook in his address
on ‘The Impact of Science on Society’; and we in Section A have
thought it well this Coronation year to devote the greater part of our
proceedings to some of the beneficent influences of applied physics on
the complex social and industrial life of the nation. We feel that in
26 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
these disturbed days science should have a message of goodwill to the
world ; and to such a message, fortified at each of our sessions by practical
demonstration, we have put our hand at this sectional gathering, now
meeting for the third time in the great industrial city of Nottingham.
A generation ago it was fashionable to draw a working distinction
between the applied and pure physicist, it being considered that when
given a piece of research to carry out, the former consciously or un-
consciously applied Benjamin Franklin’s stock question ‘ What is the use
of it?’ Nowadays it is appreciated that any such distinction can only
be largely artificial, for there have been many outstanding illustrations
during the last half century of how speedily and inevitably results of no
preconceived practical value may glide into widespread industrial utilities.
For example, when only forty years ago Sir. J. J. Thomson discovered
the electron, no one could ever have imagined that, as Dr. K. T. Compton
recently informed us, an industrial business amounting to some hundreds
of millions of pounds a year would now owe its existence to electronic
devices. Already, both neutrons and radio-sodium are being experi-
mented with in radiation therapy ; and furthermore, some of the artificial
radioactive elements have found an important field of use in biological
processes, both in animals and plants, providing, as they do, by their
characteristic radioactive decay, a method of identifying migrating atoms
a million times more sensitive than any that analytical chemistry can offer.
Again, to judge by the 1936 report of the Comptroller-General of the
Patent Office, technical applications are also being sought for the trans-
mutation of elements by bombardment with short-wave radiation or
high-speed particles.
Thus even the most practically minded among us need find no diffi-
culty in appreciating the profound fascination and basic significance of
some of the present-day developments of modern physics, and recog-
nising the driving genius behind them. But applied physics has its
victories no less than pure physics; and speaking as one who has spent
some thirty happy years in both the pure and applied schools of physical
research, I can testify that dealing with materials which are neither
intangible nor ephemeral, does not necessarily cramp outlook or stifle
enthusiasm ; and applied workers are no less able to share the stimulus
of conquering a stubborn investigation, and with it all, enjoy the satis- ,
faction of seeing many of their labours turned to early account in the
interests of the community. Perhaps some day they will also take to
heart some of the social implications of their work.
There must be many of us, both workers and onlookers, who at times
feel a little overwhelmed by the way the ramifications of physical research
year by year continue to extend. Not uncommonly, the methods of
attack are so involved and the technique so formidable, that despite the
great all-round improvements in equipment, the calls on the pertinacity
and patience of the worker are no less than in the past. Incidentally,
while present-day equipment is often much more elaborate and efficient,
it is also apt to be much more costly than that of a generation ago, as
those who direct physical laboratories are well aware. ‘This applies alike
to the pure and the applied physics laboratory; and although their
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 27
immediate objectives are usually very different, one finds, for example,
in both the Cavendish and National Physical Laboratories, ample
illustration of how large-scale and expensive apparatus has entered into
both classes of physical investigation. Such apparatus is likely to be
beyond the compass of the private research worker, who at one time cut
a conspicuous figure in the scientific annals of this country, but who,
with a few noteworthy exceptions, has now regrettably disappeared.
Progress in industrial research, at any rate, seems to be more and more
bound up with specialised team attack, whether to solve a specific problem
or to develop a new invention or product.
There is one other matter to which I would like to refer. It has been
claimed in some quarters that man’s qualities of leadership are more
likely to be developed by the older humanitarian studies than by the
natural or mechanical sciences ‘The dictum has doubtless the defects
of all such generalisations, and more to the point, perhaps, is the sum-
ming up of John Drinkwater, that ‘the minds of men mostly belong to
one or other of two kinds—the kind that wishes to dominate, and the
kind that desires to understand.’ Experience tempts one to hazard
the view that the proportion of men who naturally seek leadership or
administrative responsibility is small, possibly one in twenty or even less.
Provided, however, the germs of initiative and common sense are there,
the value of research in getting a man into the way of thinking for him-
self and developing a courageous and discriminating outlook is not to
be questioned. It is to be hoped that the penetration into the major
industries of scientifically trained young men, whose mental equipment
is such as to fit them later on for responsible administrative jobs, is some-
thing which the Universities regard as of high national importance. In
its turn, industry must play a part by recognising the advantages of
admitting the pick of such men into the Board room more commonly
than in the traditional past. Power without knowledge is a well-worn
and discredited experiment in this country; and the conception that
technical or scientific workers invariably require to be mothered by
full-blooded non-scientific or quasi-scientific administrators is manifestly
so much moonshine.
Before leaving the subject, I may perhaps comment on what I believe
to be a weakness of a good many thoroughly capable men who come to
an appointment fresh from a University and armed with an Honours
science degree and perhaps a little research experience ; that is, a diffi-
culty in setting down their ideas and conclusions on paper concisely and
logically and in reasonably good English, whether in letter or report.
We must not, of course, expect to find old heads on young shoulders,
but I feel sure that some sort of intensive course to cover these points
ought to form a part of young people’s University training ; or perhaps
we ought to insist on a more thorough grounding, particularly in English,
before specialisation in science is allowed to begin. As it is, the drafting
of a scientific paper by a beginner is liable to be an ordeal which is, I
think, best tempered by the system of joint publication with a senior man,
the experience being not only valuable educationally but often an eye-
opener for both parties.
28 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
AcousTICS AND THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.
In passing to the subject matter of this Address, I may perhaps mention
that a search through the Reports of the Association reveals that through-
out its entire existence of over a hundred years, no previous Presidential
Address in Section A has dealt with acoustical matters. Neither can I
find a precedent for an experimental address such as I am venturing
to offer you to-day. It is fitting that the subject of acoustics should
occupy us in this lecture theatre, which was one of Prof. Barton’s last
achievements.
During the course of the search, one could not fail to be impressed by
the galaxy of distinguished mathematicians and physicists who have
presided over our Section in the past. Here is a random selection of
pre-war names: Brewster, Herschel, Forbes, Stokes, Airy, Rankine,
Cayley, Wheatsone, Tyndall, Maxwell, Tait, Balfour Stewart, Lord
Kelvin, Carey Foster, Johnstone Stoney, the late Lord Rayleigh, Chrystal,
G. H. Darwin, Fitzgerald, Sir Oliver Lodge, Schuster, Glazebrook,
Riicker, Hicks, Sir J. J. Thomson, Prof. Forsyth, Poynting, Larmor,
Sir Chas. Boys, Lamb, Sir Napier Shaw, Lord Rutherford, Hobson,
Turner, Callendar, Baker, Sir Frank Dyson and Prof. Whitehead.
Except for two war years (1917 and 1918), the British Association has
never failed to meet annually, nor has the Section omitted to play its
part. Since the war, we find further names no less eminent: Andrew
Gray, Prof. O. W. Richardson, Prof. G. H. Hardy, McLennan, Sir Wm.
Bragg, Sir George Simpson, Prof. Porter, Prof. Whittaker, Prof. A.
Fowler, Lord Rayleigh, Sir Frank Smith, Sir J. J. Thomson, Prof.
Rankine, Sir Gilbert Walker, Macdonald, Dr. Aston and Prof. Ferguson.
It was not until 1843 (twelve years after the inaugural year of the
British Association) that the first Presidential Address was given to the
Section of Mathematics and Physics by M‘Cullagh. His lead was by
no means always followed in subsequent years, and even when it was,
the address had clearly assumed no particular moment. Stokes’s
Sectional address in 1862 seems to have occupied about four minutes,
while Whewell, the renowned Master of Trinity, in the course of a brief
address four years earlier at Leeds, lamented the small size of the meeting
room, but on reflection thought it might suffice, as ‘ we in this Section
are very much in the habit of treating our subjects in so sublime a manner
that we thin the room very speedily.’ Since about 1868, the Sectional
programme has invariably included a Presidential Address, though over
a long period it was given no title. Lord Kelvin, ever a stalwart supporter
of the British Association, was the first to supply a title (in 1876) and kept
up the practice in his later addresses, his example being followed by Sir
Robert Ball in 1887. But the innovation found no other supporters, and
it was not until 1911 that Prof. Turner adopted a title; since 1920 the
Presidential Addresses in Section A have all borne titles.
As regards the two previous Nottingham meetings, at the first of these
in 1866, Wheatstone apparently dispensed with a Sectional Address ;
while at the second meeting in 1893, the late Sir Richard Glazebrook
gave an address on optical theories and the ether. Those who then
A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 29
contributed papers included Fitzgerald, the late Lord Rayleigh, Oliver
Lodge, Lord Kelvin, Barton, Larmor, Carey Foster, Viriamu Jones, and
J. J. Thomson.
During the first fifty years of the Association, it was not uncommon
for the Sectional Presidency to be held on more than one occasion by the
same man, viz. Whewell and Lord Kelvin were each elected President
on five occasions while Brewster, Herschel, the Earl of Rosse, Forbes,
Stokes and the then Dean of Ely each held the office twice. Since 1884
it has become the practice for the Sectional Chair to be occupied by a
newcomer. To this, there has been only one, though a very notable
exception, namely Sir J. J. Thomson, who presided in 1896 and again at
the memorable Centenary meeting in London in 1931.
That acoustics was long the Cinderella of the physical sciences is
apparent from the sustained Presidential cold-shoulder, though even in
the very earliest meetings the subject was not without its supporters. At
the second meeting, at Oxford in 1832, Wheatstone read two papers on
acoustics, one of them experimental. The Rev. Mr. Wills also gave
“An Account of the Recent Additions to our Knowledge of the Phzeno-
mena of Sound,’ though it is recorded that the printing of the paper was
deferred ; which seems to have been a polite way of shelving it !
At the 1834 meeting, there was a paper by Addams on ‘A New
Phenomenon of Sonorous Interference’ which was accompanied by
an experimental demonstration. In the following year at Dublin, there
were no fewer than four acoustical papers, including one by Wheatstone
‘On the various Attempts which have been made to imitate Human
Speech by Mechanical Means,’ while in a remarkably penetrating paper
‘On the Construction of Public Buildings in reference to the Com-
munication of Sound,’ Dr. Reid of Edinburgh recognised reverberation
as the most prevalent acoustic defect of large rooms and explained how
it could be reduced by excluding superfluous space by hanging draperies,
or by making the walls more absorbent through greater roughness or
irregularity. He also condemned concave surfaces as promoting uneven
distribution of sound. Thus the prime and vital factors of good archi-
tectural acoustics were clearly recognised as long as a century ago, but
did not reach the ear of the architectural profession, so that countless
halls with poor acoustics have since been, and still are being erected.
The British Association of to-day aims at a more effective publicity in
all such matters of general concern.
Tyndall, during his Sectional Presidency in 1868, gave evidence before
a Select Committee on the acoustics of the House of Commons, stressing
the value of a low ceiling as a reinforcing device, and the beneficial
influence of an audience (as in the Cambridge Senate House) or of
draperies in quenching the after-sound in a room. Again, Johnstone
Stoney, who was Sectional President in 1879, described in 1885 a method
of treating walls to free concert halls or public rooms from echo effects.
It was the late Lord Rayleigh, our Sectional President in 1882, to
whom with Helmholtz we owe the enduring foundations of a great deal
of modern acoustics. Kelvin never said a truer thing when he remarked
that progress in a science hinges on measurement; this indeed is the
30 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
keynote of the new motto of the British Association ‘Sed omnia dis-
posuisti ’’ (But Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and
weight.) Rayleigh was almost alone in his day in improvising with rare
simplicity and skill measuring devices in acoustics. But in many ways
his voice was one crying in the wilderness, for until the telephone came
into general use, acoustics had been of little service to the people, and
there was small interest in the subject at either schools or Universities.
Many of us will recall the shabby treatment meted out to sound in the
physics curricula of those days.
The touchstone came with the thermionic valve, which led to electrical
methods of measurement and so to higher precision, as elsewhere in
physics. The gramophone, wireless, broadcasting and the talking
pictures followed each other in succession ; and now acoustics, far from
being a Cinderella, has become a radiant Princess of physics in whose
career the public interest has become completely enchained. Her ‘ open
sesame ’ revealed the interior of the Abbey last May to countless millions,
who were vouchsafed a vivid acoustic imagery of the Coronation cere-
mony. For such technical miracles, no praise can be too high for the
skilled army of technical and industrial workers who see to it that
developments in invention, equipment and technique follow each other
like a river in spate. The literature is immense, and I can only surmise
that the commercial value of applied acoustics must run into many
millions of pounds. At any rate, I can testify, as its Chairman, that a
Committee of the British Standards Institution was occupied for nearly
two years in the careful scrutiny and compilation of a glossary of the
large and steadily expanding acoustical terminology. So much acoustical
research is now being carried out, that an authoritative glossary, par-
ticularly in the matter of units, is manifestly of the first importance in
the comparison of experimental results from different laboratories and
the application of such data to engineering acoustics. Sound has become
a marketable commodity the cultural and political developments of which,
particularly in regard to broadcasting, are not easy to envisage.
NOISE AND THE NATION.
Simultaneously with these developments in applied acoustics, there
has gradually developed in this country a public consciousness of the
insidious growth of the social evil of needless noise—a pernicious by-
product attributable in great part to an increasingly mechanised civilisa-
tion. With this growing realisation, the nation is beginning to demand
and to receive protection against the nuisance of outrageous noise whether
generated by private or public bodies. It is looking for ways and means
of mitigating excessive transport noises particularly on the road and in
the air, and it is seeking to know why in modern houses or flats it should
not be accorded adequate privacy against the natural though sometimes
unreasonable noises of neighbours.
All this is not to say that John Citizen cherishes the ideal of a completely
silent world, for due noise in due season unquestionably contributes to
the spice of life. It should indeed be emphasised that in this matter he
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 31
is not crying for the moon. The most he needs ask of a particular locality
is that its background of noise, whether by day or night, shall be suited
to the environment and the reasonable habits of a majority of its occupants.
In this matter of noise abatement, the British Association has played a
leading part, through the intermediary of both this Section and the
Engineering Section which set up a Noise Committee in 1933. The
subject has since become one of international concern, as is evidenced by
the formation of a League of Nations Commission which held its first
meeting at Geneva in June this year, and over which I had the honour
to preside.
On the question of what constitutes a noise, it is difficult to generalise.
The countryman votes the noises of the city as disturbing to a degree,
nor does the townsman necessarily find a lullaby in the noises peculiar
to the countryside. Many offending noises owe their origin to ill-timed
activities or pure thoughtlessness. The young person hearing the
raucous horn with which a friend announces his arrival has no doubt as
to its character: neither has the invalid next door. A hearer is in fact
patently influenced by psychological and other factors such as_ back-
ground, environment or force of association. There are those, moreover,
who have no hesitation in regarding any sound made by some one else
as an objectionable noise, while in contrast there are others who seem
quite immune to noise and incidentally behave as if they find silence
intolerable. Healthy children obviously revel in noise, at any rate of
their own making, and the observation appears to apply to many of a
larger growth who are in exuberant health, not excluding the Latin races.
The prejudicial effects of certain extremely noisy occupations on the
hearing are recognised, but it would appear that the noises encountered in
ordinary everyday life are unlikely to impair the hearing, though there
is some evidence that in certain types of work they may adversely affect
human efficiency. Most mental workers and particularly mathematicians
would agree, I think, that noise is an impossible environment to work in.
But while many forthright statements have been made about the effects
of noise—and no one would withhold sympathy from those unfortunates
whose sleep is regularly violated by noise—the root of the matter is
probably that for a good many people noise aggravates rather than
initiates psychological distress, being a sort of ‘ last straw’ for the sick,
the fatigued, or the highly strung. The emotionally stable, on the other
hand, have clearly a considerable power of accommodation and can get
so used to certain classes of noise as never to notice them, though, were
the noises arrested, they would not only quickly miss them but might
even, on occasion, confess to an unexpected feeling of relief.
Without doubt then, while there are noises in the world so inappropriate
or outrageous as to raise protest alike from the average hearer, the relatively
immune, or the hypersensitive, there are equally many border-line sounds
on which we should expect them to express very different opinions.
In some recent annoyance tests on motor horns at the National Physical
Laboratory, in which some two or three hundred observers were employed,
it was interesting to note the divergency of views under like conditions of
hearing. There was, it is true, a considerable consensus of opinion in
32 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
most cases, but a proportion of the observers would as blithely vote the
noise of a particular horn as very objectionable as others would just as
cheerfully class it as tolerable or agreeable. ‘The experiments, in fact,
supported the view that the appraisement of noise is a matter of personal
opinion ; and this aspect is endorsed by the British Standard Glossary
which defines noise as ‘ sound undesired by the recipient.’ Small blame
then if some of us find it difficult to distinguish between noise and certain
modern music.
Complaints against noise are of course an old story, probably as old as
civilisation itself. While the acoustic conditions in the Ark do not appear
to have been put on record, there are numerous later Biblical references
to noise: Moses speaks of the ‘ noise of them that sing,’ David refers to
‘the noise of water spouts ’ and elsewhere enjoins us to ‘ sing and make
a joyful noise,’ while Jeremiah bemoans that ‘ The noise is come . . . to
make the cities of Judah desolate and a den of dragons.’ Juvenal wrote
(A.D. 47) of the cost of buying sleep in Rome owing to the noise of herds
of cattle and rumbling waggons in the narrow winding streets. The
Oxford Dictionary gives a reference to ‘ noyse’ dating from 1297: ‘ Of
trompes and of tabors ye sarazins made here so gret noyse that cristinemen
al destourbed were.’
The clatter of the medieval town provoked restrictive regulations ;
we find embargoes on nocturnal horn blowing and wife beating in
Elizabeth’s reign. The tumult of the streets is well illustrated by a
picture painted by Hogarth in 1741. In some towns in Germany noisy
occupations were zoned, though it is on record that Christian Thomasius
(born 1655) objected to the privilege of the learned professions of driving
from the neighbourhood noisy craftsmen, e.g. blacksmiths and musicians :
he held the view that those living in a city should accustom themselves
to its noise. Frederick the Great’s famous and unsuccessful protest
against the noise of the Mill of Sans Souci will be recalled. A hundred
years ago, Jane Austen was graphically describing the traffic bedlam of
Bath. Complaints from City churches of the noise of stage coaches were
common in those days; many of us are of course well aware of how
noisy steel tyres and horse shoes can be on cobbles or stone or granite
setts, and how great was the measure of relief which came with the
introduction of the pneumatic tyre.
THE MEASUREMENT OF NOISE.
It is common knowledge that most noises are complex in character,
containing a variety of components which may be distributed over the
entire auditory ranges of frequency and intensity. Such a physical
constitution lends itself to objective measurement and analysis, but there
are, in addition, subjective factors of prime importance to the listener,
viz. pitch, timbre and loudness, and these sensations are not readily
appraisable. Experience indicates, however, that while the composition
of a noise is not to be ignored, sheer loudness is the determining factor in
most cases of annoyance caused by noise, so that the problem largely
resolves itself into the correlation of the sensation of noisiness (as assessed
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES ag
by the ear) with the associated energy, which can be quantitatively
measured by physical instruments.
Let us first consider the measurement of acoustical energy. For the
purpose, we need an intensity meter, this commonly consisting of a
microphone and amplifier together with a suitable rectifier and indicator.
Moving-coil or ribbon microphones are sometimes employed, though for
fundamental work the condenser or the crystal microphone is preferred
despite the lower sensitivity. Whatever the microphone used, it is
usually calibrated by direct interchange comparison under appropriate
conditions with a standard (pressure) microphone of the condenser type
which in turn has been fundamentally calibrated in absolute units by
means of either the Rayleigh disc or the pistonphone.
The Rayleigh disc depends for its operation on the tendency of a small
thin glass disc suspended from its edge by a fine fibre to set itself at right
angles to a sound field. The torsional constants of the system and the
degree of deflection of the disc afford the sound particle velocity, the
corresponding sound pressure being calculable from the known relations
in the field. The measurements are made either in a stationary-wave
pipe or in a room with highly absorbent walls.
The piston-phone, which measures sound pressures directly, consists
essentially of a small cavity, one face of which is closed by the diaphragm
of the standard microphone, the opposite face consisting of a small piston
connected to the moving coil of a loudspeaker unit. The amplitude of
motion of the piston, when it is set in vibration, is measured optically
and enables the corresponding sound pressures in the cavity to be
calculated.
So much for intensity measurements. As regards the associated
loudness levels, we turn to auditory diagrams of the ear, such as those of
Fletcher and Munson (1933). The various loudness contours for pure
tones of different frequencies show that while loudness and energy are
manifestly related, the two do not normally keep in step, particularly
for notes of very high and very low frequencies. At feeble intensities,
the ear exercises pronounced selective preference for notes of medium
frequency and it is only at high intensities that equal increments of
energy produce even approximately equal increments of loudness,
Furthermore, the thresholds of hearing are much higher for high and low
frequencies, so that the corresponding ranges of intensity with which the
ear can deal, are more restricted than for notes of medium frequency.
The situation is worsened in the case of complex sounds or noises
since the loudness is affected by their character, there being in general
no simple relation between the loudness of a noise and the energy-
loudness characteristics of its several components. It is evident that
an energy meter, such as a microphone system, cannot unreservedly be
used as a direct measurer of loudness.
THE DECIBEL AND THE PHON.
The next step in the measurement of noise is to equip ourselves with
units and standards of loudness. In this connection, we have to cater for
the enormous intensity range of the ear, particularly for notes of medium
Cc
34 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
frequency, where the greatest intensity that can be tolerated (the threshold
of pain) is some 10 million million (101%) times that corresponding to
the threshold of hearing. In such circumstances, we turn, as always, to
a geometrical rather than an arithmetical scale, and the unit adopted
for the purpose is the be/, which is a ratio signifying a 10-fold increase
in intensity, power, or energy. Two bels signify a 100-fold increase,
three bels a 1000-fold increase, and so on.
Equipped with such seven-league boots, and starting at a zero approxi-
mating to the threshold of hearing, we can traverse the entire auditory
intensity range for a medium-frequency note, in as few as thirteen
geometrically progressive steps. But the steps are too big for practical
convenience, and so it is usual to speak of a range of 130 decibels, which
provides a serviceable energy scale. Arithmetically, a decibel (db)
denotes approximately a 5/4 energy increase (i.e, antilog 1/10), two decibels
a (5/4) increase, three decibels a (5/4) =a 2-fold increase, . . . 10
decibels a (5/4)!° =a 10-fold increase, i.e. a bel. More generally, two
similar sounds of intensities J and J, and corresponding acoustical pressures
p and py are said to differ in intensity by 2 decibels when
n = 10 log 49 (J/Ip)
or 2 = 20 log 4 (p/Po)
If I, or py corresponds to some selected zero, then m becomes the number
of decibels above that zero level.
Thus provided with an acoustical intensity scale, we can proceed to
set up a loudness scale which is based on the accepted ability of the average
individual to compare and match loudness. To this end (just as in
photometry we make use of a standard candle) we need a standard sound ;
and for the purpose a pure reference tone is chosen which, on the British
Standard Scale, has a frequency of 1000 cycles per second. We also
require a zero of loudness at or near the threshold of hearing, and this is
arbitrarily adopted as corresponding to a pressure of 0-0002 dyne per
sq.cm. If now we operate the reference tone by successively increasing
decibel steps of energy, the associated changes of loudness are expressed
in numerically identical steps on a scale of phons. That is, if the reference
tone is excited by an intensity of » decibels above the zero, the loudness
is 2 phons. The equivalent loudness of any other sound or noise is
evaluated by matching it by ear under specified conditions against the
suitably adjusted reference tone, the numerical value of the latter in
phons then giving the equivalent loudness of the sound to be measured.
Thus by this procedure we have set up a subjective scale of equivalent
loudness, the unit being the phon.
It happens that a phon corresponds roughly to the smallest difference
of loudness which can be detected by alternate listening, in the case of a
sound of medium frequency and moderate loudness. Experience shows,
too, that for many loud noises of common occurrence the loudness level
in phons is approximately equal to the intensity level in decibels—a
convenient relation for many purposes.
A number of different zeros of loudness have unfortunately been
employed in the past, e.g. 1 millidyne per sq. cm., which results in
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES a5
numerical values of loudness some 14 phons less than with the British
Standard zero. In Germany the phon is based on a zero of 0:0003 dyne
per sq. cm. which is equivalent to a 4 db. difference from the B.S. zero.
As, however, a different method of listening is employed, the slight
discrepancy between the two scales is not known exactly. The American
scale agrees with the British, except that in the States it is customary to
use the decibel not only for expressing intensity measurements, but also
for loudness levels, it being implied in the latter case that the decibel
figure quoted refers to the energy level (above the arbitrary zero) of the
standard tone when it matches the sound to be measured. As already
mentioned, the British Standards Institution recommends that for greater
clarity the decibel should be restricted to energy ratios ; and in its defini-
tion of the phon, the Institution kept open the way for eventual inter-
national agreement on the unit of equivalent loudness.
Happily such agreement came about at an international conference held
in Paris last July, when it was unanimously agreed that the decibel and
the phon should be adopted respectively as international units of intensity
level and equivalent loudness, full agreement being secured on questions
of the reference tone (1000 cycles per second), the reference zero (0:0002
dyne per sq. cm.) and the technique of listening. All these matters are in
accord with the definitions in the acoustical glossary of the British
Standards Institution.
The phon, which has already proved of great service in many classes
of noise measurement in this country, came in the nick of time to meet
‘the present demand for noise abatement: the ability to measure is of
course vital to such a movement. I may perhaps refer to the public
interest which was excited when the decibel and the phon were introduced
into everyday language. Mr. Punch made play with the decibel, anxiously
enquiring ‘ how many decibels it took to talk the hind leg off a donkey’ ;
while W. R. in the Observer was moved to welcome the phon in the
following terms :—
‘Hail! newest unit, welcome to the host
Of ergs and amperes, kilowatts and therms,
Best of the lot, you shall be valued most
Among these unintelligible terms.
For you alone can make men realise,
In figures plain, the awful din they make,
So that at last some genius may devise
A means of curbing it, for Reason’s sake.’
The experimental realisation of the fundamental scale of phons is one
for the standardising laboratory, as will be appreciated from the subjoined
definition of the phon taken from the British Standard Glossary of
Acoustical Terms and Definitions, 1936 (No. 661). For example, the
specification of a free progressive wave postulates an acoustical environ-
ment corresponding to infinite space, which in practice can only be
conveniently simulated by placing the ‘normal observer’ (in practice
36 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the average of a trained group of observers) in an experimental chamber
with highly absorbent walls. Furthermore, while it may be possible in
the fundamental evaluation of the equivalent loudnesses of sounds or
noises in phons, for certain sources to be accommodated in the lagged
test chamber, it may not be practicable in other cases, whether on the
score of size or the impossibility of quickly starting and stopping the
source, so as to permit alternate listening with the reference tone. In
such cases, the sources have to remain outside the chamber and the
sounds are transmitted at will to the observer inside by means of a micro-
phone and loudspeaker system. A closer specification of the measuring
technique is at present being developed by the British Standards
Institution.
‘ Phon (B.S.). A unit of equivalent loudness, defined as follows :
The standard tone shall be a plane sinusoidal sound wave train
coming from a position directly in front of the observer and having
a frequency of 1000 cycles per second. ‘The listening shall be done
with both ears, the standard tone and the sound under measurement
being heard alternately and the standard tone being adjusted until it
is judged by a normal observer to be as loud as the sound under
measurement. The intensity level of-the standard tone shall be
measured in the free progressive wave. ‘The reference level shall be
taken to be that corresponding to an R.M.S. sound pressure of 0-0002
dyne per sq. cm. When, under the above conditions, the intensity
level of the standard tone is m decibels above the stated reference.
intensity, the sound under measurement is said to have an equivalent
loudness of 2 phons (B.S.).’
Reference may here be made to the criticism to which the phon scale
has been subjected in some quarters, in that it does not interpret
numerically one’s sensations of loudness, a phon near the top of the
scale admittedly signifying a much bigger step than it does near the
bottom. Some workers in this country and the States have accordingly
attempted to set up a subjective scale of loudness units in which the
assumption is made that fractional estimation by an observer is possible,
so that, for example, it is claimed he can say when one sound is twice as
loud as another. A comparison of the mean scale so derived with the
phon scale suggests that such an estimated doubling of loudness is
equivalent to an increase of about 10 phons for moderately loud sounds.
While, however, the scale of equivalent loudness in phons may not be
subjectively ideal, it does rest on sound physical foundations and accepted
subjective principles. Furthermore the connection of the phon scale with
the decibel scale is of great practical value to the acoustical engineer, for
example in dealing with the transmission of air-borne sounds by walls.
Noise METERS.
It will be appreciated that the experimental conditions laid down for
the fundamental evaluation of sounds or noises in phons, are rarely likely
to be available for noise measurements in everyday circumstances, and
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 37
simpler techniques have accordingly been evolved which make portable
noise meters feasible for field conditions. ‘There are two main types of
meter on the market, namely subjective meters, which were first developed
by Barkhausen, and objective meters utilising a microphone and amplifier
system. At the National Physical Laboratory, the calibration of such
meters in phons is effected in lagged chambers by means of sounds of
known phon values, for example, pure tones of various frequencies, and
gramophone, synthetic or other reproductions of a variety of noises such
as the meter may be called upon to measure in practice. The British
Standards Institution is at present engaged in developing specifications
of noise meters designed to conform to the B.S. scale of phons, and, in
the meantime, purchasers of noise meters would do well to demand a
calibration certificate by an accepted testing authority.
(i) Subjective noise meters.—Subjective noise meters depend on the
equality matching of the loudness of a noise, as heard by the ear, with a
reference tone (usually a pure tone of specified frequency and of graduated
intensity) as heard in a telephone earpiece held tightly against one ear.
The reference tone may be produced by an electric buzzer, valve oscillator
or other means, various frequencies (e.g. 1,000 or 800 cycles per sec.) or
mixed tones being used in commercial instruments. The usual
Barkhausen technique involves simultaneous listening of the noise and
the reference tone, but experience indicates that inconsistencies which
are found to arise in aural measurements under such conditions are largely
resolved when the two sounds are heard alternately for periods of not less
than a second. Such a technique has been facilitated by Churcher in a
subjective meter employing two earpieces, so that either the noise or the
reference tone can be heard in turn using both ears simultaneously.
Subjective meters are useful for certain purposes, but the aural judging
of equality of loudness of the reference tone and of a noise very different
in character is not always easy. Observers are found to differ widely
in their judgments and the same individual is not always consistent.
The accuracy of appraisement of a single observer is normally low (say
5 phons) and a team of trained observers is essential for higher precision
(say 2 phons). In the case of unexpected or single impulsive sounds, the
aural assessment presents great difficulties to the average observer.
(ii) Objective noise meters —The problem of the designing of objective
sound and noise meters, which has received much attention both in this
country and abroad, is of considerable complexity. The ideal aimed at
by objective meters is to be able to measure every type of sound and noise
on the subjective scale of phons, that is to simulate the selectiveness and
response of the average ear in all circumstances.
The various objective meters on the market all consist essentially of a
pressure microphone connected to an amplifier provided with calibrated
control, followed by some type of rectifier and an output indicator. As
a first essential, objective meters are constructed to give the same reading
for a range of steady pure tones which sound equally loud to the ear
whatever the frequency. This is achieved by introducing into the
amplifier electrical networks designed to modify the shape of the frequency
characteristic so that it imitates the ear sensitivity at selected loudness
38 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
levels. If the network is omitted, the meter measures intensity levels.
Objective meters should be further designed to simulate the salient
characteristics of the ear in dealing with either steady or impulsive sounds.
For example, the ear does not record full strength until a steady sound has
persisted for about one-fifth of a second, and in the case of pulsating
sounds, the inertia of the instrument has to be of the right order to give
readings corresponding to average aural appraisement.
The practice has developed in certain countries of constructing
objective meters to arbitrary specifications (which include quadratic
rectification and certain instrumental requirements), the meters being
ostensibly designed to deal with pure tones and certain common types of
sound. ‘The readings, which are sometimes referred to as ‘ sound levels,’
are not claimed as conforming necessarily to subjective equivalent loud-
nesses. Experimental calibrations of such meters show, however, that
while they may give results in reasonable agreement with subjective
measurements in the case of steady pure tones or other sounds, they
afford readings in the case of particular types of intermittent noise (such
as certain machinery or traffic noises) which are considerably lower than
equivalent loudnesses as measured by the fundamental method. It was
agreed at the international acoustical conference in Paris last July that it
was undesirable that a meter should be used for measuring the equivalent
loudness of sounds unless it has been shown, by calibration in an accepted
standardising laboratory, to give results, for the particular sounds in ques-
tion, which are in reasonable accordance with the subjective scale of phons.
The difficulty of dealing with intermittent sounds can, it appears, be
met by replacing the quadratic rectifier by one of the leaking peak variety.
Portable objective meters of this type have been designed by Davis at
the National Physical Laboratory and independently in Switzerland.
The former instrument has recently emerged successfully from a pro-
longed series of tests on the equivalent loudness of a wide variety of noises,
including continuous, warbling, and impulsive short-duration sounds
(recurring at rates of from 12 to 50 per second), as well as the noises of
motor cars, motor cycles and motor horns. For moderate or loud noises,
the measurements were found to agree more closely with the average aural
appraisements of a group of observers than did those of any one of the
observers. The leaking peak rectifier enables the rates of integration
and decay to be adjusted empirically so that the meter simulates the
response of the ear in giving higher results for rapidly recurring impulses
than for slowly recurring or single impulses. For example, the loudness
of a single impulse may be nearly 10 phons less than if 30 to 50 such
impulses occur per second. Experiments designed to formulate a
specification of the physical behaviour of the meter are not yet complete
and, at present, the meter is not designed for levels lower than about
65 phons.
While, however, a ‘universal’ objective meter is not yet speci-
fiable, there can be little doubt that the future of sound or noise
measurement, from a practical point of view, lies with the objective meter.
Even in its present state of development, its practical convenience often
outweighs its limitations. It is free from personal bias, rapid in action
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 39
and direct reading, and can be put into the hands of an untrained observer.
Furthermore, as a dial instrument, it is well adapted to the enforcement
of regulations or specifications.
Tue ANALYsIS OF NOISE.
The wave-form of the microphonic current of a sound can be readily
displayed by means of a cathode-ray oscillograph, but the analysis of
such wave-forms is usually troublesome, and the composition of a sound
or noise is determined more conveniently by other means. The methods
of spectrum analysis in optics are not convenient in the case of sound,
by reason of the much longer wave lengths of sound and their wider
range, the visible spectrum covering a range of only about one octave,
whereas the range of sound to which the ear responds extends over about
ten octaves. A diffraction grating of the order of size of a garden fence
would in fact be required to deal directly with a normal acoustic spectrum.
For the analysis of sound, the earlier experimenters used acoustical
resonators which were tuned to respond to the different components
present in the complex sound. In present-day methods, the oscillatory
pressure variations which constitute the sound are first converted, by
means of a microphone, into corresponding electrical oscillations ; and
the problem is reduced to the analysis of a complex electrical oscillation,
a process which may be effected by tuning or filtering circuits or by the
use of a search or heterodyne tone. Such filters may be either of the
high-pass or low-pass type, or alternatively may be arranged to pass bands
of frequencies extending over, say, an octave or a fraction of an octave.
This latter method is particularly valuable in the case of noises which
are not of a steady nature or composition, for example, traffic noise.
Steady sounds or noises readily lend themselves to analysis and yield
typical line spectra, but the matter is less simple with transients, that is,
acoustical impulses which start suddenly and die away rapidly. Examples
of transients are speech (and in particular certain consonants like p and
b), whip cracks, rifle shots, blows, footsteps, hand-clapping, percussion
instruments, e.g. the piano, drum, and most musical instruments. All
such sounds prove to be largely of the band-spectrum type with super-
posed line spectra and nearly all contain very high frequencies.
Sound analysis may be of particular service in studying machine noises
as a means of tracking the source of major components. Synthesis of
sounds is sometimes resorted to for particular purposes. Much progress
has been made of late in the commercial development of instruments for
acoustic analysis and synthesis. Here is an analyser which will almost
instantaneously reveal the composition of a noise, while here also is a
synthesiser, kindly lent me by Messrs. Comptons the famous organ
builders, in which pure harmonics of controllable intensity can be so
blended as to simulate, for example, church bells with a fidelity which
is very arresting.
NOISE-LEVEL MEASUREMENTS.
In connection with problems of noise abatement, the National Physical
Laboratory has made measurements and analyses of many noises of very
40 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
varied origin. The positions which some of these noises occupy in a
scale of phons are shown in Fig. 1, the upper half of which includes
various noises whose abatement would be acceptable in many circum-
stances. This is illustrated by the homely test which most of us apply
as a test of background of noise, i.e. the ease with which conversation is
Approximate loudness levels of common noises.
BS. Loudness scale of Phons.
Phons
Near threshold of pain
Proscumity of aeroplane engine
Prosimity of rivetin
or loud pneumatic drill In printing press room
Proximity of loud motor horn In busy machine shop, pump house ete.
(eet Ne i | ee |
In tube train; window open
Nosy lorry (30 m.p.h.) at 20 tt In busy typing room
In express train; window open
Quret car (50 m.p.h.)at 20tt
In busy main street
=
Loud conversation
Quiet conversation In guiet saloon car (30m.p.h.)
Qucet electric motor at 3ft In suburban train; window open
Tearing of paper at 5ft. In quiet residential street
Ticking of watch at 5ft
In very quiet room
In extremely guiel room
zero 0 0002 dyne Near threshold of hearing
1000, cycles per sec;
per sg.cm.
Fic. 1.
possible. At 60 phons, conversation is ‘comfortable’; at 90 phons,
difficult ; and at 110 phons, virtually impossible.
Among the noise problems on which the Laboratory has been con-
sulted in recent years, are the mitigation of the noises associated with
aeroplane-cabins and engine-testing factories, trains, ships, tube-railways,
buses, motor horns, pneumatic drills, printing works, transformer sub-
stations, cathedrals, assembly halls, business offices, flats, miniature rifle
ranges, building operations, and so on. Assistance is also being given in
connection with the Home Office experiments on air-raid warnings.
A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 41
The loudness of a noise depends of course on its remoteness and to a
less degree on its environment. The inverse-square law appears to be
followed fairly exactly in the open for average sounds such as those of
motor vehicles. Ina room or a tunnel, the law does not hold and a noise
sounds louder than it would outside, owing to the building up of the
sound level by multiple reflection. Similar conditions prevail in a narrow
busy street and contribute to the noise discomfort of the occupants in
the upper stories, though to a pedestrian, the noise of, say, a passing car
is but little louder than in an open space. Incidentally, drivers of cars
are familiar with the sudden access of high-pitched components from the
_engines, exhausts or tyres of their cars as they pass reflecting walls or
fencing or even minor way-side objects such as tree trunks or telegraph
poles.
One has also to remember that the path of a sound may appreciably
modify its composition. For example, the high-frequency components
may be abnormally reflected or absorbed as compared with lower notes
which tend to pass through or round obstacles. Even in the open, a
hedge row or a barrage of trees may, to a limited extent, so serve as a
muffler of traffic noise. The high-pitched components of a sound may
further be selectively enfeebled in passing over different types of ground,
for which the sound absorption may be three or four times as much for
high notes as for low. To judge by experience, the absorption figures for
newly fallen snow must be rather high, though I am not aware that they
have been measured. High-frequency components may also be selectively
absorbed by the air itself if it is humid. Knudsen has shown that the
effect is due to interaction between the oxygen and water molecules, the
nitrogen playing no part. Incidentally, he estimates that if we lived in
an atmosphere of oxygen at a humidity of about 20 per cent., the high
notes of the violin and piccolo would be completely inaudible 50 yards away.
NoIsE ON THE RAILWAY.
The background of noise (7o-go phons) which prevails in the com-
partments of most express trains is normally so near the borderline that,
even with the windows closed, conversation between ‘ diagonal-wise ’
passengers, though possible, is not ‘ comfortable.’ The noise patently
originates from the rapid intermittent pounding of the steel tyres against
irregularities in the steel rail, largely supplemented by recurrent rail-
joint impacts. Much of the noise is of low pitch, and, as simple observa-
tion shows, it enters the coach partly through the floor, but mainly through
the glass of the windows. The remainder of the noise, which is of some-
what higher pitch and more directional, forces its attention on us whenever
the train passes a reflecting surface such as a platform, wall, or another
train, on which occurrence, the normal background of noise in a com-
partment is supplemented by a burst of higher-pitched noise deflected
through the windows. The conditions are aggravated (by as much as
10 phons) when a train is passing at high speed under a bridge or through
a cutting or tunnel, so that conversation then becomes difficult.
An obvious palliative for rail-joint tap takes the form of longer rails :
c2
42 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
120 feet lengths are now being employed on the L.N.E.R., while it is
stated that lengths as long as 2,700 feet have been welded together on
German main lines. Rail monocars with pneumatic tyres, now used
for certain local services in chis country, extinguish rail noises to such a
degree as to be almost uncanny, particularly from outside. Express-train
travel in this country may be experienced in its most comfortable form
on such trains as the ‘ Silver Jubilee,’ with its generous use of absorbent
in the coaches, permanently-closed double windows and air-conditioned
ventilation, conversation being readily possible at all speeds.
Whatever the acoustic difficulties may be in trains above ground, they
are multipled many times in an underground railway system. The.
London Passenger Transport Board have achieved considerable success
in their experiments on the acute problem of noise which is presented by
the tube railways. Rail-joint noise is lessened by the use of go feet instead
of 42 feet rails, which are then welded together in position. Further
improvement comes from the employment of a rail-grinding car, which
removes dents and imperfections from the rails and leaves them smooth.
In addition, the experiment is being tried of continuous shields, made of
asbestos and other materials, which project from the sides of the tunnel
almost to the footplates of the train, so trapping and absorbing the noise
coming from underneath.
It is stated that these several measures result in an 80 per cent. diminu-
tion of the noise, which presumably corresponds to a reduction of about
7 phons. Incidental noises such as wheel, gear and motor noise are
reduced by the use of asbestos pads. Asbestos brake-blocks advantage-
ously replace cast iron, while thicker glass windows help to reduce rattle.
Seats of absorbent rubber or similar material, instead of cane, assist in
lowering the noise level particularly in relatively empty coaches. A
persistent type of noise in tube railways is the grating of wheel flanges
in passing round sharp curves.
NoIsE IN THE AIR.
The degree of silencing which has been achieved in aircraft serves as
an outstanding illustration of what can be done in the case of a gross noise
problem under conditions so discouraging that only a few years ago it
was commonly regarded as unlikely to find a satisfactory solution. It
was important that ways and means should be found, for the noise of the
engine had become the most serious deterrent to areoplane travel,
conversation in the cabin being quite impossible.
Since 1929 an extensive programme has been undertaken by the
National Physical Laboratory for the Aeronautical Research Committee
of the Air Ministry. There are three main sources of aeroplane noise :
propeller noise, exhaust noise and engine clatter. The attack on the
problem came in a variety of ways, for example, by using propellers with
lower tip speeds, by better positioning of the engine exhausts, by more
effective exhaust silencing, by enclosing the engines so as to reduce engine
clatter, by increasing the relative isolation of the engine and cabin, by a
better placing or shielding of the cabin with reference to the propellers,
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 43
by constructing cabins of double walls containing a suitable filler, by the
damping of ‘ drumming’ panels, etc., and by increasing the amount of
absorbent in the cabin. Measurements have been made in aeroplanes
in flight and on the main individual sources of noise under experimental
conditions.
The present position is that the noise in the passenger cabins of some
of the latest air liners or flying boats is little more than that in a train.
This is very well for the passengers ; from the point of view, however,
of those who live near aerodromes or on busy air routes the noise of air-
craft is still a nuisance which awaits a solution.
NOISE ON THE Roap.
(i) Ministry of Transport tests—The growing volume of road traffic,
and the ever-increasing speed and acceleration of individual vehicles, are
potent contributory factors to the problem of road transport noise.
There have, it is true, been certain counterbalancing changes, to wit, the
steady gain in quietness of the newer models of the motor bus and motor
coach, and the introduction of the trolley bus in place of the much noisier
tram car. But these are only drops in the bucket. Backed by the force
of public opinion the then Minister of Transport, Mr. Hore Belisha, who
proved himself a great ally of quietness on the road, set up in 1934 a
Departmental Committee for the purpose of studying the question of
motor-vehicle noises. The Committee included representatives of the
motor and motor-cycle industries ; and as Chairman of the Committee,
I hope I may be permitted to refer to some of its proceedings and
recommendations which are contained in the three interim reports ? so
far published. These reports, which may be consulted for fuller informa-
tion, are based on an elaborate series of tests, comprising many thousands
of observations, which were carried out on behalf of the Committee by
National Physical Laboratory.
(ii) Tests on new motor vehicles—The first two reports deal with tests
on a representative selection of nearly 100 mechanically-propelled
vehicles, comprising saloon motor cars, sports cars, motor cycles, goods-
and passenger-carrying vehicles, most of which were kindly lent by the
industry. It was decided to begin the work by a survey of newly manu-
factured vehicles, both of home and foreign origin, which were intended
to operate on the roads in this country.
After careful consideration, the Committee decided to confine their
first attention to the ‘ overall ’ noise of vehicles, as representing the aspect
of major public interest, and one which might be expected to afford,
without undue delay, information which would serve as a trustworthy
basis for possible legislative action. No systematic attempt was made to
study the composition of the noise, the major components of which in-
clude those from the engine, transmission and exhaust, although a partial
separation of the ‘fore’ and ‘aft’ components was possible without
difficulty. It was rather felt that further steps could best be left to
1 “ Noise in the operation of mechanically propelled vehicles.”” O.H.M.S.
1935, 1936 and 1937.
44 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the initiative and efforts of the industry itself which, as a whole, merits
high praise for its substantial contributions to the silence of motor
vehicles, for example the flexible mounting of engines, the counter-
balanced crank shaft, silent gearing, the straight-through type of exhaust
silencer, and the development of car bodies which are sound insulated
and sound absorbent. In the matter of both exhaust and general silencing,
certain motor car manufacturers have achieved remarkable perfection.
It is a notable comment on the success of the general quietening of cars
that tyre noise (about 75 phons) has become conspicuous at moderate
speeds, especially on particular road surfaces on wet days. Even in the
matter of certain motor cycles and sports cars, it must be conceded that
their acoustic blemishes have been largely stimulated by a section of the
public which happily now finds itself in a small and dwindling minority.
The Ministry of Transport tests were carried out under conditions of
both use and abuse, with the object of arriving at a measure of the noise
potentialities of a vehicle in the hands of a driver who is prepared, on
occasion, to misuse it and so give rise to an objectionably large output
of noise, for example, by racing a stationary engine at high speed, or
travelling at high acceleration in a low gear.
The Committee, while appreciating that the effect of noise on the
human being is partly psychological, satisfied itself that the problem
before it was one mainly of loudness, and that the N.P.L. objective noise
meter, which was used throughout the tests, provided a trustworthy
index of the average noise levels experienced by the observers present.
Measurements were first conducted on stationary vehicles with racing
engines. ‘These were followed by tests on running vehicles in various
gears at a variety of steady speeds and also when accelerating under full
throttle, both on the level and when climbing hills. Each vehicle was
driven either by the firm’s driver or the owner during the tests, and the
goods- and passenger-carrying vehicles were tested fully laden. Some
of the tests were carried out on Brooklands Track, others in various parts
of Middlesex and Surrey under a wide diversity of favourable and un-
favourable weather conditions.
In general, the measurements showed that, omnibus paribus, a vehicle
emits most noise at its highest speed, so that the gain in quietness from
the imposition of the 30 m.p.h. speed restriction in built-up areas would
seem to be worth while. In the case of the tests on cars and motor
cycles when running on the level in top gear, the average noise emission
at steady road speed was found to increase by about 4 phons for each
10 m.p.h. increment of speed, while at full throttle the corresponding
figure was of the order of 2 or 3 phons. In the case of cars or motor
cycles, the noise at 30 m.p.h. steady speed was on the average about
5 phons less than when accelerated at full throttle at that speed. It
was also established that when a vehicle was travelling at full throttle at a
specified speed in a given gear the noise was substantially the same whether
the vehicle was accelerating on the level through the instantaneous speed
in question, or climbing a hill at the same steady speed.
A few tests were conducted with cars and lorries free-wheeling, i.e.
with the engine stopped and the gear in neutral. The loudnesses measured,
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 45
which naturally set a limit to the quietness attainable, ranged between
70 and 80 phons at 30 m.p.h.
The noise levels recorded during the various running and racing engine
tests extended over a wide range—in round figures, 40 phons, i.e. from
75 to 115 B.S. phons, at a distance ‘of 18 feet sideways or 25 feet to the
front or the rear. A consensus of opinion among the observers present
at the tests suggested that a transition point between tolerably noisy
vehicles and unduly noisy ones was in the region of go B.S. phons.
In general, the following conclusions emerged from the tests on new
vehicles :—
(a) Confirming the common impression, the average present-day
‘ ordinary ’ motor car is not offensively noisy, except at high engine
speeds.
(6) Certain ‘ sports ’ cars (though not all) are too noisy but can clearly
be improved without much difficulty.
(c) Except at moderate steady speeds, many motor cycles make far too
much noise.
(d) Certain commercial vehicles are somewhat noisy but could probably
be substantially improved without a great deal of trouble.
The Committee were therefore led to make the following recommenda-
tions for new vehicles which, while designed to ameliorate traffic noise in
all localities, take particular cognisance of ‘ built-up ’ areas, in which regions
the effects of excessive noise are undoubtedly the most disturbing :—
(z) ‘ No new motor cycle, motor car, heavy motor car or motor tractor,
as defined in Section 2 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, shall be offered
for sale or for use on the public highway unless it complies with the
requirements stated below, the specified tests of which must be con-
ducted in an open space free from the proximity of buildings, etc.
(a) ‘ Normal running test —When the vehicle is running at a road
(6)
speed of 30 m.p.h. (or at such lower maximum speed as is
attainable by the vehicle or is legally prescribed for it) with the
engine at full throttle and using the gear preferred by the driver,
then the loudness at a point distant laterally 18 feet from the
midpoint of the vehicle shall not exceed go phons (B.S.).
Measurements shall be made on each side of the vehicle and the
mean taken. The running conditions specified may be realised
either on the level or on an incline, using appropriate accelera-
tion, braking, loading, etc.
‘ Racing engine test—When the vehicle is stationary and the
engine is running at the speed at which it would give its
maximum power, the loudness at a point distant 25 feet behind
the open end of the exhaust pipe shall not exceed go phons
(B.S.).
_ (2) ‘A latitude of 5 phons on the above noise limits shall be allowed
for a period of two years on the following classes of vehicles :—
46 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
‘In respect of the “ normal running test’: motor cycles,
heavy motor cars and motor tractors.
‘ In respect of the “‘ racing engine test”: motor cycles.
‘ After two years the normal limits shall prevail.
(3) ‘ As it is obvious that finality has not been reached in the art of
quietening mechanically propelled vehicles, the Minister should
reserve the right to amend in the future the above noise limits in
the light of further developments.
(4) ‘ The Minister should by regulation make it an offence to cause or
permit the engine of a stationary vehicle to be run at excessive
speeds.’
With regard to cars, both ef the ordinary and sports types, there can
be little doubt that conformity with the suggested limits is either already
attained or readily can be. The difficulties are doubtless greater in the
case of motor cycles and commercial vehicles, where it may be that an
acceptable degree of quietness is only attainable by a sacrifice of power
and an increased cost. It was felt, however, that given time the problem
was not insoluble, and a tolerance period of two years was accordingly
suggested to meet the situation.
Polar diagrams which were obtained by exploring the sound distribu-
tion round a vehicle, indicate that ordinary cars and commercial vehicles
owe their loudest noise to their engines, while in the case of motor cycles
and certain sports cars, the loudest noise is in the direction of the exhaust
pipe. Extreme examples of the latter occur, and it was to meet these that
the racing engine test was introduced, as such cases may not reveal
themselves in the lateral noise measurements associated with the normal
running test.
As regards the racing engine test, the engine speeds proposed are
those at which the maximum power is developed, and though the speeds
are high, they are not abnormally so. Still higher engine speeds may
produce a considerable increase in loudness—as much as 10 phons—and
the Committee felt that such misuse of a vehicle, for example in a quiet
street, would be best met by a regulation on the lines of recommendation
No. 4.
(iii) Tests on ‘ used’ motor vehicles—Having thus dealt with vehicles
fresh from the manufacturers, the Committee passed on to ‘ used’ or
‘ old’ vehicles, and in their third report published a few months ago they
deal with this matter. Experience suggests that the noise from used
vehicles will normally be higher than from newly manufactured ones,
whether by reason of development in design, or as the result of normal
wear and tear, or unsatisfactory maintenance. The ultimate object of the
investigation on used vehicles was to study the feasibility of a common noise
limit for all classes of vehicles on the roads to-day, irrespective of their age
or circumstances of use.
Accordingly a series of tests, on the lines of those in the earlier reports,
were undertaken on some 40 representative vehicles, including motor
cycles, motor cars and commercial vehicles, of various ages up to 13 years.
These tests were supplemented by random observations on some 600
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 47
vehicles in normal traffic on a variety of roads, some speed-restricted and
others unrestricted.
The results were in general harmony with the previous conclusions,
and it appeared that a difference of about 5 phons between new and old
vehicles is an all-round representative figure which takes cognisance of
the many factors involved such as type, design, power, age and state of
repair. The evidence was, however, not sufficiently definite to indicate
that the noise was dependent on the age of the vehicles to any outstanding
degree.
The measurements on normal traffic on the road were spread over a
range of approximately 70 to 105 phons, and from a study of the results,
it appeared that a general limit of 95 phons (B.S.) for the various classes
of vehicles was a reasonable figure, which would rule out the chief
offenders and would not be incompatible with the limit of go phons
proposed for the tests on newly-manufactured vehicles. If such a limit
were brought into force, the Committee was of opinion that the case of
vehicles already licensed on the roads could be met by a tolerance period
of two years.
The tests indicated that greater progress had been made in the silencing
of sports cars than of motor cycles, many of which constitute at high speeds
the noisiest traffic on the road to-day. The Committee took the view that
the temporary figure of 95 phons suggested for the tolerance period in the
case of new motor cycles, should also suffice for motor cycles on the road
which are run at reasonable speeds. The Committee therefore submitted
to the Minister of Transport the following recommendations dealing
with used vehicles :—
(1) ‘ When a vehicle is used on the public highway the loudness of the
noise emitted when measured at a point distant laterally 18 feet
from the mid-point of the vehicle, or 25 feet behind the open end
of the exhaust pipe shall not exceed 95 phons (B.S.).
(2) ‘ A vehicle shall be regarded as complying with the above require-
ment if it can pass the following tests : ’—
[Here follow the specifications for the ‘normal running test ‘
and the ‘ racing engine test’ as for new vehicles (pp. 59 and 60),
with the exception that ‘95 phons’ replaces ‘ go phons ’.|
(3) ‘The noise limit of 95 phons (B.S.) for vehicles on the public
highway shall operate in the first case only in respect of vehicles
registered on or after the prescribed date, but shall come into
general application for vehicles of any age after two years have
elapsed from that date.
(4) ‘The Minister should reserve the right to amend in the future
the above noise limit in the light of further developments.’
(iv) Summary of Ministry of Transport’s reports.—To summarise the
three reports of the Ministry of Transport Committee, the position is
that for the first time in this country a comprehensive attack has been made
on the problem of road traffic noise. To this end, loudness measurements,
many thousands in number, have been conducted under widely differ-
ent working conditions, on the over-all noise of some 800 motor vehicles,
48 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
both new and old, representing all the main types on the roads to-day.
The results (at a distance of 18 feet sideways or 25 feet to the rear) mostly
ranged between about 70 and 105 phons (the latter value corresponding
to a noisy road drill). The Committee were led to propose simple
running and racing engine tests which are associated, under specified
conditions, with an ‘ over-all’ noise limit of 95 phons, which is roughly
equivalent to the noise in a tube train) for all vehicles in use on the road,
and of go phons for new vehicles leaving manufacturer’s works.
The adoption of these noise limits, while making very moderate demands
on most types of vehicles would, by ruling out the arch offenders, constitute
a substantial contribution to the amenities of the road. In the meantime,
the industry, which has already discovered that ‘ silence is saleable,’ has the
matter well in hand and indeed it is not unlikely that future developments
will not only enable manufacturers to meet the proposed requirements
with comparative ease, but may indeed enable the limits to be lowered as
time goes on. Certain types of vehicles, such as most ordinary cars, are
already agreeably quiet, but others, notably motor cycles, have lee-way to
catch up ; and the Committee has accordingly suggested breathing space
in the shape of periods of grace to meet these and other aspects of the
problem of noise as it is on the road to-day. ‘The Committee’s task has
not been easy, but I trust the limits of noise which it has proposed will,
in one way or another, help to ensure a standard of acoustical decency
on the roads of this country.
Following the publication of the Committee’s reports, the Minister of
Transport received assurance from the manufacturers of motor cycles and
sports cars that they will not in future put on the market any new vehicle
the noise of which could be regarded as offensive. To assist the motor
industry in this laudable object, the Ministry recently set up four noise-
testing stations in different parts of the country. At each of these stations
an N.P.L. noise meter is installed, and manufacturers are enabled to
submit types of their products and so ascertain for themselves how the
noise levels compare with the limits proposed.
The whole question will be further facilitated when the simplified
objective noise meter, which has recently been developed by the National
Physical Laboratory for the Ministry is put on the market. Such meters,
which will be checked against the Laboratory standard meter, should,
when available in quantity, be of great assistance at such time as it may
be decided to bring into force regulations for dealing with noise on the
road.
As regards the outstanding problem of the abatement of motor-cycle
noise, I may mention that the British Cycle & Motor Cycle Manufacturers
& Traders Union Ltd., together with the Institution of Automobile
Engineers, have recently instituted a programme of research which is to
be carried out largely at the National Physical Laboratory.
(v) Motor horns.—Motor horns, if unduly loud or improperly used,
have come to be regarded as a very unnecessary nuisance on the road.
In this connection it is generally appreciated that the Ministry of Trans-
port’s beneficent suppression of horn hooting at night has not only led
to no increase in accidents but has taught many people to drive more
A—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 49
quietly in the day time also. Most of us have come to agree that a strident
horn rarely, if ever, makes for safety but more frequently leads to in-
decision or fear on the part of other road users. ‘The National Physical
Laboratory has carried out measurements on motor horns for the Depart-
mental Committee of the Ministry of Transport, with the object of deter-
mining the scope and effectiveness of such warning devices and, if
possible, of correlating annoyance with some measurable physical factor.
The report of the Committee is not yet available. Incidentally it is
common experience that a reasonable driver seldom finds it necessary
to employ a horn at all, a doctrine to which it is evident that Paris and
some other Continental cities do not subscribe.
(vi) Pneumatic road drills—Before leaving the subject of road noises
I ought to refer to that sporadic producer of undue noise—the pneu-
matic road drill. Much attention has been given to the question of its
silencing: possibly the problem of impact silencing will remain until rotary
drills come into use. That there are grounds, however, for believing
that some progress is being effected in regard to exhaust silencing would
appear from some comparative tests carried out last year under the
auspices of the Westminster City Council. Equivalent loudness measure-
ments made by the National Physical Laboratory gave an average figure
of 102 phons (B.S.) for the unsilenced drills, while the corresponding
figures for the silenced drills ranged from g1 to 101 phons, the lower
values thus bringing the noise nearer to that of general traffic noises in a
busy street, say 80 phons. Unfortunately it appeared that, roughly-
speaking, the drills making the least noise took the longest time to break
a given amount of concrete, though the relative skill and experience of
the different operators and labourers in the competing teams must not
be lost sight of in comparing the efficiencies of the different drills.
Tue ABATEMENT OF NOISE.
While in some European countries there are now severe legal pro-
hibitions against noise, the position in this country is rather that of legally
identifying a noise with a nuisance. Under the provisions of the Public
Health Act of 1936, it is the duty of a local authority, if satisfied of the
existence of a nuisance, to serve a notice requiring its abatement, and,
in default, to take proceedings in court for abatement or prohibition of
the nuisance. There are, moreover, numerous precedents in local Acts
already in force, according to which a noise nuisance exists if any person
makes or causes to be made any excessive or unreasonable or unnecessary
noise which is injurious or dangerous to health. Such noise nuisances
often arise from plant and machinery which are operated during the night
or early morning, but there are other circumstances which appear to
demand a working definition of a noise nuisance. It should be added
that if a noise occurs in the course of any trade, business or occupation,
it is a good defence that the best practicable means of preventing or
mitigating it, having regard to the cost, have been adopted. As regards
the noise of motor vehicles, much information concerning legislation will
be found in the First Report of the Ministry of Transport Departmental
Committee on Noise.
50 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
In the meantime the law is doing its best. A London magistrate was
recently courageous enough to describe that which is emitted from a
Scotsman’s bagpipes as noise. A stipendiary ruled not long ago that a
violin and piano-accordion are ‘ noisy instruments,’ and so is the human
voice, but only if used in a concerted piece with other instruments. A
firm of Galton-whistle manufacturers advertises ‘ silent dog-whistles ’
and so avoids any possibility of legal interference.
There are two guiding principles when the question of noise abatement
is being considered. ‘The one is that the degree of abatement of a noise
in a particular locality need be no more than will conform to the back-
ground of noise which obtains in that locality. The other is that in
a medley of noises, the loudest must be tackled first to achieve any
appreciable benefit, after that the next loudest, and so on. This is illus-
trated by the fact that if there are two similar components and one is
10 decibels less intense than the other, the weaker one will contribute
only half a phon to the over-all loudness.
I am reminded that to illustrate the somewhat meagre additive effect
of two equally intense sources, I was guilty a few years ago of perpetrating
an analogy based on crying twins. I now realise that the subsequent
march of events demands a more extended treatment, and so, for the
benefit of those who may be interested, I should add that ‘ quins’
chattering simultaneously are 7 phons louder than one by herself, and
that the corresponding figure for ‘ quads’ is 6 phons, triplets 5 phons,
and twins 3 phons.
The first line of attack on noise abatement, and in general much the
most effective and economical, is to tackle an objectionable noise at the
source, and find the best means of reducing the output as much as possible.
The next step, possibly as a confession of failure, is to find a feasible
method of confining or ‘ smothering’ the noise in the place where it is
generated. In either case we turn to the engineer for help, and we may
anticipate that he is likely to be the more interested if he can see a potential
demand from the public. Fortunately the public is becoming sufficiently
noise-conscious to query the need for noises which it stigmatises as a
nuisance, so that there is now a goodly list of ‘ silent’ appliances in every-
day life, though as regards many commercial machines and processes, it
is realised that the millennium is not yet and we must put up with second-
best expedients for the present.
The path of a noise in its journey from source to hearer, may be either
via the intervening air, or vza a sequence of solid materials or structures.
Experience has shown that the two effects require very different remedies
for abatement. The study of the general problem of noise transmission
is more complex than might be imagined, and some of the major diffi-
culties are not as yet completely resolved. For the practical elucidation
of the various factors involved, specially designed -‘ sound-proof’
laboratories, such as those at the National Physical Laboratory, have
proved to be necessary. Parenthetically, it may be mentioned that the
N.P.L. acoustics laboratory, since its erection four years ago, has been
so fully engaged in transmission and absorption work, mainly for the
architectural profession and the building industry, that extensions are
A.—_MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 51
now in hand and should be available for use by the end of the year.
Much research work on building acoustics is also being carried out for
the Ministry of Health in connection with slum clearance, and for the
Architectural Acoustics Committee of the National Physical Laboratory
and the Building Research Station.
To revert to the case of a non-suppressible noise, if most of the noise
is transmitted by air, the best remedy, should circumstances render it
practicable, is some sort of sound-proof enclosure, the design of which
may need careful attention both as regards weight and discontinuity of
structure. There is, of course, no such thing as a sound-proof material,
and success in sound insulation is largely a matter of design.
Certain large-scale operations may require ‘ sound-proof’ buildings to
mask them, the doors and windows of which should be heavy and close-
fitting and preferably situated on the side remote from that where the
noise is liable to be regarded as a nuisance. Doors and windows,
particularly high windows and skylights, may require to be doubled
and, in extreme cases, it may be necessary to employ double walls
mounted on independent foundations. Buildings in which noisy
operations are carried on should, if possible, be put under the lee of
larger buildings, which may afford advantageous shielding to the locality.
In the interior of noisy buildings, it is usually beneficial to the workers
to divide groups of noisy machinery, as far as may be possible, into
smaller units, each in its own enclosure. Appreciable benefit may also
result from lining walls and ceilings with acoustical absorbent, so pre-
venting the noise level from building up unduly.
In the case of structure-borne noises, the remedy is discontinuity
somewhere in the structure either in the form of an air gap or as resilient
material, for example, under the foundations of noisy or vibrating
machinery.
As an illustration of the abatement of extreme noise, near a residential
area, reference may be made to the new Alvis works at Coventry, in the
design of which the National Physical Laboratory co-operated. These
works are devoted to the excessively noisy operation of testing aero
engines on the bench. The entire building, which has double walls, and
through which a high wind passes, is fitted, so to speak, with an exhaust
pipe and silencer, which takes the form of a horizontal brick tunnel 100
feet long, 12 feet high and 10 feet wide, lined with 4 inches of mineral
wool and asbestos cloth. This not only serves as an outlet for the wind
but reduces the objectionably high noise of the engines to an acceptable
figure as heard in the neighbourhood.
Quret HovusInc.
Those of us who seek isolation in an endeavour to protect themselves
from noise, should first of all choose a naturally quiet site for the building
they propose to occupy, and then select a room as remote as possible from
such noises as there may be, whether from traffic or other sources. That
the sound shadows cast by buildings are sufficiently pronounced to be
beneficial finds ample illustration in the quiet gardens of busy cities often
52 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
only a stone’s throw from heavy traffic routes. Such screening by inter-
vening buildings is often much more pronounced than the fading with
distance, which latter, on the inverse-square law, is at the rate of 6 phons
for a doubling of the distance.
Not all of us are free, however, to pick and choose our locations and,
in some cases, the noise from both within and without a building is such
that only by the most careful planning can quiet conditions be secured
for a reasonable outlay or indeed at all. For the rest, the remedies depend
on the circumstances, but are much the same as those for the noisy source
viz. double windows and doors and possibly walls; double floors, the
upper one resting on resilient supports; as much discontinuity of
structure as is practicable, and acoustic absorbents on the walls and
ceilings. ‘The success of remedial measures in a building already erected
is likely to be limited.
It has to be recognised that modern building design and materials do
not provide protection from noises, whether from inside or outside, like
the more solid houses of a generation ago. Many people can no longer
escape from the noise of their neighbour’s wireless, gramophone, vacuum
cleaner, bathroom or even his conversation. It is a common complaint
that noises such as banging or tapping can be heard throughout the length
and breadth of large buildings constructed on modern lines.
The noise problem is accentuated in the case of the large blocks of
flats which are being erected in all quarters, and which apparently are
mainly adapted for quiet tenants who are prepared to conform in this
respect to a landlord’s reasonable requirements. But there are those who
contend that in communal housing, the acoustic conditions should be
such that noise is automatically confined within the room in which it is
made, so that a slogan of ‘ more cry, little noise’ should represent the
situation. ‘They desire to order their own home life, even if it takes the
form of leaving the wireless on all day and most of the night, the gramo-
phone being there to fill up any gaps. ‘They are opposed to curbing the
natural inclination of their children to play vociferously, bang doors and
run about. On the other hand, they feel that they ought not to be put
in the position of involuntarily annoying their neighbours, even if they
should be invalids, or night workers trying to sleep by day, or who have
children trying to do homework or who go to bed early.
The situation lies largely with local authorities, who should lay down
building bye-laws, setting forth minimum standards of acoustic insula-
tion. ‘The architect and builder have of necessity been driven from
traditional methods of construction to meet the economic requirements
and closer scientific designing of to-day. Discontinuity of structure and
the use of massive and poorly conducting materials formerly provided
defence against sound, but instead we now have monolithic structures
which are not only thinner and lighter than the old, but are composed of
good conducting materials. The steel-framed and ferro-concrete build-
ing, cement mortar, hard bricks and plaster, to say nothing of a general
ramification of central-heating, running water and other piping, have
replaced the softer brickwork, lime mortar and plaster, wooden beams,
joists and studding, and the localised piping of the older houses. No
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 53
one pretends, of course, that we can go back to the old methods, but if
we are to mitigate the noise nuisance in modern buildings, we must adopt
measures which are best incorporated during the designing stage.
There is, too, another aspect which should be clearly appreciated and
that is if sound insulation in buildings is desired, it has to be paid for.
The public, at present enticed with a plethora of labour-saving devices
by landlords of flats, has yet to learn that reasonable acoustic privacy is
obtainable provided it is prepared to face a small proportionate increase
in the rent.
(i) The insulation of walls and windows.—In the case of walls, par-
70 ye
ie
38
60 +.
a Ss
S Qs
N y Q ee
= c is Rr fe)
50 3 3 £ N
iz Q x fo)
> 5 =
~ >
40 x RS _
3 s )
gy ~
30 x
Sound reduction ( decibels )
fo)
OT Oz Os 70. 2-0 50 70 20 50 100
Weight of partition (lbs. per square foot )
Dependence of the sound reduction of single homogeneous
partitions upon their weight. (Sound reduction averaged
for treguenctes 200,300,500,700, 1000, /600 « 2000 eycles per second )
Fic. 2.
titions and windows, we have to provide defence primarily against
air-borne rather than structure-borne sounds. It is established that the
insulating value for air-borne sounds can be expressed in terms of the
extent to which an incident sound is reduced in intensity. A single
solid (or hollow-block) wall tends to behave like a piston which is lightly
held round the edges, so that the mean insulating value is governed by
weight alone, being roughly proportional to the logarithm of the super-
ficial weight, no matter what the material (see Fig. 2). High notes are
easier to stop than low, that is apart from vagaries caused by resonance
effects which occur at certain frequencies: these have been recently
explored by Constable. A window is usually the most vulnerable part
of a wall from the point of view of acoustical insulation. The weight
54 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
relation is, of course, impaired by the presence of cracks or badly fitting
joints ; a surprisingly large amount of sound can be so transmitted.
Measurements show that to increase appreciably the insulating value
of a single wall, involves a prohibitive addition to the weight; for
example, doubling the weight only adds rather less than 5 decibels to
the insulation. The minimum standard of acceptable insulation for a
party wall against air-borne sounds is commonly adopted as being that
of a plastered g-inch brick wall (about 55 db). ‘The main escape from
the weight relation lies in the use of double or composite partitions free
from rigid couplings. Double air-spaced partitions may be divided
conveniently into two classes :—
(a) Those using light flexible materials in which the mechanical linkage
via the edges is small; and
(6) Those using heavy rigid components, in which case linkage via
the edges is likely to be substantial.
The first class has been shown by Constable to exhibit resonance effects
due to coupling by the air in the interspace, so that the insulating value
depends on the spacing and incidentally displays a minimum. The
insulation is improved by introducing sound absorbent material in the
interspace in such a manner that it does not act as a link between
the components. As a practical illustration of these observations, it is
recommended for good insulation that double windows should have a
sound-absorbent lining at the boundary of the interspace, and that the
spacing should exceed a certain minimum, e.g. 4 inches for 21 oz. glass,
a properly constructed double window being as sound proof as a g-inch
brick wall. For thicker glass the separation can be reduced. Double
windows conforming to these requirements are now commercially avail-
able, some of which permit the windows to be opened and still afford an
acceptable degree of insulation.
In the case of double partitions constructed from heavy rigid materials,
coupling via the edges dominates that due to the air, so that the insulating
value can be increased appreciably by framing the components with
insulation, e.g. cork strip, round their margins. For example, a cavity
partition consisting of two 2-inch clinker slabs separated by a 2-inch air
gap and marginally insulated by cork is acoustically as effective as a solid
g-inch brick wall and costs appreciably less, though if the insulation is
omitted, the partition is little better than a single wall of the same total
weight.
Recent tests show that the insulating value of a single solid wall benefits
by the application to both sides of plastered building-board fixed to
battens secured by insulating clips. It is of considerable interest to note
that the traditional partition of lath and plaster on each side of wooden
studding (or a similar partition with fibre board) is definitely superior to
a single partition of the same weight. A fire-resisting version consisting
of plastered expanded metal on concrete studding affords insulation equal
to that of a plastered g-inch brick wall (of three times the weight).
It should be noted that the insulating value of a wall (or floor) against
air-borne sounds originating in a room is often set a limit by the fact
A.—MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 55
that the sound also falls upon flanking walls (or floors) and is so conducted
to other rooms. The effect, which may be appreciated by putting the
ear against the flanking surfaces, is likely to be of only minor importance
unless the walls or floors have insulating values appreciably greater than
that of a g-inch brick wall.
(ii) The insulation of floors—The problem is more difficult in the
case of floors, for which the important aspect of acoustical insulation is
that of reducing the transmission of impact sounds such as footsteps.
To measure the insulation of a test floor, it is subjected to blows from a
set of mechanically driven hammers designed to simulate heavy footsteps.
The noise heard below the floor is measured subjectively by a team of
observers. Since no satisfactory method of determining absolute values
for insulation against impact sounds has yet been developed, the results
are necessarily comparative and show the amount by which the insulation
of the test floor exceeds that of some floor of ordinary construction which
is accepted as a standard.
It appears that for floors, as for walls, a composite structure is a
necessary concomitant of good insulation. Three general methods of
providing such a structure have been investigated, viz. :—
(a) To lay on the floor a soft material such as carpet on underfelt, or
linoleum with a sponge rubber or similar backing ;
(6) To lay a ‘ floating floor,’ i.e. a supplementary floor supported on
insulating material on the structural floor ;
(c) To mount an insulated false ceiling below the floor, for example,
on insulating hooks.
The first method provides better insulation for sharp blows than for
dull blows (such as heavy footsteps), but may be unacceptable on the
ground of expense and, in the case of working class dwellings, on account
of the unsuitability of the material. The second method is capable of
providing good insulation together with a hard upper surface at not
too great acost. So far, two classes of floating floor have been examined,
viz. a concrete floor standing upon a number of suitably proportioned
rubber blocks; and a wooden “‘ raft” floor resting upon a continuous
layer of soft cushioning material such as eel-grass or glass-silk blanket.
Both are examples of successful floor treatment, though the underlying
factors are not as yet completely investigated. Experiments with the
concrete and rubber-block construction have shown that such leakage of
sound as occurs from the floating to the structural floor is partly through
the rubber supports and partly through the air interspace. A suspended
ceiling alone is not usually as effective as the floor treatments, but may be
used in combination with them to obtain a greater insulation when
necessary, the effects being additive. Neither does a suspended ceiling
isolate an impact sound and so prevent transmission to other parts of a
building as does a floating floor.
The standard of acceptable insulation for a floor is commonly taken
as at least 15 to 20 phons better than that of a bare solid or hollow-tile
concrete floor for a test impact which simulates heavy footsteps. It
56 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
may be noted that the noise of such impacts heard below a concrete floor
is practically as loud as that heard above.
(iii) Sound - absorbent treatment of rooms.—As already mentioned, it
is often expedient to subject the surfaces of noisy rooms to treatment
with sound-absorbent. This serves a double purpose. It is firstly a
necessary adjunct of a sound-insulating wall if it is to operate to advantage,
and secondly it serves to reduce the amount of noise built up by repeated
reflections at the room surfaces. ‘The extent of the quietening value is,
however, limited, as that part of the sound heard directly is not ordinarily
affected.
There is a great variety of sound-absorbent materials on the market,
ranging from stone and tiles with structural properties to soft flexible
materials. Some of the latter are of a fluffy porous nature, so that covers
of open texture, or perforated, or even pin-pricked are commonly pro-
vided. Some acoustic absorbents have coefficients as high as go per
cent. and most of them absorb high notes better than low. Meyer has
recently developed a non-perforated cover, which may have hygienic
advantages, e.g. for hospital purposes. This consists, for example, of
thin metal sheets mounted on a wooden framework so that they are spaced
an inch or two from a. wall to which is attached absorbent material.
Finally, there are two or three other points which may require attention
when plans are being made for sound-insulating a building. The first
is machinery noise which is liable to be conducted through the structure
of a building unless the machinery is properly insulated. For the pur-
pose, it should be mounted upon an undamped elastic support so weighted
and proportioned that the frequency of vibration of the machinery on
this support is low compared‘with the frequency of the noise generated.
The second point concerns noise conducted through metal pipes, for
example, water pipes. While some of the noise originating in a tap or
a circulating pump travels through the water, much of it is directly con-
ducted by the piping itself. It has been found at the National Physical
Laboratory that a beneficial reduction (10-15 db) in the noise transmitted
along a water pipe can be achieved by replacing a few feet of the pipe
with rubber hose.
A third point is the noise of ventilating fans forming part of a system
of artificial ventilation which is likely to be an essential accompaniment
of a sound-insulated building. Care should be taken that the tip speed
of ventilating fans does not greatly exceed 50 feet per second. Ventilating
ducts should be lined with sound-absorbent, and a length of canvas hose
may advantageously be inserted at some point in a duct. ’
The foregoing will, I hope, afford a notion of some of the organised
steps which are being taken in this country to combat the evil of un-
necessary noise. To find practicable solutions to the many ramifications
of the problem is, I submit, of material significance to every section of
the community.
SECTION B.—CHEMISTRY.
RESEARCHES IN CHEMOTHERAPY
ADDRESS BY
Dr. F. L. PYMAN, F.R.S.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
CHEMOTHERAPY may be regarded as the treatment of disease by chemical
substances, which have been shown by biological methods to be relatively
much more toxic to pathogenic organisms than to human or other animal
hosts.
Chemotherapy was developed by Paul Ehrlich, and its most out-
standing achievement has been the introduction of the arsenic group of
spirocheticides. Very early on, Ehrlich noticed that when certain dye-
stuffs were injected into the living animal, they selected certain tissues
which were intensely stained, whilst others were left practically free from
colour, and as long ago as 1891, he observed that the malarial parasite
was strongly stained by methylene blue and thus differentiated from the
tissue of the host. It then occurred to him that it might be possible to
discover dyestuffs or other drugs whose chemical affinity for disease
organisms was so great that the organism might be killed without damage
to the tissues of the host.
Successful results were obtained in the laboratory with dyes such as
methylene blue, Trypan-red, and Trypan-blue, but the practical value
of these dyes has been slight.
In the course of his studies Ehrlich soon found it necessary to find
some means of expressing the chemotherapeutic activity of compounds
for purposes of comparison. He therefore determined for each new
substance the ratio of the minimum curative dose to the maximum
tolerated dose, which he called the Chemotherapeutic Index.
The ideal compound would obviously be the one which would destroy
the parasitic agents of disease without in any way injuring the cells of
the body. Such a compound has yet to be discovered, for every known
substance which is toxic to parasites is also toxic to a greater or lesser
extent to body tissues. For practical purposes the chemotherapeutic
index should be as favourable as possible.
Chemotherapeutic research postulates co-operation between clinicians,
biologists and chemists. The first step is the discovery by the biologist
in co-operation with the clinician that some parasite is responsible for a
given disease. Then methods must be found by which the parasite can
be isolated, cultivated and studied. Sometimes this can be done in the
test-tube, as in the case of the researches on bactericides and ameebicides,
58 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
to which I shall refer in detail later. In other cases, the particular disease,
or one closely related to it, may be induced and studied in animals.
Schulemann (1932) has traced the stages in the development of a
laboratory method for evaluating antimalarial drugs in the following
words: ‘In 1880 Laveran discovered the malarial parasite, and in 1891
Grassi and Feletti found in birds a parasite similar to that of human
malaria. In 1895, Ross, stimulated and directed by Manson, discovered
the réle played by the mosquito in transmitting the disease. How bird
malaria might be used for the study of malarial treatment in man was
investigated by Kopanaris and the brothers Sergent, but it was not till
1924 that a satisfactory technique was evolved’ by Roehl, who ‘ worked
out a method of using canaries for experiments on lines closely approach-
ing the conditions of practical therapy, so that it was possible to try out
and assess in the laboratory many groups of drugs.’
On the chemical side, researches in chemotherapy start from the
discovery that some drug, whose constitution is wholly or partly known,
is of clinical benefit in a given disease or is toxic to certain organisms.
Once some knowledge of the chemical constitution of the drug has been
obtained, substances more or less closely related to it can be synthesised
and tested for their chemotherapeutic properties.
Traditional knowledge of the value of ‘cinchona bark in malaria,
followed by the isolation of quinine and the associated alkaloids, the
recognition that the medicinal value of the bark was due to these, and the
determination of their chemical constitutions, made possible the chemo-
therapeutic researches which led to the discovery of plasmoquin and
atebrin.
BACTERICIDES.
The introduction of phenol or carbolic acid for the prevention of sepsis
by Lister in 1867 formed the starting-point in research on bactericides.
A very large number of derivatives of phenol have since been made and
tested for their bactericidal properties. The effect of substituting one
or more alkyl groups in the benzene ring has been studied, and it has
long been known that many alkyl-phenols exceed phenol itself in
bactericidal value. One method of determining the phenol coefficient
of bactericides is the Rideal Walker test, comparing their efficiency with
that of phenol in destroying B. typhosus. By this test the cresols—methyl-
phenols—have phenol coefficients of 2 to 2:5, whilst thymol—a
methylzsopropylphenol—has a phenol coefficient of about 25.
In recent years, systematic studies have been made of several homo-
logous series of phenols. An early example of the investigation of a
homologous series was made in another field by Morgenroth and his
collaborators (1911-1917). They studied the homologous series of
alkylhydrocupreines, and showed that peak activity was obtained at the
ethyl member (optoquin) for pneumococci, and at isooctyl (vuzin) for
B. diphtheria. In clinical use optoquin proved to be unsatisfactory for
the treatment of pneumonia, but vuzin was used in the treatment of
wounds.
American chemists demonstrated the profound effect of the length of
B.—CHEMISTRY 59
the side chain upon the bactericidal properties of substituted resorcinols.
Johnson and Lane (1921) showed that the phenol coefficients of 4-n-
alkylresorcinols rose steadily in the series methyl, ethyl, propyl and
butyl, whilst Dohme, Cox and Miller (1926), continuing the series, found
a maximum at 4-n-hexylresorcinol, which had a phenol coefficient of 50,
the values for m-amyl- and n-heptyl-resorcinol being 33 and 30 respec-
tively. They also showed that the antiseptic value of the m-alkylresor-
cinols were greater than those of branched chain alkylresorcinols having
the same number of carbon atoms.
Coulthard, Marshall and Pyman (1930) studied the variation of phenol
coefficient with increase in the m-alkyl-side chain in the 4-n-alkylphenols,
4-n-alkylguaiacols and in four series of m-alkyl-cresols, of which the
4-n-alkyl-m-cresols are the most important. In all cases the maximum
effect was shown where the side chain was a n-amyl group. The alkyl-
cresols had higher phenol coefficients than alkylphenols containing the
same alkyl group, whilst the alkylguaiacols were far less active.
PHENOL COEFFICIENTS.
p-n-Alkylphenols. 4-n-Alkyl-m-cresols. 4-n-Alkylguaiacols.
R
Me
R OMe
xO
rq
OH OH
m= CH, 2°5 — 2°97
C,H; 7°5 E2-5 2
n-C,H, 20 34 5
n-C,H, 70 100 25
n-C;H,, 104 280 25
n-CeHy; go 275 9
4-n-Amyl-m-cresol, which had a phenol coefficient of 280 against
B. typhosus, proved to be highly bactericidal when tested against many
other species of bacteria. This is shown in the following table :
Concentration lethal in Rideal
7% mins. not in 5 mins. Walker.
Test Organism (1) Amyl-m-cresol. (2) Phenol. Coefficient.
B. coli 2 : : I-16,250 1-80 200
Staphylococcus aureus . I-20,000 I-go 220
Streptococcus faecalis. I-I5,000 I-75 200
Pharmacological experiments having shown that it had less than one-
half of the toxicity of hexylresorcinol, and that it was non-toxic in
medicinal doses, further work was carried out to determine its suitability
for use in a mouth wash. In order to test its efficiency in this respect,
different dilutions of amyl-m-cresol, compared with plain water as a
control, were added to 5 c.c. of a mouth washing. ‘The mixture was
60 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
shaken thoroughly, and the bacteria left alive after 5 and 15 minutes were
then estimated, with the following results :
Colonies after Colonies after
Tube Solution added 5 mins. 15 mins.
ig 5 c.c. water 4,700 5,000
Ze 5 c.c. I : 10,000 amyl-m-cresol 4 2
as BuCHEs Tt 20.000 vg ko ay 5g 50 4
4. BVECu ee ROLCOO! ess igs 1,925 2,169
It was therefore suitable for use as an antiseptic in the oral cavity,
and has been successfully introduced into medicine for this purpose.
Clinical trials of 4-n-amyl-m-cresol as a urinary antiseptic, however,
gave disappointing results, but this is true of phenolic bactericides
generally.
Fortunately, a new treatment of urinary infections was introduced by
M. L. Rosenheim (1935) two years ago, which is giving excellent results.
Previously, urinary infections had been treated successfully by giving
patients a particular diet, known as the ketogenic diet, which was very
unpleasant to take. It was also known that the principal factor inhibiting
the growth of bacteria in the urine of patients receiving this diet was
B-hydroxybutyric acid. This acid, however, if given orally would not
be effective, because it would be oxidised in the body. Rosenheim,
therefore, studied the bactericidal properties of a number of hydroxy-acids
and found in mandelic acid a substance which was not oxidised in the
body, was non-toxic in therapeutic doses, and was excreted unaltered in
the urine, where it exerted its bactericidal effect, the degree of this
increasing with increased acidity of the urine.
Specific treatment of streptococcal infections has made much progress
since the discovery of the properties of particular aromatic sulphonamides
by the I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G., and we are looking forward to an
account of investigations in this field from Prof. Dr. H. Hérlein, whom
we are very glad to welcome here to-day.
AMG:BICIDES.
Research on ameebicides was greatly facilitated by the technique
developed by Dobell and Laidlaw (1926), and Laidlaw, Dobell and Bishop
(1928) for testing ameebicides zm vitro. Emetine (I) has for long been
the principal drug used in the treatment of ameebic dysentery, but it has
some undesirable by-effects, amongst others a nauseating effect. In a
search for substances having the ameebicidal action of emetine without
its nauseating effect, a number of alkaloids very closely related to emetine
in chemical structure were made at an earlier period. When tested by
Dale and Dobell (1917), by an early laboratory method several of them,
O-methylpsychotrine (a substance which differs from emetine structurally
only in containing two hydrogen atoms fewer) and N-methylemetine,
for instance, were found to be more toxic to Entameeba histolytica than
emetine itself. Clinical trials of O-methylpsychotrine (Jepps and
Meakins, 1917) and N-methylemetine, however (Low, 1915; Wenyon
B.—CHEMISTRY 61
and O’Connor, 1917), showed them to be of little or no value in the
treatment of ameebic dysentery.
The method of Dobell and Laidlaw, however, depending on the cultiva-
tion of ameebe in a medium consisting partly of solid (inspissated fresh
horse-serum) and partly of liquid (egg-white diluted with Ringer’s fluid)
with a little starch, gave results which fell into line with the clinical results.
Emetine was found to be fifty times as toxic to ameebz im vitro as N-
methylemetine, zsoemetine, and O-methylpsychotrine, which are clinically
inactive. The clinical inactivity of isoemetine (Low, 1918), a stereo-
isomeride of emetine, is interesting and reminiscent of the difference
between d- and /-stereoisomerides in the cases of adrenaline and hyos-
cyamine. Later, Laidlaw, Dobell and Bishop described a simpler
medium, consisting of 1 part of sterile horse-serum, 8 parts of Ringer’s
fluid with a small quantity of sterile solid rice-starch, disodium hydrogen
phosphate being added as a buffer. In this medium, they found that the
amoebze were destroyed in four days by emetine 1 in 5,000,000, provided
that the medium did not become too acid. We have made use of this
method in the work which I am about to describe.
In 1927 Brindley and Pyman suggested a constitutional formula for
emetine, and in 1929 Child and Pyman synthesised a series of compounds
(II) having similar constitutional features in that they contained two
6: 7-dimethoxytetrahydrozsoquinoline nuclei united through the 1: i
positions by chains of methylene groups.
CH, CH,
AN
PA i CH,
bar bar,
CH,O/— OCH,
CH,O\_/ cH Ms ¢ OCH,
I mene
H
CH,O Nu Fat ie
bu, yc
CH,O
Hy, Hy,
(II)
When tested by Mr. Tate and Miss Vincent, working under Prof.
Keilin’s direction, at the Molteno Institute at Cambridge, using the
62 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
methods employed by Laidlaw, Dobell and Bishop, none of these sub-
stances prevented the growth of Entameba histolytica in culture at a
dilution of 1 in 5,000, whereas the control substance, emetine, was effective
at a dilution of 1 in 500,000. For the purpose of testing a further series
of isoquinoline derivatives, prepared by Child and Pyman (1931), the
method of Laidlaw, Dobell and Bishop was used in our own bacterio-
logical department by Mr. Coulthard with the help of strains kindly given
to us by Dr. Dobell. This further series was designed to find out
whether the reduced benzpyridocoline ring (which is a feature of Brindley
and Pyman’s formula for emetine), or other systems in which the tertiary
nitrogen atom of emetine is common to two rings conferred amebicidal
properties or not. This group of compounds, which included to: 11-
dimethoxy-1 : 2: 3: 4: 6: 7-hexahydrobenzpyridocoline (III), proved to
be but feebly active compared with emetine, for the most highly amebi-
cidal member of the series g : 10-dimethoxy-3-phenyl-5 : 6-dihydro-
benzglyoxalocoline (IV) only prevented the growth of Entameba histoly-
tica in cultures at a dilution of 1 in 25,000, whereas the control substance,
emetine, was effective in a dilution of 1 in 500,000.
CH,
HC CH, CH—N
| 1
CH CH, CPh
cH,o/ \/ CH,O X,
| |
CH,O ue CH,O CH,
CH, CH,
(III) (IV)
The fact that we had now suitable strains and a technique for carrying
out ameebicidal tests zm vitro led us to test a series of compounds, originally
prepared for another purpose, with interesting results.
This investigation had its origin in Gunn and Marshall’s (1920) dis-
covery, that harmine and harmaline had some therapeutic action in malaria.
Further clinical trials of these compounds, however, failed to establish
their practical worth as antimalarial agents. Since harmine and harmaline
are readily accessible in quantity by extraction from Peganum harmala,
and their chemical constitution has features in common with those of
known antimalarial agents such as quinine and plasmoquin, we thought it
of interest to prepare a number of derivatives of these alkaloids in order
that they might be tested for antimalarial action. Our attention had
previously been focused on studies of homologous series in the course
of the work on 4-n-amyl-m-cresol to which I referred earlier. This
suggested to us that perhaps replacement of the methoxy-group of harmine
or harmaline by higher alkyloxy-groups might yield substances of in-
B.—CHEMISTRY 63
creased antimalarial action and the homologous series of normal alkyl-
harmols from methylharmol (harmine) up to dodecylharmol was prepared.
~
CH,O ay
VA
NH CH,
Through the courtesy of the Chemotherapy Committee of the Medical
Research Council, some members of the series—for example, O-n-butyl-
harmol and O-n-heptylharmol—were tested for activity against bird-malaria
under the direction of Prof. Keilin, of the Molteno Institute, Cambridge,
but were found to be inactive.
The possibility that some members of these series might have other
chemotherapeutic uses was then examined, and it was found that both
bactericidal and amebicidal activity increased, on ascending the homo-
logous series, up to a point and then started to fall. Peaks of bactericidal
activity were reached at butyl for B. typhosus and at amyl for S. aureus,
whilst the peak of amebicidal activity was reached at O-n-nonylharmol.
R.W. Coefficients. Minimum concentration lethal
Compound. B. typhosus. SS. aureus. to Entameba histolytica.
Harmol I — I in 40,000 to I in 80,000
Harmine “t —
O-Ethylharmol 25 — I in 80,000
O-n-propylharmol = 225 75 I in 80,000 to I in 120,000
O-n-butylharmol 350-400 150 I in 20,000 to 1 in 80,000
O-n-amylharmol 350 250-300 I in 100,000 to I in 200,000
O-n-hexylharmol 50 45-50 _I in 100,000 to I in 200,000
O-n-heptylharmol 30-35 45-50 I in 200,000
O-n-octylharmol 15 35-40 1 in 200,000 to I in 300,000
O-n-nonylharmol 10-15 15 I in 200,000 to I in 500,000
O-n-decylharmol 10 — I iN 100,000
O-n-dodecylharmol 5 — I in 100,000 not lethal
The salts of this and other high members of the series were very sparingly
soluble in water, and consequently a further series of compounds was
prepared, with the hope of obtaining more readily soluble compounds.
The method adopted was to add a further salt-forming group to the
molecule in the form of a terminal dialkylamino-group, such as is employed
in the antimalarials, plasmoquin (VI) and atebrin (VII).
CH,CH.CH,.CH,.CH,.N(C,H;), CH ;.CH.CH,.CH,.CH,.N(C,H;),
NH NH
m2 C,H,O \
CH,O J Ww 22!
(VI) . (VII)
64 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
In this way there were made a series of derivatives of harmol having the
general formula (VIII) given below, the salts of which proved, as had been
expected, to be readily soluble in water.
LOANS
VenAe ok
NH CH,
The size of both R (the N-alkyl groups) and x the number of carbon
atoms in the chain separating N from O was varied, and the results may be
illustrated by reference to a series in which the decyl group (x = 10) was
a common factor, whilst the dialkylamino group was varied.
Minimum concentration lethal
Compound. to Entameba histolytica.
O-x-Dimethylaminodecylharmol . I in 300,000 to I in 500,000
O-x-Diethylaminodecylharmol . . I in 200,000 to I in 500,000
O-x-Di-n-butylaminodecylharmol . I in 750,000 to I in 2,000,000
O-x-Di-n-amylaminodecylharmol _.__I in 750,000 to I in 3,000,000
O-2-Di-n-butylaminoundecylharmol . 1 in 750,000 to I in 4,000,000
O-n-Nonylharmol . , 5 . I in 200,000 to I in 500,000
Emetine hydrochloride. ; . I in 2,000,000 to I in 10,000,000
It was thus found that the activity of members at the peak of the series,
such as O-)-di-n-butylaminoundecylharmol, was many times that of
O-n-nonylharmol, and this fact led us to suspect that the harmol residue
might not be an important contributor to the ameebicidal properties of the
molecule.
A number of compounds were then prepared in which dibutylaminodecyl
(or undecyl) groups were introduced into molecules of varying structures,
The last columns in the following tables show the limits of the range of the
minimum concentration found lethal to Entameba histolytica in three
days, under the conditions laid down by Laidlaw, Dobell and Bishop
(loc. cit.).
Minimum concentration lethal to
Compound. Entameba histolytica.
cqccinay Angin lad :
b t bd >
(C,H,),N.(CH,)1-0- PS I in 750,000 to I in 4,000,000
NH CH,
Ny ;
(CiH,).N.(CH)n-O- laa
(C,H,).N.(CH,),,0.CO.CH, . . I in 100,000
(C,H,).N.(CH,),)0-CO.C,H, . . I in 100,000
(CyH,),N.(CH,);9N.(CyHo). . I in 2,000,000
B.—CHEMISTRY 65
It was thus shown that the attachment of the group (C,yHy).N.(CH,),9
to a simple substituted amino group gave very high efficiency.
A long series of tetraalkyldiamino paraffins of the general formula
NRR’.(CH,),.NRR’ was then prepared, and the minimum amebicidal
concentration under the optimum conditions for emetine determined.
In the first place, derivatives of heptane and decane were examined ;
of the heptane series the tetraethyldiamino and tetra-n-butyldiamino
compounds were prepared and tested. The tetrabutyl member of the
series was superior as an ameebicide to the tetraethyl one, but neither
showed more than a fraction of the efficiency of the best harmol derivative.
More promising results were obtained with the corresponding decane
derivatives and ultimately the efficiency of dibutylaminoundecylharmol
was equalled or even, in some of our tests, surpassed.
The following table shows the results of a test in which a number of
decane derivatives of the general formula, R,N.(CH,),)>NR,, were examined
simultaneously, so that the ‘peak’ of the series could be ascertained.
This was found at «x-tetra-n-amyldiaminodecane, which was used as a
standard of comparison in later work. For brevity, it is referred to
below as T.A.D.D.
Compound. Minimum concentration lethal
ax-Decanes to E. histolytica.
Tetra-n-propyldiamino_. ; 3 . I in 250,000 not lethal
Tetra-n-butyldiamino : : . I in 1,500,000
Tetra-n-amyldiamino ; ; : . I in 3,000,000 (or less)
Tetra-n-hexyldiamino : : 4 . I in 1,000,000
Tetra-n-heptyldiamino_. > d . 1 in 250,000 not lethal
A similar test indicated that the corresponding series of undecane
derivatives also showed the peak with the tetraamyldiamino member.
Next, keeping a tetrabutyl or tetraamyl group constant, the hydrocarbon
residue was varied. The following table shows the results of two tests
- on these series of compounds.
Compound. Minimum concentration lethal
to E. histolytica.
Test i.
ae-'T'etra-n-butyldiamino-
nonane . I in 800,000
decane I in 1,000,000
undecane I in 2,000,000
dodecane I in 1,500,000
tridecane I in I,000,000
Test 2.
aw-'T'etra-n-amyldiamino-
octane I in 400,000
nonane . I in 1,000,000
decane I in 2,000,000
undecane : . I in I,500,000
dodecane F é . I in 200,000
66 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
A number of variants on tetraamyldiaminodecane were then made in
which in the place of the symmetrical tetraamyl group various other
combinations were tried, with the results shown in the following table.
Approximate ameebicidal efficiency
Compound. in comparison with T.A.D.D.
ax-Decanes. Per Cent.
NBu, IN : : ; ‘ : : 100
NBuAm NBuAm . : : : : ’ ; 100
NisoAm, NisoAm, . ; : A : : ; 100
NAm, NC-Ho. ;.- : : ; ; ‘ ; 50
NMeBz NMeBz . : ’ : - , ‘ 30
NEtBz NEtBz .. : ‘ : : ‘ : 25
NPrBz NPrBze ; , ‘ , : A 20
NEtDodec NEtDodec . : A : 10
NBuDodec NBuDodec : : : Rather under 10
NCH NC;H,, (Dipiperazino) : ‘ 2 . Not Io
NAm, NMePh . ‘ e A : IO
NHBu NHBu sa. : é . ; Not 10
NHNon NHNon . , E : , Rather under 10
Undecanes.
NHAm NHAm . é : : 3 : ’ 10
NAm, NH, ; : , : : : . 15
NAm, NHBu ss. : : : SSG : 100
NAm, NHAm . : : : ‘ 3 Over 100
NAm, NH}: % : s : : : ‘ 100
A number of compounds were then prepared in order to test the
ameebicidal properties of related classes of compounds.
(1) Long chain monamines.
(2) Quaternary benzylammonium chlorides containing a long chain
member, since members of this class have been shown by the
I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. to have marked bactericidal properties,
and quaternary salts of the corresponding diamines.
(3) Long chain mono- and di-amidines.
(4) Compounds in which the to aliphatic carbon atoms of decane are
replaced in part by 4 carbon atoms of a benzene ring, and in part
by 2 atoms of oxygen.
None of these approached tetraamyldiaminodecane in amebicidal
efficiency in vitro, as will be seen from the individual results given below :
Approximate ameebicidal efficiency
Compound. in comparison with T.A.D.D.
Group 1. Per Cent.
Hexadecylamine ; é : Sa ye
“Octon’ (methylamino-6- “methyl: 2- heptene- Birch 2 Noto
Dibutylnonylamine . ae ; : 25
1 All radicles are of the normal series except where stated otherwise.
B—CHEMISTRY 67
Group 2. Per Cent.
Dimethyldodecylbenzylammonium chloride . ' : bia
Decane-1 : 10-bis (benzyldimethylammonium chloride) . Not 10
Decane-1 : 10-bis (benzyldiamylammonium chloride) . <ungS
Group 3.
Lauramidine . é ; : g , ‘ . Notio
Sebacamidine . ! d ; ] : : 4 J050
Decane-1: 10-diamidine . : : . . . Not 10
Group 4.
p-88-Tetrabutyldiaminoethoxybenzene : : : Saint:
p-68-Tetra-amyldiaminoethoxybenzene ; : : Meee
In considering the results of the foregoing tests, it must be recollected
that there is a large margin of error, and in the results given previously
we have quoted the minimum concentrations found lethal in a number of
tests; in the case of compounds which appeared promising we have
usually carried out six or more tests. In our hands, the test of Laidlaw,
Dobell and Bishop easily distinguished between compounds in the ‘ peak ’
area and those at each extremity, but comparison between the members
of a series near the peak of efficiency was difficult. This fact may be
illustrated well by reference to the table (see p. 69) recording the direct
comparison of the amcebicidal properties of tetra-m-butyl- and tetra-n-
amyl-diaminoalkanes.
As the result of the foregoing experiments «x-tetra-n-amyldiamino-n-
decane (T.A.D.D.) was selected for further study. The conditions of
all the ameebicidal tests described above were those most favourable for
emetine, that is, in a faintly alkaline medium. It is well known (Laidlaw
and others ; Henry and Brown, 1923) that the exceedingly high efficiency
of emetine in vitro, of the order of 1 in 5,000,000, is only found in alkaline,
neutral or only very faintly acid media. Our results afford abundant
confirmation of this fact. When endeavouring to assess the value of an
ameebicide in the treatment of amcebic dysentery by comparison with
emetine 7m vitro it appears therefore necessary to consider carefully the
hydrogen ion concentration likely to be met with in the areas infested with
ameebe.
We have been unable to find any reference to the actual hydrogen ion
concentration in the ameebic ulcer, but Knowles and others (1923) found
that the pH of a number of stools containing motile ameebe averaged
6-22. ‘They also reported the results of experiments on kittens artificially
infected with E. histolytica in which the colon and rectum of the animals
were minced in saline and the hydrogen ion concentration of the sus-
pension determined. The average pH value obtained in these experi-
ments was 6-33, and the livers when similarly treated showed an average
PH value of 6-34.
Furthermore, a considerable amount of work has been carried out upon
the reaction of living, dead and diseased body cells, and the work of
Rohde (1927) and Chambers and others (1927) suggests that the contents
of the ulcers may have a hydrogen ion concentration more acid than
PH 7:0.
68 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
A consideration of these papers suggested that in any comparisons of
amcebicides with emetine in vitro the effect of acidity should be studied,
particularly when the ameebicides are to be administered orally, and that
tests should be carried out at a pH value of 6-2 or 6-3.
Under these conditions T.A.D.D. is three to five times as efficient as
emetine. Moreover, when blood is added to the medium even at pH
values otherwise favouring emetine, T.A.D.D. and emetine are of very
similar amcebicidal value, the former at times showing a definite
superiority.
The toxicity of T.A.D.D. to mice has been compared with that of
emetine with the following results :
Median Lethal Dose mg.|g.
Oral. Subcut. Intraven.
ax-Tetra-n-amyl-
diaminodecane
dihydrochloride . 0°45 0°35 0:04
Emetine
dihydrochloride . 0-04 0:06 0:013
It has thus only one-tenth of the toxicity of emetine when administered
orally to mice, and one-sixth on subcutaneous injection. Its therapeutic
index is therefore much more favourable than that of emetine, and it
appeared to be an exceptionally promising compound for clinical trial
in conditions of ill-health due to infestation with Entameba histolytica.
At this point, it was recommended to and accepted by the Therapeutic
Trials Committee of the Medical Research Council for clincial trial. It
was tried clinically by Prof. Warrington Yorke, F.R.S., who has
kindly allowed me to state his results. He finds that T.A.D.D. has some
action in ameebic dysentery, when administered orally, but is not suff-
ciently active to be of any real value. Unfortunately, it cannot be given
intramuscularly, subcutaneously or intravenously as it is intensely
irritating.
It appears, therefore, that the comparison of the amebicidal values of
emetine and T.A.D.D. with a faintly alkaline medium gives a better
indication of their relative clinical value than the comparison in a slightly
acid medium. This knowledge will be of value in further work on the
subject.
The foregoing account of investigations in chemotherapy indicates the
enormous amount of chemical and biological work involved in attempts
to evolve new drugs for the treatment of disease. Investigations of this
type involve the team-work of a group of chemists and biologists before
the selected product reaches the clinicians, and in the present case I
should like to pay special tribute to the parts taken in it by Mr. Coulthard
on the bacteriological side and Mr. Levene on the chemical side. Only
a limited number of private concerns have the facilities for such co-
operation, and it is therefore very satisfactory to know that work of this
character is being carried out under public auspices, such as the in-
vestigations into anti-malarials directed by Prof. Robinson under the
Chemotherapy Sub-committee of the Medical Research Council, and those
69
‘opeul SoInz[NOqns ON
B.—CHEMISTRY
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70 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
on arsenicals directed by Sir Gilbert Morgan under the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research.
REFERENCES,
BRINDLEY and Pyman: J. Chem. Soc., 1067 (1927).
CuamBERs (and others): J. Gen. Physiol., 10, 739 ; Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med.,
24, 760 (1927).
Cuitp and Pyman: J. Chem. Soc., 2010 (1929).
J. Chem. Soc., 36 (1931).
CouULTHARD, MarsHALL and Pyman: J. Chem. Soc., 280 (1930).
Date and DoBELL: J. Phavm. Exp. Ther., 10, 399 (1917).
DoBELL and Laipiraw: Parasitology, 18, 206 (1926).
Doume, Cox and Mitter: J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 48, 1688 (1926).
GuNN and MarsHatL: Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 40, 140 (1920).
Henry and Brown: Trans. Roy. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg., 61, 17 (1923).
Jepps and Mgeaxins: B.M.]., ii, 645 (1917).
Jounson and Lane: J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 48, 348 (1921).
KNow es (and others) : Ind. Med. Gaz., 58, 151 (1923).
LamwLaw, DoBELL and BisHop: Parasitology, 20, 207 (1928).
Low: B.M.]., ii, 715 (1915).
(reported by Pyman): J. Chem. Soc., 118, 222 (1918).
RouDE: Zentr. Chir., 2134; Deut. med. Woch., 58, 352 (1927).
RosENHEIM, M. L.: Lancet, i, 1032 (1935).
SCHULEMANN : Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 25, 897 (1932).
“WeNYON and O’Connor: J. Roy. Army Med. Corps, 28, 473 (1917).
SECTION C.—GEOLOGY.
THE PLEISTOCENE HISTORY OF
THE WEST MIDLANDS
ADDRESS BY
PROF, LEONARD J. WILLS, D-Sc.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Berore I turn to the substance of my Address, I feel that I must avail my-
self of my privilege as a president to wander from my subject, and speak
briefly of a matter that is very much in my mind. __I refer to the recruiting
of the amateur geologist and to the training required to fit him to under-
take original research. Asa field of activity for the amateur, geology is
unique among the sciences ; for its laboratory is the countryside, and
the equipment required for many sections of the subject is simple and
inexpensive.
When we ponder over the wonderful foundations that were laid in all
the principal branches by the early workers who were nearly all amateurs,
and when we consider the value of research still in progress or recently
completed by present-day enthusiasts, such for example as Cobbold,
Wickham King, Green or Bisat, it would be a thousand pities were the
species to be added to our list of extinct monsters. Yet I think it will be
agreed that, whereas the number of professionals is perhaps increasing,
there is a dearth of men and women who are at once capable of research
and ready to undertake it in their spare time and on their holidays.
First, as to the recruitment of amateurs : some are caught young, others
are driven to it, may be, by unemployment ; but the underlying reason
for taking up the subject is usually found to be the same, namely that the
man has been attracted in the first place by the broader interests of the
science, such as its explanation of scenery, its interrelation to man’s
activities, its view of Time, its evidences of how life has proceeded in the
__ past, and its lessons for the future. The fact that geology is a science
that can be pursued out-of-doors is also undoubtedly an additional
attraction.
Having found our recruit, he has to undergo training before he can be
of real value as an observer, recorder and interpreter. ‘The most essential
thing is that he should acquire a broad foundation of basic principles.
Without this he will never have the vision to see how any specialisation he
may later indulge in or any contribution he himself may make, falls into
72 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
place as part of the whole edifice of the science. Without this also he
may fail to recognise the distinction between the methods and the purpose
of research. Yet this breadth of outlook is not easily come by. On the
one hand, it involves the acquisition of a certain modicum of first-hand
knowledge of minerals, rocks and fossils as entities, and as they occur in
the field ; on the other hand, it demands wide reading. It is the diffi-
culties of the latter that I wish to stress. At the very beginning the recruit
is confronted by half a dozen or more aspects of the science—petrology,
palaeontology, tectonics, seismology, and so on—each a regular and com-
plex study of its own, and yet all wanted for the proper understanding of
the whole. The textbooks on each subject, in so far as they exist, have
generally been designed for the use of the specialist rather than to show
the beginner what place that branch occupies within the framework of
our science. He is perhaps advised to supplement his textbook by reading
recent papers. These he finds are in various languages and scattered
through a number of journals that are rarely to be found in any ordinary
library. Though it is no doubt salutary for a man at an early stage to go
to some of the original sources, there is a limit to the time available ; and
we must also be sure that he can find the treasure we send him to look for
among all the lumber it is hidden away with.
It seems to me that one of the crying needs of the day is for up-to-date
books on each aspect of geology. It has been said, I believe, that every
textbook is out of date before it is printed. Certainly knowledge is always
increasing and interpretation always changing ; but surely each of the
sections of geology has now been sufficiently explored for the leaders in
that particular branch to be able to distinguish and segregate the essen-
tials, so far as we know them, and to present them with a reasoned digest
of the evidence as the present-day outlook on the subject. Were this
done, one of the greatest of the beginner’s needs would be supplied, for
he would have access to the main results so far achieved for that special
science. Such books would be a boon not only for the beginners, but for
the researchers and specialists in other branches, and I venture to predict
for the workers in other sciences, and even for our friend the ‘ man-in-
the-street.’
The books I have in mind-would not be the so-called ‘ popular intro-
ductions to geology,’ but small textbooks, each dealing with the attain-
ments of some section of the subject and written in language that should
be understandable by any intelligent person who has had a good school
education. A natural and very necessary sequel would be attempts to
correlate the results of all the branches, and to show how they unite to
give an idea of the present state of geology as a whole. ‘These would be
general treatises written from various angles, and would therefore demon-
strate the multiplicity of the lines of approach, the recognition of which
might well induce a man to take an active part in some section who is at
present daunted by the magnitude of the whole.
Having unburdened myself of these remarks to which I have been
impelled by a haunting fear that with the next generation we may no
longer see men devoting themselves to our science for the love of it, I will
turn to the main theme of my address, THE PLEISTOCENE HISTORY OF THE
C.—GEOLOGY 73
West Muptanps, a study which owes nearly all its data to the work of
amateurs. I will name the most outstanding that all may know our
indebtedness to them : Strickland, Lucy, Crosskey, F. W. Martin, Jerome
Harrison, Mantle, Codrington, Deeley, Harmer, Gray, Linsdall Richard-
son, Miss Tomlinson, and many others.
For the purpose in hand I also want to record my appreciation of the
work of many professionals, especially members of the Geological Survey,
in particular Fox Strangways, Barrow, Gibson, and Cunnington, among the
older workers, and Whitehead, Dixon and Dines among the present
officers.
A few years ago at the York meeting in 1932, we listened to Prof. Bos-
well’s wonderful synopsis of our knowledge of East Anglian Drifts, and
his attempt at their correlation with others in various parts of the country.
He would probably agree with me that perhaps the weakest links in his
chain of evidence are those that connect the Midlands with other glaciated
areas. Here, the drifts are very denuded and for the most part belong to
the Older Series, the area is extensive, and despite a large number of rather
disconnected investigations a clear view of the whole is lacking. In my
attempt to rectify this deficiency, I have been forced, like my predecessors,
to limit the size of the area in which I could acquire a real intimacy with
the drifts. I have, however, drawn widely on published accounts of other
districts. In addition, I have employed a new line of approach by studying
the river deposits as an aid to the dating of the glacial drifts. Since much
of the region was, perhaps for the greater part of the Pleistocene, outside
the limits of the ice sheets, an understanding of the river development is
essential to any interpretation of the history of events.
What Boswell essayed for East Anglian glacials, King and Oakley have
attempted for the Thames river deposits. The close correspondence
between the movements of sea level suggested for the Thames and those
which appear to have taken place in the Somme and the Severn, serves to
reinforce the interpretation of the very complex evidence presented by the
Thames which these authors have put forward. It encourages me also to
feel some confidence in my reading of the Severn evidence. In the sequel
I try to show how the river history helps to clear up the story of the
glaciation of the Midlands.
At this point I wish to insert a warning. Syntheses, such as Boswell’s,
and King and Oakley’s, read so convincingly that beginners and even
maturer students accept the conclusions, gladly but uncritically ; whereas
the authors themselves are very conscious that their heroic attempts at a
general theory are little better than a number of working hypotheses put
up, like Aunt Sallies, for anyone to shy at. I, at any rate, regard this
attempt of mine in that light.
THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRIFT AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.
The region I propose to deal with is bounded on the west by the north-
south line of hills from the Clees in Shropshire to Malvern ; on the south
by the Cotteswold escarpment; and on the east by the watershed
D2
74 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
surrounding the headwaters of the Avon (Fig. 1). Its northern limit may
be defined by a line from Iron Bridge to Wolverhampton, Lichfield, Tam-
worth, Nuneaton, Rugby. Within these boundaries there are the two
great vales of Severn and Avon embracing on the west, south and east a
triangular plateau drained by the Cole, Blythe and Tame which carry its
waters away northwards to the Trent. In this ‘ Midland Plateau’ is the
high ground of the South Staffordshire Coalfield reaching va the Lickey
Hills into East Worcestershire and West Warwickshire, and into the
high ground of the East Warwickshire Coalfield: the lower ground of
np
Fic. 1.—Outline map of the Midlands with (3) the supposed pre-Glacial courses
of the Severn and Avon, (1) the present watershed of England, (2) the
pre-Glacial watershed from the Longmynd through Iron Bridge and
Oakengates to Wolverhampton, (4) Ground above 400 O.D.
the Cole and Blythe valleys between these heights is itself elevated—an
upland rather than a vale.
_ The greatest anomaly in the topography is the valley of the Severn which
is cut, first as a gorge through what should be a major watershed at Iron
Bridge, and later as a sort of groove along the west side of the great vale-
like depression whose centre-line lies a few miles to the east. It is prob-
C.—GEOLOGY 25
able that in pre-Glacial times the upper Severn went to the Irish Sea, that
the watershed of England separated it at Iron Bridge from the middle and
lower Severn, which then had its source where now the Worfe rises.
From here, as indicated diagrammatically on Fig. 1, it may have followed
the line of the great depression now occupied by the valleys of the Worfe
and Claverley Brook, the Lower Stour, the Elmley Brook and Salwarpe, -
and the Bow and Piddle Brooks.
In throwing our minds back to this distant period, however, it is essen-
tial to remember that a study of the sub-drift surfaces and of the river
terraces makes it abundantly clear that the whole river system of the
Severn and Avon was then at a considerably higher level than it is to-day,
though naturally the differences in level between the present and the pre-
Glacial valley-floors decreases almost to the vanishing-point as the water-
sheds are approached. These relationships do not obtain, at any rate on
the same scale, in neighbouring drainage basins, particularly in those
draining to the Humber and Wash. The difference in behaviour is in
my opinion due primarily to the fact that the Severn and Avon were, all
through the Glacial period, principal lines of drainage from the ice front,
and in the later stages also received from the Upper Severn water that
should have gone to the Dee and Mersey. ‘Thus they carried far more
water then than they did in pre-Glacial times and than they do to-day.
The overdeepening of their valleys is more the outcome of increased
volume than of increased velocity due to elevation. This hypothesis
explains the differences between the Severn and the other rivers without
having to invoke differential uplift.
A thorough appreciation of the vast extent to which erosion has gone
on, and of the enormous length of time involved at once helps us to under-
stand the apparently anomalous distribution of Glacial drifts in this region,
in which, as a rule, the vales and lower ground are free from Glacial
deposits, whereas the higher country and the watershed areas are exten-
sively and often heavily drift-covered—a disposition that is the exact
converse of the usual arrangement in a glaciated region. I shall attempt
to show in the sequel that the drifts formerly extended beyond the regions
where they now form large outcrops and that their absence from an area
need not be taken as an indication that it was never under ice.
It is advisable that at this point a brief statement be made of the geo-
graphical distribution of the areas that may be termed drift-covered. In
some cases the Glacial deposits are thick and continuous, in others they
may be more scattered and are often thinly developed. The term ‘ drift-
covered ’ is nevertheless appropriate when comparison is made with the
rest of the region which can fitly be called ‘ drift-free,’ though here again
the description is not literally true. The drift-covered areas may be
grouped in relation to the major watersheds, as follows :
1. Watershed between the Tern and Penk on the north and the Severn,
Worfe and Smestow on the south, and between the Penk and the
Shenstone Brook. This area extends over high ground from the
Wrekin towards Wolverhampton, and thence north-east towards
Cannock Chase. It also covers lower ground in the Worfe basin
76 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
and at the head of the Smestow Brook. ‘Towards the north-west it
is continuous with the heavily drift-covered plain of North Shrop-
shire.
2. Watershed between the Tame on the north and the Penk, Severn and
Avon. This contains most of the Midland Plateau, as defined above
(p. 74).
3. The watersheds between the Avon, Anker and Soar. This area
extends over comparatively low ground from the Leicestershire
Coalfield and Charnwood past Market Bosworth and Hinckley to
Coventry and Rugby.
Zi
Fic. 2.—The Spheres of Influence of the glaciers that invaded the Midlands :—
1. Little Welsh glacier or ‘ Welsh Re-advance’; 2. Main Irish Sea glacier ;
3. Stratford Stage of, and 4, Supposed maximum of Great Eastern glacier ;
5. Maximum of First Welsh glacier; 6. Possible southern limits of a very
early Eastern glacier. :
Each of these three areas is characterised by a particular type of drift
(Fig. 2). Yet each type is by no means confined to one district, but as a
rule has had a wider distribution, evidence for which may in some cases
be found in the intervening vales (Fig. 3).
In the first or north-westerly district the drifts belong, perhaps exclu-
sively, to the Main Irish Sea glaciation. They are full of Scottish and
C.—GEOLOGY 77
Lake District erratics, and contain fragments of shells picked up from the
floor of the Irish Sea. In addition, there is material from Wales, but this
for the most part has probably been incorporated from the deposits of
earlier glaciations. ‘There seems very little evidence of such older deposits
still in their original positions, though the Survey record Irish Sea drifts
at very different heights within a small area of the Trent valley south and
east of Stone, and again on and near Cannock Chase. At Wombourne
too, red boulder clay without Irish Sea material and with solifluxion
contortions may belong to an older series.
Fic. 3.—Directions of ice-flow deduced from the distribution of Midland erratics,
i.e. excluding all far-travelled erratics. Cr., Croft Granophyre; Mt. S., Mount
Sorrel Granite. In the south-west corner, 1, 2, first and second stages of the
First Welsh maximum; 3, the Woolridge Terrace rivers of Leadon and
Severn valleys.
The Irish Sea glacier advanced inland counter to the drainage, and in
our district surmounted the watershed and spread a short distance down
the valleys of the Severn, Worfe, and Smestow on the south, and entered
the valleys draining eastwards to the Tame and even advanced some way
down the Main Trent valley (Fig. 2). Its drifts reach to 800 O.D. at
Castle Ring on the east side of Cannock Chase.
78 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
It is significant that its deposits occur on the watersheds, and at the
same time reach into the valleys.
The southern limit of the Main Irish Sea drifts is shown on Fig. 2. It
is generally marked by a great concentration of boulders. In some places
they are so numerous that all the garden walls in a hamlet may be built of
Scottish and Lake District granites. Most of the line between Bridgnorth
and Walsall on Fig. 2 is to appear on the forthcoming Dudley sheet of the
Geological Survey. I have the Director’s permission and Mr. White-
head’s consent to publish it. It was traced partly by myself, but chiefly
by Mr. Whitehead, to whom I am indebted for much help in this and other
matters. The continuation east of Walsall is based on earlier work by
the late F. W. Martin, H. G. Mantle and others. As shown by the alter-
native lines on Fig. 2, there is considerable doubt here as to the exact
limits. ‘The same is true in the Trent and Shenstone valleys.
It is now generally accepted that we can divide our British Glacial
deposits into ‘ Older ’ and ‘ Newer Drifts.” The Newer can be recognised
by reason of the freshness and unaltered state of their surface features
which exhibit clearly original forms like kames, asar, kettle-moraine,
moraine-lakes, and so on. Their obvious influence on, and relation to,
the present drainage is another characteristic feature. On both these
counts, the Irish Sea Drifts of this north-western area must be regarded
as part of the Newer Drifts. Outside the line marking their limits the
rest of the Midlands belongs to the realm of the Older series, and has
remained extra-glacial since the time of the deposition of the latter. As
might be expected under these circumstances, the Irish Sea Drifts have
not undergone the extensive denudation to which the rest of the region has
been subjected.
It is fortunate that the Irish Sea Glacier brought with it a great influx
of Scottish and Lake District erratics, for such vast numbers of them
found their way into the Severn via the Worfe and Smestow as to give a
characteristic lithology to the Main and Worcester Terraces, by which they
can be recognised with certainty as later than the terraces which belong to
the time of the ‘ Older Drifts.’ In the latter such rocks are conspicuous
by their absence.
The other two districts belong to the domain of the ‘ Older Drifts.’
We may consider next the eastern area. Here the most characteristic
drift is the Chalky Boulder Clay and its associated flinty gravels and sands.
Though there are other drifts present, these deposits are proved by super-
position to be the most recent. As is well known, the Chalky Boulder
Clay was the product of a mighty ice sheet to which Harmer gave the title
of the Great Eastern Glacier. In addition to chalk and flints, it always
contains much Jurassic material which varies with the outcrops over which
the ice had passed. The distribution of boulders of Charnwood and
Leicestershire igneous rocks and of Jurassic erratics shown on Fig. 3
allows us to trace the trend of its movements.
The limits of the Great Eastern Glacier are indicated on Fig. 2. In
the main area, which is that lying east of the Tame and lower Anker, and
round Nuneaton, Coventry and Rugby, the drifts are the westward con-
C.—GEOLOGY 79
tinuation of the great spreads of Rutland and Northamptonshire so clearly
delineated on Harmer’s famous map of English Erratics. From the Soar
and Anker valleys there is an extension into the Trent valley which is
overlapped by the sphere of the Irish Sea glaciation. More evidence is
required here before a boundary can be drawn with certainty, but it seems
probable that the Eastern ice extended across Needwood Forest. South-
wards, the ‘ Main Eastern ’ drifts (of Miss Tomlinson) near Stratford-on-
Avon appear also to belong to the Chalky Boulder Clay Series. The same
is true of the ‘ Moreton Drift’ of the same author, though this can only
be linked with those of Stratford by a series of hill-top occurrences in the
otherwise drift-free vale of Avon.
In the last of our three drift-covered areas, the Midland Plateau, it is
not easy to generalise about the distribution, composition and origin of
the drifts. Often they consist of 10-20 feet of pebbly clay, sands and
coarse gravel, but there are several districts where far thicker deposits
occur. In such cases the drifts may be sometimes sand and gravel, as, for
example, at Moxley near Wednesbury, Bustleholm near West Bromwich,
Moseley, in the Cole valley, at Rowney Green near Alvechurch, near Barnt
Green, at Wildmoor east of Belbroughton, and near Kingswinford. At
Moxley and Kingswinford the sands lie in channels. At other places
boulder clays come in in force, as at the new Hospital Centre at Edgbaston,
where there are three boulder clays with intervening sands and bedded
silts ; California, where the general section is pebbly drift on thick ‘ india-
rubber clays ’ (probably lake deposits) which in turn overlie coarse sands
and gravel and a lower stony boulder clay ; Lower Frankley where Cross-
key first proved high level (800 O.D.) glacial clay with Welsh erratics ;
and Blackwell where typical stony till is at least 25 feet thick. Except the
California ‘indiarubber clay’ all these boulder clays appear to be true
ground-moraine.
Farther south most of the Warwickshire Plateau has a covering of
clayey gravel, sand and sometimes coarse gravel. The high-level drifts
of the Ridgeway and of the hill-tops of Worcestershire are chiefly sands
and gravels, ‘ fringe ’ deposits as Jerome Harrison termed them, implying
that they were mainly periglacial in origin. On the Ridgeway there are
also areas of clayey ground-moraine.
The composition of the drifts varies somewhat, but they always include
a great deal of Bunter material, both pebbles from the Middle Bunter and
quartz grains from the sandstones. Next perhaps in number are erratics
from the coalfields and from the Wrekin area (see Fig. 3). North Welsh
rocks are often common, many coming from the Berwyns and the Den-
bighshire Silurian country. Large boulders of Arenig (and ? Aran) origin
are common in the district stretching from Walsall through Birmingham
and Harborne, and over the Lickeys and Frankley to Bromsgrove. North
Welsh material is therefore the most striking of the common far-travelled
erratics, and for this reason it is appropriate to term these deposits the
Welsh Drifts. 'To them, however, an Irish Sea Glacier contributed
Scottish and Lake District erratics on an exiguous scale, The map
80 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
(Fig. 4) gives an indication of where these few wanderers have been met
with. We may perhaps infer from their distribution that they belong to
a later stage in the glaciation than that which was responsible for the more
southerly Welsh Drifts, these being devoid of the Northern elements.
It is important to realise that various lines of evidence point to the fact
that it was not the Main Irish Sea Glacier, but an earlier one that intro-
duced these few boulders.
EEE]4 Swe
—S> Striac,
Fic. 4.—Distribution of Drifts :—
(rt) Welsh Re-advance maximum ; (2) Main Irish Sea maximum; (3) Welsh
maximum ; (4) Older Drifts, Welsh and local; (5) Older Drifts with Pennine
boulders ; (6) Irish Sea boulders (rare) in older drifts. Those in the Salwarpe
valley may be water-borne; those in the Main and Worcester Terraces are
omitted; (7) Very ancient boulder clay with north-eastern erratics and
overlain by ? Interglacial sands and gravels; (8) Interglacial gravels, ‘ Jurassic
gravels’ and ‘ Ditchford gravels.’
The deposits of the Great Eastern glacier omitted.
Owing to its position between the spheres of influence of the Irish Sea
and the Great Eastern glaciers this central area with predominantly
Welsh drifts offers borderline cases where it is difficult to decide to
which glaciation a particular deposit belongs. ‘The Kingswinford Esker
described by Boulton, and the gravels with many northern boulders at
C.—GEOLOGY 81
Maney near Sutton Coldfield provide two examples where it is a question
of distinguishing between a Main Irish Sea and a Welsh origin ; whereas
the drifts of the Ridgeway in East Worcestershire seem to be compounded
of Welsh and Eastern elements. This long ridge, ranging in height
from 550 O.D. in the north to 350 O.D. in the south, bounds the Arrow
valley on the west. It is capped for a distance of 11 or 12 miles from
near Blackwell to 3 miles south-west of Alcester by a narrow outcrop
of sands, gravels and boulder clays. In its northern part a few Irish Sea
erratics occur in the clay, but farther south there have been found at
Crabbs Cross an Oxford Clay ammonite (Gulielmiceras) ; and at Weethley
flints and a Leicestershire granophyre, all indicating that some of its
material came from the north-east. As the Ridgeway lies outside the
region of those well-developed Eastern drifts, whose distribution in the
Avon valley has been described by Dr. Tomlinson in 1935, two explana-
tions appear possible. Either its eastern elements are relics of a very
early Eastern glaciation or they provide a record of a temporary advance
of the Main Eastern glacier down the Avon, perhaps as far as Tewkesbury,
during which a side-lobe was thrust up the Arrow valley. Other evidence
in favour of this latter view is the presence of flint-bearing deposits
resembling boulder clay at Harvington (Tomlinson), at Evesham (Dines),
at Besford, and on top of the Bushley Green Terrace deposits at Bushley
and Apperley near Tewkesbury. For these reasons I have on Fig. 2
adopted the latter explanation, though I realise the slender nature of
the evidence.
Over much of that part of the Warwickshire-Staffordshire Plateau
which is drained by the upper waters of the Tame, Cole and Blythe, the
mantle of drift is comparatively intact, and frequently forms the valley
floors ; but on the Severn-Avon side of the watershed of England it becomes
very ragged, projecting outwards as promontories or forming outliers on
the highest hills (Figs. 1 and 4). As we go towards the Severn and Avon
these outliers become less frequent and usually smaller, and in some cases
a mere skin of pebbles is all that remains. Doubtless the large isolated
boulders sometimes met with in otherwise drift-free areas, represent the
final fate of such high level drifts.
That the highest points are surmounted by drift is so far a rule that one
is forced to view the capping as remnants of a more or less continuous
sheet which once stretched far into the vales of Severn and Avon. Here
it has in most places been completely destroyed. Evidence of its presence
must be sought for on the hill-tops and not in the valleys, all of which in
their present state are younger than the glaciation. This statement
perhaps needs qualification, for fluvio-glacial deposits occur at fairly low
levels near the Piddle Brook and in the Salwarpe and Stour valleys.
These, however, appear to belong to the waning phases of the glaciers
when the lower parts of the vales, freed from ice, had become subjected
to river erosion. The new valley floors thus formed then received
deposits from the glaciers which still occupied the country further
north.
It is, I think, fair to conclude that the ice sheets at their maxima occu-
pied the vales, and that these were far shallower then than now. This
82 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
hypothesis sounds very speculative, but there are some remarkable pieces
of evidence in its favour.
1. Near Gloucester and adjacent to the rivers Severn and Leadon,
coarse gravels, probably fluvio-glacial in origin, cap hills at about
200-280 O.D., the present valley floor being about 25 O.D.
2. Three drift-capped hills, Dripshill (ca. 240 O.D.) between Worcester
and Upton, and Leopards Grange (320 O.D.) and Crookbarrow
(280 O.D.), both near Worcester, are all quite close to the river
which floods at about 40 O.D. Sands occur at 200 O.D. near
Peachley north-west of Worcester. In the Salwarpe basin near
Elmbridge boulder clay caps the hill at 231 O.D. This is in the
pre-Glacial depression referred to above as lying east of the present
Severn valley.
3. In the Avon vale supposed Welsh drift occurs at Wolford (ca. 350
O.D.), and at the Campden Tunnel (520 O.D.),1 both near
Moreton-in-the-Marsh. In the same district, as already mentioned,
the Moreton Chalky drifts lie at a level of 449 O.D. and actually
form the water-shed between the Thames and Avon. All these
occurrences are on the south side of the vale, and are only con-
nected with the South Warwickshire. Plateau by a few hill-top
outliers, such as Idlecote Hill (435 O.D.), Long Hill near Loxley
at 415 O.D., and the hill-tops at 415 and 446 O.D. near Eatington.
Welcombe Hill (350 O.D.) and Cracombe Hill (377 O.D.), both
capped by thick drift, are close to the Avon, which is about 125 O.D.
and 70 O.D. in their respective neighbourhoods.
These facts tend to show that at the time of the glaciation the valley
floor was much higher than now.
4. On the south-west slopes of the Clent-Lickey range, there are at
Money Lane, Wildmoor, sixty feet of horizontally bedded sands
capped bythirty feet of horizontal coarse bouldery gravels which reach
to about 730 O.D., the whole banked against a steep slope of Bunter.
Similar confirmatory sections can be seen near-by and also at Combe
Hill, Barnt Green. It seems impossible for such horizontally
bedded sands to have originated except in a lake, and equally im-
possible for a lake to be held up in this position except by means
of a large glacier in the lower ground to the west. Out in this
direction there are a number of hills near Bromsgrove, Chaddesley
and Belbroughton, the drift capping on which proves that they,
too, were once under the ice sheet. Here it varies in height from
350 to 519 O.D.
5. [he great sand mounds of the Stour valley and the sands and gravels
at high levels near Churchill seem to demand a large lobe of ice to
account for their presence there; and the composition of these
drifts, which are practically free from northern erratics, makes it
clear that they are unconnected with the Main Irish Sea glaciation.
1 The ‘Campden Tunnel Drift’ as now exposed above the Tunnel contains
north-eastern elements.
C.—GEOLOGY 83
6. The presence of a great lobe of ice down the Stour and down the
depression (referred to above), east of the present Severn gorge,
could supply a reason for the anomalous way in which the River
Severn selects the high Palaeozoic ground in preference to the wide
Triassic depression; for the river might have taken this course
when it consisted of the marginal drainage off the west side of
the glacier. As such it might have cut a large marginal channel
which on account of its depth was permanently retained in later times.
Tue RIvER TERRACES AS EVIDENCE OF THE STAGES IN THE EROSION.
If we are right in claiming a former far wider distribution of the drifts
than the areas where they now occur in force, the river valleys should
provide a great deal of evidence concerning the way in which their de-
struction has been brought about. In the present case this is certainly so ;
for we have in the Severn and its tributaries a wonderfully developed
system of river terraces and of deposits that originated under the rigorous
conditions of glacial climates, the so-called taele gravels and melt-water
flood gravels. A study of these has thrown much light on our problem.
The farther we go from the plateau and from the drift-covered ground
on its north-west and eastern sides the greater the number of high level
terraces. In some cases the geographical distribution and the lithological
composition enable us to relate a terrace to a particular set of glacial
deposits.
TABLE
Height at | Upstream limit eines
Severn Avon? |. mouth of | ae
Severn? | Severn Avon
Woolridge opted | ? about 200 | Tewkesbury) — _ /|B,?W,M,*
pda 0 Ws 8 chub va few F
Bushley | No.5 | 110/75 O.D. Tewkesbury Stratford| Do.
Green / |
Kidder- | No.4 | 65/35 O.D. | Bewdley | Stone- | Do.
minster | | | (goes up leigh near
| Stour) Kenil- |
worth |
Main Nos.2 & 23, 35?/15? O.D. Coalport | Church | Do.andS
(goes up | Lawford |
Worfe) near
Rugby |
Worcester | ? No. 1 ?—25 O.D. | Shrewsbury ? | Do., Do.
2 Miss Tomlinson’s nomenclature. 3 Height of top;height of base.
4 B, Bunter Pebbles; W, Welsh; F, Flints; M, Malvernian ; S, Scottish and
Lake District.
84 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
The table illustrates this (see also Fig. 5) and makes it clear that : (1) the
highest or Woolridge Terrace is only recognizable below Tewkesbury.
(2) The next or Bushley Green Terrace goes up the Avon as Avon No. 5
to Stratford, and ends just where the Main Eastern glacials begin to appear
in force. (3) The next, the Kidderminster Terrace or Avon No. 4, is met
with throughout the area, but it leaves the Severn to go up the Stour and
not up the Bridgnorth and Iron Bridge gorges ; (4) the Main (Avon No. 2)
is met with in the Avon throughout our area, and in the Severn it reaches
to the Iron Bridge gorge and into the Worfe valley. Here, as already
pointed out, it clearly ties on to Irish Sea glacial deposits. It is also
recognised in all the tributaries, and by its distribution and relation to
the taele gravels, reinforces the arguments that have already been used
to show that the north-western section of the region was the only part
under ice during the time of the Newer Drifts. (5) The Worcester
Terrace is poorly developed up the Avon, but extends up the Severn from
near Tewkesbury through the Iron Bridge gorge to Shrewsbury where it
appears to link on with the Welsh Re-advance. Its distribution shows
that the Iron Bridge gorge was then functioning, but at a height of about
sixty feet above the present level.
I have elsewhere discussed the extremely ambiguous evidence bearing
on the question whether there was an interglacial episode between the
time of the Main and Worcester Terraces, without being able to obtain an
assured answer. On the other hand, the fauna of Avon No. 4 is a warm
climate one, which makes it probable that both it and its correlative, the
Kidderminster Terrace, are interglacial. ‘The position of Avon No. 4
Terrace below Avon No. 5 which connects with the Great Eastern
glaciation, and above the terraces, Avon No. 2 and ? No. 3, which
correlate with the Main Terrace of the Severn and so with the Irish
Sea glaciation, forces us to conclude that these two glaciations were not
contemporaneous.
Various lines of evidence converge therefore towards the following
conclusion; that the Bushley Green-Avon No. 5 Terrace and the still
higher Woolridge Terrace are to be correlated with the ‘ Older Drifts ’ ;
that the Main, the Worcester, and Avon No. 2, and possibly Avon No. 3,
Terraces, belong to the ‘ Newer Drifts’; and that the Kidderminster-
Avon No. 4 Terrace records the intervening ‘ Great Interglacial.’ The
question whether the older drifts of the Midlands bridge more than one
glacial epoch is dealt with in the sequel.
THE OLDER DRIFTs.
The most outstanding problem is that of the Older Drifts. It may
be a long time before a correct solution of this is achieved. At the
moment I can offer only a brief synthesis of the results obtained by other
workers compounded with ideas that I have accumulated during my
study of the drifts of the Western Midlands. Those of the Eastern
Midlands I scarcely know ; but luckily some parts of that area have been
carefully described by the Geological Survey (in particular by Fox
Strangways, Gibson and Barrow), and there are illuminating accounts of
C.—GEOLOGY 85
some other parts by Deeley, Wilson, Beeby Thompson, Jerome Harrison
and Shotton.
The ‘ Older Drifts,’ as already pointed out, are essentially either
north-western (or Welsh) or north-eastern in composition. We may now
examine them to determine whether they record more than one glacial
epoch. For this purpose we can divide the region into two parts along a
line running roughly from Derby—Lichfield—Tamworth—Coventry—
Stratford-on-Avon to Moreton-in-the-Marsh.
East of this line two distinct sets of glacial deposits can be recognised on
lithological and stratigraphical grounds. ‘The older of the two, as developed
in the north, is of Pennine origin, and was carried by ice travelling from the
north-west (Figs. Ay 55 and 3) ; but near Coventry and Rugby drift occupying
an analogous position contains chalk and flints, and can be described
as a sort of chalky boulder clay. Its apparent southerly limit is shown in
Figs. 4, 7 and 2,5. In the intermediate district little is known, but near
Hinckley and perhaps also at Bedworth part of the older series consists
of well-bedded, probably lacustrine deposits. The drifts on the Blythe-
Avon watershed near Stratford-on-Avon, and the ‘ Campden Tunnel
Drift’ near Moreton appear to be Welsh in origin. They have both been
regarded as probably older than the Great Eastern glacier (Tomlinson).
Throughout all this eastern region the upper or more recent drift has
been derived from the north-east and often consists of a true chalky
boulder clay. It has generally and, I think, correctly been referred to the
Great Eastern glaciation of Harmer.
If we examine the map (Fig. 3) showing the distribution of glacial
striae and of boulders of Midland origin in this eastern region, we note
that the Pennine group travelled towards the south-east, whereas there is a
great stream of Leicestershire rocks towards the south and south-west.
These two directions are certainly an index of the movements of the older
and more recent glaciers respectively.
Between the lower and the upper boulder clays in the Hinckley-Cov-
entry-Rugby district there is a persistent bed of gravel and sand. Some-
what similar deposits, the Jurassic gravels of Miss Tomlinson, underlie
the ‘ Main Eastern ’ boulder clay of the Stratford area. The ‘ Ditchford ’
or ‘ Paxton’ gravels of the Moreton district occupy an analogous position
with respect to the chalky ‘ Moreton Drift’ (Tomlinson and Dines).
See Fig. 4, 3. In the Jurassic gravels near Stratford, a single tooth of
an archaic form of Elephas antiquus has been found, which is suggestive
of interglacial conditions. Near Coventry both cold and warm climate
fossils have been recorded by Shotton. In view of the close association
of these deposits with two glacial series, the presence in them of tundra
and temperate fossils is not so contradictory as would at first sight appear,
especially as we must allow that vast lengths of time may be represented
by comparatively thin deposits in a watershed-area, like this, where the
levels of the valley floors were not much altered either by erosion or
deposition.
5 See, however, note on p. 82.
86 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
I consider that the facts in this eastern region support the idea of two
distinct glaciations within the Older Drifts with interglacial conditions
between them (First Interglacial). The question of how the lower,
very ancient chalky boulder clays of Coventry and Rugby reached that
district remains to be solved.
West of the Derby-Moreton line the area of the Older Drifts is sharply
limited on the north by the southern edge of the later Main Irish Sea
glacials (Fig. 4), which has already been discussed. Except in the Lower
Avon valley, the older drifts are here Welsh. The directions of ice-flow
are shown on Fig. 3.
The interpretation of these drifts is extremely difficult, partly because
it is likely that if there have been two glaciations, they will be recorded
by similar deposits which might occur each separately or both together
on the same surface, and partly because of the great dissection and de-
struction that they have undergone. Many of the deposits, too, are gravels
and sands that belonged rather to outwash fans than to the ice sheet
itself, On the other hand, we have, as already pointed out, the river
terraces to help us, by providing a record of the progressive deepening of
the valleys and of the contemporaneous opening up and development of
new lines of drainage on surfaces, each of which appear to grade with one
or other of the terraces, and which for this reason may be regarded as of
approximately the same age as the terrace in question.
One is bound to confess that any conclusions that can at present be
drawn are very tentative. For this reason I hesitated about setting them
out in black and white as diagram maps ; but I have decided to do so in
order to make clear my present views. It is most essential, however,
that the speculative nature of the maps (Figs. 3 and 5) be continually
kept in mind. They attempt to express, diagrammatically, the general
distribution of the ice and of the main drainage lines at successive stages
in the melting of the glaciers, which I think can be deduced from the dis-
tribution of the drifts, from their composition, and from their relation
to the terrace history of the Severn and Avon.
We may consider the Lower Avon and Lower Severn vales first. Here
the highest deposit, namely the Woolridge Terrace, is developed between
Tewkesbury and Gloucester, and up the Leadon valley at heights between
200 and 285 O.D. I have elsewhere suggested that the Leadon valley
deposits were laid down by water travelling west of the Malvern range
and forced to take this course by the filling of the Severn vale by the
Welsh ice, when at its maximum (Fig. 3, x). At this stage, too, the ice
seems: to have carried Welsh boulders to the Moreton-in-the-Marsh
district and to have been responsible for certain very high level drifts
in Worcestershire. For these reasons I picture it as stretching over the
vales of Severn and Avon to the Cotteswold escarpment. A slight retreat
(Fig. 3, 2) would have allowed outwash material to be laid down below
Tewkesbury. Patches of this have survived at Woolridge (260 O.D.),
Norton Hill (283 O.D.), and Corse Hill (250 O.D.). These and some
other very high deposits such as those already referred to (p. 82) at
Dripshill (240 O.D.), and Leopards Grange (320 O.D.), and at Cracombe
C.—GEOLOGY 87
Hill (350-400 O.D.) and perhaps those on the Avon-Blythe watershed
and in the Warwickshire Coalfield and those capping isolated high hills
in the Avon vale, seem to belong to this early stage and to be the most
likely equivalents of the lower boulder clays of the Upper Avon valley
and of the Pennine drifts of the Trent, Soar, and Wreak valleys
(Fig. 4, 5 ana 7). 3 d 2
If we accept this view, it follows that the retreat of this First Welsh
Glacier was connected with the ‘ first interglacial’ episode for which we
have discussed the evidence in the Upper Avon valley. In the Lower
Severn vale the Bushley Green Terrace, containing a temperate shell
fauna and lying at a considerably lower level than the Woolridge ‘Terrace,
appears to belong to this time. The Bushley Green correlates with the
Avon No. 5 Terrace of Miss Tomlinson, but for the following reasons I
picture the latter as somewhat later in date though graded to about the
same level: the Bushley Green Terrace deposits seem to be overlaid
by eastern boulder clay, whereas Avon No. 5 near Evesham lies in a valley
cut through eastern drifts, and is also clearly newer than the Ridgeway
deposits in which there are eastern elements. I have already given
reasons (p. 81) for believing that the eastern drifts referred to were
laid down during a rather brief advance of the eastern ice to near 'l'ewkes-
bury (Fig. 2), and that a more considerable halt was made near Stratford—
as described by Miss Tomlinson. On this view the Bushley Green and
Avon No. 5 Terraces cover the ‘ first interglacial ’ episode and the oncoming
and maximum stage of the Great Eastern glacier in the Avon vale.
What then of the rest of the region? ‘There are certain data and
several lines of reasoning which in my opinion justify us in postulating
the existence during the Great Eastern Glaciation of a Welsh ice sheet
reaching across the Stour and Salwarpe valleys, and covering the Black
Country, East Worcestershire and the Warwickshire Plateau (Fig. 5).
There is, however, no clear-cut evidence to prove whether it was the
shrunken First Welsh or, as I think more likely, a Second Welsh ice-sheet
which, as the first interglacial epoch passed away, grew and invaded the
northern part of the same region, incorporating to some extent in its
deposits the drifts of the earlier advance.
I will refer very briefly to some of the reasons for my view. First,
in the region in question there are, as I have already mentioned, a certain
number (perhaps 40 or 50 are known) of small Irish Sea erratics, in the
form of Scotch and Lake District rocks, whereas none ® are known in the
deposits already allocated to the First Welsh glaciation. Their distribu-
tion is shown on Fig. 4.
Secondly, the deposits in some cases occupy valleys that seem to have
been excavated below the levels of the oldest drift-sheet. For example,
Miss Tomlinson has described evidence for what she refers to as a ‘ Welsh
re-advance,’ which brought a north-western ice-sheet into the Blythe
valley after the deposition of the drifts of its southern watershed, and at
the time of the Stratford stage of the Great Eastern glacier.
6 The Packwood and Rowington granite boulders are on the extreme limit of
the Second Welsh Sheet as shown on Fig. 4.
88 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Thirdly, there is no obvious connection between the present topo-
graphy and the First Welsh drifts, but in the case of the supposed Second
Welsh drifts, it is possible to see cases where the present drainage seems
to have been influenced by the glaciation, as for example the course of the
Blythe, as described by Miss Tomlinson. Again, in the Cole valley
sands and gravels referable to the Second Welsh glaciation prevent the
Cole reaching the ame near Birmingham and send it six miles to the
east before it effects a confluence ; and in the Stour valley, as Mr. White-
head has pointed out to me, the present course through the Bells Mill
Gap in the Bunter Pebble Bed escarpment near Stourbridge can be
explained by assuming an ice-dam across the original Stour valley at
Hinksford.
Finally, outwash material grades down into the valleys at levels which
accord with terraces that are far younger than the Woolridge Terrace and
therefore far younger than the First Welsh glaciation. One important
spread runs east of the Severn from near Stoulton southwards through
Wadborough and Besford to grade with Avon No. 5 Terrace, and there-
fore perhaps to be regarded as comparable in date with the Great Eastern
glaciation. Others follow the Salwarpe and Stour valleys, and are but
little above the level of the Kidderminster Terrace which itself correlates
approximately with the Second Interglacial epoch.
Having stated some of the evidence for a Second Welsh ice-sheet in the
Midlands contemporary with the Great Eastern glacier when the latter
spread from the north-east into the Eastern Midlands and Avon vale, I
can only briefly refer to its retreat. This is illustrated diagrammatically
on Fig. 5.
The first position shown is indicated by a line with double offsets. This
line conforms with Miss Tomlinson’s maximum ‘ re-advance’ in the
Blythe valley ; with the considerable development on the Ridgeway of
drifts with both north-eastern and north-western erratics which may
have owed their origin to the combined efforts of the two glaciers ; and
with the gravels and sands of the Stoulton-Besford area which I have just
referred to as grading to the same level as Avon No. 5 Terrace. As the
two sheets withdrew, the drainage down the Avon was responsible for
the formation of some parts of the same terrace. It appears necessary
to imagine the Severn valley from Worcester downwards as having already
been established, possibly as a marginal flow along the edge of the First
Welsh Glacier.
The second stage deserves more elaboration ; but this cannot yet be
achieved, owing to want of data. The line indicated with three offsets
must therefore be regarded as a composite representation of several that
it would be necessary to draw in order to satisfy even the evidence we
now possess. East of Birmingham the line represents a lobe in the Tame
basin connecting near Tamworth with the Eastern ice of the Anker and
Trent valleys. ‘This disposition of the two sheets would enable us to
account for the Blythe valley lake suggested in the Birmingham Memoir
and described by Miss Tomlinson. It drained southwards by the Kings-
C.—GEOLOGY 89
wood Gap to the Alne valley during the Stratford stage of the Great
Eastern Glacier (Tomlinson).
Ice approximately in the position shown for this stage could also account
10 Miles
Fic. 5.—Possible successive stages of retreat of the Second Welsh and of the
Great Eastern glaciers. Horizontal ruling indicates glacial lakes; one-
barbed arrow, Bushley Green Terrace of Severn, and Wolvercote Terrace of
Evenlode ; two-barbed arrows, Avon No. 5 Terrace; three- and four-barbed
arrows approximate to the Kidderminster Terrace.
for the Cole valley lake, the Moseley gravels, and the barrier of sands
which turn the river eastwards near Castle Bromwich. Fig. 5 also
go SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
indicates a lake in the upper Rea valley, south-west of Birmingham. This
expresses the hypothesis that certain clays, such as the ‘ india-rubber
clay ’ of California and the similar deposits at Parson’s Hill, King’s Norton,
may have originated as lake clays when the Rea valley was obstructed by
ice that impounded water up to about 550 O.D.
The line further coincides to the south-west of Birmingham with the
gravel deposits of Rowney Green near Alvechurch which may be regarded
as marginal in origin. The lobe stretching southwards complies with
the necessity for an extension into the lowlands of an ice-sheet that was
mighty enough to overspread the high ground of the Black Country and
the Lickey Hills. Drainage from this was carried away along the Sal-
warpe into the Severn, and was responsible for part of the erosion of
these valleys before the Kidderminster Terrace came to be formed. It
will be noted that the overflow from the Blythe lake coupled with drainage
from the retreating Eastern glacier produced similar erosion-effects in the
Avon valley before Avon No. 4 Terrace was laid down.
Returning to the melting glacier, the next event seems to have been
the splitting of the ice on the high ground of the Black Country. The
lobe on the east may have been concerned with initiation of the peculiar
drainage of the Shenstone valley which is being investigated both by
Mr. Wilfred Bullows and by Mr. S. J. Martin (Fig. 5, line with four
offsets). The lobe on the west I picture as occupying the low ground
west of the coalfield and of the Clent-Lickey range as far south as the
Salwarpe valley. It was this ice that held up the lake or lakes near Wild-
moor and Barnt Green which have left their record in the horizontally
bedded high-level sands and gravels of that district.
As the ice shrank back the thick mounds of sand and gravel in the
Stour vale and near the Churchill brook were deposited. ‘These clearly
antedate the Kidderminster Terrace and so fall into their correct position
in the scheme.
The final stage, indicated on Fig. 5 by a line with five offsets, was sug-
gested to me by Mr. T. H. Whitehead. There is much evidence to justify
the assumption that in pre-Glacial times the Stour flowed northwards as
far as Hinksford, where it rounded the end of the then-unbroken Bunter
Pebble Bed escarpment. Ice in the position shown on the map would,
as already suggested (p. 88), have impounded a lake in the upper Stour
valley, the overflow from which might have initiated the present gorge of
the Stour through the Bells Mill Gap. The sands of the so-called Kings-
winford Esker can be regarded as having originated in this lake.
I am very grateful to Mr. Whitehead for allowing me to use this idea
which he is setting out in the forthcoming memoir on the Dudley
district ; though I am far from confident that he will agree with the date
to which I assign the event.
All the records of the further retreat of the Welsh ice sheet have been
obliterated by the invasion of the later Main Irish Sea glacier.
The evidence relating to the Older Drifts that we have been considering
is scattered, difficult to interpret and usually ambiguous ; but nevertheless
I feel some confidence in the correctness of the main features of its inter-
C.—GEOLOGY 91
pretation, namely that there were two glaciations involved. In the first
the ice movement was from North Wales and the Pennines towards the
south-east: in the second there was a similar, but less powerful North-
Welsh dispersion with some slight intermingling of Irish Sea material.
Simultaneous with this, however, in the east and in the Avon valley was
the Great Eastern glacier.
By the end of the First Glacial epoch the general trend of the lowest
parts of the Severn seem to have been established as marginal channels
bordering the ice which lay thickest in the Salwarpe-Piddle Brook de-
pression. ‘The first and the second glaciations were probably separated
by truly interglacial conditions (First Interglacial).
The Second Glaciation came to an end in the Second or Great Inter-
glacial epoch which intervened between the deposition of the Older and
Newer Drifts. In the area under review we find at this stage that the
present directions of the rivers had been determined, and that the valleys
of those days can be recognised and their depths defined by the Kidder-
minster-Avon No. 4 Terrace, and perhaps by the ‘ High Terrace’ with
Hippopotamus in the Trent valley. There is, however, one exception to
this statement. I refer to the Iron Bridge gorge. This section of the
present river was non-existent at this time, and in its place was a high
watershed. The diversion of the Upper Severn across this waterparting
belongs to the story of the Newer Drifts.
NEWER DRIFTS.
(a) The Main Irish Sea Glaciation.
This address has already become so long that I can only refer in the very
briefest way to the events that have occurred since the ‘ Great Interglacial.’
I have already mentioned that the Newer Drifts in the Midlands were the
product of the Main Irish Sea Glacier, and I have attempted to define
its maximum extent on Fig. 2. This glacier belonged to the Third
Glaciation.
The oncoming of this glacier seems to have coincided with the deepening
of the Severn valley below the Kidderminster Terrace level, in preparation,
as it were, for the great floods of sand and gravel that were fed into it as
soon as the ice crossed the old watershed near Iron Bridge and at the head
of the Worfe and Smestow valleys. These deposits are now the Main
Terrace, correlatives of which are the Second Terrace of the Avon and
probably the low terraces of the Trent and Tame.
As the ice had been moving upstream in its invasion of the Dee and
Mersey basins, it must have impounded the drainage during the advance,
as we know it did later during the retreat ; but there seems to be no record
of an overflow into the Severn catchment during this growth stage. Pos-
sibly an overflow into the Trent may have existed during the advance ;
but the whole story of the effect of this glaciation on the east-flowing
drainage is at present very obscure, in fact, an interesting problem awaiting
investigation.
As the ice melted back from the maximum position shown on Fig. 6, a
series of important drainage changes took place. First, at an early stage
92 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
when the ice still covered the watershed at Iron Bridge and at the head of
the Worfe, but had melted back enough to expose the upper Penk valley,
a small lake was impounded just north of Wolverhampton which flowed
out south-westwards over the watershed near Tettenhall, forming the
Tettenhall Gap. This overflow was responsible for the great train of
gravels full of Irish Sea erratics that follows the Smestow Brook down into
the Stour.
Dixon has traced various ice fronts trending in a general north-easterly
direction across the country between the Penk and Newport, Salop.
These are marked by terminal kames and by beaded Asar.
Se6 ¢ Penkridge
Cannock
= 2S——>
t Wolverhamplon
Shrews bury Q
\
Church
Strellow
DUDLEY
179@ Brown
Clee
iM
(Craven
Arms
mw PreGiactal Walrshed , + Present Watershed, = GlacialLakes —etee /ceSlands
—P Glaciol Drainage Lines
Adapl-+ trem Dixon , WH/TENEAD, and WILLS.
Fic. 6.—The retreat phenomena of the Main Irish Sea Glacier.
Tt
Phd
x
% —- *Stourbridge
id
4 2 3 4 S Miles
The Worfe valley was an important line of drainage from the ice front
until the latter came to lie on the north side of the watershed. In this
position a lake was impounded near Newport, and Dixon has shown that
this drained across the watershed at Gnosall into the Church Eaton brook
and so into the Trent. He named it Lake Newport.
I have elsewhere described the detailed evidence relating to the way in
which the waters of the Upper Severn came to be diverted through the
Iron Bridge gorge into the. drainage basin of the present Middle and
Lower Severn. This diversion was brought about during the melting
back of the Main Irish Sea glacier on the watershed region near the
Wrekin, through the development of a system of marginal channels and
glacial lakes, The detailed evidence substantiates a hypothesis suggested
C.—GEOLOGY 93
independently by both Lapworth and Harmer, the main feature of which
was that a lake was held up by the ice sheet on the north-west side of the
pre-Glacial watershed at Iron Bridge ; and that this lake drained away
across the divide, and thus initiated a gorge that became so deep that it
has permanently retained the Upper Severn drainage which formerly went
out to sea either by the Dee or by the Mersey. This lake I named Lake
Buildwas (Fig. 6).
At this stage then there were two lakes, Buildwas and Newport, on the
north-west side of the watershed, one draining to the Trent and one to
the Middle Severn. ‘They were separated by the ice where it impinged
on the Wrekin. When the glacier melted back further and allowed the
lakes to join and form ‘ Lake Lapworth,’ so nearly at the same level were
the outlets, that it was a mere matter of chance that the Upper Severn went
permanently to the Bristol Channel and not to the Humber. As it hap-
pened, the Iron Bridge outlet was, or at any rate soon became, the lower.
It took all the discharge and has retained it ever since. This implies that
when the ice left Cheshire, the drifts of the Cheshire plain formed across
the old pre-Glacial valley a barrier that was higher than the Iron Bridge
outlet at the time. It seems likely, therefore, that Lake Lapworth had by
then been lowered considerably by the partial destruction of the rock sill
at Iron Bridge.
These glacial accidents have been the factors that have determined
much of the geography of the Midlands ; for they diverted into the rela-
tively small pre-Glacial catchment basin of the Lower and Middle Severn
great volumes of water which have rejuvenated the river, especially in its
middle reaches, on a stupendous scale. The rejuvenation is still operative
and can be seen to-day in the erosive activity of every tributary of the
Middle Severn. The relationship of the Main Terrace and its correlatives
in the Avon and Trent to the present valley-floor also displays in a striking
way the influence of the increased erosive activity on the shape of the
valley. ‘The low terraces of the Tame and Trent system which has had
no rejuvenation of this type, rise a few feet above the alluvium and extend
downwards below the valley floor ; the surface of the Second Terrace in
the Avon keeps parallel to the present flood plain, but some 20-30 feet
above it. Here the rejuvenation has been slightly felt. On the other
hand, in the Severn valley the present floor lies 20-30 feet below the Main
Terrace at Tewkesbury, but 100 feet below it at Bridgnorth. In fact,
from Worcester upstream the Severn is increasingly incised, and its
tributaries, the Salwarpe, the Stour and the Worfe, join it in deep trenches.
Climatic conditions during the Main Irish Sea glaciation were extremely
severe. Solifluxion and melt-water floods were on a correspondingly
grand scale in the periglacial region. There are vast spreads of local,
often angular, detritus at the foot of the Cotteswold and Malvern Hills,
and in the valleys draining the high ground of Enville and the Clent-Lickey
range, which resulted from these conditions. Most of these grade down
to the Main ‘Terrace level in the adjacent valley, and may be correlated
withthat terrace and thus with the third glaciation; though some seem to be
still younger and to correlate with the Worcester Terrace and the Welsh
Re-advance.
94 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
(b) The Welsh Re-advance? or Little Welsh Glaciation.
The fourth and last glacier to reach our area was an extension of the
Upper Severn valley-glacier down as far as Shrewsbury to which White-
head has given the name Welsh Re-advance. ‘There is strong evidence
that the lowest of the important Severn Terraces, the Worcester Terrace,
was being formed during this re-advance. It is the highest terrace to be
recognised on both sides of the Iron Bridge gorge, and its level there shows
that the gorge was then some 60 feet shallower than now.
There is no conclusive evidence in the Midlands that the cold conditions
of the Welsh Re-advance were anything but a climatic oscillation in the
general amelioration that caused the gradual melting of the Irish Sea
glacier. Whitehead in his account of the Shrewsbury district writes as if
he considered that the Irish Sea ice-sheet possibly still existed not far to
the north, when the Welsh Re-advance glacier was at its maximum.
There is, however, some slight evidence for interglacial conditions in the
Midlands during the time between the deposition of the Main and Wor-
cester Terraces, which, taken in conjunction with evidence in other areas
(particularly the sealing by Irish Sea boulder clay of Upper Palaeolithic
caves in North Wales, and the upper boulder clay on the top of the Wrex-
ham delta-terrace, now being investigated by: Miss D. S. Coates), suggests
the possibility that the Irish Sea ice sheet first withdrew completely and
then re-invaded the northern part of its old domain simultaneously with
the re-advance of the Upper Severn glacier.
This problem is one among many relating to our glaciations that await
solution, and yet can never be solved by work in one restricted area. The
cry is always for accurate data in neighbouring areas. I close this address,
as I began it, by an appeal for amateurs who are willing to undertake con-
scientiously and scientifically the recording and co-ordinating of every
scrap of evidence in the district in which they live, whether it be a glacial
or a periglacial one. If this were done so carefully that no temporary
exposure escaped record, data would gradually, but I think quickly, accu-
mulate by which some at least of the many outstanding problems of glacial
correlation and interpretation would reach solution.
? The map, Fig. 2, does not attempt to show the limits of this along the Welsh
borderland, as worked out by Dwerryhouse and Miller and by Charlesworth, since
they lie wholly outside the Midlands.
SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY.
THE SEX RATIO
ADDRESS BY
PROF* FY Ac EP CREW, D.Sc;
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Or the thousands of zoological papers that appear in the course of a year
few surpass in interest the Statistical Review of the Registrar-General.
Its pages are crowded with irresistible invitations to thought, and nowhere
else can be encountered greater incentives to further inquiry through
observation and experimentation. Its title and address do not disguise
its real nature, for it deals with phenomena that are essentially zoological—
with growth, multiplication, natality and mortality in an animal population,
and with the results of the interplay of living animal and varying environ-
ment. It is, in fact, a progress report of a vast and exciting zoological
experiment which we are conducting, scientifically or otherwise, with
ourselves as the experimental material. For this reason alone it commands
the attention of the zoologist.
But there is another and even more cogent reason why we should
study this Review. Many of the data presented therein can be inter-
preted correctly only by such as can bring to their examination knowledge
derived from a comparative study of a number of different living forms.
Much concerning man must remain incomprehensible until the answers
to our questions are sought amongst the structures and behaviours of
other and sometimes quite lowly animals.
An excellent illustration of this contention is provided by the figures
in this Review which relate to the human sex ratio. Nothing is
easier than to demonstrate that for an understanding of the somewhat
startling and certainly intriguing facts concerning the relative numerical
proportions of the sexes in a human population we are inevitably forced
to make a comparative survey of the sex ratio amongst other mammals,
birds and insects, wild and domesticated, both in the open and under
the controlled conditions of experimentation. In this matter of the sex
ratio, to know only man is to understand nothing.
This subject of the numerical proportions of the sexes in a population
is of such obvious interest to the naturalist, the sociologist, the economist
amongst others, that it is not surprising to find that to it considerable
attention has been paid. But so complicated are the problems that cluster
round it that even yet our understanding of the significance of the sex
ratio is still very incomplete. It will be remembered that Darwin (1871),
in discussing the influence of natural selection on the sex ratio, made the
96 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
following observations: ‘In no case, as far as we can see, would an
inherited tendency to produce both sexes in equal numbers or to produce
one sex in excess, be a direct advantage or disadvantage to certain indi-
viduals more than to others . . . and therefore a tendency of this kind
could not be gained through natural selection. Nevertheless there are
certain animals in which two or more males appear to be necessary for
the fertilisation of the female: and the males accordingly largely pre-
dominate, but it is by no means obvious how this male-producing tendency
could have been acquired. I formerly thought that when a tendency to
produce the two sexes in equal numbers was an advantage to the species
it would follow from natural selection, but I now see that the whole
problem is so intricate that it is safer to leave its solution for the future.’
I myself belong to a generation whose thoughts and actions have been
largely moulded by Darwin’s opinions and attitudes. It is but natural,
therefore, impressed as I am by his greatness, that I should hesitate to
assume that I might contribute towards the solution of a problem that
Darwin himself set aside. But recent developments in cyto-genetics
have removed many of the difficulties that surrounded this subject in
Darwin’s time and it is, I think, now possible to re-examine the problem
more hopefully. I am encouraged in this view by the writings of Fisher
(1930) who in presenting his concept of reproductive value logically
maintains that the sex ratio adjusts itself under the influence of natural
selection in such a way that the total parental expenditure incurred in
respect of each sex is equal. Accepting this argument, I propose to
attempt to uncover the mechanisms that may be concerned in such
adjustment.
From the pages of the Registrar-General’s Report for 1935 I have torn
all the information that deals with the sex ratio. ‘The abundant tables so
completely detailed show that in that year in England and Wales for every
100 girl babies born alive there were no fewer than 105-6 boys. Expressed
differently, the secondary sex ratio (the sex ratio that obtains amongst
newly born infants) was 105-6: 100.
During the same year the sex ratio for the babies who died during the
7th-gth months of intra-uterine life was 110: 100, being significantly
higher than the secondary sex ratio.
The population, being classified by the Registrar-General into 5-year
age groups, and the sex ratio of each of these groups computed, it is
revealed in the most striking fashion that the sex ratio becomes greatly
altered as we pass from the younger to the older age groups. ‘This swing
is indeed remarkable, for a numerical preponderance of males amongst
the earlier age groups gives place to a numerical equality of the sexes
among the 15-19-year olds, whilst amongst the 20-24-year olds the
females actually begin to outnumber the males; and thereafter, as age
group succeeds age group, this female numerical ascendancy progressively
increases until, amongst the 85’s and over, there are more than twice as
many women as men.
This swing in the sex ratio from high to very low, is shown to be the
result of a sexually selective mortality, for the mortality tables make it
clear that at all ages relatively more males are removed from the popula-
ee gl) i i el ee ae
D.—ZOOLOGY 97
tion by death; amongst those aged 75 and over actually more females
than males die for the very simple and obvious reason that amongst the in-
dividuals of 75 and over awaiting death there are far more females than males.
It would appear from these figures alone that to be born is a more
dangerous adventure for the male than for the female, and that there is
a sexually selective mortality which not only operates at all ages after
birth to the disadvantage of the male, but which acts and possibly
equally strongly pre-natally as well. The expectation of life at all ages
is greater in the case of the female of the species, and the true recipe for
longevity is to be born a girl. The political power of women in a demo-
cracy such as ours, which pretends to disregard sex differences, is much
less than that which their numbers could command.
A considerable number of other facts and observations concerning the
human sex ratio and relevant to the present discussion are easily found
in the abundant literature that deals with this particular subject. It is
generally accepted, for example, that the sex ratio amongst abortuses is
higher than that amongst still-births, and there is sufficient reason for
holding the view that the sex ratio amongst abortuses of the earlier months
of intra-uterine life is much higher than that amongst those of the later
months. It has been shown that the secondary sex ratio is influenced
by urbanisation, being lower in county boroughs than in rural areas. The
secondary sex ratio would seem to be affected by’social upheavals. It is
commonly held, for example, that in those countries directly engaged in the
Great War the secondary sex ratio was high immediately following the
cessation of hostilities and higher immediately after than immediately
before the War; neutral countries affected commercially by the War
experiencing the same phenomenon, though not to the same extent. The
secondary sex ratio is highest amongst the first-born, and declines with
increasing size of family in a curvilinear manner. It is influenced by
migration, the migrants having a higher or a lower secondary sex ratio
than their relatives who remain in the homelands. Usually it is lower
amongst illegitimates than amongst living children born in wedlock.
As a rule it is lower amongst coloured people than amongst the whites
-amid whom they live. It is affected by social status, being higher in the
upper and middle classes and lower amongst the unskilled workers. In
places and in periods where infant mortality is high the ratio of boy deaths
to girl deaths is low, and where there is a low rate of infant mortality the
death rate of boys is relatively high. With the reduction of infant
mortality that has occurred within recent years there has been a marked
relative increase of boy deaths. The sex ratio at death amongst infants
during the first year of life varies with the age of the infants : for the very
young it is high, but decreases during the year.
A consideration of these facts must ultimately lead to the conclusion
that in the case of man, for some reason or other, the male, in virtue of
his maleness, is less viable than the female, so that, under unfavourable
circumstances, both pre-natally and post-natally, the male, because of
this greater inherent fragility, suffers more easily and more severely than
does the female, and is removed from the population by death in greater
numbers. Furthermore, since this selective elimination of the male occurs
E
98 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
before as well as after birth, it follows that since the secondary sex ratio
is 105 :100, the primary sex ratio (that which obtains at conception)
must be higher than this, high enough, presumably, to allow for the
wastage that occurs.
This suggested explanation of the difference between the primary and
secondary sex ratios and of the greater mortality of the male would seem
to accommodate every demand made upon it. Thus: abortion is far
more common than is usually recognised. Out of every 100 conceptions
only 78 can be expected to yield living offspring. The incidence of
abortion is higher during the earlier months of pregnancy. If, then, the
conditions which attend pregnancy are unfavourable to the embryo and
foetus, foetal death is made more probable, and if the male foetus is less
viable than the female, more males than females will perish. Under such
circumstances, the secondary sex ratio will be low. ‘The sex ratio amongst
abortuses will be higher than that amongst still-births for the reason that
the differences in viability between male and female are greatest during
the earlier stages of intra-uterine development. Movements in the
secondary sex ratio can therefore be used as a measure of the success or
otherwise of the social services, of slum clearance, of the general health
of a community. The secondary sex ratio is lower in county boroughs
than in rural areas for the reason that abortion and still-birth are more
common in urban populations. The greater frequency of abortion
implies a higher male mortality, and therefore a lower sex ratio amongst
those who are born alive. The secondary sex ratio is thus a biological
yardstick with which town and country may be measured. It is highest
amongst first-born for the reason that the incidence of abortion and mis-
carriage is higher in large than in small families ; thus, in a dwindling
population, the secondary sex ratio will be high. It differs in different
countries for the reason that in them there are different standards of living
and of personal and public hygiene so that abortion and miscarriage are
commoner in one country than in another. It is influenced by migration
because of the reactions of the migrants to the new conditions. If the
migrants move from a relatively harsh environment to a relatively generous
one, so that the conditions associated with child-bearing are greatly im-°
proved, it is to be expected that there will be fewer abortions and
miscarriages, and so relatively more male births and a high sex ratio.
This holds true of Northern European immigrants in the United States
of America. On the other hand, Southern European immigrants have
a lower sex ratio than their kin remaining in Europe for the reason that
the new conditions are to them less favourable than were those in
the countries from which they came. They reinforce the lowest social
categories, and a harsh European environment is replaced by one even
harsher. Thus the secondary sex ratio can, in such circumstances, be
used as an index of the success or otherwise of immigration. It is lower
amongst illegitimates than amongst legitimates for the reason that abortion
and still-birth are commoner amongst the former for very obvious
reasons. If it is not lower among illegitimates then it is to be assumed
that in that particular community illegitimacy is not regarded as an
unforgivable social error. It is lower amongst coloured people than
D.—ZOOLOGY 99
amongst their white neighbours if and when the standards of personal and
public hygiene of the two sections of the community differ at all markedly.
Usually the standards of the coloured peoples are lower, and for this
reason abortion and miscarriage amongst them are more frequent. It is
affected by social status for the reason that in general the higher the status
the more generous is the environment, the smaller the family and the
greater the attention given to the child-bearing mother. ‘The differences
between the social classes in respect of the sex ratio are to be related to
differences in the incidence of abortion. In a class-less state with a high
standard of living, the sex ratio will be uniformly high. The relation
between primary and secondary sex ratios is unaffected when infantile
mortality generally is high, and is disturbed when this is low for the reason
that high infantile mortality indicates the action of death-dealing diseases
of such potency as to overwhelm any difference in respect of viability on
the part of male and female. Such diseases kill both boys and girls with-
out discrimination. Under these circumstances, since both boys and
girls are removed, the sex ratio is unaffected. Low infantile mortality,
on the other hand, implies relatively mild attacks of disease-provoking
agencies which discriminate between male and female, leaving the female
untouched in virtue of her greater constitutional strength, but removing
the weaker male to yield a low sex ratio. Since, in this respect, the
sexes are so different, it follows that in the case of an ailing male child
the doctor is called upon to treat not only the pathological condition but
also the condition of maleness.
The disturbance of the secondary sex ratio that is commonly supposed
to be associated with protracted war is not so easily explained. If it is
indeed the case that there is a real and significant rise in the sex ratio
associated with war then the explanation would seem to be that under
the conditions that exist the incidence of abortion and miscarriage falls.
It has been suggested that the lengthy absences of husbands with a
consequent reduction in the frequency of intercourse and therefore of
pregnancy mean rest and repair for the wives and the attainment of a
greater degree of physiological fitness. ‘This of course would lead to a
lowering of the incidence of abortion in those cases in which pregnancy
did occur. Furthermore, war is associated with a rise in the marriage
rate, and this means relatively more first babies, and the high sex ratio
that obtains amongst such. However, this suggestion of a modification
of the secondary sex ratio associated with war demands further examina-
tion, for it has been shown that if the sex ratio of a population is traced
over a long period of time it is usual to find evidences of a definite secular
trend, upwards in some countries, downwards in others (Russell, 1936),
so that it may be that the sex ratio associated with war can be evaluated
only when it is studied in relation to this movement of the sex ratio
generally which can be seen only if 100 or more years are reviewed.
In explanation of the observed inequality in mortality and longevity
of the sexes in man a number of suggestions have been offered. To
account for the particularly high mortality of male infants around the
time of birth emphasis has been placed upon size differences between the
sexes. ‘Typically the male is the larger, with the bigger head and with
10G SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
bones more completely ossified, and so, as would be expected, it is the male
that suffers more from birth injuries and from the epilepsy that follows
upon such. The sex ratio of such cases is approximately 160 : 100.
There are other causes of death which operate almost exclusively upon
one sex : hernia is a cause of death of male infants, gonococcal infections
are restricted almost exclusively to the female infant. But the explana-
tion of this is to be found in a consideration of the anatomical differences
that distinguish the sexes at birth. Such sex-limited conditions obviously
cannot provide an explanation of the difference in the sex incidence of
death among early abortuses, and, in any case, they lose their significance
when the tables in the Registrar-General’s Annual Review giving the
causes and the sex incidence of death are examined, for it is seen that from
all causes there is everywhere a general proneness on the part of male
infants to die in greater numbers, and that in general the earlier in life
the onset of a disease, the higher is the sex ratio among its fatal cases.
This is true of infectious as well as of other diseases, and the only possible
explanation for this would seem to be that the differences between the
sexes in respect of capacity for continued life is greatest in early infancy.
Violent deaths remove twice as many males as females from a popula-
tion in the course of a year, and therefore necessarily distort the sex ratio
among certain age groups, but murder, suicide, deaths on the road,
occupational accidents, warfare and migration cannot possibly explain
away the gentle swing in the sex ratio from conception to extreme
senescence. There is no doubt whatsoever that the whole course of sex
mortality in pre-natal life, in infancy, and in all subsequent age periods is
consistent with the view that the male in man is the inherently weaker
sex, more prone on account of his relative constitutional weakness to
developmental anomalies, to congenital debility and to death from
diseases of all kinds.
This being so, it is necessary to contrast male and female in order to
determine what fundamental differences distinguish them, and to decide
which of these may be held responsible for the observed differences
between the sexes in respect of viability.
Male differs from female in genetic constitution. He is heterogametic,
possessing but a single X-chromosome and elaborating two kinds of
gametes, X-chromosome-bearing and Y-chromosome-bearing respectively.
The female is constitutionally homogametic, possessing two X-chromo-
somes and therefore elaborating ova all of which are alike in that each
carries one X. In respect of X-borne genes the male is equipped with
a single set, the female with two. It follows from this that in the female
a mutant recessive gene in one X can be cancelled out by its wildtype
dominant allele in the other, whereas the same recessive gene in the single
X of the heterogametic individual is unchecked and unrestrained and is
expressed to produce its full effect. Upon this firm basis of ascertained
fact, the sex-linked lethal theory, which seeks to account for the sexually
selective mortality and the swing in the sex ratio, has been built. It
has been advocated by Lenz (1923), Gunther (1923), Geiser (1924-5),
Huxley (1924), Schirmer (1929) among others, and had its beginning as
long ago as 1912 when Morgan first drew attention to the lower vitality
D.—ZOOLOGY IoI
of the mutant white-eyed stocks as compared with that of wildtype
Drosophila melanogaster and when, in the following year, Hyde, using
wildtype and truncate flies produced evidence which seemed to show that
duration of life had a genetic basis. In 1916 Morgan and Bridges listed
all the known mutants in the X-chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster
and noted for many of them their effect upon the duration of life. They
found that certain mutant genes very effectively reduce the viability of
the males and alter the secondary sex ratio and discovered a number of
sex-linked ‘ lethal ’ genes which caused the death of all males carrying
them. Later Pearl and Parker (1921) proceeded to demonstrate the
constancy of definite degrees of mean longevity of inbred stocks of
Drosophila. They found, for example, that their ‘ Old Falmouth ’ wild-
type males had at emergence an expectation of life of 41-0 days, whereas
quintuple males with 5 mutant genes had one of only 14:2 days. Crosses
between the two stocks were made by Pearl, Parker and Gonzalez (1923),
and in the F, definite evidence of segregation presented itself. Gonzalez
(1923) further studied the mean duration of life of strains of Drosophila
possessing 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of these mutant genes, and ascertained that in
so far as their effect on duration of life was concerned, the individual
mutants behaved as units.
Since this time a great mass of information concerning these matters
has been accumulated, and it is clear that these lethals exist in considerable
numbers in such animal and plant stocks that have been subjected to
genetical experimentation. They are not vague abstractions invoked
by the diagnostically destitute to explain away a mortality that they cannot
comprehend : they are genes which can be mapped and which have an effect
upon the secondary sex ratio that can be predicted. They can be in-
corporated into and rejected from a genotype at will and in this way the
dimensions of a secondary sex ratio can, within limits, be experimentally
controlled. Their presence and wide distribution in wild populations
have been amply demonstrated, and no doubts remain that they are
responsible, in part at least, for the higher mortality of the heterogametic
sex, both pre- and post-natally.
But there are genetic differences between the sexes which are sex-
limited, not sex-linked. Levit (1935) has presented a very consider-
able body of evidence which shows that many defects and derangements
in man, formerly regarded as recessives, are partial irregular dominants,
and that many of these are more often and more completely expressed
in the male than in the female. Furthermore, he has shown that many of
these characters which previously had been classified as sex-linked are in
reality sex-limited, being expressed only in the male. He explains the
greater manifestation of heterozygous genes, corresponding to defects, in
the male, on the ground that in man selection is less intense among males
than among females so that such genes would tend to accumulate in the
male as would also genes causing sex-limitation. From an examination
of the sex ratio among the relatives of the father and mother Levit has been
led to the conclusion that few of the male deaths at or before birth are
due to sex-linked lethals. From this it would appear that though sex-
linked lethals are certainly responsible for some of the differences in male
102 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
and female mortality rates, it is much more likely that sex-limited defects
and derangements, expressed either before birth or in senescence, are
also heavily concerned.
Sex differences in chromosome constitution may imply more than a
difference in respect of sex-limitation and of sex-linked lethals ; they
may mean also a difference in genic balance. Two X-chromosomes
together with two sets of autosomes include a gene association different
from that which is resident in one X-chromosome and a Y-chromosome
plus two sets of autosomes. ‘The work of Gowen (1931) who studied the
duration of life in males, females, triploid females and sex-intergrades of
Drosophila melanogaster to find that the average length of life was 33:1,
28-9, 33°1 and 15 days respectively, can be regarded as providing evidence
that differences in chromosome balance is a factor in determining the
span of life. It may be that this difference in genic balance between
male and female is itself a cause of unequal mortality, though it is difficult
to regard the male as being less well balanced genically since he has
endured as long a course of selection as has the female and it would be
expected that dosage compensation would ensure a proper balance in
each sex regardless of differences in dosage ratios.
There are other differences, metabolic and physiological, which quickly
appear in development and which, in turn, give rise to endocrinological
differences which, when once established, take charge of further differ-
entiation and the maintenance of sexuality in the higher forms. The
initial genetic constitution would seem to determine which of two alter-
native types of differentiation shall occur—either toward testis formation,
or else toward ovary formation—and, with the incoming of the gonad and
the rest of the endocrine system, maleness or else femaleness becomes
finally and firmly established. ‘These two states or conditions are to be
distinguished by sustained differences in oxidation rate.
It will be remembered that Geddes and Thomson (1889), having
looked widely upon living things, were driven to the conclusion that
males are predominantly catabolic, females anabolic, that the deep
constitutional difference between the male and the female organism which
makes one a sperm-producer and the other an egg-producer was due to
an initial difference in the balance of chemical agencies. This hypothesis
has been much refined and elaborated by Riddle (1931) who assumes
that the genes exercise their influence on developing sexuality by establish-
ing higher or lower oxidation rates. He points out that if sex differences
rest primarily on prolonged and sustained differences in the rate of
cellular oxidation during the earliest phases of development, this difference
should often be well expressed in adult stages as well and should manifest
itself in adequate measurements of metabolic rate and in various states or
conditions of the blood and tissues which restrict, indicate or accompany
metabolic rate. Adequate measurements of basal metabolism of the
sexes have been made in the young human (Benedict and Talbot, 1g2r),
adult human (Benedict and Emmes, 1914, and also Gephart and du Bois,
(1916), in the adult fowl (Mitchell, Card and Haines, 1927), the rat
(Benedict and MacLeod, 1929) and in the ring dove (Riddle, Christman
and Benedict, 1930). In every case the higher metabolism, from 3 to
D.—ZOOLOGY 103
14 per cent., has been found in the male. Because of their relationship
to respiration the erythrocytes and hemoglobin might be expected usually
to show a sex difference. Adequate measurements of both erythrocyte
number and hemoglobin content have been made on the adult in man
(Haden, 1922, Rud, 1923), in the fowl (Blacher, 1926), pigeon and ring
dove (Riddle and Braucher, 1931), and in every case the higher erythro-
cyte amount, 2: 3-31 per cent., and the higher hemoglobin value, 7—35 per
cent., is found in the male.
In the light of these and similar observations it is reasonable to expect
that the higher metabolic rate of the male should render him less resistant
to unfavourable conditions and more prone to death. That this expectation
is justified is shown by the results of a considerable number of varied
experiments, the following of which are cited as examples.
MacArthur and Baillie (1929) found that at 28° C. the mean duration
of life of the females of Daphnia magna exceeded that of the males by
33°35 per cent., by 15-82 per cent. at 18° C., and by only 0-43 per cent.
at 8° C., and they further demonstrated that this extreme response of the
males was probably a factor of their metabolic level. Riddle, Christman
and Benedict (1930) found that the basal metabolism of male pigeons was
more easily and extremely affected by such conditions as unusually high
temperature and low oxygen supply than was that of the females. Essen-
berg (1923) showed that the males of the sword-tailed minnow X7phophorus
helleri are 2-25 per cent. more susceptible to KCN, alcohol and extremes
of temperature, whilst Hildebrand (1927) found by direct test that the
males of Gambusia are much less resistant to high temperature, altered
pH, KCN and oxygen deficiency.
The metabolic theory is, at the present time, somewhat crude, lacking
the precision and smoothness that distinguish the alternative and attractive
sex-linked lethal theory, but nevertheless in it there lies truth. It is to
be expected that, with advances in our knowledge of endocrinology, and
with the increasing manufacture of synthetic equivalents of the elaborated
products of gonad, pituitary, thyroid and the rest, we shall soon be
equipped with the means of exploring completely those physiological
differences between the sexes which seem to be connected with differences
in mortality, and, moreover, it will then perhaps become possible to repair
by chemical means the deficiencies which maleness now confers upon its
exhibitors.
It is desirable at this stage to find out if the sex ratio of man is peculiar,
or whether the facts and observations concerning the human sex ratio
apply also and equally to that of other living forms.
A great mass of data relating to the secondary sex ratio in animals of
economic importance has been accumulated, and though herd and stud
books are, for various reasons, inclined to be somewhat inaccurate, the
records therein do possess a certain value. An examination of these shows
that in the case of the horse the secondary sex ratio has been found by all
who investigated it to be low, so also has been that of the sheep. That of
cattle has a wide range, from very low to very high, whilst that of the pig
and of the dog has always been found to be high. But, from the point
of view of the present study, the secondary sex ratio by itself possesses
104 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
little value. The fact that it is never equality is of course a matter of
considerable interest, and invites speculation, but unfortunately the figures
relating to pre-natal and early post-natal death are but few, and, for the
most part, were garnered many years ago. However, it is the case that
in all instances in which figures for the sex ratio of still-births amongst
these animals of the farm have been examined they always show that this
is higher than that amongst live births. Thus Goehlert (1888) gives
106 : 100 for still-births, and 96:5: 100 for live births amongst horses.
In cattle, Lillie (1916) found the sex ratio amongst still-births to be
134: 100 ; Jewell (1921) 123 : 100, that for live births being 100-110 : 100.
Parkes (1925), examining the sex ratio amongst pig foetuses classified
into different weight groups, found that the sex ratio was very much
higher amongst them than was the standard secondary sex ratio, and,
further, that the size groups showed an inverse correlation between male
percentage and the stage of development. He concluded that the primary
sex ratio in the pig must be about 160: 100. Krizenecky (1935) in a
review of the sex ratio in the pig gives that of still-births as 119 : 100,
compared with 101-8 : 100 for live births.
The figures for post-natal mortality from natural causes amongst these
animals are of course exceedingly rare, for it is man himself who here
wields the sickle. For this reason the tertiary sex ratio (that which
obtains amongst an adult population) provides no information of any
value to the present discussion. However, my colleagues have provided
me with figures which show the relative male and female wastage amongst
our pigs between birth and weaning. The secondary sex ratio amongst
2,336 pigs is 104-9 : 100, whereas that amongst the 1,489 which remain
alive at the time of weaning has fallen to 97-4 : 100, the percentage loss
amongst the males being 38-6, that amongst the females, 33:7. These
figures suggest that the pre-natal mortality in the pig which discriminates
against the male is continued at least up to the time of weaning.
Thus, as far as they go, the figures relating to the mammals of the farm
without exception suggest that the male amongst them shares with the
male of man a relative frailty and endures a selective elimination both
before and after birth.
The laboratory rat and mouse have provided records which, though
far less numerous, are more reliable than those derived from stud books.
The secondary sex ratio of the albino rat is accepted as being roughly
106 : 100, that amongst still-born rats was found by King (1921) to be
129°3:100. In the case of the mouse the secondary sex ratio for the
ordinary albino as recorded by different investigators is round about
equality with a slight suggestion of male excess. There is some difference
of opinion concerning the relation of pre-natal mortality and the secondary
sex ratio in this animal. The earlier observations of Parkes (1924)
suggested that there was a considerable pre-natal mortality and that this
was sexually selective, falling preponderatingly on the male. Continua-
tion of this study, however, failed to support this conclusion. Further-
more, McDowell and Lord (1925), in the case of their own mouse stock,
have shown fairly conclusively that during gestation there had been no
continuous sexually selective elimination of one sex or the other. In the
D.—ZOOLOGY 105
case of the laboratory mammals, therefore, it may be accepted that though
in certain stocks there is no evidence of a selective pre-natal mortality,
yet in others in which it undoubtedly occurs it is the male that is removed
in greater numbers.
In the case of birds there is much that is anecdotal and a certain amount
of information that has been derived from experimentation. It will be
remembered that Darwin’s correspondents assured him that male birds
were caught in greater numbers than were females, and that he accepted
this presumed preponderance of males in nature as a fact supporting his
theory of sexual selection. Pelseneer’s (1921) summary closes with the
statement that in the known cases where observation had been possible
an early excess of males at hatching and in young birds may be preserved
into adult life, but becomes less marked owing to the shorter life and higher
mortality of the males, and is often followed by an equality of the sexes
or even by a numerical preponderance of females. Darwin accepted
the view that in the domestic pigeon there is good evidence either that
males are produced in excess or that they live longer, and that the hen
is generally the weaker of the two and more likely to perish. Cole and
Kirkpatrick (1915) found a secondary sex ratio of 105 : 100 in the pigeon
and recorded that post-natally there was an early period with an excess of
male deaths followed by an adolescent and reproductive phase with a
slight ,excess of female deaths, but that, on the whole, there was no
significant change of the sex ratio with advancing age. Whitman’s
figures (1919) for the Japanese turtle dove, presented by Riddle, show that
the male is often the longer-lived, whilst Haig Thomas and Huxley (1927)
found that in pheasant species crosses there was a predominance of males
at hatching and also a large and distinctive excess of male deaths both
before and after hatching, so that a secondary sex ratio of 67-1 per cent.
‘males became reduced to 50:1 per cent. in the adult, they concluded that
in the case of these pheasant crosses the early post-natal mortality
of the male is much greater than that of the female.
Concerning the sex ratio of the fowl there is an abundant literature,
much of which has been summarised in the papers to which reference is
now made. Landauer and Landauer (1931) computed that amongst
67,993 live born chicks the percentage of males was 48-77, whereas
among those dying during the first eight weeks of life it was 52-7 --0°5.
They therefore concluded that in the fowl, as also in man, post-natal
mortality is higher amongst males and that if any differential mortality
during embryonic development occurs it is the male that suffers more.
But Byerley and Jull (1935) present an even greater body of data. They
hold the view that data on embryonic mortality were dismissed as in-
adequate by Landauer and Landauer, and largely ignored by MacArthur
and Baillie (1932), and show that in the literature are to be found records
of 6,864 dead embryos of which 48-59 per cent. were males. ‘They
themselves examined a further 17,989 dead in shell to find among these
47°56 per cent. males. Thus, among the whole 24,853 dead embryos
there are only 47-85 per cent. males, a highly significant deviation from
equality.
Adding their own figures to those in the literature they find among
E2
106 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
96,008 live born chicks, 49:17 -- 0:11 per cent. males—a figure still
significantly lower than 50 per cent., so that it would appear that in spite
of the fact that more females than males die before hatching there is still
a slight preponderance of females among the live born.
As regards early post-natal mortality neither Jull (1931) nor Byerley
and Jull (1935) could find any evidence to show that this was in any way
differential between the sexes. There is no reason why there should be
if only viable chicks are hatched and if the conditions of brooding are such
as not to discriminate against one sex. In order to determine which sex
is less viable during early post-natal life, it would be necessary to keep the
chicks under less favourable conditions ; at the present time the techniques
of artificial incubation are not so highly developed as are those of artificial
brooding.
These conclusions attach to themselves a particular importance for
the reason that in birds the heterogametic sex is the female. A com-
parative study of the sex ratio and sex incidence of mortality in mammals
and birds might be expected, therefore, to determine to what extent the
heterogametic constitution itself is connected with mortality. If in
mammals it is the male and in birds the female that is found to be the more
fragile, then it becomes possible to assert that it is the heterogametic sex
that is the less viable and to seek the cause-of this relative inviability in
the heterogametic constitution. If, on the other hand, it should prove
in both mammals and birds to be the male that is removed by natural
death in greater numbers, maleness itself must be held to be the cause.
