October 14, 1909] 



NA TURE 



453 



products. Every advance in the quality of these pro- 

 ducts has been followed by advances in other indus- 

 tries. The raising- of the refractory qualities of 

 fire-bricks, for example, gives the metallurgist greater 

 power and scope, and the success of the electro- 

 chemical industries is to a large extent dependent 

 upon the capability of the potter. 



Considering the importance of the subject, the list 

 of books with trustworthy information is surprisingly 

 small. We therefore turn with pleasure to the pre- 

 sent work, which is a history of the various branches 

 of the clayworking industry in the United States, 

 from the building of the brick houses by the early 

 colonists up to the close of 1907. Consequently, there 

 is no more than a passing reference to the very 

 curious pottery fashioned by the aboriginal Indians. 

 The book is compiled from statistics collected in the 

 main by the United States Census Bureau and the 

 United ^States Geological Survey. The first portion 

 of the history is a general resume of the various 

 stages in the development of the industry through 

 the manufacture of common bricks, glazed bricks, 

 terracotta, tiles, and pottery. In the second portion 

 of the worfi, these stages are discussed State by 

 State. 



The author can seldom be charged with diminishing 

 The value of his facts by entangling them in the 

 meshes of hypothesis. Statistics are given showing 

 the yearly value of the products made in the United 

 States, and also imported. Using the word " con- 

 sumption " with its broadest connotation, it is pos- 

 sible to calculate from the authors' tables the approx- 

 imate proportion of the total yearly consumption of 

 ■" pottery " which is actually manufactured in the 

 States. We thus obtain 57 per cent, for 1870, and 68 

 per cent, for 1907. The influence of the ceramic 

 schools is said to be a " strong factor " (pp. 6-7) in the 

 evolution of the industry. The first of these was 

 started in Ohio in 1894, under the capable hands of 

 Prof. E. Orton ; the fifth, in Iowa, in 1907. Quoting 

 from Mr. J. Moses' " One Hundred Years of Ameri- 

 can Commerce " (p. 53), the authors state that it was 

 not, indeed, until the first real protection by the tariff 

 fver accorded the potters was enacted, as a war 

 measure, that the American maker found himself 

 able to enter the field against the English potter. 

 The influence of imported workmen, on whom there 

 is no tariff, is not indicated, although we find some 

 curious evidence pointing in that direction from Messrs. 

 Ries and Leighton's tables. In 1897, 41 per cent, of 

 the total china clay consumed in the States was mined 

 there, and in 1907, 68 per cent. The remainder was 

 imported. This might be attributed to the dearth of 

 china clay, but the .-Xmericans have splendid clays, 

 better, indeed, than our own. The greater prob- 

 ability is that the " secret " recipes of the imported 

 workmen are compounded with raw materials from 

 Cornwall, &c., and a mysterious virtue is supposed to 

 reside in a recipe for an " English " body or glaze. 

 The workmen have not always the courage and skill 

 to adapt imported recipes to local materials. The 

 recipe is tiius master of the situation. 



J. W. Mellor. 

 NO. 20S5, VOL. Si] 



A JOURNEY ACROSS. VENEZUE;LA AND 

 COLOMBIA. 

 The Journal of an Expedition across Venezuela and 

 Colombia, 1906-7. An Exploration of the Route 

 of Bolivar's Celebrated March of 1819, and of the 

 Battlefields of Boyaca and Carabobo. By Dr. 

 Hiram Bingham. Pp. viii + 287. (New Haven, 

 Conn. : Yale Publishing Association ; London : T. 

 Fisher Unvvin, 1909.) Price los. net. 



THE expulsion of Spanish power from the present 

 State of Colombia was effected by Bolivar, who 

 in the year 1819 conducted an army from near Caracas 

 to Bogotd, across country that had been deemed to 

 be impassable. All the saddle and pack animals, and 

 many of the soldiers, succumbed to the hardships of 

 the march, a distance of about 700 miles, traversed 

 in about seven weeks. Spanish-.'Vmerican historians 

 have compared this feat with the marches of Hannibal 

 and Napoleon. Dr. Bingham, lecturer on Latin- 

 .•\merican history at Yale, wanted to form a proper 

 estimate of the actual obstacles that were overcome 

 by the army of liberators, the backbone of which was 

 the foreign legion of British veterans from the 

 campaign of Waterloo. He therefore undertook the 

 spirited and difficult task of following up the route 

 of Bolivar through regions not easily visited and 

 scantily known. 



There is a regular overland route from Caracas to 

 Bogota which leads over the high plateau between 

 the Central and the Eastern Cordilleras. The author 

 and his companion. Dr. Hamilton Rice, however, 

 went, like Bolivar, broadly speaking, parallel with 

 this road, along the foothills of the Eastern Sierras, 

 where they join the vast Llanos, at an average altitude 

 of 600 feet to 700 feet above sea-level. The greater part 

 of this route has been scantily described by but few 

 travellers, and some districts were known locally only. 

 The travellers left Caracas at the beginning of 

 January, 1906, and crossed the great Llanos with 

 mules, and an ox-cart for the baggage. In time the 

 cart had to be discarded. There were many rivers to 

 cross, tropical forests, and the Llanos. These, never 

 pleasant to traverse, were rendered more than difficult 

 by the rains which set in about the middle of March, 

 and continued with increasing force. The stiffest 

 part of the journey began with the ascent to the 

 plateau, to gain which the Paramo, a pass of 13,000 

 feet elevation, had to be negotiated. 



For reasons only known to themselves, the travellers 

 did not carry a tent. Consequently the diary is full 

 of the troubles of getting accommodation in the 

 wretched villages or occasional so-called towns, in 

 rest houses kept by suspicious Indians or disobliging 

 white men, often without sufficient food. The 

 Western Venezolanos (why are they persistently called 

 Venezuelans in the book?), white, mixed, and brown 

 alike, are apparently not a very prepossessing people, 

 and local officials were, of course, worse. The 

 Colombians seemed to be more amenable, as being 

 less beyond the reach of civilisation. 



The whole journey took 115 days, more than twice 

 the time required by Bolivar's army. The book Is 

 adorned with numerous pliotographs of characteristic 



