February 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



537 



carbonates are decomposed at the temperature of the 

 electric furnace, where the stable compounds are sili- 

 cides, carbides, phosphides, and the like. We are 

 therefore bidden to believe that the heated interior of 

 the globe consists of such bodies as calcium carbide 

 and carborundum ; and it is clear that, when some of 

 these substances come into contact with water, start- 

 ling consequences are to be expected. Thus is ex- 

 plained, for instance, the origin of limestones, setting 

 aside some of late age which the author pronounces 

 to be organic. Eruptions of lime, in a pasty state, 

 were forced up by the pressure of acetylene gas, and 

 spread over the sea floor. Any creatures so unfor- 

 tunate as to be living in the neighbourhood were ex- 

 peditiously converted into fossils. In like manner, 

 shales and clays were produced by the action of water 

 on silicides of aluminium and calcium, and were 

 poured out in successive coulees, with equally painful 

 results. After this, coal presents no difficult}-. It was 

 erupted as a hydrocarbon, more or less fluid, super- 

 saturated with carbon, and such vegetable matters as 

 it happened to encounter were carbonised by the coal 

 itself. 



An equal boldness of conception characterises the 

 author's treatment of other branches of geology. 

 Elevation and depression of continents being among 

 the unproved hypotheses, we are offered instead a 

 submergence, of the northern and southern hemispheres 

 in turn, resulting from the precession of the equi- 

 noxes. Glaciation, of course, finds a like explanation, 

 as CroU has already taught ; but our interest is more 

 stirred by those prodigious movements of the ocean 

 which result from the sudden collapse of a melting 

 polar ice-cap. To cataclysms of this kind are re- 

 ferred, not only the deluge in the days of Noah, but 

 the cutting of the Straits of Dover and the severing 

 cf Madagascar from Africa, and we gather that the 

 same dread agency may have torn the reindeer from 

 his northern home and transported him to sunny 

 France, where his bones still remain to tell the tale. 



Here we must reluctantly take leave of M. Lenicque, 

 while assuring the curious reader that the theories 

 which we have noticed are chosen from many others 

 not inferior to them in noveltv and ingenuity. 



A. H. 



ALL SORTS AND COSDITIONS OF WOMEN. 



Women of all Nations. Popular edition. Edited by 

 T. A. Joyce. Pp xii + 220 + 65 plates. (London: 

 Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 6s. net. 



THOSE already familar with the former edition of 

 "Women of All Nations" will recognise 

 with what skill Mr, Joyce has dealt with it to 

 reduce it to the present extremely convenient and 

 informing little volume. Naturally, the popular 

 edition is less copiously illustrated, but the plates 

 retained are an excellent selection. The range of the 

 book is exceptionally vast, as the title leads us to 

 expect ; we pass from criticisms of the modern British 

 woman almost in the vein of Pierre de Coulevain 

 to the chapter on Africa, where we read of girls fat- 

 tened to attract suitors and of widows buried alive in 

 their dead husband's grave. Women doctors confront 

 NO. 2156, VOL. 85] 



us in many parts of the world; in fact, among the 

 Madi of the White Nile they are the chief medical 

 practitioners who receive fees, while the men only 

 act as honorary surgeons (p. 150). The Madi women, 

 we learn, fight duels; nevertheless, they are capital 

 wives, and married life is very happy in their couniry. 

 A Zulu lady doctor of very striking appearance is 

 portrayed opposite p. 158. 



The chapters on Europe (viii. to xv.) are extremely 

 interesting, showing as they do how gradually East 

 merges into West, and how numerous are the back- 

 waters of civilisation in our very midst. 



"Two hundred years ago the women of Russia lived 

 in as much seclusion as if they had been Moham- 

 medans. It was Peter the Great who first com- 

 manded them to lay aside their veils. ... In Russian 

 villages there are still old women who act as profes- 

 sional match-makers, and the peasant women still 

 keep their heads covered out-of-doors, even in the 

 warmest weather " (p. 104). 



Austria affords an instance of the persistence of 

 national points of view as seen in the status of Slav 

 and Magyar women. A Slav proverb runs: — "That 

 household is threatened with ruin in which the distaff 

 rules and the sword obeys," while there is a Magyar 

 saying that "it is the chignon that must rule." Italian 

 law is exceptionally just to women (pp. 109-10) ; a 

 married woman's propert}- is absolutely her own, 



"she has a right to the guardianship of her children, 

 and, as a daughter, to ar^ equal share with her 

 brothers in any patrimonial inheritance in case of 

 intestacy." 



Unfortunately the space devoted to America is very 



brief, 34 pages, the whole of South America — all too 

 scanty in the unabridged edition — being compressed 

 into seven pages. We regret that Mr. Joyce has so 

 greatly curtailed the section by himself on the Maori 

 of New Zealand, and also the discussion of the racial, 

 geographical, and sociological conditions affecting the 

 position of Polynesian women. We are glad to find 

 that the introduction is entirely omitted; it was cer- 

 tainly beneath the level of the rest of the book. 



APPLIED MECHANICS. 



(i) Notes on Applied Mechanics. By R. H. WTiap- 



ham and G. Preece. ?p. vi + 206. (London : 



Edward Arnold, 1910.) Price 45. 6d. net. 



(2) Applied Mechanics, Including Hydraulics and the 



Theory of the Steam-Engine. For Engineers and 



Engineering Students. By John Graham. Pp. 



viii + -J04. (London: Edward Arnold, n.d.) Price 



55. net. 



(i) nr*HIS little book is primarily intended for naval 



-L cadets, who are undergoing instruction in 



applied mechanics during their six months' cruise in 



the Cumberland and Cornwall. The examples at the 



end of each chapter, which are all fully worked out, 



illustrate, so far as possible, the application of the 



various principles discusse3^ in each section to actual 



practical problems which are likely to be met with by 



the cadets in their future professional career; there 



is, therefore, a refreshing novelty in these examples, 



and they differ markedly from those usually met with 



in the ordinary text-books on this subject. 



