August 24, 191 1] 



NATURE 



26' 



scientific principle shown in their treatment. It was high 



time that someone in a position of authority should have 



been called on to lay down the principles that govern, or 



should govern, the pruning of trees in public thorough- 



I he outcry periodically made in the daily Press is 



usuallv marked by want of knowledge and unfairness. As 



a matter of fact, there is no work more thankless in 



nature than the management of street trees. In London 



and other great urban areas the planter's choice is re- 



■ ■ .1 i spei ies (of which the plane is the chief 



1 which experience has proved will thrive, but 



which, as regards size, are quite unsuited to the spaces 



usually available for them. In the Mall this difficulty does 



. for the space is ample. The object there is to 



control the growth of the trees that have been planted so 



that the foundations of a stately avenue may be laid. 



Perhaps the most valuable portion of Prof. Balfour's re- 

 port is that in which he shows that nature herself is always 

 pruning. That is an aspect of the case which never strikes 

 tli'' lay critic. Yet the smothering out of weakly and over- 

 crowded growths is continually going on. Correct pruning 

 anticipates nature's end, and substitutes the prompt action 

 of the knife for that of slow decay. If one compares the 

 branch-system of a fully grown plane with that of a young 

 specimen, and notes how few of the numerous branches 

 of the latter survive, we see how drastic nature's pruning 

 is. In such a place as the Mall it is essential that the 

 trees should possess a certain uniformity and balanced pro- 

 portions. The means to secure this end have been admir- 

 ably chosen, and there the matter may be allowed to 

 remain. But we may recommend Prof. Balfour's report to 

 those who desire to gain some insight into the funda- 

 mental laws of tree growth with which the pruner's art 

 should be in unison. 



AX EXHIBITION OF BIBLICAL NATURAL 



HISTORY. 

 A S a supplement to the literary and historical Biblical 

 "^ exhibition which has been arranged at Bloomsbury 

 for the tercentenary of the Authorised Version, an exhibi- 

 tion of the animals, plants, and minerals mentioned in the 

 Bible has been arranged in one of the bays of the Central 

 Hall of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. 

 The animals and minerals, respectively, have been selected, 

 arranged, and labelled by Mr. R. Lydekker, F.R.S., and 

 Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith, under the general supervision of 

 Be keepers of zoology and mineraTogv ; the plants have 

 been dealt with by Dr. A. B. Rendle.'F.R.S., the keeper 

 of botany. The interesting guide-book to the collection is 

 in great part a reprint of the exhibited labels, which were 

 mainlv based on the careful work of the late Canon 

 Tristram. The minerals, which Tristram did not consider, 

 are dealt with in a scholarly essay by the director, Dr. L. 

 Fletcher. F.R.S., who explains how modern interpretations 

 of the ancient names of Biblical minerals have been 

 deduced. 



The collection, and the guide to it. will be of special 

 interest to those to whom Bible plants and animals 

 are rich in picturesque associations; but it is, of course, 

 part of a liberal education to know that the " unicorn " 

 was probably the extinct wild ox or aurochs, " behemoth " 

 the hippopotamus, the " coney " the hyrax, and the 

 I leviathan " of Job the crocodile. Some of the corrections 

 are curious: thus the " ferret" of Lev. xi. 30 was prob- 

 ably a gecko, and the " mole " of the same verse a 

 chamreleon, and the " chamaeleon " of the same v< rse a 

 monitor, and the " spider in' king's palaces " a gecko. 

 An up-to-date suggestion is noticed, though not accepted — 

 that the " badger " of Exod. xxvi. 14 was the okapi. We 

 do not see any reference to the " fiery serpent," though 

 the museum used to have a specimen of Filaria medincnsis, 

 the guinea-worm, with a label indicating that it was prob- 

 ably that reptile. 



What must strike the reader most, especially perhaps 

 when he comes to the botanical part, is the large 

 proportion of misses that the translators made. And 

 if we might venture on a criticism of a carefully 

 executed piece of work, we would suggest that a little 

 more might have been said in explanation of this. A 



NO. 2l82- VOL. 87J 



paragraph or two on the backward state of natural history 

 when the authorised translation was made three centuries 

 ago would have been interesting. We also wonder why 

 our leading scientific institution has not used this oppor- 

 tunity, which is undoubtedly one of wide popular interest, 

 to tell us — who could do it better? — what is scientifically 

 interesting in the fauna and flora of Palestine. 



