3o6 



NATURE 



\Atig. lo, 1876 



density ; and " to neglect this is to render nugatory all 

 attempts to explain the phenomena presented by the 

 moon." 



In treating of the physical condition of the lunar sur- 

 faces, it is pointed out that Beer and Madler's frequent 

 quotation, " The moon is indeed no copy of the earth, 

 much less a colony of the same," is not so well founded as 

 it would appear to be ; for although the first impression 

 gained from the general appearance of the surface is that 

 it contains neither oceans, seas, nor river systems, with 

 the accompanying formation, but a desert containing 

 innumerable craters and surface irregularities, still on a 

 closer investigation with adequate means, more points of 

 resemblance become manifest. The more level regions 

 of the moon, especially the shores, though known to 

 have been long destitute of water, are pointed out as 

 appearing to show many traces of its action, as the for- 

 mation of diluvial deposits recognised by Sir John 

 Herschel ; whilst Prof. Phillips traced many analogies 

 between the apparent volcanic formations of the earth 

 and moon, and found many indications of the action of a 

 disintegrating atmosphere. 



The greater craters apparently existing on the moon 

 when examined with powerful telescopes, the author tells 

 us, appear less and less like volcanic orifices or craters ; 

 their inclosing walls lose their regularity of outline and 

 form, and appear as confused masses of mountains 

 broken by valleys, ravines, and depressions, crossed by 

 passes, and surrounded by low plateaus and an irregu- 

 larly broken surface ; whilst the seemingly smooth floors 

 generally appear as diversely interrupted as the environ- 

 ing surface. These formations are thus seen in their true 

 character, not as craters, but as low-lying spaces sur- 

 rounded by mountain regions or disturbed highlands. 



The author appears to think that the ring plains and 

 wall-plains are not volcanoes, in the ordinary sense of 

 the term, but depressions surrounded by mountain ranges, 

 and that the great number of apparently small craters 

 are mere shallow hollows, such as are not uncommon on 

 the earth. 



The fact that gentle slopes and valleys, like many of 

 our river valleys, would not, except under most favourable 

 circumstances, be shown in relief, is a matter which may 

 easily escape notice, and is here referred to ; and further, 

 any small abrupt feature may cast a shadow completely 

 masking much more extensive formations. Attention is 

 called to the fact that Madler pointed out that formations 

 possessing a north or south direction are much more 

 easily seen upon the moon than those extending east and 

 west, a pecuharity tending to give an imperfect idea of 

 the true nature of the surface, and accounting in some 

 measure for the general meridional direction of numbers 

 of the smaller formations of the moon, such as the ridges, 

 land-swells, and rills, as matter very noticeable on a 

 glance at a lunar map. 



The variation of the appearance of lunar formations 

 during the course of a lunation is very forcibly described, 

 as also is that due to libration. The effects of the changes 

 in temperature are referred to as causing a physical varia- 

 tion of the surface, and the changes in the crator Linne, 

 and the ring-plains of Messier are referred to as probable 

 instances of physical change. 



The various formations on the lunar surface are 



enumerated and described with considerable minuteness. 

 With regard to the rills or clefts, Mr. Neison seems to 

 incline to the belief that the majority of them are ancient 

 river-beds, though at present their nature is purely con- 

 jectural. 



Some thirty pages are devoted to an abstract of the 

 work done upon the moon by various astronomers from 

 the earliest times ; but we find no mention of Nasmyth's 

 and Carpenter's excellent book in this list, a work which 

 surely deserves some notice. 



The book, of 576 pages, is illustrated by five drawings 

 of craters, and possesses no less than twenty-two maps, 

 containing together the whole of the moon's surface, each 

 of which is accompanied by a full explanation, taking up 

 at least three-fourths of the book, the scale of the maps 

 being 24 inches to the moon's diameter. Three of the 

 craters— Gassendi, Maginus, and Theophilus, are drawn 

 upon an enlarged scale. This work will, no doubt, be of 

 considerable service to those who make our satellite their 

 chief study, since, besides the objects enumerated by 

 Beer, Madler, and Schmidt, it contains a large amount of 

 new work. 



HOVELACQUE ON THE SCIENCE OF 

 LANGUAGE 



La Lingnistique. By A. Hovelacque. (Paris : Reinwald 

 and Cie., 1876.) 



IN speaking lately of the Science of Language we 

 alluded to the question that is still being debated 

 among its students as to whether it ought to be classed 

 with the physical or with the historical sciences. Its 

 method is that of the physical sciences, while phono- 

 logy, which forms so integral and fundamental a part 

 of comparative philology, is purely physiological in cha- 

 racter. On the other hand, since phonetic sounds do 

 not become language until they have been made signi- 

 ficant, the science of language may be regarded as a his- 

 torical one. M. Hovelacque is a warm supporter of the 

 first opinion, and his book is an attempt to treat the 

 science of language as a physical science pure and simple. 

 In this respect he is a follower of Schleicher, as he is also 

 in applying the Darwinian hypothesis to the history of 

 speech and in holding at the same time that the various 

 languages of the world have branched off from a number 

 of independent centres. His work is a valuable contribu- 

 tion to the literature of the subject. 



M. Hovelacque starts with the assertion that man is 

 man solely in virtue of language, or rather of the capa- 

 bility of language. Following M. Broca he holds that 

 this capability is a function of the third frontal convolu- 

 tion of the left, more rarely of the right, hemisphere of 

 the brain, and that it was first acquired by a primate 

 which thereby became a man. A certain number of the 

 same primates, " less favoured by circumstances, were 

 checked in their development, and relapsed into a re- 

 gressive change of character ; their remains are to be 

 recognised in the anthropoid apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, 

 orangs, and gibbons." Those primates which by a pro- 

 cess of natural selection acquired the capabiUty of speech 

 and with that the characteristics of man, gradually im- 

 proved upon their new possession, wherever external 

 circumstances were favourable, and with the development 



