New-York tribune., 1901-04-23

States has recently achieved in the steel IN
dustry The writer offered interesting array
| of facts and figures for the consideration or MS
| fellow countrymen. describing not only the more
progressive processes and machinery employed
| in America In producing steel but also our ma
chine TOOLS stationary engines and locomotives.
| His last contribution discussed some aspects OF
| the labor question in both countries. These pa
pers which were commented upon at length by
! The Tribune at the time, have now been pub
! lished by Harper Bros, in a volume entitled
| American Engineering Competition" The
| book will prove instructive this side of the
| Atlantic as we'll the other, and of value to
other manufacturers than those whose triumphs
! 1t records.
The commercial value of pig iron and steel is
dependent upon the presence or absence of GER
tain impurities that often occur in the ore and
| which cannot easily be eliminated. Owing to
| the variety Of substances that are occasionally
associated with iron in the earth or are mingled
with it in the blast furnace, a treatise like
Blair's Chemical Analysis Of Iron" must needs
be an elaborate a fourth edition of this
excellent work has just been brought out by the
]. B. Lippincott Company The author has made
a thorough revision in fact, he has entirely re-
written the book. Mr., Blair it may be added
was chief chemist of the United States board
appointed 10 test lron steel ana Other metals IN
1919. and chief chemist of the United States
Geological Survey and Tenth Census in 1880.
and is a member of the American Philosophical
Society
Professor Francis B. Crocker's Electric Light
! Ing" includes two volumes. The first came out
year or more ago. and devoted to dyna-
| mos and the other equipment of a generating
| station. The second. which has just issued
he of he n Van apS
pany, relates to the conductors for transmitting
the requisite current-the distribution system"
so-called-to the lamps and the numerous acces-
sories of this mode of illumination. Professor
Crocker has gone sufficiently into detail to
the purposes of technical schools and the prac-
| tsing engineer. At the time he has avoid
ed abstruse theory far possible. The ap-
pendix contains the. national electrical code and
the report of the Committee on Standardization
embodying the rules that should govern the
struction and operation of any electrical system.
I. w Hammond. of Tacoma Wash is an
old whaler himself. his book "On Board a
Whaler" should have the imprint of reality, as
we'll as the vividness and adventuresome quail
ity ascribed to it by Messrs. Putnam, the pub
fishers who going to bring it out 1t is es-
pecially for boys. and will have many iustra-
tions.
The Rev. Hubert D. Ashley is the author of
My Birds In Freedom and Captivity"-Englsh
birds-which the buttons will publish in this
country at once. He says that his book is mot
intended to treat of birds scientifically but
rather chattily, with a hope that many who
would not read a learned book on ornithology
will perhaps dip into what is simply homely
account Of some of the birds l have kept" The
author has made many drawings of the birds he
describes which are handsomely reproduced.
Mr.. Henry Holt, in his Talks on Civics" has
undertaken to do something to develop in young
people the character of mind which is proof
against political quackery-especially the quack-
cry that proposes immediate cures by legislation
for the abiding ills resulting from human weak
ness and ignorance" He has cast his book in
the form of questions and answers, traversing a
great variety of subjects It is to be published
at once by the Macmillan Company