Marcu 5, 1914| 
of gypsy literature. A preliminary. edition of this 
bibliography was issued for revision by European 
and American scholars in 1g09, and the informa- 
tion thus obtained has been used in the present 
compilation, which includes 4577 entries, accom- 
panied by a good subject index. No attempt has 
been made to sift the chaff from the wheat, and 
many books and articles now included have 
obviously no claim to be regarded as scientific 
authorities. In a new edition it would be well 
to define by special type those publications which 
are really of value. The leading writers on gypsy 
lore have been fully dealt with—Borrow with 103 
entries, Wlislocki, 182, and Bataillard, 41; while 
the work of English authorities like MacRitchie, 
Sampson, Thompson, and Winstedt, is adequately 
recorded. 
The bibliography is prepared on scientific prin- 
ciples, and footnotes to the more important arti- 
cles supply useful information. It is disappoint- 
ing to note that the Oriental material has been 
less carefully examined than that of the West. 
For example, in the case of India, much second- 
rate material is recorded, while the records of 
recent ethnographical surveys, and locally pub- 
lished books and pamphlets have often been 
neglected. It may be hoped that in a new edition 
the libraries of the India Office, Royal Asiatic 
Society, the Imperial Library at Calcutta, and 
other local sources will be more carefully 
examined. 
A Textbook of Domestic Science for High 
Schools. By Matilda G. Campbell. Pp. vii-+ 
219. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 
1913.) Price 4s. net. 
Hap this book been published a few years ago in 
this country it would probably have been described 
in its title as a book of ‘domestic economy.” It 
is concerned chiefly with cookery, which is re- 
garded frankly as an art, and taught as usual by 
recipes. The treatment is not scientific in the 
proper sense, and the few chemical formule and 
statements of fact about chemistry introduced will 
serve only to confuse the student. Under a 
different title, and with some omissions, we should 
have here a good book on practical cookery. 
The Religious Revolution of To-day. By Prof. 
J. T. Shotwell. Pp. ix+162. (Boston and New 
York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913.) Price 
1.10 dollars net. 
Pror. SHOTWELL here publishes the William 
Brewster Clark Memorial lectures he delivered last 
year at Amherst College. These lectures are in 
memory of Dr. W. B. Clark, who graduated from 
Amherst in 1876, and their object, a foreword to 
the volume states, is to assist “in throwing light 
in a genuinely scientific spirit upon the relation of 
the research, discovery, and thought of the day 
to individual attitude and social policy.” The 
titles of the lectures are: ‘‘Contrasts,” ‘‘ Devolu- 
tion or Evolution?” ‘‘The Problem and the Data,”’ 
and “The New Régime.” 
NO. 2314, VOL. 93] 
NATURE 
) 
| 
On 
PEEL aRS TO. THE EDINOR: 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications. | 
Active Nitrogen. 
A FURTHER paper by Tiede and Domcke has appeared 
(Berichte, February 7, 1914) in which it is stated that 
bomb nitrogen passed over copper moderately heated 
(to about 400° C.) is incapable of giving the glow 
characteristic of active nitrogen. This is held to con- 
firm the previous statement by the same authors 
relative to nitrogen prepared by heating a metallic 
azide. In each case the result is attributed to the 
successful elimination of any trace of oxygen. 
We have carefully repeated this new experiment, 
taking every precaution. All parts of the apparatus 
were sealed together by fusion. Its lightness was 
thoroughly tested, both before and after the experi- 
ment, and occluded gases were carefully got rid of. 
The column of copper employed consisted of rolls of 
the finest gauze (ninety threads to the inch), carefully 
reduced from the oxidised condition. Its length was 
50 cm., and its diameter 17 mm. The temperature 
was slowly taken up from 15° C. to 480° C., without 
any distinct change in the intensity of the glow at 
any stage. The experiment has been repeated on 
several occasions before colleagues. A subsequent 
examination of the copper showed that oxidation had 
not proceeded for more than 8 cm. We emphatically 
' dissent therefore from TJiede and Domceke’s conclu- 
sion, in this case, as in the previous one. 
The rest of their paper is an attempt to show that 
some of the characteristic effects can be got with 
oxygen only, in the entire absence of nitrogen. We 
must content ourselves here with saying that we do 
not agree with their observations, but that these would 
not tell against the existence of active nitrogen, even 
if they were correct. The conclusive fact is the 
capacity of the gas to react with, e.g. hydrocarbons, 
to form hydrocyanic acid. This they have not 
attempted to dispute. 
We are glad to see that Koenig and Eléd (Berichte, 
February 21, 1914) are in agreement with us that 
azide-nitrogen gives the glow perfectly well. 
H. B. Baker. 
Re Jj. SrRuDE: 
Imperial College of Science, March 3. 
Remarkable Upper-Air Records at Batavia. 
Two sounding-balloons liberated at Batavia during 
the present rainy season have met with exceedingly 
| low temperatures, when entering the stratosphere at 
the usual height of about 17,000 metres (10-6 miles). 
On December 4, 1913, —90-9° C. (—131-6° F.) was 
registered, and on November 5 —g1-9° C. (— 133-4° F.). 
Though in this last case the clockwork had stopped, 
the register may be accepted without reservation. [ 
believe this air temperature of —g1-9° C. to be the 
lowest on record. 
On December 4 the balloon (weight 2:2 kg.) reached 
a height of 26,040 metres (16-2 miles), and the regis- 
tering, both in the ascent and in the descent, is to be 
depended upon, as will be proved below. What is 
"most remarkable in the temperature record is that 
s ~ fo) 
from 17,000 metres upward an increase from —91-9° C. | 
