THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1906.

BIOLOGICAL HERESIES.

The Nature and Origin of Living Matter. By Dr. H. Charlton Bastian, F.R.S. Pp. 344; with 245 illustrations from photomicrographs. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905.) Price 12s. 6d. net.

DR.

R. H. CHARLTON BASTIAN re-expounds his well known biological heresies with a vigour and industry worthy of a better cause. The first heresy is that" archebiosis" is a present occurrence, that is, that living organisms may here and now arise from non-living materials. What seems to most biologists so difficult to conceive with any concreteness, that their evolutionist faith is strained a little to believe it may have occurred once long ago, may be seen occurring any day in this veteran experimenter's laboratory. What Pasteur looked out for in vain for a score of years has been revealed to Bastian's persistent patience. The second heresy is that "heterogenesis" is not infrequent, that is, that a living creature may give rise to alien offspring, to organisms quite different from itself, it may be belonging to a different class altogether. Against the fact of the persistence or continuity of hereditary resemblance we are accustomed to balance the fact of variation; but now we are asked to make room for what is more than the most convinced believer in mutations or transilience ever dreamed of, namely, such facts of heterogenesis as the production of infusorians from a rotifer's egg. Our convictions as to the specific plasmic architecture of different forms of life, our difficulty in imagining how chlorophyll corpuscles can become a swarm of sun-animalcules, must be corrected, like other prejudices, by facing the facts. To ignore these is the worst form of ignorantia elenchi of which scientific students can be guilty. If nature's method includes the hop, step, and leap phenomena, which this book describes at great length, what can excuse the blindness of those who persist that evolution is like a snail's continuous crawl?

To see what Dr. Bastian interprets as archebiosis, we are recommended to take an infusion of turnip or fresh beef, to filter this through two layers of the finest Swedish paper, to let a drop fall on a cleaned microscope slip, to put a cover-glass on, to remove excess of fluid with blotting-paper, to allow one or more air-bubbles to remain in the film, to seal up with melted paraffin wax, to fix upon a clear space free from particles near an air-bubble, to incubate at blood-heat for two or three hours, and to await events. The expected happens-multitudes of living particles appear. How can we account for their origin? Three hypotheses present themselves, (a) that they have arisen through the reproductive multiplication of one or more germs that had escaped observation in the film; (b) that they have developed from a multitude of diffusely disseminated invisible germs; or (c) that they have been produced de novo in the fluid by a process of archebiosis. The author argues that the third interpretation is the true one.

One of the arguments is based on the uniformity of nature:

"To assume, as the great majority of Evolutionists do, that Archebiosis, or the natural origin of living matter, took place once only in the remote past and that it has not been repeated, or if repeated in past times, that it no longer goes on, is to look upon this process as a kind of natural miracle, and to postulate a break in continuity which ought only to be possible in the face of overwhelming evidence of its reality. This latter is, however, as I contend, altogether absent to anything like an adequate extent."

This kind of argument applied to other great events in evolution has the advantage of fostering an expectant attitude. Nature may be repeating herself

oftener than we think.

Many of us have made flask experiments with super-heated organic fluids, which remained sterile for years without any hint of archebiosis; but, of course, these experiments only prove that living organisms do not arise under these severe conditions. We must give archebiosis a chance, and unluckily that chance usually means either an open door to infection or imperfect sterilisation. But the surer work we make with sterilisation, the greater likelihood is there of our destroying what Dr. Bastian calls the germinality of the fluids. When organisms do not appear in the sterilised medium the sceptical experimenter says Biogenesis is confirmed," whereas he ought to say "Unluckily, I have destroyed the germinality of good archebiotic material." When organisms do appear in the sterilised medium the sceptical experimenter says "What an ass I am! but if he were not so slow of heart to believe, he should say "Archebiosis for ever."

As to the original archebiosis in free nature, the author makes the suggestion that nitrate of ammonia (or nitrite?), which is formed in the atmosphere in thunderstorms and brought down by the thunder shower, may have played an important part in the mixture of ingredients in which protoplasm was first synthesised.

