摘要:

A COLLECTION of extracts such as MM. Bougl6 and Raffault have compiled has its manifest uses as a source book and work of reference. This, however, has not been the primary or even the main object oJ its preparation, although the course of the Ecoles Normales has been followed in the chief features of its framework. It is intended as a manifesto and reply to those who maintain the unsuitability of sociology as a subject of instruction on the ground that it is too young a science to have become sufficiently systematised and adequately provided with principles of general application to afford a suitable discipline. The compilers desire to refute this criticism by submitting to the reader what sociological writers have actually said, instead of entering into abstract argument. In England, perhaps, we have been fortunate: any controversy on this point being almost forgotten owing to an early acceptance of the evolutionary principle in its application to sociological data. Early exuberance, it is true, has had to be overcome, but the scientific attitude remains. This, however, does not affect the fact that for English readers, equally with French or those of any other tongue, this is a stimulating book in which the views of sociologists of to-day, yesterday, or long ago, on specific points arising out of a sociological scheme, may be found in their most characteristic form.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119001a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THIS well-planned little book aims at awakening the interest of the layman, and more especially of school-pupils, in prehistory by a lively and graphic presentation of the main facts. The outstanding features of each chief cultural period from Lower Palheolithic to Roman times are first briefly sketched. An imaginative description of some supposedly typical incidents from the epoch in question is added to fill in the details. We are introduced, for example, to a 'wandering artist' who winters in the cave of some reindeer-hunters and then passes on to another shelter after having adorned his hosts' abode with representations of bisons and other animals. We see the Urgermanen from the North Sea raiding the villages of the Michelsberg folk and witness the burial of a chief in a megalithic tomb. A description is given of a bronze age smithy and of the visit of a travelling dealer with copper and tin from England, who, with the aid of his ' slaves,' eventually carries off the smith's beautiful Nordic daughter. Dr. Ledroit has carefully collected all the scattered scraps of archaeological evidence that might help to complete a concrete picture of life in those remote times. There is less evidence of a mastery of the ethnographic data that might be invoked to supplement this inevitably fragmentary record, and a few mistakes have crept in. The bronze-worker may well have used the cire perdue process, but it is wrong to make him execute the spiral decoration on the finished casting; the mammoth is said to be a metre taller than existing elephants.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119002a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THIS part does not complete the supplement to " Les Arachnides de France." It deals with two sub-families of the Argiopidae-the Theridiosomatinee and Erigoninee. The former contains the genus Theridiosoma, which is in some respects a link between the Theridiidoe and Argiopid.e and is represented in France and Great Britain by one species only. In the Erigonin.e thirteen new genera have been created without the addition of any new species, which seems somewhat drastic treatment. Some of the generic distinctions are slight and the generic characters will in some cases be more difficult to determine than the specific ones. This part will be something of a disappointment to British arachnologists, who have been anxiously awaiting the remainder of this volume in the hope that the British and European classification of spiders might once and for all be unified. It is certainly a valuable contribution but falls short of our hopes.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119003c0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IN the first 84 pages the author gives an account, necessarily very condensed, of the various phyla. It is difficult to estimate whether some of the sections, e.g. one page of text for the sponges, about ten lines for the Ctenophora, six lines for the Bryozoa and for the Myriapoda respectively, will serve to convey to the student an adequate idea of the groups concerned. The author may depend largely on the laboratory instruction for the building up of the student's knowledge of structure, and the brief accounts may be intended chiefly for purposes of revision. The second part of the work (about 70 pages) deals with physiology-food and its transportation in the body, production of energy, respiration, excretion, animal heat, chemical relations between the organs, movement, reactions to stimuli. The final section of about 80 pages is devoted to embryology, heredity, and the origin of species. The figures are diagrammatic and clear; there is a list of works of reference and an adequate index.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119004a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THESE volumes represent recent additions to two series of 'handbooks ' dealing with experimental methods in biology and the study of colloids respectively. The polarisation microscope, once finding its application exclusively in orthodox crystallography, is now being applied to the study of what Sir William Bragg so expressively terms "the imperfect crystallisation of common things." The highly regular molecular arrangements often found in such objects as vegetable fibres, nerve filaments, cell walls, and so on, frequently leads to double refraction of large amount, which is measured without difficulty by the highly refined methods originally developed for mineralogical purposes. (1) K6hler's discussion is arranged largely as a series of experiments designed to illustrate the main applications of the polarisation microscope, the determination of the directions of the axes of the index ellipse (the ' fast ' and ' slow ' directions), the use of the S6narmont compensation systems, etc., all being thoroughly explained on physical principles with the minimum of mathematics. The optical features of konoscopic methods are also carefully treated, and a number of representative biological and colloidal applications are discussed. Unfortunately, the separate volumes of this series are not given an individual index, which somewhat detracts from the utility of each section by itself, but it is meant to be read in conjunction with Kohler's previously issued volumes on the microscope in the same series, and will be found clear and adequate.(2) The volume by Ambronn and Frey will be found useful for readers more familiar with physics, and covers the ground rather more rapidly than the volume above. The latter half of the book is devoted to the physical applications of the various methods; a valuable section deals with the results of 0. Wiener's " Theorie des Mischk6rpers," another with liquid anisotropism, and so on. Part 3 deals with the various optical methods employed to glean information as to the structure of dispersoids, and the directions of the particles. Celluloid and rubber are among the substances specifically discussed. The name of Richard Zsigmondy, the editor of the series, will be a guarantee of the reliability of this ' handbook,' which naturally explains much of the recent work of the authors.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119005b0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

