June 22, 1888.J 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



591 



be driven from one part of their substance to another. 

 Friction produces caloric because it "has a tendency to 

 flow toivards a point of excitement!' And more astound- 

 irg slill — " When water is poured upon quick-lime, the 

 caloric ivhich caused the fluidity of the water is given off!" 

 In Chapter XVIII. a misplaced devotion to Final Causes 

 leads the compiler to state that the radiation of heat from 

 rough surfaces " exhibits the Divine wisdom " in that " it 

 causes the deposition of dew upon grass, plants, and 

 trees," while " upon barren rocks, etc., -where dew 'would 

 be of no benefit, it does not form." Unfortunately the 

 stern logic of facts compels him to refer, on the next 

 pape, to the saturating of a sheep's back, in which no 

 ingenuity can find a benevolent purpose. On page 115 

 there is the very queer remark that " there is as much 

 heat in the body of a man as would, if it were com- 

 pressed into a smaller space, cause a bar of iron of 

 considerable size to become red hot." 



The chemistry of Chapter XXXIII. is like a bad 

 dream. " Oxygen gas is oxygen rendered gaseous by 

 caloric," and " by itself it is incombustible." Nitrogen is 

 — mirabile dictu ! — " the .principal {sic) of nitre made 

 gaseous by combination with caloric." 



Have we now, we may ask, made good our charge ? 

 If not, surely we shall dispel any lingering doubt of its 

 validity by referring to page 145, where the reader is 

 told that " combustion is a chemical process by which 

 certain substances decompose oxygen gas, absorb its base, 

 and suffer its caloric to escape, producing heat ! " 



We may incidentally remark that the italics in our 

 quotations are the compiler's own, and that in many in- 

 stances he thus emphasizes, perhaps by way of defying 

 modern science, the most glaring of his errors. 



It is saddening to see a book like this — inaccurate, 

 misleading, devoid of the scientific spirit — put in circula- 

 tion as a competitor with, for instance, the admirable 

 First Year of Scientific Knowledge, written by the late 

 M. Paul Bert ; more saddening still to reflect that many 

 well-meaning people will buy it rather than this last, be- 

 cause they have not yet learned to be more anxious to 

 seek truth than afraid of finding it. 



A Catalogue of the Moths of India. Compiled by E. C 



Cates, First Assistant to the Superintendent, Indian 



Museum, and Colonel C. Swinhoe, F.L.S., F.E.S., 



F.Z.S., etc. Part I. "Sphinges." Calcutta; The 



Trustees of the Indian Museum. 



Times have changed since Linnaeus included all the 



known hawk-moths in the single genus Sphinx. We 



now find them raised to the rank of a family, the 



Sphingidae, including 187 species found in India alone, 



and subdivided into the sub-families Macroglossinae, 



Cha?rocampinse, Ambulacina:,Smerinthinas, Acherontince 



and Sphinginse, including no fewer than 35 genera. 



An interesting fact concerning these hawk-moths is 

 their very wide range. Owing to their great strength of 

 wing and wonderful swiftness, they find little difficulty in 

 crossing seas, deserts and mountain-ranges. They are 

 also more versatile in the selection of food than most 

 other moths and butterflies. Thus the beautiful 

 "Oleander-hawk," Daphnis Nerii, which in Europe and 

 around the Mediterranean feeds upon the oleander, and 

 in case of need upon the periwinkle, is able to thrive in 

 Ceylon upon the Cinchona tree, a plant belonging, botani- 

 cally speaking, to a quite different family, and possessing 

 very dissimilar chemical properties. Hence this species 

 of insect is met with in Europe, Africa both North and 



South, Mauritius, Madagascar, India, and, we believe, 

 in the Bermudas. We are, indeed, inclined to suspect 

 that the hawk-moths tend to become cosmopolitan, with 

 the exception of the frigid and sub-frigid zones and of 

 desert territories. 



It is rather curious, however, that the deaths'-head 

 {Acherontia atropos) has not yet been recognised in India, 

 though its near relatives, A. styx, A. medusa, and A. niorta 

 are here recorded. The first and the last of these three 

 species were formerly regarded as varieties oi A. atropos. 



In so brief a catalogue, no information can, of courfe, 

 be given beyond the synonymy, and the Iccalilies 01 

 each species, but it is nevertheless a valuable contiibu- 

 tion to animal geographj'. 



Tropical Africa. By H. Drummond, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 

 London : Hodder and Stoughton. 



This volume is by no means entirely scientific in its 

 subject matter. It is mainly, we may say, philanthropic, 

 and, to some extent, even political. But the political 

 chapter by no means displays the plague-spot of faction ; 

 and with the philanthropic portions, there are inter- 

 woven observations of very general interest. 



The region specially explored by the author includes 

 the valley of the Zambezi, from the coast to the 

 junction of its great affluent, the Shire, the lakes Shirwa 

 and Nyassa, and the hill country lying about the head of 

 the latter in the direction of Lake Tanganyika. 



To persons desirous of exploring East Central Africa, 

 he recommends the route of the Zambezi in preference 

 to land-routes from Zanzibar, a town which he designates 

 as a " cesspool of wickedness." The black porters to be 

 hired there are for " laziness, ugliness, stupidness, and 

 wickedness not to be matched on any Continent of the 

 world." 



On his course up the Shire he noticed the exquisite 

 blue and scarlet kingfisher, watching its prey from the 

 boughs with a business-like air, almost comical. The 

 adaptation of the adult crocodiles to the colours of their 

 environment he regards as something wonderful. The 

 agricultural capabilities of the river valleys he considers 

 as unlimited. Indigo, orchella-weeds (now in much less 

 request than heretofore), and calumba-root abound, and 

 oil-seeds and sugar-cane could be produced in quantity. 

 The elephant at home, Mr. Drummond tells us, is as 

 nimble as a kitten. He thinks, at the same time, that 

 " the sooner the last elephant falls the better for Africa." 

 For every tusk an Arab trader purchases he must buy, 

 borrow, or steal a slave to carry it to the coast. The 

 extermination of the elephant will mark one stage at 

 least in the closing up of the slave trade. The abundance 

 and beauty of the zebras and the impudence of the lions 

 in the country near the mission station of Blantyre are 

 especially noticed. Throughout all Central Africa there 

 is, it appears, a perfect net-work of foot-paths in all 

 directions — narrow, certainly, and not too straight as far 

 as minor turnings and windings are concerned, but dis- 

 tinctly marked-out and trodden hard. 



Malarial fever he considers " the one sad certainty." 

 It prevails over the whole east and west coasts, within 

 the tropics, along the river courses, on the shores of the 

 inland lakes, and in all lowlyirg and marshy districts. 

 " Natives," the author tells us, " suffer from fever equally 

 with Europeans, and this more particularly in changing 

 from district to district, and from altitude to altitude." 

 Quinine he pronounces the great remedy. He does not 

 seem to have raised the questions whether the malarial 



