76 



.VA TURE 



[November 24, 1898 



under each, their insect enemies are enumerated. Fruit- 

 growers who find their trees or bushes suffering from the 

 attctcks of insects, cannot do better than refer to this 

 book to discover the cause and remedy. In a few 

 touching hnes, Miss Ornierod dedicates the book to the 

 memory of her sister and co-worker, Miss Georgiana M. 

 Ormerod, who was equally interested in entomological 

 inquiries with herself. W. F. K. 



Gas and Petroleum Engines. Translated and adapted 

 from the French of Henry de tiraffigny, and edited 

 by A. G. Elliott, H.Sc. Pp. x -I- 140. (London : 

 W'hittaker and Co., 1898.) 

 \ RK.\i).\Bi.E and instructive account of gas and petro- 

 leum engines is given in this little volume. The te.\t 

 can be easily followed by non-technical readers interested 

 in gas and oil engines in use at the present time, and 

 engineering students will find in the volume a good general 

 survey of internal combustion motors. The subjects of 

 the eight chapters are : the history of the gas engine, 

 working principles of the gas engine, description of 

 existing gas engines, rarburetted air engine, petroleum 

 engines, gas generating plant, engines for use with poor 

 gases, and maintenance of gas and oil engines. 



The Story of the Farm, and other Essays. By James 

 Long. Pp. XV H- 15S. (London: The Rural World 

 Publishing Company, 1S9S.) 

 The essays in this volume refer more to the economics 

 than the science of agriculture. The author, who has 

 had a long experience of agricultural public life, and has 

 contributed many valuable manuals to the literature of 

 farming, acknowledges that agriculturists fail to recog- 

 nise the two great elementary requirements of the hour 

 — technical instruction, to which alone farmers can look 

 for their advancement in knowledge and success, and co- 

 operation. The Countess of Warwick contributes an 

 introduction to the volume, on " Women and the Future 

 of Agriculture. ' 



Publications of the British Fire Prevention Committee. 

 Edited by Edwin O. Sachs. Vol. i. (London : 

 IJritish Fire Prevention Committee, 1898.) 



Ten papers on methods of fire prevention and kindred 

 subjects appear in this volume, which represents the first 

 fruits of the establishment of the British Fire Prevention 

 Committee. The papers call attention to the need for 

 increased protection from fire by preventive measures, 

 wider knowledge of methods of fire-combating, investiga- 

 tions of materials and forms of construction, and re- 

 search into the causes of fires. They should thus be the 

 means of imparting very useful knowledge, and obtaining 

 active support for the movement for belter preventive 

 measures against fire, which led to the formation of the 

 Committee under whose auspices this volume has been 

 published. 



The Story of the Cotton Plant. By F. Wilkinson, F.G.S. 



Pp. 199. (London : George Newnes, Ltd., 1S98.) 

 This latest addition to the Library of Useful Stories, 

 written by the director of the Textile School at Bolton, 

 gives a clearly expressed and popular account of the 

 chief cultivated species of the cotton plant, the pests and 

 other injurious agents which molest them, and the 

 methods of cultivation in different countries. The pro- 

 cesses of picking, ginning and baling are described, 

 and the plans for manipulating the cotton in carding, 

 drawing, &c., dealt with. The early attempts at spinning 

 are passed under review, and pave the way for an account 

 of the modern spinning mule and the other processes in 

 the spinning of cotton. The little volume, though per- 

 haps not likely to be widely read, should be very popular 

 in Lancashire. 



NO. I 5 I 7, VOL. 59] 



LETTERS TO THE ED/TOR. 

 [The Editor docs not hold himself responsible for opinions ex 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertaA 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejecta 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NatijrB 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.'^ 



Asymmetry and Vitalism. 



Prof. Jait h.is so entirely ch.inged his position that it is 

 useless to atlenipi to follow him. I would desire, however, to 

 correct misunderstandings into which he has fallen in respect of 

 my contentions with reference to his original position. 



I did not intend to suggest that life originated in a cry.stalline 

 form ; but merely that, as living things can now assimilate 

 crystalline bodies, the first living organism may have originated 

 in connection with and by utilising a crystal, and that the 

 asymmetry of this original living organism may have been 

 controlled by the accidental asymmetry of the original crystal. 



Once life began, I presume it descended, as it does now, by 

 section and so forth, and, as I cannot follow Prof. Japp's diffi- 

 culties as to a particular asymmetrical system breeding the like, 

 I cannot see how the intervention of intelligence is required for 

 its propagation, any more than for the growth of a particular 

 a,symmetrical crystal, once it is started. 



This preponderating influence of the parent entirely explains 

 the other misunderstanding Prof. Japp has fallen into. I never 

 suggested that the rotation of the sun, probably a very feeble 

 cause, could make a seed, with its impressed asymmetr)' grow 

 into a tree with a different asymmetry merely by bringing the 

 seed from the northern to the southern hemisphere. All I 

 sugge.sted was, with reference to Prof. Japp's original position — 

 namely, that at the origin of life the first living organism may 

 have been given a particular asymmetry by its having been pro- 

 duced in one or other hemisphere. .\ cause which m.ay have 

 been quite sufficient to give this a.symmetrical bias during the 

 time of origination, may be quite inadequate to produce a change 

 in the bias once it has been given. 



Geo. Eras. FitzGerald. 



Trinity College, Dublin, November 10. 



Connection between MAnasarowar and R.\kas-t;il. 



.Mk. Lam>or, in his account of his journey in Tibet, " In 

 the Forbidden Land," claims to have disproved the connection 

 between the lakes Kaka,s-tal and Manasarowar. The notice in 

 N.\TIRE of November 3 speaks of the connection as being 

 possibly open to doubt. 



But it is not so. My brother, then Captain Henry Strachey, 

 in the account of his visit to the lakes in 1846, published in the 

 fournal of the .\siatic Society of Bengal, vol. xvii., gives fuU 

 details on the subject. He crossed the stream that flows from 

 Manasarowar into Kakast.il at a point about a mile from the 

 latter lake. He describes it as aoout a hundred feet wide and 

 three feet deep, running rapidly from east to west in a well- 

 defined channel. He did not visit the actual point at which 

 this stream leaves Manasarowar, but in 1S49 I did so (see 

 /'. (7.5./., vol. xxi.), and there is no more douljt about the fact 

 than that the Thames runs past Richmond. 



Mr. Landor, so far as his map and descriptions enable us 10 

 judge, and as the notice in Nature suggests, did not go far 

 enough north between the lakes to admit of his ascertaining 

 the facts bearing on the subject. Riciiarh Stk.vcukv. 



Lancaster Gate, November 12. 



Arctic and Sub-Arctic Bees. 



Ok the wild bees of ,\laska nothing is known, except that 

 several species of humhlcbees (Bombus) are common. Conse- 

 quently, when Mr. Trevor Kincaid wrote me Last year that he 

 was going to Alaska, and would collect bees, I was expecting 

 to see, on his return, quite a new beefauna. He collected 

 carefully, and brought back a nice scries, but all Bombus '. No 

 other genus was seen, although brightly-coloured flowers are 

 quite numerous in Al.aska. On the Pribilof Islands he found a 

 fine new species of Bombus, which I named />'. K'incaidii, but 

 there was no'other bee. I have written to Dr. W. II. Dall, to 

 ask whether he ever saw any bees other than Bombus in .\laska. 

 He replies thai he collected there in 1868 four or five Bombus, 

 and some wasps of the genera Vespa and Pompilus, but he has 

 no record of other bees. 



