ALL the flowers of the ground ivy (Nepeta Glechoma) that I have this season examined, from this neighbourhood, have been of the stamenless form described by your correspondent "S. S. D." While spending a few days at Bath, I could find none but hermaphrodite flowers. At Hertford I found both forms, but a preponderance of hermaphrodites. These seem always more or less protandrous, and spontaneous self-pollenation is further prevented by the unequal lengths of the style and stamens. Kilderry, Co. Donegal W. E. HART

Lotus corniculatus

MR. W. E. HART (NATURE, June 12) is quite right in correcting me on the subject of the fertilisation of Lotus corniculatus. It is the outer whorl of stamens, those opposite the calyx teeth, which continue to grow after the others, and which have their filaments dilated at the top so as to thrust the pollen out of the long sharp tube of the keel. I should scarcely have thought it necessary to acknowledge his courteous correction, if it were not for the following question and answer: How is it, then, that the pollen of the inner and shorter whorl of stamens, which discharge their pollen at the same time as the outer whorl, gets pushed out by the filaments of the outer whorl, since the anthers of the inner whorl lie below the summits of the filaments of the outer whorl ? The answer is curious: In the early bud, before the anther cells begin to open, the inner whorl is obviously shorter than the outer whorl, so that the anthers of the former lie in a regular row entirely below the anthers of the latter, apparently for the convenience of close packing in the narrow closed flower. As the anther cells begin to open, which is just before the flower opens, the stamens of the inner whorl grow and approach very nearly in height to the stamens of the outer whorl; and as they shed their pollen from the summit of the anthers, their pollen comes out above the dilated tops of the filaments of the outer whorl, so that it can be pushed forwards by those filaments along with the pollen of their own anthers. The filaments of the inner whorl then wither and become comparatively short, while those of the outer whorl continue to grow, dilate, and stiffen, so as to do the work for all the pollen of both whorls. In the mature opened flower

the difference between the two whorls becomes more marked than ever. If I am right, Mr. Hart's detection of my blunder leads to the notice of a curious instance of economy of space and of mechanism. T. H. FARRER

Abinger, Surrey, June 21

The Secchi and Respighi Methods IN the number of NATURE for June 12, p. 136, I see that you notice the results obtained in the last eclipse with the use of the spectroscope for determining the first entrance of the moon or planet. There seems, however, to be some confusion in the report. You say that I propose Respighi's method for first contact, and my own for the last. This is not the case. I propose the common Respighi method as useful for obtaining a first warning of the entrance of the planet on the chromosphere. This is the only use I think it possible to make of it. But the real entrance must be obtained by my method, in which one sees the disc of the sun as with a common glass, and the line of the chromosphere tangent to it, can be seen broken at the instant of contact, as the ring of Venus is broken at its exit from the solar disc.

You say also (page 131, col. 1) that it is difficult to obtain a perfect adjustment on account of the inequality of the driving-clock. If you say so for the common spectroscopic method, I agree perfectly with you, because the edge of the disc cannot be seen; but with my method this difficulty does not exist. It is not more difficult to keep the sun's disc tangent to the chromospheric line, than to keep it tangent to a common wire; the clock can help, but it is not necessary to have it in perfect order; even with common handles one can obtain it. The reason is that the solar d se being perfectly visible, one is greatly helped by the edge of the sun itself, while in common methods the edge of the

Gassendi and the Doctrine of Natural Selection

No one having yet replied to the question in Mr. Monro's letter (see NATURE, vol. vii. p. 402), I venture to hope that you will give me space for a few remarks on Gas-endi's physical philosophy, and more especially on that part of it germane to the subject discussed by Mr. Monro.

