274 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[No^•EMTiER 1, 1897. 



Royal Society being now engaged on a scheme for an 

 International Record of Scientific Literature which shall 

 deal with every subject in a complete and exhaustive 

 manner; subject indices being an essential part of the 

 scheme. 



But records of scientific literature are, after all, only 

 useful to those who have access to large libraries, where 

 the memoirs quoted may be found ; and there is a large 

 class of scientific readers and students who depend more 

 or less entirely for their information on text-books and 

 such like. And no one can say that at the present day 

 the supply of such works is not fully adequate to all needs. 

 In many branches of science, such as zoology, paleontology, 

 the geographical distribution of animals, the origin of 

 species, chemistry, and geology, such text-books, if fairly 

 well up to date, ought to give the worker a good general 

 idea of the subject treated. But science is ever advancing, 

 and it is but very rarely that a student can depend on 

 the information in a text book for determining whether 

 or no any fact he may have discovered for himself is 

 really new. It must also be borne in mind that the 

 author of a text-book is nowadays very seldom an 

 expert in the whole of his subject, and that consequently 

 some portions of his work are far less valuable than 

 others. Then, again, there are difi'erent grades of such 

 works. For instance, the ordinary popular natural history 

 is but too frequently regarded as if it were a scientific 

 treatise of high and original value, whereas it is, from 

 the necessity of the case, mainly or partly a mere com- 

 pilation. Between such a work and a strictly scientific 

 treatise stand memoirs Hke Sir William Flower's article 

 " Mammalia " in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," which, 

 although now somewhat out of date, may be appealed to 

 with more confidence. The highest zoological treatises, 

 which contain all the available information up to the 

 date of publication, are, however, the British Museum's 

 "Catalogues" of animals, living or extinct, which now form 

 a most extensive series, although far less well known to 

 the ordinary amateur worker than they should be. In some 

 groups these invaluable publications are, unfortunately, 

 far behind date, but in groups where volumes have recently 

 been issued the task of the student is an easy one. He 

 has but to make himself acquainted with all the information 

 on the subject he may require from the " Catalogue," 

 and then turn to the Zoological Record for subsequent 

 years to find if anything fresh has been recorded. And, 

 this being done, he will be in the proud position of knowing 

 all that is worth knowing regarding his particular line of 

 study. Would that we could say there were the same 

 facilities in other sciences ! R. Lydekker. 



REVIEWS. 



Reports of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894, 1895. 

 (Washington : Government Printing Office.) 



Report of the United States National Museum. (Washing- 

 ton : Government Printing Office.) 



It behoves all men of science to give thanks for the 

 existence of the Smithsonian Institution, for certainly no 

 organization in the world works more extensively, or so well, 

 for the advancement of scientific knowledge. Before us we 

 have two bulky volumes, running into sixteen hundred 

 pages altogether, and constituting the Smithsonian Reports 

 proper for the years 1894 and 1895, while a third volume, 

 containing more than one thousand pages, is the Report 

 of the United States National Museum (which is under 

 the direction of the Smithsonian Institution) for the year 



1894. It will be evident that the contents of works of 

 such a voluminous character as these cannot be adequately 

 described in the brief space of a review ; it is, indeed, 

 impossible to refer to a tithe of the contributions included 

 in these weighty tomes. 



What makes every Smithsonian Report a desirable 

 possession to a man of science is not so much the report 

 of the secretary upon the operations and conditions of 

 the Institution (if Mr. S. P. Langley will pardon us for 

 saying so) as the general appendix, which is usually seven 

 or eight times larger than the administrative statement. 

 The appendix to each Report comprises a collection of 

 miscellaneous memoirs on scientific subjects selected from 

 periodicals published in various parts of the world, and 

 possessing interest for all who are engaged in the promotion 

 of natural knowledge. Reprints or translations of thirty- 

 seven memoirs of this character, covering a variety of 

 subjects in physical and natural science, appear in the 

 Report for 1894, and thirty in the Report for 1895. 

 Several of the memoirs in the latter volume are essays 

 upon the properties of atmospheric air, sent in to compete 

 for the Hodgkins Fund prizes often thousand, two thousand, 

 and one thousand dollars respectively. It will be remem- 

 bered that the first prize was awarded to Lord Rayleigh 

 and Prof. Ramsay for the discovery of argon. The 

 second prize was not awarded, and the third went to 

 Dr. H. de Varigny, of Paris, for an essay entitled " L'Air 

 et la Vie," a translation of which is given in the Report. 



Leaving the Smithsonian Reports with a feeling of dis- 

 satisfaction at not being able to do justice to their 

 comprehensive and most valuable contents, we come to 

 the Report of the United States National Museum. In 

 addition to a review of the work of the different scientific 

 departments of the museum during 1894, the Report contains 

 six papers describing and illustrating some of the collections. 

 One of these, on " Primitive Travel and Exploration," by 

 Dr. 0. T. Mason, is a volume in itself, for it covers three 

 hundred and fifty pages, and contains a mass of interesting 

 information on the origins of inventions. Another long 

 memoir is on "The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, 

 and its Bligrations," by Mr. Thomas Wilson. The swastika 

 is the most ancient sign of the cross. Despite the theories 

 and speculations of archaeologists, the origin of this sign 

 is unknown, and it is properly classed as prehistoric. 

 Mr. Wilson's aim has been to bring together information 

 as to the distribution and use of the swastika sign, 

 but he does not discuss its origin or original meaning. 

 " Mancala, the National Game of Africa, " is described by 

 Dr. Stewart Culin, and various forms of the board used in 

 the game are illustrated. Mancala is played wherever the 

 Arab has penetrated. It is played by boys in the streets of 

 Cairo, by guides on the top of the pyramids at Ghizeh, 

 by the Kaffirs in the diamond compounds of South Africa, 

 and, in fact, it has for ages diverted the population of 

 nearly half the inhabited area of the globe. The game 

 may be likened to the game of draughts, and is played upon 

 a board containing two rows of cup-shaped depressions — 

 at least, so it appears to us. Two players use a certain 

 number of pebbles or shells as counters, and transfer 

 them from one hole to another upon a system not easily 

 explained, and altogether mystifying to an onlooker. 



Another paper in the Report of the Museum is on 

 " Primitive Methods of Drilling," by Mr. J. D. McGuire, 

 and all the papers are copiously and brilliantly illustrated. 

 When we remember how liberally the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution distributes publications of this kind among 

 institutions in all parts of the world, we are afforded a 

 remarkable instance of the international interests of 

 science, 



