502 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



perplexing subject of colour-photometry. A separate chapter is devoted to illu- 

 mination-photometers. This is a good feature, for it is surprising how little is 

 generally known of the convenience and simplicity of modern methods of 

 measuring illumination. The remaining chapters present the results of some 

 actual measurements in the streets of London and trace the development of 

 methods of distributing the light by means of prismatic glass globes and reflectors. 

 Mr. Trotter's book should serve to satisfy a distinct want. It may be added 

 that the style is lucid and that the diagrams (over 200 in number) and printing 

 are excellent. At the conclusion of the book will be found a very serviceable 

 bibliography, in which the references previously given at the foot of the pages are 

 collected together in alphabetical order. 



J. S. D. 



Astronomy. By Arthur R. Hinks. [Pp. vi + 256.] (Home University 

 Library of Modern Knowledge : Williams & Norgate. Price is. net.) 



This is an altogether model book, one that should be on all railway bookstalls 

 and that should be read by intelligent travellers who desire to gain some idea of 

 the nature of the fascinating problems which astronomers are seeking to solve. It 

 is written in an exceptionally clear and flowing style and in a critical spirit, so that 

 the reader feels that he is under the safe guidance of a man imbued with the truly 

 scientific habit of mind. It is just the kind of book that is required to lead 

 intelligent general readers who are in no way specialists to take an interest in 

 scientific work. 



A Text-book of Inorganic Chemistry. By George Senter, D.Sc, Ph.D. 

 [Pp. X-H583.] (Methuen & Co., London, 1911. Price 6^. 6d.) 



Lord Rosebery initiated recently a discussion on the value of the books that 

 are stored in our libraries, contending that most of them are to be regarded 

 as dead and not worth shelf room. There is certainly a large class that ought 

 never to have been born ; the book before us is one of them ; it is difficult 

 to understand how a person gifted with the knowledge and intelligence to compile 

 such a treatise can have been led to waste his energies in composing it. There 

 was a time when publishers had souls and took some care in selecting books : now 

 it would seem that commercial considerations alone count : each publisher must 

 have his series and it matters little whether or no a book is a mere repetition of 

 the errors of those that have gone before it, without any feature of novelty. 

 Obviously Dr. Senter has undertaken to write a cram book, as he admits in the 

 preface that "The book is designed for use in University, Technical Institute and 

 other general classes on the subject and contains all that is usually included in a 

 B.Sc. course." Poor B.Sc. candidates ! Little wonder that those marked with 

 these letters are too often labelled thereby as incompetent chemists ; any one who 

 knows what chemistry is in practice, who will turn over the pages of the book, 

 must realise that the student brought up on such pabulum will have sacrificed all 

 power of independent thought in acquiring the merest simulachre of knowledge. 



The work is a scissors-and-paste affair — a text- book of the old cookery-book 

 recipe type has been cut up and sections irrelevantly introduced such as are found 

 in the more modern treatises on so-called Physical Chemistry. In other words, 

 the dogmas of the ionic dissociation school are interlarded with conventional 



