Nov. 28, 1889] 



NATURE 



79 



linerican Resorts ^ with Notes upon their Climate. By 

 Bushrod W. James, AM., M.D. (Philadelphia and 

 London: F. A. Davis, 1889.) | 



Whoever imagines, from the imposing exterior of this 

 volume, that he will find much information within its j 

 •covers on American health-resorts, is doomed to dis- 

 appointment. In most cases he will be as well or better | 

 ■off if he consults a good gazetteer or geographical diction- | 

 ary. It is true it contains a translation of some chapters j 

 of Dr. Woeikof 's " Die Klimate der Erde " ; indeed, this 

 forms more than one-third of the volume— a singular 

 method of producing an " original " work. 



This translation no doubt contains a great deal of tech- 

 nical detail, but there is extremely little in it to help the 

 ordinary inquirer to select a suitable winter or summer re- 

 sort. If a possessor of this volume desired to obtain, for in- 

 stance, some accurate and detailed information as to the 

 climate of Southern California and its principal resorts, he 

 would find the whole of this important region disposed of in 

 less than four pages ; while one of its most rising resorts, 

 Santa Barbara, is disposed of with fourteen lines at 

 p. 52, and exactly the same number of lines at p. 152 ; 

 and another, Los Angeles, gets less than ten lines. No 

 references to meteorological observations, and no climato- 

 logical details of any kind, are contained in these extremely 

 meagre accounts. In other parts of the book, seven or 

 eight health-resorts are disposed of in a single page (pp. 

 33> 37» 44)- Less than three pages are devoted to Florida 

 and all its resorts. Again no meteorological details of 

 any kind. Denver is disposed of in eight lines, Colorado 

 Springs in a like number, and Salt Lake City in two 

 lines. 



It is scarcely necessary to deal seriously with a book 

 put together in this fashion. 



Idylls of the Field. By Francis' A. Knight. (London : 

 Elliot Stock, 1889.) 



With the papers in this dainty volume readers of the 

 Daily News are already familiar. In spirit and style 

 they closely resemble the papers included in the same 

 author's " By Leafy Ways." Mr. Knight has a genuine 

 love for the poetic aspects of Nature, and in these 

 ■'• Idylls," as in his previous book, he gives many a vivid 

 sketch of scenes and incidents by which he himself has 

 been impressed. The text is illustrated by a number of 

 photogravures from drawings by Mr. E. T. Compton. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



( Tkt 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. ^ 



A New Logical Machine. 



As'i'RAXGE little instrument has been sent to me from Auck- 

 land, intended to illustrate the connection between the mathe- 

 matical laws of thought and the laws of growth. 



The machine itself is simple, and consists of two wheels so 

 arranged that, by turning a horizontal one, a perpendicular one 

 is made to revolve. The axle of this latter projects ; and on it 

 •can be fastened a piece of cardboard. All the magic is in the 

 precise forms of the cards sold with the machine ; and of these 

 I must now speak. 



Mr. Betts, of the Government Survey, Auckland, devised a 

 mode of stating arithmetically the main laws of thought. (Me 

 had not read George Boole's book ; but his principle is, in the 

 main, the same as that on which my husband worked.) 



Mr. Betts wished to make diagrams which might represent 

 his formulae to the eye. Having arranged his scales, he proceeded 

 to draw the diagrams ; and found, to his surprise, that he was 

 <1 rawing the outlines of various leaves. These leaf- forms have 



been seen by many artists, who declare that they are not con- 

 ventionalizations but true simplificaiioiis of leaves occurring in 

 Nature. Mr. Betts next cut these leaf forms out in white card- 

 board ; cutting slits to mark the growth lioe^. When one of 

 these cards is fastened on the axle of his machine, and whirled, 

 bands of colour appear, which differ according to the form of the 

 leaf ; but the preponderating colour is greeti. 



When Mr. Betts told me of this by letter, I confcfs I hardly 

 believed his account ; but he has now sent me a machine an 1 

 some cardboard leaves, and several friends have seen the 

 colours. 



Although I understand Mr. Betts's main principle, and am sure 

 that it is identical with my husband's, I will not attempt to 

 explain it, my object being to induce mathematicians here to put 

 themselves in communication with this extraordinary mathema- 

 tical logician, who, not knowing the calculus of Kewton, has 

 supplemented his deficiency by inventing a calculus oi form, 

 which is so far like in principle to that used by the Creator, as 

 to have received from Nature the consecration o{ colour. 



I have, of course, seen the colours ; but, having bad sight, I 

 distrusted my own impressions, till I had heard many persons, 

 more fortunate than myself in this respect, describe what they 

 saw. 



The address is, Benjamin Betts, Esq., Milton Street, Mount 

 Eden, Auckland, N.Z. M.\RY BooLE. 



103 Seymour Place, Bryanston Sqvtare. 



Lamarck versus Weismann. 



Mr. Wallace's note with "the above title in Nature 

 (vol. xl. p. 619) contains an illustration of a kind of reasoning 

 that is so common with the post-Darwinians (I know of no other 

 concise expression to designate this class of thinkers) that I 

 desire to call attention to it. His remarks are apropos of the 

 twist in the skull of the flat-fishes, and of Dr. Lankester's com- 

 ments on the explanation of its origin offered in his book 

 "Darwinism." Mr. Wallace has, as it appears to me justly, 

 ascribed the rotation of the eye of these fishes to the " trans- 

 mission of a series of slight shifiings of the eye acquired in 

 successive generations by the muscular effort of the ancestors of 

 our present flat-fish" (Lankes'er, in Naiure, vol. xl. p. 568). 

 This, observes Lankester, pointedly, is "flat Lamarckism." 

 Now Mr. Wallace explains that he has added the following 

 language, which he thinks negatives the explanation cited by 

 Dr. Lankester; "those usually surviving whose eyes retained 

 more and more of the position into which the young fish tried 

 to twist them." Mr. Wallace then says that the "survival of 

 favourable variations is even here the real cause at work." 



In the three sentences cited from Mr. Wallace, we have the 

 whole question at issue between the post- Darwinians and the 

 neo-Lamarckians in a nutshell. We have stated the " origin of 

 the fittest " and its probable cause ; the ' ' survival of the fittest " ; 

 and the tton sequitur of the post-Da-winians closely following. 

 I point expressly to the words of Mr. Wallace, that the " survival 

 of favourable variations is even here the real cause at work," as 

 containing the paralogism (as Kant would say) which constitutes 

 the error of post-Darwinian reasoning. That survival constitutes 

 a cause is clear enough, since from survivors only, the succeeding 

 generations are derived. But it is strange that it does not seem 

 equally clear, that if whatever is acquired by one generation 

 were not transmitted to the next, no progress in the evolution of 

 a character could possibly occur. Each generation would start 

 exactly where the preceding one did, and the question of survival 

 wotdd never arise, for there would be nothing to call out the 

 operations of the law of natural selection. Selection cannot be 

 the cause of those conditions which are prior to selection ; in 

 other words, a selection cannot explain the origin of anything, 

 although it can and does explain survival of something already 

 originated ; and evolution consists in the origin of characters, 

 as well as of their survival. 



The attempt to produce variations by mutilations, or by abrupt 

 modifications of the normal condidons of plants and animals, is 

 not likely to prove successful, as it has evidently not been 

 Nature's way of evolving characters, although some well- 

 authenticated instances of such inheritance are on record. And 

 the fact that we have not as yet an explanation of inheritance, 

 may be applied with equal force against any and all theories of 

 evolution that have been entertained. E. D. Cope. 



Philadelphia, November 3, 



