August, 1905.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



2og 



REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 



The New Knowledge, by Robert Kennedy Duncan (Hodder 

 and Stoughton ; price 6s. net).— Let nobody be discouraged by 

 the title of " The New Knowledge " which Robert Kennedy 

 Duncan has given to a volume which sets out, in language 

 which is plain-spoken and easily understood, a good many of 

 the new views in chemistry and physics that the lately 

 imagined anatomy of the atom has created. Let them also, 

 while reading his preface, forgive him for the expression that 

 " in science when a new Alaska is discovered there is a rush 

 of tenderfeet to the district "—for the sake of the germ of 

 truth it contains. What Professor Duncan means is that when 

 an attractive theory is started, such as that the line between 

 force and matter is indiscoverable and perhaps does not exist, 

 there are hosts of raw speculators, who, having been at no 

 pains to arrive at this theory by the slow process of ascer- 

 tained facts, make up for their lack of knowledge or industry 

 by windy forecasts of what may possibly turn out to be true. 

 Such, for example, are the immature students who announce 

 that in radium's activity lie the germs of life. Professor Dun- 

 can's method is not this. He wishes clearly to set out with- 

 out speculation, without surmise, and as simply as possible, 

 the new conceptions of matter, and to show how they are re- 

 lated to one another, and how they are mutually interdepen- 

 dent. He considers, therefore, the later ideas concerning 

 the implied meanings of the terms Matter, Energy, and 

 Ether ; and the consequent importance of the symbols, atom 

 and molecule. Thence he shows how the Periodic Law, 

 governing the structure of the elements which atoms build, 

 took a further step along the road of theory ; and, after that, 

 how the theory of the travelling corpuscle, the " ion " of a gas, 

 arose. The relation of the corpuscle, and the force with 

 which the corpuscle is charged, lead up to the confirmation by 

 solids of the laws suspected as existing in gases. Finally, the 

 re-determination of these facts by the observed phenomena of 

 radio-activity is considered, and the reasons for formulating 

 an electric theory of matter, and for regarding the atom as a 

 planetary system of ions or forces, are shown. Professor 

 Dimcan has brought together a number of modern theories ; 

 he has considered them not critically perhaps, but logically ; 

 and he has shown how they are related to one another. His 

 volume is one which can confidently be recommended to that 

 vast army of inquirers who, not themselves being scientific 

 students of physics, are yet possessed of trained intelligence, 

 and who want a good book on the whole subject. 



K Manual o( Quaternions, by Charles Jasper Joly, D.Sc, 

 F.R.S. (Macmillan ; price los.). — Professor Joly modestly 

 describes his volume on Quaternions as introductory to the 

 works of Hamilton, the great expositor of a new mathematical 

 method ; but it is a great deal more than that. It is a digest 

 of the works of Hamilton, of Tait, and of other mathematical 

 essayists in this subject ; it embraces many results which have 

 appeared in the publications of learned societies, and many 

 others which are new ; and so is to be regarded rather as a 

 definition of the uses, the applicability, and the possibilities of 

 Quaternions in mathematical usage as at present understood. 

 This view, however, of Professor Jcly's work is not exhaustive, 

 for it does more than gather the theories and expositions of 

 Quaternions mder one roof; it is, if not a royal road, then, at 

 any rate, a very carefully constructed road along which to 

 approach them, and one which no other writer has attempted 

 to provide. The works of Hamilton do not aim at teaching 

 the uses of Quaternions ; they rather exhibit the implications, 

 the consequences, and the hypotheses of the symbols ; the 

 student may be imagined as panting after Hamilton up 

 mathematical heights in order to attain comprehension and 

 power. Professor Joly's method is not the same. He ex- 

 hibits the properties of the Quaternion early in his treatise ; 

 he takes the student blindfolded along one defile, and he cuts 

 steps in which he may place his feet. The readers of this 

 notice must pardon a slight exuberance of metaphor ; our 

 final intention is to say that Professor Joly has written a 

 book on Quaternions which will be invaluable to the 

 student. It exhibits the practical uses of the Quaternion 

 in working out mathematical problems ; its own methods 

 are developed with admirablv patient clearness; and it is 

 introductory to the works of Hamilton in the sense that study 



of it will open up fields of mathematical inquiry which 



hitherto have been worked by the few rather than by the 

 many. 



