258 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. YI., No. 137. 



The practical utility of geological survej^s is 

 incidentally illustrated at several points in the 

 volume, where it is shown that money, up to 

 more than a million dollars in a single case, 

 might have been saved by a good preliminar}^ 

 examination of the circumstances. 



The world (if Ohio does not) must needs 

 feel very grateful to Professor Orton and his 

 assistants, some of them not contributors to 

 the volume, for their largely gratuitous and 

 very successful labors, and, congratulating 

 him and them on having accomplished so much 

 with such limited time and means, must hope 

 that he may soon find himself able to publish 

 at least one more volume on the several other 

 economical subjects of high importance neces- 

 saril}' neglected this time. 



and the whole book is an illustration of a kind 

 of work which is always welcomed b}" the pro- 

 fession to which its author has presented it. 



THE WINDMILL AS A PRIME MOVER. 



This treatise is intended to present the the- 

 ory and the practice of construction and use of 

 windmills, the histor}^ of this form of prime 

 mover, its progress and development, and the 

 econoni}^ attained in its application to the pro- 

 duction of available power. It is a careful 

 and conscientious stud}^ of the machines in 

 use, of the theor}^ of the transformation of the 

 available energ}^ of wind for purposes of appli- 

 cation, and of the commercial aspect of the 

 case. 



Here will be found an account of the extent 

 to which windmills are used, and of the com- 

 parative value of these forms of motor and the 

 steam-engine, the theor}' of wind-pressure, and 

 the effect of air in motion upon the sails. The 

 history of the construction and use of wind- 

 mills is given with a description of the best 

 known. The whole is a ver}^ complete treatise, 

 and will probablj' take its proper place as the 

 standard, the onty real treatise upon this sub- 

 ject. It supplies a want, and will probably 

 be extensivel}^ read. 



The arrangement of the book seems to us 

 excellent, the treatment good, the work, so far 

 as we have been able to check it, accurate, 

 and the conclusions correct. Chapters ii. and 

 ix. on the construction of the formulas for 

 effect, and on the commercial economy of the 

 mill, are the most strikingl}^ valuable parts of 

 the book ; and the former will interest the stu- 

 dent of the theory of prime movers as greatly 

 as the latter will interest the proposed user of 

 the machine, and the practising engineer. The 

 text is well written, the book-making excellent, 



The icindmill as a prime mover. By Alfred R. Wolff, 

 M.E., New York. Wiley, 188a. S". 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A LA.EGE Stone slab has just been placed in the 

 wall of tlie entrance hall of the newly completed 

 portion of the Museum of comparative zoology, which 

 was built by Dr. Alexander Agassiz at bis own ex- 

 pense, and presented to Harvard college. The simple 

 inscription reads as follows: — 



LVDOVICW 



AGASSIZ^ 

 PATRWFILIUS- 



ALEXANDER- 

 MD-CCC-LXXX- 



— On the last day of August, according to Nature, 

 Professor Michel Eugene Chevreul entered upon his 

 100th year. Apart from the fact, that, among men 

 whose lives liave been devoted to active scientific re- 

 search, no one has before attained such an age, Chev- 

 reul stands conspicuous for the vast amount of work 

 he has done, and for the great practical effect his 

 work has had on the industries of the world. When 

 Dumas, in 1852, addressed him on the occasion of hand- 

 ing to him the prize of 12,000 francs accorded to him 

 by the Societe d'encouragement pour I'industrie na- 

 tionals, he said, " Le prix consacre I'opinion de 

 r Europe sur des travaux servent de modele a tons 

 les chemistes; c'est par centaines des millions qu'il 

 faudraitnombrer les produits qu'on doit a vos decou- 

 vertes." More recently, in 1873, when the award of 

 the Albert medal was made by the English society of 

 arts, the terms in which the council expressed the 

 grounds of the award were, " For his chemical re- 

 searches, especially in reference to saponification, 

 dyeing, agriculture, and natural history, which for 

 more than half a century have exercised a wide influ- 

 ence on the industrial arts of the world." His scien- 

 tific work, apart from its commercial outcome, was 

 recognized by the Royal society of London as far 

 back as 1826, when he was elected a foreign associate. 

 In 1857 the Copley medal was awarded to him. 

 Other countries have also paid him honor, while 

 the distinctions of his native land have showered 

 upon him. Born in Angers in 1786, where his father 

 was a physician of note, he was but seventeen when 

 he went to Paris to be ' manipulateur ' in the labora- 

 tory of the celebrated Yanquelin. At the age of 

 twenty he published his first chemical paper, and in 

 the next half-dozen years he had published more than 

 a score on different subjects. Then began that series 

 of papers (commencing in 1813), "Recherches chim- 



