202 



HA ED IVICKE' S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



as every cyclone, hurricane, thunderstorm, earthquake 

 and volcanic eruption plainly indicates. The shores 

 of the Mediterranean round about that giant volcano, 

 Mount Etna, are at this very moment throbbing, 

 riving and groaning, overflowing with natural energy. 

 All natural energy can easily be translated by man 

 into light, heat and motion. Coal could do no more, 

 even if our planet were a solid mass of it. The 

 history of the last fifteen years of physical scientific 

 discovery, particularly in electricity, reads like a 

 fairy tale. Who would have thought, fifteen years 

 ago, that we should now be speaking to each other 

 at distances a thousand miles apart, through wires 

 not exceeding the thickness of a fiddle-string ? that 

 the phonograph core would be mailed to Australia 

 and elsewhere, with the vocal blessings and last 

 words of fathers and mothers in England — that our 

 streets, houses and ocean-going ships would be 

 lighted by electricity with the brilliancy of the noon- 

 day sun, to say nothing of the dark places of the 

 earth, such as coal and metal mines, which are 

 healthier, by the same illuminative power ? — that the 

 tramcars of our streets would be locomotived by 

 electricity instead of steam, and it would be possible 

 in the year 1892 to purchase electrical energy, 

 capable of being applied in half a score different 

 ways, just as easily as to get the fossilised energy 

 called coal at a coal merchant's stores ? 



The next three centuries and a half will witness a 

 marvellous development of economic science. Coal, 

 long before that, as a form of energy will be regarded 

 as a somewhat antique, archaeological and worked- 

 out material. The ebbing and flowing tides, the 

 shifting winds, the running waters to the ocean, will 

 have taken its place. Perhaps by a period in the 

 future no further distant than that which separates us 

 from Queen Bess's glorious days, even the volcanic 

 and earthquake energy of our planet will be enlisted 

 in the service of mankind. Indeed, there is going 

 on at the present time a line of enquiry and research 

 which, even in the short space of the next five years, 

 will possibly affect the commercial interests of the 

 whole world. In the Caspian Sea, for some time 

 past, in use on steamers and locomotives, petroleum 

 has been employed. The change is simply a matter 

 of mechanical adaption and manipulation. The coal- 

 fields of the world will certainly be worked out 

 within an historically brief space of time. Will the 

 natural petroleum supplies last longer ? Keen-eyed 

 modern science is not blind to that question. The 

 distinguished Russian chemist, Dr. Mendeleef, thinks 

 there is good ground for believing that abundance of 

 petroleum will always be available. Rock oil, we 

 are reminded, belongs to no particular strata, though 

 it is found generally in regions lying parallel to 

 mountain ranges. In Europe, for example, it is 

 tapped in rocks of the Tertiary period, but in the 

 United States it rises out of Devonian and even 

 Silurian formations. Dr. Mendeleef suggests that 



this valuable heat-giving substance is constantly 

 being formed by the action of water on metallic 

 deposits in the heated interior of the earth. The 

 extraordinary average persistence of the oil-wells 

 supports (as was observed by the President of the 

 English Institution of Mechanical Engineers) the 

 theory that _it is probably forming as fast as it is 



removed. 



T. E Taylor. 



NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 



'T^IIE Physiology of the Inverlebrata, by Dr. 

 1 A. B. Griffiths (London : L. Reeve & Co.). 

 Dr. Griffiths is one of the hardest workers we have, 

 both in departments of original research, and with 

 his pen. He has thrown a very wide-cast net over 

 his subjects, from the diseases of crops to the 

 Invertebrata. The present text-book displays wide 

 and extensive reading and study. It is a branch of 

 biology which hitherto has been comparatively little 

 studied, perhaps for want of such a manual as Dr. 

 Griffiths has now provided for students. From a 

 literary point of view, it is a useful review of all the 

 important researches on the subject, which have 

 taken place within the last twenty years — perhaps 

 the most fruitful epoch in biological discovery. We 

 cordially recommend Dr. Griffiths' excellent and 

 lucidly arranged manual to our readers. 



In Starry Realms, by Sir Robert Ball (London : 

 Isbister & Co.). The now Cambridge Professor of 

 Astronomy has practically taken the place of the late 

 Richard Proctor as an eloquent lecturer and writer 

 on popular astronomy. All his books are eminently 

 readable, and the present handsomely got-up one 

 will not linger behind its predecessors in this respect. 

 Most of its contents have already been before the 

 public in various magazines. It contains twenty- 

 Uiree chapters, all the titles of which are attractive, 

 and some of them sensational — as, for instance, those 

 on How the Heat of the Sun is kept up ; Fire-balls y 

 a Falling Star ; the Number of the Stars ; &c. The 

 illustrations are all excellent. Indeed, the volume 

 is most luxuriously and tastefully got up. 



Res yitdicatce, by Augustine Birrell (London : 

 Elliot Stock). A new book by the author of 

 "Obiter Dicta" is|a literary event. We have read 

 the essays and papers in this tastefully got up little 

 volume with intense delight, and with the strong 

 desire that any strong words of ours may induce the 

 readers of Science Gossip to forthwith procure the 

 book for themselves, so as to profit by the editor's ex- 

 perience. There are twelve essays, chiefly dealing with 

 the personal aspects of literature ; all written in delight- 

 ful English, pleasant, sunny, humorous, pathetic. Ret 

 fudicata: is a book to keep on one's study table, to 

 take up when other books tire you. 



Tanganyika ; Eleven years in Central Africa, by 

 Edward Coode Hore (London : Edward Stanford). 



