NATURh 



[October 17, 1918 



present translation, which appears under the 

 editorship hi Prof. Livingston, ol the Johns Hop- 

 kins I niversity. 'The present work is based <>n 

 ian edition, bul it has been collated with 

 the seventh Russian edition, which appeared in 

 1914, and anj alterations have been included in 

 the English text. Hitherto then has been avail- 

 able to students no text-book hi plant physiolog) 



ut small compass which could serve as an intro- 

 duction to the larger works of Pfeffer and Jost. 

 This book admirably fills the gap. 



On p. 2 of the Introduction we find a list of the 

 beats ol combustion ol hydrogen, carbon, starch, 

 glucose, etc., and on p. 3 a discussion ol the cata- 

 lytic action of enzymes. It is thus clear from the 

 outset that the author views the plant from the 

 physico-chemical poim oi view, and keeps well to 

 the front the dynamical aspects of the chemical 

 processes occurring. Associated with this we find 

 thai in the words of the editor — "Palladin's 

 writing is mure free from ideological misinter- 

 pretation of the relation between conditions and 

 results than is that in most of the text-books 

 hitherto available." The book may thus safel) 

 be put into the hands of students without the risk 

 of the acquirement of a slovenly and unprogressive 

 habit of thought. 



The editor has provided footnotes — the author- 

 ship of which is clearly indicated — where the 

 matter required bringing up to date or the 

 author's treatment of a subject seemed to require 

 elucidation or correction. These additions very 

 greatly increase the value of the book, and many 

 of them, as readers of Prof. Livingston's papers 

 might expect, are models of what critical notes 

 should be. These notes are most numerous in 

 connection with photosynthesis, osmotic pressure, 

 and wafer movement. 



The book naturally brings to the front the work 

 of Russian botanists, and renders available some 

 results which the barrier of language has hitherto 

 kept almost unknown. The treatment of fer- 

 mentation and respiration, subjects to which valu- 

 able contributions have been made lay Palladin 

 and his pupils, is panic ularh good, but Kidd's 

 work on the effect of carbon dioxide on both 

 .mil anaerobic respiration should have 

 ted. The relation of oxygen to fermenta- 

 ist, which is imperfectly or erroneously 

 'ist text-books, is well brought out, 

 Hi ice might have been made to the 



work 11 Brown on the "occlusion" of 



oxygen ; . ells. Readers will be particu- 



larly glad 1 account of Palladin's wdrk 



on the respi 1 of dead plants and of his chro- 



mogen theory > respiration. In dealing with 

 transpiration i rl played by the stomata 



and the physical ontrolling the rate of 



diffusion of watei vap n the plant might have 



been dealt with more fully. Mention might also 

 have been made ol the id thai both Gaidukov's 

 observations on the reaction of ( >scillaria to light 

 different colours, and th .ipek on the 



relation of homogentisir acid to geotropie 

 • se, have been called in The treat- 



-WS.S. VOL. I02] 



an ni 1 growth, movement, and reproduction ire 

 p. 11 1 1: is erj mm h slighter than thai ol meta- 

 bolism, and the subject of hereditv is not dealt 

 with at all. 



All the citations of literature have been verified 

 and the form of reference has been rendered uni- 

 form; special attention hits also been paid to the 

 transliteration of Russian names. Botanists will 

 be interested to learn thai, on bis own authority, 

 the author's nana- should be pronounced " l'al- 



lad'-din." V. H. B. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF 

 CHEMISTRY. 



Stoichiometry. By Prof. S. Young. Second 

 edition. I'p. xiv + 363. (London: Longmans, 

 Green, and Co., 1918. 1 Price 12s. 6d. net. 



AS was explained in the notice which appeared 

 on the issue of the First edition (NATURE,, 

 vol. lxxviii., 1908, p. 98), litis book, which forms 

 one of the well-known scries of text-books of 

 physic tl chemistry edited 1;\ the late Sir William 

 Ramsay, deals with the fundamental principles of 

 chemistry. 



The present notice is devoted primarilv to a 

 consideration of the new matter which has been 

 introduced into the book in order to give some 

 account of the results arising from the numerous 

 investigations carried on during the last decade. 

 Of these results, none, perhaps, have bad a greater 

 influence on our fundamental conceptions than 

 those which have, been arrived at as a consequence 

 ol the investigation of radio-active substances. We 

 have become familiar with the idea of non-separ- 

 able, or isotopic, elements, which may, or may 

 not, have tin same atomic weight. Prof. Young 

 adopts the recommendations of Paneth as giving, 



pel Imps, tin- best definition ol the term "ele- 

 ment "; according to this suggestion, isotopes 

 are to be regarded, not as ditfereiil elements, but 

 as varieties of the same element, so that an 

 "element " may be pure or mixed according to 

 whether it contains only one kind of atom or differ- 

 ent varieties of isotopic atoms. The rei enl deter- 

 minations of the atomic weight of lead derived 

 from different sources, which have a bearing on 

 the same subject, are referred to, while in the 

 chapter dealing with the periodic law, after ex- 

 plaining the modern conception ol an atom, the 

 author gives a short rdsumd of the conclusions 

 drawn bv Soddy, Russell, and Fajans regarding 

 the positions taken up in the periodic table bv the 

 products of the disintegration of atoms. No refer- 

 i nc 1 is made in this chapter to the difficulty which 

 has been 1 xperienced in including- the rare earth 



elements in the table, while a still more surprising 

 omission is the absence of any allusion to the 

 exceedingly valuable work of Moselev on the X- 

 rav spectra of the elements, which has provided 

 us with a method for the determination of atomic 

 numbers and has led to results of the highest 



importance. 



The numerous investigations relating to osmotic 

 pressure- which have been carried on in England 



