England has a high tradition in books on popular science. Men like Faraday and Tyndall did not consider it beneath them to write for children and laymen, and their books on the elementary facts of science are models of their kind. Strangely enough—or naturally enough—the best expositors of the elements of a science are, in general, those who have themselves contributed to the advances of that science, while those who are professedly popularisers present the subject not only less correctly and logically but also less simply and pleasantly. The books before us confirm this opinion.
Mr. Gibson is a practised hand at writing books for children, the volume before us being the sixth of a series. He has the merit that he attempts to bring before the reader the experimental basis of the science of chemistry and some of its historical aspects, and does not make a series of dogmatic statements without reference to the researches on which they rest, as does Bishop Mercer. He describes many experiments, and gives diagrams to illustrate them. The book covers a wide field of interesting and, for the most part, elementary chemical phenomena. The chief fault which we have to find is with the style in which it is written. We find the imaginary questions put to the writer by boys and girls distinguished as big, little, facially peculiar, and so on, irritating, and we very much doubt if his patronising manner will find favour with most boys, who, we believe, prefer to be treated as friends who happen not to know. We do not pretend to Mr. Gibson's knowledge of children, but base our criticism on the fact that Faraday and most of his successors at the Royal Institution have managed to interest and instruct their juvenile audiences without this painfully evident condescension.
Bishop Mercer's method of striving to excite the wonder of his young readers is based upon a liberal use of notes of exclamation (seldom less than three on a page, and sometimes three together, for extra effect) and of the words "wonder" and "wonderful," together with the constant citation of very large numbers, which fill him with awe—"A million is bad enough with its six cyphers. But eighteen of them—that is awful—it is a million million million!" The machinery of nature, as revealed by modern science, does not impress him as do these rows of cyphers. If there were any serious attempt to show how they have been arrived at we should think more highly of the educational value of the book. As it is, the information is often incorrect on quite simple matters—water does not occupy "exactly" (or approximately) "the same space as before" after sugar has been added to it; hydrogen is not often regarded, in these days when it has been solidified, as a metal. Often the book is most misleading, as in the description of how the author saw a man's ribs by X-rays when the "machine" was put the other side of the man in question. No mention is made of any phosphorescent screen, and the inexperienced reader is led to infer by the analogy given that he actually saw through the man. The style is vague and slipshod in the extreme, a typical sentence being, "The elasticity of the atoms is so perfect that they always bang about just the same." We will not criticise the Bishop's theology, or his philosophy, which insists that "what you really see is not the matter of the tree, but the ether-quiverings which that matter throws off." We will, however, take it upon ourselves to suggest that, if he should decide to write another book on elementary science, he should model himself rather upon Faraday's "Lectures Upon the Physical Forces" than upon an American temperance lecture.
Mr. Mills' book on The Realities of Modern Science is in a different class from the two already noticed, and is intended for adult readers. It gives a sketch of modern conceptions of the composition of matter, the electron theory, and the recent experimental work on the magnitude of molecules and electrons. The early chapters of the book are devoted to a very brief but excellent treatment of certain aspects of the history of physical science. A great merit of the book is that it devotes particular attention to the recent important advances in molecular physics, which are neither yet included in the text-books nor easily available in popular form. We may mention especially the work of Millikan on the electronic charge, that of the Braggs and Moseley on X-ray spectra, and the photographs taken by C. T. R. Wilson (whose name is not, however, mentioned) of the paths of α {a} and β {b} particles and of X-rays. The style is simple and sober, and the author, who hails from the research laboratories of the Western Electric Company, wisely leaves the results which he describes to produce their own impression. The book is, of course, written for more advanced readers than the others here noticed, but, all the same, an intelligent schoolboy with a smattering of scientific knowledge would, in all probability, prefer it to the books written expressly for his benefit. The adult reader is not likely to find a better presentation of the more striking aspects of modern physics.
BOOK-PRODUCTION NOTES
By J. H. MASON
LAST month, in laying down the chief matters to be considered in producing a satisfactory book, I began with type. And as if the subject were in the air, as it were in solution, I find it precipitated in the form of an important article in the pages of the Saturday Review. An illustrated article, too, with specimens of the chief types referred to. This is all to the good; if this example is followed by other literary journals we shall soon form a right opinion in the lay public on what is a good type. The appearance of our books will be improved, the offensive advertisement—I am speaking typographically—will lose its vulgarity, and public lettering in posters, shop names, and street signs will reflect the improvement.
*****