67* SCIENCE PROGRESS 



employed in fighting. It is curious that the Germans do not seem to have reflected 

 how their foul submarine war will ultimately recoil on their own foul heads — 

 because if it is successful there will not be left enough ships to carry American 

 food to them after peace is declared. We may suspect that the war after the war 

 will be the more terrible. 



British law is beyond the understanding. On February 8 Mr. Justice 

 Coleridge fined two young men for attempting to bribe persons serving in the 

 Army Clothing Department, and was reported to have said that " having regard 

 to the small sums which were received, and to the circumstance that no public 

 mischief was in fact done, he would not imprison the defendants." Such judg- 

 ments imay appear inexplicable to many. Should a man who has attempted to 

 murder another for money, or to forge a cheque, be excused merely because the 

 sums involved were small or because the attempts were detected in time to be 

 prevented? Is crime mitigated by failure or smallness of stake? Yet this is 

 war-time, during which the supply of inferior clothing to soldiers in the field may 

 have the most serious results for the men who are sacrificing their lives for their 

 country. On the other hand a tired soldier may be shot for sleeping on duty ! 



A writer in Science of January 5 makes the very good suggestion that 

 publishers should issue advertisements of new books on cards of 3 by 5 in., suitable 

 for filing— so that the recipient of the advertisement can always file the card in his 

 card index, whether or not he buys the book at the moment when he receives the 

 advertisement. Of course the card should give all the details regarding the book 

 which are usually given in card indexes, and be also inserted in publishers' 

 advertisements. Messrs. John Wiley & Sons, the American publishers, have 

 already agreed to adopt the suggestion. 



Mr. Murray has been well advised to reissue for a cheap price (2s. 6d.) that 

 admirable old work " The Moon, considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite," 

 by James Nasmyth and James Carpenter, originally published in February 1874. 

 The work is really excellent as a semi-popular textbook. The lucidity with which 

 the authors state in the beginning of the book the general principles of spectrum 

 analysis, conservation of energy, and gravity is quite admirable ; and the photo- 

 graphs of the surface structure of the moon might tempt one to explore such a 

 wonderful country if possible. These photographs were prepared from plaster 

 models of the moon constructed by Mr. Nasmyth ; and I asked Mr. Murray to let 

 me know his interesting reminiscences on this matter. He writes in reply : 

 " What I told you about dear old James Nasmyth was this : for many years of his 

 later life, his two hobbies were telescope work and gardening. For a very long 

 time he made the moon his special study, and every clear night he used to map 

 out a bit of it, draw it, measure it, and test all his figures. From these he made a 

 plaster model, and this again was always tested and re-measured until at last he 

 got what was approximately a model of the surface of the moon, far nearer to the 

 truth than anything else that had ever been done before. This model he photo- 

 graphed, and the photographs form the main feature of his book. It had a great 

 success, and scores of people used to apply in a casual way, asking if they might 

 copy his photographs for some use of their own ; but old Nasmyth was very firm 

 about this, and would not allow any copying, because these photographs repre- 

 sented years of labour. They were unique, and they form the most valuable part 

 of his volume. He was a most charming old man, and many a long conversation 

 I have had with him. Amongst his sayings were these : ' A man ought to have 

 eyes at the end of his fingers' ; and ' Unless a man can bore a hole with a saw, 

 and cut a board with a bradawl, I do not think much of him as a workman. 1 This, 



