678 



NATURE 



[July 28, 192 1 



admirable journal "—a compliment which ought 

 perhaps to secure a benevolent review, but need- 

 less to say we shall not let it induce us to depart 

 from our habitual detachment. 



Mr. Blayre was for many years Registrar in a 

 well-known university, and had certain manu- 

 scripts confided to him by more or less scientific 

 members of the staff on the understanding that 

 they should remain in retentis, as who should 

 say, unless events occurred which rendered their 

 publication desirable. In no case, however, were 

 they to be published in the lifetime of the deposi- 

 tors, to whom the documentation served as a 

 sort' of Freudian relief. Now there is no doubt 

 that the publication clears up many puzzling 

 events, such as the ghastly damage that followed 

 the acceptance of the so-called "purple 

 sapphire " by the Mineralogical Museum, the 

 mystery of Prof. Markwand's death, and the 

 tragic case of Austin Black, who, if anyone, must 

 be credited with laying the foundations of psycho- 

 biology. 



To clear up these and other obscurities, more 

 familiar to the older than to the younger readers 

 of Nature, has seemed to Mr. Blayre sufficient 

 warrant for publishing the deposited documents. 

 He does not seem to be aware, however, that the 

 Professor of Biology, the present reviewer, is still 

 alive, and by no means so sure as he once was 

 of Mr. Blayre's fiducial discretion. His feeling 

 of relief when he found that his own document 

 had been suppressed by the publishers enables 

 him to sympathise at least with the relatives of 

 the deceased gentlemen whose confidences are 

 now blazoned abroad. It is true that names are 

 sometimes suppressed or modified in the book, 

 but in these days, when the study of the history 

 of science is rife, it seems a cruelly thin disguise 

 to refer to a professor by a pseudonym and then 

 proceed to mention one of his well-known 

 discoveries. 



Apart from our own survival, which rather con- 

 demns the book, apart, also, from the editor's 

 hurry to disclose the confidences of well-known 

 men of science, we would protest against the 

 somewhat amateurish editing. "Science" was 

 never Mr. Blayre's metier, and we see that in his 

 editing. When, for example, was Prof. Tyndall 

 knighted, and how could there possibly be a 

 monkey, even a small monkey, inside a bunch of 

 bananas? Even the date of the preface is wrong ; 

 and Lingulella figuring as a Lamellibranch ( !) is 

 a very dead fly in the ointment. Would it not 

 have been wiser to have submitted the papers for 

 editorial purposes to the present heads of the 

 various departments concerned, and to have 

 NO. 2700, VOL. 107] 



issued them as a volume of " University 

 Studies"? 



At the same time, many will be grateful to 

 Mr. Blayre for publishing these papers with their 

 poignant personalities and astonishing intimacies. 

 They have made many obscure things clear, and 

 they show us how human men of science are after 

 all. But it is strange to read nowadays of the 

 timidity with which the Professors of Botany and 

 Zoology regarded the development of the cosmic 

 dust, which is now a common item in the kine- 

 matographic repertory. 



The Professor of Biology. 



Our Bookshelf. 



The Breeding and Feeding of Farm Stock. 

 By J. Wilson. Pp. vii+152. (London: 

 Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 65. net. 



This work attempts to treat of a vast subject 

 within a hundred and fifty pages of medium 

 size and type, and there is no preface or 

 preliminary word denoting that the talented author 

 asks for that indulgence which may be claimed by 

 a purely elementary treatise. So ambitious an 

 endeavour courts criticism, and, in this case, no 

 student of the subject could say that it is un- 

 deserved. Even in such a hurried summary a few 

 words might have been spared to warn the tyro 

 when the text was meant to be dogmatic and when 

 the author was merely drawing upon a well-trained 

 imagination. Perhaps the best example of such a 

 caution being needed is to be found on p. 26. Here 

 a truly skilful flight of fancy reads as if there were 

 some scientific evidence to support the writer's 

 faith in his own imagery. The harmful effect of the 

 lack of necessary explanations may be found in 

 sentences which can be described, read as they 

 stand, only as the travesty of truth : e.g. we read 

 on p. 65: "Sometimes a breed is recommended 

 because it can live on little food, but, if a breed 

 or an individual cow lives upon little food, then 

 neither the breed nor the cow is a good milker." 



Besides such inexactitudes, there are many 

 omissions of reference to work throwing light on 

 problems discussed. Nevertheless the book con- 

 tains much that is interesting and instructive, 

 and some matter that is inspiring. While it can- 

 not be wished that the present work may be re- 

 published in its present epitomised form, it is to 

 be hoped that the author will become more am- 

 bitious and give his readers, in a larger volume, 

 or in several, the elaborated results of his study 

 of this very important subject. K. J. J. M. 



John Dcdton. By L. J. Neville-Polley. (Pioneers 

 of Progress. Men of Science.) Pp. 63. 

 (London: S.P.C.K. ; New York: The Mac- 

 millan Co., 1920.) 25. 

 Within the last ten years chemistry has com- 

 pletely emancipated itself from a type of meta- 

 physical obscurantism which seems to be invading 