Dr. Bastian's patient experiments on heterogenesis raise, as it seems to us, some interesting questions concerning the variability of minute organisms, the phases in the life-history of many forms which are very inadequately known, the occurrence of "latent germs" in the interior of healthy fruits and animal organs, and so on. But we are too bigoted to believe that diatoms can be produced by the transformation of the cells of an unrelated alga, that anabena or actinophrys or amœbæ can arise from chlorophyll corpuscles, that the eggs of a fly may be transformed into infusorians, or that several different kinds of ciliata may arise from the eggs of one and the same rotifer. While all this is incredible to us because it is magical and unmeaning-incongruous with our experience of nature's workings-the difficulty is to interpret what Dr. Bastian saw and photographed. We venture the suggestion that in some of the eggexperiments he may have been on the track of ovivorous parasites such as are known to infest the eggs of some aquatic insects.

While we must stand aloof from Dr. Bastian's heresies, we cannot but admire his dogged support of what seems to us a lost cause. It is something to stand unus contra mundum with no loss of courage or of good humour. We also sympathise with some of the positions which the author maintains in the introductory part of his book, e.g. as to the innate or intrinsic variability of living matter, and as to the importance of discontinuous variations or mutations. There is also much vigorous criticism of Weismann's last volume, "The Evolution Theory," and a defence of Spencer's concept of "physiological units" as against Weismann's "determinants." But when, in regard to the transmission of modifications, Dr. Bastian says that "Weismann frankly admits the whole point in dispute-namely, that acquired characters can be, and are, frequently inherited,” we must express our surprise at what seems to us an extraordinary misunderstanding. J. A. T.

A STANDARD TREATISE ON PHYSICS. Lehrbuch der Physik. By O. D. Chwolson. Vol. iii. Translated into German by E. Berg. Pp. xi+988; illustrated. (Brunswick: Vieweg und Sohn, 1905.) Price 16 marks.

Traité de Physique. By O. D. Chwolson. Translated from the Russian and German editions into French by E. Davaux, with Notes on Theoretical Physics by MM. E. and F. Cosserat. Vol. i., part i., pp. xiii +407; vol. ii., part i., pp. vii+202. (Paris: A Hermann, 1906.) Price 16 francs and 6 francs respectively.

THE

HE first two volumes of this important translation from Russian into German have already been noticed in these columns. The present volume embraces the science of heat, including thermodynamics. The treatment throughout is most admirable both for accuracy and lucidity, and the treatise may be expected to become generally known in this more accessible shape. Each chapter is followed by copious references to original sources of information; these are divided into sections numbered according to the parts of the text to which they relate; they constitute a valuable summary of the most important memoirs, especially as they include quite recent work as well as the earlier work which formed the foundation of the science of heat. The illustrations are excellently

done.

Besides the phenomena which are usually described in a treatise on physics (thermometry, expansion, thermal capacity, laws of cooling, conductivity, general thermodynamics, and equations of state), chapters are to be found here on thermochemical investigations and the theory of solutions, including the phase rule. These are not in any way skimped. An outline of everything that is worth knowing seems to be included. The matter is not served up in a haphazard manner; but the relative value of different investigations is well brought out by the amounts of space which are devoted to them. The book is a happy mixture of theory and practice. For example, while a delightfully clear explanation is given of the mean

ing of the various partial differential coefficients which arise in theoretical thermodynamics, there is also given one of the very few existing correct accounts of the implication of the Joule-Thomson experiment.

The methods of Planck are followed in connection with thermodynamics. The play of entropy in irreversible transformations is made very clear; a student, by its perusal, could hardly fail to get nearer to a true conception of the nature of such processes.

The results of an investigation are not merely summed up in a formula; in most cases a table of experimental data upon which the formula is based is also provided. This, of course, is as it should be. for it puts the reader at once in touch with the actual experiment, and differentiates the volume from a mere collection of physical tables.

Altogether, we do not hesitate to say that the three volumes form as satisfactory a treatise on the part of physics to which they relate as we have ever met with. They are to be followed by a fourth volume on electricity and magnetism.

