170 



NATURE 



[April 6, 191 1 



application of the microscope to the study of metals, 

 which, extensively applied by Roberts-Austen to the 

 examination of alloys, has, in the hands of Rosen- 

 hain and others, so much increased our knowledge 

 of the nature and structure of iron. Its results are 

 fully utilised, and there are a couple of photo- 

 micrographs of iron, but the process is not described. 

 If space were wanted, we might have spared the 

 remarks on the evidence of design afforded by the 

 abundance of iron, and the somewhat vague specula- 

 tions as to how primitive man was led to the reduc- 

 tion and utilisation of the metal. 



Of the three great divisions of the textile indus- 

 tries, only one is included in our purview. The 

 linen and woollen trades must of necessity come 

 later in their proper alphabetical place. Even hemp 

 and jute belong to the second half of the list. Cotton 

 alone comes into an early volume. It is the subject 

 of three long and important articles, one dealing 

 with the supply of the raw material and the trade, 

 the second with the manufacture generally, and the 

 third with cotton-spinning. The first of these seems 

 very complete, and the information is brought well 

 up to date, but the technology of the subject proper 

 is dealt with only in the other two. The remark 

 was made above that the history of trade and inven- 

 tion came in for less than its fair share of notice. 

 This criticism certainly does not apply to the article 

 on "Cotton Manufacture." No better summary of 

 the history of this great industry need be desired. 

 Doubtless it might be amplified, but that would 

 carry it beyond reasonable limits. The author has 

 availed himself of all the usual sources of informa- 

 tion, and has also discovered others which are cer- 

 tainly not familiar to all students of the subject. It 

 is . indeed an admirable essay. The article on 

 "Cotton-spinning Machinery" is good, but will have 

 to be studied in connection with other articles — 

 "Carding," "Spinning," "Weaving," &c., not in- 

 cluded with those before us. 



Another article dealing with 'a department of the 

 textile industry is the one on "Carpet." This has 

 been rewritten, and some inaccuracies in the pre- 

 vious edition have been set right. Alike from the 

 historical and from the artistic point of view this is 

 an excellent paper. As regards purely technical in- 

 formation it is deficient. The appended bibliography 

 is very complete. If "Carpet" is not quite technical 

 enough, "Damask" is nothing else, and is scarcely 

 intelligible to a reader ignorant of weavinp- terms. 



" Bookbinding " is a subject of such general in- 

 terest that the editor might well have allotted more 

 than five pages to it, or might have allowed his con- 

 tributor the space now devoted to four large but quite 

 unnecessary pictures of machinery. Within the 

 narrow limits, the account of artistic binding is 

 sufficient, but the description of machine binding is 

 quite inadequate. 



Turning now to the shorter articles, we find many 

 which are models of what such work should be, 

 crammed with information condensed into the 

 smallest possible space. Potted knowledge, in fact, 

 such as we may properly expect in an encyclopaedia. 

 Perhaps the editor found his minor contributors 

 NO. 2162, VOL. 86] 



more amenable to his Procrustean rule than th<' 

 self-willed experts upon whom he had to rely for 

 special knowledge. Among such articles may be 

 noted "Basket,". "Fireworks," "Flax," and "Gold- 

 beating," though many others might be mentioned. 



A word of protest may be permitted about some of 

 the illustrations. Where space is so valuable why 

 devote whole pages to photographs of machines and 

 factory rooms, which convey no valuable information 

 whatever? For instance, there are four half-tone 

 blocks, occupying two pages, which illustrate 

 " Cotton-spinning " machinery by views of card- 

 ing engines and spinning-rooms. As pictures they 

 are ugly; as photographs they are indifferent; as 

 conveying information they are worthless. All de- 

 scription of machinery and mechanism requires 

 diagrammatic illustration, but it should be diagram- 

 matic, not pictorial. .Such illustration is abundantly 

 provided in articles like "Clocks," "Forging," 

 " Founding," &c., and in many cases such simple 

 sketches might wisely have been substituted for more 

 elaborate views of machines and apparatus, the action 

 of which it is quite impossible to follow from a mere 

 external picture. The phototype illustrations of car- 

 pets and of bookbindings are inoffensive and excus- 

 able, but they convey so poor an idea of the rich 

 beauty of the coloured originals that we could do 

 better without them. 



Photographic reproductions, properly applied, are, 

 of course, invaluable. The photomicrographs of 

 fibres in the article on that subject show structure I 

 in a way that no other pictorial device could show 

 it, and the same remark applies to the magnified 

 views of sections of iron given in the article on " Iron 

 and Steel." 



ORGANIC CHEMISTRY OF NITROGEN. 

 The Organic Chemistry of Nitrogen. By Dr. Nevil 

 Vincent Sidgwick. Pp. xii + 415. (Oxford : Claren- 

 don Press, 1910.) Price 14s. net. 

 THIS book will be welcomed by students of organic 

 chemistry as one of the highly desirable mono- 

 graphs which, unfortunately, have been so rarely pro- 

 duced in this country. 



In the preface the author informs us that the object 

 of the book is primarily educational, and that it is 

 in no sense intended as a work of reference ; this 

 object it fulfils admirably in most cases, but occa- 

 sionally a few more references to literature would 

 have been useful to the student who wished to acquire 

 a fuller knowledge of a subject. 



The subject-matter is treated under four divisions : 

 (i) compounds with no nitrogen directly attached to 

 carbon ; (2) bodies containing one nitrogen atom at- 

 tached to carbon ; (3) compounds containing an open 

 chain of two or more nitrogen atoms ; and (4) ring 

 compounds. 



The first three divisions contain a much fuller and 

 more detailed treatment of the subjects included in 

 them than the fourth division, in which a few only 

 of the more important cyclic compounds have been 

 selected for discussion, and no mention is made of 

 manv groups^ such as the pyrazolones or glyoxalines. 



