April 20, 1876] 



NATURE 



483 



With respect to the Ethiopian region — the field-work of 

 Sir Andrew Smith, Livingstone, and Du Chaillu— 46 are 

 mentioned, and 40 on the Indian region, which has been 

 so much investigated by those who, from other reasons, 

 have had to take up their residence in our Eastern empire. 

 There are 25 works referred to respecting the Nearctic 

 region, and as many as 138 on the Neotropical, which 

 demonstrates how rich a field South America has proved 

 to the students of biolog}', it being remembered that Mr. 

 Dar\vin himself obtained the bulk of his practical experi- 

 ence of animal life in that continent. Forty-one works 

 on the Australian and nine on the Pacific region include 

 the remainder of the list. Mr. Sharpe's edition of Layard's 

 " Birds of South Africa," Mr. Hume's " Stray Feathers," 

 Lord Walden's Memoirs on the Birds of Celebes and the 

 Philippines, Mr, Scammon's " Marine Mammals of the 

 North-Western Coast of North America," Messrs. Baird, 

 Brewer, and Ridg way's " History of North American 

 Birds," Dr. E. Coues' " Birds of the North-West," Prof. 

 T. R. Jones' '• Manual of the Natural History, Geology, 

 and Physics of Greenland," Messrs. Sclater and Salvin's 

 " Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium," Mr. A. \V. Scott's 

 " Elementary Treatise on the Mammals of New South 

 \ValeE," the late Mr. J. Brenchley's " Cruise of the Curaqoa" 

 Dr. Buller's " Birds of New Zealand," being the most im- 

 portant works which have appeared during the last two or 

 three years, on the regions other than the Patearctic, 

 above referred to. 



That several works have appeared since Mr. Sclater's 

 address was delivered — including, among the most im- 

 portant, the late Mr. Blyth's " Catalogue of the Mammals 

 and Birds of Burmah," edited by Dr. J. Anderson, Dr. 

 Dobson, Lord Walden, and Mr. Grote, a special notice 

 of which we hope ver>' shortly to give — and that Mr. Wal- 

 lace's important two volumes on the " Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of Animals " may be expected very soon, shows 

 how much stress is now being laid on the fauna of different 

 regions, and adds further to the importance and value of 

 the encyclopaedic address, the contents of which we have 

 brought before the notice of our readers on the present 

 occasion. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



An ElemeJitary Treatise on Curve Tracing. By Percival 

 Frost, M.A. (London : Macmillaa and Co., 1872.) 



07t the Transcendental Curve whose Equation is — 



Sin y sin my = a sin x sin nx -\- b. 

 By H. A. Newton and A. W. Philhps. (From the Tra7is- 

 actions of the Connecticut Academy, vol. iii., 1875.) 



Mr. Frost's work is an elementary one, inasmuch as no 

 advanced acquaintance with the differential and integral 

 calculus is required ; nor do his methods turn upon the 

 higher algebra, nor upon the science of projections. 

 Indeed he is careful to restrict himself for the most part 

 to fairly elementary processes. It is not a complete 

 treatise, as he does not touch upon roulettes cr upon 

 curves, given by intrinsic equations. These latter curves 

 have been, as is well known, discussed and fully illustrated 

 in the late Dr. Whewell's two memoirs in the Cambridge 

 Philosophical Transactions (vols. viii. and ix.) We miss, 

 too, all account of curves of histoncal interest. Occa- 

 sional notices of these have been given by different 

 writers, but we should hke a sketch of them drawn up by 

 some competent hand, with an account of their origin and 

 appUcations. 



Reasons have weighed with Mr. Frost in making these 

 omissions, and we do not grumble at his taking his own 

 line in his treatment of the subject as he has given us a 

 full treatise, abundantly illustrated by figures, of curves, 

 ranging from simplicity to considerable complexity of 

 form. The preface is an interesting one (though by the 

 way, the author was rather unwilling to write it), and in 

 it attention is called to the fact, among other reasons, why 

 junior students should devote some little time to curve- 

 tracing, that the subject of graphical calculation is coming 

 more into use, being applied to problems in statics (see 

 Culmann's " Graphische Statik "}, engineering, and crystal- 

 lography. 



We cannot here give any detailed sketch of the contents 

 of the work, further than to draw attention to the last 

 chapter, which treats of the inverse problem, viz., given 

 the form of a curve to investigate its equation, or an 

 approximation to it. We do not remember to have seen 

 the attempt made elsewhere. Should the subject be taken 

 up and carried on with success, we may look for the 

 equation to one's name taking the place of the name on 

 an address card. 



The majority of the curves discussed and traced in 

 Mr. Frost's book are algebraical ones. 



Messrs. Newton and Phillips write that from the form 

 of a transcendental curve it is not easy to state the equa- 

 tion that will represent it So instead of taking up the 

 inverse problem, they have selected from out of the host of 

 transcendental equations, and exhibit twenty-four pages 

 of plates of the plane curves furnished by assigning 

 different values to the constant quantities a, b, vi, and n 

 in the equation given above. 



These forms, as might be imagined, are all sytpmetrical, 

 and much resemble carpet patterns. The tract is an 

 interesting evidence of the patience and skill at draughts- 

 manship of the authors. 



Kurzes Chemisches Handivorterbiuh zum Gebrauche fiir 

 Chemiker, Techniker, Aerzte^ Phartnaceuten, Land- 

 ■wirthe, Lehrer, und fiir Freunde der Naturwissa:- 

 schaft iiberhaupt. Bearbeitet von Dr. Otto Dammer. 

 (Berlin : Robert Oppenheim, 1876.) 



To keep pace with the rapid growth of chemical science 

 would be almost a hopeless task, were it not for the lite- 

 rary organisation and classification undertaken from time 

 to time by such writers as the author of Watts's " Dic- 

 tionary of Chemistry," and Dr. Dammer, thie compiler of 

 the present volume. To writers of this class who take 

 upon themselves the laborious drudgery of '• stock- 

 taking," workers in the ranks of science owe a debt of 

 gratitude which cannot be too highly estimated. 



In coupling together the names of Air. Watts and Dr. 

 Dammer, it is by no means our intention to imply any 

 similarity between the respective " dictionaries." Dr. 

 Dammer's work is perhaps more truly a dictionary in the 

 proper signification of the term than xMr. Watts's seven 

 volumes, for while the latter contain full, and in many 

 cases, exhaustive information on the various subjects 

 treated of, the whole of the former is comprised in one 

 volume royal octavo, of some eight hundred pages. The 

 justly esteemed " dictionary " of English chemists need 

 fear, therefore, no rival in the present volume, the two 

 works rather bearing to each other the relationship of a 

 chemical encyclopaedia to a glossary of chemical terms. 



The longest articles in the present volume are those 

 on absorption, equivalents, alum, ammonia, aniline, 

 aromatic bodies, ashes, animal respiration, atmosphere, 

 atom, base, benzoic acid, benzene, succinic acid, beer, 

 blood, soils, bread, chemistry, chromic acid, steam, diffu- 

 sion, albumin, electricity, petroleum, nutrition of plants 

 and of animals, acetic acid, acetates, colouring matters, 

 fats, flesh, galvanic batteries, gases, tan, glass, coal, 

 hydrocarbons, madder, crystal, copper, illuminating gas, 

 solution, magnetism, metals, metalloids, microscope 



