206 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1128 



fundamental facts needed to enable the stu- 

 dent to get a properly proportioned picture of 

 an important individual industry. Too much 

 detail can not be indulged in or the book soon 

 becomes encyclopedic and the relationship and 

 interdependence of related industries is lost 

 sight of. German text-books on chemical tech- 

 nology, like Wagner's well-known work, be- 

 come ultimately too bulky to be available as 

 text-books, and of quite a number published in 

 that language there is at present only one that 

 may be called sufficiently inclusive and yet re- 

 mains compacted into one volume of modern 

 size, viz., Ost's " Chemische Technologie," 

 which has in consequence run quite rapidly 

 through many editions. 



Professor Thorp planned at first to omit 

 metallurgy because it was generally treated 

 separately in special text-books, but he has 

 reconsidered this, and Part III. of the present 

 edition is devoted to metallurgy. He has 

 sought to economize space by leaving the 

 chemistry of coal-tar colors out of special con- 

 sideration, although a classification of them ac- 

 cording to the conditions of their application 

 in dyeing processes has been found necessary. 

 With the awakening interest in the establish- 

 ment of an American dye-color industry, it 

 will probably be found desirable to take up the 

 chemistry of coal-tar intermediates and ulti- 

 mate color products for all advanced chemical 

 students. When congressmen and the daily 

 newspapers begin to discuss the merits of our 

 new dye-color tariff, the graduates of our tech- 

 nical schools must be ready to talk intelligently 

 on the subject. 



The new edition of Professor Thorp's book 

 covers, however, a great range of important 

 subjects and covers them well, presenting the 

 outlines of processes clearly and making the 

 subject interesting to the reader or student. 



As an illustration we would note the article 

 on Glass Manufacture on pp. 196 et seq. The 

 presentation shows the clearness of view ac- 

 quired by the teacher who has learned clarity 

 of expression by the experience of the class- 

 room. The same may be said of the section on 

 Pigments, p. 222, which is excellent in form 

 and substance. If we may be allowed to criti- 



cize the treatment of some of the sections, we 

 would say that the asphalt section is hardly 

 adequate in its handling of either the chemis- 

 try or the technology of this important sub- 

 ject, and the present view of asphalt as poly- 

 merized petroleums rather than oxidation prod- 

 ucts is not mentioned. 



Similarly under the Match Industry we find 

 no mention of the use of P 4 S 3 , phosphorus ses- 

 quisulphide, in the manufacture of the " strike- 

 anywhere " matches which have come in with 

 the legislation against the use of white phos- 

 phorus for match compositions. 



The modern theories with regard to colloids 

 are noted and in several sections, the phraseol- 

 ogy of modern colloid chemistry has been 

 applied to explain fundamental phenomena. 

 We can not be sure that the understanding of 

 these processes has always been improved by 

 this unreserved application of colloid theories, 

 as, for example in the explanation of leather 

 manufacture on p. 573. 



The book, however, as before said, is gen- 

 erally up to date and clearly written, with a 

 uniformity of method of presentation which 

 makes it much better for a text-book than 

 works made up of contributed articles of vary- 

 ing degrees of value from a number of writers. 

 S. P. Sadtler 



Urgeschichte der hildenden Kunst in Europa 

 von den Anfangen bis um 500 vor Chr. 

 Von M. Hoernes. Zweite durchaus umge- 

 arbeitete und neu illustrierte Auflage mit 

 1330 Abbildungen im Text. Mit Unterstiit- 

 zung der Kais. Akademie der Wissen- 

 schaften in Wien. Wien 1915. Kunstverlag 

 Anton Schroll & Co., Ges. M. B. H. Pp. 

 xiv -f- 661. 



The period elapsing since 1898, when the 

 first edition of this important work appeared, 

 has been one of marked progress in our knowl- 

 edge of prehistoric art. The author, being able 

 to take full advantage of the opportunity, has 

 made of the new edition practically a new 

 work. 



The first part deals with primitive art in 

 general. Geometric art is found to be neither 

 older or younger than realistic art. One can 

 say however that it is the more co m mon, the 



