APPENDIX I. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Grundriss der Krystallographie fur Studirende und zum Selbstunterricht. By Gottlob Linck. 



Jena, 1896. Pp. vi. and 252. 



The great and ever-increasing importance of the position held by crystallography as an 

 auxiliary to the kindred sciences of physics and chemistry is gradually receiving recognition. 

 Indications are not wanting that in the future many of the problems of molecular physics 

 relating to solid bodies will be found easily susceptible to attack by crystallographic methods, 

 so that crystallography will at length take its legitimate position as a branch of physical 

 chemistry. With these prospects, we gladly welcome any book in which crystallography is 

 rationally discussed as a living science, which embraces a remarkably fertile and hitherto com- 

 paratively unexploited field. 



In the preface to the present volume, the author states that his work is designed for the 

 perusal of young students ; and, in spite of what appear to us serious defects, the book is of an 

 extremely readable character, and its language so clear and simple, that the author's design 

 is, on the whole, well carried out. We find, however, no mention of the stereographic 

 projection throughout the work, and an English reader can scarcely conceive of a student 

 attaining to an appreciative grasp of elementary crystallography, without early acquiring an 

 easy facility in the use of that simple and invaluable aid. Surely, too, the time has come when 

 Naumann's cumbrous method of describing forms might well be consigned to the crystallo- 

 graphic historian, and be entirely omitted from educational works. Here, however, the author 

 assigns to it equal prominence with the more significant and elegant Millerian method. 



That portion of the work which deals with the geometrical properties of crystals is 

 concise and well arranged. The method of treating the hexagonal system is, however, 

 unsatisfactory, the reader being left with very vague notions respecting the precise meaning and 

 character of the axial system employed. The treatment of crystallographic optics is clear, and, 

 for an elementary manual, leaves little to be desired. The chapter dealing with polymorphism, 

 isomorphism, morphotropy, etc., is a very praiseworthy innovation in a work of this kind ; it 

 treats briefly and concisely of the relations existing between chemical composition and 

 crystalline form. 



The book is well printed and amply illustrated with diagrams of a distinctly superior 

 character to those which we are accustomed to see copied from one work into another, ad 

 nauseum ; a coloured diagram of interference figures ends the book. 



The following list of errata may be of service : — 



P. 6, line 12 from below, read Krystallsystem. 



E 



