February i6, 191 ij 



NATURE 



507 



.>les, Prof. Salisbury's present book could be utilised 

 in English schools. Many geographical features can 

 be best illustrated from the open lands of the United 

 States; but the teacher will find in this volume a fair 

 number of references to European countries. We can 

 thus imagine a happy combination in a school course 

 of Salisbury's Elementar\- Physiography " and, say, 

 A, M. Davies's " Geography of the British Isles." 



G. A. J. C. 



Mentally Deficient Children, their Treatment and 

 Training. By Dr. G. E. Shuttleworth and Dr. 

 W. A. Potts. Third edition. Pp. xviii + 236. 

 (London: H. K. Lewis; Philadelphia: Blakiston's 

 Son and Co., 1910.) Price 55. net. 



The third edition of Dr. Shuttleworth 's well-known 

 and excellent handbook has the advantage of an up- 

 to-date revision by Dr. Potts. It is not too much to 

 ;say that Dr. Shuttleworth 's small book prepared the 

 way for the recent Roval Commission on Care and 

 ^Control of the Feeble-Minded. The main conclusions 

 of that commission are dealt with in the present 

 edition. Many details from actual special schools are 

 ^iven. The book is indispensable to those engaged 

 in the management and supervision of feeble-minded 

 children. The eugenics of the feeble-minded are 

 lightly touched upon ; but, in a practical handbook, 

 one looks rather for direction than for theory. The 

 illustrations have been increased in number, the biblio- 

 graphy, already copious, has been substantially added 

 to. There is a good index, both of subjects and of 

 authors. 



The volume as a whole is so well-balanced that 

 it forms an excellent handbook to the studv of this 

 whole department, which, within the last five years, 

 has grown enormously in extent and in interest. 



The Floiver Book : Being a Procession of Flowers, 

 passing from Meadow and Coppice through the 

 Hedge to the Garden, Pool, and Herb-Patch. Bv 

 Constance S. Armfitld. Pp. ix+153; illustrated. 

 (London : Chatto and Windus, 1910.) Price 75. 6d. 

 net. 



It would be difficult to find a more direct contrast to 

 the formal method of nature teaching than the 

 imaginative yet fairly accurate presentation of epi- 

 sodes in plant-life charmingly depicted in the pages 

 of '"The Flower Book." The elements and flowers are 

 endowed with voices to express the tale of their diffi- 

 culties, their ambitions, and their victories. The 

 distress of the stock seedlings when transplanted, the 

 aspirations of the snowdrops and the buttercups, the 

 spread of the pinks in the border, should appeal to 

 the imagination of any bright child, and as natural 

 reasons for the various incidents are cleverly worked 

 into the arguments it may be expected that grains of 

 knowledge will be instilled. One item calls for 

 immediate refutation, that is, the suggested origin of 

 the water plantain from the common plantain. There 

 is a general theme linking together the five sections 

 noted in the title. The illustrations are not an entire 

 success, as some suffer from a want of proportion, but 

 grace and truth are combined in the pictures of the 

 rose, the bluebell, and the iris. 



Hygiene and Public Health. By L. C. Parkes and 

 H. R. Kenwood. Pp. xi + 691. (London: H. K. 

 Lewis, 191 1.) Price 125. 6d. net. 

 In its original form, the first edition of this book was 

 reviewed at length in our issue of Januar}- 30, 1890 

 ^vol. xli, p. 290). The present is the fourth edition 

 under the conjoint authorship; it has been carefully 

 revised, and new matter has been introduced where 

 necessary to bring the treatise up to date. 



NO. 2155, VOL. 85J 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed 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.] 



Origin of Incense. 



It is natural that incense should interest a botanist. For 

 at least 4000 years mankind has used for this purpose the 

 product of several species of Boswellia, natives of S.E. 

 Arabia and Somaiiland (the land of Punt). The English 

 name Frankincense, borrowed from old French, sub- 

 stantially means incense par excellence, and represents the 

 fact that, except amongst the Hebrews, it has been the 

 substance exclusively employed in ritual. At last Epiphany 

 frankincense and myrrh, in accordance with custom, were 

 offered at the altar of the Chapel Royal, St. James's, on 

 behalf of the King. 



The use of incense might have originated in t\co different 

 ways, and it is not perhaps always easy to distinguish 

 these developments. Fumigation with fragrant or pungent 

 herbs would easily arise as a sanitary expedient. The 

 Greeks called this Ovfiiaua, which connects with fumus; 

 the plant name, thyme, derives from the same root. This, 

 as there is evidence it did, would develop into the notion 

 of ceremonial purification and then of consecration and 

 honour. For such purposes it would be natural to burn 

 frankincense on a fire-pan or censer. This was the 

 Egyptian practice. Mr. Arthur Evans has discovered In 

 Crete censers of Minoan age with lumps of some unde- 

 termined incense still adhering. Much of the use of incense 

 in modern religious ceremonies has only a sanitary signific- 

 ance. Thus, at the coronation of George III., an official 

 held a fire-pan on which frankincense was burnt, and this 

 appears to have had no ritualistic meaning. It was not 

 until the seventh century b.c. that frankincense was ex- 

 ported to Mediterranean countries. It doubtless carried 

 with it is religious significance, and from this period dates 

 the use of incense both by the Greeks and the Hebrews. 

 That incense was of exotic origin is shown by the fact that 

 the Hebrews called it lebonah and the Greeks \i8avor6s, 

 names which, like the Arabic lubdn, probably all derive 

 from some local name at the place of production. 



The sacrificial use of incense developed gfradually and 

 from a different source from the sanitary. Sacrifices were 

 primarily offerings of food to the gods. It was a later 

 development to burn them so as to present them in an 

 ethereal form. Starting from the idea that the gods were 

 to be propitiated through the sense of smell, frankincense 

 was sprinkled on the burnt offerings to make them more 

 fragrant. The latest refinement was to burn incense on 

 the altar alone. The former the Greeks called \i$av»eThf 

 iwiTtOfvat, the latter XiBavosrhv Ka9ayi(€iv. Aristophanes 

 in the fifth century B.C. carefully distinguishes (Clouds, 426) 

 the three sacrificial acts : the sacrifice proper {Ovos), the 

 libatio'n, and the addition of incense. 



The use of frankincense spread to Italy, where it was 

 used much .as in Greece. The Romans called it tus, which 

 is the equivalent of duo^. The substitution of the letter r 

 in the oblique case, tus, tur-is, shows that 6v0s could not 

 have found its way into Latin later than the fourth century 

 B.C. In Greece Ovos was always a sacrificial offering. Mr. 

 Christopher Cookson, who has taken much kind trouble 

 for me in this matter, informs me : " I can find no passage 

 where Odos need mean ' incense ' and many where it 

 cannot." Now, the Romans had their own " word for a 

 sacrifice, sacrificium. When they began to use frank- 

 incense, instead of borrowing its Greek name, they used 

 tus, the latinised form of 9vot, substituting the name of the 

 whole rite for that of a mere incident in it. 



The confusion so produced has existed for some 2000 

 years. There have been several notices in Nature of the 

 so-called " Incense Altar of .Aphrodite " at Papfios. This 

 is apparently based on the passage in the Odyssey (8.363), 

 where Homer calls it fivfihs duitfts. But this is merely 

 one of his common forms. He uses it of the altar of 

 Jupiter on Mount Ida (Iliad, 8, 48), and (II., 23, 148) 

 of the altar of Sperchius. on which Peleus had vowed 

 that Achilles should offer fifty rams. It is quite true that 

 Otrfins has been translated "smelling with incense"; it 



