FEBRUARY 14, 1907 } 
NATURE 36 
On 
of 2000 revolutions per minute. The steam pressure 
at the turbine is 7olb. per square inch, and the 
exhaust steam is condensed. At the Hulton Colliery 
Company’s Deep Arley Pit, with which the author is 
connected, a turbine-driven fan has recently been 
erected. The plant consists of a screw propeller fan 
3 feet 6 inches in diameter, driven direct by a steam 
turbine. The efficiency of the fan varies from 50 to 
60 per cent., and although this is low compared with 
that claimed for other fans, the economy of the plant, 
or in other words the steam consumed per useful air 
horse-power output, compares favourably with that 
usually obtained with centrifugal fans driven by high- 
class reciprocating steam engines. An illustration of 
the plant is given. Throughout the bool: the illustra- 
tions are adequate, and in many cases very good, the 
only exception being Fig. 111, of a coil clip for 
endless rope haulage, which appears to be incorrectly 
drawn. 
AMPHIPODOUS CRUSTACEA. 
Das Tierretch. 21 Lieferung. Crustacea. Amphi- 
poda, I., Gammaridea. By the Rev. T. R. R. 
Stebbing, F.R.S.. Pp. xxxix+8o06; 127 figures in 
text. (Berlin: R. Friedlander und Sohn, 1906.) 
Price 48 marks. 
EADERS of Stevenson may possibly remember 
that when the hero of ‘‘ Catriona”’ tools leave of 
Alan Breck on Gillane Sands and turned to meet 
his pursuers, his attention was caught, in the soli- 
tude and silence of that ‘“‘ unchancy”’ place, by ‘‘ the 
sand-lice hopping nimbly about the stranded tangles.”’ 
One might search far through the fields of literature 
before finding another mention of the amphipodous 
Crustacea. Their small size, the aquatic habits of 
the majority, and the fact that they are neither 
immediately useful nor directly harmful to man, com- 
bine to withdraw them from popular observation, 
while even to many who claim the title of naturalist 
they are known only by name. Yet the student who 
attempts to gain some knowledge of this group of 
animals is likely to be bewildered at the outset by 
the almost infinite variety of specific differentiation 
which they present, no less than by the overwhelming 
mass of technical literature in which their peculiarities 
are recorded. 
It is true that more or less comprehensive system- 
atic monographs and summaries of what might be 
called the ‘‘minor morphology”’ of the group are 
not wanting. In his ‘Catalogue of the Amphi- 
podous Crustacea in the British Museum,’’ published 
in 1862, Mr. ©. Spence Bate attempted a revision of 
all the forms then known, and thereby lightened con- 
siderably the task of subsequent workers, if some- 
times also adding not a little to their perplexities. 
Later monographs, such as those of Boeclz, Bovallius, 
Sars and Mayer, have dealt only with single sub- 
divisions of the order or with the Amphipoda of re- 
stricted geographical areas. In 1888, however, Mr. 
Stebbing’s monumental report on the Amphipoda of | 
NO. 1946, VOL. 75] 
the Challenger Expedition not only described a larger 
and more varied material than had been at the dis- 
posal of any previous writer, but gave an exhaustive 
and critical analysis of the earlier literature, the lil 
of which is available for very few other groups of 
animals. 
When, therefore, it was announced that Mr. 
Stebbing had undertaken to prepare a revision of the 
Amphipoda for the ‘‘ Tierreich,’’ every carcinologist 
anticipated that its publication would mark an epoch 
in our knowledge of the group. The present volume 
of more than eight hundred pages contains only the 
first part of this work, dealing with the Gammaridea, 
the largest of the three legions (or suborders) into 
which the order is divided. It is in every way worthy 
of Mr. Stebbing’s high reputation. The whole field 
of existing literature has been explored with pains- 
taking minuteness (extending to the collection and 
recording of typographical errors), and an unrivalled 
experience in dealing with this group of animals has 
been brought to bear on the task of interpreting and 
criticising the descriptions of previous authors. 
As Mr. Stebbing explains in the preface, the worl: 
as originally planned included all species described 
up to the end of 1898, but publication was unavoid- 
ably delayed. A supplement has, however, been added 
which enumerates, without describing, the new 
species and genera established up to the end of 1905. 
Excluding those dealt with in the supplement, the 
number of species accepted as valid is 1076, while 
257 others are mentioned as doubtful. They are dis- 
iributed among 304 accepted and nine doubtful genera 
and forty-one families. 
In a work like the present, questions of nomen- 
clature inevitably come to the front, and even those 
zoologists who deprecate unnecessary interference with 
established names will admit it to be desirable that 
in an authoritative revision of a group of animals an 
effort should be made to settle the nomenclature on 
a stable basis. Mr. Stebbing has devoted much atten- 
tion to this point, and his decisions will in most cases 
be accepted as final by the majority of students. We 
may regret, however, that he has not seen his way 
to mitigate the severity of his interpretation of the 
rule of priority in one or two cases where it seems to 
introduce, instead of removing, confusion. As Mr. 
Lydekker pointed out some time ago in a letter to 
Nature (vol. Ixxi., p. 608), the transference of old 
and well-known generic names to other genera may 
often be seriously misleading. With regard to one 
such change adopted in the present work, Canon 
Norman recently expressed the opinion that, ‘ con- 
sidering the inadequate description of the genus 
Podocerus and its erroneous use for nearly one 
hundred years, the name ought to be excluded from 
an altered use.’’ This opinion, coming from one of 
so wide experience in systematic zoology, will find 
many supporters, at least among those who think 
that the animals themselves are more profitable objects 
of study than their names. 
Mr. Stebbing’s volume will remain the standard 
work of reference on the Gammaridea for a very long 
