January lo, 1895] 



NA TURE 



A' 



SCIENCE IN THE MAGAZINES. 



FULLY illustrated description of Mr. Maxim's experiments 

 in aerial navigation is contributed to the Century by Mr. 

 .Maxim himself. The account of the new flying machine and its 

 various parts is the best we have seen. The total result of Mr. 

 .Maxim's experiments is now fairly well known. It has been 

 proved that a machine, carrying its own engine, fuel, and pas 

 sengers, can be made poweilul and light enough lo lift itelf in 

 the air. The experiments also prove that an aeroplane will lift 

 a great deal more than a balloon of the same weight, and that 

 it may be driven through the air at a very high velocity, and 

 with an expenditure of power very much less than that required 

 to drive a balloon at even a moderate pace. In addition to this, 

 they have clearly shown that a well-made screw propeller ob- 

 tains sufficient grip on the air to propel a machine at almost any 

 speed, and that ihe greater the speed the higher the efl'iciency 

 of the screw. These results have certainly forwarded the 

 problem of aerial navigation. The Ccidiiry also contains an 

 article on customs, fetes, and celebrations in .-Xmerican Colleges 

 for Women ; and, in the same magazine, a brief description is 

 given of the new anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria. 



In the Natioitul, Mr. Stanley Lane- Poole pays tribute to the 

 memory of the late Sir Charles Newton. (A notice of some of 

 the researches of this distinguished archxologist will be found 

 on p. 250.) Prof. Koxwell replies, on behalf of professed econo- 

 mists, to Lord Farrer's article in the October number of the 

 same review, upon the Standard of Value. Towards the end of 

 a contribution on the present state of the Royal Navy, Mr. VV. 

 Laird Clowes expresses himself upon the sul>ject of the education 

 of naval olTicers. Referring lo the training of a naval ofBcer, 

 he remarks : " A century ago ... it was not necessary that 

 he should know anything of chemistry, of engineering, of 

 h)draulics, of pneumatics, of electriciiy, and of half a dozen 

 other subjects concerning which he must now know more than 

 a little. . . . But at present, if an officer goes to sea, he has to 

 suspend, in a great measure, iheprogress of his education. Theory 

 is at the base of nearly all of it, and the theory is just as re- 

 quisite as the practical experience, and, indeed, in some matters, 

 even more so. . . . The seaman is in process of becoming the 

 engineer ; eveiy year he becomes more and more the engineer ; 

 and I am certain that a much briefer experience of .he sea than 

 was formerly needed is now required towards the formation of 

 a good officer. Per contra, he who would be a good officer 

 requires very many things which aie more easily obiainable at 

 I'ortsmoulh than in mi l-.\tlantic. We may regret the change, 

 but we must not shut our eyes to ficts. And I think the sooner 

 ihe change is fully recognised, and the whole scheme of the 

 education of naval officers is radically altered, the better will it 

 l)e for the service." Mr. Clo*es, however, does not seem to 

 have sufficiently taken into account the difference between the 

 duties of the navigating officers of the navy, and Ihe engineers. 

 Naval engineers at the present time receive admirable training 

 in boih the theory and the ptaciice of the machinery with which 

 a modern battleship is equipped. Does Mr. Clowes h'dd that 

 navigating ofTicers should receive the same kind of training? 

 The statement that the seaman is in process of becoming the 

 engineer, will hardly be accepted lilerally by those acquainted 

 with the naval service. The engineers and engine-room arli- 

 liceis are fast becoming the most important men on board, but 

 the distinction between ihem and the navigating staff is as 

 liard and fast as ever it was. 



In the Niw Kericw are some verses having a singularly strange 

 and appropriate rhythm, by the late R. L. Stevenson, in which 

 he has expressed his keen sense of the struggle for existence ; 

 and we find in the criiical article upon this Inst among the 

 many losses of 1894, by Mr. Archer, how profoundly modern 

 scientific thought had affected his philosophy. There is also 

 the first instalment of an eccentric story iiy Mr. II. G. Wells, 

 in which, after certain rather paradoxical dealings with the four 

 dimensions, a "Time Traveller" staits into futurity upon a 

 Time Machine. What he found there remains to be told in a 

 subsequent number, but there certainly seems scope for the 

 scientific imagination in such a siory. 



