582 



NATURE 



[April 19, I 



nothing to tell us about the system of government, or the 

 relations between the king and his nobles, the people and 

 the serfs, in Corea. On the other hand, he gives a full and 

 sometimes a very vivid account of everything he himself 

 had opportunities of directly and carefully studying, and 

 his book is worthy of serious attention, mainly because 

 it consists of the results of his own personal observation. 

 Mr. Carles went to Corea for the first time in 1883, when 

 he not only visited the capital, Soul, but undertook, with 

 some friends, an interesting journey inland. The object of 

 this excursion was the inspection of a silver working, 

 which proved to be very unworthy of its reputation. 

 The scenery, Mr. Carles says, never failed to charm, 

 and the people were invariably civil. At Soul he had 

 some difficulty in obtaining anything really character- 

 istic of native taste and skill. In the curio shops the 

 only distinctly native article seemed to be a kind of iron 

 casket inlaid with silver, the pattern of which was some- 

 times very delicate. In the spring of 1884, Mr. Carles 

 took up his quarters at Chemulpo as H.M. Vice-Consul 

 in Corea ; and one of the best chapters in the book is that 

 in which he sums up his impressions of Chemulpo and 

 the neighbourhood, bringing together various facts of 

 scientific interest, and indicating problems as to tidal and 

 other phenomena about which he is still uncertain. In 

 this chapter Mr. Carles offers a suggestion which is cer- 

 tainly worthy of the attention of men of science. He 

 says : — 



" With so niuch of interest on all sides, I could not help 

 regretting that no information was ever asked for by the 

 outside world on points which the opening of Corea 

 would be likely to clear up. It seemed impossible that 

 one could not be of use to some science in collecting facts 

 which had hitherto been unattainable ; but apparently 

 consular officers are not consulted except on commercial 

 c^uestions. If scientific men would follow the example 

 set by Chambers of Commerce, and ask for information 

 which they expect to be within the reach of out-of-the- 

 way posts, they would generally confer a boon on the 

 officer by giving him a new special interest, and they 

 might sometimes learn what they sought for." 



Early in September 1884, Mr. Carles received instruc- 

 tions to undertake a journey along the high road from 

 Soul to China, as far as the frontier town of Wi-ju ; then 

 from Wi-ju eastwards across the mountains to Kong-ge ; 

 thence south to Gensan, on the east coast ; and from 

 Gensan to Soul. In the course of this journey he watched 

 closely for any indication of conditions favourable to 

 industry and trade, but his observation did not lead 

 him to take a sanguine view of the immediate future of 

 the Coreans. Displaying little enterprise, they are ex- 

 tremely poor, and the prevailing opinion among them 

 seems to be that the Government alone is capable of 

 doing anything for the improvement of their circum- 

 stances. At Song-do, the old capital, admirable pottery 

 used to be made, but when the seat of the government 

 was transferred to Soul, the trade fell off, " and the work- 

 men, refusing to follow the Court, gradually abandoned 

 their industry, the knowledge of which has now been 

 forgotten." Speaking of the religion of the Coreans, Mr. 

 Carles says that, although Buddhism has been under a 

 ban during the supremacy of the present dynasty, there 

 is hardly a mountain valley off the main roads in which 

 there is not a Buddhist temple ; and often he came 

 across figures of Buddha carved in relief on rocks. 

 Fetichism still survives, and is manifested, among other 

 ways, in the presentation of offerings to particularly fine 

 trees. Mr. Carles gives an account of a conspiracy which 

 caused serious trouble at Soul in 1884; and in a con- 

 cluding chapter there are some careful notes on the 

 Corean language. The interest of the book is greatly 

 increased by the illustrations, which are mostly reproduc- 

 tions of some paintings in sepia by a Corean artist at 

 Gensan. 



Navigation and Nautical Astronomy. Compiled by 

 Staff-Commander W. R. Martin, R.N. (London: 

 Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888.) 



This book, which has been accepted by the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Admiralty as a text- book for the 

 Royal Navy, is one that has been wanted for some time, 

 as it contains the whole theory and practice of nautical 

 astronomy in one part. The method of arranging the 

 various problems is very good. The theory of a prob- 

 lem is always proved first, then the problem is worked 

 in a theoretical manner, and lastly in the manner 

 used by navigators, so that one gets everything to do 

 with any one problem in two or three pages, whereas 

 most books on this subject are divided into two parts, 

 a theoretical and a practical. The method adopted 

 by Staff-Commander Martin ought to prove a great 

 advantage to all persons using his book, more es- 

 pecially beginners. The work is divided into two 

 parts, the first being devoted to the various methods of 

 fixing ships' positions by the land, and of navigating a 

 ship by what is known as "dead reckoning." In this 

 part also the various methods of chart construction are 

 very fully explained, and it ought to be mentioned, for the 

 information of naval officers, that the examples relating 

 to charts are as much as possible arranged to be used 

 with the " Officers' Atlas," which is supplied to each 

 man-of-war. The examples ought therefore to be of great 

 service to junior officers. The second part treats of the 

 theory and practice of nautical astronomy ; the method 

 of arrangement we have already described. The volume 

 is accompanied by the requisite charts and diagrams. 



H. C. L. 



A. Johnston's Botanical Plates. (Edinburgh : A. John- 

 ston, 1888.) 



These are coloured plates, 35 x 25 inches in size, 

 intended for use in elementary schools. In the first 

 instalment of nine plates, members of the following 

 natural orders are shown : Ranunculaceas, Papaverace^E, 

 Linaceae, Acerineae, Solanacece (two examples), Scrophu-. 

 lariaceae, Corylacese, and Liliacece. The plants already 

 illustrated appear to have been chosen at random, but 

 when the series is completed a fair representation of the 

 more important orders will no doubt be provided. The 

 plates are well executed and boldly coloured, so that the 

 chief external characters of the plants shown will be 

 sufficiently obvious to the class. Some details of the 

 structure of the flower have also been given, but these 

 figures are rather meagre. Still, this is not a serious 

 objection, as the chief aim of botanical teaching in ele- 

 mentary schools must always be to teach children to 

 know plants by sight. For this purpose these plates, 

 judging from the few already published, seem admirably 

 adapted. D. H. S. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he under- 

 take to return, or to correspond with the writers of, 

 rejected manuscj-ipts intoidcd for this or any other part 

 ^Nature. No notice is taken of anonymous communi- 

 cations. ] 



Injuries caused by Lightning in Africa. 



In a copy of Nature published on December 11, 1884 (vol. 

 xxxi. p. 127), I noticed a statement by Herr von Danckelman 

 that in all the publications relating to Africa, accounts of injuries 

 caused by lightning are so rare that he scarcely found any litera- 

 ture concerning the use of lightning conductors or the frequency 

 I of accidents caused by lightning in the tropics. After an un- 

 1 broken residence of twelve years in the Egyptian Equatorial 

 ] Province, I can give to your meteorological readers a little 

 j information on the subject in question, and I venture to submit 