The apparent implication of the question referred to is, that anticipations of natural selection are to be found in Gassendi's writings. Allowing to the term its utmost latitude of meaning, this does not appear to me to be the case. In his historical sketch of the various views which poets and philosophers have held as to the origin of things, Gassendi gives the theory of Empedokles at some length, including the passage on the βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρωρα which Mr. Monro quotes in his letter. But Gassendi has no word of approval for the theory; he classes it with other Greek cosmogonies, such as those of Anaximander, Pythagoras, &c., and with the Chinese and Hindu cosmogonies as "fabulares sententias philosophorum," not less fabulous indeed than the poetic fictions of Prometheus, Deukalion, and Kadmus. Here, too, as well as in other parts of his works, Gassendi blames philosophers for ascribing to the action of natural laws effects which he regards as direct results of the Divine power.

Before giving a brief summary of Gassendi's own views, I will premise that it is not easy to discover them with exactitude. His works are very voluminous, both the Lyons edition of 1658, and the Florence edition of 1728, occupying six bulky and closely printed folio volumes. Even the abridgment made by his disciple Bernier fills seven vols. 12mo. Ordinary histories of philosophy give for the most part a very meagre account of the French forerunner of Locke; and more comprehensive works, like those of Tennemann, Buhle, and De Gerando, deal with Gassendi as a psychologist and a moralist rather than as a physicist. Even Dr. Whewell, from whom, as the historian of the inductive sciences, more might have been expected, makes but a few cursory references to the philosopher who was one of the earliest and most pronounced followers of the Baconian method, and who, as De Gerando says, "enseignant les mêmes principes (as Bacon) les a surtout enseignés par son exemple." The work which, as far as I have seen, gives the most complete account of Gassendi as a physical philosopher is Schaller's "Geschichte der Naturphilosophie von Baco bis auf unsere Zeit." This writer takes Bacon, Hobbes, and Gassendi as the typical philosophers of the empirical or a posteriori school of natural philosophy. He devotes about one hundred pages to the exposition of Gassendi's physical doctrines, and concludes with an elaborate criticism of his atomic theory. The intrinsic obstacles to a precise appreciation of Gassendi's views are more serious. Not far removed from the age of scholasticism he exhibits, in a modified degree, two of the distinctive features of the schoolmen, their pedantic erudition, and their commentatorial spirit. The wealth of quotation with which his pages are burdened rather than adorned has laid him open to the charge "de laisser étouffer ses propres idées sous le poids des citations empruntées aux anciens." He better deserves the second than the first clause of Gibbon's epigrammatic eulogy: "Le meilleur philosophe des littérateurs, et le meilleur littérateur des philosophes." A work largely imbued with the commentatorial spirit, as the Syntagma Philosophicum is, is always more valuable as a history of philosophic opinion than as a source of new philosophic thought. Again Gassendi's bent of mind, coupled with the exigencies of his position as a Church dignitary, seems to me to have precluded his holding opinions of a very decided and novel character. True or not, the reason he is said to have given for adopting the atomism of Epicurus rather than the Cartesian theory of vortices is somewhat characteristic; "Chimæra for chimera I cannot help feeling some partiality for that which is two thousand years older than the other."

In his views as to the origin of things, Gassendi is at once an atomist and a special creationist. One experiences a certain sense of incongruity in noticing the way in which, while following the Biblical narrative for the main outlines of his doctrine, he fills in the details from Atomism. In the beginning there was a chaos in which the Deity had intermingled in manifold confusion atoms, molecules, corpuscula insectilia, or minima naturalia (a phrase borrowed from Lucretias) of every kind, celestial and terrestrial, organic and inorganic, animal and vegetal. Upon these atoms had been impressed peculiar motions and affinities. At the creation of the world, as the creative fiats in their turn went forth, the potential motions and affinities of each species of atom became kinetic, and by the concourse of