The figures for the fowl seem to show that it is the heterogametic
sex upon which death falls more heavily pre-natally so that it becomes
possible at once to decide that in the heterogametic mechanism itself a
factor of importance is to be found. But more information concerning
birds generally is urgently needed. ,
Geiser (1923) in reviewing the literature dealing with the sex ratio in
fish found that in populations taken at birth the sexes were either nearly
equally represented or else showed a slight excess of females, and that in
older populations the females were always more numerous; in some
instances greatly so. But the evidence loses a great deal of its value for
the reason that the sex chromosome constitution of such fish as the plaice,
salmon, smelt, dog-fish and top minnow has not yet been determined, so
that it is impossible to relate the above findings to heterogamety.
Concerning insects many records have been published showing that
the normal male does not live as long as the female. Arendsen Hein
(1920) found that among 13,754 young pupz of the meal worm beetle
taken at random the sex ratio was 100 males : 100-3 females. In a series
of 32 experiments he ascertained that in this species the male lives on the
average 60 days, the female 111. Pearl (1923) found that in the case of
Drosophila melanogaster (male heterogamety) the survival relations of the
two sexes were exactly like those in man ; at practically all ages in Droso-
phila the number of survivals at any given age is higher amongst the
females than amongst the males. The mean duration of life for the male
is 31-3 days; that for the female 33-0 days.
There is a series of papers by Rau and Rau (1914) dealing with large
D.—ZOOLOGY 107
saturnid moths (female heterogamety) which are always quoted as sup-
porting the contention that in this group males commonly outlive the
females, but, in point of fact, an analysis of their figures by MacArthur
and Baillie (1932) shows that the contrary holds true for five out of six
of the species. Graf (1917), working with the potato tuber moth, found
that the males died first in 221 out of 275 pairs in the experiment, and
concluded that the length of life of males is less than that of females.
In the gypsy moth (female heterogamety) Goldschmidt (1917) records
that the males are so precocious and so short-lived that they are often gone
before the later females are ripe. Very full information concerning the
mortality of the sexes of the codling moth (female heterogamety) is con-
tained in certain publications of the United States Department of Agri-
culture. ‘The studies were made on a very large scale, repeated over many
years and at stations widely separated, covering all sections of the conti-
nental United States. The most useful data from this source include the
records of longevity of imagoes from observations on large numbers of
mated moths reared in their natural sex ratios in large out-door oviposition
cages. From the figures given it is evident that at all stations and in all
generations (excepting only the first broods) the males are the shorter-lived.
The weighted average duration of life for females is 10:23 days, that. for
males 9:40 days. The difference between this is over twenty-five times
its probable error and is highly significant in view of the large number
on which it is based. MacArthur and Baillie (1932) use these figures very
effectually to maintain their conclusion that Lepidoptera afford no excep-
tion to the rule that the larger destruction and shorter life of males,
irrespective of whether these be homo- or hetero-gametic, cause them to
become relatively fewer at advanced ages.
A multitude of other references could be quoted, but were this done
nothing very essential to this discussion would have been added. Every-
where one finds support of a kind for the contention that the male,
irrespective of his actual sex chromosome constitution, is the shorter-lived.
Though much remains unclear, demanding further and more critical
examination, enough has been gleaned from this necessarily incomplete
survey to show beyond all doubt that there is nothing unique about the
human sex ratio and that the factors which operate to distort it are exactly
those which produce the same results in other forms. Sex-linked lethals
and other recessive disadvantageous X-borne genes are undoubtedly
concerned in the production of a sex incidence of mortality that bears
more heavily upon the heterogametic sex. But it is impossible, in the
face of all the evidence that has been presented, to conclude that all the
inequality in mortality and longevity between the sexes is due to the action
of such genes. Wildtype stocks of Drosophila shown to be free from
expressed lethals have exhibited the usual sex differences in longevity.
There are autosomal genes, as Gonzalez (1923) has shown, which com-
pletely reverse the usual mortality of the sexes and allow males to outlive
the females by a very significant number of days. So that mortality
and longevity are controlled through the whole genetic and environmental
complex ; they are not different and separate characters, but expressions
in time of the organisation of the body.
108 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
As a general rule, the males of all groups, except those derived from
wide crosses in which genic balance is more likely to be unusual, appear
to show a relatively low viability, irrespective of their homo- or hetero-
gamety, and the difference in the death rates of the sexes appears to be
as much correlated with sexuality itself as with any particular type of
chromosome or gene equipment. ‘That this should be so is perhaps not
surprising when the relative reproductive values of the sexes are com-
pared. The major task of one generation of gamete producers is the
production, economically and efficiently, of a succeeding generation that
numerically will be in harmony with the conditions and resources of the
habitat. That of the females of a generation is the production of the
requisite number of ova; that of the males the production of sperma-
tozoa in numbers sufficient to make the fertilisation of every available egg
highly probable. The number of spermatozoa required will be deter-
mined by many factors—e.g. the variety of the fertilisation process, the
pre-natal and post-natal relations of mother and offspring, the relation-
ship of male to female in respect of parentage. If the male is merely a
fertilising agent, then economy and efficiency are observed if the male dies
in coitu or is for other reasons shorter-lived than the female so long as
there are more or less equal numbers of males and females of the age when
fertilisation occurs. If the male is concerned with the protection of and
food-finding for the female and her young then the length of life of the
male might be expected to be related to the duration of the period of
dependency of the young upon the parents and of the female upon the
male, and it might reasonably be assumed that when the male has served
his purpose he would be removed so that savings in food entrgy could be
effected and used for further reproduction.
In the light of the facts and observations that have been presented,
it is desirable to examine Table 31, Volume 2, of the Report on the
Census of Scotland, 1931. Here it is seen that in this human population,
though between the ages of o-14 there were more males than females,
and between the ages of 20-100 there were more females than males,
the sex ratio of those in the population between the ages of 15 and 19
was equality. So, also, in the Registrar-General’s Annual Review for
1935 will it be found that among those aged 15-19 is the sex ratio most
nearly equality. It can be stated, therefore, that in the case of these
human populations the sex ratio is equality only amongst those who
stand at the threshold of their reproductive prime. This fact is surely
not without significance. The age group in which the sex ratio is equality
consists of those who, biologically if not socially, are newly equipped for
ardent reproduction. Amongst them there is no surplus: there are
equal numbers of males and females. If, during the biological evolution
of man, pair-mating attached to itself a definite and positive value, it
would be expected that all the mechanisms concerned in the establishment
of a sex ratio of near equality among the 14-19 age group would, through
selection, come ultimately to be related harmoniously to this end.
Implied in this suggestion is yet another: that in the case of any
population of living things, and under the conditions that exist in any
given place and at any given time, there is an optimum sex ratio amongst
D.—ZOOLOGY 109
those of the ages associated with the fullest expression of the reproductive
function, and that through selection all the mechanisms, whatever they
may be, which influence this are fashioned into harmony with this “ re-
productive” sex ratio. It is necessary, therefore, to discuss the meaning
in biological philosophy of mutation, sex and heterogamety, all of which
are intimately concerned.
Mutation is a mechanism that has become adapted and elaborated for
the provision of material possibilities of evolutionary movement. It takes
the form of the replacement of one gene by an allelomorph :—the sub-
stitution of a gene that, having been tested and found worthy, has come to
be in harmony with the rest of the genotype, and through this with the
conditions of the external environment, by another, the merits of which
have yet to be determined. More often than not, therefore, mutation
implies a disturbance of an equilibrium within the genotype itself, and
between this and the external environment. It is usual, therefore, to
find that mutation leaves the genotype less in harmony with the existing
external conditions than was that which it has replaced. Mutation, the
inception of a new heritable variation, thus usually equips its possessors
with a handicap, imposing on them a disadvantage that can range from
inconvenience to complete lethality.
Sex is the mechanism that has become adapted for the dispersal of a
mutant gene amongst a population. ‘Through its exercise a new gene
can become incorporated into a variety of genotypes, and thus given the
opportunity of finding itself associated with other genes with which it
can interact. It is established that the quality of the action of a gene is
largely determined by this interaction with others, for, as judged by its
effects upon the life processes of the zygote, it can exhibit disadvantageous
properties when in one gene association, advantageous when in another.
For the quiet dispersal of a mutant gene in this way it is necessary that it
should be recessive, initially at least, to the gene that it has displaced, for
then it can pursue a cryptomeric existence for a considerable period of
time.
If the great usefulness of sexuality lies in the opportunities it provides
for variety in gene recombination and for the exercise of selection then its
advantages will be best exploited when, among those about to reproduce,
there is a sex ratio of equality. ‘This observation would not seem to apply
to those instances in which gene combinations that are common or are
exceedingly rare are concerned, but a sex ratio of equality among the
parents would seem to provide the greatest variety of recombinations in
the offspring in the case of gene combination of intermediate rarity. Be
this as it may, a device for the production of a sex ratio of equality has
certainly been elaborated.
Heterogamety is a mechanism that has become adapted for the pro-
duction of a primary sex ratio of equality. In its evolution in the higher
forms it has taken the form of the replacement in one sex of an X-chro-
mosome by a wholly or largely non-homologous Y-chromosome. ‘The
heterogametic sex, therefore, now possesses one X-chromosome, the
homogametic, two. An indirect result of this evolution has been that
a recessive mutant gene in the differential segment of the X-chromosome
110 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
is at once uncovered in the case of the heterogametic individual, and so,
if in its action such a gene is disadvantageous, deleterious or lethal, to it
no time is allowed for the finding of modifying company and for the
pursuit of its own evolutionary development. It is expressed and tested
within a very short time of its first appearance, and should it cripple or
kill, it is the heterogametic sex that is affected. In this way the sex ratio
becomes modified, for the heterogametics either die before birth or else
their early post-natal mortality is greater than is that of the homogametics.
It is somewhat surprising that so few sex-linked lethals have so far been
discovered in mammals. It would seem that the differential segment of
the X is relatively insignificant and that the crossover portion, which
could not yield a differential mortality since its genes would not auto-
matically be expressed in the male, is relatively large.
It is thus possible to look upon the inequality in capacity for continued
life between the sexes as being partly of the nature of an evolutionary over-
sight due to a lag in the development of a harmonious relationship between
the mechanisms of mutation and heterogamety. But this disharmony has
been repaired by the invention of a supplementary device which can
provide a compensatory primary sex ratio, high in those species with
male heterogamety, low in those in which the heterogametic sex is the
female. It is established that in many, though not in all, mammalian
stocks, the primary sex ratio is much higher than is the secondary, and it
is in such stocks that there is much sexually selective mortality operating
to the disadvantage of the heterogametic sex. ‘This being so, it seems
reasonable to entertain the view that these three variables—the primary
sex ratio, a sexually selective pre-natal and early post-natal mortality
and the optimum reproductive sex ratio—are somehow related, the dimen-
sions of the first being connected with the amount of the second. Should
this prove to be the case, then it would follow that in general the greater
the incidence of mutation, the more common the sex-linked recessive
lethals and the greater the difference in the sex incidence of mortality in
adolescence in a stock with male heterogamety, the higher will be the
primary sex ratio, and, conversely, the rarer mutation is, the fewer the
lethals and the less the difference in the sex incidence of mortality between
conception and reproductive prime, the nearer to equality will this primary
sex ratio be.
This suggestion, of course demands that there should be genes which
affect the functioning of the heterogametic mechanism, and also that it
should be possible, by continued selection, to modify the primary sex
ratio of a stock. This will be equality when the heterogametic sex
elaborates its two kinds of gametes, X- and Y-chromosome-bearing
respectively, in equal numbers, and when both of these are equally
functional in fertilisation. Conversely, the primary sex ratio will be
removed more or less from equality if and when the two forms of gametes
are not produced by the heterogametic sex in equal numbers, or when,
between these two forms, there is functional inequality. ‘The fact that
in those instances where the primary sex ratio is not equality it is the
Y-bearing gamete that is either produced in greater numbers or is greatly
advantaged in fertilisation, so that more XY than XX gametes are pro-
D.—ZOOLOGY III
duced, is of great interest in view of the observed fact that it is the XY
zygote that suffers more through the action of sex-linked lethals.
It has been shown (King, 1919) to be possible, by continued selection
within an animal stock to produce high and low sex ratio strains, and
thus it would appear that there are genes which can be concentrated in
a genotype which, in their action, influence the heterogametic mechanism
affecting either the relative production of the two kinds of gametes pro-
duced by the heterogametic sex or else their relative functional ability.
If, as seems to be the case, the male in many forms and irrespective of
his chromosome constitution is the weaker sex, then in those instances
in which the male is homogametic, an excess of X-chromosome-bearing
ova is demanded from the hetero-gametic females or else there must be
some form of selective fertilisation, the X-ova being more often or more
readily fertilised.
That genes which lead to the production of X- and Y-bearing gametes
in unequal numbers do exist is shown very clearly indeed by the work of
Sturtevant and others. One such gene was discovered as long ago as
1922 (Morgan, Bridges and Sturtevant, 1925) in a strain of Drosophila
affinis in which occasional males were found to produce families consisting
almost entirely of females. A definite X-borne gene was suspected.
Gershenson (1928) found a similar gene in Drosophila obscura, and showed
that it was indeed resident in the X-chromosome. A male carrying this
gene produces very few sons, regardless of the genetic nature of his mate.
More recently (1936) Sturtevant and Dobzhansky have found that his
gene has a very wide geographical distribution in both races of Drosophila
pseudo-obscura, that it is sex-linked, lying in the right arm of the X-
chromosome, and being associated with a small inversion. Cytological
study has shown that in these cases the X-chromosome undergoes equa-
tional division at each meiotic division, whilst the Y-chromosome de-
generates with the result that a male carrying this gene produces nearly
all X-sperm instead of the usual 50 per cent. It is to be expected, of
course, that a sex ratio gene of this kind would be discovered only if its
effects upon the sex ratio were profound. But the existence of such genes
permits us to assume that other genes of the same kind, having less severe
effects upon the heterogametic mechanism, also exist and are responsible
for minor distortions of the sex ratio. If such genes do exist, then of
course, they can be incorporated into, or extruded from a genotype, and
upon them selective agencies can work their will. These sex ratio genes
may perhaps provide a partial explanation of the observation that hybrid-
isation commonly is attended by marked distortions of the secondary
sex ratio. Such hybridisation in man (Pearl and Pearl, 1908), in the
mouse (von Guaita, 1898, 1900), and in the rat (King, 1911), for example,
has given a secondary sex ratio much higher than those of the parental
stocks concerned, as might be expected if these had through time come to
possess different sex ratio gene complexes. It does not seem reasonable
to suppose that heterosis itself could produce such a result.
But all this is so much speculation, and the only justification for toying
with such ideas is that criticism may be aroused and experimentation
launched. I have presented evidence to show that three possible causes
112 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
of sex differences in mortality have to be considered: (1) sex-linked
lethals, (2) sex-limitation of defects and derangements, and (3) sex-
dimorphic physiological and endocrinological differences. It seems
probable that sex-linked lethals play only a minor part and that the defects
and derangements that have come to be manifested only or more completely
in the male owing to his relative unimportance in respect of propagation,
constitute the major cause, though as yet too little is known of sex differ-
ences in respect of hormones and their effects to permit us to regard these
as unimportant. For your pleasure and my own I have attempted to
construct a thought-model of a genetic mechanism that could yield what
I have called an optimum reproductive sex ratio ranging as this may
from equality to the grossest inequality. I have tried to reconcile the
views of the geneticist and of the physiologist out of whose disputations
has emerged a clear recognition of the need for a closer collaboration.
_ I have shown, I hope, that the problem of the human sex ratio must be
studied not only in the office of the statistician but also in the laboratory
of the experimental biologist and in the open country, and I have stressed
the view that out of the secondary sex ratio can be fashioned an instrument
of precision by the use of which a human society may measure the quality
of its structure.
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114 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
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(1912).
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SECTION E.—-GEOGRAPHY.
THE CHANGING DISTRIBUTION OF
POPULATION
ADDRESS BY
PROF. C. B. FAWCETT, D.Sc.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Tue changes which form the subject-matter of this address are obviously
of such importance, and so directly geographical, that the choice of the
topic for this Section needs no apology except on the score of its magni-
tude. Unfortunately, reliable statistical evidence of such changes is still
inadequate. The taking of systematic and regular censuses began, on
both sides of the North Atlantic, only near the beginning of the nineteenth
century; and the habit spread slowly to other lands. For the past
sixty years we have censuses, of varying value, for about half the popula-
tion of the earth, and during the present century for nearly three-fourths.
But for perhaps a quarter of the world’s population we must still rely on
estimates of uncertain and variable value. In very few countries can
we find a firm basis for a study of changes over the last three generations.
Hence there are practically no reliable studies of long-period population
changes!; and here I shall confine myself mainly to the facts of the
present century.
At the beginning of this century Levasseur made a notable study of
the distribution of the world’s population, in which he calculated the
proportions living in the various zones. This part of it I have reworked
for the present day, and the results are shown in the following table (1),
par0.
J The chief conclusions which may be drawn, tentatively, from these
figures are (1) that the proportion of mankind living in the intertropical
lands has diminished, though this change may be only apparent, due to
reduction in some of the estimates which Levasseur used ; (2) that there
has been a considerable increase in the small proportion which inhabits
the south temperate lands, and (3) that the really populous zone of the
northern lands has maintained, or even slightly increased, its dominance.
The last column indicates that the density of population in the north
temperate lands is three times as great as that in intertropical lands, and
more than four times that in the ‘ new’ countries of the southern hemi-
sphere ; though the latter have more than doubled their populations during
the present century, with the greatest increase in Argentina.
But the tropics are very arbitrary dividing lines for any such study ; and
my only reason for using them is the fact that Levasseur did so thirty
1 For references see end of Address.
116 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
years ago and so they give a basis for a comparison. It is more useful to
note the chief populous regions. ‘These are clearly shown, as far as the
scale allows, on the accompanying map (Fig. 1). Evidently there are
only four regions in which the mean density of population considerably
exceeds the world average of about forty persons per square mile, over
Tasle I.
| Percentages of world totals of Mean
' density,
Zone. | eee Population; persons
Land (about |
| | (about per sq.
pe hassestth Papialaed Latte las 1 (0) lg wos coos
| (Levasseur) 93). » 1930-
das : 5 alr | alike
| |
North of the northern | | :
tropic . : NG MBF Eile al a 60
Between the tropics . | 40°5 24°3 22 20
South of the southern | |
tropic . ¢ “ili scag I°4 2°8 13
|
The uninhabited Polar Lands are not included.
any large continuous areas. I have estimated the extent of these regions,
as continuously habitable lands, within boundaries drawn round their
cultivable lands, and also the populations within those boundaries, and
so obtained the figures given in the following table (II), from which it is
seen that these four regions together contain about three-fourths of the
world’s population on little more than one-eighth of its total land area.
TasLe II.
. Area, in Tatas Population, in | Central
oath |of square miles. millions, _|_ latitude.
‘Europe’... . | 2:8 520 | 50° N.
Eastern North | |
America Ig 100 40° N,
The Far East : I°7 500? | 35° N.
India, with Ceylon . axe) 350 | 25° N.
117
E.—GEOGRAPHY
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118 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Elsewhere there are a few small areas of relatively dense population, as
in Java, Malaya, and West Africa, but the greater part of the land is thinly
occupied. Of particular interest is the belt of deserts which forms a zone
across the Continent from the Sahara north-eastward to Eastern Siberia ;
for it was this ‘ Great Divide’ of empty lands, interrupted only by few
and generally small oases and occupied by widely scattered and generally
nomadic peoples, which held apart the civilisations of the ‘ East ’ and the
‘West ’ during all the ages of human history before da Gama’s voyage
to India in 1497 C.E.
In these great regions there has been only one change of world magni-
tude within recent centuries, namely the peopling of Eastern North
America between 1620 and 1920, mainly in the last hundred years. This
has added a fourth populous region capable of ranking with the three of
the Old World ; though it has not yet had time to accumulate so dense
a population as any one of them.
Except for this the recent shifts of population have mainly been within
the great populous regions, and have tended to accentuate their relative
importance. ‘The population of India has doubled its numbers since
1871 ; but the numbers of Indians settled outside India and Ceylon is
only about three millions, or less than one per cent. of the Indian peoples,
and less than one-sixtieth of the increase of the Indian population since
1871. And most of these are in Burma and Malaya.
The numbers, both absolute and relative, of the emigrants from the
Far East are more difficult to determine. It has been estimated, by
Prof. Mukerjee, that some ten million Chinese live outside the lands
claimed by the Chinese Republic ; half of whom are in Siam, Malaya and
the East Indies. Similarly, there are perhaps two million Japanese out-
side their native land ; but three-fifths of these are in Taiwan (Formosa),
Chosen (Korea), Karafuto and Manchukwo, leaving less than three-
quarters of a million outside the Far East. So the total population derived
from the Far Eastern Region and now living outside it may be estimated
at less than two per cent. of the home population. It is twice as numerous,
both absolutely and relatively, as that from India; but, like that, it is
a very small proportion of the probable increase in the Far East during
the last two or three generations.
The really large-scale migration of the past hundred years was that
from Europe to North America. But the number of all the peoples of
European origin now living outside Europe and North America is probably
less than a tenth of the number in those two continents, and not more
than a third of the increase in the population of Europe itself during the
past century. Yet Europeans form the great majority of the peoples of
all the ‘ new ’ lands of the south temperate regions, except South Africa.
Even if we count North America as a colony it is still true that little more
than a fourth of the peoples of European origin live outside Europe,
though the population of that continent has increased fourfold in the last
two hundred years.
During the present century there have been extensions of the inhabited
lands on the margins of all four of the major populous regions. In North
America this has been a thrust westward and north-westward on the
E.—GEOGRAPHY 119
prairies which has reached, and perhaps overshot, the climatic limits of
the region of good cultivable lands. India has made a real expansion
on to newly irrigated lands in the Indus Valley. Chinese colonists, to
the number of more than thirty millions, have pushed into Manchukwo
and Inner Mongolia in the greatest of recent migrations. ‘There has been
a similar eastward colonisation from Russia into Western Siberia, in a
belt near latitude 55° N. extending almost to Lake Baikal, which may now
include twenty million people. But these are only expansions of parts
of the populous regions, or in some cases possibly only outward oscilla-
tions of their margins ; and they have not seriously altered the relative
importance of those major regions with respect either to one another or
to the rest of the world.
Thus the net effect of the great migrations of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries has been to add a fourth to the major populous regions,
and then to increase the absolute and relative numbers of the peoples
within these four major regions. They have not tended to spread popu-
lation more evenly over the lands of the earth or to ‘ fill up the great open
spaces,’ but rather to accentuate the crowding of mankind into the already
populous lands.”
There has been a very great increase in the numbers of the human race
during the last two hundred years. The European peoples have multi-
plied at least sixfold since 1700 ; and there is some reason to believe that
both Chinese and Indians have at least trebled their numbers in the same
period. The world’s population is now about two thousand millions ;
and it probably did not reach five hundred millions at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. But, always with the exception of North America,
this increase has been mainly in the already populous Major Human
Regions of ‘ Europe,’ India and the Far East, which are the homelands
of the three great civilisations ; so that the relative predominance of these
regions has rather increased than diminished. So far as the very scanty
evidence for Africa goes, it indicates a decrease rather than an increase in
the population of that continent, which is only just beginning to recover
from the social disasters of the ‘Slave Trade.’ It is probable that the
population of Spanish America declined in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. And it is only in the last sixty years that there has been any
considerable increase in South America, mainly in the La Plata Region and
in southern Brazil. Here the population has more than doubled since
1900 ; and the rates of increase in the early decades of this century are
quite comparable to those of the United States in the latter half of last
century. Inthe same decades Australia and New Zealand have had similar
proportional increases. Nevertheless, the total population of all the lands
of the south temperate zone has not yet reached fifty millions; and the
area of good cultivable land in them is so much smaller than that of the
great northern regions that they are never likely to be more than minor
areas of world population. ‘The figures in the following table (III),
p- 120, calculated on the same bases as those in Table II, indicate the
comparative importance of these south temperate habitable regions.
* These conclusions agree with the views expressed by one of my distinguished
predecessors in this chair, Sir Halford Mackinder, at the Centenary Meetingin 1931.
120 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Within most of these population regions there are marked trends of
internal migration. ‘The most widely known of these is the so-called
‘ drift to the towns ’ which is associated with the steadily increasing growth,
both absolutely and relatively to the total, of the urban population in all
countries affected by modern Western Civilisation. This townward
migration shows no signs of slackening, rather the opposite. In the last
intercensal decade, 1921-31, the proportional increase in the London
conurbation was more than double the rate for Great Britain, and that
area absorbed half of the total increase of population of the country. Some
other great conurbations grew even more rapidly, though none had a
greater absolute increase.
This urban growth is mainly concentrated on the larger urban centres.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century no conurbation in the world,
Tas_e III.
Regi Area,in millions Population, Central
seo of square miles. in millions. | latitude.
vaePlata? e* At 0'7 25 | s5cIS:
Eastern South Africa | o'4 8 308.5:
South-eastern Aus- | |
tralia and New |
Zealand. ne O'4 9 | 35°68:
with very doubtful exceptions in China, had reached a population of a
million; though London was very near to that figure, with 954,000
inhabitants at the census of 1801. To-day there are in the world about
sixty conurbations of this magnitude, perhaps a dozen of which have each
as many as five million inhabitants, and together these include perhaps
a twelfth of all mankind. The numbers, both of these ‘ million-cities ’
and of their inhabitants, are increasing; and if the trend continues
unchecked for a generation or two’ our grandchildren may live in a world
which will have a majority of its inhabitants housed in two or three
hundred such conurbations.
The townward migration is associated with an absolute decrease of
population in many rural areas, of which I need specify only a few instances.
In Great Britain the decade 1921-31 saw an absolute decrease in every
county of the highlands, and also a relative decrease in nearly all the
counties bordering on the highlands. These areas of decrease included all
Scotland, eleven of the twelve counties of Wales, and ten English counties.
France records a corresponding decrease in the mountain departments of
the Alps, the Massif Central, the Pyrenees and Corsica; as does Italy for
all her mountain zones. In some of these areas the evidence of abandoned
cultivation terraces is visible even to the casual observer. ‘The same
process of retreat from such ‘ regions of difficulty ’ is going on in all the
mountain and highland areas of Central Europe and Scandinavia. ‘There
E.—GEOGRAPHY 121
are apparent local exceptions, often due to the developments of tourism ;
though this industry maintains only a small, and often only a seasonal,
local population, and it stimulates the exodus by increasing contacts with
the outer world.
In some newer countries there is also a retreat of settlement from some
thinly peopled areas. In the same decade, 1921-31, Australia saw a
definite withdrawal of settlers from its inner areas of less than fifteen
inches of rain towards the more humid regions nearer the coasts. And
the still more recent exodus of ruined settlers from the semi-arid areas of
the American ‘ dust-bowl’ is more widely known. In these semi-arid
regions it seems that close settlement had been pushed beyond its safe
limits. ‘The system of ‘ dry farming,’ which had been widely introduced,
involves the destruction of the natural vegetation cover and the loosening
of the topsoil. Over-grazing has a similar effect because it compels the
cattle to pull up and devour the stems and roots of the grasses. When this
is followed by a more than usually dry season, accompanied by strong
winds, the fine topsoil is blown away, and with it most of the plant-food.
So both dry-farming and over-grazing are desert makers.
Such local retreats from unattractive areas are nothing new in the history
of mankind. And it appears that there are more important general causes
for the present trends of migration towards populous regions and great
urban centres. Most of these seem to be results of the application of
scientific knowledge to the work of the world. So that these great
population shifts are essentially a result, and among the most important
social results, of the developments of applied science.
First among these general causes I would put the diminution in the
proportion of the world’s workers who must be devoted to satisfying the
primary needs of food, clothing and shelter, and to making the tools
wherewith to do this. At the beginning of the Industrial Age more than
half of all the working population of every country was directly engaged
in the production of food, and of vegetable and animal raw materials, for
most of their working life. ‘Their manual power was supplemented by
the labour of domestic animals and, to a small extent in some favoured
regions, by clumsy wind- and/or water-mills. | Now these industries have
received a new equipment of immensely more efficient tools (compare the
combined harvester with the sickle and the flail), of better and more pro-
ductive seeds and animals, of more effective methods such as the rotation
of crops, of better fertilisers, and of more efficient workers. As a result,
their productive capacity has increased so that they can provide a much
higher standard of material living for a greatly increased population. At
the same time the proportion of the workers needed has fallen. It is now
only some twenty per cent. of the total; and it seems likely to fall still
further.
Similar changes have taken place in other primary industries. Such
changes as the substitution of the steam-shovel and the excavator for the
navvy’s pick and spade, of concrete produced almost wholly by machines
for the laboriously shaped stones of the quarryman and the mason, of the
spindle for the spinning-wheel, have enormously reduced the amount of
direct manual labour needed in many industries.
122 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
The first effect was to release labour for other purposes. And the
industrial countries set out to equip themselves with new means of trans-
port, roads and canals, ships and railways, and now motor vehicles and
roads, with new buildings for industry and commerce and for the growing
population. This led to, and was accompanied by, the development of
the engineering industries ; for engineering in all its branches is essentially
the tool-making industry, and as such it may claim to be the fundamental
industry of civilisation. Its development is the most immediate cause
of the many economies of labour in other occupations.
A second effect was the enormous development of secondary industries,
concerned no longer with the satisfaction of urgent primary needs; and
a great amelioration of living conditions. Children have been taken out
from the ranks of producing workers and sent to school. Leisure is more
abundant and more widespread. Though it is clear that as a community
we are still very far from having realised the full possibilities of the tools
which science has put into our hands.
The food-producing industries were, and are, those which require
their workers to be spread about the land. The agricultural workers, with
their families and dependants, are the basis and the majority of the rural
population. But the many workers released from these occupations
could be grouped together ; and the early developments of manufacturing
industry, in respect to both the organisation of its labour and the use of
machines and mechanical power, demanded such a grouping. So manu-
facturing industry is essentially an urban occupation, and industrialisation
has everywhere been accompanied by urbanisation. However much its
towns may be loosened out by the better use of improved transport, this
urban character of an industrial population seems likely to persist ; and
_ so every increase in the numbers and importance of the secondary industries
will contribute still further to the concentration of more and more of the
people in and near to the great conurbations.
All these developments have been dependent on, and aided by, the
rapid improvements in transport which have accompanied them. It is
obvious, so obvious as to be usually forgotten, that no town can exist unless
it can obtain adequate supplies of food, and that these must be transported
to it from the rural areas in which foodstuffs are produced. It is equally
true and obvious, that the maximum limit of any population is fixed by
the amount of food available to maintain it. Hence I have regarded the
conditions of the production of food as the primary determining facts in
the numbers and distribution of mankind. The developments of trans-
port since the early nineteenth century have made this dependence of
urban on rural populations no longer local. But for the artificial and
often arbitrary barriers interposed by human, mainly political, restrictions,
the resources of the world might be regarded as a common pool for the
supply of the needs of its inhabitants. And the developments of transport
which justify this assertion have been so decisive that it is possible to ex-
press a large part of the problems and trends of population distribution
in terms of transport.
Within the Major Human Regions which we have distinguished there
are smaller areas of marked concentration of population. The United
E.—GEOGRAPHY 123
States is the one great populous area in which freedom of movement has
been at its maximum since the middle of last century ; and the effects of
this tendency towards further concentration are most clearly seen there
(see Fig. 2). Ina small area stretched along the coast and the ‘ fall line ’
from Boston to Washington, including both of these metropolitan dis-
tricts, there were in 1930 about twenty-seven millions of people. Here then
Kilometres
fo) 500
90 West from Greenwich 80
Fic. 2.—The Populous Region of ‘ Eastern North America.’
Areas of maximum concentration are shown by the darker shading.
there are more than a fifth of the population on about a hundredth part
of the area of the country. There are other lesser areas of concentration,
notably along the south shore of Lake Erie and round the south end of
Lake Michigan ; and Canada has one, stretching along the north shores
of Lakes Erie and Ontario, with a greater relative concentration, for here
thirty per cent. of the Dominion’s people dwells on considerably less than
one per cent. of its territory. But the three concentrations round the Lakes
are together less than half as populous as the one on the Atlantic
coast.
124 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
The correspondingly great area of concentration in Europe (see Fig. 3)
is in two sections, separated from each other by the Strait of Dover.
The British section stretches right across the island. Its north-western
Fic. 3.—The Populous Region of ‘ Europe.’
Areas of maximum concentration are shown by the darker shading. The three conurbations named
outside these areas each approach 5,000,000 inhabitants.
end includes the densely peopled urban areas of South Lancashire and
West Yorkshire ; its south-eastern part is the London conurbation with
its satellite urban and suburban areas and its near coastal fringe of seaside
towns ; and between and connecting these are the almost equally densely
E.—GEOGRAPHY 125
peopled industrial districts of the English midlands. ‘This area, as it is
shown on the accompanying map (Fig. 4), occupies a little less than one-
2 West from \ Greenwich O East
Fic. 4.—The Area of Maximum Concentration of Population in Great Britain.
fifth of the island. It now contains five conurbations each of which has
more than a million inhabitants, and twenty other large towns with more
than a hundred thousand each. Its mean population density is about
126 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
three thousand persons per square mile. The population in it, at various
dates, is shown in the following table :—
TABLE IV.
Date of Census. _ 1801. 1851. 1891. 1921. 1931.
Population in millions | wee 10°2 18-6 24.°3 26-0
Percentage of the pop- |
ulation of Great |
Britain : He) 49 55 56 58
The continental section is a similar zone stretching from north France
through Belgium to the Rhineland and the Netherlands. It may be noted
that the three small countries which have each a large proportion of their
area in this zone: England, Belgium and Holland, are the three most
densely peopled lands of the world, each with more than one person per
acre.
The European and the North American areas of maximum concentration
are thus in comparable positions on the opposite shores of the North
Atlantic, each at the chief ocean outlet of its region. The two chief
conurbations, London and New York, are at present almost equal, each
with about ten million inhabitants. In extent the two zones are also
approximately equal ; but the European area is the more densely peopled
and each of its sections, British and Continental, has approximately as
many people as the American area. ‘Thus this area contains approximately
a tenth of the whole population of Europe on a hundredth part of its area.
And outside this great urban region, Europe has twenty million-cities, of
which three (Paris, Berlin and Moscow) are approaching five million
inhabitants each.
In the Far East there appears to be a recent development of a similar
area of concentrated population along the lower Yangtze from Shanghai
to some distance up-river beyond Nanking. In the absence of sufficiently
exact census records and precise topographic maps it is not possible to
state its area and population very definitely. But it seems to be fairly
comparable in magnitude with the American and European areas, in both
extent and population. Shanghai has about four million inhabitants and
Nanking more than a million ; while both cities have now ten times as
many people as at the beginning of this century ; so that they are growing
more rapidly than any other comparably large cities of the northern
hemisphere. Between them is a stretch of very densely peopled land
with many large towns. In its position at the ocean outlet of a vast and
populous hinderland the Chinese conurbation is fairly comparable to the
American and the European ; and given a stable government and peaceful
development it may well rival them as a world focus.
Japan has two smaller areas of similar development. Round Tokyo
E.— GEOGRAPHY 127
Bay there is an urban population of eight millions. Between two hundred
and two hundred and fifty miles to the west, round Osaka Bay and in the
valley inland from it to Lake Biwa, is a similar group of towns with a total
of some six million inhabitants. The greater population of the Tokyo
group is probably due to the fact that it contains the capital of the empire ;
for in most other respects the Osaka group, situated by the Inland Sea
on the Yamato Lowland and much more central among the populous
areas of Japan, has a better location. These great urban concentrations
are largely due to the industrialisation of Japan ; and, as very large con-
urbations, they are of recent growth. But they have no hinderland
comparable to those of the great urban regions already discussed.
India shows no development of any principal area of grouped conurba-
tions akin to those of the other three major populous regions. Its two
* million-cities,’ Calcutta (or ‘ Hughliside ’) and Bombay, are far apart.
They have developed first as seaports and later as industrial centres ; but
neither has any such pre-eminent advantages of geographical position as to
become a focus of population comparable to London or New York or
Shanghai. And India is still far less urbanised than the other corre-
spondingly populous regions. Here the drift to the towns has hardly
begun.
The motive determining all these migrations is, as always, the human
desire for better conditions of life. Hence the trend is towards those
areas which, in the circumstances of to-day, offer or are believed to offer
the best opportunities. The applications of science to agriculture and
other formerly rural occupations have diminished the need of these vital
industries for large numbers of workers ; and so released a large pro-
portion for other occupations. Similar changes have concentrated the
workers in other industries into large groups in urban areas. These
changes, together with parallel developments in transport, have allowed
the social instincts to find freer play—for man is a gregarious animal, and
few of us really like to be isolated for any long time—and the results are
seen in the growth, at an ever-increasing rate, of the greater conurbations
and a corresponding decline in the population of many thinly peopled
areas. If these social desires which make for crowding together continue
unchanged, and the power to satisfy them continues to increase, the
concentration of human beings into urban groups may become almost
universal. Even the agricultural workers may dwell in towns and travel
daily to and from their place of work over distances as great as those of
some suburban journeys of to-day. But the grouping of industries
round the great conurbations is more purely, though not entirely, due to
economic factors ; and so it is more readily capable of being modified
by the action of Governments. The extent to which the growth is a recent
fact may be seen if we recall that since 1900 Greater London (of the
census) and Greater New York have each doubled their populations ;
whilst the ‘Tokyo and Shanghai conurbations, with a later start, have in-
creased about fourfold and tenfold respectively in the same period.
The trend towards urbanisation and concentration seems likely to be
strengthened by the further, probable, increase in the productivity of
agriculture ; for if the amounts of food, and other agricultural products,
128 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
needed can be obtained from smaller areas the tendency to abandon the
poorer marginal lands and concentrate cultivation in the more fertile
areas will be greatly strengthened. These developments are occurring
coincidently with the cessation of that rapid increase in numbers which
has been a principal fact of human life for the past two centuries. Hence
it seems that apart from catastrophic disturbances (such as a great war)
present trends of population movements point towards (1) the probable
reduction in the population of the, at present, thinly peopled lands, (2) a
concentration of a still larger proportion of the world’s inhabitants into
a few great populous regions, and (3) a further increase in the size and
dominance of a few areas of maximum concentration of population,
among which the three leaders are those described in Western Europe, in
Eastern North America, and in China.
REFERENCES.
The chief bases for this paper are the census reports of many countries; Year
Books of the League of Nations and some of the Dominions; such works as
the Statesman’s Year Book ; and map studies.
Three works used for particular reference are :
HALIczER, J.: ‘The Population of Europe, 1720, 1820, 1930,’ Geography (1934).
LEVASSEUR, E.: ‘La Répartition de la race humaine,’ Builetin de l'Institut
international de Statistique (1909).
MUKERJEE, R.: ‘ Migrant Asia.’ Published at Rome (1936).
Previous papers by the writer on kindred topics which have been used in
preparing this address include:
‘ The Distribution of Population over the Land,’ Sociological Review (1925).
‘Centres of World Power,’ Sociological Review (1926).
‘ The Balance of Urban and Rural Populations,’ Geography (1929).
‘ The Extent of the Cultivable Land,’ Geographical Journal (1930).
“The Distribution of the Urban Population in Great Britain, 1931,’ Geographical
Journal (1932).
‘Areas of Concentration of Population in the English-speaking Countries,’
Population (1934).
‘ Millionaire Cities,’ Mélanges de Géographie, Praha (1936).
“Whither Population ?’ Geography (1937).
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS.
ECONOMIC RESEARCH AND
INDUSTRIAL POLICY
: ADDRESS BY
PROF. P. SARGANT FLORENCE,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
§ 1. CATEGORIES OF POLICY.
Tuis Section of the British Association bears the title Economic Science
and Statistics. I need not, therefore, apologise for confining the
term economic research to inquiries that follow the ordinary scientific
practice of generalising from observed facts, measured and summarised
in the form of statistics. Such enquiries are often known as realistic,
thereby casting, perhaps, undeserved aspersions on purely deductive
theory. Be that as it may, my object in this paper is to review the con-
clusions reached by so-called realistic economists in recent years on the
problems of practical industrial policy facing private business organisa-
tions as well as the State. These problems of industrial policy have
become prominent first under the caption of ‘ rationalisation,’ later under
that of ‘ planning.’ ‘To-day, instead of being taken for granted or dis-
cussed behind the closed doors of Cabinet or Board Room, industrial
policies are publicly reviewed and reconsidered in the heat of argument and
often in the dangerous twilight of a little knowledge. Can economists
not add to this knowledge and direct the argument less hotly perhaps
but more to practical purposes ?
The main purpose of industrial policy is, we assume, to promote
economic efficiency, that is, to increase income, output or satisfaction at
the least cost, monetary, physical or real.1 If this is not so, the non-
economic purpose must be explicitly stated and not just assumed. What
economists, as such, are interested in is not the purposes or ends but the
means or policy. Of the policies advocated as a means to maximum
efficiency,.some are alternatives within the same category ; others are
in different, but supplementary, categories.
As I see it the main categories of industrial policy consist in problems
of industrial structure ; problems of industrial functioning or adminis-
tration; and problems of industrial or economic technique such as
price fixing or output restriction. These three sets of problems form
1 For elaboration of these three levels, to which the fundamental economic
terms may be referred, see Florence, Economics and Human Behaviour, pp. 90-93.
F
130 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
categories in the sense that every industrial organisation must have some
variety of structure, of administration, and of technique. This paper
is mainly concerned with the category of structural policies. These fall,
to follow my model, into three sub-categories which can be succinctly
summed up as problems of site, size and scope. They form categories
of structure, again, in the sense that every industrial structure must
have some site, some size and some scope.
§ 2. THE INDUSTRIAL SITE.
The problem of site has always exercised a business organisation when-
ever it planned to move or to open a new plant: or branch. Recently
the State has become interested in the siting or ‘ location’ of industry
through its policy of helping distressed areas by encouraging firms to
‘site ’ new plants there, and the Commissioner for the Special Areas of
England and Wales has gone as far as to suggest placing Greater London
out of bounds for further factory construction, unless good reasons to the
contrary were adduced. This policy, as the Commissioner points out,
would involve the licensing of new factories and of extensions to
old factories in the London area.2, This year a Royal Commission has
been appointed to ‘ enquire into the causes which have influenced the
present geographical distribution of the industrial population of Great
Britain and the probable direction of any change in that distribution in
the future ; to consider what social, economic or strategical advantages
arise from the concentration of industries or of the industrial population
in large towns or in particular areas of the country ; and to report what
remedial measures, if any, should be taken in the national interest.’
The national value of a careful choice of the location of industry, a
choice making full use of research, has nowhere been more precisely
put than in the Second Industrial Survey of South Wales :* ‘ The working
of economic forces will eventually bankrupt any concerns which have
made a wrong choice and will thus ensure for the community the opti-
mum distribution of its resources, but only after an interval of confusion,
and possibly after the creation of fresh pools of stagnant labour unable to
find an outlet. A better choice made now would ensure the earlier
attainment of the optimum location of resources, and would eliminate
much confusion and waste. Though in form a wisely conceived State
direction of location might appear to be an interferehce with the working
of “ natural ’’ forces, it might in fact prove to have been only a short cut
to the equilibrium which the free working of those forces would eventually
ensure.’
In recent years considerable research has been devoted to this problem
of siting or location of industry. Theoretical economists with the almost
single exception of Alfred Weber have been content till recently to give
the problem but a passing reference. Weber’s Uber den Standort der
Industrien, however, suffers from the usual limitations of a deductive
approach that its assumptions are unreal and its argument over-simplified.
Examining the more recent theoretical contributions of Ohlin and Pred6éhl
2 Third Report, p. 8. 3 Vol. I., p. 397.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 131
as well as that of Weber, Mr. Dennison concludes that ‘a review of the
various theories of location shows quite clearly the lack of any concepts
which can be used in dealing with actual problems.’* A particular mis-
take, in Mr. Dennison’s view, is that these economists dealt with industry
as a category rather than with actual industries.
Thanks to accurate censuses of occupations and production it is now
possible to inquire inductively into the location of actual, particular,
industries. In 1929 I suggested a measure of the concentration of any
particular industry in any given area by comparing the proportion of all
occupied persons that were occupied in that industry in the given area
with the corresponding proportion for the country as a whole.® A similar
result is obtained by comparing the proportion of all persons occupied
in any particular industry found in the given area with the corre-
sponding proportion for industry as a whole. Thus, 54:3 per cent. of
all brassfounders in England and Wales were found in 1931 to be in
the West Midlands area distinguished in the Census of Occupations,
but the proportions of the occupied population in the West Midlands
was only 11-5 per cent. for all industries. A measure of the concen-
tration of the brass-founding industry in the West Midlands can thus
be stated as 54:3 + 11:5 = 4:7. In a paper yet unpublished, read
before Section F of the British Association last year, Mr. A. J. Wensley
and I worked out this measure, which we called the location factor, for all
the industries distinguished in the 1931 Census of Occupations in respect of
each of the twelve areas or regions into which that Census divides England.
The fact that some particular industry is concentrated in some particu-
lar areas though important for the siting of individual businesses, is, for
purposes of State policy, not so significant as the fact of the general
diffusion everywhere or concentration anywhere of the given industry.
If a depressed area is to be developed by the introduction of new factories
it is essential for the State to know which are the industries whose units
can be arbitrarily shifted. Some industries such as aerated waters are
widely diffused wherever the population presents consumers, others such
as cotton are narrowly concentrated where the skilled labour is found.
But there is probably a middle grade of industries that need neither be
completely diffused nor completely concentrated, some of whose units
can, within limits, be sited anywhere without loss of efficiency. To dis-
coyer which industries fall into such middle grades, Mr. Wensley and
I worked out a measure of localisation based on the location factor.®
When an industry is evenly scattered over the whole country, the location
factor already explained would clearly be unity for each region. To show
in one figure to what degree each industry is localised we calculated the
coefficient of localisation based on the mean deviation from unity of the
industry’s regional location factors. Clearly a weighted mean deviation
4 See S. R. Dennison, Theory of Industry Location. The Manchester School
Vol. viii., No. 1.
® Florence, The Statistical Method in Economics, pp. 327-8.
® For other methods of measuring the degree of localisation of an industry
see Day: ‘Distribution of Industrial Occupations in England 1841-1861,’
Transactions of The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, March 1927 ; Hoover,
‘Measurement of Industrial Localization,’ Review of Economic Statistics, Nov. 1936.
132 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
is a better indication than an unweighted one, for a high or low location
factor in a large area represents a greater degree of concentration or
otherwise than the same factor in a small area. Weighting is particularly
necessary where the official region is used as a basis since these regions
range from Greater London with 21 ‘8 per cent. of the occupied population
of England and Wales to North Wales with 1-6 per cent. If the weight
used be these percentages of occupied population, a short-cut device can
be used avoiding the calculation of the regional location factors. ‘This
is not the place for the demonstration of this device ; but a warning must
be issued that, apart from methods of calculation, the coefficient is liable
to be less significant the larger the areas used.”
The coefficient of localisation can vary from o-oo for no localisation
to 2-00 for extreme localisation. When the official regional areas are
used as a basis, tin-plate shows the highest coefficient with 1-81. Lace,
1°68 ; cotton weaving 1-49 ; cotton carding and spinning 1-45 ; hosiery
1-45; cutlery 1-45; and pottery 1-44 are not far behind. At the
other extreme are local government 0-05 ; dealing 0-12 ; mineral waters
0°13; bread and flour 0-15; and beer-breweries 0-22—all well dis-
tributed.
Industries in the middle ranges of the coefficient which offer the best
hope of large development in the depressed areas include artificial silk
spinning (coefficient 1-15), cocoa and chocolate (coefficient 0-86), mining
machinery (coefficient 0-82), toys, games and sports requirements (coefhi-
cient 0-74), rubber (coefficient 0-70), biscuits (coefficient 0-64), electrical
apparatus (coefficient 0-62), sugar confectionery (coefficient 0°53).° The
mere possession of a middling coefficient is of course not enough to cast
the industry for development in a depressed area. Research must take
account of the special circumstances of the area and the industry and must
work on some theory of the reasons for location checked by statistical
measures and itself checking those measures. Where the fuel, materials
and markets of a particular industry aré concentrated at distant places,
for instance, theories such as Weber’s as to their relative force in deter-
mining the most efficient site must be tested and checked by reference to
the statistical factors and coefficients. If, as seems to be the case in
England to-day, the forces that determined the present localisations are
changing and the market is becoming more important at least than fuel,
this should be shown by a halt in the progress of localisation and of the
more localised industries. Areas seem to be depressed to-day largely
because their industries were too se/f-centred and too far from the centre
of the country’s population. Delocalisation may soon be taking place
in the sense that there will be a smaller proportion of men employed in
an industry where that particular industry used to be localised. Realistic
research in siting problems has not yet however proceeded much beyond
7 Mr. Wensley has worked out a ‘truer’ coefficient of localisation for a sample
of industries based on a division of the country into very small localities. The
differences in the case of the same industry between the truer localisation coeffi-
cients and the coefficient based on the official twelve regions of England and
Wales did not, in practice, however, turn out to be great.
8 See The Second Industrial Survey of South Wales, Pt. III, chap. 3, for list of
Suggested New Industries.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 133
the stage of the exact yet summary measurements which may soon test
such an hypothesis of delocalisation. But this is something achieved !
A statistical series, such as the location factors and the localisation
coefficients of all the particular industries distinguished in the Census
of Occupations or the Census of Production for different years, enables
the economist to see exactly what is the situation or trend in situation that
he is trying to explain. He cannot just use a few well-known locations
and localisations as illustrations when it suits his argument; but must
frame a theory which, as a working hypothesis, will explain all or at least
the bulk of the measured observation in the series before him. It is to
be hoped that this working out of standard measures of localisation will
now permit a realistic understanding of the forces at work upon which
to base effective siting policies.
So far the problem of site has been confined to the localisation of some
particular industry with reference to the population as a whole. But the
concentration of industry generally into a relatively confined geographical
area is also exercising the State government, as the terms of reference of
this year’s Royal Commission, mentioned earlier, clearly show.
It is the problem of urbanisation or,. rather, suburbanisation. Just
as the localisation of a particular industry presents (external) economies
of supply of labour and auxiliary services specialised in that industry, so
general localisation presents (external) economies of an accessible supply
of general labour and services which, with the wider use of semi-skilled
occupations, are not much less important. The scarcity and high rents
of urban sites and new transit facilities, however, urge labour and factories
to (not necessarily the same) suburbs. Hence the economic inefficiencies
of ribbon development and of hours and expenses per man getting to
and from work, and the strategical problems connected with population
Congestion in time of war. What is usually lumped by economists under
the simple title of localisation thus appears to have four distinct meanings,
all of them of separate importance in forming policy.
1. The location of a particular industry in a particular area. Measur-
able by the location factor of that area.
2. The concentration or localisation of a particular industry anywhere
in the country. The degree of localisation, measurable by the localisa-
tion coefficient.
3. The location of industry in general in a particular ‘ urban’ area.
Measurable by density of occupied population in that area.®
4. The concentration or localisation of industry in general anywhere
in the country. The degree of urbanisation measurable, e.g. by the pro-
portion of the total occupied population in towns or districts over a certain
population density.
Research into the location and localisation of industry in general has
recently been undertaken in the United States by economists of the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania headed by Prof.
® Contour lines linking places of equal density of population may be drawn
over the map of any country; and cross-sections cut showing typical successions
or cycles of city, suburban and rural areas. See Florence, Statistical Method in
Economics and Political Science, p. 116.
134 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Carter Goodrich. In a chapter of their Migration and Economic Oppor-
tunity entitled, ‘The Changing Pattern of Industrial Location,’ they
divide the areas of the U.S.A. into seven types : (A) principal cities ; (B)
satellite cities ; (C) industrial peripheries ; (D) other cities of 100,000
population ; (E) peripheries of ‘D’ cities; (F) important industrial
counties ; and (G) the rest. The proportion of all ‘ wage jobs’ and of
wage jobs in particular industries are then given for recent years according
as they are situated or ‘ located ’ in each of the seven types of area. In
the last thirty years the trend of American manufactures as a whole is
found to have been away from large cities. In 1899 39°5 per cent. of
all manufacturing wage jobs were in large cities ; in 1933 only 33-1 per
cent. The types of area that gained in jobs were the suburban industrial
areas ‘ B’ and ‘ C,’ or ‘G ’—the country. Goodrich and associates also
show what particular industries favour the different types of area. Steel-
works, pottery banks, and worsted mills seem particularly to favour
suburbia ; flour-milling, clay products and woollen goods the country.
Here, undoubtedly, a new line of economic research is opened up ; the
problem of the optimum urban-rural distribution of industry in general,
and the most efficient incidence of particular industries in that pattern.
§ 3. THE Size or PLants.
The problem of size arises continually in the policy of industrial
organisations when they have to decide whether to take or refuse addi-
tional orders and how far, if at all, to extend and develop or, as in flour-
milling and shipbuilding, to close down the works. It arises at irregular
intervals in an acute form when there is some project of association or
combination on foot. The State is now also taking a hand in size policy
through its schemes of amalgamation of mines, of limitations by quota,
closing down of redundant plant, and marketing boards for agriculture and
coal. The bulk of the whole planning programme is in a sense a size
policy. The size referred to is sometimes that of the technical factory
and plant, sometimes that of the firm or combine or association that may
control one or more plants. Has recent economic research discovered
any rational basis for a policy either toward larger or smaller plants or
firms ?
Research into the problem of size of industrial organisations has pro-
ceeded further than into that of site. The stage of devising descriptive
measurement has been passed and the grounds for supposing one size to
be more efficient than another are being explored. To a certain degree
mere description of the actual situation is a test of efficiency, since a given
situation in sites or in sizes is the result of efficiency in survival from past
policies ; and efficiency is tested to a yet greater degree by the description
of the trend of changes over a period of years. In comparing sizes of
organisations, however, more direct tests have been adopted, such as
costs and profits. The evidence of the actual distribution of sizes of
plants, and trends in this distribution, will be considered first, beginning
with manufacturing plants.
The actual distribution of sizes of factories, measured by men em-
ployed, is now at last obtainable for separate British industries in the
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 135
Census of Production for 1930.!° The situation is shown to be surpris-
ingly similar to that already known for the United States of America,
through its long series of decennial Censuses of Manufactures. Even
when due allowance is made for differences of definition '! the average
size of the British appears extraordinarily similar to that of the con-
temporary American factory. But the interest does not lie in average
size for industry as a whole so much as in the typical differences between
industries. These differences, again, seem extraordinarily similar in Great
Britain and the United States, and indeed in Germany, too.
Some years ago, before the publication of the 1929 American and the
1930 British Census, I presented a table showing the distribution of the
wage-earning population of the U.S.A. in 1909 among plants of eight
ranges of size in fourteen leading manufacturing industries.1* I have
now been able to draw up a similar table for the U.S.A. in 1929, for
Great Britain in 1930, and Germany in 1925, adding three more indus-
tries, furniture, hosiery and chemicals that have since become equally
leading. Only a brief summary can be given here, by presenting in a
table the percentage of all employees that are found in plants of over
500 employees.!* As the footnotes to the table indicate, a certain caution
must be used in comparing these percentages too literally as between
different countries; yet the conclusion is justified from the general
distribution of workers that in spite of difference in country, the same
size of plant tends to prevail in the same industries. This conclusion
would indicate that in determining size of factories there are technical
or economic factors at work common to all industrialised countries,
rather than factors particular to any one country. To be of use to policy
research must discover these underlying factors.
At Birmingham we are now engaged in tracing the relation of size of
plant with the degree of mechanisation. Mechanisation is difficult to
measure directly, but some cross between horse-power and overhead costs
per worker is perhaps the most sensitive index. Though it is easiest to
obtain, horse-power per head fails to indicate the presence of many hand-
operated machines, as in shoe-making, and must be supplemented by some
measure of overhead costs. This is obtainable in the British Census by
subtracting for each industry average earnings per operative from net
output per head.!* Admittedly, overheads per head may measure other
elements besides mechanisation, such as specialised salaried staff and
marketing cost, yet the machine costs such as maintenance, repair, depre-
ciation and obsolescence are probably predominant. On the whole the
10 Where he owns more than one factory it is officially left to the employer to
decide whether to return the size of each single factory or the whole firm. Com-
parison with statistics of the distribution of sizes provided by H.M. Chief In-
spector of Factories point to the size of single factories as that normally returned.
11 See Footnotes to the Table.
12 Logic of Industrial Organisation, Table II, p. 30. The reason for the choice
of industries and for omitting 1919, is given in a footnote, p. 29.
18 Gas has been omitted from the original fourteen industries as being a public
utility rather than private manufacture.
( a cf table pages 102-103. Final Report on the Fourth Census of Production
1930).
SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
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F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 137
facts in Britain, the U.S.A., and Germany seem to justify the generalisa-
tion that the higher the mechanisation of an industry, the larger is the size
of its constituent plants or factories.
An explanation that may serve as a working hypothesis is that the more
powerful and more costly the engines and equipment, the more it pays to
congregate men round them in a single plant; also that mechanisation
involves specialisation of processes and that the necessary co-ordinating
of transport and communication costs arising from such specialisation are
at a minimum when the specialists are all under one roof.!® In fact, most
of the economic advantages of localisation can be seen at their optimum
inside a single large works.
The particular index of size used—number of employees per plant ?°—
weighs against my generalisation as to the relation of size and mechanisa-
tion, since the actual process of mechanising involves employing fewer
persons. ‘That the more mechanised industries should on the whole be
the larger-scale industries in the sense of containing plants employing the
larger number of persons is therefore all the more significant. But there
is one large group of factory industries forming an exception to this rule,
those where the coefficient of localisation is low. An industry in this
group may well consist typically of small plants and yet have a high horse-
power and overhead cost per man. The explanation is not far to seek.
Industries with a low coefficient of localisation are scattered among the
population largely because of the high transport costs of a raw material
that is scattered (e.g. timber for saw-milling or grain for grain-milling) or
of a product required fairly universally by a population that is scattered
(e.g. aerated waters or beer). Some of these industries are highly mechan-
ised, but their plants cannot be large because production must be carried
on in so many plants situated in scattered localities. Where the costs
of transporting material or product are much greater than the economies
of mechanised concentration, there a fortiori of plants will be scattered
(i.e. unlocalised) and small. Among the costs of transport are liability
to putrescence and need for communication between producer and con-
sumer. It is these conditions that probably keep industries like furniture,
baking, printing, and clothing small scale, i.e. small-plant, industries.
Though close-to-consumer unlocalised industries are usually small-scale,
it does not follow that highly localised industries are large-scale as some
economists assume.”! Inductive investigation based on all the principal
British industries shows that the highly localised industries, such as tin-
plate, hosiery, cotton and wool textiles, pottery, cutlery, boots and shoes
are predominantly medium-scale in size of plant.
Industrial policy requires that economic research look ahead so that
the plans made to-day may not run counter to the forces of to-morrow.
Is the large manufacturing plant likely to flourish under future conditions ?
Are industries likely to become large-scale yet ?
?® Florence, Logic of Industrial Organisation, p. 14.
#0 This index is chosen as being free from the difficulty of comparing economic
values between different countries and periods. Some of the difficulties in using
this index to measure size are given in Florence, Statistical Methods in Economics
and Political Science, pp. 154-155.
1 E.g., A. R. and E. M. Burns, The Economic World, p. 43.
138 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
If the growth of large plants does not depend on localisation but, subject
merely to a minimum degree of localisation, does depend upon the growth
of mechanisation ; then judging from the present rapid increase in mechan-
isation, the large plant is due to flourish, multiply and expand yet further.
Measuring mechanisation only by horse-power per man it has increased
steadily in U.S.A. manufactures from 1:25 h.p. per man in 1879 to 4:86
h.p. per man in 1929; in Germany from 0-82 h.p. per man in 1907 to
1°47 h.p. per man in 1925, and in British factories even in the short period
between 1924 and 1930, from 2-02 to 2°44 h.p. per man. Many of the
other elements in overheads per head can also be shown measurably to
have grown. Not least important among them is the proportion of
administrative and technical staff per operative worker. In British
factories this was 11-7 per cent. in 1924, 13-5 per cent. in 1930.
The fact that an upward trend in size actually has taken place, whatever
the underlying causes, can be seen directly in countries, which unlike
Britain, have measured size in more censuses than one. My table shows
that in America the proportion of workers in the larger plants (employing
over 500) has between 1go0g and 1929 risen from 28-0 per cent. to 37°7
per cent. for the total of manufactures and out of sixteen individual in-
dustries compared, has only fallen (and that but slightly) in the case of
three industries. In German productive industry, between the Census
of 1907 and 1925 the number of plants increased considerably less than
the number of employees. Growth in size applied to all the groups of
factory industries ?* except machine building and rubber.
What is the prevailing size of plant and the trend of size in industries
other than manufacture ? State policy is particularly concerned at present
with the size of mining and may in the future, if some planners have their
way, limit the number of retail shops by licence. Some countries are
also threatening to proceed against the multiple chain store.
If the size of mines be measured like that of factories by men employed
the prevailing size must be classed as large. The British (1930) Census
of Production found 87-0 per cent. of miners in mines employing over 500
men. ‘The corresponding proportion in Germany for 1925 was 82:9
per cent., and the trend here seems definitely towards larger mines, since
between 1907 and 1925 the number of mines fell by 12-4 per cent. while
the number of miners rose by 63:3 per cent.
The typical size of shop, on the other hand, is extremely small. It is
calculated by Miss Douglas 2° from the British Occupation Census of 1931
that the average shop employs 1-4 salesmen and assistants to every
I proprietor or manager. Assuming that there is a proprietor or manager
to every shop this makes the average persons per shop 2:4. The corre-
sponding figure for German retailing is 2-3 and for commerce as a whole
2:8. Nor does the trend appear upward. In German commerce as a
whole between 1907 and 1925 plants increased by 63-7 per cent., persons
occupied by 62-7 per cent.; and Dr. Ford has shown that for Great
Britain between 1901 and 1931 the number of shops has increased, though
in most trades not as fast as the population.™*
€)
wm
Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Band 413, I, pp. 246.
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1935, Part III.
Economic Journal, September 1935.
mower
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F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 139
Commercial establishments and shops in particular must by their very
purpose be dispersed among the population and cannot be localised like
manufactures. They must therefore be small. The dispersion among
the population may, however, be too thorough in the sense that in any one
neighbourhood there are more outlets for any one product than is neces-
sary for the convenience of the neighbours, and that where deliveries are
made errand boys continually criss-cross one another in their rounds. In
England one shop to every 60 or 70 head of population has been the usual
estimate, but the recently published trial census of distribution in six towns
each of about 30,000 inhabitants, gives the observed frequency of 41°4
persons per selling-point or about one selling-point to every ten families.
Even if shops selling only the same wares are taken, this census shows
that the population of 183,000 of the combined six towns was provided
with 1,973 outlets for cigars, cigarettes and tobacco only, that is one outlet
for every 93 persons, or say, twenty-two families ; and with about 1,200
outlets for canned goods, for chocolate and sugar confectionery, for tea
and coffee and for biscuits, that is one outlet for every 152 persons or, say,
thirty-six families.
Is this typically very small size and small clientele of shops the result
of a survival of the fittest ?. The evidence from costs and profits, to be
taken in the next section in connection with distributive firms, shows that
there is certainly no greater efficiency in the smaller shops. Rather the
contrary. And the tale of bankruptcies, which is particularly sordid and
tragic in the retailing trades, would go to suggest that the multitude of
small shops is due to a continual trial and error process. Men without
any experience or much capital are continually trying to set up as shop-
keepers and almost as continually making an error. And the error involves
the consumer as well as himself. If for lack of experience and capital a
shopkeeper can only sell, say, £450 worth of goods he must charge a
margin of 334 per cent. for his own gross profit in order to have a bare
income of {150 a year. Thus, with a small total of sales a huge margin
of profit (on sales) is quite compatible with a low (total) profit and forms
a vicious circle, for the high margin keeps up high prices and checks sales
further. With more sales per shop, however, a fair (total) profit is com-
patible with a low margin of profit (on sales) ; and a virtuous circle is
engendered. The low margin of profit permits lower prices, these in
turn stimulate more sales, and these in turn enable lower margins to be
charged which in turn permit lower prices . . . ad infinitum.
§ 4. THE Size or FIRMs.
The British and American censuses limit themselves to the size of
plants, whereas State and private industrial policy is equally, if not more,
concerned with the size of the firm or unit of control. Marketing and
central selling schemes, for instance, whether in agriculture or mining,
form an attempt to enlarge the business unit controlling several plants or
mines rather than to enlarge any one plant or mine. ‘The Government’s
Economic Advisory Council reported in 1930 that in the cotton industry
‘the first essential step in the path of recovery’ was the formation of
amalgamations large enough to secure economies of merchanting and
finance rather than building larger mills or sheds. The policy of the
140 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Rationalisation movement is to increase the areas under one planning and
control authority irrespective of whether that area consists of one or a
number of plants. And the policy of Planning, so-called, goes as far as
to advocate that this area under one control shall be a whole industry.
Nor must we forget that here in England we have in the last twenty years,
seen the formation of a Big Five in banking, a Big Four in railways, and
a Big One in chemicals—not to mention the policy of Bigs Limited in
electrical engineering, soap, sugar, matches, cement and so on.
Economists have unfortunately not always been too clear as to whether
they meant firm or plant when they were discussing scale of industry ;
sometimes they really meant neither. When they do quote statistics they
are usually figures for size of plant irrelevant to the issue. For in dis-
cussing the trust problem or the newer problem of industrial leadership
or the phenomena of monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly, it is size of firm
that is relevant and in particular, the size of one, two or a few firms relative
to the whole industry. And in discussing laws of increasing return it is,
as we shall see, scope that is relevant—not size of organisation at all.
It is one of the advantages of a statistical approach that the inquirer
must be quite certain what he is discussing. If he wants to know the
number of persons in a unit he must, if he is to get a figure, specify whether
it is the number in the plant that he wants or the number in the firm.
Certainly, if the type of theory most relevant to this issue of size is to be
‘ checked ’ by statistics it is essential to distinguish firm and plant. The
type of theoretical model I refer to is that of Mr. E. A. G. Robinson. In
his Structure of Competitive Industry, Robinson breaks down the
determinants of the optimum size of business unit into five forces : tech-
nical, managerial, financial, marketing, and risk. Finance and marketing,
he thinks, usually demand a larger, management a smaller size. The size
of an actual unit must therefore be a compromise. An industry requiring
detailed management may very well have small plants, but the financing
and marketing firm controlling several such plants can be large. Is this
differentiation of plant and firm a real and common situation ?
Here the German Census of 1925 is particularly helpful since it deals
in separate volumes with plants (Niederlassungen) and firms (gewerbliche
Unternehmungen). The distribution of workers among various sizes of
organisation looks very different when the organisation referred to is a
firm rather than a plant. In German productive industry generally there
were in 1925 566,760 persons in large single plants employing over 5,000,
but 1,442,039 persons in plants belonging to the large single firms em-
ploying over 5,000. In my table, 33-6 per cent. of all persons occupied
in German productive industry ** are shown to be occupied in large plants
employing over 500. The corresponding percentage for those occupied
in large firms employing over 500 is 41-6 per cent. In commerce and
transport the disparity between the numbers employed according to
whether large scale refers to large plant or large firm is still more marked.
There were only 23,620 persons in very large commercial and transport
plants, e.g. shops and stations employing over 5,000, but, with the same
25 Subtracting those in plants employing ten or less.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 141
numerical measure of very large, 1,263,109 persons in very large com-
mercial and transport firms. In short, statistics collected by plants, to
which America and Britain are mostly confined, seriously understate the
degree of large-scaledness, if this is meant to refer to size of firms.
The reason for the difference in the typical size of plant and firm is of
course that many firms have branch plants. ‘The German Census of 1925
found that for industry and commerce as a whole, 42:4 per cent. of all
persons occupied were occupied in firms with branch plants. ‘There were,
in fact, 45,634 firms with one branch over and above headquarters plant,
7,318 with two branch plants and 8,051 with three or more branch plants.
As to the trend in the size of firm, particularly these multiplant firms,
no exact figures are available even for Germany ; but the view is generally
accepted that the combination movement is growing. Certainly, re-
searches now being conducted at Birmingham into the largest British
Joint Stock Companies, and also a random sample of all British industrial
and commercial companies, disclose a much greater concentration of
power into a few hands to-day than is usually supposed to be true for
Great Britain. For any company to be a Holding or a Subsidiary Com-
pany and to possess Interlocking Directors in common with other com-
panies is rather the rule than the exception. There is also the device, as
yet little noticed in textbooks, of the weighted vote. A few special shares
may be created with perhaps ten times the voting power of the ordinary
‘ ordinary ’ shares, thus helping an individual or a company that holds
them to ‘ pyramid ’ control to astronomical proportions.’ For the moment
we are not concerned with policies of internal control, but merely notice
the wide and probably widening prevalence of large areas of control.
When, instead of prevalence and trends, profits and costs are used as
measures of efficiency, it is of course the size of the firm that is being
tested. The view of most theoretical economists has hitherto been that
after a certain size is passed, in spite of marketing and financial economies
and plant decentralisation, the firm becomes too large to be manageable.
In so far as this view is at all based on statistical information, it derives
mainly from the experience of the big trusts formed in America between
1893 and 1905 as summed up by Prof. Dewing writing in the Quarterly
Journal of Economics for November 1921. Subsequent writers have
not found the conclusion quite so obvious. Mead,” following up Dewing’s
thirty-seven mergers, gives a table showing that during the years 1924-31,
seventeen of the mergers averaged at least 6} per cent. per year in dividend
on the common stock, watered though it often was. Mead himself con-
siders thirteen of these mergers, and one other that paid lower dividends,
to have been conspicuously successful when accumulation of large surplus
and provision for depreciation of plant and depletion of mineral properties
is taken into account, in addition to paynient of dividend.
More recently Livermore *’ has taken a wider list of the mergers formed
in America between 1890 and 1904. Out of 156 mergers that were
important enough to have the power to influence conditions in their
industry he found that 53 suffered early and ro later failure, while 17
26 Corporation Finance, 7th ed., chap. XX XVIII.
27 Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1935.
142 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
limped along. But 76, or almost exactly half, were successes in the sense
that they had maintained a high dividend between 1go1 and 1932, com-
_ pared with the average for their industry. Of these 76 Livermore counts
IO as rejuvenations and a further 10 as outstanding successes.
The mergers of 1890 to 1904 were mostly promoted on the expectation
of monopoly profits. Their early experiences mark in Mead’s view the
failure of an expected monopoly rather than the failure of large size. It
is doubtful, in short, whether the theory of a low optimum management
unit can find any factual basis in Dewing’s material. Nor must the
suggestive inquiry of the American National Conference Board on Mergers
in Industry be passed over. ‘This showed that of the prices of sixty lines
of manufacture in the period 1900-1925, those rose least, on the average,
where consolidations had been strong in the industries producing them,
while in industries not affected by the combination movement, prices
rose most on the average. A possible explanation of this somewhat
paradoxical result is that the monopoly profit which combinations are
usually aiming at was obtained by reducing costs, and that to such an
extent that prices could (monopoly) profitably also be reduced relatively
to the no-combination industries.
Recently, two further original statistical inquiries have presented data
on the relation of size of firms to profits. Both in Epstein’s Industrial
Profits in the United States and in Paton’s Corporate Profits as shown by
Audit Reports, it appears that the larger American Corporations made in
the years 1924 and 1928 a lower rate of profit on their total capital than
the smaller corporations. Neither of the authors are trying to present
a case for the small corporation, but before their results are taken to heart
in industrial policy a caution must be issued. Both authors when com-
paring sizes lump all industries together. But it is quite probable that
different industries have characteristically different rates of profit on
capital. Indeed, one of Epstein’s most valuable contributions is to show
the permanence of differences in profit rates between different industries,
at least over the period 1919-1928. Epstein himself is cautious on the
interpretation, but. industries requiring little fixed capital, or involving
risk and uncertainty might be expected to have a higher rate of profit per
capital. If, as I have given reasons for believing, large firms prevail in
industries where there is greater mechanisation ; and if, as is generally
believed, smaller firms prevail in industries subject to wider uncertainties,
it follows that small firms will tend to have the higher rate of profit.
In any case, Marshall’s warning *° still holds that the supposed general
tendency of the rate of profits to equality cannot be verified till economists
agree as to what they mean by rate of profit and how to measure that rate.
Marshall was doubtful whether profits should be rated merely on the basis
of capital and suggested sales *® or the wages bill as alternative or auxiliary
28 Book 6, chap. VIII, of his Principles.
29 May one hope that the Government will make or cause to have made further
inquiries of the relative profitability per ton of saleable coal of undertakings of
different sizes such as the Samuel Commission published in 1926? This showed
for the first half-year of 1925 a definite tendency for the smaller undertakings to
obtain less profit or suffer more loss than the larger firms. But more such evi-
dence is required for more years and more of similar evidence for other industries.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 143
denominators. Certainly, it cannot be assumed that for all industries
there should be the same normal profit per capital on the books. State
taxation policy abandoned this assumption under the Excess Profits Duty
and, after a temporary lapse last spring, abandoned it again in the new
National Defence Contribution. Thus, to be scientific, enquirers such
as Epstein and Paton must isolate the comparison of profits per capital
for different sizes of firms within single industries. Epstein gives data
permitting others to make this isolated comparison. His conclusion that
the smaller corporations are more profitable than the larger is based on
an analysis of corporations whose average capital was $13,500,000. ‘These
corporations are not, unfortunately, broken down into size classes for
specific industries. But a series of separate chapters give profit rates
for particularly small corporations with an average capital of $171,000,
and for twenty-three specific industries (excluding major and all mis-
cellaneous groupings) the rate of profit of a sufficient number of these
corporations is given to form a reliable average for the industry. Com-
paring this average for the small corporations with the average rate of
profit for the large corporations as a whole *° industry by industry, the
small corporations are found on the average for the five years 1924 to
1928 to have the higher profit in seven industries,*! the larger corporations
the higher profit in sixteen industries.”
Clearly, until the profit rates of different sizes of corporations within
the whole larger-sized group is analysed industry by industry, it is rash
to accept Epstein’s conclusion from his unanalysed group, that the smaller
manufacturing corporations tend to be the more profitable. The very
small corporation is probably not.
Rates of profit on capital even when compared within isolated industries
are a difficult measure wherewith to interpret efficiency. Comparisons
of costs as well as profits on output or sales are of greater direct use as a
guide to policy, and economists must welcome the detailed cost analysis
of distributive firms that are being published in America by the Federal
Government and various Research Bureaus. One of the most remarkable
results was found by the first (1930) U.S. Census of Distribution in
averaging the operating costs of wholesale merchants of different size. As
the size increased from firms selling under $25,000 a year right up to
firms selling over $1,000,000, operating costs per $100 of sales fell con-
tinuously, for the nine successive classes of size, from $26-89 to
$9 - 66.
In retail trade the outstanding cost and profit analysis are those con-
ducted by the Harvard Bureau of Business Research. They certainly do
30 The comparison is slightly biassed in favour of the profitability of the small
corporations by the fact that these did not include corporations suffering a deficit
whereas the large corporations did. During the years 1922 to 1929 Epstein
(op. cit. p. 350) does not consider this inclusion to be serious because of the rela-
tively slight number and extent of such deficits.
31 Dairying, meat-packing, lumber manufacturing, blank paper, stationery
castings and forgings, sheet metal.
82 Bakery, flour, confectionery, men’s clothing, knit goods (hosiery), furniture,
cardboard boxes, newspapers, job-printing, paints, petroleum refining, ceramics,
heating and ventilating machinery, electrical machinery, motor vehicles, tools.
144 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
not support the thesis of a limit to efficient size. McNair, in a review of
the Harvard Bureau’s inquiries up to 1928, presents figures *° showing
definitely a higher profit per sales for the larger department stores, lumber
dealers, jewellers, grocers and shoe retailers. Since 1928 similar results
have been repeated for department stores and have been newly established
for specialty stores.*4 This greater profit of the larger firms was due to
their more economical purchase of merchandise rather than to their
lower operating expense. Where chain stores are concerned it is often
found that the larger the branch the lower is the operating cost, while the
larger the whole firm or chain the lower the merchandise cost. A clear
example is that of the chain groceries studied by the Harvard Bureau.
As the whole chain gets larger the cost of merchandise falls. In chains
of under nine branches the costs of purchasing the merchandise forms
81-9 per cent. of retail sales; in chains of ten to fifty branches it is 80°8
per cent. ; in chains of over fifty branches it is down to 79:4 per cent. As
the branch shop—the link of the chain—gets larger the operating costs
fall. In firms with shops selling less than $50,000 a year on the average, ex-
penses formed 19 per cent. of retail sales ; for firms with shops selling on
the average more than this expenses were down to 16-7 per cent. It is
true that the purchasing cost of merchandise-rises slightly for firms with
larger shops and that operating costs rise slightly with larger chains, but
this is not sufficient to offset the economies just mentioned, so that on
balance the chains selling the greatest value of goods (whether by reason
of large shops or a large number of shops) have the lower total of costs
and higher profit per given amount of sales.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission have recently investigated chain
stores on a wider scale. Here the several trades covered show widely
different results. Some trades, such as groceries, confectionery, men’s
furnishings, men and women’s ready-to-wear, follow the Harvard grocery
chain-store pattern. As the number of branches increases, merchandise
cost falls considerably, operating costs rise slightly and, on balance, profits
rise. On the other hand, variety stores either with a limit of $10 or no
limit, department stores and dry goods, show a falling profit as the branches
increase in number. It is noticeable that the nine trades where (according
to the Trade Commission’s own table **) profits per sales rise upward with
increasing size of the chain, are trades with, on the whole, a higher rate of
turnover or ‘ stock-turn ’ than the seven trades where profits fall downward
with increasing size of chain. Only one of the nine upward profit trades
has a turnover rate lower than 3-40; only one of the seven downward
profit trades (department stores) has a turnover rate above 3:42. ‘The
rate of stock-turn is with certain qualifications a possible index, as we
shall see, of the degree of standardisation.
It is possible that profitability depends not upon number of branches
but upon standardisation and the reduction in the number of lines sold.
Thus where the trade lends itself to a multiplication of lines it is rash for
a firm to branch out, since not enough sales will be effected in each line to
83 Economic Journal, December 1930.
34 Harvard Bureau of Business Research Bulletins, 83 and 84.
85 Chain Stoves: Sales, Costs and Profits of Retail Chains, Table 34, p. 58.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 145
justify the expenses of holding stocks. This possible source of ineffi-
ciency is essentially a problem of scope—the thesis being that a firm has
widened the ‘ scope ’ of its transactions too far.
§5. THE INDUSTRIAL SCOPE.
An industrial plant may occupy a certain site and consist of a certain
size, but the scope of its activities may yet be uncertain. The problem
of scope is more familiar under the title of integration, if it is clearly
understood that integration refers to any joint performance by one firm
or plant of several separable transactions, whether this joint performance
occurs by reason of combination of firms, through extension of a single
firm’s activities or always existed. The policy of industrial firms is
constantly concerned with questions of scope or integration. Shall a
new process be taken on to continue processes already performed ; shall
a new product be turned out from the materials already used for existing
products or for the sake of a market already tapped; shall an auxiliary
service be provided within the firm that is now purchased externally ?
These are questions in vertical, lateral and diagonal integration that an
entrepreneur or Board of Directors constantly find themselves asking.
Sometimes the question is in the opposite direction of disintegration, and
the firm may decide on a policy of specialising in a comparatively few
processes or services or a policy of standardising a comparatively few
products. Policies of broadening or narrowing the scope of a firm may
be quite independent of policies for increasing or decreasing its size.
Employing the same number of men or producing the same value of goods
a firm may reduce the number of its lines and, though not changing its
size, may thus narrow its scope. Such a policy would increase the scale
of production of the standard lines retained. It is this scale of production,
not size of firm or plant, to which the economists’ laws of increasing or
diminishing returns refer; so that it is not till we consider scope that
realistic inquiries link up with elementary economic theory. The terms
some of us learned at Cambridge may now at long last be realistically
employed. When an industry by reducing scope goes in for general
standardisation and large-scale production of standard lines then external
economies arise to increase returns. When a single firm or plant by
reducing scope goes in for particular standardisation and what I have
ventured to call large-scale operation ** of standard lines, then internal
economies arise to increase returns. If only, alas, there were more
realistic research into the truth of these hypotheses! The material, I
believe, is there in the current records of British firms who have intro-
duced mass, bulk, or batch production.
Now such a policy of narrowing scope is being widely adopted by
British industry, and often constitutes the core of rationalisation schemes
whether or not sponsored by the State. The Redditch needle trades
have, for instance, adopted a narrowing of vertical scope so that each of
a series of plants specialises in one process; the paper and, I believe,
38 Economic Journal, December 1934.
146 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the paint industry has adopted or proposed a lateral disintegration each
plant specialising on a few varieties. Such schemes often combine a
policy of increased size and scope for the firm or combine, together
with diminished scope for the constituent plants. This seems the
deliberate policy of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Economic
Advisory Council advocated amalgamations in the Cotton Industry both
to get spinning and weaving more closely related, and to secure the
maximum economies from bulk production. Automatic machinery to
be justified in any plant must, in their view, work ‘ upon a narrow range
of products.’
Economists have become accustomed to the notion of an optimum size
of firm or plant ; a notion that implies a pessimum or rather a pejus size
on either side, and rejects the idea that the minimum or the maximum is
necessarily the most efficient size. Similarly we must get accustomed to
an optimum scope or degree of integration for individual industries that
is somewhere between minimum and maximum integration. But the
problem remains, for research to solve, how to find this optimum of scope
for any industry. There is an obstacle at the very outset in the difficulty
of measuring scope by any one statistical index. The direct index would
be the variety of lines produced or sold or, conversely, average number
of units produced or sold in any given line or process. Unfortunately
one line or process is inclined to merge into another and this proposed
index would depend too much on arbitrary classifications. A less direct
measure suggests itself in the rate of turnover of an industry’s, a firm’s or
a plant’s output or sales, since the fewer the lines selected the faster they
might be expected to sell relatively to stock-in-trade held. This is, in
fact, one of the purposes of standardisation. The index may be accepted
with the important reservation of fashionable and perishable goods.
These are far from narrow in scope but to avoid obsolescence and putres-
cence they are sold fast enough.
Though the degree of integration or width of industrial scope is not
easily measurable in figures, it is often possible to show graphically how
one plant or firm has a wider or narrower scope than another. A series
of superimposed charts on transparent paper can be adopted, like the
‘Popular Mannikins or Models of the Human Body’ used by medical
students. Where the technical processes of production, diverging from
raw material or converging on the market, are fairly fixed, this may form,
like models of the human skeleton, a common base upon which to super-
impose, like charts of the nervous or muscular system, various patterns
of integration. Thus, to take a simple case, petroleum is produced from
oil wells, refined into petrol and other substances and then marketed.
But these three vertical stages forming the fixed technical skeleton can be
integrated into four patterns graphically shown by super-imposing en-
closing circles. (1) Each stage by a separate organisation ; (2) producing
and refining integrated and enclosed in one circle; (3) refining and
marketing integrated and enclosed in one circle ; (4) all stages integrated
and enclosed in one circle.
This may well seem rather elementary and childish, but I can assure
you that when it comes to tackling the ramifications of the Birmingham
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 147
brass trades the alternative patterns of integration become positively
kaleidoscopic and one is grateful for any elementary device to see it
through. Indeed, the superimposed circles strikingly reveal how arbitrary
is the notion of ‘an’ industry. One technical skeleton followed through
vertically and laterally from head to tail and finger tip to finger tip, all raw
materials to all finished products, may include dozens of industries. And
what these industries are is determined largely by the usual course or
scope of the enclosing circles, i.e. the policy of integration adopted in the
past by the majority of plants or firms.
Sometimes these circles are firmly drawn and the great majority of firms
and plants in one given industry keep within the circle and do not suffer
trespassers ; in other cases the frontier is not clearly fixed. The British
Production Census of 1930 made, in its Final Report, a manful effort to
measure how far firms assigned to an industry really specialised in the
principal products characteristic of that industry. ‘Two percentages are
given for each industry, one showing the proportion of ‘its’ principal
products included in the output of ‘its’ firms, the other showing the
proportion of the output of its firms represented by its principal products.
An industry whose firms made all of its principal products and nothing
but those products, who were neither trespassed upon nor trespassing,
would get 100 per cent. for each percentage. Such full marks for ‘ defini-
tion ’ were successfully attained on both counts by only six out of some
120 industries ; grain-milling, ice, tobacco, matches, wall-paper and in-
candescent mantles. Markedly loose in definition are the industries of
building materials, of fertiliser, disinfectant and glue, of tools and imple-
ments, of copper and brass, of finished brass, of coke and by-products,
of oil and tallow and of manufactured stationery.
Once the different patterns and scopes of integration are defined between
industries or within an industry, research may proceed to compare the
prevalence, trends, cost and profits of each of them. Such a comparison
of profits on capital investment has been made within the U.S. petroleum
industry 3’ in the years 1922 to 1926. On the whole, ghe most profitable
pattern appears to have been a division of the whole process into two
“scopes”; refining and marketing integrated (profits on capital varying
year by year from g°8 per cent. to 14-9 per cent.) ; producing isolated,
with profits varying from 5-9 per cent. to 18-6 per cent. Complete
integration with producing refining and marketing all in one scope showed
profits only from 4-7 per cent. to 12-1 percent. Refining isolated showed
losses of 0-1 per cent. and 1-5 per cent. and profits of 5-5 per cent. to
13°5 per cent.
A chance for research into scope—under almost experimental condi-
tions—is also offered wherever a given firm or a whole industry deliber-
ately changes its policy. I have elsewhere collected several instances of
particular standardisation, often effected with the help of branding and
advertisement, with its results on cost and profit.°* One outstanding
State experiment in general standardisation lies to hand in the ‘ Grid’
policy of the Electricity Commissioners. There is some controversy
37 Recent Economic Changes, Vol. i., p. 194.
38 The Logic of Industrial Organisation, pp. 25-29.
148 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
about the comparative efficiency of large or small firms supplying current,?9
but the policy of uniformity has, according to all competent observers,?°
led to great savings in equipment by massing reserve capacity in central
hands.
§ 6. To Sum Up.
How far is economic research helpful to current industrial policy in
determining the optimum, most efficient, site, size and scope of industrial
organisations ?
1. The first conclusion to be reached is that the methods of realistic
economic research that try to check theory by observed fact are still in
the imperfect tense. Index measures of size, scope and concentration of
sites are being devised, tests of the efficiency of degrees of size, scope and
site concentration are being worked out, and the conditions where various
degrees of size, scope and site concentration may be found efficient are,
very imperfectly, being discovered. But this research is, I believe, on
helpful lines. It does take account of all the facts without assuming other
things equal ; it does necessitate a grasp of the real complexities of the
industrial situation without inventing hypothetical cases; and it does
-aim at expressing its discoveries in specific terms and fairly exact measured
degrees.
2. The discovery about industrial structure that is preliminary to all
others is its diversity requiring, probably, diverse policies. Different
industries have vastly different sorts of site, size of firms and plants, and
scope. ‘This diversity is also true within most industries ; yet the sum-
mary measures devised by statistics show that individual industries
usually have some prevailing sort of site, size and scope. ‘Thus electrical
engineering has predominantly large plants, associated with high mechan-
isation.; pottery has predominantly medium-sized plants and high localisa-
tion ; the “ dealing ’ or distributive trades small plants and low localisation.
So many industrieg follow each of these three examples not only in Britain
but also in America and Germany that it is permissible to speak of three
types to each of which a common policy can perhaps be applied.
3. If tests of efficiency beyond the mere predominance or prevalence of
a type be also consulted, it appears that in most manufacturing industries
there is little sign of a limit to size of plant or firm, though there are signs
that with the changing importance of the marketing and the production
factors, the growth of localised industries may now halt. Some industries
are absolutely dependent on local raw material or skill and are marked
by a very high coefficient of localisation. But the policy of developing
fairly localisable manufacturing industries away from their original sites
may be justified as a short cut to a position that would be reached by
economic forces anyway, but only after many and wasteful trials and
errors. ‘The newer site of the industry must not, of course, be just any-
where away from the old site. It should be carefully selected by research
inter alia into the industry’s previous development there (measured by
89 P. E. P. Report on Electricity, 1937.
40 G. Haldane in Public Enterprise, ed. Robson, p. 129.
F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS 149
the location factor of the area) and into the urban, suburban or country
character of the place, for which also there are index measures. As to the
efficiency limit of size in manufacturing plant, the prevailing size of plant
in Great Britain, America or Germany is in many manufactures one
employing over 500 men, and for nearly all manufactures the prevailing
size is increasing. ‘The typical association of this large size with mechani-
sation makes the policy of encouraging larger scale plants appear rational
since mechanisation is increasing rapidly. But mechanisation does not
appear to involve large plants where transport costs force plants, however
mechanised, to be near a consumer market. In that case plants must be
ubiquitous, numerous and therefore small. But even in these at present
ubiquitous industries such as baking, brewing and furniture, reduction in
transport costs “! may in the future permit of less ubiquity and therefore
larger plants.
The extreme of ubiquity is-found in the distributive trades. Here
tests of efficiency fail to concur. Small scale shops and firms continue to
_ prevail, yet their.costs appear to be higher and their profits per given
amount sold, lower than in larger units. In view of the general opinion
about the rising costs of distribution and the widening middleman’s
spread, further research as a basis of policy is here urgently needed. One
must continue to deplore the apparent unwillingness of our Government
to undertake a Census of Distribution such as the American, the Canadian,
or the Irish. Before blaming Governments, however, perhaps we ought
to confess that economists have not always made very clear what they
wanted to get out of censuses nor made much use of them once they were
completed !
4. The enlargement of the size of firms and combinations of firms so
often involved in rationalisation and planning has often been opposed on
the ground of the unwieldiness and the difficulty of any one brain managing
large organisations. Statistical evidence that has been offered of lower
profits among larger firms is, however, not easy to substantiate. The com-
pafative efficiency of larger firms probably depends on what they do. If
they enlarge by widening their scope and integrating either vertically or
laterally they may reduce their scale of operation and thus get diminishing
returns. If they enlarge by the increased production of given standard
lines, they may secure increasing return. The manager’s brain is, after all,
just one factor determining the curve of return. It may give way in
attending to a thousand different varieties of integrated materials, pro-
cesses and markets; but it may continue to flourish and obtain increasing
returns if it can specialise in a large way. Much more research is wanted
into the efficiency of different degrees of integration or scope within a
firm (or plant) in any one industry. The optimum, most efficient, pattern
may be specialised narrow-scope productive plants sited in selected places,
controlled by a wide-scope integrated firm or combine which also does
marketing and financing. But there is as yet little data to compare this,
in efficiency, with other possible patterns, though I hope to have indicated
by argument and examples the sort of data required for research into scope,
and the methods of using that data.
41 See H. Levy, The New Industrial System, Part III.
150 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
The doings of a firm of given size and site do not stop short at varia-
tions in scope. Its efficiency will depend also, of course, on management
policy—methods of staff appointment training and incentive, methods of
sub-dividing function and delegating authority, methods of co-ordination
of all these methods. Here also economic and quasi-political research
may help—but that would require another address. ‘To-day I must stop
short at the category of structural policies.
SECTION G.—ENGINEERING.
RESEARCH IN ENGINEERING
ADDRESS BY
SIR ALEXANDER GIBB, G.B.E., C.B., F.R.S.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
ENGINEERING started as an Art; at a later stage it developed into a some-
what scientific but purely empirical Practice ; it is now the final stage of
Applied Science.
That Engineering is a science has not always—and still in some
quarters is not—recognised or appreciated, even among engineers them-
selves. For that we have no one to blame but ourselves. ‘Too long were
we content to act by the light of accumulated experience, not always fully
assimilated. But Engineering has now for some time past realised that,
without research, progress and improvement are impossible.
Engineers have sooner or later always made use of the discoveries of
science ; but the connection with science has been casual and haphazard.
“It seems exceedingly doubtful if Watt or any other inventor,’ wrote
Professor Lea, ‘ would have thought of the independent condenser, if it
had not been for the fundamental work of a purely scientific character
done by Toricelli, Boyle and others, on'the pressure of the atmosphere,
and that by Black and Watt which led to the discovery of the latent heat
of fluids, and thus to a quantitative appreciation of the heat units involved
in changing water into steam.’
But organised research was then something still unknown. For the
first fifty years of its life the Royal Society had to bear the jeers and sneers
of the pulpit, the platform, and the literary world. When Harvey pub-
lished his tract describing the circulation of the blood it was received
with ridicule, as the utterance of a crack-brained impostor, and he was
deserted by almost all of his friends. ‘This attitude of distrust on the part
of the public lasted into the nineteenth century. But scientific research
was at last becoming a matter not only for the individual crank and
dilettante, but for scientific co-operation. The encouragement of research
and the advancement of useful knowledge were indeed among the objects
of the foundation of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1818.
It may be interesting at this stage to remind ourselves very briefly of
the history of research, and how very recent is its growth.
The Royal Commission, appointed to administer the surplus of £213,000
made by the Great Exhibition of 1851, used the money to purchase a large
152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
piece of land in Kensington Gore, on which are built the South Ken-
sington Museum, Schools of Science and Art, the Natural History
Museum, the Museum of Scientific Instruments, and others that I need
net mention. In addition to this many science scholarships have been
provided.
From 1850 Government gave an annual grant of £1,000 (increased by
£4,000 a year in 1877) to the Royal Society for the promotion of scientific
enquiries, which went to aid research in mathematics, physics, astronomy,
biology, chemistry and general purposes. The Society also benefited
from many donations from its own Fellows. And from time to time
private individuals, by donations or bequests, endowed fellowships.
But in Great Britain original research continued to be mainly the task
of individual scientists, chiefly at their own expense. Industry had
certainly not yet recognised its value, and it was to be a full generation
before it was fully and practically accepted that scientific and industrial
research is an essential factor in our industrial and national existence.
In Germany greater progress had been made. The lessons learnt in
the Franco-Prussian War led to the institution in 1872 of the Reichsanstalt
and the Materials Testing Department. The former was established in
two divisions : the one devoted to pure science and the other to its applica-
- tion to the advancement of industry and manufacture. At the same time
technical colleges for research and the training of research students were
founded at Charlottenburg, Darmstadt and other centres. German
industrialists quickly recognised the value of the work of these institutions.
The A.E.G., Siemens and Halske and such great companies at an early
date set up private research laboratories. ‘The development of the dye
industry is a perpetual warning and incitement, for it was Perkin who
first discovered, in 1857, the manufacture of aniline blue ; but it was left
to the Dye Company of Germany to create from his discovery the great
German dye industry, for which purpose huge sums were spent in
developing new methods and evolving new dyes.
To return to our own country and engineering. In 1893 Sir William
Anderson wrote: ‘ The days are past when an Engineer can acquit himself
respectably by the aid of mother wit alone or of those constructive in-
stincts, which in the past led our predecessors to such brilliant results.’
Four years later the Government appointed a Committee under the
chairmanship of Lord Rayleigh to consider and report upon the desira-
bility of founding a National Physical Laboratory. The setting up of
this committee was incidentally largely due to the agitation, led by
Sir Oliver Lodge, at meetings of the British Association and elsewhere.
In 1898 Lord Rayleigh’s committee issued its report, recommending
that a public institution should be founded ‘for the standardising and
verifying of instruments, for testing materials and for the determination
of physical constants,” and that it should be under the control of the
Royal Society. The scheme was drawn up in 1899 and Dr. Glazebrook,
F.R.S., (afterwards Sir Richard Glazebrook) was appointed its first
Director, a position which he held until 1918.
G.—ENGINEERING ee oc:
The year 1900 is, too, an important dividing line in another sense. ‘The
National Physical Laboratory was founded just before it; and two years
after it, 1902, the British Engineering Standards Association was estab-
lished, by the co-operation of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Naval Architects,
and the Iron and Steel Institute, under the chairmanship of Sir John
Wolfe Barry, the great civil engineer. Since 1goo research has been on
the whole, recognised as a question of national importance.
The history of the National Physical Laboratory has been one of con-
tinual expansion. From Kew it removed immediately to Teddington to
have greater space. In 1901 the Engineering Laboratory was completed.
In quick succession followed departments dealing with Electrotechnics,
Electrical Standards, Optics, Thermometry, Pyrometry, Tide-Predicting,
Road Materials, Physics, Metallurgy, Aeronautics, Ship Model Testing,
to mention only a few of its manifold activities. By 1918 when it became
part of the larger organisation known as the Department of Scientific and
Industrial Research, it had already an expert staff of 600. It has now
over 1,900.
The original committee of eight, under the chairmanship of Sir John
Wolfe Barry, that controlled the British Engineering Standards Asso-
ciation, has now expanded into a body of 870 committees with 4,850
members.
In later years, co-ordination has become recognised as essential. ‘ In
any earlier age,’ said Mr. Thomas Midgley, on the occasion of the award
to him this year of the Perkin Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry,
“when science and industry were simple individualistic processes, it is
conceivable that some person, by his efforts alone, could have advanced
applied chemistry to have justified your Committee to bestow upon him
the Perkin Medal. ‘To-day this is no longer so. To advance applied
chemistry even a little requires the organised efforts of many individuals.
Since you have chosen me as the recipient of the Perkin Medal for 1937
it is only fitting that I acknowledge at this time the aid which I have
received from others in solving the two problems for which you are
rewarding me.’ Such ascription of merit would have to be made by every
research worker of to-day.
The same is true generally in industry and manufacture. Every im-
portant industry and many manufacturers devote considerable expenditure
to research. It is in fact the only means of continuous progress in an
increasingly competitive world. It is almost the exception now to find
a firm of any standing that has not its research department, and some of
the most extensive and elaborate laboratories in the country are under the
control of great manufacturing firms. The modern State is founded on
scientific research—not like the French judge in 1794, who, in sentencing
to death Lavoisier, one of the founders of modern chemistry, said that
the Republic has no need of scientists !
Nowadays a vast amount of State-aided research is being carried out by
State Departments, private Research J aboratories, Research Associations,
154 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Scientific Institutions, Universities and Technical Colleges, and still by
private individuals.
The engineering world has not kept pace with the scientific world ;
and it has been fortunate that the two distinguished directors who ad-
ministered the activities of the National Physical Laboratory for the first
thirty years of its existence, Sir Richard Glazebrook and Sir Joseph
Petavel, should have been men of the widest views. Before 1914 the
work of the National Physical Laboratory was very valuable, but during
the War, it became indispensable both to Government and to industry.
In due course it was found that a wider organisation was wanted to link
in a more definite way the relation between science and engineering
research and industry. A Joint Board of Scientific Societies formed a
deputation under the leadership of Sir Joseph J. Thomson to stress the
importance and urgency of the question on the Government.
The outcome was the establishment, in 1915, of the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research, under the control of a Committee of
the Privy Council, with an Advisory Council of scientific men of the
highest rank in the country ; and in 1918 the National Physical Laboratory
became part of the newly created department, though the Royal Society
continued to control its scientific activities.
A glance at the summary of the latest report of the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research affords some idea of the immense
engineering field it now covers in its work. It includes fuel research, food
investigation, building research, steel structures, roads, road tar, forest
products research, researches on water pollution, metallurgy, and radio,
chemical research, illumination, lubrication, atmospheric pollution, furnace
design, industrial respirators, radium beam therapy, X-ray analysis,
and I may add, almost any problem you may like to put before them.
But apart from the immense importance of the scientific work done,
the Department is the focus for linking together all the research going on
in the country. This it made from the outset one of its primary objects ;
and one of the chief ways in which it accomplishes this, is by the en-
couragement of the formation of Research Associations. ‘These associa-
tions are self-governing bodies formed on a national basis in various
industries for research in the interest of the industries they serve. Each
association is, or aims at being, a co-operative unit representing all the
firms who belong to that particular industry. ‘There is no fixed subscrib-
tion, it being based on the size of each firm, so that for a very small sum
a small firm may have the benefits of an organisation which is spending
thousands of pounds annually on fundamental research of interest to the
whole industry. The Associations work in close contact with the Depart-
ment of Scientific and Industrial Research, to which each one submits
a yearly report of the work it has done and the problems which it is study-
ing. ‘The Department’s help does not, however, stop at this point. In
addition to advice and technical help, it contributes to the funds of the
research associations by making a {1 for {1 addition for every sum
provided by the members.
G.—ENGINEERING 155
Of equal importance is the work carried on in the various research
bodies under the management of the great scientific institutions. These
again are largely co-operative in their aim. Some, indeed, as for instance
the Research and Standardisation Committee of the Institution of Auto-
mobile Engineers, are affiliated to the Department of Scientific and
Industrial Research as Research Associations, and receive the Department’s
£1 for £1 contribution to their funds.
Nearly all the Universities now have research departments, which not
only carry out practical work of importance, but also act as training
centres for students who are to make research work their livelihood ;
while as already mentioned private research laboratories are maintained
by the more important and wealthier firms—as well as by quite humble
businesses. ‘Their primary object is naturally the furthering of private
interests, but they are not entirely isolated units. Many such research
departments belong to one or other of the Research Associations and
frequently pass on problems of a fundamental nature to them to deal
with. All can work in contact and correspondence with the Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research—if they desire.
I have tried to indicate the rise, growth, and present state of research
in this country. Some idea of the recency of its growth may be gained
from the fact that in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
published in rg1o, the subject receives rather less than half a paragraph.
The early years of the twentieth century saw on the whole much greater
research activity abroad and in America than here. It is quite impossible
to enter on any account of these, but I might mention that the National
Academy of Sciences, was founded in the U.S.A. as early as 1863, to deal
with all phases of national research ; and its influence in the United States
is comparable to that of the Royal Society in our own country. In 1916
the Academy created the National Research Council to assist Government
in organising the scientific resources of the country, which proved of such
great service during the period of the Great War that it was decided to
maintain it as a permanent organisation. One of its main branches was
that of Engineering and Industrial Research.
The first years of the new century, also as with us, saw the setting up
of the National Bureau of Standards by the United States Government,
which covers an immense field and whose technical bulletins and other
publications are the means of making widely known many of the latest
scientific discoveries. America has indeed always been forward in pro-
moting international standardisation in engineering and co-operation in
research work, considering that the two matters must run together—as is
so. The Bureau of Standards includes as part of its organisation a close
co-operation with the research department of the Universities and other
institutions in every State.
In America, too, industry and manufacture have taken a leading part
in the research movement, and some of their great laboratories eclipse
our own in size. ‘The United States have developed a form of co-opera-
tive research of their own, of which the Mellon Institute is the best
156 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
known example, founded in 1913 by the brothers Richard and Andrew
Mellon. Since its origin 1,150 research fellowships have been
established in 275 technological subjects and 650 processes or pro-
ducts have been invented or developed. In ten instances new industries
have resulted. :
In Canada, where I was very recently, I was greatly struck by the action
the Dominion Government is taking in the promotion of research. The
National Research Council, with headquarters at Ottawa, where it has a
magnificent new building, is not only carrying out a very wide programme
of practical research, but is aiming at training a big body of research-
minded engineers and scientists.
One could continue the story of research abroad, but I must stop. I
have omitted much that those acquainted with the subject would have
expected to be included. But I have done enough to show what a great
deal has been done to establish research in our generation.
There is no finality. Every day extends the bounds of knowledge.
We have only just begun to understand how to conduct organised research.
‘ The historian of the future,’ writes Lord Rutherford, in the last Report
of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, ‘ will probably
point to the last five years as a period marking an important development
in the industrial outlook of this country. ‘These years have witnessed
the fruition of the policy adopted by several large industrial undertakings
of setting well-balanced teams of research workers, including chemists,
physicists, engineers and where necessary biologists, to solve a particular
problem or to develop a new product. ‘This method of attack has led to
the steady improvement of the efficiency of electric lamps, to the position
this country has won in high definition television, to the development on
a commercial scale of the huge plant for the conversion of coal into oil by
hydrogenation, to the growth of the plastics industry and to many other
important advances. . . . Co-operation can never win its fullest success
until the contacts between men of ideas in industry and men of ideas in
science are as closely knit as possible.’ .
Although I have dealt so briefly with the subject I hope I have made
evident that research divides itself into several categories. It is, I think,
very necessary to bear this in mind.
There is what one may call true fundamental research—splitting the
atom, or extreme low temperature investigation. No one can doubt that
the results will ultimately have their effect on human life. No one,
however, can now say who will be benefited, or how. Such work must
always be expensive, it must depend on endowments and generous gifts.
It is not with this type of research that Engineering is directly concerned.
I am concerned with applied research, and it has its divisions. We
have in the first instance work of more or less universal application—such
as agricultural research, the breeding of new wheats, or methods of storage
of fresh fruits ; or investigations in regard to river pollution. ‘The results
once attained become immediately available to all the world. Such work
too depends on endowments and Government support. This type of
G.—ENGINEERING 157
research, as fundamental research, often finds its home in our Universities,
and where there is still opportunity of individualism.
Then there is the research that deals wholly with the problems of a
particular industry—aircraft building, or the development of welding.
Here the whole work has a much more restricted field and definite goal.
New truths are not sought ; but the means of turning the inventions of
others to practical use and the economic solutions of the problems of
those concerned in the particular industry whatever it may be. The
results can be more or less restricted to the members of the industry that
support the research ; and the admitted object is to benefit those members.
The Mellon Institute in U.S. typifies a rather different type of co-
ordinated research. The Institute has a limited membership. Only
one representative of each class of interest is admitted. For instance there
is only one yeast firm that is a member. No other would be able to
become a member. But of course the boundaries of the interests of many
member firms necessarily overlap. The result is that while applied
research is being carried on in many different fields in the Mellon Institute,
all the members may benefit sooner or later from researches into problems
not directly connected with them. ‘The Institute is extremely ably run.
The results have been considerable, and private research is enabled to be
carried out on a broader basis than would otherwise be possible.
Finally there is the private research department, large or small, of every
progressive company. Here while the results can be kept entirely con-
fidential, obviously the scope is in some ways more restricted. Most
companies find it necessary to pool inventions, and even so where research
is carried on more or less in secret, there is danger that errors of approach
may not be realised, until much damage has been done or time lost.
With these remarks, I turn to the all important question of finance.
Research is expensive. Who is to pay? In the early days of discovery
it was inevitably at the expense of the individual, and in this way many
private fortunes were spent for the ultimate good of industry and
humanity.
In the nineteenth century, apart from the scientists who spent their
private fortunes, research was largely dependent on the endowment of
public-spirited benefactors, and to scientific societies. Government, as I
have already said, more far-seeing than the general public and in spite of
futile criticism, began to aid in a small way from the middle of the century:
onwards. Generally speaking industry had not realised the importance of
research and its attitude was almost hostile until the twentieth century
was well on its way. The £54,000 raised for the Ramsey Memorial
Fellowships, after his death in 1916; Sir Alfred Yarrow’s £100,000 in
1923, are earlier examples of the efforts of individuals which have their
modern counterparts in Lord Austin’s and Lord Nuffield’s gifts to Oxford
and Cambridge Universities.
But it is now sufficiently admitted that research should be paid for by
those who benefit by it—the community and industry. The attitude of
industry has changed from indifference to support. ‘It is not easy to
158 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
assess over a period of twelve months the change that is taking place,’
writes Lord Rutherford in the Report I have already quoted. ‘ Comparison
of the attitude of to-day with that of ten years ago indicates more definitely
what is happening. In one field of our work industry affords each year,
clear and tangible evidence, that the forward movement which it has been
our aim to encourage is gathering momentum. ‘The steady increase in the
total sum which industry as a whole provides annually for the development
of Research Associations gives us good reasons for taking an optimistic
point of view.’
In the year 1932-33 a total sum of £167,370 was supplied by all the
industries concerned for the support of the Research Associations organised
by them. In 1935-36 the figure had grown to £232,468 ; an increase of
40 per cent. in three years. But even so the position is not yet satisfactory,
and industry still lags behind in its support of these Associations, in spite
of the liberal encouragement of Government. I have no doubt, however,
that this stage of affairs will not last. In the past year several important
steps forward have for instance been taken, the opening of the splendid
new laboratories of the Printing and Allied Trades Association, the
Perivale Laboratories of the Electrical Research Association, the new
laboratories of the Research and Standardisation Committee of the Institu-
tion of Automobile Engineers, the extensions to the Shirley Institute and
the Research Station of the Paint Research Association at ‘Teddington.
We have been experiencing a revival, and hopes are high again. This
always makes it easier to get money. Unfortunately, when industry is
depressed, and when research is all the more necessary, the necessary
support is not forthcoming. I might instance the William Froude
Laboratory. The work of the Institution was made possible by the
benefactions of two leading members of the ship-building industry,
Sir Alfred Yarrow in its early days, and Sir James Lithgow in its more
recent developments. ‘The maintenance of the research work, however,
depends largely upon the provision of funds by the shipping and ship-
building industries. Actually, the major portion of the expenditure has
been met by payments for tests by individual members, while the industry
as a whole has contributed only about £2,000 a year, an inadequate sum
to deal with the immense field that has to be covered. In the years
1935-6, 73 ship designs involving the making and testing of 160 model
hulls were dealt with. Four of the designs were improved in hull and
propeller by more than 20 per cent., and effective improvements were
made in 54 out of the 73 designs. ‘ It has been calculated,’ we are told,
‘ that if only one ship were built to each of the improved designs resulting
from one year’s work at the Tank, the annual saving in the cost of operating
the vessels would be more than enough to cover the cost of running the
William Froude Laboratory for a year.’
Of course, here as always in research, it is the case that the greater the
success of research, the more immediate and drastic the effect on existing
plant and equipment. That is where the rub sometimes lies. Millions are
necessarily sunk in fixed assets, which may in a year or two be made obsolete
G.—ENGINEERING 159
by the development of new methods. Obsolescence is indeed so rapid
nowadays, that it is not unusual for new plant to be written off in four
years ; and many valuable inventions have been bought up by vested
interests and suppressed in order to save the greater loss that their ex-
ploitation would involve to already operating plant. It is therefore not
surprising that there is not always an enthusiasm for unrestricted research
or a readiness to praise it. But it is a shortsighted policy.
I have glanced at the rise and growth of the modern research movement.
Co-ordination and co-operation have done much to link together the
various elements, but there has as yet been no general national plan.
For totalitarian states such things are not so difficult ; but for that reason
democratic countries too must organise and co-operate more closely than
ever before. Groups of unrelated, often competitive, bodies cannot be
really effective. In my opinion the time must come when every research
organisation will be linked by-some form of affiliation to a central control-
ling body. This would become inevitable in time if only to prevent
hopeless overlapping and duplication, with attendant waste of energy,
time and money. There is another direction where centralisation is
equally necessary. I refer to publication. At present if the results of
research are not kept as trade secrets, they are often broadcast in such
a multitude of journals, books, papers, addresses, etc., that it is almost
impossible for one who is studying any particular branch to avoid un-
wittingly covering ground already covered by previous workers. We have
all experienced the difficulty of trying to collect all the latest information
on the subject we have been called upon to deal with. I believe that
approximately thirty thousand scientific periodicals are published through-
out the world, each of which no doubt may contain the results of research
in some form or other. In our own country no definite and practical
scheme has yet been conceived for making available the results of research.
There should, moreover, be some type of clearing-house of engineering
information, such as would collect, collate and make immediately available
all newdata discovered. Some partial success has been attained in this
direction in more than one way. The Executive Council of Imperial
Agricultural Bureaux, for instance, an autonomous authority that deals
with the finance and administration of ten scientific bureaux, works in
close touch not only with all the councils but with other research centres
such as the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge, the
Building Research Station at Watford, and so on. If it be impossible
even to work out a similar organisation for engineering on a national or
world-wide basis, it cannot be impossible to establish at least a clearing-
house system at a relatively small expense in co-operation with the Depart-
ment of Scientific and Industrial Research. This Department, with the
research associations which it partly finances, and others with which it is
associated provides the ideal nucleus for such an information service, but
Engineering must work out its own scheme.
I am afraid I have no definite proposals to make—at least at this juncture.
All I have desired to do is to ventilate a subject of paramount importance
160 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
to engineering. I would thank you for so courteously listening to me ;
there is no more useful work that the British Association does, than offer
opportunities for the ventilating of the vital problems and questions of
the day. I am satisfied that at the moment in the engineering world—
which after all means in the whole commonwealth—there are two out-
standing questions, the co-ordination of effort and the promotion of
intensive research.
eo, eee
SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY.
ASSAM ORIGINS IN RELATION TO
OCEANIA
ADDRESS BY
PROF... J... oH. HUTTON, CLES
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
In choosing this subject I am not attempting to offer any definite solution
to the problems of Indonesian migrations, but propose rather to examine
one aspect of them in the hopes that I may elicit further information
from various quarters which may contribute towards the ultimate solution
of what is really a complex of very difficult problems, as I feel that although
a clearing up of the main question may be very distant some analysis of
the Assam side of the problem is perhaps possible.
Many parallels are to be found of one sort or another between Assam
and Oceania, some of which were pointed out by Sir Henry Yule and by
S. E. Peal in articles in the fournal of the Anthropological Institute in
February 1880 and 1893 respectively, and others of which I myself
pointed out in an article on Assam and the Pacific in Man in India in 1924.
In 1925 Mr. Henry Balfour pointed out cultural connections between
Assam and Indonesia in the matter of certain types of thorn-lined fish
traps? and, more recently, of fretted horn and shell ear ornaments.
It will, therefore, be enough here to demonstrate by three examples the
general association between Assam and Oceanic cultures.
Evans has pointed out ? how the Malay word buni connects with the
word ‘taboo’ throughout the Pacific, buni or puni having always some sense
of segregation and a cutting off of communication with the outside world.
This word punt clearly appears in the Naga words penna and pint, the
Angami and Sema words respectively for the taboo observed by a whole
village when intercourse with all strangers is entirely prohibited, and to
the Pacific examples given by Evans might be added the use in the
Marquesas of the words penant and pana-le.*
The second example is that of the use of wooden images to accommodate
the souls of the departed, whose skull is used to form part of the image.
In the Naga hills ® certain remote Konyak villages across the frontier,
e.g. Tobu, accommodate the souls of their dead in basket-work figures
1 Peal, S. E., 1893, J.A.I., 22, 244 sqq.
2 Balfour, H., 1925, Man, 21.
® Evans, 1920, Man, 88 ; cf. Hutton I, 192, 200 segg.; II, 220. (Note: A key
to roman figures used in references will be found in an alphabetical list of autho-
rities at the end of the address).
* Delmas, 1927, La Religion des Marquisiens, 62. 5 Hutton, X.
G
162 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the heads of which consist of hollow wicker cases into which the skull is
put. Their neighbours, e.g. Angfang, carve on to the wooden statue
complete with head two projecting horns to hold the skull in place. In
neither case does the skull, however, form a permanent part of the soul
figure as it does in New Guinea, where at Ron (or Run) soul images are
reported, the heads of which are made with the skulls of the deceased.®
But an intermediate link appears to be found in the Nicobar Islands,
where to a deceased person a wooden image is set up which has a cup-
board in the back into which the bones are put and two horns or a sort
of cup, in this case arising out of the neck, to form a receptacle for the
dead man’s skull.?__ A third link is supplied by the Khasia hills in Assam,
where the War of Shella erect a wooden post to accommodate the bones
of the dead man, which are placed in the post symbolically by means of
a cowrie used to represent what is left of his bones after cremation.®
Another link is probably to be found in the Borneo practice of interring
the person’s bones in a post.®
The third example I offer is that of the associations of the hornbill
with head hunting. This is well known in Assam and there is no need
for me to go into details here, except to say that the tail feathers of
Dichoceros bicornis are used by all Naga tribes as insignia of successful
head-hunters,!° while the head of the same bird is worn at the back of
the neck by men of the Lhota Naga tribe 1! who have set up a menhir,
and its split mandibles serve as ‘ horns’ with the same significance as
the feather for some tribes on their cane helmets as for the Angami on
their breast ornaments.!2 The feathers and head of Aceros nepalensis
and Rhytidoceros undulatus are sometimes used as a substitute when those
of dichoceros cannot be obtained.
For parallels in Borneo and New Guinea I am indebted to Dr. Haddon.
The white-crested hornbill (Berenicornis comatus) is looked for as an
omen on the warpath by Kayans, who wear hornbill feathers and, like
several Naga tribes, tattoo their hands or arms as insignia of head-
taking ; Buceros is similarly regarded as a good omen in Humboldt
Bay in New Guinea and the wearing of its upper mandible in the hair is
a sign that the wearer has taken human life elsewhere in New Guinea."
Williams, writing of Orokaiva society in 1930, says that the hornbill’s
corrugated beak was apparently used as an emblem of homicide in former
times and concludes that hornbill beaks and heads were exclusive homicidal
insignia in British New Guinea.!*
It will, however, probably be safer to examine limited areas more
closely for the existence of groups of parallels between Assam and Oceania
8 Frazer, I, 311, 324, quoting F. S. A. le Clercq and J. L. van der Roest.
7 Bonington, 1932, Man, 188.
8 Information in writer’s possession, but as yet unpublished.
® Ling, Roth, Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, 2, 210 (quoting
Prof. Kikenthal).
10 Hutton, I, 29, 392; Mills, I, 13, 109.
11 Mills, I, 14. 12 Hutton, I, 30. 13 Haddon, II, 388.
14 Haddon, I, 200.
16 Williams, F. E., Ovokaiva Society, 19, 39, 178.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 163
than to look at isolated customs without their context, and for this purpose
I have chosen three widely separated areas. ‘The first of these at which
I wish to look is Fiji, where a very large number of points of culture are
to be found associated, suggesting an intimate relation with Assam.
Head-hunting customs may be taken first. Thomas Williams in his
journal mentions the preservation of enemy skulls in Fijian ‘ temples’ 1°
which offer a close parallel to the preservation of heads in a Naga morung.
He also mentions a practice practically identical with that of ‘ touching
meat ’-in the Naga hills, when he gives an account of the ceremonies
gone through to confer honour upon Ratu Duadua ‘on account of his
having had something to do with knocking a man’s brains out, or striking
him with a club after someone else had killed him.’ 1” ‘That is just what
would be regarded as an adequate qualification for the assumption of a
hornbill’s feather by a Naga warrior, and I have elsewhere mentioned
Colonel Woods’s account of how his Naga clerk at Makwari was observed
to spear a dead enemy (shot by a sepoy) with his umbrella, after which
he assumed warrior’s dress.18
Williams also mentions the practice of human sacrifice at the time of
building a house or temple,!® a practice which is still reported to take
place across the Assam frontier and which has probably taken place
inside it within my own experience of the Naga hills. ‘The method there
believed to be used, as in Polynesia, was to put the victim into the hole
made for the post and step the post on top of him, the object of the
ceremony being described as the provision of someone to hold up the
post.??
Brewster also mentions the necessity of a human sacrifice when build-
ing a club house in Fiji, and quotes one instance of a man being placed
under the house-post of a warrior, who afterwards took the name of
Nandu Rutama, meaning ‘the man-post.’*4 Brewster also mentions
that measles require blood,”* a statement very reminiscent of a case in
the Naga hills where vaccination against small-pox was supplemented by
the taking of a head,** and he likewise mentions the existence in Fiji
of sacrosanct heralds who can go and come between warring villages
quite safely in virtue of their office,?* as they can do in the Naga hills.”° .
It is also perhaps worth pointing out that the thatching of the ridge pole
of a Fijian club house must be done by a warrior,?® as among the Sema
Nagas *’ ; and there is conceivably some connection between the Fijian
practice of putting fingers in split bamboo into the thatch as symbols
of mourning ?° and the Lhota practice of covering their ridge pole with
bamboos split into five ends and always known as ‘ enemy hands.’ ?®
Another parallel between the Naga hills and Fiji is to be found in the
practice of women turning out to welcome the returning warrior,®° a
16 Williams, Thomas, I, 552; II, 222. 17 Williams, Thomas, II, 374.
18 Hutton, I, 165. 19 Williams, I, 326, n.
20 Cf. also Mills, I, 25; II, 76. 21 Brewster, 75 sq.
22 Tbid., 67. 23 Hutton, I, 160.
a ge aD * aR so ae X, 27.
. eane, 205. utton, II, 45.
28 Williams, II, 198. 29 Mills, I, 34.
30
Williams, I, 310, 343 n., 403; II, 208.
164 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
practice to which a parallel also existed among the head-hunting tribes
of Kafiristan, where rice was showered on returning warriors, no doubt
as a fertility rite comparable to the throwing of rice at a European wedding.
The wearing of hair and teeth taken from an enemy’s head *! is reported
by Waterhouse from Fiji and, in the case of hair, is still practised by the
head-hunting tribes of Assam, who, at any rate in the case of the Konyak
Nagas, seem at one time also to have worn enemy teeth,** while they still
like the Fijian warriors wear bleached pandanus leaves ** on their legs.
In Fiji,34 as in the Naga hills,?° a plantain tree is a common euphemism
for a human being for decapitation, etc., and the men over whom the
Fijian war canoes were launched were actually tied to plantain trees to
serve as rollers, which suggests a possible origin for the synonym. It was
usual in the Naga hills for a village making peace, when its tale of heads
was less than that of the other party to the negotiations, to demand so many
‘ plantain trees’ to equalise matters, and to receive them in the form of
slaves, who were decapitated to make the numbers equal on each side.
Many close parallels between Assam and Fiji are also to be found
associated in one form or another with the cult of the dead. Brewster
notes the existence in Fiji of a sort of ancestor worship combined with
phallic forms and in some cases with an origin from a phallic rock or
round water-worn stones.°* Identical cults exist in all parts of the Naga
hills 7 and are to be found as far south as the Arakan hill tracts.%®
Phallic stone cists are made for the skulls of the dead in some Naga
villages °° and over these cists ceremonies are performed to obtain the
birth of children, just as in Fiji a barren woman oils and garlands a
phallic stone for the same purpose. Both in Fiji and in the Naga hills
ancestor spirits take the form of moths. In both areas there is a general
belief in the path to be followed by the dead souls to the other world and
in the perils that beset it,4° while the Fijian belief that the piercing of
ears is necessary for recognition by relatives in the next world,*! or at
least to avoid degradation therein, is reproduced by the Sema Nagas in
Assam,*? just as the Ao 48 reproduce the Fijian belief ** in the ultimate
fate of the unmarried who succumb to the demon beside the road, as a
defence against whom the Fijian buries a club with a dead warrior and
the Naga a spear or a dao.
31 Waterhouse, II, 314.
32 Owen, Notes on the Naga Tribes in communication with Assam (Calcutta,
1844), Pp. 15.
33 Seemann, 31.
34 Brewster, 75, 234. Cf. Ellis, III, 1, 317. Where the expression ‘ long
plantain ’ is used in exactly the same way.
35 Mills, II, 278, 279 n.
36 Brewster, 89 ; Waterhouse, I, 89.
37 Hutton, V; Mills, II, passim (v. index, s.v. ‘ stones ’).
38 Fryer, G. B., 1878, ‘ Khyeng People of Sandoway,’ Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,
No. 1.
39 Hutton, VIII.
40 Williams, II, 243 sqg.; Brewster, 287; Hutton, I, 186, 414 sqg., 417; II,
211 sq.; Mills, I, 118 sqq.
41 Brewster, 287; Williams, I, 322; II, 247.
42 Hutton, II, 235. 43 Mills, II, 228.
44 Frazer, I, 464 Williams, II, 243 sq.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 165
A very close parallel is also to be found in the Fijian practice of burying
a whale’s tooth with the dead man, who must throw it against a pandanus
tree in this or in the next world.*® If he hit the pandanus tree with the
tooth he obtains, according to Deane, ‘a passport on his journey to the
happy land.’ According to Williams he knows that his widows have been
strangled to accompany him. The Ao warrior is given no whale’s tooth
to throw, but is provided with a spear with which, having crossed the
river of the dead, he must aim at a tree which he will find on the far side,
calling out his own name as he does so.*® If he has lived an honest life
he will hit the tree and obtain Paradise, if he has been a thief he will
miss it and be side-tracked. It is worth noting that Waterhouse con-
siders that the whale tooth is an innovation 47 as it has ‘ probably not
been in use much more than a century.’ (He was writing in 1866.) He
adds that costly clubs and ‘ staves’ were similarly used as offerings like
the whale’s tooth, and in the Naga hills among the Ao, as among other
tribes, the ordinary ceremonial gift is a decorated spear shaft without
ahead. It is probably significant that whereas the Fijian belief related
to actual trees growing on specified islands, the Ao belief relates to a tree
growing in the Land of the Dead and encountered immediately after
crossing the stream which separates the land of the living from that of
the dead.
One small point is perhaps worth mention. The demon on the road
to the dead insists, according to the Angami Naga, on the dead man’s
eating either a bitter seed or a louse from his, the demon’s, head before
he passes him.*® Apparently in Thomas Williams’ time it was customary
in Fiji to eat lice from one’s head,*® though this is not the case, at any
rate in my experience among Naga tribes. Williams records that the dead
in Fiji were dressed in new clothes.°° In the Naga hills to dream of a man
dressed in new clothes is a certain presage of death, and I once had this
brought home to me by one of my interpreters coming to me in camp
in considerable consternation to say that my orderly, who had been left
behind in Kohima was dead. He knew it because he had so dreamt of
him that night, and the news of his entirely unexpected death reached us
by runner two days later.*!
As in Fiji 2 so in the Assam hills ** corpses must be fanned to keep
the flies from settling, and as in Fiji °* so, if only occasionally, in Assam °°
the coffin takes the shape of a canoe or appears to do so, although in
the Assam hills a boat is rarely if ever used. In both places it is generally
believed that life in the next world continues as in this.°* That if a
man has been poor here he will be poor there and vice versa. In Bulotu,
46 Seemann, 229, 399; Deane, 84; Williams, I, 8 7.5, 317 sg., 335; II, 242;
Frazer, I, 464.
46 Mills, II, 229. 47 Waterhouse, II, 341. * 48 Hutton, I, 226.
49 Williams, I, 185; II, 161.
50 Williams, I, 313 ”.; Waterhouse, II, 319.
51 Hutton, I, 247. 52 Williams, I, 316; II, 197.
53 Mills, II, 278; Parry, 400. 54 Williams, II, 192.
55 Hutton, I, 417; IX, 41; Mills, I, 157, 158 .
es Walliams; D167 2.49) sq.; I1,-183243); “Hutton, Il, 212°} Malls; TT, 231 ;
Parry, 396.
166 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the future world of the Fijians as of the Tongans, the air is so strong
that mortals grow old very quickly,®’ as in the Angami Whedzura,*® and
the topsyturvydom of the Angami chiisénu, when pestles put forth leaves
and the grain will fly in the air and men run about to catch it, while their
ears grow the wrong way on,°® has a precise equivalent in the Fijian
Tavuki,®° as it has in the Apu Lagan of the Karen of Burma, and possibly
in the Apo Leggan of the Kayan of Borneo.
Numbers of parallels appear in beliefs and practices current in the
two areas. Both Fiji *! and the Naga hills ®* believe in the separability
of the soul from the body. It is conceived of as animula vagula blandula,
and when illness of the body is caused by the temporary absence of
the soul the vagrant can be recalled by name. After death it may hang
about its earthly haunts for three or four days,®* while belief in the
plurality of souls in one body occurs in both areas.** The symptoms of
possession by a spirit causing a violent trembling of the limbs and rapid
incoherent speech are the same in Assam and Fyi,®° as perhaps in many
other parts of the world. So also the belief in the immanence of gods
or spirits in stones is perhaps too widespread to be of value for the pur-
poses of this comparison, though the use of baetylic stones is almost
identical in both areas, and both areas firmly believe that these stones
breed as if alive and produce children in the shape of smaller nodules.**
Both in Fiji and among the Ao Nagas the fish appears associated with
the marriage ceremony,®’ while tattooing is applied to girls when they
reach a marriageable age.®® In Fiji, as among the Konyak Nagas, we
find girls taken from their subjects to attend a daughter of a chief going
as a bride to a distant village,*® and in both areas the postponement of
cohabitation after marriage is usual.”° In Fiji again, as among some of
the Assam tribes, we find the practice of teknonymy,*t which Brewster
compares to the Polynesian practice by which parents ‘ sink into obscurity
when their children arrive at the age of discretion.’ One is reminded of
the practice in Laruri in the Naga hills by which the parents abandon their
house to their eldest son on his marriage and occupy a lean-to or separate
hut of comparative insignificance.
In Fiji again 7 a system is found known as vakandewa, identical with
that of the ‘sentry’ system by which letters in the Ao county can be
sent direct from one end of the tribe to the other,’* though this system
is not found in the majority of Naga tribes, at any rate in the south of
the Naga hills. In both areas the official carver and meat distributor
57 Frazer, I, 462; II, 88. 58 Hutton, I, 260.
59 Hutton, I, 252; Mills, II, 108. 60 Brewster, 237.
61 Williams, I, 102, 127; II, 242; Deane, 156.
62 Hutton, II, 200, 209.
63 Waterhouse, II, 326; Hutton, II, 210.
64 Williams, II, 241 ; Mills, II, 224. 65 Williams, II, 224.
66 Seemann, 90; Hutton, II, 174, 253, 255.
67 Williams, II, 170; Brewster, 51; Mills, II, 271.
88 Deane, 23; Mills, II, 31. 69 Williams, I, 329 n.
70 Brewster, 196; Hutton, I, 222, 344; Shaw, 58 n.?
71 Brewster, 181 ; Parry, 238; Shaw, 140.
* 7 Brewster, 137. 73 Mills, II, 178.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 167
is an important member of the village society.”4 The Naga system of
penna has already been mentioned and has very close parallels indeed in
the Fijian regulations observed in such festivals as that of the Ruku.?°
One may also compare the sacramental offering of kava to the Fijian god
with the little share of drink that every Angami or Sema Naga sets aside
for the spirit of himself or of the place where he is. Similar beliefs are
to be found in both areas in the existence of jungle pixies 7° and in human
beings who can render themselves invulnerable.7”? Both areas possess
the story of a tower of Babel,’® and the Angami system of land tenure
is extraordinarily like that of Fiji.7® Points of this kind may be un-
important in themselves but their cumulative effect must be taken into
account.
In material culture again there are a number of close parallels. The
bachelors’ dormitory (mbure) of course is very widespread, but it is
remarkable that the game played with the beans of the great sword bean
(Entada scandens), which is also widely distributed through the Assam
Indonesian area, should have practically the same name (walai : alau) in
Fiji and among the Sema Nagas.8° Both the Fijians and the Naga tribes
use panjis,®! that is bamboo caltrops or spikes sharpened at both ends
and very effective against a bare-footed enemy in warfare, and both
indicate the road to be avoided by a following party by throwing down
a handful of leaves in the path.®
The Nagas, in contra-distinction to all their neighbours, are adepts in
the art of wig making; so too the Fijians.** But the most remarkable
parallel is perhaps to be found in the use of a certain group of Angami
villages of an unusual game which consists in throwing a reed dart on
to a prepared surface of ground in such a manner that it soars again into
the air and flies for a very considerable distance towards a mark at the far
end of an open space.°* This game of the Dzunokeheno Angamis, called
by them cheda or phyelida, is identical with the national game of Fiji
known as veitingga,®° a game which extends also to Samoa, where it is
called tanga ti’a 8°; while Ellis mentions it under the names of aperea in
Tahiti and pahe in the Sandwich Islands.8? It is known in the plains of
Assam under the name of the s’ar game ;_ with what particular tribe there
it is to be associated I am not certain, but probably the Kachari.
Psychological parallels must be used naturally only with the greatest
caution, but to anyone acquainted with the Naga hills accounts of the
“4 Brewster, 282 ; Hutton, II, 218 sq.
75 Brewster, 91, 93 ; Hutton, I, 192, 200 sg.; II, 220; Mills, I, 26; II, 252.
*6 Brewster, 88 ; Hutton, II, 192 sq.
77 Brewster, 99 ; Hutton, I, 243.
78 Williams, II, 253 ; Hutton, I, 265.
79 Williams, I, 106.
80 Seemann, 282; Deane, 16; Hutton, II, 106; Mills, II, 156.
81 Waterhouse, II, 316 ; Hutton, I, 44; II, 24,171; Mills, II, 53.
82 Deane, 194; Hutton, I, 293; II, 265.
88 Williams, II, 78 ; Hutton, I, 22; II, 10, 16; Mills, I, 8, 13; II, 44.
84 Man, 1929, 112.
85 Brewster, 92; Deane, 16; Williams, I, 150; II, 162.
8° Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, 340.
87 Ellis, III, 1, 227 and 4,
- Oo
i]
168 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Fijians suggest so much that is similar in their general attitude towards
life that it would be an error to omit all allusion to it. Thus, exactly
like Nagas, ‘the inhabitants of Namosi on being asked for their name
will never give it when any one else is present to answer the question.’ 88
In both cases the explanation is perhaps to be found in an acute feeling
of personal dignity considerably stronger than that which makes it polite
among ourselves to apologise when asking a stranger for his name. I
take, for further instances, a sample or two from Brewster, Williams and
Waterhouse. The first two at any rate must have spent, I suppose, as
long in Fiji as I did in the Naga hills, while the third was at any rate
14 years in Fiji.
Speaking of warfare they write as follows :—
‘During the night one of them dreamed that their enemies were near
and many in number; whereupon, with the greatest gallantry, they
betook themselves to their canoes and hastened back to Samo-Samo.’ 89
A similar account, except for the canoes, might be given of 50 per cent. of
raids and expeditions between independent Naga villages. Again, ‘ when
parties on the war-trail met there was much interchange of abuse, boasting
and challenging to mortal combat. Then should a man fall, the side
to which he belonged promptly bolted. . . . I have managed . . . to
piece together . . . records of nearly 300 years. Although they relate
to a period of almost unbroken warfare, but little blood was actually shed.
Communities of the trade villages become prosperous and arrogant, and
excite the jealousy of their neighbours, who then enter into alliances
with other clans and attack the common object of their envy. After
desultory fighting, sacking and burning of villages the weaker side
would flee further back into the almost inaccessible part of the hills.
Both sides by that time would be tired . . . with the fighting, and the
defeated party would get time to recuperate and reorganise. Then they
would probably retaliate on their foes and turn the tables. It should
not be inferred from this that the Fijians are cowards. We and they
have different modes of thought—that is all. They will do many things
that we should hesitate about.’ 9° The whole of this paragraph might
have been written, without a word being changed, of the trans-frontier
area of the Naga hills down to the present.
Again, ‘a most striking feature in the arrangements for attack is the
primary preparation for defeat. Many days are sometimes spent in
preparing . . . paths by which to run away easily in case of defeat,
while the subsequent attack may not last for many hours. . . . Frequently
the army feigns retreat and draws out a sally from the town, a portion of
which is almost invariably cut off by ambuscade. Generally the assailants
will lie in ambush so as to cut off any small party which may happen to
venture into their trap. Women and children are not spared. The
slaughter of a pig is apparently equivalent to that of a man. “ Seven
were killed, the seventh being a pig,” is sometimes reported.’ 1 Even
so I have heard it reported in the Naga hills that seven heads were taken,
88 Seemann, 190; Hutton, I, 219; II, 143, 237; Mills, II, 270; Parry, 239;
Shakespear, 19.
89 Williams, I, 205. 90 Brewster, 59. $1 Waterhouse, II, 318.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 169
two of which were Mithun, that is the gayal, Bos frontalis, the domesticated
‘bison’ of the Naga hills.
To quote Brewster again, ‘ It is really almost dangerous to save life,
or do any great service to a native. It seems to give those so benefited
an unanswerable claim on the person conferring the service.*? He then
proceeds to give instances of this; a point of view from which many
officers in the Naga hills have suffered and no doubt continue to suffer.
He gives another instance of Fijian mentality which might well be found
in a Naga tribe. ‘I remember hearing of a tribe . . . being much
exasperated by the sneers of their heathen neighbours, who sent over
to enquire if they had a plentiful supply of small mirrors or trade looking
glasses. Being asked the reason of their question the reply was, “‘ Oh,
we thought you would like to practise before a glass how to put on a
sanctimonious look like the Wesleyan native minister.”’ % I am
reminded at once of the long faces of the Ao elders of Changki, unmoved
by Mr. Mills’s joke, at which they laughed heartily afterwards in private,
but not in public as unbecoming to Christian sobriety.
Waterhouse again refers to the rivalry between different clans in a
single village, and to cases of the most cruel treachery of one to another
with the help of strangers.°* One is reminded at once of numberless
instances in the Naga hills of which it will be enough to cite the well-
known incident reported by Carnegy in 1876, when a Kohima clan with
friends in Muzuma suggested that the latter should send a war party on
a particular day when they knew that the men of the Puchatsuma clan,
occupying the next quarter to their own in Kohima village, would all
be at the fields. The Muzuma party of 40 walked into the Puchatsuma
quarter and killed everyone they could find there—one man, five women
and twenty children. The adjacent clans of Kohima, who did not like
Puchatsuma, stood looking on, and one of them remarked to Carnegy
that it was fine sport, just like killing fowls. It may be added that both
in Fiji *° and in the Naga hills stinginess seems to be abominated above
all other faults, while both areas seem to have in common a certain
sardonic use of metaphor which shows itself in such expressions as ‘a
trussed frog’ or ‘a long turtle’ for a human being as a comestible (Fiji),
“floor rushes’ for wives to be killed and laid in a chief’s grave (Fiji),
‘thatching’ for spearing a sleeping foe through his roof (Naga hills),
‘cultivation’ for a surprise raid for the heads of neighbours working
in their fields (Naga hills), or ‘ banana tree’ for a human victim (both
areas).°6
In most of the above instances the comparison has been between
Fijian customs or beliefs and customs or beliefs in the Naga hills, which
can be put down as specifically Naga. But there are a number of other
parallels which are either shared by Nagas with other groups of which
they are quite as typical or which are found in Assam without being found
®2 Brewster, 60.
%3 Brewster, 66.
Waterhouse, I, 53 sqq.; II, 5 sqq.
®5 Brewster, 51.
86 Fison, 100; Mills, II, 278, 279 ».1; Hutton, II, 170.
170 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
in the Naga hills. ‘Thus the Fijian reluctance to kill a chief,®’ although
it has its parallel in the taboo among the Konyak Nagas in shedding
chiefly blood (where a chief has been murdered it has generally been by
some method which avoids bloodshed), is also reported of the Lakher
and the Lushei,®® where it is unlucky for even an enemy chief to be
killed accidentally when fighting against one, and he is never killed
wittingly.
Teknonymy ® is more typical of the Kuki than the Naga, though indeed
the Kachha Nagas and some non-Naga tribes practise it; the payment
of ‘bone prices’ 1 is rather Kuki than Naga, in spite of occasional
occurrences in certain tribes, and cross cousin marriage, which the
Kuki advocates, is banned in the first generation by most Nagas. The
use of caves for burial 1% is also more Kuki than Naga, while the Fijian
belief that spirits perambulate up and down the street, making it necessary
that doorways should face across it,1% reappears in the same form among
the Thado Kuki, who will not build a house facing down the village street,
because if they did all the wandering spirits would drift in. The nose-
flute 1°83 does not appear in the Naga hills at all, but is to be found on
the north bank of the Bramaputra in Assam, and the practice of sitting
as a sign of respect, though probably general in Assam, as in Fiji,
is only specifically prescribed by the Assamese themselves, though on
account of its association with the sanctity of the head it may probably be
inferred elsewhere in Assam. The double canoe, which is associated in
Fiji 1°® with rank and quality, has possibly the same association in the
Manipur state, where the rooks on the black side of a Manipur chess set
take the form of double canoes as being superior to the single canoe
which serves as a rook for its white opponent. One close parallel in
Kuki and Fijian belief appears in the tradition of the serpent god coiled
round the earth, whose movements cause the earth to quake.1°* This
god appears entirely unknown to the purely Naga tribes. Like the
Thado Kuki or Lakher, also the Fijian uses a recessed grave, at any rate
for his chiefs.1°?
I turn now to the Marquesas. Information as to these islands is much
less easily available than information as to Fiji, but such accounts as we
have very definitely suggest a number of comparisons with the Naga
hills in Assam. In the Marquesas the practice of head-hunting, with
the preservation and decoration of heads and with particular attention
to the preservation of the lower jaw,!°* has points in common with Naga
§7 Williams, II, 39. 98 Shakespear, 58; Parry, 63.
99 Brewster, 181; Shakespear, 19; Shaw, 140; Parry, 238; Playfair, 147 ;
Mills, 270.
100 Shaw, 56 n.2; Parry, 288, 418; Shakespear, 147, 166, 199; Deane, 80.
101 Shaw, 53 7.4
102 Williams, II, 245 ; Shaw, 85 .1 103 Williams, II, 163.
104 Williams, I, 130; II, 38; Waterhouse, II, 340.
105 Waterhouse, II, 347.
106 Brewster, 81, 255; Waterhouse, I, 42; Shaw, 72.
107 Fison ; Shaw, 55 7.7, 56.1; Parry, 412 sq.
108 Handy, 139. Cf. Ellis, III, 1, 308: ‘ The victors [in Tahiti] took away
the lower jawbones of the most distinguished among the slain.’
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 171
head-hunting in general and Konyak Naga practice in particular.1°
Again when a house was built a human victim was required 1° as in the
case of the Naga Morung, referred to before. Human victims were
required for securing plentiful harvests or for breaking a drought,
a practice entirely consonant with the general principles of head-hunting
in the Naga hills.1!2_ Similarly in the Marquesas human heads rendered
fishing prosperous 1° and the head was a particularly sacred part of the
body and the shoulder only less so.“ Again we find heads brought
home when the whole body could not be retrieved,!!° and the name of
the victim taken by the victor,4° a practice to which there is a near
parallel in the Chang Naga one of a victor’s naming his sons after the
villagers whom he has conquered (and decapitated) 47 ; and the common
practice there of taking magical steps to attract the relatives of the killed
to come and be killed themselves likewise in due course."8
As in the Naga hills we find ancestor worship and the practice of
making a small offering of the first mouthful of a repast, etc. We find
memorial platforms !° extraordinarily similar to those built by Nagas,
statues of the dead in wood and stone, cliff burial and the desiccation
of the corpses of the dead,!®° their disposal in canoe-shaped coffins and
in mats accompanied by their best clothes and ornaments.4*! We find
the lips, the nostrils and the eyes of dying persons held together by their
relatives, not to put an end to life, but to prevent the soul from escaping,’
and I have seen precisely the same offices performed by a Lhota Naga
for his dying friend, while the funeral is accompanied, like that of many
Assam hillmen, by a firing off of guns,!*3 which in Assam is variously
explained as intended to frighten away evil spirits from the path of the
dead or to warn the dead man’s friends in paradise of his imminent
arrival.
Like the Angami the Marquesan appears to believe in seven existences
after that on this earth.124 He also believes, as many Nagas do, in
alternative abodes of the dead in the heavens and below the earth.1*°
The Marquesan practice of communal taboo has already been mentioned,
and even the verbal parallel between penant or pana-le and the penna
and pini of Naga tribes may be extended by comparing émo, used with
109 Hutton, IX. 110 Handy, 240. 111 [bid.
112 Hutton, VI. 113 Delmas, 73.
114 Delmas, 63, 64. [Cf. La Loubére, Royaume de Siam, 1, 405; F. Mendez
Pinto, Voyages, etc., ch. 45.]
115 Delmas, 162, 172. 116 Delmas, 153.
117 Thus the Chang Naga Chief of Yongiemdi called his eldest son Longkhong-
Yanchu after a raid in which he had taken many heads off the Ao village of
Lungkhung, and his second son Ongli-Ngaku after he had similarly raided Ungr
shortly before his birth.
118 Delmas, 163; Hutton, II, 176; Mills, II, 204.
9 Delmas, 86 sg.; Hutton, I, 47 sq., 206.
120 Delmas, 118. 121 Handy, 112, 114. 122 Delmas, II3.
123 Delmas, 114; Hutton, I, 227; Mills, II, 241; Parry, 4or [so also the
Chakma of the Chittagong Hill Tracts between Assam and the Bay of Bengal ;
Lewin, Wild Races of S.E. India, 186; the Siyin of the Chin Hills in Burma,
Carey & Tuck, Chin Hills Gazetteer, 193 ; and the Maori, Old New Zealand, 224].
124 Delmas, 52; Hutton, I, 184.
125 Delmas, 52; Voyage of the ‘ Duff’ (1812), 354; Hutton, I, 184 sq., 414 sqq.
172 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the same meaning in some islands of the Tabui group,!** with the emung
(Lhota) and amung (Ao) of other Naga tribes.127 As in the Naga hills |
the soul is liable by wandering to cause sickness of the body, but can be
recalled and brought back to it 128 ; and the Marquesan medicine man 19
removes disease in a concrete form precisely like the Naga thumomi,
chafing the limbs with aromatic leaves and producing after a little massage
the particular piece of ‘ dirt,’ generally a fragment of rough stone, by
sleight of hand or from under the tongue and pretending it came from
inside the patient’s body.
Seven appears in the Marquesas to be an unlucky number,!® as it is
to the Angami tribe, and thieves are divined both there and in the Naga
hills by looking into the globules of rain water that collect at the top
of the stalk in the leaf of the wild arum, while seers of both areas practise
ventriloquy.1*!
Turning to their material culture, it is remarkable to find the taro
cultivated in the Marquesas on terraced and irrigated platforms 1%" as
rice is by the Angami, who, like the Marquesans, used to use the much
valued conch shell as an article of barter almost as a currency,!*? and who,
like the Marquesans again, practise stilt-walking °* on the paved areas
to be seen in most villages which form the scene of public entertainment.
In the Marquesas again we find the Fijian game of vei-tingga,*° which
the Angamis call phyelida, practised under the name of teka.
All these parallels in the Marquesas have so far been with the Naga
rather than with the Kuki group, but two parallels appear with those
in existence in the Marquesas of men who adopted the life and habit
of women,!* a practice typical of the Lushei and found in some other
Kuki-Chin tribes, and in the practice of sacrificing a victim for a dead
man which formed an essential element of Marquesan funeral cere-
monies,!87 and which one may suppose was intended to provide for his
service in the next world, as it was by the Kuki, Lushei and Chin tribes,1*8
who sacrificed victims on the graves of the dead, though they did not,
like the Marquesans, devour their bodies.
Attention should probably be called to the apparent ferocity of the
Marquesan character, differentiating them from the Polynesians of the
South Pacific. It has been suggested that this ferocity was due to their
rugged environment with its deep valleys and high ranges, but it seems
more likely that it indicates the existence of some racial or cultural
element absent in Hawai and Tahiti.
It is possible that Delmas’s statement that among the Marquesans
hospitality forms a road to social distinction °° indicates a system, or
126 Delmas, 62. 127 Mills, I, 26; II, 82, 252.
128 Delmas, 76. Cf. note ® above.
129 Delmas, 76; Hutton, II, 231. 130 Delmas, 133; Hutton, I, 252.
131 Delmas, 134, 77; Hutton, X, 36 sq.
132 Handy, 185; Hutton, I, 72.
133 Voyage of the ‘ Duff,’ 2c8 ; Hutton, I, 71.
134 Frazer, 339 sqg.; Mills, II, 155 ; Hutton, V.
185 Handy, 297 sq. 136 Handy, 103; Shakespear, 55.
187 Delmas, 116, 118. 138 Shaw, 78 v.3; Parry, 206; Mills, II, 200.
1389 Delmas, 87.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 173
the survival of a system, of a series of ‘ Feasts of Merit,’ such as those by
which social status is acquired in the Naga hills, but I have found no
precise information on this point. As by the Dafla in Assam and as in
Fiji, the nose-flute is used in the Marquesas,1*° while the attitude of
Marquesans to European immunity from the malign influence of wizards
was stated to Delmas in almost the identical words used by a Naga
to myself: ‘You escape, because you do not believe,’ ** a point of
view which suggests that the Naga or Marquesan medicine-man fully
appreciates the power of suggestion in magic, though his lack of an
abstract vocabulary makes it difficult for him to put it into words.
I turn now to Madagascar. Although at the opposite extreme of the
Oceanic area to the Marquesas, many similarities are found again with
Naga cultures in Assam, particularly with those of the Angami tribe.
As there, villages are built for security on the tops of hills with stone
walls, ditches and stone gateways and surrounded with thick hedges of
thorny acacia or of prickly pear, the stone gateways being defended with
heavy wooden doors.!#2_ In Madagascar, as among the Angamis and the
Manipuris, the pantomimic war dance !*8 is popular, and the head is
tabooed,!44 as also the shoulder in the Marquesas and by some Nagas.
In Madagascar again the plantain tree seems to be used as a human
synonym !45 and the blood of royalty must not be shed.1*6
As in Assam we find various treatments of the dead, including their
exposure !47 on platforms and in canoes as well as in tombs and family
vaults.148 Stone tombs are placed by roads or in the centre of the
village. They are lined with stone slabs and sometimes stepped in
pyramidical form.14® Their place may also be taken by cenotaphs in
the form of menhirs,1®° and ancestor worship 1°! is much the same as it
is among the Angami, and a similar importance is attached to funeral
ceremonies,152 which are accompanied by musketry 1°* and the killing of
large numbers of cattle in the court-yard in front of the house,'** the skulls
of which are set up on the graves.1°> Like the Ao, the Betsileo wrestle
with their cattle before sacrifice.°* Graves themselves, as among the
Angami, may only be moved during the cold weather,'*’ that is, I take
it, between the harvest and the sowing. In some cases miniature houses
are put up on the graves to accommodate the soul, and there is a con-
comitant belief 158 in the Hill of the Dead to which every soul must
journey. The dead again are dressed in new clothes,'°* and corpses
140 Handy, 311. 41 Delmas, 79.
142 Sibree, 25, 28, 116; Ellis, II, 147, 359, 435, 450; Hutton, I, 44 sq.
143 Ellis, II, 328; Hodson, 67. 144 Ellis, II, 344.
145 Sibree, 241. 148 Osborn, 201; Ellis, II, 291.
147 Sibree, 3, 287, 152 sg., 180 ; 148 Ellis, II, 444, 451.
149 Osborn, 343, 344; Sibree, 290, 300, 310.
150 Ellis, II, 24.
161 Ellis, II, 404, 410; Osborn, 234, 262, 280.
182 Ellis, II, 63, 93.
183 Ellis, II, 87, 206, 217 n.; Sibree, 288.
164 Ellis, II, 389 ; Osborn, 229, 230. 165 Osborn, 346.
156 Wake, 26; Mills, II, 259, 379. 157 Sibree, 77; Hutton, I, 228.
158 Sibree, 119 ; Osborn, 232. 159 Sibree, 287.
174 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
are carefully fanned to keep away the flies,1®° and, in the case of the
Vazimba, are given a double burial like the Khasi of Assam, where the
belief in the snake monster known as the thlen is analogous to beliefs
of the Vazimba.t® Like the Lushei, the Betsileo and Sakhalava draw
off the putrefying liquors from the corpse.
Stones are dragged from a distance with a rope 1® and, besides menhirs,
spoken of as ‘ male stones’ and put up as cenotaphs,'** a wooden post
is erected as a circumcision memorial, clearly having some fertility
association. Stone platforms 1®° are made and there is a cult of sacred
stones on which, for instance, the Madagascar prince must stand, like
the Rajah of Manipur. Monumental stones are erected in front of
houses.166 A taboo is found on a chief’s bedstead.1** As among the
Konyak Nagas, royalty must contract marriages within the clan which
would, except for royalty, be incestuous, though in Madagascar 1*8 the
clan is matrilineal instead of patrilineal as in the Naga hills. We find
again a precisely similar belief in Madagascar to that in Assam, that the
camera abstracts the soul.1®® JI remember myself making the pretty
daughter of the Chief of Philimi most unhappy by taking her photograph,
and she refused to be comforted until she got a print which she took to
be the original. The possession of this secured her, in her opinion, from
her soul’s being taken to the hot plains, which would cause her sickness
and death. Precisely as in the Naga hills among all tribes the Madagascar
medicine-man 17° cures illness by simulated extraction of ‘ dirt,’ which
the patient believes to have really come out of his body, though it is in
fact palmed or ‘ mouthed’ by the operator. The opprobrious names so
often fancied in Madagascar are sometimes identical in meaning 171 with
those popular among Sema Nagas. The punishment of offences against
society by the plundering of the offender’s house is as popular in
Madagascar as formerly in the Sema and Angami Naga country,'” and
oaths are taken in exactly the same way as by many Nagas, by drinking
water in which a bullet or some other metal weapon has been infused.1”8
In Madagascar also the Milky Way appears as the sign of the division
of the seasons.174
Turning to material culture, we find the Hova using spears shod with
a point at the butt-end for sticking into the ground 1”? like all those in
the Naga hills. Putting the weight is found as an indigenous sport,7®
160 Ellis, II, 260. 161 Sibree, 293, 297 ; Gurdon, 98, 141.
162 Wake, 25; Shakespear, 84. 163 Sibree, 301 ; Osborn, 345.
164 Sibree, 26, 300, 315; Hutton, IV, XI.
165 Ellis, II, 451; Hutton, V.
166 Ellis, II, 24, 249 (plate) ; Mills, I, 23.
167 Sibree, 157; Hutton, II, 243; X, 42.
168 Filis, II, 81, 199, 201.
169 Ellis, II, 340, 344; Hutton, I, 251; II, 200.
170 Osborn, 314; Hutton, II, 231.
171 Osborn, 307 ; Hutton, II, 236.
172 Ellis, II, 309; Mills, II, 193. Cf. also Samoa (Frazer, II, 160) and the
Maori (Old New Zealand, ch. vi).
173 Ellis, II, 333; Shaw, 68. 174 Sibree, 71, 79; Mills, II, 302.
175 Sibree, 243 ; Hutton, I, 34.
176 Osborn, 257; Hutton, I, 103; II, 109; Hodson, 76.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 175
as also the practice of boxing with the feet.17”7 Peg-tops 178 are used by
children, who also amuse themselves in making clay figurines of cattle
very much like those of the Angami.1’® The hearth-stone is made pre-
cisely as in the Naga hills, with a trivet of three stones erected in a clay
base and screened above by a two-decker bamboo shelf.18° The method
of pounding paddy !*! and the patterns of piston bellows !®? and ‘ rat
protectors ’ 188 under granaries are typically Indonesian, extending like-
wise to Assam, and the use of ‘ house-horns ’ (Hova tandro-trano, Angami
ki-ka, with precisely the same meaning, though the Sema word means
“snail horns’) ornamented with wooden birds is typically Angami
(Dzunokeheno). While the Y-shaped posts erected (e.g.) as a circum-
cision memorial in Madagascar,184 and associated therefore with fertility
rites, are familiar among all Naga tribes,!*° the Betsileo apparently
crown their stone monoliths with iron horns.18* Typically Angami also
are the stone-revetted irrigated terraces for growing rice,!87 while in
Madagascar channels are used to carry liquid manure from the village
midden to the terraces 18* exactly as they are in some villages of the
Dzunokeheno group of the Angami tribe, a group which we have already
seen has a particular connection in one or two respects with Fiji and the
Marquesas. The use of euphorbia and aloes for hedges 18° is closely
paralleled in the Naga hills and Manipur, and the use in Madagascar of
the scarlet Jamba 1®° as the insignia of royalty is very suggestive of the
same area, even the word lamba being Manipuri as well as Hova. Bark
cloth,!* it is true, is only paralleled in the Garo hills in Assam, but, like
the use of spiders 1%” as food, is perhaps not an entirely fortuitous coincid-
ence. In both areas ownership is indicated by a bunch of grass on a
reed, and as in Fiji again a path is barred by throwing down a bunch of
leaves.1°3 The use of a stone as a weapon, not thrown but held in the
hand,'** perhaps seems an obvious means of damaging an opponent, yet
in twenty years I do not remember any case of its use in any Naga tribe
except the Angami; the Angami have just the clan antagonism reported
of Madagascar,!®° and when a wooden utensil or tree is being dragged to
the village a young buck will jump on to it and shout and gesticulate to
urge on the pullers, exactly as Ellis describes 19° in that island. But for
177 Sibree, 32 ; Osborn, 356; Hutton, II, 109.
178 Sibree, 32 ; Hutton, I, 104; II, 105 sqg.; Mills, I, 84; Shaw, 158.
179 Sibree, 32 ; Hutton, I, 55.
180 Ellis; II, 447; Sibree, 7; Hutton, I, 53; II, 39; X, 67 sq.; Parry, 69.
181 Ellis, I, 203; Parry, 133; Smith, 30; Peal.
182 Peal; Ellis, I, 308; Sibree, 331; Wake, 26; Hutton, I, 63; II, 52
Smith, 144,159; Parry, 107.
183 Peal. 184 Sibree, 3, 298, 319.
185 Hutton, III. 186 Wake, 27.
187 Ellis, II, 247, 445, 448; Sibree, 21 ; Hutton, I, 72.
188 Osborn, 281. '
189 Osborn, 419 ; Ellis, II, 444; Sibree, 58, 65, 105.
190 Osborn, 194.
191 Sibree, 330; Walker, G. D., 1927, Man, 5.
192 Sibree, 344; Hutton, I, 95.
193 Sibree, 172 ; Hutton, II, 68; I, 293.
184 Ellis, II, 270; Hutton, V,:72.
195 Ellis, II, 274; Hutton, I, 109. 196 Ellis, II, 478.
176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
a parallel to the whimsical choice of such personal names as Radeboka,
i.e. the “ day book ’ of a hospital,1®’ one needs to go to the Khasia hills in
Assam, where names such as Ka Mediterranean Sea, U Water Kingdom
or Shakewell Bones are, or were, familiar. Matrilineal descent 1°* appears
in Madagascar as it does in Khasia hills, though in most parts of the
Assam hills it is now submerged. The use of the ideochord 19° is more
elaborate in Madagascar than among the Kuki tribes, but is essentially
the same instrument (I refer to the bamboo guitar in which the strings
are formed by strips cut in the outer bark and prised up by wedges under-
neath at each end of the strip), and exactly on the same principle as many
village gates in Assam, particularly among the Kuki-Chin tribes, are the
doors described by Sibree in Madagascar as made of poles—bamboos in
Assam—hung from a cross-piece which passes through a hole in each.
Kuki again, but not Naga, is the story of the escape from the ogre 29° by
throwing down a feather which becomes a forest, etc., and apparently
Kuki is the Malagasy (Betsileo) practice of burying with an air tube of
bamboo let down to the head through the earth, as among the Sea Dayak
and Kayan of Borneo, in order that the soul may have ingress to and
egress from the buried body.?® I say apparently Kuki, because this
practice is typical of the Thado at present, but it is also reported of the
Kachari,?°” and of the Santal, so that it may, like some other Kuki
features, have been taken over from previous matrilineal (?) inhabitants.
In the case of the Santal the tube seems to have survived a change from
burial to cremation, as it now consists of a reed let through the lid of the
pot which contains the cremated remains of the dead.?°
The parallels which I have given are, I think, adequate to show the
cultural connection between the Assam hills and the three widely
separated areas in Oceania with which I have dealt. It is pretty clear
that in Fiji and in Madagascar, and probably also in the Marquesas, this
identity of culture, in so far as it exists, is not that of a single culture,
but rather of a complex of cultures in each case. It is clear that Assam
may conceivably throw some light on the Indonesian problem, as the
stratifications can, at any rate to some extent, still be traced. The last
immigrants are undoubtedly people of Kuki and Kachin affinities. There
is a clear tradition among the Chins of the Arakan hill tracts pointing
to their migration down the Chindwin Valley,2 no doubt throwing off
parties which must have penetrated the Assam hills from the east on
the way, after which one portion of the Kukis at any rate seem to have
worked up northwards again from the Bay of Bengal, a movement which
has barely ceased, if it has ceased, in the present generation. It would
seem that the Kayans of Borneo probably formed part of the same move-
ment. A tradition quoted by Hose and McDougall 2° assigned the
197 Sibree, 348. 198 FBllis, II, 81, 201.
199 Osborn, 360; Shaw, 151; Parry, 185.
200 Sibree, 239 sqq ; Shaw, 105.
201 Sibree, 305 ; Shaw, 55 2.2; Hose, Natural Man, 213.
202 Endle, The Kacharis, p. 47.
203 Census of India, 1931, 1, iiiB, 102 (Bodding).
204 Fryer ; Shaw, 17 n. 205 Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1, 15.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 177
arrival of the Kayans in Borneo to the earliest years of the fourteenth
century A.D., a date which fits well enough with Kuki and Tippera
tradition.
Apart from such preceding migrations, of which there may have been
many originating in movements in the Chindwin Valley caused by this
southward Kuki Kachin migration, and of which we probably have a
memory in the traditions of the Angami Lhota and Ao movements from
Manipur westwards,?°* the two previous cultures in the Assam hills
seem to have been definitely matrilineal and to have belonged to two
types. One of these—and presumably the later—seems to have been
analogous to the present Khasi and Synteng cultures, the other to that of
the Garo and of the Kachari of the Assam plains. The Khasi migration
clearly came from the east, and the parallel culture in Tonkin to their earliest
remains in Assam is dated by Coédes to about the beginning of our era.
The Garo-Kachari peoples seem to have migrated from the north bank
of the Brahmaputra, and while the Kachari is now predominantly patri-
lineal, as the Garo is matrilineal, both may still be said to be in the process
of change as the result of contact between two systems.
It is interesting to notice that in Madagascar the Vazimba, who pre-
ceded the Hova as immigrants, had a number of features in common with
the megalith-using Khasi, not all of which were subsequently adopted
by the Hova. The latter, for instance, built in wood, whereas the
Vazimba used stone. One may also observe that Hocart, writing on the
early Fijians,?°’ is inclined to think that the more civilised community
was swamped by barbarians before the more recent migration of Poly-
nesians from the east. Undoubtedly the Naga tribes at present repre-
sented by the Konyak Nagas in the north and to a lesser degree by Kachha
Nagas to the south of the Naga hills, are associated with a more civilised
culture in some respects than that of the intervening tribes who have
come up from Manipur, always excepting the Angamis, who are in many
respects sui generis and who probably have incorporated a very great
deal of the civilisation which preceded them on their present sites.
Indeed they speak of the time when their women wore four-inch petti-
coats like those of the Konyak tribes, and when they used to expose their
dead on platforms—except in the villages of the Dzunokeheno group.
It is just that group in which the Fijian Vettingga game is so popular, and
in which the house-horns carry birds like those on Malagasy houses.
Veitingga, as already mentioned, is also known in the Assam Valley by
the name of s’ar khela and used to be played on roads or in village streets,
though now almost entirely obsolete. It is still the Dzunokeheno (i.e.
water-born villages) in which the conch shell ornament so suggestive of
the sea is most popular. They do not, however, claim the sea, but a
local stream, as the water of their ancestry, and they are the only Naga
tribe that I know of, except the isolated village of Laruri on the Burma
frontier, which repudiates any tradition of migration from elsewhere.
The Angami are now, like the Kachha Naga, completely democratic in
their institutions, but the Konyak tribes in the north still retain tabooed
206 Hutton, I, 6 sgq. 207 7.R.A.I., 49.
178 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
and sacrosanct chiefs ; chiefs who have to be carried sometimes lest they
touch the ground and destroy the fertility of the soil; chiefs who must
contract marriage with their own clan, which would be incestuous for
anyone else, if they are to have a legal heir ; chiefs whose blood must not
be shed on any account, who have been known to be driven out, strangled
or otherwise got rid of by the villagers, who are probably derived ulti-
mately from a different stock.
One important feature of the Konyak tribes, shared, it is true, by their
neighbours the Aos, and in a ruder fashion by the Sangtam, Chang and
Yimtsungr of the east, is the possession of enormous slit wood gongs to
which I give the name ‘ canoe gong’ on account of their shape. S. E.
Peal was the first to report on these gongs,?° which he called ‘ canoe
drums’; Professor Henry Balfour calls them xylophones, and the only
reason that I do not adopt his term is that I prefer to keep that name for
the more usual type of xylophone consisting of a number of slats of wood
giving different notes when beaten which is found among the Kuki,
though not among the Naga tribes. These canoe gongs are the basis
of an important cult intimately associated with head-hunting, and strongly
suggestive of much that is associated with canoes in Oceania.
The true canoe gong with carved figure-heads and long hull like that
of a dug-out is almost entirely limited to the Konyak, Ao, Chang and
Sangtam tribes,°* and of these four undoubtedly the Chang and the Ao
contain a large admixture of Konyak blood. The Sangtam only use a
typical canoe gong in those villages which march with the Ao and Chang
country. Further south the shape is much less elaborate, and the
Yimtsungr to the east of them used a mere hollow tree-trunk. South
of the Sangtam tribe the canoe gong completely disappears except for
the following instance: the Tangkul tribe use a remarkable form of
gong hitherto, I believe, unpublished, which might be described as
resembling an inverted boat, the two ends of which are skeleton, while
the centre part consists of the usual slit gong of more or less cylindrical
type. The Angami use an unornamented wooden vessel 2° of similar
shape (without the skeleton ends) for the reception of liquor in bulk on
ceremonial occasions, and one recalls Ellis’s account 241 of the man of
Rurutu who came off to meet him ‘ at a distance of two miles’ from the
island in a wooden food-vessel 6 feet long and 18 inches to 2 feet wide. A
smaller slit gong of somewhat similar pattern, but much simpler, is used
for scaring the birds from their fields by the Kachha Naga. Further
south again the Zanniat Chins, who, unlike the other Chins, have a demo-
cratic organisation, have a small slit gong not more than 6 feet long
very like the Angami vat, while the Ngawn Chins use one of the same
size not unlike the South American teponatzli, and put food in it on the
occasion of a ceremonial dance.?42, A ‘wooden drum’ also appears in
Arakan as one of the prized possessions of the pre-Burmese king; it
may or may not have been a ‘ canoe gong.’ 718
208 Peal, op. cit. 209 Mills, II, 76 sqq.; Smith, 47; Hutton, X.
210 Hutton, I, 57. 11 Ellis, III, 3, 400.
*12 Personal information from Mr. N. Stevenson of the Burma Frontier Service.
218 Scott and Hardimann, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, 1, ii, 402.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 179
It is interesting to observe that in South America the canoe gong
appears to have developed independently from a hollow tree. Nor-
denskiéld bases this conclusion partly on the fact that these signalling
gongs are beaten with a rubber-covered mallet to which, he says, nothing
similar is known outside America.244 He comes to the conclusion that
the invention of slit gongs arose from a practice of sending out signals
by beating on hollow trees in the forest ; that this led to carrying such
hollow trees home to villages, and then to beating instead on canoes or
wooden troughs. He quotes Faraba to the effect that the Amahuaca
Indians of Peru occasionally signalled by striking with a heavy mallet
upon the flat root of the Alatea tree after having stripped the bark from
it but without cutting it off. He goes on to describe ‘ a large wooden
gong . . . suspended by one end whilst the other rests on the floor of
the pile beam house: It is beaten with two wooden mallets.’ Again,
‘the resemblance between a gong of this kind and a canoe is so great that
it is quite reasonable to suppose that the Indians formerly used as gongs
their canoes which are often drawn up underneath the floor of their pile
houses, or laid on stagings.’?4* It is, of course, possible that the canoe
gong of the Naga hills has similarly developed from a tree trunk, but
since we find no example of signalling by hammering on trees we are
perhaps entitled to argue that the process in Assam has been the other
way and that the smaller slit gongs, or the hollow tree trunks, used by
some villages are degenerate forms of the original gong which started as
a canoe, and it is possibly significant that in the Kachin story of the great
flood the two survivors escape drowning in ‘ a large oval-shaped drum.’ #17
On the other hand, it must be admitted that a simple form of slit gong
occurs in Yunnan,”!8 as it does in Malaya and in Borneo,”!* suggesting
either marginal degenerations from a developed type in Assam, or
possibly simple types from which the Assam one might have been
elaborated. ‘The real argument, therefore, for the canoe gong’s being a
survival from a real canoe rests on its associations with head-hunting and
a typical canoe culture.
Now the Naga canoe gong is closely associated with the men’s house,
and generally, if not kept in it, it is kept in an annexe. It is in some
respects treated almost as an idol and tremendous effort is expended on
214 A similar rubber mallet, however, is reported to be widely used in Africa,
and it seems just possible that the idea may have been taken to S. America by
negro slaves.
215 Nordenskidld, 44, 45. 216 Nordenskidld, 46.
217 Hanson, The Kachins, 112.
218 ‘Tn the beginning of the first moon they have a feast. A large tree is
scooped out which is called a “ trough ’’ ; both men and women take a bamboo
and strike it; the sound is like a drum. Then they play.’ Chinese account of
the Pei Chong-Kia, aborigines of Kweichau in Yiinnan, quoted by Colquhoun in
Across Chrysé, II, p. 308.
219 Evans, Among Primitive Peoples in Borneo, 133; Ling Roth, Nations of
Savawak and British N. Borneo, II, cxcvii, 263. He quotes Schwaner to the
effect that the Orang Ot, a very primitive hunting tribe, beat violently on a
hollowed stem to assemble the whole tribe. He also gives the name for the slit
gong in Dutch Borneo as tenkuang, which is almost identical with one of the Naga
names—tingkhong.
180 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
carving it and dragging it up to the village. All human heads brought
in are first placed on the canoe gong, at any rate by the Ao, suggesting
the Marquesan practice of decorating the prows of their war canoes with
the skulls of their enemies. When the gong is dragged up to the village
over wooden rollers, such as those used in launching a vessel, the blood
of the sacrificed animals is poured on to it, and in the old days any
stranger, whether friend or foe, who came to the village on the day when
a new drum was dragged in was killed in order that his head might adorn
the drum and his soul inhabit it. Indeed, until a head had come in, or
had been brought in for the drum, a fence was put round it which could
not be removed, nor could the drum be beaten until the young men had
been out and fetched a head to remedy the defect. This head was first
laid on the new drum.
The parallel with Melanesian canoe practice is here very close.
Codrington writes 22° as follows : ‘ In the eastern Solomon Islands, if no
victim was met with in the first voyage of a new canoe, the chief to whom
the canoe belonged would privately arrange with some neighbouring chief
to let him have one of his men, some friendless man probably, or a
stranger, who would then be killed, perhaps as he went out to look at the
new canoe. ... Further west also captives were kept with a view to
the taking of their heads when new canoes were launched.’ He goes on
to give an example in a footnote :—‘ The chief of Ravu bought his peko
[war canoe] . . . fora large sum of money. It was brought over secretly
and put into a . . . canoe house, where it stood till a head should have
been procured. . . . In the morning a single man came by . . . in his
canoe . . . they caught and killed him, set up his head at the prow of
the [newly bought] canoe and paddled back to Ravu with shouting and
blowing conch shells.’
Nowadays in the Ao country a mock raid takes the place of a real one,
but even this chastened sacrifice leads to a great success in hunting and
‘in agriculture. The Ao gong nowadays wears a necklace of basket balls
representing heads. Real heads were never used in this way, although
they were laid on the gong when first brought in. These basket-work
ornaments perhaps afford a parallel with the carved head which formed
part of the figure-head of the Melanesian canoe. The figure-head of an
Ao canoe is generally in the form of a buffalo or gayal head, that of the
Konyak tribes an elephant, buffalo or hornbill head, but Peal,??! writing
in 1893, remarks that the Konyak figure-head is (as depicted in his draw-
ing) a crocodile, although ‘ there are no crocodiles in these hills,’ and he
points out that it is a familiar decoration in Indonesia and the Pacific.
Although I have covered most of the ground visited by Peal in the last
century, I have never seen any figure-head resembling the head of a
crocodile, so that this tradition has apparently disappeared in the forty
years since he visited the Naga hills.
It has occurred to me that the instruments used for beating the Naga
canoe gong may conceivably be degenerate paddles. The ordinary type
is more like the dumb-bell than anything, but often one end of the dumb-
220 The Melanesians, 297. 221 [.A 1, Qk
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 181
bell takes an ornamented form such as the hornbill’s head,?** and in any
case this ‘dumb-bell’ is not unlike a paddle in which the blade has
degenerated to proportions similar to those of the handle.
F. E. Williams, writing 2 of the Pairama ceremony in the Purari
Delta in Papua, tells us that ‘ when a successful hunt returned at evening
the corpse of the victim was borne from the canoe to the ravi amid great
enthusiasm. The men uttered that prolonged shout or roar which has
a singularly exciting effect upon the listener, and rattle their paddles
upon the sides of the canoes with the rhythm called raruki raruki. . . On
the following day the . . . hunter who first brings down the victim . . .
is paraded in triumph through the village standing astride the canoe
and balancing himself with a spear.’ It was formerly the custom of
Meithei to signal across the Logtak Lake in the Manipur State in Assam
by beating with their poles or paddles on the sides of their dug-outs
as the Nagas do on a canoe gong, and I am further told by Mr. William
Shaw, who served many years in the Manipur State, that some Kabui
villages which have no canoe gongs still have the tradition of having
used them once, while in Kabui Khulen village a sort of boat, with a
high prow, is dragged in every year at the Harvest Festival ‘ for all who
have died in the past year.’ The best dressed of the young men rides
on the boat, while there is a tug-of-war between the two clans of the
village, one pulling at each end of the boat by ropes attached to pierced
lugs left on when fashioning this dug-out, which is known as the thing-
khutong—the plank to which a dead body is ordinarily fastened for burial
in that village being called thingkhu. It must, I think, represent a boat
or a boat-shaped coffin and be associated again with the fertility of the
crops, so largely bound up both with the spirits of the ancestral dead,
and of dead enemies, while the riding of the boat by the young warrior
is reminiscent of the Pairama ceremony described by F. E. Williams.
Boat-shaped coffins are found occasionally in several of the Naga
tribes, particularly in the Konyak country, where in one village at any
rate they are associated with a tabooed chief, and it is worth noticing
that a stone is put up by the Fijian ‘ spirit house ’ for each corpse brought
in,*4 precisely as the Konyak Nagas put up an erect stone outside the
men’s house for each head ; and it is also remarkable that in one case,
at any rate, there seems to have been a close association between the
Fijian war canoe and the gong known as Jali, since the chief Rokona
named his war canoe Vatutulali, after his large gong.?”°
The Samoans have a similar gong known as longo, the sound of which
—according to Brown—-will carry for 20 miles under favourable conditions.
Brown also mentions that the Samoans struck the sides of their canoes
with the handles of their paddles to mark time.??®
One more parallel is worth indicating in connection with this subject.
#22 Vide illustration, Mills, II, 77.
23 7.R.AI., 58, 385, 386. He also describes with reference to the same
ceremony the rhythmical pounding with bamboos of an old broken canoe laid
along the ravi floor.
#24 Seemann, 178; Hutton, X, 41. 225 Seemann, 197.
226 Melanesians and Polynesians, 350.
182 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for February 1937,
La Valette illustrates 2®? the uptilted roofs of a branch of the Toradja
tribe in Celebes, which he says are deliberately got from the prow and
stern of a canoe, and are ‘ bound up with the tribal traditions of their
ancestors, who originally arrived from a country overseas to which the
spirits of the dead must return.’ The roofs he illustrated are almost
identical with forms common in one branch of the Konyak Nagas, east
of the frontier of Assam.”°8
I have elsewhere suggested a possible migration from Indonesia, and
migrations from Indonesia to Ceylon and South India are placed by
Hornell #?° at about the beginning of the Christian era. I cannot help
thinking that if, as I am tempted to believe, there was an Indonesian
migration which swept upwards northwards into Assam before the Kukis
came south, it must have been at an earlier date than that at any rate ;
there does seem to have been some expansion in many directions from
Indonesia at a date which perhaps precedes the dates suggested by
Coédes and Colani and the megalithic civilisation of south-east Asia.
It would be interesting to know how far the stratifications of cultures
in Oceania will correspond to the apparent succession in Assam of an
Oceanic canoe culture, a matrilineal megalithic culture and that of a more
recent patrilineal one associated with the Kayan and Kuki. ‘The principal
point which I wish to make, however, is that the hill cultures of Assam
correspond to other distant cultures or combinations of cultures, all of
which appear to be marginal in distribution from an Indonesian centre,
and that there is some ground for supposing that migrations of culture,
if not of people, have taken place from some centre in or near the Indian
archipelago in various directions, one of which terminated in Assam.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Brewster, A. B.: Hill Tribes of Fiji (1922).
Deane, Rev. W.: Fijian Society (1921).
DeE.mas le Rév. P. Stmson: Le Religion des Marquisiens (1927).
Ev.is, Rev. W.: I, History of Madagascar (1838).
II, Madagascar Revisited (1867).
III, Polynesian Researches (1836).
Fison, Lorimer: Tales of Old Fiji.
FRAZER, Sit J. G.: Belief in Immortality (3 vols.) (1913-1924).
I, Vol. 1,
—— II, Vol. 2.
—— III, Vol. 3.
FrYeErR, G. B.: ‘ Khyeng People of the Sandoway District,’ Journ. Asiat. Soc.
Bengal, No. 1 (1878).
Gurpon, Lt.-Col. P. R. T.: The Khasis (1914).
Happon, Dr. A. C.: I, Decorative Art of British New Guinea, Royal Irish
Academy (1894).
—— II, Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown (1901).
Hanpy, E.S.C.: Native Culture in the Marquesas (1923).
Hopson, T. C.: Naga Tribes of Manipur (1911).
Hutton, J. H.: I, The Angami Nagas (1921).
PARP 280:
#28 Hutton, X, pl. ti, fig. 5, and pl. xiv, fig. 2.
229 Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 7, 1920.
H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 183
Hotton, J. H.: II, The Sema Nagas (1921).
— III, ‘ Carved Monoliths at Dimapur,’ /.R A.J., 52 (1922).
—— IV, ‘ Erection of Monoliths by Naga Tribes,’ ibid., 52 (1922).
—— V, ‘ Use of Stone in the Naga Hills,’ ibid., 56.
—— VI, ‘ Significance of Head-hunting,’ ibid., 58.
—— VII, ‘ The Blow-gun in Assam,’ Man, 77 (1924).
—— VIII, ‘ Disposal of the Dead at Wakching,’ Man, 44 (1927).
— IX, ‘ Skull Ornamentation among Konyak Nagas,’ Man, 158 (1929).
—— X, ‘ Diaries of Two Tours,’ Memoivs A.S.B., 11, No. 1 (1929).
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Mitts, J. P.: I, The Lhota Nagas (1922).
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Osporn, C. S.: Madagascar, Land of the Man-eating Tree (1925).
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Vitian ov Fijian Islands (1862).
SHAKESPEAR, Lt.-Col. J.: The Lushei-Kuki Clans (1912).
SHAW, W.: Notes on the Thadon Kukis (1929).
SIBREE, Rev. James: Madagascar before the Conquest (1896).
SmitH, W. C.: The Ao Naga Tribe of Assam (1925).
Wake, C. S.: ‘“ Notes on the Origin of the Malagasy,’ J.A.J., 11 (1881).
WATERHOUSE, Rev.: I, Va-fa-ah (1857).
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—— Il, Fiji and the Fijians (1870).
SECTION I.—PHYSIOLOGY.
HEAT PRODUCTION, NUTRITION,
AND GROWTH IN MAN—
SOME NEW VIEWS.
ADDRESS BY
E. P. POULTON, M.A., D.M.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
SECTION I is the Section of Physiology of the British Association; but
its deliberations have commonly traversed a wider ground than might
have been anticipated from this title and the Section of ‘ Medical Sciences ’
—the ‘ Institutes of Medicine’ of the Scottish Universities—might be a
truer description, though I do not wish you to infer that pure physiology
has been neglected. In doing me the honour of asking me to preside for
this year, I feel that you have taken this wider aspect into account, so
that before dealing with the technical part of my Address, I may be
allowed to give my view on one disquieting tendency that relates to the
Voluntary Hospital system and the health of the community. The
facilities for medical research in this country have increased out of all
proportion since 1914, when the Medical Research Committee (forerunner
of the Medical Research Council) was formed, and I should not like to miss
this opportunity of paying my tribute to Lord Nuffield for his unique
benefaction to my old University. But, if we except the whole-time
research and teaching posts, there are still funds available to pay the
_ research expenses of those who are willing to give their spare time to
medical research in the course of their teaching and practice. As one
who has benefited by this, as I think, wise provision, I am anxious that
my successors should not be less favourably situated, and I would appeal
to those with funds to distribute not to neglect this need in their desire
to provide for whole-time research posts.
If the present outlook of medical research is relatively bright from the
financial point of view, how about its application in medical practice ?
Here the story is different. If the result can be taken in the form of a
pill its popularity is assured and valuable advances in treatment have
been achieved ; but if the discovery means that some trouble must be
taken or an apparatus purchased, then, however valuable, in some parts
of the country it will remain unused for years, and for this I am afraid
the straitened circumstances of the voluntary hospitals must be held
largely responsible. At present few voluntary hospitals will spend
186 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
money on novel apparatus if it can possibly be avoided, though when
apparatus is provided, as experience shows, it will be freely used. It is
interesting that this slow application of discovery has been noted in com-
mercial spheres, and in a recent research benefaction to the Royal Society
part of the money can be used for popularising the results of research.
Such a provision is eminently desirable in medicine, and, in commending
it to the pious benefactor, I would point out that much good could be done
by a comparatively small sum of money, since in the first place it need only
be applied to the voluntary teaching hospitals. When once the medical
student—the future doctor—has become accustomed to a new method or
a new apparatus, its spread throughout the country cannot be so long
delayed.
INDIRECT CALORIMETRY.
In estimating the heat production of an individual the oxygen intake
and the carbon dioxide output are measured. After allowing for protein
metabolism the oxygen intake is converted into calories of heat generated,
by multiplying it with a factor which depends on the respiratory quotient
(volume of CO, produced/volume of O, absorbed). These multiplying
factors were calculated originally by Zuntz and Schumburg (1901) * and
are based upon (a) the heats of combustion of carbohydrate and fat, (d) the
chemical composition of carbohydrate and fat, and (c) the theory that
when the respiratory quotient has the value unity carbohydrate alone is
oxidised in the body and when the respiratory quotient has a value equal
to 0-707 fat only is being oxidised, and at intermediate values of the
respiratory quotient corresponding proportions of carbohydrate and fat
are being oxidised. This method of calculating the heat produced by
an individual is known as indirect calorimetry. ‘The basal metabolism or
basal metabolic rate of American authors or ‘ standard’ metabolism of
Krogh and Lindhard is at present defined as heat production in the
morning before breakfast, fourteen to sixteen hours after the last meal of
the previous day (the post absorptive condition) with the subject lying at
rest.
The theory that the respiratory quotient, the term introduced by
Pfliiger, indicates the proportion of carbohydrate and fat that is being burnt
in the body has been evolved in physiology since Regnault and Reiset’s
observations (1849) and Reiset’s observations (1863) on various animals.
These authors found that the proportion of carbon dioxide given out to
the oxygen taken in depended on the food taken rather than on the type
of animal investigated. In rabbit D, for example, this ratio—in other
words, the respiratory quotient was 0-95 when eating carrots, 0-997 with
bread and oats and 0-707 when hungry. In the case of a dog F, with
bread the respiratory quotient was 0-943, when hungry 0-724, and with
mutton fat 0-694. In 1898, M. S. Pembrey, in Schafer’s Textbook of
Physiology, wrote that ‘ an animal fed on a vegetable diet has a quotient
1 Few references are given in this Address as they appear in Guy’s Hospital
Reports, 1934-37: 84, 473; 85, 56, 447; 87, 151.
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 187
closely approaching unity, for its chief food, the carbohydrates, contains
enough oxygen to combine with the hydrogen to form water; that a
carnivorous animal has a quotient about 0-74 and an omnivorous animal
such as man a somewhat higher quotient ; and finally, that even a herbi-
vorous animal has a low quotient during starvation, for it then lives upon
its own tissues.’ The complete evolution of the theory may be said to
date from Zuntz and Schumburg’s calculations, for since that time the
respiratory quotient has been generally regarded as providing a quantita-
tive measure of the combustion ratio in all circumstances—after food, in
the post-absorptive state and during starvation. For convenience this
may be called the theory of the ‘ variable combustion ratio,’ since this
varies with the respiratory quotient.
Direct CALORIMETRY.
Direct determinations of the output of heat in calorimeters have been
made over many years; but up to the end of last century, when the
Atwater-Rosa respiration calorimeter was constructed, the complete
respiratory exchange was not measured simultaneously with the direct
calorimetric measurements. The heat output of man and animals, under
basal conditions, has been measured directly in a calorimeter by Benedict
and Carpenter, DuBois and his colleagues and Murlin and Lusk, and
compared with the heat output calculated indirectly by means of the
Zuntz-Schumburg figures from the oxygen intake and the carbon dioxide
output, which were measured simultaneously. The results obtained have
been held by their authors to justify the conclusion from average values
that the agreement between the two methods was sufficiently satisfactory
to give support to the theory of the ‘ variable combustion ratio ’ outlined
above.
However, this theory has not escaped criticism. Benedict and
Carpenter, when describing their observations on the metabolism of
subjects after a meal of carbohydrate, state (p. 173) that in many instances
the agreement between direct and indirect calorimetry is extremely
unsatisfactory because of ‘the abnormal conditions previously outlined
which obtain when excessive amounts of carbohydrate are ingested.’
Respiratory quotients below o-707—the theoretical quotient of the
combustion of fat—have not infrequently been obtained; these are
impossible on the theory, since they can only be explained by the con-
version of fat into some more highly oxygenated substance such as carbo-
hydrate. These low quotients have been attributed by staunch upholders
of the theory to experimental error.
The partial conversion of fat to carbohydrate was supported by M. S.
Pembrey, who became one of the earliest critics of the theory, after ob-
serving very low quotients in hibernating animals. Observations of this
kind date back to Regnault and Reiset who, when investigating the meta-
bolism of marmots, found, in the case of marmot C, for example, a respira-
tory quotient of 0-399, when the animal was asleep and a quotient of
188 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
0-686 when it was eating. Gorer in a complete review of the subject
concludes that there is adequate proof of some such conversion.
No doubt exists as to the conversion of carbohydrate into fat in the
animal body, and respiratory quotients above unity have been freely
allowed. But even here difficulties have arisen, because it is difficult to
imagine that such a conversion begins de novo and just at the point when
the value of the respiratory quotient exceeds unity and that the metabolism
of fat ceases completely at exactly the same point. Cathcart and Marko-
witz have pointed out this difficulty, but their observations on the rise of
the respiratory exchange and respiratory quotient after giving sugar,
which had been previously studied by Higgins, do not prove that such
conversion takes place below a respiratory quotient of unity. They
qualify their criticism of the theory in the following words: ‘ We do not
wish to cast doubt on the validity of the calculations of indirect calorimetry
when the experiments extend over several hours ; indeed, we are whole-
hearted believers in the method under these conditions. We even believe
that when conditions in the body are stabilised (as they presumably are
in the post-absorptive condition when basal metabolic rates are commonly
determined) agreement between indirect and direct calorimetry will be
close. But where metabolism is actively proceeding in the organism, as
may occur in short experiments following food, this close agreement
cannot be expected.’ Krogh and Lindhard go further than Cathcart and
Markowitz when they suggest that the conversion of carbohydrate to
fat on the one hand and fat to carbohydrate on the other begins towards
the middle range of respiratory quotients (i.e. o-g0 upwards and 0-80
downwards), but it is difficult to see how any argument can be based on
observations in which the heat itself was not determined.
Dale and his co-workers, and Cori and Cori, suggest that the adminis-
tration of insulin to depancreatised and normal animals brings about oxi-
dation of carbohydrate and so raises the value of the respiratory quotient,
but in depancreatised animals the respiratory quotient may be fairly high
—up to about 0-80, so that the power to utilise carbohydrate is not lost.
In the more severe forms of muscular work respiratory quotients greater
than unity have been observed, which can only mean some reduction of
the carbohydrate—a conversion of carbohydrate to fat ; but this is unlikely
if carbohydrate is the main source of energy in muscular work, a hypo-
thesis that has been put forward to explain quotients up to unity which
are obtained when muscular work of moderate intensity is performed
(Furusawa).
A FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN INDIRECT CALORIMETRY.
The most complete study of direct and indirect calorimetry in normal
man under basal conditions is that made by Benedict and Carpenter. In
the experimental work carried out by these observers, the greatest pre-
cautions were taken to eliminate, or to compensate for, all known sources
of error. The accuracy of the respiratory calorimeters used was checked
I.— PHYSIOLOGY 189
by control experiments in which alcohol was burnt in the calorimeter
under experimental conditions and the measured heat, oxygen con-
sumption, and carbon dioxide production were compared with the quan-
tities predicted from the known weight of alcohol burnt, and the results
obtained indicate a high degree of accuracy. So satisfactory were these
control experiments that it was felt to be necessary to give only one typical
experiment and a summary of the results of all experiments of the same
type which were made between October 1903 and April 1904 with the
calorimeter of 5,000 litres capacity at the Wesleyan University, Middle-
town, U.S.A. In two of their subjects, A.L.L. and A.H.M., the oxygen
intake and the carbon dioxide output, and the heat generated, were simul-
taneously determined with the subject at rest and in the post-absorptive
state at two hourly intervals over periods of eight hours for a number of
days. There are 24 sets of determinations for A.L.L. and 21 sets for
A.H:M. The ‘ non-protein’ values for oxygen intake and carbon dioxide
output and the calories of heat generated were calculated on the usual
assumption that the nitrogen excreted during any period corresponds to
an amount of protein which has been completely oxidised during that
period ; if now the oxygen, carbon dioxide and heat (in calories) resulting
from this oxidation are deducted from the total figures, the remaining
amounts must be solely due to the metabolism of carbohydrate and fat.
A recent study which is not yet complete throws some doubt on this
method of calculation, particularly for the higher quotients, and no
allowance for protein has been made in the later results described in this
Address. I have not found that the conclusions are invalidated by this
omission.
Using these data for the subjects A.L.L. and A.H.M., the theoretical
heat from the oxygen intake and the respiratory quotient was calculated
by the Zuntz-Schumburg method, and this heat (indirect heat) was com-
pared with the heat actually measured by the calorimeter (direct heat).
The difference between the indirect and direct heat was expressed as a
percentage of the direct heat and related to the respiratory quotient by
a graphic method. ‘The result is shown in figs. 1 and 2. The horizontal
line at zero in the top part of the diagrams represents the condition where
the indirect and direct heats are identical; the ordinates represent the
percentage differences between the indirect and direct heats. Satis-
factory agreement between the heat calculated and the direct heat will
depend on the percentage differences, indicated by the black dots, being
evenly distributed above and below the horizontal zero line throughout
the range of respiratory quotients. This is obviously not the case. The
positions of the points suggest a systematic error ; for the lower quotients
the indirect heat is too high and for the higher quotients too low. The
direct and indirect heats only agree at a respiratory quotient of about
0-785 and not elsewhere. At this particular point the respiratory
quotient represents a combustion of carbohydrate and fat in the ratio
of 1 to 1-36. It is unlikely that there can be a very large error in the first
two factors on which the Zuntz-Schumburg values are based (viz. the
190 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
heats of combustion of carbohydrate and fat and the chemical composition
of these substances), it is therefore in the third factor that we must look
for the error ; and this must mean that it is not possible to calculate the
proportion of carbohydrate to fat actually burnt from other respiratory
quotients than 0-785.
