Annie NATURE 
385 
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1917. 
AN APPRECIATION OF WORK. 
(1) Pictures of the Wonder of Work. By Joseph 
Pennell. Pp. lii. 
1916.) Price 7s. 6d. net. 
(2) Joseph Pennell’s Pictures of War Work in 
‘England. With an Introduction by’ H. G. 
Wells. Pp. xii+plates 51. (London: W. 
‘Heinemann, 1917.) Price 6s. net. 
(2) fas oe author of this interesting volume of 
~ illustrations was recently requested by 
the Ministry of Munitions to record his impres- 
sions pictorially and in his own inimitable way of 
the wonder of the work now going on in the mills 
and factories of Britain and of France in order to 
enable us to understand better the efforts being 
made to win the war. These drawings are to be 
exhibited in all our great cities, and, judging 
from the quality of the illustrations in the book 
before us, such an exhibition will attract consider- 
able public attention. 
_It is so seldom that a word of appreciation is 
heard of the conditions of life in our smoky 
centres of toil that to find an artist of high ‘repute 
giving himself up enthusiastically to discover the 
wonder, the power, the romance, and the tragedy 
of it all is to arrest our attention whether we 
will or no. y 
In this handy volume is a.collection of pictorial 
representations of the work of the world as done 
in mine, mill, and factory, and as seen under 
many different conditions and in many lands. To 
the author the vision of mill-wheel and crane, of 
tall chimney and of smoke unlimited, is as full 
of interest and of inspiration as the vacant land- 
scape or the wooded hillside for the artist of 
another type of mind. .The book is -a pictorial 
record of *the wonder of work, in the doing of it 
rather than. of the product. itself, and it 
brings home to the mind more vividly than by 
words the price that is paid by one-half. of our 
people on behalf of the well-being of the whole. 
Though the conditions of manual work may im- 
prove as’time goes on, it is certain that much of 
the indispensable work of the. world will always 
be done under conditions of stress and strain 
almost beyond belief by those. who dwell far 
from centres of toil. It is well that these condi- 
tions should be recorded, not only for our informa- 
tion, but to.awaken in us sentiments of wonder at 
the skill, the strength, and the persistence of man 
in overcoming difficulties, and of gratitude to those 
by whom the work is done and by whose self- 
sacrificing service we all receive advantage. In 
this volume we have such a record.conveying to 
us in a few strokes of the artist’s pencil a vivid 
| sense of life and reality... ; 
The striking drawings are accompanied by some 
very shrewd and characteristic. comments which 
add much ‘to the interest of the book as a whole. 
“It -is, far easier,” says the. author, “to paint a 
heavenly .host.or a. dream-city. in one’s studio 
than. to make a decoration out of a group of 
NO. 2464, VOL. 98] 
(London: W. Heinemann, 
miners or to draw a rolling-mill in full blast, 
yet one of these subjects can be as noble as the 
other.” He has, as he says, “something to say 
in his own way about his own time.” “I am 
simply an artist searching for the wonder of work 
—not for morals, political economy, stories. of 
sweating, the crime of ugliness. I am trying to 
record the wonder as I see it, that is all.” We 
congratulate Mr. Pennell on the success of his 
effort. ‘ f 
(2) This is a further volume by the same author, 
dedicated to the same purpose as the work already 
noticed. The production of munitions of war is 
delineated by a succession of marvellously clear 
and effective pencil drawings showing the various 
stages involved in the production of munitions 
from the iron-mine and the coal-mine onwards 
through the processes of steel melting in fur- 
naces, of treatment in hammers and presses, and 
of manufacture in machine-shops, in which women. 
as well as men are taking so great a part. 
As Mr. Wells says in his Introduction: 
“Through all these lithographs runs one present 
motif, the motif of the supreme effort of Western 
civilisation to save itself and the world from the 
dominance of the reactionary German Imperialism 
that has seized the weapons and resources of 
modern science.” 
Mr. Pennell has ‘had exceptional facilities 
afforded him -for obtaining these pictures. No 
such opportunity is available: to the ordinary 
citizen, and next to the privilege of actually visit- 
ing the works themselves, no more effective means’ 
are available for obtaining a clear and vivid idea 
of all that is meant by the manufacture of muni- 
tions of war than that provided in this most’ in- 
teresting collection of drawings. W. Ripper. 
ADJUSTMENT OF OBSERVATIONS. 
Theory of Errors and Least Squares. By Prof. 
Le Roy D. Weld. Pp. xii+190. (New York: 
The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and 
Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 5s. 6d. net. ‘ 
HIS work, which embodies the material used 
by .the author as lecture notes at Coe 
College, Iowa, is intended not only as a text-book 
for undergraduates, but also as a book of refer- 
ence which a research worker can read through 
in a few evenings and then put into immediate. 
practice. An interesting feature of the work is 
the wide range involved in the illustrative ex- 
amples, which include applications to numerous 
branches of science. The mathematical treatment 
in the’ text is very elementary, requiring little 
more than’ a knowledge of the meaning of differ- 
entiation. This is supplemented in the appendix 
by a few pages involving rather more advanced 
methods, but in the main the book is free from 
mathematical difficulties to a degree quite unusual 
in works on least squares. 
The first chapter deals .with the meaning of 
measurement, estimation, and errors of, measure- 
ment, and is followed by. some useful exercises, 
which junior science students will: find very. sug-. 
gestive. In the next chapter the occurrence and 
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