MAY 16 1898

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1898.

A MALPIGHI BICENTENARY VOLUME. Marcello Malpighi e l'opera sua. Scritti varii. Pp. 338. (Milan Vallardi, 1897.)

THE great Malpighi-Marcello Malpighi-to give him his full name, anatomist, physiologist, botanist, pathologist, biologist, and above all natural philosopher, striking and powerful man of science in the latter half of the seventeenth century, was born on March 10, 1628, in the house of his father, a farmer in easy circumstances in the outskirts of the town of Crevalore, which lies in the neighbourhood of Bologna.

Last year the town of Crevalore, with the help of others, erected in its market-place, opposite the town hall, a bronze statue of their great townsman as a tangible token of how much they felt his worth. Dr. Pizzoli, the Secretary of the Committee for the erection of the monument, conceived the happy idea of combining with the memorial of bronze one of another kind-one which should not be stationary at Crevalore, but wander far and widea printed book in which several men of science of different lands and pursuing different paths of inquiry might state what they knew and thought of their great common master of old times. Circumstances prevented the two memorials being completed in 1894, which would have been the bicentenary of Malpighi's death, this taking place on November 29, 1694; but the statue was unveiled last November, and the memorial volume is now before the world.

It would be out of place in a notice such as this to dwell at length on Malpighi's place in the history of biological science, or to attempt to discuss the value of his many and varied labours. I must content myself with giving a brief account of the contents of this memorial volume.

The several contributions are very varied, both in length and character; and as one reads them in succession, a great deal of repetition is met with; but this is unavoidable in a work written in the way in which this is written; and it may at least be said that all the contributions will reward perusal.

G. Atti (of Bologna) gives a biographical sketch, the shortness of which is, I cannot help thinking, much to be regretted; and though Prof. Atti has written at length elsewhere, I feel sure that a fuller relation of Malpighi's life, some genial narration of his personal story, free from any critical account of his scientific labours, would have been a very acceptable addition to the volume.

Virchow contributes an éloge, Haeckel an appreciative estimate of Malpighi as a philosophic naturalist, De Michelis (of Ravenna) an essay on Malpighi's place in the History of Thought, Todaro (of Rome) a sympathetic view of him as a pioneer in biological studies and as an advocate of experimental medicine being considered as an integral part of the study of living things, and De Giovanni (of Padua) an exposition of his place in the development of pathological science. All these are short, while the contribution of Weiss (of Messina), entitled a general introduction, dealing as it does with the several

aspects of Malpighi's scientific activity, is necessarily longer.

Kölliker supplies a very brief but pregnant and admirable statement of the many notable discoveries in general anatomy which we owe to Malpighi, Romiti (of Pisa) an estimate, also short, of Malpighi's place in the history of topographical human anatomy, while Eternod

(of Geneva) dwells more in detail on his worth as being one of the earliest to grasp the value of that research into minute structure, whether of plants or animals, which we now call Histology, and indeed as being one of the founders of a branch of biological science which has, especially in these latter days, gathered in so many and such important truths. Cattaneo (of Genoa) expounds at length and in detail the great man's many and varied contributions to comparative anatomy; and Perroncito (of Turin) adds a detailed account, which by reason of its very detail is most interesting, of Malpighi's famous work on the silk worm, "De Bombyce." It will be remembered that Malpighi was led to undertake this investigation in consequence of a letter which the Royal Society of London addressed to him, through the hand of its Secretary Oldenburgh, and that the volume containing the account of the investigation was published by and on the financial responsibility of the Royal Society, being the first of a series of works by Malpighi thus published. Indeed after this onward nearly all Malpighi's inquiries were published by the Royal Society.

We learn from Dr. Pizzoli's sympathetic preface that it had been intended to include a contribution on Malpighi as an embryologist, one of Malpighi's works being "De formatione pulli in ovo." Through misadventure this intention failed; but the value of Malpighi's work in this direction is touched upon by more than one of the contributors just mentioned.

