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relation has been wanting; and endeavours to extend the evidence by experiment were for a long time without result, probably in both cases because a local injury had produced extensive and general disturbance. Recently, however, Professor Ferrier, following up a clue afforded by some imperfect experiments of the German physiologists, Fritsch and Hitzig, succeeded in localizing the action of a stimulus in certain parts of the brain. His method of proceeding, as he described it to the British Association, was to place an animal under chloroform, to remove a portion of the skull and of the dura mater, or dense membrane, beneath it, and then to apply two electric conductors to the brain itself, or rather to the inner membranes which immediately cover it. In these experiments the Faradic or induced electric current had been employed, and it was found that if the current should exceed a certain strength general excitement or disturbance is produced. When, however, the current is very feeble, so that it may be presumed to flow only along the most direct path from conductor to conductor, and to influence only the portion of brain lying between them, it is found that the results are constant and definite, and that stimulation of the same part of the surface of a hemisphere produces always the same movement, not only in the same animal, but in all animals. Thus, when the conductors include one portion of brain, a front limb is moved in some determinate direction; when they include another, a hind limb is moved instead; and a great variety of actions may thus be called forth with absolute certainty, and the limbs of the unconscious animal may be played upon, so to speak, at the will of the operator. It seems that some light has already been thrown by these inquiries upon the conditions which produce epileptic and other convulsions; and, as far as can at present be determined, it is probable that Dr. Carpenter's view of the functions of the hemispheres will have to be modified or abandoned. As yet, however, it would be premature to form any definite conclusions, except that Dr. Ferrier has given to science a method of research which cannot fail to be of incalculable value, and which marks an æra in the progress of Physiology. It is almost sure that at no distant time this method will add enormously to our knowledge of the diseases of the nervous system, at once the most obscure and the most afflicting of the evils incident to humanity.

Later on in the year, Dr. Carpenter made the researches of Dr. Ferrier the subject of the Sunday Lectures which he delivered in St. George's Hall. After describing the experiments, he deduced from them a confirmation of the doctrine that the cerebrum has a proper reflex action of its own, ordinarily called forth by sensorial changes; and that this action may be exerted unconsciously, so that a connected series of cerebral modifications may take place, of which only the results come within the sphere of consciousness as ideas or emotions. As to the question whether the centres of the movements of expression are also the "organs" of the ideas or emotions which call forth those movements, the lecturer expressed himself more doubtfully. Dr. Ferrier had ingeniously endeavoured to deduce from the phenomena of aphasia (or morbid loss of the memory and power of utterance of words) an indication that such may possibly be the case, but Dr. Carpenter said he himself considered that a much, more careful analysis and classification of these phenomena would be required in order to justify such an inference, the general term " aphasia" having been used to include states which are really

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very different from each other. Much, he said, was to be hoped from the continued prosecution of the experimental inquiries which Dr. Ferrier had so well begun, and from the constant and careful observation of the phenomena of disease.

The arrangements in progress for carrying out observations on the Transit of Venus, anticipated in 1874, gave rise to a somewhat angry controversy in the public press. Mr. Proctor agitated strongly for additional guarantees of accuracy, indeed for an almost total change of plan, and wrote in the Times, "It is a common mistake to suppose that a few good observations will satisfy all requirements. But every astronomer knows that the whole matter depends on securing many observations, for not otherwise can the probable error of the result be sufficiently reduced. It was thus that the observations made in 1769, though individually affected by considerable errors, gave, in Mr. Stone's able hands, a result affected by only a small probable error.' Yet this confessedly satisfactory result (we quote from the Athenæum) was obtained from a much smaller number of observations than that which every reasonable precaution has been taken to secure in 1874. Two parties only were sent to the southern hemisphere in 1769; one of these, a French one, was unsuccessful through not reaching land before the transit came on; the other, our own, commanded by Captain Cook, made the only southern observations, which Mr. Stone long afterwards correctly reduced. Next year, on the other hand (not to speak now of other nations), three of the principal English stations (New Zealand, Kerguelen's Land, and the island of Rodriguez) are in the southern hemisphere; and we are to have other ones besides, subsidiary to these. Well, therefore, might the Edinburgh Reviewer write (in the Times of July 29), "I have been led by a somewhat careful consideration of the bearings of the case to a belief that, in all human probability, a good and entirely satisfactory result will be secured from the proceedings of the Astronomer-Royal."

In connexion with this subject we may mention M. Janssen's ingenious invention of a method for photographing the apparent contact of Venus with the edge of the sun. The photographic plate is in the form of a disc, fixed upon a plate which rotates upon an axis parallel to that of the telescope. Before it is placed another disc, forming a screen, in which is a small aperture, in order to limit the photographic action to the edge of the sun. The plate which carries the sensitive disc has 180 teeth, and is placed in communication with an escapement apparatus actuated by an electric current. At each second the pendulum of a clock interrupts the current, and the plate turns one tooth, so that at each second a fresh portion of the photographic plate is exposed. Thus, in as many seconds, 180 images of the sun and the planet can be obtained. When the series relating to the first contact is obtained, the plate is withdrawn and another substituted, which gives the second contact, and so on for the four.

