22 2 



NATURE 



[May 23, 19 1 8 



rhythm, and verse structure. The range of the 

 last may be gathered from its concluding para- 

 graph, which tells us that "the child is now ready 

 for the more difficult problems of anacrusis, cata- 

 lexis, irregular feet, and irregular pauses." There 

 is nothing of history or geography in the book. 

 No doubt the didactic materials are still in pre- 

 paration. J- A. G. 



MODERN IND US THY. 

 (i) What Industry Owes to Chemical Science. By 



R. B. Pilcher and F. Butler-Jones. With an 



introduction by Sir G. Beilby. Pp. xiv+150. 



(London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1918.) 



Price 35. net. 

 (2) Some Problems of Modern -Industry: Being 



the Watt University Lecture for 1918. By 



W. C. Hichens. Pp. 61. (London: Nisbet and 



Co., Ltd., 1918.) Price 6d. net. 

 (i) TF British trade is to hold its own in face of 

 ■*- the acute competition which is to.be ex- 

 pected, great alterations must be effected, and 

 these two books point out some directions in which 

 improvements may be made. Messrs. Pilcher and 

 Butler-Jones's handbook is a capital resume of the 

 improvements made in metallurgy and in the 

 manufacture of dyes, explosives, glass, pottery, 

 and many other commodities by the application of 

 scientific research. It is very readable, and gives 

 in a handy form an accurate and interesting 

 account of the growth and results of industrial 

 chemistry. It shows how much we owe to British 

 and French chemists, and avoids a common mis- 

 take which gives the main credit in this matter to 

 Germany. It is the most compact and convenient 

 history of industrial chemistry which we have 

 come across. As a rule, the authors have kept 

 to general principles, and this is wise, because 

 the book is not intended for experts in each par- 

 ticular trade, but for the public as a whole, and 

 because no one or two men can write on the 

 various industries concerned with first-hand know- 

 ledge of all, but must depend on other books for 

 a large part of the information. ^ 



In some cases, where the authors have gone 

 into detail — for example, in describing the P^ttin- 

 son and Parkes processes for lead refining — the 

 details show that the authors have no recent actual 

 experience of the methods employed in this 

 country, but have probably relied on text-books. 

 In dealing with monazite sand the large and rich 

 deposits in the south of India might be mentioned, 

 and the successful diversion of these sources from 

 German hands to our own. In relation to the 

 competition between artificial and natural indigo 

 the recent action of the Indian Government in 

 applying modern scientific methods to the produc- 

 tion and marketing of natural indigo should be 

 recognised. Would that all Governments and 

 ^ Government Departments were equally broad- 

 * minded and far-seeing ! In this country the per- 

 manent Government officials are usually recruited 

 from a class which, though aware of the import- 

 ance of chemistry, is so out of touch with chemists, 

 and so lacking in sympathy with chemical ideas, 

 NO. 2534, VOL. lOl] 



that it is hard for them to realise what is really 

 required by the country. The average Member 

 of Parliament and the average man of business 

 do not recognise that a first-class man of science 

 is, as a rule, valuable only in his own subject. 

 Messrs. Pilcher and Butler-Jones's book will show 

 the public at large how enormous the science has 

 become, and how stupid it is to expect an elec- 

 trician to be an authority on paraffin oils, or a 

 genius in spectroscopic work on gases to be a 

 sound guide in the manufacture of artificial rubber. 

 (2) As chairman of Cammell, Laird, and Co., Mr. 

 Hichens is able to look at modern industry in a 

 broad manner. He deals mainly with ethical ques- 

 tions, the relations with labour, conditions of 

 work, the right of the State to a share in profits, 

 and so on. He has a pleasant style of writing,, 

 and his commercial training has not destroyed his 

 power of refreshing his mind and the minds of 

 his audience by recalling some picture of a bygone 

 age before trade-unions or excess profits were 

 thought of. It is impossible "in an hour's lecture 

 to do more than indicate the sort- of problem to 

 be tackled. Mr. Hichens has done this in an agree- 

 able and interesting manner, and his lecture should 

 appeal te all students of social problems. 



BALLISTICS. 

 Text-book of Ordnance and Gunnery. By Lt.-CoL 

 W. H. Tschappat. Pp. x + 705. (New York r 

 John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman 

 and Hall, Ltd., 1917.) Price 305. net. 

 A T no previous time in history has so much 

 •^^ . attention been paid to artillery as during 

 the present war. The unprecedented number and 

 variety of guns in use enable a mass of evidence, 

 sufficient to prove or disprove any theory which is 

 considered worthy of a practical trial, to be accu- 

 mulated in a very short space of time. Moreover, 

 it is almost certain that all the belligerent coun- 

 tries are liberally spending money on researches 

 into the various branches of the art of gunnery, and 

 employing, for this purpose, more men of scien- 

 tific reputation and mechanical genius than have 

 ever considered the subject seriously before. As a 

 .natural consequence, "ordnance and gunnery" 

 must be in a state of rapid development, and it 

 would therefore appear to be a somewhat unfor- 

 tunate moment for the publication of Col. Tschap- 

 pat 's book, which is, so largely, merely a revision 

 of an excellent book with the same title by Lt.-CoL 

 Lissak. 



That the revision has effected a decided im- 

 provement cannot be denied, but there is little 

 that is new, of any importance, to be found in it. 

 The major alteration is in the treatment of 

 interior ballistics. Col. Lissak used Ingall's 

 method. In the volume under review a carefully 

 elaborated method of producing the pressure and 

 velocity curves by integrating the energy equa- 

 tions is presented. The method has the advan- 

 tage that a complete calculation of a gun can be 

 made without any firing data, but the process 

 seems laborious, and there does not seem to be 

 any means provided for quickly finding the point 



