220 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. V., No. 110. 



to any more of the many valuable and impor- 

 tant papers contained in this handsome volume. 

 The parliament of Roumania, upon the plea 

 of poverty, has declined to extend an invitation 

 to the congress to hold its next session the 

 present year at Bucharest, which the leading 

 members, under the initiative of the Baron de 

 Baye, had selected as the place of meeting. 

 We learn, however, that arrangements have 

 been made for it to take place at Athens in 1886. 



HARTLEBEN'S LIBRARY OF ELECTRI- 

 CAL TECHNOLOGY (ELEKTROTECH- 

 NISCHE BIBLIOTHEK). 



The admirable collection of treatises pub- 

 lished under this title was originally announced 

 to contain ten volumes ; but the number issued 

 has already reached twenty-six, and others 

 are stated to be in preparation. Almost every 

 subject relating to electricity receives atten- 

 tion, including telegraphy, telephony, electric 

 lighting, and electroplating ; while certain 

 topics are veiy minutely discussed, as, for ex- 

 ample, electrical conductors, electrical clocks, 

 the medical uses of electricity, and its appli- 

 cations to military purposes. The various 

 volumes, while necessarily somewhat unequal 

 both in merit and in importance, are yet all of 

 them of substantial value ; and it is much to 

 be desired that they may, in part at least, be 

 translated into English for the benefit of that 

 large class of readers who are desirous of se- 

 curing information at once elementary and 

 accurate. This has, indeed, already 7 been done 

 in the case of the initial volume of the series, — 

 that on djmamo-electrical machinery, b} T Glaser- 

 De Cew, which has been translated by Dr. Pa- 

 get Higgs, and which, notwithstanding some 

 minor slips, is by far the best treatise of its 

 size upon the specific matters which it discusses. 

 The treatise on instruments for electrical meas- 

 urements, b} T Wilke, contains some interesting 

 descriptions of special forms of galvanometers 

 and electrometers ; as, for example, the admir- 

 able dead-beat galvanometers with bell-shaped 

 magnets made b} r Hartmann and other German 

 makers, the special form of Thomson galvanom- 

 eter made b} T Siemens & Halske, Kohlrausch's 

 torsion electrometer, and Zollner's bifilar elec- 

 trometer. Zech's ' Elektrisches formelbuch ' 

 is of very high grade, and contains much in- 

 formation that is not easily found elsewhere in 

 a collected form. Its topics are arranged al- 

 phabetically ; and it contains, in an appendix, 

 a brief electro-technical dictionary giving the 

 equivalent electrical terms in German, French, 

 and English. Its scope will best be indicated 



by a brief reference to a few titles selected 

 almost at random. Under ' Bussole ' we find 

 a general discussion of the effect of a circular 

 current on a magnetic needle, including the 

 tangent, sine, and Helmholtz-Gaugain galva- 

 nometers, together with the cosine galvanometer 

 of Professor Trowbridge ; the latter assigned, 

 however, to Obach and Denzler instead of to its 

 real inventor. The article ' Dampfung ' gives a 

 demonstration of the formulae for the damping 

 of a magnet ; and under ' Schwingung ' there is 

 given the derivation of the various formulae for 

 vibrations, including vibration with damping 

 and aperiodic motion. Another valuable work 

 is that of Tumlirz on potential. Volume xx. of 

 the library contains a bibliograplry of electrichw 

 from 1860 to 1883, with special reference to tech- 

 nical electricit}-. Among the more timely of the 

 works relating especially to the industrial appli- 

 cations of electricity are those by Japing on the 

 electrical transmission of power, and Kramer on 

 electrical railways. The volume relating to mul- 

 tiple telegraphy not only contains the duplex and 

 quadruplex systems, but also the multiple sys- 

 tems of Meyer, Granfeld, and Baudot are de- 

 scribed at length. The American systems of 

 Gray and Delany are not noticed, certainly a 

 most unfortunate omission. The last volume 

 issued, that on cable telegraphy, is the most 

 comprehensive treatise on the subject that we 

 know, and is particularly valuable, as works 

 relating to it are so few. 



RECENT GOVERNMENT REPORTS. 



We regret that we are obliged to note a 

 decided degeneration in the Bulletin of the fish- 

 commission. What might and should proper- 

 ly be one of our most important government 

 reports each year becomes less valuable. The 

 present volume, although it contains several 

 important scientific contributions, is in the 

 main made up of unimportant letters, of value 

 to veiy few people so far as we can judge. 

 The first hundred and fifty pages are entirely 

 occupied by lists and tables by the editor, 

 not one of which is of importance to any class 

 of people. What, for instance, can be the 

 possible use of "A list of the blank forms and 

 circulars of the U.S. fish-commission," which 

 alone takes up twenty-one pages? Judging 



Bulletin of the U.S. fish-commission, vol. iii. Washington, 

 1883. 



Report of the U. S. fish-commission, part x. Washington, 

 1884. 



Annual report of the Board of regents of the Smithsonian 

 institution, for the year 1882. Washington, 1884. 



Proceedings of the U. S. national museum, vol. vi. Wash- 

 ington, 1884. 



