APRIL If, 1912| 
NATURE 
139 
study for the future to compare its progress in 
various ways with that of the kindred races on 
each side, one under French and one under 
English rule. 
Mr. Graham’s book is not one to read through. 
It is a handbook to consult when any particular 
subject connected with Siam arises, because it 
gives a summary of essential facts on almost all 
points connected with that country. Its geo- 
graphy, science, races, history, local organisation, 
education, government, industries, commerce, 
communications art, archeology, architecture, re- 
ligion, language, and literature are all touched on. 
There are five appendices, a bibliography, and an 
index. The whole 637 pages are crammed with 
facts, and the author has spared no pains to be 
they suffer from the defect of many such illus- 
trations, that they are not always directly con- 
nected with the text. Finally, we take exception 
to the Gaudama on the binding. This is a sacred 
emblem to many millions of people, and is out of 
place on a handbook. 
THE SMOKE PROBLEM. 
HE first twelve years of the twentieth cen- 
tury will be memorable for many advances, 
but few-will bear more important fruit in the 
future both as regards our health and welfare 
than the strenuous attempts that have been made 
continuously during that period to arouse the 
public to a sense of the criminality of wasting the 
Typical scene in Central Siam. 
full and accurate. A great deal of hard and 
honest work must have gone to the making of 
this book. What it lacks are ideas. The facts 
are lifeless, and have no general coherence; per- 
haps this cannot be helped in a book of this nature. 
If Mr. Graham wants really to interest us, he 
should select one of these many subjects which 
he has touched and tell us all about it—the art, for 
instance. Could he not tell us the ideas that 
underlie the carving and silver work, their rela- 
tion to other national ideas, their comparison with 
those of kindred art, their limitation by material 
and method? That would make a fascinating 
book. 
The illustrations (one of which is here repro- 
duced by the courtesy of the publishers) are from 
photographs; they are excellent in their way, but 
NO. 2215, VOL. 89] 
From ‘* Siam : a Handbook of Practical, Commercial, and Political Information.” 
fuel supplies of the country by the methods em- 
ployed in the generation of heat and power from 
bituminous fuel, which have resulted in a pollution 
of the atmosphere that towards the end of the 
last century had become a national scandal. 
In view of the widespread interest which is 
being taken at the present time in smoke abate- 
ment, Prof. Julius B. Cohen and Mr. Arthur G. 
Ruston, of the University of Leeds, have collected 
the records of experiments and observations made 
by them during the past twenty years, and have 
embodied with them the results of other observers, 
thus making a most welcome addition to the 
literature of the subject. 
1 ““Smoke : a Study of Town Air.” 
Arthur G. Ruston. Pp. vi+88. (London: 
5s. net. 
By Prof. J. B. Cohen, F.R.S., and 
Edward Arnold, 1912.) Price 
