~:fa:. ~93o1 BOOK I\E\IEX\,-. 7O3

are therefore not new to English speaking readers, but Professor Thomson, who enjoys the happy faculty of reaching dizzy heights in mathematical physics and also of bringing his subject within the reahn of engineering mathematcis, will be no less welcome among those who follow him in Frencb on a second reading, a most unusual opportunity at once to review a profitable study and to test their capacity to ntaster the French discourse on a subject which is far from the easiest that might be chosen for that purpose.

1.. E. P.

WASSERKRAFT--JAHRBUCH, I928-29 (4 Jahrgang). [lerausgeber: (;eheimer Baurat, Oberdirektor Dr. Ing. e. h. K. Dantscher, Ord. Professor d. Techni- schen Hochschule Mtinchen; Ingenieur Carl Reindl, Mfinchen. 487 pages, illustrations, 8vo, Mtinchen, G. f t i r th Verlag, A. (;., I929 . Price, 22 nmrks.

The fourth issue of this publication contains the most recent data on the development of water power plants in Continental Europe. A paper reviewing the results of water power development in Austria during the past ten years with some indications of its future possibilities is the leading article and there are also reports on the progress of the utilization of water power in Italy, France, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Czechoslovakia and Greece. The legal aspects of the water power problenI are discussed in the second part of the volume which also contains special contri- butions on the subject from engineers representing the several countries.

The problem of the constructon of power houses and other structures and their architectural requirements is given attention in the third part of the volume. The closing portion is devoted to water power machinery and we are glad to note, that a Philadephia engineer leads off with an article on the progress of hydraulic turbines in the United States to the year 1929. The paper, presswork and printing are Ul) to the usual standard. R.

THE ('ONSTRUCTION AND EQUIPMENT OF CHEMICAL I.ABORATORIES. k report of the National Research Council Committee. 34 ° pages, illustrations, bvo. Tile Chemical Foundation, Inc., New York, I93O. Price, Sr.oo.

In the mid-Victorian era, so much deprecated nowadays, the standard dictionaries tell us that the word " laboratory" meant "a chenfist's work-shop," hence in those days the title, chemical laboratory, would have been tautology. Times are changed and we are changed with them, as the Roman proverb has it. Now the scientific work-shops cover so many phases of investigation and instruc- tion that the nature of the laboratory has to be defined. In view of the stress of modern science,"laboratory" might be defined in general terms, as "a place of hard work and frequent disappointnlent."

l lalf a century ago, books of laboratory manil)ulation were quite familiar. A volume of considerable size was available, giving methods of heating, filtering, distilling and all of the other numerous manipulations in chemical work. Such laboratories as the Bacteriologic, Histologic and the Psychologic were unknown, but the world has become now intensely "ological " as Mrs. Gradgrind says. For some reason the popularity of these special works on nmnipulations declined very nmterlally and they have not bee~ familiar for a long while. Chemical labora- tories in those days were largely either priwtte affairs of persons engaged in general chemical practice or they were connected with colleges, partly for instruction,