SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



439 



gradually been overcome, and to-day 

 we have hundreds of miles of these ex- 

 cellent pavements. The first brick 

 pavement of the United States was 

 also laid in 1870, and to-day the total 

 number of miles is nearly a thousand, 

 of which more than one-tenth are in 

 Philadelphia. The cost of road con- 

 struction and street paving appears to 

 be now slightly less in the United States 

 than in England, and hence there is lit- 

 tle doubt but that in another half cen- 

 tury our roads and streets will be 

 brought into a condition fully equal to 

 that found in Europe. These two books 

 show that road building can no longer 

 be left to farmers, and street construc- 

 tion to town councilmen, but that eco- 

 nomic results can only be secured when 

 they are placed under the charge of ex- 

 perienced civil engineers. 



'Irrigation and Drainage,' by F. 

 H. King, published by the Macmillan 

 Company, is not strictly an engineering 

 book, it having been mainly prepared 

 for the farmer and gardener, but it is 

 difficult to find a technical work which 

 so clearly exemplifies the fundamental 

 principles and minor details of the sub- 

 ject. The conditions that make irriga- 

 tion imperative or desirable, the proper 

 amount of water to be used, the methods 

 of supplying and distributing the water, 

 the laws of flow of ground water, and 

 the reasons, objects and methods of 

 draining land are set forth in a correct 

 and lucid manner. As a text-book for 

 use in agricultural colleges the volume 

 appears to be well adapted, while en- 

 gineering students will find that its dis- 

 cussions throw new light on their view 

 of the subject. The irrigation of the 

 arid regions, formerly known as the 

 Great American Desert, is now a matter 

 of great importance to both engineers 

 and agriculturists, and the author deals 

 fully with the peculiarities of its alkali 

 soils and with the results thus far at- 

 tained. In this connection note may be 

 made of a recent Bulletin of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, entitled 'Storage of 

 Water on Gila River, Arizona,' by J. B. 



Lippincott. This is a topographic and 

 engineering study for an irrigation 

 scheme made under a law authorizing 

 that bureau to carry on surveys for 

 possible reservoir sites in the arid 

 regions. Powerful influences are at 

 work to induce Congress to appropriate 

 money for the construction of such reser- 



voirs and for building canals to deliver 

 water to irrigable areas. On the Gila 

 River watershed it has been found that 

 several reservoir sites are available, that 

 the Buttes dam may be built at a cost 

 of $2,600,000, the San Carlos dam at a 

 cost of $1,039,000, and others for smaller 

 amounts. It is gravely urged in this 

 Bulletin that the Government should 

 build one of these dams, in order to ac- 

 commodate certain Indians from whom 

 white men have already diverted water 

 to which the tribe has a legal right. As 

 these lines are written an effort is be- 

 ing made to push this philanthropic 

 scheme through Congress by means of 

 an amendment to the River and Harbor 

 bill! 



The literature of engineering now 

 covers so vast a field that a person can 

 become acquainted only with a part of 

 the portion relating to his specialty Cat- 

 alogues and indexes are indispensable, 

 in order that he may know what has 

 been printed and where to find it. The 

 'Catalogue of the Library of the Ameri- 

 can Society of Civil Engineers' is a valu- 

 able aid in this direction, although that 

 library is far from complete. This vol- 

 ume, which contains seven hundred and 

 four closely printed pages, arranges the 

 books and pamphlets under twenty-five 

 principal classes, each of which is di- 

 vided into several sub-classes, thus ren- 

 dering it easy for the engineer to ascer- 

 tain exactly what the library contains 

 on any topic. This method of arrange- 

 ment has decided advantages over the 

 usual author and subject catalogues of 

 books whose publication is rarely ad- 

 visable. The engineering literature in 

 periodicals is, however, not represented 

 in this catalogue, except in the titles of 

 the journals. A 'General Index to En- 



