cation. It is situated in the plain of Ilidze, some eight miles to the west of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. This plain, which extends for about seven miles in length and four or five in breadth, is composed of alluvial materials brought down from the surrounding mountains by rain and a number of streams which here meet, and it is therefore highly probable that in former times it was partially a lake-basin. In 1893, while workmen were engaged in excavating the foundations of a farm dairy in a cultivated field, it was observed that the soil turned up contained fragments of pottery, flint implements, stone axes, and other remains of a primitive people. These discoveries led to an investigation of the locality by the Government, under the supervision of the celebrated archæologist, Mr. Radimsky. A perpendicular section, 6 to 8 feet in depth, showed first a superficial layer of ordinary soil, 12 to 15 inches thick, then a series of thin beds, more or less stratified, of clay, charcoal, ashes, mould, &c., containing the above-named relics of human industry. This relic-bed, which attained a thickness of 4 or 5 feet, and a superficial area of about 5 acres, lay immediately above a bed of fine adhesive clay in situ-i.e. deposited by natural causes prior to the founding of the prehistoric settlement. By observing that on the surface of this clay there were, occasionally, irregularly shaped hollows of variable extent, Mr. Radimsky was led to formulate the opinion that they were the foundations of the huts of the first inhabitants-an opinion which gave rise to an animated controversy among the members of Congress. The deposits containing the relics formed a low mound, rising in the middle to about a couple of yards above the surrounding land. Near their surface, but below the superficial layer of soil, some burnt clay-castings of the timbers of which the huts were constructed were met with in several localities. The relics consisted, chiefly, of stone implements and fragments of pottery, all of which were interspersed uniformly throughout the débris. These remains were so abundant as to suggest the idea that the inhabitants of Butmir carried on special industries for their manufacture. Stone implements-knives, arrow-heads, scrapers, polished axes (with the exception of perforated ones), and tools were in all stages of manufacture. In regard to the perforated axeheads, it was curiously noted that, out of twenty-five collected, only two were whole, and not a single core had hitherto been found. The material out of which they were made was not found in the neighbourhood, and hence it was supposed that the perforated axes had been imported, thus indicating a knowledge of the division of labour among these early settlers. The pottery had been ornamented with a great variety of designs, among which a few specimens with a spiral ornamentation excited much interest among the members of Congress. A special feature of this discovery is the existence of a number of small clay images, or figurines, rudely representing the human form-among them being one, a head of terra-cotta, disclosing art of a superior kind. In conclusion he observed that those who had not the opportunity of studying the original report would find a notice of the settlement and of the controversies to which it has given rise in his forthcoming work, 'Rambles and Studies in Bosnia-Herzegovina." 2. On Primitive European Idols' in the Light of New Discoveries. By ARTHUR J. EVANS, M.A., F.S.A. Schliemann's discoveries at Troy first called general attention to a class of primitive images of clay, marble, and other materials. Others, of which some new and remarkable examples were exhibited, had since been found in the Egean Islands and the mainland of Greece. In their more developed forms they appeared as nude female figures, more rarely male. Lenormant and others had sought their prototype in a nude female figure seen on some Chaldæan cylinders which, as Nikolsky has now shown, represented the Underworld Goddess Sala, an equivalent of Istar. More recently M. Salomon Reinach has boldly attempted to turn the tables and derive the Eastern type from the European side. Mr. Evans combated both these theories. That the Istar type had influenced some of the later Egean figures was probable. But the two classes were originally independent. The Greek and Trojan figures fitted on to a primitive European family, the evolution of which could be traced from the rudest beginnings. Thracian and Danubian examples carried this diffusion to the Carpathians. Beyond this, again, a curiously parallel group of amber, bone and stone-characterised a vast northern Neolithic province including the Polish caves and the Baltic amber coast and extending to the shores of Lake Ladoga. Attention was next called to certain recent and partly unpublished discoveries of primitive painted images in Sicily and the Ligurian caves, and after bringing them into relation with others from Bosnia and Carniola, the author showed that they had here the nearest prototypes to the Mycenaean. He exhibited a curiously rude squatting figure of Pentelic marble found near Athens-the earliest example of Attic art-and after adducing parallel examples from Thrace and the Peloponnese, claimed a cousinship for them in the so-called 'Cabiri' of what had been hitherto known as the 'Phoenician Temple' of Hagiar Kìm in Malta. This primitive building was really a West Mediterranean example of a class illustrated by the primitive architecture of Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and even our own chambered barrows. Its Libyan affinities had been noticed by Fergusson, and the so-called Cabiri, with gean connections on the one hand, seemed to stand in a direct relationship with the rude squatting figures of Mr. Petrie's New Race.' Turning to Spain, Mr. Evans called attention to a class of stone figures singularly resembling the Trojan discovered in Neolithic and early Bronze Age deposits by the brothers Siret, and to which their most recent excavations had added rich materials. Finally, as the north-westernmost example of this whole primitive class, he referred to the discovery of a whalebone 'idol' amongst Neolithic relics at Skara, in Orkney. The sepulchral relation in which these socalled 'idols' were usually discovered pointed to the conclusion that they had here an illustration of the widespread practice among primitive peoples of placing small figures in the grave as substitutes for human victims. 