September i, 1910] 



NATURE 



265 



realise the claims of practical application to health, 

 morals, and livelihood, and seek to imbue school work 

 and school life with the research habit and attitude 

 of mind. 



The volume is pleasant to read and handle; our 

 main regret is that the essays are not twice their 

 present length. We hope that this most opportune 

 book will be widely read. 



CL.i5.s7r IIMLL-P.J/.VT/.VG'. 

 Greek aiiJ Roman Methods of Painting: Some 

 Comments on the Statements made by Pliny and 

 Vitriivius about Wall and Panel Painting. By Dr. 

 A. P. Laurie. Pp. vi + 124. (Cambridge: Univer- 

 sitv Press, igio.) Price 2i-. 6d. net. 



DR. L.Al'RIE, who is principal of the Heriot-Watt 

 College at Edinburgh, has devoted much time 

 and considerable ingenuity to the study of the 

 materials and methods of painting. Many of his 

 results are recorded in the Journal of the Royal Society 

 of -Arts and in other periodicals. But in the little book 

 now before us we possess, in a detached and accessible 

 form, an account of Dr. Laurie's latest studies on 

 fresco- and wax-painting as described by Pliny and 

 Vitruvius and practised in classic times. As the 

 volume is not supplied with a table of contents, and 

 is not divided into chapters, it may be well, in the 

 present notice, to describe, in the order followed by 

 the author, the several topics which he discusses. 



The book opens with a review of the conditions 

 under which the inquiry into ancient painting methods 

 should be conducted. Then we pass on to the con- 

 sideration of the pigments, both natural and artificial, 

 which were available for use in early days. Dr. 

 Laurie's list and his observations on several of the 

 Items which it comprises are of considerable interest. 

 The murex purple, lately ascertained to be a dibrom- 

 indigotin, and Egvptian blue, which was investigated 

 by the late Dr. W. H. Russell, are important con- 

 stituents of the ancient palette. .'\ madder pigment 

 was also in use, as well as indigo. 



Primitive vehicles are next discussed, size, gum, 

 milk, white and yolk of egg being included in the 

 series of available mediums. Both bitumen and tur- 

 pentines, or liquid resins and balsams, were known, 

 but neither drying oils nor spirit varnishes. Beeswa.\ 

 played an important part as a painting vehicle; our 

 author's stidies and experiments confirm the modern 

 view as to the process of encaustic painting as de- 

 ■scribed by Pliny and illustrated by the wax portraits 

 brought from the Hawara cemetery in the Fayum by 

 Prof. Flinders Petrie. The doubts once expressed by 

 Eastlake and other authorities as to the feasibility of 

 painting with melted coloured waxes may now be 

 regarded as not warranted. In some places the wax 

 was mixed with a liquid resinous body, such as 

 ^'enice turpentine; this mixture was more easy to 

 manipulate than wax alone, but acquired greater 

 hardness in the course of time. 



Wax-painting was, however, not the ancient process 



in use for the decoration of walls; this was painting 



on wet or wetted lime-plaster with pigments mixed 



with water, or possibly on occasion with glue or size. 



NO. 2 13 I, VOL. 84] 



Such fresco-painting is discussed by Dr. Laurie at 

 some length. The process is not precisely that of the 

 fourteenth century and the Italian Renaissance, the 

 buon fresco of the historians of art. There are no 

 joins or seams in the ground, and the painting could 

 not have been completed on the freshly spread plaster 

 while its surface was in the best state to receive and 

 incorporate the paint. The surface must have been 

 wetted with water admixed with a little slaked lime 

 from time to time, while later applications of colours 

 must have contained milk of lime. Such a pro- 

 cess approaches closely to that known as fresco secco, 

 and can be traced back to a much earlier date than 

 can the true buon fresco. 



We must not linger over the technical questions 

 connected with fresco-painting as discussed by Dr. 

 Laurie, but may now pass on to consider his criticism 

 of the views as to old mural painting advocated by 

 Herr Ernst Berger, in his " Maltechnik des Alter- 

 thums." These views are shown to be untenable, 

 deriving no support either from the chemical examina- 

 tion of ancient examples, from modern experimental 

 trials, or from the careful study of the language 

 used by Pliny and by Vitruvius. The method imagined 

 by Herr Berger was allied to the modern stucco lustro, 

 and involved the use of an emulsion of beeswax, oil, 

 and soda or potash ; our author shows (pp. 107-g) that 

 there is no valid evidence in favour of the use of this 

 dangerous and ineffective mixture. 



Dr. Laurie will, we hope, pursue his interesting 

 and illuminating inquiries into the materials and 

 methods of ancient painting, and of modern painting 

 also; but in his next book will he not give us, besides 

 such an adequate index as appears in the present 

 work, a table of contents? This will involve the 

 arrangement of his material in chapters or sections, 

 which will prove more easy to study or to consult 

 than an unbroken discussion occupying no less than 

 112 pages. A. H. C. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



A Monograph of the Forarninifera of the North Pacific 



Ocean. Part i., Astrorhizidae and Lituolidae. By 



J. A. Cushman. Pp. xiv+134. L^nited States 



National Museum Bulletin 71. (Washington : 



Government Printing Ofifice, 1910.) 



This is the first instalment of a work on the fora- 



miniferal fauna of the North Pacific. It embodies the 



results of Brady, in the Challenger report, in so far 



as concerns this area, and of Goes, Flint, Rhumbler, 



Bagg, and others, and presents the outcome of the 



author's own investigations. These are based on the 



examination of material dredged by the United States 



s.s. Albatross, Nero, and Alert, parts of which have 



been already used in the reports of Goes, Flint, and 



Bagg. 



In many cases the author extends the range of 

 previouslv known species, and several are regarded as 

 new. New generic names are given to divisions of 

 recognised genera, particularly of the Lituolids Haplo- 

 phragmium and Trochammina. Of wider interest is 

 the author's identification of .-Imniodiscus tenuis as 

 the megalospheric form of A. incertus, under which 

 name the microscopic form has been described. 



Each species is illustrated, and the figures are in 

 most cases ouite sufficient. 



