182 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[August 1, 1899. 



spectroheliograph, Deslandres' discoveries in the spectrum of 

 Altair. Lockyer's Meteoritic Theory, Chandler's 'Wandering of 

 the Pole, and other recent developments, are all noticed, so that 

 the book is fully up to date. For so small a book, indeed, it is 

 very remarkably complete, and the explanations of principles or 

 difficulties, though brief, are usually very clear. Lastly, 

 especial pains have been taken with the illustrations, which are 

 very numerous and good. Many of these are decidedly novel 

 and striking. Thus in the two illustrations of the chief circles 

 of the horizon equator and ecUptic sj-stems, the different lines 

 and curves are not lettered or numbered for reference, but are 

 most distinctly labelled. So, too. with the telescopes. We must, 

 however, object to the picture of the zodiacal light on p. .351, as 

 utterly unlike the subject it professes to represent, whilst on 

 p. 308"he has fallen into the inexcusable mistake of representing 

 the eclipsed moon as 5° in diameter. 



Smithsoman Institution. Eeport by S. P. Langley, for the 

 year ending June .30th, 1898. Since the establishment of the 

 Smithsonian foundation at Washington, in 184(i, scientific 

 research in America has progressed steadily, and the long series 

 of publications issued have been the chief means of spreading 

 the fame of the institution, the buildings of which are fine, and 

 contain the national museum, and a good library, as well as the 

 Library of Congress. In this report, Prof. Langley gives us 

 an outline of the operations of the institution during the year 

 ending June 30th, 1898, including the work placed under its 

 direction by Congress in the United States National Museum, 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology, the International Ex- 

 changes, the National Zoological Park, and the Astrophysical 

 Observatory. The permanent funds of the Institution are as 

 follows : — 



$51o,169-00 

 26,210-63 

 108,620-.37 



Bequest of Smitbson, 1846 ... _ 



Kesiduary legacy of Smitbson. 1867 



Deposits from savings of income, 1867 



Beqnest of James Hamilton, 1875 



Accumulated interest on Hamilton fund, 1895 ... 



Bequest of Simeon Habel, 1880 



Deposits from proceeds of sale of bonds, 1881 



Gift of Thomas G. Hodgkins, 1891 



Portion of residuai-y legacy, T. G. Hodirkins, 1S94 



Sl,000-O0 

 1.000-00 



2,000-00 



500-00 



51,60000 



200,000-00 



8,000-00 



Total permanent fund ... 912,0<:i0-00 



The first grant made hy the Institution for scientific explora- 

 tion and field research was in 1848, to Spencer F. Baird, of 

 Carlisle, for the exploration of the bone caves and the local 

 natural history of south-eastern Pennsylvania. In recent years 

 a vast amount of such work has been carried on by the bureaus 

 —a work made possible by Congressional appropriations for this 

 purpose. The works published and circulated during the last 

 fifty years form a library of about two hundred and fifty 

 volumes. In 18><7 the institution sent out seventy-one tons of 

 documents, and had two thousand one hundred and sixty-five 

 correspondents at home and seven thousand three hundred and 

 ninety-six abroad ; during the p.ast year it transmitted one 

 hundred and fifty-one tons, and had six thousand nine hundred 

 and fifteen correspondents at home, and twenty-two thousand 

 five hundred and forty-three abroad. Indeed, the system of 

 international exchanges is the most powerful factor of the 

 Smithsonian Institution for carrj-ing out efficiently the bene- 

 ficent purpose of its founder — to diffuse knowledge among men. 

 The Essex Katiiralist. Edited by Wm. Cole, f.l.s., f.e.s. 

 (Essex Field Club, Buckhurst Hill, Essex.) 6s. per annum. We 

 have before us the parts of Tol. X. of this excellent publication, 

 a work which is almost wholly local, i.e., devoted to the elucida- 

 tion of the natural history, geology, and pre-historic antiquities 

 of the count}' of Essex. The Essex Field Club is about nineteen 

 years old, and has alreadj- published some eighteen volumes of 

 " Transactions " and " Special Memoirs." As might be expected, 

 the subjects dealt with touch on every phase of the outdoor 

 world as seen in the county of Essex— boring in search of coal, 

 food of oysters, notes on the Eyjping Forest species of mycetozoa, 

 floral aspects of the forest, fungi and how they should be re- 

 presented in the local museums, fresh- water algae, protection of 

 birds, tides on the coast, ancient defensive earthworks, soils and 

 subsoils, and so on. Indeed, whatever can in any way contribute 

 to the economic or social welfare of the county is assured of a 

 place in this little magazine, which is occasionally very well 

 illustrated. 



