REVIEWS 707 



expect to see applied later on in dealing with the affinity of the various elements 

 for one another, e.g. silver and iodine. 



With Part II. we pass to the subject proper of descriptive inorganic chemistry. 

 The portion dealt with here includes the group of inert gases, helium, neon, 

 argon, krypton, xenon, and niton. There is little room for comment except 

 to say that Mr. Briscoe has done his work well. Perhaps something more than 

 a brief reference to Onnes' isothermals would have been an advantage especially 

 from the point of view of continuity of state, for it is evident that the inert gases 

 by their molecular simplicity afford the most trustworthy experimental data 

 for investigating and testing equations of state. It is easy, however, to offer 

 suggestions of this kind. It is quite a different matter to really keep the balance 

 between what ought to be included and what must be excluded, and Part II. 

 is exceptionally good from this standpoint. 



W. C. McC. Lewis. 



GEOLOGY 



The Deposits of the Useful Minerals, Their Origin, Form, and Content. By 

 Professors F. Beyschlag, J. H. L. Vogt, and P. Krusch. Translated 

 by S. J. Truscott. In three volumes. Vol. I. Ore-Deposits in General— 

 Magmatic Segregations— Contact Deposits— Tin Lodes— Quicksilver Lodes. 

 [Pp. xxviii + 514 with 291 Illustrations.] (London: Macmillan & Co. 

 Price i8j-. net.) 



This great work, which Mr. Truscott has now translated into English, first 

 appeared in 1909, but the third volume has not yet been published. It will rank 

 as the finest presentation yet made of the science of ore-deposits from the 

 Continental standpoint. Our knowledge of ore-deposits is now based upon a 

 secure scientific foundation, and is illuminated by a series of great text-books such 

 as this. In its English dress the book, of course, challenges comparison with the 

 most recent production of the American school, Lindgren's Ore-Deposits. The 

 latter is a smaller book than that of Beyschlag-Vogt-Krusch ; but its treatment of 

 the philosophy of ore-deposits is on a larger scale, and is perhaps of a more 

 illuminating character than that of the Continental work. The American work 

 excels in the thorough application of physico-chemical principles to the investiga- 

 tion of ore-deposits. The book under review is supreme in the detail and acumen 

 with which individual occurrences are discussed, and in the thoroughness with 

 which the economic application of the material to prospecting and mining is kept 

 in mind. European occurrences of ore-deposits are naturally treated in great 

 detail, and in regard to the theoretical interest and importance of many of these 

 little-known bodies the book is of great value in bringing them to the notice of 

 English-speaking investigators. This point has a topical interest just now in view 

 of the question whether the central European countries can obtain from their own 

 areas sufficient of the metals they need for warfare, since the overseas supply has 

 been completely cut off. 



We may say that, in general, the translator has done his work excellently. The 

 style is formal and dignified, but owing to an exceedingly close rendering of the 

 original German there are frequently long, laboured, and heavy sentences, in 

 which the translator has not sufficiently divested his text of the German idiom. 

 This tendency is aggravated in some places by the very sparing use of commas 

 {e.g. pp. 171, 196). The translator's preface is occupied with a discussion of the 

 exact English equivalents of certain German terms used in the description of ore- 

 deposits. Gang, for example, may be translated either as " lode " or " vein." The 



