March 3, 19 10] 



NATURE 



would direct attention to many figures reproduced from 

 those left behind by the late Dr. Fritz Schaudinn, 

 which will be of the greatest interest to all proto- 

 -zoologists. 



In conclusion, we have no hesitation in recommend- 

 ing this work to all those who wish to possess an 

 admirable and exhaustive treatise on the Protozoa. 



E. A. MlNXHIN. 



1UE EARLY HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND. 

 Murihiku, a History of the South Island of New Zea- 

 land and the Islands adjacent and lying to the 

 South, from 1642 to 1835. By Robert McXab. Pp. 

 xv + 499; with plates and charts. (Wellington, 

 X.Z. : Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., 1909.) 

 ^ I "HOSE who are personally acquainted with that 

 A prosperous and ven,- up-to-date portion of His 

 Majesty's Empire now known as the Dominion of New 

 Zealand will find it difficult to realise that so recentlv 

 as the year 1835 the Customs House authorities in 

 London decided that whale oil imported from that 

 country was liable to a duty of 26/. 12s. per tun, on the 

 ground that it did not come from a British possession. 

 So many stirring events, however, had already taken 

 place in New Zealand at this date that it has required 

 -eleven years of research to enable Mr. McNab to 

 recover from the " forgotten past " the materials for a 

 5iistory of the southern portion of the Dominion from 

 the time of its discovery by Tasman in 1642 up to the 

 year mentioned. The task has been an arduous one. 

 Involving the close study of rare works in English, 

 Spanish, French, and Russian, and the examination 

 of countless official documents and files of local news- 

 papers. Information has been brought together from 

 •ever}- quarter of the globe, and not the least interest- 

 ing of the author's discoveries is that of a series of 

 manuscript logs of early voyages, which he found in 

 the library of the Essex Institute at Salem, Massa- 

 chusetts. 



The classical explorations of Tasman, Cook, and 

 Vancouver are already familiar to students of history, 

 !but the details of Bellingshausen's visit have hitherto 

 been almost unknown to English readers. He com- 

 manded a Russian expedition which reached New Zea- 

 land in 1820. The narrative of the voyage, published 

 an Russian, is now very rare. An abridged translation 

 -was published in German in 1904, and Mr. McNab 

 "has included in the present volume an English trans- 

 lation of the portions relating to New Zealand, the 

 most interesting of which is a graphic account of the 

 -sea-elephant fishery which then flourished in Mac- 

 ^uarie Island. 



In the early part of the nineteenth century New 

 Zealand and the adjacent islands were a kind of 

 •no-man's-land, and a happy hunting-ground for 

 sealers and whalers from Australia and America. The 

 records of these early trading expeditions, culled 

 largely from the shipping reports and correspondence 

 columns of the Sydney newspapers, contain much of 

 thrilling adventure. The men must have been made 

 of stern stuff who would consent to be left behind in 

 small sealing gangs on an almost unknown coast, 

 ^exposed to the attacks of the cannibal Maoris — attacks 

 tvhich were sometimes ver)- successful — and with 

 XO. 2105, VOL. 83] 



scanty supplies, while their ship continued her 

 explorations, to call for them and their sealskins at 

 some future date, often many months later. Sydney 

 formed the headquarters of most of these expeditions. 

 It was then a convict settlement, and we are told that 

 Governor Phillip actually asked the English authori- 

 ties for special powers to deport condemned men to 

 New Zealand to be handed over as food for the 

 natives ! 



The compilation of this work has evidently been a 

 labour of love, but the author has none the less 

 earned our gratitude by the manner in which he has 

 fulfilled his task. Ethnologists and naturalists will 

 both find a good deal to interest them in the book, but 

 it is as a piece of historical research that it must be 

 judged, and we expect that the writer of historical 

 romance, as well as the more serious student of hi>- 

 torv, will profit largelv bv it in vears to come. 



A. D. 



CHEMICAL CONTROL OF FOODSTUFFS. 

 Food Inspection and .Analysis. For the use of Public 

 Analysts, Health Officers, Sanitary Chemists, and 

 Food Economists. By .\lbert E. Leach. Pp. xviii + 

 954 + xl plates. Second edition, revised and enlarged. 

 (New York : John Wiley and Sons; London : Chap- 

 man and Hall. Ltd., 1909.) Price 315. 6d. net. 

 THIS work, the first edition of which was reviewed 

 in these columns some four years ago (Natlre, 

 November 17, 1904, p. 57), is favourably known in 

 this country as a ver>- useful aid in the analysis of food- 

 stuffs. For the information of readers interested in 

 this subject and hitherto unacquainted with the volume, 

 we may mention that it aims at giving, in a compass 

 of about a thousand pages, a short description of the 

 origin and composition of all the chief foods,, condi- 

 ments, and alcoholic beverages ; together with a selec- 

 tion of the most approved methods for their chemical 

 and physical examination. 



General laboratory equipment is dealt with, and 

 there are sections devoted to special apparatus, such 

 as the microscope, camera, tintometer, refractometer. 

 and polarimeter. Numerous tables of analytical con- 

 stants are provided, as well as many illustrations of 

 microscopical structure ; in fact, the idea appears to 

 be to make the book so far as possible self-sufficient for 

 all ordinary work. The convenience of this is obvious ; 

 the essential information, enabling routine samples to 

 be disposed of, is collected in one volume instead of 

 being scattered over half-a-dozen. For assistance in 

 dealing with special cases, where fuller details are 

 necessar}-, a long list of references is appended to each 

 chapter. 



The new matter in the second edition runs to some 

 167 pages. .\ notable extension is made in the chapter 

 devoted to cereals. Here we remark the inclusion of 

 such matters as the use of pancreatin for starch- 

 converting purposes alternatively to malt extract; a 

 table (Krober's) for determining pentoses and pentos- 

 ans from the amount of phloroglucide ; a scheme for 

 complete ash-analysis, and sections dealing with the 

 bleaching and examination of flour. These last, in 

 addition to. the usual methods for determining the 

 proportions of gluten, gliadin, and other proximate 



