(6 



NA TURE 



[May 17, 1894 



uncoDtrovcitible evidence, ard concludes with the remark ihal 

 Shakespeare's natural history "is comnionplace when it is correct, 

 and ' Elizabethan' «henil iswiong." His method of handling 

 animated catuie has had a nacmentous <frcct on all succeeding 

 roetry, so that pcttiy ha^ sung of nature en Shakespeare's 

 lines with an exlraordinaiy fidelity. Groups of creatures which 

 he misrepiescntid have been held up to reproach by poets 

 since his tiaie, and many others deserving of notice have been 

 reglecled. It is lemaiked, however, that "there is no necessity 

 for a poet to Ic a naturalist in order to be true to raiure : but 

 there is the inost urgent necessity that he should be in sympathy 

 with nalure and ready to acknowledge the good and beautiful, 

 even if it should reach him in such questionable shapes as ' the 

 deadly owle' or 'a fullblown toad that venom spits.'" In 

 fact, owing to the gieat influence of Shakespeare's writings, 

 the peculiarities of his sympathies and antipathies have been 

 followed by almost all succeeding poets. His natural history 

 was largely at fault ; indeed, the reviewer asserts that he was 

 sadly unsjmpaihelic and unobseivant. We conclude with a 

 quotation which will come as a itvelalion 10 many people: 

 "But taking men all roind, cidirtril> inielligert men of a 

 country life (a town life was in Shakespeare's day what we 

 should now call country life), was Shakespeare, as compared 

 with these average individual-, ' an cbseiver of raiure?' The 

 question is one liable to shock whose who have followed blind 

 guides so long. The answer to it is liable to shock ihem more 

 severely. No. Shakespeare was curiously unobservant of ani- 

 mated nature. He seems to have seen very little. Ourauihority 

 for this is his own works, which, while they .ibound « ith beauties 

 of fancy and invagination, are most disappointing to lovers of 

 nature by (their eirors apart) their extraordinary omissions." 



Four important works on marine fauna and flora form the 

 basis of an article in the Quatierly A'eviiw on "Ocean 

 Meadows." In the course of the article, the reviewer refers to 

 the necessity for making scientific investigations in the sea 

 round our co.isis, and shows the impiobabiliiy of such work 

 1 eing furthered when those who hold high offices cannot appre- 

 c'.ale its importance. In his words : — 



"The minute animal life in turn furnishes food for shoals of 

 fi»hes, and the importance of an inquiry into the whole life- 

 history and seasonal occuirenccs of such organisms — the basis 

 of the nutrition of maiine life, as green plants are of terrestrial 

 li'e — can scarcely be overrated. No sucli inquiry has ever been 

 conducted in a -ciious scientific spiiit in our seas by other than 

 piivaie invest igalors, unequipped with adequate resources for 

 the proper study of the subject in its economic aspect. Our 

 Fishery Boards concern themselves as little with this vital 

 matter as they pos-iibly can, Nor is this apathy sui prising, 

 when it is remembered that ihe present (Jovcrnment have ap- 

 pointed to the chairmanship of the Scutlish Fishery Hoard an 

 c$ imable gentleman, who possibly underslar.ds the 'brand- 

 ing' of herrings, but whose chief qualilication for the post was 

 a safe constituency. Yet, at the moment when this appointment 

 was made, they had the opportunity, pressed upon them by a 

 large body of scientific men, of choosing an eminent naturalist, 

 whose claims as a student of the ocean are admitted by men ol 

 all nations to be unrivalled." 



Almost every great advance in the study of the ocean has 

 been made by this country, and though other countries are now 

 competing wiih us, an opportunity will soon arise for us agiin 

 to forge ahead. 



" The pro[iosed Antarctic expedition, for which a convincing 

 case has been made out, can add to its usefulness by takin;: 

 yuch an investigation in hand, not only in the Southcin .Seas 

 but on its way to them. There is probably no region s > fertile 

 in the foims of pelagic life as the Southern Ocean, and an 

 expedition which should not make the study of its vegetation 

 one of its main objects had Iwtter stay at home. There is 

 little fear of the subject being neglected in its widest aspects, 

 »i6cc it is one of the professed ' aims which the promoters have 

 in view,' to use the I.Tngu.igc of a prospectus, lio'anists will 

 have themselves to blame, and the public will have them to 

 blame, if through their supine indifference this great and rich 

 harvett of the ocean \x not gathered in. In another respect 

 the limes arc favourable. For many yean this country lost its 

 once eminent position in the study of Ihe coast vegetation of the 

 tea ; but during the list six or seven years so much good and 

 honest woik lias been done by a young and energetic l>and ol 

 observers that this position has been in a great measure 

 retrieved. There are not lacking among our younger botanists 



NO. I 28 I, VOL. 50] 



men of skill in the use of the most recent methods of research, 

 capable of meeting the Germans on their own I'lcld. It will 

 be their fault if the naturalists of another nation forestall 

 them in taking possession of not the least honourable part of 

 our empire over the sea." 



