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River Discharge. Prepared for the use 

 of engineers and students by John C. 

 Hoyt, Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E., En- 

 gineer in Charge of Hydraulic Compu- 

 tations, U. S. Geological Survey, and 

 Nathan C. Grover, Assoc. M. Am. Soc. 

 C. E., Assistant Chief Hydrographer in 

 Charge of Stream Measurements, U. S. 

 Geological Survey. New York: John 

 Wiley and Sons. London, England: 

 Chapman and Hall, Ltd. Cloth, 6x9^ 

 inches; pp. 137; 24 illustrations in 

 text. 



The book covered by this review con- 

 tains seven chapters and seventeen 

 tables. Each chapter contains a definite 

 and logical portion of the whole subject 

 matter, the titles of the successive chap- 

 ters being as follows: Introduction, 

 Conditions affecting stream flow. Instru- 

 ments and equipment. Velocity-area sta- 

 tions, Weir stations, and Discussion and 

 use of data. The title of each chapter 

 indicates clearly the substance thereof 

 and plays an important part in the de- 

 velopment of the whole subject. Chap- 

 ters IV and VI, however, contain the 

 most valuable and essential portions of 

 the work. Chapter IV describes minute- 

 ly the selection, establishment and oper- 

 ation of a velocity-area gaging station, 

 setting forth- clearly the theory and prac- 

 tice of making stream measurements 

 and methods of reducing field notes. 

 Chapter VII handles the subject from the 

 office point of view. In this chapter, the 

 subject of the discharge rating curves 

 and rating tables is gone into thorough- 

 ly and scientifically, and the useful ap- 

 plication of hydrographic data is briefly 

 treated. 



The seventeen tables referred to are 

 placed at the close of the book, and per- 

 tain to the computation of river discharge 

 and to the reduction of these data from 

 one standard unit to another. Tables i, 

 2, 3, and 4 give the discharges in second- 

 feet for the most common types of weirs. 

 Tables 5, 6, 7, and 8 contain multipliers 

 to be applied to the discharges given in 

 table 4, based on Bazin's formula for 

 sharp-crested weirs, for the purpose of 

 obtaining discharges over broad-crested 

 weirs of compound cross section. These 

 tables are valuable labor savers in deter- 



mining the discharge over the weirs to 

 which they are applicable. 



The material brought together in River 

 Discharge is for the most part a col- 

 lection of information on that subject 

 from various Government publications 

 and current engineering periodicals. 

 This condition is to be expected, as its 

 authors are closely allied with much of 

 the work that has been done by the Gov- 

 ernment in hydrography. The writers 

 are likely to receive but little credit for 

 originality on this account, yet they de- 

 serve the gratitude of the engineering 

 profession for making a neat, systematic 

 compilation of valuable data not hereto- 

 fore brought together. 



It is to be regretted that the book has 

 been made so elementary, and, conse- 

 quently, so small. The subject is one of 

 large possibilities, and the authors have 

 fallen beneath these possibilities by lim- 

 iting the treatment to non-mathematical 

 discussion of the practice of obtaining 

 and reducing river discharge data. Much 

 more of the technical, fundamental 

 principles of stream flow and the pur- 

 pose and usefulness of stream gaging 

 could well have been made a part of such 

 a work. This could have been done 

 without danger of making the work a 

 mathematical gymnasium. This criti- 

 cism, however, is not of the quality of 

 the material but of the quantity. The 

 usefulness of a book does not depend so 

 much on the possibilities of its subject 

 as on the inherent and comparative value 

 of its contents. Judging the work on this 

 basis it is highly commendable. 



Engineers have, ever since the recent 

 development of river hydraulics, felt 

 the need of a good reference book on the 

 subject of river discharge. This is espe- 

 cially true of the young engineer who 

 has not grown up with this develop- 

 ment and of the college professor who 

 has needed a text book for his classes. 

 The engineer conversant with the current 

 literature on this subject will also be 

 pleased and benefitted by the collection 

 of information in River Discharge. The 

 engineering profession will, therefore, re- 

 ceive and judge this work on its merits 

 rather than on its deficiencies, and the 

 reviewer predicts that it will have a 

 ready and wide sale. 



F. W. Hanna. 



