Growth and Form. By D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. (Cam- bridge University
Press. 21s. net.)—In this very able book Professor Thompson shows biologists that there are physical and mechanical reasons for natural forms, like the shell or the honey-boo's cell, the horn, the egg, or the human skeleton, and he works out the theory in great detail. Though severely technical in appearance, the book is so well written and so full of interesting matter that it should not be monopolized by the specialists. It throws a new
light on evolution, and incidentally suggests that Herbert Spencer' who applied his engineering knowledge to biology, was after all on the right track. The well-known case of the thigh-bone, which is built up, with fibres crossing at right angles along the lines of stress, precisely like an engineering structure which has to bear a heavy load, is typical of many forms which the physicist can explain.
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