When these results were first reported at the Guy’s meeting of the
Physiological Society in 1932, Prof. Benedict suggested that they might
be due to errors in measuring the oxygen. If, for instance, the volume
of oxygen was too low, the calculated value for the heat would be too
A.H.M. A.L.L.
O7 0:8 0-9 1-0 20% RQ 0-7 0-8 0-9 1:0
15
Fic. 1. FIG. 2.
Comparison of indirect and direct calorimetry. o = Oxygen; + =COQO,;
two-hourly determinations during first day of fasting. Subject at rest. In
fig. 1 two observations coincided and so only 20 are shown.
low; at the same time the respiratory quotient would be too high, so
that the position of the point would be low down on the right of the
diagram and, similarly, if the oxygen were too high the point would be
high up and to the left ; in fact, the distribution would be the same as in
the figures. The oxygen would be particularly liable to error because it
was measured both by noting the loss in weight of an oxygen cylinder and
also by determining the change in oxygen content of the calorimeter at
the beginning and end of the experiment. Any error in the analysis of
the gas content of the calorimeter would be magnified in the final result
if the volume of the calorimeter was large. On the other hand, the carbon
dioxide, which has only a small influence on the indirect heat, was pre-
sumably accurate, because as the calorimeter was a closed circuit it could
not escape. The validity of this explanation can be tested by noting the
I—PHYSIOLOGY 1gI
extent of the variation in the volume of oxygen. For A.L.L. the oxygen
intake per two hours was 30-1 litres at a respiratory quotient of 0-834
and 20-6 litres at a quotient of 0-932 (a variation of g-5 litres) and for
A.H.M., 29-4 litres at a quotient of 0-762 and 18-9 litres at a quotient
of 0-947 (a variation of 10-5 litres). Such variations are surely quite
outside any possible error due to analysis. The fact that all control
experiments in which alcohol was burnt in the calorimeter show a high
degree of accuracy in the measurement of the oxygen intake when com-
pared with the heat output confirms the view that the error indicated in
figs. 1 and 2 cannot be accounted for by experimental errors in the
measurement of the oxygen.
Similar results have been obtained with a number of individuals who
had been observed in the smaller calorimeters at Boston, as well as with
a number of pathological cases described by Du Bois and his colleagues,
and with Murlin and Lusk’s observations on dogs. We have also shown
that they cannot be accounted for by a time lag in the taking up of heat
by the calorimeter.
Constancy of Carbon Dioxide Output.—In figs..1 and 2 the values of the
oxygen intake and the carbon dioxide output corresponding to the heat
differences have been plotted ; the carbon dioxide remains remarkably
constant throughout the range of respiratory quotients; the oxygen
intake, on the other hand, diminishes as the quotient increases. Benedict
and Carpenter comment on the constancy of the carbon dioxide in their
experiments. Those authors who have made a number of determinations
of the basal metabolism on the same individual have in general obtained
a constant CO, and a fall in the oxygen with rise of quotient ; but when
the subject has been taking a carbohydrate diet there is a small but definite
rise in CO, with rise in quotient and a fall in the oxygen as before.
AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD OF INDIRECT CALORIMETRY.
As it became clear that the Zuntz-Schumburg figures could no longer
be used for the purpose of calculating the heat generated by the body,
the necessity arose of seeing whether any other relationship existed
between the oxygen intake, the carbon dioxide output and the heat
production from which it would be possible to calculate the heat if the
oxygen intake and the carbon dioxide output were known—in other
words: Is indirect calorimetry a possibility? To answer this question
the plan adopted was to see whether there was any direct relation between
the carbon dioxide output and the heat produced, and between the oxygen
and the heat. In fig. 3, 337 observations by Du Bois and his colleagues
on the basal metabolism have been plotted, and the alcohol control
experiments as well. In these metabolism experiments the body tempera-
ture was not above 37°5° C. and protein figures are used—i.e. no
deduction has been made for the protein metabolism.
The position of the points in the diagrams shows that there is a linear
relation between the CO, and calories (correlation coefficient 0-950
192 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
4 HEAT/ Oy
100
.
CALORIES
a
°
4a
10
100 S
20
Ss
.
.
-
CALoRies
=
to
e Grans O, 4G a 2% Jo 34
Fic. 3.—Comparison of indirect and direct calorimetry. Du Bois’s basal
values (rectal temperatures not above 37°5° C.).
Ordinates: Calories per hour; Abscissae: Upper diagram—CO, grm. per
hour; Lower diagram O, grm. per hour. © Twocoincident values. A Alcohol
control experiments.
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 193
+ 0-005) and between O, and calories (correlation coefficient 0-92
+ 0-008). The lines C represent the relation of the carbon dioxide
output and oxygen intake to the heat produced, when pure carbohydrate
is burnt in a calorimeter; they were calculated from the value given by
Lusk, viz. 5-047 Cal. per litre of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The lines
K and M represent the relation of the heat to the carbon dioxide output
on the left-hand side and to the oxygen intake on the right when two
different kinds of human fat are burnt. These two fats, from liver and
skeletal muscle analysed by Cathcart and Cuthbertson, were chosen
because they represent extremes, and the lines of the other nine human
fats analysed by them lie in between. Most of the carbon dioxide points
lie between the theoretical carbohydrate and fat lines which are widely
spaced ; but this is certainly not the case with the oxygen points, as the
theoretical limits are much narrower. It is possible to look on the carbon
dioxide as the product of combustion of a mixture of carbohydrate and
fat, but, because the oxygen points lie for the most part outside the
theoretical limits, the oxygen intake cannot be entirely used up in
combustion but must in part be concerned in some kind of conversion.
The equation of the regression line to be used for determining the heat
from the CO, is
Calories (per hour) = 3-18CO, (grm. per hour) — 4-92 . Sod (9),
Tue THEORY OF THE CONSTANT COMBUSTION RATIO.
There is, then, a fundamental error in the theory that the respiratory
quotient indicates the proportion of carbohydrate and fat that is being
burnt in the body under basal conditions, the theory of the variable
combustion ratio; this theory (No. 1) must be abandoned. There
are only two other possible theories (Nos. 2 and 3) to be considered.
The simplest one (No. 2) is that carbohydrate and fat are always burnt
in the body in a fixed proportion, and the respiratory quotient, when it is
high, measures the amount of conversion of carbohydrate into some less
oxygenated material such as fat, and, when it is low, measures the
reverse change.
The other possibility (No. 3), which is more complicated, is intermediate
between Nos. 1 and 2. The change in the respiratory quotient is the
resultant of two independent variables: a variation in the combustion
ratio and a variation in the amount of conversion of one foodstuff towards
the other. As the respiratory quotient rises there are two opposed
processes of gradually increasing intensity simultaneously at work, one
an increasing combustion of carbohydrate relative to fat, which tends to
make the heat, calculated by Zuntz-Schumburg, too low, the other an
increasing conversion of carbohydrate into fat which tends to make it
too high, as it is an endothermic reaction. Against this view there is a
fundamental objection. The conversion of carbohydrate and fat may be
represented by a reversible equation:
4Co,H;90, + 420, = 18C,H,,0; + 10H,O : hi 3)
H
194 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
which shows that oxygen and not carbon dioxide is concerned with the
conversion process. Thus CO, can only result from oxidation (see also
Guy’s Hosp. Reports, 85, p. 68); but oxygen has a two-fold function—
oxidation and conversion. It has been calculated that the heat of reaction
of this equation is 2-1 Cals. per grm. of fat, from which it follows that for
every litre of oxygen given out in the conversion of carbohydrate to fat
there is an absorption of heat of 3-93 Cals. The oxygen given out in
this conversion is used up in the oxidation of carbohydrate and fat, so
that a corresponding amount less is taken up from the atmosphere.
Equation 2 is based on Cathcart and Cuthbertion’s analyses of human
fat.
Now 1 litre of CO,, produced in the oxidation of fat, is equivalent to
6-65 Cals. and in the oxidation of glycogen to 5-125 Cals. On an
ordinary diet the CO, output is constant with rise of quotient, and so if
there is a rise in the proportion of carbohydrate burnt there must be a
fall in the heat of combustion per litre of CO, with rise of quotient ; if
there is simultaneously a conversion of carbohydrate to fat there must be
a still further fall in the output of heat, as this is an endothermic reaction.
But on plotting the measured heat against the respiratory quotient this
is not found to be the case: it remains about the same. The only way of
expressing this theory to fit the facts is to say that on rise of quotient
there is an increasing combustion of carbohydrate relative to fat according
to the quotient, and simultaneously a conversion of fat into carbohydrate,
which seems absurd, but is really only a roundabout way of expressing
theory No. 2. Hence theory No. 3 falls out and No. 2, or the theory of
the constant combustion ratio, is left by exclusion.
It must be admitted that this theory is not altogether unreasonable.
Many quantities associated with the human body have in health a more
or less constant value. The body temperature at rest varies within
comparatively small limits, and the same is the case with the hydrogen
ion concentration of the blood and the quantity of phosphocreatine broken
down in relation to muscular work; while the amount of sleep remains
the same for an individual at any particular age. Why should not carbo-
hydrate and fat be burnt in constant proportion in the post-absorptive
condition in a normal healthy man. The story of Cain and Abel suggests
that the diet of primitive man was variable in its carbohydrate and fat
content, depending on his success in cultivation, when it would be mainly
carbohydrate, or hunting, when it would be mainly protein and fat.
Which is most likely, that the complicated metabolic processes resulting
in the actions of the heart, muscles and glands should be entirely at the
mercy of the individual’s caprice (or luck) in his choice of food, or that
these processes should in the main run always along well-defined lines
of chemical and physical action, while any foodstuff taken in unusual
quantities is stored in some suitable form for future use, even though this
means a conversion of some kind? Is it not reasonable to look on these
conversions of food as some of the earliest adaptations that the organism
has acquired in the course of evolution, and, as Dr. H. E. Magee has
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 195
suggested to us this would be a reason for the evolution in the body of
the power to manufacture the ferment glutathione, which is otherwise
without a clear explanation.
THe MeasureD Heat aT HicH aND Low QUOTIENTS.
If it is assumed that the reaction represented by the reversible equation 2
—carbohydrate to fat conversion—takes place at high and low respiratory
quotients while the combustion of carbohydrate and fat in a fixed ratio
“18 ‘80 “85 -90 “95
Fic. 4.—Comparison of indirect and direct calorimetry on the theory of the
constant combustion ratio. Error due to conversion at lowand high quotients.
Du Bois’s results.
Ordinates: Percentage differences between measured heats and heats calcu-
lated from CO, output. Abscissae: Respiratory quotients.
is taking place simultaneously ; the measured (direct) heat should be less
than the heat calculated from the carbon dioxide output, by equation 1, at
high quotients, since the measured heat will be the resultant of the heat
given out from combustion less the heat absorbed in the conversion of
carbohydrate to fat. At low respiratory quotients, when the reverse
process takes place, the measured heat should be greater than the heat
calculated from the carbon dioxide output.
For the construction of fig. 4 the heat was first calculated from the
carbon dioxide output for each of Du Bois’s 377 observations by the
regression equation 1. The difference between the heat calculated in
this manner and the corresponding measured heat expressed as a
196 SECTIONAL ADDREESES
percentage of the measured heat was then plotted against the respiratory
quotient. The principle adopted is similar to that which was used in
figs. 1 and 2, where, however, the heat was calculated from the oxygen,
using the Zuntz-Schumburg relation.
Here there is a tendency for the percentage differences to be positive
when the respiratory quotient exceeds 0-875, for the points do not lie
so evenly distributed about the zero line as at intermediate quotients,
while below 0-775 they are on the average negative. Hence there is an
error in calculating the heat from the carbon dioxide output both at high
and low respiratory quotients, an error predicted from theory. This is
in contrast to the error, opposite in direction, which appeared when, in
figs. 1 and 2, the Zuntz-Schumburg figures were used, and for which there
was no explanation on the theory of the variable combustion ratio.
Is it possible to prove quantitatively that conversion of carbohydrate
to fat and vice versa does take place at high and low quotients ? For this
purpose all the observations calculated for hourly periods of Du Bois and
his colleagues, apart from diabetes, have been divided into groups accord-
ing to the quotient, including febrile cases and experiments after food,
which fall into line with the figures for the basal metabolisms, though
the figures in febrile cases are not so regular as in non-febrile cases ; in
each group the CO, and the heat have been correlated and regression
equations obtained.
No. of
Correlati : :
R.Q. a ets, Regression Equation.
Above 0-975 29 o*97r§ Cals. = 2°52, CO, =a"12"5 (4)
0°925 —0°975 45% o'924 Cals. = 2-60 CO, "T4969. (3)
0*875 —0:925 863 0°899 6 Cals’ = 2-44 CO, 9g)
0-825 —0:°875 1844 0°9355 Cals. = 3-055 CO, — 3°87 . (6)
0°775 — 0825 34535 o*g18 Cals, ="3 -043 CO, — £°63,2-(7)
0°725 —0°775 159 O-9gI Cals. = 2°68 CO, + 9°85 . (8)
Equations 6 and 7 are very similar to one another, and it would be
reasonable as an approximation to take the average—
Cals. = 3 -049CO, — 2°75 : . . (9)
and to call this the regression equation at the intermediate quotient 0-825.
If we assume, as is compatible with fig. 4, that at this quotient a mixture
of carbohydrate and fat is burnt and there is no conversion, it will be
possible to calculate for the conversion process at high and low quotients
the calories absorbed or liberated per litre of oxygen liberated or absorbed
and to see how this agrees with the theoretical value from equation 2, viz.
3°93 Cals. per litre. The method of calculation is as follows: For
25 grms. CO, (12-7 litres) at R.Q. = 0-825, the O, is 15-4 litres, and the
heat from equation g is 73-48 Cals. For 25 grms. CO, at R.Q. = 1, the
O, is 12-7 litres, and the heat from equation 3 is 62-88 Cals. Hence at
I—PHYSIOLOGY 197
this quotient there is 10:6 Cals. less heat given out and 2-7 litres less O,
absorbed ; or 3-93 Cals. per litre O,.
The following calculations have been made :
CO, grams per hour , : ; : pak 25 35
R.Q. 0°75 Cals. liberated per litre oxygen absorbed 7-6 2°18 pe
»» 0°90 Cals. absorbed per litre oxygen liberated — 3:7 5°75
» 0°95 5 ” ” ” »”» 4°09 3°45 2°03
» °00 ,, ” »” » ” 3°27 3°93 4°14
The figures for the Cals. per litre of oxygen are of the same order as the
theoretical figure 3 -93, and the equations 3 and 4 for R.Qs. 0-95 and 1-00,
where there is the largest amount of conversion, give the closest figures.
The other two equations 5 and 8 give at one point an impossible figure,
indicating absorption of heat when there should have been liberation,
and wice versa. But the figures are provisional. The R.Qs. chosen for
calculation are not the averages, or the medians of the R.Qs. in the
groups, and it appears now that determinations in diabetes should be
added. But considering that the figures represent the ratio of differences
between quantities ten times as large, and so are particularly liable to error
they do seem compatible with the conversion of carbohydrate and fat at
high and low quotients, and in this sense provide a quantitative proof.
Food.—I have just said that the values for the CO,-heat relation after
food fall into line with the basal metabolism results when grouped
according to the respiratory quotient. ‘This has implications of interest,
because most results in the groups belonging to the higher quotients
were obtained after food, and particularly carbohydrate. Hence, con-
version into fat takes place within the first few hours after ingestion of
carbohydrate, and the resulting absorption of heat explains the well-known
small specific dynamic action of carbohydrate. After ingestion of fat the
specific dynamic action is also small, but this is because the values remain
at the basal level without alteration of quotient, presumably because fat
delays the emptying of the stomach. On the other hand, after protein
there is eventually increase both in the heat and the respiratory exchange
—hence the high specific dynamic action; but in the first hour or two
there is often a rise of quotient and little if any increase of heat, which
makes it probable that any rate part of the protein is immediately con-
verted into fat, and in this case invalidates the usual method of calculating
non-protein metabolism.
Muscutar Work.
Investigating the effect of diet on the respiratory exchange due to
muscular work, Krogh and Lindhard found that with carbohydrate more
CO, was excreted and less O, was absorbed than with a diet mainly of fat.
On the theory of the variable combustion ratio this meant that less heat
was produced with carbohydrate, so that the body worked more economi-
cally. Benedict and Milner® have made the only systematic investigation
* U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Office of Exp. Stations, Bull. 175, 1907.
198 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
of muscular work in a respiratory calorimeter; but their results were
published thirty years ago and seem to have been overlooked. ‘They
found that for the same amount of work the heat output was practically
the same on a mixed diet containing roughly equal proportions of carbo-
hydrate and fat as on a carbohydrate diet. Comparing the best two
experiments when equal amounts of work were accomplished—63 and
62 on A.L.L.—the total heat output for 3 days was 14670-1 and 14464°4
Calories respectively, a decrease on the carbohydrate diet of only 1-4 per
cent. The CO, values were 1298-4 and 1397 grms. and the oxygen
values were 4317°2 and 4058-3 grms.; these differences are like those
that Krogh and Lindhard subsequently found; the R.Q’s. were 0-802
and 0-896. The results cannot be explained on the older theory because
the heat remained nearly the same on the two diets; but on the theory
of the constant combustion ratio, because the CO, was increased on the
carbohydrate diet, the combustion of the normal carbohydrate-fat mixture
must have been increased and more heat produced ; this increase of heat
must have been neutralised by the heat absorbed in the conversion of
carbohydrate to fat, a process that, must have occurred, because less oxygen
was absorbed on the carbohydrate diet.
To obtain quantitative evidence of this conversion regression equations
of the heat—CO, and O,—heat relations for A.L.L. on the two diets
have been calculated for 6 hourly periods in all experiments, omitting the
first periods in Experiments 62, 63 and 65, which were transition periods
as regards diet, but adding the basal determinations in Carnegie Inst.
Publication 261 to the mixed diets ; CO, and O, are expressed in grms. :
Mixed diet : Cals. =2-94CO, + 45'1. . (10)
O, =0°303 Cals. —10°1 . 2 (15)
Carbohydrate diet: Cals. =2-71CO, -+42°5. wi E2)
O, = 0:288 Cals. —0-4 . Pea (|
Suppose 400 grms. CO, is excreted on the mixed and on the carbo-
hydrate diets the calories from equations 10 and 12 are 1221 and 1128,
i.e. with less muscular work there were 93 less calories given out on the
carbohydrate diet. From equations 11 and 13 the oxygens corresponding
to these heats are 359°5 and 324-6 grms.—i.e. 34:9 grms. less oxygen
was absorbed on the carbohydrate diet; on passing from the mixed
to the carbohydrate diet the heat absorbed per grm. of oxygen was
O05 sv
34°9
theoretical value for the conversion of carbohydrate to fat is 3-93. Similar
calculations over the range of CO,’s obtained in the muscular work and
following rest period gave results as follows :
CO, grm. per 6 hours . : : . 250, 400, 600, 700
Heat absorbed in conversion, Cals. per 6 hours. 59:6, 93, 138, 166
Cals. per litre of O, absorbed in conversion . 7°48, 3:8, 3°44, 3°38
At any rate the experimental figures are of the same order as the theoretical
figure 3-93.
2,66 Cals., or 2-66 = = 3°8 Cals. per litre of oxygen ; now the
I.—_PHYSIOLOGY 199
Another method of calculation depends on using equation 7 in com-
paring Experiments 63 and 62. With carbohydrate there was excreted
361-4 grms. CO, more than on the mixed diet. If this resulted from
oxidation of a carbohydrate-fat mixture at R.Q. 0-802, the heat would
be by equation 7, 1097-4 Cals. Hence 14670-1 + 109774 — 14464°4
(= 1303-1) Cals. must have been absorbed on changing to the carbo-
hydrate diet, owing to conversion. Since 44 grms. CO, requires 32 grms.
O, for its formation, the oxygen required to produce 361-4 grms. CO,
at the R.Q. would have been a -e = (= 327°7) grms. The oxygen
that must have been absorbed on changing to the carbohydrate diet was
4317°2 + 327-7 — 4158-6 (= 486-3) grms. Hence the calories absorbed
1303 I 2
aE = 2°679, or 2-679 eh (= 3°83) Cals.
per litre. This value, 3-83, is very close to the theoretical value 3 -93.
Thus, there is every probability that carbohydrate is converted into
fat in muscular work on’a carbohydrate diet. This may explain the
quotients above unity obtained by C. H. Best; K. Furusawa and J. R.
Ridout.2 A point of interest is that the amount of the conversion
increases with the muscular work and the total respiratory exchange,
which suggests that conversion and combustion are linked reactions.
Teleologically, the value of a conversion of carbohydrate to fat may be
questioned, considering the enormous storage of fat in the body compared
to carbohydrate ; but these deposits of fat may not be readily available, ~
and anyhow a better way of looking at the conversion process is from the
point of view of a velocity reaction, the amount of conversion depending
on the concentration of carbohydrate in the reacting tissues, which is
increased on a high carbohydrate diet. The interesting conclusion may
be drawn that muscular work on any diet produces nearly the same
amount of heat ; if heat is absorbed in conversion from carbohydrate to
fat this must be provided by increased combustion of the standard carbo-
hydrate-fat mixture.
per grm. of oxygen was
A New DEFINITION OF BasaL METABOLISM.
On the theory of indirect colorimetry, based on the constant combustion
ratio of carbohydrate and fat, the non-protein carbon dioxide results
entirely from the combustion of carbohydrate and fat, while the oxygen
is used partly for combustion and partly in conversion processes. If the
respiratory quotient is high, say 0-9, the heat, calculated on the assumption
that the oxygen is used entirely for combustion, is about 8 per cent. above
the heat actually found, because the heat due to combustion is diminished
by the heat absorbed in the conversion of carbohydrate towards fat (see
fig. 4). Since under basal conditions there are continual small variations
in the quotient, there will be continual additions to or subtractions
from the heat of combustion, according as the conversion of fat to
3 Proc. Roy. Soc., B., 104, 119, 1929,
200 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
carbohydrate is taking place or vice versa. Since these conversions are
ephemeral and will cancel each other over a long period, they can hardly
be regarded as part of a ‘ standard’ metabolism, and so it is much better
to neglect them, and this is done by taking the carbon dioxide alone into
consideration. In these circumstances the basal or standard metabolism
must be defined afresh as the heat of combustion at rest in the post-
absorptive state and not as the total heat measured in a calorimeter, the
value of which may be a little different, depending on the respiratory
quotient. If this definition be accepted it follows that the carbon dioxide
alone must be measured and no account must be taken of the intake of
oxygen.
STANDARDS OF METABOLISM, GROWTH, AND GENERAL NUTRITION
IN CHILDREN.
In working out a new standard of basal metabolism from the CO, it was
decided, as Benedict has done, to determine the mathematical correlation
between the four quantities, carbon dioxide excretion, body weight, height,
and age, irrespective of any preconceived theory that might possibly relate
them together; but, as in Meeh’s and Dreyer’s formule and in the
height-weight formula of Du Bois, the Calories were related to a power
of the body weight, it seemed advisable as a first step to plot the logarithms
of the body weight and carbon dioxide output with a view to determining
graphically what the power was. This was a fortunate step as, in the
case of the children, it at once indicated that between 1-2 and 4-5 years
of age there was a break in the continuity of the curve relating these
quantities ; further work showed a closer correlation between CO, and
height up to 5-6 years of age than between CO, and weight, since some
children were unusually heavy, possibly from retention of fluid associated
with hypothyroidism. At these ages height is the best measure of
metabolism. As the baby grows from birth to a height of 29 in., 1.e.
up to 1 year, the regression equation is as follows :
Early infancy :
Log. CO, = 3:15 log. height — 4-04 é . (14)
Between 29 in. (1 year) and 414 in. (5-6 years) it is
Log. CO, = 0°46 log. height + 1 L , z <(165)
In other words, there is but little increase in CO, with growth between
heights of 29 and 41} in.; subsequently up to about puberty there is
again a larger increase in the CO, output, and it is now higher for boys
than for girls. These CO, values of Benedict and Talbot are probably
on the low side, though they are consistent in themselves ; but the recent
results of R. C. Lewis * and others will have to be investigated in order to
obtain a more correct prediction of the CO, from the height or weight of
children above 5 to 6 years.
4 Amer. Jour. Dis. Child. 1937, 58, 348.
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 201
The suggested explanation of the kink at 29 in. is the exercise taken by
the child when he or she begins at first to crawl and later to run about ; these
activities burn up fat and consequently the luxus consumption associated
with the fat storage and over-nutrition of babyhood disappears, which
means that the higher carbon dioxide production in proportion to body
weight becomes lessened. On this view the baby in early infancy leads
a vegetable existence, absorbing nutriment without much activity ; above
one year old he gradually becomes an energetic child. If this is true,
there should be a kink in the reverse direction when the logarithms of the
height and body weight are plotted against one another, because at this
point the baby would increase in height but not correspondingly in weight
as the nutrition became lower ; this was found to be the case and there
was a second kink at 41} in. (between 5 and 6 years), which also
coincided with and explained the change in the log. CO,-log. weight
relation at this height. There are, thus, 3 nutritional periods in post-
natal life ; during the first the child puts on fat, and both the body weight
and the metabolism increase rapidly as the result and luxus consumption
becomes established. (There is also luxus consumption in the exogenous
obesity of adults) ; in the second period with the loss of fat the increase
in body weight is less, while the metabolism remains almost stationary ;
in the third period the increase in body weight and metabolism with
growth is again established, but in neither is the increase as rapid as in the
first period, since there is not the same amount of fat deposited.
Emphasis ‘has been laid on height rather than age or weight in deter-
mining the metabolism of an infant, and this suggests that the other
landmarks of development, such as the eruption of teeth, power to lift
the head, closure of the fontanelle, should also be related primarily to
height.
Example (2 first cousins).
(1) First tooth at 27 weeks 22 Ib. 272 in.
(2) ”» ” 37 ” 162 ” 28 ”
Dr. H. St. J. Vertue, who is kindly making observations at the Salamon
Centre, Guy’s Hospital, writes: ‘Up to the present my figures (for
eruptions of first teeth) do show a wide disparity of age and weight
and not much disparity of length.’
These three nutritional periods of childhood with their varying effect
on body weight suggest that the relation of body weight to age would not
be a satisfactory measure of growth, and this is borne out by the S-shaped
curve (unique for man) that is obtained when weight and age from birth
to puberty are plotted against one another. A much simpler curve is
obtained when height and age are related ; this is the ‘ cumulative growth
curve.’ Above 6 years it is roughly linear till near puberty, when there
is an increase in growth, forming the so-called prepubertal rise. Such
curves (and they can be drawn back into prenatal life) are the best
measure of growth, and they demonstrate that on the average children
are taller than they were 56 years ago, and that children from better-class
H2
ops. SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
families are taller than from poorer families. On the other hand, the
relation of log. height to log. weight, which we and others have regarded
as the best index of ‘ general nutrition,’ is on the average the same now
as it was 56 years ago, and is identical for all classes of the community.
Both these facts have been pointed out before; but it does not appear
that their combination has been sufficiently emphasised. ‘There is some
factor in modern life that tends to promote growth in the children of the
wealthier classes ; this was missing 50 years ago and is still missing among
the poorer classes to-day. But though wealth tends to produce giants
and poverty dwarfs, both giants and dwarfs are equally well formed ;
their general nutrition remains the same. Heredity is certainly a factor
in promoting tallness or shortness ; but it is impossible to imagine that
the wealthy have unconsciously selected themselves for tallness during
recent years. There.must be other factors and improvement of the food
supply with abundance of minerals and vitamins are obvious ones ;_ this
subject has been dealt with by Orr. In this connection observations by
Brody and others on animal nutrition are of great interest. The weight
and chest girth of steers are greater for a given age when the animal is
full fed than when it is scantily fed; but the height at withers is the same
in the two cases. This is the reverse of the findings in children. The
steers were equally tall but the poorly fed were thinner ; so their general
nutrition was poor.
The explanation may be as follows: In poorly fed steers the amount
of food was apparently cut down and therefore the Calories were deficient,
but the diet remained qualitatively the same, so that the growth factors
were adequate. On the other hand, according to Orr’s observations, the
intake of vitamins, of calcium, phosphorus and iron is deficient among the
poorer classes of the community and is proportional to the amount spent
on food, which itself depends on the income of the family. These are all
growth-promoting factors. The intake of Calories is only deficient in the
poorest group where the income is up to Ios. a week per head, and of
this 4s. per head is spent on food. It is permissible to doubt whether
the Calories are really deficient in this group, considering the small size
of the individuals and the difficulty in estimating how many Calories are
required to keep up bodily nutrition—a subject which has been touched
on elsewhere.* At any rate Elderton’s measurements of Glasgow children
show that there is no marked difference between the log. height/log.
weight relationship for the richest and poorest classes of the community ;
but the poorer children are shorter and lighter for their age than those
from better-class families, and the different classes of society have been
graded, as far as their wealth is concerned, by their tallness. It is reason-
able to assume that the main deficiency is in the growth factors and not
in the total amount of Calories. It does not follow that the small, short
individual with a normal general nutrition is a less perfect physiological
organism than the individual who is tall. In certain walks of life tallness
4 E. P. Poulton, Diets and Recipes and the Treatment of Diabetes and Obesity,
1937, Pp. 6.
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 203
may be a disadvantage. In a famine the short, light individual would
certainly require less food.
STANDARDS OF METABOLISM IN ADULTS.
Is there any advantage in taking height into consideration in addition
to weight and age, in calculating the basal metabolism of adults? To
answer this question two equations have been derived from the same
series of published data for men.
Log. carbon dioxide
= 06204 log. body weight — 0:00357 age + 1°3015 . 2. (76)
Log. carbon dioxide
= 051208 log. body weight + 0-5389 log height
— 0°00357 age + 0°2573 . (17)
The carbon dioxide is in c.cs. per minute, body weight in kilograms,
height in centimetres, age in years between 15 and 35.
| | Standard deviation
Number which of the differences
NueA BEE best fit. eee eae
Body Weights. of see eae pate 7 at
subjects. |
| Equation | Equation| Equation | Equation
16. Fie 16. 7a
|
Within + 10% of |
average body weight | |
for height . mM) ore7> 55 He eh), |. Paras 14°09
Between + 10% and |
+ 20% of average |
body weight for |
height : ‘ 38 22 16 | 17°98 17°87
Beyond -++ 20% of
average body weight
for height . ; 15 5 IO 21°41 17°87
The CO, calculated from the two equations is then compared with the
actual CO, measured. For this purpose all the observations have been
separated in the table into 3 categories, according as the body weight lay
between + 10 per cent. and — to per cent. of the average body weight
for the height, between -- 10 per cent. and + 20 per cent. and beyond
5 In two cases both equations were equally good.
204 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
20 per cent. In column 2 is given the number of subjects in each
category, and in columns 3 and 4 the number of cases in which
equation 16 or 17 respectively gave a result closer to the carbon dioxide
found experimentally. ‘The meaning of the figures in the last two columns
in this table may be expressed as follows: Suppose 200 c.c. CO, are
excreted per min., then since go per cent. of observations probably fall
within 1-611 times the standard deviation (Pearl), we may assume that for
the 127 subjects in the top line go per cent. of values calculated by
equation 16 would probably lie between 176-7 and 223-3 c.c., while the
corresponding limits for equation 17 would be 177-3 and 222:7c.c. It
is clear from these figures that the variation between the two equations
is negligible, and so it may be argued that it is more physiological to use
equation 16, which involves only body weight and age, because, if height
is really important, the improvement with equation 17 should be more
marked. Although in this particular series of results from which both
equations were derived equation 17 gives for mathematical reasons slightly
closer results, it does not follow that this would be the case if these
equations were applied to another series of normal individuals. Hence
equation 16 which involves fewer measurements has been retained as the
chosen prediction equation.
Effect of Sex and Age on Basal Metabolism. —From 5 or 6 years onwards
‘girls have a lower basal metabolism for their weight than have boys.
The differentiation of the sexes as regards their metabolism, which begins
after the erect posture is attained and exercise is being freely taken, is of
great interest, as it appears long before any secondary sexual characters.
It is possibly due to the fact that from about 5 to 6 years onwards girls
on the whole take less exercise than boys and consequently their muscles
are less developed and so the basal metabolism which must largely depend
on muscular development is lower. Athletes have a higher metabolism
than ordinary men. In babyhood there is no noticeable difference in
activity between the sexes and their basal metabolisms are the same.
From puberty onwards the difference in activity is marked and the
difference between the metabolisms is ata maximum. We have suggested
that the falling off of metabolism with age is also due to lessening
muscular activity with consequent muscular atrophy; this takes place
more rapidly in men than women, and this would agree with the more
rapid drop of the metabolism in men. It would be of particular interest
to compare the metabolisms of very old men and women; on this
hypothesis they should be the same, since muscular activity in both would
be at a minimum.
PRACTICAL INDIRECT CALORIMETRY.
I use the ‘ open’ method of Krogh and Lindhard for determining the
carbon dioxide in clinical work. Fresh outside air is supplied to the
subject by a mask and valves ; from the subject the expired air passes to
the bottom of a wide-mouthed bottle of about 2 litres capacity, which in
:
I.—PHYSIOLOGY 205
order to improve the mixing may contain two horizontal layers of copper
gauze, one just above the opening of the delivery tube and the second
towards the top of the bottle below the exit tube. Samples of the mixed
air as it leaves the bottle are analysed every five minutes by means of a
Haldane gas analysis apparatus fitted with a 10 c.c. burette (a 30 c.c.
burette has recently been used), connected to the bottle by means of lead
tubing of fine bore. The expired air then passes to a large gas meter
measuring 15 litres per revolution, which is read every five minutes.
A rubber anaesthetic bag is connected by means of a T-piece to the tube
between the bottle and the meter. With a large meter and bag in circuit
there is no perceptible resistance to ordinary breathing, and the valves
have been constructed with the same end in view. They consist of Paul’s
rubber intestinal tubing split longitudinally along both edges and clipped
at intervals of about an inch with clips. Dr. Alice E. B. Harding, who
has used the method for children, has found that a practical method of
testing for leaks between the face and the mask is to hold a polished metal
spatula near the junction ; if expired air escapes the surface of the metal
is dimmed by the deposition of moisture. Five consecutive experiments
are given in the table. They were usually continued for 25 minutes or
T.R.H. O'r:. K.W. F.M.T. A.E.B.
half an hour, though a shorter period might sometimes be enough.
Contrary to the general impression the carbon dioxide after the first five
or ten minutes gives very constant results, if the patient is quiet and
comfortable. An increase towards the end of the period can usually be
accounted for by some extraneous factor, such as shivering or restlessness.
There is no necessity for the examination to be restricted to the nursing
home or hospital ; but the patient should be advised to do the minimum
of walking on the morning of the test. Most of the original experiments
were carried out under these conditions.
The advantage of this method is that the constancy of the breathing
and metabolism throughout the period can be assessed ; its disadvantage
is that the total volume of expired air is not collected before taking out
206 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
a sample for analysis; but this will not matter provided the breathing
remains constant, as indicated by the series of observations. This diffi-
culty can be overcome by using two analysis apparatuses; in one the
analysis is made, while in the other air is gradually being collected in the
burette during the five minutes by allowing the mercury to fall slowly ;
this is analysed, while a further sample is being collected in the first
apparatus, and so on ; alternatively the air could be collected in sampling
tubes and analysed later.
Finally, I should like to thank Mr. T. W. Adams, who has been
associated with me in the calculations on which these results are based,
and Mr. W. J. Martin of the London School of Hygiene for advice on
the mathematics required, and to express my indebtedness to the Parsons
Fund at Guy’s Hospital and the Medical Research Council for grants in
aid of the work, and to the Physiological Society and Guy’s Hospital Reports
for the illustrations. This study is not yet complete, though I think the
main conclusions will stand. We hope in due time to publish all the
evidence on which these conclusions are based.
SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY.
TESTS IN COMMON USE FOR THE
DIAGNOSIS OF COLOUR DEFECT
ADDRESS BY
Dr. MARY COLLINS,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Tests for colour vision fall into two categories. In the one type of test,
transmitted light is used, in the other reflected light. While the former
type of test is regarded as the more fundamental, the latter can be of
great service for quick diagnosis of colour anomaly. Colour tests may be
administered purely for theoretical purposes, or they may be applied for
practical purposes, as selection tests for different vocations. This second
function assumes its most important réle in vocations in which lack of
accurate discrimination between different coloured signals may involve
human lives. This function is also of significance in other vocations in
which the lack of colour discrimination, though not involving danger to
the community, is highly disadvantageous to its possessor.
These two aims, though not mutually exclusive, it is better to keep
clearly in mind in any discussion. The results of certain tests may be
invaluable for theoretical purposes, although for practical purposes their
value may be negligible. This confusion of the two aims has probably
been partly responsible for the production of the many differences of
opinion which have been expressed with regard to the commoner tests
at present used for diagnosis.
There seems to be no need at the present day to emphasise the im-
portance of the recognition and detection of colour defect. It is, however,
very illuminating to study some of the more recent investigations in the
field, particularly those concerned with the incidence of red-green
defect. The percentages given seem to be much higher than in the
reports of the earlier investigations. It does not necessarily follow that
the incidence of the defect is increasing; the indications are rather that
detection is more accurate owing to the improvement of the test material.
The figures given in previous estimates are generally somewhere in the
region of 3 or 4 per cent. so far as the male population is concerned.
While some of the percentages quoted during the past few years are
still in this vicinity, it is not unusual to find a number of considerably
higher percentages recorded also. Waaler,1 who tested 9,000 persons,
found a frequency of 8-o1 per cent. in the male sex; Planta? testing
_} See Article by Briickner. ‘ Neure Forschungen iiber angeborene Farben-
sinnstérungen,’ Schweiz. Med. Jahrb., 1932. 2 Tbid.
208 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
2,000 boys, a frequency of 7-95 per cent. Kilborn and Beh,® testing
Chinese male students, found 6-3 per cent. of them to be red-green
blind, and Hsiao,* examining Chinese children, gives his figure as
5°57 per cent. among the boys. Lorenzo and McClure ® found, of a
group of men tested at the University of Toledo, that 9 per cent. were
colour blind, and Garth,® testing children and students in Turkey, a
percentage of 5-3. Among groups of medical students, Macklin? found
about 11‘o per cent., and Tocantin and Jones ® found 12-8 per cent.
who were red-green colour blind. Miles® testing university men,
gives 8-4 per cent. as colour blind, and among a group of dry goods
salesmen he found a percentage of 7-2. Out of 360 candidates applying
for acceptance as apprentice printers, examined by the present writer,
the percentage of red-green colour blinds was 7:5, this figure being
exclusive of the colour weak and the anomalous.
At the present day, there are said to exist three varieties of colour
blindness. And while we are primarily concerned with the red-green
variety only, it seems desirable for completeness to indicate briefly the
nature of the other two types. They are not of equal importance either
from a theoretical or from a practical point of view.
Total colour blindness or Achromatopsia (sometimes called Achroma-
topia) is not of frequent occurrence, only about eighty cases having been
described up to date.4° To the totally colour blind the spectrum is a
colourless band, differing only in luminosity. Red may appear black,
orange dark grey, yellow light grey and so on. To such a monochromat 14
bright light is extremely dazzling, in fact, ordinary illumination is some-
times unbearable, but in dim illumination he can see fairly accurately.
Achromatopsia is often accompanied by nystagmus and by poor central
vision. In many cases an absolute central scotoma exists which means
absolute blindness to light at the fovea as well as to colour. Parsons
states that ‘ whether all cases have an absolute centrol scotoma or not,
it is certain that foveal vision is very defective, even as compared with
parafoveal, as is admitted by Hess.’ ”
To the totally colour blind the region of maximal brightness lies in
the green, a condition similar to that found in the dark-adapted or
scotopic eye. The luminosity curve of the monochromat agrees very
closely with the normal achromatic scotopic luminosity curve. There
3 Science, 1934, 79, 34. 4 J. Applied Psychology, 1935, 19, 641-646.
5 Ibid., 320-330. 8 Science, 1936, 84, 85.
* Canad. Med. Assoc. J., 1933, 29, 302-303.
8 Amer. J. Med. Sci., 1933, 185, 243-249.
® The Personnel J., 1931, 9, 437-449.
10 For a description of a case of total colour blindness, see Snyder, Amer. J.
Psy., 1929, 41, 398-411.
11 This term is objected to by E. Murray, who writes: ‘ Monochromatic is merely
a physicist’s tag signifying that in this type of deficiency any wave-length of light
can be matched against any other. Actually the vision of the subject is achro-
matic, without any colour quality whatsoever. No genuine monochromasy in
the descriptive sense is, for theoretical reasons the compounding of white from
chromas, admissible.’ Quoted from article in Amer. J. Psy., 1930, 42, 117-127.
Color Problems : the Divergent Outlook of Physicist and Psychologist.
12 * An Introduction to the Study of Colour Vision,’ 2nd Ed., p. 199.
J —PSYCHOLOGY 209
may also exist a form of monochromatism in which the visibility curve
is of the light-adapted or photopic type.?®
The second variety of colour blindness, which has little practical
significance, although it has considerable theoretical importance, is that
of blue-yellow blindness, in which the ability to see blue and yellow is
affected, but the ability to see red and green is unaffected. This second
type is of doubtful existence as a congenital condition, although one
or two apparently authentic cases have been recorded. Generally, it is
accompanied by some pathological change in the eye. One case, reported
by Richardson, saw blue as a dazzling white.
Parsons points out that ‘it is simulated in cases of jaundice and
sclerosis of the crystalline lens, these being due to absorption by yellow
pigment.’ Abney ® and Hess 1!® have found that the same defect may
arise in cases where the pigmentation of the macula is unusually dense.
This second form of colour blindness has been termed violet-blindness
by the adherents of the Young-Helmholtz theory, or as Maxwell preferred
to term it, blue-blindness. The followers of the Hering theory describe
the defect as blue-yellow blindness. The term, tritanopia, was suggested
by v. Kries.
The third form of colour blindness, red-green blindness, is the most
important of all, because of the frequency with which it occurs, as has
been already observed, and because of the colours which are confused.
The defect is congenital and hereditary. It occurs on the male side of
a family, and is practically non-existent on the female side, only about
I in 500 being colour-blind. A female, however, whose father is colour-
blind, may transmit the defect to her sons. In other words, it may pass
over a generation, remaining latent in the female, but reappear in the
next generation on the male side.1”
Two forms of this colour defect are recognised, depending on whether
the spectrum is of normal length or shortened. These are described as
green-blind and red-blind respectively by the adherents of the Helmholtz
theory: as red-green blind by the exponents of the Hering theory, the
difference in the two types being ascribed to differences in macular
pigmentation. The names deuteranopia and protanopia, suggested by
v. Kries, are used independently of any colour theory. ‘The terms
photerythrous (visibility of the red) and scoterythrous (darkness of the
red) put forward by Rivers, have unfortunately never been adopted.
It seems more or less agreed that red-green colour blindness is a
reduction system of normal colour vision, one cogent argument in support
of this contention being that normal colour matches are valid for any
type of dichromate. The colour blinds lack something which the normal
eye has, but have nothing which the normal eye does not possess. The
individual with normal colour vision sees a spectrum composed of six
18 See Chapter 13 by Troland in A Handbook of General Experimental Psychology,
1934. Edited by Murchison.
14 Tbid., p. 192. 15 Pyoc, Roy. Soc., 1891, 49,
16 Arch. f. Anat., 1908, 61.
17 Colour blindness may also be acquired, but it is not necessary to discuss this
form of colour blindness here.
210 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
or seven colours. The red-green colour blind has a spectrum composed
of only two colours, these two colours being yellow and blue. The
acceptance of this fact was delayed for a long time, and it is doubtful if
it is yet generally accepted. Herschel in 1845 was the first to put forward
the dichromic explanation of colour blindness. He pointed out in his
article on ‘Light’ in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana that certain
individuals could only distinguish two colours, and that these two colours
were yellow and blue. Clerk-Maxwell, among others, opposed this, for
he accepted the theory put forward at that time by Young and Helmholtz
that colour blinds were either red-blind, green-blind or violet-blind, and
that the red-blind were blind to red, but could see the remaining two
colours, green and violet: the green-blind were blind to green, but could
see red and violet.
In an account by Pole of his own case,!® we find he vigorously protests
against these prevailing beliefs, and gives a careful analysis of his own
colour vision as evidence. He had been pronounced red-blind by Maxwell
and green-blind by Holmgren. Pole repudiated both suggestions, and
claimed that the true solution was that he was blind to both colours.
This conclusion was confirmed by a large number of facts. One was the
evidence of the colour blinds themselves who, whether they were classified
as red-blind or green-blind, asserted that their colour sense was composed
of blue and yellow. Another was a case of congenital unilateral dichroma-
tism investigated by von Hippel in 1880. ‘The individual tested had
normal colour vision in his left eye but was colour blind in his right eye.
With the right eye he confused red and green with yellow, as tested by
various standard tests. The colours which the subject could distinguish
with his right eye were blue and yellow, these being confirmed when he
looked at them with his normal eye. Von Hippel diagnosed the case as
one of red-green blindness with spectrum of normal length. Holmgren
examined the case with his wool test and proclaimed it to be one of
red-blindness with shortened spectrum in accordance with the Helmholtz
theory. Von Hippel retested his subject and reaffirmed his first finding.
This was the first case of monocular colour vision reported, and it un-
doubtedly strengthened the case for the acceptance of Herschel’s and
Pole’s views. Holmgren, it is interesting to note, ultimately agreed that
blue and yellow were the only colours seen. ‘That this point is still
controversial may be gathered from the statement made by Pitt #® in a
recent investigation, that the fundamental responses of the protanope are
blue and a saturated green, while those of the deuteranope are blue and
a mixture of red and green.
Only a few cases of unilateral colour blindness have been recorded,
and these, according to Parsons, are of ‘ doubtful value.’ In these cases,
however, the suggestion is always that the colours seen are blue and
yellow. Miles and Beaumont,?° who tested the two eyes separately in
18 Pyoc. Roy. Soc., 1856.
19 Med. Res. Council Report, XIV. ‘ Characteristics of Dichromatic Vision.’
Special Report Series, No. 200. H.M. Stationery Office, 1935.
20 “Monocular Testing of the Colourblind,’ American J. Ophth., 1931, 14,
636-639.
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 211
an investigation into colour blindness, found considerable difference
between the two eyes in many cases, and suggest that although there is
no conclusive evidence as to the frequency of unilateral colour blindness,
that ‘ possibly it amounts to three or four per cent. of the colour blind.’
They discovered one such case in a group of 23, and Miles and Craig
found another in a group of 390 mercantile salesmen.2! This latter
individual was a dry goods salesman and aware of his condition, and if
required to match fabrics he closed the defective eye and made the
proper discrimination with his normal eye. If these cases of unilateral
colour blindness are as numerous as suggested, a field seems opened up
for further investigation which may lead to definite conclusions as regards
the fundamental sensations of the red-green colour blind.
The results of investigations carried out over a number of years at
Edinburgh into the colour sensations of the red-green colour blind, seem
to indicate that their colour sensations are indeed blue and yellow.”?
The extent to which these two colours replace all the other colours in
the spectrum is, however, not constant for every colour blind. With
some, yellow and blue may replace all the other colours, that is, red,
orange, yellow and green may be seen as different shades of yellow, blue
and violet as different shades of blue. Sometimes, instead of the green
being replaced by yellow, it may appear as grey, or the blue-green may
appear as grey, the extent of the neutral band varying with the gravity
of the defect. A second neutral band is also found extra-spectrally in
the complementary colour, in the purples.
In one extreme case which came under observation, only two narrow
bands of yellow and blue existed, the other colours being seen as shades
of grey. Red appeared as black, orange as dark grey, yellow could be
discriminated, green and blue-green were seen as grey, blue could be
distinguished, but violet appeared as dark grey. In one test, out of
76 colours observed, 64 of them appeared as grey.
All cases, however, are not so extreme as the one just described and the
general finding which seems to be gradually gaining ground, is that there
exist different degrees of colour blindness extending from extreme cases
in which blue and yellow are the only two colours visible to milder cases
in which the blindness to red and green is not total. In these milder
cases the individual can see red and green if they are bright enough or
vivid enough. It is these milder forms which constitute the great
practical problem, for in these cases the ability to distinguish between
red and green is likely to fail when the individuals are fatigued, or when
the illumination is poor, as in mist or fog. ‘The extreme cases can be
easily detected, but the milder cases, which have been described as
“dangerous colour-blinds,’ require very careful examination if they are
to be detected.
That different degrees of colour blindness exist has been emphasised
by more than one writer. Hayes *° ‘ wonders if we shall presently have
*1 “Colour Blindness in Dry Goods Salesmen,’ The Personnel J., 1931, 9, 437-
22 Collins : Colour Blindness.
23 Psy. Bulletin, 1926, 28.
212 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
to give up all classifications by types, arrange colour defectives in distribu-
tion tables and give a colour graph or profile for each subject, showing
his efficiency or deficiency for each colour in terms of a per cent. of the
normal or average attainment.’ ‘Troland** states that the original
restriction of colour blinds to protanopes, deuteranopes and tritanopes
is not adequate any longer, and allowances must now be made for more
types of variation. Edridge-Green * recognises seven different types of
colour vision, and Schjelderup *° states that there are at least eighteen
significant species of colour blindness. Collins 2” reaches the conclusion
that it is quite unprofitable to try to classify the colour systems of the
colour blind because there exist so many individual variations.
Black blocks denote colour blinds.
One group in which the colour defect is not extreme has been definitely
recognised. Seebeck, in 1837, found certain cases which he was reluctant
to classify as colour blinds, who yet showed signs of colour abnormality.
It was not until 1881, however, that these cases were understood. In
that year, Rayleigh found that a number of individuals with otherwise
normal colour vision were unequally sensitive to red and green. In
equating red (lithium line 670-8 wy.) and green (thallium line 535 2) to
match a yellow (sodium line 589 yu), since known as the Rayleigh equation,
some were found to require far more red than the normal, others required
*4 Bull. Nat. Res. Counc., 1922, Part 2, No. 27.
23 Physiology of Vision.
*6 ‘ Zur Theorie der Farbenempfindungen,’ Zsch. f. Sinnesphysiol., 51, 49-45.
27 Ibid.
a
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 213
an excess of green. Von Kries, in describing an extensive series of
experiments, applied the name ‘ anomalous trichromates ’ to these cases,
and this designation has gained universal currency. Guttman advocated
the terms red-weak and green-weak, and distinguished seven characteristics
which they manifest, the chief of which are high thresholds, heightened
colour contrast and quick fatigue to colour stimuli.
It is customary to divide these anomalous trichromates into two groups
corresponding to the two groups of dichromates, deuteranomalous
trichromates or partial deuteranopes in which the sensitivity to green is
below normal, and protanomalous trichromates or partial protanopes in
which the sensitivity to red is below normal. The green anomalous
seem to be more numerous than the red anomalous, the ratio being
quoted as 5 tor.
These cases, it may be, form the connecting-link between normal
colour vision on the one hand, and colour defect on the other, and if
a sufficient number of cases could be tested ranging from normality to
complete red-green deficiency, a continuous series might be obtained.
Below is a graph showing the results of testing 200 individuals, 100 women
and 100 men with the Rayleigh equation, with rotating discs.?8
The results are expressed as logarithms of the ratio of red to green.
For the 100 women tested, all the cases fall within the limits of the normal
curve. In this respect, the results agree with those of Houston 2° who
tested with spectral lights, and who found of 105 women students, no
scattered cases outside the normal curve.
The curve, in the case of the 100 men tested, presents different features.
It is difficult to know where the normal curve ends and abnormality
begins. The cases lying at the limits of the normal curve may be the
extreme variants, or may be just outside it. Out of 423 men students
tested, Houston found 15 outside the normal curve exclusive of colour
blinds.
Edridge-Green *° seems to apply the term anomalous trichromate to
the extreme variants within the normal curve. Among 100 women, he
found 14 who were anomalous, which means that he is describing cases
as anomalous which lie within the normal curve. Other investigators
apply the term only to the scattered cases outside the normal curve. It
may be legitimate to use the term either way, but the definition of
anomalous trichromasy will vary according to the usage of the term.
If the anomalous trichromates lie outside the normal curve, then the
difference between them and the normal may be qualitative, whereas if
the anomalous trichromates lie within the normal curve, the difference
may be only quantitative. It may be, as I have suggested elsewhere,*
that as results accumulate, the normal curve will spread out to reach these
isolated cases, and the gaps between will fill up. K@llner,®? for example,
reports transition cases between anomalous trichromates and dichromates,
although none between anomalous trichromates and normal.
8 Article by Collins: British J. Psychology, 1929, 14, 387-393.
29 Proc. Roy. Soc., 1922.
39 Thid., 86B, 164. 81 Loc. cit.
82 Arch. f. Augenheilkunde, LX XVIII.
214 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Hess *3 makes the interesting suggestion that many anomalous cases
have been wrongly classed as colour weak because they do not accept the
normal equation, when all that this proves is colour inequality, which
may result from supernormal sensitivity to one colour. ‘This is the
objection Hess urges in connection with the use of the anomaloscope,
namely that it detects those with red-green inequality, but does not
discover those who are supersensitive to either red or green, or whose
sensitivity to both red and green is reduced.
The normal curve evidently permits of fairly wide deviations. ‘5S’
marked on the curve above is an anomalous trichromate because the
excess of green required by him in determining the Rayleigh equation
was very marked. Even when starting from the red end, he went right
through equality to the green side, requiring considerably more green
than normal. Nevertheless, he comes into the normal curve quite easily.
It is curious to note that this subject had apparently a very low threshold
for green, 10°5 as measured on the scale attached to the Drever-Hilger
Hue-Discrimination Spectrometer. ‘The average threshold for 30 subjects
for green (5350 A) using the method of serial groups for ten trials, worked
out at 17-9 on the scale, the range of the readings for the subjects being
from 5:4 to 30°8. His threshold for red (6700 A), on the other hand,
was higher than the average 25-6, as compared with 19-2, the range of the
same subjects being from 7:0 to 29:0.
In the article already referred to by Pitt, the question is asked if
anomalous trichromates form an intermediate stage between normal
trichromates and dichromates. The writer quotes the well-known fact
that the equation obtained by the normal does not hold for the anomalous
trichromate and indicates that this may be a deciding factor for the
negative. But he further argues, in terms of the Young-Helmholtz
theory, that ‘ if the green curve moved over to the red until they coincided,
the green curve would in effect have disappeared, and the dichromatic
mixture curves would then become a reduced form of trichromatism,
although in the intermediate stages the system would be a different rather
than a reduced form.’
It is a moot point as to whether these anomalous trichromates form
“ dangerous colour blinds.’ The general finding seems to be in favour of
the affirmative. Some writers, for example, Troland, actually include
them in classifications of types of colour blindness. Oblath 34 points out
that they can only recognise colours when they are saturated and of
intense luminosity. ‘It is evident that these peculiarities render these
subjects less fitted for certain services.’ In a report on Colour Vision
Requirements in the Royal Navy,* it is stated that ‘ the mildly anomalous
trichromate can be considered a safe look-out. On the other hand, the
unfit anomalous trichromate is, in many ways a greater source of danger
than the dichromate.’ The incidence of this anomaly is estimated, in
the same report, as 6 per cent., which is stated to be a very conservative
88 Farbenlehre : Evgebnisse dey Physiologie, 1922, 20, 1-107.
84 Colour Vision Tests. International Labour Office. Studies and Reports,
Series F, No. 12, 1929
35 Med. Res. Council Report, Special Series, No. 185, 1933.
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 215
estimate. Both reports emphasise very strongly the fact that the anomalous
trichromate behaves as if colour blind when conditions are unfavourable,
such as when mist, fog or smoke are present, and this is all the more
disastrous because the individual is rarely aware that he suffers from any
colour defect. ‘The heightened contrast and the quick fatigue, character-
istic of such anomaly, may well make the judgment of colour and the
discrimination of colour highly erroneous. The testing and discovering
of these cases of anomalous trichromatic vision is not easy, and necessitates
very careful procedure, and generally not the application of one test, but
of a battery of tests.
The testing of colour blindness, indeed, in all its forms, presents a
problem of great practical importance, involving the adoption of a definite
technique.
As is well known, the adult colour blind avails himself of all kinds of
secondary aids to enable him to discriminate colour. Identifying
marks on the surface such as differences in texture or slight defects in
material, or some minute details overlooked and undetected by the
normal observer are readily made use of, so that it is possible for a colour
blind who is aware of his abnormality to hide his defect in everyday life
if he wishes to, and he can very often do so with surprising skill. In
some cases, some sense, other than vision, may be utilised to help in
discrimination. One individual examined by the writer—a case of
shortened spectrum, in which one typical confusion is red with black—
experienced difficulty with inks of these two colours. In marking a
school register, he was constantly confusing the two colours, putting red
ink where black should be, and vice versa. The discovery that he could
distinguish them by smell solved his difficulties.
This obscuring of colour defect came to light recently in the writer’s
experience in a rather curious way. In copying pictures from originals—
given the outline of the picture and a box of paints with the names of
the colours removed—the characteristic confusions generally appeared.
One individual, however, often obtained matches of colour which were
very similar to the original, and if only the final product were considered,
his colour vision would be thought to approximate very closely to
normal. To watch him at work was very illuminating, and one soon
learned that many of his excellent reproductions were based on deduction.
He knew foliage was green, for example; he also knew that blue and
yellow mixed together produced green. His procedure was ‘to take
what you think to be blue, and what you think to be yellow, and you
should get what is called green!’ The green paint in the box, the exact
match of the green in the picture, was not used at all.
An unusual case reported by Gildemeister and Dieter,** is that of an
engineer who was classed as a typical protanomalous trichromate as the
result of an anomaloscope test, but who some time later passed the test.
As a trick was suspected, the anomaloscope was turned upside down, and
the knobs adjusted so that they had to be moved in the opposite direction
but still he was successful. It was surmised by the authors that he had
36 Arch. f. Ophth., 1922, 107, 26-29.
216 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
learned to accept an equation as correct which looked wrong to him.
One of the investigators, himself a deuteranomalous trichromate, to put
this possibility to the test, practised daily, and learned quite soon to
recognise the normal equation, although it looked quite wrong to him.
These examples suffice.to show some of the difficulties encountered in
the detection of colour anomaly. ‘Tests must be so devised that the
person tested cannot avail himself of any secondary aids, but has to rely
solely on his own colour sensations.
The spectrometer is undoubtedly the most fundamental test of colour
vision, but it is seldom available for practical purposes, and the majority
of tests, apart from those in scientific laboratories, are carried out either
with some kind of lantern test or some kind of pigment test. ‘There are
various types of lantern tests available. The Edridge-Green Colour
Perception lantern is the only one which has been used by the writer,
and its advantages have been referred to elsewhere.*? A newer model
is the Board of Trade Lantern Test, recommended with modifications
by the committee set up to consider Colour Vision Requirements in the
Royal Navy. In using this the eyes have to be dark-adapted for
15 minutes. The Giles-Archer Perception Unit is also a new and simple
model, and it, too, requires the eyes to be dark-adapted. These lantern
tests enumerated, and many others, have the advantage that coloured lights
are used instead of pigments, which brings conditions of testing nearer to
everyday conditions in the services, the railroad, navigation and aviation.
Certain pigment tests have also been extensively used, and it is these
I should like to discuss in some detail. In some of these tests, it is
puzzling to find mistakes made sometimes by individuals with normal
colour vision which should only be made by colour blinds. The printing
of the tests may be partially to blame, but it must be recalled that decisions
are constantly being made on the results from these tests, and therefore it
is essential to recognise which responses are diagnostic and which can be
ignored. In order to reach a valid basis for diagnosis, I have given a
battery of tests under constant conditions of distance and illumination to
an unselected group of about 340 candidates applying to be accepted as
apprentice printers, exclusive of colour blinds. Their responses,
therefore, to the tests may be compared with the responses of a group
of colour blinds tested under the same conditions. This normal group
acts as a control group against which the results for each test used can
be evaluated at its proper worth.
Owing to exigencies of space and time it will not be possible, nor
desirable, in this address to discuss the details of the results obtained
with all the tests which have been used. I have, therefore, decided to
indicate the type of investigation under progress by giving the results
from two of the tests only. ‘The two tests selected are the Ishihara ‘Tests
for Colour Blindness and the Mosaic Plates devised by Schaaff.
1. The Ishihara Tests for Colour Blindness (5th Edition).
The Ishihara test is composed of a number of pseudo-isochromatic
plates in which coloured numerals appear on coloured backgrounds.
37 Collins: Colour Blindness.
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 217
The test makes use of the fact that blue and violet and yellow appear
much brighter to the red-green colour blind than the colours red and
green. Pitt %8 questions this contention of Ishihara and asserts that
“blue is not bright compared with red and green: from the hue dis-
crimination curves, however, it can be seen that blue is a colour having
a noticeably different hue from red and green, and it is for this reason
that blue is distinguishable for dichromates.’ In some of the plates
only part of a numeral appears to a person who is colour blind, this being
dependent on the colours used. For example, an 8 may be the numeral
read by one with normal colour vision, but only part of it may be seen
by the colour blind, and he reads it as 3. Or a totally different numeral
may be seen by the colour blind from the arrangements of the spots
before him, and instead of seeing a 5 as the majority would do, he sees
a 2 standing out distinctly from the background. Further, in some
plates, the position is reversed as it were, and although the person with
normal colour vision sees nothing but a blur of colour, the colour blind
sees a numeral quite clearly. If one with normal colour vision looks at
these plates through a blue glass, the ‘ hidden ’ numbers become visible.
The results from this test given to 42 colour blinds appear in Table I.
The figures 12 are seen by all, normal and colour blind alike. ‘The
8 appears as a 3 to the colour blind, the 6 as a 5, the 5 as a 2, and the 74
as 21. The next four plates, containing the figures 2, 6, 5, 7, are generally
not visible to the colour blind, this depending on the degree of the defect.
The two next plates contain figures which are hidden to the normal eye
but are seen by the colour blind, a 5 and a 2 respectively. ‘The two last
plates are intended to diagnose the defect as one of deuteranopia or of
protanopia. The deuteranopes read the 2 but fail to read the 6, the
protanopes read the 6, but fail to read the 2. Similarly with Plate XIII.
These plates seem to be diagnostic as will be seen from the table.
The individuals forming the control group who were tested were found
to vary markedly in their colour discrimination. It seemed advisable
to divide them into two groups termed respectively N (normal) and N —
(showing. greater deviation from the normal). The classification is of
necessity an arbitrary one because it is difficult to know where to draw
the dividing line; in fact, the line of demarcation between colour blinds
and non-colour blinds may itself vary according to the purpose in hand.
In the report of the Colour Vision Requirements in the Royal Navy,
already referred to, it is stated of a certain test that if used alone it causes
extravagant rejection of candidates who may be fit even for the Seaman
Branch. This merely indicates that the standard for rejection can be
changed in accordance with the post to be filled. It is interesting to note
that three grades, so far as colour discrimination is concerned, are
suggested in this report.
The colour blinds in the above table have been classified thus because
of their responses not to any single test, but to at least six tests, and in
some cases a spectrometric examination was also made. Similarly, in
the N and N — groups, their allocation to these classes is based on the
results obtained from the same battery of tests.
38 Collins : Colour Blindness, p. 44.
218 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
TABLE I,
Ishihara Test.
Results of Testing 42 Colour blinds.
Correct response :
TO em On ibe a iA. 2 6 5 26." 42
ee Od ee SE 5 iy, eis te
i Tae th ERR A eA 7 a mene 1% Bis 42h dC ates See
Rel ee AoA ieeui se Se = (ree Gee
COT NR, OOET RE MEO ae) Se = Cr So ees
ia gh ie apes 3) a ae PV = Se 5 i i lame
Bela bad nie oh ai SS ASS Bh es
Pa ED rh BS ng ot Brat Bah ST FE RY Le
Priest 27 Od leisy eel ee 28) 5a. Soret eee
Ssh 2 Auten ime) bail SS SSeS RT RRR Si
oR E SI ane SMR ei): SS) Leyes a PR rE
TS a AN he RE he sc Jor ee SS ee Bs at sae Ree
a IP ON oo ere de oN 5) aula Oe
ERE: ae ame: Pan to = ESR SS ee 2 ER
A ali? hs Gi hh) eA aide Sse SNES Bre ae
TR oa Ee?’ a ihe Bc wer dan ke pene aee = oss 5 2a Me
OK EI Ou Gs ail Ba ay poe eae B SS Sn 5. 2k Oe ae
ey Ee Wee SD cA ch ORR SAO yes pean Sey
TT ih Hy dake WP) Mee a A re 5 2 2. 6
TGs Re WON ald win Sha ueel =r «coe Miia Boris Qrigd ea wc
POA 2 ACO. yk. cies eae 6 a tone Oa eS
PL EMER ie el ee neh OT 8 6 5 5, San ae
Te TRI ae Ee: eS 5 Sue er
PEE RED ISu onsite Bluse I a i i a PI
DAs ETO teh eaiek alga ute2.t Sf Be 2 ee de
OE pak 2a ah oma 8 ene = 5 sx 2 cee mr
ZO hI 2 OR leuaine ya Sil Seg Bis, 2 melee elie
Poa (7 2 TRS 5 Nee eI a ie yi ee ete
7c a CoN SE Ss MF SS nn ee N=
20. EZ van ul Oak eal Ae 0 ee Oa
BO» Ei). 4 BH tSaneeO) gage Riss Us 5 ee Speers
214.12). dD ie mee Set eke Se =
22k?’ Sails aenuana IS So 5. . 2ias Deas
Ys A i Taree Sma ESA — I 5 5 ine ee
OY ie Ramee Wena ae EE: SSeS Bt 2 atl ai
RS... 12, . 3 Soames. 28 et SS 5 ies eta el
200 O12) | Bsc tale eae ao BS a 5.4 oa ea
7 a en PE EO eae SEWN = a Rink te
2S ee RI agi 8). 98 Se ae cattle ear
OTC hs yt Ale Mam pos 2 A (oilt a rt SS anny ape ote
form 120. gi) geomet ae) 5) aoe
este § 1S Lok emer = = 5h 2) Onn
ented) 8. NG ean se SSeS SS 5 iy 2 eee
J.—_PSYCHOLOGY 219
Table II.
Ishthara Test.
Frequency in percentages of normal and colour-blind responses for N, N—,
and colour-blind groups.
Plat As read | As read Normal. N— Colour Blind.
ares: by normal.| by C.B.|| N C.B. | N. C.B.| N. C.B.
I 12 12 100 fo) 100 30 100 =O
2 8 3 100 fe) 100 fC) 40°) 55
3 6 5 100 fo) 100 fo) 2 OE
4 5 2 99 fs) Sa 120" 7%
5 74 21 56 II 29 31 CO aVSE
6 2 99 fo) 83 sf o 100
| 6 ami 100 ° 96 4 5 95
8 5 — 100 Oo 98 2 NG
9 7 — 100 fe) 100 fo) 2 98
10 = 5 gi 4 896 0 95
II = 2 vf 2/7 48 48 o 100
12 26 ne 6 99 fo) go I 5 “i
13 42 See 100 fe) TOO.) sO 10 2
The frequency of responses other than normal and colour blind has
been omitted.
N = 286 males: N— = 48 males: C. B. = 45 males.
Table II shows the results from the Ishihara test when given to these
three groups. The percentage frequency of the responses in each group
has been calculated with regard to normal responses and colour-blind
responses. ‘The table is read thus: in plate V, 56 per cent. of group N
read the figures correctly as the normal do, that is, read them as 74, whereas
II per cent. of group N read the figures as the colour blinds do, that is,
read them as 21. ‘The frequency of responses other than normal and
colour-blind has been omitted. In the N— group, 29 per cent. gave the
normal response, 31 per cent. the colour-blind response. In the colour-
blind group, o per cent. gave the normal response, 81 per cent. gave the
colour-blind response.
Plates II and III are never wrongly read by either the N or N— group,
but Plate III seems the better diagnostic test of colour blindness, as 71
per cent. of the colour blinds failed on it, and only 21 per cent. passed.
Plate IV is equally good, although -5 per cent. of the N group and 4 per
cent. of the N— group gave the typical colour-blind responses. Plate V
which is read as 74 by the normal and as 21 by the colour blind is said by
220 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
Miles (°°) to be ‘ certainly the most sensitive indicator of colour weakness
that we possess,’ and in the summary at the conclusion of the article, he
suggests that in testing men for mercantile establishments, only Plate V
need be used at the original interview. It is also regarded in the Report
on Colour Vision Requirements in the Royal Navy as one of the most search-
ing plates. It is true that 81 per cent. of the colour blind read the figures
as 21, and the others in different erroneous ways, but if we look at the
results from the N and the N— groups, we must modify our opinion. Only
56 per cent. of the N group passed, whereas 11 per cent. failed, that is,
read the 74 as 21. ‘The remainder read the 7 as a 2 or as ag or aS a I, SO
that the figures read as 24 (7 per cent.), or 94 (2 per cent.), or 14 (1 per
cent.) : or the 4 was read as a 1, and the numbers read as 71 (20 per cent.),
or gi (2 per cent.) or 11 (1 per cent.). In the N— group, the percentage of
those passing is even smaller, 29 per cent., and the failures 31 per cent.
The other variations also occurred. It may be, of course, that this plate
offers a very delicate test of colour weakness, and therefore is very effective
in picking out colour defect of varying degree. But sometimes it was the
only error the individual made not only in this test, but in a group of
tests.
The next four plates seem to be very significant. ‘The normal group
shows a perfect pass in all four, and the colour blinds almost a complete
failure.
The next two plates containing the hidden numbers differ very much
as regards efficacy for detection. The hidden 5 is certainly not visible
to the normal eye, and the fact that 4 per cent. with normal colour vision
saw it easily is a curious result. ‘These 4 per cent. have perfect colour
vision on all the tests, and one would be almost inclined to rate them as
N-++. Whether the supersensitive see the 5 or not requires further investi-
gation. ‘The 2, on the other hand, is not satisfactory. It could be seen
fairly easily by all groups as will be evident from the percentages quoted.
‘Twenty-seven per cent. of the N group and 48 per cent. of the N— group
were able to read it.
The last two plates are very satisfactory.
The Ishihara test is a very reliable test of colour blindness and did not
allow any of the colour blinds to pass. It also seems to detect colour
weakness in a highly efficient manner.*°
An attempt was made to investigate these plates with different-coloured
filters to discover if possible the regions of the spectrum the light from
which caused the figures invisible to certain varieties of colour blindness
to become invisible to the normal eye, and the figures read by colour
blinds to become visible to the normal eye.*!
In order to obtain illumination from different regions of the spectrum,
Ilford and Wratten filters were used. The light was that of an arc lamp
39 The Personnel J., 1931, IX. Also J. General Psychology, 1922, 2, 535-544.
40 Dr. Rabkin, Kharkov, has forwarded to me a copy of a test he has just
produced, Polychromatic Plates for Colour Sense Examination. It contains
features similar to those of the Ishihara, though sometimes circles and triangles
are substituted fornumbers. Froma preliminary survey, it seems very serviceable.
41 T am indebted to Prof. Drever for this investigation with the filters.
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 221
in a projection lantern. By means of an erecting prism, the beam of light
was thrown downwards on a table, after passing through the filter, and the
tests were placed on the part of the table so illumined. No other light
was admitted to the room.
The first stage in the investigation was to determine the region of the
spectrum transmitted by each filter. This was done by the Drever-
Hilger Hue-Discrimination Spectrometer, and the following results were
obtained. The results from the Ilford filters only are given here :—
Ilford Filters.
Violet ‘ 3 : . End of spectrum to 480up
Blue ; ; 4 . 4450p to 500up
Blue-green : 5 - 475 4L to 530,44
Green : : : . 500up to 55044
Yellow-green. ; » 530up to 590,44
Yellow. ‘ ; » 555 ue to 630,44
Orange. i 3 ~ 575 ue to 6goup.
Red . ; y : . 620up to extreme of spectrum
The following table (Table III) shows the results for the Ishihara test
with the Ilford filters. ‘The Wratten filters gave much the same results.
Table III.
Ishihara Test with Ilford Filters.
Filters.
Read by |: Read by |
Plate. Normal. | C. B. VirhtBeoh BEY GEV G20 Bike OG tg:
I I2 | 12 BA (Pr eae I eee Ms ee T25 eS
2 8 2 Pl lh | 8 or FG 9
3 aus. Re aC collar 6 Pg ee ae a
4 5 2 2 eta lid Si 5b Sacha
5 74 AR sa SI 3 NP 7 Dy Pe
6 2 — — |—|— 2 2? 2 2 2
7 6 pig aay fT ae a ea OM RG A Oey
8 5 Sa re SRE 5D iti 5 hola hlady
9 ri Srila SA aaa ean ak clit Seeley CeteT,
10 = 5 Sst Wess IV Sic: aes
II = 2 2) SSR eis, |. a ea ee
I2 26 ae é} 6/—|—/— — 26 | 26 | 26
13 42 or ttl 2] 2} 4) 4] 4 | 42] 42} a
% 2
222 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
It will be noted that with the violet and blue filters, the figures invisible
and the figures read are precisely as we find them in typical colour blind-
ness, except in Plate III where the figure 5 ought to be, and is usually
read, and in the case of the blue filter, Plate XII, where the figure 2 or 6
ought to be read. With the blue-green filter, Plates VI, VII, IX, X, XI,
give the typical colour-blind results also. Yellow, orange and red filters
give the same result as in ordinary daylight. ‘The results with the yellow-
green filter are specially noteworthy. Plates IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, can
be read, but only with difficulty, when this filter is used. The results with
Plates XII and XIII are also interesting, the plates inserted to distinguish
between deuteranopia and protanopia. In Plate XII, the normal read
26, the deuteranopes 2, and the protanopes 6. On Plate XIII, the normal
read 42, the deuteranopes 4 and the protanopes 2. With the violet filter,
6 was read on Plate XII, and 2 on Plate XIII. With the blue and blue-
green, green and yellow-green filters, nothing could be read on Plate XII.
On Plate XIII, on the other hand, 2 was read with the violet and blue
filters, and 4 with the blue-green, green and yellow-green filters. ‘To the
normal eye in white light there is no apparent difference as respects
colour between the pages.
2. Tableaux-Mosaique pour la Recherche du Daltonisme.
Schaaff’s Mosaic Plates consist of ten cards, on each of which appear
on coloured backgrounds two coloured circles, one smaller than the other.
Each circle is incomplete, and the test consists in asking the subject to
point out the gap or break in each circle. The cards are square and can
be turned round to any angle when placed on the table, so that the circles
do not always appear in the same position.
This test failed the group of colour blinds quite definitely when the
results are considered over the whole test (see Table IV). "The number of
the gaps seen, however, is not constant for each individual, but ranges
from 3 to 16. The test does not seem to differentiate between deuter-
anopes and protanopes. Plates II, VIII, and X should be seen better
by protanopes, Plates VII and IX by deuteranopes. This does not hold
consistently. Only two colour blinds saw the gaps in Plate II, and they
are protanopes, but the other protanopes failed to do so. Some of them
described the card as being composed of nothing but gaps, ‘ gaps all over,’
and they did not know which one to point to. As a matter of fact, the
circles on this card offer difficulty to people with quite good normal vision.
Plate VI is an interesting one. The instructions run that those who
fail in Plate VI should not be admitted as engine-drivers unless there is a
shortage of applicants. All the colour blinds failed in this card except
one who half passed, that is, who saw the gap in one of the circles but not
in the other. Table V shows the results of the tests given to the control
group as well as to the colour blinds.
Plate I is seen by all. Plate II is clearly quite difficult, only 60 per cent.
of the N group managed to point out the gaps in the circles, and only
37 per cent. of the N — group. Inthe colour-blind group, on the contrary,
only 7 per cent. passed, and there is a failure of 78 per cent. Plate VI
failed 6 per cent. of the N group, 17 per cent. of the N — group, and 98
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 223
TaBLe IV.
Schaaff’s Mosaic Plates.
Results of testing 40 colour blinds.
I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tr vv <x vv XX xx XX XX xx bo 0.
Z: VV XX vv XX XX XX XX XX EX --kx
Bs vv -= vv vv vv oo vv XX vv vv
4. vv XV vv WV il ex “= XX vx XX VV
ne vv — vv vv xx XX XX Vx — w
6. vv — vv vv -x — — vv VV vx
WE vv — —- vv — XX — Vx — vv
8. vv xx vx vv vv XX vv Vx vv vv
9. vv vv vv vv — — — vv XV VW
IO. vv RX vv vv vv xX XV vx vw
Br: vv — vx VV. x VX _- — XX VV vv
12. vv -— xv vv _ — _- — —_—- —
13, vv Vx vv vv — — _. v- vv WwW.
14. vv v- vv vv - vv Vx XV WV
BR, vv XxX XX vv XX xx XX XX ee 4
16. vv — -V XV xx — vv vx vv vv
7. vv xx vx vv — -= — v- VV vv
18. vv — — nO xx XX — xx — w
19. vv xX vx vv — — VX vx VV vv
20. vv vx vv vv Vx xx vv vv VV. vv
21. vv — Xv vv x- — vv — VV vv
22. vv XX vv vv XX XX vv — XV VX
23: vv a vv vv — —- _- — VV XX
24. vv XX vv vv 20.8 “= vv vx vw —
25. VV = == VV XX eK sss D. 9.6
26. vv --- mx vv — XX XV XV VW x-
a7. XV — XX vv Xv vv VV xv
28. vv —- “= vv —— -— — —- —
29. vv — — vv — — — XX XV -x
30. vv XV vv vv — —- — vv — w
ar. vv — vv vv XX — XV vv vv Ww
32. vv —- xx vv = — — a= vy —
a3. vv — XV vv x— — — -V vw —
34. vv 254 vv vv XX XX XX XV VV vv
a5. vv — vv vv vv —- vv vv VW vv
36. VV vx vv vv — a — — — vw
a7. vv —- vv _- — — — — — w
38. vv —- -- vv — a — —_— vw —
39. vv vv vv vv = vx a vv -X WV
40. vv XX Xx XX a — — — Mee seat
V = pass: X = saw the circle but did not locate the gap: = could
not see the circle.
224 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
TABLE V.
Schaaff’s Mosaic Plates.
Frequency in percentages of normal and colour-blind responses for N,
N — and colour-blind groups.
N. N=. | CE
SARS ey MNO AM | CLs, ACL. ANE Cee ee
I 100 fo) fo) TOO'// 0 fo) 100 fe) fo)
2 Go" teh "ax 37) i Qynead aS flied 37
3 DOW Merch 79° EQS 2 5: yee
4 96 3 I 92 6 2 86 Stir Ae
5 96 3 I 94 4 2 TO. } Alen Fe
6 7e a6 6 Ror 6239" hie fo) 2 (98
Fj 98 I I go 6 4 270 Guan O3
8 Oare Dae ta 7 ae 7 al 20 34. 46
9 100 fo) fo) 100 Sah h) 50 ane ge
TO)» FOS fo) fo) 100 Oo fo) 60°.) 1d) 4.30
N = 271 males. N — = 46 males. C:.B. = 40 males;
C = correct both circles: $C = one circle correct, one wrong :
W = wrong, both circles.
per cent. of the colour-blind group. These two plates alone, number II
and number VI, are severe tests of colour perception.
Of the test as a whole, 43 per cent. of the N group made a perfect score,
that is, pointed out the gap in each circle correctly. In the N — group,
only 24 per cent. passed, and in the colour-blind group no individual
made a perfect score. Sometimes, in all groups, the shape of the circles
could be recognised but the gaps could not be located. When the rings
are recognised, but not the gaps in certain tables, only slight weakening
of the colour sense is indicated, but when the rings are not recognised, the
defect is of a more serious nature. In the instructions accompanying the
mosaics, the following words appear: ‘ Quiconque ne discerne pas les
anneaux et les brisures dans les dix tableaux, n’a pas le sens chromatique
normal.’
The final estimate of this test is that it can be recommended as a fairiy
satisfactory test of colour blindness.
A supplementary test, devised by Schaaff and Blum, consists of 30 cards
on which are diamond-shaped spots. Some of the cards contain one
colour only, but in varying shades, green of more than one shade, or red,
or grey. Some of the cards have more than one colour on them. The
subject is asked to sort the 30 cards into piles—a pile of cards in which
all the spots are red, a second pile in which all the spots are green, and
J.—PSYCHOLOGY 225
a third pile in which all the spots are grey. This part of the test is
supplementary to Part I, and undoubtedly does reveal any colour defect.
The colour blind presented the same heterogeneous collection of colours
as they normally do, the colour weak placed certain of the greys among
the greens, and so on. In this part of the test difficulty was sometimes
experienced by the normal colour group as to the correct pile into which
a card should go—if a blue-green, for example, should be placed among
the greens or be in the left-over pile, if a reddish-brown should go with
the reds or be omitted. A further part of this test is to give one card
which has green and red spots on it of three different shades to the subject
and ask him to select out two cards in the pack which match these exactly.
This means selecting one card with red spots of the same shades, and one
card with green spots of the same shades. This proved difficult both to
normal and colour blind individuals. Some of the colour-blind gave
the task up as hopeless, only 2 out of those tested being successful. With
the N — group, 33 per cent. were successful, and with the N group
60 per cent. were successful. This part of the test, the sorting and the
matching, while of interest to an examiner, has not the same practical
value as Part I of the test, in which the break in the circle has to be
recognised. It could be dispensed with altogether, except in cases of
doubt, where confirmation of or further information about a defect was
required.
The results from these two tests may be sufficient to give some idea
of the type of investigation which has been carried out. A similar
analysis of the results obtained with other pigment tests—the Stilling, the
Nagel, the Podesta, the Edridge-Green, etc., leads to similar conclusions,
namely, differences in the value of individual tests, inconsistencies in the
findings arrived at with any single series, and so on. As regards the
Stilling test, the complete investigation covers only the first three plates
of the seventeenth edition. These are found to give very satisfactory
results both in detecting colour blindness and in differentiating between
the two types. It is unfortunate that the formation of the figures used in
the plates is not clearer, because this gives rise to a number of trivial
mistakes which may be misleading to an inexperienced examiner. Such
errors are to mistake a 3 for an 8, or vice versa, or to confuse the figure 2
with 7.
In the latest edition of the Stilling (the nineteenth edition) the same
figures are used, so that the same comiusi ns appear. There are, however,
several new features, including the insertion of hidden numbers, which
are only visible to the colour blind. The results from this series are not
so clear-cut as in the earlier editions, and there is no reason to suppose
that it can yield more reliable or more consistent results than the others.
It is interesting to note, however, that the examiner is encouraged to ask
subjects to trace the shape of the figures with a wooden rod, to point out
dots of a similar colour to the one indicated, both useful devices in ordinary
testing, as also in cases of dissimulation or where it is suspected that the
subject has been coached in the test. Also, it is suggested that if in
doubt, the subject can be asked to read some of the plates through
coloured filters. This is a device which could well be followed with
I
226 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
almost any of the pigment tests with satisfactory results, as the subject
can have no idea beforehand what he should see.
The Nagel card test came out very badly in the investigation. It is
apparently less reliable than even the simple Collins-Drever Group test,
devised as a first aid in revealing cases of colour blindness among school
children. It allowed a number of colour blinds to pass with a perfect
score, and some others only made a very slight omission, not serious
enough to place them in the category of colour blind.
The Edridge-Green card test is very difficult for those with normal
colour vision, as well as for the colour blind. It certainly failed all the
colour blind, but it also failed a great many others. Of the control group,
only 23 per cent. of the subjects passed, the others being rejects, a result
sufficient to show its stringent nature. The test is based on Edridge-
Green’s theory, and the cards are intended to indicate if the individual
tested is to be classified as a dichromic, a trichromic, a tetrachromic and
soon. The results are accordingly difficult to interpret.
Although tests of colour blindness of a severe type are essential in
certain vocations, they do not seem to be so necessary for all vocations,
and some simpler tests may serve the purpose equally well. It would
be very rash to suggest any one test as being a perfect test of colour
blindness, and most examiners prefer to compare the findings from at
least two tests before venturing a diagnosis. A combination of the
Ishihara, the first three tables of the Stilling, and the Schaaff Mosaic test
should give a fairly satisfactory diagnosis of colour blindness. ‘These
tests should be diagnostic enough to yield reliable results for vocations
in which colour discrimination is desirable, other than those in which
coloured signals are used. In vocations, however, in which coloured
signals require to be discriminated as on the railroad, in certain branches
of the Navy, in aviation and to a lesser degree in motoring, some form of
lantern test should be given in addition. As well as bringing conditions
nearer to conditions in these vocations in which lights have to be dis-
tinguished and not pigments, a lantern test also involves colour naming,
which may yield useful supplementary evidence.
There is a good deal of doubt, however, whether we ought to speak of
reliability and consistency at all in connection with the results of this
analysis. It may be that the discrepancies disclosed are due to the great
variety of those deviations from normal colour vision which are so marked
as to justify their being regarded from a practical point of view, as cases
of colour blindness. ‘This interpretation of the facts is to some extent
confirmed by the results of filter analysis. Plates which all profess to
diagnose deuteranopia for example, show very differently under filter
analysis, and similarly evoke different responses from different deuter-
anopes. The inference would appear to be that we are dealing not with
linear variations in degree but with multidimensional variations. A wide
new field for investigation is thus disclosed, the working of which may
yield valuable results for the whole theory of colour vision.
SECTION K.—BOTANY.
THE MODERN STUDY OF PLANTS
IN RELATION TO EDUCATION
ADDRESS BY
PROF.-E: J. SALISBURY,, D.Sc.,_F-.R.5S.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
In choosing as the subject of my Address a more general rather than a
special theme I have not been unmindful of the fact that this is one of the
few occasions on which it is permitted to dwell on the wider application
of one’s subject untrammelled by the presence of a purely specialist
audience and unchallenged by the imminence of debate.
I hope I have not been tempted unwarrantably to voice my passing
thoughts on the broader considerations of the educational value and con-
tacts of our subject by the happy consideration that these words of mine
will find a peaceful resting place between the covers of an Annual Report
whence they can only be exhumed by deliberate intent.
When we cast our minds back on the general attitude adopted towards
our subject in the latter part of the eighteenth century we cannot but be
struck by the almost apologetic phraseology of its votaries and the curious
grounds upon which they rationalised its pursuit. Rousseau, for example,
described Botany as a study of pure curiosity that has no other real use
than that which a thinking, sensible being may deduce from the observation
of nature and the wonders of the universe. I venture to think that many
otherwise educated people to-day would express similar sentiments,
though in more modern and probably less complimentary language.
There are many who regard the botanist as one whose main pre-
occupation is to recognise plants and to name them, capacities which,
I am sure most of my professional colleagues will agree, are perhaps the
least widespread to-day of those which the compleat botanist should
possess. Indeed, the layman is so often disappointed in the professional
botanist’s capacity to label plants that he rates our occupation even lower
than before.
The teaching of our subject has been in no small degree to blame for
the widespread misconceptions as to its aims and content. For long
regarded as a harmless and elegant occupation for the female sex, Botany
only survived as a study of practical utility because of the continued
necessity for medical practitioners to acquire some knowledge of Materia
Medica. How perfunctory was much of this teaching is indicated in that
charming book Leaves from the Life of a Country Doctor, where the late
C. B. Gunn describes how as a medical student in 1878 ‘ the botany class
gave me a “ scunner ”’ at the subject which has lasted ever since.’ ‘ Pro-
228 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
fessor Balfour,’ he continues, ‘ a very kindly man, was well named “‘ Woody
fibre,” as his teaching of what might have been a most interesting subject
was of a singularly wooden and fibrous nature.’ It is perhaps only fair
to add that the lectures of his son are reputed to have been as interesting
as those of his father were apparently dull.
The old technological significance for Medicine has long since gone,
but a newer and vastly more important significance remains, both cultural
and vocational, which has rarely been stated, let alone stressed. Despite
the vastly enlarged content of botanical knowledge since those days the
general conception of Botany has remained much what it was then, and
the fact that we so often have to deplore previous training in the subject
of students who come up to the Universities is, I think, sufficient proof
that the woody fibres of mere description still predominate over the
functional presentation of the living plant.
What I would particularly wish to urge is that the high value of Botany
as an educational subject and indeed its absolute necessity in any system
of real cultural development is an aspect which we botanists have failed
to present and emphasise, perhaps too often even to realise ourselves.
The protagonists of compulsory Greek and Latin of the last century
valued very highly, and rightly so, the cultural content which a study of
the humanities could provide. It is easy for us to be wise after the event,
but now that the dust of that controversy has cleared away we can see
that failure to apprehend that there are other approaches to the same
mental salvation led to an unfortunate insistence upon the means rather
than upon the end.
But whilst scientists justly claim that cultural value is the monopoly of
no one subject and that those brought up in the classical tradition may
be as much philistines as any scientist it is undoubtedly true that the
immense cultural potentialities of scientific thought have too often been
neglected for the sake of mere erudition.
There is a general tendency for university teaching to become more
and more vocational as the specialised demands of occupations become
increasingly exacting.
Thus not only do technological aspects grow more obtrusive, especially
in the final courses of certain subjects, but there is a trend, in the direction
of this change, making its influence felt, further and further back in the
student’s training, so that we find, for example, certain sections of the
medical profession demanding that the preliminary education should
have a more direct bearing on the future occupation of the student,
despite the fact that this can only be accomplished at the expense of their
general education and culture. With the long course of training which
most professions to-day require and the financial strain that this often
involves upon parents, one cannot but sympathise in the wish to provide
some relief, but if this is to be accomplished without detriment to the
ultimate standing of the professions themselves it can only be by an
increased concentration on the more general aspects of culture in the
schools. So far as biology is concerned there is a widespread recognition
for the need of greater attention to training in observation in the schools
allied to what may be termed the scientific study of Natural History. ‘Too
much attention in this as in other subjects is paid to the acquisition of
a,
ay ites
K.—BOTANY 229
mere information, especially if recent, too little to the principles which are
involved. This is not intended as a stricture upon the teachers, since, with
our present system, earlier and earlier in the students’ career they are striv-
ing to achieve a dual objective, the training which should be their chief
concern and their preparation for University examinations at a stage in
mental development which cannot adequately appreciate the educational
content of the curricula. Thus the student who has taken the Intermediate
Examination from school is often handicapped in comparison with those who
would appear to be starting their University career in a less advanced stage.
Just as the increased demand for material things facilitated the replace-
ment of the products of the craftsman by mass production of machine-
made articles, so too the rapid increase of population following the
industrial revolution inevitably led to something analogous to mass pro-
duction in the education of children and the training of teachers.
Many there are who blame the examination system, which, however,
with all its faults, if rightly used, is in reality a fairly efficient sieve for
separation where large numbers are involved. But the examination
machine is often expected to effect a grading of the human material
with which it deals that can only be attained by more individual methods.
As a consequence undue importance is attached to examination results
and a wrong emphasis is often laid on their significance. ‘This leads to
a premium being placed on mere erudition and so subjects are liable to be
taught not as living realities but, in the forceful phraseology used by
Winston Churchill in one of his novels, ‘ Knowledge is presented as a
corpse which bit by bit we painfully dissect.’
Furthermore our educational methods are, I fear, too often divided
in their allegiance ; on the one hand we aim at the provision of a liberal
culture which will make for the greatest happiness of the individual, con-
sidered in terms of mental contentment and an abiding resource in later
life ; whilst on the other hand we aim at the equipment of the student
for the earning of his daily bread to ensure bodily comfort. We are not
sufficiently trustful that the provision of the former is, to employ the
expressive northern phraseology, the ‘ gainest way’ to the latter end,
and so we adopt a sort of mental squint—which permits neither of the
clear vision of the full beauty of integrated knowledge nor even of keeping
our eyes on the main chance. It is no more possible in education than
in ethics to serve both God and Mammon. It is not merely good educa-
tion but the apotheosis of worldly wisdom to seek first the cultural back-
ground and believe that the vocational proficiency will be added unto you.
The Universities cannot be held blameless for the lack of appreciation
by the general public of the implications of our subject. May I, in this
connection, quote a passage from an American report on University
Education which loses none of its cogency on this side of the Atlantic:
“Appointing authorities too often place undue stress on specialisation,
instead of placing adequate emphasis on scholarly background, versatility
of intellectual interest and general culture.’
Whilst activity and distinction in research is a necessary qualification
of the teacher, the capacity to impart knowledge to others is no less
essential. Too often in the selection for University posts aptitude as
a teacher, which should be a first consideration, is entirely subordinated
230 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
to distinction as an investigator. No one, it is true, can be an inspiring
teacher who does not possess intellectual initiative and who is not engaged
in a creative pursuit, but most of us have suffered at one time or another
from the investigator ‘ whose thoughts are too full for words.’
Furthermore we must avoid the undue sacrifice of breadth for depth for
other reasons.
The accumulation of data and the provision of information bears much
the same relation to the advancement of knowledge as artificial fertilisers
to crop production. Just as our fertilisers must be properly balanced, so
too our information must be so correlated and concerted that ignorance
in one department does not become the limiting factor in our utilisation
of extensive data in others. In these days of extreme and increasing
specialisation such correlation of effort is becoming more and more im-
portant, and it is to the Universities, old and young alike, that we must
look for the maintenance of that contact and synthesis which is essential
to real progress. Because the research worker to-day delves more and
more deeply into the mysteries of nature than ever in the past, the field
he explores is correspondingly more restricted, and hence it is more
necessary than ever before that those who devote themselves to science
should have a wide background of culture. In particular I should like
to urge that the time has come when the curriculum required of those
proceeding to a University degree in Science should be reconsidered.
It is, in the present state of knowledge, as much an anachronism that a
student should be able to proceed to a degree in Chemistry having no
knowledge of Biology as that he should proceed to a degree in Botany
with a mere smattering of either Physics or Chemistry. Anyone who
aspires to a degree in Science should in my opinion have an adequate
appreciation of the principles of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics,
especially as regards statistical methods and probability theory, and lastly,
but by no means least, one biological subject, preferably Botany, since
relation to their physical environment and the laws of heredity are more
easily studied in plants than in animals, and the animal kingdom is, after
all, dependent upon the vegetable. Four obligatory subjects in the first
year University course might and probably should involve the return to
a five-subject Intermediate examination in Science, so that a fifth optional
subject would permit of the desirable freedom of choice in respect to
subjects pursued in the more advanced stages. But further, it may be
stressed that some biological training is to-day an essential to any liberal
culture and should be as much an obligatory part of a school curriculum
as arithmetic.
Whatever views we may hold with regard to the respective merits of the
vitalistic and mechanistic schools of thought in relation to organisation,
the incontrovertible fact is that in the present state of knowledge we are
quite unable to express and indeed cannot hold out any prospects of
explaining, the phenomenon of life in terms of physics and chemistry
alone. Such a view is quite independent of whether or not we speculate
as to what the future may hold in store. At present therefore there are
1 Such restrictions of choice to a single optional subject would more than
compensate for any time-table difficulties that might result from the number of
subjects being increased from four to five.
K.—BOTANY 231
certain aspects of the universe such as heredity, development and the
reaction of the organism to the environment which must be studied in
other respects than merely the chemical and physical states with which
they are associated, and hence biological knowledge is as fundamental to
our understanding of the world around us as either physics or chemistry.
One great merit of botanical study from the standpoint of general
education is that, if properly taught, it provides perhaps the best medium
for training in accurate observation.
Observation consists essentially of two separate processes, namely,
seeing the object or phenomenon and the apprehension of what is seen.
The visual perception of the good and bad observer may be alike adequate,
but it is in the degree of their apprehension that they differ. To train
such powers it is essential to check the accuracy of appreciation either
by means of verbal description or graphic representation. The graphic
method is clearly more suited to the adolescent mind whose limited
vocabulary and limited feeling and understanding of the nuances of mean-
ing of words unduly restricts his verbal precision. Drawing, if regarded
strictly as a statement of observed facts, offers the best means of such
training, and botanical material, because of its well-defined organisation,
is peculiarly suited for this purpose.
But, from the cultural standpoint, plant life and all that it implies
may be regarded as the foundation of a vast extent of human activity and
the basis of a large and essential part of every human environment.
Because neither we nor the animals could persist without plant life it
follows that much of the present distribution of these organisms over the
face of the earth can only be understood in terms of the plant life either
of the present or the past. Even man’s industrial activities have been
largely localised and in part determined by the geographical distribution
of vegetation whether it be that of the forests, of perhaps 280 million
years ago, which gave origin to our coal deposits, or the vast extent of
grasslands that have determined the location of pastoral communities.
It is no exaggeration to say that an adequate appreciation of geography,
unless merely descriptive, is not possible without an adequate background
of botanical equipment. Yet teachers of geography, let alone students,
are too often ill-equipped in this prerequisite.
A realisation of the widespread demands made upon plant products
would probably astonish many of those who, like Mr. Babitt, find in the
mechanistic devices of the age their chief delight. Yet it has been recently
estimated that a thousand Ford motor cars utilise in their manufacture
the entire plant yield of over six hundred acres, and this quite apart from
the indirect demands for grazing necessary to furnish the materials of
animal origin. Despite the vast areas of the earth’s surface devoted to the
growth of foodstuffs, of textile fibres, of timber, rubber, tea, tobacco and
innumerable other plant products, the plant remains perhaps the least
known and appreciated of all man’s servants by those who lay claim to
any cognisance of their environment.
Even the town dweller can scarcely fail to recognise the indirect con-
tacts of his everyday existence with the activities of agriculture, forestry
and horticulture, and, if education is to be interpreted as a means
of enabling the individual to have an intelligent appreciation of and
232 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
harmonious relations with his environment, then a knowledge of plant life
is manifestly essential to that end. I should almost feel that an apology was
necessary for expressing sentiments so trite were I not sure that whatever
agreement there may be in theory, our educational curricula bear witness
to the neglect of these principles in practice.
As a branch of knowledge we botanists have been fortunate in successful
avoidance of the process of fission that other subjects have suffered but,
in maintaining our integrity, we have by no means remained immune
from cell division and, if one may push the simile further, the proto-
plasmic connections between cell and cell have in certain directions
become very much attenuated. It is neither in the interests of our sub-
ject as a whole nor of its individual parts, still less does it contribute to
its cultural value, that after a six months’ abstinence from perusal of a
particular branch one returns to find oneself out of touch, not with the
principles involved but with the terminology in which those principles
are couched. Even in the matter of plant names themselves we suffer
from the antiquarian researches of those who, clinging to the letter of the
law of priority, forgo the spirit of mutual understanding it was intended
to serve. Whilst in every branch highly technical expression is sometimes
warranted by the necessity for precision, it may easily become the cloak
of mental laziness and is almost invariably the sign of either immaturity
of conception or stagnation of ideas.
The increasing diversity of pursuits in a progressive science is only too
liable to be accompanied by an increasing detachment of interests and
divergence of expression. Specialisation, which should be accompanied
by greater co-ordination, is only too frequently the begetter of dis-
integration rather than synthesis and the mutual interdependence of one
branch on another is lost sight of.
One of the main purposes which the British Association should serve
is to promote the co-operation between workers in different fields. But
we only come together for a short week in each year, and so it is to the
Universities that we must look mainly for the continuous fostering of a
liberal outlook both on science as a whole and within the domains of each
particular subject.
In its earlier phases Botany was naturally concerned largely with
description, and in such branches as Taxonomy, Morphology, Anatomy,
Cytology, Mycology, Palzobotany and Plant Geography the descriptive
aspect must necessarily play an important réle just as in Ecology,
Physiology, Bacteriology, and Genetics the experimental aspects should
predominate. But in all, the cultural value can only be maintained if
form and function are closely integrated. Each branch has its own con-
tribution to make in this respect not only to the pure science but to its
applied aspects in Agriculture, Horticulture, Pomology, Sylviculture and
Plant Pathology. The mere enumeration of these branches, whether
pure or applied, envisages the richness of the field we cultivate and the
extensive contribution that Botany can make towards both the enrichment
of the human mind and the well-being of the race. But the accumulation
of data in these varied directions of enquiry will only fulfil its full purpose
if the many threads are continually woven into the warp and woof of a
single fabric.
K.—BOTANY 233
The retention of plant physiology within the domain of Botany has
saved us from the worst evils of the study of form unrelated to function.
This has also been one of the chief factors which led to that synthetic
approach to our subject which concerns the relation of the plant to its
surroundings. The supreme value of ecology, however, lies not so much
in the attention which it focusses upon the mutual relations of organisms or
even upon their relation to the environment, but in the synthesis which
ecology achieves, into a single picture, of so many aspects of Botany
itself and so many branches of human knowledge. Its high educational
and cultural potentiality is an outcome of the fact that it is the very anti-
thesis of that common failing of the human mind to think of different
subjects as isolated compartments of knowledge and not as different facets
of one and the same jewel.
When we attempt to understand any plant community the necessary
study of the physical environment leads us at once into realms of soil
structure, into the physical problems connected with water retention and
water movement involving colloid properties and surface action. So, too,
the chemist and the meteorologist make their contributions to our concept
of the habitat, whilst the bacteriologist, the mycologist, and the proto-
zoologist all help us to envisage that teeming population of bacteria,
fungi and protozoa in the soil which, by their proper balance, maintain
a healthy circulation of chemical products and are a necessity for the
maintenance of the supply of raw material for the higher plants and
animals.
But, since the environment of the present is in some considerable
degree the consequence of that of the immediate and sometimes of the
remote past, the study of external conditions brings us into contact with
the contributions of glaciologists and historians, whilst even the student of
“place names’ may materially assist in the reconstruction of those past
conditions that in part have determined the present state.
When we turn from the study of the habitat to that of the vegetation
which it supports we are at once confronted with the question as to the
extent to which the one is in equilibrium with the other.
The morphologist and the anatomist furnish the data upon which we
base our judgment as to the degree to which the external form and internal
structure have contributed to render the organisms suited to the environ-
ments that they frequent. In so far as there is adaptation, whether
passive or active, in this respect, to that extent the community is in equi-
librium with its surroundings and represents a climax, subject it is true
to secular change but of a relatively stable character.
The contribution of the systematist is to distinguish between the more
critical species and races which exhibit a localisation that less meticulous
examination might readily ignore and which often have an ecological im-
portance far greater than the Linneons of which they are the segregates.
The experimental conclusions of the physiologist in the laboratory must be
applied by the ecologist to the elucidation of problems in the field com-
plicated and often profoundly modified by the continual operation of the
competitive factor.
Finally, knowledge of the life histories of the constituent organisms, the
reaction of the various phases of their development to the environment,
their modes of reproduction, their establishment and extension, comprise
12
234 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
a mass of knowledge to which many astute observers have contributed and
amongst whom the amateur holds an honoured place in our esteem. The
clichés of the politician with regard to policies might be applied with far
more than their usual significance to the ecologist, who might with some
reason be described as ‘ exploring every avenue’ and ‘ leaving no stone
unturned’ in his attempt to reveal the causal relations underlying the
social organisation of plant life; but this all too brief résumé of the
contents and contacts of a single branch of Botany has, I hope, sufficed to
emphasise that the wide range of knowledge invoked by the ecological
approach, though constituting its chief difficulty, is the very basis of its
cultural value, since it weaves together into a comprehensive whole so
many threads of knowledge spun by the specialists upon the wheels of
research.
The value of such approach is also obvious in relation to everyday affairs.
In any well-considered plan of land utilisation of catchment areas the
ecological aspects are apt to be ignored. The land surface under its various
guises may be likened to a sponge which absorbs the divers forms of
precipitation and allows the water with more or less rapidity to find its
way into the streams and rivers. Under ideal conditions the effectiveness
of the sponge provided by forests may regulate the water drainage to such
a degree that despite extreme fluctuations. of rainfall the river levels
exhibit no abnormal oscillation ; but the effectiveness of the land surface
for holding back the water varies according to whether it is under high
forests, scrub, grassland, or arable. Each type of plant cover has its
own absorptive factor and its own resistance to erosion. Furthermore,
each vegetation type is not static but dynamic, and its réle in this respect
changes both with the seasons and with the passage of time. If therefore
our land utilisation is to be properly conceived, due regard must be had
to the proportions in which the various communities, whether natural or
artificial, are present. If we are to avoid floods and droughts, we must
preserve rural England for practical as well as zsthetic reasons. To all
this ecologists can contribute valuable help, the more so that with the
passage of years the surface of our roads has become better and less
absorbent, our ditches are kept cleaner so that drainage to rivers has
generally become more effective and rapid. Hence what sufficed to
restrain extreme conditions a hundred years ago would not suffice to-day.
Afforestation of the catchment area of the Thames and other rivers would,
in the long run, be perhaps far more effective and less costly as a guarantee
against future floods or droughts than grand scale engineering works,
and whilst the former would produce ancillary assets of great value the
latter would not.
Classical examples have been afforded in the past by areas in France
where as a result of clear felling in the early part of the present century
the water table rose over three feet. The detailed records from the state
forests of Moudon showed that the average water table under both
deciduous and coniferous forests was not only much lower than in the
surrounding open country, but was subject to much less marked fluctua-
tions. The recent occurrence of the disastrous floods in the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys and the equally tragic droughts responsible for the
American Dust Bowl, involving an area more than twice that of the entire
British Islands, are too recent in our minds to need recapitulation. Such
K.—BOTANY 235
events are, I think, too apt to be conveniently dismissed as ‘ acts of God’
in the comfortable belief that the causes are beyond our responsibility or
control. But like our own droughts and floods they are in no small
degree capable of regulation by the proper utilisation of plant cover.
It is perhaps nothing more than the truth to assert that the provision of
wood for the smelting of iron on the Weald of Kent, or the maintenance
of the fuel supply for the salt pans of Droitwich has, inter alia, its reper-
cussions in our own water economy of to-day. It is now probably
recognised by many that these extremes of water supply are in large
measure the outcome of lack of vision in respect to the proper integration,
both spatial and temporal, of our exploitation of the soil surface. ‘To-day,
however, we find that it is the engineer who has to be called in to mitigate
results rather than the biologist to remedy the cause.
This is partly because the engineer's remedies, though extremely
costly, are usually more immediate in their results and certainly more
spectacular, but largely, I think, because botanical knowledge on the
applied side is inadequately organised to fulfil the important réle it can
and should play in co-operation with the engineer for the communal
well-being.
Professor F. W. Oliver pointed out, in reference to the reclamation of
foreshores, that the plastic plant can and does meet the constantly changing
impact of the forces of nature in a way which the dead material of the
engineer cannot hope to emulate, and at a far lower cost. But such
biological control demands not only a comprehensive knowledge of the
life histories of the species utilised but also an appreciation of the en-
vironmental factors dynamic as well as static that is summed up in the
phrase ecological foresight. As an example of the type of investigations
which are calculated to provide the necessary data one might cite the
studies of Professor Weaver and his colleagues on the root systems of
American prairie species and on the effectiveness of the plant cover in
the prevention of erosion. Mr. F. N. Ratcliffe’s summary of the position
on the arid pastoral regions of South Australia has shown that the erosion
there is largely an outcome of overstocking with grazing animals, which
took no cognisance of the normal climatic fluctuations, with the result that
plant growth in dry seasons could not keep pace with the loss of protec-
tion from wind due to grazing.
Another matter to which I should like to refer in this connection is the
much discussed question of the preservation of natural areas. The
public generally needs guidance on these matters which the student of
plant life should furnish. Owing to the widespread ignorance of biological
knowledge the dynamic character of vegetation is by no means widely
realised. There are indeed many educated people to-day who think
that to preserve an area all you need to do is to leave it alone. The fact
that your open downland, presented to the National Trust, may, if left
unhindered, ultimately cease to be downland and become woodland
with the loss perhaps of the very features for which the area was preserved,
is for most a novel concept. The transition phase between grassland
and woodland that we term open scrub is perhaps at once the richest in
species of flowers and insects of all our natural plant communities and
the most transient. To preserve such it is necessary to remove trees
and shrubs just at the period when they would appear to be approaching
236 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
their prime. But an enlightened policy of such control of national
reserves and all that this implies will only be possible if the rising genera-
tion has been inculcated into a biological mode of thought. So, too, the
preservation of our insect and bird fauna and of our fungal flora demands
a considered policy with respect to continuity in the supply of decaying
and fallen timber, which as I am personally aware the guardians of some
areas find to be a hard saying. .
Mr. Ramsbottom, in his Presidential Address last year, admirably
emphasised the practical importance of the study of mycology, the many
ways in which fungi play an important part in industry and everyday life.
The importance of algz in relation to our fisheries has been revealed by
the investigations carried out in the Marine Biological Station at Plymouth,
whilst the Fresh Water Station of Windermere is rapidly increasing our
knowledge of the réle of alge in relation both to fresh water fisheries and
to water supply. The practical value of genetics and plant breeding in
the production of better and more disease resistant strains is so obvious
as to need no emphasis. Indeed it is probably true to say that no branch
of botany could be cited that has not its important practical applications.
Botany needs no defence in respect to the practical utility of its pursuit,
although it is probably true to say that the majority of those who reap
the benefits of its achievements are unmindful of their source. But it is,
I feel, the contribution that botanical knowledge can make towards general
culture and spiritual contentment that is its chief claim to rank high in
our educational scheme.
For the future I venture to suggest that it is not so much the paucity
of data that needs to be made good, as the failure of the botanist to take
his proper place as a man of affairs. We have been too content in the past
to pursue the pleasant paths of pure science, heedless of the implications
of our results, with the outcome that our subject has not received the
measure of moral and financial support that its value to the community
would justify.
In no direction is research more needed that in a detailed knowledge of
the autocology and biology of our commonly cultivated species, yet, as
I have pointed out in The Living Garden, there are several respects in
which our knowledge urgently needs augmenting. But until the number
of posts, other than teaching posts, open to botanists is increased so that
a research worker in this field has an assurance of a competence and
reasonable prospects if he proves efficient, the number of first-class
botanical investigators will remain few and many of the best brains who
might be attracted to it will continue from sheer force of circumstance to
adopt other and more lucrative professions.
A sympathetic understanding of botanical thought and progress is
essential to a community which is to deal adequately with such national
problems as agricultural policy, land utilisation, afforestation, drainage
and water supply, the preservation of rural areas or the provision of
national parks. Only on the foundation of a knowledge of plant life and
its requirements can an educated public opinion be built up that will
receive and give effect to well-considered legislative action. Moreover,
it is perhaps truer of these pressing questions than of most that a sym-
pathetic and informed public opinion is essential to the continued effective
operation of any policy however well conceived and enlightened.
SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE.
THE INFORMATIVE CONTENT OF
EDUCATION
ADDRESS BY
H. G. WELLS, D.Litt.
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Section L of the British Association is of necessity one of the least
specialised of all sections. Its interests spread far beyond professional
limitations. It is a section where anyone who is so to speak a citizen at
large may hope to play a part that is not altogether an impertinent intru-
sion. And it is in the character of a citizen at large that I have accepted
the very great honour that you have offered me in making me the President
of this Section. I have no other claim whatever upon your attention.
Since the remote days when as a needy adventurer I taught as non-
resident master in a private school, invigilated at London University
examinations, raided the diploma examinations of the College of Pre-
ceptors for the money prizes offered, and, in the most commercial spirit,
crammed candidates for the science examinations of the university, I have
spent very few hours indeed in educational institutions. Most of those
were spent in the capacity of an enquiring and keenly interested parent
at Oundle School. I doubt if there is any member of this section who
has not had five times as much teaching experience as I have, and who is
not competent to instruct me upon all questions of method and educational
organisation and machinery. So I will run no risks by embarking upon
questions of that sort. But on the other hand, if I know very little of
_ educational methods and machinery I have had a certain amount of special
experience in what those methods produce and what that machine turns
out. I have been keenly interested for a number of years, and particularly
since the war, in public thought and public reactions, in what people know
and think and what they are ready to believe. What they know and think
and what they are ready to believe impresses me as remarkably poor stuff.
A general ignorance—even in respectable quarters—of some of the most
elementary realities of the political and social life of the world is, I believe,
mainly accountable for much of the discomfort and menace of our times.
The uninstructed public intelligence of our community is feeble and con-
vulsive. It is still a herd intelligence. It tyrannises here and yields to
tyranny there. What is called elementary education throughout the
world does not in fact educate, because it does not properly inform.
I realised this very acutely during the latter stages of the war and it has
been plain in my mind ever since. It led to my taking an active part in
238 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
the production of various outlines and summaries of contemporary know-
ledge. Necessarily they had the defects and limitations of a private
adventure but in making them I learnt a great deal about—what shall
I say ?—the contents of the minds our schools are turning out as taught.
And so now I am proposing to concentrate the attention of this Section
for this meeting on the question of what is taught as fact, that is to say
upon the informative side of educational work. For this year I suggest we
give the questions of drill, skills, art, music, the teaching of languages,
mathematics and other symbols, physical training and development, a
rest, and that we concentrate on the inquiry: What are we telling young
people directly about the world in which they are to live? What is the
world picture we are presenting to their minds ? What is the framework
of conceptions about reality and about obligation into which the rest of
their mental existences will have to be fitted? I am proposing in fact
a review of the informative side of education, wholly and solely—informative
in relation to the needs of modern life.
And here the fact that I am an educational outsider—which in every
other relation would be a disqualification—gives me certain very real
advantages. I can talk with exceptional frankness. And I am inclined
to think that in this matter of the informative side of education frankness
has not always been conspicuous. For what I say I am responsible only
to the hearer and my own self-respect. I occupy no position from which
I can be dismissed as unsound in my ideas. I follow no career that can
be affected by anything I say. I follow, indeed, no career. I have no
party, no colleagues or associates who can be embarrassed by any un-
orthodox suggestions I make. Every schoolmaster, every teacher, nearly
every professor must, by the nature of his calling, be wary, diplomatic,
compromising—he has his governors to consider, his college to consider,
his parents to consider, the local press to consider; he must not say too
much nor say anything that might be misinterpreted and misunderstood.
Ican. And so I think I can best serve the purposes of the British Associa-
tion and this section by taking every advantage of my irresponsibility,
being as unorthodox and provocative as I can be, and so possibly saying
a thing or two which you are not free to say but which some of you at any
rate will be more or less willing to have said.
Now when I set myself to review the field of inquiry I have thus defined,
I found it was necessary to take a number of very practical preliminary
issues into account. As educators we are going to ask what is the subject-
matter of a general education? What do we want known? And how
do we want it known? What is the essential framework of knowledge
that should be established in the normal citizen of our modern com-
munity ? What is the irreducible minimum of knowledge for a respon-
sible human being to-day ?
I say irreducible minimum—and I do so, because I know at least enough
of school work to know the grim significance of the school time-table
and of the leaving school age. Under contemporary conditions our only
prospect of securing a mental accord throughout the community is by
laying a common foundation of knowledge and ideas in the school years.
No one believes to-day, as our grandparents—perhaps for most of you it
would be better to say great-grandparents—believed, that, education had
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 239
an end somewhere about adolescence. Young people then left school or
college under the imputation that no one could teach them any more.
There has been a quiet but complete revolution in people’s ideas in this
respect and now it is recognised almost universally that people in a modern
community must be learners to the end of their days. We shall be giving
a considerable amount of attention to continuation adult and post-
graduate studies in this section, this year. It would be wasting our
opportunities not to do so. Here in Nottingham University College we
have under Professor Peers the only Professorship of Adult Education in
England, and the Adult Education Department which is in close touch
with the Workers’ Education Association has broadened its scope far
beyond the normal range of Adult Education. Our modern idea seems
to be a continuation of learning not only for university graduates and
practitioners in the so-called intellectual professions, but for the miner,
the plough-boy, the taxi-cab driver and the out-of-work, throughout life.
Our ultimate aim is an entirely educated population.
Nevertheless it is true that what I may call the main beams and girders
of the mental framework must be laid down, soundly or unsoundly,
before the close of adolescence. We live under conditions where it seems
we are still only able to afford for the majority of our young people, freedom
from economic exploitation, teachers even of the cheapest sort and some
educational equipment, up to the age of 14 or 15, and we have to fit our
projects to that. And even if we were free to carry on with unlimited
time and unrestrained teaching resources, it would still be in those
opening years that the framework of the mind would have to be made.
We have got to see therefore that whatever we propose as this irreducible
minimum of knowledge must be imparted between infancy and—at most,
the fifteenth or sixteenth year. Roughly, we have to get it into ten years
at the outside.
And next let us turn to another relentlessly inelastic packing-case and
that is, the school time-table. How many hours in the week have we
got for this job in hand? The maximum school hours we have available
are something round about thirty, but out of this we have to take time for
what I may call the non-informative teaching, the native and foreign
language teaching, teaching to read, teaching to write clearly, basic
mathematical work, drawing, various forms of manual training, music
and so forth. A certain amount of information may be mixed in with
these subjects but not very much. They are not what I mean by in-
formative subjects. By the time we are through with these non-informa-
tive subjects, I doubt if at the most generous estimate we can apportion
more than six hours a week to essentially informative work. Then let us,
still erring on the side of generosity, assume that there are 40 weeks of
schooling in the year. ‘That gives us a maximum of 240 hours in the
year. And if we take ten years of schooling as an average human being’s
preparation for life and if we disregard the ravages made upon our school
time by measles, chicken-pox, whooping-cough, coronations and occasions
of public rejoicing, we are given 2,400 hours as all that we can hope for
as our time allowance for building up a coherent picture of the world,
the essential foundation of knowledge and ideas, in the minds of our
people. The complete framework of knowledge has to be established in
240 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
two hundred dozen hours. It is plain that a considerable austerity is
indicated for us. We have no time to waste, if our schools are not to go
on delivering, year by year, fresh hordes of ignorant, unbalanced, un-
critical minds, at once suspicious and credulous, weakly gregarious,
easily baffled and easily misled, into the monstrous responsibilities and.
dangers of this present world. Mere cannon-fodder and stuff for
massacres and stampedes.
Our question becomes therefore: ‘ What should people know—what-
ever else they don’t know ? Whatever else we may leave over—for leisure-
time reading, for being picked up or studied afterwards—what is the
irreducible minimum that we ought to teach as clearly, strongly and
conclusively as we know how ?’
And now I—and you will remember my réle is that of the irresponsible
outsider, the citizen at large—I am going to set before you one scheme of
instruction for your consideration. For it I demand ail those precious
2,400 hours. You will perceive the scheme is explicitly exclusive of
several contradictory and discursive subjects that now find a place in
most curricula, and you will also find doubts arising in your mind about
the supply and competence of teachers, a difficulty about which I hope
to say something before my time is up. But teachers are for the world
and not the world for teachers. If the teachers we have to-day are not
equal to the task required of them, then we have to recondition our
teachers or replace them. We live in an exacting world and a certain
minimum of performance is required of us all. If children are not to
be given at least this minimum of information about the world into which
they have come—through no fault of their own—then I do think it would
be better for them and the world if they were not born at all. And to
make what I have to say as clear as possible I have had a diagram designed
which I will unfold to you as my explanation unfolds.
You have already noted I have exposed the opening stage of my diagram.
You see I make a three-fold division of the child’s impressions and the
matters upon which its questions are most lively and natural. I say
nothing about the child learning to count, scribble, ‘handle things, talk
and learn the alphabet and so forth because all these things are ruled
out by my restriction of my address to information only. This is what
it wants to know. In all these educational matters, there is an element
of overlap. As it learns about things and their relationship and inter-
action its vocabulary increases and its ideas of expression develop. You
will make an allowance for that.
And now I bring down my diagram to expose the first stage of positive
and deliberate teaching. We begin telling true stories of the past and of
other lands. We open out the child’s mind to a realisation that the sort
of life it is living is not the only life that has been lived and that human
life in the past has been different from what it is to-day and on the whole
that it has been progressive. We shall have to teach a little about law
and robbers, kings and conquests, but I see no need at this stage to afflict
the growing mind with dates and dynastic particulars. I hope the time
is not far distant when children even of eight or nine will be freed from the
persuasion that history is a magic recital beginning ‘ William the Con-
queror, 1066.’ Concurrently, we ought to make the weather and the mud
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MODIGN SOVEREIGN STATES
ELEMENTARY HISTORY OF
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GRADE A. ELEMENTARY HISTORY,
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HUMAN HISTORY
THE NATURAL CURIOSITY OF THE CHILD.
THE INFORMATIVE CONTENT OF EDUCATION
LANGUAGES AND SYMBOLS (MATWEMATICS), SKILLS MUSIC, MORAL, MANUAL §
PHYSICAL TRAINING ARE NOT CONSIDERED HERE
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 241
pie our introduction to what Huxley christened long ago as Elementary
Physiography. We ought to build up simple and clear ideas from
natural experience.
We start a study of the states of matter with the boiling, evaporation,
freezing and so on of water and go on to elementary physics and chemistry.
Local topography can form the basis of geography. We shall have to let
our learner into the secret that the world is a globe—and for a time
I think that has to be a bit of dogmatic teaching. It is not so easy as many
people suppose to prove that the world is spherical and that proof may .
very well be left to make an exercise in logic later on in the education.
Then comes biology. Education I rejoice to see is rapidly becoming
more natural, more biological. Most young children are ready to learn
a great deal more than most teachers can give them about animals. I think
we might easily turn the bear, the wolf, the tiger and the ape from holy
terrors and nightmare material into sympathetic creatures, if we brought
some realisation of how these creatures live, what their real excitements
are, how they are sometimes timid, into the teaching. I don’t think that
descriptive botany is very suitable for young children. Flowers and
leaves and berries are bright and attractive, a factor in zsthetic education,
but I doubt if, in itself, vegetation can hold the attention of the young.
But directly we begin to deal with plants as hiding-places, homes and food
for birds and beasts, the little boy or girl lights up and learns. And with
this natural elementary zoology and botany we should begin elementary
physiology. How plants and animals live, and what health means for
em.
There I think you have stuff enough for all the three or four hundred
hours we can afford for the foundation stage of knowledge. Outside
this substantial teaching of school hours the child will be reading and
indulging in imaginative play—and making that clear distinction children
do learn to make between truth and fantasy—about fairyland, magic
carpets and seven league boots, and all the rest of it. So far as my con-
victions go I think that the less young children have either in or out of
school of what has hitherto figured as history, the better. I do not see
either the charm or the educational benefit of making an important subject
of the criminal history of royalty, the murder of the Princes in the Tower,
the wives of Henry the Eighth, the families of Edward and James I, the
mistresses of Charles II, Sweet Nell of Old Drury, and all the rest of it.
I suggest that the sooner we get all that unpleasant stuff out of schools,
and the sooner that we forget the border bickerings of England, France,
_ Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Bannockburn, Flodden, Crecy and Agin-
court, the nearer our world will be to a sane outlook upon life. In this
survey of what a common citizen should know I am doing my best to
elbow the scandals and revenges which once passed as English history
into an obscure corner or out of the picture altogether.
But I am not proposing to eliminate history from education—far from
it. Let me bring down my diagram a stage further and you will see how
large a proportion of our treasure of 2,400 hours I am proposing to give
to history. This next section represents about 800 to 1,000 pre-adolescent
hours. It is the school-boy—school-girl stage. And here the history is
planned to bring home to the new generation the reality that the world
242 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
is now one community. I believe that the crazy combative patriotism
that plainly threatens to destroy civilisation to-day is very largely begotten
by the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress in their history lessons. They
take the growing mind at a naturally barbaric phase and they inflame and
fix its barbarism. I think we underrate the formative effect of this
perpetual reiteration of how we won, how our Empire grew and how
relatively splendid we have been in every department of life. We are
blinded by habit and custom to the way it infects these growing minds
with the chronic and nearly incurable disease of national egotism. Equally
mischievous is the furtive anti-patriotism of the leftish teacher. I suggest
that we take on our history from the simple descriptive anthropology
of the elementary stage to the story of the early civilisations. We are
dealing here with material that was not even available for the school-
masters and mistresses who taught our fathers. It did not exist. But
now we have the most lovely stuff to hand, far more exciting and far more
valuable than the quarrels of Henry II and a Becket or the peculiar un-
pleasantnesses of King James or King John. Archaeologists have been
piecing together a record of the growth of the primary civilisations and
the developing réles of priest, king, farmer, warrior, the succession of
stone and copper and iron, the appearance of horse and road and shipping
in the expansions of those primordial communities. It is a far finer
story to tell a boy or girl and there is no reason why it should not be told.
Swinging down upon these early civilisations came first the Semitic-
speaking peoples and then the Aryan-speakers. Persian, Macedonian,
Roman followed one another, Christendom inherited from Rome and
Islam from Persia, and the world began to assume the shapes we know
to-day. This is great history and also in its broad lines it is a simple
history—upon it we can base a lively modern intelligence, and now it
can be put in a form just as comprehensible and exciting for the school
phase as the story of our English kings and their terrestrial, dynastic and
sexual entanglements. When at last we focus our attention on the British
Isles and France we shall have the affairs of these regions in a proper
proportion to the rest of the human adventure. And our young people
will be thinking less like gossiping court pages and more like horse-
riders, seamen, artist-artisans, road-makers and city builders, which
I take it is what in spirit we want them to be. Measured by the great
current of historical events, English history up to quite recent years is
mere hole-and-corner history.
And I have to suggest another exclusion. We are telling our young
people about the real past, the majestic expansion of terrestrial events.
In these events the little region of Palestine is no more than a part of the
highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Is there any real reason
nowadays for exaggerating its importance in the past? Nothing began
there, nothing was worked out there. All the historical part of the Bible
abounds in wild exaggeration of the importance of this little strip of land.
We were all brought up to believe in the magnificence of Solomon’s temple
and it is a startling thing for most of us to read the account of its decorations
over again and turn its cubits into feet. It was smaller than most barns.
We all know the peculiar delight of devout people when, amidst the endless
remains of the great empires of the past, some dubious fragment is found to
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 243
confirm the existence of the Hebrews. Is it not time that we recognised
the extreme insignificance of the events recorded in Kings and Chronicles,
and ceased to throw the historical imagination of our young people
out of perspective by an over-emphasised magnification of the history
of Judea?
Look at our time-table and what we have to teach. If we give history
four-tenths of all the time we have for imparting knowledge that still gives
us at most something a little short of 400 hours altogether. Even if we
think it desirable to perplex another generation with the myths of the
Creation, the Flood, the Chosen People and so forth we haven’t got the
time for it—any more than we have the time for the really quite unedifying
records of all the Kings and Queens of England and their claims on this
and that. No reason why much of that stuff should not be picked up in
private reading—by those who like that sort of thing. But so far as the
school time-table goes we are faced with a plain alternative. One thing
or the other. Great history or hole-and-corner history ? The story of
mankind or the narrow, self-righteous, blinkered stories of the British and
the Jews?
There is a lot more we have to put into the heads of our young people
over and above History. It is the main subject of instruction but even
sO, it is not even half of the informative work that ought to be got through
in this school stage. We have to consider the collateral subject of geo-
graphy and a general survey of the world. We may have a little map-
making here, but I take it what is needed most are reasonably precise ideas
of the various types-of country and the distinctive floras and faunas of
the main regions of the world. We do not want our budding citizens
to chant lists of capes and rivers, but we do want them to have a real
picture in their minds of the Amazon forests, the pampas, the various
phases in the course of the Nile, the landscape of Labrador and so on,
and also we want something like a realisation of the sort of human life
that is led in these regions. We have enormous resources now in cheap
photography, in films and so forth, that even our fathers never dreamt of
—to make all this vivid and real. New methods are needed to handle
these new instruments but they need not be overwhelmingly costly. And
also our new citizen should know enough of topography to realise why
London and Rio and New York and Rome and Suez happen to be where
they are and what sort of places they are.
Geography and history run into each other in this respect and, on the
other hand, Geography reaches over to Biology. Here again our schools
lag some fifty years behind contemporary knowledge. The past half-
century has written a fascinating history of the succession of living things
in time and made plain all sorts of processes in the prosperity, decline,
extinction and replacement of species. We can sketch the wonderful and
inspiring story of life now from its beginning. Moreover, we have a con-
tinually more definite account of the sequence of sub-man in the world
and the gradual emergence of our kind. This is elementary, essential,
interesting and stimulating stuff, and it is impossible to consider anyone
a satisfactory citizen who is still ignorant of that great story.
And finally, we have the science of inanimate matter. In a world of
‘machinery, optical instruments, electricity, radio and so forth we want to
244 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
lay a sound foundation of pure physics and chemistry upon the most
modern lines—for everyone. Some of this work will no doubt overlap
the mathematical teaching. And finally, to meet awakening curiosity
and take the morbidity out of it, we have to tell our young people and
especially our young townspeople, about the working of their bodies,
about reproduction and about the chief diseases, enfeeblements and
accidents that lie in wait for them in the world.
That I think completes my summary of all the information we can
hope to give in the lower school stage. And as I make it I am acutely
aware of your unspoken comment. With such teachers as we have !
Well, I think that it is a better rule of life, first to make sure of what you
want and then set about getting it, rather than to consider what you can
easily safely and meanly get, and then set about reconciling yourself to it.
I admit we cannot have a modern education without a modernised type
of teacher. Everything I am saying now implies a demand for more
and better teachers—with better equipment. And these teachers will
have to be kept fresh. It is stipulated in most leases that we should
paint our houses outside every three years and inside every seven years,
but nobody ever thinks of doing up a school teacher. There are teachers
at work in this country who haven’t been painted inside for fifty years.
They must be damp and rotten. ‘Two-thirds of the teaching profession
now is in urgent need of being either reconditioned or superannuated.
In this advancing world the reconditioning of both the medical and the
scholastic practitioner is becoming a very urgent problem indeed, but it is
not one that I can deal with here. Presently this section will be devoting
its attention to adult education and then I hope the whole question of
professional and technical refreshment will be ventilated.
And there is another matter also closely allied to this question of the
rejuvenation of teachers, at which I can only glance now, and that is the
bringing of school books up to date. In this informative section of school
work there is hardly a subject in which knowledge is not being vigorously
revised and added to. Our school work does not follow up contemporary
digesting. Still less do our school libraries. They are ten, fifteen years
out of date with much of their information. Our prison libraries by the
by are even worse. I was told the other day of a virtuous prisoner who
wanted to improve his mind about radio. The prison had a collection
of technical works made for such an occasion and the latest book on radio
was dated 1920. ‘There is, I believe, an energetic New School Books
Association at work in this field, doing what it can to act in concert with
those all too potent authorities who frame our examination syllabuses.
I am all for burning old school books. Some day perhaps we shall have
school books so made that at the end of five years, let us say, they will
burst into flames and inflict severe burns upon any hands in which they
find themselves. But at present that is perhaps—Utopian. It is even
more applicable to the next stage of knowledge to which we are now
coming.
This stage represents our last thousand hours and roughly I will call it
the upper form or upper standard stage. It is really the closing phase of
the available school period. Some of the matter I have marked for the
history of this grade might perhaps be given in grade B and vice versa.
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 245
We have still a lot to do if we are to provide even a skeleton platform for
the mind of our future citizen. He has still much history to learn before
his knowledge can make an effective contact with his duties as a voter.
You see I am still reserving four-tenths of the available time, that is to
say nearly 400 hours for history. But now we are presenting a more
detailed study of such phenomena as the rise and fall of the Ottoman
Empire, the rise of Russia, the history of the Baltic, the rise and fall of
the Spanish power, the Dutch, the first and second British Empires, the
belated unifications of Germany and Italy. Then as I have written we
want our modern citizen to have some grasp of the increasing importance
of economic changes in history and the search for competent economic
direction and also of the leading theories of individualism, socialism, the
corporate state, communism.
For the next five-and-twenty years now the ordinary man all over the
earth will be continually confronted with these systems of ideas. They
are complicated systems with many implications and applications. Indeed
they are aspects of life rather than systems of ideas. But we send out our
young people absolutely unprepared for the heated and biased inter-
pretations they will encounter. We hush it up until they are in the thick
of it. ‘The most the poor silly young things seem able to make of it is to
be violently and self-righteously Anti- something or other. Anti-Red,
Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Fascist. ‘The more ignorant you are the easier it is
to be an Anti. To hate something without having anything substantial
to put against it. A special sub-section of history in this grade should
be a course in the history of War, which is always written and talked about
by the unwary as though it had always been the same, while as a matter
of fact—except for its violence—it has changed profoundly with every
change in social, political and economic life. Clearly parallel to this
history our young people need now a more detailed and explicit ac-
quaintance with world geography, with the different types of population
in the world and the developed and undeveloped resources of the globe.
The devastation of the world’s forests, the replacement of pasture by sand
deserts through haphazard cultivation, the waste and exhaustion of
natural resources, coal, petrol, water, that is now going on, the massacre
of important animals, whales, penguins, seals, food fish, should be matters
of universal knowledge and concern.
Then our new citizens have to understand something of the broad
elements in our modern social structure. They should be given an
account of the present phase of communication and trade, of production
and invention and above all they need whatever plain knowledge is avail-
able about the conventions of property and money. Upon these con-
ventions human property stands, and the efficiency of their working is
entirely dependent upon the general state of mind throughout the world.
We know now that what used to be called the inexorable laws of political
economy and the laws of monetary science, are really no more than rash
generalisations about human behaviour, supported by a maximum of
pompous verbiage and a minimum of scientific observation. Most of
our young people come on to adult life, to employment, business and the
rest of it, blankly ignorant even of the way in which money has changed
slavery and serfdom into wages employment and how its fluctuations in
246 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
value make the industrial windmills spin or flag. They are not even
warned of the significance of such words as inflation or deflation, and the
wage earners are the helpless prey at every turn towards prosperity of the
savings-snatching financier. Any plausible monetary charlatan can secure
their ignorant votes. They know no better. ‘They cannot help them-
selves. Yet the subject of property and money—together they make one
subject because money is only the fluid form of property—is scarcely
touched upon in any stage in the education of any class in our community.
They know nothing about it; they are as innocent as young lambs and
born like them for shearing. :
And now here you will see I have a very special panel. ‘This I have
called Personal Sociology. Our growing citizen has reached an age of
self-consciousness and _ self-determination. He is on the verge of
adolescence. Moral training does not fall within the scope of the in-
formative content of teaching. Already the primary habits of truthful-
ness, frankness, general honesty, communal feeling, helpfulness and
generosity will or will not have been fostered and established in the
youngster’s mind by the example of those about him. A mean atmosphere
makes mean people, a too competitive atmosphere makes greedy, self-
glorifying people, a cruel atmosphere makes fierce people, but this issue
of moral tone does not concern us now here. But it does concern us that
by adolescence the time has arrived for general ideas about one’s personal
relationship to the universe to be faced. The primary propositions
of the chief religious and philosophical interpretations of the world should
be put as plainly and impartially as possible before our young people.
They will be asking those perennial questions of adolescence—whence
and why and whither. They will have to face, almost at once, the heated
and exciting propagandas of theological and sceptical partisans—pro’s
and anti’s. As far as possible we ought to provide a ring of clear know-
ledge for these inevitable fights. And also, as the more practical aspect
of the question, What am I to do with my life? I think we ought to link
with our general study of social structure a study of social types which
will direct attention to the choice of a métier. In what spirit will you face
the world and what sort of job do you feel like ? This subject of Personal
Sociology as it is projected here is the school equivalent of a confirmation
class. It says to everyone: ‘ There are the conditions under which you
face your world.’ The response to these questions, the determination
of the will, is however not within our present scope. ‘That is a matter for
the religious teacher, for intimate friends and for the inner impulses of
the individual. But our children must have the facts.
Finally, you will see that I have apportioned some time, roughly two-
tenths of our 1,000 hours, in this grade to the acquisition of specialised
knowledge. Individuality is becoming conscious of itself and specialisa-
tion is beginning.
Thus I budget, so to speak, for our 2,400 hours of informative teaching.
We have brought our young people to the upper form, the upper standard,
Most of them are now going into employment or special training and so
taking on a réle in the collective life. But there remain some very essential
things which cannot be brought into school teaching, not through any
want of time, but because of the immaturity of the growing mind. If
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 247
we are to build a real modern civilisation we must go on with definite
informative instruction into and even beyond adolescence. Children
and young people are likely to be less numerous proportionally in the
years ahead of us in all the more civilised populations and we cannot afford
to consume them in premature employment after the fashion of the pre-
ceding centuries. ‘The average age of our population is rising and this
involves an upward extension of education. And so you will see I suggest
what I call an undergraduate or continuation school, Grade D, the upper
adolescent stage, which I presume will extend at last to every class in the
population, in which at least half the knowledge acquired will be
specialised in relation to interest, aptitude and the social needs of the indi-
vidual. But the other half will have to be unspecialised, it will have to be
general political education. Here particularly comes in that education
for citizenship to which this educational section is to give attention later.
It seems to me altogether preposterous that nowadays our educational
organisation should turn out new citizens who are blankly ignorant of the
history of the world during the last twenty-five years, who know nothing
of the causes and phases of the Great War and are left to the tender mercies
of freakish newspaper proprietors and party organisers for their ideas about
the world outlook, upon which their collective wills and actions must play
a decisive part.
Social organisation is equally a matter for definite information. ‘ We
are all socialists nowadays.’ Everybody has been repeating that after the
late Lord Rosebery for years and years. Each for all and all for each.
We are all agreed upon the desirability of the spirit of Christianity and of
the spirit of Democracy, and that the general interest of the community
should not be sacrificed to Private Profit. Yes—beautiful, but what is
not realised is that Socialism in itself is little more than a generalisation
about the undesirability of irresponsible ownership and that the major
problem before the world is to devise some form of administrative organisa-
tion that will work better than the scramble of irresponsible owners. That
form of administrative organisation has not yet been devised. You cannot
expropriate the private adventurer until you have devised a competent
receiver for the expropriated industry or service. This complex problem
of the competent receiver is the underlying problem of most of our con-
structive politics. It is imperative that every voter should have some
conception of the experiments in economic control that are in progress
in Great Britain, the United States of America, Italy, Germany, Russia
and elsewhere. Such experiments are going to affect the whole of his or
her life profoundly. So, too, are the experiments in monetary and financial
organisation. Many of the issues involved go further than general
principles. ‘They are quantitative issues, questions of balance and more
or less. A certain elementary training in statistical method is becoming
as necessary for anyone living in this world of to-day as reading and writing.
I am asking for this much contemporary history as the crowning phase,
the graduation phase of our knowledge-giving. Afcer that much founda-
tion, the informative side of education may well be left to look after itself.
Speaking as a teacher of sorts myself, to a gathering in which teachers
probably predominate, I need scarcely dilate upon the fascination of
diagram drawing. You will understand how reluctant I was to finish off
248 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
at Grade D and how natural it was to extend my diagram to two more
grades and make it a diagram of the whole knowledge organisation of a
modern community. Here then is Grade E, the adult learning that goes
on now right through life, keeping oneself up to date, keeping in touch
with the living movements about us. I have given a special line to those
reconditioning courses that must somehow be made a normal part in the
lives of working professional men. It is astonishing how stale most
middle-aged medical men, teachers and solicitors are to-day. And beyond
Grade E I have put a further ultimate grade for the fully adult human
being. He or she is learning now, no longer only from books and news-
papers and teachers, though there has still to be a lot of that, but as a worker
with initiative, making experiments, learning from new experience, an
industrialist, an artist, an original writer, a responsible lawyer, an adminis-
trator, a statesman, an explorer, a scientific investigator. Grade F
accumulates, rectifies, changes human experience. And here I bring in
an obsession of mine with which I have dealt before the Royal Institution
and elsewhere. You see, indicated by this flight of arrows, the rich
results of the work of Grade F flowing into a central world-encyclopzdic-
organisation, where it will be continually summarised, clarified,and whence
it will be distributed through the general information channels of the world.
So I complete my general scheme of the knowledge organisation of a
modern community and submit it to you for your consideration.
I put it before you in good faith as a statement of my convictions. I do
not know how it will impress you and I will not anticipate your criticisms.
It may seem impossibly bold and ‘ Utopian.’ But we are living in a
world in which a battleship costs £8,000,000, in which we can raise an
extra 400 million for armaments with only a slight Stock Exchange qualm,
and which has seen the Zeppelin, the radio, the bombing aeroplane come
absolutely out of nothing since 1900. And our schools are drooling along
very much as they were drooling along 37 years ago.
There is only one thing I would like to say in conclusion. Please do
me the justice to remember that this is a project for Knowledge Organisa-
tion only and solely. It is not an entire scheme of education I am putting
before you. It is only a part and a limited part of education—the factual
side of education—I have discussed. There are 168 hours in a week and
I am dealing with the use of rather less than six during the school year of
less than 40 weeks—for 10 years. It is no good saying as though it was
an objection either to my paper or to me, that I neglect or repudiate
spiritual, emotional and aesthetic values. They are not disregarded, but
they have no place at all in this particular part of the educational scheme.
I have said nothing about music, dancing, drawing, painting, exercise
and so on and so forth. Not because I would exclude them from educa-
tion but because they do not fall into the limits of my subject. You no
more want these lovely and elementary things mixed up with a conspectus
of knowledge than you want playfulness in an ordnance map or perplexing
whimsicality on a clock face. You have the remaining 162 hours a week
for all that. But the spiritual, emotional, aesthetic lives our children are
likely to lead, will hardly be worth living, unless they are sustained by
such a clear, full and sufficient backbone of knowledge as I have ventured
to put before you here.
SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE.
STATE INTERVENTION IN
AGRICULTURE
ADDRESS BY
J. M. CAIE, M.A., B.L., B.Sc. (Acr.),
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
Two years ago, Dr. Venn, who presided over this section during the
meetings of the Association at Norwich, delivered a masterly address on
‘The Financial and Economic Results of State Control in Agriculture.’
To-day my subject is ‘ State Intervention in Agriculture,’ and for any
apparent infringement of his copyright I tender him an apology. The
reasons for my choice are twofold. In the first place, it is the custom,
very rightly, for those who have the honour to be presidents of sections
to deal with matters of which they have made a special study or have some
first-hand experience. Being a mere administrative official and not a
scientific worker, as the term is generally understood, I must, if I am to
follow the excellent precedent, restrict myself to the field in which I
happen to work.
My second reason is less personal. In the economic and political condi-
tions of the world in recent years the importance of agriculture in the life
of the State, not only in this country but elsewhere, has received growing
recognition. That recognition may not always have been quite spon-
taneously accorded ; rather indeed it has been extorted by economic and
social forces of a most complex and compelling kind. Over-production
and under-consumption, of which we have heard so much, have thrust
agriculture to the middle of the stage and into the beam of a pale blue
limelight. The agriculturist, cast too often for the part of the starving
orphan, has raised his voice, now in lamentation, now in vituperation,
calling on the State for help, or fair play, or protection against some
industrial ogre or foreign invader. And the State, moved by his ‘ exceed-
ing bitter cry,’ has played the part sometimes of the fairy godmother,
sometimes of the heavy father, and sometimes, so the farmer may say,
of the deaf and cunning uncle. But never probably, save in the war
years, have the State and the farmers been so closely interested in each
other. And that is the second reason for my choice, which I have made
in the hope that possibly a general survey of the relation of State and farmer
might be of some little value. In attempting that survey, I believe that,
despite the title of the paper, I shall trespass little if at all on that part of
the subject which was examined so penetratingly and expounded so
luminously by Dr. Venn.
250 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
One cautionary statement I must make before I go further. When
speaking here, I do so entirely as a private individual and not as an official ;
the department to which I belong is in no way responsible for this address
and must not be held as necessarily agreeing with anything it contains.
For purposes of definition, it is desirable to show, as concisely as
possible, the part occupied by agriculture in the economic structure of the
State. The following tables give the essential facts relating to areas,
holdings and populations, the output of food from our farms, and the con-
tribution they make to the total food consumption of the people. As a
matter of interest, corresponding figures are given for two other countries,
Denmark and Norway, which are more agricultural and less industrial
than Great Britain. These tables have been very kindly prepared for
me by Mr. W. H. Senior. Most of the data relating to Denmark have
been obtained from Professor O. H. Larsen, and those for Norway from
Professor Paul Borgedal; I am much indebted to these gentlemen for
their kindness and courtesy.
Great Britain. Denmark. Norway.
Number of agri- | (Overracre.) | (Overrha.,ie. | (Over 0-5 ha.,
cultural hold- | 455,185 (1935). 2°5 acres.) i.e. 1°25 acre.)
ings. 204,003 (1935). | 208,550 (1930).
Total cultivated | 29,555,271 acres | 7,975,000 acres | 2,500,000 acres
land, arable (1935)- (1935) (approx.). | (1930) (approx.).
and permanent
grass.
Total population. | 44,790,485 (1930) | 3,550,656 (1930) | 2,814,194 (1930)
Number of people About 1°5. About 0°45. bout 1-1.
per acre of cul-
tivated land.
Percentage of Bee: 29 %. q01%!
population in | (Workers of total | (Workers of (All persons.)
agriculture. occupied popu-| total occupied
lation.) population.)
The chief facts to note here are the familiar ones, brought out in the
last two lines, that in Great Britain the number of persons per acre of
cultivated land, 1-5, is relatively high, being three times as many as in
Denmark and nearly half as many again as in Norway, while the per-
centage of the population engaged in British agriculture, about 6 per cent.,
is very low as compared with 20 or 30 per cent. in the other two countries.
Notwithstanding the importance and value of our industrial development,
this figure of 6 per cent. has social and other implications which have
- exercised the minds of many people and need not be elaborated here.
This table shows that, as is again fairly well known, the products of
our animal husbandry account for a very large proportion of the output of
acids m6
our land, about 72 per cent.
M.—AGRICULTURE
251
The proportions in Denmark and Norway
are even higher, and incidentally it may be remarked that in Scotland the
AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT, 1935.
Great Britain.
Denmark.
&
Million. %
&
Million. %
Norway.
&.
Million. %
Meat : Galoviiake. ot
Beef 20:0. L022 =) a ‘ bf ae
Veal ; : are wege fj oe Or7 i 3=4
Mutton and lamb .| 22:2 9:2 Once GB see
* Pork and bacon 20°83 _ 8°77 25= 34 13k +0 7A Wipe} tLe
Sub total Bal (alo Yet Yt 3 ee ak eee. ie ee wef ie)
Dairy and poultry pro-
duce, etc. :
Milk 53° O 2274
Butter AE eho é
Cream O70 Ok
Poultry CC hoe I Of a
6: G82 (8
Eggs. 1780974 EN
Wool 1°8 0:8 —- — -— —
Horses Ok “e50 Bee ees — —
Live stock and live- | ; Shox “EB o) Selene
stock products E72: QR FLED Ti ctee hoes 14°5 76-0
Crops : ;
Cereal, grain and
straw 1331; soa B 3y O55 Nae
Potatoes 14:9) G2 ; - Bib Bs
Other crops . A Da ee) Be tee Pa Mr 5 — —
Fruit, vegetables,
flowersandhoney | 27-9 11:6 -- — 2p P ieee 230
Total crops, etc. 6755 «28h O-5 117 4°6 24:0
Grand total 240°4 100°0 81-0 100°0 Ig*I 100-70
figure stands at about 82 per cent. Our milk, it will be observed, is worth
much more than our beef ; our eggs are more valuable than the whole of
our cereal crops put together, and taken along with poultry are fully
equal to our mutton and lamb. This table affords much food for thought
252 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
to those who are responsible for shaping the agricultural policy of the.
country. The facts it contains and the agricultural conditions it illus-
trates are indeed of fundamental importance. ‘These facts result from
our soil, our climate and the consequent experience and aptitude of our
farmers ; they are not entirely unalterable, but any policy of improvement,
development or control must primarily be based upon them.
The value of the agricultural output per acre of cultivated land is,
in round figures, £8 in Great Britain and Norway, and {£11 in Denmark.
In contrast to this, the annual output per person in British agriculture
is about £200, and in Danish about £150.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN REGARD TO IMPORTANT PRODUCTS.
United Kingdom. Denmark. Norway.
1935 1935
Home Home Home
Produced. Imported.| Produced. Imported.|Produced. Imported.
ye ace %o % %o %
Beef and veal . kK alee 74 100 — 100 —
Mutton and
lamb E ae ( 100 — 100 —
Pork and bacon 5.750 100 — 100 —
Poultry . (GBF 22 ‘
Epps , 66 34 100 — 100
Milk (liquid) . 100
Cheese . : B20) <1) 100 — 100 _
Butter . t ZO)" go
Wheat . ; Sot 1074. 7 93 | Fs
Barley . : AGT ge 95 5 ype a
Oats. : gi 9 — — — —
Potatoes. ; 96 4 100 = 100 —
N.B.—Estimates for United Kingdom and Denmark based on quantities,
those for Norway on values.
The figures in this third table need little comment and are in a sense
a corollary to those in the two previous tables. As regards animal pro-
ducts, the two Scandinavian countries are self-supporting, whereas we
produce only about, very roughly, half our requirements of the various
kinds of meat, nearly four-fifths of our poultry and two-thirds of our eggs.
We produce all the liquid milk we consume, but only 30 per cent. of our
cheese and 10 per cent. of our butter. Of wheat we import about three-
fourths of our annual ration and of barley fully half, but we grow over nine-
tenths of our oats and nearly all the potatoes we eat.
So much for agriculture as a producer. What about agriculture as a
M.—AGRICULTURE 253
buyer of the products of other industries ? Only a rough and possibly
unreliable estimate can be given. According to the farm accounts
obtained for 245 Scottish farms, of different kinds and in different districts,
for the years 1934-35, the estimated expenditure on building materials,
implements and machinery, electricity, fuel, chemicals, fertilisers, etc.,
amounted to from 14s. to 20s. per acre of cultivated land. Admittedly
this is a small sample on which to base a generalisation, but, taking it for
what it is worth, it would represent a gross total of from twenty to thirty
million pounds for the whole country. ‘The corresponding figures per
acre are for Denmark 26s. (based on 810 farm accounts for 1935-36),
and for Norway from 12s. to 21s.
It may be noted that no allowance is made for the personal purchases
of the agricultural population, which presumably would be made, more
or less, no matter what the employment of the people might be. The
figures represent the purchases of the agricultural industry as such, and
show to what extent it is the customer of other industries.
The word “ intervention’ is sometimes used as being equivalent to
control. In this paper it has a wider meaning and is intended to cover the
various ways in which the action of the State may impinge on agriculture—
the ‘ impact ’ of the State on agriculture, to borrow the word employed
by Sir Josiah Stamp in his presidential address to the Association last
year. Intervention, according to this definition, falls broadly into three
categories :
1. Control, i.e. statutory compulsion, enforced by penalties.
2. The statutory provision of means by which agriculturists may take
voluntary action to do certain things and, in the event of such action, to
compel a minority to conform to the wishes of a majority.
3. The giving of direct or indirect assistance, financial, advisory,
protective, etc.
Let us first consider-control. A complete stranger visiting these islands
might receive an impression, perhaps from an agricultural newspaper,
or a farmer’s meeting, that the agriculturists were oppressed by the rules
and regulations of a government that joyed in tyranny, aided by a horde
of official tormentors who not only battened on the sufferers but were
often accused of being the real inventors of the legislative boots and
thumb-screws. The depth and permanence of that impression would
depend in the first place on where the stranger came from. If he
came from certain European states, the impression might be fleeting ;
comparing conditions here with those to which he had been accustomed,
he might soon say, ‘ Here is peace: here indeed is freedom.’ And if he
looked a little under the surface and studied the relation of state and
_ people in this democratic country, he would discover that a government,
no matter how inspired by good intentions and a large majority, could
rarely if ever pass a law that was unacceptable to the general community,
agricultural or other, or, if it succeeded in doing so, would find it very
hard to administer it effectively. To legislate in advance of public opinion
is no easy matter. Those who have to do with the formulation of legisla-
tive proposals, subsequently to be embodied in parliamentary bills, know
that an Act of Parliament does not emerge suddenly, fully armed from the
254 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
head of Jove. Usually it is only after prolonged discussion and consulta-
tion with organisations and individuals that a bill takes shape and gets
into sufficient training, so to speak, to run the gauntlet of parliamentary
criticism. It is true that a government, having to weigh as best it can the
conflicting claims and interests of different industries and sections of the
population, may not always meet the wishes of agriculture; but on
examination it will generally be found that while it may withhold desired
benefits, it seldom if ever attempts to impose an agricultural law to which
there is wide and strong objection throughout the industry. The con-
tribution of the civil servant, the so-called bureaucrat, to the legislative
process may be one of labour and anxiety, but to call him the real villain
of the piece is to flatter him and to ignore the fundamental and very real
principle of ministerial responsibility. The British civil servant is truly
a servant, informing and advising so far as he reasonably may, but always
obeying loyally the government of the day, no matter what its colour or
its political philosophy may be. And, if I may say so, British Ministers,
of whatever party, do not fail to accord to the Civil Service a corresponding
loyalty and that protection from any party criticism without which the
Service’s impartiality and devotion to duty could not be maintained.
The system is the product of a long evolutionary process ; it may have
defects, but it is at any rate the fruit of the political genius of the British
nation. This, however, is something of a digression.
If our foreign visitor were historically minded, he might be interested
to look into the past to see how present measures of control compare with
some of those to which agriculture was subjected in former days. I have
no time in this paper, nor have I the qualifications, to accompany him in
any comprehensive study of the subject. One can but glance at a few
of the more noticeable instances, in some cases forming precedents or
foundations for later legislation. In his English Farming Past and Present
Lord Ernle says that, ‘ In the early stages of history, the law itself was
powerless to protect individual independence or to safeguard individual
rights. Agriculture like other industries was therefore organised on prin-
ciples of graduated dependence and collective responsibility. Medizval
manors in fact resembled trade guilds. . . .’ ,
These continued until the local and gradual break up of the manorial
organisation of agricultural labour was accelerated by the Black Death
(1348-49). Labour became so scarce that panic wages were asked and
paid until in 1349 by Royal Proclamation all men and women ‘ bond or
free,’ unless tilling their own land or engaged in merchandise or in some
other craft, were compelled to work on the land where they lived at the
rate of wages current in 1346. Here, nearly 600 years ago, was wages
regulation of a pretty drastic kind, but it was a maximum that was fixed,
not a minimum. Later on, in 1563, we find another notable effort to
control the labour market in the Statute of Apprentices, which enacted,
inter alia, that all persons between 12 and 60, not exempted by the statute,
could be compelled to labour in husbandry and that masters unduly
dismissing servants were fined and that servants unduly leaving masters
were imprisoned. It also stated hours of labour and provided for the
fixing of wages by Justices of the Peace.
M.—AGRICULTURE 255
The story of land enclosure is well known and need only be mentioned
as an illustration of State intervention, operating first in one direction and
afterwards in another. In the sixteenth century, land enclosure, involving
“the break-up of medizval agrarian partnerships and a substitution of
private enterprise for the collective efforts of village associations,’ was
opposed and partly arrested by legislation ; in the eighteenth century it
received from Parliament encouragement and support. Many individuals
suffered, but the ultimate benefits to agricultural production and to the
state as a whole cannot be denied. It is interesting to note that in 1589,
to relieve the labourers who lost their livelihood through the enclosure
of land for pastoral purposes, it was enacted that not more than one family
was to occupy each cottage, and to each cottage 4 acres of land were to be
attached. ‘The recent movement to provide allotments or small pieces
of land for unemployed industrial workers seems almost like a faint echo
of that distant law.
As an example of compulsion indirectly benefiting agriculture, one may
cite the law passed early in the seventeenth century making it a penal
offence for any person over the age of six not to wear on Sundays and
holydays a cap made of English cloth. Later, in 1666, the law did not
stop short even at the gates of the churchyard, for it required that the dead
should be buried in shrouds of home-grown wool. In passing, it may be
noted that about the same time the Government, ‘for the sake of multiply-
ing seamen,’ had ordained fast-days on which only fish was to be eaten.
With precedents of that sort before us, we are almost tempted to long for
an Act making the consumption of oatmeal, milk and herrings obligatory,
and the possession of a tin-opener a criminal offence; it would solve
several current problems of Scottish agriculture and fisheries.
Legislation of another kind prevailed throughout the eighteenth century,
when home production was encouraged by the placing of a duty
on the importation of foreign corn and the payment of a bounty on
exported corn, combined, however, with frequent prohibitions of exports.
Similar laws were enacted to encourage the raising of cattle, and importa-
tions from Ireland were prohibited. But legislation, says Lord Ernle,
did not raise prices ; it only succeeded in maintaining them. Increased
production at home counteracted the effect which limitation of imports
was designed to produce. It is unnecessary here to retell the story of the
corn laws and of their repeal, or to touch on more recent fiscal controversies.
The earlier instances of State intervention that I have cited were all
English, but the Scottish parliament also provides us with some interest-
ing examples. With regard to labour, the extinction of serfdom having
been considered productive of indolence, a statute of 1424 required
cottage holders to perform a certain amount of labour on the land, a pro-
vision for which we have had an English parallel. At almost the same
date, 1426, we find parliament taking partial control of cropping. To
secure a greater variety of crop than the oats and bere which were chiefly
cultivated, it was enacted that every man tilling with a plough of eight
oxen should sow every year at least a firlot of wheat, half a firlot of peas
and forty beans, ‘ under the payn of ten shillings.’ At a much later date,
1703, a curious Act relating to cultivation was passed, forbidding any
256 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
butcher to have more than one acre of land for grazing unless it be tilled
annually, under penalty of £100 Scots for each offence, loss of the cattle
found grazing and loss of the freedom of the burgh. Public health and
amenity were not overlooked, for to improve the aspect of the country,
check malaria and provide shelter, all freeholders were required (1457)
to plant on their land trees, hedges, and broom. Nearly two hundred and
fifty years later (1695) an Act for the preservation of meadow lands and
pasturages near sandhills forbids the pulling up of bent, juniper and
broom.
The necessity of keeping down weeds was recognised in the statute
which required the cleansing of land from ‘ guld,’ i.e. marigold. ‘The Act,
with a touch of humour now sadly lacking in modern statutes, sets forth
that anyone who planted ‘ guld’ deserved punishment as amply as if he
had led an army against the king and barons.
Pig-feeding was discouraged. No burgess could permit swine to remain
in the fields without a keeper and they had to be kept out of plantations
and hunting ground, while it was decreed by Parliament that the owner
of a hog which made a hole in a meadow or open place should be compelled
to fill the hole with grains of wheat.
Security of tenure is a subject of which we still hear. In the middle
of the fifteenth century (1449) there was passed what might almost be
called the first of the Agricultural Holdings Acts. It provided that ‘ for
the safetie and favour of the puir papil that labouris the grunde, that thay
and all utheris sall remaine with their tackes unto the ischew of their
termes, quhais hands that ever thay landis cum to.’ In other words,
a change of ownership of the lands did not involve the dispossession of the
sitting tenants. Our present law restricting the period for * making
muirburn,’ i.e. heather burning, goes back, with some difference of the
dates, to at least 1400.
Storage of grain, a measure now advocated by some for purposes of
defence, was not considered desirable in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, for in 1449 it was enacted that ‘ to prevent dearth,’ no old stacks
of corn were to be kept in the yard after Christmas ; in 1452 the date was
extended to the end of May ; and in 1563 to the roth of July.
These few examples of how in the past the State has laid its hand,
sometimes heavily, sometimes helpfully, on agriculture are obviously
very far from exhaustive and are not intended in any way to constitute
a historic survey. They have been selected almost at random, to show
that intervention—call it interference if you will—however much we may
think we suffer from it to-day, is no new thing. You will observe that the
intervention was almost all of the compulsory kind, the single exception
among the instances quoted being the Scottish Act conferring a degree of
security of tenure. My second category is not represented and there is
no bestowal of direct benefits such as subsidies, etc.
Having glanced at some precedents, let us consider the present state
of affairs. We are all, of course, subject to State control of various
kinds ; we must educate our children, pay income-tax, drive our cars
carefully, refrain from buying or selling certain goods after certain hours,
and so on. Some people think we have far too much of such control,
M.—AGRICULTURE 257
others find their yearnings still unsatisfied, and are eager to kiss, or to see
others kissing, almost any new rod. ‘There are, indeed, probably few of
us who could not mention some objectionable thing that other people
ought not to be allowed todo. But here we are considering not the common
burdens that have been laid upon all citizens, but only those special ones
that have been imposed upon the agriculturist as such. I am not going to
trouble you with a catalogue of Acts of Parliament, nor need I refer to
the various compulsive or restrictive measures of war-time. It will be
sufficient to mention some of the existing laws in my first category that
come most readily to mind.
The farmer is bound to furnish to the Government annual statistical
returns of his crops and live stock, For many years the returns were
made voluntarily, but since 1925 they have been compulsory. The filling
up of forms is one of life’s minor worries, but no one could say that the
compilation of accurate agricultural statistics is not essential for the proper
understanding of many of the major agricultural questions with which
the Government and the farmers themselves have to deal.
The Contagious Diseases of Animals Acts, administered for the whole
of Great Britain by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, may at
times interfere seriously with the activities of the farmer as a stock-
owner, but without them he would undoubtedly be exposed to vastly
greater and possibly catastrophic losses. Similarly, the Destructive
Insects and Pests Acts may occasionally hamper him as a crop grower,
but on the other hand they afford him protection with which he would
not willingly dispense. ‘These two laws are in fact more protective than
restrictive, and I have never heard any one suggest that they should be
repealed.
As a breeder of horses and cattle, the farmer must conform to the
requirements of the Horse Breeding Act and the Licensing of Bulls Act,
which are designed to prevent the use of inferior sires. Here again
agricultural opinion is, in general, entirely on the side of the law ; repre-
sentations have, in fact, been received from responsible quarters that the
principle should be extended to pig-breeding.
A statutory system of prescribing and enforcing the payment of mini-
mum wages to agricultural workers has been operative in England since
1924, and Parliament has recently passed an Act introducing a similar
system into Scotland, where at the time of the passing of the English Act,
and for several years after, the workers themselves, as well as the farmers,
were opposed to having such legislation. Here perhaps we come to a
subject not quite free from controversy. But if it be accepted that with-
out such legislation there is a danger that the pay of the worker might fall
below the amount necessary to maintain him and his family in a reasonable
degree of comfort, there are few who would deny its justice. Criticism of
the law has been based not, I think, on this ground, but rather on the ground
that certain other steps should be taken to enable the farmer, in his
economic difficulties of recent years, to pay a satisfactory wage. The
criticism, so to speak, has been consequential rather than direct ; there
‘has been little opposition to the fundamental principle embodied in the
Acts,
K
258 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
The Corn Production Act is remembered with mingled feelings. One
solitary vestige of it remains in operation, the section requiring the
destruction of certain specified weeds. As these are weeds which, if
unchecked, may spread far and wide, there need be little sympathy with
the delinquent who permits them to grow, to the detriment of his fellow-
farmers.
Under the Milk and Dairies Acts, the dairy farmer, in the interests of
public health, has to conform to certain standards of cleanliness, accom-
modation, equipment, etc.
Certain restrictions, not very onerous, are laid on farmers by such Acts
as the Animal Anzsthetics Act, the Dangerous Drugs Act, the law relat-
ing to Heather Burning in Scotland, the Slaughter of Animals Act, and
some others which may occur to you.
Whether the State presses more or less heavily’ on agriculture than on
other businesses, e.g. shipping, mining, manufacture, shops, railways,
etc., I am not in a position to estimate ; but later in this paper I shall
venture on the opinion that the farmer is perhaps fortunate in that the
hand of the law does not hold him in a tighter grasp than it does at present.
I come now to my second category of State intervention : that in which
the State does not at first hand compel or prohibit, but gives farmers the
opportunity to organise themselves for certain purposes and, should the
necessary majority of producers decide to avail themselves of the oppor-
tunity, empowers them to secure conformity by the minority and to im-
pose penalties on recalcitrant or erring individuals. ‘The Agricultural
Marketing Acts are the only laws that come strictly within this definition,
although the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act is similar
in that the adoption of the National Mark under it is permissive, but when
it is adopted it conveys a statutory guarantee of quality, with penalties for
mis-use. As you know, the Marketing Acts are a recent institution in this
country. Hitherto, agricultural co-operation for the marketing of agricul-
tural products had been on an entirely voluntary basis, with the advantages
and disadvantages inherent in such a system: on the one hand, complete
freedom of the individual, and on the other the danger that the desires of a
majority might in practice be frustrated by a minority who, for various
reasons—personal gain, short-sightedness, secretiveness, love of individual
independence—were unwilling to observe the rules and limitations neces-
sary to secure successful collective action. But under the Marketing Acts,
co-operation can be fortified with some very effective artillery. Funda-
mentally, however, the principle is still voluntary and the system demo-
cratic. Unless the required majority of the producers of a certain
commodity vote in favour of the marketing scheme submitted to them at
a poll, the Government has no power to impose a scheme upon them. In
Scotland, for example, two raspberry marketing schemes have been
rejected at the poll, and there the matter ended. And should a scheme be
adopted and approved by Parliament, it is administered by a Board elected
by the registered producers themselves.
The need for improved marketing methods in this country is widely,
if not universally, admitted; the economic dangers and disadvantages -
to the farmers of the indiscriminate sale of their goods in haphazard
M.—AGRICULTURE 259
quantities and of irregular quality by hosts of unrelated producers have
been only too apparent in the past ; and the weakness of purely voluntary
co-operation as a remedy has been illustrated more than once. (The
comparative failure of the Scottish Milk Agency scheme may be cited as
an instance.) In view of all this, the difficulties and controversies to
which the Marketing Acts and their derived schemes have given rise may
be a matter for some surprise, but only, I think, to those not familiar with
all the facts. One fact is the strong individualism of the British farmer,
begotten of tradition, experience, and his whole way of life. Sometimes,
in the modern world, individualism may be a handicap ; but the modern
world too can show us many instances in which its absence is even more
to be deplored. In this country most of us still believe that, in the words
of John Barbour, ‘ Freedom is ane noble thing.’ We must, however,
retain our sense of perspective, and it is possible to exaggerate the degree
of subservience to which farmers are subjected by a scheme which a
majority of them was free to accept or reject and which, when accepted,
is administered by their own representatives. Another and an important
fact is that the marketing schemes are of a novel and necessarily compli-
cated kind. Experience has to be gained, experiments have to be made,
the engine has to be run in, mistakes in driving, sometimes serious mis-
takes, are inevitable for a time. Patience and tolerance are required.
It is better surely to adjust the bearings and tighten loose nuts than to
throw the spanner into the works and wreck the whole machine. For
even the critic must admit that the Acts and the schemes are at least
earnest attempts to remedy serious defects in one important side of
British farming.
The subject is being treated in a separate paper this morning and I do
not propose to discuss it in any further detail. But I will conclude my
reference to it by quoting the opinion of one authority who has written :
“The Marketing Acts are the equipment for a great experiment in the
possibility of farmers organising their industry themselves, with due
regard to the interests of the consumers. If the experiment succeeds, it
may postpone indefinitely such drastic changes in the structure of agri-
culture as those which are taking place in Soviet Russia. If it fails, not
less but more control will be inevitable.’ How many of you will agree
with that view I do not know.
Having considered briefly the methods by which the State helps the
farmer by laying restrictions on him for his good, and by handing him the
keys with which to open, if he will, the palace called Organised Marketing,
where the enchanted princess, disguised as the British housewife, awaits
him, let us now, in the third place, glance for a moment at the other
ways, some of them quite direct, in which he is aided and supported.
Fortunately, it has been unnecessary for me to seek out all the facts from
the numerous and sometimes rather elusive official publications and records
in which they are contained, for that difficult task was most ably performed
two years ago by Dr. Venn, to whose address I refer you. At the levels
then current, the gross total of financial assistance afforded to agriculture,
including forestry, and allowing for local taxation reliefs, amounted to
upwards of thirty-three and a half million pounds, from which he deducted
260 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
ten and a quarter millions representing the debit caused by the action of
the Wages Committees, thus bringing out a net gain of about twenty-three
and a half millions. Some adjustment of these figures is required at the
present date. Owing to the rise in the price of wheat, the wheat subsidy,
which as you know is not a direct Treasury grant but is obtained from the
consumers of flour, is at present negligible. On the other hand, the cattle
subsidy now stands at five millions instead of three and a third and sums
amounting to a maximum annual total of £3,490,000 have lately been
promised in respect of oats and barley, lime and basic slag, land drainage
and the reduction of live stock diseases. In his balance sheet, Dr. Venn,
no doubt wisely, made no allowance for the option afforded to the farmer
of being assessed for income tax on his rent instead of on his actual profits,
should these prove to be the greater. What that special concession is
worth, it is impossible to estimate, but with any improvement in the
financial position of the industry its value progressively increases.
The items in the balance sheet, apart from the recent additions which I
have mentioned, are, as you may remember, wheat, beet, meat, milk, land
settlement and allotments, afforestation, local taxation reliefs, and ad-
ministrative and development services. This last is a comprehensive
item embracing many and varied matters such as live-stock improvement,
land drainage, etc., and including the subjects which are of special interest
to many members of this section, Education and Research. For the
financial year 1912-13, the State grants for these subjects amounted to
£65,750 in England and Wales, and £34,889 in Scotland, a total for Great
Britain of £100,639, whereas in 1936 the corresponding figures were
£628,570 in England and Wales, and £136,769 in Scotland, a total of
£765,339-
These are large and striking increases, but it must be remembered that
for many years our standard of expenditure on these services was much
lower than that in several other countries, so that if we were to attain,
as we have done, fairly adequate recognition of their importance within a
reasonable time, a steep financial ascent was inevitable. In view of the
interest in the subject, it is tempting to ascertain whether this growing
outlay has been reflected in an increased yield of agricultural products.
The question, however, is not an easy one to answer, since many factors
are at work, and it is difficult to ascribe an increase to any particular one.
The output of live-stock products, for example, must depend very largely
on the prices of imported feeding stuffs. Possibly the least fallacious
measure to apply is the average yield per acre of our principal crops,
though here again the problem is not simple. For instance, if the total
acreage of a crop falls, the average yield per acre tends to rise, since it is
from the least suitable land that the crop will be withdrawn ; conversely,
an extended acreage will probably mean a somewhat smaller average pro-
duction. It is subject to this and other qualifications that the following
tables should be taken as providing any indication of the effects of our
education and research. ‘The figures are for 35 years from 1900 onward
and are given as quinquennial averages, so as to smooth out to some
extent annual fluctuations due to weather conditions, etc.
In Great Britain as a whole, wheat, the acreage of which has fallen since
M.—AGRICULTURE 261
the war years, shows no significant increase, oats are up by 4 or 5 bushels
and potatoes by something like half a ton, but rotation hay has made no
advance in spite of a reduced acreage. ‘The results are not spectacular,
but the economic difficulties of many farmers, in the later periods, must be
kept in mind. Any variations are, however, in the right direction, and
striking changes in averages for the whole country could hardly be ex-
pected. A general rise in national production is bound to be a slow
movement. But there are doubtless considerable numbers of the more
progressive farmers who, by availing themselves of the aid offered by the
Period. Wheat. Oats. Potatoes. Rot. Hay.
1900-04.
Acres 1,645,774 3,094,642 569,399 2,331,575
Yield 29°83 Bushels | 39:24 Bushels | 5-65 Tons 29°50 Cut.
1905-09
Acres 1,725,616 3,061,529 572,176 2,179,882
Yield 33:28 Bushels | 40:56 Bushels | 6-20 Tons 30:23 Cut.
IQlo-14
Acres 1,852,994 2,964,502 585,842 2,041,321
Yield | 32:28 Bushels | 38-50 Bushels | 6-29 Tons 28-76 Cut.
1915-19
Acres 2522'7,592 3,428,908 650,973 1,989,169
Yield | 30°56 Bushels | 39:18 Bushels | 6-19 Tons 29:10 Cwt.
1920-24.
Acres 1,879,088 3,107,942 666,289 2,124,750
Yield | 312-94 Bushels | 38-30 Bushels | 6-18 Tons 28-92 Cut.
1925-29
Acres 1,546,255 2:72 Re7 LE 646,886 2,000,654.
Yield | 32:36 Bushels | 43-38 Bushels | 6-48 Tons 28:38 Cut.
1930-34
Acres 1,516,509 2,428,413 614,942 1,884,938
Yield | 32:20 Bushels | 43-56 Bushels | 6-56 Tons 28-58 Cut.
scientist, have obtained increases much in excess of any shown in the table.
_ It has to be remembered, too, that even where yields have not increased,
costs of production may have been substantially reduced.
There are some other branches of State intervention which, notwith-
standing their importance, it must suffice just to mention: protection
of the farmer by means of import tariffs and quotas, designed to raise or
maintain the prices of his products; the Agricultural Holdings Acts,
controlling the relationship of landlords and tenants; land settlement
legislation, which enables new holdings to be established on land which,
under certain conditions, may be compulsorily acquired for the purpose.
In the course of an hour’s address it is not possible to do more than take
262 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
a hasty glance at this large subject, with its many interesting ramifications,
any one of which might well have a whole volume to itself. But inade-
quate as the survey has been, there are one or two deductions that may
perhaps be drawn from it.
Comparison of an agricultural country like Denmark with an industrial
country such as ours must not be carried too far. Marketing and other
organisation, opportunities of alternative employment, standards of living,
necessarily differ in the two countries. But allowing for all this, the
statistical tables quoted in the earlier part of the paper suggest that British
agriculture at present falls short of producing as much home-grown food
as is possible and desirable for the nutrition of the people and also of
affording employment on the land to as many persons as is reasonably
practicable. The need of higher nutritive standards for a number of our
population and the importance, in attaining these standards, of larger
supplies of certain foods, in the production and marketing of which our
farmers have some natural advantages, are now generally recognised.
This recognition is tending to encourage the development of certain
branches of our agriculture and it is to be hoped that the process will be
a progressive one. Some authorities seem to consider that the sole
impetus required to accelerate the process is to increase the purchasing
power of the lower-paid groups of the population. ‘That is certainly a
factor of much importance, but there may be need too for education in the
principles of nutrition, not only among these groups, but among some
others as well. This aspect of the matter will no doubt be kept in mind
should it be thought advisable to devise schemes for securing the desired
object.
When speaking of the greater employment of the people on the land,
one is apt to be reminded at once, and quite properly, that, thanks to the
activities of the scientist and the engineer, the output per unit of agricul-
tural labour is steadily rising. This is a tendency that can be neither
ignored nor retarded. Increased production, therefore, may not neces-
sarily cause increased employment. But, on the other hand, it is probably
true that it will be long ere, in this country, the large-scale mechanised
farm, the ideal of the economist, is the general and normal agricultural
unit. And, given reasonable prospects of even moderate commercial
success, there are many for whom rural life holds a fascination and inde-
pendence denied to the townsman and the factory worker. For agricul-
ture, as has been said, notably by Professor W. G. S. Adams, in his paper
read to this section at Aberdeen, is not only a living, but a way of life.
To live in that way, they are willing to risk the financial vicissitudes of the
farmer or even to undertake the arduous labours of the small-holder.
Cynics may call it sentiment ; it is none the less a fact. But the question
is by no means entirely one of settling people in new holdings ; at present
it is indeed rather one of making up leeway both in land and in the people
employed on it. Since before the war, two million acres have gone out
of arable cultivation. The reclamation of waste lands in England, the
repopulating of our Scottish glens are perhaps less immediately possible,
but is it too much to hope that at least a good part of these two million
acres might be recovered ? Were it solely a matter of farming economics,
the shrinkage of our cropping area and extension of our grass-lands
M.—AGRICULTURE 263
might perhaps be regarded with equanimity, especially if the grass were
of reasonably good quality. But wider issues are involved ; the effects
on employment and food production cannot be left out of account.
In the second place, when one compares the amount of control to which
agriculture is subjected by the State and the amount of benefits, direct
and indirect, which it receives, one cannot fail to notice some disparity
between the two. The State is paying the piper fairly substantial sums,
but while it exercises a little restraint over some of his actions, its only
method of calling the tune is to offer special rewards for certain specified
melodies. Some people may say that the payments should be larger, or
different in form or in distribution ; others perhaps may think that with
so much foreign music available, it does not greatly matter what our piper
plays. But at any rate the fact is that the selection of the tunes is ulti-
mately determined only by individual choice. And one can hardly help
asking, somewhat anxiously, whether, if the system of payments, in their
various forms, is to be continued or extended, the freedom and inde-
pendence of the piper can be maintained. To drop the metaphor, if it
be the policy of the State to preserve and support the farmer, at consider-
able cost, is he to cultivate and crop his land, to produce meat or milk or
other products, as he thinks best, without any dictation as to methods,
quantity or quality ? I would emphasise that the question is not whether
the farmer should be supported and protected, but only whether there is a
possibility that, sooner or later, certain consequences may follow from that
policy. It is true, as I have said earlier, that it is difficult for a Govern-
ment to pass and to administer an unwelcome law; but if Government
aid were made conditional on Government control, the farmer, however
distasteful he found it, might be induced to swallow the pill for the sake
of the gilding.
It may be argued that the State, in return for its expenditure, whether
in the form of direct payments or of artificially raised prices, is entitled
to demand not only certain goods, but a certain standard of performance,
a view that found expression in Part IV of the Corn Production Act,
which gave ‘ Power to enforce proper cultivation.’ In response to that
argument, it may be claimed that if the farmer is to be bound to produce
commodities of a kind, quality and amount determined according to the
kind and area of his land, he should be insured against any loss incurred
in the process. And that leads to the further question: if he is to be
insured against loss, is he to be left free to make unlimited profits, should
his efforts prove successful ? It is easy to follow out this line of thought
and to see complete control, including rents as well as wages, following
in due course, and, indeed, the ultimate incorporation of every agriculturist
in the Civil Service! Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes! Possibly this is
all merely academic speculation, but given the premise of State support,
the subsequent reasoning does not seem to be entirely fallacious. Whether
the conclusion, if it were ever reached, would be a desirable one, is a
matter for individual opinion.
Thirdly, it may be noted that, while some of the State benefits, e.g.
rating relief, the fruits of education and research, etc., are bestowed upon
all, certain others, e.g. the wheat and beet subsidies, are, owing to natural
conditions, not universally available. This is a thorny subject—although
264 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES
not quite so prickly as it was a few months ago—about which some of us
have heard a good deal in the last year or two. The State is, of course,
entitled to pay for those commodities the production of which it wishes
to maintain or increase, or to come to the rescue of those whom it deems
most needful or deserving of succour. If, for instance, a ‘ nutrition’
policy required an increase of, say, meat, or milk, or fresh vegetables, or if
the agriculture of one part of the country were, for some reason, in special
jeopardy, the disbursement of funds for such purposes would appear to
be perfectly legitimate. But if it were a permanent policy for the State to
support British agriculture in general, it might perhaps be desirable to
survey the whole industry, its place in the social and economic structure
of the country, its present and potential capacity to meet the food require-
ments of the people, and its relation to international trade. These
subjects are no doubt being studied now, but it can hardly be claimed that
the study is complete. Perhaps it never can be completed, for many of
the factors are far from static. But if a comprehensive, reliable and
possibly continuous survey could be made, it might form the basis on
which State aid might be allocated equitably, from time to time, to those
branches of the industry which it was desired, in the public interest, to
encourage and in proportions according to their needs. But on this
assumption, the shadow of State control still lurks darkly in the
background.
This leads one, lastly, to consider whether in State aid, with its attendant
shadow, lies the only hope for British agriculture. The question is one
of paramount importance and of formidable difficulty, on which any one
should hesitate to dogmatise. But for some at any rate there would be
comfort in the belief, if they could hold it, that our farmers, given a fair
share of our home markets, could once more struggle through their dif_i-
culties and maintain their position by their own initiative, energy and
resource. For many of them, times have been hard, but many too are
riding out the storm with courage and success. Observation, supported
by careful economic investigation, shows that the personal factor is still
one of enormous importance. Within one parish, even on neighbouring
farms, great disparity in farming practice and results may be found. ‘The
man of enterprise and adaptability, the man who is eager to acquire new
information, to test new methods in the light of his practical experience,
and to apply his mind to the business management of his undertaking,
he is the man who is least clamant for State subvention to help him in
balancing his accounts. Education and research, both scientific and
economic, have yet many gifts in store, gifts the acceptance of which
carries no penalties. If they be accepted willingly and applied diligently,
is it not possible that the general standard of our farming might be raised
to a level at which it would be beyond the reach of any, save the very
heaviest, waves of depression? If not, there seems to be at least a risk
that our farming, no longer the free industry that we know and respect,
may become a mere hanger-on of the State, dependent on its bounty and
subject to its commands. ~ Economic independence is worth a struggle,
for with it may go a higher kind of freedom that is worth the hardest fight
of which man is capable.
- REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE,
Etc.
SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
Forty-second Report of the Committee of Seismological Investigations (Dr.
F, J. W. Wuipp.e, Chairman; Mr. J. J. SHaw, C.B.E., Secretary ;
Miss E. F. Bettamy, Prof. P. G. H. Boswe it, O.B.E., F.R.S.,
Dr. E. C. Butvarp, Dr. A. T. J. DoLiar, Sir Frank Dyson, K.B.E.,
F.R.S., Dr. A. E. M. Geppes, O.B.E., Prof. G. R. GoLpsBrouGH,
F.R.S., Dr. Witrrep Hatt, Mr. J. S. Hucues, Dr. H. JErrreys,
F.R.S., Mr. Cosmo Jouns, Dr. A. W. LEE, Prof. E. A. MILNng, M.B.E.,
FiR.S.,; Prof. H. H. PiLAsxerT, F.R.S., Prof. H. C. PLummMer,
F.R.S., Prof. J. ProupMan, F.R.S., Prof. A. O. RANKINE, O.B.E.,
F.R.S., Rev. C. Rey, S.J., Rev. J. P. Rowianp, S.J., Prof. R. A.
SaMpson, F.R.S., Mr. F. J. Scrasz, Dr. H. SuHaw, Sir Frank
SmitH, K.C.B., C.B.E., Sec.R.S., Dr. R. STONELEY, F.R.S., Mr. E.
TILLoTSON, Sir G. T. WaLker, C.S.I., F.R.S.)
MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE.
THE Committee met once during the year, on November 27. Dr. E. C.
Bullard, Dr. A. E. M. Geddes and Prof. J. Proudman, F.R.S., were co-
opted as members. The annual grant of £100 from the Caird Fund and
the special grant of £50 from the same fund were allocated to the University
Observatory, Oxford, for work on the International Seismological Summary.
Prof. Plaskett was able to inform the Committee that increased support for
the Summary was being received from the International Union for Geodesy
and Geophysics through the Seismological Association, so that the financial
position could be regarded as satisfactory.
The Committee considered the possibility of the inauguration of experi-
ments to determine by seismological methods the structure of the Con-
tinental shelf near the British Isles. Such experiments have been made
with success off the east coast of North America.
THE GrAyY-MILNE FUND.
There has been no considerable call on the Gray-Milne Fund during the
year. The income of the fund has improved on account of the partial
resumption of the payment of dividends by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Purchases for the Milne Library include Vol. I. of the Introduction to
Theoretical Seismology by Macelwane and Sohon and Earthquakes by Heck.
Gray-Milne Fund.
Sapxeds frases
Balance, July 1,1936 . 139 18 5 Operation of Seismo-
graphs : : OnSon
Trust Income ; - 5614 10 Milne Library . 2h pes poate,
Bank Interest ‘ ; 17.0 Insurance : ; 15 0
Balance June 30, 1937. 187 2
£197 10 3 £197 10 3
L
266 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
SEISMOGRAPHS.
The six Milne-Shaw seismographs belonging to the British Association
have remained on loan to the seismological stations at Oxford (2), Edinburgh,
Perth (W. Australia), and Cape Town (2).
Mr. Shaw reports that the seismograph exhibited in Edinburgh at the
meeting of the International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics has been
despatched to Brisbane. Another is nearing completion for Durham and a
further machine is on order for the Azores.
BRITISH EARTHQUAKES.
A slight earthquake which occurred at 1.43 G.M.T. on July 9, 1937,
was felt over an area about 30 miles in diameter, centred near Walsall.
Records were obtained at West Bromwich, where the disturbance lasted
for about 1} minutes, and also at Stonyhurst, Oxford and Kew. Mr. F. J.
Dixon, Engineer-in-Chief to the South Staffordshire Waterworks Company,
sent for inspection a pressure diagram on which the movement was well
marked. It was a daily chart recording at Walsall the pressure in a
24-in. cast-iron main. At the time of the shock the recording pointer rose
from 129 lb. per sq. in. to 136 lb. and fell to 122 lb. Whether this was
the result of an actual change of pressure in the pipe, or due to a mechanical
vibration of the instrument is uncertain. :
On other dates the following small disturbances were reported in the
newspapers :
December 29, 1936. East Kent.
April 7, 1937. North Staffordshire.
June 26, 1937. Near Inverness.
It may be noted here as an item of information with regard to British
earthquakes that in a paper published in Gerlands Beitrage zur Geophysik, 48
(1936), 239, Prof. V. Conrad, using material prepared by the late Dr. F. B.
Nopcesa, finds that there is no tendency in the British Isles for earthquakes
to be associated either with rising or with falling barometric pressure.
This is in contrast with the conditions in certain continental countries,
notably Italy and Norway, where the regions in which one tendency or the
other prevails are well defined.
SEISMOLOGY IN THE WEST INDIES.
The report by Dr. C. F. Powell? on the seismological part of the work
of the Royal Society Expedition to Montserrat has been published as well as
Mr. Macgregor’s 2 account of the geology of the island.
Dr. Powell was able to locate the epicentres of 43 earthquakes which were
registered by the Jaggar shock-recorders made at Kew Observatory for the
expedition. It is reported that the seismic activity on the island has con-
tinued to diminish, so that the opportunity for investigating the nature of
the earth movements has passed. It is hoped that arrangements will be
made for the installation of shock-recorders in several of the islands in the
Lesser Antilles, so that a watch may be kept on any development of new
activity in that region.
In a recently published account of the meteorology of Jamaica attention
1 Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 158, 479-494 (1937).
2 Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 121, 232-252 (1936).
SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 267
has been called by Mr. J. F. Brennan, the Government Meteorologist, to
the remarkable character of the minor earthquakes in that island. The
following table, showing month by month, (a) the average number of earth-
quakes, and (b) the average rainfall, has been derived from his statistics.
The earthquake observations cover the period 1908 to 1934, the rainfall
records a period of 60 years.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apl. May June
No. of Earthquakes. : cal OMG ae 2cOnh STiOLn. OO) vata
Rainfall. In. . p HPN MY. Wikols th We OF he Pe Pe Te OG Fs Pome FI [MEN SN Fe)
July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.
No. of Earthquakes Ste hele Onie cSt iT D, ih 25 te Oates
Rainfall. In. : sve 75 O203m 7:94. 10-25, 8°29, 5): 20,73)°87
It will be seen that the earthquakes are most frequent in the dry months
of the year. Brennan’s explanation is that the shocks are due to rockfalls in
the underground watercourses, the geological formation of three-quarters
of the island being limestone. These minor earthquakes have been growing
less numerous in recent years as the great earthquake of 1907 has become
more distant. In view of an apparent association with that catastrophe
it is clear that closer study of the minor earthquakes is desirable.
Work AT THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVATORY, OXFORD.
Since the last report, the sections of the International Seismological Sum-
mary for the quarters ending 1931 September and December, also 1932
March, have been completed and distributed. April and May are printed,
and the MS. for June, July, August and September are ready for press.
The Summary for the whole year 1931 was sent as a bound volume to
recipients preferring that form to separate quarterly sections.
A set of ‘ Tables for the near Earthquake Pulses,’ completed by Dr.
Jeffreys, to supplement the Jeffreys-Bullen Tables which are the basis of
the Summary and are to be found in the 1930 volume, has been printed and
distributed as a pamphlet.
A new list of ‘ Constants of Seismological Observatories ’ has been pre-
pared and will be issued shortly. This includes 116 new stations to be
added to the list published by K. E. Bullen in 1933. A geographical index
has been added at the end.
'_ An Index Catalogue of Epicentres for 1913-1930, prepared by Miss E. F.
Bellamy, was issued in the autumn of 1936. This catalogue incorporates
and extends to 1930 the list published by Prof. H. H. Turner in 1920. All
the epicentres given in subsequent volumes of the International Seismolo-
gical Summary are included. The catalogue is divided into four parts,
the first part containing epicentres north of the equator and east of Greenwich,
and the other parts including the N.W., S.E. and S.W. quadrants of the
globe. In each part the epicentres are listed with all those in the same
latitude together. The total number of shocks for which epicentres were
determined in the 18 years was 6,738. Of these 4,007 were in the N.E.
quadrant, 1,106 in the N.W., 957 in the S.E. and 668 in the S.W. There
were 38 in the far north in latitudes as high as 70° N. but only 3 between
70° S.and the South Pole. The positions of the epicentres are shown on a
chart on the Mollweide Equal Area Projection and the positions of seismo-
logical stations are shown on a similar chart. The Index Catalogue should
268 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
be used in conjunction with the Catalogues of Earthquakes arranged in order
of date ; the last of these, covering the years 1925-1930, was also prepared
by Miss Bellamy and was published in the B.A. Report in 1935. ‘The
Committee wishes to congratulate Miss Bellamy on the completion of a
catalogue which will be gratefully appreciated by all seismologists.
Tue New GLose.
The new globe for use in determining epicentres at Oxford has been in
service since October, 1936, and is a great success. This instrument was
made by Casella, London, and is of brass with an electroplated surface
which will take either an ink or pencil line extremely well, and yet can be
cleaned easily. The globe is set on a wooden stand which supports a bed
of baize, so that by rotation any point of it may be made the highest. A
detachable arm can be screwed to the side of the stand, and bears a pointer
and moveable celluloid scale which rotates at will and measures distances
and azimuths of any points on the surface relative to an origin which is the
highest point of the globe and immediately beneath the pointer. The
azimuth scale is fixed to the wooden stand and is graduated from 0° to 360°
in both clockwise and counter-clockwise directions, so that in dealing with
earthquakes either the epicentre or anti-centre may be used as origin.
There are also compasses graduated from o° to 120° for drawing arcs of
circles on the globe; these bear a point at one end for insertion into a small
hole whose position corresponds with that of an observing station and a
‘ stylo ’ type of pen at the other ; this latter caused considerable trouble at
first as the tube of the pen was continually being blocked with dried ink,
but this difficulty has now been overcome. ‘There is also an alternative
fitting bearing a lead pencil.
The exact size of the globe is such that 10° of arc equals 4 cms., so that
roughly the diameter is 18 in. The weight is about a half hundredweight
and constitutes a handicap when it is necessary to turn the globe round
by hand, although with practice it soon becomes comparatively easy to set
to any part of the surface with ample accuracy. ‘The surface has been ruled
in 10° intervals of both latitude and longitude as far as 80° north and south
of the equator and the accuracy of the ruling is great, so that were it not
for a systematic error in the flexible scale distances could be read off exactly.
As it is, the scale is in error by 1 per cent. or thereabouts and this must be
allowed for, a point which hardly detracts from the utility of the instrument.
Small holes in the surface have been drilled in positions corresponding
to the principal observing stations and an abbreviated name engraved
against each ; this was done before the electroplating, so that the surfacing
was not marred by the engraving.
Tue INTERNATIONAL SEISMOLOGICAL SUMMARY, 1932—SOME NOTABLE
EARTHQUAKES.
By F. S. Hughes.
