604 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLHI. No. 1113 



may be urged that, in America, he has not done 

 full justice to the work of the independent 

 telephone companies and their inventors. The 

 great bulk of the development in this country 

 is undoubtedly due to the Bell organization, its 

 pioneers, inventors, organizers, engineers and 

 constructors; yet a very appreciable residual 

 share is due to the competing independent 

 companies. It must be remembered, however, 

 that the author has not had the same oppor- 

 tunity to become acquainted with ultra-Bell 

 sources in America, that he has in Great 

 Britain, but there he has given credit with an 

 impartial pen. 



The chapter on the telephone and govern- 

 ments should be studied by those who, as out- 

 siders in telephony, seek to form a just esti- 

 mate of the relative advantages of govern- 

 mental versus private-corporation administra- 

 tion. The author knows whereof he speaks, 

 for he has been in intimate touch with tele- 

 phony in England, both under company opera- 

 tion, and under government operation. He 

 also writes in a fair and open-minded vein. 

 The conclusion which is apparently unavoid- 

 able is that governments are not able to oper- 

 ate a country's telephone system so efficiently, 

 economically or progressively as a private cor- 

 poration under government control. For this 

 conclusion, there is certainly abundant evi- 

 dence. In Europe, where the governments al- 

 most invariably operate the systems, the only 

 country in which it appears that the tele- 

 phones are in private hands, is Denmark. 

 Denmark is accorded 4.5 telephones per hun- 

 dred of population ; whereas the highest use in 

 any government-operated country is 2.1 (for 

 the German Empire). In the United States, 

 the number given is 9.7 per hundred, or more 

 than double Denmark's. 



The book is almost the only history of its 

 kind, and is a welcome addition to the litera- 

 ture of telephonic growth and development. 

 A. E. Kennelly 



An Introduction to the Principles of Physical 

 Chemistry. By Edward W. Washburn. 

 l^ew York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 

 1915. Pp. XXV + 445. 



This volume constitutes a marked departure 

 from the conventional method of treatment 

 which most authors have followed under the 

 influence of the early spirit of physical chem- 

 istry which found concrete expression in Ost- 

 wald's " Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Cheraie." 

 Many years have elapsed since this epoch- 

 making work appeared and many important 

 contributions have been made to our knowl- 

 edge of the subject in the meantime. The 

 controversies, however, which arose in the 

 early development of physical chemistry, have 

 been so prolonged that most writers have con- 

 fined themselves to the outline of the subject 

 as established by precedent and have found 

 little opportunity to lay before the student the 

 more recent developments in this field. In 

 this respect the present volume is a welcome 

 addition to the literature. The treatment of 

 the subject is distinctly along original lines. 



The book is well written, and the subject- 

 matter is presented in a manner which retains 

 the interest of the reader. A large number of 

 very excellent figures are given, many of them 

 being original. The numerous problems ap- 

 pearing throughout the text are well selected. 

 The biographical references will prove of in- 

 terest to the student. A later edition should 

 give reference, however, to Mayer, Joule and 

 Helmholtz, in connection with the first law of 

 thermodynamics. The reference to J. Willard 

 Gibbs as " one of America's greatest chem- 

 ists," fails to recognize the importance of 

 Gibbs's work along other lines than those of 

 chemistry. References to the literature are 

 numerous and add greatly to the value of the 

 text. Cross references are frequent, but refer- 

 ences to page and section would be more con- 

 venient than references to chapter and section. 

 Misprints and other minor defects are much 

 less common than is usual in first editions. 



The division of the subject-matter is excel- 

 lent, on the whole, but it is to be noted that 

 the greater portion of electrochemistry is 

 omitted. Gaseous equilibria, in fact, equilibria 

 in general, with the exception of electrolytic 

 equilibria, are treated very briefly. The 

 ISTernst heat theorem is not mentioned, al- 



