Fune 30, 1870] 
NATURE 
161 
ethnological labours, The typography of the work is very 
good, but the illustrations are unequal, and often much 
larger than they need be for all they demonstrate. 
From such an excellent beginning who can doubt that 
important results will quickly follow? To us the experi- 
ment of affiliation is a very interesting one, the success 
of which we hope to witness. That there are in the New 
Zealand scheme sources of failure is obvious, but we sce 
none which may not be overcome by firmness, judgment, 
and singleness of purpose, on the part of the head Insti- 
tute, and by the avoidance of petty jealousies, and a due 
regard to the interests of Science on that of the affiliated 
societies. The power vested in the governors of rejecting 
unfit papers isa most valuable one, if conscientiously exer- 
cised ; it cannot be too vigilantly watched by the con- 
tributors to the Institute, nor too carefully conducted by 
the governors. In this country the power vested in the 
councils of our societies, of suppressing papers on the ad- 
vice of competent referees, works on the whole well, though 
we could indicate societies, and some of high position, 
too, which have quite recently published in their Transac- 
tions worthless matter, that has evidently never been 
examined by a council, nor reported on by competent 
advisers ; thus squandering the property of the members, 
and doing discredit to the science which the members re- 
present. 
Is it too much to expect that our powerful and com- 
paratively wealthy societies should affiliate some of their 
weaker brethren, who devote themselves to the same 
branches of science? applying their own tests to the ad- 
mission of contributions to their Transactions, and leaving 
to lesser societies the freedom to govern themselves as 
they think best. Of such an affiliation many of the lesser 
societies would be proud, and the greater could not but 
benefit by the arrangement. 
To one other point only we shall allude in reference to 
the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, viz., the 
advisability of breaking it up, now or at some future 
time, into series treating of certain branches of science, 
for the convenience both of workers and purchasers. By 
so doing, the members would set another example well 
worth following by some of the oldest, gravest, and most 
learned of the English, Irish, and Scotch scientific bodies, 
which publish ponderous quartos of mixed sciences, that 
are worth neither their shelf-room nor their cost of bind- 
ing to the mass of the members and purchasers, But we 
shudder at the thought of suggesting to such august 
bodies as the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, 
or the Linnean Society, or the Royal Irish Academy, the 
propriety of breaking up their Transactions into series 
confined to definite branches of science, and husbanding 
their funds by giving to their members and correspond- 
ents such only as they care to have. 
OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS 
Other Worlds than Ours. By R. A. Proctor. (Longmans, 
1870.) 
J° HAT Mr. Proctor could write, if he were so disposed, 
an excellent and instructive book on certain branches 
of Modern Astronomy, we have no manner of doubt ; 
but for the successful accomplishment of such a work, it 
would be necessary, in the first instance, to settle in his 
own mind what particular classes of persons the work was 
intended to suit; and, in the second place, it would be 
essential for the author to allow himself sufficient time 
for the completion of his project. It is from a failure 
in these two particulars that what would otherwise have 
been a truly remarkable book, is brought down to a level 
much below Mr. Proctor’s actual abilities. 
A large portion of the book is devoted to the not very 
fruitful question of the habitability of the planets or their 
satellites by beings not generically very different from the 
human race; but we do not think the question in Mr, 
Proctor’s hands is advanced on either side of the argu- 
ment, materially beyond where Whewell and Brewster 
left it. The chief novelty consists in the hypothesis that 
Jupiter and Saturn may possibly serve as suns to at least 
some of their satellites; and, by the partial emission of 
heat (and light?), may compensate for the extreme remotc- 
ness of the central orb of the solar system. We can 
neither follow nor admit the validity or consistency of 
Mr. Proctor’s arguments. The question whether the 
larger planets have or have not as yet cooled down, by 
radiation, to a sort of normal temperature, is one of con- 
siderable interest, and lies within the scope of astronomi- 
cal physics ; but we cannot say that Mr. Proctor’s remarks 
either remove or elucidate the difficulties of the points at 
issue. On the contrary he speaks fitfully, and hesitates 
between doubt and something bordering on dogmatism. 
For instance, in page 140, he writes thus: “ We seem led 
to the conclusion that Jupiter is stilla glowing mass. . . .” 
Two pages onward he remarks: “ He (Jupiter) is not an 
incandescent body;” and then after he has given 
his own opinion, that Jujicr is still . ... “fluid pro- 
bably throughout, and seething with the intensity of 
primeeval fires, ... .” he forthwith falls foul of the late 
accomplished Dr. Whewell, in terms such as these: (p. 
145) ....- “Surely no astronomer, worthy of the name, 
can regard this grand orb as the cinder-centered globe of 
watery matter, so contemptuously dealt with by one who, 
be it remembered thankfully, was not an astronomer.” 
Our readers will probably feel that such language is to be 
regretted, and is alike unworthy of Mr. Proctor, and in- 
applicable to Dr. Whewell. 
We have been induced to select the foregoing passages, 
because they are in fact typical of the style in which Mr. 
Proctor’s volume is written. Laplace, the elder and the 
younger Herschel, Humboldt, Admiral Smyth, Sir William 
Thomson, Mr, Tait, Dr. Balfour Stewart, Professor Tyndall, 
and other honoured names, all in their turn come under 
Mr. Proctor’s adverse criticism with greater or less severity. 
Mr. Lockyer is the object of our author’s especial censure ; 
simply because his opinions do not square with those of 
our author on the nature of the solar corona visible 
during a total eclipse, and on which subject wise astro- 
nomers confess their profound ignorance, therefore Mr. 
Lockyer’s opinion is condemned as “ erroneous,” which it 
may or may not be, and Mr. Lockyer himself is repre- 
sented as impeding the progress of science! This strong 
and repeated reference to what our author regards as the 
scientific peccadillos of an eminent observer, seems to us 
all the more unnecessary, from the fact, of which Mr. 
Proctor must be well aware, that one main purpose of the 
proposed British expedition to view the forthcoming solar 
