124 



NATURE 



[April 17, 19 19 



of the physical laboratory, and therein he has our 

 sympathy, combined with some amusement when 

 we think of the lay mind pondering- over such a 

 sentence as : " By [dynamic heating and cooling] 

 is meant that, if air is compressed, work is done 

 and its temperature is raised, and if expanded it 

 does work and is cooled"; or the still more 

 cryptic utterance about fog : " When the water 

 appears to be steaming — actually evaporating into 

 air already saturated and thus inducing condensa- 

 tion. " 



The pose as regards knowledge of the 

 physical processes of such phenomena as the dis- 

 tribution of temperature over the surface and in 

 the upper air, or the trade winds and monsoons, 

 is reminiscent of the heedless assurance of the 

 old physical geographer rather than of the 

 caution of the modern physicist, but the ambition 

 to place the whole of meteorology upon a sound 

 physical basis is a very worthy one and worthily 

 attempted. The book shouM have a hearty wel- 

 come. We look forward to its expansion and 

 development with confidence. It is well executed, 

 and the illustrations are remarkably apt. Among 

 some beautiful photographs of cloud-forms Fig. 54 

 (alto-cumulus) seems to be printed upside down, 

 but that is the only misprint we have noticed. 



Napier Shaw. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 

 Agricultural Laboratory Exercises and Home 



Projects adapted to Secondary Schools. By 



Henry J. Waters and Prof. Joseph D. Elliff. 



Pp. vi + 2i8. (Boston and London: Ginn and 



Co., 1919.) Price 45. 6d. net. 

 In this book the authors set out exercises suitable 

 for students in secondary schools where agri- 

 culture is a prominent subject and occupies a con- 

 siderable part of the curriculum. The exercises 

 fall into two groups— those to be carried out in 

 the laboratory, and those to be done at home on 

 the farm, or, in the case of town dwellers, on 

 the school g-round. 



The laboratory classes follow the conventional 

 lines; indeed, in no branch of agricultural science 

 perhaps has there been less advance during past 

 years than in schemes of exercises suitable for 

 students. Nevertheless, although there is little or 

 no novelty, the book is likely to be quite service- 

 able to teachers. The old favourite exercises that 

 have served for several g^enerations of students 

 are here, and all of them, as the authors say, 

 have been "tried out," and can be relied upon to 

 give decisive results if the directions are properly 

 followed. In a few cases the experiment does 

 not really prove the point intended. Thus, one 

 exercise is intended "to demonstrate how the soil 

 food enters a plant." The student is instructed 

 to close the end of a thistle funnel with parch- 

 ment, fill with sugar solution, and invert in a 

 vessel of distilled water. The experiment illus- 

 trates several points, but it does not show how 

 soluble solutions pass into the plant. Another 

 experiment, "the air as a source of plant food," 

 NO. 2581, VOL. 103] 



shows an even greater divergence between the 

 intention and the accomplishment. 



To English readers the novel part is that deal- 

 ing- with "project work." Pupils in all schools- 

 in the States receiving Federal aid under the 

 Smith-Hughes Act are required to do some of 

 their agricultural work at home or on the school 

 farm ; this is called a project. The project must 

 represent a sustained effort of considerable mag- 

 nitude; in the authors' description it must be 

 "worth while "; detailed records of costs, time, 

 methods, and income must be kept ; the work must 

 be done under proper supervision, and it must 

 form the subject of a written report by the 

 student. The projects described here include the 

 growth of maize and of vegetables for profit, selec- 

 tion of seed corn, preparation of a seed bed, 

 finding the "failure cow" in a herd, the dis- 

 covery of the soil requirement, etc. The collec- 

 tion will be found of distinct value to the teacher. 



The Voice Beautiful in Speech and Song. A Con- 

 sideration of the Capabilities of the Vocal Cords 

 and their Work in the Art of Tone Production. 

 By Ernest G. White. (New and enlarged 

 edition of "Science and Singing-.") Pp. viii + 

 130. (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 

 1918.) Price 55. net. 

 The opening- sentences of chap. ii. of this book 

 are as follows : " The whole burden of this book 

 is to show and, if possible, convince the world 

 in general that the vocal cords, situated on the 

 top of the windpipe, in what we call our throat 

 (diagram I.), are not the seat of sound^ — that is 

 to say, in neither speech nor song do the vocat 

 cords actually create the tone." We venture to 

 say that no physiologist will support this state- 

 ment. It is true that sound can be produced by 

 other parts of the apparatus, and without neces- 

 sarily the presence of the vocal cords, but that 

 the vocal cords vibrate and are the chief agents 

 in producing- tones has been proved to the satisfac- 

 tion of all who study the parts and can employ 

 the laryngoscope. The author is right so far in 

 attributing importance to the sinuses in some of the 

 bones of the face and skull, but he exag-gerates 

 their function of acting as resonators to strengthen 

 or modify tone. Over and over again he furnishes 

 what he regards as evidence in support of his 

 thesis, but the conclusion, almost invariably, is in 

 the opposite direction. 



Still, there is much to admire in this book. It 

 is clever and even witty ; it shows wide reading in 

 physiology and in the related sciences, and the 

 illustrations from original preparations are worthy 

 of all praise ; indeed, it may be said that the 

 anatomical details are brought out so clearly as 

 to be well worthy of study. As a teacher of 

 vocalisation the author maintains that he has met 

 with success, without laying stress on the alleged 

 functions of the vocal cords ; this we admit, but, if 

 he has done so, this success must really depend on 

 the mechanism as generally understood, and not 

 on the production of tone by the sinuses in the 

 head. J. G. M. 



