338 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



A Senior Experimental Chemistry. By A. E. Dunstan, D.Sc.(LoncL), 

 F.C.S., and F. B. Thole, D.Sc.(Lond.), F.C.S. [Pp. xiv + 522, with 

 120 diagrams by E. D. Griffiths, B.Sc] (London: Methuen & Co., 

 Ltd., 1916. Price 5^.) 



It is somewhat difficult to criticise the appearance of yet another text-book of 

 chemistry when, as in the present case, no explanation is afforded as to its filling 

 the usual " long-felt want " or in what respect the existing text-books fail to satisfy 

 the needs. 



At the same time, whether or not the urgency was sufficient to warrant the 

 appearance of a new text-book of inorganic chemistry, there can be no doubt that 

 the present work has been carefully compiled, and should serve its purpose well — 

 namely, that of providing a suitable book on inorganic chemistry for the use of 

 "boys in the upper forms of Secondary Schools and students in Technical 

 Institutions." 



The tables comparing the chief properties of the elements of the various 

 groups of the periodic system are certainly to be commended, and the directions 

 for performing various experiments interspersed through the text ensure that 

 theory and practice go hand in hand. 



The volume also has two appendices on qualitative and volumetric analysis 

 respectively. 



The type is clear, and the diagrams, with which the text is fairly liberally sup- 

 plied, have the merit of having been apparently drawn from actual laboratory 

 experiments. 



Frederick A. Mason. 



GEOLOGY 



Notes on the Fenland. By T. McKenny Hughes, M.A., F.R.S., Woodwardian 

 Professor of Geology, with a description of the Shippea Man, by Alexander 

 Macalister, M. A., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy. [Pp.35-] (Cambridge 

 University Press, 191 6. Price 6d. net.) 



In this pamphlet the author concludes that the peaty (" turbiferous ") beds of the 

 East Anglian fens are sharply divided from the gravels of the preceding or 

 " areniferous" series, and that there was " an unrepresented period of considerable 

 duration " between their epochs of formation. The mammalian faunas of the two 

 series are distinct, and the Fen Beds include nearly the whole of the Neolithic 

 stage. The human remains found at Shippea Hill, near Littleport, are referred to 

 the Bronze Age. The gravels that occur on the margins and floor of the Fenland 

 are believed by the author to record an epoch of uplift " out of the Glacial Sea," 

 and the fens accumulated in the estuaries caused by a subsequent submergence. 

 A reference to Dr. Hoist's papers in the Geological Magazine would have been 

 of interest ; but their recency may have rendered this impossible. 



The Gravels of East Anglia. By T. McKenny Hughes, M.A., F.R.S., 

 Woodwardian Professor of Geology. [Pp. 58.] (Cambridge University 

 Press, 1916. Price is. net.) 



It is not clear why this essay appears as a separate work, to be received coldly 

 by librarians, and why it is cut off from its many kindred in the Geological 

 Magazine ox the Quarterly J oicrnal of the Geological Society. It contains scarcely 

 any references to the abundant literature of the East Anglian gravels, and is 

 evidently addressed to specialists to whom a century of observation is familiar. 