In the report for 1936 attention was drawn to a shock on 1931 August 10,
from an epicentre in Western Mongolia, whose observational data possessed
considerable abnormality, and I pointed out that their effect was to give a
divergence from the normal, similar in extent but opposite in sign to that of
a depth of focus 0:030. Subsequently a further independent investigation
by Dr. Stoneley made it extremely probable that the data referred to
two shocks having the same origin but separated by an interval in time of
SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 269
about 25 secs. Recently a further case of ‘ high focus’ has been noticed.
The earthquake of 1932 September, 264. 19h. 20m, 428,, with epicentre
39°:°8 N., 23°°8 E., in N.W. Aegean Sea, just outside the Gulf of Salonica,
is very well recorded over a range of distances from 5° (Italian stations) to
158° (New Zealand stations), and 120 P readings are in approximate agree-
ment. However, a consistent difference exists in residuals between the
European group of stations and the North American, both in the same
azimuth, and the only explanation that seems to fit the circumstances is
that the European stations are at the distance at which travel times are not
much affected by focal depth (or height) whereas at the distances of the
American stations about the observed amount of delay would be expected.
On the Turner scale of A corrections for abnormal focus a ‘ height’ of
©-:0075 has been applied ; this brings into line the otherwise discordant times
at different distances in the same azimuth.
‘There were numerous deep focus earthquakes in 1932. The large Japanese
earthquake of April 44 from epicentre 30°-6 N., 139°:5 E. off the coast,
is a useful illustration of the good fit of the Turner deep focus correction
tables. It is not necessary to claim that the fraction used to define the depth
must be exact as a proportion of the earth’s radius, but it does constitute a
relative standard by which depths of focus in different earthquakes may be
compared. In the present case the depth is nominally 0-065 of the earth’s
radius or 400 km., and the Turner corrections account for the differences of
observed A from A = 2°:5 where the figure is + 1°-8 to nearly 90° where
itis — 8°-o.
Another important Japanese deep focus earthquake occurred on 1932
November 134 at about 43°°6 N., 137°°3 E., with focal depth about o-o50.
The details of this are not yet finally settled, but it is one of the most widely
recorded shocks and will furnish data from stations at all distances.
THE MONGOLIAN EARTHQUAKE OF 1931, AUGUST Io.
By Dr. R. Stoneley.
In last year’s B.A. Report Mr. Hughes commented on a peculiar feature
of this earthquake ; the P observations determine the epicentre as 46°-9 N.,
90°:o E., accurate within o°-1, but the S readings are then about 30 sec. late.
According to the old J.S.S. routine this would probably have indicated a
“high focus ’” shock.
One possible explanation immediately suggests itself. In the absence of
microseisms, P can be picked out without difficulty, even if of very small
amplitude, whereas S has to be read against an already disturbed ‘ back-
ground.’ It is fortunate for seismology that S is generally of relatively
larger amplitude than P. If a rather weak shock is followed a few seconds
later by a decidedly stronger shock, distant stations will tend to read the P
of the first shock and the S of the second. This explanation seems to apply
to the earthquake under consideration.
By the kindness of Mr. Hughes and Miss Bellamy I have been able to
examine the seismograms of Oxford and Dyce and to make use of a pre-
liminary proof of the J.S.S. In both records the earthquake begins as an
eP, followed 3 or 4 sec. later by an iP. The calculated time falls between
the eP and the iP. There is a very clear sudden onset for which O-C is
about 33 sec. for Oxford and 32 sec. for Dyce ; these onsets cannot be ex-
plained as reflected waves. The Kew records, for the loan of which I am
indebted to Dr. Whipple, are quite convincing ; the prominent onset some
270 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
30 sec. after P is listed provisionally in the Kew Bulletin as PcP, and is
obvious on all three components. The records indicate another P between
these two, but it is less sharply defined ; I read this intermediate onset on
the Oxford and Dyce records as 10 and 15 sec. after the calculated times of P,
and the Kew Bulletin lists it at 15 sec. Only one station seems to have
suspected a multiple shock: Upsala interprets the readings as indicating
two aftershocks 20 and 33 sec. after the calculated time of the first shock,
and identifies the corresponding PP,S, etc. It is rather difficult to pick out
S on the seismograms, and to avoid personal bias it is better to examine the
station readings.
All the P readings in the J.S.S., including the ‘ Additional Readings,’
were analysed. ‘The additional readings gave the following distribution for
residuals for P, from 9 to 42 sec.: 8 residuals above this were sparsely
scattered and could be ignored.
OsslO wT Ler? (0S MATA TS ATOw 17) et 8 onkOn 2Oue2tyn 2eaeaiontaas
Ons eesisieSat rial) Ouia'3'). pOv. OK 10h Qn. 1 Be StetOmesionmss
26027628 ..20!) 30) 3% 932» 33° 344.35. 36 37938) Bon 404m ge
DMO 2h a A ae aT £ SD wi Tely rp PerneO ty. BPhy Why uO ye Sek isk sy eT aes
The concentration of residuals about 33-34 sec. is unmistakable, especially
if, as a rough method of clearing out random large errors (Jeffreys, Geo-
physical Supplement, 2, 335), we make a uniform deduction of one per
group. There is rather slight evidence of onsets at about 12 and 21 sec.
after the calculated P. A corresponding analysis of all readings available
for S gave:
—8 —7 —6 —5 —4 —3 —2 —-I1 Oo
£23) 445167" "ov TOs ra 2 ere
Tho aera Te MEG? Mg miata ear ass oie
oh
7 Sree es
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28-29 30 31 32 33 34 35
AP Pe Gre: "Say SO Rg Eres bees tsa oe
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
I 3 I I I ue 2 I I O° I oO; © I I
These S residuals show decided concentrations round about Io sec.,
19-20 sec. and 31 sec. For the first shock S seems to have escaped notice.
Taken all together, the evidence leaves no doubt that the shock is double,
and it is possibly treble or quadruple. Ideally, of course, a complete cor-
respondence should be observable among the onsets corresponding to each
phase ; actually, the phases other than P are not so immediately obvious
in the seismograms examined, and there is always the risk of finding just
those things that one expects to find.
A check on the accuracy of the [.S.S. epicentre was made by taking the
residuals in three well-defined azimuth groups, the Japanese, European and
North American stations, and applying the correction for ellipticity recently
found by Bullen ; the shift indicated is less than one-tenth of a degree, and
is barely significant.
It is worth noticing that the S residuals of the shock of 1931 August 184,
144, from the same epicentre are not abnormal, but form a rather ‘ flat’
distribution round about —1, in which the only anomaly is a group of
12 residuals + 5, where the general run would indicate about 4 such
residuals ; it is very doubtful if any significance should be attached to this
isolated group.
SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 271
SEISMIC TRANSMISSION TIMES.
By Dr. Harold feffreys, F.R.S.
The most important contribution of the year to theoretical seismology
is probably Bullen’s determination of the systematic errors due to the neglect
of the ellipticity of the earth. The total effect on the arrival time of P at
large distances may vary with azimuth by about 5 secs. I have now applied
the corrections to the data used by Bullen and myself in the paper we sub-
mitted to the Conference at Lisbon in 1933 and to more recent earthquakes
suitable for determining the times of Sand SKS. Times of P, S and SKS
(to 115°) adapted to a spherical earth are now available. Some systematic
errors were detected in the process. ‘The maximum departure of the P times
from those of Gutenberg and Richter is about 2 secs. The correction intro-
duces a systematic correction into the epicentres, which is small (usually under
o°-05) for earthquakes in the northern hemisphere, but may reach 0°:5 for
southern epicentres if near stations are few or receive insufficient weight :
27 southern epicentres have been redetermined, as a preliminary to a new
study of the core waves. It appears that errors in the epicentres may
account for the low reliabilities previously found for some of the southern
stations. The negative residuals at large distances, noticed by Bullen and
me in some southern earthquakes, disappear when the ellipticity is taken into
account, and there is no longer any need to suppose that Pacific earthquakes
habitually have a small but appreciable focal depth. A preliminary classi-
fication of the P residuals by distance suggests that the time to 50° is about
1°5 sec. shorter in Pacific than in continental earthquakes, but further ex-
amination will be needed before it can be said that this is not due to a small
systematic error of observation. A difference between oceanic and con-
tinental travel times might be expected on thermal grounds ; indeed, it is
rather surprising that the difference should be so small, corresponding to
about 1 part in 300.
The seismological evidence indicates rapid changes with depth in the
velocities of P and S, possibly a discontinuity, at a depth of about 470 km.
Bullen, using the theory of the figure of the earth, finds that the mean
density down to the core is too high to agree with that of olivine in its normal
state and at the actual pressures. I referred in last year’s report to Bernal’s
suggestion that at high pressure the usual rhombic form of olivine may be
replaced by a cubic one of higher density. This hypothesis has been tested
by comparison with conditions in the moon. The relevant pressure is not
reached in the moon, and the density of the moon is nearly that of surface
olivine. Thus the density would agree with Bernal’s hypothesis. It would
not agree, however, with the presence of a large amount of a different
material denser at normal pressures. ‘The former hypothesis being there-
fore adopted, the moon can be shown to be nearly homogeneous. This
provides the additional equation needed to determine the earth’s ellipticity
from the moon’s perturbations, and gives 1/e = 297:2 + 0°5, the accuracy
of which is comparable with that of the determinations from gravity, and has
the advantage that the doubtful effect of higher harmonics in the earth’s
gravitational field does not arise. Dr. H.S. Jones, using slightly different
data, gets 296:08 + 0-95. Prof. E. W. Brown and his collaborators are
likely to improve these values soon, as the method appears promising.
REAPPOINTMENT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The Committee asks to be reappointed and for the renewal of the grant of
£100 from the Caird Fund.
272 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
MATHEMATICAL TABLES.
Report of Committee on Calculation of Mathematical Tables (Prof. E. H.
NEVILLE, Chairman; Prof. A. Lopce, Vice-Chairman; Dr. J.
WisHarT, Secretary; Dr. J. R. Atrey, Dr. W. G. Bicxxey, Prof.
R. A. Fisuer, F.R.S., Dr. J. HENDERSON, Dr. E. L. Ince, Dr. J. O.
Irwin, Dr. J. C. P. Miter, Mr. F. Ropsins, Mr. D. H. SADLER,
Mr. W. L. Stevens, Dr. A. J. THompson and Dr. J. F. Tocuer).
General activity.—Seven meetings of the Committee have been held, in
London.
The grant of £150 has been expended as follows :
eee 7b
Wages and insurance for computer for six months . - pa OnLOu 2
Purchase of calculating machine. i : ; “45 40.4 101.40
Checking calculations for Vol. VI (balance) : ; 5. 400
Calculations for Bessel functions of order greater than1 . 18 10 o
Secretarial and miscellaneous expenses . ; ; >t tO. 13400
Resignation of Dr. Comrie.—At the outset of the year’s work the Committee
received with deep regret the resignation of Dr. Comrie, who had entered
business as a professional computer. The Committee desires on this occasion
to place on record its appreciation of the services Dr. Comrie has rendered
during the past eight years, and in particular of the work he has done as
secretary. ‘The successful translation of the activity of the Committee into
published volumes owes a great deal to his enthusiasm and efficiency.
Employment of Computers—The resignation of Dr. Comrie raised the
questions of the location of the Association’s National Accounting Machine,
which had been housed for some years at H.M. Nautical Almanac Office,
and of the provision which should be made for regular work with the
machine. Prof. Fisher offered to house the machine in the computing room
of the Galton Laboratory, and this offer was gratefully accepted, W. L.
Stevens, who is in charge of the computing room, being added to the
Committee. It was considered that the best way of arranging for the
calculations to be carried out was to employ a whole-time computer, who
would work in the Galton Laboratory, and F. Cleaver was appointed to this
post in January. The arrangement has worked very well, and it is con-
sidered a great advantage that members of the Committee who undertake
to be responsible for particular tables should be able to call at will on the
services of a computer who is familiar with the National machine.
Several part-time c mputers have been engaged under the direction of
members of the Committee on work for which machines less elaborate than
the National were suitable, and in this connection it is a pleasure to acknow-
ledge the readiness with which permission was granted for computers to
use the equipment of the Mathematical Laboratory of the University of
Liverpool.
The Committee has purchased an additional calculating machine, of the
Triplex-Brunsviga type.
Bessel Functions —The tabular matter of the Committee’s sixth volume,
which is the first volume of Bessel functions and contains the four principal
functions of orders 0 and 1, is now in the press ; the printed sheets are being
a s
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITIES OF ROCKS 273
checked before the volume is published, and it is expected that the volume
will appear before the end of 1937.
Work on the preparation of a second volume, to contain functions of
higher integral order (up to m = 20) has continued. The calculation. of
values of I,(x) for m = 2(1)22 and x = 0:1(0'1)6:o has been completed
under the supervision of Dr. Thompson, and of values of Kn(x) for n = 2(1)20
and x = o-1(o-1)6°5 under the supervision of Dr. Bickley. Further work
has been carried out on the calculation of Rn(x), i.e. x” Kn(x), up to x= 6 at
interval o-1 for 2 = o(1)20.
Table of Powers —Most of the powers required, in addition to those given
in Glaisher’s table (see 1936 Report), have now been completed. Con-
siderable progress has also been made towards checking the whole, and in
the preparation of copy, mainly on the National machine. Valuable
assistance in the computation has been given by Miss E. J. Ternouth and
Mr. C. E. Gwyther.
Airy Integral—During the last year the scope of the proposed table
(see 1936 Report) has been much enlarged. The computation of pivotal
values over the extended range has now been completed, and the methods
of subtabulation and preparation of copy are under consideration.
Sheppard Tables—Council authority is being sought for the separate
publication of certain tables related to the probability integral of the normal
curve, which were handed to the Committee by the family of the late
Dr. W. F. Sheppard. One table of the ratio of tail area to ordinate of the
normal curve, to 12 places of decimals at interval o-o1, together with
reduced derivatives, was left incomplete by Dr. Sheppard, and the Com-
mittee has completed the calculations.
Legendre Functions.—Authority has been obtained from Council for the
separate publication as a part-volume of these tables (see 1936 Report).
The tables are in the press, and will appear as the first of the series of part-
volumes which the Committee proposes to issue.
Reappointment—The Committee desires reappointment, with a grant of
£200. A whole-time computer could be employed throughout the year on
calculations of Bessel functions and the Airy integral.
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITIES OF ROCKS
Report of Committee appointed to investigate the direct determination of the
Thermal Conductivities of Rocks in mines or borings where the tempera-
ture gradient has been, or ts likely to be, measured (Dr. EzER GRIFFITHS,
F.R.S., Chairman; Dr. D. W. Puiturres, Secretary; Dr. E. C.
BuLiarD, Dr. H. Jerrreys, F.R.S., from Section A; Dr. E. M.
ANDERSON, Prof. W. G. FEaRNsipEs, F.R.S., Prof. G. HicKLine,
F.R.S., Prof. A. Hotes, Dr. J. H. J. Poors, from Section C).
Ir has appeared that the disturbance of the measured temperature gradient
in irregular country is likely to be appreciable, since the outer surface is
constrained to be at atmospheric temperature, and the mean decrease of
temperature with height in the air is about a fifth of that in the crust. A
formula for the appropriate allowance has been found by Dr. Jeffreys ; the
theory is an application of the potential theory of Green.
It has been found that temperatures in a borehole can, with suitable
ene
274 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
precautions, be measured with considerable accuracy, using thermo-
junctions. It is possible to measure the temperature gradient to a few
per cent. in a hole 1oo ft. deep. The conductivity can be determined by
burying heaters in the hole and noting the temperature distribution round
them. Two values may be obtained, one from the final temperature
distribution and one from the rate of rise and the specific heat. In pre-
liminary experiments in a 15-ft. hole the method was found to work well ;
no attempt was made to get the highest accuracy, but the values obtained
by the two methods at different distances above and below the heater agreed
to 3 per cent., which is within the experimental error. The boring of a
100-ft. hole has been postponed till after Dr. Bullard’s return from America
in September.
The cost of boring the hole is estimated at about £40, and the Committee
asks for reappointment with a grant of that amount.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF GEOLOGICAL INTEREST.
Twenty-eighth Report of the Committee (Prof. E. J. Garwoop, F.R.S.,
Chairman; Prof. S. H. Reynotps, Secretary; Mr. H. ASHLEY,
Mr. G. Macponatp Daviess, Mr. J. F: Jackson, Dr. A. G. Mac-
GREGOR, Dr. F. J. Nortu, Dr. A. RatstricK, Mr. J. Ranson, Prof.
W. W. Watts, F.R.S.)
AT the Norwich meeting in 1935, at which the 27th report was presented,
Mr. H. Ashley and Drs. A. G. Macgregor, F. J. North and A. Raistrick
were added to the Committee. During the past year the Committee has
lost one of its oldest and most valued members, Mr. R. J. Welch, whose
photographs for uniform excellence, technical and scientific, have probably
never been excelled. Mr. Welch contributed 287 photographs to the Com-
mittee’s collection and 10 of these were reproduced in the series published
by Prof. Watts. Mr. Welch’s contributions to the collection were practically
all pre-war, the earliest being included in the Committee’s first report
(Leeds 1890). In 1897 he sent as many as 93. All his photographs were
whole-plate platinotypes.
In the present report 154 photographs are listed, bringing the number in
the collection to 8,865. The series includes a fine set by a new member of
the Committee, Mr. H. Ashley ; Norfolk is the county best represented
in this set, but there are others from Lincoln and Nottingham. Mr. A. G.
Stenhouse sends an excellent series from Fife, Orkney, Shetland and the
Isle of Eigg. The Hon. Secretary contributes photographs from the North
of Scotland and the Bristol and Belfast districts. MMr.G. Macdonald Davies
sends a series from Dorset and Mr. D. E. Owen from Cornwall.
ENGLAND.
CoRNWALL.—Photographed by D. E. Owen, B.Sc., Geological Dept.,
Public Museums, Liverpool 3. P.C.
8712. I Duckpool, 4 m. N. of Rugged weathering of hard band
Bude. in Upper Culm. 1933.
8713. 2 Boscastle harbour. Blowhole. 1934.
8714. 3 Boscastle harbour. Blowhole. 1934.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF GEOLOGICAL INTEREST 275
8715. 4 Efford Cliff 1 m. E. of Recumbent fold in Bude Sand-
Bude. stone. 1933
S750, . os Efford Beacon$m.S.of Syncline in Bude Sandstone.
Bude. 1933.
Dorset.—Photographed by G. Macponatp Davies, M.Sc.,
63 Beechwood Road, Sanderstead, Surrey. 4.
Oya: 33° 1 Durlston Bay and Swan- 1933.
age Bay, looking N.
8718 33:6 Durlston Bay. Chert bed in Mid. Purbeck. 1933.
8719 _ 33-9 Chalk cliffs between 1933.
Ballard Point and the
Foreland.
8720 33:10 The Foreland and Old Chalk sea-stacks. 1933.
Harry.
8721 33:21 Near boathouse W. of Faultin Kimmeridge Clay. 1933.
Kimmeridge Bay.
8722 33°22 Hobarrow Bay. Fault in Kimmeridge Clay. 1933.
8723. 33°17. Durdle Door. Vertical Portland Stone. 1933.
8724 34:2 Shore E. of St. Gabriel’s Lias succession. 1934.
Water, near Seatown.
8725 32°23 Golden Cap and Sea- Mainly Mid. Lias capped by
town. Up. Greensand. 1932.
8726 = 34°1 Near Ridgewater, Sea- Fault in Belemnite Marl (L.
town. Lias). 1931.
8727. 32:18 Seatown and Down Miid.and Up. Lias. 1932.
Clit:
8728 32:17 Wear Cliff below Gol- Mid. Lias section. 1932.
den Cap.
DurHAM.—Photographed by S. H. ReEyNotps, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. 1931. #4.
8729 9=931°125 Marsden. Near view of breccia gash in
Mid. Magnesian Lst.
8730 31°80 Plawsworth3m.N.of Sand pit in glacial delta Gravels.
Durham.
8731 31°79 Ferryhill Gorge. Overflow channel of glacial lake
of Wear Valley.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE.—Photographed by S. H. ReyNo.ps, M.A., Sc.D.,
The University, Bristol. 4 and 4.
8732 35°2 Avon Section. O.R.S.—Z,. 4. 1935.
8733 35°3 Avon Section. Gully Qu. Z,—Cs. 1935.
8734 35°4 Avon Section. Black Rock Qu. to Great Qu.
Wu. ob. "FOSS
M7a5 35°5 Avon Section. Great or Tennis Court Qu.
$,—D,. 4. 1935.
8736 35-6 Avon Section. Great Qu. to Bridge Valley
Road. S,—Dy,. #4.
8737 35°9 Avon Section. Overthrusts of Observatory Hill.
$. 1935.
8738 30°53 Avon Gorge seen from }. 1930.
Suspension Bridge.
276
8739
8740
8741
8742
8743
8744
8745
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753
8754
8755
8756
REPORTS ON THE STATE
390°
35%
35)"
35°
52 Observatory Hill and
Avon Gorge.
14 Avon Section Great
Qu.
14* Avon Section Great
Qu.
11 Avon Section, right
bank D,.
‘to Avon Section, right
bank D,.
‘12 Avon Section, right
bank D,.
‘13. Avon Section, right
bank D,.
‘62 Scully Grove Qu., Mit-
cheldean.
OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Shows the minor thrusts in
relation to the big overthrust.
4. 1930.
Seminula-pisolite. }$. 1935.
Seminula-pisolite. }$. 1935.
Rubbly beds. 4. 1935.
Rubbly beds. 4. 1935.
Rubbly beds. }. 1935.
Pseudobreccia. 4. 1935.
General view. 4. 1933.
Photographed by F. B. A. Wetcu, Ph.D., Geological Survey and
Museum, Exhibition Road, London, S.W. 7. 4.
Avon Section.
Pond in the Gully Quarry.
LINCOLNSHIRE.—Photographed by HALLAM AsHLEy, The Craigs,
Ashtree Road, Costessey, Norwich. P.C.
Gregory’s No. 1 Qu. An-
caster.
Ancaster, on Sleaford Road.
Stainby, near Colsterworth.
Stainby, near Colsterworth.
S. Holland Drain between
Holbeach St. John’s and
Sutton St. Edmund’s.
Scottlethorpe, near Bourne.
Freiston shore, near Boston.
Near Wilsford, on Sleaford-
Grantham Road.
Near Little Ponton. Gran-
tham.
Lincolnshire Lst. overlain by
Up. Estuarine Clays. 1933.
Disturbed Lincolnshire Lst.
1936.
Anticline in Low. Estuarine
Clays. 1933.
Fault traversing Lincs. Lst. and
Northant. Sands _ Ironstone.
1933-
Scenery in marshland of S.
Lincoln. 1934.
Pisolitic Limestone overlain by
surface soil. 1933.
Creek in Alluvium. 1933.
Infilling in Jurassic Lst. 1935.
Dry valley in Lincolnsh. Lst.
NorFoL_k.—Photographed by HALLAM AsHLEY, The Craigs, Ashtree
Road, Costessey, Norwich. P.C.
8757 379 E. Runton.
8758
8759
166
3
E. Runton.
E. Runton.
Great Chalk erratic in Cromer
Till. 1937.
Chalk erratic in Contorted Drift.
1934-
Great Chalk erratic in Contorted
Drift. 1932.
neal shade oth
8760
8761
8762
8763
8764.
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769
8770
8771
8772
8773
8774
8775
8776
8777
8778
8779
8780
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
PHOTOGRAPHS OF GEOLOGICAL INTEREST
167 E. Runton.
139 Between E. and W. Runton.
140 Between E.and W. Runton.
252 W. Runton.
35 W. Runton.
43. Trimingham.
g1 Trimingham.
Weybourne.
Paston, 1 m.N. of Bacton.
26 Ostend, near Happisburgh.
27 Ostend, near Happisburgh.
84 Ostend, near Happisburgh.
25 Ostend, near Happisburgh.
204. Alderford.
142 Little Walsingham.
292 Between E. Harling and N.
Lopham.
297 Between E. Harling and N.
Lopham.
222 4m.N. of Holt.
232 1 miles E. of N. Creake.
g Snettisham.
375 Thornham, near Hunstan-
ton.
151 Hunstanton.
216 Blackborough, near Middle-
ton.
201 Massingham Heath.
269 ‘Thorpe, Norwich.
284 ‘Town Hall, Norwich.
144 Morston.
277
Section of part of Chalk erratic
and associated Pliocene beds.
1934.
Lower part of great Chalk
erratic resting on Till. 1934.
Contorted band in Cromer Till
1934.
Thrust plane in drift. 1935.
Paramoudra. 1932.
Mud-flow. 1932.
Erosion of glacial beds. 10933.
Section contorted drift, Wey-
bourne Crag, Chalk. 1935.
Cliffs of Cromer Till. 1936.
Ripple Marks in Cromer Till.
1932.
Pocket of mud with shell frag-
ments in Cromer Till. 1932.
Erosion of glacial beds. 10933.
Laminated Clays in Cromer Till.
1932.
Chalk pit with infilling and
other features. 1934.
Nodules of limonite in Chalk.
1934.
Pipe in Chalk. 1936.
Weathered
1936.
“Cannon-shot gravel.’ 1935.
Section of chalky Neocomian
Boulder Clay. 1935.
Section of Carstone. 1932.
Section of submerged forest.
1936.
Erosion along joints in Carstone.
1934.
Section of glacial Gravel. 1935.
surface of Chalk.
Glacial gravel with angular flints.
1934.
Shelly patch in Norwich Crag.
1935.
Section, Norwich Crag, ‘ stone
bed’ Chalk. 1935.
Raised Beach. 1934.
NorRTHUMBERLAND.—Photographed by S. H. REyNotps, M.A., Sc.D.,
The University, Bristol. 4.
8787
31°77. Bamborough Castle.
Current-bedded Coal Measure
Sandstone. 1931.
278 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
NotTINGHAMSHIRE.—Photographed by HatiaM AsHLEy, The Craigs,
Ashtree Road, Costessey, Norwich. P.C.
8788 407 Hawton, near Newark. Large masses of gypsum in
Keuper Marls. 1937.
8789 408 Beacon Hill, Newark. Keuper Marl with layers of
gypsum. 1937.
8790 409 Beacon Hill, Newark. Cavities in Keuper Marl due to
removal of gypsum in solu-
tion. 1937.
_ 8791 410 Beacon Hill, Newark. Keuper Marl with layers of
; gypsum, 1937.
8792 411 Beacon Hill, Newark. Gypsum in Keuper Marl. 1937-
SCOTLAND.
CaITHNEss.—Photographed by S. H. Reynolds, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. 1936.
8793 36°49 Scrabster. Boulder Clay on O.R.S.
8794' 36°52 Holborn Head, Thurso. The Clett.
8795 36:53 Holborn Head, Thurso. Coast erosion.
8796 36:54 Holborn Head, Thurso. Goe leading to blowhole.
8797 36°55 Holborn Head, Thurso. General view of blowholes.
8798 36°58 Holborn Head, Thurso. Blowhole.
8799 36°59 Holborn Head, Thurso. The ‘Deil’s Brig’ over goe
leading to blowhole.
8800 36°60 Wick, S. of. Dipping O.R. flags.
8801 36°61 Wick. ‘ Greystones,’ a storm beach.
8802 36°64. Near Wick Castle. Goe.
8803 36°66 Wick. Gerston stack.
8804 36°68 Wick. A sea-stack, the ‘ Brough.’
8805 36°69 Wick. Goe just S. of the ‘ Brough.’
8806 36-71 Wick, S. of. Coast erosion.
8807 36:74 Shore E. of Thurso. Nodular bed in O.R.S.
Fire.—Photographed by A. G. STENHOUSE, Whitelee, 191 Newhaven
Road, Edinburgh 6. #3.
8808 Inchcolm, Firth of Forth,W.end. Junction of picrite (left) with
quartz-dolerite (right). 1906.
8809 Inchcolm, Firth of Forth, E. end. yee and associated rocks.
1906.
8810 Inchcolm, Firth of Forth, N.side. Picrite veined by related rocks of
slightly more acid type. 1906.
8811 Elie, Firth of Forth. Raised beach platforms.
INVERNEss.—Photographed by A. G. STENHOUSE, Whitelee, 191 New-
haven Road, Edinburgh 6. 5 x 4.
8812 Sgurr of Eigg. General view from S.E.
8813 Sgurr of Eigg, E. end. Pitchstone with underlying basalt
and dolerite.
8814 Sgurr of Eigg, S. side, towards Pale felsite or porphyry injec-
W. end. tions cutting pitchstone.
8815 Sgurr of Eigg. Log of wood in breccia below
pitchstone.
All photographed between 1905 and rg1o.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF GEOLOGICAL INTEREST 279
SUTHERLAND.—Photographed by S. H. Reyno.tps, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. 4.
8816 34:38 Helmsdale, Kimmeridgian Boulder bed. 1934.
section.
OrKNEY.—Photographed by S. H. ReyNnoxps, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. }. 1936. ;
8817 36:9 Yescanabie Castle,Strom- Sea stack.
ness.
8818 36:11 W. of Yescanabie Castle, Coast of seaward-dipping flags.
Stromness.
8819 36°13 Deerness. Goe leading to the ‘ Loup’ of
Deerness.
8820 36:14 Whitaloo Point. The ‘ Long Goe.’
8821 36°17 Hoy. The ‘ Old Man ’ from the sea.
8822 36:18 Hoy. The ‘ Old Man ’ from the cliff.
8823 36:22 N. of Finstown. Contorted strata.
8824 36-25 Whitaloo Point. Contorted O.R.S.
8825 36°27 Birsay. Dyke.
8826 37-11 Cliffs of S.W. Hoy from Shows the ‘ Old Man.’
the sea.
Photographed by A. G. STENHOUSE, Whitelee, 191 Newhaven Road,
Edinburgh 6. 6 X 4.
8827 C.6 Whitaloo Point. Contorted O.R.S. 1936.
SHETLAND.—Photographed by A. G. Stenhouse, Whitelee, 191 Newhaven
Road, Edinburgh 6. 6 X 4 enlarget. 1936.
8828 D.4 Cliffs at Eshaness. Spheroidal mass in O.R. larva.
8829 D.5 Eshaness. Block of injection breccia.
8830 D.7 Eshaness. “ Ayre.’
8831 E.3 The Alter, West Burra. Contorted calcareous schist.
8832 E.4 The Alter, West Burra. Contorted calcareous schist.
8833 F.1 West Burra coast. Natural arch.
8834 F.2 West of Hamna Voe. Storm beach.
Photographed by S. H. Reynolds, M.A., Sc.D., The University,
Bristol. 1936. i.
8835 36-29 Eshaness. Coast of O.R. volcanic rocks.
8836 36°30 Eshaness. Goe (voe) in O.R. volcanic rocks.
8837 36°31 Eshaness. Cliff of O.R. agglomerate.
8838 36°32 Eshaness. Coast of O.R. volcanic rocks.
8839 36°34 Exnaboe. Seaward dip of O.R.S.
8840 36°35 Exnaboe. Seaward dip of O.R.S. flags.
8841 36°39 West Burra. Contorted calcareous schist.
8842 36-40 West Burra. Contorted calcareous schist.
8843 36°43 Noss. O.R:S. cliff.
8844 36°42 West Burra. Storm beach.
8845 36°44 Bressay. Breccia.
8846 36-48 South Havra. Contorted limestone.
280 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
IRELAND.
ANTRIM.—Photographed by S. H. REyNotps, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. 1935. +.
8847 35°37 The Gobbins, Island High landward dip of foundered
Magee. down basalt.
8848 35°38 The Gobbins, Island Cave worn along dyke.
Magee.
8849 35°39 The Gobbins, Island Amygdaloidal basalt.
Magee.
8850 35°52 Fair Head. Dolerite precipice.
8851 35°58 Fair Head. Columnar dolerite and glacia-
tion.
8852 35°43 Lough-a-veema, near Sun-cracks in nearly dry bed of
Ballycastle. the lough.
8853 35°44 Lough-a-veema, near Sun-cracks in nearly dry bed of
Ballycastle. the lough.
8854 35°56 Carrick-a-rede. Agglomerate below swing bridge.
8855 35°57 Carrick-a-rede. General view.
8856 35°48 Lurigethan. End of ridge of Chalk capped by
basalt.
8857 35°65 Ballintoy Bay. Basalt faulted against Chalk.
8858 35°67 Portrush. Indurated Lias.
8859 35°71 Toome, N.W. end of L. Kieselguhr.
Neagh.
8860 35°34 Cave Hill, Belfast. Basalt on Chalk.
8861 35°36 Cave Hill, Belfast. View from above.
Down.—Photographed by S. H. REyNotps, M.A., Sc.D., The
University, Bristol. 1935. 4.
8862 35°29 Slieve Gullion. The central hills.
8863 35°30 Slieve Gullion. Hills forming S.W. part of the
ring dyke.
8864 35°32 Newcastle Shore. Shattered and epidotized sedi-
ments.
8865 35°31 Slieve Gullion. Agglomerate with felsite form-
ing ‘ matrix.’
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS 281
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS
Second Report of the Committee appointed to consider and report on questions
affecting the teaching of Geology in schools (Prof. W. W. Warts,
F.R.S., Chairman; Prof. A. E. TRuEMaN, Secretary ; Prof. P. G. H.
BosweELL, O.B.E., F.R.S., Mr. C. P. Cuatwin, Prof. A. H. Cox,
Miss E. Dix, Miss Gaynor Evans, Prof. W. G. FEARNSIDES, F.R.S.,
Prof. A. GILLIGAN, Prof. G. Hick.ine, F.R.S., Prof. D. E. Innes,
Prof. A. G. Ocitviz, Prof. W. J. Pucu, Mr. J. A. Steers, Prof. H. H.
SWINNERTON, Dr. A. K. WELLS).
IN 1936 a Committee of Section C of the British Association presented a
brief Report dealing with the claims of Geology for inclusion in the curri-
cula of schools of all types, drawing attention to both the cultural and the
utilitarian aspects of the subject. The publication of that Report has
recently led to the suggestion from several members of the Association who
are more directly concerned with educational problems that a somewhat
more extended Report giving details as to the nature of the suggested school
courses was desirable.
It is not proposed to recapitulate here the claims, which were advanced
in the first Report referred to, on behalf of the introduction of the subject
into schools, or to discuss further those changes in the schools examination
system and in University entrance requirements which have led to the
unfortunate reactions upon the progress of Geology and the supply of
students to carry out geological work.
It may be emphasised that science teaching in many schools has long
been confined to the subjects of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, to
which Biology has in some cases been added. In many schools teaching
has been confined to one of these sciences, and not infrequently even to
one branch of a science, such as Magnetism and Electricity, or Heat and
Light. This situation has been met recently by proposals for the develop-
ment of science teaching on a broader basis: the reasons for this new
attitude to science teaching need not be stated here, for they have been
clearly set forth in several reports (notably a recent report of the Science
Masters’ Association). At the same time other proposals are being made
for the alteration of the nature of some School Certificate examinations,
especially in relation to University entrance requirements.
It is hoped that while these changes in science teaching are being dis-
cussed, consideration will be given to the possibility of introducing some
Geology as an alternative or optional subject among the other sciences in
school courses, for it is a peculiarly suitable subject for certain schools.
There are schools, for example, situated in areas which may be described
as natural geological laboratories, where the teaching of Geology would
afford an obvious link with the surroundings. Again in schools such as
those situated in mining areas, for example, there are equally good reasons
for dealing with geological matters ; not only is it fitting that pupils should
know something of the geological basis of local industry, but since a pro-
portion of the pupils will presumably be concerned with mining problems
in later life, an introduction to geological principles will be of considerable
utility.
It is not only in such areas, however, that Geology could effectively be
282 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
taught, for it would find an appropriate place in urban schools also, especi-
ally where museums make special provisions for the display and supply
of teaching materials. London schools are particularly fortunate in the
facilities thus afforded ; for instance, the models, photographs, dioramas
and other exhibits at the new Geological Museum are of such outstanding
value that it may be claimed that many London schools have advantages
for the teaching of the subject which outweigh the disadvantages arising
from the distance from areas where actual field studies can be made.
Geology and Careers.
While the introduction of Geology into schools is advocated by the
Committee chiefly on cultural grounds, it may be useful to give some
indications of the nature of the posts available to qualified geologists.
Apart from those obtaining academic appointments and posts in museums,
most graduates in Geology find positions in geological surveys at home or
in the Empire, or on the staff of mining and oil companies in all parts of
the world. Most of these posts involve much field work, sometimes in
relatively unexplored countries, thus affording attractive opportunities for
young men who are willing to undertake work abroad.
The number of posts of this kind is not of course large, but there is already
a difficulty in finding sufficient students to fill the posts which are available.
It is certain that there will be a still greater dearth of British-trained
geologists in the near future, unless something is done to stimulate the
entry of students into geological courses. Meanwhile, considerable
numbers of geologists are being trained in American and German Univer-
sities, and they are filling the majority of posts in many parts of the world.
Quite apart, however, from the relatively limited number of students
who may eventually make Geology their profession, it must be remembered
that Geology forms a useful subsidiary subject for students training for
different types of career in science, agriculture and engineering, and for
administrative posts in India and the Colonies. It is ordinarily taken by
University students pursuing courses in Civil Engineering, Mining and
Metallurgy, but it may be urged that some knowledge of Geology is of the
greatest value to many other scientific workers, having regard to the fact
that the majority of materials used in industry are obtained from the earth’s
crust, and to the wide range of applications of Geology to problems related
to building and road materials, foundations, soils, drainage and water
supply.
Although many students preparing for such careers will have oppor-
tunities for taking classes in Geology at the University, only a small pro-
portion are likely to do so if their interest in the subject has not been aroused
at school, for it is becoming increasingly rare for students entering the
University to take up new subjects, owing to the high standard to which
work in school subjects has been carried and to the exemptions from first-
year University examinations which are thereby granted.
Moreover, it must be emphasised that only a small proportion of those
who enter for the various school examinations pass on to University work ;
most of them take up posts in industry and commerce at once. Of these,
a considerable proportion who have no further academic training obtain
posts where they are sooner or later concerned with mining, building,
engineering or other problems in which even a small acquaintance with
geological matters would be of real assistance. In ordinary life, too,
opportunities for using scientific knowledge are continually increasing
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS 283
in number; the applications of Geology are certainly not fewer or less
important than those of other sciences.
Unless some work in Geology is introduced into school curricula, not
only will there be a serious restriction in the numbers who will seek to take
up Geology as a profession, but many who may later be concerned with
the applications of Geology will hardly know of the existence of a science
which has close contacts with their work.
Suggestions regarding Syllabuses.
It has been suggested to the Committee that some indication of the scope
of the syllabuses proposed at the various stages of school work will be useful
as a basis for future discussion. In preparing the following notes the
Committee have received much generous help from teachers in several
areas and in different types of schools, particularly from those who are
teaching Geology at the present time.
The syllabuses given below are in outline only. It must be emphasised
that the Committee would favour the greatest elasticity in the treatment
of the subject ; in Geology perhaps more than in any other science the
neighbourhood of the school should determine the bias given to the teach-
ing. Geology taught without proper regard to the phenomena which the
pupil can observe and study for himself must become dull and unreal.
Thus in a North Wales school slates may be given an amount of attention
which would be out of place in Hampshire ; the effects of glaciation would
be studied in less detail in the south of England than elsewhere in Britain ;
the fossils which a pupil might be expected to recognise would differ to a
great extent from one area to another.
It may be remarked also that the order in which various sections of the
syllabuses are arranged below is not intended to suggest the order in which
matters should be dealt with by the teacher. The arrangement of the
sections may in some cases appear to give a logical scheme of study, but it
is suggested that in the teaching of Geology a start should always be made
with those phenomena which are most within the common experience of
the children: the pebbles or stones they bring to school, handy rock
exposures, the stones used in local buildings, the stream in the school
grounds, the adjacent cliffs or shores.
General Elementary Science.
Much attention has lately been given to the development of courses in
General Science both for Senior Elementary Schools and for Secondary
Schools. The lack of any general understanding of the meaning of science,
of its ideals or of its applications to modern life, has led to attempts to frame
courses of instruction wider in scope than those commonly followed in the
schools. In most of the schemes of General Science already in use, Physics,
Chemistry and Biology are included ; a few authorities have approved
more extended syllabuses embodying a little Geology and in some cases
a small amount of Astronomy.
The Committee feel that it is unnecessary in this Report to meet the
various arguments put forward against the introduction of General Science
into schools ; the possibility that it may reduce the standard of attainment
in one or more specialised sciences reached by pupils proposing to enter
Universities is surely of less significance than the certainty that such a
course will give to the much greater number of pupils whose formal training
284 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
will cease with school years an appreciation of the scope and aims of science,
and an indication of its contacts with ordinary life.
The Committee therefore strongly support the view that instruction in
General Science should form an essential part of a liberal education. They
consider that more specialised instruction in individual science subjects
could be given to pupils who wish later to devote themselves to science ;
this could be done either concurrently or at a later stage of school life.
The Committee would prefer to see a co-ordinated scheme of General
Science in which the individual sciences are not sharply separated, and
recognise that it may be desirable for a single teacher to deal with such a
scheme rather than for experts in each branch to teach the separate sciences.
It is of course probable that there are comparatively few teachers available
at present who are capable of treating General Science effectively on these
lines, but suitable teachers would soon be forthcoming if there were any
considerable demand from the schools.
The syllabuses which have been suggested for courses in General Science
have given rise to much discussion, but the Committee do not propose to
enter into any consideration of the correct proportions in which the various
sciences should be blended, believing that the proper content of General
Science will be best determined after greater experience in teaching it, and
by the interests of the individual teacher. ‘The Committee believe, with
many educationists, that a syllabus on the lines of the old Physiography
(as understood by Huxley) but with more modern outlook, may eventually
prove to be most suitable.
The Committee hold strongly, however, that a certain amount of Geology
should be introduced into every scheme of General Science. ‘The amount
desirable is not very extensive, and it is suggested that the time devoted to
it in such a scheme should not be more than one-sixth of the total time
available for the course. ‘This would not necessarily involve even so great
a reduction in the other portions of the subject as might at first appear,
for at many points the matter introduced in the sections of Chemistry,
Physics and Biology is closely related to Geology, and by a very moderate
extension can be given a much wider value. For example, most teachers
of Chemistry in dealing with carbon dioxide and the carbonates make some
reference to limestone and chalk, with perhaps some remarks on the origin
of these rocks; at that point the pupils could be taken a little further
towards an understanding of the bedded nature of the limestones, their
contents and origin, and the reason for the occurrence of limestones of
marine origin at considerable heights above the sea. Similarly most schemes
of General Science make some reference to the evidence of evolution and
to fossils ; the contacts with Geology and a simple account of the history
of life make small demand of additional time. Other parts of Geology are
inseparable from physical geography. The teaching of science undoubtedly
fails if it leaves the impression that the natural world is divided into separate
and independent compartments.
The Committee consider that a General Science scheme should embrace
the following topics :
Rocks : igneous. and sedimentary rocks ; the chief characters of granite,
basalt, conglomerate, sandstone, clay, shale, slate, limestone and
chalk, coal.
The common minerals, such as quartz, felspar, mica, rock salt, iron
pyrites, an ore of iron such as hematite, calcite. (The composition
of the more complex minerals should not be required unless in very
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS 285
general terms. Although some teachers of chemistry require the
names of many more minerals to be learned, the Committee do not
advocate this as part of General Science.)
Denudation : effects of frost, variation of temperature, gravitation, wind,
rain, rivers, ice, waves ; soil formation.
Deposition of sediments : types of modern sediment.
Hot springs and volcanoes (the latter not in any detail).
A general idea of the arrangement of rocks; their stratification; the
sequence of animal fossils in earth history (to be treated in very broad
outlines only).
As far as possible this course should be based on specimens collected
locally and amplified by a study of the scenery of the school area.
The order in which these topics are treated ought to depend on the
arrangement of the rest of the syllabus, the most suitable scheme involving
the introduction of some of the Geology in connection with relevant aspects
of other sciences. =
First School Certificate.
While the inclusion of some Geology as part of a General Science course
is probably the most effective way of introducing the subject into First
School Certificate courses in Secondary Schools, there are certain schools
where it may be advisable to institute courses in it as a full subject for the
First Certificate. The subject is already taught very successfully at this
stage in some schools, chiefly in South Wales, and there is no doubt that
those pupils who are unlikely to carry the study of any science to a further
stage benefit greatly from such training ; in areas of outstanding geological
interest and elsewhere there may be special reasons for the development
of courses for the First Certificate for such pupils.
Syllabuses in Geology for the First School Certificate examination have
been prepared by several examining bodies, and in general they are quite
suitable. The Committee believe that the treatment of the subject at this
stage should be less academic than for the Higher School Certificate or for
first year University examinations, and that emphasis should be laid on
matters which are likely to lie within the experience of school children.
They would urge that a study of the school locality (or some other accessible
area) should form an essential and considerable part of the course, and that
candidates should be required to collect specimens, to make personal
observations and to keep field note-books with sketches of local features
if the area is suitable. Such wider aspects of Geology as the origin of the
earth and the nature of the inner earth, an understanding of which must
largely depend on observations which the pupils are unable to verify, should
occupy a much less prominent place in the course.
In order to indicate the relative importance which the Committee would
assign to the various divisions in the syllabus, the approximate proportion
of the time available which it is suggested should be devoted to each is
shown below.
The surface agents : atmosphere, water, ice, seas, weathering ;
transportation of rock debris ; alluvial and glacial de-
posits, flood plains and deltas ; marine deposits. (20 per cent.)
An elementary study of common minerals : quartz and other
forms of silica, felspar, mica, hornblende, augite, olivine,
hematite, magnetite, pyrites, galena, zinc blende, cal-
cite, dolomite, fluorspar, rock salt, gypsum. (10 per cent.)
286 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Main types of sedimentary rocks: sandstone, grit, con-
glomerate, shale, clay, fireclay, marl, limestone, iron-
stone, coal. (8 per cent.)
Igneous rocks: granite, basalt, obsidian, porphyry. Vol-
canoes ; lavas, ash and agglomerate. (5 per cent.)
Metamorphic rocks: illustrated by reference to slate, schist,
gneiss, marble. (2 per cent.)
Structural geology: dip, strike, simple folds, faults, uncon-
formity ; boss, dyke, sill, neck. Practical work to in-
clude a study of very simple geological maps and draw-
ing of sections across them. (15 per cent.)
Movements of earth’s crust: raised beaches, submerged
forests and drowned valleys; folding and faulting ;
folded mountains ; rift valleys and block mountains. (6 per cent.)
Fossils and their uses: evidence of past climates and con-
ditions of formation of sedimentary rocks; a general
idea of the sequence of fossil vertebrates ; the character-
istic fossils of the main periods (e.g. Trilobites and
Graptolites in the Lower Palzozoic, Ammonites and
Belemnites in the Mesozoic). ‘The general characters of
the main groups of fossils only to be required, rather
than any names of genera (except possibly of fossils of
importance in the locality) ; overloading-of the course
by lists of names to be avoided. (7 per cent.)
A general study of the character of the major rock groups of
Britain, and of the scenic features to which they give rise
(e.g. the slate groups of Wales and the Lake District,
the Chalk areas, the Carboniferous Limestone, the Coal-
fields, etc.). (7 per cent.)
Local geology : a study of the features in the school area ;
examination of quarries and natural sections ; observa-
tion of escarpments and river erosion and deposition.
Simple field sketching should be encouraged. Study of
local geological maps and of the physical features ex-
hibited in Ordnance maps. (20 per cent.)
Practical work illustrating the above topics, included in the time allotted
to the various sections. Simple tests of minerals, including hardness,
density, solubility and reactions to dilute acid. The study of rocks and
fossils, the study of maps and the construction of block models; field
excursions. Other aspects of practical work are discussed below.
Higher School Certificate.
For the Higher School Certificate a syllabus is put forward for a course
in Geology as a principal subject, to occupy approximately one-third of
two years’ school work. Some teachers may prefer to introduce Geology
only as a subsidiary subject at this stage, in which case the syllabus would
need to be reduced considerably as regards detail ; others, while keeping
it as a principal subject, may wish tu make the sections dealing with physical
geography identical with some portion of the Geography syllabus, so that
when these two subjects are taken together they do not represent two
complete principal subjects. It has appeared more useful, however, to
design a syllabus which covers the whole range of the subject and thus
preserves its essential unity.
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS 287
The suggested syllabus has been made on the assumption that the pupils
pursuing this course will have little previous knowledge of Geology ; pre-
sumably the great majority will have done no more than it is proposed to
include in the General Science syllabus. The course outlined is much
wider in scope and should be more academic in approach than that proposed
for the First School Certificate. It is suggested that the pupils should not
only have some training in the recognition of rocks, minerals and fossils,
and some knowledge of the varied applications of Geology, but that they
should also learn something of the relation of Geology to other sciences, and
of the more modern views of earth history. The course is designed rather
for those completing their formal education in science than for those
proposing to carry the study of Geology to a further stage.
The earth as a planet ; its major surface features. Weathering in different
climates ; soil formation ; denudation ; marine erosion.
Sedimentary rocks; modern sediments; conditions of deposit . as
indicated by character of sediments. Marine, estuarine, deltaic,
lacustrine and desert deposits among British strata.
The composition and characters of the common minerals (a more ex-
tended list than for First Certificate); some study of elementary
crystallography including the use of Miller’s notation.
Igneous rocks: general structure and classification, to include granite,
syenite, diorite, gabbro, serpentine, quartz porphyry, porphyry,
dolerite, rhyolite, obsidian, andesite, basalt.
Structural geology: stratification, lamination, dip, strike, outcrop,
joints, cleavage. Relation of outcrop to the form of land. Types
of folding. Faults, their effects on outcrops. Unconformity ;
overlap. Outliers and inliers.
Igneous activity: modes of occurrence of igneous rocks. Volcanoes ;
geographical distribution; types of eruption; forms of lava and
ash deposits.
Earth movement. Elevation and depression of shore lines ; mountain
folding. Rifting and block movements. Earthquake phenomena ;
seismographic records. Structure of the inner earth ; mean density
of the earth ; temperature of the interior.
Metamorphism ; pneumatolysis.
Land forms: their development and relation to rock structure and
climate ; mountains, plateaux, plains, drainage systems. Escarp-
ments ; relation of valley systems to structure. Forms of coasts.
Fossils: their use in correlating sedimentary rocks. A general study
of the evolution of fishes, reptiles and mammals. The characters
of Foraminifera, Sponges, Graptolites, Corals, Crinoids, Echinoids,
Btachiopods, Lamellibranchia, Cephalopoda, and Trilobites. The
selection of fossils to be determined by the systems available for
study near the school.
Principles of Historical Geology. Broad outlines of the structure of
Great Britain. General characters of the different systems and the
physical conditions under which they were deposited. The scenic
features associated with various formations.
Relation of Geology to human life. Coal: its history and occurrence.
Petroleum. Ores of the chief metals and their occurrence ; com-
mon building materials ; limes and cements. Water supply.
The practical work should be arranged to illustrate the above topics.
It should include the examination of common minerals and rocks in hand
288 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
specimen (and where possible in the field), and of fossils. If the school
possesses a microscope it can be used with advantage for the examination
of rock slices ; moreover, an ordinary microscope can now be converted
at little cost into a polarising microscope, which would add greatly to the
interest of examining rocks. The study of geological maps and the drawing
of sections across them is an important part of the work; those selected
should include geological maps of the district, to be studied in connection
with field work. In the course of field work reference should be made to
the structural features and their influence on relief ; the position of springs ;
the relation of the soils and distribution of vegetation to the nature
of the underlying rocks ; building stones and other products of economic
importance.
Senior (Elementary) Schools.
While the Committee believe that a well-planned scheme of General
Science (including the elements of geological knowledge as outlined on
p. 284) supplies the most suitable basis for science teaching in Senior
Schools, they recognise that in some schools the facilities are inadequate
for experimental work of the character desirable in such a scheme. Where
work in science has to be more limited in scope it is suggested that Geology
may suitably be introduced as an independent subject, for it has the
advantage that it can be taught with very little equipment, and that its
requirements as regards laboratories and apparatus are fewer than in the
case of almost any other science. It would be appropriate to teach Geology
more fully also in those areas where many of the scholars will eventually
find employment in mines and quarries or on the land.
The courses provided in such schools would naturally show much
variation, especially as the Senior Schools are free from the necessity of
preparing their pupils for prescribed examinations. In most cases a rather
practical bias would be appropriate to the course, and the relations of
Geology to human life would be of outstanding importance ; treated in
this way Geology would form a link between the cultural and the vocational
aspects of study. In some schools the approach to Geology would best
be made through school journeys, which afford opportunities for simple
field studies of a more extended character.
As an example of a scheme of study for Senior Schools the following is
suggested :
1. An elementary study of rocks. Based mainly on material obtained
or used locally, with comparative examination of other types. Local
uses of rocks in building and brick making, for road materials, in
industrial processes, etc.
2. The common minerals: (a) in relation to rog¢ks examined ; (b) some
metallic ores, and the derivation from them of metals by simple
experiments ; (c) such minerals as rock salt, with reference to mode
of origin, etc.
3. Bedding and jointing of rocks; structures of rocks as seen in the
field ; extent and underground occurrence.
4. Springs and spring water : mineral, medicinal and petrifying springs ;
hard and soft water. Water supply: how towns and villages are
supplied.
5. Soil and its formation. Local soils and sub-soils, with observations
on their distribution and thicknesses.
TEACHING OF GEOLOGY IN SCHOOLS 289
6. A simple study of the work of rivers; erosion of valleys, formation
of flood plains and deltas. Ice-work: effect on scenery and soils.
The coast: origin of coastal features.
. Volcanoes and earthquakes (treated in outline only).
. Coal: its origin and distribution in Britain ; fossil plants.
Oil: its occurrence and mode of exploitation.
10. The main principles of historical geology, sufficient to give some
indication of the length of geological time and an idea of a sequence
of events in which, for example, the formation of coal and rock salt
were episodes. Reference would be made to fossils here and at
other suitable points in the course.
11. Geology and scenery, studied first in the school area, and then
extended to other areas, such as chalk country, limestone areas,
grit moors, etc.
The geology of other features seen in the area such as cliffs, caves,
landslips, beaches, sand dunes ; the use of breakwaters and groynes.
o ox
It is suggested that where possible simple experiments should be carried
out in connection with this course on the lines indicated below. Many of
these experiments would form a useful introduction to work in other
branches of science.
Practical Work in Geology.
It has been pointed out to the Committee that one reason why some
teachers find difficulty in introducing Geology into science courses is the
lack of suitable practical work. It is, of course, true that Geology is
primarily an observational science, and the problem of keeping a large
class actively observing (rather than doing) is one which may present serious
difficulties to many teachers. It may be pointed out that some teachers
have very successfully met this problem by requiring pupils to keep
tabulated records of their observations on rocks and minerals, and to make
neat drawings of fossils and crystals. There is, however, little doubt that
certain pupils will be more interested to be doing some simple experiment,
and the Committee suggest that without much difficulty a scheme of ex-
perimental work on the rocks and minerals could be devised. This could
be developed to include such exercises as the following : A
1. The identification of small samples of common minerals by simple
tests based on information supplied in outline tables. For instance,
instead of being given labelled specimens of quartz, calcite or gypsum
for study, unlabelled samples could be determined by the pupils,
using tests such as hardness, reaction with acids, etc. Blowpipe
methods could be used with other minerals.
2. The study of some rocks could be linked with actual determinations
of the proportions of their constituents; pupils could break up
granite or other coarse igneous rocks, separate the constituents into
heaps, and weigh them.
3. The constituents of sandstones and grits could be investigated by
crushing samples and making simple separations of different grain
sizes or of heavy minerals.
4. The solubility of limestones and determination of the percentage of
insoluble matter ; similarly the effects of hot and cold dilute acid
on dolomite.
290 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
5. Measurement of the porosity of sandstones, chalk, etc.
6. Determinations of specific gravities of rocks and minerals.
These experiments could be developed, especially in a course of General
Science. One advantage is that they require little equipment and only a
small space. While they may be used to supplement observational work
and to enliven the ordinary laboratory work to some extent in the early
stages, these experiments cannot entirely displace the examination and
sketching of material. In any case field work must form an essential part
of almost any geological course.
The practical work related to map study may also be extended by the
construction of simple block models to illustrate structures. Rectangular
models to show true and apparent dips and outcrops, or folds in plan and
section, can be built up in paper very easily ; it is very helpful for pupils
to make a variety of these at an early stage.
REPTILE-BEARING OOLITE, STOW.
Report of Committee appointed to investigate the reptile-bearing odlite near
Stow-on-the-Wold, subject to the condition that suitable arrangements
be made for the disposal of the material (Sir A. SmirH Woopwarp,
F.R.S., Chairman; Mr. C. I. Garpiner, Secretary; Prof. S. H.
Reyno_ps, Mr. W. E. Swinton).
THE two quarries in the Chipping Norton Limestone near Stow-on-the-
Wold, from which reptilian remains have been obtained before, have been
visited from time to time and the reptilian remains found there brought
away and sent to London for extraction and restoration. Most of them are
now in the Stroud Museum.
Of the four groups of reptiles represented—Crocodile, Theropod, Sauropod
and Carnivorous Dinosaurs—all but the last one are in the series collected
since the issue of the previous report of the Committee., They include :
Crocodiles—Several vertebrz and a nearly perfect scapula.
Theropod Dinosaurs——An ilium, a sacrum and a right femur, this last
being in an almost perfect condition and the finest bone in the series.
Sauropod Dinosaurs—An enormous caudal vertebra, an almost perfect
right coracoid and two ischia.
Professor Reynolds is studying the specimens and hopes shortly to
publish a description of them. The Committee is unanimously of opinion
that an application for a further grant should be made.
ARTEMIA SALINA 291
ARTEMIA SALINA.
Report of the Committee appointed to investigate the progressive adaptation
to new conditions in Artemia salina (Diploid and Octoploid, Partheno-
genetic v. Bisexual) (Prof. R. A. FIsHer, F.R.S., Chairman; Dr. K.
Matuer, Secretary; Dr. J. Gray, F.R.S., Dr. F. Gross, Dr. E. S.
RussELL, O.B.E., Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S.).
DurRINc the year experiments have been carried out on 16,540 tested nauplii,
distributed in five lines, of which two have been carried to the fifth, one
to the fourth, and the remaining two to the third, selected generation.
Table I shows the number of tested nauplii in each generation of each line.
TaBLeE I,
Line.
Generation : HICH C3 C4 C6 CF
Unselected 2 . 260 669 29 832 1,204
Ist selected ‘ . 387 430 768 1,082 1,098
2nd do. . P 225 469 1,055 993 829
3rd _do. . F eats 180 544 1,023 391
4th do. . ; oo “= 79 502 1,229
5th do. . : oo — — 895 1,310
sotal =. \ . . 929 1,748 2,475 5,327 6,061 16,540
The large increase in the extent of the experiments as compared with
previous years is due partly to the increased amount of time devoted to the
care of the cultures by Miss North and other members of the Galton
Laboratory, and partly to greater success in obtaining broods, especially
during the winter and spring months. More intense illumination may have
been one factor contributing to this success.
The experiments have followed the programme, as originally laid down,
of testing each brood in six successive standard strengths of sodium arsenite
and selecting, in each generation, survivors from the higher strengths for
use as parents. Although, as will be seen, remarkable progressive changes
in tolerance were shown in several lines, ‘the difficulty, noted in previous
reports, of broods from the same parents ‘showing very unequal mortalities
has not yet been overcome. For example, we give in Table II the number
tested and surviving at different strengths in two large broods occurring
in succession in the unselected generation of C6. It will be observed that
TABLE II.
Solution.
Strength of Solution ; . Ne york 1) MEINE OrPotal
Brood 1 Tested ; , . — 18 18 18 18 20 20 — 112
Surviving . ; | eT OMeran rg? Sl “TOs meee
Brood 2 Tested , ’ P28 SS? 18°18 rsh salad 166
Surviving . : SES OME OIE. 2 0g Di EHR AE eG
292 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
equivalent mortalities in these two broods occur at concentrations differing
by some eight units, representing a difference of more than two-fold in the
concentration of the poison. The technique adopted of subdividing each
brood into six successive strengths, while adequate to cope with small
inequalities in resistance between broods, is quite inadequate to yield
intelligible results so long as differences of the magnitude illustrated con-
tinue to occur. Such differences, moreover, undermine the efficacy of the
selective process, by which the parents are chosen, by allowing relatively
susceptible individuals from broods in which the survival rate has happened
to be high to be mistaken for individuals which have themselves displayed
high resistance.
The stage which the research has now reached is, therefore, primarily
14
507, DEATH POINT
ORES 2 eee vseaa
©
5 5 S, S, S, S
GENERATION
RIG. 1.
one of the improvement of the technique of experimental elimination to a
level of efficiency comparable with that already attained in propagation.
The stricter control of water temperature and of food density during the
test period and of the possibility that some broods would show a considerable
mortality even without toxic elimination, are the three methods now being
tried to improve this aspect of our procedure.
Nevertheless, it is obvious from the records that substantial changes in
resistance, such as cannot be ascribed to accidental differences, have occurred
in at least four out of the five lines, the improvement being often continued
progressively from generation to generation. The data from line C6 are
shown in Table VIII (at the end of the report) the changes in the estimated
concentration for 50 per cent. mortality being given in Table IV, and shown
diagrammatically in Fig. 1.
In contrast, no appreciable progress whatever has been achieved in the
parallel line C4, for which the estimated 50 per cent. death points are given
in Table V. There has been, superficially, a drop in resistance in this line.
ARTEMIA SALINA 293
The 3rd selected generation may be ignored owing to insufficient data, as
shown by the large standard error, but the decrease in resistance of the
S, generation seems to be real.
The different behaviour of these two lines might be ascribed to the pos-
sibility that in the latter no genetic variability affecting survival in the test
_condition was present, whereas in C6 great differences in genotype were at
first available, leading to a rapid selective response. We suggest, however,
that, as each generation may be predominantly bred from so few as three pairs
of parents, the element of chance in the selection of these latter may be the
more important factor in causing discrepancy. On this view in the one
line selection has been successful in securing parents of high innate resistance
for the propagation of the stock, while in the second case parents of mediocre
or low resistance have happened to be selected owing to unintentional
inequality of the conditions to which different broods have been subjected.
TaBce III.
Generation. eat Regression.
Unselected . é . 8-791 £0°742 0-179
rst selected ; . 10°242 + 0°257 0:258
2nd. do. . : . Ir-0go + 0:227 0°310
3rd_—s do... : . 11°763 £0:240 0°359
4th do. . : . 13°396 +0°314 0-396
thy do: -. : . Ir-150 + 0-382 0326
TaB_e IV.
: 50 per cent. .
Generation. DEA Poe. Regression.
Unselected ‘ . 87524 +0°543 0°245
Ist selected : 7-426 2 0-132 0°316
2nd do. . : . 4°675 + 0-427 0°224
3rd_~sdo. .. “ . o°761 + 5:°474 0-061
The behaviour of some of the other lines seems to confirm this view.
(See Tables V-IX.)
A feature of some interest is shown by the steepness of the gradient of
mortality with respect to poison concentration (called the regression in
Tables IV and V). Other things being equal, this gradient will be higher
the more uniform the material. In line C6 it may be observed that the
regression increases in successive generations as the resistance is heightened.
In other lines it also appears that, when an advance has been made, by
selection, it is generally accompanied by an increase in the regression. It
would appear that the increase in genetic resistance is generally accompanied
by a decrease in variability, or, in other words, that the stocks are becoming
more homozygous for the genes favoured by the selection. Inview of this
effect it will be of especial interest to cross the two lines now available after
five generations of selection, and to determine whether the variability is
thereby restored without loss of resistance.
The Committee asked to be reappointed with a grant of £20.
294 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
TABLE V.
Line C2.
Solution. So | Si | S2 S;
Pees aS eS T S
EG) j ; ‘ 2A Qe == | — —
F (6) . ; : : Bay Porte! == | = | —
GHG) : : z 45 32'~| 19 10 — —
H (8) . Y ; : 51 28 48 23 shits —
I (9) . ¢ ; : 26 15 61 47 17 13 —
Ji (re): : : 4 38 23 61 30 31 20 9 9
K (11) . : ‘ : 32 16 62) 34 | (32) (Too aaonNG
ONG) ae } : pile a") G5 Bl a eee 9° 9
M (13) . : : : — 4 3) | aR Io 9g
N (14) . : ; : — ity punto ypenling Gh) Os” 10 8
O (15) . : : H -- TO 0) 1 TORO 10 6
In the case of each generation the first column (T) gives the numbers of
nauplii tested, and the second column (S) the numbers of survivors.
TaBLeE VI.
Line C3.
Solution. So 51 Se S;
A Alas I ets TS ToS
C (3) I2 12 oes = aE
D (4) IZ 4 ma, an oa
E (5) 66 48 Silss avs ees
By) 86 43 e007 Sa =
G (7) III 50 33 «19 oa a
H (8) 107 33 66 41 47. 28 —
I (9) 113 31 66 33 73 46 14 12
J. (xo) LUZ /'31 75 26 72 44 14 8
K (11) 49 1 67 20 75 39 19 18
L (12) a 67 29 97 35 40 27
M (13) — 40 9 83. XII 48 26
N (14) . ; : : — = 220 ir 39 5
O (15) . : : i — — — 6 0
In the case of each generation the first column (T) gives the numbers of
nauplii tested, and the second column (S) the numbers of survivors.
ARTEMIA SALINA 295
TasBie VII.
Line C4.
Solution. So S, S, Ss Si
Mies hy Les fs eA coer
D (4) = — ON) 7 Fi
E (5) pay a 94 42 51 22 sit
PAG) 3 52 25 | 134 49 60 22 53):
(7) Sr oo | To “ge | age: *e4 73 14 11})3
H (8) Freer: 106 61 142 26 78 26 24 8
I (9) eu 5a eee| MOON 30 L725 (32 107 44 28 10
J (10) 7) 130 30 Dee 2 I 78 20 6,50
K (11) — 130 15 116 11 39 14 —_
L (12) ‘ : — 7S ied 65h er 2.6) ans =
M (13) : ; — DESy coal LE ke 40 12 nee —
N (14) ; a 2p TO — 10 I —
O (15) ; P — 2r) © oo — —
In the case of each generation the first column (T) gives the numbers of
nauplii tested, and the second column (S) the numbers of survivors.
Tas_e VIII.
Line C6.
Solution. Shall Seon ol eae B.cctl, Samal
| |
fee Soi Wa Gokaa | FAS? WA POUSUR OTS: iO: Say
E (5) a) Bran inl 2 Sam) Same baer SS
Be (6) Tipe TOs mnOr ) 46 — — — —
may), °.. RieacOvl Lor 70. | ones — — | —
ie (8) 98 46) 106 83] 93 72] 50 40 — | —
feto) | 130 61.) 109 71 | 128° 95 81 59 — —
marta) «6, | 130 54 | 170 ror | 140° 94 | 152° 125 | 50: 45°)" 82" 59
(11) . | 128 40 | 163 68] 168 94] 177 118 | 81 68 | 145 60
meiz) . | 119 34 | 102 25 | 164 73 |*160 65 | 85 6r | 134 57
Meta) > | 121° 35. | 94 30 | 146,36) 167° 57/) 77 Sr | 45 “52
IN (14) Boveren Os t4 | vader! T3261 | Saegoumrguie so
ee | 24 O67” 4)" 355" Pe 260" '7'| ‘Sak tare 1ay TO
(ro)... | — — 27 + O8\" 247.3" |) 4a Tot erosy 10
In the case of each generation the first column (T) gives the numbers of
nauplii tested, and the second column (S) the numbers of survivors.
296 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
TaBle IX.
Line C7.
| | |
Solutions ease Si Sit -141S, | S, auhiies
LoS rs | i MSI FS 3) ToS ees
C.'t@) 6-8 ra Sr iat cl: chat Oa
D (4) OES a eae a => -glieiies
E (5) 97 43] 16 16 ee Wa RSE = a
EF A(6) 173 84 | 67 56 = =e | A =
GAGs -4| 200: "88s 167) ‘65 512 a= — —
EIR (S) SS is202. Ras Magi, 74 38 31 — 17 LO F259
I (9) i205 855 | 16x ror 85> 597/28 2335] 130. 38) 17S9855
i) (Go). 2) 162, B50) 187" 2a) 1297 Sri 40) 34. | Toon k7I, |er75bRtO
(rt). >) 85 33 |).167 $3) 142 98) 61 46 |, 204555) aodseRa
L (12) .| 40 5/112 12] 167 94] 87 32 | 204 56] 249 38
Mis) |" 8 Bro Fee Ao 035) 37%] 86, 34 \v2T5 “28h! 2odnen6
Nia. — BACT 89 154) 75 19 188! S5lrasea
OR (G5) a — 21 Ou 5 ee 5” ©.) (635 Mon esis
In the case of each generation the first column (T) gives the numbers of
nauplii tested, and the second column (S) the numbers of survivors.
ZOOLOGICAL RECORD.
Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with other Sections interested,
and with the Zoological Society, for the purpose of obtaining support
for the ‘ Zoological Record’ (Sir StipNEY Harmer, K.B.E., F.R.S.,
Chairman; Dr. W.'T. Catman, C.B., F.R.S., Secretary ; Prof. E. S.
GoopricH, F.R.S., Prof. D. M. S. Watson, F.R.S.).
THE grant of £50 was paid over to the Zoological Society on June 25, 1937,
as a contribution towards the cost of preparing and publishing Volume
LXXII of the Zoological Record for 1935. Referring to the ‘ Record Fund ’”
the report of the Council of the Zoological Society for 1936 states : ‘ It will
be seen that the position has not improved, and the loss on each volume is
still very heavy, much in excess of the contribution of £500 per annum made
by this Society, so that unfortunately the Reserve Fund stands lower at
December 31st than it did at the end of the previous year.’ It appears
from this that no progress is evident in the direction of making the Record
self-supporting and that only a continuance of help from the various con-
tributing societies will ensure the continuation of this indispensable pub-
lication. The Committee accordingly asks for reappointment, with the
renewal of the grant of £50.
WINDERMERE FRESHWATER BIOLOGICAL STATION 297
FRESHWATER BIOLOGICAL STATION, WINDERMERE.
Report of Committee appointed to aid competent investigators selected by
the Committee to carry out definite pieces of work at the Freshwater
Biological Station, Wray Castle, Windermere (Prof. F. E. Fritscu,
F.R.S., Chairman; Prof. P. A. Buxton, Secretary; Miss P. M.
JENKIN, Dr. C. H. O’DoNoGHUE (from Section D); Dr. W. H.
PEARSALL (from Section K).
Durinc the current year the British Association’s table at the laboratory
has been occupied by Mr. R. Misra, working under the general direction of
Dr. W. H. Pearsall of the University of Leeds. Mr. Misra has carried out
his work in close collaboration with members of the Association’s staff. A
full account of his work has been prepared for publication as a scientific
paper. The following short account of the work has been drawn up by
Mr. Misra.
Lake Mups AND THEIR PLANT SUCCESSIONS.
Under the guidance of Dr. W. H. Pearsall this subject has been studied
in the Lake District during a period of two years. The investigations were
carried out in the Freshwater Biological Laboratory for the two summers
1935-30, and the rest of the period has been occupied in chemical analysis
of field collections at the University of Leeds.
It has been shown during my work that the plants attached to lake bottoms
are greatly influenced by the nature of the substratum ; their successions
have been traced to chemical and physical changes taking place in the mud.
In shallow water Littorella and Lobelia give way to Phragmites as the bottom
gets older and more organic, and in deeper water Isoétes gives place first to
pond weeds, then to water-lilies, and finally to sedges as similar changes take
place in the mud. These changes in the lake floor are therefore very im-
portant in deciding the quality and quantity of vegetation in a lake.
During the development of a plant succession, the lake muds do not
become very acid as do terrestrial soils undergoing similar changes in the
same district; for instance, in young or newly-colonised muds the pH
range is very wide. But the pH range for organic muds is very narrow,
the average figure being 5-8-6:0. Since the organic muds become ex-
tremely acid upon exposing them to air for some time, it is believed that the
acidity under water is kept down by special types of anzrobic decomposition.
The ammonium thiocyanate test for detecting soil sourness was developed
by Comber, and is frequently used by agriculturists for that purpose ;_ but
it would not work with lake muds, for it depends upon the presence of ferric
iron, and in lake muds the iron is present in a reduced condition. This
method has now been modified to apply to lake muds. This is done by
oxidising the iron by hydrogen peroxide. A large number of samples
studied by the modified technique show that the muds become deficient
in lime as they accumulate organic matter. Plants like Littorella and
Isoétes cannot grow upon these lime-deficient muds, although the pond weeds
do well there.
298 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Decomposition of organic matter in the mud has been studied in some
detail. Starting from bare sand or silt it has been shown that as the organic
matter increases in the mud there is an increasing loss of carbon in the form
of marsh gas and possibly some carbonic acid gas, whereas the nitrogen is
retained upon the finely divided particles of mud in the form of ammonia.
This process increases the fertility of the lake bottom up to about 25 per
cent. organic content. Should the organic matter exceed this limit de-
composition is retarded and subaqueous peat is formed, which may remain
sterile or be colonised by sedges. As these changes progress the mud loses
calcium available for plant growth, and iron and aluminium become the
replaceable ions, while sulphides also accumulate ; all these substances are
toxic to many of the pond weeds. An analysis of plants collected in nature
showed | corresponding changes with regard to these elements. Many
species were also transplanted to glass jars containing the different types of
muds and sunk in the lake. The crops produced from them confirmed the
above conclusions.
Further methods have been evolved, including electrical appliances to
measure the reducing property of muds ; it has been shown that the reducing
property becomes stronger with increasing organic content; as a result,
when the muds are kept in contact with water, the oxygen dissolved in the
water is rapidly used up. This is a fact of great biological importance, for
it means that organisms in the muds must live under anzrobic conditions.
CYTOLOGY AND GENETICS.
Report of co-ordinating committee for Cytology and Genetics (Prof. Dame
HELEN GwWYNNE- VAUGHAN, G.B.E., Chairman; Dr. F. W. SANSOME,
Secretary; Prof. F. T. Brooxs, F.R.S., Prof. F. A. E. Crew,
Dr. C. D. DarLincToN, Prof. R. A. FisHer, F.R.S., Mr. E. B.
Forp, Prof. R. R. Gates, F.R.S., Dr. C. Gorpon, Dr. HAMMOND,
Dr. J. S. Huxtey, Dr. T. J. Jenkin, Dr. K. Matuer, Dr. W. B.
TurrILt, Dr. C. H. WADDINGTON.
SINCE cytology and genetics are the concern of more than one Section of the
Association, the Committee was formed in 1936 to assist Organising Com-
mittees and Recorders in arranging joint sessions and in ensuring that
papers of common interest were not given at the same time in different
Sections.
The Committee realise that many of the facts of cytology and genetics
are not readily assimilated by workers in other biological fields and that the
difficulty is enhanced by the development of a specialised terminology.
They therefore approached the Organising Committee of Sections D and K
with a suggestion that a morning should be devoted to a joint symposium
and arranged for the presentation of coherent accounts of recent work in
their subjects in such a way as to avoid unnecessary technicalities. The
Organising Committee have approved this proposal. Should it be success-
ful, the Committee believe that the formation of such symposia and the
presentation of cytological and genetical demonstrations will form an im-
portant part of their duties, and will be of value to the members of the
Association. ‘
A number of papers have been grouped in the above-mentioned sym-
posium, a second series are associated in the form of a discussion on Genetics
KENT’S CAVERN 299
and Taxonomy. The Committee therefore hope that they have made a
useful step in the required direction and desire to place on record their
appreciation of the encouragement and aid they have received from the
Secretariats of the Sections concerned.
KENT’S CAVERN.
Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with the Torquay Antiquarian
Society in investigating Kent’s Cavern (Sir A. Keitu, F.R.S., Chair-
man; Prof. J. L. Myrss, O.B.E., F.B.A., Secretary; Mr. M. C.
BurkKITT, Miss D. A. E. Garrop, Mr. A. D. LAcarLie).
REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS AT KENT’sS CAVERN.
THE following report has been received from the excavators :—
‘The season 1936-7 lasted from September 15, 1936, to March 29, 1937,
and excavating work was carried on in the “‘ Vestibule ” during forty-eight
days. On December 28 the searching party had the assistance of Prof.
R. Ruggles Gates, F.R.S. The areain which digging was continued was much
the same as last year, but the excavators were successful in penetrating to
a depth about 30 ft. below the datum line, which is about 8 ft. lower than .
was reached last season. On the way down, several large limestone rocks
were met, which had to be broken up and removed as the work progressed ;
but fortunately it was found that more mammalian remains than usual were
discovered at the lowest point. Flints have been rather scarce, only one
of the Levallois type and a few Aurignacian being discovered. ‘Teeth and
bones have both been numerous, the remains of hyena being especially in
evidence, outnumbering even those of the horse, the most outstanding
being the skull of an adult hyena with twelve teeth in position ; a pre-ante-
penultimate milk molar of a mammoth with the grinding surface well worn,
also a true molar weighing two pounds and a portion of the mandible of a
very young mammoth, including the symphysis ; the left ramus of a bison’s
jaw, which is believed to be the longest jaw ever found in the Cavern ; large
portions of jaws of Irish deer; a distal pair of vestigial metacarpals, and
part of the sternum of a reindeer ; but the most interesting find was a large
piece of the palmate portion of a deer’s antler, found at a depth of nearly
30 ft., which is not yet identified, although it presents certain features similar
to some antlers of reindeer.’
(Signed) ARTHUR H, Ocitvie, E. H. Rocerrs, B. N. TExss.
The Committee asks to be reappointed, with a further grant.
300 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
DERBYSHIRE CAVES.
Fifteenth Interim Report of Committee appointed to co-operate with a Com-
mittee of the Royal Anthropological Institute in the exploration of Caves
in the Derbyshire District (Mr. M. C. Burkitt, Chairman; Mr. A.
LesLic ARMSTRONG, Secretary; Prof. H. J. FLeure, F.R.S., Miss
D. A. E. Garrop, Dr. J. WitFrrip Jackson, Prof. L. S. PALMER,
Mr. H. J. E. Peake).
Creswell Crags.—Mr. Leslie Armstrong, F.S.A., reports as follows :
‘ Boat House Cave-—The work here has proved both arduous and baffling
owing to unexpected difficulties encountered. In my last report reference
is made to the removal of material introduced into the cave as puddling,
when the embankment of the adjoining lake was constructed. This
averages 6 ft. in thickness, two-thirds of it being stiff red clay. At the
time of writing the 1936 report what was assumed to be breccia, or stalag-
mite, covering the floor of the cave, had been reached over a small area,
but further excavation revealed that this substance was concrete laid
down before the introduction of the puddled clay, and not stalagmite.
As the work proceeded this concrete was found to rise along the side
of the cave in a series of 12-in. steps and to extend in the form of a wall,
. 2 ft. thick and 5 ft. in height, across the entrance. Owing to its thickness
and consistency, the concrete on the floor resisted all efforts to break through
it by means of wedges and chisels and, ultimately, blasting has had to be
resorted to. For the carrying out of this I am indebted to the Bolsover
Colliery Company and to the Manager of the Creswell Colliery, who kindly
furnished the necessary drilling machine and explosives and permitted one
of their expert shot firers to do the blasting. An area of 6 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in.
of the floor concrete has been removed in this manner and the underlying
cave earth is now exposed in readiness for excavation. A superficial ex-
amination of the cave earth after the final shot yielded a mineralised bone,
apparently reindeer, and other material which indicates that it is true cave
earth. The whole of the material overlying the concrete has now been
removed and its surface is exposed over half the area of the cave; therefore
a systematic examination of the cave earth can be proceeded with and will
shortly be undertaken.
‘The Yew Tree Shelter.—This is situated on the north side of the Gorge,
opposite to the Boat House Cave. As the work in the Boat House did not
require constant supervision, the excavation of this extensive rock shelter,
which has been awaiting a suitable opportunity, was commenced in the
autumn of 1936 and is still in hand. A sparse, but consistent, occupation
is revealed which, in general character, appears to be contemporary with
that of the Lower Middle and Middle zones of Mother Grundy’s Parlour.
One quartzite implement, from the base of the deposit, is of Mousterian
type. The occupation of the site was an occasional and not a constant
occupation, but the abundance of pot boilers and burnt flints indicate that
it was a living and not merely a workshop site. ‘The associated fauna, so
far recovered, includes mammoth, reindeer, horse, bison and hyzena.
‘112 sq. ft. have been completely excavated and the upper layer over a
further 70 sq. ft. examined.
‘Whalley Rock Shelter—In January, Dr. Arthur Court, of Chesterfield,
brought to my notice a small rock shelter at Whalley, situated geographically
MINING SITES IN WALES 301
between Creswell Crags and Langwith Cave, and he co-operated with me in
excavating it during May and June last. This proved to be a workshop site
and yielded 160 artifacts. In general facies and in the fauna, this site agrees
with the Creswell rock shelters and is contemporary in date therewith.
“A special exhibition of the whole of the artifacts and a representative
selection of animal remains, obtained in the Pin Hole Cave and Mother
Grundy’s Parlour excavations, was displayed at the British Museum from
November 1936 to May 1937.
“Thanks are extended to Mr. Reginald A. Smith, F.S.A., Keeper of the
Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, for providing the facilities
and arranging this exhibition.
‘A further grant is earnestly requested by the Committee for the continua-
tion of the work in the Boat House Cave and at the Yew Tree rock shelter,
Creswell.’
MINING SITES IN WALES.
Report of Committee appointed to investigate early mining sites in Wales
(Mr. H. J. E. Peake, Chairman; Mr. OLiver Davies, Secretary ;
Prof. V. GorRDON CHILDE, Dr. C. H. Descu, F.R.S., Mr. E. Estyn
Evans, Prof. H. J. FLeure, F.R.S., Prof. C. DaryLL Forpe, Sir
CyriL Fox, Dr. WILLOUGHBY GARDNER, Dr. F. J. Nortu, Mr. V. E.
NasH WILLIAMS).
THE committee reports that excavations have been carried out in the spring
and summer of 1937 on a number of ancient mining-dumps in Wales.
At Cwm Ystwyth permission to excavate was most kindly granted by
Mr. Fermanoglu. The tips below the opencast at the top of the Comet
Lode on Copper Hill were sectioned in several places. They were found
to have been carefully picked over in ancient times, so that they contained
little quartz or galena. On them are a great number of formless stone
hammers, usually with marks of pounding at one end, while the sides are
finely polished as a result of their use as mullers. ‘They are always slightly
broken, perhaps to obtain a good grip. They are made of a local rock,
which, however, does not occur commonly, and was clearly sought for its
hardness. There was also found part of a saddle quern. These tools
differ from those which occur on the tips below the main opencast and on
the ‘ Roman Dumps’ at the Kingsland Lode. There one finds cup-marked
stones used for pounding, but hammers do not occur and must have been of
iron. The Kingsland Lode is known to have been exploited as late as 1800,
and the cup-marked querns may therefore be attributed to the seventeenth or
eighteenth century. ‘The age of the workings and tools on the Comet Lode
could not be determined, but they are clearly considerably older. At the
same time the narrow chisel-cut galleries in the region of the main opencast,
though of a type which might be considered Roman in South Europe,
probably belong to a more recent period in Wales. It thus appears that the
earliest miners at Cwm Ystwyth attacked one rather small outcrop in a large
mineralised area. This careless neglect of the greater part of an ore-deposit
is characteristic of the users of stone hammers in West Wales. -
A small test was carried out on the ancient dump at Nantyreira. There
were found three thick charcoal strata separated by layers of stones and
mud, and overlying a deep bank of stones which rested directly on till. In
302 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
the lowest layer were several formless polished stone hammers. These
did not occur at higher levels, and the charcoal layers may be more recent ;
perhaps the earliest miners worked by fire-setting, and their successors,
in cleaning out the opencast, threw out the charcoal which was reposing in
it. The extent of the prehistoric workings seems to have been small.
Though chalcopyrite occurs at Nantyreira, the only ore found in the dumps
was galena and cerussite, and even this was rare.
A thorough examination of the mine at Newtown was made with the per-
mission of Mr. F. Bennett Lloyd of the Celynog Estate Office. It has long
been known that there were old workings in Newtown Park, consisting of a
shaft and gallery. A lower adit, just above the river-level, is now closed.
The upper gallery has partly fallen in ; it cannot be followed very far, and it
branches on both sides. In the loose material of the floor was found what
seemed to be a circular chipped stone lid, such as are common in Wales but
difficult to date. Further evidence was, however, obtained from the river-
bank.. The hill rises steeply, and immediately below it a soft yellow layer,
resembling denuded material, overlies stiff yellow clay, probably boulder-
clay im situ, which hardly emerges above the level of the water. In the
upper yellow layer were found fragments of slag and fused furnace lining ;
half-way up the hill was a fragment of metallic lead. These then appear to
be derived from a hilltop furnace, whose exact site could not be located.
It must clearly antedate the introduction of water-driven bellows, and is
not improbably Roman, as we have evidence for the intensive Roman occupa-
tion of the Upper Severn Valley and their interest in the mineral resources of
the district (e.g. slag and ore specimens from Caersws and Forden).
Fresh evidence for the chronology of stone mining-tools has recently
been provided by a small excavation on a Roman tip on Parys Mt. and
by a preliminary survey of the Llandudno area. At the former the lowest
levels contain no stone tools and much quartz, and are clearly derived from
primitive working. The upper levels had many stone tools used as hammers,
mullers and querns. Mr. Fanning Evans reports the discovery on the
mountain of a proper saddle-quern, such as accompany stone hammers at
Cwm Ystwyth. Formless hammers found on the dumps at Great Orme’s
Head exactly resemble those from Cwm Ystwyth. There is good evidence
for dating the Orme’s Head mines to the later Roman period, and Parys
was probably exploited at the same time, though it is not unlikely that it did
not close down until after the Roman era. It thus appears that the formless
hammer-muller-quern is Roman, and we may therefore provisionally assign
to this period Cwm Ystwyth and the group of early workings round Plyn-
limon, as has long been suspected but has not been previously proved.
The Orme’s Head mines also yielded a stone muller of the shape of a
flattened sphere with a thumb-hole. Tools of this type are figured by
Evans, but little was known of their date. The Roman dumps appear
extensive, and are only partially covered by modern refuse; it is hoped
later to carry out a detailed survey of them.
From somewhere in the Trecastell mine Mr. Trevethan reports a large
perforated stone hammer. Near the bottom of the hill were found several
unperforated smoothed stone hammers, differing from the previous group
in having a slight rill for a handle. They had almost certainly been washed
down from an old series of tips at the first and second levels. ‘The workings
corresponding to these tips have been cut with iron gads, and it is almost
certain that the ore was extracted on wheeled trolleys or sledges. The
latter feature seems medieval in all parts of Europe. The former are not
known at any Roman mine in Wales save Dolaucothy, which is stylistically
advanced probably because it was a state-directed enterprise. "Thus we
MINING SITES IN WALES 303
may probably assign Trecastell to post-Roman times, and as it is known to
have been vigorously exploited in the early seventeenth century, perforated
and rilled hammers seem to have continued in use until that date. This
conclusion is borne out by the late date of the roughly rilled hammers from
Alderley Edge.
The objects from Cwm Ystwyth have been sent to the National Museum
of Wales. Those from the Montgomeryshire mines have been deposited
at Welshpool and a full report of these excavations will be published in the
Montgomery Collections of the Powysland Club. The hammers from near
Llandudno have been sent to Cardiff, save for one specimen which has been
left in the Llandudno Museum ; those from Parys have been sent to Bangor
Museum.
The following rough ore-analyses have been carried out at Belfast :
(a) Chalcopyrite, Nantyreira: Cu 28-71 per cent., Fe 30-0 per cent.,
Sb 0-36 per cent., Pb 1-16 per cent., sulphur present, no Ag, Bi, Zn, Ni, Co.
(6) Chalcopyrite in quartz, from the ancient tip, Nantyrarian: Cu 13:14
per cent., Fe 1483 per cent., Zn 18-78 per cent., Pb 0-6 per cent., Sbo-04
per cent., Ni considerable traces, as traces, no Co, Ag, Bi.
(c) Chalcopyrite in quartz veins, Nantyricket, from the next tip to the
ancient working at Lloches y Ladron, on the eastward continuation of the
vein: Cu 20°89 per cent., Fe 24°31 per cent., Pb 0-51 per cent., sulphur
present, Ag traces, as considerable traces, Sb, Bi, Zn, Ni, Co none.
(d) Impregnations of chalcopyrite and galena from the tips, Daren Fawr :
Cu a little, Pb 0-8 per cent., Fe 4-26 per cent., Ni, Co, Zn, Sb, Ag, Bi none.
(e) Hard, heavy slag from Bryn Gefeiliau near Llanfihangel-Pennant .
(Caernarvon), received from Mr. Hemp; the slag is fairly well fused and
looks very ferruginous, resembling bloomery slag: Fe 37:35 per cent.,
Zn 14°51 per cent.,no Cu,Pb. Itis difficult to decide whether this slag is
derived from zinc-smelting or from iron-working with an ore which hap-
pened to contain much zinc; the temperature of bloomery slag would
hardly be sufficient to volatilise zinc. It is hoped later to excavate the site.
(f) Black compact hillside slag, Mwyn-Bwll, apparently derived from a
now denuded heap; the piece had been rolled and was rather flaky :
Pb 9-74 percent., Zn 10-21 percent., Fe 11°51 per cent.,no Bi, Cu. The
position of the slag should date it to a period when zinc was very little sought,
so it is probably derived from lead-working.
(g) Slag from a riverside site just east of Penrhyn-céch village, received
from Mr. Jenan Williams through Mr. E. E. Evans. Not far off is an old
leat. The site is near the sixteenth-century mine of Bryn Llwyd, and the
situation suggests that it belongs to the early days of the revived mining
industry. The specimens received were fused furnace-lining, made of
impure gritty clay, showing a little lead on analysis; also fused stone.
Pieces thought to be metallic slag have been found previously, some of which
occluded a little lead ore.
304 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
BLOOD GROUPS.
Report of Committee on the Blood Grouping of Primitive Peoples (Prof.
H. J. FLeure, F.R.S., Chairman; Prof. R. RuGcLes Gates, F.R.S.,
Secretary ; Prof. J. H. Hutton, C.I.E., Mr. R. U. Sayce).
DurtNnc the past year over 400 natives have been tested at Kohima and
Mokokchung in the Naga Hills, Assam, under the general direction of the
Honorary Director of Ethnography, with serum supplied by the Haffkine
Institute in Bombay. Many of these belong to the related tribes, Angamis,
Lhotas, Semas and Rengmas. Many are Konyaks, while others belong to
the Aos and the Thado Kuki. Significant differences in blood grouping
already appear, and the work is being continued until larger numbers are
available, in order to distinguish between the various tribes and groups
tested. Mr.S.S. Sarkar, of the Bose Institute, Calcutta, is testing aboriginal
tribes, the Male and Santal, in the Santal Perganas district of Bihar. Dr.
Eileen W. Macfarlane has been continuing her blood grouping in India,
combining it with anthropometric measurements. ‘Two papers are in the
press.
Serum was sent to the Canadian Government Expedition which spent
the years 1934-36 studying the Eskimos in the area west of Hudson Bay.
One hundred and twenty-six ‘ natives ’ were tested, but the results are not
being published until fuller information can be obtained from another
Expedition this year.
Nearly 300 Micmac Indians were tested with the help of Prof. Ralph
Smith, Pathologist, Halifax, N.S. These included nearly 100 children
from the Indian school at Shubenacadie, the remainder being mainly adults
from two Indian reservations on Cape Breton Island. A paper on the
Micmac Indians, who are even more mixed with white blood than the
British Columbian Indians, is now in course of publication.
A satisfactory arrangement for blood grouping the Iroquois and Ojibway
Indians of Canada has not yet been reached.
Prof. W. R. Morse, Dean of the College of Medicine in Chengtu,
Western China, has succeeded in obtaining the blood groups of many Chwan
Miao, as well as of 1,312 Szechwanese. A short paper on this subject is in
the press.
A small pamphlet has been produced, pointing out the significance of
the blood groups and the method by which they can be taken and recorded.
This is available for distribution to local medical practitioners who may be
interested and who reside in parts of the British Isles with pockets of popu-
lation which may show peculiar blood group percentages combined with
other physical differences. In this way it is hoped to initiate local blood
group surveys in some of the more isolated parts of the country.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION | 305
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION
Report of Committee appointed to consider and report on the place of Science
in Adult Education (Dr. A. W. PIcKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Chairman; Mr.
A. Gray Jones, Secretary; Mrs. V. Apams, Prof. W. B. BRIERLEY,
Prof. L. E. S. EastHam, Sir RIcHARD Grecory, Bt., F.R.S., Mr.
A. E. HENSHALL, Prof. R. PEERS).
CONTENTS.
1. INTRODUCTION.
2. STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF CLASSES HELD UNDER THE ADULT EDUCA-
TION REGULATIONS AND UNDER THE REGULATIONS FOR FURTHER
EDUCATION.
. Tue Aims oF SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION.
. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
. APPENDIX. SPECIMEN DETAILED SYLLABUSES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
Mm bw
1. INTRODUCTION.
THIs report is necessarily brief and should be regarded as complementary
to the interim report presented at the Leicester Meeting in 1933. That
report was the work of an earlier Committee appointed at the York Meeting
in 1932. The Committee comprehensively surveyed the position of science
teaching in adult education and made a number of valuable suggestions
and recommendations, but for various reasons was unable to complete the
scheme of work proposed.
The present Committee was appointed at the Blackpool Meeting in 1936.
They felt that in the light of experience gained since the issue of the 1933
Report, their terms of reference could most usefully be discharged by rapidly
surveying the present position of science in adult classes, by defining the
aims of science teaching and by presenting a series of agreed recommenda-
tions on the content of such teaching. Their work has thus to some extent
proceeded on lines projected by the previous Committee.
The Report therefore opens with a statistical survey designed to show
the number and percentages of adult educational classes studying one or
other of the various branches of science. The statistics demonstrate the
very modest position occupied by Science classes.
This is followed by a brief summary of the aims of science teaching in
adult education, in which emphasis is laid on the social implications of
science and its impact on the life of the community.
The next section provides a number of positive suggestions for the teaching
of various scientific subjects. "These take the form in each case of a brief
summary of agreed opinion as to the general ground to be covered in (a) one
year ; (5) three year courses.
An appendix provides detailed syllabuses and bibliographies in biology,
geology, and psychology, which may serve as examples.
The Committee trust that the topics suggested and the detailed syllabuses
provided will be useful to all who are concerned to widen the field of science
teaching in adult education. They believe that this can most fruitfully be
done if the social implications of science are borne in mind. The relation-
ship between science and the life of the community is emphasised in these
suggestions, for the mature adult student becomes conscious of that relation-
ship not only through his studies but also through his experience of life.
M2
306 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
2. A STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF ADULT EDUCATIONAL CLASSES.
The following statistics of classes are compiled mainly from the Board of
Education’s Annual Report for 1935 (issued in October 1936). They show
what subjects are taken in adult education classes recognised by the Board,
under the Adult Education Regulations:
Classification of subjects other than those in Vacation Courses and Residential
Colleges.
Year ended Fuly 31, 1935.
Preparatory, Three Year and Advanced
Tutorial Classes.
Subject. Students in Attendance.
Courses.| Men. | Women. Total.
|
=
ris |
Literature and aan ; 172 1,190 | 1,843 3,033
Economics : ‘ 133 1,616 | 3909 | 2,015
History, General. : 79 «| 850 556 | 1,406
History, Industrial . é 23ers 279 130) | 409
Geography . 14 ESR) is 102 285
Aesthetics (including Music, |
Art,etc.) . P 32 224 | B72) ten 596
Natural Science : : 55 667 349 1,016
Sociology 122 1,576 668 2,244
Philosophy and Psychology 153 T5S2 anit, jaave 2,894
Total a } 5 783 | +%‘8,107 | 5,791 13,898
One Year, Terminal and Short Terminal
Courses.
Literature and Language . 326 2,151 | 4,283 6,434
Economics : : , 98 1,412 460 | 1,872
History, General . : 173 1,825 1,844 | 3,669
History, Industrial . : 54 593 421 1,014
Geography . ; : 34 365 276 641
Aesthetics : : : 114 977 1,261 2,238
Natural Science , 3 154 | 1,958 I,I22 | 3,080
Sociology 244 3,113 1,808 4,921
Philosophy and Psychology 162 1,769 1,830 3,599
Total : : alent. 50) 14,163 13,305 | 27,468
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION
397
University Extension Courses and Short University Extension Courses.
Students in Attendance.
Subject. Courses.)
| Men. Women. Total.
Literature and Language . O50 591 1,292 1,883
Economics 34 592 140 | 732
History, General ge Bee ||| Ago | 810
History, Industrial 6 | 86 ST) || 117
Geography 8 47 aye I 118
Aesthetics 42 330 494 | 824.
Natural Science 28 339 Dae 613
Sociology 62 737 582. | 1,319
Philosophy and Psychology ity 633 808 1,441
Total . 370 3,713 | 4,144 7,857
These figures indicate the lowly position held by Science classes.
Of the 783 Preparatory, Three Year and Advanced Tutorial Classes
only 55 or 7 per cent. are in natural science. Of the 1,359
Terminal and Short Terminal Courses, 154 or 11 per cent., and of the 370
University Extension Courses and Short University Extension Courses,
28 or 8 per cent. are in Natural Science.
A comparative table for the years 1933, 1934 and 1935 emphasises the
fact that Science is not a popular subject.
,
One Year,
Year.
Preparatory, Three Year and
Advanced Tutorial.
1933 | (a) Total Classes
(6) Science
1934 | (a) Total Classes
(6) Science
1935 (a) Total Classes
(6) Science
One Year, Terminal
and Short Terminal.
762 1,263
40 117
747 1,276
45 141
783 1,359
55 154
University
Extension.
368
26
360
26
370
28
The Workers’ Educational Association, in their Annual Report for the
year 1936, provide a subject analysis of their classes (Advanced Tutorial,
Tutorial, Preparatory, One Year, Terminal, etc.) which shows that out of a
total of 2,862 classes only 239 or 8-35 per cent. are in Science. These
308 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
totals naturally include most of the courses already enumerated in the
Table quoted on p. 306.
An interesting point here is that the demand for Science classes varies
as between one district and another, e.g. :
District. Total Classes. Science. os S
otal.
Eastern . . A*| 113 13 II
North-East : sl 234 12 5
South-East ; ail 04 | 2 2
West Lancs. ? : 154 17 II
London . : ‘ 232 | 2
East Midlands . ; 206 8B | 15
West Midlands . / 99 3 3
Southern . : : 64 3 :
Berks, Bucks and Oxon | 52 6 II
North Staffs. . a 41 2, 5
Western . : F 145 13 9
North-Western . : I4I - 8 6
South-Western . : TS7 | 16 10
North Yorks. . oa 292 | 27 9
South Yorks. . =| 227 | 23 10
North Wales. | 154 | 9 6
South Wales. 265 12 5
Scotland . } ; 192 | 38 20
|
The comparatively high percentages in Scotland and the East Midlands
are noteworthy, also the low percentages in London, South Wales, the
South-East, and West Midland districts.
It may be of interest to note the classes in natural sciences at the evening
institutes and colleges (i.e. classes for people engaged in some occupation
in the daytime, who attend classes organised under schemes for technical
or part-time education). ‘These classes are conducted by Local Education
Authorities under the Regulations for Further Education.
Year. Evening Institutes. O eaee ae ee
Classes. Students. | Classes. Students.
1935 | Total - | 73,970 1,716,238 27,505 538,026
Natural Sci. 2,742 56,966 2,722 54,006
Expressed as percentages, these figures show that 4 per cent. of the classes
(having 3 per cent. of the total students) are in natural sciences. ‘The
Science subjects taken are :
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION
309
Evening Institutes. eeCHAEEa 1
Classes. | Class Entries. | Classes. | Class Entries.
General Science 1,763 41,045 146 | 2,951
Physics 498 8,727 1,124 23,052
Chemistry 303 4,250 1,104 21,331
Geology 9 201 46 65
Biology 45 766 44 779
Physiology 34 704 41 930
Botany . 81 1,059 37/7 / 3,031
Zoology : I 18 36 585
Nature Study 8 196 4 94.
Totals of all classes
in Natural Sciences, 7°74” 56,066 fee 54,006
3. THE AIMs OF SCIENCE TEACHING IN ADULT EDUCATION.
The aims of science teaching in adult education may be briefly sum-
marised as follows :
1. The study of science is a discipline which helps to develop a systematic,
accurate and objective inquiry into ascertained facts.
of observation, criticism and diagnosis are promoted.
In this way powers
2. It is a cultural activity that broadens the student’s outlook and en-
courages him to seek an understanding of the fundamental facts of life.
is thus led to co-ordinate and synthesise his knowledge.
3. The use of scientific methods gives practice in clear thinking and
impartial judgment.
He
4. The teaching of science provides knowledge likely to be of interest
throughout life, by giving a wider meaning to personal experience and to
the observation of natural phenomena, and a keener apprehension of the
general principles underlying the structure of our material environment.
In this sense a wise use of leisure is fostered.
5. A student will be led to recognise the part played by science and
scientific achievement in moulding the society of to-day, and he will thus
acquire a fuller understanding of human activity and of the manifold
aspects of social development.
6. By apprehending the impact of science on the life of the community,
a student will appreciate many of the forces that are continually re-shaping
the fabric of our social life.
7. In realising the function of science as a co-operative enterprise of man-
kind, unhindered by racial or geographical frontiers, the student acquires
a sense of social solidarity which should assist in the removal of barriers
between nations and between different sections of society.
The Committee consider that there will be general agreement with this
summary. Nevertheless they recognise that tutors and administrators
310 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
may be in some doubt as to the precise means whereby these aims can be
achieved. The issue of a memorandum by the Board of Education (A.E.R.
No. 7) in 1935 appears to have caused some confusion in this respect,
although it does not appear that the Board have placed any obstacle in the
way of any reasonable course in natural science for adult students.
The Committee consider that this memorandum was based upon a wrong
conception of the scope and function of science teaching in adult education,
in particular :
(1) Its insistence upon experimental work is too rigid, and fails to recog-
nise the difference in the conditions governing adult education from those
of academic work.
(2) Its partial condemnation of the historical method for the teaching of
science is not justified by experience, which shows that a student can acquire
a valuable degree of understanding even of an experimental science such as
chemistry, through the skilled presentation of the history of the science.
(3) It underrates the social implications of science. In adult education
it is necessary to begin at a point where the interest of the students can be
secured. It is to a great extent in social history and conditions that they
are interested, and the impact of science on the life of the community and
of themselves is of fundamental importance and forms an excellent starting
point for arousing interest in the study of science for its own sake.
(4) Adult classes do not, and in the Committee’s view should not, view
the study of science with the somewhat academic outlook that still obtains
in the Universities and schools. To the adult student science should be
a branch of human study associated more or less closely with human
activities, since scientific achievement has a direct contact with social
development.
4. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.
The Committee realise that there will be a great diversity of opinion
among tutors“and organisers as to the manner in which a subject should be
studied by adult classes. Equally there is considerable variation of views
as to what should be the content of a course in a particular science. This.
will naturally vary with the type of student composing each class.
But with these reservations the Committee offer the following specimen
suggestions (which cover only a few subjects) in the hope that they will be
of service to those engaged in the teaching of science to adult classes.
Anthropology and Geography.
One Year Courses.
(a) The Evolution of Civilisation —Man becomes man on grasslands and
learns to walk erect, he becomes a hunter, woman remains a collector.
The spread of desert over erstwhile grasslands through climatic changes
following the passing away of the great ice sheets of the Pleistocene Ice
Ages leads to concentration of population near rivers and springs and to
care of plants (by the women) whence origins of ‘cultivation in Egypt,
Mesopotamia, etc. At first women’s work, but later on domestication of
animals brings in the men and the plough. Settled life near regularly
flooding rivers leads to observation of stars and formation of a calendar,
priesthoods, temples, markets, cities. Spread of civilisation into various
regions may be outlined. ‘
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 311
(b) The Races of the Old World—Man learns to walk erect on the grass-
lands and improves stereoscopic vision. Woman increases material activities
and duties (babies helpless till they can walk, a long process of learning).
Spread of man (a) into equatorial Africa and consequent adaptations—the
dark glistening skin with large sweat glands, the lips and nose; (6) into
Central and East Central Asia, related features the dry yellow-brown skin
with few pores and so on; (c) into Europe with neither of these lines of
specialisation strongly marked, but a tendency to lose pigment.
Note remnants of ‘ early’ groups of mankind in far corners—Bushmen
of S.W. Africa, Australians, Tasmanians, etc., and in equatorial forests
(Pigmies).
(c) Society and Liberty——The routine of agriculture (see (a) ) accom-
panied by Fertility Rituals. The conquest of one people by another,
especially tillers by herders. The co-existence of two strongly contrasted
traditions side by side leads to comparisons and reflections and so to
emancipation of some minds from domination by ritual. Rise of ‘ prophets ’
and ethical and philosophical teaching within a few centuries more or less
independently in China, India, Iran, Israel and Greece.
(d) The Nation—Emergence of a consciousness of kinship beyond the
local community, importance of a common cradle language and a common
ruler, influence of a common struggle against foes. S.E. England and
France (Paris Basin) with easy communications, suitable for relatively
rapid development of national idea with more centralisation, as time went
on, in Paris, then to London: Reasons of both physical geography and
tradition for later development in Germany and Italy.
(e) What is a Peasantry ?—The local almost self-sufficing agricultural
community and its more rapid transformation inthe West. Land tenure and
growth of individual property inland. Decline of homecrafts in the West.
Greater persistence of homecrafts and peasant life in East Central Europe.
(f) The Idea of the City—Origin in Mesopotamia and Egypt (see (a) ).
Transplantation of such a complex set of ideas necessarily slow. Reaches
Aegean and India about 3000 B.c. and China perhaps a little later. Reaches
W. Mediterranean after 1000 B.c. Gaul under the Romans, Germany East
of Rhine, North of Danube in the Middle Ages—and so on. Transplanta-
tion made much more rapid and easy with rise of large ships and machinery.
(Note.—Most of these courses could be combined and expanded into three
year courses, e.g. (a) and (b) could be interwoven and would make a three
year course and could include discussion of the Jews and the Nordic Idea.
(a), (c) and (e) could be interwoven as a study of agriculture leading on to
a comparison especially of Intertropical Africa, India, China, Japan and
Europe including U.S.S.R.
Portions of (a), (d), (e), (f) could be linked up in a study of the evolution
of British Life with a class interested in archeological work.
Portions of (d), (e), (f) could be expanded into a review of International
Problems in Europe.
Another profitable line would be the Spread of European peoples over
the New World (three year course), contrasting Spanish, Portuguese and
Anglo-Saxon schemes and referring to the peoples of older standing in the
Americas.
The Arctic Peoples ; Social Hierarchies ; Phases of Maritime Commerce ;
Features of International Trade especially connected with International
capitalism, and so on, are all possibilities.)
: Prof. H. J. FLeurE.
312 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Astronomy.
In a course of Astronomy intended to interest adult students it is suggested
that more attention should be given to the reaction and application of
astronomical observations in everyday life and thought than to descriptions
of the nature and constitutions of celestial bodies. From the earliest days
to the present time people have been impressed by what they see in the
stellar heavens, and they can appreciate more easily such configurations and
movements than they can understand clearly the significance of many
discoveries made with the telescope or spectroscope.
The determination of cardinal points, and the use of observations of stars
and of the sun to determine positions on the earth for navigational or other
purposes were widely used long before anything was known about the
constitutions of these bodies. It is desirable to realise that the knowledge
of astronomical phenomena among adults generally, or the interest in it, is
much the same as that of primitive observers. The intention should be,
therefore, to revive this contact of mind with the heavens by showing how
early observations and conclusions affected thought and action and how the
human race has been influenced by knowledge, as shown not merely in
direct applications but also in mythology, literature, and intellectual develop-
ment. Among subjects which suggest themselves as suitable for inclusion
in such a course of astronomy are the following :
Early recognition of constellations or groups of bright stars.
References by Homer and Hesiod to Orion, the Great Bear, and the
Pleiades.
Aratus’s description of constellations.
Ptolemy’s forty-eight constellations described in his Almagest, still
accepted by astronomers.
Association of Greek mythology with names of constellations.
Apparent annual movement of the sun among the stars.
Division of the movement into twelve parts (the Zodiacal circle).
Constellations and signs of the Zodiac.
The Zodiac of Denderah (Egypt) and that of the Greeks.
Identification of Egyptian gods with the twelve Zodiacal signs. Mention
in the Book of Kings of worship of the twelve signs, along with the sun and
moon.
Recognition of Zodiacal signs in Jacob’s blessing of his sons.
Association of Zodiacal constellations with seasons.
Egyptian observations of the Dog Star—Sirius—and connection between
the rising of this star and the rising of the Nile.
Orientation of solar temples in Egypt and of the Great Pyramids.
Egyptian year of 360 days plus 5 additional days representing birthdays of
the principal gods.
Length of seasonal year, 365 days, 5 hours 45 minutes 46 secs. in Solar time.
Construction of the Julian Calendar by the Egyptian astronomer,
Sosigenes.
The Gregorian Calendar and its adoption in Great Britain in 1752, by
the omission of eleven days, September 3 being reckoned as September 14.
Early ideas as to the shape and movements of the earth. Copernicus,
Kepler and Galileo in relation to the substitution of the Copernican for the
Ptolemaic conception of the universe. Human reluctance to accept the
view that the earth is not the centre of celestial movements, so that the main
principles of astrology are undermined.
Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation, and its use in providing
mechanical principles to interpret astronomical movements. Conjunctions
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 313
of planets, appearances of comets, and similar aspects of the sky now
determined by a single law. Unnecessary to assume association of any
such events with occurrences and people on the earth, such as visitations of
plague, human iniquities, wars, etc. Sense of justice and civilising influence
which resulted from a knowledge of the existence and permanence of law in
Nature.
Intellectual expansion brought about by new knowledge of celestial
bodies and the extent of the universe.
Eclipses of the sun and what they reveal. Solar prominences and the
discovery of helium in them. Identification of helium on the earth and its
use in airships, etc. Sunspots and the solar cycle, and their effect upon
magnetic conditions and broadcasting. Relationship between the sunspot
period and levels of lakes in Central Africa. Search for direct connection
between solar conditions and terrestrial weather.
The Milky Way or Galaxy; Galileo’s observations of its character ;
Milton’s references to them.
The Milky Way interpreted as the girdle of the stellar system: Sir
William Herschel’s conclusions as to the structure of this system. Modern
views as to ‘island universes’ or stellar systems, represented by spiral
nebulz, beyond the Milky Way.
Origin of the solar system. Laplace’s nebular hypothesis ; Tennyson’s
accurate references to it ; objections to the theory and search by astronomers
for a substitute for it. Great interest now shown by intelligent public in
new conceptions of the nature and origin of the solar system and the stellar
universe.
Sir RICHARD GREGORY.
Chemistry and Citizenship.
Fire.—The discovery of fire and its influence on civilisation. Ancient
and modern methods of producing fire. The chemical nature of burning.
Accidental fires. Chemical fire extinguishers. Fire-proofing of fabrics.
Chemistry and Plant Growth.—Origin and nature of soil. Fertile and
barren soils. The elements needed for plant growth. How the plant
obtains its food from the air and from the soil. Soil exhaustion. Natural
and artificial fertilisers. Muicro-organisms in the soil.
Food.—Requirements of the body for energy and maintenance of tissues,
proteins, fats, carbohydrates, salts, water, vitamins. Importance of special
elements, e.g. iodine. Effects of cooking, refrigerating, canning, chemical
preservatives.
Coal and Coal Products.—Origin and varieties of coal, coal distillation :
gas, coke, smokeless fuel, coal tar, hydrogenation of coal. Efficient burning
of coal.
Petroleum.—Origin and nature. Petrol. Kerosene, Diesel oil, lubrica-
ting oil, greases, wax. Hydrogenation. ‘ Ethyl’ petrols.
Textiles —Nature of wool, silk, linen and cotton fibres. Artificial silk,
artificial wool. Mercerised cotton. Problems of wear and laundering.
Rubber.—Origin and properties. Vulcanisation. Direct manufacture
from latex. Fillers and effect on strength, life, etc. Artificial rubber.
Plastics.—Discovery, manufacture, properties, uses, etc., of syntheticresins.
Metals and Alloys. (a) Ferrous.—Order of discovery of metals. Successive
methods for making iron. Discovery of steel. Properties of steel in
relation to composition and heat treatment. Rusting and its prevention.
Metals and Alloys. (b) Non-Ferrous.—Copper, tin, brass, aluminium,
314 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
lead. Use and future. Possibilities, etc. of rarer metals, e.g. beryllium,
vanadium. Processes such as soldering, galvanising, welding, etc.
Medicine.—Discovering the chemistry of the body. Various drugs and
how they work. Anzsthetics—general and local. Antiseptics. Toilet
goods and cosmetics.
Chemistry and Police Work.—Poisons and their detection. Adulteration.
Chemistry in identification of things, people, places, etc. Inks, secret
inks, erasures. Antique-faking and detection.
Chemistry in Warfare.—Explosives, propellant and disruptive. Poison
gas and gas-masks. Verey lights, etc. Incendiary bombs.
Our Wasting Assets —The mineral stocks of the world—coal, oil, metal
ores, phosphates. Synthetic substitutes to replace exhausted natural
stocks.
Conclusion —Good and bad effects of chemical development. Scientific
method and mode of thought. Examples from chemistry and possible
applications to citizenship, economic life, e.g. water, sewages, etc.
(This list of subjects is a comprehensive one from which a selection can
be made suitable to the needs of the class-students and the industrial
organisation of the district in which they live.)
J. WickHAM Murray.
Dr. J. SEELEY.
Mathematics.
One Year Extension Courses.
(i) Exact Sciences and their relation to logic and philosophy.
(ii) The Universe and its relation to human destiny.
(iii) History of Mathematics and relation to the origin, growth and
diffusion of mathematical ideas to social, political and intellectual
conditions.
(iv) Pioneers of Astronomy : Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,
Newton, W. Herschel, Einstein.
(v) Mathematical Theory of Harmony, and its relation to music, etc.
(vi) Aeronautics : Airship and Aeroplane, and their influence on trans-
port, international relations and geography, as e.g. affected by
Soviet work in Arctic.
(vii) Mathematics and Mechanics of Games and Recreations.
(viii) Geometry and Physics : modern relativistic ideas.
Three Year Tutorial Courses.
(i) Statistics, with application to social problems (wages, population,
unemployment, world trade, etc.)
(ii) Number : development of number concept and its relation to the
expansion of human ideas in social life and in the natural sciences.
(iii) Mechanics : principles of statics, dynamics, hydrostatics and hy-
draulics, in application to simple mechanisms, elementary astronomy,
aeronautics, etc.
Books.
See List of Books suitable for School Libraries, compiled by the Mathematical
Association (Bell), 1936. Is.
and add
Mathematics for the Million, by L. Hogben (Allen and Unwin), 1937. 12s. 6d.
(A cheap edition is expected shortly).
Men of Mathematics, by E. T. Bell (Gollancz), 1937. 12s. 6d.
Profs. E. T. Piaccio and H. BRODETSKY.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 315
5. APPENDIX.
As explained in the Introduction and in Section 3, it was felt by the
Committee that in addition to providing general suggestions for the teaching
of scientific subjects, tutors might welcome some examples of detailed
syllabuses with bibliographies.
Accordingly, these have been prepared with special reference to the needs
of (a) one year courses, (b) three year courses, in Biology, Geology and
Psychology.
BIOLOGY.
Suggested Syllabus of a Course of Twenty-four Lectures
on
The Biological Sciences and Modern Problems.
A. Introduction.
Lecture I.
The Nature and Scope of the Biological Sciences.
' The nature of science; the development of science ; the organisation
and practice of research. ‘The nature, scope and relationships of biology,
psychology, anthropology, sociology. Ideals, viewpoints, criteria and
values in biological research. ‘The social and the personal equation. The
philosophy of science and of biology. Limitations of science ; where is
science going ? Modern problems.
References : 4, 11, 27, 35, 36, 39, 42, 56, 74, 79, 81, 82.
B. Problems of Individual Life.
Lecture II.
Growth and Development.
Nature of growth and development; bodily structures, processes and
co-ordinations. Nutrition: calories and vitamins. Differentiation and
integration: organisers, tissue systems, and hormones. Requisites for
normal growth and development. The individual whole and its parts.
Research problems.
References : 11, 14, 17, 39, 63, 68, 78, 79.
Lecture III.
Sex, Mating and Reproduction.
The nature, origin and meaning of sex : sex and reproduction. Male and
female ; sex determination ; the sex ratio; the development of sex organs
and of secondary characters. Copulation and its significance. The place
of sex in individual and social life: ideals and actualities, inhibitions,
repressions and abnormal states. Problems originating in sex.
References : 2, 14, 17, 20, 21, 33, 35, 42, 47, 63, 64, 73, 79.
Lecture IV.
Conception to Birth.
The germ cells. Parthenogenesis ; nature and significance of fertilisation ;
immediate and more remote consequences. Gestation; foetal develop-
ment; the process of birth. ‘The control of conception ; sterilisation ;
abortion. Individual and social values; ideals and actualities. Research
and possibilities of the future.
References : 14, 17, 21, 33, 51, 63, 64, 79.
316 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Lecture V. 4
Old Age and Death.
The duration of life, Biological time. The process of ageing ; bodily
and mental changes, rejuvenescence. The process of dying; reversible
and irreversible changes. The nature and significance of death. ‘The
disintegration of the body. ‘The cultivation of tissues in vitro ; potential
immortality. Research and possibilities of the future.
References : I1, 14, 20, 33, 63, 69, 79.
Lecture VI.
Body and Mind.
Evolution of body and mind. Individual development of body and
mind. Relation of body and mind; brain processes and mind processes ;
the body-mind, reflex action, instinct, conscious and unconscious ; methods
of investigation and schools of thought. Abnormal, normal and ‘ super-
normal’ mental phenomena. Research ideals, criteria and values. Research
problems.
References : 2, 8, 10, 11, 14, 35,42, 47, 62, 63, 67, 73, 79.
Lecture VII.
Biology and Religion.
Religion to-day ; creeds and sects, ethics and morals. The nature of
religion ; the religious attitude to life ; revelation and belief. ‘The nature of
science ; the scientific attitude to life ; experimentalism and doubt. Some
modern scientists and religion. A biologist’s position.
References : 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 24, 25, 35, 36, 45, 47, 74, 79, 80, 81, 82.
C. Problems of Disease.
Lecture VIII.
The Individual Aspect.
The nature of health and disease in plants and animals. Diseased bodies
and diseased minds. Kinds of disease ; causes; immediate and remote
consequences. Preventive and remedial measures ; theory and practice.
Human, animal and plant experiments. Ideals and problems of clinical
research.
References : 2, 10, 11, 53, 63, 69, 73, 75, 79.
Lecture IX.
The Social Aspect.
Clinical medicine, epidemics and crowd diseases in plants and animals.
The development of epidemiological science and the position to-day.
The collection, classification and interpretation of data. Disease factors.
Experimental research and some modern problems.
References : I1, 32, 53, 63, 75, 79.
Lecture X.
Special Problems (1).
Tuberculosis, venereal diseases, smallpox, cancer: consideration of the
foregoing in their individual and social aspects. Some outstanding pro-
blems ; modern research.
References : 7, 15, 32, 53, 63, 60, 75.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 317
Lecture XI.
Special Problems (it). ;
Hereditary diseases of the body and of the mind. Genius, feebleminded-
ness, insanity. Alcoholism. Delinquency and crime. Bodily healing
and mental healing. Individual and social responsibility. Research and
some modern problems.
References : 1, 2, 7, 10, 11, 15, 35, 47, 53, 57, 63, 69, 73.
D. Problems of Race.
Lecture XII.
General Aspects and Problems.
The meaning of race. Race and nationality. Race and culture. Racial
characteristics, aptitudes and values. ‘The origin, development, distribu-
tion and stability of races. Race migration, mixture, segregation, survival
and extinction. ‘The general racial position in the world to-day and the
problems at issue.
References : 6, 30, 34, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 46, 59, 61, 70, 79.
Lecture XIII.
Special Problems—African Races.
The races of Africa; Hamites, Semites, Negroes, Bushmen and
Hottentots, Negritos. Physical and cultural characters. Racial history,
distribution and migrations, mixtures and segregations. The problem in
the United States of America, in South Africa, in East Africa. Political and
social issues and their biological aspects.
References : 34, 43, 49, 55, 71.
Lecture XIV.
Special Problems—Astatic Races.
The races of Asia: white and brown, yellow origin, physical characters,
general distribution. India, China, Japan: racial history and present
constitution. Biological aspects of the cultural, social and political problems
at issue. Retrospects and prospects.
References : 6, 18, 34, 50.
Lecture XV.
Special Problems—European Races.
The racial history and present constitution of the peoples of Europe.
Aryans, Nordics, Jews. Race and culture ; political and social problems ;
biological data. Retrospects and prospects.
References : 6, 22, 34, 37, 38, 41, 59, 70, 76.
Lecture XVI.
The Evolution of Man.
Man’s place in nature, in the mammals, in the Primates. Theories of
human origin. Prehuman and human ancestors. The acquirement of
human characteristics ; the emergence of modern man. Agreements and
controversies regarding theories and data. Speculations on the future of
man.
References : 6, 14, 19, 34, 44, 79-
318 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
E. Problems of Society.
Lecture XVII.
Population Problems.
Bases of the population problem: quantitative and qualitative. Human
fecundity. Regulation of numbers: under-, optimum- and over-popula-
tion. Biological and social significance of changing birth-rates and
differential reproduction. The causes and control of population trends.
Problems of to-day and to-morrow.
References : 6, 12, 13, 40, 48.
Lecture XVIII,
Eugenics.
What is Eugenics? The biological basis. Elimination of the less fit
and multiplication of the more fit: criteria of fitness : methods of elimina-
tion. Biological and social values. Eugenics and the family. Eugenics
in race and state. Race deterioration and revolutions of civilisation.
Science and propaganda. The position to-day and some possibilities of
to-morrow.
References : 7, 15, 16, 23, 40, 42, 51, 57, 60, 61, 69, 76.
Lecture XIX.
War and Peace.
Human history and the evolution of war. _War and human instincts,
war and the struggle for life, war and selection. The biology of war:
primitive warfare, 1914-18, to-day, to-morrow. ‘The causes of war : some
neglected aspects. Pacifism. Data and propaganda. Directions of
research.
References : 28, 29, 35, 54, 76.
Lecture XX.
Educational and Cultural Values.
The meaning of education and culture. The development and present
state of world civilisation ; factors of race, of disease, of science. Political,
economic, cultural, and scientific history. Intelligence and character in
individuals, classes, races. The idea of progress : biological and sociological
values. Liberty, equality and fraternity. Conditions of a permanent
civilisation and of a progressive one.
References : I, 9, Il, IQ, 23; 26, 27, 28, 39, 35> S75 38, 409, 41, 46, 59, 51,
52, 58, 59, 69, 70, 74, 76, 79, 81, 82.
F.. Problems of Food.
Lecture XXTI.
Food Supplies.
Sources of raw materials and food supplies: quantity and quality.
Population density and food supply. Malthus. Biological, economic and
social values in agriculture, horticulture and fisheries. Famines and glutted
markets: the pinch of plenty. Problems of to-day and to-morrow.
References : 6; 12, 27, 31, 52, 63, 65, 66; 72, 77, 79.
Lecture XXII.
Transport and Storage of Food.
Food supply and distribution in relation to population densities and
changes. Importance of transport and storage. The biological problems
involved : modern achievements and research.
References :. 12, 27431,°52, 50, 63, 65;:66,92577, 70.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 319
Lecture XXIII.
Menaces to the Food Supply.
Scientific achievement and the frustration of science. Human frustration.
Natural frustration: climate, disease in animals and plants. Modern
biological research in relation to food menaces : outstanding problems.
References : 12, 27, 31, 56, 63, 65, 66, 72, 77, 79.
G. Conclusion.
Lecture XXIV.
Biology and Civilisation. g
General commentary on the biological aspects of the relation of the
individual to society and on social structure and functioning. The pace of
progress and human adaptability ; knowledge and wisdom. Biology and
statecraft. The worlds of yesterday, to-day and to-morrow ; actualities,
probabilities, possibilities.
References : 1, 4, 6, 9, 11, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 35, 50, 51, 52, 58, 74,
76, 79, 81, 82.
REFERENCES.
. Apams, M. (Edit.) : Science in the Changing World (1933).
. ALLEN, C.: Modern Discoveries in Medical Psychology (1937).
Barnes, E. W.: Scientific Theory and Religion (1933).
Bavink, D.: The Anatomy of Modern Science (1932).
Bereson, H.: The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1935)-
. Bews, J. W.: Human Ecology (1935).
. BrackER, C. P. (Edit.): The Chances of Morbid Inheritance (1934).
. Broap, C. D.: The Mind and its Place in Nature (1925).
. Burns, C. DELISLE: Modern Civilisation on Trial (1931).
to. Burt, C.: The Subnormal Mind (1935).
Ir. CARREL, A.: Man the Unknown (1935).
12. CARR-SAUNDERS, A. M.: The Population Problem (1922).
13. —— World Population (1936).
14. CONKLIN, E. G.: Heredity and Environment in the Development of Man (1930).
15. Cowpry, E. V. (Edit.): Human Biology and Racial Welfare (1930).
16. DaRwINn, L.: The Need for Eugenic Reform (1926).
17. DAVENPORT, C. B.: How we Came by our Bodies (1937).
18. DuDLEyY-Buxton, L. H.: The Peoples of Asia (1925).
1g. Erxtiotr SmitH, G.: Human History (1934).
20. Exris, H.: Man and Woman (1934).
The Psychology of Sex (1933).
22. FISHBERG, M.: The Jews (1911).
23. FisHer, R. A.: The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930).
24. ForsyTH, D.: Psychology and Religion (1936).
25. FREUD, S.: The Future of an Illusion (1928).
Civilisation and its Discontents (1930).
27. Furnas, C.C.: The Next Hundred Years (1936).
28. GLovER, E.: The Dangers of Being Human (1936).
War, Sadism and Pacifism (1933).
30. GOLDENWEISER, A.: History, Psychology and Culture (1933).
31. Goon, R.: Plants and Human Economics (1933).
32. GREENWOOD, M.: Epidemics and Crowd Diseases (1935).
33. Guyon, R.: Sex Life and Sex Ethics (1933).
34. Happon, A. C.: The Races of Man (1924).
35. HADFIELD, J. A. (Edit.) : Psychology and Modern Problems (1935).
36. HaLpane, J. S.: The Philosophy of a Biologist (1935). .
37. Hankins, F. H.: The Racial Basis of Civilisation (1926).
38. Herz, F.: Race and Civilisation (1928).
0 BNI ANUBWNH
320 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
39. HocBen, L.: The Nature of Living Matter (1930).
40. Hoimes, S. J.: Human Genetics and its Social Import (1936).
41. Hux.ey, J., and Happon, A. C.: We Europeans (1935).
42. JenniNGS, H. S.: The Biological Basis of Human Nature (1930).
43. Jounson, C. S.: The Negro in American Civilisation (1930).
44. LEAKLEY, L. S. B.: Adam’s Ancestors (1934).
45. LEuBA, J. H.: God or Man ? (1934).
46. Linton, R.: The Study of Man (1936).
47. LORAND, S. (Edit.) : Psychoanalysis To-day (1933).
48. LorIMER, F., and OsBorn, F.: Dynamics of Population (1934).
49. Mair, L. F.: Native Policies in Africa (1936).
50. Mitter, H. A.: The Beginnings of Tomorrow (1933).
51. Mutter, H. J.: Out of the Night (1936).
52. MumrorD, L.: Technics and Civilisation (1934).
53. NEWsHorME, A.: The Story of Modern Preventive Medicine (1929).
54. Nicotal, G. F.: The Biology of War (1919).
55. OLpuam, J. H.: White and Black in Africa (1930).
56. Orr, J. B., et al.: What Science Stands For (1937).
57. PAILTHORPE, G. W.: What we Put in Prison (1932).
58. Peers, R.: Adult Education in Practice (1934).
59. PitrarD, E.: Race and History (1926).
60. PopENoE, P., and JoHNsSoN, R. H.: Applied Eugenics (1933).
61. REUTER, E. B.: Race Mixture : Intermarriage and Miscegenation (1931).
62. Ritcuiz, A. D.: The Natural History of Mind (1936).
63. Roperts, H.: Everyman in Health and Sickness (1935).
64. Rosson, J. M.: Recent Advances in Sex and Reproductive Physiology (1934).
65. Roya INnsTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: World Agriculture; an
International Survey (1932).
66. RussELL, E. J.: The Farm and the Nation (1933).
67. RussELL, E. S.: The Behaviour of Animals (1934).
The Interpretation of Development and Heredity (1930).
69. SAND, R.: Health and Human Progress (1935).
70. SCHWESINGER, G. C.: Heredity and Environment (1933).
71. SHAPERA, I. (Edit.) : Western Civilisation and the Natives of South Africa
(1934).
72. STAPLEDON, R. G.: The Land: Now and Tomorrow (1935).
73. STEPHEN, K.: Psychoanalysis and Medicine (1933).
74. SULLIVAN, J. W. N.: Limitations of Science (1933).
75. ToPLEY, W. W.C.: An Outline of Immunity (1933).
76. TOYNBEE, A. J.: A Study of History (1934).
77. VENN, J. A.: The Foundations of Agricultural Economics (1933).
78. WappinetTon, C. H.: How Animals Develop (1935).
79. WELLS, H. G., HUXLEY, J., and WELLS, G. P.: The Science of Life (1931).
80. WHITEHEAD, A. N.: Religion in the Making (1927).
Adventures of Ideas (1933).
Science and the Modern World (1926).
References to smaller books and to articles in journals will be given during
the lectures.
Valuable adjuncts are the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a good Dictionary,
a large scale Atlas and the Statesman’s Yearbook.
Prof. W. B. BRIERLEY.
(Reading.)
BIOLOGY.
Three Year Course in Animal Biology.
The following suggestions for a course extending over three years fall
conveniently into 3 sections.
1. The establishment of a sound basis in functional and comparative
morphology.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 321
2. Ecology, Heredity and Evolution.
3. The History of Man and the impacts of the subject on the affairs of
man.
1. Animal architecture. The general organisation of a Vertebrate animal
and comparison with an Invertebrate type to show Nature’s ways for
obtaining the same functional ends by different types of structure.
2. The functions of living matter.
3. An introduction to functional morphology in some easily demonstrable
type, e.g. the Frog, as a basis to human physiology and hygiene.
(a) The alimentary canal, digestion and ingestion.
(6) Respiration, the mechanism of breathing and the physiology of
internal respiration.
(c) The circulatory system.
(d) Excretion.
(e) Conductivity, sensitivity, reaction to environmental change.
(f) Harmonious working of the body as controlled by nerves and the
ductless glands.
(g) Growth and reproduction.
4. A review of the animal kingdom. Where facilities exist, as in the form
of museums or collections, this can be made fairly comprehensive but reduced
to a minimum where such helps are not available.
5. Animals in relation to Environment. Problems of adaptation. Food
chains. Effects of season and climate. Resistance to environmental
change as a factor in Distribution.
6. Heredity, Variation and Evolution.
(a) Evidences for evolution.
(6) Theories of evolution.
(c) Mechanism of inheritance.
7. The History of Man. Prehistoric and existing races of man.
8. Economic Zoology. Production. The Scientific aspects of Fishery
investigations, Animal Domestication and other animal industries, e.g.
Silk, Lac and Honey.
9g. Economic Zoology. Problems of destruction ; Agricultural, Veterinary
and Medical.
Animal Biology.
Course for 1 year, of twenty-four lectures.
The subjects suggested for the three year course will serve equally well
here, but the academic aspects such as those relating to comparative mor-
phology (review of the animal kingdom) and to evidences of evolution must
be greatly curtailed.
cial emphasis should be put on the application of Biology to human
affairs.
LITERATURE LIsT.
Books marked * are suitable for members of the class.
* BorRADAILE, L. A.: Manual of Zoology.
BourNnE: Comparative Anatomy of Animals.
BRACHET: Embryologie des Vertébrés.
Brumpt: Précis de Parasitologie.
CrEwW: Sex Determination.
* Darwin : Ovigin of Species.
*
322 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
DawipoFrF: Embryologie des Invertébrés.
DE BEER: Growth.
EaLanpD: Insects and Man.
Evtiott SmitH: Human History.
The Evolution of Man.
Forp: Mendelism and Evolution.
GoopRIcH: Animal Organisms.
GRAHAM KERR: Evolution.
Text Book of Embryology. (Vertebrates.)
Gray: Experimental Cytology.
* HALDANE, J. S.: The Philosophical Basis of Biology.
* HALDANE and HUXLEY: Animal Biology.
HERRICK : Neurological Foundations of Behaviour.
* —__ The Brains of Rats and Men.
Hux.ey and DE Beer: Experimental Embryology.
JENKINSON : Vertebrate Embryology.
JENNINGS: Genetics.
Kruir: Microbe Hunters.
LANKESTER: Science from an Easy Chair.
Secrets of Earth and Sea.
LuLL: Organic Evolution.
MacBripbE: Text Book of Embryology. (Invertebrates.)
MEEK: The Migrations of Fish.
* NEWBIGGIN: Plant and Animal Geography.
* PARKER and HAsSweELL: Text Book of Zoology.
Parsons: The Fundamentals of Biochemistry. -
- The Material of Life.
PatTEN and CracG: Medical Entomology.
PaTTEN and Evans: Animals of Medical and Veterinary Importance.
* PUNNEIT: Mendelism.
* SHIPLEY: Life.
* THomson: Biology foy Everyman.
WARDLE: Principles of Applied Zoology.
Problems of Applied Entomology.
WARDLE and BucKLE: Principles of Insect Control.
* WELLS and HuxLey: The Science of Life.
* WHEELER: Social Life in Insects.
Witson: The Cell.
* WoopGER: Elementary Morphology and Physiology.
* Woop Jones: Arboreal Man.
Man’s Place among the Mammals.
* *% # %# % 4%
eee HOH
Prof. EASTHAM.
(Sheffield.)
GEOLOGY.
It may be assumed that most students attending an Adult Education
course in Geology will have practically no previous knowledge of the subject.
The syllabus must therefore be attractive but may be quite elementary :
owing to its many contacts with everyday life it is not difficult to devise a
syllabus which will meet the needs of such students. Although Geology is
closely linked with other sciences it is possible for a student quite un-
acquainted with any other science to make good progress in it ; moreover,
as it is essentially an observational science, more work can be done than in
almost any science without equipment or laboratory facilities. It is thus
peculiarly suitable as a subject for adult students, and may be followed by
classes working under conditions where other sciences could not be studied.
The fact that much practical work can best be done in the field is also an
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 323
advantage in relation to some classes, where Saturday excursions are a
popular feature. The use of photographs or of lantern illustrations is very
desirable.
The arrangements of a syllabus, and particularly the starting-point, must
depend mainly on the district in which the class is held. . Where there are
geological features for study in the district, these usually form the best
introduction. Classes held in large towns may find their first interest in
building materials, classes in mining areas in the products of the mines.
In all cases the use of local examples (or of examples from local holiday
resorts) to illustrate phenomena described is very helpful. In some areas
the wider or more philosophical aspects of geology, such as problems: of
earth history and structure or of evolution, may prove the most attractive.
For either a three year or a one year course similar topics would be suitable,
but the matter would be treated in greater detail and with a tendency
towards a more formal basis in a three year course.
Bearing in mind the points above noted, the sequence of topics may be
arranged to suit the particular class. In some cases, a scheme. based
primarily on the Geology or Scenery of the area would be appropriate.
The following topics, however, cover a more general introduction to Geology,
such as could be covered in a one year course.
One Year Course of General Geology.
. The Constitution of the earth, its crust and interior.
. Drifting Continents: land bridges and the distribution of animals.
. Rocks and minerals.
. Theroccurrence of rocks.
. Rocks and Soils. The work of the weather.
. Rivers and valleys ; waterfalls and flood plains.
. Springs and underground water. Caves and limestone scenery.
. Glaciers. The Ice Age in England.
. Coast scenery.
1o. Changes of sea level.
11. Sedimentary and Igneous rocks.
12. Volcanoes: the extinct volcanoes of Britain.
13. Earthquakes and the information they give us.
14. Mountain Building.
15. Extinct Animals: the evolution of Vertebrates.
16. Geological History of Man.
17. A geological Time Scale: the Age of the Earth.
18. The geological history of Britain: an outline of the main episodes.
19. The Scenery of Britain in relation to its structure and history.
20. Geology and Human Life: Coal, its origin and mining. Petroleum,
Ores, Building materials. Water supply.
On AUBW NH
.o
In most areas a suitable syllabus for a three year course would include a
similar range of subjects, but the topics receiving most emphasis in later
years would depend on the locality or on the interests of the class. The
following arrangement would probably be suitable in many places.
First Year.
1. General Introduction to minerals and rocks.
. Physical Geology : weathering, rivers, ice, seas.
. The development of land forms and the history of scenery.
. Structural geology : the arrangement of the rocks.
. Earth-movements : igneous activity ; volcanoes.
nakwWN
324 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Second Year.
1. Historical Geology : the geological time scale.
2. A broad summary of the geological history of Britain.
3. The main outlines of the history of life : an introduction to the study
of fossils. :
4. The geology and scenery of the area in more detail.
Third Year.
1. The study of rocks.
2. The uses of geology (or the relation of geology to human life). Coal,
its history and mining. Petroleum. Ores, their occurrence and exploita-
tion. Other minerals, their distribution and their relations to human
development (flint, salt, gem stones, etc.). Building materials; their
characteristics in different regions, and their influence on early architecture.
Water supplies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
AvEBuRY: The Scenery of England. Macmillan.
A.M. Davies: Evolution and the Modern Critics. Murby.
ELspDEN and Howe: The Stones of London. Murby.
J. W. Grecory: Geology of Today. Seeley Service.
H. L. Hawkins: Invertebvate Palaeontology. Hawkins.
KENDALL and Wroot: Geology of Yorkshire (Privately printed).
LakE and RastatL_: A Text Book of Geology. Arnold.
J. E. Marr: Scientific Study of Scenery. Methuen.
S. J. SHanD: Earth Lore. Murby.
—— Useful Aspects of Geology. Murby.
H. H. SwInnERTON. Outlines of Palaeontology. Arnold.
A, E. TRuEMAN: The Scenery of England and Wales. Gollancz.
G. W. TyRELL: Principles of Petrology. Methuen.
W. W. Watts: Geology for Beginners. Macmillan.
The Handbooks on British Regional Geology. Geological Survey. Geological Survey
Memoirs, especially those dealing with areas adjacent to that in which the
class is held.
Some Contacts of Geology with Everyday life, etc.
1. Scenery and the characteristics of landscape.
2. Mining. Supplies of coal, metals, etc. Distribution of supplies and
international trade and problems. Distribution of population in relation
to mineral supplies.
3. Water supply. Affecting early settlements, and sites of ‘Towns.
Relation to industrial developments. Wells and reservoir sites.
4. Building materials. Quarrying, supplies, influence on domestic
architecture.
5. Soils and relation to solid rocks ; influence on agriculture.
6. Landslips, coast destruction, etc. Drainage.
Prof. TRUEMAN.
(Bristol.)
PSYCHOLOGY.
First Year.
The Groundwork of Psychology.
We shall devote our first year of study to making an acquaintance with
the broad groundwork of psychology—its functions and methods; and
with the general background of animal mind. Since man is a part of living
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 325
nature, it is useful to know something of the modes of behaviour which he
shares with other living things, before trying to understand his particular
mental life. Having thus prepared ourselves, we shall then turn to certain
fundamental aspects of human psychology which are open to experimental
study, as a training in objective methods as well as for their intrinsic interest.
The more specialised fields of child psychology, industrial psychology and
social and political studies, can be taken up in the second and third years.
I. What Psychology Is and Does.
Psychology is the study of mental life and covers both the field of behaviour
and the field of consciousness. The various schools and isms in psychology
and the reasons for these; the limitations and values of each as method.
Mental life is not co-extensive with conscious experience ; evidence for the
significance of the ‘ unconscious.’
What makes psychology a science is its methods, which in the broadest
terms it shares with all other sciences. Its special problems and handicaps.
Its place among the sciences; a branch of the study of life as a whole,
biology. Man’s place in nature. The particular sorts of biological fact
which are the province of psychology.
The methods of Psychology: General Outline—(a) Introspection ;
training in exact self-observation ; its limits and difficulties ; attempts to
apply measurement. (b) Objective methods; the direct study of animal
and human behaviour. Experiment, and its special precautions in psycho-
logy. Mental measurement; mathematical aids; the limitations and
risks of ‘ objective’ measurement. (c) Methods of studying the ‘ un-
conscious,’ wishes, anxieties, phantasies ; mental mechanisms.
II. Preparation for Study of the Human Mind.
The fundamental characteristics of living things ; sensibility and response ;
the ‘wish’ as the source of action; characteristic patterns of response ;
innate forms; their relation to bodily structure and its evolution. The
ends of action ; nutrition and reproduction. The behaviour of the simpler
animals ; the protozoa, earthworm ; insects and insect societies. Reflex
action and purpose ; instinct and intelligence.
The behaviour of the birds and mammals ; what is instinct ? Its relation
to habit, to emotions and to adaptive behaviour.
III, Some Aspects of Mental Life in Human Beings.
Instinct in man; its greater fluidity and adaptiveness. The neural
mechanism of feeling and action in man; comparison of the nervous
systems of man and other animals. The capacity to learn from individual
experience ;_ retentiveness and the conditioned reflex. Habit, and its
experimental study. Skill in work and play. The effects of pleasure and
pain.
The perception of ‘ things ’—what is a thing? Qualitative, temporal
and spatial patterns ; movement and perception. Colour vision, cutaneous
sensation, smell, taste, hearing. Recognition. Perceptual intelligence and
adaptiveness. Emotion and its relation to instinct; bodily changes in
emotion ; the measurement of emotion.
Images and the imagination ; imaginal types; eidetic imagery. The
experimental study of remembering and forgetting.
The measurement of intelligence ; mental age, mental retardation, mental
ratio. The distribution of intelligence. Individual and group tests ;
verbal and practical intelligence. Experimental studies of reasoning.
326 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Booxs FOR READING AND REFERENCE.
ALLEN: Pleasure and Instinct.
BALLARD: Group Tests.
Mental Tests.
BoarvD oF Epucation : Psychological Tests of Educable Capacity.
BRIERLEY (Isaacs): An Introduction to Psychology.
Burt: Mental and Scholastic Tests.
Cannon: Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage.
Darwin: The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.
DREVER: Instinct in Man.
FREUD: Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.
HeatuH: How we Behave.
Isaacs: The Children We Teach.
Intellectual Growth in Young Children.
James: Psychology (Briefer Course).
Jennincs: The Behaviour of the Lower Organisms.
KouLerR: The Mentality of Apes.
McDouGat._: An Outline of Psychology.
Myers: An Introduction to Experimental Psychology.
Myers and BartLett: A Text-book of Experimental Psychology.
PEear: Remembering and Forgetting.
Skill in Work and Play.
SANDIFORD: Educational Psychology.
STERN: Psychology of Early Childhood.
StutsMAN : Mental Measurement of Pre-School Children.
TERMAN: The Measurement of Intelligence.
THomsON and GEDDES: ELvolution.
Watson: Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist.
WoopwortH: Psychology: A Study of Mental Life.
YERKES: The Great Apes.
ZUCKERMAN: Social Life in Monkeys and Apes.
Second Year. ‘
Social and Industrial Psychology.
I. Social Psychology.
I. The field of social psychology, how it differs from that of individual
psychology ; the notions of ‘ group mind,’ ‘ mob mind,’ ‘ collective con-
sciousness,’ etc., must be taken as mere figures of speech; the concrete
reality is always a number of individual body-minds behaving to and upon
each other ; social relations exist only as characteristics of the behaviour
of individuals.
II. The date of social psychology ; an adequate social psychology can
only be built upon a wide study of :
A. The facts of social life.
(a) Social institutions, habits, customs, and ideals in our own
society to-day (including folklore).
(b) Social institutions, etc., in other societies, including the
‘ primitive ’; comparative ethnology.
(c) The history of civilisation, including the ‘ prehistoric.’
(d) The comparative study of animal societies and animal behaviour.
B. The genetic psychology of individual members of societies.
III. The methods of social psychology : (a) the sociological, and (0) the
genetic ; values and limitations of each ; a combination of the two the most
fruitful.
IV. Some current methods of approach: (a) Behaviourism; (6)
McDougall ; (c) Freud.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 327
Grounds, methods and validities compared.
V. Some selected aspects of modern social life.
1. The psychology of ‘ the crowd’; suggestion ; fashion ; rumour.
2. The psychology of the highly organised group ; voluntary groups.
3. The formation of public opinion ; (a) in peace-time ; (6) in war-time.
4. Some aspects of political life; the party system; electioneering ;
political loyalties and political changes.
5. The psychology of the ‘ economic man’; economic values and motives ;
acquisitiveness, constructiveness, and power.
6. Conservatism ; revolutionism ; communism ; philanthropy.
7. Nationalism, Imperialism, and Internationalism.
8. Inter-racial psychology; our relation with the ‘ backward’ and
“coloured ’ people.
II. Industrial Psychology.
1. The history of scientific method in the psychology of industrial life ;
“scientific ’ management, welfare work, as precursors of industrial psychology.
2. The ‘ will to work’; specific motives and incentives.
3. Work and rest ; hours and distribution of work ; rest pauses ; output.
4. The study of movement, and problems of training, in relation to health
and happiness ; the problem of monotony.
5. General conditions of efficiency ; work and environment.
6. The psychology of accidents.
7. Square pegs in round holes ; vocational guidance and selection.
8. Social relations in industry.
Books FOR READING AND REFERENCE.
Social Psychology.
BartTLEtt: Psychology and Primitive Culture.
BELtLoc and CHESTERTON: The Party System.
CATLIN: The Science and Method of Politics.
Cote: The Next Ten Years in British Social and Economic Policy.
DEWEY: Psychology and Social Practice.
Dickinson: War: its Nature, Cause and Cure.
DREVER: Instinct in Man.
ExtLtwoop: An Introduction to Social Psychology.
FERENCZI and OTHERS: Psycho-analysis and the War Neuroses.
FLuGEL : The Psycho-analytic Study of the Family.
FRAZER: The Golden Bough (Abbreviated ed.).
FrReuD: The Ego and the Id.
—— The Future of an IIilusion.
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
—— Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis.
Totem and Taboo.
Civilisation and its Discontents.
GINSBERG: The Psychology of Society.
HARRISON: Ancient Art and Ritual.
Jones: Essays in Applied Psycho-analysis.
Laski; Authority in the Modern State.
—— A Grammar of Politics.
Le Bon: The Crowd.
Levy-Bruut: Primitive Mentality.
How Natives Think.
LipPMANN: Public Opinion.
— A Preface to Morals.
MALINOWSKI: Crime and Custom in Savage Society.
—— Sex and Repression in Savage Society.
Maretr: Psychology and Folk-lore.
328 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Martin: The British Public and the General Strike.
McDoucat_: The Group Mind.
An Introduction to Social Psychology.
MicuHets: Political Parties.
PonsonBy: Falsehood in Wartime.
Rivers: Psychology and Ethnology.
Psychology and Politics, and other Essays.
Ropinson: The Mind in the Making.
Ross: Social Psychology.
STRATTON : Social Psychology of International Conduct.
Tawney: The Sickness of an Acquisitive Society.
THOULESS: Social Psychology.
TROTTER: Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.
Watras: Human Nature in Politics.
Our Social Heritage.
WELLS: The Open Conspiracy.
Industrial Psychology.
Cox: Mechanical Aptitude.
DREVER: The Psychology of Industry.
FARMER and CHAMBERS: J.F.R.B. Report, No. 38, ‘ A Psychological Study of
Individual Differences in Accident Rates.’
Gaw and OTHERS: I.F.R.B. Report No. 33, ‘ A Study in Vocational Guidance.’
GREENWOOD and Woops: I.F.R.B. Report No. 4, ‘ The Incidence of Industrial
Accidents, with Special Reference to Multiple Accidents.’
Hosson : Incentives in the New Industrial Order.
HOLLINGWoRTH : Vocational Psychology.
Muscio: Lectures on Industrial Psychology.
Myers: Industrial Psychology in Great Britain.
Myers (Editor) : Industrial Psychology.
NEWBOLD : J.F.R.B. Report No. 34, ‘ A Contribution to the Study of the Human
Factor in the Causation of Accidents.’
OsBORNE and OTHERS: I.F.R.B. Report No. 19, ‘ Two Contributions to the Study
of Accident Causation.’
PEAR: Skill in Work and Play.
SARGANT, FLORENCE: Economics of Fatigue and Unrest.
SmitH and OTHERS: J.F.R.B. Report No. 43, ‘ A Study of Telegraphists’ Cramp.’
SPEARMAN: The Abilities of Man.
TrEaD: Instincts in Industry.
VERNON: Industrial Fatigue and Efficiency.
Wyatt: I.F.R.B. Report No. 42, ‘ Rest Pauses in Industry.’
Third Year.
I. The Psychology of Adolescence.
IT. The Psychology of Religion.
I. The Psychology of Adolescence.
A. The General Problem.
(a) What adolescence is ; the biological facts ; re-awakening and trans-
formation of the sex impulse; internal secretions and secondary sexual
characters ; differentiation between the sexes in mind and body.
(6) The limit of growth in intelligence and the beginning of growth in
specialised interests and organised knowledge ; individual divergences of
character and of interests.
(c) Changes in the family situation and in social needs: emotional
development; regression to infantility ; auto-erotism ; the réle of phantasy :
the new ‘ object loves.’ Hero worship and idealism ; appeal of nature and
art; play ; dawn of true social spirit ; changes in the attitude to authority.
(d) Possible solutions of the inner conflicts of adolescence :
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 329
(1) In slow normal adaptation to reality by sublimation and intellectual
freedom ‘The necessary conditions of this adaptation in relation to
(a) Economic life : the problem of vocational guidance.
(6) Social life, leisure and recreation ; the adolescent’s need of
romance, adventure, art and free social intercourse.
Practical considerations.
(2) In withdrawal from reality—the psycho-neuroses and _ their
mechanisms.
(3) In outer defiance—the ‘ runaway tendency’ ; juvenile faults and
delinquencies.
(4) In religious experience—the psychological meaning of ‘ conversion.’
B. Special Problems of Adolescence.
(1) The psychology of the criminal and of the juvenile delinquent.
(a) The adult criminal. Methods of individual study ; Lombroso’s
pioneer work ; modern psychological technique ; mental tests of
level of intelligence and of special abilities ; sensory and motor
functions, memory, judgment, languages, etc.; the analysis of
mental conflicts and repressions ; psychic defects and aberrations.
Correlations with frequency of anatomical and physiological
peculiarities ; medical data. Is there a ‘ criminal type’? The
relation between criminality and alcoholism, insanity, epilepsy,
mental deficiency and other nervous disorders.
The characteristics of the ‘ instinctive criminal’ psycho-
analysis and ‘moral imbecility.’ Criminal art, language and
literature. ‘The problem of the recidivist is mainly one of educa-
tion, and starts from the abnormal psychology of adolescence.
The urgent need for psychological treatment of first offenders and
probationers, and for psychological training of all who deal with
juvenile delinquents.
The young delinquent. The many factors involved ; methods of
psychological and social study ; hereditary conditions ; the home ;
poverty and defective family relationships ; social life ; companion-
ships, leisure and work: physical factors of development and
disease ; intellectual factors: mental deficiency, dullness and
super-normal ability : emotional factors and neuroses ; methods
of treatment and re-education ; Juvenile Courts ; the probation
system ; Home Office schools and Borstal.
(2) The psychology of religious experiences.
This special problem deserves to be taken up in detail and considered
from a wider angle.
II. The Psychology of Religion.
What is the fundamental nature of religion, psychologically considered ?
There is no evidence of a ‘ religious instinct’ nor a ‘ religious sense.’
Discussion of the following views :
(a) Religion is thought, about the Infinite and Absolute (Spencer).
(6) Neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling ; a feeling of
absolute dependence upon God (Schleiermacher).
(c) It involves both thought and feeling in a mode of behaviour, a practical
relation with spiritual powers (Leuba).
(d) A valuational attitude (King).
(e) A desire to get into touch with and absorb the power of the final
mysteries (Marett).
(f) At the least, a belief in spiritual beings (Tylor).
(b
~~
330 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
Rite as the expression in time and circumstance, belief as rationalisation,
and feeling as the central core of the religious consciousness. ‘The distinc-
tion between magic and religion in mental attitude and practice ; bad (i.e.
anti-social) v. good (i.e. social) ways of dealing with the unknown ; impersonal
v. personal conceptions ; coercive v. propitiatory behaviour ; self-assertive
and self-subjective attitudes. "The origins of magic and religion; the
overflowing of pent-up emotion and desire into representation of what is
desired ; sympathetic magic; art and ritual. The inwardness of taboo ;
the influence of the great crises of life. ‘The multiple source of the belief
in unseen beings, personal and impersonal. The evolution of divine
characteristics. "The meaning of sacrifice ; the scapegoat.
The lingerings of magic in the civilised ; superstition, luck and charm.
The present facts of the religious life ; blending of negative self-feeling,
wonder, fear and tender emotion into awe and reverence. Saintliness,
mysticism and asceticism.
The phenomena of conversion and its significance as a developmental
crisis ; the conflict between the instinctive man and the higher moral vision
comes to a head ; the ‘ sense of sin’ ; the ‘ surrender’ as a ripening of the
higher psychic functionings, the personal laying hold of the larger signifi-
cances (God, Humanity, Goodness); there may be steady growth with
little mark of crisis. Religious revivals. The relation between religion
and morality. The reality of the sense of guilt as a permanent human
problem.
Books FOR READING AND REFERENCE.
Section I.
Appams: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. /
BoarpD OF EDUCATION CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE REPoRT: The Education of the
Adolescent.
Differentiation of the Curriculum for Boys and Girls in Secondary Schools.
BLANCHARD: The Cave of the Adolescent Child.
Bray: The Town Child.
Boy Labour and Apprenticeship.
Brooks: The Psychology of Adolescence.
Burt: The Young Delinquent.
DEWEY: Schools of Tomorrow.
New Schools for Old.
Exuis : The Criminal.
Finpiay: The Children of England.
FLuGcEL: The Psycho-analytic Study of the Family.
FREEMAN: Boy Life and Labour.
FREUD: The Ego and the Id.
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
HApDFIELD: Psychology and Morals.
Haiti: Adolescence.
Youth.
Howarp: The Mixed School.
Hearty: The Individual Delinquent.
Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling.
Hoare: The Schools and Social Reform.
HoiitincwortH: The Psychology of Sub-normal Children.
HormeEs: Psychology and Crime.
Lane: Talks to Parents and Teachers.
Maccurpy: Psychology of Emotion.
McDovuGa._: The Group Mind.
An Introduction to Social Psychology.
Morrison : Crime and its Causes.
SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION
Nunn: Education : its Data and First Principles.
OSBORNE: Prisons and Common Sense.
PATERSON: Across the Bridges.
SmitH: The Psychology of the Criminal.
STANFORD Reap: The Struggles of Male Adolescence.
SULLIVAN: Crime and Insanity.
TANSLEY: The New Psychology and its Relation to Life.
TAwNeEy: Education.
Secondary Education for All.
THOULESS: Social Psychology.
WHEELER: Youth: the Psychology of Adolescence.
Section IT.
BartLett: Psychology and Primitive Culture.
CARPENTER: Comparative Religion.
DRIBERG: The Lango: a Nilotic Tribe of Uganda.
FLOWER: An Approach to the Psychology of Religion.
Fox: The Threshold of the Pacific.
FRAZER: The Golden Bough.
FreuD: The Future of an Illusion.
Totem and Taboo.
— Civilisation and its Discontents.
HARRISON: Ancient Art and Ritual.
Hocart: Kingship.
JEvons: An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion.
Joap: The Present and Future of Religion.
Jones: Essays in Applied Psycho-analysis.
Leusa: The Psychology of Religious Mysticism.
LEvy-BRUHL: Primitive Mentality.
MALINOWSKI: Crime and Custom in Savage Society.
Marett: Psychology and Folklore.
— The Thveshold of Religion.
. Perry: The Origin of Magic and Religion.
Pym: Psychology of the Christian Life.
RAsupDALi: The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.
Rivers: Medicine, Magic and Religion.
SoornHitt: The Three Religions of China.
Smitu: The Evolution of the Dragon.
SrarBucK: The Psychology of Religion.
STRATTON: Psychology of the Religious Life.
SPENCER and GILLEN: The Native Tribes of Central Australia.
Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia.
THOULEsS: Intyoduction to the Psychology of Religion.
331
Dr. Susan Isaacs.
Psychology.
First and Second Year.
(London.)
(The paragraphs are not arranged in the order of presentation
of the subject.)
Definitions of psychology—its scope—the relations of
‘literary’ psychology. The frontiers of psychology.
“ scientific ’ and
Its relation to
physics and physiology. Methods. Introspection, its nature and functions.
Experiment. Mental tests and the use of statistics.
The Mental life of the adult. The modes of experience.
Perception. Its functions. Its analysis into sensations. Sense organs
and the nervous system. The Gestalt theory. Social factors in perceiving.
332 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC.
The relation of perceiving to imagining.. Kinds of mentalimagery. ‘Their
relation to ‘ styles’ of expression in speech and writing. Eidetic imagery.
The réle of imagery in thinking.
Remembering. Learning. ‘The nervous mechanisms in_ learning.
Forgetting.
Cognition and Intelligence. Intelligence testing. Thinking and Willing.
Instinct and emotion. Can psychology ‘do without instinct’? Reflex
action. Habits. The acquisition of skill. The transfer of training.
Speaking. Its functions. Its social significance and present-day
importance. Its relation to problems of personality.
Dreaming and sleep. lLikenesses and differences between waking and
sleeping life.
Personality. ‘Temperament and character.
Schools of psychology. The Gestalt School. The psycho-analysts.
The Behaviourists. The factor school.
Modern theories of the motivation of conduct. The problems of adjust-
ment to actuality. ‘ Minor’ disabilities ; popularly called shyness, clumsi-
ness, laziness, stupidity.
‘Type’ psychology.
Applications of psychology to education, industry and medicine.
Third Year. Psychological Aspects of Society.
The relations between psychology and sociology. The psychological
basis of social relationships. Personality as shaped by society. Impulse
and Reason in Society. Sentiments, Complexes and Character. ‘Theories
of Group Mentality. The conception of a General Will. The study of
Individual Differences in relation to Social Groups. The Inheritances of
Mental Characters. Racial and National Characteristics. Social Classes,
Primitive Mentality. Habit, Customs, ‘Tradition, Culture Patterns.
Mental Factors in Social Evolution. Co-operation and Antagonism.
Authority and Leadership. The Psychology of the Crowd. Psychological
Aspects of Law and Morals. Fashion. The Public and Public Opinion.
Propaganda Organisation and Democracy considered from the point of
view of the psychologist. The psychological study of disharmony, conflict
and revolt.
Prof. T. H. Pear.
(Manchester.)
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.
SECTION A.
MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
Thursday, September 2.
Symposium on X-ray methods and industry (10.0).
Sir Witi1am Brace, O.M., K.B.E., Pres.R.S.—The application of
X-ray methods to industry.
The X-rays supply new methods of examining the structure of a solid
material. As a result we obtain details of the mutual arrangements of the
atoms and molecules forming the design, and, in particular, we prove the
existence of any of the regularity of arrangement which constitutes crystal-
linity. These matters are of importance to industry, since the properties
of all materials depend ultimately on molecular arrangement. The X-ray
methods have a number of useful features. They do not, for example,
disrupt the specimen ; they are content with minute amounts of material ;
they analyse in terms of molecules as well as of atoms and so on. On the
other hand, the minute dimensions of themselves and of the details which
they reveal are so widely separated from the dimensions of ordinary practice
that it takes time to make connection between them, and as a consequence
of their fundamental nature their application to industry is rather by way
of their effect on industrial science than, at present, on workshop practice.
The latter use is however considerable and the former is very great.
Dr. G. SHEARER.—X-rays and the metal industry (10.20).
The use of X-ray diffraction methods in the study of metals provides
a variety of information much of which cannot readily be obtained by other
methods. Such studies give directly the arrangement of the atoms in the
metal and show how this arrangement alters when, for example, other
constituents are added to a pure metal to form an alloy. Less fundamental
in nature but, at times, of more immediate application to industrial purposes,
is the further information which such examinations yield. By means of
X-rays it is possible to trace the effects on the structure of such processes
as heat treatment, cold working, hardening and the like. The size, the
state of perfection and the distribution in direction of its crystallites all have
an important bearing on the properties of a metal, and by giving information
on these aspects, X-rays extend the knowledge derived from studies with
the microscope and help towards an understanding of the magnetic, electrical
and tensile properties of the metal.
334 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.
Dr. J. D. BERNAL, F.R.S.—X-rays and the food and chemical industries
(10.40).
The range of methods based on X-ray crystal diffraction have only begun
to be used in the chemical industry, and it is not nearly well enough realised
what possibilities they offer. So far, most work has been done in the use
of X-rays as an auxiliary in the analysis of complex compounds, particularly
natural products, vitamins, hormones, etc., and there they have shown
that as an auxiliary method they are capable of shortening the ordinary
chemical work by a very large factor. ‘Their immediate practical utility
may, however, be even greater.
X-rays provide an ideal method for standardising chemical products at
all stages of manufacture and they are more sensitive than chemical analysis
in that they detect differences of texture and body.
Their value in applied chemistry has been shown by their elucidation of
the problem of bleaching powder which had baffled chemists for a century.
It can safely be claimed that the use of X-ray methods is likely to be
equivalent in value to the chemical industry to such techniques as electro-
chemical analysis.
Mr. J. T. RANDALL and Mr. H. P. Rooxsspy.—X-rays and the
electrical industry (11.5).
Although it is impossible to describe all the applications of X-rays which
have been of value in the electrical industry, the following items have been
chosen from recent investigations of interest.
Fluorescent materials are now of considerable importance in connection
with colour modification of discharge lamps and television, and in our first
example we show how the colour of fluorescence depends in certain instances
on the crystal structure, and how, when solid solutions are possible, the
colour of fluorescence may vary in a continuous way with the lattice constant.
Specks of dirt hardly visible to the eye sometimes produce large fluorescent
discolorations, and the specks may be identified by X-rays.
Another example is taken from metallurgy. When molybdenum sheet
is successively rolled in two directions at right angles, after annealing
characteristic fractures occur at 45° to the directions of rolling ; the reasons
for this can be understood from a study of X-ray orientation diagrams.
It is now well known that the differences between amorphous carbon and
graphite are ones of degree, and this has led us to some interesting distinc-
tions between the X-ray photographs of natural and artificial graphite.
Some of the reflections observed by Finch in electron-diffraction photo-
graphs have been shown to appear in X-ray patterns of certain natural
graphites, while these lines do not appear for any artificial graphite.
Dr. A. J. BRrapLEy.—X-rays and the permanent magnet industry
(11.40).
Powerful permanent magnets are made of alloys with a composition near
to that of Fe,NiAl. Their properties can be explained by X-rays. Powder
photographs of slowly cooled Fe-Ni-Al alloys have given an entirely new
phase diagram with many surprising features. The main single-phase
areas are face-centred cubic («) and body-centred cubic (8). It was formerly
thought that the intermediate area was simply an (« + §) region, but this
is only correct at high temperatures. On cooling the alloy, the receding
boundary leaves a new two-phase area consisting entirely of body-centred
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 335
cubic crystals with different compositions. This is possible because the B
boundary on the nickel-rich side is curved like a bow. The two-phase
(6 + B,) area, between the bow and the bowstring, includes the composition
Fe,NiAl. On slow cooling, this alloy splits up into Fe,,NiAl (8) and
Fe,Ni,Al, (82), with lattice dimensions differing by 0-3 per cent.
To develop maximum coercivity, the alloy is cooled at such a rate that
there is not time to form two distinct types of crystal, but there is a
continuous variation of composition. Tiny ‘islands’ of iron-rich material
are forced to conform to the dimensions of the parent lattice. The
resulting strain produces a powerful coercive force.
Mr. R. W. Powett and Mr. W. A. Woop.—Recent work on mica :
thermal and X-ray (12.0).
(1) A description is given of an adaptation of the divided bar method
for determinations of thermal conductivities of insulating materials at
elevated temperatures, and of its application to the effect of temperatures
up to 600° C. on the thermal conductivity of mica normal to the cleavage
plane. Certain micas of the phlogopite type are found to show a sudden
decrease in thermal conductivity at about 200° C. with a partial recovery
only on cooling. Other specimens are free from this anomaly.
(2) An X-ray investigation has been made of the variations exhibited
by the structure of the same specimens during a temperature cycle of 16° C.
to400°C. Itis found that the heat treatment may bring about a very marked
mosaic formation without apparent change in external appearance ; that
such a structure is not final but may revert partially to the original state on
cooling ; and that a close parallelism exists between this effect and the
abnormal fall in thermal conductivity.
(3) The combination of the thermal and X-ray work thus provides a
specific illustration of a fruitful application of X-rays to the study of a material
of industrial importance.
GENERAL DiscussION on X-rays and industry (12.15).
AFTERNOON.
Visit to Ericsson’s Telephone Works, Beeston.
Pp
Friday, September 3.
PRESIDENTIAL ApprEss by Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, O.B.E., on Noise and the
nation. (Illustrated by experiments.)
Mr. E. R. Davies.—Some recent discoveries on the action of light on photo-
graphic materials (11.30).
The sensitive layer in photographic materials consists chiefly of micro-
scopic crystals of silver halide embedded in gelatine. The effect of light
is visible only when the exposure is prolonged, metallic silver being formed.
Far smaller exposures produce latent images which may be developed—
a process of chemical reduction, whereby sufficiently exposed crystals are
reduced to silver. This is a type of trigger action since nearly all the energy
is supplied chemically and subsequent to exposure. The optical density
of the developed image changes with the illumination for constant exposure
336 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.
(product of illumination and time). For any material there is an optimum
rate of reception of energy, which varies with the temperature. While the
density increases with the exposure over a wide range, prolonged exposure
causes it to decrease (the region of solarization). The crystals in a layer
vary very much in sensitivity, which, in general, increases with their size.
The sensitivity is also governed by the nature of the surrounding medium
and by traces of foreign matter: of great importance is the adsorption
of certain dyes to the crystal faces thereby extending the natural sensitivity
of the silver halides from the Blue-Violet towards the Red and even into
the Infra-Red.
Mr. S. O. Rawiinc.—Modern views of the action of developers in
photography (11.50).
In making a photograph, development is necessary to make He latent
image visible. ‘The unit is the crystal of silver halide; the greater the
exposure the greater the number of developable crystals. ‘The sensitivity
of a crystal is inversely proportional to the exposure necessary to bring it
across the threshold of developability. After application of a developer
to a crystal in an exposed plate a period of waiting ensues during which no
apparent change occurs; then development begins at one or more points
on the crystal and spreads rapidly until the whole crystal is blackened.
Development centres are probably coincident with the units of the latent
image, which are believed to be particles of silver. The size of a particle of
silver probably determines whether or not it can initiate development.
The critical size has been variously estimated to lie between two or three
atoms of silver and some hundreds of atoms. Theories of developer
action are divided between two concepts: reduction of silver salts in
solution with subsequent deposition of silver on the latent image, and
adsorption of the developing agent by the latent image with subsequent
reduction of silver halide in the surface of the crystal.
Prof. N. F. Mott, F.R.S.—A theory of latent image formation (12.10).
Ultra-violet light is known to colour rock salt crystals. The colour is due
to free electrons released by a kind of internal photoelectric effect, as may be
shown experimentally. The primary action of the light on the silver halide
grains in a photographic emulsion is similar ; electrons are liberated which
combine with the silver ions to form silver atoms. In the print-out process
these silver atoms coagulate to form metallic silver ; a detailed mechanism
of this coagulation is proposed. On the assumption that the latent image
is a submicroscopic speck of silver, it is possible on the basis of this mech-
anism to understand the reason for the breakdown of the reciprocity law
and also for the effect of temperature on the sensitivity of photographic
emulsions.
GENERAL Discussion on The mode of action of the photographic plate (12.30).
AFTERNOON.
Mr. H. G. Green.—George Green, the mathematical physicist
(1793-1841) (2.30).
The figure outstanding from the group of men, able and interested in
scientific matters and banded together through their association with the
é
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 337
Bromley House Subscription Library, Nottingham, is that of George
Green, self-taught in the main until after the publication of the thesis by
which he is most remembered. His father was first a baker in Nottingham
and then a prosperous miller in the neighbouring hamlet of Sneinton. The
son assisted his father in the business, but at the same time pursued his
scientific interests, which must have been regarded with sympathy by the
family as the top storey of the mill was used by him as a study. In 1828
the Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of
Electricity and Magnetism, which introduced the famous theorem, was
published privately in Nottingham by subscription. Although lost to the
scientific world in general until re-discovered in dramatic fashion by Sir
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1845, the paper at once attracted the
notice of Sir Edward Ffrench Bromhead of Thurlby, near Nottingham, who
communicated his next two papers to the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
According to a brother-in-law, Green found his work as a miller irksome,
and after his father’s death (1829) he disposed of the business though he
still retained the property. He then prepared himself to enter Gonville
and Caius College, Cambridge, which he did in 1833 under the recom-
mendation of Sir Ffrench Bromhead, though he apparently kept an active
practical interest in local affairs,as a George Green was appointed trustee to
a Sneinton charity in 1839. Becoming Fourth Wrangler in 1837, he pro-
ceeded two years later to a college fellowship, but his health failing after a
year, he returned to Sneinton and died in 1841.
Visit to Sneinton.
Monday, September 6.
Joint Symposium of Sections A, B, and I on Surface action in biology
(10.0).
Chairman: Prof. J. C. Putuip, O.B.E., F.R.S.
Dr. Irnvinc Lancmurir.—Visible adsorbed films in the field of biology.
Interference minima with built-up films of forty-seven monolayers of
barium stearate on chromium are so sharp that an increment of thickness
of 2A can be seen. The surface of such a plate can be conditioned (for
example by dipping in a thorium nitrate solution) so that it can adsorb
many substances from aqueous solution. Proteins, bile acids, etc., give
saturated adsorbed films of characteristic accurately measurable thickness.
Antibodies can be adsorbed on antigens, hydrocarbons on bile acids, digitonin
on monolayers of cholesterol, etc. Often alternating multilayers can be
built up by adsorption or by deposition from the surface of water. Many
valuable properties of these films can be measured ; thickness, refractive
index, solubility, volatility, contact angle against various liquids, adsorbing
power for other substances, X-ray and electron diffraction patterns. Per-
meability can be measured by determining the effect of a solvent in removing
material from underlying layers, or the penetration of liquids or vapours
through monolayers into the voids of an underlying skeleton film. The
monolayers can act as catalysts for reactions involving substances in
solution, in detecting and identifying minute amounts of substances of
biological interest and in throwing light on their structure.
N 2
338 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.
Dr. Henry Eyrinc.—Absolute rates of reaction of large molecules
(10.30).
Using the theory of absolute reaction rates it is possible to calculate the
entropy, heat and free energy of activation. ‘These quantities for proteins
permit us to make statements regarding the nature and number of bonds
broken to form the activated state for denaturation. ‘That the effectiveness
of a homogeneous or heterogeneous catalyst depends upon the way the react-
ants fit on to the catalyst molecules has long been clear, since this determines
the free energy of activation. How different this can be for optical-
isomers is considered for a number of cases. ‘The experiments of Schwab,
Rost and Rudolph show that lzvo secondary butyl alcohol is dehydrated
faster on dextro quartz. This provides an interesting proof that the
structural feature responsible for optical activity of the quartz in bulk is
still preserved in the surface. This is important since it is much easier
to study matter in bulk. From the structure of quartz and butyl alcohol
the activated state is adduced and used by Condon, Altar and the present
author to give the relative configuration of the quartz and alcohol. From
the work of Hylleraas and a new theoretical treatment of optical activity
by the above authors an assignment of the absolute configuration of quartz
is then made. This leads to an assignment of the absolute configuration
of all substances which can be related to butyl alcohol. While certain of
the steps in the argument cannot be made with complete finality a new
approach to the problem of absolute configurations is provided.
Prof. H. S. Taytor, F.R.S.—Activation of specific bonds on surfaces
(11.10).
Prof. E. K. Rmeat, M.B.E., F.R.S.—Film reactions as biological
models (11.40).
DISCUSSION (12.10).
AFTERNOON.
Joint Symposium on Surface action in biology (continued).
Dr. J. F. DANIELLI.—Permeability of cells (2.30).
Dr. H. J. PHe.ps.—The specificity of the reactions of the living cell (3.0).
The recent extensions of our knowledge of interface phenomena have
made it possible to speculate as to the structure of the surfaces of living cells.
Biological reactions may be considered in two classes : reactions functionally
affecting groups of cells which are not generally chemically very specific and
those characteristic of individual cell metabolism which are often extremely
specific. ‘The great chemical specificity of the processes of metabolism
have led to the view that at least some of the interfaces of, or within, the cell
must be regarded as semi-rigid mosaics of great complexity. Such a
theory must, however, be very incomplete. Not only are the chemical
processes of the cell frequently highly specific but they are also ‘ thermo-
dynamically very improbable’ reactions. Consideration of the energetics
of such reactions shows that living matter must possess the power of inte-
grating the energy received by the normal impacts of molecular heat move-
ments. If we consider the probable behaviour of large molecules anchored
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 339
in a rigid surface from the point of view of the quantum theory we may
form a rough picture of the manner in which localisation of energy might
take place. We must also take account of the very low molecular con-
centrations of certain substances which will, none the less, influence pro-
foundly the course of biological processes, which would seem to show that
the living cell is also capable of what we may call ‘ integration of time.’
DISCUSSION (3.30).
CONCURRENTLY WITH ABOVE :—
Symposium on The upper atmosphere (10.0).
Prof. D. Brunt.—The upper air and its importance in meteorology.
The rate of decrease of temperature with height in the atmosphere is
on the average roughly the same in all latitudes and at all heights up to a
limit known as the tropopause, of which the mean height varies from about
17 km. at the equator to about 6 km. at the poles. Above the tropopause
is the stratosphere within which temperature varies little with height.
The differences in height of the tropopause in different pressure distri-
butions are discussed, and the variations of wind and density with height
are considered from the point of view of their bearing on stratosphere
flight.
Methods of observation of temperature in the upper air are described
briefly, the importance of obtaining the observations without delay, for
use in weather forecasting, is emphasised, and the practical value of the
observations discussed.
Dr. K. C. Lance.—Comparison between Harvard radio-meteorographs
and airplane meteorographs (10.30).
Dr. F. PANETH.—Chemical exploration of the upper atmosphere.
GENERAL Discussion on The upper atmosphere.
The above discussion on The upper atmosphere was preceded by the
release, by Prof. D. Brunt, of a sounding balloon carrying a Dines meteoro-
graph, which was watched by a large number of members of the Association.
The instrument was attached to the balloon by a Baker release, consisting
of a small aneroid which could be adjusted to open a catch, and so release
the instruments from the balloon at any desired height. The release was
adjusted so as to liberate the instruments at a height of about 12 kilometres.
The instruments fell about four miles east of Grantham, and were picked
up, and returned in good condition, by Mr. E. B. Dove of Ropsley.
The record of the meteorograph shows that the balloon dropped the
instruments from a height of 12-3 kilometres. There was a normal fall
of temperature within the first half kilometre above the ground, with an
increase of temperature of about 1° C. in the next half kilometre, while
above this the temperature fell off steadily up to about 12 kilometres, after
which there was no further fall, indicating that the balloon had then entered
the stratosphere. The temperature was about 13° C. at the ground and
—55° C. at 12 kilometres.
340 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.
Mr. A. L. WuiTELEY.—Photo-electric control in industry (11.45).
A comparison is made between the photo-electric (emissive) cell and other
available types of photo-sensitive device, showing the advantages of the
forementioned as regards sensitivity, speed of response and stability of
characteristics.
The standard types of photo-electric relay are briefly described. ‘The
usual form of relay functions solely to open or close an electric circuit
according to the level of illumination on its photo-electric cell.
Applications to machine tools, textile, printing and allied industries,
control of street lighting, etc., are illustrated.
Applications relying upon the high-speed response characteristics of the
photo-electric cell are shown to be among the most important uses of the
device. Relatively simple photo-electric control can respond to a light
change lasting less than z9/95 second.
A further useful property of the caesium type of photo-electric cell is its
rapid increase in output when the temperature of the light source is raised.
For instance : if the temperature of the radiating body is raised from 1700° F.
to 1800° F. the output of the photo-electric cell is doubled. This is the
basis of operation of the photo-electric pyrometer, which has a number of
advantages over other temperature-measuring instruments.
The alleged disadvantages of vacuum tube type apparatus in industry
are dealt with ; experiences with this class of apparatus in service are briefly
described.
Prof. J. A. CARROLL.—Modern eclipse observing (12.10).
To obtain the information sought in modern eclipse observing, full
perfection of the optical parts of the instruments used is required. Modern
optical manufacture is able to provide parts capable of yielding the full
theoretical resolving powers, but only under conditions of good thermal
equilibrium. In the laboratory this is easily attained, but in the field large
regular and irregular diurnal changes of temperature are experienced.
The expedition to Omsk attempted for the first time full thermostatic
control of the observing instruments. Interferometer observations necessi-
tate thermal control, but practically all instruments can benefit materially
from it. The arrangements used are described, and the success attained
demonstrated.
A brief description of the programme of observations, the particular
instruments used and the results obtained on this occasion are given, and
also some account of Dr. R. L. Waterfield’s observations of the Corona
at Chios.
Dr. A. D. THackEray.—The spectrum of the extreme limb of the sun (12.30).
The few seconds at the beginning and end of a total solar eclipse offer
a unique opportunity of studying the spectrum of the extreme limb of the
sun and watching the transition from the Fraunhofer absorption spectrum
to the bright line spectrum of the chromosphere. Enhanced lines which
are characteristic of high temperature in the laboratory are stronger in the
chromosphere than in the Fraunhofer spectrum. 'This seemed to point
to the curious conclusion that the upper layers of the sun were hotter than
the lower layers until ionisation theory showed that the lower pressure
in the upper atmosphere would produce much the same effect as high
temperature.
SECTIONAL 'TRANSACTIONS.—A. 341
Absorption lines are supposed to be produced by combined scattering
and absorption, the former process being predominant in the upper layers
and being responsible for the bright lines in the chromosphere. The
behaviour of absorption lines at the extreme limb is not fully accounted
for by current theory. Lines represented strongly in the flash spectrum
can be seen bright over the edge of the photosphere ; numerous absorption
lines due to neutral metals can be detected at the extreme limb, but excitation
potential is an untrustworthy guide to their strength. There is an un-
explained shift to the red of the absorption lines relative to the chromo-
spheric lines.
Dr. R. L. WaTERFIELD.—Coronagraphy (12.45). Read by Prof. W. H.
McCrea.
AFTERNOON.
Visits to Stanton Ironworks; Bar-Lock Factory; Messrs. John
Taylor & Co., Bell Founders, Loughborough; North Wilford Power
Station.
Tuesday, September 7.
Dr. Ezer GriFFITHs, F.R.S., and Mr. J. H. AwBery.—The contributions
of refrigeration to everyday life (10.0).
A review is given of some recent investigations at the National Physical
Laboratory and elsewhere which may be regarded as contributing to the
comfort and convenience of everyday life.
They include :—
, (1) Work on basic engineering problems of refrigeration.
(2) Investigations in hygrometry which find application in methods of
‘ air-conditioning.’
(3) Study of materials for thermal insulation.
Film illustrating Industrial physics at the National Physical Laboratory
(10.20).
Prof. L. F. Bates.—The magnetic properties of amalgams (11.10).
The results of an examination of the magnetic properties of dilute amalgams
of metals with mercury, produced by electrolysis or by mechanical means,
are described. The dependence of the magnetic susceptibility at room
temperatures upon the concentration of the dissolved metal, and the variation
with temperature of the susceptibility of particular amalgams are discussed.
Experiments with iron amalgams are described.
Mr. A. Brooxes.—Some gas-absorption problems during annealing of low
carbon iron (11.25).
Modernisation of a particular heat treatment department, replacing the
old coke-fired furnaces by electric furnaces having automatic control and
inert gas annealing resulted in the magnetic properties of the low carbon
iron being appreciably inferior to those given by the older methods, and,
342 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.
with many batches of material, the mechanical strength was so much reduced
that large quantities of parts were scrapped during the assembly stages.
Investigations conducted, involving raw materials, heating and cooling
rates, different soaking times and maximum temperatures, machining
conditions, etc., proved that the magnetic degradation was due to nitriding
caused by free ammonia, order of 0-5 per cent., in the cracked ammonia
inert atmosphere. A purifier in the gas track eliminated the trouble.
The high magnetic properties of pure ferrite desired, tend to encourage
mechanical weakness by large grain structure and elimination of inter grain.
Dry hydrogen inert atmosphere has no effect, but H-H,O gas penetrates
the iron, reduces the iron carbide cementing medium, lowers elongation,
increases brittleness and leaves tensile strength almost unaffected. Marked
effects in practice occurred below 0-03 per cent. Controlled carburising
gas admitted into the H atmosphere to balance reducing and oxidising
effects eliminated the trouble and allowed the recovery of spoiled parts.
Miss M. D. WaLLer.—Chladni designs produced by means of solid carbon
dioxide (11.45).
Loud notes may be produced from metal objects by touching them with
solid carbon dioxide. (Report British Association, p. 314, 1932; Proc.
Phys. Soc. 45, 101, 1933; Nature, 185, 475, 1935.) This new method of
producing vibrations has now been used to make a large number of Chladni
designs and also to study the resonances of bodies of irregular shape. The
value of the method depends upon the fact that the solid carbon dioxide
can be applied to any point of the surface and is very vigorous in its action
The frequencies of the vibrations excited lie between about 1,000 and
4,000 C.p.s.
Dr. H. A. STEVENSON.—The prevention of steamy shop windows (12.0).
A description is given of an experimental shop-window which was built
to investigate methods for preventing steamy windows. The apparatus
used and the method of experimental procedure are also described.
Various methods for preventing steamy shop-windows are discussed from
the theoretical and from the practical aspect. The most practicable of
these methods—ventilation with air from the street—was examined in
detail.
Natural ventilation proved to be effective but difficulty was experienced
in securing adequate ventilation in actual shop practice.
Fan ventilation was found to be entirely satisfactory. All the desirable
features of natural ventilation can be attained together with additional
advantages, such as a greater rate of ventilation and a greater flexibility in
the construction of the ventilating system.
Prof. J. SatrERLY.—The recent development of everyday physics and tts
application to Canadian life (12.15).
Refrigeration Canada is so large that meats, vegetables, fruits, fish, have
to be refrigerated for home transportation.
Owing to the long winter and backward spring, early vegetables and fruits
are imported and refrigerated from the countries to the South. The house-
wife also needs a refrigerator both in winter and in summer. Use of ‘ dry
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A. 343
ice.’ Portable refrigerators in delivery vans. A large amount of insulation
is now being installed to keep us cool in summer and to lessen the winter’s
fuel bill. Air conditioning and automatic humidification are becoming
popular. Trans-continental trains are air-conditioned.
Geology.—An increasing use is made of physical methods for the solution
of problems in detection of icebergs. Ice in rivers closes navigation and
delays the reopening. Ice chokes the inlets of hydro-electric stations and
the turbines. Ice does damage on power transmission lines and on the
wings of aeroplanes.
Air-navigation and Radio —The Northern Canadian Airlines carry much
more freight than the air lines of any other country. This is due to the
development of mining in the north country. For the same reasons radio
broadcasting has proved a great boon, lessening the isolation experienced in
more lonely spots and enabling medical advice and air transportation to be
used in cases of severe illness.
Forest fires are reported by air and radio and then are fought by men
carried into the fire areas.
General.—The Universities are waking up to the need of providing men
for these physical services. Graduate courses in meteorology and geo-
physics are now provided by the Physics Department of the University of
Toronto, and an honours course in biology and physics has been started to
train biologists with a sufficient knowledge of physics to study the problems
of refrigeration—a subject so very important in a large agricultural country
like Canada, and becoming more important as time goes on.
AFTERNOON.
Prof. W. Davis.—The physical properties of knitted fabrics (2.30).
(1) Place of the knitted fabric in textiles.
(2) Trend towards lighter-weight clothing.
(3) Properties of thickness, weight and compressibility, instruments for
measuring these. Bulk/weight index of fabrics.
(4) Principles of wear testing ; abrasion tests on textiles; temperature
of abrasion ; apparatus used.
(5) Testing fabrics by bursting; machines used. Tensile strength and
elongation of fibres ; yarns and fabrics under controlled conditions
of temperature and humidity; the temperature/humidity control
chamber. Stress/strain diagrams for wool, cotton and rayon.
(6) Apparatus used for testing flexibility, air permeability and the measure-
ment of lustre on fabrics.
(7) Use of the ultra-violet lamp in detecting fabric faults. Lamps used
for estimating the colour fastness ; standard whites.
Working demonstration of newest types of experimental apparatus.
AFTERNOON.
Visits to Messrs. Boots’ Works, Island Street, Nottingham ; to L.M.S.
Railway Research Station, Derby, and to Messrs. Rolls Royce Works,
Derby.
344 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—A.*
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS (A*)
Saturday, September 4.
Discussion on The unification of algebra in schools (10.0).
Prof. E. H. NEVILLE.
Mr. T. A. A. BroapBENT.—The teaching of algebra in schools : an
introductory survey of the present situation (10.10).
Much recent research work, in geometry and in certain branches of
mathematical physics, for example, has shown an increased reliance on
algebra, and in particular on the axiomatic fundamentals of algebra. In
elementary school teaching, the groundwork concerning negative numbers,
complex numbers, and similar concepts, has been clarified. The main
problem in school teaching of algebra at the moment appears to be: Can
the school course in algebra be systematised and unified so as to present
with the university course a coherent body of doctrine, while at the same time
allowing a pupil who ceases to learn algebra at some stage of the school
course to feel that he has acquired the main ideas of a field of knowledge
rather than unrelated fragments of information ?
Mr. G. L. Parsons.—Elementary algebra (10.30).
Mr. M. H. A. NewmMan.—The course as seen from the University
(11.10).
Mr. W. J. Lancrorp.—The teaching of algebra: limitations and
possibilities in the school (11.35).
The School Certificate course and its effect on the teaching of algebra.
Lack of completeness in the topics of elementary algebra.
New approach to the study of equations and series. The value of
‘problems’ as distinct from ‘ examples.’
The transition to the more rigorous needs of the sixth form course.
Absence of opportunities for gaining technique.
Analysis or algebra as the fundamental aim of advanced work in schools.
The effect of the Higher Certificate and Open Scholarship examinations.
The rival claims of two groups of pupils. Possibility of reconciling these
claims with its effect on the teaching of the subject.
Need for an early treatment of complex number theory.
Comments on some of the topics which receive little or no treatment
in the school course.
GENERAL DISCUSSION (12.0).
Tuesday, September 7.
Discussion on The bearing of higher geometry on the school course (10.0).
Prof. H. T. H. Praceio.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A.* 345
Prof. E. H. Nevitte.—The influence of the University on school
geometry (10.10).
In the anticipation of developments proper to a later stage, the balance
between technical skill and general ideas has not always been well held in
the school course. Sometimes, as in the case of the circular points, verbal
dexterity is acquired in a field of which no rational account is given. Some-
times, as in the case of curvature, we are content with trivial exercises when
we might have exciting glimpses into higher geometry. The problem
should be considered in relation both to the potential specialist and to the
boy whose mathematics is a small part of a general education.
Mr. H. G. Green.—Infinity in Euclidean geometry (10.30).
The term ‘ line at infinity ’ as a device to cover a case of failure in the conical
projection from plane to plane.
Discussions on the line at infinity and distant points regarded as dis-
cussions of a line and points near it in a projected figure. Circular points.
The plane at infinity: properties of the conicoids developed from the
quadrangle formed by the intersection of two conics.
Prof. W. H. McCrea.—The circular points and elementary geometry
(11.0).
Elementary geometry in schools is metrical euclidean geometry. The
“point at infinity’ on a line is defined to give convenient expression to
consequences of Euclid’s parallel postulate. The points at infinity on all
lines in the euclidean plane satisfy formally the collinearity conditions ;
so we get the ‘ line at infinity.’
It is convenient to define the ‘ orthogonal involution’ on the line at
infinity. Then, for example, a necessary and sufficient condition for a
conic to be a circle is that all pairs of this involution should be conjugate with
respect to the conic.
We might proceed to note the analogy with the conjugate pairs of points
on the radical axis of a coaxal system ; these form an involution, and, if it
possesses double points, all circles of the system pass through them. So
we might choose to say that all circles in the plane pass through the imaginary
double points of the orthogonal involution, and so define the ‘ circular points.’
But it is better not to do this, the concept of imaginary elements being
foreign to this geometry. Instead, we can continue to work with the ortho-
gonal involution. Example: foci of a conic.
Prof. H. S. Ruse.—Differential geometry (11.35).
The theory of the curvature, etc., of plane curves is usually treated as
a mere by-product of the calculus; but since it contains many of the
essential ideas of the generalised differential geometry that forms the basis
of relativity and other branches of modern physics, it is worthy of greater
attention. ‘The interest of beginners (especially those intending to specialise
in mathematics at a university) might be stimulated by the use of vector
methods and by a general account of how the formule of plane differential
geometry extend naturally to the theory of curves and surfaces in higher
space. Such ideas are by no means beyond the understanding of the
average student.
GENERAL DISCUSSION (12.0).
346 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—A%, B.
Mr. C. H. H. Frankiin.—Hypersolid concepts, and the completeness of
objects and phenomena (12.30).
To picture mentally the Completeness of Things requires a more elaborate
geometry than that of three space as directly observed with the eyes ; needing
the three Cartesian axes of ordinary space and other axes representing time,
mass or any other dimensions to be considered ; all axes mutually at right
angles.
Just as it is possible to represent a three dimensional object by a two
dimensional sketch ; so it should be possible to represent a four, five, or
more dimensional experience in a two space drawing or three space model :
the picturing being regularly distorted but with parallel lines drawn parallel
much as in an oblique or isogonal sketch, or, in geometrical perspective,
with angular distortion and vanishing parallels such as would be ordinarily
used in artistic work or found in a photograph.
While any group of lines passing through a point may serve as Cartesian
axes for drawing or modelling hyperspace figuring (as in drawing three
space objects); isogonal relation between axes, possible for four, six
and ten space modelling, and any dimensional drawing gives minimum
distortion and tends to the best representation ; but regular oblique pro-
jection may be essential or preferable for five space or higher dimensional
modelling.