Researches into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the 

 Greeks, Phoenicians and Babylonian.?. By Robert Brown, Junr., 



F.S.A., M.R.A.8,, &c., &c. Vol. I. (Williams & Norgate, London, 

 Edinburgh and Oxford.) 1899. Mr. Robert Brown, Junior, 

 is George Eliot's Mr. Casaubon with a difference. The " Key 

 to all the Mythologies " never took concrete form within the 

 covers of a printed volume. Mr. Brown is more energetic than 

 his fictional prototype, and liis version of the " Key " reaches 

 its fifteenth avatar in the present volume. But the scholarship, 

 the industry, the essential and ostentatious pedantry and the 

 complete obsession of the man by a single theory are character- 

 istic equally of the real as of the imagined writer. Yet with 

 all this, it is beyond dispute that Mr. Brown's books, and the 

 present one in p.ai-ticular, have a very high value. In spite of 

 page after page filled with matter which is really irrelevant, 

 and which seems to have been simply introduced in order to 

 impress the reader with a proper sense of the amazing learning 

 of the author : in spite of continual repetitions which confuse 

 rather than help, and of an arrangement far from well con- 

 sidered, the present book stands out as the most serious and 

 scientific attempt yet published to trace the old constellation 

 figures back to their origin. Mr. Brown traces the primitive 

 constellations of the Greeks — those, that is to say, that are 

 described for us in the Phainomena of Aratos — back to the 

 early inhabitants of the Euphratean Talley, and particularly to 

 the Akkadians, from whom the Greeks derived them through 

 the Phoenicians, the Hittites. and the later (Semitic) Babylo- 

 nians. This opinion Mr. Brown has set forth again and again 

 in his earlier books, but though his details and repetitions are 

 wearisome and often wholly unnecessary, there can be little 

 doubt that, so far as there is evidence at present available, he 

 proves his point. The question is different when he enters on 

 the signification of the constellations. Here only one answer 

 is regarded as admissible. Everj' constellation, without excep- 

 tion, is sim])ly a special case of the great solar myth. So 

 sweeping and so simple an explanation is self -condemned, and 

 indeed we find that most of his interpretations of the signs of 

 the zodiac assume that they were mapped out when Aries was 

 the equinoctial sign, yet he is careful to point out (p. 3-.i7) that 

 the present arrangement was adopted when the sun still entered 

 Tanrus at the vernal equinox. The fact is that many of the 

 myths with which Mr. Brown deals were clearly originated at 

 a relatively late date in order to account for the signs, the 

 origin of which had then been forgotten, instead of the process 

 being the reverse. It would be unjust, however, to enlarge too 

 much upon the faults, glaring though they may be, of a writer 

 who has made a real advance in a difficult subject. But we 

 cannot conclude without a reference to the perversity with 

 which Mr. Brown forces his ideas of the correct orthography 

 of famUiar proper names upon us at every turn. One single 

 page supplies us, beside five synonyms for Babylon, with the 

 following ; Uarayavaush, Nabukudurra-utsur, Qarth-Hadasth, 

 which we .are kindly informed either here or elsewhere are meant 

 to represent Darius, Nebuchadnezzar, and Carthage, and we 

 are tempted to exclaim with honest old Hugh Evans, " The 

 tevU and his tarn I what phrase is this? why it is affectations." 



Sfoni/hurst College Ohservator)/ : Besults of Meteorological 

 and Magnetic (Jbservationsfor 1898. Father Sidgreaves' Eeport 

 presents its usual neat and clear appearance, and as an ardent 

 meteorologist he has the happiness on this occasion of estab- 

 lishing a record, the month of January being the warmest 

 January in the Observatory annals. The appendix, which gives 

 the meteorological observations taken at St. Ignatius' College, 

 ]Malta, furnishes a less ])leasant record for October. No readings 

 of the ground thermometers were taken in that month from the 

 20th to the 30th inclusive. The reason for this omission is not 

 expressly stated, but a suggestive account of a hailstorm on the 

 1 9th, with hailstones as large as hen's eggs, which crashed 

 through wooden Venetians, and ])ierced through corrugated 

 roofs, is appended in a footnote. A useful little table of dates 

 of magnetic disturbances is given on p. 50, but Father Sidgreaves 

 concludes that there is at present no clear law connecting the 

 magnetic disturbances with the sunspot areas of the year. 



The Scientifc Boll ami Magazine of Sgstemati~ed Notes, 

 conducted by Mr. Alexander Ramsay. This work is to be 

 completed in sixteen numbers. It embraces (1) a hibliographg, 

 classified according to subjects arranged ((/) under year of 

 jjublication, and {h) aljihabetically as to authors, and each 

 item has its number for reference purposes ; (2) an index, 

 which, although arranged alphabetically, is classified in groups 



