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NATURE 



[August 29, 19 18 



have grown up, that they continue growing, that 

 their growth has had instructive vicissitudes, that 

 their development depends on social as well as on 

 personal factors, that they are democratic and 

 international, and that they develop inter-linked 

 w ith one another. 



The scope of the book, may be briefly indicated. 

 The banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphra- 

 tes saw many interesting beginnings, e.g. in astro- 

 nomy and medicine, for the most part oriented to 

 practical needs. The deepening influence of 

 abstract thought, often linked to observation and 

 experiment, is illustrated by Thales, Pythagoras, 

 Plato, Euclid, Aristotle, and Archimedes. The 

 Roman practical and regulative genius is illus- 

 trated by Vitruvius, with his fine conception of the 

 synoptic dignity of architecture, and we are led on 

 to Pliny the Elder and to Galen. An instructive 

 chapter on the continuity of science through the 

 Middle Ages is followed by a discussion of 

 the classification of the sciences, Bacon's 

 in particular. The development of scientific 

 method is illustrated by the work of Gilbert, 

 Galileo, Harvey, and Descartes; and the funda- 

 mental importance of measurement by the achieve- 

 ments of Tvcho Brahe, Kepler, and Robert 

 Boyle. 



The story of the Royal Society i's the diagram of 

 co-operation in science; the early development of 

 geology illustrates the value of interaction ; in a 

 vivid chapter Benjamin Franklin is taken as repre- 

 senting the eighteenth century in its struggle for 

 intellectual, social, and political emancipation ; the 

 relation of science and religion is discussed in con- 

 nection with Kant and the astronomers ; Dalton 

 and Joule illustrate the reign of law; Sir Humphry 

 Davy is pictured as an ideal man of science ; scien- 

 tific prediction finds its classic illustration in the 

 discovery of Neptune; the stimulus that travel 

 gives to science is typified by Darwin's Columbus- 

 voyage ; the relief of man's estate by scientific 

 discovery has its fine examples in the work of 

 Pasteur and Lister; science as the mother of in- 

 ventions is exemplified by the Langlev aeroplane. 

 Such are the subjects of successive chapters of a 

 fascinating story, which ends with discussions of 

 scientific hypotheses, scientific imagination, and 

 the relation of science to democratic culture. Our 

 only serious criticism i(s that the book takes 

 relatively little account of biological science. 



WHALE-FISHING. 

 Modern Whaling and Bear-hunting. A Record of 

 Present-day Whaling with Up-to-date Appli- 

 ances in Many Parts of the World, and of Bear- 

 and Seal-hunting iti the Arctic Regions. By 

 W. G. Burn Murdoch. Pp. 320. (London : 

 Seeley, Service, and Co., Ltd., 1917.) Price 

 21S. net. 

 'X'HF: literature of the whale-fishery is large, 

 -*- and there is much delightful reading to be 

 found in it. Scoresby still stands first and fore- 

 NO. 2548, VOL. lOl] 



most; he had the true scientific eye, he told us 

 just what he saw, and we go to his books to read 

 not only of whales, but also of snow'-crystals, and 

 the heights of waves, and a multitude of other 

 things that many have seen and few recorded. 

 But Scoresby was a little apt to be incredulous 

 of the things he had not seen, and so it happened 

 (for instance) that he led naturalists astray for 

 half a century by declaring that there was no such 

 thing as a "Basque whale." We have also the 

 old books of Martens and of Zorgdrager, and 

 many older accounts than -these, from the days of 

 Baffin and of Edge and his Muscovy Company. 

 And, besides all these, we have a long series of 

 narratives, " more or less exciting, of whaling 

 voyages for the last hundred years and more, 

 Colnett and Bennett and H. J. Bull, and many 

 others, not forgetting among the older ones the 

 Commandeur Frederik Pietersz's voyage to Green- 

 land "op het Schif De Vrouw Maria," nor among 

 the latest the romantic story of the " Cruise of the 

 Cachalot.^^ 



To all these Mr. Burn Murdoch has now added 

 another, to tell of "modern whaling" in many 

 seas,' north and south and round the world ; and 

 he weaves into the story of his own adventurous 

 voyages a lively account of the growth and recent 

 origin of this extensive and prosperous industry. 

 The reader may learn here, for instance, how old 

 Svend Foyn spent years and years on the per- 

 fecting of his "harpoon-gun," and the planning 

 of the little swift ships from which it was to be 

 used ; how, when all was complete, the great 

 Finner whales and humpbacks, which had lived 

 an innocent and unmolested life since the world 

 began, were harried from sea to sea, and boiled 

 down into oil and ground up into bone-meal and 

 cattle-food; how the whale-oil is "hardened" into 

 "white, tasteless, edible fat excellent for cooking 

 purposes," and how sensible men eat the whale- 

 beef and find it excellent ; and how Svend Foyn 

 became rich thereby beyond the dreams of avarice, 

 and his little town of Tonsberg, where his statue 

 stands, became an important place and a busy 

 centre of commerce and industry. 



The book is a gossipy one ; it roves from one 

 theme to another; it is full of stories, and some 

 few of them (perhaps the usual small proportion) 

 are good ; and, better than the stories, it brings 

 to our ears, for once in a way, the tune of some 

 fine old lively chantey, like " Blow, ye winds, 

 hey ho, to California." Every now and then, 

 among the lighter stuff, Mr. Burn Murdoch lets 

 us see that he is a shrewd observer, and better 

 still, that he can, when he pleases, write very 

 admirable English. Best of all, to our thinking, 

 are some of his descriptive bits of really fine word- 

 painting : as, for example, of the " rich, colourful 

 light of the Gulf Stream, that seems to increase 

 south and westerly as you follow it, say, from 

 the west of Kirkcudbright to Spain, and west- 

 wards till you come to the Sargasso Sea"; or, 

 again, of "that jewel of a Sea-town," Ponte 

 Delgado, San Miguel in the Azores. D. W. T. 



