REVIEWS 
C. DoELTER, Handbuch der Mineralchemie Band I. (Dresden und 
Leipzig: Theodor Steinkopff. M. 45.) 
The need of a standard work of reference dealing more particularly 
with the advances made during the last twenty years in our knowledge of 
mineral statics has been in recent years a very pressing one. The works 
of Vogt, Tscherwinsky, Doelter, Van Hise, Harker, Elsden, and Clarke 
have each taken up certain aspects of the subjects, but exhaustive treat- 
ment was impossible within the limits imposed. The appearance of the 
first volume of Doelter’s Handbuch is, however, sufficient surety that 
such a work is now to be provided. But it is today no longer possible 
for one writer to cover the whole field of mineral chemistry, and it has 
been found desirable in the work under consideration to obtain the 
services of some 58 contributors, in order especially to insure that the 
four volumes shall appear within a reasonably short space of time, and 
consequently at one particular stage in the development of the subject. 
While the plan leads to a certain amount of overlapping—not in itself 
necessarily an evil—it has the great advantage that no part of the 
subject is left untouched, and that every aspect is handled by an author- 
ity in that particular field. And in this connection one cannot fail to 
remark on the fortunate position in which the editor was placed in that 
he could draw so fully on the resources of the Vienna school. 
In two aspects in particular the work represents a marked advance 
on the older treatises of Rammelsberg and Hintze. The technical 
application of minerals and mineral materials receives full treatment. 
Thus in the volume already issued articles appear on the industrial uses 
of magnesite, on cement, glass, glazes, and enamels. These subjects are 
discussed in their physicochemical and mineralogical bearing, and the two 
articles on cement and Zschimmer’s exhaustive paper on glass form 
valuable statements of the results of recent investigations on subjects 
which are intimately connected with the sciences of mineralogy and 
petrology. But the dominant line of progress at the present time is the 
elucidation, largely from the experimental standpoint, of the genesis and 
stability conditions of minerals that play an important role as rock- 
formers, no matter whether they form from silicate fusion or from 
aqueous solution. The name of the editor has long been associated with 
465 
