April 26, 19 17] 



NATURE 



163 



feature of the cane-sug^ar industry. As most sugar 

 factories in the tropics have chemists in control, 

 or at least managers who have some knowledge 

 of chemistry as applied to sugar manufacture, the 

 author seems to have been unnecessarily generous 

 in devoting space to the description of common 

 apparatus and customarj- methods of analysis. 

 The opportunity might have been taken to direct 

 attention to new sources of supply of apparatus 

 which have become available since the war. No 

 chemist, even in a neutral countrj-, can wish to 

 return to the pre-war def>endence on one countn.' 

 for supplies of these materials. Heating ap- 

 pliances for laboratory use are often a difficulty in 

 the tropics, but the author only refers to elec- 

 trically heated plates and to an alcohol burner. 

 Where current is available, electrically heated 

 Avater-baths of the type readily obtainable in this 

 ■countn.- are often preferable to hot-plates, and 

 where current is not available, petrol-air Bunsen 

 "burners are probably the best substitute. There 

 must be few parts of the tropics where petrol 

 as not obtainable, and there are British 

 machines for producing the petrol-air mixture 

 which are being used with success in laboratories 

 in the West Indies, Mauritius, and elsewhere. 



As regards materials used in sugar manufac- 

 ture, it is disapp>ointing to find no adequate dis- 

 cussion of the physical properties of sand and 

 kieselguhr, on which the filtering value of these 

 materials def>ends. 



Beyond the statement in a table on p. 5 that 

 the sugar-cane contains 0*2 p>er cent, of fat and 

 vax, there is no reference to sugar-cane wax, 

 although this may become an important by- 

 product of the sugar-cane industry in the future, 

 and is, in fact, already a commercial article. 

 Vnother useful addition to the handbook would be 

 <i resume of recent work on the improvement of 

 ^ugar-canes, on which so much work has been 

 •done in recent years. 



Some of these omissions are perhaos due to the 

 fact that although the book appeared in 1916, it 

 seems to have taken at least a year to pass 

 through the press. The book is well produced 

 on good paper, but it is difficult to see why 155. 

 net should be charged for a book of this size. 



(2) Mr. Zavalla's book deals with one of the 

 chief industrial uses of sugar, viz. the " canning " 

 of fruits. It is provided with an introduction by 

 the Dean of the College of Agriculture of the 

 University of California, who begins by saying 

 that "human beings may be traced in almost any 

 part of the globe through the tin cans which they 

 leave behind them," and ends with the hope that 

 the labours of the author will contribute to "the 

 realisation of a uniform and satisfactory food 

 supply for the human race." Probably no one 

 but a citizen of the United States could take the 

 "canning" industri' so seriously as all that. Mr. 

 Zavalla describes the processes and plant used in 

 preserving- fruits and vegetables in California, 

 from the making of the cans to the construction 

 if the wooden cases in which the tins of pre- 

 served fruits and vegetables are shipped. He 



also discusses and gives a good deal of useful 

 information on the micro-organisms which are 

 found in spoiled tinned goods. This portion 

 of the book would be worth separate and 

 more fundamental treatment by a competent 

 biologist who has given special attention to 

 the subject. The book will, no doubt, be useful 

 to those engaged in this industry, which is rapidly 

 assuming large dimensions and bids fair to become 

 of great importance in British tropical and sub- 

 tropical colonies- 



OVR BOOKSHELF. 

 Herbert Spencer. By Hugh Elliot. (Makers of 



the Nineteenth Century Series.) Pp. vi 4-330 - 



I portrait. (London : Constable and Co. , 



Ltd., 1917.) Price 6s. net. 

 This is a vigorous and discriminating- account 

 of Herbert Spencer's contributions to modem in- 

 tellectual development. It is written by one who 

 saturated himself with Spencer's doctrines (and 

 read all his works) when on service in the South 

 African War, and has had the endurance to re- 

 peat the experience since 1914, with the bitter 

 conviction that if Europe had followed Spencer 

 the present war could never have occurred. 

 " The spirit of Treitschke has triumphed over 

 the spirit of Spencer — the metaphysics of Ger- 

 many over the common sense of England." 



Mr. Elliot's earlier discipleship has lost its dog- 

 matism, but his admiration remains strong for 

 the last of the great nineteenth-centur>- apostles 

 of reason and liberty. As is well known, Spencer 

 expressed the larger and better part of his per- 

 sonality in his works, as an artist might in his 

 paintings, and Mr. Elliot recognises this in his 

 biographical sketch. There is a convincing- unity 

 — better, we think,' than heretofore — in the pic- 

 ture which the author gives us of the synthetic 

 philosopher. " Evolution and Liberty are the two 

 guiding stars of Spencer's philosophy," and in 

 his exposition Mr. Elliot develops the thesis that 

 Spencer was a man of ver>' strong natural pene- 

 tration, who formed his theories first and estab- 

 lished, or sought to establish, them by induction 

 afterwards — which is, truth to tell, a very 

 common mode of scientific procedure. 



For much that Sp)encer achieved, for instance, 

 in making" the evolution-idea organic in all our 

 thinking-, a new generation is already for- 

 getting- to be grateful; many of his argu- 

 ments, as this appreciation (which has 

 the true Spencerian spirit) well shows, have 

 lost their cc^enpy; some of the foundation- 

 stones, such as the transmissibility of individually 

 acquired somatic modifications, have not borne 

 the weight of the superimposed structure. But 

 we share with the author of this effective and in- 

 teresting book the hope that one of the rhvthms 

 of intellectual opinion spoken of in the "First 

 Principles " may bring many — especiallv those 

 whose thinking needs vertebration — back to a 

 Spencerian study of Spencer's works. .\ g-ood 

 introduction is here to hand. 



