SIDELIGHTS ON SCIENCES

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 38, 21 March 1914, Page 4

SIDELIGHTS ON SCIENCES

A DARWIN,, /, '.ANTICIPATOR." In .'a letter to '*' Nature' * laet fell,.Gadow, of Cambridge, called attention to Friedrich Tiedemann's anticipation of Darwin's theories in a work printed in 1814. From the second volume of' Tiedemann's '' Anatomie and Naturgeschichte der Vogel'' *we quote in part; as follows; "Yery often theire arises fights between the males for the pOs-., session'"of the females. . . . These fights, which take place also between very many mammals, seem "to be very important for the conservation of a healthy progeny, since only the strongest and most vigorous' males propagate the race." Again, on late pages, appear the following paragraphs; "With eVery larger geological epoch some animals have perished. . . But it seems also that after each of such revolutions new animals have been formed* mainly—l suppose—through gradual metamorphosis and alternation of the previous remaining animals into new kinds, caused by new climatic and physical influences. . . These fossil rests of birds testify to the age of the class of birds. But since all these remnants seem to belong to extinct kinds of birds, they can be taken as proofs that in the course of time the species is just as much subject to metamorphosis as the individual.'' a set Tte measuring of intelligence by machinery, or according to some mope or less arbitrary scale, such as that devised by Binet, produces results of interest doubtless, and perhaps of educa l -' tional value. But obviously extreme I caution is required in drawing conclu-, sions from them, because of the slight understanding wo have regarding the mechanism of thought,, and of the relative importance of heredity and environment. Naturally this difficulty is even more pronounced when tho same test is applied to different races, an attempt made to appraise the. natural mental capacity of each according to its results. Where the two races have borne to each other the relation of the whites and blacks in the south for a number of generations the situation Is'still further complicated, and it may be doubted whether-environmental influences, differences in physiological age, and other subtle factors" leave much value in the findings. Josiah Morse, of the University of. South Carolina, gives, in the "Popular Science Monthly," the comparative results of some Binet tests applied to white and black children in the schools of Columbia, S.C. Here is the table summarising tjiem:—■ Coloured White per cent, per cent. More than one year backward . . i , . . 29.4 10.2 Satisfactory (up to stan-; dard) ..... .. 60.8 84.4 Mdre than one year advanced .. .. 0.8 5.3 WHERE BLACK CHILDREN FAIL. He found that the coloured children excelled in rote memory, naming words, making rhymes, and in time orientation. They were inferior to th^. whites in "eesthetic judgment, reasoning, motorcontrol, logical memory, use of words, resistance to suggestion, and in orientation or adjustment to the institutions and complexities of civilised society." Dr Morse draws his conclusions cautiously from these findings, and goes no further than to say that '' negro children from six to 12, and possibly 15 years, are mentally different, and also younger than southern white children of corresponding ages, and that this condition is partly due, at least, to causes that are native or racial."

RADIUM AND CANCER. The recrudescence of the radium cure for cancer is a difficult thing to assess. ? The connection with it of such names a-s Kelly and Abbe, argues for a high value. And vet at just this time British

and German surgeons of the highest standing, while admitting the undoubted value of radium for the treatment of some cancers, announce its utter failure in many cases, and treat it simply as :fone of the remedies worth trying. " The fact, too, that radium cancer, cures have jproved so profitable in the. hands of the quacks is calculated to render, slow; jpublie acceptance of these apparently, entirely orthodox and honest claims'. It is, of course, quite possible that the failures in the past have been caused by the Improper use of the remedyfailure properly to sort out the undesirable rays, or perhaps, lack of a sufficient amount of the precious stuff to mak3 the necessarily violent attack upon the malignant neoplasm. .At least the outcome of the more or leas spectatiulai' tests how being made should ibe awaited before even the preliminary hurrahing is done.

THE G-ILA MONSTER VENOM. Anyone interested in the advance of experimental science hesitates before giving "aidand comfort" to the antivivisectors, because if their creed were adopted there can be no doubt that the increase in our knowledge of many subjects would be very seriously hampered, if not entirely prevented. And there is nothing more certain to the man-of {average reasoning power and normal : emotions than the propriety of sacrificing some of the lower animals if thej.ej?y human life can be saved. It is true', however, that, like other huntsmen, the fact-hunter often forgets everything else in the enthusiasm of the < chase. When the hunting involves the laboratory use of the lower animals,, this intense concentration on the result sought occasionally leads to an unnecessary sacrifice of life.

H&EEPINO !EABS'' ON THE Bl&M. Mr H. F. Witherby, the editor of "British Birds," organised some time ago a scheme for keeping track of the migrations of wild birds. The readers of his magazine have ringed some 32,000 birds, and already information of a most instructive nature has resulted. Two of the most curious records of travel were made by swallows. One of these, a nestling swallow, ringed in Ayrshire in July, 1912, was captured on March 16, 1918, in the Orange River Colony, South Africa. The other swallow, an .adult bird, ringed in Staffordshire, was captured a few months later near Utrecht, Natal, about 150 miles east of the record holder. In view of these results and the recent observations of Dr. Hartert in the middle of the Sahara, Mr Witherby concludes that deserts are not, as has been hitherto supposed, a bar to migratory, birds. His swallows, he thinks, must have taken a very direct line from Great Britain to their poiiit of capture..

„ THE CHEMISTRY OF BOADS. The macadam highways not onlywear away as the result of purely physical processes, but are actually dis- v •solved away "by water carrying carbonic acid and oxygen, says Mr W. G. Fearnsides. That is, they disintegrate chemically as well as physically. In a recent lecture before the Surveyors' Institution in London Mr Fearnsides declared that this chemical disintegration was of little importance at the surface of the road, because the mechanical, wear there was so much faster. But in the foundation, upon which the real life of the road* depended, where the stones '' were often kept to stew in water for whole seasons,' * the ckemical action of water was of serious import. The rockß particularly susceptible to this action are feldspar, limestone, and those containing iron. and sulphides. This destructive chemical action of water is also particularly in evidence in the ease of slags, much used in England for road-making.