REVIEWS 585 



Wood and Other Organic Structural Materials. By Charles Henry- 

 Snow. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York City. 1917. Pp.478. Illus. 



In this book Dr. Snow, who is Dean of the School of Applied Science 

 in New York University, has attempted to present a comprehensive 

 summary of the characteristics and uses of organic structural materials. 

 The first portion of the book is occupied with a compilation of infor- 

 mation upon the botanical and physiological characteristics of trees, 

 closing with a paragraph on forestry, which is defined as "a phase of 

 agriculture, rather than of lumbering." This is followed by a chapter 

 on the gross and minute structure of wood, which is rather involved 

 and technical for the average engineering student, and too brief and 

 incomplete to present very much of value to the wood technologist, 

 especially in view of the general availability of Record's excellent work 

 on the "Economic Woods of the United States." A chapter on ''banded 

 trunks and woods" is then followed by a very indiflferent compilation 

 of data on the commercial woods of the United States, which occupies 

 roughly about half of the pages of the book. A subsequent discussion 

 of the chemical composition and physical properties of woods is ram- 

 bling in style and confusing to the reader, as is also a cut of a "torsion" 

 machine and a cut of a Dorry machine for making abrasion tests of 

 stone and similar material. In the next chapter, on the causes of fail- 

 ure of wood, the paradoxical use of the word "exposure" is especially 

 interesting. This is followed by a chapter on conflagrations, which 

 contains material of real interest, and a chapter on marine and terres- 

 trial wood-borers, which is rather well written. The remaining chap- 

 ters, on the seasoning and preservation of wood, data on oils, paints, 

 varnishes, other coatings, and india-rubber, are a sort of literary con- 

 glomeration consisting largely of valuable material very poorly com- 

 piled. The poor typographical arrangement of this book does much to 

 render the subject-matter uninteresting. 



B. L. G. 



Snozv Surveying: Its Problems and their Present Phases zcith Refer- 

 ence to Mount Rose, Nevada, and Vicinity. By J. K. Church. Jr. i'.ul- 

 letin of the Pan American Scientific Congress, 191 5- lO. GovcninK-nt 

 Printing Office, 1917. 



In a recent paper the author of "The Conservation of Snow," ' and 

 other bulletins emanating from the University of Nevada and its Mount 

 Rose Weather Observatory, discusses the very technical problems con- 



* Scientific American, Sept. 7, 1912. 



