1C4 
NATURE 
[Dec. 29, 1870 

zustructed to recognise tts merits, and sufficiently humble 
and enterprising to stoop to learn anew, and by a better 
method, the elements of their science), take its place at the 
head of elementary treatises on its subject. It is by no 
means faultless : no first edition on so new a plan could 
quite avoid confusion ; there is excess of detail on many 
points, too little on others, and the language, though gene- 
rally correct throughout, is sometimes almost mystical. 
This is not a reproach—quite the reverse—for it is mainly 
in these passages that we feel the strength of the author, 
and we are unfortunately not speaking from the beginner’s 
point of view. He has evidently thought deeply, and the 
result is in all cases well worthy of careful study, especially 
for those who think themselves thoroughly masters, if but 
of the merest elements. No one can read the work without 
feeling that he has still something to learn, even in the 
most prosaic parts of the science. Dr. Stewart does not, 
as it were, follow the ordinary laws of war; he abjures 
pipe-clay and red tape, and he has a method of his own 
which we cannot but think is calculated to do a real ser- 
vice to the beginner. Even methods in mathematics 
cannot be stereotyped ; Euclid is about to be laid on the 
shelf; and it is not at all unlikely that in a few years the 
so-called Cartesian +, y, 2, will disappear, to make way for 
Hamilton and his vectors. Thus it is, and shall be, with 
the so-called s¢a¢zca/ proofs of the Parallelogram of Forces, 
we shall get back to Newton’s methods as nearly as 
modern nomenclature will permit; and so likewise in 
other parts of physics. The reign of zwartzfictality and 
simplicity must soon be inaugurated, and this work will 
greatly tend to hasten its advent. 
It would be improper to finish without finding some 
additional fault, especially after all we have said in praise 
of the work, and even Dr. Stewart’s recent accident (from 
the effects of which we are delighted to hear he is 
steadily recovering) must not influence us. 
The printing is excellent ; but some of the woodcuts 
(the balance, p. 59, and the strained beam, p. 71, for 
instance) are not merely execrable, but, what is far worse, 
misleading. No mention is made of the Peltier effect at 
a thermoelectric junction, nor is Sir W. Thomson’s so- 
called “specific heat of electricity” alluded to, though 
both might easily have been introduced without increasing 
by more than a page or so the bulk of the volume, These 
are matters of such fundamental importance, and are 
capable of such easy description, that they certainly ought 
to have been given. There are other points of a similar 
kind, but it is not necessary to mention them. 
Dr. Stewart very fully treats of the grand question of the 
equality of Radiation and Absorption, the question which 
first brought him prominently before the scientific world ; 
but he has done it with suchan excess of modesty that his 
own genuine claims might be endangered, were there not 
happily other works in which his services to this important 
branch of science are fully recognised. 
It is peculiarly sad that Prof. Stewart should have 
been temporarily disabled just when he was getting into 
working order his Physical Laboratory in Manchester : 
no one is better fitted for such work than he is; let us 
hope that he may soon be in a position to resume the 
direction of it, and to teach beginners by means of his 
excellent Manual. 
PAG,” DATE 

OUR BOOK SHELF 
The Academy. Vol. I. 
gate. 1870.) 
WE congratulate our twin brother (or sister?) the dca- 
demy, on the appearance of its first volume. The journal 
had at its starting a clear vaéson d’étre, to respond “toa 
widely felt and constantly expressed dissatisfaction with 
the existing organs of literary and scientific criticism.” 
The wide field embraced in the programme has rendered 
the editor’s task anything but an easy one. Of the literary 
department it does not come within our province to speak ; 
the scientific portion, we can fairly say, has been honestly 
and ably executed. This department consists of two sec- 
tions—original reviews, and scientific notes. The former, 
in accordance with the practice of the rest of the paper, 
are all signed. The desirability of signed articles is one 
that has been much debated. Whatever may be its rela- 
tive advantages or disadvantages in literature or politics, 
we are convinced that in science the former greatly out- 
weigh the latter. In reading a criticism on a scientific 
work, it is before all things necessary that we should know 
that the critic has a right, from his own knowledge of the 
subject, to speak with authority. The signatures to the 
scientific articles which will be found in this volume are 
themselves sufficient guarantee that the subject is dis- 
cussed from a standpoint from which something is to be 
gained by the reader. The scientific notes consist of 
paragraphs under the various heads of chemistry, physics, 
geology, zoology, botany, physiology, &c., epitomising the 
most important discoveries or researches of the month, 
Though the subjects are rather unequally treated, the 
notes have evidently been drawn up with great care by 
competent men, and the whole gives a very fair résumé of 
the more important advances in each department of 
science. If we might mention one section that appears 
tous to have been particularly well done, it is that of 
physiology. A list of the new books of the month, 
English and foreign, is also given, and the titles of the more 
important scientific magazine articles, with occasional 
abstracts ofthem. We notice with pleasure the conscien- 
tious manner in which the editor invariably acknowledges 
the source of his information, a practice we could wish to 
see niore generally carried out by his brothers of the craft. 
Other literary journals have been content hitherto to 
supply their readers with their modicum of science either 
second-hand and very much out of date, or with a disre- 
gard to accuracy which has rendered it perfectly value- 
less. The Academy is doing good service in bringing 
scientific subjects before educated readers who have no 
special scientific bias, in a style that is likely to interest 
them in it, and in a manner that may be relied on as sound 
and accurate, and calculated to increase the knowledge in 
which they are, as a rule, so lamentably deficient. 
(London: Williams and Nor- 
Die Praxis der Naturgeschichte. Zweiter Theil: Dermo- 
plastik und Museologie, oder das Modelliren der Thiere 
und das Aufstellen und Erhalten von Naturalien- 
sammlungen. Unter Mitwirkung von Praparator 
Bauer, Prof. Dr. G. Jager, Stadtdirektions Arzt Dr. 
Steudel, und der Thier- und Landschafts-Maler, Paul 
Meyerheim und Friedrich Specht ; von Philipp Leopold 
Martin. 8vo, pp. 240, six plates. (Weimar: B. F. 
Voigt. London: Williams and Norgate 1870.) 
FEW tasks are more distressing to a right-minded 
naturalist than the inspection of the ordinary mounted 
specimens of animals in most museums in this country 
and elsewhere. More hideous spectacles than usually 
meet one’s eyes when visiting these establishments it 
is impossible for man toform, or mind toimagine. Some 
little advance, it is true, has been made of late years, 
upon what was formerly the prevailing type of a “ stuffed 
beast.” But no real reform can take place until the 
curators of museums have come to recognise the great 
Le es 
oe 
