True Succession Research Articles

Spatial Habitat Structure Assembles Willow-Dependent Communities across the Primary Successional Watersheds of Mount St. Helens, USA

The eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 resulted in a cataclysmic restructuring of its surrounding landscapes. The Pumice Plain is one of these landscapes, where tree species such as Sitka willow (Salix sitchensis) and their dependent communities have been established along newly-formed streams. Thus, the study of these dependent communities provides a unique and rare opportunity to investigate factors influencing metacommunity assembly during true primary succession. We analyzed the influence of landscape connectivity on metacommunity assembly through a novel application of circuit theory, alongside the effects of other factors such as stream locations, willow leaf chemistry, and leaf area. We found that landscape connectivity structures community composition on willows across the Pumice Plain, where the least connected willows favored active flyers such as the western tent caterpillar (Malacosoma fragilis) or the Pacific willow leaf beetle (Pyrrhalta decora carbo). We also found that multiple levels of spatial habitat structure linked via landscape connectivity can predict the presence of organisms lacking high rates of dispersal, such as the invasive stem-boring poplar weevil (Cryptorhynchus lapathi). This is critical for management as we show that the maintenance of a heterogeneous mixture of landscape connectivity and resource locations can facilitate metacommunity dynamics to promote ecosystem function and mitigate the influences of invasive species.

Kilka spostrzeżeń dotyczących genealogii królów izraelskich i judzkich

Genealogia królów Izraela i Judy (dynastii Dawidowej) jest wynikiem zamierzonej kompozycji autora biblijnego. Królowie mieli być przeciwieństwami patriarchów. Szczególne znaczenie mieli Henoch, siódmy patriarcha, i Noe, dziesiąty patriarcha. Pierwszy był sprawiedliwy i dlatego został wzięty do nieba; drugi uratował rodzaj ludzki w czasie potopu. Manasses i Jeroboam II byli niegodziwi, są więc przeciwieństwem Henocha i dlatego zostali umieszczeni na siódmym miejscu od końca w wykazie królów. Jehu i Jotam uratowali odpowiednio Izrael i Judę, są więc antytypami Noego i dlatego zostali umieszczeni na dziesiątym miejscu od końca w listach królów. Co więcej, ze względu na liczbę patriarchów genealogie królów izraelskich i judzkich miały liczyć 22 władców każda. Niektórzy królowie mogli więc zostać dodani lub opuszczeni. Dlatego genealogia władców nie odzwierciedla rzeczywistej sukcesji. To jest główna przyczyna wielu trudności w ustaleniu chronologii królów Izraela i Judy.

El FOGASA ante el despido de quien se integra en la mercantil que prosigue la actividad

En contextos de crisis económica, es un fenómeno reconocible el intento de quienes vieron extinguido su contrato de trabajo por cierre de empresa, de reactivar la actividad productiva, constituyendo sociedades limitadas que, con mimbres distintos a los de la economía social, reactivan la actividad de aquella mercantil insolvente o concursada aprovechando su experiencia laboral y los contactos con antiguos proveedores y clientes. Dicha “reconstrucción” de la empresa quebrada se percibe en muchos casos, por el Fondo de Garantía Salarial, como un fenómeno sucesorio que elimina el derecho de dichos trabajadores a percibir las indemnizaciones derivadas de aquella extinción contractual que el órgano de garantía no considera como tal. En este trabajo pretendemos distinguir aquellos supuestos en los que concurre la auténtica sucesión de empresa que neutraliza la intervención del Fondo de Garantía Salarial, de aquellos otros casos en que, siguiendo la interpretación flexibilizadora de nuestros Tribunales ante un panorama de destrucción y escasez del empleo como el actual, se considera compatible la compensación indemnizatoria por el empleo perdido con la nueva prestación laboral que surgió de las cenizas de la vieja empresa. In contexts of economic crisis, the attempt of those who saw their contract expired due to the closing of the company is a recognizable phenomenon, revive productive activity, constituting limited societies that, with different tools from the social economy, they revive the activity of that insolvent or bankrupt company taking advantage of their work experience, and contacts with former suppliers and customers. This “reconstruction” of the bankrupt company is perceived in many cases, by the Wage Guarantee Fund, as a succession phenomenon which eliminates the right of such workers to receive compensation arising from that contractual extinction which the guarantee body does not consider as such. In this project we intend to distinguish those assumptions in which the true company succession concurs and which neutralizes the intervention of the Wage Guarantee Fund, those other cases in which, following the flexible interpretation of our courts faced with a panorama of destruction and scarcity of employment as the current, compensation for jobs lost with the new labour provision that arose from the ashes of the old company is considered to be compatible.

