T>- 



lO'M. 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



i6-. 



Consequently advancement .ind wealth in the manufacture of 

 what we may for convenience call the " coal tar " dyes are to 

 be secured not by any isolated success or happy stroke of 

 fortune, but by continuous application of economical methods, 

 by unceasing chemical research, and by the cooperative 

 efforts of a school of chemists. It is because the German 

 manufacturers have realised these facts and English manu- 

 facturers have not, that the rewards of the discoveries of 

 Perkins' mauve, Hoft'man's violet, A. G. Green's primuline, 

 have not been reaped by England, where they were first made, 

 but in the long run by the German firms who have applied 

 to colour making the levers of trained research and organised 

 equipment. It is for this reason that 90 per cent, of the 

 patents in Professor Green's tables are of other than English 

 origin. 



In Praise of Gardens. — The most complete justification that 

 we can find for Mr. John Halshani's " Every Man His Own 

 Gardener " (Hodder and Stoughton) is in a pass.ige from his 

 Introduction : " If there be one pursuit that can be commended 

 as a general recreation, a hobby good for all temperaments, 

 ranks, and employments, it is gardening. It is a stand-l)y 

 that will come in with its solid results to fill any hiatus in the 

 progress of our loftier concerns. If a party go into the cold 

 shade of Opposition, or a company into li<iuidation ; if a book, 

 a picture, a play be damned, it is good to be able to shut one's 

 gates on the mad world, and find one's marrowfats podding, 

 one's nectarines reddening, faithful to their master's hand, 

 heartening him to survive the earthquake even as they have 

 done. There is no vote of censure, no critical cat-o'-nine tails 

 which can touch that part of his work ; and if he cares to try 

 the popular suffrage again, he may find that people who have 

 trodden on his pearls are not by any means incapable of 

 relishing his peaches." That is not onl\- a piece of extremely 

 good writing, but it expresses in the fittest terms the reason 

 for the love which most good Englishmen have for their 

 garden ; and it is a sufficient indication of the charm of a 

 charming book. If Mr. Halsham's book were only charming, 

 that would not, perhaps, be, in the eyes of many people, either 

 a sufficient excuse for its title, or a sufficient reason why they 

 should buy it. But it is full of the most practical information 

 on soils and tilths, cropping, seed-sowing, manures, pricking, 

 the hotbed, plagues and pests, potatoes and pruning, cut- 

 tings and bulbs. It is a compendium for the amateur 

 gardener of town or country, and it is delightful reading for all 

 who love " the massy-bronzed pears on the south wall, and the 

 cauliflowers paling from cream to pure white under the green 

 tent of their leaves " ; or " who balance the gay fulfilment of 

 the sweet-pea with the green promise of the marrowfat." 



Miss Eleanor Ormerod. — In the autobiography of " Eleanor 

 Oimerod, LL.D." (John Murray), which is edited by Professor 

 Robert Wallace, of Edinburgh, appear a number of Miss 

 Ormerod's letters to Dr. Fletcher. In one of them she 

 humorously suggests that surely it should be recorded of her 

 that " she introduced Paris-Green into England " ; and in that 

 phrase is summed up much of the charm, the modesty, and 

 the persevering usefulness of Miss Ormerod, her life, and her 

 work. She was born nine years before the accession of Queen 

 Victoria ; and one might say of her, without fulsomeness or 

 exaggeration, that she was one of the great women of the 

 Victorian Era. Beginning with no greater advantages than a 

 love for living things, she attained a position in which she 

 ranked as one of the first economic entomologists of the day. 

 For half a century she was a close student ; for half of that 

 time her Annual Reports and pamphlets on injurious insects 

 and common farm pests were beacons which lit the path of a 

 revolution in agricultural entomology. The real work that she 

 did is known to thousands of people, and is to be found in 

 her correspondence with entomologists and agriculturists all 

 over the world. The less concrete summary of it may be in- 

 ferred from the impression which she made on her contem- 

 poraries and co-workers. She was Consulting Entomologist 

 to the Royal Agricultural Society, Lecturer at the Royal Agri- 

 cultural College ; medals were conferred on her by scientific 

 societies, not of her own country alone, but France and 

 Russia. She was an LL.D. of Edinburgh, and many foreign 

 societies at home, in the Colonies, and abroad were honoured 

 by her fellowship. Space forbids that we should attempt 

 even a brief summary of the main features of her scientific 

 achievement. For that we mustreferreadcrs to this admirable 



biography and autobiography, which reveals Miss Ormerod as 

 she appeared to all who were privileged to know her, even for 

 the briefest period, or in the most .accideutal way, as the 

 kindliest as well as one of the cleverest and most modest 

 women of our time. 



