i6o 



SCIENTIFIC NEAVS. 



[Feb. 17, I S 



■competitive strain ; but I challenge the production of even 

 ■one man of pre-eminent and advanced power who has 

 been brought out in complete and sustained and acknow- 

 ledged mastery of intellect by the competitive plan. 

 Competition has murdered mind." 



This passage alone ought to secure for the work before 

 us a wide circulation among all classes of this "examined " 

 country. 



But there is also much, very much else worthy of 

 notice. Some of the author's proposed health-reforms 

 may, indeed, savour of Utopia, yet in the above quoted 

 passage he points to a sanitary reform which would cost 

 nothing and which could be accomplished at a blow. 



The Story of the Niger. Illustrated. London : T. Nelson 

 and Sons. 

 In this attractive little volume is told the story of the 

 mysterious river from the days of Mungo Park down to 

 the present time. It is a story full of interest and of 

 suggestiveness too. We seem in reading it to see ahead 

 ■of us some such vision as that of Winwood Reade — a 

 vision of the time when " the cockneys of Timbuctoo 

 have their tea-gardens in the oases of the Sahara ; when 

 hotels and guide books are established at the sources of 

 'the Nile ; when it becomes fashionable to go yachting on 

 the lakes of the Great Plateau ; when noblemen, building 

 seats in Central Africa, will have their elephant parks 

 and their hippopotami water ; young ladies on camp- 

 stools under palm-trees will read with tears ' The Last of 

 the Negroes,' and the Niger will become as romantic a 

 river as the Rhine." But the time is not yet, and mean- 

 awhile many boys, even those of larger growth, will find 

 pleasure, and possibly profit, from this concise account of 

 what has been achieved by great explorers of the past 

 and present. 



Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Ship- 

 builders in Scotland. Thirty-first Session. 1887-88. 



This issue contains an account of an improved riveting 

 machine, by Mr. Hugh Smith ; of a paper on Copper 

 ■and Copper Castings, by Mr. G. C. Thomson, F.C.S.; and 

 Experiments on the Strength of Copper Steam-pipes 

 made at Lancefield, by Mr. Nisbet Sinclair. 



Mr. Thomson mentions that arsenic and silver are 

 almost invariably present as impurities in copper; that 

 bismuth is also very commonly present, except in copper 

 obtained from Australian and Siberian carbonates ; that 

 antimony is less frequently present than it has been 

 generally supposed, and that lead, though rare in cake- 

 coppers, is almost invariably found in copper sheets and 

 rods. 



•.Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 

 September, 1887. 

 The papers read and discussed at this meeting were : 

 "^' Experiments on the Distribution of Heat in a Sta- 

 tionary Steam-Engine," and " Supplementary Experi- 

 ments on the Initial Condensation in a Steam-Cylinder," 

 both by Major Thomas English, R.E. These papers are 

 too purely technical to admit of examination in our 

 ■columns. 



■►-J»S5*>^5*f-» ■ 



Malleable Brass. — To make malleable brass, first melt 

 ■33 parts of copper in a crucible which is loosely covered, 

 then add 25 parts of zinc — this must be purified by sulphur. 

 — Mecha?iical Progress. 



THE RATE OF ANIMAL DEVELOP- 

 MENT.— II. 



{Cotuliided from page 137.) 



OF course it would be somewhat unfair to demand of 

 such men as Addison and Whewell that before 

 attempting to theorise they should go forth to the forests 

 of Borneo in search of facts. But surely every man in 

 England, though he may never have met with infant apes, 

 must have seen how kittens when beginning to walk, 

 totter, stagger, and roll over, just like young children ; how 

 they pat at and endeavour to touch objects beyond their 

 reach, and how, even after their fore-legs have gained a 

 considerable degree of firmness and obey the will, the 

 hinder extremities remain feeble, and are often for a time, 

 trailed helplessly along. Thus, then, we see that in the 

 class mammalia, man, instead of standing alone in sharp 

 contrast to the rest of the class, merely occupies one end 

 of a series at the other extremity of which rank our oft- 

 mentioned friends the colt and the lamb, whilst the 

 carnivorous animals and the apes come in between, the 

 rate of development of each species being slower and 

 slower as it approaches in its structure more and more 

 nearly to man. Some very obvious reasons why such 

 must be the case will follow in due course. 



But what are the facts concerning birds ? Are they all 

 able as soon as they quit the shell to direct the beak with 

 perfect accuracy, to select proper food and to flutter 

 about, awaiting merely the growth of their wing-feathers 

 to be able to fly ? Davy's " Ornither " must have been 

 either a wilful deceiver or an egregious goose. Had he 

 been a careful and conscientious observer he must have 

 been aware that what he affirms of birds in general is 

 true in any sense merely of the poultry tribe, the waders, 

 water-fowl, and the ostrich tribe, but assuredly not of the 

 song-birds, the crows, the doves, the parrots, and the 

 birds of prey. Did any of the authors we have referred 

 to, after indulging in platitudes on " young ducks," ever 

 take the trouble to look at a young hawk, a young thrush, 

 or a young canary ? Had they done so they would have 

 seen that such nestlings, instead of being able to " direct 

 the beak with the greatest accuracy," can merely sit in 

 the nest with open mouth, waiting to be fed. A young 

 canary, so far from being able to stand or hop, seldom 

 fails to break its legs if startled and urged by fright to 

 attempt leaving its nest. Such facts as these are known 

 to every bird-fancier in the Seven Dials, and to every 

 rustic youth who has robbed a nest and has then attempted 

 to rear the callow young. They are not known, it 

 appears, to men of learning. It was, we believe, the 

 Prime Minister of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who 

 said to his son : " Thou knowest not with how little 

 wisdom the world is governed." In like manner we 

 know not with how little accurate, thorough knowledge- 

 books are written, imposing reputations built up, and the 

 world is misinstructed. 



Professor Whewell, of course, may be considered a 

 type of those men whose knowledge is entirely derived 

 from books. Still it might have been expected that he 

 would some day have stumbled upon the following 

 passage from good old Gilbert White : — " On the fifth of 

 July, 1775, I untiled part of a roof over the nest of a 

 swift. The squab young we brought down and placed 

 upon the grass-plot, where they tumbled about and were 

 as helpless as a new-born child. When we contemplated 

 their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportionate 



