August 19, 1922] 



NA TURE 



245 



are to be satisfied always. As a matter of fact, the 

 problems in which Brillouin's conditions are satisfied are 

 those which have the greatest bearing on aerodynamical 

 research. Further, Brillouin's conditions can be used 

 to elucidate the rather puzzling question of the difference 

 between barriers which are defined by the same mathe- 

 matical curves, but of different extents, as e.g. circular 

 barriers of different angular extents. 



These two volumes can be highly recommended to 

 all who are interested in recent developments in the 

 mathematics of two-dimensional hydrodynamics. 



S. Brodetsky. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Register zum Zoohgischen Anzeiger. Begrundet von 

 J. Victor Carus. Herausgegeben von Prof. Eugen 

 Korschelt. Band xxxvi. -xl., und Bibliographia 

 Zoologica, vol. xviii.-xxii. Pp. iv + 695. (Leipzig: 

 Wilhelm Engelmann, 1922.) 280 marks. 



All who have had occasion to use the bibliography 

 which is issued with the " Zoologischer Anzeiger " 

 know that much trouble and loss of time are involved 

 in consulting the volumes not yet indexed in one of the 

 five-yearly " Registers." They will welcome, there- 

 fore, this belated volume, which indexes, mainly, the 

 papers published from 1909 to 1911, including also a 

 few from 1912 and a good many of earlier date which 

 had previously escaped notice. It is compiled accord- 

 ing to the same plan as its predecessors. Each paper 

 is indexed under its author's name, with an abbreviated 

 title and a citation of the volume and page of the 

 bibliography where the full reference will be found. 

 There are also cross-references under systematic 

 names where these are mentioned in the title, or in 

 the brief notice appended to the entries in the biblio- 

 graphy, and all new generic names are separately 

 entered. 



It was the opinion of Herr Heinrich in Mr. H. G. 

 Wells's story of " Mr. Britling " that " the English 

 do not understand indexing." It may be only because 

 of this national defect that we find the plan of the 

 " Bibliographia Zoologica " cumbersome and incon- 

 venient as compared with that of our own " Zoological 

 Record." The volume before us is only an index to 

 an index. It requires us to take down at least one other 

 volume from the shelf before we can find the reference 

 we want. It includes neither a subject index nor a 

 geographical index, and the systematic references are 

 far from adequate for the needs of the systematise 

 All bibliographies, however, are useful, if only because 

 none of them is perfect, and certainly no zoologist can 

 afford to neglect the " Bibliographia Zoologica." At 

 the present time, when the obstacles to the international 

 diffusion of knowledge are only slowly being removed, 

 the need for such works and the difficulties in the way 

 of compiling and publishing them are alike great. It 

 is to be hoped, therefore, that this volume will soon be 

 followed by others cataloguing the literature of more 

 recent date. 



W. T. C. 



NO. 2755, VOL. I IO] 



Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, rgij-iS- 



Vol. xii. : The Life of the Copper Eskimos. By D. 



Jenness. (Southern Party, 1913-16.) Pp. 277. 



(Ottawa : Department of the Naval Service, 1922.) 



50 cents. 

 The report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18, 

 is planned to include at least sixteen volumes. This, 

 the ethnographical volume, is the work of Mr. D. 

 Jenness, a graduate of the University of New Zealand, 

 who received his anthropological training at Oxford, 

 and is already known as the author of an important 

 book entitled " The Northern D'Entrecasteaux." 

 Mr. Jenness lived for some years in the tents and snow- 

 houses of the Eskimo, and though he says little of his 

 personal difficulties, the companionship of his Eskimo 

 hosts and their strange food must have been a trying 

 experience. With the help of a devoted missionary, 

 the Rev. H. Girling, who unfortunately died of pneu- 

 monia at Ottawa in 1920, he has been able to prepare 

 a singularly valuable account of life in all its phases 

 among the Copper Eskimos, whose headquarters are 

 on the Coppermine River. Fortunately for them, 

 this land lies in the track of the Great Caribou migra- 

 tion when the herds move northward jin the spring. 

 They are then able to collect stores of meat and skins, 

 and from this and the seals and fish, which are abundant, 

 their wants are supplied. Formerly their hunting 

 was done with bows and arrows, but these are now 

 replaced by rifles, and it would be well for the Canadian 

 Government to consider whether the use of improved 

 weapons should not be controlled in the interests of 

 game preservation. 



The book is full of curious facts and is illustrated by 

 photographs and maps. " With the influx of traders 

 and missionaries into the country the conditions of life 

 are fast changing. Famine looms less in the fore- 

 ground, but in its place European diseases are threaten- 

 ing the health of the communities, and bid fair to rival 

 all other causes in their effect on the death-rate." 

 The suggestion that a period of quarantine and medical 

 examination should be enforced on all strangers entering 

 the Eskimo territory certainly deserves serious con- 

 sideration. 



The Scope of School Geography. By Dr. R. N. Rudmose 

 Brown, 0. J. R. Howarth, and J. Macfarlane. Pp. 

 158. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1922.) 55. 6d. net. 

 The authors have briefly reviewed the scope of school 

 geography, maintaining two dominant themes through- 

 out, one the essential unity of the subject, the other 

 the scientific character of its data and its methods. 

 " Geography, properly speaking, has a definite view- 

 point of its own and is not a mosaic of- loans from other 

 subjects." " The teaching of geography is no less the 

 work of a specialist than the teaching of chemistry or 

 history." 



The authors have adhered, and for school purposes 

 perhaps correctly, to the statement that geography 

 may be regarded as the interaction between man and 

 his environment ; but even for the purpose of this 

 book it might have been desirable rather to have 

 stated the broader and deeper truth that geography 

 has as its field the distribution of the interrelations 

 of many phenomena of which human activities form 

 but one. 



