ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1923, Page 4

ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

WKMJXOTOX COX!' KRKXCK. 1 XTKKKSTI S< ; PAI’KItS KKAD WJSU.IXCTOX, Jan 12. Ikdoro the ethnologieal and anlhropolgieal .section ot the Science (’onttj'vs.s thi., morning Captain I’itt-R ivei > I’'-1’.A.1.. delivered his presidential address, taking as hi, subject “Some i’mlileni.s in Menial Anthropology and the I’rublem of Civilisation." Mental anthropology, lie said, was a recent arrival among tin; .sciences, bill, young as it. was, it was being asked to deal "'illi vital problems. Alb I detailing "'but be considered to be essential features of tlii.s latest suh-divisinn of the main science of anthropology. Captain I’ilt-Kivers proceed) d to discuss its

importance in relation to our dealings with uncivilised ]Knple.s whom we wire culled upon to govern, particularly in tin; Pacific, lie pictured how contact with Kuropeaus was altering the whole outlook of native populations, therefore in their proper government it wa.s necessary that we should endeavour to discover on what principles their communities were built, and what were the factors working for social cohesion among them. The ethnography of Papua and the Melanesian anil Micronesia n eonnnunition.s of the western Pacific showed three principal factors of social integration.— (I) chieftainship. (2) magic and sorcery. (3) system of exchange of gifts, partly economic. partly ceremonial, and nnn-eeono-mic. Amongst these people tribal law and tribal morality were unwritten, and needed no police and no established church to enforce them, yet they were far less transgressed than Knropeiui law and morality. In spite of this fact, the whole history of ['lumpen,n contact with natives of the Paeilie, especially recent British administration, had lieen a story of wilful destruction of native culture and morality in a rain endeavour to replace it with culture and morality neither capable of being thoroughly absorbed or of ever proving ellieiout. The speaker then proceeded to discuss the importance of plurality of wives amongst the Melanesian* of New (lumen, and declared that in some instances the missionary policy to abolish this custom would result not. only in the virtual disappearance of chieftainship, but also of all tribal and communal enterprise, and dislocation of all the personal and functional relationships that bind their societies together. Coming to the question of primitive magic and sorcery, lie said we were, here l dealing with one of the least understood factors in m. live life', and were adopt to deprecate it and arbitrarily suppress it in tint laws we gave to native peoples. Inn careful scrutiny of the workings of native social organisations and the history of native institutions would reveal the intimacy between the institutions of chicfaiiiship and sorcery. and .show that, the power of the former resides in gnat measure in the latter. Primitive economies was described as a subject of first ethnographic importance. Thu motive behind primitive communism was one of the questions calling ol’r immediate study, as ignorance or indifference to this problem on the part of colciiial administrators was one of the means hy which tiny struck at the very roots of tribal life am! cohesion and -o created native discontent. (Mill,l> 11A (Cl MX 11. Dr Harvey Suiton, in nil addres s on chicld hygiemi, said that health control of childhood was new rapidly assuming a position second to none in the whohy range of public health. New Zealand undoubtedly led flic world in infant care and nianugi no lit. Dealing with malnutrition. lie emphasised the importance of diet ami giving child roll frisli mill:, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, which, lie dtserilird as “our sheet anchors.'’ lie dealt at length with epidemics amongst children. and indicated measures being ink- : | mi by the health authorities to deal | with them. | Pi!f M All Y PItODI'CTS. Air L. k'cith-AVard. Government Geologist, .South .Australia. deliv< rod hipresidential address to the geology and mineralogy section, taking a- his subject the necessity for organise I investigation of the physical basis of primary productions as a minus for increasing the productive occupation of such sparsely populated countries- as A.ustralia and New Zealand. KIHTATJON. in an address before the edncaiim section. Mr A. Johnston, president o: tliu section, said that the idea win now being pressed home, that the best results in education flowed from individual freedom along the path of ,selfrealisation. Training for good citizenship impliid an early association with activities likely to he similar to those in adult relations, and the schools as at present corporatod seemed to offer few opportunities. The pent re of in tcrest in education had 'moved from the individual to the community. A demand was made for social .service rather than for individual advancement. I'll, aim was to lay the foundation of j intelligent citizenship tending to a i setter social order. i

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| THU AIOA-i IT'XTEIIS. Aft - H. I). Skinner. of Otago [’nivorsiy. fond a paper before tlie ethnological section this afternoon on “The Mon ITn liters of Canterbury and Otago.” The earliest elaborated theory on tin’s subject, was. lie said, that of von TTanst, who held that the moahnnter.s were of the palaeolithic period. Inifc apart from all tile evidence he bad been able to gather from the deposits at Alnnck’s Cave (Sumner). Shag I? iv ■ e mouth and Hamilton's swamp, he had come to tin 1 definite eoncln.sion that, mon-hunters were of Polynesian origin. ! OTffldH PAPERS. Amongst other papers read were “Htinian Capital.” by Air Charles 11. AAh'okens. Common,w'ealth Statistician and president of the statistical section. which dealt wholly with population problems of the Commonwealth: “The Rat and Flea Problem in Prevention of Plagues.” by I)r Purdy, of .Sydney, who described the preen utions token in Sydney to prevent tlie spread of plague; “Pernio-carbonifer-ous Volcanic Activity in Southern Queensland." by Professor IT. ('. Richards, of the Queensland Fniversitv. THE AT'STRALTAX ARORIOIX.U.S. AVETddXCTOX. dan IT. At the Town Hall to-night Sir Raidwin Spencer, lecturing under’the auspices of the Australasian Association for the advancement of science on “The Life of a Savage.” said Australia was now the only part of the world in which it "'ns possible to study a really backward race that had not pay - ed beyond the stage o! the genuine early stone age savagt. it was true there were ether races, such as those j of Polynesia, who had not reached the mental stage, hut they had developed far beyond the culture level o! j the Australians .and were able to In" their own when they came in contact with Europeans. Still more backward people were the Tasmanians. An adequate account of their customs, organisation and beliefs would have formed a document of incalculable value to students of the early history of mankind. but our near ancestors harried

