290 



NATURE 



[July 27, 1882 



Lastly, we must protest against the treatment given to 

 Reis's Telephone, of which the book declares that it 

 " has always remained a purely musical apparatus." It 

 is perfectly clear that neither M. Hospitalier nor Dr. 

 Maier can have read Reis's own papers when they make 

 this assertion, which those papers amply refute, and which 

 a careful trial of Reis's own instruments will also amply 

 contradict. Reis invented his instrument, taking the 

 human ear as pattern, because the human ear can vibrate 

 to all kind of sounds. He invented it, meaning it to 

 transmit speech, and though it transmitted music better 

 than speech — and both imperfectly — it did, to a certain 

 degree, fulfil its inventor's aim. The author seems in 

 fact to have viewed Reis's invention through the hazy 

 medium of the writings of Count du Moncel, or some 

 less reliable authority ; for he mentions Yeates's experi- 

 ments of 1865 (in which articulate speech was transmitted 

 by a modified Reis instrument with such accuracy that 

 the voices of individual speakers were recognised), and 

 then adds : " The musical telephone might have become 

 an articulating telephone under these conditions, but this 

 result was not obtained, partly on account of the imper- 

 fection of the instrument, and partly because Yeales had 

 no such result in view/" How this extraordinary dis- 

 tortion of well-known facts has crept into the book before 

 us we are at a loss to conjecture. Doubtless the numerous 

 excellent illustrations with which the book is adorned 

 will procure for it a ready sale. 



HANDBOOK FOR NORTHERN AND CENTRAL 

 /ARAN 



A Handbook for Travellers in Central and Northern 

 Japan, Sr'c., -with Maps and Plans. By Ernest Mason 

 Satow, Second Secretary and Japanese Secretary to 

 H.B.M. Legation, and Lieut. A. G. S. Hawes, Royal 

 Marines (Retired). (Yokohama : Kelly and Co. ; 

 Shanghai : Kelly and Walsh, 1881.) 



AS a mere handbook this work is indispensable to the 

 European traveller in Japan. But it is much more 

 than a handbook, it not only indicates what is sight- 

 worthy, but explains by illustrative myth or legend, drawn 

 from local tradition or from the little explored treasures of 

 Japanese literature, the special interest with which moun- 

 tains, temples, mounds, groves, and places are invested 

 in the eyes of such Japanese as have not yet aban- 

 doned their nationality. To readers of this journal the 

 most valuable portion of the book will be the description 

 as accurate as minute of the Alpine region formed by the 

 provinces of Etchiu and Hida (now the prefectures of 

 Ishikawa and Gifu) — a region difficult of access even to 

 natives, and almost untrodden by Europeans. The 

 mountain range bounding this wild and remote tract on 

 the East is the most considerable in Japan, extending 

 nearly due north and south for some sixty or seventy miles, 

 and rugged with innumerable peaks, the most conspi- 

 cuous of which, beginning from the north, are Tate"yama, 

 9500 feet, Goroku-dake", 9100 feet, Yari-ga-take", 10,000 

 feet, and Norikura, 9800 feet. The chain is not of homo- 

 geneous structure, nor are the peaks of contemporaneous 

 origin. The basis is a closegrained granite, not unfre- 

 quently rich in garnets. Through this backbone or axis 

 vast masses of igneous and volcanic rock have been ex- 



truded, the volcanic rock principally trachytic, often 

 coarse-grained, and occasionally (Tate-yama) columnar. 

 Of the peaks, Yari-ga-take" (spear-peak) seems the most 

 ancient, and consists of an intensely hard, foliated rock 

 with curiously contorted siliceous bands and of an almost 

 equally hard porphyry breccia. Nori-kura (ride-saddle) 

 and Tate"yama (steep-hill) are both volcanic. Goroku- 

 dake - or Renge (Lotus flower Peak) consists of a mass of 

 trachytic porphyry piled upon and against a close-grained 

 granitic rock. The lower slopes of the range are overlaid, 

 say our authors, by sedimentary rocks, but I am inclined 

 to doubt the accuracy of this statement. Under the 

 fierce sun and incessant rain of summer aerial denudation 

 proceeds at a great rate, especially in the granitic dis- 

 tricts of Japan, as may be well seen in the neighbourhood 

 of Kobe, and the existence of a quasi-sedimentary rock 

 may thus be easily accounted for. But true sedimentary 

 rocks, excluding lacustrine deposits or fluvial alluvia, re- 

 quire the agency of the sea, and the greater part of the 

 covering strata of the Japanese islands, is of very recent 

 origin, and has never been under the sea. Only for a 

 few days in early autumn does snow disappear from these 

 peaks, the curiously abrupt and jagged outlines of which 

 recall and even justify the mountain-forms common in 

 Chinese pictures. The fauna of the district is little 

 known. Ptarmigans are common, so also are flying 

 squirrels, as well as bears, two species, of wild boar, and 

 the curious goat-faced antelope. The flora has been 

 more studied. Dense forests clothe the slopes, princi- 

 pally of beech and of several species of oak, mostly ever- 

 green. Conifers are less abundant than is common in 

 Japan. But the pretty 5-leaved Pinus parviflora, S. and 

 Z., as well as, though to a less extent, Cryptomeria 

 japonica, Chamcccyparis obtusa, S.andZ., and C. pisifera, 

 S. and Z., are not infrequent. I am not sure, for reasons 

 too long to state here, that the Cryptomeria, despite its 

 frequency, is indigenous to Japan. Two or three kinds 

 of Betula show themselves at elevations of 4000-5000 feet. 

 Below this level many examples of the genera Epilobium, 

 Scabiosa, Hypericum, Parnassia, Euphrasia, Lilium (Z,. 

 auralum and L. tigrinuni), Hydrangea, Smilax, Akebia, 

 Tylophora, &c, constitute a vegetation by no means 

 without a western European aspect. Above 5000 feet 

 Vaccinium, Diphylleia, Trollius, Paris, Fragaria vesca, 

 and Anemone make their appearance. The common 

 Pinguicula is also found, and probably Loiseleuria pro- 

 cumbens, which I have gathered on the slopes of Asama- 

 yama, finds a home on those of the Hida mountains. 

 Above 8000 feet a small Dicentra (D. pusilla, S. and Z. ?), 

 a yellow violet, Shorlia tiuiflora, and Schisocodon solda- 

 nelloides are to be seen interspersed among bushes of a 

 dwarf azalea. But it is doubtful whether jiny true Alpine 

 flora exists in Japan. 



On Tate'-yama the climber passes by some hexagonally 

 columnar examples of andesite, said to have been origin- 

 ally prostrate trunks of trees over which a woman in- 

 cautiously stepped, which so offended the deities that 

 they were changed into useless blocks of stone. The spot 

 is called Zai-moku-zaka or timber-steep to this day, in 

 commemoration of the fact. Solfataras, it should be 

 mentioned, are as common in this district as in other 

 parts of Japan. A curious means of crossing deep 

 ravines and precipitously walled valleys, known as Kago- 



