SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA..*
Six Ras LANKESTER'S Science from an Easy-Chair was a book so delightful that we probably expect too much of its successor.. Let it be said at once that Secrets of Earth and Sea, though extremely interesting, is not in the best sense as diverting as was Science from an Easy-Chair. The subjects treated are delight. fully interesting to the layman : Why the sea is blue; cave- men's drawings; Vesuvius in eruption ; the biggest beast; the story of Lime-Juice and Scurvy—but the style is unfortunately rather redundant and heavy. To the student, however, the book will be extraordinarily interesting.
Sir Ray Lankester makes a number of interesting conjectures, one of which was new to the present writer—that possibly why the cave-man drew his beasts on bones and antlers was that his drawings were in reality printing blocks from which the robes of a chief or of a lady could be adorned. Might this also be true of tho carvings in the darkness of caverns where daylight does not penetrate ? The author's defence on scientific grounds of the natural antipathy which exists in most white races against inter-marriage with black or yellow races is particularly interest- ing, and forms a valuable contribution to the literature on the colour question.
Previous page