Two contributions deal with Malpighi's botanical researches. At its meeting of December 7, 1671, there was read before the Royal Society a preliminary sketch by Malpighi of his botanical investigations under the title of "Anatomes Plantarum Idea"; and at the same meeting our countryman Nehemiah Grew laid before the Society a copy of his work entitled "The Anatomy of Plants begun," which the Society in the previous spring had ordered to be printed. Much controversy has arisen in respect to the relative merits of Malpighi and Grew as the founders of the anatomy of plants. One of the above two contributions is a short essay by Strasburger in which, while giving Grew all his due as an original inquirer, he claims for Malpighi a higher place as being a mind of wider grasp, as being one who in investigating plants was seeking a clue to the secrets not of plants only but of all living things. The other contribution, by Morini, is much longer and deals in detail with all Malpighi's botanical studies, incidentally touching also on the controversy about Grew, and giving a brief sketch of the condition of botany before Malpighi began his work.

I have myself contributed a condensed account of Malpighi's relations with the Royal Society, explaining in a simple manner how the correspondence between the one and the other began, how the Society undertook in succession the publication of Malpighi's most important works, and how cordial and close was the intercourse between the great Italian inquirer and the learned

English body. Some of the letters which passed between Malpighi and the Royal Society appear in the "Opera Omnia." But many others are preserved in the archives of the Society, and I thought that it would be well if all these saw the light. I accordingly have added these letters-some from Malpighi to the Society or to one or other of the Secretaries, others from the latter to Malpighi, in all forty-two in number-as an Appendix to what I have written. In doing this I received most valuable assistance from Mr. Herbert Rix, the late Assistant Secretary to the Society. Probably some printer's and other verbal errors have escaped the notice of both of us. Lastly the volume contains an account, by L. Frati, of the various medals issued in honour of Malpighi, and a bibliography, by C. Frati, both of Malpighi's own writings and of various writings about him.

Dr. Pizzoli may certainly be congratulated on having produced an interesting and useful volume, the reading of which cannot but do good. To stand back from the present rush of inquiry and controversy, to look across two centuries at a great man, struggling with the beginnings of problems which have since come down to us, some in part solved, but others with their solutions put still further off by the very increase of knowledge, is a useful lesson to every one of us. In any case the great men who in the past opened up for us paths of inquiry-and among these Malpighi takes a foremost place-ought not to remain mere names, known to us chiefly through being attached to some structure or to some piece of apparatus. We ought all of us to be able to form some idea of what they were and what they thought. The present volume will be a great help to any one, who can read Italian, towards such an end in respect to Marcello Malpighi.

M. FOSTER.

THE ARYO-SEMITIC SCHOOL OF

MYTHOLOGY.

Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, with special reference to the recent mythological works of the Right Hon. Prof. F. Max Müller and Mr. Andrew Lang. By R. Brown, junior. Pp. xvi + 288. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1898.)

IT

It

T has been a well-known fact for many years past that the breach between the linguistic and anthropological schools of mythology was growing steadily, and it was evident that a serious rupture must eventually occur. was felt that the venerable linguistic method was being slowly but surely undermined by many workers, and that the anthropologists were consolidating their position in a remarkable manner. The rupture, however, might have been delayed, and the two schools might have made concessions mutually in the interests of the peace and progress of the science, the advancement of which each party professed to have at heart, had they been allowed to do so. But it was not to be, and the immediate cause of battle between the rival schools was the publication of Prof. Max Müller's "Contributions to the Science of Mythology," wherein the great writer discussed with his characteristic learning the subjects on which he is the first authority at present. This work was violently attacked by Mr. Andrew Lang, who, it cannot be denied, impressed many by his skill in word trickery and brilliant

