NA TURE 



[November 13, 1902 



engineering (Gleftrotcrfmit). In a work dealing with such a 

 subject, we should have thought the publishers would not 

 have departed from the very sensible plan, adopted in 

 practically all good German scientific books, of printing 

 in the ordinary Roman type instead of in the German 

 script. We can safely assert that the adoption of the 

 German character will very considerably reduce the 

 number of foreign readers. 



The book is divided into two parts, the first containing 

 chapters on the mechanical, magnetic, electrostatic and 

 electromagnetic units, and a comparison of these two 

 latter systems. 



The second part, taking up three-quarters of the book, 

 is entitled "Additions and Explanations" (Zusatse 

 und Erlauterungen), and consists of a somewhat curious 

 collection of all kinds of information and numerical 

 examples, and we are afraid that the reader who uses 

 the book as an introduction to the study of electrical 

 engineering will not profit very much thereby. We 

 think, in fact, that the two objects of the book are 

 incompatible, as it is hardly reasonable to expect a 

 person just beginning to study electrotechnics to grasp 

 such conceptions as the relations of the electromagnetic 

 and electrostatic systems of electrical units, and so forth, 

 or to go from chapter ii. of the second part, on the 

 calculation of dynamos and considerations of the thick- 

 ness of the insulation on double cotton-covered wires, &c, 

 to chapter iii., introducing, without a word of warning, 

 highly involved considerations of potential theory with 

 differential equations half a page long. 



The book will be mainly useful to teachers in technical 

 colleges and schools, who are often called upon for the 

 satisfaction of inquiring students to work out a formula 

 from first principles, a subject with which the practical 

 man has neither the time nor the inclination to bother. 

 Such a teacher would find it useful to have this book by 

 him, and the many references and footnotes given would 

 be additionally helpful in such cases. 



In fact, the book appears to us like a collection of notes 

 of theoretical considerations and blackboard examples 

 acquired by a lecturer to assist him in his lectures, and 

 as such will no doubt have its sphere of usefulness. 



If we may permit ourselves one more remark, in para- 

 graph 92, on " hydroelectric chains," examples are | 

 worked out at length on the calculation of electromotive 

 force according to the old "Thomson" law (equivalence 

 of heat of reaction and electrical current work), and the 

 only warning given that this assumption is both funda- 

 mentally wrong and in many cases leads to totally false 

 results is given in a footnote. In a work on "absolute" 

 units, this should hardly occur. The book is indexed 

 very well, which is an additional advantage from the 

 above-mentioned point of view. C. C. G. 



Tndex-tabellen zum anthropometrischen Gebrauche. By 

 Carl M. Fiirst. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1902.) Price 

 5 marks. 

 In the preparation of their great work " Anthropologia 

 Suecica, Beitrage zur Anthropologic der Schweden," 

 Drs. Gustaf Retzius and Carl M. Fiirst had to deal with 

 a vast mass of figures. It is the custom of physical 

 anthropologists, not merely to publish their measurements, 

 but also to give the ratio of a given measurement to 

 another, and this is termed an "index "; for example, the 

 ratio of the breadth of the head to its length is called the 

 cephalic index, and is obtained by multiplying the breadth 

 by one hundred and dividing the product by the length. 

 The calculating of a large number of indices is undeniably 

 a very tedious process, and various devices have been 

 employed to save the student this clerical labour. Certain 

 mechanical and other devices have been invented, but 

 these have never proved satisfactory and are not employed 

 by serious workers. The most accurate and practical 

 rapid method of determining an index is by means of i 



NO. 1724, VOL. 67] 



tables which have been carefully computed. It is evident 

 that such tables once constructed and published would 

 materially lighten the labour of those who do this kind of 

 work. 



The first tables of this nature were published by Prof. 

 Welckerin the Arclih 1 fur Antliropologie in 1868. They 

 were calculated only for the cranial index, and even so were 

 not of sufficient range. In 1879, Prof. Flower published 

 some very useful and on the whole accurate tables in 

 his well-known Osteological Catalogue of the Royal 

 College of Surgeon's, London, Part i., Man. These were 

 calculated for the various cranial indices which he 

 employed in that valuable publication ; though these 

 tables have proved a great boon to workers, they are not 

 sufficiently extensive to meet modern requirements. Of 

 greater scope are the Broca's tables which were published 

 by Bogdanow in the Mittheil. d. kaiserl. Gesells. d. 

 Naturwiss. anth., eth. Abtheil. (Moscow, 1879.) These 

 also had some clerical errors, and the size of the page 

 rendered it somewhat unwieldy. This publication was 

 very difficult to obtain, and as a matter of fact the tables 

 were not generally used by anthropologists. 



Now all this is changed, as Dr. Fiirst has published 

 his extensive tables in a convenient form and at a low 

 price, and has placed at the disposal of his colleagues, 

 in twenty-nine tables, the result of the enormous labour 

 of Friiulein Ellen Anderson-Giilich, who has made the 

 requisite calculations. 



Anthropologists will find in these tables practically all 

 the indices they are likely to require, but there are certain 

 indices which have not been carried sufficiently far to 

 include some of the more extreme measurements that 

 can be made on the living subject of non-European 

 peoples ; this will affect but few investigators, and that 

 only rarely. Our hearty thanks are due to Dr. Fiirst. 



Jahrbuch der Chemie, 1901. Herausgegeben von Richard 



Meyer. (Brunswick: F. Vieweg und Sohn.) Price 



15 marks. 

 The Jahrbuch for 1901 is the eleventh of the series, 

 and has for its object a review of the chemical work 

 done during the year. Very few alterations are to be 

 noted in comparison with the previous publications so 

 far as arrangement and scope of the work are concerned. 

 Several changes have, however, taken place on the 

 editorial staff. In consequence of the death of Prof. 

 Miircker, the chapters on agricultural chemistry, tech- 

 nology of the carbohydrates and brewing industries have 

 been relegated respectively to Profs. Morgen, Herzfeld 

 and Delbruck. Dr. W. Krister, of Tubingen, is now the 

 editor of the section on physiological chemistry, and 

 Prof. Doeltz, of Clausthal, of that on metallurgy. 



The various authors appear to have given, on the whole, 

 a satisfactory account of the research work carried out 

 in their respective provinces, and the reader will obtain a 

 good idea of what has been accomplished during the past 

 year in both pure and applied chemistry. It seems 

 doubtful, however, whether a compilation of this kind, in 

 which nearly all the collaborators are of German nation- 

 ality, gives the best possible account of the work of men 

 of science in other countries. The greater part of the 

 researches in pure chemistry carried out by English 

 chemists is published in the Transactions of the Chemical 

 Society. The editors of the various sections of the 

 jahrbuch apparently consider themselves in many cases 

 capable of giving a clear and succinct account of these 

 investigations by reference to the short notes in the 

 Proceedings of the Society. It is unnecessary to point 

 out the impossibility of such a mode of procedure being 

 attended with any measure of success, and the practice 

 must be strongly condemned. 



It is to be hoped that, in future publications of the 

 year book, greater care will be exercised in rendering an 

 account of the work of English chemists. Its claims to 



