May 1, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



Ill 



ambition, but it failed, as all like attempts must fail in dealing 

 with the colossal subject of applied chemistry in all its 

 branches within the narrow limits of a comparatively small 

 volume. One might as well try to cram a hundredweight of 

 coal into a quart pot. The book before us is an American 

 production, the object of which is " to furnish an elementary 

 course in industrial chemistry." Acids, alkalies, glass, pigments, 

 coal-gas, mineral oils, soap, candles, explosives, dyeing, paper, 

 leather, glue, and a multitude of other products and processes 

 are included in this so-called technical course. No student ever 

 requires such a miscellaneous collection of expert knowledge. 

 A student who has gone through courses of inorganic and 

 organic chemistry, with the usual analytical work in the 

 laboratory, can readily adapt him.self to any special line 

 of work, but if he devotes himself, say, to the ceramic 

 indusiries, be will certainly not glean his information from a 

 book of this kind, in which the subject is despatched in a few 

 pages. Analytical processes are omitted as being foreign to the 

 scope and purpose of the book ; metallurgy does not find a 

 place because there are many good books on the subject ; the 

 coal-tar colours have been condensed into the briefest possible 

 outline because usually included in courses in organic chemistry. 

 By a similar process of reasoning, quite as legitimate, the 

 author might have eliminated all the rest of the book. * Candles 

 and paraffin, for example, are organic as well as the coal-tar 

 colours ; on metallurgy there are certainly many books, and so 

 there are on soap-making, glass manufacture, etc., and it is 

 absurd to exclude analysis from such a work because the 

 substances treated of, in many cases, require special methods. 

 The author himself says that a chemical library will be necessar}' 

 to supplement what he advances. The book is good enough, 

 as far as it goes, but we in England, who have plenty of 

 chemical dictionaries, and special works on all, or nearly all, the 

 subjects here included, do not require such a work, the importa- 

 tion of which from America is very much like " carrying coals 

 to Newcastle." In these days of cheap printing, ].0s. net is a 

 prohibitive price for so slim a volume. 



Birds of the British Islandx. Drawn and described by John 

 Duncan. (Walter Scott, Limited.') 5s. This book forms nothing 

 more than a collection of pen and ink drawings of British birds, 

 with a short description of each bird, and a very brief and not 

 always accurate account of its distribution. Nothing, therefore, 

 of an original nature can be claimed for the letterpress. If 

 there is any value attached to the book it lies in the author's 

 drawings, which have appeared from week to week for the last 

 ten years in the Neircastle Weeldi/ Chroiiide. Some of the 

 drawings are very fair and accurate pen and ink sketches, but 

 the majority appear to us as stiff and formal — as though the 

 author had taken stuffed specimens as his models. 



The Discharge of Electricity throiic/h Gaies. By J. J. Thomson, 

 D.SC. (Constable.) Illustrated. 4s. 6d. net. Consists of an 

 expansion of four lectures on Discharge of Electricity through 

 Gases, given at the University of Princeton, New Jersey, 1896. 

 The relation between matter and electricity is best studied by 

 matter in the gaseous state, because the properties of a gas and 

 the laws it obeys are simpler tlian for either a solid or a liquid, 

 and the kinetic theory of gases supplies us with the means of 

 forming a mental picture of the processes going on in a gas 

 which is lacking for matter in its other states. Professor 

 Thomson here deals with this subject in a most profound 

 manner — profound, let us explain, in frigid contrast with that 

 sort of popular, scientific literature which is intelligible to the 

 meanest capacity. To some, though well equipped in general 

 scientific knowledge, many of the ideas advanced will appear 

 as through a glass darkly. In the purely experimental 

 portions, such as the deflection of rays by a magnet, and the 

 thermal effects of rays ; electrification of gases by the splashing 

 of liquids, or by chemical means ; and the conduction of gases 

 and so on, it is easy to follow the clear delivery of the Professor ; 

 but when theories in explanation of the many and diversified 

 phenomena involved are under consideration, then the mists 

 descend and envelope the reader. Still, for a work of this kind, 

 we could hardly expect a more intelligible presentation of the 

 results obtained in the new field opened up by the advent of the 

 so-called Riintgen rays. 



