September 13, 1894J 



NA TURE 



471 



days ; Hochstetter, on the other hand, not exceeding five 

 days ; Meade Doulton, from two to three and ten to 

 fourteen days ; Wolffhugel and Riedol, thirty-two days. 

 Similarly as regards the vitality of Koch's cholera vibrio 

 in distilled water, Percy Frankland states that none were 

 discoverable on the second day (the vibrio was initially 

 in a weakened condition) ; Hochstetter, twenty-four hours 

 to seven days ; Xicati and Rietch, more than twenty days ; 

 Slater, five hours ; Strauss and Dubarry, fourteen days. 

 These differences are extremely perplexing and materially 

 interfere with the value of the statements. As all these 

 observers used distilled water, the differences as to the 

 vitality must be due to the microbes themselves ; the 

 readiest explanation is this, that the different observers 

 used the microbes in different states of resistance. It is 

 perfectly well known that a variety of conditions, such as 

 the nature of the nutritive medium in which the 

 organisms had been growing, the age and the pedigree 

 of the culture used, determine the resistance and vitality ; 

 unless, therefore, in all cases the best and mos'. favour- 

 able cultures are used, the observations are of small 

 value, and the authors justly [(see pp. 331 and 334) lay 

 stress on similar points. 



One conclusion proceeds with clearness from the re- 

 corded observations, viz. that (p. 261) "a number of bac- 

 teria, possessing pathogenic properties of the most pro- 

 nounced character, have been detected in natural waters 

 from time to time," and it is therefore not quite correct to 

 assume, as is generally done, that typhoid and cholera 

 are the only diseases whose germs are distributed by 

 water, nor is it justifiable to limit our attention to these 

 two species only, because the whole subject of the identi- 

 fication of specific bacteria in water is practically still in 

 its initial phase. 



Chapter ix. and last, on the action of light on micro- 

 organisms, is extremely well written and gives a detailed 

 account of, this important and ever-widening field of 

 research ; the history of the whole subject and the very 

 valuable results obtained by the authors (or rather " by 

 one of us " ') are described in a thorough and readable 

 manner. It is to be regretted that the beautiful and well- 

 known researches of Prof. Marshall Ward on the funda- 

 mental ditTerence of action of the red and blue part of 

 the spectrum should have been passed over. 



In an appendix a valuable and up-to-date systematic 

 description is given of the micro-organisms that have 

 been hitherto found in water, by which their identifica- 

 tion is greatly facilitated. We only wish the authors 

 had not ventured to classify them into pathogenic and 

 non-pathogenic bacteria, the former indicated by being 

 printed in red letters, the latter in black. The authors 

 do not accurately define, for obvious reasons, what is 

 and what is not a pathogenic micro-organism, but give a 

 list of " those microbes which have been found to be 

 pathogenic to man or animals.' The classification in 

 the appendix is both incorrect and misleading. It is 

 incorrect because a great many of the microbes men- 

 tioned here as non-pathogenic, produce disease and 

 death in the guinea-pig if injected in sufticiently large 

 doses into the peritoneal cavity; it is misleading because 

 microbes are mentioned here as pathogenic, e.i;. the 

 Bitcillus coli, the Proteus vulgaris, the Proteus mirabilis, 



' This expression ocC'Jis over thi'ty times. 



NO. 1298, VOL. 50] 



which have no greater claim to such a designation than 

 X\i& Bacillus prodigicsus ox l\\t Bacillus subtilis ; for it 

 has been conclusively established, by a number of inde- 

 pendent observers, that these latter act in the same way 

 pathogenetically when injected into the guinea-pig's peri- 

 toneum as the Bacillus coli, the vibrio of Koch, or the 

 bacillus of tj'phoid fever. 



In conclusion, we have no hesitation in saying that, 

 short of the omissions that we have pointed out, the 

 book will take a prominent place amongst the standard 

 works on micro-organisms in water. E. Klein. 



RITTEKS " AS/A," RUSSIAN ADDENDA. 

 East Siberia. Part i., being the Sayan Highlands in the 

 Government of Irkutsk, in the South 0/ the great 

 Siberian Highiijay,up to the South-western Extremity 

 of Lake Baikal. By P. P. Semenoff, I. D. Chersky, 

 and G. G. von Petz. (St. Petersburg, 1894.) 



THIS volume belongs to the great undertaking of the 

 Russian Geographical Society, which was begun 

 many years ago with the intention of publishing addenda 

 to those parts of Ritter's " .Asia '' which deal with regions 

 of the great continent belonging to Russia, or touching 

 its frontiers. The large number of geographical researches 

 which have been made since the year 1S32, when Ritter's 

 great work had been published, and the difficulty of 

 treating them with the same details as Ritter had treated 

 the scanty information available sixty years ago, have 

 resulted in many delays in the appearance of the promised 

 volumes, and even this last one comes out as the work of 

 three different persons — P. P. Semenoff taking it up when 

 Chersky had met with an untimely death in the far north 

 of Siberia. But in the hands of P. P. Semenoff, the 

 volume we now have before us bears no traces of an in- 

 complete posthumous publication. On the contrary, it is 

 a well-finished work, worthy to take one of the first places 

 among the several e.xcellent volumes of " Russian 

 Addenda " previously published. 



Not only the great lines of Ritter's classical work and 

 its spirit could be fully maintained, but the many explor- 

 ations which have been made in this region during the 

 last sixty years, have only confirmed the correctness of 

 the conceptions of the great geographer. The Sayan 

 mountains appear, indeed, as a huge border-wall of the 

 great massive upheaval of North-west Mongolia, and as a 

 part of the immense border-ridges which fringe the 

 high plateau of East Central Asia. And in the Alpine 

 regions beyond it there is no trace of the chains which 

 Humboldt wanted to run along the parallels, and the 

 meridians. There is, in the Tunka, the Kitoi, and the 

 Byelaya Alps, simply a succession of chains running 

 roughly parallel to the border-ridge. 



In the huge border-ridge lies the 11,500 feet high 

 Munku Sardyk, the highest mountain of East Siberia, 

 which till lately was supposed to be the only one snow- 

 clad peak in that part of .\sia. Its glaciers and its sum- 

 mit had already been visited and described by Radde in 

 1S56, but the present volume contains also the most 

 interesting observations of Captain Bobyr, who has re-, 

 visited the peak, and from whom we learn that four more 

 peaks rise above the snow-line in the same part of the 



