December 6, 1894] 



NA TURE 



'25 



of piece-meal legislation bearing upon the public health 

 has been passed ; that much of this legislation, despite 

 subsequent amendments, still remains obscure and un- 

 satisfactory is clearly shown in the results of proceedings 

 undertaken by those whose duty it is to put it in force. 

 What cause to wonder, then, if the lay reader, by reason 

 of obscurities in the particular Act itself, or from the fact 

 that either amendments have been introduced by suc- 

 ceeding enactments or the particular Act is itself an 

 amendment of earlier statutes, becomesbewildered, and a 

 laudable desire to master an important subject is nipped 

 in the bud ? Those who are concerned in the adminis- 

 tration of this branch of the law have frequent occasions 

 to regret the lamentable ignorance existing among all 

 sections of the community as to their powers and 

 liabilities in matters which may seriously affect their 

 vital interests. Any simplification and consolidation, 

 therefore, more especially when it is undertaken, as in 

 this instance, by gentlemen of recognised legal ability, 

 should prove very welcome not only to health officers, 

 but also to the general public. 



The decisions of the authors of the work to collate 

 the various provisions contained in different enactments 

 dealing with the same subject, and to present these — so 

 far as possible — freed of all legal phraserlogy, was a 

 happy one ; it makes the work unique in its service- 

 ability to the lay reader, who will gain from its perusal a 

 clearer and more definite knowledge of the public health 

 laws of the different parts of the United Kingdom than 

 he would succeed in doing — at a much greater sacrifice 

 of time and patience — from any other publication 

 dealing with the same subject. 



Involution and E^'olution according to the Philosophy of 

 Cycles. By Kalpa. (London : Eyre and Spottiswoode, 

 1894.) 

 This is one of the books that most people would be glad 

 to lay aside, and, indeed, it is very difficult to say with 

 what object it has been written. The cycles decribed 

 have nothing to do with approximate commensurability 

 of planetary motions, and certainly not with evolu- 

 tion as understood in the modern acceptation of the 

 term. The author is a disciple of the school of Mdme. 

 Blavatsky, and draws his inspiration from that source, 

 tinged, it may be, with something of esoteric Buddhism, 

 and a good deal " spider-wove from his own brain." If 

 anyone wants to know what absurdities modern theo- 

 sophy is capable of, by all means let him read it, but 

 most people will be satisfied to take the contents at 

 second-hand. A very objectionable feature in the book 

 is the occasional cjuotation at the heads of chapters of 

 extracts from recognised writers of authority, conveying 

 the impression that the contents of the chapters following 

 are based upon modern science, and would meet the 

 approval of the authors from whom the quotations are 

 made. One illustration will be sufficient to show the 

 style of the author's reasoning and the character of the 

 information conveyed. The particular object is to de- 

 monstrate the birth of comets and worlds (p. 148). " But 

 the least subtilised type of those disembodied groups 

 does not take the same direction as the others. It keeps 

 going in orbits round the sun, shooting beams at him, 

 which, expelled (seemingly, at least), spread out behind 

 as a lengthy tail. Then, when the sun takes a short 

 rest, his brilliancy nearly spent, that entity moves olT, 

 its beams showing the way, but greatly reduced, and 

 of which nought remains ere the comet disappears for 

 parts unknown. It will be known to us as comet I." 

 We have, approximately, 200 pages of this sort of stuff, 

 paragraph after paragraph, all of which are utterly incom- 

 prehensible, and to wind up the whole we have sheet after 

 sheet of diagrams or illustrations which no man can 

 understand, and on which we should imagine the author 

 himself would pass a very doubtful examination. 



NO. 1310, VOL. 5 l] 



The Mountains of California. By John Muir. Pp. 381. 



(London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1894.) 

 Few regions offer more remarkable subjects for the 

 student of nature than the State of California. There 

 are the two great mountain ranges — the Coast Range on 

 the west, and the .Sierra Nevada on the east. Great 

 canons furrow the latter to depths of from two 

 thousand to five thousand feet, and in the midtlle 

 of the deepest of them flourish the Sequoia, 

 the noble sugar and yellow pines, Douglas spruce, 

 Libocedrus, and the silver firs, each a giant of its 

 kind. Floods of lava cover the north half of the 

 High Sierra, and volcanic craters, recent and in all 

 stages of decay, are dotted over it. Mount Shasta is one 

 of these volcanic cones, rising to a height of more than 

 fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Deep grooves flute 

 the sides of the mountains, and testify to glacial erosion. 

 It appears that so far south as latitude thirty-six degrees, 

 traces of glacial action abound. Mr. Muir has found sixty- 

 five residual glaciers in the portion of the Sierra 

 lying between latitudes thirty-six and thirty-nine 

 degrees. [The first one of these was discovered by 

 him in 1 871 between two of the peaks of the Merced 

 group. He also determined the rate of motion of 

 the middle of the Maclure glacier, near Mount Lyell, 

 to be but little more than an inch a day. Mount Shasta 

 has three glaciers ; while Mount Whitney, though the 

 highest mountain in the range, has none. 



The special features of the volume are the descriptions 

 of the glaciers, glacier lakes, and glacier meadows in the 

 Californian mountains, and the interesting account of the 

 grand forest-trees of the Sierra. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



\lhe Editor does not hold hiiiiulf resfonsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by Ins correspondents. Neither can lie undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. 

 No notice is tahen of anonymous communications.] 



Origin of Classes among the "Parasol" Ants. 



Mr. T. H- Hart is Superintendent of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens in Trinidad. He has sent me a copy of his report 

 pre.sented to the Legislative Council in March 1S93, and has 

 drawn my attention to certain facts contained in it concerning 

 the "Parasol" ants— the leaf-cutting ants which feed on the 

 fungi developed in masses of the cut leaves carried to their 

 nests. Both Mr. Bates and Mr. Belt described these ants ; but 

 described, it seems, different, though nearly allied, species, the 

 habits of which are partially unlike. As they are garden-pests, 

 Mr. Hart was led to examine into the development and social 

 arrangements of these ants ; establishing, to that end, arlificial 

 nests, after the manner adopted by Sir John Lubbock. Several 

 of the facts set down have an important bearing on a question 

 now under discussion. The following extracts, in which they 

 are named, I abridge by omitting passages not relevant to the 

 issue ; — 



" The history of ray nesls is as follows: Numbers one and 

 two were both taken (.\ugust 9) on the same day, while de- 

 stroying nests in the Gardens, and were portions of separate nests 

 but of ihe same species. No. 3 was procured on September 5, 

 and is evidently a different although an allied species to Nos. I 

 and 2. 



" Finding neither of my nests had a queen, I procured one 

 from another nest about to be destroyed, and placed it with No. I 

 nest. It was received by the workers, and at once attended 

 by a numerous relinue in royal slyle. On .Vusjust ,;o 1 removed 

 the queen from No. I and placed it with [So. 2, when it was 

 again received in a most loyal manner. . . . 



"Ants taken from Nos. I and 2 and placed with No. 3 were 

 immediately destroyed by the latter, and even the solJiers of 

 No. 3, as well as workers or nurses, were destroyed when placed 

 with Nos. I and 2. 



'■ In nest No. 2, from which I removed the queen on .\ugust 

 30, there are now in the pupa stage several queens and several 



