44 NATURE 
Ps t 
t 
NUARY 13, 1923 
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‘at once, to enable flight at really high altitudes to be 
possible. 
In the present volume Mr. Ricardo covers a wide 
field: all important types of slow-speed engine are 
described. Some of the work is thus rather that of 
editor than author, but opportunity for the exercise, at 
its best, of the latter réle is seen particularly in the 
sections relating to engine balancing and piston friction, 
where the subject is dealt with in masterly fashion and 
cleared of the unnecessary complication so often found 
in other books on this subject. Some writers have 
photographic vision, Mr. Ricardo’s is selective and acute. 
We receive this volume of his book with interest} and 
look for the second with pleasure. H. Ey 

Lord Moulton. 
The Life of Lord Moulton. By H. Fletcher Moulton. 
Pp. 287+8 plates. (London: Nisbet and Co., Ltd., 
1922.) 15s. net. ‘4 
R. FLETCHER MOULTON’S life of his father 
is an attractive volume which gives a vivid 
picture of the career of a man of remarkable ability. 
Beginning with very scanty financial resources, Lord 
Moulton spent some three and a half years as an 
assistant master after leaving school before he entered 
for a scholarship at Cambridge. During this time, 
however, he carried off three successive scholarships at 
the University of London, and so established a record of 
success which remained unbroken during his time at 
Cambridge. 
Two consecutive chapters describe Lord Moulton’s 
work at the Bar and on the Bench, first of the Court of 
Appeal and then as a Lord of Appeal and a member of 
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The 
latter part of the book is given up to a description of 
his work during the war, and to those successful efforts 
which made it possible to assert that in this country, 
at any rate, empty shells were never kept waiting for 
supplies of explosives with which to fill them. For a 
solution of this most difficult problem of supply Lord 
Moulton relied mainly on the production and utilisation 
of a very large output of ammonium nitrate, and the 
principal chapter devoted to this period of Lord 
Moulton’s life bears the appropriate title of ‘‘ The Fight 
for Amatol.” In this fight he was handicapped, not 
only by the inertness of this explosive, which in the 
early days created a well-deserved prejudice against it, 
but also by the difficulty of turning down inferior and 
sometimes fraudulent substitutes when these were 
advocated with the aid of influential supporters. 
The most notable of these substitutes was ‘‘ Halakite,”’ 
a new and wonderful explosive, alleged to be capable of 
acting both as a propellant and as a high explosive, with 
NO. 2776, VOL. 111 | 

the additional advantage of containing no nitroglycerine, 
The first samples supplied by the inventor were found, 
however, to contain 20 per cents of nitroglycerine, and 
samples supplied to the French Government consisted 
of British Mark I cordite coloured yellow with lead 
chromate. The twenty pages devoted to this case are 
probably a fair measure of the amount of time that was 
absolutely wasted by Lord Moulton’s department when 
the inventor had found an editor sufficiently influential 
to work up a scandal but also sufficiently ignorant to be 
taken in by his claims. Lord Moulton himself had, 
however, a remarkable ability for detecting real promise 
inthe propositions put before him, and in nearly every 
case where a difference of opinion arose, subsequent 
experience showed that Lord Moulton was right and his 
critics were wrong. This was notably the case in 
reference to amatol, which remained not merely in 
service throughout the war, but is generally recognised 
as providing one of the best fillings now available 
for H.E. shells for land service. 
A chapter is devoted to Lord Moulton’s scientific 
work ; but although a summary is given of his experi- 
ments with Spottiswoode, the usual references by which 
a scientific reader would trace this work are not given. 
An examination of the Royal Society’s Catalogue of 
Scientific Literature shows that these experiments are 
described in two papers bearing the titles “On the 
Sensitive State of Electrical Discharges through Rare- 
fied Gases,” Part I. (Phil. Trans., 1880, 170, 165-229), 
and “ On the Sensitive State of Vacuum Discharges,” 
Part II. (Phil. Trans., 1881, 171, 561-652). In the 
spacious days of forty years ago it was possible for a 
man of pre-eminent ability to secure election as a fellow 
of the Royal Society on what might now be regarded 
as a mere sample of the scientific work of which he 
was capable. Under these conditions Lord Moulton’s 
election in 1880 was a natural sequel to his partnership 
with Spottiswoode, following upon his earlier record as 
Senior Wrangler and Smith’s prizeman. His greatest 
service to science was, however, undoubtedly the whole- 
hearted co-ordination of chemical enterprise which he 
brought about during the war, and then strove to 
perpetuate in time of peace. 
Lord Moulton was educated at Kingswood School, 
and maintained his interest in the school to the end. 
During the first year after the Armistice he took part 
as an old boy in the annual dinner, which had been 
allowed to lapse during the war, and also distributed the 
prizes at the school where his first academic success had 
been won. A Moulton scholarship founded by his son 
will perpetuate his association with the school, and a 
scheme is already in progress for supplementing this by 
a stained-glass window in the chapel recently erected as 
a war memorial. 
