REVIEWS 541 



at the very least a stoppage of a present leakage by more adequate testing of the 

 materials employed or utilisation of what are otherwise waste products. It is of 

 course impossible to promise that the employment of a scientific assistant will 

 very quickly increase output or decrease cost of production ; hence such an 

 appointment is to be regarded in the nature of a luxury or hobby, but not as a 

 " business proposition." The sooner this short-sighted policy is recognised and 

 abandoned the better for the country. It is, perhaps, obvious that research on 

 brewing would lead to the anatomy and histology of barley, and even, one can see, 

 a remoter connection with the development and physiology of the same plant ; 

 but as a matter of fact, the author was led into questions of osmosis, diffusions 

 through multi-perforate diaphragms, semi-permeable membranes, and other 

 problems of an equally physical and mathematical nature. These side lines, 

 branching off from the main subject of brewing, indicate quite clearly how any 

 manufacturing process that is probed thoroughly and scientifically ramifies into a 

 number of sciences often yielding results of scientific importance, or providing a 

 method of attacking problems previously encountered in their theoretical aspects. 

 The pamphlet is very interesting and one, as was pointed out above, that 

 would do a great deal of good if it were circulated as widely as possible. 



C. H. OT>. 



Manuring for Higher Crop Production. By E. J. Russell, D.Sc [Pp. 69, 

 with index and illustrations.] (Cambridge University Press, 1916. Price 

 3s. net.) 



Although the immediate object of thjs book is to assist farmers in so arranging 

 the cropping of their land under the conditions obtaining in war-time as to 

 increase their production for the good of the State, it nevertheless deserves a 

 place — in spite of its small size — on the reference shelves of all who are interested 

 in agricultural matters. It would make illuminating reading for those people, and 

 they are not uncommon, who think poorly of the knowledge and organising ability 

 required by farmers. 



The mere fact that the book has of necessity to take into account, over and 

 above its scientific material, certain conditions of price, labour supply and trans- 

 port, which at present are very variable, whereas in Britain they were formerly (by 

 comparison) immutable, has given it a breadth of treatment which is rare in works 

 on agricultural technology, whilst the most conservative of farmers could not fail 

 to find suggestions on directly practical matters in its pages of concentrated 

 evidence. The limitations imposed on the author have left no room for super- 

 fluities, and he has achieved a minimum amount of omission. 



The diagrams are simple and clear, while the five chapters of which the book 

 consists deal successively with the improvement of soil, with farmyard and 

 artificial manures, and with the manuring of arable and pasture land. 



L. B. 



A Voyage in Space. By H. H. Turner, D.Sc, D.C.S., F.R.S. [Pp. xvi + 

 299, with over 130 illustrations.] (London : Society for Promoting Chris- 

 tian Knowledge, 191 5. Price 6s. net.) 



The movement at present on foot to raise science into greater prominence in the 

 school curriculum will no doubt bring with it an awakening desire in our youths to 

 find their amusement as well as their instruction in scientific literature. The 



