464 



NA TURE 



[September 7, 1905 



extension of the surface observations made by merchant 

 steamers on various routes, and a series of observations in 

 February, 1905, made and communicated by the fishery 

 branch of the Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 

 struction for Ireland. It can serve no useful purpose to 

 attempt the general discussion of the observations contained 

 in these Bulletins as they appear ; the general results can 

 best be summarised at a later stage by the central authority, 

 by whom the woric will no doubt be undertaken. For the 

 two dates concerned, a very marked feature of the observ- 

 ations in the English area is worth pointing out — the high 

 salinity of the water at the entrance to the channel and to 

 the west of Ireland. The origin of this salt water demands 

 close investigation ; it would seem to have come almost 

 directly from the south, and in that- event it is to be hoped 

 that means of ascertaining whether Mediterranean water 

 was present or not are available. 



The Psychological Review (article section) contains in 

 its July number the following articles : — The synthetic 

 factor in tactual space perception, T. H. Haines ; 

 consciousness and its object, F. Arnold ; and a motor 

 theory of rhythm and discrete succession (i.), R. H. 

 Stetson. The first of these tabulates the results of certain 

 preliminary experiments made by the writer in order to 

 discover the e.\act relation between the two sorts of 

 synthetic factor for local signs, viz. inner tactual sensa- 

 tions and the visual image. The main positions of the 

 second article are these : — (i) Neither by introspection nor 

 by any hypothesis of a consciousness aware of its own 

 stream can we have any mental state in which conscious- 

 ness does not have an object, and that object in the 

 present ; (2) the same holds for feeling and emotion ; 

 (3) the relation of thing to consciousness cannot be re- 

 presented by any simple formulation like aRx, but is in 

 reality much more complex. 



The July number of Mind contains an excellent article 

 by Mr. R. F. Alfred Hoernl^ on Pragmatism v. Absolutism, 

 which is mainly occupied with a discussion of Mr. 

 Bradley's views. The writer finds fault with Mr. Bradley's 

 use of the criterion of non-contradiction, his neglect of 

 epistemology in favour of metaphysics, his doctrine of 

 "degrees of truth and reality," and his theory that "a 

 self-consistent reality must include the appearances, and 

 yet cannot be its appearances." Dr. Norman Smith, in 

 a second article on the naturalism of Hume, deals 

 sympathetically with Hume's treatment of ethics. He 

 claims that " Hume may, indeed, be regarded, even more 

 truly than Kant, as the father of all those subsequent 

 philosophies that are based on an opposition between 

 thought and feeling, truth and validity, actuality and 

 worth." Other articles deal with Empiricism and the 

 Absolute, Plato's view of the soul, and Symbolic Reasoning. 



The Journal of the Anthropological Institute (July- 

 December, 1904) contains the Huxley lecture for 1904, 

 presented by Dr. Deniker, the subject being " Les Six 

 Races composant la Population actuelle de I'Europe." 

 This is virtually a re-statement and a vindication of the 

 racial division which was propounded by Dr. Deniker 

 eight years ago in " Les Races europiennes " {Bull. Soc. 

 d'Anthr., Paris, iv., 3), which the researches of later years 

 have served to illustrate and confirm. To the Nordic, 

 Ibero-Insular, and Western or Cevenole races (correspond- 

 ing to the Northern, Mediterranean, and Central or Alpine 

 races of other authors) are added three main races : — 

 Eastern, brachycephalic, short and fair ; Littoral or 

 Atlanto-Mediterranean, mesocephalic, tall and dark ; and 

 NO. I 87 I, VOL. 72] 



Adriatic, brachycephalic, tall and dark. There are also' 

 four secondary races : — Sub-Nordic, brachycephalic, short 

 and fair; Vistulan, brachycephalic, very short, fair or 

 medium ; North-Western, mesocephalic or brachycephalic, 

 tall, medium or dark ; and Sub-Adriatic, brachycephalic, 

 and medium in stature and pigmentation. The maps of 

 the average stature and pigmentation for Europe which 

 accompany the paper are scarcely satisfactory. The 

 cardinal principle laid down by Prof. Ripley, that the 

 visual impression must, so far as possible, conform to the 

 represented facts, has not been successfully followed, with: 

 the result that in the bewildering mass of detail no general 

 impression can be gained by the eye without the assist- 

 ance of the convention in the legend. 



The Journal of the Franklin Institute for .'\ugust (dx.. 

 No. 2) contains papers of more or less interest, and cover- 

 ing most of the branches of science. Mr. Fuller discusses 

 in a very complete manner the subject of sewage disposal 

 and the pollution of shell-fish. A very full bibliography 

 is appended to his paper. 



We have received from the Sytam Fittings Co., of 

 Basinghall Buildings, Leeds, the catalogue of the company's 

 system of filing, classifying, and indexing bottles, boxes, 

 specimens, tubes, apparatus, &c. The company has applied 

 the characteristics of the well known elastic or expansion 

 series of bookcases to the purposes named, the specimen 

 cabinets being built up of a number of interchangeable 

 elements. 



The Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin for August (xvi.. 

 No. 17J) contains an interesting account, by Dr. 

 MacCallum, of the life and work of Marcello Malpighi, 

 with full-plate portrait of this distinguished Italian 

 anatomist of the seventeenth century. The concluding 

 sentence of this article may be quoted : — " After all is 

 considered the most enduring things in Malpighi 's books 

 are his perfect honesty, his extraordinary keenness and 

 good sense in the interpretation of what he saw, and his 

 ingenious objective methods of observation. What he saw 

 could not have failed of being seen very soon by others, 

 but we are filled with wonder that quite alone, with his 

 ' quiet, eager mind,' he could have encompassed all, steadily 

 searching out one thing after another throughout his forty 

 years of restless activity." 



We have received the report of the second meeting of 

 the South African Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. It forms a handsome cloth-bound volume of 

 598 pages with 44 plates, and contains the forty-four 

 papers read before the association printed in full. 

 Summaries of the papers were published in Nature (vol. 

 Ixx. p. 41) shortly after the meeting, and also the greater 

 part of Mr. E. B. Sargant's address on the education of 

 examiners (vol. Ixx. p. 63). The presidential address by 

 Sir Charles Metcalfe, and the sectional addresses by Mr. 

 J. R. Williams on the metallurgy of the Rand, by Dr. 

 G. S. Corstorphine on the history of stratigraphical 

 investigation in South Africa, and by Sir Percy Girouard 

 on improvements in rolling stock, are of permanent value, 

 and the subjects and names of the authors of the papers 

 make the volume an important addition to scientific 

 literature, and show what a large amount of valuable 

 scientific work is being done in South Africa. The illus- 

 trations are excellent. The coloured plates accompanying 

 Dr. L. G. Irving's paper on miners' phthisis are admir- 

 ably reproduced, as also are the photomicrographs of blue 

 ground illustrating the paper by Mr. H. Kynaston and 

 Mr. A. L. Hall on the geological features of the diamond 