Preliminary to picturing hypersolidity, familiarity with simple four and
higher space forms, only distorted by the usual perspective or oblique
projection of ordinary experience, is helpful. Demonstration of some of
these forms, drawn or modelled and also of some Cartesian axial models.
It is noted that the oblique projections of the hypercube series have
envelopes in three space which introduce an infinite series of rhombic
semiregular solids, which follow at regular intervals on the rhombic hexa-
hedron, rhombic dodecahedron, and rhombic icosahedron, and have polar
and equatorial symmetry.
SECTION B.—CHEMISTRY.
Thursday, September 2.
SymposiIuM on Some aspects of chemotherapy (10.0).
PRESIDENTIAL AppreEss by Dr. F. L. Pyman, F.R.S., on Researches in
chemotherapy.
Prof. Dr. H. HOrLeEIN.—The chemotherapy of bacterial diseases (11.0).
Ten years ago investigations began in the Elberfeld laboratories of the
I-G Farbenindustrie on the chemotherapy of bacterial diseases. Patents
were taken out for the substance now known as Prontosil in 1932. The
early results were so encouraging that further experiments were carried
out, but the first publication appeared only in February 1935. ‘The action
of Prontosil on experimental streptococcal infections in mice was found to
be the property of a whole series of compounds characterised by sub-
stituents such as sulphonamide or certain other sulphur-containing groups.
A soluble variety of Prontosil was next discovered, having in common with
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 347
the base one-half of each molecule—i.e. the sulphonamide group attached
to the azo group in the para position. Other chemicals, apart from the
azo-series, which carry the sulphonamide group in the para position were
also investigated.
The discovery of a general remedy for streptococcal diseases soon aroused
scientific interest throughout the world, and much literature has now been
published, first from the German clinics, and subsequently from those
in other parts of the world. French investigators were the first to make
public the fact that para-amino-phenyl-sulphonamide possessed anti-
streptococcal action.
In England the Therapeutic Trials Committee was given a supply of
Prontosil, and this was tested out by Dr. Colebrook and his collaborators
in the study of puerperal fever. Long and Bliss in America, hearing of
the results obtained by the above workers, began investigations on their
own. The value of the preparation was soon realised in erysipelas, puer-
peral fever and septic throat. Recently indications of treatment in diseases
other than streptococcal have come to the front, namely, in meningococcal,
pneumococcal, gonococcal and gas-gangrene infections.
The originators of the Prontosil compounds, Domagk and his colla-
borators, have succeeded in obtaining three compounds under the name of
Diseptal which are allied to Prontosil and which exert an antistreptococcal
action as effective as that already available together with an increased
efficacy on staphylococci, gonococci, gas-gangrene and possibly other
organisms. Clinical work with these compounds has already been
published.
The mode of action and excretion of sulphonamide preparations has
been studied by many writers. Despite the suggestion that the action of
the two more complicated Prontosil compounds is explicable on the basis
of decomposition to p-amino-phenyl-sulphonamide, it appears that this is
not the complete explanation.
It is difficult to say what the future of chemotherapy will lead to, but
it is believed that the new compounds (e.g. Diseptal) may act effectively
against organisms other than those already mentioned.
Sir Grtpert T. Morcan and Mr. Ertc WaLtton.—New derivatives
of p-arsanilic acid (11.45).
During the last few years a group of compounds of general formula I
and with values of ranging from o to 8
AsO3H,
I
NH.CO.[CHg]n-CONR,R,
has been prepared at the Chemical Research Laboratory, Teddington.
These compounds were in general obtained by condensing p-arsanilic acid
with a derivative of a dibasic acid, usually the ester-acid chloride, and con-
verting the product into an amine according to the scheme :—
AsO;H..C,H..NHe =e CIOC.(CH,)n.COOR a
AsO,H..C,H..NH.CO.(CH2)n.COOR ——~>
AsO;H..C,H..NH.CO.(CH2)n.-CONR,R2
Nearly all the sodium salts of these amides proved to be trypanocidally
active in mice, and accordingly three of the most promising, namely sodium
348 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B.
malonaniloethylamide p-arsonate (I: » =1; R, =H; R, = Et), sodium
succinanilomethylamide p-arsonate (I: nm = 2; R, =H; R. = Me), and
sodium glutaranilodimethylamide p-arsonate (I: n=3; R, = Me;
R, = Me) were chosen for further trials on rabbits. Of these three com-
pounds the succinyl derivative, now known as Neocryl, was eventually
selected for clinical trial.
Prof. Warrington Yorke and collaborators in the Liverpool School of
Tropical Medicine have reported favourably on the action of Neocryl in
all stages of syphilis, and Lester, working in Nigeria, has also obtained good
results in the treatment of sleeping sickness.
Neocryl is now being tested on a larger scale under the auspices of the
Therapeutic Trials Committee, but it is still too early to give a final judg-
ment on the value of the drug.
Dr. W. KixutH.—Experimental chemotherapy of malaria.
The great successes in the chemotherapy of malaria which have been
achieved within recent years are due to team-work by chemists and bio-
logists. Earlier attempts to treat malaria more efficiently by chemical
means failed because no suitable test existed. It was not until bird-malaria
(Proteosoma precox), which proved so useful in the elucidation of many
malarial problems, had been adopted for biological tests that the chemo-
therapy of malaria received a fresh stimulus which led to the discovery of
the first synthetic remedy for malaria, plasmoquine. In contrast to quinine,
plasmoquine possesses the property of destroying the sexual forms of
malaria; it is, however, almost ineffective against the asexual forms of the
parasites. A further advance in the biological test was made by employing
rice-finches infected with hemoproteus. Owing to this improvement it
was possible to differentiate in the laboratory between the effect of plasmo-
quine and that of quinine, and to discover a preparation which acts in the
same manner as quinine, viz. atebrin. Further refinement of the method
of testing as regards its specificity will result in new progress in the therapy
of malaria.
Prof. R. RoBinson, F.R.S.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Boots Pure Drug Company, Ltd., Island Street, Not-
tingham.
Friday, September 3.
Symposium on Protein chemistry (10.0).
Prof. C. R. Hartncton, F.R.S.—The contribution of organic chemistry
to the problem of protein structure.
The historical development of the peptide theory of protein structure is
outlined and the main lines of experimental evidence upon which it is
based are discussed.
The importance of peptide synthesis for the study of proteins is emphasised
and the earlier methods are briefly reviewed. The recently developed
carbobenzyloxy method of Bergmann is treated in detail and its applica-
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 349
tions are illustrated by an account of the synthesis of glutathione and of
recent work on the introduction of additional amino-acid residues into
protein molecules.
Attention is called to the important possibilities of constitutional work
on proteins which have been opened up by the method of stepwise degrada-
tion recently introduced by Bergmann.
Brief reference is made to alternative theories of protein structure which
have been advanced from time to time. It is concluded that the peptide
theory alone has adequate experimental support, but it is pointed out that
the peptide linkage is insufficient by itself to account for all the properties
of proteins ; the possibility of the occurrence of subsidiary linkages must
be admitted and it appears certain that an orderly arrangement must exist
within the protein molecule, satisfying definite spatial requirements.
It is suggested that further progress in the study of proteins will be most
effectively made by the application of physical and biochemical methods,
but that this application must be based on the foundation which has been
laid and is being extended by organic chemistry.
Dr. K. Linperstr¢mM-Lanc.—Proteolytic enzymes.
Dr. W. T. AstsurY.—X-ray interpretation of protein structure.
Of the two broad sub-divisions of protein structure, the fibrous and the
non-fibrous, X-ray investigation has of recent years offered a view that
allows us to look at the stereochemical picture, not as two apparently unre-
lated halves, but as a single intelligible whole. All proteins are fibrous in
the molecular sense, the structural unit being the polypeptide chain, and in
those proteins which exist naturally as fibres the chains generally lie in groups
parallel, or simply related, to the visible fibre-axis. ‘They may be stereo-
chemically fully extended, as in silk fibroin, or constricted into regular
linear folds, as in the unstretched or «-forms of the hair protein keratin and
the muscle protein myosin, and the basis of the remarkable long-range
elasticity observed in such cases is simply the pulling-out or further folding
of the normal molecular configuration. The ultra-centrifuge, X-rays, etc.,
agree in finding the molecules of the soluble, and often visibly crystalline,
proteins to be by no means obviously fibrous, but rather massive ‘ globular ’
bodies. The solution of this paradox comes from the interpretation of the
phenomenon of protein denaturation, which is found by X-rays always to
result in the production of polypeptide chain-bundles which can then some-
times be drawn parallel, or ‘ spun,’ to form macroscopic fibres structurally
analogous, especially on stretching, to the native protein fibres. Denatura-
tion is thus in general the breakdown of a specific folded configuration
of polypeptide chains, and the structure of the ‘ globular’ proteins is
apparently a logical generalisation in two or three dimensions of the regular
linear folds first demonstrated in the molecules of the fibrous proteins.
The contraction of hair or muscle represents no other than an intermediate
stage between the fully-extended configuration of silk fibroin and the
multiple folds of the globular proteins.
The regularly periodic structure of the proteins revealed by X-rays,
especially in such cases as feather keratin and the recently identified tobacco-
mosaic virus, is now finding its counterpart in the realisation, through the
analytical work of Bergmann and others, that there are certain clear-cut
stoichiometric relations between the proportions of the constituent amino-
acid residues.
350 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. ‘
Dr. D. M. Wrincu.—Structure of ‘ globular’ proteins.
A number of facts relating to proteins suggest that the polypeptides in
native proteins are in a folded state : accordingly all types of folding which
are geometrically possible are being investigated systematically. The
cyclol link =N—C(OH)= is one such possibility. It replaces Fischer’s
peptide link by multiple peptide links and his polypeptides by cyclol molecules.
The Cyclol theory thus presents for consideration a two-dimensional atomic
network which, it may be suggested, is the fundamental entity in the protein
molecule.
This theory, originally devised to deal with protein films and laminate
proteins, is found to imply the existence of closed space-enclosing struc-
tures, which, owing to geometrical exigencies, exist only in certain sizes.
It thus predicts in general terms the body of facts relating to the globular
proteins established by Svedberg and his collaborators and suggests that
each molecular weight class connotes a certain arrangement of amino-acid
residues, say a certain closed cyclol, or an association of a number of such
structures. Of the closed cyclols so far constructed, the cyclol containing
288 residues has been suggested as the structure of the proteins belonging
to the 36,000 molecular weight class (egg albumen, insulin, pepsin . . .).
On the basis of this structure, it was predicted that the number of residues
per molecule belonging to this class is 288. ‘The number was subsequently
put forward by Bergmann and Niemann, on the basis of chemical analysis,
as being the number of residues in each molecule of egg albumen. It has
also been found that this structure fits the X-ray data for insulin and pepsin.
Dr. A. NEUBERGER.—Electrochemistry of proteins and amino-acids.
One of the most important advances in the electrochemistry of amino-
acids and proteins is the zwitterion theory, which explains satisfactorily the
physical properties such as solubilities, melting-points and Raman spectra
of these polar compounds. The dissociation constants of amino-acids in
relation to those of fatty acids, amines and amino-acid esters can be
quantitatively interpreted on this basis and estimates of dipol moments
of zwitterions can be obtained. For proteins a quantitative relationship can
be shown to exist between content of multivalent amino-acids and acid
and base-binding capacity. It is further possible to interpret the titration
curves of proteins in terms of the chemical composition ; the correctness of
such an interpretation can be proved by producing chemical changes in
the protein which cause corresponding shifts in the titration curves.
The isoelectric points of proteins depend also on the chemical com-
position of the proteins, and it is possible to separate chemically different
proteins by making use of differences in the isoelectric points.
Mr. J. St. L. Puitpot.—Ultracentrifugal investigation of proteins.
The paper is a summary of the work of Svedberg and his collaborators
at Upsala. Size-distributions of dissolved protein particles have been
studied by measuring the rates of sedimentation in a centrifugal field
300,000 times that of gravity, with the following results: (1) A native
protein in solution is ‘ oligodisperse ’ (i.e. its particles have a strictly limited
number of sizes), while inorganic colloids are ‘ polydisperse’ (i.e. their
particles have every possible size within a wide range). This justifies the
term ‘protein molecule.’ (2) Many protein molecules are spherical or
nearly so. (3) The molecular weights tend to be simple multiples of
18,000, just as the atomic weights of elements tend to be multiples of that
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B. 351
of hydrogen. (4) Slight changes in the solvent can cause reversible
aggregation or dissociation (the protein remaining oligodisperse). More
drastic, irreversible treatments may cause polydispersity, though others
even more drastic may cause no change. The behaviour differs for each
protein.
Such measurements may be used as evidence concerning structure, as a
criterion of purity, for controlling preparative procedures, and possibly
for diagnosis of disease.
In collaboration with F. J. Philpot, the sedimentation constant of xanthine
oxidase has been determined, with the aid of methylene blue and iodate.
sd
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Boots Pure Drug Company, Ltd., Beeston.
Monday, September 6.
Joint Symposium with Sections A (q.v.) and I, on Surface action in
biology (10.0).
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Stanton Iron Works, Ltd.
Excursion to John Player & Sons, Ltd., Nottingham.
Tuesday, September 7.
Symposium on Chemistry of building materials (10.0).
Dr. R. E. Strapiine, C.B., M.C.—Introduction.
Dr. F. M. Lea.—Some problems in the study of hydraulic cements
(10.10).
The term ‘ hydraulic cements’ is usually restricted to those cements
which will set and remain permanent under water. In the time available
it is necessary to limit the discussion to the most important of the hydraulic
cements, Portland cement, together with a brief summary of the properties
required in a hydraulic cement.
The present state of knowledge of the constitution of Portland cement and
the relation to the constitution of the properties which are of the most
importance in practice, are briefly reviewed and attention drawn to points
where knowledge is still lacking. Mention is made of the attack on
concrete by ground waters containing sulphate salts and by soft mountain
waters. The hydration of Portland cement is considered, leading up to a
discussion of the structure of set cement. Certain physical properties of
set cements, in particular changes in volume with moisture content and
creep, or plastic flow under load, are mentioned and the theory of these
discussed.
Dr. J. S. Dunn.—Calcium sulphate plasters : setting, retarders and
accelerators (10.50).
Onlythree distinct crystal forms of calcium sulphate have been fully authen-
ticated. It is unlikely that the elaborate series postulated by Davies has any
352 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B.
real existence. For various reasons hemihydrate is probably 3CaSO,.2H,O,
which it is proposed to call sub-hydrate. From a study of the solubility
curves, sub-hydrate below 98° C. and anhydrite below 38° C. can take up
water to form gypsum, and both should be capable of functioning as
plasters at normal temperatures. Setting is a simple recrystallisation
process, and it is not necessary to assume colloidal phenomena. The setting
of sub-hydrate plasters in mixes of plastering consistency follows the law
dx
aeiiis Kx(a — x). In dilute slurries, accelerated anhydrite plasters follow
the law - = K(a— x). In mixes of plastering consistency, anhydrite
v
plasters follow no simple law.
Retarders fall into two classes. One appears to work through adsorption
on crystal faces. ‘The other modifies the solubility relationships. In
retarders, the anion is apparently the deciding factor.
Accelerators actually speed up the crystal growth of gypsum, although
the mechanism of this action is obscure. There is a very rough analogy
with the coagulation of sols in colloidal phenomena. It is possible that
accelerators function through the removal or discharge of a protective layer
on a growing crystal.
Mr. F. H. Crews, Mr. H. H. Macey and Dr. G. R. RicBy.—Some
important properties of clay (11.30).
Problems arise in the manufacture of clay products from the nature and
properties of the clay itself. Some of these problems are reviewed in the
order of stages of treatment of the clay.
The natural deposits fall into different types and are used for different
industrial purposes. Many of the essential minerals have been identified ;
investigations have been made into their atomic structure, and some have
been synthesised.
The plasticity of clay is important. Reference is made to problems of
measurement of plasticity and of the de-airing of plastic clay masses.
Clay shrinks on drying and strains are then inevitably produced. Problems
therefore arise associated with the maximum safe rate of drying of masses
of different shapes and dimensions. The mechanism of drying is discussed
with special reference to recent work on the permeability of plastic clay.
The action of heat on clay during the firing of products brings about
thermal decomposition of the clay minerals and other chemical changes, as
for example, changes in soluble salt content, of interest in building products
manufacture. Physical changes, such as changes in volume, specific
gravity, colour, amount and character of pores, also occur and are technically
important.
Dr. D. G. R. BoONNELL.—Some problems connected with porous building
materials (12.10).
The fact that many building materials are porous bodies gives rise to
a number of problems which have to be studied if the materials are to be
used to the best advantage by the building industry.
A brief summary is given of the behaviour of water in capillary spaces,
and the relation between such behaviour and the properties of building
materials is illustrated by :
(a) The influence of the pore structure on the frost resistance. In this
connection mention is made of the important factors which must be
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—B, C. 353
considered when an estimate of the frost resistance of a specified
material is required.
(6) The conditions which induce crystallisation of salts on or under the
surface of a porous body.
(c) The volume changes which take place during the wetting and drying
of building materials.
SECTION C.—GEOLOGY.
Thursday, September 2.
Excursion preceding the meeting (August 27—September 1).
A Geological Excursion in the Tewkesbury area was held with the object
of studying the Pleistocene Geology of the Lower Severn and Avon
Valleys, under the direction of Prof. L. J. Wills and Miss M. E. Tomlinson.
The River Terraces of the Severn between Holt (north of Worcester)
and Arlingham (south of Gloucester) and of the Avon near Evesham were
examined and discussed. A visit was also paid to the glacial deposits of
the Ridgway, south of Redditch. A day was spent on the Frome Valley
gravels under the direction of Mr. C. I. Gardiner, who also gave a demon-
stration in Stroud Museum of mammalian remains obtained from these
gravels, and of reptilian bones recently obtained from the Odlite near
Stow-in-the-Wold, Glos.
_ Mrs. E. M. Clifford conducted the party round the Barnwood gravel
pits near Gloucester, and entertained the members to tea at her home at
Witcombe, where a large and interesting collection of mammalian and
archeological remains which she had obtained from the Barnwood gravels
were examined.
The geology of the Nottingham district.
Prof. H. H. SwINNERTON (10.0).
Mr. S. G. CLIFT.
Mr. P. E. KENT.
Discussion on The red rocks (11.15).
Dr. R. L. SHertocx.—The origin of the red rocks of the North
Midlands.
Late in Carboniferous time Britain was greatly elevated, but the
mountainous country suffered rapid erosion of the soft coal-measures
strata. Grey detritus was oxidised in an increasingly drier climate into
red beds. The red colour has been thought to be caused by chalybeate
waters percolating through green beds, but the geological evidence favours
both colours being primary, although red may be altered to green super-
ficially. Green strata probably indicate wetter climates breaking the more
arid periods, the most notable being the Tea-green Marls closing the Keuper.
Cheshire was probably a sinking land area throughout the period and
354 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C.
several thousands of feet of red beds accumulated there. In Nottinghamshire
the sea extended from Germany up to the Pennines which were rising, at
intervals, during the period. On the coast, breccias, dolomite, and red marl
formed according to the varying depth of the sea, and on the shore dune-
sands were spread. Gypsum-beds were evidently deposited from the sea,
which twice dried up, but the mass of the mineral offers a problem. The
Midlands rocksalt is of lacustrine origin.
The dolomitic sandstone of Mansfield represents a sandbank formed
opposite the mouth of a river.
Mr. F. W. SHotton.—The Aeolian deposition of the Lower Bunter of
Worcestershire and East Shropshire.
The areas of Lower Bunter outcrop examined, over a number of years by
the Lapworth Club of Birmingham University, comprise three north-south
strips separated from each other by strike faulting, and lying approximately
in the triangle with Oakengates, Bewdley and Stourbridge at its corners.
Every exposure accessible in the area was examined, and dip readings were
taken, and sketches made of each unit of false-bedding. These readings,
over a thousand in all, were examined statistically. A considerable number
of rock specimens, including a regularly spaced series over 500 feet of a
core, were examined for grain-size variation. The main conclusions reached
were:
(1) Every portion of the Lower Bunter is false-bedded.
(2) Wind deposition is responsible for all the deposit.
(3) The false-bedding is consistent with a constant wind direction
combined with an increasing bulk of sand.
(4) The wind blew consistently from the east, from the direction of the
Mercian Highlands.
(5) The sand is ‘ millet seed ’ down to a diameter of about 0-18 mm.
(6) The sand is amazingly well graded, not only in individual samples,
but in the deposit as a whole. Apart from pebbles which may occur
in the bottom few inches of the deposit, no particles exceeded 1:1 mm.,
and there are no clay or silt bands. ~The median diameter of particle
for the whole deposit is 0-20 mm., and go per cent. lies between the
ranges of 0:50 and 0:10 mm.
Mr. A. N. THomas.—The Triassic rocks of north-west Somerset.
The area in which the Triassic rocks are to be described lies between
Porlock and Williton. The lowest deposits of the New Red Sandstone in
the corridor between the Quantocks and the Brendons are usually classed
as Permian. West of Williton, they are overlapped by Bunter Pebble Beds
and finally by Keuper Sandstone and Keuper Marl, which in Dunster
Park rests directly on Devonian. The sub-Triassic surface is highly
irregular and the earliest deposits fill in isolated valleys and depressions,
their outcrops subsequently connected by the more widespread later
deposits. In Bunter times the area between Williton and Minehead formed
part of the main south-west basin in which were deposited conglomerates
formed of pebbles of Carboniferous limestone and Devonian Grit.
The Vale of Porlock formed a separate basin, which was filled in by
Bajada breccias of very local derivation. The pebble composition of the
breccias shows a striking correlation with the Devonian rocks of the imme-
diate hinterland. These breccias were deposited in fans that, originally
isolated, finally coalesced and were covered by the waters of the Keuper Lake.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 355
This lake, which united the Porlock cuvette with the main area, was highly
calcareous, and the earliest deposits were cornstones succeeded by Red
Marls passing up into Red and Grey Marls.
The change in conditions of deposition and lithology is accompanied by
a change in the character and persistence of heavy mineral suites.
Dr. S. E. HoL_tincwortu.—The gypsum deposits of the Vale of Eden
(12.45).
Recent borings north-west of Appleby have added considerably to our
knowledge of the Permo-Trias there, especially in the poorly exposed beds
between the Penrith and St. Bees Sandstones. Three distinct horizons
at which thick beds of gypsum or anhydrite occur can be recognised in
the ‘ Permian ’ Hilton Plant Beds.
Dr. R. L. Sherlock has successfully used such chemical precipitates as
a basis for correlation in the Keuper, and in the Permo-Trias of North-
East England. They represent periods of desiccation of considerable
magnitude and so are probably due to regional climatic changes. Conse-
quently it is reasonable to suppose that where sequences of such deposits
are found in adjacent areas they are correlatable. This reasoning would
appear to apply whether the areas concerned represent separate basins of
deposition or detached portions of a once continuous region of deposition.
A comparison of the Vale of Eden sequence with that in the Durham
Salt-field, and with that proved in boring to the concealed coalfield of
South Yorkshire indicates the following as a probable correlation.
The lowest horizon (base of Hilton Plant Beds) corresponds with
the lower salt (and anhydrite) horizon at the base of the Permian ‘ Middle
Marl.’ The two higher horizons lying about 200 ft. higher up, and
separated by 10-14 ft. of marl west of the Pennines, are equivalent to the
upper salt (and anhydrite) horizon and the upper anhydrite respectively
which are usually separated by 20-30 ft. of marl.
Correlations with the Gypsum-anhydrite horizons of the Carlisle
Basin, West Cumberland and Furness, indicate the probability of a lateral
passage from ‘ Permian ’ Hilton Plant Beds to ‘ Triassic’ St. Bees Shales.
Other facts of significance in correlations on climatic basis were indicated.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Ashover Inlier : quarries of the Clay Cross Iron Co., Ltd.
Leader, Mr. W. H. Witcockson.
Friday, September 3.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. L. J. Witts on The Pleistocene history of
the West Midlands (10.0).
Mr. A. L. Armstronc.—Evidence for climatic variations in the Pleistocene
revealed by excavations at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire (11.15).
The stratified deposits in the Pin Hole Cave, totalling 20 ft. in thickness,
reveal evidence of three cold periods, separated by three periods of warm
climatic, or inter-glacial, conditions. All the inter-glacial phases are
associated with human occupation of the cave, the first and second deposits
containing artifacts of Mousterian culture only. In the third inter-glacial
phase the Mousterian culture is confined to the base of the deposit and
356 SECTIONAL 'TRANSACTIONS.—C.
succeeded by cultures of Upper Palzplithic age ; Proto-Solutrian and
Upper Aurignacian in character.
Mother Grundy’s Parlour and a rock shelter recently excavated at
Whalley, confirm the evidence of the Pin Hole and indicate that man
continued to occupy the area throughout the final cold period and to do so
until early Mesolithic times.
Dr. C. FENNER.—Australites : a unique shower of glass meteorites (11.45).
The small glass objects, known as tektites, which have been found pro-
fusely scattered over small localised areas of the earth’s surface, are not
generally agreed upon as being glass meteorites. On the Continent, such
objects are displayed in museums as glass meteorites. In North America
they are not represented at all. And in Britain the tektites are displayed
alongside the meteorites, but not finally accepted as being of cosmic origin.
The purpose of the present paper is to support the theory that tektites are
glass meteorites, and more particularly to describe the characters and dis-
tribution of the great shower of glassy blebs, called Australites, that was
strewn across the southern half of Australia at some time geologically recent
but historically remote, most of the objects being to-day found upon the
surface.
There are several series of tektites known: Moldavites, Billitonites,
Indo-chinites, Rizalites, Australites, Darwin Gl ss, Ivory Coast Tektites,
? Libyan Glass, ? Columban Tektites, ?? Texan Tektites. Each series has
well-marked characters of form, composition, and distribution. It is
suggested that the only theory consonant with all the known facts is that
which accepts tektites as glassy meteorites.
Dr. J. E. Ricney.—The tuffs in the volcanic vents of Ben Hiant, Ard-
namurchan (12.15).
The present investigation extends an observation of H. H. Thomas that
a tuff from Ben Hiant contained much quartz and white mica. In addition,
garnet is now recorded. The source of these minerals is concluded to be
the Moine Schists, which underlie the Tertiary Plateau Basalt Lavas. ‘The
latter rocks form the walls of the great craters at the level of the tuffs.
A tiny fragment of garnetiferous quartzose-schist in a tuff strengthens the
conclusion. The tuffs also contain much finely divided basalt and trachytic
and glassy materials. ‘The last-mentioned belong to the explosive magma.
The tuffs alternate with agglomerates in flat layers, filling two craters,
and in the later crater andesitic pitchstone lavas occur at intervals. ‘The
layers show no bedding internally. An agglomerate layer mainly with
trachytic rock-fragments grades upwards into tuff, at the top of which, at
the base of the overlying agglomerate, a dividing-plane is usually apparent.
Each pair of layers of agglomerate and tuff is regarded as the product of a
single eruption. ‘Their thickness averages 20 to 30 ft.
The exceedingly fine grain of the tuffs indicates that the later phase of
each eruption was highly explosive. This, coupled with the composition
of the tuffs, suggests gaseous erosion of the volcanic pipe such as F. A. Perret
observed in the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius.
Prof. S. H. Reynotps.—A collection of reptilian bones from the Oélite near
Stow-in-the-Wold, Glos. (12.45).
The remarkable series of bones described below was obtained by Mr.
C. I. Gardiner, the Curator of the Museum at Stroud, where they are now
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 357
preserved. Four groups of reptiles are represented, viz.: Crocodiles,
Theropod, Sauropod and Armoured dinosaurs.
The Crocodilian remains, all attributable to Steneosaurus, are the most
plentiful. Next in point of numbers are those of the Theropod dinosaur
Megalosaurus, which is represented by vertebrze, part of a mandible, a
sacrum, two coracoids, an ilium, an ischium, a femur and parts of the
scapula and humerus. The Sauropod remains, no doubt to be attributed
to Cetiosaurus, are less plentiful but include a caudal vertebra, two ribs, a
coracoid and two ischia.
In some respects the most interesting find was two dermal plates of
Stegosaurus.
Prof. S. H. ReyNnoitps.—A section of Rhetic and associated strata at
Chipping Sodbury, Glos.
The section is seen in the big Carboniferous Limestone quarry north of
the village.
The interest of the section lies in :
(1) The fine development of the Rhetic, particularly of the bone bed,
which is in part of a coarsely conglomeratic character and resembles
that of dust.
(2) The nature of the Palzozoic surface, which in the western part of
the quarry shows the uneven character due to sub-aerial erosion,
while in the eastern part it is planed down to a level platform, the
later stages at any rate of the levelling being doubtless the work of
the Rhetic sea.
(3) The fact that parts of the Carboniferous Limestone platform stand
at different levels, this being clearly the result of thrust faulting of
post-Rhztic date which followed the bedding planes.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Harworth Colliery. Leader, Mr. J. M. R. Watson.
Excursion to Kimberley and Bulwell. Leader, Prof. H. H. SWINNERTON.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to Lincoln district. Leaders, Prof. A. E. TRUEMAN and
Mr. P. E. KEnr.
Sunday, September 5.
Excursion to Derbyshire (Matlock and Dovedale). Leaders, Prof.
W. G. FEaRNSIDES, F.R.S., and Dr. R. G. S. Hupson.
Monday, September 6.
Joint Discussion with Section E (Geography) on The potential mineral
resources of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, and their geographical
significance (10.0).
Prof. H. H. SwINNERTON.
The accessory resources essential to the development of this region relate
to the need for water supply and for material for use in constructional
358 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C.
works. Since the region is one of low relief, storage of water in reservoirs
plays an insignificant part. The River Trent supplies some of the needs
of neighbouring industrial concerns and is a waterway of much value.
A huge reserve of water for human consumption is preserved in the Bunter
Sandstone and is the chief source of supply for Nottingham and many other
towns and a much larger number of villages. The Lincolnshire Limestone
holds a large volume of water which unfortunately fluctuates greatly with
the seasons. The Spilsby Sandstone is proving a valuable reservoir for
East Lincolnshire. The chief building stones of the area are provided by
the Magnesian Limestone north of Mansfield and the Lincolnshire Lime-
stone at Lincoln and near Ancaster. The latter is also extensively used in
making foundations for roads. The Keuper Marl near Nottingham and
the Lias clays at Lincoln and Grantham supply material for brick making.
The floor of the Trent valley and the terraces on either side provide vast
stores of gravel for concrete and for road surfaces. A narrow belt of
country running north and south through the area provides hydraulic
limestones for making cement and gypsum for making plasters. The
Lincolnshire wolds also contain extensive beds of cretaceous iron ore.
Mr. S. G. Cuirt.
The exploitation of the Nottinghamshire Concealed Coalfield only dates
back to 1859 when the Shireoaks Colliery struck the Top Hard seam at
a depth of 1,500 ft. beneath the Permian limestone. ‘The progressive
easterly movement of collieries has made two facts clear, the one that the
cover of newer rocks increases eastwards at a rate of 100 ft. to the mile, the
other that the folds and faults of the visible field continue undiminished
under that cover.
The normal easterly dip of the seams soon gives place to a pronounced
rise and what was thought to mark the eastern rim of the field has proved
to be but one of those concealed folds. A borehole to the east of the River
Trent has proved the existence of valuable reserves of coal beneath Lincoln-
shire. Though the eastern limit is conjectural, the limit of exploitation
under modern conditions cannot extend much beyond Lincoln where the
overburden of newer rocks reaches 3,000 ft.
The coals of Nottinghamshire are primarily house and industrial fuels
of low-ash content and free burning qualities. ‘The lower seams of the
Middle Measures maintain their thickness eastwards and must form a vast
potential reserve. The thinning of the Coal Measures in a S.E. direction
does not affect the coal seams to the same extent.
The field is an original basin of sedimentation with the basin-like character
accentuated by pre-Permian movements.
Advances in the technique of sinking have made possible the exploitation
of Coal Measures lying beneath heavily watered strata, but the effects of
colliery subsidence on water undertakings situated on the Bunter Sandstone
are being watched with anxiety.
Dr. D. A. Wray.
Recent investigations made on the cores obtained from deep borings
on the borders of Lincolnshire appear to have an important bearing on
the probable easterly extension of the East Pennine coalfield. Two borings
carried out not far from the Trent and ten miles to the north of Gains-
borough revealed some 1,700 ft. of Coal Measures underlying 1,500 ft. of
Permian and newer rocks. From the evidence of the non-marine lamelli-
branch found, all the productive Coal Measures were represented, but in
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 359
this region they are less than half the total thickness of the corresponding
measures in South Yorkshire. In addition, all the seams of coal show a
marked deterioration in an easterly direction, and if these conditions persist
to the east of the Trent there would appear little hope of workable coal
being encountered in North Lincolnshire.
A re-examination of the materials of the Doddington or Harly boring
(six miles due west of Lincoln) revealed the presence of the Tenuis Zone
of Trueman, and the highest Coal Measures here are undoubtedly to be
correlated with the Upper Coal Measures of North Staffordshire and other
British coalfields. ‘This is probably true of most, if not all, of the Red
Coal Measures recorded in numerous adjacent borings and sinkings. The
Upper Coal Measures thicken in an easterly direction, and at their base
has been discovered a pronounced unconformity or discordance. Thus
while there are only 230 ft. between the Top Hard Coal and the base of
the Upper Coal Measures at Harly or Doddington, the corresponding
measures are no less than 2,250 ft. thick at Maltby, 24 miles to the north-
west. If this overstep continues at a uniform rate to the east, there is
little likelihood of workable coal being found to the east of the city of
Lincoln.
The writer concludes from the foregoing observations that the eastern
limit of the concealed coalfield can now be fairly precisely defined.
Prof. W. G. FEARNSIDES, F.R.S., Mr. O. D. KENDALL, Mr. S. H.
Beaver, Mr. K. C. Epwarps, and Prof. C. B. Fawcett.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Bunny and Normanton Hills. Leader, Mr. S. G. CuiFr.
Tuesday, September 7.
Dr. Rupo.tF RicHTEeR.—Problems of sedimentation and the advantages of a
Marine Geological Laboratory (10.0).
The author describes the scientific researches carried on in a marine
station for geologists, which has been established by the Senckenberg
Natural History Society of Frankfurt-am-Main on the German coast at
Wilhelmshaven. The deposition and reconstruction of sediments under
various circumstances are studied. The life of the shore is also observed
from the point of view of a geologist. Among other discoveries, it has
been found that mussels facilitate and hasten the deposition of fine mud
by swallowing it and converting it into hard pellets of excrement.
Prof. W. G. FearnsIDEs, F.R.S.—Report on work of the Critical Sections
Committee (10.50).
Joint Discussion with Section L on The teaching of geology in schools.
(11.15.)
Chairman: Mr. H. G. WELLs.
Prof. A. E. TRUEMAN.
In recent years there has been a steady decrease in the attention paid to
geology in most schools, notwithstanding the great extensions in science
teaching during the same period. In view of the crowded school curriculum,
360 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C.
geologists have been reluctant to press the claims of their subject, but
recently attention has been drawn to the desirability of including it, at least
as an optional subject, in the courses of senior and secondary schools.
The teaching of geology may be justified alike on cultural and on utilitarian
grounds. It is claimed that some knowledge of the outlines of geology is
an essential part of a liberal education, for some of the most profound
changes in thought have resulted from the growth of the science ; on the
other hand, most of the raw materials of industry are obtained from the
earth’s crust and it is urged that applications of geology are not fewer than
those of other sciences.
There are many reasons why geology is particularly suitable for intro-
duction into schools. It is typically an observational science in which
equipment is less expensive than in almost any other science, although
much simple experimental work can be introduced. It affords opportunities
to develop a scientific outlook even in those who do not carry their study
of science to a higher stage ; once an interest has been aroused it often
lasts beyond school days, and adds to the enjoyment of holidays and travel.
A pupil knowing nothing of other sciences may make a beginning with
geology, yet this subject has so many contacts with every science that it
forms a natural part of any scheme of general science.
Geology has particular claims for introduction into schools situated in
areas which may be called ‘ natural geological laboratories ’ as well as into
schools from which many pupils proceed to.posts concerned with mining,
agriculture, building and engineering. Suggestions for school syllabuses
are embodied in the Report just prepared by a Committee of Section C ;
it is urged that these should allow great elasticity and that the character of
the school area should determine the arrangement and bias of the course.
Prof. H. G. A. HiIcKLINc, E.R.S.
Geology and geography differ in their ultimate aims, but a very large
proportion of their factual basis is common. Both are concerned with the
form and distribution of the materials of the earth’s surface, and equally
with the nature, action and results of all the forces which are in daily
operation upon and beneath it. The map gives a false impression of a
static world. The movements of water and ice; the effects of rain, wind,
and frost on the soil ; the results of the growth of vegetation on the surface
and of its removal; the changing coastline and its causes; the effect of
earthquakes and of volcanic activity ; climatic changes and their effects—
these and countless other natural operations are fundamental data for the
geologist and geographer alike. Human activity and development is
conditioned by the present operation of these geological forces and by the
results of their former actions. There can be no delimitation of the spheres
of geology and geography in a proper presentation of the earth in its relation
to man. The further civilisation progresses the more intimately are human
relations involved with the results of geological processes.
For the reasons just indicated the demand for geologists is increasing.
Minerals formerly unknown or regarded as mere objects for museums
become vital raw materials. An ever-increasing range of metallic ores,
rare earths and other mineral substances is brought into industrial use.
The search for oil alone must occupy the attention of a very large body of
geologists for a long period. There must be an unceasing demand for new
sources, while the exploitation of each known field requires constant
geological supervision. Prospecting for copper, tin, gold and other
resources is now conducted on a scale not formerly contemplated. Methods
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C. 361
of geophysical prospecting, though often open to criticism, will become of
wider application and make further demands on the geologist. Every
country becomes increasingly concerned to discover and exploit the natural
resources upon which its existence may ultimately depend and it is in-
creasingly realised that the search for these must be based upon a complete
geological study of the countries concerned. In this country the supply of
geologists necessary for the development of the resources of the Empire is
not being maintained. Steps must be taken to deal with the position,
of which the first must be to make known that the need exists and that
there are good careers in this field for men of real ability and good
physique.
Mr. V. C. Spary.
It is a great advantage if a teacher of geography has had some geological
training. A well-balanced course in school geography must include many
lessons of a geological nature, and many lessons allied to history, economics,
etc. How much geology is taken depends on the ability of the teacher (of
geography), on the requirements of the geography syllabus, and on the
locality in which the school is situated.
On the other hand, there does not seem to be room in the curriculum for
geology and geography and general science. It is better for the pupil to
learn his geology incidentally in the geography and science lessons.
Mr. J. Davies.
As a school subject geology has received but scant attention and few
public examining bodies make any provision for it. Some educationists
consider that it should not normally be included in the School Certificate
scheme. It should, however, find a place among the advanced subjects
for the Higher Certificate, while much of the subject matter might be taught
to junior pupils in the general science and geography lessons.
Education, regarded as a preparation for life, would be incomplete
without some study of geological principles, which are essential for an
intelligent understanding of environment. A proper interpretation of
natural development is based on the Theory of Evolution, which was
formulated by investigators conversant with geological history. The earth’s
crust, with its vast economic resources, has ever commanded attention.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Old Dalby, Holwell and Barnstone. Leader, Mr. H. H.
GREGORY.
EVENING.
Jornt Discusston with Sections D, E, F, K, M, on Planning the land of
Britain. See page 486.
Wednesday, September 8.
Dr. V. J. Novax.—The correlation of topographical features and sedimen-
tary deposits (10.0).
A great part of the continents is drained by rivers which carry the
material of rocks loosened by weathering to their lower courses, to lakes,
fo)
362 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—C, D.
dry basins or the oceans. Marine, lacustrine, and desert deposits as far
as they can be considered to be derived from the neighbouring land can
be said, according to the late W. Penck, to stand in a correlation with
processes which loosened their particles from the maternal rocks and
transported them to their present place of occurrence. Penck even tried
to make out correlation between deposits and land forms. ‘This can, how-
ever, rarely be done reliably. Firstly, the preserved land forms are com-
paratively very young ; the oldest of them are hardly younger than upper
Tertiary. So the correlated sediments are, in a great part, still covered by
the sea. Then, the large series of little changed deposits of terrestrial
origin are correlated with times when erosion was rapidly going on in the
land which supplied the material. So the features of the landscape there
were changing rapidly and few of them could be preserved for any long
time. On the contrary, little inclined forms of an advanced planation can
be preserved much longer, ‘or, at least, forms that succeed them on water
divides do not differ from the original ones so much. But these persistent
forms were modelled in a time when comparatively little material was
exported from the region and accumulated outside of it. Besides, the
sediments simultaneously laid down in the seas or lakes were exposed much
longer to marine and lacustrine influences and more changed by them.
Sometimes valleys and other land forms filled with marine or lacustrine
deposits are shown by them to be not much older than these sediments ;
but rarely can a whole system of topographic features formed at the same
time be followed. In recent arid basins the chances to establish a correla-
tion of topographical features and deposits seems to be better than else-
where.
Some examples of correlated sediments and processes, in some cases of
land forms also, form the Bohemian Massif, and the Alps are shortly
described.
SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL AppRESS by Prof. F. A. E. Crew on The sex ratio.
DiscussION on the Presidential Address (11.15).
Mr. A. J. MarsHALL and Dr. J. R. BAKER.—The sex ratio in the wild
animal populations of the New Hebrides.
The sex ratio of most of the resident birds of the New Hebrides (Pacific
Ocean) is high. If all the species collected by the Oxford University
Expedition are lumped together, the percentage of males is 57 + I:o.
More than fifty specimens were taken of each of twenty species, and among
these males predominated in seventeen. ‘The highest percentage of males
was in the cuckoo, Cacomantis pyrrhophanus (82 5:1) and in the honey-
eater, Myzomela cardinalis (80 F 3:6). The sex ratio of nestlings approxi-
mates to equality. In the fruit-bat, Pteropus geddiei, the males are
69 + 3°3 per cent. ofthe population. Inthe insectivorous bat, Miniopterus
australis, however, the sex ratio is almost equality (51 = 1-9 per cent.
males). It is suggested that sex ratio is generally a non-adaptive character,
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 363
for the species could usually survive and multiply at the same rate with
far fewer males. Except where the male protects territory or incubates
or guards or feeds the female or young, its significance for the species is
simply to act as a dice-box for the production of new combinations of genes.
Dr. W. O. Kermack.—Secular trends in the sex ratio and some related
topics (11.35). ’
Dr. A. WaLton.—The experimental control of the sex ratio (11.55).
Three possible methods by which the sex of animals may be controlled
or the numerical proportion of the sexes altered by wilful manipulation are
discussed. The first method is the induction of parthenogenesis of the egg.
This occurs normally in many invertebrates and is a common mode of repro-
duction in some insects. In the vertebrates parthenogenesis has been
induced in amphibia and to some extent in mammalia. The second method
is the induction of sex reversal during development or in adult life. This
also occurs normally in some invertebrates and abnormally or by experi-
mental treatment in vertebrates. The third method is the separation of
the male and female determining sperms and is applicable to animals
including mammalia, in which the male is heterogametic. There is evidence
that such separation does occur normally to some extent. The results
obtained by experiment are as yet inconclusive, nevertheless the com-
parative ease with which the sperms can be subjected to experimental
manipulation opens up a promising line of future investigation and the
prospect of practical sex control.
Dr. P. C. Ko.ier.—The differentiation of the sex-determining
mechanism (12.15).
The diploid generation in higher animals and plants is sexually differ-
entiated : one sex is heterozygous with an XY pair of chromosomes, while
the other is homozygous having a pair of similar chromosomes, XX. ‘There
are various types of differences between the X and Y chromosomes which
may be considered as evolutionary stages in the differentiation of the sex-
determining mechanism. In higher organisms the sex chromosomes are
structurally differentiated into a pairing and non-pairing or differential
segment. The heterozygous condition of one sex is maintained by the
suppression of crossing-over between those regions of the sex chromosomes
which represent the genotypic differences in the sex-determining mechanism,
the differential segments. The obligatory segregation of these segments is
ensured by the homologous region in the X and Y chromosome.
Dr. E. B. Forp, Dr. C. Gorpon, Mr. and Mrs. CuLwick.
AFTERNOON.
Mr. C. H. Roserts.—The effect upon fish of rain washings from tarred
roads (2.15).
The deleterious effects of rain washings from roads are due to both
physical and chemical factors.
There is an element of risk with any waterproof road surface whether
this be of tar, bitumen or cement. When rain falls upon a waterproof road
it is sned directly into the nearest stream, carrying with it dust, dung, fallen
leaves and lubricating oil. The organic matter decomposes and acts in
364 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D.
much the same manner as untreated sewage. ‘The lubricating oil has a
bad effect upon smaller stream organisms such as insects. The dust tends
to smother the water-weeds.
There is no doubt that washings from roads surfaced with ordinary
tar contain such definitely poisonous substances as phenol, cresols, naph-
thalene and quinoline.
As England is a great producer of tar, this toxicity is unfortunate because
road-engineers, to save themselves from the execrations of anglers, have
used large quantities of non-toxic bitumen which is imported from abroad.
The tar industry, however, faced with this heavy loss, have not been
idle, and have carried out much intensive research. ‘Tars which are vir-
tually non-toxic are now commercially available. Apart from their low
toxicity, these tars have valuable physical properties which make them a
formidable rival of bitumen.
Cement, when first laid, is dangerous because of its content of free lime
but, when matured, it contains no substances which are poisonous to stream
life.
Mr. F. T. K. PENteLow.—The growth of trout in acid waters (2.45).
Brown trout (Salmo trutta) vary greatly in their adult size. In general,
in this country, fish living in alkaline, calcareous waters grow big (2 to 5 lb.)
whilst those in neutral or acid waters never exceed a few inches in length or
a few ounces in weight. In Sutherland there are certain lochs containing
very soft, acid waters (pH 4:5) in which trout grow to 4 or 5 lb., whilst
there are other neutral lochs (pH 6:5) in which the fish are small.
The geology, chemistry, flora and bottom fauna of these two types are
briefly described and various theories of trout growth re-examined in the
light of these data.
Mr. K. A. PyEFINCH.—Wollaton Park Lake, Nottingham: a physico-
chemical survey (3.0).
This is a brief account of the more important physico-chemical changes
taking place in a small, shallow lake, based on a two years’ survey.
Such temperature gradients as occur are purely transient, as they are
abolished during the night or by a short period of unfavourable weather
during the day. The annual changes of pH and oxygen are conditioned
by the extent and by the type of flora; there is no midsummer stagnation
period. Diurnal changes in oxygen content are often well marked.
The annual changes in phosphate, silicate and nitrate are generally
normal, though there are anomalies in the phosphate readings. The
abnormal summer rainfall of 1936 led to the inflow of water rich in phosphate
and silicate, though the nitrate values were not much affected.
It is not possible to draw any definite conclusions as to the factors which
may limit the development of the flora. Lack of phosphate has been
generally quoted, but these investigations show that the limiting factor
may vary from year to year and that observations made in the lake alone
may be deceptive, as an inflow of water comparatively rich in the essential
solutes may be going on all through the summer.
Mr. C. R. Stonor.—Some features of the courtship display of the Birds of
Paradise (3.30).
Field observations and study of the birds in captivity shows that the
remarkable displays of the Birds of Paradise are sexual in nature and are
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 365
not ‘ warning’ displays. In some cases, the males gather together and
go through the courtship dances in bands, while in others the display is
performed alone, and often on a specialised dancing ground. A detailed
study of the plumes of the different genera brings out the remarkably close
relationship that exists between these structures and the mode of display :
in the genus Paradisea, several quite distinct types of display are found
and correspond very closely with the slight inter-specific differences in the
plumes, providing an interesting basis for the determination of the inter-
relationships of the species.
Examination of the plumes, the pterylosis, the musculature, and the
osteology of one of the more highly specialised types indicates a striking
correlation of structure, apparently subservient to the display; and the
whole consideration of the sexual adornments and the manner in which they
are shown off opens up interesting lines of thought on the problem of
relationship of habit to structure.
Friday, September 3.
Joint Symposium with Section K (q¢.v.) on Recent work in genetics and
cytology (10.0).
AFTERNOON.
Semi-popular lecture by Mr. L. Koch on ‘ How I collected bird songs ’ ;
illustrated by gramophone records. (2.15.)
We know that the knowledge of birds especially that of their song is not
very widespread.
Some of the most beautiful lyric descriptions in our poetry and prose
are of the glory of bird songs. How familiar in words are the sweet flute-
like notes of the nightingale or the lulling and stirring songs of the woodlark.
Yet could anyone hope to recognise the sounds in nature merely from having
read these descriptions ? Curves and music notes imply just as little.
It is only after half a century of development of that invention of Edison’s
primitive but epoch-making phonograph that one could venture to collect
bird songs in the open by means of the microphone and the modern
moving recording studio.
Further developments of the idea of a sound book that will add sound
by means of gramophone records to text and picture, is shown with British
bird songs. Here we have a description of the extraordinary difficulties
that are encountered and the endless patience required by all who are
concerned in watching and collecting bird songs during the night and early
dawn.
A number of interesting episodes of the ‘ expedition ’ illustrate the bird
song hunting.
What bird song means and how it is uttered is mentioned and audibly
rendered by natural clear examples of about twenty-five of our British
wild bird songs. These records are not only a valuable asset to bird and
nature lovers, but of great importance for education and science.
Exhibition of films of biological interest :
Behaviour and sense physiology in butterflies, by Dr. D. Use.
Courtship display of Birds of Paradise, illustrating Mr. C. R. Stonor’s
paper ; shown by courtesy of Dr. J. S. Huxley.
366 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D.
A series of films prepared under the direction of Dr. J. S. Huxley
and Mr. H. R. Hewer, shown by courtesy of the Gaumont-British
Instructional Co., Ltd., including, among others :
Heredity.
Sea-urchin, Parts I and II.
Animals of the rocky shore.
Polyps and jellyfish.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to Dovedale and the Peak district.
Monday, September 6.
Pror. C. M. Yoncre.—The biology of certain Prosobranch Gastropoda
(Aporrhais and Pterocera) (10.0).
Unlike the Lamellibranchia, which are a homogeneous Class, the Gastro-
poda have become specialised for a wide variety of habitats. The most
striking examples are the planktonic and parasitic groups. But specialisa-
tion amongst the bottom living Prosobranchs is equally important. The
cases of Pterocera and of Aporrhais are here discussed.
The primitive Prosobranch may be regarded as an animal possessing a
creeping sole, a radula used for scraping, and a digestive system capable
of dealing with an omnivorous diet. Such an animal would creep over
rocks and feed on the encrusting flora and fauna.
Pterocera is a genus of the Strombidze common in the Indo-Pacific.
The animals live on the sandy areas on the surface of coral reefs. The
elongated operculum is dug into the sand and the animal moves by a series
of convulsive contractions of the pedal muscles. The radula is adapted for
cropping delicate algae, and the digestive system possesses not only a crystal-
line style—indicating a herbivore feeding on finely divided food—but also
a powerful cellulase for breaking down the cell walls of the algz.
Aporrhais, undoubtedly allied to the Strombidz, lives in northern latitudes
and down to considerable depths on muddy bottoms. It is specialised for
burrowing in mud. Movement over a hard surface is essentially the same
as in Pterocera. Feeding is by means of an extensile proboscis armed with
a radula adapted for seizing particles of organic debris. ‘The gut possesses
a style and there is a complicated sorting mechanism in the stomach but no
cellulase.
Mr. J. Z. Younc.—The structure and functioning of the higher nervous
centres of Cephalopods (10.30).
The behaviour of Octopus, Squid and Cuttlefish is probably more com-
plex than that of any other invertebrates, but no thorough study has yet
been made either of their capacities or of the structure of their central
nervous system. ‘The present investigation of the morphology and con-
nections within the nervous system has shown that besides possessing nerve
fibres larger than those of any other animal, making possible the very quick
darts of a Squid through the water, these animals also have very elaborate
higher nervous centres, containing immense numbers of smaller neurons.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 367
These centres are so arranged as to provide a system which is potentially
capable of performing the most complex feats of sensory discrimination,
learning and modifiable behaviour, fully justifying the impression of the
superficial observer that these animals show a high degree of ‘ intelligence.’
Although we know very little of the physiological basis for such phenomena
yet we may say that they depend on the presence of (a) sensory centres in
which nerve impulses from various parts of a sensory surface, say the eye,
are able to interact, giving the possibility of the recognition of shape: the
Cephalopods possess such an apparatus in their large optic lobes ; (6) centres
in which impulses from various sensory systems converge and are correlated
to give an appropriate reaction ; (c) centres in which constant nervous activity
is maintained in definite patterns throughout the life of the animal by
self-re-exciting chains of nerve cells. This constant activity may provide
the basis for ‘ spontaneous ’ activity in complex patterns and for the modi-
fication of these patterns by learning and experience.
The supra-cesophageal ganglia of Cephalopods contain systems of both
types (4) and (c), since fibres from various afferent sources converge and play
upon common neurons which then activate the motor centres for the control
of swimming, seizing, biting, etc. These highest centres are contained in
the lobus verticalis, a structure which increases in relative size during
the post-larval life of the animals.
The motor centres lie in the subcesophageal ganglia, which are best
considered as derived from ganglionated cords of the type found in Amphi-
neura and, already much shortened, in Nautilus. The three great groups
of muscles by means of which overt behaviour is produced are those of the
arms, for seizing, of the retractors and mantle for rapid movement by the
ejection of water, and of the fin for slow movements. The first two are
controlled by motor neurons of the pedal and brachial and the palliovisceral
ganglia respectively. Dominating these lowest motor centres there is in
Decapods a special higher motor centre, the lobus magnocellularis containing
giant cells whose processes pass into the pedal and palliovisceral ganglia
and produce the simultaneous contractions of the muscles of the tentacles,
retractors and mantle which are involved in the quick darts after the prey.
The more gentle and subtle movements of the fins are produced by the
cells of a special lobe of the palliovisceral ganglion which is controlled by
a direct pathway from the cerebral centres.
Mr. E. J. W. Barrincton.—The structure and function of the digestive
system of Amphioxus (11.0).
Several types of secretory and ciliated cells are distinguishable in the
epithelium of the mid-gut diverticulum and hind-gut, and there is an
elaborate system of ciliary mechanisms for manipulating the food and
secretions. Digestive secretions are swept out of the diverticulum in a
ventral ciliated tract, and wound into the food-cord which is set into rotation
by the powerful ciliation of the ilio-colon ring ; secretions from the mid-gut
are also added to it. Particles of mixed food and secretion are broken off
from the rotating mass and distributed over the epithelium for absorption,
which takes place mainly in the hind-gut, the particles being driven along
this partly by the oblique beat of the cilia in the ilio-colon ring and partly by
a dorsal ciliated tract leading backward from the mid-gut. Some absorption
probably occurs also in the diverticulum and mid-gut, but much of the
scattered material in the latter region is returned to the main cord by a lateral
ciliated tract on the left wall. There is good evidence that absorption is
associated with the ingestion of solid material.
368 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D.
Mr. R. J. Wuitney.—Research in experimental Zoology in progress at
Birmingham University (11.30).
Professor H. Munro Fox has been responsible for the initiation at
Birmingham of several lines of research concerned with the metabolism
of aquatic animals. At present he is himself investigating the metabolic
and developmental rates of animals from different latitudes.
Dr. Minnie L. Johnson is re-investigating the function of hemoglobin
in the earthworm, employing modern experimental methods.
Miss Rosalie F. Griffith, continuing Professor Fox’s earlier work on
chlorocruorin, is studying its respiratory function in Sabella.
Mr. Cecil A. Wingfield, continuing earlier work initiated by Professor
Fox and others, is examining the differences between pond and stream
animals from the point of view of available oxygen. Mr. Reginald J.
Whitney treats the same problem from the point of view of prevailing
temperature.
Mr. H. G. Newth is determining the factors initiating the swarming of
Vorticella which he and Professor Fox have observed.
Dr. D. L. Gunn, with others, is continuing his earlier work on the
behaviour of terrestrial arthropods towards temperature and air humidity.
He is also re-investigating the avoiding reaction of Paramecium.
Dr. Otto Léwenstein is investigating the functions of the semicircular
canals in fishes, and is also taking up research on the tunicate nervous
system.
Mr. L. C. BEADLE.—Experiments on the growth and differentiation of
hydroid tissues (12.0).
Experiments have been done mainly with the brackish water hydroid
Cordylophora lacustris. Like some other hydroids and sponges the tissue
(in this case the coenosarc) can be dissociated into minute fragments which
will aggregate into masses and ultimately reconstitute new individuals.
Contrary to the conclusions of previous workers on hydroids the ex-
periments indicate that the cells do not dedifferentiate to an embryonic
condition, but that those of each layer maintain their own individuality
throughout dissociation and reconstitution. That the so-called ‘ inter-
stitial’ cells form a reserve of totipotent regenerative cells seems to be
disproved. ‘The position from which the new hydranth develops from a
mass, normally unpredictable, can be determined by the engrafting of an
oral cone. This therefore acts as an ‘ organiser.’ Experiments done to
throw some light upon the nature of this action show that it does not depend
upon the orientation of the graft and that a variety of inhibiting agents
have a more powerful action upon the self-organising capacity of the mass
than upon the organising action of the engrafted cone.
Dr. F. D. Ommaney.—Seasonal movements of Copepoda in the Antarctic
(12.30).
In the Antarctic zone the movements of the plankton are in general
influenced by two water layers— Antarctic Surface Water,’ flowing north-
wards and eastwards above 250 m., and ‘ Warm Deep Water ’” flowing south-
wards below that depth. It has already been demonstrated that several species
of macroplanktonic organisms inhabit the Antarctic surface water in summer
and sink into the warm deep water in winter so that a circulation of the
plankton is established. During the recent voyage of the R.R.S. ‘ Dis-
covery II ’ this circulation was further studied in relation to certain Copepod
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 369
species. In thesummer these species occupy the upper layers above 100 m.,
but after the summer spawning the new generation, as it approaches the
older stages, sinks down into layers below 250 m. ‘The gradual descent
of the older individuals of the new generation is demonstrated. In colder
Antarctic water the spawning is delayed and the growth of the summer
generation is retarded so that at mid-winter a population may be found
still consisting almost entirely of young stages and the descent from the
surface may thus take place later in colder water near the ice edge than
in warmer water farther north. Winter is a resting period when little growth
occurs, but in the spring the ascent to the surface takes place by the upward
migration of late juveniles and adults preparatory to the summer spawning.
AFTERNOON.
Dr. H. W. Mives.—The fruit-infesting sawflies of Britain (2.15).
There are eight or nine species of Hoplocampa in Britain and they appear
to be associated almost exclusively with the order Rosacez and the genera
Pyrus and Prunus. ‘The biology of several of the British species has now
been studied in some detail.
Hoplocampa testudinea K\., infests the fruits of the apple Pyrus malus,
and H. flava Lin. infests the fruit of Prunus spinosa and Prunus domestica
and its varieties. ‘These two species of sawflies have the flight periods
coinciding with the blossoming period of the host plants. They oviposit in
the calices and the young larvz tunnel into the developing fruit, each larva
often invading several fruits before it attains maturity. Both ‘species are
univoltine but there is some evidence that a proportion of the larve have
delayed development and spend almost two complete years in a resting
condition in the soil. ‘This phenomenon appears to be associated with
the food specialisation of the species and Speyer in Germany has recorded
a similar circumstance in Anthonomus pomorum, a fruit-blossom infesting
weevil in which a certain proportion of the adults live for two years.
Certain varieties of apples and plums appear to be more susceptible to
attack than others by the sawflies. Within the last two years Hoplocampa
brevis K1., which has been known for some time on the Continent, has been
discovered infesting pear fruits in a garden in Cambridge but so far its
distribution in Britain is not known. Of the remaining species, H. crataegi
Kl. and H. pectoralis Th. are associated with hawthorn fruits, H. ariae
Benson with the fruits of Whitebeam, and H. alpina Zet. with the fruits
of Mountain Ash.
Little is known of the biology of H. chrysorrhea K\. and H. rutilicornis
K1., but they appear to be associated with Prunus species.
The particular interest in the sawflies of the genus Hoplocampa occurring
in this country is that they all exhibit the fruit-infesting habit in the larval
stage and there is a co-ordination of the flight period of the adult insects with
the blossoming period of the host plant.
Mrs. K. Grant.—A historical study of migrations in certain hawkmoths
(2.45).
Outbreaks of the American and European sub-species of Celerio lineata
were studied from journals and from records collected by the Insect Immi-
gration Committee of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies.
It is suggested that both sub-species originate in semi-desert areas, and
this idea is supported in the case of the American sub-species by showing
that a correlation exists between outbreaks of the moths and a certain
O02
370 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D.
sequence of desert rainfall. No correlation is found between European
outbreaks and the rainfall of those North African meteorological stations
for which records are available, but this may be due to the paucity of suitable
figures.
Records are available for Europe over a period of one hundred and
thirteen years, and for America for sixty years. A tendency is found for
both years of unusual abundance and years of scarcity to occur simultane-
ously in Europe and America, showing that the cause of the outbreaks
must be sought in some factor common to the two continents. There seems
to be some correlation between outbreaks and the sunspot cycle, but the
figures are barely significant. The outbreaks tend to occur away from the
sunspot minima.
\
Mr. A. Rorsuck.—The chafers of Nottingham and Lincolnshire (3.15).
Tuesday, September 7.
Dr. Ftora E. Cocurane.—The activity of genes in development (10.0).
Work on the development of eye pigment in Drosophila has shown that
pigment normally appears in the eyes at two distinct though consecutive
times during pupal life. Eye-colour mutant genes affect either or both of
these phases of development but allow the remainder of the development
to proceed as in wild type. Histological studies have shown that eye-colour
is due to the presence of pigment granules in definite pigment cells of which
there are two kinds. Genes which affect eye-colour do so by altering the
distribution of these granules, usually by suppressing their formation or by
retarding their development ; no gene acts to increase the number of granules
beyond the number present in wild type. All genes so far recorded, with
one exception, have a quantitative effect, the effect in the exceptional case
being qualitative.
Studies of the testes of wild type and various mutants of Drosophila
pseudo-obscura have shown that their colour appears and develops at the
same time as the late phase eye pigment appears. It has also been shown
that the genes which affect the eye pigment laid down during the late phase
of development affect the testis colour in the same way and to the same extent
while genes which affect the early phase of eye pigment development only,
have no effect upon testis colour.
Mr. H. D. Stack.—Chromosome behaviour and taxonomic groups (10.30).
The value of chromosome behaviour as a means of providing further data
for the demonstration of taxonomic relationships in animal groups has been
recognised by many investigators. This comparative study deals principally
with a single sub-order of insects, the Hemiptera-Heteroptera. About forty
species were collected from one district, the country surrounding the city
of Edinburgh. These are distributed among five families representing the
two primary divisions, Gymnocerata and Cryptocerata. Studies of equiva-
lent stages of chromosome behaviour in the development of the male germ
cells are used to compare cytological grouping with phenotypic characters
on which the taxonomic relationships are based. ‘The systematic positions of
the species represented are such as to allow comparison between the two
primary groups, between families within these groups, and between smaller
units within the families. By this treatment substantiation or insubstantia-
tion of relationships implied by structural similarities is demonstrated and
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 371
a certain evaluation obtained of the réle of cytology in the sphere of systematic
classification.
Prof. E. A. Spaut.—The anterior pituitary and secondary sexual characters
(11.0).
Dr. V. B. WiccLeswortu.—The réle of hormones in the growth and repro-
duction of insects (11.30).
Experiments on the blood-sucking bug Rhodnius show that moulting is
brought about by a hormone secreted into the blood. A hormone is also
responsible for preventing metamorphosis in the young stages of this
insect ; so that by suitable experiments it is possible to produce diminutive
adults from first-stage nymphs newly hatched from the egg, or giant nymphs
instead of adults from fifth-stage nymphs. The hormone which prevents
metamorphosis throughout nymphal life is secreted by the corpus allatum.
In the adult another hormone from the corpus allatum is necessary for
egg-development in the female and the proper activity of the accessory
glands in the male.
Mr. H. Warinc.—Colour change in elasmobranchs (12.0).
With few exceptions, all Elasmobranchs so far investigated pale (con-
tracted melanophores) on an illuminated white background and darken
(expanded melanophores) on an illuminated black background.
It is established that in all these fish, the dark phase results from the
secretion of a blood soluble hormone by the neuro-intermediate lobe of the
pituitary. In regard to the mechanism underlying the pale phase, however,
work on different species has led to divergent opinions. Thus, it has been
shown that in certain English species of Raia and Scyllium the pale phase is
dependent on the anterior lobe of the pituitary and not on direct nervous
control of the melanophores. On the other hand, American workers have
concluded that in Mustelus canis paling is brought about by direct nervous
control of the melanophores ; but the réle (if any) of the anterior lobe of the
pituitary has not been investigated.
The present paper analyses the possibility of different paling mechanisms
Within the group Elasmobranchii, particularly in the light of some new
observations on the dogfish Acanthias.
Prof. E. Raymonp HaL_.—Variations in American stoais (12.30).
AFTERNOON.
Dr. R. J. PumpHrey.—The evolution of hearing (2.15).
It is customary to make an arbitrary distinction between the senses of
‘hearing’ and ‘feeling.’ This distinction is based on introspection and
is due to the peculiar nature of the mammalian ear. In more primitive
animals it vanishes and we can distinguish only more and less sensitive
receptors for mechanical stimuli.
The passage of a train of sound waves through a medium is accompanied
by two dependent processes, an oscillation of the molecules of the medium
about a mean position, the displacement and a rise and fall of pressure about
a mean value. Either of these properties may be used to estimate the
intensity of the sound, and sense-organs sensitive to sound can be divided
372 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D, E.
into displacement receptors and pressure receptors. ‘The former are the more
primitive. In vertebrates the transition from the former to the latter type
can be shown to be a necessary consequence of the transition from a life
in water to a life in air. In insects the pressure-receptor type has arisen
independently and both types may co-exist in the same insect.
Much less is known about the secondary properties of the auditory
system on which frequency discrimination and localisation depend. Frequency
discrimination is highly developed probably only in birds and mammals,
though it exists feebly in fish and probably in some insects. Localisation
is poor in man but good in mammals with a moveable pinna, and very good
in some insects.
Mr. J. W. S. PRINGLE.—Senses of movement and position in the insect (2.45).
It is well known that man and the higher vertebrates possess a highly
developed sense of limb position and muscular tone, which enables them
to perform co-ordinated movements. Insects, also the highest members of
their branch of the animal kingdom, have senses with a similar function,
though their very different general morphology makes for differences in
the mechanisms.
The position sense in man is served to some extent by endings in the
joint surfaces. In insects groups of hairs are present in the joints, and the
excitation of these varies with the degree of flexion. ‘The force of move-
ments is measured in man by the tension set up in the contracting muscles.
In insects, by contrast, the most important sense organs are embedded
in the skeleton, and react to the resulting compressions.
By recording electrically the impulses in the nerves it is possible to study
in detail the working of these senses.
Dr. D. ILtse.— Studies on the sense physiology and habits of butterflies (3.15).
EVENING.
Jomnt Discussion, with Sections C, E, F, K, M, on Planning the land
of Britain (8.0). See page 486.
SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY.
Thursday, September 2.
Prof. E. G. R. TayLtor.—Robert Hooke and his services to cartography,
1666-1696 (10.0).
Hooke’s scientific work was in direct response to contemporary needs.
Merchant enterprise necessitated maps, maps necessitated survey, survey
necessitated instruments of precision. Hence instrument making was
Hooke’s constant preoccupation. Meanwhile his services were at the
disposal of such contemporary geographers and surveyors as Jonas Moore,
John Ogilby, William Morgan, Moses Pitt and Robert Plot. He was
adviser to John Adams, whose triangulation of England and Wales, begun
in 1681, was to have established the map of England on firm foundations
as Cassini had established the map of France. But the support of science
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—E. 373
was left to private pockets and the enterprise failed: the period of the
Revolution was barren until a beginning of mapping world distributions
was made by Edmund Halley, upon whom Hooke had exercised a formative
influence.
Mr. K. C. Epwarps.—The geography of Nottingham (10.45).
The municipal boundary (1932) embraces a greater number of geological
formations than that of any other city save possibly Bristol and these
yield a rich diversity of natural resources. ‘The Bunter Sandstone (Pebble
Beds) provided the site of the earliest settlement at Nottingham, the litho-
logical characters and surface topography of this deposit combining to give
a marked individuality to the old town. Recent excavation of ancient
caves may throw light upon the pre-medizval extent of the town.
Nottingham’s commercial importance results largely from its position in
the valley of the Trent, a situation deriving its advantages from (i) the
crossing of the river, (ii) the convergence of routes and (iii) the virtual limit
of navigation. The position is also marginal between north and south and
between the Pennines and the eastern lowlands, affording a natural trading
centre whose markets for both agricultural and manufactured goods preserve
the tradition of Lenton Fair (circa 1164), and Goose Fair (ante 1284).
The presence of coal of a particular rank and quality, while not determining
the precise nature of manufactures, was primarily responsible for Notting-
ham’s industrial growth. ‘To-day more than adequate supplies are available
from farther north, and certain limitations mainly connected with the
exploitation of the Top Hard Seam attach to future workings in the
neighbourhood of the city which is, therefore, becoming relatively less
important as a mining centre.
Dr. S. W. WooLpripcr.—A comparative study of the morphology of the
North Downs and the Chiltern Hills (11.15).
Few would deny that any attempt to explain the existing geographical
features of south-east England must take account of two major geological
episodes—the Mid-Tertiary folding and the deposition of the glacial drifts.
Another episode of equally great importance has been tacitly ignored in
most accounts of the area, viz. the trespass of a Pliocene sea, which apart
altogether from its deposits, now reduced to the condition of a widely
scattered group of ill-defined outliers, left an important legacy behind it
in the form of a distinctive wave-cut bench backed locally by a degraded
cliff feature. ‘The bench can often be traced when the veneer of deposits
has been completely removed and thus remains as a broad ‘ Pliocene facet ’
on the Chalk Downs. In this communication the Pliocene coastlines and
off-shore platforms are traced, not only in the North Downs and Chiltern
Hills, where their presence has been known for some years, but also in the
region west of Reading. Over the area of the former Pliocene sea the
drainage system has been superimposed from a sheet of pliocene sand and
shingle, and notable contrasts in drainage pattern and general morphology
are encountered on crossing the former coastline. Various anomalies in the
present and former course of the Thames become explicable on a basis of
the sequence of events deduced, and of even greater importance to
geographers is the fact that the ‘ Pliocene facet’ of the Downs presents
characteristics of form and soil covering which differentiate it from other
zones—e.g. the formerly sub-Eocene surface and the crest-regions. ‘These
differences have exerted a perceptible influence on human occupancy and
374 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E.
activity and thus afford a basis for a fundamental regional sub-division of
the chalk tracts.
Mr. D. L. Linton.—The origin of the rivers of southern England (11.45).
It has been known for some twenty-five years that certain of the Hamp-
shire rivers present anomalous and enigmatic relations to the structure of
the country through which they flow. Such streams as the Itchen, Meon
and Test flow directly across anticlinal ridges in a fashion which the workers
of that day found very difficult of explanation. At first they naturally
attempted to explain these puzzling features as modifications by capture
of a drainage system which had originally been in fair accord with the
structures, but as further examples of the phenomenon became known the
hypothesis seemed increasingly inadequate, and H. J. O. White tentatively
suggested that the rivers might have been superimposed from a tilted
surface on which the folds had been completely planed off. In 1932 the
writer attempted to apply this concept to the drainage of the whole Wessex
region, but though the hypothesis seemed able to explain the anomalous
features of the present rivers it was found necessary to assume that super-
imposition had taken place from a plane veneered by fluviatile gravels.
Since that date further investigation has revealed other and similar
anomalous drainage features in Dorset and the Southern Weald which
seem to demand a similar explanation. It has, moreover, proved possible
to trace into the Wessex region the landform features, described in the
preceding communication, which are inseparably connected with the
Pliocene transgression. These permit us to believe that the Southern Weald
and all Wessex as far west as a coastline which passed somewhat north-west
of Basingstoke, Salisbury and Dorchester, was covered by the Pliocene sea,
and that it was upon its emerged floor that the present streams arose.
The river systems are thus seen to afford a clue to the reconstruction of
an episode which on the one hand provides an invaluable datum in problems
of denudation chronology, and on the other can alone afford a rational basis
for the geographer’s interpretation of the present landscape with its signifi-
cant and striking regional contrasts. Finally, the new evidence enables us
for the first time to perceive something of the importance of the Pliocene
phase in the evolution of the landscape of south-eastern England as a whole.
AFTERNOON. '
Tour of Nottingham.
Friday, September oi
PRESIDENTIAL Appress by Prof. C. B. Fawcett on The changing distribution
of population (10.0).
Dr. VAUGHAN CorRNIsH.—On the apparent enlargement of the setting sun
(11.15).
The great increase in the apparent size of the sun when sufficiently near
the horizon to be viewed together with the features of the landscape is a
phenomenon which has attracted general attention throughout the ages.
The customary explanation is that the largeness of the angle subtended by
.the disc is only fully appreciated when brought into comparison with
terrestrial objects. It would not be unreasonable to inquire whether under
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 375
these conditions the sun should be magnified rather than the terrestrial
features reduced in apparent size, but this question need not be raised for a
different cause has been found, and verified by measurement.
The author has made a series of drawings in sketchbooks of uniform size
of the sun’s disc in close proximity to the crest line of the Bernese Alps, as
seen from very different distances. At the greater distances not only is the
sun’s disc apparently enlarged but the apparent magnitude of the features
of the mountainous skyline is enlarged (relatively to their increased distance)
in about the same proportion. This was proved by comparison of sketches
with the distances on the map. It was the practice of the author to include
the whole field of attention, or conscious vision, in the page of the sketch
book, and it was found that the arc of the horizon so comprised diminished
with the increase of distance and that the exaggeration of each mountain
peak was in the same proportion as the exaggeration of sun.
A singular but frequently verified fact attendant on these occurrences is
the unconsciousness of any reduction in the angle of the field of attention.
The author has also found that the apparent enlargement of the setting
sun is not confined to cases where the skyline is distant. Thus, the disc is
often more enlarged when seen low down through the lattice of the branches
of a neighbouring tree than when approaching the distant horizon of the sea.
This is another instance of the unconscious narrowing of the field of
attention when the amount of visual detail is increased.
Prof. P. M. Roxsy.—The terrain of early Chinese civilisation (12.0).
1.—(1) The geographical factors affecting the rise of Chinese civilisation in
the basin of the Yellow River with special reference to the validity of
Mr. Arnold Toynbee’s contention that it affords a striking illustration of
civilisation developing under the pressure of a ‘ hard environment.’
(2) The relations of the North China Plain and the North-Western
plateaux in the evolution of early Chinese civilisation.
(3) The relative importance of the intrinsic conditions of the terrain
and of its geographical orientation as affecting the infiltration of cultural
influences from the West.
2.—The distribution and character of the loess as a vital factor. The
Northern and Southern limits. The extension of loess in a modified form
into the central and higher portion of the Plain (Honan Water-parting)
between the alluvial Hopeh Basin and the Hwai marshes.
The loess as a link between the Valleys of the Western plateaux and the
isolated Shantung-Highlands. The character of the loess as affecting the
question of the existence of marshes and lakes in early times, and in relation
to primitive agriculture. The views of Dr. U. K. Ting. The contrast
of the Yellow River and Yang-tze Basins as terrains for early human
development.
3.—Progress of knowledge, particularly through recent archaeological dis-
coveries, as to the stages in the development of early Chinese civilisation
and the relations between indigenous developments and external culture-
contacts by way of the Kansu Corridor and Turkestan. Cardinal import-
ance of a long West-East zone extending from Kansu through Northern
Shensi (Wei-ho Valley) and Southern Shansi into Northern Honan and
to the borders of the Shantung Highlands. Evidence for contrast in
cultural characteristics prior to the establishment of the Shang Dynasty
(2nd Mill. B.c.) between the Western (Kansu-Shensi) and the eastern
(Honan-Shantung) portions of this zone. The eastern region claimed as
the terrain of Middle and late Neolithic developments of a distinctively
376 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E.
Chinese character, particularly the i tripod and Black Pottery culture and
as having been affected for only a short period by the Yang-Shao or Painted
Pottery culture which almost certainly reached China from the West and
was long characteristic of the Western or Kansu region, nearest to the source
of origin. ‘The Shang civilisation, as revealed by the Anyang excavations,
had its centre on the western borders of the Plain, within the loess zone.
Its culture undoubtedly composite, including elements which almost
certainly reached it from the West, but yet seems in essence to have been
a development of the late Neolithic civilisation of the Plain, incorporating
all its characteristic features. While many conclusions must still be ten-
tative, the view of Maspero and of many Chinese scholars that the Plain
enclosed between lat. 31° and 40° N. and long. 113-118° E. (and particularly
the Honan-Shantung zone) was the nuclear area of Chinese culture has
received considerable confirmation from recent discoveries.
There is also a case for considering North China as an important inde-
pendent centre of early civilisation. This, however, does not minimise
the significance of the Kansu-Shensi region both as the medium of cultural
influences from the West and as the cradle of distinctive borderland
organisations (e.g. the Chou) which later re-invigorated and assimilated the
indigenous civilisation of the Plain.
AFTERNOON.
Dr. H. C. K. HeNpErson.—Our changing agriculture as illustrated by
central Derbyshire (2.0).
While it is generally known that arable land in this country has suffered
a decline, this paper endeavours to illustrate that the changes in agriculture
in Derbyshire in the last 150 years are more striking than might be thought.
The limestone area is shown as being to a very considerable extent under
the plough at both dates for which accurate maps could be made, namely
in the forties and seventies of last century. The records at both dates are
incomplete, for varying reasons, but at least the Tithe Rolls of about 1840
illustrate that this limestone area was, as it is to-day, primarily a dairying
region, and not a sheep-rearing district.
Each of the soil belts, from the Carboniferous Limestone to the Magnesian
Limestone, shows a much greater amount of arable land at both dates than
at the present time, while the Millstone Grits, though not at any time well
cultivated, bore a much greater amount of woodland in the past.
The changes in agriculture reflecting industrial development include the
decrease in waste land in the lead-mining areas on the Carboniferous Lime-
stone, and also the great development of limestone quarrying in the western
parts of this zone. The industrial region of the Coal Measures shows an
increase in market gardening activities, and in the area of waste lands
due to the growth of mining during this period.
Mr. G. I. Smitu.—The agricultural geography of Holland, Lincolnshire,
with special reference to potato cultivation (2.45).
Holland’s chief surface materials are Post-glacial Silts, except in the
south-west where Peats and Gravels of similar age are found. ‘The Silts,
which vary in texture from light sands to clays, give rise to soils which are
equally variable, generally becoming heavier in a landward direction. ‘The
Peat soils also vary considerably but the small areas of Gravel give rise to
fairly uniform sandy loams. Practically all Holland’s soils, however, can
be used economically for intensive arable cultivation.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 377
The drainage system is efficient and the county is well served by road
- and rail transport. It possesses also a beet sugar factory and several fruit
and vegetable canneries. Moreover, a predominantly agricultural and
relatively dense population gives large reserves of efficient male and female
labour.
' Consequently, intensive types of arable farming, concentrating on
specialised crops for distant markets and for industry, are characteristic of
the county. The distributions of arable land and permanent pasture reflect
especially soil conditions and, to a less extent, those of settlement and
drainage. The distributions of the individual crops, of which the potato
is almost everywhere the most important, reflect the same influences
together with small climatic differences and certain economic factors.
These minor factors, however, in the case of the potato, are sufficient to
cause outstanding differences in the varieties grown and in the methods
and rotations employed.
Mr. K. B. CumBERLAND.—Livestock distribution in Craven (3.30).
The distinctive topography etched into the horizontal lower carboniferous
strata of the Central Pennine Massif, together with the generally high
altitude (300 to 2,300 ft.) and harsh climatic regime, impose serious
restrictions upon the nature of the agricultural activities of Craven. The
influence of these features is reflected in a peculiar land use, in livestock
breeds and distributions, and in the seasonal activities of the pastoral village
communities and livestock auction marts.
The marked differences in the types of pasture, associated with various
altitudes and outcrops, results in one special feature of land utilisation,
which is exemplified by a duplication of the ‘ moorland edge.’ The sheep
and cattle breeder of the Dales farms extensive acreages at low rentals, with
a meagre return. His activities are limited in winter by an insufficiency of
suitable pasture or fodder. He is consequently obliged to reduce his stock
in autumn, and the resultant annual exodus of stock is the fundamental
feature of the farm economy of Upper Airedale and Wharfedale.
To-day the dalesman’s inability to improve the winter carrying-capacity
of his farm, is largely economic. But, since attention has recently been
attracted to the possibilities of hill grazings, Craven may experience a
marked improvement in its grassland, particularly up to a general altitude
of 600 to 700 ft. ; although the limestone plateau surfaces present problems
particularly their own.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to the Lower Trent.
Sunday, September 5,
Excursion to Derbyshire (Derby, Belper, Cromford, ‘ Via Geellia,’
Grangemill, Rowsley, Matlock, Ripley).
Monday, September 6.
Jornt Discussion with Section C (q.v.) on The potential mineral resources
of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, and their geographical significance
(10.0).
378 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E.
AFTERNOON.
Jomnt Discussion with Section H on Natural and cultural regions (2.0).
Prof. P. M. Roxsy, Dr. L. DupLey Stamp, Prof. C. B. Fawcett,
Prof. J. L. Myres, Mr. H. J. E. Peake, Lord Racuan, Mr. R. U.
SAYCE. |
Tuesday, September 7.
Mr. F. G. Morris.—The relations of history and geography as illustrated by
the British colonies in America, 1607-1775 (10.0).
The British colonies in America offer a very fine field for the study of
the relationship between history and geography, because in them we see
the results of the transplanting of certain groups of European peoples, each
with its own economic, social and cultural characteristics into a new natural
environment, which had, however, already been modified by the Indians,
to whom the Europeans were indebted in several ways. ‘This new environ-
ment offered. to the settlers certain possibilities, but the actual use made of
them depended on the economic, social and cultural heritage of the different
groups, together with the existing economic and political system of the
British Empire. The broad division of the colonies into three groups—
New England, Middle and Southern—may be admitted, the criteria being
both physical and‘cultural. Nevertheless, in all these areas one should
recognise sub-division into coastal and interior groups. Even within these
more or less homogeneous areas, it is necessary to realise that settlers of
different origin did not react in the same way to the same environment and
that there were important contacts between them.
Dr. O. J. R. Howartu, O.B.E.—Charles Darwin’s village : a note on the
historical geography of Downe, Kent (10.45).
Charles Darwin lived in Down House, Downe, from 1842 to 1882, and
the house is now, by the gift of Sir Buckston Browne, in possession of the
Association and is maintained as a national memorial open to the public.
Close to Downe was also the residence of John Lubbock, afterwards Lord
Avebury, Darwin’s friend and our President in 1881. Downe is hallowed
ground for science.
Downe remains a rural village, though within the urban district of
Orpington. It stands high (between 500 and 600 ft.) on the clay-with-flints
which overlies the chalk of the North Downs. Its site is thus differentiated
from most of the old villages in the district, which were established on other,
less favourable, soils. It seems, on such slight evidence as has been found,
that the village originated in clearings of the woodland for agricultural
settlement from neighbouring communities. It paid tribute to the manor
of Orpington. It is not mentioned in Domesday, and does not appear
until later as a definite village community. The suggestion is made,
therefore, that the original implication of its name is simply Orpington’s
piece of downland.
Mr. S. J. Jones.—A prehistoric settlement phase in the Rio Grande Valley,
New Mexico (11.30).
The area under consideration includes that portion of the Rio Grande
valley bounded on the north-east by the Rio Grande Canon and on the
south-west by the White Rock Canon, with north-westerly extensions along
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 379
the Rio Chama drainage and a south-easterly continuation into the Arroyo
de Pecos. According to the archeological work of H. P. Mera and the
dendro-chronological studies of W. S. Stallings, the time concerned falls
within the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a.D. The main
determinant of the settlements studied is a pottery development (Biscuit
wares) characteristic of the whole area and indicative of a certain cultural
and economic unity. The evidence suggests that Biscuit wares developed
in a loosely knit assembly of settlements within a fairly well defined
geographical unit—a unit small enough to produce a certain uniformity,
large enough to permit local variations. It further suggests the temporary
characterisation of a small geographical area within the larger framework
of the agricultural peoples of the south-west.
Human occupation, based on the marginal cultivation of maize, beans
and squash on the bottom lands, low terraces and alluvial fans, was rendered
still more hazardous by the absence of domesticated animals and birds, with
the exception of the dog and the turkey. Hunting and collecting are
correspondingly important, although the former was limited in range and
efficiency by the absence of the horse. ‘Thus several early sites are near the
junction of the pifon zone (pifion seeds) and the yellow pine zone (deer,
bear, mountain sheep). Maps of the distribution of settlements at the close
of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries A.D. indicate the following
sequence of events.
In the fourteenth century there were 56 comparatively small villages,
but during the course of the century there was a general withdrawal from
peripheral areas and a concentration upon the better terrace and bottom
lands. Such concentration resulted in fewer but larger villages. Con-
siderable shrinkage had taken place by the beginning of the seventeenth
century, the number of villages having dwindled to 13. The reasons are
difficult to assess. Coronado’s expedition had come and gone, leaving
unsettled conditions in its wake ; marauding nomads may have been exerting
increasing pressure; between 1558 and 1593 there was an abundance of
drought years, culminating in the particularly intense drought of 1579-85.
Mr. A. E. Smattes.—Population changes in the colliery districts of North-
umberland and Durham since 1801 (12.15).
Based upon the parish returns of the Census Reports since the first
Census (1801), a detailed study of population changes in these colliery
districts, where coal-mining is the predominant occupation, reveals the
process of mining colonisation and the characteristics of the population
cycles of mining communities.
The history of settlement has been far from uniform over the coal-field,
and has been characterised throughout its course by short-distance migra-
tions from stagnating or declining to new or developing districts. After
about 1830, moreover, many districts experienced large-scale immigration
from outside: more recently, however, migration from the coal-field has
been taking place, and in most districts the population is at present stationary
or decreasing.
The marked regional variations which are indicated in the date of com-
mencement of the industrial cycle, and in the number of cycles experienced
and their relation to each other, are seen to be related ultimately to the
geology as it affects the coal resources and their accessibility, to the distribu-
tion of different types of coal and the development of their respective
markets, and to situation in relation to transport facilities.
They are in turn reflected in differences in the pattern and type of mining
380 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—E.
settlement, and are important to an understanding of the differential trends
of population at the present time.
EVENING.
Joint Discussion with Sections C, D, F, K, M, on Planning the land of
Britain (8.0). See page 486.
Chairman: The Rt. Hon. Lord TRENT.
Dr. L. DupLrey Stamp, Prof. P. G. H. Boswe.., O.B.E., F.R.S.,
Dr. J. S. Huxtey, Prof. E. J. Satispury, F.R.S., Sir DANIEL
Hatt, K.C.B., F.R.S., Sir Roy RoBertson, Prof. J. H. JoNEs.
Wednesday, September 8.
Brig. M. N. Mactrop.—Some recent work of the Ordnance Survey (9.45).
The Ordnance Survey offers the public a considerable choice in types
of map, but the various types are not based upon any single plan. Modern
teaching, research and economic planning demand not only several types
of maps, but easy co-ordination of one type with the others. In this latter
respect the Ordnance Survey range of maps could be improved. Large-
scale plans are not published as a continuous series covering the whole
country, nor is there direct connection of the small-scale maps with one
another or of the small-scale series with the large. This leads to confusion
of the layman and involves needless expense of publishing and buying.
The projection of large-scale surveys in separate county systems was in
accordance with professional practice when the survey was started. By
using a different system of projection it would now be possible to show the
whole country with sufficient accuracy on a single projection system. ‘The
Cassini Projection and the Gauss Conformal Projection.
Attempts have been made at various times in the past to assimilate county
surveys, but lack of a suitable triangulation system proved an insuperable
obstacle. In 1935 a completely new system of triangulation was started
which, when complete, will cover the whole country with a network of
triangles of about four to five miles side and will provide data for assimi-
lating all the large-scale surveys on to the same projections as are used for
the small. The primary framework is well advanced, and once this has
been adjusted it will be possible to take up the secondary triangulation in
blocks.
For the assimilation of two 1/2,500 surveys on different projections
tertiary triangulation would be necessary, giving a fixed point every mile,
but this would be both difficult and costly. Research has therefore been
undertaken to see whether it is possible to do tertiary triangulation with
sufficient accuracy on air photographs. If this should prove successful
the Department would have to initiate a comprehensive programme of air
photography.
Mr. F. Watker.—The history of regional differences between south-west
and south-east Lancashire (10.30).
The different characters of south-west and south-east Lancashire can be
largely explained by their distinctive historical evolutions, which in turn
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F, F. 381
depend upon the permanent differences of physical conditions and orienta-
tion in south Lancashire and upon isolation formerly imposed by barriers
of rivers, woodland and mosses.
These distinctions took different forms in different periods. Firstly,
the extent of Roman, English and Norse settlement in the two areas depended
largely on their orientation, while the greater prosperity of the south-west
before the Industrial Revolution can be directly related to more favourable
geographical conditions. Later the differences became more complex;
thus, the religious differences between the strongly Roman Catholic south-
west and the Protestant south-east and the economic divergence caused by
the growing industry and commerce in the south-east were due partly to
pre-existing differences and partly to historical circumstances. In this
connection, moreover, the effects of personal factors and in particular the
influence of a small group of powerful families in south-west Lancashire
should not be overlooked.
Finally, these differences culminated in the distinctive parts played by the
two areas in the civil strife of the seventeenth century and in the more
obvious divergence which resulted from the Industrial Revolution.
Miss ALIcE GARNETT.—Sunshine as a factor in the human geography of
Alpine valleys.
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND
STATISTICS.
Thursday, September 2.
Discussion on labour transference (10.0).
Mr. H. Wo rte, C.B., C.B.E.—Labour transference and the Ministry of
Labour. (Read by Mr. H. L. Emmerson.)
The movement of workpeople from one district to another is no new
thing, but whereas older movements were unregulated and doubtless to
some extent misdirected, the Industrial Transference Scheme attempts,
through the National Employment Exchange Service, to direct workpeople
from the depressed areas into the places where they are most required and
will have the best prospects. The depressed areas are given the first
chance of filling suitable vacancies in other districts which cannot be filled
locally and, further, the Ministry of Labour endeavours to anticipate
suitable openings in developing areas and to arrange for selected workpeople
from the depressed areas to come forward in readiness to fill them. The
Ministry assists married men to remove their homes to new areas. Many
men, inevitably, move on their own account, but these also may be assisted.
Juveniles are also assisted to move from areas of heavy unemployment
and make a start in life elsewhere. ‘The vacancies to which juveniles are
transferred are carefully selected and must offer prospects of permanent
and progressive employment. There are extensive arrangements for safe-
guarding the social and industrial welfare of juveniles transferred under
the Ministry’s auspices; lodgings are carefully supervised and hostels
382 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F.
have been established in certain areas where there is a shortage of suitable
lodgings accommodation. Centres and summer camps have been opened
to fit boys for transfer. Also, boys are trained for work on the land and sea,
and boys and girls for work in hotels and private domestic service. Whole
families may be assisted to move to areas where one or more of the younger
members have secured employment.
A proportion of the adults and juveniles transferred inevitably return to
their home areas, but very few families return, and the large and increasing
number of families assisted to remove from the depressed areas represents
a substantial contribution towards the solution of the problem they present.
‘
Mr. 8S. R. DENNISON (10.30).
Dr. O. A, Orser.—Psychological and sociological aspects of labour
transference (11.0).
Various public and private bodies are interested in the transfer of workers
from distressed areas. In some places difficulties are met in persuading
the workers to move, or to remain. It may, therefore, be instructive to
consider some of the psychological and sociological problems involved in
transfer. ‘These are considered under three heads :
1. The ¢ondition of the material available for transfer.
(a) Highly-skilled workers can more easily be transferred (provided they
go to jobs for which their training is adequate) because :
(i) Transfer from jobs of higher to those of lower skill is easier
than the reverse—e.g. flax to jute, jute to canning.
(ii) Such workers frequently have a tradition of emigration, e.g to
set up new machinery or factories in India, U.S.A., etc.
(iii) They have a higher intelligence level and a wider knowledge,
training and flexibility.
(6) Unskilled labour is less flexible and on the economic level at which
a family head gets more assistance than he could earn at present wage
rates.
(c) The type of educational system must be considered. Is it such as to
make retraining (i.e. more learning) seem desirable to the worker.
2. The social and economic conditions of the areas between which transfer is
to be made.
(a) People can be moved from areas of lower to those of higher standards
of living, e.g. Polish and Irish immigrations into Dundee.
(6) ‘Local patriotism’ and reluctance to move: Scotland and ‘The
South.’
(c) Traditions and subjective social status of occupations may act as
blocks to incentive. Jute weaving v. spinning.
(d) Areas having emigration pattern (Highlands, Cornwall) compared
with those having immigration tradition (Dundee).
3. Condition and state of industries in the area compared with those of Great
Britain as a whole.
(a) State of jute industry and the growth of new social patterns among
the unemployed.
(5) An analysis of job changes in Dundee and the question of labour
mobility between occupations.
(c) Technological unemployment.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. 383
Mr. A. D. K. Owen.—The social consequences of industrial trans-
ference (11.30).
Industrial transference has important social consequences for (a) the
community from which the transference takes place; (6) the community
to which the transference takes place ; and (c) the nation as a whole.
(a) For the community from which transference takes place the most
obvious consequence is either a diminution in the rate of population growth
or an actual fall in population. ‘Transferees are for the most part single
young men and women and comparatively young married men and their
families, and their loss results in a cumulative ageing of the population.
Examples from South Wales and Durham of the prospective effects of
industrial transference on age structure. As transference is voluntary, there
is also a selective process at work which tends to lower the average quality
of the population. With some important exceptions, the more active and
adventurous leave and the more conservative and unenterprising stay.
The proximate effect of transference is to reduce unemployment in areas
from which it takes place, but the ultimate effect may very well be different.
A distinction must be made between the effects of transferring unskilled
workers and the effects of transferring skilled or potentially skilled workers.
The denudation of an area of skilled labour impedes the development of
new industries and may, in time, depress existing industries still further.
In any case, transference presses hardly on secondary local industries by
reducing aggregate purchasing power.
Local Government finance benefits from reduced pressure on the social
services, especially public assistance, but many of the economies resulting
from falling population are only slowly realised. Meanwhile there may be
a heavy loss of rate income.
There are also losses in institutional life. Trade unions, churches,
co-operative societies and other voluntary associations suffer the loss not
only of financial support and membership, but of active leaders.
(6) For the community to which transference takes place there is a gain
in population and an increased labour supply, largely free from trade union
regulation, which provides the basis for industrial expansion.
Local Government has to provide additional social capital equipment in
the form of houses, roads, schools, clinics and so on, but it receives an
additional rate income as the number and value of its rateable properties
increase.
There are, however, certain difficulties of assimilation and often a good
deal of social friction as a result of the introduction of large numbers of new
workers and their families into new areas.
(c) For the community as a whole, the greatest gain from industrial
transference is the salvaging of large numbers of workers from the deteriora-
tion which results from long-continued unemployment. ‘There may also
be considerable economic gain as a result of the redistribution of labour
supply in relation to employment opportunities. On the other hand, there
is reason to believe that subsidised transference is artificially distorting the
industrial structure of the country by disguising real costs of production.
It is also necessary to take into account the waste of social capital in the
areas from which migration takes place and the increased social expenditure
and disamenities of social life (such as road congestion, housing shortage,
loss of open spaces) in expanding areas.
A new policy is urgently needed. Industrial transference should be
continued, but along different lines. It should be related to a broad plan
of national development in which both economic and social factors should
be taken into account.
384 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F.
GENERAL Discussion on Labour transference (12.0).
AFTERNOON.
Visit to Messrs. Boots’ works, Beeston.
Friday, September 3.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Prof. P. Sarcanr FLORENCE on Economic
research and industrial policy.
Mr. R. F. Harrop.—Business experience and economists’ assumptions (11.30).
When rival and inconsistent theories compete for holding a given field,
settlement should in principle be reached by an appeal to the facts. If the
theories are logically coherent but lead to different results, there must be
present in the premises one or more assumptions requiring empirical
verification or disproof. Available statistical records, however, containing
aggregate or average figures are often incapable of providing the required
test, since it is usually possible to explain these in turn by suitable
assumptions. What is the nature of these assumptions? In the last
analysis it often appears that they are concerned with the way the individuals
who go to make up the economic system, and particularly the entrepreneurs,
behave in various circumstances. It is assumed, for instance, that when
the market falls off entrepreneurs meet the situation by reducing prices
and/or by reducing output in accordance with certain principles. But what
principles ?
The sheet-anchor of the economist is the principle that each entrepreneur
endeavours in all circumstances to do the best for himself. By drawing certain
curves supposed to represent demand, cost, etc., he can demonstrate what is
the optimum position, that is, the position representing the procedure which
will bring in the greatest possible profit currently and in the future, or, in
other words, which will maximise the present value of the business. So
far, no appeal to the facts seems necessary. It is needless to ask the entre-
preneur what he will do in certain circumstances, since, if those circum-
stances are known, the economist already knows by reference to his guiding
principle what the entrepreneur ought to do, and it is reasonable to suppose
that he does that.
Unfortunately, the entrepreneur is often in a position when he is 7gnorant
of many of the facts relevant to the decision to be determined, e.g. the
future state of the market, or even the precise elasticity of demand as it
is at present. An analysis will be made of various kinds and degrees of
ignorance. Complete knowledge of all the relevant facts is hardly ever
present. It may be necessary to exert judgment. Can this judgment be
reduced to quantitative terms? e.g. can the entrepreneur, while ignorant
of the precise value of a certain demand in future, none the less feel sure
that it lies within such and such a range ?
When placed in a situation of partial ignorance, how does the entrepreneur
in fact behave? He has to decide something, even though full grounds for
a perfectly rational decision are lacking. Furthermore, in the ordinary
course of business it would be impossible to come to a separate decision,
resulting from a separate act of judgment in every particular case, e.g. what
price to charge for every particular consignment however small. Some
rules of thumb are necessary. Is it possible to formulate these and to
analyse them from the point of view of their economic soundness ?
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. 385
If the rules of thumb could be formulated, it might be found that they
contained some definite bias, e.g. leading in certain types of situation to
over-production or under-production compared with that resulting from
a random choice within the range of ignorance. This bias might be due
to certain considerations of convenience in the formation of the rules of
thumb, e.g. simplicity, tradition (in an old firm traditional rules may be
sponsored by past success, yet none the less be unsuitable in a new environ-
ment), and even quasi-ethical considerations. This bias may be important
in the explanation of the sequence of events in a trade cycle.
It is often assumed that competition leads to the survival of the most
efficient. Efficiency is thought of in terms of intelligence, accuracy,
punctuality, etc. It may be that the survival of firms occurs in a somewhat
different way, more analogous to Natural Selection in biological survival.
Where ignorance is great, the exercise of choice based on pure reason may
be much circumscribed, firms may exhibit random variation in their rules
of thumb, and those which throw up successful rules be selected. This
success may not be the result of intelligence, since in the circumstances
intelligence would be unable to say which rule of thumb is best.
Possible modes of operation of these principles will be explained with
special reference to the treatment of overhead costs.
A group of Oxford economists interested in the Trade Cycle has recently
instituted an inquiry, with the object of eliciting certain matters of fact
with regard to business behaviour relevant to the determination of disputed
points in trade cycle theory. Entrepreneurs have been interviewed by the
group as a whole and by individual members of it, and have been subjected
to intensive interrogation with regard to their normal behaviour in certain
defined circumstances. While the question of what general conclusions
emerge from these inquiries is still sub judice, and details cannot be given,
something will be said about the light thrown by them on the general
questions outlined above.
AFTERNOON.
Sir Wm. BevertpcE, K.C.B.—The co-operation of business men in the
advancement of economics (2.45).
Prof. Z. C. Dickinson.—The co-operation of business men in economic
research in U.S.A. (3.15).
Monday, September 6.
Discussion on Retail distribution (10.0).
Prof. A. PLant.—The scope for operating cost comparisons and their
limitations.
A signal example of collaboration for the comparison of operating expenses
has been furnished for the whole distributing trade, and indeed for carefully
selected groups of industrial firms, by over one hundred of the department
stores of Great Britain, which regularly, for the last six years, have pooled
their annual operating returns upon an agreed schedule of carefully defined
costs issued by the Retail Distributors Association. "The method used has
two essential characteristics which are worthy of wider adoption. The
handling of the returns, the devising of methods for utilising them, and the
386 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS —F.
compilation of reports for circulation among the collaborators is performed
by members of a University staff at the Department of Business Adminis-
tration in the London School of Economics. That ensures complete
detachment from the collaborating firms and from any trade association.
Secondly, the coding of returns which are sent through the office of the
statistical department of the Bank of England ensures complete anonymity,
while limitations of the group to firms receiving specific invitation to col-
laborate secures selectivity, and ensures a usefully comparable sample.
The handling of the returns inevitably involves statistical problems due,
for instance, to a changing sample from year to year and to the difficulty
of relating income and expenditure figures to valuation of capital. Arbitrary
decisions must be taken for dealing with such matters as rental of owned
premises, but these problems may be overcome by methods which do not
invalidate the results.
For the most effective use to be made of the results it is necessary that
there shall be a wise exercise of discretion by the computors. Averaged
figures must frequently be accompanied by measurements of dispersion if
erroneous impressions are to be avoided, and new statistical methods must
continually be devised to give appropriate emphasis to changes in trading
conditions. There must also be a proper understanding of the reports in
each of the collaborating firms if full use is to be made of the results. This
involves in many cases the appointment of staff with special training.
The justification for comparing operating -costs in this way lies in the
revelation of significant differences. To be significant they must be
differences in the cost of undertaking broadly similar functions, so that
homogeneity of sample is all-important. Because differences in costs must
be expected between similar firms performing similar functions in different
situations, no special significance must be attached to average figures ; the
collaborating firms must regard them as landmarks, not as signposts. They
raise questions rather than propose solutions ; ‘ goal ’ figures for particular
cost items are consequently to be deprecated. Further, there is no fixed
constellation of differences in costs likely to endure over time. ‘Trading
conditions are not static and changes in costs with changes in sales are all-
important. Cost studies must therefore concentrate upon the rates of
change in costs which are associated with given rates of change in sales.
Operating cost studies become marginal studies. There is a steadily growing
need for associated annual studies in other branches of business, particularly
in the field of distribution, on the pioneer lines of British department stores.
Prof. B. F. SHretps.—The Irish census of distribution (10.30).
An examination of reports of the Tribunal on Prices, 1927, and Com-
mission on the Registration of Shops, 1934, with respect to retailers’ costs,
excessive prices, redundancy, registration and licensing of shops.
Distribution of population in the Saorstat and its relation to retail sales.
Types of shops. Methods of fixing retail prices and their influence on gross
profits. Gross profit margins classified. Joint supply. Retailers’ expense
analysed. Spread of prices in various districts.
Irish Census of Distribution : objects, scope, procedure, general analysis
and limitations of the inquiry. Comparison with other government
censuses. Expenditure of retail £. Investigation of human element in
retail distribution : family, proprietors, employees, males, females. Wages
and salaries, as a whole, in grouped firms, and areas in relation to businesses
of varying size, and as a percentage of sales—the larger the turnover, the
higher the total wages as a percentage of sales? Single and multiple shops,
— = --—Ssst—“‘;7 3S
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. 387
owned and not owned in the Saorstat. Rate of stock turnover per annum
in various businesses in different areas and according to the size of business.
Analysis of returns for large size businesses. Duration of ‘ ownership ’ of
retail shops. Predominant position of Dublin in retail trade.
Mr. H. T. Weexs.—The trial census of distribution (11.0).
The Trial Census of Distribution was designed to show how valuable
a complete census on wider lines would be. Field investigators covered
six towns of equal size and by inspection recorded the trade description of
each selling outlet, the products sold, whether the shop was a branch of
a multiple or co-operative, whether a lock-up or house shop. In an
official census information on total turnover could be obtained, and
possibly turnover of commodity groups, but since such information could
not be obtained in this unofficial inquiry rateable value was added to serve
as an illustration of (but not a substitute for) turnover figures.
The results of the census showed surprising variety between the six
towns in most trades. There were extreme differences in the numbers of
outlets for many important products, and evidence of a different growth
in the distributive system which could only be guessed at from other
statistics.
The Trial Census was frankly propaganda to prove to businesses in
distribution that a census would be valuable. Specifically it would help
in fixing sales quotas, guiding local sales drives, and determining develop-
ment policy, and the four sponsoring firms contributed notes on how they
would use the material from the Trial Census.
But the Trial Census has more than a purely commercial interest. It
suggests that if control is necessary in distribution, existing statistics are
insufficient and previous measurement by census is essential. It shows that
a Census of Distribution would be essential to distributors, to administrators
and to theorists on distribution.
Mr. H. G. SELFripGE, Jun.—Consumers’ control and the expenses of
distribution (11.15).
It is a pity that an item of merchandise in a customer’s home is called by
the same name as is the same item in the manufacturer’s warehouse, because
that tends to hide the exceedingly important economic fact that the inter-
vening processes through which it has to pass are somewhat similar in
quality, and generally at least as expensive, as the processes that make the
finished item out of its constituent raw materials.
Prof. Plant has described the methods by which we have obtained very
satisfactorily accurate figures as to what those processes of distribution
cost. Allowing for a reasonable and necessary net profit, they cost just
over 30 per cent. of what the customer pays for all she buys in department
stores and similar shops.
An analysis of the processes shows how complicated is the function of
the distributor. ‘The most important difference between what he and what
the manufacturer does lies in the fact that the distributor’s customer is an
individual with very individualised wants, an individual, furthermore, who
is entitled to and does ignore those considerations that business training and
experience might tell her should decide how those wants are to be satisfied.
Whatever the distributor does, is fundamentally at the behest of his cus-
tomer, whose money, indeed, pays for the whole of his activity. That the
388 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—F.
customer does pay for it is a free bargain, for she retains the right to under-
take his work for herself if she wants to—or can refuse to buy altogether.
There is a school of opinion growing up, that what the distributor does
should be rationalised. It is an attractive view, because without a doubt
there is a great deal of what the economist is justified in calling waste, in
distribution. Detail processes are all the time being improved with the
elimination of waste and expense. But the main source of what this school
of opinion complains of, lies in the insistence by the customer that her
sometimes irrational wants should be satisfied. This source of complaint
can be removed only by rationalising the customer. It is definitely not
the function of the distributor to do that, whatever his personal views may
be; but a distributive industry already provides many opportunities for the
self-rationalised customer to save money if she really chooses to exercise
them.
GENERAL Discussion on Retail distribution (11.45).
AFTERNOON.
Visit to Castle Tobacco Factory, Messrs. John Player & Sons.
Tuesday, September 7.
Prof. H. A. Innis.—Significant factors in Canadian development (10.0).
The economic development of the United States was hastened by the
absence of restrictive institutions such as an established church and an
official class, and by the preoccupation of a large rural population with
business, the neglect of leisure, and the character of democratic institutions.
In Canada, the importance of water transportation and the consequent
emphasis on staple exports shown in the fishing industry, fur, timber,
wheat and minerals in relation to a European market provided a background
in which an established church, military organisations and the official
classes occupied an important place. The fur trade during the French and
English regimes accentuated the importance of regimented control evident
in the position of the Church, the army and the governing class. The
timber trade emerged from a background of imperial preferences under
the colonial system. (Government ownership has been conspicuous in the
period dominated by wheat, minerals, and pulp and paper, and their demands
for steam transportation and hydro-electric power. The paper attempts
to trace the significance of institutions in the economic development of
Canada.
Prof. H. Hermann Levy.—Death benefit and industrial assurance, or the
cost of dying (11.0).
Industrial assurance is mainly a provision for funeral money among the
working classes. Death benefit in history: in the days of the gilds, craft
gilds and corporation. Death benefit and the era of capitalism. Friendly
Societies and Trade Unions no effective instrument. The rise of industrial
assurance companies and friendly collecting societies. Their deficiencies
as stated by Mr. Gladstone, the Northcote Commission, the Passfield-
Parmoor and Cohen Reports. Legal reforms. Present evils: the system
of canvassing, payment of agents by commission and pressure for increase ;
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. “98g
solicitation of and pressure on prospects ; the evil of lapses ; the gambling
element. Reform needed. Different proposals: Public Utility Corpora-
tion; inclusion into the National Health Scheme as originally planned ;
methods of Germany, Japan and other countries. Difficulties of reforming
industrial assurance merely by new legal enactments and a widening of the
powers of the Industrial Assurance Commissioner. Effective reforms must
be accompanied by a cheapening of funerals and burial in general. A problem
of wide economic and sociological importance not soluble without drastic
changes in traditional habits, customs and ethical conceptions.
Mr. S. R. DeNNison.—The State control of industrial location (12.0).
The continuance of localised depression has resulted in proposals to
subject location in State control. The need for this depends upon the
possibilities of Spontaneous re-adjustment in the areas concerned; it
appears, however, that neither of the two possible lines of re-adjustment,
the development of new industries and transfer of workers, is likely to solve
the problem completely.
An intermediate stage is the provision of various inducements to in-
dustrialists to establish their plants in depressed areas. Those which have
been proposed involve certain difficulties and implications, and it is not
certain whether they would be effective.
The primary decision which is necessary is whether a policy which has
important long-run effects, involving changes in the whole industrial
structure of the country, is appropriate for dealing with a short-run problem.
The appropriateness of control further depends upon a balancing of cost
against gain. The former could result from a loss in industrial efficiency ;
the latter would be derived from alleviation of localised unemployment and
some saving in capital construction.
Control would involve certain practical difficulties ; these would vary
according to the type and degree of control imposed. It would further have
certain important implications for the economic system as a whole.
AFTERNOON.
Visit to works of Messrs. Birkin & Co.
EVENING.
Joint Discussion, with Sections C, D, E, K, M, on Planning the land
of Britain (8.0). See page 486.
Wednesday, September 8.
Mr. J. D. Cuampers.—The position of the occupying owners in Lindsey in
the period 1780-1830 on the basis of the land tax assessment returns
(10.0).
It has lately been shown that the small freeholder who also occupied as
well as owned his land did not decline but, on the contrary, increased in
numbers during the period when enclosure was taking place most rapidly,
e.g. 1780-1830. But no attempt has yet been made to ascertain the rate of
increase of the different categories of peasants, and at what point it reached
“its maximum. Also, the cause of the increase is still unknown. The present
inquiry attempts to throw light on both these questions.
390 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F.
A number of villages in Lindsey have been examined on the basis of the
Land Tax Assessment Returns, and the results correlated with enclosure
history and with the conditions of farming during the period. The paper
brings out the importance of statistical evidence in making historical
generalisations regarding the behaviour of a social group.
A further point in regard to the paper is that the material has been wholly
collected by adult students—members of the Lindsey Local History Society
and by adult classes. They have given their Saturday mornings, and in
several cases their holidays, to the work. It isan example of group research
which will be continued in Lindsey and probably in other parts of the area.
Mr. T. H. Strcocx.—Some aspects of retail price maintenance (11.15).
The Retail Market.—Difficulty of applying the ordinary theory of choice.
The buying habits of the ultimate consumer. The relation between his
long-period and short-period plans. Limitation of the field of consciousness
at any one time. The mechanism of impulse and ‘ sales resistance.’
The Manufacturer and Retail Price Maintenance.—The aim of the manu-
facturer is to secure maximum profits and continuity. The importance
of volume of sales. The effects of Retail Price Maintenance on the volume
of sales; meaning of consumer’s confidence and conditions in which it
could offset higher prices ; meaning of retailers’ support and conditions
in which it is worth securing ; effects on the number of retail outlets ;
advantages of widespread distribution ; complementary goods and their
effect on retail stocks. Dangers from incomplete price maintenance. ‘The
power to maintain prices may only be available to those who limit the
number of outlets.
The Retailer and Retail Price Maintenance-—Tendencies toward normal
profits in retail trade. Competition between different lines. Profit per unit
of general cost of operation, and the importance of elasticity of demand.
Short-period effects of advertising lead to a need for price maintenance.
Long-period effects on turnover; the demand for a limitation of the
number of shops. Special difficulties arising from co-operative societies and
price maintenance.
The Public and Retail Price Maintenance——Consumers’ choice and the
position of the economist. Difficulties arising from advertising and
discrimination. The need for conscious choice by the public in this sphere.
The short-period and long-period effects of price maintenance on prices
and on the size of firms.
Possibilities of Policy —Contracts and combinations to maintain prices ;
the position of patented articles and of trade-marked articles. Risks of
Government or municipal control without more intelligent public opinion.
Risks of diminishing the present powers of firms to maintain prices. Need
for wider knowledge.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 391
SECTION G.—ENGINEERING.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL AppREss by Sir ALEXANDER G1BB, G.B.E., C.B., F.R.S., on
Research in engineering (11.0). :
Mr. E. H. BatemMan.—The analysis of elastic structure by the methods of
deformation-energy and remainder distribution (12.0).
Systems of analysis referred to by various writers as the methods of
Virtual Velocities, Stationary Potential and Least Work are known as being
well suited for the solution of problems in rigid mechanics, and correspond-
ing methods based on Maxwell’s Reciprocal Theorem have been developed
for application to Elastic Structures. ‘These methods, often described
generically as strain energy methods of analysis, have hitherto been applied
in terms of forces or stresses, while little attention has been given to the
alternative application in terms of deformations, which the author has
proposed to designate the method of Deformation-Energy.
This method is applicable to structures which are statically determinate
or statically indeterminate ; in cases of the latter class it may lead to simpler
forms of analysis than other methods, because the number of indeterminate
deformations may be less than the number of indeterminate forces or
stresses, and also because it may be easier to specify the possible deforma-
tions of a structure than to ascertain a convenient system of independent
indeterminate forces.
The paper includes a short account of the author’s method of Remainder-
Distribution for solving the simultaneous equations which result from the
application of strain energy methods of analysis to a statically indeterminate
structure. ‘The method is illustrated by a solution of the problem of a
continuous girder on elastic supports.
AFTERNOON.
Visit to R.A.F. College, Cranwell.
Friday, September 3.
Discussion on The training of university graduates for the engineering
industry (10.0).
-Prof. F. G. Batty.—Jntroduction.
Mr. A. P. M. FLeminc and Dr. W. Jackson.
The authors stress the need for a more effective co-ordination of the
resources of the Universities and of industry than is at present the case.
The engineering departments of the Universities should not be required to
provide instruction in workshop practice, machine design, industrial
administration and in specialised technological subjects, but should con-
centrate on teaching a sound knowledge of the properties of engineering
392 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G.
materials and of the scientific principles involved in their application. ‘Too
little opportunity is given in present-day engineering courses for independent
reading and thinking, and for humane studies. Industrial concerns must ‘
do more than provide opportunities for practical training—they should
undertake, both independently and in co-operation with adjacent technical
colleges, the necessary instruction in the aforementioned subjects. Where-
ever possible this instruction ought to be given during works hours. Such
provision is possible only with large organisations, and on these rests the
responsibility for training men for the country as a whole. A brief descrip-
tion is given of an existing apprenticeship scheme of post-graduate training
which conforms in some measure to these requirements.
It is very necessary that the engineering departments at the Universities
should undertake fundamental research work in co-operation with the
physics, chemistry and metallurgical departments on border-line subjects
of industrial importance. Scholarship provisions enabling men of out-
standing ability to return to the Universities for one or two years after some
experience of industrial work would stimulate this activity and react very
beneficially on industrial development. Industry might with advantage
afford facilities in its research laboratories for members of University
staffs to carry out, and where possible to supervise supplementary work
beyond the scope of the financial resources of the Universities.
AFTERNOON. |
Lecture and demonstration by Mr. W. H. Hate on The engineering
problems of the River Trent Catchment Board (2.30).
Visits to Bestwood Coal Mine, to Messrs. Boots’ Works, Beeston, and
Messrs. Manlove Alliott’s works.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to North Derbyshire (Staveley, Lady Bower Dam, Gliding
Competition).
Monday, September 6.
Dr. Oscar Faper, O.B.E.—Some aspects of heating and air conditioning
(10.0).
The author explains that air conditioning involves the increase or the
decrease of both temperature and humidity, and that filtration is in many
cases also necessary. He describes the conditions which are usually accepted
as necessary for comfort and he discusses the relative merits of alternative
systems adopted for each process.
He makes special reference to the recent installations in the Bank of
England and in the Queens Hotel at Leeds. He refers also to the special
difficulties encountered in large cinemas and in buildings in the tropics.
Mr. A. Swan.—Problems of the altitude record flight (11.0).
As the atmospheric density decreases with increase of height it follows
that, for a given true speed of flight, the greater the height, the smaller is
the resistance to the passage of an aeroplane. This makes flight at very
high altitudes attractive so far as high speed and economy of time and fuel
are concerned.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 393
There are, however, many problems to be overcome before flight in the
stratosphere becomes commonplace, and such attempts as the altitude
record flight are of considerable value in determining how far the inherent
difficulties may be overcome. These problems include the provision of
a power unit which will retain sufficient power to enable the aeroplane to
reach the desired altitude, the special design of an aeroplane of adequate
wing surface and suitable aspect ratio, and supplying the occupants with
a sufficiency of oxygen.
The paper deals with the altitude record flight of 53,937 ft. by Flight-
Lieutenant M. J. Adam on June 30, 1937, in a Bristol aeroplane powered
with a Bristol engine and flown from the aerodrome at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment, Farnborough, and outlines the factors governing the choice
of type of power plant, the design of the aeroplane and airscrew, and the
provision of a pressure suit for the pilot. A brief résumé of the pilot’s
report on the actual flight is also included.
Prof. H. W. Swirr and Dr. H. L. HasLecrave.—Experiments on sleeve
bearing lubrication (12.0).
This paper deals with experimental work on a sleeve bearing 4 inches
diameter by 12 inches axial width under loads up to 10,000 lb. and at speeds
up to 1,200 r.p.m.
The apparatus is described in detail, its calibration and behaviour are
discussed, and results are given of tests made with an entry angle of go°.
The bearing was loaded upwards by means of a letter-balance, lever and
dead weight system. Friction was measured separately on the bearing and
on the journal. Shaft displacements were determined from micrometer
measurements at both ends of the bearing. Oil pressures were measured
at thirty-two representative points on the bearing surface by means of
Bourdon gauges.
The results obtained are in general conformity with theoretical expecta-
tions though certain systematic discrepancies are evident which are attributed
to a tendency to vibration at light loads and to the difficulty of measuring
the oil temperature in the film.
AFTERNOON.
Visits to L.M. & S. Railway Research Station, Derby ;_ Bar-lock
Factory ; North Wilford Power Station ; Stanton Ironworks.
Tuesday, September 7.
Prof. E. W. Marcuant.—Electrical vibrations and their applications in
television (10.0).
A description is given of the methods used for producing electrical vibra-
tions of various kinds. The dynatron oscillator is illustrated by a water
model with a valve having a controlling force which diminishes as the valve
opens. Such an arrangement, with a U tube connected across it, illustrates
the principle of action of this oscillator, the oscillation being demonstrated by
the movement of the water in the Utube. The principle of the thyratron
controlled ‘ time base’ for a cathode ray oscillograph or television receiver
is also illustrated by a water model. The capacity of the condenser in the
circuit giving the time base is represented by a small pivoted vessel so
arranged that when it fills it tilts over and empties itself. The flow of
P
394 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G.
water into the vessel is kept constant, as is the electric current which charges
the condenser used in the time base, and the ‘ grid bias’ of the thyratron
is represented by a pivoted arm which prevents the tilting over of the vessel
until it has filled to a definite level. ‘The height to which the vessel must
fill before tilting over is controlled by a weight on the pivoted arm. Refer-
ence is also made to the vibrations used in one form of camera. The
Be
angular velocity of a free electron rotating in a magnetic field is equal to —
?
where B is the strength of the field and e and m are the charge and mass
respectively of the electron, and is independent of its initial speed. The
arrangements for focussing the photo-electric image so as to produce the
necessary photo-electric currents for television transmission are explained,
and also the need for using short waves and the corresponding limit of
distance to which television transmissions can be sent.
Mr. L. H. Pomeroy.—The design of motor vehicles in the interest of traffic
safety (11.0).
The paper starts by referring to the degree of concentration called for
from motorists to avoid accidents, and deals with design features to reduce
motoring fatigue.
It mentions necessary standards of performance to reduce dangerous
traffic congestion, but regards ultra high maximum speed as unessential.
Dealing with cars as a whole, it treats body design features as oi primary
importance which chassis designers must regard as a condition of design.
Body design is discussed in terms of visibility, correct driver’s seating
position, and suggests that modern streamline body design has been at the
expense of the amenities of driver and passenger.
Reference is made to the modern ‘all seats between the axles’ motif,
and the mechanical and artistic sacrifices thus entailed.
Chassis design is dealt with in terms of acceleration and braking, with
reference to the allied problems in steering and suspension.
The importance of silent operation is emphasised and the causes of the
noises arising from engines, gears, chassis and body, indicated and discussed.
The principles of safe driving are mentioned, together with the special
difficulties of night driving.
The paper concludes with a reference to the great work done by engineers
and manufacturers in making cars which can be safely driven, and suggests
that comparable study and action is called for from Road Authorities and
the non-motoring public in the interests of road sa‘ety in general.
Mr. E. G. HERBERT.—A continuous hardness test (12.0).
The new continuous hardness test produces automatically a permanent
record of hardness changes occurring in metals during a period of ageing.
The basis of the test is a scratch or groove formed by a loaded grooving
tool in a specimen slowly traversed under it by clockwork. 'The ageing
period investigated is usually one of 48 or 60 hours, but the period can be
extended to as many days or weeks as may be desired.
The usual type of scratch test with angular or pointed scratching tools
having been found unsuitable for exhibiting ageing changes, a new test is
introduced in which a groove is rolled in the specimen by a rotating steel
ball. ‘This test is shown to be susceptible to changes of hardness due to
work-hardening and age-hardening.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G, H. 395
Variations of hardness are shown by varying dimensions (depth and
width) of the groove. The depth can be autographically recorded on a
drum covered with photographic paper. Alternatively, the groove is
* scanned ’ by optically projecting it at a high magnification and measuring
its width at intervals corresponding with a time scale mounted alongside.
The width is readily converted into Brinell hardness.
The continuous hardness test is used to investigate periodic fluctuations
of hardness following magnetic or thermal disturbance of the metal, and
for recording age-hardening effects. :
The periodic fluctuations are attributed to electromagnetic pulsations in
the atomic structure of the metal.
AFTERNOON.
Visit to Messrs. Rolls-Royce, Ltd., works, Derby, and to Messrs.
Birkin & Co.
Wednesday, September 8.
Dr. L. G. A. Sims.—Sbecification of the A.C. method in permeability
measurement (10.0).
The paper first records the formation of a B.S.I. Committee to standardise
measurements of incremental magnetic quantities, particularly incremental
permeability. This step is a direct outcome of the support given by the
British Association to the writer’s papers at Norwich in 1935 and at Black-
pool in 1936, and to the co-operation of the British Standards Institution.
The paper then provides a brief outline of the new committee’s work to date,
but its main purpose is to direct attention to certain difficult matters with
which the committee will have to deal in the future. Amongst these are
the following: First the definition of a distortion factor, which raises the
question of the suitability of form factor as a criterion of wave purity,
various alternatives being proposed. Secondly it is pointed out that
appropriate nomenclature together with a scheme of symbols urgently
require consideration. Thirdly the graphical form in which results may
best be presented to industry is discussed. The first two of these, at least,
are of international interest and importance and examples are given in the
paper of lines along which solutions may be reached.
Mr. Jas. Greic and Mr. J. E. Parton.—Flux distortion in iron testing.
SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY.
Thursday, September 2.
Mr. A. L. Armstronc.—Paleolithic man in Nottinghamshire (10.0).
Disregarding various Eoliths found in the terrace gravels of the Trent
Valley, the earliest definite evidence of man’s presence in the county is pro-
vided by artifacts of late Acheulian type contained in the gravel of the
‘second terrace of the Trent in the neighbourhood of Beeston, to which
attention was first called in 1928. Abundant evidence of occupation during
Mousterian times has been provided by the Creswell cave excavations ; also
396 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—H.
throughout Upper Paleolithic times. The excavation of two rock shelters,
carried out in the present year, at Whalley and Creswell, are described,
both of which have confirmed the evidence obtained in the Creswell caves
that man continued to dwell in this region throughout the final glaciation
and occupied the rock shelters until early Mesolithic times.
Mr. H. J. H. DRumMonp and Mr. T. T. PATerson.—Recent Paleolithic
discoveries in India (10.35).
1. Soan Basin, Punjab.
The Soan Culture, extending throughout the II Interglacial and III
Glacial periods, comprises flake and pebble tools, the latter predominating
in the Early Soan, the former in the Late Soan. The flakes and cores are
at first reminiscent of the Clactonian, but in the Late Soan many of them
are distinctly Levalloisian in technique. Acheulian coups-de-poing are
found at a few sites, at one of which Late Acheul is in contact with Late Soan.
2. Sind.
At Rohri and Sukkur, on the Indus, there have been found enormous
quantities of flint flakes, blades and cores, mostly surface finds. Among the
cores are many large Landaxe-like forms, some of which have been retouched
to form regular coups-de-poing. In date these are probably contemporary
with the earliest stages of the Mohenjo-Daro civilisation, though some of
the finds from Sukkur, including many thick crude blades, are more
patinated than the others and are undoubtedly slightly older.
3. Madras.
Numerous Palzolithic finds have been made in many parts of Madras
Presidency, on which work is still being carried out. The Abbevillian-
Acheulian cultures are widespread, Upper Acheulian, with many South
African affinities, being especially common. Some localised flake industries
of Upper Acheulian or later date have been found, but as yet no typical
Upper Paleolithic culture has been recognised.
Mr. J. G. D. CLarx.—New discoveries relating to the earliest settlement of
northern Europe (11.10).
This paper is intended to draw attention to a method of excavation which
has done much to advance our knowledge of early cultures in N.W.
Europe, and of the environment in which they flourished and had their
being.
The method consists essentially in the investigation of settlement sites
placed in immediate proximity to geological deposits of recent age, and in
the establishment by means of careful sections of a relationship between
debris and ‘ scatter’ from the settlement and the succession of deposits
with their contained flora and fauna.
From the use of such a method the following results have been obtained :
(1) Objects of perishable materials have been recovered to supplement
cultures previously represented only by flints and stone implements.
(2) Climatic and vegetational conditions contemporary with prehistoric
sites have been reconstructed.
(3) A chronological succession of cultures has been obtained: (a) by
direct superposition; (6b) by reference to the local sequence of natural
events.
Outstanding examples can be cited from East Anglia (Fen sequence),
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 397
the Hamburg area (Ahrensburg and Hamburg cultures), Central Jutland
(Gudenaa culture), and N. Esthonia (Kunda).
Mr. J. N. L. Myres.—The ceramic evidence for the Anglo-Saxon conquest
(11.45).
The ceramic evidence for the Anglo-Saxon conquest consists mainly of
material recovered, often under unsatisfactory conditions, from cemeteries.
Even so, it may be expected to throw light on the date of the invasions, the
continental provenance of the invaders, and the character and extent of their
settlement in England. Direct evidence from datable finds for the earliest
settlements is very scanty, but is not inconsistent with the traditional stories
of a mid-fifth century Adventus Saxonum : if this is so, however, a down-
ward revision of the dating usually used for some types of the corresponding
continental pottery may become necessary. The continental connections
of the English pottery are with that found in the Angle, Saxon, Frisian and
Rhenish districts, and it will be urged that Bede unduly simplified both the
tribal complexity of the invaders and their geographical distribution in
England. The information provided by the pottery not only on the burial
customs of the invaders, but also on their social habits, the relationship
between different areas, and their association with the surviving natives
is discussed, and the significance of the use of stamped ornament in this
connection is illustrated.
Mr. KENNETH Jackson.—The Anglo-Saxon invasion in the light of early
Welsh poetry (12.20).
The very early Welsh poem called the Gododdin purports to belong to
the late sixth century, and to give a contemporary account of hostilities
between the Britons of the Edinburgh district and the invading North-
umbrian Angles at that time. If this is true, it is obviously a very important
historical source, but it has been almost entirely ignored by writers of the
modern archzological school. What the poem tells us. The text can be
traced back with certainty to the ninth century ; the probability is that the
Gododdin is actually as old as it claims to be.
Mr. J. Butrer.—A Paleolithic horizon in Holland (12.45).
A report on excavations at Kaerhuisbeck, Deventer, in Holland (1935-
1937). ;
In 1935 Van Gendt, the Director of Public Works, being in need of sand
for making a sports ground, began excavations at Deventer. ‘The digging
extended from about 534 m. above sea-level to 24 m. below sea-level.
The first thing found (at 0-67 m. above sea-level) was a kind of paddle
or side rudder as used in Viking ships (cf. Lefébre des Noettes, De la marine
antique a la marine moderne, 1935, figs. 42, 64, 65, 68). This was made of
wood, and was presented to the Waag Museum. At the same level there
were discovered some 2,400 human and animal bones and other objects.
Below this level there were four layers of gravel, the second of which
contained a layer of clay. In the second and third layers were found
modern and rolled Miocene shells, bones of Equus, Bos, Cervus, etc.,
horns of Cervus elaphus worked by men, long bones of men, a hammer-axe,
and a point with haft, etc. (Maglemose or probably later). Under the
third layer of gravel there was first brown sand with Clausilia dubia, Pupa,
etc., then grey sand and a skull with a ‘ chignon’ like the Cro-Magnon.
398 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H.
Somewhat lower under the same layer was found a fragment of a skull and
a third skull which lay about a metre from a tree; a part of this tree has
been sent to the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine at Paris for determination.
In the fourth layer of gravel were found tusks of Rhinoceros tichorhinus,
molars and humerus of Elephas primigenius and Bos primigenius, parts of
the heads of Cervus megaceros and Sus scrofa.
The determination of the bones was done by Prof. Abbé H. Breuil,
Prof. Vaufrey, Dr. Tindell Hopwood, and somewhat later by Prof. Dr. G.
Hasse.
AFTERNOON.
Prof. W. W. Jervis and Mr. S. J. Jones.—An anthropometric survey of
Somerset (2.15).
The area investigated lies between rivers Avon and Parret, including the
Mendips, the Poldens and the moors drained by the Kenn, Yeo, Axe, Brue
and Parret: 73 villages have been studied and 400 adults have been measured.
Relevant data from the Beddoe MSS. in the University of Bristol Library
have been used for comparative purposes.
The graph of stature for men shows a peak of 5 ft. 6 in. (17°65 per cent.)
and a secondary peak of 5 ft. 4 in. (10°08 per cent.) ; that for women has
two equal peaks (16-67 per cent.) at 5 ft.2in. and 5 ft.4in. Short stature
and a considerable degree of pigmentation (hair and eyes) seem more closely
associated in women than in men. ;
Of the total cases, 43:5 per cent. have brown hair, 30°5 per cent. dark
brown and black hair, and 26 per cent. light hair (lighter than brown).
In this respect there are no marked differences between the sexes; thus
29°7 per cent. of the men and 32:5 per cent. of the women have dark hair
(including brown). Contrasted with this, 26:4 per cent. of the men and
43°4 per cent. of the women have well pigmented eyes (hazel, brown).
This may support the view that eye pigment changes more slowly than hair
pigment.
The head index graph for the whole group shows one peak at 77 (18-29
per cent.) and a secondary peak at 80 (13°57 per cent.). 67°5 per cent. of
the cases lie between these figures (inclusive). In the dark groups (brown-
black hair, pigmented eyes) 19-5 per cent. of the women and only 8-6 per
cent. of the men are dolichocephalic. In the fair group (hair lighter than
brown, unpigmented eyes) 48-1 per cent. of the women have a head index
of 80 or over. With this is associated a marked tendency towards narrow
jaws or a ‘ pinching in’ of the lower part of the face, throwing into higher
relief the cheek bones and zygomatic arches.
These and other results are discussed in the paper.
Dr. G. M. Morant.—The Anglo-Saxon population of England (2.50).
The best descriptive material available relating to the Anglo-Saxon people
consists of measurements and cranial tracings of skeletons preserved in a
number of English museums. In recent years these have been treated in
papers by Morant (1926), Parsons (1928), Brash, Layard and Young (1935)
and Minter (1936). The last deals with lengths of the long bones only,
and the present communication presents the chief results of a survey of
additional crania carried out by the same writer. Including the earlier
records, it deals with the measurements of nearly 700 adult skulls and the
contours of 300. ‘Topics discussed are a comparison of the measurements
taken by different observers, constants for different sub-groups of the total
sample, sexual comparisons, and the variabilities of regional sub-groups
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 399
(Angles, West Saxons, East Saxons and Jutes) and of the total series com-
pared with those for other series. ‘The Anglo-Saxon type is compared with
other British ones of different periods. The distinction previously observed
between the Anglo-Saxon and all later English populations for which
adequate cranial data are available is confirmed, and illustrated by average
measurements (including values for lower jaws) and type contours. Com-
parisons with continental material show that the Anglo-Saxon type bears
a closer resemblance to that of the Row-Grave people than to any other
known.
Mr. J. C. Trevor.—Some anthropological characteristics of populations
derived from the crossing of distinct ethnic groups (3.30).
This paper forms part of an investigation into the social and biological
effects of race crossing at present being undertaken by the writer, who holds
the Eugenics Society’s second Leonard Darwin Research Studentship at
the Galton Laboratory, University College, London.
The anthropometric characters of a number of series representative of
living groups of mixed descent from various parts of the world are con-
sidered. It is found in every case that for characters which clearly distinguish
the two presumed parent papulations the average measurements of the one
derived from them are intermediate in value. As far as can be ascertained
from the best evidence available, the cross results in a nearly perfect blending
of average values, determined by the proportions in which the parent popu-
lations have mixed. This observed situation cannot be reconciled with
views expressed by some geneticists. The fact that the cross results in a
blending of average measurements makes possible a classification of the
races of man based on these criteria. ‘The variabilities of the crossed series
are seen, in general, to be no greater than those of the parent populations.
The available material is hardly adequate to give any exact indication of the
forms of the distributions of metrical characters in the populations sampled,
but there is no suggestion that any of these depart appreciably from
normality.
Miss M. L. T1tpesLey.—Comparison of the face and jaws of a mediaeval
(Scarborough) and a post-mediaeval (London) population (4.10).
Visit to Nottingham Caves.
Friday, September 3.
PRESIDENTIAL Appress by Prof. J. H. Hutton, C.1.E., on Assam origins in
relation to Oceania (10.0).
Mr. H. A. Fosprooke.—A new Bantu tribe (11.0).
The Sonjo are a small tribe of some 2,500 souls, isolated in the middle
of Masailand, and situated in country about 15 miles west of Lake Natron
in Tanganyika territory. They are new only to scientific literature and
discussion, having been under administration since German times.
The object of the series of slides is to show that there still exists at least
one Bantu tribe in a practically untouched state, in that the Masai have
presented a barrier to all those influences—slave raiding, trade, missionary
activity, both Christian and Islamic, tribal admixture, etc., which have so
fundamentally altered the structure of the majority of Bantu tribes.
400 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H.
They are thus deserving of attention in that they provide a ‘norm’ on
which a study of the changed and changing Bantu can be based.
Mrs. Nora K. Cuapwick.—A study of poetic inspiration and the trance
of the seer (11.35).
The materials for such a study are wider than is generally supposed.
Oral literature is one of our most important sources of information for the
phenomenon of trance, and is indispensable to the researches of psycholo-
gists into the mental condition of the seer. The ancient literatures of
northern and western Europe afford valuable evidence especially for the
more technical side of manticism. From Asia and Polynesia much additional
information is to be obtained from stories of the past and from current oral
poetry. In Africa certain traditional institutions have an important bearing
on contemporary mantic practices. A comparative survey leads to the con-
clusion that prophecy is generally uttered in the most elevated form of speech
of which the seer is capable—most commonly in poetry as we understand
the term ; but poetry does not differ essentially from chanted prose. Poetic
inspiration is not distinguished from prophetic inspiration among backward
and primitive peoples. Wherever manticism is a living institution inspira-
tion has reference primarily not to the form, but to the matter, and embraces
the whole field of human knowledge—of the present and the past, as well
as the future. Recent observers are tending to stress the intellectual
element in the seer’s equipment.
Dr. CHRISTOPH VON FURER-HAIMENDORF.—Field-work among the Konyak
Nagas of Assam (12.15).
The Konyak Nagas, among whom I have done field-work for twelve
months in 1936 and 1937, form the north-eastern group of the Naga tribes
of Assam and live in the mountains between the Patkoi Range and the
Brahmaputra valley. Only a small part of the Konyak country is under
British rule ; most villages enjoy complete independence and many of them
have even never been visited by any white man.
In their appearance and in many aspects of their culture the Konyaks
are considerably different from the other Naga tribes. There is no doubt
that they largely represent an old type of culture, which was at one time
prevalent all over the Naga country.
Their form of agriculture is very primitive: taro, not rice, is in many
villages the staple crop and cultivation on irrigated terraces is completely
unknown. Cattle-breeding is not done to a great extent, and the fact that
the pig is to this day the sacrificial animal proper to most ceremonial occasions
suggests that, except for dog and chicken, it was until recently the only
domestic animal.
The Konyaks are the only Nagas who blacken their teeth ; one group of
them has elaborate face-tattoos and the men very often go completely
naked, while the women wear only minute skirts.
The most outstanding feature in the social sphere are the autocratic
chiefs, who form a nobility with enormous privileges. The chief’s clan is
not exogamous like the clans of the commoners, but endogamous ; for only
a man of pure aristocratic blood can succeed as chief.
The religion of the Konyak is characterised by the cult of a sky-god and
the almost complete absence of any spirit-worship. Like all Nagas the
Konyaks are inveterate head-hunters.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 401
AFTERNOON.
Discussion on Anthropology and administration.
Mr. Kincs.tey Rotu.
Mr. G. E. Harvey.
A century of British rule has nearly quadrupled the population of Burma
and greatly raised the standard of living, but it has destroyed some of the
healthiest elements in the pre-British social organism, and the increase in
crime which has been taking place for generations is symptomatic. Whereas
in England since 1870 murder has fallen by nearly half, in Burma it has
risen from 26 to 62 murders annually per million people. Murder is thus
eighteen times commoner than in England, and this, the all-Burma figure,
would be even higher but for the inclusion of backward tracts indirectly
administered through the pre-British hereditary institutions. ‘There are
‘ progressive ’ districts under direct administration where the murder rate
is equivalent to three murders a day all the year round for the population
of Greater London. The causes are spiritual rather than economic. At
the Annexation of Upper Burma in 1885 the Burmese Buddhist Church
voluntarily preached submission to British rule, yet we refused its request
for the continuance of its penal jurisdiction over its own clergy, with the
result that holy orders are now habitually used as a cloak by charlatans and
even by criminals. Our refusal was characteristic of ‘ administrative
efficiency’ which fails to get under the skin, nor will anthropological
training (which our officers sadly lack) help unless they are left long enough
in a district to know the people—the usual term is three or four years at
most, yet one does not even begin to know a district till the fifth year, for
if friendship takes time among ourselves it takes infinitely longer with men
of an utterly different language, skin colour and tradition, nor will they
confide in those whom they know to be only birds of passage. Hence the
gulf between the rulers and the ruled evidenced by the fact that the bloody
outbreaks of a few years ago came as a complete surprise to the Burma
Government.
Mr. H. A. FosBrooke.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to Sherwood Forest and Laxton.
Sunday, September 5.
Visits to Gresswell Caves and to Leicester Forum excavations.
Monday, September 6.
Discussion on Presidential Address (10.0).
Dr. A. C. Happon.—ZIntroduction.
In a discussion of distributions in Oceania it must be borne in mind that
there have been a considerable number of ethnic and cultural migrations
P2
402 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H.
from Indonesia into Oceania, the majority of which spread eastward,
skirting, or in some instances settling upon, the north coast of New Guinea.
Some of these migrants remained in Melanesia, including the Masim
district of New Guinea, while others extended into various parts of Polynesia;
the Fiji islands show a mixture of Melanesian and Polynesian cultures.
A northern migration from Indonesia passed through Micronesia to Hawaii.
The culture of south-eastern Polynesia belongs essentially to the southern
spread, but was for a time influenced by the northern Hawaiian culture.
There was also a late spread of culture from Micronesia into parts of
Melanesia, one feature of which was the loom.
These spreads of culture took place at various times and doubtless each
was characterised by special features. These have not as yet been accurately
determined, although Graebner, Rivers and others have made noteworthy
attempts and have suggested a relative chronology.
We may assume that kava-drinking was earlier in Oceania than betel-
chewing, and I think that the coiled method of making pottery was older
than the modelled technique. As all these spreads must have been made
by seafarers, it occurred to me, over thirty years ago, that a study of the
canoes of Oceania and New Guinea might afford some useful clues. Some
years ago I induced Hornell to undertake an investigation of the canoes
of Micronesia and Polynesia and I interested myself in those of New Guinea
and Melanesia. Hornell’s researches have already been published and
mine and our joint work are in the proof stage. Owing to the disappearance
of many types of craft and the modification of others no clear-cut story can
be told, but we have been able to indicate the distribution of various types
and to suggest a relative chronology.
Sociological spreads are more difficult to trace than those of material
culture. Rivers was the first to tackle this problem on scientific lines and
his main generalisations, which were based upon certain associations of
customs and material objects, must form the basis for future discussion.
As an example of method, a short paper by Deacon shows that the cult of
the Kakikan society of Ceram (a cult that doubtless had a wider extension
in Indonesia) spread along the north coast of New Guinea into Melanesia.
In New Guinea certain elements of the cult were stressed, while others were
emphasised in Melanesia.
We may safely assume that the great bulk of the social and material
culture of Oceania came directly from Indonesia.
A critical study of cultures in Indonesia has yet to be made, though it is
evident that numerous spreads of culture have taken place from south-
eastern Asia and from India, and doubtless there have been various centres
of local evolution in Indonesia.
Students have long recognised the striking similarity between the cultures
of Assam and those of Indonesia and Prof. Hutton has just demonstrated
to us remarkable cultural similarities between Assam, Fiji, the Marquesas,
and Madagascar. The last three marginal areas point to a common cultural
home in Indonesia.
The immediate question is the relation between Assam and Indonesia.
Which received a definite cultural complex from the other ? Our President
has given us a valuable insight into the culture of the Naga hills of which the
Konyak is the oldest and in some respects the richest. He has also given
us a highly suggestive account of the relation between the slit gong and the
canoe and with other important associated cultural traits. I consider
we may accept his suggestion that a rich cultural complex spread from
Indonesia into Assam for some unknown reason and at a date that is not
yet established.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 403
It is evident that the Indo-Oceanic problems are very complex. It
is first necessary to identify the original cultures, a task which is very diffi-
cult on account of the assimilations and consequent changes that have
taken place. We must discover the relative chronology of these spreads,
with the hope that ultimately we can arrive at a dateable chronology
Our President’s address will assist towards the elucidation of these
problems.
Lapy RaGLan.—The green man in church architecture (10.35).
In many English churches, dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth
centuries, are to be found carvings of men’s faces with oak or other leaves
issuing from the mouth, nostrils, etc. It has usually been supposed that
these carvings were allegorical or merely fanciful, but the wideness of their
distribution in Western Europe, their general similarity, and the important
position in churches which they so often occupy, suggest that they had
some more concrete significance.
Slides are shown illustrating the various types which the figure assumes,
and a connection is suggested with the personage known as the ‘ Green Man,’
the ‘ King of May,’ or Robin Hood, who was the chief actor in the May-day
festivities, the form in which the most important of pagan rites survived
into Christian times.
Prof. S. H. Hooxe.—Cain and Abel (11.15).
A short discussion of the origin and meaning of the fratricide motive in
early myth and ritual, and its later development in legend and folklore.
Osiris and Set in Egyptian myth ; Mot and Alein in the Ras Shamra texts ;
Cain and Abel in Hebrew myth. Racial, political and ritual elements in
the myths. Conflict between pastoral and agricultural modes of life.
Significance of the motive in Western folklore.
Mr. C. F. Tessutt.—Cart-front designs (12.0).
In the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, Huntingdon and Cam-
bridge, and in parts of Nottingham, Northampton, Bedford, Hertford,
Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, farm carts and wagons sometimes have
their fronts ornamented with a design known to wheelwrights as ‘ the
spectacles.’
In the typical example the front is double boarded and the design is cut
out of the front boarding to expose that at the back. At the extreme edges
of the above area degenerate and freak forms occur, but all obviously derived
from the same source.
Inquiries among wheelwrights have failed to find a purpose or origin of
the ornament, but it must originally have had a good luck, or fertility,
significance.
’ The Fenland and its borders would appear to have been the distributing
centre of the design, for there most examples still occur, and nearly all are
typical ones.
The ornament occurs most frequently on the scotch cart and less often
on tumbril carts and wagons, and is not entirely confined to agricultural
carts.
The field of research among English farm implements is a promising one
and is almost untouched. Ina very few years it will be closed for ever.
404 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H.
Mr. R. U. Sayce.—Rope-twisters (12.30).
In the nineteenth century a simple hook appears to have been used
nearly everywhere in the British Isles for twisting straw or grass into rough
ropes or bonds, which were used for thatching roofs and ricks, for tying
bales of hay, etc. The fate of this hook is typical of many other simple
rural implements. In many districts it has gone out of use; in some it
has been entirely forgotten.
It is still possible to collect these hooks in some districts, and the patterns
show a great variety of them. The older examples seem to have been
made of wood—a bent ash or hazel stick, or a small branch whittled into
the proper shape. At one end they have a handle rotating by means of
a swivel which is often simply but ingeniously contrived. The later types
consist of an iron rod, about three-eighths of an inch thick, bent more or less
into the shape of a brace and bit, and provided generally with two rotating
wooden handles through which the iron rod passes.
Observations by many people are needed to record all the types of this
implement and its distribution. If we are to explain these things, we
must first collect all the facts. It would be interesting to work out the
history of the different patterns and to see how each had arisen and spread
from its immediate homeland. Work of this kind would involve an
intimate knowledge of the farm worker and the rural craftsman, and of the
economic and social conditions of the countryside.
The name of this hook also shows some interesting local variations.
From Yorkshire down to Devon and Cornwall it has various forms such as
wem, wim, wimble, whimble, vimmerill. In Cumberland the hook is called a
symeturner (cf. O.N. Sima, a rope or bond), and in Scotland and the Shetlands
there are several variants such as simmet, simmun(d), etc. -In Donegal,
Anglesey, Banffshire, etc., the name appears to be trahook, throwhook,
thraahook (cf. German, drehen), while in the Gaelic districts we find sugain
or shugain, with anglicised variants like soogaun, suggawn, or suggane.
AFTERNOON.
Joint Discussion with Section E (g.v.) on Natural and cultural regions
(2.0).
Tuesday, September 7.
Mr. J. E. Satnty.—Preliminary report on a long mound at West Runton,
Norfolk (10.0).
Prof. JouN MurpHy.—The psychological origins of magic (10.35).
All magical actions are more or less simple or complex gestures. Con-
scious gestures are pictorial, and as such are complete in themselves, like a
drawing in childish or undeveloped art (which itself originates in gesture).
Many unconscious gestures are actions at the stage of conation or wish, and
never pass beyond it. Examples, in which the parallel to magic is evident.
On the other hand, in the magical art of the Magdalenian caves there are
characteristics of unconscious gesture such as ‘ action at a distance,’ power
ignoring space and time, and irrational identification or solidarity between
the persons concerned.
This we relate to the Freudian wish as the origin of gesture, in which
(e.g. in the inclination of the player’s body in the desired direction of the
*
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 405
ball, or in salivation where the act of digestion is ‘ touched-off’ but may
never be actual or completed) there is the motor ‘ set ’ of the bodily mechan-
ism towards the fulfilment of the wish. The connection of this with the
art of the caves as magic is to be noted, as well as with the origin of primitive
art, since a resemblance on the wall of the cave to the desired food-animal
sets in motion the mechanism of wish, gesture and magical purpose, which
creates the likeness as a whole.
Miss ELEANOR Harpy.—Pollen analysis and archeology (11.15).
The sequence of vegetation since the last Ice Age can be traced from
analyses of the pollen grains preserved in recent deposits. This gives an
indication of the climate and environment with which early man had to
contend at different periods, and which to some extent controlled his mode
of life.
Examination of the stratigraphy of peat bogs has revealed several distinct
climatic phases. These phases and the history of the vegetation can be
correlated with archzological periods, and used as an arbitrary time-scale
for dating finds of unknown age.
In places where there have been changes in the relative levels of land and
sea, information as to the date and significance of these movements is yielded
by investigation of submerged forests or of bogs on the uplifted land.
In England, work on these lines has not been so fully developed as it has
in Sweden, its country of origin. In many parts of this country bogs must
have been destroyed by drainage and cultivation, and comparatively few
remain untouched. It has, however, been possible to use pollen-analysis
for archzological purposes in several instances.
Dr. A. N. Tucker.—The background of Central African folk tales (11.50).
Three aspects are discussed :—
1. The principal themes underlying the stories.
2. The historical or sociological background revealed by the stories
themselves.
3. The setting in which the stories are told and the manner of their
telling.
1. Reference to Dr. Alice Werner’s Myths and Legends of the Bantu.
Although the Bantu live to the south of the people here discussed, the”
topics which form the basis of legend are characteristic for all Negro races—
including even the American Negroes.
(a) Stories of the beginning of things : Man’s origin, the origin of Death
and Life, local versions of the Fall, and of the Flood.
(b) Stories of the supernatural : Gods and Ghosts, the Cult of the Dead,
tribal Heroes who have attained the status of demi-gods, Were-
wolves, Half-men and other monstrosities.
(c) Unexplained phenomena of nature: Rainbow, Lightning.
(d) Animal stories: Stories of the type Lion versus Hare, stories of
animals and people, the Language question.
2. Obvious historical and sociological data supplied by stories. Ex-
amples of the less obvious (from the Bari).
(a) The ’dupi myth and the light it throws on pre-history.
(b) Light thrown by animal stories on clan organisation in the past.
3. The setting of the stories in relation to the occasion, the narrator, the
audience, their reaction, the musical element.
406 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H.
Mr. W. Foce.—A tribal market in the Spanish zone of Morocco (12.25).
Soaq 1-Tnin d Sidi l- Yemdni, a traditionally established Monday market
held near the szyid (shrine) of Sidi 1-Yemani, is one of the five largest of the
tribal markets, of which there are more than one hundred, in the Spanish
zone of Morocco. It is one of the two principal country markets of the
‘ Arab’ tribal districts (Garbiya, Hlot, Bdawr, Mzéra, Bdawa) in the
Western plains of the Spanish zone, but is frequented also by Jbala tribes-
men (Bni Msauwar, Jbel Hbib, Bni Ards, Bni Gérfat, Ahl Srif) from the
neighbouring mountains to the East. It is located at some fifteen miles to
the North East, approximately, of Laraiche.
As far as the short allotted time allows, the paper gives details of (a)
the market organisation for public security and legal transactions, (5) the
market officials and their functions, (c) the plan of the market by trader
and artisan groups (mwdda), (d) characteristics of some of the mwdda,
(e) some aspects of the social function and sociological significance of the
market, (f) a summary of the changes effected by the Spaniards.
M. ANDRE VarRaGNac and M. Georces RIviERE.—Folklore in France
(12.40).
The study of folklore is developing so steadily in most European countries
that we constantly find ourselves faced with new problems.
It is no longer advisable to rely merely on personal initiative; the work
of the individual investigator needs guidance and organisation. Until
a comprehensive plan has been agreed upon, many facts will be overlooked
and the comparative method may even be rendered useless.
Therefore it appears necessary to organise our work on a basis of inter-
national co-operation. With the view of securing the kind assistance of
our colleagues in each country we would suggest the establishment of an
International Committee of Folklore Methodology.
This Committee would decide :
on a standard classification of folklore facts ;
on a standard index for folklore bibliography ;
on a series of facts to be noted on every national folklore atlas ;
on a code for the elaboration of folklore maps.
If all countries interested at present in folklore research would co-operate
in the above tasks, it would be possible, in the near future, for all folklorists
to apply the comparative method in the whole field of European facts.
AFTERNOON.
Dr. MarcareT Murray.—Excavations at Petra (2.15).
The Blitezeit of Petra was under the Nabateans, just before and just
after the Christian era. Before that period the Petra valley was merely a
place of refuge, and not continuously inhabited. Under the Nabateans
Petra was the chief meeting place for the caravans trading to the West from
Arabia and India. The Nabatean inhabitants lived in caves, in front of
which were structures—chambers and courtyards—built of stones.
Excavations in caves produced great quantities of fine pottery, both plain
and painted. ‘The same kind of pottery in the same large quantity was
found in the town dump, which was many feet thick, but the pottery showed
no change in form or in painted designs between the pieces found at the
top and those at the bottom of the dump.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 407
Mrs. E. M. Crirrorp.—Types of long barrows on the Cotswolds (2.50).
The Cotswold hills form part of the so-called prehistoric highway of
England and the area is justly famous for its long barrows, which are built
of local materials. ‘Three types of chambered barrows are distinguished
and these include three of the four known examples of double cruciform
type (Uley Bury, Nympsfield and Notgrove), the last named differing
from the others in having an ante-chamber approached from a horned
entrance with two walls and a central dome-like structure in which there
was a cist containing human bones. The barrows are formed of orthostats
and dry stone-walling and are surrounded by revetment walls, which are
often supported by extra-revetment material. This in its turn forms the
outer edge of the covering of the mound, which is largely of stone. They
are found on high ground and their connection with trackways is probable.
It is possible they were used over a long period for the burial of the ruling
classes. ‘The type of skull is dolichocephalic except in three cases, one of
these being the Bisley trephined skull, and beaker ware has been found in
four long barrows. Neolithic A ware (including pottery spoons), Neolithic
B beads, and bone tools are among the objects found, and the animals
include horse, roe-deer, red deer, ox, sheep or goat, and dog.
Miss C. A. Sumpson.—Trackways (3.10).
Mr. H. J. E. Peaxe.—Some problems of the Neolithic (3.30).
Prof. V. Gorpon CuiLpe and Mr. W. THorNEYCROFT.—The experimental
production of phenomena distinctive of vitrified forts (4.10).
A model murus gallicus was built 12 ft. long x 6 ft. wide x 6 ft. high
using bricks for the faces. A raft of close-set pit props formed the founda-
tions for the core and one face, and the faces were tied together above by 4 tiers
of transverse beams set at vertical and horizontal intervals of 16 ins. Each
layer supported other timbers, and the rest of the core was filled with basalt
rubble. The whole was ignited from timbers heaped against both faces in a
strong breeze. The wall burned for 6 hours and after cooling the three
lowest layers of rubble were found fused into a solid mass. In this mass the
casts of timbers and other phenomena, observed in the vitrified ramparts
of prehistoric forts in Gaul and Scotland, were faithfully reproduced. In
building the wall 1 ton 6 cwt. dry timber and 7 tons 7 cwt. of basalt had been
employed and over 14:5 cwt. vitrified basalt was obtained. The experiment
was repeated on a smaller scale using schist actually employed in the pre-
historic rampart of Rahoy and yielded confirmatory evidence. Thus is
confirmed the most authoritative account of vitrifaction that attributes it to
the combustion of a stone and timber rampart such as the murus gallicus
of Cesar.
408 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I.
SECTION I.—PHYSIOLOGY.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Dr. E. P. POULTON on Heat production, nutrition
and growth in man—some new views (10.0).
Contributions of physiology to the health of the individual and the community
(xi. 15),
Prof. D. Burns.—ZJntroduction.
Human progress is marked by a series of triumphs of man over so-called
“ natural forces,’ so that he leads an ‘ unnatural ’ life, eats food more sophisti-
cated but more pleasant than that provided ‘ naturally,’ and is protected
against those rigours of ‘ Nature’ which otherwise would weed out the
unfit. This raises various problems some of which have to do with the
adaptation of the individual to his environment. ‘The mal-adapted indi-
vidual cannot stand the strain of modern life. Other problems are associated
with the relation of the individual to the community. The preservation of
the less fit with no restraint on their breeding causes the community to carry
an increasing load at the bottom of the biological scale, while the slowing
down of the birth-rate, a universal concomitant of higher civilised com-
munities, affects the fitter classes.
If civilisation, as we know it, is to survive, some logical plan of living
must be evolved. No plan can be evolved unless we know just exactly
what we mean by a healthy life and a healthy community. As physiology
is that branch of science which deals with the functions of the healthy
individual and is especially interested in the mechanism of adaptation of
organism to environment, it ought to contribute authoritative information
on these vital problems.
Dr. A. L. BacHARACH.—Some applications of animal dietary experi-
ments to problems of human nutrition (11.45).
Mrs. C. M. Burns.—The physiological cost of reproduction (12.15).
In view of the interest taken in the campaign for a fitter nation, it is
advisable to know what is the most suitable (a) age for initial reproduction ;
(5) rate, and (c) extent of reproduction, in relation to the health of mother
and child. For this purpose the health records of 16,500 children over the
first five years of their lives, and of 30,000 women under the care of the
Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme over a similar period were studied
by the courtesy of the Medical Officer of Health for the County of Durham.
The women came into the investigation at the birth of a child. Many had
other children during the period of study, i.e. they represented the actively
reproducing section of the community. At least 98 per cent. belonged to
the classes normally covered by State insurance, or were living under the
social conditions characteristic thereof. Under relatively homogeneous
social conditions great variations occurred in the chance of life in different
biological groups. The age of the mother, the position of the child in the
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I. 409
family and the rate of reproduction are all important factors in determining
infant and child death-rates, and death-rates both from maternal and all
causes in mothers. In the early stages of the decline in the birth-rate,
most of the decrease took place in biological groups with very high death-
rates, and a decline in infant death-rate accompanied the fall in the birth-
rate. Latterly, much of the decline has occurred in groups with low death-
rates, so that the total infant death-rate may become stationary or even rise.
The decline, however, has mainly tended to cause the groups with high
still-birth and high maternal mortality rates to become a larger proportion
of the total. The apparent stability of these rates therefore probably hides a
real decrease in the individual groups. ‘Although among all the women of
the age under consideration in the area, deaths from maternal causes con-
stituted only about 10 per cent. of all deaths, while among the 30,000 they
formed about 50 per cent. of the total deaths, yet the total death-rate among
the reproducing women at each age did not exceed that among all women of
the same age, i.e. reproduction probably weeds out the unfit rather than adds
to the total death-rate. A high maternal death-rate will therefore be found
under bad social conditions where the unfit abound, and also under good
social conditions where other weeding-out processes are few.
Within the individual groups, the influence of overcrowding as measured
by rooms per person appeared unimportant. (The influence of congested
areas as distinct from overcrowded houses could not be measured.) Despite
ten years’ acute industrial depression the total death-rates among women and
children of the ages studied had fallen by 20 per cent. during that period.
AFTERNOON.
Dr. G. E. Frienp.—Indices of health (2.15).
Prof. Dr. E. ATZLER.—Die Bedeutung der Ernahrung fiir die Leistungs-
steigerung (2.45).
Prof. S. J. CoweELL.—The aims and methods of nutritional science (3.15).
The science of Nutrition, as commonly defined to-day, covers such a large
part of the field of biological science that it is not surprising that its study
is being pursued by those with very varied training in very diverse surround-
ings. Physicians, physiologists, biochemists and pure chemists have con-
tributed to the recognition and identification of essential food constituents ;
physiologists and biochemists have probed more and more deeply into the
problems of food requirements and intermediary metabolism ; physicians
at the bedside and field workers among the populations of the world have
been searching for the signs of faulty nutrition and have been trying to
explain and correct them. All these activities have been linked together,
the work of one group inspiring that of another ; all have made possible the
rapid advance of the knowledge of nutrition. The practical interest dis-
played in the application of the recently acquired knowledge to human
welfare by those who have contributed most to the discovery of its ‘ funda-
mental’ principles, has been a striking feature of the development of
Nutrition as a special aspect of scientific study.
GENERAL Discussion on Physiology and health (3.45).
410 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—I.
Friday, September 3.
Dr. F. W. EpripGE-GreeENn, C.B.E.—The fundamental facts of colour vision
and colour blindness (11.0).
If a large number of persons be examined with a spectroscope the number
of colours seen by each varies considerably. Some see seven colours in
the spectrum, others six, five, four, three, two or none, and therefore may
be correctly classified as heptachromic, hexachromic, pentachromic,
tetrachromic, trichromic, dichromic or achromic. The length of the
visible spectrum varies considerably and is an independent defect.
The spectrum may also be examined in another way with or without a
double-image prism; it may be divided into a series of monochromatic
divisions and these may be projected with the aid of a double-image prism
upon a screen, the red side of one image may be made to touch the violet
side of the other and yet no one in a large audience may be able to see any
difference between the two; the monochromatic division is therefore a
physiological unit.
The older theories of colour-vision do not agree with the facts. For
instance, a mixed white compounded of red, green and violet lights which is
made to match a simple white behaves differently, when viewed after fatigue
with red light, from the simple white. Again 90 per cent. of the colour-
blind agree with the normal white equation but may also agree with
anomalous equations. ;
Dr. A. C. Frazer and Dr. H. C. StTewart.—Detoxication of bacterial
toxins by adsorption at the oil-water interface in finely dispersed oil-in-
water emulsions (11.30).
Mixture with finely dispersed oil-in-water emulsion prior to injection
renders a lethal dose of bacterial toxin quite innocuous. This can be
shown with such toxins as diphtheria, tetanus, staphylococcal, and Welchii
toxins, to mention a few, and a similar detoxication has also been demon-
strated with Cobra Venom. ‘The detoxicating mechanism is essentially
that of adsorption of the toxin at the oil-water interface, which prevents the
toxin from exerting any harmful influence upon the body cells. Adsorption
at the interface does not, however, interfere with the antigenic properties
of the toxin, which are essential for the elaboration of protective antibodies.
The adsorption is more rapid and complete at body temperature than at
room temperature.
The administration of finely dispersed oil-in-water emulsion in toxemic
conditions modifies the course of the disease to a marked degree, possibly
due to a similar adsorptive action. In the administration of vaccines and
similar preparations the toxic reaction obtained with large doses can be
avoided by admixture with emulsion prior to injection.
Mr. S. J. Hopkins, Mr. G. A. Jetty, Mr. G. C. KENNeEDy and Mr. A. J.
WaLkeR.—The effect of small meals on the metabolism of muscular
exercise (12.0).
Prof. Dr. E. AtTzLer.—Einige Beobachtungen tiber die ermudungsbekam-
pfende Wirkung von Colopraparaten (12.30).
AFTERNOON.
Visit to Boots’ Pharmacological Laboratories, Island Street, Nottingham.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I 411
Monday, September 6.
Jot Discussion with Sections A (q.v.) and I on Surface action in biology
(10.0).
Tuesday, September 7.
Physiology as a subject of general education (10.0). (For full report of thts
discussion see p. 474.)
Prof. WinirreD CuLuis, C.B.E.—Knowledge of the body’s working
the basis of healthy lving.
Dr. H. Macre.—The importance of physiology education from the
cultural and the utilitarian aspects (10.30).
The subject of this discussion involves consideration of the purpose of
education in general, as well as of the case for physiology as a subject of
general education. The aims of education are the development of the
intellect and the training of the individual for the material affairs of life.
The study of physiology, like other branches of learning, promotes the
orderly development of the human mind and goes to satisfy man’s inherent
desire for knowledge of any kind. The practical end is, however, the most
important argument for teaching physiology : “as the master-key of
medicine its practical value is self-evident,’ but knowledge of physiology
would be of great value to the general public.
Mothercraft is the most important occupation of womankind, for there
is much truth in the saying ‘ The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’
The child is completely dependent on its parents, and especially on its
mother, for its every need, and whether it is to grow up to healthy adult
life depends in great measure on the care and knowledge the mother brings
to bear on her task. The problems concerned with the nurture of the
child belong mainly to applied physiology, and it is, therefore, highly
desirable that parents, and especially mothers, should possess some
knowledge of the subject. The importance for the health of the present
and coming generations of the establishment of habits of healthy living
needs no proof; in laying down the foundation of these, the influence of
teachers as well as of parents is dominant. There is abundant evidence
that the education authorities in this country are fully alive to the desirability
of instructing school children in physiology and hygiene. If the population
were better informed in these subjects than at present, the elimination of
many of the prevailing absurd practices, for example in regard to solar -
radiation and slimming, might be anticipated with some confidence. The
present enthusiasm for physical culture and games is highly commendable,
but it must be remembered that the mind and its faculties are of a superior
order to the physical body and that character and grit are mental rather
than bodily attributes.
Prof. R. C, Garry.—Human physiology in the teaching of biology
(11.0).
It is a sound pedagogic principle to proceed from the known to the un-
known,
In the teaching of Biology, however, the known, or at least the familiar,
human body is largely ignored.
412 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I.
In schools, and even in universities, outside the medical curriculum,
biological teaching concentrates largely on the lower forms of life. Not
infrequently, such forms are difficult to obtain, are subject to seasonal
effects and require relatively expensive apparatus for their study. Moreover,
such study too often lacks direct applicability to the affairs of everyday
life, and, very important, lacks the emotional appeal which is so necessary
to make a subject attractive in school and later.
On the other hand, study of the human body can inculcate most of the
biological first principles and has direct bearing on many of the most
urgent problems which face mankind. With the human body as experi-
mental material, elementary classes in biology can be conducted with the
minimum of apparatus.
Dr. L. P. Lockuart.—Physiology as a part of general education
(11.30).
The approach to the subject is by way of clinical medicine practised
within industry. The thesis that a grasp of physiological principles is
essential to an objective understanding of reality was developed by Herbert
Spencer, but modern trends in industrial communities give added weight
to it. The large aggregations of people working in close co-operation in an
intricate system can only remain healthy and efficient if their legitimate
needs are met in full measure. Systems of industrial welfare, national
physical education, nutrition and housing cannot be viewed in isolation
but form part of a unity. Those who administer national and industrial
affairs need not be technical physiologists, but they need to be so educated
that they can grasp the essentials of the technical evidence submitted to
them and be aware of its relevance and importance. Much of the neurosis
which damages large communities and renders individuals inefficient, sub-
standard in health or asocial in behaviour arises from the physiologically
unbalanced lives they are forced to lead. Ignorance of physiological needs
operates not only on the personal life but on the lives of those controlled
or influenced by persons who lack awareness and understanding of what is
physiologically desirable. It is not suggested that the mere addition of a
subject to the school curriculum will effect a change. What is far more
necessary is that the general basis of educational subjects should be inter-
preted to pupils in terms of natural laws, and it is obvious that this must
apply mainly to secondary schools. There is a physiological basis to social
change and evolution which is historically of far greater moment than the
doings of rulers and statesmen, and it would be well if those who dictate
examination policy would realise this more fully than they appear to do.
The plea put forward is that unless physiological principles are inculcated
" as a part of general education there is no proper foundation for the develop-
ment of sound health, sane morals, nor for the later understanding of those
psychological conceptions which in the end determine the manner and
objective of social and individual development.
GENERAL Discussion on Physiology as a subject of general education
(12.0).
AFTERNOON.
DEMONSTRATION by Dr. L. F. RicHarpson, F.R.S., of An electrical model
of reciprocal inhibition (2.30).
Two osglim lamps in series with resistances are connected in parallel to a
battery through another resistance. When the resistances and voltage have
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—I, J. 413
been suitably adjusted, either lamp will glow; but both lamps will not
glow simultaneously, although they are both in permanent connection with
the same battery. An external disturbance can be used to start a glow in
the extinct lamp, and the glowing lamp is then automatically extinguished.
The experiment was first described in the Psychological Review (U.S.A.),
1930, 87, 214-227. An investigation of the cause of the phenomena is in
progress.
SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY.
Thursday, September 2.
Dr. R. B. CatTELt.—The psychometric versus the intuitive approach in the
study of personality (10.0).
A controversy over the use of the Binet test in psychological clinics has
brought to a head a difference of viewpoint, which has become.more evident
in recent years, between those who believe that personality is ultimately
describable in terms of mental measurements and those who believe it is
only to be intuited asa whole. The cleavage runs from applied psychology,
where it takes the form of an opposition between mental assessment as an
art and as a science, to theoretical psychology, where it becomes in the main
an irreconcilability between gestalt and geisteswissenschaftlich psychology on
the one hand and factor psychology on the other. :
The practical and theoretical implications of the two viewpoints are
examined in detail. It is contended that in practice the psychometric
approach already gives more reliable results and that in theory the intuitive
approach is nothing less than a disguised attempt to escape from the rigours
of scientific method. The energetic prosecution of clinical research has
been impaired by deflection of effort towards the specious attractions of
intuitive methods, but intuition, because it involves projection of the
therapist’s own personality, is in the end nothing more than a source of
error, though in the beginning it may provide a useful scaffolding for a
structure of objective research.
Prof. T. V. Moore.—The synthetic sense and intelligence (10.45).
I. The contribution of pathology to mental analysis.
Pathology gives us a very valuable rule for the differentiation of functions.
Whenever a single function is destroyed after a certain type of pathological
change :
(a) The function destroyed is in some way connected with the normal
activity of the tissue that has undergone pathological change.
(b) The function destroyed must be recognised as distinct from the
functions that remain intact.
II. Pathology of perception.
After certain pathological changes in the brain the patient
(a) is still capable of receiving certain sensory qualities ;
(6) is incapable of interpreting the sensory qualities so received,
(c) but may still possess intact the power of interpretation.
(Cases illustrating these conditions are given.)
414 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J.
If these facts are so, then, in virtue of the rule of pathology we may say
that :
(a) The function destroyed is in some way connected with the normal
activity of the cerebrum.
(6) The function destroyed is not the power to receive sensations, nor
the power to interpret the data of sense.
There remains, therefore, a mental function intermediate between the
power to become aware of sensory qualities and the power to interpret the
data of sense. This intermediate function is here termed the synthetic
sense.
III. The Theory of Perceptions.
The synthetic sense is a complex group of functions. Thus the ability
to synthesise tactual data may be destroyed while the power to synthesise
other sensory data may remain intact.
The process of synthesis is to a large extent dependent on past experience,
but experimental data show that the revival of the images of past experience
is not an essential element of the synthesis.
But what Gestalt psychology recognises as differentiation between figure
and background is one of the elements in the process of synthesis. This
differentiation is not interpretation, but a necessary condition that inter-
pretation may take place. ,
Sensory data of size, distance, relative position of object and parts,
motion (made possible by past experience) are combined with the present
sensory qualities into a single phantasm of perception. This synthetic
product (not the naked sensory qualities) is the basis of perception.
The old sensationalism attempted to explain perception on the basis of
sensory qualities.
The Berlin school of configurational psychology transcended sensational-
ism by pointing out the interplay of figure and ground and the sensory
basis of relational perception, rejecting the very important contribution of
the Gratz school which insisted on the Gegenstdnde héherer Ordnung, the
intellectual elements in perception.
Pathology differentiates for us very clearly :
(a) The awareness of sensory qualities.
(6) The sensory synthesis.
(c) 'The interpretation of sensory data.
Prof. C. SPEARMAN, F.R.S.—The Chicago experiments (11.30).
Dr. R. H. THouLess.—The effect of distance on apparent velocity (12.15).
It is a fact well known to experimental psychologists that apparent size
and shape are not determined only by the size and shape of the retinal
image of a seen object but to a considerable degree (varying with different
individuals) also by the real size and shape of the object itself. Thus the
apparent sizes and shapes of objects can be regarded as intermediate between
retinal and ‘real’ sizes and shapes. The same principle holds for apparent
velocity. ‘Two objects moving with equal real velocities across the field
of vision at different distances from the eye have different apparent speeds,
the near one appearing the faster. If, however, they are moving so as to
give equal retinal speeds, the far one appears to be moving the faster.
Apparent velocity also is a compromise between retinal velocity and real
velocity.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 415
The degree of ‘ phenomenal regression ’ to real velocity differs in different
individuals and these differences prove to be persistent and characteristic
of the individual concerned. It is not known whether these differences
are of any practical importance. They do not appear to be correlated with
other visual phenomenal regression effects.
AFTERNOON.
Mr. H. G. MavuLe.—Movement study in industry (2.0).
In the course of an investigation of time and motion study in the laundry
industry several facts have been disclosed, most of which are simply in
agreement with the work of previous investigators.
Output graphs under different circumstances of work have been com-
pared. Instances of long periods of uninterrupted work show the usual
fluctuation in hourly output. A considerable falling off of output is noted
towards the end of a long day’s work. Where morning rest-pauses are
given the morning output is found to be more consistent. In one instance
where rest-pauses were given in the morning and in the afternoon the greatest
consistency of output was recorded. Though this is in agreement with the
work of other investigators, it is contrary to the common opinion of most
of the workers themselves.
A combination of time study and motion study demonstrated that,
in the instance where production was highest and hourly variation least,
the actual movements of the workers in the performance of their task was
the best. ‘These workers had been given definite training at an early stage.
It is far more common to find that workers ‘ pick up ’ the methods as best
they can.
By means of ciné pictures of these workers improved methods of work
have been shown to a large number of workers.
In one instance prolonged training was given to a team of girls. The
effects of this were: (a) improved production; (b) improved quality ;
(c) definite satisfaction on the part of the workers.
In conclusion, it may be claimed that the work has demonstrated the
possibilities of using a combination of time studies and motion pictures
for the training of future operatives in repetitive jobs.
Mr. J. H. Mircuert.—An experiment in the selection of sales managers
(2.45). ‘
A national sales organisation had a problem concerning the selection
from the sales force of managers to take charge of branches in various
parts of the country. The work of these managers is to control a group of
60 to 100 salesmen engaged in door-to-door selling of vacuum cleaners.
After a study of successful and unsuccessful managers, a method of
selection was involved, based on :
(a) History before joining company and during period as salesman.
(b) Impressions on a rated interview.
(c) Results of mental and temperamental tests.
Hitherto the most successful salesmen had been appointed where
possible to managerial positions. It was found that there was no correlation
between selling ability and managerial ability.
416 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J.
Mrs. W. RapHAEL.—Factors in the likes and dislikes for work (3.30).
This investigation is based on information given during interviews with
about 1,000 employees—clerks, shop assistants, waiters and factory workers.
They spoke with complete freedom as all the interviews were anonymous.
The social environment of the work was generally found to be of more
importance in determining the happiness or unhappiness of the worker
than the job itself. Perhaps the most influential single factor making for
like or dislike of work was the first rank supervision. Great feeling was also
aroused by real or imaginary unfairness. For example, wages were much
more often mentioned as a cause of grievance in a section where pay was
good but where it was slightly better in a neighbouring section, than in a
section where pay was low but equally low throughout the firm.
The paper is chiefly concerned with examples of factors which deter-
mine dislike of work and of the beneficial results of altering some of these
factors.
Dr. G. H. MiLes.—Salesmanship (4.15).
Salesmanship consists essentially in changing a person’s attitude towards
an idea or an article: from indifference or even actual repugnance, to a
desire so strong that possession alone satisfies.
This is mainly an affective change and involves many psychological
factors. .
The ways and means by which such changes can be or have been effected,
form a group of facts which constitutes the Science of Salesmanship.
The correct application of these facts constitutes the Art of Salesmanship.
The salesman must be able to approach the buyer so as to :
i. Find what interests and desires will be accentuated by possession of
the article.
ii. Develop in the person a feeling of dissatisfaction within this region
of his personality
iii. Show how the article or idea, and it alone, can satisfy the need.
To take up a new outlook or point of view or to acquire some additional
material possession involves some degree of sacrifice. This is generally
accompanied by resistance.
The salesman must
(a) Avoid or lessen the building up of this resistance.
(b) Overcome it by developing around the idea or article a strong
emotional appeal.
What psychological methods can be used to determine whether and in
what degree a potential salesman possesses this ability to meet these and
similar situations ?
Friday, September 3.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Dr. Mary CoLiins on Tests in common use for
the diagnosis of colour defect (10.0).
Dr. P. E. Vernon.—Personality questionnaires and factor analysis (11.0).
The paper describes the many questionnaires or inventories which have
been constructed, chiefly in America, in the attempt to measure personality
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 417
traits such as emotional adjustment, introversion, sociability, self-assertion,
etc. They contain lengthy series of intimate personal questions bearing
on these emotional traits. It is shown that the attitude of the subject
towards the test and the investigator, his conscientiousness or suspicion,
also his unconscious resistances, his suggestibility, and his degree of aware-
ness of his own emotions, greatly affect the responses that he makes. Hence
the validity of the quantitative results which the tests yield is generally
poor. They may however sometimes be of qualitative value to the clinical
psychologist, e.g. as a starting point for an interview.
One of these questionnaires, devised by Dr. Boyd to measure nineteen
traits or personality tendencies, was applied to men and women at a training
college. When the results were studied by Thurstone’s multiple factor
analysis technique, it was found that the nineteen tendencies overlapped
very greatly, and could be reduced to four more general independent
tendencies, which seemed to correspond to :
1. General maladjustment of self-depreciatory tendency.
2. Care-freeness.
3. Scrupulousness.
4. A sex difference factor.
A discussion is given of the psychological significance of these factors.
Dr. W. Brown.—Hypnosis, suggestibility and progressive relaxation (12.0).
1. Clinical and experimental evidence continues to add to our knowledge
of the nature of the hypnotic state, and of its relation to sleep on the one
hand, and to suggestibility onthe other. Conditioned reflexes appear to be
readily produced in hypnotised subjects, and the therapeutic effects of pro-
longed suggestion treatment may be in part explained in terms of the building
up of new conditioned reflexes by a repetitive process. But the fact that
a single treatment of brief duration may sometimes produce immediate
and lasting benefit indicates that this explanation is incomplete.
2. The induction of muscular relaxation (as also the suggestion of sleep)
is often an integral part of hypnotic procedure. But it is not an essential
part. The beneficial effects of progressive relaxation are probably quite
distinct from those of hypnotic suggestion. Nevertheless, experimental
investigation on the knee-jerk, etc., shows that by the use of suggestion
muscular and neural relaxation can be induced with increased rapidity and
to an increased extent (as compared with non-suggestion or non-hypnotic
methods). In this way great help can be given to persons suffering from
anxiety states and other forms of functional nervous disorder, provided that
the treatment is preceded by a certain amount of mental analysis.
3. Methods of producing progressive relaxation.
4. The problems of personal influence, including those of leadership,
oratory, dramatic acting and all forms of personal education and inspiration,
are in essential relation with the problem of hypnotic suggestion, and pro-
longed psychological analysis of subjects, both normal and abnormal, is
throwing increasing light upon the nature of this relationship.
Monday, September 6.
Miss M. D. VerNon.—The motivation involved in the choice of a career
(10.0).
It seems likely that in general the individual’s choice of a career is deter-
mined less by his specific abilities and by the qualifications which the
418 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J.
occupation appears to demand than by certain main underlying ‘ drives ’
or tendencies to action. These function in determining many other of his
interests and pursuits, as well as his career. Consequently, if he be encour-
aged by suitable questions to describe these pursuits and his reason for
following them, as well as for his choice of career, his replies and his manner
of answering may throw some light indirectly upon the nature and func-
tioning of these drives. This paper describes an inquiry made.along these
lines by interviewing women University students.
Symposium on How people compensate or adjust themselves for lack of
ability (10.45).
Mr. T. A. RopGrEr.
Dr. E. MILuer.
Dr. JoHN RickMAN.—The processes governing psychical compensation.
If ‘ outlet ’ is blocked in one direction there is a ‘ compensatory ’ develop-
ment in another direction—granted. But what are the causes of the
blocking ? Are they always external or environmental or is the deflection
of interest sometimes, perhaps more commonly, internal, i.e. arising within
the mind as a result of the interplay of inner (instinctive) forces and the
environment ?
Short case histories illustrating the problem.
The relation of this ‘ inner blocking ’ to the question of the development
of culture.
Tuesday, September 7.
Dr. M. M. Lewts.—The origin and early functions of questions in a child’s
speech (10.0).
A good deal of attention has been paid to children’s questions, for the
light which they throw on the nature of children’s thought. The topic of
the present paper is different : how does a child come to use this particular
mode of speech ; what is the place of questions in his early linguistic activity,
and what use does he make of them ?
By considering serial observations of a particular child we find that we
must regard questions as a mode of action. ‘They serve two purposes :
they are (i) play, (ii) a social instrument, a means by which the child attempts
to satisfy his needs. . Both purposes appear throughout the following stages
of development :
Stage I— Questions first arise as a means of dealing with the present
situation, that in which the child finds himself.
Stage IIT.—Questions begin to refer to absent situations, either past or
future.
Stage IIJ.—Questions come to refer to possible situations: they are a
means of satisfying the child’s curiosity. At first he uses them chiefly as
a means of corroborating the knowledge he already possesses, later as a
means of adding to this knowledge.
Most discussions of children’s questions begin with this Stage III. Here
we consider Stages I and II—the beginnings of questions and their early
functions.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 419
Dr. H. OtpHam.—Children’s drawings (10.45).
There were five main lines of research :
(a) The influence of meaning on the drawings of young children.
(b) How far drawings are typical at different ages.
(c) Sex differences.
(d) The influence of environment.
(e) The expression of emotions and unfulfilled desires in drawings.
Conclusions :
(a) Children cannot draw the simplest object unless it has meaning for
them.
(b) The writer corroborated former research on the typical nature of
children’s drawings at different age levels, and made observations
on the choice of subjects. In order of popularity of choice came
houses, ships, motor cars, aeroplanes or trains, people, animals,
flowers, still life.
(c) Houses and flowers were drawn more often by girls than boys,
whilst motor cars, aeroplanes and trains were more popular with
boys.
(d) The influence of environment was very strong. It was very ap-
parent in the drawings of houses.
(e) Children from 12 to 14 were asked to express various emotions by
coloured drawings. ‘There seemed to be a fairly general agreement
in form and colour in expressing the same emotion when a pattern
was produced. Sometimes figures were drawn, and these were
more varied.
This research is the beginning of a wider one, and may be considered as
an introduction to it.
Dr. G. CaLver.—The diagnostic and therapeutic value of play (11.30).
(1) Value of play to the child.
(a) Play as development.
(6) Manipulation of material.
(c) Translation of instructive and emotional life into action.
(d) Interpretation of facts of reality.
(e) Understanding of abstract relationships by concrete material.
(2) What we learn from child’s play.
(a) Normal developmental phases, e.g. :
(i) Emotional.
(ii) Intellectual.
(iii) Sense of reality.
(3) As expression of abnormalities.
(a) Family and other environmental situations dramatised.
(6) Emotional disharmonies. Fear; anxiety ; insecurity ; aggres-
siveness.
(c) Early psycho-neurosis. Hysterias; obsessions; sexual
aberrations.
(4) Play methods used for diagnosis.
(5) Play as a therapeutic agent.
420 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J
Dr. G. SetH.—The development of infant behaviour: a study of the
responses of infants from 20 to 52 weeks in age (12.15).
AFTERNOON.
Dr. P. B. Batiarp.—Intelligence tests and secondary school entrance
examinations (2.0). :
Mr. T. E. Stussins.—Prognostic value of school examinations (2.45).
In an attempt to determine which part of an Entrance Scholarship
Examination most successfully predicted success in a School Certificate
Examination, coefficients of correlation between each part of the former and
nine subjects taken by the same (180) pupils in the latter were obtained.
Owing to the existence of intercorrelations between the parts of the Scholar-
ship Examination, these coefficients lead to conclusions of doubtful value.
Regression Equations, in which allowance is made for such intercorrelations,
were therefore worked out.
The equations are of the form :
xy = ax, + bx, + cx, + dx; +k
where x, represents a candidate’s score in a School Certificate subject
Xp, X3, X4, and x; the same candidate’s marks in the various Scholar-
ship subjects, :
k is a constant,
and a, b, c and d are the regression coefficients, being the weights to be
assigned to the appropriate scholarship mark.
A high positive weight indicates that the corresponding Scholarship
mark has high predictive value in the School Certificate subject denoted
by x.
A coefficient of multiple correlation gives the relationship existing between
the marks gained in the School Certificate Examination and those which
would be obtained by substituting his Scholarship marks in the equation.
The entrance examination was of interest, in that it comprised attainment
tests in English and Arithmetic, an Intelligence Test, and estimates sub-
mitted by the Headmasters of the Elementary Schools attended by the
pupils.
Dr. D. A. WaLKER.—Answer-patterns (3.30).
It is a fact well known to examiners that the nature of a test paper deter-
mines to a certain extent the way in which scores in the test will be distri-
buted. The nature and extent of this predetermination of score-scatter
by the type of paper set has been the subject of the investigation reported
in this paper. So far the research has been confined to tests where each item
carries unit score. It is then possible to construct for each test an answer-
pattern, which is a table of the frequencies of correct answers to the various
items, these being placed in order of difficulty. In the particular case
where each candidate’s score is made up of answers to the easiest items, it
can be shown that there is an exact relationship between the answer-pattern
and the score-scatter of the test. In the more general case there still persists
some measure of relationship, and this has been studied by experimental
methods. A particular case of this relationship is the production by a diffi-
cult test paper of a positively skewed score-scatter, spacing out the best
candidates.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 421
SECTION K.—BOTANY.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL AppREss by Prof. E. J. SaLispury, F.R.S., on The modern
study of plants in relation to education (10.0).
Sir ArTHur W. Hitt, K.C.M.G., F.R.S.—The Botanic Garden,
Buitenzorg, Fava (11.5).
Prof. Dr. A. J. Ktuyver.—On the luminescence of bacteria (11.15).
A report on some results obtained by a biophysical research group, under
the direction of Ornstein and Kluyver, in investigations on the luminescence
of bacteria. The aim of the work is to get a general insight into the factors
which determine the emission of visible light by luminous cells. In the
first place careful quantitative determinations of the energy distribution over
the various wavelengths were made. The results led to the conclusion
that to all probability the spectrum emitted may be reduced to two sym-
metrically broadened fundamental frequencies. A study of the spectra of
two different chemoluminescent reactions, proceeding in an aqueous
medium, yielded analogous results, partly the same frequencies being
encountered. Moreover an analysis of the fluorescence spectrum of flavin
showed that this spectrum may be considered as one symmetrically
broadened fundamental frequency, this being one of the fundamental
frequencies present in all bioluminescence spectra studied. This result
offers an indication that flavin, a compound of quite general occurrence in
living cells, may in some way be connected with the light emission.
Secondly, experiments were made in which the influence of various
poisons’ both on oxygen consumption and on light emission was studied.
By adding suitable quantities of cyanide to thé medium, a region was found
in which the light emission is linearly dependent on the oxygen consumption,
thus giving definite proof that, in agreement with a widely spread assumption,
oxygen indeed takes part in the process which ultimately is responsible for
the light emission.
Also this result points to the co-operation of flavin, as a component of
the yellow respiratory enzyme, in the light emitting reaction.
Dr. M. J. Strxs.—Plasmatic inheritance (11.45).
By the very impressive character of Morgan’s theory of genes as localised
in the chromosomes, the majority of geneticists have been led to confine their
attention to the réle of the genes, while the plasm is entirely neglected.
Those geneticists forget that the genes as such can show their action in the
phenotype only by means of the plasm instrumentality. A number of
cases have been observed in which the plasm plays a réle as a counterpart
to the genes. These results may be grouped as follows :
(1) an afterworking by the nature of the eggplasm whereby in the embryo
characters are fixed before the newly constructed genotype of the fertilised
nucleus can show its influence (Correns, Matthiola ; Boycott, Limnaea) ;
(2) an entirely independent action of the plasm in the production of
characters without any influence of the genotype (chlorophyll ; Wettstein,
mosses ; Schlésser, osmotic values) ;
422 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K.
(3) difference in reaction by different plasms on the same genotype
(permanent or transitory) (Sirks, Vicia Faba and Phaseolus; Lehmann,
Epilobium ; Schlosser, tomatoes) ;
(4) elimination of zygotes or gametes of definite genotypical constitution
under influence of the plasm (Sirks, Vicia Faba; Bateson, Chittenden,
Gairdner and Pellew, flax ; Skalinska, Aquilegium).
A further problem is the question if the plasmatic nature can be changed
by the genotype or not ; though the majority of studies point to the negative
answer, this problem is still unsettled.
Dr. S. WILLIAMs.—An examination of the evidence used in phylogenetic
problems (12.15).
The evidence used in the quest of Phyletic Lines may be classified under
the heads of (a) the comparative morphology of living plants, (6) taxonomy,
(c) the comparative morphology of fossil plants, (d) the historical record
afforded by the fossils, and (e) plant distribution. To these there may be
added lines of research which, so far, have yielded relatively few data
relevant to phylogenetic problems, viz., experimental morphology (including
certain aspects of autecology), statistical studies, and cytogenetics.
The validity of this evidence, apart from the historical record of the fossils,
has been repeatedly called in question. The validity of the evidence from
the fossil record is, however, generally accepted, but the fragmentary nature
of it has been repeatedly stressed. Few critics have gone so far as Lotsy
who, in 1916, stated that ‘Phylogeny . . . . is no science, but a product of
fantastic speculations,’ but many have adopted a less extreme although still
critical attitude. On the other hand, many morphologists have maintained,
or have returned to, a belief in the validity of the evidence taken as a whole.
All will agree that the phyletic problem still exists.
The major problem is clearly as to whether the canons of comparative
morphology, as applied to living plants, to the fossils, or to cytological facts,
are scientifically sound and likely to lead to conclusions possessing a reason-
able degree of probability. ‘The fossil record provides a useful, though
usually inadequate, check on the results derived from comparative methods.
An extremely important question is as to whether cytogenetics can be de-
veloped as a test in broad phyletic problems, thus: extending the useful
results already attained in relation to the more limited, but cognate, problem
presented by the interrelationships existing within small taxonomic groups.
A general discussion of the present position of phyletic morphology,
contributed to by specialists in the various fields of research mentioned
above, might prove of great value in defining the modern attitude to
Phylogeny and in indicating fruitful lines for future research.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Gotham and the West Leake hills.
Friday, September 3.
Jomnt Symposium with Section D on Recent work in genetics and cytology
(a non-technical presentation designed in particular to interest those
not working on cytology or genetics). (10.0.)
Chairman: Prof. F. A. E. Crew.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 423
Prof. Dame HELEN GwyNNe-VauGHAN, G.B.E.—IJncompatibility
(10.0). (Openers of discussion: Dr. M. J. Strxs, Mr. W. J. C.
LAWRENCE and Dr. M. A. P. Mapce.)
It has long been recognised that particular matings may fail, even when
the sexual apparatus is efficient and the gametes are able to function in
other unions. Often, in organisms with both male and female cells, self-
fertilisation, though not mechanically prevented, proves rare or impossible.
