Abstract: IT does not fall within our scope to attempt a detailed or technical examination of the volume of Gifford Lectures in which Prof. A. N. Whitehead has expounded at greater length than elsewhere his system of metaphysics. This has been done in many other notices, and we would be understood here only to give a general impression from rather a lay point of view, comparing it with other newly published syntheses of similar scope—for example, that of Profs. Alexander and Haldane, Pringle Pattison and Hobson, and Sir Arthur Eddington. Process and Reality: an Essay in Cosmology. (Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh during the Session 1927–28.) By Prof. Alfred North Whitehead. Pp. xxiii + 509. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1929.) 18s. net.

Abstract: THE viscosity of liquids is a subject which, so far as I know, has hitherto been without any general theoretical basis. No physical mechanism, for example, has ever been brought forward to account even for so simple and general a fact as the decrease of liquid viscosity with temperature, in contrast to the familiar and well explained increase of gaseous viscosity with temperature. As a result, the study has hitherto consisted largely of a collection of more or less well established empirical relations, mostly of limited scope.

Abstract: According to Weiss's well-known theory, a ferromagnetic body in the absence of an external magnetic field must be spontaneously magnetised in such a way that the direction of magnetisation varies in an irregular manner in different portions of the body. It was originally assumed by Weiss that these portions coincide with the minute crystals of which the body is built up. That this is not so is clear from the fact that spontaneous magnetisation (as revealed by the existence of a Curie temperature) is present also in single crystals. We are thus forced to assume that a moderate-sized single crystal of a ferromagnetic body consists of a number of ‘elementary magnets’ the resultant magnetic moment of which vanishes. This spontaneous subdivision of a ferromagnetic body into elementary magnets can be interpreted both qualitatively and quantitatively in the following manner.

Abstract: IT needs courage to produce a text-book on the geometry of N dimensions. The subject is not unduly difficult to those who take an interest in it, but most people have deeply seated prejudices which prevent them from taking it seriously into consideration. One of the pioneers, Schlafli, in spite of his reputation in other branches of mathematics, failed to secure publication for his valuable memoir on hyperspace, and in fact it did not appear in full until after the author's death and fifty years after it was written. An Introduction to the Geometry of N Dimensions. By Prof. D. M. Y. Sommerville. Pp. xvii + 196. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1929.) 10s. net.

Abstract: AN attempt to infer the course of events when a neutral ionised stream of particles from the sun is directed towards the earth has now led to results which we believe indicate how magnetic storms are produced. A full discussion of the phenomena involves the solution of numerous intricate mathematical problems, many of which have not yet been attacked in detail; but it seems possible to outline the main sequence of events.

Abstract: FROM the point of view of the electron theory, a metal is any solid which is a good conductor of electricity. In attempting to survey roughly the present position of the electron theory of metals, I cannot guarantee that what I say will be everywhere up-to-date, but I shall be satisfied if I can indicate the standing of the theory, as re-established by quantum mechanics.

Abstract: THIS is a very entertaining volume, a surprisingly successful attempt to do what nearly all good judges would have declared to be impossible. Its aim is “to present the most significant passages from the works of the most important contributors” to mathematics “during the last three or four centuries”. A Source Book in Mathematics. Prof. David Eugene Smith. (Source Books in the History of the Sciences, Vol. 2.) Pp. xvii + 701 + 8 plates. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.; London: McGrawHill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1929.) 25s.net.

