508 
NATURE 
[ Marcu 28, 1907 
WATERWAYS. 
By E. A. Martel. 
Société de Spéléo- 
CAVES AND 
La Spéléologie au XX° Siecle. 
Tome vi. of Spelunca. (Paris: 
logie, 1906.) 
HE completion of this volume deserves separate 
mention. Its 800 pages contain a critical review 
by M. Martel of practically all papers bearing on caves 
published in the last six years. Since these papers, in 
their turn, refer to a large amount of earlier work, 
we have here a complete exposition of what is at 
present known of ‘speleology.”’ We pointed out, 
when noticing one of the separate parts, how the 
editor’s comments render the abstracts readable and 
illuminating. The papers have been classified, for 
the most part geographically, and the volume becomes 
practically an unconventional text-book of the lore of 
caves. The range of subject permitted may here and 
there raise a smile; but it dies away in admiration 
of M. Martel’s energy. Marcellin Boule, for instanc=, 
is cited on p. 694 as describing a lava-flow in 
Auvergne intermediate in age between the epoch of 
the mammoth and that of the reindeer. On p. 727, 
again, we read how a cave near Sévérac-le-Chateau 
—and memories of causse and cafion are recalled 
by the very mame—was discovered in 1902 to 
contain a chapel, with accessories brought there 
during the persecution of the Catholic priests in 
1793. A moment’s reflection shows us that both 
references may prove of value. Traces of man among 
French volcanic deposits need not be regarded as of 
Tliocene age. The occurrence of religious emblems 
in caves may be due as much to a desire for secrecy 
as to the association of the cave itself with any form 
of ceremony. It is thus hard to think of any worker 
in anthropology or natural history who would 
not gain information from M. Martel’s aid. 
The alleged glacial deepening of Alpine valleys, 
and the formation of cluses, are discussed on 
p. 526. Even writers on radio-activity may learn 
something from the notes on subterranean waters 
on pp. 610-612. To most readers, the gradual 
growth of our knowledge regarding the incised draw- 
ings and paintings on the roofs and walls of caves 
(pp. 654-705) will prove of surpassing interest. M. 
Martel presses home his contention that the bold 
representations of animals, sometimes amazingly 
faithful, are records or trophies of the chase. 
Three photographic illustrations are given of paint- 
ings in the cave of Altamira, near Santander, which 
Martel himself has visited. Cartailhac (p. 703) records 
how the discovery of these was made by a child, in 
the company of less observant scientific excavators. 
Alcalde del Rio (p. 704), in a paper published in 1906, 
mentions, in the cave of Hornos de la Pena, ‘‘a figure 
in a human attitude, but apparently an ape.”? M. 
Martel adds that it has a tail; but why does he sug- 
gest, on p. 706, that M. Piette’s ‘‘étre de caractére 
simiesque,’’ engraved on a bone, is ‘‘ probablement 
imaginaire’’? Surely the Neolithic or even earlier 
artists, who saw so much that was wonderful and 
worth reproducing in the animal world around them, 
NO. 1952. VOL. 75] 
had hardly yet risen, or descended, to the consciously 
imaginary and grotesque ? 
M. Piette has himself sent us a paper on “ Fibules 
pléistocenes ’’ (Revue préhistorique, 1906, p. 1), in 
which he writes confidently as to his anthropoid from 
Mas-d’Azil. He describes also a pendant ornament 
of incised reindeer-horn from Gourdan, on which a 
similar erect anthropoid, this time tailless, is clearly 
shown. The figures which he publishes are of 
immense interest; and M. Martel will doubtless note 
them in a future volume of Spelunca. Though 
‘* spelzologists ’? cannot be allowed to found a science 
of their own, geologists, zoologists, anthropologists, 
and historians may well hope to link a friendly arm 
in theirs. GRENVILLE A. J. COLE. 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
Die chemische Energie der lebenden Zellen. By 
Prof. Oscar Loew. Second edition. Pp. viii+ 133. 
(Stuttgart: Fr. Grub, 1906.) Price 3 marks. 
THE great part played by the proteins in building 
up living cells has resulted in the ascription by 
physiologists to these substances of an indispensable 
réle in vital processes. If, however, protoplasm be 
regarded as a protein molecule, the difficulty at once 
arises how to account for the great differences in 
stability between the living and the dead protein. 
This difficulty Pfluger, as well as Loew, attempts to 
get over by assuming a different constitution for the 
protein in the living body from that which is familiar 
to us in the dead protein as analysed in the labor- 
atory. Whereas, however, Pfliiger ascribed the 
lability of the living protein to the presence of 
cyanogen groups, which underwent transformation to 
amino-groups, Loew explains the difference by 
assuming the simultaneous presence in the plasma 
protein of aldehyde and amino-groups, basing his 
hypothesis largely on the fact that the cells of certain 
vegetable organisms give a blaclx reaction with dilute 
ammoniacal silver only so long as they are alive, the 
reaction failing when the cells have been killed by 
heat, acids, or alcohol. 
This blackening Loew and Bokorny assumed to be 
due to the presence of a reserve protein of special 
character, allied in the grouping of its constituent 
molecules to that which obtains in the living proto- 
plasm. 
In the present book, the first edition of which 
appeared in 1898, the author examines the behaviour 
of living cells, the nature of their work, and the 
assimilation of food-stuffs in the light of his theory. 
The great amount of work which has been carried 
out of late years by Kossel, Fischer, and their pupils 
on the constitution of the protein molecule, which 
has resulted in the separation of a large number of 
approximate principles, all distinguished by the 
possession of amino-groups, Loew dismisses with the 
airy suggestion that, during the action of the hydro- 
lytic agents, acids or trypsin, a shifting of the intra- 
molecular groups has taken place, with the result 
that the amino-acids, &c., obtained at the end of the 
hydrolysis cannot be assumed to throw any light on 
the structure of the protein molecule itself. Since in 
the plant organism it is probable that protein is 
formed from formaldehyde and ammonia by a process 
of polymerisation, the author imagines that the re- 
sulting product, in consequence of the presence of 
numerous aldehyde and amino-groups, must form a 
