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300 NATURE
make known to us. Indian shooting is well treated by
Colonel Percy, who goes verY fully into the subject. It is,
indeed, an ample one, and Colonel Percy enumerates no
less than fifty-threeanimals to be included in the category
of big game by the fortunate sportsmen of India. The
second volume concludes with good advice about camps,
transport, rifles, and ammunition, and with a few hints on
taxidermy, showing the way in which the larger animals
should be skinned and their heads set up as sportsmen's
trophies.
In concluding our notice of this attractive work, we
may be permitted again to call notice to the illustrations,
which, with few exceptions, are of a high degree of excellence.
Two of these, by the kind permission of the
publishers, we reproduce on the present occasion. The
first of them represents a scene in British East Africa,
between Teita and Taveta, in the Kilima-njaro district,
where (in September I 886) the country was "literally
crawling" with zebra, hartebeest, impala, oryx, and
Grant's antelope, besides eland and giraffe, and an
occasional steinbok and wart-hog." In those days
Taveta was correctly designated the " Hunters' Paradisc."
The second illustration shows us the haunt of the
Spanish ibex, of which we have already spoken.
Before concluding our notice of what will no doubt
quickly and deservedly become the big-game-shooters'
favourite handbook, we venture to call attention to what is
probably a slight slip on the part of l\lr. Phillipps·\Valley.
General Richard Dashwood, than whom there can be
no better authority on the subject, has commented,
in an article in La11d and fVater (l\larch 24, 1894),
rather severely on some of l\lr. Phillipps-Walley's statements
regarding the caribou and moose of North
America. It is no doubt incorrect to say that caribon
and moose feed upon the same food. As explained by
General Dashwood, their tastes are very different. It
is also an error to describe the "call-cry" of the female
moose as a roar. General Dashwood's experienced ear
teaches him to describe it as a "beautiful clear note,
rising and falling with a sort of entreaty in the tone and
a soft grunt at the end.''
POPULAR/SING SCIENCE.
"poPULAR science,'' it is to be feared, is a phrase
that conveys a certain flavour of contempt to many
a scientific worker. It may be that this contempt is not
altogether undeserved, and that a considerable proportion
of the science of our magazines, school text-books, and
books for the general reader, is the mere obvious tinctured
by inaccurate compilation. But this in itself scarcely
justifies a sweeping condemnation, though the editorial
incapacity thus evinced must be a source of grave regret
to all specialists with literary leanings and with the
welfare of science at heart. The fact remains that in an
age when the endowment of research is rapidly passing
out of the hands of private or quasi-private organisations
into those of the State, the maintenance of an intelligent
exterior interest in current investigation becomes of
almost vital importance to continual progress. Let that
adjective " intelligent" be insisted upon. Time was
when inquiry could go on unaffected even by the
scornful misrepresentations of such a as
Swift, because it was mainly the occupation of men of
considerable means. But now that our growing edifice
of knowledge spreads more and more over a substructure
of grants and votes, and the appliances needed for
instruction and further research increase steadily in cost,
even the affectation of a contempt for popular opinion
becomes unwise. There is not only the danger of
supplies heing cut off, but of their being misapplied
by a public whose scientific education is neglected, of
their being deflected from investigations of certain, to
NO. 1291, VOL. 50]
those of doubtful value. For instance, the public endowment
of the Zetetic Society, the discovery of Dr. Platt's
polar and central suns, or the rotation of Dr. Owen's
Bacon-cryptogram wheel, at the expense of saner inquiries
might conceivably and very appropriately result
from the specialisation of science to the supercilious
pitch.
It should also go far to reconcile even the youngest
and most promising of specialists to the serious consideration
of popular science, to reflect that the acknowledged
leaders of the great generation that is now passing·away,
Darwin notablr, addressed themselves in many
cases to the general reader, rather than to their colleagues.
But instead of the current of popular and yet philosophical
books increasing, its volume appears if anything
to dwindle, and many works ostensibly addressed to the
public by distinguished investigators, succeed in no
nptable degree, or fail to meet with appreciation
altogether. There is still a considerable demand for
popular works, but it is met in many cases by a new
class of publication from which philosophical quality is
largely eliminated. At the risk of appearing impertinent,
I may perhaps, as a mere general reader, say a little
concerning the defects of very much of what is proffered
to the public as scientific literature. As a reviewer for
one or two publications, I have necessarily given some
special attention to the matter.
