Aus;tist 30, 1877] 



NA TURE 



559 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



La Tluofie Hugodecimale ; 011, La Base scientifiqnc et 

 definitive de V Arithmologistique imiversclle. Par le 

 Cte. Leopold Hugo. (Paris, 1877.) 

 M. Hugo continues to pour forth his pamphlets with 

 their polyglot inscriptions. On this we have " Urbi et 

 orbi. Hie tandem triumphaliter fulget REGULA- 

 RITAS!" " La pan-imaginaritt5 Hugomathique : CON- 

 TINUITAS ! CONTINUITAS ! Tricontinuitas ! " We 

 have, in a former notice, glanced at the " G^omdtrie 

 Hugomoidale." The object of the present pamphlet is 

 " h. vulgariser et a rdpandre dans les diverses regions 

 civilisees de I'ancien et du nouveau monde, Tou-Kieou, 

 Tchong-Kouo, Fou-Song, &c., &c., cette haute doctrine 

 philosophique, qui, dans sa concision, merite assur^ment 

 une place aux premiers rangs de la Philosophie Scien- 

 tifique. Mais, dans mon isolement de simple philosophe, 

 force me sera d'employer les combinaisons les plus 

 dtranges, et de frapper I'attention du lecteur par la singu- 

 larite meme de mon exposition." 



One or two extracts must suffice to show how our 

 author proceeds ; — 



" Evocation Chino-Tibdtaine. Nous, supreme Grand 

 Lama, voulons reproduire pour tous I'opdration magique 

 hugodecimale. 

 " Salut ! Salut ! 



" En notre Divan sacre' de Hlassa-Potala, parfumd de 

 nuages d'encens, nous dtendons la main gauche en ddsig- 

 nant et determinant un point dans I'espace ambiant. 

 " Salut ! Salut ! 



'• De notre main droite iftendons le sceptre, pan-scien- 

 tifique et sacrc, sur ce point de I'espace. Salut ! salut ! 



" Apparait une figure enveloppant le point considdr^ : 

 figure oftrant quatre faces pareilles. 



" O Saints Lamas, placez pieusement sur notre tapis 

 drdcieu.\, le premier solide que I'espace rdgulier vient 

 d'enfanter. 



" SSE— MIE (with figure of tetrahedron). 

 " Salut ! Salut ! " 



And so on through the ten solids, of which we gave an 

 account in our earlier notice. 



The third chapter is taken up with the " Geometric 

 Pan-imaginaire" and the '' Arithmetique Pan-imaginaire," 

 communications made to the Societe Mathematique de 

 Fran.ce, and which we have previously described. 



Sufficient notice has been taken of this brochure of 

 thirty-two pages, with many figures. 



To some of our readers our remarks will serve as a 

 beacon ; those who like to secure oddities may perhaps 

 be induced to add this to their stock. Our principal 

 reason for yet noticing another effusion of our author is 

 that we have at last got a notice of him from one of his 

 own countrymen, who calls him " Sans contredit, dans 

 le domaine des sciences, I'un des plus actifs novateurs 

 de I'epoque" (M. Gerono, I\ouvelles Aniiales de Matlie- 

 matiques, Juin, 1877, pp. 27S-2S0). Like ourselves, M. 

 Gdrono confines himself to extracts. In his avertissement 

 M. Hugo bursts forth with " Ecrasons les pan-routiniers 1 

 qu'ils tremblent, blottis dans leur petite science, devant 

 I'ouragonhugomatique !" Upon this the French reviewer 

 well remarks : — "' Mon avis est qu'il ne faut ecraser per- 

 sonne, et que les philosophes reformateurs doivent se 

 garder de prendre I'exaltation des idces pour le sublime 

 des idees. Ce n'est pas sans danger qu'on se lance dans 

 la voie des ri^formes avec un enthousiasme qui, dans sa 

 marche ascendante, pourrait s'dlever jusqu'au ddlire." 

 The writings of such a visionary perhaps hardly merit a 

 notice ; we are disposed henceforth to let him go his 

 own way, trusting that time will clear up many, if not 

 all, of his crotchets. 

