NA TURE 



[November 7, 1901 



The essay concludes with a comparison of Scheele 

 with Shakespeare, somewhat to the disparagement of 

 the poet, and with a very comical lament that so few 

 people ever visit either Scheele's birthplace, " if it still 

 be in existence," or his shrine at Kuping, " where he 

 died and where presumably his remains are interred." 

 One might even suspect that Mr. Mcintosh had not 

 been there. A. S. 



Use-Inheritance ; I! I list rated by the Direction of Hair on 

 the Bodies of Animals. By W. Kidd. 8vo. pp. 47. 

 Illustrated. (London : A. and C. Black, 1901.) Price 

 is. M. net. 

 Every naturalist who has studied the ungulate mammals 

 must have been struck with the curious variation in the 

 direction of the hair which occurs even [in closely-allied 

 species, and has probably been much puzzled to account 

 for these differences. Why, for instance, do the hairs on the 

 back of all the Asiatic buffaloes point towards the head 

 and those of their African allies in the opposite direction ? 

 In the former animals, as in all analogous instances, a 

 whorl (in this case on the haunches) marks the point 

 where the change in the direction of the hairs fiom the 

 normal backward slope occurs. In the work before us 

 the author, although he has not attempted to give a 

 reason for the variation in the hair-slope of closely allied 

 species, has done good service by classifying these 

 "whorls" and "featherings," as typified in the horse. 

 He has also shown that these features always occur 

 at spots where two or more muscles are acting against 

 one another, as is well exemplified on the forehead of the 

 horse. It is therefore suggested that the production of 

 such whorls has a dynamical origin. It is noteworthy 

 that while whorls and featherings are very commonly 

 developed in short-haired mammals, they are either 

 absent or rudimentary in those with long hair. 



The main argument of the book is, however, connected 

 with certain peculiarities of the hair-slope in man. In 

 normal instances this slope on the back of the head and 

 neck diverges obliquely from the middle line, somewhat 

 after the simian fashion. But in a second, or "excep- 

 tional," type the direction is just the reverse of this. 

 It is suggested that while the normal type has been 

 directly inherited from simian ancestors, the exceptional 

 type (which is considered to be an acquired one) has 

 been derived from the female line. It is further shown 

 than on the human back the direction of the hair-slope 

 is quite different from that which obtains in all apes and 

 monkeys. " This aberration of hair-slope I have sug- 

 gested,'' writes Dr. Kidd, " to be produced by the habit 

 which man has of spending about a third of his life, 

 during sleep, in lying mostly on his side, and, for some 

 millenniums at least, with some sort of rest for his Head." 

 These peculiarities in the hair-slope of man and other 

 animals, adds the author, are congenital and not due to 

 selection ; hence, unless originally created with the 

 forms of life in which they occur, they must have been 

 produced in their ancestors by use or habit. From this it 

 follows that, if the creation hypothesis be discarded, in 

 this particular instance, at any rate, acquired characters 

 are inherited. 



While claiming recognition for his own views on this 

 point, Dr. Kidd (p. 8) deprecates the idea that they mili- 

 tate seriously against the merits of Weismann's theory 

 as a whole. It may be added that the language in which 

 this tribute to a great thinker is couched would have 

 been more elegant had the author avoided the triple use 

 of the word " which " in a single sentence. K. L. 



Foundations of Botany. By Joseph V. Bergen, A.M. 



Pp. X + 257. (Boston, U.S.A.: Ginn and Co., 1901.) 

 This book is intended, or at least so we gather from the 

 preface, to provide a year's work in an advanced school 

 class. Much of the matter is to be commended, and 



NO. 1 67 I, VOL. 65] 



some of the new figures are admirable. From this 

 side the .Atlantic one can only regard with envy the 

 amount of energy expendable in American schools if a 

 work of this proportion and scope is really suited to their 

 possible requirements ; for the book covers a wide range 

 of subjects, and will make no small demands on the time 

 of the student who aims at mastering its contents. The 

 author clearly intends that the work shall l)e grappled 

 with thoroughly, and from the concrete and practical side. 

 He gives directions for laboratory work, and suggests 

 problems to be solved by observation and experiment 

 These are incorporated in the text as appendices to the 

 chapters, after the prevailing fashion in modern .\merican 

 text-books. It may, perhaps, be questioned whether the 

 book might not be improved by the separation of the 

 purely systematic portion into a volume by itself. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 \Tlu Editor does not hold himself responsilde for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to cot respond -with the ivriters of, rejected 

 maiiiiscnpls intended for this or any other part of NA'I'tJKE, 

 No notice is taken of anonvmous communications.'^ 



The Exploration of the Atmosphere over the Ocean. 



The experiment of flying kites in calm weather from the deck 

 of a moving tug-boat, which was mentioned in Nature of 

 September 5 (p. 453), was continued by my assistant, Mr. 

 Sweetland, and myself on a steamship that performed the voyage 

 from Boston to Liverpool between August 28 and September 5. 

 Flights were made on five days, the greatest height reached by 

 the meteorograph being one-third of a mile, and the records of 

 barometric pressure, air-temperature, relative humidity and wind- 

 velocity, which are probably the first to be obtained above the 

 North Atlantic, were shown to Section E of the British Associa- 

 tion at Glasgow. 



These experiments demonstrate conclusively that, with a 

 steamer that can be manceuvred at will, kites can he flown at 

 sea in almost all weather conditions, and, consequently, a most 

 important field is opened for their use in meteorological re- 

 searches, especially in the tropics, where the conditions existing 

 above the trade-winds are imperfectly known. It is to be hoped, 

 therefore, that such an investigation will be undertaken either 

 by the Government or by private enterprise, and I am now 

 endeavouring to bring this about. .\. Lawren'CE Rotch. 



Blue Hill Observatory, Hyde Park, Mass., 

 U.S..\., October 25. 



A Curious Flame. 



The kind of phenomenon described by Mr. Garbutt (p. 649) 

 is frequently to be met with in " washed-out " flames, that is, 

 in flames which are diluted to the point of extinction. In such 

 cases the velocity of inflammation is so low that flame cannot 

 propagate itself against the stream of gas. If the current of gas 

 be baffled by an obstacle, then a flame may originate in the 

 " slack waters" round the obstacle. Xo doubt the temperature 

 of the obstacle is of some importance if the object be small, since 

 rapid withdrawal of heat at any point of a gaseous current is a 

 hindrance to the development of flame at that point. But it 

 will be found that in the experiment described by Mr. Garbutt a 

 flame may be obtained by opposing a large battling surface of 

 even an enduringly cold body such as a 56-pound weight. In 

 this case a very large portion of the gaseous mixture is made 

 stationary and the cooling down does not affect more than .-» 

 small film next the metal. .\ kindred phenomenon is described 

 in Nature (vol. xlix. p. 86). 



The flame obtained when a Bunsen lamp is lighted both at 

 the bottom and the top of the tube is very feeble, and large 

 tr.acts of it may be extinguished by holding in it beads of volatile 

 salts. Arthur Smithells. 



November 4. 



With regard to the flame described by Mr. Garbutt in your 

 issue of October 31, I would suggest the following explanation, 

 which, however, I have not as yet quite proved. 



The products of the partial combustion at the bottom of the 