Mr. St. George Mivart, the author of the "Genesis of Species," has attacked the Darwinian hypothesis of the descent of man in a treatise devoted to an examination of the structural resemblances and differences between man and apes. In his opening paragraphs Mr. Mivart speaks of the frequent injustice of popular awards, and points out that the doctrine of evolution-i.e., that the various new species of animals and plants have manifested themselves through a purely natural process of

hereditary succession-is widely spoken of by the term Darwinism, just as America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, and Swammerdamm is forgotten in the term " Galvanism," while, as a matter of fact, evolution is far older than Mr. Darwin, whose hypothesis is really "the origin of species by natural selection." Again, the gorilla is popularly supposed to have been first made known to science by M. du Chaillu, and, if not the direct ancestor of man, is thought to be very closely related to that ancestor-the other side of the "gap" in fact. Dr. Thomas Savage was the discoverer of the gorilla, and Professor Wyman first described it in the United States, as Professor Owen did in this country.

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Mr. Mivart is a redoubtable antagonist on the question of man's descent from the apes, and the arguments he brings forward in support of his position will not be readily set aside by his opponents. It is manifest, he says, that man, the ape, and the half-apes, cannot be arranged in a single ascending series, of which man is the term and culmination. By confining our attention to one organ, or to one set of parts, we may arrange the different forms in a more or less simple manner, but if we take all the organs into consideration, the cross relations and interdependencies become in the highest degree complex. Mr. Darwin has asserted, and his hypothesis has been widely accepted, that, looking to the general resemblances between man and apes, it is possible to conceive that the former may have descended from the latter. may be acknowledged, for it is certainly true, that the anatomical features of man's body have more resemblance to those found in the latisternal group of Primates, than to those exhibited by any other section of that order. But what then? Does similarity of structure afford conclusive evidence of common origin? On the contrary, human structural characteristics are shared by so many and such diverse forms, that it is impossible to arrange even groups of genera in a single ascending series from the Aye-aye to man, if all the resemblances are taken into account. If the number of wrist-bones is deemed a special mark of affinity between the Troglodytes and man, why not also between him and the Indris, the Diadem Lemur? If the arms are supposed to evidence descent from the Chimpanzee, why not look upon the legs as evidence of descent from the gibbons ? If the "bridging convolutions" in the Orang's brain help to sustain its claim to supremacy, what weight is to be attached to similar characteristics in the long-tailed, thumbless, Spider Monkeys? The tongue of the orang is more like a man's than is that of any other animal, but the gibbons have a liver and a stomach which resemble man's more than do those of any other animal. The orang and chimpanzee possess a liver approximating to that of man, but that of the gorilla is of a very degraded type. The ear lobule of the gorilla, however, makes him at least our cousin, but his tongue betrays his want of relationship. Schroeder, Van der Kolk, and Vrolik say that the lines of affinity existing between different Primates construct a network rather than a ladder, and turn which way we will there is always a network of difficulties when we attempt to account for existing structural characters through the influence of inheritance and "natural selection."

But if the above-mentioned facts tell against a belief in the origin of man, as descending from the apes by the accidental preservation in the struggle of life of minute and fortuitous structural variations, they do not tell against the evolution hypothesis, if we have reason to think that a law has been

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imposed upon nature, by which new and definite species, under definite conditions, emerge from a latent and potential being into manifest existence. The Axolotl, or Mexican eft, is an existing sample of the evolution process. This animal exhibits occasionally a transformation as remarkable as sudden the whole structure is metamorphosed in a most marvellous manner, and the animal, zoologically speaking, actually changes its genus. The more general form possesses characters of immaturity, but the rare, fully-developed adult is absolutely sterile, the race being kept up by the immature Axolotls. In a few lines towards the end of his book, the case for the defence well put by Mr. Mivart, and if his premises are granted, the conclusion is obvious, that no natural process will account for the origin of the human body, just as no natural process will account for its entirely different kind of soul. Mr. Mivart has at least demolished the gorilla hypothesis. With whatever genus of ape the preponderance of resemblance to man may rest, it is not with the gorilla, "which is essentially no less a brute, and no more a man, than is the humblest member of the family to which it belongs." Mr. Mivart's little book is an admirable account of the resemblances of the apes amongst themselves and to man. That he has conclusively settled the question of man's descent from the apes we cannot say; but he has pointed out the many defects of the hypothesis; and so far the facts, and consequently the weight of the argument, is on his side. We have but one fault to find with his book-a fault that can be remedied in a second edition, which we think will be speedily required and that is, the unusual number of typographical errors for a work of this class.

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1. THE IRON TRADE STRIKE.-The most extensive strike ever known in the iron-works of South Wales, and collieries which are connected with them, has begun. Nearly 70,000 men and boys, one-third of whom belonged to the collieries, have stopped working. Every large establishment in the counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth, including those of Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, and Plymouth, near Merthyr Tydvil, with Rhymney, Tredegar, Blaina, Nantyglo, Ebbw Vale, Blaenavon, Llynvi, Maesteg, and Cwmavon, has been closed for an indefinite time. The cause of the dispute is the refusal of the workmen to submit to a reduction of ten per cent. in wages, of which the iron-masters gave notice on December 7, and which was followed by most of the coal-owners. The iron-masters allege that this reduction of wages was necessary in consequence of the state of trade. This was denied by the workmen, and the controversy went on till it was arranged that there should be a conference between the masters and delegates of the men to talk it over. The conference took place at the Royal Hotel, Cardiff. Mr. R. Fothergill, M.P., accompanied by Mr. Crawshay, and Mr. Menelaus, manager of the Dowlais Works, who was in the chair, endeavoured to convince the delegates of the true state of the case. They refused, however, to submit the whole question to an arbitration. This was followed by a mass meeting of the workmen next day, at Merthyr Tydvil, when the proposals of the masters were rejected and the strike commenced. On Saturday evening, the 4th, the leading works paid off their last account. At Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, and Plymouth the men were settled with up to date. In every instance the cottageholders under the respective companies were obliged to include in

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