A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye." — Wordsworth. 



THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1909. 



ASPECTS OF MODERN SCIENCE. 



Science m Modern Life. By several authors. Edited 



by Prof. J. R. Ainsvvorth Davis. Vol. i. Pp. xvi + 



iSS. Vol. ii. Pp. viii+187. (London: Gresham 



Publishing Co., 1908.) Price, each volume, 6s. net. 



IT is intended in this work, which will be completed 

 in si.x super-royal octavo volumes, to survey the 

 whole ground of science in its modern developments and 

 aspects, and to present the results in language capable 

 of being comprehended by lay readers. " Briefly," 

 the prospectus states, " its aim is to give a connected 

 account of present-day science, with special reference 

 to its influence on modern life." .\ number of illus- 

 trations in the text, and many full-page plates — some 

 in black-and-white, and others in colour — add to the 

 interest and attractiveness of the work. 



In the first volume, Mr. A. C. D. Crommelin 

 deals with astronomy, and Mr. O. T. Jones with 

 geology. In some respects the treatment of both 

 subjects is reminiscent of text-book style. There can, 

 indeed, be little difference between a good text-book 

 and a work of this character : the fault of both, from 

 the point of view of the average reader, is that of 

 attempting too much. The student desires conciseness 

 and comprehensiveness in his science manuals, but 

 for the general reader these qualities should be sub- 

 servient to that of lofty and stimulating thought. 

 Unless this is borne in mind, a work upon any branch 

 of science must become chiefly a catalogue of facts 

 and theories no more interesting than a Hebrew 

 genealogy. 



The opening volume cannot claim a high place 

 as an apostolic statement of the scientific spirit, or as 

 a work distinguished by scope or style from a multi- 

 tude of others. It is, however, an accurate and orderly 

 record of the chief results of scientific inquiry -in the 

 domains of astronomy and geology; and as such it 

 should achieve success. Mr. Crommelin devotes more 

 attention to modern problems of astronomy than is 

 usually the case, and has managed to compress a 

 large amount of information in the seventy-one pages 

 .NO. 2053, VOL. 80] 



taken up by his section of the volume. Readers ac- 

 quainted with the principles of physics will follow 

 with interest the work described, but without this 

 knowledge some parts will be unintelligible. For 

 instance, about a dozen lines are devoted to the 

 spectroscope and spectroheliograph ; and it is obvious 

 that unless the reader knows something more about 

 these instruments, clear ideas as to the meaning of 

 the results obtained by them can scarcely be antici- 

 pated. Mr. Jones begins with denudation and deposi- 

 tion, and passes to earth movements and igneous and 

 raetamorphic rocks, and cycle of denudation ; he then 

 indicates how the geographies of past ages can be 

 reconstructed, and describes the changes and charac- 

 teristics of the various periods. A good series of full- 

 page maps, and a coloured geological map of the 

 British Isles, are valuable aids to the study of the 

 text. 



The second volume contains the conclusion of 

 Mr. Jones's treatment of geology, a contribution 

 on chemistry by Mr. J. P. Millington, and one on 

 physics is commenced by Mr. J. H. Shaxby. As 

 Mr. Millington has essayed to present the most 

 prominent points of organic, inorganic, and industrial 

 chemistry in about 40,000 words, his task has been a 

 difficult one, but his performance of it is verj' credit- 

 able. Whether the significance of some of the 

 statements made — particularly in the treatment of 

 organic chemistry — will be understood without a 

 preliminary study of the subject must be left to indi- 

 vidual experience to decide. The noteworthy 

 characteristic of Mr. Shaxby's chapters on measure- 

 ment, motion, properties of matter and heat, and, 

 indeed, of the greater part of the work, is the atten- 

 tion given to modern research and thought. 



In a work by several authors, equality of treatment 

 and the ability to distinguish between the essential 

 and unessential can rarely be secured from all con^ 

 tributors ; and no greater success in this direction 

 can reasonably be hoped for than that realised in 

 the present volumes. At the same time, we may 

 remark that the three sections so far completed differ 

 from each other in scope and style; one suggests 

 the text-book, another is too systematic to be of, 



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