1899] THE MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION 67 



collector in the field to procure common objects such as he otherwise might 

 overlook, and this seems to us a thoroughly valuable suggestion. Mr. S. 

 Sinclair describes " The Australian Museum," of which he is the secretary. The 

 last paper in the volume, by Mr. F. A. Bather, of the British Museum (Nat. 

 Hist.), describes "some Russian Museums" visited by him when attending the 

 International Geological Congress in 1897. The account of the Caucasian 

 Museum in Tiflis has a timely interest, since its curator, Dr. G. Radde, has just 

 been awarded the great gold medal of the Russian Geographical Society. Other 

 museums described are those of St. Petersburg, Reval, Jurjev (Dorpat), Moscow, 

 Saratov, Astrakhan, and Theodosia. The notes are mostly geological and 

 zoological, and are followed by the drawing of a few morals, professedly 

 referring to Russia, but peculiarly applicable to museums nearer home. 



As usual, a few reviews and notes close the volume ; but we regret to see 

 that the Secretary has not furnished any report of the discussion following the 

 papers. Such reports in former years, despite occasional verbosity, contained 

 much useful matter that otherwise would not have achieved publication. We 

 trust that this will be remedied at the next meeting, which we are informed is 

 to be held at Brighton during the first week of July. 



CRITICISM WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. 



Views on some of the Phenomena of Nature, as seen from the Workshop, 

 the Factory, and the Field. Part II. By James Walker. 8vo, 

 pp. 187. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Company, Ltd., 1899. 

 Price 2s. 6d. 



Mr. Walker is a paradoxer of the first water. His quarrel with modern 

 science is partly verbal ; but the greater part of his booklet is taken up with 

 denunciation of the undulatory theory of light. He takes fright at the large- 

 ness of the numbers used to describe the number of vibrations per second in the 

 motion that is the physical concomitant of what we call red light, and imagines 

 that the writing out of these by numbers across a whole line of print is an 

 argument against their existence. He has still to learn the truth that largeness 

 and smallness are purely relative terms, and that the billionth of an inch is as 

 truly a magnitude as the distance from the earth to the sun. It would be vain 

 to attempt any criticism in a short notice. Enough to say, that his representa- 

 tion of the modern theory of light and radiant heat is a travesty, and shows 

 extraordinary ignorance of the elements of wave motion. In support of this 

 statement we give one quotation as a sample. In his description of the pro- 

 duction of lightning according to the science of to-day, he says, " All, from every 

 single molecule of that vapour, these motions and quivering waves of ether 

 somehow drop the molecules, forsake them, abandon them ; and although being- 

 nothing themselves but the simple quivers of ether, somehow collect themselves 

 into a flash of an irresistible force of destruction, occupying not one-half of a 

 cubic inch of space," etc. We congratulate our author on this very remarkable 

 theory of the production of the lightning flash. It is his alone ! It may be 

 well to point out that, although Mr. Walker scoffs at scientific men for their 

 gratuitous invention of the ether, he himself falls into the same pit by invent- 

 ing " electrogene," which, so far as may be gathered from the vague references 

 that are made to it, is a kind of material squirted out from the sun. To expose 

 the fallacy of most of his arguments would be wasted labour. Magna est 

 Veritas, et prevalebit ; and it is doubtful if tomes of argument could ever convince 

 Mr. Walker of his sublime ignorance of the real basis of our ethereal dynamics. 



C. G. K. 



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