October 29, 1903] 



NATURE 



6a t 



the coasts. In this matter, modern American authors 

 might have been called on. As it is, some such 

 generalisation is promised on p. ii2, but the volume 

 ends abruptly nine pages later in the midst of local 

 details of the Netherlands. M. Girard has certainly 

 not allowed his subject to lead him into realms of 

 speculation ; on the other hand, his book lacks the 

 system and arrangement which so often make a 

 French work, even when its information is incomplete, 

 seem like a well grouped picture in absolute harmony 

 with its frame. 



There are too many misprints in personal names 

 throughout the book, the worst of which is " le baron 

 de Reichtofen " on p. 55. " Scottisch " on p. 53 has 

 also a quaint aspect. G. A. J. C. 



Radium and other Radio-active Substances, with a 

 Consideration of Phosphorescent and Fluorescent 

 Substances. The Properties and Applications of 

 Selenium and the Treatment of Disease by the Ultra- 

 violet Light. By William J. Hammer. Pp. viii + 

 72. (London : Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 

 Ltd., 1903.) Price 55. net. 

 Many will probably be attracted by the first word of 

 the title of this book, and buy it in the hope of obtain- 

 ing light and leading on the new discoveries. Such, 

 we fear, are likely to be sadly disappointed. The 

 book is an apparently verbatim report of a lecture 

 delivered at a meeting of the American Electro- 

 chemical Society and the Institute of Electrical 

 Engineers. It is difficult to understand why it was 

 reprinted in its present form, for most of the interest 

 seems to have centred in the experiments and exhibits 

 that accompanied the lecture. For example, we read, 

 " Here are a couple of postal cards which I secured 

 in Europe showing the Blue Grotto at Capri. They 

 are printed with phosphorescent paints, and on ex- 

 posing them to the light you will see that they are 

 very pretty." Reproductions are provided of an 

 elaborate '' stage setting " to the lecture, of various 

 tubes with the word radium written beneath, but 

 which, so far as the reader is concerned, might as well 

 have contained sugar, and of some photographs taken 

 with the aid of radium. The latter, although of more 

 general interest, are sometimes misleading. Thus 

 Fig. 7 is a radiograph of glass lenses, and is used 

 to throw doubt on the generally accepted fact that 

 the radium rays cannot be reflected, refracted, or 

 polarised, whereas it is obvious that the photograph 

 is taken with ordinary light, either the phosphorescent 

 light of the radium itself not being eliminated, or else 

 by simple " fogging." With regard to the text, the 

 part dealing with radium consists of the collection of 

 a large number of facts collected together without dis- 

 crimination or arrangement. Thus two pages are 

 spent on Heydweiller's experiment on the loss of 

 weight of radium, the opinions of various eminent 

 authorities with regard to this experiment are quoted 

 as obtained by the author, and at the end we learn that 

 the observation in question has been admitted by the 

 observer to have been the result of an accident. 

 .Snippets of information are provided from most of the 

 important researches which would be quite unintelli- 

 gible to those not intimately acquainted with the sub- 

 ject and superfluous to those who are. 



The Experiment Station Record. Vol. xiv. Nos. 



5-9. (Washington : the United States Department 



of Agriculture, 1903.) 

 The " Experiment Station Record " consists in chief of 

 a series of abstracts of papers dealing with agricultural 

 science all the world over, together with occasional 

 general reviews and summaries. Abstracts are very 

 rarely wholly satisfactory to the scientific worker, but 

 there are few subjects more in need of work of this 



NO. 1774. VOL. 68] 



kind than is agriculture. The recognised organs of 

 agricultural science are numerous enough, but much 

 valuable work escapes their notice and appears in the 

 irregularly issued reports and bulletins of some State 

 or institution or society, or, again, is published in a 

 journal devoted to one of the many pure sciences on 

 which agriculture touches. Hence the value of the 

 " E.xperiment Station Record"; so thorough is the 

 organisation of the United States Department that 

 very little escapes its net, and the student with an 

 intelligent capacity for reading between the lines will 

 by its help be generally put on the track of anything 

 which concerns him specially. Particularly he will 

 be saved the trouble of looking through the very 

 numerous annual reports and bulletins issued by the 

 separate States in America; for they are fully reported 

 in the " Record," and almost wholly neglected by the 

 German abstractors. We believe our own Board of. 

 Agriculture is about to undertake a somewhat similar 

 work for the many scattered publications of county 

 councils and colleges which have been doing agri- 

 cultural experiments in this country during the last 

 ten years or so. We doubt if the " Experiment Station 

 Record " is as well known as it deserves to be; at any 

 rate, several of our best specialist libraries in London 

 possess it very partially, if at all, useful as it is even 

 to men engaged in pure science. Meantime, it has 

 become indispensable to all workers in agricultural 

 science, and they owe a debt of gratitude to the United 

 States Department of Agriculture both for its publi- 

 cation and for the liberality with which it is distributed. 



A. D. H. 

 Jahrbuch der Chemie. Twelfth Year, 1902. Edited by 



R. Meyer. Pp. xii + 544; and General Register to 



same, i.-x., 1891-1900. (Brunswick : Vieweg und 



Sohn, 1903.) Price 155. and 115. 

 Meyer's " Jahrbuch " is too well known among 

 chemists to require description. It aims at giving a 

 summary or review of the chief chemical contributions 

 of the year. When one considers that in this com- 

 paratively short period upwards of 6000 researches (the 

 number is taken from the Centralblatt, and does not 

 include patent literature) find their way into print, the 

 process of selection becomes a very arduous one, re- 

 quiring on the part of the different collaborators — 

 experts in their several provinces — not only much read- 

 ing, but careful discrimination. 



This large mass of material seems on the whole to 

 be well sifted, but the condensed form in which it is 

 presented robs the book of any literary merit, and gives 

 it the indigestible and fragmentary character of a 

 dictionary. English chemical literature scarcely re- 

 ceives full justice, not that the proportion of references 

 is small (out of 160 papers published by the Chemical 

 Society 28 are referred to), but these, it will be 

 generally admitted, do not in all cases represent the 

 most valuable English researches of the year. 



The general index for the first decade is published 

 with the "Jahrbuch," and as a book of reference 

 should be useful. J. B. C. 



Flowering Plants : their Structure and Habitat. By 



Charlotte L. Laurie. Pp. x f 157 ; with illustrations 



by W. L. Boys-Smith. (London : Allman and Son, 



Ltd., n.d.) Price 2s. 6d. 

 This little book is intended for students who have 

 already studied the elementary principles of botanical 

 science. It is divided into three parts, dealing with 

 respectively, the most general conclusions of ecology 

 relating to the habitat of plants, the minute structure 

 of the plant and its adaptations to its habitat, and 

 certain natural orders, regarded more particularly 

 fiom the point of view of their ecological character- 

 istics. The treatment is simple, though brief, and the 

 illustrations are unusually good. 