Abstract: IT is astonishing how long the English-speaking public has had to wait for an adequate translation of Kant's epoch-making work. The “Critique of Pure Reason” was published in 1781, all but a hundred and fifty years ago, and the first English translation did not see the light until 1838. The translator enlarges in his preface on the difficulty of rendering “so entirely novel and original a mode of philosophising”, and almost disarms criticism by the modesty with which he acknowledges “how frequently, with every endeavour to be correct, he may have failed in a right understanding of his author”. Meiklejohn, who next essayed the task, in 1855, produced a version which, in lack of a better, was destined to serve the needs of successive generations of students for three-quarters of a century. It is true that in 1881, the centenary of the original, a fresh translation was given to the public with an authoritative gesture by Max Muller. This was certainly in point of accuracy and general effect distinctly better than Meiklejohn's, but by an unfortunate error of judgment the translation was made from Kant's first edition, whereas the second edition of 1787, in which Kant re-wrote important sections, must be regarded for ordinary purposes as the authoritative text of the work. Unfortunately, too, the translation, at least as originally issued, was encumbered, by way of introduction, with a crudely written historical sketch of all previous philosophy by Prof. L. Noire, extending to no less than 360 pages. For its irrelevance and lack of all proper perspective, this so-called introduction was drastically characterised at the time by the late Prof. Adamson as “comprehended under the well-known definition of dirt: matter in the wrong place”. Under these disadvantages it was no wonder that the centenary translation failed to ‘catch on’, and Meiklejohn continued to be the ordinary student's vade-mecum up to the present day. This was perhaps scarcely to be regretted; for, although of course absolutely competent in his knowledge of German idiom and his mastery of the English language, Prof. Max Muller was, after all, not a professional philosopher, and Adamson in his careful and appreciative review of the book for Mind felt “constrained to add that the ideal translation does not yet seem to have been attained”. After giving examples of his meaning, he concludes in fact that the translation “stands in need of a thorough revision from the philosophical point of view”. Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Prof. Norman Kemp Smith. Pp. xiii + 681. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1929. 25s. net.

Abstract: PROF. W. BOTHE in the Zeitschrift fur Physik (vol. 59, p. 1) describes a method for registering simultaneous impulses of two Geiger's counters, which depends principally on the working of a two-grid thermionic valve. Lately, I have had the opportunity of experimenting with a circuit which perhaps is simpler and at the same time has the advantage that it can be extended also to the registering of triple simultaneous impulses or even more. The circuit adopted (for triple coinciding impulses) is shown in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 1).

Abstract: EARLY in 1918, Prof. F. Wood Jones gave a popular lecture in King's College, London, on man's origin. This lecture, when published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge under the title “The Problem of Man's Ancestry”, met with a mixed reception. Anatomists treated it with neglect or contempt; those of an anti-Darwinian bias hailed it with delight. As the little book of 1918 is really the parent of the large work which has just appeared under the title “Man's Place among the Mammals”, it is worth while to seek for an explanation of the diversity of feeling evoked by the original publication. The antagonistic attitude of most anatomists is understandable. They were told that man, far from being as they thought the most changed, the most specialised, the most highly evolved of all primate animals, was, when his structural characters were rightly analysed, essentially a very ancient and primitive type. They learned that they had laboured in vain, because in construing the evidence relating to man's origin they had been dominated by a heresy for which Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel were conjointly responsible, namely, that there had been an anthropoidal stage in man's evolution. Prof. Wood Jones summarily dismissed the anthropoids living and extinct at no time had they any lot or part in man's ancestry. Man's Place among the Mammals. By Prof. Frederic Wood Jones. Pp. xi + 372 + 12 plates. (London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1929.) 21s. net.

Abstract: IT has now been announced that, to mark the forthcoming centenary of the discovery of electromagnetic induction, the Managers of the Royal Institution have resolved to publish a document of exceptional scientific interest and importance, Faraday's “Diary”. It may therefore be opportune to give some particulars of the manuscript and of how it came to be written. Scientific men have been aware of its existence for upwards of sixty years, and Bence Jones, Silvanus Thompson, and other writers on the life of Faraday have consulted it for material and have quoted passages from it in their writings; but few of the present generation, to whom the name of Faraday has become a household word, can be fully aware of the nature and extent, the scientific and biographical significance, and the extraordinary interest of these hitherto unpublished papers.

