354 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



It is, indeed, not easy to follow the author's meaning. Like all works of 

 "theosophy" or " occult science," vagueness is the chief characteristic. Clearness 

 and lucidity are as fatal to mysticism as oxygen is to the microbe of tetanus. 



Although we may regret the attitude adopted by Mr. Dick in this pamphlet on 

 Ancient Astronomy, we may yet admit that he has taken the trouble to acquire 

 some information on the subject of which be endeavours to treat. No such 

 extenuating circumstance can be pleaded in favour of the editor of the second 

 pamphlet on Modern Astrology ; for that periodical (as it appears to be) contains 

 no information and displays no knowledge of any kind whatever. The advertise- 

 ment pages are filled with notices of publications on Astrology which may be 

 purchased by the public for varying prices. Nearly all appear to be written by the 

 editor, who is also prepared to give a course of lessons in Astrology for the sum of 

 10 guineas. One advertisement naively attempts to define the difference between 

 an astrologer and a charlatan. To which category the editor of Modern Astrology 

 belongs we are not informed. But to all who value civilisation and truth, it is 

 a scandalous and depressing circumstance that there exist apparently a number 

 of people in this country who are prepared to part with their money for the 

 purchase of such literary trash, as is here presented, for the consumption of the 

 weaker-minded of our compatriots. If any analogy is justifiable, it can only be 

 with those vendors of patent remedies who fill an eight-ounce bottle with water 

 from the tap, and sell it to the public for a guinea as a cure for cancer, tuberculosis, 

 measles, and all other diseases great or small. But tap-water at least is harmless 

 as a rule ; whereas a perusal of these publications may well engender, among 

 hysterical women and others, a form of psychological measles which causes 

 crooked and unhealthy vision, and is a curse both to themselves and their asso- 

 ciates. The effrontery with which such doctrines are set forth is shown by the 

 fact that the editors of Modern Astrology actually venture to send a review copy 

 to Science Progress. 



Hugh Elliot. 



Changes in the Food Supply and their Relation to Nutrition. By Prof. L. B. 

 Mendel, Professor of Physiological Chemistry, Yale University. [Pp. 61.] 

 (New Haven : Yale University Press ; London : Oxford University Press, 

 1916. Price 50 cents.) 



Prof. Mendel reprints an essay dealing with the greater facilities afforded by 

 improved transportation, for wider variations of diet, which will meet physiological 

 necessities. Year by year enormous importations of foodstuffs from sparsely 

 populated regions where they are raised, to the great centres of population where 

 they are consumed, have been steadily growing, with the result that a solution is 

 found of the problem of fully and completely supplying the physiological needs of 

 those large populations. Freezing, chilling, drying, as well as methods of preser- 

 vation by heat, have contributed to this end, and immense quantities of readily 

 perishable foodstuffs, such as milk, fish, eggs, etc., are transported in this way. 

 Not only that, but fresh fruit, notably bananas, are brought long distances in 

 suitably fitted vessels in a very high state of fitness for consumption. The author 

 alludes to the exaggerated views as to the necessities for meat diets. 



The present European War affords special opportunities to study the relation- 

 ship of the food supplies in unexpected economic and territorial conditions. Prof. 

 Mendel points out that the household is the ultimate agency in the distribution of 

 economic wealth to individuals. What the wage earner really secures, and what 



