IOO 



NATURE 



{May 31, 188S 



Boards of the Universities," and the syllabus of the first- 

 named body is appended to it. The book thus finds 

 a place among the legion of cram-books which now 

 threaten to overwhelm us. The majority of these are, 

 as everybody knows, notoriously bad, and readers of 

 Nature will not need to be reminded that strong 

 measures are being proposed for the purpose of checking 

 the evil consequent upon their multiplication, and 

 that of elementary text-books in general. Conspicu- 

 ous among these is the recent proposal to establish 

 a Publication Committee, whose members shall sit in 

 judgment on all text-books, with. power to suppress or 

 modify at will. With this suggestion we have no 

 sympathy : it is unscientific in principle, while its adop- 

 tion would tend towards the establishment of a con- 

 servatism and narrow cliquism greatly to be dreaded. 

 The introduction of such a measure would, in our opinion, 

 only serve to strengthen that spirit of popery which 

 threatens to invade certain branches of science in our 

 own lands. The evil will assuredly work it's own end, 

 and, so far as professed cram-books are concerned, the 

 publication of works of such relatively general excellence 

 as the one before us cannot fail to be a far more potent 

 remedy — a more natural one it most certainly is. 



Chief among the defects referred to above, as standing 

 in need of revision, are the following. Too little import- 

 ance is throughout attached to the sources and evolution 

 of heat in the animal economy ; the parts played by the 

 muscles and liver need especial comment, and we note 

 that in the table of gains and losses given no count is 

 taken thereof. The . functional importance of the dia- 

 phragm in the mechanism of respiration is over-stated ; 

 on the other hand, that of the withdrawal of water by the 

 kidney is under-stated as a fundamental of excretion. 

 The distribution and function of glycogen are insufficiently 

 noted. The references to non-nucleated cells (p. 26), and 

 to the comparative anatomy of the central nervous system, 

 might well be excised ; while the long resume (pp. 255-58) 

 of brain-functions given might be advantageously replaced 

 by a more concise description of the actual facts deter- 

 minable in a typical case. The relegation (p. 48) of the 

 sutures of the cranial bones to the category of " imperfect 

 joints" is groundless. 



Numerous illustrations are employed, and of these 

 many are new and highly satisfactory. Figs. 42, 45, 80, 

 and 118, are, however, little short of useless. It is a fact, 

 and not a " view" that " the life of the body is the sum of 

 the lives of the individual cells composing it," and it cannot 

 be said that with the study of the anatomy of the lungs 

 we begin our " view" of the means of purification of the 

 blood. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought. By 

 Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Geology and Natural 

 History in the University of California. (New York: 

 D. Appleton ; London : Chapman and Hall, 1888.) 



The title of this book is somewhat misleading. The work 

 is in effect a concise account of evolution and its principal 

 evidences, contained in 253 pages, supplemented by 82 

 pages giving the author's views on the relation of evolution 

 to materialism, which he rejects, and to several religious 



questions, of which we can only say in these columns 

 that they are dealt with in a candid spirit, on the basis 

 that the law of evolution is thoroughly established, and is 

 indeed " a necessary condition of rational thought." The 

 exposition of evolution is well-planned, the main problems 

 and their significance and the modes of proof being clearly 

 and simply set out, so that the general reader with a 

 modicum of knowledge of natural history may realize them 

 to a considerable extent. These chapters are illustrated 

 by a number of well-selected comparative figures, such as 

 the fore and hind limbs of typical vertebrates, the 

 evolution of the horse family, and the vascular system and 

 brain of vertebrates. Prof. Le Conte cordially accepts 

 Mr. Romanes's "physiological selection" as the most 

 important advance in the theory of evolution since 

 Darwin ; and it is significant that this new view should 

 have already found a place in a popular work written by a 

 man of science. It is, however, a little hazardous to 

 apply with so much confidence a theory still requiring 

 proof ; and this appears to lead the author to put forward 

 a still less proven idea, not new it is true, that the steps of 

 evolution at certain times become comparatively rapid, so 

 that there may be few generations, or perhaps only 

 one, between successive species. Some of the author's 

 statements are undesirably, broad, as when he says, " All 

 vertebrates, and none other, have a number of their 

 anterior vertebral joints enlarged and consolidated into a 

 box to form the skull, in order to inclose and protect a 

 similar enlargement of the nervous centre, viz. the brain." 

 Of course the author is excluding Amphioxus, but he does 

 not say so. Similarly the statement that " by extensive 

 comparison in the taxonomic and ontogenic series the 

 whole vertebrate structure in all its details in different 

 animals may be shown to be modifications one of another " 

 is a little vague. But on the whole the book is sufficiently 

 accurate, and should prove useful. 



Outlines of Qualitative Analysis. By George W. Slatter, 

 Science Master at the Salt Schools, Shipley. (London : 

 Thomas Murby, 1888.) 



This further addition to the already large number of 

 books on elementary analysis is compiled from the 

 author's laboratory notes issued to his students in the 

 Salt Schools. Most teachers appear to have a few par- 

 ticular methods of their own, and the custom of writing 

 a book to embody them seems to be fast gaining ground. 

 With the matter of Mr. Slatter's book one can find very 

 little fault ; but at the same time, except for the use of his 

 own students, one can scarcely see any reason why another 

 book should be presented to the public, when all the facts, 

 in a much more complete form, are already given in most 

 of the larger laboratory guides now in vogue. 



The majority of the methods recommended are cer- 

 tainly well-tried and convenient ones ; and a very good 

 point is the trouble taken in explaining the theory of the 

 analysis tables. Exception, however, may be taken to 

 Mr. Slatter's mode of separating antimony, and tin by use 

 of Marsh's apparatus : while theoretically good, experi- 

 ence shows that accidents are liable to happen, and this 

 is especially the case among young students ; hence the 

 platinum and zinc electrolytic method is more frequently 

 preferred. The author seems also to have a predilection 

 for the use of nitro-hydrochloric acid in dissolving the 

 sulphides of nickel and cobalt in Group III., while there 

 can be no doubt that potassium chlorate and hydrochloric 

 acid work far better, there being no danger of leaving 

 nitrates in the solution. 



The method of analyzing phosphates is one which works 

 very well, and is probably the best known. Similarly the 

 analysis of double cyanides by ignition with ammonium 

 nitrate and sulphate is the one which in the writer's 

 opinion is both the simplest and gives most satisfactory 

 results. A. E. T. 



