January 6, 1898J 



NATURE 



225 



that comparisons of the kind would be quite unnecessary 

 even if they were sound. A somewhat serious defect is 

 the occasional imperfect revision, giving rise in the non- 

 historical sections to repetition and to vague or even in- 

 accurate phrases, such as the description of a boundary as 

 a " perpendicular line " (p. 453) when a meridian is meant. 

 We note a few omissions : nothing appears to be said 

 of the extreme danger of the Magdalen Islands, in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, to shipping ; of the devastation of 

 the forests in many parts of the country by fire ; or of 

 the high "benches" or river-terraces of British Columbila, 

 which to a geographer form, perhaps, the most striking 

 feature of that wonderful province. 



We must, however, make it perfectly distinct that so far 

 as the matter in this book is concerned the omissions are 

 trifling, and the selection of facts most judicious. Dr. S. 

 E. Dawson handles themes regarding which a Canadian 

 might justly be excused if he were to indulge in a little 

 exaggeration ; and if the writer of this notice had never 

 seen Canada, he would have supposed that there was 

 some exaggeration here. But a journey from Quebec to 

 Xanaimo, with visits to various points in the Kootenay 

 and on the shores of the Great Lakes, has convinced the 

 critic that in every estimate of natural wealth, and in every 

 appreciation of the law-abiding enterprise of the Canadian 

 people, the author has under-stated rather than over- 

 stated the facts. If a passing tourist of no very imperial- 

 istic tendencies felt the pride of a citizen of the British 

 Empire rising within him with each mile of the magni- 

 ficent railway which is the benefactor of every province 

 in the Dominion, he cannot but be surprised at the 

 moderation of tone adopted by an heir of that fair 

 heritage in writing an account of its actual and potential 

 greatness. 



Yet the book is not planned in harmony with the 

 principles of geography, and that, after all, is the aspect 

 to which attention must be called in the pages of a 

 scientific journal. The illustrations are good, and charac- 

 teristic, as the specimens here reproduced show, and the 

 maps very fair, although not so numerous or so well 

 selected as we could wish. There are practically no 

 physical maps, for the sketch of the Archaean nucleus on 

 p. 24 is a mere diagram, and the " Meteorological Map" 

 shows only mean annual isotherms, which give no clue 

 to the climate, and rainfall areas, which are difficult to 

 grasp as a whole. There is certainly no lack of carto- 

 graphic material in Ottawa, as the beautiful physical 

 maps in the "■ Handbook of Canada," issued in connec- 

 tion with the recent meeting of the British Association, 

 prove. Hugh Robert Mill. 



THOMAS JEFFER V PARKER, F.R.S. 

 T^HOMAS JEFFERY PARKER, whose death on 

 -»■ November 7 last we chronicled on December 23, 

 was the eldest son of the late William Kitchen Parker, 

 F.R.S., the world-renowned comparative osteologist. He 

 was born at 124 Tachbrook Street, London, S.W., on 

 October 17, 1850, and received his elementary education at 

 Clarendon House School in the Kennington Road, under 

 Dr. C. H. Pinches. In 1868 he entered the Royal 

 School of Mines as a student, taking the Associateship 

 in Geology in 1871, together with the Edward Forbes 

 medal and prize of books for distinction in biology. 

 Thus qualified, he became for a short period science 

 master at Bramham College, Yorkshire ; but in 1872, on 

 a special invitation by Huxley, he returned to London to 

 fill the office of demonstrator under him at South Ken- 

 sington, and that he held until his appointment in i88o 

 to the chair of Biology in the University of Otago, 

 Dunedin, N.Z. During his period of demonstratorship 

 he also held the office of Lecturer in Biology in Bedford 

 College, London, and officiated as examiner in Zoology 

 and Botany to the University of Aberdeen and as an 



NO. 1471. VOL. 57] 



assistant examiner in Physiology to the Science and Art 

 Department. Parker was of a distinctly artistic tem- 

 perament, aesthetic, musical, well-read, and possessed of 

 marked literary ability, which asserted itself to a con- 

 spicuous degree in his little book upon his father, 

 published in 1893, ^" altogether ideal filial biography — a 

 good work by a good man. He early cultivated the critical 

 faculty, as a direct result of the study of Matthew Arnold, 

 whose writings he knew by heart ; and with the great 

 power of application and strength of character which he 

 displayed during active work, there can be little doubt 

 that he would have succeeded in any of the higher walks 

 of life. He would have made a mark in literature, and 

 as a caricaturist draughtsman would have achieved 

 renown ; and there is little doubt that his choice of 

 biology for his life's calling was largely due to the charm 

 and influence of his father's career and to his early 

 association with Huxley, who knew him from childhood 

 and became the object of his veneration. Both as a 

 teacher and investigator Parker was untiring and tho- 

 roughly trustworthy. Though easily roused to enthusiasm 

 he rarely became excited, and his cool deliberation came 

 welcomely to the aid of the troubled student, to whom 

 if in earnest his attention knew no bounds. His published 

 papers exceed forty in number, and though mostly zoo- 

 logical they embody important work and observations in 

 botany. Parker was the first appointed of the little band 

 of biological professors sent out from home in the '8o's, 

 who now fill the Australian and Novozelandian chairs, 

 and his second paper published in New Zealand dealt 

 with a new species of Holothurian {Chirodota Diine- 

 diensis), as it were in anticipation of the later determina- 

 tion by himself and his contemporaries at the Antipodes 

 to devote their attention to the indigenous fauna, rather 

 than to refinements in histology and the like which could 

 be better studied at home. The work already achieved 

 by this body of investigators, with Parker at their head, 

 is now monumental, and none of it more so than Parker's 

 monographs " On the Structure and Development of 

 Apteryx" and "On the Cranial Osteology, Classification,, 

 and Phylogeny of the Dinornithidae," in themselves suffi- 

 cient to have established his reputation. His lesser 

 writings, although they deal with a wide range of subjects, 

 show interesting signs of continuity of ideas, as for 

 example in the association of his early observations on 

 the stridulating organ of Palinurus, made in London 

 in 1878, with those upon the structure of the head in 

 certain species of the genus (one of the most charming 

 of his shorter papers), made on the voyage to New Zea- 

 land, and upon the myology of P. Edwardsii, which, in 

 co-operation with his pupil Miss Josephine Gordon Rich 

 (now Mrs. W. A. Haswell), he in 1893 contributed to the 

 Macleay Memorial volume. And the same may be said 

 of his work on the blood-vascular system of the Plagio- 

 stomi. Soon after his arrival at the Antipodes, Parker 

 instituted a series of " Studies in Biology for New Zealand 

 Students," and chiefly with the aid of his pupils, these 

 have been continued, either in their original form or in 

 that of theses for the higher degrees of the University 

 of New Zealand, a^ contributions to the publications of 

 the Museum and Geological Survey Department of 

 that colony. Botanical as well as zoological topics were 

 thus taken in hand, the series, like that of a companion 

 set of " Notes from the Otago University Museum," 

 which he from time to time contributed to the pages of 

 Nature, containing important observations of general 

 biological interest. Of Parker's books, it is sufficient to 

 recall his " Lessons in Elementary Biology," now in its 

 third edition and recently translated into German, un- 

 doubtedly the most important and trustworthy work for 

 the elementary student which has appeared since Huxley 

 and Martin's epoch-marking "Practical Instruction in 

 Elementary Biology," published in 1875. Parker's book, 

 in sharp contrast to his previous "Zootomy," which is 



