July 11, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



56 



Laboratory Prohlems in Physics. By Jones 



and Tatnall. Macmillan Co. Pp. 81. 

 Physical Laboratory Guide. By Frederick C. 



Eeeves. American Book Co. Pp. 183. 

 A Course of Elementary Practical Physics. 

 By H. V. S. Shorter. Clarendon Press, 

 Oxford. Part I., Mensuration, Mechanics, 

 Hydrostatics. Pp. 110. Part II., Heat 

 and Light. Pp. 216. 



Jones and Tatnall's text contains outlines 

 of about seventy-five experiments in general 

 physics of secondary school grade. Some of 

 the experiments are qualitative, such as are 

 usually given in demonstrations in the class- 

 room. Their inclusion would tend to make a 

 laboratory course more interesting and less an 

 exercise in follovcing directions than most 

 laboratory courses in physics are apt to be. 

 The experiments are very briefly but clearly 

 outlined and are well proportioned among the 

 various parts of the subject. The text is 

 named " Laboratory Problems," rather than 

 " Laboratory Manual," probably on account of 

 the fact that emphasis is placed upon the ex- 

 perimental problem, the principle or fact in- 

 volved. In keeping with this idea, the outline 

 of an exercise after giving a few brief direc- 

 tions (in very short sentences) consists of a 

 series of questions tending to sharpen the 

 student's powers of observation and reasoning. 

 This is a most commendable feature of the 

 text. 



Mr. Eeeves, an electrical engineer who is 

 also a teacher of physics, has written a manual 

 which places larger emphasis upon some ex- 

 periments bearing upon engineering than do 

 most manuals in physics. One evidence of 

 this influence is seen in the fact that elec- 

 tricity (and magnetism) is given considerable 

 space (from pages 23 to 59) almost at the 

 opening of the text. Thirteen pages, an un- 

 usual amount of space, is given to Archi- 

 medes's principle with its application to the 

 measurement of density and specific gravity. 

 The chapter on the mechanics of solids opens 

 with an experiment on the bending of beams 

 and closes with the verification of Boyle's law ! 

 The course which has been given by Mr. 

 Shorter for several years at King Edward 



VIII. School, Sheffield, differs from that given 

 in similar American schools in the larger 

 space given there to mensuration. The vol- 

 umes outlining the course consist of questions 

 or directions with large blank spaces between 

 — a cross between a series of report sheets and 

 a laboratory manual. The spaces are rather 

 small for the report sheets and the questions 

 and directions rather attenuated for a man- 

 ual. The heuristic method is rather over- 

 done. 



An Introduction to Mathematical Physics. 



By P. A. HousTOUN. Longmans, Green & 



Co. Pp. 197. 



In less than two hundred pages Dr. Hous- 

 toun presents those ancient and honorable 

 theorems in mathematical physics which Eng- 

 lish university men look upon as essential to 

 the training of a physicist, but which look 

 rather formidable to most students of physics 

 in American colleges. The text starts in with 

 the theory of attraction and potential. Gauss's 

 theorem, Laplace's and Poisson's equations, 

 and electrical images. It continues through 

 hydrodynamics. Green's theorem, irrotational 

 motion, Stokes's and Kelvin's theorems, Four- 

 ier's series with application to the conduction 

 of heat, wave motion with application to 

 acoustics and tidal waves, electromagnetic 

 theory with application to the reflection and 

 refraction of radiation, and lastly, thermo- 

 dynamics with applications to reversible cells. 

 It is a matter of wonder that a text so small 

 can contain so much. Most physicists will 

 feel that the experimental point of view should 

 have had a larger place — for example, that 

 descriptions should have been given of har- 

 monic analyzers and synthesizers, of sound 

 analyzers, of wave meters, and that it should 

 have included the telegrapher's equation. The 

 problems, too, might have been chosen with 

 more thought of the actual and less of the 

 geometric and ideal. But we can not have 

 everything in two hundred pages. 



Dabtmouth College G. F. Hull 



Die Steinzeitliche TechnicTc und Ihre Bezieh- 

 ungen zur Gegenwart. Ein Beitrag zur 

 Geschichte der Arbeit von Dr. Ludwiq 



