January 19, 1899] 



NA TURE 



267 



The Oasis of Siwah has within the last century 

 been visited by W. G. Browne, Hornemann, Cailland, 

 MinutoH, Drovetti, Ricci, Rohlfs, all of whom have 

 written accounts of their journeys there, and of the 

 antiquities of the place ; several other travellers have 

 sojourned there for short periods, and thus the Oasis is 

 well known. The ancient Egyptians, as far back as the 

 time of Seti I. {circ. B.C. 1350), called this Oasis " Sekhet- 

 Ami," i.e. the " Field of the v4;« trees." And though such 

 a name might well be given to any of the Oases, we are 

 quite certain that Shvah was thus called, for a text at 

 Denderah describes Sekhet-Ami as " a narrie given to the 

 mountainous countries of Qauuti which lie to the west 

 of the border of the land of " Ah." Now Ah is the Oasis 

 of Farafra, which lies to the south of the Oasis Minor of 

 the Romans (see Brugsch, " Reise nachden Grossen 

 Oase," Plates xxiii. and xxiv., Leipzig, 1878). 



It is probable that a small temple dedicated to some 

 ram-headed god existed here in early times, but up to 

 the present we have no definite evidence of the fact. In 

 the time of Alexander the Great the god worshipped at 

 the Oasis of Sivvah was identified with .'Vmen-Ra, whose 

 title was Sipt Cibu or " two-horned," and the Macedonian 

 conqueror regarded him as his father. The Ptolemies 

 did much for the Oasis of Siwah, and it is more than 

 probable that the temples and buildings there, which 

 have been fully described by the old historian Diodorus, 

 and by modern travellers, belong to the period of their 

 rule over Egypt. The Arab writers knew nothing of the 

 ancient history of Siwah, as we may see from the meagre 

 summary given by Yakut in his Geography (ed. Wiisten- 

 feld, torn. iv. p. 873), and the information which they 

 supply is generally distorted and legendary. 



But to return to Mr. White's book. Of the twenty-six 

 chapters of his narrative the greater number are devoted 

 to detailing the incidents of his daily journey, and 

 conversations with members of his caravan, and personal 

 feelings and impressions about men and things. One 

 chapter, based upon the works of French writers, is 

 devoted to the Senussi, or followers of a certain " mad 

 mullah" called Sidi Muhammad ibn Ali es-Senussi, who 

 flourished in the first half of this century ; three to the 

 antiquities of Siwah ; one to a description of Jarabub, 

 and so on. In the chapter headed " Ma'lfesh " he tells us 

 that Egyptologists have assured him that he "has opened 

 up the Oasis to them and to others," but how has he 

 done it? We have examined his book carefully, but can 

 find few antiquarian facts which were not known before ; 

 indeed, if he had drawn upon some work like Parthey's 

 " Das Orakel und die Oase des Ammon," his book would 

 have been more valuable and more interesting. He gives 

 a description of a tomb in the " hill of the mummies " 

 {j.e. Gebel Mutah, or " hill of the dead"), but without 

 the hieroglyphic texts. This tomb Mr. Daressy first dated 

 at B.C. 1200, but afterwards he wisely brought its date 

 down to the time of Alexander the Great. 



In Mr. White's description of the tomb we find Amsel 

 instead of Amset, and Duaii-mwlef for Duau {or Tuau) 

 -mutef,andA>M-j-t?««t?/"for Kebh-sennuf; Prof. Sayce.who 

 supplied the description, must be held guiltless of such 

 mistakes as these. Mr. White's Arabic also is not above 

 suspicion. Thus he writes Riiffir for Rafiyyeh, " shawl for 

 NO. 1525, VOL. 59] 



the head" (p. 31) ; (Juies for Kuwayyes, " good, pretty" 

 (pp. 47, 69) ; m the Arabic name of God (p. 119), the 

 tes/tddtd'xs over the wrong la>?! ; nicies es-saldmeh means 

 "with peace," i.e. "goodbye " (p. 196) ; Riittah for Rutith 

 (p. 232) ; (Sec. In short, Mr. White's book afforded him, 

 no doubt, great pleasure in writing, but it seems that his 

 want of knowledge of what other travellers have written 

 about Siwah has made him exaggerate the importance of 

 his journey to archaeologists. 



Archaeologists want copies of all the inscriptions which 

 they can get from the Oases, and all the information pos- 

 sible ; but the present state of Mr. White's archsological 

 knowledge hardly entitles him to claim to have opened 

 Siwah to the Egyptologist. If he will first make his 

 studies, and then visit the Oracle of Ammon, we shall be 

 glad to hear what he has to say. His present work is 

 written in a rather flippant style, and a sentence like the 

 following jars upon us : — 



" Abd-el-Gade did not reply." But his answer lay in 

 his "embarrassed silence. Damn!" (p. 176). Mr. 

 White's footnote to this is " An execration {lapsus 

 calami)." 



AN ITALIAN TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSIO- 

 LOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 

 Chi mica Fisiologica per iiso del Medici e degli Studcttli. 

 By Dr. Filippo Bottazzi, libero docente di Fisio'ogia in 

 Firenze. Vol. I. " Chimica Fisiologica generale." 

 Pp. XV + 428. Vol. II. "Chimica Fisiologica speciale." 

 Pp. xii -H 465. (Milan, 1898.) 



THIS work is initially interesting as being the first 

 substantial text-book of the subject published by 

 an Italian for Italian students. But it is much more 

 than this. It is extremely well written, and differing as 

 it does in many respects in both form and substance 

 from the works with which we are already familiar, it is 

 very suggestive a^ to many points of view from which 

 the subject may in the near future make its most profit- 

 able advance. 



A text-book of physiological chemistry must really be 

 neither a treatise on physiology nor on chemistry. If it 

 deals with the subject under the heads of respiration, 

 nutrition, &c., it is too strictly physiological. On the 

 other hand, if it consists chiefly of a list of substances 

 and a description of their properties and methods of pre- 

 paration and estimation, it is too chemical. Hence the 

 author has divided the work into two parts. Of these, 

 \'ol. i. deals with general physiological chemistry, and 

 studies the materials introduced into the living organism, 

 the changes they undergo in the alimentary canal as they 

 become assimilable, the mechanisms concerned in their 

 absorption and assimilation, and finally the products of 

 their disintegration in the living tissues as sources of 

 energy. This complete metabolic cycle is treated in 

 separate chapters (2-5), devoted to each group of the 

 simple food-stuffs taken in the following order : " In- 

 organic substances " (water, salts, and certain gases), 

 " Carbohydrates," " Fats," and " Proteids." These are 

 preceded by a chapter on " The Elements," and followed 

 by two dealing respectively with "Colloids" and " Fer- 

 ments and Enzymes." This arrangement mig-ht at first 



