SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 275 



undertaken under the able editorship of Sir Henry E. Roscoe, will contrib- 

 ute to this result by showing that the laboratory and the explorer's camp 

 have their heroes as well as the battlefield. Sir Henry contributes the 

 opening volume to the series, taking as his subject his eminent British pred- 

 ecessor in the tield of chemistry, John Dalton* Dalton's great contribu- 

 tion to chemistry is the atomic theory, and it may be fairly ranked as the 

 comer stone of the science. He also established important laws concerning 

 the behavior of gases and made valuable meteorological researches. In 

 depicting the scientist, Sir Henry does not let us lose sight of the man. He 

 shows us Dalton as the Cumbrian Quaker lad, with his northern dialect and 

 mild though unpolished manners ; then as the young schoolmaster and the 

 tutor, careful of his scanty resources and no less so of his time ; afterward 

 as the plain and unpretending man of science, ever ready for a pipe and a 

 chat with the fi'iends of old times, but with no faculty for being agreeable 

 to persons who did not interest him. Having, when a young man, bought 

 a pair of silk stockings as a present for his mother, supposing them to be of 

 orthodox drab, he was greatly astonished to hear them pronounced " Varra 

 fine stuff, but uncommon scarlety." It was in this way that his eyes were 

 opened to the defect of his vision, and he at once proceeded to make the 

 first scientific study of color-blindness. Dalton had the frame of a north- 

 em yeoman, high but not extraordinary mental powers, and persever- 

 ance. To this last quality rather than to genius he ascribed whatever of 

 value he accomplished, and in this respect he seems to have judged correctly. 



Is the story of the Herschels f especially dramatic, or is it Miss Gierke's 

 talent as a narrator that makes her contribution to the Century Series a 

 remarkably fascinating volume ? William Herschel's laying down the 

 baton of a musical director to become an astronomer is dramatic enough, 

 and so is his sister's dutiful abandonment of a career as a vocalist to serve 

 as his assistant. William had been trained in music by his father, who 

 was bandmaster in a Hanoverian regiment ; he had proved a bright boy at 

 school, and when he went to England at nineteen years of age was a young 

 man of pleasant address, " who spoke English perfectly, played like a virtu- 

 oso, and possessed a curious stock of varied knowledge." Miss Clerke has 

 made a continuous story of his life, intertwining the thread of his musical 

 and that of his scientific vocation, where these are contemporaneous, with 

 that of Lis personal history, A chapter devoted to Caroline tells of her 

 early years as a family drudge and her quarter century of retirement after 

 her brother's death, supplying also some additional details of her co-opera- 

 tion in his labors. The sketch of Sir John Herschel is given in much the 

 same style as that of his father. While mainly occupied with his observa- 

 tions in the southern hemisphere and other astronomical labors, it tells also 

 of his work in i^hysics and mathematics, and his writings not omitting 

 his verse. The volume contains a portrait of each of its subjects. 



To those who imagine that the name J. von Liebig I stands merely for 

 a manufacturer of meat extracts, who may still be conducting his works 



* John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry. By Sir Henry E. Roscoe. Pp. 216, 12mo. New 

 York : Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.25. London : Cassell & Co. Price, Ss. &<J. 



t The Herschels and Modern Astronomy. By Agnes M. Clerke. Pp. 224, 12mo. New York : 

 Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.25. London : Cassell & Co. Price, 3s. 6d. 



X Justus von Liebig : his Life and Work. By W. A. Shenstone. Pp. 219, 12mo. New York : 

 Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.25. London : Cassell & Co. Price, 3s. Qd. 



