Electricity and Magnetism

Abstract

THE English translation of the second volume of the valuable work of MM. Mascart and Joubert is a welcome addition to the class, none too large, of really substantial English books on electricity. We have already directed the attention of the readers of NATURE to the first volume of this work; and we took occasion to point out that in their exposition of the subject the authors follow very closely the general methods of Clerk-Maxwell. That they do so is a great advantage for the English student; because it enables him, without breach in the continuity of his studies, to use Mascart and Joubert as a commentary upon Maxwell, who is often by no means easy reading. The French work is also supplementary to Maxwell, for writers avoid as much as possible the purely theoretical side of electrical science, and treat electrical phenomena, more especially in their second volume, as subjects of observation, and? above all, of measurement. This volume, which is now before us, is, in fact, an epitome of all the wisdom in exact electrical measurement which has been gained during a period of extraordinary activity in that field. This period began with the researches of Gauss and Weber; and may perhaps be said to have culminated in the great series of determinations of the absolute units which were made about the time of the Congress of Electricians at Paris in 1884. The prominent part taken by MM. Mascart and Joubert in this work has well fitted them to record with precision the details of the leading methods by which it was accomplished, and it would be hard to refer the student of electrical science to an authority on electrical measurement at once so clear and precise in detail, and, with a few small and evidently accidental exceptions, so manifestly candid and fair, as the second volume of the treatise of Mascart and Joubert.

A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.

By E. Mascart J. Joubert. Translated by E. Atkinson. Vol. II. (London: De La Rue and Co., 1888.)