Feb. 3, 1870] 
NATURE 
353 
We are rather surprised that no mention of the bustard 
should be made in the tract. Though now extinct in 
England, the bird was by no means uncommon in the 
open country at the commencement of the present century. 
We can only suggest that the cause of its omission from 
the Herald’s list and its gradual extinction in England, is 
one and the same. Being slow to take wing, the bird is 
of little or no use for sporting purposes, and nature has 
implanted in it a rooted aversion to those enclosures 
which, in a land like ours, alone are sacred to game. 
CHARLES J. ROBINSON 
POPULAR LECTURES ON PHYSIOLOGY 
Populire Physiologische Vortraége gehalten in Akade- 
mischen Rosensaale zu Fena, 1867-1868-1869. Von 
Prof. Dr. Joh. Czermak. (Wien, 1869. London : 
D. Nutt.) 
(hee daily increasing recognition of the importance of 
Physiology as an element of liberal culture, no less 
than as a distinct branch of science, may be said to be 
intimately connected with the gradual displacement of the 
old vitalist conception. The old conception of Life as 
something essentially mysterious and removed from out the 
circle of natural causes, has been set aside in favour of the 
conception of Life as something more complex, indeed, but 
not otherwise more mysterious than other natural pheno- 
mena, and dependent upon the physical and chemical agen- 
cies recognised in operation in other provinces of research. 
The consequence of this changed view has been to dis- 
close the need of an incessant application to Physiology 
of those instruments and methods which have enlarged 
and given precision to our views of Nature ; and a further 
consequence has been that the problems are found to be 
more capable of popular exposition, that is to say, the 
great results of research can now be siowz to an intelli- 
gent public, and made thus to form an element in general 
culture. 
It is under this second aspect that Prof. Czermak’s 
Lectures call for remark. Himself an original investigator 
and inventor, he here gives excellent examples of the kind 
of teaching that may become generally effective—namely, 
an intelligible exposition, for the laity, of the painfully- 
acquired results of science. This exposition is not con- 
fined to an oral statement of results, which statement 
might be imperfectly apprehended and quickly forgotten, 
but is accompanied by a yisible demonstration which 
fixes it in the memory as with a burin. In his first 
lecture he expounds the action of the heart, and the in- 
fluence of the nervous system on the circulation. In this 
he exhibits the instrument formerly invented by him, the 
Cardioscope, which enables an immense audience to see 
the rhythmic beating of the heart when taken from the 
body ; and by the directions and the plates here supplied 
teachers and private students may easily furnish them- 
selves with the ingenious contrivance. Indeed, we may 
say at once that this volume will be especially useful to 
teachers who will gain from it several effective aids for 
their lectures. 
The second lecture is on the Ear and Hearing, and 
gives a lucid account of all but the very latest discoveries 
(the startling and dzsturbing discovery which robs the 
Corti apparatus of its former significance being subse- 
quent to the publication of this volume). The third and 
fourth lectures are on the Voice and Speech, accompanied 
like the others with excellent and instructive diagrams, 
and a very intelligible explanation of the instrument with 
which Prof. Czermak’s name has been carried all over 
Europe and America—the Laryngoscope. 
A mere glance at this volume, and the elaborate appli- 
cation of mechanical aids which it suggests, will indicate 
at once the great change which has come over physiologi 
cal investigation in the last twenty years. Not to speak 
of such works as those of Richerand and Majendiec in 
France, or of Elliotson and Mayo in England, where 
there is scarcely a trace of the physical and chemical in- 
vestigation now considered indispensable, let even the 
great work of Miller be opened at the places where the 
heart, the ear, and the voice are treated, and compared 
with these lectures, addressed, be it observed, to a miscel- 
laneous audience of ladies and gentlemen, not to students 
in a class-room, and the contrast will, as the French say, 
leap at the eyes. The changed direction is one that 
attempts to reduce physiological problems to visible 
and measurable processes, which leave no room for 
vagueness or inexactness, and which, without getting rid 
of the mystery of Life, reduces the phenomena of Life to 
what Prof. Huxley finely names the “realm of orderly 
mystery.” GEORGE HENRY LEWES 
AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY IN FRANCE 
L’Ecole des Engrais Chimigques; premivres notions de 
Lemplot des agents de fertilité. By M. Georges 
Ville. 12mo., pp. 108, with one plate ; price one 
franc. (Paris: Libraire Agricole de la Maison 
Rustique, 1869.) 
NTELLIGENT visitors to the last annual meeting of 
the Royal Agricultural Society, held at Manchester, 
could hardly fail to draw one very important conclusion from 
the sight of that vast array of implements, machines, and 
produce, namely, that year by year farming is brought 
more and more under the application of scientific principles. 
It is found, too, that farm labourers, not quite so stupid as 
was thought, are capable of managing agricultural machines, 
and of adapting themselves to the improved style of work 
which these necessitate. And among our farmers the 
number of those increases who know that, however much 
plants may differ in appearance and properties, they have 
a character in common, and owe their formation to 
certain elements which suffice for their requirements, as 
the letters of the alphabet suffice for the requirements of 
writing and printing. And their sons at school will learn 
that of these plant-forming elements, the more important 
are, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, 
sulphur, chlorine, silicon, calcium, magnesium, potassium, 
sodium, and iron. Schools and colleges have taken 
the subject in hand, and have demonstrated that the 
study of the sciences on which agriculture may be said 
to depend, involves no small amount of intellectual culture 
—a culture fraught with lasting interest. 
On the Continent, also, a movement has begun for the 
improvement of agriculture, and it will be instructive to 
look at what has been accomplished in Fr Among 
the subjects on which lectures are given by the able 
professors at the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes is 
la chimie agricole—agricultural chemistry—and, in the 
hands of Prof. G. Ville, who has been experimenting 