Representing tradition: an analysis of Tu Weiming’s Confucianism

This paper begins by rehearsing a debate, which took place in the 1980s in the journal Philosophy East and West on whether Mencius was a true successor to Confucius, which has recently prompted a new debate on the topic of tradition and true succession in social epistemology. Rejecting the understanding of tradition in this latter debate as often aloof from the world and as of limited use for the investigation of concrete cases, I turn to the Confucian tradition and to Tu Weiming as one of its current representatives. My interest lies in the ways Tu represents and reconstructs the Confucian tradition and I intend to offer analyses based on two sets of selected English writings asking questions such as: Which textual references does Tu explicitly or only implicitly foreground as crucial to his understanding of the tradition that he is taken to represent? What vocabulary does he use to articulate the contents of the tradition? The paper ends with some thoughts on the question of true succession in Confucianism, stressing the importance of domains of representation and the addressed audiences, in an attempt to enrich the mentioned debates in current social epistemology.

Traditions and True Successors

How can different parties to a dispute in aesthetics, history, politics or religion, either individuals or groups, each claim, apparently with at least some justification, that it, but not its rival(s), is the true or authentic successor or later representative for some earlier group or individual, or that it, but not its rival(s), stands in the same authentic tradition as the earlier one? Such social disputes seem essentially endless and interminable. Is this so? Can the disputes receive a rational resolution? I try and illustrate these disputes with numerous specific examples. I focus on the two concepts of tradition and true succession for my analysis. The idea of qualitative similarity of beliefs and practices can illuminate social disputes over true succession or membership of a tradition. (Causal connexion has a necessary role to play.) Other analyses frequently identify the vagueness or ambiguity in the concepts of the specific traditions as the source of dispute. On the contrary, I argue that the vagueness inherent in the question of how similar beliefs and practices need to be is what explains these apparently endless disputes that social groups have with one another over these questions.

Leadership lessons from Canada geese

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to discuss the implications of three lessons that leaders can learn from Canada geese to leadership and teamwork in organizations.Design/methodology/approachMigratory behavior of Canada geese is compared to widespread behavior among leaders and teams in organizations.FindingsThe first lesson is: work as a team: Canada Geese migrate long distances flying in V‐formation. This formation results in lesser wind resistance, which allows the whole flock to add around 70 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew alone. Geese find out quickly that it pays handsomely to be team players. Second, wise leadership: when the leader at the apex of the V gets tired, it is relieved by another goose. Leaders rotate, empower, delegate, and even step down when it's in the best interest of the team. How often do we see this taking place among organizational leaders? Wise leaders ensure that their followers are well trained and developed in order to achieve true empowerment and smooth succession processes. Third, humane behavior: if a goose drops to the ground when it gets hurt or sick, two of its colleagues go down with it to take care of it until it either gets healthier or dies. In this fast‐paced and competitive age, we seldom see managers going out of their way to help colleagues who are in trouble. In organizations, morale, productivity, and loyalty increase when employees are treated humanely.Originality/valueThis paper discusses ways that leaders, teams, and organizations can improve performance by applying three lessons learned from Canada geese.

