64 Scientific Intelligence. 



ent connected with the department and those associated with 

 them in New Haven. From this abundance of material, papers 

 have been selected to till these two volumes of the Yale Bicenten- 

 nial Publications. The first volume is confined to inorganic 

 chemistry and includes, for example, the interesting series of 

 investigations by H. L. Wells and others on the halogen com- 

 pounds of caesium and other elements. 



The second volume contains a varied collection of memoirs on 

 organic chemistry, many of them by W. J. Comstock and H. L. 

 Wheeler. It is obvious that the eight hundred pages available 

 could not suffice for all the memoirs which deserved republication. 

 Some of those not represented here include, in accordance with 

 the plan of the work, all the early papers ; also, among recent 

 publications, a series on thermo-chemistry by W. G. Mixter ; fur- 

 ther, papers on mineral chemistry, which last, however, have in 

 part been included in the related volume noticed on p. 398 of the 

 November number. 



12. Light: A Consideration of the more familiar Phenomena 

 of Optics ; by Charles S. Hastings, Ph.D. Pp. 224. Yale 

 Bicentennial Publications. New York, 1901 (Charles Scribner's 

 Sons). — -The physical student, no less than the general reader, 

 will feel himself indebted to Professor Hastings for having taken 

 the time from more serious labors to prepare this very lucid dis- 

 cussion of the fundamental phenomena of optics. The topics 

 included are such as come, more or less fully, within the range of 

 observation of every intelligent person ; those involving the use 

 of complex apparatus (e. g. spectroscopy and polarization) being 

 wisely omitted. The method of treatment is uniformly simple and 

 the language and illustrations so far as possible familiar, while the 

 prominent place given to historical development adds much to 

 the interest and value of the whole. 



The opening chapter deals with the nature of light as a wave 

 motion, and the resulting explanation of the phenomena of reflec- 

 tion and refraction ; this subject is again taken up in the closing 

 chapter, in which the different theories as to the nature of light 

 are discussed from Newton to Maxwell and Hertz. The inter- 

 ference and dispersion of light and some of their consequences 

 are concisely treated, and then follows an admirable discussion 

 of the optical instruments, the telescope and microscope ; a chap- 

 ter is given also to the eye and vision. A particularly interest- 

 ing portion of the work is that devoted to the varied optical phe- 

 nomena of the atmosphere ; these subjects are of the keenest 

 interest to everyone and yet they are rarely described and 

 explained in such a manner and with such fullness as to be intel- 

 ligible. 



While the matter in hand is to so large a degree familiar, 

 yet there is not lacking an originality in the method of presen- 

 tation which will make the book valuable and suggestive to the 

 physical student. He will turn, however, with most interest to the 

 appendices, particularly Appendix A, with its mathematical dis- 

 cussion of lens systems. The author's extensive and successful 



