2lS 



NATURE 



[January 9, 1902 



only " inductive " effort in the book. The chapter con- 

 tains a large number of moderately well-sifted facts. 

 The author's questionnaire included 1658 persons of 

 various ages and races. Some of the facts are valuable, 

 but they are not so arranged as to elicit any striking 

 generality. They are, indeed, like the "facts" of many 

 other (/ucs/ionnaifL-s, apt to be the bad observations of 

 untrained observers. The minute study of a few cases 

 would have been more fruitful of " inductions " than these 

 somewhat content-less percentages of commonplace re- 

 collections. One reasonably looks for more from an 

 "inductive"' study than this on the question of "taking 

 notes" : — "There is a wide diversity of opinion as to how 

 full notes a student should take, and almost all degrees 

 of copiousness are indicated'' (p. 270). The true infer- 

 ence is that most students are poor psychologists. The 

 extremely varied suggestions for teaching a " boy to 

 remember things on iinw" {p. 271) only show that prac- 

 tical pedagogy in America, as elsewhere, is more ready 

 to punish the boy than to study his mind — punishment 

 being as effective, on the average, as it is useless in some 

 particular cases. 



Chapter vii. — "Apperception and Association" — in- 

 cludes sections on recognition times, attention and 

 interest. This chapter is one of the best in the book. 

 The essence of Chapter viii. — " Pedagogical .Vpplications " 

 — is that good memory depends on attention and the 

 attentive multiplication of associations. There is not 

 much novelty. 



Of the book as a whole, it must be said that it suffers, 

 in every chapter, from a want of clear definition of terms 

 and a clear analysis of the phenomena to be investigated. 

 The references, however, are valuable and the biblio- 

 graphy is good. W. Leslie Mackenzie. 



A LUNA J? ROMANCE. 

 The First Men in the Moon. By H. G. Wells. Pp.312. 

 (London : George Newnes, 1901.) Price 6j-. 



IT is many years now since Jules Verne wrote his 

 imaginary account of a journey to the moon. He 

 supposed a party of three men enclosed in a projectile 

 shot by a huge gun towards the moon, which they never 

 reached ; they fell back to earth and escaped in a 

 marvellous manner to tell the tale. The work was 

 imaginative enough to hold the attention, but full of 

 scientific blunders and improbabilities of the most 

 glaring character. Mr. Wells has produced a book of a 

 very different character ; he has made himself master of 

 the little we know about the moon, and thought out the 

 possibilities with the greatest care, and the result is a 

 narrative which we will venture to say is not only as 

 exciting to the average reader as Jules Verne's, but is 

 full of interest to the scientific man. We do not mean 

 that the astronomer is likely to learn any new facts from 

 this resume, for which he himself furnished the material ; 

 but he will be astonished to find how different the few 

 scientific facts with which he is familiar look in the dress 

 in which a skilful and imaginative writer can clothe 

 them, and it is worth reading the book with minute care 

 to see if one cannot catch Mr. Wells in any little 

 scientific slip. Some writers are so easy to catch that 

 NO. 1680, VOL. 65] 



the game is not worth playing ; but Mr. Wells is a 

 worthy opponent, and we are glad to see that his scien- 

 tific rank has been recognised by the Royal Institution, 

 who have invited him to lecture on January 24. 



The visit to the moon is made possible by the dis- 

 covery of a substance (cavorite) impervious to gravitation. 

 This interesting property comes to cavorite only at a 

 critical temperature (60' F.), after " the paste has been 

 heated to a dull red glow in a stream of helium," and the 

 suddenness with which the imperviousness arrives causes 

 interesting events at first. When the new conditions 

 are better realised, a glass sphere is built and covered 

 with cavorite blinds which can be put up or down. When 

 all are down the sphere is entirely free from attraction, 

 and when any particular blind is up it is only attracted 

 by the stars or planets seen in that direction. It 

 is obvious that in these circumstances a comfortable 

 voyage through space is manageable. The two occupants 

 of the sphere journey to the moon and land upon it near 

 the terminator, on a snow drift of frozen air. With sun- 

 rise they find that the air melts and evaporates, and there 

 is enough for them to breathe, so that they emerge from 

 the sphere. They find their weight a trivial matter and 

 leap twenty or thirty yards at a step, and a wonderful 

 fungus vegetation springs up before their eyes. In the 

 exhilaration of exploring they lose their sphere and are 

 thus thrown on their own resources. Presently they 

 come across the Selenites, who emerge from the interior 

 of the moon, where they have been spending the lunar 

 night. The first to emerge are those herding the moon 

 calves — great beasts 200 feet long, that browse in a 

 vividly described and rather disgusting manner ("like 

 stupendous slugs") on a speckled green mossy plant. 

 The cowherd was a " mere ant " by comparison, and the 

 intelligent Selenites generally turn out to be a sort of 

 insect, varied physically in a grotesque manner at will. 

 After various adventures in and on the moon, one of the 

 voyagers recovers the sphere and gets back to earth ; the 

 other stays in the moon and sends messages by ethereal 

 telegraphy describing it more fully ; and the interest 

 never flags throughout. Following similar writings, Mr. 

 Wells sometimes allows himself a sly hint at terrestrial 

 matters in describing lunar affairs. He describes a lunar 

 artist thus (p. 302) : — 



" Love draw. No other thing. Hate all who not draw 

 like him. Angry. Hate all who draw like him better. 

 Hate most people. Hate all who not think all world for 

 to draw." 



And two pages on there is a similar burlesque descrip- 

 tion of a mathematician. It is even easier to see the 

 point than to find the pun in the following : — 



" And since the density of the moon is only three-fifths 

 that of the earth, there can be nothing for it but that she 

 is hollowed out by a great system of caverns. There 

 was no necessity, said .Sir Jabez Flap, I- . K.S., that most 

 entertaining exponent of the facetious side of the stars, 

 that we should ever have gone to the moon to find out 

 such easy inferences, and points the pun with an allusion 

 to Gruytrre ..." 



Of a book so full of unfamiliar things it is impossible 

 to give a complete account. We will conclude this notice 

 by heartily recommending the book to readers both 

 scientific and unscientific, and by giving, with a triumph 



