Abstract
THE late Alexander Watt's book on electro-deposition was well known as a standard work on the subject, but for some time it has been out of date both in subject-matter and in method of treatment. Mr. Arnold Philip, in editing and largely rewriting a new edition, has performed a service which was much required, but it is to be regretted that he has not been sufficiently thorough in his work of revision. Perhaps this is due to a desire on his part to retain as far as possible the form of the original book, but there can be little question but that by entirely recasting it and putting the vast amount of useful information it contains in a form more suited to modern ideas and developments he would have been performing a more valuable service. It is, for example, rather out of date to give instructions for carrying out different operations in terms of Wollaston, Smee, Daniell or other batteries. We hope that the number of electro-platers using such sources of electricity is at the present day small, but even if it is considerable it is eminently desirable that a book such as this should make use of scientific units. To take one other example, we were surprised to find that the section devoted to nickeling bicycles described the operations to be performed in taking to pieces an old-fashioned “ordinary” and entirely disregarded the existence of the modern safety or pneumatic tyres. Such a fault as this, possibly not of much importance in itself, has the grave defect of destroying the reader's confidence in the rest of the work; how is the student to feel sure that the numerous recipes and instructions are not as much things of the past as the solid-tyred ordinary?
Electro-plating and Electro-refining.
By A. Watt A. Philip. Pp. xxiv + 680. (London: Crosby Lock-wood and Co., 1902.) Price 12s. 6d.net.
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S., M. Electro-plating and Electro-refining . Nature 67, 295 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067295a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067295a0