74 



NA TURE 



[July 



1922 



it abounds in elementary errors as regards facts, 

 botanical and mechanical. For example, the account 

 of the production of wood by cambium is truly fan- 

 tastic, while the implication is made that when dead 

 wood is absorbing water and swelling, the cells of the 

 medullary rays exert great pressure by reason of their 

 turgidity. But quite inexcusable are misquotations 

 of various scientific workers, including R. Hartig 

 and Mathieu (who is made responsible for the statement 

 that heartwood and sapwood are synonymous " expres- 

 sions "). 



Errors as regards matters of fact are matched by 

 the author's methods of reasoning and the conclusions 

 that he draws. According to him the wood-yessels 

 cannot have very important functions. " inasmuch as 

 Conifers do without them." Or, again, he writes of a 

 beam under transyerse bending load that " the height 

 may be reduced and yet the beam be stronger " ; and 

 111 dealing with mechanical tests he not only " hopes 

 and believes " that practical men do not " pay any 

 attention to the figures so far supplied by physicists;'' 

 but also advises the abolition of " all calculations what- 

 soever." A number of excellent photographs of wood- 

 structure impart some value to the book. 



Textile Design and Colour : Elementary Weaves and 

 Figured Fabrics. By W. Watson. Second edition, 

 with an Appendix on Standard Yarns, Weaves, 

 and Fabrics. Pp. xi + 436. (London: Longmans, 

 Green and Co., 1921.) 21.?. net. 

 The comprehensiveness of Mr. Watson's training is 

 reflected from the pages of this book. A student in 

 the Textile Industries departments of the University 

 of Leeds and the Bradford Technical College, and 

 successively head of the Textile Departments at Salford 

 and the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, Mr. Watson 

 has naturally produced a volume which is both broad 

 in outlook and sequential in treatment. In the maze 

 of small weave effects, for example, it is so easy to 

 degenerate into mere statement and illustration that 

 any writer who can introduce a sequential and 

 reasonable treatment leading to that imaginative 

 insight, which is so much to be desired in the cloth 

 constructor, is to be congratulated. In the future 

 probably more conventional scientific treatment of 

 tin structures here referred to will be necessary, for 

 not only do such matters as combinations and per- 

 mutations appear, but, as was quite accidentally 

 discovered at the meeting of the Mathematical Asso- 

 ciation last year, the problem of sateen cloth structure 

 is the problem of atomic grouping in crystal structure. 

 Mr. Watson's treatment of the colour problems 

 involved in textile designing is by no means so satis- 

 factory : it largely resolves itself into "colour and 

 weave form. The technical treatment of figured 

 is excellent, and the appendix upon Standard 



I il hould prove very useful to all designers and 



manufacturers. A. F. B. 



Principia Etkica. By Dr. George Edward Moore. 

 Pp. xxvii + 232. (Cambridge: At the University 

 Press. 1022.) 155. net. 



This volume is the reprint of the famous and much- 



! treatise of Dr. G. E. Moore, the present Editor 



of Mind, which was first published in 1903. Readers 



NO. 2750, VOL. I 10] 



will turn at once with interest to the brief note added 

 to the preface in which the author tells us that he is 

 still in agreement with its main tendency and con- 

 clusions. His thesis is that ''good" is indefinable. 

 but that " the good " can be defined. The good is 

 the thing, simple or complex to any degree, to which 

 the indefinable predicate good belongs. He illustrates 

 his meaning by an extreme case. He asks us to imagine 

 a world exceedingly beautiful, and then to imagine the 

 ugliest world it is possible to conceive. We are asked, 

 in comparing these worlds, to accept the limitation 

 that " we are not entitled to imagine that any human 

 being ever has, or ever, by any possibility, can, live 

 in either." Is it irrational, he asks, to hold that it is 

 better that the one should exist and not the other ? 

 To most students of ethics the limitation makes the 

 question nonsense in the literal meaning of the term. 

 It is interesting to find that Dr. Moore can still think 

 it a rational question after the lapse of twenty years. 

 Yet we must admit the force of his logic, for if value 

 is to have any meaning at all to the realist, it can only 

 lie by finding some way of attaching it to the object 

 and presenting it in complete abstraction from the 

 subject, for the mind is limited in its activity to 

 contemplation. 



Roeks and Fossils and How to Identify Them. By 

 I. 11. Crabtree. Pp. 63. (London: The Epworth 

 Press : J. Alfred Sharp, n.d.) 15. ad. net. 

 We have here a book, very prettily illustrated by photo- 

 graphs ; but the text is not in keeping with the author's 

 daring statement that "geology is, of all concrete 

 science studies, most exact in its observations and 

 conclusions." The loss of land at Dunwich (p. 14) 

 should not be ascribed to subsidence ; faults (p. 18) 

 do not imply that " the two parts are pitched at 

 different angles " ; limestones are said to be " generally 

 combined with mineral matter " ; Radiolaria are 

 photographed in one of the admirable plates as " flinty 

 shell remains of foraminifera " ; and in another plate 

 a very mixed assemblage of fossils, including halysites 

 and Fenestella. is attributed to the Old Red Sandstone. 

 "Interlocking teeth" are given as a characteristic 

 of Labyrinthodon, and Tyrannosaurus is said to have 

 preyed upon the mammoth. We must not dilate mi 

 the reappearance of Eozoon and the " Laurentian 

 system," or on the " boreal • climate " of the Trias 

 (p. 56). If we interpret his remarks on " sauroid 

 fishes " as referring to Sauripterus, the author has 

 been diligent in his reading, and we must regret that 

 he has shown so little regard for exactitude in " obser- 

 vations and conclusions." G. A. J. ('. 



The Mineral Resources of Burma. By X. M. Penzer. 



(Federation of British Industries : Intelligence 



Department.) Pp. viii+176. (London: G. 



Routledge and Sons, Ltd. ; New York : E. P. 



Dutton and Co., 1922.) 31s. 6</. net. 

 Mr. Penzer. on behalf of the Federation of British 

 Industries, has undertaken with conspicuous success 

 the task of summarising the information hitherto 

 inconveniently scattered through various unrelated 

 publications concerning the mineral resources of the 

 province of Burma. He has taken care to secure the 

 co-operation of recognised authorities with special 