In the Fortnightly, Mr. Grant Allen, in an article entitled 

 " The Origin of Cultivation," attempts to answer the question as 

 to how early savages found out that plants wouid grow from seeds. 

 His views are as follows: — "Cultivation liegan with the 

 accidental sowing of grains upon the tumuli of the dead. 

 Gradually it was tuund that by extending the dug or tilled area 

 and sowing it all over, a crop would grow upon it all, provided 

 always a corpse was buried in the centre. In process of time 

 corpses were annually provided for the purpose, ana buried with 

 great ceremony in each field. By-and-by it » as found sufl'icient 

 to offer up a single victim for a whole tribe or village, and to 

 divide his body piecemeal among the (iclds of the community. 

 Hut the crops that grew in such lields were still regarded .is the 

 direct gifts of the dead and deified victims, whose soul was 

 supposed to animate and fertilise them. .-Vs cultivation spiead, 

 men became familiarised at last with the conception of the seed 

 and the ploughing as the really essential elements in the process ; 

 but they still continued to attach to the \iciim a religious im- 

 portance, and to believe in the necessity of his presence for 

 good luck in ihe harvest. With the gradual mitigation of 

 savagery an animal saciifice was ofien substiiuted for a human 

 one; but the fia;;ments of the animal were still distributed 

 through the fields with a mimic or symbolical burial, just as the 

 fragments of the niangod h.ad formeily been distributed. 

 I'inally, under the influence of Christian'ty and other civilised 

 religions, an efligy was substituted for a human victim, though 

 aji animal sacrifice was often retained side by side with it, and 

 a real human being was playfully killed in p.miominie." 



Another origin about which .\Ir. Grant .\llen makes sugges- 

 tions is that of language. His remarks on this subject 

 appear in Lotigmau's Magazine, under the title " The 

 Beginnings of Speech." The Sunday Afaganne contains an 

 article on " The StufTwe are Made ol," by L)r. J. M Hobson, 

 in which some facts concerning amcvla.- are stated, and also « 

 sketch of the life and environment of Kichaid JclTeries, by the 

 Kcv. B. G. Johns. " Moon-Manor MoonMaid " is the title of a 

 short article by Mr. William Can'on in Givii U'oiJs. One of 

 Cassini's drawings of the Gull of Rainbows on the moon shows 

 the form of a girl's held i-merging Irom the rocks of the 

 promontoiy of Heraclides on one side of the Gulf. M. 

 Flammarioii reproduced this drawing in L'Aitionomte some 

 lime ago, and lamented that he had been unnble to find the 

 figure in any other drawing, or obseivc it liimself. A few 

 months later, however, M. ijucnesset made out the form of a 

 man's face at the spot to which attention had been dtawn, and 

 two hours later on the same evening M. Mabire, observing at 

 the Juvisy Observatory, depided " without a single stroke of 

 imagination " the head of a woman in ihe same place. Mr. 

 Canton's remarks refer to these two drawings, reproductions 

 of which are given. The illustrations arc curious, but not 

 very instructive ; they appeal more to the poetical than the 

 scientific miiul. 



Mr. llenniker Healon writes on " Telephones: I'.ast, Present, 

 and Future," in the Neiv Review, his point of view being chicHy 

 Commercial. .Sir Herbert Maxwell espouses ihe cause of tree- 

 planting in London, and enumerates .some of ihe trees suit- 

 able for town .adornment. " The Imilaiive F'unciions, ami 

 theit Placi; in Human Nature," is the theme of Mr. J. Kojc- 

 in the Cenluty. Chainliei s i Journal has several qiiasi-scienlilic 

 conlribulions, among them being articles on amber, breath 

 figures and dust-photogiaphs, and trees of the genus Adam- 

 ji>»;a— Cream-of-'Fartar trees. In addition to the magazines 

 named in the foregoing, we have received Stnttners, the Coti' 

 temporary, and the //iinianitarian ; but none of these contain 

 articles calling for comment here. 



T//E SCJENCE OF VULCANOLOGY} 



\/ULCAN()LOGY, or the science which deals with volcanoes 

 and related phenomena, is a very iuiportaiil branch of 

 geology — '.he science which treats of the earth's crust in general. 

 Geology is yet hardly a century old ; for before that time it 

 consisted ol little else than a collection of romantic liy|>othetes 



' Introductory Address to ;i Course of Lectures on Vulcinoloyy, delivcic'l 

 in ihc k. Univ. of N.iplcs, by Dr. H. J. Johnston-Lavis. 



