462 NATURAL SCIENCE. Dec. 



illustrated, both by woodcuts and maps, and will prove an exceedingly 

 valuable book of reference. Some few slips are found here and there, 

 and some omissions of information to be found in the most recent 

 publications ; but Dr. Wallace may well be excused, for in the com- 

 pilation of books such as these much time is occupied, and no one 

 regrets more than the authors the impossibility of putting in more facts. 



The Zambesi Basin and Nyassaland. By Dan J. Rankin. 8vo. Pp. vii., 277, 

 with 3 maps and 10 full-page illustrations. London : William Blackwood and 

 Sons, 1893. 



We must confess to considerable disappointment with this book, for 

 we had expected much and have got but little. The author is known 

 to be a man of considerable literary ability and a first-rate Arabic 

 scholar. He has spent much time in East Africa, and knows the 

 district and its natives well, while his work in connection with the 

 opening of the mouth of the Chindi to trade has had an important 

 influence on the commercial prospects of the whole of the Zambesi 

 basin. Nevertheless, there is very little of permanent value in the 

 book. The flora of the district is barely mentioned ; the only in- 

 formation about the fauna consists of a few accounts of hippopotamus 

 hunting, and the inevitable, but amusing, crocodile tragedies, which 

 play in Africa the part of the " grizzly " in the stories of our imagi- 

 native Western cousins. This is the more unfortunate as the author 

 seems to have met with some very queer beasts, such as the intrusive 

 scorpions, which were so numerous in a steamer's saloon that 

 they had to be dusted ofif; then there are the worms, which seem 

 to thrive in the iron plates of the same steamer, and a brittle 

 hippopotamus, both sides of whose head were smashed away by a blow 

 on the jaw from only a 12-bore bullet. The book includes more than 

 its title would lead one to expect, as one chapter is devoted to 

 Mombasa, which is certainly far beyond the limits of either the 

 Zambesi Basin and Nyassaland; the remarks on Mombasa, moreover, 

 are disappointing, and as there is no fresh information in the chapter, 

 we must conclude that the author's researches into the history of the 

 early settlements of the Arabs have not been rewarded by new 

 discoveries. This is much to be regretted, considering the anthropo- 

 logical importance of the subject. The author also gives a sketch of 

 the scheme and objects of the International Flotilla Company, which 

 hopes to establish communication from the mouth of the Zambesi to 

 Cairo by the Nile, the great lakes, and the Shire. 



The book is extremely well printed and got up, many of the 

 stories are amusing, and we cannot resist quoting one which illustrates 

 the cuteness of mission companies when they do take to business. 

 The author and two other Europeans once, at the extreme peril of 

 their lives, saved a mission station by running the gauntlet down the 

 Shire, capturing and repairing the mission steamer which had been 

 seized by the natives, and then working it back to Katunga. 

 Apparently the only thanks they received for this plucky performance 

 was a bill for their passage. 



Elementary Pal/eontology. By Henry Woods, B.A., F.G.S. Crown 8vo. 

 Pp. viii., 222. Cambridge Natural Science Manuals. Biological Science. 

 General Editor, A. E. Shipley, M.A. Cambridge: C. J.Clay & Sons, 1S93. 

 Price 6s. 



Our chief quarrel with this little book is with its title. If, instead of 

 naming it " Elementary Paleontology," the author had called it a 



