MARcH 29, 1901. ] 
the use of his own funds for the construction of a 
suitable government building for his benefit, in 
which fire-proof construction shall insure the 
safety of invaluable records and where ample 
space and every convenience shall insure 
prompt attention to his business—the senior 
senator from Virginia has recently admirably 
stated the case : 
“Other nations have surpassed us in litera- 
ture and the fine arts, but in inventive and 
useful arts the United States is far transcendent. 
The Patent Office, established by Thomas 
Jefferson and protecting for a brief period the 
only constitutional ‘monopoly, the right to the 
exclusive enjoyment of one’s original ideas, is 
the crown of American intellectual supremacy 
over the material world, even as the Constitu- 
tion of the United States is the crown of polit- 
ical architecture and the Union itself the 
crowning glory of our people. 
“ As Francis Bacon says, ‘ The sciences dwell 
sociably together,’ and we should put on Capi- 
tol Hill, facing the Senate Hall, asa companion 
piece to the exquisite Library building now 
facing the Hali of Representatives, another 
building of like architecture. And the Amer- 
ican capitol of letters should have by its side 
the American capitol of inventive art, both 
facing the Capitol of the people, where their 
sovereignty has its highest exemplification. In 
that hall should be displayed the evolutions of 
inventions, with every invention indicated by 
its model, inclusive of the last improvement. 
It would be the greatest college of applied 
science that the world has ever seen ; a monu- 
ment to and astimulus to invention, and lead- 
ing by gradations to those truths of science 
which hover over the threshold of the age, 
‘waiting to be caught.’”’ 
R. H. THURSTON. 
Photographic Optics. By Orro LuMMER, Pro- 
fessor, Assistant in the Reichsanstalt, Berlin ; 
translated by Professor 8. P. THompson, 
London, Macmillan & Co. 
A very complete and concise treatment of the 
theory of the modern photographic objective, 
with a full exposition of von Seidel’s theory of 
aberration. The subject as a whole is rather 
deep for the general reader, though portions of 
SCIENCE. 
505 
the book cannot but help interest any who de- 
sire to know more about the various modern 
objectives; though they may not be able to 
penetrate the mysteries of the five different 
kinds of spherical aberration, and two chro- 
matic aberrations which are taken into account 
in the computation of the complicated optical 
systems in use at the present time, they will 
find much of interest. A perusal of the book 
will at least give the photographer a respect for, 
and appreciation of his instrument far greater 
than can be had by the inspection of a few neg- 
atives and a glance at the optician’s bill. A 
photographer should at least know as much 
about his lenses as an engineer knows about his 
engine, and yet how few can tell why the stop 
is placed in front of the lens-system in some 
cases and between the lenses in others, and to 
how many is a Zeiss ‘ Planar’ anything more 
than a lot of pieces of glass stuck together and 
mounted in a brass tube. To the optician the 
book will be invaluable, it being practically the 
only work on the subject extant. R. W. 
Geometrical Optics. By R. A. HERMAN, Fel- 
low of Trinity College, Cambridge. -Pub- 
lished at Cambridge by the University Press. 
This book covers about the same ground as 
Heath’s well-known work, which it resembles 
in some respects. The author has adopted a 
geometrical method instead of the usual analyt- 
ical method in his treatment of refraction by 
coaxial surfaces and aberration, and makes use 
of the reduced path rather than the character- 
istic function in discussing Maxwell’s theorems. 
R. W. 
DR. GRAY’S FAMILIAR TALKS ON SCIENCE. 
A SERIES of little books, entitled ‘ Nature’s 
Miracles or Familiar Talks on Science’ (Fords, 
Howard and Hurlbut), has been published by 
Dr. Elisha Gray, and the third volume on 
‘Hlectricity and Magnetism’ appeared shortly 
before his death, which occurred in January 
of the present year. Dr. Gray was unques- 
tionably one of the prominent inventors who 
contributed his share to the very remark- 
able progress of electrical science and its 
application during the past thirty years. The 
claim often made for him that he was the in- 
ventor of the telephone is not justified by the 