In the translation into French both the Russian and German editions are made use of, while additional notes on theoretical physics are added by MM. E. and F. Cosserat, the former of whom is a professor in the University of Toulouse. This also will appear in four volumes; the present instalment consists of parts of the first two. The additional notes will be kept quite distinct from the main text. One such note (consisting of 37 pages) now appears on the dynamics of a particle and of a rigid body. This is an attempt to re-state the principles of mechanics in such a way as to remove the difficulties pointed out by M. Poincaré in the application of mechanical principles to natural phenomena. These difficulties arise, according to Poincaré, from a too faithful application to all phenomena of the theory of the astronomical universe. The system of mechanics expounded is in general based on energetics, but a wider form than usual is given to this principle. It is impossible to criticise the theory presented until the remaining notes bearing on it have appeared.

With regard to the French edition in general we are very well pleased, and we look forward to its completion, for there are many to whom it will prove more welcome than its German equivalent. The treatise bids fair to prove itself the leading text-book of physics for general use.

Outram.

IN

CLIMBS IN WESTERN CANADA. In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies. By James Pp. 466; with maps and 46 illustrations. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 12s. 6d. net. N the 66 with which this volume is preApology faced, the author tells how he went to the mountains during a part of three summers to recuperate from mental overstrain, and states that he has been hampered by the same disability in preparing his book. Nevertheless, he has succeeded in producing a useful piece of work, which brings together an account of all that has been accomplished in the

Canadian Rockies by himself and by other kindred spirits.

Though essentially and avowedly a mountainclimber's book, it incidentally places before the reader much information regarding the physical geography of an imperfectly known region that is full of interest. The author's sympathy in the natural beauty of this magnificent country is expressed simply and moderately, and his descriptions therefore, though not particularly vivid, ring true. The aim and effort of his toilsome journeyings was ever to reach the mountaintops-preferably the tops hitherto untrodden-and all other considerations were subordinate to this desire.

How difficult often was the attainment, and yet how great was his success, is faithfully chronicled in these pages. Along the main chain of the Rockies-those huge stratified wedges left by Nature's Quarriers to show how much has been excavated from Mount Columbia (12,500 feet) in the north to Mount Lefroy (11,290 feet) in the south, and also on the crests of the Ottertail Range outstanding to the west-Mr. Outram and his Swiss guides have scored their innocent conquests and have brought back increased knowledge of forests, glaciers, snow-fields, and craggy peaks.

By conveniently interweaving in his narrative full extracts from the records of other explorers, the author enables us to recognise the salient features of this wilderness of mountains, and in so doing to increase our sense of enjoyment in them. For, as the author has noted, it is curious how, when confronted by some wide and novel prospect, we instinctively search for some feature already known, upon which our new perceptions may form themselves; and great is the relief to our confused senses as soon as a recognisable point is found. In mountain scenery, lack of familiarity usually implies also lack of that knowledge of distances and heights which is an essential ingredient to the full impressiveness of the prospect: for it is not the low-angled picture in the eye, but the interpretation of it, that stirs emotion. The ancients did not know their mountains well enough to appreciate them.

not on the same scale as the folder at the end of the volume. And is it by accident or design that the seven-line quotation of Sir Edwin Arnold's verse which is given at the beginning of the first chapter of the book is repeated, with a slight variation, at the end of the last chapter? G. W. L.

SCIENCE AND ART OF CARPENTRY. A Manual of Carpentry and Joinery. By J. W. Riley. Pp. viii+500. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 6s. net.

THIS

HIS is a handy little volume on a well-worn subject, about which there are many works extant, but it contains a good deal of useful information for the student in one of the noblest of the crafts. It was Lord Avebury who compared wood to metal, and dwelt on the higher qualities of the former material as a field for the perpetuation of the more enduring forms of art.

The present manual, besides dealing with the various operations of the carpenter, starts with the consideration of geometry, mensuration, and mechanics as a necessary preliminary for his education if he would work with benefit to himself and his employers. The qualities of various kinds of timber, its structure and growth, method of conversion, defects, and preservation are explained. Chapters on plane and solid geometry and mensuration in relation to carpentry follow, and these are probably the best chapters in the book, because of their importance to the student in their relation to the craft.

