834 



NA TURE 



[December 23, 1922 



own country both glass compositions and processes 

 had to be extemporised in a great hurry, and it is 

 indeed creditable to workers like Sir Herbert Jackson 

 outside the factory, and Dr. M. W. Travers, Dr. C. J. 

 Peddle, and Mr. John Kaye inside the factories, that 

 class vessels at least as durable chemically as any pro- 

 duced in Germany were forthcoming in so short a time. 

 The earlier samples, just like those from Jena, when 

 chemical ware was first made there in 1893, were far 

 from being mechanically perfect. Processes and 

 methods for the graduation of instruments had like- 

 wise to be worked out, and it has to be borne in mind 

 that such work was in some instances taken up by 

 persons who were more enthusiastic than competent. 

 Many British people find it difficult to forget these 

 early defects and have been ever ready to sigh for the 

 return of German goods. 



The work at Jena, which began about 1881, had ample 

 time to be carried out systematically. The success of 

 the work was due not altogether to the application of 

 new elements to glassmaking but rather to the facilities 

 for a great number of experimental meltings, some of 

 them on a considerable scale, in which the influence of 

 oxides, such as boric, zinc, barium, magnesium, and 

 phosphoric, could be more fully investigated than had 

 been the case by earlier workers. In this way there 

 was gradually built up a series of definite relationships 

 between chemical composition and physical properties, 

 on the basis of which not only were new optical glasses 

 devised but a new type of glass for laboratory use 

 finally developed. Abbe himself was so impressed 

 with the need of financial assistance in these under- 

 takings and with the time consumed in carrying them 

 out as to write : " The difficulties connected with such 

 undertakings are so great, the initial outlay required is 

 so heavy, and success if attained lies so far in the 

 future, that there is little inducement to enterprise. A 

 revolution of the industry can scarcely be brought 

 about in any other way than by the means for its ad- 

 vancement being provided in liberal measure, either 

 by corporations or public authorities." 



Both scientific workers and manufacturers in the 

 United Kingdom have well realised the truth of Abbe's 

 remarks, and the user of scientific glass should also 

 understand it. Since the war, despite the severe dis- 

 appointment of the manufacturer in this country at 

 the support given him, research has gone on con- 

 tinuously. A new type of chemical glassware has 

 appeared on the British market, marking a departure 

 in some ways from previous types and compositions, 

 and as the results of extensive researches now in opera- 

 tion in this country become more and more complete, 

 it is highly probable that still further types will be 

 developed. 



NO. 2773, VOL. I IO] 



It is very likely that the Jena workers in later 

 years acquired much systematic information that was 

 never published. We have done very much here 

 recently to revise the data which they have published 

 and to show in some ways that it was defective and 

 incomplete ; while many other lines of research in 

 this country, with the fundamental researches carried 

 out in America, have given us resources of information 

 which the German workers did not possess. 



The very fact that, since the war, four new institu- 

 tions, namely, the Department of Glass Technology at 

 Sheffield, the Society of Glass Technology, the British 

 Scientific Instrument Manufacturers' Research Associa- 

 tion, and the Glass Research Association, have not 

 only come into existence, but have also continued in 

 full operation, affords convincing evidence that our 

 manufacturers of scientific glassware are not content 

 with their present attempts but are reaching out for 

 something better. In this endeavour they are worthy 

 of all the help and support, as well as patience, which 

 the body of scientific workers can give them. 



Our Nearest Living Relatives. 



The Origin and Evolution of the Hitman Dentition. 

 By Prof. William K. Gregory. Pp. xviii + 548 + 

 15 plates. (Baltimore, Md. : Williams and Wilkins 

 Co., 1922.) n.p. 



IT has so happened that Dr. W. K. Gregory, of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New York, 

 and the writer of this review have each set out, at an 

 early point in their lives, to seek for a definite answer 

 to the same question : what is Man's lineage ? Is he 

 but a branch of the stem which gave the world its 

 great living anthropoid apes — the gorilla, chimpanzee 

 and orang — or must we carry our lineage into a remote 

 geological past to find the point of its separate emerg- 

 ence from the primate phylum ? The reviewer 

 approached the problem by making an elaborate 

 analysis of the structural " make-up " of man and of 

 anthropoid apes, noting the kind and extent of their 

 common heritage and the kind and extent of the 

 structural features peculiar to each, which therefore 

 may be regarded as latter-day acquisitions. 



Dr. Gregory has sought an answer by following a 

 totally different route. He has approached it by follow- 

 ing the geological record ; he has an unrivalled know- 

 ledge of the fossil remains of early forms of primates 

 found so abundantly in the Eocene deposits of North 

 America ; and as teeth and jaws, or fragments of 

 them, are the most persistent parts of the mammalian 

 skeleton, it has come about that the geological history 

 of the various orders of mammals has to be based on an 

 interpretation of dental hieroglyphics. In deciphering 



