246 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 14, 1904 
| 
vernacular names to specimens. Special reference is | 
made to the case of the American bison, the author | 
stating that no European naturalist could be prevailed 
upon to apply to that animal its Transatlantic title 
“ buffalo.’’ If, however, he will visit the mammalian | 
gallery of the museum to which he himself belongs, he | 
will find the label ‘‘ Buffalo, in America ’’ attached to 
the stand of one of the specimens of that species. 
Lack of space alone precludes further reference to 
the contents of a volume which cannot fail to be of 
great value to all who have to do with museum 
arrangement. R. L. 
Dayton Clarence Miller, 
D.Sc. Pp. xv+403; diagrams. (Boston, U.S.A., 
and London: Ginn and Co., 1903.) Price 8s. 6d. 
Tuts manual by the professor of physics in the Case 
School of Applied Science, Boston, is the result of 
twelve years of teaching experience, and most of the 
descriptions have been employed in type-written form 
for the past six years. It is not intended as a pre- 
paratory course; at the same time the majority of the 
experiments are of a fairly simple type. Constant 
references to existing text-books of practical physics 
(both English and American) show that the author has 
made free use of all sources of information, which is 
duly acknowledged. Many of the experiments are not 
usually met with in text-books, or at any rate are 
not met with in so full a form. Thus the complete 
calibration of a scale by Neumann and Thiesen’s 
method is fully described (though without the theory, 
for which reference is made to Guillaume, ‘‘ Thermo- | 
métrie ’’), and there is an account of the use of Michel- 
son’s interferometer. 
The author’s aims are admirable. ‘*‘ A Laboratory 
course is not considered as consisting of a certain 
number of exercises to be worked out by each student, | 
and to be complete when these are finished, but rather | 
as consisting of a definite amount of time spent in 
judicious experimenting.’’ 
The descriptions of experimental details are good | 
and are not overdone. The student will not be tempted 
to perform merely parrot work. He will require to 
think and scheme in many ways before his apparatus 
will prove tractable, and is not this just as it should | 
be? We wish we could say that the days of organ- | 
grinding were past. 
No attempt is made to give even an outline of the 
theory of the experiments, and as the references are 
almost entirely to practical text-books, the student will 
require guidance in his choice of books from which 
the theory may be obtained. The manual would be 
improved if references to theoretic text-books were 
given as well. 
; The book is excellently printed and illustrated, and 
is very free from errors of all kinds. We notice only 
an erroneous definition of viscosity (p. 117), and the 
statement on p. 390 that 7/4=0.079577, whereas this | 
number is the value of the reciprocal of 47. 
Opere di Galileo Ferraris. Vol. ii. Pp. 
(Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1903.) 
THE memoirs included in the present volume may well 
be regarded as classical in the annals of .applied elec- 
tricity, since they belong to a period which has 
witnessed the birth and growth of the applications of 
electrical energy to lighting and power transmission. 
The first paper is an illustrated account, published in 
1876, of the then ‘‘ new induction machines,”’ which, as 
the figures show, differed only in points of detail from 
the dynamo of the present day. This paper is followed 
by a series of five lectures on electric lighting, delivered 
in the spring of 1879, just about the time when, for the 
first time, the Piazza Colonna at Rome was brilliantly | 
NO. 1785. VOL. 69] 
Laboratory Physics. By 
vit 473. 
| the Paris Exhibition of 
illumined by ‘‘ Jablochkoff candles.” The next 153 
pages are occupied with a report by Prof. Ferraris on 
the industrial applications of the electric current, at 
1881. In connection with 
that exhibition, we next have reports of the com- 
missions appointed to deal with the determination of 
the ohm, atmospheric and terrestrial electricity, and 
the choice of photometric units. The subsequent con- 
tents comprise Prof. Ferraris’s award of the: prize 
offered in 1884 by the municipal government of Turin, 
reports on the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and the Chicago 
Congress of 1893, a discourse delivered before the 
Lincei Academy in 1894 on electrical transmission of 
energy, and an obituary notice of Gaulard, to whom 
as discoverer of the transformer Prof. Ferraris gives 
the highest praise. 
Elements of the Theory of Integers. By Joseph 
Bowden, Ph.D. Pp. x + 258. (New York: The 
Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., 
Ltd’, x903:) Price ss. net: 
Just as the names of plants and animals are constantly 
being altered, so the ranges of mathematical study in- 
cluded under such general titles as ‘*‘ Algebra up to the 
Binomial’? or ‘‘ Trigonometry up to Solution of 
Triangles ’’ are changing as time goes on. In the 
‘* eighties,’ the average tripos candidate would under- 
stand by ‘‘ elements of the theory of integers’ the 
chapter in Todhunter’s ‘‘ Algebra ”’? which taught him 
to ‘‘ state and prove Fermat’s theorem.’’ The present 
book deals with nothing of this kind, but is devoted 
to proving such rules of algebra as that if a>b then 
b<a, or (—a)x(—b)=+ab. In the course of this 
work a number of cabalistic signs are introduced with 
| which most mathematicians in this country are un- 
familiar. Whether these symbols are necessary or 
even helpful must remain a matter of opinion, but there 
is no excuse for the author’s incorrect spelling of the 
English language, as exemplified by ‘* we hav,” “ ther 
ar,” ‘‘therfor,” “‘positiv,’” “*canceld,? ““‘fixdiag 
GG eee DP 
21V. 
Siv. 
Géographie Générale. By M. G. Lespagnol. Pp. 
vii+ 460. (Paris: Ch. Delagrave, 1903.) 
Tuts is an unusually comprehensive course, not of 
general geography as we know it in this country, but 
of physical geography, to which has been added a short 
history of geographical discovery and an essay on the 
growth of geographical science. The physical geo- 
graphy part of the volume follows the historical por- 
tions, and constitutes about three-quarters of the 
volume. <A great deal of geological information is 
placed before the reader, much more than is commonly 
included in English books on physiography. The 
illustrations are numerous and generally good. . There 
are many useful tables, and the book, as a whole, is a 
good introduction to an important subject. The 
absence of an index and a table of contents will be 
much regretted by students. 
Pushing to the Front, or Success under Difficulties. 
By Orison Swett Marden. Pp. viii+416. (London: 
Gay and Bird, n.d.) Price 3s. 6d. 
Tue author’s object in writing this book was *‘ to 
encourage, inspire, and stimulate boys and girls who 
long to be somebody and do something in the world, 
but feel that they have no chance in life.’? Among the 
unusually large number of examples of distinguished 
men who have overcome successfully all sorts of diffi- 
culties, many great men of science are included, and 
Agassiz, Dalton, Darwin, Davy, Faraday, Franklin, 
Galileo, Humboldt, Huxley, and Hugh Miller may be 
mentioned. The book should certainly provide young 
men with an incentive to an increased effort to make 
the fullest use of their faculties and opportunities. 
| 
