NATURE 



261 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1918. 



BRITISH SANDS. 

 N i) I Menu -•• 1 »i British Resources oi Sands and 

 used in Glass-making, with Notes on 

 certain Crushed Rocks and A' 

 Materials. B} Prof. P. G. II. Boswell. With 

 Chemical Analyses by Dr. II. F. Harwood and 

 A. A. Eldridge. Second edition. Pp. \i [83. 

 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 191S.) 

 7<. 6d. net. 



n British Ri Refractory 



Sands for Furnace and Foundry Purposes. 



Pan i. ' By Prof. P. G. II. Boswell. With 



ChemicaJ Analyses by Dr. II. F. Harwood and 



V. \. Eldridge. Pp. \ii -'40. (London: 



.md Francis, 1918.) Price 8s. 6d. net. 



j 1 -war days large quantities of Continental 



1 sands were used in both the metallurgical and 



i industries, the low prices at which they 



being mainly due 



to their tr; ballast in returning coal- 



.ir the stocks of these 



Is were exhausted, and it had become a matter 



of urgency to replace them by home supplies. 



Owing to the difficnlties of transport, it was 



essential that, wherever possible, deposits of sand 



easily accessible to the industrial centres should 



be utilised. Much of the success which has 



attended the efforts to utilise our home resources 



of sand is unquestionably due to the survey made 



of them by Prof. Boswell at the instruction of the 



Ministry of Munitions, and in its earlier stages 



under the auspices of the Imperial College of 



fmology. The author's contention 



that many ily imported, and 



others equally unnecessarily moved about the 



try, cannot be gainsaid, and in view of the 



industrial imporl it is remarkable 



that hitherto the.. □ little or no systematic 



tigation of our native resources of them. 



11) The rapid exhaustion of the editions of the 

 author's two earlier memoirs on our native re- 

 sour. • lass manufacture 



ion they received 

 Boswell has ren- 

 dered further ser 1 ■ olume 

 the results of his ion, and it is unques- 

 tionably the most important contribution which has 

 been made to our knowledge ands of this 

 country. The r.u ienl manner in which 

 the large amou [tailed has been 

 carried through and pi been no 

 inconsiderable factor ; n enabling -lass manufac- 

 turer- supplies the imported 

 Is previously used. It is nol loo much to sa) 

 that ■ stigations will be that 

 imported sands will no used except for 

 the highest qualities of glass, ami even for these 

 their ,\ f rorn M uc ki s h 

 Mountain, Co. Donegal, proving suitable, although 

 its inaccessibility may be a bar to its use. 



In discussing in detail the methods for the 

 XO. 2562, VOL. 102] 



mechanical analysis and grading of s:.i-.ds, the 

 or points out the advantage oi elutriation 

 ses over sifting or screening, and describes 

 a single-vessel elutriator of simple construction. 

 mechanical composition ol a large number 

 'itds is represented g a method 



which brings OUl many useful points. Attention 

 is directed to the value of aluminiferous sands, and 

 it is unfortunate that the majority of our native 

 sands carrying a high proportion of alumina are 

 also high in iron, and therefore useless for ail 

 but the commonest varieties of bottle glass. \ 

 chapter is devoted to the methods in use fcr the 

 improvement of sands by special treatment, and 

 it is of considerable interest to note that sand- 

 owners are now- giving increased attention to this 

 important matter. For purposes of comparison 

 notes aie given of a number of largely used Con- 

 tinental and American sands. Useful sketch-maps 

 are appended showing the outcrops of the geo- 

 logical formations in which glass sands occur, and 

 the location of the chief British resources in rela- 

 tion to the glass-making areas. 



The author is to be unreservedly congratulated 

 on a piece of work of the utmost value to our 

 rapidly reviving tdass industry. 



(j) The memoir on British resources of sands 

 suitable for furnace and foundry purposes will be 

 invaluable to the iron and steel industries, as it 

 lor the first time places on record the information 

 necessary to enable manufacturers to select sands 

 lor trial and subsequent utilisation. The purehj 

 itific investigation of these materials must 

 come first, but the ultimate tests must be in the 

 works themselves, and investigations of the type 

 the presenl memoir will do much to link up 

 the work of the man of science with that of the 

 manufacturers. 



The author's lines of laboratory work comprise 

 chemical analysis of the bulk sand and its in- 

 dividual grades, mineral analysis, and mechanical 

 analysis; and, again, many important points are 

 brought out by the excellent graphical method of 

 expressing the results of the mechanical analyses. 

 In dealing with moulding sands the author adopts 

 the plan of exhaustivelv examining a sand which 

 works experience has shown to be highly suitable, 

 and by deduction from thi ory results 



noting what appear to be the desirable qualities. 

 The special feature of a good moulding sand is 

 its property of absorbing water without becoming 

 really wet, and further investigation of this water- 

 holding capacity is desirable because of its im- 

 portant bearing on the "bonding" qualities of 

 the sand. It will be readily gathered from a 

 perusal 'of this memoir that we have still much 

 to learn respecting the properties of sands, and 

 there is room for much interesting research work 

 ion with both naturally bonded sands 

 and synthetic moulding sands made by admixing 

 a high silica sand with clays and other bonding 

 materials. There is much valuable empirical 

 knowledge in the hands of foundry foremen which 

 requires translating to a scientific basis. 



!■• "a! delay in making the results of the 



