170 
Analyses of Books. 
[March, 
Natural Philosophy for General Readers and Young Persons. 
Translated and Edited from Ganot’s “ Cours Elementaire de 
Physique.” By E. Atkinson, Ph. D., F.C.S. Fourth 
Edition. London : Longmans and Co. 
A manual of physics like the present, free from mathematical 
formulae and altogether couched in intelligible language, should 
command a wide circle of readers, and we are not surprised that 
the publishers have found it necessary to issue a fourth edition. 
The work contains not merely a clear, though necessarily concise, 
statement of the laws of optics, acoustics, heat, magnetism, 
electricity, &c., but it gives a description of many of the most 
popular applications of these sciences, the eleCtric telegraph, the 
eleCtric light, the telephone, &c. 
We notice with some surprise, however, that in the chapter on 
light there is no mention of polarised light and its applications 
in physico-chemical research and in microscopy. Fluorescence 
also is omitted, and phosphorescence is briefly dealt with. The 
author remarks that this property is “ very intense in the glow- 
worm and the lampyre.” Glow-worm is the ordinary English 
name of the Lampyris. The figure of a compound microscope 
given is one of the old immovable upright type, the very sight 
of which makes our neck ache. 
The paragraph on the liquefaction of gases can scarcely be 
considered on a level with the present state of science. Thus we 
read : “ Few gases can resist these combined aCtions (cold and 
pressure), and probably those which have not yet been liquefied, 
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, binoxide of nitrogen, and carbonic 
oxide, would become so if submitted to a sufficient degree of 
cold and pressure.” These lines were of course written before 
the successful experiments of MM. Cailletet and PiCtet, and 
have not been modified in accordance with the capital discovery 
effected by these eminent physicists. 
We submit that in a work of such indisputable value as the 
one before us, these oversights should not have been suffered to 
remain. 
Contributions to the Chemistry of Bast-Fibres. By E. J. Bevan 
and C. F. Cross. Manchester : Palmer and Howe. 
In this memoir, which was read before the Owens College Che- 
mical Society, April 16, 1880, the authors give the result of two 
year’s work in a field of research which has hitherto been little 
cultivated. They take jute as the type of the class. The main 
portion of the intercellular tissue is, they consider, a cellulo- 
quinone. These investigations, which are still in progress, will 
doubtless throw new light on the principles of bleaching and 
dyeing. 
