Dec. 26, 1889J 



NATURE 



17 



The translator has performed his work with great suc- 

 cess, and he is to be congratulated on the almost complete 

 absence of printers' errors, which so often mar the pages 

 of works of this class. It is to be regretted that he has in 

 some instances neglected to adopt the nomenclature em- 

 ployed by the Chemical Society, since uniformity of usage 

 in this respect is greatly to be desired. An excellent 

 index forms a fitting conclusion to the work, which is sure 

 to take as high a place among the elementary text-books 

 of organic chemistry in the English language as it has 

 already done in the Fatherland. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Viking Age; the Early History, Manners, and 

 Customs of the Ancestors of the English-speaking 

 Nations. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. Two Vols. 1366 

 Illustrations, and Map. (London : Murray, 1889.) 



The author of this work has persuaded himself that the 

 invaders who conquered and settled in Britain after the 

 departure of the Romans were not, as we have been 

 taught to believe, Low Dutch tribes, but Norsemen. It 

 is unfortunate that he should have hampered himself in 

 his researches by so arbitrary a theory. Of course, no 

 one disputes that there is a strong Scandinavian element 

 in England ; the fact has always been perfectly well un- 

 derstood by historians, and has received from them due 

 attention. But to say that the English people are wholly 

 or mainly descended from Scandinavians is to advance 

 a proposition opposed to all the most vital evidence we 

 possess on the subject. The evidence of language alone 

 would suffice to dispose of so crude a doctrine. Mr. Du 

 Chaillu has not approached the consideration of the 

 question in a scientific spirit, and has too lightly brushed 

 aside the difficulties in his way. 



He has tried to give an account of the ideas, customs, 

 manners, and institutions of the ancient Scandinavians ; 

 and we need scarcely say that there are some lively and 

 attractive passages in his chapters on these subjects. 

 From his book, English anthropologists will learn that 

 there is valuable material for them in the old northern 

 laws and Icelandic Sagas. They will, however, be unable 

 to make use of his translated extracts, because he does 

 not attempt to estimate the date and weight of the docu- 

 ments used, late forged Sagas being treated precisely as 

 authentic early poems or contemporary histories. 



The work has, in fact, no scientific value. It will 

 amuse "the general reader," but it is unsuitable for 

 serious students. To the archaeologist it may serve as a 

 rough index to the chief finds made in the three Scandin- 

 avian countries ; but even for this purpose he will need 

 to refer to the original plates and cuts from which the 

 illustrations in these volumes are more or less happily 

 reproduced. This will be obvious to anyone who studies 

 the originals in the papers of Montelius, the Proceedings 

 of the Stockholm Congress, 1874, the splendid Copen- 

 hagen Museum Catalogues, or the " Aarbipger for Nordisk 

 Old-kyndighed og Historie." F. Y. P. 



A Glossary of Anatomical, Physiological, and Biological 

 Terms. By T. Dunman. Second Edition. Edited, 

 and supplemented with an Appendix, by W. H. 

 Wyatt Wingrave, M.R.C.S. (London: Griffith, Farran, 

 Okeden, and Welsh.) 



It is now eleven years since the first edition of this book 

 appeared. The senior author outlived its publication by 

 but a short period. The editor of the present edition has 

 left its pages unaltered, and has taken upon himself to 

 add thereto (in the form of an appendix) twenty-five 

 pages, embracing some 400 physiological and morpho- 

 logical terms, to the paucity of which, in the original 



edition, he directs attention. Many of his supplementary 

 words are superfluous, others are obsolete, and by no 

 means a few are either insufficiently or inaccurately ex- 

 plained. The original edition was by no means free c<f 

 like defects : in it we read, by way of example, that the 

 ^^ Sepiostaire" is "the only representative of an endo- 

 skeleton in the cuttle-fishes"; that the '''' Septum lucidum^'' 

 is " the partition which separates from each other the 

 lateral ventricles of the brain " ; that by " Schizoccele " is 

 meant " a term applied to the peri-visceral cavity of the 

 Invertebrata, when formed by a splitting of the meso- 

 blast of the embryo." The present editor, while pre- 

 serving the above and many other similar misstatements, 

 has, in turn, shown himself wanting in power of accurate 

 definition of fundamentals. This is seen, for example, 

 in his renderings of " Endomysium," " Inhibition " (de- 

 fined as " checking or controlling influence, exercised by 

 a nerve-centre over some subordinate organ or process"), 

 " Metabolis7n" " Meckelian bar" and Negative variation ' 

 (which, we are told, embraces " changes in the natural 

 nerve or muscle currents which occur during contrac- 

 tion"). The little volume has hitherto recommended 

 itself to students chiefly by its compactness. There has 

 always characterized it a want of expressiveness and of 

 finish. A single instance will suffice: '' Glomerulus'^ has 

 all along stood, and still stands, as " the small ball of capil- 

 laries in the Malpighian capsules of the kidney." It is 

 the first duty of an editor of a new edition to rectify 

 original defects ; and, until that shall have been done, he 

 has no right to add supplementary matter. The volume, 

 as it now stands, must be speedily revised, if the recom- 

 mendation of experienced teachers is to be looked for ; 

 and it is upon the same that it can alone maintain its 

 honoured position. 



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, "l 



Acquired Characters and Congenital Variation. 



Being one of those who do not believe that either the theory 

 of Darwin or the theory of Lamarck gives any adequate or 

 rational account of the "origin of species," I am always glad 

 to see any controversy which pits the one of them against the 

 other. It is by such controversy that the weak points of each 

 are best exposed. But I now write in the interests of peace and 

 conciliation. Prof. Ray Lankester seems to me to be much too 

 belligerent. I see no necessary antagonism between "conge- 

 nital variation" and the transmission of "acquired characters." 

 If an acquired character affects the whole organism, and espe- 

 cially the reproductive elements, then its hereditary transmission 

 would perfectly reconcile the two conceptions. And this is 

 probably the universal fact. I have no doubt of the hereditary 

 transmission of acquired characters. So far is it from being 

 "unproved," it is consistent with all observation and all ex- 

 perience. It lies at the foundation of all organic development. 

 But it implies no denial of "congenital" causes. It is very 

 probable that every "acquired character" is necessarily corre- 

 lated with some physical modifications in organic structure, and 

 that it is only transmitted to progeny through, and by means of, 

 this physical modification. 



This being so, the question arises, Why is it that the idea of 

 acquired characters becoming hereditary is so fiercely opposed 

 by extreme Darwinians ? Is it the mere jealousy of an exclusive 

 worship — the mere dislike of the great name of Lamarck being 

 mentioned, even in the same day, with the name of Darwin ? 

 It is partly this, no doubt. But it is something more. It is jea- 

 lousy of any conception which tends to break down the empire 

 of mere fortuity in the phenomena of variation. Darwin him- 

 self is not wholly responsible for this feeling. He expressly 

 guarded himself against the interpretation which has been affixed 

 to his language about "accidental" variation. He knew well 



