140 



NA TURE 



\Ji0ie 21, 1877 



kind of nightmare. It begins by personifying dust and 

 maltes " us dusts " utter a great deal of incoherent talk 

 which changes somehow into the voice of the writer 

 himself, who by and by fades into Prof. Tyndall, then 

 into "a weekly paper, Punch" then through Hugh Miller 

 and the Holy Scriptures into the familiar tones of Mr. 

 Henry Woodward, F.R.S., who gives way to the dusts 

 again, and so on. The first impression, too, deepens 

 upon further perusal. One never can be quite sure who 

 is speaking ; whether the " we" is the editorial pronoun 

 or marks the utterances of the personified dust-motes. 

 Sometimes, indeed, by a kind of feeble and perhaps, un- 

 conscious pun, it means both the author and " us dusts ;" 

 as where a sentence begins (p. 107), " Of all the autho- 

 rities we have ever rested on, Sir Charles Lyell has 

 described mountain formation most accurately." Or 

 again: " Mrs. Somerville is a favourite authoress; we 

 seldom find a protracted rest upon het volumes." The 

 writer seems to have made a very hearty meal on all 

 kinds of miscellaneous geological and other scientific and 

 literary food. The variety and amount of the viands 

 have been too much for him. Hence the wild specu- 

 lations, the grotesque theories, the pell-mell rush of 

 changing subject through the 272 pages of this curious 

 but dreary volume. So completely has the nightmare 

 taken possession of the author that in his frenzy he for- 

 gets the composition of the very air he breathes, and 

 sententiously announces that while " the earth consists of 

 air, water, and dust," the " air is composed chiefly of 

 oxygen, hydrogen, and carbonic-acid gases." We would 

 venture to suggest a good application of oxygen and 

 hydrogen in the form of a shower-bath as a corrective. 

 The book closes most appropriately with a spiritualistic 

 seance, at which the dramatis pcrsoiuv are a Medium, 

 Spirit of Socrates, and Dust. If the author would dis- 

 card all this " plain language," as he is facetiously pleased 

 to call it, and tell us in simple straightforward English 

 what it is all about, we should be prepared calmly to 

 listen to him, but no more such " Biographies of Dust !" 



Cliemical Physics. By N. N. Lubavin. First fascicule. 

 St. Petersburg, 1876, 346 pp., in 8vo. (Russian.) 



The author has given in a handbook a description of the 

 various physical phenomena which, without belonging to 

 the true domain of chemistry, are nevertheless involved 

 in all chemical processes, and which can adequately be 

 described as physico-chemical. These phenomena, of 

 the highest importance for the student of chemistry who 

 is interested in the philosophy of his science, are dealt 

 with at length by the author in a very lucid and plain 

 style. Without discussing advanced theories, M. Lubavin, 

 in this first fascicule (the second being in the press) gives 

 us only facts, and in a condensed form much useful in- 

 formation. He has carefully read what has been published 

 in this department in France and Germany, but is not 

 very familiar with our English works, except through 

 German or French translations. 



Ennnieracion de los Vertebrados Fosiles de Espaiia. Por 

 Don Salvador Calderon. (Madrid : T. Fortanet, 1877.) 



This is a reprint from the Anal, de la Soc. Espah. de 

 Hist. Nat., torn, v., of Seiior Calderon's valuable catalogue 

 of the vertebrate fossils hitherto discovered in Spain, with 

 an introduction and accompanying remarks. As the 

 catalogue and an abstract of the introduction to it ha\e 

 been published in the Quarto ly yournal of the Geological 

 Society of London during the present year, it will not be 

 necessary for us to do more than to call attention to the 

 appearance of the work in its more complete form. Some 

 interesting questions are opened up by the author con- 

 cerning the distribution of several interesting Miocene 

 forms such as Sivatherium, Hya;narctos, and Hipparion. 



