SEPTEMBER 6, 1918] 
be noticed in it, then it broke up lengthwise 
and ‘crosswise, moving at the same time still 
nearer the zenith. A few moments later short 
parallel streamers began to shoot out from it 
at right angles and in a northerly direction 
giving the appearance of the prongs of a 
erown. Thereafter the long gray bow gradu- 
ally vanished and in its place appeared irregu- 
lar small grayish cloud-like masses moving 
swiftly to and fro across the zenith while short 
streamers continued to dart upward from the 
northern horizon. , 
Davw RresMan 
NorTHEAST Harsor, MAINE, 
August 16, 1918 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
South America. By Neue B. Auten. New 
York, Ginn and Company, no date (1918?). 
Illustrated. 12mo. Pp. xv + 413. 
This book seems to be one of a series of “ geo- 
graphical and industrial studies.” The author 
is connected with the state normal scnool at 
Fitchburg, Mass., and the book is intended for 
use of “the children in our schools.” 
It is a book of good intentions written down 
to young people; and as young people are in 
the habit of accepting as the truth all the state- 
ments they find in print we feel at liberty to 
ask whether the children are being properly 
served. It contains a great deal of the stock 
information to be found in books of travel, 
circulars, reports and papers about South 
America, and mixed in with it are many 
things that might better have been omitted. 
One of the most striking things about it is 
the air of artificiality and false enthusiasm 
that the author seems to think it necessary 
to maintain. It is difficult to keep up such 
high pressure activities, and, at the same time, 
to verify statements and to discriminate be- 
tween trustworthy and untrustworthy author- 
ities. The result is a demoralizing tendency 
towards exaggeration and sensation. For ex- 
ample, a pile of wheat twenty-five or thirty 
feet high is called a “mountain of wheat” 
(pp. 172-3) ; wheat fields are “a sea of wheat ” 
(p. 171) ; trains “ shoot in and out of tunnels ” 
(p. 127); “eold storage plants are bursting 
SCIENCE 
249 
with tons of beef” (p. 162), and maté “be- 
comes as solid as a rock” (p. 197). 
Allowances may be made for such evident 
exaggerations, but unfortunately there are in- 
terspersed among them a long list of mis- 
leading half-truths, of which the following are 
examples: Bahia “is guarded by strong forts ” 
(p. 86); “both men and women in Brazil 
smoke” (p. 86); maté “enables people to do 
their work and endure hardships without 
fatigue” (p. 195); “bread (is) made from 
manioc flour” (p. 201) ; “ Brazil is larger than 
the United States” (p. 78), and the carriage 
drive over the crest of the Andes is a “dan- 
gerous trip” (p. 225). 
Certain other statements are even less than 
half-truths: speaking of the Amazon region, 
she says the “forest is always . . . brilliant 
with flowers” (p. 106); as a matter of fact it 
is rarely brilliant with flowers. The sandstone 
reefs of Pernambuco and the coast are called 
“the great coral reef,” and the “coral sea- 
wall” (pp. 82-83). It is said that petroleum 
has been discovered in Brazil (p. 89) (it has 
not); that “rich beds of . . . platinum are 
known to exist” in Brazil (p. 89) (they are 
not); and, among other things, “ pearls .. . 
are mined in various parts of the country” 
(p. 89)! 
A writer who makes such haphazard state- 
ments can hardly be expected to discriminate 
in regard to information of any kind. Thus 
we are told that Parané means “in the Indian 
language, ‘mother of the sea’” (p. 145); Dr. 
Theodoro Sampaio, an authority on the Tupi, 
says it means “like the sea” or “as big as the 
sea.” At page 103 it is said that the wet 
season in the Amazon valley is from November 
to February; Carvalho’s “ Météorologie du 
Brésil,” pp. 205 and 216, says it is January to 
May at Para, December to June at Obidos, 
and January to May on the Negro. 
The palm nuts used to smoke rubber in the 
Amazon region are spoken of as “the fuel he 
(the rubber cutter) likes best” (p. 119). It is 
not a matter of what he likes, but a demand 
of trade. From the beginning of the rubber 
industry to the present the rubber gatherers of 
the Amazon region have considered it nec- 
