March 29, 1906] 



NA TURE 



5'3 



the top of the tube the inner cone is propagated through 

 it and descends until it reaches a stratum richer in gas, 

 when it re-ascends. The fluctuation in the composition of 

 the gaseous mixture escaping from a Bunsen burner can be 

 seen by the throbbing of the inner cone, when the air supply 

 is considerable. I may add that in the construction of 

 burners for the incandescent mantle great importance is 

 attached to the perfect mixing of gas and air, since it 

 becomes possible thereby to have a steady flame with a 

 relatively large quantity of primary air. 



The University, Leeds. A. Smithf.lls. 



Gas for Heating and Lighting Laboratories. 



I shall be greatly favoured if you will inform me which 

 are the best " gas-making plants " for supplying a labor- 

 atory with gas derived either from coal, or paraffin oils. 



Do you know anyone who has had experience of these ? 

 I more particularly incline to those easily managed and 

 maintained, simple and inexpensive. Alex. Pardy. 



Lynne House, Albyn Lane, Aberdeen, March 7. 



If I were fitting up a large laboratory I should put in 

 a small water gas generator and inject paraffin oil into 

 the fuel during the period of steaming, fixing the hydro- 

 carbons in the gas produced by passing through a super- 

 heater. 



I see in the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 

 for February 28 a paper by Masumi Chikashige, who had 

 been fitting up the Kyoto University laboratory with a gas 

 made in this way, and of which he gives the results, which 

 appear to be very satisfactory. In the discussion upon the 

 paper your correspondent will also find some useful hints 

 as to the fitting up of laboratories with heating-gas where 

 coal-gas is not available. 



If he should not require enough gas to make a small 

 carburetted water gas plant successful, and if he can get 

 petrol or benzene, he will probably find carburetted air the 

 cheapest thing to use. Vivian B. Lewes. 



Royal Naval College, Greenwich, S.E., March 12. 



Cooperation between Scientific Libraries. 



As this subject has recently been receiving attention in 

 Nature, it may interest some readers to know that the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh is taking steps for the pur- 

 pose of finding out what can be done so far as the south 

 of Scotland is concerned. A committee, of which I am 

 convener, has been appointed by the council, and this 

 committee is at present engaged in obtaining information 

 from the various libraries of Edinburgh and Glasgow. It 

 is hoped that later on a conference will be held, at which 

 suggestions for joint action would be considered, and an 

 endeavour made to draw up a scheme of cooperation for 

 consideration by the various societies and institutions 

 directly concerned. 



I shall be very glad to supply information regarding the 

 work of the committee to anyone who is specially interested 

 in it, and also to receive particulars of any similar work 

 which is being undertaken elsewhere. 



Hugh Marshall. 



University of Edinburgh, March 26. 



THE PROBLEMS OF GEOLOGY. 1 

 "X* HIS admirably printed book deserves description 

 -*■ rather than criticism, since the author, in his 

 wide range of personal observation and reading, aptly 

 plays the critic to the views that he successively pro- 

 pounds. With an unnecessary assumption of 

 modesty, he apologises in his preface for " the clumsi- 

 ness of a geologist, who is more at home with the 

 hammer than the pen." We can scarcely believe that 

 one who has tinged even his most serious scientific 

 contributions with the high attraction of literary style 



1 "The Age of the Earth, and other Geological Studies." By W. J. 

 Sollas, D.Sc, F.R.S. Pp. xvi,+ 328. (London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1905.) 

 Price int. 6,i. net. 



no. 1900, vol 73] 



can in reality know so little of himself. Almost 

 all the papers in the present volume state a proposition 

 and sustain an argument. There is, perhaps, a 

 lighter one, describing a visit to the Lipari Isles; but 

 even this contains a theoretical explanation of a diffi- 

 cult problem at the end. Yet the book is entirely 

 readable, and will serve to bring to workers in all 

 manner of fields the views of one who holds that 

 nothing terrestrial is foreign to the subject of geology. 



The papers are of various modern dates, and might, 

 as we venture to think, have been brought nearer to 

 uniformity in the text itself. Corrections are intro- 

 duced in footnotes ; but essays need not be treated 

 as prize-poems, to be crowned with honour, and to 

 remain unalterable. We do not want to read, for in- 

 stance, that " the boring party is at this moment at 

 work " on Funafuti, when evidence is immediately 

 given that the task was completed seven years back. 

 But this is a matter of pure detail; the scientific con- 

 siderations put forward are uniformly fresh, vigorous, 

 and inspiring. 



The article on " The Age of the Earth " naturally 

 brings us to no definite conclusion, seeing that the 

 data on which a correct judgment depends are still of 

 the scantiest description. A large number of readers, 

 however, rejoice in such discussions ; and we even 

 discern grounds for combat when we are asked to 

 believe that the opening of the fossiliferous stratified 

 series lies only twenty-six million years behind us. 

 In the following paper, on " The Figure of the Earth," 

 we are introduced, as general readers, to Mr. Jeans's 

 very recent hypothesis of a pear-shaped primitive 

 earth, and a secondary pear-shaped earth with an 

 equatorial bulge. Lest we should pin our faith to 

 these or any other proposed forms, we shall do well 

 to notice the excellently chosen language in which 

 the author places them before us. In the discussion 

 of the earth's loss of heat, radium is held up to us 

 (p. 63) as " threatening to destroy all faith in hitherto 

 ascertained results, and to shatter the fabric of reason- 

 ing raised upon them." Now and again, therefore, 

 we suspect in Prof. Sollas the artist who feels in him 

 a mission to produce and paint, even if in perishable 

 pigments. The pigments are not his fault; they are 

 all that others will provide for him ; but the artist 

 in him must find expression, spite of all. After this, 

 dare we revert to the passage in the preface in excuse 

 of " the clumsiness of a geologist "? 



The summary of the results of the famous Funafuti 

 boring is very welcome, especially in view of the 

 cautious absence of generalisations that characterised 

 the Royal Society report. It is a matter of regret that 

 von Richthofen should have passed away without read- 

 ing the authoritative re-vindication of his views as to 

 reefs in Tyrol contained on pp. 131 and 132 of the 

 present volume. 



The sixth chapter, on " The Origin and Formation 

 of Flints," should set at rest many fantastic theories 

 still prevalent among amateur geologists. We only 

 wish that the numerous flints of radiolarian origin 

 could have been included in this lucid essay. Zoolo- 

 gists will be especially attracted by the next chapter, 

 on " The Origin of Freshwater Fauna " (faunas?), in 

 which Lake Tanganyika, among other areas, is dis- 

 cussed. William Smith's views on the contempor- 

 aneity of similar faunas are defended in " The Key to 

 Terrestrial History"; and an address on "Geologies 

 and Deluges," in which objection is properly taken 

 to Suess's reliance on the Chaldasan narrative of the 

 deluge, concludes the varied and uniformly interesting 

 series. 



If we accept " planctone " — but would the author 

 write "gnomone"? — the only slips that we notice 

 in this excellent book are in proper names, Burnett, 



