December 17, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



887 



Cover and headings lead oue to expect an 

 unbalanced sensational book; this is not the 

 case. The author seems to feel that to make 

 his book interesting to the general reader he 

 must occasionally try to be flippant and 

 sprightly by using slangy colloquialisms. He 

 may be assured that this is not necessary; he 

 has an interesting story to tell and he tells it 

 in a vivid, interesting way. The book is so 

 good that it is a pity it should be marred by 

 these blemishes, and if the author would cut 

 them out in his next edition his book and its 

 readers would be gainers. 



The title-page describes the plan of the book ; 

 it suggests Lassar-Cohn's famous " Chemistry 

 in Daily Life," which is written on similar 

 lines, but each contains much that the other 

 does not. It is well illustrated and should be 

 welcome to libraries and to the general reader. 

 Edward Eexoup 



Exercises in Physical Chemistry. By W. A. 

 EoTH, a. o. Professor of Physical Chemistry 

 in Greifswald; translated by A. T. Cam- 

 eron. New York, D. Van Nostrand Co. 

 $2.00. 



This book, embodying, as the author states, 

 the practical course used in Professor Nernst's 

 laboratories, needs no words of praise. Well- 

 chosen experiments are described with full de- 

 tails and due emphasis is laid on consideration 

 of sources of error, methods of calculation, 

 theory of phenomena involved and all that a 

 beginner needs to be told in order to gain the 

 real educational value of the work. 

 A Text-hook of Physical Chemistry; Theory 

 and Practise. By Arthur W. Ewell, As- 

 sistant Professor of Physics, Worcester 

 Polytechnic Institute. Philadelphia, P. 

 Blakiston's Son & Co. $2.25. 

 If this book has a fault, it suffers from 

 " the last infirmity of noble minds," extrava- 

 gant ambition. Within the scope of 360 pages 

 the author attempts to give " a laboratory 

 manual, a text-book" and a " convenient book 

 of reference." Considering the nature of his 

 task, the author's success is remarkable, though 

 it suggests strongly the breathless haste of the 

 inexperienced tourist trying to " do " all 

 Europe in three months. As a laboratory 



manual the directions are hardly full enough; 

 a text-book, in the sense of a book from which 

 the average student could, if necessary, edu- 

 cate himself, it certainly is not; as a work of 

 reference it should prove useful to general 

 students who can not afford to buy larger 

 works. But rather than any of these it re- 

 sembles those sheets of " lecture notes " which 

 many teachers give their students for pur- 

 poses of review and as such it is unusually ex- 

 cellent. Statements of fact are almost uni- 

 formly correct and theoretical demonstrations, 

 though concise, are adequate, and do not, as 

 in so many similar works, shirk the use of 

 elementary calculus. The author evidently 

 has a thorough grasp of his subject, and, as 

 is shown by a judicious selection of references, 

 a first-hand acquaintance with the literature. 

 But some experience of college and university 

 students causes the reviewer to wonder whether 

 one man in a score could assimilate without 

 mental indigestion, all the contents of this 

 book in less than three or four years of under- 

 graduate study. Expanded to three times the 

 size and properly peptonized it would makd 

 one of the best text-books in the English lan- 

 guage for post-graduate students specializing 

 in physical chemistry. B. B. Turner 



The History of the Teaching of Elementary 

 Geometry, with Reference to Present-day 

 Prohlems. Submitted in partial fulfilment 

 of the requirements for the degree of doctor 

 of philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, 

 Columbia University. By Alv.\ Walker 

 Stamper. Pp. x + 163. (Preface dated 

 1906.) 



Comparatively few scholars in the United 

 States are selecting the history of their 

 chosen science as a subject of research. For 

 that reason it is an unusual pleasure to wel- 

 come the author of this monograph into the 

 ranks of historians of science. Much has 

 been published on the history of geometry, but 

 the book under review is the first devoted to 

 the liistory of the teaching of elementary 

 geometry. Naturally, one could not trace the 

 history of the teaching of geometry without 

 making frequent references to the history of 



