November 25, 1922J 



NA TURE 



691 



for he has asserted that a series spectrum does not 

 follow a strict mathematical formula, but deviates 

 from a " mean " formula in a manner expressible in 

 terms of integral multiples of the "oun." These 

 integral multiples are curious, and, without any wish 

 to cast doubt upon the validity of the conception, 

 perhaps a reader may be allowed to be amused when he 

 learns that a line in a spectrum series, which has the 

 power of deviating from its proper position by a specific 

 number of ouns, should choose such numbers as 19, 59, 

 and so on, rather than anything more simple, and 

 seem to show preference for a large prime number. 



We hope that this remark will not be interpreted as 

 a severe criticism of Prof. Hicks, but it is one which 

 every reader must make. The amount of computation 

 which lies behind the results given by Prof. Hicks is 

 stupendous, and it is quite impossible for the most 

 hostile critic to deny that a substantial proportion of 

 his series arrangements must be founded upon physical 

 reality. At the same time, very serious difficulties will 

 arise, in many cases, in the mind of a practical spectro- 

 scopist. There are undoubted instances in which 

 Prof. Hicks's arrangement drives a definite spark-line 

 into an arrangement of an arc-series. Such difficulties 

 are not numerous enough to invalidate the author's 

 point of view, which is at least as well fortified as that 

 of any author who has claimed to give a definite formula 

 for a spectrum series. 



It is still possible to hold the position that all 

 suggested formula? for spectrum series are not more 

 than empirical, and that their effectiveness is due solely 

 to greater mathematical convergency and not to a 

 closer correspondence with the " true " formula to 

 which a physical theory should lead. Prof. Hicks 

 rejects the possibility of this " true " formula, in 

 favour of a divergence of all the lines, by arbitrary 

 multiples of the " oun," from a " mean true " formula 

 — a position which it is difficult for the theoretical 

 physicist to accept. But he has done much to justify 

 his belief, and his work renders very great service 

 towards the orderly arrangement of series. 



The volume is very difficult to read, for the author 

 continues his practice of giving only the difference 

 between the observed and calculated position of any 

 line. This sometimes involves a long calculation before 

 the line discussed can be identified. A recurrence of 

 this trouble several times in rapid succession creates a 

 feeling of hopelessness. But perhaps the size of the 

 book would have been doubled if the author had 

 attempted to relieve the reader. 



Prof. Hicks's work is a monumental treatise on the 



arrangement of spectra in series, and is at least an 



indispensable addition to the library of any spectro- 



scopist. The two works together place this subject on 



XO. 2769, VOL. I IO] 



an entirely new footing, and the physicist, who hitherto 

 has obtained his knowledge of spectra from a scattered 

 series of papers, now has a real opportunity to assimi- 

 late all the main points, and to co-ordinate the know- 

 ledge of atomic structure so derived with that obtained 

 from more familiar but less precise data. 



Animal Venoms. 



Animaux venimeux et venms. Par Dr. Marie Phisalix. 

 Tome Premier. Pp. xxvi + 656 + iv pis. Tome 

 Second. Pp. xii + 864 + xiii pis. (Paris : Masson 

 et Cie, 1922.) 120 francs net. 



TO most of us the term "venomous animal " suggests 

 a snake, a wasp, a spider, a scorpion, a centipede 

 — perhaps also a toad, a fish or two, or a jelly-fish. 

 Readers of this book, however, will learn that venomous 

 animals are to be met with freely in all the phyla of the 

 animal kingdom, except such sequestered or unobtru- 

 sive groups as Tunicata, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, and 

 sponges — although even the harmless necessary sponge 

 in its native haunts may consort with a vicious sea- 

 anemone. 



The immunity to notoriety possessed by a diversity 

 of venomous creatures is due partly to the fact that the 

 subject has never, before the publication of these 

 volumes, been treated as a connected and compre- 

 hensive story ; and perhaps in even larger measure to 

 the circumstance that we are apt to think of stings and 

 fangs and spines as necessary attributes of venomous 

 creatures, and to forget that besides toads there are 

 plenty of venomous animals unprovided with any 

 special and obvious weapons for discharging their 

 venom. 



In these two large volumes pretty well all that is 

 known about venomous animals of all kinds has, at 

 last, been collected and systematically arranged — and 

 by authors who, during the course of many years of 

 exact study, have themselves made many fresh con- 

 tributions to this particular store of knowledge. Thus, 

 although the work may be called a compilation, and 

 may be accorded all the merit of novelty as such, it 

 must also be invested with much of the higher ex- 

 cellence of an original creation. 



A preface by the lamented Laveran states that the 

 treatise was projected many years ago when Mme. 

 Phisalix was collaborating with her husband, Dr. 

 Caesar Phisalix (who in 1894 was awarded, conjointly 

 with Dr. C. Betrand. tin- Montyon prize of the Academy 

 of Sciences " for the general results of their work on 

 venoms, forming the scientific basis of anti-venomous 

 therapv "), and that after her husband's premature 

 death in 1906 it was continued and completed by herself. 



