July 18, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



67 



Vivisection in its Scientific, Eeligio%is, and Moral Aspects. 

 By E. D. GiRDLESTONE, B.A. (London : Simpkin, Mar- 

 shall, it Co. 1884.) The Utility and Morality of Vivisec- 

 tion. By G. Gore, LL.D., F.R.S. (London : J. W. 

 Kolckmann. 1884.) — We have classed these two pam- 

 phlets together, inasmuch as they have one common aim : 

 to plead for our right t3 experiment (of course under due 

 restrictions) on the lower animals, for the benefit of man- 

 kind. Any impartial jiersou who will read these brochures 

 through with the attention that they deserve, will be able 

 to estimate at its true worth the cant of those who ride and 

 drive horses which have been subjected to a mo=t painful 

 form of " vivisection " (as probably as not by au ignorant 

 country farrier), who eat veal that has been slowly bled to 

 death, who will leave a pheasant with its thigh shattered 

 by shot to die in a ditch, but who shriek with horror if a 

 frog is decapitated, or the larynx of a dog opened, to obtain 

 knowledge that may benefit thousands of suffering human 

 beings. 



Vaccination, by Alexander Wheeler. (London : 

 E. W. Allen. 1883.) — More anti-vaccination juggling with 

 statistics ! Mr. Wheeler gets hold of one table of mortality 

 and finds that ten years of least small-pox had more deaths 

 than ten years of most small-pox ; and then of another, 

 showing that ten years of most small-pox had more deaths 

 than ten years of least small-pox ; but the}- all (according 

 to him) prove the same thing I We all remember how 

 Bret Harte took tlie number of people who were annually 

 killed on railways and the number of those who died in 

 their beds, showing conclusively that it was almost indefi- 

 nitely safer to travel by rail than to go to bed. The anti- 

 vaccinationists appear to us to deal with their statistics on 

 a strictly cognate principle. 



Solar FJiysics. An Alnianack of the Christian Era, &c. 

 By A. H. SwixTOX. (London : W. H. Allen i Co. 1883.) 

 — After wearily wading through this curious muddle of 

 science and non-science (or, more shortly, nonsense) in its 

 gorgeous cover, whereon a sun like a gilt crumpet reposes 

 on an azure ground, we found that it concluded with a 

 " list of subscribers." This, at all events, sufficed to explain 

 the otherwise incomprehensible fact of its ever having been 

 published at all. Our idea, gathered from its perusal, is 

 that the author is a perfectly sincere and conscientious 

 fanatic, who has been patted on the back by what has been 

 not too politely called " the sunspot ring," in this country, 

 for the sake of the respectability shed upon their professed 

 views by their proclamation by a disinterested person. At 

 all events, he quotes from a contribution of his own to the 

 organ devoted to the pecuniary advancement of the gently 

 referred to. But he really ought to be right in his facts. 

 To begin at the beginning, he sets down 1882 as the 

 year of maximum sunspots, whereas the Astronomer 

 Royal (on ]). 8 of his " Report to the Board of Visitors of 

 the Royal Observatory Greenwich, read on June 7, 1884), 

 says : — " The mean spotted area of the sun was slightly 

 gi'eater in 1883 than during the preceding year." So, again, 

 with his allegation (p. 46) that years of Sunspot Maxima 

 are those of the greatest rainfall : Can his friend, Mr. 

 Symons (p. 70), give him no information on the British 

 rainfall during 1883 and 1884? The argument on pp. 61 

 and 62, however (if it can be dignified by that name), is 

 perhaps as typical of our author's reasoning capacity as 

 anything he advances. " Mr. F. Chambers," we are told, 

 " has stated that when the sun is most spotty, then the mean 

 yearly pressure on the barometer at Bombay is least ; whOe at 

 St. Petersburg, from 1822 to 1871, the mean height of the 

 barometer is said, contrariwise, to have accorded with the 

 spottings of the sua .... Certainly the spots affect the 

 barometer" (!) This "certainly" is delicious, and strongly 



suggests the dialogue in the immortal street drama of 

 Punch. " About six weeks ago," says the original owner 

 of Toby, " I lost this dog." " And," responds Mr. Punch, 

 "about six weeks ago I found him." "Well," says his 

 interlocutor, " tliat shows he's mine " " No," says Punch, 

 " that shows he's mine." Is not the parallel perfect] 



