It might be suggested as an improvement to future travellers, that in the arrangement of the plates more attention should be paid to varieties, and that the several forms should be placed side by side according to their affinities. There is no point of so great interest to the scientific student of early culture as the allied varieties of form. As a rule with exceptions, it may be said that arts which are indigenous present greater varieties than those which are exotic, and hence the importance of studying minute differences, more especially in cases where, by means of gradual variation, transitions to other types or other uses may be traced. A few finished drawings are no doubt valuable in order to give a correct idea of the leading types; but for the varieties, outline drawings on a smaller scale in the style of the illustrations of "Demmin's History of Arms," are all that is needed, and enable these transitions to be given at a trifling cost. With these additions, and with due attention to such other matters relating to savage art as are suggested in the "Anthropological Notes and Queries," published by the British Asso

RECENT FRENCH EXPERIMENTAL

PHYSIOLOGY

Physiologie Experimentale. Travaux du Laboratoire de M. Marey. (Paris: G. Masson, 1876.)

UNDER the auspices of the Minister of Public Instruc

tion of France are published from time to time volumes of the “ Bibliothèque des Hautes Études." The

ciation, we would earnestly commend the example of Dr. Schweinfurth to all travellers, for, as he truly says in his preface, "Hurry is needed: the destructive tendency of our industrial productions obtruding themselves upon all the nations of the earth menaces, sooner or later, to sweep away, even in Africa, the last remnants of indigenous arts." Of the utility of such a work as this no anthropologist or antiquary can doubt. There is, however, one remark of the author's to which we would draw special attention, and which he in this work' reiterates with commendable emphasis :-" A people, as long as they are on the lowest step of their development, are far better characterised by their industrial products than they are either by their habits, which may be purely local, or by their own representations, which, rendered in their rude and unformed language, are often incorrectly interpreted by ourselves. If we possessed more of these tokens we should be in a position to comprehend better than we do the primitive condition of many a nation that has now reached a high degree of culture."

work before us is one of these, and its value will be fully appreciated by any physiologist or physicist who has once glanced at its well illustrated pages. It contains several papers by M. Marey, mostly on points connected with the

employment of the "graphic" method of depicting the magnitude and duration of dynamical phenomena both physical and physiological, and two by Dr. François

nerves of the head.

The most important of the memoirs by M. Marey is, in our estimation, that on the movements of liquid waves, undertaken with a view of assisting in the theory of the

M. Marey's extraordinary mechanical skill has enabled him to devise and construct an apparatus by means of which he has been enabled to represent synchronously,

VI

by the graphic method, the moment of origin and the conformation of the wave produced in every part of an indiarubber tube distended with fluid. A glance at the accompanying figure (Fig. 1.) will indicate the method employed. The wave is produced by the movement of the piston of the pump at the left side of the figure. It is transmitted along the continuous horizontal tube in the foreground, which is made to record the movements of six equidistant spots twenty centimetres apart, on the revolving drum, covered with smoked paper, in the background, by means of the delicate system of double "tambours," or elastic-covered drums and levers which have been introduced and so much employed by the author. The tubes connecting the tambours, being of the same material and of equal length, any error from irregularity in the rate of transmission along them is avoided. A pair of forceps, as in the figure, close the experimental tube just beyond the point of attachment of the last of the tambours.

020

020

IV

When it has reached the extremity of the tube the wave takes a reverse course, and returns through each of the recording drums to the place from which it started. This reflected wave is indicated by the down-turned arrows in Fig. 2; the direct one and its secondary companions having

3 a

20

III

020

=

2 a

When a positive wave, in other words, one of compression, is transmitted along this tube, thus arranged, it is seen that the levers rise one after the other, beginning at that nearest the piston; and that immediately the last one begins to rise, a second wave commences in the opposite direction. There is still more to be learnt from the curves recorded on the smoked cylinder, which are reproduced in Fig. 2, from an actual experiment. In this figure the six undulations are those of the six levers, the lowest being that of the portion of the tube nearest the piston, and the highest that of the furthest end. The trace of a chronograph vibrating fifty times a second is given below the lowest of the curves. Perpendiculars projected from the summits of each of the curves upon the chronograph trace would be separated by equal intervals if, during the different parts of its course, the rapidity of transmission of the wave were uniform. But it is seen from the figure under consideration that, although in traversing each 20 centimetres of the tube the wave takes about one-fiftieth of a second, and so travels at the rate of about 10 metres a second, nevertheless its rapidity is not absolutely uniform, being at its maximum at its orifice of entry, and after it has become slower again, slightly increasing in velocity in the neighbourhood of the closed end. There is therefore a double change in the velocity of the wave.

152

Chron. 50 V.D.

FIG. 2.

upturned arrows above them. By varying the distance of the occluding forceps from the last recording tambour the time of commencement of the reflected wave can be similarly varied.

It is interesting to observe that in a paper on the movement of the pulse-wave in the human arte

ture, we also rejoice, in the interests of science, that they think there is some chance of such a work becoming a commercial success; for thus, in the judgment of practical men, there exists a considerable public who are able to understand, appreciate, and enjoy a work which is largely scientific in its character. This is an additional sign of the general advance in intelligence which has been going on in recent years, and of the fact that the results of scientific research are gradually taking a place in the public estimation of equal importance with the results of literary effort. We sincerely wish "The Arctic World" an extensive circulation; the publishers certainly deserve to be rewarded for the venture they have made. Although the text is of substantial value, still,

the most striking feature in this beautifully got-up book is its pictures, which are most, if not all, of French workmanship, and are really beautiful in execution, with that touch of artistic exaggeration which the French manage to impart to the most commonplace woodcut. These pictures, upwards of 100 in number, render the work a most attractive one, and besides, of themselves, are calculated to convey not a little information concerning the Arctic regions, the varied life, animal and human, and scenery of which they represent with considerable fulness. They are in all respects so attractive, that they can be looked at over and over again without any diminution of interest. In the first chapter the author points out briefly and

