December 17, 1914] 



NATURE 



437 



...stances before the travellers had left home, so that 

 it was competent for the recipients to inform them- 

 selves thoroughly on Australian topics before reaching 

 the country. Members joining locally in Australia 

 received the Commonwealth volume and that relating 

 to their own State. The volumes are not uniform in 

 style, though they were all prepared on an approxi- 

 mately uniform plan, specially for the occasion, with 

 the exception of the Queensland volume, which was 

 that originally issued in 1909, by authority of the 

 Government, under the title of " Our First Half- 

 Century," in commemoration of the jubilee of the 

 State. 



The volumes form a fine monument to the scien- 

 tific achievements of Australian workers, for they con- 

 tain chapters by acknowledged experts in everv de- 

 partment of science — natural, economic, social, and 

 political. Thus the Commonwealth volume, edited bv 

 Mr. G. H. Knibbs, the Commonwealth statistician, 

 and published at the charge of the Federal Govern- 

 ment, contains chapters on the history of Australia, 

 by Prof. Ernest Scott, of Melbourne ; the aborigines, 

 by Prof. Baldwin Spencer; phvsical and general geo- 

 graphy, by Mr. Griffith Taylor; climate, bv Mr. H. A. 

 Hunt; vegetation, by Mr. j. H. Maiden; animal life, 

 bv Prof. W. A. Haswell ; geolog)-, bv Prof. Edgeworth 

 David, Prof. E. W. Skeats, and Messrs. T. S. Hall, 

 W. S. Dun, and F. Chapman ; astronomy and 

 geodesy, by Mr. P. Baracchi ; pastoral and agricultural 

 development, by Mr. G. A. Sinclair; mining fields, 

 by Mr. E. F. Pittman ; manufactures, etc., bv Mr. 

 Gerald Lightfoot; education, by Prof. F. Anderson; 

 political systems, by Prof. Harrison Moore; and mis- 

 cellaneous notes, by the editor. This is in itself a 

 very notable list, and while some of the names in it 

 reappear among those of the contributors to the 

 States volumes, we find also in these the names of 

 other well-known workers in special fields, too manv 

 to detail here. 



It is the purpose of the Commonwealth volume to 

 provide a general scientific survey of Australia, while 

 the States volumes give details each for each. \Vhile 

 absolutely perfect co-ordination between the various 

 volumes was scarcely to be expected, the manv writers 

 have clearly received and acted upon verv precise 

 editorial instructions as to their different fields, and 

 duplication has been avoided as far as possible. Thus, 

 even if the visit of the association had effected no 

 other good, it has brought into existence a remark- 

 able compendium of present knowledge of the con- 

 tinent of Australia and its resources, and a record 

 of progress in human endeavour to make use of those 

 resources, such as exists probably for no other countn- 

 which is at a similar stage of development. These 

 volumes, therefore, apart from their intrinsic interest 

 and value at the moment, will become a valuable 

 historical record. Frequently throughout them all 

 writers are found to look forward to fields of future 

 work, whether in the direction of pure scientific 

 research or of economic development in which science 

 will play a leading part. 



In most of the volumes there are manv excellent 

 photographic reproductions, though the New South 

 \\'ales book is less satisfactory than the rest in this 

 respect. Particular mention may be made of a 

 coloured plate in the Western Australia volume repre- 

 senting some of the wild flowers for which the State 

 is famous. When photographic illustration is so suc- 

 cessfully carried out, it is the more notable that the 

 draughtsmanship and reproduction of maps is gener- 

 ally not so, and the valuable material which is avail- 

 able in the departments of, geolog}-, meteorology, and 

 others suffers to some extent, though not always, in 

 its representation by this means. 



^O. 2355, VOL. 94] 



These handbooks were supplemented by booklets 

 dealing with many of the excursions undertaken by 

 members from different centres, so that the scientific 

 interests of the visitors were provided for at almost 

 ever}" step, even if the guidance and verbal demon- 

 strations given by their leaders on the spot had been 

 less efficient than it was. The subject-matter of each 

 State handbook is arranged under headings broadly 

 similar to those of the Commonwealth book detailed 

 above, with the exception of the Queensland volume, 

 which, having been prepared, as has been seen, for a 

 different purpose originally, deals more exclusively 

 with historical, economic, and social topics than the 

 others. From the point of view of the natural sciences- 

 this is unfortunate, but with such a book already in 

 existence it was perhaps not to be expected that 

 another should have been compiled. 



It may be well to make clear that the British Asso- 

 ciation is not concerned in the issue of these books,, 

 which were compiled and issued by the Australian 

 authorities ; it is not stated whether thev will be made 

 accessible to the public. 



CHEMISTRY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



"V/TEETINGS of the Chemistry Section were held. 



^^^ only in Melbourne and Sydney, but in each of 

 these cities they extended over three days. There 

 were two joint discussions with other sections, and a 

 number of locally contributed papers showed that in 

 both Victoria and New South Wales a considerable 

 amount of chemical research is being carried out, 

 some happily on lines of special interest and value to. 

 Australia. It is to be regretted that such local 

 features as the natural products of the characteristic 

 Australian indigenous flora and the important 

 problems connected with soil should not earlier have 

 attracted local chemists, but as two sectional com- 

 mittees of the association are now engaged in examin- 

 ing the natural plant products we may hope that 

 much will be recorded before the ever-increasing 

 destruction of native trees and plants precludes any 

 attempts at completeness. 



Melbourne. 



After the president's address Prof. Masson described 

 an ingenious rearrangement of Mendeleeff's periodic 

 table, by means of which many of the existing difficul- 

 ties are removed. Instead of writing the elements in 

 their eight groups in a two-dimensional figure 

 throughout. Prof. Masson uses a mixture of two and 

 three dimensions. Suppose the elements (rare earths 

 excepted) be written in the order of their atomic 

 weights on the inside of the covers of a book in 

 horizontal lines, and the rare elements in their appro- 

 priate place along an uncut leaf, a fair picture of the 

 arrangement is given. The rare earths follow each 

 other along a horizontal series with little difference 

 between any two members, but the end members of 

 the series approximate to the ordinary elements found 

 on the extreme right-hand side of the left-hand cover 

 and the left side of the right-hand cover in the same 

 horizontal line as the rare earths. Prof. Masson 

 places hydrogen with the halogens, a position that is 

 at least disputable, though by doing so the inactive 

 gases at once form a complete series. Several pro- 

 perties of hydrogen and the hydrides are held to- 

 justify this position and the atomic weight of fluorine 

 is almost the mean between those of hydrogen and 

 chlorine. 



Mr. F. H. Campbell described a method for the 

 determination of vapour pressures the principle of 

 which is that a liquid saturated with a suitable gas 



