April 7, 1870 | 
INGA IM UISIR, 
SLi 
by converting it into yeast without any decomposition of 
sugar, otherwise than into alcohol and carbonic acid. 
The brewing of beer on this system has latterly ex- 
tended beyond Bavaria, and it is now extensively prac- 
tised in Austria and the Rhine district, where the frequent 
occurrence of basalt and other porous volcanic rocks 
presents great facilities for making brewing vaults and 
cellars, in which a low temperature can be maintained. 
The various details of the art of brewing have also been 
carefully studied by chemists with Government support, 
and the rapid progress of this industry in Germany serves 
well to illustrate the great advantages resulting from the 
application of scientific skill to practical subjects. There 
are not a few of our own industrial arts that would be, in like 
manner, benefited by a better appreciation of the aid which 
science is capable of rendering them; not a few that are 
sorely in need of this aid to enable them to keep abreast 
of the progress made in other countries. 
BENJAMIN H. PAUL 
OUR BOOK SHELF 
Handbuch der Aligemeinen Himimelsbeschreibung. Von 
Hermann J. Klein. Das Sonnensystem. (Braun- 
schweig, 1869.) 
THIS work professes to combine a full account of the 
most recent physical discoveries in astronomy, with an 
exact statement of all those points which are commonly 
met with in handbooks of the science. The present 
volume, as will be gathered from the title, deals only with 
the solar system. Certainly it cannot be said to bear out in 
full the promise of the author. We are particularly struck 
by the almost entire absence of reference to the labours 
of English spectroscopists within the bounds of the solar 
system. Mr. Huggins’s researches on cometic spectra are 
briefly referred to ; but his observations on the spectra of 
the planets are passed over in silence, while place is given 
to the comparatively less valuable researches of the Padre 
Secchi on the same subject. We should be far from 
desiring to undervalue the researches of the eminent 
Italian astronomer; but no one who is acquainted with 
the circumstances under which Mr. Huggins and Father 
Secchi have respectively observed the planetary spectra, 
could think (we imagine) of comparing the Italian with 
the English series of observations. A similar remark 
applies to the solar researches of Father Secchi, which 
have not been made with sufficient dispersive power to be 
fairly comparable with the researches of Mr. Lockyer. 
Yet the labours of the last-named observer are passed 
over unnoticed, not only in the body of the work, but in 
an appendix, wherein the author treats specially of recent 
solar observations. In a note, a brief and inexact account 
is given of Mr. Lockyer’s discovery that the bright lines 
of the prominence spectra can be seen when the sun is 
not eclipsed. After this, it is surprising to find that a full 
account is given of Professor Tyndall’s ingenious theory 
of comets. 
The treatise is one, however, we can on the whole 
recommend. The arrangement of the chapters on the 
planets is particularly clear and satisfactory. It is note- 
worthy that the author, with praiseworthy exactness, gives 
the secular variations of the planetary elements to the 
term involving the square of the time. 
We were inclined to take exception at the manner in 
which Professor Adams’s labours on the planet Neptune 
are left to the very end of the chapter on the planet ; and 
we still think that their proper place would have been 
immediately after the account of Galle’s detection of 
Neptune. This, however, is perhaps a small matter ; and 
the statement of the relative claims of Adams and Lever- 
rier is in pleasing contrast with the unjust account which 
some continental astronomers have not scrupled to give 
of the matter. Not only does Herr Klein recognise the 
claims of Adams, but he assigns the just and sufficient 
reason for putting the two astronomers on the same level, 
that “ Leverrier can no more deserve credit because Nep- 
tune was actually discovered before the end of September 
1846, than Adams can deserve blame because Challis, up 
to that very time, though he had indeed found Neptune, 
had not yet recognised the planet.” 
R. A. PROCTOR 
St. Pierre’s Dictionary of Botany.— Nouveau Dictionnaire 
de Botanique. Par E, Germain de Saint Pierre, avec 
1,640 figures. Pp. 1,388. (Paris: J. B. Bailliére et 
fils, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate.) 
WHEN it is recollected that this bulky volume is the pro- 
duct of a single mind, the industry, no less than the 
encyclopedic knowledge of its author, strikes the reader 
with astonishment. Whether it is desirable in the interests 
of science that a publication of this kind should be the 
work of one man is another question. The system pur- 
sued in the compilation of cyclopzdias, of relegating 
each separate article of importance to the man who has 
paid special attention to that particular subject, has its 
advantages, and what is lost in unity is gained in exact- 
ness and thoroughness. In these days of subdivision 
of scientific labour, even a man of M. Germain de St. 
Pierre’s vast erudition cannot be the highest authority in 
every branch of his science, and accordingly we find the 
articles of very unequal interest and value. Thus, under 
the head “ Herborisation ” occurs a list of plants gathered 
in the environs of Paris by Cornuti, in 1635, valuable, no 
doubt, in its way, but altogether out of place in a botanical 
dictionary. On the other hand, so many interesting ob- 
servations have lately been made‘on the physiology of 
climbing plants by Mr. Darwin and others, that we turned 
with interest to this volume to acquaint ourselves with the 
newest researches on the subject. The heading “Liane” does 
not appear at all, while under “ Grimpant ” there are just a 
dozen lines, and no reference to any other article. Disser- 
tations on the relative advantages of living in Paris and 
in the country like that under “Laboratoire du Botanique” 
might have been altogether spared. Other objections 
might readily be made to the plan of the work. A short 
description of the leading characters of each natural order 
is useful, but the utility would have been increased by 
inserting the Latin names of the orders, with a reference 
from them to the French names, as from Ranunculacee 
to “Renonculacées,” or from Umbellifere to “Ombelliferes.” 
The selection of a few genera and even species for de- 
scription does not commend itself in the same manner, 
and the selection must necessarily be arbitrary and par- 
tial. Nevertheless, with these defects, we have in the work 
before us a most useful and valuable cyclopzedia, con- 
taining an immense mass of information on every branch 
of botany, which cannot fail to be almost a necessary 
book of reference alike to the man of science and the 
student. On those subjects in particular in which M. 
St. Pierre is an acknowledged authority second to none, 
the work is especially valuable. The illustrations are 
copious and admirable. 
A. W. B. 
THE second fasciculus of the twelfth volume of the 
Atti della Societa Italiana delle Scienze Natural, which 
has lately reached us, contains only two zoological papers. 
The most important of these is a systematic catalogue of 
the testaceous mollusca of the neighbourhood of Spezia 
and of its gulf, by Dr. C. T. Canefri, which will be of 
value to the student of geographical distribution. The 
other includes the first century of South American Cole- 
optera, by Prof. P. Strobel, with descriptions of humerous 
new species by Dr. E. Steinheil. 
