5o6 



NA TURE 



[April 2, 1903 



yarded as rather exaggerated compression, we may 

 quote a sentence that disposes of the performance of 

 the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, in common use 

 in this country : — 



" A sheet of pasteboard or a block of wood at the 

 rear receives the record, and the extent of the charring 

 gives a crude measure of the percentage of full or 

 strong sunshine. " 



Without further details one cannot help feeling that 

 if the crudeness were entirely in the record, it would 

 never have attached to it the name of the great philo- 

 sopher about whose work the word " fastidious " seems, 

 if anything, more appropriate than " crude." Again, 

 the system of photographic recording adopted in this 

 country for the barometer and thermometer is dis- 

 missed in an equally curt manner as not being " quite 

 adequate to present needs "; it is difficult to see how \ 

 the " needs " have changed since 1867, when the | 

 aspirations of meteorologists were described in words 

 which might be adopted without change to-day. 



A similar brevity runs through the whole article. 

 Take, for example, an account of cirrus clouds : — 



" They may be formed by mixture or even sometimes 

 by mere contact and the conduction of their own heat 

 to neighbouring cold air. More frequently they must 

 be due to cooling of moist streaks in the atmosphere 

 by expansion and radiation." 



If one only really knew whether this is true or not, 

 what should we not know about meteorology? It may 

 be remarked, by the way, that in dealing with the 

 thermal expansion of gases, there is a superfluity of 

 zeros which would alter the whole face of nature if 

 they could not be satisfactorily accounted for by the 

 usual vagaries of the printer. 



The article may be described without much exagger- 

 ation as a view of the present state of meteorology as 

 seen from Washington. It is a great advantage to 

 have a compendious view of so wide a subject from 

 (hat most active centre, and from so competent a pen 

 as Prof. Abbe's. No one need complain because the 

 treatment is necessarily somewhat eclectic. 



The section on climatology is devoted mainly to rain- 

 fall and the generalisations based on rainfall data from 

 all parts of the world. The section on physical and 

 theoretical meteorology is an especially valuable sum- 

 mary, including the most modern developments of the 

 application of dynamical, thermodynamical and elec- 

 trical theory. The final section, on meteorological 

 organisations, leads, as all such considerations must 

 lead, to the expression of the need for meteorological 

 laboratories in important universities, following in 

 this respect the analogy of the sister science of astro- 

 nomy. 



The reader with scientific tastes is not recommended 

 to follow the reviewer in a rapid survey of the subjects 

 of scientific interest in this volume. If he does so, he 

 can hardly fail to be reminded of those public occasions 

 on which it is felt necessary to give to as many dis- 

 tinguished persons as possible an opportunity, however 

 short, of saying a few words. When the ingenuous 

 re ider feels a little at a loss to know why a particular 

 title is selected as the subject of an article in an encyclo- 

 NO. 1744, VOL 67] 



pa?dia, the initials at the end may be relied upon to 

 suggest a sufficient reason. 



The tendency to represent authors is, perhaps, more 

 conspicuous in this volume than in the ninth edition. 

 An inquisitive person might even find himself wonder- 

 ing whether the term Britannica does not require some 

 adjustment. 



THE GEOLOGY OF CENTRAL BORNEO. 

 Geological Explorations in Central Borneo (1893-94). 

 By Dr. G. A. F. Molengraaff. English Revised 

 Edition, with an Appendix on Fossil Radiolaria of 

 Central Borneo by Dr. G. J. Hinde. Pp. xx + 530 

 + 56; with 89 illustrations in the text, 56 plates, 3 

 maps, and a folio atlas of 22 geological maps. 

 (Leyden : E. J. Brill; Amsterdam: H. Gerlings ; 

 Sold in London by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and 

 Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price 2I. 12s. 6d. net. 



THE Dutch edition of this work appeared in 1899, 

 and Dr. Hinde's appendix, then issued in English, 

 is now transferred, with its separate pagination, to 

 the translation of the complete work. The Borneo 

 Expedition, of which Dr. Molengraaff was the geo- 

 logical member, was organised by Mr. S. W. Tromp, 

 Resident of West Borneo, in connection with the 

 Society for the Promotion of the Scientific Exploration 

 of the Dutch Colonies. The observations were made 

 some ten years ago, and the author has not included 

 references to the work of others, published since the 

 completion of the Dutch edition. We are in posses- 

 sion, however, of the summary of the geology of Borneo 

 drawn up by Dr. E. Suess in 1901 (" Das Antlitz der 

 Erde," jter. Band, pp. 308-319), and many readers 

 have already turned to that summary for an exposi- 

 tion of the work of Molengraaff. Dr. Posewitz, about 

 1890, brought together, after three years' residence in 

 the island, the facts then known about the geology and 

 mineralogy of Borneo ("Borneo"; translated by Hatch, 

 1892)1 and his geological sketch-map was intended to 

 show how large a part of the country had already been 

 examined in a preliminary kind of way. Dr. Molen- 

 graaff, in his atlas, provides only one geological map, 

 dealing with the parts of Central and South Borneo 

 known to him ; an enlarged map of a portion of this 

 area follows", and the other maps prudently record the 

 observations actually made on the banks of the rivers, 

 which provide practically the only routes for travellers 

 in the country. Some generalised sections and pano- 

 ramic landscapes follow, the latter proving that wide 

 views are obtainable when observers climb above the 

 forest-zone. The fine illustrations and plates in the 

 volume of text reveal, moreover, many features of crag 

 and mountain that will be new to those who think of 

 Borneo as clothed with vegetation, amid which the 

 rivers wander in equatorial shade. 



The province of West Borneo, with which the author 

 mainly deals, is practically the basin of the Kapoewas 

 (the River Kapuas of Posewitz). By following it east- 

 ward, across a wooded region, where the projections 

 of antique Borneo rise like islands above the vast allu- 

 vium, the traveller reaches Sintang, 2600 km. in a 

 straight line from the coast. Here Dr. Molengraaff's 