FULL theoretical accounts of the subjects of polarimetry, spectroscopy, and nephelometry are given, together with descriptions of selected pieces of apparatus. The accounts are written from the point of view of the biologist rather than the physicist, especially the section dealing with spectroscopy, in which special reference is made to the blood pigments. The work should be consulted by all those interested in these particular branches of biological methods.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119006a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

COLLOIDAL solutions in which the continuous medium is solid at ordinary temperature are common in industrial processes, but owing to the experimental difficulties of investigating them, they have received less attention than solid-liquid systems. Prof. R. Lorenz is a pioneer in this field, and the monograph gives a summary of our knowledge of metal fogs in fused salts, coloured glasses, and the colloidal materials in minerals and slags. The consideration of similar solid colloidal solutions formed by the action of light leads naturally to an account of modern work on the photohalides and the latent photographic image. The excellent and numerous illustrations assist in making the book exceptionally interesting and useful.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119007c0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

JEAN BECQUEREL has the unique distinction of being the fourth in a direct line of distinguished physicists extending over more than a century, and occupying, moreover, the same official position in the National Museum, Paris. This portion of the author's " Cours de Physique " is separately reprinted in a handy form useful to both musicians and physicists. In the question of melodic scales it supports Helmholtz as against the strict Pythagoreans.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119008d0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

MR. ROSE'S companion volume to his " Primitive Culture in Greece," if introduced into schools, might well serve to eliminate much of the dreariness which teachers of the classics have too often succeeded in introducing into the study of Roman religion and social organisation. Postulating a primitive culture and religious belief in which mana is the predominant element-mana, Mr. Rose points out, is a conception to which numen is closely akin-he shows that in classical Italy religion the gods, worship, and magic the calendar, the conceptions attaching to priests and kings, and the organisation of the family and the clan, the ideas underlying the law relating to crimes and torts, property, etc., on analysis yield an element referable to certain primitive conceptions; in other words, that. much in the observances of classical times is explicable only as survival from prehistoric times. Mr. Rose's treatment of religion is particularly illuminating, and his suggestion that the practical aim of ritual and observance was essentially occasional and intended to direct mana into profitable channels does offer a reasonably sound explanation of the Roman deities, which stand apart from the circle of deities obviously imported from outside.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119009c0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IT is some years since the original edition of this book appeared. Since then considerable advances in our knowledge have been made which are not adequately reflected in these pages. It is true that the trend of modern botanical progress is recognised by the inclusion of a chapter on ecology and one on evolution and heredity, but, to employ the jargon of the diplomatist, these amount to little more than ' gestures,' since ecology is disposed of in five pages chiefly devoted to an enumeration of Warming's habitat classes, whilst evolution and heredity furnish the subject matter of barely four pages, of which two deal with the familiar Mendelian segregation. The chief modifications from the earlier edition concern the substitution where necessary of Indian for European types and appropriate modifications in the families considered. Several errors of the original edition remain uncorrected, as, for example, the figure of the vascular system of the deadnettle, in which the four main bundles are shown in duplicate, and the figure of Sonchus crispus which appears as Sonchus oleraceus. We may note, too, the absence of ligules from Fig. 154 purporting to represent a longitudinal section of a Selaginella cone. There are also several irritating if minor misprints, and one cannot but regret that the occasion was not taken to revise the work completely and bring it up-todate.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119010c0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature