410 



NAiURE 



[May 25, 191 1 



"Clearly it is only temporarily reccBiive." [Pre- 

 cisely.] 



"3. How is the recessive element expressed in F,? 

 It has not disappeared, as it reappears in F, un- 

 altered. It is not expressed in the ' soma ' of the 

 plant: Where is it?" \Ans'u)er : In its j^erm cells.] 



Dr. Hart's amended Mendelian scheme on p. 43 

 may be all right, but we cannot understand it, and 

 we know of no experimental evidence for the assertion 

 that there are three kinds of zygotes in F,, a tall- 

 tall, (*®'' ) tall, and a dwarf-tall. The reader must 

 (dwarf ) ' 



examine Dr. Hart's argument for himself. 

 The account of biometry is not very illuminating. 



"Galton," we are told, "formulated certain laws, 

 which are important — that of filial regression, for 

 instance; but the most widely known one, Galton 's 

 law, setting forth the supposed fractions making up 

 the full heredity in the individual, is of great import- 

 ance, and has been specially fought over since Men- 

 delism began to exert its sway over Evolution. . . . 

 We may therefore, using Mendel's term of unit- 

 character, say that, according to Galton, offspring 

 inherit one-half of their unit-characters from their 

 parents, and the most of the other half from the 

 grandparents and great-grandparents." 



And, again : — 



"The amount of hard work bv biometricians in 

 accumulating measurement-facts and noting minute 

 variations is enormous. We get a good illustration 

 of that in some of the late Francis Welldon's [sic] 

 work. This eminent biologist was a most eminent 

 follower [!] of biometric work, and . . . we see how 

 Welldon spent himself, sometimes successfully and 

 sometimes unfortunately, it must be said unsuccess- 

 fully, in arduous observations, unremunerative as vet 

 in scientific deduction." 



We cannot agree with this definition of biometrv 

 in the glossary at the end of the book, " Biometry is 

 concerned with accurate measurements of ' organs.' 

 their relations, and the laws governing their occur- 

 rence." It grieves us not to be inclined to praise 

 this book, for the author is so manifestly earnest. 

 But earnestness is not a sufficient qualification for 

 authorship, and we cannot persuade ourselves that 

 the book meets a long-felt want. 



PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING. 

 Theorie Physico-chimique de la Vic et Ginirations 



Spontanies. By Prof. Stdphane Leduc. Pp. 202. 



(Paris : A. Poinat, 1910.) Price 5 francs. 

 TDROF. leduc is not one of those who exag- 

 ^ gerates the apartness of life. He thinks that 

 the differences between an animate and an inanimate 

 system are differences of degree, not of kind. It is 

 in vain, he says, that one seeks for any exclusive 

 characteristic of living things; it cannot be found in 

 development, or nutrition, or irritability, or growth, 

 or organisation, or reproduction. One discovers 

 in living creatures only those physical forces 

 which operate in the not-living world; biolog>', in- 

 deed, is part of the physico-cheniistry of fluids. These 

 conclusions are based partly on general reasoning, 

 which appears to us fallacious, and partly on an 

 interesting series of experiments, of which some illus- 

 No. 2169, VOL. 86] 



trations may be given. A solution of 5 to 6 per c<iit. 

 pure gelatine is spread on a slide; on this at regul.ir 

 intervals of 5 to 6 mm. one places by means of a 

 pipette drops of forrocyanide of potassium; these 

 diffuse and meet and dry, giving a result like a tissue. 

 The 'artificial celU " pass through three stages of 

 organisation, equilibration, and decline — ending, of 

 course, in "death." j 



With a little ink and water one jure up 



all sorts of phantasms, some of them yielding very 

 striking suggestions of karyokinesis. Periodic pre- 

 cipitations due to wavefi of diffusion may result in the 

 artificial production of mother-of-pearl, which we can 

 well believe, but we are not impressed by the 

 "curious analogy" between, some of the forms and 

 "articulate animals." One of the figures is a little 

 like a squashed scorpion, but is this sort of thing 

 useful? 



Prof. Leduc contributes an interesting short history 

 of the biological study of osmotic phenomena, referring 

 to NoUet, Rose, Traube, Harting, Quincke, and many 

 others, and he gives a number of remarkable figures 

 — the precise nature of which is in most cases left 

 unstated — showing his own osmotic creations, pro- 

 duced by placing a fragment of calcium chloride in a 

 saturated solution of carbonate of potash or tri- 

 basic phosphate of potash, or in similar ways. A 

 fruitful solution to work with consists of 60 gr. of 

 silicate of potash at 33°, 60 gr. of saturated solution 

 of carbonate of soda, 30 gr. of saturated solution of 

 di-basic phosphate of soda, and distilled water to 

 make up a litre. Into this are placed fragments of 

 chloride of calcium, and remarkable osmotic growths 

 result. Some of the pictures of these and similar 

 growths are mushroom-like, others worm-like, others 

 coral-like, others shell-like, others mould-like^ others 

 leaf-like, and when a number are grouped together 

 on a plate the effect is very quaint. 



There can be little doubt that a study of tho-o 

 growths may in the course of time throw some light 

 on the rdle of osmosis in organic growth. W'e think, 

 however, that the author is going far beyond his 

 results when he says that these osmotic growths 

 exhibit " nutrition, assimilation, elimination, and irrit- 

 ability." The need of proof-reading is so conspicuous 

 in this volume that we must direct attention to it. 

 We read of Ernest Hceckel, Ulenhuth, Buttler Burke 

 de Crambridge, Biitsehli, and so on; there are three 

 or four errors in the title of a book by Rhumbler; 

 and we see a German word with an accent. These 

 are minute details, but they are congruent with the 

 impetuous superficiality of the main thesis of the book. 



IRRIGATION WORKS. 

 Notes on Irrigation Works. A Course of Lectures 

 delivered at Oxford under the auspices of the 

 Common University Fund. By N. F. Mackenzie. 

 Pp. ix+ui. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 

 1910.) Price ys. 6d. net. 



THESE lectures in book form have as their author 

 an engineer whose competency to deal with 

 his subject is sufficiently established by the 

 fact that he was selected to be Under Secretary 



