Sept. 15, 1887] 



NATURE 



459 



and the antiquary " form an exceedingly well assorted c: ew ; 

 and the addition of an American gentleman and his wife 

 visiting Norfolk, whence his people originally came, " on 

 genealogical searches intent," helps to make the fun of the 

 voyage greater. From the first page to the last the 

 pleasant banter never flags, and there is more real informa- 

 tion both with regard to the topography, antiquities, and 

 local peculiarities of the country through which they 

 passed conveyed in this agreeable manner than in many 

 a book of greater pretensions ; whilst his specimens of the 

 Norfolk dialect, as given in the story of the ghost of 

 Irstead Shoals, and other passages, are really excellent. 

 The account of " Roger's Blast,'' at p. 51, and the adven- 

 ture with the otter (p. 53), are exceedingly clever satires 

 on the writings of a well-known author of " Broad '' 

 books, and the finale of the "Ancestor Hunt'' is 

 exquisite. The writer also ventures to tell the truth 

 with regard to the too much vaunted shooting and 

 fishing. The trip ended, as we suspect many another 

 has done both before and since, by the companions getting 

 just the least bit tired of each other, and the Americans 

 departing to the much more congenial region of Scar- 

 borough, whilst the rest of the party returned to London. 

 The maps are very useful, although mere outlines, and 

 the pretty little sketches by Mr. Wilfred Ball charming. 



The last book on our list is " Notes on the Broads 

 and Rivers of Norfolk and Suffolk," by Harry Brittain, 

 -vith sectional maps and illustrations. Like the preceding 

 ;uide-books Mr. Brittain has adopted the narrative form, 

 md conducts the reader in a very pleasantly written 

 )urnal to all the principal points of interest on the rivers 

 .ad Broads, with a sea trip to the quaint old towns of 

 Dunwich and Southwold. Altogether Mr. Brittain has 

 contrived to embody an immense amount of information 

 in his 1 54 pages, including lists of fishing quarters, dis- 

 tance tables, table of high water at Yarmouth Bar, and a 

 copy of the Bye-laws of the Conservators under the 

 Norfolk and Suffolk Fisheries Act of 1877. He has, 

 like Mr. Davies, the advantage of being a local man 

 and an enthusiastic yachtsman, thoroughly familiar with 

 the country, and therefore perfectly reliable ; the illustra- 

 tions are excellent and thoroughly characteristic, and the 

 sectional maps, with which the text is interspersed, will 

 be found exceedingly useful. 



Some years ago a very florid article on the Broads 

 appeared in a magazine giving such a glowing description 

 of the abundance of fish that pike, it was said, were 

 actually used for manuring the land, and the shooting 

 was not less remarkably productive. The result was that 

 a well-known naturaUst residing in Norwich was flooded 

 with letters of inquiry as to fishing and shooting quarters 

 in this El Dorado of sport. His reply was that undoubt- 

 edly both fish and fowl were there, and that at certain 

 seasons good bags of both could be made, but that un- 

 fortunately there were people selfish enough to imagine 

 that they had some sort of proprietary right to what was 

 found on their own land or in their own water ; and as to 

 trespassing on the snipe grounds which surround the 

 Broads, so little right had the public that if any unfor- 

 tunate individual should chance to fall into the water he 

 must remain there till he had written to the owner of the 

 soil for permission to land. This is literally true, with the 

 exceptions of the towing-paths in the navigable rivers ; 



and visitors, whilst seeking the healthful pleasure un- 

 doubtedly to be derived from a trip on the Norfolk 

 Broads, should be careful to respect the property and 

 rights of the riparian proprietors. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Connaissance des Temps, ou des Mouvemenfs Celestes a 

 V usage des Astronomes et des Navigateurs pour Van 

 \%%%,Publiee par le Bureau des Longitudes. (Paris: 

 Gauthier Villars.) 



This valuable ephemeris has now reached its 210th 

 volume in unbroken annual succession since its first 

 publication by Picard in 1679. Its form and contents 

 have undergone a v/ide development since that date, a 

 development which is still in progress, for the present 

 volume shows three additions on those of previous years. 

 These are (i) the insertion of local time of the moon's 

 transit for twenty-four successive meridians ; (2) a develop- 

 ment of the tables for transforming sidereal into mean 

 time, and reciprocally, so as to render the performance 

 of the calculation more rapid ; and (3) the insertion of 

 the co-ordinates of 65 southern stars, 5 being circum- 

 polars for which ephemerides are given from day to day, 

 the CO ordinates of the remaining 60 being supplied for 

 every tenth day. The positions of the stars have been 

 drawn from all the existing Catalogues, and from un- 

 published Cordoba observations communicated by the 

 Director of the Cordoba Observatory, M. Thome. 



A Treatise on Analytical Statics. With numerous Ex- 

 amples. By L Todhunter, M.A., F.R.S. Fifth Edition, 

 Edited by J. D. Everett, M.A., F.R.S. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 1887.) 



Messrs. Macmillan have just issued the fifth edition 

 of the late Mr. Todhunter's work on analytical statics, 

 edited by Prof. Everett. In his preface the editor states 

 that the most important changes he has made in the old 

 matter relate to attraction, virtual velocities, and general 

 theorems on systems of forces. He has added a brief 

 chapter on graphical statics, a series of articles on the 

 connexion between centres of gravity and resultants of 

 forces at a point (with an exposition of vectors), and a 

 new theorem on a string under a central force. The 

 omissions include most of the articles on the attraction 

 of ellipsoids, in conformity with the design of the book 

 in its present form, which is intended to contain such a 

 selection of subjects as may with advantage be studied in 

 a first course of analytical statics. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



\TJie 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. No notice is taken of anonymous 

 com m u n ications. 



[ The Editor urgently rcqtiests correspondents to kefp their 

 letters as short as possible. The pressure on his space 

 is so great that it is impossible otherwise to insure the 

 appearance even of communications containing interesting 

 and novel fact S.I 



Measurements of the Heights and Motion of Clouds 

 in Spitzbergen. 



The first measurements, as far as I know, of the heights and 

 motion of clouds, by the method described by the Hon. R. 

 Aberciomby in Nature for August 4 (p. 319), and practised at 

 Upsala by M. Hagstrom and myself since the summer of 1884, 

 were made in the summer of 1883 at Cap Thorelsen in Spitbergen 

 under the Swedish Polar Expedition stationed there, of wliich 

 the chiefship as well as the guidance of the meteorological 



