June 15, 1893J 



NATURE 



147 



paper of Mr. V. C. Driffield on the practical details on 

 the use of carbonate of soda for softening water for 

 boilers, important to every manufacturer, mentioned. 

 Points such as these, which I might multiply, are needed 

 by the practical man, and ought to have found a place in 

 such a work. 



Last, but no; least, I will refer to the article on 

 " Wine," written by Prof. Thorpe, which is of interest 

 as giving a luminous account of vintage and vinification, 

 and of the chemical changes which the vegetable acids 

 present in the grape undergo during the process of wine- 

 making. I miss, however, reference to the Pasteurisation 

 of wine and to the classical researches of the great French 

 chemist on the diseases of wine. Perhaps, however, the 

 editor has rightly conceived that such matters, however 

 important, do not quite come within the scope of " ap- 

 plied chemistry," and that the omission is intentional. I 

 should have liked to refer to many other matters of inter- 

 est with which this volume teems, but I have compassion 

 on your space. Again I congratulate all concerned in 

 the production of this Dictionary, which will, I feel sure, 

 long continue as the standard work in our language. 



H. E. ROSCOE. 



A POPULAR ATLAS. 

 The Universal Atlas. Containing 117 Pages of Maps 

 and an Alphabetical Index of 125,000 Names. (London, 

 Paris, and Melbourne. Published for the Atlas Pub- 

 lishing Company, Limited, by Cassell and Company, 

 Limited, 1893.) 



T^HIS Atlas, published in a strong cloth binding at 

 ■•■ 3o.r. net, is certainly unique in the British Market, 

 and in its serial form it has already obtained a deservedly 

 wide circulation. 



There is no kind of publication of which the British 

 public is so ignorant as a map, and the fact that 

 few purchasers can tell the difference between a good 

 map and a bad one has produced its natural effects. One 

 of these is that the reviews of atlases in literary journals 

 and the daily press are usually characterised by a tone 

 of forced praise, and rarely go beyond free quotation 

 from the publisher's preface or prospectus. It is more 

 difficult to review a map than a book on account of 

 the immense amount of concentrated information it 

 contains, and even those who are competent for the 

 task are often inclined to shrink from the close study 

 and careful comparison which are necessary. The 

 quality and price of the Universal Atlas are so unusual 

 that we feel justified in examining it with some care, and 

 m offering a itvi suggestions for its further improvement. 

 The work is published for an unknown company by 

 Messrs. Cassell. There is no hint as to who designed the 

 atlas or drew the maps or engraved the plates, or pro- 

 duced the book. The only indication borne by each 

 sheet IS " Printed in Leipzig." German map-printers are 

 good, but there are atlases made in London and Edin- 

 burgh which are much better than this ; unfortunately they 

 are also much more expensive. One effect of the present 

 publication will, we lope, be to call forth native work ; 

 designed so as to hold its own in cost as well as quality I 

 NO. 1233, VOL, 48] 



with that of Germany. Meanwhile the Universal Atlas 

 deserves success as a pioneer. We strongly object,however, 

 to the practice — not unknown to some British mapmakers 

 —of issuing the work of trained scientific men without 

 acknowledgment ; andof republishing earlier maps with- 

 out mentioning the fact. If Messrs. Cassell had bound 

 up with the Atlas the "history," which they print as a 

 separate advertisement, and if the name of the printer to 

 whom the creditable appearance of the work is due 

 appeared upon it, we would have almost unqualified 

 praise to bestow on them. As it is, however, we must 

 plainly say that they have not done justice either to the 

 memory of Andree, who prepared the original maps, or 

 to the skill of Mr. W. J. Turner, who so admirably trans- 

 lated them, or even to the enterprise of Mr. H. O. Arnold- 

 Forster, the chairman and presumably the promoter of 

 the publishing company. We regret also that Messrs. 

 Cassell did not entrust the printing to some firm in this 

 country ; although the first cost might have been greater, 

 we do not believe that the profit would ultimately prove 

 less. 



Not knowing who the editor of the English edition of 

 the Atlas is, we must blame the publishers for failing to 

 adjust the balance of representation to English require- 

 ments. Germany is treated with undue detail ; the United 

 Kingdom is not adequately shown. Large parts of Ger- 

 many are given on the scale of i : 870,000 ; no part of 

 Great Britain is shown larger than i : 1,000,000. No en- 

 largements of English industrial regions, or the environs 

 of British towns appear, although Andree's German edi- 

 tion contains two on the scale i : 750,000. Many of the 

 Continental sheets, on the other hand, are crowded with 

 valuable insets giving details of special districts. The 

 Colonies are, on the whole, very well shown ; Canada has 

 a fair amount of space, Africa is lavishly treated, and 

 India is clearly mapped, although the scale is compara- 

 tively small. But Queensland, New Zealand and Tas- 

 mania, British Guiana, and all the small Asiatic colonies, 

 have been slighted. It is interesting, however, to find 

 Fiji, Samoa, and the West Indies given on a scale making 

 each island show as a visible disc, which displays some 

 little topographical detail. We would suggest that the 

 neglected parts of the empire, some of the more import- 

 ant South American States (the delineation of which is 

 fir too small), and the central part of the United States, 

 should have more space devoted to them. Room might 

 be provided by suppressing the large scale map of Alsace- 

 Lorraine, and the rather blurred map of Hungary on 

 p. 51 (also Bohemia, p. 52), which have the scale of 

 I : 2,500,000, and show scarcely more detail than does the 

 general map of Austria-Hungary, pp. 47, 48, which is on 

 the very similar scale of i : 2,750,000. 



It is undesirable to enter into a minute criticism of 

 individual maps, for the best workers cannot avoid occa- 

 sional mistakes, and the most diligent revision has hard 

 work to keep pace with the unceasing changes of rail- 

 ways, populations, and boundaries. We may notice, 

 however, that Aberdeen, Bolton, Cardiff, Croydon' 

 Preston, and Reims have now populations exceeding 

 ico.ooo, and should be designated by the special sign set 

 apart for towns of the first magnitude. Ross and Cromarty 

 have ceased to exist as separate counties, and the care be- 

 stowed on colouring and lettering the detached fragments 



