Dec. 2, 1875] 



NATURE 



85 



The maps of the three routes deserve a word of praise. 

 They have been plotted with great care, and the notes 

 along the route are so numerous and full of information, 

 that they form an admirable epitome of the whole work. 

 The few illustrations are interesting ; that especially of 

 the Spinifex Desert gives one a good idea of this horror 

 of Australian exploration. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Official Guide-book to the Manchester Aqjiarium. By the 

 Curator, W. Saville Kent, F.L.S., F.ZS. Third edition. 

 Twentieth thousand. (Michaelmas, 1875.) 



The Manchester Aquarium, situated in the Alexandra 

 Park of that city, has now been opened to the public for 

 more than two years, and has attained considerable 

 success, although we believe it has not quite realised the 

 expectations formed of it by its original promoters. Next 

 to the Brighton Aquarium, that of Manchester is the 

 largest amongst the six principal institutions of this kind 

 existing in the country. The series of tanks, including the 

 deep sea, shallow, and fresh-water groups, is sixty-eight 

 in number, surpassing that of any other aquarium, while 

 their linear frontage falls httle short of 700 feet, which is 

 but slightly less than that of the well-known establishment 

 at Brighton. The building itself is of the plainest possible 

 design, and at first sight seems as if it had been origi- 

 nally destined for a church of some kind. It consists of 

 a high central oblong nave and two narrow side aisles. 

 Being lofty and well lighted, however, it affords excellent 

 accommodation for the smaller tanks which line it on both 

 sides, as well as for the two fine large tanks, upwards of forty 

 feet in length, which are situated at the two extremities. 

 The proprietors of the Manchester Institution have been 

 moreover fortunate in securing the services of a com- 

 petent scientific naturalist as its director, an advantage 

 shared by few if any of the sister establishments. Mr. 

 W. Saville Kent transferred his services from Brighton to 

 rvlanchester some two years ago. One of the last things he 

 did at Brighton was to prepare the excellent Handbook to 

 the Aquarium there which has been already noticed in this 

 journal. We have now before us a copy of the third edition 

 of the same author's " Guide-book to the Manchester Aqua- 

 rium," prepared somewhat after the same fashion. After 

 a few words of introduction describing the building and 

 the general management, the sixty-eight tanks and their 

 contents are discussed successively. A large amount of in- 

 formation upon the various fishes and other animals which 

 they contain is thrown together in a very popular and read- 

 able form, and woodcuts are introduced illustrating the 

 more attractive and noticeable objects exhibited. The 

 Guide-book is concluded by a chapter on the principles of 

 management of aquaria generally, which cannot fail to be 

 of service to those who are interested in such matters, and 

 which proves that Mr. Kent is fully master of the subject 

 of which he treats. 



Elemejitary Science Manuals. Botany for Schools and 

 Science Classes. By W. J. Browne, M.A. Lond. 

 (Belfast : W. Mullan, 1875.) 



An unfavourable impression of this little book is created at 

 first sight by the obvious imitation, in the style in which it is 

 got up, of Macmillan's series of "Science Primers." Such 

 a plagiarism may generally be taken as a confession on 

 the part of author or publisher that the work has not 

 sufficient merits of its own to stand without adventitious 

 assistance. This, however, is not the case in the present 

 instance ; and our depreciatory criticisms are almost 

 exhausted. We had, it is true, marked certain passages 

 in the margin for correction ; but they are but few. The 

 most important is the resurrection of the old blunder 

 (twice over) of the existence of " spongioles " at the 



extremities of the root-fibres ; and this is the more re- 

 markable as the work from which the illustrative wood- 

 cut is copied does not make this mistake. The statement 

 in the preface, however, that the book " contains all the 

 subjects required for the First B.Sc. Examination in 

 the University of London," must be taken cum grano. 

 There is no index ; and the deficiencies have therefore 

 to be made out by careful inspection ; but we find no 

 description whatever of the process of fertilisation 

 (although there is a diagram to represent the entrance of 

 the pollen-tube into the embryo-sac), and no adequate 

 one of that of respiration, this term being erroneously 

 applied, as is so often the case, to the process of assimi- 

 lation. But what can you expect for eightpence ? You 

 get, at all events, a great deal for your money ; and the 

 morphological and structural portion is on the whole so 

 well done as to render the little book of great use to the 

 beginner. Indeed we do not know any purely elementary 

 work in which this part is more satisfactory. A few 

 technical errors will doubtless be noticed and corrected 

 in future editions. The illustrations, seventy-six in num- 

 ber, though not new, are very good and serviceable. 



A, W. B. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ TTie Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return^ 

 or to correspond ivith the turiters of rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. \ 



Hoffmeyer's Synoptic Weather Charts 



Will you kindly draw' the attention of your readers to the 

 fact that the second year of Capt. Hoffmeyer^s synoptic charts of 

 the weather in Northern Europe and Atlantic, commencing with 

 Dec. 1874, is now about to be issued. 



The subscription, as before, will be izr. (>d. per quarter, in- 

 cluding postage of the monthly parts. 



I shall be glad to receive names of gentlemen who are willing 

 to encourage the undertaking, which is carried on at Capt. 

 HofTmeyer's own expense. Robert H. Scott, Director 



Meteorological Office, 



116, Victoria Street, London, S.W. 



Collomia 



On reading Mr. Duthie's communication (vol. xii. p. 494) on ihe 

 capsules and seeds of Collomia, I presumed that some one would be 

 ready to indicate the use of the mucilage and threads of the seed- 

 coat ; but I now notice that Mr. Bennett (vol. xiL p. 514) supposes 

 that it " still remains to be discovered. " An obvious and sufficient 

 explanation will t)e found in A. Gray's " Structural and Sys- 

 tematic Botany," as far back as the edition of 1845. In the later 

 editions, all of them now old, it is twice referred to. On p. 40, 

 after mentioning that these gelatinous threads, or the like, occur 

 on many seeds or seed-like fruits of various orders, it is said : 

 " They may subserve a useful purpose in fixing light seeds to the 

 ground where they lodge, by means of the moisture of the first 

 shower they receive." And on p. 321, where forms of this appa- 

 ratus are described, it is added : *' This minute mechanism sub- 

 serves an obvious purpose in fixing these small seeds to the 

 moist soil upon which they lodge, when dispersed by the wind." 



The seed of a Collomia or Gilia, when wetted, forms a limbns 

 of three or four times its diameter ; this would involve a multi- 

 tude of grains of sand, and ballast the seed most effectually in 

 the situations where or at the time when alone it could ger- 

 minate. A. Gray 



Herbarium of Harvard^University, 

 Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 16 



Sir Thomas Millington and the Sexuality of Plants 



In your article last week on the Oxford Botanic Garden, 

 reference is made to Sir Thomas Millington, the Savilian Pro- 

 fessor of Botany, as having in 1676 "first divined the funda- 

 mental fact of sexual reproduction in flowering plants." In a 

 review in the columns of the Academy, of the English edition of 



