266 
NATURE 
[ JANUARY 17, 1907 
has surmounted social difficulties which looked almost 
insuperable sixty years ago? What Mr. Wells says 
is all true, but there is also much more to be said. 
Ihe average American neglects politics and selfishly 
thinks of his own interests; yes, but every now and 
again he shows himself capable of the highest kind of 
self-sacrifice. At the back of the futile Boston culture 
is the spirit of Charleston Neck and Bunker’s Hill; 
and the cultured Bostonian had this great merit, he 
saw that Abraham Lincoln could save the country. 
We consider that the worst thing in America is 
Philistinism, commonness or vulgarity of thought; 
the great merit of Boston is. that she has always 
combated this. Then, as to immigration, we believe 
that an intermixture of all the European races (and, 
if we could only get it, an assimilation of the Jews) 
would produce the very finest nation ever known. 
These lower races of whom Mr. Wells speaks are a 
danger only for a time; in the second and later 
generations their presence will be shown in a better 
appreciation of music and literature and painting. 
The supreme danger to any State lies in the diminu- 
tion of its middle class; this is the greatest lesson of 
history. We see no chance of such a diminution in 
America for a very long time to come. Furthermore, 
there is an evident growing determination in this 
middle class that social problems shall be solved at 
whatever cost. Lynching is altogether evil, but it 
occurs only in certain parts of a country of enormous 
size still nearly empty of inhabitants; it certainly is 
altogether against the spirit of the American people, 
one of whose strongest characteristics has always 
been a respect for law. It was a product of the 
slave system, and is diminishing. 
The Europeanised American who scorns politics 
is truly a curse to himself and his own country 
and to Europe, but there is now a new revelation. 
Mr. Roosevelt is not the only rich, educated American 
who has conquered his fear of touching pitch. 
We agree with Mr. Wells as to the inferiority of 
American school education, the root of all evils; but 
the sole cause of this is poor payment for teachers, 
and, like many another great mischief in America, 
may be altered almost by the stroke of a pen. Has 
not universal spitting, the habit most dreaded by 
Dickens, disappeared in one half-year? Any- 
thing in the way of quick reform is possible in 
a country like America, where everybody reads, and 
where the cheapest monthly magazines, published by 
millions, contain serious articles about the great 
American problems and reforms; where in all States 
north of the Washington parallel the people resemble 
the Scotch; that is, even the commonest labourers are 
accustomed to abstract reasoning because of their 
early religious education. We cannot doubt that it 
will work out triumphantly its own and our salvation, 
for it is to be remembered that all the insoluble-look- 
ing problems of America are coming for solution 
more slowly upon England and France and Germany. 
We believe that Mr. Wells has done something 
important towards solving such problems, and it is 
not merely America that ought to be grateful to 
him. Joun Perry. 
NO. 1942, VOL. 75 | 
NAVAL CHEMISTRY. 
Service Chemistry: a Short Manual of Chemistry and 
its Applications in the Naval and Military Services. 
By Vivian B. Lewes and J. S. S. Brame. Third 
and revised edition. Pp. xvi+675. (London: 
Henry Glaisher; Greenwich: J. Glaisher, 1906.) 
HIS book was primarily designed for the use of 
officers through the Royal Naval 
College, Greenwich, who while requiring to know 
something of the practical applications of chemistry 
to their profession if they are to carry out its multi- 
farious duties intelligently and efficiently, have only a 
very limited amount of time to give to the study of the 
science. The naval officer nowadays is confronted 
with conditions which were absolutely unknown to 
and undreamt of by those who were placed in charge 
of our old *‘ wooden walls.’’ Steam and steel and 
high explosives have completely revolutionised the 
navies of to-day, and modern men-of-war are the 
embodiment of the most advanced developments of 
mechanical, physical, and chemical science. He who 
would handle these costly creations to the best 
advantage needs to have acquaintance with the scien- 
tific principles upon which their construction, main- 
tenance, and effective employment depend, and what 
intelligent handling means, and what momentous 
issues may depend upon it, was demonstrated in a 
manner which profoundly impressed the whole world 
in the ever-memorable battle of the Sea of Japan. 
That object-lesson has given rise to much _ heart 
searching on the part of every maritime Power. 
Whether we are bettering the example of our Eastern 
ally—whether, indeed, we are really following it— 
is a matter which gravely concerns this nation. It 
would, of course, be out of place in this connection 
to discuss the various factors upon which the 
astonishing success of Japan depended; patriotism, 
courage, the spirit of self-sacrifice, discipline, intelli- 
gence, and integrity—in a word, what we understand 
by moral—were no doubt at the bottom of it all. 
But these qualities alone might have availed little 
unless supplemented by skilful direction of the 
machinery and appliances of which our modern 
engines of destruction are built up, and skilful direc- 
tion depends upon an intelligent appreciation of the 
scientific principles underlying the construction and 
efficient use of these appliances. The rulers of re- 
juvenated Japan had clearly grasped this fact, and it 
cannot be questioned that it is to the manner in 
which they have given practical effect to this recog- 
nition in the training of their naval and military 
leaders, even during the short space of a generation, 
that their supremacy in the East is mainly due. 
There is, of course, much in chemistry which in 
no conceivable circumstances can have the slightest 
professional interest to the naval man, and which, 
therefore, it would be useless and a waste of time to 
trouble him with. 
But every naval officer is the better for knowing 
something, for example, of the causes of corrosion 
and fouling of ships; of the nature of boiler incrusta- 
tions; of the properties and composition of various 
forms of fuel; of the chemical characters of explosives, 
passing 