3. Interim Report on Prehistoric and Ancient Remains in Glamorganshire. 4. Report on the Lake Village at Glastonbury.—See Reports, p. 519. 5. The People of Southern Arabia. By J. THEodore Bent. The two classes of natives discussed in this paper are resident in the Hadramut and Dhofar districts of South-eastern Arabia. First, those of the Hadramut are described. Their fanaticism and complex tribal system present great difficulties to the anthropologist. Descriptions are given of the three divisions of the inhabitants-namely, the Bedouins, the Arabs proper, and the Sayyids, or hierarchical nobility. But the Bedouins and their manners and customs, as being a distinctly aboriginal race, are described with greater minuteness. Their religion is discussed, and the secret manner in which they maintain their cult is suggested as a parallel to other secret cults in other parts of the Mohammedan world. Secondly, the district of Dhofar, the country from which the ancients obtained frankincense, is next described, and the Bedouins of the Gara tribe compared with those of the Hadramut: their manners and customs, and the general conditions under which they live, are described. SECTION K.-BOTANY. PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.-W. T. THISELTON-DYER, M.A., F.R.S., C.M.G., C.I.E., Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. The PRESIDENT delivered the following Address : THE establishment of a new Section of the British Association, devoted to Botany, cannot but be regarded by the botanists of this country as an event of the greatest importance. For it is practically the first time that they have possessed an independent organisation of their own. It is true that for some years past we have generally been strong enough to form a separate department of the old Biological Section D, on the platform of which so many of us in the past have acted in some capacity or other, and on which indeed many of us may be said to have made our first appearance. We shall not start then on our new career without the remembrance of filial affection for our parent, and the earnest hope that our work may be worthy of its great traditions. The first meeting of the Section, or, as it was then called, Committee, at Oxford was held in 1832. And though there has been from time to time some difference in the grouping of the several biological sciences, the two great branches of biology have only now for the first time formally severed the partnership into which they entered on that occasion. That this severance, if inevitable from force of circumstances, is in some respects a matter of regret, I do not deny. Specialisation is inseparable from scientific progress; but it will defeat its own end in biology if the specialist does not constantly keep in touch with those fundamental principles which are common to all organic nature. We shall have to take care that we do not drift into a position of isolation. Section D undoubtedly afforded a convenient opportunity for discussing many questions on which it was of great advantage that workers in the two different fields should compare their results and views. But I hope that by means of occasional conferences we shall still, in some measure, be able to preserve this advantage. RETROSPECT. I confess I found it a great temptation to review, however imperfectly, the history and fortunes of our subject while it belonged to Section D. But to have done so would have been practically to have written the history of botany in this country since the first third of the century. Yet I cannot pass over some few striking events. I think that the earliest of these must undoubtedly be regarded as the most epoch-making. I mean the formal publication by the Linnean Society, in 1833, of the first description of the nucleus of the cell,' by Robert Brown. It seems 1 Misc. Bot. Works, i. 512. difficult to realise that this may be within the recollection of some who are now living amongst us. It is, however, of peculiar interest to me that the first person who actually distinguished this all-important body, and indicated it in a figure, was Francis Bauer, thirty years earlier, in 1802. This remarkable man, whose skill in applying the resources of art to the illustration of plant anatomy has never, I suppose, been surpassed, was resident draughtsman for fifty years to the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.' And it was at Kew, and in a tropical orchid, Phaius grandifolius, no doubt grown there, that the discovery was made. 6 It was, I confess, with no little admiration that, on refreshing my memory by a reference to Robert Brown's paper, I read again the vivid account which he gives in a footnote of the phenomena, so painfully familiar to many of us who have been teachers, exhibited in the staminal hair of Tradescantia. Sir Joseph Hooker 1 has well remarked that the supreme importance of this observation, . . . leading to undreamt-of conceptions of the fundamental phenomena of organic life, is acknowledged by all investigators.' It is singular that so profound an observer as Robert Brown should have himself missed the significance of what he saw. The world had to wait for the discovery of protoplasm by Von Mohl till 1846, and till 1850 for its identification with the sarcode of zoologists by Cohn, who is still, I am happy to say, living and at work, and to whom last year the Linnean Society did itself the honour of presenting its medal. The Edinburgh meeting of the Association, in 1834, was the occasion of the announcement of another memorable discovery of Robert Brown's. I will content myself with quoting Hofmeister's account of it. 'Robert Brown was the discoverer of the polyembrony of the Conifere. In a later treatise he pointed out the origin of the pro-embryo in large cells of the endosperm, to which he gave the name of corpuscula.' The period of the forties, just half a century ago, looks in the retrospect as one of almost dazzling discovery. To say nothing of the formal appearance of protoplasm on the scene, the foundations were being laid in all directions of our modern botanical morphology. Yet its contemporaries viewed it with a very philosophical calm. Thwaites, who regarded Carpenter as his master, described at the Oxford meeting in 1847 the conjugation of the Diatomacea, and 'distinctly indicated,' as Carpenter 3 says, that conjugation is the primitive phase of sexual reproduction.' Berkeley informed me that the announcement fell perfectly flat. A year or two later Suminski came to London with his splendid discovery (1848) of the archegonia of the fern, the antheridia having been first seen by Nägeli in 1844. Carpenter gave me, many years after, a curious account of its reception. 