‘Austere Ritual’: the Reformation of Worship in Inter-War English Congregationalism

Writing in 196s, Horton Davies, in his magisterial examination of worship and theology in England, gave a glowing account of advances made in Free Churches over previous decades towards ‘a worship that is deeply reverent, sacramentally rich, ecumenically comprehensive, and theologically faithful’. This study examines the pressure for reformation in worship which emerged, particularly in the 1930s, within English Congregationalism. Pressure came from an exploration of the Reformed and Puritan roots of the denomination and from the influence of wider forms of corporate devotion. By 1943, Nathaniel Micklem (1888-1976), Principal from 1932 of Mansfield College, Oxford, and the most formative theologian espousing new versions of Reformed thought, could write Congregationalism and the Church Catholic, affirming that ‘by the faithful preaching of the Word, the believing celebration of the sacraments and the exercise of Gospel discipline, the Church is kept in the doctrine and fellowship of the apostles and stands in true succession’. The inter-war years, a period of marked Anglo-Catholic dominance, saw Anglican and Free Church leaders who had been shaped by evangelical theology re-examining their practices in the light of higher forms of worship. In Congregationalism, which with almost 300,000 members in England was the largest of the older Dissenting denominations, this process had distinctive features deriving from its own history.

A Middle Pleistocene glacial–interglacial succession in the Inner Silver Pit, southern North Sea: foraminiferal stratigraphy and amino acid geochronology

Benthic foraminiferal data from the depth interval between 42.0 and 30.5 m in the Inner Silver Pit core 81/52A in the southern North Sea has revealed a glacial–interglacial succession comprising a 5 m thick interglacial deposit. The foraminiferal assemblages initially indicate ice-proximal conditions (Zone 52-1) from a deglaciation period. A transitional zone (Zone 52-2) with faunal indication of relatively deeper water and slightly higher but still subarctic temperature conditions, is followed by a true interglacial succession (called the Inner Silver Pit Interglacial) with increased faunal diversity and with a high content of warm water species (Zone 52-3). A decrease in water depth is registered towards the top of the interglacial succession. The assemblage in the topmost sample (Zone 52-4) indicates a return to high arctic glacial marine conditions. Foraminiferal faunas in three vibrocores obtained from the slopes of the neighbouring Inner Silver Pit valley are correlated with the interglacial assemblages in Zone 52-3 and with the succeeding glacial marine Zone 52-4 of the Inner Silver Pit core 81/52A. Based on the degree of isoleucine epimerisation in benthic foraminifera the interglacial deposit is referred to the Middle Pleistocene, and a correlation with oxygen isotope stage 9 is suggested.

Sequence stratigraphy, paleoecology, and evolution; biotic clues and responses to sea-level fluctuations

Paleoecology has a dual relationship with sequence stratigraphy. On one hand, body and trace fossils, together with their taphonomy, may provide sensitive indicators of environmental parameters, including depth, substrate consistency, sedimentation rate/turbidity, and benthic oxygenation, which are critical in recognizing and interpreting parasequences and sequences. Fossils may provide some of the best guides to identifying key surfaces and inferring sedimentation dynamics within sequences. Conversely, the sequence stratigraphic paradigm and its corollaries provide a predictive framework within which to examine biotic changes and interpret their probable causes. Such changes include ecological epiboles (short-term, widespread proliferation of normally rare species), outages (absence of normally common species), ecophenotypic changes, and long-term (tens to hundreds of Ka) community replacement. Community replacement should be carefully distinguished from short-term (10 to a few hundred years) ecological succession, rarely resolvable at the scale of single beds, although replacement series through shallowing-to-deepening cycles may display some features that parallel true succession. Replacement in marine communities may be relatively chaotic, but, more commonly in offshore settings, it appears to involve lateral, facies-related shifting of broad biofacies belts, or habitat tracking. Tracking patterns may be nearly symmetrical in areas of low sediment input. However, replacement cycles are commonly asymmetrical. The asymmetries involve both apparent and real effects; deletion of portions of facies transitions at sequence boundaries or condensed sections leads to artifactual asymmetries. Alternatively, in areas proximal to siliciclastic sources, tracking asymmetries arise from the markedly higher sedimentation rates during regressive (late highstand) than transgressive phases. Replacements may also involve immigration of species into a sedimentary basin, either as short-lived events (incursion epiboles) or as wholesale faunal immigrations. The latter will typically follow intervals of extinction/emigration of the indigenous faunas. Both large and small immigration events appear most commonly during highstands (transgressive peaks), which may be associated with altered water-mass properties, and may open migration pathways for nekton and planktonic larvae. At least in isolated basins, allopatric speciation may also occur during fragmentation of habitats associated with regressions. Finally, there are predicted and empirical correlations between sequence-producing sea-level fluctuations and macroevolution. Major extinctions may be associated with habitat reduction during major regressions (lowstands), or with anoxic events during major transgressions. Generally, rising sea level may be correlated with evolutionary radiations. Hence, some ecological-evolutionary unit boundaries may correlate either with sequence boundaries or maximum flooding surfaces. However, in other cases, no correlation has been found between macroevolutionary patterns and sequence stratigraphy. The situation is obviously complex, but sequence stratigraphy at least provides a heuristic framework for developing and testing models of macroevolutionary process.

