August 25, 19 10] 



NATURE 



237 



Dr. Nordenskjold concludes that there is no proof that 

 the Norwegian ice extended to the British coast, and 

 an alternative explanation that the North Sea was 

 filled with such heavy pack-ice as to press back the 

 glaciers which flowed from the English mountains he 

 rejects as "extraordinarily improbable" from all the 

 evidence given by Arctic and Antarctic ice. He makes 

 the interesting suggestion that the shallow areas of 

 the North Sea were filled with barrier-ice formed in 

 situ, like that of the Ross Sea, and that its obstruction 

 was the cause of the deflection of the British glaciers. 



J. W. G. 



STRUCTURE AND CARE OF TEETH. 

 Our Teeth. Hoiu Built Up; How Destroyed; How 

 Preserved. By R. Denison Pedley and Frank 

 Harrison. Pp. 99. (London : Blackie and Son, 

 Ltd.) Price 55. net. 



THE authors of this little book are well known to 

 the members of the dental profession, but as the 

 work is obviously intended for the lay public it may be 

 as well to state at once that both Mr. Pedlev and Mr. 

 Frank Harrison occupy a high position in dental 

 surgery ; indeed, the fact that Mr. Harrison was 

 chosen as president of the Odontological Section of 

 the British Medical Association and Mr. Pedley as 

 one of the vice-presidents in 190S sufBciently demon- 

 strates their title to advise and instruct the general 

 public upon things dental. The book opens with a 

 discussion of dental anatomv and phvsiology, illus- 

 trated with diagrams and photomicrographs of re- 

 markable excellence. The authors have not hesitated 

 to employ quite high powers, even such a magnifica- 

 tion as X 2250 ; into the actual photomicrograph thev 

 have introduced explanatory labels with lines pointing 

 to the special objects to which it is desired to direct 

 attention. 



Obviously in a work of this kind an abstruse dis- 

 sertation upon tooth-development would be out of 

 place ; the authors plump for a theory and instal it as 

 correct. Thus on p. 30 there occur illustrations and 

 letterpress which would lead the reader to believe that 

 the process of enamel calcification was quite under- 

 stood, and that the process in the case of dentine was 

 universally acknowledged to consist of the conversion 

 of the odontoblast, whereas the former is very far from 

 settled and the latter is supposed by some of the best 

 living authorities to be a matrix calcification not in- 

 volving the cells at all ; however, the process as de- 

 scribed in the book has the sanction of very good 

 observers in the past, and it is no drawback for a 

 writer on a technical subject addressing a lay audience 

 to be dogmatic. 



The pictures and description of dental caries and its 

 pathology are both excellent ; the valuable work done 

 by Dr. Miller, of Berlin, is dulv recognised, but the 

 pioneer work of Milles and L'nderwood in 1881 (two 

 years before Miller's first essaj-) is not noticed, which 

 seems an omission. In the loo pp. the authors run 

 over structure, development, nourishment, growth, 

 disease, allied disease, and treatment, so that the gift 

 NO. 2130, VOL. 84] 



of condensation has been required to no small extent. 

 The style throughout is lucid and interesting, the 

 illustrations quite remarkably good and well repro- 

 duced, and if the opinions of the authors, or the 

 authorities upon whom they rely, are stated occasion- 

 ally as ex cathedra and unquestionable, such treatment 

 of scientific questions is very difficult to avoid in a 

 work addressed to a popular audience. The authors 

 are to be congratulated upon having produced a 

 thoroughly clear and useful manual, and on having 

 left no doubt possible in the reader's mind ps to their 

 own views. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



i'he Funeral Papyrus of loniya. (Theodore M. 

 Davies' Excavation : Biban el Moliik.) With In- 

 troduction by Edouard Naville. Pp. viii + 20; 

 plates 34. (London : Archibald Constable and Co., 

 Ltd.) Price 21s. net. 

 .Among the objects discovered by the American ex- 

 plorer, Mr. Theodore M. Davies, in the tomb of 

 Queen Thiy's parents in the Biban el Muluk at 

 Thebes was the funeral papyrus of loniya, the father 

 of Amenophis III.'s great Queen. This was first 

 worked over by Prof. Newberry in igo6, who pub- 

 lished a summary of its contents in Mr. Davies' 

 " The Tomb of loniya and Touiyou " (Constable and 

 Co.) in 1907. Photographs of the document were 

 then placed in Prof. Naville's hands for fuller pub- 

 lication, and the volume now before us is the Swiss 

 Egyptologist's account of this important eighteenth- 

 dvnasty copy of the Book of the Dead. The papyrus 

 itself measures 9 metres 70 cm. long; it is written 

 in linear hieroglyphs with vignettes finely executed 

 in colour, and contains some forty chapters, one of 

 which is new to science. This new chapter is illus- 

 trated bv a vignette of nine serpents, and is entitled 

 "Coming out of the Day." It belongs to the group 

 of chapters of the gates and pylons where the de- 

 ceased has to show his knowledge of the names of 

 the occupants and warders. To the finely reproduced 

 facsimiles of the document M. Naville has added a 

 translation, based mainly on that of the standard 

 edition of the Book of the Dead by the late Mr. Le 

 Page Renauf — the edition which Mr. Naville himself 

 completed and edited. 



Helmholtz. Fine Zeitschrift fiir die exakten Wissen- 

 schaften mit besonderer Beriicksichtigiing ihrer 

 .iiiwcndungen. Herausgegeben von Dr. Th. v, 

 Simson. Bd. i.. No. i. (Helmholtz-Verlag : Neu- 

 stadt au der Haardt, .\pril, 1910.) Price 16 marks 

 per volume. 

 .\nothek scientific journal ! It must be confessed that 

 the necessity for the existence of this journal is not at 

 all evident. There is no particular reason, so far as 

 the reviewer can see, why the contents of this number 

 could not have found a place in many other quarters. 

 The piece de resistance is the article by .'\rrhenius 

 on "The Laws of Digestion and Resorbtion." This 

 consists in a "quantification" of the experimental 

 work of E. S. London in St. Petersburg, and is de- 

 cidedly interesting. After this comes a series of 

 portentously solemn "scientific aphorisms" by C. H. 

 Walter, which the reviewer has been quite unable to 

 digest. There is an article by F. Fittica on "The 

 Transmutation of the so-called Elements," in which 

 this author tells us again how he transmuted phos- 

 phorus into arsenic (by heating it with ammonium 



