Mabch 1, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



59 



The EncycIojhPclia of Sport. Edited by the Earl of Suffolk 

 and Berkshire, Hedley Peek, and F. G. Aflalo. Vol. II. 

 (Laurence & Bullen.) Illustrated. This volume completes the 

 Encyclopaedia of Sport, the first volume of which we have 

 already noticed. The whole work forms an admirable and 

 trustworthy treatise on every branch of sport, and, indeed, 

 everything connected with sport. No pains have been spared 

 in obtaining authorities to deal with the various subjects, the 

 volumes are well printed and bound, and the illustrations are 

 generally excellent. We have nothing but praise for all those 

 concerned in the production of this rich mine of information. 



London in the Reifpi of Yietoria (1S3~-1S97). By G. Laurence 

 Gomme. The Victorian Era series. (London : Blackie & Son.) 

 2s. 6d. In this new volume, the general editor of this excellent 

 series may be congratulated upon the inclusion of an able and 

 comprehensive sketch of the marvellous development of the 

 great city during the Queen's reign. The nine square miles 

 which formed the area of the London of 18:^7 has grown into 

 the 120 square miles of 1897. As befits a statistical officer of the 

 London County Council, Mr. Gomme is severely statistical, but he 

 has exhibited great skill in collecting and compiling his store- 

 house of facts. Our author is happiest when describing the 

 London of 1837, with the .aid of Fenimore Cooper and some 

 other less distinguished visitore of that diiy. But when shall 

 London's story be told — her history and traditions, the life and 

 character of her people, her contrasts and comparisons, her 

 restless activities and far-reaching ambitions, the terrible help- 

 lessness and hopelessness of so many thousands of her people ? 

 Mr. Gomme has no room and '' scarcely any heart " for this, but 

 we hope to see arise a son of the city who shall proudly tell her 

 story as it deserves to be recorded, not in the patronising air so 

 unhappilj' adopted by Sir Walter Besant, not from the point of 

 view of the statistician or the courier, but as the Life and 

 Letters of a great heart. Until the advent of such a writer, 

 such books as Mr. Gomme's, and the altogether admirable guide 

 book of Mrs. E. T. Cook, do good service in the cause. 



The Living Orgatiism, By Alfred Earl, .m.a. (Macmillan.) 6s. 

 Chemical and physical changes, we know, enter largely into the 

 composition of vital activitj% but, says our author, " there is 

 much in the living organism that is outside the range of these 

 operations." True, too much is taken for granted by many of 

 those who have the courage to grapple with the mystery of life, 

 and the problems and generalizations of the science of living 

 objects are regarded too complacently by most students. In 

 this book an effort has been made to present a broad general 

 view of living things — a clear conception of the distinctive 

 features of organic activity so far as the present state of know- 

 ledge on this complex subject will admit. To those persons, 

 however, whose acquaintance with biological problems is ex- 

 tensive, the book will no doubt appear sketchy, and to the 

 general reader, it strikes us, the wide scope, trenching as it does 

 on every department of scientific enquiry, will present an almost 

 inextricable labjTinth. Certain it is that in spite of the author's 

 attempt to convey general notions to the exclusion of details, 

 he has often afflicted his passages with terms that cannot be 

 appreciated without special knowledge, and it may be doubted 

 whether he has added a new note to the dignified theme he has 

 selected for his essay. 



tieismrilufiy. By John Milne, F.R.s. (Kegan Paul & Co.) Illus- 

 trated. OS. Most of us are already acquainted with Prof. Milne 

 as the author of " Earthquakes and other Earth Movements '' — 

 a standard work in this department of observational science. 

 The book before us is a companion volume, some of the chapters 

 bearing the same title as those in its predecessor ; but it will be 

 found that the subject matter of the new volume contains obser- 

 vations more extensive in character, and more trustworthj' than 

 were formerly obtainable — conditions which admit of the formu- 

 lation of precise conclusions, some of which encroach on new 

 ground. It is, for example, interesting to note that the art of 

 recording earth tremors has now been cultivated to such a degree 

 that we in England may know an earthquake has occurred 

 somewhere, say in Japan, before it is possible to transmit the 

 information to us by telegraph from the place of disturbance. 