Sequence Stratigraphy, Paleoecology, and Evolution: Biotic Clues and Responses to Sea-Level Fluctuations

Paleoecology has a dual relationship with sequence stratigraphy. On one hand, body and trace fossils, together with their taphonomy, may provide sensitive indicators of environmental parameters, including depth, substrate consistency, sedimentation rate/turbidity, and benthic oxygenation, which are critical in recognizing and interpreting parasequences and sequences. Fossils may provide some of the best guides to identifying key surfaces and inferring sedimentation dynamics within sequences. Conversely, the sequence stratigraphic paradigm and its corollaries provide a predictive framework within which to examine biotic changes and interpret their probable causes. Such changes include ecological epiboles (short-term, widespread proliferation of normally rare species), outages (absence of normally common species), ecophenotypic changes, and long-term (tens to hundreds of Ka) community replacement. Community replacement should be carefully distinguished from short-term (10 to a few hundred years) ecological succession, rarely resolvable at the scale of single beds, although replacement series through shallowing-to-deepening cycles may display some features that parallel true succession. Replacement in marine communities may be relatively chaotic, but, more commonly in offshore settings, it appears to involve lateral, facies-related shifting of broad biofacies belts, or habitat tracking. Tracking patterns may be nearly symmetrical in areas of low sediment input. However, replacement cycles are commonly asymmetrical. The asymmetries involve both apparent and real effects; deletion of portions of facies transitions at sequence boundaries or condensed sections leads to artifactual asymmetries. Alternatively, in areas proximal to siliciclastic sources, tracking asymmetries arise from the markedly higher sedimentation rates during regressive (late highstand) than transgressive phases. Replacements may also involve immigration of species into a sedimentary basin, either as short-lived events (incursion epiboles) or as wholesale faunal immigrations. The latter will typically follow intervals of extinction/emigration of the indigenous faunas. Both large and small immigration events appear most commonly during highstands (transgressive peaks), which may be associated with altered water-mass properties, and may open migration pathways for nekton and planktonic larvae. At least in isolated basins, allopatric speciation may also occur during fragmentation of habitats associated with regressions. Finally, there are predicted and empirical correlations between sequence-producing sea-level fluctuations and macroevolution. Major extinctions may be associated with habitat reduction during major regressions (lowstands), or with anoxic events during major transgressions. Generally, rising sea level may be correlated with evolutionary radiations. Hence, some ecological-evolutionary unit boundaries may correlate either with sequence boundaries or maximum flooding surfaces. However, in other cases, no correlation has been found between macroevolutionary patterns and sequence stratigraphy. The situation is obviously complex, but sequence stratigraphy at least provides a heuristic framework for developing and testing models of macroevolutionary process.

Seasonal Periodicity in Lacustrine Phytoplankton and the Theory of Ecological Succession

AbstractAn attempt has been made to examine the extent to which seasonal periodicity of lacustrine phytoplankton corresponds to the general concepts of the theory of ecological succession. The study was carried out on an eutrophic lake (Aydat, France). As REYNOLDS (1980, 1984) suggests, the seasonal periodicity of phytoplankton is an autogenic succession which may be perturbed by allogenic physical processes that change the initial direction of the succession. Thus, in this lake, only spring succession of phytoplankton can be considered as a true succession, consistent with the theory of ecological succession in that it was a directional and predictable phenomenon leading to an increasing complexity of community.

