August 24, 1893] 



NATURE 



389 



workman. There is no possible doubt that apprentices 

 to trades require facilities to study the technics of their 

 trades, and that these facilities ought to be found in 

 every manufacturing town, besides which, both parents 

 and employers should make it a duty to see that the 

 opportunities are not thrown away. On the other hand, 

 the fact should not be lost sight of, that it is only 

 possible to follow practice, i.e., practical work, in the 

 works. 



The following chapters on this subject are by different 

 authors, and deal with the progress of technical education 

 in this country and abroad, then we have an elaborate 

 description of polytechnics by Mr. Quintin Hogg, and 

 the last chapter gives a fair idea of technical education 

 in the colonies. All these chapters together give the 

 reader much information about this all-important 

 subject. 



Although it has not been possible to note more of the 

 contents of this volume, yet we can say that it is 

 one of a series of most useful books, and if subsequent 

 volumes are kept up to the standard of Vol. I. they will 

 constitute a valuable Encyclopaedia of Technical 

 Education. N. J. L. 



Wetterbiichlein. Von ivahrer Erkenntniss des Welters. 

 By Leonhard Reynman. (Berlin: A. Asher & Co., 

 1893-) 



This is the first number of a series of reprints of rare 

 books relating to meteorology and terrestrial magnetism, 

 edited by Prof. G. Hellmann, and, owing to the support 

 of the German Meteorological Society and to a large 

 amount of gratuitous labour on the part of Dr. Hellmann, 

 the works, of which only a very limited number will be 

 printed, are to be issued in a very cheap but elegant 

 form, and will no doubt be much valued by students of 

 those subjects and by persons interested in early litera- 

 ture. The Wetterbiichlein is the oldest purely meteoro- 

 logical work printed in the German language. The first 

 edition was published in 1505, but inquiries made by 

 Prof. Hellmann of 115 libraries in Europe have failed to 

 discover a single copy, and of the second edition printed 

 in 1510 only one copy can be found, viz. the one in Dr. 

 Hellmann' s library, of which a facsimile is now re- 

 printed, together with an introduction of forty-two quarto 

 pages, giving a most interesting and masterly account of 

 this work and of all the other editions excepting two, of 

 which no copy can be found. The Wetterbiichlein, which 

 ran through seventeen editions in fourteen years, was 

 exceedingly popular in its day, and contains in fourteen 

 chapters a large number of weather prognostications, 

 some of which are of an astrological character, but by 

 far the greater part are based on optical and natural 

 phenomena. The chapters are naturally of unequal 

 value, but some of them contain results of import- 

 ance deduced from a large number of actual obser- 

 vations. Many of the chapters have been traced 

 by Dr. Hellmann to be based upon proverbs known 

 to the old classical writers, and the author has also 

 quoted freely from a work by Guido Bonatti, an Italian 

 astrologer, which was printed in 1491, and from one by 

 Firmin de Bellevall, a French writer, which appeared in 

 1485 ; but no clue can be found as to the origin of a 

 chapter entitled "Das wetter zu wissen durch die vier 

 quart des jars / als Liechtenperger setzt." If any of our 

 readers can discover the origin of this section we shall 

 be glad to hear of it. The Wetterbiichlein was, to a great 

 extent, reprinted in various editions of the " Bauern- 

 Practick," which appeared in the sixteenth century and 

 had a much greater sale. It also found its way to this 

 country, an almost literal translation appearing in " The 



Boke of Knowledge of Thynges Vnknown " published 



in London in 1585. 



NO. 1243, VOL. 48] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ Th,e Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertait 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Natuk E. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. \ 



Prenatal Influences on Character. 



The popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother 

 affect the offspring physically, producing niole.s and other 

 birth-marks, and even malformations of a more or less serious 

 character, is said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy 

 tacts, and is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical grounds. 

 But I am not aware that the question of purely mental effects 

 arising from prenatal mental influences on the mother has been 

 separately studied. Our ignorance of the causes, or at least of 

 the whole series of cau<es, that determine individual character 

 is so great, that such transmission of mental influences will 

 hardly be held to be impossible or even very improbable. It is 

 one of those questions on which our minds should remain open, 

 and on which we should be ready to receive and discuss what- 

 ever evidence is available ; and should n primd facie cast be made 

 out, seek for confirmation bj some form of experiment or obser- 

 vation, which is perhaps less difficult than at first sight it may 

 appear to be. 



In one of the works of George or Andrew Combe, I re- 

 member a reference to a case in which the character of a child 

 appeared to have been modified by the prenatal reading of its 

 mother, and the authjr, if I mistake not, accepted the result as 

 probable, if not demonstrated. I think, therefore, that it will be 

 advisable to make public some interesting cases of such modifi- 

 cation of character which have been sent me by an Australian 

 lady in consequence of reading my recent articles on the quesiion 

 whether acquired characters are inherited. The value of these 

 cases depends on their differential character. Two mothers state 

 that in each of their children (three in one case and four in the 

 other) the character of the child very distinctly indicated the 

 prenatal occupations and mental interests of the mother, though 

 at the time they were manifested in the child they had ceased to 

 occupy the parent, so that the result cannot be explained by 

 imitation. The second mother referred to by my correspondent 

 only gives cases observed in other families which do not go be- 

 yond ordinary heredity. 



"I can trace in the character of my first child, a girl now 

 twenty-two years of age, a special aptitude for sewing, econo- 

 mical contriving, and cutting out, which came to me as a new 

 experience when living in the country amongst new surround- 

 ings, and, strict economy being necessary, I began to try and 

 .sew for the coming baby and for myself. I also trace her great 

 love of history to my study of Froude during that period, and to 

 the breathless interest with which my husband and I followed 

 the incidents of the Franco-German war. Yet her other tastes 

 for art and literature are distinctly hereditary. In the case of 

 my second child, also a daughter (I having interested myself 

 prior to her birth in literary pursuits) the result has been a 

 much acuter form of intelligence, which at six years old enabled 

 her to read and enjoy the ballads which Tennyson was then 

 giving to the world, and which at the age of barely twenty 

 years allowed her to take her degree as B.A. of the Sydney 

 University. 



" Before the third child, a boy, was born, the current of our 

 life had changed a little. Visits to my own family and a change 

 of residence to a distant colony, which involved a long journey, 

 as well as the work which such changes involve, together with 

 the care of my two older children, absorbed all my time and 

 thoughts, and left little or no leisure for studious pursuits. My 

 occupations were more mechanical than at any other time 

 previous. This boy does not inherit the studious tastes of his 

 .sisters at all. He is intelligent and possesses most of the quali- 

 fications which will probably conduce to success in life, but he 

 prefers any kind of outdoor work or handicraft to study. Had 

 I been as alive then as I am now to the importance of these 

 theories, I should have endeavoured to guard against this possi- 

 bility ; as it is, I always feel that it is perhaps my fault that one 

 of the greatest pleasures of life has been debarred to him. 



" But I must not weary you by so many personal details, and I 

 trust you will not suspect me of vanity in thus bringing my own 



