130 REVIEWS. 
While the illustrations exemplifying the fundamental laws and 
principles are chosen largely from industrial applications, the 
principles are not hidden under numerous details, both the 
descriptions and the accompanying diagrams emphasizing simply 
and plainly the principles involved. The diagrams are not 
merely sketches of machines and industrial processes but rather 
working diagrams showing the manner in which the physical 
laws have been applied in concrete cases. 
It is a pleasure to note that the author has not made the 
mistake, so common with writers of college texts, of attempting 
to describe every known physical phenomenon to the exclusion 
of a clear exposition of the more fundamental laws, but has 
wisely chosen the more important, attempting to give of each a 
clear, concise explanation. Fine distinctions and more or less 
tentative theories are wisely avoided, being left to more ad- 
vanced treatises to which they rightly belong. 
The book is divided into five distinct parts under the respective 
titles of Mechanics, Heat, Electricity and Magnetism, Sound, 
and Light. The subject of mechanics occupies about 26 per cent 
of the total space, heat about 14 per cent, electricity and mag- 
netism 30 per cent, sound 10 per cent, and light 17 per cent. 
The space devoted to mechanics is slightly greater than the 
average of the more recent texts, the topics of vector analysis, 
force and torque, accelerated motion, work, energy transfor- 
mations, moment of inertia, and the kinetic energy of rotating 
masses being given special prominence. 
The treatment of heat is very satisfactory, especially the 
chapters on the kinetic theory of gases, vaporization and solidi- 
fication, and thermodynamics. The subject of radiation hardly 
receives the attention which its importance would justify. 
The space devoted to electricity and magnetism is in harmony 
with the relative importance of the subject to technical students, 
a considerable portion of the space being devoted to descriptions 
of the underlying principles of modern electrical machines and 
industrial appliances. The illustrative diagrams of this part 
of the book are deserving of special notice, being well chosen 
and devoid of all unnecessary detail. 
Preceding the discussion of sound and light is a concise pre- 
sentation of the fundamental principles of wave motion. In the 
paragraph on the velocity of water waves the formula for the 
velocity is given without any attempt to derive or prove it. In 
my opinion an unproved formula is rarely, if ever, justified in 
an elementary text. 
ne 
