270 



NATURE 



[Jan. 17, 1889 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Civilisation 0/ Siueden in Heathen Times. By Oscar 

 Montelius, Ph.D. Translated from the Second Swedish 

 Edition, by the Rev. F. H. Woods, B.D. (London ; 

 Macmillan and Co., 1888.) 

 Everyone who knows anything of archaeology is aware 

 that a book on the subject by Dr. Montelius is sure to 

 be worth reading. The work translated by Mr. Woods 

 ranks among the best existing summaries of the anti- 

 quities of particular countries. The author begins with 

 the Stone age, and passes on, through the Bronze 

 period, to the various stages of the Iron era. For some 

 reasons it might perhaps have been better if he had re- 

 versed the order, taking first a group of antiquities the 

 date of which can be approximately fixed, and working 

 his way back to more remote times. This plan has been 

 adopted, with excellent results, by Mr. Anderson, in his 

 study of Scottish antiquities, and by Dr. Lindenschmidt 

 in the work he is writing on the antiquities of Germany. 

 The method chosen by Dr. Montelius is, however, favour- 

 able to cleir, popular exposition, and he has made 

 excellent use of the opportunities it has provided for him 

 in this direction. He has a dread of far-fetched, fanciful 

 explanations, and, at every stage of the story he has to 

 tell, is careful to show that his statements are in strict 

 accordance with facts. His account of the Bronze age is 

 particularly interesting, but all that is essential to the 

 comprehension of the remains of the Stone and Iron ages 

 in Sweden he also presents with remarkable conciseness 

 and lucidity. The second Swedish edition, of which the 

 present volume is a translation, was published in 1878. 

 Many additions were made by the author to a German 

 translation, which appeared in 1885 ; and these additions, 

 with others specially provided for the English rendering, 

 have been incorporated by Mr. Woods in his interesting 

 volume. Mr. Woods has done full justice to the original 

 by his vigorous and lucid style, and the notes he has 

 added— especially those relating to the " Corpus Poeticum 

 Boreale," edited by Dr. Vigfusson and Mr. F. York 

 Powell — will be welcome to all serious students of 

 archaeology. The work, we may add, is well printed, 

 and the value of the text is greatly increased by a large 

 number of admirable illustrations. 



The " Indispensable " Hand-book to the Optical Lantern. 



Compiled and Edited by W. D. Welford and Henry 



Sturmey. (London: Iliffe and Son, 1888.) 

 This is mainly a catalogue of lanterns, accessories, and 

 slides, one section of the book being devoted to each. 

 Each section commences with brief general remarks, and 

 is followed by a price list of the various pieces of ap- 

 paratus concerned, as manufactured by ditterent firms. 

 The details of each piece of apparatus are described, and 

 in some cases special remarks are made. All the im- 

 portant makers are represented, and their full addresses 

 are given. 



The classified descriptive catalogue of the various sets 

 of slides in the market will perhaps be the most useful 

 part of the book, seeing that the possessor of a lantern 

 is likely to be most interested in determining what he 

 shall exhibit. This catalogue is such that one can im- 

 mediately ascertain full particulars relating to any set of 

 slides, without waiting to see them before purchasing. 



The illustrations which crowd the book are of a very 

 high class, notwithstanding the fact that most of them 

 are used for advertising purposes by the firms whose 

 productions they represent. 



To anyone about to purchase a lantern, or anything 

 concerned with one, the book is fully entitled to its claim 

 to be indispensable. We can further confidently say that 

 it will interest and prove useful to each one of the ever- 

 increasing number of persons who use the lantern either 

 for purposes of instruction or entertainment. 



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 manuscripts intended for this or any other part 

 of Nature. No notice is taken of anonymous communi- 

 cations. 1 



Alpine Haze. 



Questions of nomenclature are of some importance, and of 

 some difficulty, in subjects not thoroughly investigated. M. 

 Antoine d'Ahbadie's last letter (Nature, January 10, p. 247) 

 is so interesting, and, from the linguistic and bibliographical 

 points of view, so exhaustive, that it is with reluctance that I 

 point out why my opinion slightly differs from his on nomen- 

 clature, having already indicated a difference of opinion as to 

 the physical nature of the phenomenon itself. I gave, as a 

 matter of course as well as of courtesy, the title of " Alpine 

 Haze" to my last communication, out of deference to Prof 

 Tyndall, and shall continue to do so until I know Prof. Tyndall's 

 final opinion, but deference to the h'ghest authority cannot alter 

 mybilief that this title is not a fortunate one — a belief c mfirmed 

 by Antoine d'Ahbadie's own evidence L'ldolfs definition is 

 good, but what I required was a simple English term for the 

 use of non-scientific observers, and of some careful scientific 

 observers like Dr. Burder. "Dry haze" (together with the 

 specific term, of which it is the translation) begs a more serious 

 question than is begged by "dust haze." 



I am also inclined to think that the un-scienti fie English "dry 

 haze" may be unfortunately applied to the ordinary haze of 

 comparatively dry weather which Dr. Burder describes. There 

 is, I suppose, little doubt that this latter common haze is com- 

 posed principally of water-particles (usually with some admixture 

 of smoke and dust), pace all the hygrometers in the world. It 

 does not differ from mist, and does not differ from fog, except 

 in amount. W. Clement Lev. 



A Remarkab'e Rime. 



During cold fogs the accumulation of ice on the branches of 

 trees due to the contact of water particles with solid substances, 

 frequently causes damage to timber in the Continental forests : 

 not often, I think, in this country. No snow has fallen here 

 until to-day since October 2, 1888, but anticyclonic frost has 

 been on several occasions accompanied by fogs of unusual 

 density. Daring the frost of last week, ice-crystals of about 2 

 inches in length, at first very hard and adhesive, were formed 

 on the windward (south-south-west) side of all exposed objects, 

 but particularly on metal, even at no greater height than 3 or 

 4 feet above the earth's surface. This is a common sight on 

 the higher hills even in the British Isles, but at this altitude 

 (460 feet above mean sea-level) appears to be rare. The result 

 has been great injury to timber, and a great " wind-fall," without 

 much wind, to the tenant-farmers. Of deciduous trees, the ash 

 seems to have suffered the most, while little damage, so far as I 

 have observed, has been received by the ornamental conifers 

 which usually suffer so much from snow. It is impossible to 

 estimate, with much approach to accuracy, the amount of moisture 

 drawn from the atmosphere in this rime, but during the thaw 

 we measured 4I inches of ice-crystals on the ground on the 

 lecwatd side of a rather spire elm-tree 39 feet in height, while 

 the boughs above this surface, on the leeward side, still 

 retained their exquisite robe of rime. Annie Lev. 



Ashby Parva, Lutterworth, January 12. 



Mass and Inertia. 



Mr. Worthington is rather unkind in blaming the chemists 

 for perhaps somewhat pedantically doing that which is ri^ht, 

 while he encourages his new friends the engineers in continuing 

 to do that which is wrong. 



If he could point to a handy and permanent force, independent 

 both of age and position, which could be boxed up in small com- 

 ]iass and handed down to posterity with perfect security against 

 alteration, and with complete certainly of precise accuracy in 

 Auckland, or wherever the future capital of the race may be, 

 there might be something to say for his proposal to adopt force 

 as one of the fundamental units instead of miss. Otherwise, 

 there is practically nothing to be said for it. 