As a general principle, one may say that a book should
be written in the language of its readers, but a very considerable
number of scientific writers fail to realise this.
A fc1v write boldly in the dialect of their science, and
there is certainly a considerable pleasure in a skilful and
compact handling of technicalities; but such writers do
not appreciate the fact that this is an acquired taste, and
that the public has not acquired it. \Vorse sometimes
results from the persistent avoidance of technicality.
Except in the cases of the meteorologist, arch::eologist,
and astronomer, who are relatively free from a special
terminology, a scientific man finds himself at a great
disadvantage in writing literary English when compared
with a man who is not a specialist. To express his
thought precisely he gravitates towards the all too convenient
technicality, and forbidden that, too often rests
contented with vague, ambiguous, or misleading phrases.
It does not follow that, because, what from a literary
standpoint must be called "slang," is not to be used,
that the writer is justified in "writing down" as if to
his intellectual inferiors. The evil often goes further
than a lack of precision. Out of a quite unwarrantable
feeling of pity and condescension for the weak minds
that have to wrestle with the elements of his thought, the
scientific writer will go out of his way to jest jests of a
carefully selected and most obvious description, forgetting
that whatever status his special knowledge may give
him in his subject, the subtlety of his humour is probably
not greatly superior, and may even be inferior to that of
the average man, and that what he assumes as inferiority
in his hearers or readers is simply the absence of what
is, after all, his own intellectual parochialism. The
villager thought the tourist a fool because. he did not
know "Owd Smith." Occasionally scientific people are
guilty of much the same fallacy.
In this matter of writing or lecturing "down," one
may even go so far as to object altogether to the
facetious adornment of popular scientific statements.
\Vriting as one of the reading public, I may testify that
to the common man who opens a book or attends a
lecture, this clowning is either very irritating or very
depressing. \Ve respect science and scientific men
hugely, and we had far rather they took themselves
seriously. The taste for formal jesting is sufficiently
provided for in periodic<!ls of a special class. Yet
on three occasions recently very considerable distress
has been occasioned the writer by such mistaken
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NA7URE 30£
-efforts after puerility of style. One was in a popular
work on geology, where the beautiful problems of the
past of our island and the evolution of life were defaced
by the disorderly off;pring of a quite megatherial witif
one may coin such an antithesis to "etherial." One
jest I am afraid I shall never forget. It was a Laocoon
strucrgle with the thought that the huge subsidiary brains
in the lumbar region of Sfel[osaurus suggested the
animation of Dr. Busby's arm by the suspicion of a
similarly situated brain in the common boy. The second
disappointment was a popular lecture professing to deal
with the Lick Observatory, and I was naturally anxious
to learn a little of the unique appliances and special discm·eries
of this place. But we scarcely got to the
Observatory at all. \Ve were shown-I presume as being
moreadapted to our intelligence-numerous lantern-slides
of the road to the Lick Observatory, most of them with
the "great white dome" in the distance, other views (for
comparison probably) with the " great white dome"
hidden, portraits of the "gentlemen of the party on
horseback," walks round the Observatory, the head of an
interesting old man who lived in a cottage near, the dome
by moonlight, the dome in winter, and at last the telescope
was "too technical'' for explanation, and we were
told in a superior tone of foolish things our fellow
common people had said about it. For my own part, I
really saw nothing very foolish in a lady expecting to see
houses on the moon. l\ly third experience was osten-sibly
a lecture on astronomy, but it was really an entertainment-and
a very fair one-after the lines of l\lr.
Grossmith's. "Corney Grain in Infinite Space" might
have served as a title. It was very amusing, it was full
of humour, but as for science, the facts were mere
magazine clic/z!s that we have grown sick of long ago.
And as a pretty example of its scientific value I find a
newspaper reporter, whose account is chiefly "(laughter)"
with jokes in between, carried away the impression that
Herschel discovered Saturn in the reign of George the
Third.
Now this kind of thing is not popularising science
at all. It is merely making fun of it. It dishonours
the goddess we serve. It is a far more difficult thing
than is usually imagined, but it is an imperative one,
that scientific exponents who wish to be taken seriously
should not only be precise and explicit, but also
absolutely serious in their style. If it were not a point
of discretion it would still be a point of honour.
