Jan. 6, 1887] 



NA TURE 



comment : we have descriptions of a large number of 

 familiar wild animals, and in these the author has un- 

 doubtedly avoided as much as possible being at all scien- 

 tifically exact. In our opinion the work would have gained 

 in value and interest, and as an " educational " work, if 

 the author had taken care, when he had to use scientific 

 phrases, that he did so with some meaning. Thus it 

 appears odd, to say the least, to read : " The bears, genus 

 Ursida, belong in natural history to the sub-order Car- 

 nivora"; and that the kangaroos belong to the genus 

 Macropodida;. It would not have required a large 

 knowledge of logic or science to avoid such mistakes. 



Most of the photographs are from animals in the 

 London Zoological Gardens, which will give a special 

 interest to the volume. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



First Year of Scientific Knowledge. By Paul Bert. 



(London : Relfe Brothers, 1886.) 

 This is an English edition of a little book which made 

 M. Paul Bert's name familiar to a vast number of persons 

 in France who knew nothing of his eminence either 

 in science or in politics. As the title indicates, it is in- 

 tended for children beginning to study science, and we 

 know of no book better adapted for this purpose. It is a 

 book of great merit both in style and selection of subjects. 

 The more experimental sciences are treated as their nature 

 demands — practically ; the experiments are simple, and 

 few will find any difficulty in performing them. 



The illustrations constitute one of the special features of 

 the book, for a diagram often conveys more meaning than 

 a whole page of print. The language throughout is clear, 

 and everything is simply yet accurately explained. As an 

 example we may refer to p. 333, where the popular fallacy 

 respecting the so-called " respiration of plants" is disposed 

 of: — 



..." Thus, simultaneously, in the same plant, two 

 opposite phenomena take place : the production of car- 

 bonic acid by the parts that are not green, and consump- 

 tion of carbonic acid by those that are green. Only, the 

 latter activity being much more powerful than the former, 

 the plant not only does not augment the proportion of 

 carbonic acid in the air, but consumes what it finds there. 

 . . . The decomposition of the carbonic acid by the green 

 parts is quite the reverse of respiration, and bears a much 

 closer resemblance to digestion." 



The general character of the book leaves little to be 

 desired. 



La France en Indo-Chine. Par A. Bouinais et A. Paulus. 



(Paris: Challamel Ain^, 1886.) 

 The important events of the last few years in Annam, 

 Tonquin, and Cambodia have given rise to a quantity of 

 literature in France, relating to this region, which has now 

 reached enormous proportions. French periodicals of 

 all kinds are full of papers relating to it, and new books 

 on the same subject have been issued in many scores 

 during the past three years. Every department of re- 

 search is represented — historical, scientific, literary, anti- 

 quarian, industrial, commercial, (S:c. If this great flood 

 represents, as it undoubtedly does, the keen interest 

 taken by the French people in the co\mtries with which 

 they have now so close a connection, it is none the less 

 embarrassing to foreign readers who desire to obtain a 

 general and accurate survey of Indo-China. Amid the 

 host of works, good, bad, and indifferent, now issuing 

 from the French press on this region, and on every con- 

 ceivable topic connected with it, it is difficult to select 

 one which contains all that is wanted by the ordinary culti- 

 vated person, who desires to have some knowledge of 

 countries which have been the theatre of events that have 



moved Europe profoundly. At last MM. Bouinais and 

 Paulus have produced such a book. Capt. Bouinais has 

 served long in Tonquin, and is actually a member of the 

 Frontier Delimitation Commission, and Prof. Paulus, of 

 L'Ecole Turgot, though, we believe, he has never visited the 

 country, has made it a special study, and has laboured to 

 popularise a knowledge of it in France. The two authors 

 have .ilready published a very much larger work on the 

 same subject, of which the present one appears to be an 

 abridgment intended for wider circulation and more 

 general information. 



Perhaps the most satisfactory manner of reviewing a 

 work such as this, which covers a large and varied field 

 with brevity, is to describe shortly its arrangement and 

 contents. The first chapter refers to the geography, 

 orography, hydrography, and climate of Indo-China, in- 

 cluding in this term French Cochin China, Cambodia, 

 Annam, and Tonquin. The second chapter deals with 

 the history of French intercourse with these regions, com- 

 mencing, properly speaking, with the cession to France of 

 Tourane Bay and Pulo Condor in 1787, a cession which 

 was due to the management of Pigneau de Behaine, 

 Bishop of Adran in partibus. All the interesting and 

 exciting incidents of the occupation of .Saigon, the 

 Garnier and Philastre missions to Tonquin, and the 

 events succeeding the death of Riviere down to the death 

 of Courbet and the peace with China, are recounted with 

 perfect clearness and accuracy. Next, the inhabitants are 

 described, as well as the towns, and forms of religion pre- 

 vailing in the countries. The aboriginal population is 

 treated under the heads Mois, Chanis, and Muongs, a 

 division which is perhaps sufficient in a book intended 

 for popular reading, but which the authors themselves 

 acknowledge to be wholly inadequate, as they refer also 

 to "savages inhabiting the mountains," the phrase 

 usually employed by the Chinese when speaking of a 

 people about whom they know nothing. The ethnological 

 questions connected with the Mots, Muongs, Chams, and 

 the unnamed " savages " can scarcely be answered for 

 many years to come ; but they are amongst the most 

 interesting ones connected with ethnology in the Far 

 East, The origin and relationship of these and other 

 scattered fragments of once powerful peoples, not in Indo- 

 China alone, but in Upper Burmah, and all over China 

 south of the Yangtsze, did not come within the scope of 

 MM. Bouinais and Paulus's work, although the latter 

 shows how little is known about them when they are all 

 classed indiscriminately as " savages of the mountains." 

 The fourth chapter deals with productions, trade, and 

 communications, and the fifth with the administration in 

 each of the countries mentioned. Finally comes a chapter 

 on the future, a political forecast, to which we need not 

 refer further. The work, it will be seen, goes over the 

 whole field, and, as far as we have been able to check the 

 statements, it is very accurate. As there is no English 

 book on the subject, this may be recommended to 

 readers who desire to know something of the new 

 region which is but now being brought into close con- 

 tact with Europe. Whether the French are a colonising 

 or only a conquering people, though much debated, 

 is a ciuestion with which we are not concerned here : 

 what is beyond all question is that no effort is spared 

 by the Government or the public to acquire that first 

 indispensable requisite of all good and intelligent govern- 

 ment, viz. a knowledge of the country and people to 

 be governed. No expense is considered too great, no 

 labour too burdensome, to obtain this knowledge. In this 

 respect they set an example which one more successful 

 colonising nation at least might well follow. 



My African Home. By Eliza Whigham Feilden. (London : 



Sampson Low, 18S7.) 

 In 1852 Mrs. Feilden and her husband went to Natal, 

 where they remained for five years. On her return to 



