December 27, 19 17] 



NATURE 



325 



cussed here, but I would make one suggestion. When 

 the objects in a given visual field are moving in 

 different directions, or some of them not moving, the 

 «ye usually fixes on one of the objects, regarding it as 

 stationary and treating the others as moving. This 

 requires both a muscular and a nervous effort, involv- 

 ing the co-ordinating mechanism of the higher nerve- 

 rontres ; and when the stimulus ceases or changes, the 

 reciprocal after-effects in these centres are apparently 

 interpreted as opposite motion; a change of nerve- 

 muscle co-ordination is necessary to accommodate the 

 fve to a changed stimulus. Even very simple sensa- 

 tions may involve complex nerve-muscle co-ordination. 



F. J. Allen. 

 Cambridge, December 16. 



A TRAVELLER IN LAPLAND.^ 



MR. HEDGES BUTLER is a specialist in un- 

 usual modes of travel, and may well be 

 proud of his pioneer work in systematic journeys 

 through the 

 air . Most 

 visitors t o 

 Lapland 

 would select 

 the long days 

 of summer, 

 when the heat 

 may prove ex- 

 cessive and 

 the m o s - 

 quitoes are 

 ** a veritable 

 plague." Mr. 

 Butler points 

 out that the 

 best time to 

 start is about 

 the end o! 

 March, an >' 

 he gives pi 

 tures of K ! 

 runa railway 

 station, and 

 the romantic 

 little platform 

 at Polcirkel, 

 piled about 

 with s n o w . 

 When he gets 

 as far north 

 as he can by 

 the steamer or 

 the Narvik railway, he casts aside all British pre- 

 judices as to hours of meals and clothing ; he dines 

 and dresses like his Lapp companions, sleeps with 

 them in a skin tent when there is no rest-house, 

 and occasionally passes the night in a burrow in 

 the snow. His friendliness with the people 

 smooths away the difficulties of journeys by the 

 boat-like sledges or on skis, and he is always 

 ready to emphasise his happiness rather than his 

 discomfort. In reading his book, we seem ad- 

 mitted to the pleasure of his companionship. 



1 "Through I^pland with Skis and Reindeer, with Some Account of 

 Ancient Lapland and the Murman Coast." By Frank Hedges Butler. 

 Pp. xii + a86. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 1917.) Price 12s. 6e/.ntt. 



Mr. Butler gives useful details of equipment, 

 which remind us of the delightful " Provision to 

 catch the Whale fish in Russia," published by 

 Hakluyt under the date 1575. He sketches the 

 history of the Lapps, and gives, in chap, vi., a 

 valuable description of the Murman coast and its 

 conditions down to the arrival of the railway at 

 Alexandrovsk, We might reasonably expect, 

 however, some reference to the political and com- 

 mercial importance of this line, and to the singular 

 revival for London, Hull, and Moscow of the six- 

 teenth-century trading routes. The bibliography 

 of Lapland in Appendix v. begins with Ste- 

 phanius in 1629; but Englishmen would like some 

 reminder of Willoughby's last journals, and of 

 the tragedy of "the Speransa, which wintred Ib 



Lappia " 



Kegor, Pechingo, and 



Cola " are, moreover, discussed by William Bur- 

 rough in 1576, and their names were then better 



Fig. I. — Bossekop on the Altenfjord, Norwegian Lapland. From " Through Lapland.' 



[PAoto B. Mesch. 



known to our merchants than they are at the pre- 

 sent day. Mr. Bufler will do much to introduce 

 this region again to general readers, and we can 

 only regret that they must turn elsewhere for the 

 romance of our early Russian trade. Burrough uses 

 the pleasant terms " Lappians " and " Lappies " 

 for the people, and we commend these to Mr. 

 Butler, who in one place gives us the odd plural 

 " fjeldlappers " as a Norwegian term. 



A certain indifference to language, characteristic 

 alike of British travellers and of soldiers at the 

 Front, shows itself in Mr. Butler's work. The 

 Finnish spellings in the vocabulary on p. 48 are 



NO. 2513, VOL. 100] 



