111. 



KNOWLEDGE 



[May, 1903. 



are ably dealt with, and the work is not weighted with an 

 unwieldy mass of detail. The introductory matter is especially 

 well worked out. The geology and physiography of the area 

 are described clearly and well, and their relation to the flora 

 fully set forth. The flora is analyzed according to petrological 

 conditions, and also according to water supply and nature of 

 soil. The history of the progress of research in the flora of the 

 East Riding is sympathetically treated. A condensed account 

 of local meteorology is also given, sufficient for the needs of 

 the botanist. It is stated that " alien plant names are always in 

 italics "in the body of the book, but this salutary rule is not 

 invariably carried out, and certain aliens and casuals appear 

 in the same type which is accorded to native species. The 

 " incognita,'' too, which include some records admittedly 

 erroneous (e.'/., Carex Davalliamt), are printed without any 

 distinguishing mark as regards type, which is hardly satisfactory. 

 But these are minor blemishes. 



"Niels Henrick Abel : Memorial publie .\ l'occasion du 

 Centenaire de sa xaissaxce." Edited by Elliug Hoist, Carl 

 Stormer, and L. Sylow. (Kristiania : Jacob Dybwad. London : 

 Williams & Norgate. 1902.) — Now that Abel's great mathe- 

 matical discoveries have been universally acknowledged, it is as 

 easy as it is useless to sing his praises. Let us rather avail 

 ourselves of the story of his life, as told by M. Elliug Hoist in 

 this fitting commemoration of the centenary of Abel's birth, 

 and tike a lesson from it. Instead of a man on whom fortune 

 smiled, we find a young lad with a passionate enthusiasm for 

 mathematics, struggling in the face of adversity, whose academic 

 Alma mater denies him the bare means of subsistence, whose 

 career is a short but hard fight against ill fate. Both at school, 

 after his mathematical ability had been discovered by Holmboe, 

 and at the University of Christiania, his life is on the whole a 

 hajipy one, and at the end of his academical curriculum, he 

 obtains a scholarship to enable him to travel abroad for two 

 years. But before that time has elapsed, the chair of mathe- 

 matics, which he of all men is best qualified to fill, has been 

 awarded to his old teacher, Holmboe ; the experienced teacher, 

 as so often is the case, being prefei-red to the rare genius. On 

 his return home, he seeks to obtain the bare means of subsis- 

 tence while he is carrying on his important researches, but his 

 appeal to those in authority meets with a curt refusal, and it is 

 only by repeated applications that he obtains a pittance less 

 than that of any other " privat-docent," indeed, as M. Hoist 

 puts it, " too small to live or die on.'' From Crelle, in Berlin, 

 he has received every encouragement. Crelle publishes his 

 works and will gladly find emplojTnent — such as he can oflEer — 

 for him. At Paris, he as a foreigner has met with but little success, 

 and his paper containing the epoch-making discovery known as 

 Abel's theorem has been laid aside and neglected by those 

 to whom it was confided for publication. Instead of remaining 

 under Crelle he considers it his duty to return to his own 

 university, where he becomes a cat out of kind, a sort of homme 

 incontpris. His extraordinary genius finds no opening in an 

 academic bodj', the ruling powers of which might be described 

 as good but not exceptional men. The discovery that another 

 worker, Jacobi, is developing a theory of elli])tic functions on 

 parallel lines to Abel's, combined with the hardships he had 

 undergone, no doubt tended to bring about the illness by which 

 Abel's career was terminated, two days before his good friend 

 Crelle wrote definitely informing him of his appointment to a 

 chair at Berlin. This was in April, 182'J, only three and a half 

 years after the commencement of Abel's foreign expedition. 



Now what makes the story of Abel's life the more painful is 

 the thought that a man of Abel's type would fare no better at 

 an English university at the present day than Abel himself did 

 at Chi-istiania nearlj' three-quarters of a century ago. Like 

 Abel, he would find plenty of "kind friends" who would tell 

 him that his work would secure for him a world-wide reputation, 

 but they would not raise a hand to give him substantial assis- 

 tance. Thej- would counsel him to continue his researches and 

 to wait on. because ''an opening for him would be sure to occur 

 very soou,'' but when the opening did occur, they would vote 

 for the man of mediocre ability as against the genius. If 

 Oxford and Cambridge do not possess Abels, they at any rate 

 train mathematicians and others up to the stage when they may 

 be comnetent to undertake research work that is useful and 

 interesting. That these men are advised to remain at the 

 University with the prospect of obtaining appointments, which 



are afterwards refused them and allotted to others, is an ex- 

 perience far more common than is generally known. The 

 practice is a mischievous one which cannot be too severely 

 condemned, and it is to be hoped that those who arc in danger 

 of falling victims to it will take warning by the fate of Abel. 