LIE BIG AND HIS INFLUENCE ON THE PRO- 

 GRESS OF MODERN CHEMISTRY. 1 



A HUNDRED years ago Europe was still plunged in the 

 "^^ misery of war. Almost every country had suffered 

 the bitter experience of seeing the devastation caused by 

 the passage of contending armies, the death and suffering of 

 thousands of fighting men, and the want and desolation 

 spread over still greater numbers of a helpless population. 

 Amid all the wretchedness of the time, insecurity of 

 property, dearness of food, frequent changes of govern- 

 ments, and every condition which would appear to be un- 

 favourable, the study of nature steadily went on. France, 

 still staggering from the fierce shocks of the revolutionary 

 period, had still many distinguished men of science, Laplace, 

 Berlhollet, Lamarck, Cuvier, while the memory of Lavoisier 

 was fresh and green, and Gav-Lussac, Dulong, Arago, and 

 Chevreul were among the coming men. England, still 

 engaged in the struggle with Napoleon, possessed Humphry 

 Davy, Rumford, and Dalton, and Herschel among the 

 astronomers. Henry Cavendish was still living, though an 

 old man, and Priestley was but lately dead. In Germany, 

 Goethe might be counted among the votaries of science, 

 and Prussia had sent forth Humboldt to survey the world, 

 while in Italy, Volta was busy in the study of electricity, 

 and Avogadro, little noticed by the world, was meditating 

 on the properties of gases and preparing for the enunciation 

 of the great principle which is now associated with his 

 name, though it took the chemical world half a century to 

 recognise it. One other name must not be forgotten, and 

 that is Berzelius, the Swede, then young, and preparing, 

 bv his eager activity in research, for that great position of 

 almost undisputed authority in the chemical world, which 

 he filled for nearly forty years. 



To understand the influence which any one man appears 

 to have had in his day and generation, it is necessary to 

 bear in mind the condition of the world into which he was 

 born, as well as the quality of his genius. The one reacts 

 on the other. In endeavouring, therefore, to estimate the 

 nature and extent of the services rendered to science, and to 

 the world in general by Liebig, it is necessary to get a 

 clear view of the state of knowledge in chemistry at the 

 time when he appeared on the scene. 



Born in Darmstadt, on May 12, 1S03, where his father 

 was a colour manufacturer, he passed through an unsuc- 

 cessful school career at the local gymnasium, and, at the 

 age of sixteen, was apprenticed to an apothecary. It soon 

 became evident, however, that he was as little fitted to 

 become a pill-maker as he was to be a Greek scholar, and 

 he ultimately persuaded his father to allow him to go to 

 the then newly-founded University of Bonn, whence he 

 followed Kastner, the professor of chemistry, to Erlangen. 

 But Liebig soon became convinced that he could not study 

 chemistrv" effectively in Germany, and after taking his 

 at Erlangen, at the age of nineteen, he proceeded 

 to Paris. There, after many difficulties, he ultimately- 

 obtained the privilege of working in Gay-Lussac's laboratory, 

 where he remained about two years. In 1S24, on the 

 recommendation of Humboldt, he was appointed extra- 

 ordinary professor of chemistry at Giessen, being then only 

 twenty-one years of age. He became ordinary professor 

 two years later, and remained at Giessen until called to 

 Munich, in 1852. There he died on April 18, 1S73. 



Such was the main course of Liebig's career ; but to draw 

 a picture of the man from descriptions of his personal char- 

 acteristics is not easy. In early youth he became familiar 

 with the poet Platen! who noted in his diary " the friendly 

 earnestness in his regular features, great brown eyes, 

 with dark shady eyebrows, which attracted one instantly." 



Those brown eyes, shining with earnestness, remain in 

 the portraits which have come down to us, and as a 



1 Lecture delivered at Oxford on August 23, at the Fifteenth Su 

 Meeting, by Sir William A. Tilden, F.R.S. 



