118 
highest possible order at the present time is 
thus seen to be a patriotic service, which 
should be considered very seriously by those 
who are in position to render it. The uncer- 
tainty as regards prompt publication only 
adds to the credit due to those who are un- 
dertaking such service at the present time as 
far as opportunities connected with direct 
work for winning the war are not jeopardized 
thereby. It is perhaps reasonable to expect 
that scientific publications in the English lan- 
guage will find a wider market after the war 
than before, and that the public will then 
have acquired a higher appreciation of the 
nation’s need of science. 
It is perhaps especially important to em- 
phasize the need of a vigorous development of 
pure science at this time in order that the 
applied sciences whose active development is 
being encouraged by immediate needs may not 
suffer later on account of a lack of theoretic 
impulses. The fact that applications do not 
always appear along expected lines was re- 
cently emphasized by H. Lebesgue in a review 
published in the Bulletin des Sciences Mathé- 
matiques, April, 1918, where he refers (page 
94) to the fact that from the time elliptic 
functions were first discovered about a cen- 
tury and a half ago, mathematicians decided 
that they should have practical uses. Up to 
the present time the only applications of el- 
liptie functions are the applications of mathe- 
maticians, who still await the first confirma- 
tion of their @ priori idea as regards their 
practical usefulness. 
G. A. Minter 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
Patenting and Promoting Inventions. By 
Mois H. Avram, M.E., New York. Robert 
M. McBride & Co. 1918. Pp. 166. $1.25, 
postage extra. 
_By reason of the comprehensiveness, balance 
and candor of its brief discussions, this little 
volume seems to deserve clear differentiation 
from the familiar and misleading booklets 
designed merely to promote the soliciting bus- 
iness of firms advertised thereby. Beginning 
SCIENCE 
[N. 8. Vou. XLVIII. No, 1231 
with its preliminary chapter (a general survey) 
entitled Why Inventors Fail, and throughout 
the seven successive chapters covering in out- 
line the evolution of the patent system, the 
United States patent practise, the patenting 
of inventions abroad, patent attorneys, and 
expert investigations extending even into the 
very practical collateral questions of manu- 
facture, markets and financing, there is how- 
ever maintained a natural emphasis upon the 
need, shared by the inventor and the investor, 
for advice and assistance on the part of those 
technically qualified. In proportion as this 
need seems both real and permanent, in the 
complex industrial organization from which 
there seems no possibility of a return, such 
emphasis seems timely. 
In his references to those who have to do 
with the work and administration of the 
Patent Office the author is not ungenerous. 
The uncertainties at present inherent in the 
development of inventions are neither exag- 
gerated nor concealed. But not every reader 
may be able to share the author’s apparent 
conviction that a timely resort to expert 
private advice would notwithstanding save the 
day for the inventor or the investor. Disre- 
garding the fact that there are, of course, ex- 
perts and “ experts,” it may be suggested, by 
way of supplement, that so long as there shall 
continue at the Patent Office a rapid flux in 
its inadequate and disheartened force, appar- 
ent defects in its organization and in its in- 
formative resources and an atmosphere of 
legal technicality, without due time or in- 
centive for a broad consideration of scientific, 
economie or equitable considerations, there 
ean be little hope for such service and se- 
curity as the patent system was designed to 
afford. To the reviewer, it is accordingly a 
matter of gratification to find that the need 
for collective effort, involving some legislative 
action, is appreciated, even though it is not 
stressed in the work under review. 
Although perhaps hardly pretending to the 
solidity of a work of reference, this volume 
seems sufficiently comprehensive and exact to 
justify the inclusion, in any subsequent 
edition, of such an index as would facilitate 