The chapter on tools is well illustrated-saws, planes, chisels, gouges and centre bits being shown. The inclusion of wood-working machinery is an innovation which will be welcomed because of the increasing importance of machinery in these days. This chapter is also well illustrated with woodcuts of sufficiently large size to render them useful and explanatory. In fact, although some might say that machines are hardly a part of a student's education, we think the author is right in including them, and it certainly is a novel feature in a text-book for elementary students. Joints and fastenings in floors, roofs and beams, dovetails of various forms used in joinery, and keying and clamping are then described. The various kinds of wooden floors, the method of

The book is well illustrated by reproductions from photographs of many of the mountains and other striking features in the scenery of the region. But photographs of this kind, and still more the processillustrations prepared from them, yield only a feeble image, useful perhaps as a reminiscence to anyone who has experienced the scene, but always unsatisfying.

By an evident oversight, no scale is attached to the two maps interleaved in the text, though these are

different kinds between floor boards are also dealt with. We should like to have seen a condemnation of the usual system of constructing floors with a hollow space between floor boards and plaster ceiling, forming a series of continuous dustbins for the collection of filth of all kinds. Many architects frequently omit the plaster ceiling altogether.

The usual types of wooden roofs and trusses and the method of finding bevels for rafters at different inclinations, the different kinds of partitions, scaffolding, jib cranes, shoring of buildings, are all parts of the craft which Mr. Riley has carefully explained with illustrations. The chapter on the mechanics of carpentry and the theory of the parallelogram of

forces, the use of a polar diagram and its application to weighted beams are clearly set out.

Door and panelled framing, revolving vestibule doors, hinges and locks, and the different varieties of windows, sash or casement are explained and illustrated. We cannot understand why writers on the subject are always content to show window frames "in reveal" when they appear to so much better advantage only slightly set back from the face of the wall, as in "Queen Anne" and "Georgian" architecture, and as carried out by so many of the best architects of to-day.

There are also chapters on roof lights and conservatories, staircase work and handrailing, and workshop practice, together with summaries and questions from papers set at the City and Guilds examinations in the subject.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

Die Explosivstoffe mit besonderer Berucksichtigung der neuren Patente die Schiessbaumwolle (Nitrocellulosen). By Dr. Richard Escales. Pp. viii+ 308. (Leipzig: Veit and Co.) Price 10 marks. THIS is the second volume of a series of special works on explosives. Although the first volume on "Gunpowder and Similar Mixtures was issued as recently as 1904, it has been found necessary to prepare a new edition, and doubtless the first edition of the volume under consideration will soon be exhausted. The whole series when completed should form a valuable reference work on all subjects relating to explosives. The book is thoroughly up to date, and reference will hardly be in vain for any information either as to details of manufacture or the more purely scientific questions relating to nitrocellulose or closely allied bodies. The testing of guncottons to determine their stability and the influence of methods of preparation on this have received a great deal of attention during the last three or four years, since it is generally recognised that the older stability tests are often unsatisfactory when taken alone. The author has collected and arranged in excellent form all possible information on this important matter up to quite a recent date.

Special reference is made to new patents, and this information will be of great service to those engaged in the manufacture of this important class of bodies. J. S. S. B.

Lehrbuch der technischen Physik. By Prof. Hans Lorenz. Zweiter Band, Technische Warmelehre. Pp. ix+544. (Munchen: R. Oldenbourg, 1904.) THE first volume of this text-book, dealing with the mechanics of solids, appeared some three years ago. It was to have been followed by a volume on hydromechanics, but this has been delayed to include later developments, and its place has been taken by the present volume on heat, which was originally intended to come third in the series. The general scope of the book is similar to that of the first volume. It is not a "technical" handbook as we understand it. There are no descriptions or figures of machines, or even of instruments for measurement. There are no details of experimental methods, nor any mention of precautions necessary for securing accurate results. The whole work is as purely theoretical as any Cambridge mathematical text-book; but the theory is limited to such parts of the subject as have practical applications, with a few numerical tables introduced here and there for the comparison of the equations with experi

mental results. Such a book might be written by anyone of sufficient mathematical ability without any practical knowledge of the subject, and might be thoroughly assimilated by the student without imparing to him any power of applying the theory to a practical case. One cannot help feeling that, in a subject where so much depends on experiment, and for the technical student who wishes to learn how apply his knowledge, the utility of the book would be greatly enhanced by a judicious admixture of practice with the theory.

