May 



II, 



1893] 



NATURE 



27 



added a useful "index glossary," and a series of "test 

 questions," largely culled from examination papers of the 

 past. The work is by no means destitute of small incon- 

 gruities and an occasional misuse of technical terms ; 

 and the most serious errors which it contains, contrary to 

 the general rule, involve leading rather than subsidiary 

 topics. The description of "living matter" as existing 

 in the " colloidal condition " and (two pages further on) 

 as "a semi-fluid granular substance . . . unable to absorb 

 I colouring matters when living " ; the alleged origin of the 

 coslome of " all animals above the coelenterata " by " the 

 splitting of the mesoblast" ; the assumption that the con- 

 tractile vacuole of the protozoa is a respiratory organ 

 " pumping in oxygenated water," and " furnishing oxygen 

 to the animal by means of its rhythmical dilatations"; 

 the confusion under the term "paraplasm" between 

 : modified portions of the cell-protoplasm and products of 

 its living metabolism, with the correlated description of 

 the protoplasm of the egg cell as a " vitellus, or yolk" ; 

 and the description of sclerenchyma as "stony tissue," 

 are cases in point. We note with satisfaction the 

 ; prominence given to the physiological and more purely 

 chemical aspects of the subject, too often neglected in minor 

 works on general biology. Conspicuous among leading 

 dogmas formulated is the assertion that with the ex- 

 ception of ascidians and some infusorians the animal 

 "does not contain cellulose," with the implication that 

 certain animals form chlorophyll. We venture to think 

 that the time has now arrived when the investigations 

 of Beyerinck, Famintzin, Von Graff, and Haberlandt, 

 Ambronn, and others, which have lately revolutionised 

 jour knowledge on these vitally important topics, should 

 'find expression in the elementary class-book. The 

 author remarks in his preface that " it must be remem- 

 bered that biology can be learnt in no other way than 

 with the scalpel and the microscope," and that his volume 

 is intended " simply and solely for the purpose of re- 

 'vising" a practical knowledge which the student has 

 gained under the guidance of his teachers, " especially 

 during the few weeks previous to the time when he in- 

 'tends to cross the threshold of the examination hall." 

 If this line of conduct can be ensured, the' work will fulfil 

 a good purpose ; but it may be doubted whether the over- 

 taught medical student of to-day will regard the book as 

 anything but a cram one. It has been compiled at con- 

 siderable pains and with marked success ; but as the 

 dispensation which it seeks to further cannot possibly 

 endure, we wish we could congratulate the author upon 

 a devotion to some more permanent and desirable 

 object. 



Public Health Problems. By John F. J. Sykes. Illustrated. 



(London: Walter Scott) 

 Tin: author of this volume — which forms one of the 

 Contemporary Science Series— has sought " to bring to a 

 ,'ocus some of the essential points in evolution, environment, 

 parasitism, prophylaxis, and sanitation, bearing upon the 

 preservation of public health." It was impossible for him 

 to deal fully in the space at his disposal with any particular 

 part of so vast a subject, but he has contrived to give a 

 /ery clear and interesting idea of the main lines of inquiry 

 ivith which workers in the public health service are chiefly 

 poncerned. First he treats of internal andexternalinfluences 

 affecting health, these influences being heredity, physical 

 influences (light and heat), chemical media, and biological 

 'igents. Then he discusses the following aspects of com- 

 ;Tiunicable diseases— causation, parasitism, dissemination, 

 and modifications. .Afterwards there are series of chapters 

 bn defensive measures against communicable diseases, 

 ind on the urban dwelling. Mr. Sykes, as medical officer 

 pf health for St. Pancras and honorary secretary of the 

 ifncorporated Society of Medical Officers of Health, has 

 lad ample opportunity for the study of the questions on 

 vhich he discourses, and his book ought to be of good 



NO. 1228, VOL. 48] 



service in disseminating sound ideas as to the conditions- 

 on compliance with which the attainment of a higher 

 standard of public health depends. 



Galenic Pharmacy. By R. A. Cripps. (London : J. and 



A. Churchill, 1893.) 

 The student of pharmacy will, no doubt, find plenty of 

 instructive information in this book. It does not, how- 

 ever, call for an extended notice in this journal, as the 

 author does not attempt a scientific treatment of the 

 subject, but confines himself to dealing with it on the old 

 lines. The various pharmaceutical operations of solution, 

 infusion, &c., are fully described, but no attempt is made 

 to arrange the facts on any than an empirical basis. The 

 time has arrived, however, when pharmacy should be 

 expounded in a more scientific manner, and many barbaric 

 and obsolete processes excluded or re-modelled in the 

 light of our present chemical and pharmacological know- 

 ledge. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, refected" 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.^ 

 Mr. H. O. Forbes's Discoveries in the Chatham Islands. 



In a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society on 

 March 12th, and again in an article on " The Chatham Islands 

 and their Story " in the Fortnightly Review of this month, Mr. 

 H. O. Forbes has described his very interesting discoveries in 

 these islands, and has founded thereon certain conclusions as to 

 the past history of the New Zealand group. The most startling 

 new fact is the proof of the recent existence on the Chatham- 

 Islands of two birds whose nearest allies inhabited the distant 

 group of the Mascarene Islands within the historical period. 

 These are a flightless rail very closely allied to the Aphanapteryx 

 of Mauritius, and a coot which is hardly different, except in its 

 somewhat larger size, from the extinct Ftilica newtoni of the 

 same island. 



It is on the flightless rail that Mr. Forbes mainly dwells inhis- 

 deductions of past changes which it is supposed to imply, and it 

 is on these deductions only that I wish to make a few remarks. 

 He quotes Prof. A. Newton and his brother as stating that the 

 solitaire of Roderiquez and the Dodo of Mauritius, beingevidently 

 of one stock, and there being analogous facts in the adjacent 

 islands, they are compelled to believe that " there was once a 

 time when Roderiquez, Mauritius, Bourbon, Madagascar, and 

 the Seychelles were connected by dry land " ; and he then argues 

 that there must also have been a continuous land surface between 

 this land and the ancient land comprising New Zealand and the 

 surrounding islands. This connecting land he supposes to have 

 been the Antarctic continent during a mild period and with great 

 extensions over the southern ocean. When the Antarctic ice 

 age came on the inhabitants of this continent had to migrate 

 northwards, and some, " such as the genus Aphanapteryx, would 

 seem to have split into parties, which, travelling by divergent 

 roads, finally arrived in regions so far apart as Mauritius and the 

 Chatham Islands, unaffected by the varying elimates and sur- 

 roundings they experienced, being of an ancient dominating 

 type." 



It is this tremendous hypothesis which appears to me to be 

 not only quite unnecessary to explain the facts, but also to be 

 inadequate to explain them. If one thing more than another is* 

 clear, it is that these comparatively small flightless birds were 

 developed, as such, in or near to the islands where they are now 

 found, since they could not possibly have arisen on any extensive 

 land inhabited by carnivorous mammals and reptiles, and, if 

 introduced into such a country, could not long survive. So far 

 as I am aware, no doubt has ever been expressed on this point, 

 the evidence for it being so clear and its explanation on the 

 theory of evolution so complete ; and I hardly think that Prof. 

 Newton would now maintain that the aflinities of the flightless 

 birds of Mauritius, Bourbon, and Roderiquez implied the former 

 union of these truly oceanic islands. Allied forms of ancestral 

 flying birds may have reached the islands without such union ;. 



