272 



NA TURE 



[August 26, 1922 



strong upper layers of rock into domed or arched 

 forms, relieving the pressure beneath, at least for a 

 time. This view differs widely from the one commonly 

 held, viz. that the underground chambers of lava 

 represent intrusions through the strata on which they 

 rest, and that the pressure of the lava has itself elevated 

 the roof of the chamber. The author ably supports 

 his thesis by many different lines of evidence. 



Textile Technology. 



Textiles. By Prof. A. F. Barker. With chapters on 

 The Mercerized and Artificial Fibres, and the Dyeing 

 of Textile Materials, by W. M. Gardner; Silk 

 Throwing and Spinning, by R. Snow ; The Cotton 

 Industry, by W. H. Cook ; The Linen Industry, by F. 

 Bradbury. (Westminster Series.) Revised edition. 

 Pp. xii + 386. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 

 1922.) 155. 



OF the great trinity of human life's essential needs 

 — food, shelter, and clothing — practically all the 

 articles of clothing, as well as a considerable number 

 of articles for improving the shelter, are derived from 

 textiles. The provision of these and other articles has 

 led to the development of the great textile industries. 

 These industries together form the only serious rival 

 to agriculture for chief place among the industries of 

 the United Kingdom, while they rank supreme in their 

 contribution to the country's exports, of which no less 

 than some 40 per cent, are textiles. 



It might be expected, therefore, that a large number 

 of people would be interested either as producers or 

 consumers in such a work as the present, which aims 

 at giving in brief compass an outline of the textile 

 industries in their historical, technical, industrial, and 

 commercial aspects. The book opens with an historical 

 introduction ; there follow descriptions of the raw 

 materials and their production, and of the principles 

 and processes of spinning, weaving, designing, and 

 finishing. Later chapters deal with the separate in- 

 dustries in turn, namely, the woollen, worsted, cotton, 

 silk, linen, dress goods, etc., and the carpet industries. 

 On the whole the purpose of the book is successfully 

 achieved. The author rightly emphasises the fact that 

 it is the article finally produced which determines the 

 raw material employed and the processes through which 

 this passes. It is for this reason that he deals first 

 with the general principles of spinning and then with 

 the various preparatory processes, which were de- 

 veloped later chronologically for the purpose of pre- 

 senting the raw material to the spinning machines in 

 a convenient form. The chapter on spinning, in which 

 are described the modern machines and their relation 

 to the old methods, is the best chapter in the book ; 

 NO. 2756, VOL. I 10] 



the account of the preparatory processes is somewhat 

 scanty, rather disjointed, and occasionally inaccurate. 

 Improvements might be made in certain other direc- 

 tions. Thus, the descriptions of machines sometimes 

 suffer from the absence of explanation of some of the 

 technical terms used ; while the replacement of a 

 number of the illustrative photographs by line draw- 

 ings would add considerably to the value of the book. 



It is to be regretted that there is no uniformity of 

 plan in dealing with the separate industries ; each special 

 contributor writes from his own particular point of 

 view, with the result that a recasting of their work 

 would be necessary to preserve the unity of the whole. 

 None of these special chapters compares favourably 

 with Prof. Barker's own contributions in general treat- 

 ment and the selection of material ; and in too many 

 instances the statistics and other information, having 

 remained unchanged from the 1910 edition, are now so 

 out-of-date as to be misleading. 



In spite of its deficiencies, however, this work remains 

 probably the best in English affording a general intro- 

 duction to the study of textile technology, and as 

 such it is to be commended. 



Highway Engineering. 

 Les Chaussees modernes. Par Prof. P. Le Gavrian. 



(Encyclopedie du Genie Civil et des Travaux Publics.) 

 Pp. 431. (Paris : J.-B. Bailliere et Fils, 1922.) 

 40 francs. 



THE publication of this text-book marks another 

 step forward in the evolution of one of the most 

 recent developments of engineering and is therefore 

 to be welcomed. Road engineering in its modern 

 form may be said to be contemporaneous with the 

 motor car, the advent of which has again brought a 

 large portion of the national transport on to the roads 

 after an eclipse which lasted from the decline of the 

 stage coach, or even the Roman period, until the intro- 

 duction of the internal-combustion engine for road 

 vehicles. 



The problem of constructing roads to suit modern 

 traffic has probably been best met in Great Britain, 

 but the task fell to busy men, the engineers to the 

 local government authorities, who have had many 

 other pressing and difficult problems to deal with 

 during the same time. Consequently, the practice 

 which has been developed, although well described in 

 the periodical literature, has not been codified or 

 reduced to the form of text-books, although two small 

 publications by Mr. H. P. Boulnois and Mr. F. Wood 

 have to a certain extent met the want. 



France has, however, already established a Chair of 

 Highway Engineering, the first occupant of which is 