phrases, and the unwary reader may quite well be forgiven if he was led astray by a flood of journalistic eloquence. Those, however, who had any knowledge of the subject saw at once that Mr. Lang did not represent the anthropological school, and that he had no right to pretend to do so; for as is well known he has shown no evidence that he possesses any special knowledge of any one of the subjects which go to form that complex whole called mythology. Prof. Max Müller may have made mistakes, but he knows his languages; Mr. Lang has a competent knowledge of no Oriental language, and can never now acquire even a working hold upon the dialects of the East, wherein Prof. Max Müller was an authority thirty years ago. To us it seems doubtful if Mr. Lang has sufficient knowledge of Eastern linguistics to understand all the points of Prof. Max Müller's position. In any case Mr. Lang's attack upon the Oxford Professor was futile, and all it served to do was to show that Mr. Lang had mistaken his own powers, and that he had without any proper authority assumed to himself the right to act as spokesman for the anthropological school of mythology. Now, it seems, another combatant has joined in the fray in the person of Mr. Robert Brown, junior, who, though wishing to support Prof. Max Müller against Mr. Lang, has a few objections to urge against the venerable scholar, and an axe of his own to grind. Mr. Brown, like Mr. Lang, makes himself the spokesman of a "School," which, he says, "for present purposes, I may style the AryoSemitic," and though he recognises "the vast results that have sprung from the scientific application of Aryan linguistics," he is "in entire sympathy with the researches of anthropology in general, and of folk-lore in particular.” The cynical outsider will have some difficulty in understanding the position of such a Mr. Facing-both-ways. As far as we can see, Mr. Brown has printed his book to prove that Hellenic mythology owes a pretty big debt to Semitic peoples; but then, no one, so far as we know, ever doubted this obvious fact. Mr. Brown has also taken a great dislike to Mr. Lang, the evidence of which forces itself upon the reader in several places. Mr. Brown's dislike is so strong that in order to relieve his feelings, he is obliged to write a number of childish things, which any friend of his would have excised from his manuscript before it was printed. Mr. Brown also falls foul of Mr. Frazer, the author of the "Golden Bough," and when, like Mr. Silas Wegg, Mr. Brown is obliged to "drop into poetry," and to print in a book intended to be serious the silly lines (p. 14),

O Mr. Frazer, Mr. Frazer, what a man you are!

I never thought when you set out that you would "go so far,” we can only regret that Prof. Max Müller has been "taken up" by Mr. Brown. Moreover, to talk of a "Covent-garden-market theory of mythology" (p. 15) is hardly the language which we should expect from one who calls himself a supporter, and, in some respects, a disciple of Prof. Max Müller.

It is time to ask now what Mr. Brown's qualifications are for his self-assumed rôle of defender of Prof. Max Müller. In reading over his pages we see that a great many languages are quoted, and that a vigorous attempt has been made by Mr. Brown to mark the quantities of the vowels which occur in the extracts; the pages look not only learned but terrible. But it is one thing to be

able to find words in a dictionary, and another to know the language to which the dictionary is the key. Mr. Brown has written many papers on astronomical matters, and we are willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that they may be of value; but from the manner in which he writes the words of one of the languages which he quotes, that is to say Hebrew, we are convinced that his knowledge of it is of an elementary character. An example or two will show what we mean. On p. 115 he speaks of Sanchouniathan, meaning Sanchon-yathan (we leave out the vowel quantities because they are not necessary); this spelling shows that Mr. Brown took the name from a non-English book, and did not know that Sanchôn was the form of the god's name. The spelling Aschthârth (pp. 115 and 182) is another example of the same thing. On p. 116 (bis) he prints Qarnâîm for Qarnayim, which shows that he does not know how to transcribe the dual ending in Hebrew; the a cannot be long here unless it carries the accent. On p. 133 he gives dayon as the Hebrew for the word "judge”; as a matter of fact it is dayyân; on p. 149 he writes Ai lênu for ¿ lânu; on p. 181, Qastu for Qashtu; on p. 182, Dagîm for Dagim; on p. 142, Kîyûn for Kiyyûn; on p. 133, anoshîm for ănâshîm; and so on in many places. These are not mere misprints, and they show the want of knowledge of elementary principles of Hebrew grammar, He often vocalises Phoenician words in defiance of all the laws which governed the Masoretes in their deliberations, and yet when he has good authority for adding the lengths of the vowels he fails to do so; see on p. 182, where he writes Kimah for Kîmâh. We cannot attempt to follow Mr. Brown in his Accadian, and "Hittite," and other little-known dialects, but the general impression which we gather from his book is that he is little more of a genuine expert in linguistic mythology than is Mr. Lang; and Mr. Lang is a brilliant, amusing writer, whilst Mr. Brown is not. The silly remarks on p. 85 are in very bad taste. The scholars of Oxford, Cambridge and London are only too glad to help on learning in any shape or form, and no honest worker is pushed aside at any of these places because he does not live there, or is not a graduate of the University. When professors of the Aryan and Semitic languages are convinced that Mr. Brown has a competent knowledge of these tongues, they will be prepared to believe that he knows accurately Accadian and "Hittite," and to accept his conclusions; meanwhile Mr. Brown's present work will delay that result.

DEVELOPMENTAL MECHANICS.

