Junk 8, 1905] 



NA TURE 



the validity of Prof. Wright's conclusions from the 

 statistical evidence. 



(5) This little book should be in the hands of every 

 hvgienist, and, since it deals largely with bovine 

 tuberculosis, of every scientific stock owner. Behring 

 is one of those who not only disbelieves the dictum 

 of Koch of the essential distinction between human 

 and bovine tuberculosis, but goes to the other ex- 

 treme, and asserts that " the milk fed to infants is the 

 chief cause of consumption," and he would insist on 

 the pasteurisation of all milk. He asserts that pul- 

 monary tuberculosis (phthisis or consumption of the 

 lungs) is not an infection from inhaled tubercle 

 bacilli. Besides pasteurisation, Behring also recom- 

 mends the use of formalin as a preservative of milk, 

 a procedure which will probably not commend itself 

 to the authorities here, though there is a good deal 

 to be said in its favour. Finally, he describes a 

 method of vaccinating cattle against the tubercle 

 bacillus by the aid of which he hopes eventually to 

 stamp out bovine tuberculosis, and as a consequence 

 human tuberculosis, a consummation devoutly to be 

 hoped for. R. T. H. 



THE PIONEERS OF GEOLOGICAL THOUGHT. 

 Karl Ernst Adolf von Hoff, der Bahnbrecher moderner 



Geologic. By Dr. Otto Reich. Pp. xvi+144. 



(Leipzig: Veit and Co., 1905.) Price 4 marks. 



THIS clearly written work, undertaken with a just 

 enthusiasm, is a welcome and permanent con- 

 tribution to the biography of scientific men. Von 

 Hoff's position as an original thinker is at least equal 

 to that of Lyell, though both writers, of course, found 

 notable Bahnbrecher before them, in Hutton, Des- 

 marest, and others. Karl von Zittel, in his 

 " Geschichte der Geologie," held the balance very 

 wisely between von Hoff and Lyell when he wrote, 



" The third volume (of von Hoff's "Geschichte der . . . 

 natiirlichen Veranderungen der Erdoberflache ") is 

 clearly influenced by Charles Lyell's first volume of 

 the ' Principles of Geology,' which had appeared 

 in the meantime. Von Hoff unreservedly adopts the 

 point of view of the great British investigator; yet 

 Lvell's views corresponded on the whole with what 

 von Hoff had put forward ten years before as the 

 result of his historical researches. The fact that von 

 Hoff's meritorious work was not properly valued, 

 and was put in the shade by Lyell's epoch-making 

 book, which appeared almost simultaneously, is 

 easily explained by the circumstance that the 

 modest German man of science derived his material 

 mainly from books, that his position did not allow 

 him to examine in the field the questions which 

 he discussed, and that he enriched science by no new 

 facts; he faced his problem as a historian, and not 

 as an observer." 



Let us frankly admit, on the British side, that 

 Lvell was not among the great original observers, and 

 that his eminence rests on his brilliant perception of 

 the meaning of correlated facts ; yet his energy of 

 movement and his frequent travels gave him an im- 

 mense advantage over his contemporary. Dr. Reich 

 shows us how von Hoff was occupied in many other 

 affairs while preparing himself for his "Geschichte," 



NO 1X58, VOL. 72 1 



a work of immense originality, and free indeed from- 

 the prejudices of his day. 



In 1788 von Hoff entered the University of Jena, in 

 his native region of Thiiringia, and proceeded after 

 two years to Gottingen. Here he found inspiration 

 in the character and friendly help of Blumenbach ; 

 but his professional work lay in diplomacy, and in 

 1791 he was appointed Secretary of Legation under 

 his own Government of Gotha, where his father was 

 already a Privy Councillor. As in France, the scien- 

 tific renaissance was accompanied by national move- 

 ments that might well have extinguished private calm 

 and study. Von Hoff was one of the delegates who, 

 in 1806, pursued Napoleon's court from Berlin to 

 Posen, and who secured the entry of Gotha into the 

 saving grace of the Confederation of the Rhine. True 

 to the interests of his State, he bore greetings to 

 Jerome of Westphalia two years later, and helped to 

 steer Gotha again into safe waters, this time under a 

 German aegis, when Leipzig had seen the downfall 

 of his alien suzerain. Yet, amid all the excitement 

 of the times, when princes scampered rabbit-like from 

 hole to hole, von Hoff founded a geological journal 

 in iSoi, met Werner in Gotha, and was struck by his 

 mental limitations, spoke and corresponded heartily 

 with Goethe, and explored the Thiiringian Forest in a 

 number of geological excursions. In the sanguinary 

 year of 1806 he encountered Humboldt in Berlin, and 

 the diplomat of Gotha was describing his native wood- 

 lands when the echoes of Friedland spread dismay 

 through Germany. 



In 1822 the first volume of his famous " Geschichte 

 der durch Uberlieferung nachgewiesenen natiirlichen 

 Veranderungen der Erdoberflache " appeared from 

 the house of Justus Perthes in Gotha ; and Dr. Reich 

 does well to press the claims of this work as the 

 foremost and most rational attempt to free geologists 

 from their popular catastrophic school. Dr. Reich 

 (p. 107) quotes from Blumenbach to show that 

 Hutton's views had spread to Germany in 1790, and 

 that Voigt of Jena had already prepared the way by 

 prior and independent conceptions of his own. Von 

 Hoff surpassed Hutton in urging the power of exist- 

 ing causes working through long periods of time. 

 This position had been reached by him as early as 

 1801 (p. Ill), and his biographer is inclined on this 

 account to accuse Lyell of overshadowing wilfully his 

 predecessor. It is idle, however, to quote from the 

 edition of the " Principles of Geology " issued in 1872 

 (p 131), in which numerous alterations and additions 

 had led to much excision. Instead of the solitary- 

 quotation from von Hoff referred to by Dr. Reich in 

 support of his contention, we find five references in 

 the first edition of vol. i. (1830), and two more in 

 the second edition of vol. ii. (1S33). Five references, 

 moreover, to von Hoff remain in the eighth edition of 

 the " Principles," issued in one volume in 1850. Since 

 Lyell in his first edition devoted nine pages to the 

 views of Hutton, out of the seventy given to the 

 history of geology, he can hardly be said, as Dr. 

 Reich would have us believe, to have shown ingrati- 

 tude to Hutton also. 



In 1826, in a memorial notice of Blumenbach, voni 



