December 30, 1909] 



NATURE 



!5> 



eight years old, it is expected that the yield per tree 

 will be more than that now given by the native tree 

 {Funtumia clastica), but less than that extracted in 

 Ceylon or other places where this break does not 

 occur. 



Mr. Holland, under the heading " Botany," touches 

 on the remarkable " increase of our knowledge of 

 the flora of Tropical .Africa," which he says " is due 

 to several causes. Old collections 



" of very considerable extent which had only casually and 

 partially been studied have now been worked up system- 

 atically (.e.g., Barter's West African, .Schweinfurth's 

 Sudan, and VVelwitsch's Angola collections) ; fresh collec- 

 tions have poured in as new countries were opened up or 

 the establishment of botanical stations in the older colonies 

 facilitated a more exhaustive exploration of their neigh- 

 bourhood ; finally, it was just then Germany started with 

 remarkable and well-directed energy on the botanical 

 survey of her colonies, with the result that in not a few 

 orders 50 per cent, or more of all the additions from recent 

 collections are due to her enterprise." 



.■\nyone who has resided in Nigeria, and has had 

 other duties to attend to, must have had cause to 

 bemoan his inability to make satisfactory horticultural, 

 museum, or herbarium collections; well, in this book 

 he will find full instructions how to make them, 

 though the reader, while thankful to Mr. Holland, 

 will still wonder why Hooker's country has not had 

 the enterprise to do the same as Germany. 



The botanical station at Ebutemeta, formed in 1887, 

 has been reduced very greatly in area owing to the 

 needs of the fast developing Lagos Railway, and as it 

 cannot be extended in any direction, has almost ceased 

 to be a distributing centre. But we may fairly conclude 

 that the department's work has not been in vain from 

 the following advertisement in the Nigerian Chronicle, 

 October 22, 1909 : — " Flowers, Flowers, Flowers ! 

 .Apply to Onofunmi Gardens, Faji Market." 



Olokemeji has quite taken the place of the gardens 

 a: Ebutemeta, and is a very large distributing centre. 

 It has become the headquarters of the Forestry Depart- 

 ment in southern Nigeria. Native pupils are being 

 trained as agricultural and forest instructors in this 

 interesting spot, once a great Abeokuta war camp. 

 We note the omission of a plan of the gardens and 

 reserve at Olokemeji, but plans are included of the 

 now famous gardens in Calabar, which the author 

 had so much to do in founding, and also of the planta- 

 tions at Onitsha. He also gives a very interesting 

 historical account of the founding of these botanical 

 stations, and finally of the origin of forest conservancy 

 in Nigeria. 



The first part of this interesting publication closes 

 with an incompleted list of the useful plants of 

 Nigeria, a work long looked for by all those interested 

 in the economic development of this remarkable de- 

 pendency of Great Britain. Wherever we may happen 

 to open this instructive book and commence reading 

 we are at once interested, for be the subject fruit or 

 seed, fibre or timber, the author has so much to sav 

 of their virtues and uses that we are for the moment 

 apt to forget all sordid difficulties and to wonder how 

 it is more fortunes have not been made in Nigeria. 

 For instance, the author, describing the Lophira alafa, 

 writes: — "The wood is very hard and heavy . . . de- 

 scribed in the trade as a first-class heavy fancy wood ; 

 used for furniture and turnery (Mus. Kevv). Ad- 

 miralty experts have valued it as better than teak 

 (Tectona grandis), at about Sd. per foot." Now, 

 knowing that this wood is very abundant in Nigeria, 

 timber merchants there have shipped it home, and 

 instead of the expected 8d. have had to receive 25^. or 

 3d. If the Admiralty or any buyer in Europe would 

 guarantee the merchants in Nigeria ^d. per foot for 

 NO. 2096, VOL. 82] 



this timber the buyer could rely on a constant supply, 

 and the merchants would make their fortunes. It is 

 the varying uncertainty in the price of mahogany that 

 makes the timber trade such a dangerous one for the 

 merchant, and is perhaps one of the causes why the 

 Forest Department has been urged to start plantations 

 of teak, plantations, by the way, which are so tar 

 doing extremely well. 



The need that Mr. Holland has so ably endeavoured 

 to satisfy is a really great one, and we can only hope 

 that the reception of his book by the public — so keen 

 on the natural products of Nigeria — will be such that 

 he will soon be tempted to give us another edition of 

 " The Useful Plants of Nigeria," as full as possible of 

 illustrations. 



EUGENICS, MENDELISM, AND BIOMETRY.^ 

 X] OW that the public has become familiar with the 

 ■'■ ' word eugenics, it is right that an exposition 

 of its meaning by Sir Francis Galton, the founder of 

 the science, should be easily accessible, and this the 

 Eugenics Education Society has wisely provided by 

 the publication of " Essays in Eugenics." The first 

 essay is on "The Improvement of the Human Breed, 

 under Existing Conditions of Law and -Sentiment." It 

 was delivered as the second Huxley lecture before the 

 Anthropological Institute on October 29, igoi. Then 

 follow "Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims," 

 "Restrictions in Marriage," "Studies in National Eu- 

 genics," and "Eugenics as a Factor in Religion," 

 rtad before the Sociological Society in 1904 and 

 onwards. After this comes the Herbert Spencer 

 lecture delivered before the University of Oxford in 

 1907, on " Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics," 

 and the volume is concluded by an address to a meet- 

 ing of the Eugenics Education Society in 1908 on 

 " Local Associaiions for Promoting Eugenics." The 

 volume, of which the titles quoted give an indication 

 of the contents, forms an admirable introduction to 

 the subject. The host of objections which immediately 

 spring to the mind and tongue of ordinary educated 

 people on first receiving the idea of conscious selective 

 breeding in man are here met with easily intelligible 

 arguments and with common sense; It is to this 

 and to the moderation with which the author expounds 

 his thesis that the present wide realisation of its prac- 

 ticability must be due. 



The Mendel Journal, of which the first number ap- 

 peared in October, has been founded in order "that 

 Mendelism shall be presented to a wider public by 

 men who believe in its truth, foresee its future, and 

 who recognise their responsibilities in the work they 

 do," also in order "to gather for the science of 

 genetics a harvest rich in facts relating to human 

 pedigrees and the inheritance of normal characters as 

 well as of peculiarities," and finally " to make it a 

 medium by which authoritative advice and direction 

 may be given in the form of answers to questions 

 upon matters of general interest relating to problems 

 of cattle, cereal and plant breeding." 



More than one-third of the number is taken up 

 by an address by Mr. G. P. Mudge, entitled "Biologi- 

 cal Iconoclasm, Mendelian Inheritance and Human 

 Society," delivered to the Mendel Society and to the 

 Eugenics Education Society in June, 1908. 



Like many lecturers on eugenics, Mr. Mudge realised 

 that in order to convince people of the supremely im- 

 portant part played by heredity in determining physical 



' (i) " Es-^-iys in Eiieenics." By Sir Francis Galton, F.R.S. Pp. vi+109. 

 (London ! The Eugmics Education Society, 1909.) 



(j) The Mendel Journal, No. i, Oclober, 1909. Pp. 216. (London and 

 Manchester: Published for the Mendel Society by Taylor, Garnelt, Evans, 

 and Co.) Price 2i. id. net. 



(3) Btometrika, vol. vii., parts i. andii., Julyand October, 1909. Pp.236. 

 (Cambridge : University Press.) Price 20^. net. 



