556 



NATURE 



{April 17, 1890 



length found to be behind it, it is reasonable to attribute the 

 change to the man, and not the stream. But all turns upon 

 the assumed steadiness of the stream's onward move- 

 ment. Looking back on past experience, Mr. Giffen 

 entertains the hypothesis of a constant or "normal" 

 growth of property. But with respect to recent years, 

 it would be possible to cite, from other high authorities, 

 expressions of a contrary opinion. But, if the steady 

 motion of goods is not accepted, presumably the issue 

 between " scarcity of gold " and the opposed theory of 

 appreciation will turn upon a comparison of the rates at 

 which the rate of increase varies for money and com- 

 modies respectively — an investigation of second differ- 

 entials which we could not regard as serious. 



The difficulties of monetary theory do not attend some 

 of the uses to which the estimate of national capital may 

 be appHed. It is not necessary to make a correction for 

 the variation of money when we compare our own with a 

 foreign country in respect of absolute quantity, and even 

 growth, of accumulation. Our colossal capital compares 

 not unfavourably with the capital of the United States, 

 perhaps equal in amount, but much less per head. The 

 ;^ 1 0,000,000,000 of the United Kingdom compares favour- 

 ably with the ^7,200,000,000 of France weighted by a 

 heavy debt, and the surprisingly small ^1,920,000,000 of 

 Italy. 



The comparison of provinces, as well as nations, is 

 also instructive. Mr. Giffen finds that Ireland has less 

 than a twentieth of the property belonging to the United 

 Kingdom. The property per head in Ireland is less than 

 a third of what it is in England, and not much more than 

 a third of what it is for Scotland. Upon these facts Mr. 

 Giffen remarks : — 



" Reckoning by wealth, England should have 86 per 

 cent, of the representation of the United Kingdom, or 576 

 members out of 670 ; Scotland, by the same rule, should 

 have about 64 only ; and Ireland no more than 30. . . . 

 There should be a representation of forces in Parliament, 

 if we had perfectly just arrangements, and not merely a 

 counting of heads. Nothing can be more absurd to the 

 mind of any student of politics, who knows how forces 

 rule in the long run, than the system now established, as 

 between the metropolitan community of England and its 

 companions in sovereignty, by which one of the com- 

 panion communities, and that the least entitled to privi- 

 lege, obtains most disproportionate power." 



One of the most legitimate uses to which estimates of 

 national capital can be put, is to ascertain the progress of 

 wealth from age to age. In an historical retrospect, Mr. 

 Giifen reviews the work of his predecessors, rescuing 

 from an undeserved neglect more than one writer who 

 h.id the courage and sagacity to employ what Colquhoun 

 calls " approximating facts." The succession of estimates, 

 from the age of Petty to the present time, appears to 

 justify the hypothesis of a constant increase of property — 

 a five-fold multiplication per century. Contemplating 

 the long series of records, Englishmen may reflect with 

 pride that the increased estimates are matched by an 

 ncreasing power of handling them, that the growth of 

 material prosperity has not been attended by a decline 

 in statistical genius, and that the work of Petty is con- 

 tinued by one who is worthy to be compared with the 

 founder of Political Arithmetic. F. Y. E. 



MERGUI. 



Contributions to the Fat/na of Mergidandits Archipelago. 

 2 Vols. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1889.) 



THE materials which have been brought together in 

 these volumes are now made accessible to those 

 specially interested in the fauna of this group of islands 

 in a connected form. The collections were made in 1881- 

 82 by Dr. John Anderson, F.R.S., till recently Director of 

 the Indian Museimi at Calcutta, who brought the speci- 

 mens to England with him, and placed the different 

 groups in the hands of specialists for their proper identi- 

 fication and description. The result has been the publica- 

 tion ot a number of faunistic papers in the Journal of the 

 Linnean Society and elsewhere, and these papers are 

 now published in the form of two volumes, well illus- 

 trated with plates, and containing altogether nearly two 

 dozen distinct memoirs by recognized authorities in the 

 different departments. 



In the first volume Prof. P. Martin Duncan writes on 

 the Madrepores, and in his concluding remarks calls atten- 

 tion to the remarkable distinctness of the existing as 

 compared with the Miocene corals of the same area. 

 Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell's paper on the Holuthuria comes 

 next in order, and is followed by Mr. F. Moore's paper 

 on the Lepidoptera, the collection in the last order con- 

 taining 208 species of butterflies, and 64 species of moths. 

 The Sponges are described by Mr. H. J. Carter, F.R.S., 

 and the Ophiuridae by Prof. Martin Duncan, who contri- 

 butes also a special paper on the anatomy of Ophiothrix 

 variabilis and Op hiocampsis pellicula. The Polyzoa and 

 Hydroida are taken in hand by the Rev. Thomas Hincks. 

 The Coleoptera have come off badly, if Mr. Bate's de- 

 scription of one new species {Brachyoftychus andersoni) 

 represents the whole of the material collected in this 

 order. We suspect, however, that more will be heard 

 about the Mergui beetles at some future period. 



Dr. Anderson himself contributes the list of birds, 

 which he regards " merely as a small supplementary 

 contribution " to Messrs. Hume and Davison's labours in 

 the same field. The list chiefly records the distribution 

 in the outer islands of the archipelago of a few of the 

 species recorded by these last authors. Dr. Hoek, of 

 Leyden, writes on a Cirriped {Dichelaspis pellucida), 

 which does not appear to have been observed since 

 Darwin published his original description in his mono- 

 graph. The shells — marine, estuarine, freshwater, and 

 terrestrial — form the subject of a paper by Prof. E. v. 

 Martens, of Berlin. Mr. Stuart Ridley has been en- 

 trusted with the Alcyonaria, and Prof. A. C. Haddon 

 describes two species of Actiniae. The Annelids are 

 treated of by Mr. Frank E. Beddard, who includes in his 

 paper an important section on the structure of the eyes 

 in one of the species described. The Pennatulida are 

 treated of by Prof. Milnes Marshall and Dr. G. H. 

 Fowler, and the Myriopoda by Mr. R. I. Pocock, this 

 being the first list of species recorded from the archi- 

 pelago. The Comatulae are described by Dr. P. Herbert 

 Carpenter, the Echinoidea by Prof. P. Martin Duncai> 

 and Mr. W. P. Sladen, and the Asteroidea by this last 

 author. These organisms, when referable to known 

 species, " show variations which are sufficient to impart 

 a character to the collection as a whole^ and to indicate 



