530 



NA TURE 



[April 9, 1896 



brains, while neither Lamarck nor Darwin were abnormal 

 as regards the size and development of the head. In a 

 crowd Cuvier and Agassiz always attracted attention, 

 and were distinguished at once as uncommonly fine- 

 looking men, while Lamarck, Darwin, and Huxley passed 

 unnoticed." 



We will remember Mrs. Malaprop on comparisons, 

 and content ourselves with observing that a crowd in 

 which Darwin and Huxley would have passed unnoticed, 

 must indeed have been composed of remarkable men. 



To put the matter shortly, the history of personal 

 squabbles, and the indications of M. Marcou's censorious 

 disposition loom far too large in this book. He cannot 

 let slip a chance of having a fling at somebody, and evi- 

 dently our nation in some way or other has incurred his 

 displeasure. This, for instance, is how he comments on 

 Murchison's objections to the general applications of 

 Agassiz' views on the extent of land ice : " Precisely 

 what was to be expected from the English geologists, who 

 are always strongly disinclined to accept any new truth, 

 if discovered by foreigners." Considering that for not a 

 little time prior to this date (1840) English geologists had 

 been busily employed in combating mistaken notions — 

 chaotic menstrua, sedimentary basalts, craters of eleva- 

 tion, et hoc genus omne — largely manufactured on and 

 imported from the continent, they may be pardoned for 

 some prejudice in favour of home-made scientific goods. 

 Again, in 1846, we are told, as if it were a fault, that 

 Agassiz saw plainly during his short stay in England that 

 "although the English leaders of science were extremely 

 courteous and friendly to him, it was absolutely useless to 

 expect from them the offer of any scientific position." Were 

 they to be blamed ? Was not a man so improvident and 

 reckless in money matters as M. Marcou depicts Agassiz, 

 almost sure to be a failure among men with the business- 

 like habits of the English ? Would not his trick of occa- 

 sionally talking brilliant scientific nonsense — we take this 

 also on M. Marcou's authority — have raised doubts as to 

 the solidity of his knowledge among the more phlegmatic 

 British men of science ? Was there any reason, at that 

 time, why they should import teachers from the con- 

 tinent? In America things were different; there the 

 study of science was almost inchoate ; the workers were 

 few ; the generation of men who now can hold their own 

 in every branch of science against the rest of the world, 

 were then at school or unborn. But even an award of the 

 Copley medal to Agassiz calls forth a covert sneer from his 

 biographer — " It was certainly well placed this time " — 

 as though that were not usual. 



But enough — the book has its good points ; it suppHes 

 some lacuncE in Agassiz' life, it contains some interesting 

 letters, and it reprints one or two documents not easy of 

 access ; notably his Discours de Neuchdtel on the Ice- 

 Age, which, however, would have been more fitly placed 

 in an appendix ; it gives a very full list of his writings, 

 but — it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. A 

 critical history of Agassiz' work in science, and of his 

 contributions to natural knowledge, would have been 

 valuable. This book is too much occupied by the details 

 of controversies and disputes which few desire to 

 remember, and is too obviously affected by the spirit of a 

 partisan, to fulfil adequately any such purpose. 



T. G. BONNEY. 

 NO. 1380, VOL. 53] 



FERMENTATION STUDIES. 

 Practical Studies in Fermentation ; being Contributions 

 to the Life-Jiistory of Micro-organisms. By Prof. 

 Emil Chr. Hansen, Ph.D. Translated by Dr. A. K. 

 Miller, F.I.C., and revised by the author. Pp. xiv + 

 277. (London : E. and F. N. Spon, 1896.) 



THE recondite researches of scientific men are 

 usually of too abstruse a nature to tempt their 

 authors to exhume them from the ponderous journals to 

 which they have been committed, and present them to 

 the general public. 



With regard to bacteriological investigations, however, 

 the case is different, and the eagerness with which such 

 researches are followed, has justified the appearance of 

 such special works as Prof Hansen's " Practical Studies 

 in Fermentation," in which a connected account is given 

 of original investigations scattered through divers journals 

 and periodicals. 



The appearance for the first time of an English edition 

 of this important work, is rendered additionally welcome 

 by the fact that such an acknowledged authority on the 

 subject as Dr. Miller has undertaken its translation. 

 Hansen's name is now so universally associated with pure 

 yeast culture, that it is difficult to realise that a little more 

 than ten years ago he was fighting his way to obtain per- 

 mission from Jacobsen, the owner of the Old Carlsberg 

 Brewery, to carry out experiments which have now 

 rendered this brewery famous throughout the world. 



Step by step, however, in the teeth frequently of 

 vigorous opposition, Hansen has revolutionised our con- 

 ception of the practice of brewing, substituting a sound 

 scientific basis for custom hitherto directed by empiricism 

 and tradition. 



His researches on yeasts and their systematic selection 

 and classification, have enabled the brewer to guard 

 himself against many of those maladies in beer, which 

 Hansen was the first to show were not necessarily 

 attributable to bacterial contamination, but were directly 

 dependent upon the presence of so-called wild yeasts, 

 whilst the substitution of pure yeasts for the hetero- 

 geneous mixture previously in use, has, in his own words 

 " helped to raise the industry, a point of great interest to 

 the intelligent brewer." 



Naturally after the identification and classification of 

 yeast species, the next step is their successful preservation. 

 This Hansen has found is most effectually carried out in 

 ten per cent, solutions of cane-sugar, and so-called 

 " stock " yeasts can be retained in this manner for up- 

 wards of fourteen years without suffering any detrnnent, 

 and can be propagated at will in beer wort, and sent all 

 over the world. Ingenious methods have been devised 

 for the transport of yeast, and so successful have been the 

 results, that yeast samples have been sent by Jorgensen 

 and others from Copenhagen to South America, Asia, 

 Ecuador, and Australia, without any deleterious effect 

 being produced. 



It would not be within the scope of the present brief 

 notice to enter into ahy detailed description of the 

 numerous and varied problems in connection with yeast 

 fermentation which Hansen has so patiently and success- 

 fully attacked ; but to the bacteriologist the discussion 

 of the diseases of beer produced by alcoholic ferments 



