OCTOBEE 18, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



517 



few horses, one day, 12,000; same place, one 

 and a haK days, 18,800 flies. 



The writer would be very glad to mail illus- 

 trated leaflet describing this trap to any one 

 desiring the same. 



F. L. Washburn 

 Minnesota Experiment Station, 

 St. Anthony Park, Minn., 

 August 19, 1912 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Technical Methods of Chemical Analysis. 

 Edited by George Lunge, Ph.D., Dr. Ing., 

 Emeritus Professor of Technical Chemis- 

 try, Federal Polytechnic School, Ziirich. 

 English Translation from the latest Ger- 

 man Edition, adapted to English conditions 

 of manufacture. Edited by Charles Alex- 

 ander Keane, D.Sc, Ph.D., Principal and 

 Head of the Chemistry Department, The 

 Sir John Cass Technical Institute, London. 

 Volume II., 2 parts, pp. xxvii + 1,252. 

 New York, D. Van Nostrand Company. 

 1911. Price $18.00 net. 

 The Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid and 

 Alkali with the Collateral Branches. A 

 Theoretical and Practical Treatise. By 

 George Lunge, Ph.D. Third Edition. Vol- 

 ume III., Ammonia-Soda, Various Proc- 

 esses of Alkali Making and the Chlorin In- 

 dustry, pp. xix -|- Y64:. New York, D. Van 

 Nostrand Company. 1911. Price $10.00 

 net. 



It is gratifying to know that such substan- 

 tial progress has been made on the English 

 translation of these two standard and almost 

 indispensable works, and that only one volume 

 of each remains to be published. It is indeed 

 unfortunate that English translations should 

 be needed, but the fact can not be ignored 

 that a large proportion of our technical men 

 do not read German, and that no work is 

 really accessible to them unless it is printed 

 in English. Even the younger generation, 

 who have been compelled in their technical 

 school training to use both German and 

 French, seem in a great hurry to drop their 

 knowledge of these languages as soon as they 

 get out at work. 



One general criticism may be passed on 

 both of these books. They have been pre- 

 pared and edited largely from an English 

 standpoint, and American practise has been 

 to far too great an extent ignored. There has 

 been great development in recent years, both 

 along the line of rapid methods of technical 

 analysis and also in standardizing analytical 

 methods, and along both these lines American 

 chemists have been by no means backward, 

 yet under Iron and Steel there are but 19 

 footnote references to American literature 

 against more than 100 to English and more 

 than 130 to German sources, and under Il- 

 luminating Gas and Ammonia but flve out of 

 140 references are to American publications 

 or apparatus. We also note that under Copper 

 no reference is made to the use of a platinum 

 gauze kathode in electrolytic deposition, nor 

 under Lead to Low's modiflcation of Alex- 

 ander's method in the presence of calcium. 

 It would have given a broader value to the 

 first book had it not been quite so exclusively 

 " adapted to English methods of manufac- 

 ture." 



Aside from this criticism the reviewer has 

 nothing but favorable comment for both these 

 books. In this second volume of Technical 

 Methods, the following subjects are treated: 

 Iron, by Dr. P. Aulich; Metals other than 

 Iron, and Metallic Salts, by Professor O. 

 Pufahl; Artificial Manures, by Professor 

 O. Bottcher; Feeding Stuffs, by Dr. F. Barn- 

 stein; Explosives, by Oscar Guttmann; 

 Matches and Fireworks, by Dr. A. Bujard; 

 Calcium Carbide and Acetylene, by Professor 

 Lunge himself and Dr. E. Berl; Illuminating 

 Gas and Ammonia, by Dr. O. Pfeiffer; Coal 

 Tar, by Dr. H. Kohler, and Organic Dyes, by 

 Professor R. Gnehm. These comprise the 

 subjects included in the second and third vol- 

 umes of the new German edition, together 

 with the section on Organic Dyes from the 

 fourth and last volume. Under each head are 

 given quite fully the standard methods of 

 analysis of all the products connected with 

 the industry, and at least an oiitline of other 

 methods which promise to be improvements. 

 In each case references are given to the orig- 



