January 1 1, 1894J 



NATURE 



24; 



expediency as qualifying the strict priority rule. The 

 Americans have come round to fix 1753 as the starting 

 point of nomenclature, but unfortunately tack on to the 

 priority rule a rider compelling the use of the earliest 

 specific apellation wherever the genus is changed — a 

 proper enough rule if botanists would only follow it, but 

 which, if carried out retrospectively, as they propose, 

 would involve a changing of plant names appalling to 

 contemplate. 



We have said sufficient to show the importance of the 

 " Index Kewensis," and to make clear that its issue at 

 this time is most opportune. The professed desire of all 

 systematic botanists — although there is a wide gulf often 

 betwixt their profession and their practice — is the estab- 

 lishing of a stable nomenclature. To this end the 

 "Index Kewensis" is the most important contribution 

 that has appeared since the "Genera Plantarum" of 

 Bentham and Hooker was completed, and it supple- 

 ments that work. What effect it will have in 

 bringing about a modification of the views now 

 held by continental and American botanists time 

 will show. In the various discussions and conferences 

 through which it has been attempted to settle questions 

 of nomenclature, the Kew botanists have not taken 

 active part ; they have done better, and in the " Genera 

 Plantarum," and now in this " Index Kewensis," we have 

 practical expression of their views, and systematic 

 botanical literature is enriched with what may be fairly 

 termed the most valuable and important additions of the 

 century. The "Index Kewensis" provides a book of 

 reference which every library must possess, and there 

 need be little doubt its nomenclature will take firm hold 

 in this country at least. 



For the detail and workmanship in the book we have 

 nothing but praise. They- are of a kind we are in the 

 habit of associating with the race which has given us 

 "the sausage for food and the encyclopaedia for know- 

 ledge," but the book shows there is no monopoly in this 

 sort of work. It is a lasting tribute to the painstaking 

 industry, skill, and knowledge of Mr. Daydon Jackson. 

 The citation of the place of first publication of a species 

 is a most valuable feature in the book, supplying at once 

 a clue through which its history may be followed, and 

 the mention of the native country, necessarily general 

 and brief in most instances, is a further helpful feature. 

 We could have wished for a more extensive citation of 

 the garden names of plants ; in every-day life these are 

 constantly turning up, and of no names is the history 

 more difficult to run down. In a work such as this, the 

 preparation of which has taken so many years, and the 

 separate items of which are so multitudinous, slips, 

 omissions, and inconsistencies must occur; but the number 

 of these, so far as use has enabled us to judge, is remark- 

 ably small. " Menda non commemorata lector benevolens 

 ipse corriget," says Mr. Daydon Jackson, as a preface to 

 a list of " addenda et corrigenda " in each fasciculus ; let 

 us hope readers will also send them to Mr. Daydon 

 Jackson, who may incorporate them in succeeding 

 fasciculi. 



It only remains to add, regarding the style and printing 

 of the book, that the best work of the Clarendon Press is 

 displayed in it. 



NO. 1263. VOL. 4q] 



ASTRONOMY FOR THE PUBLIC. 

 In the High Heave?ts. By Sir Robert S. Ball, F.R.S. 

 (London: Isbister and Co., 1893.) 



IT is not too much to say that at the present time Sir 

 Robert Ball is the fashionable interpreter of astro- 

 nomical science. He retails to the general public, by 

 voice and by pen, the facts accumulated by astronomers 

 who love their science for her own sake, the practical 

 observer and the eloquent expositor thus mutually 

 benefiting one another. 



The book before us contains a collection of heteroge- 

 neous articles, several of which have appeared in the Con- 

 tevtporary and Fortjiightly, and all of which are written 

 in the style that pertains to magazines. To the student 

 of science this, diffuse method of expounding facts is 

 distasteful. As Ruskin has remarked, " A downright 

 fact may be told in a plain way ; and we want downright 

 facts at present more than anything else." The chapter 

 on " The ' Heat Wave ' of 1892 " furnishes an example 

 of what can be done in the way of connecting facts 

 between which there is apparently no relation. The 

 chapter begins with a description of the temperature 

 observations in different parts of the world in July and 

 August, 1892 ; it then passes to the movements of the 

 moon, transits of Venus, and meteor-showers, in illustra- 

 tion of the accuracy of astronomical predictions as 

 against the prediction of weather. The work of Lord 

 Kelvin and Prof. G. H. Darwin on tidal prediction is 

 next considered, and the tide-predicting machine of the 

 former is described. Fourier's theorem is discussed, 

 and some of the causes affecting the heights of tides 

 mentioned, the chapter finally concluding with an account 

 of Prof Hale's photographs of a luminous eruption on 

 the sun in July, 1892. The different scraps of infor- 

 mation in this omnium gatheru7n are joined together with 

 an ingenuity that is only acquired after long practice ; 

 but in spite of this, the article gives one the impression 

 that the author has spun out his subject in order to 

 provide copy. 



The star 1 830 Groombridge is a " King Charles' Head " 

 to Sir Robert Ball, the reason being its large proper 

 motion. We doubt whether he has ever written a book 

 in which the number of miles per second, per minute, 

 per hour, per day, per annum, &c. through which 1830 

 Groombridge travels, is not enlarged upon ; and in the 

 volume under review this runaway star is twice inflicted 

 upon the reader. So persistently, indeed, does 1830 

 Goombridge appear, that we begin to wonder whether it 

 is hurrying through space at a great rate in order to 

 afford subject-matter for popular lecturers and writers on 

 astronomy. 



Another subject that has often given Sir Robert Ball 

 an opportunity of exercising his descriptive faculty is the 

 correlation between solar and terrestrial phenomena. 

 But in view of the facts recently brought out in these 

 columns and elsewhere, he may find it necessary to 

 modify or substantiate the statement that "great out- 

 bursts on the sun have been immediately followed, I 

 might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic 

 disturbances on the earth." 



For the sake of historical accuracy, it may be well to 



