292 



NA TURE 



[January 30, 1908 



inspiring Ephod, and sons of the almond-tree. This 

 age is historically most remarkable as that of the 

 great moral upheaval which gave birth to the wide- 

 spread movement towards individual regeneration, and 

 the attainment of sanctity in mind and deed, which 

 characterised the history of the Buddha, born as the 

 divine physician Osadha-Dharaka, the medicine-child 

 in the age of the Yama Devaloko, the twin-stars 

 Gemini, when the sun entered the Ashvin constellation 

 Gemini in January-February, about 10,700 B.C., and 

 which continued through the ne.\t succeeding periods 

 of his Vessentara birth in the Tusita heaven of wealth. 

 . . . This age was, as I show, contemporaneous with 

 that characterised in Persian and Zend history as the 

 introduction of the religion of Zarathrustra . . . 

 during this period a wide-spread regime of active 

 trade, under the guidance of affiliated managers in 

 touch with the Indian trade-guilds, was extended 

 round the world from India as the centre, to the west 

 of Europe under the Phoenicians, and to America. 

 During this time of universal peace the world was 

 governed bv traders and was undisturbed by tribal 

 wars. ..." (pp. 45, 46). 



This sort of "history" is worthy of a Mahatma. 

 We have heard it from Indian and " theosophical " 

 lips before, and we do not believe a word of it. This 

 age of universal peace about 10,700 B.C. " under the 

 guidance of affiliated managers in touch with the 

 Indian trade-guilds " is as unknown to scientific his- 

 torians as Mr. Ignatius Donnelly's story of 

 " Atlantis." It will be news to them, also, to hear 

 that Zoroaster lived about 10,700 B.C. ! 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Cyclopedia of American Agriculture. Edited by L. H. 

 Bailey. Vol. ii.. Crops. Pp. xvi + 690. (New 

 York : The Macmillan Co. ; London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 21s. net. 

 The second volume of Dr. Bailey's " Cvclopedia " deals 

 with the field crops of North America,' and opens with 

 some interesting chapters on the economic side of plant 

 life in general— the control of diseases, the principles 

 of plant breeding and introduction, seeding, and the 

 management and preservation of the crop. Though 

 the plants dealt with in the main section of the book 

 include the staple farm crops of this country, one 

 cannot but be struck with the enormous diversity of 

 the production of the United States. Its agriculture 

 started practically on the basis of our own, with crops 

 characteristic of temperate and humid climates, cotton 

 being the only early addition on a large scale ; but as 

 population spread south and west, alLthe products of 

 the Mediterranean region became included, and 

 latterly the addition of the Sandwich Islands, Cuba, 

 and Porto Rico to its territory has brought tropical and 

 subtropical plants into the 'United States list. The 

 valuable work done by the plant introduction division 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture finds 

 ample recognition here; the navel orange, Egyptian 

 strains of cotton, with the date palm, the olive, and 

 durum wheat for the arid regions, are striking ex- 

 amples of successful acclimatisation, and elaborate 

 attempts are now being made to introduce tea. 



The account of any individual crop is perhaps 

 hardly full enough to be of much value to the farmer 

 who is already engaged in that particular industry, 

 and .American conditions of climate and labour render 

 much of the information inapplicable to British agri- 

 culture ; but this volume of the " Cyclopedia " would be 

 of the greatest service to any settler breaking ground in 

 NO. 1996, VOL. 77] 



a new country, and looking round for profitable crops 

 outside the accepted routine. As in all cyclopedias, 

 many of the illustrations are rather trivial and point- 

 less, but the full-page reproductions from photographs 

 are of real value and often of beauty. 



Penrose's Pictorial Antiual, 1907-8. Vol. xiii. 

 Edited by William Gamble. Pp. xvi + i.S4. (Lon- 

 don : A. W. Penrose and Co., Ltd., n.d.) Price 

 5s. net. 

 This annual has now reached its thirteenth volume, 

 and although its predecessors have attained a very 

 high order of excellence as regards text, illustration, 

 and style, the present issue eclipses them all. 



The volume before us is of perhaps more than 

 usual interest, because a fundamental and important 

 change has been made throughout the whole book. 

 The editor, in his excellent and interesting summary 

 of the year's work, tells us that on previous occasions 

 the chief difliculty which became apparent in prepar- 

 ing these volumes was to present something con- 

 spicuously new in process work. The difficulty arose 

 through the wonderful standard of excellence which 

 had already been reached in photo-mechanical pro- 

 cesses. 



Owing to certain criticisms which indicated that 

 the best effects from halt-tones and three-colour blocks 

 could only be obtained on highly-glazed paper, and 

 with brilliant inks, and this did not comply with the 

 canons of good art, an attempt has been made in 

 the present volume to meet these views. The paper- 

 maker has been asked to makei a paper which should 

 have a perfect surface without the gloss, and the ink- 

 maker has been requested to prepare inks that would 

 be suitable to the new kind of paper. To give the 

 text illustrations a better chance, screens with 133. 

 instead of 150 lines to the inch have been employed. 

 The result of this combined effort, which is presented 

 in these pages, is distinctly good, and throws great 

 credit on all concerned in the endeavour. As in 

 former vears, the volume teems with a great number 

 of excellent illustrations by various processes, and the 

 text contains a wealth of information on allied topics. 

 The frontispiece is a fine heliotype reproduction froni 

 an old copper engraving, and the general appearance 

 of the book leaves nothing to be desired. 



The book should be found more useful than ever 

 to anyone who wishes to seek the best process for 

 book or catalogue reproduction, no matter whether 

 the illustrations have to deal with the reproductions of 

 oil paintings, photographs, black-and-white drawings, 

 or such subjects as machinery, woodwork, or china. 



The Education of To-morrow. By John Stewart 

 Remington. Pp. 115. (London : Guilbert Pitman, 

 1907.) Price 2S. net. 

 " It is my honest belief," says Mr. Remington 

 towards the end of his book, " that at the bottom 

 of almost all British failure in business or in industry 

 is the nightmareish, unpractical nature of British 

 education." Though he does not appear to be 

 familiar enough with the progress which has been 

 made during the la>t ten years in devising and intro- 

 ducing practical methods into our schools, Mr. 

 Remington has much to say that deserves the 

 earnest attention of schoolmasters and educational 

 authorities generally. " The education of to-morrow 

 will be an education for practical men, every branch 

 of which will have to justify itself by ultimate useful- 

 ness." He combats successfully the common criticism 

 that this would be to make education merely utili- 

 tarian and to ignore the need for culture. To foster 

 in public schoolboys the belief that " the best people " 

 cannot go in for trade, he describes as " suicidal.'* 

 .Mtogether the little book provides much material for 