» See also Proc. Roy. Soc. (March 187C.) Vol. xxiv. p. 273. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[T/u Editor does not hold iiimself responsible for opinions expressed 

 ly his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond laith the 'diHters of, rejected nianiiscriiis. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 

 The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their litters as 

 short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com^ 

 inunieations containing inter eslitig and novel facts.'] 

 Museum Reform 

 Every one who puts faith in museums as educational engines 

 must be grateful to Prof. Boyd Dawkins for the article on 

 this subject in the number of Nature for May 31. That reform 

 is pressingly needed in most of our provincial museums is a pro- 

 position almost beyond question ; but how such reform can be 

 best effected is a subject open to any amount of discussion. The 

 primary difficulty in organising a museum is usually a difficulty 

 of finance. Money, which measures all things, measures the 

 curator's power of procuring glass cases and suitable specimens. 

 Where, then, the resources of a museum are very limited, the 

 greatest amount of good will probably be effected by confining 

 attention to the formation of local collections. Such work, being 

 restricted within a narrow sphere, may be done thoroughly, even 

 in the poorest museum. Yet it is work which will be valued by 

 every true student of science. Prof. Blackie, in his " Self Cul- 

 ture," gives excellent advice when he says : ** In order to assist 

 in fori) ing habits of observation in this age of locomotion I 

 should advise young men never to omit visiting the local museums 

 of any district, as often as they may have an opportunity ; and 

 when there to confine their attention generally to that one thing 

 which is the most characteristic of the locality." Now it often 

 happens that the things most characteristic of the locality are 

 hardly tliought worth exhibiting, and are precisely the things 

 that we do not find in a provincial museum. Only last week I 

 had occasion to visit a museum of thoroughly old-fashioned type, 

 and to my surprise I found that the mineral industries of the 

 neighbourhood, though of great importance, were absolutely un- 

 represented, whilst unlabelled curiosities collected from every 

 quarter of the globe were heaped together in defiance of all 

 principles of classification. It is true there is great temptation 

 for a curator to display a little of everything, and a specimen 

 from the Antipodes is no doubt regarded as a greater curiosity 

 than a specimen from the neighbouring hills. But if a small 

 museum is to have any educational value worth naming, its aims 

 should be restricted, at least in the early stages of its develop- 

 ment. Many museums undoubtedly teach too little by attempting 

 to teach too much. 



Perhaps the chief cause of unsatisfactory arrangement in so 

 many museums is to be found in the difficulty of curatorship. 

 Most museums naturally take their complexion from those who 

 have charge of them ; if the curator, for example, is a good 

 entomologist, the collection of insects will be good ; and so on. 

 A general museum, indeed, needs a curator just a tririe less than 

 omniscient. Even where each department is under charge ol 

 some honorary specialist, it by no means follows that the greatest 

 educational value is got out of the collections. It seems to me 

 that it would be an advantage, wherever practicable, to establish 

 some kind of connection between the museum and the nearest 

 college or other educational centre ; assuming, of course, that it 

 is a centre of liberal education where science asserts its proper 

 position. Just as lectures teach principally tlirough the ear, so 

 museums teach through the medium of the eye ; and those who 

 have had most experience in oral teaching will probably be best 

 qualified to assist in the oversight of an educational museum. 



Another direction in which most museums imperatively need 

 reform is in the simple matter of labelling. Too often the 

 visitor leaves without carrying away much information, simply 

 because he is unable to interpret what he has seen. A curator 

 can therefore hardly be too free in the use of descriptive labels. 

 Large labels, no doubt, occupy a good deal of space, and this 

 can be ill spared in a crowded collection. Nevertheless, I be 

 lieve it is far better to exhibit only half the number of specimens, 

 fully telling their own tales, than to cram the cases with speci- 

 mens unnamed or only meagrely described. If a museum is to 

 be of real value educationally, it must be made as far as possible 

 its own interpreter. F, W. RUDLER 



Scientific Club, Savile Row 



I HOPE ventilation of this subject in the columns of Natijre 

 will direct attention to the necessity of more systematic arrange- 



