4 o6 SOME NEW BOOKS [may 



A FIRST INSTALMENT. 



Applied Geology. By J. V. Elsden, B.Sc. Part I. 8vo, pp. 96, with 57 figs. 

 London : "The Quarry" Publishing Co. Ltd., 1898. Price os. 



For a very large proportion of the raw materials used in our industrial arts 

 we are indebted, directly or indirectly, to mother earth ; and hence a good work on 

 practical geology, teaching us how to develop our mineral resources, ought to 

 appeal to a wide circle. Mr. Elsden, in this rather slender volume, concerns 

 himself with only a small corner of the subject ; indeed, it may lie doubted 

 whether the issue of the work, in its present form, is not somewhat premature. 

 The matter has already appeared serially in the columns of a very useful 

 technical journal called The Quarry, where a continuation is now in course of 

 publication, month after month. It would therefore, in our opinion, have been 

 wiser to wait until the whole subject was completed, instead of reprinting the 

 work in a fragmentary form. 



So far, however, as the author goes in this first part, he may be followed by 

 the student with much profit. A large proportion of the volume is devoted to 

 instruction in geological surveying, and deals with problems connected with the 

 dip, the strike, and the outcrop of strata. These subjects are necessarily of a 

 mathematical character, but Mr. Elsden handles them in a simple and satis- 

 factory fashion. The last chapter, forming 20 pages of the book, is descriptive 

 of the principal stratified ore-deposits. Here the writer deals, first, with such 

 detrital deposits as those containing gold, platinum, and tin-stone ; then with 

 ores precipitated from a state of chemical solution, such as bog iron-ore, clay 

 ironstone, manganese-ores, and bauxite ; and, finally, he describes those deposits 

 in which the ores are disseminated through sedimentary rocks. It is in the 

 last section that attention is directed to such important deposits as the copper- 

 shales of the Permian beds, the metalliferous sandstones of the Trias, and above 

 all else the famous "banket," or auriferous conglomerate of the Transvaal. 



The work is illustrated by a number of figures which, though clear, 

 are in many cases rather coarsely executed, and are needlessly large for so small 

 a book. 



A FIFTEENTH EDITION. 



Kirkes' Handbook of Physiology. By W. D. Halliburton, M.D. Fifteenth 

 Edition. Pp. xxiv. + 872. London: John Murray, 1899. Price 14s. 



When a class text-book has reached its fifteenth edition and is so largely 

 used by the students of the present day as this compact volume is, then it must 

 fulfil the requirements of its patrons. Probably the reason for this is that it 

 takes up the whole subject of physiology, including also histology, so that a 

 student obtains in a single volume practically all that he recmires for examina- 

 tion purposes. The author has spared no pains in keeping it abreast of the 

 most recent research in physiology. Every chapter sIioavs not only signs of 

 revision, but important matter has been added, such as Langley's recent work 

 on the union of vagus and cervical sympathetic, Hammarsten's researches on 

 blood coagulation, and those of Kossel on the constitution of the proteids. 

 There are also numerous other additions, such as Sherrington's work on the 

 reciprocal action of antagonistic muscles, and Haldane's researches on methaemo- 

 globin. Here and there slight errors have escaped correction, as, for example, 

 the definition of the posterior chamber of the eye given on page 738. 



It is, however, a reliable general text-book. There can be no doubt that 

 any student, who reads it carefully, will attain a good grasp of modern 

 physiology. T. H. Milroy. 



