248 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 14, 1897 
constellation Quadrans Auralis, about 20° north of Corona, and 
between Boétes and Draco. The shower seems to have been in 
pretty strong evidence at its recent return, for Prof. Herschel 
observed some fine long-pathed meteors from it during the hour 
preceding midnight on January 1, and Mr. Milligin, of Belfast, 
writes me that, on the morning of January 2, he recorded twelve 
of its meteors indicating a radiant in the usual position at 
230 + 52°. Though often escaping notice, the January meteor 
stream sometimes furnishes a really active display, and an ob- 
server may count thirty or forty shooting starsinan hour. They 
are brighter than the average of such objects, and the radiant 
being low during the greater part of the night, they have very 
extended flight, which adds to their conspicuous appearance. 
Bristol, January 8. W. F. DENNING. 
The Svastika. 
IN your report of the Presidential Address, Section H, Anthro- 
pology, at the British Association, I observe on p. 529 that, ‘* It 
is in the same Anatolo- Danubian area—as M. Reinach has well 
pointed out—that we find the original centre of diffusion of the 
Svastika motive in the old world. ’ 
I trust that you will permit me to point out that this type of 
ornament is not uncommon among our Pre-Aryan savage races, 
and I enclose a rubbing of one, off a large flat engraved_hair-pin 
worn by the women and grown-girls of the extreme eastern Naga 
group, near Margharita, Upper Asam. 
These bone hair-pins are peculiar, and the patterns do not 
vary. I describe them on p. 6 of my paper in the Journal of 
the Asiatic Soczety of Bengal (vol. xv. part iii. No. 1, 1896), 
copy of which I send. 
_ Acomplete costume of one of these Naga women has been 
sentto Dr. E. B. Tylor, Oxford Museum, and I have no doubt a 
Svastika will be found on one of the hair-pins. 
As the Aryan influence has not yet reached these hill savages, 
many tribes of whom are still head-hunters, I presume the dictum 
above quoted as to the home of the Svastika will be modified. 
In your issue of April 30 last, on p. 605, I drew attention to 
the fact that ‘* Megalithic folk-lore ” still survives here among our 
Junglis. No notice has, I see, been taken of the matter : surely 
it is noteworthy ? S. E. PEAL. 
Sibsagar, Asam, December 5, 1896. 
A Critic Criticised. 
THERE is a tendency among critics to condemn a book for 
not comprising what it was not intended to contain. Such 
critics have a preconceived notion of what a writer should have 
included in his treatise ; they glance through the pages in a 
superficial manner for what they think should be there, and not 
finding such topics expressed to their mind immediately condemn 
the treatise. 
This pernicious habit of critics is well illustrated by recent 
criticisms (NATURE, p. 545, October 8, 1896; Zhe Electrician, 
p. 637, September 11, 1896), of Prof. Bedell’s book, ‘‘ The 
Principles of the Transformer,” by Frederick Bedell, 1896, on the 
theory of the transformer. A writer in NATURE sees nothing 
good in the treatise because it does not enter fully upon the 
practical details of transformers with iron cores. To do this, 
Prof. Bedell would have been compelled to greatly increase the 
size and scope of his book. It was plainly his object to outline, 
so to speak, the scaffolding of the edifice, and to give in a clear 
manner the fundamental equations upon which the discussions 
of transformers rest, and to illustrate the use of graphical 
methods in such discussions. 
Before the appearance of Prof. Bedell’s treatise, the student 
was compelled to rely upon books which were illogical collec- 
tions of articles originally published in electrical journals, and 
NO. 1420, VOL. 55] 
hastily thrown together in a book form, A just critic should 
recognise the endeavour of Prof. Bedell to bring order out of 
chaos, in presenting the fundamental equations used in discus- 
sions of alternating currents in such a clear and instructive 
manner. JOHN TROWBRIDGE. 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
IN the mind of a reader acquainted with the literature of the 
subject, and having read also the book, to which reference is 
made in Prof. Trowbridge’s letter, the somewhat exaggerated 
statements in his note can only excite surprise. An author must, 
to a large extent, be judged by the claims he makes for his work. 
If the book in question had been entitled ‘‘ A Mathematical 
Treatise on Harmonic Currents,” it would have been placed on 
unassailable ground. The writer of it, however, selected a 
title which certainly claims for it a practical character. His 
treatment of the subject is largely confined toa discussion of the 
properties of transformers and condensers in which the real 
magnetic and dielectric qualities are ignored. The result of 
such a mode of dealing with the subject is to present a series 
of interesting mathematical problems, but they have the same 
relation to the real apparatus that problems concerning weight- 
less pulleys and levers have to the operations of the block, tackle, 
and crowbars of actual life, THe REVIEWER. 
The Union of Nerve Cells, 
To a note by Mr. Alfred Sanders, in a recent number of 
NATURE (p. 101), criticising the assertion by Ramon y Cajal, that 
the nerve cells are independent units, and never form anasto- 
moses between one another, I would like to remark that Cajal 
is not alone in forming such a conclusion. The general consensus 
of opinion of many other practical neuro-histologists favours the 
same conclusion. There is no doubt that many cases, such as 
that which Mr. Sanders mentions finding in 7yopzdonotus natrix, 
occur ; I have found more or less similar ones ‘in the brain of the 
honey-bee. But when one considers that two fibres in contact 
would, if thoroughly impregnated, present the appearance of 
continuity, it is more or less evident that one cannot be guided 
in forming a decision by such cases as those cited, and that one 
must depend upon the immensely larger number of cases in 
which the terminations of fibres are found near, but not in con- 
tact with, one another. This is to be said of all preparations by 
either the various Golgi, or by the methylen-blue, methods, and 
is something to which I have elsewhere called attention (‘* The 
Brain of the Bee,” p. 161-2, Fowrnal of Comparative Neurology, 
vol. vi.). F. C. KENYON. 
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science. 
I May remark, in reference to Mr. Kenyon’s letter, that my 
object in sending the communication on p. IOI was not to 
criticise Ramon y Cajal’s conclusion that no cells of the nervous 
system ever anastomose, which I have no doubt is, as a rule, 
correct, but simply to place on record a rare exception, the only 
one that I have found in several hundred sections, prepared 
either by the chrom-osmium silver or mercurial methods, of the 
nervous system of the lower vertebrata. There isa slight mis- 
understanding on Mr. Kenyon’s part, due, probably, to the way 
I put it. The two cells to which I referred were not joined by 
the extremity of each dendrite, but by the dendrite of one cell 
joining, after a short course, the body of the other cell, and even 
projecting into it. I found a case somewhat similar to this some 
years ago in the Ceratodus, where two cells of the spinal cord 
were joined by a broad protoplasmic band ; but this specimen 
was treated in the old way, by being stained with some aniline 
dye. A. SANDERS. 
Two Corrections. 
THERE isa slip of the pen, or of memory, in the description 
of the shrine of Boro Budur, in Java, as ‘‘rock-hewn,” in your 
issue of yesterday (p. 228). The shrine is indeed a natural hill, 
but cased in cut masonry, which bears all the sculptures. I 
happen to possess the great Dutch work on it, with plans, so 
can speak with some confidence. Another slight ‘‘ erratum” in 
the same number (p. 234), is the description of the Bombay Ob- 
servatory Staff as native ‘‘with the exception of Mr. Moos.” 
Mr. Moos must, by his name, be a Parsi of Western India. 
There are many Parsis of that surname, and, particularly, 
several scholars and scientific men. W. F. SINCLAIR. 
January 8. 
