1898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 149 



of the theory of dissociation upon physiology will perhaps be best 

 seen in the field of animal electricity. An active element of living 

 matter in a state of rest is negatively electric to its surrounding 

 parts. We may assume that an acid is formed in the active part, 

 and that the passive parts are neutral. The positive hydrogen ions 

 of the acid have a much greater velocity of migration than the 

 anions. Hence the former will diffuse more rapidly into the 

 passive tissue than the anions, and the active tissue will remain 

 negatively charged." 



Martian Morphology 



WHx\.t relief, after wading through the tenth text-book of zoology 

 or the twelfth primer of geology, to open a parcel from Mr Wm. 

 Heineraann, and to find that it contains that interesting romance 

 " The War of the Worlds," by H. G. Wells ! Our best thanks to Mr 

 Heinemann for a really pleasant evening. Considering that the 

 staple of an up-to-date novel is criminal psychology or sexual 

 pathology, it is strange that we receive so few. But there is little 

 of the advanced novel in this thrilling tale by our English Jules 

 Verne. Everyone by this time knows the story of the attack on 

 London by the strange beings shot from Mars : this we need not 

 recapitulate. We are more interested in the anatomy and physiology 

 of the Martians themselves. 



Some of our readers may remember that in September 1894 we 

 were led by the strange light seen on the southern edge of Mars 

 (which Mr Wells explains as due to the casting of the huge gun), 

 to speculate on the kind of beings, and especially the reasoning 

 beings, that miglit have been evolved did protoplasm exist on the 

 red planet. We did not enter into such details as the trained 

 scientific imagination of Mr Wells enables him to do, but perhaps 

 we do not lay too flattering an unction to our soul in supposing 

 that our hints formed the basis of the novelist's more vivid 

 conception. 



A big, greyish, rounded bulk, about 4 feet in diameter, with an 

 integument glistening like wet leather, a face, or rather a facial 

 area with immense dark-coloured eyes devoid of brow ridges, no 

 nostrils, and below them a V-shaped mouth with pointed upper lip, 

 its wedge-like brim, unsupported by a chin, incessantly quivering 

 and dropping saliva. And then below this, sixteen slender, almost 

 whip-like, tentacles arranged in two groups, " since named by that 

 distinguished naturalist Prof. Howes, the hands." At the back 

 of its head or body is a single tight tympanic surface serving as 

 an ear, the internal viscera consisting chiefly of a brain sending 

 enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tentacles. The mouth opens 

 not into a stomach, but into lungs, the heart and its vessels being 



