;h 



NA TURE 



[February 6, 1908 



adaptive reaction, so widespread a ptienomenon in the 

 biological world, remains unsolved. Until we know 

 a great deal more than wc do at present about the 

 physico-chemical connection of stimulus and response 

 it is likely to remain so. A. G. T. 



CLIMATE AND MAN. 

 The Pulse of Asia: a Journey in Central Asia illus- 

 trating the Geographic Basis of History. By Ells- 

 worth Huntington. Pp. xxi + 4i6. (London: A. 

 Constable and Co., T,td. ; Boston and New York : 

 Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1907.) Price 14s. net. 

 TN Nature, vol. Ixxii., 1905, p. 366, some account 

 was given of the expedition of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution of Washington to Eastern Persia and Turke- 

 stan. Mr. Huntington showed his descriptive power 

 in the joint memoir issued in that year ; and he dedi- 

 cates his new book to Prof. \V. M. Davis, his instructor 

 in the " rational science " of geography, and his com- 

 panion in arduous travel. Mr. Huntington states that, 

 thanks to the help of Prof. Davis, he spent three 

 years in Central Asia, in addition to four previously 

 spent in Asia Minor. His study of languages has 

 again and again been of service to him ; and it is in- 

 teresting to note at one point (p. 153) the struggle 

 between his natural sympathy and the need for a little 

 self-assertion, which, to the Oriental, is an outward 

 sign of self-respect. His relations with the Khirghiz, 

 and even with the feebler Chantos, were pleasant in 

 the extreme ; we fancy that something more funda- 

 mental than a training in geography gave him his 

 thoughtful perception of the conditions and limitations 

 of their lives. 



The map of Asia, and no small part of it, is re- 

 quired to reveal the significance of the author's routes. 

 The high passes of the Kwen Lun and Tian Shan 

 ranges are mere incidents in these loops of travel, 

 which lead us from Batum across Bokhara, and as 

 far east as the shrinking salt-lake of Lop Nor. 



Nine months were spent in the Lop Basin alone, 

 and one of the finest things in the book is the general 

 account of the succession of physical and climatic 

 zones (chapter iv.), as one descends from the moun- 

 tains across a ring of river-gravels to the edge of the 

 region of desiccation. Here the fine sands and muds 

 of old flood-plains are to-day whirled up before the 

 wind, and are deposited as loess on the mountain- 

 pastures to the south. The life of the nomadic inhabi- 

 tants of the basin is practically limited by this pastoral 

 land, which occupies all but the highest parts of the 

 plateau-zone ; and this zone terminates in steep slopes 

 inwards, rising " like a continental ring around a 

 sea forever dry." Down below, patches of forest-land 

 are already poisoned by salt, and dying tamarisk 

 bushes mark the spread and triumph of the desert. 



All through Mr. Huntington's chapters we trace 

 the same compelling influence. The desert, with its 

 rippled and shifting dunes, its " hateful haze " swept 

 onward by the wind, its inexorable hostility, demand- 

 ing an inexorable endurance (p. 260), is driving man 

 steadily before it, and has him, as it were, over leagues 

 of country, by the throat. Old irrigation-channels 

 have been abandoned, from failure at their source; 

 NO. 1997, VOL. 77] 



old roads around lake-basins have given place to 

 direct tracks across their floors. Even in mountain- 

 gorges, streams have run dry, leaving the lower 

 ground dependent on the sudden and dangerous tor- 

 rents that follow on each melting of the snows. 

 Springs may temporarily arise in desiccated areas, and 

 may furnish real rivers as time goes on (p. 182) ; but 

 such incidents only temporarily retard the retreat of 

 man, who leaves lost cities behind him, still " beautiful 

 in the clean, graceful shrouds of their interment in 

 the sand." ArchEeological research, local legends, the 

 experience of recent generations, all show that the 

 drying up of Central Asia is a continuous pheno- 

 menon ; yet a "climatic pulsation " in an opposite 

 direction is traceable, both in the Caspian and Lop Nor 

 Basins, in the " Middle .\ges " following on 500 a.d. 



The conditions of the still older dry or " interflu- 

 vial " epoch have not even now been reproduced, since 

 (p. 351) there are places in the Tian Shan range, now 

 too cold and wet for agriculture, where canals were 

 once made to provide for irrigation. Mr. Huntington 

 throughout acknowledges the work of Bruckner and 

 his other predecessors in these fields of travel, observ- 

 ation, and deduction, and has, in his later pages, urged 

 the climatic aspect of human movements to an almost 

 hazardous extreme. He set out (p. 6) to use Central 

 .\sia as a text " to show the immense influence which 

 changes of climate have exerted upon history." 

 In this respect his book does not quite rise 

 to the anticipated level, which is reached more 

 nearly in the memoir issued by the Carnegie 

 Institution. But, with its simple record of 

 perilous adventures, its excellent illustrations, ,and 

 its clear devotion to science first of all, It forms a note- 

 worthy and Inspiring work of travel. Throughout It 

 we feel, as the author means us to feel, the insistent 

 pressure of natural law against the will and work of 

 mortals — the helplessness of millions of men against 

 the untlmed pulse of Asia. 



Grenvilue .\. J. Cole. 



THE MODERN MICROSCOPE. 



Microscopy : the Construction, Theory, and Use of the 

 Microscope. By E. J. Spitta. Pp. xx + 472; 16 

 plates. (London : J. Murray, 1907.) Price I2i'. bd. 

 net. 



MICROSCOPISTS are at present divided Into two 

 factions. There are those of the old school, who 

 are content with the principles under the guidance of 

 which such great ■improvements have been made in 

 microscope construction since the earlier days of .Abbe ; 

 and there are those whom we may call the " Gordon 

 rioters," who hold that Abbe's experiments were in- 

 conclusive and even misleading, and have found a 

 new prophet. The new theory — the adjective has at 

 least some justification — has been duly set forth, with 

 a mint of strange phrases, in Sir .\. E. Wright's 

 " Principles of Microscopy," already reviewed in these 

 pages (vol. Ixxv., p. 386, February 21, 1907). Mr. Spitta 

 is of the older school. He Is for " legitimate methods 

 of observation." He casts an oblique and somewhat 

 mistrustful glance upon the new practices, and hurries 

 by to surer and more familiar ground. 