atoms, similarly endowed, the successive stages of creation were accomplished. There is so much resemblance between Gassendi's account of the appearance of the different animal forms, and the Miltonic narrative of the time when "the grassy sods now calved," that the question suggests itself whether the "Paradise Lost," which appeared in 1667, might not have been influenced by the Syntagma Philosophicum, its predecessor by some twenty years? From the side of Atomism Gassendi seeks to explain the Divine cessation from labour after the six stages of creation. Besides the atoms which, when endowed with kinetic energy, gave rise to the primordial plants and animals, there remained others in which their characteristic motions and affinities still continued potential, and which had been subject to distribution only. These account on the one hand for the seminal reproduction of plants and animals, and on the other for the phenomena of so-called spontaneous generation. On this view, as may be supposed, spontaneous generation presents few difficulties to Gassendi. He needs but the hypothesis of the endurance from the creation of the atoms special to any peculiar form of life. Then, when their potential motions and affinities become kinetic, they must of necessity issue in the forms of life which by their concourse they were destined to produce. Two points are worthy of notice in this connection-Gassendi's definition of spontaneous generation, and his list of animals produced spontaneously. Spontaneous generation is not generation "sine seminibus' (germs), but "sine parentibus." Amongst his "animalia sponte nascentia" are enumerated mures, vermes, ranæ, muscæ, aliaque insecta."

In a theory such as this is there no evolution, no selection. The atoms themselves are unchangeable, and so are the specific characters of the aggregates which they build up. Plants and animals, as they now are, are but copies of the primitive forms, be they produced by gamogenesis or spontaneously. The natural conditions also by which floral and faunal habitats and distribution are regulated, Gassendi seems to regard as having been fixed once for all at the creation. Reading "Deus" for “Natura," Virgil's lines express Gassendi's views on this point"Continuo has leges, æternaque fœdera certis Imposuit Natura locis."-(Geo. i., vv. 60, 61.) There is a sort of superficial resemblance between Gassendi's atoms and Mr. Spencer's "physiological units," but with capital points of difference. In both theories the molecules of each species of plant and animal have distinctive characteristics, and an inherent power of arranging themselves in the form of the organism to which they appertain. But while Gassendi's atoms are simple and indivisible, as one of their synonymes, corpuscule insectilia, connotes, Mr. Spencer's physiological units are complex. While Gassendi's atoms are specific creations and endowed with unalterable properties, Mr. Spencer's physiological units are themselves the products of evolution, and are perpetually undergoing adaptation to equilibrate the action of forces internal and external.

I am inclined to suspect that Maupertuis may have, in the main, borrowed the atomic theory contained in the "Système de la Nature" from Gassendi. The materialism which led Maupertuis to make perception a fundamental property of his atoms is, however, all his own; at any rate it is not Gassendi's.

In Physics as in Ethics, the nearest affinity of the philosophy of Gassendi is to that of Epicurus. It is Epicurianism modernised, and modified so as not to clash, openly at least, with Christianity and with the dogmas of the current theology. By his want of originality he was led to base his philosophy on an already established system, and by his adoption of Bacon's method he was attracted to Epicurus, for that philosopher and his school were the sole ancient representatives of the new a posteriori philosophy. De Gerando thinks that an additional link between Gassendi and Epicurus existed in the sim larity of their views on the physical doctrines of a vacuum and of atoms. But it seems at least as probable that the French philosopher adopted these conceptions from the Greek, as that he reached them by his own independent thought. While, however, he was essentially an Epicurean, Gassendi was careful not to commit himself to any ctrines which might cause his orthodoxy to be questioned; in fact, he more than once clearly expresses this determination.

"How far back can traces of the great theory of Darwin and Spencer be discovered?" As I showed in my letter on Maupertuis, in NATURE, vol. vii. p. 402, the doctrine is discoverable in that writer; but De Mailiet, with whom Mr. Spencer begins his historical sketch, is a quarter of a century

earlier than Maupertuis. My examination of Gassendi leads me to the conclusion that the doctrine of Natural Selection is not to be found in his works, and further that his views, as far as I understand them, effectually preclude his holding the theory under any form. W. H. BREWER

P.S.-On looking back over what I have written, I find that I have omitted to point out the different attitudes of Gassendi towards the two distinct portions of his cosmological views. When he is borrowing from the Mosaic account of the creation, all his assertions are positive, for here we have "quod Fides et Sacræ Literæ docent.' When, however, he is borrowing from Atomism his views take a hypothetical form, and are introduced by the phrase "nihil vetat supponere." Grace's Road, Camberwell

