Evening star., 1936-04-18

voted purely to purposes OF scientific
research, have brought cosmic rays
into the language of the average man.
To the average layman. however, Prof.
Lemon fears the term, II it means
anything at all. may mean some new
tangled kind Of pale blue light"
The author, professor of physics at
the University Of Chicago, offers his
book to those who want the term to
mean something more. He traces the
history of mans knowledge of the
cosmic ray from about the turn Of the
century, when physicists first noted an
inexplicable leakage in their spectro-
scopes and started of on the trail of
new force beyond that of radioactivity
and X-rays, which had been discovered
only five and six years earlier.
This is a provocative. inconclusive
treatment, as it must be in the present
state of scientific knowledge Of the
subject. Interestingly handled, with
some very entertaining drawings and
diagrams, it is not too technical for
the layman with a scientific turn Of
mind. J. J.S.E.
MORNING OF LIFE. BY Kristmann
Gudmundsson. Translated from the
Norwegian by Elizabeth Sprigge
and Claude Napier. Garden City:
Doubleday, Doran & Co.
THIS story of life in modern Iceland
has a magnificent simplicity Of
design which needs must hold any
thoughtful readers admiration. 1t is
just the history of mans life, which
means that it is just the hardest kind
of tale to tell if one is to avoid ro-
mancing and melodrama on one hand
and triteness and conventionality on
the other Morning of Life" keeps
the middle way pretty successfully.
although at times the fine simplicity
of its outline is spoiled by multiplicity
Of interior details.
1t is the story of farmer fisherman
who comes into strange country Zone
reads with delighted surprise that Ice
land has a north" and south" and
that the inhabitants of each regard the
others as strange) in his young man
hood and there marries. sins, works
and raises family. He is man with
a past when he enters, but he is plaus-
IDLY made to be even more a man with
a perpetual present. man in whom
life burned so gayly that the present
was always of overwhelming impor-
tance to him. His numerous love af-
affairs, his risks on lan6 and sea, his
happy interest in living-all these as
poets of him are set down realistically,
without swagger, but very much as
they might be found in such a man in
any primitive district. They make up
the novel and that is about all there
is to it. It is solid lively piece of
work and one that can be commended
for owning as well as reading.
RAIN ON THE JUST. BY Kathleen
Morehouse. New York: Lee Fur
man, Inc.
THIS is fairly conventional novel
about North Carolina mountain
GERS; conventional, that is, in the
least offensive sense of the word, con-
ventional as to plot but usually sober
and realistic as to details. 1t is neither
the novel of degeneracy, which issues
from the left wing Of the rural life
interpreters, nor the arcadian romance
that fetches in almost equally fine
royalties on the right, but plain tale
which, except for a few incidents,
might very well have happened. Miss
Morehouse is no Elizabeth MADDOX
Roberts in her understanding of the
spiritual potentialities of the people
who live in the mountains, nor does