October ii, 1917] 



NATURE 



103 



We cannot praise too highly the clearness of 

 diction and simplicity of expression which pre- 

 vail throughout the work. Were it not for the 

 illustrations, we should have been at some trouble 

 to find any cause for criticism of the work at all. 

 The line blocks are good ; they would, however, 

 luive been better in many cases if the size had 

 been more carefully selected. On the other hand, 

 the half-tones are, almost without exception, 

 poor in quality, besides sharing with the line 

 blocks the fault, in many examples, of being of 

 unsuitable dimensions. The price limitation may 

 have had someting to do with this marring fea- 

 ture, for the work is undoubtedly cheap as such 

 publications go. A little more discrimination in 

 5 regard to the scale of the drawings as reproduced, 

 and the preparation of an entirely new set of 

 half-tones from original photographs, would have 

 enhanced the value of the book to a degree which 

 would be out of all proportion to the additional 

 expenditure involved. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 



Standard Method of Testing Juvenile Mentality hy 

 the Binet-Simon Scale, with the Original 

 Questions, Pictures, and Drawings. By N. J. 

 Melville. With an introduction by Dr. W. 

 Healy. Pp. xi + 142. (Fhiladelphia and London : 

 J. B. Lippincott Co., 1917.) Price 85. 6d. net. 

 All who have had experience of the Binet- 

 Simon scale, or are acquainted with the literature 

 of the subject, must have felt the difficulties which 

 this valuable little book is intended to counter. 

 The use of any series of mental tests depends 

 so much upon delicate handling in the first place, 

 and upon intelligent interpretation in the second, 

 that the comparison of one set of results with 

 another, even when taken in the gross, is always 

 suspect. The difficulty still exists although the 

 comparison concerns the work of the same 

 inquirer. When we come to the pronouncement 

 on the mentality of a particular child, the chances 

 of error are enormously increased. -A physical 

 measurement may be repeated. Accuracy demands 

 that it should be, perhaps many times. Repeti- 

 tion in the case of the Binet-Simon scale is out 

 of the question. The importance of standardising 

 both the way it is used and the interpretation of 

 results cannot, therefore, be exaggerated. 



Mr. Melville's handbook explains the funda- 

 mental object of the scale and describes the 

 technique of its use with great care and precision. 

 Nothing can make such an instrument "fool- 

 proof," though the author points out the pit- 

 falls and warns off the incompetent. Specimen 

 record forms as used in the Philadelphia schools 

 are given, and three supplementary tables provide 

 useful data for assisting final judgment. 



The book is in no sense a text-book. It is 



essentially a guide to practice, and as such may 



be warmly recommended. It is well printed and 



strongly bound. A thumb index gives ready 



CSS to the pages dealing with the several 



• ups of tests, and there is a good bibliography. 



NO. 2502, VOL. 100] 



Papers from the Geological Department, Glasgow 

 University. Vol. ' iii. 1916. (Glasgow : 

 James Maclehose and Sons, 1917.) 

 This collection of i>apers, previously published 

 in various journals, records once more the 

 activity of the geological school in the University 

 of Glasgow. Prof. Gregory's address on Henry 

 Darwin Rogers, professor of natural history in 

 the University from 1857 to 1866, brings before 

 the present generation of geologists views on 

 mountain-building and on the relative rapidity of 

 certain tectonic changes which are, indeed, worthy 

 of consideration. Prof. Gregory's valuable re- 

 view of the economic mineralogy of the war- 

 zones has been already noticed in Nature 

 (vol. xcix., p. no). With Miss Jean B. Trench, 

 the same author describes Eocene corals from 

 New Guinea, which further support the view that 

 the Malay region was isolated in the early Cairi- 

 ozoic epochs. Montipora, which is here traced 

 back to the Eocene, is thus indicated as origi- 

 nating in the western Pacific, as reaching the 

 Indian Ocean, where it still lives, after the 

 Miocene period, and as arriving on the shores 

 of the Red Sea in Pleistocene times. It is un- 

 known from either Sind or Europe, and the only 

 known fossil species are those of the Pliocene 

 of Borneo and the raised beaches of the Gulf of 

 Suez. Among several papers elucidating local 

 geology, which naturally form the strong point of 

 a collection such as this, we may note Mr. W. R. 

 Smellie's "Igneous Rocks of Bute " (see Nature, 

 vol. xcvii., p. 350) and Mr. Tyrrell's careful ad- 

 ditions to our knowledge of the petrography of 

 Arran. 



G. A. J. C. 



Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. 

 Second series. Vol. xv. Pp. liii-t-454. 

 (London : F. Hodgson, 1916.) 



The latest volume of the Proceedings of the 

 London Mathematical Society keeps up to the 

 usual high standard. As regards pure analysis, 

 attention may be directed to Prof, and Mrs. 

 W. H. Young's papers on integrals and deriv- 

 ates, because they deal with fundamentally new 

 notions of the integral calculus, with which every 

 serious mathematician will have to make himself 

 acquainted. Mr. Cr. H. Hardy contributes a 

 paper of great interest on Dirichlet's divisor 

 problem, and there is a little gem by Mr. T. L. 

 Wren on the two-three birational space trans- 

 formation, which incidentally gives a new, and 

 we think finally satisfactory, aspect of the double- 

 six configuration. In applied mathematics we 

 have a paper by Prof. Bromwich on normal co- 

 ordinates, based on the theory of complex in- 

 tegrals ; one by Sir J. Larmor on transition from 

 vapour to liquid ; and one by Mr. F. B. Pidduck 

 on the motion of ions, discussed by means of an 

 integral equation. We must content ourselves 

 with noting these few papers out of the whole 

 thirty. The volume will doubtless receive the 

 full attention that it deserves. 



