October 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



639 



complaint that the author "keeps on assum- 

 ing that all of Euclid's theorems are as famil- 

 iar and available as his first axioms, which is 

 far from true." The occasional brief notes of 

 the translators are helpful in the full under- 

 standing of the text. 



The Dialogues were published in 1638, when 

 Galileo's life was nearly at an end, but it is 

 shown by Professor Favaro in the scholarly 

 introduction which he contributes to this edi- 

 tion, that most of the discoveries described in 

 them were made many years before, while 

 Galileo was at Padua. 



The book is printed in a manner worthy of 

 its contents. The diagrams and illustrations 

 are reproductions of the originals. In pub- 

 lishing this translation the authors have done 

 a service to all English-speaking students of 

 the history of physics. 



W. F. Magie 



Chemistry and lis Borderland. By Alfred 

 W. Stewart, D.Sc, lecturer on organic 

 chemistry in the Queen's University of 

 BeKast, etc. With 11 illustrations and 2 

 plates. Longmans, Green and Co. 1914. 

 Pp. xii + 314. Price $1.50 net. 

 The scope of this book is best shown by 

 giving the titles of the fifteen essays of which 

 it consists. They are: The Ramification of 

 Chemistry, The Allies of Chemistry among 

 the Sciences, The Relations between Chemis- 

 try and Industry, Immuno-chemistry and some 

 Kindred Problems, Colloids and the TTltra- 

 microscope. The Work of the Spectroscope, 

 Chemistry in Space, The Inert Gases and their 

 Place among the Elements, Radium, Niton, 

 Transmutation, The Nature of the Elements, 

 Chemical Problems of the Present and Future, 

 The Methods of Chemical Research, and The 

 Organization of Chemical Research. 



The first three of these essays, as well as 

 the last three, appeal most interestingly to the 

 general non-technical reader. The others, 

 which deal with special developments of chem- 

 istry, would hardly be intelligently read by 

 those who have no chemical training, but 

 they do serve well to give the chemist a com- 

 prehension of the work that is going on in 



other branches of his specialty. These par- 

 ticular chapters are, however, somewhat lack- 

 ing in clarity, especially that on immuno- 

 chemistry. It is difficult to describe advanced 

 work in any chemical field in easily compre- 

 hensible language, and a failure to put the 

 theories of Ehrlich and Metchnikoff success- 

 fully into popular language is not to be won- 

 dered at. Perhaps it is hardly worth while to 

 try. 



The essay on Chemical Problems of the 

 Present and Future presents an interesting 

 discussion of the part to be played by chemis- 

 try in energy and food supply. As possible 

 developments along the line of sources of 

 energy are suggested more efficient storage 

 batteries and primary batteries, improved 

 methods of utilizing solar radiations, artificial 

 coal, the use of explosives in gas engines, and 

 the use of radium. In discussing food supply 

 the question of fertilizers is dwelt upon, with 

 comments on the annual loss of $80,000,000 in 

 the nitrogen of sewage carried into the sea. 

 The future use of the seaweeds of the Sargasso 

 Sea is mentioned and a good description is 

 given of the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen 

 in the electric furnace. A second division of 

 the food problem is the discovery of new sup- 

 plies. These may be materials which have 

 hitherto, as foods, gone to waste, as oleomar- 

 garine, or they may be synthetic foods. At 

 present the latter are too expensive to be 

 thought of, but processes for their manufac- 

 ture on a large scale may some time be dis- 

 covered. This leads the author to a brief dis- 

 cussion of the possible synthetic production of 

 living tissue. 



"We have the means of building up more and 

 more complex protein derivatives, and, sooner or 

 later, we shall probably synthesize substances 

 quite as complex as the natural protoplasmic 

 materials; when this point is reached, unless our 

 knowledge of "vital" reactions has considerably 

 advanced, we shall at best be in the position of a 

 watchmaker who has constructed a watch but has 

 forgotten to make any contrivance for winding 

 it up. At this point, chance might enter into the 

 problem, and the protoplasmic machine we have 

 designed might spontaneously set itself in mo- 

 tion, but more than this we are not entitled to 



