August 22, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



273 



edition of Hume's " Nests and Eggs of Indian 

 Birds." Mr. Gates prepared and published the 

 first four volumes of the " Catalogue of Birds' 

 Eggs," and had considerable manuscript for 

 the final volume, when his death in 1911 

 brought the work to a close for a time. After 

 considerable unavoidable delay Mr. Ogilvie- 

 Grant has finally completed the undertaking 

 with the present volume, which covers nine- 

 teen families of passerine birds, beginning 

 with the white-eyes (Zosteropidce) and ending 

 with the crow-shrikes {Striperidce) . It treats 

 of 1,117 species and over 19,000 specimens. 



The nomenclature and systematic arrange- 

 ment — as in previous volumes — follows that 

 of Sharpe's " Hand-list," and in all cases ref- 

 erence is made to that work and to the " Cata- 

 logue of Birds," where the species was known 

 when the latter work was published. There is 

 also reference to the other more important 

 works, especially those having figures of eggs. 

 The descriptions appear to be carefully drawn 

 with average measurements as well as men- 

 tion of unusual or peculiar sizes and markings. 

 The plates are beautifully executed and as the 

 species treated are all of small size it has been 

 possible to include something over four hun- 

 dred figures. Altogether this is a highly suc- 

 cessful completion of a notable undertaking. 

 F. H. Knowlton 



Ahhandlungen und Vortrdge zur GeschicMe 

 der Naturwissenschaften. Vol. II. By 

 Professor Dr. Edmund O. von Lippmann. 

 Published by Veit and Co., Leipzig. 1913. 

 Large 8to. 491 pp. 



Those scientific readers who enjoyed Pro- 

 fessor Lippmann's " Essays and Addresses on 

 the History of the Natural Sciences," which 

 appeared in 1906, will welcome the appearance 

 of this second companion volume. 



Since the time of Kopp, whose monumental 

 " Geschichte der Chemie " was printed just 

 YO years ago, no one in Germany has delved 

 so deeply as Lippmann in the abstruse field of 

 ancient chemical science, and certainly no 

 one has better understood how to arouse an 

 interest in matters which might seem to the 

 general reader to lack importance. 



The 32 papers in Vol. I. of the " Ahhand- 

 lungen " dealt with such themes as the scien- 

 tific and chemical knowledge contained in the 

 works of Pliny, Dioscorides, Albiruni and 

 Shakespeare; alchemistic poetry; the history 

 of freezing mixtures, gunpowder, glass and the 

 thermometer; biographical essays upon Marg- 

 graf, Achard, Mitscherlich, Leonardo da Vinci, 

 Francis Bacon, Descartes and Robert Mayer; 

 an account of two unpublished letters of Lie- 

 big ; an address concerning Goethe's " Theory 

 of Colors " ; and other papers too numerous 

 to mention. 



In the new collection of " Ahhandlungen 

 und Vortrage," which has just been published, 

 we note the same range and variety of sub- 

 jects as were treated in the first volume. 

 There are in all 36 additional papers in which 

 we find discussed such topics as the chemical 

 and scientific knowledge of the ancient Egypt- 

 ians and Greeks and of the middle ages, as 

 shown by the Ebers Papyrus, by the works of 

 Plato and Aristotle and by the thirteenth-cen- 

 tury " Regime du Corps " of Aldebrandino di 

 Siena; the history of the water bath, the spe- 

 cific gravity spindle and the autoclave; the 

 history of lead-soldering and of distillation 

 and of the uses of petroleum as a fuel and of 

 sugar as a preservative; the derivation and 

 history of the terms " caput mortuum," alco- 

 hol, gas and potash; biographical papers upon 

 Jean Ray, upon Alexander von Humboldt as 

 the precursor of the theory of isomerism, and 

 upon Liebig's relationship to Robert Mayer 

 and the theory of conservation of energy; 

 critical interpretations of obscure passages in 

 Aristotle's Meteorology and in Goethe's 

 Faust; and many other papers equally inter- 

 esting and important. The pages of the book, 

 as of the previous volume, are enlivened with 

 anecdotes and curious bits of folklore, and it 

 is difiicult to recall another work of the kind 

 which combines equally so much instruction 

 and entertainment. 



In these two volumes of the " Ahhandlungen 

 und Vortrage " additional surprises and pleas- 

 ures are in store for those who have come to 

 marvel at the many-sidedness of Professor 



