Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/569

Rh papers are limited to the ten years preceding their publication and reflect great credit on their authors. To attempt any synopsis of the contents of these volumes would lead to technical details beyond the scope of these columns.

Text-books in English and in other languages continue to flow from the press in undiminished numbers; some are very elementary, giving no novelty in treatment nor other advantages over the host of those preceding them, but others are on a higher plane, endeavoring to embody the most recent theories and to adapt them for the purposes of instruction. One of the most praiseworthy of the latter group first appeared in Holland in 1898, was soon translated into German, and two years later into English. Its author is Dr. A. F. Holleman, professor at the University of Groningen, its translator is Dr. Harmon C. Cooper, of Syracuse University, and it bears the imprint of John Wiley and Sons, New York City. Holleman's text-book combines the new achievements of physical chemistry with the mass of long-established facts of inorganic chemistry so as to form a unified whole; it makes it unnecessary for beginners to get acquainted with the common phenomena of elementary chemistry by the study of one book written on the old plan, and then to take up the independent study of those laws of physical chemistry established by Ostwald, van't Hoff, Arrhenius, and their disciples, as set forth in some other manual devoted to those subjects. All these features are combined by Holleman in a single graded course, making it a superior, up-todate work. The translation by Dr. Cooper is satisfactory and free from ambiguity.

Another book of very high grade is that by Dr. Mellor, of Manchester, England, entitled: 'Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics.' Chemistry is developing along mathematical lines, and it is evident that its students must hereafter be practical mathematicians. Of several books applying mathematics to the scientific evolution of chemistry, Mellor's book is very complete and satisfactory, and can be warmly recommended.