Miscellaneous Intelligence. 557 



8. Who's Who in Science. International , 1918. Edited by 

 H. H. Stephenson. Pp. xvi, 572. London (J. & A. Churchill). — 

 The new edition of the "International Who's Who in Science " 

 has increased very largely in size, the 323 pages for 1912 having 

 become 572 for 1913. This alone shows the enterprise of the 

 management, and indicates how much the value of this work has 

 increased. Not only have the existing sections of science been 

 expanded, but the subjects of psychology and geography have 

 been added also. Furthermore, in addition to the valuable series 

 of the world's universities, occupying thirty-four pages, there is a 

 section of nearly twice the extent giving the world's societies. 

 Both these sections are independent of the biographical list 

 (pp. 93-533) including about 7500 notices and the index classi- 

 fied by subjects and countries (pp. 534-569). It is obvious, 

 therefore, that this volume contains a large amount of just such 

 information as those concerned with science and scientific men 

 need. It might be noted that the English language is used 

 throughout, except in the names of journals and of societies. 

 The frontispiece gives portraits of five prominent scientists who 

 died during 1912. 



9. Descriptive Astronomy y by Forest R. Moulton. Pp. 

 259; 111 figures. Chicago, 1912 (American School of Corre- 

 spondence). — Professor Moulton is widely known as an original 

 and resourceful investigator of great ability in the field of mathe- 

 matical astronomy. The volume under review exhibits a philo- 

 sophical turn of mind and a constructive imagination of equally 

 high order with his power of mathematical analysis. Any 

 person possessing a fair degree of acquaintance with the general 

 field of astronomy will read it with keen interest, but a beginner 

 would fail to appreciate much of its valuable information. It 

 does not appear from the title or preface whether it is designed 

 for a text-book or not, but if so designed it will not, in the 

 reviewer's opinion, prove successful. 



The style is easy and the illustrative diagrams admirable, but 

 the early chapters are too rich for class-room food. For example, 

 in the first chapter there is given a most interesting treatise on 

 the earth's atmosphere. It contains an exposition of the method 

 of calculating the height of a meteor, an account of the electrical 

 theory of the aurora and of the kinetic theory of gases, and a 

 discussion of atmospheric conditions on the moon and on the 

 planet Jupiter. Immediately following this the annual motion of 

 the earth is demonstrated by stellar parallax, by aberration and 

 by the shifting of lines of stellar spectra. Each topic is admir- 

 ably presented, but in this first chapter the beginner is carried 

 like a Cook's tourist through the realms of science. This method 

 does not detract from the excellence of the book, than which of 

 its kind there is none better. Cook's tours are exceedingly useful, 

 though not for the education of children. There are text-books 

 in profusion for purposes of class-room work and a few of them 

 are as good as need be. Probably the author, realizing this, did 



