October ig, ign] 



NATURE 



5ii 



pack within the limited compass of his book. To the 

 bus) student who seeks to acquire merely an apercu 

 of the main current in the gradually broadening" stream 

 of chemical knowledge, and has but little interest 

 in the personal aspects or human element in the story, 

 the compilation, concise as it is, will be invaluable. 

 Indeed, the author frankly confesses that his book 

 " is designed more especially for those students whose 

 interest in this aspect of the science is stimulated by 

 the inclusion of ' historical chemistry ' in the syllabus 

 of examinations which concern them." 



The examinee will certainly get a perfect plethora 

 of the facts of chemical history if he steadily works his 

 way through this volume. Even if he is unable to 

 assimilate a moietv of them, he will at least have tin 

 satisfaction of knowing that he possesses in Mr. Hil- 

 ditch's book a trustworthy and fairly comprehensive 

 work of reference, and as such we warmly recommend 

 it to every chemist, whether he be an examinee or 

 not. The book is excellent in plan, and, in spite of 

 its conciseness, eminently readable. Its arrangement 

 readily enables the searcher to discover the origin and 

 date of practically every fact of importance, even 

 without the aid of the synoptical tables and very full 

 index which are appended. 



The book differs from all other works of the k : nd 

 in its modernity. The author is more concerned, appa- 

 rently, with the chemistry of our own times than with 

 that of any preceding epoch. There are other works 

 which deal more fully with the science of bygone 

 ages, but there is certainly no book in our language 

 which treats of the story of our own age with the 

 same degree of fulness as the volume before us, and 

 we hope that it-- sale will be such as to encourage the 

 author to maintain it at its pretty high level of 

 completeness. 



THE ANOPHF.IJXF MOSQUITOES OF INDIA. 



.1 Monograph of the Anopheline Mosquitoes of India. 

 By Dr. S. P. James and Dr. W. G. Listen. Second 

 edition, rewritten and enlarged. Pp. viii+128 + xv 

 piates. (Calcutta : Thacker, Spink and Co. ; 

 London : YV. Thacker and Co., 191 1.) Price 

 16 rupees net (255. net). 



THE second edition of this work has been long 

 looked for, and we now welcome it in much the 

 same guise as before ; for, although "enlarged," it has 

 actually fewer pages than the first edition, the enlarge- 

 ment apparently referring to new plates, though the 

 number of coloured plates remains the same as before. 

 These coloured plates are so excellent that it is a pity 

 that their number could not have been increased. In 

 our opinion the outstanding merits of this book are 

 the clearness of the descriptions and figures, and the 

 provision of very good analytical tables. 



We are glad in this edition to see Theobald's scale 

 classification adopted as a first step in arranging the 

 Indian anophelines in their proper zoological position. 

 The authors are quite justified in their criticism of a 

 good deal of scale nomenclature and their admirable 

 plates of scales are a welcome addition, but their 

 division of scales into "false" and "true" is hardly 

 a happy one. In our opinion, "striate" and "non- 

 XO. 2igO, VOL. 87] 



striate " would have been better terms. In their at- 

 tempts at revision of specific and generic names, the 

 authors are a law unto themselves. It is not merely a 

 question of nice judgment on the evidence for and 

 against such a name, but there are violations of well- 

 understood and accepted rules. We could give numer- 

 ous examples of this, but one must suffice. Thus a 

 certain African anopheline bears the name Nyssorhyn- 

 chus maculipalpis (Giles). The authors accept Theo- 

 bald's opinion that the so-called Indian maculipalpis 

 is different; they therefore "change" the name of the 

 Indian species to maculipalpis (James and Liston). 

 This substitution of their name is, of course, no change 

 at all, but it leaves us with two identical specific 

 names in the same genus. A new name for the Indian 

 species is imperative. We would appeal to the authors 

 to consider this question of nomenclature, and to 

 study carefully the laws governing it, and then 

 publish a list of Indian anophelines with their 

 synonyms. It is their duty to acquaint themselves 

 with the matter fully, even down to the correct way 

 of writing a specific name and its author. 



We suppose the method advocated (p. 26) for mount- 

 ing a collection of mosquitoes has advantages, or it 

 .would not have been adopted by the Central Malarial 

 Bureau, but it certainly seems cumbersome, and to 

 fasten nine different objects on to a board with elastic 

 bands must sooner or later, in India of all places, 

 spell certain disaster, i.e. loss of some of the 

 objects. 



Although the book contains an index of specific 

 names, yet generic ones are omitted, and the general 

 index of the first edition has disappeared — a distinct 

 loss. We have noted several erroneous references to 

 plates ; e.g. three out of five on p. 7 are wrong. As 

 is evident from reading the book, much work remains 

 to be done on the male genitalia, larval stigmata, and 

 eggs, and indeed on the whole bionomics of the Indian 

 anophelines. but this will, we hope, now soon be 

 remedied in India. The book has not, then, reached 

 1 hat ideal standard of excellence we had hoped for, 

 but it must in justice be said, and this is a very prac- 

 tical point, that a worker with this book at his disposal 

 will be able to find out with ease which of the some 

 three dozen Indian anophelines his may be, although 

 in several cases he will certainly be giving them 

 erroneous names. 



MINERALS OF RHODESIA. 

 The Mineral Industry of Rhodesia. By J. P. Johnson. 

 Pp. iv-Hjo. (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 

 19 1 1.) Price S.s. 6d. net. 



THIS book is specially addressed to the prospector, 

 and gives a good deal of information as to the 

 occurrence of gold and minerals of economic value that 

 have been worked in Rhodesia, the conditions under 

 which thev have been found, and mines of importance 

 with their yields. It also gives an account of the 

 occurrence of tin in other mines of South Africa outside 

 Rhodesia, where minerals have been worked which the 

 author thinks might reasonably be expected within the 

 limits of the colony itself. 



Gold has proved, up to now, the most important of 



