298 



NATURE 



[Jan. 29, 1880 



classification, as representing pedigree and being arbor- 

 escent in structure might have been pointed out. As it is 

 the impression to be gathered by the student must be that 

 the whole classification is disjointed and artificial. The 

 classification given is obsolete and imperfect in many 

 respects. The Sponges are placed amongst the Protozoa 

 notwithstanding all that is now known of their embryonic 

 development. TheTunicataare placed with theBrachiopods 

 and Polyzoa as composing the Molluscoida. The Sirenia 

 are put next to the Cetacea between the Edentata and 

 Ungulata, and the two are treated of in one chapter as if 

 allied to one another. Finally, man, with his venerable 

 but flattering specific title "sapiens," is placed in the old 

 separate order Bimana, apart from the orang and the 

 gorilla, whilst animals so widely different as the rhinoceros 

 and sheep, nevertheless occupy the same order Ungulata. 

 How perverted must be the conception formed by a 

 student of the value of morphological facts, when the 

 results of their study are presented to him in tabular 

 form on so utterly unequal a scale as this. 



A book so large as the present necessarily takes a 

 long time in preparation, and consequently, as the author 

 explains in the preface, many recent publications of 

 importance were not available to him for use in the 

 earlier part of it. Hence the "Tabulata" are still 

 retained as a group amongst the corals, although they 

 have been given up as such by the author in his recent 

 monograph on the Palaeozoic tabulate corals. 



By far the greater part of the book is taken up by the 

 description of invertebrata, and the vertebrata receive 

 comparatively less attention. Prof. Nicholson gives his 

 reasons for not treating the vertebrata with the same ful- 

 ness as the invertebrata. " The fossil remains of verte- 

 brates are, in many cases, of the highest interest, but 

 they come much less frequently under the notice of the 

 ordinary student than do the remains of the inverte- 

 brates." We should have thought that these would be 

 precisely the reasons why these rarities should be de- 

 scribed at length, but " no practical study of the fossil 

 vertebrates can be carried on without a considerable 

 acquaintance with comparative osteology." Who, then, 

 is the " working palaeontologist " for whose benefit, as we 

 are told in the same paragraph, the present treatise is 

 intended ? We can understand the value to a working 

 geologist of a book which shall enable him to determine 

 with ease the names of fossils, that he may use them in 

 the prosecution of his researches as so many counters ; 

 but the present book does not, like Quenstedt's, meet this 

 requirement in any way. 



Granting, however, that there are students who re- 

 quire a work of instruction such as the present, the 

 book is not without many merits, and care has been 

 taken to introduce some account of all recent discoveries 

 of importance. The account of the vertebrata con- 

 tains a great deal of interest, including an account of 

 some of the most interesting of the discoveries of fossil 

 vertebrata in the United States. A good woodcut of 

 the large tooth-bearing diving-bird, Hcsperomis regalis, 

 is given, taken from Prof. Marsh's restoration of it. It 

 was between five and six feet in height. Figures are also 

 given of the skull of Prof. Marsh's Ditwceras tnirabile, 

 with huge canines and three pairs of horn-cores, and also 

 of the feet of the same curious form, which is considered 



by Prof. Marsh as intermediate between the Perisso- 

 dactyle Ungulates and the Proboscidea. 



The elevation of the Platysomid fishes to the rank of a 

 distinct division of Ganoids is adopted by the author, owing 

 to a misunderstanding of certain manuscripts placed at 

 his disposal by Dr. Traquair, who has disclaimed his 

 concurrence in the matter in the Annals and Magazine 0/ 

 Natural History. In consequence of Dr. Traquairt letter 

 a slip has been inserted in all but the earliest copies of 

 the book correcting the error. 



The book concludes with chapters on paleobotany, 

 which term hardly describes the contents since they are 

 geologically and not botanically arranged. A slight 

 sketch is given of the floras of the successive geological 

 epochs, the characteristic fossil plants being named and 

 figured but without much account of the details of their 

 structure. An antiquated classification of plants is 

 adopted, the Conifers and Cycads being grouped with the 

 dicotyledonous Angiosperms as Exogens or Dicotyledons, 

 whilst the monocotyledonous Angiosperms are separated 

 from the remainder as Exogens. 



There is a glossary of terms at the end of the book in 

 which the Greek words look curious as printed in Roman 

 characters, especially as the long vowels are not marked 

 as such in anyway. The first word in the list is Abdomen, 

 which is for some unexplained reason derived from the 

 Latin abdo, I conceal, instead of given as itself a Latin 

 word of the same sense as that in which it is used in 

 science. It is surely also doubtful whether the word 

 abdomen has anything to do with abdo. It is suggested 

 in some dictionaries that it is a corruption of adipomen. 



The book is sumptuously got up and contains over 700 

 woodcuts, most of which are very good, many being 

 familiar as taken from D'Orbigny and elsewhere, but 

 many also being new. Good lists of references to mono- 

 graphs are given at the ends of the chapters, and form a 

 very valuable and important feature in the work. 



SIZING AND MILDEW IN COTTON GOODS 

 Sizing and Mildew in Cotton Goods. By G. E. Davis, 

 C. Dreyfus, and P. Holland. (Manchester: Palmer 

 and Howe.) 



THE application of a certain kind of science to a 

 certain kind of commerce is rapidly producing a 

 literature of its own. It is not long since that we had 

 occasion to notice a work which treated of the manner in 

 which silks could be " weighted " by chemical means, and 

 the volume now before us is the second of its kind which 

 is concerned with the relations of chemistry and mycology 

 to the manufacture of cotton goods. 



In order to explain the raison d'etre of this book, it 

 may be desirable to premise that in making cotton cloth 

 it is necessary to " size " the longitudinal threads or warp 

 in order that they may be able to withstand the strain in 

 the loom. The size binds the individual fibres together 

 in the thread, and by giving it an even surface, diminishes 

 the fraying action of the reed in its motion to and fro 

 after the passage of the shuttle. " Pure " size consists 

 of a mixture of fermented flour, soft or curd soap, and 

 tallow ; or of sago and cocoa-nut oil in water. The yarn 

 is occasionally sized in the hank by hand, but this method 

 is rapidly giving way to the use of machinery, by means of 



