April, 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



87 



The ideas geaerally held with regard to some of thehabits 

 of the common mole have been to a considerable extent 

 revolutionized by observations made by Mr. L. E. Adams in 

 Staffordshire, the results of which appear in a recent issue 

 of the Memoirii of the Manchester Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society. The author shows that the tunnels in 

 the "fortress " or nest-hillock are in nowise constructed 

 on a definite plan with a view to the escape of their owner 

 when danger threatens. He even finds that there is an 

 error with regard to such a .simple matter as the number 

 of teats possessed by the female mole. The moral of all 

 this is that we must take nothing on trust in zoological 

 matters. 



Zoologists, geologists, and geographers should alike find 

 much to interest them in an essay by Mr. F. W. liarmer 

 on the history of the changes which have taken place in 

 East Anglia during the latter part of the Tertiary period. 

 The essay will be found in the Proceedings of the Geolo- 

 gists' Association for 1902. 



Some very pertinent remarks on the subject of labels 

 in museums are made by Mr. F. A. Bather in the Museums' 

 Journal. After mentioning the advisability of putting 

 popular names on the labels of a large number of specimens, 

 and certain difiBcnlties connected with determining what 

 names to select, the author alludes to the practice which 

 obtains in some museums of adding an abbreviation of 

 the name of the writer responsible for the scientific 

 species-name. If authors' names are given at all, they 

 should be given, Mr. Bather urges, at full length, as 

 otherwise they are absolutely unintelligible to the general 

 public. But are they necessary at all ? — he asks ; we think 

 not. It may be added that the conventional signs for 

 male and female appended to the names of animals in the 

 Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, aflibrd anctl;2r example 

 of the use of abbreviations unintelligible to the public. 



j^otic ts of IS ooltg. 



"In the Anda.mans and Ni(oi!aks : the Narrative of a 

 Cruise in the ScnooNER ' Terrapin,' with Notices op 

 THE Islands, their Fauna, Ethnology, etc." By 0. B. 

 Kloss. (John Murray.) Pp. xvi. + 37.3. Illustiated. Price 

 'Jls. net. — Mr. Kloss had the good fortune to accompany the 

 energetic and successful American collector. Dr. W. L. Abbott, 

 in a cruise to the Andamans and Nicobars, undertaken for the 

 purpose of obtaining specimens of their mammals and birds. 

 And it must be acknowledged that, by the production of the 

 volume before us, he has taken full advantage of the opportunities 

 thus afforded him of adding considerably to our information 

 with regard to these interesting islands and their inhabitants. 

 In the case of the Andamans, the author confesses indeed that 

 Mr. Marr's well-known volume on the aborigines has left com- 

 paratively little for other observers to record with regard to the 

 anthropology and ethnology of these islands. But in the 

 Nicobars the state of affairs is very different, and Mr. Kloss 

 urges that much ethnological work still remains to be done, and 

 that the time is short during which it will be j)ossiblc to do 

 this effectively, since the natives are daily changing their 

 primitive customs and habits. A valuable feature of the work 

 before us is to be found in the numerous portraits of Andamanese 

 and Nicobarese with which it is illustrated. Mr. Kloss divides 

 his work into two parts, namely, a narrative of the crui.se, and 

 a di.s.sertation on the human and other inhabitants of the islands. 

 The.se two groups of ishmds present the ])oculiarity that whereas 

 the Andamans are inhabited by a nugro-like (negrito) race, 

 which is porhajis one of the most primitive types now left on 

 the earth, the Nicobars arc populated by tribes belonging to the 

 great Malay stock. The most primitive of the natives of the 

 Nicobars are undoubtedly the Shom-Pen of the interior of 

 (ireat Nicobar, who appear to be remnants of the aborigines 

 more or less crossed with foreign (perhajts Dravidian) blood. 

 The coast natives of Groat Nicobar, as well as the inhabitants 

 of the other islands, are, on the other baud, a later importation, 

 and appear to have originated from a mixture of the aborigines 



with Malays and Chinese. Mr. Kloss lays great stress on the 

 difference between the Andaman-Nicobar mammals and tho.se 

 of the mainland, commenting on the great preponderance of 

 bats and rodents. This difference, he thinks, indicates that 

 these islands were detached from the mainland before the latter 

 received its present fauna ; and he is further of opinion that 

 the Andamanese and Shom-Pen may themselves have introduced 

 some of the mammals, whose differences from their relatives of 

 the mainland may have developed within the period of human 

 occupation. The volume is of the highest interest, both as a 

 record of a delightful trip, and as a mine of information to the 

 zoologist, the anthropologist, and the ethnologist. 