Confucius, Mencius, and the Notion of True Succession

Confucius, Mencius, and the Notion of True Succession

The Disembodied Rebels: Psychic Origins of Rebellion in Absalom and Achitophel

TheDisembodiedRebels: Psychic Origins ofRebellion in Absalom and Achitophel ANNE T. BARBEAN The rebels in Absalom and Achitophel share a contempt for the laws regarding the bodily succession of monarchs, as well as for the cove* nants transmitted from generation to generation in their land. Dryden, on the other hand, suggests that the true succession and the inherited covenants are the Ark of government, the divinely sanc­ tioned foundation of the building. Although this building may occa­ sionally be in need of patching and buttressing, that is, of external re­ pairs, its foundation, according to Dryden, must never be tampered with. Since the rebels are indeed striking at the Ark, Dryden sees their act as an impiety and an apostasy both: it is an offense against God and their ancestors and also a withdrawal from their real, his­ torically given situation. The rebels are turning away from the provi­ dential setting to the tabula rasa of their own minds, their public apostasy seeming to have been preceded by a private one, as revealed in their peculiar trait of disembodiment. For the rebels have undone the subtle knot of soul and flesh that made them human; they have dissociated themselves from the bonds 489 490 / ANNE T. BARBEAU and obligations arising from their physical nature, a nature which, though they despise it, would have curbed their unruly spirits. Dryden shows their aspiring wills making their own bodies the first victims, then moving on to prey on the body of the nation, on its in­ herited laws and traditions. Such a powerful curb on the will does Dryden conceive the body to be that the last part of Absalom to re­ sist betraying his father is the physical: “For Royal Blood within him struggled still.”1 His mind has more quickly soared above the obliga­ tions of a subject and a son. To give free rein to their minds, the rebels either deny or give scant attention to such basic relationships as those of mind and body, of parent and child, of husband and wife. Absalom disclaims his mother to be rid of the “mean Descent” that clogs his lofty “Mind,” “large Soul,” and “mounting Spirit” (364-67). Likewise, AchitopheFs mind seems to be cut loose from his body once he has fretted that body “to decay” with excessive mental activity; so absorbed is he in the “hudled Notions” of his soul that he neglects his wife, the one with whom he is one flesh; hence, when he ought to concentrate on procreation, he is distracted by stratagems and so begets something less than a son, a “shapeless Lump, like Anarchy” (172). Caught up, too with the desire to “boast his Wit” (162), Achitophel drives the ship of state into peril, breaking a triple alliance, and so endangering future gener­ ations as well as his contemporaries. A third upper-class rebel provides a variation on this theme of disembodiment, for Zimri is more obvi­ ously absurd in his excess of mental activity; he impoverishes his family and his posterity for the sake of “his Jest” (562). The braininess of the high-born rebels is related to the unbounded private spirit of the low-born ones in that all are apostates who deny or reject the providentially given bodily limits as well as political or historical limits. The Zealot Shimei denies his body food and rest for the sake of two perverse, seemingly spiritual passions, a “pious Hate/Against his Master” (593-94), and a love of money, a heaping of treasure that never leads to sense gratification. Corah, too, refuses to recognize the bodily given; his life is a mock-miraculous legend, with “Visionary flights” and mysterious absences: “The Spirit caught him up, the Lord knows where” (657). Because of the way he con­ Psychic Origins of Rebellion in Absalom and Achitophel / 491 ceived the Popish Plot and pieced his “wondrous Evidence” (661), Dryden hints that Corah received some sort of inspiration; his mem­ ory was “miraculously great” and his wit beyond the merely human (650-53). In contrast to the aristocratic rebels’ feverish cerebration, then, the low-born rebels pursue with zeal a perverse saintliness. Dryden also portrays the people at large...

