June 3, 1875] 



NATURE 



83 



collection ot notes by Henry H. Howorth of the several 

 observations that have established the fact of the rising 

 of the circumpolar land. 



We have now passed in review the chief portion of this 

 Manual, which occupies 500 out of its 750 pages, and 

 relates to that portion of the Arctic regions whither the 

 explorers are in the first instance bound. The remaining 

 portion of the Natural History division — occupied with 

 Parry Island and East Greenland — consists of shorter 

 papers and far barer catalogues. These perhaps require no 

 observations beyond noticing the fact — recently pointed out 

 also by Mr. De Ranee in our columns— that the various 

 geological periods are much better represented in these 

 latter districts, there being Silurian, Carboniferous, Tri- 

 assic, and Jurassic, as well as Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 rocks ; and consequently we have lists of fossils supplied 

 with which any that may be discovered may be compared. 

 The last of the Natural History series is an extract from 

 Mr. Woodward's paper on Glaciation, the object of the in- 

 sertion of which, as it is entirely theoretical, it is difficult 

 to understand, unless it be to give the explorers some 

 idea of the kind of questions on which some of their 

 geological and glacial observations may be expected to 

 throw light. 



There are two things that strike one in reading these 

 long catalogues— ( I ), that he must be a well-informed 

 naturalist to whom many of the names which belong to 

 all classes and kingdoms of life are anything more than 

 names ; and (2), arising from this, what an advante.ge 

 there is in having specific names at least as far as 

 possible descriptive. 



The second part of the Manual, relating to Physics, 

 requires of course less detail, and is included in a far 

 smaller number of pages. It is not constructed on ex- 

 actly the same plan as the first part, but consists in a 

 great degree in descriptions of the observations and 

 results, instead of reprints of the original papers ; nor is 

 it so exhaustive. It is divided into eight portions, relat- 

 ing respectively to Meteorology, Temperature of the Sea, 

 Formation and Composition of Sea-water Ice, Tides and 

 Currents, Geodesy and Pendulum Experiments, Observa- 

 tions on Refraction and on Air, Terrestrial Magnetism, 

 and the Aurora Borealis . Under the head of Meteorology 

 we have a few scattered notes on the results of the nume- 

 rous previous expeditions with the thermometer, baro- 

 meter, &c., and a valuable table on the mean temperatures 

 of various stations for the several months of the year. 

 The information as to the temperature of the sea is still 

 more meagre, and it seems to us that more might have 

 been included with advantage. The papers selected on 

 the Physical Properties of Ice are extremely suggestive 

 and valuable, consisting partly of observations in Arctic 

 regions as to the freezing-points of sea-water, and the 

 compositions of the resulting ice and the remaining hquid, 

 and partly of similar experiments in the laboratory. 



The information also on the tides and currents is pretty 

 full, showing what methods have been adopted in various 

 expeditions for determining the former accurately and 

 with what resuUs. There are also papers of suggestions 

 as to the probable directions and amounts of both, and 

 the best places for observation, and on the Meteorology 

 and Hydrography of the Austro- Hungarian North Polar 

 Expedition. The part on Magnetism is on the same 



model as the last mentioned, and is equally, if not more 

 valuable. The last chapter, on the Aurora Borealis, is the 

 best of all. Besides the ordinarily phenomenal obser- 

 vations already made, great attention is naturally paid to 

 the spectrum of the Aurora, its connection with electrical 

 discharges, together with Angstrom's views of its origin 

 as explained in Nature (vol. x. p. 246), and the opinions 

 of Prof. Herschel and Mr. Capron, as well as those of 

 MM. Lemstrom and Wijkander, deduced from obser- 

 vations made by them in the different Swedish expe- 

 ditions, all of which are here given as fully as possible. 



Such is the book with which, in addition to all others, 

 the Arctic explorers are supplied. It is a library in one 

 volume such as one does not often see. The mass of 

 material it contains is something marvellous, and all is 

 condensed as much as is advisable. The compilers must 

 have had hard work, but they may congratulate them- 

 selves on the result. They have practically said to the 

 Arctic voyagers — " This is what we have ; go and obtain 

 more for us." May they be successful, and return with a 

 full cargo of information, which, if it were packed as tight 

 as in this Manual, would not take up much room in com- 

 parison with its high value. 



LAW SON'S ''NEW GUINEA'' 

 Wanderings in the hiterior of New Guinea. By Capt. 

 J. A. Lawson. With Frontispiece and Map. (Chapman 

 and Hall, 1875.) 



IT is not often that a work of fiction calls for notice in 

 the pages of Nature ; but we have here an excep- 

 tional case. This book has been favourably noticed in 

 some of the daily and weekly papers as a genuine narrative 

 of travel and an addition to our knowledge of an almost un- 

 known region, and it therefore becomes a duty to inform 

 our readers that it is wholly fictitious. It is not even a clever 

 fiction ; for although the author has some literary skill 

 and some notion of the character of savages, he is so 

 totally ignorant of the geography and the natural history 

 of the country he pretends to have explored, and so com- 

 pletely unacquainted with the exigencies of travel and 

 exploration in trackless equatorial forests, as to crowd his 

 pages with incidents totally unUke any that occur to the 

 actual explorer, and with facts altogether opposed to 

 some of the best established conclusions of physical geo- 

 graphy. We proceed to give proofs of the accuracy of 

 these statements. First, as to his geography. He starts 

 from a point a little to the east of Torres Straits, of 

 which he is so injudicious as to give the latitude and 

 longitude (both to seconds) from his own observations. 

 He also gives a map of his route, but without scale or 

 meridian line. He describes himself, however, as tra- 

 velUng generally northwards with only such divergences 

 as the country necessitated, and we may therefore take it 

 that his route was nearly north, as it should have been to 

 cross the island. But although he gives no scale to his 

 map, he (again injudiciously) gives the dimensions of a 

 large lake, along one side of which he travelled, as 

 "between 60 and 70 miles long, 15 to 30 broad," which 

 being laid down on his map furnishes an excellent scale, 

 and shows that the total distance from his starting point 

 in a straight line to the place he professes to have reached 

 must have been somewhere between 560 and 620 miles. 



