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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. lOGl 



dition of the deaf." He states that "50 per 

 cent, of the deaf over 20 years of age are re- 

 ported in gainful occupations, the percentage 

 for the general population being 50.2 per cent. 

 In the five great occupations, agriculture, 

 manufacture, service, trade and professions 

 the proportions are about the same for the 

 deaf and the general population. Their ovra 

 achievements have thrown out of court the 

 charge that they are a burden upon society." 



John D. Wright 

 The Wright Oral School, 

 New Yoke Citt 



Natural Sines to Every Second of Arc, and 

 Eight Places of Decimals. By Emma Gif- 

 rOHD. Published by Mrs. Gifford, Oaklands, 

 Chard, Somerset, 1914. Pp. vi + 543. 

 Price £1. 



It is evident to any one who takes the trouble 

 to consider the matter that this is an era of 

 efficiency in the computations of the laboratory 

 and observatory as well as in the work of the 

 great industrial plants of the world. The 

 astronomer, the physicist, and he whom Sir 

 George Greenhill often delights to refer to as 

 the " mere mathematician " are all conscious 

 that the time is past when the individual inves- 

 tigator should compute if he can get some 

 instrument, human or mechanical, to do this 

 work for him. And so we have in our day a 

 remarkable surging forward of the flood of 

 computing devices — slide rules of many types, 

 listing machines, comptometers, cash registers 

 which mechanically add, and all sorts of other 

 devices which do for the computer what he one 

 time was forced to do for himself at great 

 expenditure of energy. And we also have, but 

 in less marked degree, a number of new tables, 

 ingenious little ones like those of Professor 

 Huntington, and ponderous newly-computed 

 ones like those on which M. Andoyer is still 

 engaged. All these aids to computation are 

 healthy signs that the scholar joins the " sharp- 

 lined man of traffic " in seeking the greatest 

 efficiency in his exhausting labors. 



Of the recent tables for saving the time of 

 the computer no one is more noteworthy than 

 the one of natural sines which has been com- 

 puted and recently published by Mrs. Gifford. 



Georg Joachim computed such a table to ten 

 figures and to every ten seconds, and this was 

 published in 1596, after his death. This table 

 was again printed in 1897, but was carried to 

 only seven figures. Mrs. Gifford, however, has 

 prepared a table extending one figure further 

 than this, namely, to eight places, and has 

 carried it to every second instead of every ten 

 seconds. It is therefore apparent that here is 

 by far the most complete table of natural sines 

 that has ever been attempted. And not only is 

 it the most complete but it is a model of con- 

 venience, so that the computer who has occa- 

 sion to use a table of this kind will have good 

 reason to thank Mrs. Gifford for her great care 

 and patience. 



It is hardly possible that such a table cafl. 

 be free from errors, particularly in cases where 

 the last figure is near 5. Aside from this, 

 however, a rather extensive use of the work by 

 one computer for some months has revealed 

 only a single error, namely, in sin 56' 40". 

 Mrs. Gifford is correcting the tables in this 

 and other minor respects, however, before 

 issuing them. 



The tables should have place in every college 

 library and in every physical laboratory, ob- 

 servatory and mathematical workshop. 



David Eugene Smith 



Principles of Physics. By Willis E. Tower, 



Charles H. Smith and Charles M. Turton. 



P. Blakiston's Son & Company. 1914. 



The teaching of high-school physics pre- 

 sents difficult problems. For each teacher 

 there is undoubtedly a "best" text, and it is 

 highly desirable that every teacher have a 

 number of good texts from which to make the 

 selection that seems, in practise, to be the best 

 suited to himself. Eor this reason the text of 

 Tower, Smith and Turton should be welcome. 

 It does not claim to possess striking peculiar- 

 ities, but rather to incorporate the best ideas 

 found through extended experience of the 

 authors. 



The authors have attempted to adopt what 

 they consider to be the conclusions reached by 

 the " new movement in the teaching of phys- 

 ics." An introductory chapter is followed by 

 one which is given to the explanation of a 



