June 10, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



907 



given, and dates of birth and death, where 

 known. The importance of the latter is evi- 

 dent, as a clue to the dates of publication, for 

 it has been the custom among most map pub- 

 lishers to omit the date. For obviously, since 

 people as a rule are not very particular about 

 maps, and know very little about them, it has 

 always been a temptation to the publisher to 

 make an old plate do in a new publication. 



As no other library " has published a com- 

 plete description of its atlas material it is im- 

 possible to state authoritatively how the col- 

 lection in the Library of Congress compares 

 in size and importance with others." But 

 these two volumes certainly attest to long 

 and assiduous collecting. To start at the be- 

 ginning, of the forty known editions of 

 Ptolemy, all but three are in this collection. 

 In cartographic material relating to America 

 the collection is especially rich and complete. 

 To all students in geography and history, 

 these volumes will come as a welcome instru- 

 ment of research. It will be of the highest 

 value to be able to turn to the index for a 

 place name, and to find there listed every 

 atlas in the collection pertaining to the re- 

 gion, and in the more important publications 

 to find even the description of every map in 

 the atlas of the region. It will save endless 

 search and will settle in a minute at your own 

 desk, whether or not you have all the available 

 material bearing on your particular quest. 



Yet a hasty scanning of the collection 

 seems to show a shortage of the most recent 

 published material. And it raises the ques- 

 tion, whether or not the appropriations for 

 this division are generous enough to permit 

 the acquisition of such fine atlas material as 

 is available from the working presses of the 

 day in the various lands. These two volumes 

 at once will turn the attention of all the 

 country to this collection, and it will be 

 looked to whenever a map or atlas is desired. 

 It is likely to raise uncomfortable questions 

 when some of the best modern material from 

 various lands is not found listed. 



J. Paul Goode 



Univebsitt of Chicago, 

 May 23, 1910 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The April number (volume 11, number 2) 

 of the Transactions of the American Mathe- 

 matical Society contains the following papers : 

 Edward Kasner : " The theorem of Thomson 

 and Tait and natural families of trajectories." 



F. W. Owens : " The introduction of ideal 

 elements and a new definition of projective n 

 space." 



Arthur Eanum : " The groups of congruent 

 quadratic integers with respect to a composite 

 ideal modulus." 



G. D. Birkhoff : " A simplified treatment of 

 the regular singular point." 



L. M. Hoskins : " The strain of a gravita- 

 ting, compressible elastic sphere." 



The May number (volume 16, number 8) 

 of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical 

 Society contains: Report of the February 

 meeting of the Society, by F. N. Cole; Re- 

 port of the February meeting of the San 

 Francisco Section, by C. A. Noble; "An ap- 

 plication of the notions of general analysis 

 to a problem of the calculus of variations," 

 by Oskar Bolza ; " The infinitesimal contact 

 transformations of mechanics," by Edward 

 Kasner ; " On an integral equation with an 

 adjoined condition," by Anna J. Pell; "The 

 unification of vectorial notations " (review 

 of Burali-Forti and Marcolongo's Calcolo vet- 

 toriale and Omografie vettoriali), by E. B. 

 Wilson; Shorter notice of Meyer's Allge- 

 meine Formen- und Invariantentheorie, vol- 

 ume 1, Binare Formen, by Virgil Snyder; 

 "Notes"; "New Publications." 



The June number of the Bulletin con- 

 tains: Report of the April meeting of the so- 

 ciety, by F. N. Cole; Report of the April 

 meeting of the Chicago Section, by H. E. 

 Slaught ; " Groups generated by two opera- 

 tors each of which is transformed into a 

 power of itself by the square of the other," 

 by G. A. Miller ; " The solution of an integral 

 equation occurring in the theory of radia- 

 tion," by W. H. Jackson; Review of Grass- 

 mann's Projective Geometric der Ebene, by 

 L. W. Dowling; Review of Schlesinger's 

 Lineare Differentialgleichungen, by E. J. 

 Wilczynski ; " Shorter notices " : Bonola's 



