15° 



NA TURE 



[December 14, 1905 



them, and savour so strongly of the prairie or the river 

 bank, that the lover of an outdoor life must be hard 

 indeed to please if he cannot find matter of interest 

 on almost any page to which he may happen to turn. 

 The chapter-headings in some instances appear to be 

 designed, at least to an English reader, to conceal 

 rather than to elucidate the author's subjects, and 

 we venture to think that some less recondite titles 

 than "The Witchery of Wa-Wa " and "A Matter of 

 Mascalouge " might have been selected without de- 

 triment to the picturesque style which the author 

 apparently favours. But when once this little diffi- 

 culty has been overcome, the reader will be able to 

 find his way about the book, and select those sections 

 in which he may be more specially interested. 



The greater part of the book is devoted to fishing — 

 both in sea and river — and feathered game shooting, 

 and the English reader who desires to know the kind 

 of sport afforded by ruffed grouse and " bob white " 

 will find his requirements fully satisfied in the 

 author's pages. Nor will the naturalist fail to find 

 matter well worth his notice ; and personally we have 

 been specially interested in the account of the death- 

 feigning instincts exhibited by the Carolina rail. 

 Seemingly, when it thinks itself unable to escape, one 

 of these birds suddenly " stiffens, topples over, and 

 apparently expires. It may be taken up and ex- 

 amined for a considerable time without its betraying 

 any signs of life. Place it among its dead fellows in 

 the shooting-boat, and after a longer or shorter 

 interval it may astonish its captor by either starting 

 to run about, or by taking wing and fluttering away 

 in the characteristic flight." 



This is only one of many instances where strange 

 habits of animals are recorded, and if not new they 

 are always interesting and worth the re-telling. As 

 a sample of the better class of sporting literature Mr. 

 Sandys's work would be difficult to beat. R. L. 



Ships and Shipping. By Commander R. Dowling. 

 With a preface by Lieut. W. G. Ramsay Fairfax, 

 R.N. Second Edition. Pp. xv + 423. (London: A. 

 Moring, Ltd., 1905.) Price 5s. net. 

 A very excellent little volume and a most handy addi- 

 tion to any shipping office. The naval information 

 makes it also a very useful book to naval officers. 

 One slight improvement would be useful — port-to-port 

 distances round the coast of Great Britain and 

 Europe ; for example, London to Plymouth. 



H. C. Lockyer. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



The late Sir John Burdon-Sanderson. 

 The account of the life of Sir John Burdon-Sanderson in 

 Nature of December 7 is so admirable that any addition to 

 it may seem superfluous. Yet, as one who knew Burdon- 

 Sanderson for more than thirty-seven years, and who owed 

 more to him than language can well express, I shall be 

 grateful if you will allow me to say a few words more 

 about him. It seems to me that in one respect men may 

 be likened to mountains. The Matterhorn rises sharptv 

 to a single peak, and there can be no doubt as to its 

 summit. Monte Rosa has more than one summit, so 

 nearly on a level that a stranger would be unable to say 

 which is highest, and although each is higher than the 

 Matterhorn, the enormous bulk of the mountain takes away 

 from their apparent height and makes them less imposing. 



NO. 1885, VOL. 73] 



In the same way it is easy to say what the great work has 

 been of any man who has distinguished himself in a 

 limited subject, but when a man's work ranges over a 

 wide sphere it is not so easy. The account of Sir John 

 Burdon-Sanderson 's life in last week's Nature clearly 

 shows the wide extent of his activity and the great number 

 of epoch-making discoveries which he made. If a scientific 

 man wire asked which of these is the greatest, he would 

 probably answer according to his own personal bias. One 

 man would name his unique researches on motion in 

 plants ; another his discovery of the possibility of attenu- 

 ating anthrax virus and thus producing immunity from 

 the disease ; a third his researches on circulation and 

 respiration ; and a fourth his work on muscle and nerve. 

 But all these things, important as they are, each one being 

 sufficient to make a man famous in a special department, 

 were only isolated outgrowths of his great work, and did 

 not constitute it. I believe that I am right in saying that 

 Burdon-Sanderson 's life-work may be denned in three short 

 sentences : — (1) He revolutionised physiology and pathology 

 in this country ; (2) he found them consisting of book- 

 learning and microscopic observation ; (3) he left them 

 experimental sciences. 



When he first constructed a kymographion in 1807 by 

 the aid of a tin-plate worker near the Middlesex Hospital, 

 to which he was then attached, there was not, with the 

 exception of a few specimens of Marey's sphygmograph, a 

 single recording physiological instrument in use in the 

 whole of this country. Now they are to be found in every 

 physiological laboratory, and every student knows how to 

 use them. When he began to work at pathology, it con- 

 sisted chiefly in descriptions of the naked-eye and micro- 

 scopical appearances of specimens of morbid anatomy. 

 Now the action of disease-germs and of toxins and the 

 reaction of the organism to them, the processes of disease 

 and not its results, engage the chief attention of path- 

 ologists, and the knowledge which experiments on these 

 processes have afforded regarding the means of producing 

 immunity and of curing by antitoxic sera has lessened, and 

 is daily lessening, the wholesale destruction of life by 

 epidemic diseases. 



How Burdon-Sanderson accomplished his great work by 

 his researches, by his writings, by his example, and by 

 his personal influence was well described in last week's 

 Nature, but I may perhaps be permitted to mention my 

 own case as an example of what Burdon-Sanderson did 

 for young men. I came to London knowing only one 

 man, who from age and infirmity was unable to help me ; 

 but fortunately for me I had a letter of introduction to 

 Burdon-Sanderson. Instead of merely saying a few civil 

 things and then leaving me alone, as he might well have 

 done, he invited me to his house, advised me as to my 

 career, obtained for me a lectureship in the Middlesex 

 Hospital, to which he was then attached, gave me the free 

 use of his laboratory, afforded me facilities for both ex- 

 perimental and literary work, and, in short, laid for me the 

 foundation of any success I mav since have had, .so that 

 it is mainly to him that I owe it. How many there are 

 whom he has treated as he did me I do not know, for he 

 did not let his left hand know the good bis right hand 

 was doing, but I do know that at least two others, Dr. 

 Ferrier, who has done such splendid work in physiology, 

 and Dr. Klein, who has done the same in pathology, owe, 

 like me, their first establishment in London to Burdon- 

 Sanderson. Such personal help as this in enabling young 

 men to pursue a scientific career must not only be regarded 

 as an evidence of the kindness and benevolence of his 

 character, but must be reckoned along with his researches, 

 his writings, his example, and his personal influence as a 

 means whereby he accomplished his great work of re- 

 volutionising physiology and pathology in this country. 

 Lauder Brunton. 



Nomenclature of Kinship; its Extension. 



The method I adopted in your columns, August 11, 1904, 

 of briefly expressing kinship has proved most convenient ; 

 it has been used in a forthcoming volume by Mr. E. 

 Schuster and myself on " Noteworthy Families." I write 

 now to show that it admits of being particularised by the 

 use of foot-figures, as in the following example, which 



