18 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[January 1, 1900. 



and minun the buoyant auxiliaries of science, could hardly 

 sustain tlie voyage from cover to cover. The word "popular" 

 can hardly be applied to a book in order to understand which 

 the reader must know the nomenclature of the chemist, the 

 phraseology of the dissecting room, and the out-of-the-way 

 language of many other specialists iu different domains of 

 science. 



Curiosities of Light initl Sif/lit. By Shelford Bidwell, F.R.s. 

 (Sonnenschein.) Illustrated. '2s. (id. Consists mainly of matter 

 presented in the form of lectures at various places, but here re- 

 modelled for a larger public. Of a popular and informal cha- 

 I'acter, as might be expected in such a case, the essays, as we 

 may now call them, bring into relief such phenomena as 

 defects of the eye, optical illusions, curiosities of vision, and so 

 on, subjects which appeal more particularly to the spectacled 

 section of the community. Heavily leaded type is used, and a 

 fair-sized volume is thus eked out of an almost stai'vation 

 supply of intellectual food. 



Vieirs tin some of the Phenomena of Nature. Part II. By 

 James Walker. (Sonnenschein.) 2s. (id. Our author has 

 selected for his theme all the inexplicables — force, motion, 

 space, ether, hght, heat, electricity— and courageously attempts 

 to fly in this attenuated atmosphere, so to speak. One needs 

 to be very wide awake in order to glean a little mental food 

 here and there in this arid desert ; but now and then it is 

 possible to drop across an oasis— fertile, refreshing, new. For 

 example, " light and the sun's photosphere are one,'' " light is 

 the sublimed product from matter in an incandescent state," 

 and light is " projected into space by some disruptive force 

 developed on the sun's surface." 



Sport in East Central Africa. By F. Vaughan Kirby (Maqa- 

 qamba). (Rowland Ward.) Illustrated. 8s. 6d. This book, 

 deaUng with several hunting trips in the wilds of Portuguese 

 Zambesia and the Mozambique Province, is full of the most 

 stirring incidents connected with big game shooting that can 

 well be wished for, told in the most matter-of-fact way imagin- 

 able. It is not to be inferred from this that the author has 

 been guilty of giving us " travellers' tales," or even of stretching 

 a point ; indeed, we believe every story he tells. And as to his 

 matter-of-fact style, we admire it, and thiuk that it adds very 

 greatly to the interest of the book. It is, in fact, the style — a 

 rare one — in which all books of big game shooting should be 

 written. That Mr. Kirby is a true sportsman — and not a wanton 

 destroyer of animal life — and a brave and resourceful man to 

 boot, is testified by many a page of his engrossing and exciting 

 narrative. A very useful appendix to the book contains interest- 

 ing and informing field notes on all the larger animals — and 

 there are many — obtained by the author in the region of which 

 the work treats. We heartily recommend the book not only to 

 sportsmen, but to those who are in any way interested in East 

 Central Africa, for the author knows the country and its people 

 well, although, perhaps, his knowledge of them is not so intimate 

 as that of the wild animals for the hunting of which he has 

 lived. 



Tlie Soeiai Life (f f^culland in the Eii/hternlh Century. By 

 the Kev. Henry Crey Graham. Two vols. (A. & C. Black.) 

 24s. To draw an indictment against a nation has always proved 

 at once an easy and a popular task, no matter how jioor the 

 grounds of the charge, or how remote from the facts. There 

 are few [leople in the world who have suffered more odium in 

 this way at the hands of the im])ecunious scribbler than the 

 race across the border. But Scotland has incvirred a lasting 

 debt of gratitude to the author of these fascinating volumes 

 for the comprehensive acumeu with which he has exploited the 

 records of the past, placing in our hands a delightfully vivid 

 picture of Scottish life and Scottish manners in the last century. 

 Mr. Graham has essayed to give us history in its most instruc- 

 tive form — to bring before his readers the life of the whole 

 people, rich and poor, lairds and labourers, as they lived it. 