BOOKS KECEIVED. 



EucvcloptEdia of Accounting. Vol. I. KtUted by treoigc Lioh-, 

 (..A , p.F A. (Wm. Green & Sous.) 



T/ie Soil. Ky A. D. Hall, M.A. (Murray.) 3s. Hd. 



Photoyraphic Lenses. By Conrad Beck and Herbert Andrews. 

 (R. & J. Beck, Limited.) Illustrated, ls.net. 



-Igricultural Geologii. By J. E. Man-, m.a., p.r.s. (.Methuen ) 

 Illustrated. 6s. 



Open- Air Studies in Bird Life. By Charles Dixou. (Griffin ) 

 Illustrated. 7s. 6d. 



Laboratory Guide for Beginners in Zoology. By Clarence Moores 

 Weed, D.sc, and Kalph Wallace Grossman, B.A., M.8c. (Heath.) 

 Illustrated. 2s. Gd. 



Guide to the Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities. (British 

 Museum.) Illustrated. Is. 



Country Gentlemen's E.itate Book, 1903. (Country Gentlemen's 

 Association. Limited.) Ss. net. 



School Geometry. Parts I. and 11. By H. S. Hall, m.a, and F. H. 

 Stevens, m.a. (Macmillan.) Is. 6d. 



Reports on the Administration of Rhodesia, 19ilO-l'MJ, (British 

 South Africa Co.) 



Transactions of the Roi/al Scottish Arhoricultaral Society. \'ol. 

 XV n. Part 1. (Edinburgh ; Douglas & Foulis.) 



Zoological Gardens, Giza. near Cairo, Report for the Year, l!)0:i. 

 By Stanley 8. Flower, Dircitor. (Cairo : N.ational Printing Depart- 

 ment.) 



Wirelesi Telegraphy and Telephony. By Dr. Maurice Ernst. 

 (Keiitell.) Is. 



Rhodesia Musrum, Bulawui/o. Annual Report, 190J ; and Special 

 Report— The Zimbahwe Ruins. By F. P. Mennell, F.o.S. 



19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 1897-98. Parts 1 and 2. By J. W. Powell' (Washington ; Govern- 

 ment Printing Office.) 



Tsimshian Texts. By Franz Boas. (Bulletin 27, Smithsonian 

 Institution.) (WasJiington ; Government Printing Ollice.) 



Human Origins. By Samuel Laing. (Watts & Co.) Od. 



Leeds Astronomical Society— Journal and Transactions during 

 the year 1902. (Wesley.) L>s". 



Cambrian Natural Observer, 1902. Edited by Arthur Mee. 

 (Cardiff: Evans & WiUiams.) 



Si/mons's Meteorological Magazine. Edited by Hugh Robert Mill, 

 D.sc., IL.D. April, 1903. (Stanford.) 4d. 



Lenses for Photography. (Taylor, Taylor & Hobson, Ld. ) Free. 



Photographic Catalogue. (Jas. WooUey, Sons & Co., Ld., Man- 

 chester.) 



♦ 



CLOUDS AS SEEN FROM CLOUD LEVEL. 



By Rev. John M. Bacon, j.k.a .s. 



In aerial travel there is often some little difficulty m 

 determining what is actual cloud level ; and in consequence 

 it is not always easy to form a correct idea of the true 

 aspect of clouds. If cloud be lying beneath an observer 

 it may be quite impossible for him to judge by the eve 

 whether the upper limit be a hundred feet or a thousand 

 feet, or even twice that distance below him ; and this will 

 make all the diii'erence in the estimate that is made of the 

 true form and comjjositiou of the cloud-mass. No doubt 

 the remarkable transparency of aerial space at high 

 altitudes, and the absence of any intermediate objects to 

 aid the eye in forming a right judgment uf scale or 

 distance is the chief cause of the difficulty referred to. 

 Kinchin junga, as seen in exceptionally transparent air 

 from Darjeeliiig, often seiims to the eye scarcely more than 

 a mile distant, though in reality it is forty, aud obviously 

 the true character of that mountain's slojjes will be more 

 or less accurately described by an observer according as 

 its true distance is duly estimated. 



The accompanying group of photographs show the 

 strikingly different aspects of the upper surface of a cloud- 

 mass as seen from different heights. The first photograi>h 



