302 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
rities, the author quotes amply from their works cases which support their 
views, and records experiments which have been made on men for the 
purpose of ascertaining the truth of the theories which they set forth. The 
great point which all alike go to prove is the comparatively small value of 
nitrogenous food in ordinary diet. We say comparative, for it will he re- 
membered by those who have studied the subject that, till of late years, 
nitrogen was considered to be the chief element that was used up in 
muscular exertion. But now results show a different face. It seems, from 
the experiments recorded in the present volume, that the muscles do not 
become wasted during action to the extent that was imagined, and hence 
that nitrogenous food is not at all so much required for the employer of 
muscle — the common labourer. Of course it would be out of our power 
to give the facts on which Dr. Parry founds these conclusions ; those we 
must leave for the reader to discover himself ; but we promise him, if he 
have physiological taste, an ample return for the money expended in the 
purchase of this volume. 
THE PBOPEB MOTION OF THE FIXED STABS.* 
I T is not very long since we had a book from this author on the subject of 
the Glacial Period, and we fancy that the writer to whom it was 
entrusted decided to say nothing in answer to it, considering it a work 
founded on erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, we are compelled to come to a 
conclusion of a like kind ; and although the author is excessively severe on 
one of his former critics, who compared the motion of the earth to that of 
a top, we certainly think the critic’s argument a sound one, and Colonel 
Drayson’s attack on it weak in the extreme. However, though we do not 
believe in the correctness of the author’s conclusions, we may give them 
here as follows, and with them conclude our notice of the book: — (1.) The 
earth rotates on its axis in the same manner as at present taught in astro- 
nomy. (2.) It revolves round the sun along a plane making an angle of 
about 66° 32' with the axis of diurnal rotation. (3.) The semi-axis of 
diurnal rotation traces out a circle on the heavens round the pole of the 
ecliptic, but not round this pole as a centre , the centre being 6° from the pole 
of the ecliptic. (4.) The earth’s axis has a small elliptical movement 
round its mean position in about 18§ years. 
SMITHSONIAN BEPOBT.+ 
I T is to be regretted that so much delay is made in regard to the publica- 
tion of this report ; the volume which is before us, being that which was 
issued late in the year 1873, conies to us in 1874, and yet really records 
* “ The Cause of the - Supposed Proper Motion of the Fixed Stars, and 
an Explanation of the Apparent Acceleration of the Moon’s Mean Motion ; 
with other Geometrical Problems in Astronomy hitherto unsolved.” By 
Lieut.-Col. Drayson, B.A., F.B.A.S. London : Chapman & Hall, 1874. 
t “ Annual Beport of the Board of Begents of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, for the Year 1871.” Washington, U.S.A. : 1873. 
