On Tuesday two hundred members of the British Associa- tion
landed at Cape Town, and the South African meeting was inaugurated the same evening by the delivery in the City Hall by the President, Professor G. H. Darwin, of the first half of his Presidential address. The second half will be delivered at Johannesburg on August 30th, an arrangement which is a wise recognition of the fact that South Africa possesses two centres of gravity,—an historical and traditional one at the Cape, and an economic one in the Transvaal. The Presidential address dealt mainly with the question of natural selection, and with recent attempts which have been made to formulate evolutionary doctrine. The Association will proceed to Durban, and then to Johannesburg and Kimberley, finishing up with a meeting at Bulawayo and an expedition to the Victoria Falls. As the Times observes, the tour will give members of the Association an "unforgettable lesson in Imperial geography." All such attempts to draw together the Motherland and the Colonies by the bonds of a common culture have our warmest sympathy, and the British Association deserves well of the country for its far-sighted experiment.
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