444 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 4, 1902 
fell to 10 dollars. At present the cost of moving mer- 
chandise by canal from Buffalo to New York, a distance 
of 500 miles, does not, on the average, exceed one dollar, 
or four shillings per ton. : 
European States are devoting millions of money 
annually to the construction of canals and canalised 
rivers, with the result that it costs less to-day to bring 
sugar from Hungary, thousands of miles across Europe, 
to London than to carry the same sugar on our own 
railways from London to Manchester. Goods which can 
be carried from Hamburg to Berlin, a distance of 174 
miles, at four shillings per ton cost eight shillings and 
fourpence per ton from Manchester to Liverpool, a dis- 
of 30 miles. Cattle can be sent at less cost from Chicago 
to Liverpool (about 4000 miles) than from Northumber- 
land to Liverpool. It costs more to send one ton of 
goods from London to the west of Ireland than from 
London to Japan. Denmark can send her dairy and 
farm produce to London at less cost for transport than 
can the English farmer living only 30 miles away in the 
home counties. 
Mr. Levinstein calls fora reform of the patent laws. 
He attributes, as do many of the witnesses examined 
by the committee of the Technical Education Board, 
much of the success of the German manufacturer to the 
excellent and protective patent laws, which have been in 
operation since 1876. Yet though our patent laws leave 
very much to.be desired, they do not directly, as Prof. 
Meldola points out, prevent discovery or originality. In- 
directly they may do so, because if a man feels that his 
invention is not properly protected, he may give up 
working in disgust. In order that a patent may be valid 
in Germany, it is necessary that the article patented 
should be manufactured in Germany. We have no 
similar provision. It pays an inventor to manufacture 
in Germany and export to England better than to build 
extra works here, where British labour would be 
employed. 
Admitting, however, that our patent laws are bad, our 
manufacturers narrow-minded and unscientific and our 
business methods lacking in enterprise, and that therefore 
we are, if not absolutely falling behind, barely holding 
our own in the markets of the world, we always come 
back to the fact, if we will but admit it, that all these 
causes may directly or indirectly be traced to our edu- 
cational system or want of system. 
The report of the Technical Education Board is so 
valuable that I should like to suggest that the County 
Council publish a digest of it in pamphlet form and 
circulate 't among manufacturers in London. This may 
seem a rather large order, but how otherwise are these 
men, upon whom so much depends, to be reached ? 
F. MOLLWO PERKIN. 
BIRD-PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE GARDEN. 
Oe he disclaims the title of naturalist and 
states that he knows nothing of photography, the 
author has contrived to produce a very entertaining little 
work, illustrated by reproductions from photographs 
which we have seldom seen equalled and rarely sur- 
passed. Theyare, in fact—especially the full-page plates 
—ideal representations of the birds they portray, and 
ought to tempt the amateur photographer to try to do 
likewise—if he can. The object of the volume, like so 
many others at the present day, is to show the outdoor 
naturalist and bird-lover how full an insight he can 
obtain of the life-history and habits of his feathered 
favourites by portraying them in their natural haunts 
and surroundings. And with this end in view, he describes 
in some detail the type of camera and plates best suited 
1 ‘* Birds in the Garden.” By G. 
(London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1902.) 
NO. 1714, VOL. 66] 
Sharp. Pp. xi +190; illustrated. | 
for the purpose, and the mode of usingthem. His main 
difficulty appears. to be to find a “shutter” which shall 
be sufficiently rapid in action, and at the same time not 
frighten the bird as it falls. 
As the title implies, the author, in place of wandering 
far afield, has been content with the birds commonly met 
with in any English country garden, and he shows how 
much may be learnt that is more or less new even with 
regard to familiar species. Perhaps he, would have 
been better advised had he refrained from saying that 
our knowledge of bird-anatomy is such that work is no 
longer needed in that branch of ornithology. Indeed, 
it is a great pity that field-naturalists and museum- 
workers are constantly in the habit of belittling one 
another’s efforts ; each has his appointed place, and the 
work of the one cannot be completed without that of the 
other. 
The author restricts himself to ten species, five of 
which are tits, and he has something interesting to say 
Fic. 1.—Robin Pausing at Food. (From ‘Birds in the Garden.”) — 
about each. If we were asked. to select the two best 
illustrations in a work. in which all the pictures are 
charming, we should choose the page-plates of the pied 
flycatcher and redbreast. We reproduce one of the 
text-figures. Re. 
A NEW THEORY OF THE TIDES OF 
TERRESTRIAL OCEANS. 
NE ROLLIN HARRIS has done so much good 
work in preparing his “ Manual of Tides” for the 
United States Coast Survey that it is an ungrateful task 
to find oneself constrained to criticise adversely his 
recently published part iv. A. of that treatise.! 
I shall pass over many points of interest which occur 
in the earlier portions of the book, because the discus- 
sion of them is apparently designed to lead up to a new 
theory of oceanic tides. That theory, to which I shall 
confine my attention, depends on a proposition that it is 
possible to dissect our oceans into a number of basins in 
which the oscillations are virtually independent of one 
another and are almost unaffected by the diurnal rotation 
of the earth. 
We may, then, pass at once to chapter vi., where Mr. 
Harris considers forced oscillations in tanks, as impeded 
by friction. The waves are treated as long waves in which 
the water in any vertical slice always remains. vertical, 
and the friction is assumed to be proportional to the 
velocity of the slice. These assumptions are open to 
criticism, but I will follow Mr. Harris in supposing that 
1 Reports of the U.S. Ccast Survey. Parts i., ii, Appendices 8, 9, Report 
for 1897. Part iii, Appendix 7, Report for 1894- Part iv. A., Appendix 7, 
Report for 1900. 
