OCTOBEB 9, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



489 



months' salary of the year for which they were 

 appointed. What legal justification there was 

 for this refusal we do not know; the question 

 is now before the courts of the state in a suit 

 by the professors for the withheld salary. 

 Legal or illegal, it certainly was not just. We 

 shall require a great deal of evidence to con- 

 vince us that the people of Oklahoma wish 

 their faithful and efficient teachers treated in 

 this fashion. For there is no pretense that 

 they were not faithful and efficient. It is too 

 late now to interpose charges, even if one 

 wished to do so. Nor is it pretended that their 

 successors are abler scholars or likely to be 

 more efficient teachers. The value of a degree 

 in America depends on the college or univer- 

 sity which grants it. The men removed rep- 

 resent degrees from Harvard, Colmnbia, Johns 

 Hopkins, Michigan and Chicago Universities. 

 The men appointed in their place represent 

 degrees from Harvard and Texas Universities 

 and Coronal Institute. 



No reason for the discharge of this one 

 third or one fifth of the faculty is even hinted 

 at by the president of the board of regents. 

 The fact that two out of the seven members 

 of the board present when thi.3 dismissal was 

 voted were Republicans does not indicate that 

 the object of the removal was not political. 

 We do not know how those two voted; Mr. 

 Cruce tells us that one of the two members 

 voted against the dismissal. The fact that 

 the Republican members voted for Mr. Evans 

 after Dr. Boyd was removed uoes not indicate 

 that Dr. Boyd's removal was not political. 

 Dr. Boyd having been removed, Mr. Evans 

 may have been, for aught we know, the best 

 candidate, or the only candidate, in sight. 

 The one essential fact that appears in this 

 whole miserable business is that the president 

 and a large proportion of the faculty have 

 been summarily removed from office, and that 

 there is no pretense that any question of their 

 scholarly attainments or their competence to 

 teach was involved in the removal. To the 

 charge that the reasons for the removal were 

 political, ecclesiastical and personal favor- 

 itism, only one answer is possible. That 

 answer is a clear statement of some other 

 reason; and no other reason is even suggested. 

 -—The Outlook. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Introduction to Metallography. By Paul 

 GoERENS, Docent in Physical Metallurgy at 

 the Royal Technical High School, Aachen. 

 Translated by Feed Ibbotson, Lecturer in 

 Metallurgy, The University, Sheffield. Lon- 

 don, Longmans, Green and Co. 1908. Pp. 

 X + 214. 



The applications of physical chemistry to 

 the solution of industrial problems have been 

 many, but it is doubtful whether any field has 

 yielded such important results as in the study 

 of metallic alloys. Empirically established 

 facts have been placed upon a distinctly scien- 

 tific basis and fortuitous experimentation has 

 been replaced to a very great extent by ac- 

 curate prediction. Perhaps in no other field 

 of chemistry or physics has there been such 

 an accumulation of unsystematized observa- 

 tions. This information is now being care- 

 fully classified by the results of metallographic 

 study. The methods used are thermal and 

 microscopic — the study of freezing-point 

 curves and the microscopic examination of 

 alloys of varying concentration. The author 

 of this treatise has rendered a distinct service 

 to those interested in the study of the proper- 

 ties of metals. The information has been 

 widely distributed and unavailable to many, 

 and it is now brought together in compact 

 form. The book is simply and clearly written 

 and is an excellent guide to the study of 

 metallography. The exposition of the theo- 

 retical side of the subject is not as complete 

 as it might have been but it will give the be- 

 ginner an excellent idea of equilibrium phe- 

 nomena. The explanations of the freezing- 

 point diagrams have been duplicated unneces- 

 sarily, perhaps not for the beginner, but cer- 

 tainly for those using the book for reference. 

 For the latter class of readers there is too 

 much detail. 



The volume treats of the methods employed 

 in the establishments of cooling curves, the 

 interpretations of these curves with chapters 

 on the analogies between aqueous solutions, 

 fused salts and alloys; the practical micro- 

 scopy and photography of metallic sections; 

 and a special chapter on the iron-carbon sys- 

 tem. In the translation this chapter has been 

 completely rewritten. 



