664 
NATURE 
[AuGUST 27, 1914 
tice of an industrial rubber laboratory, viz., the 
sampling and analysis of raw rubbers, the nature 
and properties of the various substances—rubber 
substitutes, fillers, pigments, etc.—used in pre- 
paring manufactured rubber, and finally the analy- 
sis of manufactured rubbers. 
The methods described and recommended are 
well chosen, and, indeed, are those which the 
author has found satisfactory in actual practice. 
The book is, in fact, so good that one regrets 
the decision not to include any account of the 
mechanical testing of manufactured rubber. The 
reason given for this decision is that this method 
of examination is as yet merely beginning to give 
rise to systematic laboratory practice. Both manu- 
facturers and planters are now, however, taking 
up this subject seriously, and in view of this, a 
statement of the experience of so careful and con- 
scientious an observer as Dr. Caspari would have 
been welcomed by all interested in this subject. 
It is to be hoped that when a new edition of this 
little book is called for, the author will still fur- 
ther increase its utility to the rubber chemist by 
adding a section on mechanical testing. 
The book is very well produced and illustrated, 
and is remarkably free from misprints. 
Ancient India, from the Earliest Times to the 
First Century a.p. By Prof. E. J. Rapson. 
Pp. vilit+199. (Cambridge University Press, 
EOI!) Ierice 3s-- net, 
Ir is not an easy task to write a popular introduc- 
tion to the history of ancient India. A race, 
records of early events save poems and dreary 
treatises on belief and ritual, coloured by religious 
antipathy and prejudices. 
excavation has scarcely begun, but even now the 
fresh material daily accumulating—epigraphical, 
numismatic, artistic—is so abundant and perplex- 
ing that the time for its scientific discussion has 
scarcely yet arrived. The ruling tendency of Indian 
history has always been centrifugal, and it is only 
at rare periods—those of Asoka and Harsha—that 
the story attains ephemeral unity, and, as a whole, 
it remains a record of the fortunes of petty States, 
without much material for a continuous sketch of 
social life or an account of the individual actors | 
in the drama. 
For those who desire an elaborate account of 
the facts, Mr. V. A. Smith’s “Early History,” 
now in its third edition, is available. Prof. 
Rapson is a master of the subject, and he has | 
relieved the tedium of the narrative by some inter- 
esting disquisitions, such as a discussion of the 
rise of the study of Sanskrit, and of the processes 
by which some attempt at a chronology has been 
reached. The engravings of coins, architecture, 
and inscriptions are much to the purpose. He 
might have done more to illustrate the social side 
of the history, but so far as it goes the book 
forms an admirable introduction to work a know- 
ledge of which has too long been confined to the 
specialist. 
NO: 12330, Vor. 92 | 
_ bag or purse. 
| with me, and turned it over and over with your own 
hands, marvelling at that new belly and wonderful 
| provision of nature. 
' ence that she never letteth her whelps go out of that 
| purse except it be either to play or suck until such 
| Australian phalanger. 
The age of scientific | 
| times a second 
LETTERS TO (THE: EDITOR: 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed 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 First Description of a Kangaroo. 
On reading Dr. Estreicher’s letter under this head- 
ing in Nature of March 19 (p. 60) I wrote to Mr. 
Petherick, who was kind enough to send me one of 
his articles on the subject reprinted from the British 
Australasian for May 6, 1897. This article gives the 
complete passage from Peter Martyr, part of which 
| Dr. Estreicher quoted, evidently from memory. 
The passage is as follows :—‘‘ Among these trees is 
found that monstrous beast with a snout like a fox, 
a tail like a marmoset, ears like a bat, hands like a 
man, and feet like an ape, bearing her whelps about 
with her in an outward belly, much like unto a great 
The dead carcase of this beast you saw | 
They say it is known by experi- 
time that they be able to get their living by them- 
selves.” 
There can be no doubt that this is the description of 
a marsupial, and to me it seems very clear that it 
refers to an opossum. ‘Hands like a man and feet 
like an ape”’ implies that all four feet were used for 
grasping, and I cannot understand how anyone could 
think such a description applicable to a kangaroo, 
especially when we are told that the creature had a 
‘ y : | ‘tail like a marmoset.”’ 
destitute of the historical sense, has left few | 
The following points in the description seem to me 
to point to the true American opossum rather than the 
‘Bearing her whelps about 
with her’’ implies that the animal had a litter of 
young. The phalangers (and kangaroos) only give 
birth to a single young one at a time, though some- 
is born before the first leaves the 
pouch. ‘‘ They say it is known by experience ”’ implies 
that the animal lived in a country either inhabited by 
| white men or in which white men had intercourse with 
the natives. Neither of these conditions can have 
| applied to Australia in the fifteenth century. 
W. B. ALEXANDER. 
Western Australian Museum, Perth, W.A., July 11. 
The ‘‘ Green Ray’’ at Sunset. 
YESTERDAY, Sunday, August 16, I was watching the 
sunset over the sea. I was using binoculars, and 
remarked that I had never seen the horizon so sharp. - 
| The waves could be seen on the edge of the sky. 
I was watching with interest the rapid disappear- 
ance of the upper rim of the sun when quite un- 
expectedly the golden edge turned apple-green and 
seemed to lag for a second or two and then vanished. 
The green line seemed to be broken into three, 
possibly by waves acting in the same way as a small. 
irregularity on one edge of a spectroscopic slit acts on 
a spectrum. The waves were not big enough to ke 
simple obstructions. Ry Gi Bivawee 
Sandringham House, Marina Crescent, 
Herne Bay, August 17. 
[Ir is a pity that this well-known phenomenon due 
to atmospheric dispersion is not more frequently 
looked for.—Ed. Narturs.] 
ee UCL lL 
