170 



NA TURE 



[Dec. 24, 1885 



manning, and other essential elements of safety. Each of 

 these points requires to h& separately and fully dealt 

 with." 



Great importance is rightly attached by the Load-line 

 Committee to the administration of the freeboard tables. 

 The most perfect tables that can be framed must necessarily 

 be incomplete in many particulars, and must leave much 

 to the discretion of those who have to use them. The 

 mere tables only apply to existing types of vessels ; and 

 out of those existing types they can only apply to vessels of 

 high class which are in good condition. In the adminis- 

 tration of the tables great discretion and knowledge 

 are necessary, in order to use them with reasonable 

 modifications, in view of changes in the types of ships, 

 or of improvements in ships, that the continuous pro- 

 gress of naval architecture is certain before long to 

 cause. The same discretion and knowledge are necessary 

 in dealing with vessels which, by reason of age, structural 

 defects, more or less rapid deterioration, or of anything 

 that may be observed in their condition, cannot safely or 

 fairly be loaded as deeply as vessels which are in first- 

 class condition. The great majority of the members of 

 the Committee are of opinion that, in order to give useful 

 and satisfactory effect to the tables, the scientific staff of 

 the Board of Trade should be strengthened, and should 

 be made capable of dealing with all questions of such a 

 nature that may arise, in a manner likely to command 

 the confidence of ship-owners and of the public. They 

 also think it essential that this work should be done 

 under the superintendence of a representative body, 

 which should consist not only of officials but also of ship- 

 owners, naval architects, seamen, and perhaps under- 

 writers. 



Sir E. J. Reed said, " The Load-line Committee, in the 

 inquiry which they undertook, had a very difficult task to 

 perform. The origin of that Committee was this : the 

 Legislature having placed the obligation of stopping the 

 overloading of ships on the Board of Trade, that Depart- 

 ment fried to do so, but failed to succeed, their interfer- 

 ence being resisted by ship-owners. Thereupon Mr. 

 Chamberlain conceived the idea of forming a Committee 

 of gentlemen for the purpose of thoroughly investigating 

 the subject, and seeing what answers could be given to 

 the questions which had been referred to in the paper. 

 The best proof that the Committee had done its work 

 with a fair measure of success was to be found in the 

 fact that no one had that evening complained of 

 the results at which they arrived, which would not 

 have been the case had mistakes been committed, 

 as ship-owners never hesitated to defend themselves. 

 Prof. Elgar had shown how necessary it was to supple- 

 ment the labours of the Committee by further knowledge 

 and investigation touching other elements of the safety 

 of ships at sea. He believed ship-owners came out 

 exceedingly well in the inquiry, both in the evidence 

 they laid before the Committee and in the manner in 

 which they applied their knowledge and experience to 

 the investigation ; and he should feel it his duty, when 

 he saw Mr. Chamberlain, to point out to him that nothing 

 could have been more fair-minded, more open or thorough, 

 than the manner in which they co-operated with the other 

 members of the Committee in bringing about the result 

 which had been attained." 



The public are indebted to the Load-line Committee for 

 the satisfactory manner in which they performed a most 

 difficult task ; and especially to the Chairman, Sir E. J. 

 Reed, to whose ability and good judgment the success of 

 their labours may very largely be attributed. 



THE WANDERINGS OF PLANTS AND 

 ANIMALS 

 The Wiindenngs of Plants and Animals from their First 

 Home. By Victor Hehn. Edited by James Steven 

 Stallybrass. (London : Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 

 18S5.) 



THE title of this book is somewhat misleading, since 

 it treats only of domesticated animals and culti- 

 vated plants, and of these solely in relation to European 

 civilisation. The subject is treated as almost entirely a 

 philological one, the origin of the several species and 

 varieties being deduced from a study of their names in 

 different countries and from a critical examination of the 

 earliest references to them in ancient writers. The 

 author's point of view is thus clearly stated in the 

 preface : — 



" The purely scientific man will judge chiefly by the 

 suitability of soil and climate. If he finds a plant flourish- 

 ing pretty abundantly in Greece or Italy now, and knows 

 of no climatic or geologic changes that would exclude its 

 having flourished there 5000 years ago, he will at once 

 pronounce it indigenous, and scout the notion of its 

 having been imported. But now listen to the scholar, 

 and he may tell you that Homer never mentions such a 

 plant ; that later poets speak of it in a vague way as 

 something very choice and very holy, and always in con- 

 nection with some particular deity : they may have tasted 

 its fruit, may have seen the figure of its flowers (probably 

 conventional) in emblematic painting or carving, but have 

 not the faintest notion of its shape or size, wliether it be 

 a grass, a shrub, or a tree ; till at last, in the time of 

 Darius or Alexander, the plant itself emerges into clear 

 visibility. Your inference will be that it came to Greece 

 within historic times.'' 



In this way he claims to have shown " that the flora 

 of Southern Europe has been revolutionised under the 

 hand of man ; that the evergreen vegetation of Italy and 

 Greece is not indigenous, but is mainly due to the sacred 

 groves planted round the temples of Oriental gods and 

 goddesses ; that in this way the laurel has followed the 

 worship of Apollo, the cypress and myrtle that of Aphro- 

 dite, the olive that of Athena, and so on." But this very 

 wide statement seems hardly to be justified by the evi- 

 dence adduced in this volume. 



As a good example of our author's mode of treatment 

 we may refer to his account of the domestic cat. This 

 animal, he shows, was quite unknown to the Greeks and 

 Romans of the classical age. In the Batrachomyomachia 

 the mouse tells the frog that he fears above all things the 

 hawk and the weasel, but most the weasel, because it 

 creeps after him into his holes. In "The Wasps" of 

 Aristophanes a domestic story begins : " Once upon a 

 time there was a mouse and a weasel " — just as we say to 

 children, "There was once a cat and a mouse." In the 

 fable of the Cit)' mouse and the Country mouse as related 

 by Horace, the latter is frightened, not by a cat, but by 

 the barking of dogs. In the original fables of ^Esop, of 

 Babrius, and of Ph?edrus, the cat is never mentioned, the 

 weasel always occupying the place the former animal 



