Dec. II, 187;^] 



NATURE 



lOI 



led him to modify his views in several ways. As it is, 

 his preface is dated from Faizabad, and in it he describes 

 himself as "a solitary Indian, far away from contact with 

 men of science, but fresh from the actual and impressive 

 presence of ' Nature's children.' " These words account 

 for the freshness and vigour of his style, but they must 

 not be taken to imply that his examination was made 

 without want of knowledge of anthropology. So far from 

 this, one of the great excellencies of the volume lies m 

 showing how much more deeply an observer sees into the 

 life of an uncivilised people, when he is engaged in 

 examining evidence for and against current ethnological 

 theories, than when he goes as a mere traveller, setting 

 down at random anything that takes his attention. 



Edward B. Tylor 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 An Elemetitary Treatise on Geometrical Conic Sections. 



By G. Richardson, M.A. (Rivington, 1873.) 

 This is one of the volumes of the publisher's Mathe- 

 matical Series, is very well printed, and has, if we are not 

 mistaken, only three trivial misprints. There is quite a 

 run at the present time on this subject, if we may judge 

 by the number of treatises which have recently made 

 their appearance, and this we are not altogether sur- 

 prised at, as it is one of great interest ; its theorems have 

 great intrinsic beauty and almost boundless applications. 

 The ordinary propositions are discussed not altogether in 

 the usual order of consecution from the locus-point of 

 view (the last chapter of four pages being devoted to the 

 cone) ; the demonstrations are neat, and two or three are 

 exceedingly concise as well. The only or chief novelty 

 is the simultaneous treatment of the ellipse and the 

 hyperbola, the corresponding propositions facing one 

 another on the even and odd pages respectively. The 

 discussion of the asymptotic properties of the latter 

 curve pairs off against a series of propositions on projec- 

 tions. The book is a good working one for beginners, 

 and embraces sufficient for the preliminary examination 

 for mathematical honours at Cambridge, without having 

 too much for school use. There is an extensive selection 

 of exercises. R. T. 



Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances. A Sy- 

 nopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation 

 during the last quarter of a century, at home and 

 abroad. By P. L. Simmonds. (London : Hardwicke, 

 1873.) 

 Mr. Simmonds'S book is seasonable in these days, 

 when so much has been done in the utilisation of waste, 

 as showing how very much yet remains to do. 



In nearly 500 pages of close print he has drawn atten- 

 tion to a mass of matter almost bewildering in its vastness, 

 and extending to nearly every kind of material in use in 

 civilised communities. We cannot help noticing that 

 Mr. Simmonds has been affected by the mass of subjects 

 he has attempted, for the book very frequently displays a 

 considerable lack of arrangement. 



The author should look to this in a future edition, 

 in which also the book might be easily and advantage- 

 ously condensed to a considerable extent. 



We must, however, thank the author for the service he 

 does in calling the attention of civilisation to the ex- 

 travagant, and we might say, " riotous " living with 

 which its substance is wasted. 



La Botaniquc de la Bible. Etude scientifique, historique, 



litteraire et ex^getique des plantes mentionndes dans la 



Sainte-Ecriture. Par Frederic Hamilton. 8vo. pp. 220, 



25 pliotographs. (Nice : Eugene Fleurdelys, 1871.) 



This interesting volume will possibly be unknown to the 



majority of our readers, and yet we venture to think that, 

 from the beauty of its illustrations and the pleasantness 

 of its style, it may to some of them prove a welcome ad- 

 dition to their knowledge of the subject on which it 

 treats. Not stopping to discuss the nature of those mys- 

 terious trees said to have existed in the Garden of Eden, 

 the author divides his subject into two parts. The first 

 treating of the genera and species of which there can be 

 little doubt, such as the pomegranate, almond, cedar, fig, 

 &c. ; and the second of those plants or portions of plants 

 about which it is difficult to decide to what genus even 

 they may belong, such as shittim-wood, hyssop, &c. In 

 the first portion of the volume not only are the scientific 

 characters of the plants given, but there is also added a 

 series of references to them from the classics. The pho- 

 tographs are taken from living specimens growing chiefly 

 in the neighbourhood of Nice and Mentone. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 

 eommnnications. ] 



Effects of Temperature on Reflex Action 



I DO not know if I quite understand Mr. Lewes's objections 

 to my little article in the Journal of Anato/ny and Piiysio* 

 logy. He attributes the absence of movements in the case in 

 question to a loss of sensibility to temperature. At first his 

 statement reads as if the loss of sensibility to temperature were 

 due to the removal of the brain. But he cannot mean this, 

 because the whole of my paper starts from the fact that when 

 the toes alone are exposed to gradually heated water, the leg 

 is withdrawn. If he means that the sensibility to temperature 

 alone is destroyed or depressed by the exposure of the whole 

 body to the gradually heated water, and the other " sensibili- 

 ties" left intact, I do not see how my argument touching the 

 difference between the entire and the brainless frog is affected 

 at all 'oy a Umitation of the stimulus to one particular kind. 

 Moreover, in the last observation recorded in my paper it is 

 expressly stated that in the later stages of heating the absence 

 or diminution of reaction towards chemical as well as thermal 

 stimuli was observed. Gradually heated water acts as a very 

 slight stimulus, sulphuric acid (even dilute) is a very strong 

 stimulus ; and that the latter suddenly applied, as in the experi- 

 ment of Goltz referred to by Mr. Lewes, should call forth a re- 

 flex action at a time when the former is unable to do so, in no 

 way contradicts my explanation of the absence of movements. 

 A red-hot iron might have been substituted for the sulphuric 

 acid with identical results. 



The paper in question had for its object simply the solu- 

 tion of the difficulty why the brainless frog allowed himself 

 to be boiled without moving. In it I carefully avoided entering 

 upon any discussion concerning Sensation (or Consciousness) in 

 the spinal cord. The words " movement of vohtion, ///a< is, a 

 iiioveiiu-7!t carried out i>y the encephalon," — "ordinary reflex action, 

 that is, a movement carried out liy the spinal cord alone," were 

 purposely chosen. I went so far as to speak of an " intelligent 

 frog" and an "unintelligent reflex action," because we have 

 means of measuring intelligence, and we can .speak of a body as 

 being conscious and yet not intelligent. I imagine that if Mr. 

 Lewes and myself were to talk over the matter quietly, he 

 would find that I am not so much at variance with him as he 

 imagines. I feel with him the difficulty of refusing to the proto- 

 plasm of a white blood corpuscle, a something which may be 

 evolved into (not out of) consciousness. That and like difficul- 

 ties are not a little increased if, as Mr. Darwin seems to suggest, 

 we regard inherited voluntary acts as the chief instead of the 

 occasional source of reflex actions. Without entering into any 

 long discussion, perhaps I may be permitted to say that in such 

 matters as the movements of a brainless frog, it seems to me 

 there are two things which ought to be kept separate : the inves- 

 tigation into the laws according to which those movements take 

 place, i.e., the study of the various nervous mech.inisms of the 

 spinal cord, and the question whether those movements, whether 

 the working of those mechanisms, is or is not accompanied by 

 consciousness. As a physiologist I am prepared to busy myself 

 with the first, as I see prospects of success. With regard to the 

 second, I am not prepared to say anything until we have ob- 



