January 19, 1922] 



^^■The editor and his collaborators are to be 

 ^■farmly cong-ratulated on the production of this 

 ^^■jroughly sound and practical g-uide, useful alike 

 ^^Bstudents and to research workers. 



^^f French-English Dictionary for Chemists. By 



Dr. Austin M. Patterson. Pp. xvii + 384. 



(New York : John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; 



London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1921.) 



1 8s. net. 

 The present volume is a companion work to the 

 author's " German-English Dictionary for 

 Chemists," and is likely to meet with an equally 

 favourable reception. A practical test, working 

 through original papers in organic chemistry, 

 inorganic chemistry, and technical (engineering) 

 chemistry proved the usefulness of the dictionary ; 

 only on the engineering side were a few deficien- 

 cies found. Chemistry has several other sciences 

 on its borders, and this is recognised practicallv 

 by the inclusion of some biological and botanical 

 terms. The addition of technical words from 

 mathematics, geology, and engineering, with 

 more \vords from physics, botany, biology, and 

 medicine would widen the scope of the book with- 

 out necessarily increasing its bulk. It is stated 

 in the introduction that " words of the same or 

 nearly the same spelHng in the two languages are 

 defined even when the meaning is exactly the same 

 as in English." This appears to the reviewer as 

 a defect ; the space might be better utilised in the 

 direction just indicated. Thus, taking a page 

 (368) at random, out of seventy-eight words 

 sixteen have identical spellings and meanings ; of 

 the remainder, twenty-one are practically the 

 same, and the obvious translation is the correct 

 one, such as uniforme, unimoUculaire , uranyle, 

 ultramicroscopique. 



Handbuch der Holzkonservierung. Edited by Ernst 



NATURE 



73 



Julius 



Troschel. Pp. xi + 540. (Berlii 



Springer, 1916.) In Germany, 18 marks; in 



England, 54 marks. 

 Twelve authors, comprising engineers, architects, 

 foresters, and professors, have produced this com- 

 prehensive text-book, which contains the result of 

 the latest investigations until 1916, on the preserva- 

 tion of wood. The book is clearly written and 

 well illustrated. It contains references to most of 

 the literature that has been published on the subject, 

 in English as well as in German, and frequently 

 discusses processes and materials used in England, 

 India, the United States, etc. 



The matter is arranged as follows : After an 

 introductory chapter on the structure, function, and 

 growth of wood and its tissues, part i deals with 

 the destruction of wood by fungi, animals, and 

 other agents. Dry-rot caused by Merulius, Lenz- 

 ites, and other fungi, and the numerous injuries 

 due to insects and marine borers, are treated at 

 considerable length. The second part discusses the 

 methods that are actually employed in preserving 

 wood. These are very numerous, and most atten- 

 tion is paid to the processes involving impregna- 

 tion with antiseptics, applied with or without pres- 

 NO. 2725, VOL. 109] 



sure. The materials and machinery used are de- 

 scribed in detail. The history of the subject is 

 illustrated by a list of all the substances that have 

 been tried from 1700 to 1876, with the name of 

 the inventor and mode of application in each case. 

 The third part is concerned with the care of 

 wood put to use under various conditions, as in the 

 open air, under water, inside houses, etc. Tlie 

 influence of moisture and the action of chemical 

 preservatives on the strength and durability of 

 timber are briefly treated, most reliance being 

 placed on Janka's experiments at Mariabrunn. 

 The fourth part is very practical, containing special 

 articles by engineers on the problems connected with 

 the maintenance and preservation of the wood used 

 in mines, railways, telegraphs, docks, bridges, 

 ships, houses, street-paving, etc. An appendix, 

 pp. 498-540, gives a list, classified under forty 

 headings, of the most important patents in con- 

 nection with the preservation of wood that have 

 been taken out in all civilised countries. 



Liquid and Gaseous Fuels a?td the Part they Play 

 in Modern Power Production By Prof. 

 Vivian B. Lewes. Second edition. Revised and 

 edited by John B. C. Kershaw. (The " West- 

 minster " Series.) Pp. xiv -1-353. (London : Con- 

 stable and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 12s. 6d. net. 

 In his revision of Prof. Lewes 's work on liquid 

 and gaseous fuels, Mr. Kershaw has adopted 

 the plan, dictated in part, no doubt, by the need 

 for economy, of inserting new matter in the form 

 of footnotes collected at the end of each chapter. 

 Thus when Prof. Lewes ventures upon a definition 

 of an atom, we are referred to a footnote some 

 five pages further on for more modern views on the 

 subject; this becomes irritating. Substantial addi- 

 tions have been made to the first edition, which was 

 reviewed in Nature of December 5, 1907, p. 98, in 

 the form of information relating to the manufacture 

 and use of power alcohol, and in the appendices, 

 Avhich contain accounts of fuel oil burners and ver- 

 tical continuous retorts for gas manufacture, as well 

 as extracts of recent statistics of oil fuel burning. 



The Fixation of Atmospheric Nitrogen. By Dr. 

 Joseph Knox. (Chemical Monographs.) 



Second edition. Pp. vii -1-124. (London: 

 Gurney and Jackson, 1921.) 45. net. 

 In the revision of his useful little monograph Dr. 

 Knox has added brief accounts of the Haber pro- 

 cess and of ammonia oxidation. The statement in 

 the preface that "comparatively little work of im- 

 portance on the theoretical side has appeared since 

 the first edition of this book was published " is 

 scarcely justified, and the fact that, of the 169 

 references to the literature which are given, onlv 

 about fifteen are of dates later than 1913 is not 

 what one might expect. The account of the 

 Serpek process, for example, is quite out of date, 

 and no reference to Serpek 's later publication is 

 given. The book will no doubt prove as useful 

 to students as the first edition, and is a readable 

 introduction to a most important subject. 



