338 



NATURE 



[February io, 1898 



naturally, made to shallow hollows made in the limestone 

 and covered over with slabs of the same material, and 

 also to the vaulted, crude brick graves which were 

 commonly in use in the early dynasties. The place of 

 these was taken by pyramids built of stone, and by many- 

 chambered tombs hewn in the living rock. Experience, 

 however, soon showed the Egyptian that the most care- 

 fully constructed tomb was incapable of preventing 

 damp-rot or dry-rot and decay, and that some other 

 power besides his own must be invoked to prevent the 

 destruction of his body, which, though needing longer 

 time to accomplish, was as effectually performed by these 

 means as by the tooth of the wild animal or serpent, or 

 by the hand of the enemy. At this stage the aid of the 

 professional religious man or priest was called in, and the 

 task of finding means to prevent rot and decay was 

 entrusted to him. There is little doubt that when the 

 body was laid to rest in the tomb, the priest pronounced 

 certain words or formulas or prayers over it, and it is 

 probable that the recital of these words was accompanied 

 by the performance of certain cerempnies. Whatever 

 these formulae were they formed the foundation of the 

 ' Book of the Dead ' of later Egyptian times." 



This is a reasonable theory as to the origin of the work, 

 and we think Dr. Budge is also justified in the further 

 assumption that though these formulae were first only 

 recited, they were afterwards written down by the priests 

 with a view to preserving them, and that the custom of 

 inscribing portions of them on the walls of the tomb, and 

 of writing them on the coffin and on papyri deposited in 

 the tomb, followed from the subsequent belief that their 

 efficacy was thus insured for the benefit of the deceased. 

 In a series of eighteen plates Dr. Budge has illustrated the 

 changes of form which the " Book of the Dead " under- 

 went in the long course of its development from the time 

 when we find it on the walls of the pyramids at Sakkara, 

 to its final deterioration in compositions of the Roman 

 period. Its culmination in the illuminated papyri of the 

 eighteenth dynasty is illustrated by means of three very 

 beautiful coloured plates representing portions of the 

 famous papyrus of Ani in the British Museum. 



Another section of the introduction, which will prove 

 useful to any one who attempts to understand the " Book 

 of the Dead," is that which Dr. Budge devotes to its 

 object and contents. He here classifies the chapters 

 according to their subject-matter, and we thus gain an 

 insight into the underlying unity of the work ; for, though 

 its chapters represent beliefs belonging to all ages in the 

 life of the nation, the aim underlying them all is in some 

 way or other to benefit the deceased. " They were 

 intended," says Dr. Budge, "to give him the power 

 to have and to enjoy life everlasting, to give him every- 

 thing which he required in the life beyond the grave, to 

 ensure his victory over his foes, to procure for him the 

 power of going whithersoever he pleased and when and 

 how he pleased, to preserve the mummy intact, and 

 finally to enable his soul to enter into the bark of Ra or 

 into whatever abode of the blessed had been conceived 

 of by him." We have not space to enter into any 

 adequate discussion of the exact nature of the ancient 

 Egyptian's belief in a resurrection and a judgment, or to 

 consider how far he advanced in his conception of 

 monotheism. He never outgrew his belief in magic, and 

 while undoubtedly advancing in his notions of a spiritual 

 existence, he did not discard the more primitive tenets of 

 an earlier age. It is constantly necessary to bear this 

 NO. 1476, VOL. l^^ 



fact in mind in reading the " Book of the Dead." By 

 his translation of the work, Dr. Budge has earned the 

 gratitude of all students of the science of religion, for he 

 has thereby placed within their reach a wealth of fresh 

 material. For the benefit of those who are not Egypto- 

 logists, we are glad to note that the introduction and 

 translation are issued as an independent work, and sold 

 separately from the volumes containing the hieroglyphic 

 text and vocabulary. 



FERNS. 

 Die Farnkrduter der Erde. By Dr. H. Christ. Pp. 

 viii -V 388 ; with 291 figures. (Jena : Gustav Fischer, 

 1897-) 



SINCE the publication of Baker's "Synopsis Filicum" 

 in 1873 (Dr. Christ makes no mention of John 

 Smith's " History of Ferns," 1877) no complete system- 

 atic account of the ferns has appeared, so that there is 

 room for a work which embodies the more modern 

 discoveries in this subdivision of plants. During this 

 interval. Dr. Christ says a number of new species have 

 become known, and, owing to the researches of G. 

 Mettenius into the general structure of this subdivision, 

 additional materials are to hand for the elaboration of 

 a more natural arrangement. He believes that the older 

 authors, including Hooker, too rigidly limited themselves 

 to the consideration of the sorus and indusium for pur- 

 poses of classification. Influenced by these reflections 

 he has been led to change the arrangement adopted 

 in the " Synopsis Filicum," in several cases, for what he 

 regards as a more natural grouping. His view of the 

 matter is, however, sometimes open to doubt. The 

 position he assigns to the genus Loxsoma may be taken 

 as an example of one of such alterations. He transfers 

 it from the Hymenophyllacete to the Polypodiacea;, ap- 

 parently because its leaves have several layers of cells 

 and are furnished with stomata. On the other hand, 

 its sorus and indusium resemble those found in the 

 Hymenophyllacese. An alteration like this may be de- 

 fended or assailed according to the personal feeling of 

 each systematist, and its criticism will depend on what 

 morphological value each individual places on the 

 various diagnostic characteristics. But it appears that 

 the structure of the leaves, taken alone, would often be 

 misleading. The leaves of a i&'fi of the Hymenophyllacese 

 are several layers thick ; while in the Osmundaceai — a 

 group, for the most part, possessed of stout leaves — 

 Leptopteris has delicate and filmy leaves without 

 stomata. The existence of the fossil Palceopteris hiber- 

 nica^ which had leaves resembling Loxsoma, but in other 

 respects belonging to the Hymenophyllaceas, renders the 

 connection of the latter genus to that class of ferns more 

 probable. 



Again, Dr. Christ removes Ceratopteris thalictroides 

 (a plant which, by the way, is omitted in the index, but 

 described in the text) from the Polypodiaceae into a 

 separate class, the Parkeriacea;, without, it might be 

 thought, sufficient reason. The anomalies in the structure 

 of its vegetative organs may well be accounted for by 

 its watery habitat, unique among the filices. 



The two species of Matonia are placed in a separate 

 group, as Baker suggested. 



