May 23, 1 901] 



NA TURE 



75 



to take such a journey into the future cannot do better 

 than make it under Mr. Sutherland's guidance. He 

 points out clearly, and in many cases we think rightly, 

 what are likely to prove the most important inventions in 

 the twentieth century. It is, perhaps, necessary to state 

 that the author counts in\entions as belonging to the 

 period during which they come to fruition rather than 

 to that in which the original idea is first conceived ; some 

 such limitation is certainly necessary, otherwise there will 

 never be wanting those who will be ready to prove that 

 there is nothing new under the sun, and that the germ 

 of the Turbinia was contained in Noah's Ark. 



A great deal of space is justly given to the generation, 

 storage and distribution of power. This is becoming one 

 of the most pressing problems of the immediate future, 

 as is evidenced by the number of big power schemes now 

 on foot. We already see the new industries requiring 

 much energy congregating around large sources of water- 

 power. This source has only just begun to be seriously 

 tapped, and for a time, at least, we can regard it as an 

 almost inexhaustible supply of cheap power. But as 

 progress goes on, as these industries develop and increase, 

 water-power will no longer remain so cheap, for land will 

 get more valuable in the neighbourhood of suitable water- 

 falls, and the available power will be, sooner or later, all in 

 use even though the falls possess so large a reserve as 

 Niagara. We shall then have to turn to other sources as 

 yet untouched ; it is to the winds and the waves that we 

 shall go for help, according to Mr. Sutherland. Such 

 sources as these, however, are intermittent and can only 

 be useful when a thoroughly satisfactory means of storing 

 power has been found. For this we must look to the 

 electric accumulator, especially as the electrical seems to 

 be the most suitable method of transmitting power. The 

 author enters into detail at considerable length concern- 

 ing the inventions by means of which the wind and wave 

 power will be " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," and here we 

 must confess we do not think him so convmcing. 

 Throughout the book there is a tendency to enter into 

 too minute details ; it will be long before many of the 

 problems are seriously attacked, and by the time they are 

 it is probable that we shall have better means of attacking 

 them than are now at our command. 



Transport, both by sea and land, is another very press- 

 ing question. It is being very generally recognised that 

 some method of relieving the congestion of the towns 

 must be found, and it is probable thaf this will be most 

 readily effected by increasing the ease of locomotion, 

 though the transmission of power, by taking the work to 

 the labourer in place of bringing the labourer to the work, 

 will no doubt be a great help. Mr. Sutherland's schemes 

 for increased facility of transport by road and rail are, 

 many of them, suggestive and will be read with interest. 



Space forbids our following Mr. Sutherland further into 

 the coming century. We are inclined to disagree with 

 his predictions concerning the future of music, art and 

 many of the minor applications of electricity. We do 

 not, for e.xample, belie\ e that wireless telegraphy will ever 

 be used for lighting (and we suppose laying) the morning 

 fire, that the housemaid of the future may not have to come 

 down to a cold room. But, on the whole, the book takes a 

 comprehensive and broad survey of the probable progress 

 of invention, and is well worth careful reading. 

 NO. 1647, VOL. 64] 



VER TEDRA TE HIS TO GENESIS. 

 Lecilhoblast unci Angioblast der Wirbelthiere. By Wil- 

 helm His. Abhandlungen der math.-phys. Classe der 

 Kgl. Sach, Gesell. der Wissenschaft, vol. xxvi. pp. 173- 

 328; 102 figures. (Leipzig: 1900.) Price Mk. 8. 



THIS memoir is the latest and largest of a series, 

 published by the author in the Transactious of the 

 Saxon Academy of Science. Its title indicates that it 

 treats of histogenetic studies in those parts of the de- 

 veloping germ which are concerned in the formation of 

 the blood-vessels and blood, and in the elaboration and 

 assimilation of the yolk-mass. The table of contents at 

 the close reveals a very much w-ider sphere of research 

 than that suggested by the title. It is, indeed, a treatise 

 on histogenesis. Prof. His himself describes it as a sort 

 of histological testament. Like some other documents 

 of the like name, it contains very varied provisions. 

 Almost all the phenomena witnessed in the early develop- 

 ment of the embryo are treated of at greater or less 

 length, the first blood-vessels and blood and the changes 

 undergone by the yolk and its components receiving 

 special attention. The work is full of detailed observa- 

 tions, and these are described at the hand of a complex 

 terminology. 



Following the plan of certain of his previous studies, 

 the author has departed from the usual custom of gather- 

 ing the illustrations into plates. And there can be no 

 question that the numerous woodcuts woven into the 

 text add greatly to the usefulness of the memoir. If the 

 work contain no strikingly novel or fundamental discovery, 

 it may none the less be described as a valuable store- 

 house of exact observations for the use of future inves- 

 tigators. 



One of Prof. His's most remarkable recent discoveries 

 — originally published in an earlier study— is again dealt 

 with in connection with the yolk-germ or lecithoblast. 

 It is that, underlying the so-called amitotic or direct 

 division of the yolk-nuclei or merocytes, there is a modi- 

 fication of ordinary mitosis, z'.c. a pluripolar form. This 

 identification is probably to be regarded as among the 

 greatest real adv-ances in cytology of recent years. For 

 does it not bring the unknown and incomprehensible into 

 relationship with the known ? 



It may, however, be doubted whether, as the author 

 maintains, the products of pluripolar mitosis — if the 

 process attain any particular complexity— are ever able 

 to revert to the bipolar form ; indeed, whether cells 

 which have got entangled in this complex network are 

 ever able to emerge therefrom as normal entities. Con- 

 nected with this question there is also the curious amce- 

 boid mode of yolk-anne.\ation by certain cells described 

 and figured in the memoir. Rueckert demonstrated some 

 years ago— and his observations have recently been fully 

 confirmed by Beard— that a tendency to free themselves 

 from the yolk is often one of the characteristics of cells 

 undergoing pluripolar mitosis. Like the latter process, 

 that recorded by His as yolk-anne.\ation would therefore 

 be classifiable as a degenerative phenomenon. 



The task undertaken in these histogenetic studies was 

 an immense one— even for an investigator of the energy 

 and talents of Proi. His— covering, or attempting to do 

 so,'a large portion of the field of developmental mechanics. 

 How is it that certain structures arise at certain, usually 



