kn()\\ij:I)(".i. 



Janiarv. 1912. 



lAOI.l TION. 



Tlu- Mnttitioii Tlu-ory. — \\<\. 11.— Tin- OiiKiri "I \.irirtiis liy 



Mutation. Hy HlT.o Di: \'kii;s, I'rofcs.sor of Hot.-iiiy .'il 



.Xinstci'dain. bSi pages. Willi 149 finiiri's anil six coloured 



plates. 9j-in. X6-in. 



iKffj.m Paul. Trench, Triibncr & Co. Price 18 ■ net.) 



The principal features of the theory of Mutation were dealt 

 with at length by Professor de \'ries, in his two volumes 

 published in German in 1901 ;ind 190J, in which he 

 eiidoavourcd to present as completely as po.ssible the detailed 

 evidence obtained from trustworthy historical records, and 

 upon his own experimental researches, on which the theory 

 is based. In l't(M. Professor de \'ries delivered .i cour.sc of 

 lectures on this subject in l-^iKlish, at the I'niversity of 

 California, at Berkeley in that Stale, in which those points 

 were emphasized most suitable for scientific demonstration to 

 a class of advanced students. 



The present volume is a translation by Professor J. H. 

 Farmer and Mr. A. D. Darbishire. of the second vohime of a 

 later enlarged edition of the original work, embodying the 

 most recent researches, and including the results of confirma- 

 tory and independent experiments : and omitting certain 

 generalities and the presentation of such ancillary statements 

 as are desirable in tirst formulating the basis of a new theory. 



The distinguished author is insistent on his theory repre- 

 senting a phase of Evolution, neither antagonistic to the 

 theories of Darwin and of those who followed him, nor 

 detachcdiy critical of them, but complementary and to a 

 certain extent supplementary to them. Darwin contrasted 

 Natural Selection with .Artificial Selection. Natural Selection, 

 which formerly occupied such a prominent place in the 

 Darwinian scheme of the survival and salvation of the fittest 

 la prominence, however, which was neither sanctioned nor 

 encouraged by Darwin himself either in his correspondence or 

 in his later worksl. is now. by general consent, relegated to the 

 more subordinate position of an agency which is no longer 

 considered causal, but directive. 



.As Professor de \'ries implies, even before the appearance 

 of Darwin's works, it was recognized that the task of 

 systematic biology as a descriptive and classificatory science 

 was different from the mere question of actual kinship. The 

 factor of convenience for the purposes of scientific study had 

 to be introduced as an index to investigation before tlie 

 recjuired data of morphological facts had been ascertained. 

 .-\t the very moment of the appearance of Darwin's " Origin of 

 Species.'" the French botanist. Godron.was publishing a work 

 ■' De rKspecc et des Races dans Ics litres Organises." It 

 may be urged that the author's range of biological research is 

 circumscribed in the demonstration and application of his 

 theory. The origin of species is an object of inquiry and of 

 investigation in all three of the biological sciences of Anthro- 

 pology, /oology, and Botany. Natural selection is least 

 obvious in the last. .Not only is this the section to which 

 Professor de Vries almost exclusively confines his scope ol 

 inquiry, but he further restricts it to garden cultures rather than 

 to wild .md native plants, in which former category the work- 

 ing of Natural Selection is reduced to a minimum. Where 

 sceptics would like to see the interplay or at least the 

 segregating factors of Mutation-phenomena is in the indigenous 

 flora or, better still, among ethnic types. It is not in accord 

 with the cosmic process of Evolution that diverse results of 

 similar incentives to variation should co-e.xist in one or more 

 groups of biological phenomena, or in one more obviously 

 than in the others. 



The subject is boldly handled in the section on "Systematic 

 Biology and the Theory of Mutation" (page 567). The author 

 essays to clinch the arginnent by a challenge, that if it can be 

 shown that the nmtation theory satisfies the demands of 

 systematic science on the one hand, .uid of embryology on the 

 other, better than the present form of the theory of selection, 

 its justification as a theory of the nature of inheritance will, in 

 his opinion, lie placed on .i sure foundation. With the 

 enthusiasm born of empirical theory .iiid of experimental 

 investigation, and with a wimIiIi of ilhistr.ilioii. he proceeds to 



ilemonstrate the applicability of the theory of mutation to the 

 main conclusions of the doctrine of Evolution. — that blessed 

 word which the late Lord Salisbury compared with 

 "Mesopotamia" as a comforting sedative for the minds of 

 jaded theorists. 



