536 



NATURE 



[October 13, 1923 



nt the iiaiiH- seem- 



accent we do m' 



to imj)ly a sli^'lii >■. ... 



1)1 the kiiiil I- ilitcildcil, and it i "nl\ ,: -I 



till' autli'ii'.i liiii>t<Ti)n> loiilKh-iii (■ in !ii-> ouu powers. 



riu; ixTSunal uulc i> |)r((lniiiinant t liiMii-hout and 

 makes it peculiarly diiiH nli to <1 nnr, 



and impossible to cont I (i\trt aii\ ni ilu po < n 



course, in psycholoizy, the jxr^oiial (•.\|)(ri( : 

 a peculi.ir uii'lit. Wli.it Mr. Lynch cxpl.tiii tn us 

 is lidw he won his way lo tlic possosion ot tin- ( Icar 

 lui'iital L;rasp of the prohKni \\c now injoy.-. ; how he 

 overcame the stuinhlinu-blocks he had to encounter 

 in Ihe perversity of authoritative teachers ; how these 

 obstructions actually served him to gain his vantage- 

 point ; and how we, if we will follow him, may become 

 mental athletes also. Naturally his appeal is to the 

 young. The curious thing to the older reader is that 

 the solution offered as new is certainly not novel. 

 We are to find the fundamental processes of mind in 

 the same way in which the chemist and the physicist 

 find the fundamental processes of matter. Having 

 discovered them we shall find for the science of 

 psychology, as they find for the sciences of chemistry 

 and physics, that construction follows naturally. Very 

 good, we may think, at any rate as a preliminary 

 discipline, — but then Mr. Lynch does not set his 

 followers to look for these fundamental processes, he 

 puts in their hands the list of them. The processes 

 are twelve in number, and the proof that they are 

 fundamental and that the list is exhaustive is that 

 Mr. Lynch has himself verified that they are so. 



The reader will find an enormous number of references 

 to other writers and an extensive survey of science in 

 all its branches. Special importance is attached by 

 the author to the section on memory, the whole of 

 which is based on careful observations and experiments 

 in connexion with his own personal experience. 



Our Bookshelf. 



John Penrose : a Romance of the Land's End. By 

 J. C. Tregarthen. Pp. vi + 342. (London: J. 

 Murray, 1923.) 75. 6d. net. 



It is not often that a book of fiction comes within the 

 class of literature appropriately noticed in Nature, but 

 Mr. Tregarthen includes in his delightful romance of 

 " John Penrose " so many interesting sketches of the 

 wild life of the Land's End peninsula that we feel 

 justified in recommending the book to all students of 

 natural history. 



Those who know West Cornwall must recall many an 

 old man such as John Penrose was when the local 

 parson inspired him to " put down " his recollections as 

 the not uncommon farm boy who is keenly observant 

 of the habits of the many pests, and a few wild friends, 

 of the farmer working a small patch of land adjacent to 



NO. 2815, VOL. I 12] 



an unrci laiincd inourland. The wild animals C0iu< 

 uitn the >Vui\ a-, n.iiurall) as the human charartir-, 

 and, with references to them, the author record 

 old lot a! ( ustoms and beliefs that are in danger < 



forL'ot ten, a^ \\t\\ a-> Na\inL'^ and cxpri -M^n (.1 liic '.l'; 

 folk u hii h art- in dairjcr <>! Iic< niuin'j (iii-nli f t hrou: .'1 

 till mlinciH »■ i>| tlic modern --1 h'.^l t( .n li" i . v, ho. t. o 



otirii. ■ " • ' ' |)Upil tl:- ■ ;..;,' I ,:i • 



plo\ ■ .ire \ ul'j.: : 



education 



Not th< 

 gathered iunn ihr inuUcnts clcacni ■: local 



attitude of highly respectable people t ,.ng : to 



be entrapped by the preventive ofhcera carried its 

 measure of disgrace, but neither the otherwise rigidly 

 honourahh' Moman, nor even the parson, thought it 

 wrong to conceal information alx)ut smuggling. 



It is not easy to avoid anachronisms when writing 

 autobiographically about a past period, and Mr. 

 Tregarth( n has not succecdtd in a\oiding ever)' pitfall. 

 In referring to the miners who had returned from the 

 gold diggings of California the author rei alls a familiar 

 feature of West Cornish life in the 'sixties and 'seventies, 

 but the incidents which he describes on pp. 2, 65, and 68 

 obviously refer to a period before 1848, the year in 

 which the first Californian gold fever actuallv started. 



T. II. 11. 



The Annual of the British School at .' ' No. 24. 



Sessions 1919-1 920 ; 1920-1921. 1 280 + 14. 



Plates. With Supplementary Papc : Fhe Un- 



published Objects from the Palaika i rations, 



1902-1906. Described by R. C. liosanquet and 

 R. M. Dawkins. Part i. Pp. xii + 160 + 34 Plates. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1923.) 635. net. 



The article of most general interest in this excellent 

 number is that by Mr. ('. A. Uoethius on primitive 

 house types as illustrated from Mycenaean and Nordic 

 structures. The results of recent excavation on pre- 

 historic Greek sites show tliat there is no evidence to 

 support, still less to pro\e, the widespread assumption 

 that the round hoop-roofed house is the original type 

 from which all forms of human houses have been 

 evolved. There is a considerable \ ariety of primitive 

 forms, and both rectangular and round huts and houses 

 occur contemporaneou.sjy in ancient times and at the 

 present day among primitive rads. Tn Greece the 

 neolithic material shows that \\(,lld(\ eloped round 

 huts and equally adxa-nced rertan-ular housi 

 contemporaneous. In Sweden we lind roun- 

 possibly developed from a primiiixe tent or a s^ittn 

 against wind and rain. In the Jimnze Age come o\ al 

 houses developing into the rectangular form. " The 

 evidence of primitive European dwellings shows, 

 besides round tents or huts and pent roof structures, 

 horseshoe screens with a fire in front of them, and 

 rectangular screens wiili tluir various forms of develop- 

 ment centring on the lire. Anywhere in Europe, climate 

 and material can thus suggest a In winning which leads 

 to a round hut, a horseshoe-shaped hut. or a rect- 

 angular hut with a central or eccentric hearth, and 

 door at one end. A rertanpular liouse with a central 

 hearth can be just as elenHniary as a round or horse- 

 shoe-shaped neolithic hut, and of entirely independent 

 origin." 



