November 9, 191 1] 



NATURE 



39 



to his work such intimate knowledge of Lyeli him- 

 self, and such broad experience as a geological 

 teacher. Prof. Judd's pupils in many lands will find 

 again in this volume those stimulating memories of 

 Lvell's life and work which they received from their 

 cwn master in the Royal School of Mines. The 

 " historical introduction " to the present edition, 

 occupying fifty-six pages, is not only a welcome essay 

 on the influence exerted by the doctrine of causes now 

 in action, but also a defence (pp 49-52) of Lyell from 

 the charge of excessive uniformitarianism. Those 

 who have not made themselves acquainted, as Prof. 

 Judd has done, with the extravagant speculations of 

 geological divines and of laymen aspiring to divinity, 

 before the days when the influence of Hutton, von 

 Hoff, and Lyell came to be generally appreciated, can 

 scarcely realise the sense of calm and order that was 

 brought by these authors into a world of controversy. 

 Charles Darwin's admiration for the "Principles of 

 i Geology " would alone assure us of Lyell's position 

 1 as a thinker ; and now, in turning the pages of this 

 . new issue of his admirable text-book, we are again 

 ■ reminded that here was a man who wrote because, 

 ! and only because, the spirit moved him. 

 I The refined woodcuts are here that we first knew in 

 ' 1871. Drawings of such modernities as radiolarian 

 ' ooze and thin sections of rocks have been introduced, 

 and toothed birds and other American vertebrates are 

 1 illustrated ; but the view of geologj' remains, in the 

 hands of so sympathetic an editor, essentially that of 

 ; Lyell in his habit as he lived. We look back into the 

 ; past from our experience of the present ; a pleasant 

 ' emphasis is laid upon the Tertiary strata throughout 

 ' Europe; and the work reminds us in so many places 

 of the history of geological thought that it still stands 

 j apart from any other text-book. 



I Supplementary notes have been added (pp. 601 to 610) 



; directing attention to many recent discoveries, and 



these, in so limited a compass, naturally provide food 



for thought rather than a complete exposition. We 



' miss a reference to the older glacial epochs ; the 



ttigra])hical breaks indicated in the diagram on 



I • 441 surely exaggerate enormously the imperfection 



111 the European record; and many geologists would 



like to expand the modest view of contact-meta- 



morphism stated on p. 553. It is easy to comment on 



'ails where so wide a range of subjects has been 



lit with. The essential feature is that the editor 



, has handed on to us undimmed the lantern lit by 



'l^yell. G. A. J. C. ' 



MODERN KNOWLEDGE HANDBOOKS. 

 '!) Polar Exploration. By Dr. W. S. Bruce. Pp. 256. 

 The Evolution of Plants. Bv Dr. D. H. Scott, 

 I'.R.S. Pp. 256. 

 Modern Geography. By Dr. M. L Newbigin. Pp. 



liome University Library of Modern Knowledge.) 



(London : Williams and Norgate, n.d.) Price is. 



net each. 



jinpHE three volumes the titles of which are given 



' ->■ above belong to the Home University Library of 



Modern Knowledge, published by Messrs. Williams 



NO. 2193, VOL. 88] 



and Norgate under the editorship of Prof. Murray, 

 Mr. Herbert Fisher, and Prof. J. Arthur Thomson. 

 Each is intended to be a concise handbook to the 

 subject with which it deals, and by an acknowledged 

 authority. The object of the series is to place within 

 everyone's reach, at the lowest possible price, authori- 

 tative information on any branch of history, science, 

 art, literature, philosophy, or religion with which he 

 desires to become acquainted. Ten volumes will be 

 issued each year. The first on our list, " Polar Ex- 

 ploration," by Dr. Bruce, is what the author has 

 termed a " traveller's sample " of the Arctic and 

 Antarctic warehouses. No one is more competent to 

 present their contents than one who has personally 

 sampled as he has done, more than once, both polar 

 regions, and has besides learned much in regard 

 to them from personal conversations and correspond- 

 ence during the past twenty years with living polar 

 explorers, including- the veteran Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 to whom the volume is dedicated. The personal note 

 predominates, as it needs must, and those parts visited 

 by the author are dealt with in greater detail than 

 those which he has not had an opportunity of visiting. 

 The aspects of the subject dealt with in the present 

 volume are the astronomical features of the polar 

 regions; the ice, both land and sea, its coloration 

 and that of snow; the vegetation, the animal life and 

 the physics of these regions ; their meteorology, mag- 

 netism, aurora, and tides, with a final chapter on the 

 aims and objects of modern polar exploration. Not 

 the least important addition to the physics of the 

 southern seas made by the Scottish national Antarctic 

 expedition was the discovery of the existence of a long 

 "rise" extending in a curve from Madagascar via 

 Bouvet Island, the Sandwich group, the South Ork- 

 nevs, Graham Land, and the Falklands to South 

 America. "Thus Antarctica, South America, and 

 Madagascar and probably South Africa become con- 

 nected with one another in a most direct manner by 

 this rise." The volume smacks of a Stevensonian 

 voyage. 



(2) "The Evolution of Plants" is a masterly re- 

 sumi of this extremely difficult subject by one of our 

 highest authorities, himself a leading investigator in 

 pala^obotany. Dr. Scott's object in this book is to 

 try to trace historically the course which the evolu- 

 tion of plants has actually followed, confining- himself 

 to those groups for which the evidence is most satis- 

 factory. The questions here considered are : the evolu- 

 tion of true-flowering plants; that of the seed-plants 

 generally; and, thirdly, that of the great groups of 

 the higher cryptogams, or spore-plants, the ferns, the 

 club mosses, the horsetails and sphenophylls. Dr. 

 Scott's work "needs no bush." 



(3) Dr. Marion Newbigin dates the commencement 

 of "modern geography" only from 1859, the year 

 when the celebrated geographers Humboldt and 

 Ritter died and Darwin's "Origin" appeared. The 

 doctrine of evolution has had an enormous effect on 

 geographical science, and its development has been 

 so great that to give a complete survey of the subject 

 would be impossible. Her volume, "Modern 

 Geography," therefore, suggests only some of the 



