June io, 1897] 



NATURE 



125 



it became the basis of the present Institute. If Mr. 

 Rogers had accomplished no more than this, he would 

 yet have done a great service to the cause of science 

 and education. He was, however, an active investigator, 

 and the two volumes before us testify to the keenness 

 of his interest in all scientific subjects. 



William Rogers was born in 1804. He became pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy and chemistry at William and 

 Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1828, and pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy in the University of Virginia, 

 and director of the geological survey of Virginia, in 1835. 

 He resigned his professorship in 1853, and removed to 

 Boston, where, a few years later, he took the chief 

 part in founding and organising the Massachusetts In- 

 stitute of Technology. The physical laboratory of the 

 Institute was afterwards given the designation of " The 

 Rogers Laboratory of Physics," in recognition of his ser- 

 vices to physical science and devotion to the interests of 

 the Institute. Mr. Rogers was president of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science in 1876, and 

 succeeded Prof Henry as president of the National 

 Academy of Sciences in 1879. He died suddenly in 

 May 1882, while delivering a short address to the students 

 of the Institute of which he was the father. 



Prof Rogers was one of a gifted quartet. His brother 

 Henrj' became Regius Professor of Natural History and 

 Geology in the University of Glasgow in 1857, and was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in the following 

 year. To the two brothers William and Henry, geology 

 owes the wave theory of mountain chains — a theory de- 

 duced from an extended study of the great Appalachian 

 chain. The eldest of the four brothers, James Rogers, 

 served as professor of chemistry, successively, in the 

 Philadelphia Medical Institute, the Franklin Institute, 

 and the University of Pennsylvania. Upon his death 

 in 1852, the youngest of the brothers, Robert, then pro- 

 fessor of chemistry in the University of Virginia, suc- 

 ceeded him in the chair of chemistry at Philadelphia. 

 It was in connection with Robert Rogers that William 

 investigated the solvent action of water — especially when 

 charged with carbon dioxide — on various minerals and 

 rocks. 



The wide range of W' illiam Rogers' studies and re- 

 searches, his eminence among men of science in America, 

 his enthusiasm for the advancement of knowledge, and 

 his fraternal affinities, have all assisted in providing 

 material for the two volumes under notice. The memoir 

 is practically filled with letters, only sufficient editorial 

 comment being added to make it a connected history. 

 It would be easy to fill many pages of Nature with 

 interesting extracts from these letters, but the limitations 

 of space forbid. Naturally the volumes will appeal most to 

 Prof Rogers' American contemporaries, and to the officers, 

 graduates, and students of the Institute to which they 

 are dedicated. There are, however, many British men 

 of science who will be interested and inspired by this 

 record of his life and work. 



nOttica delle Oscillazioni Elettriche. By Prof A. Righi. 



Pp. vii H- 254. (Bologna : Zanichelli, 1897.) 

 Two years ago (May 9, 1895) we drew attention to two 

 mernoirs by Prof Righi, who in 1893 succeeded in pro- 

 ducing and investigating the behaviour of Hertzian waves 

 only a few centimetres in length. He has now collected 

 the results of these and other researches, which he has 

 made, in the form of a convenient volume, arranged in 

 two parts. The first contains a detailed description of 

 his apparatus, its mode of construction and use, together 

 with the effects which can be produced by it, especially 

 such effects as are easily exhibited by electro-magnetic 

 waves, but only with difficulty by light-waves, on account 

 of the extremely short wave-length of the latter. The 

 second and longer part corresponds more closely to the 

 title of the book, and gives an account of the following 



NO. 1 44 1, VOL. 56] 



phenomena : interference-phenomena with electro-mag- 

 netic waves carried out with experimental arrangements 

 which in the main correspond exactly to the well-known 

 optical ones {e.g. Fresnel's mirror and the bi-prism); 

 experiments analogous to the interference of light in thin 

 plates ; diffraction-experiments ; absorption, transparence 

 and opacity ; reflection from the surfaces of conductors 

 and dielectrics ; experiments in reflection and total reflec- 

 tion which are exact analogues of optical experiments 

 with prisms, lenses and totally reflecting prisms ; elliptic 

 and circular polarisation, and double refraction. An 

 appendix contains a series of notes on the theory of electro- 

 optics. The book is well printed and illustrated, and will 

 be welcomed by all who are interested in the develop- 

 ment of the work of Maxwell and Hertz. pv. 

 The Concise Knowledge Natural History. Edited by 

 Alfred H. Miles. Illustrated. Pp. xvi-J-771. (London: 

 Hutchinson and Co., 1897.) 

 This book of less than 800 octavo pages deals with the 

 animal life of the world. The arrangement is systematic ; 

 the space allowed to each group is proportioned to its 

 popular interest, and the authors have done what they 

 could under the prescribed conditions to make their con- 

 tributions readable. Since the Vertebrates occupy more 

 than five-sevenths of the volume, the Invertebrates come 

 off poorly. Mammals, by Mr. Lydekker, and Birds, 

 by Dr. Bowdler Sharp, are more liberally treated, and 

 these sections are far more interesting than the rest. It 

 will be seen that though the book has its merits, its use 

 is limited. We can hardly recommend it to students or 

 to field-naturalists, or to collectors, but it will suit those 

 who desire information about the animals which they 

 meet, not in the flesh, but in the newspaper or book of 

 travel. The quantity and quality of the information are 

 equal to what would be found in any encyclopaedia ex- 

 cept the Britannica. The cuts, which are numerous, are 

 not good ; some of the frogs and salamanders, for in- 

 stance, are almost unintelligible. There is a full index, 

 which will prove a useful feature. Is it worth while to 

 point out that there is no such plural as Animalculce ? 



L. C. M. 

 Through a Pocket Lens. By Henry Scherren, F.Z.S. 

 Pp. 192. (London : The Religious Tract Society, 

 1897). 

 Give this book to an intelligent boy or girl with a taste 

 for natural history, and let it be used not merely as a 

 reading-book, but as a guide-book to nature study, and 

 you will do more towards cultivating the spirit of investi- 

 gation than by dozens of lectures. The common idea 

 that very little real work can be done without a com- 

 pound microscope and numerous accessories has tended 

 to discourage young naturalists, but Mr. Scherren de- 

 scribes so many interesting objects, all of which have 

 been seen by him with a pocket lens, that his book will 

 induce many to study nature who would otherwise 

 acquire knowledge second-hand. All the examples de- 

 scribed are taken from the Arthropoda. The group is 

 interesting, and specimens belonging to it are so common 

 that they can easily be procured. We have no doubt 

 that many young students will profit by this instructive 

 introduction to one of the main divisions of the animal 

 kingdom. 



Tht Young Beetle Collector's Handbook. By Dr. E. Hoff- 

 man, Curator of the Royal Natural History Museum at 

 Stuttgart ; with an Introduction by W. Egmont Kirkby, 

 M.D. Pp. viii 4- 178. (London: Swan Sonnenschein 

 and Co., Ltd., 1897.) 

 This work contains twenty coloured plates, comprising 

 about 500 figures of Coleoptera, which may certainly, in 

 many cases, prove of considerable service to the young 

 beetle collector ; but the letterpress is of comparatively 

 little value, consisting, as it does, mainly of very short 

 and more or less disjointed descriptions of selected 