Here, however, there is some special pleading, and nnich 

 is made of the experience of gardeners and of interfering 

 hybridists. But. however much Inorganic Nature may abhor 

 a vacuum, it can hardly be said that Organic .Nature abhors 

 hybridity. It. in fact, rather resents the opposite extreme. — 

 cleislogamy : and does its best to thwart it. I urther than 

 this, the hybrid-products familiar as the Conuiion Lime and 

 the Connuon Elm are more vigorous than their original pairs 

 of parents. On the other hand, the normal fertility of 

 vS'(f/i.v-hybrids, and those of Mentha and liubiis, and of 

 garden-hybrids in Primidaceae. is a well-established fact. 



In his concluding pages, the author conmients on the 

 geological periods of mutation. Onoting from Lord Kelvin. 

 W. K. Brooks and Professor K. E. Schneider, he agrees with 

 those who assume that in cosmic history there have been 

 special periods of great variabilitv : for instance. " when 

 land-animals, and again when Man, originated." In these 

 periodical waves of rapid and intensive variation unusually 

 active within a definite time, the author, if he accepts 

 the principle of such modes of origin, conies dangerously 

 near an attempted revival of Cuvier's cataclysmal theory, 

 long ;igo exploded and relegated to oblivion. The writer of 

 this notice humbly ventures to dissent from the dictiiiii 

 that this is a ijuestion of comparative anatomy and of syste- 

 matic science. It xvas a ()uestion among the more rampant 

 teleologists of the pre-Darwinian days, but it was one which 

 has been convincingly and finally answered. 



However much one may dissent from the wide and com- 

 prehensive application and the enlarged scope of the theories 

 of Mendelian heredity and of mutational variation in contrast 

 with the original and restricted claims of those who defineil 

 them, one cannot but welcome this bold presentation of an 

 attractive theory, which Professor De \'rics supports and 

 fortifies with the aid of a laborious, co-ordinating, and 

 instructive series of experimental investigations, and which 

 will strongly appeal to all serious students of Biology. — both 

 those who endeavour to :ibsorb and assimilate all the new 

 light which may be shed on the problems of Evolution, and 

 those wlio arc perplexed with the apparently conflicting and 

 discordant " biochronic e()uations" which occupy such a 

 subordinate place in their correlation. 



Fkedkkic N. Wii.i.i.\m>. 



GEOGR.APHV. 



\'e\c Zealand. — HyTHE Hon. Sik Roui;rt SriK i . K.C.M.( ... 



LL.D., and J. Logan Sturt, LL.B. The Cambridge Manuals 



of Science and Literature. 185 pages. 20 illustrations. 



6.5-in.X4Mn. 



(Cambridge University Press. Price 1 - iiet.i 



This little book forms one of the Cambridge Science and 

 Literature Series ; in our opinion its contents are neither 

 the one nor the other, and we do not (juite see for whom 

 the book has been written. True, a great deal of information 

 is stored in its hundred and eighty-five pages, .ind the 

 names of its distinguished authors are a sufficient guarantee 

 of accuracy, but further than this we cannot commend the 

 book. We should certainly hesitate to place it in the' hands 

 of a schoolboy. .As a book of reference, or as a guide to New 

 Zealand, it does not seem to be sufficiently detailed, while as 

 an introduction to the study of the country, its produce and 

 people, it fails to stimulate curiosity or interest. 



Modern geography teaching consists not merely of the 

 stringing together of facts, to be committed to memory by the 

 pupil, but it tries to answer the question " Why." and after 

 presenting certain principles, shows as far .as possible how 

 these may be brought to expl.iin not only the (ihysical but the 

 political geography of a country .as well. We look in vain for 

 any such guiding plan in the xolume under review. We hold 

 tlial a crowd of facts with little or no explanation is useless 



