50 Years Ago

Charles Darwin's Orchid Bank at Downe in Kent has recently been acquired as a nature reserve by the Kent Naturalists' Trust. It is a site of great scientific interest which shows a wide range of vegetation types ... and, as it is only sixteen miles from the centre of London, the need for conservation is urgent and considerable. It is also of unique historical importance, for Darwin is known to have carried out field studies there from his nearby home, Down House, where he lived for forty years ... Eleven of the thirteen species of orchid mentioned by Darwin as occurring within a mile of his house can still be found in the reserve.

From Nature 21 April 1962

100 Years Ago

The Mind of Primitive Man. By Franz Boas — There is a popular fallacy that racial antipathy is based on physiological foundations. But in so far as such antipathy is real, there is nothing physiological in its causation ... The author's discussion and explanation of the causes and results of variation within a race ... supply the most convincing theory that has yet appeared ... The ordinary view of the mental deficiencies of the "inferior races" is remorselessly criticised. The lowest savage does possess self-control. He is not improvident, but rather optimistic. He can concentrate his mind. He possesses originality. Savages who do not count beyond three or ten easily adapt their language and intellect to civilised methods of reckoning ... The point is that these civilised methods are not needed in the primitive state, where each man on a war-expedition is known by name, though the number of the troop may not be reckoned. Both in mind and in body there is little to choose between the ordinary barbarian and the civilised man.

From Nature 18 April 1912