The Student's Guide to Scientific Botany. By Robert 

 Bextlet, F.L.S., ic. (London : J. i A. ChurchLlI, 1884.) — 

 We have one fault to find with Mr. Bentley's excellent little 

 book, and that is the absence of a glossary of botanical 

 terminology from its pages. But for this, it would be as 

 invaluable to the beginner as it now is to the advanced 

 student. Under existing circumstances, the incipient 

 botanist who was struggling to identify one of (say) the 

 Lilia; might rather fail to ascertain whether the specimea 

 under investigation had its " Authers introrse " and its 

 " Fruit a loculicidal capsule," in the absence of any idea 

 what " introrse " and loculicidal " could possibly mean 1 If, 

 however, weconceive him to have mastered these and cognate 

 terms, he could hardly possess a handier or more useful 

 companion in his rambles in search of plants than the work 

 before us. As the majority of the illustrations are taken 

 from British medicinal plants, this small volume would 

 seem to have been chiefly written as a text-book for the 

 botanical examination of medical and pharmaceutical 

 students ; but any one who, by the aid of Mr. Bentley's 

 book, will honestly work through the various genera of 

 plants he describes must assuredly obtain a sound and com- 

 prehensive knowledge of the princip es of systematic 

 botany, to whatever purpose he may ultimately apply it. 



Wonders of Plant Life under the Microscope. By 

 Sophie Bledsoe Herrick. (London : W. H. Allen & 

 Co., 1884.) — This pretty and pleasantly written volume 

 deals with some of the more remarkable facts in structural 

 and physiological botany, and is well calculated to create, 

 or strengthen, an interest in plant^life, and to invite atten- 

 tion to the marvels which it presents. We note one or 

 two trivial errors in points of detail, but none of sufficient 

 importance to detract from the value of a delightful book> 

 Assuming that the object of its fair authoress has been 

 to make the study of plants attractive, assuredly she has 

 succeeded. 



Confessions of an English HacMsh-Eater. (London : 

 George Redway, 1884.) — Accepting the recorded expe- 

 riences of the author of this work as genuine, they pre- 

 sent a certain amount of interest to the toxicologist and 

 psychologist. By taking tincture of hemp be appears to 

 have induced a sequence of wild waking dreams and night- 

 mares, which he sets forth in somewhat rhapsodical 

 language. Fortunately we find it hard to conceive that he 

 will make many converts to his peculiar method of intoxi- 

 cation — at all events, in this country. 



Ox page 8 of the " Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Boartl 

 of Visitors of the Roral Observatorv at Greenwich," presented at 

 the Annual Yisitation of the Eoyal Observatory, June 7, lSS-1, we 

 read that " The mean spotted area of the sun was slightly greater 

 in 1883 than during the preceding year." Hence it is pretty obvious 

 that 1883 was the year of sun-spot maximum of the current cycle. 

 Turning now to p. 34 of the " Results of the Meteorological and 

 Magnetical Observations for 1883," at Stonyhurst College Observa- 

 tory, we find Father Perry saying that " The rainfall for the year 

 was nearly two inches below the average" (for the last thirty-six 

 years). Certain members of a remarkable association at Brompton, 

 known as " The Committee on Solar Physics," are now tired of 

 assui-ing the uninstructed and unscientific public that years of 

 maximum sun-spots are invariably those of maximum rainfall too; 

 and that it is only necessary to pay sufficiently highly to have the 

 one watched to enable the other to be predicted. It is as well that 

 the real truth should be known in this matter before the National 

 Exchequer is further called on to subsidise those who make such 

 baseless assertions. 