 The goal which he has set himself is the worthiest in the 

 historian, and our author has justly followed his course to the 

 end. " It is in the inner life of a community that its real 

 history is to be found — in the homes and habits and labours of 

 the peasanti7 ; in the modes and manners and thoughts of 

 society ; what the people believed, and wliat they practised ; 

 how tliey farmed, and how they traded ; how the [loor were 

 relieved ; how their children were taught, how their bodies 

 were nourished, and how their souls were tended." Thus the 

 task. But at what infinite pains of research, of sifting and 



sorting, of weighing and counting, has that task been accom- 

 plished. Apart altogether from the great reach and number of the 

 authorities consulted, what countless documents, letters, bills, 

 pamphlets, and kirk session records have been laid under contri- 

 bution, as these entrancing glimpses of that far away time are 

 unfolded before us. Not the least among the virtues of the 

 work is the thoughtful orderliness and compactness of the 

 picture as a whole — the artistic limning of that ])eaceful revo- 

 lution which brought the impoverished country and people 

 onward and upward in every channel of national activity. If 

 it be not invidious to single luit any portion of a book in which 

 we have not found a dull page, we may be permitted to direct 

 attention to the cha])ters on The Land and the People, on 

 Education in Scotland, and to the happy and entertaining 

 account of Town Life in Edinburgh. In this latter chapter the 

 author realises most vividly the later period of the greatness of 

 the old town, in wliose dark recesses. Lord Rosebery has told 

 us, are embodied three-parts of the history of Scotland — when 

 the High Street was the daily meeting place of judges, 

 ministers, and advocates, when lords of Session resided in the 

 Canongate, and resorted at night to the Crochallan Club, so 

 famous for its association with Burns, or might be found at 

 John Dowie's tavern. We do not know a better account of 

 this intensely interesting chajiter in the life of Auld Reekie. 

 In taking a regretful leave of Mr. Graham's book, which is sure 

 to become a standard work in Scottish history, we can but hope 

 that the unique success which has crowned his labour in the 

 preparation of these two volumes, may induce him to write the 

 necessary third volume on the Literature and Fine Arts of the 

 Century, for which he must have amassed a quantity of 

 material. Without such a volume the work is scarcely com- 

 plete. 



Star-land. By Sir Robert Stawell Ball, F.R.S. (Cassell.) 7s. 6d. 

 It almost makes one long to be a child again, and to have the 

 right to form one of Sir Robert Ball's audience at his Christmas 

 lectures at the Royal Institution, to read the new edition of 

 " Star-land." Sir Robert has a charm of style and a gift of 

 words that go far to make the hard things of astronomy easy, 

 and the abstruse problems plain ; and where there is a bit of 

 the way of knowledge that seems dull or uninteresting, he has 

 an anecdote or an illustration that carries one over the dreary 

 part with a rush. The very largest part of the book tells of 

 that portion of the stellar universe which is comprised within 

 the limits of the solar system ; and, perhaps, it is a slight indi- 

 cation of Sir Robert's Hibernian origin that has led him to adorn 

 the cover of " Star-land ' with a very beautiful golden repre- 

 sentation of the corona and comet of 1882. Speaking of corona;, 

 it is just a little bit of a pity — after Sir Robert Ball has explained 

 to the children that the size of an object depends very largely 

 on its proximity, and that very serious consequences would 

 result to the temperatui'e of the earth if it was brought closer 

 to the sun — that, on p. 40, in Trouvelot's drawing of the eclipsed 

 sun of 1883, he should have brought it so alarmingly near. The 

 original representation in " L'Astronomie '' was considerably 

 exaggerated, l)ut Sir Robert's copy is like Creusa's ghost in 

 Virgil's description, mda major imai/o. There is one point on 

 which Sir Robert Ball speaks with assurance, but on which we 

 have not been able to gather any direct or fijst-hand evidence. 

 On p. 57 he has a representation of a man standing inside and 

 at the base of a very tall chimney, and below is the description, 

 " How the stars are to be seen in broad daylight." Is it 

 really so, and how many stars, and of what magnitude, can be 

 seen thus '? 



Colour : A Ilandhoolc of the Tlteory of Colour. By George H. 

 Hurst, F.c.s. (Scott, (ireenwood & Co.) Illustrated. 7s. 6d. 

 Artists, dyers, calico printers, and decorative painters, who are 

 accustomed to use pigments iu their everyday work, will find iu 

 this book a valuable compilation on matters concerning every 

 phase of colour— its production by the decomposition of hght, 

 theories of colour phenomena, physiology of light, contrast of 

 tone, decoration and design, and measurement of colour, or the 

 exi)ression of ditferent tints by numbers so that any given 

 shade of colour can be re])roduced from data preserved in note- 

 books or received from other sources. Some excellent plates 

 largely augment the value of the work. 



Wild Life in Hampshire Hit/hlands. By George A. D. Dewar. 

 ( Dent & Co.) Illustrated. 7s. Gd. This is one of the handsomely 

 bound and luxuriously printed volumes of the Haddon Hall 

 Library now beiug issued under the editorship of the Mari(ucss 



