244 
ment of himself as the director of the Meteorological 
Service of India. We now look forward with the 
greatest interest to the promised ‘‘ Manual of Indian 
Climatology,’’ which, as an addition to the “‘ Atlas,” 
and especially in the interest of the general public, is 
indispensable. Our knowledge of the meteorology of 
India has now extended so far beyond the region of 
the instructive and concise work of Henry F. Blan- 
ford, ‘‘ Climate and Weather of India’’ (London, 
188g), that a new description on a broader foundation 
appears to us an absolute necessity. 
J. Hann. 
A NEW TREATISE ON EVOLUTION. 
Einfiihrung in die Deszendenztheorie. Sechs Vort- 
vage. By Prof. Karl Camillo Schneider. Pp. 
vilit147. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1906.) Price 
4 marks. 
HIS is a book with many good points. It gives 
a fairly complete account of current opinion on 
the subject of evolution, including the most recent 
views concerning the nature of variation and the laws 
of inheritance. Most of the facts cited are sufficiently 
familiar, but they are explained with unusual lucidity 
and conciseness. Where authorities differ, their con- 
clusions are as a rule impartially stated; and when, as 
often happens, the author’s own judgment is at fault, 
he will generally be found to have supplied his 
readers with material for forming a sounder opinion. 
The illustrations are copious and well-selected, and 
the book as a whole will serve as an adequate intro- 
duction to modern evolutionary theory. 
So far as argument goes, the most effective part 
of the work is its criticism of Lamarckism, from 
which, however, we miss any mention of Prof. Ray 
Lankester’s convincing demonstration of the self- 
contradictory nature of Lamarck’s ‘‘laws.’’ The 
author appears to attach far too much importance to 
the ‘‘ mutations ’’ of de Vries, and regards as well- 
established. certain conclusions on this head which 
recent researches have seriously shaken. His objec- 
tions to the part assigned to selection by Darwin and 
his followers are singularly feeble, and we are not 
surprised to find that his knowledge of many of the 
most important facts bearing on this branch of the 
subject is imperfect. His account of mimicry, for 
instance, is quite out of date; and the vast mass of 
highly significant material that has been accumulated 
under the influence of Fritz Miiller’s theory of 
common warning colours is almost entirely ignored. 
An error, or rather a series of errors, which unfor- 
tunately found their way into Weismann’s latest 
work (as pointed out in Narure, vol. Ixxii., 1905, p. 
201), reappears in the coloured plate appended to the 
present treatise. As these errors remain uncorrected 
in the English translation of Weismann, and have 
since been copied into several other publications ‘n 
Germany and America, it may be well to direct atten- 
tion to them here in detail. 
In the plate referred to (Taf. II.), Fig. 1 represents, 
not, as stated, the male of Papilio merope, but the 
female of the north-east African form, P. antinorit. 
Figs. 3 and 4 are not ‘“‘torms of P. merope from 
NO. 1941, VOL. 75] 
NATURE 
[JANUARY I0, 1907 
South Africa,’’ Fig. 3 being the hippocoon form of 
the female of P. tibullus, a race of P. dardanus which 
occurs in East Africa from Mombasa to Delagoa 
Bay. and Fig. 4 representing the female of P. 
echerioides, a species quite distinct from the dar- 
danus or merope group. The butterfly represented in 
Fig. 6 is not, as stated, Amauris niavius from South 
Africa (the form usually called dominicanus), but be- 
longs to the West African race of the species. 
Finally, in Fig. 7 is shown, not the Danaine Amauris 
echeria, ‘‘ the immune model of Fig. 4,’’ but another 
Papilio, viz. the cenea form of P. dardanus 2, the 
mimic having been here mistaken for its model. 
These mistakes are the less excusable in that several 
of the forms in question have been carefully discussed 
and figured by Prof. Poulton. 
The great difficulty to be faced by those who, like 
the author of the present treatise, seelk to minimise 
the influence of selection, is the universal prevalence 
of adaptation. We accordingly turned with some in- 
terest to the passages in which he gives his own 
solution of the problem. We must confess to a feel- 
ing of disappointment. The author makes no serious 
effort to grapple with the question; he appears to be 
satisfied with vague phrases about “ extra-personal 
correlation ’’ which explain nothing, while his dictum 
—emphasised by spaced type—‘‘ Artbildung ist einer- 
seits WVervollkommnung, andererseits Anpassung,”’ 
when taken with its context, seems to savour of the 
heresy of orthogenesis. However, he claims for his 
bool that it is only an introduction, not an attempt 
at explanation, and in both parts of the claim we 
think he is justified. BAL Ds 
OUR COAL RESOURCES. 
The Coal Question. By the late W. Stanley Jevons. 
Edited by A. W. Flux. Third edition. Pp. 1+ 467. 
(London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 
Ios. net. 
HE first edition of Jevons’s lucid and exhaustive 
work was published in 1865 and the second in 
1866, and since that date it has constantly been referred 
to, but almost always misunderstood. The Royal Com- 
missions of 1866 and 1901 both shared the general mis- 
understanding. This is certainly surprising in view 
of the care the author took to make his position clear. 
He argued that within a century the want of coal 
would seriously check our material progress if the 
rate of progress in consumption shown at the time 
at which he wrote were maintained. 
Since Jevons’s tragic death in 1882 (NaTurE, vol. 
xxvi., p. 420), no one has pointed out the superiority 
of his logical method over that of his many critics. 
It is, therefore, a matter for congratulation that Prof. 
Flux, of McGill University, who was formerly Stanley 
Jevons professor in the Owens College, Manchester, 
has edited a third edition, in which he has wisely 
preserved the text unaltered so far as might con- 
veniently be done, while making such additions as 
were necessary to embody the knowledge accumulated 
in the forty years since its original issue. The most 
important change in the general situation since then 
is the development of the coal resources of Germany. 