The ecology of algae in the Moruya river, Australia

The standing crop of benthic and planktonic algae in the Moruya River, Australia, was, in general, low compared with values given for northern hemisphere rivers. Diatoms always accounted for more than 90% of the algae on the sediments with the most common species being typical of holarctic flora. The relative abundance of each of six predominant taxa was similar at the three sampling localities and did not show marked seasonal variation. However, Gomphonema spp. contributed a relatively greater number in the downstream area whereas Cocconeis placentula Ehr. was comparatively more abundant upstream. The highest standing crop (1.47 × 106 cells/cm2) was found downstream and in the calmest part of the river between January and March, coincident with maximum water temperatures. A true phytoplankton succession comprising filamentous chlorophytes, Scenedesmus, Melosira varians Ag., Dactylococcopsis, Eudorina and Merismopedia was observed at the most downstream site during the spring and summer, with a maximum standing crop of 126.7 × 103 cells/litre being attained in December. The gut of larval lampreys > 100 mm contained large numbers (44,000–525,000 cells) of algae. Scenedesmus and Dactylococcopsis occurred much more frequently in the gut than in either the sediment or water, but the reverse was true for filamentous algae.

William Sawney Bisat, 1886-1973

William Sawney Bisat, who died at his home in Collingham, near Leeds, on 14 May 1973, was an ‘amateur (part-time)’ geologist and, like the ‘father of historical geology’ William Smith, he was a professional surveyor and civil engineer. His geological distinction was assured when he revealed the true succession of the Carboniferous rocks of Yorkshire and Lancashire by the description of the different goniatite faunas contained in some of the component strata. This knowledge made correlation of rock-sequences in Britain and western Europe more accurate and thus helped in the understanding of the palaeogeography and environmental conditions in Carboniferous times. He also contributed substantially to the unravelling of the complex nature of the deposits left by the Pleistocene ice in northern England. Unique features of Bisat’s work were that much of it was engendered by the shared efforts of fellow members of local scientific societies and that his results generally received their first publication in the records of those local societies.

Aspects saisonniers de la fixation de l’épifaune benthique de l’étage infralittoral de l’estuaire du Saint-Laurent

This work conducted during two seasons (May–October 1969, 1970) was designed to study the dynamic aspects of the settlement of benthic epifauna on hard substrata. The stations were distributed on a 200-km distance, the salinity gradient ranging from 15 to 27‰. Although over 60 species were identified on the plates, the analysis shows that only three of these are abundant: Polydora ciliata, Balanus balanoides, and Balanus crenatus. In general, the settlement period of the species is very short and most of the settling processes are concentrated in June, July, and August. The populations reached a peak of abundance during settlement and decreased regularly afterwards. This decrease is due mainly to intraspecific and interspecific competition for space, accumulation of sediment, and hydrodynamic factors in autumn. The marked physical seasonality of this subarctic environment, more than true biotic succession, is reflected in the development of the community: during the summer, the community is biologically accommodated, whereas in autumn and winter it is physically controlled.

Systems containing hydrogen peroxide at high concentration communication 12. The ternary system Zn (OH)2-H2O2-H2O

1. The system Zn (OH)2-H2O2-H2O was studied at 30,20, 0, −10, and −20° by the solubility method. 2. The true composition and succession of changes in the system Zn(OH)2-H2O2-H2O were established from a general analysis of data for the diagrams ZnO-H2O-1/2 O2 and ZnO-H2O2 in the liquid phase. 3. In the system Zn (OH)2-H2O2-H2O in the temperature range from 30° to −20° it may be considered provisionally that the following solid phases exist: a) a series of hydrates of zinc peroxide: ZnO2 · 2H2O; ZnO2 · 1.5H2O; ZnO2 · H2O; ZnO2 • 0.5H2O; b) anhydrous zinc peroxide ZnO2; c) zinc peroxide monohydrate semiperhydrate: ZnO2 · 0.5H202 β H2O; d) perhydrates of zinc peroxide: ZnO2 · H2O2, ZnO2 · 2H2O2. 4 Comparison of our data on the system Zn (OH)2 - H2O2 - H2O in the temperature range from 30° to − 20° with data in the literature (Figure 1) shows that the great majority of the peroxy compounds of zinc reported previously were probably mechanical mixtures. 5. The polythermal solubility diagram of the ternary system Zn (OH)2 - H2O2 - H2O was constructed and enables the limits of existence of the solid phases of the system to be determined.

