586 



NATURE 



[October 20, 19: 



Mr. HuliD" "•"'-• from 1561 to date, the introductio n 

 of the p 1 ification about 1730 is an important 



landmark whiili should not be overlooked. Its need 

 arose out of the increasing specialisation in industry — 

 itself a sure indication of the commencement of in- 

 dustrial growth — and its establishment as a permanent 

 part of patent practice so long after the introduction 

 of the patentsystem is a parallel to the long time-lag that 

 existed up to the eighteenth century between actual 

 practice and its corresponding literature. This time- 

 kg and the early divorce of industry from literature are 

 well shown by Mr. Hulme in two interesting " tabular 

 surveys " of the literature of architecture and the 

 textili industries Which give the earliest printed mono- 

 grapli in the different subdivisions of these two sub- 

 jects, and in themselves form valuable bibliographical 

 charts. 



It is, however, more with the method advocated than 

 with the conclusions drawn by Mr. Hulme — important 

 and interesting as these are — that we are here concerned, 

 and it is to be hoped that both bibliographers and 

 statisticians will realise the utility of this new apparatus 

 which may not unworthily play its part in the elucida- 

 tion of many problems. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Catalysis in Organic Chemistry. By Paul Sabatier. 

 Translated by Prof. E. Emmet Reid. Pp. xxiv + 

 406. (London : The Library Press, Ltd., 1923.) 

 255. net. 



Prof. Sabatier's book, of which an American trans- 

 lation is now issued, has been written on a basis 

 which is considerably broader than the brilliant 

 researches with which the name of the author is uni- 

 versally associated, and is very far from being a mere 

 resume in book-form of those researches, valuable as 

 that would be. It is also more than a mere text-book 

 for the instruction of students, since, instead of giving 

 merely a few illustrative examples of particular types 

 of chemical change, the author has usually enumerated 

 all the most important examples, with references 

 to the original literature in which they are described. 

 The result has been to produce a monograph of remark- 

 able completeness, in which the references alone would 

 cover many pages, since they are several thousands in 

 number. 



The translation has been well done, although English 

 readers will be amused to see on p. 25 a sentence which 

 ends in a hyphen as a result of a refusal to repeat the 

 second half of a name, which has already been printed 

 on the preceding line. The pagination of the book is 

 also very confusing, since, in opposition to all English 

 precedents, the outer corners are occupied by para- 

 graph . numbers, the page-numbers being relegated to 

 the inner comers, until the index is reached, when they 

 revert to the usual position, thus giving the impression 

 that 969 and 350 are consecutive pages. A very full 

 author-index and subject-index have been added by the 



translator, in which again a novel system has been 

 adopted, since all the references are to paragraphs and 

 not to pages. 



The American translation contains a supplementary 

 section of 12 pages by Prof. Bancroft on " Theori 

 Contact Catalysis," and a numljer of signed ftxi' 

 by American workers. A biography, covering tw< . 

 only, is of very real value in directing attention ' 

 range of Prof. Saliatier's researches, since his • 

 work in inorganic chemistry has been largely 

 shadowed by the brilliancy of his later work in «■: 

 chemistry. It is also of interest to read that in 

 he declined an invitation to follow Moissan at thi 

 Sorbonne, preferring to retain the chair of chemistry ai 

 Toulouse, which he has now occupied for nearly fort\ 

 years. 



The Wheelwrighi's Shop. By George Sturt (" George- 

 Bourne "). Pp. xii + 236-f-8 plates. (Cambridge: 

 At the University Press, 1923.) 12s. 6d. net. 



The title of this book gives no indication of the enjoy- 

 able nature of its contents. The author tran: 

 us into rural England as it was before the hand < i 

 man had disappeared before the march of machiner\ . 

 and lets us into the secret of how these men found their 

 working lives to be worth living. The knowledge which 

 comes to the man who has to get out his own timber 

 by the use of hand tools, and the intimate acquaint- 

 ance with its peculiarities so acquired, are possessed 

 by few workmen to-day. The book is ver>' human, 

 and is diversified throughout by quaint touches which 

 throw a fiood of light on the development of village lift- 

 in England. Such a book could not be written except 

 by one who had lived among the things described, 

 and was intimately acquainted with the people. The 

 wheelwright's shop still exists in Famham, although 

 it has moved with the times ; its first records date back 

 to 1706, and it came into the possession of the author's 

 grandfather in 1810 and remained in the family until 

 1920. 



The reader will learn a great deal more than how 

 waggons and carts used to be built. " In the slow 

 transition from village or provincial industr}- to city 

 or cosmopolitan industry, one sees a change comparable 

 to the geologic changes that are still altering the face 

 of the earth. Already, during the eighties and 

 nineties of last century-, work was growing less in- 

 teresting to the workman, although far more sure in 

 its results. Whereas heretofore the villager had been 

 grappling adventurously and as a colonist pioneer with 

 the materials of his own neighbourhood, other materials 

 to supersede the old ones were now arriving from 

 multitudinous wage-earners in touch with no neigh- 

 bourhood at all, but in the pay of capitalists. So the 

 face of the country was being changed bit by bit . . . 

 village life was dying out ; intelligent interest in the 

 countr>'-side was being lost. . . . Seen in detail the 

 changes seemed so trumperj' and in most cases such 

 real improvements. That they were upsetting old 

 forms of skill — producing a population of wage-slaves 

 in place of a nation of self-supporting workmen — 

 occurred to nobody." The book can be recommended 

 thoroughly to all who wish to extend their knowledge 

 of their fellow men and who are interested in modem 

 welfare problems. 



NO. 2816, VOU 112] 



