January 17, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



105 



bert are gone into with considerable detail and 

 a number of important facts brought out which 

 will probably be new to most physicists, who 

 are not likely to have made a critical study of 

 the origin and sources of Bacon's philosophy. 

 Many of them will doubtless feel inclined to 

 rocommend to those admirers of the great chan- 

 cellor who are trying to prove that he wrote 

 the plays of Shakespeare the desirability of di- 

 verting their energies into an investigation of 

 the authorship of the Novum Organtim. 



There is a good account of the founding of 

 the Royal Society of London and of the elec- 

 trical and magnetic work of Boyle, Newton and 

 Halley. 



The concluding chapter is devoted to a pres- 

 entation of the discoveries of Benjamin Frank- 

 lin, in which, of course, will be found references 

 to many other contemporaneous electricians. 



The work is distinctly a history. No tech- 

 nical preparation is required to read it and it is 

 free from all mathematical or other discussions 

 which might involve difficulty. The style is in 

 the main excellent, but marred occasionally by 

 excessive exuberance and difiuseness. An ex- 

 ample of this is found in the several pages de- 

 voted to the story of Franklin's kite experi- 

 ment, a very small part of which reads as fol- 

 lows: 



' ' Quietly Franklin is arranging the silk rib- 

 bon and the key. This done he watches the 

 cord close to him. There is no sign yet to guide 

 him. Has he failed ? Suddenly he sees the 

 little loose fibres of the twine erect themselves. 

 He has not failed, but the moment has come. 

 Without a tremor he advances his knuckles to 

 the key. And then a little crack, a little spark 

 — ^the same little crack and the same little 

 spark which he had taken a hundred times from 

 his glass tube — and the great discovery is com- 

 plete, his name immortal." 



As a matter of fact, this kite experiment was 

 quite unnecessary to establish Franklin's claim, 

 which had before been put to the test in France, 

 and Franklin's fame would have been quite as 

 great without it, although unquestionably less 

 picturesque. The experiment was interesting 

 and not without dramatic quality, but, on the 

 whole, a description of it in Franklin's own 

 words would have been more satisfactory. 



An Introduction to the Study of Zoology. By B. 



Lindsay, C. S., of Girton Coll., Cambridge. 



London, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New 



York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. Pp. xix+356, 



with 124 illustrations and diagrams. $1.60. 

 ' This little volume forms one of the series of 

 ' Introductory Science Text-books,' and is de- 

 signed, as the author states in the preface, to 

 serve as ' a kind of guide book for readers who 

 are about to begin the study of zoology.' 



The plan of the book embraces a Glossary, 

 General Principles of Zoology (Part I.), Syste- 

 matic Zoology (Part II.), Advice to Students 

 (Part III.), and an index of subjects and of 

 names of genera. 



Part I. treats of the distinction between ani- 

 mals and plants, the cell, origin of species, em- 

 bryology, etc., much in the style of Claus and 

 Sedgwick's ' Text-book of Zoology,' whose work 

 apparently forms a basis for this. To the gen- 

 eral reader this part will doubtless prove in- 

 teresting, as it discusses in an attractive manner 

 the biological principles involved in an intelli- 

 gent study of the animal kingdom, and explains 

 the meaning of many of the terms and phrases 

 so often used but as often not understood. The 

 criticism might, however, be made that the 

 space (114 pages) given to this division of the 

 subject is too large in proportion to that de- 

 voted to the systematic portion of the work (190 

 pages). 



In Part II. we have a chapter discussing the 

 principles of classiflcation and, as examples of 

 classification by type, brief descriptions of 

 Amceba, Vorticella, Hydra and the earth-worm. 

 Then follow nine chapters each devoted to one 

 of the Phyla of the animal kingdom ; a table of 

 classification with examples of its use closes this 

 part. The concluding part has chapters on 

 ' The Use of Books ' and ' Practical Work ; ' in 

 these the student is referred to some of the 

 standard zoological works, and useful hints are 

 given to those who would learn to see and think 

 for themselves. 



The design of the book is certainly a good 

 one. Many readers of popular works on ani- 

 mals and their habits, would be glad to learn 

 something more of the relation that these ani- 

 mals bear to others, and of the zoological prin- 

 ciples as understood at the present day. To 