Such forms are said to be self-incompatible. Incompatibility may extend
beyond the individual to the variety or group of varieties ; a condition of
cross-incompatibility then exists. This state of affairs has been little
studied in animals, though it has been recognised in the sea squirt. In
higher plants, and especially in fruit trees, it is well known and has been
shown to depend on appropriate genes. In fungi, also, incompatibility
is determined by the nuclear content of the cell ; it is here associated with
the disappearance of normal fertilisation and with the problems incidental
to the invasion of the land. Incompatibility, like the separation of male
and female organs in different individuals, is a means of ensuring exogamy.
Prof. F. A. E. Crew.—The genetical aspect of crossing over (10.45).
(Openers of discussion: Prof. R. A. FisHer and Dr. F. W
SANSOME.)
Dr. C. D. Dariincton.—Mechanism of crossing over (11.20).
(Opener of discussion: Dr. P. C. KoieEr.)
Two important changes take place at meiosis: first, reduction in the
number of chromosomes by the segregation of partners, and secondly
crossing-over between those partners. Crossing-over takes place as a
result of a torsion developed in the paired chromosome threads. This
torsion twists the threads round one another until an equilibrium is reached
like that in spun wool. The chromosomes divide, the equilibrium is upset
and the daughter threads break at opposite points, untwist and rejoin :
crossing-over has taken place.
The result of the division of the chromosomes is that the partners fall
apart, attraction being limited to pairs. The result of their crossing-over
is that the partners are nevertheless held together at the points of crossing-
over or chiasmata. All the later association of the chromosomes and hence
their segregation and reduction depends on these chiasmata.
Crossing-over has always been understood to perform the useful but not
indispensable function of recombining hereditary differences in sexual
reproduction. We now learn that it underlies sexual reproduction itself, for
without crossing-over the necessary reduction and segregation of chromo-
somes cannot take place.
Mr. E. B. Forp.—Genetical control of development (12.0). (Opener
of discussion: Dr. J. S. HUxLEy.)
AFTERNOON.
Miss G. N. Davies.—The effect of zinc sulphate on dwarf French beans
(2.15).
In connection with water pollution by lead mines in which zinc is also
present, a series of culture experiments has been carried out to ascertain
424 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K.
the effect of zinc sulphate on Dwarf French Beans. The plants were sup-
plied with varying concentrations of zinc sulphate ranging from one to
200 parts per million, ten to fifteen plants being used for each concentra-
tion. Conclusions were drawn from the appearance of the plants throughout
the experiments, and also from the dry weights of the plants at the end of
the experiments (twelve weeks). All experiments showed that the average
dry weight of the plants decreased as the concentration of zinc sulphate
increased. Plants were, however, able to survive for twelve weeks in con-
centrations as high as 50 parts per million, although they appeared to be
unhealthy. This is significant, as the concentration of zinc in this locality
is never as high as 50 parts per million.
Dr. WINIFRED E. BRENCHLEY.—Recent work on boron in relation to plant
disease (2.35).
The importance of boron in the control of certain forms of plant disease
is now widely known, and the results of tests in many parts of the world
are being recorded with increasing frequency, from the scientific as well as
from the commercial aspect.
The occurrence of heart rot in sugar beet was first noticed at Rothamsted
in 1935, the earlier sown crops being the more severely attacked. In the
autumn a number of healthy and diseased plants were transferred to sand
cultures with adequate nutrients, some receiving light or heavy dressings
of boric acid and others none. In the absence of boric acid the characteristic
signs of boron deficiency appeared in the shoots, the apices of the stems and
the flower buds blackening and dying. This occurred even when no
symptoms were present before transplanting. In the presence of boric
acid all plants produced healthy shoots, with no deficiency symptoms.
Where heart rot was originally present and the main axis killed, a number
of healthy, lateral shoots were produced. The later addition of boron did
not improve the condition of the roots of affected plants, as irremediable
damage had been done before transplanting.
The ability to produce healthy shoots in the second year from affected
roots may be important for seed producers, if the use of small amounts of
boron compounds after the presence of the disease is recognised renders
seed formation possible.
Miss I. M. Witson.—The asci of Peziza rutilans Fries. (2.55).
Peziza rutilans is a Discomycetous fungus in which sexual organs are
absent. ‘The ascus is formed, as in many other Ascomycetes, from the
binucleate, penultimate cell of the crozier. Fusion of these two nuclei
takes place during the early stages of ascus formation. Successive crops of
asci are formed by the proliferation of the crozier.
The first two divisions in the ascus constitute a meiotic phase. Sixteen
bivalents are present in the prophase of the first division and sixteen longi-
tudinally split V-shaped chromosomes pass to each pole in the anaphase.
In the prophase of the second division sixteen similarly split chromosomes
reappear, and in the anaphase sixteen V-shaped chromosomes travel to each
pole. The third division in the ascus is a mitosis. Sixteen V-shaped
chromosomes are found in the prophase and metaphase ; they split longi-
tudinally and sixteen V-shaped chromosomes pass to each pole during the
anaphase.
Sixteen V-shaped chromosomes are also present in the divisions of vege-
tative nuclei and in the two nuclei which undergo a simultaneous mitosis in
the crozier of the ascogenous hypha.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 425
It is believed, therefore, that in the life-history of this fungus there is one
nuclear fusion, namely that in the penultimate cell of the crozier, and the
compensating reduction of the chromosome number occurs in the first of
the three divisions in the ascus.
Mr. C. G. Cuesters, Mr. H. E. Croxatt and Miss K. M. Krene.—On
certain fungi having a Libertella imperfect stage (3.15).
After a brief review of the characteristics of the Allantosphaeriaceae
von Hoéhnel, illustrated by references to species of the genera commonly
occurring in Britain, certain species of Diatrype, Eutypa, Diatrypella and
Anthostoma are described in greater detail. Special attention is paid to
the structure of the stromata and the development of the imperfect stage
both on typical host substrata and on agar media. It is shown that a
Libertella stage has been developed in single ascospore cultures of the
majority of the species studied and that similar Libertella spores have been
collected in association with the ascophorous stage on naturally infected
hosts in certain instances. Some species have also a Maemospora stage
occurring on the same mycelium as the Libertella; this is considered to
represent a microconidial condition. ‘The importance of the similarity of
the imperfect stage in the several genera of the Allantosphaeriaceae is
emphasised and its bearing upon the relationship of these genera with
certain other Pyrenomycetes is discussed.
Mr. A. E. Vines and Dr. A. H. Camppetit.—A physiological effect of
Lophodermium macrosporum on the needles of Picea excelsa (3.35).
In a Spruce the needles usually fall rapidly should the shoot bearing them
be damaged or cut from the tree. Abscission takes place at the junction of
needle and peg, leaving the bristle-like peg attached to the shoot. When
Spruce needles are infected by Lophodermium macrosporum, it is noticeable
that they cannot be easily detached even after the shoot has been cut from
the tree for several months. If such needles are pulled from the shoot the
peg will invariably be detached as well. It is evident that the fungus
prevents the proper functioning of the abscission mechanism situated between
the needle and the peg. It can be shown that abscission is brought about
by water loss from the needle causing a hygroscopic contraction of the base.
This contraction is greater than the contraction of the peg tissues, with the
result that stresses are set up which ultimately bring about abscission.
To operate this mechanism it is essential to have a considerable and rapid
water loss from the needle. Infected needles are provided with a black
ring or zone of fungal cells at the base and with mycelial aggregations which
block the stomata. It can be shown experimentally that the fungal plates
together with the sub-stomatal sclerotia effectively diminish water loss and
hence prevent the abscission mechanism from functioning although the
needle may have been dead for some time.
Dr. N. T. G1LL.—Observations on the viability and dormancy of weed seeds
(3-55):
Our knowledge of the stage of development at which seeds of various
plants become capable of producing a new plant is not very considerable.
This knowledge is of some practical importance ; therefore observations
_ have been made on the germination of seeds collected from plants cut down
at various stages of growth.
In some cases plants cut down in the flowering condition ripen seed
Q
426 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K.
capable of germination later when conditions are suitable. The problem
is complicated by the fact that in the case of most weed seeds little is known
of the length of the resting period of normally ripened seeds. For this
reason it has been necessary to study the resting periods of the seeds of the
various weed species together with the first problem.
SEMI-POPULAR LEcTURE by Dr. M. A. H. TINcKER on Growth-promoting
substances and horticulture (5.0).
Investigations by Went, Kégl, and others led to the isolation and chemical
recognition of the plant hormones, auxin a and 6b. Hetero-auxin, B-indolyl
acetic acid, associated in certain animal products with the former sub-
stances was also observed to influence the growth of plants. This more
readily available, simpler chemical may be applied to plants as a paste using
lanolin, or in solution in water. Many compounds have been tested by
Zimmerman and others ; «-naphthalene acetic acid is highly active at great
dilution.
B-indolyl acetic and «-naphthalene acetic acid induce the formation
of roots. .
For vegetative propagation they are now used in practical horticulture
to facilitate and accelerate the development of roots from cuttings, herba-
ceous and woody. Roots are developed more rapidly in greater numbers
on each cutting, whilst the number of cuttings which form roots is con-
siderably increased by these growth substanées. Many species and varieties
have been tested and showed these responses, which vary in quality according
to the season of treatment and the correlated nature of the material chosen.
The chemicals are taken up conveniently by leafy cuttings, placed with
their basal ends in a solution for twenty-four hours.
Roots may develop some small distance from the point of application of
the chemical. Inhibition of foliar development frequently results if cuttings
are taken before the buds have opened. Anatomical changes result from
the stimulation including rapid cell division in meristematic tissue, cambium,
in vacuolated parenchyma, and in differentiated tissue.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to Miller’s Dale, Chee Dale and Froggatt Edge.
Sunday, September 5.
Excursion to Sherwood Forest and Newstead Abbey.
Monday, September 6.
Discussion on Genetics and taxonomy (10.0).
Dr. W. B. 'TurRILL.—The expansion of taxonomy.
(1) Introduction——The necessity and practical aims of classification.
(2) Alpha taxonomy.—Its methods, achievements, continuation, and
limitations.
(3) Omega .taxonomy.—The new ideas and ideals. The introduction of
experimental methods. The reactions between taxonomy and
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 427
cytology, ecology, and genetics. The advantages and dangers of the
new outlook.
(4) The practical aims of the Association for the Study of Systematics in
Relation to General Biology.
Mr. W. J. C. Lawrence.—The genetics and taxonomy of some garden
plants (10.30).
As a result of recent biochemical and genetical investigations on flower
colour in a number of species, the basis of floral pigmentation is now clear.
(i) Biochemical—The three primary classes of pigmentation are:
(1) plastid (pale yellow to orange); (2) anthoxanthin, i.e. flavones and
flavonols (ivory to deep yellow) ; (3) anthocyanins (reds and blues). A true
“ white ’ lacks all three kinds of pigment. ‘The anthocyanins may be further
divided into three main types—pelargonidin, cyanidinin and delphinidin.
The wide range of flower colours results from the comtination in various
proportions of the different pigments.
(ii) Genetical—The réle of the genes in pigment production is as a rule
highly specific, a given gene acting upon a particular pigment, either
quantitatively (increase or decrease in production) or qualitatively’ (modi-
fication, within the class, of the nature of the pigment).
Experiments on three garden plants, Streptocarpus, Delphinium Ruysit
and Dahlia variabilis, demonstrate how the origin of species may be eluci-
dated from combined cyto-genetical and biochemical analysis. The hybrid
derivatives show, chemically, recombination of the pigments of the parent
species. The methods employed enable rapid and precise comparisons to
be made between species, thus providing the taxonomist with a further
measure of the relationship and evolution of species.
Prof. J. R. MatTHEws.—Spectfic segregation and distribution (11.0).
Examples are given of closely allied species which may be held to have
been derived from a common ancestral stock but which, among other
features, are distinguished by a different geographical range. In the
absence of genetical studies the origin of these related forms is still obscure,
though cytological observations are available for some of them. Little
attempt has yet been made to formulate views regarding the influence of
isolation.
Dr. T. J. JeEnkin.—The relation between genetics and systematics (11.30).
This question is discussed primarily as it applies to some of the non-
cereal grasses.
In these grasses, the paucity of well-defined and easily observed morpho-
logical characters makes the work of the systematist, and that of the geneticist,
very difficult. This may have led the systematist to attach undue importance
to those characters that are easily observed, so that detailed classification
is sometimes based upon somewhat obscure and possibly inconstant
characters.
The geneticist is not always a good systematist, neither is the systematist
always an experienced geneticist, so that clearly collaboration is greatly to
be desired. This applies equally to the question of supposed natural
hybrids, but perhaps here the plant breeder and the cytologist are more
important than the pure geneticist.
The artificial production of inter-specific and inter-generic hybrids will
affect not only the position of the supposed natural hybrids, but also the
428 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K.
function of systematics in relation to such plants. Finally, we must consider
how the new methods of plant breeding, genetical studies and cytology will
affect our conception of a natural system of classification, and the deter-
mination of phylogenetic relationships.
Dr. J. W. GRecor.
GENERAL Discussion on Genetics and taxonomy (12.0).
Miss M. L. Green.—The evolution and recent progress of botanical
nomenclature (12.30).
Origin of names. Nomenclature of Ancient Greeks. Nomenclature in
the Middle Ages and sixteenth century herbals. Generic names composed
of two or more separate words. Specific phrase-names. Nomenclature
adopted by Linnzus before and after 1753 (Species Plantarum, ed. 1).
Post-Linnzan developments. A. P. de Candolle’s general survey of plant
nomenclature and suggested rules (1813). Report on zoological nomen-
clature presented to the British Association in 1842. First distinction
between Rules and Recommendations. Recognition of botanical nomen-
clature as independent of zoological nomenclature (1844). Paris Congress
(1867) and Lois de la Nomenclature. ‘ Lois’ not universally accepted.
Rule of priofity and the effect of its strict observance. Sweeping changes
made by Otto Kuntze. Vienna Congress (1905) and nomina conservanda.
- Disagreement among botanists concerning the Rules. American Code of
Botanical Nomenclature. Suggestions in 1923 for a world code of plant
nomenclature discussed at Ithaca (1926). World-wide agreement at
Cambridge Congress (1930). Constructive amendments at Amsterdam
Congress (1935). Work of International Committees. The type method.
Closer co-operation needed between horticulturists, geneticists and taxono-
mists in regard to nomenclature of hybrids.
AFTERNOON.
Dr. G. Bonp.—Uptake of fixed nitrogen from Leguminous root nodules by
the host and by other plants (2.15).
Experiments are described which aimed at the detection of excretion of
nitrogenous substances from the root nodules of the following leguminous
types : Soy Bean, Broad Bean (Vicia Faba L.), Forage Lupin (Lupinus sp.)
and Pea (Pisum sativum L.). The plants were grown in sand cultures,
initially sterile, the nitrogen content of the sand being subsequently
determined by the Kjeldahl process. With the first three types the increase
in nitrogen content of the sand was negligible, and only slight with the Pea.
These results were confirmed by other experiments in which non-legumes
were grown in the same pots as nodulated legumes, no benefit being derived
by the former. It is concluded that excretion is not a regular accompani-
ment of fixation in root nodules. The importance of the structure of the
peripheral nodule tissues is stressed.
Dr. S. Witi1ams.—The morphology of the rhizophoric parts of living
Lycopods (2.35).
The rooting systems of most of the living Lycopods are anomalous and
this is particularly so in the Ligulate. The genus Selaginella shows two
distinct types, viz., that of S. spinulosa with its basal knot and that of the
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 429
dorsiventral species. The rhizophores of the latter type have been the
subject of much discussion and it has been concluded on general morpho-
logical grounds that they are organs sui generis; experimental evidence
has tended to show that they, and particularly the angle-meristems from
which they arise, are indifferent structures capable either of forming roots
or of being converted into leafy shoots. The organisation of the stock of
Isoetes has also been repeatedly discussed. ‘The rhizophoric region consists
of the basal part of the stock which possesses two or three stelar lobes with
a line of meristem running along the lower edges of these.
These anomalous rooting systems are of particular interest for com-
parison with those of the fossil Lycopodiales.
Prof. J. WaLton.—The morphology of the rhizophoric parts of the extinct
Lycopods (2.55).
Fairly close comparisons based on external features may be made between
the root-bearing stocks of Stigmaria, Pleuromeia, Nathorstiana and Isoetes.
There are structural peculiarities at the base of the aerial stem of Lepido-
phloios wunschianus Carr. and Lepidodendron saalfeldense Solms which
suggest further comparisons with Isoetes. In Selaginella spinulosa the basal
knot may be compared with the rhizophoric parts of Stigmaria and Isoetes,
but no corresponding structure is found elsewhere in the living Lycopods.
There is nothing comparable to the rhizophore of Selaginella (excluding
S. spinulosa) in the fossil Lycopods.
Prof. T. M. Harris.—Naiadita, a strange fossil Bryophyte (3.15).
Naiadita lanceolata is a very common fossil in the English Rhetic and has
been recognised as a zone fossil for ninety years. It consists of a slender
parenchymatous axis bearing unicellular rhizoids and lanceolate leaves,
arranged in a 3 spiral. The leaves have a well-marked apical cell but no
. midrib. The axis usually terminates in a conical gemma cup ; the gemmz
are multicellular and germinate directly (i.e. without a protonema stage).
The antheridia are still undiscovered. ‘The archegonia are borne laterally
and are at first sessile and naked but afterwards a perianth of about four
leaves grows round them and the whole is carried up by a pedicel. The
sporophyte consists of a spherical capsule and a small hemispherical foot
embedded in the pedicel: there is no seta. The capsule is cleistocarpic ;
its wall is composed of a single layer of evenly and thickened square cells.
The capsule has no columella nor elaters but only spore tetrads. There
is some evidence that Naiadita was a submerged water-plant.
All organs of Naiadita are typically bryophytic, but its further classification
is only possible if some considerable general assumptions about Bryophyte
morphology are made. On Wettstein’s view of gametophyte reduction, for
example, Naiadita could be regarded as one of the Sphaerocarpales and
closely related to Riella.
Miss A. BENNETT.—The ecology of the limestone pavements at Hutton Roof
and Tarleton (3.35).
The vegetation of the limestone areas depends largely upon the con-
figuration of the ground and falls into three main groups: (1) Pavements;
(2) Escarpments ; (3) Screes. The associations developed are regulated by
exposure to weather conditions and the angle of slope, which together
control accumulation of soil and pH value. Grazing by animals causes
430 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—K.
much of the vegetation to remain at the subclimax (or disclimax) stage.
Recolonisation takes place and some retrogression is also in progress.
Glacial drift overlying the limestone has introduced many calcifugous
species and local topography permits the invasion of the limestone by
natives of siliceous soils. An intimate mixture of plants occurs on both
formations and species which differ widely in their soil requirements exist
in the same soil pocket. Some plants which are normally regarded as
calcifugous occur in the talus of the limestone screes.
Certain species are restricted in their distribution, some are widely dis-
persed throughout a county and others are confined to one or two stations in
some areas and are abundant in similar formations only a few miles distant.
Tuesday, September 7.
Joint Discussion with Section M on Pasture problems (10.0).
Sir JoHN RussELL, O.B.E., F.R.S.—The general nature of the
problems.
The problems of grass land differ in two ways from those of arable land :
(1) the crop is perennial and it may remain for an indefinite number of years ;
and (2) the crop is a mixture of several species, often 5 or 6, but sometimes
as many as 20 or 30. The perennial nature of the crop constitutes a great
agricultural advantage as it obviates the need for annual preparation of a
seed bed, one of the most costly items in arable farming, and it reduces to
a minimum the labour of cultivation and harvesting. The fact of the crop
being a mixture constitutes its chief scientific interest : grass land is one of
the richest sources of ecological material in the countryside. The different
species settle down to some sort of equilibrium, and for each set of condi-
tions there is a recognisable floral type which persists so long as the conditions
remain unchanged. Variation in weather conditions from year to year alter
the relative abundance of the different species, particularly on land receiving -
no manure or only incomplete fertiliser. But the general floral type does
not change. Of the soil conditions, the supply of nutrients, the reaction,
water supply and air supply to the roots, and depth of soil, are all important
factors. Ona poor soil nothing grows vigorously and every seedling has a
chance of life : the Rothamsted unmanured grass plots contain some forty
or fifty different species which have settled down to some kind of equili-
brium. Addition of plant food in the form of manure causes some of these
species to grow better than others and they crowd out their less vigorous
neighbours. The differently manured plots all carry distinctive floras, the
outcome of this selective action. Acid conditions tend to eliminate legu-
minous plants : wet conditions to eliminate deep rooting grasses.
The management of the grass land introduces some important new factors.
Wild grass land speedily becomes very uneven owing to the action of ants
and moles, while the dead vegetation forms a mat which, if not removed by
earthworms, may become a layer of peat. On well-grazed land competition
for air and light disappear and the low growing wild white clover has a good
chance of life. Only those taller plants survive which can continue to shoot
up in spite of constant cutting. The successive new growths differ in some
respects from the continuous growth of an undisturbed plant and the ageing
continues, as shown by the production of more and more lignin as the
season advances.
In grass land regularly laid in for hay the time of seeding becomes an
important factor in survival. These factors of agricultural management
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 431
affect the flora so profoundly that initially different floras kept under the
same conditions for a few years and managed in the same way tend to become
indistinguishable. Grass land can always be improved by improving its
management so long as the desirable plants are already there. But if they
are not, the grass land must be broken up and reseeded.
There are many varieties and strains of the same species of grass, and
also of the micro-organisms associated with the nodules of leguminous plants.
These also form part of the grass problem.
Dr. WintFreD E. BRENCHLEY.—The ultimate composition of the herbage
from various seeds mixtures (10.20).
Sawyer’s Field at Rothamsted was laid down to grass in 1928, being sown
with six different mixtures, ranging from simple to complex. ‘The area was
grazed till 1935, and cut for hay in 1936. Estimations of herbage composi-
tion have been made regularly, the methods used being specially adapted to
meet the difficulties that arose as the sward became established. At first
the botanical composition of the herbage bore some relation to the seeds
mixture sown, but this soon disappeared and a general levelling up occurred
on all the plots. Clovers and grasses were of almost equal importance until
the drought of 1933, which killed out most of the clover, its place being
largely taken by grass. A certain increase of wild white clover has since
occurred, but the leguminous species have failed to regain their original
importance.
Summarising the present position, rye grass (Lolium spp.) has assumed and
retained a dominant position, the Italian variety being particularly persistent.
Cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata) has spread rapidly, regardless of the amount
sown, whereas rough-stalked meadow grass (Poa trivialis) was slow in be-
coming established. All the clovers have disappeared except the wild white,
which shows marked seasonal variations, being specially influenced by rain-
fall. In general, comparatively little difference is now obvious between the
herbage of any of the plots, regardless of the type of seeds mixture sown.
Mr. Witi1aMm Davies.—Present-day concepts of grassland improve-
ment (10.50).
The principles of grassland improvement may be grouped as follows :
(1) the botanical composition of the grassland ; (2) pasture and stock manage-
ment ; (3) soil fertility and the means of grading up that fertility. ‘These
groups cannot be discussed singly without reference to the others because
of their interdependence. Whatever is done to grassland is reflected upon
that grassland as a whole. Thus alteration in soil fertility or a modification
of grazing practice is bound sooner or later to be reflected in the botanical
composition of the sward.
The compounding of seeds mixtures is discussed, with particular reference
to simple and complex mixtures ; also the place of the grass and the legume
in pasture improvement, sward production and the maintenance of botanical
composition. ‘The relationship of botanical composition to the productivity
and the economic value of pastures.
Strain within the species in our common grasses and clovers and methods
of evaluation of strains bred for economic purposes.
The influence of sharply contrasting systems of management upon the
botanical composition and the yield of pastures. ‘The management of young
leys, temporary pastures and permanent pastures. Management in relation
to soil fertility and in relation to the manuring of grassland.
432 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K.
Mr. G. E. Biackman.—The technique of pastureland experiments
(11.20).
For the proper study of most pasture problems some method of measuring
productivity is essential ; the accurate assessment of yield presents, however,
a number of difficulties. In view of the profound effects that the period of
grazing and its intensity may have on the sward, estimates of yield obtained
by continuous cutting are liable to give misleading results. In order to
simulate as far as possible grazing conditions it is necessary to carry out
somewhat complex experiments. The design of these should embrace
large plots to eliminate edge effects, while the replication should be sufficient
to ensure that each block of plots is grazed during the major part of the
experimental period and only cut for the determination of yield at infrequent
intervals. Where a high degree of precision is required the stock used
for grazing plots with different treatments must be kept for a preliminary
period on comparable herbage. ‘The results may also be affected by the
type of stock used, and other factors dependent on seasonal differences.
Mr. Martin Jones.—The response of plants to animal interference
(11.50).
In pastures there are various types of plants all competing for plant food.
Which type succeeds best depends to a large extent on its reaction to the
grazing animal.
During periods of scarcity animals are forced to eat down too hard such
plants as are growing at that time, with the result that if such conditions
recur frequently the most useful plants are first of all weakened and ulti-
mately lost from the sward. Such periods of scarcity of green fodder, be
it due to cold weather or to lack of moisture, generally coincide with critical
periods in the life-cycle of such useful plants.
On the other hand, the protection from grazing obtained by certain other
plants due to their lack of palatability enables them to increase unduly.
Left to nature the animal thus favours the least valuable plants, whereas
with proper manipulation of the grazing—aiding the animal at certain times
of the year and providing for it at other times—the farmer can control the
destiny of his sward.
GENERAL Discussion on Pasture problems (12.20).
(CONCURRENTLY WITH ABOVE SESSION.)
Mr. K. P. Biswas.—Some observations on the aquatic and marsh
plants of India and Burma (10.0).
The aquatic and marsh vegetations of India and Burma have a very wide
range of variation, dependent as they are on diverse climatic conditions in
these two vast countries. The extensive open coastline harbours an inter-
esting marine flora. The zstuvarian areas stock a rich mangrove vegetation.
The lagoons and inner brackish water and swamps sustain a curious mixture
of freshwater and saltwater plants. The hill streams, although scarcely rich
in vegetable growth, not infrequently have their beds covered with Iron
bacteria, Batrachospermum and Sirodotia. Numerous freshwater lakes,
tanks, pools, and puddles scattered all over the plains are storehouses of
dense masses of vegetation, both Phanerogams and Cryptogams accommo-
dating themselves in a harmonious community.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 433
The congestion of vegetation in freshwater static waters has considerable
effect on the economic life of the countries. ‘The growth of Eichhornia
speciosa encroaching upon the rice-fields and narrower waterways has become
such a serious menace that the Government have to take recourse to legisla-
tion for its eradication. Over-abundance of vegetable growth affects the
fish population, which yields good revenue to many provinces.
The general features of the plant communities, with special reference
to freshwater and brackish water species, are discussed.
Prof. R. B. THomson.—The comparative anatomy of the male and female
cone scales in the conifers (10.25).
‘Inversed’ sporangial supply bundles in both male and female cone
scales of the conifers have been found to vary with the number and size of
the pollen sacs and of the ovules. Though the inversed bundles are abaxial
in the one case and adaxial in the other, the scales are considered to be
homologous structures which have become differentiated by factors associ-
ated with their function as male and female organs.
Mr. R. D. Wititams.—The frequency of chlorophyll deficient mutants in
red clover (Trifolium pratense) (11.0).
About 150 simple recessive chlorophyll deficient mutants have been
identified in red clover, most of which have been shown by means of
diallel crossing of the recessives or the heterozygotes to be due to different
factors. The linkage relationships of many of the chlorophyll deficient
factors have been studied, and ten of these have been definitely located in
chromosome I, two each in chromosomes II, III and IV, and one in
chromosome VI.
In order to determine the frequency with which chlorophyll deficient
recessive factors occur in the heterozygous condition in red clover, two
series of investigations were recently conducted—one with 22 normal green
plants of the Montgomery variety and the other with 25 normal individuals
of the English late-flowering variety. In the case of the Montgomery
variety, 13 of the 22 plants tested were found to be heterozygous for 22
chlorophyll deficients—14 lethal and 8 surviving mutants, while in the case
of the English late variety, 14 of the 25 plants investigated were heter-
ozygous for 23 chlorophyll deficient recessives—11 lethal and 12 surviving
genotypes.
Dr. T. J. JenKin and Dr. P. T. THomas.—The breeding affinities and
cytology of Lolium species (11.30).
Inter-specific crosses between the following Lolium species have been
attempted :—
. Lolium italicum.
. Lolium loliaceum.
. Lolium perenne.
. Lolium remotum.
. Lolium rigidum.
. Lolium temulentum.
The results already available are shown and very briefly discussed.
The parent species and some of their hybrid derivatives have been
Q2
Anh WN
434 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—K.
examined cytologically, and differences in meiotic behaviour are demon-
strated by means of lantern slides.
As far as possible herbarium specimens illustrating the different types
are exhibited.
Mr. J. W. G. Lunp.—The alge of the margins of ponds (12.0).
The nature of the substratum of the marginal regions of certain ponds is
largely dependent on the degree of exposure to which they are subjected.
Where strong wave action is absent vegetable detritus can accumulate.
This vegetable matter is deposited each autumn and consists mainly of
fallen leaves from nearby trees and the remains of aquatic plants. In such
regions planktonic, epiphytic and bottom-living algal communities occur.
These communities overlap somewhat. The bottom-living community
consists largely of motile forms, especially flagellates, and shows a seasonal
periodicity which can be correlated with the change taking place in the
vegetable detritus. ‘This change consists in the breakdown of the vegetable
organic matter with the production of a mud rich in humus. The deposits
in the deeper regions of the ponds are of a different type and possess a flora
dominated by diatoms. The types of flora observed are probably generally
of the same nature in the littoral regions of most ponds and lakes.
AFTERNOON.
EXHIBITS (2.15-5.0).
Mr. C. G. Cuesters, Mr. H. E. Croxatu and Miss K. M. Keene.—
Demonstration of cultures and preparations illustrating the
structure and development of the imperfect and perfect stages
of certain species of Diatrype, Eutypa, Diatrypella and Antho-
stoma.
Dr. B. Cotson.—Photomicrographs of fungi.
Mr. A. D. Cotron.—A Cladophora ball from Ireland.
Miss E. M. DepennamM.—Stem apices of Selaginella arenicola
Underwood.
Dr. J. W. Grecor.—Experimental taxonomy.
Prof. T. M. Harris.—WNaiadita, a strange fossil Bryophyte.
Sir A. W. Hitt, F.R.S.—Rhododendron adenopodum.
Miss Joyce E. How.—Factors controlling the growth of Boletus
elegans on gelatin media.
Dr. T. J. Jenkin and Dr. P. T. Toomas.—The breeding affinities
and cytology of Lolium perenne.
Mr. J. W. G. Lunp.—The algze of the margins of ponds.
Dr. M. A. H. Tincker.—Growth - promoting substances and
horticulture.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K, K*. 435
Dr. W. B. TurriLt and Mr. E. MarspEn JoNEs.—Sex and flower
variations in Ranunculus.
Miss E. VacHELL.—JLimosella in Britain.
Dr. S. Witt1ams.—The effect of hormones on correlation phenomena
in Selaginella.
Miss I. M. Witson.—The cytology of Peziza rutilans Fries.
EVENING.
Jornt Discussion, with Sections C, D, E, F, M, on Planning the land
of Britain (8.0). \ See page 486.
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY (K*).
Thursday, September 2.
Hon. Nicer A. OrDE-PowLetT.—The present and future of estate woodlands
(11.15).
The present condition of estate woodlands. Large areas totally devas-
tated ; still larger areas virtually unproductive. Their importance to the
nation, particularly in time of war. Their importance in rural life. Their
potential value to woodland owners.
Causes of the present deplorable condition of estate woodlands. Death
duties and high taxation. Lack of interest and knowledge on the part of
owners. Lack of trained foresters. Bad marketing.
Possible alternative methods by which improvement might be effected.
Compulsory acquisition by the nation impracticable and undesirable.
Compulsory supervision and management unlikely to produce adequate
results. Voluntary improvement productive of best and most lasting
results.
Means by which voluntary improvement can most speedily be brought
about.
Mr. R. C. B. GarDNER.—Preservative treatment of estate timber (11.45).
Mr. B. PoLitarp-UrquHartT.—A forest working plan for the National
Trust (12.15).
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Worksop. Visit to wood-working establishments of the
Staveley Coal and Iron Co., Ltd., Messrs. Oates, Ltd., and Messrs.
Godley and Goulding.
Friday, September 3.
Mr. W. O. Woopwarp.—Is there a possibility of a timber famine ? (10.0).
An examination of the various prophecies and statements made by
distinguished scientists during the present century on the possibilities of a
4.36 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*.
timber famine. Commencing with the report of the Royal Commission
on afforestation in 1906 and the subsequent warnings that have been issued
about the enormous rate at which forests have been cut down and timber
used far in excess of its replacement.
These warnings have not fallen on deaf ears, and much has been done to
remedy this excess, but the effect of these scares has done an enormous
amount of harm to those engaged in the timber trade.
Architects and engineers tend to look round for other materials in sub-
stitution of wood, believing that supplies will not always be available.
As the arguments against a timber famine are not so well known, the
writer has obtained the most up-to-date information from all the large
timber-producing countries as to annual cut, annual growth and re-
afforestation, and the results of this survey will be summarised.
Some explanation is given of the work of Forest Products Research
Boards in all important countries and the possibilities of the future will be
dealt with—particularly with reference to changes in both supply and
demand.
Symposium on Mining timber (10.30).
Mr. L. HoLtanp.—Mining timber in service.
Mr. J. MacponaLp.—Future supplies of mining timber from state
forests in Great Britain (11.0). =
Mr. J. T. FitzHersert.—Waste of potential supplies in private wood-
lands (11.30).
AFTERNOON.
Dr. S. E. Witson.—The pitprop situation to-day (2.15).
Mr. C. J. Jones.—Merchanting of mining timber, England and Wales
(2.45).
GENERAL Discussion on Mining timber (3.15).
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to woodland estates.
Sunday, September 5.
Excursion to Clipstone Forest (Forestry Commission) and Whitwell.
Monday, September 6.
Mr. W. R. Day and Mr. R. G. Sanzen-Baker.—Forestry problems near
industrial areas (10.0).
Discussion on How the botanist can help the forester (10.45).
Mr. D. W. Younc.—Introduction.
Dr. J. Burtt Davy and others.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K*, L. 437
AFTERNOON.
Discussion above continued (2.15).
Mr. A. C. Forses.—The relation of macroscopic tree remains in peat to
post-glacial climate (3.0).
The occurrence of pine, oak, and other stumps in marsh peat bogs, often
in horizontal layers, has generally been attributed to climatic causes. Dry
periods are supposed to have promoted forest growth over the bog surfaces,
while wet cycles brought about its decline or destruction. Peat layers with
and without tree roots would thus alternate during periods which have been
termed ‘ Forestian’ and ‘ 'Turbarian ’ respectively.
A careful review of all the available evidence leads to the conclusion that
marsh bogs show no indication of having become either materially wetter
or drier at the time tree growth established itself on their surfaces. The
horizontal root development and the short intervals which elapsed before
the stumps were protected by a wet peat covering from atmospheric
influences definitely confirm this conclusion.
Forest growth originated and developed on a saturated stratum of
partially consolidated peat until the peat-carrying roots gradually sank
below the water table, and the trees succumbed. ‘This process could repeat
itself until the bog water became too acid, and only able to support sphagnum
or high bog. ‘Tree growth thus constituted a definite feature in the vegeta-
tive development of individual marsh bogs throughout north-western
Europe and minor climatic fluctuations could not have affected it on all
bogs at any one particular period.
Stumps under mountain or soligenous peat suggest that the tree limit
previous to the peat formation above them was about a thousand feet above
that of to-day. ‘This may have been due to an increase of 3° to 4° F. in
the summer temperatures, as above two thousand feet or so these tempera-
tures are now too low for the normal development of pine in most parts of
the British Isles. But a gradual deterioration in soil conditions due to
leaching must also be considered in this connection. Circumstantial
evidence would indicate that the present tendency is in the direction of
cooler summers, stronger and more prevalent westerly winds, and milder
winters.
SECTION L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL Appress by Mr. H. G. WELLS on The informative content of
education (10.0).
Discussion on Adult education (11.10).
Prof. R. Peers.—The place of adult education in the education of
democracy.
x. The aims of adult education.
2. A survey of the present position of adult education in England and
Wales. The machinery of administration. Numbers and types of
438 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L.
courses ; types of students—numbers, ages and occupations; the
range of subjects. A comparison with previous years in an attempt to
discover trends.
3. An examination of the existing provision with a view to discovering
how far adult education, in its present form, distribution and amount,
is capable of achieving its aims.
4. The prospects and possibilities of adult education in relation to
changing needs.
Mr. J. F. HorraBin.
Education is a social process and it must, whether consciously or not,
be related to a specific social ideal. In a world where institutions and
ideologies are changing, education must aim either at assisting to maintain
stability or at preparing men and women for change.
Orthodox state-controlled education is designed to ensure the stability
of existing institutions. It inculcates static ideas. It selects from the
mass of facts which constitute ‘ history ’ those which appear to lead up to
the present as the final stage of society. Any questioning of the absolute
ideas or of the selection of facts so taught is (by the orthodox-minded)
regarded as ‘ propaganda,’ not education.
Real education to-day must be ‘ propagandist.’ The educationist who
pretends to be ‘ above the battle ’ is standing for the status quo in society.
Adult education, to be a live force, must serve the social needs and aims
of the organised working-class movement ; i.e. it must be directed towards
radical changes in society.
Mr. W. E. WILLIaMs.
In a democratic movement such as adult education it is necessary to
secure from time to time, in a systematic way, the views of the rank-and-file
student. It is true that the ‘ consumer ’ of adult education gets his oppor-
tunity to say what he thinks at occasional branch meetings of his particular
movement, but these opinions are too local and ephemeral to attain much
collective value. It was for this reason that the British Institute of Adult
Education, after prolonged inquiry among several hundred adult students,
produced the first symposium of student-opinion about what the movement
provides in certain of its classes. From the less publicised parts of this
report some of the items of student-opinion are summarised; e.g. Is
Adult Education provision adequate to-day ? Does it unreasonably adhere
to the University tradition established by Albert Mansbridge? Does it
suffer by its lack of buildings, its lack of comfort and dignity ? Does its
practice of ‘impartial’ teaching blunt the cutting edge of the students’
social zeal? Can it be extended or remodelled to attract the many millions
who so far resist its appeal, etc. etc. ?
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Lowdham Grange Borstal Institution.
‘
Friday, September 3.
Discussion on Education for the community (10.0).
» Sir FRANK FLETCHER.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. abe
Mrs. Exstz PARKER.—Education for the community in England.
The simple purpose of education. Schooling due to a conscious need for
social cohesion. The emergence of England’s three-fold system of schools ;
does this system promote social cohesion ? The distribution of opportunity ;
retrogression in recent years; the survival of reluctance to articulate the
structure. Selection or exclusion ? The notion of the ‘ multilateral school.’
Immediate needs and practical reforms. The réle of the administrator, the
teacher and the parent. The need for a restatement of purpose and the
stirring of social conscience.
Mons. A. DEscLos.
Dr. GRAEFER.
Monday, September 6.
Discussion on The educational function of the university (10.0).
Sir RricHarD LIVINGSTONE.
If in our swiftly changing world education ceases at the age of twenty-two
or twenty-three, there is every probability that a man by forty will lose
intellectual energy and fail to keep up with the advancing knowledge. It is
a national problem how to keep the middle-aged mentally young. Only
one regimen can do this—Adult Education of a new type—and it is especially
desirable for anyone holding directing posts. This is already recognised
in the case of doctors’ and teachers’ ‘ Refresher’ and Vacation Courses.
But there is no occupation or profession in which the resumption of system-
atic education in later life would not be profitable ; it is especially desirable
and quite feasible in the Civil, Municipal and Local Authority. Services.
Among interesting experiments in this direction are the grant of Common-
wealth Fellowships for study in the U.S.A. to Civil Servants and the recent
Summer School for Colonial Civil Servants at Oxford, but they need to be
widely developed. But little can be effected in this field unless the Civil
Service and the Local Authorities encourage and make possible regular
periods of study for their officials. ‘The Universities’ task is to encourage
and make systematic provision for such study.
The return of adult students from practical life to the University should
help the study of the Social Sciences which are still very backward. They
cannot be so well studied by purely academic investigators as the Natural
Sciences. Civil Servants and Municipal officials, business men, doctors
and others, in their different fields, are more in touch with the actual problems
than is the academic researcher, and often possess a large amount of data
which he cannot have. Combination in the work of research by the Uni-
versity investigator and the practical man could achieve results which
neither can achieve separately.
Prof. M. GinsBerc.—Social science and social philosophy in the
universities.
The function of the Universities in the field of social studies is clearly to
equip students with the power not only of marshalling and correlating social
facts but also of interpreting and evaluating them. 'To achieve this end
social philosophy and social science must be effectively linked. Unfortun-
ately this is rarely if ever systematically attempted. The social sciences,
no doubt in the interests of objectivity and detachment, claim to be ethically
440 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L, M.
neutral. But the neutrality is illusory, since in fact the students are imbued
with an amateur ethic which leaves them a prey to crude subjectivism and
relativism and the fashionable dogma that value judgments merely express
the needs of the dominant sections within any given community. Philosophy,
on the other hand, remains aloof and ethics, in particular, is not brought
into relation with actual and pressing social problems. Great changes are
thus needed in the teaching of both social science and social philosophy
if the Universities are to make the contribution they ought to make towards
the rational ordering of society.
Discussion on Technical in relation to general education (11.30).
Prof. H. Levy.
Mr. J. SARGENT.
Mr. J. WicKHAM Murray.
Technical education fundamental to life.
Don’t scorn material things ; they must come first if we are to live at all.
How can we establish a relationship between two things which are often
not understood by those responsible ?
The views of those concerned in technical education in connection with
general education and vice versa. ;
The necessity for fixing aims. The necessity for plans—local and national.
Is the content of education, technical or general, satisfactory ? What is
common and fundamental to both technical and general education ?
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to the William Crane and other Nottingham schools.
Leader, Mr. A. H. WHIPPLE.
Tuesday, September 7.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE on Science in adult education, presented by Sir
RIcHARD Grecory, Bart., F.R.S. (Vice-Chairman) (10.0).
Joint Discussion with Section C (q.v.) on The teaching of geology in
schools (11.15).
SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE.
Thursday, September 2.
PRESIDENTIAL Appress by Mr. J. M. Care on State intervention in agri- .
culture (10.0).
Mr. A. H. BRown.—The present economic position of agriculture (11.0).
The present economic position of British agriculture is unsatisfactory,
and can rightly be described as depressed. Any industry paying wages of
8d. per hour must bé called depressed.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 441
The causes are not due to infertility of the soil, animal or plant diseases,
or incompetent management. On the contrary it can be said that manage-
ment generally is too good and production too great for the present level
of consumption. Therefore, under-consumption is the main cause of
agricultural depression. ‘This under-consumption is the result of the low
purchasing power of the masses due to low wages.
The low wage psychology that still prevails extensively among industrial-
ists and financiers is an inheritance from the scarcity age when it was neces-
sary to increase capital goods at the expense of consumption goods.
In a profit economy, this surplus of capital goods, i.e. ‘ production kept
back from consumption,’ accrues to a comparatively small class, leading to
waste and extravagance on the one hand, and over-investment on the other.
Hence the anxiety about the foreign investment market.
For a very long period this country has been engaged in the profitable
game of lending abroad. Profitable that is to certain interests. By the
nature of the case these loans will be made to the so-called backward
agricultural countries, who can only pay interest and sinking fund by ship-
ping raw materials and foodstuffs to the creditor country.
These foodstuffs coming in on interest account force down prices generally
and so cause distress to agriculture, and, because they are tribute goods
needing no exports of manufactured goods to pay for them, are a direct cause
of general unemployment, and so lessen effective demand.
Mr. A. N. DuckHam.—Marketing policy and special features (11.30).
The marketing devices utilised under the Hops, Milk, Potatoes, Pigs and
Bacon Marketing Schemes, the Cattle, Sugar and Wheat Subsidy, and the
National Mark Schemes are outlined :—
(a) Regulation and standardisation of commercial practices (through
grading services, registration of dealers, and other devices) save time,
trouble and marketing costs, and broaden the basis of demand by improving
quality and by facilitating the custom of new wholesale and retail buyers.
(6) Statutory combination of farmers can enhance their bargaining power
and help them to obtain the price which various outlets (e.g. liquid milk,
manufacturing milk) can afford to pay, instead of the price the least profit-
able outlet is willing to pay. Limitation of the volume of (physical) market-
ing and processing facilities can aid agriculture by concentrating buyers’
competition and reducing their overhead expenses.
(c) Price stabilisation schemes foster efficiency by reducing the speculative
nature of agriculture and help to satisfy the demand of farmers for security
of livelihood (and potentially of the consumer for security of supplies and
price).
(d) Protection from or limitation of imports is not alone enough to secure
stable profits or increased home output, as consumer-demand may not
automatically switch from imported to home-grown food. Intensive study
of the consumer, and an aggressive ‘ sales’ policy for British agriculture
(sic) and home-grown food are, therefore, indicated. The relation between
marketing policy and agricultural science is also discussed.
GENERAL DISCUSSION on preceding communications (12.0).
AFTERNOON.
_ Excursion to the Midland Agricultural College, Sutton Bonington,
Loughborough.
442 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M.
Friday, September 3.
MEETING in the River Trent Catchment Board Offices, Derby Road.
Mr. F. Yates.—Crop estimation and forecasting (10.0).
Forecasts of the yields of agricultural crops can be based either on the
meteorological data or on quantitative measurements and inspection of the
growing crop. The use of meteorological data requires a knowledge of the
effects of meteorological factors on yield and can only take into account
effects of meteorological factors. Observations on the crop, particularly
quantitative measurements, may serve to integrate the effects of both meteoro-
logical and other factors. The choice of the most suitable measurements
must be determined by trial.
The sampling technique developed at Rothamsted provides a method, both
of estimating the average yields of the different crops promptly at harvest,
and of obtaining quantitative measurements of known accuracy on the growth
of the crops. During the last few years sampling observations of this nature
have been carried out on experimental wheat plots at various centres, and the
most suitable methods of sampling commercial yields have been investi-
gated. Interesting results have already been achieved. More recently
observations on sugar beet and potatoes have been undertaken.
The accurate knowledge of the average yields of the principal crops
immediately they are harvested is of considerable importance in any con-
trolled economic system, quite apart from its use in evolving methods of
forecasting.
Mr. W. H. HatLe.—Drainage system of the Trent Catchment Area (10.45).
Principal H. G. Ropinson.—The agriculture of the district (11.30).
The district discussed is that within a twenty miles radius of the city of
Nottingham, and concerns the central portion of the Trent valley. It is
an area in which the interests of agriculture and industry clash in respect
of labour demands, but the industrial population has provided good
markets which have had a marked influence on agricultural systems.
Mixed farming is typical—indeed it is the most typical mixed farming
district in the country. The distinctive soil types introduce variations in the
farming system. ‘The Bunter soils constitute a major agricultural problem
in this district, chiefly because of the low and uncertain rainfall. ‘The
Keuper Marl provides a sharp contrast, giving rise to heavier and more
fertile soils. The Trent valley alluvial soils are often underlaid with gravel,
while the Coal Measures give rise to a system of agriculture that flourishes
because of good markets as distinct from a good farming environment.
There are interesting historical associations, including Laxton, the only
surviving example of open-field farming, while Robt. Bakewell was a native
of the district.
Present-day farming in the district concerhs the production of milk as
the dominant activity, even on the small farms which are typical of the area.
On the arable side wheat and oats are the principal cereals, while of the
roots potatoes and beet find an important place in the rotation.
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 443
Mr. H. T. CranrieLp.—Liming and soil fertility : is a planned scheme
desirable ? (12.15).
The problem of liming the soils of this country has attained prominence
recently by the decision of the Government to subsidise the purchase of
lime by farmers, as part of a scheme for increasing soil fertility.
We have many thousands of acres of land which are in urgent need of
lime, and, moreover, will require systematic liming if their crop-producing
powers are to be maintained. In Nottinghamshire alone the area of land
suffering from soil acidity is very considerable.
Ir any campaign designed to stimulate increased liming of soils, many
important factors must be given due consideration. Indiscriminate liming
may lead to wastage and in many cases very disappointing results. Liming
alone may be ineffective unless accompanied by good farming and adequate
manuring. This applies equally to grassland as to arable land. Over-
liming must be avoided, having regard to losses by drainage and to the
possibility on some soils of certain deficiency diseases of crops appearing.
It is urged that complete success of a liming campaign can be reached
only by the formulation and development of a scheme whereby all farmers in
lime-deficient areas will be strongly urged to seek expert advice before
arriving at any decision regarding the liming of their land. If such a
scheme were taken up wholeheartedly, the present county and provincial
advisory services would be inadequate to deal efficiently with the increased
demand on their services and an increase in personnel would be indicated.
The expenditure necessary would be small relative to the sum of money
which the Government has earmarked for liming during the next few
years.
AFTERNOON.
Excursion to Laxton ‘ open fields,’ Kirklington Hall and Brackenhurst
Hall, Southwell.
Saturday, September 4.
Excursion to Lincolnshire, Kirton Agricultural Experimental Station,
Fleet, Spalding. Boston, including visit to Captain Wilson’s farm at
Surfleet to see intensive vegetable cultivation and the Indore method of
making humus ; visit to a typical Fen farm ; visit to Kirton Experimental
Station.
Monday, September 6.
Mr. H. V. TayLor.—The development of horticulture in glasshouses and
frames (10.0).
Plants indigenous to a country are those suitable for production in the
climate enjoyed by that country, but where it was desired to grow other
plants it became necessary to construct suitable houses and frame structures
for their protection. When such production of plants in glasshouses and
frames started is not clear, but it was probably practised on the Continent
long before the system came to England. There can be no doubt, however,
that Sir Joseph Paxton was largely instrumental in popularising the building
of. glasshouses, first by his erection of the Conservatory at Chatsworth and
444 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M.
secondly by his erection of the Glass Palace in Hyde Park to house the
International Exhibition in 1851. After this the popular conception of
glasshouses was much widened and industries of crop production sprang
up at Swanley, Worthing and North London in glasshouses, since which
time the industry has very much increased.
Glasshouses and frames are now used for the production of early vegetables
and salads, flowers and fruits, and are extensively used in the production
of tomatoes.
The heating of these glasshouses and frames has also gone through
stages of development from the use of fermenting tan pits, flues in the walls,
steam jets, to hot-water tanks circulating hot water in pipes; coal, éoke,
oil and electricity have all been used as heating fuels. The process of
development and evolution still continues.
Dr. W. F. BEwLey, C.B.E.—Science in relation to the glasshouse industry
(10.30).
During the early days of the glasshouse industry some fifty to thirty years
ago, crops were grown more naturally than they are to-day, when ‘ out of
season ’ crops and those planted unusually early yield the greatest profits.
With the coming of early forcing and heavy feeding came a multitude of
diseases and pests which soon caused serious financial losses.
To combat these enemies the Experimental and Research Station was
started at Cheshunt in the centre of the great Lea valley glasshouse district.
This paper represents an attempt to show how the scientific workers studied
the problems year by year, solving each in turn, and by recommending
measures which the practical grower could use safely and easily removed
the menace of financial ruin from the industry.
Mr. A. W. Wuite.—Bulbs under glass (11.0).
Daffodils and tulips are the principal bulbs dealt with, although there
are many other classes, e.g. Iris and Gladioli, which may be discussed.
The important part of the subject deals with the treatment of the bulbs prior
to taking them into heat. ‘The actual forcing under glass is not nearly so
important as the preparation, both in the growing and the storing previously.
Lifting, grading and storing are great factors in the preparation for bulb
forcing, and it is on these operations that the results so much depend.
After that comes the boxing, and still further care is necessary so that the
bulbs may get their proper root action.
Consideration is given to the various varieties of both Daffodils and Tulips
that may be prepared for Christmas and New Year flowering, with notes
upon the class of house in which they are forced, and the temperatures used.
Then come the easier methods of obtaining successful crops for mid-
January and February, and reference is made to preparation and gentle
forcing for March and April flowering.
Bulbs planted in cold frames are considered.
Mr. F. A. Secrett.—The production of early vegetables and salads under
glass (11.30).
This subject is of universal interest because the health of nations and
individuals is seriously affected by the correct production of vegetables
which are so necessary in the well-balanced diet.
During the past few years horticultural duties have tended to stimulate
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—M. 445
the production of early vegetables under glass, but there is still room for
expansion in this particular section of the agricultural industry. Certain
factors and conditions govern successful production, and these are, briefly :
1. Soil and situation.
. Manure and cultivation.
. Water supply.
. Soil-heating.
. Labour.
. Capital.
The crops dealt with in the paper are: cabbage lettuce, cos lettuce, mint,
carrots, turnips, marrows, cauliflowers, beans, spinach, celery and melons ;
but it must be noted that, as more knowledge is acquired by further experi-
mental work, many additional crops will be grown under glass.
AnhW DN
GENERAL DiscussION of preceding communications (12.0).
Tuesday, September 7.
Jont Discussion, with Section K (q.v.), on Pasture problems (10.0).
EVENING.
JornT Discussion, with Sections C, D, E, F, K, on Planning the land of
Britain (8.0). See page 486.
CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES
THE Conference was held at University College, Nottingham, on
Thursday, September 2, and Monday, September 6, 1937, under the
presidency of Professor James Ritchie.
A large audience attended the meetings in addition to delegates repre-
senting seventy-five societies.
Thursday, September 2.
Dr. TreRNEY, Secretary of the Conference, reported that nominations
were required to fill two vacancies on the Corresponding Societies Com-
mittee in place of Sir Albert Kitson, deceased, and Mr. T. Sheppard, who
retires by seniority. A cordial vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Sheppard
for his valued services and the delegates approved the following recom-
mendations to Council as members of the Committee for the ensuing
year :
Prof. J. Ritchie.
Dr. Vaughan Cornish.
Mr. T. S. Dymond.
Prof. W. T. Gordon.
Dr. A. B. Rendle.
Dr. G. F. Herbert-Smith.
The delegates appointed the following representatives to the Committee
of Recommendations: Prof. J. Ritchie and Dr. C. Tierney.
ADDRESS ON
THE OUTLOOK OF NATURAL HISTORY
By Pror. JAMEs RITCHIE,
President of the Conference.
Tue NATURAL History OUTLOOK IN LOCAL SOCIETIES.
You as the elected representatives of the Corresponding Societies stand for
that love of Nature and inquisitiveness about natural phenomena which
have been the background of some of the greatest contributions this country
has made to the knowledge of natural history ; and I stand as a representa-
tive of the study of animal life in the Universities. In the beginning our
interests were similar, at any rate similarly catholic ; we were baptised with
the same baptism, for the majority of your Societies are Natural History
Societies and the Scottish Chairs were founded and are still known as
Chairs of Natural History. And in the beginning (the Chair I formerly
occupied in Aberdeen University was founded in 1753, that in Edinburgh
which I now occupy in 1767) the outlook from these Chairs was wide and
all-inclusive, they surveyed the world of living nature. Their outlook
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 447
was reflected in their product, and the chief products of a University are the
men and women who leave its walls.
To take but one line of investigation: think of that great band of
naturalist travellers and adventurers who left the University of Edinburgh
to gather knowledge in the ends of the earth. We cannot doubt that some-
thing of the spirit which animated them was born in these class-rooms
where knowledge of the plant and animal worlds was laid open to them.
In the Dark Continent of Africa there was James Bruce who discovered the
sources of the White Nile, Mungo Park and Balfour Baikie who explored the
Niger, Sir Andrew Smith who brought back the first sure knowledge of the
Limpopo. To the wastes of the Arctic Ocean went William Scoresby, and,
after his time, the Franklin expeditions were staffed by Edinburgh natura-
lists—Sir John Richardson, who finally led the Franklin search expedition
of 1847-49, H. D. S. Goodsir who lost his life with Franklin on the expedi-
tion of 1845. The most far-seeing naturalist traveller of them all, Charles
Darwin, had his baptism of academic natural history from that same Chair,
as his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, a great man also, had before him.
And who can tell how much the scientific exploration of the seas owes to
Edinburgh students of the old school, Edward Forbes who founded the
science of Oceanography, Sir Wyville Thomson who, as organiser and leader
of the Challenger Expedition, conducted the greatest scientific voyage ever
planned, and contributed more than any single man to our knowledge of the
oceans and their inhabitants ; Sir John Murray whom I knew in his later
years, who carried on the work of the Challenger after Wyville Thomson’s
death, and my old friend Dr. W. S. Bruce who organised and led one of the
most successful of those Antarctic Expeditions which marked the opening
of the present century. These were great men, men of broad outlook and
wide sympathies ; practically all of them were students of medicine, for
that was then the only gate to the biological courses; many of them never
reached the stage of gaining a University degree, but all passed through the
discipline of the old-fashioned natural history.
And now the tree of the knowledge of natural history has so flourished
that many of its great branches, like an Indian banyan tree, have lowered
their own supports into the soil, and have become all but independent
offshoots. ‘That is as it should be, for progressive evolution is bound up
with increase in specialisation ; but specialisation of itself is not enough,
evolution also implies more perfect unity and co-ordination with each step
in specialisation. Division of labour is useless without co-operation. That,
the co-ordination of the developing and diverging branches of knowledge,
is the problem of the moment. How that affects the Universities I do not
mean to discuss here, but I should like to glance at the changes which
specialisation has brought about in the outlook of the local natural history
societies.
On reading the addresses of past Presidents of this Conference, I notice
that grave differences of opinion have been expressed as to the purposes
for which your societies were formed. One view (expressed by Mr. John
Hopkinson at the Havre meeting in 1914) is that the purpose of local
natural history societies is to investigate the Natural History of their
locality, and that no other purpose can justify the existence of sucn a
society. If that definition were accepted, how many of the societies
scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land would survive the
test ?. Comparatively few ; yet the remaining societies fill a useful place in
the development of nature knowledge. I lean to a much wider conception
of the function of a Natural History Society (such as that propounded by
Prof. G. A. Lebour at the Newcastle meeting of 1916).
448 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
In the preface of a little work entitled ‘A Natural History,’ published by
Sir Thomas Blount in 1693, is to be found this sentence: ‘'The deeper
insight any Man hath into the Affairs of NATURE, the more he discovers of
the Accurateness, and Art, that is in the Contexture of Things,’ and that
might well be taken as the creed of your societies. It signifies two things.
It signifies in the first place that, where two or three are gathered together to
recount and discuss in a scientific spirit (which is just the spirit of controlled
inquiry) the discoveries made by others, insight into the ways of Nature is
being stimulated and deepened. That might almost be regarded as an end
in itself. It is the justification for the lecture syllabuses and summer
excursions of your societies. It has this further justification, that it is
spreading the notion of science and scientific method among the people,
and until the scientific spirit of co-operation and of undeviating adherence
to truth permeates the populace, there can be no hope that science will take
its proper place in guiding the affairs of the nations.
By all means expound, and continue the natural history lectures and dis-
cussions. That is one of your contributions to the spread of knowledge,
and it has been made the more necessary because of the specialisation to
which I referred, and which threatens to divide our science into isolated
compartments, to make it a Babel of words and ideas, with, in the language
of the geneticist, no crossing over value. In Milton’s words:
“ A jangling noise of words unknown.
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud
Among the builders ; each to other calls
Not understood.’
And the words are from ‘ Paradise Lost’ !
But there is a second implication in Sir Thomas Blount’s phrase. ‘ The
deeper insight any Man hath into the Affairs of Nature ’ points to the study
of Nature herself at first hand, and that is the greater part, the most attrac-
tive and at the same time the most elusive target at which a natural history
society may aim. It is to this aspect of the activities of your societies, the
direct study of nature, and to the change which specialisation has wrought
in the opportunity of original amateur observation, that I wish specially to
refer.
‘THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIALISATION UPON THE OUTLOOK OF THE SOCIETIES.
The stable work which has kept the local societies alive as contributors to
knowledge has been the building up of local lists. Sometimes it was an
all-round naturalist, sharp of eye, keen in the discrimination of minute
differences, overflowing with general interest in the world around him, who
ventured, and ventured successfully, to name all kinds of plants and all
kinds of animals. That general activity has ceased ; the accumulation of
knowledge enforced restrictions, and the local naturalist limited his collect-
ing and his identifications to a particular group which came to be his own
pet hobby: he became an entomologist, though even there he concentrated
his labours particularly upon butterflies and moths, or bees and wasps, or
beetles, or he became a conchologist and collected shells, or an ornithologist,
or a microscopist, which covers a multitude of subjects. So he made his
local collections, and from them his local lists, and the result is that, owing
mainly to the painstaking and persistent labours of the naturalists of the
societies, we possess a knowledge, second to that of no other country, of
the distribution of the major groups of British animals.
But, alas, this safe and comparatively simple outlet for the energy and
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 449
enthusiasm of the local naturalist has of recent years become chocked,
blocked by time and progress. The very thoroughness of the listing,
carried on through many years, has made more and more remote the pos-
sibility of discovering some new thing, and since it is discovery which gives
the urge and flavour to all scientific investigation, the salt of local-list making
has lost much of its savour. Moreover the fact that new species have now
become rare discoveries in the faunas of civilised lands has driven the pro-
fessional systematist to seek his discoveries in finer and more subtle discrim-
ination between related forms, so that where specific identification was once
regarded as all-sufficing, now the determination of sub-species and varieties,
geographical races and sub-races, is deemed necessary ; where Linnzus,
and naturalists for more than a century after him, were satisfied with
binomial labels for plants and animals, the modern specialist demands
trinomials. It no longer satisfies this demand for minute accuracy to dis-
tinguish a Goldcrest from a Firecrest ; one must be able to say whether the
Goldcrest, this smallest of our birds, is Regulus regulus regulus, a visitor to
Britain from the mainland of Europe, or Regulus regulus anglorum, a British-
born subject ; or whether the crossbill of the winter months is the alien
Loxia curvirostra curvirostra or the native Loxia curvirostra scotica.
This growing subtlety of identification, exemplified in another group by
the use of the comparative anatomy of the genetalia of insects, has played
into the hands of the specialist ; it requires time, thorough knowledge, a
mass of specialist literature often difficult to obtain ; in fact, more than any
other development, it has frozen out the amateur of the natural history
societies from a province that for ages was particularly his own.
It would be a grievous blow to the usefulness of the societies and to their
self-esteem as a corporate part of the organisation of science in this country
were it to be felt that their day of co-operation in scientific progress had come
toanend. It has not come to an end, of that I am sure, but I think that the
direction of effort must be changed to meet the new conditions, and therefore
I propose to suggest some lines of natural history investigation along which
the societies may readily contribute their quota to the advancement of
knowledge.
THE FuTURE OUTLOOK OF THE NATURAL HisTory SOCIETIES.
In the development of scientific work during the present century two
notable changes have been taking place. In the first place there is a marked
tendency, due to the growing complexity of scientific problems, to forsake
the old individualistic form of research—the researcher ploughing his lonely
furrow—and to replace isolation by the collaboration of many workers,
organised as a team, whose joint labours, carefully planned, converge upon
some definite problem. That is the secret of most present-day attacks
upon problems of nutrition, of human diseases, of diseases of domestic
animals, of the economic exploitation of the fisheries ; it was just such
organised team work which enabled the Drosophila-zoology of Morgan to
create a flood which almost swept zoologists off their feet.
This method of co-operation is no new thing to the members of this con-
ference. At the Newcastle meeting of 1916 Prof. G. A. Lebour laid before
you many excellent suggestions for joint work upon geological problems.
To-day I am concerned rather with natural history from the zoological
point of view. And the second notable change which has been taking place
in scientific development points the way along which the societies might
well move, with profit to themselves and to science.
During the present century there has been an enormous change in the
450 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
objectives of zoological investigation. Almost since zoology began the
pendulum has swung between interest in structure and interest in function,
and for many years the structural characteristics of animals themselves
dominated, I might almost say usurped, the field ; first, it was the super-
ficial structures, which determined the classification of a creature ; then when
the inquiry was pushed a little deeper, the gross structures of the animals,
described on their own account and almost irrespective of their function ;
and lastly the microscope was called in for a final analysis, so that nothing
in a structural sense should be lost. These studies moved far beyond
the sphere of the natural history societies, but they expressed the zoological
spirit of the times. ‘They are useful and important studies ; very properly
they will continue to have their followers, and I say no more about them,
safe in the assurance that ‘ old soldiers never die,’ although it must be con-
fessed that their blood may run very thin.
But the spirit of the times is changing, and now the emphasis has forsaken
structure for structure’s sake, and is laid upon the animal as a living thing ;
zoology is stressing its place as a science of life.
JoInT ENTERPRISES IN BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.
The combination of these two modern tendencies offers a new outlook
and a new field for the societies ; the combination of organised co-operation
or team work directed towards the solution. of biological problems. Let
me give you an example or two of the sort of scientific work I have in mind.
We know generally how beasts and birds are distributed throughout
Great Britain, and we know that man with his cultivation, and industries,
and ribbon-building and so on, interferes with the distribution of some of
them. We see the differences, perhaps after the lapse of years, but we do
not know enough about the numbers of beasts and birds in any area to be
able to recognise changes whenever they occur and before they force them-
selves upon our notice. ‘The only safe basis for estimating changes must
be a census. Some creatures are more easily counted, some are more
worth counting, than others: there is the grey squirrel, which has spread
since its introductions, ultimately from America, an undesirable alien; we
should like to know more about its numbers in different parts, to supplement
Mr. A. D. Middleton’s account, and as a check upon its movements. Even
more interesting is our own red squirrel ; in some places it seems to be dying
out, in other places it continues to flourish, but only when we get counts
can we hope to understand such anomalies. Amongst birds, there is the
rook, because of its interest to farmers ; the owls, because of their value as
destroyers of vermin ; we do not even know if blackbirds, thrushes, house-
sparrows, are increasing or decreasing throughout the land.
Only successive counts can tell. No single man can make such a count ;
to be really valuable it must be approximately simultaneous. But your
natural history societies could make such a census a success, were it
organised for them, if each society plotted out its own area amongst its
active members. Moreover organisations are at hand for the planning
and analyses of such counts, such as the Bureau of Animal Population at
Oxford, and the Institute of Ornithology which has already carried out
several successful bird counts. But the societies could help almost inde-
finitely in the expansion of such scientific investigations.
Consider how much we have learned in recent years, about bird migration
by organised co-operation in the ringing of birds in this and other countries ;
about the arrival and movements of migrating birds and many other seasonal
happenings by the organised reports sent to the Royal Meteorological
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 451
Society and published annually as a Phenological Report ; about the migra-
tions of insects in Great Britain by the reports asked for by a Committee
of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, set up for the purpose
of collecting and analysing such information. Members of the societies,
as individuals, already do good work in all these investigations, but more
observers are required and the societies could organise them.
I have been interested in a rather curious bird-count which has become
fashionable amongst the Natural History Societies in Canada and the United
States of America—a Christmas bird-count. Each Christmas Day a society
arranges that groups of its members should make a survey of the birds in
definite nearby localities, and a list of every kind of bird and its numbers in
each glade, or park, or wherever it may be, is published. I have compared
some of these lists year after year, and I feel sure that any such observations,
carried out at the same season and in the same localities and repeated for a
series of years, are bound to yield results of interest and sometimes of
surprising and unsuspected changes. And besides there is the interest
imparted to and shared in by the observers themselves.
Joint enterprises, carefully planned, are profitable enterprises scienti-
fically, and while I should have liked to submit to you a list of problems
which could best be tackled in this way (and many such problems will occur
to anyone familiar with the trend of natural history investigation) I must
pass to another line of attack upon biological problems open to you.
BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.
It may be that in some of the societies the number of members interested
in natural history is too small to permit of joint enterprises, or it may be
that some members prefer the independence of the lone hand. JI commend
to them the biological type of problem. A most striking difference between
the collector’s method, which predominated for so long, and the biological
method, lies in the material of their study. The collector, and on the whole,
the list maker, are looking for rarities, their material becomes more scarce
the longer they labour, their collecting of rarities reduces still further a stock
which may be dwindling, even towards extinction. Such things are un-
desirable. On the other hand, the student of life requires no rare material,
the more common a creature is the better it suits his method, for his object
is to learn something of the principles which regulate the lives of animals,
and the more abundant his material the greater likelihood is there of the
success of his observations. And there is still opportunity even in the most
familiar creatures for the gain of new knowledge, if the inquiry be pushed
far enough. Often it need not be pushed very far.
Take the common house-sparrow—I can think of nothing more familiar
or more easily observed. My experience of house-sparrows is that every
full clutch of eggs contains one egg slightly different in shape and coloration
from the rest. Is that the first egg to be laid or the last, and does it produce
a sparrow different from the others in size or colour or sex? I doubt if
anyone knows. Certainly no one knows exactly how long sparrows’ eggs
take to incubate in different districts, or how long the fledging period lasts
under different conditions. Are the young birds fledged and able to fly
sooner when food is plentiful or when the air temperature is high, than when
food is scarce and the weather is cold? The answer would have a bearing
on a fundamental biological problem—the relationship of growth and
development to nourishment and warmth. Another point which seems to
me to have some interest: do the second and third clutches of a pair of
sparrows take exactly the same time to hatch and fledge as the first clutch ?
452 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
Do the parent sparrows learn anything from their first experience so that
times are speeded up, or do the seasons or the monotony that is bred of
repetition slow down the speed of development in the later clutches ?
That kind of inquiry could be extended almost indefinitely, because it
is applicable to all our common birds ; it would answer unsolved questions ;
and best of all it would afford an outlet and a training for that inquisitiveness
and desire for acquisition of knowledge which lies at the heart of every
naturalist. ‘To those of you who still may think that there is little to be
learned about British birds (and we may regard them as the most studied
of all the components of the fauna) I would commend the reading of a short
article on ‘ Our Present Knowledge of the Breeding Biology of Birds,’ con-
tributed by the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain a few years ago to British Birds
(vol. 24, 1930, p. 138). It is because of the unfolded possibilities in a
nestful of eggs, that Iam mainly against the taking of eggs. Every egg taken
destroys an opportunity of recording the development of the young, and
that is what we wish to learn about, life and its development. The old
Latin tag put it neatly : omne vivum ex ovo, ‘ every living thing develops from
an egg ’—but nothing ever developed from an empty egg-shell.
From another angle of observation the songs of birds afford many oppor-
tunities of discovery. I have a correspondent who settled for his own
district, in the North of England, the simple question, ‘ How long does a
skylark sing?’ With a stop-watch and patience to listen to over 500 songs,
he found the average length to be just 2-22 minutes. But there are many
things to watch for: Mr. Rollin found, for example, that the larks which
sang longest all kept together in the same field. No one suggests that larks
make a selected chorus, but why do the best singers all keep together ?—
the suggestion is that perhaps the older birds tend to flock together, and that
from age and practice these may be the more efficient singers. We do not
know much about such things ; every accumulation of observations is of
value, provided the observations are carried out on a scientific plan.
The life-histories of birds, or of insects, or of mammals or any other
creatures, the influence of the weather and the seasons upon development
and upon the plant and animal population of a circumscribed area, the
changes wrought upon plant and animal groups by the interference of man,
these and many other problems offer themselves as subjects proper for the
direct attack of natural history.
SIMPLE EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY.
But there is another sort of attack, somewhat less direct and straight-
forward in its method, which is open to you and which will appeal to those
who wish to exercise a little ingenuity in unravelling the ways of animals,
the method of experimental zoology. I know it is a common notion that
experimental zoology, a fashionable development of our science at the
moment, is bound up with elaborate apparatus, elaborate dissections and
transplantations of tissue, and so on ; but it has its simpler side, and I have
the impression that, where simplicity is possible, the less elaborate the
interference with an animal may be, the more likely is the reaction to be the
natural reaction. ,
The sort of experiment I have in mind, and any one of you could carry
out such an experiment, is such as Charles Darwin’s test for the intelligence
of an earthworm. An earthworm has a very tiny brain—that was a real step
in the evolution of life upon the earth, for before worms existed there were
no brains at all; and Darwin wished to know if that simple brain endowed
a worm with any glimmering of intelligence. Worms havea habit of pulling
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 453
things into their burrows. Darwin supplied them with triangles of paper
which could be pulled in easily by the tip, but with difficulty by the broad
base. He found that most of the triangles were pulled in the easy way, and
concluding that that involved a decision or a discovery that there was an
easy way, he was prepared to allow a modicum of intelligence to the
earthworm.
Or let me show you, from an experience of my own, how simply an ex-
periment may develop. ‘Twenty-four years ago I was spending a Saturday
afternoon basking in my garden in Edinburgh in October sunshine. I had
three papers, which I read at intervals. One was the Scotsman ; and as I
read I noticed that a small cloud of insects, the Winter midge (Trichocera
hiemalis), a relative of the Crane-flies, kept hovering above the newspaper-
sheet at a height of about 4 ft. Ultimately I laid aside the Scotsman, and
began to read the old green Saturday Westminster Gazette. The insect
cloud still hovered above, but I was surprised to see that it had descended
very markedly. I then tested the insects with Country Life, a magazine
with highly glazed paper, and the cloud at once rose, and hovered at a greater
height than even for the Scotsman.
Very little consideration indicated that the height of the cloud of winter
midges was regulated in some way by the colour or the light reflected from
the surfaces over which they hovered.. The next step in the test was a
simple one. I prepared several pieces of cardboard all of equal size, and
painted them with different colours, black, white, blue, green, orange, red,
keeping the tone of the colours as nearly equal as possible. And then I
tried them on the winter midges ; but to make the decision as easy as pos-
sible for them I gave them only two colours to choose between at a time :
black and white, and the cloud hovered over the white ; I covered the black
card with a blue card, and the cloud still remained over the white: then I
covered the white with the red, so that they had to choose between blue
and red, and the cloud left the red and came within a minute to hover over
the blue. And so on for all the colours, until I had worked out the pre-
ferences of that hovering cloud: and I came to the conclusion from these
simple tests that colours influenced them in the order of their wave-length—
the shorter wave-lengths, blue end of the spectrum, were preferred to the
longer wave-lengths, red end of the spectrum ; indeed, that the insects were
simply reacting, not to any colour as a colour, but to intensity of reflected
light.
Some of you are familiar with the interesting results that came of Lord
Avebury’s equally simple experiments. with bees and wasps and coloured
discs of paper. There is no end to that sort of experiment. I listened a
few months ago in Edinburgh to Miss Ilse describe her recent colour-tests
with butterflies. ‘The results were extraordinary. Whenever it hatches, a
butterfly is attracted to a particular colour, but different kinds of butterflies
prefer distinctly different colours. Yet the original preference does not
hold a compelling attraction for a butterfly throughout its life, for when it
learns by experience the flowers which contain the nectar it desires, the
original preference fades before the colours of the nectar-bearing flowers.
There are great possibilities in such simple ways of testing the reactions
of living things, and the method is one which lies ready to the hand of the
inquiring naturalist. Only I must warn you that experiments have to be
planned with care, and their results scrutinised with caution before a wise
conclusion may be ventured.
Even so I do not pretend that those lines of observation which I have
suggested to you will lead to great discoveries, great discoveries lie in the
454 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
lap of the gods ; but I do say that the natural history outlook demands from
the observer himself accuracy, persistent or continuous observation, careful
recording, and in the end that rigid consideration which leads from facts
to general truths : that is a training of which the world stands badly in need
to-day, for it leads to uncompromising adherence to the issue of carefully
sifted facts. ‘To the societies themselves the natural history outlook will
bring, is indeed bringing, new vigour, and with it that satisfaction and
honest pride which go with the enlarging, even in modest degree, of the
bounds of knowledge.
Following the President’s address, a communication by Mr. J.
RamssBoTToM, O.B.E., on The biological work of Natural History Societies
and its co-ordination, was considered and discussed ; and arising there-
from it was resolved :
That the Conference recommend to the Council of the British
Association the desirability of establishing through its Corresponding
Societies Committee a close liaison with the Association for the Study
of Systematics in relation to General Biology with a view to the
Corresponding Societies undertaking work bearing upon systematic
problems.
Monday, September 6.
Prof. F. E. Weiss, F.R.S—What Dovedale means to the botanist.
The beautiful valley of the Dove was suggested to the National Parks
Committee appointed by the Government as a suitable area for a national
park or nature reserve. This suggestion was supported by competent
scientific opinion and by a large number of administrative authorities, and
the importance of its preservation, both for its scientific amenities and for
the enjoyment of the public, has been very widely recognised. Despite the
inaction of the Government, which has not taken any steps to implement
the recommendations of its Committee, the preservation of Dovedale and of
the adjacent Manifold Valley has in recent years been brought nearer to
realisation by munificent gifts of considerable stretches of land in and around
the area which have been handed over to the National Trust. Fore-
most amongst these benefactors is Sir Robert McDougall, who has purchased
and donated to the public considerable portions along and near the banks
of the Dove as well as extensive areas of the adjacent Manifold Valley.
The Pilgrim Trust has been equally generous and Mr. Hodgson Kerfoot
and the Imperial Chemical Industries have come forward to complete
the acquisition of further stretches of the valley. The London Midland
and Scottish Railway Company have also presented the site of the dismantled
Manifold Valley Light Railway and the Staffordshire County Council
proposes to spend £6,000 on transforming the track into a public path.
If the apathy of the Government could be overcome by public pressure and
the land between Dovedale and the Manifold Valley could be scheduled
for the purpose of establishing a national park, one of the ideals of nature
lovers might be realised by securing for the public in perpetuity one of the
favourite beauty spots of the Midlands and North of England.
Even if the complete scheme for a national park remains as something
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 455
to be striven for, all must be grateful for the good beginning that has been
made by the generous gifts of these benefactors. ‘The land already acquired
for the public includes open meadow land, the river and river banks, as well
as woodland and scrub, so that a great variety of plants, birds, insects and
other wild life is open to observation and study. I am mainly concerned
with the vegetation, and shall deal with the plants found in Dovedale which
are typical of a Midland limestone dale.
In early spring, Dovedale will reveal some interesting plants to the
botanist. ‘The Mountain Pepperwort (Hutchinsia) will be found in flower
among the limestone cliffs, while the rue-leaved Saxifrage adorns the walls.
In moist situations both forms of Golden Saxifrage are abundant and later
in the year the Mossy Saxifrage and the Meadow Saxifrage are common.
The early flowering Green Hellebore is very scarce in Dovedale and the
sweet-scented Mezereon is equally rare. In early summer the woodlands are
sweet with the scent of Lilies-of-the-Valley and with Woodruff. In shady
places the Mountain Currant, rare in Britain, may be found in flower, and
in more sunny situations among the screes the white flowers of the Rock
Bramble will be seen, to be followed in autumn by its scarlet berries. In
similar situations the Lesser Rue, scarce except in limestone districts, is
comparatively abundant, and so is the blood-coloured Cranesbill, and in the
meadow-land the Birdsfoot Trefoil and Lady’s Finger or Kidney Vetch ;
while in adjacent dales Jacob’s Ladder is to be found. ‘The late summer
and autumn bring the Broadleaved Campanula and the Great Mullein,
but the Small Teasle is local and rare. The Spindle Tree with its brightly
coloured fruits is also very scarce in Dovedale. Of orchids, the early
Purple Orchis, the Spotted Orchis and the Butterfly Orchis are common in
the meadow-land, while in the shade the Helleborine is not uncommon.
These are only some of the plants that we can search for and shall enjoy
finding in what has been preserved for us and for posterity in Dovedale by
generous donors.
Mr. F. A. Hotes exhibited and described a map of Dovedale and the
neighbouring Manifold Valley, indicating the area under the control of
the National Trust and calling special attention to further portions of the
area which it is earnestly hoped would be secured for safe custody and
permanent preservation in its natural state for the benefit of the nation
as a National Park.
Capt. C. W. Hume.—The rabbit problem in Britain.
Variation in abundance of the rabbit—Market statistics suggest that the
abundance of the rabbit is characterised by cyclical fluctuations having
a period of about seven years, superimposed upon a steady increase. Two
theories that have gained wide currency are contradicted by the facts:
(i) abundance is not closely correlated with rainfall, and reaches a peak
sometimes after dry years and sometimes after wet years ; (ii) the recent
peak of abundance has not been caused by a diminution of trapping due to
a fall in prices, for the numbers trapped have rapidly increased each year
since 1932. Presumably disease and predators are major factors in deter-
mining the cycle.
If history repeats itself, the rabbit-population is likely to fall temporarily
in the near future, rising subsequently till it reaches a néw high record in
1943 or 1944 if co-ordinated efforts to control the increase be not made.
pewation of abundance with locality appears to be correlated with economic
actors.
456 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
Economic status of the rabbit—The wild rabbit causes incalculable
losses to agriculture and forestry by destruction of trees, crops and banks,
by carrying disease, by souring the ground, and by changing the botanical
composition of pastures in an unfavourable manner. Its low nutritive
value makes it an expensive form of food; it is frequently infested with
tapeworm, coccidiosis and other parasitic diseases ; and the flesh has the
unwholesome feature that it contains the blood, whence its red colour as
compared with that of the domestic or Ostend rabbit.
On the other hand, wild rabbits are a source of profit to furriers, felt-hat
manufacturers, trap-manufacturers, game-keepers and professional rabbit-
trappers ; moreover unsuccessful farmers often prize their rabbits.
Prosecutions for poaching wild rabbits are fairly frequent.
It is not difficult to exterminate rabbits when co-ordinated action is taken,
but when ground has been cleared it is usually reinfested from neighbouring
ground. ‘The fact that rabbits have a market value prevents the general
adoption of drastic means such as cyanide fumigation for exterminating
them, especially in years of relatively small abundance when prices rise.
Methods of killing wild rabbits This subject has been clouded by con-
troversy between persons who object to the gin trap on account of its cruelty,
and game-preservers and others who are anxious to defend its use. The
facts appear to be as follows. ‘The gin trap is the most profitable means for
taking rabbits for the market ; as a means for keeping down rabbits it is,
however, inefficient. Cyanide fumigation (with Cyanogas, Cymag or Calcid)
is the most efficient means for keeping down rabbits, but yields no profit
from sales. It kills humanely, and half-gassed animals do not suffer from
after-effects. "The poisoned rabbits are not harmful if eaten. Being highly
poisonous it requires careful handling, but in practice casualties do not
occur when it is used in the open air. It is applicable in all cases in which
a trap could be set in a hole. The foregoing remarks do not necessarily
apply to fumigants other than cyanide fumigants. Other methods such as
snaring, long-netting, ferreting and spot-lighting yield heavy catches but
are not universally applicable. Pit-traps and smooses are suitable mainly
for wired-in warrens. Shooting is restricted by law, and shot rabbits fetch
relatively low prices in consequence of damage to the pelts.
Humanitarian aspect and need for scientific inquiry—The gin trap is in-
humane, and it is desirable that the sacrifice, if any, which the community
would make in abjuring this instrument should be authoritatively assessed.
The Mersey Committee of the House of Lords formulated a compromise
between conflicting opinions and interests, and the time at its disposal did
not permit of a thorough investigation into matters of fact. ‘There is need
for an experimental and quantitative investigation into the relative merits
and ecological effects of the principal methods of dealing with mammals that
are harmful to agriculture.
Arising out of Captain Hume’s communication and the discussion which
followed, the delegates passed the following resolution :
That the Council of the British Association be requested to represent
to His Majesty’s Minister of Agriculture and to His Majesty’s Secretary
of State for Scotland the necessity of instituting an enquiry to ascertain
the effects, in respect of efficiency, economic reactions, and humaneness,
of available methods of dealing with rodents and other wild mammals
that affect agriculture.
EVENING DISCOURSES.
FIRST EVENING DISCOURSE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1937.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD
SUPPLY
BY
Dr. R. E. SLADE.
From earliest times men must have found considerable difficulty in the
food supply when living in large communities. As man has become more
civilised, and his life has become more organised, he has made mistakes in
dietetics—mistakes which a committee of the League of Nations has
investigated and now reported upon.
There is now a ‘ newer knowledge ’ of nutrition which will guide us in the
selection of our food—for the quality of our food is perhaps of greater
consequence to us than is the quantity.
To the chemist Lavoisier belongs the credit of having first approached
human nutrition from the fundamental scientific aspect. His discovery
that the animal body is essentially a kind of furnace, in which the food
digested undergoes slow combustion and is ultimately converted into heat,
remains the chief corner-stone of the modern science of dietetics.
Foods may be roughly classified into ‘body workers and warmers’
(essentially carbohydrates and fats), ‘ body builders’ (essentially protein),
and ‘ body protectors’ (essentially vitamins and minerals). The first are
required to maintain the body temperature above that of the surrounding
air, to supply the body with energy for carrying on the internal operations
of digestion, etc., and for doing external work.
Proteins are needed for building up cellular tissues, both in growth and in
repair; and the newer work on nutrition has demonstrated not only the
superiority of certain proteins for body building, but also something of the
role of vitamins and minerals for the efficient functioning of individual
organs, and for co-ordinating their activities.
A food is evaluated as a supplier of energy by measuring the heat it gives
out when it is oxidised in the body. The chief suppliers of energy are the
carbohydrates (sugars and starch) and fats, though the proteins also
contribute their quota. The total energy value of human food is usually
measured in terms of calories, but for foods given to useful domesticated
animals like cows, sheep and pigs, a larger unit is employed—that of 1 lb.
of starch. The starch value, or ‘ starch equivalent ’ of a food is a number
expressing how much of it acts as starch during digestion.
Thus the S.E. of linseed cake is 72, 7.e. 100 parts by weight of it supply
the same amount of energy as 72 parts of starch. One pound of starch is
equivalent to 1,861 calories. A similar unit is used for proteins. The
‘protein equivalent ’ of a food expresses the percentage of the food which
plays the same part in the animal economy as pure digestible protein.
Thus linseed cake has a protein equivalent of 24, i.e. 100 parts of linseed
cake are equal in body-building value to 24 parts of pure digestible protein.
: R
458 EVENING DISCOURSES
The crude protein of a food is the percentage of nitrogen multiplied by
6:25. ‘The percentage of crude protein in linseed cake is 29.
The quantitative food requirements of farm animals have been studied
far more intensively and accurately than have those of human beings.
The amounts of starch equivalent and protein required by domesticated
animals at different periods of their life, and for different requirements,
have been determined practically, so that it is now a matter of routine to
provide them with a ‘ balance ration ’ that contains all the necessary amounts
of carbohydrate, protein, etc., and in the correct proportions, not only for
‘ maintenance,’ 7.e. for keeping the body supplied with energy, but also for
‘ production,’ i.e. for enabling it to produce the needed amounts of market-
able produce, milk, meat or eggs.
As an illustration : a milch cow weighing 1,000 Ib. requires daily 6 Ib.
of starch equivalent, and 0-6 |b. of protein equivalent, to maintain it in
health and keep its weight constant. For each gallon of milk (3 +7 per cent.
fat) it produces, it will require 2:5 lb. starch equivalent, including 0:6 lb.
digestible protein. Hence a cow weighing 1,000 lb. and giving 4 gallons
of milk a day will need :
Starch Equiv. Protein Equiv.
lb b.
For maintenance : : 6:0 0:6
For producing 4 gal. milk . : 10°0 2°4
Total to be fed per day : 16°0 310
These amounts can be made up in a variety of ways, the starch equivalent
can be supplied as grass, hay, straw, oats, barley, maize, roots, etc., and the
protein as oil-cake or good grass ; but it is essential to keep the ration
‘ balanced’ in respect of S.E. and P.E. to avoid waste and to maintain
health ; and also to see that its bulk does not exceed the appetite of the
animal.
Besides this, the animal must receive sufficient minerals and vitamins to
maintain health.
SomeE T'yPicaL Foop REQUIREMENTS.
Starch Equiv. Protein Equiv.
To feed a milch cow for 1 year and pro-
duce 800 gall. milk . 4,200 700
To feed a heifer calf from 2 months
(150 lb.) to 3 years (11 cwts.) when it
produces its first calf : 7,300 1,300
To feed a calf until it is a 2- year-old
bullock weighing 10 cwts. 5,000 1,000
To feed a young pig from 50 lb. to 160 Ib.
(bacon weight) : 330 50
To feed a young sheep (teg) from 80 to
180 lb. . 510 70
To feed a hen for 1 year —produce 160
eggs : ; i : 5 ; 60 II
To feed a man for 1 year doing hard work 640 95
To feed a man for 1 year doing little
work . 530 65
To feed a boy of 10 years & growing bad
energetic * 5 3 450 80
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 459
In the case of man, half the protein should be first-class protein, #.e. it
should be derived from meat and milk.
In the case of animals, some recent work at the Hannah Dairy Research
Institute indicates that the protein contained in grass is of greater value
than the protein obtained from the seeds of plants.
We will now consider the source of our food supply—how it comes from
the plant, and the animal through the plant.
The original source of all human and animal energy is solar radiation.
Although plants take up some of their food (water, nitrogen and minerals)
through their roots, part of it is derived from the carbon dioxide in the
air, which, under the influence of sunlight, is decomposed by the green
colouring matter in the leaves, the carbon being assimilated and the oxygen
returned to the air. The compounds produced, carbohydrates and pro-
teins, have the highest chemical energy in the life-cycle of the plant. The
building up of the leaf is a storing up of chemical energy, and all the other
processes involved in a plant’s life, including ripening to form seed, and the
sprouting of the new seed to form another plant, are but stages in the
degradation of that energy. ‘The energy of all parasites on the plant is also
derived from the energy in the leaf, and the whole activity of the animal
world comes from this source. In other words, the animal world is but an
incident in the decay of leaf matter.
The leaf of a plant may contain 50 per cent. to 90 per cent. water, but the
dry matter consists largely of soluble carbohydrates and proteins, together
with minerals and vitamins. When the plant begins to ripen, the carbo-
hydrates change into cellulose, and protein moves from the leaf into the
flower and seed.
In the case of cereals and grasses—and probably of most other plants—
there is little further synthesis after the plant starts to ripen. All the
feeding value is present in a crop of grass—say at the end of May—and
though we leave the grass until the latter end of June before we cut it for
hay, the feeding value of the crop does not increase during that time. (The
reason we do not cut it for hay at the end of May is that in this stage of
growth it is so difficult to get the grass killed by the sun, so that there would
be grave danger of the stack taking fire spontaneously, and in any case
there would be considerable losses due to fermentation in the stack.)
It will be useful at this stage to consider what are the chief foods men
eat, and from whence they come.
We obtain the best quality protein from meat, milk, cheese and fish.
In these foods, the protein which originally existed in the leaf of the plant
(or a plankton in the sea) has been selected during metabolism by the
animal for its own purpose—since man is similarly constituted to the animals,
this selection is useful to us—and we can call these first-class protein foods.
Fruit and grain of various kinds also contain protein, but in this case the
protein from the leaf has been selected by the plant which has taken to the
seed those proteins necessary for plant regeneration. From the point of
view of the animal, the plant is not a particularly good selector of proteins
and we class these as second-class proteins.
Man also eats leaves to some extent, especially spinach, cabbage and
lettuce, and these leaves are quite high in protein. In this case there has
been no selection of the leaf proteins by animal or plant, and it is probable
that this leaf protein is intermediate in value to man between animal and
other vegetable protein.
an obtains starch equivalent to supply heat energy, in the form of bread,
cereals, butter, fat and fruit, as well as, to a lesser extent, in meat, milk,
cheese, etc.
460 EVENING DISCOURSES
He obtains protective foods—vitamins and minerals—in small quantities
from almost all the foods he eats. But of all foods, leaves are the form of
food which contain most, if not all, of the vitamins, and leaves are rich in
minerals ; though the actual concentration of certain vitamins is greater in
some kinds of meat, such as liver, or in certain parts of the grain.
The following diagram shows the derivation of the principal types of
human food from leaf matter :
LEAF MATTER
ANIMALS
Fic, I.
Farm animals—cattle, sheep and pigs—eat grass in the leafy stage, and
hay, cereals and feeding cakes. ‘The latter are tropical seeds and nuts from
which the oils have been extracted for making soap or margarine.
There is not much doubt that for cattle and sheep grass is the best food
when it is available—but the pig thrives best on grain as well, since he has
not a stomach large enough to deal with all his food in a bulky fibrous form.
Our system of feeding a farm animal may be illustrated by reference to
a milch cow. From early May it grazes the pastures, eating the leaves of
grasses and clovers, from which it can obtain all the nourishment it requires,
even when it is producing up to 4 gallons of milk a day. Later, in the
summer, when the grass has become more stemmy with less leaf, a heavy
milking cow finds it more difficult to obtain all the food it requires, especially
if the soil is becoming dry and new leaves of grass are not growing. It is
then usual to supplement the grass grazed by the cow with a ration of feeding
cakes.
From the autumn rains there is generally another flush of leafy grass,
and again the heavy yielding cow can obtain nearly all it requires from the
pasture. Then, in the late autumn, the cow is usually housed for the winter
and fed on hay, roots and feeding cakes, cereals and other meals, until
spring returns.
Actually the cow which is giving milk is only fed entirely on grass for
quite a short time of the year—perhaps May, part of June, and then again
from the middle of August to the middle of September.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 461
Since the war we have learned a good deal about the management of
grassland, and, as I hope to show you, we can now get very much more
’ food for our cattle from an acre of land than was previously possible.
Grass grows mostly during the summer, but the rate of growth is not at
all even during the warmer part of the year. If left to itself, grass grows
during the spring and then ripens. Most grasses flower during June and
July, and the seed falls during July and August. If the grass is cut or
grazed before it ripens or flowers, it will grow again in an endeavour to
flower. Even if it is left uncut, some grasses will start growing again in
rte FOOD Or Ff - Cow
Per Cent of Total Food
Month
Fic. 2.
the autumn if light can get through the matt of dead grass to the young
shoots. But these conditions do not apply to a well-managed pasture
which is kept grazed and prevented from flowering, though they do apply
to the overgrown grass found on rough grazings.
In discussing the yield of food given by crops I shall not consider the
total weight of the crop but the crude protein content. This is the weight
of nitrogen in the crop (found by analysis) multiplied by a factor (6-25),
since this is the ratio of nitrogen to total weight in a protein. In grass the
crude protein content is usually about 50 per cent. higher than the protein
equivalent. In some foods the difference is less.
462 EVENING DISCOURSES
I use the protein value of the food rather than the starch equivalent
because it is in regard to the protein value that there is the greatest danger
of the animal receiving insufficient.
Recent investigations of Dr. M’Gonigle and others have shown that the
poorer population of this country, though they receive sufficient starch
equivalent, are definitely suffering from partial protein starvation. This
Yield of Crude Protein in Grass from
cutting during the summer months.
1934
Fertilised Unfertilised
(22 ewl. Am SQ, per acre)
is especially deleterious for growing children and for expectant and nursing
mothers.
As an example of the way in which the growth of grass varies at different
times of the year, I can show you the results of an experiment at Reaseheath
in Cheshire in 1934, when the grass was cut whenever it was 4 to 5 inches
long.
The limitation of productivity was chiefly water supply as it was a year
of drought.
During 1935 there was more rain and the increase of yield due to fertilising
was greater.
These two tables indicate the different growth in two succeeding years,
and the difference of the distribution of that growth over the season.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 463
It is obvious that during some of the summer months there is plenty of
grass, and at other times a shortage.
It is usual to keep as many cattle and sheep on a farm as can eat the grass
during the leaner months of the summer.
In Jersey and Denmark cattle are tethered on the pastures ; when they
have grazed the grass around them they are moved off to another spot, and
Yield of Crude Protein in Grass from
cutting during the summer months.
13835
Fertilised Unfertiltsed
(22 cwt Am 502 per acre)
Fic. 4.
the pasture is treated with liquid manure. The grass grows again rapidly,
and is regrazed when it is 3 or 4 inches high. By this means it is possible
to control the grazing, so that the grass never becomes too long and coarse,
or matures to seed.
A more elaborate and more scientific method of controlled grazing was
initiated by Prof. Falcke, of Leipzig University, in 1904, in which he used
sulphate of ammonia in place of liquid manure. In 1916, Prof. H. Warmbold
developed this method in extensive trials at Hohenheim, and about ten
years later Mr. T. H. J. Carroll and Sir Frederick Keeble introduced it into
England under the name of ‘ New System of Grassland Management.’
In essence, the system consists in dividing a field into six or eight small
paddocks, treating the grass with sulphate of ammonia at intervals of a few
464 EVENING DISCOURSES
weeks, and grazing, by milch cows and other stock, as soon as the grass
attains a height of 4-5 inches, leaving ‘ followers’ (dry cows and cows in
calf) to clear up the remains. When the cows come off the pasture, it is
harrowed to spread the dung, and then treated again with sulphate of
ammonia. This ‘new system’ was started on the farm of Mr. Brunton
at Marton, near Middlesbrough, and has been successfully worked there
for ten years ; under it, the number of cows carried by an acre of grassland
during the summer has been doubled.
Although the ‘new system’ never became general, the experimental
work done with it left a valuable aftermath, notably the extension of the
grazing season in the spring and in the autumn. By suitable management
of grazing, and applying a moderate dressing of nitrogen in February or
March, sufficient growth can as a rule be obtained to feed cattle on pasture
two or three weeks earlier than usual, thus saving the farmer the cost of
feeding concentrates during that period.
Until about ten years ago our farmers never contemplated the use of
nitrogenous fertilisers on pastures: they would kill the clovers, and es-
pecially wild white clover, which is the chief permanent nitrogen-fixing
legume in a pasture. Mr. Brunton, however, found that the ‘ new system ’”
did not involve the destruction of clovers.
About eight years ago Sir Frederick Keeble and Lt.-Col. W. R. Peel
decided to start experiments upon the effect of fertilisers and of manage-
ment on the composition of a pasture, and this work was placed under
the direction of Mr. Martin Jones, who had-been working with Prof. R. G.
Stapledon at Aberystwyth.
Mr. Martin Jones demonstrated that the bad effects of nitrogenous
fertilisers were due to insufficient grazing, and grazing at the wrong time,
which allowed the coarser grasses to grow long and choke the finer grasses
and clovers.
I think I can best illustrate the result of Martin Jones’ work by reference
to Fig. 5, on which are shown the times of the year at which some grasses
grow leaf. A pasture is made up of many grasses, but the consideration of
these few grasses will, I hope, be enough to make the principle clear.
Nardus only grows leaf in July, and rapidly becomes fibrous and un-
palatable. It is therefore considered a weed.
Bent is better. It grows leaf for a period of three months.
Indigenous Perennial Rye Grass grows leaf during six months of the
year if—
(i) it has already a well-established and developed root system ;
(ii) the supply of water in the soil is sufficient for growth ;
(iii) the necessary nitrogen and minerals are present in the soil in a
suitable form.
If the pasture is grazed in early April when perennial rye grass has only
made little growth, and cocksfoot has made no growth at all, then the
perennial rye grass receives a check, for stock will eat its young palatable
shoots to ground level since there is no other green growth available. If,
after grazing, the field is rested, cocksfoot, which is now starting to grow,
has no perennial rye grass to compete with and no grazing animals to check
its growth: it passes through its critical period under favourable conditions.
It becomes strong, and successfully competes with the perennial rye grass
which is now endeavouring to make its second growth. If, on the other
hand, the field is rested in April when perennial rye grass is starting to
grow, and grazed a fortnight later when cocksfoot starts, the cocksfoot will
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 465
be more punished than the perennial rye grass, for the latter has grown
and developed its root system.
Hard grazing at the end of May, when wild white clover starts its growth,
reduced the competition of the tall growing grasses—perennial rye grass
and cocksfoot. The wild white clover, freed from the overshadowing
effect of these grasses, develops. If the field is shut up for hay, in the
early spring the tall grasses develop and overshadow the wild white clover,
with the result that the clover population is greatly reduced and may be
eliminated after successive years of this treatment. By hard grazing in
Periods of Productive Growth
of Leaf of some Grasses.
Nardus
Bent
Wild White Clover
Rough Stalked
Meadow Grass
Cocksfoot
Perennial
Rye Grass
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
Fic. 5.
early summer in subsequent years, the clover can be brought back, the
rate of progress being increased if the pasture is kept hard grazed both
winter and summer.
There is another important point in pasture management which I can
illustrate from the diagram. ‘The earliest grass which we can grow in the
spring is perennial rye grass. It will usually grow quite early in April if
there is a well-established root system. From the diagram we see that
perennial rye grass grows as late as September and October, so if we do
not graze or cut the pasture during the latter half of September and early
October, perennial rye grass will grow and establish a strong root system.
After October, when the grass has ceased to grow, we can eat off the grass
without damaging the root system, but if we want early grass next year
we must take the cattle off about Christmas and fertilise the pasture with
R2
466 EVENING DISCOURSES
ammonium sulphate or nitro chalk in early spring. Of course, we must
have sufficient lime, phosphate and potash present.
By the proper management of the grassland on an English farm, it is now
possible to provide good grazing from the middle of April to almost the end
of October, and this management will be made easier, and the period
extended, when we use indigenous strains of grasses such as have been
bred by Prof. Stapledon and his co-workers at Aberystwyth.
Besides good grassland management, let us for the moment consider the
effects of bad grassland management.
If we graze a pasture hard in the spring every year, we check the perennial
rye grass and cocksfoot, and then if we undergraze from the end of May
the grass will grow in tufts which will become chiefly Yorkshire fog and
bent. Other parts of the field will be kept grazed short and will consist
largely of wild white clover, because the animal, offered far more than it
can eat, makes a selection.
If a field is cut for hay, the wild white clover will be checked, and if this
is done year after year, clover will be almost entirely eliminated. Taking
a crop of hay from a permanent pasture will always be a severe check to
the growth of wild white clover, just as close grazing at the end of May
and for the rest of the summer will tend to increase the wild white clover
at the expense of everything else.
‘There are many other ways in which we can ill-treat a permanent pasture.
Good grassland management consists in keeping a balance amongst the
desired grasses and clovers by not ill-treating any one constituent of the
pasture too long, and by alternating the treatment of the pasture each year
so that desirable grasses which are discouraged one year are encouraged the
next, and those which have been encouraged must be checked in the
following year lest they become too strong.
The good management of grassland is not achieved by blindly following
a rotation, but by observing the results of past treatment and following
the principles based on the work of Stapledon and Martin Jones.
By good grassland management a large amount of food can be grown on
an acre of land, as we shall see later, but this grass must be grazed off or
cut to suit the grass and clover population of the field, and not to suit the
immediate demands of the animals alone, so that if we are going to have
properly managed grassland we must consider how we can manage our
farms. ‘There are the following alternatives :
(1) A small part of the grassland on a farm is well managed and the rest
takes its chance. The well-managed part is cut or grazed at the
right time, and the rest of the grassland becomes a rough grazing.
This has been done on some farms, where the farmer has more or less
managed his fields near the farm and has let the rest become rough
grazings.
(2) The whole of the grassland might be well managed—but when a
field required grazing and there were no animals to graze it, the field
would be mown and the grass wasted—except at a time suitable for
making hay. This system works, but it is wasteful and difficult to
carry out, and the land must be understocked.
(3) The whole of the grassland on the farm may be managed well, and
surplus grass cut and preserved for the winter feed. In this case it
is worth while growing as much grass as possible, and nitrogenous
fertilisers will be found to assist the system of management. The
quantities of food produced per acre, on this system, are obviously
much greater than on the other two systems.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 467
Grass PRESERVATION.
Hay.—Excess grass in a mature stage during June and July can be made
into hay. The grass is cut and dried in the sun. When killed and dry,
it is made into a stack, where it ferments—more or less. If rain has fallen
on the hay it will have lost some of its feeding value. In general the losses
during haymaking and maturing in the stack are about 40 per cent.
PROTEIN VALUES CALCULATED ON Dry MATTER.
Crude Protein. P.E. S.E.
Hay 5 ; ! : A 9 246, 935
Young Grass. : ; : 7) 12 56
Young Grass Silage . ; : 15 10 50
Linseed Cake . : : : 29 24 72
Dried Grass F : ; : 17 12 56
Plam Kernal Cake . : : 19 17 73
Production of Grass, 1935
(ewl of Crude Protein per acre)
Silage
200
Hay
Dried Grass
Grazing
150
a
a il
100 =
Uv
.
50
VILW AM LLL ML hhh | ; : 4
Jan. Feb. Mar Apl. May
468 EVENING DISCOURSES
Grass Silage-——The practice of ensilage was introduced into Britain in
the 1840’s, but did not get under way until the ’eighties. Since then it has
increased, but only to a moderate extent, although it is much used in other
countries—notably in New Zealand and Germany.
Dr. S. J. Watson, of Jealott’s Hill, has recently investigated the merits of
different methods of making silage. He has found that grass, whether
young and leafy or mature, may be made into silage. In order to prevent
excessive bacterial decomposition of young high protein grass in the silo,
it is necessary to keep the grass acid. ‘This is done either by the addition
of hydrochloric and sulphuric acids, or, I believe better, by adding molasses
Consumption of Grass etc. 1935
(cwl of Crude Protein per acre)
Foods not derived
from grass
Silage
Hay.
Dried Grass
Grazing hee
bas R : eS cep, a oo
Sin WAZ JE pro
Meeease U/; Y Y Y ROS eteesn eres: ist ®
777
===//////7==
=—=7y ar |
Jan. Feb. Mar Ap! May June July Aug Sept. Oct Nov. Dec
to the grass. The sugar of the molasses is fermented to lactic acid, which is
effective in keeping the mass acid.
Grass Drying—When Dr. Woodman discovered, or rediscovered, the
high protein content of young grass, he suggested its preservation by
artificial drying, and Prof. Wood got into touch with Sir Frederick Keeble,
who asked us at Billingham to dry some young grass. In 1927 we dried the
cuttings of cricket fields and made about five tons of dried grass for experi-
ments at Cambridge on feeding animals.
Young grass containing perhaps 75 per cent. or 80 per cent. of water can
be dried to about 3 per cent. water by blowing a stream of hot air through
the grass.
The dried grass is practically identical in feeding value with the original
grass. It is green, and contains the minerals and vitamins unchanged.
As an example of the method of grass drying I will describe the Tednam-
bury Drier.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 469
This consists essentially of a furnace to burn coke, a fan, and the drier
proper. The fan draws air through the coke bed in the furnace, and this
mixes with secondary air so as to produce air at about 125° C. ‘The fan
blows this under the perforated tray on which the grass is laid about 2 ft.
thick. The tray is about to ft. square.
In order to prevent the air from blowing holes in the bed of grass, hurdles
are laid on top of the bed. When the grass is partially dry, and has shrunk,
Production of Grass. 1936:
(cwt. of Crude Protein per acre)
Hay 200
Dried Grass
Grazing
WT)
Uy
Jan. Feb Mor Apl. May June Oct. ©
the hurdles are removed and more grass is added. Drying then proceeds
again. When the grass is becoming dry in patches on top, the fan is stopped
and the grass on the tray is tedded to mix it up well. The hurdles are put
back, and the grass is finally dried by blowing more air through it.
The dried grass is preferably baled, but it can be stored in stacks or bins.
Application of Grass Drying to a Farm.—Nearly four years ago, when we
had at last got a pretty reliable drier which would produce grass at an
economic cost, Colonel Peel undertook to run Dairy House Farm, near
Middlewich, on a system including the preservation of summer grass by
470 EVENING DISCOURSES
drying and silage, and this has now been done for three complete years.
What has been done on the farm is shown in Figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9, which show
the amount of crude protein produced each month in various forms—
grazing, hay, dried grass and silage—and the amount of crude protein
consumed each month by the stock. These values have been found to be
of more interest than the weight of food produced and consumed.
The amount of food obtained from a field by grazing has been calculated
back from the results achieved by the animal. Thus if a 1,000 lb. cow
had been maintained for one day, and had yielded four gallons of milk, we
Consumption of Grass etc 1936
(crt of Crude Protein per acre)
Foods not derived
So from grass
HLL Boy
Dried Grass
Grazing
Be Hi | | Ee oe
iin ge gee iia
oe
===777 Y=
should conclude that the grass consumed had contained 16 lb. of starch
equivalent, and 3 lb. of protein equivalent, or 4:5 Ib. of crude protein.
The cow must have had at least this quantity, and if it ate more the excess
must have been wasted.
The foods not derived from grass consisted of roots, cereals and feeding
cakes.
In 1935 the average yield of crude protein per acre over the whole farm
was 595 lb. and in 1936—which was a wetter year—was 680 lb., but as
we get more experience in managing the grassland we are learning each
year how to produce more food per acre.
Let us compare the yields of protein and starch equivalent obtained by
various treatments from one acre of land.
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 471
Foop OBTAINED FROM AN ACRE OF GRASSLAND UNDER VARIOUS TREATMENTS.
Crude Starch
Treatment. Protein. Equivalent
lb. Ib.
1. Four cuts (1934) Highest . A 1,400 5,000
Lowest . “ : 561 2,200
2. A field at Dairy House twice cut and then
grazed. ; QI4 3,400
3. A field at Dairy House mown for hay and
aftermath grazed : : : : 585 2,000
4. Intensive grazing at Mr. Brunton’s farm
(average of 10 years) . : 681 2,900
5. Ordinary pasture (calculated from Sir
Thos. Middleton’s data) . : : 180 760
6. Ordinary meadow (calculated from Sir
Thos. Middleton’s data) . 5 : 200 840
7. Dairy House (average of whole farm, 1935) 595 2,280
8. ” ” ” ”» ” 1936) 680 2,780
g. Wheat (17°7 cwt.) i ; ; 178 1,400
At Dairy House we are probably producing three to four times as much
food (for animals) per acre as is being produced on the average grass farm
in this country. At the same time we are doing the animals well—the
cows have a good bloom on their coats even at the end of the winter, and the
young stock thrive well. The introduction of drying on the farm has not
only produced the winter feed for the cattle, but it has enabled the grass-
land to be improved, so that the grazing period is extended earlier in the
spring and later into the autumn. It is also probable that the cows yield
more milk during the winter than they would do on other rations. At
Dairy House last year, when the cows went out to grass in the spring, the
increased yield of milk was 9-6 per cent., whilst at another farm, equally
well managed but where dried grass was not fed, the increase in yield was
17°6 per cent. From this one may conclude that during the latter part of
the winter the cows at Dairy House were giving about 8 per cent. more
milk than they would have done on ordinary feeding-stuffs. This is perhaps
to be expected, for grass is the natural food of cows, and the protein of
grass probably contains a better assortment of amino-acids for milk pro-
duction than do the proteins of feeding cakes, and we know that dried grass
provides the vitamins and minerals required.
By the use of a grass drier we have increased the food production on the
farm so that we do not require to buy concentrated feeding-stuffs so long
as we keep only the same number of animals as were formerly kept on the
farm, but to cows giving more than four gallons of milk per day we give an
extra ration of a high protein food such as linseed cake.
There is no reason why more cows should not be kept, and feeding cakes
fed as well as dried grass, except that we have no more cow houses on the
farm. The solution of this problem in the warmer parts of England is
perhaps the use of the Hozier Bale system in which the cows are kept and
milked in the field all the year round. Ifthe number of cows in the country
were generally increased we should have to make more cheese or butter than
we do now, or, of course, we might drink more milk. To bring our con-
sumption of milk up to the level recommended by the League of Nations
Commission on Nutrition, it has been estimated by Sir John Orr that we
should need to possess quite another million cows, 7.e. increase the present
number by nearly 50 per cent.
472 EVENING DISCOURSES
THE PRODUCTION OF Foop FOR MAN.
We have considered how much crude protein we can produce from an
acre of grassland. In the western part of England in fields laid down
with Prof. Stapledon’s indigenous pedigree strains of grasses, I believe we
should eventually be able to produce 15 cwts. of crude protein per acre,
and I hope that some day we may be able to obtain this figure as the average
production per acre over a whole farm, but for the present we will be satis-
fied with a figure of 700 Ib. per acre, which we are now obtaining in
Cheshire. We will consider how much food for man can be produced
from this protein.
I acre grass yields , 700 lb. crude protein
giving in the form of dressed beef. 45 lb. of protein
or in the form of milk . : t 103 lb. of protein (300
gallons of milk).
1 acre of wheat (17°7 cwts.) yields. —_ 178 lb. crude protein
giving in the form of flour . . 100 Ib. of protein.
This 700 Ib. of crude protein in grass can be fed to produce beef and will
yield 45 lb. of protein in the form of dressed joints of beef, or it can be fed
to milch cows, when it will yield 103 lb. of protein in the form of milk,
which can be drunk or made into cheese.
Let us compare this with the yield of human food obtained from wheat.
The average crop of wheat in this country is 17-7 cwts. per acre, containing
178 lb. of crude protein. This wheat can be ground to give flour, bran
and wheatings. The flour will contain 100 lb. of protein, which is food
for man, and the bran and wheatings 78 lb. of protein for animal feed.
So that an acre of grassland at Dairy House in Cheshire is giving approxi-
mately the same amount of food for man in the form of milk as can be obtained
from an acre of wheat. But the protein in milk is of more value for human
food than the protein in flour. The League of Nations Committee on
Nutrition considered that half the protein consumed by man should be of
animal origin. Besides this, milk contains vitamins necessary for life, and
there is no doubt that in time of necessity we should be in a strong position
if our system of agriculture made it possible to produce large quantities of
milk protein per acre.
Our national agricultural policy has in the past been based upon wheat
as the most important food for man which can be produced in this country.
I think we have now demonstrated that more valuable food can be obtained
from an acre of land by growing grass and feeding cattle if a grass drier is
used.
THE FUTURE.
I have mentioned the possibilities opened up by Prof. Stapledon’s strains
of grasses of some day producing 1,500 lb. of crude protein per acre. At
present we are producing on one or two farms about 700 Ib. per acre, but
from this we are only able to make roo Ib. of first-class protein in the
form of milk, or 45 lb. in the form of beef. If we could feed grass protein
to pigs, we might produce 70 lb. of protein in the form of pork, for the
pig is a more efficient feeder than the bullock, but grass contains too much
fibre to be the principal food for pigs.
Now, from ancient times until the middle ages, animals were well fed
in the summer ‘and starved on hay in the winter. There was very little
milk available in the winter, and' no fat beef. The cows did well to live
until the young grass began to grow in the spring. The chief protein food
GRASS AND THE NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY 473
of man in winter was salted meat and cheese made from summer milk.
It is easy to imagine how man discovered the making of cheese. If he
tried to keep milk, it went sour and acid, and precipitated the protein. Later,
he found better methods of precipitating the protein.
The preparation of a protein food from grass is not so simple, but I believe
that it would be possible for our bio-chemists to produce a protein-rich
food from grass, containing practically no fibre, but much of the useful
foodstuffs present in the grass. We will call it Grass Cheese. From an
acre of grassland we can get 700 lb. of protein. Surely we should be able
to get grass cheese containing 350 to 600 lb. of crude protein, or 220 to
400 lb. of protein equivalent, as well as carbohydrates. ‘This grass cheese
would make a very useful food for pigs—to replace imported feeding-stuffs—
and in time of necessity it might supply a maintenance ration for the people.
Let us assume that we can make a grass cheese suitable for man, and that
we can obtain 350 lb. of protein equivalent from an acre of grassland.
We have seen that a man requires 60 to 95 lb. of protein per annum. We
shall be on the safe side if we allow 80 lb. per head of the population,
including men, women and children. This quantity will allow for a
certain amount of waste.
Then one acre of good grassland would support 4-4 head of people.
Now the land of England and Wales consists of :
9:0 million acres of arable land
rn ee », Of permanent grass
heer aie ,, of rough grazings.
To support 40 million people on grass cheese we should require 9:1
million acres of grassland, or just about the whole of our arable acreage.
If we could produce a grass cheese we might put all our arable land under
temporary grass, and obtain from it enough food for the nation without
slaughtering our cattle. Our milk and beef would be available as extras,
and would ensure a sufficiency of food and of vitamins.
If we could make grass cheese and feed men on the leaf protein of grass,
we could produce four or five times as much food per acre as we do by
growing wheat ; and in time of national emergency, instead of ploughing
up old pastures and sowing wheat, we should sow down arable land to
grass or other leaf crop.
I wish to emphasise the economy and efficiency to be obtained by feeding
man on the leaf instead of on the fruit or grain. In the past, grass has been
the most important leaf crop for feeding animals, and I see no reason why
it should not remain so, as the cultivation of grass is economical of labour ;
but on the other hand there is no reason why other crops should ‘not be
grown to produce large quantities of leaf matter suitable for food. In the
form of leaf matter we could grow sufficient food in this country to support
a entire population. The problem to be solved is the preparation of the
ood.
DISCUSSION ON
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF
GENERAL EDUCATION.
(Prof. WINIFRED CULLIs, C.B.E., Dr. H. E. Macer, Prof. R. C.
Garry, Dr. L. P. Locknarr.)
Discussion By SEcTION I (PHysioLoGy) ON TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 7, 1937.
Prof. WINIFRED CULLIS, C.B.E.—Knowledge of the body’s working,
the basis of healthy living.
To be really in touch with life as it is lived to-day, it is essential to have
some knowledge of the basic facts of science. Our living conditions are
governed and conditioned by the application of scientific knowledge. In
our homes in their heating, lighting, refrigeration, in our transport, in our
industries and even in our entertainment (not always to its advantage)
mechanisation has become more and more predominant. For many years
now as regards certain of the sciences, more particularly physics and
chemistry, the need for instruction has been recognised. In this recognition
the British Association has played an important part. But the biological
sciences did not so early secure a place, except that for some (to me) quite
inexplicable reason systematic botany (not the botany of to-day) was
regarded as quite ‘ nice’ and as suitable therefore for girls. At present,
thanks to a vigorous campaign carried out by many individuals and organisa-
tions, we are in the full tide of the establishment of these sciences in the
school curriculum. The fullness of this latter makes very understandable
the resistance by authority to the admission of any new subjects. A tin,
after all, can only contain a certain number of biscuits, and to put in a fresh
sort must needs mean either the turning out or the limitation of some of
the sorts already there. So with the hours available for school work.
Naturally, every specialist teacher ‘ knows ’ that his own subject is the most
valuable from the educational standpoint. We, therefore, who specialise
in biological subjects know (and of course we also know how right we are !)
how important it is for everyone to have some knowledge of the basic laws
and facts as they apply to this business of living. After all to be success-
fully alive is the fundamental necessity for everything we do, and the more
‘ alive ’ we are the more successful we are likely to be.
For living we have at our disposal one of the most complex and marvellous
of organisations ; is it not obviously to our advantage to know something
of its working when a mistake made through ignorance and easily prevent-
able by knowledge can have as its consequence a life-long handicap ? May
I remind you of the usual comparison to-day of the human body and a
motor car. By the time a human being reaches the age of twenty it is
reckoned that in actual cash he has cost his parents and the State at the
least something in the neighbourhood of £1,500, and those who pay heavy
bills for schooling, clothing and holidays will realise that is indeed a minimum
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 475
figure, to say nothing of the care and attention that has been expended
which cannot be expressed in terms of money. What owner of a Rolls
Royce worth £1,500 would put it in charge of a person who, though he
could drive it, knew nothing of its make-up ?
This audience will, I feel sure, agree that some biological teaching is a
necessity, but may have different views as to what is the best approach.
Should it be through general biology or through physiology and more
specifically human physiology ? Either approach in the hands of a properly
qualified teacher will be of value, but my own view (perhaps because I am
a physiologist) is that given teachers equally qualified the physiological
approach is the better. We shall hear more of this from Dr. Magee and
Prof. Garry.
The value of the teaching of physiology in schools is two-fold—there is
the interest of the subject itself and there is its practical value. A certain
amount of curiosity as to the workings of the body is natural to children,
and one wonders why some simple physiology has not been universally
taught in schools. Of course, hygiene has been introduced, but too often
it has been taught in an empirical fashion, without the physiological basis
which gives the reasons for the habits to be inculcated, and children are
definitely reasoning beings. I sometimes think that the failure to teach
physiology in the schools and to teach the teachers physiology in the colleges
and universities springs from a failure to recognise one of its greatest claims
to be included, that it is a subject that deals with the normal and with the
healthy. It has been so much bound up with medicine—for which, of course,
it is an essential and fundamental study—that, in its application to the
understanding of disease, its value as a science of health and normality has
been overlooked. Certainly, it is a subject well worth teaching for its own
sake; it gives scope for stimulation of the sentiments of wonder and
admiration without which life is a much less interesting affair. Properly
taught it gives excellent practice in reasoning ; from given facts a working
hypothesis has to be evolved if advance is to be made. It is a science
peculiarly alive not only because it deals with life and living, but because it
is continually growing and so gives a valuable concept of a fundamental
aspect of scientific study—of evolution.
There are, too, adventure and romance in abundance in the stories of its
great discoveries and discoverers.
In view of all this why is it that physiology has not been universally
taught ? Evidently physiologists are not good advertisers of their wares.
Physiological material and discoveries made use of in other sections gain
wide publicity. We have had two examples even in this meeting. Colour
blindness for example discussed in Section J has been much reported—
though colour blindness dealt with by a physiologist who has contributed
considerably to its study gained little space in the press. ‘ Conditioned
reflexes,’ a subject first described and elucidated by the great physiologist,
Pavlov, again achieves publicity when referred to in another section ! .
Another point is possibly that there are not enough properly trained
teachers available in schools to deal with this subject, and therefore
authorities and teachers, being afraid of it, seem to be inclined to think it is
not there. Those who have had opportunities of teaching physiology in
forward-looking schools, know that children find it an interesting subject.
In the press, generally, the same attitude is seen. In the very abundant
reports of Mr. Wells’ Presidential Address to the Section of Education,
columns are devoted to his criticisms of history teaching. Practically no
paper mentions that among the subjects he thought must be included in
any enlightened school was physiology. Finally arises the question as to
476 DISCUSSION
whether the physiology taught has been the right kind. Perhaps it has been
too detailed. For general consumption only the simple elementary
principles should be taught, especially in their application to healthy living.
Now let us consider the practical value of a knowledge of the body’s
working and the part it should play in the maintenance of health and the
prevention of disease. ‘There are two ways in which this will be of obvious
importance. Directly, it will help the individual to know how to live
healthily and how to adapt himself to varying conditions, and by its effect
on individual behaviour it will influence the health of the community.
Indirectly, it will provide an informed public to influence the promotion
and control of legislation which affects the health and well-being of the
community. As an instance of its value I will quote one set of figures
from the last Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry
of Health. (Incidentally may I strongly recommend a study of this report
to those interested in the state of public health.) Dr. MacNalty maintains
the tradition set up by his predecessor, Sir George Newman, in writing
reports which go far beyond statements of figures and of statistics and give
interesting information as to recent discoveries and new fields of public
work.
Most people are aware of the fact that during this century there has been
a most satisfactory fall in the rate of infant mortality. Last year it was
the lowest yet recorded for this country—s57 per thousand. (In South
Australia, to which I was invited last year for a Conference on Infant
Welfare, held as part of the Government’s Centenary celebrations, the
rate is only 32 per thousand, and in New Zealand just lower—31 per
thousand.) What this improvement in rate means in the saving of
life is shown very strikingly by a comparison of the deaths actually
recorded with the number they would have been had the rate re-
mained as it was from t1go1I-10, 128 per thousand. The actual
deaths in 1935 were 34,092, but at the earlier rate would have been
76,664: that means there has been a saving of 42,549 infant lives. No
doubt several factors contribute to this: improved sanitation, housing
and feeding ; but most authorities agree that it is chiefly to be attributed
to education and to instruction given in the Infant Welfare and Maternity
Centres and Clinics. This is a fine example of what can be done by educa-
tion, and it is starting atthe right end. But if we put the question, ‘ Is this
enough ?’ there can be but one answer. It is not enough. We have only
to look round to see that the after development of these babies, so many of
them really lovely and bonny at the start, has fallen far short of what it
might have been. No doubt again there are many factors all playing their
part in the failure to reach the optimum : lack of knowledgeable care and
proper environment in the pre-school years—to be remedied largely by
adequate provision of nursery schools. The national and racial type may
be changing to one of a smaller physique, though against this can be set
the dramatic and almost phenomenal increases in growth that are sometimes
produced by attention to diet. Employment at too early an age under
unsuitable conditions as regards hours, environment and feeding, certainly
plays its part in preventing development up to possibilities. ‘These condi-
tions would tend to disappear with physiological thinking on the part of
authorities. (The smaller size of the citizens of the industrial north as
compared with other parts of the country is suggestive in this direction.)
But undoubtedly a most, perhaps the most, important factor is lack of interest
in physical fitness and lack of knowledge of the conditions necessary for proper
development, found in the individuals themselves and in those responsible for
the conditions of others. Health is something more than absence of disease—
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 477
a standard too often accepted as satisfactory—it is the condition of the body
which gives zest and joy to living. How short of that our standard is, is
indicated by the fact that we speak of a particular individual as being so
alive! Surely we should all be alive !
The conditions necessary are comparatively simple: right feeding,
exercise, rest, sleep, fresh air, and sunshine, but education is necessary to
show what are right feeding, proper exercise and adequate sleep and rest,
and even how to make use of sunshine. What lasting harm is often de-
veloped in the early years by bad posture, improper use of eyes, by
mouth breathing, and by inadequate sleep and rest! In industry,
examples of the way in which attention to quite slight unsuitable con-
ditions has improved the health and increased the output of the workers
could be given over and over again from the records of the National
Institute of Industrial Psychology, which might almost have been
described more correctly as the Institute of Industrial Physiology. (Dr.
Lockhart will tell you of the need for this knowledge also in the proper
management of the workers who, behind the factory buildings and the
machinery, are the essential factors in production.)
A good foundation of general physiological knowledge is necessary before
there can, or at least before there should, be any attempts at dealing with
disturbances of mental processes, and yet many who would hesitate to tackle
a simple physiological problem do not hesitate to deal with a psychological
one. Quite often a physiological difficulty lies at the root of the ‘ psycho-
logical.’ A person suffering from indigestion, for example, usually has a
much more gloomy outlook on life and is a harder person to live with than
one who has given his digestive processes a fair chance. In fairness it
must be admitted that mental processes may be the cause of what are
generally regarded more definitely as physical processes. Failure of
digestion may be caused by emotional disturbances. Examination by
X-ray after a test meal will show complete cessation of movements and of
secretion if any strong emotion such as anger, pain, extreme anxiety, is
aroused. All of which goes to show the close relationship between the
activities of the nervous and other systems of the body.
The proper place to begin physiological education, to teach the science
behind the practice of health, is of course the school, but education must
not stop there. It is vitally important that everyone should know something
of it for his own physical welfare and to enable him to take a proper share in
developing the health and well-being of the community. There are many
cases in which this knowledge would make for wiser decisions in that
important branch of municipal and national government, the public health
service. So much of government touches the well-being of the individual,
where even a moderate knowledge of physiology, and still more of the
biological outlook that comes from this, would be of the greatest value,
especially to legislators and Members of Cabinet. It is not enough to call
in the expert ; in addition there should be sufficient knowledge to enable
authorities and individuals who have to carry out the recommendation to
evaluate the arguments brought forward by the expert. Compulsory
examination in elementary physiology for M.P.s and for Health Committees
in Local Government might have splendid effects !
Of the problems that are discussed with so much heat, such as birth
control and sterilisation of the unfit, how many of the general public have
the knowledge to be able to consider critically the arguments for and against
these measures ?
A little time ago a private Member’s Bill was introduced into the House
to control claims made in advertisements of various proprietory medicines.
478 DISCUSSION ,
No doubt this would be good, but how much better to have a public suffi-
ciently instructed to judge for itself. When the general public is convinced,
by knowledge and experience, of the value of liquid milk, will they not do
something to see that Government control leads to announcements not of
a rise but of a fall in its price? In these and in other directions such as
tariffs, production and import of food-stuffs, housing, unemployment and
relief payments, which all have their physiological aspect, vaccination,
diphtheria immunisation, an instructed public could do much to raise the
standard of the national health. To-day, therefore, more than ever it
seems true to say that the proper study of mankind is man.
I do not expect the millennium to come in this way, but to give people the
possibilities of the happiness that goes with real health is not a bad beginning
towards its achievement.
Dr. H. E. Macer.—The importance of physiology education from the
cultural and utilitarian aspects.
The subject of this discussion involves consideration of the purpose of
education in general as well as of the case for the inclusion of physiology
amongst the subjects intended for the education of the people as a whole.
Education may be looked upon from the cultural and from the utilitarian
standpoint. Few people to-day—perhaps very few—would subscribe to
the purely materialistic conception of learning so well expressed by Locke
in these words, ‘It is very seldom seen that anyone discovers mines of
gold on Parnassus. It is a pleasant place but a barren soil.’ Moreover,
few would agree that the aim of all education is purely cultural. The
majority most probably regard both objectives as essential to any educational
system, a conception fairly accurately expressed in this saying from Cicero,
‘ Accordingly as soon as we escape from the pressure of necessary cares,
forthwith we desire to see to hear and to learn ; and consider the knowledge
of what is hidden or is wonderful a condition of our happiness.’ This
implies that attention must first be given to the demands of our animal
existence, because, only when these are satisfied, would we be in a condition
to ‘ desire to see to hear and to learn.’ But, although training with a view
to the satisfaction of our material needs may be regarded as the primary
function of education, there can be no question about this being inferior to
the cultural aim. The desire for knowledge of objective reality, that is of
truth, of whatever kind, is inherent in the human mind and truth is indeed
the proper object of the intelligence. The highest value of education,
therefore, is the cultivation and development of the intellect so as to enable
it to apprehend and appreciate a knowledge of truth. The cultivated
intellect, according to J. H. Newman, ‘ is a good in itself, brings with it
a power and a grace to every work and occupation which it undertakes, and
enables us to be more useful and to a greater number.’
We have now to consider whether these objectives would be attained by
the regular teaching of physiology in schools. That it has a cultural value
is clear from the following quotation from Jacks, who, speaking of the
education of the body, said ‘ The highest attainments of the human spirit
require the body as well as the mind to be enlisted in their pursuit. It is
a principle with a very broad application. It applies not only to the high
attainments of the mystic, the genius, the creative thinker, but to the every-
day virtues of the common man: self-respect, self-control, courage, trust-
worthiness, decency and clean conduct in general. These also are un-
attainable unless the body as well as the mind is enlisted in their pursuit.’
Co-operation of mind and body implies harmony between the activities of
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 479
the two, and this can surely best be attained when the individual possesses
a knowledge of the operations and capabilities of both. Knowledge of the
body and how it functions may be considered an end in itself. Thus the
experimental physiologist who spends his time trying to reveal the secrets
of the bodies of living animals is primarily concerned with discovery of
facts and the interpretation of their significance rather than with mere
material reward. The thrill of having added to knowledge is his chief
satisfaction and is an inspiration to further efforts. If this were not so,
few, if any, would choose a way of life fraught with so many difficulties and
disappointments. Only a small minority can be experimental physiologists ;
people in general cannot participate in the satisfaction which a new discovery
gives to the scientist. Are people in general then likely to derive any
intellectual benefits from the study of physiology ? The answer to this is
that physiology is a branch of knowledge and that the various branches of
knowledge, although each of them is incomplete in itself, together form a
whole which is nowhere contradictory provided it is based throughout on
objective reality. The study of physiology, therefore, in common with
other branches of learning, cannot but help to promote the orderly develop-
ment of the human mind. To know something about our bodies, the
purpose of the various organs and how they function, are objects worth
pursuing for themselves, in that they go to satisfy our inherent desire for
knowledge. It is a good thing to satisfy this desire, for only through an
understanding of the laws of his nature can man hope to use his body
properly and to avoid abusing it. I refer here especially to the physiology
of reproduction. In this instance, ignorance is not a virtue but a danger,
and it is better that young people should be properly taught to understand
the human organism than that they should be left to inform themselves from
undesirable sources or that they should risk moral damage through prurient
curiosity.
The practical end is and will probably remain the chief reason for
teaching physiology because, ‘ as the master-key of medicine, its practical
value is self-evident.’ But examination of the relationships between
physiology and other branches of medicine is not the purpose of this
discussion, it is the practical value which an elementary knowledge of the
subject would have for the community. There can only be one practical
aim in educating the public in physiology, namely, that through a better
understanding of the functions of the human body habits of healthy living
may be established which would result in the raising of the general level of
health and physique. There are few activities of our daily lives on which a
knowledge of physiology could not be brought to bear, but I must confine
my remarks to certain aspects of life selected on account of their importance
to the individual and the community. I shall therefore deal mainly with
those periods of life which are the most important for national well-being,
and I shall indicate the errors in some popular practices by way of illustration
of the dangers to health attendant on misapplication of scientific knowledge.
There is or was a disposition on the part of many to regard mothercraft
and housecraft as occupations demanding little intelligence and education
and of lesser importance than other careers opened up to women to an
increasing extent in recent years. Those who hold this view ignore the
great truth there still is in the old adage—‘ The hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world.’ The dominant role played by parents in laying down the
foundations for health of our future citizens needs no proof. ‘The child is
so completely dependent on its parents, and particularly on its mother,
that it is true to say that the future of the nation depends more on the in-
fluence of the home than on any other factor. These grave responsibilities
480 DISCUSSION
and the manner in which they are discharged is so fundamental for the
national welfare that the proper equipment of parents for these tasks
demands the serious attention of all thoughtful people. The care and
feeding of a baby is practically a full-time occupation and one to which an
elementary knowledge of physiology, and especially of nutrition, could be
applied with great profit. It may be argued that maternal instinct is a
sufficient guide to mothers, but many human instincts are vague and fallible,
and whatever part instincts play in human affairs they cannot compensate
for lack of knowledge, since knowledge is of a superior order to instinct.
Instinct, for example, might inform a mother that her own milk is the
proper food for her infant, but it could not be expected to tell her that
cows’ milk is relatively deficient in iron or that the ‘ cream line’ gives
little indication of the nutritive value of cows’ milk. Again, instinct does
not tell us that heat regulation is not properly developed in the human
infant until some months after birth, and it is well known that ignorance of
this fact frequently leads to harmful over-clothing of infants through
misplaced maternal zeal. Moreover, even if our instincts sufficed to guide
us unerringly in the nutrition and nurture of children, they might at any
time be overruled or reversed by faulty reasoning based on erroneous
information.
A very important recent advance in physiology is the discovery of the
influence of the diet of the mother during pregnancy on the physique and
health of her offspring and on the nutritive value of her milk during lacta-
tion. ‘The diet of mothers at these times is one of the fundamental deter-
minants of the health and physique of the coming generation, and the
instruction of future mothers in dietetics is therefore essential to any modern
system of education. Further, the health of the child in pre-school days
is almost entirely in the hands of the mother—she feeds it, clothes it, and
attends to its every need. Whether she does these things well or ill depends
to a very great extent on her knowledge of the infant’s needs, and this can
only be acquired by learning the elements of physiology and hygiene.
During school life the child is still dependent on its parents for material
things, but intellectually parents are only one of many sources from which
it attempts to satisfy its insatiable desire for information. The intellect at
this time is little more than a receptacle for all sorts of information and is
very little used, as it is in adult life, for critical and discriminating examina-
tion. ‘'he child picks up most of his information from his parents, teachers
and companions, but his parents and teachers have the greatest influence
with him. School-time and adolescence is the great formative period of
life so far as habits are concerned. During this time ‘ the organism grows
to the mode in which it is exercised ’ and habits are formed which determine
in very large measure the future career and health of the individual. The
importance for the public health of establishing habits of healthy living is
self-evident. It is true there is, in the teaching of elementary physiology
to children, a risk of that excessive introspection which is the father of fads
and prejudices, but the preventive of these is more and yet more knowledge.
Assuming proper upbringing, the maintenance of health for the adult is
mainly a personal matter, but long standing habits still dominate. If not
conducive to health these can be broken by will-power, but the exercise of
the will presupposes knowledge of the harmfulness of the habits. The
person who is unable to discipline his passions and emotions is their play-
thing and sooner or later will fall into bad health and become a less useful
member of society than he would otherwise be. Within the limits imposed
by heredity good health depends first on knowledge and then on self-
discipline : both of these are essential.
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 481
The health and development of present and future citizens of the country
are concerns of the greatest importance for statesmen, teachers and parents,
and indeed for every member of the community. The natural physical
endowments which come to us from our parents may be frustrated in their
development through lack of knowledge or proper care during the years
when the body is plastic and capable of cultivation. If it is to develop to
the limits imposed by heredity, all its needs for growth must be adequately
met. Weneed not attempt to produce heavy-weights out of children whom
nature intended to be jockeys, that would be futile ; but we can see to it
that the requirements for food, clothing, shelter and nurture of all children
are adequately met, so that they may attain that measure of physical per-
fection which is their natural heritage. While we cannot ignore the import-
ance of economic factors in achieving this ideal, it is true to say that the
matter is otherwise mainly one of applied physiology.
There is justification for the complaints made by scientists in recent
years of the application of their discoveries to purposes other than the
universal good of mankind. Although these criticisms have mostly referred
to discoveries in physics and chemistry, the physiologist can also complain
that many of his discoveries are misunderstood or else the good which they
are capable of conferring is abused through over-indulgence or, perhaps
more frequently, through lack of judgment. I do not claim that physio-
logists always practise what they preach any more than the rest of mankind,
but it is nevertheless their duty to point out misapplications of physiological
discoveries whether or not they themselves are deserving of criticism. A
recent discovery which is undoubtedly abused at present is that of the
health-giving effects of sunshine. The ultra-violet rays of the sun tone up
the body generally and lead to the formation in it of vitamin D which is
essential for normal metabolism of calcium and phosphorus. Like other
good things in the world, this one should be used with discretion and
wisdom, but the trend of fashion at seaside resorts, and elsewhere, gives
increasing evidence of disregard of these precautions. ‘These benefits can
be obtained without overstepping the bounds of propriety or without
exposing the body to the extent of causing pyrexia, hyperemia, and des-
quamation which are definitely harmful. Good health does not necessarily
depend on the presence of these effects or even on intensity of pigmentation.
Self-discipline is essential for health but it may be misdirected. Good
examples are to be found in the self-imposed dietary restrictions of many
modern young women. Deposits of fat in the body so excessive as to
interfere with normal functions are harmful, but irrational abstention from
certain articles of diet in order to attain slimness of figure may be even more
harmful. ‘There are many inconsistencies in the dietetic preferences of
the modern devotees of the present slimming craze. Many of them abstain
from wholesome and health-giving foods, such as potatoes and even milk,
and yet consume relatively large amounts of sugar in the form of con-
fectionery, sweet cakes, and biscuits. Again there is apparent a growing
distaste (not confined to those who would be thinner than nature intended
them to be) for animal fats as such, and at the same time an increasing
desire for pastry and sweetmeats rich in fats so refined and processed as to
be practically devoid of all the natural fat-soluble vitamins. It is a curious
fact that this prejudice against animal fats exists at a time when the con-
sumption of fat in all its forms is higher in this country than has ever been
reported. A little knowledge of dietetics, tempered with common sense,
would most probably result in the elimination of many of the prevailing
dietetic absurdities, with a consequent improvement in health and, certainly,
economic betterment of large numbers of people. The numerous varieties
482 DISCUSSION
of slimming foods (a contradictory designation, for no food per se can reduce
body weight) are generally more expensive than less refined natural foods.
Exercise is essential for health, but it should be taken with due regard to
the physical capabilities of the person concerned, and, to be beneficial,
exercise demands suitable amounts of food and rest. In the present
enthusiasm for physical culture, a sense of proportion is essential, otherwise
the desired improvement in health and physique may be attained at the
expense of the culture of the mind. It may, therefore, be necessary to
remind ourselves from time to time that the mind and its faculties are of a
superior order to the physical body, and that character and grit are derived
from mental rather than bodily culture. The ancient Greeks, with whom
culture of the body was almost a national gospel, recognised the need for
subordination of athletics to mental culture. Plato, for example, was not
complimentary to professional athletes when he said, ‘Have you not
observed that they sleep through their life and if they depart but a little
from the appointed regime at once they are quickly and seriously ill.’ The
civilisation which produced Achilles, Lysander and Alexander also produced
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. ‘There is room for both athletes and sages
in civilised society. Physical exercise should be regarded as recreation in
the literal sense of the word, the re-creation of mind and body in order that
they may be the fitter to cope with the more serious matters of life.
Finally, I wish to refer to the official attitude towards instruction in
physiology and hygiene. The Board of Education has issued compre-
hensive directions for instructing children in the ways of health in an
‘excellent little book, Handbook of Suggestions on Health Education, which
deserves to be more widely known. The main purpose of the book ‘ is to
encourage teachers to create in the minds of boys and girls during the years
of adolescence, an understanding and cultivation of health. It presents
health as an ideal, the inculcation of which is no less important for national
life than is that of the ideals of truth, goodness and beauty.’ It deals,
amongst other things, with the relations between body and mind, nutrition,
ventilation, exercise, mothercraft and infant welfare. The existence of this
book may come as news to some, and to those who feel inspired with apostolic
zeal for the teaching of these subjects, it might be as well to suggest that
they should seek for converts elsewhere than in the Board of Education.
This book proves that the Board is already converted.
The standard of excellence in the teaching of these subjects in many
schools I have visited throughout Great Britain would probably surprise
most people, as it did me, and augurs well for the health of the next genera-
tion, provided the knowledge now imparted to the mothers of the future
is used with wisdom and prudence.
Finally, a tribute is due to the British Broadcasting Corporation for the
good work it is doing in health education and in general culture by means
of its talks on biology and physiology to children.
Prof. R. C. Garry.—Human physiology in the teaching of Biology.
The health of the individual and of the community depends to a large
extent on the proper application of physiological knowledge. In the past,
medical and public health authorities, from their knowledge of advances
made by physiologists, issued dogmatic statements for the guidance of the
public. The public, on their part, usually accepted such ex cathedra
pronouncements quite uncritically.
Such methods, however, savour more of a dictatorship than of a democracy,
and they are probably inefficient.
To take one example, all the slogans and posters of the Milk Marketing
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 483
Board will, in the long run, be futile unless the public understands why it
is important to ‘ drink more milk.’ When the novelty wears off, ‘ Ballyhoo ’
loses its effect. But intelligent understanding is permanent. The public
must have some knowledge of the proper nutrition of human beings before
the efforts of the Milk Marketing Board can hope to reap their full reward.
How, then, ought the public to come by such necessary physiological
knowledge : ?
By means of instruction during the school years, I feel, since the adult
education movement reaches but a small fraction of the whole community.
Moreover, I am not happy about many popular books on physiology, least
of all books on dietetics and nutrition. So often the uninstructed reader
falls victim to the crank and faddist.
So, the already overcrowded school curriculum is to be saddled with yet
another subject, human physiology ?
I doubt if it can be done.
But, can’t we discard a certain proportion of the biology already taught
in school and in its place put human physiology with all its implications for
human welfare? After all, physiology is a biological subject. And, dare
I suggest it, could not some of the time devoted to chemistry and physics
be better employed in teaching biology with this emphasis on the human
organism ? During the past four years such a course in biology has been
elaborated for broadcasting to schools, the course given by Prof. Peacock
and myself.
Not only was human physiology an integral part of the course, but
instruction in human physiology also preceded in time the more conventional
instruction in biology. For example, structure of the human body was
dealt with before structure of the lower forms of life was described.
Respiration in man, and by implication in all mammals, preceded discussion
of respiration in, say, fishes, insects and plants.
At first sight, this seems to ‘ put the cart before the horse.’ It does, if
one accepts unquestioningly the usual academic course in biology, the course
which starts with the amceba and finishes with the elephant. To my mind,
such a course is justified in one curriculum only, that for the medical student
who receives adequate instruction in human physiology at a later stage in
his course. But, for all other students taking a course in biology, the
omission of human physiology is a most grievous fault. Such students
have omitted from their curriculum the organism about which most is
known. And, to make matters worse, these students of biology are the
future teachers of biology in the schools where some instruction in human
physiology is so essential.
In the schools themselves, until within recent times, human physiology
was taboo. Science, in the form of chemistry and physics, usurped all the
time which could be spared. Then ‘ Nature Study’ appeared, a girlish
pursuit, or, at least, one more in favour in girls’ schools than in boys’. To
normal boys ‘ Nature Study’ is an effeminate affair, and the nature study
class, derisively, ‘ Bug-hunters.’ Such imponderables are not without
weight.
It is here, I think, that human physiology can step in, redress the psycho-
logical balance, and make biology attractive to all children and thus impart
much needed knowledge to the citizens of the future.
How does such a human physiology-biology course work in practice ?
From the pedagogic point of view it is certainly sound. It deals with the
familiar human body first of all; but, can such a course teach first prin-
ciples? is there scope for practical work without the need for expensive
apparatus ? is it free from objectionable features ?
484 DISCUSSION
Let us take possible objections first. Vivisection, however important in
the academic teaching of physiology, need play no part in a course such as
I visualise. Secondly, will the pupils develop a morbid awareness of the
workings of their own bodies? I do not think so. Knowledge of the
normal should do no one any harm. The medical student develops his
hypochondriacal ills only after he starts the study of pathology, medicine
and surgery.
However, teaching of human physiology to what one may call a lay
audience does demand care. A school teacher fussily insistent on the
importance of daily evacuation of the bowels may create an impossible
situation. But that is a risk which should be run. I believe that proper
school instruction in nutrition and dietetics, with, of course, practice of
what was taught, would halve our national bill for purgatives within a few
years.
Now for the biological first principles. The human body is ideal for
the teaching of facts about growth, movement, alimentation, respiration,
circulation. But I have doubts about reproduction and excretion. I know
it is all wrong, but it cannot be helped. I am afraid of the earnest self-
conscious teacher and the uncomfortable self-conscious pupil if these two
principles are tackled by direct reference to man. It can be done, as I have
done it, through the comparatively impersonal medium of broadcasting,
but So these two first principles of excretion and of reproduction are
best tackled by reference to lower forms of life. In the future we may be
more sensible.
Now the last problem of practical work, and it is relatively simple. There
is no need for elaborate apparatus.
May I give one or two examples of the type of practical work which
succeeds in broadcast courses and in adult education work where the
pupils, although grown-up, are receiving instruction in biological science
for the first time.
Let us take the practical work in a, shall we say, ‘ physiological ’ order.
Alimentation, food and digestion :
An institution teaching chemistry can make quite a feature in practice of
the simpler test-tube reactions characteristic of the proximate principles of
food, and the action of saliva on starch serves very well as an example of
enzyme action. After that, digestion in the amceba becomes less of a
text-book myth.
Using any of the standard food tables, analysis of weighed portions of the
commoner domestic food-stuffs, of fruits and of vegetables, in terms of water,
proximate principles, and of vitamins, makes quite an instructive exercise.
Circulation :
I see no reason why palpation of the pulse, even listening to the heart
with a stethoscope, should not be used in teaching the facts of the circulation
to quite young people. Older pupils can be asked to graph the effect of
exercise on the pulse, and to observe the effect of skin temperature on skin
colour. But I should omit blood pressure observations—partly, since a
sphygmomanometer costs money, and partly, since the general public is far
too blood pressure-conscious already. And examination of a drop of human
blood has a vividness and reality quite absent from contemplation of a jar
of ox blood from the slaughter-house or blood from a dismembered frog.
Stained human leucocytes are more real than the story of Metchnikoff and
his phagocytes.
PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 485
Respiration :
The respiratory system offers great opportunity for simple experimenta-
tion. Breathe on a sheet of cool glass to show that the expired air is saturated
with moisture, and breathe through lime water to show that a living
organism excretes carbon dioxide. Have the ‘tough guy’ of the class
show off his chest expansion by means of cyrtometer tracings—two bits of
gas piping joined with rubber tubing are quite adequate. The rate of
respiration before and after exercise is instructive, and the period of
voluntary apneea, first of all after deep breathing and then after exercise,
gives much material for teaching. And it has a vital reality for human
beings which all talk about fishes’ gills totally lacks.
Nervous System :
The nervous system, unexpectedly perhaps, gives a wider scope for
elementary practical work than any other. Simple reflexes, such as the
knee jerk and the Achilles tendon jerk, are good material, so also are the eye
reflexes. The senses, too, offer good opportunities for practical work.
In the skin there are the senses of touch, pain and temperature, the ear and
labyrinth give opportunities for the physiologist and the physicist, while
there are a whole host of practical exercises in connection with the eyes.
I am thinking of the horizontal field of vision with one and with both eyes—
a string, a piece of chalk, coloured papers, and a bench top suffice. There
is the existence of the blind spot to demonstrate, the facts of visual acuity,
stereoscopic vision and various simple optical illusions. Why should
children be taught more about flies’ eyes than about their own, more about
the spectrum than about colour vision? Work with the senses, too, tends
to correct the crude and unthinking materialism which a study of chemistry
and physics, and even of conventional biology, is so apt to inculcate.
This, then, is my thesis. For man, the rational approach to biology is
through study of human physiology. It imparts a foundation of knowledge
absolutely essential for every citizen of a democracy, it is good science,
good biology, and is admirably adapted to school instruction.
Dr. L. P. Lockuart.—Physiology as a part of general education.
This contribution to the discussion (for summary of which see p. 412)
has appeared in full in Lancet, 2, 1177, 1937.
DISCUSSION ON
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN.
(Rt. Hon. Lorp TRENT, Chairman, Dr. L. DupLey Stamp, Prof. P. G. H.
BoswELL, O.B.E., F.R.S., Dr. JULIAN Hux.ey, Prof. E. J. SALISBURY,
F.R.S., Sir Roy RoBinson, Sir DANIEL Hatt, K.C.B., F.R.S., and
Prof. J. H. Jones.)
Joint Discussion By Sections C (GgoLocy), D (ZooLocy), E (G£o-
GRAPHY), F (Economics), K (BoTANy AND Forestry), M (Acri-
CULTURE), ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1937.
Lorp TRENT said that, before introducing the first speaker, he would
like to emphasise some of the difficulties that must be considered in any
attempt to plan the land of Britain, the objectives of any such plan being
to increase the production of home food supplies on a staple basis, to build
up an agricultural population living under conditions of reasonable comfort
and security, and, though less vital, to find reasonable facilities for the rural
recreation of those who live in cities. ‘The difficulties in the way of the
first objective are the weather (which cannot be planned), the time factor
(for the rearing of live-stock and crops cannot be speeded up as can
machinery), and the conservatism of the British farmer. A real difficulty
in the way of the second objective is that the people we may want to put
back on the land may not wish to go back. Agricultural work as compared
with work in cities is less remunerative, more arduous and lacking in
amenities. If drift to the cities is to be checked and remedied, work in
the country must be made more attractive. Linking this question with
that of rural recreation for urban populations, there is the danger that
town dwellers, ignorant of rural conditions, may come to look upon the
land purely as a place for enjoyment and not as a place for work. One
method of inculcating in town dwellers a healthier regard for the country
would be the institution of short periods of compulsory service by young
people in labour camps.
Dr. L. DupLEy Stamp, believing that each of the sciences represented
by Sections of the British Association has a definite and vital contribution
to make concerning the future use of the land, proposed to restrict himself
to the viewpoint of the geographer. Any planning of the land of Britain
must start from the present position—the present utilisation of the land.
This utilisation is extremely complex, as a result of a long period of settle-
ment, comprehending a long-continued process of trial and error.
Dr. Stamp placed in three main groups the factors which have brought
about the present position: (1) natural or geographical, (2) historical,
(3) economic.
The natural or geographical factors are fundamental, and contrary to
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 487
popular belief they tend to become more, not less, important. In medieval
Britain, communities isolated by the absence or bad state of communications
were necessarily more or less self-supporting, and had to use the land they
had to the best advantage possible, even though neither their land nor the
climate were really favourable. With development of transport and com-
munications there developed a natural tendency for each part of the country
to be devoted to those uses for which its natural features fitted it.
Therein lies the whole secret of planning. To study the factors involved
is to determine the optimum use of every acre of land in the country ; and
such planning is concerned with far more than mere production. The land
must be used for the satisfaction not merely of the material but also of the
social and esthetic needs of all sections of the community.
In passing, it is to be observed that the improvement of communications
has led to the gradual concentration of production of certain commodities,
of which wheat is a salient example, on areas most suitable for their pro-
duction, not merely in this country but in ‘new’ lands overseas more
suitable still. This process has resulted, in the first place, in the abandon-
ment of the cultivation of crops for which Britain is not naturally suited,
and, in the second place, in the abandonment of land formerly cultivated
in densely populated Britain. The influence of improved communications
does not apply to Britain alone, but to the world ; nevertheless, present-day
development is largely within units determined by tariff-walls, and that in
itself justifies discussion of planning the land of Britain in something of
isolation from the rest of the world.
The natural factors to be considered in relation to planning are:
(1) position and accessibility, (2) physical structure of the country, including
drainage, (3) soils, (4) climate.
Inaccessibility has led to depopulation in all the remoter parts of Britain ;
and the question of accessibility bears closely upon the position of National
Parks (a subject dealt with by more than one subsequent speaker). The
subject of physical structure Dr. Stamp referred to the speaker following
him, Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, merely indicating the strong contrasts between
the various physical divisions of our small country. In regard to soils, he
pointed out that Britain has as yet no comprehensive soil survey. In
Russia and the United States, despite their greater areas, much more work
has been done in this direction. Our own need of such a survey is great,
if only because we possess strictly limited areas of really first-class soil,
a precious heritage which planners, till now, have done little to protect ;
yet such areas should be protected—as, for instance, where they supply fresh
fruit and vegetables to neighbouring towns. As for climate, the position
of Britain is such that within it the limit of cultivation of various common
crops—wheat, for example—is found. In the cool summers of the north,
wheat may not ripen. There is a difference also, sufficient to affect agri-
culture, between the dry east and the wetter west. A crop suitable in one
part of the country may be one not to be encouraged in another part.
Historical factors have a general tendency to stabilise the use of land.
In some parts (Norfolk, for example) stretches of arable land are seen to be
interrupted by tracts of permanent pasture, although there is no change in
the soil. Such tracts may represent, or include, great parks laid out in days
when economic conditions were more favourable to landowners than they
are now, and some are, or may become, of incalculable value to the nation
when they pass from private to public ownership as open spaces adjacent
to great cities. So, also, waste lands too poor for cultivation have become
commons dedicated to public recreation.
The use of the land of Britain is influenced at present by a policy tending
488 DISCUSSION
towards economic self-sufficiency ; but economic factors can only operate
within certain limits allowed by natural factors. ‘The accompanying table
indicates the present use of the land. In Britain one-third, and in Scotland
over two-thirds of the surface fall within the category of rough grazing,
heathland, and moorland. These lands may be regarded as the problem
lands of the future. Woodland covers only 5 per cent. of the whole surface
of the country ; Britain produces a minute proportion of its own timber
requirements: yet Britain has a forest climate. Orchards represent
0-5 per cent.; that figure should be considered against the value of fresh
fruit to the nation. Of essential food requirements the country produces
some 35 to 40 per cent., of wheat less than 15 per cent., of meat 44 per cent.
The table indicates what might be done, not by any radical changes in the
use of the land, but by reconditioning each type of land so as to improve
its quality and utilisation. Of the rough grazing, heath, and moor, some-
thing like a third could be converted into grazing, a third could be forested,
and a third would be left for recreation, sport, and national parks.
Dr. Stamp believed the process of reconditioning to be both essentially
desirable and economically possible. He referred to the chairman’s point
that in the event of national emergency the processes of nature are such
that changes cannot be made suddenly. National emergency does not
necessarily connote war: the changing character of world trade and the
possible diminution of overseas markets for British-manufactured goods
may throw us back upon the resources of our own land. Furthermore, a
new standard of values—nutritional values—is beginning to be appreciated.
Fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and milk, imply home production. Again,
increasing leisure and a rising standard of living make new demands on the
land: good land for gardens and allotments ; the preservation of accessible
tracts which are agriculturally submarginal, and the protection of the finest
scenic areas as national parks—for example, the Lake District, the Peak
District, Snowdonia, the Cornish coasts. Much might be done for the
beautification of Britain—the abolition of ribbon development and the
substitution of a ‘ parkway’ treatment of arterial roads ; the plantation of
woodland on more natural lines than those of regimented conifers; the
obliteration by the planting of trees and shrubs of such scars as the worn-out
parts of the Black Country or the deserted Shropshire coalfield. Such
changes could be made at relatively small cost, if carried out with accurate
knowledge.
Per Per
Present Use. cent. Use after Reconditioning. cent,
Arable (intensive) : . 2:0 Arable (intensive) 5 wLits 6
», (farm crops) . 20°0 », (farm crops) . . 26:0
Permanent grassland (good) 10‘o Permanent grassland :
e (other) 21-0 First-class i : 32 UT 66
Rough grazing in enclosed Other . [vega
fields. § g:o Heathland, moorland, etc.
Heathland, moored and (recreational, sporting,
other rough grazing au 360 national parks) é: gto
Forest and woodland : Forest and woodland :
For timber 2/5 For timber . : irre’
Other economic axe) Other economic i UrOar 215
Scrub land, etc. 3°0 Scrub land, etc. : 37 SROHS
Orchards o'5 Orchards . r°s5
Residual (housing, industrial, Residual (allowance for im-
etc.) : he 110) provement of housing, etc.) 6-0
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 489
No one Government Department has care of the land of Britain as a
whole. The Royal Commission on the location of industry has a task which
implies a complete planning of the whole country. The institution of a
permanent advisory scientific committee might properly be recommended
on the ground that natural factors control the planning of the land. The
study of natural factors is the concern of Sections of the British Association,
and that body might well form its own committee of expert opinion to work
together for the benefit of the whole country.
Prof. P. G. H. Boswe i, O.B.E., F.R.S. (speaking at short notice in the
place of Prof. H. L. Hawkins, F.R.S.), said that it is probably true that in
no other area in the world, size for size, is there such a variety of rocks
exposed as in Britain. He outlined the four broad divisions of the geological
column—the great eras of the pre-Cambrian (with few or no traces of
life), the Paleozoic (with evidence of ancient organisms), the Mesozoic, and
the Cainozoic (the era of recent life, culminating in man). The broad
distribution of the rocks of these several eras is as follows. The pre-
Cambrian occupies the area of the Scottish Highlands, north of the Lowland
Basin, Anglesey, strips of North and South Wales, and certain smaller
but significant areas on the Welsh Borders and in -the Midlands. The
rocks are mainly crystalline: granites, gneisses, schists, quartzites, etc.
The older Palzozoic rocks occupy the southern uplands of Scotland, the
Lake District, the Isle of Man, most of Wales, parts of Cornwall, and
smaller areas in the Midlands, and consist of slates, mudstones, sandstones
and volcanic rocks of various types.
The newer Paleozoic rocks, of considerable commercial importance,
constitute a belt dipping off the older rocks, and occupying the Central
Lowlands of Scotland, Northumberland and Durham, the Pennine region,
the Welsh Borderlands, South Wales, the Bristol area, Devon and Cornwall,
and patches of country in the Midlands ; also the underground of London
and Kent. Sandstones, limestones and coal measures are the dominant
rock types.
The Mesozoic rocks form still another belt trending roughly north-east
to south-west, from the Yorkshire coast to the south coast. They consist
‘of spreads of sandstone and marl, escarpments of limestone and broad
areas of clay. The Cainozoic or Tertiary rocks are mainly confined to the
Eastern Counties, the London Basin, and the Hampshire Basin, and are
marked by deposits of unconsolidated sands, clays and brickearths. Spread
as a blanket, but irregularly, over all the land of Britain are the products of
the Great Ice Age—gravels, sands and clays—thickest, of course, in the
lower ground to the south-east.
Thus from the pavement of oldest rocks in the north-west there dip off
to the south-east successive slices or wedges of newer rocks.
In planning for the future, there arise two considerations: (a) the
suitability of the land for certain specific purposes, and (b) the desirability
of its utilisation in a particular way. These considerations have to be
balanced one against another and in relation to the economic development
of the country as a whole. In most instances a particular unit of land could
be used for several purposes ; then the planning scheme should be directed
to determining and advising upon the best use. The absence of planning
in the past has led to wastage of money, a procedure comparable with the
dumping of quarry refuse on the unworked area of good rock and its
subsequent removal at considerable cost. The influence of geology upon
planning may be conceived to be in large part indirect; but always, in
alliance with climatology, it exercises an unobtrusive control over faunal,
Ss
490 DISCUSSION
floral, and physical features, and an influence over utilisation, development,
and location of industries. ‘The influence of the rock-types is seen in the
scenery, industrial value, and human occupations of any given region, but
for the most part the geological factors are factors in the first instance ; they
are modified locally in many ways to produce what may be termed the
factors in the second instance, which are those most relevant to the present
discussion.
Nevertheless, certain direct geological influences fall to be considered
here. Since almost every important geological formation has given rise,
in different parts of the country, to its own characteristic scenery and
ecology, we should endeavour to secure, in the course of our planning,
that at least one typical area on each geological formation is reserved. In
some cases there is an obvious, a unique area: in others latitude in location
is given by the extension of the formation across Britain. Here and there
a National Park is desirable, but in many instances smaller reserves, such
as those secured by the admirable work of the National Trust, would be
adequate. Some areas have been, or can be, scheduled under the Town
and Country Planning Act of 1932. Examples of such reservations already
made are found in the Dovedale area in the Carboniferous Limestone,
the Greensand area of West Sussex, the Chalk Downland, and so on. The
New Forest, on the Eocene deposits, is fortunately reserved as Crown land
for alltime. A comprehensive list of desirable areas could soon be compiled.
It is in the areas of ancient rocks—the pre-Cambrian and older Paleozoic
—that National Parks would be mainly located, for here the resistance of
the rock-types and variety of their arrangement and rearrangement give rise
to striking scenery—hence, of course, the pleasure resorts of the Scottish
Highlands, the Lake District and Snowdonia. And, dependent on the
geology, they carry a characteristic flora, and sometimes a distinctive fauna.
They are hard lands for man to make a living on. Mineral resources are
not absent, in the form of slate and building-stone industries, small metalli-
ferous mines (lead, copper, zinc, iron, barytes, etc.) ; but they are scattered
and often of no great importance,
The Upper Paleozoic rocks also furnish areas of great scenic beauty
suitable for National Parks, as for example in the Peak District. There is
no need, in such cases, for large-scale labelling of well-known features such
as has been perpetrated at High Tor, at Matlock Bath. A speedy removal
of this blemish would be welcomed by the many members of the British
Association who have seen it. From the point of view of mineral resources,
Britain owes much to the Upper Palzozoic, the Carboniferous Limestone,
so important as a raw material for chemical, metallurgical, agricultural
purposes and for its iron ore, lead, zinc, fluorspar, etc.; also the Coal
Measures, of the constituent rocks of which little is wasted—coals, brick-
making clays, refractory materials, iron ores, building-stones, etc. In the
course of unplanned working of this national wealth, it may be felt that the
face of the land has been indelibly scarred ; yet even the Black Country is
a mark of the beast which can be outgrown.
Apart from quarrying of limestones for building-stones and lime-burning,
and the working of clays for brick-making, and of sands for refractories, the
chief mineral importance of the Mesozoic rocks lies in the iron ores of
the Midlands, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. The great development of
the industry at Corby in recent years suggests that here is an admirable
opportunity for enlightened planning, just as the Kent coalfield, under
Abercrombie’s planning, has demonstrated the feasibility of developing a
large-scale mineral industry without the production of Black Country.
The belt of Mesozoic rocks, like that of the Cainozoic, is best known as
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 491
the agricultural region of Britain ; and agriculture falls for consideration
later in this discussion. But this belt is also important as furnishing our
great reservoirs of underground water, particularly in the Triassic Sand-
stones, the limestones of the Oolites, and the Chalk. Water supply is a
basic consideration in connection with the location of industry, which is at
present the subject of an inquiry by a Royal Commission. ‘The extension
of housing and road-development incidentally increases the waterproofing
of the land surface and prevents rain from being received into natural under-
ground storage. ‘The local loss is material, as is obvious if it be remembered
that consumption per head is rising to thirty or thirty-five gallons per day,
and bids fair to increase, and that large works with extensive washing plants
consume as much water daily as a city of one or two hundred thousand
inhabitants. ‘The disposal of waste products—sewage—and the location
of cemeteries also necessitate due regard being paid to the geology of the
neighbourhood if the water supply is not to be contaminated. It is unfor-
tunate that the type of sandy or gravelly well-drained country best suited
for the location of cemeteries and sewage-farms is that on which we are
dependent for the absorption of rain and the renewal of the underground
water supply. The appointment recently of a Committee by the Ministry
of Health, arising out of discussions and recommendations of the British
Association, recalls that the methods of recording overground and under-
ground supplies of water throughout the kingdom are being systematised.
It is to be hoped that, when the distribution of the available supplies is
known in detail, there may emerge some agreed allocation which will lead
to the reduction of opposed Water Bills in Parliament.
Dr. JuLIAN Hux ey said he proposed to deal with the preservation of
animals in Britain. Anyone who has seen wild and beautiful country such
as the great game plains of Central Africa with their original fauna, and the
less extensive wild country of certain parts of North America lacking in so
much of its original fauna, knows how much richer and more fascinating is
the former. To exterminate species is to do something irreparable, and with
all our knowledge we cannot produce species which have been exterminated
in this country. ‘There was probably justification for exterminating wolves
and bears (though a few of the latter might, without difficulty, have been
preserved in remote parts of the Highlands), but with less justification the
countryside has been impoverished in recent times by the extermination of
the great bustard, the avocet and many other rare and beautiful birds, and
by the almost complete extermination of the white horse, the great eagle, the
pine marten and the beech marten. In planning the land we must see what
can be done in a busy and crowded countryside like ours to preserve such
animals partly for their scientific interest and also for their value as objects
of general interest to increase the amenity value of the country.
With regard to mammals, the position has gone so far that there is little
to be done except by setting aside in remote districts certain largish areas as
sanctuaries or national parks. With regard to birds and rare insects, the
best thing in a country like ours is to set aside comparatively small areas for
groups of species having the same habitat. That has been done in quite
a wide way at various places like the Faroe Islands, Dungeness, and Wicken
Fen. One important thing we should do is to draw up a list of all the
existing sanctuaries and of all the species deserving protection, and of places
that might be set aside as sanctuaries for them.
Planning of breeding places for introduced animals of a commercial value
is a matter which needs attention. A certain amount of land utilisation
should be reserved for the breeding of foxes, nutria, etc., and in planning
492 DISCUSSION
of this kind the greatest of caution would have to be exercised, the example
of the musk-rat being a good illustration of the grave dangers attendant on
the introduction of new animals.
In addition to the consideration of preserved areas for special types of
animals there is also the question of national parks for the preservation of
nature in general, including scenery, geology, flora and fauna, In Britain,
as in any other country, conservation must be a compromise between man
and nature, and the general opinion of those who are best informed on the
subject and have thought, for instance, of the desirability of preserving the,
fauna, is that it is better to specialise in this matter than to attempt a com-
‘promise. ‘That is to say, the interests of man should be paramount over
most of the area, and the interests of fauna, flora and scenery paramount
over other parts of the area. With regard to any national parks that may be
established, a zoological point is that wherever possible some central area
should be entirely reserved away from the general public as a real sanctuary,
available to wardens and scientists, as a reservoir for breeding insects and
animals which could then overflow to the adjoining national park. With
regard to national parks in Britain, we must not envisage such areas as
primarily for the conservation and breeding of animal life as in Africa and
certain parts of America and other countries. We must at first concen-
trate on providing national parks for recreational purposes where beau-
tiful scenery is available within easy range of great centres of population,
but as the national park principle spreads it is to be hoped that a large area
will be set aside, say in the Western Highlands, primarily for flora and fauna,
and secondarily for recreational interest. "The Germans have shown us what
can be done in the way of national parks. ‘They have established a magni-
ficent number of very interesting animals, including the white horse, the
bear, the beaver, deer, and so on, and they have even produced a close
replica of the extinct aurochs, a kind of synthetic aurochs, by breeding oxen
and cattle.
Dr. Huxley expressed great satisfaction that the British Association had
sent in a resolution urging the Ministry to implement its promise to set up
a statutory authority. It is absolutely necessary for some central organisa-
tion to look after national parks and that that type of conservation should be
set up. It cannot in principle be left, in a country like Britain, to local
machinery like the Town and Country Planning Act, for the simple reason
that areas wherever national parks were allocated would be poor areas,
enjoyed largely by people from other areas. It would be unfair to place
such a burden on local rates. It is necessary to have some central authority.
It is further necessary to have some central authority to reconcile the claims
of various existing statutory authorities which are more or less tyrants in
their own domain and which sometimes clash. For instance, there are the
Electricity Commissioners, the Forestry Commissioners, and so on, and there
is no overriding authority to decide the claims of forestry and recreation or
the claims of indigenous fauna and flora.
In conclusion, Dr. Huxley made a strong plea for the drawing up of.a list
of the most interesting species in need of protection, and a list of the areas
most suitable for them, and for the establishment of national parks in some
of which, at least, the preservation of interesting flora and fauna could be
envisaged.
Prof. E. J. Satissury, F.R.S., dealing with the botanical aspects of
planning, was concerned mainly with the preservation of the amenities of
the country, and he referred to gardens, national parks, and roadside
planning.
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 493
The area occupied by gardens is comparatively small, but interest in
gardens is growing rapidly, as instanced by the fact that, whereas ten years
ago the Royal Horticultural Society had some 20,000 members, the member-
ship is now 34,000. The growth of gardens has resulted naturally in peri-
pheral expansion, so that we get that condition referred to as hyphenated
country, part town, part country. Because they are so scattered and
because of their location gardens play a much larger part in regard to amenity
than would be expected from the actual area they occupy, less than 2 per
cent. of the areas where there is a large population ; but as there is too much
tendency towards mass production, the effect upon the amenity is rather
deleterious. It is necessary only to go through some of our urban areas
to realise that most people grow the same cheap plants, and the result is as
offensive to the eye as the result of present-day building ideas with houses
all looking as if they had been struck out of one mould.
On the question of national parks Prof. Salisbury emphasised the fact
that, from the botanical point of view, small areas might be almost worse
than useless. If small areas are given to the nation, there is a very grave
risk that tours to them will be arranged, and it cannot be too strongly em-
phasised that mere trampling of vegetation has the effect of altering the
species. Opponents of national parks for the preservation of British flora
have argued that as, of our 1,800 species, only four have become extinct
during recent times, there is no need to make special provision for preserva-
tion ; but while it is true that there has been little extinction as a whole, it is
also true that there has been serious diminution of species in certain areas.
It has been found that 300 species have become extinct in one county or
another, and some species almost extinct over large areas. It has been
said, too, that the opportunity of introduction more than counterbalances
diminution, but it should be emphasised that these introductions are for the
most part weeds of cultivation, and what we want are native plants which
will stand up to the competition of native species.
It is essential that the control of nature reserves should be in the hands
of experts, and two examples show the type of problem they would have to
consider. (1) During recent years quite 100 new species of beetles have been
added to the British list as a result of the study of decaying tree trunks in
the New Forest, and, further, these same tree trunks are the source of food
for a number of birds and the homes of some common and some very rare
fungi. Should decaying logs and tree trunks be destroyed? (2) It is
useless to preserve an area by merely leaving it alone. For example, the
scrub areas of Britain, considered by some to be the most beautiful parts
of the country, represent a transitory phase between grass and forest.
The greater part of this country if left alone would pass to forest. ‘That
scrub area is the richest in insects and flora of any type of vegetation we
have in this country, and we can preserve these features only by removing
areas that are coming into their prime, thinning out the scrub and main-
taining the changing character. . Those in charge of the Wicken Fen reserve
know they can maintain that rich fauna only so long as the sedge is properly
cut. That involves proper control and considerable expense. So that
control and expense are necessary for the maintenance of those reserves.
Roadside planning, like gardens, has an effect on amenities out of all pro-
portion to the area concerned. It is essential that the trees planted and the
way they are planted should be such as not to create an effect of monotony,
which has been said to have a deleterious effect upon the drivers of motor
cars. It is also highly desirable that trees planted on the roadside in rural
areas should be characteristic of the area in question, enabling us to preserve
many of our native trees in their excessive beauty.
494 ‘ DISCUSSION
Sir Roy Rosinson said that, in the course of his work dealing with the
forests of this country, he travels over as much of the land as any man in
Great Britain. It is always a source of great amazement to him that land
can be wasted in the way it is wasted. Good pastures are found overrun
with bracken and foliage and infested and spoilt, and that is the type of
land which very often comes to the Forestry Commission to be planted,
sometimes undeservedly, with trees.
It seemed to him there are two main branches of planning the land :
first, to make the right use of land now wrongly used, and, secondly, rightly
to use land already nominally put to the right use but badly managed.
The second question is purely one of management, and is relatively easy,
but when it comes to the question of saying that a certain bit of land shall
be used for this or that purpose, serious difficulties arise. When you come
to plan the land in detail you find that the prophet who said how he
would have planned Britain thirty years ago would have to eat his words
to-day.
The Acland plan for improving and increasing the woodlands of the
country is the only plan formed in the days immediately after the war which
has been carried out consistently. In the course of that plan the Forestry
Commission are trying to do two things, and probably more. An attempt
is being made to increase the woodland area by roughly two million acres,
and 500,000 acres of plantation have been purchased towards that end.
An attempt is being made to get the private woodlands of the country in
order. ‘That is a very difficult thing to do, because the owner of woodland
to-day suddenly finds that the competition for pulp-wood in North Europe
is so great that there are not enough pit props to go round in this country.
Pit props are required in case of emergency, because if you cannot get pit
props you cannot get coal, and without coal you cannot have steel and
other things. That explains very briefly why it is necessary for the State
to take a very real interest in the production of timber. The Commission
hope to purchase enough timber to be self-supporting for a period of three
years.
The mere ownership of large areas of land, which runs now into one
million acres, brings with it other things. It has given the opportunity of
providing recreational facilities. Such development has been made in the
New Forest. A national forest park has been set up at the head of Loch
Long and Loch Fyne in Scotland, and another is being opened in Snow-
donia. The various areas developed by the Commission become admirable
places for deer, and it is probably safe to say that there are more deer in
this country to-day than at any time in the past 200 years.
The Commission are trying to keep the pine marten going, and might
be quite willing to try putting brown bears in the bigger forests.
Sir DantreL Hatt, K.C.B., F.R.S., said he was chiefly concerned with
the question of how far we may be able to replan our farming land to
better ends than it is used at the present time. The difficulty the farmer
has been going through has been how to adapt his industry (and it is a slow,
long-period industry) to rapid changes in the environment in which he
has got to live. That, and the march of scientific progress, has brought
about, to a very large extent, the disintegration of our old farming.
Is it worth while to try and set about the planning of our agriculture ?
The farmer does not want it. He only asks to be left alone. But he is
at the mercy of other forces, and if agriculture is to be preserved it needs
replanning. Though there can be found in this country finer examples
of farming than in any other country in the world, the industry, taking it
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 495
as a whole, is in a very depressed condition, and one can only say that the
agricultural land of Britain represents a distressed area.
The history of the past ten years of agriculture is instructive. In that
period the total area of cultivated land in England and Wales has lost
something like 1,000,000 acres or 3 per cent. of its total area. The
arable land, which is the heart and most important part of the thing,
has shrunk from 10,300,000 to 9,000,000, a loss of over 1,000,000 acres
being 12 per cent. off what it was ten years ago. If we take a particular
form of the industry such as small fruit—raspberries and black currants—
we find that 69,000 in 1937 have been reduced to 52,800 acres to-day,
representing a loss of 24 per cent. Vegetables have increased from
128,000 acres to 150,000 acres, but what is very symptomatic of the
depression which has fallen on the industry is that those rough grazings
(referred to by Dr. Stamp), which represent the margin of land the farmer
thinks no longer worth while including in his cultivated land (though he
may let his stock run over them at times), just about 4,000,000 acres in
1927, are 5,500,000 acres this year. ‘There has been an increase in the
wastage of cultivated land as well as in the actual loss of the cultivated areas.
The most significant thing in this period has been the loss of working
men on the land. In 1927 the regular wage-earning workers numbered
587,000. This year they number 489,000, representing a loss of 17 per
cent. in ten years. That loss has fallen most heavily on the youngest
section, workers under twenty-one years of age, for, while there were 134,000
of them in 1927, there are only 94,500 to-day—a loss of nearly 30 per cent.,
which illustrates significantly the progressive decline in agriculture.
Anyone familiar with farming knows that a great deal of the land is
not being properly utilised. By what means and by what processes can it
be taken in hand? Some look on agriculture as a means of finding a large
amount of employment by settling a large number of men on the land,
men who become a stable type of citizen, regarded by some Governments
as productive of the best kind of soldier. In Germany the land, in places,
is being parcelled out, the number of small holdings is being enormously
increased, and steps are being taken to tie these men as far as possible to the
land, to create ‘a peasant aristocracy,’ who, by various means, by giving them
a certain pre-eminence, will be induced to stay on the land and not be
tempted away by economic considerations. There are attempts to forbid,
on that class of holding, the introduction of machinery, so that the maximum
amount of labour shall be employed.
But to adopt such a national plan is to forgo the full economic use of the
land out of which the most food required for the needs of the country
should be obtained. There cannot be any doubt at all that material
progress in agriculture has generally replaced manual labour by some-
thing in the shape of a machine. It may be that the introduction of
machinery is the only means of keeping that land in cultivation at all ;
otherwise, by pressure of circumstances it would drift off into the poorest
type of grazing, with practically no employment upon it at all. It must
be borne in mind that the use of machinery and applied science, while it
diminishes the amount of manual labour for a given operation, may intensify
the use of the land as a whole, and there are farms where mechanisation
has so developed the land that it is carrying twice as many men as in the
days when there was nothing but horse labour and hand harvesting.
Suppose we decide on a plan for agriculture, there is no doubt that it
would have to begin by deciding not only what its aim is going to be,
production or increased employment, but also what types of production
are most required in the national interest. It would have to determine
496 DISCUSSION
the relative claims of live-stock and crops. It would have to take into
account that factor of which we are now becoming increasingly conscious,
the needs of nutrition of the people. We know that certain parts of our
population have been suffering from malnutrition and need, particularly,
milk and more fresh vegetables. Our agriculture ought to be shifted in
order to meet those requirements.
Take, for example, the silt lands round the Wash rivers and the Humber.
Those are the richest lands in the country, and are eminently suited for
the growing of crops required in the national interest, vegetables of all
descriptions. But as this soil will grow great crops of wheat, which
enjoys a subsidy from the Government, large areas are devoted to
wheat. If we had a national plan, there would be no wheat grown on such
land, which is much too good for that purpose. There is much land in the
Midlands where one can still see the old ridge and furrow which took their
shape in medieval times and have been preserved ever since. They were
corn land, and they could be corn land again under modern conditions.
With the applications of power which are possible we could really cultivate
that sort of land more cheaply, and to a depth which has never been stirred
as yet. ‘Throughout the Midlands there is a great deal of land now growing
very second-rate grass which could profitably be put under the plough. A
good example of the kind of thing that can be done is to be seen near
Newark. Years ago a poorly farmed area of some 3,000 acres was taken
over by the Ministry of Agriculture of the time, and that indifferent grazing
land is now a wonderful crop-producing area.
Our planning has got to take all these considerations into account. We
are able to make options because we are not a self-supporting country and
we grow only a small proportion of the food we consume, perhaps two-
fifths. We must consider, too, the possible emergency of war. For this
purpose we require a very close survey of the country comparative in its
detail with the Land Utilisation Survey, because by the geological structure
of the country we are denied broad outcrops, the rapid succession of
strata over England from the north-west to the south-east, giving rise to
a succession of different soils. As every farmer knows, you may get rapid
variations in the soil as you move from field to field of a particular farm.
Our survey has to be very minute if we are to put the land to its best use.
If we are to think of the emergency of war we must get that land in use
now. It is no good saying that grassland is a great reserve of fertility when
war comes. It may be a great reserve of fertility, but it is locked up unless
the men and the machines, and the knowledge of how to work it, are already
on the spot. They cannot be improvised. That was the lesson of the
emergency campaign to put the land under the plough in the last war.
This second-rate land must be got ready, producing now, if it is to be
intensified in its production should the dreadful emergency of war arise
again.
There have been many allusions to mountainous land, with a high rain-
fall, in the west, much of which is rough grazing with little economic
value. ‘That land can be made of agricultural value if it is wisely managed.
We know that the population is shrinking rapidly in the Highlands of
Scotland, in Cumbria and in Wales, but there are certain districts where it
is being preserved by townspeople who come out and bring a new source
of income to the small farmers there who let rooms to them during the three
summer months. There is one college, for instance, that is developing
land of that description by the simple process of adding to the ordinary
farmhouse reasonable accommodation for visitors, two or three rooms
with proper sanitary accommodation which can be let in the summer.
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 497
That little extra income to be derived from the visitors is just enough to
turn the small holding in this mountainous country into a proposition on
which men will willingly continue to live. And it is a wise provision for
the townspeople, too, for these areas are the natural playgrounds of the
towns. Let us facilitate it by all means. Even as an economic proposition
it will pay to attract tourists to the Highlands, and, instead of trying by other
means to exclude visitors, even to the extent of letting roads fall into dis-
repair and breaking down bridges, to attract people so as to help to save
the population which is semi-dependent upon the tourist traffic.
We can see very easily how, if all this land of ours in Great Britain were
under skilful management, under one hand, it could be put to much better
use than it is at the present time ; but all these reforms which have been
suggested will never be realised until, in some way or another, the State
owns all the agricultural land of the country.
Prof. J. H. Jones.‘ Planning’ does not mean framing a measure or
series of measures to meet an emergency ; it is not a surgical operation or a
bottle of medicine, but a mode of living which is appropriate to the stage of
development already reached by human society. A ‘ plan’ does not work
for its own extinction ; it contains a degree of continuity or permanence
that is lacking in an emergency measure. It must, therefore, be carefully
thought out, in all its bearings, some time before it can be put into opera-
tion ; and it should be sufficiently flexible to be adapted to changes in the
circumstances which it is designed to meet.
We cannot embark upon ‘ planning ’ without agreement about its purpose :
we must first of all know what we want. But there may be agreement
about the purpose without agreement about the method by which it is to
be achieved. The purpose of planning may be economic (narrowly inter-
preted), social or strategic, or a mixture of all three.
In so far as a plan is conceived for the purpose of defence the economic
purpose disappears. ‘The choice between guns and butter, or between fats,
flesh and cereals, may be real and pressing. Defence may be assumed to be
necessary either against external aggression or against internal strife. ‘Two
million people placed on the land may mean not only a greater domestic
supply of foodstuffs, but also two million fewer potential communists.
Europe illustrates the fact that a national plan so conceived involves economic
waste—a cost which is accepted. For defence remains more important
than opulence.
Planning for a social purpose may likewise only be possible at an economic
cost. Thus it may be regarded as desirable to prevent over-concentration
of population even where economic forces tend to produce such a result.
Industries may be guided—even forced—into geographic regions in which
human costs of production are higher than in others. A declining industry,
such as coal mining, may be so controlled as to prevent too rapid a decline
in’any one part. Economic factors are subordinated to the presumed need
for assisting the inhabitants of depressed regions and perpetuating the exist-
ing distribution of population or reducing the rate of change.
There is a sense in which it is true to say that industry has always been
the subject of planning ; the method of selecting industries and of deter-
mining their location and method of operation being that of relying mainly
upon individual initiative and enterprise directed by the prospect or chance
of making a profit. But it should be added, first, that the economic purpose,
1 Prof. J. H. Jones was the seventh and last speaker and, the meeting having
exceeded its time limit, he did not deliver the address of which the leading
topics are here printed, but confined himself to a few remarks of general interest.
$2
498 DISCUSSION
narrowly conceived, has not been pursued to the exclusion of all other con-
siderations ; that the method of selecting industries already described has
not been followed in all cases, and that the system of competition has not
been free from regulation.
In many industries competition is found to be self-eliminating ; the
quest for profits has led to the creation of monopoly. In extreme cases, such
as local transport and the production of gas and electricity, that duplication
of units of supply which is an integral part of competition is obviously
wasteful. Such industries are known as technical monopolies, and are either
owned and operated by public authorities or operated as public utilities.
But even in other cases, in which the public advantages of monopoly control
are not so obvious, and may be seriously questioned, monopolistic control
has been substituted for competition. Moreover, such monopolies are now
frequently called ‘ plans’; monopoly control is regarded as a form of
planning and approved (as in the case of steel) by public authorities. In
some cases, for other reasons, the State has not merely approved a privately
constructed monopoly, but even tried to institute monopoly control.
Within the large framework of competition the State has been ‘ plan-
ning’ in the past. It has restricted competition for social reasons ; it has
fostered the growth of selected industries for the purpose of defence ; it
has controlled technical monopolies ; it has favoured monopoly control in
appropriate cases. Each case has been taken on its merits, in the national
interest. This brings us back to the question, What, precisely, do we
mean by planning? What purpose have we in view? Do we wish to
build up a much larger agricultural industry, though the heavens fall ? Do
we wish to plan the land in such a way that national welfare is increased,
even though such a plan mean the sacrifice of agriculture ? Do we intend
to assume world peace or perpetual danger of war? Do we desire the State
to embark upon a new policy, with a new purpose, or merely to pursue its
present policy of taking each case on its merits, with a presumption against
direct interference and a further presumption in favour of efficiency ?
Before one can answer the question ‘ Do you believe in a planned economy ?’
one requires to know what is to be planned, and for what purpose and by
what method.
We are often told that we live in a rapidly changing world, which calls for
changes in the control of the economic system. Reference has been made
again and again to the problem of the Special Areas, and to the Royal Com-
mission that has been appointed to examine the larger problem of geographic
trends in industry and population. We have heard much about the im-
mobility of labour, the need to attract industries to depressed areas and
thereby avoid the ‘ social oncosts ’ involved in the development of new areas.
The first step in planning is to examine the powers and responsibilities of
the authorities that are likely to be called upon to administer such pro-
posals. The first stage in planning is to ‘ plan’ appropriate publi¢ authori-
ties. And here we meet with the first practical difficulty involved in any
scheme of planning on a large scale—the difficulty of centralisation.
We cannot handle human beings like pawns on a chessboard. For this
reason a scheme which, on paper, may appear inferior to another may prove
to be wiser, in practice, than the latter.
The third difficulty is that a new plan, however carefully it may be pre-
pared, is usually found to be seriously defective when brought into opera-
tion. The result is that many see in its defects not those of the specific
plan but those inherent in any plan. A reaction may set in which will
prevent any extension of planning to spheres of activity in which it is equally
necessary.
PLANNING THE LAND OF BRITAIN 499
Finally, we have to remember that it is the habit of Governments to deal
with problems only when they become urgent, though they may be careful
to hide the fact that they are urgent.
These practical difficulties must be emphasised because scientists are apt
to content themselves with stating what should be done without indicating
how it should be done. We should be clear in our minds about the purpose
that we have in view and the methods that we regard as not merely desirable
but also practicable in the circumstances of the time. This involves research
of a different character from that which has hitherto been regarded as within
the scope of the existing Sections of the British Association.
Tue First
RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
BY
The Rt. Hon. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, P.C., M.P., F.R.S.
ON
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY.
(Delivered at the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street, London,
‘on October 22, 1937.)
Mr. PRESIDENT, LapiEs and GENTLEMEN—May I open by associating
myself, if you will kindly allow me, with the words spoken by the President
regarding Lord Rutherford I knew him for a good many years as a
personal friend, genial, happy, inspiring as ‘a great teacher and as a very
fine, high spirited public servant. Whenever I had to ask him as an officer
of State for his help his feet ran swiftly to accede to my request.
I must begin by expressing two things that are upmost in my mind
at this moment—the thanks we all owe to Mr. Radford Mather, the
generous founder of these lectures, and the pleasure I feel at having been
asked by the Council of the British Association to deliver the first of them.
Mr. Radford Mather has been impressed by the importance of the work
of the scientist in the everyday life of our people, especially at this moment ;
and after a long life enlivened by scientific and social interest, he feels
keenly that the recognition of that work is not only owing to the scientific
worker himself, but will be helpful in inducing the public to use the
advantages which the scientist has put at its disposal.
The history of scientific discovery and the application of scientific
knowledge to human activities in every field reads like a romance, and
I can imagine no more interesting career for anyone whose tastes lie in
that direction. The interest and importance of the scientific career,
however, are not confined to the laboratory or the classroom, but should
be regarded as a major, if indeed not the major, creative influence on this
generation, which is undergoing such great changes of some of which we
are not aware. In national economic well-being, especially in making
high standards of living possible, in the evolution of both the powers
and the forms of national institutions, in the efforts to create and secure
social harmony and co-operation, the scientific method, if followed,
1 The President, Prof. Sir Edward Poulton, F.R.S., was in the Chair. Before
speaking of the inauguration of these lectures, referring to their founder, Mr. G.
Radford Mather (see note at end), and introducing the speaker, he had paid
tribute to the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, F.R.S., past president of the Association,
who died on October 19.
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY 501
would be of great assistance, and would save some futile experiments,
mistaken agitation, and unworkable proposals. ‘Thus, the politician as
well as the professor, the housewife as well as the manager of great works,
whether they are aware of it or not, depend in the performance of their
work upon whether the public mind not only responds emotionally, but
sets about making that response, with the same care as to facts and the
same anxiety as to methods as the man of science shows in his own special
field. What are called ‘moving descriptions’ of human ills, quite
accurate as to facts but left without carefully worked out conclusions as
to treatment, often become serious obstacles in the way of satisfactory
remedies.
Perhaps the immediate reason why I have been asked to speak to-night
is because it was my good fortune to have held the office, for the past year,
of Lord President of the Council. This made me the constitutional head
of the scientific work for which the Government is directly responsible,
and brought me into direct contact with bodies like the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research, with the National Physical Laboratory
as one of its main stations, the Medical Research Councll, and the
Agricultural Research Council, together with the co-operating bodies.
I found an inspiring companionship devoting its life and genius to find
out how the potentialities of Nature, discovered and proved by research,
could be valued, combined, and used by reason and further experiments,
so that man may be a co-operator and partner with Nature’s powers and
rise above being a bond-slave ; and that Nature herself may find her ways
understood and made valuable, as quickly as possible, for meeting human
needs.
In all public affairs I myself am an unrepentant evolutionist. There
must be change, not for the sake of change, but because social harmony
and progress will always continue to require it. Were it not so, civilisation
itself would soon become a relic, and we should have to deal with a society
which has breathed its last progressive breath and has reached the stage
of disruption through evolution because it is not adapting itself to the new
conditions which are the immediate offspring of its own life, a disruption
not created by men’s imagination, but by the evolution and the changes
in the life of every society, every combination of human beings, every
community that has not come to an end of itself. Civilisation is not a
static state but one of dynamic activity which requires direction. The
most lasting and fruitful of changes are those which arise from the failures
of existing conditions or their hitherto imperfect successes. Or, we may
put it in this way in full accordance with the truly scientific mind : creation
was left imperfect for men to carry it on towards completion by coming
to understand it, both as an accomplishment and a promise, and you
cannot separate the accomplishment from the promise if the community
is to live. ‘The place where the shoe pinches either body or mind is the
spot where disruptive unsettlement shows itself first. "The remedy is not
to curse the shoe nor to content ourselves by describing the pains. The
shoe should be adapted so that it may be useful (as it was intended to be)
without doing what it was never meant to do, rack us with pain.
