October 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



285 



and ladies will find a quantity of information which cannot 

 fail to be of value to them between its two covers. To 

 follow Mr. Morris's injunctions in their integrity should 

 insure a clear complexion and abundant tresses at an age 

 when, alas I but too many have fallen hopelessly into the 

 hands of the cosmetiqiie makers and friseur ; and on this 

 ground alone his small volume may be commended to all 

 who wish to preserve their original charms undimmed. 



Syllabus of Elementary Geometrical Conies. (London : 

 Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, &■ Co.) — This small volume is 

 issued by the Association for the Promotion of Geometrical 

 Teaching, and will be found handy by the student as an aid 

 to memory. 



The Watch- Jobber's Handbook. By Paul N. Hasluck. 

 (London : Crosby Lockwood & Son. 1887.)— This latest 

 of !Mr. Hasluek's thoroughly practical little books will be 

 found very handy as a book of reference by country watch- 

 makers in out-of-the-way places, and by learners and 

 apprentices everywhere. In point of fact, any amateur 

 mechanic ftimiliar with the use of tools ought, after a care- 

 ful stud}' of this volume, to be able to clean and adjust any 

 ordinary horizontal or lever watch, though probablj' a 

 chronometer or duplex one might prove a little bej'ond his 

 capacity. The first forty-nine pages of the work are 

 devoted to a detailed description of the methods of cleaning, 

 repairing, and adjusting watches, the remaining ninetj'-oue 

 being devoted to a profusely-illustrated glossary of technical 

 terms, something like that contained in ~S\x. Britten's well- 

 known book. There Ls a very good index to it. 



Black arul White. Nos. 6 and 7. (Manchester : 1887.) 

 — A weeklv illustrated pennyworth, with lithographed 

 portraits of famous cricketers and more or less artistic 

 landscapes. " Daisy Nook " belongs to the former class. 



A Lecture . . . on Diseases of the Hair : and a Lecture 

 on Baldness and Ringworm. By James Startin. (London : 

 Harrison <t Sons.) — We are glad to find a man of Mr. 

 Starttn's eminence deUvering the two lectures reported in 

 this little pamphlet to the Hairdressers' Guild, and it is 

 much to be hoped that it will also be read by those upon 

 whom the members of the said guild operate. Certainly, 

 were any hairdresser to imagine a customer to be familiar 

 with its contents, he would tbink twice before telling that 

 customer what a member of the craft not many years ago 

 assured the present writer, that plenty of people who found 

 Sir Erasmus Wilson's prescriptions fail had been cured of 

 baldness by the application of his " Balsam of Ecbatana " (or 

 some such rubbish) ! 



ABC Five-Fitjnre Logarithms. By 0. J. Woodward, 

 B.Sc. (London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.) — This is a very 

 handy little book indeed, containing the logarithms of 

 numbers from 1 to 9999 to 5 places of decimals, vrith 

 analytical factors, and other tables useful in the laboratory. 

 The differences in Table I. are arranged on a simple plan, 

 and the tables themselv&s are indexed, ingeniously enough, 

 ledger fashion, so that the finger being placed upon the 

 index of the page required the book opens at it at once. 



Intelligence in the Van. By Horace Dobell, M.D. 

 (London : Wertheimer, Lea, & Co.) — The visible Universe 

 had its origin in ■' Potentia." When poor creatures like 

 Darwin, Huxley, Komanes, and their fellows assert that mind 

 is a development as much as man's material organisation, and 

 that it has passed through its successive stages from ihe 

 lowest to the highest, they talk nonsense, because Dr. 

 Dobell knows better. Vitality was one of the modes of 

 Potentia, and so the world became peopled with life ; with 

 voluntary locomotion came mind, and mind in man assumed 

 the mode of soul. Ever}' animal possesses aspiration, but 



in the lower animals it is directed objectively. Directed 

 subjectively in man it becomes soul. Professor Eomanes 

 weakly traces the development of mind from reflex action 

 through instinct to intelligence or reason. Dr. Dobell says, 

 No. The order must be reversed, and we must have intel- 

 ligence in the Van. Hence the title of his tract. We can 

 only trust that the reader follows the line of argument. If 

 we may borrow a piece of American slang. Dr. Dobell's 

 appears to be a very " one-horse " Van, placed studiously 

 before the animal which should draw it. 



i[echanic(d Dentistry. By Chari.es Hl'\ter. Third 

 Edition. (London : Crosby Lockwood & Co. 1887.) — That 

 this volume of " Weale's Series " should already have run 

 into a third edition affords a tolerable indication of its use 

 and value to the dental profession. Moreover, at a time 

 when a leading dentist has cheerfully declared that, fifty 

 years hence, not a man, woman, or child in the United 

 Kingdom will have a sound tooth in his or her head, it may 

 not be wholly uninteresting to the general public to learn 

 something of the elaborate mechanical devices employed (as 

 Mr. Samuel Weller observed) "to assist Natur' " when 

 their normal masticatory apparatus fails them. 



Mr. W. H. Collins sends us A Proposed Alteration in 

 the System of Playinq off Minor Events in Lawn-tennis 

 Tournaments, which he thinks will be fairer to those who 

 compete for prizes. It seems decidedly more complicated 

 than the existing system. 



The Mammoth ami the Flood. By H. H. Howorth, 

 M.P., F.S.A. (Sampson Low & Co.)— This book is dedi- 

 cated to the Duke of Argyll, who is just now cock-a-hoop 

 at the discovery that Darwin's theory of the formation of 

 coral islands has been disproved by the researches of the 

 Challenger naturalists, and who consequently thinks that 

 the whole theory of the origin of species is on its last legs. 

 Ex peJe Uerculem. Mr. Howorth is fighting shadows, 

 bringing needlessly he;ivy and cumbersome artillery in the 

 shape of this big volume against uniformitarianism. The 

 quotation which he gives from Professor Huxley as to the 

 place of "catastrophes" as part and parcel of the uniform 

 operation of agencies var\-ing in degree and intensity of 

 action disposes of the matter, and we therefore think that 

 the author has wasted abilities which, as his valuable 

 " History of the Mongols " shows, are of no mean order. 

 We are none the less glad to have his collection of legendary 

 and true materials concerning the mammoth gathered to- 

 gether, but we fail to see that the positions of the skele- 

 tons of that last of man's contemporaries among the larger 

 mammals warrants the author's inference of a universal 

 flood. The geological evidence in support of this Ls, how- 

 ever, reserved for publication in another volume. 



Saga Time. By J. Filford Vicarv. (Kegan Paul, 

 Trench, & Co.) — We regret to learn that the author of this 

 clear and lively account of the men who wrote the famous 

 Sagas and of the leading Sagas themselves has passed beyond 

 the sound of the critic's praise or blame, and the more so as 

 we can speak well of the way in which he has discharged 

 his task. He has caught the spirit and temper of the 

 stii-ring times described, when life was an unending battle 

 and feasting bout; the Sagas, with their tales of king, 

 courtier, warrior, thrall, and freeman, woven deftly by the 

 honoured skalds, the insight which they give into law, 

 custom, and belief are all set before us in unaffected and 

 vigorous English. The general sketches are followed by 

 a careful and useful abstract of the Volsunga-Saga. If it 

 lacks the pleas;int archaic flavour of Cox and Jones's sum- 

 mary in their " Popular Piomances," it gives the reader 

 compensation in the explanatory matter embodied in it. 

 Altogether the book is one to be heartily commended to the 



