6l2 



NA TURE 



[October 26, 189^ 



1800 and 1873, and did not attempt to deal with any 

 subject-headings, or any of the past history of the sub- 

 jects as Mr. Billings has done in his rich and varied Index 

 Catalogue of very nearly all the Medical Literature 

 printed between the fifteenth century and the present 

 day. A. T. Myers. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Lehrbtcch der Botanik nach dein g egenwiirtigen Stand 

 der Wissenschaft. Bearbeitet von Dr. A. B. Frank. 

 Zweiter Band : Allgemeine und Specielle Morphologie. 

 Svo, 431 pp. with 417 Woodcut Figures in the text, and 

 an Index to Volumes Land II. (Leipzig: Wilhelm 

 Engelmann, 1893.) 



The first volume of this work, dealing with histology 

 anatomy, and physiology, was noticed in Nature, vol. 

 xlvi. p. 610, where some facts may be found connected 

 with its history, scope, and arrangement. The present 

 volume is concerned with general morphology and special 

 morphology, or classification. It is, on the whole, exceed- 

 ingly well compiled, and, as was said of the first volume, 

 it is written in the clearest and easiest style, with no 

 superabundance of words, such as often render German 

 text-books unnecessarily difficult to the beginner. The 

 illustrations (upwards of 400) are for the greater part 

 borrowed from the works of Sachs, Gffibel, Schenk, 

 Prantl, Pringsheim, Hanstein, Schimper, Strassburger, 

 Hofmeister, De Bary, Tulasne, Bornet, Brefeld, Woronin, 

 and other specialists, but chiefly from the first. These 

 are all duly acknowledged, and, as the author states in 

 his preface to the first volume, he has made the best 

 selection he could, and he has used these familiar figures 

 because he could not substitute better ones. This is, of 

 course, true ; yet we put it on record to inform the student 

 that he will find little that is original in this way. General 

 morphology occupies fifty-four pages, under four heads, 

 namely : discrimination of forms in the vegetable king- 

 dom, directions of growth, general laws of the relative 

 positions of the members of the vegetable body, and 

 origin of the members of the vegetable body. The re- 

 mainder of the volume is devoted to special morphology, 

 or systematic botany ; but the large groups are somewhat 

 unequally treated, 179 pages being devoted to crypto- 

 gams, as against 140 to phanerogams. Indeed, too much 

 has been attempted in the space. For instance, the very 

 brief diagonses of the natural orders given at the end of 

 this volume can be of little service to the beginner. Few 

 of them exceed six lines, and many of them are even 

 less, consequently the characters given are often insuffi- 

 cient to include half of the genera. Generally speaking, 

 they are correct as far as they go, but they are often 

 not sufficiently comprehensive. We have said that 

 this is an e.xcellent book, yet here and there one stumbles 

 upon statements that cause no little surprise. Thus the 

 pictures of Nepenthes, Sarracenia, and Cephalotus are 

 described indiscriminately as transformed terminations of 

 tendril-like continuations of the leaves. Then with re- 

 gard to the bibliography, the selections are by no means 

 critical, and sometimes defective, especially in foreign 

 literature. The indexes, of which there are three, are 

 sufficiently copious. There is an index to the woodcuts, 

 an index to the subjects, and an index to the plant-names. 

 When will authors learn that one general index is prefer- 

 able to a number of classified references.' In this work 

 it would have been much more convenient to have had an 

 index to each volume. 



The Elements of Natural Science. Part III. Natural 



Philosophy. By Dr. H. Wettstein. (London : O. 



Newmann and Co., 1893.) 



The German edition of this book is obligatory for all 



the secondary schools of the canton of Zurich, which 



NO. 1252, VOL. 48] 



partly accounts for the fact that more than seventeen 

 thousand copies have been sold. It is doubtful, however, 

 whether the translation will be so widely appreciated in 

 England. There are already many excellent introductions 

 to science covering practically the same ground as Dr. 

 Wettstein's work. In one feature only is the book 

 superior to the majority of those produced in England ; 

 viz. in the abundance of illustrations. As a rule, our 

 text-books of science are very poorly off in this matter, 

 whereas Ganot, and Deschanel, and the book before us, 

 are brightened considerably by the insertion of numerous 

 illustrations. 



When we say that in the 13S pages of the book the 

 sciences of mechanics, sound, light, heat, electricity, 

 and magnetism are treated, it will be at once understood 

 that the descriptions are of a rather sketchy nature. In 

 spite of this, however, the book will give its readers a 

 good grounding in the principles of physical science. 

 Though most of the text can be easily comprehended by 

 the average pupil, there are portions which should hardly 

 be inserted without explanation. Thus, on p. 44 we read : 

 " The atmospheric pressure carries our legs and arms, for 

 the condyle of the femur fits air-tight into the acetabulum 

 of the pelvis, and likewise the condyle of the humerus into 

 the articular cavity of the shoulder-blade." And it is 

 misleading to say : "The complete spectrum of sunlight 

 consists of three parts — the heat spectrum, the light 

 spectrum, and the chemical spectrum" (p. 71). The 

 table of spectra given in the frontispiece is poor, one 

 of its defects being that the solar spectrum only differs 

 from the spectrum of Sirius by the addition of the three 

 lines A, a, and B. With this exception, however, all the 

 illustrations are very clear and accurate. 



A Short Course in the Theory of Determinants. By L. 



G.Weld. (London: Macmillan, 1893.) 

 We have read Prof. Weld's book with much interest, for 

 though there are few, if any, novel results brought for- 

 ward, he has certainly attained the goal he set before 

 himself, and has developed the theory in a very simple 

 manner. Some of the methods he has employed are new 

 to us. The greater part of the work requires little be- 

 yond an intimate acquaintance with the principles of 

 algebra as given in the ordinary school text-books. To 

 confine the treatment within very moderate limits, there 

 is no application of determinants to analytical geometry, 

 but many of the more important algebraical applications 

 find a place. After treating with sufficient detail of the 

 origin and notation of determinants, our author gives a 

 general definition of them, and enumerates and proves 

 the more useful of their properties, and then touches 

 lightly upon their applications to elementary algebra, i.e. 

 to matrices and Sylvester's and Euler's methods of 

 elimination. In Chapter vi. he briefly discusses the 

 multiplication of determinants and reciprocal determin- 

 ants. The last three chapters give a brief account of 

 special forms, and of linear transformation. The te.xt 

 is very clearly printed, and we have detected but few 

 trivial errors. There is a good store of examples, some 

 of which appear to us to be rather " stiff." Due acknow- 

 ledgment is made in the preface to the sources from 

 which results have been derived. 



A Practical Treatise on Bridge Construction. By T. 

 Claxton Fidler, M.I.C.E. Second Edition, enlarged and 

 revised. (London : Charles Griffin and Co., 1893.) 

 The first edition of this book was reviewed at length in 

 Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 2. Since then the Forth Bridge 

 has been completed, and great advance has been made 

 in the manufacture of steel. 



The principal criticism to be added to the former review 

 is that the author should add some remarks on the method 

 of erecting a bridge, large or small. As it is, the structures 



