July 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



213 



Moffatt's Deductions from Euclid. (London : JMoflatt &, 

 Paige.) — This book consists of no less than 615 " Deductions " 

 from, or supplemeut;iry propositions to, those to be found 

 in the fir.st six books of Euclid, and may be heartily com- 

 mended to all who wish to familiarise themselves with the 

 leading facts of geometry as demonstrated by the Euclidean 

 method. The c;u-eful student of the work under notice 

 ought to be able to answer any and every catch quastion or 

 " rider " likely to be set in an examination in the immortal 

 book to which they form a valuable addendum. 



rractical Electriciti/. By W. E. Ayrtox, F.R S. (Lon- 

 don : Cassell k, Co. 1887.) — As a thoroughly sound and trust- 

 worthy introduction to the science of Quantitative Electricity, 

 it wovdd be difficult to improve upon Professor Ap-ton's 

 latest work, containing, as it does, the fullest description 

 both of the theory and practical construction of the instru- 

 ments employed in electrical measurements. But the reader 

 who goes to its pages for information as to dancing pith- 

 figures, cork spiders, ilhiminated spiral tubes, and other 

 prettinesses of the whilom lectui-e t;vble, will be doomed to 

 disappointment ; for nothing of the sort appears between 

 its two covers. In its stead he will find a mine of informa- 

 tion as to the nature of the electrical current, electro-motive 

 force, potential, Ac, and will be able to realise the signitica- 

 tiou and use of those units of me;vsui'ement, the ampere, 

 the coulomb, the farad, the ohm, the volt, and the watt. 

 Professor Ayrton's volume is, in short, a rei)roduction of his 

 first year's course of lectures on electrical engineering 

 delivered to the students at the City and Guilds of London 

 Institute, with the laboratory practice by which they are 

 illustrated. It is a sound and conscientious piece of work. 



Tlic Modern Practice of SkipbuiMinri in Iron and Steel. 

 By Samuel P. Tiieakle. Vol. I., Text; Vol. II., Plates. 

 (London and Glasgow : William Collins & Co.) — Mr. Thearle 

 has made, in eveiy respect, a worthy addition to the 

 Advanced Science series of Messrs. CoUins & Co. in the 

 work now before us. Presumably intended as a text- 

 book for examinees of the Science and Art Department and 

 of the Admiialty, it is really too good for such a purpose, 

 possessing as it does very real merit as a technological hand- 

 book. Its descriijtions are exhaustive, and the illustrations 

 leave nothing to be desiied. Now that oui' " hearts of oak " 

 sui'vive only in the chorus of an almost forgotten sailors' 

 song, the practice of iron shipbuilding must possess an 

 interest for all concerned in the maintenance of our maritime 

 supremacy, to say nothing of merciintile shipowners and 

 yachtsmen, who have a special personal concern in it. In 

 fact, all who go down to the sea in ships, or who have to 

 trust their lives to the passenger vessels of the present day, 

 may spend an hour or two very much more unprofitably 

 than in the study of Mr. Thearle's capital treatise and its 

 accompanying atlas. Such study cannot fail to impart 

 intelligent ideas as to the manner in which the floating 

 towns which now connect the most distant parts of the 

 globe are made so staunch, safe, and comfortable as the 

 larger proportion of them undeniably are ; for, assuredly, 

 wherever " ignorance is bliss " it is not in the selection of a 

 vessel to make a long voyage in. 



Old or New C/temistri/. By Samuel E. Phillips, P'.C.S. 

 (London : Wertheimer, Lea <fe Co. 1886.) — Mr. Phillips is 

 a man with a grievance. In November 1885 he applied to 

 the Council of the Chemical Society for a pecuniary grant 

 to make numerical analyses of the indium and the gallium 

 alums. In vulgar, but expressive, parlance, the Society 

 " didn't seem to see it." Again in May 1886 he sent a paper 

 to the Society on the Urethane Reaction, only again to meet 

 with a refusal. Hinc illie lachri/nue. In a highly technical 

 series of essays oiu- author exposes (or believes that he 



exposes) some of the fallacies underlying the new system of 

 chemistry. The very technicality of which we have spoken 

 unfits his little book for popular reading, but it may be 

 commended to such chemists as care to hear both sides 

 of the question. 