Care of Monkeys for their Dead

As a supplement to the extract from James Forbes' "Orienta Memoirs," given by Dr. Gulliver in NATURE (vol. viii. page 103), the following incident, recorded by Capt. Johnson, deserves republication :

"I was one of a party at Jeekarry, in the Bahar district; our tents were pitched in a large mango garden, and our horses were picqueted in the same garden at a little distance off. When we were at dinner, a Syce came to us complaining that some of the horses had broken loose in consequence of being frightened by monkeys (ie. Macacus Rhesus) on the trees.. As soon as dinner was over, I went out with my gun to drive them off, and I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down to the lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood, and held it out for me to see. I was so much hurt at the time that it has left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since fired a gun at any of the tribe.

"Almost immediately on my return to the party, before I had fully described what had passed, a Syce came to inform us that the monkey was dead. We ordered the Syce to bring it to us, but by the time he returned, the other monkeys had carried the dead one off, and none of them could anywhere be seen.'

The Intellect of Porpoises

G. J. R.

IN Prof. Huxley's admirable criticism of "Mr. Darwin's Critics,' "* the following passage occurs :-"The brain of a porpoise is quite wonderful for its mass, and for the development of the cerebral convolutions. And yet, since we have ceased to credit the story of Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much troubled with intellect."

I have no doubt that Prof. Huxley will agree with me in further concluding that "it is hard to believe" that the remarkably developed cerebral hemispheres of the porpoise with their deep and numerous convolutions perform no more exalted functions than the smooth pair of mere pimples that stand behind the olfactory ganglia of a cod-fish, and constitute the whole of his claim to a cerebrum proper.

The psychology of the porpoise (and also that of the dolphin and other cetaceans with similar brains) is thus a subject of primary interest to the student of cerebral physiology. As a contribution to the subject I offer the following facts :

Many years ago I made the voyage from Constantinople to London in a small schooner laden with box-wood, &c. The passage was very slow, occupying fully two months, including the whole of August, and parts of July and September. We were often becalmed, with porpoises playing about the ship. The sailors assured me that no sharks were in the neighbourhood while the porpoises were near, and accepting this generalisation I frequently plunged overboard and swam towards the porpoises. They usually surrounded me in a nearly circular shoal or company, and directed towards their unusual visitor an amount of attention which I may venture to dignify with the title of curiosity. Their respiratory necessities precluded any long-continued scrutiny, but after dashing upwards for their customary snort, they commonly resumed their investigations, sometimes approaching uncomfortably near and then darting off to the circumference of the attendant circle. I am not able to describe the expression on the features of a porpoise, but my recollection of that of the eyes of my swimming companions is very different *Contemporary Review, 1871. Reprinted in "Critiques and Ad

dresses."

164

from what I have since seen on the large vacant orbs of aquarium cod-fishes, &c.

I have not yet seen the porpoises in the Brighton Aquarium, but suspect that if they contrive to "make themselves at home there, a careful study of their habits will remove some of the difficulty which Prof. Huxley experiences in believing in their W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS intelligence.

Instinct

A DIFFICULTY occurred to me on reading Mr. Lewes's inter"Instinct" in NATURE of esting and instructive article on April 10-and as no satisfactory answer offers itself to me, I venture to trouble you with it.

Wherein lies the difference in kind between the actions performed instinctively by animals for the preservation of themselves or their young, and those actions performed by plants with the same result?

For instance; the Ivy Linaria grows on an old wall; its flowers and the flower-stalks stand out for the sun and insects to visit the little "snap-dragon." But no sooner does the corolla fall, than the peduncle begins to curve inwards to the wall, and usually contrives to tuck its seed-vessel well into the brickwork again. We cannot say of such an action that there is "no alternative open to it ;" and even if we do, it does not explain it to call it "impulsive," and yet one is not prepared to accept it as an instance of instinct. I shall be grateful for any M. elucidation.

