26S 



NA TURE 



[July 19, 1900 



reader will be especially attracted by the ingenious re- 

 presentations of the brain drawn inside the skull as if 

 seen by transparency, and by the really beautiful series 

 of plates at the end of the volume. 



The work is essentially a technical and a practical one. 

 Nevertheless, a final chapter is devoted to a general 

 summary and conclusions. Here Drs. Flatau and Jacob- 

 sohn aim, not at bringing forth sensational results, but 

 soberly review such general conclusions as may safely be 

 drawn at present. These, it must be confessed, are 

 somewhat disappointing, not, be it understood, through 

 any fault of the authors, but owing to the inherent 

 difficulties and complications of the subject, and the 

 comparatively few data yet at our disposal. 



As to the attempt to homologise the fissures of the 

 cerebral hemispheres with one another in the various 

 orders of mammalia, Drs. Flatau and Jacobsohn freely 

 adopt Gegenbaur's conclusion, that this can only be done 

 to a very limited extent. In most of the orders we 

 generally find some small and lowly organised forms with 

 almost smooth brains ; and it must always be borne in 

 mind that the fissures and convolutions may to a great 

 extent have been independently developed in each group. 

 Of the usefulness of this volume there can be no doubt, 

 and the appearance of the continuation of the work will 

 be awaited with interest by all workers in the subject 

 of brain anatomy. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Origin of the British Flora. By Clement ReiJ, 

 F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. Pp. vii + 191. (London : Dulau 

 and Co., 1899.) 



This is a useful contribution to the literature of geo- 

 graphical botany ; but it is unfortunate that the author 

 has given it the ambitious title of " Origin of the British 

 Flora." Any one entering upon the perusal of the book 

 with the expectation engendered by its title will soon 

 meet with disappointment, but must not be blinded 

 thereby to its real merit, which is great, and consists in 

 the historical records, to which two-thirds of it are de- 

 voted. The book is essentially a geologist's account of 

 the palasontological evidence of the distribution of plants 

 in Britain during recent geological periods. Every one 

 will agree with the author in thinking that the historical 

 method is the proper one for determining questions of 

 origin, but that the " problem of the origin of our flora is 

 one which can be solved by this method" is surely a 

 sanguine forecast on his part, even allowing for the fact 

 that the flora of our Tertiary deposits has not been 

 worked out yet with much completeness ; his work is 

 emphatic testimony to the fragmentary character of his- 

 torical evidence in relation to the British flora that has 

 been obtained up to the present time. In his " Table 

 showing the Range in Time of the British Flora," which 

 includes the names of species, remains of which have 

 been found in deposits of pre-Glacial age onwards, there 

 are not three hundred names, and of these not all have as 

 yet been found in deposits within the present area of 

 Britain ; and, moreover, the finds do not touch elements 

 of the flora which have always been a crux in explana- 

 tions of its origin. The first fifty pages of the book deal, 

 in the slight manner of the magazine article rather than 

 in the detail of a scientific treatise, with some of the 

 problems of the origin of the present British flora. The 

 author is on the side of those who attribute a mor€ im- 

 portant influence to air-transport than to land-connection 

 as a factor in the making of our existing flora. The 

 Watson-Forbes hypothesis is, in a few sentences, put 



NO. 1603, VOL. 62J 



on one side, and a short chapter is devoted to an 

 account of the transport-mechanism observable in the 

 species of the flora. In Chapter iv. we have an account 

 of the author's idea of the geographical and climatic 

 changes affecting Britain in the late Tertiary times ; the 

 former, the author thinks, " were of no very great im- 

 portance as bearing on the past history of our flora," 

 although they " must have tended greatly to modify local 

 conditions, and must have sometimes aided, sometimes 

 have hindered, the dispersal of the seeds " ; the latter have 

 left their mark on the flora ; but at the same time 

 " Britain shows signs of a geographical distribution of 

 plants largely independent of that due to climate ; or 

 perhaps we should say not governed by existing climatic 

 conditions." It is not, however, these brief earlier chap- 

 ters which give value to the book, but the later ones, 

 containing accounts of the deposits in which recent plants 

 have been found and of the positions of these plants. 



A Manual of Marine Meteorology for Apprentices and 

 Officers of the World's Merchant Navies. By William 

 Allingham. Pp. viii -f 182, and plates. (London : 

 Charles Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1900.) 

 We gladly give a word of welcome to this little book, 

 written as it is by a sailor with the view of winning an 

 increase of interest in the subject of meteorology from 

 members of his own profession. The author knows well 

 those for whom he is writing, so that while he has kept 

 his book free from pedantry, he has managed to fill it 

 with practical information and to endow it with the spirit 

 of earnest purpose. The encouragement of a more com- 

 plete survey of the complicated phenomena manifested, 

 not only in our atmosphere, but in the ocean itself, is 

 highly commendable, and we should imagine the author 

 well qualified by knowledge and experience to interest 

 the class to whom he mainly addresses himself. For he 

 has sailed every ocean in all sorts of weather, and having 

 himself to some extent profited by the systematised ex- 

 perience of others, he seeks now to widen and complete 

 the circle of observation, so that those who come after 

 may have still more trustworthy sources of guidance and 

 readier means for escaping the perilous qhances of 

 navigation. 



Of course, in many respects marine meteorology goes 

 hand in hand with meteorological inquiries conducted on 

 shore. We may pass over all such details, since the real 

 interest of the book is more closely connected with the 

 practical questions which arise at sea. Among these we 

 may enumerate wave-motion, salinity and temperature of 

 the sea, the direction and velocity of ocean currents, and 

 the construction and use of pilot charts. Such subjects 

 ought to have a profound interest for an intelligent officer, 

 and the method of treatment is likely to call forth the 

 earnest attention of any one who wishes to become really 

 efficient. Some of these subjects may be thought to be- 

 long rather to hydrography than to meteorology ; while, 

 again, questions connected with the behaviour of the wind 

 in cyclones, and of the management of the ship in the 

 neighbourhood of cyclonic disturbances, may be said to 

 belong to the domain of seamanship or practical navi- 

 gation. But there is no fixed line of demarcation between 

 any of these subjects, and trained intelligence is of the 

 greatest service in advancing our knowledge of subjects 

 in which experiment and generalisation play a great part. 

 One can easily conceive that enormous advantages would 

 accrue to science by enlisting the services of a large army 

 of observers, and therefore we welcome any well-con- 

 sidered effort which has for its end so worthy an object. 

 The author knows perfectly well that it is impossible to 

 do justice, within a moderate compass, to the many 

 topics on which he touches ; but his object is served, and 

 well served, if he can arouse an active interest in the 

 many, and induce a few to prosecute inquiries on a more 

 comprehensive basis. 



