468 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 5, 1884. 



South America in 1831. This was a turning-point in 

 Darwin's career ; and but few of those who will read these 

 lines can be ignorant of his narration of his own adven- 

 tures and observations in his " Journal of Researches." It 

 -was during this voyage that those observations were made 

 which culminated in the publication, in 1859, of his 

 imperishable work, "The Origin of Species." How this 

 was howled and thundered at from thousands of pulpits, 

 how it was derided and denounced by the Quarterly Heview 

 (which, nine or ten years later, had to eat its own words 

 with what relish it might), and how the theologians raved 

 against it at the meeting of the British Association in 1860, 

 will all be found recorded in Mr. Woodall's pages. Truly, 

 the record may make us blush as a nation that such igno- 

 rance, fanaticism, and bigotry should be rampant in 

 England during the latter half of the nineteenth century. 

 Of Darwin's subsequent works on " The Expression of the 

 Emotions," Orchids, and structural and physiological botany 

 generally, culminating in the remarkable one on the "Forma- 

 tion of Vegetable Mould " (by earthworms), this is not the 

 place to speak. It may suffice to adduce as an illustration 

 of his astounding patience aud love of truth that this last 

 volume was not published until the completion of an expe- 

 riment which lasted tioenUj-nine years. Probably, of no 

 one who has flourished during the past two hundred years 

 can it be more truly said than of Charles Darwin, that 

 Exegit nionumentum cere perennius. 



The Stale and Education. By C. H. Schaible, Ph.D., 

 M.D. (London : T. Hodgson. 1884.)— With true German 

 patience, and attention to minute detail, does Dr. Schaible, 

 in his 1 29 pages, discuss the whole system of State educa- 

 tion, from that of the Spartans and Cretans, down to our 

 own School-board epoch. He is, so to speak, a Mundella-ite 

 of the Mundella-ites, and would seemingly, had he the 

 power, give a gratuitous education — we mean, of course, 

 gratuitous so far as the pupils or their parents are con- 

 cerned—to a large number who now, righteously enough, 

 are compelled to pay for it. Why the half-pay officer or 

 the struggling barrister should have to pinch and deny 

 himself in every possible way in order to educate his 

 children, while the working man is not to do without a 

 single pint of beer or ounce of tobacco that his family 

 may be taught, is not immediately apparent to the man 

 who is no partisan. To all, however, who wish to see a 

 one-sided view of the question ably maintained, we may 

 say that they will find a mass of argument in the work 

 before us. 



Drav-ing to Scale. (London : Moffatt & Paige.) — W^e 

 liave one solitary fault to find with this, otherwise excel- 

 lent, little tract. It is that in places ' and " are used for 

 feet and inches. These symbols signify minutes and seconds 

 of arc, and nothing in the world else ; and it is as legitimate 

 — or illegitimate — to employ them in this way as it would 

 be to make them stand for pounds and shillings, or gallons 

 and quarts. 



The Season. (London : 1884.) — Professedly scientific in 

 our aim and purpose, Fashion, in the ordinary sense of that 

 term, is rather outside of our scope. We know not if there 

 be a science of dressmaking ; but, if so, it may, we should 

 imagine, be advantageously studied in the pages of the 

 profu.sely-illustrated magazine whose first number lies 

 before us, and which ought to be invaluable to ladies 

 whose maids are their milliners too. 



The Asclepiad. By B. W. Eichardson, M.D. (London : 

 Cade & Caulfield.) — There is no falling-off in the interest 

 of Dr. Piichardson's journal, valuable as it is to the patho- 

 logist and physiologist. The number before us contains a 

 contribution to Dermatology, in shape of two coloured 

 photographs of a man's hand poisoned by bichromate of 



potassa, so dreadfully natural (and nasty) as almost to 

 deter the layman from touching the page on which it is 

 depicted. 



Natural Reason versus Divine Revelation. By Jvhiun. 

 Edited by Eobeet Lewins, M.D. (London: Freethought 

 Publishing Company.) — The rule which strictly excludes 

 theological subjects from these columns prevents any 

 criticism of the work whose title heads this notice ; and we 

 only refer to it here in connection with certain assertions 

 on its seventeenth and eighteent'u pages. We there find 

 statements categorically made with reference to utterances 

 in Convocation in 1870 of the then Bishops of Winchester, 

 Gloucester and Bristol, St. David's and Llandaff", which the 

 writer should either be compelled to withdraw, or which 

 demand the most serious consideration on the part of 

 churchmen and orthodox believers generally. 



The Disk. By E. A. Eobinsok and G. A. Wall. 

 (London : Griffith, Farran, Okeden, k Welsh. 1884.)— 

 This weird little American story is full of that pseudo- 

 science which distinguishes more than one of the remarkaMe 

 romances of M. Jules Verne. It is unnaturally natural, 

 naturally unnatural — we hardly know in which way to 

 describe it — but it is not without interest and a fair modicum 

 of excitement. It is the very book to while away a railway 

 journey with. 



Calvert's Mechanic's Almanack for 1885. (Manchester: 

 the Editor ) — An exceedingly useful little hand book for 

 those engaged in the mechanical trades. This is the twelfth 

 year of publication. 



Energy and Motion. By William Paice, M. A (London: 

 Cassell & Company, Limited, 1884.) — An admirably com- 

 piled text-book on elementary mechanics, designed and 

 eminently adapted for beginners. The author essays to 

 "lead up to the laws of motion from simple notions rather 

 than, beginning with those laws, to deduce simple notions 

 from them." One important feature noticeable about the 

 printing is that the laws, and other portions which would 

 ordinarily be set up in italics, are set up in an exceptionally 

 heavy type, and are made, therefore, what they ought to 

 be, the prominent and striking feature in an introductory 

 work. 



E.vercises in Electrical and Magnetic Measurement. By 

 R. E. Day, M.A. New Edition. (London: Longmans, 

 Green, i Cc, 1884.) — There is no doubt that electricity is 

 now so far developed as to warrant its being included 

 amongst the exact sciences. Any work on the subject of 

 electricity that ignores or only deals superficially with its 

 measurements is seriously discounted in the eyes of electri- 

 cians. This book is of the greatest possible utility to the 

 student, and is full of exercises worked out in concrete 

 quantities, and deprived thereby of the forbidding blankness 

 that too often enshrouds purely algebraic formul;a The 

 book is highly commendable. 



The Popular Guide to the Telegraph and Postal Service. 

 By William Lvnd. (London : Wyman i Sons, 1884.) — 

 This, to those who purjiose devoting their attention to 

 postal and telegraph duties, affords one of the best possible 

 means of attaining that knowledge which is essential to the 

 work. We know of no other publication, except official 

 and therefore exclusive books, which may be resorted to 

 for the purpose. It cannot fail to find a ready market 



Proceedings of the Perthshire Society of Xaliiral Science. 

 Vol. I. Part IV. (Perth : lS8i.)—T:he'Proceedings before 

 us show what a large amount of real, original, and valuable 

 work may be eflected in Natural Science by a local Society 

 devoting itself to an exhaustive examination of its own 

 district. The record of excursions made and papers read 

 is both interesting and instructive. 