The Lads of Little Clayton. By R. Stead. (London : 

 Blackie & Son. 1887.) — This little volume is made up of 

 a series of short det;iched papers describing, very naturally 

 indeed, the doings and misdoings of the lads of the lower 

 and lower middle classes in an English village some five- 

 and-twenty or thii-ty years ago. The lads are real flesh-and- 

 blood ones, in many cases rough and even brutal, and their 

 conversiition is such as may even now be heard on any 

 village green. Where, as in the majority of cases, any moral 

 is inculcated, it is never obtruded, but springs naturally 

 from the denouement. This would be a fii'st-rate book for a 

 parochial lending library. It is as innocent as it is 

 interesting. 



Messrs. Longmans send us Social Arrows, by Lord 

 Brabazon, whose practical efforts to improve the moral 

 condition of oui' crowded centres liy the wholesome material 

 remedies of more open spaces, and to lighten the toil of the 

 overworked shop assistant, have our deep sympathy. Spirit 

 Workers in the Home Circl-e, by Morell 'Tiieohald (Fisher 

 Unwin), is illustrated by facsimiles of " direct spii-it- 

 writings," and blames the Society for Psychical Research 

 for assuming that it is dealing with phenomena subject to 

 known physical laws. It Ls, we presume, hopeless after this 

 to commend to Mr. Theobald, with his disregard of Time 

 and Space, Dr. Bitiiell's Aynostic Problems (Williams & 

 Norgate), but we may advise the readers of Knowledge to 

 make acquaintiince with it. Of Enylish as She is Tun<jht 

 (Fisher Li"nwin) the crciim has already appeared in the 

 Century Marjazine. Edward III. and his Wars and The 

 Misrule of Henry III. (Nutt) are modernised extracts from 

 contemporary clironicles, designed to cover the whole period 

 of Mediaeval and Renaissance history. The name of Mr. 

 York Powell as editor is sufficient guarantee of the excel- 

 lence of the series. We have received new editions of Mr. 

 Herbert Fry's excellent guide-book, London in 1887, and 

 of Mr. Spencer's Koad-Book, indispensable to the cyclist ; 

 Nos. 1-3 of the Essex Xatiiralisl, admirably edited, and 

 enriched with a facsimile of Norden's map of Essex, ISO-t ; 

 and Memoirs of the Imperial University of Japan, con- 

 taining some interesting myths and traditions of the Ainos. 



©MX WAWi Column. 



By Richard A. Proctok. 



A WIIIST rUOBLElI. LEAD OF ACE FROM ACE TO FOUR. 



HE whist editor of ihc Australasian, in a note on 

 my discussion of the whist superstition that after 

 a misdeal the nest deal will almost certainly give 

 a singleton hand, discusses the question of the 

 jirobabilitj- of a singleton suit in any hand taken 

 at random in any deal. " We showed," he says, 

 speaking of a former inquiry, " that the chance 

 that we should find either a singleton or a blank 

 suit is 7 = 20. Mr. Proctor makes the fraction 

 4 = 13, which is appreciably smaller." 



The difference arises from the fact that the chance of a singleton 

 suit appearing is appreciably smaller than the chance that there will 

 be either a singleton suit or a blank suit. It will be remembered 

 that adding up numbers representing one-fourth of the total number 

 of arrangements by which a singleton suit can appear in a hand 

 (as when the suits are divided 5, 4,3, 1, or 6, 4, 2, 1, or 6, 3, 3, 1, or the 

 like) I obtained the number 48,882,413,450. To give the chance 

 consiilered by the whist editor of the Australasian, we must add to 

 tliis number one-fourth the number of all those arrangements in 

 which a blank suit appears, but no singleton (because we have 



