536 Notices respecting New Books. 



third experiment the ammonia was ascertained by the use of 

 dilute standard acid. 



The results are as follows : — In 1000 vols, of crude coal- 

 gas, 



vols. 



Carbonic acid 15'0 



Sulphuretted hydrogen 12*1 



Ammonia 3'6 



The apparatus possesses many practical advantages, which 

 reveal themselves when the operator begins to use it. Thus, 

 the reagent may be drained into the flask, removed from the 

 gas, and a fresh quantity of reagent employed. Successive 

 treatment is even practicable to a certain extent. 



LXXI. Notices respecting New Books. 



Miscellaneous Scientific Papers by W. J. Macquorn Rankine, C.E., 



LL.D., F.R.S., late Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and 



Mechanics in the University of Glasgow. From the Transactions 



and Proceedings of the Royal and other Scientific and, Philosophical 



Societies, and the Scientific Journals. With a Memoir of the Author 



by P. G. Tait, M.A. Edited by W. J. Millar, O.E. With 



Portrait, Plates, and Diagrams. London : Charles Griffin and 



Co., 1881. (Pp.xxxvi and 567.) 



\ PTEE a considerable lapse of time (Eankine died December 24th, 



■*-*- 1872) these papers are now issued in a collected form. It is 



hard to account for so long a delay, seeing that the papers have all 



been published before, and we cannot suppose any hindrance was 



interposed by the governing bodies of the Scientific Societies and 



Journals to whom the papers were originally intrusted by the 



author. It is sufficient now for us to indicate how many and, to 



a certain extent, which of the 150 and more papers (cf. Eoyal 



Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers) are here submitted as worthy 



of fitly representing Eankine's contributions to science. Their 



number is thirty-seven, classed under three heads. The first group 



embraces those papers which relate to Temperature, Elasticity, and 



Expansion of Vapours, Liquids, and Solids. Of the nine papers, 



three first saw the light in our pages, viz. : — iii. "On the Centrifugal ) 



Theory of Elasticity, as applied to Cases and Vapours " (Dec. 1851); 



vii. "On the Vibrations of Plane-polarized Light" (June 1851); 



vhi. " General View of an Oscillatory Theory of Light " (Dec. 1853). 



The longest paper (read before the British Association, August 



1850, and published in the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical 



Journal, May 1851) is on the "Laws of the Elasticity of Solid 



Bodies." The second group contains papers relatiDg to Energy 



and its Transformations, Thermodynamics, Mechanical Action of 



Heat in the Steam-engine, &c. ; they are nineteen in number. In this 



group also are three Phil. Mag. papers : — x. the remarkable paper 



