Fune 3, 1886] 
NATURE 
99 
found in either of them. The largest medical specialist 
library in England, that of the Medical and Chirurgical 
Society, cannot claim to be more than half the size of the 
Washington Library, or to contain many books that are 
not to be found elsewhere ; and it does not grow with all 
the rapidity of the New World. 
For some time probably all seekers after the most 
difficult and most complete medical knowlege will have 
to turn to this “Index Catalogue,” and will trust that 
Mr. Billings may be able to go on year after year putting 
forth his modest quarto of 1000 pages, until six or seven 
years may see him at the end of his great work. 
A. T. MYERS 
OUR BOOK SHELF 
Mémoires de la Société des Sciences Physigues et Natu- 
velles de Bordeaux, 3e série, tome i. (Paris ; Gauthier- 
Villars, 1885.) 
WE have frequently had occasion to direct our readers’ 
attention to the high-class memoirs which this energetic 
Society puts forth. The volume before us is one of a kind 
that we should like to see brought out by our own scien- 
tific Societies. Under the title “ Niels-Henrik Abel, sa 
vie et son action scientifique,” it contains a full and most 
valuable sketch, by Prof. C. A. Bjerknes, of Christiania, 
of the writings and life of one of the ablest and acutest 
mathematicians of modern times. That the account is a 
full one will be evident when we say that the work 
occupies 365 octavo pages: it is a translation in French 
from the original memoir, and is further enriched by a 
considerable appendix. The labour of seeing the present 
form of the work through the press has principally fallen 
upon M. Hoiel, to whom the author warmly expresses 
his thanks. Abel was born at Find6, Christiansand, on 
August 5, 1802, and died near Arendal on April 6, 18209, 
and was interred at Froland, 
The main body of the work consists of fifteen chapters, 
and the appendix occupies thirteen chapters more. His 
works, originally edited by M. Holmboe, the professor 
under whom he studied, were published in 1839, and quite 
recently a new edition was referred to in these columns. 
_ We give two or three extracts which show the apprecia- 
tion of his powers amongst his contemporaries, an appre- 
ciation which has rather increased than decreased since 
his death. Jacobi writes of a deduction Abel had drawn 
as being “elle est au-dessus de mes éloges, comme elle 
est au-dessus de mes travaux.” Legendre says, “il me 
tarde beaucoup de voir les méthodes qui vous ont 
conduit a de si beaux résultats; je ne sais si je pourrais 
les comprendre, mais ce quil y a de siir, c’est que je n’ai 
aucune idée des moyens que vous avez pu employer pour 
_ vaincre de pareilles difficultés. Quelle téte que celle dun 
_ jeune Norvégien!” Gauss expresses similar views, and 
on hearing of Abel’s death, wishes for particulars of the 
life “de cette téte eminemment distinguée.” We could 
easily add other extracts from Prof. Bjerknes’ admirable 
record of the distinguished Norwegian’s life, which is a 
_ fitting companion to the before-cited edition of “the 
works,” but forbear. Should any desire, with Gauss, to 
_ have his portrait, they will see here in the frontispiece the 
_ well-known, to some of us, lineaments. 
Solid Geometry. By Percival Frost, D.Sc., F.R.S. 
x Third Edition. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886.) 
a would have been superfluous to recommend the third 
edition of Dr. Frost’s “Solid Geometry,” even if the 
third edition had been merely a reprint of the second. 
The book has now taken its position alongside the very 
best mathematical treatises in use, and requires “no 
oush.” 
What we have got to do with, however, is no | 
mere reprint: there is once again presented to us a 
notable increase of matter—much more than a cursory 
glance is likely to detect—and there has been considerable 
improvement generally. One change, greatly to the 
student’s advantage, is the careful graduation of the pro- 
blems at the end of each chapter, and the separation of 
them into groups. There is still a lack of references to 
original memoirs, and though, apparently, the author is 
conscious of it, he needs reminding that it is not sufficient 
merely to say that this or that is due to Cayley, Chasles, 
or any one else. Such incomplete statements serve only 
to give discoverers their dues; they do not assist the 
advanced and inquiring student. 
We have pleasure in learning that an Appendix is 
about to be issued giving hints for the solution of the 
problems, but the pleasure is far more than counter- 
balanced by observing that the title-page bears no longer 
the words “ Vol. I.,’ the inference being that Dr. Frost 
has followed the sad example of Thomson and Tait. 
There is no dearth of men willing and on the whole able 
enough to write mathematical text-books for beginners : 
those who could produce a volume to follow Frost’s 
“ Solid Geometry ” are rare as white crows. When found 
—by press delegates—they should not only be made a 
note of, but coerced. 
DETAILS SLOT ED MOR. 
[Zhe Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 
pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 
return, or lo correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 
scripts. No notice ts taken of anonymous communications. 
[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 
as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 
that tt tis impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 
of communications containing interesting and novel facts. | 
Flora of South Africa 
No one, who ever spent much of the impressionable period of 
his youth at the Cape, that land of lowly plants with exquisite 
flowers, —but will be vividly interested in the masterly description 
of those plants’ geographical regions of habitat, as given by Mr. 
Bolus, per your reviewer, ‘“‘J. D. H.,” on pp. 77-79 of your 
last week’s issue. 
But what can either one, or other, of those gentlemen mean 
by saying of ‘‘the Natal region” that it is ‘bounded on the 
east and south-east by the Atlantic” ! 
By the Indian Ocean if you like; and then you have a ready 
means of conveyance for those ‘‘ Indian types of plants, both in 
genera and species” which the above-quoted authors say do 
abound along that eastern coast of South Africa, —but which the 
Atlantic could never have brought to it. 
There is, however, a further local difference in the qualities of 
the two oceans, of such overwhelming importance to all vegeta- 
tion, that I wonder no mention appears of it in a Cape botanical 
essay. 
The Natal coast, for instance, on the east, is washed by a 
warm current from the equator, giving out so much steamy 
moisture that not only, as your article truly states, are there “the 
herbage- and bush- and tree-foliage greener, and the leafage 
larger” than elsewhere ; but there, in that region of luxuriously 
fed, densely growing plants, does game abound ; there do Kaffir 
tribes congregate and establish their kraals ; and thereto do Dutch 
Boers emigrate out of the old, dried-up, southern colony, and 
found new republics; while therein have we also, every few 
years, to wage successive wars either with them, or with Zulus 
or Amakosi tribes of various power, until British lives have 
been sacrificed by thousands, and British money expended by 
millions. 
But the west coast of South Africa, bless it, being washed by 
a cold current of the Atlantic coming from Antarctic seas, and 
giving out little or no vapour, even under a nearly vertical sun, 
—can hardly but be, even just as it is, an arid desert, where only 
a few starving Boschjesmen wander miserably up and down, 
existing perhaps on an occasional antelope, or roasted ants and 
stray locusts ; and no one fights there for permanent possession 
of the greund. : 
