January 24, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



141 



It too seldom occurs that men of high at- 

 tainments and experts in their professions, 

 possessed of both technical and scientific, prac- 

 tical and 'theoretical,' knowledge, are either 

 able or willing to give time and thought to 

 the production of works of this sort, and the 

 task of provision of much-needed text-books 

 and hand-books is too generally left either to 

 the man of science without expert knowledge 

 in the practical field or to the practitioner 

 lacking sound and extensive scientific culture 

 and training. This, which is a text-book for 

 those desiring to secure practical knowledge 

 of marine engineering with, at the same time, 

 accurate understanding of its scientific 

 foundations, is a model which it is to be hoped 

 will furnish stimulus to many other able men 

 in as many other departments. Its field is 

 well laid out, its scheme and details well 

 planned and handled and it is concise, simple, 

 clear and satisfactorily full. Dr. Durand is 

 an authority in his department, expert in its 

 practice and familiar with its scientific basis, 

 accustomed to combine science with practice, 

 an experienced engineer, a trained and suc- 

 cessful educator. The book is authoritative 

 and cyclopedic and in it practical marine 

 engineering is reduced to its simplest and 

 most exact terms. 



Its chapters discuss the materials of engi- 

 neering, including the fuels, their methods of 

 preparation and production, and their charac- 

 teristics and qualities; boilers and their con- 

 struction; marine engines, auxiliaries and 

 accessories, their operation, management and 

 repair. Special topics and problems illumi- 

 nate and render usefully applicable the prin- 

 ciples enunciated; and the second part of the 

 work is devoted particularly to 'Computa- 

 tions for Engineers,' carefully selected and 

 skilfidly solved problems. 



The introduction on board the modern 

 steamship of refrigerating and other special 

 machinery leads to the study, in appropriate 

 chapters, of the apparatus of electric light and 

 power distribution and of refrigeration, their 

 care and management. These chapters are 

 admirably concise and yet complete for their 

 purpose. 



The book is well made, the type excellent 



and the illustrations clear and freely supplied, 

 especially as illustrating the details of con- 

 struction of marine machinery. So far as can 

 be seen at a first review of its contents, the 

 book is thoroughly up to date and very accu- 

 rate, a credit alike to author, publisher and 

 printer. It has its origin, apparently, in the 

 public spirit and enterprise of the publishers 

 of the technical journal. Marine Engineering, 

 under whose imprint it appears. 



E. H. T. 



Studies in Physiological Chemistry. Edited 



by E. H. Chittenden, Ph.D. New York, 



Scribner's Sons. 1901. 



This volume of 424 pages, one of the Yale 

 Bicentennial publications, contains reprints of 

 the more important studies issued from the 

 laboratory of physiological chemistry of Shef- 

 field Scientific School of Yale University, 

 during the years 1897-1900. 



The twenty-six papers, representing the 

 work of Professor Chittenden and his pupils 

 during this time, are simply reprints from 

 the American Journal of Physiology, the 

 Journal of Experimental Medicine and 

 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chemie, Bd. XXIX., and 

 form a valuable sequel to the three volumes 

 of studies previously issued from this labora- 

 tory in 1886, 1887 and 1889. A complete bibli- 

 ography of the Shefiield Laboratory of Physio- 

 logical Chemistry from its commencement in 

 1875 until the end of the year 1900 is also 

 given. 



As these studies are more or less familiar 

 and as they have been reviewed in the original, 

 it is hardly necessary to enter into any de- 

 tailed criticism of them. In viewing the 

 work coming recently from this laboratory, 

 one is struck with the radical change in direc- 

 tion in the line of research from the earlier 

 investigations. It would be most interesting 

 to have researches from the Sheffield labor- 

 atory on the products of proteolysis, in view 

 of the recent researches of Kutscher, Sieg- 

 fried, Balke, Lawrow, Pick and others. This 

 line of work, so ably carried out by Kiihne 

 and Chittenden in 1883^, has undergone 

 such radical modifications in latter years that 

 the views and investigations of one of the 



