110 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[May 2, 1898. 



of salt, desirable c«cf((f.s being here and there conspicuously 

 absent. We note, however, with satisfaction that the 

 author has boldly adopted Schiaparelli's long periods of 

 rotation for Mercury and Venus, while withholdin;,' an 

 unqualified assent from the hypothesis of "irrigation 

 works " on Mars. A few slips and errors might be pointed 

 out, but they are in general not very material. The most 

 misleading is an attempt to explain stellar variability by 

 the direct analogy of sunspots, the actually subsisting 

 relation being of the inverse kind. Most of the illustrations 

 are new and excellent. Only the coloured frontispiece 

 savours of claptrap. 



A Uixtonj of FoH-Uwi. By Rev. H. A. Macpherson, 

 .M.A., ji.D.o.u. (Edinburgh : David Douglas.) Illustrated. 

 We have in this volume a detailed and exhaustive 

 account of the many curious devices by which wild birds 

 are or have been captured in different parts of the world. 

 The energy, the pains, and the time which the author 

 has expended in the compilation of his work may be 

 gathered from the fact that his plan has been, as he tells 

 us in the introduction, " to read through every ornitho- 

 logical work that I could find, in the five or six languages 

 which are all that I can personally translate"; besides 

 which he has elicited much information by correspondence 

 with persons in Japan, China, Borneo, India, AustraUa, 

 New Zealand, as well as in many different parts of Europe, 

 Africa, and America. 



The result is that we have a book which will long remain 

 as a classic upon the subject of past and present fowling 

 (exclusive of the use of gunpowder) in every part of the 

 world. Comment upon such a book is needless, since it is 

 evident at the outset that the author has made himself a 

 thorough master of his subject. The book is profusely 

 illustrated ; many of the cuts being taken from rare and 

 quaint prints and drawings specially prepared from speci- 

 mens of traps and devices which the author has procured 

 from many parts of the world. The book is printed and 

 bound in the sumptuous style generally adopted by Mr. 

 David Douglas — a style very well suited for a book of this 

 character, but the use of which cannot be too strongly 

 condemned for books which should be within reach of the 

 purse of every naturalist. 



It is neither our intention nor indeed within our province 

 to dictate to anyone as to what he should do or what he 

 should not do, but we cannot refrain from expressing our 

 regret that so good an ornithologist as the author should 

 have employed so much energy and time in a work of this 

 character, which does little to advance the science in 

 which he is so prominent and devoted a labourer. 



What ix Life.' or. Where are lee .' KViat are ive .' Whence 

 did iir come .' mid Whither do ue go ! By Frederick Hoven- 

 den. (Chapman & Hall.) 6s. As the majority of people 

 are rightly impressed with the complexity of the experiences 

 and functions which are collectively referred to as " life," 

 Mr. Hovenden's well-meaning efforts to reduce this com- 

 plex expression to its simplest terms may, by those who 

 judge books by their titles, be considered deserving of 

 encouragement. An examination of the prolix argument, 

 and perusal of the large amount of irrelevant matter con- 

 tained in this volume, will, however, soon convince the 

 reader that there are many things both in life and in 

 Mr. Hovenden's explanations of it quite beyond com- 

 prehension. 



The book, which comprises two hundred and eighty-four 

 pages, is divided into three parts. The first of these 

 consists of a statement of the case in two pages ; the 

 second is concerned with what the author calls the 

 evidence proving the case ; the third includes the deductions 

 which Mr. Hovenden derives from the issue. The " state- 



ment of the case " is a bewildering succession of definitions 

 of elementary truths and assertions which challenge 

 contradiction. We have no space to multiply instances, 

 but the following examples are typic*! of the uneven value 

 of these statements : — " 4. Time is the measurement of 

 terrestrial motion." "9. AU 'regeneration' arises from 

 the influence of the prime factor, the ether, through 

 which the inherent properties of the atom or molecule are 

 made active. Hence, no ether, no regeneration.'' 



In Part II. Mr. Hovenden succeeds in being interesting 

 only when he confines himself to a description of well- 

 recognized facts, and forgets Lis special mission. When he 

 is possessed by the prophetic spirit he becomes impolite. 

 Thus, on page 50 : " The mathematician is so confident that 

 his powers are absolute, and he is so dogmatic in his tone, 

 that he is unapproachable. He stands alone, a monument 

 of his own creation, in his own egotistical greatness. " Or, 

 page 53 ; " The public should study and grasp these ideas, 

 which transcend the mind of the physicist, for the physicist 

 has got into a fossilized condition ; he will not move until 

 that rising power, general intelligence, forces him." We 

 trust that when this happens it will not mean the publica- 

 tion of more books after the nature of the present one. 



We must refer the curious reader to the book for the 

 contents of Part III. Mr. Hovenden becomes even more 

 pronounced in his language when he speaks of the orthodox 

 religious teachers of the time. On page 221, in dealing 

 with the story of the fall of man, our author says : " What 

 must we say, then, of priests who attempt to fossilize the 

 mind within the limits of this grand lie ! — a lie which is 

 damned." The italics are Mr. Hovenden's. 



But we must leave this book, which Mr. Hovenden 

 describes as his " contribution to the altruism which is to 

 commemorate the jubQee of our beloved Queen Victoria," 

 and as ■' the result of original experiments, earnest 

 thought, of extensive reading, and of help from contem- 

 porary workers and thinkers. It is practically the work of 

 a lifetime." We can only regret that the work of a life- 

 time should not have been better directed and more 

 worthily employed. 



The Sun's Place in Nature. By Sir Norman Lockyer, 

 K.cB., r.B.s. (Macmillan & Co. London, 1897.) 12s. The 

 present work is, in the main, a repubUcation of a series of 

 " lectures to working men," given in 1894, at the School 

 of Mines, by Sir Norman Lockyer, and which were pub- 

 lished in Nature at that time. 



We must at the outset enter our protest against the 

 attacks upon one of the most eminent astronomers of the 

 age which disfigure so much of the present book. They 

 lower science and scientific men in the eyes of the pubUe, 

 and they tend to hide from the reader the real value of 

 Sir Norman Lockyer's own work. 



For if we could cut out from the present volume these 

 unworthy attacks on Sir William Huggins, and the 

 author's reiteration of his own infallibility — a good third 

 of the book — we should have left a very large amount of 

 most valuable scientific material, most of which has been 

 the work of Sir Norman Lockyer himself or has been 

 gathered under his superintendence. Prof. Lockyer's 

 industry in the collection of facts and opinions is great, 

 and this book, like the " Chemistry of the Sun " and the 

 " Meteoritic Hypothesis," will be very useful as a work of 

 reference. 



The chief points dealt with in the work are, in the first 

 book, the romantic story of the discovery of terrestrial 

 helium ; in the second^ the demonstration that nebuL-e and 

 stars are but stages in one and the same evolution ; the 

 third book is an attempt to reinforce the meteoritic 

 hypothesis from the observations of new stars ; the fourth 