forcibly the scientific and practical gains which may be expected from Arctic exploration, and which were fully set before the public in connection with the Arctic expedition, which no doubt is now upon or beyond the "threshold of the unknown region." He gives a short sketch of the geographical features of the Arctic region, of its surface in relation to snow and ice, and of the general character of life in the Polar World. In the second chapter an interesting account is given of some of the most striking phenomena tures of the region, the scenery, atmospheric phenomena, the aurora, and some of the most prominent astronomical features. The nature and formation of icebergs are pretty fully discussed in the next chapter, and the various forms of ice to be met with in the Arctic regions described; after which comes an interesting account of some of the

forms of animal life to be met with in the Polar Seas, and the methods of capturing it. Then follows a well-written account of the most trustworthy researches on the nature and formation of snow and ice in connection with the constitution and movements of glaciers. Vegetable life is described in Chapter V., as also the connections, habits, and uses of the principal landanimals and birds. A slight divergence is made in Chapter VI., in order to give a brief account of Iceland its scenery, its physical phenomena, and the life and character of the people; this chapter is written in a tone that Capt. Burton would probably think too highly pitched. In the three succeeding chapters the characteristics and mode of life of the various people who inhabit the Arctic regions are set forth with considerable

fulness. The Eskimo, the Lapps, the Samojedes, the Ostraks, the Jakuts, the Tungusi, the Tchuktche, the principal groups of people in short that inhabit Arctic America, Europe, and Asia, all come in for detailed notice, and that in a manner calculated both to interest and instruct. It is the same with respect to all the other matters referred to in the work: we are too apt when thinking of the Arctic World to limit the term to Greenland or Arctic America at most, forgetting how much more the term includes. In the present work the whole region within the Arctic Circle, all round, is included, and its various features, phenomena, and life described with greater or

avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the "Notes of Travel" of again learning, from his own pen, other incidents in the short and far from uneventful career of the enterprising semi-Swedish traveller and fluent writer. The posthumous "Notes" edited by Mr. Lloyd -who performed the same service with reference to another of Mr. Andersson's works, "The Lion and the Elephant"-contain, besides the descriptions of the habits of some few of the birds and animals of the districts in question, the account of the doings of the author during the last four or five years of his life, a period in which the political differences between the neighbouring South African tribes of Damaraland and Namaqua Land compelled him to devote more time to trade and the disputes which arose therefrom, than to geographical and biological research.

Not long after his marriage, in 1861, Mr. Andersson purchased of the Walwich Bay Mining Company, on the winding up of their affairs, their extensive establishment

Otjimbingue-in Damaraland, with the object of making it a trading station for cattle and ivory. In a war which arose between the Damaras and Namaquas Andersson found himself constrained to become the leader of the former; during this he sustained, from a bullet, a wound in the leg smashing the upper end of the right tibia and fibula, which was long in healing, and rendered him lame for the short remaining period of his life.

The great injury done to his trading operations, the loss of his stock, and the probability of further outbreaks, led the author, who was still suffering from his wound, and further incapacitated by repeated attacks of dysentery, in his enfeebled state, to entertain the idea of establishing favourable trading relations with the Portuguese settlers of Benguela, north of the river Cunené. With this object in view he left Cape Town, where he had spent some time on account of his health, in May 1866, once more for Damaraland. Namaqua marauders continued to harass him, and he started from Ondonga for the Cunené in May 1867. He reached that river in the middle of June ; however, he never crossed it because of the bad treatment he received from the ferrymen and from his state of health, which will be best understood from his own note on the day following that on which he reached it. He died in the Ovampo wilderness, where he was buried by no one but a youthful and faithful attendant, Alex Ericson.

During his illness he spent much of his time in collecting the materials for a work on the ornithology of Southwest Africa, a book which was to have been published in a profusely illustrated and otherwise costly form by Messrs. Day and Son. This important addition to our knowledge of the African avifauna the author never saw in print; but since his death it has been produced in a

The work altogether is one of the most interesting and trustworthy of its kind we have had the pleasure to come across; we do not knowof any similar book which gives a more satisfactory account of the principal features of the Arctic World. Boys and girls we are sure would consider it a treasure; and to all old boys and full-grown girls who desire "something fresh" both to read and to look at, we can heartily commend it.

OUR BOOK SHELF

Notes of Travel in South Africa. By Charles John Andersson. Edited by L. Lloyd. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1875.)

THOSE who are acquainted with the late Mr. C. J. Andersson's "Lake N'gami," "The Okovango River"-discovered by him-or any of his other writings, will gladly

ship of Mr. J. H. Gurney, under the title of "The Birds of Damaraland; "now a standard volume of ornithological literature.

The notes on the habits and powers of the vulture will interest naturalists, as will the attempt to distinguish a second species of ostrich, said to differ from Struthio camelus in that the male bird is slightly larger, whilst the female is jet black, like the male, instead of greyish; and the young is of a sooty brown. Machaerhampus anderssoni, or Andersson's Perm obtained from Otjimbingue, is fully described, as are the Kori Bustard (Eupodotis kori), the Rufous-crested Bustard (E. ruficrista), Rupell's Bustard (E. rupelli), and a few other birds. Mr. Lloyd tells us in his preface that, among numerous papers, Andersson left behind him "Notices of several of the quadrupeds indigenous to Damaraland and the neighbouring countries." These it was his original intention to incorporate in the present work, but to preserve the continuity of the narrative they were, with the exception of a single chapter on the Leopard and its congeners, omitted, though not without hope that at some future