12 



KNOWLEDGE 



[January, 1002. 



j|tot(»0 of Boofts. 



•Animxl Kifi;: A Fihst Hdiiic on Zool.nuv." ]{y Davifl Starr 

 jMrdiiii, I'U.u., i.i-.i)., ami Vi-nion L. Kellog, ji.s. (Hi-iirv 

 KiiiiiJtou.) 1901. Tp. jx. iiiid 328. 7s. 6il. lut.— TIiih i"s 

 iui exceedingly iiilenvtitiiig volume, covering llie wlmle field of 

 bionomics, or, us tlie authors prefer to call it, "animal ecology." 

 They " liave tried to put into .siuijilc form the principal facts 

 and approved hypotheses upon which the modern conceptions 

 of animal life are based." Although superficial in character, 

 as may be gathered from its size, the work is never- 

 theless very succossful. Darwinian rather than Lamarckian 

 principles are inculcated, though no direct attention is drawn 

 to tho tenets of either school of thought, and this, remembering 

 the nature <if the work, is as it should be. 



The illustrations, 180 in all, are exceptionally good and well 

 produced. At the end of the book a classification of animals 

 is given, which is undoubtedly useful, but most certainly marred 

 by all disregard for order and method in the arrangement of 

 the examples selected to rejjresent each class. Genera and species 

 from numerous orders are jumbled hopelessly together in one 

 chaotic nmddle, thus in Class VI., Slamm.i^lia, we liave the 

 following: — " . . . . Monotremes, monkey, gopher, elk, bison, 

 prairie-dog, big-horn, hare . . . ." and so "on. Surely this chapter 

 needs revision ! 



• OusERV.vTWN Without I.n.struments : Hints for Young 

 Watchers of the Heavens." Bv Arthur Mee, f.r.a.s. (Cardiff: 

 Lennox Brothers.) 1901. Threepence.— Mr. Alee is already 

 well known for his " Observational Astronomy," a marvel of 

 cheapness, and of useful information, well and clearly put, and 

 we feel sure that tlie reputation he so justly gained by his 

 larger book will secure a very wide circulation for this admirable 

 little tract. It is just the book that thousands of people need, 

 who would like to do something in astronomy and yet cannot 

 afford the money which good instruments, even small ones, cost. 

 Such will find Mr. Mee's neat little pamphlet an introduction 

 to an unsuspected pleasure. 



" Thk (jrowth of OiR EiiPiEK : A Handbook to the History 

 OF CtReateh BRiT.iiN." By Arthur W. Jose. (John Murray.) 

 6s. — Accepting the author's" own designation of his work a«" a 

 " Handbook " to the History of Greater Britain, we can com- 

 mend this volume as a thoroughly readable narrative of the 

 great achievements of the Anglo-S"axon race in everv part of 

 the world. And if we regret the inability of a careful and 

 animated writer to distinguish between the partisan and the 

 historian, especially in regard to events passing before his own 

 eyes, it is consolatory to remember that he errs in good com- 

 pany, and that writers of fiction have seldom equalled and 

 never surpassed the prolific imagination of some historians. But 

 some of Mr. Jose's speculations are very thin, and his conclusions, 

 shall we say, deplorable. The history of this great subject has 

 yet to be written, and we may hope" that Mr. Jose's Handbook 

 may serve the eminently useful purpose of pointing the way to 

 the greater task. The present book contains many maps well 

 illustrating its subject, and is furnished with a good" index. 



" Pleasures of the Telescope." An illustrated guide for 

 amateur astronomers, and a iwpular description of the chief 

 wonders of the heavens for general readers. By Garrett P. 

 Serviss. (Hirschfeld Brothers.) Illustrated. 6s. net. — The title 

 is singularly appropriate. It has evidently been a great pleasure 

 to Mr. Serviss to write the descriptio"n of all that can be 

 seen, or found out, in the wonder-world that a 5-inch telescope 

 reveals ; it is certainly a very great pleasure to read it. We 

 may say that it actually raises a feeling of envy of those who 

 have the opportunity of examining these objects in Mr. Serviss's 

 telescope under his personal direction. The first chapter is not 

 the least interesting, dealing with the selection and testing of 

 a glass. Briefly, Mr. Serviss advises the purchaser to put all 

 his money in the glass, to have the mounting solid, however 

 rough it may be, to carry the telescope tube ind(K)rs when 

 not in use (a 5-inch telescope tube and gUiss would certainly 

 tend to develop one's muscles), and leave " observatorv. dome, 

 draughts and all " to those who "are both fond of and able to 

 procure luxuries." Having got the glass, he gives most practiciil 

 and practicable advice as to liow to learn whetlier any defect 

 ill the star iniiige is due to the eve, the evepiece, the object-glass, 

 or its collimation. Most of the succe"eding chapters tell of 

 the double stars, variables, clusters, and nebulap, which a 3, 4, 

 or 5-inch telescope may be able to .show in tlie constellations. 