 Earthquakes are transmitted with incredible velocity in all 

 directions, so that the " movements of the earth's crust can be 

 equally well recorded and studied in England and other non- 

 volcanic countries as in the most frequently earthquake-shaken 

 districts in the world." Considering that at present the number 



of observers working in this interesting field of research may be 

 counted on one's fingers, it is remarkable that such refinement 

 in the modes of observation should have been attained before 

 the scientific world has thoroughly awakened to the importance 

 of the subject ; for important it certainly is. In a chapter on 

 " Movements of the Earth's Crust in Relation to Physical 

 Research and Engineering," attention is directed to the errors 

 and annoyances to astronomers and physicists caused by earth 

 tremors ; regarding engineering it is pointed out how by the use 

 of seismographs along the coast of .Japan submerged areas of 

 seismic activity have been mapped through which it would 

 be dangerous to lay a cable. In 1888 three cables connecting 

 Australia with Java were fractured simultaneously by seismic 

 disturbances, and Australia called out the naval and military 

 reserves on the supposition that their sudden isolation indicated 

 an operation of war : hence the importance of being able to say 

 whether this was brought about by natural or artificial means 

 cannot be over-estimated. The study of seismology will enable 

 us to do this. Prof. Milne gives a very full bibliography of 

 seismological literature at the end of the book, and numerous 

 references are scattered throughout the text. 



Michael Faradai/ : His Life and Work: Century Science 

 Series. By Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, f.r.s. (Cassell). 

 Illustrated. Hs. I5d. In this volume, of about three hundred 

 pages, Prof. Thompson gives us a most fascinating sketch of "the 

 greatest scientific expositor of his time," embracing the domestic, 

 scientific, and religious aspects of Michael Faraday's life — a 

 sympathetic and appreciative account of the most striking 

 scientific career of the nineteenth century. The son of a black- 

 smith, who had come from Yorkshire to Newington-Butts, 

 Faraday was born there in 17',tl. From the age of five to 

 thirteen he lived over a coach-house in Jacob's Well Mews, 

 Manchester Square ; he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, and 

 read the scientific books which passed through his hands. When 

 about the age of twenty-one years, he attended Davy's lectures 

 at the Royal Institution, took careful notes, and submitted 

 them to Davy, asking for scientific employment. '' Early in 1813, 

 the humble household in which Faraday lived with his widowed 

 mother, in Weymouth Street, was startled by the apparition of 

 Sir Humphry Davy's grand coach, from which a footman 

 alighted and knocked at the door. ... At that interview Davy 

 asked him whether he was still desirous of changing his occupa- 

 tion, and offered him the post of assistant in the laboratory." 

 By the following October, Davy and Faraday were touring 

 through France, Switzerland, and Italy, and the young philo- 

 sopher had to grin and bear the distinction or indignity of being 

 sometimes treated as a sort of valet, although the chief scientific 

 men of the Contiaent "admired Davy " — "loved Faraday.'' He 

 was, in 1821, made superintendent of the house and laboratory 

 of the Royal Institution, and married, living a happy life on 

 one hundred a year. Fees for conducting chemical analyses 

 and expert work in the law courts augmented his pecuniary 

 resources, and " he might easily have earned £5000 a year had he 

 chosen to cultivate the professional connection thus formed." 

 But he never cared for money for its own sake, and, moreover, 

 it was against his religions convictions to enrich himself. 

 Faraday never took out patents for his discoveries ; when they 

 began to possess a mai'ketable value from their application to 

 industry he left them alone, preferring to pursue his pioneering 

 in other branches. In 1835 he received a Government pension 

 of .£800 a year, and in 1858 a comfortable house for life on the 

 green, near Hampton Court. He died, painlessly and peacefully, 

 sitting in his chair in his study, on the 26th of August, 1867. 

 Professor Thompson has shed many sidelights on the various 

 phases of Faraday's life, and his book will help to deepen the 

 interest in a character almost unique in the annals of science. 



LondiiH Univemity Guide and Unirersiti/ Correspondence 

 Calendar, 18'J8-9. (University Correspondence Press.) Gratis. 

 A fund of information is given in this book relative to 

 University examinations, and the means by which aspiring 

 students may force their way to the coveted object — a University 

 degree. Courses of study, and the books suitable for each, are 

 sketched out in such a way that, whatever the needs of the 

 scholar may be. the preliminary labour necessary to find out the 

 means towards the end in view is reduced to a minimum. Degree 

 hunters owe much to the publishers of this useful work, and 

 the best thing we can do. seeing that the book is issued gratis, is 

 to advise all students seeking University honours to avail them- 



