452 



NATURE 



[June i, 191 i 



\»'\ng Strong believers in 



, . 1 ;. ,1 1 1.1, PHI . . .ii\ 1,1. . (i ili.it the soil! of .'I dccfascd 



|.<-i-.'>n hovi'is ;il.(iiii lii^ <il(l li.itiiil^, walcliiii^; for the 

 oppoiUmity of sliijpin^ into somr liviiu: person. Such 

 a chance is provided \sli< n a man (ireanis, because 

 then his soul is wandering, and tlus.- people^ suffer 

 terribly from dreams, so muili, iiidccd, that it may 

 bf questioned whether a more ratii)iial diet, or medical 

 relief from indigestion, would not have at least 

 accelerated the painfully slow process of religious 

 (• inversion. This reincarnation doctrine lend<; to such 

 liuTu tons mental conditions that a man in full vigour 

 III <\ l.e in <louht whether lie is himself or not, nssert- 

 i ., L;iM\eIv tlial liis <i\\n real soul is at a distance, 

 I" ir.^ kept a\va\ hv <Ie\ils, and that some other, 

 deparled, soul has creiit into him ! 



Ouini^ to the cusiom of infruiticide, especially of 

 j^irls. tile men are in the L^reat majority, with the 

 r( -uh that ( \er\ -iil ha- a wide selection of partners. 



Fig. 2.— Blanket Weaving. From " An Unknown People in an Unknown Land 



Further, native law requires that the man must leave 

 his own people and join those of his wife. Her main 

 object in life being to feed well and to have as little 

 drudgery as possible, she seeks a mate of a mild disposi- 

 tion, who will be subservient to her rule, besides being 

 a good hunter and gardener. There is a delightful 

 chapter on the baneful result of communalism, social- 

 ist principles being carried to such perfection tliat the 

 lazy bodies will neither hunt nor fish as long as there 

 is sometiiing to eat elsewhere, because it is a strict 

 law that all shall share in everybodv else's spoil. 



Tlie author's profits of this remarkable and well- 

 illustrated book will be devoted to the support of the 

 ("Inirch of England South American Missionary 

 Society. 



VROT. M. H. N. STORY MASKELYNE. F.R.S. 



PROF. MERVYN HERBERT NEVIL STORY 

 MASKELYNE, whose death on May 20 was 

 announced in last week's Nature, was born on Sep- 

 tember 3, 1823, and was the son of Anthony Mervyn 

 Story, F.R.S. , who married the only daughter of 

 Nevil Maskelync, the famous Astrononier Royal. The 

 family is thus one of scientific distinction through 

 three generations, and it is not surprising that Maske- 

 lyne was carlv in life attracted to the studv of science. 



N 



O. 2170, VOL. 86] 



He went to Wadham College, Oxford, 



his degree in 1845, and even in those -. _ 



his spare time, energy, and resources were devoted to 



the pursuit of chemistry, at .1 time when th. re wer. 



ver\ liinile<| lai ilil i'-- \< >i l\\< 



univer^^il_\ . 



In 185O Maskelyne succeeded liucklaiid, and became 

 professor of mineralogy, and held th.-it oflice until the 

 'S<)5. He had a laboratorv .and residence under 

 ill .\shmolean Buildings, .and was one of the chief 

 woiLeis in e.xperimental chemistry in Oxford. He 

 was indeed urged by many persons to be a candidate 

 for the (hair of (hemislry, w'hich became vacant in 

 1S55, hut was not willing to stand in opposition to 

 his friend, Benjamin Brodie. He played a prominent 

 part in the establishment of science teaching in Ox- 

 ford, and was secretary of the first committee formed 

 to promote ihe scheme for building a university 

 museum. Some of his reminiscences of that period 

 .ire related in Dr. \'ernon's "History 

 of the Oxford Museum," where it is 

 stated that his classes in analytical 

 ( hemistry were attended, amongst 

 others, by Thomson, afterwards Arch- 

 bishop of York, and Henry Smith. 



In 1S57 he became keeper of the 

 department of minerals in the British 

 Museum, and for twenty-three years 

 combined this olVite with his Oxford 

 professorship. The keepership of the 

 mineral department he resigned ia 

 1.S80, when he became Liberal member 

 of Parliament for Cricklade, and after- 

 wards for North Wilts, until the year 

 iS(p, when he retired from active poli- 

 tical life. Referring to his father's 

 death, he wrote, "it was like a whirl- 

 wind that bore me from the museum, 

 where my life would have been impos- 

 sible, to this country life and into the 

 House of Commons." 



Maskelyne's scientific activity was 

 for the greater part of his life in the 

 field of mineralogy, and especially 

 crystallography, and his interests were 

 largely centred in the development of 

 the great collection of minerals at 

 the British Museum. In particular, he brought 

 together the wonderful collection of meteorites 

 which for years has maintained its f>osition as the 

 best, or one of the two best, collections in the world. 

 Much of his time was devoted to the scientific study 

 of these remarkable objects. In 1850 Mr. Sorby had 

 laid the foundation of the modern study of rocks 

 by showing that it was possible to grind sections of 

 them so thin as to be transparent, and Maskelyne 

 was the first to apply the new method to the study 

 of meteorites, and was able by the microscope to 

 identify in them many terrestrial minerals and to 

 discover some which are unknown on earth. 



Although in the study of higher physics and mathe- 

 matics lie must have been mainly self-taught, it was 

 towards the physical and crystallographical sides of 

 mineraloc^y that he wa> particularly attracted. 

 Mineralogy had become an ex,"!-*^ srirncr in the hands 

 of Hauy at the close of the h centur%-, and 



Wheweil and his eminent su. liller kept alive 



in Cambridge the mathematical treatment of crystallo- 

 graphy. 



It was Maskelvne's work to develop in particular 

 the subject of the svmmetrv of crvstals, upon which 

 he gave a ' ' ' fore the Chemica' 



Society in " on Lang, who sub- 



sequently 111 eaiiie proiessor 01 plnsics at Vienna, had 



