Jan. 29, 1 8 74 J 



NATURE 



241 



glad to find we agree with him on one point : — " We want a 

 new motive to rouse up the spirit of the nation and Go- 

 vernment ; and what hit^her and nobler one can be found 

 than the search for truth and the advancement of 

 Science ? This is the duty of a Government, to promote 

 the national welfare ; and one of the surest ways in which 

 this can be done is by encouraging scientific efforts. . . . 

 There are few ways in which this spirit can be better 

 fostered than by Polar exploration ; and so popular is 

 such service amongst our sailors, more especially Arctic 

 sailors, that hundreds of them volunteer to go when any 

 project of this kind is atloat. From this point of view, 

 the exploration of the higher latitudes is a matter for 

 Government, and not for private enterprise " (pp. 2, 3). 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 Perils in ilic Polar Seas. True Stories of Arctic Adven- 

 ture and Discovery : A Book for the Young. By Mrs. 

 Chisholm, authoress of " Rana ; or, the Story of a Frog," 

 &c. (London : John Murray, 1874.) 

 This is one of the best books of the kind we have met 

 with. It is written for the young, but Mrs. Chisholm has 

 wisely made no attempt to "write down " to the supposed 

 mean capacity of the little folks ; she tells her intensely 

 interesting story in simple, unaffected, clear, forcible 

 English. Indeed, were it not for the occasional interrup- 

 tive questions and remarks of the group of youngsters to 

 whom the authoress is supposed to be telling her story, 

 one would naturally fancy that the book, like " Gulliver's 

 Travels " and " Robinson Crusoe " had been written for 

 all who can understand plain English. Mrs. Chisholm, 

 in her opening chanter, " Life with the Esquimaux," 

 gives many details concerning the habits of that 

 people, taken mainly from the late unfortunate Captain 

 Hall's account of his residence among them. After 

 another brief chapter on " North-East Voyages," she 

 enters upon the history of Arctic discovery on the Ameri- 

 can side, and with the greatest care and clearness, tells 

 what the principal explorers, from Frobisher down to 

 Hall, have done to make known to us the outline of the 

 lands and seas of these mysterious northern regions. In 

 doing so the authoress's object is something more than 

 merely to fascinate and thrill her readers by a narrative 

 of strange adventures by tlood and field ; while there is no 

 apparent attempt at making the story a vehicle for con- 

 veying useful information, yet Mrs. Chisholm manages to 

 convey, in an impressive manner, a great amount of know- 

 ledge of the geography, natural history, and meteorology 

 of the Polar Regions. Indeed it would be difficult to 

 devise a better method than is here followed, with the 

 assistance of two excellent maps, of teaching the geo- 

 graphy of Arctic America. As might be expected, the 

 greater part of the book is occupied with modern voyages, 

 mainly those of Parry, the Rosses, Franklin, and the 

 Franklin Search parties. " Uncle George" gives a good 

 deal of information concerning the whale fishery, and also 

 an account of Parry's boat voyage to the north of Spitz- 

 bergen. Besides the two maps already referred to, the 

 volume contains many beautiful illustrations. Per- 

 haps it was scarcely necessaty to make the children 

 interrupt the story-teller so frequently with their ques- 

 tions ; indeed the stoiy is so attractively told that such 

 diversions are sometimes irritating. But this is a small 

 matter ; the work as a whole is capitally done, thoroughly 

 interesting, heahhy, and full ol intormation. 

 Hiitorische Fragen mil Hiilfc dcr ^ aturwisscnschaj ten 



beantwortd, von Dr. Kail Ernst v. Baer. 

 Studien aiis dem Gebiete dcr Naturwissenschaften, von 

 Dr. K. E. v. Baer, Part II., Sec. i. (St. Petersburg, 1873.) 

 The " Historic Questions," just published by this eminent 



naturalist, aim at solving by evidence from natural history 

 certain disputed traditions which have puzzled historical 

 critics. The first subject remarked on is the " swan's 

 song," which seems so fanciful a myth to western nations 

 accustomed only to the songless swan, which the Russians 

 call sliipihi, the " hisscr," but not to the other swan, which 

 they name kliki'tit, the " caller," whose melancholy notes 

 are so often heard by travellers in North-East Europe and . 

 North Asia ; it is stated on no less authority than that of 

 Pallas, that the swans utter these tones when mortally 

 wounded. Next follows an examination of the voyages 

 of Odysseus, made with the view of ascertaining how 

 much of ancient geography is embodied in the Homeric 

 narrative. According to Dr. v. Baer's map, several locali- 

 ties of the ideal voyage are to be traced in the Black Sea, 

 at whose entrance are Skylla and Charybdis and the 

 Symplegades, while the Ljestrygonians dwelt in the 

 Krimea, and Kimmerian darkness began at the opening 

 into the Sea of Azof. Lastly, the locality of the Eibhcal 

 Ophir is discussed ; Dr. v. Baer finds it in the Peninsula 

 of Malacca. 



In the collected " Studies " we find a German version 

 of a paper dating from 1848, on the Influence of External 

 Nature on the Social Relations of Races. The next is- 

 dated Berlin, 1S66, on Purpose in the Processes of Nature, 

 in which he gives the name of tclcophoby to the fear he 

 observes among some naturalists of recognising an object 

 or purpose in Nature. Dr. v. Baer's doctrine is summed 

 up in a passage reproduced, with slight alteration, from 

 his own writings 33 years ago : " Thus the earth is but 

 the seed-bed in which the spiritual inheritance of man in- 

 creases, and the history of Nature is but the history of 

 continuous victory of Spirit over Matter. This is the 

 fundamental idea of Creation, for the satisfaction or 

 rather for the attainment of which individuals and series 

 of generations must disappear, that the future may be 

 built on the framework of an immeasurable past." The 

 concluding paper is on Rivers and their Action, a contri- 

 bution to physical geography in which arguments as to 

 the antiquity of man founded on the presence of human 

 relics in river-beds or deltas are treated as of httle 

 account. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



]_Tlii ILJiior does not hold himself responsible for opiniois expressed 

 by his correspondents. No notice is taken oj ancnymons 

 communications. ] 



Prof. Barrett and Sensitive Flames 

 TiTOUGH my memory fails to recall the fact, I cannot, with 

 Prof. Barrett's letter before me, refuse to believe that he sent me 

 the paper to which he refers. 



Perhaps I ought to have known what Mr. Barrett had been 

 doing before large audience?, but 1 regret to say that I did not. 

 My excellent assistant, Mr. CottrelJ, first heard of Mr. Barrett's 

 experiments from one of my own audience, and steps had been 

 raken to do Mr. Barrett justice before his letter appeared. That 

 act he has anticipated by very ably and very modestly doing 

 justice to him-self. 



J. TVNDALL 



Remarkable Fossils 

 OiNE of the most remarkable collections of Wealden fossils 

 ever seen, was lately on loan for a few days to the exhibition 

 then open at Horsham, and is one that is not to l)e equalled by 

 any at our public museums in the country. So remarkable is it 

 that I am induced to give you a shcrt description. As you 

 enter the room to the left, the first ihing to attract the attention 

 of the palajontologist was the collection contained in a case of 

 about 12 fr, long by 3 ft. wide, filled to repletion with the fossil 

 bones of the "Great Horsham Iguanodon " and the "Tower 

 Hill Iguanodon," and various other bones. There were the fibula, 

 scapula, and caricoid of Iguanodon in juxtaposition with the 

 humerus belonging to the same specimen, the ja-.v of the young 

 Iguar odon and the caudal vertebr:^, all figured andfdescribed in 

 the monographs of the Palreontographical Society. Also the 



