672 
NATURE 
[AUGUST 19, 1915 


vanced registry, certain sires and dams had 
different chances of begetting progeny capable of 
entering the same registry. Surely if these re- 
cords were closely examined and the failures 
counted as well as the successes, a more satis- 
factory theory might be promulgated as to the 
inheritance of milk and butter yield. The records 
of trotting horses have also been kept, and the 
belief is strong that some are the parents of per- 
formers while others are the grandparents only: 
the intervening generation being merely breeders 
of performers. Surely, again, the failures might be 
counted and some useful explanation of this 
phenomenon discovered. 
James WItson. 
OUR BOOKSHELF. 
The Material Culture and Social Institutions of 
the Simpler Peoples: An Essay in Correlation. 
By L. T. Hobhouse, G. C. Wheeler, and M. 
Ginsberg. Pp. 299. (London: Chapman and 
Hall) Bids srons)) = Price 2s-od-snet. 
Ir is difficult, and may be dangerous, to apply 
statistical methods to the sociology of un- 
civilised peoples. There are only a few mono- 
graphs written on scientific lines; the greater part 
of the evidence consists in the incomplete and 
often prejudiced accounts of travellers. Results, 
therefore, over a wide field, must necessarily be 
rough, and, to attain even these, a very skilled 
judgment is required. But, for all that, even 
rough results of very careful work are valuable. 
The authors of this study in correlation wisely 
choose material culture as the general character- 
istic of civilisation. By reference to this test, they 

have established “an advance in organised 
government accompanying economic  develop- 
ment.” Similarly, with the social order generally. 
The chapters dealing with these results are quite 
masterly, and the authors have the good habit of 
stating fully their difficulties, and the pros and 
cons, in the doubtful cases. In various ways it is 
shown that a purely pastoral society tends to 
become a “blind alley” of progress. Interesting 
results follow the discussion of marriage and the 
family, especially in the cases of polygamy and 
the “consideration” to the kin. 
Full tables of all the data used are given, and 
there is a complete bibliography. The book is 
absolutely essential to the student of social evolu- 
tion. It _breaks fresh ground and consolidates 
new positions. 
Agricultural Laboratory Manual: Soils. By Prof. 
E. S. Sell. Pp. iv+4o. ( Boston and London: 
Ginn and Co., 1915.) Price rs. 6d. 
Tuis is a collection of forty exercises on soils. 
The book consists of forty sheets of scribbling 
paper held together by paper-fasteners inside a 
brown paper cover, so that each sheet may be 
used separately by the scholars and then bound 
up again with the rest. Each page has a few 
NO. 2390, VOL. 95] 
| agricultural high schools, 

lines of printed directions at the top, followed in 
many cases by a ruled form in which the student 
is intended to enter his results. 
The exercises are intended “for high schools, 
and normal schools.” 
There is a list of apparatus required for the exer- 
cises, which includes such diverse articles as pie- 
tins, tomato-cans, compound microscopes, mill for 
pulverising soil (why not pestle and mortar?), and 
a compacting machine for soils, whatever that 
may be. The exercises themselves include the 
formation of soils as seen in a road or railway 
cutting; experiments on the separation of soil 
particles, their appearance and properties; the 
properties of sand, clay, and humus; the behaviour 
of water and air in the soil; cultivation, imple- 
ments, fertilisers, and gardening. A teacher who 
lacked the knowledge or experience requisite for 
designing exercises himself might find some of 
the suggested exercises useful, but such a teacher 
would find himself in trouble with more than one 
of the exercises. No. 19, for instance, where the 
scholar is directed to find the percentage of air 
in the soil by putting a measured volume of soil 
in a beaker and pouring water on to it until the 
soil is just covered, would be likely to give very 
curious results. Again in exercise No. 27, a 
scholar who was accustomed to working with pie- 
dishes and tomato-tins would see all sorts of things 
except bacteria when ‘examining with a com- 
pound microscope a small sample of fertile soil 
placed on a slide in a few drops of water.” 
TL Baws 
The Evolution of the Potter’s Art. By T. 
Sheppard. Pp. xx. (London: Brown and Sons, 
Ltd., n.d.) 
THE pretentious title of this publication will dis- 
appoint the student in search of an adequate treat- 
ment of a difficult problem. Such a work would 
not be an easy task for even the most learned 
ethnographer, because it involves a knowledge of 
prehistoric and savage culture, acquaintance with 
the technique of work in clay, and a special 
familiarity with burial customs. It would be un- 
fair to expect these qualifications in the hard- 
worked curator of a provincial museum. But it is 
sufficient to quote his comment on the discovery 
in pots from the so-called Danes’ Graves near 
Driffield of the humeri of pigs: “so that we may 
assume that a shoulder of pork was food for the 
gods in the Early Iron Age.” He must be aware 
that the joint was intended as food for the dead 
man’s spirit. The book is really only an edition 
de luxe of one of the useful penny pamphlets 
which Mr. Sheppard has issued from time to time 
for the instruction of unlearned visitors to the 
museum at Hull. It is fortunate in possessing a 
good collection of early Staffordshire ware, with 
examples of the Worcester, Derby, Chelsea, 
Dresden, and other famous schools. From these 
materials the ‘Evolution of the Potter’s Art” is 
worked out in six pages. The best point about the 
work is the series of sixty-two photographs of the 
more interesting specimens in the collection. 
