4o6 



NATURE 



[December 12, 1912 



Drude of fifty pages, in lieu of the 700 which have 

 to be faced by English-speaking botanists. The 

 main portion of the volume consists of four parts : 

 " History and Literature of the Botanic Works 

 and Explorations of the North American Conti- 

 nent " ; " Geographic Climatic and Floristic 

 Survey"; "Geologic Evolution, Theoretic Con- 

 siderations and Statistics of the Distribution of 

 North American Plants," and "North American 

 Phytogeographic Regions, Formations, Associa- 

 tions. " Following the American custom, the author 

 leaves out the normal " al " ending of adjectives 

 wherever possible, with unpleasant results. The 

 book consists very largely of extracts taken from 

 the many papers mentioned in the voluminous 

 bibliography, and taken with very little discrimi- 

 nation or critical examination. In consequence, 

 there is a sad mixture of good, bad, and in- 

 different. For example, the statement that 

 Vallisneria occurs " in the sea in a tangled mass " 

 off Newfoundland is inserted without comment, 

 when, as is well known, it is a fresh-water plant, 

 and Zostera marina is the plant in question. 

 Many similar examples of the inclusion of 

 erroneous statements from unworthy sources 

 might be given. 



From the way the volume is pieced together 

 it is not possible to gain any vivid impression of 

 the flora of North America as a whole. There 

 is no broad generalisation based on the informa- 

 tion which has been so laboriously collected, but 

 the subject-matter tends to be broken up into 

 minutiae of detail. 



.'\s an example of the way in which the book is 

 made up of information somewhat indiscriminately 

 pieced together, it may be mentioned that the 

 author quotes himself by name as the authority 

 for some of his own statements on p. 381. 



The whole of North .America is divided up into 

 zones, sections, regions, areas, formations, &x., 

 and it is not possible to discuss here the accuracy 

 or otherwise of the citations from which the in- 

 formation is built up. As the sources on which 

 the author has drawn for his information are often 

 far from accurate, it is unfortunately not possible 

 to depend very much on the statistics based upon 

 such questionable data. 



The smaller defects in printing, &c., are not 

 numerous, though it will be noticed, among other 

 things, that Fig. 26 has been printed upside 

 down. 



Our chief cause of regret is that this book 

 should have appeared as one of the volumes of 

 Engler and Drude's series, "Die Vegetation der 

 Erde," and that it siiould thereby receive a certain 

 stamp of authority. 



NO. 2250, VOL. 90J 



S1G\S AXD SYMBOLS, EGYPTOLOGY, 

 AND FREEMASONRY. 

 The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, being 

 an Explanation of the Religious Doctrines 

 f.rom the Eschatology of the Ancient Egyptians. 

 By Dr. .\lbert Churchward. Pp. xxiii + 449. 

 iLondon : Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 

 1910.) Price 255. net. 



THIS is a book well worth reading, difficult 

 to describe, and impossible to criticise. 

 The title would lead one to expect a scientific 

 analysis and classification of ancient signs and 

 symbols, as well as a digest of the religious doc- 

 trines from the eschatology of the ancient 

 Egyptians. The author in his own discursive way 

 deals with an abundance of materials for a truly 

 scientific work, but the best that can be said of 

 the scientific character of the book is that, with 

 ordinarv care in dovetailing the materials and 

 exact references to sources, it would have been 

 a useful work of reference. 



What makes criticism impossible is (i) the 

 author's wholesale repudiation of all authorities 

 and theories which cross his path, and (2) the 

 fact that the book is dedicated to " All my brother 

 Masons." The book covers a vast field outside 

 Egypt, but almost every paragraph bears a stamp 

 which may be interpreted : All was once Egyptian, 

 now Masonic. With great erudition and ingenu- 

 ity — and good-humoured pugnacity — facts and 

 theories of all sorts are massed together in no 

 particular order to form what must be charming 

 reading for Freemasons. There is no lock which 

 the author's key cannot open. There is no other 

 authority on any of the subjects discussed to be 

 allowed to bar the author's path. He knows and 

 believes; 18°, 30°, and 33° also know and believe; 

 and everybody else either does not or should not 

 know. To deal with the author's exploits in the 

 open field of scientific inquiry would be perfectly 

 useless, because at any adverse turn of the argu- 

 ment some Masonic mystery would envelop both 

 the author and the subject, and you would strike 

 a "dead wall of mystery." Astronomy and orien- 

 tation are discussed in a grandly dogmatic 

 fashion, and most astounding statements are un- 

 accompanied with anything like a scientific 

 demonstration. 



The title of the book will doubtless attract 

 readers other than Masonic, and they will find, 

 with a multitude of other statements of the same 

 kind, the origin of the pre-Columbian Americans 

 finally accounted for ; Mexican crafts in the Medi- 

 terranean laden with Masonic treasures from 

 Egypt ; Egyptian priests invading Ireland and 

 Britain; the .Ainu of Japan in Egyptian universi- 



