694 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



whilst the chapter on anthracene dyes contains no mention of the extremely 

 important Algol vat-dyes. 



One cannot honestly congratulate either the authors or the printers on the 

 production. It is unfortunate that such a carelessly constructed book should have 

 been issued at the present juncture, particularly when supplies of paper are short. 



F. A. M. 



BOTANY 



Cotton and Other Vegetable Fibres: Their Production and Utilisation. By 

 Ernest Goulding, D.Sc (Lond.), F.I.C., Scientific and Technical 

 Department, Imperial Institute. Preface by Wyndham R. Dunstan, 

 C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S., Director of the Imperial Institute. (Imperial 

 Institute Handbooks.) [Pp. x + 231, with illustrations.] (London : John 

 Murray, 1917. Price 6s. net.) 



IF this volume is to be accepted as a measure of our achievement in studying the 

 raw material of a group of plant industries, it is rather depressing. 



It purports to be " a general summary of the position and prospects of the 

 world's production and utilisation of fibres," though incidentally we may mention 

 that the utilisation process called Spinning is not even indexed. " Issued under 

 the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies," dealing with "one of the 

 most important industrial problems arising from the war," after these problems 

 have " engaged the attention of the Imperial Institute for many years," " especially 

 in connection with cotton cultivation," it ought to be the best book available. 



There are two ways of writing such a book. One is to aim at real progress by 

 constructing a coherent exposition on the basis afforded by original researches 

 which the author has made, and this we regret that Dr. Goulding has not 

 attempted. The other is to make a compilation of existing information, and 

 since this is the course which has been followed we must judge the book as a 

 compilation pure and simple. But as a compilation it fails in its purpose through 

 the inexplicable absence of any references to the sources of information which 

 have been collated to make its pages. If we exclude " internal " references to the 

 Imperial Institute publications, and one to the Kew Bulletin, there remains only 

 one other citation of authority which we have been able to discover, namely 

 Todd's World's Cotton Crops (p. 71), and this in such a form as to lead the 

 unwary to imagine that this standard work is little more than a list of prices. 



Frankly, the technical literature of textiles, scanty as it is, has been already 

 overloaded with books of this type on the raw materials. The present volume 

 would have been a real advance on most of these, though necessarily very 

 superficial, had not its duty in the matter of references been so flagrantly neglected 

 To those who are familiar with some of the original bulletins and memoirs which 

 are utilised at first or second hand without acknowledgment in these pages, it is 

 clear that specific references even to a fraction of them, much less to them all, 

 would have made this book a standard work of reference. As it stands, we do not 

 know what use to make of it, except perhaps for conveying a general savour of 

 knowledge to the class of dilettanti. Even for this purpose there are several 

 minor inaccuracies, the fault of the source of information, but for which the author 

 is responsible in the absence of references. 



Presumably " Agrostis ypsilon" (p. 41) is a lapsus calami, and "Sharguira" 

 (p. 59) merely bad copying for Sharqia, but the suggested use of lead arsenate 

 for controlling Pink Boll Worm has for some time been known to be as im- 

 practicable as it seems. To assign 1935 a.d. for the complete invasion of the 



