26 



NA TURE 



[NoVEMliER 14, 1901 



Rex CorrumpK " — appears at the end of his memoir), a 

 real character — a sullen and solitary bear of enormous 

 size, responsible for the deaths of at least two cowboys, 

 and believed never to have had a mate. He was known 

 far and wide over a broad district of New Mexico as 

 '' the worst grizzly that ever rolled a log in the Big Horn 

 Basin" ; but in the \'ellowstone, where for some years he 

 regularly passed two months in summer, and where, as in 

 our London parks — to compare small things with great — 

 wild things at once grow tame, he managed to pass 

 himself oflf as " a peaceable sort." 



From facts gathered from hunters, miners and ranch- 

 men, and from personal experiences, Mr. Thompson has 

 imagined and written his life through " cubhood," "days 

 of strength " and " waning," from the time when he and his 

 two brothers and a sister — an unusually large family for a 

 grizzly — as woolly cubs " hustled and tumbled one 

 another in their haste to be first at the ant-heaps which 

 a mother's strong arm unroofed, and squealed like little 

 pigs, and growled little growls, as if each was a pig, a 

 pup and a kitten all rolled into one," until the time when, 

 a grey-bearded old bear, crippled with rheumatism, de- 

 throned and driven from his haunts by a usurper whom 

 a year or two before he would have despised, he limps 

 " with shaky limbs and short uncertain steps to the 

 mysterious ' Death Gulch ' — that fearful little valley 

 where everything was dead and where the very air was 

 deadly," and " as gently went to sleep as he did in his 

 mother's arms by the Gray- Bulls long ago." 



It is a powerfully written and wonderfully graphic 

 story, more particularly in the earlier chapters, where the 

 poor little cub, sole survivor of the family, wanders 

 motherless in the woods, with all the world against 

 him, to learn by the slow lessons of experience all about 

 traps and guns and beasts and, worst of all, men, and 

 the meanings of the many subtle messages which 

 reached the brain by way of his " great moist nose," 

 storing up wrath against the day of vengeance, which 

 came with his strength. 



One of the most interesting things in the book is the 

 account of the way in which a big bear, when he takes 

 possession of a country, advertises his proprietary rights 

 by rubbing himself, whenever he passes, against 

 particular trees. 



" Wherever VVahb went he put up his sign-board — 

 ' Trespas,sers Be\v.\re I ' 

 It was written on the trees as high up as he could 

 reach, and everyone that came by understood that the 

 scent of it and the hair in it were those of the great 

 grizzly Wahb." 



A critic, to assert his superiority, must pick holes 

 somewhere. Perhaps in the case of Mr. .Seton-Thompson's 

 almost altogether perfect work, the least unreasonable 

 way of doing what is expected is by hinting a doubt 

 whether the vein of melancholy which runs through 

 much of his writings is not a little strained. 



"The life of a wild animal," he tells us in italics, 

 " (ihiiays has a tragic end." Perhaps so ; if, but only IK, 

 sudden destruction coming unawares to end a bright ex- 

 istence — Death appearing without " the painful family," 

 "more hideous than their Queen" — is necessarily a 

 tragedy. But the world, after all, is something more 

 than a great slaughter-house. There is, for the humbler 

 NO. 1672, VOL. 65] 



creation at least, a "blindness to the future kindly 

 given," and, so far as we can judge, a keen power of 

 enjoying the present. The blackbird is not alwdys 

 thinking of the sparrowhawk, the ant of the turkey, nor 

 the turkey of Christmas. The necessity for keeping the 

 protective sense constantly on the alert may be the very 

 best means for keeping the faculties of enjoyment bright 

 and polished. 



" h. certain number of fleas," according to David 

 Harum, " is good for a dog. They keep him from 

 brooding on being a dog." T. Di(;f.v Pigott. 



ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. 



Elemetitary Geomelry, Plane and Solid, for use in High 

 Schools and Academies. By Thomas F. Holgate, 

 Professor of .Applied Matheinatics in North-Western 

 University. Pp. xi-l-440. (New York: The Mac- 

 millan Company. London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 1901.) Price 6j'. 



THIS book covers the ground of the first six books 

 and those parts of the eleventh and twelfth books 

 of Euclid which are usually read ; and it includes besides 

 a discussion of the elementary properties of the simpler 

 solid figures, the sphere, the cylinder and cone. There 

 is also a brief appendix on trigonometry. 



The introduction deals with preliminary notions and 

 definitions, and the first chapter with triangles and 

 parallelograms. The second chapter treats of the circle 

 in a manner which is more direct than Euclid's, and is 

 free from the impossible figures so bewildering to a 

 beginner. It contains an interesting .Article 204, on the 

 principle of continuity, in which instances are given of 

 propositions which, though very different at first sight, 

 can by the application of the principle of continuity be 

 harmonised under one general statement. Illustrations 

 of this kind are most helpful and stimulating. 



The third chapter, on similar rectilineal figures, con- 

 tains a section on measurement, ratio, proportion and the 

 theory of limits. As no definite agreement has yet been 

 arrived at among teachers as to the best mode of treating 

 this part of the subject, it is to this section that the 

 main interest of the book is due. There is much to be 

 said for the view of those who would definitely postpone 

 any discussion of incommensurables to a later stage, but 

 as it may be inferred from the book that this is not the 

 view of the author, it will not be considered here. In 

 order to make clear the relation of his treatment to the 

 usual English practice, it is necessary to state very briefly 

 what that practice is. It is usual to direct beginners 

 to learn the fifth definition (the test for equal ratios) by 

 heart without any adequate explanation,' although it rests 

 upon ideas of extreme simplicity. It is doubtful whether 

 one pupil in ten thousand understands the definition, 

 though a great many are able to apply it correctly to 

 prove two important propositions in the sixth book, vi/., 

 No. I, " The areas of triangles (and parallelograms^ of the 

 same altitude have the same ratio as the lengths of their 

 bases havelo one another,'' and No. 33, " In equal circles, 

 angles, whether at the centres or circumferences, have the 

 same ratio as the arcs on which they stand have to one 



1 The so-called algebraic explanations frequently supplied are inadequate 



