DISCOVERY 



not out of the kind's liifjluvay, neither on tl\c right hand 

 nor on the left, but that he keep it always until he shall 

 be gone out of the land." Dover was the port oftenest 

 assigned to these funny fellows. The time allotted to 

 clear out was often ridiculously, and no doubt purposely, 

 short. " The distance from ^'ork to Dover over London 

 Bridge w;is nearly 270 miles, and there are several entries 

 of eight days being the allotted time, thus maintaining a 

 rate of over thirty-three miles a day." This, barefooted, 

 was excellent going ; the felon must have indeed been 

 sorry for himself. 



The book is essentially one to buy, to read, and to keep. 

 It is always delightful. Those who have not read it "iire 

 to be congratulated on the happiness that awaits them. 



P. K. F. 



(a) Secrets of Earth and Sea. By Sir Ray L.\nkester, 



K.C.B., F.R.S. (Methuen, 8s. 6d.) 



(b) The World of Sound. By Prof. Sir William 



Bragg, K.B.E., F.R.S. (G. Bell & Sons, 6s.) 



These books have this in common, that each is written 

 by a Fellow of the Royal Society, and that each may be 

 heartily recommended to readers. They are just the 

 kind of book that one is glad to have an opportunity of 

 reviewing, for they are informed, clearly-written, under- 

 standable, and really give one an interest in the things 

 the writers are dealing with. It is not often that the 

 Roj'al Society writes so that those who never can become 

 Fellows, or at best can become {in Mr. Wells's phrase) 

 Fellows of the Royal Society, " in the sight of God," can 

 follow its line of thought, or understand and remember 

 the different things it writes about. But it happens some- 

 times, and here before us are two excellent cases in 

 point. 



(a) Sir Ray Lankester occupies in science a position 

 not dissimilar to Mr. Gosse's in the world of letters. He 

 has had a considerable and happy past ; he keeps in 

 touch with the present da)^ and he has obtained and 

 retains the respect of his brethren. 



He is always well-informed and he w-rites interestingly. 

 This volume, like its predecessors, Science from an Easy 

 Chair (Series I and Series II), and Diversions of a Natu- 

 ralist, is mainly a revision and reprint of articles dealing 

 with scientific matters published in daily or weekly 

 journals. 



He writes of the earliest picture in the world — a carv- 

 ing of certain representations of animals on a cylindrical 

 piece of the antler of a red deer found in the South of 

 France nearly fifty years ago, — of the art of prehistoric 

 man, of portraits of mammoths made by men who saw 

 them twenty-five to fifty thousand years ago. 



A chapter is devoted to a graphic account of Vesuvius 

 in eruption in 1871 and 1872, when the author made 

 ascents with different friends. In another he deals with 

 the blue colour of water and of other things such as the 

 eyes, the sky, and glaciers. In writing on the biggest 

 beast, the Giganlosaurus, he is loth to admit that antiquity 

 has beaten the present age, for, as he explains, this biggest 

 of quadrupeds lived probably in the sea, and is therefore 



to be compared with the whale and not the elephant 

 of the present day. 



There are also interesting chapters on Species, the 

 Cross-breeding of Races, Suspended Animation, the 

 Swastika, Coal, and the Story of Lime-juice and Scurvy. 

 (6) Sir William Bragg's book consists of six lectures 

 delivered before a juvenile auditory at the Royal Institu- 

 tion at Christmas 1919. Its substance has already 

 appeared in a series of articles in our contemporary 

 Conquest. The author is known not only as an in- 

 vestigator of the first class but also as an exponent of 

 physical science, whether the subject lectured on be 

 highly technical or not, who has few equals at the 

 present time. This book is certainly a model of popular 

 exposition. A great number of experiments of a very 

 interesting type are described, and they are well illus- 

 trated by drawings and diagrams. 



The opening lecture deals with sound in a general way. 

 Thereafter, sounds in music, sounds of the town, sounds 

 of the country, sounds of the sea, and lastly, sounds in 

 war are described ; and whether Professor Bragg is ex- 

 plaining why there is a note given out when the wind 

 blows past a wire, or in what way the hydrophone was 

 used during the war to locate explosions at sea, he is 

 always delightful and easily understood. No one is so 

 clever that he cannot learn a very great deal from this 

 book, or fail to take a greater interest in the sounds of 

 everyday life. Those, too, who lament the decay of English 

 prose, and fear that no scientist of to-day has carried 

 the art of writing beyond the elementary stage, will find 

 in this book a clear and persuasive style that will remind 

 them of that of Tyndall or Faraday or some other idol of 

 the past whom they admire. A. S. R. 



Other Books Received 

 Personal Aspects of Jane Austen. By Mary A. Acsten- 



Leigh. (John Murray, 9s.) 

 General Practice and X-rays. A Handbook for the 



General Practitioner and Student. By A. Vance 



Knox, M.B., and Robert Knox, M.D., CM. 



(A. & C. Black, 15s.) 

 The Antiquaries' Journal, vol. i. No. i. January 1921. 



(Oxford Universit}^ Press, 5s.) 

 Territory in Bird Life. By H. Eliot Howard. (John 



Murray, 21s.) 

 A Textbook of Plant Biology. By W. Neilson Jones, 



M.A., F.L.S., and M. C. R.wner, D.Sc. (Methuen, 



7s.) 

 British Plants : their Biologv and Ecology. By J. F. 



Bevis, B.A., B.Sc.and H. J. Jeffery, A.R.C.Sc. 



F.L.S. (Methuen, 7s. 6d.) 

 A Handbook of Indian Art. Architecture — Sculpture 



— Painting. Bv E. B. Havell. (John Murrav, 



25S-) 



My Electrical Workshop. By ¥. T. Addy>l\n. (Wire- 

 less Press, 7s.) 



