January 15, 1920]; 



by Mr. H. P. Gould, follows the same lines as 

 the other special crop-books of the Rural Science 

 Series, of which Dr. L. H. Bailey is the editor. 

 It is a worthy member of the series. Opening 

 with an account of the history and economic posi- 

 tion of the crop, the author proceeds to discuss 

 the details of laying- out and managing a peach 

 orchard, the pests, and other details which the 

 intelligent grower ought to know. References 

 are given to bulletins of colleges and agricultural 

 experiment stations, where further information 

 can be gained. 



NATURE 



497 



HANDBOOKS OF CHEMISTRY. 

 (i) Senior Practical Chemistry. By H. W. Bausor. 

 Pp. viii + 217. (London: W. B. Clive. Uni- 

 versity Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1919.) Price 

 3s. 6d. 



(2) Volumetric Analysis for Students oj Pharma- 

 ceutical and General Chemistry. By Charles H. 

 Hampshire. Second edition. Pp. 127. (Lon- 

 don : J. and A. Churchill, 1919.) Price 5s. net. 



(3) The Preparation of Substances Important in 

 Agriculture: A Laboratory Manual of Syn- 

 thetic Agricultural Chemistry. Third edition. 

 By Prof. Charles A. Peters. Pp. vii + 8i. 

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

 don : Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1919-) P"ce 

 4s. net. 



{4) Salt and the Salt Industry. By Albert F. 

 Calvert. (Pitman's Common Commodities and 

 Industries.) Pp. vii-l- 151. (London : Sir Isaac 

 Pitman and Sons, Ltd., n.d.) Price 2S. 6d. net. 

 (5) Industrial Chemistry. By Dr. Clerk Ranken. 

 (The People's Books.) Pp. 126. (London and 

 Edinburgh : T. C. and E. C. Jack, Ltd. ; 

 T. Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1919.) Price is. 3d. 

 (i) 'T'HESE small books differ from each other 

 1 perhaps as widely as it is possible for 

 five chemical books to differ, except in one 

 matter, namely, that each author seems to be 

 fully competent to deal with his subject. Mr. 

 Bausor disclaims responsibility for the character 

 of the course of work given in his " Senior Prac- 

 tical Chemistry," as it is designed to meet the 

 requirements of the Senior Cambridge Local 

 Examination in Practical Chemistry. We may be 

 old-fashioned, but we still think that the qualita- 

 tive character of things should be studied before 

 an attempt is made to estimate their quantity.' 

 To say the least of it, it appears strange to us 

 that a student, after having made preparations 

 and done experiments some of which demand con- 

 siderable manipulative skill, should then be in- 

 structed how to bend and cut glass tubing, and 

 how to take small quantities of materials out of 

 NO. 2620, VOL. 104] 



bottles by means of a spatula. But we suppose 

 that this is a matter of the syllabus. The final 

 section deals with qualitative analysis, but only 

 so far as the detection of the acid and the base 

 of a single salt. 



(2) The title of Mr. Hampshire's manual suffi- 

 ciently indicates its scope. This author also 

 works to a syllabus, but one that is much more 

 definite and restricted than in the preceding case. 

 In order to make the volume more generally 

 useful, the applications of methods to substances 

 that may be of little importance to those who are 

 not students of pharmacy are printed in smaller 

 type. But the majority of these will be found of 

 interest to any earnest student of analytical 

 chemistry, and those who have to direct their 

 work will find in these small-print examples an 

 excellent help towards getting out of the ruts that 

 "laboratorv work" is so apt to suffer from. 



(3) The three other volumes differ from the first 

 two in that the authors are not guided by sylla- 

 buses prepared by others. Prof. Peters gives 

 within his few pages of large type a really sur- 

 prising amount of information. The substances 

 of which the preparation on a laboratory scale 

 is described are superphosphate, ammonium 

 sulphate, four potassium salts, lead nitrate, lead 

 arsenate, lime-sulphur (the product of boiling lime 

 and sulphur together in waterj, copper sulphate, 

 Paris green, Bordeaux mixture, and paraffin oil 

 emulsions. But the book will prove far more 

 interesting than if it consisted merely of these 

 practical directions. The use and manner of action 

 of each substance are referred to, or of each con- 

 stituent of a mixture, and the reason for employ- 

 ing the mixture rather than the single active sub- 

 stance. The last line of the preface informs us 

 that "a few simplified spellings have been used." 

 We have failed entirely to find consistency in 

 these simplifications. Ph is replaced by / in 

 sulphate, but not in phosphate. Final e's are 

 sometimes omitted, but by no means always, and 

 the same may be said of the e in the final syllable 

 ed. Coold, cald. Urns, eg, brot, floe, thot, enuf, 

 thru, volum are examples of the simplifications,, 

 while, on the other hand, the author uses feldspar, 

 although in this country the d has been omitted 

 for more than a generation. These peculiarities 

 mar the book, for they cannot fail to distract 

 attention from the main subject. A students' 

 manual of chemistry is not the place to introduce 

 spelling reforms. 



(4) Mr. Calvert, in his monograph on "Salt," 

 restricts himself almost entirely to the history of 

 the Cheshire salt district and its industry. The 

 scant treatment of this subject at the hands of 

 authors in general is ascribed to the comparatively 



