yune 20, 1889] 



NATURE 



173 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Die Meieorologie, ihrem ncuesten Standptmkte geviiiss, 

 und init besonderer Beriicksichtigung geographischer 

 Fragen dargestellt. Von Dr. Siegmund Gunther. With 

 71 Illustrations. 304 pp. (Munich : Ackermann.) 

 Dr. Siegmund Gunther is already known by his 

 " Lehrbuch der Geophysik," in two volumes, which 

 appeared in 1884 and 1885, and runs up to nearly 1200 

 pages. The title of the present work is ambitious, and 

 the endeavour to produce a text-book of the whole of 

 meteorology in the space of 300 pages is a bold one. The 

 work is a digest of existing text-books, such as Van 

 Bebber's "Handbuch der ausiibenden Witterungskunde," 

 and Sprung's " Lehrbuch der Meteorologie." It is there- 

 fore excessively condensed, and to such an extent that it 

 can only be used as a sort of index, for on all the subjects 

 discussed, the reader is referred to other sources of 

 information. The conception of the treatise is good 

 enough, and the subdivisions are: (i) the general 

 properties of the atmosphere, and observations thereon ; 

 (2) the movements of the atmosphere ; (3) general cli- 

 matology ; and (4) the special climatology of the different 

 zones. These arfe followed by two appendixes which 

 might well have formed separate chapters ; their subjects 

 are, respectively, practical weather knowledge, and optical 

 meteorology. 



As mi^ht be expected, the sources of Dr. Giinther's 

 information are almost exclusively German, so that his 

 r^^fww,? is slightly one-sided. This is especially the case 

 when he is dealing with marine meteorology, as he almost 

 ignores all work and all methods except those of the 

 Deutsche Seewarte. In his notice of the marine baro- 

 meter (p. 45), he entirely omits any mention of the 

 principle by which the necessity for a capacity correction 

 is dispensed with by the employment of a modified scale 

 of inches. In speaking of the origin of weather telegraphy. 

 Dr. Giinther does scant justice to FitzRoy, who is merely 

 casually mentioned as a former head of the English 

 office. At p. 39 he gives the reader to understand that 

 Kew, Pawlowsk, and Zikawei are the only stations in the 

 world employing photographic self-recording instruments. 

 A more serious slip, for a German, is at p. 243, where 

 he speaks of two international Congresses at Leipzig and 

 Rome, forgetting that the private meeting at Leipzig in 

 1872 was only preliminary to the Congress of Vienna in 

 the following year. The correction of the press has not 

 been carefully done : not only are letters dropped out in 

 the printing of Latin and English words, but even in the 

 German we have noticed several slips. 



However, Dr. Giinther's work is undoubtedly useful as 

 indicating to geographers the main outlines of existing 

 knowledge in the most important branches of science 

 with which they come in contact at every turn, and also 

 the lines in which further investigation is desirable. 



Haunts of Nature. By H. W. S. Worsley-Benison. 



(London; Elliot Stock, 1889.) 

 Some time ago we had the pleasure of recommending 

 an excellent liule book by Mr. Worsley-Benison, called 

 " Nature's Fairy-land," consisting of a series of simple, 

 pleasantly-written papers on some of those aspects of 

 Nature which are most likely to excite the interest of 

 children. The present volume has been planned on 

 exactly the same lines, and is in every way worthy of its 

 predecessor. In the opening essay the author describes 

 the proceedings of two house-martins who did him the 

 honour to select as the site for their nest a small wooden 

 projection under the eaves of his roof. This paper has all 

 the freshness and charm that spring from direct observa- 

 tion, and young people will read it with genuine pleasure. 

 Among the subjects dealt with in other papers are wild 

 roses, water scavengers, the dragon-fly's haunt, protective 

 miniicry in insects, "fast asleep for months," and the 

 ministry of leaves. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents . Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. ] 



The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. 



I AM somewhat disappointed that my criticism of Prof. 

