292 



NA TURE 



[July 27, 189; 



the entertaining and interesting descriptions of tlie longer 

 journeys will be anxious to possess the present volume, 

 and will, we predict, not be disappointed with the con- 

 tents. Should it, however, run to a second edition, the 

 words and phrases from various foreign languages 

 scattered through the book might be expunged or cor- 

 rected. It is rather odd to find a priest or monk 

 designated as " Signor Cannonico " ; and an extra 

 syllable in Beleuchtung does not improve it. There 

 is, too, an unfortunate slip in the preface and on 

 page 133, Elephantine Island being referred to as the 

 Island of Elephanta. W. B. H. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Elements of Psychology. By James Mark Baldwin, 

 Professor Elect in Princeton College. (London : Mac- 

 millan and Co., 1893.) 



Under the above title Prof. Baldwin has written -a 

 shorter text book which, as he states in the preface, differs 

 from his larger work, the Handbook of Psychology (re- 

 viewed in these pages vol. xliii. p. 100, and vol. xlvi. p. 2) 

 mainly in its omissions. Like its larger predecessor, this 

 book deals largely with " apperception " regarding, 

 erroneously as we think, the selective synthesis obser- 

 vable in mental products as something wholly different 

 from anything which is to be found in other departments 

 of natural knowledge. " In the physical world," he says, 

 "we find no such unifying force as that known in 

 psychology as the activity of apperception." Although 

 there is much in this work, as in its predecessor, with 

 which we are in hearty but friendly disagreement, it 

 appears to us to possess the great merit of giving abund- 

 ant evidence of independent thought and treatment. It 

 will, in the hands of senior students, stimulate them to 

 thought and criticism — such criticism as the teacher who 

 is in earnest welcomes like a breath of keen fresh air. 

 The chief fault of the book is that its pages are some- 

 what unduly crowded with details. C. Ll. M. 



An Introduction to the Study of Geology. By Edward 

 Aveling, D.Sc. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and 

 Co. 1893.) 



Dr. Aveling has compiled a volume better, in many 

 respects, than any of its kind. His arrangement of 

 matter has much to commend it, and his descriptions 

 are of the concise character regarded with favour by 

 those who incline to a pabulum consisting of concen- 

 trated essence of knowledge. The book is another of 

 that large class " specially adapted for the use of 

 candidates for the London B.Sc. and the Science and 

 Art Department Examinations." Intending examinees 

 would do well to obtain it, but the student who loves 

 geology for its own sake will hardly find the contents to 

 his liking. 



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, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications . ] 



The Publication of Physical Papers. 

 As most people seem afraid to enter on this discussion, it is 

 appropriate for others to rush in. I have not, however, anything 

 very much to say, except (i) that it seems to be a subject which 

 in its intersectional aspects is suited to oral discussion at a meet- 

 of the British Association, and (2) that if the Beibliitier were 

 regularly and intelligently translated a good deal of the necessary 

 physical abstracting would ipso facto be done. 



NO. 1239, VOL. 48] 



Abstracting on a large scale is difficult work, and the English 

 genius scarcely runs in that direction. It seems to me a pity 

 for a greater number of competent persons to be engaged on it 

 than is really necessary, and if the Germans are good enough to 

 do it for the world, why should we not recognise their work and 

 utilise it to the utmost ? 



It will be answered, so we do ; everyone sees the Beibliitter. 

 Yes, and I suppose about half a dozen effectively glance through 

 it. Not everyone is capable of taking in a page of German at 

 a glance, as one can En<jlish, and, for myself, I find that what 

 I have half-read in a foreign tongue has a fatal facility for slipping 

 from the memory. 



I need not labour the point, it is simply this — that whereas 

 a weighty paper of known and conspicuous importance in one's 

 own object can, if necessary, be worked at and utilised in almost 

 any ordinary language, papers of uncertain value or of only 

 approximate interest must be skipped altogether unless they 

 can be skimmed ; and that the skimming process in a foreign lan- 

 guage is impossible to all but a few favoured physicists, whatever 

 may be the case with chemists. 



If an English edition of the i^fiV'/rty/c;- were regularly published, 

 the only abstracts that would remain to be done by us would be 

 the contents of Wiedemann's Annalen and possibly of a few 

 American or provincial publications. 



But there are other questions besides that of abstracts ; £.nd 

 chief among them is the question of central publication of all ;he 

 English papers of importance which at present are difficuh to 

 procure. 



These occur mainly in connexion with the Societies of Dublin, 

 Cambridge, and Edinburgh. Few other Societies in the British 

 Islands claim or possess a monopoly over papers presented to 

 them. Nearly all except these three are, I suppose, now used 

 chiefly for contemporaneous or ad interim publication, and any 

 serious results are communicated by the author to some central 

 organ. If that is not so it ought to be so. If an author has a 

 good result which he will not publish, he can hardly be com- 

 pelled. It ought, however, to be clear that mere print- 

 ing in a half-known local journal is not proper 

 publication at all; it is "printing for private circulation." 

 Biologists are, I am told, given to err in this direction, each 

 small society pluming itself on publishing memoirs in order to 

 receive "exchanges," a ghastly and polyglot form of literature 

 which may be catalogued but can hardly be read. However, 

 biologists are doubtless the best judges of their own procedure, 

 and what is suited to a copious and readily illustrated subject 

 is not likely to be well adapted to physics. 



Coming to the really central organs (whether general or 

 special), the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society, 

 the Philosophical Magazine, and Nature ; most British and 

 Colonial physicists can see them without trouble, and the Phil. 

 Mag. is seen all over the world. Merely a few slight changes 

 are needed in connexion with these organs. The Proceedings 

 are largely a journal of the doings of the Royal Society, and as 

 such are not specially edifying to outsiders. In consequence of 

 this, perhaps, and also in consequence of the multifarious 

 nature of the subjects treated simultaneously, the papers 

 included therein do not get widely known. The Transactions 

 are all published as separate memoirs, so that there need be no 

 difficulty for an isolated worker not a Fellow to procure a copy, 

 if the contents are freely advertised. But I would suggest that 

 the cost of these separate copies and of each number of the 

 Proceedings, is much too great. As one not at all behind the 

 scenes, I am ignorant of the reasons for this high price, but I 

 should think it might be a proper expenditure of some of the 

 Society's wealth if their publications could by a considerable 

 reduction in price, even to a nominal figure, be made much more 

 widely available. 



For most societies the method of publication invented, or at 

 any rate adopted, by the Physical Society of London, seems to 

 me well worthy of imitation. Until this is done, there remains 

 the question of making the valuable papers which occasionally, 

 or perhaps frequently, appear in Nature or other weeklies, in 

 the Transactions of the Cambridge, Dublin, and Edinburgh 

 Societies, 1 and sometimes in the Proceedings of the Manchester 

 and other provincial societies, more accessible to foreigners and 

 incidentally to ourselves. This could be done by central re- 

 printing, either in a new special publication, or in some extra 



1 I do not specifically mention the semi-technical societies, suchas the In- 

 stitution of Electrical Engineers, though often it is difficult to draw the line, 

 and some of their papers, too, might be included. 



