624 



NATURE 



[February 4, 191 5 



begin the work again from the beginning. For further 

 elaboration of the views on logic as the essence of 

 philosophy and the foundations of physics, Mr. 

 Russell refers to his book on " Our Knowledge of 

 the External World " (Chicago and London : Open 

 Court Publishing Co., 1914); reviewed in Nature of 

 November 12, 1914 (vol. xciv., p. 278). The adop- 

 tion of scientific method in philosophy compels 

 us to abandon the hope of solving many of the more 

 ambitious and humanly interesting problems of 

 traditional philosophy ; but what it does solve it solves 

 with great precision. 



In the Revue Scientifique, No. i, 1915, ao interest- 

 ing summary is given by Dr. Landrieu of the use of 

 tincture of iodine for the antiseptic treatment of 

 wounds on the battlefield. Descriptions are given of 

 several ingenious tubes by means of which the iodine 

 may be carried and applied. Dr. Maumus, in the 

 same journal, also gives an account of tetanus among 

 the wounded. 



We have received the annual report of Livingstone 

 College for 19 13-14. This was the last session of the 

 principalship of Dr. Harford, who has worked un- 

 tiringly for twenty-one years. During this period 

 548 students have passed through the college, and 

 have gone forth to all parts of the world. The college 

 was instituted in order to give some medical educa- 

 tion to missionaries, and it has well fulfilled its object. 

 Mr. Loftus Wigram is the new principal. 



We have received as an excerpt from vol. iv. of 

 the " Scientific Results of the Scottish National 

 Antarctic Expedition " a report on the Scotia collection 

 of Atlantic fishes by Mr. R. S. Clark. 

 The fishes were collected between 40° N. and 36° S., 

 near Azores., Madeira, Cape Verde Islands, Ascension, 

 St. Helena, Cape Colony, St. Paul's Rocks, and their 

 main interest is in increasing our knowledge of the 

 geographical distribution of some species, e.g. at 

 St. Helena. No new forms were found. 



In the January number of the Transactions of the 

 Herts Natural History Society, Mr. J. Hopkinson 

 gives a summary of the climate of Hertfordshire, 

 based on general observations for twenty-five, and 

 rainfall records for seventy, years. February, March, 

 and April are the driest, and the months from July to 

 November the wettest, October attaining the maxi- 

 mum in the latter respect. The minimum rainfall in 

 any year at any one station during the period under 

 review was i5"79, and the maximum 42-56 in. 



Both the January and February numbers of My 

 Children's Magazine, edited by Mr. Mee, contain 

 admirable and well-illustrated natural history articles 

 specially suited to juvenile readers. The subject in 

 the January issue relates to insects serviceable to man ; 

 particular attention being directed to the collection 

 and preparation of silk-cocoons in Syria. Reference 

 is also made to a scarcity of flowers in the south of 

 England, owing to the ravages of the bee-disease. 

 The food-storing habits of various animals form the 

 subject of the article in the February issue. 

 NO. 2362, VOL. 94] 



To vol. XXV., part 2, of the Bulletin of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, Dr. R. Broom contri- 

 butes an illustrated catalogue of type and figured 

 specimens of Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic South 

 African reptiles in the collection, as an instalment of 

 the catalogue of the whole series of typical and figured 

 fossil vertebrates in the museum. The South African 

 collection, which is a particularly fine one, was mainly 

 brought together by Dr. Broom himself. The publica- 

 tion is dated January, 19 15, but it unfortunately 

 contains the description of a new genus and 

 species {Youngina gracilis) which had already been 

 named in the fourth part of the Zoological Society's 

 Proceedings for 1914, published in December last. 



Some fundamental morphological objections to the 

 mutation-theory of de Vries, by Prof. E. C. Jeffrey, 

 and the English black-and-white rabbit in connection 

 with the question of Mendelian unit-character con- 

 stancy, by Messrs. W. E. Castle and P. B. Hadley, 

 form the subjects of two out of the three chief articles 

 in the January number of the American Naturalist. 

 In the former it is asserted that Oenothera 

 lamarckiana, and other species of the same genus, 

 which form the main basis of the de Vriesian muta- 

 tion hj-pothesis, are (like other members of the Ono- 

 graceae) much contaminated by natural hybridism. The 

 species of CEnothera are thus largely, if not wholly, 

 cryptohybrids ; and Bateson's objection to the geneti- 

 cal purity of Oe. lamarckiana is confirmed and also 

 shown to be applicable to other members of the group. 

 As hybridism is the best explanation of the behaviour 

 of these species in cultures, it follows that the de 

 Vriesian hypothesis, "so far as it is supported by the 

 case of Oc. lamarckiana, is invalid." 



In an article on eugenics and the war, in the 

 January number of the Eugenic Review, Mr. Theo- 

 dore Chambers emphasises the all-importance in war- 

 fare of supreme care and attention in the treatment 

 of the sick and wounded. In the old days, at any 

 rate, the vastly greater proportion of the deaths in 

 war were due to sickness ; and although matters have 

 immensely improved in this respect, "it is necessary 

 to urge that even to-day far too little attention is 

 being given by the nations which consider them- 

 selves the most civilised in the world to this aspect 

 of war." Later on he observes that "from a military 

 point of view, a voluntary army is probably far more 

 efficient for its numbers than a conscript one. . . . 

 One willing fighter is worth six pressed men." It is 

 added that as universal training without conscription 

 would raise the general physique of the nation, and 

 in war-time would vastly increase the number of 

 recruits for voluntary service, it is probable " that the 

 best combination from the military and eugenic stand- 

 points would be universal training with voluntary 

 service for war." 



The Yale Peruvian Expedition has added a further 

 contribution to our knowledge of Peru in the publica- 

 tion of an account of the Liverworts, by Dr. A. W. 

 Evans, in the Transactions of the Connecticut 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xviii., of April, 

 19 14. Many of the species come from the High Andes 



