NA TURE 



[May 



1905 



his various problems without always recurring to the 

 mamematical point of view. Unfortunately, one 

 w^rd must be said regarding the typography. The 

 present reviewer has seldom read a book so badly 

 corrected for the press. There are two pages of 

 / corrigenda ; but a full statement of all the small 

 misprints would with difficulty be contained in four 

 or five pages more. If it is not c for or e, it is 

 u for n, or I for t, or b for h, or das for dass. This 

 is the more to be regretted because — granted the 

 author's point of view — the Ts of the philosophy are 

 quite carefully dotted. 



BRITISH MINERALS. 

 A Handbook to a Collection of the Minerals of the 



British Islands in the Museum of Practical Geology. 



By F. W. Rudler, I.S.O. Pp. x + 241. (London: 



H.M. Stationery Office, 1905.) Price is. 

 CINCE his retirement from the post he so long 

 *~^ and efficiently held as curator of the Museum of 

 Practical Geology, Mr Rudler has installed in that 

 museum a collection illustrative of the modes of 

 occurrence of British minerals. The museum has 

 long possessed collections of British rocks, fossils, and 

 ores, the last named arranged under the various 

 metals which they contain. In the new collection, 

 which is neatly arranged in twelve table-cases, the 

 minerals found in each district are brought together; 

 half the space is allotted to Cornwall and Devon, one- 

 eighth to Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, 

 and the remainder to the rest of England, the 

 divisions being roughly according to the several 

 mining districts, with a general group for the 

 minerals of the Neozoic strata. The specimens, 

 to the number of 1652, have mostly been selected from 

 the Ludlam collection, which was bequeathed to the 

 museum in iSSo; though mostly small in size, thev 

 are of excellent quality. In addition to the name and 

 locality attached to each specimen, there are many 

 explanatory labels in the cases, and the present 

 volume admirably serves the purpose of a guide to the 

 collection. 



The volume is by no means a tedious catalogue or 

 descriptive list of all the individual specimens, but is 

 rather an extremely readable and interesting account 

 of the mode of occurrence and history of the more 

 common British minerals, especially those which are 

 of economic importance. Instead of long descrip- 

 tions of the characters of species, much is said of 

 their paragenetic relations, and many valuable 

 suggestions are made as to their possible modes of 

 origin. The book will therefore be found interesting 

 and instructive not only to mineralogists, but also to 

 geologists and miners ; whilst quite apart from the 

 collection, for which it is primarily intended, it will 

 have a permanent value as a treatise. In this con- 

 nection mention may be made of the numerous and 

 extremely valuable references to original authorities 

 consulted in the preparation of the work. 



The mode of treatment is a novel one, and neces- 

 sarily involves a certain amount of repetition, 

 especially in the case of some of the more commonly 

 NO. 1856, VOL. 72] 



occurring minerals, such as quartz, calcite, galena, 

 &c., which may be found in almost all the different 

 districts ; but this repetition is not tedious. As an 

 example, the district of Cornwall and Devon may be 

 taken, in which the main groups are as follows : — 

 cassiterite, minerals associated with cassiterite, copper 

 sulphides and sulpho-ferrites, copper-bearing minerals 

 of the gozzans, arsenates and phosphates of the 

 copper-gozzans, ores of lead, zinc, antimony, &c. , 

 sulphides and sulpho-salts, ores of iron, &c., minerals 

 of the rarer metals, the spars of the mineral veins, 

 miscellaneous minerals. 



Apart from a few minor misprints, the only point 

 which calls for criticism is that undue importance 

 seems to have been attached to many quite trivial and 

 local names. As for the printing, there is certainly 

 much room for improvement; the lines are so badly 

 broken that it is surprising that the whole did not 

 fall to pieces in the course of printing. 



L. J. S. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Moths and Butterflies. By Mary C. Dickerson. 



Pp. xviii + 344; with 200 photographs from life by 



the author. (Boston, LT.S.A., and London : Ginn 



and Co., n.d.) Price 55. net. 

 This is a prettily got-up book, intended for the 

 training of classes in " nature-study," with reference 

 to a considerable number of common and conspicuous 

 North American butterflies and moths, the life-history 

 of which is very fully described and illustrated. The 

 concluding chapter, on collecting, keeping, and 

 studying, recapitulates the points to be noted in 

 practical observations on the insects themselves. 



To English readers the book will be useful for the 

 information it supplies about American forms, and 

 also as indicating a similar method of study for 

 British insects, but many of the species here noticed 

 are much larger and more conspicuous than those 

 likely to fall under our own observation, among them 

 being several species of Papilio, and large Saturniidae. 



The figures, of which (including apparatus, &c.) 

 there are 233 in all, are generally very good, though 

 some are indistinct. The frontispiece, representing 

 a Smerinthus at rest, and Fig. 17, on p. 147, repre- 

 senting a procession of the young caterpillars of 

 Saturnia, may be specially noticed. But it looks 

 odd to see a Smerinthus closely allied to our own 

 5. ocellatiis called " a most beautiful little moth " 

 (p. 232) ; and, though we do not object to the use of 

 appropriate English names, we are sorry to see on 

 p. 231 a Sphinx allied to S. convolvuli called "the 

 Humming-Bird Hawkmoth," a name bv which the 

 very difterent }ilacroglossa stellatarum has' been known 

 all the world over, ever since the commencement of 

 the study of entomology. 



We had expected to find some notice of the 

 gipsy moth, the crusade against which has recently 

 been given up in .America in despair, but find onlv a 

 passing reference. A few British species are noticed, 

 such as Va)icssa antiopa, called in America the 

 mourning cloak, a translation of its German name; 

 \ . atalanla, Picris rapae, &c. 



A great deal of useful general information is given 

 in the book, and it seems on the whole to be careful 

 and accurate. One statement, however true in the 

 abstract, ought not to have been made without quali- 

 fication or explanation in a popular book. On. p. 267 

 we read, " We are familiar with the fact that all living 



