October 8, 1914] 



NATURE 



139 



the imagined spread of education and science in 

 Germany. It affords to all men a lesson, how- 

 ever, that the moral sense of a nation requires 

 educating, as well as the intellect ; that a regard 

 for truth, and for the sanctity of a promise are 

 more important possessions than a knowledge 

 of recent discoveries and inventions ; and that 

 the intellectual progress of a country is to be 

 measured by the intelligent participation of every 

 citizen in problems of government and of advance 

 in the moral and mental conditions of the race. 

 The splendid response to Lord Kitchener's call 

 to arms shows that, in spite of many small and 

 annoying eddies in the stream of British life and 

 thought, it still flows steadily in the good old 

 channel of probity and honesty. 



William Ramsay. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH 

 EMPIRE. 



The Oxford Survey of the British Empire. Edited 

 by Prof. A. J. Herbertson and O. J. R. 

 Howarth. 



The British Isles, and Mediterranean Possessions 



(Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus). Pp. xii + 596 + 7 

 maps. 



Asia, including the Indian Empire and Depend- 

 encies, Ceylon, British Malaya, and Far Eastern 

 Possessions. Pp. x + 505 + 5 maps. 



Africa. Pp. xvi + 5474-5 maps. 



America. Pp. x + 511 + 6 maps. 



Australasia. Pp. xii + 584. 



General Survey. Pp. viii + 386 -f- 1 map. (Oxford : 

 Clarendon Press, 1914.) Price 145. net each. 



THOUGH arranged as a series, these volumes 

 can, it would appear, be bought separately. 

 Each volume has the same preface, and the order 

 in the series is distinguished on the back by stars 

 instead of numbers, so as to conceal the oddness 

 of an odd volume. Each volume is by several 

 authors, who have obviously, each as an expert 

 in his own branch, been left a good deal to them- 

 selves as to the manner in which their own sub- 

 jects are to be treated. Each volume is provided 

 with an index, with coloured folding maps show- 

 ing the physical features, geology, or political 

 divisions of the regions dealt with, with text- 

 maps and diagrams, largely climatological, in 

 black and white, to illustrate the same or other 

 things, and with plates giving illustrations of 

 typical scenery. Each volume, too, has at the 

 end another useful feature, a set of statistical 

 tables, or tables and diagrams relating to the 

 dominions dealt with in the volume, those in the 

 last volume being of a more general and com- 

 NO. 2345, VOL. 94] 



prehensive character. All the volumes except the 

 last, moreover, have a short gazetteer or alpha- 

 betical list of the more important places mentioned 

 in the corresponding volume, with a statement of 

 the situation, and notes as to points ot interest. 

 This arrangement will obviously facilitate the 

 bringing up to date of later editions. 



The editors are to be congratulated on the suc- 

 cess with which the whole work has been carried 

 out. They have obtained the services of a large 

 number of highly competent men, and all those 

 interested in the Empire will feel that they owe 

 them a debt of thanks for the mass of trustworthy 

 information that has here been accumulated, and 

 the instructive statement and discussion of prob- 

 lems connected with the Empire as a whole or its 

 different parts. 



In the treatment of each of the larger Dominions 

 there is the same general arrangement of topics, 

 but there is no pedantic adherence to the same 

 grouping of these under chapters. It would have 

 been worse than pedantic to have exactly corre- 

 sponding chapters in dealing with units so diverse 

 as the British Isles, India, and the Dominion of 

 Canada. In the treatment of the British Isles 

 common sense required that there should be much 

 more detail than could be spared for any other 

 part of the Empire. There are thus five or six 

 chapters under different headings in the section 

 on the British Isles, which occupies, if we include 

 the islands in the British seas, more than five- 

 sixths of the first volume, devoted to the topics 

 which in the section on Canada are treated by 

 Prof. Mavor, of Toronto, in three chapters of 

 remarkable excellence under the general heading 

 "Economic Survey." 



We have said that the different authors have 

 evidently been left much to themselves in the 

 treatment of the subjects allotted to them. In- 

 evitably this leads to a certain amount of repetition 

 and overlapping, occasionally to the expression of 

 divergent views. Thus it is natural to find Mr. 

 R. D. Oldham, who deals with the physical 

 geography of India, and Mr. J. S. Cotton, editor 

 of the " Imperial Gazetteer of India," who handles 

 Indian agriculture, both take up the subject of 

 Indian soils, and it is distinctly instructive to 

 find that the man of letters is quite confident as 

 to the origin of those soils, while the geologist 

 is not. On matters of more importance such 

 discrepancies are not at all to be regretted. They 

 keep the student in mind of the fact that there 

 are multitudes of questions on which competent 

 authorities trained to inquire into truth for its own 

 sake hold different opinions. Even where there 

 is no actual conflict of opinion it is useful to 

 have different shades of view expressed. Those, 