A History of Astronomy. By Arthur Berry, si.x. (John Mur- 

 ray.) We must confess to a strong feeling of disappointment 

 with Mr. Berry's book. Though entitling it " A History of 



Astronomy," and designing it as a text-book for study and 

 reference for University Extension students, it contains little 

 of value that has not been often given before, and given better 

 and far more brightly by books that are now half-a-century old. 

 Thus, though Mr. Berry professes to give " an outline of the 

 liistory of astronomy from the earliest historical times to the 

 present day," in his chapter on " Primitive Astronomy," he 

 devotes but eleven lines to the " Progress due to early civilized 

 peoples — Egyptians, Chinese, Indian, and Chaldaeans " — and 

 euphemistically characterises this little paragraph as not being 

 a "connected account'' The rest of the chapter is given over 

 to the definitions of the celestial sphere, and of its circles and 

 poles, of direct and retrograde motions and stationary points, of 

 occultations, of the measurement of time and of the lunar month 

 of eclipses, and the saros. Chapter II. deals with Greek 

 Astronomy, and Chapters III. to Xll. tell of the slow progress 

 of astronomy, and of the lives of the astronomers or mathe- 

 maticians during the long centuries of the Middle Ages until 

 the great Astronomical Renaissance at the very end of the 

 eighteenth century. This occupies pages 70 to 353. But to 

 astronomy in the nineteenth century but one chapter is given. 

 The chapter contains just fifty- five pages, and considering the 

 scope of the subjects it deals with, its style somewhat resembles 

 an auctioneer's valuation list. Is this because Mr. Berry wishes 

 to give a slap to the dying century's conceit in the works it has 

 wrought and the progress it has made in its hard spent life ? 

 Or, is it that Mr. Berry was too indolent to attempt a subject 

 which it would have cost him time and research to master ? 

 Judging from the preface, we should say that the latter was 

 the true explanation. Mr. Berry congratulates himself on 

 saving "a good deal of space " by these omissions. His principle 

 carried out to its logical conclusion would have resulted in the 

 " saving " of the entire volume, nor do we think that the 

 intellectual life of the end of the nineteenth century would 

 have been materially injured thereby. 



The Wail the World loent Then. By Isabella Barclay. 

 (Stanford.) Illustrated. 4s. A very useful reading book for 

 the higher standards of elementary schools. The authoress 

 infuses into the story of the earth's historv a little of the 

 romantic element, not too much, but just sufficient to imp.art a 

 proper relish for the intellectual nourishment she has to offer . 

 Written with the object of instructing a child of the deceased 

 author's friend, the present editors express a hope that the 

 book may a])peal to other young people, and we think they will 

 not be disapijointed. The illustrations are vivid and the style 

 easy. If the authoress has sometimes soared into the realm 

 of imagination at the expense of slight perversions of the 

 truth, the warm colouring of her images perhaps more than 

 compensate for this liberty, and we trust that many of the 

 rising generation may profit by this little history of our fore- 

 fathers — men of the stone age, the bronze age, the lake dwellers, 

 and the sea-kings. The price is rather high for so slight a 

 production. 



An Intermediate Text Booh of G colony. By Charles Lapworth, 

 F.R.s. (Blackwood.) Illustrated. 5s. Founded on the text 

 of the late Professor Page's Elementary Geology, this work, 

 in its extended foi-m, is " no longer wholly elementary in its 

 character." Most of the chapters have been recast ; the sequence 

 of subjects is that adopted in its prototype, but, with the 

 exception of occasional paragrajihs, the letterpress has been 

 re- written, and the free interpolation of new matter has swollen 

 the size of the volume more than a hundred pages. The care 

 which the author, aided by many experts in different branches 

 of the science, has bestowed on the work in bringing it up to 

 the present state of knowledge invests it with the character of 

 a new production, and students, we think, may rely on it as a 

 safe guide in systematic work. 



Annual Report of the Board of Reqents of thf Smithsonian 

 Institution, 189t"i. (Government Printing Office : Washington.) 

 Illustrated. This extremely useful volume contains the 

 proceedings of the Board of Regents, report of the Executive 

 Committee, exhibiting the financial affairs of the Institution, 

 and the report of the Secretary, giving an account of the 

 affairs of the Institution, accompanied with statistics of 

 exchanges, and so on. A general appendix contains a selection 

 of memoirs of the highest interest to those engaged in the 

 promotion of knowledge : thus, Professor Dewar's researches on 

 liquid air ; Cornu's investigations of the physical phenomena of 



