April 9, 1903] 



NA TURE 



53i 



versationslexicon," in many volumes, as the principal 

 ornament of its parlour, and here Schoedler's " Book of 

 Nature " might also find a home. Dr. Schvvalbe's 

 volume, now before us, forms a part of the twenty-third 

 edition of Schoedler's stately work, a " circle of the 

 sciences " that still continues to revolve. The lirst 

 part of the " Buch der Natur " has, it appears, already 

 dealt with the life of plants and animals, and the 

 palaeontological history given by Dr. Schwalbe (pp. 193- 

 230) is consequently only a slight sketch. The tremen- 

 dous changes that have taken place from epoch to 

 epoch in the predominant life-forms on the globe appeal 

 to most minds that seek self-instruction in geology ; 

 to such the present treatise must appear phenomenally 

 dry. Dr. Ernst Schwalbe, however, a son of the author, 

 interpolates thirteen pages styled " Einige VVorte vom 

 Darwinismus," which lead to most just conclu- 

 sions, but which are far more zoological than 

 geological. The author's decease during the progress 

 of the book has thrown much labour on the editor, Dr. 

 Bottger, who has been asked to piece together de- 

 tached portions of manuscript, and to supply important 

 passages himself. He has certainly kept the work 

 very fairly up to date, as in the description of the human 

 remains in the Krapina valley, in Croatia (p. 592), and 

 the expanded section on crystallographic symmetry 

 (pp. 603-646) ; but such additions are often far removed 

 from the matter on which they bear in the main text. 

 The book opens, in fact, with a severe and very chilling 

 account of crystal- forms, in which Naumann's symbols 

 are prevalent, and in which the positions adopted for 

 some of the drawings leave much to be desired. The 

 optical characters, which are so much relied on nowa- 

 days, are dismissed in two pages, and the distinction 

 between uniaxial and biaxial crystals is given with time- 

 honoured incompleteness. The blowpipe-examination 

 of minerals, so fascinating to schoolboys and to those 

 working bv themselves, is not dealt with from a prac- 

 tical point of view ; and the description of minerals 

 would give the beginner little conception of the con- 

 nection of these bodies with the earth on which we live. 

 The beauty of the objects is occasionally dwelt on ; but 

 their common mode of occurrence, and their geological 

 relations, are left to a general chapter on mineral de- 

 posits, which follows the detailed catalogue of species. 

 The account given of the felspars and other rock-form- 

 ing minerals has very little value for the geologist, 

 and bears signs of considerable antiquity. 



The petrography is similarly in need of vitalising 

 touches. The group of " lavas," as distinct from 

 basalts and trachytes, is retained; and the inner mean- 

 ing of rock-structures is not discussed. After a palaeon- 

 tological and stratigraphical episode, we return to 

 petrography, on p. 216, with the almost extinct division 

 of igneous rocks according to geological age. Then 

 we swing back to palaeontology, and to a table " nach 

 Giimbel," which naturally takes no account of the re- 

 cently disclosed richness of the Cambrian fauna of 

 America. And so on, classically enough, until we ask 

 why, with so many good German text-books in 

 existence, gymnasia are to be treated to these special 



NO. 1745, VOL. 67] 



products of desiccation. May not the pupil exclaim, 

 " And it was full of bones ; and he caused me to pass by 

 them round about ; and lo, they were very dry "? 



The sections on denudation and aggregation are, 

 however, much more cheering, and the photographic 

 illustrations are mostly new and excellent. From them 

 the. student may gain a real feeling for the varied 

 aspects of the earth. The three plates showing the 

 changes in the Karlseisfeld, in the Austrian Alps, at in- 

 tervals of about ten years, are beautiful and impres- 

 sive. But we are soon after (p. 603) drawn on into a 

 series of " gemischte Waaren " in the form of separate 

 articles, confirming or expanding what has gone before. 

 Thus, "Crystallographic systems," 45 pages; 

 " Nomenclature," 35 pages, in which the derivation of 

 mineral names is given, with original Greek words and 

 their transliterations into Latin letters; " On Caves," 

 22 pages; "Orogeny," 35 pages, with many modern 

 features and admirable illustrations. Dr. Bottger has 

 clearly had a difficult task in pouring new wine into old 

 bottles. We gather (p. 744) that geology has no dis- 

 tinct place in the curriculum of the Prussian high 

 schools, although mineralogy and petrography are ad- 

 mitted ; and the late Dr. Schwalbe worked hard to intro- 

 duce geological illustrations into the experimental work 

 of other subjects. In the twenty-fourth edition of the 

 " Buch der Natur," Dr. Bottger may have the oppor- 

 tunity of recasting this volume, and of abolishing the 

 system of appendices ; but for school work something 

 more practical is required. It is to be feared that the 

 Prussian scheme of education does not favour individual 

 experiment ; but the pupil cannot understand geology 

 unless he has scratched his minerals with a knife, and 

 gathered his fossils on the bare hillside. The Pomer- 

 anian plain is not ideal for such a purpose; but, even 

 there, every field contains its treasures, and the glorious 

 ice-borne blocks from Scandinavia give colour to each, 

 village street. The history of one of these, from pre- 

 Cambrian to gymnasial days, is worth a thousand pages 

 of conscientious compilation. 



Grenville A. J. Cole. 



CURIOS A MATHEMATICA. 



Opinions et Curiositis touchant la Mathematiquc. 

 Deuxieme Serie. By Georges Maupin. Pp. 332 

 (Paris : C Naud, 1902.) Price 5 francs. 



THIS is a very entertaining miscellany in which even 

 reader will find something to his taste. Thus we 

 have extracts from the works of sixteenth century 

 mathematicians, still influenced by the methods of 

 scholasticism ; part of the debate in the Chamber of 

 Deputies (August, 1S35) on the French jury system, 

 when Arago appealed without effect to the mathe- 

 matical theory of probabilities ; two specimens of circle- 

 squaring (1852, 1S35); and so on. Two or three ex- 

 tracts will serve to show how amusing some of these 

 chapters are. 



John YVilkins, after criticising adversely the cabal- 

 istic methods of the Jews, argues in true scholastic 



