Science: At Glasgow

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Hand Talk. Sir Richard Arthur Surtees Paget, lawyer, physicist, songwriter, stood before one section of the B. A. A. S. with some tin tubes. By solemnly blowing and wiggling his fingers he made the tubes give out familiar words. This was his way of proving that sounds could be resolved into simple elements and contrariwise, combined into complex sounds. He urged further scientific study of phonation so that eventually all people will pronounce their words uniformly.

His theory of speech is that it began with gestures: "Primitive man would sing, grunt or roar to express emotions just as the animals did. He would pantomime with his face and limbs to express his ideas to his fellows, and as he pantomimed with his hands his tongue would follow suit.* But as he came to occupy his hands more and more in his crafts he would have to rely more on gestures of the face, tongue and lips. Then it would come about that pantomime action would be recognized by sound as well as sight. Speech was thus born."

Variable Sex. Twenty-six women read papers at Glasgow; 14 were botanists. One of the botanists, Professor Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne-Vaughan of the University of London, brought her audience to sharp attention by announcing discovery of four different sexes in toadstools. Their differences are so slight that they can be called only plus or minus. Each type can breed with the other three and, under some circumstances, with its own kind. The differences seem to result from the differences in food substances absorbed by the parent fungi. The toadstool sexes are variable. If such is true of fungi, it may also be true of higher life forms.

Zuider Zee. As far as written history records, the Zuider Zee of the Netherlands was until 1395 a fresh-water lake. In that year the ocean broke through the barrier of dunes. Hence Amsterdam is a seaport. Lately, however, the Dutch have started an 8-year project to build 18 miles of main dykes 450 ft. wide, 25 ft. above Amsterdam's level to lock in the Zuider Zee. By 1952 swamps will be reclaimed, almost 1,000,000 acres of land reclaimed, and the Zuider Zee made again into an inland lake.

State of Manhattan. Alan Grant Ogilvie, Reader in Geography at the University of Edinburgh, only child of Sir Francis Grant Ogilvie (chairman of the British Geological Survey Board), took New York City as the illustration of what can happen to a district happily situated geographically. New York's tides fluctuate only four to five feet.* That helps shipping. The terrain changes practically not at all. Travel routes naturally converge toward the city. He recommended that the States of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut cede land for the formation of a State of Manhattan. The natural Manhattan area now contains 9,000,000 people, will in 40 years carry twice as many. The Russell Sage Foundation in Manhattan has been making a study towards this same end.

Down House, in Kent, where Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species, has been acquired as a public memorial. The Hon. John Collier, who painted portraits of Darwin and his publicist Huxley, has made duplicates of the pictures to be hung in Down House.

School Examinations. That examinations be omitted as vicious at secondary schools, was the plea of Headmaster Cyril Norwood of Harrow.