Abstract: Abstract‘DENATUBATION’, though a phenomenon familiar objectively to all who handle proteins, involves a change of state of which the precise nature is yet obscure. The term itself is scarcely capable of adequate definition. It is only certain that native proteins dispersed in water as lyophil colloids suffer, as the result of diverse alterations in their environ-ment, a change which is accompanied by complete loss of solubility in pure water or dilute salt solutions. If under any influence (such as that of dilute acids or alkalis) a protein denatured in this sense is retained in solution, or redispersed after separation, it is then found no longer in the lyophil but in the lyophobe condition. Denaturation thus understood is always antecedent to coagulation or flocculation, these being secondary processes dependent upon conditions which make for instability in suspensoid systems. We are quite ignorant of the nature of any molecular change which may be responsible for, or accompany, this change in the type of dispersion. Evidence suggest-ing that some intramolecular readjustment does, as a matter of fact, occur will be mentioned immediately.

Abstract: DURING the last few years a number of silicate structures have been analysed by means of X-rays in the Physical Laboratories of the University of Manchester. In the course of these investigations, we have found the atomic arrangement in the olivine, chondrodite, phenacite, pyroxene, and amphibole groups amongst the silicates of divalent metals, and in a number of aluminium silicates such as the forms of Al2SiO3, staurolite, topaz (analysed also by Pauling), beryl, and the zeolite analcite. Other silicates analysed are titanite, and benitoite containing titanium, danburite containing boron, zircon (analysed also by Vegard) and thortveitite. A group of workers has carried out these analyses, important contributions being made by Warren (pyroxenes and amphiboles), Zachariasen (titanite, thortveitite, benitoite), Naray (staurolite, cyanite), Taylor (forms of Al2SiO5 and analcite), and West (chondrodite group). Warren has just reported an analysis of the melitite group. In addition, Menzer has analysed the garnet group, and Jaeger the family of compounds to which ultramarine belongs. Preliminary observations have been published by Schiebold on the felspars, and by Mauguin on the composition of the micas. So much ground has been covered that it is possible to review the silicates as a class of compounds, though of course such a survey must be of a very preliminary character.

Abstract: THIS publication is issued by the Department of Anthropology of the University of California. It contains much that is of great interest to the student of primitive art, for it is concerned with a quantity of drawings which occur throughout California, being mostly executed on vertical rock-surfaces. There are both carvings and paintings, consisting for the most part of highly conventionalised figures of men and animals as well as what can only be classed as geometric patterns, and the whole forms a most interesting art group. University of California Publications in American Archœology and Ethnology. Vol. 24, No. 2: Petroglyphs of California and adjoining States. By Julian H. Steward. Pp. 47 - 238 + plates 22–94. (Berkeley: University of California Press; London: Cambridge University Press, 1929.) 2.50 dollars.

Abstract: RECENT experiments,1 carried out for the most part on human hair and various types of sheep's wool, have shown that animal hairs can give rise to two X-ray ‘fibre photographs’ according as the hairs are unstretched or stretched, and that the change from one photograph to the other corresponds to a reversible transformation between two forms of the keratin complex. Hair rapidly recovers its original length on wetting after removal of the stretching force, and either of the two possible photographs may be produced at will an indefinite number of times. Both are typical ‘fibre photographs’ in the sense that they arise from crystallites or pseudo-crystallites of which the average length along the fibre axis is much larger than the average thickness, and which are almost certainly built up in a rather imperfect manner of molecular chains—what Meyer and Mark2 have called Hauptvalenzketten—running roughly parallel to the fibre axis.

Abstract: UNTIL a few years ago the various local governments merits in British Africa could justly have been accused of indifference to the educational needs of the native peoples committed to their care. Within the past few years, however, these same governments have given welcome evidence of their growing belief in education as the principal factor in the development of the capacities of the African peoples, and the need for supplementing the work of the various missionary bodies in the field of education. They have been given much encouragement in their efforts to improve native education by the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, which from its inception has had at its command the services of Major Hanns Vischer, who combines a genuine enthusiasm for education with an almost unique knowledge of the peoples of Africa and a sympathetic understanding of their needs. Equally important has been the stimulus given to educationists in Africa by Mr. Ormsby-Gore, Mr. Jesse Jones and his associates, and the members of the Hilton-Young Commission, all of whom have visited Africa within the past six years.

