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NATURE 



\_Aug. 5, 1875 



consideration to be hopelessly inconsistent, we have been 

 inspired by no other feeling than a desire to see the 

 philosophy we admire purified from an error that greatly 

 mars its beauty. Let it be accepted that states of con- 

 sciousness really stand outside the circuit of motions and 

 therefore can never be a cause of any movement, and the 

 occasion of all the confusion of which we have spoken 

 disappears. 



Mr. Spencer, who has been so kind as to read the 

 proof of this article, tells me by letter that he thinks I 

 have not quite remembered his point of view and its 

 implications. He says : — " The implication of your argu- 

 ment seems to be that I identify motion as it actually 

 exists with motion as manifested to our consciousness. Did 

 I do this there would be the inconsistency you allege in 

 the supposition that feeling is transformable into motion 

 and motion' into feeling. . . . But that transformation 

 which I assume to take place (though without in the 

 least understanding how) is the transformation of the 

 subjective activity we call feeling (unknowable in its 

 ultimate nature) into the objective activity we call motion 

 (also unknowable in its ultimate nature)." On the meta- 

 physical question my own view probably does not differ 

 much from Mr. Spencer's ; but I would have it kept dis- 

 tinct from the question of ordinal y science, which deals 

 only with the relations of things as manifested to our 

 consciousness. And I leave it to Mr. Fiske and his 

 readers to determine whether in the passages I have 

 quoted from his work he means motion and feeling as 

 known to us — the motion and feeling of science, or the 

 ontological entities of the metaphysician, with which in 

 his preface he has told us his system ''has nothing what- 

 ever to do." Douglas A. Spalding 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 Notes on the Fertilisation of the Cereals. By A. S. Wilson. 



(Reprinted from the " Transactions of the Botanical 



Society of Edinburgh.") 

 Notwithstanding the practical importance to the 

 farmer of a knowledge of the mode in which our cereal 

 crops are fertilised, it is singular that different views still 

 prevail on several essential particulars. One point ap- 

 pears to be generally conceded, that insects have nothing 

 to do with it ; the ovules are either self-fertilised, or cross- 

 fertilised by the agency of the wind. Dr. Boswell-Syme 

 and the present author incline towards the former ; Del- 

 pino and Hildebrand to the latter view, at all events in 

 the case of wheat ; and Belgian farmers still trail ropes 

 over their flowering wheat to insure complete fertilisation. 

 Although we cannot altogether agree with Mr. Wilson's 

 conclusions, he has added some most valuable obser- 

 vations to our knowledge of the subject, especially 

 with regard to the remarkable extension of the fila- 

 ments immediately previous to, or concurrently with, 

 the discharge of the pollen. If a rye-flower, he states, is 

 opened a moment before the natural time of flowering, 

 the filaments will be found to measure about one-sixteenth 

 of an inch in length. In the course of five minutes, or 

 less, from the instant the pales begin to open, the fila- 

 ments will, in many cases, have grown to twelve-sixteenths, 

 and the whole of the pollen will have fallen out ; and this 

 rapid extension is not a mere straightening out of a doubled- 

 up thread, but an actual growth. In oats and barley a 

 similar extension takes place ; in the latter case the fila- 

 ments may be seen, under an ordinary pocket lens, to be 

 visibly growing at the rate of six inches an hour. The 

 result at which Mr. Wilson arrives is, that the " European 



cereals are self-fertilised, and that the act of fertilisation, 

 in those cases in which the flower opens, is probably per- 

 formed in the opening, and is necessarily confined to the 

 twenty or thirty minutes during which the flower remains 

 open." We must confess that we are not convinced of the 

 validity of the train of reasoning which led the author to 

 this conclusion. The remarkable phenomenon of the ex- 

 tension of the filaments would appear to be quite useless for 

 this purpose, Mr. Wilson's drawing showing that its effect 

 is to remove the anthers from the immediate proximity of 

 the stigmas to a considerable distance from them. The 

 whole mechanism of the " versatile " anthers, lightly sus- 

 pended at the end of very slender filaments, the immense 

 quantity of light dry pollen, and the sudden jerk by which 

 the flowers are opened, appear to lead prima facie to an 

 opposite conclusion, and to suggest the agency of the wind. 

 On two other points Mr. Wilson seems to us to have been 

 led into some confusion by an incorrect use of terms. 

 He speaks of the meaning of the word " fertilisation " as 

 being " partly a matter of convention ; it may mean that 

 act of the anthers by which they project or discharge the 

 pollen, which, falling directly on the pistil, shall produce 

 the embryo ; or it may mean the falling of the pollen on 

 the ovule after being carried a distance by the wind ; or it 

 may apply to the instant in which the elements of the 

 pollen set up that action in the ovule which produces a 

 new plant ; " and he employs the word throughout in the 

 first of these meanings. Now we believe that all our best 

 writers use the term as synonymous with '• impregnation " 

 or " fecundation ; " and that the correct expression for the 

 falling of the pollen on the stigma — the German '' Bestiiu- 

 bung" — is '■ pollination " ; Mr. Wilson's "fertilisation" 

 being simply the discharge of the pollen from the anther, 

 which may or may not " pollinate" the stigma and " fer- 

 tilise " the ovules. He also finds fault with those botanists 

 who distinguish between "cross-fertilisation " and "self- 

 fertilisation "—the fertilisation of ovules by pollen from a 

 different or from the same flower — without being able to 

 define accurately the physiological difference between the 

 two processes. The terms are, however, currently used, 

 and we think quite correctly, to express an actual external 

 difference, which we know from experience to be fre- 

 quently accompanied by results of a different character ; 

 even though we are not at present able to trace this 

 difference to its physiological causes. Notwithstanding 

 these points, to which we have felt bound to call atten- 

 tion, the present treatise is one of the most important 

 contributions yet made to our knowledge of the remark- 

 able phenomena connected with fertilisation. 



A. W. B. 



Official Guide to the Kew Museutnsj a Handbook to the 

 Museums of Economic Bota7iy of the Royal Gardens, 

 Kew. By Daniel Oliver, F.R.S. Sixth edition, with 

 additions by J. R. Jackson, A.L.S., Curator of the 

 Museums. (J. R. Jackson, Museum, Kew. 8vo., 92 

 pages.) 



Although this is by no means a complete catalogue or 

 guide to all the objects exhibited in the museums at Kew, 

 very few substances of commercial importance have been 

 overlooked. Necessarily in so small a book, little is said 

 of the relative value, &c., of different fibres and other 

 vegetable substances ; but it will be found useful to all 

 interested in applied botany, inasmuch as it embodies all 

 recent discoveries of interest to the druggist, manu- 

 facturer, or artist. The products are arranged in families 

 according to their affinities, and by means of this guide, 

 which has a complete index of trivial and technical names, 

 the visitor can readily find any article of which he may be 

 in search. One thing, however, is certain, the Govern- 

 ment might, by a small grant in aid of a more compre- 

 hensive publication, render the fine collection of vegetable 

 products at Kew of infinitely more service to the general 

 public. 



