Decembek 26, 1901J 



NA TURE 



characters that they could <lo little more than speculate 

 about it. Mr. King decides, and rightly, that the cunei- 

 form system of writing was produced by the material 

 upon which the Sumerians and Babylonians wrote. On 

 stone it was comparatively easy to cut linear characters, 

 or even signs in which circles and semicircles occurred ; 

 but on clay a circle or a crescent could not be made 

 quickly with the three or four-sided stylus, and the out- 

 line of a round, or oval, object had to be represented by 

 a series of wedges. That clay became a popular material 

 for writing upon is proved by the fact that its use ex- 

 tended from Elam in the east to Syria in the west, and 

 from Lake \"an in the north to the head of the Persian 

 Gulf in the south ; the cuneiform system of writing was 

 in use continuously in Mesopotamia for about 4500 years. 



Passing next to the decipherment, in an interesting 

 chapter there is set before us the history of the dis- 

 covery of the Persepolitan inscriptions by early travellers, 

 such as Antonio de Gouvea and Garcia de Sylva y 

 Figueroa, Pietro della V'alle and others ; the first useful 

 copy of these was made in 1765 at Persepolis by the 

 great Xiebuhr. The first successful step towards 

 decipherment was made by Grotefend, but it was not 

 until 1S37, when the late Sir Henry Rawlinson took the 

 matter up, that any substantial results were obtained. 

 Mr. King gives us copies of the inscriptions from which 

 Sir Henry recovered the names of Darius, Hystaspes, 

 and Xerxes, and clearly e.xplains his method step by 

 step, and two " cuts " give us an idea of the situation 

 of these important inscriptions on the rock at Elwend 

 and of the famous trilingual .inscription at Behistun. 

 The narrative of the manner in which Sir Henry over- 

 came all difficulties is extremely interesting, and the 

 world owes almost as much to his physical as to his 

 mental energy. 



Want of space prevents us from doing more than 

 mention the Susian and Babylonian texts at Behistun, 

 and we therefore pass on to note that the third chapter is 

 devoted to a description of the system in which cunei- 

 form characters are employed as syllables, ideographs, 

 and determinatives. It is astonishing that the Assyrians 

 or Babylonians did not reduce their cumbrous syllabary 

 to an alphabet, as did the Egyptians and the Persians- 

 Following this description we have a good selection from 

 the Assyrian syllabary, printed in the cuneiform character, 

 with syllabic and ideographic values, &c. The latter 

 part of Mr. King's work contains a series of interesting 

 extracts from cuneiform texts, with transliteration and 

 translation arranged with them either interlinearly or on 

 the opposite page, and the last few pages of the volume 

 are devoted to a small glossary. For a book of the size 

 no one could expect long dissertations on abstruse points 

 of grammar or history, it being clearly understood that 

 for matters of this kind the advanced student must 

 consult the larger works on Assyriology. 



The little volume before us is admirably suited for the 

 purpose for which it is intended, viz., to enable the 

 beginner to lay hold upon the first principles of the 

 Assyrian language, and the frequent use of cuneiform 

 type throughout its pages will help him to become 

 familiar with the difficult character in which the sages of 

 Mesopotamia in all ages seem to have written down their 

 wisdom. The cuneiform type is clear and very legible, 

 NO. 1678, VOL. 65] 



and is, if we mistake not, copied from the fount which 

 was specially cast for Rawlinson's "Cuneiform Inscrip- 

 tions,'' but was at the last moment abandoned in favour 

 of lithographic copies of texts made first by Mr. Bowler 

 and after his death by Mr. Jankowski. 



ELEMENTAR Y HISTOLOG Y AT CAMBRIDGE. 

 Practical Hhtology. By J. N. Langley, M.A., Sc.D., 



F.R.S. Pp. viii-(- 340. (London: Macmillan and Co., 



Ltd., 1 90 1.) Price bs. 



THIS book is an embodiment of directions for 

 practical work in animal histology, which the 

 author, as the result of twenty years' experience, has 

 been led to regard-as best suited to the requirements of the 

 elementary student, with the greater part of those of the 

 histological section of the last edition of the " Practical 

 Physiology and Histology," by Sir M. Foster and him- 

 self — one of the best established of the famous red-cover 

 series of didactic manuals for students, which have done 

 so much for the practical side of modern scientific 

 instruction. The body of the book (286 pp.) is divided 

 into thirty-six lessons, of which the first eight are devoted 

 to methods and the use of the microscope and microtome. 

 Those numbering nine to thirty-five are set aside for the 

 tissues and organs, and the thirty-sixth deals very slenderly 

 with the main facts of cell-division. In each of these 

 "lessons'" there are first given such accounts of the organs 

 and tissues as are necessary for manipulative purposes, 

 and descriptions of methods of treatment likely to yield 

 constant results in the student's hands. There follows 

 for each lesson, under the heading " Demonstrations," a 

 list of objects to be correlatively studied or examined ; 

 and finally (in small type) a series of " Notes," having 

 reference to cognate and alternative objects of interest 

 and to methods supplementary to those described in 

 the body of the lesson, with especial reference to such as 

 require particular skill and attention or are variable and 

 uncertain in their action. Apropos of this arrangement 

 (which is but an extension of that adopted for the volumes 

 which preceded the present one) and the " Notes," the 

 author points out, with commendable care, that he has 

 been careful to avoid making manipulation too much 

 of an end in itself; and he thereby introduces a welcome 

 check to the tendency on the part of pure histology to 

 lapse into a mere laborious idleness. 



The book is up to date and evenly balanced, and is 

 sure of success equal to that of its predecessors. In his 

 acknowledgments to those who have helped him the 

 author naively alludes to the "unending suggestions" 

 for "modifications in procedure," and we have these in 

 evidence in many of the pages of the book. 



It may now more than ever be said of animal histology 

 that the history of its progress is that of method, since, 

 on this basis, the far-reaching generalisations of Ramon 

 y Cajal, which but seven years ago threatened to revo- 

 lutionise our conceptions of the structure and mode of 

 action of the nervous and sensory epitheloid apparatus, 

 are by Apathy and others being challenged. Cajal's 

 methods receive recognition in the present work. While 

 we could hardly expect this for Apathy's until more 

 fully confirmed, we could desire a fuller recognition of 

 the discovery by Dogiel of the double innervation of 



