134 



KNOWLEDGE 



[June 1, 1894. 



Notfecs of Boolts. 



Man the Primeval Saratje : his /laimts and relics from the 

 hill-tops of Bedfordshire to Blarkwall. By Worthington G. 

 Smith. (Stanford, 1894.) — A most interesting and artis- 

 tically illustrated book, in wbich the author describes, in 

 " clear understandable words," several of bis own researches, 

 throwing light on the history and surroundings of paleolithic 

 man in England. After the glacial epoch, when the boulder- 

 clay was deposited, England seems to have been submerged 

 to a great depth beneath an icy sea, where its surface 

 received deposits of sea organisms ; it then gradually rose 

 till England was conjoined with that part of Europe now 

 known as Northern France. The Thames, the Rhine and 

 the Elbe were then tributaries of a great river which 

 emptied itself into the North Sea ; and the present 

 English Channel was represented by a river which Howed 

 towards the Atlantic, midway between Cornwall and the 

 north coast of Brittany, and emptied itself into the 

 Atlantic at a point to the west of where the Land's End 

 now is. It is known that the Thames was then broad, 

 and ran at a considerable height above its present level, 

 depositing river gravel, sand and brick-earth, in terraces 

 on the hillsides bordering its course. In these deposits 

 the relics of primeval man first appear. In some localities 

 such relics are comparatively abundant, not on the surface, 

 but imbedded amongst the gravel, sand, or brick-earth, a 

 hundi-ed feet or more above the present river level. 

 Palfeolithic man seems to have wandered into what is now 

 Great Britain from the mainland of Europe, and with him 

 came the mammoth, or great hairy elephant, the rhinoceros, 

 the lion, and the hyaena. But few relics of the bony 

 fabric of the paleolithic savage remain, though the stone 

 weapons and tools which he made use of are comparatively 

 common ; and Mr. Worthington Smith has found many 

 other objects that he used, even wooden stakes, the points 

 of which he sharpened with his rough stone implements. 

 The book will be found easy reading and very instructive, 

 both from a geological point of view and on account 

 of the anthropological and archfeological evidence which 

 Mr. Worthington Smith brings before the reader in a 

 most vivid manner. 



Creatures of other Days. By the Eev. H. N. Hutchinson, 

 B.A., F.G.S. (London, Chapman and Hall, 1894). — As 

 Sir W. H. Flower remarks in his preface to this fascinating 

 and interesting book, there must always be much that is 

 mere guesswork in the restoration of the external appear- 

 ance of extinct animals, known only by their bones and 

 teeth, but Mr. Hutchinson and the accomplished artist, Mr. 

 Smit, who has aided him, have both done their work very 

 conscientiously, and have made use of much information 

 that is not available to the general reader when he 

 endeavours to reconstruct for himself the outward appear- 

 ance of the ponderous uncouth mammals and enormous 

 reptiles which held possession of the world for so many 

 ages. We shall probably never know much more about 

 the soft parts which have perished than can at the present 

 time be gleaned from the skeletons, footprints, horns, and 

 armour plates preserved in museums, though it is possible 

 that in the future different interpretations may be placed 

 upon obscure indications which are now imperfectly 

 interpreted. The chapter on the horse and its ancestors 

 is ot special interest because of the wonderful series of 

 fossil horses brought to light by geologists, and so clearly 

 interpreted by Huxley, Marsh and other authorities. These 

 remains constitute the most complete chain of evolution 

 yet known to the palaeontologist. When people inquire for 

 the " missing links," he can point with satisfaction to the 

 bones of ancient horses and show the gradual steps by 



which the little five-toed ancestor of the Eocene period 

 gradually lost some of its toes, and took on other features 

 till its descendants evolved into the noble animal of the 

 present day. Most of the knowledge brought together by 

 Mr. Hutchinson in this book is the outcome of the scientific 

 work of the present century, and by far the greater part of 

 it belongs to the second half of the century. It is difficult 

 now to realize the ideas with regard to the past history of 

 our globe which prevailed at the beginning of the century, 

 when Cuvier, in 1804, from a study of the bones of the 

 palseotherium, found in the celebrated gypsum quarries of 

 Montmartre, near Paris, demonstrated for the first time to 

 the satisfaction of the scientific world that vertebrated 

 animals inhabited the earth in former times other than 

 those now found upon its surface. The book is a sequel to 

 Mr. Hutchinson's " Extinct Monsters," and will probably 

 be still more popular. 



The Economics of Commerce. By H. de B. Gibbins, M.A. 

 (Methuen & Co., London, 1894.) — Mr. Gibbins' little book 

 will be welcomed by those who want a concise and sound 

 little manual on economic questions. At the end of each 

 chapter, which deals with the subjects treated of in a 

 simple as well as forcible manner, Mr. Gibbins gives 

 valuable lists of the books and papers that should be con- 

 sulted by those who wish to obtain a wider knowledge of 

 the questions dealt with. 



The Wurhts of Space. By J. E. Gore (Innes & Co., 

 London, 1894). — This is a collection of thirty-three very 

 readable essays and articles on astronomical subjects, 

 which have appeared at various times in The Xeu-beri/ 

 House Mai/azinc, Knoirled^/e, The (ientleman's Ma;/azi7te, The 

 Sun, and Indian EiKiineering. The publishers have re- 

 produced very creditably many of the illustrations which 

 have appeared in Knowledge. 



Tlie Art of Pnijectinn, and Cumplete Mai/ic Lantern 

 Manual. By an Expert (published by E. A. Beckett, 

 London). — A well illustrated little book, giving several 

 practical hints, and suggesting handy methods which will 

 be found useful by lecturers. 



The following books have also been received for review : 

 Our Count ry's hlou-ers and how to know them, by W. J. 

 Gordon, with an introduction by the Rev. George Henslow 

 (Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.); Our Country's 

 Jiirds and how to know them, by W. J. Gordon (Simpkin, 

 Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.) ; The Starry Skies : First 

 Lessons on the Sun, Moon and Stars, by Miss Agnes 

 Giberne (Seeley & Co.); The Amateur Telescopists' Hand- 

 hook, by Frank M. Gibson, Ph.D., LL.B. (Longmans, 

 Green & Co.); The Bluebook of Amateur Photographers for 

 1S9S (Walter Sprange, London). 



St<cn« Notes. 



Dr. Max Wolf is to be provided with a new observatory, 

 which will be erected, at the cost of the city of Heidelberg, 

 on the top of the " Gaisberg," about one thousand feet 

 above the present university buildings. The Karlsruhe 

 Observatory and its instruments is to be removed to the 

 same spot, so that there will be a twin observatory on the 

 summit of the "Gaisberg," the meridional department 

 being superintended by Prof. Valentine, and the astro- 

 physical department by Dr. Max Wolf, whose friends are pro- 

 viding him with a new and larger photographic instrument. 



Mr. David Morris calls attention to the noteworthy dis- 

 covery of the seeding of the sugar-cane, which has never 

 before been observed, the cane having been entirely pro- 

 pagated by cuttings for many hundred years. By a curious 

 coincidence a sugar-cane seeded both in Java and in the 



