LITERARY NOTICES. 



559 



Laboratory Manual of Experimental 

 Physics. By Albert L. Arey, C. E. 

 Syracuse : C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 200. 

 Price, 75 cents. 



Neglect of experimental science-teaching 

 will not be much longer excusable for lack 

 of suitable laboratory manuals. Mr. Arey's 

 book consists of brief directions for seventy 

 experiments in the several departments of 

 physics, with suggestive questions as to 

 what is shown by each experiment. The 

 right-hand pages are left blank, or contain 

 forms for entering the results of observa- 

 tions. The experiments are adapted to pu- 

 pils in secondary schools, and are character- 

 ized by involving measurements, the author 

 being convinced that " vastly greater mental 

 discipline will be derived by the student 

 from quantitative experiment " than from 

 qualitative. It has been a part of the au- 

 thor's plan, also, to devise inexpensive appa- 

 ratus with which results may be obtained 

 sufficiently accurate to point conclusively to 

 the law under consideration. Directions for 

 making many pieces of this apparatus are 

 appended to the book. The text is illus- 

 trated with fifty-six figures. 



The Chemistry op Paints and Painting. 

 By A. H. Church, F. R. S. London : 

 Seeley & Co., Limited. Pp. 310. Price, 



$1.75. 



Artists are supplied in this volume with 

 a great deal of practical knowledge concern- 

 ing the chief chemical and physical charac- 

 ters of the materials and processes that they 

 use. There are other books that treat of 

 the pigments employed, but this deals also 

 with painting-grounds (paper, plaster, stone, 

 wood, and canvas), with vehicles and var- 

 nishes, and with methods and results. In 

 describing the materials which artists use, 

 the sources from which they are obtained 

 are told, and in many cases the mode of pre- 

 paring them is given. Tests for purity and 

 genuineness, that take but little time or ap- 

 paratus, have also been inserted. Chapters 

 that will contribute to the durability of the 

 artist's work are those on the permanency 

 of pigments, and the conservation of pict- 

 ures and drawings. Exact knowledge in re- 

 gard to permanency is furnished in the chap- 

 ter containing results of trials by Mr. F. W. 

 Andrew, Prof. Rood, Prof. Hartley, and by 

 Dr. Russell and Captain Abney, as reported 



to the South Kensington Museum. The vol- 

 ume is adequately indexed, and its mechani- 

 cal work is excellent. 



The True Grasses. By Eduard Hackel. 

 Translated from Die naturlichen Pflanz- 

 enfamilien, by F. L. Scribner and Effie 

 A. Socthworth. New York : Henry 

 Holt & Co. Pp. 228. 



Prof. Hackel's monograph on the 

 grasses, here translated, was contributed to 

 the great German work on the Natural 

 Families of Plants, edited by Drs. Engler 

 and Prantl. The book consists of a botani- 

 cal key to the Graminece, through which are 

 interspersed full descriptions and cuts of 

 the economically important species. The 

 grass family includes a large number of 

 plants which are of great value as furnish- 

 ing food for man and for his domestic ani- 

 mals, as well as supplying a great variety of 

 products used in the arts and in medicine. 

 Among these are Indian corn, sugar-cane, 

 bamboo, the grains, and the fodder grasses. 

 The opening chapter gives an account of 

 the general structure, morphology, and phys- 

 iology of the Graminece. The translators 

 have added an introduction, giving an ex- 

 ample of how a botanical key is used, a full 

 glossary, and an index, in order to make the 

 volume more useful as a text-book in agri- 

 cultural colleges. The illustrations number 

 over a hundred. 



Evolution, Antiquity op Man, Bacteria, 

 etc. By William Durham, F. R. S. E. 

 Edinburgh : Adam & Charles Black. Pp. 

 127. Price, 50 cents. 



The Messrs. Black issue this little volume 

 as the first of a series under the general title 

 Science in Plain Language, the design of 

 which is to impart the general results of 

 scientific investigation in common language, 

 and without a great deal of detail. The 

 book consists of about twenty short articles 

 grouped under four heads. Those in the 

 first group deal with evolution and primeval 

 man, those in the second are devoted to the 

 lowest living organisms, the third contains 

 papers on color in plants and animals, and 

 in the fourth various movements in plants 

 are described. Each essay is complete in 

 itself, yet their subjects are so selected that 

 they are all connected, and all unite to form 

 a general picture of the evolution and gen- 

 eral phenomena of life. 