| them, and harried them to their doom j with scarcely a thought of the grievous i I wrong they were doing, not only to a ! simple, helpless people, hut to poster-’ ity. It must, however, be remember- j ,! <.cj that both Tasmanian and AusI ualian aboriginals, though backward, I were far from being primitive, am! ! that probably a great gap separated them from really primitive man than from the most highly developed *rnee. Of tlm old stone age rate's of the world wo knew little save for a few remnants of their .skeletons that had been preserved. their stone implements, and in some cases their works of art, "What was the exact relationship between those races and the Australians, it was dibit lilt to say. If the Australians had become extinct, before' we came into contact with mom all wo would have had to judge of their culture would have been perhaps a few skulls revealing a wooden ul variation in size and form .and some rock paintings not comparable in execution with those executed by other rude peoples of prehistoric Europe. There had been many theories formed as to the origin of the Australians, hut none were quite convincing. The most important point to ho remembered was that for long ages Australia, had been cut off from the Eurasian ami all other land masses by harriers which served to prevent the entrance of any higher forms of mammalian life. It was quite possible that physical separation of the island continent, together with unfavourable climatic conditions which Professor (liillith Taylor had shown to have existed in Northern Australia at t.hr time the great migrations of early human races were taking place across the more favoured land route to the north might have served to isolate in Australia the remnants and descendants of a very human raeu, just as it certainly isolated and preserved those of othei forms of life now existing elsewhere This would mean that early aboriginalreached Australia with a knowledge of how to make and use certain primitive implemniis. and at a ciiltura level which we might suppose to have been akin to that of some such stone age people as the Cromagimns. li the course of thci long ngo s since claps ed they had developed along curtail lines, elaborating complicated rituals: customs and beliefs, hut at the satin time remaining stone age savages awo know them now. It was, he said greatly to he regretted that opiwirtnn ity had not been taken earlier ti learn as much as possible conccniiii' the Australia,n aborigines, Imt it stem to the credit of the Labour Party tha (hey wove the first to recognise tin State’s obligation to the.so people, am took steps to establish a special depart moot to care for them and watch ovei their interests

Bor tin- rest the lecture was a talk upon lantern .slides, films and plionuoraph reeords. illustrating: the daily Jifi- of Australian ahori'xines, tlicir i customs and ceremonials. taking the j audience further hack into tin history j of the .stone ngo titan "'its possible with | any other section of the human race. ; Will:AT IX AVSTRAI.IA. , I,cot urinj; on tailors influenrimj; I water rtaiinrecoes of farm crops under ; Australian eondii ions, Mr A. K ; V. Richardson. director of the School I of Auriciillure, said that the results of experiments led him to believe that the rainfall of the wheat lielt of An*Iralia was sufficient to produce an average yield at least double that previously obtained. hi if ik ant) Kvoi.n rox. Tlie place of birds in the scale of evolution v.a- the subiw t of a paper read h\ IVo lessor Bonham. Proles'-er T. 11. .lobtiston presided. Birds, said the lecturer, were placed midway between reptiles and mammals, above the former, hut below tin- Inter, for mental ret:son; birds were placed lower titan man. hut Iron) a structural point of view they were limn highly develoj.'ed than mammals, and showed more departure from the ancestral type Ilian man and mammals. Both birds ami mammals descended I’rmii reptiles. Mammals were covered with hair and reptiles with .scales, and in eariv developments it was dillicult to toll from tin* rocks which was which. The hones of birds were more com-: j piex. A common ancestor was evol- | ,!-d for the groin dinosaurs and birds, j A fossil feathered reptile (ArchaeopS t:• i*w) wits an unrestral bird with l reptilian teeth and tail. Some arcliI aeoptcryx chartictcrislics were pens ptS ill!,' in the kiwi. Tho prolessor trnver- | sod the arguments relating to tho <.v>- | liuinii of si ales with feathers, and ihi M'rihcd the probable evolution 01 lour ;• limbed mammals with bi-pedal leather-/ * cd birds. j

j BTOI.OHICAI. SECTION, j Before the. biological section. I’m j fessor rbdion discussed and demon | .-united the latest methods of press rv 5 ing minute eru-uacea. £ Before the same section I’rojesso | |>. B. D. Milligan read a paper whirl I vnthodi". d experiment's to 'determine ? the blood, tmn pel at u i'e of tlie Titular: | lizard tile result of wliieb -bowed ilia ] the Luaiara was of very "cold blood j w iien compared with the common Irog | A live luaiara was used to illuxlraU { points in the discourse. | SOLAR ECLIPSE.

Tin- (Jiivi'i n.im'iit Astronomer. Dr ('. K. Adams. outlined id llk* astronomical section the wont aeconiplished diirjiijr olisci-vm turns :it Wnllal m couiieetion with the recent solar expedition lie did not comment- on tin 1 results oi (lie *ile Tvations, remarking that they would lie assimilated Inter. He com moated very favourably on the preparations made by the Lick Obsettafory. and remarked tliat it would he interesting to learn with what success dellection had been avoided m photographing the eclipse. lb' was not sanguine of the. result. Two papers by IVolos-sor A. !b 110.-s were read on shadow hands and I he photographic measurement ot \tlm blight ness oh a total eclipse.