412 Notices respecting New Boohs. 



plished it is perhaps ungracious to ask for still more. We think it 

 worth while, however, to point out that the scientific work of the 

 Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland is hardly completely repre- 

 sented by the Archives neerlandaises and the three electro-technical 

 journals included in the list of journals abstracted. ]So doubt 

 much of the work published in these countries comes under review 

 at second hand, but abstracts of abstracts are apt to be scrappy if 

 not actually inaccurate. We think also that the ' Report of the 

 British Association ' might be put on the list of works occasionally 

 abstracted. There is probably on an average as much matter in 

 each volume which it is desirable to include as there is in an ordin- 

 ary year's issue of the ' Automotor and Horseless Vehicle Journal ' 

 or the ' Tramway and Railway World.' 



Readers of the Philosophical Magazine will naturally take more 

 interest in the section devoted to " Physics " than in that dealing 

 with " Electrical Engineering ;" and we are glad that the attention 

 given to the latter part does not seem in any degree to have been 

 accompanied by slackness in regard to the former. The standard 

 set up by the Physical Society duriug the three years that they 

 issued their ' Abstracts of Physical Papers ' seems to be fully main- 

 tained, and the list of papers abstracted is more complete. 



We understand that arrangements have been made between the 

 two Societies concerned in the Publication of ' Science Abstracts ' 

 whereby its continuance on the present plan is insured for at 

 least three years. By the end of this time we may hope that the 

 value of the work will be so widely recognized and appreciated, 

 that there will be no difficulty of a financial kind in the way of its 

 future prosperity. 



Le Magnetisme du Fer. Par Ch. Maueaix. Paris : Georges 

 Carre & C. JNaud, 1899. Pp. 1-100. 



The publishers are to be congratulated on the series of scientific 

 monographs of which the little book before us is one. They are 

 clearly printed, well illustrated, and written by authors of un- 

 doubted eminence in the subjects with which they deal. The only 

 two defects which one cannot help noticing are the somewhat 

 flimsy paper binding and — what is much more serious — the 

 absence of an index. Surely in these days it is almost unpardonable 

 for any writer to produce a book on a scientific subject without 

 preparing an index for it. Apart from these blemishes, however, 

 we have nothing but praise to bestow on the work before us, where, 

 within the small compass of 100 pages, the author gives a very 

 exhaustive and up-to-date, if somewhat compressed, account of 

 the phenomena of Magnetism. The book is not intended to be an 

 introductory text-book for beginners; indeed, the necessarily 

 concise nature of the author's exposition renders it quite unsuit- 

 able for this purpose. But to the advanced worker, to whom it is 

 addressed, it will prove a most useful resume of the numerous 

 recent experimental researches in the domain of Magnetism. 



It is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep pace with the 

 advancing wave of scientific research ; and students of Magnetism 