 He then describes scenes on the planets, tlie moon and the 

 sun, and his final chapter discusses the question as to whether 

 there are planets among the stars. This is evidently a matter 

 in which Mr. Serviss takes a deep interest, and "from some 

 chance remarks scattered through the book, one learns that he 



ci/iisiiiers tliat ours is the be«t possible planet, situated in the 

 best possible solar system, and that he has a deep sympathy 

 for any inhabitant of any jilanet that revolves round the sun, 

 either interior or exterior to the earth ; and very much more 

 sympathy still for the unhajipy denizens of the planets which 

 may owe allegiance to Sirius, or to Arcturus or to any other 

 sun. 



" Micromethical Observations of the Doviile St.\bs Dis- 

 covered AT PULKOWA, MADE WITH THE 36-lNCII AND 12-INCH 



Bkkractors of the Lick Ohservatory." By W. J. Hussey. 

 (Publications of the Lick Obser\-atory.) — Tlie 15-inch refractor 

 by Merz and Mahler was the largest in the world when it 

 «ius installed in 1839 in the newly erected Pulkowa Obser- 

 vatory. The director of the observatory. Dr. W. Struve, 

 formulated a programme of work with tho meridian circle 

 which should give a catalogue of all stars down to the 7th 

 magnitude between the north jiole and 15 degrees south latitude. 

 To learn their approximate [ilaccs, the 15-inch refractor w,is 

 used for a survey, and in the course of this a huge number 

 of double stars were marked. These doubles, in the beginning 

 of 1898, Mr. Hussey decided to remeasure and discuss, and 

 the present volume is the result. It is issued in the same 

 form, as nearly as jiossible, as the volume of 1290 stars measured 

 and discovered by Mr. Burnham in Vol. I. of the Yerkes' 

 publications. Besides the measurement and discussion of these 

 stars, which should prove of the greatest value to double 

 star observers, Mr. Hus.sey reviews in the introduction the 

 history of accidental and systematic personal errors, from 

 the time that Dr. William Struve first suggested their existence, 

 and his son, Otto Struve, tried to evaluate them by artificial 

 means. 



" Annu.\l Report on the State of the Paris Observ.\tort 

 for 1900." By M. Loewy. — M. Loewy reports that this year 

 he has begun to publish the " Photographic Catalogue of the 

 Heavens," having issued 11 sheets containing the rectiline;ir 

 co-ordinates of 16,500 st<irs. The Photographic Chan has not 

 progressed so satisfactorily; its edition being paralysed by the bank- 

 ruptcy of one of the two firms which undertake the heliogravure 

 of the plates. The photographic atlas of the moon has been 

 proceeding very satisfactorily under the direction of M. Loewy 

 and M. Puiseux, and at the Paris Exhibition last year, two 

 pictures were shown giving a diameter to the inoun of 1.38 

 metres. 



" A Tre.^tise on Photography." By Sir W. de W. Abney, 

 K.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.s. Tenth edition. (Longmans.) Illustrated. 

 5s. — Sir William Abney's " Treatise on Photography " is so 

 well known in its previous editions that attention need only 

 bs drawn to the additions that he has made in the present 

 issue. He has very carefully and fully described the processes 

 of photo-block printing where the details of the work are not 

 yet kept secret by the firms who use this method, and chapters 

 are also added on the orthochroniatic and trichromatic processes. 

 On page 277 there is an interesting little account of the author's 

 experiments in pinhole photography. He points out (as Lord 

 Rayleigh did some years ago) that there is a focus of best 

 definition for each particular apertm'e of pinhole employed, and 

 he also notes that after the aperture of the pinhole is diminished 

 beyond a certain limit, the image ceases to improve in sharp- 

 ness, as might be expected, owing to the serious diffraction 

 that takes place. The aperture d in millimetres which he finds 

 to correspond best with the distance / in metres of the hole 

 from the plate, is given by the empirical formula (f = 1-25 /_/", 

 but this does not take into account the wave-length of the ray 

 of light as it theoretically should. Has Sir Wilham ever tried 

 the effect of coloured screens with a pinhole aperture? 



" A Civilian War Hospital." By the Professional Sta£f : 

 Drs. A. A. Bowley, H. H. Tooth, C. WaUace, J. E. Calverley, 

 and Surgeon-Major Kilkelly. With numerous illustrations. (John 

 Murray.) 12s. net. — From the point of view of military medicine 

 and surgery, the unfortunate war in South Africa has been of 

 great value ; for it has afforded an opportunity of obtaining in- 

 formation with regard to the injuries caused by small-bore, high- 

 velocity jirojectiles, and the causes of enteric diseases. In this 

 volume we have an account of the work of the Portland Hospital, 

 and of experience of wounds and sickness, with a description of 

 the equipment, cost, and management of a civilian hospital in 

 the time of war From the large amount of valuable material 

 thus made available, a few points of general scientific interest 

 may be selected. Remeaibering the established connection between 

 mosquitoes and malaria, and how plague is probably spread by 

 the bites of fleas which have livt-d on rats stricken with the 

 disease, the observation that flies were always numerous in 

 lilaces where enteric fever prevailed is suggestive. There seems 

 little doubt that flies were to a large extent responsible for the 