 Mechanik der Bewe^ungen der Insektenfresseiiden 



Pflanzen. Von A. Batalin. 

 We have here a record, reprinted from the pages of 



Flora, of a very careful series of experiments on the 

 cause of the " spontaneous " movements of the glands of 

 Droscra and other similar organs when irritated say by 

 contact with a fly. Comparing the well-known explana- 

 tion given by De Vries and others of the movements of 

 tendiils — that contact causes an acceleration of growth in 

 the organ, not on the side touched, but the opposite side, 

 and consequently a concave curving round the touching 

 object — Batalin offers the same explanation of the curva- 

 ture of the tentacles of Drosera when irritated by a fly, 

 viz., an acceleration of growth on the side opposite to the 

 one touched, and in consequence a concave curvature. 

 While admitting the care with which Batalin has per- 

 formed his experiments, we fail to see how his explanation 

 accounts for some of the well-known phenomena of these 

 singular plants ; as, for instance, the fact vouched for by 

 several observers, that glands which are not themselves 

 irritated exhibit the same concave curvature as those 

 that are, and especially those so circumstantially de- 

 scribed by Darwin as to the extreme sensitiveness of the 

 tentacles of Drosera to the most dilute ammoniacal 

 solutions, while they are quite insensitive to pure water. 

 The "spontaneous" curvature Batalin beUeves to be a 

 function of growth, and to be displayed in proportion to 

 the (acuity of growth possessed by the organ. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by ills corresponde7its. Neither can he undej-take to return, 

 or to correspond with tlie writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is talzen of anonymous communuations. 



Tlie Editor urgently requests correspondents to iteep tliar letters as 

 short as possible. The pressU7'e on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otiierwise to ensure t/ie appearance even of com-' 

 viunications containing interesting and novel facts. \ 



Relations between Sun and Earth 



Permit me to correct a slight misapprehension in Mr. 

 Archibald's very interesting article on the Indian rainfill in 

 Nature, vol. xvi. p. 340. Mr. Archibald speaks as if my dis- 

 covery regarding the coincidence of the increase and decrease of 

 the Madras rainfall with the cycle of sun-spots applied to " the 

 whole of Soutliern India." Now, on the contrary, I guarded 

 against such a generalisation by a sentence expressly inserted for 

 that purpose. "I merely record," I said at p. 9 of my paper, 

 " the statistical evidence collected at a point on the globe's sur- 

 face, at which, from its tropical situation and physical conditions, 

 such a factor would exercise an influence in a well-marked 

 manner." I insisted on this, as the local influences at work on 

 the rainfall suffice in several parts of Southern India, to disguise 

 ttie operation of any general law. Mr. Archibald may, how- 

 ever, have been led into this misapprehension from an ambiguous 

 expression in the first sheets of my paper, which were hastily 

 struck off as I was leaving India, with a view to placing the 

 Government in possession of the facts before my departure. In 

 these sheets I find the words "Southern India" used once or 

 twice as a periphrasis to avoid the too frequent repetition 

 of the word Madras. This ambiguity was removed Irom the 

 paper as finally printed. I need hardly add that the words " the 

 whole of Southern India" nowhere occurred. I hope shortly 

 to show in a more carefully elaborated work, the limitations 

 un'ier which the results arrived at in my former paper can be 

 safely generalised. Meanwhile Mr. Archibald's interesting 

 communications both in NATURE, and in the Calcutta English- 

 man are worthy of careful study. Wm. Hunter 



Lanarkshire, August 27 



The Telephone 



In the present agitation concerning speaking or telephonic 

 telegraphs, the following extract from M. Le Comte du Moncel's 

 " Expose des Applications de I'Electricite," edition of the year 

 1857, vol. iii. p. no, may be interesting as pointing out how 

 neaily the idea has been forestalled. 



" The Electric Transmission of Speech." 



" I did not wish to bring forward in the chapter of the electric 

 telegraph a fantastic conception of a certain M. Ch. B , who 



