756 Notices respecting New Books. 
adjudged to be some of the best parts of the book and show the 
Editor to possess a severe scientific training as well as an excellent 
scientific literary style: absolutely clear and to the point ; 
judicial without affectation. Here we find, naturally falling into 
their places in the orderly development of the subject, the laws of 
Kirchhoff and Stefan ; the experiments of Lummer and Pringsheim 
on the laws governing radiation within an enclosed space at 
uniform temperature, and on the distribution of energy in the 
spectrum of a black body; also Boltzmann’s proof of Stefan’s law, 
Wien’s general law and his displacement law. The ensuing section 
on the measurement of temperature by radiation is equally good, 
and Mr. Cotter’s own. Poynting’s interesting estimate of 
planetary temperatures based on Stefan’s law, and W. E. Wilson’s 
estimate of Solar temperature are in this section. By an over- 
sight the paper in which Mr. Wilson gives his results is not 
referred to. 
Chapter VIII. on Thermodynamics is not materially altered 
from the first edition. Alteration was not required. Callendar’s 
method of correcting the gas-thermometer as well as Olszewski’s 
determination of the temperature of inversion of the Joule-Kelvin 
effect for hydrogen are added here. 
The reader of our own time of life will doubtless share our 
feeling that we had been fortunate had we possessed so com- 
prehensive a textbook in our earlier student days. For equally 
comprehensive treatment we had to go abroad. In this way, 
indeed, we learnt some French and German. Perhaps the English 
student will be induced by such textbooks as the ‘ Theory of Heat’ 
to postpone his study of scientific French and German till a later 
time of life. Should evil arise from this, the blame is upon our 
school-system and not upon the expounder of Science who labours 
to remove a reproach from our scientific literature. If too late 
for our own young days we none the less welcome, as work of 
reference and for its pleasant reading, the Treatise on Heat which 
Mr. Cotter has now brought up to date. J.J. 
La Revue Electrique. Publiée sous la direction de J. Buonpin. 1° 
Année. Tome I.—No.1. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1904. 
In these days cf keen competition and intense literary activity, it 
takes no small amount of courage to add to the mass of scientific 
an d technical periodicals already in existence. Yet the future of 
the above new publication appears to be full of promise, as the 
editor has been fortunate in securing as contributcrs such well- 
kno wn experts as MM. Armagnat, Charpentier, Guilbert, J. Guil- 
laume, Maurain, Turpain, and others. The first number contains 
several interesting articles, and if the present high standard 
is maintained, there should be a useful future before La Revue 
Electrique 
