358 
Analyses of Books. 
[June, 
became sick and powerless, and died in a quarter of an hour. 
Shortly after he caught an adder, and on following out his ex- 
periment the creature died ; whilst by merely wetting a stick 
with his lips and drawing it across another adder’s nose, the 
same result ensued. On spitting into the mouth of a harmless 
snake, however, the creature was uninjured.” The poisonous 
character of the human saliva has been, indeed, rendered highly 
probable by recent investigations, but the Georgian story just 
quoted bears a somewhat apocryphal character. The rattlesnake 
might die from the bruise on its head. Or the farmer might 
have been chewing tobacco, the adtive principle of which is very 
rapidly fatal to serpents. It might be interesting to try the ex- 
periment upon the common viper. Only let no one mahe the 
trial in England, or he will be liable to the penalties of that 
national stigma, the Vivisedtion Adi ! 
We rise from the study of Miss Hunt’s work with the convic- 
tion that there are certain phenomena not yet formally recog- 
nised, much less explained, which require, and would doubtless 
repay, the prolonged and earnest study of thoroughly scientific 
minds. Unfortunately, in England, and we believe also in 
France, they have been dealt with chiefly by minds of an avowed 
anti-scientific tendency. The work before us will doubtless draw 
increased attention to this difficult subjedl. 
“ Two Planets beyond Neptune ,” 1875, and “ On some Properties 
of the Earth ,” 1880, by O. Reichenbach. London : Wer- 
theimer and Lea (pub. pri.). As reviewed in a letter of 
Professor Klinkerfues, Director of the Goettingen Observa- 
tory, to Mr. Warnstorff, Bookseller at Northeim.* 
“ The first research which engaged my attention in the book of 
Count Oscar von Reichenbach, was a comparison of the whole 
mass of sun and planets with that gaseous mass out of which 
sun and planets have been formed by cooling and contracting, 
according to the Kant-Laplace theory. 
“ Under a certain hypothesis, about the original distribution of 
mass and density of strata in the gas-like nebula, the author 
arrives at the result that, compared to the latter, there still re- 
mains some mass for one or two large planets. If various things 
may be said against the hypothesis, Gauss, for instance, had, 
notwithstanding his veneration for Kant and Laplace, the objec- 
* Besides the pamphlet and book reviewed, Professor Klinkerfues had in 
hand “ Gedanken,” 1857, and two articles in vol. iii. (3rd series) of the 
“ Journal of Science,” 1881, London, by O. Reichenbach, partly referring to 
the same subjects. 
