March 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNOW^LKDGE 



11^ 



a short account of the methods of observing the (ques- 

 tionably astronomical) phenomenon of the aurora by Mr. 

 J. Rand Capron. "SVe think that our mere precis of 

 the contents of the volume whose title heads this notice 

 will practically suffice to justify the terms of commenda- 

 tion in which it commences. Certainly no more useful 

 work to the beginner has yet appeared. A very careful 

 perusal of it has failed to reveal more than three obvious 

 errata. The iirst occurs on page 129, where it is alleged 

 that "the solar parallax ... is now adopted at S'TS'," 

 which is certainly not the case. The parallax adopted ia 

 this country is SS4S", while the Belgian results make it 

 greater still. At the time we write the American ones 

 have not been made public. Perhaps the author was think- 

 ing of Dr. Gill's Mauritius results, which are — Dr. Gill's 

 and nobody else's : and of which he himself says ('' Dunecht 

 Observatory Publications." vol. ii. p. -1-), "We do not 

 attach very much importance to the value of the parallax 

 deduced." The second mistake appears on page 1.30, where 

 it is alleged of Venus, in and close to inferior conjunction, 

 that " the interior region of the disc is seen perceptibly 

 lighter than the dark background of the sky on which it 

 is projected." Practical observers of repute have seen it 

 darker than the light background of the sky on numerous 

 occasions, so that the statement as it stands is far too 

 unqualified. The third error we have noted is in the 

 engi-aving of the ••Aurora theodolite" on page 3li, where 

 that instrument is represented with an object-glass which 

 has, in reality, no existence. 



Capital: a Critical Analysis of Capitalist i'roduction. 

 By Karl Marx. Translated by Samuel Moore and 

 Edward Avelisg, and edited by Frederick Excels. 

 (London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey it Co. 1887.) — • 

 "The common-sense reader, unfamiliar with the rudiments of 

 political economy, will rise from the perusal of this com- 

 bination of virulent declamation and pseudo-scientific 

 exposition with a feeling akin to that experienced by the 

 incipient logician when he makes his firat acquaintance 

 with the old puzzle of Achilles and the Tortoise. He will 

 find a good dei^l that appears to him at fii-st sight in- 

 expugnable in the shape of sequent argument ; but under- 

 lying which he feels intuitively there is some stupendous 

 fallacy. It is only upon re-reading Herr Marx's two 

 volumes that he will thoroughly realise how the dominant 

 TDotive of their author is an almost insane class-hatred ; and 

 how, in his endeavour to gratify it, he is absolutely in- 

 different whether he is dealing with fact or fiction. An 

 extract taken absolutely at random will illustrate this. It 

 is one that strikes our eye as we write, and occurs in the 

 form of a footnote on page 2-50, which begins thus, " In 

 England even now occasionally in rural districts a labourer 

 is condemned to imprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath, 

 by working in his front garden." If Herr JIarx does not 

 know this to be absolutely false, his translators and editor 

 do, and the mere retention of such an allegation in its pages 

 shows the animus with which the work is written. It is 

 quite true that, on rare occasions, that pest the '• common 

 informer, " has summoned a tradesman under the very dis- 

 creditable, but practically obsolete. Act 29 Car. II., c. 7, 

 for doing '■ work of his ordinary calling upon the Lord's 

 Day," and has obtained a conviction ; but this is a very 

 difi"erent thing to that alleged by the author of the work 

 before us. A labourer working in his own front garden is 

 not " following his ordinary calling," and the statute does 

 not apply to him in any way. The whole book is one 

 sustained tii^ade against the middle-class capitalist. The 

 mere sight of the word " bourgeois," or the idea of the 

 social condition it implies, appears to exercise an influence 

 on Herr Marx compared with which that of a red rag on a 



bull may be regarded as sedative and tranquillising. The 

 perusal of a work like this to any one who has studied 

 such masterly and scholarly expositions of economic science 

 as those of Mr. Dunning McLeod, is like reading an essay 

 b}' a boy in the Fourth Standard at a Board School, by 

 anyone familiar with the undying work of Addison and 

 Steele. 



Manual of the Sextant. By Charles \V. Thompson', 

 F.R.G.S. (London: John Bumpus. 1887.)— Mr. Thompson's 

 excellent manual of the sextant may be confidently recom- 

 mended to all travellers and explorers whose outfit of instru- 

 ments is confined to the one of which it treats, together 

 with an artificial horizon and a chronometer. The optical 

 principles on which its action depends are clearly explained, 

 and this explanation is followed by a detailed description of 

 the construction and use of the sextant as at present framed 

 by our leading makers. Then the beginner is instructed 

 how to use the instrument in observing altitudes and angular 

 distances, and the methods of employing it to determine 

 latitude, time, longitude, and the variation of the compass, 

 and to set O'.it a meridian line, are taught in a manner so 

 simple, that no moderately attentive reader can possibly 

 fail to thoroughly grasp the modes of obtaining the results 

 sought. Wisely eschewing formuhe. our author works out 

 numerical examples of the various processes at full length ; 

 and, at the end of his book, furnishes all the tables necessary 

 for the reduction of the observations made. When !Mr. 

 Thompson's volume runs into its inevitable second edition, 

 we should recommend him to obtain and describe one of the 

 remarkably ingenious prismatic sextants made by Pistor and 

 ^lartins, the opticians in Bsrlin. These instruments measure 

 angles up to 180^. And we may add in conclusion, the 

 expression of our surprise that in a bDok in other respects 

 so complete, no mention whatever is made of the method of 

 determining the excentricity of the sextant — a matter of 

 vital importance, if it is to be employed for refined work. 



The Brassfoiiiuler's Manual. By Walter Grah.am. 

 Seventh Edition. (London : Crosby Lockwood, vt Son, 

 1887.) — When a book on a pureh' technical subject has run 

 into its seventh edition, it may fairly be assumed to have 

 criticised itself, and to have established its own claim to 

 excellence. Assuredly in the present case the success 

 achieved has been well deserved, for a more complete little 

 manual than Mr. Graham's we have rarely come across. 

 Invaluable to the commercial brassfounder, it will be found 

 replete with information of use to the amateur who tries his 

 hand at the construction or repair of optical and other 

 scientific instruments. The workman who buys this little 

 volume may further derive very great benefit, outside and 

 beyond that of a merely technical character, by the careful 

 perusal of pages 20 and 21. 



The Eskimo Tribes. By Dr. Henry Eixk. (Williams 

 & Norgate.) — The principal object of the present work, the 

 eleventh of a series on Danish investigations in Greenland, 

 published at the cost of the State, and which its learned 

 author has made more accessible by an English version, is to 

 furnish an idea of the elements of the little-known Eskimo 

 language. But for us the main interest lies in the earlier 

 chapters, which discuss the mode of life, dwellings, religious 

 and social arrangements of the Eskimo tribes, and especially 

 in the first chapter, in which Dr. Eink, while expres.sing no 

 decided opinion, collates the evidence which tends to confirm 

 the theory that they migrated from the interior of Alaska, 

 dispersing northwards until their final settlement in Labrador 

 and Greenland. The subject is of importance as a con- 

 tribution to the movements of races in prehistoric times, 

 and to the general question of man's origin in, and 

 migi-ation from, northerly hemispheres. As our readers 



