712 



NATURE 



[August 4, 192 1 



theme, and uses it conveniently as a possible 

 explanation of certain obscure phenomena which 

 require a g-reat deal of further investigation. 



Apart from the few criticisms which we have 

 made, the book gives an admirable elementary 

 presentation of its subject-matter, and may con- 

 fidently be recommended to every student of 

 psychology. Alfred Carver. 



Torres Strait and its Echinoderms. 



Department of Marine Biology of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. Vol. x.. The 

 Echinoderm Fauna of Torres Strait. By 

 Hubert Lyman Clark. (Publication No, 214.) 

 Pp. viii + 223 + 38 plates. (Washington, D.C. : 

 The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1921.) 

 15.50 dollars. 



ONE result of an expedition to Torres Strait 

 organised by the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington in 19 13 has been that the depart- 

 ment of marine biology of that institution has 

 published an admirable memoir on the Echino- 

 derm fauna by Dr. H. Lyman Clark. The 240 

 species there found are critically examined, as well 

 as fifty species from adjacent regions. Notes on the 

 habitat and habits are furnished in many cases. 

 Forty-one new species were discovered, and some 

 are here described for the first time ; many of 

 these and others are illustrated by photographs, 

 and a number are represented in their natural 

 colours from drawings by Mr. E. M. Grosse, of 

 Sydney, on nineteen exquisite plates lithographed 

 by Mr. H. S. Burton at the Government Printing 

 Office of New South Wales. The technical and 

 artistic skill here displayed do justice to the ex- 

 treme beauty of the objects. 



The chief interest of the memoir lies in the 

 light that Dr. Clark's careful analysis of the 

 Echinoderm assemblage sheds on the geo- 

 graphical changes which led to the formation of 

 Torres Strait. C. Hedley's hypothesis of a 

 Queensland gulf in Mesozoic times receives no 

 support from the echinoderms. What may be 

 called the original echinoderm fauna was, in Dr. 

 Clark's opinion, on the north-west side of the 

 present continent, and was of East Indian origin 

 and Indo-Pacific composition. On the other 

 hand, confirmation is afforded for Hedley's view 

 that, as land areas east of New Guinea subsided, 

 the Coral sea became connected with the Pacific; 

 its western shores also receded until the Great 

 Barrier Reef was formed. This sea was invaded 

 by echinoderms from the Pacific, and these now 

 compose the distinctive fauna of the Barrier Reef 

 and the Murray Islands, and to some extent that 

 of southern Queensland and New South Wales. 

 NO. 2701, VOL. 107] 



Continued subsidence on both sides led at last 

 to the formation of Torres Strait, and the East 

 Indian echinoderms then migrated eastward and 

 southward to the Queensland coast and Barrier 

 Reef, where they mingled with the Pacific immi- 

 grants. The latter, however, have not passed 

 westwards through the Strait. 



The echinoderms on which these conclusions 

 are based, though representing all the living 

 classes, are confined to those from shore-waters, 

 and the argument postulates that their migration 

 must follow the shifting of the coasts, and cannot 

 be greatly affected by the dispersal of pelagic 

 larvae through currents. The actual facts of the 

 distribution are certainly more consistent with 

 this assumption than with the opposite opinion 

 of Mr. Jeffrey Bell. Dr. Clark has used, and 

 used with masterly skill, the facts at his disposal ; 

 but over and over again he has to deplore the 

 incompleteness of our knowledge. Some areas 

 are still untouched by the collector; for instance, 

 the Gulf of Carpentaria, in the very heart of the 

 region under discussion, and the southern coast 

 of New Guinea just to the north of it. From 

 other important areas we have but the chance 

 dredgings of a few cruises, and even where a 

 more careful search has been made it has been 

 restricted to a brief period ; of the seasonal 

 changes nothing is known beyond the fact of their 

 occurrence. What rich harvest may follow from 

 more extended exploration and more intensive 

 study of selected areas is abundantly indicated by 

 Dr. Clark's learned and suggestive survey. 



F. A. B. 



Our Bookshelf. 



From the Unconscious to the Conscious. By 

 Gustave Geley. Translated by Stanley de 

 Brath. Pp. xxviii -h 328. (London: William 

 Collins, Sons, and Co., Ltd., 1920.) 17s. 6d. 

 net. 

 There is a well-known fact of biology called the 

 histolysis of the insect, which was first investi- 

 gated by Weissmann in 1864. When the insect 

 has completed its larval stage and enters into the 

 pupal stage, its tissues disappear, leaving none of 

 their former cellular elements ; all are converted 

 into an apparently homogeneous mass, out of 

 which the imago is generated de novo. 



There is a lady, known in mediumistic circles 

 as " Eva," of rather unprepossessing appearance, 

 to judge by her photographs, who possesses a 

 power of what is called materialisation. She is 

 by no means unique in the .possession of this 

 faculty, but she has been trained, we are told, to 

 give the most perfect exhibition of it which has 

 yet been known. At great personal discomfort, 

 often apparently involving actual pain, under the 



