244 



NATURE 



[July 14, 1892 



of chemists such as Van't Hofif, Victor Meyer, Wislicenus, 

 and others, who have recently contributed to our know- 

 ledge of isomeric bodies. 



For the rest, which indeed forms the bulk of the volume, 

 I must content myself with saying that the numerous 

 articles descriptive of organic compounds, ranging from 

 indin on p. i to phenyl-tetrazole carboxylic acid on 

 p. 858 (not to mention the inorganic compounds) 

 are mainly contributed by Dr. H. Forster Moriey, 

 one of the editors. How far these hundreds of compounds 

 are adequately described, or what mistakes of omission 

 or commission the descriptions may contain, or how many 

 printers' errors exist, must be left to be determined, if 

 determined at all, by someone with more leisure, and, 

 may I add, with more taste for that sort of wor< than I 

 possess. But I may conclude by saying that, knowing 

 the accuracy and care which uniformly characterize Dr. 

 Morley's work, I do not think that any adverse critic, if 

 such there should be, of this great addition to our chemical 

 literature, will find it a very happy hunting-ground, for, as 

 far as I am able to judge, the work has been carefully and 

 accurately done. H. E. RoscoE. 



THE ENGLISH SLOJD. 

 Manual Instruction ; Wood-work ; the English Sloyd. 

 By S. Barter. With 302 Illustrations. Preface by 

 George Ricks, B.Sc.Lond. (London ; Whittaker and 

 Co., 1892.) 



IT is to be regretted that the author of this very excel- 

 lent and practical work should not have stated on 

 the title-page what it really is, i.e. a book simply teaching 

 carpentry, including directions for a limited amount of 

 technical or mechanical drawing, and not have termed 

 it " Wood-work," since by this term much is understood 

 which is not given in his pages. Neither is there any 

 occasion for the word which he gives in one place as 

 Sloyd and in others as Sldjd., it being sufficiently mis- 

 used already in Swedish by being confined to common 

 incised carving and small carpenter's work, when it is 

 properly applicable to all kinds of technical art. Since 

 Mr. Barter has had the intelligence and boldness to declare 

 that whatever can be done with the barbarous ^^ Slojd" 

 knife can be better done with the chisel, it is to be re- 

 gretted that, as he is with his English common-sense 

 altogether out of and beyond Slojd, he did not let 

 the Swedish system alone altogether. There was no 

 occasion for him to mention it or its palpable defects, 

 to which he might have added the preposterous arro- 

 gance of its claims to be the incarnation of all that is 

 needed to train the hand and eye to industrial art. 

 However, since he who is fitter to be the leader humbly 

 assumes the name, and follows the lead as an English 

 Slojder, we, of course, cannot complain, since it is to his 

 own disadvantage that he assumes a title which detracts 

 seriously from the merits of the treatise. He gives a 

 very good introduction on drawing, which has, however, 

 the serious defect of being beyond the capacity of mere 

 boys, who, while at carpenters' work, certainly cannot be 

 expected to devote hours to learning the meaning and 

 application of " orthographic projection," "the assump- 

 tion of the existence of parallel horizontal rays of light 

 NO. I 185, VOL. 46] 



which project the elevation on a vertical surface," " iso- 

 metric axes," and " therefore as AC is to CH : : ^,'3 : 

 ^2 ; but CH = A'K, which is," et cetera — all of which, 

 with the diagrams, contrasts strangely with the pictures 

 of the ten-year-old chubby youngsters who are repre- 

 sented as merrily sawing and planing in the frontispiece. 

 It is true that there are little boys who can master Euclid,^ 

 or its equivalents ; but an experience of years in teaching 

 qualifies us to state that a much more simply written 

 chapter than this, or one within the ready comprehension 

 of " boys," would have been better adapted to the book. 

 The forty-two pages devoted to timber are thoroughly 

 scientific, practical, and admirable. Yet as boys seldom 

 have any great choice of wood, and have little to do with 

 teak, ebony, and lignum vitae, much of the space might 

 have been better devoted to some kind of wood-work 

 nof touched on in this book. Materials and tools are 

 well described. We observe that in his illustrations of 

 nails Mr. Barter makes no mention of the very best of 

 all — the triangular, which goes home as straight as a 

 screw, and holds like one. 



"Bench-work" is the best portion of the book, being 

 thorough, comprehensive, and manifestly written by a 

 master of the subject. It is not beyond the com- 

 prehension of an intelligent boy who will devote to 

 it serious attention ; therefore, for such as are some- 

 what advanced, it may be warmly commended, for the 

 simple reason that intelligent minds pay most serious 

 attention to, and remember best, what costs them 

 some trouble. The author is evidently a very practical, 

 serious, and earnest mechanic, who, understanding his 

 business perfectly, describes everything as he would teach 

 it to a class of young men who had been a while in 

 workshops. But with his "orthographic projections" 

 as with his whole style, he is — not invariably, nor 

 even generally, but very often — too hard for urchins ; 

 and, in fact, the juvenile who is depicted on p. 175 as 

 boring a hole has appropriately the pensive air of one 

 who is very much bored himself— probably by some diffi- 

 culty in the text. Yet all of this does not detract from 

 the fact that the work is an admirable one, that it is the 

 best of its kind, and perfectly adapted to the use of 

 teachers establishing classes, who are, after all, the only 

 persons who really need or read such works, as pupils 

 seldom look at anything of the kind unless required to. 

 But though it is very seldom done, it would have good 

 results if pupils in technical schools should be made 

 to read more, and secondly, if the teacher should carefully 

 explain to them the text. 



An excellent feature in the bench work is that the author, 

 giving the names of a majority of such objects as an 

 amateur may expect to make, describes in detail, with ex- 

 cellent and abundant illustrations, how to make them. 

 He might in some cases have gone a little further in his 

 work. Thus it never appears to have occurred to him 

 that parquetry, or inlaid work, can be made save by saw- 

 ing out pieces of wood in their natural colours. But a 

 large portion of French and Italian work is made by 

 using wood which is artificially coloured, and we should 

 not have expected this to be passed over by a writer who 

 had the intelligence to remark that " Colour, which plays 

 so prominent a part in design, is entirely overlooked in 

 he Slojd system," which it certainly is, and with it much 