 Bonney's appendix in the last edition of Mr. Darwin's work on 

 "Coral Reefs" has resulted only in an affair of outposts on the 

 part of my opponents, since the main body of my arguments 

 remains to be assailed. It would have been interesting, for 

 instance, to obtain some further information concerning the 

 evidence establishing the existence of the " 90-fathom " reef 

 of Rodriguez ; and I should have welcomed the opinion of some 

 zoologist as to the degree of our acquaintance with the fauna of 

 the gi eater depths, say between 30 and loo fathoms, around the 

 shores of tropical islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. If 

 this acquaintance is as scanty as I contend it is, then it is 

 premature to fix the absolute limit of depth of the reef-coral 

 zone. 



At present, however, I shall be content with the establishment 

 of the fact that corals occasionally grow in greater depths than 

 20 or 30 fathoms ; and it was with this intention that I purposely 

 singled out Commander Moore's observation in his Report on the 

 Tizard and Macclesfield Banks. It is just this occasional greater 

 depth of reef-coral growth that is the crux of the whole matter 

 as far as the necessity for a theory of subsidence is concerned. 

 Prof. Bonney admits in his last letter that " reef- building corals 

 occasionally grow at depths considerably greater than 25 

 fathoms," and thus practically abandons the scanty foundation 

 on which the surviving portion of the theory of subsidence now 

 rests. My critic in this manner dispenses with the necessity of a 

 movement of subsidence to explain the circumstance that 

 lagoons are occasionally deeper than the usual limit of depth 

 of the reef-coral zone, and to account for the occasional con- 

 siderable thickness of upraised coral reefs. The supporters of 

 Mr. Murray's anti-subsidence views will welcome this admission. 

 It removes, in the first case, one of the chief points in favour of 

 subsidence brought into prominence by Agassiz and Geikie in 

 their hostile criticisms of the theory of Mr. Darwin — I refer to 

 the abnormal depths of some atolls. In the second case, it shows 

 that some of the evidence ranged in Prof. Bonney's appendix on 

 the side of Darwin — I allude to that concerning the thickness of 

 the upraised reefs of Cuba and the depth of limestone pene- 

 trated by the artesian borings at Oahu — should at least be placed 

 in a neutral position. This is especially necessary in the instance 

 of the artesian borings at Oahu, since Prof. Agassiz in his recent 

 extensive memoir on the Hawaiian reefs,^ which has not hitherto 

 been quoted in this discussion, regards the borings from a point 

 of view very different from the standpoint of Prof. Dana. 



In this and in my previous letters I have shown to the best of 

 my ability that nearly all the evidence ranged by Prof. Bonney 

 on the side of Darwin should be placed at least in a neutral 

 position. It almost all hinges on inferences that have not been 

 established, or else on assumptions that cannot yet be proved. 

 Surely the "90-fathom" reef of Rodriguez, if there has been no 

 mistake in the matter, can be explained without subsidence by 

 those who admit that " reef-building corals occasionally grow at 

 depths considerably greater than 25 fathoms." The upraised 

 reefs of Cuba must be placed on neutral ground. Masamarhu 

 Island I have claimed for Mr. Murray. Lastly, there remain 

 the artesian borings at Oahu ; and, accepting Prof. Agassiz as 

 our authority, we do not at present receive them as in favour of 

 subsidence. ' H. B. GuPPY. 



June II. 



P.S. — After writing the above, I received a letter from Mr. John 

 Murray, relating to the "90-fathom" reef of Rodriguez ; he has 

 kindly allowed me to quote from it the following remarks : — " I 

 have examined all the charts and other available information, and 

 have consulted some of the surveyors of the island. The result 

 is that I don't think Prof. Balfour had sufficient grounds for 

 stating with regard to Rodriguez that 'an older reef exists now 

 quite submerged in some places to a depth of over 90 fathoms. 

 Upon it the present reef rests, and it extends westward nearly 

 fifteen miles from the present coast, while on the east it stretches 



' Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 

 vol, xvii,, No. 3, .\pril 1889. 



