33« 



NA TURE 



[February 8, 1894 



gives a detailed comparison of two-pole and four-pole 

 machines of a power of 25 kilo-watts, and shows, it seems 

 conclusively, that the latter can be made lighter, and to 

 run at a lower speed than the former. We find a dis- 

 tinction made between the " static " and " dynamic " 

 electromotive force of a dynamo ; the former is defined 

 "> be the E.M.F. "generated in the armature, and 

 directly measurable on the brushes if the machine is 

 working on open circuit." This is always shown on the 

 characteristic (volt and ampere) of a dynamo of what- 

 ever nature, and as there is no discontinuity between it 

 and "dynamic" E.M.F. it is difficult to see the neces- 

 sity either for separate discussion or for special nomen- 

 clature. The alternators chosen as examples are repre- 

 sentative of the different systems in vogue. We find 

 those of Siemens, Ferranti, Gulcher, Mordey, Kingdon, 

 and also that of the author designed for Messrs. Johnson 

 and Phillips. 



There is not much set down about alternating current 

 transformers, but some good working diagrams are given. 

 There is no information about multiphasers. We have 

 noticed some typographical errors. A serious one occurs 

 on p. 46. P. A. M. 



GOLF. 



Golf : a Royal and Ancient Game. Edited by Robert 

 Clark, F.R.S.E., F.S.A. Scot. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co.) 



PROF. TAIT has recently pointed out how many 

 scientific problems are involved in the flight of a 

 golf ball, and many men of science have learned to find 

 in the game of golf a never-failing and unsurpassed 

 means of recreation from their arduous labours. It is 

 fitting, then, that Mr. Clark's new edition of a golf 

 classic should be noticed in these pages. 



A writer, who was a famous cricketer, and is apparently 

 a new humorist, has lately, in the pages of a serious 

 Review, started a controversy on the question, "Is 

 Golf a first-rate game ? " The question must be here dis- 

 missed with the remark that it is absolutely irrelevant. 

 Unless there is no grain of earnestness in his reasoning, 

 internal evidence, often misleading, shows that the writer 

 referred to is in the twilight of knowledge of his subject, 

 and the twilight of the gloaming, not of the dawn. Let 

 him hope that he may pass through the darkness, and 

 that it may be as the brief gloom of a St. Andrews' 

 summer night. Mere first-class games, like cricket and 

 kindred, are light o' loves, who leave you the moment 

 that you have lost your youth and your pace. Golf is 

 like a mother — kind to you once; that is, all her life. 



In the year 1875, "Golf: a Royal and Ancient 

 Game," was edited and privately printed for a small 

 circle of subscribers. It has long been out of print, 

 and a new and slightly enlarged edition has now 

 been published for the benefit of the world at large. It 

 is a delightful book, and the reading of it is a pleasure. 

 In it is found in all its quaintness the dear old 

 fast-dying dialect of the Lowlands of Scotland, and here 

 and there bits of the delicate humour indigenous to the 

 same region. The atmosphere of the book is as breezy 

 as that of the links which now dot our East Coast from 

 NO. 1267, VOL. 49] 



John o' Groat's to the South Foreland. To class the 

 book as a history is not quite accurate, for it is more 

 a collection of the materials for history than history 

 itself; but to any one interested in the subject, that is 

 no drawback. 



The introduction is excellent, and together with the old 

 statutes bearing on the game, the extracts from burgh and 

 parish records (much added to in the present edition), the 

 extracts from private note-books and from old minutes, and 

 the new notes, afford interesting glimpses of the social life 

 of the kindly Scots of the olden time ; of the difficulties of 

 " the powers that were" in weaning the people from the 

 game, in order to lead them to the archery butts and to 

 the kirk ; of the funeral ceremonies of a keen golfer, the 

 father of the great Marquis of Montrose, lasting one month 

 and nineteen days ; of the consumption of wine during that 

 period of mourning being reckoned in puncheons, and of 

 the buckets of Easter ale being as numerous as the tears 

 that fell ; of Smollett's genial reflections upon seeing on 

 Leith links a party of four playing Golf, the youngest of 

 whom was turned of fourscore. Among those records are 

 to be found also materials out of which a theory of the 

 development of the Sabbatarianism peculiar to Scotland 

 might be built, and of this something of interest might 

 be said did space permit. 



The gossip part of the book is too short. The story 

 of John Patersone might be passed as a variant of the old 

 tale of the king and the cobbler. It was at all events 

 sufficiently interesting to inspire the celebrated Dr. Pit- 

 cairn to write for the mural tablet of John's new house — 

 his reward from Royalty for his prowess at the Golf — four 

 elegiac verses and a motto enigmatically telling to all 

 time a tale and John Patersone's part therein. The 

 verses and the motto may be worth quoting : — 



Cum victor ludo scotis qui proprius esset 

 ter tres victores post redimitus avos 

 patersonus humo tunc educebat in altum 

 banc quse victores tot tulit una domum. 

 I hate no persone. 



The motto " I hate no persone " being an anagramma- 

 tical transposition of the letters in the words "John. 

 Patersone." 



The verses in the book are not intended for criticism, 

 but a " Ballade of Golf " and "A Voice from the Rhine" 

 are welcome additions. The wood engravings and the 

 plates appeal to the artist, and an addition to the num- 

 ber of the latter in place of the photographs that were, 

 apart from their interest to contemporaries, out of all 

 keeping with the pictorial part of the first edition, is a 

 step in the right direction. The only serious objections 

 that can be taken to the present edition, and that only in 

 a spirit of gentle remonstrance, are pointed out in the 

 prefatory note' by the editor. Following the note in the 

 order of its statements, it sets forth that since the pub- 

 lication of the first edition. Golf has advanced by leaps 

 and bounds, that it is now as popular in England as it is 

 in Scotland, that it has taken deep root in Ireland, yet in 

 the body of the book not a sentence is devoted to Golf 

 clubs furth of Scotland. No doubt this is partly ex- 

 plained by the fact that no existing club furth of Scot- 

 land except Blackheath is old enough to have a history. 

 At the same time a few pages recording the facts of the 

 introduction of Golf in recent years, not only to England 