would

From the purely theoretical standpoint there are many details which are open to criticism. Empirical and theoretical formulæ are in places so interwoven that the student would find it very difficult to disentangle the theory from the consequences of some purely empirical assumption. Though one certainly hesitate to recommend the book to the technical student wishing to learn how to apply the theory, it might provide him with a useful kind of mental discipline, and prove a good antidote to the more common kind of technical treatise in which experimental results are reduced to a series of purely empirical and often theoretically inconsistent formulæ

H. L. C.

The Making of East Yorkshire: a Chapter in Local Geography. By T. Sheppard. Pp. x+29; 4 plates. (London: Brown and Son, 1906.) Price is.

THE teachers of Yorkshire are blessed by nature with an environment of abounding interest; added to this they have, what is equally to their advantage, a goodly supply of able exponents of nature's beauties, amongst whom the author of this brochure takes a worthy place.

Mr. Sheppard gives a clear account of the geological vicissitudes through which east Yorkshire has passed from Liassic to recent times. He has naturally selected the salient points, but a word or two about the conditions which governed the deposition of some of the argillaceous deposits would have resulted in a better balanced story. The imaginative reader who attempts to visualise the statement at the foot of p. 20 will be presented with an awesome and none too truthful picture-but this is quite a small matter.

Every teacher in east Yorkshire should possess a copy of the pamphlet; and it would be an excellent thing if our other counties could each be supplied with a similar sketch of their geological history.

J. A. H.

Jahrbuch der Chemic. Edited by Richard Meyer. Pp. xii+589. (Brunswick Vieweg und Sohn, 1905.) Price 16s.

We have previously had occasion to commend Meyer's "Jahrbuch "to English readers, and the new volume compares favourably with its predecessors.

That lucidity in some of the abstracts is sacrificed to brevity naturally follows from the vast amount of information which is compressed into a limited space; after all, one valuable feature of a year-book is the completeness of its references. It has been previously observed that the "Jahrbuch " has a distinctly German bias, which, perhaps, cannot be entirely repressed, but scarcely excuses the omission in the present volume of references to certain foreign memoirs of the first importance.

An apology for its late appearance accompanies the volume, and we are led to infer that the delay may have been occasioned in some measure by the regrettable loss of Dr. Bodländer from the staff of contributors, whose place, it may be added, on the section of physical chemistry is now taken by Dr. A. Coehn. J. B. C.

Elements of Applied Microscopy. By Charles-Edward Amory Winslow. Pp. xii+183. (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1905.) Price 6s. 6d. net.

THIS little book is planned on novel lines, and contains a good deal of information in a small compass. As it is primarily intended for class use, practical details are briefly dealt with, and more space is thus available for descriptions of the various objects which the microscopist is intended to study. The first three chapters deal with the theory, construction, and manipulation of the microscope, and the preparation and mounting of objects. Next, micrometry and the camera lucida are described, and the subsequent chapters are devoted to the microscopy of starches, of foods and drugs and their adulterants, the examination of textile fibres and of paper, forensic microscopy, microchemistry, and petrography and metallography. Sufficient information is given to stimulate the student's powers of observation and desire for further knowledge. The chapter on the microscopy of paper is a particularly good one. Altogether the book should usefully fulfil the object for which it has been written.

Auslese

with

aus meiner Unterrichts- und Vorlesungspraxis. By Dr. H. Schubert. Zweiter Band. Pp. 218. (Leipzig: Göschen, 1905.) Price 4 marks. THIS is a very entertaining instalment of Prof. Schubert's lectures. The first section deals triangles having rational sides and areas, pyramids with rational edges and volumes, and similar subjects. Tables and formulæ are given which will be useful to those who wish to set neat numerical exercises in trigonometry and mensuration. Section ii. is devoted to continued fractions, the Pellian equation, expression of an integer (when possible) as the sum of two squares, and so on. Section iii. is on the elementary calculation of logarithms, and forms a supplement to a similar chapter in the first volume.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.]