Physical Deterioration. Logical and clearly put, Mrs. A. Watt 

 Smyth's views on " Physical Deterioration, Its Causes and 

 Cure" (London: John Murray), miglit also prove of great 

 instructional value if the right classes of people could only be 

 made to read them. But in attril)uting the deterioration in 

 physiiiue of the poorer classes of English people to life in towns 

 and in suggesting as remedies for it a greater regard for per- 

 sonal cleanliness, a purer supply of air, milk and other food, 

 Mrs. Watt Smyth comes perilously near th(' pitfalls of over- 

 generalisation. As an instance of the snari^ into which this 

 tendency to generalisation may lead, we may quote one extreme 

 instance, while admitting that it does not injure the general 

 argument in favour of leading a hc^althy physical life if proper 

 physique is to be attained. " The physical and intellectual 

 i)eauty of the ancient Greeks," says the author, "of which 

 proofs innumerable have been handed down in their literature 

 and works of art, resulted . . . from their public games " ! 

 Nothing is less proved or less probable than that the intellectual 

 success of the Greek nation resulted from anything of the 

 kind. If it were true, then we might expect the highest intel- 

 lectual product of our time to arise from the ranks of those 

 who win Sheffield Handicaps or appear in the incomparable 

 acrobatic feats of the modern music-hall. To the intellectual 

 and political success of the Greeks, their geo-political position 

 was probably the first contributory cause ; and their wise 

 hvgienic rules of life were a consequence of success already 

 attained. Similarly, if the factory laws of Great Britain were 

 perfect; if the abolition of primogeniture made small holdings 

 likely ; if a greater imaginative sense drove poor English 

 people to fresh air and pastures new in the Colonies ; if, as a 

 race, we were more thrifty and less self-indulgent — then the 

 national physique might improve and public games become a 

 well-ordered rite. But none of these initial causes, whose 

 absence we have indicated, is by itself the universal panacea 

 for good health; and we must decline to believe that even 

 continued residence in towns is the sole cause of national 

 physical deterioration. But having thus pointed out what 

 we think to be the chief defect of this book, that it takes 

 things too much for granted, and argues from generalities 

 assumed to be truths, we have nothing but praise for some of 

 the " cures " suggested. Purer milk is one of them, on which 

 legislation ought to insist with much greater emphasis ; and 

 the prevention of children's work in hours when the}' should 

 be at school is a thing on which we should insist with much 

 greater emphasis than Mrs. A. Watt Smyth has courage to do. 

 The abolition of the half-timer, and the insistence that the 

 years of a boy's or girl's education should be devoted to 

 education alone — intellectual and physical — these are among 

 the greatest remedies for the intellectual as well as the physical 

 stagnation of the masses of the people. 



Geology. Mr. W. Jerome Harrison's " Text-Book of 

 Geology " (Blackie and Son) has reached a fifth edition. A 

 valuable addition is a table showing the Range in Time of 

 Invertebrate Fossils. This useful book has been otherwise 

 revised and brought up to date in accordance with the most 

 recent additions to our knowledge of rock formation. 



Chronology. In " Astronomical and Historical Chronology " 

 (Longmans, Green and Co.), Mr. William Leighton Jordan has 

 set himself the task of showing reason for such ;i reformation 

 of historical chronology as would bring it into accordance 

 with the method of numbering the years B.C. which has been 

 adopted by astronomers. In other words, he seeks to prove 

 that the astronomical method of placing a zero year between 

 the B.C. and A.D. years is intrinsically superior to the historical 

 system which places i B.C. and i A.D. in juxtaposition. 



Geometry. "Constructive Geometry" (Blackie and Son), 

 by John G. Kerr, LL.D., is arranged for a first-year's course 

 in science. Its subject matter is virtually the same as that of 

 the first three books of Euclid, but from the construction and 

 examination of drawings the pupil is taught to form ideas 

 about the properties of lines, points, circles, &c., which it is 

 hoped will assist his subsequent comprehension of Euclid's 

 method of dealing with abstract principles. 