Grus vipio

I OBSERVE that in your report of the meeting of the Zoological Society on the 6th ult., in your issue of the 15th, it is stated, with reference to Grus vipio (seu leucauchen), that "no example of this fine species, so far as was known, had previously been brought alive to Europe." Last autumn, when going over the Zoological Gardens at Amsterdam with the superintendent, Mr. Hegt, I saw there a splendid pair of these birds, which had been purchased for 140/., and had bred the same spring, and reared successfully a fine young bird, about two-thirds grown when I saw it in September, destined, as I was informed by Mr. Hegt, for the Berlin Gardens. The collection of cranes at Amsterdam

is exceedingly rich, far surpassing either London or Antwerp in this respect. It contained, when I saw it, fourteen out of the fifteen valid species of Grus, comprising, besides the above-mentioned, G. vipio, a splendid pair of G. viridirostris, a fine G. leucogeranus, G. carunculatus, G. canadensis, G. Americana, G. torquata, &c., the desideratum being G. monacha, of Japan.

Culverlea, Winchester, June 2

W. A. FORBES

also contained in the gas, together with a trace of oxygen, which have been omitted from the calculation.

The result of this reaction is expressed in the following equation :

CO+3H, CH + H2O.

This fundamental experiment, which constitutes the basis of a new method of chemical synthesis, susceptible of the most varied applications, and of peculiar interest in reference to the explication of natural phenomena, was commenced by me on the 10th of January last at Oxford, in the laboratory of my friend and successor in the Chair of Chemistry, Prof. Odling; two analyses of the gas were completed, and the results attained in the course of a week from that date. In a similar experiment made with a mixture of hydrogen and carbonic-acid gas, a contraction also occurred, attended with the formation of water. The gas which resulted from the experiment was found to consist (after the absorption of carbonic acid) of hydrogen and carbonic oxide, together with a little marshgas. Traces of oxygen and nitrogen were also present. Minute drops, too, of an oily liquid appeared in the tube. This liquid, after the conclusion of the experiment, was dissolved in a small quantity of water. The solution was It reduced an strongly acid and had a pungent taste. alkaline solution of terchloride of gold and an ammoniacal solution of nitrate of silver. These reactions are the characteristic properties of formic acid, of which we may infer the synthesis to have been effected according to the equation

H,+CO,=H,CO.

I may avail myself of the present opportunity to place on record the following important facts in reference to the action of electricity on carbonic-oxide gas.

When pure and dry carbonic oxide is circulated through the induction-tube, and there submitted to the action of electricity, a decomposition of the gas occurs, attended with a gradual and regular contraction, which, in the form assumed in my experiments, occurred at the regular rate of about 5 cub. centims. in an hour. Carbonic acid is formed, and simultaneously with its formation a solid deposit may be observed in the inductiontube. This deposit appears as a transparent film of a It is perred-brown colour, lining the walls of the tube. fectly soluble in water, which is strongly coloured by it. The solution has an intensely acid reaction.

Carbonic oxide Hydrogen Marsh-gas.

6165 32.16

6.14

100'00

The solid deposit in the tube, in the dry condition before it has been in contact with water, is an oxide of carbon. Samples, however, made in different experiments do not present precisely the same composition; but nevertheless they appear to belong to a certain limited number of forms which repeatedly occur, and may invariably be referred to the same general order or system. This system is, or appears to be, what I may term a carbon with the weight 12 may be regarded as the first term, and of which the adjacent terms differ by an increment of carbonic oxide (CO) weighing 28, precisely as homologous series of hydrocarbons differ by the increment CH, with the weight 14. I have succeeded in identifying by analysis two at least of these substances, namely, the adjacent terms CO2 and CO1. From this point of view these peculiar bodies are members of a series of oxycarbons analogous in the oxycarbon system to the series of hydrocarbons of which the unit of carbon is the first and the unit of acetylene C2H, is the second term, the oxycarbon CO, being represented in that series by the hydrocarbon crotonylene CH, and the oxycarbon C,O, by the hydrocarbon valerylene C,Hg

THE LAW OF STORMS DEVELOPED*