Secondary Rontgen Rays and Atomic Weight. Ix papers on secondary Röntgen radiation and polarised Röntgen radiation I have shown that all the phenomena of secondary radiation (as indicated by an electroscope placed several centimetres from the radiator) may, from substances of low atomic weight, be accounted for by considering the corpuscles or electrons constituting the atoms, to be accelerated in the direction of electric displacement in each primary Röntgen pulse as it passes through such substances, and that the interaction between the corpuscles affects only to a small extent the character of the secondary radiation proceeding from the substance. In light atoms there is almost complete independence of motion of the corpuscles within the limits of disturbance produced by all primary beams experimented upon.

It was also shown (NATURE, March 9, 1905) that this independence of motion disappears in heavier atoms in which there may be conceived to be a more intimate relation between the corpuscles, inter-corpuscular forces being brought into play which have the effect of widening the secondary pulses and producing accelerations in the corpuscles in directions other than those of electric displacement in the primary pulse. Until recently I have been unable to make experiments on a sufficient number of elements of higher atomic weight to arrive at any law connecting the penetrating power of the secondary radi

ation with the atomic weight of the radiator. Recent investigation has, however, shown that beyond the region of atomic weights in which the character of secondary radiation is almost independent of the nature of the radiator, the absorbability of the radiation is a periodic function of the atomic weight, the periodicity agreeing so far as these experiments have gone with the periodicity in chemical properties.

A detailed account of these results will be published shortly.

They, however, afford striking evidence of a connection between chemical properties and distribution of corpuscles in the atom, such as Prof. J. J. Thomson suggests in his conception of the constitution of the atom; for the character of the secondary radiation set up by a given primary can only, according to the theory which has been shown to account for all the phenomena I have hitherto observed, be affected by the relation between the radiating corpuscle and its neighbours.

The results also suggest a method of determining atomic weights by interpolation, for a small variation in atomic weight is usually accompanied by a very considerable change in absorbability of the secondary radiation, and though in these experiments great accuracy has not been essential, it appears that in many regions a variation of atomic weight by much less than I would be indicated. The experiments are being continued. CHARLES G. BARKLA. University of Liverpool, February 9.

The Falkland Island Fox.

IN a review in the current number of NATURE of Mr. Renshaw's "Some Mammalian Types,' reference is made to the "Antarctic wolf of the Falkland Islands exterminated by the sheep farmers in self defence." Might I be permitted to add a word on this subject in correction of an erroneous impression current among many naturalists with regard to this animal? During a visit to the Falkland Islands in 1903, and again in 1904, I made careful inquiries with regard to the native wolf or fox. The oldest sheep farmers in the islands, men who remembered when the fox was still plentiful, insisted that it was quite a mistake to credit it with attacking sheep; this never occurred, and the reason that the farmers waged war against the foxes was because the sheep, apparently mistaking them for dogs, especially at night, in their terror ran into the bogs and swamps which abound in the islands and were consequently lost. None of the farmers whose experience went back to the time of these foxes had any memory of sheep being killed or even mauled by them. In making this correction, I must say that I have not seen Mr. Renshaw's book, and consequently do not know what reason he attributes for the extermination of the fox. R. N. RUDMOSE-BROWN. Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, Edinburgh, February 10.

Chinese Names of Colours.

66

ON the interesting observation on Chinese names of colours of Mr. H. Crook, in NATURE (January 11), I would add this little information. Prof. Giles in his great dictionary gives (No. 4845) as a very light violet colour"; Wells Williams (p. 820) as a purple colour. Mr. de Zelinski and Clémence Royer, in an interesting note "Sur les noms des couleurs en japonais ("Congrès internat. des Orientalistes, Compte rendu de la 1ère session, Paris, 1873, vol. i., pp. 83-87), give another example, in Japanese, of the same kind.

(asagi), literally a light yellow," signifies, following Prof. de Rosny, "bleu de ciel"! Mr. Hepburn, in his Japanese dictionary, fifth edition, Tokyo, 1894, renders the same expression by "a light green or pale. colour."

Analogous oddities can also be found in European languages, as the French azur cendré," or (the flower) jaune," &c. Firenze, Via Ricasoli 49, Italy.

GIOVANNI VACCA.