December 18, 1902 J 



NA TURE 



M7 



led him to undertake numerous subsidiary investigations, 

 some dealing with isomorphism, some with the diffusion 

 and specific heats of salt-solutions. His researches on 

 the double salts of fluorine and potassium with silicon, 

 titanium, tungsten, zirconium, niobium and tantalum, 

 and on the rare earths were all part of his scheme to 

 ascertain the true relations between the atomic weights 

 of the elements. During the forty-five years of his 

 scientific activity, he determined the equivalents of no 

 fewer than twenty-eight elements. Besides these labours, 

 he added to our knowledge of ozone and conducted 

 experiments with Foucault's pendulum. 



M. Ador's sketch of Marignac gjves an interesting 

 summary of this work, adding also a sketch of the part 

 which he took in developing the modern aspect of 

 chemistry, in adopting the now familiar means of de- 

 ducing atomic weights from the equivalents determined 

 by analysis. 



The present volume is the first of a series of reprints 

 of Marignac's original papers, most of which were pub- 

 lished in the "Archives de la Societe d'Histoire Natui- 

 €lle de Geneve." The typography and arrangement 

 leave nothing to be desired, and M. Ador has conferred 

 a benefit on his fellow-workers by the labour of love 

 which he has so successfully carried out, and has paid 

 the best possible tribute to the revered memory of his 

 old master. W. R. 



A MANUAL OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

 An Introduction to Physical Geography. By Grove 

 Karl Gilbert and Albert Perry Brigham. Pp. xvi + 

 380. (London : Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1902.) 

 Price \s. net. 



IT might reasonably have been supposed that there 

 was no field in the United States for a new concise 

 manual on physical geography. Vet the cooperation of 

 one of the roost original observers of geological phe- 

 nomena with the practical teacher of geology in Colgate 

 University has given us a book that we should be very 

 sorry to lay aside. It has, like many of its rivals, been 

 brought unmodified into the English market, where it 

 will appeal to teachers rather than to junior scholars. It 

 would be, indeed, no more suited, with its wealth of 

 American illustration, to European classes than Huxley's 

 description of the Thames Valley would be to dwellers 

 on the Mississippi or the Hudson. But in the continent 

 of North America this little book should take a foremost 

 place. The abundant photographic illustrations are ex- 

 cellent and well chosen. They are not reduced, as in 

 some small text-books, to blurred patches which suggest 

 no natural landscape. The process-blocks seem to us to 

 vary slightly in grain, whereby some of the smaller ones 

 have been brought to a rare degree of delicacy ; the sand- 

 ripples on the dunes in Fig. 83 will serve as an example. 

 To name two other suggestive pictures, the contrast of 

 delta and cliff in Fig. 37, and the geognostic details of 

 the "creeping" rock-surface in Fig. 59, are especially 

 well presented. 



The style of the text forces the meaning of the illus- 

 trations on the reader. The same firmness appears in 

 Mr. Gilbert's " Geology of the Henry Mountains " and 

 " Lake Bonneville," but the effect is there modified by a 

 NO. 1729, VOL. 67] 



far more classical terminology. Whether or no joint 

 authorship is responsible for the diction in the present 

 book, the result may be commended as a consistent work 

 of art. These short, direct, eminently English sentences 

 are not easy to write, but are delightful to read and are 

 perfect for their purpose. 



The current system of importing American books in- 

 tact under the name of a London publisher leaves us, even 

 in this case, with such spellings as "oxid" and "sulfur," 

 and such antique words as "sled." While Prof. Brigham 

 writes "bowlder," the joint authors, however, give us our 

 own form, "boulder." "Glen" and "dale" may be, as 

 stated on p. 28, " somewhat poetic" in America, where 

 "gulch" is common, but they are fortunately familiar to 

 every hillman in our islands. Yet these are trifles in a 

 book that appeals to us as much by its style as by its 

 subject. 



The authors conceive geography (p. 13) as a compre- 

 hensive knowledge of the earth, and their book as a first 

 book of science, similar, we take it, to Huxley's" Physio- 

 graphy." They attract attention to the features seen in 

 any walk across the country, and correlate these with the 

 striking phenomena of high mountain regions, volcanoes, 

 and so forth. On p. 209 the recent eruptions in Mar- 

 tinique are judiciously introduced. 



There is little experimental method in the book ; the 

 rain-gauge, for instance, is mentioned, without any state- 

 ment of how a reading can be made in actual practice; 

 the chemical characters of limestone are given, without a 

 hint of how the material may be interestingly dealt with 

 by the pupil. The teacher will, however, supplement the 

 book in these matters, and its clearness of description 

 cannot fail to give him new conceptions. What can be 

 better, for instance, than the remark (p. 279) that "the 

 ocean may be likened to a film of liquid clinging to the 

 outside of a spoon" ? We should like to quote some of 

 the more vivid passages, such as the contrast between 

 life in the Alps and in the Rocky Mountains on pp. 191-2. 

 We do not agree with the authors in their discussion of 

 passes in the Pyrenees and Alps, or as to "the somber 

 skies of Germany" (p. 195), when Baden and Bavaria are 

 referred to ; but we should probably be far more at fault 

 were we to illustrate — or, as the authors say, " illuminate " 

 — a European text-book by remarks on Georgia or 

 Colorado. Grenville A. J. COLE. 



A PICTORIAL ARITHMETIC. 

 The Modern Arithmetic. Primary and Elementary 

 Grades. By Archibald Murray, A.B. (Harvard). 

 Woodward Series. Pp. 308. (St. Louis, U.S.A. : 

 Woodward and Tiernan Printing Co.) 



THIS is a book for the use of a teacher of very young 

 pupils. It is divided into three parts. Part i. 

 (82 pages) is concerned with " number exercises," and 

 consists of thirty-eight lessons, each one of which 

 we may suppose to occupy the child for one day. Each 

 of these lessons consists of a series of questions or direc- 

 tions given to the pupil, such as "hold up seven fingers," 

 " find, by using splints, the half of ten units," &c. A 

 marked feature of this part of the book is the beautiful 

 series of coloured pictures of roses, apples, grapes, straw- 

 berries, oranges.-finches, redbirds and other interesting 



