332 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



vestigation in Britain. As the author says in his preface, the book does not deal 

 with investigations which only the professional scientific man can hope to follow- 

 but rather with matters which anyone concerned with the management of land 

 as farmers, market-gardeners, land owners or agents, can appreciate. The book 

 is also intended for the agricultural student, to whom it indicates the sources of 

 well-known statements and conclusions he will hear in lectures and see in text- 

 books, and for the teacher and expert, for whom it furnishes a guide to the more 

 detailed reports. Lists of references at the end of each chapter add to this sphere 

 of the book's usefulness. 



The systematic field experiments at Rothamsted were commenced in 1843 

 and complete records have been kept ever since, so that the agricultural history of 

 all the experimental fields and plots is known in detail. It is to the empirical 

 information derived from these field experiments that the present state of manuring 

 science and practice is largely due. The Book of the Rothamsted Experiments 

 deals chiefly with these classical field experiments. They form, of course, only a 

 part of the investigations carried out at Rothamsted, and the results of other lines 

 of inquiry also find a place in the book. 



The new edition, besides bringing up to date the history of the experiments 

 described in the first edition, contains two entirely new chapters concerned with 

 more recent developments in soil science. The first of these, from the pen of 

 Dr. E. J. Russell, is on " Recent Work on the Biochemical Processes of the Soil," 

 and deals largely with partial sterilisation of soils ; the second, by Sir Daniel Hall, 

 is concerned with " Secondary Actions of Artificial Manures upon the Soil." 



The whole book is a remarkable testimony to the enthusiasm of the Rothamsted 

 workers, and helps the reader to realise the debt the agricultural community, 

 and hence the whole nation, owes to that remarkable life-long collaboration of 

 Lawes and Gilbert. 



The author of the Book of the Rothamsted Experiments is not only our greatest 

 authority on the soil and manuring problems, with which the experiments are so 

 largely concerned, but his writings possess a clearness of expression and a literary 

 style which are not wanting in the present work. The excellent manner in which 

 the book is produced adds to the pleasure of reading it. 



W. S. 



ZOOLOGY 



The Origin and. Evolution of Life on the Theory of Action, Reaction, and 

 Interaction of Energy. By Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sc.D., LL.D., 

 D.Sc, Ph.D. [Pp. xxi + 322, with 136 illustrations.] (New York : Charles 

 Scribner's Sons, 1918. Price S3 net.) 



Dr. OSBORN, the writer of the present volume, is well known as a prolific writer 

 on palaeontology — a branch of science which provides more direct illustrations of 

 Evolution than perhaps any other. His theories of the origin of mammalian teeth 

 and the adaptive radiations of the various groups of vertebrates have in the main 

 received wide acceptance. In this work, however, at any rate in the earlier and 

 more thought-provoking chapters, he quits the domain of palaeontology and even 

 biology in an endeavour to discover the origin of life and the evolution of forms. 

 All the most recent advances of physics and chemistry are drawn on to aid in this 

 quest. Although this old, old problem is not solved, and we are afraid we must 

 confess it is not, its restatement in modern scientific terminology is both valuable 

 and interesting. Up to the present no explanation of the origin of living things 



