Observations Of Water Hardness From Southwest Devon Island, Northwest Territories

Over the thaw period of 1970, the hardness in “Jason's Creek” increased systematically. Waters from other sources in the area, sampled in 1969 and 1970, show increases in hardness with distance of travel downslope, from large flows to small flows, and from flowing water to standing water. The highest total hardness values are from vegetated pools of standing water (as also reported by Smith (1969) in Somerset Island). The hardness of water which has had no contact with regolith or bedrock can be sharply differentiated from that of water which has been in such contact. This observation, together with the increase in hardness with distance of travel, may be consequent upon a slow attainment of chemical equilibrium in these arctic waters. It may also be possible to draw a distinction between the solutional work done by snowmeit water and that done by rainwater. The latter has a lower initial pH and, for comparable volumes of discharge, generates higher values of hardness. These preliminary conclusions are to be tested in future stages of this project, which in 1971 and 1972 will be concerned with the hydrology of a larger stream, the river Mecham, near Resolute on Cornwallis Island. Monitoring of the solute content of waters throughout the Mecham basin is an important part of the proposed research.     

Colgi, Cajal and the Neuron Doctrine

Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize in 1906 for their work on the histology of the nerve cell, but both held diametrically opposed views about the Neuron Doctrine which emphasizes the structural, functional and developmental singularity of the nerve cell. Golgi's reticularist views remained entrenched and his work on the nervous system did not venture greatly into new territories after its original flowering, which had greater impact than is now commonly credited. Cajal, by contrast, by the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize, was already breaking new ground with a new staining technique in the field of peripheral nerve regeneration, seeing the reconstruction of a severed nerve by sprouting from the proximal stump as another manifestation of the Neuron Doctrine. Paradoxically, identical studies were going on simultaneously in Golgi's laboratory in the hands of Aldo Perroncito, but the findings did not seem to influence Golgi's thinking on the Neuron Doctrine.     

Book reviews

THE PHILIPPINES

FILOMENO AGUILAR. Clash of Spirits—the History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island. Ateneo de Manila University Press and University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

CHINA

BENJAMIN VANG. Deng: a Political Biography. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. 360 pp. Bibliography, index. US$59.95, hardcover; US$21.95, paper.

CHING KWAN LEE. Gender and the South China Miracle. Two Worlds of Factory Women. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998. xiii, 210 pp. Bibliography, index. £12.95, paper.

LINDA BENSON and INGVAR SVANBERG. China's Last Nomads: the History and Culture of China's Kazaks . New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 270 pp. Index, photographs, maps, charts, bibliography. US$63.95, hardcover; US$ 24.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

TESSA MORRIS‐SUZUKI. Re‐inventing Japan: time, Space, Nation. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. US$21.95, paper.

DAVID MYERS and KOTAKU ISHIDO (eds). Japan at the Crossroads. Tokyo: Seibundo, 1998. xv, 253 pp. Bibliography. ¥3000, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LINDA CONNOR, PATSY ASCH and TIMOTHY ASCH.

Films: A Balinese Trance Séance (30 mins). Jero on Jero (16 mins). The Medium is the Masseuse (31 mins). Jero Tapakan (26 mins). Produced and distributed by the Ethnographic Film Unit, Department of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU, Canberra. 16mm (VHS cassette). Colour. English subtitles. A$80.00.

CARL A. TROCKI (ed). Gangsters, Democracy, and the State in Southeast Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1998. 94 pp. No price given, paper.     

Stylistic Change as a Self-Organized Critical Phenomenon: An Archaeological Study in Complexity

Archaeologists can learn from models of evolution as a self-organized critical phenomenon. Self-organized critical systems are large, interactive systems that organize into a critical state where minor events can trigger chain reactions. Such systems demonstrate power-law distributions in the size of changes, or avalanches, that occur. The theory of self-organized criticality is important in that it implies that the evolution of complex systems may be driven more by interactions between agents than by external events or natural selection. Stylistic changes may be examples of avalanches of interconnected events. Evidence for self-organized criticality is shown for stylistic evolution in historical pottery styles from New York State and is used to evaluate the nature of a prehistoric pottery typology from the Southwest.