JuLy 27, 1899] 
"2222 
‘Say, 1°3333, we Can write down 1°33333, which is greater. 
Therefore tt must be x!” 
It is only fair to add that this unlucky paralogism 
seems to be a solitary blemish in an otherwise excellent 
book. G. B. M. 
A Manual of Surgical Treatment. By W. Watson 
Cheyne, F.R.S., and F. F. Burghard, M.S., Surgeons 
to King’s College Hospital, London. In six Parts. 
Part I. Pp. xiv + 285, with 66 illustrations in the 
text. (London and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and 
Co., 1899.) 
SUCH a work as this has long been wanted by senior 
students, house-surgeons and general practitioners, who 
are often left in charge of capital operations performed 
by surgeons of repute without any precise directions as 
to the treatment to be adopted in cases of emergency. 
But the work undertakes much more than this, for it is 
evident that the authors will review the whole field of 
surgery in the light of our present pathological know- 
ledge, showing the modern methods of treatment and 
explaining why they have replaced the older plans. The 
present part deals with the more general subjects of 
inflammation, gangrene, wounds, venereal disease, tuber- 
culosis and tumours. It treats, therefore, of those parts 
of surgery which, perhaps more than all others, have 
been affected by antiseptic treatment. Mr. Watson 
Cheyne is so well known as one of the most distinguished 
pupils of Lord Lister that no better exponent of his 
methods could be found, and we are here presented with 
a clear account of the rationale of modern treatment. 
Thus, amongst many other more important things, we 
learn why poulticing is bad in the treatment of abscess, 
why a chronic abscess should be scraped, but an acute 
abscess should only have the matter let out and the 
loculi broken down. The facts and reasoning are ex- 
cellent, but the pleasure of reading is too often marred 
by the form in which they are presented, as many of the 
sentences seem to be constructed upon a German model. 
The figures which illustrate the letterpress vary greatly 
in quality ; some are excellent, others are sketchy, whilst 
others again are such mere outlines as to be almost 
unintelligible. Dr, Silk contributes an excellent article 
on the subject of anzesthetics, and there is a good index 
to this first part of the work. 
Inipressions of America. By T. C. Porter, M.A. (Oxon.), 
Fellow of the Chemical Society, of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society, and of the Physical Society of 
London. Illustrated with diagrams and stereoscopic 
views. Pp. xvii + 242. (London: C. Arthur 
Pearson, Ltd., 1899.) 
THE impressions were obtained during a pleasure trip 
to Niagara, the Yellowstone Park, San Francisco, the 
Yosemite, Utah and Colorado Springs. The author re- 
frains from citing any of the scientific works dealing with 
the remarkable features of those interesting regions, but 
gives a graphic account of what he himself saw, and out- 
lines a number of interesting hypotheses to account for 
some of the phenomena. Some of these are interesting 
because they show how a man of scientific habits of 
thought may from a hasty glance often reach con- 
clusions very similar to those which the specialists who 
have studied the subject for years have demonstrated to 
be correct. We cannot accept Mr. Porter’s ingenious 
hypothesis that the spiral ridges of the trunks of 
many trees in the Yellowstone Park are due to unequal 
heating by the sun and the uniform rotation of the earth, 
because he does not buttress it with the necessary ex- 
planation why trees in other places in the same latitude 
where the sun also shines unequally and the earth rotates 
uniformly do not also incline to a screwy form. But the 
little appendix on the Gulf Stream is a neat demonstra- 
tion from the study of a single bottle-chart of the seasonal 
NO. 1552, VOL. 60] 
NATURE 
291 
variation of the Gulf Stream and its attendant drift. Of 
course the deduction is not new ; the fine charts of North 
Atlantic currents grouped for two-monthly intervals 
by the Meteorological Office bring it out perfectly, and 
the labours of American, British, and Scandinavian ocean- 
ographers, and of the Prince of Monaco, have done much 
to find the reasons for the observed variations. We 
might venture, however, to remind Mr. Porter that the 
course of the Gulf Stream shown on a single small scale 
map is as conventional and empirical a representation of 
oceanic circulation as the isotherms on a map of mean 
annual temperature are of the climates of the world. 
The generalisation in no way implies that the seasonal 
changes are unknown. 
A new theory of geysers to fit the phenomena of the 
Yellowstone Park is also printed in the appendix in the 
form of a paper read to the Physical Society. It points 
out defects in Tyndall’s well-known theory, and intro- 
duces a syphon-bend in the underground channel and 
the spheroidal state induced by the intense heat of the 
rocks as more probable explanations. 
The great merit-and the unique character of the book 
depend, however, not on the author’s impressions or his 
theories, but on the incomparable series of photographs 
which he took. These are reproduced in the form of 
stereoscopic views, and aneat little lenticular stereoscope 
is supplied with the volume. The views shown in these 
illustrations are admirably selected and splendidly photo- 
graphed. They are reproduced by the half-tone process 
as separate plates, and very well printed. As a diary 
of the observations of a man of science at leisure there 
is much of interest in the whole book, which has also 
the advantage of being brief. H. R. M. 
Tables for Quantitative Metallurgical Analysis for 
Laboratory Use. By J. James Morgan, F.C.S., 
Member Soc. Chem. Industry, Member Cleveland 
Inst. Engineers. Tables xvi. (London: Charles 
Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1899.) 
TABLES for qualitative analysis are to be found in every 
chemical laboratory, and are used by every analyst at 
one time or another. Any attempt to supply chemists 
with information on quantitative analysis drawn up in 
the same convenient form must therefore be welcome. 
The present collection of tables has been carefully pre- 
pared, and is well arranged. It includes the analyses of 
iron ores, steel, limestone, boiler incrustation, certain 
slags, gaseous fuels, water, coal, and a few of the common 
metals and alloys. Alternative methods are not given, 
but the tables will be found very useful in saving the 
time of an analyst engaged in the examination of 
materials with which he is not accustomed to deal in the 
ordinary course of his daily work. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
(Zhe Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 
pressed by hts 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 ts taken of anonymous communications. ] 
Tides of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence and Bay of 
Fundy. 
PERMIT me to invite your attention to the latest report of the 
engineer in charge of the survey of the tides and currents of 
the coast waters of Canada, Mr. W. Bell Dawson, a copy of 
which has been addressed to you, 
This survey, commenced by the Government of Canada in 
1894, is of great importance, not merely in the interest of 
hydrographical science, but of the large and increasing trade 
which finds its way along the gulf and river St. Lawrence, 
the greatest water-way from the North Atlantic into the 
northern part of the American continent, and which, like all 
