B22 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 625. 



mental conditions permit, to other similar 

 reactions involving substitution. 



We desire to call special attention to the 

 discovery that acetic acid and sulphuric acid 

 play a definite part in determining the posi- 

 tion of the entering nitro group, because, 

 heretofore, the belief has been quite general 

 that when present vpith nitric acid the func- 

 tion of the sulphuric acid was confined to with- 

 drawing from the sphere of activity the water 

 formed during the process of nitration, while 

 the acetic acid was regarded as a diluent to 

 reduce the activity of the nitric acid. Oxalic 

 acid and trichloracetic acid do not appear to 

 have been previously employed in nitration 

 experiments. 



J. Bishop Tingle, 

 r. C. Blanck. 



Johns Hopkins University, 

 November 24, 1906. 



NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF NATURAL 



SCIENCE. 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. 



To that dauntless literary freebooter of the 

 fourteenth century who^ styled himself Sir 

 John Mandeville, and whose ' Voiage and 

 Travaile ' enjoyed for a long time enormous 

 popularity, very little consideration is given 

 by historians of natural science. Yet this 

 extraordinary compilation contains many mat- 

 ters of interest to the zoologist, botanist and 

 even geologist of our day, to say nothing of 

 its value from a purely literary or philological 

 standpoint. 



A fruitful theme for investigation has been 

 an analysis of the sources, contemporary, early 

 medieval and ancient, from which the narrator 

 made wholesale robberies. Claiming to have 

 been the traveling companion of Friar Odoric, 

 the Bohemian (1286-1331), he appropriated 

 bodily large portions of that noted traveler's 

 itinerary, and precisely these portions are of 

 chief interest to the naturalist. Concerning 

 this question of sources, one may consult the 

 splendid bilingual edition published by the 

 Eoxburghe Club, with notes by Mr. Warner, 

 of the British Museum, and the valuable essay 

 by Albert Bovenschen, published by the Berlin 

 Geographical Society in 1888. 



A point of interest to the geologist is Sir 

 John's mention, in chapter 8, of the eruptive 

 condition of Etna and the Lipari Isles. Very 

 incomplete records have been preserved of 

 early Liparian eruptions, and it would be in- 

 teresting to find the statement confirmed by 

 other writers that ' there be seven swelges that 

 burn.' In the original French version this 

 passage concludes : " Et de Ytaille iusques a 

 ces volcans nad pluis de xxv. lieuez; et dit 

 homme qe ces sunt chymenes denfern." This 

 last remark is evidently a localization of a 

 familiar legend, but whether original or not 

 on the part of the author is hard to say. A 

 parallelism exists, though I am not aware of 

 any one having called attention to it, with 

 one of the ' Dialogues ' of St. Gregory, where 

 the hermit of Lipari is described as having 

 seen Theodoric the Great, on the day of his 

 death, carried in bonds between Pope John 

 and Symmachus, and thrown into the Volcano 

 of Lipari. It was also a popular belief during 

 the middle ages that Charles Martel had been 

 banished within the crater of Stromboli. 



Concerning the animal lore scattered 

 throughout Sir John's book, it has been ob- 

 served that " all the old legends of the 

 Alexander saga and of the ' Miracles of the 

 Orient ' ^ are here amalgamated with much 

 that is new about those fabulous monsters 

 with which the medieval fancy populated the 

 mysterious East." Yet besides these fables 

 there is much authentic information of real 

 value. A single point, of minor interest to 

 be sure, is worth mentioning on account of its 

 having engaged Cuvier's attention. A curious 

 subversion of the Andromeda legend occurs in 

 chapter 5 of Mandeville's book, where it is 

 said that one of the ribs of the monster found 

 at Joppa measured forty feet in length. The 

 statement is evidently borrowed from Solinus 

 (chapter 34), who obtained his information in 

 turn from Pliny ('Nat. Hist.,' v. 14; ix., 4). 

 According to the latter, the total length of 

 the creature, whose bones were conveyed to 

 Eome and exhibited there, was forty feet; and 

 as shown by Cuvier, the description could not 

 have applied to any other animal than a whale. 



^ References to the spread of this literature are 

 given in Science, Vol. 23, p. 195. 