Pain in the individual corresponds with discomfort and unrest in the
community. Both are signals of harmful processes and call for study
502 RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
and treatment in the scientific spirit, in order to prevent more serious
results—serious illness and death in an individual, revolution and dis-
ruption in the community itself.
By the scientific method it might often be possible to prevent even the
pain and unrest. This optimism in progress, however, assumes that an
awakened interest in the work of the experimental scientist will incline
the public to follow, in its own special concerns, the methods and spirit
of the scientist himself. I make no plea for the scientist as statesman.
He will not be likely to be any better than Plato’s philosopher. The plea
I make is for a practical Democracy, but if Democracy is to triumph in
the attack now being made upon it, it must have a method, and I believe
that the methods of the scientific worker and the way he sets about his
work will clarify and steady the popular mind not only to complain elo-
quently but to conclude wisely. I think that that conclusion stands out
boldly and baldly in the mind of everybody who has been following scien-
tific work and scientific discovery during the last ten or fifteen years.
In these days, when science is renewing its claims to be regarded as an
essential part of cultural education and to rank in value with the human-
ities for that purpose, it must be able to show that its pursuit is not only
to discover facts but to influence values of life as well, and that it can not
only put power into men’s hands, but quicken the human qualities of
mind which take care that that power is used for human well-being and
progress, as I am afraid it is too often not regarded at this moment. The
scientist as citizen should take a lively concern in the way his discoveries
are used. Professor Lancelot Hogben contributed a lively thought-
provoking paper to the Blackpool meeting in which he emphasised this
dictum: ‘ The cultural claims of science rest on the social fact that the
use and misuse of science immediately affects the everyday life of every
citizen in a modern community.’
If at the end of a generation the most advertised contribution that
scientific activity, particularly in physics and engineering, has made to
the life of the community, is that it has produced power of destruction
which can be used to appal the most indifferent to human suffering and
injustice, the labours of the scientist of our time run the risk of being
permanently deplored. ‘This, I am glad to say, is now being widely
recognised by scientists themselves. On the other hand, as I am urging,
the part which our present scientific research can play in social well- -being
and solidarity depends upon an instructed popular view of the value and
significance of those researches and their uses as a whole.
Let me, therefore, enforce what I have said by reminding you of some
subjects and directions in which scientific investigation has been active,
in recent years, to prove that it has not only contributed to our knowledge,
but has been important in helping us to understand how to begin to settle
the problems with which every progressive community has to deal to-day.
Let me refer first of all to a question, the most fundamental of our
concerns as a community and as individuals, which, after years of patient
research and experimental work, is occupying a more and more important
place in the public mind. The vital problem of nourishment and public
health has been quickened with new energy by the work of the scientific
investigators, and I am glad to say that the attack upon it is being prepared
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY 503
by a combination of the scientific and research workers in co-operation
with men of affairs. Who can say what changes are to follow upon such
a combination backed by close and practical application of an instructed
popular interest in nourishment ? Let me glance at some definite results
which may well follow. The discovery of the satisfactory menu is one
thing, the provision and use of it is another. The first result will be that
we ask ourselves how agriculture is to adapt itself to the demands which
vitamins, for instance, make upon it because the nourishment upon the
' table must depend on what is supplied by the field. I think that that is a
good scientific conclusion. On that may follow a study of some new
problems in the machinery of those necessary marketing schemes with
which we have been experimenting for some years ; the question of prices
will have to be examined with a new meaning and urgency, especially
retail prices, for, as it happens, the most valuable foods in the new régime
of nourishment are also the most expensive ; the expansion of consump-
tion following that of production will have to be dealt with in new lights
and from new angles in accordance with scientific methods ; our domestic
arrangements should also be affected, for the function of the housekeeper
should now have new interests and responsibilities which will endow it
with new dignity and importance, so that it will be regarded as of higher
value, rather than little, if anything, more than mechanical drudgery
throughout a long day, as it is too often regarded at this moment.
I lay emphasis upon this last point, for, to me, it is of supreme import-
ance. ‘The care of the family will thus be regarded as of the greatest
importance in the life of the community, and its income and expenditure
will be considered with more concern by the public. There is good
evidence that children now being brought up in many Poor Law institu-
tions are better fed, and therefore have better physical development and
health, than corresponding children in private homes living with their
parents. This is a serious reflection, for it would be pathetic if it became
possible, and this is by no means mere phantasy, in later years to pick
out for special approval those brought up under Poor Law conditions
from those brought up at home. I cannot imagine anything more
deplorable than that, from the point of view of community health and
community well-being. A formidable barrier to the deterioration of family
life, which is becoming one of the most disturbing tendencies in modern
social evolution, would be thus erected. Be that as it may, however,
the scientific investigations into nourishment, as has been plainly pointed
out in the last Report of the Mixed Committee appointed by the League
of Nations to study Nutrition, should bear rich fruits. The report I have
in mind is called ‘The Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture,
and Economic Policy.’ All this research has led to the widening of our
conception of public health, and has tended to raise the value which the
community places on the fitness of the human body.
I must further point out, however, that already so effective has been the
work done by various scientific workers that the problem of nutrition has
advanced through two well-marked stages.
The first is illustrated by the public-spirited labours of Mr. Seebohm
Rowntree and his followers who roused a widespread interest in the
question of diet. They based their contentions upon the simple fact
504 RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
that the human body required a certain amount of calories to supply
bodily needs and energy for muscular wear, and of proteins to replace
‘ wear and tear,’ and in the young to provide for growth. Up to almost
yesterday medical training in general health has been ruled by this view.
I have been assured by competent authorities that now there is no
‘ starvation —I emphasise that word and draw your attention to it—in
Great Britain in the sense used by Mr. Seebohm Rowntree when he made
his investigations on the dietary of the working classes. Nearly all
people, I am told, now get sufficient calories and protein.
But another and more penetrating group of scientific workers, whose
leader in this country is Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, have by their
investigations, strongly supported by the Medical Research Council,
helped to discover the significance of vitamins and mineral salts in food,
and have changed fundamentally the question of nutrition in relation to
health.
In relation to these discoveries in the essentials of nutrition our short-
comings are considerable. Very many people do not get sufficient mineral
salts and vitamins in their food.
In quite another and most specific direction these more recent dis-
coveries regarding food should lead directly to changes which will open
up great opportunities for a healthier life for the mass of our people.
There is now a common belief that, as regards the quality of our
population, we ought to contrive to have a considerable increase in our
people now living directly on the soil, and I believe that our present
distresses should be used, in every possible economically sound way, to
advance that object. As a result of these researches, and in continued
consultation with science, this can be done. The application of the
vitamin doctrine to agricultural problems is bound to give a great impetus
to the cultivation of protective foods—especially fruit, milk, dairy pro-
ducts, eggs and vegetables—possibly on allotments based on the practice
of co-operative cultivation, purchasing and marketing. The worker on
the land would then find himself in a new position. An extended market
would be open at his own door for the rich vitamin fruits of his cultivation.
This is necessary, for he may produce, but if he has no market he will
starve. These things necessarily follow upon our scientific investigation
into food. The provision of agricultural work is necessary if we are to
keep a country population, and the maintenance of that population is
essential to our existence.
But these investigations are also giving a wider and richer meaning to
health. At this point I must refer to the Medical Research Council.
The work of our Medical Research Council cannot be overlooked even in
the briefest and most general survey of the relations between Science and
the community.
We have seen both medical and surgical treatment revolutionised
during the last fifty years—many diseases hitherto fatal can now be
treated and the patient restored to health; other deadly and disabling
diseases have disappeared from our midst. Lack of knowledge is still,
however, the main limiting factor in the fight against the many diseases
which remain, and only continuous and laborious research will lead to
success in their control. In this fight the organisation of the Medical
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY 505
Research Council is playing the leading part as far as Great Britain is
concerned. Its success in researches centring round such problems as
nutrition and virus disease are of world-wide repute.
Recently during my tenure of office as Lord President I was glad to
be able to assist the Medical Research Council in obtaining a substantial
addition to its grant in order to promote the building up of a department
in CHEMOTHERAPY. Chemotherapy is the preparation and use of drugs
built up in the laboratory (as opposed to natural products found in plants
and animals) which by experiment are found to have specific curative
effects on certain diseases. We know that up to the present, most of this
type of experiment has been in the hands of the Germans. On a number
of occasions British workers have made a key discovery in the science,
but, lacking any effective backing for pursuing the subject, have had to
stand by and see it developed by their German colleagues. With the
new Institution now to be set up it can with reason be hoped that British
chemists and medical scientists will be able by their combined efforts to
forward this promising field of discovery and so help in the alleviation of
much human and animal suffering and loss.
Health will now be seen more and more clearly to depend upon the
body being properly nourished to resist disease. But health means more
than a successful control of disease. Health is a quality of life. Health
means the harmonious working of the physical organs of the body with
each other and with the body itself as a whole. In perfect health, the
energies of the body will respond to every duty which a man in society
has to meet, for it will mean and depend upon the harmony of man with
himself, his circumstances and his ideals. Social duty is much more
easily followed by a community of men and women robust in health,
than by one which is weak in mind and body. It is this unity in the life
of the human body, the physical body, mind, and soul, which is health.
Be it observed that this change for which those recent activities of science
compel me to hope, and challenge me to work, can only come when the
sciences dealing with life have been enlisted to play their parts in bringing
it about—from biology (one of the most neglected of the sciences in its
political, its communal and its health applications), all along the front to
psychology and ethics. Scientific work in recent years is moving us,
I am glad to say, nearer and nearer to that united front.
Now let me glance in another direction at some more definite activities
of the scientific investigator with a direct bearing upon the industry upon
which the economic life of a community depends. Production and
trade supply the life blood of society. There can be no State, well
organised to maintain a high standard of life for its people, if its blood-
currents become stagnant and thin.
The War brought about a great change in the realisation in this country
of the importance of science, a realisation which found expression, in 1915,
when the Government of the day set up a Committee of the Privy Council
to concern itself with Scientific and Industrial Research. This step
marked the first comprehensive and organised measure taken in this
country to help industry generally through the application of Science.
The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was established
soon afterwards to operate the decisions of the Committee of the Privy
506 RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
Council, and one of its earliest acts was to set on foot a scheme to encourage
our industries to co-operate with each other and create scientific research
organisations for the benefit directly of themselves and ultimately of the
nation as a whole. Although the Government contributed to the funds
of these organisations, called Research Associations, in proportion to the
amount subscribed by industry, the Associations were to be—and are—
autonomous bodies controlled by their respective industries. Apart from
its interest in these co-operative organisations, the Department of Scientific
and Industrial Research has directly under its control a number of labora-
tories which are prepared to consider problems submitted to them by
firms and to give assistance therein on the payment of fees for services
rendered.
The stimulus thus given to.industry and the information supplied have
been of the greatest national value, especially as regards international
markets; and there can be no doubt that when the Government was
able to restore national credit and confidence, the work of the scientific
investigator played a great part in the national recovery, and, in conse-
quence, in placing thousands of workpeople in employment. This could
never have been done except on a foundation of an increased national
wealth and an improvement in national production. Much of that has
been due to the scientific worker. }
Standards of life have undoubtedly been raised and opportunities for
improving wages provided, whilst leisure has been extended and the
conditions under which people work, even in spite of some serious short-
comings, greatly improved. Human stress and strain has become a
consideration in work, and the adaptability of the individual to employ-
ment has greatly eased the discomforts and disappointments of the worker.
These tendencies have by no means exhausted themselves, and an en-
lightened determination to maintain the conditions of uninterrupted
consumption of products by increasing the share of the worker in the
augmented product will minimise the hardships of any slackening, at
present uncontrollable, in the market demands for production and labour.
Here I lean upon science to find out how that can be done.
The needs dealt with by these scientific investigations cover an extra-
ordinarily wide field indicated with interesting clarity in the Annual
Reports of the Scientific and Industrial Research Department, and its
organisations such as the National Physical Laboratory. From these it
is seen that organised research extends apace, and that the co-operation
between scientists and industrialists has become a well-marked feature in
our industrial life. Industry is no longer satisfied with sporadic consul-
tations with science. This has led, as the last Annual Report of the
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research records, to a steady
improvement of the efficiency of our industry and the comforts of our
working staffs.
I mention one or two other items showing the industrial activities of
the scientific worker. But first of all, I cannot help referring to the use
made of the William Froude Tank for testing shipping designs. No
separate item of work done by scientific experiment applied to industrial
needs has interested me more than the use made of this tank. I quote
from The National Physical Laboratory Report for 1931 (p. 290) :
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY 507
“Among the results obtained by comprehensive researches in the tank
which have been adopted in the industry are the introduction of the
“cruiser stern’? on ordinary mercantile vessels, the introduction of
“ aerofoil ” types of marine propellers, the change of rake now common
in single screw ships, and the use of a central fin on the later ships to
control inflow into the propeller. Further as a direct result of researches on
cargo ship form, commenced at the William Froude Laboratory in 1911
and carried on more or less continuously, the resistance to motion of a
“good ” ship form has been reduced by about 1o per cent. The effect
of this can be appreciated from the following figures. ‘The total tonnage
of vessels classed at Lloyds at 30th June, 1930, owned by Great Britain
and Ireland, was 15,000,000. ‘Taking this at {10 a ton it amounts to
£150,000,000. A saving of ro per cent. on the coal bill means an average
saving alone of £4,500,000 per annum. In particular instances of the
research carried out on the lines of a particular ship (many such researches
are made yearly) reductions sometimes reaching 35 per cent. are achieved.’
It is interesting also to note that in the corresponding report for 1936
(p. 7) it is stated that :
“The importance of the work carried out by the William Froude
Laboratory is exemplified by the fact that of the 1,180,000 tons of merchant
shipping listed as ‘‘ under construction” in Great Britain during 1936,
no less than 920,000 tons were based on the Laboratory tests.’
And now I think of the advances made in the production of electric
lamps and lighting, the vastly improved position of this country in high-
definition television, the development on a commercial scale of the huge
plant for converting coal into oil by hydrogenation, the marked growth
of the plastics industry, and many other important advances. And, I
repeat, we are only beginning this intimate co-operation between Science
and Industry, between the genius of the scientist and the practical needs
of the industrialist—worker as well as manager being engaged in it. Nor
is the advance only in the needs of highly organised technical industries.
So let me add a few more illustrations of the kind of improvements at this
moment being studied and brought to a conclusion.
I find that research is being actively pursued into the manufacture of
shoes from the hides until the article is sold to the public ; the building
of soundproof and fireproof homes with controllable room-temperatures ;
the elimination of the squeaking of brakes and the drumming of panels in
motor cars and road vehicles for popular use ; industrial diseases, like
the devastating silicosis; preservation and transport of fresh food like
fish, eggs and fruits; the treatment of teeth—one of the most grievous
of our common ills; fresh and good water. All very humdrum and
small, you perhaps may say, but, as a matter of fact, taken all together,
they make up a fascinating study in the irritating ills which deprive the
lives of the mass of our people of the comforts which freshen the springs
of human happiness and make possible the enjoyment of our national
wealth and our social unity of spirit. Some of this work is not new, but
all of it has received revived energy from those Departments which I have
principally in mind this afternoon.
Investigation—I repeat it, it is so important—which ends innumerable
irritating distracting and unnecessary noises, even if people imagine they
508 RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
are not heard, the petty physical jars and discomforts of life, will confer
the greatest blessing on the modern community in health and peace of
mind and enrich the quality of life itself.
Here I submit a warning. I recently had to exchange views with an
admirably inspired friend on a disease in which he was keenly interested.
He was in a hurry for results of the investigation which I was able to assure
him from my own knowledge had already been begun by the Medical
Research Department. A scientific inquiry into the causes and treatment
of the simplest malady entails experiments the results of which cannot
as a rule be forced. A trustworthy scientific conclusion requires time to
build up. This is caused neither by the laziness nor the indifference of
the man of science, but by the nature of his task, and, if anyone is to be
blamed for delay and uncertainty, it is the Creator himself. Experiments
fail as well as succeed, and the work has too often to be begun all over
again. ‘The story of some of the apparently simplest discoveries of science
is often as marvellously complex as, say, the life history of the eel.
Not only have great firms extended and developed their own research
establishments, but many of the leaders of industry have given lavishly
of their time and thought to the formation of the Research Associations
to which I have referred.
This afternoon, I must limit both the length and the width of my
excursion into those fields whither modern scientific discoveries are lead-
ing us. Some of the most important have been interestingly dealt with
in papers read at recent meetings of the Association. They also find a
place in some most challenging articles in recent issues of the scientific
press. Nor will scientists fail to observe the meaning of that most
significant resolution passed by the recent Trade Union Congress agreeing
to a Committee of Scientists with whom Congress can consult on policy,
outlook and methods of handling their special work. ‘Thus not only is a
scientific front being created to encourage scientific inquiry, but it is
receiving the co-operation of all classes and interests, in applying its
discoveries to advance communal well-being.
Although I have devoted much of my time to the work of the Govern-
ment departments concerned in the development of that scientific know-
ledge which applies to industry and health, I should be loth to give the
impression that I do not appreciate the research of other well-known
public bodies and institutions, and the public service rendered by work
done in other scientific territories—chemistry in all its many-sidedness,
for instance. I have been thinking to-day mostly of the laboratories
I have so frequently visited. But they are only a corner of the scientific
life of our day.
Applied science is nearly always based on academic discoveries and such
discoveries are often made in Universities where research is generally
pursued without any view to results of practical application. Everyone
must be keenly conscious of the fine achievements in scientific research
of our Universities. It is literally impossible, for instance, to exaggerate
the consequences on modern life of the work on the constitution of the
atom pioneered and directed by our late friend, Lord Rutherford, whose
parting from us moves us all with sorrow.
Before I conclude, I must refer to certain aspects of applied science,
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY 509
though it must be briefly and more by way of putting some thoughts into
your minds, than by discussing them fully with you.
Further investigation by the scientist is not universally welcomed.
The reason is that physical science and machinery mean pretty much the
same thing in the public mind, and two accusations are made against
machinery which are in very many minds as they see what wonderful
things science has done in recent years.
But first of all there is the general doubt whether this machine age has
brought us on the balance any benefit, and is anything more than an
unfortunate by-road in world history. It is argued that, in pursuing the
machine, man has lost his soul and those qualities which proved that he
had asoul. ‘That great question in esthetics cannot be dealt with in this
lecture, even as a side-issue. I believe, however, that a very large part
of the case for doubt is based upon the misuse of certain applications of
scientific discovery for which the man of science cannot be blamed and
ought not to be blamed. But, further than that, I am not at all sure but
that the proper use directed by such intelligence of science will be found
to provide the antidote—conditions of leisure and culture which will
enable us to rediscover the qualities of life which modern society is said
to have lost. It is worth thinking about.
But there are two doubtful thoughts of immediate importance which
I must notice, if for no other reason than to show that my great admiration
has not been reached by shutting my eyes to anything that has been said
on the other side. The position indicated in the sentence I quoted from
Professor Lancelot Hogben is in my mind.
Much of the new machinery appears to displace labour and so create
a new source of unemployment supply. This is shown dramatically in
agriculture. I saw it during this summer. At hoeing time the fields are
occupied by labour as before; at reaping time the field, crowded fifty
years ago, by lively men and women singing happy songs and dressed so
as to be bright points for catching and reflecting the warm unclouded
sun, are now empty and silent save for the reaping machine and its rattle.
And it is said that every industry where machinery can be profitably
introduced tells the same tale. Therefore in many quarters science is
regarded as the enemy of human beings who desire to live as self-support-
ing workers. So has it always been at times of great change : that allega-
tion has always been made in industrial production. A reply may be
made which reminds us of the experiences of labour in history, that the
displacement of men by machinery has always been but temporary, and
that with an increase in national wealth we also have an increase in the
national demand for labour. ‘There is some evidence that that experience
is being repeated to-day. It is, however, rather unconvincing to the man
who actually finds himself unemployed because a machine more efficient
than himself as a producer has taken his place in mind and factory. Be
that as it may, machinery which takes the place of the hard, uninspiring
and deadening drudgery of human beings is all to the good, and that which
multiplies the efficiency of human skill is also to the good. I look, how-
ever—I have already said and I repeat it—to the more direct benefits,
and do not see why they should not be obtained mainly from an increase
in leisure, the enjoyment and use of which are amongst the most pressing
510 RADFORD MATHER LECTURE
of social problems to-day. And there is another pressing problem in
front of us—how to reduce cost of production without lowering standards
of life. Scientific invention properly used, I believe, will give us the best
chance to solve both problems.
The other trouble is kept fresh and urgent by what we read every day
in our newspapers of the great advance due to science in the destructive
forces of the world, as shown in China and Spain, and to be repeated
with increased horror wherever war breaks out. If we cannot avoid war,
we cannot avoid the very worst that can happen in warfare. But this
raises issues which depend upon other considerations than those of the
field of science. Science increases power which can be applied both to
life and death. Science cannot help the men who have made air forces
possible, for instance. ‘They have also created civil air fleets, and I con-
sider that a great benefit, and if the communities cannot make and keep
peace, or if they are so blind as to follow the aggressive actions of their
rulers, democratic or dictatorial, the responsibility is theirs. If peace is
not secured by, say, diplomacy, and the will not of one but of all nations
to keep peace, it is both a false judgment and a very cowardly one to blame
the scientific engineer and worker. ‘The action of the farmer in growing
corn and food for war is exactly of the same kind as the engineer who makes
flying engines. Peace or war are not the responsibilities of scientists as
scientists, except in very special cases, so long (and it will always be) as
the discoveries which increase our peaceful and beneficial resources can
be used for war machinery.
At the same time, there is a feeling among many scientists that the
ease with which their labours may be misused in this way should make
them, as citizens, active in creating and upholding the public opinion of
the nations to which they belong, interested in protecting their work
from being abused, as beneficial poisons and many chemicals essential to
peaceful industry can be.
I have presided over a fair number of International Conferences—your
own people being represented—of chemists, engineers and others interested
in this question, and one and all gave a hearty response to every mention
of this interest and duty of theirs. Scientists will also remember that
from that distinguished body, the Royal Academy of Sciences at Amster-
dam, came a resolution which was discussed and improved at the Third
General Assembly of the International Council of Scientific Unions and
published in two issues of Nature of April 24 and May 22 last. It
recognised the social responsibilities of Science and scientific workers,
and the Assembly decided to have the question closely considered.
This misuse of scientific discovery is the concern of the political organi-
sation of citizens, including scientists. In any event, we ought to be
careful not to go upon altogether false scents, or set up issues which are
too narrow to end theills from which we suffer. We can go back to bows
and arrows but that will not remove the grievances of nations for which
they will fight, nor supply the enlightened diplomacy which can keep the
peace without injury to a nation’s sense of injustice. Do not let us be
misled by thinking that the scientists as such can stop or cause war. The
military leader can use the triumphs of science as he likes to horrify us
with warfare. That is all.
SCIENCE AND THE COMMUNITY Cee.
In any event, Science cannot cease to follow the exhortation of Carlyle
to ‘ produce in God’s name,’ and it would be bad for humanity generally,
if it tried. It is not scientific to deal with the offshoots of evil. The
scientific method goes to their roots. Let us face our present conditions
in the historical and biological spirit, and much progress in the science
and art of applying scientific knowledge, in the scientific spirit, to society
and government, can be recorded.
It must be evident to everyone who has thought about the social conse-
quences of advances in scientific research that they call for a reinvigoration
of social science. ‘The experiences of later years points out the urgent
desirability for close co-operation between the scientist, the industrialist,
and the man of affairs, to enrich the lives of human beings, to help such
changes as will diminish the disruptive forces in society, and to promote
social solidarity which lies at the root of human progress and happiness.
And this can be done. It is, indeed, the next step, made not only possible
but inevitable by the great contribution to scientific progress made in
recent years by scientific research.
NOTE.
Mr. George Radford Mather, a life member of the British Association,
to whose generosity the Association owes the foundation of the Radford
Mather Lecture, is a retired engineer, now living at Wellingborough. In
1909, fifty years after his apprenticeship, Mr. Mather retired from active
business, and since then he has devoted much time and energy to the study
of those minimal surface relations exhibited, for example, in the spherical
shape assumed by a small raindrop. It was during a correspondence on
such matters that attention was directed to the increasing interest shown by
the Association in the social implications of advances in science, a subject
about which Mr. Mather is seriously concerned. Deeming that this aspect
of the Association’s activities is one to be encouraged, Mr. Mather has pro-
vided funds wherewith to endow a lecture, to be called the Radford Mather
Lecture, to be delivered triennially in London or the provinces, and generally
to be concerned with the effect of advances in science or communal well-
being.
It is a matter for regret rather than surprise that the venerable founder
of the Lecture—he was born at Irchester so long ago as 1841—was unable
to be present in person and to hear the late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s
thought-provoking address. Fortunately his son, Mr. C. J. Mather, was
able to attend and to convey to Mr. Radford Mather the thanks and good
wishes of the Association.
BEGINNINGS OF TOWN-LIFE IN
BRITAIN.
BY
Dr. R. E..M., WHEELER.
Being the substance of the THIRTEENTH ANNUAL NORMAN LOCKYER
Lecture, delivered on November 24, 1937, in the Hall of the
Goldsmiths’ Company, London.
THE foundation of town-life in Britain has been ascribed to the Romans.
The Celts are regarded as essentially a mobile country-folk, with a fluid,.
non-localised system of administration that is epitomised for the modern
mind in the organisation of the Highland clan. ‘'The Germans and
English,’ wrote Haverfield, of the pre-Roman populations, ‘ occupied
villages. . . . They dwelt scattered up and down the land... . The
appearance of town-life among any of them is a sign from the south.’
And a generation later, the most eminent of Haverfield’s pupils and suc-
cessors has recently affirmed that the ‘ hut-clusters’ which in part
represent for us the pre-Roman settlements of Britain ‘ were in no sense
the nuclei and symbols of British civilization; they were not so much
cities as slums. To convert Britain into a province of the Roman
empire was to civilize it in the most literal sense of the word: to
furnish it [for the first time] with towns.’
The purpose of the present lecture is to test these assertions in the
light of advancing knowledge and to check our estimate of the Roman
contribution to British urbanisation—matters of fundamental historical
importance, in which nevertheless the determining factor is archeology
rather than history.
On the historical side the familiar evidence may be re-stated shortly.
To Julius Cesar, who knew only a part of south-eastern Britain, a British
“city” was a clearance in the woodland, fortified by rampart and ditch
and used as a place of refuge both for men and for animals in emergency.
For the rest, Cassar adds nothing to our picture of the native settlements
of Kent or Hertfordshire in his time. Archzological exploration of the
last few years at sites such as Wheathampstead, St. Albans and Colchester
has, however, supplied further details. ‘These cities were of large size.
Wheathampstead, the earliest of them and possibly itself the “ oppidum
Cassivellauni’ stormed by Cesar in 54 B.C., was nearly 100 acres in
extent and strongly entrenched. The adjacent countryside was delimited
by boundary dykes which would also assist in the protection of flocks
- and herds in time of unrest. And, not least, the situation of these towns
in the immediate vicinity of river-fords and cross-country routes indicates
BEGINNINGS OF TOWN-LIFE IN BRITAIN 513
an interdependence and coherence amongst them which lifts them out
of the parochialism of a mere peasant kraal.
But it is on the downs of Wessex and amongst the foot-hills of the
Welsh border, in a country unknown to Ceesar, that the most obvious and
dramatic vestiges of our pre-Roman communities have survived; and
here too—in Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire and
elsewhere—exploration has proceeded at an unprecedented pace in recent
years. ‘This is not the context for a detailed discussion of these investiga-
tions. It will suffice to observe the number of the sites and to glance
at certain characteristic features of them. Between central Hampshire
and eastern Devon alone there are still upwards of seventy Iron Age
fortified settlements, of which half at least are of considerable size relative
to the population of the period. Many of them were permanently
occupied, with houses and streets, sheltered by massive lines of rampart
and ditch, the construction of which implies no small degree of wealth
and authority and skill. What are now merely turf-grown mounds are
known to have had originally the dignity of timber or masonry revetment ;
the summits of the main ramparts were, in some cases at least, reinforced
fighting-platforms, and towers or built strong-points rose here and there
amongst the outworks, that the slingers, who formed the principal fighting
force, might control the approaches. The monumental Maiden Castle
of Dorset, for instance, stood like some provincial Mycenz of the down-
lands, appropriately known to Ptolemy’s informants, it seems, as Dunium,
The Dun or The City, without further particularisation. Its great earth-
works must have been erected by large gangs or corvées, whose members
sometimes died at their work, for their bodies were thrown here and there
into the ramparts during the actual work of construction. In its prime,
in the first century B.c., this famous hill-town is now known, as the result
of excavation, to have contained great numbers of circular huts, with a
multitude of storage-pits cut to a beehive shape in the chalk or built some-
times of unmortared masonry. The huts themselves were usually of
timber and thatch, but occasionally had walls of chalk and flint rubble.
They were approached from streets worn hollow with traffic and metalled
and re-metalled with flint pebbles—in one case, with the addition of a well-
built kerb of imported limestones. The roads passing through the
entrances are deeply grooved with prehistoric cartwheels, the gauge of
which, between 44 feet and 5 feet, approximated to the modern standard.
Beneath the turf everywhere indeed are vivid vestiges of a busy, crowded
scene, with much coming and going, and evidence too, within the limits
of a generally primitive society, of not a little civic control and solicitude.
And what may be said of Maiden Castle may be said in commensurate
degree of other surviving works of the kind—Hod Hill or Eggardun, for
example, both in the same county, the former with prehistoric street-
lines still visible amongst its multitude of hut sites. By virtue of the
permanence of their defensive architecture, the relative extent of their
population and the administrative centralisation which they imply, the
larger of these works can only be designated ‘ towns’ or ‘ cities’ in a true
sense of the term. The Romans normally applied to them the word
oppidum, a word whereby Cicero could refer to Antioch or Livy to Rome
itself.
514 NORMAN LOCKYER LECTURE
In the light of these new or newly verified facts, it is difficult now to
deprive the Celtic inhabitants of lowland Britain of the rights of citizen-
ship. Whether by modern standards these cities were or were not ‘ slums’
is unimportant. It cannot be denied that the British lowlanders of the
first century B.C. were organised extensively in civic units: citizenship
was no innovation in Roman Britain. But let not this modification of
the traditional view be pressed too far. One important element of the
fully developed civic life of the classical world was absent or merely
incipient in the life of these downland cities: namely, commerce. The
almost endless cultural variety which marks British Iron Age settlements
of the kind reflects their essential parochialism. ‘Their economic basis
was agricultural. Their economic outlook was defined almost entirely
by the productivity of a given tract of countryside in relation to a limited
agricultural equipment. If I may again cite Maiden Castle, I would
emphasise how few of the many hundreds of objects found there during
four years’ intensive exploration are likely to have been brought from far
afield. Stone, iron, clay, bone, horn were all to be found within four miles
of the site. Bronze or its components would have, it is true, to be im-
ported into the region, but bronze was sparingly used. Two coral
beads merely emphasise the extreme rarity of ‘luxury’ imports. Nor
is the explanation far to seek. The tracts of naturally open country in
which the Iron Age population was nucleated produced, as a rule, little
that was of export value. There was little or nothing wherewith to
balance an import trade. The downland citizens lived mainly by ‘ taking
in each other’s washing.’ Movements of population from overseas,
dynastic ambition and other disturbing accidents broke their routine
from time to time, but neither caravans nor argosies linked them
permanently with worlds beyond the horizon.
This conclusion may seem at first sight to be at variance with the
statement of Strabo, at the beginning of the present era, that Britain
exported corn, cattle, gold, silver, iron, skins, slaves and hunting-dogs
—a statement modified indeed by the same writer when he refers also
to the meanness and small worth of the British exports. This export
trade was doubtless confined mainly to the Belgic states of the south-east,
whose cities, as indicated above, are in fact related to traffic-lines to a
degree not apparent in the downland oppida of the west. Its importance
is that it linked south-eastern Britain, however vaguely, with Roman Gaul
or even Italy, and so prepared the way for that Roman occupation which,
as we would now claim, may more fairly be said to have remodelled than
to have created the urban life of the British lowland.
The modernity of the general lay-out of Roman Britain is familiar.
Backed by an imperial treasury and a central authority, the Roman
engineers arterialised the new province with a simplicity and directness
that have retained their influence even into an industrial era which could
not be foreseen. When not merely ancient cities such as London,
Leicester, Winchester and York, but even essentially modern growths
such as Manchester and Wigan are found to be in direct contact with
Roman Britain, it is easy to stress the almost uncanny vision of the Roman
surveyor. And in detail the astonishingly modern features of a Romano-
British town are sufficiently familiar : the well-drained streets, the number
BEGINNINGS OF 'TOWN-LIFE IN BRITAIN 515
and elaboration of the bath-suites, the systems of central heating, the
dust-proof floors, the glazed windows, the simple but stately provision
for secular and sacred ceremonial, and a hundred other features which
combine in some sense to bring Roman Britain nearer than medieval
England to twentieth-century civic standards. The ‘ Romanisation of
Roman Britain’ has been emphasised and, in due proportion, rightly
emphasised ever since Haverfield began his studies. In the present
context attention is directed, however, to the other side of the picture—
to the background which this brilliant show of modernity may easily and
unduly overshadow.
For the elaborate urban organisation of Roman Britain substantially
failed on test. It provided a pattern of civic life from which the medieval
Englishman was later to fashion a new Britain for himself from his own
homespun. But the progress of Romano-British researches in recent
years, at Wroxeter, Verulamium and elsewhere, has shown us more
clearly than we could see before both how Roman Britain failed in this
essential feature, and why. In the south, at any rate, the story unfolds
itself in this fashion. ‘The Roman armies of invasion in A.D. 43
swarmed across lowland Britain, much as their successors swarmed
recently across Abyssinia. Native towns which resisted were stormed
and dismantled: at Maiden Castle, for example, the dead, slain by
Roman swords and arrows, lay hastily buried outside the eastern gate,
and the gateway itself had been violently wrecked at the same period.
Such incidents would be easy to visualise, even in the absence of evidence.
But recent exploration has added significantly to the story. At Maiden
Castle, and doubtless elsewhere, the native population was not at once
displaced from its hill city. Over the wreck of the dismantled gateway
a new road was built into the town, and remained in use for some twenty
years. Nor indeed was any other course immediately feasible. To have
evicted the native townsfolk from their homes would have been to create
a huge and dangerous vagabond-population which would hopelessly have
impoverished the country and have brought endless embarrassment upon
the invader. Disarmed and left in their demilitarised towns, the natives
were sufficiently shepherded by an occasional police-post such as that
which can still be seen within a corner of the pre-Roman hill town on
Hod Hill in Dorset. Meanwhile on the one hand the conquest could
proceed according to plan, and on the other hand the complex task of
‘ building up’ the new province behind the military zone could be under-
taken with the requisite deliberation.
This work of construction took time ; Roman Britain was not built in
aday. Foreign capital had to be attracted into it, by optimistic stories of
its wealth in ‘ gold, silver and other metals’ which Tacitus names as the
“reward of victory.’ Foreign craftsmen had to revolutionise the homely
architecture of the native ; foreign business methods had to be naturalised.
All this took time. It was not indeed until the golden era of Hadrian
and the Antonines that the Roman towns of Britain were made really
shipshape, and then only, it may be inferred, by large grants-in-aid
from the imperial treasury. By the middle of the second century cities
such as London, with its three miles of massive wall and rampart, or
Verulamium with its two miles of wall and its monumental gateways,
516 NORMAN LOCKYER LECTURE
shone brightly on the provincial landscape. Little more than a century
later the bubble had burst. The towns—if Verulamium and Wroxeter
be taken as fair samples—lay in a state of semi-ruin. The town-walls
of Verulamium were crumbling in decay, and carts passed carelessly
over the fallen columns of the Wroxeter market-place. ‘The reorganisa-
tion of the Empire under Diocletian and his colleagues brought to some
cities a momentary respite: at Verulamium houses were rebuilt, the
municipal theatre was raised from its ruins and (significantly, perhaps)
enlarged. But before the end of the fourth century the city was once
more in decay. Many of its remoter houses were no longer occupied,
save partially and intermittently by squatters. The city had degenerated
into a concentrated slum. How had this come about ?
In part, the adversities which afflicted the cities of Roman Britain were
universal throughout the Empire. They were aggravated, however, by
local conditions. Successful town-life such as was contemplated in the
design of the Romano-British cities implies the creation of a considerable
and prosperous middle class. Such a class subsists on commerce and
industry ; and that is where the Romanisation of British town-life failed.
The time was not yet ripe for so drastic a revolution. In pre-Roman
Iron Age Britain, save to a limited degree in the south-east, there had, as
we have seen, been no significant development of commerce outside
circumscribed tribal units or complexes. Consequently, the extensive
remains of Iron Age urban life exhibit no hint of what we should to-day
call a bourgeoisie. Whether he lived in a capital city such an Maiden
Castle or in some obscure hamlet, the house and furniture of the Iron
Age householder scarcely varied in quality; an individual here and there
might be marked by the possession of finer gear or some object of virtu,
but there is no hint of a substantive middle class distinguishable
economically from classes above and below. Such distinctions as existed
would appear to have been based rather on tribal grade than on personal
wealth. Upon this simple social system, the Roman régime attempted
to impose the differentiations and responsibilities of a developed
commercialism. Artificially reinforced, this foreign system seemed for
a moment or two to achieve some degree of success. But it was
insecurely founded; it lived on capital and collapsed in bankruptcy.
Nor are the reasons far to seek.
Briefly, at no time was the productivity of the Roman province in-
creased to an extent commensurate with the cost of a huge garrison and
the whole paraphernalia of an imposed and radically foreign civilisation,
True, lead-mines, iron-mines, even occasional gold-mines were opened
up here and there, and must be supposed to have produced some small
revenue. Other industries were established, but mostly of a local and
trifling character, insufficient to return interest on the capital invested
in the province by the city-builders of the spacious days of Hadrian and
the Antonines. Soon after the end of the second century the trade in
one of the most popular of imports, the bright red terra sigillata, was
dwindling to vanishing point, and whole factories were, for this and parallel
reasons, closing down in Gaul and the Rhineland. Rome had effected
a political and social revolution in Britain without achieving the necessary
counterpart, a commensurate economic revolution. Basically the
BEGINNINGS OF TOWN-LIFE IN BRITAIN Ging,
province was agricultural, and Romano-British agriculture remained
essentially pre-Roman in its equipment and environment. ‘Therein lies
the crux of the problem.
Much play has been made of the sending of British grain-ships to
the Rhine at a moment of emergency in the fourth century, but there is
no evidence that Romano-British agriculture produced any great surplus
for export. Coulters from the developed wheel-plough have been found
at Silchester and (long ago) on the site of a villa in Gloucestershire, but
we have no reason to infer that the heavy, fertile clay lands were brought
appreciably into cultivation during the Roman period. We shall never
know the extent or detailed nature of the lands tilled in the vicinity of the
great Romano-British country houses, such as Chedworth or Witcombe
or Bignor'; but we are at least certain that the general map-pattern of
Romano-British country life remained primarily prehistoric, and shows
no real similarity to that of the evolved countryside of the middle ages.
It may reasonably be suspected that the Roman villa system disciplined
some part of Romano-British agriculture, rather than revolutionised it.
In the past insufficient weight has usually been attached to this large
static element in the composition of Roman Britain. The modernity of
the town- and road-map of the province is misleading to the casual glance.
The Roman engineer cut his roads through miles of forest and built his
causeways fearlessly across swamps, in modern fashion. The towns
occupy modern valley sites at river crossings. But there the modernity
of the mapends. For the rest, the fertile forest lands remained uncleared,
the swamps undrained. Both alike continued to be almost as devoid of
inhabitants as before the legions came. This point is a vital one. The
background of Roman Britain was derived directly from Early Iron Age
Britain: a background showing the downs of Sussex and of Wessex
still thickly populated with peasant farmers whose agricultural equipment
and general environment were almost identical with that of their pre-
Roman forbears.
Roman Britain failed, then, not merely because of the increasing cor-
ruption and mutability of imperial authority, nor yet merely because of
barbarian onslaught. It failed equally because it was designed by its
masters as a closely co-ordinated commercial province, whereas at heart
it remained essentially what it had been in the pre-Roman era—a province
of nucleated but poorly equipped agricultural folk, capable of providing
hardly more than sufficed their own needs, with little margin for barter.
It lacked the wherewithal to balance a sustained import trade, to subsidise
a permanent middle class. ‘The new urban populations, after living
awhile in a fool’s paradise, drifted steadily into pauperism, and their cities
decayed into slums. The long-ruined forum of Wroxeter, the theatre
of Verulamium used as a rubbish dump in a half-derelict city, are eloquent
of the desperate pass to which Roman urbanity had come by the latter half
of the fourth century. The Roman valley cities had failed in the purpose
1 The heavier soils in the neighbourhood of these country houses have been so
extensively tilled in the middle ages and later that actual traces of Roman
tillage are unlikely now to be detected there. On the other hand, the intensive
exploration of a limited area—say, 10 miles square—in a region rich in Roman
country houses might be expected to provide useful hints on this point.
518 - NORMAN LOCKYER LECTURE
for which they and their highways had been primarily designed and they
had no line of retreat; for their designers had divorced them, alike in
place and in kind, from the simple rusticity of the pre-Roman hill towns
which had in their day constituted a genuine expression of the economic
condition of the country. Recovery was impossible, and the subsequent
revival of the Roman cities in the changed environment of the middle
ages was a tribute to the skill of the Roman engineer, rather than to the
achievement of the Roman economist.
If the Romano-British towns failed, it has long been recognised that,
within the strict limits already defined, Romano-British country life suc-
ceeded. When the towns, or many of them, were already in extremis,
country houses (as at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire), farms and
villages (as at Woodyates, Dorset), were flourishing and rebuilding.
Country shrines (Lydney in Gloucestershire, and in the Dorset Maiden
Castle) were being built anew, sometimes on a lavish scale. The official
religion, Christianity, in spite of the Christian complexion of the literary
tradition, appears to have gained only a modest foothold in Roman
Britain: its natural vehicle would have been the urban populations, but
these, as we have seen, were largely ‘ down and out.’ A single tiny chapel
served the needs of Christian Silchester; another, even smaller, would
appear to have served Caerwent. A short list would include the tangible
relics of Christianity from the whole of Roman Britain. ‘There were
bishops in certain of the larger cities, but their flocks must, for the most
part, have been the city rabble. In the remoter countryside of the
fourth century, paganism, unreached by urban officialdom, achieved a last
efflorescence before, in the tumult of the Dark Ages, Christianised
denizens of the slums were cast forth into the wilds, where their urban
faith and their fevered memories of urban splendour combined to
Christianise the outlands and to fill them with romance.
ALEXANDER PEDLER LECTURE.
THE seventh Alexander Pedler Lecture was given in Leicester, in co-
operation with the authorities of the University College in that city, by
Prof. Allan Ferguson, D.Sc., on Monday, May 3, 1937. The lecture
dealt with some problems of surface tension illustrated by motion pictures
of splashes and the text has been printed in another form in the Proceedings
of the Royal Institution (Proc. Roy. Inst., 28, p. 195, Feb., 1934).
REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS 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. 333-445), 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.
Joint Discussion on Surface Actions in Biology (Sections A, B, I) 1937
Nature, 140, No. 3546, 671-2.
Bates, Prof. L. F. 1936 Cf. Proc. Phys. Soc., 48 and 49.
Carroll, Prof. J. A. 1936 Cf. Nature, 188, 349. A full report of the
Omsk observations is expected to appear in Monthly Notices Roy.
Astron. Soc.
Danielli, Dr. J. F. Cf. 1935 Fourn. Cell. Comp. Physiol., 5, 495; 1936
Journ. Cell. Comp. Physiol., '7, 393; 1936 Biochem. Fourn., 30, 316.
Davies, E.R. To appear in Nature.
Griffiths, Dr. E. 1937 (Sept. 8) Times ; cf. 1937 (Oct. 5) Pres. Add. to
Brit. Assoc. Refrig.
Langmuir, Dr. I. 1937 Science, 85, 76; Fourn. Amer. Chem. Soc., 59,
1406; Fourn. Amer. Chem. Soc., 59, 1751 ; jFourn. Amer. Chem. Soc.
(Nov.).
Paneth, Prof. F. A. 1937 (Sept. 9) Manchester Guardian; cf. Nature,
139, 180, 220.
Stevenson, Dr. H. A. To appear in Pharmaceutical Journ.
Taylor, Prof.H.S. Cf.1937 Trans. Amer. Electrochem. Soc.,'71, 375.
Thackeray, Dr. A.D. Cf. Monthly Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 97. suppl. no.
Waller, Miss M.D. 1937 Proc. Phys. Soc., 49, 522.
DEPARTMENT A*,
Full reports of the discussions on The Unification of Algebra in Schools and
The bearing of higher Geometry in the School Course are printed in a
special number of the Mathematical Gazette, 21, No. 246 (Nov. 1937).
SECTION B.
Discussion on Chemistry of Building Materials. Reported in Nature, 140,
No. 3545, 607-8. Expected to appear in full in Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind.
520 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC.
Discussion on Protein Chemistry. Nature, 140, No. 3542, 491-2.
Linderstrom-Lang, Dr. K. ‘To appear in Collegium, Zeitschr. Internat.
Vereins Lederindustriechemtker.
Morgan, Sir G. 'T., and Walton, E. 1937 (Sept.) Chemistry & Industry
61, No. 39, 853-5. Cf. Journ. Chem. Soc, 1931, 615 ; 1931, 1743;
1932, 276 ; 1933, 91; 1933, 1064; 1935, 290; 1936, 902.
Wrinch, Dr. D. M. 1937 Proc. Intern. Congr. Phys. Chem. & Biol.,
Paris ; cf. Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 160, 59; Proc. Roy Soc., A, 161, 505 ;
Nature, 189, 972; Science, 85, 566; Proc. Faraday Soc., 38, 1260 ;
(Langmuir, Schaefer and Wrinch), Science, 85, 2194.
SECTION C.
Edwards, K. C. 1937 (Sept. 24) Colliery Guardian.
Novak, Dr. V. J. Expected to appear in English in Mem. Soc. Roy. de
Boheme (1938).
Reynolds, Prof. S.H. Expected to appear in Geol. Mag.
Richey, Dr. J. E. Expected to appear in Bulletin Volcanologique.
Richter, Dr. R. Cf. 1929 Natur und Museum, 59, 1-33.
Sherlock, Dr. R. L. Cf. 1926 Proc. Geol. Soc., 37, 1-72; 1928 Proc.
Geol. Soc., 89, 49-95.
SECTION D.
Beadle, L. C. To appear in Journ. Exptl. Biol. (with F. A. Booth).
Cochrane, Dr. F. E. To appear in Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. and Fourn. Genet.
Darlington, Dr. C.D. 1937 Nature, 140, No. 3548, 759-61 ; cf. Fourn.
Genet., 381, 185-212.
Hall, E. Raymond. Cf. 1926 Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., 80, No. 2, 7-38 ;
1927 Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., 40, 193-4; 1930 Journ. Mammalogy,
11, No. 1, 23-6, 11, No. 2, 146-155, 11, No. 3, 362-9; 1931 Journ.
Mammalogy, 12, No. 2, 156-8; 1932 Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., 45,
139-40; Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., 38, No. 12, 415-23; 1935 ourn.
Mammalogy, 16, 137-8; 1936 Carnegie Inst. Wash., Publ. No. 473,
41-119 3} 1937 Amer. Midland Naturalist, 18, No. 2, 304.
Miles, Dr. H. W. Cf. 1932 Ann. Appl. Biol., 19; 1933 Journ. Min.
Agric., 89; Ann. Appl. Biol., 20 (with Thomas and Hey); 1935
Journ. Min. Agric., 42, No.2; 1936 Entom. Month. Mag., 72
Pringle, J. W. S. To be published in Journ. Exptl. Biol., Dec. 1937.
Pyefinch, K. A. Expected to appear in Proc. Zool. Soc., A.
Roebuck, A. 1936 Ann. Appl. Biol., 28, No. 2, 441-4.
Wigglesworth, Dr. V.B. Cf.1934 Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci.,'7'7, 191-222 ;
1936 Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci.,'79, 91-121.
Yonge, Prof. C. M. Cf. Sci. Rep. G. Barrier Reef Exped. (1928-29),
Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), 1, 259-81; 1937 $. Mar. Biol. Assoc., 21,
687-704; 1937 Nature, 189, 840.
REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 521
SEcTION E.
Discussion on Natural and Cultural Regions. 1937 Nature, 140, No.
3545, 605-6.
Cumberland, K. B. 1937 (Oct. 7) Craven Herald and Pioneer.
Edwards, K. C. 1937 (Sept. 3) Nottingham Guardian; cf. Geography
(1935)-
Hall, Sir A.D. 1938 (Jan.) Scot. fourn. Agric.
Roxby, Prof. P. M. Expected to appear in Geography.
Smailes, A. E. Expected to appear in Geog. Journ. early in 1938. Cf.
1935 Scot. Geog. Mag., 51.
Stamp, Dr. L. D. (Planning Discussion) Cf. 1934 Hector Mazben
Lecture, Amer. Assoc. Adv. Science ; 1937 Amer.
Geog. Rev., 27, t.
(Natural and Cultural Regions) To appear in Rep.
Comm. Nat. Reg. of Geog. Assoc., Geography, 1938.
Taylor, Prof. E.G. R. 1937 (Nov.) Geog. fourn.
SECTION F.
Dennison, S. R. 1937 (Oct.) The Manchester School (Paper on industrial
location).
Selfridge, H. G., Jr. 1937 (Sept. 9) Women’s Wear.
SECTION G.
Baily, Prof. F. G. 1937 (Sept. 10) Engineering, p. 299; (Sept. 17)
Electrician.
Bateman, E.H. 1937 (Dec. 10) Engineering, p. 669.
Faber, Dr. Oscar. 1937 (Nov. 12) Engineering, p. 556.
Fleming, A. P. M., and Jackson, Dr. W. 1937 (Oct. 22) Engineering,
p. 469.
Greig, J., and Parton, J.E. 1937 (Oct.15) Engineering, p. 439.
Haile, W.H. ‘To appear in Engineering.
Herbert, E.G. 1937 (Sept.) Metallurgia; (Oct. 29) Engineering, p. 495 ;
cf. Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 120, 265 ; Metallurgia, 4, 9, 47; Inst. Mech.
Eng., 124, 645.
Marchant, Prof. E. W. 1937 (Sept. 17) Engineering, p. 33°.
Pomeroy, L.H. 1937 (Sept. 24) Engineering, p. 355.
Sims, Dr. L.G. A. 1937 (Oct. 1) Engineering, p. 387.
Swan, A. 1937 (Sept 10) Engineering, p. 280; (Oct.) Shell Aviation
News, No. 76, 14-18.
Swift, Prof. H. W.,and Haslegrave, Dr. H.L. 1937 (Sept.17) Engineering,
D.325-
c
522 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC.
SECTION H.
Butter, J. 1936 Proc. Congres Préhist., X1I* Sess., Toulouse-Foix, 514 ;
Proc. Soc. Préhist. frang.
Chadwick, N.K. To appear in Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. ; cf. Journ. Roy.
Anthrop. Inst., vols. 60, 61, 66; Scottish Gaelic Studies, 4; ‘The
Growth of Literature ’ (Chadwick), C.U.P. (in the press).
Fogg, W. Expected to appear in Journ. Roy. Afric. Soc.; cf. 1932 Geo-
graphy; 1935 Scott. Geog. Mag.; 1936 Journ. Roy. Afric Soc.
Hooke, Prof.S.H. Expected to appear in Folk Lore.
Peake, H. J. E. 1936-7 Mem. & Proc. Manc. Lit. & Phil. Soc., 81.
Simpson, Miss C. A. Expected to appear in Proc. Cotteswold Naturalists
Field Club.
Tucker, Dr. A. N. To appear in Man.
SECTION I.
Discussion on Physiology and Health. Nature, 140, No. 3542, 493-4.
Atzler, Prof. Dr. E. Arbeitsphysiologie, 9, 579.
Edridge-Green, Dr. F. W. Cf. ‘ Science and Pseudo-Science,’ John Bale &
Sons, London ; ‘ Psychology of Vision,’ G. Bell & Sons, London.
Friend, Dr. G. E. Cf. 1932 fourn. State Med., 61, No. 6; ibid., 62,
No. 11; Ann. Rep. Brit. Ass. Phys. Training; 1935 ‘ The Schoolboy.
A Study of his Nutrition, Physical Development and Health,’ W. Heffer
& Sons; 1936 B.M.7., 2, 276.
Lockhart, Dr. L. P. 1937 Lancet, 2, 1177.
SECTION J.
Ballard, Dr. P. B. 1937 (Sept. 16) The Schoolmaster. 1937 (Oct. 16)
The Listener ; cf. 1937 (March) The Human Factor ; 1938 Education
Year Book.
Brown, Dr. W. To appear in Brit. Journ. Psych.
Cattell, Dr. R. B. 1937 (Dec.) Character and Personality.
Maule, H. G. Cf. 1937 Journ. Inst. Brit. Launderers, issues of May,
June, July ; 1936 (Oct.) The Human Factor.
Rodger, A. 1937 (Nov.) The Human Factor.
Spearman, Prof.C. Expected to appear in Scientia; cf.‘ Psychology down
the Ages ’ (1937).
Vernon, Miss M. D. 1937 (Nov.) Brit. Journ. Educ. Psych., 7, part 3.
1938 (Feb.) Brit. Journ. Educ. Psych., 8, part t.
Vernon, Dr. P. E. Cf. 1938 ‘A Survey of Attitude Tests, Rating Scales
and Personality Questionnaires,’ Industrial Health Research Board Rept.,
London, H.M.S.O.
Walker, D. A. Cf. 1931 Brit. Journ. Psych., 22, 73-86; 1936 Brit.
Journ. Psych., 26, 301-8.
REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC. 523
SECTION K.
Discussion on Genetics and Taxonomy. 1937 Nature, 140, No. 3544,
572-3.
Bond, Dr.G. 1937 Nature, 140, 683. Expected to appear in Ann. Bot.
Brenchley, Dr. W. E. 1937 Ann. Appl. Biol., 24, 494-503.
Chesters, Dr.C.G.C. To appear in Trans. Brit. Mycol. Soc.
Davies, Miss G. N. Cf. Ministry of Agric. and Fisheries, Rept. No. 545
Serial No. 771.
Harris, Prof. T. Expected to appear as Catalogue of Rhaetic Flora, Brit.
Mus. (Nat. Hist.).
Jones, Martin. 1937 (Oct.) Scot. fourn. Agric.
Lawrence, W. J.C. 1935 Cf. (with Rose Scott-Moncrieff) Journ. Genet.,
155-226; 1936 Genetica, 109-115.
Matthews, Prof. J. R. 1937 Cf. fourn. Ecol., 25, 1-90.
Sirks, Dr. M. J. 1938 Bot. Rev., 4; cf. 1931 Proc. Kon. Ac. Wet.
Amsterdam, 34, 1057-62, 1164-72, 1340-46 ; Genetica, 18, 209-632 ;
1937 Zschr. ind. Abst. u. Vererb. Lehre, 78, 367-73 ; 1938 Genetica,
20 (in press).
Thomson, Prof. R. B. Expected to appear in Proc. Roy. Soc. B.
Tincker, Dr. M. A. H. 1937 Nature, 140, 594; Manuf. Chemist, 8,
No. 10, 340 ; cf. 1936 , Journ. Roy. Hortic. Soc., 61, pt. 9, 380; Fourn.
Roy. Hortic. Soc., 61, pt. 12; 1937 Nature, 189, 1109. Further reports
to appear in Journ. Roy. Hortic. Soc.
Turrill, Dr. W.B. Expected to appear in Biol. Rev. (Cambridge Phil. Soc.).
Wilson, Miss I. M. 1937 (Oct.) Ann. Bot.
DEPARTMENT K*.,
Fitzherbert, J.T. 1937 Colliery Guardian, 155, No. 4002, 476; Timber
Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3185, 800.
Forbes, A. C. To be published in Scot. For. Fourn., 51, pt. 2; cf. Empire
For. Fourn., 4, No. 2.
Gardner, R.C. B. 1937 Timber Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3184, 724.
Holland, L. 1937 Colliery Guardian, 155, No. 4002, 474-5; Timber
Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3185, 799. -
Jones, C. J. 1937 Quart. Journ. Forestry, 81, No. 4, 251-8; Colliery
Guardian, 155, No. 4003, 517-8 ; Timber Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3185,
803.
Macdonald, J. 1937 Colliery Guardian, 155, No. 4002, 475-6; Timber
Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3185, 801.
Orde-Powlett, Hon. N. A. 1937 Quart. Journ. Forestry, 31, No. 4,
324-9. Timber Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3184, 723.
Pollard-Urquhart, B. Cf. 1936 (Sept.) Wood.
Wilson, Dr. S. E. 1937 Quart. Journ. Forestry, 31, No. 4, 239-51;
Colliery Guardian, 155, No. 4003, 516-7; Timber Trades Fourn., 142,
No. 3185, 802.
524 REFERENCES TO PUBLICATIONS, ETC.
Woodward, W.O. 1937 Timber Trades Fourn., 142, No. 3184, 725-6;
Timber and Plywood (Sept. 4); World’s Paper Trade Rev. (Oct. 8, 15,
22); to appear in Journ. Eng. For. Soc.
SECTION L.
Ginsberg, Prof. M. 1937 (Oct.) Social Review.
Graefer, Dr. G. 1937 (Nov.) Journ. Ed., pp. 697-9.
Horrabin, J. F. To be published as a pamphlet by National Council of
Labour Colleges.
Livingstone, Sir R. W. Expected to appear in Public Administration,
April 1938.
SEcTION M.
Duckham, A. N. Expected to appear in Scot. Journ. Agric., Jan. 1938.
Yates, F. 1936 Man. Stat. Soc., 1-26; Journ. Min. Agric., 42, No. 2,
156-62.
APPENDIX
A
SCIENTIFIC SURVEY
OF
NOTTINGHAM
AND DISTRICT
PREPARED FOR
THE NOTTINGHAM MEETING
102%
BY VARIOUS AUTHORS
EDITED BY
Prof. H. H. SWINNERTON, D.Sc.
CONTENTS.
I—TueE City oF NoTTINGHAM
i. The Growth of Modern Nottingham. By Dr. J. D. CHAMBERS
ii. The Municipal Life of Nottingham. By J. E. RicHarps
iii. Education in the City of Nottingham. By A. H. WHIPPLE..
II —GreEaTER NOTTINGHAM
i. Nottingham and its region. By K. C. EDwarps ............
ii. Industrial Nottingham. By A. RapForD and W. O. BurRows
III.—NotTTINGHAM DIsTRICT
i. The Geology of the District. By Prof. H. H. SwinnerTon,
SHG s@rine andebe PoIGEN Te AX ©. Sys ee «eras ieishs sigeaemele inane
ii. The Climate of Nottinghamshire. By K. C. Epwarpbs ......
iii. The Botany of Nottinghamshire. By Prof. J. W. Carr......
iv. The Zoology of Nottinghamshire. By Prof. J. W. Carr......
v. The Agriculture of Nottinghamshire. By H. G. Rosinson
vi. The Underground Water of Nottinghamshire. By R. C. 5S.
MARA GTS 8 8 onc ol ae teaiR SMicternacr sh: olbl o.goucrakeore ths a ne -u ed
IV.—NOTTINGHAM’s RIVER—THE 'TRENT
i. The River Trent Catchment Board. By WALTER H. HaAlt_e .
ii. The Ecology of the Trent and its Tributaries. By J. INGLIs
SPICER}: 6). soMGR nie teta eet ties. «Lt edd SRR RR Sects, «)c «2 sul oleate
iii. The Economic Aspects of the Trent. By K. C. Epwarbs....
V.—SCcIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT ’
By Prof. H. H. SwInNERTON and D. N. Lowe............
PAGE
95
99
A SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF
NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
i
THE CITY OF NOTTINGHAM
i THE GROWTH OF MODERN NOTTINGHAM
BY
J. D. CHAMBERS, B.A., Ph.D.
THE recorded history of Nottingham begins with the Anglian settlement
on St Mary’s Hill. The record consists of the name itself—Snotingaham,
the homestead of the Snotings; but there are evidences in the rock on
which it stands of the presence of man from neolithic times. Its soft sand-
stone, which lent itself to easy excavation, was an attraction to man from
early to modern times—though not to the Romans—and its command of a
crossing of the Trent was destined to make it a high stake in the game of
national politics. The references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the
disputed possession of the settlement by Anglian and Dane testify to the
strategic significance of the site. Edward the Elder having fortified the
old settlement, built a second burh here, on the opposite side of the river,
and the Conqueror took an early opportunity of securing the town and
erecting a castle. The site which he chose was the present Castle Rock,
to the wes tof the older Anglo-Danish burh and overlooking it. It marked
his intention to keep what he had won.
The geographical conditions which gave to Nottingham in time of war
a special strategical importance, made of it in time of peace a busy
centre of exchange for a wide area. From all directions, by land and
water, trade flowed to its gates; from Hull and the eastern towns via
the Trent, from Derbyshire and the west by the Derwent and Trent;
valuable mineral deposits also assisted the growth of the town and as
early as 1155 it became a centre for dyeing cloth and by 1348 there was
a local coal trade. Nottingham alabaster was known from Italy to
Iceland and as many as fifty-eight alabaster heads of John the Baptist
were sent to London in one consignment.
Thus, side by side with the alarums and excursions of war there de-
4 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
veloped a more prosaic undertone of industry and trade. In 1155
Henry IJ granted the city a charter, and by 1448 it was a fully fledged
municipality with a mayor, a shire court of its own and seven aldermen
for life, who were also magistrates. From the military shell a mercan-
tile community had emerged—the County of the Town of Nottingham.
Then followed in the 16th Century, the religious revolution of the
Tudors and the rise.to local predominance of a wealthy commercial
class. An impressive symbol of their rise may be seen in the elaborate
mansion of Wollaton Hall, built by the Willughbys in 1588 of Ancaster
stone in exchange, it is said, for coal from their extensive mines.
The foundations of society were shifting and it is not surprising that
in the seventeenth century the superstructure of Church and State had
to be remodelled in accordance with the new ground plan evolved in the
sixteenth. For religious reasons, the conflict came to open war, and
Nottingham was the chosen spot for opening the local campaign. But
Charles’s standard waved in vain from Standard Hill; he fell back on
Shrewsbury and the Parliamentarians took their chance and seized the
ancient fortress—in disrepair but vitally important still.
The prompt action of Sir John Hutchinson, who took the lead in
securing the town and castle for Parliament, and the stubborn defence
of the castle by himself and his remarkable wife, Lucy, against the
strenuous attacks of the Newarkers, were important factors in the suc-
cess of the cause. By this means the crossing of the Trent was kept
for Parliament throughout the war and communications between north
and south secured. It was fitting—but not entirely an accident—that
after the disaster of Naseby, the defeated King should haul down his
flag in the county from which he issued his challenge. In the hopes of
breaking the ring of his enemies, he opened negotiations with the Scottish
Commissioners whose army was taking part in the siege of that indomit-
able town, Newark. Early on Sth May 1646, the King in disguise
arrived at the Saracen’s Head, Southwell, whence he was transferred,
later in the day, to the Scottish headquarters at Kelham. The King was
a prisoner and the war was virtually over.
From now to the end of the 18th Century the history of the town was
relatively uneventful; but under the placid surface there was significant
movement which expressed itself in two main directions, in architecture
and in economic life. Both town and county were getting richer, and
under the influence of wealth and leisure, art and enterprise were free
to flourish.
The architectural heritage of the town had already been enriched by
the rebuilding in perpendicular style of St. Mary’s in the century 1380-
1480. This is not the place to comment on this last achievement of the
medieval spirit, but it offers an interesting example of the wealth of the
local wool merchants, since it was largely through their munificence that
the nave was rebuilt.
From this time there is no more conspicuous church building, unless
we except the new St. Nicholas, until modern times; houses not
churches remain to attest the spirit of the age, a spirit grounded in classi-
cal studies and rounded off by the continental tour. In 1674 William
THE GROWTH OF MODERN NOTTINGHAM 5
Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, started his palatial residence on the site
of the old Castle; Nottingham now possessed a ducal seat and became
a centre of attraction to the people of quality in the district. They not
merely visited the town; they lived in it; and the houses which they
built express the ideas of comfort and elegance belonging to their class
and period. Consider such examples of aristocratic house-building as
Newdigate House (1675) in Castle Gate, Willoughby House (1730-40),
and Vault Hall (1743) on Low Pavement and the house of Lord Howe
at the corner of Stanford Street, and perhaps especially Bromley House,
built by George Smith the banker in 1732. We have only to step into
the vestibule of Bromley House, look through the vista of the hall and
garden, mount the ample sweep of its staircase through the leisurely
gradations of its shallow stairs, to realise at once that we are in the
mental climate of another age, an age of assured serenity, of patrician
culture firmly based. Nottingham was basking in the full Augustan sun.
The reputation of Nottingham at this time stood high. ‘Were a
Naturalist in Quest of an exquisite Spot to build a Town or City upon,
could he meet with one that would better Answer his Wishes?’ So wrote
Dr. Charles Deering of his adopted town of Nottingham in 1739, after
settling there at the conclusion of a pilgrimage that had been long and
arduous. He was a naturalist of some repute and had settled in Notting-
ham after a varied and not“too fortunate career as a doctor in Germany,
London and elsewhere. He was a solitary and he died destitute. But
he loved Nottingham so well that he spent his slender resources
in collecting material for its history and his last years in writing
it up. When we look at the plan which he included in his History of
Nottingham, published in 1751, we can see the reason; we may even
envy him the opportunity of making such a choice. (See Plan of Notting-
ham in 1744 inset opposite page 8.)
The town consisted of less than 2,000 houses, containing about ten
thousand people; most houses had stretches of gardens and many had
orchards. This ‘garden city’ community of ten thousand souls was
arrayed along the southern face of a sandstone outcrop, stretching from
Hollowstone along High Pavement, Back Lane (Parliament Street), Butt
Dyke (Park Row) to the Castle Rock; to the north and south of this
sandstone crescent lay the open fields and meadows, the famous crocus
meadows which in early spring spread a purple hem to the skirts of the
old town. No town in England, it is said, had so fine an approach as
“the most beautiful mile’ which lay through these crocus meadows be-
tween Trent Bridge and Hollowstone; and from Celia Fiennes who, in
1689 said it was the neatest built town she had ever seen, to a German
traveller in 1784, who described it as one of the best, and certainly the
cleanest outside London, there is a chorus of praise.
At the very time that these words were written changes were taking
place that were destined to give Nottingham a reputation of a very differ-
ent kind. They sprang from that potent seed, sown almost casually by
William Lee, an obscure Calverton clergyman, in Elizabeth’s reign. The
stocking-frame, which he invented in 1589, and on which he had made a
pair of silk stockings for Elizabeth herself, had grown into an industry
6 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
which employed many thousands of workers in the villages and towns of
the Midland counties, and the number was continually growing. The
industry clamoured for cheap labour; women’s labour, children’s labour,
anybody’s labour, skilled and unskilled. By the middle of the eighteenth
century the gild regulations were outgrown and labour was free.
Industrial technique kept pace with these changes. In 1759 the Derby
Rib machine was invented by Jedediah Strutt, the first important modifi-
cation of the original frame and the greatest. From this source flowed a
bewildering succession of mechanical innovations by which the stockinger
progressively mastered the art of producing almost every known mesh
by mechanical means. The result was the rise of Nottingham lace, the
work of an army of obscure mechanics—Flint, Rogers, Hammond, Hayne
—who payed the way for the triumph of Heathcoat and Levers in the
early nineteenth century.
But perhaps the greatest influence exerted by the stocking industry was
in the encouragement it gave to mechanical spinning. Hargreaves and
Arkwright were only the most prominent of the inventors who were
floated by the finance of local tradesmen, bankers and hosiers on Notting-
ham’s chief industry; Hargreaves came probably in 1768; Richard Ark-
wright followed the same year. The mechanical power was, at first, a
horse gin, but by 1771 Arkwright had set up his mill at Cromford on the
Derwent and similar factories, driven by wa@er power, sprang up along
the Leen and the Dover Beck. The death knell of the water-mill sounded
almost as soon as it was born. In 1785 the first power mill in the world
was established at Papplewick, another at Nottingham in 1790, and the
transference of the industry to the sources of labour supply in the town
began. :
Nottingham was thus edged nearer and nearer to the rapids of the
Industrial Revolution. But two circumstances operated to check the
speed of descent; the first was the swift decline of cotton spinning in
competition with Lancashire, the second was the persistence of the do-
mestic structure of the Hosiery Industry. Although a circular frame was
invented by Brunel in 1816, it was not applied, in an improved form, until
the °40’s and even then for another twenty years the hand-frame main-
tained an unequal fight with the factory. To this day it is possible to
see frames at work in a few cottages in Calverton (where the frame
originated) and other centres; and the stockingers’ windows in town and
village of the Midlands attest the wide distribution of the industry, and
the obstinacy with which it died.
But the most spectacular aspect of the changes was the growth of
population.
From 10,000 in Deering’s time it grew to 28,861 at the first census in
1801, by 1821 it was 40,415 and in 1831 it was 50,680. By the standards
of the time this is not a phenomenal increase; other towns can show an
even more rapid rate, but it was accompanied by a circumstance that
was very rare, perhaps unique. While growing so rapidly in numbers,
the town remained almost stationary in area; fifty thousand people now
occupied a site very little larger than that which a century earlier had
housed ten.
THE GROWTH OF MODERN NOTTINGHAM 7
The reason for this was that on three sides it was hemmed in by in-
violable property rights, which the owners, fortunately for later gener-
ations, refused to sell; on the north and south by the common fields over
which the burgesses had rights of common; on the west by Nottingham
Park belonging to the Duke of Newcastle and by Wollaton Park belonging
to Lord Middleton. The result was a problem of overcrowding in the
old town as grim as any to be found in England. A network of new
streets and alleys was rapidly thrown up, ‘a resurrection of buildings,
generally without order, seated like clusters of mushrooms in a field cast
up by chance’ as a contemporary complained. Gradually, the gardens
and orchards of Deering’s map disappeared and left behind them an
ironical memory of their former fragrance in the names of the streets
that took their place: Plum Street, Pear Street, Currant Street, Garden
Street, the Meadow Platts. They branched off, as the map shows, in all
directions, like the shots and furlongs of an open field wherever there
was land enough for a new street. (See Plan of Nottingham in 1831 inset
opposite page 8.)
But streets are extravagant creations; they consume land space both
in front and behind, and this luxury Nottingham could not afford. Alleys
were more economical, but better still were blocks of houses arranged
in courts to face one another across an open drain and having no back
entrance of any kind. These were the notorious back-to-back houses of
Nottingham, of which there were nearly 8,000 in 1845. They were fre-
quently built in the form of narrow courts, entered by a tunnel twenty to
thirty feet long, eight feet high, and from thirty to thirty-six inches wide.
Thus was Deering’s Nottingham, that ‘exquisite spot to build a town
upon’, changed into a chequer-board of mean streets, alleyways and
courts, and a byword for filth and misery beyond belief.
When the Commissioner appointed in 1845 to enquire into the con-
dition of large towns and populous places came to Nottingham he was
compelled to report that the average age at death of the inhabitants of
several of the Nottingham districts was only 14 or 15 years, a lower rate
than had yet been ascertained to exist in any other city or town within
the British Empire.
To set off against this unenviable pre-eminence, there is one achieve-
ment in the sphere of social reconstruction of which Nottingham should
be pre-eminently proud. This is the wonderful revolution effected in its
water supply by that remarkable man, Thomas Hawkesley, the foremost
civil engineer of his age, and probably the greatest benefactor that
Nottingham has every had. He was a native of Nottingham, born of a
well-known local family, and his work in the sphere of civil engineering
* England and on the continent ranks among the notable achievements of
the age.
Mr. Hawkesley was engineer to the Trent Waterworks, a company that
was incorporated in 1825. Before the reform which he inaugurated,
Water was supplied to the houses of the labouring classes by means of
carriers, who sold it at the rate of a farthing a bucket, or where it had
to be carried any distance, a halfpenny a bucket, but after the changes
carried out by Mr. Hawkesley, 8,000 houses containing 35,000 people, as
8 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
well as a number of breweries, dye-houses and steam engines were sup-
plied by pipe lines at high pressure day and night at a cost of a penny
per house per week. The cost, measured in quantity of water supplied,
had been reduced, it was said, to one-twentysixth of what it had been
formerly, and the entire supply was managed by one man and a boy.
Asked by the incredulous commissioners what would happen to taps and
lead-piping left all night in the house of a working man, he replied that
the high pressure of the water was a sufficient deterrent to thievish intent
and acted as an automatic policeman. He pointed out also, that gratitude
for their priceless treasure of a permanent and plentiful supply of fresh
water might also be reckoned upon, especially by the housewives to
whom it was an unspeakable boon.
Within their allotted sphere Hawkesley and his colleagues worked
wonders, but they were defeated in their wider aims by the political
society in which they lived. Local politics, as an examination of any
municipal election at this time would show, were a reflection of the
struggle between rival property interests, and the focus of the struggle
was the question of enclosure. The forces were very evenly balanced.
While the green band of property rights hemmed in the town on three
sides its further expansion was impossible. Industrialists on the look out
for sites went outside the town altogether, to Basford, Bulwell, even to
Arnold. Tradesmen saw themselves doomed to stagnate; business men
could not expand; the building industry chafed impotently against the
barrier of the common rights which prevented it from loading the sur-
rounding meadows and fields with more slums; but above all, the owners
of the common land—for it was owned in severalty though it was pastured
in common—were prevented from entering into their inheritance of en-
hanced site values by the postponement of enclosure. Truly a formidable
combination. .
But enclosure was held at bay, except for a few minor concessions,
until 1845. The owners of small houses in the town opposed it; their
houses would be empty and they would be ruined, they said. The bur-
gesses clung to their rights of common, though not more than 185 out of
3,000 actually used them for pasturing their cattle. But all took pleasure
in the open spaces round the town, in the cricket matches on the Forest,
the walks on the Lammas Lands and Meadows, the snow-balling
and skating on the frozen floods. Nottingham could stretch its
legs and fill its lungs; already the Basford enclosures had robbed
the people, it was said, of 1,500 acres of common playground
where they had formerly gone in nutting parties, and danced to
the fiddler’s playing. The enclosure of Nottingham itself would
stifle them. However, the political complexion of the borough
changed under the influence of the new voters of 1835 and within ten
years, enclosure triumphed. Public spirit had already been whipped into
reluctant activity by a fearful attack of cholera; there was a team of
enthusiasts at work, sharp-shooters, skirmishing on the flank of vested
interests wherever they were found. Hawkesley was the most distinguish-
ed, but there were others; a doctor, a parson, a local historian, a few
businessmen and manufacturers. The complex struggle of conflicting
property groups, a struggle in which disinterested public spirit and expert
NovrinGHam in 1831
reproduction of copy of ‘ Stayeley and Wood's
Plan of Nottingham’ in the
Reference Library, by kind pe
Public Libraries and Museum
THE GROWTH OF MODERN NOTTINGHAM 9
knowledge participated, had momentous consequences, and is a very
interesting example of how corporate decisions are made.
In 1845 the Act was passed, and it was something new in the way of
enclosure acts. It was so hedged about with restrictions and safeguards
that on the land thus brought in, slums were impossible. Houses had to
be of a certain size; they had to have a back door as well as a front;
even a garden was insisted upon. More than this, land was to be set
apart for recreation; the Forest, the Arboretum, Queen’s Walk, Cor-
poration Oaks. It must be admitted that the provisions of the Act were
not proof against the ingenuity of speculative builders, but they witness
to the birth of a social conscience rare for those days, an outcome no
doubt, of the foregoing struggle in which scientific knowledge, armed with
an active public spirit, had played a conspicuous part. Nottingham now
entered upon the course of municipal development, which has culminated,
after many years of painfully slow progress, in a notable burst of energy
in our own time, and placed the city in the front rank of progressive
English municipalities.
nu. THE MUNICIPAL LIFE OF NOTTINGHAM
BY
J. E. RICHARDS, Town CLERK.
NOTTINGHAM does not depend for present fame upon past history, but
one cannot overlook the City’s story, for it was in ages past that the
foundations of much that is important to-day were laid. It has a past of
which any town should be proud. So far as dated history goes it cannot
point to anything earlier than 868 A.D. but before that, long even before
the Romans came to Britain, there was probably a settlement on the spot
where Nottingham has subsequently grown up.
It is not necessary in this article to deal fully with the history of Notting-
ham, in itself a fascinating study, but it is interesting to recall the following
events which have had a direct bearing on the municipal life of the city:
Nottingham’s first Charter was granted by Henry II in 1155,
Henry VI granted a Charter in 1448 constituting the town a County
of itself,
The town was created a City by a Charter granted by the late
Queen Victoria in the year 1897, and
King George V in the year 1928 raised the office of Mayor to the
dignity of Lord Mayor.
From the middle of the 18th century a change took place in England
and especially in the Midlands and the North. This change has been
called the Industrial Revolution and its result was to turn what had been
an agricultural community into an industrial one. Nottingham became
a great industrial town and the coming of canals and railways gave it the
10 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
position to which its geographical situation entitles it. The industrial
development of the town was closely allied to the growth of the lace trade,
but it is no longer dependent on a ‘ staple trade’ only, for it is now known
as the City of innumerable industries.
In addition to the manufacture of lace the following industries are
carried on: hosiery, bleaching, dyeing and dressing, engineering, bicycles,
clothing, leather, pharmaceutical products, brewing, malting, tobacco,
printing, and many others.
Nottingham is fortunate in its municipal and social services, in the
administration of which the manufacturing interests of the city are given
sympathetic consideration. Gas, electricity, water and transport ser-
vices are municipally controlled and managed on sound and successful
commercial lines. It also has a fine educational system culminating in a
University College.
The following is a short resumé of the public utility and health ser-
vices of the city which have helped to establish Nottingham’s claim to be
one of the most progressive municipalities in the Country.
WATER
Water is obtained from wells, sunk in the Bunter Beds of the new red
sandstone, and from storage reservoirs situated about fifty miles from the
city, in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District. The Derwent water
from Derbyshire is of a soft quality and, like the sandstone water, shews
by analysis a high standard of purity. The Derwent supply is delivered
into the north-west portion of the Nottingham area, at the boundary of
the Langley Mill and Eastwood parishes, the pressure being sufficient to
gravitate water into the Ramsdale Hill Reservoir. The elevation of this
reservoir is about 500 feet above Ordnance datum, and thus exceeds all
the high points within the city and surrounding district. About 32 per
cent of the city’s total water consumption is derived from the Derwent
supply, and the other 68 per cent from the Corporation’s own sandstone
wells.
The total area within the compulsory limits of supply as defined by the
various Acts of Parliament and Provisional Orders, is about 243 square
miles. In addition, there are parishes supplied, by agreement, outside the
Parliamentary area. The bulk of the water is supplied from five pumping
stations situated at Basford, Bestwood, Papplewick, Burton Joyce and
Boughton, being pumped direct from wells and boreholes into eight
covered service reservoirs from which it gravitates to the premises supplied.
The total quantity of water distributed during the year ended March
1937 was 5,048,709,538 gallons, equal to nearly 224 million tons, an average
of over 133 million gallons per day. Of this quantity about 17 gallons
per head per day were used for domestic purposes, and about 124 gallons
per head per day for trade and special purposes. The estimated popu-
lation supplied at the end of March 1937 was 460,000. Water is retailed
to consumers and small traders at a fixed annual charge, varying according
to the gross rateable value of the premises occupied, and to large traders
at so much per thousand gallons passed through meters. The maximum
pressure in the mains is about eighty pounds per square inch. The total
THE MUNICIPAL LIFE OF NOTTINGHAM Il
length of cast iron supply mains within the area is about 790 miles.
Water is supplied by the Corporation practically at cost price.
ELECTRICITY
Nottingham is particularly fortunate in its electricity supply. The
Electricity Department of the Corporation is wholly responsible for the
generation, distribution and administration of electrical energy in Notting-
ham and a large surrounding area. It is probably one of the most modern
and progressive supply undertakings in the country, and its consumers
approximate to 100,000.
A modern super-generating station, with a capacity of 30,000 Kw. was
erected in 1925, an extension comprising 27,500 Kw. in 1928 and a further
30,000 Kw. came into operation at the end of 1935. This station en-
sures a cheap and abundant supply of electricity for all purposes.
Whilst this super-generating station (one of the selected stations under
the Government Scheme) is located on the north bank of the Trent well
away from the centre of the city, the entire administration is efficiently
carried out from centrally situated offices in Talbot Street.
The number of units sold during the twelve months ended the
31st March 1937 was 128,637,475; and 109,156,510 units were exported to
the grid scheme of the Central Electricity Board.
Up-to-date electricity showrooms have been established in the new
Exchange Buildings—the very heart of the city—where every possible
assistance is accorded to consumers and prospective consumers.
GAS
The Gas Area extends far beyond the city boundaries and includes
650 miles of mains, spread over the total area of 140 square miles. The
number of consumers is 124,000 and the total quantity of gas sold per
annum is 2,700,000,000 cubic feet. There are three manufacturing
stations—Basford, Radford and Eastcroft—each of which is equipped
with modern plant of ample capacity for the district. In addition, some
700 million cubic feet of gas is purchased in bulk from the Pinxton Coke
Ovens eleven miles distant.
The Department carbonizes approximately 150,000 tons of coal annu-
ally, and the works are complete with coke screening, cleaning and
grading plants which prepare 75,000 tons of smokeless fuel for use in
domestic and industrial furnaces and stoves.
The special care given to ‘ Nottingham Coke’ over many years has
resulted in a very large increase in its demand for domestic and in-
dustrial use, and this is a contribution to the abatement of smoke in the
city.
Over 2,300,000 gallons of tar are produced annually, and the whole
is distilled at the Department’s tar distillation plant, producing large
quantities of British road tar, creosote, naphtha, light oils, carbolics and
pitch.
The Ammonia Works produce 1,750 tons of artificial manure (neutral
sulphate of ammonia) per annum, and the Sulphuric Acid Works at
12 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Giltbrook manufacture the whole of the 1,600 tons of sulphuric acid
required by the Department. There are large distribution workshops
and stores situated in Woodborough Road where all work for the service
of consumers is carried out. The workshops control the maintenance of
124,000 meters, 90,000 cookers, 33,000 fires, as well as all special gas
appliances (including water heaters, wash boilers, central and domestic
heating water boilers) in the area.
The showrooms, which are well equipped and stocked, are situated in
Parliament Street in the centre of the city.
PASSENGER TRANSPORT
The first passenger transport services which ran in the city were oper-
ated by horse tramways and began in 1878. These were subsequently
taken over by the Nottingham Corporation and replaced by electric tram-
cars, the first route being opened in 1901.
Electric tramcars were the chief means of passenger transport until
1920 when the Corporation inaugurated a petrol omnibus service. The
tramcars have gradually been replaced by trolley vehicles and petrol and
oil omnibuses and were discontinued on the Sth September 1936.
At present the omnibus fleet comprises 190 modern vehicles consisting
of petrol and heavy oil engines, serving routes in the city and districts
outside.
In addition, the Corporation operate trolley vehicle services. The first
service of this kind was inaugurated in 1927 and there are 23.2 route miles
now operated by this class of vehicle. The services are maintained by a
fleet of 125 of the latest type six-wheeled vehicles.
The total distance of routes covered by the various services of the
Corporation now amounts to 136 miles. The development of the under-
taking is best demonstrated by a comparison of the passengers carried
and the miles run in the first year of operation by the Corporation, which
was in 1898, and the last available year, viz., year ended 31st March 1937.
Thus we find that the number of passengers has increased from two and
a half millions to over one hundred millions, and the miles run have
increased from a little over a quarter of a million to over ten millions.
The Department is well equipped with regard to workshops for main-
tenance, and all classes of repairs are undertaken at the Trent Bridge
Works. The main depot and offices are situated at Parliament Street
where accommodation is provided for 225 vehicles of all types with shops
for running repairs. There are two other depots situate in outlying dis-
tricts.
AIRPORT
The city has always been to the forefront in the matter of aviation.
In 1928 the City Council established an airport at Tollerton, 34 miles
from the city centre. The airport has the distinction of being the second
to be licensed in this country.
The aerodrome originally covered an area of 140 acres, but with a
view to an increase in the size of the landing area and the protection of
THE MUNICIPAL LIFE OF NOTTINGHAM 13
the airport against development along its perimeter which may interfere
with its approaches and runways the Corporation have entered into
negotiations for the purchase of land which will increase the area to
approximately 630 acres. Its unique position will, as aviation progresses,
make it one of the most important airports in the country.
Special taxi and charter work is undertaken at short notice at moderate
rates. Nottingham Airport offers first-class accommodation, servicing,
repairs and maintenance at very low rates. A qualified staff of experi-
enced pilots and engineers is kept fully employed.
TRENT NAVIGATION
The River Trent affords Nottingham a highway to the sea. It gives
access to Newark, Gainsborough, and four Humber Ports, including Hull.
Prior to the Great War the navigation was controlled by a Company,
but by the Nottingham Corporation (Trent Navigation Transfer) Act,
1915, the portion of the navigation lying between Nottingham and Newark
was transferred to the Corporation.
On the conclusion of hostilities the Corporation exercised their powers
under the Act and have since pursued an energetic policy of constructing
new locks (Stoke Bardolph, Gunthorpe, Hazleford and Holme Pierrepont)
and deepening the river. At the Nottingham end of the section controlled
by the Corporation, basins, warehouses and transit sheds have been
constructed. An enormous tonnage is cleared every year.
In addition to the river service with the Humber Ports there is a canal
service via Leicester and the Grand Union Canal between Nottingham
and London and also services between Nottingham and Birmingham,
Manchester, Liverpool, &c.
NEw Roaps
Prior to the War, Nottingham had some fine roads, notably, Gregory
Boulevard, Lenton Boulevard and Radford Boulevard, but with the ever
increasing motor traffic new problems of town planning arose. With a
view to solving these problems several magnificent new arterial roads
have been constructed. Taking advantage of grants from the Govern-
ment the Corporation first constructed Valley Road (80 ft. wide and 1.75
miles long) through an area hitherto undeveloped.
Other new arterial roads have been constructed as follows : —Middleton
Boulevard, 120 ft. wide and .72 miles long. Western Boulevard, 120 ft-
wide and 1.93 miles long. These roads have dual carriageways and have
served the purpose of opening up undeveloped areas, relieving traffic
congestion and enabling traffic passing through the city to do so without
having to negotiate the busy areas in the centre.
The construction of the extension of Parliament Street, through the
heart of the city, connecting districts South of the city with those of the
North, was carried out partly in connection with the demolition of slum
property. This new road, which is practically half a mile long and has
a minimum width of 70 feet, has done much to relieve traffic congestion.
14 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
The Town Planning Scheme contains other proposals for the construc-
tion of new roads and widening of existing roads, and when these works
have been completed, traffic difficulties in Nottingham will be reduced to
a minimum.
HOUSING AND RE-HOoUSING
The progressive policy adopted by the Corporation Housing Committee
has resulted in Nottingham being right in the forefront of municipal
housing.
Immediately after the War, Nottingham, in common with all other
Cities, was faced with a serious Housing shortage. The Housing Com-
mittee embarked upon an extensive housing policy covering a considerable
number of estates, and since 1919 no less than 15,000 houses for the
working classes have been built.
Nottingham has been fully alive to its obligations in respect to slum
clearance and its five years’ programme for this work provides for the
erection of approximately 5,500 new houses.
It is of interest to note that Nottingham was the first large city in
England to send in a completed five-year plan for slum clearance and
also the first large city to receive approval for that scheme from the
Ministry of Health. 2,500 houses have been completed for re-housing
in connection with slum clearance and work is proceeding on a further
3,000 houses to complete the programme.
Nottingham was one of the first local authorities to erect houses to
let at an economic rent without the aid of Government subsidy. 550
non-parlour houses have been erected and let at an inclusive rent of
10/2 per week, and another 1,000 are in course of construction.
In accordance with the provisions of the Housing Act, 1936, 66,835
houses have been inspected, of which 1,015 or 1.517% were found to be
overcrowded. The scheme for dealing with overcrowding provides, in
the first place, for the erection of 308 houses and it is the Corporation’s
intention to deal with this matter expeditiously.
The Ministry of Health has warmly commended the Corporation upon
its housing developments and has frequently used its figures as a basis
of comparison. The general excellence of its housing schemes, com-
bining successful layout, sound construction, artistic appearance and
lowness of cost has led to the results being studied by the corporations
of many important centres.
PusBLic HEALTH SERVICES
In a municipality of highly developed and methodically administered
public services, matters appertaining to public health claim the highest
consideration. In view of the important part which the health of an
industrial community plays in its prosperity, the Public Health Depart-
ment of the Corporation has a very responsible trust to administer. Every
modern resource is utilized to combat disease, both by prevention and
cure. To this end the latest methods of applied sanitary science are
turned to account. Full use is made of the powers conferred by the
Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act, and disinfection and isolation are
carried out whenever necessary. Every effort is exerted towards the
THE MUNICIPAL LIFE OF NOTTINGHAM 15
suppression of food adulteration, meat inspections are carried out, and,
where required, there are facilities for the free supply of pure milk for
infants. All the various aspects of maternity and child welfare work
are included in the good work of the Public Health Department, whose
activity bears fruit in an increasing standard of public health, and a
considerable decrease in the annual death rate.
HOSPITALS AND CLINICS
The following hospitals are controlled by the Corporation :—
Tue City HospiraL—a large well-appointed general hospital of 985
beds, undertaking every type of medical and surgical work for all classes
of the community.
Tue City IsoLaTION HospitaL—125 beds for infectious desease, and
75 sanatorium beds for tuberculosis. There is also an auxiliary hospital
for small-pox.
BULWELL HaLL SANATORIUM FOR CHILDREN—5O0 beds for tuberculous
children in an open-air hospital school recognized by the Board of Edu-
cation.
There are Six CLINICS FOR ExPECTANT MOTHERS and eleven INFANT
WELFARE CENTRES situated in various parts of the city. There are also
clinics, dealing with tuberculosis, venereal diseases and ultra-violet ray
treatment. There is also a well equipped bacteriological laboratory.
THe City MENTAL HospiTaL was established by the Corporation in
1880 and has been extended from time to time, the latest addition being
made in 1935 in the form of a female admission hospital and convales-
cent villas. The Hospital contains accommodation for the treatment of
over 1,000 patients.
Tue AsToN HALL MENTAL DEFICIENCY INSTITUTION is situated in
Derbyshire, some 14 miles from the city. This Institution is up-to-date
in every way and is capable of dealing with 320 patients.
PuBLIC BATHS
Nottingham is well served in the matter of public baths, which count
for so much in preserving the health of the citizens. There are eleven
bathing establishments in the city and at several of them various types of
accommodation are grouped within a single unit. The following facilities
are provided : —
7 covered swimming baths
3 open-air pools
1 river bath
230 slipper baths
5 public wash-houses
Turkish Baths with all modern equipment
MAIN DRAINAGE AND SEWAGE DISPOSAL.
On the 8th September 1936, Nottingham’s new Main Drainage Scheme
and Sewage Disposal Works were inaugurated. This was the culmin-
ation of a scheme of works under powers obtained in the Nottingham
Corporation Act 1929.
16 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
The new sewerage system is of sufficient capacity to deal efficiently with
the present and future requirements of the city and adjoining urban and
rural districts.
The object of the new Sewage Disposal Works is to increase the filtering
capacity of the land by means of preliminary treatment.
The estimated cost of the Sewerage Works is £748,440, and that of the
Disposal Works is £332,960, making a total for the whole of £1,081,400.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES
Nottingham is generously endowed with public parks and open spaces
which, apart from the opportunities they afford for recreation and amuse-
ment, play an important part in the excellent standard of public health
enjoyed by the city. Approximately 1,500 acres are set aside as Parks
and Recreation Grounds, and facilities are provided for every kind of
sport. There are three golf courses within the city boundary.
In 1931 Sir Julien Cahn presented to the city the historic Newstead
Abbey, important because of its intimate associations with Byron.
Newstead is about nine miles north of the city and is a rich
inheritance for future generations of Nottingham citizens. At the same
time as the gift of Sir Julien, Mr. Charles Ian Fraser gave to the city the
Hut Entrance Lodge together with the celebrated Pilgrim Oak and an
area of land in the Park comprising 74.87 acres, the six-acre wood known
as the ‘Poet's Corner’ and other valuable gifts associated with Lord
Byron. The Abbey and grounds make a delightful rendezvous for the
people of Nottingham.
Wollaton Park and University Park are the most recent acquisitions.
Within a few minutes from the centre of the city is Wollaton Park with
its magnificent Elizabethan Hall, its noble trees, its lovely lake, its sylvan
charms, is bracken and its deer. The Park and its mansion, Wollaton
Hall, covering 744 acres were purchased by the Corporation from Lord
Middleton in 1924. The park is open to the public and on part of it a
first-class golf course has been laid out.
University Park occupies about 150 acres and includes a boating lake
ot some 14 acres. This park was created by the munificence of the late
Lord Trent. It is magnificently laid out and gives recreational facilities
for children and adults.
It is not possible to enumerate the advantages of the various parks and
grounds, but Nottingham is considered to be one of the most fortunate
municipalities in this respect in the country.
Pus Lic LIBRARIES
In keeping with the progressive character of the city, Nottingham has
liberally provided its citizens with opportunities for reading and the
cultivation of a taste for literature, and students with opportunities for
home study.
The Central Library comprises a well-stocked lending library, reference
library, reading room and news-room.
The district branch system comprises seven lending libraries with
reading rooms and another branch is being erected in the Aspley district.
THE MUNICIPAL LIFE OF NOTTINGHAM 17
MARKETS
The market rights for the city are vested in the Corporation by authority
conferred by ancient Charters.
From the earliest times all sections of the market were held in the
central square known as the Great Market Place. In 1869 the Cattle
Market was moved to a separate site, and in 1900 the Wholesale Fruit,
Vegetable and Fish Market was separated from the general Market and
established in Sneinton Market. The final separation of the markets took
place in 1928 when the whole of the remaining market was removed to
another central site, the old site being laid out as an ornamental square,
designed to harmonise with the new Council House.
THE CENTRAL MARKET is a general retail market in a modern building
well equipped with every convenience and is acknowledged to be one of
the finest in the country.
THE CATTLE MARKET is 94 acres in extent and provides accommodation
for 1,000 beasts, 3,000 sheep, 400 pigs and 300 calves. Adequate covered
lairage accommodation is given.
Two markets are held weekly, one on Mondays for fat stock and the
other on Saturdays for store animals.
A new WHOLESALE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKET with Country Pro-
duce Section is in course of erection and when completed will provide
first-class facilities for this class of market.
The famous NOTTINGHAM GOOSE FAIR was removed in October 1928
from the central site, which it had occupied for many centuries, in conse-
quence of the Council House Scheme. An excellent site was found on a
part of the Forest Recreation Ground and the Fairs which have been
held there have been most successful.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE. Increasing demands have necessitated the pro-
vision of additional accommodation and a new slaughterhouse, costing
£28,800, is nearing completion.
CORPORATION ESTATES
Few cities are as fortunate as Nottingham in the possession of large
corporation estates. Three of these estates are of ancient origin and yield
very substantial revenues for the local exchequer. The Corporation have
also purchased other large estates, notably Wollaton Park Estate and the
Bulwell Hall Estate.
The shrewdness which characterizes their management cannot be better
illustrated than by reference to the Wollaton Park Estate, which was
purchased from the late Lord Middleton for £200,000. So well has the
scheme been handled by the Estates Committee that, after reserving over
500 acres for recreative purposes and devoting a portion of the park to
municipal housing sites, the Corporation have recovered almost the whole
of the money that was paid for it, and has also the splendid old mansion,
now used as a natural history museum.
The Corporation own other estates, including a number of sites ad-
mirably adapted to industrial development.
18 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
POLICE AND FIRE BRIGADE
The City Police Force is well-known throughout the police world as
one of the most efficient forces in the United Kingdom. It has been
organised on the most modern lines and was one of the first police forces
to install the police telephone box system. It was also the pioneer of
the police wireless patrol system and one of the first forces to mechanize.
Among other modern developments are a criminal record office, finger
print section and a foreign enquiry section.
The Fire Brigade equipment includes six high-powered pumps with
escapes, an 87 feet turntable ladder, a fire tender, and a first-aid van with
sets of self-contained breathing apparatus, smoke helmets, searchlights,
oxy-acetylene cutting appliances, resuscitating apparatus, stretchers, &c.
The Brigade is also equipped with up-to-date workshops and apart from
fire prevention, fire extinguishing and the maintenance of its own equip-
ment, it constructs bodies for such vehicles as ambulances, police patrol
and wireless cars.
ART GALLERY AND MUSEUMS
The city’s art collection is housed in Nottingham Castle, an outstanding
landmark in the city. The Castle Rock rises.on its south side to a height
of 133 feet and the Castle, built on the summit of the Rock, is leased by
the Corporation for 500 years from the Duke of Newcastle.
The building is very suitable for the purpose of a museum and art
gallery and the collection and pictures are most interesting and valuable.
In addition to the permanent collection, private collections are exhibited
from time to time. In the year ended 31st March 1937, 266,967 persons
visited the Castle.
Wollaton Hall is now the home of the NaturaL History MUSEUM.
The collection as a whole is considered to be one of the best in the
provinces.
EDUCATION
Nottingham’s educational system is dealt with in a separate article
(written by the Director of Education) in this handbook.
Crvic DEVELOPMENTS
During the post-war years Nottingham has developed with amazing
rapidity. One of the most outstanding developments has been the com-
pletion of a scheme for utilising to the best advantage the great market
square and the Old Exchange Buildings. On the site of the old buildings
now stands one of the handsomest civic buildings, and its dignity and ©
beauty are enhanced by the modern layout of the square which was
formerly known as the Great Market Place.
At the head of the first flight of the Grand Staircase, standing in an
arched niche, is a fine statue, the gift of Sir Julien Cahn, depicting the
Spirit of Welcome. Nottingham is always pleased to welcome visitors,
and the civic pride of its citizens is justified by its honourable past and
modern achievements.
Men LION, UN. trie. CILY OF
NOTTINGHAM
BY
A. H. WHIPPLE, M.A., B.Sc.
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION.
EDUCATION can never stand still, it must either go onwards or it will slip
back. This has been and is still clearly recognised in the City of
Nottingham. In the past, Nottingham has done its part in initiating ad-
vances, and it is still continuing to do so. It was from Nottingham in
1873 that the first request was sent to Cambridge University to aid the
higher education of the working classes, and from this request sprang
the University Extension Movement. The first course of the University
Extension Lectures was given in the Mechanics Institute, Nottingham,
in October 1873.
The Nottingham Corporation was the first Corporation in the kingdom
to take over the administration of a University College and to become
responsible for its maintenance. The decision was made in 1881; in that
year a penny rate (£2,575) was voted for the purpose. The actual cost of
maintenance was then £6,515. In 1888 it was one of the earliest to be-
come responsible for the conduct and maintenance of a School of Art.
This is now the City College of Art.
The system of Recreative Evening Schools which later formed the
basis of the Social Institutes, had its rise in Nottingham in 1883.
Nottingham’s Education owes great debts to its public-spirited citizens
and to generous donors.
The earliest benefaction for secondary education was that of Dame
Agnes Mellers, who endowed in 1513 the school now known as the
Nottingham High School for Boys. Dame Agnes was the widow of
Richard Mellers, Bell Founder, Mayor of Nottingham in 1500 and 1506.
In the foundation deed of the school, she provides for an annual service
at St. Mary’s on the anniversary of her husband’s death, to be followed
by distribution of bread, ale and cheese to the Mayor, Aldermen and
certain others who, if they had attended the service ‘from the beginning
to the endinge thereof’ were to receive certain sums, including sixpence
for the Mayor. This picturesque ceremony is still carried out each year.
This original endowment was later increased by eighty Citizens of
Nottingham and by Sir Thomas White, a Lord Mayor of London. Further
benefactions have been received from time to time, especially in and after
1868, when the School was moved to its present commanding position on
the sandstone ridge north of the city centre, between two public parks.
Additions have been made to the buildings at frequent intervals, recent
19
20 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
acquisitions being a new block of classrooms, a new gymnasium and a
beautiful hall with organ and complete dramatic equipment, a gift from
an old boy and present Governor of the school.
In adult education, Nottingham has always been in the forefront.
In 1798 the Quakers founded an Adult School, the parent of the many
existing Adult Schools. In 1816 the Bromley House Library was founded
and became the centre of intellectual life in the town. In 1837 the
Mechanics Institute was founded. This Institute was burned down in
1867, and it was from a meeting held to discuss its rebuilding that there
came the first idea of a University in Nottingham.
In 1846 the People’s College was founded for the mental and moral
improvement of the labouring population, clerks, warehousemen and
others receiving wages or salaries for their services. This College has had
a varied career. It was transferred to the School Board in 1879, and
was made a Higher Grade School. Since that time it has been a Senior
Mixed School and a Selective Central School, and it is now a District
Central School for Boys in the daytime and a Senior Evening Institute in
the evenings.
In 1843 a School of Design was founded for furtherance of industrial
art. It was at first maintained largely by voluntary subscriptions. In
1863 the School was erected on its present site in Waverley Street, the
site having been presented for the purpose by the Corporation. The cost
of the building was £20,000, which was defrayed by voluntary subscrip-
tions. The building was opened in 1864; responsibility for its main-
tenance was undertaken by the Corporation in 1888 as stated above.
In 1875 an anonymous donor gave £10,000 to provide an income to pay
University Lecturers in the City, and the Corporation practically at once
decided to erect a University College. The Foundation Stone of this
College was laid by the Mayor in 1877 in the presence of Mr. W. E.
Gladstone, and the building was opened in 1881 by H.R.H. Prince Leopold.
In 1919 Sir Jesse Boot made his first gift of £50,000, of which £30,000 was
appropriated to the Building Fund of the College. After that date
Sir Jesse Boot (later Lord Trent) spent over £500,000 in purchasing
and laying out University Park, and in erecting thereon the present Uni-
versity College. This College, standing on a height overlooking University
Park, is a landmark to all entering the city and a fitting memorial to
Nottingham’s greatest benefactor. Its erection has made possible work
which could not be attempted in the cramped quarters of the old Uni-
versity College. Now practically the whole of the university work has
been transferred to the new buildings, leaving the old University College
to house the technological courses
Both sides of the work have benefited from the increased accommod-
ation. On the University side, the number of full-time and part-time
students engaged in work of University standard has increased to over
800, necessitating the building of additional hostels. On the Technological
side, large extensions have been made in the old building to the labora-
tories for mining and for textiles. In adult education the delegacy for
extra mural studies now provides University extension and tutorial classes
for over 4,000 students resident in the East Midlands area.
EDUCATION IN THE CITY OF NOTTINGHAM 21
Secondary education is provided in the High School for boys with 500
on its rolls, the High School for girls (500), in the City’s Municipal
Secondary Schools, viz., High Pavement Boys’ School (720), Mundella
Mixed School (570) and Manning Girls’ School (520), and in the County
Education Committee’s Schools, Brincliffe School for Girls’ (160), and
Henry Mellish Boys’ School (490).
The High School for Girls, opened in 1875, was the fourth school
founded by the Girls’ Public Day School Trust, and after Norwich, the
first one in the provinces. The High Pavement School, founded in 1788,
was transferred to its present site in 1895. It was the first unsectarian
school in England and also the first organised Science School in
the country. When the Manning School was built in 1931, the
High Pavement Secondary School, formerly a mixed school, be-
came a Boys’ school and its facilities for practical instruction were
greatly increased. Plans for a new Modern School for Boys to be erected
by the City Authority have been approved by the Board of Education,
and it will be erected on the Bestwood site, north of the city. Mundella
School is now the only co-educational secondary school in the city.
In secondary education an agreement has been made between the county
and the city authorities under which parents residing in either of the two
areas have choice of the secondary schools which have been built in the
city by the two authorities. This agreement does away with some of the
travelling difficulties for pupils. The County Education Committee are
at present building a Secondary School for boys and girls in West
Bridgford to replace their existing Mixed School.
In elementary education the changes have been most marked. The
schools have been reorganized. This reorganisation has involved far
more than the mere transfer of boys between the ages of 104 and 114 to
central schools. Changes have been made in all departments of the
schools in their staffing, equipment, curricula, and in the methods of
teaching.
As a rule the schools have been divided into three classes—infants’
schools for children up to 7 or 8 years of age, junior schools for boys and
girls from 7 or 8 years of age to 104 or 114 years of age, and central schools
for boys and girls over 104 years of age. No nursery school has been
formed, since it is considered that young children can be educated more
efficiently and more economically in well-equipped nursery classes attach-
ed to infants schools than in separate nursery schools.
In the central schools, 30 in number, with 12,000 pupils on their rolls,
the sexes have been separated, and with the exception of two schools the
girls are taught in girls’ schools under headmistresses with women assist-
ants, and the boys in boys’ schools under headmasters with men assistants.
In the two schools which contain both sexes, the boys and girls are taught
in different classes. It was considered that only by the separation of the
sexes could education suitable to each be developed without undue regard
to tradition. In particular, it was felt that girls’ education in the past had
been influenced too much by the courses of study adopted for boys, and
by the requirements of universities and their examining bodies, and that it
was only right that there should now be freedom to experiment with other
systems of training and instruction.
22 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
This separation of the sexes at or about the age of 11 years has also
been carried out in the schools for the physically and for the mentally
defective children and in the larger junior schools. No distinction has
been made between the various senior schools in their staffing, equipment,
size of classes, or in the conditions of admission of their pupils. Each
school is fully equipped to give a good general education. The schools
are non-selective, each having its own district of supply, and each ad-
mitting from that district all the pupils of the appropriate ages who do
not join secondary schools.
It has been considered that it would have been both unwise and unfair
to provide special training and staffing for the select few and to let the
great majority, less well endowed pecuniarily or mentally, be taught in
worse buildings with a narrower curriculum and inferior means of in-
struction.
Each of the central schools has therefore been equipped with special
rooms in order that there may be given on the school premises, and with
its own staff of specialist teachers, practical instruction in arts and crafts,
science, physical training, gardening, handicraft and/or domestic subjects.
Each senior school is large enough for satisfactory classification of its
pupils, since the numbers on the rolls vary from 320 to 560. There are
in each year, therefore, three to five parallel-classes. ach school has a
multiple bias, and therefore pupils in their third and fourth years can
study such subjects as are considered to their advantage, and it is not
necessary for a decision to be made at the too early age of 11 years as to
which type of curriculum they shall receive at the age of 14 or 15 years.
During the reorganisation, 25 schools with an accommodation for 5,000
children have been closed, and 22 schools with accommodation for 9,500
have been built. Actually, 8 only of the 30 central schools are in
new buildings. In the remaining 22 central schools, rooms had to be
erected or adapted as gymnasia or for instruction in art, science, handi-
craft and domestic subjects. The new schools, whether for normal
children or for physically or for mentally defective children, have been
built on the open-air plan with ample provision for school gardens and
large playgrounds. In many of the older schools, which must still be
used, large french windows or casement windows have been made, so
as to provide more light and air and to make the schools really homelike,
and less like disused prisons.
When planning the new schools in the new housing estates in the city,
the Education Committee had in mind not only the provision of facilities
for a good general education for school children of all ages but also for
social gatherings of the inhabitants in the evenings and in school holidays.
With this idea in view, there was allocated on each housing estate, and
generally in the centre of it, a school site varying in size from 10 to 25
acres. The schools were planned so that their use for social functions in
the evening would not interfere with the day school work, or with those
out-of-school activities which form so important a feature in modern day-
school education. It was borne in mind, also, that the schools would be
required for the purposes of evening institutes for the further education
of adolescents and adults. The schools have not only been planned, but
EDUCATION IN THE CITY OF NOTTINGHAM 23
also equipped and furnished, with these purposes in view. The seating
accommodation consists not of desks but of tables and chairs.
The planning of these new schools can be best illustrated by a des-
cription of the largest of them—the William Crane Schools of the Aspley
Housing Estate, an estate of over 4,000 houses. The schools are worthily
named after the Chairman of the Housing Committee and of the School
Buildings Committee, to whom Nottingham owes a great debt of gratitude.
They were formally opened by the Archbishop of York in 1933. Ona
central circular site of 124 acres, six schools have been built round a
playing-field of 24 acres. The schools consist of a senior boys’ school
and a senior girls’ school, a junior boys’ school, a junior girls’ school and
two infants’ schools, with a total accommodation for 3,000 pupils. Between
each junior school and an infants’ school there is a large hall which will
seat over 1,000 persons. One of these halls has a large stage with a
sloping floor, the other has a smaller stage. On each side of the hall are
lavatories and offices for both sexes, approached by covered ways. One
of the halls has a movable boxing ring and is marked for badminton.
Below each hall is storage for the chairs.
Each senior school contains nine classrooms, a gymnasium, two school
clinics, an art room, a science room, and a craft room. The girls’ school
has also two domestic subjects rooms equipped with gas, coal and electric
stoves. The boys’ school has a metalwork room and a woodwork room
divided from one another by a soundproof partition. The large play-
grounds are marked for tennis, netball and other games, and are used
both in the day and in the evening. There is a large canteen which can
provide meals for 200 persons at a sitting.
A school nurse attends to minor ailments of the children under the
supervision of the Committee’s medical officer. Each school is provided
with a school garden. There are also school orchards, two greenhouses,
cold frames, beehives and lily ponds. There are only four entrances to
the schools, two of which lead directly to the large halls. The central
playing-field is not large enough for the general requirements and could
well have been made larger. There is, however, close at hand a public
recreation ground and a 10-acre school playing-field.
The school has been open since 1931, and not only provides education
for 3,000 children but also accommodation for an evening institute for
girls and women, an evening institute for boys and men, for meetings of
Girl Guides, co-operative guilds, W.E.A. classes, University tutorial
classes, for religious organizations on week-days and on Sundays, and
also for a large self-governing social centre consisting of residents on the
estate. The social centre has its own monthly magazine, a sports section,
a debates section, a horticultural section, and a recreation section which
supervises whistdrives and dances and other social functions.
At the present time three schools are in course of erection, the Mapper-
ley School with accommodation for 450 with a Hall specially planned so
that it will not only fulfil the requirements of its day pupils, but will also
serve for social purposes and dramatic performances in the evenings and
school holidays, the Whitemoor School extension, accommodating 450,
with its stage for dramatic performances, etc., and the John Player School
24 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
on the Bilborough site, which will provide accommodation for 3,000
children from 2 to 15 years of age in six departments. This school will
have all the facilities now provided in the William Crane School, and in
addition two fully equipped gymnasia and complete accommodation for
children between 2 and 5 years of age.
The schools therefore are the centre of the estate life, and answer their
varied purposes admirably. The use of the buildings in the evening by
adults and adolescents, while not interfering with the day schools, has
given rise to a more active interest in the day school work than generally
is obtained. It has also been the means of fostering a communal spirit
among the residents and a communal pride in the estate and its schools.
This policy of using the schools for social purposes has been pursued
in each of the 15 central school districts of the city. The social side of
the work has also been developed in the evening institutes for men and
women in the city, and this has partly been the cause of the greatly in-
creased number of students attending those institutes, and the regularity
of the attendances of the members of the institutes.
While improving facilities for education in the schools, the Committee
have not lost sight of the necessity of attending to the health of their
children. They have in the last twelve years opened a large central clinic
with thirteen beds and have built two other fully equipped school clinics
in addition to the smaller ones attached to new and old schools. They
have also increased the playing-field accommodation to a great extent,
though much still requires to be done in this connection.
Though the education progress has been rapid in the city during the
past twelve years, the Committee are well aware that they have not
reached perfection. The schools must change with the changing times.
Il.
GREATER NOTTINGHAM
i) NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION
BY
K. C. EDWARDS, M.A.
IN modern times the city of Nottingham has been chiefly renowned as
the home and headquarters of the lace industry, and although a growing
multitude of other industries is now to be found, it is still primarily a
centre of textile manufacturing. Owing to its position near the banks
of the Trent, Nottingham has long controlled one of the great river-
crossings of England, whilst its present-day communications make it a
route centre of vital commercial importance. At its door lies part of the
richest coalfield in the country. Several collieries are actually situated
within the municipal boundary and the proximity of coal has inevitably
played a leading part in local industrial development. To-day the city
and its suburbs contain more than 325,000 inhabitants (the city popu-
lation alone at the census of 1931 being 268,801) so that, after Birming-
ham, Nottingham ranks with Stoke-on-Trent (276,639) and Leicester
(240,000) among the largest cities of the Midlands.
There are at least three different ways, in the regional sense, of regard-
ing Nottingham as a centre of importance. In the first place, since it
has always been of greater size than its two neighbours, Leicester and
Derby, it has some claim to be considered the capital of the East Midlands.
It is difficult, however, to define the limits of the East Midlands for in the
absence of clearly marked natural boundaries the extent of this region
varies for different purposes. The East Midland Educational Union, for
instance, serves the counties of Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Rutland,
Northampton, the Soke of Peterborough and the Kesteven and Lindsey
divisions of Lincolnshire, whereas the territory falling under the juris-
diction of the East Midlands Traffic Commissioners includes the counties
of Nottingham, Lincoln (except parts of Holland), Leicester, Rutland,
Northampton, Oxford and parts of Derby, Bedford and Buckingham.
Again, the East Midlands division of the Criminal Investigation Depart-
ment with its new forensic laboratory at Nottingham controls operations
over the immediately surrounding counties, together with Huntingdon-
shire and Norfolk. For all these and many other organisations Notting-
ham serves as the natural headquarters and enjoys a long tradition as
an unchallenged centre. Consequently, there is a certain public con-
sciousness of the identity of the surrounding region. Certainly the people
25
26 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
who live here feel themselves to belong to a province different and distinct
from that of Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick and Lichfield. They are
not merely Midlanders, but East Midlanders, and their land is essentially
that watered by the Trent and its middle tributaries, a region which em-
braced the earlier portions of the ancient kingdom of Mercia.
Then, too, Nottingham is the county town of Nottinghamshire, a dis-
tinction carrying special emphasis in a shire in which there is no other
large centre. Here the combination of administrative functions, edu-
cational and cultural activities, entertainments and shopping facilities
together with the transport services are singularly concentrated in one
city. County administration, in point of fact, is conducted from the
Shire Hall, the buildings of which occupy a single acre in the heart of the
city and constitute an independent parish of the county! Yet instead
of being centrally situated, Nottingham lies much nearer the southern
extremity of the roughly oval-shaped county and this fact, bearing in
mind the close juxtaposition of the neighbouring shires, has caused our
city to develop important contacts with such centres as Grantham,
Loughborough, Derby, Ilkeston and Long Eaton. Local topography, by
providing easy routes has undoubtedly encouraged these connections. No
less than forty-two trains, excluding goods trains, run daily each way”
between Nottingham and Derby and Loughborough respectively. Two-
thirds of the trains to and irom Derby follow a virtually level track across
the Trent and Derwent floodplain, whilst the routes to Loughborough
and Leicester are facilitated by the Soar valley and the flat expanse of -
Ruddington Moor. Since, also, the textile industry of Long Eaton, chiefly
machine-lace, grew as an offshoot from that of Nottingham, the close
relations between these centres will be obvious. By numerous and fre-
quent bus services as well as by rail, Nottingham is connected with the
populous districts of the Erewash valley and with such centres as Heanor
which lie beyond.
Thirdly, the city of Nottingham is the life centre of a still smaller
region or district within which the grouping of such closely related
phenomena as the physical environment, human settlements and economic
activity are combined to present some form of unity or whole. The
extent of this region, which may be termed the Nottingham Region, is
shown by the map on page 34 and it will be seen that its limits are drawn
irrespective of administrative boundaries and with little reference to
natural features. It might well be termed a cultural region. It includes
a section of the Trent valley, about sixteen miles in length, from Long
Eaton to a point beyond the village of Hoveringham, with the adjoining
territories on either side. That to the north extends as far as Mansfield,
embracing the basins of the small rivers Leen and Dover Beck, and is
bounded on the west by the Erewash valley. South of the Trent the
region stretches to the line of the Leake Hills, on to the high ground of
the South Notts. Wolds, and includes part of the Vale of Belvoir. The
whole occupies an area of about two hundred square miles and contains
about 465,000 inhabitants, nearly 60 per cent of whom belong to the city.
The evidence for thus defining the Nottingham Region is provided by
a detailed analysis of the geographical conditions and cannot be given in
NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 27
full here. Within the area, however, are certain well-marked subdivisions
which will be described in turn.
GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING
The central unit of the Nottingham Region is, of course, the city itself.
Geographical factors, both regional and local, have favoured its growth
and development. Among the former is the character of the landscape
and in this connection the geological map, inset opposite page 48, presents
two striking features. One is the somewhat regular arrangement of no less
than seven different types of surface rocks forming belts which converge
upon the position occupied by the city, whilst the other is the manner in
which the valley of the Trent cuts across this pattern in a northeast—south-
west direction. The town originated where the valley touches the Bunter
Sandstone, a point towards which other belts of rocks converge, and the
present city boundary as fixed in 1932 encompasses portions of the Middle
Coal Measures, Permian (Magnesian) Limestone and Marl, Bunter Sand-
stone and Pebble Beds, Keuper Sandstones and Marls together with
stretches of the alluvium and gravels of the Trent. Among other large
towns only Bristol perhaps can show a comparable variety of geological
formations within its territory. Such a circumstance gives to the locality
an unusual diversity of surface features, soils and natural resources.
Nottingham also occupies a marginal position between the uplands of
the Pennines represented by the bleak hilly region of Derbyshire and the
lowlands which lie to the east. Since the Trent Valley provides an axis
of movement from the heart of the Midlands to the Humber, north—
south routes developed at an early date, the position of the town became
therefore one of more than local importance, for several roads converged
upon it in order to cross the river.
Of the local factors concerned in the site of Nottingham the Bunter
Sandstone, by reason of its lithological characters and surface topography,
exerted a profound influence. The frequent exposures of the buff-colour-
ed sandrock at the roadside, or beneath the walls of the older buildings,
or again in the form of bold cliffs as in the Castle Rock give a character-
istic touch to the city environment. Numerous caves have been excavated
from the sandstone throughout history, and their preservation, in some
cases since prehistoric times, illustrates another feature of the rock, i.e.,
that once excavated by man or even carved by erosive agencies it does
not readily crumble or fall away. Advantage is still taken of this fact,
for many a sandrock wall in the residential parts of Nottingham has been
hollowed out to provide a private lock-up garage. Typical caves occur
in the grounds of the University College overlooking the lake. Others
are of historic interest, e.g., those of the Rock Cemetery (Mansfield Road)
and those at the foot of the Castle which now form part of the remarkable
inn known as ‘ Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem’.
The southern extremity of the main outcrop of the Bunter Sandstone
terminates in two hills between which is a broad hollow sloping gently
towards the Trent. Here is the site of early Nottingham. The hills
overlook the flat plain of the Trent by a sharp slope which in parts takes
the form of a cliff. This is well seen in the south face of the Castle Rock
28 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
and at several points along the Castle Boulevard, or again along Canal
Street. Significantly enough this is the only point in the whole course of
the Trent from the Potteries to the Humber where its valley is not carved
from the red rocks of the Keuper Series. Ancient Nottingham took the
form of a dual settlement at first confined to each of the two hillsites,
the one reaching to 250 feet, is now occupied by a residential district,
the hospital and the Castle; the other rising to not more than 150 feet,
contains the Lace Market and St. Mary’s Church, the mother church cf
the city. Between these lay the hollow which eventually became the
Old Market Place.
SANDSTONE
mm CASTLE M MARKET + ST. MARY’S CHURCH
Sketch-map showing details of the site of early Nottingham.
Note the alternative route into the town from the Trent. The older
road is that which mounted the eminence where the Saxon township
first grew and where also St. Mary’s Church was built.
Although there is little surface drainage over the sandstone because of
its porosity, much water is stored beneath the surface and was doubtless
reached by wells to serve the needs of the early communities. In any
case an abundance of stream water was available from the Leen if not
NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 29
from the Trent. The character of the Bunter Pebble Beds thus played a
leading part in determining the site and form of the old town and still
provides some of the most typical features of the local environment.
Northwards the sandstone outcrop widens to form a belt of territory
several miles wide which stretches throughout the rest of the county.
The thin dry soil of this region encouraged neither cultivation nor settle-
ment and was accordingly left to support the heath, bracken and scattered
woods of oak and birch which comprised much of Sherwood Forest.
At one time the forest extended southwards to the gates of Nottingham
and to this day a few ancient trees within the city, as at Woodthorpe and
Thorneywood, survive as relics of these historic woodlands.
Another local factor of importance was the River Leen. The lower
course of this stream, after turning eastwards near Lenton (i.e., Leen-ton),
followed closely along the foot of the sandstone cliff for a distance of
nearly two miles before making its final turn towards the Trent. Access
to Nottingham from the south therefore involved crossing both the main-
stream and the Leen, whilst between the two rivers the floodplain was
marshy and traversable only by means of an elevated causeway. Thus
the town formerly presented a sharply defined and easily defended margin
to the south. Parts of the modern city which cover the floodplain here
are still known as Broad Marsh, Narrow Marsh and the Meadows.
Despite its protective value, the Leen gave direct access to the town for
small craft sailing up the Trent, an advantage which served commercial
interests from time to time until the age of canals. Recently an old-time
landing stage was discovered near the foot of the Castle Rock. The Leen
formerly provided sites for watermills which in turn developed into village
settlements spaced at intervals of little more than half a mile along the
main section of its course. Such was the origin of Bulwell, Basford,
Radford and Lenton, all of which have later been absorbed into the body
of the city. The marked concentration along the banks of the Leen of
bleaching, dyeing and finishing-works connected with the modern textile
manufacturing shows how the value of these centres persists.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The full significance of the site of Nottingham is more clearly shown,
perhaps, if the broad facts of its historical development are outlined.
Beyond occasional finds of Bronze Age and New Stone Age implements
there is little evidence of human occupation in pre-Roman times, though
an ancient salt way which crossed the Trent hereabouts suggests the likeli-
hood of ancient settlement in the District and the practice of moving
salt along this route confirms an early recognition of the river-crossing.
Whatever the origin of the first permanent community to the north of the
Trent in this district, the strategic value of its position in relation to the
river and to the sandstone gave it considerable advantage over other sites.
Admittedly the nearest Roman station so far identified was at Margi-
dunum, an armed camp on the Fosse Way, near East Bridgford, some
twelve miles from Nottingham. The Fosse Way itself at no point between
Leicester and Newark approached within five miles of the present position
of Trent Bridge, whilst another road, directed towards Little Chester near
30 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Derby, left the Fosse at Vernometum, a station thirteen miles from
Leicester. Lying within the fork so formed, Nottingham remained un-
developed and unconnected with the great road system which carried the
traffic of the country during the Roman period.
It is unlikely that settlement dwindled however, for by the sixth century
Saxon occupation had become firmly established in the region and
the foundations of the first township had been laid. The place took its
name from the descendants of Snot, i.e., Snotingaham, whence Notting-
ham, who settled there. The Danish incursions which followed brought
a new significance to the place in the ninth century. These invaders pene-
trated southwards from the Humber and those who made headway up
_the Trent in their ships found that at Nottingham the river passage con-
verged upon the overland route from York by the Rufford road taken
by their brethren. Although the Danes carried their plunder beyond the
river, Nottingham became established as the virtual head of navigation,
a distinction which, though now of small importance, has been held ever
since. The contact of land and water routes was consolidated in the
year 924 by the building of the first bridge across the river. The present
Trent Bridge dates only from 1871 though it was widened in 1926. At
the end of the bridge on the south bank may still be seen one of the
many arches of the ancient structure in brick and stone which it super-
seded.
In Norman times the development of Nottingham took a further turn
and there grew into being a dual township involving differences of plan
and function which remain to this day among the most interesting features
of the city. In addition to the original Saxon quarter, the strategic value
of the site was signalised by the building of a castle upon the massive
crag half a mile to the west. The Norman fortress not only held the line
of the Trent but also dominated the older township and sheltered a rival
community. As the two developed, the one with its civil population of
Saxon descent and the other a disciplined military centre, their respective
interests and activities became sharply divided. There was indeed a
strict partition of the territory that lay in a broad hollow between them.
This formed a natural meeting ground where markets could be held and
was also reached by the road coming from the Trent. Here was estab-
lished the Great Market Place of Nottingham, the largest open square in
the country. (See sketch-map on page 28.) A wall was built at one time
to separate the English and Norman markets, a division which is clearly
shown in the inset plan on Speed’s well-known map of Nottinghamshire,
1611. Portions of the wall remained until much later but the distinction
between the two townships possibly survives to-day in the contrast between
the street names of the districts on either side of the square. The Saxon
town particularly is recalled by such thoroughfares as Bridlesmith Gate,
Hollowstone and Weekday Cross. These are in contrast to such names
as Friar Lane, Chapel Bar and Angel Row.
It was only during the latter part of the nineteenth century that
Nottingham spread towards the Trent although in 1839 the first railway
had been built to the south of the Leen. In the crowded district known
as the Meadows will be found Crocus Street, a locality once famous for
NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 31
its spring and autumn crocuses even outside Nottingham, and it is hard
to believe that there are persons still living who remember such flowers
growing in the fields there.
INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM
Coal, of course, has played a leading part in the industrial development
of the region, though certain characteristic Nottingham trades such as
metal-working, machine-knitting, brewing and tanning date from times
far earlier than the era of steam power. Yet centuries ago coal was
obtained from shallow outcrop workings to the north-west of the town
in the neighbourhood of Cossall, and at the end of the sixteenth century,
for example, coal was bartered for freestone (Inferior Oolite) brought
from Ancaster for the building of Wollaton Hall, the fine Elizabethan
mansion now serving as the Natural History Museum. Deering, the local
historian, writing in 1751 remarks that coal was then the chief commodity
exported from Nottingham. Large scale working did not develop until
the following century and was naturally confined at first to the vicinity
of the Erewash valley where the coal measures appear at the surface.
Eastwood, Brinsley, Cossall and Trowell were, therefore, among the
earliest mining centres in Nottinghamshire. In 1859 at Shireoaks near
Mansfield was sunk the first colliery of the ‘concealed coalfield’ in
which the shafts must first penetrate the cover of Permian and Trias
rocks before reaching the coal-bearing strata. The success of this was
followed especially between 1870 and 1890 by the sinking of a number
of important mines, notably around Mansfield (Kirkby and Sutton-in-
Ashfield) and along the Leen valley (Hucknall, Linby and Newstead)
towards Nottingham. These developments led to a particularly rapid
increase in the size and importance of Mansfield—a growth which has
not yet shown signs of abating—and also to a new conception of the
richness and magnitude of the Nottinghamshire coalfield.
To the obvious benefit of local industries several collieries were sunk
in the immediate neighbourhood of Nottingham, in some cases (e.g.,
Clifton, Radford and Cinderhill) within the city boundary. The valuable
Top Hard seam producing both good steam-raising and ‘soft’ coal for
domestic use and the Deep Hard seam came to be worked by most of
the pits, while the High Hazel seam mined at Bestwood and Gedling has
become widely known for its excellence as an ashless house coal. In
addition to serving the needs of the region a great trade has grown
up, chiefly directed by rail towards London and the south, although to-day
considerable quantities from the north of the county are moved through
the Humber ports.
Apart from coal and good communications it is not easy to account
for the growth of the textile trades to such a degree in Nottingham and
the surrounding district. Certain fundamental inventions made in the
locality played a leading réle and serve to emphasize the human factor
in industrial progress. Lace and hosiery share a common origin in this
region for, in a sense, the primitive stocking-frame of William Lee of
Calverton was the proto-machine of both industries. Then the long series
of inventions and machine improvements connected with the names of
32 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Arkwright, Hargreaves, Hammond, Heathcoat, Mellors, Levers and many
others, most of them Nottingham men, served to foster the lace industry
in particular to such an extent that the town attained to an unchallenged
supremacy which it held until the first decade of the present century.
At the time of its heyday before 1910, lace-making employed some 25,000
persons in the city alone, and the houses of Birkin and Simon May had
become world renowned. Changes of fashion and foreign competition
have chiefly been responsible for the marked decline in subsequent years,
though manufacturers have sometimes been able to adapt their products
to the changing times. Thus mosquito netting for use in the tropics is
now a profitable section of the trade, whilst the use of new materials such
as artificial silk has enabled other branches to retain their markets. To
a large extent, however, the decline in lace has been offset by the develop-
ments in the manufacturing of hosiery, especially since the War, although
in this branch of the textile industry Nottingham remains less important
than Leicester. Nevertheless, many famous hosiery and knit-wear pro-
ducts originate from Nottingham and district. ‘ Meridian’ (J. B. Lewis),
‘Viyella’ and ‘Day and Night Wear’ (W. Hollins), ‘Vedonis’ (G.
Spencer) and ‘ Flying Wheel’ (I. & R. Morley) are outstanding examples,
whilst ‘ Celanese’ locknit products and ‘ Aristoc’ stockings from Spondon
and Langley Mill respectively are made nearby. Here again manufactur-
ing is accompanied by continual adaptation and specialisation, for the
hosiery trade too is becoming increasingly subject to the vagaries of
fashion.
In ironworking and engineering, Nottingham boasts a long tradition
based no doubt upon the treatment of ore obtained from Derbyshire in
medieval times. Fine examples of early Nottingham wrought iron work
are preserved in the Castle Museum, whilst the skill of the craftsmen is
commemorated in a couplet which became proverbial:
‘The little smith of Nottingham
Who doth the work that no man can.’
The smithies and forges of the old town are represented to-day by work-
shops and foundries engaged in a remarkably wide range of manufactur-
ing. The best comprehensive term for this is ‘light engineering’, in
which three main branches can be distinguished. There is first the con-
struction of textile machinery, of great importance to the lace and hosiery
manufacturers as well as providing for a large export trade. This, of
course, is the outcome of a long connection between textiles and engineer-
ing and an equally long tradition of local skill and inventiveness. Indeed,
it has been claimed that the modern lace-machine is perhaps the most
complicated piece of textile machinery ever devised. Then there is the
making of cycles and motor-cycles, the names of Raleigh and Brough
especially being of universal repute. Thirdly comes a variety of mechani-
cal products, most of which are small though highly specialised in
character: typewriters, clocks, telephones, totalisators and other elec-
trical installations; boilers and heating apparatus; small high-speed steam
engines for pumps, fans and hydro-extractors, (the sugar extractor is a
Nottingham invention dating from 1837); sterilisers and gas-meters.
NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 33
The manufacture and preparation of chemicals in Nottingham is related
in some measure to the demands of the textiles, especially the dyeing and
bleaching sections, and other local industries as well as to the abundance
of pure water. Like Burton and Newark, also on the Trent, supplies of
gypsiferous water have favoured Nottingham as a brewing centre, where
also caves and cellars hewn from the local sandstone have proved advan-
tageous.
The leather trade dates from the ancient practice of oak-tanning for
which the trees of Sherwood Forest were exploited. To-day, however,
as in the case of the large factory at Trent Bridge, the industry is mainly
concerned with light and fancy leather-ware made from sheep- and goat-
skins. Similarly the furniture trade was originally dependent upon the
Forest timber and, despite the general use of imported timber by present-
day firms, Nottingham still possesses the largest English oak furniture
factory. Printing and lithography are also important trades. Brick-
making and earthenware, particularly the manufacture of flowerpots, of
which there is an extensive overseas export, result from the working of
the red marls of both the Permian and Keuper Series. Numerous food
products, including beet sugar, add to the diversity of Nottingham’s
industries.
Special mention should be made of the phenomenal development of
three famous concerns. No other establishments have made such pro-
gress nor enjoyed such prosperity in recent years and in each case their
factory is now the largest of its kind in the world. These are Player’s
tobacco and cigarette-making factory, Boot’s new factory at Beeston for
drugs and pharmaceutical products, and the Raleigh cycle works. They
employ approximately 7,200, 6,600 and 3,800 workers respectively. The
huge size of these units and the universal fame of their products convey
a more spectacular impression of industrial Nottingham to-day than
many of the older activities.
THE SURROUNDING REGION
Beyond the limits of the city the Nottingham Region includes a number
of districts or sub-regions which may be termed in the economic and
cultural sense, tributary districts. As these are grouped closely around
the city they inevitably feel its influence, yet, because they differ markedly
from one another in character, they contribute to the diversity of interests
exemplified by the city and, above all, heighten the individuality of the
region as a whole. It was one of these districts which gave rise to the
frame-knitters of the seventeenth century, who, in turn, laid the found-
ations of the hosiery industry in Nottingham. Near the same area is
Southwell Minster to which the city looks for diocesan care. From an-
other of these districts comes the mineral gypsum, now chiefly worked for
cement and plaster, but which in the form of alabaster once brought fame
to the Nottingham carvers who excelled in fashioning statuary and small
ornaments.
Of the five tributary districts the first lies to the north-east of the city
and forms a portion of the low Keuper plateau being drained by the
Dover Beck and the still smaller Cocker Beck. This is a picturesque
Cc
34. SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
farming region whose colourful landscape of grassland, tilled fields and
orchards, scattered copses and old villages may claim to be the most
delightful sample of the Nottinghamshire countryside. As in the case of
Southwell, in the neighbouring valley of the Greet, the occurrence of the
Waterstones along the valleys provides a good soil, much lighter than the
red marl which forms most of the surface. A feature of the stream
courses is the small narrow gulleys called ‘dumbles’, e.g., Lambley
Dumble, Oxton Dumble, in which the presence of a layer of hard sand-
stone (skerry) may give rise to a miniature waterfall. Of the half-dozen
villages, Oxton is perhaps the most picturesque and least spoiled; nearby
are well-preserved earthworks of Celtic origin. Calverton is famous as
the home of William Lee, the inventor of the first stocking-frame, and
a small hosiery works is still in operation. Many of the cottages here,
as in other villages, retain the long multi-paned windows immediately
below the roof-line, behind which the stockingers formerly placed their
frames.
INDEX MAP TO GREATER NOTTINGHAM
OMANSFIELD
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NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 35
Next is the country extending northwards from the city. Here the
surface is formed by the Bunter Sandstone, which is bordered on the east
by the Keuper escarpment, a feature of varying prominence, and on the
west by the valley of the Leen. The thin, loose-textured, sandy soil and
the porous surface give rise to an open rolling country with broad dry
valleys. Settlements are few, apart from scattered farms, much of the
surface being covered by tracts of heath and bracken, woods and occasion-
al modern plantations, thus providing a foretaste of the conditions pre-
vailing in the Dukeries beyond. There is, however, a spaciousness and
breadth of view which, in the absence of towns and villages, makes this
relative wilderness attractive. Near Nottingham the wooded estates of
Bestwood, Ramsdale and Sherwood Lodge virtually constitute a little
Dukeries. At the head of the Leen valley in the midst of a large estate,
now unhappily being broken up for building purposes, is Newstead Priory,
the ancestral home of the Byron family. The poet’s remains are interred
in the church at Hucknall, a small mining town a few miles to the south.
The belt of industrialism which extends northward along the Leen valley
from the city, spreads out beyond Newstead into a broader zone en-
compassing the populous areas of Kirkby, Sutton-in-Ashfield, and the
approaches to Mansfield. Besides coal, it is from this part of the county
that have come so many of Nottinghamshire’s most famous cricketers.
Further to the west is the third of the tributary districts. This is the
stretch of undulating country between the Leen and Erewash valleys
whose surface is composed mainly of the Magnesian Limestone and the
clays and shales of the Middle Coal Measures. The water-parting be-
tween these valleys is formed by the somewhat broken and often in-
conspicuous scarp of the limestone, the eastward dip of which furnishes
a gentle slope conveying many streamlets to the Leen. Despite the
presence of collieries, much of the land is farmed and several ancient
estates survive with their fine old houses of the pre-industrial age, set
amidst extensive grounds. Such are Annesley, Beauvale, Watnall, Nuttall
and Strelley. Towards the Erewash, however, the productive Middle
measures have promoted an intenser degree of industrialism. The course
of the Top Hard seam in particular has determined the location of many
of the pits, e.g., Selston, Brinsley, Newthorpe, Wollaton. Drab and shape-
less settlements straggling one into the other, spread across the coalfield
into Derbyshire with scarcely a break between the buildings. The slopes
of the valley are in places so comparatively gentle, as at Trowell and
Langley Mill, that the succession of mines, factories and houses along the
chief roads causes a number of places in Derbyshire to be brought within
the commercial and social influence of Nottingham. Ilkeston, Sandiacre
and Stanton (the official address of the great ironworks being Notting-
ham) are instances. Heanor, too, with its textile mills and its large daily
traffic of workers travelling to and from Nottingham, is in some respects
more closely connected with that city than with Derby.
The mining region is bounded on the south by a reappearance of the
Trias plateau. To reach the Trent the Erewash has cut a narrow gap
across the northward-facing scarp between Stapleford and Sandiacre.
First the Bunter beds and then the presence of resistant “ skerry’ layers
36 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
in the Keuper Marls serve to constrict the valley. Both Stapleford and
Sandiacre, centres of lace, hosiery and general manufacturing, are closely
connected with Nottingham. Near the former is the Hemlock Stone, a
massive erosion feature of great interest, sculptured naturally from the
Bunter Sandstone. Below Sandiacre the valley broadens and merges
imperceptibly into the Trent plain, where spacious flats furnish the site
of the growing town of Long Eaton and the scene of two important rail-
way activities. Of the latter, the Toton sidings, which are among the
largest in the country, handle a great proportion of the output from the
Notts. and Derbyshire section of the coalfield, whilst Trent Junction is
an important focus of main lines and a vital point in the operation of
both passenger and goods services on the L.M.S. system. Though ad-
ministratively in Derbyshire, the town of Long Eaton is linked closely with
Nottingham by reason of its industries and transport services. It is the
only centre of lace manufacturing of considerable size apart from the
city itself, though it has in addition a variety of lesser pursuits. The
town has grown from a small centre of 1,600 inhabitants in 1861 to one
of 22,000 to-day.
Next comes the vale of the Trent itself, which is at once the most
obvious unit of landscape among the sub-divisions of the Nottingham
region. In form it resembles a long shallow trench whose sides are
generally steep and in places sufficiently abrupt to be termed cliffs, e.g.,
Clifton, Radcliffe. For a great distance it maintains a more or less
uniform width of a mile and a half, whilst over its flat monotonous floor
the only exception to the general level is a slight rise of ground here and
there not exceeding ten or twelve feet, due to the appearance of older
gravel above the alluvium. The present river, though a small stream
compared with its prototype, is liable to flood, consequently these slight
eminences afforded by single patches or marginal terraces of gravel have
played a large part in the fixing of settlements. The villages below Trent
Bridge, such as Holme Pierrepont, Stoke Bardolph, Shelford and Gun-
thorpe, are all situated thus, as well as the older part of West Bridgford
itself. Beeston, until recent times, was strictly confined to the limits of
a gravel terrace. Serious flooding occurs rarely, though a few fields
neighbouring the river are inundated whenever the Trent rises after a
prolonged rainy spell. The greatest flood ever known in Nottingham
was that of 1875, but that of May 1932 was also widespread and des-
tructive. These and other notable levels are recorded on the embank-
ment wall at the city end of Trent Bridge.
With modern drainage methods and measures to control the river,
settlement has spread less precariously over the vale. Not only has the
city extended thus, but some of the outlying centres, such as Beeston,
Netherfield and Colwick, have done likewise. The process is still going
on especially in connection with industrial development. Once freed from
the menace of serious flooding, the stretches of meadowland adjoining
the river and the railway tracks afford innumerable factory sites. Many
recent concerns have been established near to Nottingham in response to
these conditions. To the east of the city the Netherfield sidings
(L.N.E.R.) utilise the level surface and function as the counterpart of
NOTTINGHAM AND ITS REGION 37
those at Toton. Further away, the floor of the vale is occupied by farm-
land, about one half of which is arable, largely for market garden produce
destined for the city dwellers or to be despatched by rail. Towards
Thurgarton, near the limit of our region, cultivation decreases and is
replaced by pasture until in the vicinity of Newark the latter preponder-
ates to such an extent that the Trent may be said to flow in a typical
grass vale as was the case before it entered the Nottingham region.
The remaining district to be considered is the southward continuation
of the Keuper plateau across the Trent. This extends for an average
distance of six miles from the river as far as the Rhaetic escarpment
which marks off our region in the physical sense from the Vale of Belvoir
and from the South Notts. and Leicestershire Wolds. Here again the
boundary is arbitrarily drawn, for owing to the insignificance of this
scarp, lines of communication carry the influence of Nottingham to a
greater distance. Thus the villages of Upper and Nether Broughton, the
latter actually in Leicestershire, are brought into close touch with
Nottingham by the well-graded road to Melton Mowbray, though they
are situated nearer to the latter. Similarly the easy routes chosen by both
road and railway to Grantham bring the large village and market centre
of Bottesford to within the economic orbit of the city. The Grantham
Canal, now totally disused, winds circuitously towards the two villages
known as the Cropwells in order to negotiate the scarp with a minimum
number of locks.
The ancient Fosse Way enters our region from the south and, entirely
without reference to Nottingham, strikes across the country with un-
deviating straightness to Newark, where it meets the Great North Road
as the latter crosses the Trent. The Fosse is to-day a good motor road
and now carries a large volume of traffic, particularly since the opening
of the modern bridge at Gunthorpe in 1929 provided an alternative route
to the north, whilst at the same time avoiding Nottingham. Shortly be-
yond the junction of the Gunthorpe road the Fosse reaches territory
which looks definitely towards Newark and which, therefore, cannot be
considered as being tributary to Nottingham.
This section of the Keuper plateau like its counterpart on the other
side of the Trent, is chiefly agricultural country over which are scattered
numerous villages and farmsteads, some of these places, e.g., Radcliffe,
Edwalton, Ruddington and Plumtree, have recently developed as outlying
residential centres of a typically suburban character. Ruddington also
possesses hosiery factories. Bingham, still a large village, was formerly
a market centre for a wide area, and with the Grantham road passing
through it, was once a flourishing township. Other places of note are
Gotham, the home of the legendary ‘ wise men’, Thrumpton and Cropwell
Bishop which have gypsum mines and plaster works, for the locality
yields considerable quantities of this mineral from the upper layers of
the Keuper Marl. The largest workings, however, are near Newark.
At Tollerton, about five miles from the heart of the city, in the midst of
relatively open country, is the Nottingham airport.
From this sketch of the city and its surroundings it will be seen that
the keynote of both environmental conditions and human activity is
38 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
diversity. When William Felkin, the historian of hosiery and lace,
addressed the Economics Section of the British Association at its first
meeting in Nottingham in 1866 he discussed those two trades which,
at the time, certainly promised to occupy the entire energies of
the people. Already, he claimed, the town possessed nearly one
half of all the bobbin-net machines in the country. To-day, how-
ever; it is the centre of a manufacturing district which is now
characterised by the wide variety of its products. It is withal
an historic city. It has not sprung into existence merely as the
result of the industrial progress of the last century and a half; neither
has a modern town been grafted to an older one. Rather does Notting-
ham fall into that group of cities such as Bristol, Norwich and Leicester
its near neighbour, in which growth and change have been continuous
from the time of an early foundation.
ij INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM
BY
A. RADFORD, B.Sc. (ECON.) AND
W. O. BURROWS, SECRETARY OF THE NOTTINGHAM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
THE economic character of the City of Nottingham is only to be under-
stood fully when it is treated as the centre of a wider area which may be
called Greater Nottingham. It is always difficult to mark out the
boundaries of a ‘greater’ town but various tests can be applied—
geographical features, the Census of residences and places of work (1921),
the density of the local rail and road services, the location of factories
and other works belonging to firms whose offices are in the city, combined
with the sense of locality and common traditions or community of social
interests possessed by those who know the area well from long living there.
These tests indicate that we are approximately correct if we regard Greater
Nottingham or Industrial and Commercial Nottingham as including the
city itself with the rural districts of Basford (which encircles the city)
and Bingham (close in on the east) and the ring of urban districts which
adjoin the city directly or are included in or adjoin the rural areas men-
tioned. These urban districts are Arnold, Carlton, West Bridgford,
Beeston and Stapleford (including Chilwell) Long Eaton (just over the
boundary in Derbyshire), Eastwood and Hucknall, moving clockwise
round the area from the north. Thus Greater Nottingham lies in two
counties, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and, being situated at the
extreme south-west of an oval shaped county, parts of the area lie near
the counties of Lincolnshire, Rutland and Leicestershire. But the area
delimited is essentially the Nottingham area, and although most of the
urban districts claim rightly to possess their own economic individualities,
their people regard Nottingham as their city and recognise the integrity
INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM 39
of the economic life of this area. It is the area approximately of the
Labour Exchange ‘ Nottingham and District’ and it is within the Notting-
ham Postal Area.
The criteria of community of interest referred to above may be applied
to show that Nottingham is the centre of a much wider area. Though
the interests are more attenuated in the more distant parts they are
sufficiently strong to make the people of the county borough of Derby, of
the boroughs of Ilkeston, Newark, Grantham, Mansfield and of the inter-
stitial areas regard Nottingham as their main town. In the area marked
out by the these towns in the north and west and Loughborough in the
south, there is a powerful tradition of unity of economic interests. Each
of these boroughs is a centre of economic life and has its own sense of
independence and its own traditions, but the nature of their extremely
friendly relationships is evidence of their recognition of their close
economic kinship.
The unity of this area is of age-old standing; it is due, doubtless, to
its geographical nature. The Trent runs through from S.W. to N.E. and
the Derwent, Soar, Erewash, Leen, Doverbeck, join it within a short
distance of Nottingham, where the best crossing of the Trent was located.
The force of gravity brought all its inhabitants into Nottingham—if only
for its ancient Goose Fair.
The most significant economic interest common to all the parts of this
district—excepting, of course, the ordinary exchange natural to neigh-
bours—is the interest in the textile trade. This area is a real cradle of
textile industry: it is doubtful if any other area in the country has such
a good claim to the title. Here were born—of pure descent—two textile
industries, hosiery and lace, and here took place some of the most im-
portant early developments of the cotton trade.
The first hosiery machine (a knitting frame) was made in 1589 at
Calverton by Rev. William Lee, M.A. A great framework knitting in-
dustry of the domestic type developed from this and the major improve-
ments—Strutts’ Derby Rib and the famous Cotton’s ‘ patents "—took
place within this local industry. Hargreaves and Arkwright did their
early work on cotton in this district and, in 1808, Heathcoat produced
his lace-net (bobbin net) machine, followed later by Levers who produced
the ‘fancy’ lace making machine. Calverton saw the first knitting
machine; Papplewick saw the first cotton mill driven by power; and
Nottingham the first lace machine. At Hucknall, Farrands produced the
modified ‘jack frame’ which is used for the production of Shetland
work. Cotton went to Lancashire but there are survivals in the Derwent
valley, (Arkwright’s) at Cromford, and at Mansfield (Hollins’). Lace has
been transplanted to Somerset (by Heathcoat himself) and to Darvel in
Ayrshire, but Nottingham still is the lace centre of the country and
dominates the trade, while hosiery has spread south and nourishes
Leicester, Nottingham sharing the leadership with her.
The second great factor limiting the parts of Greater Nottingham is
the coal industry. It has developed chiefly in the western half of the
area, in the rich Notts. and Derby coalfield. This field was opened up
about 80 years ago—not reckoning outcrop workings—and has had the
40 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
effect of pulling the centre of economic gravity to itself. It brought in
its wake iron working and engineering; it dominated the development of
transportation and drew the textile factories and workshops to employ
the daughters of miners. The Erewash and Leen, parallel streams
practically converging on Nottingham, are in mining valleys—two strings
of collieries with a ‘knot’ at the end, in the borough of Nottingham
itself. There is no iron smelting in Greater Nottingham to-day, but
close by, at Stanton, near Ilkeston, and Butterley, near Alfreton, it
continues with vigour.
Nottingham’s industrial activities are not, traditionally, associated only
with textiles and coal. Long before the modern phase of industrialism
developed the area was famed for its handiwork. Pottery, alabaster
work, wrought iron work, watches and clocks and leather were amongst
its products, and the Castle Museum shows a fair number of representa-
tives of some of those trades of early years. And this traditional variety
is her pride to-day. It is a common habit to associate with the name of
a town one or two ‘characteristic’ industrial products or activities. It
is a facile way of imparting ‘economic geography’ to children and it
appeals to those who like to describe the results of the ‘ Industrial
Revolution ’ in bold, simple phrases such as mass production, localization
of industries, etc. Such a practice describes the actual situation well
enough in some cases but in others it goes wide of the mark. The common
association of Nottingham with lace is a case in point where considerably
less than the truth is conveyed. Nottingham is, in fact, a town of great
variety of industries and always has been, though the proportions occu-
pied in the various industries have changed from time to time. For a
space, lace was very prominent, but for the greater part of her history,
and at the present time in particular, Nottingham was and is much more
than a lace town.
The diagram opposite presents to the eye very clearly the wide distri-
bution of industries in Greater Nottingham by showing its fairly close
conformity to the distribution of industries in England and Wales (Census
classification 1931). On the left side of the vertical line the graph shows
the percentages of working populations (males and females) of Notting-
ham engaged in the twenty-two industries; on the right side is the ‘standard
distribution ’ for England and Wales. Nottingham has certain departures
from the national pattern of industries but the ‘ distortion’ is not great.
Mining, textiles, food, drink, and tobacco, wood and paper industries
are in excess, and agriculture, metals, commerce (and finance) and
personal services are deficient. But all groups are represented in
significant proportions (except fishing!). Some of this variety is the
normal result of being the central-town of the area, but to a greater
extent it is the result of her fitting in with the national economic scheme;
her varied industries have national and international markets.
The variety of Greater Nottingham’s industries shows itself in every
way, in raw material produced and used, in type of manufactured com-
modity, in stage of production (primary, secondary etc, . . final or
consumers’ goods), in type of organization of manufacturing and market-
ing. She extracts agricultural produce (including sugar beet), coal, clay,
INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM 4]
sandstone, limestone, gypsum. She produces beet sugar, milling products,
iron pipes and boilers, pottery and bricks, artificial silk; machinery (cycles
and textile machines particularly), electrical equipment, telephones, type-
writers, textile fabrics (lace, net, lace curtains, warpgoods, embroidery,
hosiery, milanese), leather, furniture, clothing (especially women’s and
children’s light clothing), printing, tobacco products and chemicals (heavy
and fine) bleaching and dyeing. '
This variety of material, product and process (along with the building,
transport, commercial, financial and professional activities) has two very
important consequences for the area. In the first place there is an outlet
for every type of ability, manual, managerial and administrative, technical,
scientific and artistic, and there is scope for most kinds of occupational
interest. Such variety of occupational possibilities is good for the individ-
ual members of the community and it is good for the area itself. Possibly
Nottingham’s high degree of adaptability to changing economic circum-
stances, to which we shall refer later, is in some measure related to this.
GREATER ENGLAND
NOTTINGHAM. AND WALES.
per cent per cent
20 15 10 i) oO 5 10 1S 20
Fishing.
seer Agriculture.
Mining, Quarrying.
Bricks, Tiles, etc.
Chemicals ete.
Metals, Engineering, ete.
Textiles.
Skins, Leather.
Clothing
Food, Drink Tobacco.
Wood, Furniture.
Paper, Printing.etc.
ilding.
Other Manufactures.
Gas, Water, Electricity.
Transport.
Commerce, Finance, etc.
Public: Administration.
Professions.
Entertainment.
| Personal Services.
1 Other Industries.
BUVDRRERREREREUERE
UARREREREREEEEREE
VMN UP ARBRE ERERNIED
MUN LN eNAN
4
Percentage distribution of Workin
Population (comparative) Census 193].
(Males and Females together)
42 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
In the second place the variety of industry contributes to the main-
tenance of a more or less even keel in passing through the fluctuating
economic weather. The mixture of final goods production with primary
productions keeps the district from the most violent movements up and
down. The recent depression, for instance, has hit Nottingham as it
has hit the country, but on the whole Nottingham has probably through-
out been on the brighter side of average conditions; her unemployment
figures seem to confirm this. Some of her industries and some of the
districts within her area have been severely struck, but the fact that in
many cases the members of families have been in industries not so de-
pressed has saved the individual domestic situation, and the variety of
fortune has saved the area.
There is one rather interesting feature of the balancing of Nottingham’s
industries which shows itself in the distribution of female labour. The
percentage of women in domestic and personal service is only just over
half of the national percentage so occupied. The textile, clothing, dis-
tribution and clerical demands for this kind of labour are heavy and the
Nottingham girls apparently prefer the factory, shop and office to domestic
service. The heavy male absorbing industry of mining dovetails with
these industries which absorb large numbers of females but, compared
with the national distribution of occupations, Nottingham seems to be
deficient in available females. It may be that the relative deficiency in
heavy metals, demanding males almost exclusively, is a connected circum-
stance. To some extent there is an immigration of young women from
the more distant coalfields of North Notts. and the agricultural districts
of the east.
Nottingham’s markets are far flung. She has a very large home market
for her products but most of her industries have considerable overseas
markets too. Her textiles, machinery, telephones, chemicals, and coal
go abroad, to Europe, America (North and South), and the Empire.
The district is, therefore, like the country as a whole, very concerned
about the development of international trade and exchange facilities.
Some of her products are ‘ fashion’ goods. This is to be expected when
she is so heavily engaged in textiles and dress. The importance of fashion
in the lace trade is, however, probably somewhat exaggerated in the minds
of those who are not acquainted with the trade. ‘Lace’ is not simply
lace: it is a group of products and they have different markets. Plain
net is a ‘bread and butter’ commodity with a large overseas (tropical)
market. Curtains are furnishings and they have not shrunk in demand
to an extent anything like that of lace, the real lace. Lace is a dress
material and, since 1914 or thereabouts, the demand has fallen enormous-
ly. In the spacious days, it is said, a woman would wear something
approaching 100 yards of lace edgings, flounces and insertions on her
person at once, but to-day it isn’t done! The lace trade has felt this great
change in dress requirements but the change from pre-war dress to modern
dress is not really fashion. Nevertheless the lace trade does suffer periodic
variations; it used to be said in the industry that ‘ the lace trade followed
the iron trade’.
INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM 43
In the matter of organization Nottingham’s businesses show some very
interesting cases. There are manufacturers, for example, who concen-
trate all their production in one big factory or works; this is seen in
tobacco, chemicals and engineering: there are others who have plants
in various parts of the area; this is notably so in hosiery, probably due
to the distribution of female labour in the mining districts. Again, in
the lace trade there is one large firm which conducts all the processes from
the yarn to the market, while the general practice is for the lace makers
to sell their produce to warehousemen or merchants, and these latter,
after having certain final processes carried through, put the goods into
the market. There is an amazing variety of organization in this trade,
almost every process being worked to some extent in independent business-
es and to some extent in conjunction with others. Nottingham is the
“lace market’ and the manufacturing is done there, at Beeston and other
places on to Long Eaton. Further, some of the large businesses of
Nottingham are branches of ‘ national’ businesses, some even of inter-
national concerns; some produce to distribute in their own shops, in
Nottingham and elsewhere, Messrs. Boots being the outstanding example.
The sizes of businesses also vary; the characteristic size is probably small
though the area has many very large ones indeed. In textiles the variety
of size is striking, some manufacturers owning two or three machines only.
There is one industry which, in its organization, is almost a survival:
the Shetland industry. Here the usual practice is to produce on a hand
frame—a modification of the stocking frame. Now-a-days a manu-
facturer has a factory holding a number of these frames, a dozen or
more, and he sells the product to a warehouseman, though it is only a
few years ago that a man would have a frame of his own and work for
a manufacturer or warehouseman himself. A very interesting practice
in this trade is that of the framework knitter producing the new designs:
it is said that he used to do this on Good Friday or Easter Monday.
The trade has in some ways the flavour of a century ago though in recent
years it has extended its products from the old shawls and falls to various
other articles of ladies’ dress unthought of then.
A passing reference was made above to the power of adaptation which
Nottingham has shown in her economic life. It might be better described
as initiative. That she possessed it at the end of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth century is clear from the history of the textile
trade. Felkin, in his ‘ History of Machine-wrought Lace and Hosiery’
gives a vivid picture of the sizzling enthusiasm of the Nottingham frame-
smiths and framework knitters experimenting with a hundred and one
machines to produce a lace fabric. They were in hot pursuit for years
before Heathcoat succeeded. And when this was done the same restless
spirit of the area pursued improvements and modifications of all the
various lace and hosiery machines: always it sought for something new.
But not only in technical inventions were Nottingham’s textile men
alert; they showed the same energy and driving power in business organiz-
ation and great firms were born then that still stand; Birkin, I. & R.
Morley and others. As time passed on, this technical and business
dynamism continued to show itself in the textile trade and has done so
44 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
to the present day. New firms have risen and grown strong, and old
firms have adapted their activities to new conditions. New fabrics have
been produced, new raw materials introduced, and new modes of utilizing
them have been developed. There is no slavish persistence in rendering
one service because this one service has always been rendered. Firms
producing lace have entered the ‘ making-up’ trades.—a form of vertical -
integration—and firms using one fabric of their own production buy
fabrics of other trades to join them in supplying a new market demand.
Textiles, however, have not claimed all the initiative of the town. Men
of enterprising character and great ability have been spread over the
varied field of industry and the town has reaped a variegated crop
of fine industrial flowers. The great organization of Boots, the
famous Raleigh Cycle Works (using Bowden Brakes and Sturmey Archer
Gears), Player’s Tobacco Factory, Barlock Typewriters, Beeston Boilers,
Stanton Ironworks, are some of the outstanding examples of Nottingham
enterprise, and there are many others in the electrical, machine building,
motor, tanning industries. They are all firms which have either originated
new products or have, with the expanding market demand of recent
years, taken the lead by virtue of efficiency.
In a dynamic economic system new industries grow and, inevitably,
certain old industries languish or shrink, for dynamism means a changing
pattern of activities, a changing allocation of resources, not simply the
addition of fresh activities. Nottingham has seen a certain amount of
such shrinkage, dynamic shrinkage, shrinkage due to economic ‘ progress ’.
We have noted one of these already; there has been since the beginning
of this century, a change in the part played by lace in dress and Notting-
ham has had to accommodate herself to this change. In coal, also, there
has been a change and surplus miners, like surplus lace workers, have
had to move into the expanding trades. This many have done, though
there is a ‘hard core’ of unemployment which is accounted for by this
change.
Besides the native growth of new industries certain new ones have
migrated into the area or have been developed by men from elsewhere.
Outstanding examples of this incursion are Ericsson’s Telephones (Beeston)
and Celanese (Spondon). In addition there has been a development in
Nottingham and at Chilwell of activities connected with the arming of
the country.
In the great industrial changes of the last generation Nottingham has,
then, maintained her traditional dynamic character. She has adapted her
old industries to new demands, she has developed new industries or made
small ones grow larger, and she has attracted to herself businesses from
elsewhere. After the earlier industrial revolution she took her place on
the south of the great industrial north, active in a variety of ways. In
the new industrial revolution she is again taking her place on the north
of the new industrial south. Again she is distributing her interests and
occupations, hoping to ensure thereby the condition of steady prosperity
which, all things considered, has been her good fortune hitherto.
il.
NOTTINGHAM DISTRICT
pivibriibes GEOLOGY -OF ..THE:.DISTRICT
BY
PROFESSOR H. H. SWINNERTON, D.Sc., S. G. CLIFT, M.Sc., AND
P. E. KENT, B.Sc.
INTRODUCTION
THE area covered by this survey includes Nottinghamshire and the
adjoining portions of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. It
forms a compact physical unit limited on west, south and east by the
high grounds of the Derbyshire hills, Charnwood, the uplands of
Leicestershire Wolds and Lincoln Cliff respectively. On the north it is
bounded by the Humber Carrlands and the marshy ground around the
lower reaches of the Trent and its tributary the Idle. Seven gaps in this
ring of physical barriers give access to the country beyond. The gate-
ways of the Middle Trent and Soar lie between the Charnwood upland
and the Derbyshire Hills on the one hand and the Leicestershire Wolds
on the other. The valley of the Witham crosses the boundary twice and
in doing so has given rise to one exit south of Grantham and another
at Lincoln. Between these lies the almost dry valley of the Sleaford
Gap. In the north are the gateways of Bawtry and the Rother, lying
between the Derbyshire Hills and the marshlands of the Idle, and separ-
ated from one another by the rising ground of the Permian limestone.
The geological formations which underly this area and its boundaries
are as follows :—
Glacial and Post Glacial deposits:
Mesozoic.
Inferior Oolite.
Lias.
Trias.
Palaeozoic.
Permian.
Carboniferous.
Precambrian.
Charnian.
In the northern part of the area the outcrops of these formations
follow a north to south course, but as they approach the latitude of
45
46 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Nottingham they curve and converge towards one another (see map inset
opposite page 48) with the result that half the formations are to be found
within the city boundaries. As the Mesozoic rocks continue westwards
they cover up the outcrops of the Palaeozoic rocks south of the latitude
of the city.
H.HLS.
CARBONIFEROUS
The Carboniferous rocks of Derbyshire exhibit in their lithology a
three-fold division of Limestone, Grits and Coal Measures which reflect
in the contrasting soils, vegetation and land forms three very character-
istic types of scenery.
The dominant structural feature of the region is the Pennine anticline
of which the Derbyshire Dome forms the southern termination. The
prevailing easterly dip of the Carboniferous strata is broken by subsidiary
folds marked by inliers of limestone at Crich and Ashover, and further
minor folds occur in the Coal Measure basin to the east, constituting
the southern part of the Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
Coalfield. The fact that these folds when traced southwards develop
a Charnian trend suggests that older trend lines were re-emphasized by
post-Carboniferous movements.
CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE
The Carboniferous Limestone dome of Derbyshire is perhaps the most
visited area of ‘Mountain Limestone’ in the country. The subdued
topography of the limestone plateau is accentuated by the deeply notched
dales, whose streams are, as in the days of Isaac Walton, still famed for
their fishing, and no visit to the district could be deemed complete with-
out seeing Dovedale or some other such scenic gem of Derbyshire.
The massive crystalline limestone is of considerable purity and ex-
posures in natural river cliffs, caverns, railway cuttings and extensive
quarries facilitate a closer study of the rock.
' With the exceptions of a small area of limestone near Buxton which
may belong to the upper half of the Seminula zone (S.) the 1,500 feet of
limestone exposed are of the Dibunophyllum zone (D). On the whole
the upper beds are of darker hue and are more silicified than the lower
and the former are also the more fossiliferous. Lonsdaleia floriformis,
Lithostrotion of various species and other reef building corals are suc-
ceeded by gigantic productids. The grey crinoidal ‘marble’ is in evi-
dence in many a Derbyshire mantlepiece and in the paving of corridors
and quadrangle of Nottingham University College at University Park the
stone from Hopton Wood quarry has been used with effect.
A feature of the Derbyshire dome is the evidence of contemporaneous
vulcanicity in the form of lava flows (the ‘ toadstone’ of the lead miner),
bedded tuffs and associated necks of agglomerate. In addition there are
sills of Olivine dolerite of somewhat later date which together with the
“toadstones’ have been quarried for road metal. The mining of lead
ore in Derbyshire is of great antiquity and the laws governing the working
of galena and the associated gangue minerals in the Wapentake of
So ee
THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT 47
Wirksworth are of more than antiquarian interest. Fluor spar, barytes
and calcite are the normal gangues and the ‘ Blue John’ variety of fluor
from Castleton takes pride of place as a Derbyshire mineral specimen.
Millclose Mine in Darleydale has been worked continuously since 1861
and though other mines are worked intermittently it would appear that
most of the ore above water level has been extracted. To-day the
abandoned mines and natural caverns penetrated by the workings are an
attraction to the tourist rather than of interest to the miner. The
extensive soughs, driven during the last century in an attempt to de-water
the mines, provide an abundant water suuply though in quality hardly to
be compared with that from the succeeding Millstone Grits, on which
the fame of Matlock Spa depends.
MILLSTONE GRIT
The scenery of the Gritstone country is in striking contrast to that of
the Limestone dome; heather moorland and edge-like escarpments
take the place of the grassy rounded forms of the limestone plateau.
The streams of the grit-country tumble over the successive grits in a
succession of waterfalls and the early development of the textile industry
in Derbyshire was based on the water power thus provided. Moreover
the water from the grits is as ‘soft’ as that from the limestone is ‘ hard’
and the hydropathic hotels of Matlock and the bleachers and dyers find
this pure gritstone water ideal for their requirements. The Derwent
Valley Water Scheme has made these waters available to Sheffield, Derby,
Nottingham and Leicester and such a supply will prove a big factor in
the future development of the East Midlands.
The so-called ‘Limestone Shales’ below the Millstone grit are now
considered to belong to the Upper Carboniferous and rest unconformably
on the limestone in Derbyshire. In the shales of the Edale valley in
North Derbyshire, J. H. Jackson has found in descending order goniatites
characteristic of the lower Reticulocerus sub-zone, the Homocerus zone
and the upper sub-zone of Eumorphocerus but the absence of the
goniatite Eumorphocerus pseudo-bilingue and the associated marine
fossils suggests that the lower sub-zone of the Upper Carboniferous is
unrepresented in Derbyshire. The Edale shales are succeeded by the
Mam Tor sandstone and Shale Grit series or the Fifth Grit of some
authors, and this is followed by the Grindslow Shales which so far have
yielded no fossils. The Kinderscout or Fourth Grit attains its maximum
development in North Derbyshire and is characterised by a lower coarse
and often conglomeratic leaf separated by shales from a finer grained
and often flaggy upper division. In common with other grits the Kinder-
scout contains casts of plant stems usually so ill preserved as to defy
precise indentification.
The Middle Grits include the Belper or Chatsworth Grit and the
Coxbench Grit. These grits often occur in wide courses and the Cox-
bench in particular has provided building stone of exceptional tensile
strength and weather resisting qualities. The intervening shales are seldom
exposed. As in the case of the Upper Kinderscout, each of these grits
is immediately overlain by underclay and a thin coal seam. Though
48 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
these coals are of little economic importance as such, they frequently
prove of value to well sinkers as an indication of the presence of the
underlying water-bearing stratum.
The Rough Rock or First Grit is perhaps the most persistent of the
gritstones and as this coarse grained grit is unusually felspathic it appears
more prone to disintegrate, on weathering, than other grits in the series.
CoAL MEASURES
Considering the long history of the Derbyshire Coalfield the dearth of -
literature other than publications of the Geological Survey on the Coal
Measures is surprising.
In 1312 coal was being mined at Cossall on the Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire border and locally mined coal probably played a part in
driving Queen Eleanor from Nottingham Castle as early as 1257. The
local product has long since lived down this unfortunate incident and
to-day no two coals are more esteemed than ‘Derby Brights’ and
‘Nottingham Ashless ’.
In Derbyshire, where the measures are fully exposed, the mining engin-
eer has hitherto been satisfied to depend almost entirely on lithology for
purposes of correlation of seams, but in Nottinghamshire where the
measures are largely concealed beneath an unconformable cover of
Permian and Triassic strata the need for palaeontological indices has
been recognised and marine bands and more recently non-marine
lamellibranch zones have here proved of value as aids to correlation.
The productive measures of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire do not
exceed 3,000 feet as compared with 5,000 feet in Yorkshire, and the
difference in thickness is accounted for by the relative absence of massive
sandstones in the southern portion of the field. Here argillaceous shales
and clays predominate and are extensively quarried for bricks and coarse
pottery.
In Derbyshire the lower seams, particularly the Kilburn, Low Main or
Furnace, Deep Hard and Deep Soft in ascending order, have been and
still are the backbone of the mining industry though thinner seams are
now being economically worked. In Nottinghamshire the Top Hard
(Barnsley of Yorkshire) and the associated seams in the upper half of
the Middle Coal measures are proving even more profitable.
Whereas the ‘ Visible Coalfield’ has been exploited for more than 700
years and many collieries are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain
an economic output, the working of the ‘Concealed Coalfield’ only
dates back to 1859, and to-day in Nottinghamshire large collieries with
all the advantages of modern equipment and vast resources of accessible
coal are capable of an output far in excess of present consumption.
This inland field has from the first been mainly concerned with the
home market and though during the post-war years there has been in-
creased competition with other fields which had re-entered the home
market on the decline of their export trade, the local field has been
fortunate in that new collieries have been put into successful operation
even during the darkest years of the depression.
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THE GEOLOGY OF THE NOTTINGHAM AREA Tay: ee ) Oxford Clay
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THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT 49
The outstanding problem of the Concealed Coalfield is the possible
extent of the field eastwards beyond the River Trent. A recent boring
at Harby, within six miles of Lincoln, points to the probability of avail-
able reserves of coal in Lincolnshire and in some measure confirms the
optimistic findings of the Royal Commission of 1905. Borings to the
south of the present field and the out-cropping of Millstone Grits at
Castle Donington and Carboniferous Limestone in the Ticknall and
Breedon inliers show that there is little possibility of any considerable
extension in a southerly direction. The present tendency towards co-
operation amongst mining enterprises in the Concealed Coalfield is lead-
ing to the more rapid solution of many minor structural problems within
the field and though the Geological Survey Memoir on the Concealed
Coalfield of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire (G. V. Wilson, 1926), is still
in substance correct, new developments in mining and fuel research have
added to our knowledge of the field within the past decade. The Mans-
field Marine Band at some distance above the Top Hard seam has proved
the most valuable index horizon in the Concealed Coalfield and in the
wider correlation of coalfield with coalfield since a corresponding datum
has been recognised in Skipsey’s Marine Band of Scotland and in the Cefn
Coed Marine Band of South Wales.
The Non-Marine Lamellibranch fauna has proved amenable to zonal
divisions and in the productive measures of Nottinghamshire and Derby-
shire a definite zonal sequence has been determined.
The lower limit of the Similis-Pulchra zone is immediately below the
Top Hard seam and that of the Modiolaris zone has been fixed with some
precision below the Deep Hard group of seams. The Low Main is the
highest seam of the Ovalis zone, which zone extends downwards to the
horizon of the Kilburn seam which is, in effect, the base of the productive
measures of this field. The equivalence of the Kilburn seam of Derby-
shire and the Arley seam of Lancashire has now been recognised (Wray,
1936) and the Lenisulcata zone extends downwards into the Millstone
Grits.
The upper limit of the Similis-Pulchra zone and an attenuated Phillipsii
zone are known only in borings and shaft sections in the Concealed
Coalfield, where the red unproductive measures of the upper zone are
found in an area south of the Mansfield-Newark line, which direction
marks the Charnian trend of the Brimmington Anticline under the Permo-
Trassic cover.
It is one problem to speculate on the probable extent of the Concealed
Coalfield and another to sink shafts through the water-bearing sandstones
of the overlying strata but that is a problem for the mining engineer
rather than for the geologist. The application of a cementation process
during sinking has been successful in recent enterprises. The effects of
mining subsidence on the water undertakings on the overlying sandstone
are being watched with some anxiety by water engineers and the city of
Nottingham is fortunate in having a reserve supply from the Derwent
Valley Scheme.
S.G.C.
50 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
PERMIAN AND TRIAS
The following subdivisions of these systems may be recognised in this
area :—
Trias.
Permian Keuper.
Marl. Marl.
Magnesian Limestone. Sandstone.
Marl Slates. Basement Beds.
Breccia. Bunter.
Conglomerate.
Sandstone.
Towards the close of the Coal Measure period, earth movements took
place which resulted in the conversion of this area along with the rest of
the country into dry land, and the establishment of an elongated dome-
like uplift in the region of North Derbyshire, and of less prominent folds
trending from north-west to south-east. These folds defined the western
and southern limits of the great synclinal basin of the Derbyshire and
Nottinghamshire coalfield. At the same time extensive denudation took
place and produced a varied landscape with limestone uplands, millstone
grit and coal measure sandstone scarps separated by broad valleys in the
belts of shale and clay.
It was upon this very diversified surface that the Permian and Triassic
rocks were laid down, a fact which accounts for innumerable idiosyn-
cracies in the form and distribution of the outcrops of the latter.
THE PERMIAN
The Permian rocks are exposed in the northern outskirts of the city,
where they have a total thickness of about 60 feet.
The unconformity which they make with the underlying Coal Measures
is emphasised by the presence of a layer of breccia at the base. This has
a maximum thickness of about 8 feet near to Mansfield. From thence
it spreads out in fan fashion towards the north, east and south thinning
out as it does so until in a distance of about fifteen miles it is represented
by only a coarse grit.
The Marlslates are thinly bedded earthy magnesian limestones separated
by bands of shale, and sometimes crowded with very fragmentary plant
remains. The classic exposure in the Kimberley railway cutting which
was first described by Edward Wilson is still the best place to see these
rocks.
The magnesian limestone is abundantly exposed in the quarries at
Bulwell on the northern side of Nottingham. It is made up of clearly
defined beds of various thicknesses. Unlike the rock as seen near Mans-
field, where it is compact and fine grained, it here consists of dolomite
crystals which are large enough to give it the appearance of a coarse
sandstone. At the outcrop recognisable fossil are rare, but in the boring
further east brachiopods, bryozoa, ostracods, and encrinite ossicles have
been found.
The Permian marl consists of a deep red or chocolate coloured marl
THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT af
interbedded with layers of magnesian limestone in its lower and beds of
sandstone in its upper portions. The latter are frequently lenticular in
section as though they had been deposited in current channels excavated
in the clay from time to time during its formation. The marl is overlaid
by fine grained red sandstone which is usually classed as Bunter. There
is, however, no clear boundary between the two, for the sandy beds just
mentioned have the same characteristics, whilst the lower portions of
the sandstone contain much clay both in the substance of the sandstone
itself and as films and layers interbedded with the sandstone. Traced
southwards the Permian thins away rapidly and disappears in the western
outskirts of the city.
It is worthy of note that Edward Wilson, who was a very careful and
cautious observer and had unique opportunities for examining exposures,
would not refer these lower sandy beds to either the Permian or the Trias.
In 1876 the Geologists Association visited this district and in the report
of their visit they state quite emphatically that the passage from the
Marl to the Bunter is ‘ perfectly continuous’. After the lapse of twenty
years and the examination of many new exposures local geologists see no
reason for altering this description.
THE TRIAS
The Bunter Sandstone or Lower Mottled Sandstone is well exposed at
a number of points on the western side of the city. It is predominantly
red in colour with lines and patches of yellow and greenish yellow. It
has a fine grain and in its lower portions contains so much clay that it
constitutes a good moulding sand used both for iron and bell founding.
These lower parts are usually well bedded often with layers of clay and
sometimes strings of angular pebbles. The upper portions on the other
hand are usually false bedded.
The Bunter Conglomerate is predominantly current bedded though
occasionally well defined strata may be seen. They are coarse grained
and yellow though patches of red fine-grained sand occur. Pebbles are
always present sometimes scattered sporadically through the rock, at
other times concentrated in the bottom portions of the current channels.
A very large proportion of the pebbles consist of quartzite ranging in
colour from light grey to dark red, and in rare instances they have yielded
fossils. The remaining pebbles form a mixed assemblage including vein
quartz, lydian stone, Torridonian sandstone and various kinds of volcanic
rock. In this district they rarely exceed three inches in length. Clay
boulders nine inches or a foot long form an interesting feature in pits
where the rock is being excavated for use in mortar and plaster. The
outside of these is coated with small pebbles picked up by the clay as it
was rolled along by the currents. The junction of the conglomerate with
the Lower Mottled is often a sharply marked irregular line, and con-
stitutes the first clearly marked break from the Permian breccia upwards.
The Bunter as a whole varies greatly in thickness. This rises to a
maximum of more than 600 feet north of Mansfield. From thence it
also spreads out fanwise becoming thinner as it passes north, east and
south. Southwest of Nottingham it is 200 feet thick and at Dale it has
52 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
diminished to only 40 feet. The form of the rock mass suggests that of
a supra-terrestrial delta with its axis pointing to the north-west as the
direction of origin of the mattrial.
The top surface of the Bunter is wind eroded and carries irregular
heaps of loose pebbles, many of which are facetted. Facetted stones
have also been found in the bottommost beds of the Bunter where it
rests upon the old landsurface, as for example at Dale.
The Bunter outcrop occupies one quarter of the area of Nottingham-
shire and is an invaluable source of water supply for all towns within a
reasonable distance of its boundaries.
The Keuper Basement Beds in the vicinity of the city of Nottingham
vary in thickness up to 16 feet. Here they consist of sandstone having
the same texture as the conglomerate but almost white in colour. In this
state they appear to be a marginal or shore facies for they change as
they pass eastward into finer grained sandstones of light grey colour
interbedded with red marls, having a total thickness, a few miles to the
east, of 40 feet.
The Keuper Sandstone has a clearly defined base marked by the pre-
sence of a thin conglomerate—the Keuper conglomerate. This passes up
into a bed of yellowish sandstone some 3 feet thick. This division of
the Keuper is 100 feet thick and is made up of clusters of interbedded
sandstones and marls from 20 to 30 feet thick separated by a correspond-
ing thickness of red marls. The sandstone belts exhibit a marked rhyth-
mical repetition from thick layer of sandstone through thinner beds with
beds of marl to thicker beds of marl. The surfaces of the sandstone
layers vary in character and exhibit ripple marks, rainprints, suncracks
and footprints. On three occasions they have yielded fish remains be-
longing to species of Semionotus and Woodthorpea.
The Keuper Marl has a thickness of 600 feet and consists mainly of
red marl with occasional belts of thinly bedded fine grained sandstone
known as ‘skerry’. The marl varies in character slightly. Some layers
are compact and appear to show no lamination. Others strikingly re-
semble varve clays in all but colour. The skerry often shows curly bed-
ding but sometimes the surfaces may be ripple marked or may bear
crowds of salt pseudomorphs. Toward the top of the Keuper marl
gypsum appears in sufficient quantity to be mined. In its uppermost
portions the marl becomes green and is then known as the Tea-green
marls.
H.HLS.
THE Jurassic BEDS
Jurassic beds outcrop over a broad belt in the East Midlands. The
greater part of the sequence is present, and only the Portland and Purbeck
beds do not occur in this area.
The strike of the beds is N.N.W. in the north of Lincolnshire, N.
in mid and south Lincolnshire, and changes to S.W. in Leicestershire
and Northamptonshire. The alternation of hard and soft rocks, dipping
gently eastwards, has given rise to a series of escarpments. Thus the
marlstone gives rise to the Belvoir escarpment, and to the high ground
THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT 53
near Tilton. The Inferior Oolite forms the long, straight Lincoln edge
and the scarp near Rockingham, and the thinner limestones overlying
that form minor ridges.
The light soils of the limestone outcrops are much used for agriculture,
but the heavy clays of the lower land are now mainly devoted to pasture.
The distribution of water-bearing beds has exercised a marked control
over the location of villages, particularly in Lincolnshire.
During the last century, wide use has been made in the Fens of artesian
water from the Lincolnshire Limestone, which provides the most im-
portant water-bearing beds in this part of the area.
The ironstones of the Lower Lias are worked at Frodingham, and that
of the Middle Lias Marlstone is extensively exploited in Leicestershire.
The Inferior Oolite Northampton Ironstone is worked in Northampton-
shire, south of Grantham and at Lincoln.
At the close of the Triassic desert period the greater part of the East
Midlands became submerged beneath a sea in which the marine Jurassic
deposits were accumulated.
The first were the Rhaetic beds, which maintain constant characters
throughout the area. The lower part consists of 15-20 feet of black
shales, which yield Pteria contorta, Schizodus and Protocardia. Local
thin sandy bands occur crowded with fish teeth. The uppen Rhaetic
usually consists of 10-20 feet grey-green marls, with scattered limestone
nodules, which yield Estheria. Thin ripple-marked sandstones sometimes
occur. The White Lias, which forms the highest part of the Rhaetic in
the south of England, is unrepresented here.
The Lower Lias consists mainly of clays, with secondary limestone
bands in the lower part. In Leicestershire the Blue Lias or Hydraulic
Limestones correspond to the Angulatum and Bucklandi zones, as in
southern England. The beds below are poorly represented. Further
north the Hydraulic Limestone series is of planorbis and preplanorbis
age, and the overlying Angulatum and Bucklandi zones are clayey. The
limestones have yielded an interesting fauna, including insects, corals,
saurians, fish and crustacea at Barnstone and Barrow-on-Soar. |
In North Lincolnshire a bed of oolitic iron ore, 30 feet thick, known as
the Frodingham ironstone, occurs in the Lower Lias. The base of this
bed yields Coroniceras, cf. gmuendense, the middle part contains abundant
Cardinia and Gryphea, and during a recent visit to Scunthorpe
Aegasteroceras, cf. saggitarium (Blake) and Eparietites colenotii (D’Orb.)
(identified by Dr. Spath) were obtained from the upper part. The iron-
stone is therefore a greatly condensed deposit, representing 200 feet of
beds in the south, for the lower beds belong to the early Bucklandi zone,
and the upper part to the Stellare zone. In South Lincolnshire a thin
ferruginous limestone is the only lithological representative of this bed,
and the presence of Arnioceras belonging to the Bucklandi zone in the
overlying clays shows that the greater part of the ironstone has passed
laterally into clay.
The upper beds of the Lower Lias are grey shales and clays, which at
Old Dalby have yielded a very rich fauna of ammonites, belemnites,
gasteropods and brachiopods. At Bracebridge, near Lincoln, the beds
54. SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
of the Davoei zone contain abundant well preserved capricorns, and
inflated ammonites of the Liparoceras type. A thin ironstone band
occurs at this level in North Lincolnshire.
The lower part of the Middle Lias (Margaritatus zone) consists of grey
clays, occasionally sandy, with ironstone nodules. The beds measure
nearly 100 feet in Leicestershire, 56 feet at Grantham, 30 feet at Lincoln,
and probably thin out a little more farther north. The Spinatum zone is
represented by the marlstone ironstone, which may be as much as 40 feet
thick. The ironstone is well developed north and south of Melton Mow-
bray, but it is very thin north of Market Harborough and is absent for
15 miles north and south of Lincoln. It is noticeable that where the
marlstone is attenuated Dactylioceras has been recorded (Ingham, Leaden-
ham, and north of Market Harborough), showing that the attenuation is
due to the failure of the lower part of the bed. The fauna of the iron-
stone includes Lobothyris punctata, Tetrarhynchia tetrahedra, Pteria
inaequivalvis and Belemnites elongatus. The zonal ammonite is very
rare. Locally a thin bed with Tiltoniceras and dactyliocerates occurs at
the top of the ironstone.
The upper Lias consists of 100-200 feet of dark shales and clays with
scattered nodules. Study of the fauna shows that the lower beds are
thickest at Lincoln, the middle beds reach a-maximum at Grantham and
the upper beds are best developed in Northamptonshire. The fauna
shows a mixture of Yorkshire and southern forms. Various species of
Harpoceras and Dactylioceras are common.
Resting nonsequentially on the Upper Lias is the Northampton iron-
stone, 10-20 feet thick, a green oolite ore which weathers to a brown
ferruginous sand. It has been shown that the material forming this bed
came from a land mass southeast of Kettering. Unlike the Lias iron-
stone, this bed is usually unfossiliferous, but Lioceras spp, Hinnites
velatus, Trigonia spp. and various brachiopods occur at certain places.
In North Lincolnshire this ironstone is represented by 2 feet of ferruginous
sandstone, which has recently yielded brachiopods of scissum age. The
Northampton Ironstone is succeeded nonsequentially by the Lower
Estuarine Series, a variable thickness of pale sands and clays with vertical
plant remains. Determinable fossils are almost entirely absent from
these beds.
The most important member of the Inferior Oolite Series is the Lincoln-
shire Limestone, which first appears at Kettering and thickens to a
maximum of 140 feet south of Grantham. The greater part of the lime-
stone is oolitic, but raggy beds occur locally in the upper part, and in
North Lincolnshire the lower part of the formation passes into a cement-
stone series (the Kirton Beds). At the base of the limestone, near Stam-
ford, are thin sandy beds, which yield siliceous flags known as Collyweston
Slates. These beds are overlapped towards the south. Ammonites have
shown that the base of the limestone is of discites age, and brachiopods
indicate that the whole of the Bajocian and part of the Vesulian are
represented by the limestone. The various epiboles maintain a constant
thickness as traced along the outcrop, and the variation in thickness of
the limestone depends almost entirely on the amount of pre-Bajocian
denudation. P.E.K.
THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT 55
GLACIAL AND PosT GLACIAL DEPOSITS
The late Dr. Bernard Smith aptly described this area as a ‘ cockpit
where tongues of ice from various directions strove successively for terri-
torial rights’. Just beyond its eastern and southern margins considerable
areas of boulder clay occur consisting of material brought by ice moving
southwards over Lincolnshire and westwards across Rutland into
Leicestershire. Projecting northwards from the Leicestershire Wolds is
a spur capped with boulder clay which reaches almost to the Trent. This
seems to have marked the position of the terminal moraine of that selvage
of the ice which flowed along the Vale of Belvoir.
North and west of the Trent only scanty fragments of boulder clay
are to be found and these are confined to the higher grounds. The most
obvious and at the same time the most southerly of these lies on a series
of high points stretching from Blidworth almost to the city boundary.
Magnesium limestone occurs in the boulder clay throughout the area.
On the eastern side, chalk and oolite are recorded, but on the west these
are replaced by boulders from the more resistant portions of the carbon-
iferous rocks, Stone of more distant origin have come from the Whinsill
and the Lake district.
Though boulder clay is scanty, gravels abound. The higher level
gravels spread like outwash sheets on both the Bunter and Keuper out-
crops, and their soils yield numerous facetted pebbles.
The valleys of the Trent and its tributaries have been excavated out of
the surface tipon which these gravels were spread, and in them are found
the lower level gravels. The oldest of these occupies a prominent terrace
which extending from University Park westwards through Long Eaton to
Borrowash. Fragments of a terrace of the same age occur along the
south side of the valley at various points from West Bridgford to Newark.
At Beeston these gravels have yielded early palaeolithic implements.
The floor of the major part of the main valley lies about 40 feet below
the surface of this terrace. On it lies a sheet of gravel of variable thick-
ness and irregular surface. The more upstanding portions of this are
still to be seen rising above the level of the alluvium, thus providing the
sites for many of the villages in the vale between Nottingham and
Newark. These gravels have from time to time yielded tusks and teeth
of the Mammoth at various points as far down stream as Hazelford thus
proving that this part of the floor of the valley must have been formed
during the ice age. These gravels contain numerous flint fragments which
must have come from the chalky boulder clay on the country south of the
Trent.
Since the deposition of these lowest gravels the river has been occupied
mainly in filling up the hollows on their surface with resorted gravel and
alluvium. During the early stages of this process some of the hollows
were occupied by extensive sheets of standing water which in course of
time became filled with peat. This in its turn was covered with alluvium.
One such body of water remained until the University College buildings
in University Park were erected. This water occupied the site of the
western end of the present lake in which it was subsequently incorporated.
56 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
When the lake was being extended deposits of peat of considerable
thickness were found around its margins and bronze age implements
were brought to light.
H.HS.
THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE AREA
Between the peneplained plateau of the Derbyshire limestone massif,
with its surrounding grit moorlands, and the floor of the Trent valley are
to be found traces of successive stages in the physiographic evolution of
the area. At each stage no doubt, as now the major features were scarps
and vales whose arrangement was determined by the distribution of the
more and the less resistant rocks as seen upon the geological map.
Generally speaking the crests of the scarps to-day preserve traces of the
older peneplains, whilst the later phases of change have been most
marked along the vales, which have been progressively deepened, with a
consequent emphasising of the scarp features,
Along the southern flanks of the Pennines distinct evidences of an
erosion surface occur at about 700 feet. This surface appears to sink
eastwards and to reach a level of about 550 feet in the Mansfield plateau.
Another and more extensive surface, which has developed at the expense
of the higher one, sinks from a level of about 450 feet at its fringes along
the foot of the Charnwood hills, the Ashby plateau and the edges of the
700 foot surface, to a level of about 300 feet near the course of the Trent.
This erosion surface represents a portion of the pre-glacial Trent basin,
and is the surface upon which rest some of the boulder clays and most
of the out-wash gravels of the area. Into this surface was etched, during
late glacial times, the present system of rather narrow and moderately
steep-sided valleys of the Trent and its tributaries.
H.HS.
i. THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY
K. C. EDWARDS, M.A.
Tue broad features of the climate of Nottingham such as the comparative-
ly great range of temperature and the comparatively slight rainfall, much
of which occurs during the summer half-year, are materially influenced
by its inland position. The city itself is situated more than one hundred
miles from the west coast and is further sheltered to some extent from
westerly maritime influences by the uplands of Derbyshire and north
Staffordshire. The east coast at Skegness is almost seventy miles away,
though this distance by no means prevents cold easterly winds from
sweeping across Lincolnshire to Nottingham and the middle Trent valley.
THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 57
Local factors of altitude, slope and shelter, of course produce slight yet
noticeable differences of climate within short distances. Thus both the
temperature and rainfall conditions prevailing at Mapperley, an elevated
and somewhat exposed suburb, (400 ft. O.D.) sometimes differ consider-
ably from those met with in the lower and more sheltered parts of the
city, (90-100 ft. O.D.). Doubtless, too, the Trent valley exerts some
influence upon meteorological phenomena in the region, though so far
little systematic observation has been attempted in this connection.
HISTORICAL
* At the meeting of the British Association in Nottingham, 1866, it was
generally felt that extended meteorological observations especially as to
temperature and rainfall were needed and that they should be conducted
as far as possible with instrumental and practical uniformity. According-
ly a station was established in Nottingham which has been maintained
without interruption up to the present period’. So runs the preface to
a pamphlet published in 1879 entitled “The Meteorology of Nottingham,
1867-78 ’, which was a collection of readings taken by M. O. Tarbotton,
the Town Surveyor of the time. Needless to say the local station referred
to continues its observations and in the meantime several others have
come into being.
Before the time of Tarbotton, however, little interest was taken in
meteorology as far as Nottingham is concerned. Among the earliest
records is ‘A Meteorological Register kept at Mansfield Woodhouse in
Nottinghamshire ’ from the beginning of 1785 until the end of 1794. This
was published in 1795 and contains records of wind directions and the
number of days in each month on which frost, snow and rain occurred.
Its compiler, Hayman Rooke, proffers the naive and disarming apology:
“I do not pretend to offer this as a philosophical register; such an under-
taking would have required a stationary residence which I could not
conveniently submit to’. To Robert Lowe’s well-known ‘Survey of
Nottinghamshire Agriculture’, published in 1798, are appended rainfall
figures for several years recorded by W. Thompson, a resident of West
Bridgford. A real pioneer, nevertheless, is found in the vigorous person
of E. J. Lowe of Beeston who, in 1853, published ‘The Climate of
Nottingham during the Year 1852’, an historic document in the annals
of local meteorology. It is of special interest to recall that most of
Lowe’s observations were made during his forty years’ residence at High-
field House which stands only a few yards from the recording instru-
ments now in use at University College. In addition to this publication,
Lowe made a careful study of local rainfall conditions and prepared the
first records of monthly means.