In another direction those to whom the exposition of
science falls might reasonably consider their going more
carefully, and that is in the way of construction. Very
few books and scientific papers appear to be constructed
.at all. The author simply wanders about his subject.
He selects, let us say," Badgers and Bats"as the title. It
is alliterative, and an unhappy public is supposed to
be singularly amenable to alliteration. He writes first of
all about Badger A. '' \Ve now come," he says, "to
Badger B " ; then "another interesting species is Badger
C ''; paragraphs on Badger D follow, and so the pavement
is completed. "Let us now turn to the Bats," he
says. It would not matter a bit if you cut any section of
his book or paper out,or shuffled the sections, or destroyed
most or all of them. This is not simply bad art; it is
the trick of boredom. A scientific paper for popular
reading may and should have an orderly progression
.and development. Intelligent common people come to
scientific books neither for humour, subtlety of style, nor
for vulgar wonders of the "millions and millions and
millions" type, but for problems to exercise their minds
upon. The taste for good inductive reading is very widely
diffused ; there is a keen pleasure in seeing a previously
unexpected generalisation skilfully developed. The
interest should begin at its opening words, and should
rise steadily to its conclusion. The fundamental principles
of construction that underlie such stories as Poe's
NO. 1291, VOL 50]
" 1\Iurders in the .Rue :Morgue," or Conan Doyle's "Sherlock
Holmes" series, are precisely those that should guide
a scientific writer. These stories show that the public
delights in the ingenious unravelling of evidence, and
Conan Doyle need never stoop to jesting. First the
problem, then the gradual piecing together of the solution.
They cannot get enough of such matter.
The nature of the problems, too, is worthy of a little
attention. Very few scientific specialists differentiate
clearly between philosophical and technical interest. To
those engaged in research the means become at last
almost as important, and even more important than the
end, but apart from industrial applications, the final end
of all science is to formulate the relationship of phenomena
to the thinking man. The systematic reference
of Calceola, for instance, Theca, the Lichens, the Polyzoa;
or the Termites, is an extremely fascinating question to
the student who has just passed the elementary stage, and
so too is the discussion of the manufacture and powers
of telescopes and microscopes ; morphological questions
again become at last as delightful as good chess, and so
do mathematical problems. But it must be remembered
that morphology, mathematics, and classification are from
the wider point of view mere intellectual appliances, and
that to the general reader they are only interesting in
connection with their end. To the specialist even they
would not be interesting if he had not first had their end
in view, The fundamental interest of all biological
science is the balance and interplay of life, yet for one
paper of this type that comes to hand there are a dozen
amplified cataloguesof the" Cats and Crocodiles" description.
I find again, presented as a popub.r article, a long
list of double stars with their chief measurements. Now,
to a common man one double star is as good as a feast.
Again, the botanist, asked to write about leaves, will
get himself voluminously entangled in the discussion
whether an anther is a lamina, or in an exhaustive and
even exuberant classification of simple and compound,
pinnate and palmate, and the like, making great points
of the orange leaf and the barberry. But the kind of
thing we want to have pointed out to us is why
leaves are of such different shapes and so variously
arranged. It is a thing all people who are not botanists
puzzle over, and a very pretty illustrated paper might be
written, and remains still to be written, linking rainfall
and other meteorological phenomena, the influence of
soil upon root distribution and animal enemies, with
this infinite variety of beautiful forms.
Enough has been said to show along what lines the
genuine populariserof science goes. Thereare models still
in plenty; but if there are models there are awful examples
-ifanythingthcy seem to be increasing-whoappearbent
upon killing the interest that the generation of writers who
are now passing the zenith of their fame created, wounding
it with clumsy jests, paining it with patronage, and
suffocating it under their voluminous and amorphous
emissions. There is, I believe, no critical literature
dealing generally with the literary merits of popular
scientific books, and there are no canons for such
criticism. It is, I am convinced, a matter that is worthy
of more attention from scientific men, if only on the
grounds mentioned in my opening paragraphs.
H. G. \VELLS.
ON THE NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE ST.
ANDREWS (GATTY) MARINE LABORATORY.
T HAT St. Andrews had not one of the oldest marine
laboratories was the result of an accident. Never·
theless it has the oldest marine laboratory in Britain,
since it was opened early in though since 1SS2
practical laboratory in·the College had been used for th1s
purpose ; and it could not well be otherwise, since it was