August 23, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



241 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Triumphs and Wonders of Modem Chemistry. 

 A Popular Treatise on Modern Chemis- 

 try and its Marvels, written in Non-Tecli- 

 nical Language for General Readers and 

 Students. By Geoffrey Martin, B.Sc. 

 (Lond.), M.Sc. (Bristol), Ph.D. (Rostock). 

 New York, D. Van Nostrand Company. 

 1911. $2.00 net. 



Popular treatises on science are generally 

 regarded with disfavor by scientific men. 

 This is not unnatural; for the most part those 

 who are competent do not write and those who 

 write are not competent. The scientific au- 

 thority seems loath to demean himself by writ- 

 ing for the unscientific public, and the pop- 

 ularization of science is left to the newspaper 

 reporter and the penny-a-liner. The reporter 

 is catering to a popular demand and we ridi- 

 cule or despise or ignore his futile but often 

 honest efforts at interpretation in a field 

 where he is clearly not at home. 



It is unquestionably the scientist himself 

 who is most largely to blame for this situation. 

 He will not write himself, he looks askance 

 at his fellow scientist if he ventures to write 

 for the public and possibly dubs him a quack. 

 We forget the marvelously fine work of Tyn- 

 dall and of Huxley in popularizing science. 

 After all, perhaps most men who are qualified 

 from a scientific standpoint are really unable 

 to put their knowledge into words which can 

 be imderstood and enjoyed by the mass of 

 mankind. 



Of all the sciences possibly chemistry has 

 suffered most from lack of popular inter- 

 preters. In Germany, Lassar-Cohn and 

 Blochmann have in recent years presented 

 chemical ideas successfully to the non-scien- 

 tific mind, but there is little of value in Eng- 

 lish which can be called popular chemistry. 



The book before us is a rather ambitious 

 attempt to present the field of atomic and 

 sub-atomic chemistry, as well as much of the 

 chemistry of the non-metals, " in non-technical 

 language for general readers and students." 

 That the attempt is ambitious is apparent 

 from the titles of the fifteen chapters, viz.: 



The Mystery of Matter; The Underworld of 

 Atoms; Distribution and Evolution of the 

 Elements; The Wonders of Chemical Change; 

 Water; The Element Hydrogen; The Air; 

 Oxygen, the Life-supporting Element; Nitro- 

 gen; Carbon — a chapter which concludes with 

 The Wonders of Atomic Structure of Carbon 

 Compounds; Carbon Dioxide; Silicon and its 

 Compounds; Sulphur and its Compounds; 

 The Phosphorus Group of Elements; Fire, 

 Flame and Spectral Analysis. 



The first five chapters are thus occupied 

 with the most difiicult problems of theoretical 

 chemistry. How far they will be compre- 

 hended by non-scientific readers is a question. 

 It would be interesting to try them as col- 

 lateral reading for a class of beginners in 

 chemistry. If an hour's interesting reading 

 could be substituted for weary weeks of lec- 

 tures, recitations and laboratory, it would be 

 a great saving to both instructor and student. 



Truly, there is not a page that can be con- 

 sidered dull reading. It is well that " Won- 

 ders " is a part of the title, for there is hardly 

 a "wonder" in all the field treated, which is 

 not introduced in vivid, often perhaps lurid, 

 language. The style and scope of the book 

 are best shown by a few quotations, which 

 speak for themselves. 



In the chapter on Air, we read of the fu- 

 ture of this earth: 



Last of all, when the temperature falls below 

 — 210° C, the air will freeze to a solid layer of 

 an ice-like transparent mass about thirty-five feet 

 thick. No gaseous atmosphere wiU then exist upon 

 the earth. This will become an intensively cold 

 dark wilderness. Then, after untold ages of cease- 

 less movement and gigantic change, the surface of 

 our planet will at last rest in supreme repose, 

 motionless and utterly silent. For, in the absence 

 of a gaseous envelope, no moan of wind or roll of 

 thunder, no splash of rain, no roar of torrent, no 

 sound of voice of man or beast or bird, can pierce 

 the blackness of the night and breai its everlast- 

 ing calm. The surface of the world will be a 

 vacuum as perfect as that prevailing in Dewar's 

 vacuum- jacketed flasks. The stars wUl shine out 

 of a coal-black sky upon a lifeless world, set stiff 

 and hard in the rigid grip of death, circulating 



