NATURE 



SJS^o'i). I, 1877 



promulgated by Prof. Huxley in 1867, and so to bring out 

 many points of special interest in avian cranial osteology, 

 demonstrating most clearly the principle which may be 

 arrived at from the study of any special organ or single 

 structure, that a fact which is of the greatest significance 

 in determining the relationships of some one collection of 

 species or genera, may be valueless in attempting to 

 classify others. As an instance of this we may take the 

 skull of the woodpeckers and wrynecks, the peculiarities 

 of which have led Mr. Parker to place them in a division 

 by themselves of primary importance, whereas there is 

 nothing more certain than that their differences from the 

 Toucans and Capitonidas are only just sufificient to separate 

 them as a family from either. And yet among almost all 

 other orders of birds the cranial structure is invaluable in 

 the determination of their affinities. 



The uniformity of the nomenclature and the absence of 

 any laxity in the expression of the mutual relations of 

 parts, greatly increases the facility with which the great 

 number of facts brought forward by the authors can be 

 grasped, and no doubt it is Mr. Bettany whom we have 

 in great measure to thank for the general selection and 

 classification of those which have been chosen to form 

 "The Morphology of the Skull." 



In conclusion we feel certain that all who read the work 

 under consideration, the very nature of which makes it 

 almost impossible for us to discuss the details with refer- 

 ence to any of the points which it brings forward, will 

 realise how important an addition it is to biological 

 science, and no thinking student will lay it down without 

 recognising how much scope there is for still further 

 investigation in the same field, especially in that direction 

 which leads to the explanation of the reason why car- 

 tilages grow and bones form in certain definite directions 

 and situations and in them alone ; in other words, the 

 next book of the kind required is one on the dynamics of 

 the development of the skull. 



THOMSON'S "SIZING OF COTTON GOODS" 

 The Sizing of Cotton Goods. By Wm. Thomson. (Man- 

 chester : Palmer and Howe.) 

 IN weaving cotton cloth it is necessary that the warp, 

 which has to withstand a considerable strain in the 

 process of manufacture, should be artificially strengthened 

 by " sizing," that is, by dressing the thread with some 

 adhesive material so as to enable it to resist the pulling 

 and wearing action of the healds and shuttle. In the earlier 

 days of cotton manufacture the weaver contented himself 

 with the use of a mixture of flour-paste and tallow ; the 

 first ingredient gave the thread the desired extra strength, 

 the second removed the harshness which the use of flour 

 alone would have given. But the manufacturer soon 

 discovered that by a judicious selection of the components 

 of his " size," and by alterations in the mode of applying 

 it, he could confer upon the cloth the appearance of being 

 fuller and stouter than it actually was, judging from the 

 amount of cotton contained in it. The great scarcity of 

 the raw material during the cotton famine which sprung 

 out of the American civil war had a powerful effect in 

 developing the ingenuity of a certain set of manufacturers, 

 and there is no doubt that their machinations have had a 

 lasting influence upon the mode of manufacture of grey 



cloth. As the weight of a piece of calico is one of the 

 chief elements in determining its value, attempts were 

 quickly made to increase that weight by mixing such 

 bodies as powdered heavy-spar, or, worse still, of deli- 

 quescent salts like the chlorides of magnesium and 

 calcium, with the sizing material. Occasionally the 

 manufacturer in thus attempting to palm off water or 

 a worthless mineral in lieu of good cotton over-reached 

 himself and a jusc retribution overtook him in the shape 

 of heavy damages for mildewed or rotten goods. 



The results of many of these attempts afford excellent 

 illustrations of the proverbial danger of a little knowledge ; 

 the manufacturer somehow acquired the information that 

 chloride of calcium, an almost worthless bye-product in 

 many chemical operations, was an excellent absorbent of 

 atmospheric moisture ; its advantages as an ingredient of 

 the sizing mixture were therefore obvious ; unfortunately he 

 knew nothing of oiditim oranteacnni or puccinia graminis, 

 and had probably never heard of pencilium glaucum, or 

 he might have known that he was preparing a mixture 

 specially suited to the development of these fungi. 

 Silicate of soda or water-glass doubtless appeared at first 

 sight to be an excellent substance for dressing warp, but 

 a painful experience was needed to teach some manufac- 

 turers that these alkaline silicates rapidly absorb carbonic 

 acid, and that the resultant products, namely, free silica, 

 and sodium carbonate, together occupying a larger volume 

 than the original silicate, exerted a disruptive action upon 

 the hollow jCotton-fibre and made the cloth rotten and 

 useless. Mr. Thomson does not altogether shirk the 

 consideration of the moral aspects of the question of 

 sizing ; he makes no secret of the fact that the operation 

 is often done with fraudulent intention. He expresses his 

 opinion distinctly enough that the introduction of an 

 undue amount of size into goods intended for the home 

 trade can serve no useful purpose, but we think he will 

 find it difficult to convince ordinary or unbiased people 

 that a composition consisting, to the extent of half its 

 weight, of a mixture of putrid flour, or British gum, China 

 clay, barytes, or magnesium chloride, tallow, or palm-oil, 

 with a sufficient amount of chloride of zinc or carbolic 

 acid to prevent the whole from running into absolute 

 nastiness, is a fit material to clothe even the patient 

 Hindoo or the prudent Chinaman. Mr. Thomson, how- 

 ever, takes this business of sizing as a fact which, of 

 course, cannot be ignored, and he tries to make the best 

 of it. In the outset he shows that, as it now stands, the 

 process is one of the clumsiest, most unscientific, and 

 least understood of all the operations with which the 

 manufacturer has to deal, and he points out, clearly and 

 concisely, wherein it is faulty, and how it may be 

 amended. 



The book is, of course, designed primarily for the use 

 of grey-cloth manufacturers, calico-printers, and gene- 

 rally of those whose business it is to buy and sell 

 calico ; and the subject is mainly treated from the 

 point of view of a chemist perfectly familiar with the 

 objects sought to be gained by legitimate sizing. In 

 plain and albeit scientific language he describes the 

 various pieces of apparatus employed in ascertaining the 

 value of the different ingredients in size ; he points out 

 the qualities, good and bad, of the materials employed to 

 give adhesive and softening qualities to the size ; how the 