Jacques Maritain: A Prophet for Our Time

M. Maritain is a many-sided man. He is a Christian philosopher, a social reformer, a critic of the principles of the arts of painting and poetry, and an expert in the theories and fundamentals of the modern sciences. But all these phases of his activity are aspects of a powerfully religious personality. My purpose is to speak of him as a prophet of the Christian faith. More and more he is being listened to by those of all shades of opinion who are in sympathy with a spiritual interpretation of life. I have called him a prophet, for, as an eminent scholar has said, “the final mission of Old Testament prophecy was to liberate the eternal truths of religion from their temporal national embodiment and disclose their true foundation in the immutable character of God and the essential nature of man.” Social righteousness is a central theme of the prophets. That M. Maritain is in the true succession of those prophets is evident to anyone who is even casually acquainted with his more popular writings. In fact it is their religious interpretation of problems of the social order that has given them such a wide and varied circle of readers. He is, however, in the succession not only of the prophets of Israel, but also of the prophets and saints of the Christian Church. Like the apostle Paul he entered by a marvellous transition into a fulness of spiritual light; like St Augustine, he passed from a brilliant humanistic society into a new hope for a city of God; like Pascal, who abandoned the sceptical libertines of seventeenth-century Paris, he consecrated his scientific understanding and literary gifts, when the light flooded his soul, to the integration of mankind in a humanism complete and entire.

Reincarnation of a Dalai Lama

DURING the five years which have elapsed since the death of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, reports have appeared of the progress made in the search for his successor. According to Lamaistic belief, when a Dalai Lama dies, his spirit is reincarnated in the body of his successor, born at the moment of his death. The records of early travellers in Tibet bear witness to the elaborate precautions taken to ensure the true succession to the holy office, and the careful, if reverent, regimen to which its youthful occupant is subjected. Lhamo Dhondhup, the new Dalai Lama, now some five years of ago, was born in Amdo Ari, near Kumbum, in Silling and at his birth there was a rainbow’ over the house. Some particulars of the signs by which the authenticity of the reincarnation was attested, as reported from Tibet, are transmitted by the Delhi correspondent of The Times in the issue of October 29. Not only had the existence of the reincarnated Dalai Lama and his whereabouts been indicated in a vision, according to precedent, but also when visited by the search party, disguised as traders, he recognized their holy calling and distinguished between the status of the individuals who composed the party. He took hold of the rosary which had belonged to the late Dalai Lama, telling the beads and repeating the Buddhist formula “Om Mane Padme Hum”. In a further test, when the Dalai Lama's rosary, small drum and walking stick were offered him, he chose those which had been his own in his previous incarnation in preference to the replicas presented to him at the same time—a test in which another aspirant to the office failed.

The Stratigraphy of the Laki Series (Lower Eocene) of parts of Sind and Baluchistan (India); with a Description of the Larger Foraminifera contained in those beds

I. Introduction. The following is a short account of the geology of the Lower Eocene Laki Series of the neighbourhood of Tatta, Meting, and the Laki Range in Sind, as well as of beds of the same age in the Bolan Pass (Baluchistan). The location of these places can be readily determined by reference to the map (fig. 1, p. 418). The first part of the paper includes a revision of the existing classification of the geological succession, and a brief description of the stratigraphy. In this respect the neighbourhood of Meting is of particular interest, as the highly fossiliferous lowermost beds of the Laki Series are well exposed, and so far in this area the true geological succession appears not to have been recognized. The second part incorporates palæontological details, in particular with reference to foraminifera of the genera Alveolina, Nummulites, Assilina , etc. It is remarkable that several species with a limited stratigraphical range occur associated, just as they are in beds of similar age in Europe. The Indian representatives of these species have not been systematically examined or described since the classical Monograph on Nummulites by J. d'Archiac & E. J. A. Haime in 1853. At that time, specimens were not collected and separated according to their stratigraphical horizons, nor is it clear often which of the figures to specimens from India. The field work in the area was done during the winter of 1920–21 and in the latter part of 1923, when most of the fossils described