270 



NATURE 



[July 22, 1897 



equivalent easily coined according to the convenient and 

 acknowledged methods of scientific word-making from 

 the Greek or Latin. One gets accustomed to such a 

 word as Anlage, which is in constant use throughout the 

 book, and after a time begins to forget that it ever 

 was anything but pure English ; but I confess to being 

 still somewhat staggered whenever I come across 

 such phrases as that leucocytes "are transformed into 

 Bildungsgewebszellen^'' that certain fibres are " situated 

 in the Randschlier of the dorsal zone of His," and, only 

 two lines further, that " the Rautenlippe during the fifth 

 week buries the solitary tract." Prof Minot belongs 

 to a University which justly boasts having produced 

 writers of as good and as pure English as can be met 

 with anywhere, and he has himself a clear and trenchant 

 style. It seems a pity, therefore, that he should not have 

 stuck to his own language, or, as an alternative, he might 

 have written his book wholly in German. It is no doubt 

 sometimes difficult to get a good short equivalent of 

 some German expressions, which include the meaning 

 of a whole sentence in a single word ; but the same 

 difficulty has been met and combated successfully by 

 other writers ; and even if one has to resort to a phrase 

 of two or three words to express in English the idea 

 which one compound German word will imply, it is better, 

 it seems to me, to adopt this plan than to intercalate into 

 an English sentence foreign words, which can only be 

 properly understood by those who are very familiar with 

 the tongue they are written in. Your French scientific 

 writers are never guilty of this fault— they have too much 

 respect for their own language ; but the practice is not 

 an uncommon one with English and American scientific 

 men, and ought, in my opinion, to be resorted to either 

 not at all or only on the rarest possible occasions. 



This is, however, a very minor fault, and one which in 

 no way affects the scientific value of the book. And it 

 is no exaggeration to say, in spite of the modest manner 

 in which the author introduces his treatise to the public 

 in the preface, that the work before us constitutes a 

 monument of erudition in the difficult and complex 

 subject of which it treats. E. A. Schafer. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Catalogus Matnmalium tain viventiuin quatn fossiliuvi. 

 A Doctore E. L. Trouessart, Parisiis. Nova Editio 

 (Prima completa). Fasciculus I. Primates, Prosimiae, 

 Chiroptera, Insectivora. Fasciculus II. Carnivora, 

 Pinnipedia, Rodentia I. 8vo. (Berolini : R. Fried- 

 lander und Sohn, 1897.) 



A NEW catalogue of Mammals is much wanted, and will 

 be of great use to the many workers in that group of 

 animals. This important branch of the Vertebrata ap- 

 pears to have been rather neglected by the authorities at 

 the British Museum, who have recently issued many ex- 

 cellent volumes on the Birds, Reptiles, Batrachians and 

 Fishes in the National Collection, but have done little 

 work on the recent Mammals, although they have cata- 

 logued the fossil members of the group. We are glad, 

 therefore, that Dr. Trouessart has taken up the subject, 

 although he merely gives us a systematic list of names and 

 localities, without any descriptions. Two parts of his 

 " Catalogus Mammalium " are already issued. The first 

 contains the Primates, Prosimiae, Chiroptera and Insecti- 

 vora ; and the second, the Carnivora, Pinnipedia and the 

 first portion of the Rodentia (Protrogomorpha and 

 Sciuromorpha). We presume that a third part will 



NO. 1447, VOL. 56] 



finish the work. Up to the end of the second part. Dr. 

 Trouessart, who includes both recent and external forms, 

 has catalogued 1294 species. Of each of these the 

 principal references and synonyms are given, and a short 

 list of localities. We venture to think that it would have 

 been better if the names of the recent and fossil species 

 had been a little more clearly distinguished in the type. 

 The fossil mammals are only recognisable in the present 

 work by the " dagger " placed before the name, which 

 may be easily overlooked. In most respects, however,, 

 the work appears to have been performed in a satisr 

 factory manner, though it would not be difficult to point 

 out a certain number of slips and errors. We have, 

 nevertheless, no doubt that the volume when complete 

 will be of much use for reference, and will supply a 

 quantity of much needed information. 



Essais sur la philosophic des Sciences Analyse-mecanique. 



Par C. de Freycinet, de I'lnstitut. (Paris : Gauthier- 



Villars, 1896.) 

 Treatises of this nature are popular in France, to cite 

 only the " Reflexions sur la Metaphysique du Calcul 

 Infinitesimal" of Carnot, and the " Methodes dans le& 

 Sciences de Raisonnement " of Duhamel ; the only 

 English equivalent would be Jevons's "Principles of 

 Science." 



M. de Freycinet has employed the leisure of the arduous 

 duties of a Minister ofWar, in writing these essays, in which 

 a philosophical view is taken of various sciences, treated 

 in ordinary language, and addressed to cultivated niinds. 

 In the deep concentration now required, in the specialisa- 

 tion of science, books such as this will prove very valuable 

 to give the worker, too much absorbed in his own subject, 

 a general perspective glance of what others are doing, 

 devoid of all repulsive technicalities. We find on p. 158 : 

 " II ne suffit pas d'avoir la notion claire de la masse. II 

 fait aller plus loin. Pour les besoins de la Dynamique il 

 est necessaire de Savoir chiffrer les masses ; " . . . and 

 again on p. 162, " Une quantity d'eau peu inferieure a 10 

 decimetres cubes, soit9 litres 8088 . . . ; le nombrehabi- 

 tuellement design^ par la lettre^ ; voila Uunit^ de masse." 



This will please Prof. Perry ; and it is the definition of 

 Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, &c.. ; but, as a recent 

 discussion has shown, the definition is considered heretical 

 in certain educational quarters. 



The Metric System is not absolutely sacred,, even to ai 

 former Minister of France. M. de Freycinet brings 

 forward, on p. 186, his proposal to shorten the metre, or 

 rather to make g at Paris the unit of length, the sexa- 

 gesimal second being the unit of time ; while others- 

 would make the seconds pendulum at Paris the unit of 

 length. G. 



Wild Flowers of Scotland. By J. H. Crawford, F.L.S. 



Pp. 228. (London : John Macqueen, 1897.) 

 A number of people object to an abrupt introduction to 

 nature ; they prefer to flit around her like a butterfly 

 around a flower, merely to take a casual glance at 

 different aspects. To confront people of this tempera- 

 ment with a bare fact would be to destroy the interest — 

 aimless though it be — they have in science. Wherefore 

 such books as the one before us are written — books in, 

 which pretty things and picturesque scenes are viewed 

 " in contemplative fashion " and poetic state of mind. 

 The present work is not without a value ; for it certainly 

 teaches something about a few of the wild flowers of 

 Scotland, but we fancy it will be read more for its easy 

 style of composition than for the facts it contains. 



The Science of Speech. By Prof. Alexander Melville Bell. 

 Pp. 56. (Washington, D.C. : The VoUa Bureau, 1897.) 

 The purpose of the author of this work is to define the 

 actions of the mouth and the vocal organs in the pro- 

 duction of speech, and express them by a species of 



