REVIEWS 481 



least squares is deduced therefrom. Chapters II to V treat in detail, with 

 numerical illustrations and a note on tables and calculating machines, the 

 adjustment of direct, indirect, and conditioned observations. The practical 

 method of solution of the normal equations is given in a form due to 

 Mr. Doolittle, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. A digression 

 of fifty pa,ges deals with the particular case of the adjustment of triangula- 

 tion, and we then have an account of empirical formulae and the determina- 

 tion of the precision of observations and results. 



The appendices include an interesting historical sketch of the subject 

 and a useful bibliography, together with tables of the error function, and 

 numerous, though one would have thought unnecessary, plates of typical 

 curves, straight lines, parabolas, logarithmic and sine curves. 



But we must protest against the word " explement," which is to be found 

 on p. 17, 



F. P. W. 



METEOROLOGY 



The Climates of the Continents. By W. G. Kendrew, M. A. [Pp. xvi + 387, 

 with 149 figures.] (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press, 1922. Price 

 215. net.) 



The aim of this book is to give brief general descriptions of the climates 

 of all parts of the world. There has been hitherto no single publication 

 in English containing such descriptions, and it has been a laborious task 

 to extract the required information from the widely scattered literature in 

 which it is embedded. Mr. Kendrew's book, though in a certain sense 

 comprehensive, does not attempt the thoroughness of treatment attained 

 in Hann's famous Handbuch der Klimatologie, and attention is concentrated 

 on wind, temperature, and rainfall, with only general references to sunshine, 

 cloudiness, and humidity. The limitation is fully justified by the com- 

 pactness and extreme lucidity of the work ; the author shows, indeed, a 

 rare talent for condensing and vivifying large masses of dry statistics, and 

 his book reads as easily as a novel. A welcome feature is the inclusion of 

 descriptions by residents of the way in which certain climates affect the 

 white man, such, for instance, as those of the Punjab and Senegambia. 

 These are very vivid. The diagrams are all very clear and simple. The 

 book is self-contained and does not require of the ordinary reader either 

 a knowledge of general meteorology or a collection of books of reference, 



E. V. N. 



PHYSICS 



A Dictionary of Applied Physics. Edited by Sir Richard Glazebrook, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. [Vol. I (Mechanics — Engineering — Heat), pp. ix -f 

 1067; Vol. II (Electricity), pp. vii + 1104.] (London: Macmillan & 

 Co., 1922. Price £^ 3s. net each volume.) 



It is rather remarkable that no dictionary of physics or natural philosophy 

 has been published in English for many years in spite of the fact that it is the 

 branch of science which, more than any other, has attained its present position 

 by the efforts and achievements of workers in this country. The several edi- 

 tions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica have, it is true, provided a number of 

 short monographs of very great value, but these, for the most part, have 

 necessarily been of a general or much condensed character. In view of the 

 long unfilled gap in the literature of the subject, it is most encouraging that, 

 at a time when the cost of printing and producing books is so excessive, a 

 firm of publishers should be willing to undertake the publication of an 

 extensive work of the kind. The explanation is to be found in the title of 

 the Dictionary ; the contents are nominally restricted to the application of 

 physical methods and discoveries to the necessities of modern civilisation. 