'At the Council of the Ray Society, at which,' he said, 'I advocated the reproduction of Suminski's book on the "Ferns," I was assured that the close resemblance of the antherozoids to spermatozoa was quite sufficient proof that they could have nothing to do with vegetable reproduction. 'I do not think,' he added-and the complaint is pathetic-that the men of the present generation, who have been brought up in the light, quite apprehend (in this as in other matters) the utter darkness in which we were then groping, or fully recognise the deserts of those who helped them to what they now enjoy. This was in 1875, and I suppose is not likely to be less true now. 4 The Oxford Meeting in 1860 was the scene of the memorable debate on the origin of species, at which it is interesting to remember that Henslow presided. On that occasion Section D reached its meridian. The battle was Homeric. However little to the taste of its author, the launching of his great theory was, at any rate, dignified with a not inconsiderable explosion. It may be that it is not given to the men of our day to ruffle the dull level of public placidity with disturbing and far-reaching ideas. But if it were, I doubt whether we have, or need now, the fierce energy which inspired then either the attack or the defence. When we met again in Oxford last year the champion of the old conflict. stood in the place of honour, acclaimed of all men, a beautiful and venerable figure. We did not know then that that was to be his farewell. The battle was not in vain. Six years afterwards, at Nottingham, Sir Joseph 1 Proc. Linn. Soc., 1887-88, 65. • Memorial Sketch, 140. 2 Higher Cryptogamia, 432. Hooker delivered his classical lecture on Insular Floras. It implicitly accepted the new doctrine, and applied it with admirable effect to a field which had long waited for an illuminating principle. The lecture itself has since remained one of the corner-stones of that rational theory of the geographical distribution of plants which may, I think, be claimed fairly as of purely English origin. HENSLOW. Addressing you as I do at Ipswich, there is one name written in the annals of our old Section which I cannot pass over-that of Henslow. He was the Secretary of the Biological Section at its first meeting in 1832, and its President at Bristol in 1836. I suppose there are few men of this century who have indirectly more influenced the current of human thought. For in great measure I think it will not be contested that we owe Darwin to him. As Romanes has told us:1 'His letters written to Professor Henslow during his voyage round the world overflow with feelings of affection, veneration, and obligation to his accomplished master and dearest friend-feelings which throughout his life he retained with no diminished intensity. As he used himself to say, before he knew Professor Henslow the only objects he cared for were foxes and partridges.' I do not wish to overstate the facts. The possession of the collector's instinct, strong in Darwin from his childhood, as is usually the case in great naturalists,' to use Huxley's words, would have borne its usual fruit in after life, in some shape or other, even if Darwin had not fallen into Henslow's hands. But then the particular train of events which culminated in the great work of his life would never have been started. It appeared to me, then, that it would not be an altogether uninteresting investigation to ascertain something about Henslow himself. The result has been to provide me with several texts, which I think it may be not unprofitable to dwell upon on the present occasion. In the first place, what was the secret of his influence over Darwin? 'My dear old master in Natural History' ('Life,' ii. 317) he calls him; and to have stood in this relation to Darwin 3 is no small matter. Again, he speaks of his friendship with him as a circumstance which influenced my whole career more than any other' (i. 52). The singular beauty of Henslow's character, to which Darwin himself bore noble testimony, would count for something, but it would not in itself be a sufficient explanation. Nor was it that intellectual fascination which often binds pupils to the master's feet; for, as Darwin tells us, 'I do not suppose that anyone would say that he possessed much original genius' (i. 52). The real attraction seems to me to be found in Henslow's possession, in an extraordinary degree, of what may be called the Natural History spirit. This resolves itself into keen observation and a lively interest in the facts observed. 'His strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued minute observations' (i. 52). The old Natural History method, of which it seems to me that Henslow was so striking an embodiment, is now, and I think unhappily, almost a thing of the past. The modern university student of botany puts his elders to blush by his minute knowledge of some small point in vegetable histology. But he can tell you little of the contents of a country hedgerow; and if you put an unfamiliar plant in his hands he is pretty much at a loss how to set about recognising its affinities. Disdaining the field of nature spread at his feet in his own country, he either seeks salvation in a German laboratory or hurries off to the Tropics, convinced that he will at once immortalise himself. But 'cœlum non animum mutat'; he puts into 'pickle' the same objects as his predecessors, never to be looked at again; or perhaps writes a paper on some obvious phenomena which he could have studied with less fatigue in the Palm House at Kew. The secret of the right use of travel is the possession of the Natural History instinct, and to those who contemplate it I can only recommend a careful study of Darwin's Naturalist's Voyage.' Nothing that came in his way seems to have 1 Memorial Notices, 13. 2 Proc. R.S., xliv. vi. 3 As I shall have frequent occasion to quote the Life and Letters, I shall insert the references in the text. |