Feb. I, 1877J 



NATURE 



291 



entirely the results of his own observation. And a 

 thoroughly good and most original observer he is, with a 

 faculty of telling what he has seen in such a way as keeps 

 the reader in a constant state of exhilaration. Lord 

 Campbell makes no pretence at instruction, never- 

 theless in his own characteristic and irresistibly amus- 

 ing way, he conveys a vast amount of information 

 concerning all the places visited by the Challenget', and 

 tells not a little of the results of the soundings and 

 dredgings carried out by the " scientifics," as he calls the 

 civilian staff. But apart from the genuine entertainment 

 to be had from the work, its great value will be the obser- 

 vations made by the author on the various peoples among 

 whom he sojourned for a longer or shorter period. Even 

 well-informed ethnologists, we should think, will be able 

 to obtain not a little important information from the work 

 on the present condition, for example, of the inhabitants 

 of many of the Pacific islands, such as those of the 

 Friendly, Fiji, and Sandwich Islands, New Guinea, Ad- 

 miralty Islands, &c. A very large space is devoted to 

 Japan, and many shrewd remarks made on the present 

 condition and future prospects of the Japanese. There 

 are many interesting notes besides, on the physical 

 aspect and natural history of most of the places visited, 

 and in almost all cases it will be found that some new 

 feature has been brought out. Even of such well-worn 

 subjects as Teneriffe, the Azores, Cape de Verde Islands, 

 Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the South American 

 littoral, Lord Campbell manages to say something un- 

 expectedly original. In a concluding chapter he gives 

 an instructive summary of the ChaUenger''s work and 

 how she did it. We can only, in our space, speak in 

 the most general way of the nature of the contents 

 of this work. A more entertaining, a more genuinely 

 bracing book, it would be difficult to find, and the reader 

 who goes carefully to the end of it will have added con- 

 siderably to his knowledge of the earth's surface. It is a 

 great pity that a work so full of varied information should 

 have been published without either an analytical table of 

 contents or an index. A map would also have been a 

 great help to the reader. 



Mr. Spry professes simply to give a plain, straightfor- 

 ward narrative of the cruise, of some of the chief results 

 obtained by sounding and dredging, with notes on the 

 places and people visited, partly the result of his own 

 observation and partly of reading. The book is nicely 

 got-up, well printed, and contains a large number of in-, 

 teresting and well-executed illustrations, not only of 

 people and places, but of the implements used in carry- 

 ing out the work of the Challetiger. He gives a very 

 clear account of the various apparatus used, their con- 

 struction and uses, which we commend to the perusal of 

 the uninitiated reader who wants to know how such 

 work as that of the Challenger is performed. Mr. Spry 

 gives the curious story of the brothers Stoltenhoff, who 

 were found living alone on Inaccessible Island, at con- 

 siderable length, in the words of the elder brother. The 

 work contains a really large amount of valuable informa- 

 tion, and as no two men observe alike, we commend those 

 who desire to have complete information about the cruise 

 of the Challcttqer, to read both books. While Mr. Spry 

 sometimes unnecessarily introduces information obtained 

 from books, his work is, on the whole, thoroughly readable. 



and certainly instructive. Altogether, these preliminary 

 " snacks " augur well for the great official feast which is 

 being prepared for us. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Year-Dook of Facts in Science and Arts for 1876. 

 Edited by James Mason. (London : Ward, Lock, and 

 Tyler, 1877.) 



The " Year-Book of Facts " so long associated with the 

 name of the late indefatigable Mr. Timbs seems to have 

 taken a new lease of life under the present editor, who 

 begins his duties with the volume before us. Some useful 

 changes have been made ; thus, there is a marked im- 

 provement in the arrangement and character of the 

 contents, and the period covered by this year-book now 

 extends from the autumn of one year to the autumn of 

 the following, and not January to December as hereto- 

 fore. The longer time thus given for preparation has 

 been well used by Mr. Mason, who certainly has produced 

 a volume far in advance of any of its predecessors. It is 

 hardly necessary for us to say much about this well- 

 known year-book, which does not pretend to be more 

 than a popular digest of scientific scraps ; and in no 

 sense supplies the need, to which we have alluded in 

 previous notices, of a carefully-prepared record of scien- 

 tific progress — the nearest approach to which in the 

 English language is the American " Annual Record of 

 Science and Industry," edited by Mr. Baird. The present 

 editor of the book before us has done his work, so far 

 as it goes, in a comprehensive and careful manner. One 

 or two serious omissions we notice, notably the important 

 discovery made by Dr. Ker, and announced at the last 

 meeting of the British Association, of the rotation of the 

 plane of polarisation by reflection from a pohshed 

 magnetic pole, certainly one of the most novel physical 

 facts of the past year. 



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. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. \ 



Just Intonation 



Your esteemed correspondent, Col. A. R. Clarke, declines 

 to admit any error or oversight in his communication to Nature 

 under the signature of "A. R. C," on December 21, 1876. I 

 regret to be of a different opinion. The first error which I 

 pointed out ought to be palpable enough to a mathematician 

 who is acquainted with the ratios of a scale, and therefore I 

 treated it as an oversight. Col. Clarke gives 27 to l6, instead 

 of 5 to 3, as the ratio for A in our present diatonic scale. By 

 his enlargement of the inierval he would unknowingly convert 

 the well-known consonance of a major Third between F and A 

 into a Pythagorean ditone. Evidently the Colonel is not aware 

 that F and A are notes interposed in the scale of C, that har- 

 moniciUy they belong to F, and require F as a consonant bass. 

 All this has been explained in a pamphlet in print. I would 

 therefore suggest to Col. Clarke an investment of sixpence in the 

 purchase of a " Review of Ilelmholtz's New Musical Theories," 

 published by Novello, Ewer, and Co., No. i, Berners Street. 

 To prove all the unadmitted charges would be too long for 

 Nature, and Col. Clarke will find most of them touched upon 

 in that pamphlet as well as other current errors. In the mean- 

 time it is not difficult to tell that Col. Clarke derived his ratio 

 from the harmonic scale of C, and not from that of F (which 

 would have been right), or from the work of any modern mathe- 



j matician. 



i It is because F and A are harmonically derived from F that 

 our scale cannot be reduced to a common denominator. The 



I F string exceeds the length of the C string by half, the ratio 



i being 3 to 2, and one of the first rules of proportion is that 



