50 Years ago

A Congress was held in Singapore during December 2–9 to celebrate “the Centenary of the formulation of the theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and the Bicentenary of the publication of the tenth edition of the 'Systema Naturae' by Linnaeus”. It was particularly fitting that this Congress should have been held in Singapore for ... it directed special attention to the work of Wallace, who was one of the greatest biologists ever to have worked in south-east Asia ... Prof. Haldane then delivered his presidential address ... The president emphasised the stimuli gained by Linnaeus, Darwin and Wallace through working in peripheral areas where lack of knowledge was a challenge. He suggested that the next major biological advance may well come for similar reasons from peripheral places such as Singapore, or Calcutta, where this challenge still remains and where the lack of complex scientific apparatus drives biologists into different and long-neglected fields of research.

From Nature 14 March 1959.

100 Years ago

On Monday evening Dr. M. A. Stein read before the Royal Geographical Society a paper on his geographical and archaeological explorations in Chinese Turkestan in 1906–8 ... He was greatly desirous of examining a secret store of ancient manuscripts which had been accidentally discovered by a Taoist priest in the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas ... These were piled up without any sort of order to a height of 10 feet, and comprised not only written documents, but fine paintings on silk and cotton, ex-votos in all kinds of silk and brocade, and streamers in various fabrics. Dated documents showed that the chamber must have been walled up about 1000 a.d., but some of the records dated back so far as the third century a.d.

From Nature 11 March 1909.