A paper on "Feeling of ISeauty in Animals," in C/iainlicr/ s 

 iounial, will interest students of nature. So long ago as 1866 

 a letter was published in Ihe .At/ie'itciim under the same title, 

 andatiracted Ihe notice of Charles IXtrwin. Hirdsofl'er, perhaps, 

 the best proofs of a feeling for beauty exterior to themselves 

 There are ihe Bower Birds of Australia, and the Gardener Bower 



NO. 1315. VOL. 51] 



Bird of New Guinea, each of which decorates its bower with 

 vari(ius objects. The Ilammerkop or Hammerhead also 

 nourishes esthetic tastes, and other instances of birds showing 

 a decided taste for oroainent are describel in the article 

 referred to. 



-^ passing notice will suffice for the remaining articles on 

 scientific subjects in the magazines received by us. Some in- 

 teresting reminiscences of the late Oliver Wendell Holmes as 

 nrofes-or of anatomy, are given by Dr. T. Dwight in Scribiter. 

 Good IVonh — the first number of a new series — contains the 

 first part of a paper on Sir I-aac Newion, by Sir Robert Ball ; 

 and some speculations by the Rev. Canon Scott on the physio- 

 graphical consequences that would have resulted if the earth 

 rotated from east to west instead of west to east. Mr. Grant 

 Allen writes another " Moorland Idyll," in the English 

 lUiiilrated. To the Humanitarian, St. George Mivart 

 contribuies the concluding pait of his popular exposition of 

 the doctrine of heredity. We are glad to note that the second 

 number of the Plwnographic Quarterly Krjieiv contains several 

 scientific articles, each of which will help to familiarise phono- 

 graphers with scientific phrases. The Contemporary has an 

 article on Ihe London County Council, by .Mr. Sydney Webb, 

 in which the work of the Technical Education Board is inci- 

 dentally referred to. In addition to the magazines and reviews 

 named in the foregoing, we have received the Fortnightly, 

 Longman's, Cornhill, and the Sunday .Magazine ; but in none 

 of these is science given a place. 



SEASONAL CHANGES ON MARS.' 



FOR the substantiation of changes on the surface of Mars, it 

 is of paramount importance that the drawings to be com- 

 pared should all have been made by the same person at the 

 same telescope, under as nearly as possible the same atmo- 

 spheric conditions. So much, at least, is fulfilled by the draw- 

 ings referred to in this paper. For they were all made by 

 Mr. Lowell at the same instrument, under Ihe same general 

 atmospheric conditions. Even the different eye-pieces used 

 vary chiefly in a manner to minimise, if anything, and so em- 

 phasise the differences observed. For with increasing image 

 the higher power used tends lo decrease the contrast. The 

 result is that it largely offsets the difference in contrast due to 

 nearer approach, and leaves simply a case of magnification, 

 with the values untouched. 



Since, furthermore, the drawings were all made in the months 

 preceding and following one opposition, secular changes are 

 practically out of the question ; and any changes that appear, 

 are presumably of a seasonal character. They constitute of 

 themselves a kinematical as opposed lo a statical study of 

 the planet's surface. 



The resulting phenomena are much more evident than might 

 be supposed ; indeed, they are quite unmistakable. .\s for 

 their importance, it need only be said that deduction from them 

 furnishes, in the first place, strong inference that Mars is a very 

 living world subject to an annual cycle of surface growth, 

 activity, and decay ; showing, in the second place, that this 

 Martian yearly round of life must differ in certain interesting 

 particulars from that which forms our terrestrial experience. 



The phenomena evidently make part of a definite chain of 

 changes of annual development. So consequent and, in their 

 broad characteristics, apparently so le^ular are these changes, 

 that it is not difficult to find corroboration of what appears lo 

 he their general scheme in drawings made at previous opposi- 

 tions. In consequence it will be possible in future to foretell, to 

 some extent, the aspect of any part of the planet at any given 

 time. 



The changes in appearance presented by the planet described 

 by Mr. Lowell, refer primarily not to the melting of the polar 

 snows, except as such melting forms the necessary preliminary 

 to what follow-, but to the subsequent changes in appearance 

 of the surface itself. To their exposition, however, the polar 

 phenomena become inseparable adjuncts, since they are inevit- 

 able auxiliaries 10 the result. 



With the familiar melting of the polar snow-cap, therefore, 

 this account properly begins, since with it begins the yearly 

 round of the planet's life. Wiih the melting of the Larth's 

 .\rctic or Antarctic cap might, similarly, be said lo begin the 



1 .\lislr.ict of ii paper by Mr. Pcrcival Lu»gl', in .Ij/»otki«;j a;..<' .lj//v 

 /'/lyxics for December. 



