April 28, 192 1] 



NATURE 



263 



work is really too new and controversial to pre- 

 sent to comparative beginners, for whom the book 

 appears to be intended. 



Prof. Stewart seems to have a quarrel with 

 facts ; he thinks that hypotheses are unduly 

 neglected by a certain school of chemists, and he 

 reproaches physical chemists with not knowing 

 enough about organic chemistry. It must be 

 admitted, however, that hypotheses may run wild 

 unless brought into some relation with experi- 

 ment, and that comparatively few chemists find 

 it possible to become really conversant with two 

 such extensive branches of the science as organic 

 and physical chemistry. To quarrel with 

 mathematics as an aid to chemistry is also 

 a little unfair. Even if it serves no other 

 purpose, a smattering of the principles of mathe- 

 matics might lead one to pause before committing 

 oneself to a statement such as the following : 

 " The possibility of negative mass suggests itself, 

 and the atomic weight might be regarded as the 

 algebraic sum of the positive and negative masses 

 within the atom." Many strange old hypotheses 

 have been galvanised into life again during the 

 last few years, but this is surely the first reappear- 

 ance of the theory of phlogiston. 



The Bohr atom, we learn, has " not even satis- 

 fied the purely physical requirements of an atomic 

 hypothesis." In addition, the "plain chemist." 

 for whom Prof. Stewart says he has written, might 

 not understand the " few elementary exercises in 

 the calculus " which would be required for its 

 elucidation. The reviewer must, however, 

 entirely disagree with the suggestion that such 

 matters were omitted to make room for " materpl 

 of more practical interest." 



The last chapter is full of assertions with which 

 no thoughtful student of physical chemistry could 

 for a moment agree. A personal attack on 

 Ostwald is scarcely the sort of thing to include, 

 as a whole chapter, in a " students' " book, even 

 if the criticism were better informed than is the 

 case in the present essay. It is to be hoped that 

 this wholly unnecessary and entirely one-sided 

 attack will disappear from future editions. 



J. R. Partington. 



Our Bookshelf. 



A Diplomat in Japan. By the Right Hon. Sir 

 Ernest Satow. Pp. 427. (London : Seeley, 

 Service, and Co., Ltd., 192 1.) 325. net. 

 The author of this important work ranks as one 

 of the greatest living authorities in this country 

 on the tangled and critical politics of the Far 

 East. His diplomatic career included an almost 



NO. 2687, VOL. 107] 



continuous residence in Japan from 1862 to 1882, 

 and culminated in his tenure of the post of British 

 Minister in Peking during the eventful years suc- 

 ceeding the Boxer rising of 1900. He has thus 

 had almost unrivalled opportunities of watching 

 the wonderful evolution of Japan from the position 

 of a relatively weak feudal State, distracted by 

 the struggles between rival daimyos, to its present 

 status as a great World Power with a highly 

 centralised administration. In these circum- 

 stances it is to be hoped that the present book, 

 interesting and useful as it is, may be only the 

 first instalment of a more ambitious work which 

 shall give us a critical interpretation of the deeper 

 issues underlying the transition from the old to 

 the new Japan, and a reasoned comparison of the 

 social forces at work in the Empire of the Mikado 

 with those affecting the development of her great 

 neighbour on the mainland. Such a contribution 

 to Western knowledge of the Far East is greatly 

 needed. 



In the volume under notice Sir Ernest Satow 

 has contented himself with acting as showman of 

 a marvellous pageant the culmination of which in 

 the Japanese revolution of 1868 involved the down- 

 fall of the Shogunate and of feudalism, the restora- 

 tion of the undivided authority of the Mikado, 

 and the inauguration of the present Meiji era (Age 

 of Enlightenment). The book consists mainly of 

 an extremely graphic record of six years 

 (1862-68), based upon the author's diaries written 

 by him in his early days as a student-interpreter in 

 Japan, when his youthful imagination was cap- 

 tured by the fascination of a wholly unfamiliar 

 society, and when he was consumed by an in- 

 satiable curiosity to read and understand what had 

 long been for Europeans a sealed and mysterious 

 land. The book abounds in vivid descriptions of 

 scenery, customs, men, and events. The account 

 of one of the first overland journeys made by 

 Europeans (from Ozaka to Yedo) is among the 

 best of its kind. The personal narrative is suffi- 

 ciently interspersed with historical explanations — 

 e.g. chap, iii., "Political Conditions in Japan" — 

 to enable the reader to appreciate the significance 

 of the events described. P. M. Roxby. 



Hydro-Electric Survey of India. Vol. ii. : Second 

 Report on the Water-Poiver Resources of India, 

 ascertained during the Season 1919-20 by 

 F. E. Bull and J. W. Meares. Pp. 123. (Cal- 

 cutta : Government Printing Press, 1920.) 

 R.I 6 annas. 



The investigation of the water resources of India 

 has been in hand for some time. The preliminary 

 report, issued in the autumn of 1919, gave an 

 account of the initiation of the Survey and the 

 preparations made by Mr. Barlow in conjunction 

 with Mr. Meares up to the time of the death of 

 the former. The second volume, now issued, con- 

 tains a resumS of the work which has been done 

 since Mr. F. E. Bull took over the chief engineer- 

 ship, with Mr. Meares as electrical adviser. The 

 itinerary consists of a series of visits to officers 



