450 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1030 



waters witl. copper sulphate, Professor 

 Whipple rightly estimates as of great useful- 

 ness, although usually as a palliative rather 

 than a permanent remedy. Reliance must be 

 placed in the last resort upon aeration, which 

 changes the odoriferous essential oils produced 

 by the microorganisms into inodorous com- 

 pounds, combined with filtration for the re- 

 moval of the organisms themselves. The value 

 of this procedure has been clearly demon- 

 strated both experimentally and on a practical 

 scale, and Professor Whipple describes plants 

 in operation at Eochester and Albany and 

 New York City, and at Springfield, Mass., a 

 view of the Springfield aerating fountain form- 

 ing a very attractive frontispiece for the vol- 

 ume. 



About a quarter of Professor Whipple's book 

 is devoted to a systematic description of the 

 more important genera of water microorgan- 

 isms. The plates of the first edition have been 

 made much more valuable by being colored, and 

 five new plates have been added, one showing 

 the results of the cotton disc filter test and the 

 other four being photomicrographs of impor- 

 tant water organisms. O.-E. A. WmsLOW 



American Museum of ISTatueal History, 

 New York 



Essays and Studies Fresented to William 

 Ridgeway on his Sixtieth Birthday. Edited 

 by E. 0. QuiGGiN. TJniversity Press, Cam- 

 bridge, 1913. Pp. XXV + 656, 93 illustra- 

 tions. 



If a commemoration volume is an index to 

 the scope of the work done by the man it is 

 intended to honor, the Eidgeway volume is 

 indeed a monument to the versatility of the 

 distinguished British scholar. The one draw- 

 back about such a work is that only a Eidgeway 

 could adequately review it. There are, for 

 example, 25 papers dealing with classics and 

 archeology — two large but related fields. Then 

 under the head of "Medieval Literature and 

 History" come half a dozen or more impor- 

 tant papers. 



About half the work is devoted to anthro- 

 pology and comparative religion. Sample 

 articles under this section include : "' The 



Weeping God," by T. A. Joyce ; " The Serpent 

 and the Tree of Life," by J. G. Erazer ; " The 

 Problem of the Galley Hill Skeleton," by W. 

 L. H. Duckworth ; " The Beginnings of Music," 

 by C. S. Myers ; " Kite Eishing," by Henry 

 Balfour, and " The Outrigger Canoes of Torres 

 Straits and North Queensland," by A. C. 

 Haddon. 



Lack of space precludes the thought of re- 

 viewing the various articles even in a summary 

 fashion. Only two will be selected for this 

 purpose : " The Contact of Peoples," by W. 

 H. R. Elvers, and " The Evolution of the 

 Eock-cut Tomb and the Dolmen," by G. Elliott 

 Smith. As to the contact of peoples Elvers 

 begins with the formulation of the principle 

 that the extent of the influence of one people 

 upon another depends on the difference in the 

 level of their cultures. He tests the principle 

 by applying it to a study of two complex 

 ethnologic problems, viz. : Australian culture 

 and Megalithic monuments. It is shown that 

 Australian culture is not simple, but complex, 

 this complexity being due to many elements 

 derived from without. These elements are 

 supposed to have been introduced at intervals 

 by small bodies of immigrants whose culture 

 seemed so wonderful to the lowly natives that 

 they were able to wield a far-reaching influ- 

 ence, one in fact which was carried by second- 

 ary movements throughout the continent. 

 After a time the culture of the immigrants 

 would degenerate, leaving little that was per- 

 manent. The traces of these successive influ- 

 ences, however, would live in magical rites, 

 religion, myth, and tradition. This would 

 account for the highly complex social and 

 magico-religious institutions of the Austra- 

 lians, coupled with the extraordinary simplic- 

 ity and crudeness of their material and even 

 esthetic arts. 



The same principle is called into requisition 

 to account for the presence of megalithic 

 monuments in such widely separated parts of 

 the earth. Megalithic culture is thus carried 

 not by vast movements of a conquering peo- 

 ple, but by the migration of small bodies of 

 men, the movement being one of culture 

 rather than of race. Such a view is certainly 



