Febriaky 1, 1901.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



41 



and our own moon ai*e practically devoid of atmosphere. 

 It has been Ji^isumixl that the atmosphere ;uid water 

 (converted into water-vapour) of the moon have been, 

 by nioleculai' motion, drawn down to the siu'face of the 

 earth. If this be the c;Lse, therefore, we do not know 

 what sfcises and vapours may not have been liberated 

 from the surface of Mais. On this question, I think, 

 the whole subject hangs. There is no reiison for doubting 

 that, given the uecessai-y elements for the formation 

 of living matter, tlie organic kingdoms may not have 

 followed the same eoiu'se of evolution as our own. The 

 organisms aio perhaps larger, owing to the lesser pull of 

 gravity ou that planet. In conclusion, I should advise 

 Mr. Taylor to read Peixival Lowell's admirable work 

 on ■■ Mars, " if he desires to enter into the subject more 

 fully. Thomas R. W.\king. 



Livea-pool. 



TO THE EDITORS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



Sirs, — In reply to Mr. Taylor's quei-y I should say 

 that most scientific men would undoubtedly give a very 

 decided "No'' to his question, and for the following 

 two good i-casons : — 



First — There is not one chance in a million that any 

 two planets among the unnumbered myriads that 

 probably exist in space utterly unknown to us have, 

 in the course of evolution, become so similai- in their 

 physical conditions as to be sufficiently fitted for the 

 inhabitants of each other to be able to continue to 

 maintain their existence if they interchanged worlds. 



Secondly — Granting that the physical conditions of 

 two planets may be sufficiently similar to enable most 

 of the forms of life on the one to exist on the other, yet 

 the chances against identical or even similar fonns being 

 found on botli are immense. The almost infinite 

 complexity of circumstances which, in the long course 

 of evolution, has moulded living organisms on our eai'tli 

 to what they are will have acted equally on every other 

 planet, and effectually precluded any two forms being 

 similar except in the remotest sense of the terai. 



No doubt such planets as Mai-s ai'e teeming with life, 

 but each one with life peculiar to itself, fitted by Nature 

 to the surrounding conditions, and no others. Looking 

 to man, we see, as Sir Robert S. Ball remarks, that 

 "he is a creatiu'e adapted for life under circum- 

 stances which are very naiTowly limited. A few degi'ees 

 of temperatm'e, more or less, a slight variation in the 

 composition of air, the precise suitability of foo<l, make 

 all the difference between health and sickness, between 

 life and death.'' 



Intelligence may — nay, probably has — a home on 

 distant spheres, but in forms stranger than have ever 

 been imagined bj' us. Arthur Ed. Mitchell. 



Oxenhope, nr. Keighley, 



Januarj' 8th, 1901. 



J^oticts of Boofts. 



••Es.~AVj I.\ iLLlSlEA'no.V Of THE AcTloN "I AsTHAI. 



Gkavitatio.v in Xatiral Piie.nomena." By "William 

 Leighton Jordan, i.r.g.s., etc. fLongmans.) Us. — Mr. Jordan 

 is by no means satisfied with the current opiuions of men of 

 science on the fundamental principles upon which the 

 systematised body of knowledge called science is based. 

 Though he has written other books, this is the first which has 

 come under our notice, and from a somewhat careful reading the 

 conclusion arrived at is that there is more valuable material to 

 Ije obtained elsewhere. No good end would be .served by 

 dealing with each of the six essays in detail. It must suffice to 

 tike one as an e.\ample. This is called " Sir Isaac Xewton.and 



Modern Chemistry.'' One or two short quotations will .servo 

 the useful purpose of enabling the reader to form for liiinself 

 an c.stimate of tlic value of Mr. Jordan's contribution to science. 

