iO 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Feiiruary, 19C2. 



the Malaeostraca, however, there is no a]>iirnaeli to a 

 probosciiliform head, nor are heads to be found entirely 

 devoid of appendages. Sueh a state of cephalic destitution 

 does not occur even in the degraded parasitic isopods, and 

 if it did, these as well by their life as their limbs are 

 removed from comparison with the Pjcnogouida Again, 

 the Malaeostraca never have the eyes planted anywhere 



Pi/cnogonum lUlorale (Strom). Magnified. After E. B. Wilsou. 



but Upon the head. The eyes may be stalked or sessile, 

 separate or united, compouud or simple, or mixed of both, 

 or they may be altogether absent, but they are never 

 under any circumstances placed upon the thorax, which 

 according to Savigny's interpretation is their position in 

 Nymphon and its allies. The presence of external 

 branchiae, as found in the Malaeostraca, in contrast to the 

 total absence of branchiae from the Pycnogonida, is set 

 aside by Savigny as a difference of trifling importance. 

 But the puny abdomen which is common to the Caprellidea 

 and the Pycnogonida really narrows down the applicability 

 of his comparison to the ampbipods, since these are the 

 only malacostraoans among which the degraded abdomen 

 occurs, and all these have external branchi-ae on the 

 thorax. The four hinder pairs of legs in the Amphipoda 

 present numerous diversities of shape, but through them 

 all they take care in their articulation never to exceed the 

 limit of seven joints. With equal fidelity the Pycnogonida 

 in their walking limbs take care to exceed that number. 

 It would certainly seem, therefore, that from almost every 

 point of view, Savigny's attempt to homologize the 

 Pycnogonid limbs with those of the Crustacea, was a 

 failure. It took its rise apparently from Baster's verbal 

 mistake in calling a Pycnogonum a whale-louse, it was 

 fostered by a certain superficial resemblance between two 

 quite different animals, and it was developed through 

 over-eagerness to make one triumi^h of ingenuity lead on 

 to another. 



From this historical and controversial discussion some 

 facts relating to the structure of our "nobodies" will 

 have been gleaned. There are rather singular details to 

 be recounted hereafter. 



i^otCc tg of B ooftg. 



'■ Ma.n. ' — The most generally interesting item in the January 

 issue, which commences a new volume, of this excellent 

 anthropological journal, is an illustrated article by Prof. E. B. 

 Tylor on a " totem-post " from Queen Charlotte Island, British 

 Columbia, recently erected in the Pitt Rivers Museum at 

 Oxford. The ])ost, iu its present condition, is a little over 

 forty feet in height, and is appropriately placed between two 

 " house-posts," which came from the same village, if not from 

 the same house. A photograph of tlie Haida village of Masset 

 shows a row of these totem-posts (among them the Oxford 

 specimen) before the chiefs' houses. " No more posts,'' writes 



Prof. 'J'ylor, "are likely to be set up at .Masset. Missionary 

 inliuencc has impresse<l on the native mind a sense of such art 

 being a waste of labour.'' It if, therefore, well that this fine 

 example has been secured in time. The exquisite coloured 

 plate shows in detail the elaborate carving and colouring of the 

 crown of the post ; the "totems," or figures, being those of the 

 family of its original owner. Other articles in the same 

 number deal with the practice of altering tne shape of the head 

 among certain Pathans in the Punjab, Burmese jiipes, Irish 

 folk-lore, etc. 



"The Earth's Bei;in.nixg." By Sir Robert Stawell Ball, 

 I.I..!)., F.K.s. (Cassell.) Illustrated. Ts. 6d.— Kir Robert 

 Ball is always interesting, and not least so when he is lecturing 

 to children. The present volume is the result of his juvenile 

 lectures at Christmas, in 18'J'.i-l'Ji)i">, in the Royal Institution, 

 thrown into book form, and form a popular exposition of 

 Laplace's nebular hypothesis, in which Laplace's theoretical 

 reasoning is touched upon very lightly, and more fully the 

 evidence in its favour afforded by the photographs of nebulae 

 and star clusters, taken in America by the Lick and Yerkes 

 Observatories, and in this country by Dr. Isaac Roberts and 

 Mr. W. E. Wilson. The book is very fully illustrated, two of 

 the pictures of Krakatoa, and of its effects on an English 

 sunset, beiug highly coloured. We could have wished, however, 

 that the pictures had not been printed in the te.xt, but had been 

 given as plates on separate pages, without printing or illustra- 

 tion on the back. The first paragraph suggests that Sir Robert 

 had sat at the feet of Lord Rosebery when he gave his astrono- 

 mical speech at Birmingham in October. Does Sir Robert 

 really find from personal experience that '" temporarj' concerns'' 

 (such as toothache or influenza) are forgotten iu the presence of 

 such phenomena as a spiral nebula, or in the contemplation of 

 the solar evolution from the primeval fire-mist V And does Sir 

 Robert really mean to give the impression that the uebuliE that 

 Dr. Roberts has photographed in Pisces, or Coma Berenices, or 

 Ursa Major, are such systems even as the Milky Way, only 

 writ small since they are so distant from us and from it ? 

 Surely this is but the heresy of the " I'lOO universes '' which Sir 

 AVilliam Herschel de.soribed to Miss Burney as " whole sidereal 

 systems, some of which might well outvie our Milky Way in 

 grandeur," the heresy of which his later knowledge made him 

 recant. 



"Anticipations op the Reaction of Mechanical and 

 Scientific Pkogress upon Hu.man Life and Thought.'' 

 By H. G. Wells. (Chapman & Hall.) Price 7s. 6d.— Of the 

 many hundreds of books published in the course of a year, it is 

 not often possible to name more than five or six which force 

 themselves upon the attention of thoughtful readers of all 

 classes. One of these select volumes from the literary output 

 of 1901 is Mr. Wells's "Anticipations"; and we do not hesitate 

 to say that no more vigorous and stimulating statement of 

 human affairs and destinies has been published for some time. 

 The author is best known ])erhaps by his fantastic stories, in 

 which many scientific readers have found delight, and failed to 

 find the paradox of the central idea. In this volume we have 

 himasa philo.sopher, oracle, and prophet, who, surveying existing 

 customs and social relationships, relentlessly points out the 

 shams, pronounces the doom of stupid methods and conven- 

 tionalities, and predicts the condition of things at the end of 

 this century. It is impossible in the brief space which can here 

 be devoted to the book to describe even in outline the social 

 analysis and synthesis elaborated by Mr. Wells ; but we can 

 indicate the hue of argument. Take, for instance, the subject 

 of locomotion of the present and future. Now we have the 

 crowded, slow, uncomfortable, unpunctual trains, which, in the 

 case of London suburban traffic, traverse about twelve miles |in 

 an hour, and make it impossible for men with business iu the 

 city to live far out -in the country. Leaving aerial navigation 

 out of the cpicstioD, it is suggested that the development of 

 locomotion will probably be in connection with automobiles 

 running on specially prepared tracks. Carriages of this kind 

 will enable people to get out of town quickly, easily, and with- 

 out the necessity of departing from one particular station and 

 being carried to another, which may or may not be close to the 

 desired destination. Horse traffic is a means of locomotion 

 which is unworthy of an enlightened generation ; for besides 

 being inefficient, it is destructive and defiling to the streets. 

 With the growth of motor tracks, the radius of a city will bo 

 greatly extended, and telephonic conunuuication will fciiable all 



