Abstract
THE object of this little work is to provide agriculturists and others with a knowledge of the properties, physical and chemical, of the minerals important to man, either as constituents of rocks and soils, as fertilisers or as sources of materials used in the arts. The author assumes ignorance of physics, chemistry and crystallography on the part of the reader, and as the descriptive portion of the book would be unintelligible without some-knowledge of these subjects, he attempts to give the necessary smattering in an introduction of eighty-nine pages. The laws of crystallography and modern views of crystal structure are dealt with in forty pages, illustrated by a number of indifferent figures, some of whichy notably the rhombohedron of Fig. 8, entirely fail to produce on the eye the effect which the author presumably intended. In the chemical section the old equivalent notation is preferred to that usually accepted at the present day; thus, sodium carbonate receives the formula NaO, CO2+10HO! A considerable portion of the space devoted to analysis is occupied by a picture of an elegant gentleman puffing languidly with a blow-pipe at a long candle fixed in an equally tall candlestick. The rest of the book contains a selection of facts about minerals which can be found in any treatise on descriptive mineralogy, together with some useful information, as to methods of determining the permeability of soils, and the percentage of calcium carbonate contained in them. We fear, however, that the work will hardly be found readable by any one who has not already had an extensive training in chemistry and mineralogy. It is therefore unlikely to be of much value to the class for whom it appears to be intended, nor can it be recommended to the serious student.
Minéralogie Agricole.
By F. Houdaille. Pp. 299, avec 107 figures dans le texte. (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1900.)
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Minéralogie Agricole . Nature 63, 57 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/063057b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/063057b0