NOTICES OF BOOKS. xiii 



summed up in a " Conclusions" chapter, which is followed by a couple 

 of Appendices, in which some good advice is given to teachers and 

 those who would pursue the study of Natural History alone. Despite 

 the rapidity of scientific advancement and assimilation of Western 

 ideas in the far East, the study of Zoology is still largely regarded as a 

 more or less harmless pursuit, interesting it may be, but unworthy the 

 serious attention of the intellectual man. Professor Mitsukuri's book 

 is in reality a plea for the Science of Zoology. It is charmingly written 

 and, for an elementary treatise in an Eastern tongue, remarkably free 

 from dogmatism. It has been the outcome of a dozen years' careful 

 compilation and forethought, and is in every way worthy the important 

 work which its author and his fellow zoologists have accomplished, by 

 which none have more greatly benefited than we at home. 



Mechanics. By Linnaeus Gumming, M.A. London : Rivington, Per- 

 cival & Co., i8g6. 247 and viii. pp. Price 3s. 



This is a small elementary text-book designed for the use of 

 school-boys, and embodies the results of the author's experience in 

 teaching a class in experimental mechanics at Rugby School. The 

 order in which the subjects are treated is Statics, Dynamics, and 

 Hydrostatics. Although there is no doubt that to the average be- 

 ginner statics is much easier than dynamics, there are many objections 

 to the order adopted by the author. Not the least of these lies in the 

 fact that all through the statics the forces are measured in pounds. 

 When, however, dynamics is reached a new unit of force, the poundal, 

 is introduced, and suddenly what has up to now been called a force of 

 X pounds is called a force of x pounds weight. The author in this con- 

 nection does not explain how in the gravitational system the funda- 

 mental units are those of length, mass, and force, and that the unit of 

 mass in this system is really g lbs. There are one or two slips we have 

 come across; thus on page 138 it is stated that every physical quantity 

 can be expressed in terms of the units of length, mass, and time, when 

 it is now generall}' considered that temperature, specific inductive capa- 

 city and permeability form subsidiary fundamental units, at any rate 

 in the present state of our knowledge. Again, a water-wheel is said 

 always to work by the abstraction of the kinetic energy of the water, 

 while in England the "overshot" wheel is quite common. The style 

 of the book is on the whole clear, and the experimental illustrations easy 

 of performance and carefully described, so that the work will probably 

 be found useful for teaching beginners. 



An Introdtiction to StriicUiral Botany. Part \\.—Flowerless Plants. 

 By Dukinfield Henry Scott, M.A., F.R.S., etc. London : Adam 

 & Charles Black, 1896. 



It is with much pleasure that we welcome the appearance of the 

 second part of Dr. Scott's Structural Botany. The author deals with 



B 



