28 
NATURE 
answers that have been given to the great ontological 
problem “ What am 1?” :— 
“Tn this search for information about myself from 
eminent thinkers of different types, I seem to have learnt 
one lesson, that all science and philosophy, and every 
form of human speech, is about objects capable of being 
perceived by the speaker and the hearer; and that when 
our thought pretends to deal with the Subject, it is really 
only dealing with an Object under a false name. The 
only proposition about the subject, namely, ‘I am,’ can- 
not be used in the same sense by any two of us, and, 
therefore, it can never become science at all.” 
Prof. Campbell has succeeded in presenting to us a 
most vivid picture of Maxwell’s character. The view 
which he gives will be fresh, and partly strange, to many 
even of those who knew Maxwell well. It is no reproach 
to him to say that, in our opinion, he has by no means 
exhausted the different aspects of his subject. So many- 
sided was Maxwell’s character, that it would have re- 
quired the united efforts of several biographers to do it 
the fullest justice. 
In the second part of the book will be found a good 
account by Mr. Garnett, of Maxwell’s scientific work. Of 
this nothing further need be said, for an excellent sum- 
mary has already been given in the pages of NATURE by 
Prof. Tait (vol. xxi. p. 317). 
It may be questioned whether the literary merit of 
many of the pieces of occasional poetry in the third part 
will be sufficient to secure for them the interest of the 
general reader ; but many will greet with pleasure the 
reappearance of old friends among the serio-comic verses. 
We are glad to find among them our favourite, “To the 
Committee of the Cayley Portrait Fund” ; finer compli- 
ment to a mathematician surely never was penned. 
Among those hitherto unpublished may be mentioned the 
Paradoxical Ode to Hermann Stoffkraft, beginning as 
follows :— 
My soul’s an amphicheiral knot, 
Upon a liquid vortex wrought 
By Intellect, in the Unseen residing. 
And thine doth like a convict sit, 
With marlinspike untwisting it, 
Only to find its kmottiness abiding ; 
>? 
Since all the tools for its untying 
In four-dimensioned space are lying, 
Wherein thy fancy intersperses 
Long avenues of universes, 
While Klein and Clifford fill the void 
With one finite, unbounded homaloid,! 
And think the Infinite is now at last destroyed. 
We ought to mention in conclusion that the book is 
beautifully illustrated; there are vignettes of Maxwell 
and of his father and mother ; some quaint and suggestive 
illustrations of scenes from his early life, after originals 
by Mrs. Blackburn; and a variety of diagrams, several of 
them beautifully coloured, reproduced from originals—by 
Maxwell’s own hand—in illustration of his researches on 
light and colour. GoG. 
OUR BOOK SHELF 
Description Physique dela République Argentine d apres 
des Observations Personelles et Etrangéres. Par le 
Dr. Ii. Burmeister. (Buenos Ayres, 1876-82.) 
SOME account of the progress of this extensive work, in 
which the veteran naturalist, Dr. H. Burmeister, formerly 
* Here the author takes a poetic licence. 
of Halle, proposes to give a complete physical history of 
his adopted country, may not be unacceptable. Of the 
octavo text, which is accompanied by folio atlases, in 
order to give the illustrations on a large scale, we have 
seen four volumes, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5. The fourth 
volume, which we suppose will contain the birds, is not 
yet issued, and the atlases in some cases do not appear 
to be complete. 
The first volume (issued in 1876) is devoted to the 
history of the discovery and general geographical features — 
of the Argentine Republic ; and the second, published in 
the same year, to its climate and geological conformation. — 
The third volume, of which the text was issued in 1879, 
has been already noticed in our columns (NATURE, vol. 
xxiv. p. 209). It contains an account of the Mammal- 
fauna both recent and extinct. We have now just re- 
ceived the first /¢vvazson of the folio atlas to this volume, 
containing a series of plates illustrating the whales of the 
Argentine coasts, a subject to which Dr. Burmeister has 
devoted special attention for many years. Of the fifth 
volume, devoted to the Lepidoptera of Buenos Ayres, we 
have already likewise spoken (see NATURE, vol. xx. p. 
358). 
It remains, therefore, for us only to wish the venerable 
author, who, for fifty years at least, has been a most 
energetic worker in many branches of zoology, health and 
strength to bring this important work to a conclusion. 
Nomenclator Zoologicus. An Alphabetical list of all 
Generic names that have been employed by Naturalists 
for Recent and Fossil Animals, from the earliest Times 
to the close of the Year 1879. Intwo parts. I. Supple- 
mental List. By Samuel H. Scudder. (Washington: 
Government Printing Office, 1882.) 
EverRY working naturalist must be acquainted with 
Agassiz’s “ Nomenclator Zoologicus,’’ published at 
Solothurn in 1846, which is, in fact, a dictionary of 
generic terms used in zoology. Without its valuable aid 
it is almost a fruitless task to endeavour to ascertain 
where or by what author any particular generic term has 
been instituted, or whether a generic term has been 
already used in zoology or not. Agassiz’s work, in the 
preparation of which he was assisted by some of the best 
zoologists of the day, though by no means perfect in its 
manner of execution or free from occasional errors, 
answers very well for all practical purposes for genera 
established prior to the date of its preparation, and 
affords an excellent basis to work upon. It contains up- 
wards of 32,000 entries of names of generic terms and of 
names of higher groups. In 1873 Graf A.v. Marschall, of 
Vienna, prepared and issued for the Imperial and Royal 
Zoological and Botanical Society of Austria, a supple- 
mentary volume, on something of the same plan. But to 
Marschall’s “ Nomenclator” no general index was attached, 
and, as those who have used the volume know full well, 
it is neither so accurate nor so complete as the work 
which it purports to supplement. 
A new “ Nomenclator Zoologicus,” carrying the sub- 
ject up to the present day, and correcting the errors and 
omissions of its two predecessors, has therefore long been 
a work of paramount importance to working naturalists. 
The question was who would undertake the ungrateful 
task, which was likely to confer neither fame nor fortune 
on the performer, and would be, above all others, long 
and laborious. Mr. Samuel H. Scudder of Boston, a 
well-known American entomologist, in response to ap- 
; peals from his friends, has consented to devote his 
energies to the subject, and the first portion of his work 
| is now before us. 
The present part of the new Nomenclator is of a sup- 
plemental character, as is explained by Mr. Scudder in 
his preface, and contains “ 15,369 entries of genera esta- 
blished previous to 1880, not recorded, or erroneously 
given in the nomenclators of Agassiz and Marschall.’ 
- [Nov. 9, 1882 : 