Programm und Forschungsmethoden der Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, leichverständlich dargestellt. Von Wilhelm Roux, o.ö. Professor der Anatomie und Direktor des anatomischen Instituts zu Halle. Zugleich eine Erwiderung auf O. Hertwig's Schrift Biologie und Mechanik. Pp. 203. (Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann, 1897.)

the subject of developmental mechanics, and it differs but little from its predecessors (consisting as it largely does of extracts and quotations from them, with explanatory and justificatory additions) in the complacent, not to say assertive, manner in which its author extols his own methods and aims at the expense of those which have hitherto been in use among zoologists. To our thinking Dr. Roux's weakness lies not in his aims, which are legitimate and praiseworthy, nor in his methods, which are carefully considered, but in the persistence with which he lectures his colleagues on their shortcomings and on his own rectitude. Different persons are differently affected by oft-repeated homilies: some will acquiesce, the greater number will escape by indifference, and others will be goaded into active hostility to what they regard as the pretensions of the author. To the last category belongs Dr. Oscar Hertwig, who has recently attacked Roux in an unsparing manner, asserting that his programme is obscure and wanting in novelty; that since it is not new the very name of developmental mechanics is superfluous and, moreover, incorrect; that the method, in so far as it is new, cannot lead to any progress in biology; that it is inapplicable to the subject; and finally, that in so far as it has been applied by Roux, it has been applied in so faulty and slovenly a manner as to have produced error instead of enlightenment.

The issue between the new method and the old is very clearly raised, and the present work is chiefly concerned in repelling Hertwig's attack. It would take far too much space to attempt to describe the numerous questions which enter into the dispute, questions which involve discussions on the laws of causation, on the theory of mechanics, on nomenclature, and on numerous matters

of fact.

Our general impression after reading Roux's article, is that he has come out of the contest with credit, and that in some particulars he has successfully overthrown Hertwig's attack. It must be remembered that Roux is by no means an empty theorist he has preached, as we think, over-much, but he has also practised largely and with great success, and whatever à priori objections may be taken to the methods which he inculcates, he has been able to show us, by the results which he has himself achieved, that the method of experiment may be applied with great advantage to the elucidation of embryological phenomena. His contention in this and earlier essays is, that the biological methods lately in vogue are purely descriptive and based upon simple observation, and that therefore they do not, and cannot, give a causal account of biological phenomena. To obtain a knowledge of causal relations, one must, says Roux, have recourse to experiment, and further than this, to "causal analytical experiment."

It is not quite easy to understand the antithesis between simple experiment and causal analytical experiment, though our author evidently attaches special value to the latter term, for he repeats it again and again. Seemingly it means nothing more than that every ex

not do more harm than good to the cause which he has at heart by his excessive fondness for programmes. The work which lies before us is at least the fourth of a series of expositions of the nature, aims and methods of

particular question to be solved and with due regard to secondary and disturbing influences, conditions which, to the ordinary uninstructed person, would seem to be necessary to every experiment worthy of the name. This,

however, is a matter of secondary importance; Roux insists specially on the use of experiment--accurate painstaking experiment-in biological investigation. He further indicates that developing organisms afford the most fruitful field for the experimental method, for there one may most certainly hope to discover the formative forces which by their interaction co-operate to produce those formal changes which we have come to know by the method of simple observation. It is on this subject that Hertwig differs most widely with him. According to the latter author, there is no place for the experimental method in embryology. Experiment is nothing more than the production of changes of state in existences. In the inorganic world we have to deal with relatively stable existences, and before we can make any assertions of cause and effect about them we must bring about a change of state in them. In the organic world, however, the case is widely different. It is the characteristic of living bodies that they are always undergoing changes of state, and the changes are most characteristic and most conspicuous during the period of embryonic development. Thus nature does for man in the organic what he himself has to effect in the inorganic world, and it is only necessary for him to observe and record the natural successive changes in order to be able to state a series of relations of antecedent and consequent. Thus Hertwig says-

"Every antecedent state is the cause of that which follows it a living frog's ovum is the antecedent which of invariable necessity leads to the establishment of a frog's gastrula as a consequent, if only the conditions and circumstances necessary to further development are fulfilled. For the words antecedent and consequent one may equally well substitute the words cause and effect. Hence embryological research, which 'describes' the change of the frog's ovum into the gastrula, asserts a causal relation, and in so far as it does this for all the stages of the development of the frog from the egg, it asserts the law of the development of the frog. In this sense the research of the last fifty years has brought to light the most important causal knowledge. Is not the recognition that the ovum and the spermatozoon are simple elementary organisms and that, as such, when the appropriate conditions are fulfilled, they unite in themselves all the causes (exception being made of causæ externa) which are necessary to the production of a new being, and that they in fact bring it into existence, is not this a causal recognition?"

