Jan. 6, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



15 



REVIEWS. 



Other Suns Than Ours; a Scries of Essays on Suns — Old, 

 Young, and Dead. By R. A. Proctor. London : 

 W. H. Allen and Co. 1887. 



We must confess to a feeling of disappointment on 

 reading Mr. Proctor's latest volume. The title is sug- 

 gestive of the interesting and carefully-written works of 

 ten years ago, which fascinated the most unscientific 

 readers by their attractive and fresh descriptions of the 

 results of recent researches, and by the playful fancies of 

 a daring imagination. The author has done immense 

 service as a successful populariser of the driest facts, by 

 stripping them of tedious figures and bewildering for- 

 mula, without sacrificing that accuracy which consti- 

 tutes the value of all scientific writing. 



The first quarter of the book before us deals with 

 stars, and is illustrated by two reproductions of the 

 triple photographs of the brothers Henry (ouly a single 

 image of each star is given), by several portions of star 

 maps, and bj' an extraordinary " section from my chart 

 of 324,198 stars," which conveys nothing but the idea 

 that it has been printed from a sheet of rather coarse 

 sand-paper. We do not get beyond page two before we 

 are reminded that it is Mr. Proctor who is writing, and 

 who must needs bring in the possible deals at whist as 

 an illustration of a chance coincidence. Three pages 

 later the tossing of a coin is given as an example of the 

 calculation of probability. It is fair to add that these 

 fads do not appear again until near the end of the volume. 



The two serious faults which we find with the book 

 are the constant repetition of arguments and phrases, 

 and the lack of new and interesting matter. With one 

 or two exceptions, the book is decidedly dull. We are 

 told that Sir W. Herschel rejected the hypothesis of 

 conical or cylindrical extensions of the stellar system in 

 rich regions of the sky, and yet this phrase is repeated 

 with trifling variations, twelve times in forty-seven con- 

 secutive pages. We have the quotation from Sir John 

 Herschel four times over : " The access to the Nubeculse 

 on all sides is through a desert," each time we are duly 

 informed that the Magellanic Clouds are being referred 

 to. The book is no doubt a collection of essaj's which 

 have already appeared in magazines ; but a little care in 

 revision would render this no disadvantage. In three 

 chapters on comets which fail to maintain the interest 

 of Mr. Proctor's earlier writings, the discussion of Schia- 

 parelli's suggestion of the capture of a comet or a meteor 

 flight by a planet becomes wearisome, for the problem is 

 worked out in considerable detail in chap, ix., and 

 appears again in the following chapter, which bears 

 evidence of having been written as a separate essay. 

 A chapter on sun spots is more readable, though it is not 

 clear why it should bear the title of " A New Theory of 

 Sun spots." Considerable stress is laid on the idea that 

 the solar prominences are not actual eruptions of glowing 

 hydrogen, but are trails in the wake of invisible pro- 

 jectiles. It should be noted that the author assumes that 

 his readers are to some extent famihar with Biela and 

 Le Sage's theory of gravitation ; that " every one knows 

 that the earth contains eighty-one times as much matter 

 as the moon " ; and that " doubtless every reader of these 

 pages is familiar with the theoretical advantages of the 

 great circle track " ; this being so, it is surprising that in 

 chap. xiv. on " A Dead World " he should try to enliven 

 the subject by jokes which might be excused were they 

 more witty and less vulgar. We are told that the alter- 



nations of temperature on the surface of the moon are 

 such that they may vary from 282 degrees below freez- 

 ing to 38 degrees above boiling. " The stoutest 

 among us would be killed by ten seconds of such cold, 

 as surely as he would be killed by one second in boiling 

 water." Why water ? there is none in the moon, and 

 every frequenter of a Turkish bath is aware that with 

 the simple condition of dryness a temperature decidedly 

 above boiling-point is not only not fatal, but to many 

 persons very enjoyable. In the same chapter it is 

 stated that since sulphurous, boracic, and hydrochloric 

 acid vapours are, at the present day, emitted by 

 the earth's crust, that showers of "active acids, still 

 intensely hot " and " fiery hot vitriol " used to form a 

 feature of a climate that must have been anything but 

 salubrious. 



We have little to say on the " other science glean- 

 ings," which treat of heredity, germs, the misused H 

 in England, and the morality of signalling in whist ; 

 they would be more in place in an additional volume of 

 " Light Science for Leisure Hours," or some such collec- 

 tion, than in their present position. With careful revi- 

 sion and the addition of a few simple diagrams, in chaps. 

 xi., xii., and xviii., "Other Suns than Ours" maybe 

 brought up to the level of Mr. Proctor's well-known and 

 widely-appreciated writings. 



Manual of Bacteriology. By Edgar M. Crookshank, M.B. 

 (Lond.) Second Edition, 1SS7. London: H. K. 

 Lewis. 



That a second edition of this work should be called for 

 a few months after the issue of the first is evidence alike 

 of its value, and of the interest and importance of its 

 subject. The new book is considerably larger than its 

 predecessor, be|ng of 439 pages instead of 249, and 

 having seventy-three additional illustrations. Chapters 

 on the General Morphology and Physiology of Bacteria, 

 on Antiseptics and Disinfectants, and on Immunity, have 

 been added. 



In the chapter on Antiseptics and Disinfectants the 

 author brings forward the views of Herroun on mercuric 

 chloride, the fashionable antiseptic of the day. Accord- 

 ing to experiments made by Herroun, septic bacteria can 

 be cultivated in albuminous filtrates, containing i in 

 2000 of the salt. However this may be, although the fact 

 is generally ignored, there can be no doubt that the 

 sulphur of albuminous bodies readily converts the 

 chloride into the inert sulphide ; and it is evident that 

 the practical value of this, as of other antiseptics, has not 

 yet received its full explanation. In the book before us 

 our present knowledge and our present difficulties are 

 clearly and fully stated. 



The question of immunity or insusceptibility to infec- 

 tive disease is one of the highest practical interest, and 

 we have never seen so concise and comprehensive a 

 survey of the subject as we find here. Incidentally the 

 author alludes to the degree of acquired immunity from 

 certain diseases, which exists in civilized as compared 

 with savage or isolated communities. We may point 

 out that this seems an example of selection, whereby the 

 most susceptible have been gradually eliminated, and the 

 relatively insusceptible preserved ; and that it indicates 

 a danger associated with all efforts at protection suc- 

 cessful on a large scale — the danger of the occurrence 

 of devastating epidemics among artificially protected 

 peoples, like those which so often almost destroy savage 

 nations. 



