412 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. Till. No. 195. 



business, conciliatory manners, and, above all, 

 indomitable and conscientious industry in the 

 discharge of the small and somewhat monoto- 

 nous routine duties which constitute so large a 

 part of a curator's life." No one not familiar 

 with the requirements of a large public museum 

 could have put the case so graphically, nor 

 would he have added : " Such being the require- 

 ments of the profession, what are the induce- 

 ments offered to me to take it up as a means of 

 livelihood ? " And in answer to this Sir William 

 quotes some examples of the ' inducements ' of- 

 fered, which in many cases are small enough, 

 and to us, on this side of the water, where 

 museum work is beginning to be better appre- 

 ciated, even pitifully small. And, again, we 

 read that " museums do not grow of themselves ; 

 money, time, knowledge and loving and sym- 

 pathetic care must be expended upon them," 

 and that " a museum must have an endowment 

 adequate to defray its expenses and especially 

 to ensure the staff of intelligent, educated and 

 paid curators required to maintain it in a state 

 of efficiency." All of which comes with unusual 

 force from one who had drawn one of the few 

 great prizes in museums, but who nevertheless 

 realized the general inadequacy of museum 

 salaries. 



As regards the exhibition part of a museum 

 the ground is well taken that the number of 

 objects should be limited, but that every care 

 should be taken in their selection, preparation 

 and installation, and a plea is entered for the 

 ' sadly-neglected art of taxidermy.' While it is 

 to be borne in mind that this plea was made 

 nearly ten years ago, it is a plea that will stand 

 reiteration for some time to come. The advo- 

 cacy of the concentration of type specimens 

 in large museums will commend itself to all 

 workers, for while it may sound well to have it 

 said that this and that institution possesses such 

 and such types the student can well appreciate 

 the boon of having them concentrated. 



Local, School and Boys' Museums are each the 

 subject of an essay, and each contains many 

 valuable ideas, while the concluding paper of 

 the museum series, though first in point of time, 

 is devoted to the history of the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. The evolution of 

 this great institution from the collections left 



by John Hunter is described at length, and while 

 the museum owes its existence to the untiring 

 zeal and industry of Hunter, yet we learn that 

 in housing, caring for and adding to the Hun- 

 terian collection the College of Surgeons has 

 expended over $2,000,000. 



In connection with the papers on museums 

 Professor Flower pays tribute to the memory of 

 Dr. G. Brown Goode, whose energy and devo- 

 tion have done so much to advance the stand- 

 ards of museum methods in the United States. 



Among the essays on subjects other than 

 museums that on ' The Paleontological Evidence 

 of Gradual Modification of Animal Forms ' may 

 still be read with profit, notwithstanding that 

 since it was written, some twenty-five years 

 ago, there has been a great accumulation of 

 facts, especially through the labors of American 

 paleontologists. 



' Fashion in Deformity ' will probably lead in 

 favor among the anthropological papers, al- 

 though all are interesting and instructive read- 

 ing. 



'Whales and Whale Fisheries,' the most re- 

 cent of all, is a most admirable risumi of the 

 subject ; and the history of the southern whale 

 fishery, now being repeated in the Arctic, shows 

 Avell that no animal is too large nor its pursuit 

 too difficult to prevent its extermination if only 

 there is a little money in it. 



While we can but regret the loss to science 

 through the enforced period of restraint from 

 active occupation noted in the opening lines of 

 the preface, yet the bringing together and is- 

 suing of this volume of essays is at least some 

 small compensation to the public. 



F. A. L. 



NEW BOOKS. 

 Infinitesimal Analysis : Vol. I. Elementary : Real 



Variables. William Benjamin Smith. New 



York and London, The Macmillan Company. 



1898. Pp. XV + 352. $3.25. 

 The Groundwork of Science .• A Study in Episte- 



mology. St. George Mivart. New York, G. 



P. Putnam's Sons ; London, Bliss, Sands & 



Co. 1898. Pp. xviii + 328. 

 Die Cliemie im taglichen Lehen. Lassar-Cohn. 



Hamburg und Leipzig, Leopold Voss. 1898. 



3d Edition. Pp. vii + 317. 