The above paragraph is quoted by Roux as illus trating very clearly the difference between his and Hertwig's standpoints. Hertwig imagines that the ends of science are fulfilled by the enumeration and description of different states, and holds that our task is finished when we are able to assert that any one state invariably proceeds from another state immediately preceding it. Roux admits the necessity and value of this knowledge, but declares that it is only a step towards a causal explanation of the phenomena, and is far from satisfying our desire for a full explanation.

An illustration will serve to make the point clear. Hertwig's position would be that of an astronomer who was content with the truth arrived at by Kepler, that the observed successive positions of the planets are due to their paths being elliptical. Having ascertained the nature of the planets' orbits, he would be justified in

asserting that the observed positions of the planets were due to—that is, were caused by-the fact that their paths are elliptical. But this would not be a sufficient causal explanation of the planetary movements. There is clearly a further question as to why the paths are elliptical, and the elucidation of this question was reserved for Newton. Hertwig would suggest that embryological inquiry should stop short at a point analogous to that gained by Kepler, and that we should content ourselves with the assertion that the states which we observe in individual ontogenies are what they are because the organisms in question describe a sort of normal curve in the courses of their development. It is hardly possible to refuse one's sympathy to Roux when he declines to be content to stop at this point, and urges that the knowledge hitherto acquired is but a preliminary to further inquiry. Everybody who has studied and reflected upon the facts of embryology must have felt the necessity for further enlightenment as to why, and in virtue of what inherent energies the ovum is able to go through the complex succession of changes which lead to the establishment of the adult individual. Various theoretical solutions of the problem have been offered, but they have not proved satisfactory. Roux steps forward and shows that the only possible solution is by the method of experimental investigation. Since he himself admits that the problem was present to the mind of von Bar, it is clear that his aim is not new, and in this unimportant matter Hertwig is right; but if the aim is not new, it has only recently become practical, and Roux may lay claim to the chief credit of having seen that the time was ripe for trying to realise it.

But it is one thing to have a legitimate and definite object in view, another thing to devise the most appropriate means of attaining to it. Roux has entire faith in experiment. Hertwig objects to the experimental method, because in the act of making an experiment one disturbs the normal course of vital phenomena, and obtains abnormal results, from which nothing can with certainty be predicated as regards natural processes. Bütschli has in a similar sense objected that the introduction of disturbing factors into ontogeny involves a complication in the results, which can only be justly estimated when the elements of the mechanics of normal developmental processes are well ascertained. The answer to this is that no progress is possible if one allows one's self to be discouraged by à priori objections and difficulties, and that the method of experiment, so far as it has gone, has been successful almost beyond anticipation.

As regards the title "Developmental Mechanics" (Entwicklungsmechanik), which Roux justifies at some length, it need only be said here that the equivalent "Experimental Embryology" most generally used in England and America, though not expressly disavowed by him, differs in its connotation from the title which he has selected. Thus on p. 176, "Entwicklungsmechanik bedeutet also die Lehre von den Entwicklungsbewegungen": the essential idea is not contained in the term Experimental Embryology.

Roux's last task is to defend his practical methods and results against the criticisms of Hertwig, who has not hesitated to say that his preparations were so imperfect in point of histological technique that nothing could be

inferred from them. Roux retorts with a criticism of Hertwig's control experiments on the same objects (frog's ova), and it is difficult to decide between two observers who mutually accuse each other of inaccuracy and want of attention to detail.

So far as one can judge the advantage in the polemic lies with Roux, the more so because he invites our confidence by asking any one who is interested to come and inspect his preparations of hemiembryos, and to judge for himself whether or not he has described them truly, and whether they do not support the theoretical conclusions drawn from them.

BRITISH VERTEBRATES.

A Sketch of the Natural History (Vertebrates) of the British Isles. By F. G. Aflalo. 12m0, pp. xiv + 498. Illustrated. (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons, 1898.)

