April 17, 1884] 



NA TURE 



571 



that " hygienic corsets, exactly of the kind we describe, 

 can be obtained from Mr. Pratt (surgical mechanist of 

 Oxford Street)." On turning to the advertisements, we, 

 singularly enough, find Mr. Pratt also among the elect. 

 Hutchinson's well-known spirometric experiments are 

 then largely drawn upon, and freely quoted, by which 

 means we reach p. 132, where we find four pages of illus- 

 trative cases, including those of the " Rev. Canon G ," 

 who "broke down in voice" ; ".A. B., Esq., M.P.," who 

 '• suffered from impediment in speech " ; " C. W. P., Esq., 

 Mus. Bac," who "spoke in a child's treble" ; and "Miss 

 D. M.," who " was rapidly losing the upper and middle 

 notes of her voice from faulty production." All these, 

 and others, to the number of eight, even a Scotch pre- 

 centor among them, were happily cured. 



We next pass to the oft-told history of the laryngoscope 

 and its teachings, to find on pp. 163-169 some really good 

 woodcuts of the five registers of the voice, named, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Curwen's system, the lower thick, the upper 

 thick, the lower thin, the upper thin, and the small re- 

 spectively. Farther on two of these, and the falsetto, are 

 reproduced by photography as above stated. 



The chapters on voice cultivation, on breathing, on 

 "attack," and on resonance go rather beyond the scope 

 of a scientific paper. As an exercise, the pupil is recom- 

 mended to repeat the syllable koo four times rapidly, 

 once long ; following with 00, oh, ah. The effect, with 

 a large class, would be highly pastoral and pleasing. 

 Indeed, it is a comfort to know that this " will be published 

 very shortly by Messrs. Chappell and Co., of 50, New 

 Bond Street " (z'/V/t- advertisement). The most original 

 chapter of all is, however, that on "The Daily Life of the 

 Voice-User." He or she is instructed as to residence, 

 "ablutions," "face and neck powders" (see advertise- 

 ment), dress, and especially as to a " special woven and 

 shaped combination, reaching from neck to ankles and 

 wrists." On turning with feverish haste once more to the 

 advertisements, we find that this boon to human nature can 

 be obtained of E. Ward and Co. of Ilkley, and that the 

 cost is only i2.f. 6d. On the other hand, while treating 

 of diet, the authors, no doubt from a " combined view," 

 say (p. 256), " We decline to give an opinion on 

 cucumber." 



The above extracts will show the general tone and style 

 of the work. The writer of these lines wishes to speak 

 with the greatest respect of Mr. Behnke' s really valuable 

 photographs, which he exhibited at the Royal Institution 

 about a year ago. He cannot help regretting that that 

 gentleman in bringing his new conception into the world 

 should have called in the obstetrical aid of any surgeon, 

 however " vocal." W. H. Stone 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 A Sequel to the First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid. 

 By John Casey, LL.D., F.R.S. (Dublin: Hodges, 

 1884.) 



We have noticed (Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 52, vol. xxvi. 

 p. 219) two previous editions of this book, and are glad 

 to find that our favourable opinion of it has been so con- 

 vincingly indorsed by teachers and students in general. 

 The novelty of this edition is a supplement of "Additional 

 Propositions and Exercises" (pp. 159-174). This contains 

 an elegant mode of obtaining the circle tangential to three 



given circles by the method of false positions, construc- 

 tions for a quadrilateral, and a full account, for the first 

 time in a text-book, of the Brocard, triplicate-ratio, and 

 (what the author proposes to call) the cosine circles. Dr. 

 Casey has collected together very many properties of 

 these circles, and, as usual with him, has added several 

 beautiful results of his own. He is not so thoroughly 

 well up in the literature of the subject as he might be, 

 but he has done excellent service in introducing the 

 circles to the notice of English students. Again, Question 

 31, p. 174, to one unacquainted with geometrical results, 

 would appear to make its debut here, whereas it figures 

 as a question in the " Reprint from the Educational 

 Times" (vol. iii. p. 5S),' and is discussed there in connec- 

 tion with an envelope which forms the subject of a paper 

 by Steiner (see also pp. 97, &c., and vol. iv. p. 94). 



Many of the trifling errors we previously pointed out 

 have been corrected, but some are still left, as on p. 39, 

 line 15, "A B" should be ".4 C" ; p. no, reference 

 should be to the " Repriuts from the Educational 

 Times" ; p. 74, line S up, should be " B D," not " P D'" ; 

 Question 103, p. 157, is incorrectly printed ; p. 172, the 

 Brocard angle, in all the papers we have seen, is denoted 

 by (i> and not by a. We think a better place for the 

 " Observation" on p. 172 would be after Question 3 on 

 p. 171. The figure on p. 134 is inverted. In the "Index," 

 Pascal's Theorem should be referred to p. 129 and not to 

 p. 1 39. We only need say we hope that this edition may 

 meet with as much acceptance as its predecessors : it 

 deserves greater acceptance. 



The Ores of Leadville, and their Mode of Occurrence, b'c. 

 By Louis D. Ricketts. 4to. (Princeton, New Jersey, 

 1883.) 



The author, in accordance with the requirements of the 

 Ward Fellowship in Economic Geology in Princeton 

 University, spent upwards of four months at Leadville 

 in the study of the ores and their mode of occurrence, and 

 more particularly in the Morning and Evening Star 

 Mines. The result of his investigations are presented in 

 a very useful memoir dealing with the minuter pheno- 

 mena of the two mines investigated, which are admirably 

 placed for this purpose,as,although small, they have yielded 

 an enormous quantity of carbonate of lead associated with 

 silver ore in the form of chloride and bromide, the whole 

 deposit being probably a pseudomorph or substitution-pro- 

 duct of a blue limestone of Carboniferous age. by infiltra- 

 tion of metallic minerals from an overlying sheet of gray 

 porphyry. This class of substitution is not unknown in 

 other parts of the world, the famous calamine deposit of 

 Vielle Montague being one of the most familiar examples, 

 but nowhere else is it illustrated on the great scale ob- 

 served around Leadville, which now produces nearly one- 

 half of the total quantity of lead raised in the United 

 States. The ore itself varies very considerably in charac- 

 ter, consisting of mi.xtures in every conceivable proportion 

 of hard granular and soft carbonate of lead, often exceed- 

 ingly pure, with quartzose brown iron ore and silver chloride 

 and chlorobromide,the latter sometimes in lumps of a few 

 ounces or even a pound weight; more generally, however, it 

 is diffused through the mass, which is enriched to from 50 

 to 100 ounces in the ton of ore. A point of great interest, 

 we believe first noticed by the author, is the occurrence 

 of beds of basic ferric sulphate underlying the lead car- 

 bonate, and also containing some silver as chloride and 

 lead as sulphate. This the author considers to be due to 

 the oxidation in situ of a belt of iron pyrites more or 

 less mixed with galena, the change being so complete 

 that no trace of pyrites is ever seen in it. In a second 

 section the author gives much interesting detail as to the 

 working of the mines and their produce, the whole forming 

 a inonograph of considerable value. H. B. 



* It was propoied in the Educational Times for Febiiary 1865. 



