THE SCIENCE CONGRESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 4, 22 August 1914, Page 4

THE SCIENCE CONGRESS.

■‘GEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY.”

DISEMBODIED MENTALITY.

AN IMPORTANT ADMISSION. [By Telegraph— Copyright] [F kited <Pbess Association.] (Received 10.20 a.m.) Sydney, August 22, A sensation was caused at the Science Congress, by Professors Wilson and David exhibiting an aboriginal’s skull which was discovered in Darling Downs, and which is believed to be 25,000 years’ old. - Professor David said it belonged to the pleistocene age being far older than any other human remains found in Australia. He concluded: '■‘‘lf we are asked: ‘ls man a geological antiquity Australia can reply.:, ‘Ye<’' " ...V..

Other scientists supported Professor .David’s deductions, and commented on the great importance of the find.

Another important announcement was the discovery that the juice of the plant euphorbia peplus acted upon a sensative photographic plate in the dark.

Sir Everard im Thurn and Professor Elliott Smith read interesting papers on the development of man. The former, dealing with Polynesians, concluded that the* ultimate cause of the decrease of natives' when in contact with civilized folk lay in a difference of hereditary mentality and the incapacity of the savage to take on civilisation quickly enough. Sir Oliver Lodge, in an interview dealing with the relation of mind to matter, said: “I have reason to say that I know of the existence of intelligences and of their powers to communicate, which are no longer associated with terrestrial bodies.” He ■added that this was a very important statement to make from the scientific side. He was now prepared to hold that science was giving an affirmative answer to the question whether we survive bodily death.

Theodore Tournier was awarded the £IOO prize for music for his Australian national song.