WITH

ITH the host of books in existence on British animals, it is a somewhat curious fact that, so far as we are aware, there is none which treats of all the vertebrates collectively, with the exception of Jenyns's “Manual," published in 1835. Still more curiously, that particular work happens to be omitted from the very useful bibliography Mr. Aflalo gives at the end of his little volume! Under these circumstances, the work before us fills a distinct gap; and as it is beautifully illustrated and brightly written, it ought to command a ready sale among those desirous of knowing something about the higher animals of our islands without being bored by technicalities.

Needless to say, it is not a book for the professed naturalist, and should not therefore be criticised from his standpoint. It has no pretence to be an advanced educational text-book; but is intended to appeal to those who have the "field-fever" strongly developed, and who are certainly in need of a cheap and portable volume dealing with all the vertebrates to be met with by field and flood in the British Isles. To be as accurate as possible without being dry, to produce a chatty little handbook, and not a dissecting-room manual, seems to have been the main object of the author; and in this laudable endeavour, in our opinion, he may fairly claim to have succeeded.

One very notable feature in the book is that scientific names are relegated to a series of tables, prefixed to the groups to which they refer, and that in the text the animals appear under the popular designations alone. This certainly renders the volume much more readable than would otherwise be the case. Special attention is given to the life-history of each animal treated; but descriptive details sufficient to distinguish the species from its British relatives are added, and in those cases where we have perused them, appear all that can be reasonably required.

Any nomenclatural list is now-a-days open to criticism, were we disposed to be critical on this subject. But in the main the author appears to have steered a fairly middle course between extreme innovations and old fashioned views. In one case he is clearly wrongnamely, in calling the marten Martes sylvatica, and restricting Mustela to the polecats and weasels.

In

birds, we are glad to see he employs genera mostly in a wide sense, so that the blackbird and ouzels appear in the same genus as the song-thrush. But these are details in which his readers have probably little or no interest, and which his critic may therefore leave alone.

If we might suggest an improvement, it would have been to curtail the amount of space devoted to the sperm-whale, which scarcely comes under the designation of a British animal, and to give more details with regard to some of the smaller mammals. For instance, a little more might have been added as to the colourchanges of the squirrel, and the distinctive coloration of the tail of the British form; while further information as to the black variety of the water-vole being restricted to damp localities might have been desirable. Perhaps, however, the author is better acquainted with the tastes of his readers than is his critic; and personally we confess to much more interest in reading the anecdotes relating to ambergris than we should in wading through details of coloration of fur and feathers-important as these latter undoubtedly are in their proper place.

As regards paper, type, illustrations (from the facile pencil of Mr. Lodge), and freedom from misprints, the volume appears all that can be desired. As an Easter gift to friends, whether young or old, interested in the natural history of our own islands-which is the could be more appropriate. proper commencement of zoological studies—no volume R. L.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

Canada's Metals. By Prof. Roberts-Austen, C. B., D.C.L., F.R.S. Pp. 46. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1898.)

THE address which Prof. Roberts-Austen delivered at the Toronto meeting of the British Association last year, and afterwards repeated at the Imperial Institute, was so well received on each occasion that there must be many who will welcome its appearance in book form. The main object of the address was to indicate the nature and distribution of Canada's mineral wealth; but, to lend additional interest to the subject, and afford a base for experimental illustration, a specific metalnickel-which is especially Canada's own, was given the most prominent place in the discourse.

How great is the mineral wealth of the Dominion is understood by all who know the work and publications of the officers of the Canadian Geological Survey. Report upon report have been published on the mineral resources of the various provinces, but they have mostly gone unrecognised in England, and British efforts have been tardy in developing the riches in Canadian territory. Ten years ago Dr. Dawson published his exhaustive and glowing report on the mineral wealth of British Columbia, in which he pointed out the richness of the region in auriferous deposits, and stated that alluvial gold would probably be found in the bed of every tribuHad British capitalists known how tary of the Yukon. to value reports of this character, they would long ago have developed the Yukon basin instead of waiting until the success of placer mining at Forty Mile Creek in 1896 called public attention to the extraordinary richness of the district in precious metals. The facts brought together by Prof. Roberts-Austen will, however, help to make the extent and variety of Canada's mineral deposits better known than they have been, and will also show that, large as is the output at the present time, it will certainly be enormously exceeded in the future.