Later, at Hodsock Priory near Worksop, Colonel H. Mellish commenced
observations and established a fully-equipped station which continues to
keep records. Local meteorology is profoundly indebted to Colonel
Mellish. His rainfall map of Nottinghamshire (and accompanying paper)
was published in the Q. J. R. Met. Soc. 1893, and on his decease in 1927,
through the kindly offices of the Meteorological Society, his valuable
collection of works on meteorology and climatology passed to the library
58 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
of University College. More recently, Mr. Arnold B. Tinn of Nottingham
has presented to the library of the Royal Meteorological Society an
exhaustive collection of climatological data relating to the city, extending
over a period of twenty years and including many items not usually
available. Mention should also be made of the chart illustrating the
principal meteorological conditions on each day of the year in Notting-
ham prepared annually by the City Engineer and Surveyor. This docu-
ment, with its clearly printed details is of inestimable value in the study
of local conditions.
TEMPERATURE
Temperatures in Nottinghamshire are affected by the inland situation
of the county and by its location eastward of the Pennines, for both
circumstances prevent a full development of westerly maritime influences.
The absence of mountains within the county itself and the comparative
evenness of relief make for a marked uniformity of temperature con-
ditions. The whole area has a mean temperature of slightly under 38° F.
for January, whilst in summer there is little more than one degree of
difference between the extreme north of the county (July mean 61° F.)
and the extreme south (July mean 62.1° F.), a distance of over 50 miles.
In detail, too, there is a close similarity between the average monthly
mid-temperatures of the four stations given below.
MEAN MONTHLY MID-TEMPERATURES (1881-1915) IN F°
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dee. Year
Nottingham (Trent Lane) 82 ft.
376 38:9 41°3 46°0 51°8 57:8 61:0 59°83 55°7 485 42°83 39:1 48-4
Nottingham (Castle) 192 ft. (1901-30)
38°9 391 41°8 45°7 52°4 56°7 60° 596 55:6 49°4 42:0 396 48-4
Hodsoek Priory 56 ft.
37-4 39°0 41°6 45°8 51°55 57°3 60°4 59°5 55:4 485 42°38 386 48:2
Belvoir Castle 259 [t.
37° 38°8 41:0 45°6 51-4 57:3 60°7 59°7 59°7 48:4 42°8 38°8 48-2
Belvoir Castle, of course, lies beyond the county boundary in
Leicestershire. This similarity occurs in spite of the differences in altitude
between these stations and the only appreciable difference is that in
summer as might be expected, the city is slightly warmer than the stations
situated in the open country. During the two months June and July
the mean temperatures for Nottingham (Trent Lane) are 0.5° and 0.6°
respectively above those for Hodsock Priory, whilst for all the remaining
months of the year the difference is less than one-half of a degree.
The moderating influence of the sea is naturally not felt so much as in
regions nearer the coast, consequently the mean annual range of tem-
perature (about 22° F. for Nottingham and 22.9° F. for Hodsock) is
considerable. This is exceeded, however, in many districts of eastern
England, e.g. Cambridge, where the range is 24° F. Throughout the
county and adjoining regions January is the coldest month with a mean
of 37.5° F. and July the warmest with a mean of 60.5° F. August is
but one degree cooler than July. The relative weakness of westerly in-
THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 59
fluence must not be pressed too far regarding temperature, for in winter,
west and south-west winds often blow, as elsewhere, with characteristi¢
mildness and raise the temperature several degrees. Prolonged cold
spells, on the other hand, are not uncommon owing to the establishment
of anticyclonic conditions over the continent resulting in the drift of
easterly winds across the North Sea.
PRESSURE AND WINDS
In the absence of data for local stations the following table giving the
mean monthly barometric pressure for Derby, situated only 16 miles
from Nottingham, should be of general interest, though of little practical
value in making a detailed study. Day-to-day changes are of course
vastly more important.
MEAN MONTHLY ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE AT DERBY IN INCHES
Jan. Feb. Mar. April May June
29-900 29°917 29°860 29:932 29°969 29 955
July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
29'932 29-916 29-904 29°856 29°892 29°932
Weather conditions in Nottinghamshire, as in all parts of the British
Isles, are largely governed by the prevalence of westerly winds throughout
the year. The following table shows the average number of days in each
month experiencing winds with components from the four cardinal points
of the compass at Nottingham.
Wind Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep Oct. Nov. Dec. Year
N. 6 6 8 9 9 8 7 5 8 8 7 5 86
E. 4 5 4 6 6 5 5 3 5 5 4 3 5d
S. 5 4 4 4 4 4 + 5 4 5 4 5 52
1 ae by Aa: Ss ee ems Op DAs) 15mg 17/0 el Le Se Us ea Ic i pa Wy 7
Computed from daily readings published in the annual reports on the
meteorology of Nottingham, for the period of thirty-five years, 1891-1925.
Winds with a westerly component thus blow during 172 days, i.e.
nearly half the total number of days in the year. They are felt on at
least 12 days in every month and are most frequent in January and
August and least in April and May. Similar observations made at Hod-
sock Priory over a period of 30 years (1876-1905) show that west and
south-west winds together prevail there for almost one-third of the days
in the year.
Northerly winds blow during nearly one-quarter of the days of the
year and predominate in April and May when there is a weakening of
the westerlies. Easterly winds are commonest in April and May, though
at Hodsock they are most frequent in March. Southerly winds, though
less frequent than those from other quarters, blow during a uniform
number of days each month. The table deals only with the average
monthly occurrence of the various winds and conveys no idea of their
strength or of the length of time they prevailed. True calm days, i.e.
days on which no movement of the air is recorded at the time of obser-
vation, are seldom experienced and these have been disregarded in com-
60 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
’ piling the table. On the other hand, since only seven such days were
recorded in Nottingham during the selected period of 35 years, it is
obvious that the gentlest drift of air has been recorded throughout as a
wind.
Of great interest are the observations made by Mr. A. B. Tinn, whose
exhaustive analysis of local climatic data has been mentioned, indicating
the mean maximum temperatures accompanying winds from different
directions. Thus, over a period of 20 years, the maximum air temper-
ature reached with a south-westerly wind in the month of January is as
high as 47° F., but is only 36° F. with a north-east wind.
HuMIDITY
Detailed figures for the relative humidity of the atmosphere are not
available for stations in Nottinghamshire, though Cranwell in Lincoln-
shire (some 28 miles east-north-east of Nottingham) is one of the twelve
stations selected by the Meteorological Office to represent the normals of
this element of the weather. There are many occasions during the
course of a year when the conditions of humidity at Cranwell
approximate closely to those at Nottingham.
‘As with all the other stations, Cranwell shows a high humidity prevail-
ing during the autumn and winter months. This reaches a maximum in
December during which only for a short period daily, i.e. for an hour or
two following midday, is the humidity under 90%. No station, however,
not even Valencia or Eskdalemuir, experiences such a long period of
persistently high humidity, and the autumn period as a whole provides a
higher humidity throughout the day at Cranwell than at any other station.
Similarly, no station records such a high average maximum humidity
(more than 96%) as occurs in the early mornings, 3 a.m. till 7 a.m., in
March. Humidity is lowest, as at most places, during the early after-
noons of the summer months. At Cranwell however, where it is under
68% in May and July, it is never so low as at Kew (58%) or at Lympne
(64%) in July.
The mean annual range of humidity is normally greater in the eastern
districts of the British Isles than in the westernmost parts, and greater at
inland stations than at the coast. Consequently Cranwell, like Notting-
ham, having an eastward interior situation, shows a considerable range,
actually twice as great as that of Valencia.
RAINFALL
The rainfall map of Nottinghamshire (inset opposite page 62) has been
constructed from the records of 53 stations within the county, the great
majority of which possess readings complete for the standard period
1881-1915 and are distinguished in ‘ British Rainfall’ as first class stations.
The map published by H. Mellish in 1893 was based upon the records of
only nineteen stations within the county though as many as forty from the
adjoining counties were used. Though most of the latter possessed records
extending over a period of thirty years, usually for the period 1861-90,
a number of them were subject to discrepancy owing to the use of in-
different instruments and even the occasional removal of a rain-gauge to
THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 61
another site. For guidance in completing the present map twenty stations
situated outside the boundaries of the county have been used.
The rainfall over the county is comparatively slight, ranging from
22 inches to 30 inches per annum. In general the amount decreases from
west to east, i.e. from the high ground along the borders of Derbyshire
to the lowlands of the Trent. The greatest amount, i.e. over 30 inches,
is found upon the small stretch of high ground reaching to 600 feet be-
tween Sutton-in-Ashfield and the Derbyshire border, while the highest
mean total is that recorded for Hardwick Hall (31.8 inches) which lies
just beyond the county boundary. There is, moreover, a very gradual
transition from the moister to the drier parts of the county. Relief
features naturally influence the amount of rainfall and provide some
noteworthy local differences. Thus the high ground at Redhill and
Dorket Head (500 ft.) lying to the north of the city receive nearly two
inches more per annum than the surrounding district. Mapperley, a
part of Nottingham rising to over 400 ft., receives one inch more than the
neighbouring quarters of the city which are less elevated. Especially
marked is the Belvoir Castle ridge, lying outside the county to the south-
east. which is indicated on the rainfall map by the enclosed 25 inch isohyet.
Similarly the larger valleys are somewhat drier. An important feature
of the map is the long tongue of relatively dry territory, not shown on
previous rainfall maps of Nottinghamshire, following the Trent valley
and traced out by the 23 inch isohyet. This is explained by the general
flatness of the vale in contrast to the more broken and elevated country
out of which it has been carved. Locally within this tongue are small
areas with a mean annual figure of under 22 inches. Such are Lowdham
(21.4 inches), the lowest figure for the county, and Sutton Bonington, -
near which is the Midland Agricultural College (21.7 inches).
The map further indicates that from the well-watered uplands near the
western border rise the streams which feed the chief rivers draining to
the Trent. The Erewash and Leen together with the headstreams of the
Idle all commence in territory over which there is an average rainfall of
more than 27 inches.
Nottinghamshire then, with the greater part of its surface receiving
less than 25 inches of rain per annum, forms part of the relatively dry
region of eastern England, though it should not be described as lying
within the ‘rainshadow’ of the Pennines. For purposes of comparison
the following is a selection of mean annual rainfall totals for stations in
other centres of the East Midlands :—
Altitude Rainfall
in feet in inches
Derby (Arboretum) € 196 26.2
Loughborough ae 5 135 23-1
Leicester .. Re i 266 24.2
Grantham .. ha a 188 24.1
Newark we = a 43 23.4
Lincoln ai : 58 22.8
These centres, all of which are comparatively low-lying, show a marked
similarity in their respective totals.
62 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
MEAN MONTHLY RAINFALL AT NOTTINGHAM (TRENT LANE, 82 FT. 0.D.)
IN INCHES.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year
Actual monthly mean
1-74 1:45 1:59 1:34 1°80 1°85 2°28 2-40 156 2°39 1:81 2°30 22°51
Mean reduced to 30-day month
1°68 1°55 1°54 1°34 1:74 1°85 2:20 2°32 156 2°31 1°81 2°23 22°51
No. of rainy days*
14°15 23 13 ie 12s 4a LG a 1S), ) Log,
*j.e, days on which 0°01 inch or more is recorded
Rainfall, as the above figures show, is distributed uniformly through the
year, there being a difference of but slightly more than one inch between
the mean for the driest month (April, 1.34 inches) and that for the
wettest month (August, 2.40 inches). Although October is commonly
the wettest month and autumn the wettest season in most parts of Britain,
a considerable quantity of rain is received during the summer months at
Nottingham. Thus July and August are distinctly wetter than any other
two consecutive months, and as much rain falls during the summer halt-
year (April-September, 11.23 inches) as during the winter six months
(October-March, 11.28 inches). Indeed, for some stations, though by
no means all, August is definitely the wettest month, e.g. Nottingham
(Trent Lane), Beeston. At the Trent Lane station the three summer
months, June, July and August, account for 29% of the total for the year,
a greater proportion than for any other three consecutive months although
the combined amount for October, November and December is but a
* fraction less.
The tendency towards a summer maximum was first demonstrated in
the case of Nottingham by E. J. Lowe as early as 1890 though it is now
widely recognised in other parts of eastern and east-central England. It
is explained by the occurrence of convection showers and also by rains
which accompany thunderstorms associated with local secondary de-
pressions. These develop frequently in the afternoon or early evening
during the summer months.
The first four months of the year are all relatively dry and May brings
more rain to all parts of the county than any preceding month. Septem-
ber provides a notable respite in the sequence of somewhat rainy months
and incidentally allows time for surface drainage to proceed, otherwise,
owing to the configuration of the county, much land in the neighbourhood
of the Trent would readily become waterlogged, as indeed may happen
after prolonged rains at any time of the year.
The average number of rainy days in the year at Nottingham is 167
and these too are distributed evenly through the months. Those with
fewest rainy days are June and September, whilst December has the
greatest number. It will be observed that, apart from October, the
months of maximum rainfall are not those with the greatest number of
rainy days, for the latter are related rather to the frequency of travelling
‘lows’. Thus December and January, being the months of maximum
cyclonic activity, have more rainy days than any other two consecutive
months.
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THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 63
The chief features of the rainfall of Nottinghamshire are therefore, its
comparatively slight amount, its tendency to occur largely during the
summer half-year, and its marked uniformity of distribution throughout
the county. With regard to the last it may be said that fully two-thirds
of the total area receive a mean annual amount varying between 22 and
25 inches.
The occurrence of snow in Nottinghamshire is restricted as a rule to
a few days each year. The Book of Normals (Meteorological Office)
gives the average number of days upon which snow falls at Sheffield as
25 per annum, but at Nottingham the average is probably less, i.e. in the
neighbourhood of 18 or 20 days. These occur chiefly in the first three
months of the year. Snow rarely stays long, though upon the high
ground near the western borders of the county it may linger for a longer
period than elsewhere.
SUNSHINE
The mean daily amount of sunshine received by the Midlands area as
defined for meteorological purposes is 3.82 hours. Nottingham, with an
average of 1,325 hours per annum, receives slightly less, i.e. an average of
3.63 hours daily, an amount which, nevertheless, compares favourably
with Sheffield (3.61 hours) and Birmingham (3.11 hours). Experience
suggests, however, that for much of the year the daily quantity of sun-
shine at Nottingham is slightly above the average for the region, for
during the late autumn it is undoubtedly reduced by the prolonged
periods of fog and mist which are unfortunately characteristic of that
season. Indeed, the figures for the six months April-September are con-
siderably above the average, but following September with its 4.20 hours
daily duration there is a rapid falling off in the amount of sunshine, the
October average being only 2.68 hours and that for December as low as
0.90 hours. There is rarely, however, a dense smoke pall over the city.
At Hodsock the mean daily sunshine amounts to 3.43 hours which is
less than at Nottingham. There is the same liberal quantity during the
summer and a similar decrease in October due not only to the renewal of
stormy and cloudy conditions but also to the proximity of the mining and
industrial district extending from Worksop into south Yorkshire. These
figures, though comparatively poor when contrasted with those for the
sunnier districts of the south, compare favourably with those for the
adjoining uplands of Derbyshire and the more industrial parts of York-
shire. Belvoir Castle, however, despite its altitude (259 ft.), has the much
better daily figure of 4.21 hours and this may be regarded as representative
of much of the rural territory of south Nottinghamshire.
May is generally the sunniest month throughout the county though
locally, as at Hodsock, the daily mean for June is slightly higher, whilst
often the figures for July and August are but a fraction lower. In
summer the Lincolnshire coast, with its promise of abundant sunshine,
draws large holiday crowds from this region, and Skegness, popularly
known as ‘ Nottingham-by-the-sea’ boasts of daily means of 7.0 hours
for June and more than 6 hours daily in May, July and August.
64 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
THUNDER
In the Nottingham district as with the Midlands in general, thunder
occurs chiefly during the summer months. It is commonly associated
with small secondary depressions which develop locally during the after-
noon or early evening. Records kept by Mr. A. B. Tinn show the
average dates of the incidence of the first and last summer thunder in
Nottingham to be 2nd April and 26th September respectively. Two
aspects of thunderstorm occurrence in our region provide scope for
further enquiry. In the first place E. G. Bilham has pointed out that
Belvoir Castle experiences a greater frequency of thunder than any other
station in Britain for which data are available, and it appears likely,
therefore, that this district of the East Midlands may be the scene of
maximum thunder activity for the whole country. Then also attention
should be drawn to the behaviour of thunderstorms in relation to their
local distribution. No records are yet available but repeated observations
point to a tendency for such storms to occur in the neighbourhood of the
Trent valley and even to move some distance along it. Rarely does a
thunderstorm break over the city itself.
Foc
Though mainly due to cloudiness, the low average figures of sunshine
duration for the months November, December and January are partly to
be explained by the occurrence of mist and fog. Cold mists persisting
for several days frequently give a dreary aspect to the weather throughout
the Nottingham region at this time of the year. Dense fog is an un-
pleasant and sometimes dangerous phenomenon to which the locality ap-
pears especially liable. The circumstances of such a visitation vary from a
widespread and impenetrable blanket causing serious dislocation of traffic
and a toll of accidents, to a number of scattered patches grotesquely
localised in the hollows or in the vicinity of the river. Industrial smoke
and the existence of cold still air over the damp flats of the Trent valley
are undoubtedly among the leading factors in the formation of these
fogs. On the occasions of widespread dense fog, however, high ground
and lowlying land suffer alike.
CONCLUSION
An English county such as Nottinghamshire is too small a territory in
which to find great differences of climatic conditions, and as we have
seen, small local differences occur mainly as the result of variations in
altitude and aspect. As far as human beings are concerned the conditions
are healthy though by no means genial and tend to be somewhat rigorous
in winter. In general, the conditions favour agriculture and good grain
crops characterise the farming over much of the county. Occasional
extremes in precipitation, however, seriously affect the yield of crops on
the two main types of land. Drought soon causes difficulty on the light
sandy soils of central Nottinghamshire and results in low yields of wheat
and barley, poor crops of roots, and even failure in the case of potatoes.
On the other hand, prolonged rains are troublesome to the heavy clay
lands of the eastern and southern parts of the county. Keen winds and
late cold spells in spring sometimes retard the growth of crops especially
THE CLIMATE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 65
in the districts of light soils. Mr. Makings of the Midland Agricultural
College has shown that the weather conditions during April and May
are of vital importance to arable farming on such land. The rainfall
during this critical period should amount to at least 3 inches and should
be accompanied by mild temperatures. The mean at Hodsock Priory,
situated in the sandy region, for this period is 3.14 inches, though there
are many years when the actual quantity recorded is under 3 inches.
Though severe frosts occur in winter from time to time, on the average,
four-fifths of the occurrences of ground frost at Nottingham are recorded
between November and mid-April. Mr. A. B. Tinn gives the average
dates of the incidence of the first and last frosts at Nottingham as
19th October and 19th April. Consequently this factor of climate in
Nottinghamshire does not generally hinder the cultivation of the typical
farm crops of eastern England.
60
50
40
30
: MEAN TEMPERATURE
MEAN SUNSHINE
3
1
°
Giese 2 Gea oMoge Gato Aybulgi bah ante) Dy
MEAN RAINFALL
NOTTINGHAM (TRENT LANE 85ft.0.0)
66 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
i. THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY
JW. CARR, WA. ELS. Piso. eo.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM.
THE history of Nottinghamshire botany begins with the publication in
1650 of the Phytologia Britannica by William How, but only three species
are here recorded for the county, on the authority of Mr. Stonehouse.
These are Dianthus deltoides, Antennaria dioica, and a grass which
was probably Melica nutans. Although seen by later observers these are
all now apparently extinct in the county. In 1666 Christopher Merrett,
in his Pinax, adds Sparganium minimum and a white-flowered form of
Galeopsis versicolor. These were probably found by Thomas Willisell,
who travelled extensively in search of plants and is known to have visited
Nottingham about this time: he was the first botanist to observe Silene
nutans on the walls of Nottingham Castle. .The great naturalist John Ray
was visiting his friend and co-worker Francis Willughby at Wollaton
Hall in 1670 and noticed many Nottinghamshire plants, among which
were Silene nutans, previously discovered by Willisell, Cerastium arvense,
Teesdalia nudicaulis, Verbascum pulverulentum and Apera spica-venti.
No further additions of any importance were announced until the publi-
cation, in 1738, of Deering’s Catalogus Stirpium, etc., or Catalogue of
Plants naturally growing . . . . about Nottingham.
Charles Deering, M.D., was born in Saxony, probably in 1695, and
after graduating in physic at Leyden came to England and practised for
some years in London and elsewhere. He settled in Nottingham in 1736,
and died there in 1749; he was buried in St. Peter’s churchyard. The
Catalogue enumerates some 840 flowering plants, ferns, mosses, fungi, etc.,
but includes some cultivated plants, while a few were erroneously indenti-
fied and others are unrecognisable or are unimportant varieties of other
species.
A few additional Nottinghamshire plants are recorded by R. Pulteney
in a paper on the rarer plants growing about Loughborough, published
in Vol. XLIX of the Philosophical Transactions and repeated in Nicol’s
History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (1795).
The first four decades of the nineteenth century were notable for a
remarkable activity in botanical investigation in the county, and no fewer
than three important works on the Flora of the county were published
during this period. The first to appear was the Flora Nottinghamiensis
of Thomas Ordoyno, issued in 1807, which comprised the flowering plants
and ferns, and included many species unknown to Deering. Of still
greater importance were the works of Jowett and Howitt.
Thomas Jowett was born at Colwick near Nottingham in 1801, and
practised as a surgeon in Nottingham: he died in 1832 at the early age
THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 67
of 31. In 1826, when only 25 years old, he published in the Nottingham
Journal under the pseudonym of ‘Il Rosajo’ a series of ‘ Botanical
Calendars’ or * Notices of Native Plants of the County of Nottingham,
arranged according to the order of their appearance’. These Calendars,
twenty-eight in number, appeared at frequent intervals from March to
December, and give localities for 1,023 species of flowering plants and
cryptogams, including more than 100 not mentioned in the works of
Deering and Ordoyno. They received warm commendation from the
leading botanists of the period, including Sir W. J. Hooker and Sir J. E.
Smith. Four folio volumes of dried specimens of Nottinghamshire plants
collected and mounted by Jowett are preserved in the Bromley House
Library in Nottingham, and are particularly valuable as settling the
identity of several species which are not now to be found in the county.*
Godfrey Howitt, M.D., the friend and co-worker of Jowett, was born
in 1800, and after graduating at Edinburgh, practised as a physician in
Nottingham. In 1839 he emigrated to Australia and died there in 1873.
His Nottinghamshire Flora appeared in 1839 and records 1,137 species of
flowering plants and ferns, mosses, hepatics, lichens and algae. As a
record of our flora at a period when it was still comparatively unchanged
by modern industrial developments Howitt’s Flora is, together with
Jowett’s Calendars, of the greatest value to present-day botanists. Pre-
viously, in 1833, Howitt, in collaboration with William Valentine, a
talented Nottingham bryologist, had commenced the publication of a
work entitled Muscologia Nottinghamiensis, consisting of dried and
mounted specimens of local mosses with descriptive text. Three fasciculi,
each containing eight species, were issued, but the work then came to an
abrupt termination.
A long period of stagnation followed this early activity and during the
next half-century only a few additional species were recorded in various
botanical works and periodicals. In 1906 however, a great advance was
made on our previous knowledge in the article on ‘ Botany’ in the Victoria
History of Nottinghamshire by the present writer. In this work, 854 species
of flowering plants and ferns were enumerated as growing wild in Notting-
hamshire, including a considerable number of interesting species not
previously known to occur in the county. The relation between the dis-
tribution of our plants and the geological structure of the county was
described, and lists given of the species characteristic of the various
geological formations. Very many additions were also made to Howitt’s
list of mosses and liverworts as the result of several years’ assiduous
collecting; but the greatest advance was made in the fungi, chiefly as the
result of the work of the members of the British Mycological Society in
Sherwood Forest in September 1897, which resulted in the addition of no
fewer than 250 species, mostly of the larger fungi, to our list, as well as
the confirmation of a large number of species recorded by the earlier
botanists. Many others were found by the writer in the Nottingham
*A full and critical account of this Hierbarium is given in a paper
by J. W. Carr in the Trans. Nottingham Naturalists’ Society for
1906-7,
68 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
district in the two or three following years, and the account of the fungi
contained in the Victoria History represents our present knowledge of
the group, with the exception of an article on the Myxomycetes of
Nottinghamshire published in the Transactions of the Nottingham
Naturalists’ Society for 1910-11.
A comparison of the county flora in its present state with the records
of Jowett and Howitt furnishes melancholy evidence as to the large
number of interesting plants which, once common, have now become
exceedingly rare or altogether extinct. The enormous extension of the
city of Nottingham and other towns and villages in our area has covered
some of our best collecting grounds with buildings; while the cultivation
of waste lands, the drainage of marshy ground, the multiplication of
railways and collieries, the conversion of large areas of arable land into
pasture, and even the laying out of golf-courses, have all been potent
agents in the destruction of our native plants. Perhaps the most famous
of our disappearing species (though of course not a true native) is the
purple spring crocus (Crocus vernus) which formerly covered many acres
of the Nottingham meadows with such a luxuriant growth as to suggest
the idea of its having been sown as a crop. Most of the ground this
beautiful plant occupied is now built over, and though it still persists in
a very restricted area, it seems doomed to early and complete extinction.
In the same locality grew abundantly the autumnal crocus (C. nudiflorus),
first recorded as a British plant in 1738 by Deering, and still to be found
there in recent years. The Nottingham Catchfly (Silene nutans) was still
common on the ruined walls of the old kitchens of the Castle up to 1889,
but the restoration of this part of the Castle in that year destroyed it.
It is probable, however, that the plant still lingers on the inaccessible
parts of the Castle-rock.
The drainage of the few small areas of bog which formerly existed in
the county is responsible for the extinction of a number of interesting
plants. Such are the Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis), Lastrea uliginosa
and L. oreopteris, the Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), Cranberry (Oxy-
coccus quadripetala), Vaccinium vitis-idaea, and the beautiful Gentiana
pneumonanthe. On the other hand the rare Crested Fern (L. cristata)
still persists in its ancient station, along with the Marsh Fern (L. thelyp-
teris) and the Crowberry (Empetrum). The Bog Orchis (Epipactis
palustris), Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris), Butterwort (Pinguicula
vulgaris), Cnicus pratensis, and Crepis paludosa, long supposed to be
extinct, have been rediscovered, each in a single station. The Sweet-gale
(Myrica gale) also maintains its footing in a single locality, while the
Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris), Bog Pimpernel (Anagallis tenella)
and the Cotton-grasses (Eriophorum vaginatum and E. angustifolium)
may still be found.
Other interesting plants which formerly occurred but have not been
seen for many years are Viola lutea (probably an error of identification),
Dianthus deltoides, Moenchia erecta, Radiola linoides, Geranium san-
guineum, Cicuta virosa, Myrrhis odorata, Bupleurum rotundifolium,
Antennaria dioica, Pyrola minor, Rhinanthus major, Rumex pulcher,
Spiranthes spiralis, Cephalanthera ensifolia and C. grandiflora, Orchis
THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 69
ustulata, Stratiotes aloides, Scheuchzeria palustris, Carex digitata, Melica
nutans, Hordeum europaeum, Ceterach officinarum, Cystopteris fragilis
and three species of Lycopodium. Turning from this melancholy list of
probable extinctions it is a pleasure to note that a fair number of species
which have always been rare in the county still persist. Among these are
Myosurus minimus, Ranunculus parviflorus, Aquilegia vulgaris, Hyperi-
cum montanum, Sagina nodosa, Geranium lucidum, Arabis glabra, Lotus
tenuis, Sium latifolium, Dipsacus pilosus, Inula squarrosa, Campanula
patula, Monotropa hypopitys, Samolus valerandi, Galeopsis dubia,
Littorella uniflora, Rumex maritimus, Ophrys apifera and O. muscifera,
Narcissus pseudo-narcissus, Convallaria majalis, Gagea lutea, Spaganium
minimum, Acorus calamus, Schoenus nigricans, Carex pseudo-cyperus,
Calamagrostis epigeios, Apera spica-venti, etc. Moreover a number of
truly native species which were unknown to, or not distinguished by, the
earlier Nottinghamshire botanists have been discovered in recent years:
e.g. Ranunculus lingua (discovered along with Lathyrus palustris at Misson
by Mrs. Sandwith and her son Mr. N. Y. Sandwith), R. lenormandi and
several Batrachian Ranunculi, Corydalis claviculata, Viola stagnina and
several other species, Polygala dubia and P. serpyllacea, Stellaria neglecta,
Ulex gallii, Medicago denticulata, Lathyrus palustris, Agrimonia odorata,
Callitriche stagnalis, C. obtusangula and C. truncata, Epilobium adnatum,
E. angustifolium (now an excessively abundant and pernicious weed),
Carum segetum, Selinum carvifolia, Arctium majus and A. minus,
Arnoseris minima, Gentiana baltica, Melampyrum cristatum, Mentha
alopecuroides and other species, Polygonum laxiflorum, Rumex limosus,
Platanthera chlorantha, Orchis praetermissa, Polygonatum multiflorum,
Potamogeton coloratus, P. falcatus, P. cooperi, P. friesii and P. interruptus,
Scirpus fluitans, S. tabernaemontani and S. maritimus, Carex canescens,
C. binervis and C. fulva, Agrostis nigra, Glyceria plicata, Bromus erectus,
many Rubi and Roses, a few Hieracia, Willows, etc. Several new species
of Chara and a Nitella have also been found.
A remarkable occurrence so far from the sea is that of Aster tripolium
which was discovered in August 1905 by the warping drain near Misson,
in company with Scirpus maritimus. This warping drain is connected
with the Trent near Owston, and as the river is tidal for many miles above
this spot it may well be that the presence of these two maritime plants
is due to natural causes. On the other hand the North American Mimulus
langsdorffii is an escape from cultivation which attracts the attention of
the most casual observer by its abundant, large and showy flowers: it is
becoming naturalised in many places in the northern part of the county.
Another North American introduction, not seen by any of the earlier
Notts. botanists, is Matricaria suaveolens, a shabby-looking weed which
has extended so rapidly in recent years as to be abundant in waste ground
all over the county.
The number of flowering plants and vascular cryptogams recorded as
native or fully naturalised in Nottinghamshire is about 860, but this does
not include any of the numerous so-called ‘species’ into which such
plants as Viola arvensis, Alchemilla vulgaris, Euphrasia officinalis, etc.,
have recently been subdivided; many of these occur with us, but have
70 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
not yet been fully worked out. Much work also remains to be done
among the Rubi, Roses, Hieracia, etc., the forms of which—elevated to
specific rank—swell the lists of some of the neighbouring counties. Com-
pared with such counties as Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire our
flora must necessarily seem poor, but the reason for this is to be sought
in the comparative lack of variety in the physical conditions of Notting-
hamshire combined with the highly cultivated state of most of its area.
There is scarcely any uncultivated ground with the exception of parts of
Sherwood Forest, and this being situated on the dry and arid Bunter
sandstone possesses only a poor and scanty flora: even in the wooded
parts of the forest the undergrowth consists almost entirely of bracken.
There are few or no large sheets of water save the trimly-kept artificial
lakes in the principal parks, and there is an almost complete absence of
bog, so that lacustrine and bog-loving plants are largely wanting. More-
over, the Carboniferous, Jurassic and Cretaceous limestones which bear
so rich a flora in the neighbouring counties do not extend into Notting-
hamshire, and their absence is only partially compensated for by the
Permian Magnesium limestone which occupies the western margin of the
county and, while possessing a moderately rich and varied flora, cannot
compare in this respect with the more highly calcareous Chalk, Oolite
or Mountain Limestone of the counties around us.
West Yorkshire, with an area of 2,760 square miles, is more than three
times the size of Nottinghamshire, and with its numerous hills, many of
which are over 2,000 feet high, possesses an extensive alpine or true
mountain flora which could not exist with us—our greatest elevation
being only 651 feet; moreover the ‘ pavements’, terraces, and scars of
the Mountain limestone region, and the wide expanses of moorland and
peat-bog, are tenanted by numerous species which for lack of suitable
conditions are absent from Nottinghamshire. The same remarks apply
in a lesser degree to Derbyshire, which possesses a considerable number
of montane plants on its high northern moorlands; the flora of its lime-
stone dales also is a very rich and varied one. Lincolnshire, with an
area greater even than that of West Yorkshire, with its long coast-line,
its salt marshes, its chalk wolds and Jurassic limestones, has an enormous
advantage, botanically, over Nottinghamshire, and it is not surprising
that its flora is numerically so much richer than that of its inland neigh-
bour. Leicestershire has a slightly «maller area than Nottinghamshire,
with a very similar flora, except thac the Archaean rocks which form the
high ground of Charnwood Forest support a few species which are not
found with us.
The great majority of our wild plants naturally belong to the British
(widely spread throughout Great Britain) and English (widely spread
throughout England and Wales) types of distribution, but there is a
sprinkling of species representing other types. Thus of Germanic species
(chiefly seen in East England) we have Myosurus minimus, Hippuris vul-
garis, Galium erectum and G. tricorne, Lactuca virosa, Campanula
glomerata, Monotropa hypopitys, Limosella aquatica, Orchis pyramidalis
and O. ustulata*, Allium oleraceum, Bromus erectus, Brachypodium
pinnatum, Hordeum europaeum, etc. Of Scottish type are, among others,
-
THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 71
Viola lutea*, Vicia sylvatica, Parnassia palustris, Antennaria dioica*,
Crepis paludosa, Campanula latifolia, Pyrola minor*, Pinguicula vulgaris,
Salix pentandra, Empetrum nigrum, Melica nutans*. Among species of
Intermediate type (chiefly seen in Mid-Britain) we have Poterium officinale,
Gagea lutea, Crocus nudiflorus and Scheuchzeria palustris*. Plants of
the Atlantic type (chiefly seen in West England) are, as might be expected,
few in number, and indeed not a single species is known to occur now,
at any rate as a native; the recorded species are Coronopus didymus,
Erodium moschatum and E. maritimum, Sedum anglicum and Verbascum
virgatum. Vaccinium vitis-idaea* is our only Highland species, and
Selinum carvifolia the only representative of the Local type (restricted to
single or few counties).
BOTANICAL DISTRICTS
Nottinghamshire lies wholly within the drainage area of the Trent, so
that the usual division of a county into river basins for botanical purposes
is not possible in our case. The districts adopted (first published in the
article on Botany in the Victoria History of Nottinghamshire) are there-
fore based on the geological structure of the county, and this division is
a really natural one, for with the exception of the alluvial tracts bordering
the Trent and its tributary streams little drift occurs to obscure the older
deposits, and consequently the surface soil is principally formed by the
disintegration and decay in situ of the underlying rocks. The wide differ-
ences in the physical and chemical composition of the resulting soils have
of course a marked influence on the character of the flora of each form-
ation.
Leaving out of consideration the superficial (drift and alluvial) deposits,
the formations represented in Nottinghamshire are the Coal Measures,
Permian, Trias (Bunter and Keuper), Rhaetic, and Lower Lias. These
form bands running partially or completely through the county in a
direction approximately north and south.
The outcrop of the Coal Measures forms a band sixteen miles long
between Stapleford in the south and Teversal in the north, and varying
in width from two to about four miles. To the east it is succeeded by
the Permian or Magnesian Limestone which forms a narrow band run-
ning from Nottingham to the county boundary on the north, a distance
of about thirty-two miles. At its maximum development it is about four
miles in width, but for the most part is considerably narrower. The
sandstones and conglomerates of the Bunter which follow occupy a much
larger tract of land—nearly forty miles long by seven or eight in width
over the greater part of its extent, except in the immediate neighbourhood
of Nottingham, where it is much narrower.
Quite half the area of the county is occupied by deposits of Keuper
age, but as the valley of the Trent lies almost wholly in this formation it
is a good deal covered by alluvial deposits. The Rhaetic shales form a
band of insignificant extent along the eastern margin of the Keuper.
*Species marked with an asterisk have not been seen in the county
for many years and are probably extinct.
72 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Finally, on the eastern and south-eastern border of the county for the
southern two-thirds of its length the Keuper is succeeded by the lower
beds of the Lias, which attain their maximum development south of
Cotgrave and Cropwell Bishop. Two rather extensive outliers occur to
the west of the main mass of the Lias in the extreme south of the county.
The botanical districts adopted, four in number, are as follows:
District I
This comprises the area formed by the outcrops of the Coal Measures
and Permian rocks on the western side of the county. It might seem at
first sight that two such apparently dissimilar formations should con-
stitute separate districts, but the area occupied by the Coal Measures is
so small and its noteworthy plants so few in number that to make of it a
separate district would be to ascribe to this formation an importance al-
together out of proportion to its merits. Indeed the Coal Measures can
scarcely claim to possess a distinctive flora at all: not a single species
appears to be confined to their outcrop, and the few conspicuous plants
that do occur are equally common elsewhere. On the other hand, the
Magnesium Limestone possesses a large number of characteristic species,
some of which are peculiar to it. Among these the following may be
mentioned, the species hitherto found only’ on this formation being in-
dicated by an asterisk.
Ranunculus lenormandi Schultz. Gentiana amarella L.
*Helleborus viridis L. % a baltica Murb.
*Aquilegia vulgaris L. *Myosotis arvensis Hill; var.
*Arabis hirsuta Scop. silvestris Schlech.
Reseda lutea L. Lithospermum arvense L.
Helianthemum chamaecistus Mill. | Verbascum thapsus L.
Silene cucubalus Wib. Lathraea squamaria L.
Hypericum montanum L. Origanum vulgare L.
*Geranium sanguineum L. Calamintha acinos Clair.
Trifolium medium L. *Cephalanthera grandiflora Gray
Anthyllis vulneraria L. Anacamptis pyramidalis Rich.
Geum rivale L. Orchis ustulata L.
Parnassia palustris L. oe apifera Huds.
*Ribes alpinum L. » muscifera Huds.
Hippuris vulgaris L. Gymnadenia conopsea Br.
*Bupleurum rotundifolium L. *Potamogeton coloratus Horn.
*Selinum carvifolia L. *Eriophorum latifolium Hoppe.
Galium mollugo L. *Carex digitata L.
Erigeron acre L. ,» pendula Huds.
Inula squarrosa Bernh. * ., fulva Host.
Centaurea scabiosa L. *Melica nutans L.
Campanula trachelium L. At uniflora Retz.
5 latifolia L. Hordeum europaeum All.
Anagallis tenella L. Taxus baccata L.
Blackstonia perfoliata Huds.
THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 73
District II
This consists of the Bunter or lower division of the Trias, and includes
the fine-grained red or variegated sands of the Lower Red and Mottled
Sandstone, and the yellow or brownish sands and conglomerates of the
Bunter Pebble-beds.
The district possesses a distinctive and characteristic flora, although,
as will be seen from the list given below, a large proportion of the species
occur elsewhere. This is due to the fact that most sand-loving plants
find an equally suitable habitat in the sandy patches which occasionally
occur in the Keuper Marl, in the tracts of sandy alluvium bordering the
Trent in District III, and in the drift sands which cover a part of District
IV on the eastern edge of the county.
The existing remains of the once far more extensive Sherwood Forest
lie entirely in this district, and consist chiefly of oak and birch timber
with a dense undergrowth of bracken, and open spaces covered with
gorse (Ulex), ling (Calluna), heath (Erica cinerea), bracken (Prteris),
Deschampsia flexuosa, etc., and dotted with old thorn trees often infested
with mistletoe (Viscum).
A few bits of boggy ground are still to be found along the courses of
some of the streams, as at Oxton and Rainworth, and to these we owe
the survival of some of our most interesting plants. Of late years, how-
ever, owing partly to a succession of dry seasons and partly to the sinking
of deep wells for the water supply of the surrounding towns, these bogs
have become nearly dry at times, with the result that such things as the
sundew (Drosera), butterwort (Pinguicula), cranberry (Oxycoccus), the
ferns Lastrea thelypteris, L. oreopteris, L. cristata and L. uliginosa, and
our three species of Lycopodium, are fast disappearing or have already
gone.
Among the characteristic plants of the district are the following:
*Ranunculus lingua L. *Ulex minor Roth.
*Corydalis claviculata DC. *Medicago denticulata Willd.
*Arabis glabra Bernh. Trifolium subterraneum L.
Teesdalia nudicaulis Br. za arvense L.
Viola palustris L. 3 striatum L.
s ericetorum Schrad. Ornithopus perpusillus L.
, tricolor E.B. and its forms. *Vicia lathyroides L.
Polygala serpyllacea Weihe. *Lathyrus palustris L.
*Dianthus deltoides L. Potentilla argentea L.
Silene anglica L. i palustris Scop.
* ,, nutans L. Chrysosplenium alternifolium L.
Cerastium semidecandrum L. *Drosera rotundifolia L.
ts arvense L. *Epilobium adnatum Griseb.
Moenchia erecta Gaertn. Galium saxatile L.
Sagina ciliata Fr. Antennaria dioica Gaertn.
Spergularia rubra Presl. Gnaphalium sylvaticum L.
*Montia fontana L. Senecio sylvaticus L.
Hypericum humifusum L. Arnoseris pusilla Gaertn.
Erodium cicutarium L’Hér. Hieracium tridentatum Fr.
Genista anglica L. - Jasione montana L.
74 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
*Vaccinium vitis-idaea L. Juncus squarrosus L.
e myrtillus L. Luzula multiflora DC.
Oxycoccus quadripetala Gilib. *Scirpus maritimus L.
Calluna vulgaris Hull. Carex paniculata L.
Erica tetralix L. » canescens Lightf.
» cinerea L. » leporina L.
*Monotropa hypopitys L. » Pilulifera L.
Lycopsis arvensis L. Apera spica-venti Beauv.
Myosotis collina Hoffm. Aira caryophyllea L.
b. versicolor Sm. Deschampsia flexuosa Trin.
Echium vulgare L. Molinia coerulea Moench.
Verbascum nigrum L. Nardus stricta L.
Digitalis purpurea L. Pteris aquilina L.
Melampyrum pratense L. *Lastrea thelypteris Bory
Teucrium scorodonia L. eee cristata Presl.
Plantago coronopus L. *Lycopodium selago L.
Scleranthus annuus L. - i" inundatum L.
Rumex acetosella L. 5 of clavatum L.
*Empetrum nigrum L.
District Iil
The Keuper deposits which underlie this extensive district are separable
into two divisions. The lower of these, known as the ‘ Waterstones’,
consists of alternations of dull red marl and light-coloured greenish-grey
sandstone; where the latter predominates the resulting soil is sufficiently
sandy to suit many of the plants characteristic of District II], and we
therefore find along the outcrop of the Lower Keuper an assemblage of
species transitional in character between the flora of the Bunter and that
of the upper beds of the Keuper. The upper division or Keuper Marl
is a stiff bright-red clay with an occasional thin band of hard whitish or
yellowish sandstone. The heavy somewhat calcareous clay soil supports
a flora very different from that of District JI, but more nearly approxi-
mating to that of District I, with which it has a large number of species
in common. Among the more prominent plants that occur with about
equal frequency in Districts I and III, but are almost or entirely absent
from Districts If and IV, are Anemone nemorosa, Euonymus europaeus,
Pimpinella major, Asperula odorata, Lactuca muralis, Campanula lati-
folia, Lysimachia nemorum, Erythraea centaurium, Veronica montana,
Lamium galeobdolon, Mercurialis perennis, Allium ursinum, Paris quadri-
folia, Carex pendula, C. sylvatica, Milium effusum and Melica uniflora.
Several rare or uncommon Nottinghamshire species are confined to Dis-
trict III; of such are Ranunculus sardous and R. parviflorus, Vicia sylva-
tica, Lathyrus sylvestris, Dipsacus pilosus, Carduus tenuiflorus, Campanula
patula, Mentha pulegium, Carex gracilis, C. pallescens, etc.; while among
commoner species which are most abundant in, but not absolutely confined
to, the District are Geranium pratense, Bidens tripartita, Tanacetum
vulgare, Picris hieracioides, Epipactis latifolia, Platanthera chlorantha, etc.
A number of plants which have their headquarters in the Trent valley,
which lies almost wholly in this District, owe their presence rather to
their fondness for a moist or watery situation than to the chemical or
Pe
THE BOTANY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 1
physical nature of the soil. Such are Thalictrum flavum, Nasturtium
sylvestre and N. amphibium, Erysimum cheiranthoides, Stellaria aquatica,
Lythrum salicaria, Apium graveolens, Oenanthe aquatica, Hottonia
palustris, Symphytum officinale, Polygonum hydropiper, etc.
On the other hand, the dry gravelly banks and terraces of old Trent
alluvium offer a congenial home for many of the sand-loving plants
characteristic of District II.
A few species which are more or less common in District III are of
equally frequent occurrence in District IV, but almost or entirely un-
known in Districts I and II. Among these are Conium maculatum,
Sison amomum, Peucedanum sativum, Dipsacus sylvestris, Senecio
erucifolius, Picris echioides, Lactuca virosa, Hordeum nodosum, etc.
The Rhaetic deposits which are included in District III form a narrow
band of such insignificant extent along the eastern edge of the Keuper
as to be of no botanical importance, and may therefore be ignored.
District [V
The Liassic beds of Nottinghamshire consist of a series of blue clays
and shales with bands of limestone, belonging to the lower part of the
Lower Lias, and forming a long strip overlying the Triassic rocks along
the south-eastern border cf the county. There are also two considerable
outliers capping the hills south of the Trent between Thrumpton and
West Leake. Sison, Peucedanum sativum, Senecio erucifolius and a few
others are common plants in this district; Cnicus eriophorus occurs in
quantity in one or two stations; and among other species almost or
entirely confined to this formation are Lotus tenuis, Carum segetum,
Caucalis arvensis, Galium tricorne, Linaria spuria, Calamintha nepeta,
Galeopsis angustifolia and Carex binervis.
In parts of District IV, as at Langford and Wigsley, the Lias clay is
covered by a mantle of gravelly drift supporting the usual assemblage of
sand-loving plants, such as Teesdalia, Cerastium semidecandrum and
C. arvense, Polygala serpyllacea, Galium sylvestre, Filaga minima,
Gnaphalium sylvaticum, Senecio sylvaticus, Calluna, Erica cinerea,
Myosotis versicolor, Salix repens, Nardus, etc. Langford Moor and
Wigsley Wood were formerly wet swampy moorland, and although long
drained and planted with oak and fir, still show traces of their ancient
flora. Erica tetralix, Lysimachia vulgaris, Myrica gale, Molinia coerulea
and Lastrea spinulosa still persist in fair quantity, as well as patches of
Sphagnum; and a solitary plant of Osmunda, probably the last in the
county, was seen about 40 years ago, but has since disappeared. Wigsley
Wood, too, is the only Nottinghamshire station for Convallaria majalis
which is abundant there.
CELLULAR CRYPTOGAMS
Limitations of space forbid a detailed review of the cellular cryptogams
of Nottinghamshire, but a full account of the local Mosses, Liverworts,
Lichens, Algae and Fungi occurring in the county, with notes on their
distribution, will be found in Vol. I of the Victoria History of Notting-
hamshire. A detailed list of the Myxomycetes of the county is given in
the Transactions of the Nottingham Naturalists’ Society for 1910-11.
76 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
iv. THE ZOOLOGY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY
J. W. CARR, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S., F.R.E.S.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM.
MAMMALIA
Most of the larger indigenous mammals of Nottinghamshire disappeared
long ago, but there can be no doubt that at one time Sherwood Forest,
which once covered a considerable part of the county, afforded shelter
to most of the British species. The red deer was abundant, the wolf,
pine-marten, pole cat, badger and otter were all probably common, and
some have survived even to the present day.
Of the CHEIROPTERA or Bats, the Long-eared Bat (Plecotus auritus),
Noctule (Pipistrellus noctula), and Pipistrelle (P. pipistrellus) are all
common, but only single specimens of the Lesser Horse-shoe (Rhino-
lophus hipposideros) and Natterer’s bat (Myotis nattereri) have occurred.
The Greater Horse-shoe bat (R. ferrum-equinum) has been reported from
Sherwood Forest, but requires confirmation before it can be accepted
as a Nottinghamshire species.
The INSECTIVORA include the Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), Mole
(Talpa europaea) and Shrew (Sorex araneus), which are all of common
occurrence; while the Water-shrew (Neomys fodiens) is widely distributed
though not often seen, and the Pigmy shrew (Sorex minutus) is recorded
from Rainworth near Mansfield.
Among the CARNIVORA the Badger (Meles meles) and Otter (Lutra
lutra) are by no means rare; the Fox is, of course, common owing to its
preservation for purposes of sport; the Pole-cat (Putorius putorius) oc-
curred frequently during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but
is probably now extinct, as is also the Pine-marten (Mustela martes)
which occurred at least up to about 1872; the Stoat (Putorius ermineus)
and the Weasel (Putorius nivalis) are still very common throughout the
county; the Wolf (Canis lupus) is shown by documentary evidence to
have been common in the Forest as late as the fifteenth century at
least, but no remains of the Wild-cat (Felis catus) are known of later
date than the recent deposits in the Creswell caves.
RODENTIA. The Squirrel (Sciurus leucourus) is common in woods and
parks throughout the county; the Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius)
and the Harvest-mouse (Mus minutus) both occur, but are now very rare;
the Wood-mouse, or Long-tailed Field-mouse (Mus sylvaticus) is common
in the Nottingham district and doubtless elsewhere; the House-mouse
(Mus musculus) and Brown-rat (Mus decumanus) are here, as elsewhere,
abundant pests; the Field-vole (Microtus agrestis) and Bank-vole
(Evotomys glareolus) occur and are probably common, but have not been
much looked for; the Water-vole (Microtus amphibius) is common in all
THE ZOOLOGY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE TH
suitable localities; the Hare (Lepus europaeus) is very common, and the
Rabbit (Lepus cuniculus) occurs in great abundance.
UNGULATA. The Red-deer was formerly abundant in a wild state in
Sherwood Forest. A survey taken in 1635 gives the number of deer in
the Forest as 1,367, and as late as the reign of Queen Anne a yearly
grant of £1,000 was made for the maintenance of a hunting establishment
there. At this time they were so numerous as to cause great loss to the
surrounding landowners by feeding upon their crops, and many com-
plaints were made against ‘ the intolerable burden of the Queen’s deer’.
The subsequent disafforestation and enclosure of the district resulted in
the reduction of the herds and their confinement in a semi-domesticated
state within the limits of the parks formed out of the ancient forest.
[Fallow-deer have been introduced into many of the principal parks.
The Roe-deer formerly occurred, as its bones have been found in super-
ficial deposits at Wheatley, near Retford, and in the Creswell caves.
Remains of the Wild-boar (Sus scrofa) and wild Cattle (Bos taurus) occur
in the recent deposits in the Creswell caves, and herds of * Wild White
Cattle > formerly existed in Wollaton and Annesley Parks].
CETACEA. The Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) occurs very frequently in
the tidal portion of the Trent, and occasionally ascends the river as far
as Newark.
AVES
For an inland county, Nottinghamshire possesses a fairly rich avifauna,
no fewer than 259 fully-authenticated species having occurred within its
borders. A detailed account of these is given by the late J. Whitaker in
his Birds of Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, 1907). The substance of
the notes which follow is taken from this work or from the same author’s
article in the Victoria History (1906).
The extreme northern part of the county lies very low, often only a
few feet above sea-level, and is drained by sluggish streams and many
dykes; this region is frequented by the Redshank and Snipe which find
it a congenial breeding ground. Further south is the forest land with a
considerable area of ancient woodland, mainly oak and birch. In the
old hollow oaks hundreds of Jackdaws nest. The open forest includes
a large stretch of ling and heath with occasional clusters of fir and other
trees: here a few black-game still linger. On several of the great estates
comprised in this region—such as Welbeck, Clumber, Thoresby and
Rufford—are large lakes which attract great numbers of water-
fowl of many species. On the Rainworth ponds numbers of tufted Duck
have nested for over a century. On all these estates the birds are care-
fully protected, and the same is true of the Sherwood Lodge, Bestwood
and Annesley Parks. They accordingly form safe sanctuaries for numer-
ous species of birds. Duck-decoys exist at Annesley Park and Park Hall.
The Trent runs through the greater part of the county from south-west
to north-east and forms a natural highway from the sea for many species
of sea-birds and water-fowl.
In the southern part of the county there are large areas of grass-land
78 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
with occasional woods and plantations: this region is rich in warblers
and finches.
Mr. Whitaker claims that no place in Nottinghamshire has a larger or
more varied avifauna than Rainworth, 155 species having been seen by
him within a radius of one mile around Rainworth Lodge.
Extensive collections of Nottinghamshire birds exist in the Museums
at Nottingham and Mansfield, and the former Museum possesses the
magnificent collection of the eggs of Nottinghamshire birds formed by
Mr. F. B. Whitlock and including full clutches of practically every species
breeding in the county.
REPTILIA AND BATRACHIA
Only the commonest of the reptiles and batrachians occur in Notting-
hamshire, and even of these the slow-worm and viper are now rare.
Sterland’s assertion (in White’s Worksop, the Dukery and Sherwood
Forest) that the sand-lizard (Lacerta agilis) ‘may be seen occasionally in
Sherwood Forest’ is doubtless an error.
Only four species of reptilia and four batrachians are found in the
county. Of the former, the Common Lizard (Lacerta vivipara) was
formerly common in Nottingham Park, on Nottingham Forest, and on
other sandy gorse-covered commons about ‘the city, but the absorption
of most of its former haunts within the ever-increasing area covered by
bricks and mortar has almost exterminated the lizard in this neighbour-
hood. It was very common on Bulwell Forest about the beginning of
the present century, but the laying out of the Forest as a golf-course has
greatly reduced its numbers. It has been seen comparatively recently on
the Barrow Hills at Everton in north Nottinghamshire, and near Worksop.
The Slow-worm or Blind-worm (Anguis fragilis) was at one time frequent
in Sherwood Forest according to Sterland, and has been seen in several
widely-separated localities in the county in recent years. The Common
or Ringed Snake (Tropidonotus natrix) is fairly common and generally
distributed. The Viper or Adder (Vipera berus), on the other hand, is
now very rare, but has been seen in Sherwood Forest, at Rainworth.
Worksop, Oxton, Newstead Park, etc.
Of batrachians, the Frog (Rana temporaria) and Toad (Bufo vulgaris)
are, of course, abundant, and both the Crested and Common Newt (Molge
cristata and Molge vulgaris) are common and generally distributed in the
county, particularly the latter; the Palmated Newt (Molge palmata) has
so far not been observed in Nottinghamshire.
PISCES
Thirty species of fishes are certainly known to occur in the county,
and it is noteworthy that twenty-two of these are enumerated as inhabit-
ing the Nottinghamshire Trent over 300 years ago, in Michael Drayton’s
poem the Poly-Olbion (1622). Among the more interesting species are
the Burbot (Lota vulgaris), rare in the Trent; the Flounder (Pleuronectes
flesus), common in the Trent below Newark and occasionally making its
way up the river as far as Colwick Weir, close to Nottingham; Spined
THE ZOOLOGY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 79
Loach (Cobitis taenia), and Shad (Clupea alosa), both rare in the Trent;
Sturgeon (Acipenser sturio), captured in the Trent at Clifton and at
Cromwell and Muskham; and the Lamprey (Petromyzon marinus),
caught occasionally in the Trent.
INVERTEBRATA
The invertebrate animals of Nottinghamshire had been so little worked
that when the British Association last met in Nottingham in 1893 the
only groups of which any account could be given in the Handbook were
the Lepidoptera, the Mollusca, and, curiously enough, the terrestrial
Annelida or Earthworms. During the next twelve years this neglect was
so far repaired that in the Victoria History of Nottinghamshire (1906)
fairly extensive lists were given of most of the invertebrate groups. Then
followed ten years of great activity in the investigation of our local in-
vertebrates, and in 1916 the results of this work were published in The
Invertebrate Fauna of Nottinghamshire by J. W. Carr, the first separate
work of its kind to be published for any British county. This book of
over 600 pages gives an account of the structure and mode of life of the
animals belonging to every class and order of the invertebrata, together
with details of the distribution of every species found in the county.
A complete analysis of the 5,330 species recorded would be tedious
reading, but a few examples may be cited.
The number of species of Lepidoptera recorded for the county previous
to 1893 was about 670, and the great majority of these were collected by
the late R. E. Brameld, of Retford, in the neighbourhood of that town and
in Sherwood Forest. In 1916 the number had risen to 933. This in-
crease, though fairly large, might easily have been much greater, but the
smaller moths—the so-called Micro-Lepidoptera—have been much neg-
lected by our local lepidopterists.
Of the Coleoptera no list could be given in the 1893 British Association
Handbook, but, thanks to the splendid work accomplished by the Rev. A.
Thornley, the late W. E. Ryles, and others, the list in the Victoria History
actually comprised 1,280 species; and this number had increased to 1,409
in 1916.
The Trichoptera or Caddis-flies found in Nottinghamshire numbered
45 in 1906 and 65 in 1916. The Hemiptera (Plant-bugs, etc.) were 162
and 410 respectively, a very notable increase. Other large advances were
made in the Hymenoptera (385 in 1906, 892 in 1916) and the Diptera
(347 and 921).
Of invertebrates other than insects the best-worked group is the
Arachnida (spiders, harvestmen, false-scorpions and mites). Not a single
species of spider or other member of the class had been recorded before
1904, when a preliminary list was published in the Trans. Nottingham
Naturalists’ Society. In the Victoria History 169 species were enumer-
ated, and in the Invertebrate Fauna 247.
A group of animals that would seem to offer few attractions to the
average field-naturalist is the Annelida, which includes the earthworms.
The Rev. H. Friend is one of the very few students of this group in
80 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
England, and in the years 1910-1913 he contributed to the Naturalists’
Society Transactions three important papers on the species occurring in
Nottinghamshire, amounting to 87 in number—the largest number re-
corded for any British county.
The Mollusca enumerated in the Invertebrate Fauna comprise 116
out of the 145 indigenous non-marine species recorded for the British
Isles, besides three others which have been found in a semi-fossil state in
recent deposits, but have not been seen alive in the county. These figures
are satisfactory when account is taken of the fact that the soils of
Nottinghamshire are not very suitable for the terrestrial species owing to
the predominance of sand and clay and the comparative absence of
calcareous formations. Molluscs have always been favourite objects
with Nottingham naturalists, and were indeed the only invertebrates
dealt with in the Handbook to Nottingham issued in 1866 in connection
with the first visit of the British Association to Nottingham. This article
was by E. J. Lowe, F.R.S., who had previously (in 1853) published an
illustrated work on the Conchology of Nottingham. Other papers on the
Nottinghamshire mollusca were published from time to time by C. T.
Musson, W. A. Gain and B. S. Dodd, and an article by the last-named
was included in The British Association Handbook for 1893. Finally, in
1906, B. S. Dodd and B. B. Woodward summarised all our existing
knowledge of the Nottinghamshire mollusca in the Victoria History of
Nottinghamshire.
Other invertebrates found in the county and recorded in the Jnverte-
brate Fauna of Nottinghamshire are a sponge, four species of Hydrozoa,
many Rotifera, five Polyzoa, eleven Crustacea belonging to the sub-class
Malacostraca, and many Entomostraca, twenty-four species of Myria-
poda, etc.
Since the publication of the above work a large amount of new material
has been accumulated, and the results of this intensive collecting were
presented in a bulky Supplement issued in January 1935. No fewer than
1,255 species were added to our invertebrate fauna in this Supplement,
bringing the total for the county up to 6,585. Of the 1,255 additional
species, 1,228 are insects, the rest comprising Nematodes, Hirudinea,
Crustacea and Acarina. The Diptera and Hymenoptera account for the
majority of the insects, the additional species of the former numbering
691 and of the latter 399; among these are several species new to
Britain and many others that are little known or of extremely rare occur-
ence. The other species new to Nottinghamshire include: Hemiptera
58, Coleoptera 40, Trichoptera 14, Lepidoptera 12, and a few representa-
tives of the smaller orders.
Between January 1935 and August 1936, 64 additional species of insects
have been identified, and these are included in the totals given below.
A very large amount of unidentified material still awaits working out,
and when this is done many more species will be added to most of the
insect groups.
THE ZOOLOGY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 81
SYNOPSIS OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE INVERTEBRATA.
Porifera Lia a, i ae 1
Hydrozoa il) ts xf ve 4
Rotifera ay i Me 2 22
Nematoda ” 0 0 ps 7
Annelida Ks :3 ae Bs 93
Polyzoa af £3 ii = 5
Mollusca re uy: A Se 120
Crustacea ah e. “4 RQ 26
Myriapoda Le Os if) Ay 24
Insecta tke mn on As 6087
Arachnida u, ed iv! at 261
6650
v. THE AGRICULTURE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY
H. G. ROBINSON, M.Sc.,
PRINCIPAL OF THE MIDLAND AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.
Tue Agriculture of Counties in the past has been determined very largely
by a great many local features which together have exercised such an
influence as to enable distinctions to be drawn between one district and
another. In this sense it has been possible to forecast the peculiar
features if one knew something of soils and climate, or if it was known
that the surrounding district was associated with industrial activities or
otherwise. These distinctions are not quite so marked as they were at
one time. The convenience of transport by rivers or railways has for
example been affected by the vast development of road transport, and it
is probably not so widely recognised as it should be that road transport
is altering the face of counties even so far as the practice of agriculture
is concerned. The knowledge of other systems of farming that tends to
become more widely known as a result of education and reading is also
promoting a greater measure of uniformity in good farming practice,
especially when intelligent men are anxious to promote their own well-
being by the practice of economic systems of agriculture. This does not
mean that no local problems remain. There never can be any complete
solution of farming problems because of the diversity of soils and climates,
and the varying qualities in livestock and crops as well as of the farming
community itself. There is no certain road to success because each case
has to be considered on its merits and there is a wide field for the display
of originality, common sense and energy in tackling the variety of work
with which the agriculturist has to contend.
F
82 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Nottinghamshire is one of the counties that has been influenced by the
progress of civilisation and the development of an industrial community
particularly along its western borders. While there yet remains a great
area of the county essentially unaltered, one cannot overlook the influ-
ence exerted by the great coal field in the west of the county, and the
industrial development around the city of Nottingham itself in the
southern portion of the county. Developments of this kind mean a great
deal to the prosperity of the agricultural community, for not only are
good markets provided for certain agricultural commodities, but it fre-
quently happens that the character of the agricultural systems practised
undergoes fundamental changes to meet new market requirements. This
fact is mentioned because certain districts used to be regarded as favour-
able for the practice of particular types of farming. Under the present
developments that are taking place, however, close proximity to a good
market does not carry as much importance as it did, largely because of
the added ease with which markets can be reached from a distance as a
result of motor transport. This fact may result in the long run in re-
establishing the principle that the agriculture of a district should revert
to the farming policy for which it is best fitted by reason of soil and
climatic conditions. It does raise another interesting point, however, in
that such a course might lead to a new appreciation of values so far as
rents are concerned in their application to agricultural land. This is
already being felt with regard to the price standardisation that is applic-
able to milk under the operations of the Milk Marketing Scheme.
SITUATION AND CLIMATE
Nottinghamshire is a long, narrow county, its greatest width being
about 27 miles and ‘its length stretches in a north easterly direction for
about 51 miles. Its shape and its contact with the neighbouring counties
has to some extent influenced the particular agricultural practices so that
one can never speak with confidence of a peculiarly local agriculture.
The dominant geographical feature is the association of the county
with the valley of the river Trent, which enters at the south-west, making
for the eastern boundary and leaving at the north-east corner. The
Trent Valley covers an extensive area, and gives rise to a considerable
acreage of low-lying land that in many cases is only a few feet above
water level and liable to flooding after heavy rains. The greater part of
the county is low lying, as much as two-fifths of the total area being
under 100 feet above sea level, and only one-fifty-sixth of the area being
over 600 feet above sea level. This higher lying ground is concentrated
to the west of the county adjacent to the Derbyshire borders, in the dis-
trict around Mansfield.
So far as rainfall is concerned the county falls within the dry belt, for
right throughout the Trent Valley or approximately the eastern half of
the county it is 25 inches. There is a rise however up to 30 inches in
the district around Sutton-in-Ashfield, while the greater part of the western
half averages between 25 and 274 inches annually—the increases follow-
ing the contours. Figures collected at the Midland Agricultural College
in the south-westerly corner of the county for the past ten years indicate
=
THE AGRICULTURE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 83
an average rainfall of just under 24 inches, the months from December
to May inclusive being the driest, and March having the lowest
figures of any. The sunshine figures for the same period indicate an
average of about 1,300 hours of bright sunshine.
The relatively low rainfall figures which are somewhat surprising to
the stranger to the county have a considerable bearing on the prosperity
or otherwise of a certain farming area in the county. This is the district
that is popularly known as the Forest of Sherwood where, on the Bunter
Sandstone outcrop, dry periods in the spring of the year are often suffi-
cient to ruin farming prospects.
THE CHIEF SOILS
The soils in the county are almost entirely typical of the underlying
geological strata from which they have been derived. The principal soil
types are:—
1 BUNTER
The Bunter outcrop is one of the features of the county in that it
occupies an area of approximately 240 square miles, or nearly one-third
of the total area. It extends in a straight belt from Nottingham north-
wards to Bawtry and is some six or seven miles wide and includes the
districts between Worksop and Retford, Mansfield and Southwell. Both
high and low-lying ground is included in the area and it is sub-divided
into a fine-grained, loamy sand on the one hand and pebble beds on the
other. Actually the pebble beds constitute the major part of the area.
It can be readily understood that this type of soil constitutes a major
agricultural problem in the county, on which the effect of the agricultural
depression has been keenly felt in recent years. The pebble bed areas
give rise to a very light porous soil, incapable of holding moisture in the
natural state. Much of the area is given over to waste and common,
as is typified by Sherwood Forest. The agricultural productivity of these
soils is determined by a variety of factors. Their situation and the
character of the subsoil is important, but the primary requirement is the
practice of a system of agriculture that will add to the organic matter in
the soil so as to increase the water-retaining capacities. In the days
when farming was more profitable, high farming was considered the only
sound practice on these soils, involving considerable dependence upon
livestock in the form of fattening cattle and sheep for the production of
farmyard manure, together with the liberal use of organic fertilisers and
purchased foodstuffs. The rotation in the old days was the standard four
course, which was modified to suit the local conditions of need for more
* body ’ in the soil by extending to a five course or longer, through leaving
the seeds down for two or more years instead of one. In pre-depression
days some support was given to the use of seeds mixtures containing
deep-rooting plants similar to those utilised in the typical Clifton Park
mixtures. Apart from the porous character of these soils, the inherent
fertility is low, since they are markedly deficient in potash, lime and
nitrogen, though the phosphoric acid reserve is usually satisfactory. The
term ‘hungry’ applied to this land is fully descriptive of its reputation,
but modern manuring as we understand it to-day is futile on this land
84 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
unless it is associated with a live stock policy for the production of
‘muck’ or unless the season is favourable as regards a frequent supply
of rainfall. It would appear that the depression has caused most of
these farmers to hope for the best support that the weather can give. A
study of rainfall records reveals that even this is a very slender aid, for
within the last sixty years nearly two years out of three lacked a suffi-
ciency of rainfall during the spring and early summer to ensure safe
cropping results.
A recent survey by the Midland Agricultural College of sand land
farming in the Sherwood Forest area, covering farms that had a combined
area of just over 12,000 acres, indicated that about 70 per cent was under
the plough, while over one-third of the permanent grass was regarded as
rough-grazings. There has been a marked change in the character of the
cropping in recent years, in that cropping for convenience has tended to
displace the conventional rotations. However, 45 per cent of the arable
area was found to be devoted to cereals, nearly half of which was oats.
Formerly this was a typical barley-growing district, but with lime de-
ficiencies becoming more marked, oats and wheat are generally found to
be more profitable. The light character of the soil and its workability
at all seasons gives rise to very low cultivation costs, though it should be
noted that weeds spread very rapidly if neglect occurs. A small acreage
of rye is still grown—chiefly because it suits the land, and gives rise to
good sheep food and also straw for thatching. Root crops occupied
about a quarter of the arable area, and of the feeding crops, swedes and
common turnips were the most popular, with a smaller acreage of kale
and mangolds. It will be recognised that this in the main meets sheep
folding needs. Potatoes and sugar beet are grown under suitable con-
ditions, while peas are also an occasional crop. Prior to the introduction
of the beet crop it was the usual custom to grow roots on the ridge, for
this enabled the dung to be well-covered and this incidentally was always
applied in the well-rotted condition.
2. THE KEUPER MARL
As a sharp contrast to the poverty-stricken Bunter sands, there is an
equally characteristic stretch of Keuper Marl that runs to the east of
the Bunter and almost parallel with it from Normanton-on-Soar in the
south and to Walkeringham in the north. The Valley of the Trent
divides the Keuper Marl, for on the right of the valley it extends from
the river Soar, through Newark to North Clifton. On the left side of the
valley it starts at Sandiacre and proceeds through Nottingham, Southwell,
Tuxford, to the west of Retford, meeting the junction of the rivers Trent
and Idle. The Keuper Marl soils are chiefly very heavy, of a rich red
colour, and although they are clays in character are not so
in actual fact. They are inclined to be variable however, in respect
of ‘heaviness’, since free working patches occur, though the typical
Keuper Marl is three-horse land. The Keuper soils in the south of the
county are generally regarded as being more fertile than those in the
north. In general they are well-equipped with potash reserves, as well
as nitrogen and organic matter. They are markedly deficient in phos-
phates however, while lime is also found to have a marked influence not
\ (/~SeGR>DWcrmr
THE AGRICULTURE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 85
only in increasing fertility but also in producing better working soils when
these are under the plough. Much of this land has been laid down to
grass in recent years, though it is typical of good ‘ wheat and bean’ land.
The Keuper soils are specially good for fruit trees,, which probably ex-
plains the development of fruit-growing in the Tuxford, Wheatley, South-
well and Woodborough districts. It is an interesting feature of the water
supplies in the Keuper Mar] areas that it is often impregnated with
gypsum and iron.
3. ALLUVIAL SOILS
These soils total about 170 square miles or 13 per cent of the area of
the county, and the valley of the Trent is responsible for the greater part
of this. Agriculturally, these soils are fertile, identified with arable and
mixed farming, while on the right bank of the river there is much good
grazing land. It is a feature of the Trent Valley that the ‘ alluvium’
rests on a bed of coarse gravel of from 15 to 25 feet deep. Towards
Collingham a very sandy soil is experienced, which is associated with the
growing of good quality carrots.
In the north of the county there is an area of land known as the ‘ Carr’
where the soil consists of decayed vegetable matter—the product of old
marsh land before it was drained by the Romans in the first instance and
later by Dutch engineers. Warping has also been practised, and the
general result is an arable soil that proves excellent for potatoes, sugar
beet, wheat and various market garden crops, including celery.
AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS AND LAND TENURE
The position in Nottinghamshire is very similar to that in other counties,
in that by far the greater majority of farms can be classified as small
holdings. The smaller farms are usually found on the better classes cf
soil. This is a natural tendency since the ease with which land yields a
return has a considerable bearing on the competition for land. It has to
be recognised also that even on the poorer soils, such as those on the
Bunter, there are many agricultural holdings established by virtue of
mining populations close at hand. Coal has been a great asset to the
landowners in these parts, since the income from this has made possible
the development of agricultural estates, which but for coal, might other-
wise have been heathland and deer forest to-day. The total number of
agricultural holdings is about 6,000 of which 20 per cent are between
1 to 5 acres, 27 per cent between 5 to 20 acres, 17 per cent between 20 to
50 acres, 14 per cent between 50 to 100 acres, 8 per cent between 100 to
150, 11 per cent between 150 to 300, and with only 3 per cent over this
acreage. There are approximately 2,000 fewer separate holdings than
in 1885.
The agricultural features of these holdings is that over 60 per cent of
them are devoted to the practice of mixed farming, just over 20 per cent
are arable farms, and just under 20 per cent are mainly devoted to grass-
land. This again is quite in keeping with the prevailing tendency through-
out the country to safeguard farming capital by mixed systems.
There is one outstanding village in the county where the ancient open
field system of farming still survives. This is Laxton and* here the
86 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
three open fields system still remains and functions in much the same
way as it did right back to Anglo-Saxon times. The rotation under this
system is (1) fallow, (2) wheat or barley, (3) beans or peas.
The customary date of entry to farms in the county is Lady Day.
CROPPING FEATURES
The total area of agricultural land is 422,697 acres. There has been
a gradual decline in the agricultural area since records were first available.
This is general throughout the country and in this county results from
the extension of coal mining interests and building developments.
There has been a gradual decline in the acreage of arable land though
this is not so marked a feature as in some counties. The proportion of
arable to grass is more or less equal, with a tendency for the grass to
increase. It may be remarked in this connection that the laying down to
grass is not readily accomplished in the typical arable districts in the
county, while with two beet factories in the county, considerable attention
has been paid to this crop.
The four course rotation, with modifications, is the custom of the
county. The modifications have become more marked in recent years,
and particularly since the effects of the depression have driven farmers
to grow crops that promised to leave the best financial results. Wheat
and oats are the most extensively grown of the cereals. Wheat has
proved a standby even on the lighter soil types that at one time were
considered unsuitable for this crop. This is largely the result of the
employment of varieties like Little Joss and Red Standard that are suitable
for light soils. The decline in the cultivation of barley is probably one
of the most marked of the cropping features, and there is actually a
greater acreage under beans and peas than under barley.
Of the root crops, turnips, and swedes are still the most popular, but
on the suitable soils, sugar beet has played an increasingly important
part in the general farming policy, and, as in most arable districts, this
crop has proved to be of great value, the area under the crop totalling
just over a quarter of the ground devoted to root crops.
Live STOCK
The outstanding features so far as the livestock interests are concerned
are that in the last fifty years there has been a considerable decline in the
sheep population and a gradual though by no means marked increase in
the number of cattle. It is interesting to note that the sheep stocks were
being reduced in the years preceding the war, but they reached their
lowest figures from 1920-23. Livestock play a prominent part in the
maintenance of soil fertility in this county, especially on the Bunter soils.
Many have changed over to dairying, and some very notable herds are
to be found in the district. Actually Nottinghamshire possesses no dis-
tinctive breeds of its own. The majority of the sheep that are kept are
cross-breds, while Shorthorns are the dominant breed of cattle, though
some very good herds of Friesians, Jerseys and Aberdeen Angus are dis-
tributed throughout the county. Pigs have never been regarded with
great seriousness until recent years, and there is little doubt that kept in
, een
THE AGRICULTURE OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 87
greater numbers these could prove one of the solutions to the problem
of making enough muck to apply to some of the hungry soils in the
county. This has been demonstrated by some with great success. Horses
too have never been particularly numerous, but they are now fewer than
at any previous stage in the last fifty years. This is again explained by
the increased use that is being made of tractors.
The interest taken in livestock improvement in the past has been in-
fiuenced by the landowning community, an outstanding example among
these being that of the Welbeck Estate.
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION
The part which education has played in the farming economy of the
county is considerable. Nottingham University College through its Agri-
cultural Department was responsible for the organisation of the early
work. The foundation of a Dairy Institute at Kingston-on-Soar in 1895
by the County Councils of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire
and Lindsey, was one of the earliest efforts in providing technical edu-
cation in this important branch of Agriculture. The experiences at
Kingston suggested that it was not ideal for agricultural teaching to be
given in the heart of a city away from close contact with the actual
problems. In 1902 the Agricultural Department was transferred from
University College to Kingston-on-Soar. The subsequent development
of the Midland Agricultural College was made possible by the continued
co-operation of the County Councils whose first interests were concerned
with the provision of technical instruction in Dairying. By 1913, a new
site was found at Sutton Bonington to establish a modern College that
would be equal to the growing demands for education in Agriculture.
Since 1919 Sutton Bonington has been the headquarters of the Midland
Agricultural College. The College is the advisory centre for the counties
of Derbyshire, Kesteven, Leicestershire, Lindsey, Nottinghamshire and
Rutland, the County Councils being active partners in the government
and support of the College.
The College is not responsible for any direct work in the associated
Counties, except through the advisory service, which works in co-operation
with the Agricultural Staffs in each county. The local agricultural edu-
cation staffs have developed the system of giving organised day class
instruction in agriculture during the winter months, the award of scholar-
ships to the Midland College being based largely on results in such
classes.
88 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
vi THE UNDERGROUND WATER OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
BY
R. C. S. WALTERS, B.Sc., M.InstT. C.E., F.G.S.
THE accompanying map shows broadly the travel of water underground
in the Bunter Sandstones and Pebble Beds of Nottinghamshire. The
contours are related to feet above sea level or ordnance datum and are
based on the many records published in the Water Supply Memoir of
Nottinghamshire of H.M. Geological Survey, including the top portion
in the neighbourhood of Bawtry and East Retford worked out by
Dr. Bernard Smith.
The surface configuration does not appear to affect the general direction
of flow in minute detail, but from the broad standpoint the underground
water level does follow the surface configuration, the slope of which
generally varies from north-east to south-east; north-east towards Retford
and east between Tuxford and Southwell under the Keuper Marl where
the water tends to become saline, and south-east between Southwell and
Nottingham. The highest underground levels appear to be in the neigh-
bourhood of Mansfield where the contours would merge into the under-
lying Magnesium Limestone. Rivers such as the Poulter and Meden tend
to flow in the same direction as the contours.
THE UNDERGROUND WATER OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
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oro ts. Nottinghamshire County Boundary.
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90 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
IV.
NOTTINGHAM’S RIVER—THE TRENT
ij THE RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD
AND ITS WORK
BY
WALTER H. HAILE, M.Inst. C.E.,
ENGINEER TO THE RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD.
GENERAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE TRENT
THE Catchment Area of the River Trent covers a large portion of the
ancient kingdom of Mercia and is 2,578,539 acres (4,029 square miles)
in extent. It comprises parts of the counties of Derby, Leicester, Lincoln-
Kesteven, Lincoln-Lindsey, Nottingham, Rutland, Shropshire, Stafford,
Warwick, Worcester and Yorkshire West Riding, and includes important
County Boroughs such as Birmingham, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and
Stoke-on-Trent. The watershed line is difficult to define without refer-
ence to a map, but may roughly be described as having its northern limits.
at the Humber and in the Peak Districts, its western limits near the
western Staffordshire County Boundary, its southern limits extending from
south of Birmingham to south of Leicester, and its eastern limits extending
from the hill range which divides the valleys of the Trent and the -
Ancholme to Rutland. The River Trent rises in the northern environ-
ments of Stoke-on-Trent and follows a south-easterly course until it
reaches its confluence with the River Tame near Alrewas, when it changes
to a north-easterly direction, and then from Newark to its outfall at
Trent Falls in the Humber it flows practically due north. All the main
tributaries, such as the Tame, Soar, Dove and Derwent, join the parent
river above Nottingham, with the exception of the Idle which discharges
at West Stockwith below Gainsborough.
With the exception of the River Derwent which flows through a gorge
of millstone grit in its length above Ambergate, all the main rivers flow
through alluvial beds composed of gravel until the River Trent reaches
the vicinity of Torksey, where there is a fairly definite change to warp
which overlies clay in places. For the most part, the geological formation
of the land contiguous to the valleys is the Keuper marl, whilst the flat
alluvial peat moors in the area of the Doncaster Drainage Districts are
notable.
The River Trent is tidal for a length of 52 miles, from its outfall to
a few miles north of Newark at Cromwell Lock. Navigation, assisted
ae > bok See
THE RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD 91
by a series of locks, extends as far as Sawley, a distance of 92 miles from
the outfall, although a short length of the river, from Trent Bridge to
Beeston Lock, is unnavigable and boats have to pass from one reach to
the other via the Beeston Canal. Many weirs span the rivers in the upper
reaches and serve mills for industrial purposes.
THE LAND DRAINAGE ACT OF 1930
The control of the main rivers from a land drainage point of view is
in the hands of the River Trent Catchment Board which was set up under
the Land Drainage Act of 1930 and commenced active duties in October
1931. The powers and duties of this and other Catchment Boards are
set out in the Act and need only be referred to very briefly in this Article.
The chief powers of the Board in respect of the ‘ main river’ are set out
below under three heads, ‘ main river’ meaning the lengths of waterways
of a total of 570 miles designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and
Fisheries to be under the direct jurisdiction of the Catchment Board.
(a) To maintain existing works (i.e. to cleanse, repair or otherwise main-
tain in a due state of efficiency any existing watercourse or drainage
works).
(b) To improve any existing works (i.e. to deepen, widen, straighten or
otherwise improve any existing watercourse or remove mill, dam,
weir or other obstructions to watercourses or raise, widen or other-
wise improve any existing drainage work).
(c) To construct new works (i.e. to make any new watercourse or drain-
age work or erect any machinery or do any other act required for
the drainage of the area comprised within the drainage district).
The Act interprets ‘ drainage’ as including defence against water, irri-
gation, warping and the supply of water. The Catchment Board’s activi-
ties, therefore, are by no means solely concerned with the voiding of
fiood waters to the sea and alleviating flooding, but are also directed to
the conservancy of river water for all riparian interests, of which Agri-
culture and Industry are probably the most important.
THE WoRK OF THE RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD
Prior to the setting up of the Catchment Board, there was very little
data available except in respect of certain levels in the navigation reach,
but the May 1932 flood, which was of exceptional severity, fortuitously
offered a means of obtaining much useful information upon which
schemes for flood alleviation could be formulated. This flood resulted in
some 150,000 acres of land including many urban districts, such as West
Bridgford, Long Eaton, Tamworth and Nuneaton becoming submerged,
whilst the total area which can be said to have been affected by the flood
was approximately 374,000 acres.
It was early apparent that much pioneer work required to be carried
out before any comprehensive flood alleviation schemes could be con-
sidered and the first practical work of the Board comprised tree clearing,
removal of shoals and the reinstatement of flood banks of all main rivers
on an extensive scale. No less than 350 miles of rivers were cleared of
obstructive trees for instance; and-the result of this pioneer work has
92 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
had an excellent effect on the lands by lowering the water table and
hence preventing water-logging besides accelerating discharge.
Meanwhile, a complete hydraulic survey of the river systems was put
in hand from which a comprehensive scheme is being prepared, parts of
which are now in progress. The scheme, which is estimated to cost two
and a quarter million pounds and to be carried out in fifteen years, com-
prises, inter alia, the following works : —
A Comprehensive Pumping Scheme for the low lying lands in the region
of the Isle of Axholme, including the Hatfield Chase Area—historically
famous for the works carried out by the great Anglo-Dutch engineer,
Sir Cornelius Vermuyden in the reign of Charles I; tidal bank works of
some magnitude in the lower reaches of the River Trent; the regrading
and resectioning of all rivers with the setting back of flood embankments
in order to control flood waters; the construction of flood relief channels;
the sluicing of solid weirs; and local schemes for the special protection
of built-up areas, including Tamworth and Long Eaton.
Of the foregoing works, the construction of the Keadby Pumping
Station has now commenced, together with the regrading and resectioning
of the main rivers in the area affected, whilst work on the River Idle
and other rivers in the nature of regrading is in progress, together with
extensive bank repairs in the tidal reach -of the river between Gains-
borough and Trent Falls.
The Board early decided to carry out as much work as possible by
direct administration and to that end works organizations have been set
up which divide the Catchment Area into three parts, namely : —
(1) The Northern Area, comprising the tidal reach of the River Trent
and all main channels discharging therein.
(2) The Home Area, comprising the River Trent from Cromwell Lock to
Burton-on-Trent, together with the Rivers Soar, Erewash and Der-
went.
(3) The Southern Area, which includes the remainder of the main chan-
nels, including the upper reaches of the River Trent and the Rivers
Dove, Tame, Cole, Anker, Sow and Penk.
The works in the Northern and Southern areas are under the direct
control of Divisional Engineers, while the Home Area is directly con-
trolled from the Head Office at Nottingham. The necessary plant for
the work is considerable and comprises 15 excavators, 69 floating craft,
—ranging from a large grab dredger to weeding punts,—locomotives, tips
and rails, pile drivers and the like. Workshops have been constructed at
Owston Ferry and Elford where all running repairs and overhauls of
machinery are carried out, and where much of the plant such as hand
trucks, wheel barrows, etc. are made. The labour strength totals ap-
proximately 500 men, including such tradesmen as carpenters, smiths
and bricklayers.
The study of the flood relief comprehensive scheme is one of con-
siderable difficulty and magnitude and it is realised that hydraulic
formulae are far too nebulous in character to enable schemes to be pre-
pared from calculations alone, and an important feature of the preparation
of flood schemes lies in the study of working landscape models, upon
‘East
eee
THE RIVER TRENT CATCHMENT BOARD 93
which the flood of May 1932 is reproduced. These models enable a
careful study of this flood to be made, and schemes which comprise flood
relief channels, the setting back of flood embankments and so forth can
be built on the models and all the resultant effects of such proposed works,
both above and below, can be carefully studied and connoted. The
Hydraulic Laboratory work can be said to form the foundation of the
preparation of flood alleviation schemes, and the results of this research
work have demonstrated that working models are not only helpful in
investigating flood problems, but are regarded as essential in the pre-
paration of flood alleviation schemes.
A true perspective of the possible damage caused by flooding has to
be borne in mind in the preparation of schemes. When it is pointed out
that a major flood requires a channel some 24 times its present bank-full
capacity for flood discharge purposes, it will at once be realized that the
avoidance of all flooding in all places is outside the realms of practical
and economical considerations.
In any event, a system of wholesale enlargement of river channels
stands condemned on hydraulic grounds alone, because the normal scour-
ing velocity of the stream would be eliminated and result in a series of
rivers meandering within the enlarged river beds, and ordinary economic
maintenance works could not possibly cope with such a situation.
It is apparent, therefore, that attention must be focussed on those areas
where considerable damage can be inflicted by flood waters, such as in
built-up areas and arable lands, while controlled flooding of grass lands
would result in a minimum of damage and, in fact, improvement, pro-
viding the deposit remaining from the flood waters were free from im-
purities.
INTERNAL DRAINAGE BOARDS
In addition to the work of the Catchment Board on the ‘ main rivers”
in the Catchment Area, the jurisdiction of the Board extends over con-
siderable areas of land included within Internal Drainage Districts. An
Internal Drainage District can be described as a Drainage Area con-
stituted under the Land Drainage Act of 1861 or under any other enact-
ment relating to the drainage of land, and all Internal Drainage Districts.
existing at the passing of the Land Drainage Act of 1930 are deemed to
have been constituted under the last mentioned Act. Provision is made
for the constitution of further Internal Drainage Districts by Schemes of
the Catchment Board, the principles governing the formation of such
Internal Drainage Boards applying to those Areas which will ‘ derive
benefit’ or ‘avoid danger’. Whilst there is no legal definition of these
two terms, it can be accepted that they apply generally to low land areas
which require artificial drainage works, either in respect of internal
watercourses by which the drainage of the lands derive benefit or in
respect of the embankment works of contiguous main rivers from which
damage by flood is avoided. The term ‘benefit’ can have a fairly wide
meaning and includes indirect benefit to a certain degree. On these
premises, therefore, it will be realised that only a minor proportion of the
Catchment Area can be considered for Internal Drainage District form-
94 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
ation, as of a total of 2,578,539 acres, only 375,000 acres can be termed
low land; and as this area includes long lengths of narrow valleys which
will never be formed into Internal Drainage Districts, it is obvious that
the total area of all Internal Drainage Boards will never be more than a
comparatively small percentage of that of the Catchment Board.
CO-OPERATION WITH PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
A Catchment Board’s interests may easily conflict with those of other
public bodies, but, on the other hand, a co-operative spirit between the
parties concerned can but result in the common good.
The River Trent Catchment Board keep in close touch with the Trent
Fishery Board for instance and by common consent it is agreed that
dredging operations alone have improved fishing in many instances.
Again, the Catchment Board maintain close co-operation with all road
authorities in respect of river bridges, and whereas, in the past, bridges
have been constructed both too small and too large, all plans for new
structures must now be submitted to the Board, who are able to give
advice on such details as spans and head rooms.
Another aspect of co-operation lies in Regional Town Planning
Schemes, where the Board are in a position to advise on the sterilization
of lands against buildings in cases where such lands form natural wash-
lands.
FINANCE
An article on the River Trent Catchment Board, however brief, should
have a reference to its source of funds. Here again the Land Drainage
Act of 1930 sets out clearly the source of a Catchment Board’s revenue,
namely : —
(a) By precepts on County Councils and County Boroughs within the
area, ordinarily limited to 2d. in the pound of rateable value.
(b) By precepts on its Internal Drainage Districts for such amounts as
are considered fair and reasonable, and
(c) By Government Grants.
The River Trent Catchment Board has now stabilized its precept under
(a) at 1¢d. in the pound for 7 years ending 31st March 1944, while under
(c) the Government have made a grant of 30 per cent for the first
£1,000,000 instalment of the Comprehensive Scheme. The estimated total
annual revenue from the foregoing sources is approximately £225,000
which will be sufficient to cover the cost of the first £1,000,000 of the
Comprehensive Scheme together with all administrative and maintenance
charges during that period. The Board’s financial policy therefore is to
avoid loans, and the ultimate saving to the ratepayers of such a policy
cannot be gainsaid.
i 2!
i. THE ECOLOGY OF THE RIVER TRENT
AND TRIBUTARIES
BY
J. INGLIS SPICER,
CLERK AND BIOLOGIST TO THE TRENT FISHERY BOARD, NOTTINGHAM.
It may be said at the outset that practically no work has been done on
the ecology of the rivers of the vast watershed of the River Trent. Indeed,
such studies in this country have been very few.
Had government and local administrations made appropriate use of
biological investigation, and adopted during the period of rapid industrial
development and urban colonisation of the country the subsistence of
fish life as the standard of purity to be maintained in the rivers, the
“tragedy of the Trent’ would never have been written.
A little over ten years ago the Trent was justly referred to as ‘a common
sewer’, and that it has escaped the fate of certain other rivers is little
short of a miracle. Its rescue and partial resuscitation, laborious and
slow over the past decade, goes to the credit of so-called ‘ worm and bent-
pin’ anglers, drawn mostly from these industries and urban colonisations
which, in their inadequately planned development, were responsible for
the river’s exhaustion and, at the same time, for the self-limitation of
that very development.
There is inset opposite page 98 a biological diagram indicating the pre-
sent situation as to river pollution in the watershed of the Trent. The dia-
gram incorporates practically all that is known of the ecology of the rivers
of the district. In the absence of definite standards ascertained by corre-
lated biological and chemical examination the river classification must be
regarded as vry approximate and it is not suggested that percentage
saturation of dissolved oxygen is the only factor by which extent of
pollution should be assessed. The diagram shows that in this one river
system there are over one hundred out of a total of five hundred and
fifty miles of flowing water where neither animal nor plant life can sub-
sist, and in little more than half of the total mileage can fish live with
safety.
Industrial expansion was allowed and even encouraged to go forward
without provision for the conservation of the water resources of the
country. On much the same lines local authorities are to-day throughout
the country throwing up vast colonies of new habitations and leaving to
the indefinite future provision for the treatment of the waste products
from such colonisations. Such policies could not but ultimately recoil
on the promoters or their neighbours. Water-undertakers are scrambling
over the hillsides over-reaching each other to tap water supplies for
domestic and industrial use before the other fellow gets or contaminates
95
®
96 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
them. Existing interests snarl, and enrich the legal profession, when
competitors try to tap supplies or establish polluting agencies above them
in the watershed. Industrialists looking for expansion are finding that
polluted watercourses prohibit development of many otherwise desirable
sites.
It will be seen therefore that industrial urban expansion have set their
own limits by their short-sightedness, permitted by absence of national
policy. The experience of the Trent Fishery Board in its work since 1923
has clearly shown that there are few, if any, industries in which provision
for the reasonable purification of their waste waters would be impractic-
able or even a serious charge on the industry. Any urban community
should be able to provide for the adequate treatment of its waste waters
on an annual expenditure of half-a-crown per head of its population out
of the normal revenue of £8 per head from rates for such a community.
The root cause of the deterioration of the watercourses of the country
has been that it has never been laid down in gubernatorial policy that
watercourses maintained in a condition to sustain fish life would be
thereby guaranteed as to general suitability for industrial, agricultural
and even domestic purposes.
It will be seen at a glance from the diagram that what may be termed
the persistent major pollutions in the Trent catchment are the Foulea
Brook (Potteries); the River Tame Basin (Birmingham and district); the
River Erewash (Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire boundary); and the River
Churnet. The adverse effect of these badly polluted tributaries on the
fauna and flora of the main river is apparent. The River starts off
badly polluted in the Potteries and for about thirty miles not a fish and
scarcely a water plant may be found. Vast improvements in sewage
disposal have been made in this locality and a limited number of trade
wastes are now alone responsible for the initial contamination of the
river. About half way down this polluted stretch, the river receives, as
a result of prehistoric sewage conditions, a serious retardant to natural
recovery. Plant life begins to show itself at Haywood, and some mud
fauna other than the apparently ubiquitous chironomids begin to appear.
Fish life then finds itself able to subsist for a time in the main river until
the River Tame and its tributaries (Birmingham district) completely de-
populate the river again.
The valuable trout fishings of the River Dove and its tributaries are
faced mostly by pollution from milk waste. The depopulated River
Churnet offers scope for the study of the slow rehabilitation of a once
badly sewage-polluted river with however, the retardant effect of effluents
from dye works. That the River Derwent below Derby continues to
support fish life has only been made possible by the generous acceptance
of its responsibilities by a large artificial silk factory. Here a valuable
study should be made of the individual effects of the effluents from (a) a
group of collieries, (b) municipal sewage works, (c) a large artificial silk
factory, and (d) a large power station. In the River Tame and the River
Soar, the issue as to responsibility for fish mortality is too often confused
by the old stand-by excuse of storm-water. River pollution from these
angles calls for detailed biological investigation in situ if further progress
is to be made.
THE ECOLOGY OF THE TRENT AND ITS TRIBUTARIES 97
A short history of the River Trent and its tributaries is worthy of
consideration. The close of the nineteenth century saw the slow demise
of the valuable salmon, eel and lamprey fishing industries. Evidence of
what: the Trent used to be as a fishing river can be deduced from the
following records : —
‘Nottingham apprentices had a clause inserted in their indentures to
the effect that they should not have Trent salmon in their dietary
more often than twice a week.’
‘He paid £100 a year rental for the fishing rights at the weir and
could take six large salmon in one cast of his net just below Gun-
thorpe Bridge.’
‘In one night alone—on 9th September, 1899—I caught over 70 stone
of eels in my nets at Old Colwick (Nottm.).’
‘ At one time I had a contract to supply 40 stone of eels per week to
one fishmonger but I could not guarantee to catch 40 lbs. per week
now.’
‘In one night at the weir he caught over 10,000 lampreys and at that
time got £10 a thousand for them.’
To-day, professional eel and lamprey fishing has practically entirely
disappeared, and the records of salmon takes, which at the end of the
first quarter of this century had also entirely disappeared, now show an
annual take of only 100 to 160 fish per season. There is little doubt that
the Trent was justly named in 1925, ‘a common sewer ’.
How the race of Trent salmon has managed to survive, and now shows
indications of rehabilitation, is a mystery to most people. As regards
coarse fish, the annual reports of the Trent Fishery Board are a continuous
record of fish mortality and disease attributable to preventable pollution.
In 1935 some 20,000 roach and perch were killed at one blow by a dis-
charge of municipal sewage, and in two other instances the mortality was
limited to a few thousands only as a result of rescue work on suffocating
fish trapped in locks, they having fled before sewage discharges. During
1936, the Trent Fishery Board supplied, from various stock ponds, about
275,000 coarse fish to replace wanton wastage.
It is satisfactory to note however, that during the past ten years the
Trent has shown definite, if slow, recovery in its capacity for maintaining
coarse fish life. The following selections from Press reports on angling
for 1936 are of interest: —
‘I am glad to say that the main river (Trent) is coming back into its
own again, thank goodness, after years of pollution.’
‘We have had the best fishing season during 1936 for the past twenty-
five years.’ (Middle Trent).
‘A very good fishing season—barbel now returning and roach more
healthy and lively.” (Lower Trent).
‘Dace appear to be steadily returning to their old haunts.’ (Middle
Trent).
Growing congestion in industrial communities sent the workers looking
for health-giving recreation for themselves and their families, and a
tremendous coarse-fish angling fraternity has made a place for itself in
the national life of the country. One in ten of the insured workers in the
G
98 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
Trent Fishery District are licensed anglers following a recreation with
apparent national advantages, quite apart from the circulation in this
district alone of about one and a half million pounds per annum.
It has been said with much truth that the one effective step taken
by the government to remedy river pollution was, by the Salmon and
Freshwater Fisheries Act 1923, the enabling of anglers to levy a rod tax
on themselves to provide funds for Fishery Boards to combat river
pollution. The rescue and partial resuscitation of the River Trent, a
matter of moment to industrial, agricultural and communal interests as
much as to the angler, was therefore left to such financial provision as
might be made by the angler. The progress made during ten years has
been remarkable and the report of the Trent Fishery Board for 1936
sums up the present situation as follows: —
“It is satisfactory to be able now to record that practically all the
sources of major pollution are under some control. Continuous
supervision and persistent representations must, however, be main-
tained to preserve the ground that has been won. Assuming the
non-recurrence of remedied pollution it will however take several
years of natural scouring of the fouled river bed to bring about the
full rehabilitation of some of the polluted streams. There are still,
also, a considerable number of minor polluting agencies in the water-
shed with their, in total, very noxious effects. Many of these are,
by reason of the fact that they do not cause immediate mortality in
fish, difficult to locate and to have remedied. Further advance there-
fore now requires systematic analyses and biological observations
conducted on a uniform basis over the whole watershed. This is,
however, beyond the present financial resources of this Board.’
Such progress as has been made in the past ten years is due almost
entirely to the activities of Fishery Boards whose financial resources are
practically restricted to licence fees levied on anglers. In the Trent
Fishery District the various county and other councils receive between
them, in rates levied on occupied fishery rights, several times the total
revenue of the Fishery Board but without, in most cases, any concern
being shown by them for the conservation of such fisheries.
There is now a pressing need for government to bring about, or at
least to facilitate, the institution of a comprehensive biological investi-
gation of this important watershed of the River Trent. The present
anomaly in regard to finance must receive consideration, but it may be
noted that the cost of the required work would represent only one-
twentieth of a penny rate levied over the watershed. Very varying inter-
ests are to be served by the maintenance of reasonably pure rivers capable
of maintaining fish life. The matter is of moment to water-undertakers,
urban and rural communities, and drainage authorities. The objects to
be served are the conservation of the water resources of the district to
meet the growing needs of industry and domestic use, the protection of
agricultural interests, the revival of valuable salmon and eel fishing in-
dustries as food producing media, and the increasing need and demand
for health promoting recreation by growing urban populations.
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TRENT FISHERY BOARD
mu, THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE TRENT
BY
K. C. EDWARDS, M.A.
Day by day the River Trent plays a growing part in the commercial
activity of Nottingham. The extensive works of improvement undertaken
in recent years by the Trent Navigation Committee of the City Corpor-
ation, the Trent Navigation Company and the River Trent Catchment
Board have embraced the modernisation of the waterway between
Nottingham and Newark, the regulation of the stream, attention to its
banks and the preparation of plans to alleviate the serious floods which
occur from time to time.
The Trent in a special sense is Nottingham’s river, for apart from Stoke
and the Potteries where the stream is of insignificant size, Nottingham is
the only large city on or near its banks. Trent Bridge, too, rich in its
associations of history, commerce and sport, ranks as one of the most
important river-crossings in the country. Like the Thames and Severn,
the Trent provides a natural waterway penetrating far inland from its
tidal estuary on which navigation has been maintained to a greater or
lesser degree throughout the course of history. Even in Roman times,
portions of the river were used for the conveyance of grain in shallow
boats, whilst later on Saxon tribes established trading connections at
places along the lower reaches. The Danes appear to have made fuller
use of the river as a highway and have left a record of their Trentside
settlements in such names as Keadby, Althorpe, Butterwick, Gunthorpe,
Bleasby and many others. Judging too, from the manner in which these
Norse sailors revived the use of the ancient Fossdyke from Torksey to
Lincoln, it seems that the development and organisation of the southern
part of the Danelagh with its five boroughs were to some extent based
upon the system of waterways provided by the Trent and its tributary
connections. Then again, the river was undoubtedly an asset in fostering
the Norman settlements at Newark and Nottingham, the award of fines
against persons who hindered the passage of boats being mentioned in
the Domesday Survey.
The Trent rose to great importance as a highway of commerce during
the eighteenth century, for the beginnings of modern industry found the
‘roads of the country hopelessly inadequate and traffic was accordingly
directed to the navigable rivers wherever possible. This was an era of
prosperity for a number of ‘ports’ between Burton-on-Trent and the
Humber such as Nottingham, Newark, Torksey, Gainsborough and Baw-
try, the last-named being on the River Idle. Gainsborough, on the
tidal stretch, was accessible for sea-going vessels and became an exchange
point for traffic to and from the Humber, for upstream the channel
could accommodate only flat-bottomed craft and not keel vessels. The
99
100 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
port remained active for a long period and for some years following
1841 was registered as a seaport for the collection of customs.
During the era of the canals, the Trent served as one of the main
arteries of the inland waterways of England, and locally its trade was
extended by means of canals leading from Nottingham to several neigh-
bouring centres. The Nottingham Canal itself, completed in 1802, served
to connect the Erewash valley and facilitate the movement of coal. The
Grantham Canal, which left the river near Trent Bridge, opened up the
agricultural region of the Vale of Belvoir. There were also the Derwent
and Erewash Canals. Further, in order to obviate the shallows at Wil-
ford which have at all times been an obstruction to navigation, it was
necessary to make a short lateral canal branching from the Nottingham
Canal and meeting the Trent again at Beeston, whence traffic could pro-
ceed upstream to the Trent—Mersey Canal or to the Soar Navigation.
The origin of the Trent Navigation Company may be traced as far back
as 1783 and though not at first a transport concern, the company has
steadfastly maintained for many years an active share in the trade of the
river. With the coming of the railways the Trent and its connections
suffered like the rest of inland waterways and trade dwindled almost to
the point of stagnation. Moreover as the river fell out of use the
channel became neglected and, quite apart from the inherent difficulties
of low water on certain stretches in times of drought, and dangerous
floods at other times, the conditions for navigation greatly deteriorated.
The Royal Commission on Inland Waterways, 1906, reported the river
inadequate and offering no certainty of through-carriage unhindered be-
tween Hull and either Newark or Nottingham.
Recent years nevertheless have witnessed a striking change. Trade
has recovered along the whole course of the Trent from Nottingham to
the Humber, and upwards of 200,000 tons of goods are moved annually
on the Nottingham—Newark section alone compared with a former
average of under 30,000 tons. This revival is due chiefly to post-War
improvements to the channel on several stretches and to the use of
modern craft fitted with a crude-oil motor which affords both a cheap
and convenient means of propulsion. Just as the sail barge of olden time
was superseded by the steam tug, so the latter is now largely replaced
by the self-propelled ‘power barge’ as it is called. It was upon the
Nottingham—Newark section that the river required most attention, for
in parts the depth of the channel was not dependable and at several
points the current was difficult if not dangerous. Dredging alone could
not suffice owing to the gradient of the stream in this part of its course,
the actual fall between Holme Pierrepont (below Trent Bridge) and
Fiskerton (near Newark), a distance of 144 miles, being 21 feet, i.e. over
17 inches per mile. Over this stretch the problem was to secure a channel
with a minimum depth of 6 feet, enabling 100-ton barges to reach
Nottingham at any season.
The work was begun after the War when the City Corporation, exer-
cising its powers under an Act passed in 1915, took over from the Trent
Navigation Company the control of the river from Trent Bridge to the
Averham Weir close to Newark. By ‘stepping’ the river at intervals
te
THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE TRENT 101
with weirs it was possible to reduce the gradient on each of the short
sections thus formed. Each weir of course was accompanied by a lock
and existing locks too had to be enlarged or rebuilt in order to accommo-
date modern barges. By 1929 the new channel was completed and the
stream thus made navigable at all times of the year from Nottingham
to the sea. The ‘port’ at Nottingham, where corresponding improve-
ments have been made, consists of two separate terminals each equipped
with modern warehouses and having railway-sidings at hand. One is
owned by the City Corporation and the other by the Trent Navigation
Company, whose capacious up-to-date warehouse and dep6t was built in
1915 in anticipation of the new waterway project. In the case of the
former, wharfage has been considerably extended and in 1932 a new
basin and transit sheds were constructed.
The increase of traffic resulting from the modernisation of the water-
way is mainly in the upstream direction and originates chiefly at Hull
where the barges and river craft have direct access to ocean-going ships.
The conveyance of great quantities of petroleum in special tank-barges
is the outstanding feature of this trade and upon the Newark—Notting-
ham section this now accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total
tonnage. Nottingham has in consequence become the chief distributing
centre for oil in the Midlands. The expansion in river-borne trade in
recent years on the Nottingham—Newark section is shown by the follow-
ing figures : —
Total Tonnage Petrol Tonnage
1928 66,960 4,920
1930 105,337 37,377
1932 284,666 59,206
1934 242,853 95,123
1936 230,514 117,449
Other bulky non-perishable commodities are timber, strawboards, cement,
grain, cattle-cake and tinned foodstuffs. Downstream traffic is slight and
much less regular and consists mostly of manufactured goods, e.g. hard-
ware and machinery and occasional loads of iron pipes. Coal finds no
place in the river trade for its shipment has long been in the unchallenged
hands of the railways. On the other hand, the importance of the Trent
is now exerting some influence at least upon the trend of commercial
development not only in Nottingham but at the smaller towns of Newark
and Gainsborough and at newer centres such as Keadby.
102 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
V.
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM
AND DISTRICT
BY
ProFessor H. H. SWINNERTON, D.Sc., AnD D. N. LOWE, M.A., B.Sc.
OF the following scientific men who, during the course of the past 300
years, have materially contributed to the advancement of scientific know-
ledge, the majority were born in one or other of the counties Nottingham-
shire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. The rest either had close family
connections with, or were long resident in the district.
ABNEY, SIR WM. DE WIVELESLIE, C.B., KT., F.R.S. (1843-1920),
b. Derby. His scientific work was mainly connected with photographic
chemistry and colour printing. Elected F.R.S. in 1876, he was president
of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Physical Society. Assistant
secretary to the Board of Education (1899), he was adviser to its science
department. He was a member of the Advisory Council for education
to the War Office (1903). C.B., 1876; Kt. 1904. He had a long and
eminent connection with the British Association.
ARDERNE, JOHN (?). He was the first Englishman to show much skill
in surgery, and he practised in the time of Edward III. It is not known
where he was born or died, but he records in one of his own manuscripts
that he lived at Newark from 1349 to 1370. He wrote on surgery and
what was then known of medicine, and his reputation is said to have
been great for at least two centuries.
ARKWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD (1732-1792), b. Preston, Lancs. He worked
in early life as a barber, but with the gradual disuse of wigs turned to
invention. He began work on the design of a spinning frame about 1767,
and settled at Nottingham in 1768 where he erected his first spinning mill.
He entered into partnership with Jedidiah Strutt (q.v.) and Samuel Need
and established a larger factory at Cromford, Derbyshire in 1771. He
was long involved in litigation with rival manufacturers who contested
his patents, and encountered opposition from workpeople who were
alarmed by his labour-saving machinery. He was knighted in 1786.
d. Cromford.
BANKS, Sir JOSEPH, F.R.S. (1743-1820), b. London, son of Wm. Banks
of Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire. Educated at Harrow, Eton and Oxford,
he soon became outstanding for his attainments in botany and natural
history. He accompanied Captain Cook in the Endeavour on his voyage
of exploration in the Antipodes (1768-71) and made many important
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 103
observations. He was President of the Royal Society from 1778 till his
death, and it is recorded that he reformed several abuses of administration
during his term of office. d. Isleworth.
Bicssy, JOHN J. M.D., F.R.S. (1792-1881), b. Nottingham. He studied
medicine at Edinburgh and, joining the army as a medical officer was
ultimately sent to Canada where he developed so great an interest and
skill in geology that he was commissioned to report on the geology of
Upper Canada. In 1827 he settled in practice at Newark. He was
elected F.R.S. in 1869, and in 1877 he presented the Geological Society
with money to provide the Bigsby Medal to be awarded biennially to
students of American geology. d. London.
BRINDLEY, JAMES (1716-1772). One of the earliest of English engineers,
he was born in Derbyshire, the son of a small farmer. The Wedgwoods
employed him to construct flint mills for grinding calcined flint used in
glazing pottery. His reputation as an engineer was based on his associ-
ation with the Duke of Bridgwater for whom he built over 350 miles of
canals, all pioneer work_in the development of inland water transport in
this country. a
Brown, ADRIAN J., F.R.S. (1867-1919). He spent the early years of
his life at Burton-on-Trent. Trained as a chemist under Frankland at
the Royal College of Chemistry, he was appointed in 1874 as chemist to
Salt & Co., Brewers, Burton-on-Trent, and subsequently directed the de-
partment of fermentation at Birmingham University. He published a
number of important papers on fermentation and hydrolysis.
Burton, F. M. (1829-1912). Well known as an all-round naturalist,
a fellow of the Linnaean and Geological Societies, Burton lived in Lin-
colnshire most of his life, and from 1859 was at Gainsborough. The
author of many papers dealing with Lincolnshire geology, he was the dis-
coverer of the Rhaetic beds at Gainsborough, a discovery which he an-
nounced at the Nottingham Meeting of the British Association in 1866.
He was president of the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union.
CARTWRIGHT, REV. EpMuND, D.D. (1793-1823), b. Marnham, Notts.
Educated at Oxford, he was rector of Goadby Marwood in Leicestershire
(1779-1808). In 1785 he took out a patent for his first invention, a
power hand loom. He later invented a wool combing machine and
practically ruined himself trying to develop the use of these two inven-
tions. In 1809 a timely vote of £10,000 from the Exchequer made him
independent and he spent the rest of his life farming and inventing new
machines. d. Hastings.
CORDEAUX, JOHN (1831-1899), b. Foston Rectory, Leicestershire. In
1860 he settled at Great Coles, Lincolnshire, and earned a reputation as
Lincolnshire’s most widely known naturalist. He specialised in ornith-
ology and took a leading part in the British Association enquiry, instituted
in 1880, into the subject of bird migration as observed on the coasts of
Great Britain and Ireland. He was president of the Yorkshire and
Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Unions, and among his publications on ornith-
ology was a book on Birds of the Humber District (1872).
104 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
DaRWIN, Erasmus, M.D., F.R.S. (1731-1802). The grandfather of
Chas. Darwin, he was born at Elston Hall, Notts. He was educated at
Chesterfield and Cambridge and studied medicine at Edinburgh. Failing
to set up a practice at Nottingham he moved to Lichfield, where he
prospered, and later to Derby. He founded the Philosophical Society at
Derby (1784) and his publications included Zoonomia or the Laws of
Organic Life (1794-6), and Phytologia or the Philosophy of Agriculture
and Gardening. He had a fertile mind and a wide range of interests in-
cluding botany, mechanics and sanitation. His third son, Robert Waring
(father of Charles) was a successful physician and was also an F.R:S.
Erasmus died at Breadsall Priory, Derby.
DEERING, CHARLES, M.D. (1695-1749), b. Saxony. Graduating at
Leyden he practised for some years in Belford, London and Rochester,
and in 1736 settled in Nottingham, where he remained till his death. A
pioneer botanist in Nottinghamshire, he produced a Catalogue containing
some 840 entries and from which were taken most of the references to
Nottinghamshire plants in botanical works published in the latter half of
the eighteenth century. He assisted Dillenius, the then Sherardian pro-
fessor at Oxford, to compile his Historia Muscorum.
DupDLEy, Dr. HaRoLpD W., O.B.E., F.R.S. (1887-1935), b. Derby. Edu-
cated at Truro College, King Edward VI Grammar School, Morpeth,
and Leeds University. He worked on anti-gas research during the Great
War, and afterwards became head of the department of biochemistry at
the Lister Institute. He worked on the active principle of the posterior
lobe of the pituitary body. He held the office of secretary of the Bio-
chemical Society from 1922 to 1924. d. London.
FLINDERS, MATTHEW (1774-1814), b. Donington, Nr. Boston, Lincs.
From 1795 to 1803 he explored the coast-line of Australia. He had
great natural gifts as a surveyor and became one of the best hydrographers
in the history of the navy. His original surveys of large parts of the
Australian coast form the basis of modern charts. He was one of the
first to investigate errors of the compass due to iron in ships. d. London.
FRANKLIN, SIR JOHN, F.R.S. (1786-1847), b. Spilsby, Lincs. He assisted
Matthew Flinders (qg.v.) in his observations in the South Pacific and
began his career as an Arctic explorer in 1818. In 1819 he traversed
North America from Fort York to the mouth of the Coppermine and
returned through the Barren Lands barely escaping with his life. Shortly
afterwards he was elected F.R.S., and the account of his expedition is
one of the most classic of travel books. He led a second expedition to
North America (1825-27) and after a period at home and in Australia
he set out on his last expedition to the Arctic (1845) on which he and the
whole party were lost. He has been credited with the discovery of the
North West Passage.
FROBISHER, SIR MARTIN (1535-1594), b. Altofts, Yorks. An explorer
of great fame, he was given an estate at Finningley, North Notts., in
recognition of his great national services as a pioneer in navigation.
On his search for the North West Passage (1577) he was accompanied by
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 105
EDWARD FENTON (d. 1603) who was born at Sturton-le-Steeple, Notts.,
and who later (1582) commanded a small fleet sent out on a similar quest.
GILBERT, SIR JosEPH H., D.Sc., F.R.S. (1817-1901), b. Hull. He was
the son of the minister of Friar Lane Chapel, Nottingham, where
he spent his boyhood. Trained at Glasgow as an analytical chemist,
he worked for a time at University College, London. He was associated
for 57 years (1843-1900) with Sir John Lawes in agricultural experiments
at Rothamsted which Lawes had established as the first agricultural
experimental station in the world. He was elected F.R.S. in 1860, and
was Professor of Rural Economy at Oxford for 6 years (1884-1890).
d. Harpenden.
GREATOREX, THOMAS, F.R.S. (1758-1831), b. near Chesterfield, Derby.
He was organist and choirmaster of Carlisle Cathedral (1780-84) and
later of Westminster Abbey (1819-31). He spent most of his time study-
ing science and was elected F.R.S. for discovering a new way of measur-
ing the altitude of mountains. d. Hampton.
GREEN, GEORGE (1793-1841), b. Sneinton, now a part of Nottingham.
The windmill in which probably he and certainly his father worked still
stands and, thanks to the beneficence of Mr. O. W. Hind, has been pre-
served as a memorial to Green. He graduated B.A. at Cambridge in
1837 and was elected to a fellowship in 1839. He has been described as
“a mathematician who stood head and shoulders above all his com-
panions in and outside the University ’.
Hat, MarsHALt, M.D., F.R.S. (1790-1857), b. Basford Hall, Notts.
Educated at Edinburgh and abroad, he practised as a doctor in Notting-
ham for 8 years and then in London where he specialised in nervous dis-
eases. One of his most important discoveries was that of reflex action.
Though his theories in physiology met with opposition from the Royal
Society, he was admitted as a Fellow in 1832. He published numerous
scientific and medical works and devised a method of artificial respiration.
d. Brighton, buried Nottingham.
HARGREAVES, JAMES (1718-1788), b. Blackburn. In 1764 he invented
the spinning jenny and four years later settled in Nottingham where he
established a cotton mill, possible the first of its kind, in Wollaton Street.
Like Arkwright (q.v.) he suffered attacks from hand spinners who burnt
his house, destroyed his machines and forced him to leave the district.
HAWKESLEY, THOMAS (1807-1893), b. Arnold, near Nottingham. Edu-
cated at Nottingham Grammar School and self-taught in mathematics,
chemistry and geology, he was articled as an architect and became an
engineer concerned mainly with water, gas and drainage. He settled in
London in 1852 and remained water engineer for Nottingham where he
instituted the first constant supply.
- HEATHCOAT, JoHN (1783-1861), b. Duffield. near Derby. Apprenticed
to a hosiery maker at Long Whatton, Leicestershire, he later acquired a
machinery business at Nottingham. In 1803 he removed to Hathern
where he invented a lace machine which had the reputation of being the
most complicated machine ever produced. He later moved to Lough-
106 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
borough where he made many improved models of his machines most
of which were destroyed during the Luddite Riots (1816). This drove
him to Tiverton in Devon, where he settled peacefully and where he
died. Among his many other inventions was a self-narrowing stocking-
frame.
HERON, SIR ROBERT (1765-1854), b. Newark. A Whig politician, he
sat in parliament from 1812-1847. He was a keen student of natural
history and he maintained a collection of curious animals known locally
as his menagerie. His observations especially on peacocks, were often
quoted by Darwin. His notes on natural history were published posthu-
mously together with notes on politics and social economy. d. Stubton
Hall, Lincs.
HIND, Henry Y. (1823-1908), b. Nottingham. With his cousin John
R. Hind (below) he was educated privately till he was fourteen. After a
short period abroad and at Cambridge he went to Canada and in 1853
became professor of chemistry and geology at Trinity University, Toronto.
He was frequently engaged by the Canadian Government for important
surveys including the river system of Labrador, the geology of New
Brunswick and the goldfields of Nova Scotia. He was the discoverer of
the enormous cod banks off the Labrador coast above the straits of Belle
Isle, and he charted the movements of cod and other fishes. d. Windsor,
Nova Scotia.
HIND, JOHN R., F.R.S. (1823-1895), b. Nottingham. At the age of
twelve he began to observe the stars, and at sixteen he began to write
articles about them in the Nottingham Journal. He entered the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich in 1840, and from 1844 till the time of his death
was Director of the Observatory founded by George Bishop in Regent’s
Park and later removed to Twickenham. He superintended the Nautical
Almanac from 1853-1891. He was elected F.R.S. in 1863 and was Presi-
dent of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1880. His publications on
astronomy were numerous. d. Twickenham.
Hopson, ERNEST WM., F.R.S. (1856-1933), b. Derby. Educated first
at Derby School and then at the Royal College of Science, London,
Hobson went into residence at Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1874 and in
1878 was Senior Wrangler. In 1883 he was made one of the first Uni-
versity lecturers in mathematics, and from 1910 till 1931 he was Sadleirian
professor. Elected F.R.S. in 1893 he served twice on the Council, and
he was also President of the London Mathematical Society. Of his five
books, all published after he was 50, his greatest was Theory of Functions
of a Real Variable, which introduced to English readers the modern
theories of measure and integration, and has been described as probably
the most important book written by a modern mathematician.
HOLDER, REV. WM., F.R.S. (1616-1698), b. Nottingham. Having taken
a degree at Cambridge, he obtained the rectory at Bletchington, Oxford,
and was later collated to Ely Cathedral. He made a name for himself
by teaching a deaf mute to speak and mainly as a result of this he was
elected F.R.S. in 1663. Subsequent to his famous experiment he wrote
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 107
widely on deafness and speech. He was a brother-in-law of Sir Christo-
pher Wren in whose education he had a considerable share. d. Hertford.
JOHNSON, MAurRICE (1688-1755), b. Ayscoughfee Hall, Spalding. Ad-
mitted to the Inner Temple in 1705, he was called to the bar in 1710 but
lived chiefly at Spalding engaged in antiquarian pursuits. He founded
literary societies at Spalding (1709) and Stamford (1721), and the revival
of the Society of Antiquaries, London (1717) was largely due to his efforts.
He read numerous papers before the Society from 1721-1755 and was
Honorary Librarian for a time.
JOHNSON, THOMAS (1600-1644), b. Yorkshire. He spent part of his
youth in Lincolnshire, and returned to it to make botanical surveys. An
apothecary in London, he was also a botanist of note, his reputation
being made by ‘a very much enlarged edition of Gerard’s Herball’, and
Mercurius Botanicus. The latter with several lesser works comprised
what is regarded as the first British Flora, and were the first English
publications which described botanical journeys and listed the plants of
any one well defined area.
Jowett, THomas (1801-1831), b. Colwick. - Though he died at an early
age, Jowett, who was trained to be a doctor, did much valuable botanical
work in the county. His Botanical Calendars gave localities for over a
thousand plants, some of which were not previously recorded, and his
herbarium, preserved in the Bromley House Library, Nottingham, con-
tains many plants no longer to be found in the county. His co-worker
GopFREY Howitt, a Nottingham doctor, who emigrated to Australia,
published, in 1839, Nottinghamshire Flora.
Lee, Rev. WILLIAM (d. 1610?), b. Calverton, Notts. Educated at
Cambridge, he had a charge at Calverton, where, in 1589, he invented
the stocking frame. He later moved to London with his invention but,
as he had little encouragement there, he was tempted across to France
by Henry IV where he thrived till the King’s assassination. d. Paris.
LisTER, MARTIN, F.R.S. (1636-1712), b. Radcliffe, Bucks., of Yorkshire
parents. Educated privately and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, Lister
had close associations with Lincolnshire and lived for some time at Bur-
well. He was appointed second Physician in ordinary to Queen Anne.
A competent zoologist, he did much pioneer work on Lincolnshire natural
history. His chief work was Historia sive synopsis methodica conchy-
liorum.
Lowe, Epwarp J., F.R.S. (1825-1900). He lived at Highfield House,
Nottingham, now the residence of the Principal of University College.
He began to make meteorological observations at the age of 15 and at 21
he published A Treatise on Atmospheric Phenomena. He was also
interested in astronomy and conchology, and in connection with the
former he built Broadgate House, Beeston, for use as an observatory.
He was one of the founders of the Royal Meteorological Society.
MIDDLETON, REV. THos. F., F.R.S. (1769-1822), b. Kedleston, Derby-
shire. The son of the rector there he was educated at Christ’s Hospital
and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Consecrated Bishop of Calcutta in
108 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
1814, he was the first Anglican Bishop in India, where he did much to
advance education by organising schools. Before leaving England he
edited The Country Spectator and British Critic. He was elected F.R.S.
in 1814. d. Calcutta.
MoyseEy LEwis, B.A., M.B., F.G.S. (1869-1918). Educated at Repton
School and Cambridge. Practised as medical doctor in Nottingham for
many years. Was deeply interested in the Palaeontology of the Coal
Measures. He devised a method of cracking ironstone nodules which
enabled him to make an extensive collection of rare fossils. After soak-
ing in water and freezing them he dropped them in boiling water. By
his collections and writings he made valuable contributions to Upper
Carboniferous palaeontology. At the outbreak of the War he volun-
teered for service and as a Captain in the R.A.M.C. he lost his life in
the hospital ship ‘Glenart Castle’ which was torpedoed in the Bristol
Channel on 26th February 1918.
MUNDELLA, ANTHONY J. (1825-1897), b. Leicester. He settled in
Nottingham, held civic offices, entered Parliament and was President of
the Board of Trade in 1886 and from 1892-94. An early supporter of
compulsory education he was identified with the Elementary Education
Act of 1870 and the so-called Mundella Code of Education (1882). He
was also active in factory, mining and other legislation.
NEWTON, Sir Isaac, F.R.S. (1642-1727), b. Woolsthorpe, near Gran-
tham. Educated at Grantham Grammar School he showed early interest
in mechanics and mathematics. Admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge,
in 1661, he was elected a Fellow in 1667, and Lucasian Professor
in 1672, in. which year he became F.R.S. His law of universal
gravitation was completed in 1685 and the first edition of Principia ap-
peared in 1687. He was M.P. for Cambridge University 1689-90 and
1701-2, Warden of the Royal Mint 1694, Knighted 1705. In 1703 he
was elected President of the Royal Society, an office which he held for
25 years. The second edition of Principia was published in 1713. His
writings also included work on chemistry and theology, among other
subjects. He resigned his professorship in 1701. d. Kensington.
Percy, JoHN, M.D., F.R.S. (1817-1889), b. Nottingham. Educated
privately, in Paris, and at Edinburgh University, where he graduated in
medicine, he was elected, in 1839, physician to Queen’s Hospital, Birming-
ham. The metallurgical works in the district aroused his interest and he
studied metallurgy intensely. In 1848 he invented a method of extracting
silver from ores which led to the van Patera and Russell processes. In
1851 he became lecturer in metallurgy in the Metropolitan School of
Science (later Royal School of Mines) and taught most of the metallur-
gists of his time. In 1864 he published Jron and Steel, the first book of
its kind, a classic in which was presented all then known about metal-
lurgical processes. He was elected F.R.S. in 1847. d. Bayswater.
PLumMpTRE, HENRY, M.D., F.R.S. (d. 1746), b. Nottingham. A pensioner
of Queen’s College, Cambridge, of which he was later elected a Fellow,
he was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1708,
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 109
and, after holding several junior offices, was President from 1740 to 1745.
He was physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, and he contributed to the
fifth Pharmacopoeia Londinensis which appeared in 1746. His son
RUSSELL PLUMPTRE (1709-1793) was Regius Professor of Physic at Cam-
bridge.
RANSOM, WILLIAM H., M.D., F.R.S. (1824-1907), b. Cromer, Norfolk.
Educated privately and at University College, London, he was a fellow
student of Huxley. He studied in Paris and in Germany, and taking his
medical degree in London (1850) settled in Nottingham where, for 36 ©
years, he was Physician to the General Hospital. He was elected F.R.S.
in 1870 for his great knowledge of physiology, particularly for original
observations on ovology, his candidature being supported by Huxley, Paget
and Lister. His chief contributions were made to pure science in early
life as he later became absorbed in professional duties. He assisted in
British Association researches on Derbyshire Caves. d. Nottingham.
ROOKE, Mayor HayMaN, F.R.S. (d. 1806). Rooke lived near Mansfield
and was a well-known meteorologist and antiquarian. He published
various papers on camps and earthworks in Nottinghamshire and on
Sherwood Forest.
SPENCER, HERBERT (1820-1903), b. Derby. The only surviving child of
a schoolmaster, Spencer was educated partly at a day school and partly
privately by his uncle. Before definitely embarking on a career of writing
he was first a teacher and then a railway engineer and inventor. After
a phase of newspaper and essay writing, he settled down in 1857 to write
out his system of philosophy, First Principles being completed in 1862.
Among his numerous books on philosophy, ethics, and science, are the
following :—Principles of Psychology (1855); Education (1861) which has
been translated into all the chief languages of the world; Principles of
Biology, in writing which he had the co-operation of Huxley and Hooker.
SHIPMAN, JAMES (d. 1901). Assistant Editor of the Nottingham Daily
Express, he devoted his spare time to the examination of the numerous
temporary exposures of rocks made during excavations in and around
the city, and accumulated much valuable local geological and archaeologi-
cal information, some of which is recorded in the Transactions of the
Nottingham Naturalists, The Midland Naturalist and several books. He
fostered open air science by organising a rambling club.
StruTr, Epwarb, F.R.S., 1st Baron Belper (1801-1880), b. Derby.
The son of William Strutt (below), he was educated at Cambridge where
he was President of the Union Society, read law and took an M.A. degree.
He spent most of his leisure studying science and particularly sociology
and economics. He represented Derby and Nottingham in Parliament
and was in turn High Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant of Notts. He was
created Baron Belper in 1856, and in 1871 was appointed President of
University College, Londen. In middle age he was an authority on
questions of free trade, law reform and education. He was elected
F.R.S. in 1860, and was also a Fellow of the Geological and Zoological
Societies. d. London.
110 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT
STRUTT, JEDIDIAH (1726-1797), b. South Normanton, Derbyshire. He
invented a ribbing machine, and joined Samuel Need, hosier, of Notting-
ham, in business there and at Derby. Both were associated with Ark-
wright (above) in the development of the cotton spinning frame and
opened the first mill at Nottingham. Strutt also established mills at
Belper, Milford and Derby and greatly improved the manufacture of
calico.
STRUTT, WILLIAM, F.R.S. (1756-1830). Eldest son of Jedidiah Strutt
(above), he inherited much of his father’s mechanical genius. He worked on
systems of ventilating and heating large buildings and invented the
Belper stove which was the most efficient stove of its kind. He also
invented a self-acting spinning mule. A close friend of Erasmus Darwin
and other well-known scientists of the day, he was elected F.R.S. for his
inventive genius. d. Derby.
STUKELEY, WILLIAM, F.R.S. (1687-1765), b. Holbeach, Lincs. Edu-
cated at Holbeach Free School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
he studied surgery at St. Thomas’s Hospital, practised for a time in
Boston (1710-1717) and then moved to London. Well known as an
antiquary he became F.R.S. in 1717 and, the following year, helped to
found the Society of Antiquaries of which he became Secretary. In 1724
he published Jtinerarium Curiosum. In 1729 he was ordained and held
livings in Stamford, Somerby and London. d. London.
TENNANT, JAMES (1808-1881), b. Upton, near Southwell. When he was
still a boy his family moved to Derby where he was apprenticed to a
dealer in minerals whose business he later acquired. He attended lec-
tures in London by Michael Faraday on whose recommendation he was
appointed lecturer in mineralogy at King’s College, London (1838). He
was also lecturer in mineralogy and geology at Woolwich (1850-1867).
He was appointed mineralogist to Queen Victoria in 1840 and supervised
the recutting of the famous Koh-i-noor diamond. He wrote papers on
fossils and precious stones. d. London.
THOROTON, ROBERT (1623-1678). Born of a family who had long held
property in Nottinghamshire he practised as a doctor at Car Colston, but,
confessing that he was unable ‘to keep people alive for any length of
time’ he turned ‘to practise on the dead’. He began work in 1667 on
his Antiquities of Nottinghamshire which was published ten years later
and brought him a good reputation as an antiquary. d. Car Colston.
VIGANI, JOHN F. (1650-1712), b. Verona. After travelling throughout
Europe acquiring a knowledge of medicine and pharmacy he came to
England in 1682, married an Englishwoman and settled down at Newark.
In 1683 he began to give private tuition in chemistry at Cambridge and
was appointed professor (the first) in 1703. He was a skilled experi-
menter and a successful teacher especially in materia medica, and he
made useful observations on antimony and the distillation of acetic acid.
He retired to Newark where he died.
WILLUGHBY, FRANCIS, F.R.S. (1635-1672), b. Middleton, Warwick. He
belonged to the family of Willughbys of Wollaton, and took his arts
SCIENTISTS OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 111
degrees at Cambridge. In 1662 he travelled with John Ray in the north
Midlands assisting in the work of compiling a catalogue of British plants;
and in 1663 they went abroad together to collect a complete catalogue
of animals and plants. Many of Willughby’s specimens are still pre-
served in Wollaton Hall. He was one of the original Fellows of the
Royal Society (1663). After his death, at Middleton, his notes on birds,
insects and fishes were published by John Ray. Willughby is considered
to have been the first to treat the study of birds as a science and his
classification is said to be without doubt the system on which Linnaean
classification was based.
WILLUGHBY, PERCIVALL (1596-1685), b. Wollaton Hall, Notts. The
sixth son of Sir Percivall Willughby, he was educated at Rugby, Eton
and Oxford, and having trained as a doctor he settled down in Derby
where he acquired a very high reputation for his knowledge of and skill
in obstetrics. He left manuscripts on obstetrics in English and Latin,
one of which was translated into Dutch. A man of high culture and
powerful intellect he was a friend of most of the scientific men of the
century. d. Derby.
Printed in England by
J. & H. Becx Lrp.,
CARLTON STREET,
NOTTINGHAM.
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INDEX
References to addresses, reports, and papers printed in extended form are
given in italics.
* Indicates that the title only of a communication ts 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.
Absolute rates of reaction of large
molecules, by Dr. Henry Eyring, |
338.
A.C. method specification in per-
meability measurement, by Dr.
eG fA. Sims;395),,527-
Activation of specific bonds on
surfaces, by Prof. H. S. Taylor,
338*, 579.
Adult education, discussion by Prof.
R. Peers, J. F. Horrabin and
W. E. Williams, 437.
Aeolian deposits of Lower Bunter,
Anglo-Saxon invasion in light of
early Welsh poetry, by Kenneth
Jacksen, 397.
Anglo-Saxon population of England,
by Dr. G. M. Morant, 398.
_ Animal dietary experiments applied
Worcestershire and E. Shrop- |
_ Anthropology and administration,
shire, by F. W. Shotton, 354.
Agricultural geography of Holland, |
Lincs., by G. I. Smith, 376.
Agriculture, changes in, as_ illus-
trated by central Derbyshire, by
Dr. H. C. K. Henderson, 376.
Agriculture, present economic posi-
tion of, by A. H. Brown, 440.
Agriculture, State intervention in, by
J. M. Caie, 249, 440*.
Alexander Pedler Lecture, 518*.
Algz of pond margins, by J. W. G.
Lund, 434.
Algebra, unification of, in schools,
discussion by Prof. E. H. Neville,
G. L. Parsons, M.H.A. Newman,
and W. J. Langford, 344, 579.
Altitude record flight, by A. Swan, |
392, 521.
Amalgams, magnetic properties of,
by Prof. L. F. Bates, 341, 579.
Amphioxus, digestive system, by
E. J. W. Barrington, 367.
to problems of human nutrition,
by Dr. A. L. Bacharach, 408*.
Annual meetings, table, xii.
Answer patterns, by Dr. D. A.
Walker, 420, 522.
Anterior pituitary and secondary
sexual characters, by Prof. E. A.
Spaul, 371*.
Kingsley Roth,
Fos-
discussion by
G. E. Harvey and H. A.
brooke, 401.
Anthropometric survey of Somerset
by Prof. W. W. Jervis and S. J.
Jones, 398.
Apparent enlargement of the setting
sun, by Dr. Vaughan Cornish,
374-
| Aquatic and marsh plants of India
and Burma, by K. P. Biswas,
432.
ARMSTRONG, A. L., Climatic varia-
tions in the Pleistocene, 355.
Palzolithic man in Notting-
hamshire, 395.
p-Arsanilic acid, new derivatives of,
by Sir G. T. Morgan and E.
Walton, 347, 520.
| Artemia salina, report on, 291.
Assam origins in relation to Oceania,
by Prof. J. H. Hutton, 161, 399*.
x
114
Astpury, Dr. W. 'l’., X-ray in-
terpretation of protein structure,
349.
ATz_LeER, Prof. Dr. E., Die Bedeutung
der Ernahrung fiir die Leistungs-
steigerung, 409*, 522.
, Einige Beobachtungen uber
die ermudungsbekampfende
Wirkung von _ Colopraparaten,
410%, 522.
Australites, by Dr. C. Fenner, 356.
AweseryY, J. H., Refrigeration and
everyday life, 341.
BacuaracH, Dr. A. L., Animal
dietary experiments applied to
problems of human _ nutrition,
408*.
Bacteria, luminescence of, by Prof.
Dr. A. J. Kluyver, 421.
Bacterial diseases, chemotherapy of,
by Prof. Dr. H. HGrlein, 346.
BalLy, Prof. F. G., University grad-
uates and engineering industry,
391" 52".
Baker, Dr. J. R., Sex ratio in wild
animals of New Hebrides, 362.
BALLarD, Dr. P. B., Intelligence tests
and examinations, 420*, 522.
Bantu tribe, a new, by H. A.
Fosbrooke, 399.
BARRINGTON, E. J. W., Digestive
system of Amphioxus, 367.
BaTEeMaAN, E. H., Analysis of elastic
structure, 391, 527.
Bates, Prof. L. F., Magnetic prop-
erties of amalgams, 341, 579.
BeaDLeE, L. C., Growth and differ-
entiation of hydroid tissues, 368,
520.
BEAVER, S. H., Mineral resources of
Notts. and Lincs., 359*.
Beginnings of town life in Britain, by
Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, 512.
BENNETT, Miss A., Ecology of lime-
stone pavements at Hutton Roof
and Tarleton, 429.
BERNAL, Dr. J. D., X-rays and food
and chemical industries, 334.
BEVERIDGE, Sir Wm., Co-operation
of business men in advancement
of economics, 385*.
Brew ey, Dr. W. F., Science and the
glasshouse industry, 444.
INDEX
Biological work, co-ordination of,
by J. Ramsbottom, 454*.
Bird songs, by L. Koch, 365.
Birds of Paradise, courtship display
of, by C. R. Stonor, 364, 365*.
Biswas, K. P., Aquatic and marsh
plants of India and Burma, 432.
BLACKMAN, G. E., Technique of
pastureland experiments, 432.
Blood groups, report on, 304.
Boletus elegans, growth on gelatin
media, by Miss J. E. How, 434*.
Bonp, Dr. G., nitrogen fixation by
leguminous root nodules, 428,
523.
BoNNELL, Dr. D. G. R., Porous
building materials, 352, 579.
Boron and plant disease, by Dr.
W.E. Brenchley, 424, 523.
BoswELL, Prof. P. G. H., Planning
the land of Britain, 489.
Botanical nomenclature, evolution
and recent progress of, by Miss
M. L. Green, 428.
Botanist as a help to the forester,
discussion by F. W. Young, Dr. J.
Burtt Davy and others, 436*.
BraDLey, Dr. A. J., X-rays and
permanent magnet industry, 334.
Bracc, Sir Wm., X-ray methods
and industry, 333.
BRENCHLEY, Dr. W., Boron and
plant disease, 424, 523.
Composition of herbage from
seeds mixtures, 431.
Brookes, A., Gas-absorption prob-
lems during annealing of low
carbon iron, 341.
Brown, A. H., Present economic
position of agriculture, 440.
Brown, Dr. W., Hypnosis, suggesti-
bility and progressive relaxation,
417, 522.
BRUNT, Prof. D., Importance of the
upper air in meteorology, 339.
Building materials, symposium on
chemistry of, by Dr. R. E.
Stradling, Dr. F. M. Lea, Dr.
J. S. Dunn, F. H. Clews, H. H.
Macey, Dr. G. R. Rigby and
Dr. D. G. R. Bonnell, 531, 579.
Buitenzorg Botanic Garden, by Sir
A.W. Hill, 421*.
Bulbs under glass, by A. W. White,
444.
INDEX
Burkitt, M.
caves, 300.
Burns, Mrs. C. M., Physiological
cost of reproduction, 408.
C., on Derbyshire
Burns, Prof. D., Physiology and
health, 408.
Burrows, W. O., Industrial Notting-
ham, Appdx. 38.
Business experience and economists’
assumptions, by R. F. Harrod, 384.
Butter, J., Paleolithic horizon in’
22
Holland, 397, :
Catz, J. M., State intervention in
agriculture, 249, 440*.
Cain and Abel, by Prof. H. S.
Hooke, 403, 522.
Calcium sulphate plasters, by Dr.
J. S. Dunn, 351, 579.
CaLver, Dr. G., Diagnostic and
therapeutic value of play, 419.
CaMPBELL, Dr. A. H., Lophoder-
mium macrosporum and Picea
excelsa, 425.
Canadian development, significant
factors in, by Prof. H. A. Innis,
388.
Carr, Prof. J. W., Botany of Notting-
hamshire, Appdx. 66.
, Zoology of Nottinghamshire,
Appdx. 76.
CarROLL, Prof. J.
eclipse observing, 349, 519.
Cart-front designs, by C. F. Tebbutt,
403.
CaTTELL, Dr. R. B., Psychometric
versus intuitive approach in study
of personality, 413, 522.
Cephalopods, higher nervous centres |
of, by J. Z. Young, 366.
Ceramic evidence for Anglo-Saxon
Conquest, by J. N. L. Myres, 397.
Cuapwick, Mrs. N. K., Poetic
inspiration and the trance of the
seer, 340, 522.
Chafers of Nottingham and Lincoln-
shire, by A. Roebuck, 370%, 520.
Cuampsers, Dr. J. D., Growth of
Modern Nottingham, Appdx. 3.
— Occupying owners in Lindsey,
389.
Chemical exploration of the upper
atmosphere, by Dr. F. Paneth,
339%, 519.
A., Modern |
115
Chemistry of building materials,
symposium by Dr. R. E. Strad-
ling, Dr. F. M. Lea, Dr. J. S.
Dunn, F. H. Clews, H. H.
Macey, Dr. G. R. Rigby and
Dr. D. G. R. Bonnell, 351, 579.
Chemotherapy, recent research in, by
Dr. F. L. Pyman, 57, 346*.
Chemotherapy, symposium on, by
Dr, FF. Li PymaneProfang Et
HGrlein, Sir G. T. Morgan, E.
Walton, Dr. W. Kikuth and Prof.
R. Robinson, 346.
Cuesters, C. G. C., Fungi with a
Libertella imperfect stage, 425,
434, 523.
Chicago experiments, by Prof. C.
Spearman, 414*, 522.
CHILDE, Prof. V. G., Vitrified forts,
407.
Children’s drawings, by Dr. Hilda
Oldham, 419.
Chladni designs produced by solid
carbon dioxide, by Miss M. D.
Waller, 342, 519.
Chlorophyll deficient mutants in red
clover, by R. D. Williams, 433.
Chromosome behaviour and taxo-
nomic groups, by H. D. Slack,
37°.
Circular points and elementary
geometry, by Prof. W. H. McCrea,
345, 519.
Cladophora ball, by A. D. Cotton,
Crark, J. G. D., Earliest settlement
of northern Europe, 396.
Clay, some important properties of,
by F. H. Clews, H. H. Macey and
Dr. G. R. Rigby, 352, 579.
CLews, F. H., Some important
properties of clay, 352, 519.
CiirForD, Mrs. E. M., Long
barrows in the Cotswolds, 407.
Curt, S. G., Geology of Nottingham
district, 353*, Appdx. 45.
—— Mineral resources of Notting-
hamshire, 358.
Climatic variations in the Pleisto-
cene, by A. L. Armstrong, 355.
CocuraneE, Dr. F. E., Activity of
genes in development, 370, 520.
CoLuins, Dr. Mary, Tests in com-
mon use for the diagnosis of colour
defect, 207, 416*.
116
Colour changes in Elasmobranchs, |
by H. Waring, 371.
Colour defect, tests in common use for |
the diagnosis of, by Dr. Mary
Collins, 207, 416*.
Colour vision, fundamental facts of,
by Dr. F. W. Edridge-Green, 410,
522.
Cotson, Dr. B., Photomicrographs
of fungi, 434*.
Compensation for lack of ability,
symposium by T. A. Rodger, Dr.
E. Miller and Dr. J. Rickman,
418, 522.
Conifer scales, anatomy of, by Prof.
R. B. Thomson, 433, 523.
Continuous hardness test, by E. G.
Herbert, 394, 52.
Copepoda, seasonal movements of,
by Dr. F. D. Ommaney, 368.
CorNIsH, Dr. VAUGHAN, Apparent
enlargement of the setting sun,
374-
Coronagraphy, by
Waterfield, 341*.
Corresponding Societies, conference of
delegates, 446.
COTTON,
from Ireland, 434*.
Council Report, 1936-7, xviii.
Dr age AL:
CoweELL, Prof. S. J., Aims and |
methods of nutritional science,
09.
CRANFIELD, H. T., Liming and soil |
fertility, 443.
Crew, Prof. F. A. E., Genetica
aspect of crossing over, 423.
The sex ratio, 95, 362*.
Crop estimating and forecasting, by
F. Yates, 442, 524.
Crossing over, genetical aspect of,
by Prof. F. A. E. Crew, 423.
Crossing over, mechanism of, by Dr.
C. D. Darlington, 423, 520.
CroxaLL, H. E., Fungi with a
Libertella imperfect stage, 425,
434™, 523.
CuLtis, Prof. WINIFRED, Knowledge
of body’s working the basis of
healthy living, 411*, 474. |
CUMBERLAND, B., Livestock
distribution in Craven, 377,
521.
Cytology and genetics, report on,
208.
A. D., Cladophora ball |
INDEX
DANIELLI, Dr. J. F., Permeability of
cells, 338*, 579.
DaRLINGTON, Dr. C. D., Mechanism
of crossing over, 423, 520.
Darwin’s village, historical geo-
graphy of, by Dr. O. J. R.
Howarth, 378.
Daviess, E. R., Action of light on
photographic materials, 335, 519.
Davies, Miss G. N., Effect of zinc
sulphate on dwarf French beans,
423, 523.
Davies, J., Teaching of geology in
schools, 361.
Davies, Wm., Grassland improve-
ment, 431.
Davis, Prof. W., Physical properties
of knitted fabrics, 343.
Davy, Dr. J. Burtt, How the botanist
can help the forester, 436*.
Day, W. R., Forestry problems
near industrial areas, 436*.
Death benefit and industrial assur-
ance, by Prof. H. Hermann Levy,
388.
DEBENHAM, Miss E. M., Stem apices
of Selaginella arenicola, 434*.
DENNISON, S. R., Labour trans-
ference, "382%.
State control of industrial
location, 389, 521.
Derbyshire caves, report on, ‘300.
DescLos, A., Education for the
community, 439*.
Design of motor vehicles and traffic
safety, by L.H. Pomeroy, 394, 52I.
De-toxication of bacterial toxins, by
Dr. A. C. Frazer and Dr. H. C.
Stewart, 410.
Developers, action of, in photo-
graphy, by S. O. Rawlings, 336.
Development, genetical control of,
by E. B. Ford, 423*.
Dickinson, Prof. Z. C., Co-opera-
tion of business men in economic
research in U.S.A., 385*.
Differential geometry, by Prof. H.S.
Ruse, 345, 519.
Distance, effect on apparent velocity,
by Dr. R. H. Thouless, 414.
Distribution, expenses of, and con-
sumers’ control, by H. G.
Selfridge, Jun., 387.
| Distribution, Irish census of, by
Prof. B. F Shields, 386.
INDEX
of,
Distribution, trial by
H. T. Weeks, 387.
census
Dovedale, what it means to the |
botanist, by Prof. F. E. Weiss, 454.
Drummonp, H. J. H., Palzolithic
discoveries in India, 396.
Duckuam, A. N., Marketing policy,
441, 524.
Dunn, Dr. J. S., Calcium sulphate
plasters, 351, 579.
Earliest settlement of Northern
Europe, by J. G. D. Clark, 396.
Eclipse observing, by Prof. J. A
Carroll, 340.
Ecology of limestone pavements at
Hutton Roof and Tarleton, by
Miss A. Bennett, 429.
Ecology of Trent and tributaries, by
J. Inglis Spicer, Appdx. 95.
Economic research and _ industrial
policy, by Prof. P. Sargant
Florence, 129, 384*.
Economic research in U.S.A., co-
operation of business men in, by
Prof. Z. C. Dickinson, 385*.
Economics, co-operation of business |
men in ‘advancement of, by Sir
Wm. Beveridge, 385*.
EpRIDGE-GREEN, Dr. F. W., Colour
vision and colour blindness, 410,
522,
Education for the community, dis-
cussion by Sir Frank Fletcher,
Mrs. Elsie Parker, A. Desclos and
Dr. Graefer, 438.
Education, informative content of, by
HiG: Wells, 2B7MASTT
Educational function of the Uni-
versity, discussion by Sir Richard |
Livingstone and Prof. M. Gins-
berg, 439, 524.
Epwarpbs, K. C., Climate of Notting-
hamshire, Appdx. 56. .
—— Economic aspects of the Trent,
Appdx. 99.
— Geography of Nottingham,
a3739 52I.
Mineral resources of Notts.
and Lincs., 359*, 520.
Nottingham and its region,
Appdx. 25.
Elastic structure, analysis of, by
E. H. Bateman, 391, 521.
1i7
Electrical vibrations and television,
by Prof. E. W. Marchant, 393, 527.
Electrochemistry of proteins and
amino-acids, by Dr. A. Neuberger,
350.
Engineering industry, training of
university graduates for, discus-
sion by Prof. F. G. Baily, A. P. M.
Fleming and Dr. W. Jackson, 391,
52I.
Engineering, research in, by Sir
Alex. Gibb, 151, 391*.
Estate woodlands, present and future
of, by Hon. N. A. Orde-Powlett,
435, 523.
Evening discourse, 457.
Everyday physics in Canada,
Prof. J. Satterly, 342.
Evolutionary thought, history of, by
Sir Edward Poulton, 1.
Excavations at Petra, by Dr. M.
Murray, 406.
Experimental Zoology at Birming-
ham University, by R. J. Whitney,
368.
Eyrinc, Dr. Henry, Absolute rates
of reaction of large molecules, 338.
by
Faper, Dr. O., Heating and air
conditioning, 392, 52I.
Face and jaws of a medieval and
post-mediezval population, by
Miss M. L. Tildesley, 399.
Factors in likes and dislikes for
work, 416.
Fawcett, Prof. C. B., Changing dis-
tribution of population, 115, 374*.
, Mineral resources of Notts.
and Lincs., 359*.
, Natural and cultural regions,
378*.
FEARNSIDES, Prof. W. G., Report on
work of Critical Sections Com-
_ mittee, 359%.
Mineral resources of Notts.
_and Lincs., 359*.
_ Fenner, Dr. C., Australites, 356.
|
| Films, biological, by Dr.
Film on industrial physics at the
National Physical Laboratory, 341.
Film reactions as biological models,
by Prof. E. K. Rideal, 338*.
D. Ilse,
Dr. J. S. Huxley and H. R.
Hewer, 365*.
xX 2
118
Films, visible adsorbed, in the field
of biology, by Dr. Irving Lang- |
muir, 337, 579.
Fish, effect of washings from tarred
roads upon, by C. H. Roberts,
363.
FisHER, Prof. R. A., on Artemia
salina, 291.
FITZHERBERT, J. 'T’., Waste of poten-
tial timber supplies in private
woodlands, 436*, 523.
FLEMING, A. P. M., Training of
university graduates for engineer-
ing industry, 391, 527.
FLETCHER, Sir F., Education for the |
community, 438*.
FLEURE, Prof. H. J.,
groups, 304.
FLORENCE, Prof. P. Sargant, Eco-
nomic research and industrial policy,
129, 384*.
Flux distortion in iron testing, by
J. Greig and J. E. Parton,
Ste
Foce, W., Tribal market in Spanish
Morocco, 406, 522.
Folklore in France, by A. Varagnac
and G. Riviére, 406.
Folk tales, background of Central
African, by Dr. A. N. Tucker,
Forses, A. C., Tree remains and
post-glacial climate, 437, 523.
Forp, E. B., Genetical control of
development, 423*.
Forest working plan for the National
Trust, by B. Pollard-Urquhart,
435*, 523.
Forestry problems near industrial
areas, by W. R. Day and R. G.
Sanzen-Baker, 436*.
Fosprooke, H. A., A new Bantu
tribe, 399.
, Anthropology and administra-
tion, 401*.
FRANKLIN, C. H. H., Hypersolid
concepts, 346.
Frazer, Dr. A. C., De-toxication of
bacterial toxins, 410.
Frienp, Dr. G. E.,
health, 409*, 522.
Fritscu, Prof. F. E., on Windermere
Biological Station, 297.
Fruit-infesting sawflies of Britain,
by Dr. H. W. Miles, 369, 520.
Indices of
on Blood |
INDEX
Fungi, photomicrographs of, by
Dr. B. Colson, 434*.
Fungi with a Libertella imperfect
stage, by C. G. Chesters, H. E.
Croxall and Miss K. M. Keene,
425, 434*, 523.
| VON ForER-HAIMENDORF, Dr. C.,
Field work among Konyak Nagas
of Assam, 400.
GarDNER, R. C. B., Preservative
treatment of estate timber, 435*,
523.
GarNETT, Miss A., Sunshine and
human geography of Alpine val-
leys, 381.
Garry, Prof. R. C., Human physi-
ology in teaching of biology, 411,
482.
| Garwoop, Prof. E. J., on Geological
photographs, 274.
Gas-absorption problems during
annealing of low carbon iron, by
A. Brookes, 341.
General Treasurer’s Account, xxvi.
Genes, activity of, in development,
by Dr. F. E. Cochrane, 370.
Genetics and cytology, recent work
in, symposium by Dame Helen
Gwynne-Vaughan, Prof. F. A. E.
Crew, Dr. C. D. Darlington, E. B.
Ford and others, 365*, 422.
Genetics and taxonomy, discussion
by Dr. W. B. Turrill, W. J. C.
Lawrence, Prof. J. R. Matthews,
Dr. T. J. Jenkin and Dr. J. W.
Gregor, 426, 523.
Geological photographs, report on,
274.
Geology in schools, discussion by
Prof. A. E. ‘Trueman, Prof.
H. G. A. Hickling, V. C. Spary
and J. Davies, 359, 440*.
Geology in schools, report on teaching
of, 281.
Geology of Nottingham district, by
Prof. H. H. Swinnerton, S. G.
Clift and P. E. Kent, 353*.
Geometry, discussion on bearing of
higher, on the school course, by
Prof. H. T.H. Piaggio, Prof. E. H.
Neville, H. G. Green, Prof. W. H.
McCrea and Prof. H. S. Ruse,
344, 519.
INDEX
Gips, Sir Alex., Research in En-
gineering, 151, 391*.
GILL, Dr. N. T., Viability and dor-
mancy of weed seeds, 425.
GINSBERG, Prof. M., Social science
and philosophy in the universi-
ties, 439, 524.
Globular proteins, structure of, by
Dr. D. M. Wrinch, 350, 520.
GrRakEFER, Dr., Education for the
community, 439*, 524.
Grant, Mrs. K., Migrations of
hawkmoths, 369.
Grass and the national food supply,
by Dr. R. E. Slade, 457.
Grassland improvement, by Wm.
Davies, 431.
GREEN, H. G., George Green, the
mathematical physicist, 336.
Infinity in Euclidean geo-
metry, 345, 519.
GREEN, Miss M. L., Evolution and
progress of botanical nomencla-
ture, 428.
Green Man in church architecture,
by Lady Raglan, 403.
Grecor, Dr. J. W., Genetics and
taxonomy, 428*, 434*.
Grecory, Sir Richard, Science in
adult education, 440*.
Greic, J., Flux distortion in iron
testing, 395*, 52I.
GrirFitus, Dr. Ezer, Refrigeration
and everyday life, 341, 579.
on Thermal conductivities of
rocks, 273.
Growth-promoting substances and
horticulture, by Dr. M. A. H.
Tincker, 426, 434*, 523.
GWYNNE-VAUGHAN, Dame Helen,
on Cytology and Genetics, 298.
Incompatibility, 423.
Gypsum deposits of the Vale of
Eden, by Dr. S. E. Hollingworth,
355:
Happon, Dr. A. C., Discussion on |
Assam origins and Oceania, 401.
Haite, W. H., Drainage system of
Trent Catchment Area, 442*.
Engineering problems of Trent
Catchment Board, 392*, 527.
River Trent Catchment Board, |
Appdx. go. |
| HASLEGRAVE, Dr.
119
Hau, Sir Daniel, Planning the land
of Britain, 494, 521.
Hat, Prof. E. R., Variations in
American stoats, 371*, 520.
Harpy, Miss E., Pollen analysis and
archeology, 405.
HarINGTON, Prof. C. R., Organic
chemistry and protein structure,
348.
Harmer, Sir Sidney, on Zoological
record, 296.
Harris, Prof. T. M., Naiadita, a
strange fossil Bryophyte, 429,
434™, 523.
Harrop, R. F., Business experience
“and economists’ assumptions, 384.
Harvey, G. E., Anthropology and
administration, 401.
H. L., Sleeve
bearing lubrication, 393, 527.
Hawkmoth migrations, by Mrs. K.
Grant, 369.
Hearing, evolution of, by Dr. R. J.
Pumphrey, 371.
Heat production, nutrition and growth
in Man, by Dr. E. P. Poulton, 185,
408*.
Heating and air conditioning, by
Dr. O. Faber, 392, 521.
HeENpeERSON, Dr. H. C. K., Changing
agriculture as illustrated by cen-
tral Derbyshire, 376.
Herbage, ultimate composition of,
from various seeds mixtures, by
Dr. W. E. Brenchley, 431.
HERBERT, E. G., Continuous hard-
ness test, 394, 521.
Hick inc, Prof. H. G. A., Teaching
of geology in schools, 360.
Hitz, Sir A. W., Botanic Garden,
Buitenzorg, Java, 421*.
— Rhododendron adenopodum,
434*.
History and geography, relations of,
by F. G. Morris, 378.
Hotianp, L., Mining timber in
service, 436*, 523.
Ho.LiincwortH, Dr. S. E., Gypsum
deposits of the Vale of Eden,
355
Ho.mes, F. A., Dovedale, 455.
Hooke, Prof. S. H., Cain and Abel,
403, 522.
Hopkins, S. J., Small meals and
muscular metabolism, 410*.
120
HOriEIN, Prof. Dr. H., Chemo-
therapy of bacterial diseases, 346.
Hormones, réle in growth and re-
production of insects, by Dr. V. B.
Wigglesworth, 371, 520.
HorraBin, J. F., Adult education,
438, 524.
Horticulture, development of, in
glasshouses and frames, by H. V.
Taylor, 443.
How, Miss J. E., Growth of Boletus
elegans on gelatin media, 434*.
HowartH, Dr. O. J. R., Historical
geography of Darwin’s village,
Downe, Kent, 378
Hume, Capt. C. W., Rabbit problem |
in Britain, 455.
Hutton, Prof. J. H., Assam origins
in relation to Oceania, 161, 399*.
Houx.ey, Dr. J. S., Planning the land |
of Britain, 491.
Hydraulic cements, by Dr. F. M. |
Lea, 351, 519.
Hydroid tissues, growth and differ-
entiation of, by L. C. Beadle, 368,
520.
Hypersolid concepts, by C. H. H.
Franklin, 346.
Hypnosis, suggestibility and pro-
gressive relaxation, by Dr. W.
Brown, 417, 522.
Ise, Dr. D., Sense physiology and
habits of butterflies, 365*, 372*.
Incompatibility, by Dame Helen
Gwynne-Vaughan, 423.
Indices of health, by Dr. G. E.
Friend, 409*, 522.
Industrial location, State control of,
by S. R. Dennison, 389, 527.
Infant behaviour, development of, |
by Dr. G. Seth, 420*.
Infinity in Euclidean geometry, by
H. G. Green, 345, 579.
Informative content of education, by
H. G. Wells, 237, 437*.
INNIs, Prof. H. A., Factors in
Canadian development, 388.
Intelligence tests and examinations,
by Dr. P. B. Ballard, 420%,
522,
Irish census of distribution, by Prof.
B. F. Shields, 386.
INDEX
Jackson, Kenneth, Anglo-Saxon in-
vasion in light of early Welsh
poetry, 397.
Jackson, Dr. W., University grad-
uates and engineering industry,
391, 521.
Jetty, G. A., Small meals and
muscular metabolism, 410*.
JENKIN, Dr. 'T. J., Breeding affinities
and cytology of Lolium species,
433, 434*.
, Genetics and systematics, 427.
Jervis, Prof. W. W., Anthropo-
metric survey of Somerset, 398.
Jones, C. J., Merchanting of
mining timber, 436*, 523.
Jones, E. M., Sex and flower
variations in Ranunculus, 435*.
Jongs, Prof. J. H., Planning the land
of Britain, 497.
Jones, Martin, Response of plants
to animal interference, 432, 523.
Jones, S. J., Anthropometric survey
of Somerset, 398.
, Prehistoric settlement phase
in Rio Grande Valley, 378.
Kaye, Dr. G. W. C., Noise and the
nation, 25, 335*.
KEENE, Miss K. M., Fungi with a
Libertella imperfect stage, 425,
434*, 523.
KEITH, Sir A., on Kent’s Cavern, 299.
KENDALL, O. D., Mineral resources
of Notts. and Lincs., 359*.
KENNEDY, G. C., Small meals and
muscular metabolism, 410*.
Kent, P. E., Geology of Nottingham
district, 353*, Appdx. 45.
Kent’s Cavern, report on, 299.
Kermack, Dr. W. O., Secular trends
in sex ratio, 363*.
KrxutH, Dr. W., Experimental
chemotherapy of malaria, 348.
Ktuyver, Prof. Dr. A. J., Lumin-
escence of bacteria, 421.
| Knitted fabrics, physical properties
of, by Prof. W. Davis, 343.
Kocu, L., Bird songs, 365.
Kotter, Dr. P. C., Sex determining
mechanism, 363.
Konyak Nagas of Assam, field work
among, by Dr. C. von Firer-
Haimendorf, 400.
INDEX
Labour transference, discussion by
H. Wolfe, S. R. Dennison, Dr.
QO. A. Oeser and A. D. K. Owen,
381.
Lance, Dr. K. C., Harvard radio-
meteorographs and aeroplane
meteorographs, 339*.
LANGFORD, W. J.,
algebra, 344, 519.
LaNcmuir, Dr. Irving,
adsorbed films in the
biology, 337, 579.
Visible
field of
Latent image formation, a theory of,
by Prof. N. F. Mott, 336.
LAWRENCE, W. J. C., Genetics and |
taxonomy of garden plants, 427, |
523.
Lea, Dr. F. M., Problems in study
of hydraulic cements, 351, 519.
Levy,
general education, 440*.
Levy, Prof. H. Hermann, Death
benefit and industrial insurance,
388.
Lewis,
function of questions in a child’s
speech, 418.
Liming and soil fertility, by H. T.
Cranfield, 443.
Limosella in Britain, by Miss E.
Vachell, 435*.
LINDERSTROM-LANG, Dr. K., Pro-
teolytic enzymes, 349*, 520.
Linton, D. L., Origin of rivers of
southern England, 374.
Livestock distribution in Craven, by
K. B. Cumberland, 377, 527.
LiviIncsToNE, Sir R., Educational
function of the University, 439,
524.
Locxuart, Dr. L. P., Physiology as
part of general education, 412,
485*, 522.
Lolium species, breeding affinities
and cytology of, by Dr. T. J.
Jenkin and Dr. P. T. Thomas,
433, 434*.
Long barrows in the Cotswolds, by
Mrs. E. M. Clifford, 407.
Lophodermium macrosporum and
needles of Picea excelsa, by A. E.
Vines and Dr. A. H. Campbell,
425.
LoweE, D. N., Scientists of Notting-
ham and district, Appdx. 102.
Teaching of |
I2!I
Lunp, J. W. G., Alge of pond
margins, 434.
Lycopods, extinct, morphology of
rhizophoric parts of, by Prof. J.
Walton, 429.
Lycopods, living, morphology of
rhizophoric parts of, by Dr. S.
Williams, 428.
| McCrea, Prof. W. H., Circular
points and elementary geometry,
345, 519. ‘
MacponaLp, J., Future supplies of
mining timber in Britain, 436%,
523.
MacDona.p, Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay,
Science and the community, 500.
| MacLgon, Brig. M. N., Recent work
Prof. H., Technical and |
Dr. M. M., Origin and |
of Ordnance Survey, 380.
Macey, H. H., Some important
properties of clay, 352, 519.
Maceeg, Dr. H., Cultural and utili-
tarian importance of physiology,
411, 478.
Magic, psychological origins of, by
Prof. J. Murphy, 404.
| Magnetic properties of amalgams, by
Prof. L. F. Bates, 341, 579.
Malaria, experimental chemotherapy
of, by Dr. W. Kikuth, 348.
MarcHant, Prof, E. W., Electrical
vibrations and television, 393, 52I.
Marine geological laboratory, ad-
vantages of, by Dr. Rudolf
Richter, 359, 520.
Marketing policy in agriculture, by
A. N. Duckham, 441, 524.
MarsHAa.L., A. J., Sex ratio in wild
animals of New Hebrides, 362.
Mathematical tables, report on, 272.
Mattuews, Prof. J. R., Specific
segregation and distribution, 427,
523.
Maute, H. G., Movement study in
industry, 415, 522.
Meteorographs, Harvard radio and
aeroplane, by Dr. K. C. Lange,
339*.
Mica, recent thermal and X-ray
work on, by R. W. Powell and
W. A. Wood, 335.
Mites, Dr. G. H., Salesmanship,
416.
Mites, Dr. H. W., Fruit-infesting
sawflies of Britain, 369, 520.
122
Miter, Dr. E., Compensation for
lack of ability, 418*.
Mineral resources of Nottingham-
shire and Lincolnshire, discussion
by Prof. H. H. Swinnerton, S. G.
Clift, Dr. D. A. Wray, Prof. W. G.
Fearnsides, O. D. Kendall, S. H.
Beaver, K. C. Edwards and Prof.
C. B. Fawcett, 357, 377%.
Mining sites in Wales, report on,
301.
Mining timber, symposium by L. |
Holland, J. Macdonald, J. T.
Fitzherbert, Dr.
_and C. J. Jones, 436%, 523.
MITCHELL, J. H., Selection of sales
managers, 415.
Modern eclipse observing, by Prof.
J. A. Carroll, 340, 579.
Molecules, large, absolute rates of
reaction of, by Dr. Henry Eyring,
Mookrg, Prof. ’T. V., Synthetic sense
and intelligence, 413.
Morant, Dr. G. M., Anglo-Saxon
population of England, 398.
Morgan, Sir G. T., New derivatives
of p-arsanilic acid, 347, 520.
Morphology of North Downs and
Chiltern Hills, by Dr. S. W.
Wooldridge, 373.
Morris, F. G., Relations of history
and geography illustrated by
British colonies in America, 378.
Motivation in choice of a career, by
Miss M. D. Vernon, 417, 522.
Mott, Prof. N. F., A theory of
latent image formation, 336.
Movement and position in the
insect, by J. W. S. Pringle, 372,
520.
Movement in industry, by H. G.
Maules, 415, 522.
Mourpuy, Prof. J., Psychological
origins of magic, 404. £
Murray, J. W., Technical and
general education, 440.
Murray, Dr. M., Excavations at
Petra, 406.
Muscular exercise metabolism, effect
of small meals on, by S. J.
Hopkins, G. A. Jelly, G. C.
Kennedy and A. J. Walker, 410*.
Myres, Prof. J. L., Natural and |
cultural regions, 378*.
S. E. Wilson |
INDEX
Myress, J. N. L., Ceramic evidence
for Anglo-Saxon conquest, 397.
Naiadita, a strange fossil Bryophyte,
by Prof. T. M. Harris, 429, 434,*
523.
Narrative of Meeting, xvi.
National Trust, forest working plan
for, by B. Pollard-Urquhart, 435*,
523.
Natural and cultural regions, dis-
cussion by Prof. P. M. Roxby,
Dr. L. Dudley Stamp, Prof. C. B.
Fawcett, Prof. J. L. Myres,
H. J. E. Peake, Lord Raglan and
R. U. Sayce, 378*, 404*, 527.
Natural history, outlook of, by Prof.
J. Ritchie, 446.
Neolithic problems, by H. J. E.
Peake, 407*, 522.
NEUBERGER, Dr. A., Electrochemistry
of proteins and amino-acids, 350.
NEVILLE, Prof. E. H., Algebra in
schools, 344*, 519.
, Influence of the university on
school geometry, 345, 519.
, on Mathematical tables, 272.
Newman, M. H. A., Algebra course
as seen from the university, 344*,
519.
Nitrogen fixation by leguminous root
nodules, by Dr. G. Bond, 428, 523.
Noise and the nation, by Dr.
G. W. C. Kaye, 25, 335*.
Norman Lockyer Lecture, 512.
Nottingham and its region, by K. C.
Edwards, Appdx. 25.
Nottingham, education in, by A. H.
Whipple, Appdx. 19.
Nottingham, geography of, by K. C.
Edwards, 373.
Nottingham, growth of modern, by
Dr. J. D. Chambers, Appdx. 3.
Nottingham, industries, by A. Radford
and W. O. Burrows, Appdx. 38.
Nottingham, municipal life of, by
J. E. Richards, Appdx. 9.
Nottingham, scientists of, by Prof.
H. H. Swinnerton and D. N.
Lowe, Appdx. 102.
Nottinghamshire, agriculture,
H. G. Robinson, Appdx. 81.
Nottinghamshire, botany, by Prof.
J. W. Carr, Appdx. 76.
by
INDEX
123
Nottinghamshire, climate, by K. C. / Parton, J. E., Flux distortion in
Edwards, Appdx. 56.
Nottinghamshire, geology, by Prof.
H. H. Swinnerton, S. G. Clift and
P. E. Kent, Appdx. 45.
Nottinghamshire, underground water
supply, by R.
Appdx. 88.
Nottinghamshire, zoology,
J. W. Carr, Appdx. 76.
Novak, Dr. V. J., Topographical
features and sedimentary deposits,
361, 520.
Nutritional science, aims and _
methods of, by Prof. S. J. |
Cowell, 409.
Occupying owners in Lindsey, by |
J. D. Chambers, 389.
OxrserR, Dr. O. A., Psychological
aspects of labour transference, 382.
Officers and Council, v.
Officers, Sectional, ix.
OutpHaM, Dr. Hilda,
drawings, 419.
Ommaney, Dr. F. D., Seasonal
movements of Copepoda, 368.
Operating cost comparisons,
Prof. A. Plant, 385.
OrvE-Pow ett, Hon. N. A., Present
and future of estate woodlands,
435,523.
Ordnance Survey, recent work of,
by Brig. M. N. MacLeod, 380.
by
Outlook of natural history, by Prof. .
J. Ritchie, 446.
Owen, A. D. K., Social conse-
quences of industrial transfer-
ence, 383.
Palzolithic discoveries in India, by
H. J. H. Drummond and T. T.
Paterson, 396.
Paleolithic horizon in Holland, by
J. Butter, 397, 522.
Paleolithic man in Nottingham-
shire, by A. L. Armstrong, 395.
PaneTtH, Dr. F., Chemical explora-
tion of the upper atmosphere,
339%, 519.
PARKER, Mrs. E., Education for the
community, 439.
Parsons, G.
344™, 519.
C. S. Walters, | 3
| Pastureland experiments, technique
by Prof. |
Children’s | Personality questionnaires, by Dr.
L., Elementary algebra, /
|
|
iron testing, 395*, 527.
Pasture problems, discussion by Sir
John Russell, Dr. W. E.
Brenchley, Wm. Davies, G. E.
Blackman and Martin Jones, 430,
445*
of, by G. E. Blackman, 432.
PaTERSON, T. T., Paleolithic dis-
coveries in India, 396.
Peake, H. J. E., Natural and cul-
tural regions, 378*.
Neolithic problems, 407*, 522.
on Mining sites in Wales, 301.
Peers, Prof. R., Adult education in
democracy, 437.
PENTELOwW, F. T. K., Growth of
trout in acid waters, 364.
Permeability of cells, by Dr. J. F.
Danielli, 338*, 579.
Personality, psychometric versus in-
tuitive approach to study of, by
Dr. R. B. Cattell, 413, 522.
P. E. Vernon, 416, 522.
Peziza rutilans, asci, by Miss I. M.
Wilson, 424, 435*, 523.
Puetps, Dr. H. J., The specificity
of the reaction of the living cell,
338.
PuiLpot, J. St. L., Ultracentrifugal
investigation of proteins, 350.
Photo-electric control in industry,
by A. L. Whiteley, 340.
Photographic materials, action of
light on, by E. R. Davies, 335, 579.
Photography, action of developers
in, by S. O. Rawlings, 336.
Phylogenetic problems, evidence
used in, by Dr. S. Williams, 422.
Physical properties of knitted fabrics,
by Prof. W. Davis, 343.
Physiological cost of reproduction,
by Mrs. C. M. Burns, 408.
Physiology and general education, dis-
cussion by Prof. Winifred Cullis,
Dr. H. Magee, Prof. R. C. Garry
and Dr. L. P. Lockhart, 411, 474.
Physiology and health, discussion by
Prof. D. Burns, Drv Ae L:
Bacharach, Mrs. C. M. Burns,
Dr. G. E. Friend, Prof. Dr. E.
Atzler and Prof. S. J. Cowell, 408,
522
124
Praccio, Prof. H. T. H., Higher
geometry and the school course,
344™, 529.
PIcKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Dr. A. W., on
Science in adult education, 305.
Pit-prop situation, by Dr. S. E.
Wilson, 436*, 523.
Planning the land of Britain, discus-
sion by Dr. L. Dudley Stamp,
Prof. P. G. H. Boswell, J. S.
Huxley, Prof. E. J. Salisbury, Sir
Daniel Hall, Sir Roy Robinson and
Prof. J. H. Jones, 361*, 372*, 380*,
389*, 435*, 445%, 486.
Piant, Prof. A., Operating cost
comparisons, 385.
Plants, modern study of, in relation
to education, by Prof. E. J.
Salisbury, 227, 421*.
Plasmatic inheritance, by Dr. M. J.
Sirks, 421, 523.
Play, diagnostic and therapeutic
value of, by Dr. G. Calver, 419.
Pleistocene history of W. Midlands,
by Prof. L. J. Wills, 71, 355*.
Poetic inspiration and the trance of
the seer, by Mrs. N. K. Chadwick,
340, 522.
POLLARD-URQUHART, B., _ Forest
working plan for the National
Trust, 435*, 523.
Pollen analysis and archeology, by
Miss E. Hardy, 405.
Pomeroy, L. H., Design of motor
vehicles and traffic safety, 394, 52I.
Population changes in _ colliery
districts, Northumberland and
Durham, by A. E. Smailes, 379,
52r.
Population, changing distribution of,
by Prof. C. B. Fawcett, 115, 374*.
Populations from crossing ethnic
groups, by J. C. Trevor, 399.
Porous building materials, by Dr.
D. G. R. Bonnell, 352.
PouLTon, Sir Edward, History of
evolutionary thought as recorded in
meetings of British Association, 1.
Poutton, Dr. E. P., Heat produc-
tion, nutrition and growth in man,
185, 408*.
PowELL, R. W., Thermal
X-ray work on mica, 335.
and
Prehistoric settlement phase in Rio |
Grande Valley, by S. J. Jones, 378.
INDEX
Preservative treatment of estate
timber, by R. C. B. Gardner,
435*, 523.
Presidential Address,
Edward Poulton, 1.
Prevention of steamy shop windows,
by Dr. H. A. Stevenson, 342.
PRINGLE, J. W. S., Movement and
position in the insect, 372, 520.
Prognostic value of school examina-
tions, by T. E. Stubbins, 420.
Prosobranch Gastropoda, by Prof.
C. M. Yonge, 366, 520.
Protein chemistry, symposium by
Prof. C. R. Harington, Dr. K.
Linderstrom-Lang, Dr. W. T.
Astbury, Dr. D. M. Wrinch, Dr.
A. Neuberger and J. St. L.
Philpot, 348, 520.
Proteolytic enzymes, by Dr. K.
Linderstrom-Lang, 349*, 520.
Pumpurey, Dr. R. J., Evolution of
hearing, 371.
PyEFINCH, K. A., Wollaton Park
Lake, physico-chemical survey of,
364, 520.
Pyman, Dr. F. L., Recent research in
chemotherapy, 57, 346*.
The, by Sir
Questions in a child’s’ speech,
origin and early function of, by
Dr. M. M. Lewis, 418.
: Rabbit problem in Britain, by Capt.
W. C. Hume, 455.
RapForD, A., Industrial Nottingham,
Appdx. 38.
Radford Mather Lecture, 500.
Racian, Lady, The Green Man in
church architecture, 403.
RaGLan, Lord, Natural and cultural
regions, 378*.
RAMSBOTTOM, J., Co-ordination of
biological work, 454*.
RANDALL, J. T., X-rays and electrical
industry, 334.
RaPHAEL, Mrs. W., Factors in likes
and dislikes for work, 416.
Rawtines, S. O., Action of de-
velopers in photography, 336.
Red rocks of North Midlands,
origin of, by Dr. R. L. Sherlock,
353, 520.
INDEX
Refrigeration and everyday life, by
Dr. Ezer Griffiths and J. H. |
Awbery, 341, 579. |
Regional differences between S.W.
and S.E. Lancs., by F. Walker,
380.
Reports on state of science, 265.
Reptile-bearing oélite of Stow, report
on, 290.
Reptilian bones from odlite near
Stow-in-the Wold, by Prof. S. H.
Reynolds, 356, 520.
Research Committees, xliii.
Research Committees’ Reports, 265.
Resolutions and recommendations,
xl viii.
Response of plants to animal inter-
ference, by Martin Jones, 432,
523.
Retail distribution, discussion by
Brot. Ave Plant? Prof. B., .F.
Shields, H. T. Weeks and H. G.
Selfridge, Jun., 385.
Retail price maintenance, by T. H.
Silcock, 390.
ReynNotps, Prof. H. S., Reptilian
bones from Odlite near Stow-in-
the-Wold, 356, 520.
, Rhetic and associated strata
at Chipping Sodbury, 357, 520.
Rhetic and associated strata at
Chipping Sodbury, by Prof. S. H.
Reynolds, 357, 520.
RicHarpDs, J. E., Municipal life of
Nottingham, Appdx. 9.
RiIcHARDSON, Dr. L. F., Electrical
model of ,reciprocal inhibition,
412.
Ricuey, Dr. J. E., Tuffs of Ben
- Hiant, 356, 520.
RicHTER, Dr. Rudolf, Advantages of
a Marine Geological Laboratory,
359, 520.
RickMAN, Dr. John, Processes
governing psychical compensa-
tion, 418.
RIpEAL, Prof. E. K., Film reactions
as biological models, 338*.
Ricsy, Dr. G. R., Some important
properties of clay, 352, 579.
RitcuHi£, Prof. J., Outlook of natural
history, 446.
Rivers of southern England, origin
of, by D. L. Linton, 374.
RrivikzreE, G., Folklore in France, 406.
125
Robert Hooke’s services to car-
tography, by Prof. E. G. R.
Taylor, 372, 522.
Roserts, C. H., Effect on fish of
rain washings from tarred roads,
363.
ROBINSON, Principal H. G., Agricul-
ture of Nottingham district, 442.
, Agriculture of Nottinghamshire,
Appdx. 81.
RosInson, Prof. R., Chemotherapy,
348*.
| RoBInson, Sir Roy, Planning the
land of Britain, 494.
Ropcer, A., Compensation for lack
of ability, 418*, 522.
Rogsuck, A., Chafers of Notting-
ham and Lincolnshire, 370*, 520.
Rooxssy, H. P., X-rays and electrical
industry, 334.
Rope-twisters, by R. U. Sayce, 404.
RotnH, Kingsley, Anthropology and
administration, 401*.
Roxsy, Prof. P. M., Natural and
cultural regions, 378*.
, Terrain of early
civilisation, 375, 52I.
Ruse, Prof. H. S., Differential geo-
metry, 345, 519.
RUSSELL, Sir John, Pasture prob-
lems, 430.
Chinese
| SAINTY, J. E., Long mound at West
Runton, 404*.
Salesmanship, by Dr. G. H. Miles,
416.
SALISBURY, Prof. E. J., Modern study
of plants in relation to education,
225. AZT.
——, Planning the land of Britain,
492.
SANZEN-BaKER, R. G., Forestry
problems near industrial areas,
436*.
| SARGENT, J., Technical and general
education, 440*.
SATTERLY, Prof. J., Everyday physics
in Canada, 342.
Sawflies, fruit-infesting,
H.W. Miles, 369.
Sayce, R. U., Natural and cultural
regions, 378*.
, Rope-twisters, 404.
by Dr.
126
Science and the community, by Rt.
Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, 500.
Science and the glasshouse industry,
by Dr. F. W. Bewley, 444.
Science in adult education, report on, |
305.
Science in adult education, report by
Sir Richard Gregory, 440*.
Scientific survey of Nottingham and
district, Appdx. 1-111.
Scientists of Nottingham and district, |
by Prof. H. H. Swinnerton and
D. N. Lowe, Appdx. 102.
SecrETT, F. A., Production of early
vegetables and salads under glass,
4.
Seismological investigations, report on,
265.
Selaginella arenicola, stem apices,
by Miss E. M. Debenham, 434*.
Selection of sales managers, by
J. H. Mitchell, 415.
SELFRIDGE, H. G., Jun., Consumers’
control and expenses of distribu-
tion, 387, 52I.
Sense physiology and habits of
butterflies, by Dr. D. Ilse, 365*,
372".
SETH, Dr.
infant behaviour, 420*.
Sex ratio, by Prof. F. A. E. Crew,
95, 362*.
Sex ratio, discussion by A. J.
Marshall, Dr. J. R. Baker, Dr.
W. O. Kermack, Dr. A. Walton,
Dr. P. C. Koller, Dr. E. B. Ford,
Dr. C. Gordon and Mr. and Mrs.
Culwick, 362.
SHEARER, Dr. G., X-rays and metal
industry, 333.
SHERLOCK, Dr. R. L., Origin of Red
Rocks of North Midlands, 353,
520.
SHIELDS, Prof. B. F., Irish census of
distribution, 386.
SHoTTON, F. W., Aeolian deposits,
Lower Bunter of ‘Worcestershire
and E. Shropshire, 354.
Sitcock, T. H., Retail price main-
tenance, 390.
Simpson, Miss C. A., Trackways,
407*, 522.
Sims, Dr. L. G. A., A.C. method in |
permeability measurement, 395,
521.
G., Development of |
INDEX
Srrks, Dr. M. J., Plasmatic in-
heritance, 421, 523.
Stack, H. D., Chromosome be-
haviour and taxonomic groups,
370.
Stabe, Dr. R. E., Grass and the
national food supply, 457.
Sleeve bearing lubrication, by Prof.
H. W. Swift and Dr. H. L.
Haslegrave, 393, 522.
Smal_es, A. E., Population changes
in colliery districts, Northumber-
land and Durham, 379, 52I.
Situ, G.I., Agricultural geography
of Holland, Lincs., 376.
Sounding balloon, experiment by
Prof. D. Brunt, 339.
Spary, V. C., Teaching of geology
in schools, 361.
SPAUL, Prof. E. A., Anterior pitui-
tary and secondary _ sexual
characters, 371*.
SPEARMAN, Prof. C., The Chicago
experiments, 414*, 522.
| Specificity of the reaction of the
living cell, by Dr. H. J. Phelps,
338.
Spectrum of extreme limb of the
sun, by Dr. A. D. Thackeray, 340,
519.
Spicer, J. INciis, Ecology of the
Trent and its tributaries, Appdx.
95-
Stamp, Dr. L. D., Natural and
cultural regions, 378*, 527.
Planning the land of Britain,
486, 521. .
| State intervention in agriculture, by
J. M. Caie, 249, 440*.
STEVENSON, Dr. H. A., Prevention
of steamy shop windows, 342,
579. ?
Stewart, Dr. H. C., Detoxication of
bacterial toxins, 410.
Stonor, C. R., Courtship display
of Birds of Paradise, 364
365*.
STRADLING, Dr. R. E., Chemistry
of building materials, 351*,
519.
STuBBINS, T. E., Prognostic value
of school examinations, 420.
Sunshine and human geography of
alpine valleys, by Miss A.
Garnett, 381.
INDEX
Surface action in biology, sym-
posium by Dr. Irving Langmuir,
Dr. Henry Eyring, Prof. H. S.
Taylor, Prof. E. K. Rideal, Dr.
je ba Daniellitand Dr. -H: J.
Phelps, 337, 351*, 411*, 519.
Swan, A., Problems of the altitude
record flight, 392, 52I.
Swit, Prof. H. W., Sleeve bearing |
lubrication, 393, 522.
SWINNERTON, Prof. H. H., Geology
of Nottingham district, 353%,
Appdx. 45.
Mineral resources of Notting-
hamshire and Lincolnshire, 357.
Scientists of Nottingham and
district, Appdx. 102.
Synthetic sense and intelligence, by
Prof. T. V. Moore, 413.
TayLor, Prof. E. G. R., Services of
Robert Hooke to cartography,
372, 521.
Taytor, Prof. H. S., Activation of
specific bonds on surfaces, 338%,
519.
Taytor, H. V., Development of
horticulture in glasshouses and
frames, 443.
Taxonomy, expansion of, by Dr.
W. B. Turrill, 426, 523.
Tessutt, C. F., Cart-front designs,
403.
Technical and general education
discussion by Prof. H. Levy, J
Sargent and J. Wickham Murray,
440.
Television, application of electrical
vibrations in, by Prof. E. W.
Marchant, 393, 52.
Terrain of early Chinese civilisa-
tion, by Prof. P. M. Roxby, 375,
521.
THACKERAY, Dr. A. D., Spectrum
of extreme limb of the sun, 340,
519.
Thermal conductivities of rocks, report
on, 273.
Tuomas,-A. N., Triassic rocks of
N. W. Somerset, 354.
Tuomas, Dr. P. T., Breeding
affinities and cytology of Lolium
species, 433, 434*.
127
TuHomson, Prof. R. B., Anatomy of
conifer scales, 433, 523.
THORNEYCROFT, W., Vitrified forts,
407.
TuHou.ess, Dr. R. H., Effect of
distance on apparent velocity, 414.
TILpEsLEyY, Miss M. L., Face and
jaws of a medizval and post-
medizval population, 399*.
Timber famine, by W. O. Wood-
ward, 435, 524.
TrnckErR, Dr. M. A. H., Growth-
promoting substances and horti-
culture, 426, 434*, 523.
Topographical features and sedi-
mentary deposits, by Dr. V. J.
Novak, 361, 520.
Trackways, by Miss C. A. Simpson,
407*.
Training of university graduates for
engineering industry, discussion
by Prof. F. G. Baily, A. P. M.
Fleming and Dr. W. Jackson,
391.
Tree remains and _ post-glacial
climate, by A. C. Forbes, 437, 523.
Trent Catchment Area, drainage
system of, by W. H. Haile, 442*.
Trent Catchment Board, by W. H.
Haile, 392*, 521, Appdx. 90.
Trent, ecology of, by J. Inglis Spicer,
Appdx. 95.
Trent, economic aspects of, by K. C.
Edwards, Appdx. 99.
TRENT, Lord, Planning the land of
Britain, 486.
Trevor, J. C., Populations derived
from crossing ethnic groups, 399.
Triassic rocks of N.W. Somerset,
by A. N. Thomas, 354.
Tribal market in Spanish Morocco,
by W. Fogg, 406, 522.
Trout, growth of, in acid waters, by
F. T. K. Pentelow, 364.
TRUEMAN, Prof. A. E., Teaching of
geology in schools, 359.
Tucker, Dr. A. N., Background of
Central African folk tales, 405,
Bok
Tuffs of Ben Hiant, by Dr. J. E.
Richey, 356, 520.
TurrRILL, Dr. W. B., Expansion of
taxonomy, 426, 523.
—— Sex and flower variations in
Ranunculus, 435*.
128
Ultracentrifugal examination of pro-
teins, by J. St. L. Philpot, 350.
Upper atmosphere, symposium on,
by Prof. D. Brunt, Dr. K. C.
Lange and Dr. F. Paneth, 339.
VACHELL, Miss E., Limosella in
Britain, 435*.
Varacnac, A., Folklore in France, |
406.
Variations in American stoats, by
Prof. E. R. Hall, 371*, 520.
Vegetables, early, production under |
| WuiTELEy, A. L., Photo-electric
glass, by F. A. Secrett, 444.
VERNON, Miss M. D., Motivation in
choice of a career, 417, 522.
VERNON, Dr. E., Personality
questionnaires, 416, 522.
Vines, A. E., Lophodermium ma-
crosporum and Picea excelsa, 425.
Vitrified forts, by Prof. V. Gordon
Childe and W. Thorneycroft, 407.
Waker, A. J., Small meals and
muscular metabolism, 410*.
Waker, Dr. D. A., Answer pat- |
terns, 420, 522.
Watxer, F., Regional differences —
between S.W. and S.E. Lancs.,
380.
INDEX
Weeks, H. T., Trial census of dis-
tribution, 387.
Weiss, Prof. F. E., What Dovedale
means to the botanist, 454.
WELLS, H. G. The informative con-
tent of education, 237, 437°.
WHEELER, Dr. Mortimer,
Beginnings of town life in Britain,
512.
WuippLeE, A. H., Education
Nottingham, Appdx. 19.
WuipP_e, Dr. F. J. W., on Seismo-
logical investigations, 265.
Wuite, A. W., Bulbs under glass,
444.
in
control in industry, 340.
WHITNEY, R. J., Experimental
zoology at Birmingham Univer-
sity, 368.
WIGGLESWorTH, Dr. V. B., Réle of
hormones in growth and repro-
duction of insects, 371, 520.
Witiiams, R. D., Chlorophyll de-
ficient mutants in red clover, 433.
Wituiams, Dr. S., Effect of
hormones on correlation pheno-
mena in Selaginella, 435*.
Evidence used in phylogenetic
problems, 422.
Morphology of rhizophoric
parts of living Lycopods, 428.
| Wituiams, W. E., Adult education,
Wa.ter, Miss M. D., Chladni de- |
signs produced by solid carbon |
dioxide, 342, 519.
Watters, R. C. S., Underground
water of Nottinghamshire, Appdx.
88
Watton, Dr. A., Experimental con-
trol of sex ratio, 363.
Watton, E., New derivatives of p-
arsanilic acid, 347, 520.
WALTON, Prof. J., Morphology of
rhizophoric parts of extinct
Lycopods, 429.
Warinc, H., Colour changes in
Elasmobranchs, 371.
WATERFIELD, Dr. R. L., Corona-
graphy, 341*.
Watts, Prof. W. W., on Teaching of |
Geology in schools, 281.
Weed seeds, viability and dormancy |
of, by Dr. N. T. Gill, 425.
438. ,
Wiis, Prof. L. J., Pleistocene his-
tory of W. Midlands, 71, 355*.
Witson, Miss I. M., Asci of Peziza
rutilans, 424, 523.
Cytology of Peziza rutilans,
435*. .
Witson, Dr. S. E., The pit-prop
situation to-day, 436*, 523.
Windermere Biological Station, re-
port on, 297.
Wo re, H., Labour transference,
381.
Wollaton Park Lake, physico-chemi-
cal survey of, by K. A. Pyefinch,
364, 520.
| Woop, W. A., Thermal and X-ray
work on mica, 335.
Woopwarb, Sir A. SMITH, on Rep-
tile-bearing oélite of Stow, 290.
Woopwarp, W. O., Timber famine,
435, 524.
INDEX
WoovpripcE, Dr. S. W., Compara- |
tive morphology of North Downs |
and Chiltern Hills, 373.
Wray, Dr. D. A., Mineral resources |
of Nottinghamshire and Lincoln- |
shire, 358.
WrincuH, Dr. D. M., Structure of
“ globular ”’ proteins, 350, 520.
X-ray interpretation of protein
structure, by Dr. W. T. Astbury, |
349.
X-ray methods and industry, sym-
posium by Sir Wm. Bragg, Dr.
G. Shearer, Dr. J. D. Bernal,
J. 'T. Randall, H. P. Rooksby, Dr. |
| YOUNG,
129
A. J. Bradley, R. W. Powell and
W. A. Wood, 333.
YATES, F., Crop estimation and fore-
casting, 442, 524.
YONGE, Prof. C. M., Prosobranch
Gastropoda, 366, 520.
Younc, D. W., How the botanist
can help the forester, 436*.
J. Z., Higher nervous
centres of Cephalopods, 366.
Zinc sulphate, effect on dwarf
French beans,, by Miss G. N.
Davies, 423, 523.
Zoological record, report on, 296.
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