 " Among the important advances in scientific knowledge .... 

 there has been a tendency in the direction of showing that 

 material subsfcmoe exists only within a limited range of 

 temperature : that is to say, that a snificiont rise or fall of 

 temperature will transmute any form of matter into immatoiial 

 force." (11. 15'J,) "Too limited a view seems to be taken of the 

 extent and powers of nature in supposing material atoms to bo 

 unchangeable, for that idea in fact places tho.sc atoms above 

 the powers of nature, and might indeed almost be said to make 

 them nature's gods." (p. IGl.) On page Ki'i, " atoms of pure 

 water " are spoken of. Un page 18.') occurs this statement: — 

 " Careful experiments in closed vessels have shown that this 

 (increase in mass on oxidation) is duo to a transmutation of air 

 into metallic substance during the process of calcination ; and 

 in this case a return to normal temperature does not rctrans- 

 f orm the metal to air." For the present it would seem advisable 

 to content ourselves with mere orthodo.i phys'cs an<l chemistry. 

 "Loud Lii.roED (Thomas Littleton, Forinii Baron).'' 

 A Memoir by his Sister, with an introduction by the Bistiop of 

 London. (Smith, Elder.) Illustrated. 10s, (id,— Pending a 

 more elaborate biograph}', Mrs. Drewitt has put together a brief 

 memoir of her brother, the late Lord Lilford. It was as an 

 ornithologist that Lord Ijilford was chiefly famed, lie was of 

 too retiring a nature to publish much, but his works on the 

 "Birds of Northampton," and his "Coloitrcd Figures of the Birds 

 of the British Islands " are well known, while a number of 

 valuable papers from his pen ajipear in the fb/s and other 

 publications. Although he had the grievous misfortune in the 

 prime of his life to become a martyr to rheumatic gout, which 

 confined him to a bath chair for practically the remainder of 

 bis days, he was an ardent sportsman, and a still more ardent 

 lover and observer of nature. Asa man he was generous and 

 liberal in the extreme, and so uno.-tentatious was his beneficence 

 that the extent of it can never be gauged. His affliction caii.sed 

 him intense suffering, ami, moreover, made him completely 

 helpless, which to a man imbued with in-lincts of sport and 

 travel must have been the deepest trial, yet he counted his life 

 a happy one, and never complained of his lot. The most 

 interesting part of this memoir will be found in the letters 

 written at various times to his friends. They .show the character 

 of the man, as well as his intimate knowledge and great love of 

 animal fife, and especially of birds. The illustrations are 

 chiefly of birds from the collection at Lilford Hall. There 

 Lord Lilford had gradually brought together an extraordinary 

 collection of live birds, which were kept in a state of freedom 

 only second to nature. jMany of these birds were of great 

 rarity. Many he had obtained him.self during trips to Spain 

 and various parts of the Mediterranean. Some notes written 

 for the Natural History Society at Northampton by Lord Lilford 

 on his aviaries appear in the memoir, and will give an idea of 

 the extent and richness of the collection. 



"Pkoble.ms or Evolution." By F. W. lleadley. (Duck- 

 worth.) 8s. net. — Though Lamarckism is a century old, and 

 Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published in 18.0'J, naturalists 

 are still divided in their opinions as to the causes which have 

 determined the evolution of plants and animals. Bamarck 

 maintained that external conditions modify the individual and 

 that the next generation inherits the modification. Darwin 

 showed how the struggle for existence could account for the 

 survival and propagation of organisms wliich varied from the 

 normal in characteristics best suited for the environment in 

 which they happened to be. If the Lamarckiaii principle is 

 true, then the ])art played by natural selection in producing 

 now species is comparatively small, hence the two hypotheses 

 oppose one another and provide much material for discussion. 

 There are naturalists who accept the fundamental idea of 

 Lamarck, but a much larger school follows Darwin and 'Wallace. 

 A new epoch was commenced by Prof. Woismann, whose 

 brilliant studies command the attention of biologists, oven 

 though objection may be raised to the doctrines which have 

 grown out of them. " Weismann," to u.se Jlr. Headlov's words, 

 " saw two very remarkable phenomena for which a theoretical 

 basis must be fouud. First, heredity, the recognised fact that 

 sons closely resemble theh parents; secondly, the fact, as he 

 himself considered it to be, that acquired characteristics are not 



