348 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



of Physics " there is suddenly sprung on the reader the remarkable proposition 

 that Germa?iic Industry is the father of modern Physics ! However, as this state- 

 ment is backed only by quotations from the opinions of Houston Chamberlain, its 

 absurdity is manifest and the adjective becomes ridiculous rather than offensive. 



D. O. W. 



Advanced Text-Book of Magnetism and Electricity. By R. W. Hutchinson, 

 M.Sc, A.M.I.E.E. [Vol. i., pp. vii + 372 ; vol. ii., pp. vi + 468 ; not sold 

 separately.] (London : The University Tutorial Press, 191 7. Price 8s. 6d. 

 published.) 



This book is written to cover the ground of the Final Degree Examinations of the 

 Universities. Both the experimental and theoretical sides of the work are fully 

 treated, and a comprehensive account of the main principles of the subject 

 is given which embodies the distinctive results of modern research. For its 

 professed purpose the book seems admirably fitted. The text is carefully written ; 

 diagrams are clear and abundant, and there are a considerable number of fully- 

 worked examples illustrating the application of principles, with a large selection 

 of problems to be attempted by the student. In such a work naturally the greater 

 part of the space is devoted to what one may call the classical parts of the subject, 

 but the author contrives to give brief accounts of a goodly number of recent 

 investigations, and four chapters in the second volume are devoted to electric 

 oscillations, passage of electricity through gases, radioactivity, and the " New 

 Physics " which bases all electrical and optical phenomena on the electron. So 

 determined is the author to be " up-to-date," that there are short sections devoted 

 to such subjects as Thomson's recent work on Positive Rays, the investigations of 

 Laue and the Braggs on X-Ray Diffraction and Crystal Structure, and Planck's 

 Theory of Quanta. These are in the nature of things brief, but they are sufficient 

 to give the intelligent student some notion of the direction in which physical 

 research is going at present. To all students reading for their final degree the 

 book can be heartily recommended. J. RlCE. 



CHEMISTRY 



Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century. By Sir 



William A. Tilden, F.R.S., D.Sc, LL.D., Sc.D., Professor Emeritus in 

 the Imperial College of Science and Technology. [Pp. xvi + 487, with 161 

 illustrations, plans, and portraits.] (London : G. Routledge & Sons ; New 

 York : E. P. Dutton & Co. Price ys. 6d. net.) 



Prof. Sir William Tilden has placed us once more in his debt by the timely 

 issue of his book on Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century. 



With the experience of many a lecture, both of the popular and technical 

 variety, Sir William has recognised from the outset the necessity of providing such 

 a book as the present with a diversity of photographs and diagrams if the attention 

 of the dilettante and the casual reader are to be fixed. 



The result has been to produce a book which is deeply interesting and fascinat- 

 ing, not only to the lay mind, but also to the scientific elect, who sometimes are 

 inclined to forget that the materials they deal with in the laboratory by grams and 

 ounces are being handled in the outside world by the ton and the thousand tons, 

 and may, as steel or nitric acid for instance, be helping to shape the destiny of 

 mankind for ages to come. 



The book is divided into four parts, namely : 



Part I. Chemical Laboratories and the work done in them. 



