124 



NA TURE 



[June 6, 1901 



Messrs. Randall-Maciver and Wilkin think that the burial 

 practice of the Libyans links them to the early European 

 races and to the Amorites of Syria ; but it isolates them 

 completely from the inhabitants of Egypt of any period, 

 whether early or late. Moreover, they assert, as the re- 

 sult of their craniological investigations, that connection 

 of culture gives little or no ground for inferring identity 

 of race between the Egyptians and Libyans ; and although 

 they admit that the prehistoric Egyptians— by which they 

 mean the Egyptians of the first three dynasties !— were 

 a mixed race, they declare in no uncertain voice that 

 this mixed race as a whole was not Berber. This con- 

 clusion is based on the difference between the cephalic 

 index of the Egyptians and that of the Berbers, and is 

 supported by a number of carefully constructed tablets 

 drawn up on a system which we think is new. The sup- 

 porters of the theory that the Egyptians were of Libyan 

 origin will be somewhat disturbed by such deductions, 

 but the last word on the subject has not yet been spoken, 

 and it must be frankly admitted that such ingenious 

 arguments and speculations as those set forth by such in- 

 dustrious writers as Messrs. Randall-Maciver and Wilkin 

 only serve in the end to show the general reader how 

 very little is really known about such remote times as 

 those to which they relate. 



" Libyan Notes " is an interesting book, not so much for 

 the conclusions arrived at by the authors as for the facts 

 and references to the works of older writers, and the 

 plates contained in it. The " notes " are brightly written, 

 and, as we should expect from Oxford men, some atten- 

 tion has been paid to the style of the English used in 

 their composition. Unfortunately, they do not advance 

 our knowledge of the difficult subjects discussed, and it is 

 hard not to feel that the writers have unconsciously tried 

 to make their facts "square" with too many theories 

 about the origins of civilisation in Southern Europe and 

 Northern Africa. A little more attention might have 

 been given with advantage to the Arabic words and 

 names, especially if quantities are marked ; spelling hke 

 Hajji (p. 7), Djemaa (pp. i8, 19), Oukil (p. 20), Zaouia 

 (p. 21), &c., disfigure the book. 



OLD WEATHER RECORDS. 



Mdicorologische Beobactungen vom xiv. bis xvii. Jahr- 

 hiindert. Mit einer Einleitung. Herausgegeben von 

 Prof. Dr. G. Hellmann. Pp. 127. 4to. (Berlin : A. 

 Asher and Co.) 



THIS volume is the thirteenth of the series of reprints 

 of texts and charts concerning meteorology and 

 terrestrial magnetism published in Berlin under the 

 editorship of Dr. Hellmann. The editor's previous 

 achievements in the bibliography of meteorology are so 

 conspicuous that it will not surprise any one to find that 

 he has selected and arranged extracts from the earliest 

 regular meteorological records in such a way as to pro- 

 duce a most interesting volume. His investigations have 

 incidentally led to considerable additions to our store of 

 knowledge of the meteorology of Europe during the 

 centuries referred to, for inquiry among the libraries has 

 proved the existence of a number of useful weather 

 registers in the margins of old calendars. These doubt- 

 l.'ss owe their origin, as Dr. Hellmann suggests, to the 

 NO. 1649, VOL. 64] 



curious combination of the dearness of paper and the 

 prevalence of the notion of referring weather changes to 

 astronomical causes not exclusively solar, a notion not 

 even yet quite extinct. The index of meteorological 

 observations in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries accordingly occupies as much as twenty-six 

 pages and becomes an important work of reference for 

 the study of secular changes of climate. 



The selection of extracts is thoroughly cosmopolitan. 

 By the exercise of a little ingenuity Dr. Hellmann 

 manages to include with the extracts from observations 

 made in all parts of Europe, in .America and on the 

 seas, some information about the meteorological obser- 

 vations of the Chaldeans lately brought to light by Mr. 

 R. Campbell Thompson's publication of the reports of 

 the magicians and astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon. 

 He has something to say too about Theophrastus' book 

 of the winds, which has been translated by Mr. J. G. 

 Wood, and also about some early ramfall measurements 

 in Palestine on the authority of the Mishnah. 



The extracts themselves begin with a weather journal 

 for 1343, written in Latin by William Merle, of Driby 

 (Lincolnshire), preserved in the Bodleian Library, and 

 end with observations made in a voyage to China, a.d. 

 1700, by Mr. James Cunningham, F.R.S., a ship's log 

 originally printed in the Philosophical Transactions. 

 Among the names of other observers are Martin Biem, of 

 Krakau (1502); Aventin, of Munich (1511); Pietra- 

 mellara, of Bologna (1524); Palomino, of Jodar, Spain 

 (1556); Tycho Brahe(i582); Kepler (1623) ; Marggraf, 

 Brazil (1640) ; Campanius, of New Sweden, N. America 

 (1644) ; the Florentine observers (1655) ; John Locke, of 

 Oxford (1666) ; and Robert Plot, of Oxford (1684), who 

 gives the earliest extant diagram of barometric changes. 

 Among the early marine observers are Columbus (1535) ; 

 John Davis (1506); Francis Drake (1596); Henry 

 Hudson (1608) ; Abel Janszoon Tasman (1642) ; Friedrich 

 Martens, an arctic traveller (167 1) ; and Edmund Halley 

 (1699), the first ' modern ' writer on the general circulation 

 of the atmosphere, whose observations were made on a 

 special voyage of investigation of the ocean winds in 

 the Paramour Pink, a vessel placed at his disposal by 

 King William III. 



The book is full of interest not merely historical. In 

 view of the difficulty of consulting the originals for the 

 purposes of inquiry into such questions as the periodicity 

 of weather changes, it seems a pity that the material is 

 not reprinted in full instead of by extract. But such a 

 reprint would form an entirely different kind of book. 



The volume, like its predecessors in the same series, is 

 a sort of edition de lu.xe ; it is beautifully printed on hand- 

 made paper and the facsimile reproductions are excellent. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Le Colon. By Prof. H. Lecomte. Pp. viii -(-494- (Paris : 



Carre and Naud, 1900.) 

 ThI'^ is largely a work of compilation, and not the result 

 of original research or experiment. In the first part, the 

 methods of cotton culture and the chemical composition 

 and physical structure of the fibres are dealt with Com- 

 parisons are also made between the properties of different 

 cottons and the uses and applications of the by-products, 

 such as cotton-seed oil and its manufacture. The extent 



