May 29, 1804J 



NA TURE 



103 



tion. The illustrations themselves are of much interest ; 

 plans and portraits of several of the magnificent ships of 

 the Line, views of many places and scenes from Gravesend 

 to New Zealand, star-charts which may furnish a nightly 

 education in astronomy as well as navigation, and maps 

 of all the countries along the route. 



When we say the work is edited by the Rev. W. J. 

 Loftie, it will be evident that it is of an unusually high 

 stamp. The special feature of the text is that besides the in- 

 formation about the Line and its ships, instructions to 

 passengers and such like useful hints, we have special 

 articles on seamanship, navigation, natural history at sea, 

 and weather at sea. All the leading features along both 

 the Suez route and the Cape route are pointed out and 

 information given about them as the voyage proceeds, 

 while special chapters are devoted to all the Australian 

 colonies, to Egypt, the Holy Land, Italy, European cities, 

 and the mother country. Thus it will be seen that the 

 " Orient Guide " is adapted for the use of voyagers from 

 both ends of the route. 



As a means of conveying some practical knowledge 

 of science, and arousing an interest in the subject, 

 the chapters on seamanship, navigation, meteorology, and 

 natural history must be particularly useful. Under " Sea- 

 manship " we are informed about all the most important 

 points in the structure and working of a vessel. Such 

 common terms as " running," " reaching," " beating," are 

 explained, as are also the causes of the various motions of 

 a ship — rolling, pitching, scudding, and so on ; the 

 various rigs of ships, the different species of ropes and 

 knots, the various phrases shouted in working the helm, 

 and other terms in nautical phraseology. The chapter on 

 navigation ought to be particularly welcome to landsmen ; 

 by means of it the mere progress of the vessel itself, the 

 daily operations of the officers in connection therewith, 

 the conduct of the compass, the reading of charts, the use 

 of the sextant, the various methods of ascertaining longi- 

 tude, the use of the log, and so on — all can be made to 

 furnish the passenger with constant sources of interest, 

 and give him some idea of the many and complicated 

 scientific principles which underlie so apparently simple 

 a matter as the navigation of a steam vessel. The 

 chapter also contains much information about the stars 

 and their utility to navigation. The star-charts which 

 accompany the chapter are not overloaded with names, 

 and will be found of real utility in detecting the leading 

 stars and watching their nightly changes as the vessel 

 proceeds on her course. 



The chapter on natural history contains succinct in- 

 formation on the leading forms of animal life likely to be 

 met with during the voyage — land, coast, and ocean birds, 

 fish of various kinds, cetaceans, the nautilus, zoophytes ; 

 while the marvellous phenomenon of the luminosity of the 

 sea is explained. By a study of the chapter on the 

 weather at sea, passengers may be able to throw more 

 intelligence and variety into that monotonous and never- 

 ending topic of conversation. 



The more purely geographical part of the work is done 

 in considerable detail. All the features met with on both 

 routes are described in the order of their occurrence. 

 Then for the benefit of those going out there are several 

 chapters on the various Australian colonies, on their 

 various aspects, scientific, geographical, and economical. 

 On the other hand, for the benefit of Australians there 

 is a general chapter on European travel, and special 

 chapters on Egypt, Sinai, and the Holy Land, Italy, 

 European cities, and the mother country— all richly 

 illustrated. 



Thus it will be seen that the " Orient Guide " is some- 

 thing very different from the ordinary run of guide-books, 

 and that with it as a constant companion on board ship, 

 a voyage to or from Australia may be made a real educa- 

 tion. We should like to see other companies follow the 

 example so well set by that of the Orient Line ; travel- 



ling by sea has now become so common that thus the 

 serious defects of English education in geography might 

 be largely remedied. But even the railway companies 

 might follow the example. Several years ago we noticed 

 a geological guide to some of the United States rail- 

 ways, in which the various formations along the routes 

 were described in the order of their occurrence as the 

 train proceeded. Something of a similar kind might very 

 well be done for English railways, extending the pro- 

 gramme, however, to other features besides those relating 

 to geology. Meantime the Orient Line is to be congratu- 

 lated on its enterprise, and on the intelligence which has 

 guided the compilation of their handsome work. Mr. 

 Loftie has not only edited the work, but written the 

 chapter on Egypt, while other special subjects have 

 been treated by Dr. Charles Creighton, Mr. G. Baden 

 Powell, Commander Hull, and Mr. H. E. Watts. 



THE LATE MONSIEUR WURTZ 

 "Vl/E have received the following communication from 

 * * a Paris correspondent: — 



The cloges pronounced over M. Wurtz's grave and 

 your estimate of his place in science, doubtless being 

 prepared, will tell your readers the extent of his life-work 

 as a chemist. Indeed the best monument that could be 

 raised to his memory would be a hst of the work that has 

 come from the laboratory at the Ecole de Mddecine during 

 his thirty-four years' direction. But your readers may 

 perhaps also be interested to know something of M. 

 Wurtz as he appeared to those who were his pupils at the 

 time of his death. 



The impression one had at the beginning of M. Wurtz's 

 first lecture was one of utter surprise. Organic chemistry 

 was no longer a dry science full of dry formula?, tiresome, 

 complicated and difficult to remember ; for the whole 

 series of chemical transformations appeared as some 

 philosophical romance in which the atoms and groups of 

 atoms had their own particular characters, and could in 

 given circumstances be depended on to act in a particular 

 way. Yet, notwithstanding the picturesqueness of expres- 

 sion, there was no sacrifice of scientific accuracy. His 

 teaching was so skilfully designed that each of his phrases 

 could be interpreted immediately by the theories of thermo- 

 chemistry and dissociation, which the more advanced 

 student would learn later to apply to the study of organic 

 chemistry, and by whose help the science is being 

 gradually brought more and more to a purely physical 

 stage. In the same way the psychology of the individual 

 characters in life may some day be capable of being inter- 

 preted by purely physiological results. But notwithstand- 

 ing the assertions of some eminent chemists, and notably 

 of Wurtz's great rival Berthelot, no more in chemistry 

 than in psychology is the problem thus reduced to one of. 

 rational mechanics. It seems, on the contrary, that for 

 the accomplishment of this end account must inevitably 

 be taken of those atoms for which Wurtz fought so hard, 

 and of which Berthelot and the Ecole Normale still deny 

 the probable existence. 



Taken aback at first by the new way of presenting well- 

 known facts, one was soon carried along by the stream of 

 Wurtz's eloquence and by his enthusiasm ; and as one 

 came out of the theatre, though Wurtz never left his sub- 

 ject to go into transcendental digressions, one had a 

 feeling of being raised from the common things of life — a 

 feeling of being better in every way for the new revelation 

 of scientific truth. 



Wurtz's eloquence was exceeded only by his modesty. 

 He spoke of and praised Hofmann's general method for 

 the preparation of the compound ammonias without men- 

 tioning the fact that it was he who discovered and recog- 

 nised the first compound of this type. He eulogised 

 Berthelot's great discovery that glycerine is a triatomic 



