30 



NATURE 



[September 9, 191 5 



Part ii. is geological, and contains definitions of 

 various geological terms and the identification of 

 rocks and strata illustrated in the coloured frontis- 

 piece of the succession of the stratified formations 

 of the earth's crust. This part also contains many 

 useful tables for horizons, angles of dip, natural 

 sines, cosines, and tangents, quantities of oil per 

 acre for given thicknesses of oil sand, and a host 

 of other useful data. 



Part iii. is chemical and physical, giving the 

 specific gravities of crude oils, products, analyses, 

 viscosity, calorific value, specific heat, and the 

 composition of various purifying agents; whilst 

 Part iv. treats of oil production in all its phases. 

 Part V. embraces refining, transport, storage and 

 testing of oils, and the next division goes fully 

 into the uses of petroleum and its products. 

 Part vii. is a mass of information on weights, 

 measures, and other useful data connected with 

 oil, whilst Parts viii. and ix. deal with miscel- 

 laneous information and statistics, brought down 

 in most cases as late as 1913, and forming a 

 fitting conclusion to a book which no one in any 

 way interested in oil can afford to be without. 



(2) Another extremely useful work is "The 

 Chemists' Year-Book for 19 15," compiled by Mr. 

 F. W. Atack, of ,the Technical Department of 

 Manchester University, and designed to take the 

 place of the voluminous German publications, of 

 which the English chemist has iDcen forced to 

 avail himself in the absence of any complete 

 and up-to-date English collection of chemical 

 data. 



In order to secure portability it is published in 

 two volumes — the first, a pocket-book containing 

 a diary, all the more important details of qualita- 

 tive, volumetric, gas, ultimate, electro-chemical 

 and spectrum analysis, together with tables of 

 the general properties of inorganic and organic 

 substances, useful memoranda, conversion and 

 logarithm tables. 



The second volume, which from the absence 

 of a flap is evidently intended more for reference, 

 gives every possible table on the physical con- 

 stants of gases, liquids, and solids, properties 

 of minerals, and finally a really excellent sum- 

 mary of more technical processes, in which fuel 

 and illuminants, acid and alkali manufacture, oils 

 and fats, brewing, coal tar and its derivatives, 

 synthetic dye-stuffs, and many other manufac- 

 turing processes find place. 



It is refreshing to find, at a time when so much 

 is being written and said as to the capture of 

 German trade, that so practical a first step has 

 been taken, and every working chemist will wel- 

 come this year-book, containing as it does in 

 convenient form 900 pages of most useful data. 

 NO. 2393, VOL. 96] 



GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES AND THE OLD 

 TESTAMENT. 



Geographic Influences in Old Testament Master- 

 pieces. By Prof. Laura H. Wild. Pp. xiii + 

 182. (Boston and London: Ginn and Co., 

 1915.) 4s. 6d. 



THE book aims at showing how the physical 

 environment and geographical conditions of 

 a nation are expressed in its literature and history. 

 This fact, notwithstanding its great importance, 

 has been too often forgotten by teachers and per- 

 haps in no case more frequently than in dealing 

 with the older portion of the Bible. One cause of 

 this has been a tendency, with a large section 

 of the Christian church, to regard its older 

 books with an unreasonable reverence, and for- 

 getting that they are the history of a people, 

 who, though the chosen means for imparting 

 great truths to the world, were men and women 

 like ourselves, even the best of whom were liable 

 to human weaknesses. The authoress accord- 

 ingly seeks to enhance the attractions of Bible 

 teaching by linking its more interesting episodes 

 with the main geographical features of the 

 country— its coastal plain on the one side, and its 

 inland desert on the other, its valleys and its hills 

 — Carmel, Gilboa and Tabor, the cedar-clad slopes 

 of Lebanon and the snowy dome of Hermon, 

 from which the Jordan begins its course, in some 

 respects unique, to its grave in the Salt Sea. 



The intention of the book is excellent, but we 

 cannot say so much for its execution. Prof. 

 Laura Wild's comments seldom rise above the 

 commonplace, and we find among them little or 

 no evidence of a personal knowledge of Palestine. 

 For descriptions of its scenery she seems to depend 

 upon quotations from well-known travellers, so 

 that we miss those little graphic touches which 

 add to the life and interest of an account. To 

 some statements also we must take exception, 

 such as that Joseph was "little " when sold into 

 Egypt, for he was over seventeen ; that Heber 

 can be described as an Israelite, and that Endor 

 is near the Sea of Galilee. Her knowledge also of- 

 natural history and geology leaves something 

 to be desired. It is misleading to call the 

 cyclamen a native of Palestine, for the genus has 

 a wide range, one species being claimed as 

 British, which is at any rate common in many parts 

 of Europe. The lion which Benaiah killed in a 

 cave (he is not said to have been a boy, nor it to 

 have contained snow) is not likely to have been a 

 wanderer from the Jordan valley into the 

 mountains of Judaea, for lions at one time were far 

 from rare in Palestine, or even in Greece, while in 

 prehistoric days they were common in Britain, 

 when the climate was much colder than now. 