The Evolution of the World and of Man, by George E. Boxall 

 (London: Fisher Unwin, 1905). — This may very justly be 

 called a book of nonsense. It has fallen to our lot to have to 

 read many stupid or indifferent books on the evolution theory, 

 but a more pitiful muddle of fact and fiction than is to be 

 found within the two covers of this volume has, we venture to 

 say, never before been offered to a long-suffering public. 



The author assures us that this work was undertaken " not 

 so much for the advancement of science ... as for the 

 benefit of the man in the street— that is to say, the common 

 people " ! We shall be surprised if " the man in the street " 

 does not show discrimination enough to leave this pretentious 

 guide to knowledge severely alone, though, as a rule, we must 

 sorrowfully admit " the common people " are but too ready to 

 read stuff of this kind. In like manner they run after patent 

 medicines, patent foods, faith healers, and other quackery. 



By way of a sample of what is offered for the consumption 

 of "the common people," we give one or two illustrations. 

 Thus, " For the production of young " we are told " the female 

 supplies the protoplasmic base in the shape of a seed or an 

 egg, which is fertilized by the male introducing into it matter 

 containing the necessary life germs ! ! " Again, " But the 

 change of form from one order to another — as from univalve 

 crustace;e to bivalve, from these to the articulated shell-fish, 

 or from these to the vertebrates — marks an era in evolution " ! ! ! 

 Man we are told has been evolved from a creature closely 

 resembling the marsupial Koala, which, for want of a better 

 name, he calls " the Menschensvorganger, or Menschens- 

 vorfahrer, the progenitor, ancestor, or precursor of man " ! ! 

 Shades of Darwin and Huxley, what are we coming to ? 



But why go on ? We have surely said enough to show that 

 no words of condemnation can be too strong for this jumble of 

 silliness. W.P.P. 



Some Elements of the Universe Hitherto Unexplained, part I., 

 by A. Balding (King, Sell, and Olding; price is. 6d.).— Pre- 

 sumably this book would not have been written had the author 

 fully grasped the significance of "relative motion," "instan- 

 taneous eclipse," and other well-known ideas. Before reaching 

 Chapter I. we find a list of definitions, some of which might 

 have emanated from a Junior Science Form, e.g., " Quadrature 

 — A quarter of the heavens or a point intermediate between 

 directly opposite parts of the sky." This is discouraging and 

 tends to render us more critical. Some of the statements are 

 not so clear as the above sample. The author proceeds to 

 account for the conservation of energy in the solar system by 

 the motion of that system in space, and insists on dealing with 

 " real paths." This is tantamount to finding all motor-cars 

 guilty of " contravening the Act " by travelling (many of them 

 backwards, sideways, or even vertically) at a speed never less 

 than 20,000 miles an hour. The motion of Halley's comet and 

 of the earth are treated in this unnecessarily complicated 

 manner, and then the author falls foul of the accepted explana- 

 tion of the Equation of Time, said to be due partly to the 

 eccentricity and partly to the obliquity of the earth's orbit. 

 The first part is confessedly inadequate by itself; the second, 

 savs our author, lioes not exist. How would he deal with an 

 obliquity of 90° ? Again, though it is obvious the solar day 

 must be longer when the earth is moving faster in its orbit, he 

 professes to find this an enormous difficulty only to be ex- 

 plained from his new point of view. His simple derivation of 

 a new value, 234", for the longitude of the solar apex, from the 

 radiants of meteors, is unfortunately quite unsound, as the 

 meteors are not independent of the solar system, even if we 

 grant the accuracy of a mysterious table of " true radiants." 



Our Stellar Universe : A Road Book to the Stars, by T. E. 



Heath (King, Sell, and Olding, Ltd., 1905 ; pp.74; 5s. net). — The 

 authnr has introduced a most interesting scheme of presenting 

 the members of the stellar universe to the popular as well as 

 the general scientific reader. The general impression after 

 reading many astronomical treatises is that the stars are so 

 far removed that the only possible conception of them is as if 

 they were lying on the surface of a sphere, all at practically the 

 same distance. The present book is to show that, with the 

 most recent and authentic values of stellar parallax, it is con- 

 ceivable to picture many members of the stellar universe as 

 situated at various distances from the Sun.^Not only this, but 