Abstract: IT has recently proved possible to cultivate young chicken and duck embryos in vitro, using the ‘watch-glass technique’ employed at the Strangeways Laboratory for the cultivation of embryonic organs. Experiments using a somewhat similar technique were made in this laboratory two or three years ago by T. S. P. Strangeways and D. H. Strangeways, but the work was given up after a few trials and the results never published. The embryos can easily be kept alive for two or three days and differentiate nearly normally, although the rates both of differentiation and of growth are slower in vitro than in vivo. I wish here to summarise some experiments which I have recently performed on this material: full reports will be published in the near future.

Abstract: WHEN the International Brain Commission met in 1905 at the Royal Society's rooms in London, it recommended the establishment of a central institute for brain research in each of the countries represented. While most of the representatives regarded this resolution as the expression of a pious wish not likely to be realised the Royal Academy of Sciences in Amsterdam set to work to found such an institute as the Brain Commission recommended and placed Dr. Ariens Kappers in charge. The Evolution of the Nervous System in Invertebrates, Vertebrates and Man. Dr. C. U. Ariens Kappers. Pp. vii + 335. (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn, 1929.) 8.75 g.

Abstract: LORD EUSTACE PERCY'S appointment as Minister of Education in the last government no doubt seemed to most people to have no particular significance. The new Minister, however, soon evinced unusual signs of wanting to see things for himself and of both forming opinions of his own and expressing them. This he did in an arresting manner, and with such an unusual avoidance of the customary rotund qualifying phrases of a cabinet-haunted Minister that there was on the part of some much fear, and on the part of others a good deal of hope, that he might end in some first-class indiscretion. Now Lord Eustace has written a book; yet his adversaries (if he still has any) can scarcely rejoice, for if it is coloured by any political cast of thought, the candour, the large-mindedness, and the courage exhibited in the book must surely disarm them. Education at the Crossroads. By Lord Eustace Percy. Pp. iv + 104. (London: Evans Bros., Ltd., n.d.) 5s. net.

Abstract: FROM many points of view diamond is a crystal of supreme interest, and it is remarkable that, though more than two years have elapsed since the discovery of the Raman effect, no attempt appears to have been made so far to study the scattering of light in this substance. I have found that quite a small diamond (half carat size) suffices to photograph the Raman spectrum of crystalline carbon. Each of the mercury lines 4046.6 A. and 4358.3 A. excites a single Raman line of remarkable sharpness and intensity (Fig. 1, marked with arrows); the wave-number shifts are 1331 cm.−1 and 1333 cm.−1 respectively, in pleasing agreement with the wave-number 1333 cm.−1 of the Rest-strahlen frequency of diamond (Nernst and Lindemann; Z. Electro-Chemie, 17, 822; 1911). The sharpness of the line is to be expected in view of the known perfection of the crystal, according to the ideas of Sir C. V. Raman (Faraday Society's Discussion, Bristol meeting). The brightness of the line is also not surprising in view of the ease with which organic substances generally give the Raman effect. Experiment shows that the line is strongly polarised.

Abstract: WHY do we call the universe mysterious? Is it because we know so much about it or so little? The impression left by Sir James Jeans's fascinating book is that it is because the interpreta tion given appears more fantastic than that which is interpreted. Perhaps the only true mystery is one which is not destroyed by solution. The Mysterious Universe. Sir. James Jeans. Pp. ix + 154 + 2 plates. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1930). 3s. 6d. net.

Abstract: THE study of impedance networks has acquired much importance during the past decade, as a result very largely of the pioneer work of G A Campbell on wave-filters The literature of the subject has hitherto been scattered through the pages of patent specifications and technical journals, particularly the Bell System technical journal; the present very thorough account, which is particularly complete in its treatment of wave filters, will therefore be of the highest value to electricians Although wave-filters have hitherto been used mainly in their practical applications to telephony, telegraphy, and wireless transmission, the precision with which they can be made to suppress some frequency bands while admitting others may render them of service in some branches of pure research Transmission Networks and Wave Filters T E Shea Pp xvii + 470 (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd, 1930) 32s net

Abstract: SINCE the spring of 1929 I have been engaged at Toulouse on a study of the biological agencies which play a part in regulating numbers of the sheep ‘blow-fly’, Lucilia sericata Meign. The effect of parasites and predators was first sought by a quantitative study of the puparia derived from carrion in which the flies had bred. However, it soon became evident that the only way by which a reasonable understanding could be obtained of the inter-relations of the various biological forms in the carrion and the magnitude of their action was by a quantitative study of the carrion insect populations, from the beginning of putrefaction to the disappearance of all consumable parts.

