78 



NATURE 



\_N0V. 2-2, 1888. 



upwards as before." This has no connection with what 

 has gone before or what follows after. On the next page 

 he says, "for the large and small intestine you massage 

 the lower part " (of the abdomen), having evidently for- 

 gotten thepositionof the transverse colon, which anatomists 

 still believe to be a part of the large intestine. Again, 

 after giving all the less important uses of the saliva, he 

 entirely omits its action in changing the starchy foods 

 into sugar, an omission of which a second-year student 

 would scarcely have been guilty. His readers are left 

 in ignorance of the emulsifying action of the bile on fatty 

 foods, and the pancreas is only considered worthy of 

 mention. In fact the writer, after intimating that the 

 functions of the body could be very well carried on 

 without such an important gland as the spleen, with the 

 modern physiology of which he does not acquaint his 

 readers, leaves us under the impression that the organ- 

 ization of the human body would have been much better 

 planned had Dr. Tibbitts been the designer. 



The author claims for a battery he has invented 

 certain qualities, which he declares to be unique, 

 although they are possessed by other machines. He 

 claims for his hospital the honour of being the only 

 one to which a school for massage is attached, totally 

 ignoring what is being done at other institutions- 

 He is the forerunner of Apostoli, and modestly likens 

 himself to Paul and Apollos, he does not say which. 

 " Although Paul planted, Apollos watered," is his mis- 

 quotation of the Scriptures. He robs Sir James 

 Paget of the honour of a " discovery." Sir James 

 " suggested," but Dr. Tibbitts " originated " afterwards ! 

 After claiming on very insufficient grounds to be a 

 forerunner, a discoverer, and a prophet, he finally declares 

 that all the authorities before him were as blind leaders 

 of the blind. Charcot, Russell Reynolds, Hughlings 

 Jackson, Cowers, and such small fry, are all wrong — for 

 has he not looked into all the authorities ?— and he now 

 announces in defiance of them the tremendous fact that 

 there is no such thing as hysteria ! However, the 

 apparent object of the book has been attained, and the 

 great Holloway must hide his diminished head. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Rock-forming Minerals. By P^rank Rutley, F.G.S., 

 Lecturer on Mineralogy in the Royal School of Mines. 

 With 120 Illustrations. (London : Thomas Murby, 

 1888.) 



This book appears to supply a real want among stu- 

 dents of that now very popular subject of study, micro- 

 scopic petrography. Many of the existing text-books, 

 which are for the most part written in German and 

 French, demand a larger acquaintance with the principles 

 of crystallography and physical optics than many students 

 of the subject possess. Mr. Rutley evidently possesses a 

 considerable experience of the wants of students, and is 

 familiar with the kind of difficulties which prove most 

 troublesome to them. With the greatest patience he 

 endeavours to remove these hindrances to their progress, 

 pointing out the difterent senses in which the same term 

 is sometimes employed, cautioning them against preva- 

 lent misunderstandings, and advising them as to the 

 best method of forming just conceptions concerning the 

 abstruse problems with which they have to deal. Very 

 noteworthy and excellent are the numerous drawings. 



which, though severely diagrammatic rather than pictorial,, 

 are admirably suited for their object. The student wha 

 follows the advice of the author, and by the aid of card- 

 board, cork, and pins, constructs a series of models based 

 upon these drawings, will be able to realize the essential' 

 peculiarities of the several mineral species in a way that 

 no amount of description will enable him to do. In the 

 general arrangement of this book, Mr. Rutley has followed 

 the same excellent plan as Prof Rosenbusch in the first 

 volume of his excellent " Mikroskopische Physiographic." 

 The first part of the book, comprising 104 pages, is de- 

 voted to general considerations, and the second part (144 

 pages) to a description of the crystallographic and optical 

 peculiarities of the chief rock-forming minerals, these 

 being grouped according to their system of crystalliza- 

 tion. In every part of the book there is evidence of 

 the most painstaking care and conscientious attention 

 to accuracy of detail, and we can heartily recommend the 

 book to those who seek for just such an amount of infor- 

 mation on optical principles as will enable them to employ 

 the modern refined methods of petrographical research. 



A Text-book of Euclid's Eleinents for the Use of Schools. 



Parts I. and 11., containing Books I.-VI. By H. S. 



Hall, M.A., and F. H. Stevens, M.A. (London: 



Macmillan, 1888.) 

 We have here the completion of a work which in its first 

 instalment (Books I. and II.) has already won a consider- 

 able amount of favourable notice from teachers. The 

 " end " has " crowned the work " in a similar satisfactory 

 manner ; and, without entering into any " odious " com- 

 parisons with recent like editions, we consider this to be 

 abreast of the best. Great attention has been paid to the 

 arrangement and composition of the text, and the diffi- 

 cultieswhich delay beginners have been carefully smoothed 

 and explained. The ordinary proofs have been adhered 

 to as much as possible, and, in the words of the preface, 

 " changes have been adopted only where the old text has 

 been generally found a cause of difficulty." 



Alternative proofs are given in many cases, which are 

 less cumbrous than those in vogue already. The subject 

 of proportion has been treated on the system advocated 

 by De Morgan, and here great use has been made of 

 the admirable exposition of it given in the Association's 

 (A.I.G.T.) text-book. The principal propositions have 

 been established in a clear manner, both from the alge- 

 braical and geometrical definitions of ratio and propor- 

 tion, and the distinction between the two modes of 

 treatment is well brought out. The whole of this part 

 forms a good introduction to the sixth book. 



The additional feature in the complete treatise is the 

 free use in the third and subsequent books of the signs 

 and abbreviations which are recognized by most teachers,, 

 and allowed in the University examinations. 



The explanatory matter and additional sections contain 

 all, or nearly all, that is looked for nowadays, and include 

 articles on harmonic section, centres of similarity and 

 similitude, pole and polar, radical axes and transversals. 

 The exercises in the text are well graduated, and should 

 bring out the pupil's acquaintance with, and mastery over, 

 the propositions to which they are appended. More 

 difficult problems are led up to by the solution of typical 

 examples. In conclusion, we need only say the work 

 before us contains all that is needful to a student, who, if 

 he has this, will require no other text-book to become an 

 expert geometer—/.^, in so far as outside aid can make 

 one. 



A Class-book of Elementary Chemistry. By W. W. Fisher, 



M.A., F.C.S. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888.) 

 The number of elementary books for students of chemistry 

 has increased so greatly during the last ten years, that 

 each new introduction gives rise to a question as to whether 

 the author has justified his position in adding another 



