222 



NATURE 



[July 8, 1897 



forms." This makes us truly wish for a teacher at our 

 elbow. The difference between young and old twins is 

 new to us ; the Carlsbad twins, by the above statement, 

 were clearly never young. 



Altogether, this book must be compared with our 

 smaller treatises on mineralogy, and must be judged 

 accordingly. As a reference-book for British localities 

 of minerals and rocks it will undoubtedly be useful. 



G. A. J. C. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 A Ride through Western Asia. By Clive Bigham. With 



illustrations. Pp.276, (London: Macmillan and Co., 



Ltd., 1897.) 

 Mr. Bigham gives a simple, straightforward and modest 

 account of a journey of the " record-breaking " order. 

 In a year and a month he travelled, mainly on horse- 

 back, from Constantinople through Asia Minor, Persia 

 and Central Asia, reaching as far as Kashgar, thence 

 returning vid Siberia and Russia. The small size of 

 the book is welcome, and indeed remarkable, as it shows 

 that the author cherishes no undue opinion of his some- 

 what remarkable journey. It is to be regretted, however, 

 that his duties as a correspondent at the seat of war 

 deprived the proof-sheets of his personal revision, and 

 that many slips, chiefly in place-names, have thus eluded 

 observation. Mr. Bigham was possessed of the best 

 qualities of an explorer determined to go through a 

 given programme ; but he does not mention the special 

 object for his expedition, nor does he tell much which 

 had not previously been placed on record. The object 

 presumably was merely pleasure, and the points of 

 original importance refer to matters of undoubted interest, 

 but so intimately involving political questions as to be 

 unsuited for special reference here. 



Numerous quotations are given from Mandeville, Marco 

 Polo, the Vulgate and other authorities, and the author 

 assumes as matters of common acceptance several 

 theories, anthropological and otherwise, which are either 

 exploded, or are now looked upon with great suspicion 

 by competent authorities. Perhaps the most interest- 

 ing part of the journey was the trip from Teheran 

 through Kashan, Ispahan, Shiraz, and across the Bakh- 

 tiari country to Dizful, down the Karun River, up the 

 Tigris, and back to Teheran by Kermanshah and 

 Hamadan. It is a pity that fuller details of the Bakh- 

 tiari country were not given. The same may also be 

 said of the journey from Kashgar to Semipalatinsk, 

 across the Tian-shan, so early in the year as the month 

 of May. There was too much travelling compressed 

 into the thirteen months to allow of the careful collec- 

 tion of local information, which might be of scientific 

 value; but the book is attractively written with plenty 

 of action, maps well suited to bring out the routes, and 

 good illustrations. 



Elements of Theoretical Physics. By Dr. C. Christian- 

 sen, Professor of Physics in the University of Copen- 

 hagen. Translated by W. F. Magie, Ph.D., Professor of 

 Physics in Princeton University. Pp. xii -i- 339. (London: 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1897.) 

 While the small edition of Thomson and Tait's '• Natural 

 Philosophy " professed to supply the essential details of 

 this reasoning, devoid of mathematical notation, the 

 present treatise appears to perform the converse opera- 

 tion, of providing the student of Physics with the mathe- 

 matical argument and equations he is likely to encounter, 

 devoid of any appeals to experiment or numerical illus- 

 tration. The book is therefore a very handy manual of 

 reference for formulas, and the mathematical treatment is 



NO. M45. VOL. 56] 



very elegant and condensed, not running to unnecessary- 

 luxuriance. As it is stated at the outset that the C.G.S. 

 system alone is employed, there is no need for any speci- 

 fication of the units employed ; although we think it 

 would tend to clearness to mention them occasionally ; 

 and this can be done, on the Hospitalier System, in a very 

 condensed form, thereby training the student not to shirk 

 this most important detail of his practical work ; thus,. 

 for instance, the number 1-695x1012, representing the 

 modulus of elasticity on p. 81, is given in dynes/cm^. 



The subjects treated in the chapters are — General 

 Theory of Motion, Theory of Elasticity, Equilibrium of 

 Fluids, Motion of Fluids, Internal Friction, Capillarity, 

 Electrostatics, Magnetism, Electro-Magnetism, Induc- 

 tion, Electrical Oscillations, Light, Thermodynamics, and 

 Conduction of Heat. These subjects are all polished 

 off in 333 pages ; and as most of them are discussed 

 ordinarily in separate treatises, each of, say, 300 pages to- 

 itself, the treatment in this work is necessarily very con- 

 densed, and the author cannot permit himself any follow- 

 ing out of details, or Calculus dodging. 



This will make the book a difficult one for a beginner 

 to use, except as a handbook of reference, to be used 

 in conjunction with a series of Lectures ; and it was 

 probably in that way that the treatise assumed its 

 present shape. G. 



In Garden, Orchard and Spinney. By Phil Robinson. 



Pp. iv -f 287. (London : Isbister and Co., Ltd., 1897.) 

 The Woodland Life. By Edward Thomas. Pp. viii -H 



234. (Edinburgh and London : Blackwood and Sons, 



1897.) 

 The critic to whom these volumes were entrusted read 

 a good part of them with a growing sense of perplexity 

 not unmixed with enjoyment. When he attempted to 

 write down what he had found in them, he could for a 

 long time do nothing but gnaw his pen. At last it 

 occurred to him that almost any reader of Nature 

 would have found himself in a like difficulty, and that 

 the best plan would be to speak of the books from his 

 and their point of view. We, the readers of Nature, 

 are accustomed to read for information, and we judge of 

 books mainly by the quantity and quality of the matter 

 which they contain. Now the two books before us may 

 be shortly said to contain no information at all ; to give 

 information is no part of their plan. They are akin to 

 the sonnet, the symphony, and the landscape painting, 

 and make their appeal to sympathies of which the mere 

 naturalist is quite devoid. Even the dull soul of the 

 mere naturalist is, however, faintly stirred now and then, 

 as he reads these pages, wondering all the time what he 

 can find to say about them. Mr. Phil Robinson throws 

 in many a pleasant phrase, many an apt quotation, and 

 there is plenty of movement in his descriptions. Mr. 

 Thomas' touch is not so light, but among his abundant 

 epithets are not a few which show real familiarity with 

 the natural objects, especially the birds, which catch his 

 eye. Though these books make no pretence of being 

 founded on inquiry, nor of adding to knowledge in any 

 way, it is quite possible that a competent judge of literary 

 form would give them a good place as prose poems. 



L. C. M. 



Social Transformations of the Victorian Age. By 

 T. H. S. Escott. Pp. viii -J- 450. (London : Seeley 

 and Co., Ltd., 1897.) 

 This book calls for but a brief reference in these columns. 

 It consists of a series of sketches of social and legislative 

 changes which have taken place during the Victorian 

 era, and points to some of the causes of these trans- 

 formations. Education receives a fair share of attention, 

 but the transforming influences of science occupy only a 

 single chapter of sixteen pages. 