Abstract: IN NATURE of April 20, 1929 (123, p. 601), one of us (H. R.) described a method of spectrographic analysis of mineral and organic substances and pointed out the value of the method for biological purposes. Since then we have undertaken a survey of the animal kingdom with the purpose of detecting and analysing quantitatively those of the less common elements contained in protoplasm and its products which can be investigated by this method.

Abstract: INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT BRISTOL ON SEPT. 3. TWO years have passed since the British Association last met in Britain. Events have happened in that interval which mark the close of the Darwinian epoch. Down House, in which Darwin lived and worked, has been bought, restored, and endowed by Mr. Buckston Browne and presented by him to the Association, which holds it in custody for the nation. The house is now open asa shrine to those who treasure Darwin's memory. They may enter the study where the “Origin of Species” was penned, or wander out to the Sand Walk, and draw such inspiration as those spots may yet afford to those who are face to face with problems cognate to his own. These years have also severed personal links with Darwin himself. Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, who died in December 1928, had been his frequent correspondent. It was he who, more than any other, carried the evolutionary stimulus forward into the botanical schools of Britain. Sir Edwin RayLankester, whose portrait by Orpen was a poignant feature of last year's Academy, died in August 1929. Not only was he the leading zoologist of his time, but he has left a deep impress on general morphology; for he was the first to analyse from the evolutionary aspect the degrees of ‘sameness’ of parts, whether in animals or in plants. These two octogenarians were among the latest links between Darwin himself and living men of science; so this last meeting of the Association before its centenary next year falls at a nodal point in the personal history of evolution.

Abstract: IN the little pamphlet referred to below1 Dr. Adams brings together the work of former investigators in Ceylon, savouring his account with important conclusions derived from observations of his own. The geological structure of the island is outlined for the first time, analyses of rocks are given and, above all, there is an admirable geological map, the first of the whole island to be produced. A list comprising seventy references is provided.

Abstract: THE authors of this book say, “We have attempted on the basis of our personal experience in post-graduate and undergraduate teaching to provide a text-book which will be of service to those students of medicine and biology who wish to make a serious study of bacteriology, and its application to the problems of infection and resistance”. This very desirable end has led them, we think wisely, to divide the book into two volumes, so as to treat in the first place the biological aspects of bacteria, and after that has been dealt with to pass to the subject of infection and the application of bacteriology to medicine and hygiene. The Principles of Bacteriology and Immunology. By Prof. W. W. C. Topley Dr. G. S. Wilson. In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. Pp. xvi + 587 + xvi. Vol. 2. Pp. viii + 589–1300 + xx. (London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1929.) 50s. net.

Abstract: PROF. MACBRIDE, in his brilliant review (NATURE, Oct. 25, p. 639) of the recent embryological works by Durken, Schleip, and Przibram, raises questions which are so fundamental in modern biology that I venture in all humility to interpose a word. Although I have not yet had the opportunity of reading these books, much of their work is already familiar ground, and Prof. MacBride’s clear exposition renders reference to the originals unnecessary so far as these general questions are concerned.

Abstract: THE appearance of any work on the history of chemistry which is more than a sketch of the subject is so infrequent that a general expression of satisfaction and a recommendation seem inevitable in all cases, and are usually given to the exclusion of any detailed criticism. There are, however, certain general errors which seem fated to recur in all such works, and it may be useful, in addition to the statement that the present work is one which every chemist should add to his library, to notice some of these here. Das Buch der grossen Chemiker. Dr. Gunther Bugge. Band 1: Von Zosimos bis Schonbein. Pp. xii + 496 + 42 Tafeln. (Berlin: Verlag Chemie G.m.b.H., 1929.) 24 gold marks.