" Mont Pel6e and the Tragedy, oe M-A-RTINIC^ue." By 

 Angelo Heilpriu. (Lippincott.) 15s. net. Illustrated.— Pi-o- 

 fessor Heilprin was one of the earliest and most fearless investi- 

 gators of Mont Pelee after the eruption of l.ast May 8th. He 

 arrived in Martinique on May 2.5th, ascended the mountain for 

 the first time six days later, and during a second visit to the 

 island was a spectator, and nearly a victim, of the eruption of 

 August 30th. The work that he has produced is splendidly 

 illustrated by reproductions of numerous photographs, and 

 written in a style which, if it occasionally approaches that of a 

 newspaper correspondent, is always clear and interesting. We 

 find in it graphic accounts of a great event, of the days of pre- 

 paration and neglected warnings, and of the resulting devasta- 

 tion of the country ; and these should be sufficient to secure for 

 the book a wide approval. The author is convinced that the 

 principal agent in the tornadic blast of August 3rtth, and 

 probably also in those of May 8th, etc., was " superheated 

 exploded steam, charged in part with particles of incandescent 

 or glowing matter " ; and, in a suggestive chapter on Vesuvius 

 and Pompeii, he argues with considerable force that the destruc- 

 tion of the latter city may have been caused by a similar 

 explosive blast. The whole subject of the West Indian erup- 

 tions is a very wide one, in reality beyond the scope of a 

 single investigator, and it is not therefore surprising that 

 Prof. Heilprin should be occasionally inaccurate. For instance, 

 some tremors recorded at Zi-ka-Wei in China are referred by 

 him to vibrations " pro|iagated clean through the centre of the 

 earth," although no records of them were obtained in Great 

 Britain, and the time interval of nearly 44 hours was more than 

 sufficient for even the long-period undulations to travel com- 

 pletely round the globe. But, notwithstanding a doubtful 

 statement here and there and a tendency to sensational writinor 

 (e.fi., " the unfortunate French island, now writhing in the 

 coils of the dragon that wrought its earlier fabric "), Professor 

 Heilprin has written a book that can hardly fail to be of per- 

 manent value. 



"Modern Microscopy." By M. I. Cross and Martin J. 

 Cole. 3rd ed. ; pp. xvi. and •29'2. Illustrated. (Bailliere, 

 Tindall & Cox.) 4s. net. — We heartily welcome the third 

 edition of this now well-known work, which fills a position of 

 its own in modern microscopical literature, and which should be 

 in the possession of every worker with the microscope. Though 

 modest in its apparent scope, it contains within its co%-ers an 

 exceptional amount of most valuable information, whilst the 

 general arrangement and the directness and lucidity of the 

 explanations merit the highest praise. The beginner, and he 

 even who is not a beginner, will learn more from these pages 

 than from more pretentious and costly volumes, he will find it 

 an absolutely trustworthy guide to the choice of his in.strument, 

 wherein lie so many doubts and difficulties, and a careful 

 perusal of its pages will give hira an insight into and a com- 

 mand over the workings of the microscope which will be of the 

 utmost value to him, whether as an amateur or as a serious 

 student. The book is divided into three divisions. In the 

 first, J[r. Cross takes the various parts of the microscope in 

 their natural order ; first the stand, its types, its coarse and 

 fine adjustments, and their respective merits, the stage and 

 sub-stage, and the refinement which modern critical work has 

 called forth. Then follows a chapter on optical coastruction, 

 which is nothing if not practical, and in which the theoretical 

 side is confined to a series of definitions, some of which might 

 possibly be extended with advantage. Illumination and illu- 

 minating apparatus are next dealt with, and we observe with 

 strong approbation not only the stress laid upon the necessity 

 for using a condenser, but the equal necessity that the corrections 

 of the condenser should approximate in perfection to those of 



