November i, 1900] 



NATURE 



Prof. Goodman have greatly added to our knowledge of 

 the friction of bearings, as distinguished from the friction 

 of rest, as found in our academic text-books. Messrs. 

 Archbutt and Deeley have given a clear and extensive 

 account of the modern ideas on friction. 



Prof. Osborne Reynolds' monograph on the theory of 

 friction is certainly one of the finest works on the subject, 

 and it is to be regretted that his results are not more 

 generally known to engineers. 



The portion of the present volume relating to the 

 chemical and physical examination of oils is thorough 

 and copious ; it will be of great service to chemists, but 

 is somewhat beyond the range of most engineers, who, if 

 they test their oils in any way, use the mechanical oil- 

 testing machine, which, while useful in its way, does not 

 give the same knowledge of the properties of a lubricating 

 oil as does the chemical test. 



We consider that oil-testing machines are only capable 

 of yielding satisfactory results in the hands of experts, 

 and then only when much time is expended in experi- 

 ments. For research purposes they are most admirable, 

 and from their use we have obtained practically all we 

 know of friction ; but for commercial testing we should 

 prefer to rely on chemical and physical methods. The 

 design and care of bearings are well described in the 

 second part ; all forms of bearings, from those of watches 

 and clocks, cycles and large engines, are illustrated. 

 We are pleased to see the block packings for piston 

 rods described ; the ordinary gland packing is certainly 

 a defective form, and is the cause of considerable loss 

 of power, even when no serious heating occurs. The 

 omission of the system of forced lubrication seems a 

 pity, especially as Messrs. Belliss and Morcom have 

 applied it with so much success to their well-known 

 quick-revolution engine. The work is, we consider, of 

 the greatest value, and should be in the hands of both 

 designers and users of all forms of machinery in which 

 lubrication is important. F. W. B. 



Darwin and Darwinism, Pure and Mixed. By Dr. 



P. Y. Alexander. Pp. xii -V 346. (London : Bale, 



1899.) 

 The decade which followed the appearance of the 

 " Origin of Species " witnessed the publication of in- 

 numerable books and articles dealing with Darwin's 

 great work. Although many of these were solid and 

 valuable contributions to the literature of evolution and 

 natural selection, the mass as a whole was characterised 

 by the large proportion of works which proclaimed with the 

 utmost confidence the opinions of authors unknown as 

 naturalists. Men whose claim to a hearing was of the 

 slenderest kind spoke with contempt of Darwin's reason- 

 ing powers or the rashness of his generalisations. After 

 1870 such works became rarer, and at the present day 

 are, happily, quite uncommon. The book before us is, 

 however, about as bad an example as can be found. It 

 would not have been astonishing in 1869 to be told by a 

 writer unknown as an original observer or thinker that 

 " Mr. Darwin's capacities of thinking and drawing infer- 

 ences from the immense masses of fact he had collected 

 were not at all equal to his powers of observation, 

 investigation and classification," or to observe the 

 calm satisfaction in the following sentence : " My little 

 effort will show that, wherever I have paid special atten- 

 tion to any department of natural history or natural 

 science, I am apt to find Mr. Darwin at fault, more 

 especially in his generalisations." The mildest statement 

 which can be made about the publication thirty years 

 later of such opinions by a Mr. P. Y. Alexander — author of 

 " Heredity," " Parasitism," &c., notwithstanding — is that 

 the work is an anachronism. 



The literary style may be sufficiently exemplified by a 

 couple of quotations from the "Argument of the Book." 



NO. 16 18, VOL. 63] 



" (2) Mr. Darwin went for essential slowness as a 

 necessity of nature. He said in ' Origin ' ' Nature can 

 never take any great and sudden leaps.' When instances 

 were presented to him of 'sudden leaps,' he tried to gloss 

 it over, and always harked back on slowness'' (p. ix.). 



" (7) Mr. Darwin's notion that ' domestic animals 

 which have long been habituated to a regular and 

 copious supply of food without the labour of searching 

 for it are more fertile than the corresponding wild 

 animals,' shown by instance on instance to be absurd, 

 opposed to the practice of all great breeders, and is, 

 besides, physiologically impossible " (p. xi.). 



It is probable that the reader who looks at such sen- 

 tences as these will not feel sufficiently encouraged by the 

 manner or matter to penetrate further, even though " the 

 most absolute refutation of poor Darwin's fallacy " should 

 be later on established, to the entire satisfaction of the 

 author. E. B. P. 



Electric Wiring Tables. W. P. Maycock. Pp. iv-hi44. 

 (London : Whittaker and Co., 1900.) 



Mr. Maycock's pocket-book of tables should prove very 

 useful to those electrical engineers whose work consists 

 solely of wiring and fitting. It contains in a very con- 

 venient form tables of all the quantities likely to be 

 wanted in such work, and has the advantage of being 

 quite up to date, the values in the tables of the safe 

 currents, resistances, &c., of copper conductors being 

 calculated on the basis of the recommendations of the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers Committee on Copper 

 Conductors, which only made its report at the beginning 

 of this year. It is, perhaps, a disadvantage of the 

 pocket-book that it is so limited in its scope, and we are 

 inclined to think that it would appeal more strongly to 

 the particular class of electrical engineers for which it is 

 designed if more general information were included. A 

 summary of the fire insurance rules should certainly be 

 inserted, and it would be useful if some idea were given 

 of the approximate costs of wiring on the different systems 

 alluded to in the section on "Systems of Wiring." Some 

 of the tables are simply " Ready Reckoners " ; for 

 example, the tables of " Price and Length of Conductors " 

 give the prices of different lengths of conductors calcu- 

 lated from the price per yard, and would apply equally 

 well to wood-casing and metal-piping, a fact which should 

 be indicated in the title of the table. The table giving 

 the current taken by different numbers of lamps working 

 at different pressures and different efficiencies is a very 

 useful one, particularly now that high-efficiency lamps 

 are being brought forward. The same can hardly be 

 said of the list of towns supplying on the alternate current 

 system, since no details are given as to pressure and 

 frequency. The usefulness of the pocket-book would be 

 considerably increased by the addition of an index. 



Raggylug, the Cottontail Rabbit ; and other Animal 

 Stories. By Ernest Seton-Thompson. Pp. 147. 

 (London : David Nutt, 1900.) 



Mr. Seton-Thompson's success as a writer about 

 animal life lies in the fact that he endows his subjects 

 with human faculties and sympathies. It is, of course, 

 illogical to make animals consider everything from an 

 anthropomorphic point of view ; but, after all, this is the 

 only point of view which it is possible for us to con- 

 ceive, and there is no objection to occupying it, pro- 

 vided that its artificial nature is borne in mind. By 

 following this method, Mr. Seton-Thompson's animal 

 stories have a sentimental interest, and they create a 

 love of animate nature in the minds of all who read them. 

 There are four stories in the present volume, and each 

 is an instructive as well as interesting narrative of animal 

 life. Children will read the stories with delight, and 

 adults will find their sympathies awakened by them. 



