February 19, 1903] 



NA TURE 



567 



The Schoolmaster's Yearbook for 1903. A Reference 

 Book of Secondary Education in England and Wales. 

 Pp. lix + 351 + Part II. (unpaged) + 107. (London : 

 Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd.). Price $s. net. 



THIS is the first annual issue of what is likely to prove 

 a useful work of reference for schoolmasters. It is 

 divided into three parts, the first of which supplies 

 general information concerning educational administra- 

 tive authorities, educational associations, courses of 

 training for teachers in secondary schools, and many 

 similar subjects. The second part constitutes a directory 

 of schoolmasters and others engaged in secondary 

 education, while the third includes a number of miscel- 

 laneous articles and reviews. The first two sections will 

 be useful to all who are interested in education, and if 

 the editor adopts next year a larger number of ab- 

 breviations and gives only the important particulars 

 about governing bodies and educational associations, he 

 will increase considerably the value of the publication. 

 The third part seems out of place ; the articles it includes 

 are more suitable for an educational periodical than an 

 annual of this kind. The second part is an excellent 

 first step towards the compilation of a register of 

 teachers. 



The Globe Geography Readers. By Vincent T. 

 Murche\ Introductory. Pp. 119. Price 15. Junior. 

 Pp. vi + 194. Price 15. qd. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1902.) 



The plan of these books is sensible, and there is 

 abundant evidence throughout that the author is 

 intimately acquainted with the needs and limitations 

 of young children. The information to be gained 

 from the lessons is based upon observations and ex- 

 periments of a kind which children can perform for 

 themselves, and the conversational style will prove 

 attractive to young readers. No lesson is over- 

 burdened with facts, and the author has been success- 

 ful in proceeding always from the known to the un- 

 known. We suspect that fathers of the kind intro- 

 duced in these books, and uncles with sound 

 geographical knowledge and a keen desire to instruct 

 their nephews on every possible occasion, are rare 

 in real life. It is a pity, too, that Mr. Murche refers 

 to volcanoes as " mountains that blaze and smoke," 

 and says that " flames and smoke burst out from 

 the crater." The coloured plate of a volcano during 

 an eruption shows a large number of volcanic bombs, 

 though these products of an eruption are really very 

 rare. The abundant illustrations add much to the value 

 of what should prove to be two widely used books. 



The Nature Student's Note Book. Part i. Nature 

 Notes and Diary. By the Rev. Canon Steward, 

 M.A. (Oxon.) Part ii. Tables for Classification 

 of Plants, Animals and Insects in Full Detail. By 

 Alice E. Mitchell. Pp. 152. (Westminster : Archi- 

 bald Constable and Co., Ltd.) 



The teacher already possessed of a good working 

 knowledge of biology and other branches of science 

 included in nature-study will find Canon Steward's 

 monthly notes useful as a reminder of which plants 

 and animals are available for study at different times 

 of the year ; but the book is scarcely likely to be of 

 much assistance to a non-scientific teacher who 

 wishes to become a student of nature, with a view 

 to introduce his pupils to the same study. It is 

 questionable, too, if the introduction of gardening 

 instructions into the notes will serve any good educa- 

 tional purpose. Miss Mitchell's tables are a little too 

 technical for nature-study, and some of her definitions 

 are not strictly accurate. 



NO. I 738, VOL. 67] . 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

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

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. ] 



The late Sir G. G. Stokes. 



The eulogy of Stokes by Lord Kelvin contributed to 

 your columns in terms so appropriately simple, a eulogy 

 so sincere, as we all know, and more authoritative than 

 could be pronounced by anyone else in the world, furnishes 

 an incident that must impress the minds of all true lovers 

 of science. It is not my purpose to intrude where I have 

 no business, but I do feel most keenly the strong call there 

 is to English men of science to see that the hidden work of 

 Stokes does not remain any longer concealed. There is 

 not the least doubt that his greatness and true worth escaped 

 the observation of contemporaries outside the circle of real 

 scientific workers, and there has been one conspicuous 

 occasion quite recently when the order of his merit has been 

 signally ignored. 



About ten years ago the attention of Stokes was attracted 

 to some work in which I was engaged, and this started a 

 correspondence. I had no previous personal acquaintance 

 with him, and I am sure he had no previous scientific 

 acquaintance with me, but notwithstanding this he imme- 

 diately placed the vast powers of his mind at my disposal, 

 and assisted me with encouragement and advice that from 

 my best friend would have been liberal in amount, whilst 

 in value they could have been equalled from no other source. 

 The abundance, lucidity and punctuality of his correspond- 

 ence were amazing. I have had as many as three letters 

 from him in one day, and on a particular occasion a tele- 

 gram in addition, to say that he feared he had expressed 

 himself in one of the letters with too much confidence. I 

 was naturally not a little proud of this connection with a 

 great man, but if my pride had tended to assume the form 

 of vanity, that would have been frustrated by the discovery 

 I was ever afterwards making of the apparently endless 

 number of scientific workers who have received from Stokes 

 the same unstinted help. 



I wish, therefore, to express the hope that in any memoir 

 of Stokes that is published there should be some attempt 

 to gather the unostentatious testimony that would be so 

 cheerfully given by those who are so much beholden to the 

 great and good man who has passed from among us. It 

 seems to me to be at the least a duty to scientific history 

 to help our posterity to see clearly that the order of Stokes's 

 merit as a man and a philosopher was that of Faraday 

 and Newton. Chemicus. 



The Holy Shroud of Turin. 



In your issue of February 5, Mr. Worthington G. Smith 

 says " the painter was so incompetent to deceive that he 

 made the two head-tops touch." There is some mistake 

 here. M. Vignon's reproductions of Signor Pia's photo- 

 graphs show quite a large space — nearly equal to the height 

 of the head — between the two head-tops. From Mr. Smith's 

 diagram I infer that he has mistaken one of the water- 

 stain outlines for the head-top of the back view figure. If 

 so, I do not wonder at his thinking the painter " incompe- 

 tent." 



The hypothesis of a painted positive turned negative, to 

 which most of your correspondents seem to incline, presents 

 one difficulty which I have not as yet seen noticed. No one 

 would paint a shaded positive by way of simulating a sup- 

 posed soiling of the shroud by the presence of the body 

 within it; the intention must have been to make a picture — 

 to represent a miraculous impression, perhaps, but still a 

 pictorial one, else why a positive? Then, such a picture 

 would naturally be shaded for a more or less side light, so 

 that the originally light and now dark portions would be 

 more or less on one side of the various limbs and features, 

 instead of in their centres as they actually show on the* 

 shroud. R. E. Froude. 



Gosport, February 8. 



