“a 
NOVEMBER 20, 1913| 
dently an experienced teacher, and he has been 
successful in working out the method he has 
adopted. His avoidance of the unnecessarily tech- 
nical is most praiseworthy, even if it leads to 
difficulties of its own, such as that one, more or 
less happily circumvented, that the squids are 
“molluscs with the foot surrounding the head.” 
That is rather a stiff one on the threshold ! 
(2) A very different kind of introduction is sup- 
plied by “Some Secrets of Nature,” a book show- 
ing real educational insight on the part of the 
anonymous author. Why should we not know 
who this is, who sets these quite admirable “ prob- 
lems for consideration,” sometimes just a little 
conundrumoid, at the end of each short study ; who 
reveals a very intimate knowledge of what really 
goes on in field and wood and some other places 
too; who knows how to awaken the scientific 
spirit? Asa guide to the embarrassed teacher and 
an aid to the eager pupil, where rural nature-study 
(plants and animals) is concerned, we would very 
strongly recommend this book. We venture to 
suggest that the note personnel—natural in a talk 
_—becomes a little fatiguing in this book. The 
author is no egotist, but he must have impover- 
ished the printer’s stock of one letter. 
(3) “The Romance of Nature” is meant to be a 
“Nature Reader for Senior Scholars,” but it is 
not, in our opinion, very successful. 
chapter discloses what the rest of the book con- 
firms, that the writers are ignorant of the psycho- 
logy of the normal senior scholar. From the 
earth’s beginnings to the establishment of land 
_ and sea; the story of rock and fossil; the life-cycle 
of a plant and the life-history of a frog; birds and 
insects ; and so on—the general idea and intention 
_ of the book is good enough, but the outcome seems 
to us unattractive. The writers know a great deal; 
their book is full of useful information ; the outlook 
is wholesome; the inculcation of reverence and 
_ independent research is admirable: yet, somehow, 
this “Nature Reader” does not grip, and we are 
afraid that it will not lead many senior scholars to 
_ appreciate the “Romance of Nature.” For one 
_ thing, the style is not good enough. 
(4) It is not quite fair to bring in Mr. 
' McConachie’s book along with the foregoing, for 
it is a work of art. They are helps across the 
| threshold, but he has got to the hearthstone. Yet 
| there may be justification for what we have had 
'to do. For while the first three books follow 
‘different methods, is not their aim one—that 
of seeing, understanding, enjoying, and learning 
- from what we call Nature? And it is our convic- 
tion that unless “Nature Study ”—helped or hin- 
dered by books—makes for, or at least towards, 
© NO. 2299, voL. 92] 
The first | 
NATURE 
341 
that cultured outlook which Mr. McConachie’s 
past and present work reveals, then it has in great 
part missed its mark. The first book reminds us 
that we must see widely and at the same time 
precisely ; the second book rouses the curious ques- 
tioning spirit; the third book suggests reverence 
before the wonderfulness of things; in the fourth 
book we have the harvest of a clear, searching, 
well-informed, and loving eye. 
Mr. McConachie tells us of his walks in a Border 
parish, but his gift to us is independent of geo- 
graphy—the suggestion of how much there is in 
that which lies closest to our feet. Of course, he 
could not do what he does in these sketches—to be 
ranked beside those of Richard Jefferies and John 
Burroughs—unless he knew his birds and flowers 
and more besides really well, and unless he had a 
rare gift of style. But beyond that, in these pic- 
tures of the Border Parish, the Golden Glen, the 
Drifting Mist, the Woodpecker’s Nest, the 
Wilderness, the Meadow Burn, the Lonesome 
Moor, the Summer Shielings, the Southward 
Flight—to name just a few—there is “a feeling 
for Nature,” which, while in part doubtless the gift 
of the gods, is also the reward of those who 
sojourn with nature in sunshine and in storm, and 
who discipline themselves to hear her voices. And 
this is the chief end of ‘‘ Nature-study.” 
J. ARTHUR THOMSON. 
PRACTICAL MATHEMATICS. 
(1) Practical Mathematics: First Year. By A. E. 
Young. Pp. viit+124. (London: George 
Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1913.) Price 
1s. 6d. net, 
(2) An Elementary Treatise on Calculus. A Text- 
book for Colleges and Technical Schools. By 
W. S. Franklin, B. MacNutt, and R. L. Charles. 
Pp. ix+253+41. (South Bethlehem, Pa: 
Lehigh University, 1913.) Price $2.00. 
| (3) Problémes de Mécanique et cours de Cinéma- 
tique. By Prof. C. Guichard. Rédaction de 
MM. Dautry et Deschamps. Pp. 156. (Paris: 
A. Herman et Fils, 1913.) Price 6 francs. 
(4) Further Problems in the Theory and Design 
of Structures. By E. S. Andrews. Pp. viii+ 
236. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1913.) 
Price 7s. 6d. net. 
(1) HE author has covered a wide range of 
topics within the small compass of a 
hundred pages. He opens by explaining the use 
of the vernier calliper and the micrometer screw- 
gauge, and this leads naturally to an exposition 
of contracted methods. There is an excellent 
chapter on graphical work, which includes applica- 
tions to statics; and there are also sections on the 
