DECEMBER 31, 1897. ] 
at the poles ; they try tosupport this asser- 
tion by reference to what they call ‘ an- 
other phenomenon, namely, that bodies 
taken down mines weigh Jess than when on 
the surface,’ which is not true, as they 
could have known by even a brief study of 
gravity before undertaking to upset its ac- 
cepted principles. They positively declare 
that two pendulums of different material 
made to agree in period of vibration at one 
point on the surface of the earth would not 
agree if carried to others, and, what is more 
extraordinary, they even suggest this as an 
experimentum erucis by which their theory 
may be tested. They are blissfully igno- 
rant of the fact that this experiment has 
been tried many times in many parts of the 
world and that it has always gone against 
them, as in the nature of things it must. 
It may now well be asked, is time so 
plenty, is other occupation so scarce and 
are the columns of Scrence so little in de- 
mand as to justify so much attention as this 
book has already received? Perhaps time 
and space are wasted, but some justification 
may be found in a few facts, one of which 
has already been alluded to—the book 
bears the stamp of a publishing house of 
the highest character and it has received 
lengthy and, on the whole, complimentary 
notice in recognized scientific journals. 
There is about it something of an air of 
scholarship calculated to impress and in 
some degree impose upon those who may 
There is 
considerable internal evidence to show that 
be unable to detect its fallacies. 
its authors are much more at home with 
metaphysics than with physics, although 
this may not be admitted by our brethren 
SCIENCE. 
973 
of that ilk. Finally, it is perhaps well to 
make an opportunity for emphasizing the 
fact that no man has a right to undertake 
such a discussion as this book pretends to 
be until he has qualified himself by an ex- 
haustive study of the principles which he 
proposes to attack. No man has a right to 
ask the ear of men of science or of an intel- 
ligent public on matters relating to science 
until he has demonstrated his own ability 
to understand and conduct a scientific in- 
vestigation, by the presentation of actual, 
approved work. At first blush it would 
seem that these men are entitled to pity 
and sympathy rather than harsh criticism. 
They richly deserve both, and especially the 
latter, when their pages abound in the state- 
ment that men of science are so restrained 
by tradition and authority that they do not 
expect them to receive anything new with 
favor. This is an old, worn-out plea and 
utterly inapplicable at the present time. 
Students of science were never so willing as 
now to give attention to new theories, how- 
ever revolutionary they maybe, and they 
do not always insist that they should be im- 
mediately supported by facts, provided they 
emanate from one whose recognized accom- 
plishments are such as to give reasonable 
assurance that he knows what he is talking 
about. If the authors of ‘Some Unrecog- 
nized' Laws of Nature’ will now spend as 
much time as they have already spent in 
making the book in a serious attempt to 
study and understand some of the recog- 
nized elementary principles of physical sci- 
ence, the twentieth century may listen to 
them, if by that time they have anything 
to say. M. 
