November 14, 1SS4. 



SCIENCE. 



so discouraging to its author as that on the ship- 

 building industry, prepared by Henry Hall, who 

 gives us a detailed history of the rise and fall 

 of this business ; and its past prosperity vividly 

 contrasts with the hopeless present and not 

 hopeful future. As a history, the report strikes 

 one as rather stale ; but perhaps this was un- 

 avoidable, although we might have been spared 

 another repetition of the yarn tracing the origin 

 of ' schooner ' from ' How she scoons ! 1 It is 

 a pity that the illustrations should be so crude 

 and cheap. 



In criticism of the whole report, we regret 

 that more details of designing, methods of 

 construction, discussion of steam-boilers, ma- 

 chinery, etc., were not given. The lines of 

 the Boston and Baltimore clippers will interest 

 naval architects. 



In beginning with fishing-vessels, the author 

 puts his best foot foremost ; for herp we can 

 make a pretty fair showing still, at least as 

 far as vessels and capital employed are con- 

 cerned. As we have always looked upon the 

 fisheries as the nursery of seamen, we wish 

 statistics of the nationality of the crews of 

 the offshore fishermen might have been given, 

 though probably they would not have been 

 encouraging. The rapid concentration of the 

 fishing interests to a few towns of course di- 

 minishes the interest of our coast people in 

 marine pursuits. The tables given show that 

 New England has as large tonnage, and as 

 much invested capital, as all the rest of our 

 ocean and lake coasts combined ; and Massa- 

 chusetts represents three-fourths of the whole 

 Xew-England interest. Attention is properly 

 called to the desirability of giving fishing- 

 schooners more depth and freeboard. 



Chapter ii. is a short history of our merchant 

 marine, and is followed by a chapter on the 

 present state of ship-building at every point 

 along the coast, from Maine to Alaska. Almost 

 everywhere the same story : ' Harrington, once 

 a prosperous village,' or, 'There is no ship- 

 building at present at Ellsworth,' and so on. 

 The causes are several, — discouragement of 

 foreign trade by tariff and extortionate consu- 

 late fees, local taxation and pilotage laws, inter- 

 ference of railroads with coasting- trade, failure 

 of suitable timber-supply, and the greater cost of 

 iron vessels here as compared with England. 

 Bath, Me., is the principal ship-building port, 

 and it is interesting to see the result of syste- 

 matic work ; for, while timber is from seventy- 

 five to three hundred per cent higher, it is still 

 l)le to build a ship at forty-five dollars per 



ton, as in 1825. On the Pacific coast wooden 

 ship-building is still a growing industry. 



The chapter on iron ship-building offers some 

 hope, in the condition of the more important 

 yards, and the cheapening of the cost of iron 

 vessels. This is fortunate, for the next chap- 

 ter shows how thoroughly the eastern seaboard 

 has been stripped of ship-timber; and, as well 

 known, second-growth timber is very inferior. 

 The supply of yellow pine, now almost exclu- 

 sively used for planking, is reported large, but 

 we believe it is growing more difficult to obtain 

 the best quality of this useful wood. The 

 Pacific coast still affords abundance of good 

 ship-timber, and the good character given to 

 yellow fir shows that ship-building on the Pacific 

 need not suffer for years to come. Tables of 

 the specific gravities and weights of the differ- 

 ent woods used by ship-builders, b}^ Prof. C. S. 

 Sargent and the late Constructor Pook, U.S.N., 

 are given ; and the report is closed with sta- 

 tistics of vessels built in the census }~ear. 

 number of hands employed, wages, value of 

 materials, etc. 



' The word is probably of Dutch origin, and the rie can be 

 traced hack to earlier times than those of Andrew Robinson of 



-t<T. 



MINOR BOOK NOTICES. 



The electric light: its history, production, and appli- 

 cations. By Em. Alglave and J. Boulard. 

 Translated from the French by T. O'Conor 

 Sloane, E.M., Ph.D. Edited, with notes and 

 additions, by C. M. Lungren, C.E. New York, 

 Appleton, 1884. 18+458 p. 8°. 



The fascinating character of the subject, and 

 the great popular interest in it, have stimulated 

 the production of pictorial treatises on elec- 

 tricity and its practical applications. To the 

 specialist man}' of these modern treatises ap- 

 pear to be uncalled for, or at least seem to be 

 padded with much superfluous and unnecessary 

 matter. 



Is there not a curious relation between the 

 expensive furnishing of the offices of man}' 

 electric-light companies, where the unwary per- 

 son is induced to invest in stock which has only 

 an imaginary value, and the luxurious editions 

 of many treatises on the electric light? If the 

 office should be embellished, why should not 

 the books that treat of the wares of the com- 

 pany be of editions de luxe? 



The work of Alglave and Boulard. edited by 

 Mr. Lungren, contains much extraneous mat- 

 ter ; but the general reader will find valuable 

 information in regard to the general features of 

 electric lighting. The treatise does not pre- 

 tend to be an exhaustive presentation of the 

 subject. One is surprised to find how much 

 interesting matter has been crowded into the 



